Electra

"Understood," came Miss A's voice over the link, carrying well-disguised reluctance. "I'll be in soon with the mannequin." She was as good as her word, returning in just a few minutes with a robot that looked like a walking version of a store mannequin, but with a face more like a ventriloquist's dummy. She'd opened the chest to reveal the inner workings, and had installed a large bladderlike holding tank that, though it would give the figure a potbelly, should hold the gelatinous victim of the lab accident. Without saying anything, she sent the robot over in Doctor Archeville's direction.

"Oh, look at it!" Impulsively, Stesha grabbed Gaian Knight and hugged him. "It's wonderful! I can't believe how big and solid and wonderful it is! In the spring grass will grow all over it, and it'll look so natural it'll be like it was always there!" She was practically glowing with happiness as she and her bee tenants took in their new situation. "I really owe you one for this. You do good work, Gaian Knight."

Stesha squeaked with surprise as the massive bee scooped her up, then laughed and patted Beeatriz's fuzzy face with both hands. "I told you I'd find them for you, didn't I? They're going to need your help to adapt here, but I hope you'll all be very happy. You remember my friend Phantom, right?" she asked, gesturing to the cowled heroine. "She was the one who helped me get into the place where your friends were being held. She's as responsible for the rescue as I am."

Fleur tossed a seed from her pouch in the direction of the unconscious villain, which sprouted into a massive Venus Flytrap that gobbled Otaku down whole. Even though she'd never touched him directly, Stesha still wiped her hands on her pants. "He's in a dimension with no technology and no outside access right now. He'll be secure till we can get him locked up somewhere. But I left the hostages tied up," she admitted. "Fusion, could you come with me and help with them? They're going to be scared, and there's quite a few of them. Midnight and Gabriel can secure the building."

Gina didn't bother to ask how Eldritch had found her, or how he knew her identity. She was much too smart for that. The master magus of Earth, whatever the source of his amazing powers, had his ways, and he had been refining them for many long years in service to goodness and freedom. She tried to ignore the part of her that felt naked and vulnerable, concentrating on what he was saying. "So what, I'm supposed to help stop someone from shanking Santa Claus?" she quipped at the end of his speech. She blinked when he didn't so much as turn an eyelash. "Christ." Wishing she hadn't had the eggnog, she finally nodded acquiescence. "Miss Americana will be happy to help. What's the plan?"

"Good," she told him, nodding in satisfaction. "It's going to take a little more time to work out the body hologram, probably a couple of hours. There are a couple of empty rooms in the hallway beyond the lab where you can practice with that, if you want and can stick around. Let me know if you see the image bobble, or if the emitter fails. There's food in the kitchenette and drinks in the fridge if you're hungry or thirsty." Miss A's mind was clearly already turning to the entertaining technical question at hand, and losing focus on the person who engendered it.

For once, Gina was spending the evening in her living room instead of down in her basement, away from her state of the art computers and ergonomically designed command center. The holidays spilled a depressing number of noobs into her favorite games, and for once she didn't feel like either shepherding them or flattening them, which were the only real uses for noobs. Instead, she curled up in her overstuffed papasan in front of her giant flatscreen TV and let Christmas movies play while she surfed her laptop and drank nicely doctored eggnog from an oversized plastic tumbler. All her gifts to her family members should've arrived by now, according to the various tracking numbers and promises of expedited shipping. She was socially networked with all of them who were online, whether they knew it or not, and was interested to see if anyone mentioned it. Being rich had its advantages when it came to Christmas. It was easy for her to remember the years when her Christmas presents had all been dresses, or a new musical instrument to learn, or an appointment with yet another coach. It sucked. Now she had everything she wanted, more or less, and could play a little Santa Claus. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, she discreetly investigated what her niece and nephew's fondest Christmas wishes were, and what the hottest toys for their age group were, and made those wishes come true. Her brother didn't have a lot of money, and he and his wife worried at each other over email while he was working out of state about what they were going to get the kids. That wasn't going to be a problem anymore, and if they relabeled the gifts as coming from them, no harm done. She'd never even met the kids. Her brothers and her father all got season tickets to see the Tigers play, and hotel vouchers so they could afford to go. They'd have fun with that, she figured, it was one thing she remembered them doing whenever they could when she was growing up. For her mother, she bought a home waxing kit, the cheapest she could find, and from a secondary seller, so hopefully it was pretty old, too. She trusted that the message would be sent. She didn't expect she'd get any gifts in return, but that didn't matter, because there was nothing she needed. To fill the time, she donated to Toys for Tots and Child's Play and the Heifer Project, carefully noting the donations for her taxes. She wondered where Freebooter was tonight, if he'd hijacked the bank account of some captain of industry and was filling peoples' stockings with it. The thought made her smile, for all she'd knocked him offline plenty of times. She was just thinking about linking in and seeing if she could find him when suddenly a bright light shone in her face and made her look up. Something was shining in her window from the street, white hexagons that looked like snowflakes. What could it mean? She set her computer aside and went to the window, trying to see what was shining the lights.

