“So, there‘s a pair of mercenaries in the area?” Frederick Wilson asked Bernadette Quaid. He was patching up the wall of the vast “garage”, still banged up from its last encounter with Eleanor Cameron and her famous experiments. “That could be a bad thing. Any idea about their powers?”
Bernadette drifted up to meet Frederick’s eyes, about fifteen feet up the wall. “They’ve got mind-related powers, so they’re really dangerous. Plus, one of them really loathes the ILUC.”
“So we have two more mental guys to watch out for; what else is new?” Eleanor asked. She was leaning over what appeared to be a particularly potent experiment. Trying to infuse a powerful antivenin into a good quality lip gloss without ruining the flavour or colour. So far it wasn’t working too well.
“They could start working for the Puppeteer!” Bernadette shouted back.
“Could you please pipe down?” Liam Mitchellson called from across the room. “It’s hard to listen to music and then compose your own with lots of talking.”
“You have your music room!” Eleanor shouted back.
“The best stereo is over here!” Liam replied. “Anyways, this is more important than lip gloss or patching walls,” he added with a sideways glance at Bernadette and Frederick, who were much closer than necessary.
“I’ll move your stereo to the music room later,” the superstrong man provided helpfully.
“I’ll help,” Bernadette offered.
“Nah, you should go get the pasta started,” Frederick reminded her. Lionel was back from his mini-vacation with his girlfriend, but out for a fancy masquerade ball with her for the evening.  Bernadette lowered herself to the ground lightly, applying fractions of gravitational force upon her body until she was back at 1 G. Then she skipped lightly to the kitchen, where Stephen was already hard at work making a meat sauce.

Eric Fawkes was alone very little during his waking hours and his sleeping hours were a little looser only because Peter got bored. So him wandering the streets of Westminster alone was a thrill. A terrible one, yes, but a thrill nonetheless.
“Oh, Marie-Giselle,” he said, noticing said thief in her street clothes, walking down the sidewalk. “Marie-Giselle!” he called again. She turned her head to look for who was calling her.
“Eric?” she wondered. When the man was right in front of her, though, she could see it really was him.
“Eric, it’s good to see you!” she said happily, throwing her arms around him. Eric stiffened automatically. Generally physical contact meant either using his very dangerous gifts or Peter, neither of which was particularly pleasurable. However, he relaxed when Marie-Giselle pulled back.
“You look worse than normal,” she said.
“Thanks,” Eric answered softly, looking at his friend with mild irritation.
“I only speak the truth to my friends,” she replied with a laugh. But it was true. The dark shadows under his eyes were more pronounced and his cheeks seemed a bit sunken.
“Peter’s been in a bit of a sulk, lately. Robert’s being a pest more and more.” He laughed lightly and then coughed.
“Can I get you a coffee?”
“Robert’s already gotten me one and talked my ear off,” Eric assured.
“He did that for me as well last week. Doesn’t seem to matter who it is, as long as he’s talking to someone.” Marie-Giselle rolled her eyes and walked alongside her friend of fifteen years anyways.