Electra
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She shook her head. "We can't travel in space the way you do. Even just leaving a planet for an afternoon drains me, even when I'm only as far away as the moon. Ammy has my powers too. Space is no place for us, especially the way you travel. And you've said you'd come home more often before. Two Christmases ago, and it wasn't the first time." She folded her arms over her chest. "The Stellar Khanate..." Derrick began, then trailed off. "It doesn't really matter, does it? All the tyrants I stop, all the planets I save. You only see that I'm not spending time with you and Ammy." Stesha closed her eyes for a second. "I don't... I'm trying not to blame you," she said carefully. "There's so much evil in the universe, it seems like it never stops. But do you remember how it used to be, those first months we had together?" Her voice went wistful, her face soft. "Those seven or eight months when we were dating and you were on earth every week. Remember how we would cuddle together and watch television, or you would pick me up from work and we'd have a picnic? I had so much less power, and you were so much less important to the galaxy, but we were together. I was thinking about it, and I spent more time with you during those seven months than in the four years after." "I wasn't any less vital," he told her, his own face softening with the memory. "I was just fooling myself that people could get by without me. I had to face up to the truth when Amaryllis was born. She was so perfect, so beautiful. I realized that children like her were being born every day on a thousand worlds, every bit as precious to their parents as she was to us, and I was leaving those children in danger for my own selfish needs."
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"I want to be here!" he protested, hurt and anger covering his face at her accusations. "I would rather be here more than anything else, but Earth has heroes to watch out for it, and so many places don't! There are entire solar systems without a single superhero, who have no hope against all the dangers of the universe without someone willing to go to them and stay as long as it takes. I have to help them, I can't just turn my back!” "I know you can't,"Stesha admitted, letting the tears finally drip down her cheeks. "And I love and hate that about you. You are probably the most purely heroic man I've ever known, and you don't let anyone stand in the way of your calling. That's what comes first with you. Not me."She wiped her eye with the back of her hand, then the other with the side of her thumb. "We were a vacation romance, you and me, and I didn't realize it at the time. I didn't understand what it would be like when you had to go back to your work. I know that what you do is important, that you save people every day. But I can't live like this anymore."Her voice was hardly more than a whisper. He spread his hands, beginning to look a little desperate. Derrick had never been strong at understanding social cues, but even he was able to comprehend the depths of the current crisis. "What do you want me to do?"he asked plaintively. "I can work on it, come home more often. I know it's been way too long. It's just so hard to keep track of Earth time out there, especially when I'm so busy. Maybe you and Ammy can come with me for awhile, have the grand tour of space!”
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"We should definitely talk," he agreed eagerly, obviously missing her mood entirely. Reading the temper of a room had never been one of Derrick's strengths. "I have so much to tell you, there's so much I've seen out there. So many different kinds of people, and the stars!" He looked stricken for a moment. "I didn't bring you anything! I have things set aside I planned to bring for my girls, but the rush to get here ahead of the Communion didn't allow for side trips. But I can get them! After the debriefing, we can talk and-" "Screw the debriefing, Derrick!" Stesha shouted in a voice that had suddenly gone thick with tears, her hands curling into fists. "Screw the League, screw everybody! Two years gone and I'm still in last place with you?" Vines sprang up and wrapped tightly around them both; when they fell away the pair was standing in Stesha's tiny, empty sleeping quarters. Derrick looked desperately confused, and totally lost. "Sweetheart, what's going on?" he asked, his voice as gentle and patient as always, which somehow only made it more infuriating. "You and Ammy are the most important things in my life, nothing comes before you-" "Liar," she cut him off again, her voice back to normal volume, but full of bitterness. "Maybe to me, but I think to yourself. You pick us up presents and toss us a phone call when it crosses your mind and think we're the most important thing to you. If we were so important, you would be here. Your daughter doesn't even know you, Derrick, and I've started to feel like I don't either."
