Electra

Wander raced outside along with the others, just in time to see the massive Nazi dinosaur appear! "Oh right, Kaiju Island," she muttered. "Just what we needed. Somebody get the civilians out of here!" The instant the creature began to turn towards the civilians, she was back in motion, racing past the others and vaulting over a bike rack in front of the church, pushing off from there into a dizzying series of aerial flips that culminated in a flurry of blows directly to the dinosaur's ferocious Nazi muzzle!

Wander will charge the Kaiju! +2 attack, -2 defense. As her move action, she will perform an acrobatic bluff, DC 28, to confuse its tiny Nazi-lizard brain into not knowing where she is. Power attacking, natch, but we won't go all out this time because she has plenty of backup and doesn't really want to get et. 15+2-5= 1d20+13= A roll that is totally crap! Spending an HP to reroll. Reroll is a 32. Autofire is 1 per 2 over, max of 10, base toughness DC is 35 with PA.

Initiative: 1d20+13=27

Wander was distracted from the conversation by something else, a noise, no, a strange feeling coming from somewhere. She looked around cautiously, but the big dinosaur things were holding still for the moment. Crouching, she laid both hands flat against the floor and closed her eyes. "The floor is vibrating," she observed aloud. "It feels like there's something big underneath, bigger than any piece of machinery that ought to be under a church."

If it were easy, they would not call you "super," the cat pointed out, tilting his ears forward humorously. Ask your questions now, for the time of knowing may come sooner than you think. Wait and be watchful, and not afraid to step into the unknown, he counseled. It is a fine thing to be loved, and a fine thing to have friends, but those things do not make you a Martel. When the evil comes and the threat is overwhelming, it is not who you know that matters, but who you are. There was something deep and old in the little cat's mental voice, something portentous.

Erin listened attentively to the doctor's rundown of security, filing the information away for later. She knew she probably wouldn't remember all of it, but she would at least know the high points. She was startled when her suggestion about testing security met with such a negative response, tightening her fingers around the folder until it wrinkled and hoping she hadn't ruined her chances. "I, uh, I didn't mean to suggest anything bad by that," she offered, "it's just that at school, we did a lot of tests of new equipment and stuff. I mean, I know you wouldn't do anything to put people in danger." That was not entirely true, she still thought he was kind of creepy even now that he'd lost the messed-up accent, and she'd seen him get possessed and unleash evil magic things on the world. But that would hardly be a productive tack to take in the middle of an interview for a job she really needed!

"So a focus on the empathic mind then, but at how much of a sacrifice of the intellect?" Miss A murmured, highlighting points on the display, and not so much asking him as herself. Perhaps spending time around Dragonfly was something of a bad influence on her. "How much did you put this facility for mental shifting to use in dealing with your schizophrenia?" she asked him. "Did you have a specific mental pattern you fell into when you experienced the dissociative episodes, and if so, were you able to alter your brain chemistry to stop them?"

Looking just a bit disappointed at the prospect of being denied a fight, Wander leaned on her bat and watched as the children exited, some of them crying, all of them very glad to be out safely. The danger was past, and she wasn't exactly much for diplomacy, but she was pretty curious. "Why are you letting a prisoner go hunt?" she asked the raptor. "Why not just put him in jail? What are you hunting for, like, besides human beings?" Talking dinosaurs were interesting enough to give her a story to share with her friends, at least.

"Your security is really good," she told him honestly. "It's easy to see that you have experts designing it and directing it for you. There are only a few places where someone could stage an ambush without being seen, and I'm pretty sure you probably have cameras on those places. I could tell outside that I was being monitored when I walked around on the grounds. I'm pretty sure some of my friends could mock up one of these," she told him, lifting her visitor card a little, "but it's, you know, good for the general population. I figure your receptionist is probably trained up pretty well to spot trouble, and the guard in the lobby looked alert, even if I could've taken him out pretty easily." She thought for a minute. "I guess what I'd worry about in a place like this is going to be metahuman security. How do you stop people from teleporting in, or getting into peoples' brains, or just exploding parts of the walls. I couldn't say anything about the kind of security you have without knowing more about how you deal with that. I mean, if I came in and was looking for trouble, none of that stuff would have stopped me. But I know you're a genius inventor, so I assume you probably have stuff that would. Or if you don't yet," she added with a flash of inspiration, "then I could help you test different things until you do. If it stops me, it'll stop pretty much anything that comes in flying or on foot."

