Electra

Oddly enough, Miss A didn't seem put off by the glimpse of Dead Head's inner workings. Instead, she looked with interest down at the zombie even as she hauled him out of the pit and back to solid ground where the prone villains were waiting. "All your parts in working order?" she asked. "Nothing fell out that I need to retrieve out of the pit for you?" The sight of the zombie was certainly objectively unpleasant, but the distance conferred by her unique perspective allowed her to appreciate the interesting parts without being nearly so nauseated.

Erin nodded. "Yeah, Vince seems pretty nice and well-adjusted. Maybe if Persephone got to know some other sentient AIs, she wouldn't act so strange. It must be lonely, living up there on the ship with no one but James and the alien animals for company. Unfortunately, it'll be hard to introduce them when I don't even know if Persephone is in this solar system anymore. They could be almost anywhere, literally. James can jump dimensions whenever he wants to, so he has a lot of options."

"Just a moment!" Miss A called sweetly, not taking her eyes off the villains. "It's me, Miss Americana. I seem to have accidentally irradiated these poor boys. The police are coming, and when they get here, I'll make sure they get the antidote before their internal organs begin to liquefy. You should probably sit down," she told the miscreants sympathetically. "I hope you're not seeing spots in front of your eyes yet. That's a bad sign. Laying down with your legs elevated will keep blood circulating to your heads and slow the effects of the radiation." Leaving them to chew on that information for a moment, she nipped down into the hole. "Oh dear, you really have gotten yourself into a pickle," she told Dead Head sympathetically. "Well, here we go. Brace yourself." Trying to be careful, she lifted him off the spikes and carried him out of the pit.

"I'd like a few minutes to stabilize this creature before we transport him anywhere," Miss A said, kneeling carefully next to the bed where the injured bat lay. "His condition is precarious enough that even a teleport is worrisome. Perhaps the two of you could go out and investigate the alley while I work on the bat and reach out to Dr. Efthimiadis," she suggested. "I'm not sure how much good any more charred pieces are going to do us in the rebuilding effort, but any clues as to where he came from or what happened to him would be very valuable."

Miss Americana paused in her flight when she saw something odd going down in the cemetery. She'd been working late and had been headed home, but this situation looked like it might need a hero. It already had one, she realized suddenly, recognizing the unmistakably grim visage of Dead Head, one of Freedom City's more unique heroes. He didn't seem to be doing well, though. She winced sympathetically as he fell into the pit trap set for him. Hopefully he'd recover, but he looked like he was down for the count for this precise moment. She sized up the trio of graverobbers, for that was obviously what they'd been up to. They looked human, and had elected to build a trap instead of fighting, which suggested they might be regular humans. Her laser beam was theoretically safe for humans, but she felt just a little bit uncomfortable trying it, especially when two of them looked like they were still teenagers. A better plan was in order. After a second's worth of recalibration, she aimed her hands at the leader and fired, bathing him in a totally harmless blue light that bounced off the others to a lesser, reflected extent. Before they could react, Miss A flew down towards them, staying overhead and out of reach, but plenty close enough for them to get a really good look at her. "Stop, evil magic... oh no!" she cried, covering her mouth with her fingers in exaggerated horror. "You're really human, aren't you? I had no idea, or I never would've used my radiation blasts! You poor children, you must be feeling awful already. Clammy, nauseous, lightheaded... Why without the antidote, I'm afraid you may have only minutes left!"

Well, Miss A would really prefer not to laser-blast these guys, who look really young and basically human, so she's going to try and bluff their socks off instead. First, a mock attack with laser beams, centered on the leader: A 23. She is not attempting to do any damage. After that, a Bluff roll against the group. A terrible roll, but the result is still 30.

Under Professor Cape's direction, Erin pulled the lead-lined plywood shield over to block the observation area from the test chamber. It was pretty easy, it moved in segments of only a few tons each, so she could lift and move them without undue effort. In just a couple of minutes, the shield was in place, and Erin had satisfied herself that it was stable and wasn't going to tip over and squash anybody. "So what exactly is the material you're testing made of?" she asked as she finished up.

