Electra
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Freedom City Guidebook
Freedom City PBP: A How-To Guide
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Checking in at a luxury hotel, Erin discovered, was not much like checking in at a Ramada Inn. A line was unavoidable on a day like today, but uniformed waiters breezed through the lobby with wine and snacks to ease the pain of delay, and a grand piano in one corner provided a pleasant undertone to the conversation. Having so many people milling about made her just a bit edgy, but once she'd gotten a look at the exits and all of the discreet but effective security measures present, she relaxed and began to people-watch. Conversations about cars were the order of the day, at least from the ones she could understand, and even here in the hotel there seemed to be quite a bit of money changing hands on the outcome of the race. Even with the press of people, it was barely ten minutes before they were at the front desk to be checked in. While Trevor discussed the finer points of wireless internet and valet parking, she ate crackers with some really good unidentifiable cheese on them and wondered if it would be out of line to give the bellboy a hand with a really heavy valise he was dragging to the elevator. Probably, she figured with slight regret, they were keeping low profile here. As the elevator doors opened, for just a moment Erin saw a face that looked oddly familiar, then it was gone again, swept away by the crowd moving in and out. Erin racked her brain for who it could be, but all that sprang to mind was... Tricia. Old Tricia. That didn't even make any sense, she told herself, even as she shook her head and looked away. Even people who only slept every couple of days could get jet-lagged. She turned her attention to the desk just in time to get a key to their room. "Ready?"
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Stesha was just finishing her work when Tona came over, ripening the fruits on a grove of avocado trees so that the food stores used on the hungry prisoners could be quickly replenished. She blinked at the girl's words, clearly surprised for a moment before her expression turned to one of sympathy. "I'm very sorry to hear that," she told Tona sincerely. "I've known people who came from there or spent time there. It must be a very difficult place to live. Have you moved permanently to Prime, then?" She wondered how Tona had managed to escape the grip of the Terminus when so few did, but it seemed impolite to ask.
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"It's definitely a complicated situation," Stesha agreed. "But sometimes complicated can be worth it. Maybe you both still need a little time to settle down before you sort out how you really feel about each other, but you've got plenty of time. If he's the one, he'll still be the one six months from now or a year from now, right? And if not, well then he wasn't really the one." She shrugged a little. "But as far as the rest of it goes, you'll want to be sure you've got a briefing on file with the League regarding that possible child. If he does exist and is a threat to multiple timelines, we'll want our people to be aware of that before they get sucked into a situation that they might only end up making worse. You can keep parts of it confidential if it makes you uncomfortable."
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Stesha is going to take a moment just to try and assess the situation before she does anything else. Her skill mastery gives her 25s in Notice and Sense Motive, and she's got 20s in Life Science and Medicine as well. Who/what is this plant being, and what does it want, and what kind of hold does it have over all this foliage?
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Wander will do an acrobatic bluff, skill mastered, DC 32 to beat. Inspired full power attack: It's a 21. DC 32 toughness save, before autofire
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"How did he take it?" Stesha asked with interest. "I remember when I finally had to spill the beans to my own family, it can be very stressful, and they can react in all sorts of different ways. But it's even harder to keep that kind of secret than to come up with the guts to tell them, I think." She cocked her head, nibbled on her scone. "Did it seem like he might want to be with you again, after the influence of the device had worn off? That must have been a very frightening experience for him, if he remembered any of it."
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"I guess that's good, Erin's pretty jealous about things like that." She laughed, then tilted her head back to catch the breeze. "The ocean smells so different here than in Freedom City. It's almost like being on an island or something." They rode along in comfortable silence for a little bit while buildings began to rise around them. "The hotel is coming right up," Erin eventually reported, looking at Trevor's GPS unit. "Le Meridien Beach Plaza," she attempted in a French accent that was just short of execrable. "Look for the hotel with the big round glass elevator on the front. I was reading about it on the plane, and apparently they offer windsurfing. We could go windsurfing."
