Cinder-Freakin-Ella

Participants:

daphne_icon.gif m_alex_icon.gif

Scene Title Cinder-Freakin-Ella
Synopsis Mental and physical disabilities are the topic of discussion as Alex makes Daphne her special shoes.
Date July 17, 2010

Mas Mechanics


It's been a long morning. Speed testing in the streets, the soles of Daphne's shoes analyzed before and after, with various pictures taken. And now they're standing at a work bench with the pictures of her soles and a pair of sneakers he had her pick out to be modified.

His eyes are silvery, and he's got tools laid out but no metal except the little spring parts he plans to use for shock absorbing. "So there's one little catch. I'll need you to sneak me into a metal working shop after I finish setting up the shock absorbers."

Daphne stands, arms crossed, watching him work on the red and white and silver sneakers. Her brow arches at Alex's words. "Just in case you didn't notice," she begins, "stealth isn't really my forte. I don't sneak in to places. Well, I mean, I can, because sometimes you have to, here and there, but for the most part I'm about getting in and out before I can get caught. Sneaking only happens when I'm normal speed. The wind and rustle and all of me moving fast, not-so-sneaky, sadly," she points out. "Is this for the shoes or something else?"

"The shoes, how else am I going to metal plate the soles? At your speed, we need a very strong metal so it doesn't wear out quickly. And if we do this from a metal mold, we can make sure the plate is as thin as possible." Alex explains, carefully cutting the soles in half beginning the meticulous process of inserting the springs. "We can just find a private workshop. There's plenty of small places I made a list of, we just find one that's currently empty."

She's still suspicious of the metal. What shoes have metal in them! "I don't know how that'll keep the rubber from wearing out, 'cause once the rubbers down to the metal, the shoes are done for anyway, right? Whether it was metal or foam or whatever's beneath the metal, right? Also I don't wanna accidentally get electrocuted or something, 'cause I'm the idiot on metal soles when the lightning strikes and everyone else is okay," she warns, words coming out a mile a minute, and her feet restlessly moving from side to side now and then, blurring with her restlessness.

"I think of what to build, I don't consider every ramification. But you're right, you would be electricuted…" Alex continues working, and thinking. He has to approach this in an entirely new way. "The shock absorbers will still work, but I have to think of a new material for the plating… There's hardened glass, like storm windows, plastics… We could find a glass blowing facility? What do you think?"

"Glass?" Daphne says, dark brows shooting up under the shock of white-blonde hair that falls across her forehead. "Like Cinder-freakin-ella or something?" she adds, with some amusement. "If that'd work. I don't know the first thing about shoes. I just find the ones with thick soles and I either steal or buy new ones when they wear out. Generally in a week or two, depends on my mileage and the terrain. I usually have one pair as backups in my bag at all times." She leans against the wall and studies the shoes as he works. "What happened to your arm?" she asks curiously.

Alex, while normally wearing his suit, only has the pants and the shirt on right now, with his sleeves rolled up, but he did indeed not bother to acknowledge his arm. By now it's just there to him, though for some reason he likes to keep his leather gloves on. "I used to be a bit crazy. One of the older mes, you saw him in that class. He was in love with a cop, and challenged this other cop to a fight to the death. Painted himself and had the whole thing broadcast on the internet. By the end of the fight, he pulled a grenade out with the intention of blowing the man up, but he ranted and held it too long, and his, or my, arm got blown off. I had to build a new one. I'm currently working on an upgrade."

He very carefully twists and position the springs, making a few finishing touches by adding very tiny supports that'll keep them in place, then attaches the pieces of rubber he cut off to hollow them out. Of course the rubber's just sitting there for now, they need something to hold them together. "If we use the glass, it won't cover the entire shoe, just the soles. I'd do a little carving, but in the end this should last a lot longer than rubber. "Off topic, but, you did say you were taken, didn't you?"