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"Two years," she corrected her voice still quiet, the only way she could be sure to keep it even. "Two years ago today you came home on Christmas and brought us presents. You were gone again on some mission before New Year's, and I don't even remember why. It's not surprising you'd forget." "Two years?" Dark Star's white eyes widened and then, maybe triggered by the surprise, maybe by the memory, turned honey brown and white again. The rest of his body followed swiftly this time, the darkness flooding away to reveal Derrick Lumins' human form, still wearing the cheerful red sweater and brown trousers she'd bought for him that Christmas, the last outfit she remembered him wearing. His feet dropped to the deck with a soft thud, but he didn't seem to notice. "How can it have been two years? I know I was busy, but it can't have really been that long..." He moved in to put his arms around her and Stesha allowed it, just for a moment. Almost in spite of herself, Stesha lifted her hand, brushing his cheek with her fingertips. "It was," she murmured."Amaryllis doesn't remember anymore. I have a picture of you above her daybed so she doesn't forget what you look like." She closed her eyes a moment, resisting the urge to stay in the circle of his arms and pretend for a little while. Instead, she stepped back and clasped her hands together in front of her. "We need to talk, Derrick. In private." Over his shoulder, she gave one hard look to their teammates still loitering in the hallway. Even though some of them were technically her superiors, they took the hint and beat feet towards the lifts.
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All the conversation ceased as the returning group looked from Fleur to Dark Star. Despite Stesha's efforts to keep her personal problems just that, nobody on the League was dense enough not to realize how long Dark Star had been gone, or to miss the look on Fleur's face. They drew back slightly, even as Dark Star floated hastily forward, his feet just brushing the metal deck as he headed towards her, reached for her. "Stesha!" The white light winked away and for a moment Stesha thought she could see human brown eyes again, but then they were lost behind the glow once more. "I've missed you so much!" he assured her, folding his arms across his chest and unfolding them, shaking his head, making a subtly weird sort of display. "You've forgotten how to change back," she observed quietly, hugging her own arms to her chest. "No, of course not!" he protested, though there was a slight edge to his normally implacable voice. "It just takes a little longer than it used to. Just a minute..." "I suppose it's not a skill you need to use much anymore." "Well no, not exactly, really only when I'm on Earth," he admitted, staring at his own dark-energy fist as he flexed and unflexed it, trying to recapture his own physicality. "Human bodies aren't acclimated for space, or most of the planets where I've worked. But it hasn't been that long..."
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The battle was finally over, even if the damage would take weeks or months to clean up. Stesha didn't know if some parts of the Lighthouse were even repairable, but at the moment she couldn't bring herself to give a damn. She'd heard that the outer system fighting was over as well, and the skirmishes on Earth were just mop-up operations at this point, but it was all rumors until she met up with the rest of the extended League for debriefing. Her mind was numb right now, concentrated on the mundane chore of dissolving the large tangles of vines and roots that marked her battles along the corridors of the space station. As she approached one of the less-mangled docking bays, she heard voices, friendly human voices. "And then I swooped in from behind and drilled their nacelles with a laser beam!" Max Atom enthused, sketching his story in three dimensions with his hands as he entered the corridor. Behind him Johnny Rocket and Captain Thunder listened with patient amusement, occasionally chipping in details. There were a half-dozen heroes spilling into the corridor, a good chunk of the contingent who'd fought the outer-system battle, heading for the command deck where there'd be food, showers, and the League meeting. "And then one of those antibody ships started to buzz me," Max continued, "but Dark Star was right there and just pancaked it, like it was made of paper!" Stesha froze at the sound of the name, seconds before the man himself came into view around the corner from the bay. He looked exactly as she remembered of course, a velvet-black hole in the world, edged with just a faint trace of white light in the shape of a man and two glowing-white eyes set in the featureless face. "Derrick," she murmured.
