Electra

Wander waited out of sight of the door, keeping one eye on Trevor and the other on Sage and the Gravois family. Silently, she drew her bat from the sheath on her hip, not expanding it just yet, but holding it ready. She couldn't see the police officer, but if he set foot into this house, he would sorely regret it. But with the way "The Blank" was speaking, it would be a brave or foolish man who set foot over the threshold now. She took a breath and held perfectly still, waiting for the cop to leave.

"No, that sounds like a pretty strong connection," Fleur agreed, pursing her lips at the card. "If he was supposed to steal this ruby for her, she's not going to be happy about what happened to it. But that also makes the obvious question, why donate the stone to the museum if she still wanted it? Villains aren't exactly known for their philanthropic impulses. He might be able to tell us," she reasoned, looking back at Khuitan, "but we should probably do it somewhere more secure."

Notice checks please!

Wander gave the handrail a quick shake as she climbed aboard, then, apparently finding it satisfactory, took her seat to let the improvised device lift off. She scanned the streets as they flew, noting traffic patterns and areas of congestion as potential trouble spots, but allowed the guys to come up with their own metric for scanning the streets. Up this high, moving this quickly, it would take a sharp eye to spot trouble. They would see if the underclassmen were up to the task.

With Khuitan securely wrapped up, Fleur carefully picked her way over to the exhibit that he'd been raiding when they'd confronted him. "It seems like he must have been, too. I've never heard of him, and I'm certain I would've remembered a costume like that," she told Wail, her lips turned up in a wry smile. She began poking around in the wreckage of the shattered case, looking for the ubiquitous accession cards that would hopefully give them some information about what had been in this exhibit.

"I'm sure Mind Master and Talos can hide them underground for us until we finish our work and can get back to them," Erin said, peeking out the window at the too-quiet street beyond. "Not so sure what we're going to do with them when we get back," she admitted. "Hopefully somebody at the Freedom League can help them, or mind-scan them and make sure they're not too evil, or whatever." It had taken her long enough to come up with a plan for one expatriate Anti-Earther, she had no idea what to do with a whole family of them.

Fleur slowly lowered the arm she'd put up to protect her eyes, blinking at the bright afterimages on her retinas. She looked at the downed villain, then over to Wail, taking a few tentative steps forward. "Are you all right?" she asked the older hero, picking her way around yet another pile of debris that had once been an exhibit. "What happened? What was that thing he was holding?" For the moment, Khuiten didn't seem like much of a threat, but she sent a few vines snaking around his body anyway, trussing him up in case he needed a quick trip into the plant dimension.

Wikiwikiwikiwikiwiki-room! House of L (point to Wander) Wander Family Portrait (21) The Measure of a Hero (4) We'd All Go Down Together (19) The River's Just a River (9) Sparring Practice (12) Another Sunrise (3) Fleur de Joie Irresistible Force (7) Somewhere That's Green (1) The Rainmaker Job (3) Hands and Feet (3) Miss Americana What Makes Him Sing (26) The Man With the Lonely Eyes (5) The Conquering Mind (22) Double-Edged Blade (1)

Erin took the mask gingerly, holding by the edges and wondering if she should ask what would happen if she put it on. "Are these real magical artifacts?" she asked him. "Um, maybe instead of just tossing them in the basement, we should give them to the headmaster and see what he wants to do with them. It seems like it might not really be safe to just leave them laying around, when a really lucky guy like yourself isn't right there to make sure they don't get stolen or something...." She trailed off when Mark pulled out the lamp, not sure what to say. "Does it still do anything?" she finally asked.

Miss A looked at the card, instantly memorizing the number, then tucked it away in the pocket of her white lab coat as she tossed out the water bottles and went to file her data. It was just a meeting for a cup of coffee and conversation, she reminded herself, it was most certainly not anything even approaching a date. Miss Americana was a perfectly logical and acceptable sort of person to meet with an amazingly handsome and charismatic man just to hang around and shoot the breeze. She was one of the smartest women in the world, Gina reminded herself sternly. She was not going to be stupid about this.

Miss A looked a little surprised for just a moment, then she smiled. "I'd like that," she told him. "I imagine neither of us gets a chance to sit back anywhere outside of our commitments very often. It would be nice to relax with a little coffee and conversation. Why don't I give you a call next time I get some time free in my schedule and we'll set something up?" It was all said in the most casual of ways, of course, colleagues meeting for a nonalcoholic drink. "And maybe I'll satisfy your curiosity about my work as well."

Miss A was silent for just a moment, studying Gabriel in a way that even with his excellent people skills, he couldn't quite comprehend. It almost seemed like she had something in mind, then dismissed it. "I appreciate the offer," she told him instead, smiling affably. "I'm glad I was able to give you some food for thought. The data I've collected, properly anonymized of course, will be very valuable in my continuing research into mechanical applications of superpowers. And I may call in that favor one day," she added with a quick wink.

"That's fine," Wander told Cobalt Templar. "You're supposed to work together, and that includes making sure both of you can get everywhere you need to go. I'm not going to put a lot of extra rules on it, telling you what you are and aren't supposed to be doing would mess things up more than you making a platform to fly around on." She was quiet on the issue of search patterns and scanners, wondering what the guys would come up with on their own initiative.

