Electra
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Fleur gave the student a friendly smile and a nod in response to the greeting. She was wearing her typical costume/work outfit of brown trousers, green blouse, and a belt with many pockets, all topped with a sturdy brown cowl that came up short in front like a jacket. Her long green hair was plaited and pinned close to her head and crowned with a garland of sunny yellow dandelions. "Good evening," she said in return. "You must be Shadowborne, it's lovely to meet you! I'm Fleur, and this is Tiamat." She tucked her phone away in a belt holster. "We've got a few moments, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your powers? "
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Danica's shell popped back into place when she stepped back, complete with all its festive decorations. She rummaged inside it for a moment, then withdrew a box of tissues for Elena. The question was enough to set her back on her heels for a moment. "Back... to your home dimension?" she hazarded. "Um, I guess the first person I would talk to would be Headmaster Summers. She's not magical herself, far as I know, but she knows a lot of people, plus she probably has your guardianship, maybe?" She drummed her fingers against her lips, thinking. "But for like, dimensional travel, I guess maybe the Master Mage? Mr Eldritch got killed a couple years ago and it was really sad," she explained, "but the new master mage is called Phantom and I guess she's supposed to be, like, a portal specialist. Or there's Fleur de Joie, she lives on her own alternate Earth and lets people go on field trips there, so I know she can make portals! Or, um, maybe some of the super-scientists at the Lab, they're always doing crazy things with travel and somebody there can probably help you. Do you know if your world is one the Freedom League already catalogued, or is it new?"
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It took another minute before Raina was finished privately gloating over her victory over the motorcycles, if nothing else. She dropped her invisibility and put herself in the actual costume she used, black leggings under a short black dress covered in sprays of rhinestone sparkles, with a black domino mask and pointed witch's hat. She spiraled down on her broom and looked contemptuously at the fallen villains. "Looks like he had a weakness to being a moron," she countered, using disdain for Cueball to cover the embarrassment over her own performance in the fight. She hadn't realized how rusty she was, and it was real bad. Without her disguise up, the black and blue spreading over her arm from the axe handle was visible even in the streetlights. Next to her, Merlin opined that the villains of the day probably didn't have much of a credit rating to speak of, but it couldn't hurt to be thorough. Raina obligingly lifted her phone and took photos of four faces only a mother could love before they were hauled away by the STAR squad.
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"Yoo-hoo, up here," Raina called, still invisible. The moment that Cueball looked up, she used a long whip of fire to fling Angel's motorcycle high overhead and bring it crashing down, right on the sole remaining villain! It did... nothing. "This is by far the stupidest thing that has ever happened," Raina muttered. Merlin chittered agreement and informed her that the STAR Squad was en route. "Great, they'll probably hurt themselves laughing and then we'll have that to deal with." Annoyed, she ignored her fellow hero's attempts to deal with the apparently invincible villain and began dropping the Advocates' motorcycles off the boardwalk and into the water. It would prevent escape and make reoffending more difficult, plus she was just that petty.
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Raina is going to start dropping the motorcycles in the ocean. Is the STAR Squad on the way yet?
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"It doesn't sound like he was born with it," Erin told her as they stepped into the elevator. "Apparently the dad got killed a few months ago by Omegadrones, and the mom and kid both got hurt in the same attack. The mom's got a scar that a human probably wouldn't have survived getting." She shook her head and sent the elevator to the first floor. "I don't read them as violent types, but you never know. They were definitely disappointed when I told them I couldn't help them. I gave them the line about how human heroes work in groups, I couldn't have killed Omega without my team, etcetera, and they seemed to get it. There's only two adults, a kid and the baby though, so if it did come down to it, we'd win." The thought didn't seem to cheer her much. "I don't know about Omegadrone hits, but you were able to get entropic taint off those people on Yolanda's world, so I thought it would at least be worth a shot. I didn't want to just send them away because they had misplaced their faith, you know?" Erin looked down, uncomfortable and unaccountably a little ashamed that she couldn't do what they wanted. "Anyway, they're in the conference room by the lobby with Steve's looking after them for now. And maybe when you come over for dinner, I'll tell you the story. No statue, though," she added with half a smile.