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Erin look startled for a second at the Broan's question, then jerked one shoulder in a shrug. "Zombies are things that used to be living, sentient beings, till something killed their minds and started animating their bodies to do evil. The Communion doesn't give clean deaths to the people whose worlds it destroys, it's much worse than that. When we get out there, you shoot for the heads and you shoot to kill, you're doing the poor bastards a favor." She turned her attention to the Zultasian. "I know you're itching for a fight, but it sounds like we have work to do in just a couple minutes here. You'll have all the fighting you can handle, and if you still want to throw down afterwards, I'm totally game," she assured him, leaving it to Redbird to translate the colloquialisms. "When we get there," now she addressed her squad as a whole, "it sounds like the commanders are going to drop first, then the rest of you. As soon as you land, you find me and form up on me. I'll be the one on the two-wheeled vehicle, I won't be hard to spot." "Redbird," she continued in a murmur, "we're coming up on approach soon. If you can get out of the cargo bay on your own, I need to you to rendezvous with me on the surface as soon as we stop."
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Souffle, does Nano Angel patrol at night? If she happens to be in one of Freedom City's many parks during the night, she could easily run into Fleur de Joie doing her spring cleaning and beautifying. TA, I could easily see Fleur looking to tap Asad's philanthropic nature on behalf of her people on Sanctuary, they're always needing things. Or if Errant is having any kind of difficulties with his psychic powers, or wants more instruction, he could do a mentorship thing with Hologram, perhaps. What's your pleasure?
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Amaryllis' blue eyes grew wide as saucers as she took in the large pink confection. "Ooooh," she cooed. "It's beautiful! It's so pink!" She dug her spoon in immediately, an expression of rapture on her little face. "Well, I know someone who isn't falling asleep at bedtime tonight," Stesha laughed. "It looks wonderful. What do you say, pumpkin?" "Thank you!" Ammy caroled, sounding very heartfelt about it in the half-second before she attacked her ice cream again. "Everything here is exceptional," Stesha complimented Maybelle. "I'm definitely going to recommend you to my friends. I don't suppose you do catering? I'm out of the florist business myself now, but I still have a lot of contacts in wedding planning." A brief, odd look crossed her face, but was gone in an instant. "If you're looking to expand that way, that is."
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Fleur passes the fort save
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It would be interesting to see Miss A and Mechanized in a thread together, they probably know of each other, but if Emily is shy, they may well not have actually met. Miss A only appeared on the tech scene (basically out of nowhere) when she became CEO of ArcheTech four years ago, so I don't know how Emily's family might feel about her. I could see them meeting each other for professional reasons, perhaps both of them brought in to consult with police or AEGIS about a robot problem? Sounds like a social thread with Diane could go in a few different ways with a few different characters (nanotech consult with Miss A, patrol meetup with Wander, even possibly a visit to Project Freedom to commiserate about what it's like to be used as a weapon by supervillains with Singularity), but the easiest and most painless one might be an interaction with Fleur de Joie, just because she's so very nice, and Nano Angel sounds like someone who could use a friend. =) What's your pleasure?
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Holly listened raptly to Elias' explanation, though it was unclear how much of it she was actually absorbing. "I just don't see why we have to learn this stuff at all," she finally said. "Every time my mom or dad needs to use math, they just use the calculators on their phones. Everybody uses calculators, except the super-smart kids, and they've got like calculators built into their brains and that's not even fair." She slumped with her elbows on the table, but laboriously worked her way through another one of the problems. "We should listen to music while we do this. I've got tons of music on my iPod!" she suggested with sudden cheer.
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Fleur stared in annoyance at the single remaining Communion drone that hadn't fallen victim to her snare. "I swear, one of these days I will figure out how to get all of you with one shot," she groused at the drone, even as it made its way towards her. "Cause this is not an efficient use of my time." Some of the vines already on the ground suddenly leapt up behind the drone, tripping it and wrapping it up, quick as leafy striking snakes. Her concentration on the single target meant that that vines did a very good job, wrapping the drone up from head to toe like a green mummy. "This is Fleur, I've got another group taken care of, or will in a moment. Anything close to me?"
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Ugh, sorry, was sick last night and then forgot. Fleur will use her snare on the single remaining antibody, when used against a single target it's a DC 30 reflex save and includes obscured senses.
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Yeah, I'd say she definitely notices the heck out of that, especially being all doctory and all. It looks like no part of Miss A's hand and forearm, at least, can be organic, to judge by the way her entire wrist is open and obviously synthetic.