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Stesha nodded. "See, I think that right there is the only pertinent question you have to answer," she told Megan simply. "This business about a foreordained child, that's nothing to base your life around. You could marry him and have no children, marry him and adopt children, marry him and end up only having girls because you had sex one day of the month instead of another. And just because you stay away from him doesn't mean there couldn't be a fluke or a plot or a drunken one-night-stand at some point that leads to this kid showing up. If he does end up born, then you have some warning, then you can take action in a much more concrete way. But you can't spoil your chances for happiness just because someone tells you that something bad could come of it." It was hard to say, Stesha being generally a glib sort of person, but it seemed for a moment as though she might be speaking from some experience. "But it's also possible," she continued, her face and voice smoothing right back to normal, "that your feelings for him are confused because you want to protect him from this, or because you feel like he's a loose end in your life. If you do want to try and patch things up with him, I think you're going to have to be forthright with him. Not only from fairness or so you can have discussions about things like children with both of you on the same page, though that's part. He's going to notice eventually that you continually fit three days of activity into every afternoon, and it's going to make him wonder."
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Stesha nodded. "So in a way, no matter what you decide, you'll be trusting your own instincts, and what you know of this man." She picked up a blueberry scone and buttered it. "It sounds like he's someone you used to be involved with, but you broke things off at some point?" She took a delicate bite and brushed crumbs off her pants. "Maybe you could tell me more about him. Do you still have feelings for him? As in, if none of this had ever happened, do you think you would ever have gotten back together with him?"
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Stesha raised her eyebrows as she listened to the story, her coffee mug cupped in both hands. "That's quite a mess," she agreed when Megan was finished. "Do you have any way of determining whether the person you saw from the alternate timeline was telling the truth?" she added. "That's another complication when dealing with warnings from the future, things are not always what they seem, and the people who come with warnings may not always have your best interests in mind. It's not always easy to know who to believe. But you're reasonably sure that the man who came back in time is trustworthy and was telling you the full truth?"
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"So really, we could pretend to be anyone we wanted," Erin mused aloud as the buildings of Monaco proper began to grow in the distance. "That could be fun. If I wear all that stuff Frank sent with me, maybe I could pass myself off as a fancy rich girl. Think anyone would buy it?" she asked with a laugh. Frank's clothes were beautiful as well as very functional, but even with all her grace, Erin couldn't seem to walk like someone born to gowns and high heels. "I could call you Tristan and you could call me Emilie, and you could do all the talking so no one would notice that I don't actually speak French," she suggested, warming to the game. "And then we could sneak out onto the racetrack and steal one of the cars and take it for a joyride, then disappear in a poof of black smoke, and no one would ever know what had happened."
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Stesha was quiet for a moment, sipping her coffee and giving the question the thought it deserved. "Future timelines are a tricky thing," she said finally, drawing one leg up under the other on the couch. "Every so often a hero does get a message or a visit from a future self or someone who will know them someday, and it's always a sort of puzzle. You've got the warning, but what do you do with it? Do you change everything you were going to do, just to make sure this bad future doesn't come to pass? Or do you just keep going and hope that somehow the things you do are right because you want to do right, and that some timelines just don't turn out?" She gave Megan a sympathetic smile that was edged with just a hint of sorrow. "In the end, most of us who get those warnings from the future wind up ignoring them. There's the occasional "don't go into that building tomorrow!" that's easy enough to follow, but do you end a relationship because you know ahead of time that it's doomed, or quit hero work because eventually you'll die of it? Can you deny yourself a family and your potential children their lives because one of them might do bad things one day?"
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"Oh, we get by," Stesha said glibly, pushing open the door and leading the way into the plant house. Inside, the house was comfortable and surprisingly modern, with an open floor plan that grouped together a small kitchen, a square dining table with a booster seat secured to one of its four chairs, and a conversation grouping of a couch and several chairs around a flat-screen television. "Amaryllis' second birthday is in just a few weeks, I'm planning a little party for her with some of the children from the village. She's too young to really appreciate it, but they will. How do you take your coffee?" She bustled about for a few moments preparing the coffee, laying the pastries out on a plate, then bringing the whole thing over to the coffee table. Only then did she settle down on the couch and study Megan quietly. "You do look troubled," she observed quietly. "What's going on?"
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Stesha hesitated for a bare moment, but she'd come too far to stop now. Turning back didn't really seem to be an option. "Thank you," she told the dryads, doing her best to keep trepidation out of her voice. In some ways, the massive block didn't even seem real, it looked like an artist's conception of a giant treehouse city, or a facade covering real buildings, but every sense told her none of it was fake. Straightening her back and adjusting her cowl, she stepped into the maze of banyans and began walking, the movement of her thumbs as they rubbed the sides of her index fingers the only visible sign of her mounting unease. Surely it had been long enough by now, surely they'd stopped the dimensional incursions...
