among her own kind

[she_sells_seashells]

Shell Bell finds Milliways once when she is eighteen. She has been there for two days now, setting up her sign ten minutes out of every waking hour, wiping down tables for her quarters in the staff area, eating buttery potatoes (she has been told that this is a complete nutrient package, for humans). Her wand is holding a bun of hair in place on the back of her head. Her shells are stashed safely in her room; she's budgeting carefully and she'll pay her tab when she leaves.

No one's talked to her due to the sign yet. They don't always. She sets it up anyway, like clockwork, so everyone gets the chance.

Comments

[pythbox]

Darcy snorts. "Yeah, tell me about it."

[she_sells_seashells]

"If we could meet one of my alts that would solve everything, probably, they tend to be magical empresses of stuff," Bell huffs. "But we'll take what we can get. Do you have any way of getting in touch with the Tony in your world? Would he believe you if you told him about Milliways? Could you hold the door long enough for him to show up and check it out next time you find it?"

[pythbox]

"Iiiii, you know what, I probably could get in touch with him," she says. "I'd have to go through Coulson, but he's an okay dude. Kinda busy though, so it might take a while. Especially if I have to prove Milliways to him first. Iron Man's pretty all-American, though, so I'd keep a lid on the T-word around him if I were you."

[she_sells_seashells]

"The T-wo- oh. Okay. Is 'guerilla warfare' okay?"

[pythbox]

"Yeah, probably."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Okay. Probably hard to formulate a plan otherwise. I know a smattering of things about America, but if you want me to understand the relevance of that explanation you will have to tell me."

[pythbox]

"Terrorism is a bad word around here because some guys flew a plane into some culturally significant buildings ten years ago and everybody's still mad about it," Darcy summarizes.

[she_sells_seashells]

Bell decides not to comment that this is an interesting use of a plane and if she ever gets her hands on a plane she will consider it!

[pythbox]

"Yeah, there was a whole thing. Lots of dead people, a couple increasingly pointless wars, more dead people, depressing all round. Don't do that," she adds.

[she_sells_seashells]

"I am not in favor of pointless wars," Bell says, managing not to sound like she's carefully omitting things.

[pythbox]

"And I hope you're not in favour of killing innocent people, either, because if you are then we can't be friends," Darcy says mildly.

[ferratus]

"I'm not in favour of killing innocent people," says Tony.

[she_sells_seashells]

"Killing innocent people is to be avoided whenever feasible."

Technically the guy she shot wasn't innocent. Also the asking part probably changes something.

[pythbox]

"I can probably take that," says Darcy. "But like, just so you know, I literally can't help you if it gives me weird feelings in my moral place. There's a whole hero thing. And if you lie and make me do something that's actually really bad, I have to kick your ass. The magic space hammer says so."

[ferratus]

"...Wow," says Tony.

[she_sells_seashells]

"The magic space hammer mostly does lightning. We can already do fire under what seem to be similar parameters, and my stick has no conscience," Bell says, mostly to Tony and Sherlock. "And Darcy isn't through hero school yet. Given this, placating the magic space hammer is not our top priority unless for some reason we want an external, enforced moral babysitter. We can use our own ethical guidelines and our own evaluations of the situations. We do not have to trick anyone into anything."

[sicaria]

"So noted," says Sherlock.

[pythbox]

"I would love to help," says Darcy. "But them's the breaks."

[she_sells_seashells]

"It's all right," Bell says.

She's glad her stick has no conscience, though.

[pythbox]

"If I see you again in a couple years when I'm properly trained and stuff, and you have a use for me and Mewtwo that we're okay with, count me in," she adds.

[she_sells_seashells]

"That's very kind. In the meantime we would probably benefit from the attention of anyone else in your world with things magical, space, or technologically shiny who is disposed to help."

[pythbox]

"Yeah, like I said, I'll see if I can talk to Stark," she says. "And maybe some Asgardians, but they're not really guerrilla warfare types, and they've got their own shit to worry about."

[she_sells_seashells]

"We're open to non-guerilla forms of revolution. We just don't have the personnel for it."

[pythbox]

"Then I'll see if I can get Sif and the boys interested."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Fair warning, the shitty government has much better tech than we can get our hands on until and unless Tony has lots of parts and time. I'm not sure how it compares to yours."