Electra
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Freedom City Guidebook
Freedom City PBP: A How-To Guide
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"So you'd like another root beer, then?" Miss A asked, lips quirked in a half-smile. She made a subtle gesture to her robot assistant, who rolled away obligingly. "That sounds like a reasonable starting goal. If you're hoping to do hero work as well, you'll probably want to start making contacts in the superheroic community as well. Solo heroes are all well and good, but they are hard to get in touch with in times of real threat, so mostly they wind up fighting street crime. A noble aspiration as well, don't get me wrong. Do you already have contacts in the superhero community? (17) Are you looking to wind up on a hero team, or affiliated with a hero organization? (18)"
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"Oh no, we're not wizards," Fleur said in her most calming voice, a smile still on her face. "This may be difficult for you to understand, but we're from another dimension, another world that is similar to this one, but different in many ways. We're superheroes, humans with special powers that we use to do good and help humanity." She would have added "and other sentient species," but didn't want to lay too much on these folks at once. "My name is Fleur de Joie, like I said, and I am a plant controller." She placed a seed on her palm and grew a marigold from it for illustration, then set it aside. "And my teammate over there is Comrade Frost, an energy controller." She gave herself a lot of credit for saying that in a tone completely free of unflattering inflection. "We became aware of something bad going on here that was bleeding into other worlds and came here to help. Are all of you all right?"
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"If that's something you're interested in doing, we can definitely arrange it." Miss Americana made a note on her tablet and took another sip of her water; about a quarter of it was gone by now. "If you're deliberately stepping into the public spotlight, you will have to be more careful with your image in all areas of your life, but if you had too many distressing habits, you wouldn't have made it as a test pilot anyway. What do you see your long term goals as being right now?" (16)
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Even after the spectre dematerialized, Paige's face remained blank, her eyes coal black and wide as the conversation flowed around her. Richard's words and touch seemed to shake her back, and with a few blinks and a press of her palms to her face, she looked nearly normal again. "This seems awfully... crass, for lack of a better word, for Silver Scream," she commented, looking around. "I don't remember her being such a proponent of violence in the media... or sound in the media, for that matter."
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"It's all right, everything's going to be okay," Fleur reassured the tied-up captives as she approached them, hands raised nonthreateningly. "My name is Fleur de Joie and I'm with the... and I'm here to help you. Nobody's going to hurt you anymore." Who knew whether the Freedom League even existed in this dimension? Taking a small pair of pruning shears from her belt pouch, she began cutting the captives loose, removing the IVs from their arms and spreading herbal unguent on their cuts and bruises to melt them away. From what she could see of the machine, it was designed as some sort of steampunk faux-medical sacrificial altar that would suck out the blood of the victims and either mingle it in their bodies or put it into some holding container. The results for the sacrifices would've been the same either way, so it hardly seemed to matter. "Do you live around here?" Fleur asked them once she had them untied. "is it safe for you to go back to your homes?"
