Electra

Erin was the only one left standing now, her clothing and hair caked with blood, her hands slick and dripping with it. “I had to!†she yelled at the grinning zombie. “It had to be that way, how could I think that way and live with it? They were better off dead!†“Why?†came the question, but not from Dead Head. Zombie Trevor lay on the ground, bleeding freely from the gaping wound where his throat used to be. “Why kill us? Why? Why?†The question was taken up by the rest of the unquiet corpses, until the murmurs of “why, why, why†filled the whole world. “Why didn’t you save us?†Zombie Megan asked, her piping voice cutting clearly through the soft din. Her wounds weren’t those of a slashing fight, but of a long and brutal fall. “Aren’t you a hero? You didn’t save me. You didn’t save anyone. You didn’t even try, did you?â€

The fight was as natural to her as breathing, something to be done without thought and on instinct… until she realized that the faces of the people she was fighting were familiar. Her family was there, in amongst the zombies, her father, her mother, Megan, mindless now and howling for her blood, but still the people she remembered. Erin stumbled backwards in shock, in denial, unable to attack them, and her mother sank teeth deep into Erin’s arm. Survival overrode sentiment and Erin fought back, stabbing, slashing, fighting, even as the faces she loved contorted in agony and fear. There were others too, people she cared about. Trevor and Alex, James, the rest of her teammates, zombies all, moaning with the cries of the damned and attempting to drag her down and rip her apart. “They’re all people!†Dead Head reminded her gleefully from the sidelines. “Ev’ry zombie was a pers’n once, with dreams ‘n hopes, people what loved ‘em. An’ you cut ‘em down wit’out ever even lookin’ in their faces, seein’ what they was. Din’t lookit me, didja? Look now, look now, lookatcha now, huh?â€

Erin stepped outside and the ice cream was gone, replaced by a long knife she’d once used like an extension of her own hand. It was nighttime, and she was on the streets of a nameless city, surrounded by the rust, ruin and decay of every urban area in her dead world. The Jeep was gone, Megan was gone, she was alone now except for the movements in the shadows a hundred feet away. She raised herself up on the balls of her feet, prepared to charge… and was stopped when the lead figure stepped into the light. It was Dead Head, wearing the rotted leathers he’d been wearing last time she’d seen him, a wide rictus smile on his sloughing face. “Hey, there y’are, missy!†the zombie said with great good cheer, taking a few steps towards her. His hand detatched and scuttled towards her like a rodent, cold fingers literally walking up her back as she stood paralyzed. “Was startin’ t’get afraid you were gonna miss the big show! ‘S all set up, jes’ fer you. Ever’body’s excited, they’re all just dyin’ to see you…†He stepped aside with a ringmaster’s flourish, and moonbeams fell like a spotlight onto the crowd. It was zombies, of course, the faceless, mindless horde that always seemed just a few steps away in her dreams. They bore down on her in a wave, and suddenly she was freed from her paralysis and fighting for her life once again.

Even without breathing, the stench made Erin’s eyes burn and water. She could read the scene easily enough. They’d been hit early here by zombies, before people knew not to congregate. Employees, patrons, most half-eaten or better, all writhing with maggots and clouds of black flies. She’d break out the windows when she went, Erin decided, and let the wind and weather and animals finally do what needed to be done. This was just horrible. She hopped over the counter, avoiding the skeletonized employee draped over the pass-through, and hoped the box of toys was somewhere easy to find. As she watched, the scene began to change, in the funny way dreams did, without seeming weird or out of place. The bodies remained, but now it was a Dairy Queen, and she had an empty ice cream cone in her hand. She filled it with twist from the soft serve machine and dipped it clumsily in the chocolate shell, watching with idle fascination as it hardened. There was nothing around her but a clean and empty fast food restaurant by the time she turned and left, heading for the familiar silhouettes waiting for her outside. She’d taken longer than she thought, and she would miss the meeting if she wasn’t careful.

