Electra
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"Don't touch her!" Fleur exclaimed, running through the crunching leaves to kneel down by the fallen woman, opposite Comrade Frost. "You'll just make it worse!" she added with a definite snap in her voice. Even in stressful circumstances, it was not the way she usually spoke to teammates or fellow heroes. "If she's a plant controller and you put a hand on her, you'll probably kill her. We need the STAR Squad paramedics up here," she said into her radio. To Willow, she called, "Did you hear what she was saying about the wind changing, and "him" coming? Is there anything you can see or sense out there?"
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Fleur will roll a Medicine Check on the woman, She gets a 22.
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With most of the engineering crew entangled by the mass of plant life, the only visible remaining threat was the horrific cyclopean chief engineer. Blue Jay had him in her sights, though, and seemed to be doing a pretty good job peppering him with arrows. There was time to deal with a little housekeeping. Waving her hands, Fleur sent all the trapped pirates to the safe confinement of the green space between dimensions. She left the unconscious one on the floor for the moment; he didn't look like he'd be getting up any time soon. "Smash every console and computer," she instructed the trees. "Rip out the wires if you find them." Keeping her eyes on Blue Jay, she remained crouched behind a partition for the moment, waiting for an opportunity to help out.
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"In any case, it's not something we have to think about for a long time." Part of Gina was curious to know about the woman Steve had loved, but it sounded like a very painful subject on several levels. It also weirded her out a little to do the math and realize that, given the years Steve had spent as a drone, if the woman had lived she'd be Gina's grandma's age now, or even older. Thinking about how old Steve was always managed to creep her out just a little bit, but it was actually one of the less-creepy things she'd managed to accept about him. "But if you're curious, you could always get a medical workup to see what might still be swimming down there," she suggested. "I could probably do it, but not till I get the robot put back together and some equipment rounded up."
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Gina took the plate he offered, her hand brushing his lightly as she did so. "I'm glad you're content," she told him as she walked to the table, "and I sure as hell am not ready for parenthood, but that stuff about not making a good father is bull. Lots of men become fathers without having half your bravery and integrity. A lot of them don't even bother to think it over first." She was distracted enough to scoop up a forkful of eggs and eat it without thinking. "Look at my dad, he had no spine and no imagination and managed to raise three kids anyway. You're ten times the man he was. If you wanted to be a dad, I'm sure you'd be a good one."
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There was a long moment of complete silence in the kitchen, broken only by the sizzle and pop of the bacon still frying in the pan. Gina thought longingly of the half-finished robot sitting in her private lab, wishing she'd managed to get it done already. If she were in the Miss Americana shell, it would be so much easier to think of the right thing to say. Instead, she just stood there like a jackass while her brain chased itself in small circles. "It's not like that here," she finally said, swallowing past the lump lodged in her throat. "I'm sorry, so sorry, about what happened to you and your family. But if I were going to kill myself, I'd have done it years ago. I don't have that in me. And this isn't the Terminius. It's... it's not like that here."
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A few minutes of privacy had allowed Gina to regain some equilibrium, even if this was a conversation she'd rather kick down the road till... well, possibly never. She shrugged calmly at the question and pulled a carton of orange juice from the fridge. "Like I said, I obviously haven't given this nearly as much thought as you seem to have. I don't know yet if I want kids, or when, or how. There's a lot I want to do with my life, and the way things are, I wouldn't be able to do them the same way if I were a mom." She poured one tall glass of juice for Steve, then a half-glass for herself. "Anyway, it would be stupid to even consider at this point in my life, out of the question. I can barely take care of myself." As she spoke, Gina popped the top on a can of Mountain Dew and poured it into her orange juice. "But we've had the birth control chat already, and it's been weeks since you came back form the ringworld. What's bringing this on now?"
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Gina rubbed the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. "Just because you've had bad things happen and have seen bad things happen, that doesn't mean you don't have what it takes to be a father, if that's what you want. Though it wouldn't happen for a long time, I mean, if we were going to go that route, which I don't know..." She shook her head. "Look, can you just get out of the bathtub and we can have this conversation somewhere else? I have to pee, and I feel like we're in the middle of a Monty Python sketch or something."
