Electra
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As soon as he crossed into her line of sight, Wander stopped her drill instantly, drawing herself erect and looking for a split second like she was ready to start punching whoever was intruding. The moment passed, and she took a good look at the interloper in the quiet gymnasium. It took her a few moments to place the speedster she'd talked to for a few minutes on that tumultuous night a few weeks ago. She looked at him with a mixture of surprise and wariness. "Hey," she said cautiously.
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Even after watching her for a minute, it was hard to tell at first what Wander was doing. She was obviously sparring with a steel practice dummy, but there was no noise and no movement from the dummy at all. Closer inspection revealed that none of her punches were actually connecting, that on each strike, her knuckles came within a fraction of an inch of the metal surface and stopped without touching. The look on her face revealed intense concentration, so much so that she didn't even seem to notice him there.
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"Simple sounds good," Erin said hesitantly, looking in Trevor's direction for help and finding none. "Actually, black doesn't sound too bad, either." Black was simple, black would surely let her blend in a little better at a big formal occasion. "Black or gray, maybe, one of those dark silver colors..." "Oh, no. No, no,no!" Frank refuted her enthusiastically. "With your coloring, you'd look like the guest of honor at a funeral wearing black! And it would be a crime with your figure. You need to show off! Be dangerous!" He hurried over to one of the dozens of closets that lined the walls and pulled out a bolt of fabric, bringing it back and beginning to drape it around her before Erin could do more than open her mouth in astonishment. It was definitely not black. It was red, a rich, deep red that looked like wine and slid and draped like silk. It was beautiful fabric, but still... "Red?" Erin asked, looking over at Trevor again. "Are you sure?"
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Erin stepped up onto the stool, facing the trio of slightly uncertain-looking copies of herself. She stood very still as the tailor began rapidly taking measurements, starting with the circumference of her head for reasons she wasn't entirely sure of. Height came next, and the length of her arms and size of her biceps, all of which went into a little notebook Frank carried. She couldn't help coloring a little as he did an exhaustive series of torso measurements, tilting her face up toward the ceiling, but Frank was a consummate professional, and very quick. With that done, she blew out a breath and looked at Trevor in the mirror while the tailor finished on her legs. "So what are you going to be wearing?"
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Erin released a frustrated breath. "All right, so we just go and knock on the door. Eve, if you're down there, do you think you'll be able to tell if there's anyone living in the house that we can't see or sense otherwise? I think that's going to be our best chance to tell if he's there, if we can't lure him out." She paused for a minute. "Although if we know that there's something wrong, something different, he surely does too. When we show up, he's going to know what we're there for. We may have to go in prepared for a fight right away."
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"Gotta respect that, I guess," Erin murmured in reply, grinning a little. Once she had the lay of the land down and had scoped out the exits, she wandered around a little, looking at the various suits. She wasn't an expert in men's fashions, but these all looked very good indeed, and if there was anything special about them, she couldn't tell just by looking. She turned back to Trevor. "Does he make your formalwear too?"
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"No way," Erin said, shaking her head. "You've got a role set up in this world already," she pointed out, "you're supposed to be a hero. If you break ranks and start acting like a supervillain, you could get erased before anybody had a chance to show up and try to stop you. If anybody's going to take a turn acting villainous, it should be me. For whatever reason, I didn't get a part to play in this world, or a set of memories or a family or anything like that. I should be a blank slate. If I act like one of the weirdo villains Rick tells stories about, I should be able to get away with it."
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"Amen to that," Stesha agreed. She didn't bring up the box again, or ask what he'd done with it, she didn't really think she wanted to know. She had enough to worry about right now. "So, want to watch TV and make out and eat midnight pot roast?" she suggested, looking up at him with a little smile. "It's not exciting, but it seems about the right speed for me tonight."