"Freedom City has thousands of gardeners, of all levels of skill and enthusiasm," Stesha told him. "I would call myself more the patron saint of gardeners, but I suspect it would be a little sacrilegious." This time she managed to laugh without moving her face too much. "I like to go and support the efforts of all those gardeners, especially when the weather is poor, or things aren't going well. I have a website," she explained, "and sometimes people will email me asking for help with their gardens. Sometimes I give them advice, and sometimes I go take care of their garden myself, or both. It's very rewarding to do what you love for a living. Have you done much painting since you arrived?" she asked him.

Erin slipped on the glasses he'd given her, grinning as the world suddenly came into sharper focus, even through the mist. Leaping into the darkness, she closed with the mugger without making a sound, until suddenly she was pinning his arms to his sides so firmly that he could only wriggle helplessly like a trapped rabbit while his intended victim stopped cowering long enough to stumble away to safety. "Bad day to be a bad guy in Dakana," she murmured, then literally tossed him in Trevor's direction, lightly enough to only disorient him further.

Erin drove for awhile through the streets, gradually relaxing when it became clear she wasn't about to lay the bike out or send it hurtling into a building. They move away from the lights of downtown and into a more industrial area, where the streets were a bit wider, for all they were darker. "It reminds me a little bit of Freedom City," Erin mused as the bike moved silently through the night, its headlights playing over cars and buildings... and a mugging that was taking place in an alleyway. "In a lot of ways," she added, slowing the bike. "Want to?"

"I'm a florist," Stesha told him with a slight increase to her grin. "I suppose it seems like an obvious profession, but it's what got me into the hero business in the first place. As a hero, I'm a plant controller, I grow and manipulate plants. Sometimes I fight villains, but most of my time is taken up beautifying the parks and gardens around the city. It seems to me that there are plenty of heroes patrolling the streets at night, and it's also a public service to make the lives of the citizens better by making the spaces where they live and play more beautiful. Plus, you meet the most interesting people in the park at night!" She laughed, her eyes crinkling even as she tried to hold still.

"Oh, he's great!" Fleur said enthusiastically. "You should've seen him when he was making this place. People with powers like his and mine don't always get a chance to really show off everything we can do, what with all the city and the civilians in the way. It's only here, where we've got so much empty space and so much raw material to work with that we can let ourselves shine. But I also worked with him earlier this year to contain a mudslide on the east side. He's clever with his powers, and very dedicated. You should meet him sometime."

Miss A allowed Shockwasp to ham it up for the cameras this time. After all, this time he'd actually some something heroic to earn it, instead of just swooping down like some sort of fame vulture. Besides, she was more interested in the giant robot. Flying up to the deactivated robot's metal skull, she used her lasers to excise a square plate of the outer shielding, then began exploring the artificial brain.

Stesha followed him outside to watch him work, though the temptation was strong to stay inside the new hivelet where it was already appreciably warmer. Beeatriz did her the favor of following her out, the massive fuzzy insect providing a very effective barrier to the wind. "It's looking great!" she called encouragingly to Gaian Knight. "You're doing a wonderful job! We all appreciate this very much!" Having the beehive finished would take a major load off her mind. With the colony intact and warm for the winter, all she'd have to do was make sure they had flowers now and again so they didn't starve in the winter. She could handle that part!

"Hey, being a hero means doing what's right, even if means going up against impossible odds. You knew what you'd been forced to do was wrong, and you risked life and sanity to make more of yourself. You are at least as worthy of humanity as anyone else who has that gift. I'm sure you'll continue to perform admirably with the new identity I'm setting up for you. You'll do Caradoc proud." She went to a cabinet and took out a small device, plugging it into the computer she'd been working on, then sticking it firmly to the haft of Harrier's power pike. In a moment, the pike had disappeared, to be replaced by a massive and gleaming six-foot long energy sword! The design borrowed from a combination of Arthurian mythos and Star Wars Universe, its elongated diamond shape glowing with cool blue light. She looked it over, held it by the "handle," and gave it a testing swing. "You'll need some practice learning to handle it this way. But what do you think?"

"That's wonderful news!" Stesha said enthusiastically. "We'll hear the humming of little wings in the summer fields. I'm so happy for all of you. And I won't tell about the honey if you won't." She winked at the giant bee, an exaggerated gesture to give him the chance to see it at all, then turned to Victory. "This is all Gaian Knight's work. He did an amazing job building the hive, and insulating it. It's going to be warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Perfect for baby bees, and for big bees as well!"

