Electra
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Stesha hugged Moira back, absorbing the comfort of an understanding friend for a few moments. "It's okay," she said, "I've got to get back in the saddle, you know? And maybe it'll be easier if I'm not going solo. But I want to do some planting first." She straightened up, reaching for the seed pouches on her belt. "I've gotten behind already, and the weather is so nice tonight." She smiled, though it was just a little wobbly around the edges. "And your costume is amazing. It would be a shame to waste that on digging around in the dirt."
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"And you know there's nothing else quite like it in the world," Erin agreed. She was quiet for a moment as they raced along, the motorcycle barely louder than a ten-speed bike, then suddenly chuckled. "I'd love to see the look on some criminals face when you somehow sneak up behind him on a full size motorcycle going flat-out. He'd have to be thinking it was some kind of really, really bad dream."
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Stesha looked away. "I got hurt pretty badly last month," she replied softly. "Really badly, actually. They say that I died, though I still don't remember it and don't really want to. I just remember it hurting so much. But I... I came back. Derrick and Taylor and Ace buried me, and a plant grew, and there I was again. And a little greener than I used to be." She closed her eyes for a moment. "It's been hard for me to do hero work since then," she admitted reluctantly.
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"Do you know what's going on here?" she asked the guard when James remained silent. "What is this place, and why did they bring you here? It's pretty obvious that you don't exactly fit in..." That was an understatement, with all three of them towering over the surrounding creatures. "It looked to us like you were kidnapped right out of your shoes."
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Erin relaxed and loosened the very firm hold she had on him as the ride became calmer. "This is really cool," she said, speaking normally now as she looked out over the dark water. "And you drive like nothing I've ever seen. Did you build this, or was it part of the equipment your grandpa passed down to you?" It obviously wasn't anything that you were going to buy off the showroom floor at even the best dealership.
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"Oh my god..." Only iron self control kept Erin from cracking a couple of Trevor's ribs as they raced up the cable and perched for a dizzying second on the pinnacle of the bridge, with all of Freedom City spread around and beneath them in a panorama that was incredibly beautiful and incredibly dangerous all at once. Her breath caught in her throat as they raced down the thin metal filament like lighting going to ground, letting it out with a whoosh as the wheels touched road again. She had gone to the top of the Pramas Bridge before, but never on wheels at well over a hundred miles an hour. Her heart pounded with the adrenaline rush as she pressed up against Trevor's back and looked over his shoulder. "That was... oh my god!" she said again, laughing. Erin didn't really remember the last time she'd had fun like this, just a plain and simple good time.
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Erin laughed delightedly as the motorcycle raced near-silently through the dark streets, holding on to Trevor for dear life as buildings blurred around them. "This is great!" she yelled in his ear, the wind whipping the words away almost as soon as she said them. "I can't believe it's so quiet! It's better than flying!" Erin was envious of flying, it was true, but flying lacked the whipcord turns and the breathless danger of weaving through mundane traffic. She herself could run faster than most cars, but this was entirely different than that, too.
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Erin put her arms around his waist and held on, careful not to squeeze too hard and risk cracking his ribs. "Um, well, the Fens are supposed to be full of crime, right?" she suggested, practically talking into his ear if it weren't for the helmet. "We could go there, see if anything is cooking. Or we could get out on the bypass, and see how fast this thing goes, then maybe fight crime." Balancing on the motorcycle didn't seem too tricky, and it was, honestly, a lot more of a novelty than fighting crime. It was a little odd to be pressed up so close against Trevor's back, but she decided to ignore that for now and think about it later if necessary.
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"I didn't see anything weird," Stesha replied, closing her eyes and extending her senses into the plants growing on the ArcheTech campus. "I was at home, watching TV in my pajamas. Doctor Archeville said come prepared for vampire, is Dracula a figure of speech, or are we talking honest-to-god from the book Dracula here?"