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Wander: Starting up an array off the Super Strength, adding 4pp Super Strength 6 (1AP) (13pp) AP: Flight 6 (extra: Total Fade, flaw: Fades) Descriptor: Flying Leap, 5,000 ft/move action DONE BY SHAENTHEBRAIN
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She reached out for his hand, tugging him down to sit next to her on the couch. "It was hard for both of us, I know. Let's just forget about it for right now. It's good to know we can fight and, and still be there for each other when the fight is over. That's important." She rested her head on his shoulder and sighed. "It really has been a hell of a day, hasn't it."
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Fleur's brilliant smile clearly said that the newcomer was someone special to her, for all he looked more like the shadow of a person than a person himself. "Dark Star, this is Slipstream, Slipstream, Dark Star. Slipstream is new to hero work, he's still learning the ins and outs of his equipment. But there's no better place in the world to do it than Freedom City, right?"
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Stesha looked up at him, hugging the pillow tighter. She'd been crying since the initial jag, her eyes were still a little puffy from it. She'd been busy with other things too, though, if the good cooking smells wafting from the kitchen were any indication. "No, don't go," she told him softly. "I'm sorry we fought earlier. I shouldn't have yelled at you, it's just... everything was so overwhelming, all at once."
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It was nearly dark by the time Stesha emerged from the cozy nest of her bedroom, washed her face, and prepared to face the world again. The apartment was empty, which made her feel bad all over again. To make up for it, she started preparing supper, slicing up vegetables that were just starting to wilt after her absence and tossing them into the crockpot. For two people who didn't need to eat or sleep, it didn't really matter if the pot roast was done at midnight. Cooking kept her busy for a little while, but eventually the roast was cooking and the dishes were washed, and she was out of ideas. Stesha sat down on the couch and turned on the TV, hugging a pillow while she waited.
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"Sure," Fleur told him enthusiastically, tossing another handful of seeds onto the ground. "It doesn't get in the papers as much, because it's not as flashy, but superheroes do work that doesn't involve fighting all the time. Search and rescue, disaster relief, emergency assistance, public beautification," she recited, laughing on the last one. "Though some are more important than others." She took a few steps away, ringing a garbage can with posies. "There have to be heroes to fight the villains, but you can't punch a hurricane or a car accident. When you get the hang of that thing, you could pull people out of burning buildings, or fly out over the ocean to find a lost boat, or take supplies into a place with no working roads, all sorts of things. Even the heroes who are really good at fighting tend to like doing other things better." She plucked a yellow daisy from her own handiwork and gave it to him, flashing him a peace sign and a teasing grin.
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"I had my powers for a few months before I even tried my hand at hero work," Stesha admitted cheerfully, "and then it was more months before I ever got into a fight on purpose. My powers don't exactly make me a natural at fighting most things." She laughed, working around him as she continued bringing up flowers. "But then again, hero work's not all fighting bad guys. Sometimes it's the least part of it. I think the helping people part, and making people happy, is far more rewarding than winning fights against villains. Has to be done, of course, but I don't think it's much fun. Now flying, once you get the hang of it," she added with a grin, "that's good fun. Is that a prototype you're working with, or is it pretty much one of a kind?"
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"Fine, do what you want," Stesha snapped, stroking the stem of the injured plant with her fingers while it healed up. "Keep the damn box, give it to your best friend Jack, for all I care. You're certainly not listening to anything I have to say right now. Just don't bring it here. I never want to see anything like that again. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to go lay down. It's apparently been a long couple of days." She stalked off down the hallway towards the bedroom in a way that made it quite clear her wasn't invited.
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"I go all over town," she told him, then gestured to the trees around him. "Parks are my areas of expertise, though I also do greenbelts, cemeteries and gardens as the occasion calls for it. I was very busy last week, getting ready for the holiday and all." Anyone who read the papers probably read at least something about the mysterious profusion of red, white and blue flowers that had decorated all of Freedom City's cemeteries over Memorial Day weekend. "Do you mind if I work while we talk?" She reached into a pouch on her belt and produced a handful of seeds, tossing them into a struggling patch of flowers along the walk. The seeds immediately sprang up into vibrant life, even as the existing flowers perked up noticeably. "So this is your first time out, huh? I remember how that is." Fleur had a nice laugh, one that was more sympathetic than mocking. "There's a learning curve, but it gets a lot easier and less scary. How do you like working with AEGIS?"