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Catching Ryder's look, Danica gave him a half-shrug and a rueful grin. They didn't have a lot of departure options at this point, and none of them were graceful. She brushed a hand over her front to suggest that he might want to lose the armor at some point. Returning her attention to the dazed civilian, she dug a water bottle out of her backpack and gave it to him. "Here, drink this, it should help some. Anybody can get upset, and it's great that you're working to manage your emotions so nobody gets hurt by them! That's really going to make your life better and help the people around you, too!" She pushed herself slowly to her feet and offered the man a hand up. "The bus is gonna be here soon, but you might want to get a cab or something so you can go home and rest and maybe change your clothes."
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Erin raked her fingers through her hair uncomfortably. "Okay, you know that time back in high school when I was on Young Freedom and we killed Omega after he tried to suck the entire multiverse into the Doom Coil on graduation day?" she began, leading the way towards the elevators. "Nobody really wanted to believe it happened here on Earth, but it's kind of a big deal in some parts of the multiverse, especially in places near the Terminus, like where the Furions live. They call us the Dethroners of Omega and gave us titles and stuff. I'm the Brave, Trevor's the Marksman, stuff like that." She waved a hand to dismiss all of that as not currently important and punched the button to call the elevator. "Apparently there's a subgroup of Furions, and I didn't know about this until today, who actually worship the Dethroners. So when nobody else could fix the baby, they brought him here, and apparently thought I was the best option because I'm the most motherly?" That supposition came with a helpless shrug. "I told them I couldn't do anything, but I would try to find someone who could, and they seemed okay with it."
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ughhhhhhh raina drops the motorcycle on him feint dc 27 she gets a 24 on the move object roll
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Erin hmmed. "It's not a "time is of the essence," situation so much as it is a "the faster we deal with this, the fewer intergalactic incidents can possibly crop up," she offered. "It's a group of Furions, those folks who live in the Terminus and pretty much spend all their time fighting it. Silver Tree, the world Redbird comes from, you know? One of their babies has some kind of entropy poisoning and isn't growing right. They came to ask me if I could do a miracle for them because their healers can't fix it. I know you've dealt with that kind of thing before, so maybe you can do something for him? He's about six months old, looks normal to me but they all say, including Steve, that he should be a lot bigger and stronger at his age." She turned to look at the camera pointing into the conference room again. "So if you can hitch a ride that's great, but you could probably just drive, too. And how about dinner instead? Trevor's made even more modifications to that crazy grill of his, so maybe when the weather gets a little warmer?"
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"Just click on the other videos," Erin advised, "there's a whole bunch on that page about Earth heroes." Trusting Steve to help the kid if needed, she took her phone into the lobby security booth for privacy's sake. Maybe this wouldn't take very long, she thought hopefully, and Ellie and Mara would be cozied up again in a few hours. Maybe this would take a short enough time that she herself could finish the security schedule today, she thought not quite as hopefully, and she could get home before Trevor finished work on the latest car in the shop. She sighed and pressed the button to call Ellie's cell phone. "Hi, this is Erin. I hate to interrupt your weekend, but I'm at HAX and we have a medical situation that's very weird. I could use some help."
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Paige nodded and leaned in towards Jill. "I know it's a complicated situation, just from things I've learned as an offscreen personality," she murmured. "You must have been beside yourself with worry." In public, Jill o Cure and the Interceptors in general had solid secret identities, with the exception of Harrier, who'd allowed his to become public when his wife had made her startling revelations two years ago. But as someone who was plugged into the school community and who had interviewed a lot of people surrounding the infiltration already, Paige was pretty sure she had a handle on the major players and where many of the infiltrators had been concentrated. "You can do your best to answer and we'll edit out anything that slips, or we can just skip right over the question and move on, whichever you'd rather do."
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"Ooooh," Danica said sympathetically, slowly approaching the bald guy. He looked much less scary now, and more like just a guy laying in some slush. "Yeah, that was really weird. You had a whole big monster come right out of you and fight some superheroes, but I think you're better now." She crouched down and looked him over. "Did you get hurt anywhere? Do you have a headache? I think I have an icepack and some aspirin in here someplace." She scooched her backpack down off her shoulders so she could dig around inside. "Man, Freedom City, right?"
