Electra
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Stesha took Jill's hand. "This won't hurt a bit," she promised cheerfully. "Be right back," she told Derrick, then touched the daisies she'd braided into her hair. Instantly, the two women were transported into a world that was nothing but the bright, growing green of new leaves in the spring, and the overwhelming scent of freshly mown grass. In a heartbeat, they were back in the real world, popping out of the bushes on the far side of the backyard from where they started. "I figured we didn't want to go too far, we're going to eat soon," Stesha joked. She waved to Derrick on the other side of the yard and began heading back that way, on foot this time despite the crowd. "So your brother's Jack of all Blades?" she asked Jill.
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"I'll take care of it," Wander assured her. "Go back to shore and elevate your feet, I'll be right back." Hastily, Erin paddled out and began rounding up the unconscious shark-beings, dragging them back to shore, two by two. She couldn't find the big one, and she couldn't dive deeply enough to get a good look around, not without spending more time that she wanted. When the last shark things were back on shore, and the sad amputated tentacles as well, Erin went over to Fusion. "I'm Wander," she introduced herself belatedly. "I used to see you on the news back when you were in Portland."
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"Hey, wait, wait," Wander interrupted, kicking through the water to catch up to the wounded hero. "Let's get you onto the shore first, then I'll go get those... um, shark creature things. Can you swim in on your own?" Erin's inexpert assessment said that Fusion was hurt pretty badly, but not in immediate danger of passing out from blood loss. She just hoped she was right about that.
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Erin didn't spend a lot of time patrolling on the south side of Freedom City, which was a little weird considering where she went to school. She just preferred the closely spaced buildings of the downtown or the dense warehouses of the west side. But if she was going to be moving up to the big leagues, even for training, she figured she'd better know the city like the back of her hand. She was just turning her steps to head back to the school after a boring afternoon patrol in grueling heat when the mayday came over her belt radio. In a moment, she was pulling a crude tourist map of the city out of her pocket, trying to figure out where the mayday was coming from. It didn't take long to figure out, but that was still precious seconds lost. By the time she arrived on the scene, the water was already slicked red with blood in a large circle, and there was something almost indecipherable going on out in the water. After a moment, the scene suddenly clicked and she recognized Fusion, a West Coast hero who'd been active... well, Erin remembered an alternate Fusion from her own world, but it was close enough for her to figure out what was going on. Fusion seemed to be winning the fight, but she looked like she might be in danger of losing her life in the process. Wander was no expert in underwater fighting, but she was game, and there wasn't anyone else showing up at the moment, so she leapt into action. Fusion dealt a mighty blow to the shark monster, but it had a lot of momentum going, and it was hard to tell whether it was still trying to attack or not. Angling her body into a fists-first dive, Erin slammed into the back of its head, right behind its wide-spread eyes.
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Erin is going to use her flying leap to jump from shore out into the water, and power attack the giant shark critter. Unarmed full power attack. 1d20+9=28 Toughness DC is 32.
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"It's okay," Erin told him, picking up the hopper to collect the balls again. "Forget about it." Everybody said stupid things sometimes, and if he would leave her personal life alone, then she figured they could get along fine. "Thanks for the flowers," she added, "and good luck with the training. I'll see you around." She began sweeping the hopper around, collecting the nerf balls with a practiced hand.
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"No, not exactly," Stesha told her. "I can travel through plants, start in one and pop out of another one anywhere in the world. All plants are connected, through the roots or the stems or even through the memory of being connected to other plants." She shrugged cheerfully. "It's a little metaphysical and I can't say that I'm totally sure how it works, but it's very useful, and fun too. Would you like to try?" Stesha reached out a hand to Jill invitingly.
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Erin shifted from foot to foot, watching the lights above the doors as the elevator descended. "I really don't think that's a good idea," she told him. "Just spitting out whatever crosses my mind... I can't do that. But I will agree to always tell you the truth." She glanced sidelong at him to gauge his reaction. Saying everything she thought would rapidly turn every conversation uncomfortable and morbid, and she was tired enough of that already.
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Stesha gave Jill a reassuring smile. "Don't worry about it, people ask all the time. I tell most people it's a good dye job, but it's actually natural. I have no idea how I'd even start dyeing this much hair. I don't think I've met you before, have I?" she asked curiously. "I'm Stesha, and this is my fiance Derrick. Are you a student at Claremont?"
