Electra

Danica thought about that for a minute, looking contemplatively down into her shell and puzzling over the words. It was a hefty dose of knowledge to have to think about, maybe more than could be absorbed all at one time. She looked like she was going to give it a go, though. Finally, she looked back up at Ellie. "You know," she said contemplatively, "I guess that makes sense. Some of my friends are dating, but some of them aren't, even the older ones. I just have to, like, self-actualize and find what fulfills me." She paused another moment. "I think my high school years would be pretty fulfilling if I got to drive a cool tortoise van and make bad guys mad at me." She managed to hold the serious face for a moment longer before her entire face crumpled into an eye crinkling, nose-wrinkling giggle.

Raina took one more shot at the angry biker, but wasn't too concerned when that one didn't hit. She was concentrating on finding Merlin, holed up securely behind a bank of pay lockers well away from the action. "Please tell me you found something useful about these guys." The monkey shrugged. The Devil's Advocates were a biker gang, small time, but with apparently recently-acquired superpowers. The story was that they'd gotten those powers in a deal with the devil. "That's it?" Raina asked. "No real names, no HQ?" Merlin reminded her tartly that she wasn't giving him much time or space to work here, and he was doing his best. Perhaps she ought to go actually deal with the problem while he prevented future ones! Grumbling, Raina turned back to the fight, but this time she opened her magical senses to try and get an idea of what they were dealing with here.

Danica's squeak of joy at being chosen by the robot was nearly too high-pitched to hear. "You are so cool!" she told the bugbot, even as she expanded her shell by a foot or two so she could get a better look without hurting her own neck. "Look how pretty you are, and so clever!" The little rush of compliments from people about the party had her smiling and ducking her head. "You guys are way too nice! I did the planning, but I had a lot of help from other people! Make sure you try the frosted snickerdoodles, my mom made them special for the party!" she added. "Oh look, Judy's going to sing!" A loyal friend, Danica got quiet to listen, though she was in no way capable of clapping with the beat the way Judy was encouraging people to do.

Paige asked a few questions about the trip, but she seemed to have the same sense as Ellie about what parts of the story would be most relevant to the show. The bit about camping got a laugh from her. "It's not for everyone," she agreed. "I always preferred RV camping, and it sounds like you all were roughing it." She sat forward in her seat a little. "I've always found that the best and worst part of camping is all the time that it gives you to think. What did you think about when you were out there? Did you have any guesses about what was happening on Earth?"

Raina's going to take one more shot at Cueball (no joy this time!) and return to ground level in the protected cubby where Merlin is hiding out. Merlin has been trying to get more information on these guys based on tracking the phone signal and on the names and info they have dropped so far. Merlin has Online Research and a skill mastered 28 with computers.

"Huh, I never thought about that, but it makes sense," Stesha admitted. "I wonder how GK does it when he's working underground." GK, in this context, was pretty easy to place as Gaian Knight, Fleur's geokinetic colleague on the Freedom League and neighbor on the planet she'd created. "I guess it would be pretty hard to see or get your bearings in the middle of solid rock." A sudden smile lit her features. "But if you think that's gross, you should see when I have the flowers doing toxic waste cleanup instead of picking up cigarette butts. That gets very gross. And it's not really good for the individual plant, no, but it's good for the planet they all live on. It's a noble cause." For the moment the barfing flower looked none the worse for its efforts, straight and bizarrely tall against the blanket of its smaller fellows.

Raina crowed triumphantly as the hairy guy went down under a hail of fire and some weird martial arts tap from the other guy. She'd have to ask Erik about that one, see if she could learn how to knock a guy out by poking him. In the meantime, she formed another fireball and hurled it straight into Baldy's pouting face, blowing him backwards into the side of the bus with concussive force. Sweeping across the sky, she could suddenly hear the roar of additional engines. "We're about to have more company," she called to her ally on the ground.

Yay, bye-bye to Buddy! Raina will turn her attention and her fireball to Cueball. She's going to take another potshot at him, then do a move action swoop to get out of the way again and see if she can spot any other evil looking bikers coming in. Wow, for once I got a good roll and didn't have to spend HP and sacrifice a chicken for it. Fireball roll is a 29. Autofire is on.