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Erin stared at him blankly for a long moment. "Oh," she finally said, trying to wrap her brain around that. "I guess... I never really thought of it like that? I know that the Furions call us Dethroners, and Tona knew special names for all of us, but not that it had, um, gotten that far?" She shook her head. "Here on Earth, hardly anybody even knows about what happened, and most of the ones who do aren't sure they believe it. Makes it kind of weird. Or even weirder than the weird it already was." She pressed thumb and finger against her eyes and tried to refocus. "Okay, healer time. I hate to interrupt Mara and Ellie's weekend, but she'd want us to for something like this. Plus, closer by than somebody who's probably on another planet, right?"
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Erin looked up from scrolling through her contacts list. "We don't think of ourselves as gods," she told the kid carefully. "But there are some very powerful people who live on Earth, who can do a lot of different things. I'm going to try and get in touch with one who can help your little brother." She looked around the lobby and spotted one of the educational tablets left there for school groups or the occasional visitor. "Here," she said, picking it up and queuing up a child-friendly promotional video about the Freedom League, then passing it over. "This will tell you about some of them." With Teledar distracted, she drew Steve aside. "The Furion healers are really powerful," she murmured. "I'm going to give Ellie a call and see if she can help, or if not I could try Fleur de Joie, I guess. But if they couldn't fix him themselves, I don't know if we can either. Why do they think I can give them a miracle?"
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Erin absently let the baby gum on her finger, used to it after years of JJ. It was weird when the baby didn't immediately try to bite her, but that was probably normal for non-vampires. "I don't feel anything," she admitted. "He's a handsome child, but this is not..." She shrugged helplessly. "This is not my gift. When we fought Omega, I would never have succeeded without the help of my friends. It's our way to work together with other heroes to accomplish things. If you let me call someone else, they might be able to do what I can't do by myself."
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Danica saw the move coming just in time to poof her shell away, making her a much easier target for a hug. Elena was so big that getting a hug from her really was kind of like a bear hug, but Danica was pretty good in the hugging department herself. "I'm really glad you're here at school with us!" she told Elena. "I know things are really hard where you came from and it's gotta seem super-weird living here sometimes." She patted the taller girl's back comfortingly. "You're doing so good, and people here like you a lot! It was brave to come to the party when you didn't know what to expect. And you can talk to me anytime you want!"
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"Not too many meetings," Fleur promised with a smile. "Honestly a few more emails than I'd like sometimes, but we're all too busy to be carving out a lot of time to just talk. And the responsibilities..." She shrugged. "You wouldn't be out here if you didn't already feel that. The League is just another layer, knowing that people are watching you and expecting you to save the day. The Freedom League gives people hope and helps prevent panic during emergencies, but you do feel it right in your gut when you step into a situation and know everybody's looking at you to fix it. That's where the 'team' thing comes in handy." She opened another flower, like the other one except a brilliant blue this time, and fished around til she came up with a pen and a pad of post-it notes. The first pen was dry, so she lobbed it into the trash can and pulled out another one. "I have got to organize this thing," she muttered. The second pen worked enough that she could scribble down a name and phone number. "Here, if you do decide to apply, this is Comrade Frost's number. It'll save you about seventeen phone trees on the Freedom League's public number. Just don't be weirded out by the way he talks like Boris Badenov. It's kind of his thing."
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Erin thought of Sage, of Psilent, but didn't bother to correct the woman. Eve's powers were no better suited to this than Erin's, unfortunately. She reached out an accepted the baby, skilled enough at that, at least, after years of babysitting first JJ Faretti and then Mark and Nina's Richie. She snuggled him comfortably into one arm and looked down to study him. He didn't have the red and black mottling she remembered from her own brush with entropic decay, but entropy could be a subtle thing. She certainly didn't know how to fix it. Even so, she touched the child's soft little cheek with her fingertips, trying to remember back to the moments she'd spent washed in the water of the Silver Tree's pool. There had been something there, she remembered, perhaps not a cure for entropy but an answer, something more vital, something that rendered its darkness insignificant against the silver light. The memory was elusive as always, just out of reach and beckoning. The answer certainly wasn't in her hands, strong and blunt-nailed and pale against the child's downy skin, hands to wield weapons, not blessings.