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"It's the Green Man, and he's... he's kind of huge," Stesha reported to the others, closing her eyes to concentrate on what she was seeing. "Much bigger than usual, and he's got some kind of armor going. He's got four human hostages, civilians, tied up with vines. The fire is a gasoline fire, they've lit things with gas tanks, so we'll have to watch for explosions. And there's another one of those plant things like the one I sucked up, but it's in bad shape. I think he's going to destroy it?" she said uncertainly. "Maybe consume it? I wonder if maybe those plants have whatever it is he's been looking for... I don't think we should let him get it, if we can help it."
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Erin chuckled as she caught the helmet, but put it on anyway. The helmet would break long before her head suffered any damage in an accident, she was sure, but part of being a hero was being a role model. It probably wouldn't do for heroes to be riding around without helmets. Suitably protected, she swung a leg over the saddle of the bike and climbed on behind Trevor. "I've never done this!" she called over the sound of the engine. "What's the best way to sit?"
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"It's beautiful," Stesha said admiringly, touching the soft fabric. "I'm sure it looks gorgeous on you. Nobody's going to be able to commit crimes when you're around, they'll be too busy just watching you. Best deterrent ever." She laughed, but again she seemed a little distracted. "And we can go out and do hero stuff if you want to," she told Moira. "It's just... I haven't done very much lately, at least not by myself. I kind of got into a bad spot last month, and, you know... sometimes it's hard to get back on the horse," she admitted awkwardly. "Planting flowers is sort of more my speed these days. But I'd love to see you try on the costume," she said with more enthusiasm.
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"Hi Trevor," Erin said, shielding her eyes from the sun as she looked up and smiled at Trevor. "This is Warren, the newest new guy. Warren, this is Trevor, the slightly less new guy." Introductions made, she settled back on her heels. "So what sorts of things do you do with sound?" she asked Warren, picking up the dropped threads of their earlier conversation.
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"Sounds good." Erin made a quick stop back at her own room, both to pick up her bat and make sure Alex was sound asleep. Not that Erin expected her roommate would tell on her or anything, but Alex did have the sometimes depressing habit of making people around her act more mature. Erin wasn't in much of a mood for that at the moment. After a moment's thought, she skinned out of her sweaty uniform and into a clean one, too. It was only polite not to be gross when you were going to be in close contact with somebody. Erin had never actually ridden a motorcycle before, but she was excited to try. In just a few minutes, she was leaping off the dorm roof and touching down by the front gate. Faster than walking!
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Erin considered the offer for a split second. Summers wouldn't like it if he found out, but she didn't particularly care at the moment. She'd spent the last ten months doing just about everything she could to follow the rules here. Everybody else got to do something fun every once in awhile, right? Going out on patrol with someone who'd done it before wasn't much of a dereliction, and a nighttime ride through the city with the new guy on a fast motorcycle sounded like a heck of a lot more fun than yet another trip through one of Archer's torture routines. "I think I can scrape up the energy," she said with a grin. "Can I catch a lift?"
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Erin nodded approvingly. "Nicely done." Part of her wanted to emulate the routine and show off what months of dedicated training had done for her agility on the course, but it seemed rude. He had never used this equipment before, and he was brand new. He was pretty good, and he'd get better. He was definitely better than most of her teammates, who tended to ignore agility in favor of power. She dropped from the bars as well, doing a couple of cool-down stretches to end the workout. "I think that sort of thing happens with a lot of second or third generation heroes," she told him, "they get picked up by the school after they've gotten some training already from their families. It's a good place to learn. Do you still go out?"
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"I don't think people use this stuff much in the winter," Erin replied, swinging one leg as she lounged on the narrow bar as though it were a chair. Trevor was much more approachable when he wasn't wearing his weird mask, she noted idly. And he was pretty cute, too. What was it with all the guys around here, anyway? "Even if the cold doesn't bother you, once you start sweating, your hands stick to the bars and it's a pain in the butt to try and get anything done. I only came out here so I'd have practice doing it if I needed to swing off a fire escape or something. Even then, I eventually started wearing gloves." She held up her hands, displaying the gold-colored gloves that matched her uniform sleeves. "I bet more people start using stuff once the weather gets nice. I dunno, this is my first spring here." She was quiet for a moment, looking over towards the lights of downtown. "So did you go out patrolling, before you came here?"
