Electra
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Freedom City PBP: A How-To Guide
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"A surveyor?" Stesha's lips curved at that idea. "Well, we've never had one of those before. I wonder what they'll make of the place." Rising, she fetched a pot of coffee from the kitchen, bringing it to the table with a serving set and mugs. "You'll understand that people who don't intend to make this place home can't be privy to all the information about it," she advised. "I'd appreciate if you would keep them away from my home, and from the village." The smile returned, widened. "You may want to steer clear of the Bee Meadow as well. The bees wouldn't mind a few visitors on the ground, but your surveyors might not feel the same way."
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Papercut nodded, studying Citizen and Rogue as they talked at each other. "All right, we just need a distraction... " He looked up to see Sage plummeting through the air, blade in hand, ready to kick some computer villain ass. "That'll do it," he decided. With a flick of his hand, he launched a paper plane at the annihilation device, letting it unfold and refold in midair until it dropped around the device as a paper box the size of a dorm refrigerator, neatly as a horseshoe ringing the goal. One side of the box remained open just enough to allow Wraith to flow inside. "Now," he urged her, watching for any sign that the goons would try and stop them.
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"There are too many of them," Papercut muttered to Wraith, looking from villain to villain. "With Sage and Citizen both fighting Rogue, you and I wouldn't be able to take the rest out in time. And if they start beating her, she might set the bomb off just to be a dick. We need some way to stop the bomb." He thought for a second. "But it's not actually an exploding bomb, it's a computer signal. If we could keep that signal from getting out, like with some kind of protective box, then she couldn't detonate it. All I've got to work with is paper, though." He looked consideringly at his metal teammate. "How good are you at magnetizing yourself?"
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Cockroaches themselves were hardly a new horror for Wander, who had, after all, already seen them inherit the earth. Seeing cockroaches turn into a humanoid and start a fight, however, was quite a different matter. "Creepy," she opined under her breath. Not wasting any more words on a creature who obviously wasn't open to negotiations, nor wasting much in the way of finesse, she raised her bat and went in low, twirling her bat through the mass of bugs. It wasn't the most effective of attacks, but she did some damage, distracting and slowing the swarm. "We need to contain them," she called to the others. "We can't squish all of them."
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"He's used to it." Erin White wasn't as good at being stealthy as her longtime boyfriend, but Mark's flashy entrance would've covered far less subtle movers than she. For the party, she'd dressed up in a cotton skirt of navy blue with a white and blue blouse that just managed to avoid looking exactly like a sailor suit. She carried a gift bag tied with a pink ribbon, from which the corner of an oversized envelope protruded. With a quick smile for Mark, she nodded to Etain. Trevor hadn't spoken much about Eve's girlfriend, but she'd apparently passed his exam, so she had to be all right. "I'm Erin," she introduced herself. "It's a nice day for a party."
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Erin was startled for a moment by Mara's response, enough so that she couldn't quite conceal the surprise. Pulling hundreds of survivors off a Terminus-ruined world would be a substantial undertaking in itself, let alone figuring out what to do with them afterwards. It wasn't that she disagreed, not even a little. It was just that most of the time, rescuing anyone from an alternate dimension first required convincing people that the effort was worth it. But the survivors were human, even if they might be extra copies here, and they needed help. Raising her communicator, she muttered instructions to the other security guards for calling in backup and securing the building. Bringing a large force along would only complicate things, but they'd want a secure facility to bring people back into. She checked the bat at her belt and looked to Harrier. "This could get ugly," she murmured. "You could stay here and head up the logistics."
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"When would you want to start?" Stesha asked. "The seasons are a little rougher here, though I do what I can to keep things smoother inside the bubble. We're moving into the warmer months now, so time is going to be an important factor if you want to move on the idea this year." She smiled, a little ruefully. "You haven't seen winter till you've seen a winter storm on Sanctuary where there aren't thousands of trees controlling the wind and keeping the ground together. Of course, you'll be in the bubble, or I can expand it around you, so that's not so bad. Do you think you can get something set up before autumn?"
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Wander lifted Midnight carefully into the air, bringing him up close to her face both so that he could get a good look at the city and so she could get a closer look at him. He seemed so tiny, proportionately smaller than the Barbie dolls she'd played with as a child, and even more fragile than usual now that she was so impossibly outsized. What would happen to them if she stayed this size and couldn't go back? What would happen to her? Where would she go if it rained? That train of thought was both fruitless and frightening, so she put it aside for the moment, merely cupping her palm slightly to ensure Trevor wasn't going to fall out. "Lots of air traffic tonight," she observed, watching as people zipped by, in or out of control, in the skies around her.
