Another day, another explosion [Scratch Board]

Small beads of sweat worked it's way down his nose, each moment of exertion pushing Colin's limits further. A bandaged fist would collide with a punching bags tough exterior, sending a jolt through the fit connecting with it and drawing a grunt from between clenched lips. He had been working out for a good fifteen minutes now, trying to keep up a physique that had been carved out through years of working out, or rather three years if one wanted to get technical with him. Muscles began to cramp from his exertion, but not enough that he wanted to stop just yet. Sending a few more punches against the bag, he would wipe away more sweat from his forehead and let the thing stand still, taking in deep labored breaths. ”Okay, I think that's enough working out for today.” Agreeing with himself, Colin wiped away any residual sweat with a towel and let it sling over his shoulder, before exiting the work out room in only his gym shorts.

If he had remembered correctly, this place had some kind of gym and if that were the case, then Colin would likely dig through that. This involved a little searching since he admittedly did not really know much about the base as a whole. Hunger was flowing through his gut in a low rumble, making him crave food more and more. This search went on for a few moments, until he at last came upon what looked like some manner of kitchen and began to dig through it, pleased that they had indeed had one in the first place. Digging through the fridge, Colin found what looked like a gallon of milk, or something along those lines. Continuing his digging, he found something else, building a sandwich with the materials gathered and sort of resting against a table in the center, enjoying his pseudo lunch.

It had been a relatively boring day for Annie. There hadn't been any crimes for her to stop, no villains for her to kick the tar out of. There hadn't even been a cat stuck in a tree. That's how slow the day had been going. As such, she found herself lazying about the Guardians base. While she often found herself lamenting about how there was no base in her homeland of Great Britain, she had to admit that the one here in America was pretty nice. It was quaint, cozy, and offered up a nice place for her to rest.

Unfortunately for Annie, even that proved difficult to do. The base was run on so much modern technology that it hurt her head to think about it. It had taken her an hour just to figure out how to work the television. Ever since her escape from the lab, Annie had wondered why everyone seemed so lazy nowadays. It seemed that for every amazing thing that humans were capable of on their own, there was some machine to do it for them. She was surprised that something stright out of the "Terminator" films hadn't happened yet.

Eventually growing tired of fiddling with the television, Annie finally gave up, instead deciding to take a simple nap on the couch that she was sitting on. After all, it was very comfy, and it certainly didn't require pressing any buttons or jumping through any hoops. So that's what she did. And before long, Annie was sleeping peacefully, not noticing the visitor who had entered the kitchen.

This was a good sandwich, though it could have gone better if they had some mustard in the fridge, yet sadly they did not have any. So Colin had to make due with the meal he was enjoying, not that he was going to complain about fuel making its way back into his tank. That was until he noticed something, a sound that was coming from a room near the kitchen, adjusting his standing position to catch what that sound was. It sounded like a television, but as far as Colin knew he was alone in the building, unless that was now not the case, or maybe he was not paying attention to who could have been in it. Blinking, he would slip out of the kitchen into what was a sort of living room area, if only a little more high tech than what he was used to.

True he had begged Travis for the money to make this happen, but that guy had a good nature about him, so it was no problem. What he found was a female lounging upon the couch, half of a sandwich still clutched within his hand. ”Well now....must be one of those new recruits i've heard so much about.” Walking over to the couch, he would rest a single elbow on the back and arch over slightly to get a better view of the persons face. ”Pssssst, you awake?”

What was that? Was that someone's voice Annie was hearing? Annie slowly opened her eyes, leaving the world of sleep, only to be greeted by someone she didn't know hovering obove her face. She barely registered the person asking if she was awake.

"Well, I am now..." She muttered, before sitting up and rubbing her eyes. Her hair was a mess, strands going every which way. Annie yawned, before going to pick up the nearby hairbrush off the desk. She turned to look at the new face.

"Well, since you so lovingly took the time to wake me up, why don't you tell me who you are. I haven't seen you around here before. Are you a Guardian?" She asked, as she began to brush her hair.