Erin shrugged at his suggestion that her punches were too imprecise. "I dunno, they've got my strength calibrated pretty well over at the school, Mr. Archer tests me with impervium blocks once a month or so to see how many I can punch through. If you know how strong impervium is, you should be able to get a measurement from that, right? It might be easier than finding a machine that punches as hard as I can, if you need something punched really hard." She looked around as they entered the lab, pursing her lips for a moment. "Or I could move boxes for you?" she suggested, falling back on diffidence again.

"No, it's okay," Stesha assured her friend, deliberately relaxing her arm to de-emphasize the severity of the bite. "I wanted to show you around anyway, and the sun will heal it right up anyway. I'm better at that than I used to be," she said wryly, thinking of a long-ago hickey she'd taken plenty of teasing over from her work friends. "Do you need to, um, cover him up or anything to take him outside?"

"Um, pretty good," Erin replied diffidently, aware that her definition of pretty good and his were probably different. "It's my best science, anyway, because I use it a lot when I jump and lift and stuff. I guess that makes it easier." She looked around the lift as it ascended, shifting from foot to foot before admitting her ignorance. "So how do you test the, um, resilience of quantum matter?" she asked. "Do you want me to punch it for you?"

Erin stepped forward and shook the scientist's hand, her grip unusually firm for a girl her age, but not aggressive or painful. From her dossier, Supercape knew that she was a physical powerhouse, amazingly strong and impossibly tough. Her academic record, however, was decidedly unsuper. She was only taking Chemistry this year, rather than any advanced or college placement courses, which suggested she was an average student at best. "Hello, Professor," Erin said politely. "Thank you for agreeing to work with me on my project. I'm sure it will be very interesting, and I hope I can be of some help." She'd worked that little greeting out on the way over, and was pleased with how it sounded.

Erin parked her truck in the parking lot outside the shiny new building that comprised Hanover's newest giant laboratory. It was an impressive-looking place, and she was sure Alex would get a heck of a kick out of it, but it didn't seem like any place she ought to be going into. But if she wanted to pass her final science class, she needed to assist a super scientist and write a report on it. She was lucky to have gotten set up with someone local and who worked in physical scientists, nothing that might make her feel too uneasy. She'd make the best of it and try not to make a fool out of herself. Climbing out of the truck, she headed for the main entrance to the lab. With her auburn hair drawn back in a simple ponytail and in a pale green blouse and khaki slacks, she looked like any high school intern, and certainly not like much of a superhero. Her bat was tucked into her pocket because she didn't travel without it, but it didn't seem likely to come in handy today. Walking into the lobby, she took a look around, marveling a little at the size of the place, then concentrated on finding her scientist.

"I can tell! Look how he crawls already, he must be keeping you hopping!" Stesha laughed, reaching for the exploring baby. Quick as a striking snake, JJ lunged and sunk his tiny fangs into her arm! Stesha yelped in surprise, even as JJ let go with a look of startled disgust and began wailing. Pulling her arm away, Stesha cradled it to her chest, giving the squalling infant a rueful look. "Like father, like son, I see," she murmured dryly.

He made his way back into the house to find Stesha looking just as he'd left her, snuggled up under the quilt and with her extraordinarily long green hair starting to escape from the braids and pins she'd captured it with. There was still half a bottle of Sprite on the kitchenette counter, as well as some more soup, a box of saltine crackers, a bag of ginger snaps, and some coffee, tea, and cocoa sitting next to the coffeemaker. It looked like the food situation was pretty well taken care of. Oddly enough, the only change in the house was that the plants that made up the carpet surrounding the sofa had all grown a couple inches, and looked like they could use mowed. They hadn't been that way when he'd left.

Sorry, no help here! 1d20+6=10

"See? Patrolling like this really does work!" With a melodious laugh, Miss A turned in the air and followed Victory downward, a sleek bullet of red, white and blue. "Though if I didn't know better, I'd say you'd been waiting for this to happen!" Turning her attention to the would-be robbers, she called out "Stop where you are! You won't be getting away with anything today!" With two... no, three heroes, she realized, seeing the third figure approaching the van, surely they were more than a match for any group of armed thugs.

"Okay," Erin nodded to Taylor. She didn't go into the library anyway unless it was urgently necessary, especially after what had happened a few months earlier. There was plenty of house without going in there! "Um, yeah, I like Indian food," she told Jack a little diffidently. It wasn't like the vampire to think of food unless something was making him hungry, and she decided she really didn't want to know. She rarely asked her employers what they were doing when they went out like this, they could be going out to dinner or going to fight crime or eat people or any number of things. Sometimes it was just better not to know.