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Erin's eyes widened as she shot a quick glance at Steve, but he was no help at understanding what exactly was happening. "Ms. Aarden," she began carefully, "I would do whatever was in my power to help a child, but I'm not a healer." She spread her hands a little bit, let them drop. "I'm a fighter, my powers are strength and speed and skill with weapons. Earth has a lot of powerful people," she offered instead. "I know people with the power to heal sickness and terrible wounds. I would be happy to ask one of them if they can help." It would mean interrupting Mara and Ellie on a rare weekend day they both had off, Erin knew, but she also knew Ellie wouldn't let wild horses keep her from helping a sick little kid if she could. "Do you know what the problem is that's hurting him?"
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Erin returned the formality with a half-bow of her own, less graceful but hopefully enough to avoid offense. "Please, call me Wander," she told them. "This is Harrier, my trusted teammate. Please, have a seat and we'll talk." The conference room table was large enough to seat all of them easily enough and with a few seats to spare, and was already equipped with its standard setting of notebook, pen and water bottle at each seat. Taking the seat at the head of the table, Erin put Steve at her left side, the better to guard her weaker flank. She didn't know a huge amount about Furion customs even after years of living with Redbird, whose mannerisms were, she suspected, unique, but she knew they were a warrior culture and valued strength. "You've come a very long way from the Silver Tree to here. What is it that you want to ask?" That might have been a little too direct, she realized immediately, but small talk wasn't exactly her forte.
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Erin looked up from the laptop where she was carefully adjusting the security schedule for vacations and flex days. It was one of her least favorite parts of being in charge and she would've welcomed nearly any distraction, but this was a weird one. "Furions?" she repeated. "God, they haven't been around in awhile." Her hand automatically slid to the bat on her belt, which still shone with the pale glow of the Silver Tree even years after she'd been healed by it. "I guess it's just as well they're here outside of working hours. Let's put them in Conference Room C, it's the sturdiest and closest to the door. Check the scanner for weapons as they come in." She radioed to the two other members of the security team on duty to put them on alert, then rose and straightened her uniform. Outside, she was collected as always, but her stomach was in knots. There were not a lot of reasons to look up a Dethroner of Omega. Like maybe if you thought you might need someone to do it again.
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In some ways, going to Claremont Academy was like going to any high school. There was plenty of academic work, meals in the cafeteria, sports, dances, all the same drudgery and fun that any teenager could expect from their education. In other ways, though, it was very different. Not all students, for instance, got signed up to do after-school study with members of the Freedom League! Patrol with the Freedom League was something of a pilot program this year. The Claremont students got to experience patrolling the city with experienced heroes who could offer tips and answer questions, and the League members got to serve their community and build ties with the school. It seemed destined to be a winning combination. At least, Stesha certainly hoped it was going to be. Fleur de Joie had been a vocal proponent of the program, and she was eager enough to see it succeed that she volunteered to take the first patrol shift. When she'd gotten the profiles of the students she'd be working with, well, it had been easy to decide who she'd ask to work with her. Tiamat seemed a natural fit, and it would probably be very entertaining to watch her interacting with the kids. Claremont patrols started fairly early, around 9pm, so at 8:45 Stesha was waiting outside the school gymnasium, wearing her costume and browsing through the League's text-tip line to see if anything might be brewing tonight. "Well, here we go," she murmured to Tiamat while they waited for the students. "Ready to teach the next generation?"
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One more feint, DC 29, one more fireball, one more upraised middle finger from Orokos. Raina rolls a 15. I am reasonably sure that if he is not down after this round, Cueball wins by fiat and Sparkler and Ghost lose their hero licenses.
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"You've been making a difference in this town for longer than most of the heroes I know, and you're still at it," Fleur pointed out, her voice warmer now. "It sounds to me like the best you can do is good enough. It doesn't matter how much raw power somebody has if they aren't there and using it when the need arises, right?" She blew out a breath. "There is so much need out there, big and small, so many people who are hurting, so much trouble to deal with... I may have a lot of power over plants, but some days it doesn't feel like more than a drop in the bucket. Knowing that there are other heroes out there working and helping? It matters a lot more than you might think," she admitted. She was quiet for a moment. "You know, if you want to apply to the Aux League, I think you should," she finally said. "I honestly couldn't tell you if there are openings right now or who they might be looking for, but they'll keep you on file. Frost and I may not get along," she added with a faint, sardonic smile, "but he's good at spotting talent and finding people who can work together. And he's been around since World War II, he knows something about sticking with the gig even when it's hard."