Very well." I acknowledged- turning my attention towards him, "Grue, do you have it?"
"Yes, we do. Give us a second."
He turned his head towards Bitch and Tattletale. The two girls going back to the caboose to pull out some things. The muscular girl carried a small folding table over to us while Tattletale followed suit with a suitcase in her hands…
"Woah!" the blonde yelped as she tripped over a rock and sent the suitcase flying to land right at Grue's feet.
"Sorry about my clumsy teammate." the darkness-cape apologised to me before going to pick up the fallen suitcase himself, bending slightly at the waist so that his ass pointed straight at me.
And I couldn't help but stare.
Not at Grue's revolting leather-coated protein-based posterior, of course, I had x-ray vision to see past his meat-body and straight at the real prize. With [Xeno-Archaeologist, I knew enough to recognise that chunk of tech sitting in the briefcase: one of those bioelectric interfaces that is near to the centre of Dragon's suit. In other words, this was the part that was pressed right against her… 'core.' I can't wait to get a hold of that particular piece. It almost made me wish I had olfactory sensors just so that I can sniff at it… Almost. Damn that sexy AI.
Now if only Grue would step out of the way so that I can get better resolution, that would be great.
'Yeah, squeeze those buns together just like you practice, Brian!' Lisa cheered in her head as she tried not to grin. Brian was doing a great job waving his ass in Magos' face.
Magos' body language muted from extensive cybernetics, but doesn't hide stronger emotion.
Staring intently at Grue's ass. Mechanical hand twitching, wants to touch. Bad.
Magos suspects or outright believes that Dragon is not actually a woman.
Magos still intensely homosexual. Likely in denial. Uses gynoid and AI as codewords to disguise homoerotic desire from himself.
Regardless…
'Say it!'
…Lisa was right all along.
She actually broke out into a grin at that. She had been unsure about the 'Magos being gay' part from the beginning. Her power wasn't good with intentions and emotions after all. But as the evidence of her initial assessment being right grew and grew, she learned to have a bit more faith in herself and her power.
And it felt good to be proven right.
That settled it in her mind. Regardless of how the rest of the night turns out, it was all worth it now. She had proven her naysayers wrong, and more importantly, herself to be right. The natural order has been restored: She was once again the smartest person in Brockton Bay. Also, on a less important note, their seduction mission was going well and their plan was working perfectly: Brockton Bay's cyborg-tinker couldn't take his eyes off of those buns in tight leather. As he should! She worked hard (at pushing Brian to work hard) to get those buns into shape, and now her efforts were paying off.
All they needed to do now was seal the deal of the Dragon Suit, have Grue pour on the ass- extracting the possibility of a '2nd date' or something from Magos, and everyone can go home happy. Especially her. Because she was right all along.
"Here you go, Magos." Lisa heard Brian say as he placed the briefcase on the table and opened it. "The pieces of Dragon's suit. The rest of it is in the back, but of course, we can't confirm that it's the complete set. However, our client has thrown in the truck as a freebie."
Magos stared at the piece of Dragon's tech- clearly as interested in it as he was with Grue's ass.
"Can your client be convinced to reveal his cape identity at least?" the Tinker asked.
"I'm sorry, but no." Brian responded, taking the opportunity to stand a bit closer to Magos and bring his ass closer to the Tinker's hand… just as Lisa had taught/coerced him to. "Reputation is important to us middle-men. If our client wants this to be a semi-anonymous deal, then the Undersiders will respect those wishes."
Lisa had to keep herself from rolling her eyes. She wanted to just inform Magos anyway as to who their boss was. It was Coil. That fork-tongued bastard. It made her wonder if she could get Magos to get rid of Coil for her.
"Unfortunate, but an admirable business ethic." Magos hummed as he nodded, and Lisa recognised an opening if she ever saw one.
'Come on, Brian. Say it like we practiced.' Lisa coached in her mind, 'Just lean over to Magos and whisper 'I know you were looking- you can squeeze them if you want.' All those hours you spent watching gay porn flicks won't be for nothing!'
"I-I know you were looking- you can squeeze them if you want." Brian stuttered out, and Lisa pumped her fist in her mind.
"What?" Magos spoke out- surprised.
"C'mon, I w-won't mind at all." Brian continued to whisper just like she had trained him to do as follow-up.
"What?" the red-robed Tinker muttered again- this time more expressively. Expressively enough that Lisa picked up on it. And her power exploded in the horrifying realisation that…
…Lisa was wrong all along.
'Shut up!'
"What do you mean you're not gay?!" She yelled in denial at Magos.
"What?! He's not!?" Brian gasped utterly horrified- his intimidatingly muscular form doing a little frightened little hop away from the Tinker.
The same Tinker was clearly conveying frustration through his body language even without Lisa's power telling her.
"Why is everyone so convinced that I am interested in the biological backsides of you gland-goblins?" His modulated voice rumbled as his mechanical hand jabbed an accusatory (and also mechanical) finger at the confused Grue. "I'm already embattled by endless lewd propositions online, now you have started offering them to me in person too?"
"I was only- because you were-" Brian sputtered dumbly before swivelling his head towards her with an angry roar, "LIS- TATTLETALE!"
Eheh, oops? Maybe she shouldn't have pushed and needled Brian too far during his 'preparation' for this mission?
With the heightening tensions provoked by Brian's outburst, Magos into warily powering-up his axe, which caused Brian to pull out his crowbar, which made Bitch call for her four mutant dogs to appear from the treeline, and Regent pulled out his rod (the taser one).
The mission was rapidly spiralling out of control! Of all the many, many reasons that this mission could have gone bad, it was going to go bad over a tragic little misconception of homoeroticism?
But it's not all bad, right? She wasn't in any real danger, this was all just a big misunder-
Brian, highly emotional. Bitch, animalistic and a hair-trigger away from fighting. Regent, will attempt to de-escalate with power but will worsen the situation. Magos, unreadable but likely has tinkertech defences here at his workshop.