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Gina is spending an HP to stunt Enhanced Create Object 0 (Extras: Duration [Continuous]) {12/30} Anyone who is near her and Jill can roll a notice check to see what she's done with her arm.
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Miss A picked herself up off the dusty ground and brushed herself off, looking slightly dazed but otherwise little the worse for wear. "That was a dirty trick." She listened to the shouts coming from the dome and quickly took to the air again, heading in that direction. "Just give me one minute, Jill, I think I can help you out." She dug into the pocket of her suit for her electronic toolkit, then grabbed the small device she used to generate her personal protection forcefield. The little ArcheTech device was much too small to be of any use in stabilizing the dome or even patching the hole, it would need far more power than the battery could provide. With a muttered curse, she flicked open her penknife and sliced open the arm of her suit from glove to elbow, then opened the access panel on the inside of her left wrist. As she approached the damaged dome, she fiddled hastily with the power conduits to her hand, freeing one and tugging on it till it poked free of its housing. Her entire left hand went dead, which made the work awkward, but it was still easy enough to plug the power conduit into her forcefield generator. They were, after all, both ArcheTech products. Cradling her damaged arm, she landed next to Jill and activated the device, sending a warm blue hum of energy rushing over the surface of the dome and making Miss A stagger just a little bit. "All right?" she asked Jill.
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Paige grinned at him. "It's my pleasure, Alek. It's very good to see you doing so well. You're developing into a fine young man, and you're going to be a great superhero. And if you want to tell Will that thing about how lucky he is, be my guest." She winked, then sobered a bit. "I'm going to take a look at my shooting schedule for the next month or two and email you some possible times, we'll get a few lessons worked out to get you started. And I'll send you my phone number too, you should feel free to call me if you have any questions about the lessons, or if you just need to talk, all right?"
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"You're probably right," Erin agreed. "I've seen Omegadrones freed, but Annihilists, they don't change. Marquez probably knows that too. He was around for the last invasion." She hiked up a leg onto the ledge, wrapped her arms around it casually. "Now this is just my advice, so take it for whatever it's worth, but I was in sessions with him for three years, sometimes five days a week, so I've seen a lot of him. You gotta tell him why you killed the Steam General, but at the same time explain why he was unique. Killing someone because it saves lives isn't always going to be a justification. They don't buy it at Claremont, and the Freedom League won't buy it either, or the heroes you have to work with. And it's sometimes frustrating." The honest emotion in her voice said she was speaking from experience. "But the Steam General, he was different, right? Other heroes weren't going to have a chance to pick him up, and you probably wouldn't be able to keep him under arrest. Holding him would put your people in clear danger, but you couldn't let him go. You didn't have the choices that you have on Prime, and with a bad guy on Prime, you wouldn't have had to do it. Reassure him that you understand the difference, and he can check the little checkybox on your dossier."
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ic Dropping in... (Seahawk & Mirror w/Miss A)
Electra replied to The Sailor's topic in Freedom City Stories
"Interesting, very interesting. I'd love to see your powers at work sometime, if you'd oblige me." Miss A passed him an embossed business card on heavy cream-colored stock. "Call anytime and my assistant can set something up." She took the battered flight pack from Seahawk, carefully avoiding any blood that hadn't been washed away by the dip in the pond. "I'll give you a call later, Seahawk, discuss anything we find from that recording. Thanks for letting me know about it." She shook hand and spoke with a few people who'd wanted a better look at her, promised an agitated young customer that ArcheTech would replace his fried ArchePhone, then stepped outside and took off into the sky and was gone in a moment. -
ic Dropping in... (Seahawk & Mirror w/Miss A)
Electra replied to The Sailor's topic in Freedom City Stories
"All right, I can call an ArcheTech car out here to give you a ride, just a couple minutes here..." Miss A was somewhat distracted, having plugged the drive into her tablet already, and was busy scanning over the flight data from Naomi's ill-fated test. "You should probably give me the flight pack, after a crash like that it should be thoroughly checked out and refitted before it goes back in the air. And I think we might be able to put something a little longer-lasting in for the battery as well." She frowned over whatever it was she was seeing in the data, then looked up and tucked the tablet aside. "Sorry, I'll have a look at that later." She took another look at the unfamiliar hero. "Mirror, you said your name was? What sort of skillset brings you to the superheroing business?" she asked with a hard-to-resist smile. -