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"That's very thoughtful, thanks!" The plant yawned opened again, and this time it swallowed them both in its leafy maw. Velocity felt a moment (a long moment, for her!) of disorientation as the world became nothing but green, a light green like the sun shining through spring leaves, and air heavy with the scent of newly mown grass. Within seconds, they were stepping out into an entirely new world. Velocity had heard of Sanctuary, certainly, but she'd never been, and the stories didn't quite do it justice. The spot they were standing on looked like the edge of a forest glade in a fairy tale. All around them was thick deciduous forest, looking completely primeval but for a single path that curved away and out of sight to the south. In the center of the glade was a cottage made of plants, its walls live growing trees woven together with branches and vines, its roof arching limbs covered in broad flat leaves. The windows were made of strange unearthly crystal that caught and sparkled in the sunlight, and the path to the door was lined with seashells. Everywhere there were flowers, growing wild but in a profusion and variety that nature never could've managed on its own. There were other, smaller outbuildings made of plants and earth behind the cottage, and at the back of the clearing a silver windmill rose above the trees, but the initial fantasy impression was still striking. "Welcome to Sanctuary," Fleur told Velocity, immediately shedding cowl and mask in the warm air. "While we're here, you should feel free to call me Stesha. I have coffee ready inside!" She led the way up the path to the house. "How have you been?"
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Stesha shook her head, watching the ship intently. "There's no purpose, we've got nothing but time," she pointed out. "Without their power core, that ship won't be doing much of anything, and the bees can run down any escape pods that try to launch." Around them, the treebound pirates were quickly disappearing from the trees, their fearful or angry cries growing abruptly silent as they were swallowed up by the foliage. "They're stranded far from home, leaderless, and probably low on food and basic supplies, given what we've been hearing from them. Even if they won't surrender as a group, I'm sure we'll start seeing them straggle out quickly enough." One of the little bees flew by overhead, dropping something into Stesha's hands. "Thank you, Beezus!" she called, even as she hefted the megaphone that served as Sanctuary's version of a PA system when Gabriel wasn't around. Turning it on, she stood outside of demonstrated blaster range and addressed the pirate ship. "Attention, pirate crew!" she called in an authoritative voice. "Your ship is disabled, and you are fully surrounded. Your captain has abandoned you on a world that's not your own, in a dimension that is not your own. If you've seen the map of this world, you may already know that the habitable area of this world is less than a hundred square miles, and all of it is patrolled by giant fire-breathing bees. There is nowhere for you to go from here, and no reason to continue fighting. If you put down your weapons and surrender, you will be treated with mercy and not harmed. We will not tolerate piracy, but we have no wish to hurt you." Lowering the megaphone, she stood back to wait, As Blue Jay stood and waited too, her experienced eyes caught motion on the forest floor. Tiny vine tendrils snaked across the hummous and towards her feet, each one bearing an arrow back to its owner. That was the nice thing about stun arrows, arrows that bounced rather than stuck were quite a bit easier to retrieve.
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There wasn't much anyone could do to keep time from passing slowly for a speedster, but at least Fleur was prompt.Right at the appointed time, the potted hibiscus near the door seemed to yawn open with a sudden plethora of leaves and branches, discharging a familiar green-and-brown suited figure. "Hello, Velocity!" Fleur said cheerfully, dusting herself off and ignoring the few stares she was getting from visitors to the Hall. A whole school group across the lobby were staring open-mouthed, obviously having seen a little of the heroic action they were hoping for on their field trip. "I hope you weren't waiting long. Ammy is with her creche today, so we'll actually have time to sit down and chat." She laughed and extended a hand to her teammate. "Ready to go?"
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Erin quirked an amused eyebrow at him as she slid into the passenger seat. "Okay," she allowed, "but I want a chance to drive it later." She'd always thought that everyone in Europe drove on the opposite side of the road, but previous trips to France had cured her of that notion. Just as well, too, since there were plenty of nice cars to want to try out. She buckled her seatbelt as a matter of habit, then tugged the band from her hair as they pulled out into the quick-moving traffic beyond the airport. In a car with just the two of them, she felt comfortable enough to gape at the surroundings and take in all there was to see of Monaco and its blue ocean. "So do you think we'll run into anybody you know at these parties and stuff?" she asked over the rush of the wind.