"That is so cute..." Danica breathed, studying the robot. She looked like she wanted to pet it or hug it, but was afraid she'd probably crush the little thing. Instead of touching it at all, she turned and gave Ryder a smile. "Hey, I'm Danica! I know I've seen you around this year, but I don't think we have any classes together. Your outfit is so cool! Did you build that robot? Is her name really Magenta? Did you watch Blues Clues when you were little?" She paused then, as though trying to calculate time. "I mean, that was probably on then, right? Magenta was my favorite character."

Up on the deck, the sound of a shot jolted Singularity from her stuporous stare into the dark hatch. Her friend was down there, her friend was in danger. The zombie said Hex was down there, and bad, bad, bad things could be happening. She did not remember what Hex looked like, but Hex was more scary than almost anything. She had to get down there before anything terrible could happen to Aquaria. The blank white void crept over her, but that was okay for now. It made it so much easier to work. Wraith had suggested ripping the ship in half, but it was faster to merely dive in headfirst, tumbling as she landed to come up running. It was dark and she hit a few things on her way but they were all much less tough than she was. There was a strange wailing noise in the air, but she didn't notice that it was her. The last room she came to was full of a sickly glow, most of it illuminating some kind of undead monster with a cauldron. It was very, very wrong, and it had to stop. Heedless of anything but that imperative, Singularity plowed forward and smashed into it full on, one fist aiming for the chin and one for the solar plexus.

Singularity will use her move action to jump down the hatch, speed into the room, and hit the witch as hard as she can. Fast Startle, intimidate, skill mastery is 25 All-out power attack. that's a full shift of -5 defense and +5 damage It's a 14 but it is enough Damage DC is 30

Danica looked after Ashley, wide-eyed. "Please tell me you know how to fix this," she begged, her eyes as big and pleading as any of the children. "You're the responsible adult here, how do we fix this before we are all interstellar criminals who have to go to space jail?" Things got very quiet for a moment at that, and Danica abruptly modified her tone to something much more cheerful. "Guess what, guys? We get to ride on an elephant! It's so exciting! Just be careful while it's moving so you don't fall down! Yay!"

With the knot around the food table breaking up and Elena safely catching her breath, Danica figured things were going pretty well so far! Ryder's shout caught her attention, making her follow his gaze to the drinks table. "Oh my god, look at it!" she squeaked. "It's a bug robot, and it's pink for Valentines Day!" The tortoise girl couldn't exactly move fast, but she was basically an unstoppable force in a crowd and was able to make her way to the table for a better look. "Oh, you're so pretty!" she cooed. "Are you trying to get a drink? Can you drink drinks?"

Paige nodded. "We're working on a graphic of the ringworld to put on the episode," she told Jill, "but the graphics guys are having a very hard time of it. It's hard to wrap your brain around even when you aren't standing on it." She took a sip from her water bottle and set it aside again. "So you traveled overland for awhile? Did you have a destination in mind, or were you just trying to find somewhere safer? What did you see?"

Despite her climb into the air, Raina hadn't gone quite far enough to avoid the pathogen. For a long, scary moment, she couldn't stop coughing, stuck in an invisible uncontrolled tumble as she struggled to breathe. Going up helped a little bit, helped her get some clean air in her lungs. "That's it, you asshole," she muttered, her voice raspy and hoarse. "See how you like breathing some real bad air." Even humming was agony on her throat, but it was enough to take the flicker of lighter flame and turn it into a roaring fireball that spilled over the unfortunate Buddy like a bucket of burning water. She took a split second to admire her work and then flew away again, higher and to a different angle, making it that much harder to target on her.