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Gina gaped at him for a minute, her prodigious brain blanking like a hard drive shaken too hard. "I... what?" she stammered. "I mean, no, I haven't even really thought about it seriously, I'm only twenty-four and in no shape to take care of another human being. Taking care of Sharl is weird enough and I'm pretty sure he doesn't even count." She rubbed both hand down her face, stretching her skin over her cheekbones. "Did you spend all night sitting in the bathtub wondering if we're going to have kids? Jesus, Steve, that seems a little bit premature."
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Gina rubbed her forehead and tried to blink away drowsiness. "Yes, I see you are in the bathtub," she agreed. "I might be missing something here, but it doesn't look like you're taking a bath. Have you been sitting there all night?" She tried to remember whether he'd gotten out of bed last night, but they'd retired late and she was not a light sleeper. "Why weren't you in bed?"
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Wander Fleur de Joie Miss Americana Papercut NPC Vignettes are posted for all four characters. All Vignette points and maxed-character posts and NPC posts go first to Wander, then to Papercut.
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Fleur murmured a quiet imprecation at the horrific scene that unfolded in front of them, her eyes going wide. She'd seen plants do many strange things, caused them to do plenty of strange things herself, but nothing remotely like this. One of the vines hurtling from the woman's body smashed into Fleur, but the instant it made contact, it seemed to wither, turning brittle and dropping ineffectually to the ground. "We have to help her, or stop her... maybe both." Fleur shuddered. "Stand back," she told Willow, then raised her own arms and matched the hostile magic with her own powers. For a moment she could feel the press of the other against her senses, very alien, very primal, with the sort of intelligence that she usually attributed to plants themselves. The two forces warred, but Fleur's well-honed abilities quickly overcame the power of the plants. The entire mass of greenery began to wither, rapidly dessicating and shedding leaves, before decaying into a fine carpet of humus like a time-lapse film of a dead plant. The woman behind all the greenery immediately collapsed, and it was impossible to tell what shape she was in. "The helicopter!" Fleur said urgently to Willow. "Can you do something?"
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"Oh hey, look who's finally back from vacation." Koshiro didn't bother getting up from the couch he was sprawled on, but he did spare Sharl a glance before flicking the crane he'd just finished in his roommate's direction. The tiny white paper crane flapped its wings madly as it shot across the room and began orbiting Sharl's head. "And I had five bucks that said you'd wait another couple days to avoid the Modern Languages group project." He gave an exaggerated sigh for the loss, but couldn't quite conceal a smile of pleasure and relief. The question about Sharl's family made Koshiro go serious, at least for a moment. "Yeah, far as I know they're okay. Some technician hero was down in the system after we left, I'm sure he'd have said something." He looked to Kimber for confirmation on that. "Both Troniks are plugged in and working good. But I guess you don't remember the stuff we did in Erde, or getting the hard drive or anything?"
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Hits Fleur, but does not hurt. Those vines do NOT look like they belong in the places where they are coming out of, eeek! They better go away. Fleur is going to use her Disintegration power to try and make that happen. DC 23 Fortitude save to avoid the Drain Toughness, followed by a DC 28 Toughness save. Move action to seek cover.
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"Attack anything in gold that escapes my trap," Fleur told the trees quietly, trusting they'd understand. While the trees were busily uprooting themselves, Stesha sorted another handful of seeds from her pouch and scattered it into the grated flooring, watching them disappear among the thick cables of bundled wire that carried power throughout the engine room. Vines quickly began to choke out the cables, zooming thorugh the floor with a destination obviously in mind. Within seconds, they'd reached the pack gold-shirted engineers, and all at once burst seemingly from everywhere. Vines exploding from the floor, dropping from the ceiling, popping out of the access tubes she'd seeded on the way here. In seconds, the entire group was enmeshed in writhing green, with only the occasional arm or leg visible from the outside. One especially agile gold-shirt on the edge of the group managed to leap clear of the questing vines, racing away and leaving his fellows behind without a qualm. He had just enough time to look smug before the trees were upon him, surrounding him and bashing him to the ground with their strong wooden limbs. He might have been better off staying trapped.