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Wander will do a 5pt Power Attack against the creature with her bat, using her Inspire bonus to make up the lost points. First roll was really awful, just hideous. Spending an HP. She gets a 22. That's DC 30 damage if it hits.
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Erin automatically took the box of pastries Ellie carried and set them aside, then secured the door against further intrusion. "What's your tactical situation?" she asked the harried-looking man on the screen, her voice crisp and emotionless. "How many survivors do you have with you? Has your base been discovered by Mandragora or the Omegadrones? Do you have an escape route off Earth at this point?" The question of where one would go to escape the Terminus was certainly a valid one, but sometimes life did find a way, even in the face of entropy and doom.
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Erin startled, first at the unexpected sound of a human voice, then again at the crash of porcelain on tile. She looked to Murdock. "Mandragora?" she repeated. "He's an Annihilist, isn't he? Do you think these people don't know about Omega at all, or did Mandragora win the power struggle in the Terminus?" Her own throat was dry and her stomach clenched from the contents of the message, but by concentrating on the here and now, it was easier to push aside the inescapable memories of her lost world. "I can look up the name, see if there's a Samsonl Powers to correspond on Prime," she said, picking up her phone.
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Erin raised her eyebrows at Murdock's obvious insinuation as to what he'd spent the weekend doing. It was hard for her to imagine her coworker doing anything social with anyone, much less dating successfully enough to get laid. Then again, there were probably more than a few people who thought the same about her, so she didn't have a lot of room to talk. She was saved from having to come up with a response by Mara's sudden attention. "Could it be a trick?" was her immediate thought. "Maybe whoever made it put up some stupid easy code to cover up whatever they really wanted to say, and figured no one would look further."
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"I'll tell him," Erin replied, taking a sip from her own bottle of water. "He knows more about coffee than fancy waiters know about wines. He'll be glad you liked it." She leaned against the wall as she kept an eye on things, checking her comm unit occasionally for updates from other parts of the facility. Her great stamina meant she could've easily stood at attention for the past few hours while the scientists worked, but she'd found it tended to make people jumpy if the security guards seemed too focused. With all stations reporting green for the moment, there was little to do but wait. "How'd you enjoy your weekend off?" she asked Murdock idly.
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"On our way," Koshiro reported, motioning to Sage to board the plane. As soon as she was on, he took off at top speed, heading in the direction Freebooter had pointed them. "Freebooter's gone, he says that the plankton harbor has an annihilation device, the biggest one, and that if it goes off, it could ruin the whole mainframe. Even if you have backups, that sounds real bad. You better get started as soon as you can. We'll be there in five, maybe less." The paper plane tore silently through the air like a dart, heading straight for the danger.
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"That's not true," Fleur replied, holding her hands up in a defensive posture. "Those children are innocents, no matter who their parents are. And it doesn't matter whether they're heroes or villains, people like Madame Zero still love their children. You can't just go around stealing and hurting and using children! It stops here, right now." The daisy chain around Chloe grew and lengthened, until it was daisy rope, binding and tightening around the "girl's" body. "I'm sorry you're stuck far from your home, but my sympathy is limited by the fact that you want to conquer us for your master. And that's never going to happen."
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Papercut gave Eve a dubious look, but she was the experience hero and for the moment anyway, he was inclined to follow her lead. He snapped his fingers and the paper unfolded as rapidly as it had taken shape, till it lay in a flat square under the electronic hacker's feet. "Don't come back here," he warned Freebooter, though he hoped it was unnecessary. "It's peoples' lives you're talking about, even if they are living in a computer." As he watched Freebooter leave and waited for Eve to contact the others, he folded the paper once again into airplane form. "This is probably the fastest way to get there."