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"Not at all," Miss Americana assured her. "We encourage civic engagement from employees at every level, as I'm sure you know. Of course there's a great deal of philanthropy going on at the corporate level as well, plus the superheroes that ArcheTech provides equipment and repairs for free or at cost. Now if by civic-minded you mean politics, we prefer that you don't officially endorse any candidate or platform on company time, but what you do in your off-hours is your business. Did you have a specific sort of civic involvement in mind? (15)
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Miss Americana waited patiently through Naomi's impassioned little speech, a slight smile playing around her lips. "Aeronautics does owe a great debt to metahuman contributions, in many areas," she agreed. "And you'll see even more of that if you begin testing in the free-body flying division. They're coming up with a number of new and fascinating methods of getting people into the air without planes." She chuckled. "If I didn't fly under my own power, I'd certainly be looking into getting something for myself. So do you ever fly recreationally, hang gliding, skydiving, wingsuits?" (14)
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Erin glared after Trevor as he left her with a list growing soggy in her hand. "Maybe you wanna babysit her then, Dr. Phil," she muttered. "And how are we supposed to get any supplies from people when we're covered in hallucinogenic frog vomit- hey!" Her complaining was interrupted when she noticed Singularity had taken off already. She was moving in a vaguely westerly direction, but Wander suspected that was entirely incidental to the fact that she was headed for her- for their- for Erin Prime's house. "Jessie, get back here!" she yelled, jogging after her double. "We're not done yet!" Singularity wasn't moving fast, seeming almost as though she was walking in a trance as she stared at the brightly lit houses just outside the water's impact zone. She'd have been easy to catch if Wander hadn't been distracted by an old man about to kill himself trying to fish his Pomeranian out of a storm drain with an umbrella. She took a second to rip the cover off the drain and scoop up the dog, and of course by then Singularity had managed to get herself in trouble. "Erin, is that you?" Wander heard a disbelieving and slightly familiar voice say as she finally caught up. "What did you do to your hair? Is that a superhero costume?" Jessie was staring dumbfounded, and Erin followed her gaze to see a young woman in a Christmas party dress with a windbreaker hastily thrown over it. "No, no, she's not Erin, and neither am I," Erin said hastily. "We're Erin's cousins, from-" "Kathy?" Jessie blurted out, running right over Erin's words. "You're alive?" She moved in to hug the wide-eyed Kathy, but was stopped by Erin's subtle use of a restraining armlock behind her back. "We're Erin's cousins from Freedom City," Wander repeated, her smile really more of a grimace. "And we'd really love to talk, but the day's not saved yet and we've still got a lot to do, right, Jessie?" Singularity glared at Wander, but relaxed in her grip and let herself be led away for the moment. "Wow, I didn't know Erin had superhero cousins," they heard from behind them. "I only ever met the weird one that cried all the time." Wander winced briefly and kept going in the direction of the nearest hardware store she could remember.
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"Well, I was voted most likely to be arrested for breaking the laws of physics," Tensile quipped, his easy tone of voice belied by the businesslike way he lifted his pike and studied the sub. "I'd hate to make the prognosticators of the Claremont class of 2044 into liars! But some of us are way too old to be Young Freedom anyway." "Just so long as we don't have to be Hendawhits," Knightfall asserted, only a small quaver in her voice. "Cause that was ultra-lame. This shouldn't be too bad though, Mom and Dad did this sort of thing all the time. Few crazy adventures, we'll be home before we know it." "Hopefully before they know it," Tensile corrected. "That's the wonder and beauty of time travel, get back before anybody knows you're gone." "However long it takes, we'll make it to our homes," Sojourner said with quiet confidence. She nodded to Mystery and lifted her arm, then turned the dinghy to face their adversary. "We've each got our own skills and powers, and we have each other, that's enough. We are wanderers, but that doesn't mean we are lost." "Yeah, okay, that works," Knightfall decided. She raised her bo staff, even as Tensile's metallic hand retracted and shifted, forming into his arm cannon. "Everybody ready?"
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"If you're interested in taking your passion for flying beyond conventional aircraft, I'm sure we can find a prototype or two for you to test out," Miss A assured her with a smile that was somewhat rueful. "Of course, commercial jetpack technology being what it is, I can't guarantee you won't need to use your resurrection ability once or twice while we iron out the bugs," she admitted. "Is that one of the reasons you came to Freedom City?" she asked. "Because you're interested in superheroes?" (13)
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"If you want to be, it's certainly available to you," Miss Americana agreed. "Your durability would certainly be an asset, and with some training you could probably find a slot in any number of heroic missions. But simply having metahuman powers doesn't mean you're obligated to become a costumed hero," she advised. "Many people with metahuman powers never take up the cape or cowl, and that doesn't mean that they don't do their part to help society. Is doing hero work something that you're interested in?" (12)
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"It's time to stop running, Frances," Paige said, her voice tired. She kept a supportive arm around Gwen, even as her gaze focused on Ember. "I've promised I'll help you, and I will. You need to start helping yourself now. Your silence isn't protecting anybody anymore, it's only going to cause more pain. Right now we need to be able to focus on saving Josh, and on Juliette and the kids. They're in danger and she doesn't even know it yet. Stay with us and you'll be in jail, yes, but you'll still be able to help. If you take off now, you make us divide our efforts, make us less effective. You have to decide what's important to you."