"This is as easy as it gets," Wander assured him with a thin smile. "Look around and you'll see that everything is not trying to kill you. Nobody's shooting at you, no civilians are in danger yet, and as far as we know it, the world isn't about to fall apart. It ain't getting any simpler or easier. Tonight we're going to do a simple patrol through downtown and the Theatre District. People get a little weird on full moon nights, so there'll probably be some action. Since this is a training exercise, I'm going to stand back and let you guys pick the routes you want to take, and if there's any fighting, you'll handle it. I'll be right there to give you pointers, and to step in if things get too exciting. But mostly this will be the two of you working together on patrol."

"Yes, of course," Miss A said without a pause, glancing over at Sharl even as she moved quickly towards the portable sterilization station that had been set up in one corner of the field lab. The lead agent didn't really seem to have noticed Sharl, and since she didn't particularly want to have to explain his presence or send him away, she didn't call attention to that fact. "What's the situation?" she asked, keeping an eye on the triage team with their shrouded patient.

Wander shrugged. "City like this, it's rooftop work half the time. Might as well get used to it. Besides, look at that moon." She gestured with one hand up to the sky, where the giant full moon loomed over the city like a red and baleful eye. "You get a heck of a view from up here. A night like tonight, we're sure to see some action going on. Anyway, I know you can fly, but I don't know as much about what Mercury can do. He said he could get anywhere in the city he needs to go, so we'll see."

"We can take you someplace safe," Erin told the frightened adults, even as she swept the room and pulled all the shades down. "Caryatid is going to help us, and after that, her name is going to be mud around here, and yours with it. If you stay here, you'll get whatever punishment comes down on people whose families fail the Syndicate. Come with us, and we'll give you a better life. You've got ten minutes to pack, one suitcase each." She stood on the other side of the room, unconsciously mirroring Trevor's stance.

"He seems to be pretty beaten up already, even if he's still got some game," Fleur said, sounding a bit dubious. "I think that if you can restrain him, I can lock him up inside a plant so he won't cause any more damage. Then we can find out whatever he's up to down at the police station, where no civilians or artifacts are going to be in danger." She winced as they passed a rather battered display of antique clothing, some of which would need substantial restoring after this.

There is! A roof access door leads down into the building, and there is also a door leading into a small HVAC shack on the roof.

Wander, Mercury and Cobalt Templar go patrolling!

It was still a little bit chilly for the end of March in Freedom City, but the figure standing on top of the Eastern Seaboard Bank skyscraper in the middle of downtown didn't seem to notice the cold. Wander was in costume tonight, her blue and gold uniform muted against the darkness of the sky, bat snug and ready against her hip as she scanned the skyline and waited. Tonight was unlikely to bring any dangerous threats, at least nothing that would pose a danger to her, but she was always watchful. Besides, she was waiting for her companions for the evening to join her. Getting up to the top of the forty story building would be their first challenge, but she was confident it wouldn't pose too much of a problem. If Young Freedom was going to keep going after they were all gone, and she was determined that it was, they needed good people to take over all the empty spots.

"Superbiological, and definitely within the metahuman range, but definitely organic and explainable," Miss A confirmed with a slight smile. "I can look at you using your powers and see how they work, and how your body functions in such a way as to make them work. I can measure the effects without a problem. As to why you have the powers, whether they are a gift from God and what His purpose might have been in assigning them to you..." She chuckled and spread her hands. "That's not a question for the scientists, I'm afraid. But it sounds like you have a handle on it already."

"Um, I don't see too much of him," Erin said evasively, though it was true. A lot of the time she spent at Trevor's house was just out in the garage, where Travis didn't seem to spend a lot of time. Not that she'd really tried to seek him out, she had to admit. If things with Trevor were going to continue, and she really wanted them to, she was just going to have to find a way to show his grandpa that she wasn't the coward she'd made herself out to be during the zombie uprising. She wasn't sure quite how, but something would come up. There were always opportunities to be heroic in Freedom City. "I'm pretty sure he's doing fine though, keeping busy with stuff." She shrugged one shoulder, then changed the subject. "Even if you want to put most of this stuff in storage, you can probably go through it and find some of your favorite stuff to keep and display. Some of the younger students would probably think it's really cool."

Erin hesitated, taken aback for a moment by the sudden offer. She didn't like to take charity from her friends; despite the fact that many of them could easily spare it, she always felt really weird about it. But if Mark was in Africa and no one else was home, someone would have to be looking after the place anyway. A house just couldn't stand empty for months at a time without deteriorating. It would be sort of like doing them both a favor. "That's really nice of you," she told Mark. "I'll have to think about it, but that might work out. I could keep up the place while you're away and stuff. But I guess we don't know right now how all that's going to work out. Your mom might come back," she offered a bit lamely.

Miss Americana stepped back from Victory's metal shell and stretched, flexing fingers that had been doing tetchy electronic work for too long. "I think we've just about got it," she told Victory, "but we'll need to do some more testing to make sure. We definitely don't want it failing out on you in midflight! Can you run one more personal diagnostic and see what we've got?" She stepped away from the table and finally took a look around the hangar. "Hmm, looks like we took too long to hold the audience's attention. Where did they all go?"