Miss A paused in her supervision of the loading long enough to make intruductions. "Magus Katastrof, this is my sidekick Sharl. Sharl, this is Baron Katastrof, Eira's uncle. He's paying for this trip, so make nice," she told her sidekick dryly. "Sharl is a digitized sentience himself," she explained to Magnus, "his template is the base for the program we're going to build Eira onto. I thought it would be nice for her to meet him beforehand, so that he can help her get acclimated to the new digital environment. I know you've already met Dragonfly, and here is the support team we'll be using during the procedure." She introduced the handful of subordinate scientists and then, niceties completed, headed back into the belly of the plane to make sure her precious equipment wasn't being manhandled.

Erin moistened her lips and opened the folder, taking out a single sheet of white bond paper with her resume printed on the top two-thirds of it. It was obviously from a word processing template, and word processing didn't seem to be one of her strong suits. Everything was correct, but it wasn't exactly artistic. It listed her school, her GPA and graduation date, her contact information, all the normal information. Below that was a list of her experience, which included her membership in Young Freedom and a job as personal bodyguard for Jack Faretti, Jr. "I have a lot of experience," Erin told him as he read. "Most security guards don't see a lot of action before they begin work, but I have. I know how to spot trouble, and I can work in adverse conditions. I'm hard to scare, and I will guard whatever I'm set to guard with my life. I don't have a family and I don't need much sleep, so I can work odd hours and on short notice, and I don't mind traveling. And if you need me to learn something specific, I can learn it." She'd prepared for this kind of question with Dr. Marquez, and thought it was a pretty strong answer, considering her considerable deficits in other areas.

Wander makes an Intimidate check! It's a 28. Most monkeys aren't very scary, but this one has a bat! And she looks hungry!

Wander opened her bat to its full length with a practiced spin, taking a step forward to confront the pair of raptors surveying the choir loft. "You're on Earth Prime now," she told them evenly, "and where I come from, we primates eat lizards like you. I've done it before, pretty tasty, actually." She bared her teeth in a grin. "If you want to start something, we'll see who ends up on the menu." Of course, the lizards she'd eaten were more the size-of-your-hand variety, but they didn't need to know that.

Erin shifted uncomfortably, then shrugged. "I don't really think I'm college material," she admitted. "Even keeping up in high school classes was hard and took a lot of time, and my SAT was... not great." She didn't know whether she ought to admit that, but judging by all the paperwork he had in front of him, the information was probably in there anywhere. It was better to be honest. Maybe if she'd postponed the test longer, maybe waited till senior year instead of taking it with the rest of her class, she'd have done better, but it didn't matter that much. It didn't take a huge amount of education to smack bad guys around. "With the things I'm good at, I can't really think of anything I could do with a college degree than I can't do with a diploma," she told Doktor Archeville frankly, fiddling with the edge of her folder. "And I would like to have a job and start working. I'm very responsible," she assured him. "You wouldn't have to worry about that at all, you can ask my teachers."

Erin nodded, sitting down and folding her hands over the folder in her lap. Confident posture, make eye contact, no weird facial expressions, she reminded herself as she answered. "Yes, I'm graduating in two more weeks. I still have to take finals, but right now I have a B average." She suspected that not a lot of B-average people came here looking for jobs, but she'd worked her butt off for it and wasn't going to be too ashamed. "I have a lot of combat training, simulated and real life experience. I'm very good at it." Okay, that was probably jumping the gun and being too eager to volunteer what he hadn't asked. She reminded herself to sit back and breathe normally.

Erin chuckled, gladly helping him rid himself of the shirt. "I knew I could count on you," she told him, and after that, not too many words were needed for quite some time. As might be expected with two conscientious and mechanically-minded individuals, assiduous practice had already led to markedly increased levels of performance, but that certainly didn't mean that further experimentation and innovation wasn't called for. It was very late indeed by the time they settled down for actual sleep, the Night Bear tucked under Erin's arm as she cuddled against Trevor's back. Perhaps it was the nerves of dealing with Travis, or simply the general stress of her life lately, but the nightmares came calling not long after Erin fell asleep. She woke with a shudder, images of blood and old death filling her mind, but at least tonight she wasn't alone. Resting a light hand on Trevor's chest to feel the steady beat of his heart, she tucked her face into his shoulder and went back to sleep.