"I'll take a free hug," Danica told Luke, possibly crushing some of his attempt at coolness by giving him an enthusiastic hug. Danica's hugs were heartfelt but slightly uncomfortable, given the hardness of her shell plate. "Your outfit is great too! And Pan's a cowboy! This is awesome!" Even as she spoke, Danica was deftly scooting the group of classmates further down the length of the food tables to give Elena a little air and a little space. "I'm so glad so many people could come!" Other students were entering now as well, mostly singles or couples, and largely sticking to the walls like teenagers at a school dance. "I hope the music is okay," Danica said, "I put a couple of playlists on my iPod and hooked it up, but there's a whole stereo thing. I'm kind of hoping some people who are good at music will help out and get folks dancing."

"We're not saying that everybody on that screen is a robot, that's be crazy!" Devin assured him. "Honestly, I don't think there's maybe more than a dozen, tops. But fourteen duplicates rained down hell on us during the first Day of Wrath, and these will have had a decade to get their claws in, instead of just a month or two. Imagine what would've happened if the infiltrators had been trying to cause destruction instead of a lot of noise and mess. Sixty people died just as collateral damage, but it could've been so much worse. It could still be so much worse." "We think there's going to be a pattern," Kinsley picked up smoothly. Rising from her chair, she put a posterboard up on the easel. A timeline again, but this one starting at the end of the infiltration and moving forward. "Given the behavior of the first set of infiltrators, we believe that the secret robots would have gone to ground either just before or just after the Day of Wrath, within the previous year or six months after. A fifteen month gap between Stratos and Quickstep doesn't make any sense unless you put something in there, right?" "So heroes who had some significant change in activity, or a new codename, moved to a new city, fell off the radar, any of that stuff could be a clue. Especially if you've got heroes who were social before and suddenly they ditch their team, or stop returning voicemails, stuff like that," Devin told Richard, advancing the Powerpoint again to "Suspicious Factors" "Our problem is that we're not privy to any of that," Kinsley admitted. "We can see general patterns, who's in the news, who is responding to calls or patrolling their usual beats. But superheroes are notoriously closedmouthed about their social behaviors and home lives. How are we supposed to know if some hero broke up with their significant other and ditched their team, then just disappeared one day?" "The only way to figure this stuff out is if an actual superhero does the searching," Devin agreed. "It's a matter of trust."

"Because maybe she wasn't programmed to," Kinsley answered simply. "Maybe there were supposed to be waves of mayhem, but the Curator never got a chance to activate all of them. Maybe some were designed to be long-term sleepers. Or maybe some of them were activated and we didn't notice because they were villains, and villains do villainous things and disappear _all the time_. Why do you think nobody realized Stratos was gone for so long? They caught his robot, sure, but nobody was even surprised that Stratos wasn't around. Look at these heroes." She gestured to the screen. "How many of those have you seen lately? A few of them, sure, but a lot of them have just disappeared. Where did they go?"

"Do you think somebody could do that?" Danica asked, relaxing partway out of her shell at the idea of a tortoisemobile. "I don't really know anybody who does super-tech stuff. I met the old Master Mage a few times when I was little, and somebody looks me over every couple years to see how my magic is developing, but I never really needed, like, super-technology when I get around okay on the scooter." She nodded to her Segway. "But actually being able to drive would be totally rad." As to the other question, she just shrugged. "I dunno?" she finally ventured. "I mean the idea of being in love is cool, but I don't think about it a lot, you know? It's something to do when I grow up. I love my friends, but the idea of picking one friend to spend all my time with sounds kind of lame. And kissing and making out..." She rolled her eyes. "I mean eventually, I guess? My mom and dad say that it's okay not to want to, but that I might just be too young still. I just kind of feel like it's a big high school thing and I'm going to miss out."

The door was quickly opened by a young person, maybe college age, wearing a black SuperCrime! jumpsuit and a nervous smile. "Hello! Great! Yes! You're in the right place!" they told him, stepping back from the door to allow the hero into the studio. "We're just about ready to get started, just adjusting some camera angles. I'm Vivi, I'm the PA, can I get you a snack, a drink? Will you be wearing a mask for the interview or will you need makeup?" The small studio held the rest of the SuperCrime filming crew, which seemed to consist of two arguing cameramen, a woman with a whole tableful of microphones, a man with a very large computer tablet, and Hologram herself, touching up her makeup in front of a small mirror. Paige Cline waved to him as he came in. "Hello, thanks for coming in!" she called. "Sorry, we had a little technical problem, but we'll be ready in two shakes."

