Electra

With dinner finished, Erin headed with the others back to their rooms. She wasn't particularly tired after having a quick nap on the plane, but she wasn't about to miss out on the opportunity to test out the amazing amenities that had been provided for them in the palace. Anybody could get a good night's sleep on a bed the size of a lake in a room like a fancy hotel suite! Before heading into her room for the evening, she paused in the hall and focused on Trevor, who'd already taken off his mask now that they were away from the crowds. Stepping a few feet away from the others, but deliberately not looking to see if anyone was watching them, she leaned in and murmured, "By the way, I'm sober now, and I still meant what I said earlier. Just so you know. See you tomorrow." She leaned in and kissed him goodnight, mostly decorously.

Miss A laughed, a beautiful rich sound as she got up to calibrate some of her sensors. "Why thank you! It's all natural talent, I assure you." She began moving equipment around with apparent ease, creating a space on the floor ringed with monitoring equipment. "But there's really not much to tell. We all have different gifts, I suppose you could say. Now if you'll step into that circle, you can do whatever you like, and I'll start working with the equipment to try and find something that can read you."

Erin stood by and watched the one-upmanship game quietly, without having much to contribute. She figured she had a good chance of destroying a forcefield if it were necessary, but that wasn't exactly the skill called for here. At least her ribs didn't hurt anymore, and in fact she was feeling very good, almost energized. "I'll take you both whenever you want to go," she told them. "You don't get access till you're on a team, but I can take you with me and show you how to do it."

As soon as Slick began his transformation, Miss A grabbed a scanner off the table and began recording, along with the more passive instruments that had already been taking measurements during the interview. "Impressive!" she told him with a smile. "Do you have a typical repertoire of forms that you assume, or do you take your cues from the people around you and your own imagination, or is it some combination of the two? I believe I have seen you using the visage you entered with in the past."

"Oh, absolutely," Miss A said with perfect confidence. "We'll hold the talk about crossing lines till after that." She gave him a quick wink, then took off, peppering the FearMaster with laser blasts to get him to take cover and leave his machine exposed. A few of the football players gave up the fight to follow her, drooling, leaving the rest of the squad to the able blade of the swordsman. "Come on, FearMaster," she called, her tone dulcet. "You know you don't want to be responsible for these poor boys getting hurt. Surrender now and we'll make sure to put in a good word for you."

"I see," she said with a thoughtful nod and a lift of one perfect brow as she ejected the spent needle into a sharps container and stowed the rest of her equipment. "I can't wait to get a look at it. Or rather, I suppose I can and will wait for a little while, since I would like to see some of what you can do, if you're willing to show off your powers a little bit." She gestured to the small open space in the front of the lab. "If you'd like more room, I can easily move the necessary equipment to a bigger space."

"I'll make sure to put that at the top of my list," Miss A told him with a smile, rising for a few moments to sanitize her hands, put on gloves, and collect a few high-tech phlebotomy instruments. "All right, just a little pinch now." She rubbed disinfectant over the inner bend of his elbow, then found the vein with her finger and pressed the collector to it. With a small popping noise, the needle embedded in the device broke the skin and began to collect blood, which flowed into clear tubes attached to its base. As promised, she didn't take much, and it was over quite quickly, She removed the device and pressed a gauze pad to his elbow. "There we are. How do you feel?"

At that moment, a bright arrow of red and blue arced through the sky overhead, coming down to land next to Jack of All Blades in the form of Miss Americana, true-blue blonde bombshell and protector of humanity! Even the steroid-addled jocks stopped their menacing long enough to gape at the way she filled out her spangled uniform. She took in the scene with a glance, then gave Jack of all Blades a brilliant smile. "Having a little scrimmage with the Minutemen?" she asked blandly. "Can two play?"

Erin really didn't understand what Jill and Corbin were talking about in anything more than the broadest of terms, so she shrugged it off as unimportant. Instead she focused on what she did understand, which was fighting. "Would you want to fight a robot?" she asked Jill curiously. "I mean, I thought your power was giving diseases to things, besides the healing and all that. Could you give a robot a computer virus or something like that?" It seemed weird to her. "If you really want to, I'll take you to the Doom Room sometime and you can fight one."

Erin stared at the tables, the gleaming instruments, the white surgical lights of a theater of far worse than death, and she was afraid. More afraid than she'd been in a long time. How could she face an entire universe this evil, how could she ask her friends to do it with her? They would fail, and die, or worse, they would end up here on these tables, having accomplished nothing. The butcher who worked here had taken her world, but she had somehow escaped without a scratch, and fallen into a situation that was a hundred times better than she'd had any right to ask for. No one expected her to do this. There was no reason not to turn away. "And who knows if you were brought to the kingdom for such a time as this?" she murmured aloud, to herself. She looked over at Harrier. "I'll be ready," she told him. "What else?"