“I like Build-A-Bear,†Megan told her. Erin didn’t respond, hefting the can back into the backseat of the Jeep. “It would be small. It wouldn’t take up much room.†When her sister didn’t seem to be getting the message, she started moving in that direction herself. “I want one.†Instantly, Erin was there blocking the way. “You can’t go in there,†she told Megan. “It’s… nasty.†She didn’t put words to the picture inside. Both of them had seen enough bloated, rancid, rotting death to not need it spelled out. Not that it was a picture either of them could avoid if they wanted to. Megan’s chin started to quiver, her eyes welling up. The little girl’s emotions were always fragile, and Erin couldn’t blame her for that. They both had so little to hold onto anymore, and all she wanted was a little hand-sized stuffed toy like the ones they used to get in their Happy Meals back when everything was okay… “All right,†Erin said, “I’ll get you one. But you stay here.†She left Megan waiting by the car and, after a quick lap around the area to make sure nothing was stirring, she took a deep breath, held it, and went inside.

Erin tossed her a roll of toilet paper and pointed to the skeletal bushes outside the building. “Don’t go too far,†she reminded her sister, “don’t get out of sight.†Even immersed in the dream, the habitual warning made her shudder with pain. “I’m gonna get the gas.†Siphoning gas from the underground tanks was a tricky process that she was still iffy at, and by the time she’d gotten the jeep and their gas can full, Megan was long since done and growing bored. There wasn’t a lot for a seven year old to look at in the desert, so Megan seemed to be concentrating her attention on the McDonalds. She looked over at it, walked around the pumps, played with the dried and brittle windshield washer stick, and looked again. Finally she told Erin “They have Build-a-Bear toys over there.†“That’s nice,†Erin said, screwing the cap back onto the gas can. She wondered if they should make camp here tonight. Towns were risky, but she hated camping in the desert. There were a lot of wild animals around.

Nightmares were nothing new for her. She’d had them, explored them, dissected them, used them as a tool to understand her own feelings about what had happened to her world. They weren’t pleasant, but they were something to be endured. Lately, though, things had been different, and very weird. The dream started out as a memory, like they often did. They were out in the desert, down near Baja or maybe even into Nevada, she didn’t remember. Wherever it was, there weren’t many towns, which meant less stalled cars and less zombies, but also fewer supplies and further-apart buildings. Megan was hungry, and they were low on food. The Jeep was hungry too, and the gas can was empty. Erin wasn’t hungry, but she was getting worried. She was stronger and faster than she used to be, but she didn’t think she could carry Megan and all their stuff on foot if they ran out of gas. She was relieved to see the blue signs that marked a rest area, even if they were canted at crazy angles by the wind and, in one case, by a car smashed head-on into the pole. She took the exit, carefully maneuvering the jeep around the curve, well below her maximum safe speed of fifty miles an hour. Ignoring the stop sign and the long dead lights, she picked her way around a trio of dead cars to the Chevron station. The canopy over the pumps was half-collapsed, but the pumps were still standing, and it didn’t look too dangerous. There was a McDonalds next to it, its broad glass windows steamed with the condensation that said things were baking in there. The smears of dried blood on some of the windows said these diners hadn’t gone from the flu, but it was surprising how many zombies remembered how to use doors instead of smashing glass. Avoiding the restaurant, she headed for the stop-and-shop at the gas station, keeping Megan close beside her as she did a quick sweep of the place. It was totally empty, not even bodies, and didn’t even smell that bad. Erin methodically raided the shelves for canned goods, batteries, bottled water, and her favorite granola bars. “I have to go to the bathroom,†Megan told her, filling her little backpack with her favorite foods.

August nights were muggy and hot at the Claremont Academy, far enough from the river that the breezes didn’t reach, and isolated in its little enclave from the rush of city traffic. They were longer, too, the sun setting earlier and rising a little later with each new day, even as the campus filled once again with its usual school-year complement of superheroes-in-training. It would be a few weeks before things settled down into their normal schedule, but for some people, the day and night cycle just never seemed to quite work out anyway. It was still dark in the small hours of the morning when Wander slipped into her dorm room, stripped off her mud-encrusted costume and tumbled into bed, too exhausted even to shower. It had been four days since she’d slept more than a twenty-minute catnap, and tonight’s patrol, which included dragging a car full of giggling, drunken teenagers out of a very dirty pond, had pushed her past the limits of her endurance. She hadn’t even waited to see if their car still worked, much less waited for the police to show up. It was time to sleep, even if she knew what she would find there. Despite her foreboding, her eyes closed almost immediately, and she fell into sleep like someone falling off a cliff into dark water.