The sleeping female seemed to waken upon him inquiring if she were indeed awake, but then again that was what Colin was aiming for. The tan male offered a small smirk, continuing to lean against the couch while considering this unknown. From what he could tell, she did not like being woken up, or perhaps that was just her shaking off the shackles of sleep.

”I am a Guardian, one of the newer ones I guess. Names Colin, but they also call me Vanguard, its my hero name and all that.” With that answered, he made his way onto one of the recliners, leaning back and letting the seat cradle him so to speak. ”I haven't seen you around either, and since I did give you my name, it's only fair you give me yours.” He added with an incline of his head.

"I'm Annie. I'm relatively new here, transferred from London. I sometimes also go by the name Firefly, but that's really only something for the kiddies to tell their parents when they're asking them to buy my comic book."

Her hair was neat and straight now. Annie proceeded to stand up and walk over to the kitchen. She picked up an apple from the nearby fruit bowl, taking a bite.

"So, you just decided to wake up an innocent-looking sleeping girl. You know, maybe you should be more careful on who you randomly decide to wake.  I could've thought that you were an intruder, and you would've gotten a needle straight into your neck, and it would've been over in less than five seconds. Hell, you could be an intruder right now, and you're just lying. But...I like to give people the benefit of the doubt." Annie finished, crossing her arms.

"Point being, if we're to be working together in the future, try not to wake me up when I'm sleeping."

”The shirtless burglar strikes again?” Colin asked with a small chuckle, the idea snaking its away into his mind and only seeming more preposterous upon thinking it over. Of course the possibility was there, but then again he would have not been wasting his time, and instead would have not even bothered waking her up. Like serious, what intruder would wake someone up if they were planning to steal something or whatever? ”Alright, don' t wake you up, or you might kill me.” Colin noted following this person into the kitchen and leaning against one of the counters. ”Looks like I have more to worry about then just the criminals trying to kill me.” Not that he was implying anything, because that would have been terrible. ”So is that what you do? Shoot needles, or is there more than just that?”

Annie shrugged. "Well yeah, needles are kinda my thing. Other than that, I have wings, so...I suppose that's fun. Flying is better than walking any day. I also have this...thermal vision, I guess? I can see people through walls. No sneaking up on me. All that, plus the training my...mentors, taught me."

Annie sniffed the air, noticing that her partner here had obviously been working out recently. "Oh, good god. Man-stench. I swear, all you men ever care about is how much more muscle you have than the other. Put a shirt on! I don't want to stare at your chest this whole conversation!"

Annie paused for a moment, reflecting on the sprit of her last statement. "I'm sorry, that was rather rude." She sighed. She had been told recently that she needed to work on her attitude. "So, what about your powers? I can't tell from looking at you."

So shooting needles, flying and thermal vision, sounded like a pretty cool power set if you asked Colin, but then again that was because he had no powers to speak of himself. ”Sounds like some pretty cool powers.” he noted with a smirk, reaching across the counter and grabbing himself an apple, taking a bite out of it. The statement about how he smelled was somewhat scathing, but then again that came with interacting with someone right after working out, he tended to smell like sweat a lot.

”Hey now, I don't smell that bad.” he noted with a chuckle, smelling himself before grimacing. Okay scratch that, I do not smell so good right now.”” okay, he had to admit that he smelt not so good, but that was something he could fix a little later, when he was not trying to do some conversation. Besides, his shirt was all the way back in the work out room, which was a long way from here, or to a currently lazy Colin it was.

”My power? Well, people have told me my wit is a sort of superpower, but beyond that I don't really have any superpowers. I'm pretty human actually, I just sort of use a super awesome robot suit.” He noted with a shrug, taking another bite out of his apple. ”Awesome, right?”

"Yeah, if you don't count all the other jerks running around with their own suits. What's so special about yours? Does it shoot lasers or something?"