Sunday morning wasn't typically one of Wander's patrol times, it wasn't exactly a crime-ridden watch and it offered a nice chance to sleep in. But with finals and graduation barreling down on her, there was not much sleeping these days anyway, and patrolling offered a chance to burn off some nervous energy. She was almost pleased when the automated voice from Young Freedom HQ reported the disturbance in Lincoln. Finally something to absorb her attention! A few leaps took her across the city and had her landing on the roof of the church that was still surrounded by upset, crying, screaming people. Whatever was going on, it was happening inside. She shinnied expertly down a drainpipe to one of the smaller beveled-glass windows that had been cranked open to let in the morning breeze. It took her a moment to internalize what she was seeing. The place looked like The Land Before Time From Hell, full of freaky dinosaurs wearing clothes and speaking English. She only dwelt on the strangeness of that for a moment, before noticing the crowd of children cowering at the front of the church. No wonder the people outside were so upset. Forcing the window open wider, she leapt across the open air in the vaulted sanctuary, bounced off the wall next to the cross at the front of the church, and landed just in front of the choir, between them and the monsters.

"You're both more than welcome to help," Stesha assured the two men, "there's always something more that can be done. The refugees have a very subsistence-based lifestyle," she told Heyzel, "but they do have culture, an oral history, songs, things like that. Most of them can read and write at least a little, but they could use a teacher, especially for the kids. Ideally I'd love to get people out there to teach them field medicine and agriculture, forestry management, things like that. I mean, it's amazing and a credit to their resourcefulness that they've survived as long as they have, for several generations, but much of that time was living on storage and scraps, staying in caves. This could be a new start for them."

"You always do that," she assured him, cupping his cheek with her hand before sliding it back into his dark hair. "It's nice to know that even though everything's changing, some things are changing in a good way. And the most important things are still the same." She leaned in and gave him another very thorough kiss, some of the hastiness of the corridor fading with the knowledge that they had plenty of time to spend tonight. At least if no emergencies happened, no supervillain uprisings or alien invasions or interdimensional incursions... Erin pushed the thought out of her mind before she could jinx things, busying herself instead with the feel of his muscles under her fingers as she ran her hands down his back. "Been a long day," she murmured with a smile, her lips still just a breath from his. "Hope you're not too tired."

"Thanks," Miss A told Dragonfly. "Once we get there, we're going to be on a tight schedule. We can't afford anything getting lost or broken." She smiled, looking over her colleague's new getup. "The new suit looks good. Guess you got the flight built into it now? I hope we'll have time later for you to show us how it works. Sharl's coming along as patient liaison for this one, but I have a feeling he'll be better off if he knows Swedish by the time we get there. If you've got a few minutes, perhaps you could knock something together for him?" With no apparent effort, she picked up one of the heavy boxes and carried it herself into the plane, the better to supervise its placement.

Miss A let out a sound very like a yelp, hastening towards the strangely altered man. "Please don't, that's a prototype..." she began, then sighed. The damage was already done, or whatever it was he was doing was done. She'd just expense the damn thing next time she submitted an invoice to ArcheTech. "All right, I think we've got a decent set of scans for that particular... mental state. Can you give us another one?" Despite the small frustration, her curiosity was piqued.

"She's got the best chance we can give her, so keep your fingers crossed," Miss A agreed. Within a short time, they were both ready to go, leaving the lab for the short flight out to the airfield. The equipment was already there, but Miss A wanted to personally supervising the loading and storing for the trip. She left Sharl to his own devices, figuring that the teenage program usually had little trouble finding ways to keep himself busy in the big new world outside his computer.

There were times when being able to navigate without looking was handy, and not all of them involved combat, Erin nudged the door to his room open with her hip, then dropped the bear down onto his dresser where it would be safe and out of the way. "If I forgot to say it earlier," she murmured, breaking off the kiss long enough for him to catch his breath, "thanks for tonight. It was... well, it's been really great so far," she amended with a smile. "I love the way you always think of everything."

"You should come and visit sometime," Fleur told Nick cordially. "It's a very nice place, and it's just a beautiful time of year... hmm." She trailed off, her brow furrowing. "Honestly, I'm not sure what you would make of the place," she admitted. "I know that necromancers like Dead Head hear the unquiet dead, and it sometimes bothers them. If you're bothered by areas where there's been violent death, it might not be the best place for you to spend time. Even though I'm rehabilitating the land, I can't do very much for the psychic trauma a place might have."

Erin shook his hand, her strength carefully modulated so that it was firm but not painful. "It's nice to see you again, Doctor Archeville," she told him, not sure she should bring their previous meeting up, but figuring it would be weird to not acknowledge it. "I'm sorry I'm early, I can wait if you have other things that need to be done. It's not a problem." As always, she took a moment to glance around this new room and suss it out, but tried to keep most of her attention politely focused on him.