Erin clung to the antenna of the giant bee, using them like reins as she tugged the creatures stumpy head around towards the bay. "This is how it's gonna go!" she shouted to it, not at all sure it would understand anything she was saying. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Easy way, you get your buddies to follow you and get out of town and find some really big flowers somewhere. Hard way, we beat you to a pulp and you spend your life in a giant zoo. What do you even want to do in the city anyway?" She looked back to see how the swashbuckler was faring, even as her bee looped away from the fight.

All right, let's call it a pin effect. She's not going for damage, just for control.

Even as Mark attracted everyone's attention, Erin acted on his suggestion. Dropping to the floor, she executed three quick sommersaults past Phalanx and the Alpha Centurion and came up behind the cybernetic villain while his back was turned. With her face betraying nothing but absolute focus, she began to methodically beat on him, focusing mostly on his kidneys and shoulders but landing a solid hit or two on his head as well. Her bat was moving almost too fast to track visually, moving so fast that it made a thrumming sound before each devastating strike.

Wander will use her move action for Acrobatic Bluff, and skill mastery there. With the inspire bonus, that's a DC 33 acrobatics or sense motive check. She will then launch an all-out power attack against AC, with her bat. That's a terrible roll, so spending another HP. HP Reroll is 36. Much better, and maxes out her Autofire for a DC of 39. Spending another HP to surge, since AA managed to pull off the coveted Erin's Complications Hat Trick, and doing the same attack again. Another horrible roll nets a 22, which means +4 autofire and a DC of 38.

"Good," Erin replied as the kiss ended, her voice a little breathy. "Yeah, good, that'll be good. I'll see you at dinner, then." She stood up and headed for the door, hesitating a couple of times before she reached it. The temptation was strong to turn around and go back and see what a third attempt was like, but she really did have to get to training, and she really, really needed to pull her head together first. The way she felt right now, an unenhanced thug with a nightstick could probably set her on her ass. Oddly enough, it was still a great feeling. She paused at the door. "See you later," she said again, then headed out of the garage.

Erin closed her fingers around his, then took a moment to study his face while he wasn't watching. Doctor Marquez would probably tell her she wasn't ready for any of this, and that it would be much wiser to just pull away and work on putting herself back together into some semblance of healthy person before she tried out any dating. Hell with him. She might never get better, and damned if she was going to wait that long. "I'll tell you soon," she promised, waiting for him to open his eyes and look at her. "I just have to...have to put it in order in my head first. But I know you're a good listener." Leaning in, she brushed her lips across his, so lightly that the touch barely registered. "I have to get ready for my training session at four," she told him as she pulled away, a slightly nervous, slightly goofy sort of half smile on her face. "Want to meet up in the caf for dinner?"

While Mark was getting increasingly worked up about the Centurion, Erin kept her eyes on that notable, narrowing them thoughtfully when he began to talk about mourning and petty godlings. Because she was watching for it, she saw the punch telegraphed a fraction of a second before it happened. Shoving Mark away from the incoming fist, she ducked it herself and came up ready to swing.

Erin is going to interpose and shove Mark out of the way of the Alpha Centurion's fist. She sort of owes Mark a being-punched after what happened in the other room, but for the moment, her defense (thanks to Uncanny Dodge) is high enough to let her avoid the punch as well.

"No- I mean, slow is good," Erin told him. "I mean..." She was quiet for a minute, trying to collect her thoughts before they both made an irredeemable hash of the conversation. "It's hard for me to talk about things in my past. Most of the time it's just easier to not say anything. I'm working on getting myself back together, but it might take a long time. I don't know what I'm ready to do, or what I can do. So... I think going slow is a good idea. And no schedule." She smiled just a little.

"I don't know," Erin admitted, sitting back on her heels. "Nothing, I guess. I mean, I'll try to be mindful of his feelings, I guess, and not do anything to rub salt in it for him, but I don't think there's much else I can do." She looked at him, meeting those weird eyes, and for once they were the lesser of her concerns. "I don't want anything in our personal lives to mess up what we're going to do saving other dimensions. That's too important. But I really like you, and I don't want to push you away just because it might make him feel better."

Erin rubbed a hand over her face uncomfortably. "A little while," she admitted. "Not that long, really. I had to think about it for a little, and then there was the thing with making the new team, and you had the stuff happen with your eyes. There just, you know, didn't really seem to be a good time to bring it up. And it's not like you guys are, I dunno, competing or anything. That would be stupid. I just thought you would want to know, because then you know where James is coming from on stuff. And even though I think it's the right thing to do, I feel kind of bad about telling," she admitted, "because I don't really think he wanted it spread around."