"She's sneakier than she looks," Fleur murmured to Gabriel. "All right then, distraction time." She clapped her hands, then rubbed them together, wishing she'd brought her mittens along on this trip. "Brr. Stay close to me, and if you think of something distracting, go for it." Throwing out her hands in the direction of the imprisoned and deactivated mega-robot, she sent enormous vines snaking across the dead grass, sinuous as snakes. They wrapped around maid and tower, pulling the tower away and dragging it into the grass a short distance off. Next to the robot itself, a gigantic yellow daisy, at least the size of a baseball diamond, grew up from the ground and unfurled sail-like petals that waved in the breeze. When the flower had assumed its full height and breadth, it tipped over, as though overcome by its own weight, and landed face-down to cover the robot. A cloud of pollen rose up, and when it cleared, the robot had vanished! The daisy slowly righted itself, its stem decreasing in height till the flower was face up and flat to the earth. Improbably, as though any of this had been probable, a cup like that on a buttercup rose from the center of the flower, and when it opened, there were two entirely different robots: Doc Otaku's missing Angel Androids. Nibbing on her lower lip in concentration, Stesha picked up control of the vines again, and wrapped one around the upper chest and under the armpits of each robot. Wiggling her fingers and humming a Christmas song, she began moving the robots in a herky-jerky dance, their limbs flopping and heads lolling to the beat. "If this doesn't get him watching, nothing will..."

"I'll keep that in mind," Erin muttered. "Anything that protects against it? Is it just bare skin contact?" She sized up the door for a moment, then delivered a side kick with twice the force of a hydraulic ram to the space between the doors. They bowed and gave way, and a second kick had one snapping in half. She stepped through, bat at the ready for all the building was empty. Even empty, even in simulation, she shuddered to step into the doctor's sanctum. "What next?"

Gina looked from Wesley's face to his hand and back again, clearly not wanting to shake, and hesitated just long enough to make things really uncomfortable. Finally she shook his hand, a quick, limp motion with a clammy cold hand. "Thank you, the tattoo is excellent. I'll pass your name along to anyone who asks." She signed the credit card slip and added a generous gratuity, then stuck the pen in her pocket and tucked away her things as quickly as possible. She looked a little ridiculous in her unseasonable shorts and large bandage, but that was the least of her worries at the moment. Now that her task was completed, Gina wanted nothing more than to get back into the safety of her own home. "So, um, have a good afternoon." She turned and headed briskly for the door.

"Mister Slick," Miss A murmured, her voice quiet but full of sincerity, "no one is going to be hurt by the experiments we do here today. I will not allow anything to happen that is going to injure you in any way. I want the control of this process to be in your hands. If you decide that you don't wish any of the results of any of these tests to be used for future research projects, I will make sure that it happens that way. Today is primarily for your benefit and your edification. I believe we should all know everything we can about ourselves as metahumans, and if beyond that, you want to throw those test results in the trash, then we will do that." She spread her hands. "I didn't mean to say anything to make you uneasy about anything we do here at ArcheTech. You'll have to forgive me if sometimes my enthusiasm carries me away. You see, my focus is primarily in medical prostheses and transplantables, and one of the primary problems we have is that the body will reject a part that is not sufficiently familiar. If something in the research we do were to reveal a single gene that would make cells that tiny bit more adaptable, it could save many lives. But I'm not willing to sacrifice anyone for that goal."

"Of course, I understand perfectly," Miss A assured him. "I wouldn't work with ArcheTech myself if I weren't convinced of their absolute dedication to the privacy of everyone who works for or with them. I can provide you with a detailed copy of our policies and procedures for data protection, as well as for the storage and disposal of organic materials. The short version is that all the information I'm gathering about your today, all the readings I take, and the results of any tests we do will be stored electronically in a heavily encrypted database that is available only on a need to know basis even to trusted employees of the company. We will not ever release any information about you without your consent or, should it ever become necessary, the consent of your estate. All biological samples you provide will be kept for five years in a state of the art secure facility, accessible only to trusted scientists on the metahuman research project. After that, they will be destroyed." Miss A set her pad aside, steepling her fingers so that the perfect french-tipped nails barely brushed together. "As for what the analysis will be used for, part of that will depend on what we find. Every piece of data collected from metahumans is valuable because of the information it gives us about the nature and origin of metahuman ability. Understanding this will allow us to assist new metahumans in gaining control of their power, or established heroes in maximizing their ability. It also contributes to the body of knowledge that may one day let us use metahuman-inspired technology to cure disease, prolong life, and improve conditions for everyone on Earth." She smiled. "We don't think small here."

