Electra

"Well then, you're in for a treat," she told him with a laugh. "It should be a memorable experience. Just remember, they look viscerally frightening, but they're really very peaceable. Nothing here can really threaten them, so they're very calm and relaxed most of the time, much less touchy than you might expect from a hive of bees." Rising, she went and put her cold weather gear back on, then polished off her coffee. "All right, back into the cold!" She took his arm again, and with another quick rush of green and grass, they were standing on a plain in front of a pair of what looked like massive half-melted sandcastles, studded with giant holes. "This is what they've got so far," Stesha told him, pulling her hat down a little further on her head. "I told them we'd be stopping by, so someone should be out soon."

"Sky's the limit," Fleur told him expansively. "I use this world for a retreat, for practice, to relax. This is the only home they have, and they'll probably be here for the rest of their lives. They were created by a selfish man for selfish purposes, and now they have a chance at a better life. I want to make things here as nice as I can for them, to try and make up for what the man who styles himself my archnemesis did to them. The area around there is pretty flat, but I can teleport in rock from upstate if we need to, if the earth around here isn't going to be enough." She'd given this some thought, but without an earth controller, there wasn't much she could do.

"They don't have thumbs, so they can't write," Stesha told him, a little amused at the way he'd paled. That wasn't an uncommon reaction. "But they speak English, and they understand a lot of basic concepts. They aren't rocket scientists, but they could probably work retail or food service if they weren't sixty-foot thumbless bees. They have a few mounds half-built already that they cram into at night, but they don't meet their needs right now. I'm sure that Beelisima, that's the queen, and her daughter Beeatrizz will be able to explain some of what they need in a hive. But the main need right now is just somewhere that they can stay warm, where the wind and snow can't get in."

"Do you remember a few months back when Beekeeper II tried to hold the Freedom League hostage?" Stesha asked, selecting a cookie from the tray. "One of the weapons he was using was sixty-foot long bees, the size of semi-trucks. After the battle, once the Beekeeper was incarcerated, we realized that the bees were actually sentient and endowed with moderate intelligence, and also that they had nowhere to go." Her face was sympathetic as she nibbled. "The Beekeeper had an underground bunker where he kept them, but it was not a very nice place to live, more like a warehouse or a zoo than a home. Since I was rehabilitating this place anyway, I volunteered to take them on, and eventually the whole colony, about fifty workers, ten drones, and a queen, got moved out here. They live in a patch about five miles from here, in a meadow full of giant flowers I've been fixing up for them. Eventually I'll make it bigger, but they've been pretty happy out here." She leaned back against the couch, drawing her legs up under her. "They're much better off here than on Prime, except for one thing. They have no real home. These poor bees are caught in that gray area between their instincts and their intellect, where they're smart enough to know what they need to do, but they can't. They've been building earthen mounds to keep themselves warm this winter, like their instincts tell them to, but they don't know how to build on the scale they need. What they really need is an expert in shaping earth to help build their home."

"Oh, it's Earth," Stesha assured him with a smile, "Freedom City, in fact. My powers only work on Earth. We're just not on Prime anymore. This planet is designated Earth EDS7, extinct, going by the Freedom League's notation. It started out similar enough to our own to be classified earthlike, and it's theoretically habitable, though outside my little bubble here I'm not sure I'd like to try. It used to have a Primelike population, but they wiped themselves out a long time ago." She frowned thoughtfully. "If you go out beyond the trees, towards the ocean, you can still see the ruins. They destroyed their world, and when I got here, it was empty. It was so sad. I couldn't resist the opportunity to clean things up and try to make it a little better than it was. It's also a perfect place to practice all sorts of disaster management techniques without hurting anyone!"

Stesha reached into a mini-fridge under the counter and pulled out a pint of milk, sniffing it cautiously and checking the date before pouring it into both cups. She laughed at the question about power companies. "Not so much, no. Even if there were a power company anywhere on this planet, which as far as I know, there's certainly isn't. I have a small sun and wind generator out back that pulls enough energy to keep the lights on in here, and another one for the only other powered building, but that's about it. Clean green living... and it really doesn't get much greener." She poured the coffee over the milk in the cups, and set them on a tray along with a plate of frosted Christmas cut-out cookies. Carrying them over, she set them on the coffee table and handed one mug to Gaian Knight.

"Thanks, I made it myself!" she told him proudly. "Go ahead and have a seat, this will only take a minute or two. How do you take your coffee?" She shrugged off and set aside her hat, mittens and mask while she worked, then took off the long brown cowl that was part of her costume as well, setting it over a chair. Without those accessories, she looked more like a woman wearing surgical scrubs and a toolbelt than a superheroine, but she was a lot more comfortable.

