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….
To my shame, I missed when Laura woke up.
Simply at one tense moment, when adamantium obediently obeying my will covered one of the helmet's horns with a layer of two-tenths of a millimeter, the girl appeared nearby and silently began to watch as a thin stream of metal rose from the thermos and enveloped the artifact.
"Hungry?" I voiced the first adequate-to-the-situation line that came to mind.
"…" the girl shifted her gaze to me, blinked twice, listened to herself, and nodded in agreement.
"That's bad, because there is no food," I sighed, turning the helmet to a new facet. "Can offer cocoa."
"…?" brown eyes batted questioningly.
"That sweet brown stuff that was in the thermos," I explained.
"…" I was blinked at again, but now the nod of agreement came noticeably faster.
"There are bottles of water over there," I nodded toward the pack taken out of the fridge, "pass me one."
Laura obediently stood up, walked to the container, and returned with a one-and-a-half-liter bottle.
For a second, I distracted myself from work to cast transformation charms on the liquid, and the girl could observe with surprise as the clear water in the bottle transformed into a different liquid right before her eyes.
"I'll finish making myself shiny and sparkling in a moment, and we can move on. Be patient a little longer."
"…" X-23 answered nothing again, only measuring me with a strange look, but, apparently having come to some conclusion, busily began to unscrew the cap.
That's how the awakened women found us.
Me, muscular and fit, sitting on a deck chair in green shorts, next to a futuristic-looking metal barrel from which a stream of metal rises, settling on the scales of a protective skirt.
Next to me, also on a deck chair, sits a child drinking cocoa from the neck of a plastic bottle and closely monitoring my manipulations.
We were magnificent. I know.
"What are you doing?" looking warily at the barrel, Dr. Kinney voiced the question.
"Reinforcing my armor with adamantium," I finished the process and critically examined the protection element, simultaneously checking it for magic perception by filling it with unstructured power.
As with the other parts of the armor that underwent the upgrade procedure, the response changed slightly, but by no means became worse, and that was good.
"Adamantium?" the scientist latched onto the significant word.
"I borrowed some stock from Stryker, now I'm mastering it," sending the protective skirt back into the pocket dimension, I extracted the right bracer.
"I'm almost done, bear with me for twenty minutes, and we'll move on."
"How do you do that?" standing next to her daughter and watching my work for about three minutes, the scientist couldn't resist.
"A little magic, a little physics, and a drop of inspiration…" without interrupting work, I answered unhurriedly. "Most of the work is done using telekinesis, and only diffusion has to be carried out by point warping of space…"
A substantive description of my actions, with the adaptation of Asgardian terminology to Earthly concepts, took about fifteen minutes, after which the work was finished.
Donning the armor and critically examining the result in an illusory mirror of the "common phantom" type, I had to admit I had changed for the better.
Uru metal after hardening and polishing looks very much like gold, and this caused me some rejection.
Well, because gold and green don't match well, plus gold is still overly elaborate and vulgar. The steel sheen of adamantium is another matter. It looked much better with Loki's green color.
And we will pay no attention to the looks and facial expressions of any wild Earth women! Just because armor went out of fashion on their planet five hundred years ago doesn't mean the entire universe followed this barbaric trend!
"Um…" Dr. Kinney couldn't stand it after all. "Forgive me, Loki, may I ask… why are there such big horns on your helmet?"
"They act as an amplifier for mental magic. The principle is generally similar to your transmitter antennas. I agree, it looks ambiguous, but…" I dismissed the armor, appearing before the ladies in a light coat and modern suit again, "efficiency requires sacrifices. So, are you ready to continue our trip?"
The answer was positive, and soon our mobile home moved out.
Three hours and another thirty-two minutes later, we finally reached "civilization," as much as a small town with not even ten thousand inhabitants located in the middle of nowhere can be christened with this proud word.
This settlement looked appropriate, desert landscape, shabby, worn-out buildings, and slightly less worn-out people on the streets.
Our state-of-the-art mobile home looked frankly alien here. But we, as inhabitants of this home, didn't care about such trifles.
Conversely, the opportunity to finally stretch our legs and stuff our bellies with something edible provided by the town did concern us.
True, cafes, restaurants, and even a banal hot dog stand or any other "street food" were not observed nearby. Yeah, after New York, I was almost sure there was a McDonald's on the moon too.
After another disgruntled croak in the stomachs of my beautiful companions… okay, I flattered Sarah somewhat… a strategic decision was made to get supplies at the nearest store.
Sandwiches are food too, and if there are any semi-finished products, the trailer has a microwave.
No sooner said than done, and here our company enters a typical "gas station" class supermarket… which was logical, because I didn't want to spend magic turning sand into gasoline… Or rather, I didn't know how.
I'd have to sit, calculate the spell, strain… and then also struggle with pouring the resulting liquid into the tank, to hell with such happiness.
In short, I stopped at a gas station. Yuriko stayed at the pump to fill up, and the others followed me. The girl shied away a bit looking at the shelves, but after another croak of the stomach, she simply sniffed and followed the smell of food.
Watching her with great interest and slightly pushing Sarah to switch attention to purchasing all sorts of feminine hygiene things needed both "in general" and especially on the road, I witnessed a charming picture.
And no, it wasn't about Laura taking packs of chips from the shelves and immediately starting to crunch them, but how she did it!
The child's eyes ran wide from the colored packages and pictures on them; enticing illustrations of delicious food on the labels caused uncertainty in her soul, and the packaging method stumped her.
Here she took a pack of Pringles, sniffed it carefully, pursed her lips in concentration, studied the lid with her gaze, and only then very businesslike and seriously tried to open it.
Next, the lid gives way surprisingly easily, and the girl's eyes widen, she clearly didn't expect such ease.
But! The opening is not finished! Under the lid turned out to be a sealed paper.
Taught by experience, X-23 tries to remove it gently, without effort, but in vain, the paper resists. The girl is bewildered, her gentle tugging, which would have been enough for the lid long ago, is insufficient.
She starts pulling harder, but still carefully. The packaging doesn't give in. Laura knits her eyebrows. The effort increases.
An expressive cr-r-rack, and the barrier is torn off, and a sharp smell of spices hits the sensitive nose. The girl wrinkles her nose and looks inside fearfully. Sniffs. Freezes…
And, literally in one second, her facial expression changes, managing to reflect that the object has been recognized by the highest authority as a food product, after which an instant reaction follows, and a small palm is already pulling out the first chip, stuffing it into her mouth.
That's it, next, activation of "brick-face" and "crunch-crunch-crunch" mode, while targeting-eyes are already scouring the other shelves in search of new prey.
….
If you want to read ahead by 20+ chapters from here you can visit my Patre-on.
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