"Aw, clowns aren't so scary," Stesha told JJ with a laugh. "They just make a lot of noise and excitement. You'll like them when you get older!" She teleported them all to the ridge they'd visited the first time Stesha and Taylor had come here, one tall enough to let them see all around the region. It looked different, with Stesha's large green patch spreading like a verdant lawn over part of the map, but around and beyond that was the sere reminder of what this world had done to itself. "I'm sure you'll work it out," she told Taylor, looking out over her own handiwork. "After all, he's done so many stupid, rotten nasty things that you've had to suffer the fallout for, he owes you already. It's not as though you left him on purpose. He's lucky to have you, and I think he's smart enough to realize that, too."

Back in the house, Miss Americana worked on the bat for a few minutes, using her peculiar powers to enter into the cyborg circuitry for a better look at all the places that were broken. She rerouted nerve connections and fused broken data pathways, cannibalizing other systems to rebuild the autonomic nervous system until she was sure it would survive the rest of the healing process. With that done, she got on the phone to the veterinary surgeon, who was interested indeed in a collaboration. After that, it was merely a matter of waiting for the others to return with their findings.

"Yeah," Erin said with an offhanded shrug. "Bunch of little robots and one big robot all trying to rob a bank downtown. The little ones weren't a big deal, but the big one had some more juice. It tore up the street some and got a hit in on me when I wasn't paying enough attention. We took out the big one and most of the little guys, but I didn't want to go into the bank for the last few without more backup and knowing the scene. The weapons the police carry would be enough to take out the last few." She rubbed the back of her neck, then resettled her blue headband. "Lots of robot villains in Freedom City, lots of human villains who like using them."

I'm still waiting for a GM post on my second set of questions to #2.

Erin frowned at Mark, remembering her own annoyance when Marcie had "improved" her own clothes, but when Trevor didn't make a big deal of it, she let it go. It was kind of hard to yell at Mark anyway. Sometimes he'd totally blow it off, other times he'd take it to heart far more than it had been meant. She busied herself instead with the excellent food, which was novel and plentiful. Most of the time she didn't ask what she was eating, but everything was good. Except maybe the coffee, which was extremely strong for her taste, and not served with cream or sugar. After observing the near-religious way Trevor savored his, though, she took a drink anyway and managed not to grimace. "What are we going to be doing tomorrow?" she asked the closest of their hosts.

Miss A was visibly disappointed to hear that Dead Head could no longer infuse dead tissues with life, but she rallied quickly. "It doesn't so much matter what powers you use as that you use your power," she assured him. "If I can get the correct frequency and wavelength with which to analyze your abilities, then it's simply a matter of working with you as you continue to recover from your loss. If we need to go back to the cemetery, I'm sure I could transport some of my equipment there."

Erin popped her neck, still looking vaguely embarrassed. "We were out on training maneuvers," she told Jill. "I was supposed to be showing him the ropes, how to look for trouble without getting hurt, stuff like that. I managed to show him the first part, at least. I think I've been slacking off a little too much lately, gotta get back into the simulator." Brushing asphalt dust off her uniform, she looked to Corbin. "No, don't worry about it. I'll report in about what we did, the bank robbery and all that. You don't have to worry about that sort of thing yet. You can go do whatever." She sighed. "And trust me, you'd be in a lot less trouble if I got killed than I would be if you did. Never volunteer to command anything."

"I can provide a distraction!" Stesha volunteered immediately. "I still have two of his robots knocking around from last time I faced off with him. I bet he would be very interested if they showed up again, and I've got a few other tricks up my sleeve as well." She looked around at the rest of the group. Midnight was obviously built for stealth, but the tentacled heroine and the almost-angel didn't inspire quite as much confidence. "Midnight, if you can sneak into the building with one of my plants, I can teleport the others along to you, so you won't all have to sneak in."

Miss A perked up immediately at the mention of Dead Head reanimating dead flesh to his purposes. "You can take cadaverous flesh and bring it back to animation as part of your body?" she asked. "So it's really less the material of your body that's important, it is the life force that animates you." She tapped her finger lightly against her lips. "I'd like to try a few things, if you don't mind, just with non-invasive sensors. If I can see you using your powers, and track you with my instruments while you do so, it might let me catch a glimpse of that force. What sort of flesh do you need to use your abilities?"

"Well, if it tastes bad," Fleur told Gabriel teasingly, "maybe you'll stop making me patch you up quite so often." She gave him a motherly pat on the shoulder, then pushed on her knees to stand herself up again as the impromptu team regrouped. "Hello, Midnight," she greeted the black-clad youth, "it's nice to see you again. Fusion, good to see you as well. Do we have any idea what exactly we might be up against inside that studio?" she asked the group at large. "I've faced Otaku's minions before, but this seems like a somewhat different proposition. He's obviously expecting us."