"Well then, by all means!" Fleur reached out and put a hand on his arm, tugging one mitten off with her teeth to touch her fingers to the flowers in her hair, under her hat. There was a quick flash of green and the scent of fresh-cut grass, and suddenly they were elsewhere! The pair now stood in a cozy little room with walls and ceiling made of leaves, and a floor of grass and area rugs. Lamps in the corner cast pools of golden light across the room, and a space heater made the place very comfortable. One corner held a kitchenette and a table, with most of the rest of the room devoted to a sitting area with a couch and comfy chairs. "This is my headquarters," Fleur told him, chuckling at the incongruity of the term. "Or my home away from home, at least. Is decaf all right with you?" She went over to the kitchenette and began measuring water into the coffeepot.

"No, not at all!" she assured him with a laugh. Long or not, the green-tinted heroine was looking decidedly chilly on the cold December day, despite the fact that she'd bundled up. "I'm so happy that you could come out on such short notice! If you have time, we can go to my place and have a quick cup of coffee, and I can explain what I'm trying to do. It'll be easiest if I can show you, but I've been working outside half the day, and I could use a break to get warmed up."

"That sounds perfect," Stesha confirmed, holding the phone to her ear with her shoulder while she dug around in the closet for her boots. "I'll meet you next to the big fountain in the middle of the park. Thanks so much, I really appreciate it. I'll see you then!" She hung up and wiggled into her costume, not exactly the sixty-second operation it used to be. In another three months, she'd probably be back in the hoodie and yoga pants that had been her first uniform... if even those fit by then. Stesha sighed over her own vanity even as she checked herself in the mirror. Deciding she looked fine, she checked her pouches to make sure they were well-stocked, then put on her hat, scarf and gloves and teleported to Liberty Park.

"Actually, we'll have to teleport to get to where I'd like to show you," she admitted, "so we can meet anywhere that's convenient for you, as long as there are plants nearby." She chuckled, even as she dug her costume out of her closet. She wasn't able to button the top button her pants anymore, but if she left the tunic untucked, it still looked almost normal. "I'm pretty flexible. You name the place and we can meet up, say, fifteen minutes from now?"

Stesha smiled, relieved that the phone number at least still worked. That was a good start! "Hello, Gaian Knight, this is Fleur de Joie. We worked together earlier this year, on that landslide? I've got a situation that could use your special skills. It's not exactly an emergency, and it's not even exactly protecting Freedom City, but it would be helping some folks who've had a very hard time of it stay warm and dry this winter. I was hoping that if you had some free time, you could meet up with me and talk about it."

Stesha had a problem. Or rather, her best and so far only tenants had a problem that she'd promised to help solve. Now that the queen and the rest of the bee colony had moved in, there was plenty of excitement and activity in the Bee Meadows, but precious little space. The weather was getting colder, and the bees were taking to sleeping in shifts and speeding around the meadow all night to try and stay warm. The earthen mounds they'd built simply weren't big enough or skillfully constructed enough to keep out the chill. She'd put up windbreaks of trees, which helped somewhat, but there'd been snow now, and more was coming. Her power was on the wane for the winter, and it was only going to get colder. As she watched Beeatriz and the others trying to pat more dirt down onto the newest, half built mound, she knew she had to help. What she needed, she realized, was a builder who could work in the medium the bees used. She didn't know anybody with wax powers, but she did know, vaguely, someone who could move earth the same way that she could manipulate plants. Perfect! Teleporting herself back to Prime with a thought, Stesha dug through her phone's memory and placed a call to Gaian Knight, hoping he would remember her after all this time.

Fleur caught up to the group in the hallway, still hanging on to the potted plant she was using to network with. "Well, that's two more robots down!" she said cheerfully, then turned to Gabriel. "Are you okay?" As they walked, she checked over his poor head where the robot attacked him. Maybe it was the attention-getting white costume, but the poor man seemed startlingly injury-prone. She wondered if there were any self-defense classes for heroes out there in Freedom City. It might not hurt to suggest one to him. "Where's Otaku?"

Miss A studied the bidders, feeling out of her depth despite the fact that the bidding had picked up. She had expected most of the bidders to be middle aged men looking for someone to wear on their arm to a Christmas party, but not a single one had bid seriously. That was bizarre, and too bad too, since she knew how to handle them easily. She had no clue how to appeal to the group of oddballs who'd fixated on her today. Resolving to go home and consider a total revamp of image, Miss A nonetheless smiled big and did a few more aerial flips, which entertained the non-bidding crowd, if nothing else. "That's the way!" she called encouragingly. "And it's all tax-deductible!"

