Electra

Spending an HP to reroll a crappy first Knowledge: Structural roll, using Eidetic memory: 1d20+15=25, so a result of 35. In order to actually effect the repair, I'm going to have her cut a table in half and use the pieces as sister-joists to marry the two severed beams. I saw it on HGTV once, it worked really well. Spending another HP to power stunt Precise onto her laser vision. This will probably take a couple of turns.

Erin put her arm around him, a little awkwardly from lack of experience, but it seemed like the right thing to do. With her free hand, she pushed the plate of pie in his direction. "You should have some of this," she told him. "It's really good." Maybe it was a poor excuse for an idea to cheer him up, but it really was excellent pie. "And I know you can handle your own business on your own," she added, "but there's no reason you have to. There are all sorts of people ready to help you. Or to punch that girl. Maybe both," she suggested with a half-smile.

Stesha, who had decided that a new set of chimerical clothes wasn't going to do anything to change her appearance anyway, reluctantly stepped to the front of the group when no one else seemed inclined to get the ball rolling. "We need to ask you some questions," she told the old prisoner. "What do you know about a country called the Sahwari Republic? Do you know if it has anything to do with your Shepherd?"

Erin cocked her head to the side a moment to count. "Well, there's me, Psyche, Phalanx, and Edge, and there's Rift, and Midnight II says he's not on the team, but he comes on a lot of our missions anyway." Her cheeks colored very briefly at the mention of that notable. "Geckoman and Hellion graduated, but they sometimes come back when we need them, and Breakdown's not on the team anymore. So I guess we're at five now, and some associates. The teleporter we inherited, the whole base, actually. Psyche's grandpa built it a long time ago, but we updated it and it still works really well." As they spoke, Erin kept an eye out to see when the sim would activate. She was sure that it wasn't going to do anything dangerous right off, but she preferred not to be surprised. "We need to take on some more this year, I guess, or the team will dissolve when we all graduate in the spring."

"Did you tell her your secret identity?" Erin asked, holding her coffee but not drinking it. "Like the stuff with your grandpa, and what your plans were? Does she know what you're doing now?" That could be a serious problem, beyond the old broken heart and the clinging irritation. "If she really does start making blackmail threats, you can probably go to the headmaster and he can take steps to stop her. Or we could talk to Alex, I'm sure she'd help, given the circumstances."

"Hell, if you don't want me to punch her on your behalf, maybe I'll punch her for my own pleasure," Erin muttered. "What a bitch." She drank her coffee and glowered at the table. "Some people are just stupid," she finally said, "and shallow, and scared. If she doesn't feel sorry every day for how she treated you, then she was never really worth your friendship. Did she tell anyone else about you?" It hadn't seemed that way, from what she'd seen of Trevor's social circle, but she wasn't always good at reading those situations.

"Fascinating," Miss Americana murmured, arching one perfect eyebrow. "He might actually be telling the truth." The swordsman's plan made sense though, so she had work to do. "Don't let him get away," she cautioned the swordsman, "if he's truly a sentient Omegadrone, he could provide invaluable opportunities for research into the Terminus!" With that, she ran in the direction the drone had indicated, indeed finding the two injured civilians and carrying them to safety outside the compromised building.

Erin sipped her coffee and let him talk, keeping her fingers laced with his, even when his started to smoke. The urge was definitely growing to track down this girl (though it was a little hard to actually think of her by name) and give her something of what she deserved. Erin had had more than enough of that type of girl trying to deal with Daisy Gibbon's antics this summer. The thought of someone like her hurting someone Erin cared about was intolerable. But for the moment, she just waited and listened.

Gina uses Datalink on the Omegadrone, shutting down communication with Miss A for a moment to do so. When she encounters an actual mind instead of Omega programming, she will pull back.

Miss Americana paused, her hand raised as though to fire again, as uncertainty passed over her lovely features. "You shouldn't be talking," she said aloud. "What are you?" Abruptly she lowered her arm and closed her eyes, looking for a moment as though she were deep in meditation, for all this was the strangest of places to do it. Mere seconds passed before she opened her eyes and the animation returned to her features. "What are you," she asked again, though it was clear that this time she actually expected to get some kind of response.

Miss A: Initiative 15

Miss Americana attacks the evil Omegadrone! Blast attack 1d20+12=23! DC 27

Miss Americana gasped, her blonde curls bouncing as she turned to face the new and far more deadly threat. "Holy sh- um, Not so fast, Omegadrone!" she called to it, raising a hand in defiance, her sparkling blue eyes full of purpose. It seemed like an empty gesture until blasts of red, white and blue light shot from her fingertips, straight for the hulking menace from beyond the stars! "Quickly!" she called to the other two costumed heroes. "I'll hold him off while you rescue the civilians! There isn't much time!"

"Well, I'll leave it on the table in case we ever run into her," Erin offered. She took a thoughtful sip of her coffee. "What happened between you and her?" she finally asked. "If you don't want to talk about it, you can just say so," she added. She was the last person to try and make someone talk about something that was too painful or unpleasant, but curiosity compelled her to ask. Right now, when they had quiet and privacy, seemed like as good a time as any.