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"That sounds like a nice way to grow up," Miss A commented, taking another sip of her water. Despite all her sipping, she'd only finished a tiny portion of her beverage thus far, so maybe she was just looking for something to do with her hands. She certainly seemed perfectly composed as she sat back and asked, "Did you enjoy it? (10) And do you get back to visit very often? (11)."
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"I'm sorry for your loss," Miss A told her solemnly. "It sounds like you still carry her with you in the lessons you learned, and that's a valuable thing." She fiddled with the tablet, giving Naomi a chance to gather her thoughts if she needed it. She could've just gone ahead and looked into the personnel records, but asking face to face questions was often more revealing. "So were you raised by members of your father's family, then?" (9)
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"I'd say the weird thing is that he appears to be a male calico cat, but that's beside the point. Mom had several talking cats herself," Sojourner pointed out, wrapping a comforting arm around Mystery even as she studied the new feline arrival with slightly narrowed eyes. "I was very young still when Charlie was with us, but I remember him reading me stories. Mom didn't say talking cats with plans were evil, just to be wary." "Yeah, cause sometimes they'll be plans that involve playing you like a sucker for years and then suddenly making you battle for the fate of the universe, then bailing on you to go mess up some other poor kid's life." Knightfall caught her brother's look and snorted. "Seriously, maybe if you ever talked to Mom when she gets all bad-moody instead of running away as fast as you possibly can, maybe you'd learn some stuff." Her brief burst of humor was abruptly cut off by a new thought. "Mom and Dad, all of ours, they're alive now, right?" she demanded of the cat. "It still worked, even if we ended up here?" "I never hear any of the good stories!" Tensile exclaimed from his perch still on the roof. He obviously wasn't quite ready to trust his considerable weight to the dinghy. "I've got some major questions to ask when I get home. But first the big ones, cat. What kind of plan do you have in mind for us?"
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Miss A blinked, but remained silent while Naomi had her little epiphany. She made a shooing gesture at the little robot, who obligingly rolled away and came back a few moments later with a second tablet. When Naomi trailed off, Miss A spoke up. "That does sound like there's a good possibility your mother was alien, or at least only part human. But there's too little evidence to suggest whether or not she might have had the same abilities as you've manifested. I take it your mother hasn't been in your life for some time?" (8)
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"Could be part-alien," Miss A agreed, scrolling through the tablet with one finger. "Or part extra-dimensional being, or one of the non-human races who've lived on Earth so long we don't even think of them as aliens anymore, or a number of other things. Statistically, alien would be most likely, but it's definitely not Lor in origin. Something a little less common, perhaps. Any stories about aliens in the family tree?" (7)
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Fleur makes her toughness save, with a 40
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"Hard to say," Miss A temporized, picking up her tablet. "One thing I've found is that it's unwise to rule out magic too early in any mystery, but you're right that it seems unlikely as a proximate cause in this case. There are a number of physiological causes that can lead to sudden eye color and hair color changes, and though the doctors have ruled out the most common factors, they nonetheless show that it's possible. The ears..." She paused a moment. "The ears are a bit more unusual, it's true. Were you aware that you have nonhuman DNA sequences in your genetic code?" (6)
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Wander gagged a little as she hit the street in a shower of warm goo, but it was, sadly, not the worst thing she'd ever been coated with during a fight. Ripping off her mask, she used it to wipe her face clean and then tossed it aside to assess the situation. The crowd of possessed people, especially here, sent a shudder down her spine, but she'd had a lot of years of therapy to overcome the instinctive terror and revulsion. Next to her, Singularity, equally sodden, was gripping her own body with both arms and shaking as she stared around her. "Park Street," Singularity muttered, her voice catching as she began to ramble. "This is Park Street, I rode my bike here, down to the park, turn left, turn left, turn right. Kathy lived in the blue house on the corner... that blue house on the corner! And the Kellermans, I babysat for them, right across the street, oh god, Mr. Kellerman is a zombie!" Evidently not all of Singularity's combat instincts had been conditioned out of her, since she immediately began to lunge in that direction. Wander's arm was there instantly, stopping her. "Shut UP!" she snapped, her voice taut with tension. "Of course this is Park Street, but so what? It's just a fight and they need our help. They're not zombies." she stressed. "Go open the hydrants like Midnight said. I'll go stop the people. Don't touch anyone!" With that, Wander leapt into the oncoming mob, flicking her bat to full extension and conducting some very careful mayhem. Her bat was optimized to let her do minimal damage when she wanted, and she used that property now, smacking pressure points and sweeping legs to disable her fragile opponents as gingerly as possible. Yes, she recognized several of them, but she couldn't think about that now.