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Standard Action: Spending another HP to stunt: Snare 15 (Extra: Area [shapeable], Flaw: Distracting) {30/44] Reflex save vs DC 25 from the pack of minions. Move Action: Command trees to attack any minions who didn't get snared.
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"Ow!" Fleur yelped as the blaster hit her in the shoulder. "This is a new costume!" she told the pirate wrathfully, even as she fell back to better cover behind a set of consoles. She picked the one that looked most complex and important, found some kind of input hole, and dropped a handful of little acorns into it. They made a pleasing rattling sound as they fell into the guts of the machine, just before they began to grow. In moments, the console splintered into a million pieces from the force of five full-grown oak trees bursting out of it, each one large, imposing, and surprisingly mobile. "Get the leader!" Fleur told Tona. "I'll work on the underlings."
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Fleur is going to use her move action to step behind the nearest decent cover. Standard action to summon her tree minions, which will become active next round. There are five of them, and they all use this sheet: Spend an HP to surge, drop a handful of seeds into the closest dataport and transform them into big trees.
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Fleur takes a bruise.
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Fleur goes on 19.
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Fleur goes on 18
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"They won't steal our goats," Stesha pointed out, "but they will go somewhere else, won't they? Someplace where maybe they don't have any defenses against pirates. I don't think these people would've stopped with just taking farm animals once they realized this planet doesn't have anything valuable for them. And if they're mad enough, they may round up some of their friends and come back for another try. I don't want to have to be watching the skies for pirates, you know?" She thought about what Tona had said. "Yes, I suppose we can try and get down to the engines. Sanctuary's own defenses have had a good go at them already, hopefully we can give them another hard push before we're too high in the sky." She began running down the corridor, leaving lights sparking and consoles buzzing fitfully behind them as the plants in the walls continued to spread.
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"Her life is still worth saving," Stesha murmured, just loud enough so the wind didn't whip the words away before Willow could hear. "If we grab her, if we save her by force when she wants to die, then she hasn't made the choice to live. She could try again and be even more desperate next time. If we can talk to her, maybe we can convince her that there's always something to live for, and maybe she'll step down on her own accord. If she cracked all these windows, she could've done much worse than put the guards down for a nap, but she didn't. There's still hope." She took a few steps forward, trying to take in the whole situation on the observation deck before making contact with the girl on the edge. It bothered her a little to be so far from the earth, but she ignored that as she would a nagging itch. Something was strange about the setup here, something was just a little off, but she didn't know what it was. Maybe she should've taken more psychology classes in school.
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"No, it's good!" Stesha insisted. "If they jettison this whole thing, they've got no hydroponics and they're stuck with whatever rations they've got left, and whatever air they've got. And we can just teleport right to the ground. So, ah, stay close," she advised as they both dashed through the door and into an open corridor moments before it sealed behind them. "So, which way to the bridge, do you think?" she asked Tona, even as she casually sorted through a handful of seeds from her pouch. "I would guess towards the top, but that's just because of science fiction shows. I don't really know." Walking over to the wall, she tipped the handful of seeds into the nearest vent. Within moments, leaves began poking out as plants began to grow at a phenomenal rate behind the wall, poking shoots and roots into all sorts of places where they shouldn't be.
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While Tona was vomiting, Stesha studied the layout of the room. She was no great shakes with technology, but even she could tell that one wall seemed to have the controls for the hydroponics bay on it, or at least a lot more computer screens and gauges than the others. She bet a wall like that might have the water tubes that fed the garden running through it, not to mention cables into the computers, perhaps wires providing electricity, joists stabilizing other rooms... it might be a very important wall. "Stopping the ship seems like a good plan," Stesha agreed, focusing intently on the long rows of plants and herbs. "I wonder how much damage it can take before it has to set down and shut down." All at once, vines began spilling out from the tanks like rows of huge green octopi spreading tentacles towards the computer wall. Within moments they were starting to press against the wall, firmly at first, then harder and harder, covering every bit of the wall until screens began to shatter and the walls began to scream in metallic protest. "I'd have an arrow ready," she advised Tona. "They can probably hear this."