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Stesha tapped her fingers against her lips as she thought for a moment. "The teaching setup sounds attractive," she told him, "and the people who live here are adults and can make their own decisions about what they believe. As long as conversion or church services or whatever isn't mandatory for receiving help, I don't have a problem with the brothers talking about whatever they want." As a woman with a background in biological sciences herself, Stesha wasn't entirely sure of the church's embrace of science, but that didn't seem like too much of a hurdle in the current situation, where the classes would all be practical and vocational. She dipped her spoon into the mousse again. "There are logistics to consider, though. Electricity, water, how you're going to build a structure big enough with no equipment on-world... have you talked to Tarrant yet? "
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Stesha blinked at that revelation. "Well, I don't know very much about monks," she admitted. "Most of what I've seen on TV and read in books is about medieval monks, and I'm fairly sure they aren't quite the same anymore. It sounds like they have a lot of good skills, and they could be a real asset if they could settle in happily here." She took a helping of mousse, then, since they were all friends here, added a generous squirt of whipped cream from a can as well. "But recolonizing an abandoned Earth and being far away from everything they love for long periods may not be exactly what they signed up for." She took a delicate bite, then added, equally delicately, "And the issue of how much religion they'd want to teach would also be a concern on my mind."
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Despite the situation, Erin smiled just a little at Trevor's black humor. "Yeah, I guess it would've been even worse down in your sub-sub-subbasement getting an exam. For me, and for your house." She looked up as another police siren went off, one more note in the symphony of emergency noises tonight. "And at least this way I can still help. If I'm really, really careful where I walk." Her voice was dubious, even a bit nervous, but tonight wasn't a night to let fears back her down. She extended her hand, palm-up, to the roof where Trevor stood, holding it flat like a platform. "You have better night vision than I do. You can probably get a pretty good view from up here."
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Stesha cocked her head thoughtfully as she brought the mousse to the table. "You mean you want to start a school?" she asked. "That's a very interesting idea, I've thought about trying to arrange something like that, but I wouldn't know where to start." She smiled ruefully. "I'm afraid I'm a little bit out of my depth here. I can organize the flowers for any event you please, but I didn't learn much at the florist shop about setting up a new world. What sort of people are you thinking about recruiting? And do you have a way to get here and back to Prime on your own? I'd think that would be important just for the sake of logistics, or in an emergency." It didn't seem to occur to her that his welcome might be in question; Sanctuary was plenty big enough for new residents, especially friends.
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"Yes I do," Fleur replied, her own voice quite calm, for all her fingers were tense on her own crown of flowers. "But I would like to know why. You're obviously extremely clever to have planned and pulled off something like this, so I'm sure there must have been an excellent reason for you to spend such a long time in what must have been a rather boring fashion. What is it that you hoped to gain through all of this?" Inside her head, Stesha focused on the flowers that the false Chloe wore. In an instant, those flowers could become a snare, if worst came to worst. She was gambling, though, that 'Chloe' was vain and bored enough to share some details.
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Conversation was easy and pleasant over dinner, touching on favorite recipes, the work all of them were doing lately, and other easy topics that didn't get too much in the way of enjoying a good meal. The sun finished setting outside while they ate, so that the light from the lamps glowed brighter off the green leafy walls. It was like having a meal inside a very large, beautifully constructed treehouse, without ever leaving the ground. As Stesha pushed the dirty dishes into a giant tulip, she looked over at Carson again. "You mentioned you had something specific you wanted to talk about this evening?"
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"it's my busy-day favorite, pot roast and vegetables," Stesha told him. "Cook it in the crockpot here, and I don't have to go back to Earth Prime to use the oven. The salad's from the garden here, and then there's chocolate mousse for dessert. Everything should be just about ready, if you're hungry enough," she added with a quick smile. The dinner table was small and square, just room enough to accommodate its four chairs, one of which stood empty tonight. There was also a high chair tucked away in the corner with a colorful cloth bib tossed onto the tray for when Ammy was trying out the whole business of eating. Stesha served up the food in pretty ceramic bowls, with a platter for the bread that she told them was crafted right here on Sanctuary. The emphasis on local products might have made the honey served with the bread a bit suspect, but it seemed entirely innocuous. "Dig in," Stesha invited. "I probably made too much, but that's better than not enough!"
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"I'm so glad you were both finally able to make it out here for a social occasion," Stesha told them. "I think I caught a glimpse of you, Sonya, during the Gorgon evacuation, but everything was so busy then, there was no time at all to talk. Sanctuary is much nicer on a normal week, I assure you." Despite the easy availability of the appetizers, the pleasant aroma coming from the kitchen Stesha had expanded during the winter warned that filling up before supper might be a mistake. "Derrick was hoping he'd be able to make it tonight, but the negotiations he's observing somewhere out in the Regulus Cluster have stalled again." She shrugged, her smile rueful. "That's the way it goes, I guess. How are things on Prime? I haven't had a chance to spend much time there lately, but I've been worried how people are recovering from the powers eruptions last month."
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Wander goes on 19