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"It would seem," came Sojourner's calm voice from the other side of the structure, "that Mr. Quark may not have been as skilled as he said he was in terms of sending us to our respective home timelines." There was a weird sucking noise like air rushing into a balloon, and a moment later Sojourner herself appeared, floating in a large inflatable yellow dinghy that was anchored by a rope to the spire of the building. "Yeah, no kidding!" Tensile drove his pike into the cracks between the roof tiles, using it as an anchor to hold himself steady on the steeply pitched roof. "Unless one of you all was lying through your teeth about where you come from, this place doesn't belong to any of us. I'm not sure it's even our time." He snorted, looking at his pike. "Knew I should've just used the doohickey Big Sis made for me to come back with instead of hitching a ride. If I ever make it home, I'm never going to hear the end of this." Just to be sure, he pushed a button on the side of the pike. It made a sizzling noise, then a whining noise, then nothing. "Dammit." "However we got here, we can't just stay here. There's got to be land somewhere." Knightfall had been clinging to the roof with a fair amount of success thanks to her acrobatic training, but she was just as happy to skid down the roof and hop lightly into Sojourner's boat. "And there's no food or shelter here. What are we supposed to do now?"
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"Yes, I do remember reading about that," Miss A agreed. "Your recovery this time has been markedly faster!" She was interrupted for a moment by a soft whistle at her elbow, and turned to find her robot back again, this time holding a file folder, a medical folder to judge by the orange cover. Miss A glanced at it, then muttered to the robot, "Yes, I already saw it, I don't need to read it again. Stop being helpful!" The robot whistled again, this time sounding rather impudent, for a machine. Miss A ignored it, turning back to Naomi. "It's very fortunate that your powers manifested when they did. Have you got any theories as to where they come from?" (5)
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Naomi's employer raised both her eyebrows. "Bailing out will definitely be encouraged," she assured Naomi dryly. "We can view your immortality as a nice tertiary safety backup that I hope you never have to use again. Even beyond the questionable ethics of it, and beyond the trauma it would inflict on your coworkers if not you yourself, I doubt the FAA and the ICAO would be very amused with test data that includes repeatedly smashing one of our pilots." She smiled slightly, taking another drink of her water. "You mentioned you've had near-death experiences before?" (4)
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Miss A nodded at that as well, a slight smile on her face. "It's amazing, that feeling when you first realize what you can do," she agreed. "It sounds like you're adjusting well to your new circumstances, and the reports I have been given from the doctors, while considerably redacted for your privacy, are all encouraging. Even so, it is company policy at ArcheTech that anyone who dies and is resuscitated or who is healed through magic or preternatural means of otherwise fatal wounds while working for the company is offered the opportunity to resign with a generous severance package and assistance finding less dangerous employment, if they should so desire." Her face was compassionate as she studied Naomi. "Many people who go through near-death experiences find it difficult to handle similar circumstances on a daily basis in the future, and there's absolutely no shame in it. Are you still interested in working for ArcheTech in your current capacity?" (3)
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Miss A sat and listened to the whole story, not making any notes, but giving the impression of one paying very close attention. When Naomi came to the end of her story, she nodded and took a sip of her water. "That must have been a very harrowing experience," she remarked, sympathy in her voice. "And I assure you we're working very diligently to root out not only the saboteurs themselves, but the organization behind them. I understand you were treated by our staff doctors and psychologists after the crash. How are you feeling now?" (2)