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Erin stared at Trevor for a moment, startled by the sudden effusion. Finally, she blew out a breath and rubbed her face with one hand, wiping away the lonely remnants of her makeup with the gesture. "Thanks," she told him, "I mean it. It helps to remember that I managed to do some good tonight. But I've got no business giving Alex advice. She's a million times smarter and more put together than I'm ever going to be. I just hate to see her hurting, and Mike freaking out, and Zoe totally messed up, and feeling like things would be better if they could look at things differently." She shrugged helplessly. "But maybe I'm just projecting and have no idea what I'm talking about. Let's go and beat up on some bad guys. It's so much easier."
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"Excellent." There were only a few stragglers left in the ballroom, mostly younger kids who had lost track of their rides in the confusion of the evening. It didn't take long to get rides for people and see that the cleaning crew was getting to work on the site. Erin took out some aggression by rolling tables around and disassembling the stage, heavy work that didn't take a lot of thinking. She didn't talk much, and kept her face mostly impassive, but to a trained observer it was obvious that she was worried and unhappy. It wasn't until they were finished and heading out that she finally spoke up. "I shouldn't have said anything," she told Trevor. "It just made things worse."
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Erin was silent for a minute, startled out of anything she might have been about to say. Managing to earn the headmaster's approval in anything was a new experience, and she wasn't entirely sure what to say. He'd told Fulcrum that she was the most skilled fighter in the school, but that was in the same breath with saying how dangerous she was, so that didn't really count. Training with the Freedom League was an expression of faith as well; if she screwed up there, it would look bad for the school as well as for her. She hadn't thought Summers would ever think she was ready, much less think her ready now. For a moment she was tempted to ask what would happen to her when she graduated, especially if she couldn't hack it in the Freedom League, but she decided to keep her mouth shut. Even metahumans with boring powers could get jobs, she figured. She could be her own one-woman moving company. She could live in her truck for a little bit if she had to, and find some way to afford the therapy she'd probably still need because she was never going to really get better... Just thinking that way made her head hurt. It was a whole year away, anyway. "No sir," she told the headmaster. "Thank you."
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"I can't tell you much of anything more than you've already heard," Erin told him flatly. "Alex organized a junior prom for us, a lot of people showed up. Things were going well, there was a couple hours of music and dancing, food, some other stuff, but nothing weird. When it came time to do the prom king and queen announcement, James and Zoe were called up, and as soon as they were on the stage, Leet took over the projector screen and started playing a pornographic video he'd taken of James and Zoe because Daisy convinced him to. Mike got really upset and started swinging, and Zoe and Mark and I tried to keep him off James. He tossed me around a little, and whatever Zoe tried didn't work, but when Mark stepped in front of James and yelled at Mike, it made him stop. "He was just calming down when Eddie teleported his car onto the dance floor. I don't know what he did to it, but it was going way faster than a car like that should've been able to go. We were all bunched up, and he somehow managed to aim it right at us. I pushed James out of the way and Mike got in front of Mark and Alex, so Mike was the only one who got hurt. Well, and Eddie. James pulled him out of the burning car and Eddie tried to punch him, and then Zoe punched Eddie, and that was pretty much the end of the excitement for the evening. Alex and Mark patched pretty much everything and everyone up." Erin shrugged, not sure what else the headmaster wanted to know.
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It wasn't too long before Erin walked into Summers' office, moving silently and with her back ramrod straight. It wasn't often that she was called into the office without knowing exactly what she was in trouble for ahead of time, and it made her nervous. She'd reviewed all the events of the prom on the way down to the office, and wasn't quite sure what she could've done differently, except perhaps if she'd actually managed to stop Mike instead of just letting him throw her around a little. Everything had happened so fast, and nobody had gotten hurt... maybe giving her detention after these escapades was enough of a ritual by now that he just didn't want to break tradition. She sat down stiffly in the seat opposite the headmaster's desk, taking in the room with a glance to make sure nothing was too different from usual. Folding her hands in her lap, she met Summers' eyes. "Alex said you wanted to see me?"