It was true, Annie had discovered that many of this world's heroes had taken to wearing special suits instead of using actual powers. Perhaps it was a way for mundane people to become heroes, or maybe it was because lots of people wanted to be more like a certain armored comic book hero. It could be anything, really. Then again, one of the only people she knew who she actually respected wore a suit too, so maybe she should cut Muscles over here a little slack.

"Wait a minute...isn't the whole point of super-suits to do the work for you? It's, like...artificial muscles, or...something like that. What're you working out for?"

”Way to make an exosuit sound unimpressive.” Colin noted with a laugh, resting an elbow on the counter and continuing to consider the female metahuman who went by firefly. ”As far as what's special about it, it does shoot lasers, and has a few other pretty cool functions built into it. I mean, it lets a squishy little human fight against some of the tougher dudes, so there's something I guess.” Sure, he could go on about how it was created, but then again this person did not seem like the type to care about things like that.

Then for some reason she was questioning his choice in working out, yet something like that seemed almost obvious. ”There are a lot of other reasons why someone can work out, other than kicking a lot of ass.” Colin began, taking another bite of his apple and chewing it up before swallowing. ”I do it because I like to keep fit, and it sort of helps in using the suit.”

"Sure, sure, whatever." Annie said, holding her hands up in defense. "Don't let me dictate what you want to do. Just...bring some deodorant next time, okay?"

Annie shook her head as she walked across the room and opened a window, letting the fresh air in. "There. Now the people outside can know how much you stink too." She hesitated a bit before sighing. "Not that it really smells any better out there. Just pollution, really. Back in London, you could always smell fresh rain whenever you opened the window. It...rained a lot there. Oh well. I shouldn't have expected life to be easy once I escaped." Annie looked longingly out the window, before turning back to the kitchen and throwing her own finished apple in the trash.

”Deodorant, got it.” Colin ceded with a smirk, still surprised about the whole him smelling terrible thing. Might have been an oversight on his part, but idle speculation was pointless at this point. ”Hooray. Now all of Chicago can appreciate my musk.” he added in sarcastically, continuing to enjoy the taste of the apple in hand. She had stated the truth about how polluted the city could be at times, but wasn't that how all cities were in the end? Pollution came about when a lot of people lived together so cramped.

It seemed that the woman missed London, though Colin could say that he missed Canada to a degree, despite the potentially cold weather that came with it. ”Only thing I know about London is what i've heard about it. Though a dreary and wet place sound a little too negative I guess.” Normally one would question about mention of an escape, but then again Colin had just met this person, he didn't want to pry into their life.

”Chicago isn't really like Canada, a lot less cold and a lot more windy, and all the buildings can get dizzying at times.”

Annie laughed. "Ha. Canada. So we're almost from the same people then. Except mine own yours." She smirked. "No hard feelings, right? I'm sure there isn't."

Annie sighed, letting the atmosphere sink in. "Quiet day, huh? I haven't even got an alert. That's a first. Come to think of it, Jeisen hasn't contacted me in a little while...ah well, I'm sure he's busy. Anyways, what say you we get out of this stuffy old room? Get some fresh air...well, as fresh as it can be, at least. Go get cleaned up. I'll wait downstairs."

With that, Annie walked to the nearby door and exited, walking to and entering the elevator at the end of the hall.

”No hard feelings at all.” Colin said with a smirk, shaking his head and finishing off that apple he had been eating at for around a few minutes. It had been a pretty quiet day, and that meant that either other heroes were doing their jobs, or maybe crime was taking some sort of break for the day, not that it was very likely. She suggested they could go out and get some fresh air, after he cleaned himself up. It would be an easy process really.

”Alright, i'll do just that. Can't have my stench choking the entire city to death.” Colin snarked, before quickly searching around for where he remembered there to be a shower room, though he stopped off by the workout room for the change of clothes he had brought with him. Preparedness was something that Colin enjoyed dabbling in, so points for him I guess. The process of cleaning up and changing took around fifteen minutes, and then he was back on his way down downstairs where she was likely waiting for him.

”Okay, now i'm all clean.”