For her part, Miss A was much less impressed by the performance of the crowd. Didn't they see what she looked like? Didn't they see what she could do? Sure, they were bidding, of course they were bidding, but not as many as she'd wanted, and certainly not as quickly. What was the matter with them? Her thoughts flashed back momentarily to the party at Slick's mansion, and how easy it had been for Doktor Archeville to ignore her. Maybe there was something wrong with this body, something that wasn't ringing true, or wasn't playing right to her intended audiences. Not everything could be planned out and simulated in advance. "Come on," she called to the crowd, her voice full of humor, "you're going to hurt my feelings. Who are you saving that money for, anyway? I'm the last one!"

Augh! I hate you, Invisible Castle! Die in deadly death. Erin goes on 15.

Behind Midnight, Wander shifted her weight, letting go of him to straighten up and pull her bat out of its holster at her belt. By now Erin was more than experienced enough at riding Trevor's bike to balance on it with no trouble whatsoever, and only held onto his waist because it was more fun that way. Now wasn't the time for fun though, not with something that sounded like the wrath of god roaring on the docks just a few blocks away. She drew her legs up onto the pillion seat, careful not to unbalance the bike for Midnight, and prepared to jump off if it became necessary. No words were really necessary, at least not yet.

"How about Fail-Faster?" Miss A suggested helpfully. "You're certainly correct about his staying power in a fight. I have heard, though, that in a more clandestine form, he can be substantially more formidable. So perhaps if he was camouflaged... you could call him Mud Plaster?" She laughed, a musical sound that made her whole face light up with humor. Settling back into her seated on air position, she waited for the police to arrive. "They say your thing is giving everyone nicknames," she told Jackie B conversationally. "Could I have something better than Uncle Samantha? I'd be ever so obliged."

Miss A breathed a silent sigh of relief when at least Slick's voice solidified, if not the rest of Slick. "I should've gone more slowly with the tests," she berated herself, "but there'd been no indication that anything like this would happen, or that Slick was indeed even capable of assuming a fluid state. And I admit that I was too hasty, wanting the tests to be completed as quickly as possible." She gave the blob a hard look at that, silently accusing Slick of at least that much complicity in his own predicament. "If you give me the specs for that communicator, Doctor, I'm sure I can cross-apply the neural interface into a full-body prosthetic suit, if necessary."

"You're going to hit it off beautifully. And with as much as you use physics in your everyday life, I doubt you have anything to worry about," Stesha chuckled, arranging the slabs of garlic bread on a plate. "He should be here any minute now. Could you go and make sure I put the guest towels on the rail in the bathroom?" she asked with sudden hostess paranoia. "And make sure there's toilet paper, and that the little seashell soaps aren't still in their wrappers?" Having guests over was a complicated sort of business!

"Ooh, and he's a doctor, too!" Miss A commented good-humoredly. "Forget about the key to the city, you must need one to lock out all the girls beating a path to your door." She looked at Fearmaster, then in the direction of the distant sirens. "So are we going to stick around and give statements and all that to the police, or can we just take off and figure that they can round up our escaped prisoner and put the pieces together themselves? I'm not sure how willing and able the hockey boys will be to testify about our friend here's crimes."

Miss A smiled broadly and scanned the crowd, assessing the bidders. "That's the way," she called encouragingly, locking eyes with all the bidders, then sweeping the rest of the crowd with her attention. "I'm great fun at parties, you know!" She leapt into the air and turned a dizzying series of flips that showed off both her athleticism and her amazingly toned body. She landed, giving another smile that suggested much and promised nothing. "And I'm terribly interesting one on one as well."

"Honey, I could beat that myself with a phone bid," Miss A told Gabriel with a wink. "But I don't think I'm gonna have to. Hey, it's all for a good cause, right?" It was then that he noticed that she'd changed her outfit for the occasion. She was typically no slouch in the eye candy department, but for this particular party, she'd changed into a pure white bodysuit that molded her curves like she'd been dipped in milk, and sparkled like winter's first snowflake. It was cut by a red belt that rode low on her hips, and finished off by blue thigh-high boots with heels that made her taller than Gabriel. Formal uniform, obviously. She blew Gabriel a saucy kiss, then stepped onto the stage with the poise of someone who'd been born to do so. Hips swaying gently as she moved, she walked to front and center, where some clever stagehand turned a drop spot on her, causing the costume to erupt into a million glittering lights. The crowd hushed for a moment, long enough for her to smile at the crowd and purr, "I just love charity, don't you?"

Gabriel's behests seemed to have little impact on the older man, who reached his limit at 3500 and gracefully bowed out. The bidding kept climbing as the tension increased and the crowd got more and more excited, rising in agonizing hundred dollar increments between the young businesswomen and the father and son pair. Finally, at forty-four hundred dollars, the father murmured something to his son, then shook his head at the auctioneer. The little boy burst into tears. "Sold!" called the auctioneer exultantly, pointing to the group of women. "To the lovely ladies, for four thousand, four hundred dollars! You got a bargain, ladies!" The crowd roared.