ic Dropping in... (Seahawk & Mirror w/Miss A)
Electra replied to The Sailor's topic in Freedom City Stories
Miss A gave Seahawk a smile that was equal parts amused and resigned. "I'll pass that along to her, along with my strong recommendation that she doesn't loan you out unfinished prototypes that don't even have all their safety features installed," she replied. "I'm sorry you had to deal with the hard landing!" She took the flash drive and turned it over in her hands speculatively. "Hmm, curiouser and curiouser. Any indication why they brought it here to this place, or what they were planning on doing with it?" She responded to Mirror's greeting with a nod and a friendly smile. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mirror. I'm Miss Americana. Thank you for the help you gave Seahawk, it's much appreciated." -
"We can probably make a few safe assumptions," Erin decided. "We have to destroy the array itself, and it's probably going to be surrounded by troops and equipment. Somebody's going to have to get to that equipment who knows what it looks like and knows how to ruin it. That's not me, but I can clear a path for whoever does. My squad can head out first and start sweeping." She looked out over the assembled troops. Most of them weren't giants, but nearly all were taller than she was, and most were bulkier. Which meant nothing when it came to her, but hopefully meant they were fit for a ground assault. "Hey!" she called, her voice through the translator loud and sharp enough to cut through the noise from the troops. "Which of you all are in Squad Four? Raise your hands!" The squads seemed to be assigned seating together, since the dozen semi-reluctant hands that went up were all in one corner of the troop deck. She walked over to them, balancing effortlessly on the deck even through the minor swings in inertial dampening. "My name is Wander, and I'm from Terra. I don't know what the hell you've been hearing about Terrans, but on my planet we've already chased the Communion away, and now we're going to help all of you do it too. Your job is going to be to stick as close to me and to each other as you can while we're taking out Communion zombies. That's the best way to win, and the best way to stay alive." A belligerent-looking... something with leathery green-tone skin and a build that put even Harrier to shame rumbled in a voice like an idling diesel engine, "How come you're in charge of the squad anyway? You're like a tiny Terran infant!" Nobody else said anything aloud, but it was clear he wasn't the only one with that opinion. "Oh, couple reasons," Wander told him brightly. "One is because I've destroyed more creatures like the Communion drones than all the rest of you put together over the course of my career. Two is because I have tactical training and a flying vehicle that'll let me get a look at the field whenever I need to. But it's mostly three." She smiled at them all. "I scared the hell out of them and they wanted me on the front lines as fast as possible. Are we going to have any problems?"
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"It's all right, I didn't really think about what I was saying, but I should've realized it would bother you." Erin stayed where she was, a few feet away and letting Thaelia have time and space to think. "But I guess it's probably better that you know about her ahead of time rather than meeting her in action someday." She smiled a little. "I kind of have a thing about zombies, similar to the way you feel about Deep Ones. The first time I met a zombie hero, I had no idea who or what he was, and I immediately jumped him and started pounding on him. It didn't do any harm in the long term, but I ended up embarrassed and making a fool of myself in front of a lot of heroes I'd wanted to impress, and it sucked. At least this way you have time to think about the idea." She looked up to the bridge, judging lunchtime to be nearly over by the number of cars crossing the span. "Do you want to go back in and finish your sandwich?"
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Erin stayed inside for a minute or two, marshalling her thoughts and letting Thaelia collect herself. When the other girl didn't come back inside, Erin set down money for their sandwiches and a tip. "We might be back in," she told the waitress, then followed the distraught Atlantean. Rather relieved that Thaelia hadn't gone too far, she stood back and watched the girl wrestling with her own impulses. Finally, she broke the silence. "Her name is Aquaria," she said again, "and she's an exile because she doesn't want live the way most Deep Ones do. She's at Project Freedom learning to be a superhero. She can never go back to where she came from, but she's helping make the surface world a better place. She doesn't fit in too well on the street, and I pretty much don't understand her sense of humor at all, but I do admire her strength."