To say Inyme was...not exactly getting the state of this "barbecue to 'relax'" thing was...something of an understatement.
Most people looking at her body language, hidden beneath the red and white armor she'd adopted when Alice had invited her to some kind of social visit with
friends, would have thought she was bored, annoyed, or just generally cool and serene.
Those people were not aware that Inyme's inner thoughts were something akin to nearing blind panic.
Intellectually, Inyme had known that Alice was a member of the Legendary, a group that the Rikti had become well acquainted with before Inyme's
infiltration. A group that, as a rule, Inyme had avoided contact with at all costs in terms of upper tier missions except with those so psi-dead that Inyme
could scream obscenities in Ancient Archival Rikti at them and they'd never even subconciously flinch. Which wasn't to say that the woman, Gamma
Emission, was that dull. Her boyfriend, on the other hand....
However, here she was in her original, mostly unshielded armor, lacking the elaborate and effort saving psi-baffles that concealed her thoughts from other
telepaths, and standing in the largest concentration of heroes she'd ever been near, several of which were telepaths that could match or exceed the Rikti
Mentalist baseline average. While Inyme thought at least somewhat highly of her own skill at evading detection, that large of a threat that she was, by social
obligation, unable to flee from, and the cataclysmic danger it offered to her mission, were steadily driving the very ordered and calm Rikti infiltrator ever
closer to running screaming from the gathering out of hope it would be LESS suspicious than one of the various psions scattered about actually detecting her
thoughts and realizing what she was.
Which was when Alice handed her a large object to hold. Inyme looked down, seeing a plastic bowl of ingredients. The catgirl looked apologetically at her, and
Inyme realized through their mental link that she was being asked to mix them up properly. Considering the situation, she had a small moment of clarity as she
recalled one of her oldest training instructions, where the instructor had said that concentrating on a step-by-step mundane process was more effective to
hiding ones deeper thoughts than any particular psi-shielding could ever be, by drowning them out in mental static.
Nodding, she went over to the table next to some large commotion around a lizard person cooking some sort of fungus...she wasn't really sure...and began
mixing the ingredients. Having at least some experience with human cuisine, Inyme blanched slightly at the taste she imagined this was going to make, and
discreetly borrowed several ingredients from Gen's tray via telekinesis to add to her burgeoning salad. Having, purposely, put the rest of the party out of
her mind, she continued focusing on it to the point of distraction. She didn't even notice when someone started physically handing her containers and
spices instead of them floating to her hands. Or that she'd begun making far more than one particular bowl. Her memories were rather directed to the past,
and one of her favorite foods from her young childhood, before her life had gone to hell. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would be close, and for a very
homesick young Rikti girl, it would be enough. It was only about a half an hour of focused cooking later that she looked up to find a bowl so she could sample
some for herself that she noticed at least a dozen people were already eating bowls of their own. If Inyme's thoughts could be summed up in one expression,
it probably would've been "!", especially when several people began congratulating her on such a great piece of food. Relaxed far more than
she'd been earlier, Inyme actually managed to deny her self-conscious tendency to keep her helmet on, hiding her human-disguised face, and actually enjoyed
her own work. It had, indeed, come out just about perfectly, barring ingredients that had no counterpart from the Rikti Homeworld.
It was only a few hours later, when she was alone at home and savoring the afterglow of her culinary triumph that Inyme realized she'd recreated a
traditional Rikti dish in almost exacting detail, and recited the recipe she'd made on the spot to several people who'd asked, around a supergroup
whose members included dozens of Vanguard members and at least one Rikti defector, if she recalled correctly.
The psionic shriek was muffled and dispersed by the safeguards built into Inyme's apartment, but still disturbed pigeons all they way over in Grandville,
gave telepaths all over the East Coast a vague nagging head pain they couldn't pin down a cause of, and cracked the glass face of the analog clock Alice
had bought Inyme as a gift. In hindsight, it was perhaps telling that the latter distressed Inyme more than the previous results, or even the realization
itself.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."