If she wasn't taken, the talk of an 'older me' who blew his arm off while fighting a cop to the death would certainly be enough to make Daphne claim she was. But she is. Her brows rise again. "Wow. Dramatic monologuing strikes again. Sorry to hear that," she murmurs, and despite the flippant words, her tone is sincere enough. "Looks like you did a good job making a new one. Pretty impressive hardware. Shit, man, I should see you if my power ever fails again," she murmurs — he probably could do something for her, but she's not sure she wants Cyborg legs.

"And yeah. If I weren't, I'd stay in Paris, or at least out of New York," she answers honestly, regarding the taken bit.

"Too bad. You're possibly the most like-minded woman I've ever met." Alex doesn't sound too heartbroken over it, he means it how it sounds, still very casual as he takes his attention away from the shoes, and pulls the glove from his metallic hand to flex his fingers. The movement isn't perfect, but he did say he was working on an upgrade. "What happens when you lose your ability? It seems strange that you'd need my help."

It used to be her biggest secret, in this new life of hers, but plenty of people know now. She still is a little ashamed, and her cheeks color as she considers it — but he's a man missing an arm because he held onto a grenade too long. At least she didn't cause her disability. "Without my power, I'm crippled. Cerebral Palsy. I can't walk," she says, her short telegraphic sentences terse and neutral in tone, her eyes on the shoes rather than on him.

"Oh?" Alex asks, looking down at her legs with those mercurial eyes, as if somehow trying to see if something is visibly wrong. Of course, Daphne is not a machine, but sometimes he feels like he can see the truth in everything. "How does it work exactly? Are you completely incapable of walking, or is your walking just very limited?" He seems as if he's already thinking of a way to prepare."

"I can move, but need braces and crutches. It's basically a neuromuscular condition, something to do with the motor cortex being damaged and certain amino acids not making it to my legs and I don't know, apparently my ability fixes that part of my brain and lets me run really fast, from what I can guess," Daphne murmurs, more to her feet than to him. "They wanted to poke and prod me and find out how it worked, but I said no way, Jose, and took off. I mean, I've seen plenty of white coats and none of them ever helped me before then, why was I gonna let them poke me with needles when I wasn't broken?"

"It's funny, your ability gets rid of your disability, and my ability triggers mine." Alex decides to admit, since they're sharing, and he turns away from the shoes to lean against the bench and face her. "There's a chemical imbalance in my mind, my mother has it too, she's a NASA engineer or something like that. If we don't have a certain medication, it makes us hallucinate, very vivid ones. As a teenager, my father drove me insane by taking advantage of my ability, just so he could write a psychology book. But I like to think I'm much better now, I'm on medication, and I have my other two personas suppressed by sheer willpower."

"Huh." Daphne glances up at the man when he faces her. He seems normal, until he talks about personalities, but if it truly is a mental disorder, a chemical imbalance, it's no different really from her own. It just affects his mind instead of his ability to walk, like hers does.

"I'm sorry about your father," she adds, again, voice sincere, if just a touch warier than moments before. "I guess some powers are strange that way." Her brows furrow, thinking of Hokuto and the horrible things she caused as the Nightmare Man, and the disconnect to that beautiful woman that Corbin was (is) in love with, her ghostly rival.

"Yeah, he disappeared, I've never been sure what happened to him, but those years inbetween leaving home and founding the Locos are very hazy." Alex grabs the mold he made of the shoe, then starts heading out with a motion of his arm for her to follow. "Let's find a place with the glass we need, I'll get my jacket on. Oh, and thanks for not, well, reacting in the usually expected way to discussing my head problems."

The mention of the locos brings another quirk of Daphne's brow as it gives her some insight into the personalities he's apparently holding back with his willpower, but she gives a shrug. "No problem. Everyone has issues, right? I mean, my boyfriend's best friend tried to make me run off the side of a skyscraper. What are ya gonna do, right?"

Besides, he's making her free shoes — if they work better than her typical running shoes, then putting up with Alex's special brand of crazy is something she's willing to do — as always, in short amounts of time, as that's all she usually has patience for.


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