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Fleur let the conversation go on around her for a few moments as she studied the brash young godling. For someone who'd been dumped on Earth with a fraction of his former power in an apparent bid to keep him out of the way, Set seemed remarkably cheerful about his situation. She wondered if he could be putting up a brave facade, but if he was, he was the finest actor she'd ever seen. He certainly seemed happier to be on Earth than in Heliopolis, and she supposed she couldn't blame him for that. It didn't sound like it had been a pleasant place for him. Even so, his lack of healthy fear was likely to make it harder to keep him out of trouble, even with Sekhmet riding him full time. "I'm not sure there's much we can do now about godly powers lost in another dimension," she suggested gently to Nick, "though you're right it's something to be concerned about. For the moment, we should try and address the more mundane concerns that we can do something about. Do either of you have a place to stay?" she asked the traveling pair. "Do you need to eat or sleep in the bodies you have now? The League has resources to help indigents from other realms get on their feet and get established on Earth Prime."
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Sense Motive check: How does Set really feel about being on Earth and without most of his powers? Stesha rolls a 30
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Erin gave him a quick smile, offsetting the uncomfortable shrug at the reminder of family talk from earlier. "Sure it means something," she told him. "We're teammates from way back, and we always will be. I know if I needed help, you'd be there just as fast." She let out a short laugh. "And I guess I'm really grateful we're never going to legally be family the way the Mark and Erin were in that messed-up universe, but family's not all about blood and marriage. I guess maybe it's just about being there." She looked towards the house, where lights were still burning in most of the windows. "You going to be okay in there? You want me to come in with you and talk to her?"
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Erin dutifully fastened her seatbelt and packed away her book and her iPod before settling in for landing. A few quick breathing exercises calmed the quick rush of nerves that came from approaching a new place and a very new situation, where it was going to be busy and things would be strange. Three years ago, she wouldn't have been brave enough to do any of this, and just talking to a new guy at school was about as far as her social courage extended. She'd come a long way. They both had, really. Feeling as relaxed as she was likely to get, she gave Trevor's fingers a quick squeeze as the plane's wheels bumped the tarmac for a glass-smooth landing. "Food, hotel, and swimming," she decided aloud. "In whatever order seems convenient." The first class passengers got to disembark first, so it wasn't more than a couple of minutes before they were out of the plane and into the jetway in a whole new country. "It's a lot different than the last time we came to France," Erin observed. "Just plopped down in the middle of Paris to fight robots at the Eiffel Tower."
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"Uh-huh." Erin had her face to the window, watching avidly as they circled to land at the seaside airport. "It's gorgeous down there. The water is so blue..." She paused a moment, looked again. "And if the pilot's not careful, we'll fall right off the runway into it. It's like the runways end in the ocean or something. What a weird setup!" From the sound of it, she wasn't particularly worried. She'd enjoyed the plane ride quite a bit, first class travel with no disasters and the person she liked best in the world going with her. "We should make sure to go to the beach sometime when we're not watching the race."
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"Well, if you're anything like the gods we've seen before, it probably involved giving up enough of your power to drop below the threshold of godhood," Stesha guessed. "It seems as though the Pact focuses on divine power rather than mythological standing or number of worshipers when determining who is a god and who is not bound by the Pact. "Or," she added, allowing for other possibilities with a tilt of her head, "you could've been reincarnated and born into a mortal body, I think that's worked at least once, or renounced godhood entirely and become a mortal man. Each of those methods comes with its own set of problems, but the first is generally the most straightforward. What did you have to do?"
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Koshiro accepted the list and studied it with a raised eyebrow. A few of the names were familiar, but nobody jumped out as someone they actually knew. "I've got a better idea," he suggested. "You leave the list with us, we check up on things however we decide to, and then decide if we're going to come to your get-together? There's a reason you don't check someone's references when they're standing right in the room with you." He folded the paper, more from habit than anything else. "If we do decide to come," he added, "what's the dress code and the protocol like? Is this going to be some stuffy suit and tie thing? And are people actually going to be getting down and doing magic, or just talking about it and drinking?"