"James told me he was in love with me," Erin blurted. That wasn't exactly how she'd intended to say it, but she was lousy at being tactful. "Back after the prom, but before we started up with all this team stuff. He's not planning on ever doing anything about it, but he thought, I dunno, that I should know or something. I dunno." She took her hand off the motorcycle, rested both fists on her knees. And he's my friend, but he's not... I guess I don't really think about him that way, with all the stuff he does and all the girls he sees. I don't even think he maybe really feels that way about me, but he's got Hell-Ion's memories inside him, you know? And Persephone said that Hell-Ion was in love with that Wander, and she jerked him around, and I don't want to do that to anybody, but I thought you ought to know what he said, because otherwise you might never know because he's so good at keeping things to himself. And I don't think that would be fair." She finally ran out of air and stopped, looking at him expectantly. She wasn't sure he could possibly have understood any of that.

Erin chuckled at that. "I think I'm glad," she told him. "James' ship is cool and all, but the AI on there kind of weirds me out. She's like a real person, but she's a computer program. And I'm not totally sure she likes me. Apparently she had dealings with the Wander from that alternate world, and I guess that would be enough to put anyone off me for awhile, from what I've seen and heard of her." There it was, the perfect segue to talk about James.... and she chickened out. "I like this blue color," she told Trevor instead, tapping the chassis lightly. "Sort of matches my truck."

"Don't worry about it," she told him. "It doesn't really, you know, bother me. It's just a little surprising when I see it still." Erin shrugged. "More I see it, the faster I'll get used to it. They're still your eyes." She crouched down next to him to look at the additions he'd made to the bike. "So it's like a built-in disguise then? That's cool." She ran her fingers lightly over the new paint job, but it just felt like normal paint to her. "You going to give it a day color, or just keep it black most of the time?" Talking about the bike was easy and interesting, much easier than talking about mutations or relationships.

Despite her mental tumult, Erin's smile came naturally as she leaned against the door of the stall. Trevor's eyes were odd enough, and new enough, that they still gave her a bit of a start, but she thought she was sort of getting used to them. His chest was definitely filling out from all the extra training, she couldn't help but notice, and that was much easier to look at. "I, um... I figured you'd probably be out here," she said,her mind temporarily disconnecting with her mouth and leaving it on its own. "How's it going, the motorcycle I mean?"

After the meeting with James to set up the new team, Erin procrastinated for days before going to see Trevor. First it was too soon, then it was the thing with Trevor's eyes, but she eventually had to woman up and do it. If they were all going to be on a team together, it was only fair that Trevor be... not warned, she told herself. It wasn't like James was going to come after Trevor and try to stab him, not when he was in his right mind, anyway. Apprised, maybe, that was a better word. Trevor should be apprised of James' mixed emotions, even though she was pretty sure what James had told her had been told in confidence, but it wasn't really fair to make her keep that a secret when they were all going to be working together, especially with a telepath on the team who would probably suss it out in about two seconds flat once she started in with the mindreading and it was certainly the last thing any of them needed to have on their minds when they were going into dangerous and lifethreatening situations on other planets because that was just stupid-- Erin broke off that increasingly unproductive train of thought and went to go find Trevor already. Playing a hunch, she headed for the school garage. He spent a lot of time there with his bike, and if he wasn't there, maybe she could go for a drive instead! Damning herself for a coward, she stalked into the garage, and was half-relieved, half-dismayed to hear the sounds of engine work coming from the stall where Trevor usually kept his bike. It was hot outside, hot enough to have her in the vibrantly colored shorts and top she'd gotten from the amusement park last summer, but the garage was air conditioned and pleasant. Deliberately relaxing her gait, she headed in the direction of the noise. "Hey," she called, "you busy?"

"Goodnight," Stesha said pleasantly, rising to see them off. "It was nice to meet you. Oh, here, let me give you one of my cards." She reached into the nearest flower, a feat that didn't look possible, especially since her hand disappeared to the wrist, and withdrew a small business card marked with the name "Fleur de Joie" and a cell phone number. It smelled faintly of flowers, much like the heroine herself. "If you ever need anything, just give me a call, all right? If I can't help, I can put you in touch with someone who can. You don't have to be alone out there."