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"Well I can protect myself!" Stesha shot back. "I'm immortal now, remember? I don't need that damn box, and neither do you. If I learned anything from this, it's that. Ace and Phantom got rid of your double, and I came back all by myself. And I'm not going to just stand around and watch you keep hold of the worst weapon against you because you're afraid of yourself. That's stupid, Derrick. Just like the idea that if I were gone, there wouldn't be anything for you here. What about your friends? What about your sister and your nephew who love you, and all the people depending on you? What if you'd gone and never knew I came back?" She twisted a plant stem hard enough to break it, then absently set it back into place and healed over the broken part. "Why can't you ever take anybody's advice?"
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A little bemused, Erin shook the tailor's hand. He looked like something out of a storybook or a cartoon, more than a real person. "It's nice to meet you. Trevor's told me a lot about you." More or less. As much as Trevor told anybody about anything. She looked around, taking in all the mens' clothing in the shop. She wondered if Trevor had made sure that his friend made womens' clothes at all.
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"He could lock you up as easily as you could lock him up, and then you wouldn't be there, again!" she lashed back, even as the plants rustled menacingly. "Keeping that thing around isn't going to stop him if he got out of it once, but it locked you up well enough. And then when you got out, you were just going to leave? That prison's not going to stop anything, it just makes things worse."
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"Get rid of that awful machine!" Stesha insisted. "We chased off your double once, we can do it again without keeping that thing around. It's evil, and we should destroy it right now." She turned away from him, walking stiff-legged over to the plants that were bristling at him in agitation. "It upsets me how little faith you have in the rest of us, that you think you need to do this. Should I make provisions to destroy myself if I ever get mind controlled? I have superpowers too, you know. What makes you so special that you have to make a martyr of yourself?"
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Stesha grinned, visible even in the shadows cast by her cowl. "That was me," she acknowledged. "I'm Fleur de Joie, and you're on my beat out here in the park." From the sound of it, she didn't mind. "It takes everybody a little while to get used to using powers," she told him, not without sympathy. "If you ask me, it's that, and not the whole anonymity thing that has most of us operating at night to start. Who are you?"
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"This is so stupid!" Stesha burst out, rising from the couch and glaring at him. "One minute you're saying you want to be with me until the stars go out, the next minute you're telling me that you're keeping what's basically a suicide booth handy just in case! That doesn't sound like planning on forever to me! And then on top of that, you want to give it to the worst hero in Freedom City, the one I wouldn't even trust alone in the dark, much less to make life and death decisions about you! What exactly are you trying to say, here? If you want forever, I'll give you forever, but I don't want your forever with all these caveats and what ifs and worst case scenarios! Why can't you just plan on being happy?" A few more tears rolled down her cheeks now, but she brushed them aside impatiently.
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Stesha watched the approach of the rocketman with interest and a little trepidation. She knew or knew of most of the heroes in Freedom City by now, just by knowing Dark Star and Phantom and Ace, but this was a stranger. That could mean new hero, or it could mean villain. Her first concern had been that the Beekeeper might have gotten out of jail again, but this was obviously a different guy. And he was obviously new at using his equipment. She put aside caution and stepped out of the woods as he picked himself up from a rather painful-looking faceplant. "Are you all right?" she asked with concern.
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As he descended, Slipstream caught sight of a figure in the park, obviously the director of the weird ballet of foliage. It was a small figure wearing a green hood and cowl, with curves that suggested femininity even through a costume significantly looser than many heroes in the city wore. When he approached, she was concentrating on growing one of the young oak trees by an inch or two, one hand on its trunk, but when she heard the noise and saw the light of his approach, she melted back cautiously into the shadows of the trees.