The muffled explosion and the smoke it created threw up a beacon to any heroes in the area that danger was in the air and help was required! High in the sky above Freedom City, a figure waited poised to answer that call. A flash of red, white, blue and gold cut through the clouds, and with a whoosh, Miss Americana was flying to the rescue! "Don't be afraid!" she called out to the citizens as she swooped down to the scene of the disaster. "I'm here to help!" With her perfect forehead furrowed in concentration, Miss Americana landed and surveyed the scene. There had obviously been some kind of explosion in this bar, with civilian casualties trapped inside! Without a moment's hesitation, she flew into the burning building to help, just in time to miss the very imposing figure exiting out the back.

As soon as Mark dropped in with the lights, Erin spotted the odd robotic thing suspended from the ceiling. In a move that was almost too fast to see, she reached out and swiped it, holding it close to her body to shelter the others in case it decided to explode. "Looks like a camera," she observed, peering into the glass globe. "I wonder who's driving it." She looked over to Trevor, who was the most knowledgeable about this sort of thing. "Think I should break it, to be on the safe side?"

"The first few fights are always kind of weird," Wander told him reassuringly, though she was distracted by the name he'd divulged. Surely it wasn't the same guy... but all the same, she'd be having a talk with Avenger and Phantom, just to make sure. After all, if they were dabbling in mob politics, that would affect how she had to take care of Jack Jr! "You get better at it as you go on, especially if you're learning to work with people at the same time. "I've heard the name around," she told Gabriel evasively, "but it's probably someone totally different."

Erin reached out and put a hand over his, turning her head just far enough to look at him. "Tricia seems pretty strong-willed, despite the shy. I think she'll get through it okay. And Meaghan, I don't care how good a dancer she was, she wasn't worth a minute of your time." She grinned a little. "But maybe I'm selfishly glad that she was too dumb to know a good thing, because look where we are now." Leaning toward him conspiratorially, she murmured in his ear, "Want me to punch her for you?"

"She did seem kind of shy," Erin agreed. There were not a lot of people she would've allowed to box her into a booth, even in totally safe circumstances, but tonight it didn't even bother her. "But the circumstances were kind of weird, too. I mean, you saw the wonderful way that Aaron and I got along. I still don't believe he managed to pin me." She looked disgusted about that, even in retrospect, but let it go to stare into her coffee as well. "You think her guy-Meaghan did a number on her?" she finally guessed.

"Faretti?" Wander asked with surprise, turning to Momentum. "Are you sure that was the name?" That was weird, but maybe it was just a coincidence. There was bound to be more than one person in Freedom City with that name... who happened to operate in the shadows and had a lot of people working for him... Brow furrowed, she nonetheless took the time to observe all the landmarks she'd need to find Gabriel's hotspot later if need be.

"I liked that one," she agreed, turning the truck in that direction. Once again, the diner was not too crowded and no one paid much attention to the teenagers who took a corner booth for late night coffee. For once Erin splurged and also ordered a piece of the chocolate cream pie that waited so temptingly in the cooler beside the counter. Between the kissing and the truck's new speed, she was feeling in a celebratory mood. "It's kind of weird," she said, scooping the whipped cream off her pie to float it on top of her already-sweetened coffee, "since we got back from that other world, I find myself sort of wondering if my other self is doing all the same things I'm doing at the same time. Which really gets bizarre sometimes, seeing as how we're sort of fundamentally different. But we still turned out so much the same."

"Try and get some rest," Erin told him again, forcing her way free of the sticky web of the past to come back to the realities of the present. "Tomorrow we need to talk with the rest of the team about whatever it is your dad was trying to warn us about. If there is going to be another invasion, we need to be prepared, but we need more information. We both have a score to settle, and I intend to see that he pays for what he's done. Meantime, you'll feel better with some sleep. Give me or one of the guys a call if you need anything, okay?"

Erin was quiet for a long time, staring at the dark house. It almost seemed like she wasn't going to answer. "He got the flu," she finally said, her voice quiet. "It was a pandemic, lots of people were getting it, but I didn't realize yet that it was going to affect us, that it was going to be the end. Really late one night my mom woke my sister and I up and told us to pack up some stuff, because we had to leave. I was so sleepy and confused, you know, waking up in the night, I didn't even notice until we were already in the car that my dad wasn't with us. He hadn't come near us while we packed, or kissed us or said goodbye. He watched us from the front porch while we pulled out, and I saw him coughing." She was quiet for a minute. "I don't really know how he died, exactly," she admitted. "One of our neighbors broke in to find supplies and found him on the kitchen floor. She called us to let us know." Erin ran a hand through her hair, then tugged hard on the ends. "I hope it was fast, and that he didn't have to lay there for very long." That was probably way too much information, she realized, but the words just came tumbling out one after another before she could stop them.

The trip was very quick, just a couple of bounces, and Erin already knew the way. She stood with Mark on the edge of the lawn, oddly reluctant to go any further towards the house. Maybe it was not wanting to intrude on Martha's grief, maybe it was not wanting to have to take any of that grief onto herself. "All right," she said cautiously, studying Mark's face for some hint of what he wanted to ask. She didn't like personal questions, but even she wasn't heartless enough to deny him right now.

Erin followed him to the elevator, shoving her beacon back into her jacket pocket for safekeeping. "She's probably right," Erin offered. "You could use some rest, it's been a hard night. I could give you a ride back to campus, or over to your mom's house, if you'd rather. Hospitals are a lousy place to try and get any sleep." She had no idea what to say about any of the rest of it. "Your grandma sounded pretty good."