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Erin took the offered out, heading down the corridor at a brisk clip as though in a hurry to escape from the conversation. "I can't imagine there'd be too many people left in the ballroom now," she said, speaking quickly enough that she almost tripped over the words. "We'll just clear them out, make sure there's nothing still dangerous or smoldering in there, and we can hit the road. Want to go patrolling?" she asked him suddenly.
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Well, I'm not wearing shorts to the North Pole," Erin decided. "We're going today, right?" Pushing away from the table, she went out to her truck. That was another good reason to take the vehicle, the uniform she kept under the seat sometimes came in handy. Carrying it into the house, she quickly changed in the bathroom and returned to the table in her uniform.
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Erin opened her mouth to reply, then shut it again and regrouped. Who was she to be giving anyone advice, anyway? Especially Alex, who was always so sure. All she had was her own experience, and that wasn't really that much the same. She took a step back. "I hope it works out," she said instead, sincerely. "Try to get some sleep at some point. You look really tired." She ran a hand through her already disordered hair, then turned to leave, looking a bit surprised to see Trevor still there.
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The behemoth doesn't hit Wander, so no save there.
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Stesha crouched behind the moving trees, aching to help but not sure what to do. If she stepped out of hiding, whatever plan Ace was cooking would be ruined, and she could put herself in danger. But she knew Derrick believed that it was her in the Beekeeper's clutches, and she couldn't stand how upset he was. Hoping the Beekeeper couldn't tap the League communication frequencies, she contacted Dark Star. "It's okay," she murmured, talking quietly so she wouldn't be noticed. "I'm safe, Ace has things under control." She couldn't try to send a coded message or anything sophisticated like that, Derrick wouldn't understand. Hopefully the short message would be enough. Hunkering down behind the trees, she concentrated on making the flowers stronger and even more compelling to the bees.
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Stesha, who was not used to the same level of everyday mysticism as Taylor and Jack, still felt rather lost. "Wait," she broke in, "so what you're saying is that this man is the baby, and he's somehow come back in time as an adult?" She looked to JJ. "Why didn't you tell us?" she asked him. "Why did you break into the house and steal your father's clothes? Surely you know we would've helped you!?" She sounded a little hurt.
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"Maybe it would be like cutting off a limb, but don't you sometimes have to do that, when having it is worse than losing it?" Erin replied. "You're right I don't understand any of this the way you do, and maybe I'm totally off. But if Zoe's going to survive here, maybe she has to let go of what she lost. And she can't if you and Mike are there and trying to fill a place that can't be filled. Maybe you can be, I don't know, be something else to her, be her family still, without trying to be her parents." Erin hesitated, then rushed on. "I mean, nothing has worked so far, right? It's only gotten worse. Maybe you need to try something else."
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"Maybe you can find another psychic who can help you take the link down," Erin suggested. She wasn't at all sure that it was smart to keep offering advice, or that she wasn't going to make things worse. But she kept going anyway. "Maybe the Scarab can help you. It's not doing any of you any good, is it? She doesn't want you in her head, and you don't need to keep feeling her pain. You're not who she's crying for, Alex. You can't think of it like that."
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Fleur's pollen motivates the bees to attack the Beekeeper, the one keeping them away from the delicious flowers! That's her move action for the round, I think. For her standard action, she's going to hunker down in a Total Defense maneuver, in case she is spotted.
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"We'll take care of it," Erin promised. Stepping closer, she dropped her voice and turned her body to exclude Trevor from the conversation for a moment. "Alex..." she began, then stopped, looking for the right words. "I know you want to help Zoe, but you can't be her mom. Her mom is dead, and you being alive doesn't change that. Trying to be parents for her is just going to make everything more complicated. And... and I know I'd resent it if Clarissa tried to pretend she was my mom just because she's technically the same person. I think you should let Dr. Marquez help her now." Erin shut her mouth and pursed her lips, obviously not sure whether she should've said anything. "Anyway, we'll take care of the ballroom," she finally added.
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Robert and I are going up to Illinois for a family reunion, leaving early Thursday and coming back late Tuesday. I'll have internet access, but I won't be hanging around nearly as much and my posting may become sporadic. PM me if I become urgently needed anywhere, and I'll make sure to squeeze it in.