Fleur made the round trip rapidly, dropping off the hostages and zooming back to the fight with the promise of being back in just a moment. She arrived just in time for most of Otaku's pungent little speech, and had to force herself not to be distracted by the repulsive shows on the walls. "Fusion, stop!" she called urgently. "You know he's lying, don't you? You don't really believe he's better than our scientists and technicians, do you? This is as much an ego trip for him as anything else. He's just one more slimy little thug, and he deserves to be in jail. He hasn't ruined you, don't let him."

"Hello, Beearthur!" Fleur said, holding up her lantern to get a better look at him. Identifying the bees by sight wasn't easy, but she was a florist and a biologist, and used to looking for subtle distinctions. At least there were many fewer of the males. "This is my friend Victory, he is visiting from Prime! He is a superhero like me, and he wanted to meet some of you. How are you liking the new hive? Is it comfortable for you?"

"Fascinating!" Miss A muttered, grabbing for the scanner, recalibrating it. "Transdimensional activity... what could be causing that? Do you have any dimensional powers?" She took hold of the scanner bodily and moved it forward, aiming it towards Dead Head's throat. "Damn, I don't have the right equipment for this, we should be doing this at ArcheTech, but how could I have known? Psionic and interdimensional energy on a zombie!" She seemed very excited, and almost like she was talking to herself.

"I can't ask him to stop being a superhero," Erin said glumly. "It's his life's work, and it's part of what I love about him. But I hate that it's so dangerous. He's not armored like I am, there's so much that can hurt him. And I know I have huge, massive issues about needing to protect people from danger because I've failed so badly in the past. I don't want to screw things up over that, either. How do you deal with it?" she asked Alex. "I mean, Mike is hugely strong and tough, but don't you sometimes wish you could put a giant tinfoil hat on him or something to protect his mind the way yours is?"

"Human beings are shallow creatures, much as they'll try to deny it," Miss A told him dryly. "They take things for what they seem to be on the surface, and only dig deeper later. If you walk among them as a monster, they'll treat you like a monster, no matter what you are on the inside. I don't think it's really a deception to do the best you can to match your outside form to the inner you, in the hopes that people will come to a greater understanding of who you are as a person. Yes, people may get mad at you if they realize you wear a mask you didn't take off for them, but that may be a risk that it's worthwhile to take. If they're your real friends, they will know you well enough by then to understand why you did it."

"Freedom City certainly does seem to be the world's hotspot," Stesha agreed ruefully. "I have a friend who speaks the way you do, Phantom, the guardian of the dimensions. She says that Freedom City is a nexus for our dimension, and that's why so many strange things that crop up, crop up here first." She shrugged, trying not to disrupt her pose too much. "I know that I came to Freedom City because it seemed like the best place for a superhero to get started out, and it's full of superheroes to learn from. It's worked out well for me so far!"

"Of course," Miss Americana told him. "The power of myth is part of what puts the shine on superheroes. Since ancient days, men have looked to the skies for their salvation, and feared to look up, lest destruction come instead. Superheroes are the personification of salvation from the skies, and they don't even require faith or sacrifice. A flying knight in shining armor will give you a good base to build a new persona from, but what you do with it will be up to you. All I can give you is a foundation, you have to build on it." She went to another computer, turned the screen so he could see it as she began to design holographic costume pieces. "You'll probably want a more knightly heroic name. I assume you haven't had Harrier long, so hopefully you're not too attached to it. Most appropriate would be something historical, something from King Arthur's Round Table. You'll want to read up on the mythology there, so you can use it as part of the persona. How about something like Caradoc? Nice heroic name, and not so famous as to probably be in use today. Also a saint's name, so double cachet there."

It was drizzling on this world as well, but other than that, there were few similarities to the Freedom City they'd just left. A large field unfolded before them, full of massive and colorful flowers, each one the size of a house. There were no buildings anywhere in sight, and no humans, and no cage walls. Here and there, a giant bee buzzed among the flowers, not yet aware of all the new arrivals. "Here we are!" Stesha called to the queen, swallowing a few times to make sure her stomach had settled back into place. "This is Sanctuary, and you can live here in peace. Accommodations are a little rough yet, but there's plenty to eat!" Putting two fingers in her mouth, she whistled sharply to catch the attention of the native bees.

Erin snickered, the noise nearly lost to the wind. "Well yeah, this was sort of improvised. If I'd known we were going riding, I'd have worn pants, too. I'm showing a lot more leg than I planned on when I was getting dressed this evening," Truthfully, Erin's skirt was hiked to not far above her knees, then tucked securely underneath her to prevent blowouts, but it felt like a lot more. "At least it's not cold!" Feeling more courageous, and wanting to see more of the city, Erin slowed the bike and took an exit into the city proper, on the edges of the city center. Even in the evening, the lights were on everywhere and the city was bustling, shining and noisy like any metropolis. "Wow," Erin mused, "I saw it from up there, butI didn't realize it'd be so big."