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In almost less time than it took to call her, Stesha had her things packed and was ready to go. She was in a bit of a hurry, well, more than a bit of a hurry, so she tossed on her cowl and belt over her smiling daisy pajamas and slipped on her sneakers, calling it a good enough costume. She really wished that the mission Derrick was on off on the far side of the galaxy hadn't been so urgent, they could really use his help right about now. Well... she'd just have to make sure not to die again, and not to let anyone else die. Grabbing a bulb of garlic from the fridge in one hand and rooting in her seed pouch for anything spiky and wooden, she made the jump over to ArcheTech, one superhero stronghold she'd never visited. She popped out of a decorative plant in the lobby, looking around to make sure they hadn't already exceeded their quota of dangerous vampires in the building. "What's going on?" she asked Jack tersely.
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Erin gladly broke off her routine, flipping up to sit on the bars opposite Trevor. "Too nice a night for sleeping," she told him with a smile, pushing her hair back into place behind the fabric headband she wore to work. "I was starting to wonder if anyone else was still up at this hour. It's been pretty quiet around here, what with James working all night and Chris... well, doing his thing." She wasn't quite sure what to make of Chris' decision to hang up his costume, but she didn't think she had a lot of room to critique other peoples' bizarre ways of dealing with their problems. "You getting settled in all right?"
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Fleur stumbled again but recovered herself quickly, shaking her head to clear the bizarre sensation. "That big plant doesn't like being locked up," she murmured, focusing most of her attention on the strange tableau before them. Stretching her senses, she tried to tap into the trees overlooking the fire, hoping to catch a glimpse of what everyone was looking at over there. She had a feeling she knew, but everyone knows what they say about those who assume...
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Late April tended towards chilly in Freedom City, but it got its occasional nice evening, and this was one of them. Dry and clear with temperatures in the sixties even after the sun set, it was a good night to be outside, if you weren't interested in sleeping. Erin decided to take advantage of the weather for some outdoor training. She was sick of the Doom Room, and even more sick of her homework. She could patrol the city like some of the other students did, but the thought made her a little nervous. She'd gotten a lot of practice at city heroism, but only in situations where she could definitely tell who the bad guys were. She wasn't sure she was ready to try and make decisions like that on the fly with sufficient accuracy. So it was back out to the agility course she went. She was getting pretty good at it now, leaping and flipping over the bars and around the barriers, vaulting the metal sawhorses like she was holding her own private Olympic games. It was satisfying to hone her skills, but even this was getting sort of boring too. Still, it wasn't as though there were anything to do inside at this hour of night.
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Stesha's heart gave a quick hard thud as she saw the matte-black shape of Dark Star upon awakening, but the instant of fear melted as he turned back into Derrick, obviously the real Derrick. The relief of that was enough to occupy her attention for a moment, till she realized she had no idea where she was. "What happened?" she asked, looking around at the strange room, and everybody standing around. "I got... knocked out, or something," she remembered. It had been pretty bad, actually, really painful. She looked down at herself, and only then realized another salient point. "Oh my god, I'm naked," she said, blushing all over. The loan of Taylor's cloak covered the worst of that embarrassment, and let Stesha focus a little more. "We ran into someone who looks just like you," she told Derrick, "but evil. He was trying to kill us. He threw me... I don't remember." She shook her head. "Did you catch him?"
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"Hey Faith," Erin said, cordially enough. "This is Warren, he just got here. He plays guitar." She looked around. "Where's Mark?" It was very rare to see Faith anywhere where Mark wasn't within arm's reach. Oliver walked over and gave Faith a perfunctory headbutt on the ankle and purr, his usual greeting for anyone who seemed to be in a good mood.
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"Well, Eddie's got a band he's put together, I guess they're pretty good," Erin said with a shrug. "Have you gotten your room assignment and seen the place yet? It usually takes people a few days to get settled in here, but it's not such a big place. So what do you do?"
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"Thanks," Erin said, sitting cross-legged and running a hand down the cat's back. "He's Oliver, and he graciously allows me to feed him and share my bed with him," she said with a half smile. "I'm Erin. You play?" she asked, looking at the guitar case. "A couple of guys here do, you'll be in good company."