Most people looking at her body language, hidden beneath the red and white armor she'd adopted when Alice had invited her to some kind of social visit with
friends, would have thought she was bored, annoyed, or just generally cool and serene.
Those people were not aware that Inyme's inner thoughts were something akin to nearing blind panic.
Intellectually, Inyme had known that Alice was a member of the Legendary, a group that the Rikti had become well acquainted with before Inyme's
infiltration. A group that, as a rule, Inyme had avoided contact with at all costs in terms of upper tier missions except with those so psi-dead that Inyme
could scream obscenities in Ancient Archival Rikti at them and they'd never even subconciously flinch. Which wasn't to say that the woman, Gamma
Emission, was that dull. Her boyfriend, on the other hand....
However, here she was in her original, mostly unshielded armor, lacking the elaborate and effort saving psi-baffles that concealed her thoughts from other
telepaths, and standing in the largest concentration of heroes she'd ever been near, several of which were telepaths that could match or exceed the Rikti
Mentalist baseline average. While Inyme thought at least somewhat highly of her own skill at evading detection, that large of a threat that she was, by social
obligation, unable to flee from, and the cataclysmic danger it offered to her mission, were steadily driving the very ordered and calm Rikti infiltrator ever
closer to running screaming from the gathering out of hope it would be LESS suspicious than one of the various psions scattered about actually detecting her
thoughts and realizing what she was.
Which was when Alice handed her a large object to hold. Inyme looked down, seeing a plastic bowl of ingredients. The catgirl looked apologetically at her, and
Inyme realized through their mental link that she was being asked to mix them up properly. Considering the situation, she had a small moment of clarity as she
recalled one of her oldest training instructions, where the instructor had said that concentrating on a step-by-step mundane process was more effective to
hiding ones deeper thoughts than any particular psi-shielding could ever be, by drowning them out in mental static.
Nodding, she went over to the table next to some large commotion around a lizard person cooking some sort of fungus...she wasn't really sure...and began
mixing the ingredients. Having at least some experience with human cuisine, Inyme blanched slightly at the taste she imagined this was going to make, and
discreetly borrowed several ingredients from Gen's tray via telekinesis to add to her burgeoning salad. Having, purposely, put the rest of the party out of
her mind, she continued focusing on it to the point of distraction. She didn't even notice when someone started physically handing her containers and
spices instead of them floating to her hands. Or that she'd begun making far more than one particular bowl. Her memories were rather directed to the past,
and one of her favorite foods from her young childhood, before her life had gone to hell. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would be close, and for a very
homesick young Rikti girl, it would be enough. It was only about a half an hour of focused cooking later that she looked up to find a bowl so she could sample
some for herself that she noticed at least a dozen people were already eating bowls of their own. If Inyme's thoughts could be summed up in one expression,
it probably would've been "!", especially when several people began congratulating her on such a great piece of food. Relaxed far more than
she'd been earlier, Inyme actually managed to deny her self-conscious tendency to keep her helmet on, hiding her human-disguised face, and actually enjoyed
her own work. It had, indeed, come out just about perfectly, barring ingredients that had no counterpart from the Rikti Homeworld.
It was only a few hours later, when she was alone at home and savoring the afterglow of her culinary triumph that Inyme realized she'd recreated a
traditional Rikti dish in almost exacting detail, and recited the recipe she'd made on the spot to several people who'd asked, around a supergroup
whose members included dozens of Vanguard members and at least one Rikti defector, if she recalled correctly.
The psionic shriek was muffled and dispersed by the safeguards built into Inyme's apartment, but still disturbed pigeons all they way over in Grandville,
gave telepaths all over the East Coast a vague nagging head pain they couldn't pin down a cause of, and cracked the glass face of the analog clock Alice
had bought Inyme as a gift. In hindsight, it was perhaps telling that the latter distressed Inyme more than the previous results, or even the realization
itself.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."