Danica turned to greet Pan as he approached. "Pan! Your outfit is radical!" she enthused. "Everybody's wearing such neat clothes! And Eira, you and Astrid mat-" She trailed off as Eira veered off into the locker room. "Ooh, maybe that's not what she wanted. But all her clothes are on the computer anyway, so she'll find something cool. Pan, this is Elena, we met her the other day fighting Omegadrones, and now she's coming to school with us!"

"Ugh, Doctor Midas is such a jerk. I can't believe he got out of prison again." Stesha made a face. "I am absolutely all for rehabilitation, except for the folks who make it pretty clear that they like crime very much and don't want to stop doing it. But it sounds pretty quiet overall. That's nice, I prefer fighting crime when it's warm out." Laughing, she flicked her fingers in the direction of the flowers she'd made. One blossom began to stretch, its stem growing to a sturdy three-foot-tall column, tall enough that the daisy on top could lean into the trash bin and vomit out all the collected refuse like a Saturday night drunk. "Cleaning up parks is sort of a habit at this point. Freedom City's are usually pretty clean already, but it's nice to help. I'm guessing the goggles aren't just a costume piece, then? What do they do?"

Raina fails her reflex save and passes the fort save. She's going to try and set Buddy on fire for realsies this time, then retreat out of pathogen range. She fails her first attack roll, spending an HP. She gets a 27 on the reroll. Autofire is in play.

"It's not so much the abductees we're really worried about," Kinsley explained, gesturing to Devin. He hit the button on the laptop, advancing the powerpoint to a new page, still with abductee pictures, but now with notes attached as well. "Or most of them, anyway. Fourteen abductees, heroes and villains, gone from between seven days and eighteen months." Another press, and the pictures were in two groups. "Most of them were kept on Earth, but a few were taken off-planet for further study on the Curator's ringworld. Heroes are efficient once they figure out there's a problem, though, and all the abductees were recovered within seventy-two hours of the first recorded freakout. We're pretty sure the ones on Earth all received medical examinations, since they went straight to MacNeider when they were picked up." "Yeah, except for Orion and Magni Thorsson," Devin cut in, his voice pitching slightly higher with excitement. "One of whom escaped while being transported, the other of whom left by teleporter, claiming he was needed for an emergency and just never came back to the hospital. The guy we talked to said his chart was definitely blank!" "So that's two unaccounted for," Kinsley agreed, "and then the group taken off Earth. They're harder to find information for, but we do know that since the infiltration, three have married their partners, one has visibly grown up, and one, Dr. Stratos, actually got a physical evaluation that we know about. Two of them, Beekeeper III and Blue Jay, have pretty much disappeared off the radar, but that's surprisingly common with teen heroes and is hard to factor into our model. But it's basically four possibles of fourteen." "Which is peanuts," Devin announced, advancing the screen again. Suddenly the laptop was crowded with tiny photos of dozens and dozens of heroes. "Compared to the folks who never got checked at all. We at least know that these folks got replaced, but what about the people who were replaced and nobody ever noticed?"

Years of experience had given Raina a very polished sort of half-amused poker face, but anyone looking closely could see the way her eyes widened slightly as the brochure and tickets slid out of the envelope. She glanced at the vouchers and then opened the brochure, skimming information about trail rides and amenities. "I... wow, I had no idea there were places like that around here," she mused. "I mean, it makes sense that there are places around here but I never really thought to look for one... Gods, I wonder if I even still remember how to ride anything that's not a broom." She went to set the brochure down but Merlin snatched it up first, opening and skimming it the same way Raina had, with intense interest. Raina tucked the vouchers back into the envelope instead, carefully not rumpling the edges even a little. "It's a great present, Fred," she finally said, looking down the table towards her friend. "But if you think I'm wasting a full weekend of horse riding on some guy, you're nuts! Two weekends of riding is vastly superior to one weekend of trying to teach some rando how to sit a saddle." She laughed. light and easy. "Thanks, seriously. It's awesome."