Erin considered Mark's dare for a moment, cocking her head and studying the reality warper. Finally, she cracked a smile, then mimed zipping her lips and tossing away the slider. If she didn't say anything for five minutes, she didn't have to add the rider on either. And especially in her artificially relaxed state, it wasn't at all difficult to think of what else she could do to entertain herself for five minutes. Turning to Trevor, she raised an inquisitive eyebrow, then went in for the kiss.

"Can't it be both?" Miss A asked with a laugh, turning a graceful midair flip. "Isn't flying the most amazing feeling in the universe? Sometimes it's hard to make myself go back to the ground. And, of course," she added, her lovely features assuming a mock-serious mien, "it's the best way to keep an eye on the peace and Tranquility of Freedom City. What brings you out this afternoon. Looks like you were watching something specific?" she guessed.

"And Avenger can send you the bill for beating you and the monsters up," Erin murmured under her breath, then sneezed. She was more than ready to go home herself, preferably to get a shower and some dry clothes on. But she wasn't going to leave till she was sure the danger was past. "So where did JJ go?" she asked Phantom, looking around the disordered library. "I mean, besides with Avenger."

Erin had been about to agree that she was bored with the game, but being the focus of attention again was enough to interest her for a few more moments. Especially since Mark wasn't naked anymore and she wasn't going to have to flee the area. She yawned and leaned against Trevor, partly because Alex looked so comfortable that way. The warm water really was soporific, especially with the effects of drunkenness-by-proxy. "Dare," she told Mark confidently. "Gimme your best shot."

Theoretically, Miss Americana was on patrol, using her afternoon off to keep the streets and skies of Freedom City safe from evildoers of all sorts. And she was doing that, sort of. In reality, she was devoting most of her time to goofing off in the sky, making elaborate and precisely calculated loops and spirals, popping in and out of clouds and skimming the tops of buildings. It was wonderful to feel so free, so unbound in the wide open sunwashed sky. It was easy to forget about everything back down on the ground, just for a few minutes. She paused in her antics when they took her near a familiar flying figure sharing her airspace. Angling herself in his direction, she headed over to greet Victory. "Hello!" she called genially. "Fancy meeting you here!"

Erin lost no time in going through the portal into the library. Even if she was still soaking wet, it was at least warm in there and she could drip all over everything with her feet firmly on the ground. She kept her bat out, holding it loosely in one hand as she kept an eye on the doctor. He seemed normal now, but they were back in the library, and there were tons of books here. Who knew what he might be capable of? At least JJ was away, which was a relief.

Miss Americana took a scanner from her bag and approached the metal-clad bat, taking readings on its health and the state of its mechanical parts as she visually assessed it. "Fascinating," she murmured. "It appears to be a giant relative of Mystacina robusta, the extinct greater short-tailed bat. It's obviously a member of Mystacinidae, you can easily tell by the wing joints and the shape of the muzzle. That would obviously explain the mechanoid wings, the short-tailed bats are renowed for their strength and versatile eating habits, but they spend most of their time on the ground. I'm seeing damage to the crainial cap, the flexor replacement, the cervical collar, and the torsion control elements, at the very least. Poor thing looks like it was picked up and shaken by a giant dog," she murmured sympathetically. She turned to Rift with a small smile. "As you surmised, it's definitely not from around here. I think I can fix or replace the damage in its cyborg exoskeleton, and whatever internal components we find. I'd recommend a veterinary expert be brought in to consult as well," she told Doc. "I can fake it, but I'd be a lot more comfortable with a real expert in the field."

"THAT IZZZ A GOOD IDEA," the bee told Carson, sounding pleased, as much as he could read the vocal nuances of a giant sentient insect. "YOU ZZZHOULD HELP ZZTEZZA FIND OUR QUEEN, AND OUR FRIENDZZZ. THEY ARE ZZZTUCK IN THE BAD PLAZZE, WHERE THERE IZZZ NO GOOD FOODZZ AND THE HUMANZZ BEET UZZ. HERE IZZ MUCH BEETTER. WE DO NOT NEED TO FIGHT IN THIZZ ZZAFE WORLD. YOU GO HELP ZZTEZZA." With that, the giant bee flew off, back to the warm safety of the giant mounds.