Electra

"Um, okay," Erin said, looking to Alex to see if she had a clue what he was talking about. "We can probably find one, if you tell us what it looks like. Or I could clean some stuff up for you or something like that..." She'd done her time as a gofer monkey for a superscientist, but that didn't mean she didn't feel more comfortable hauling things around and wielding a dustrag. If you weren't careful enough with those technical doohickeys, half the time you could break whatever it was you'd been trying to find in the first place.

"Yeah, girls' softball in junior high, then Little League before that," she told him, sitting down but still glaring at the umpire. "I quit after eighth because the coach was a jerk, but it didn't matter, there weren't any more games after that anyway. It was rainy, and that delayed the start of the season," she told him, as though that explained everything. "But I was pretty good, not scholarship material or anything, but good enough. Some friends and I thought about trying out for basketball, but you had to practice every day all through the winter, and that sounded really boring." She snorted. "If I could see me now, right?" she joked. Erin looked over at the scoreboard and grimaced. "We're a little weak in the bottom of the lineup," she told Mike dryly. "Looks like we'll be back in the outfield soon."

"Sounds "semi" voluntary, or maybe less," she agreed with a grimace. "At least Claremont will let you go on summer vacation, or leave the planet, without even needing a permission slip." Suddenly she was up out of her seat, plastered against the front of the dugout in the blink of an eye. "Hey! That was a ball by a mile! Are you blind?" she shouted to the computer generated umpire. "No wonder they start fighting in three innings," she grumbled.

"I can tell you did. I want you to know how much I appreciate it." She touched his cheek lightly. "It really couldn't have been any more special. I know I nudged you into this trip, a little bit, but I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have. I've done a lot of amazing things since I got my powers but this, all of this, has definitely been the most exciting and amazing and, well, really wonderful. Moira just has to come back soon, because I really owe her a big thanks." Stesha chuckled, with just an edge of worry in it for absent friends.

Erin blinked a couple of times, getting her bearings, then nodded. "Looks like it worked. Hi, Mr. Caldwell," she added politely to Alex's grandfather. It still looked a lot like a movie set to her, and it was hard to accept that everything worked, or was supposed to work, anyway, but the teleporter seemed to be functioning at least. "What can we do to help?"

Erin thought about that for a minute, then nodded again. "Yeah, I understand that. I used to get really stressed out just by seeing people moving around out of the corners of my eyes. I just wasn't used to it anymore. I ended up watching TV and looking out the window for hours and hours, just trying to get my head around that much moving. It's nice to be out, but sometimes you wonder if it's really safe. Maybe being quarantined is lonely and boring, but you're not gonna take anybody's head off if they surprise you. Why did they let you and Alex hang out together?" Maybe it wasn't appropriate dating conversation, but she was curious, and the conversation had been going okay so far.

Erin nodded at that. "Even if they were teaching you things, they were still keeping you locked up and running you through the maze. I only had to do that for a few months and it sucked." She paused long enough to watch the batter, whistling approvingly as he hit a nice double into right field. "What do you think about Claremont? They still do the same thing, sort of. Is it better here?"

Erin fielded the ball, giving him a crooked grin. "I was a first baseman," she pointed out. "I never learned to pitch. Last time my coach wasn't letting his daughter do all the pitching, we were still throwing the ball underhanded. Good catch." The next runner managed to get on base, catching the tip of the ball on the bat and sending it just shy of the foul line, but she struck the next batter out without much difficulty, putting the blue team back up to bat. In the top of the second, both she and Mike had some time before they were up again. Erin kept one eye on the field as the next batter went up, but tried to make conversation as well. "At the school you went to, did they ever let you do any sports?"

"Uh, sure," Erin said, a little uncertainly. "At least if we wind up somewhere weird, we'll both be in the same place." After the last time she'd been teleported, she was a little leery of the wisdom of this idea, but it would be convenient if it worked. She took a couple of steps closer to Alex. "How's it supposed to work?"

"Sure," Erin agreed. "I'm good at heavy lifting. It'll be interesting to see more of how the place is set up, anyway." She waited till the books were finished flying, then went to her closet as well. None of her clothes were expendable, but the patched jeans from the fight at the baseball stadium and the badly stained shirt she'd worn on her trip to Erde were at least unlikely to get more disreputable. She changed her clothes quickly and tied her hair back with an elastic. "You flying out this time?"

Stesha's hair was still wet, but she'd taken the time to braid it and decorate it with some of the local flowers before coming out to breakfast. She smiled over all the work he'd done and leaned over to kiss him as she sat down. "It looks great," she told him. "You plan, you pack, you cook, is there anything you can't do well? " Though she was tempted by the carrot cake, it was only polite to eat the food he'd cooked while it was still hot. For eggs cooked on a hot plate, they certainly weren't bad.

This is the thread for Alex and Erin cleaning out the Young Freedom headquarters.

The morning after her date with Mike, Erin was up early, as usual. It was a weekend, so there was no class, and this was an off-weekend for group training, so it was practically a free day. She went out and exercised for a few hours, then came back to the room and did her homework. After that... she was bored. That was a weird sensation, given how busy she'd been all summer. She didn't like it. And though she could always go and do more training, or study ahead in one of her classes, that sounded even more dull. She was sitting on her bunk with her legs crossed, trying to decide what to do with herself for the rest of the day when Alex came in. "I'm bored," she told Alex, sounding a bit disbelieving about it. "What are you doing today?"

Erin nodded, stepping up to the pitcher's mound as Mike took to the outfield. Her first pitch, a very fast fastball down the center, smacked into the catcher's mitt and sent him flying back into the umpire. There was a bit of shuffling, and their teammate with the exceedingly beefy arms put on the equipment instead. That worked substantially better. Erin struck out the first batter with no problem. but the second hitter up to bat had something extra going on. It was hard to tell exactly what, but the glowing aura was a good clue. Since she only knew one pitch anyway, Erin gave her the fastball too, high and right down the center. The glowing aura suddenly spread down the bat, which smacked straight into the ball, sending it high and far. "Get it, get it!" Erin yelled to Mike, shading her eyes with her arm to watch the ball go.

It turned out that the speedster Erin had set to bat third didn't have much of an arm, but made up for it by being fast. He sent a ball dribbling down the middle of the field, bouncing across the ground and practically into the shortstop's hands, but he and Mike were both fast enough to take advantage of it. Erin was waiting for Mike when he reached home, bat already in hand. "Nice job," she told him, raising her hand to slap him five. The hapless second batter had had no chance, but that was only one out. Erin took her turn at bat, taking a few practice swings before stepping up to the plate. It was weird to be standing there again after all this time, but kind of cool, too. Maybe it wasn't regular baseball, but it was still baseball. The pitcher wound up and put one right over the plate at her. She swung, hitting it with a crack that resonated all the way up her arms. It was the sort of hit that should've broken a bat, but weapons in the simulator didn't always follow the same rules as in real life. The ball soared up, up and away, besting the speedster's flying leap and heading out over the scoreboard. She was so busy watching it that she forgot to run until her speedster teammate nearly ran her over coming home. Laughing, she sped around the bases. "I guess we're pretty good at this after all."

Erin picked up the clipboard that had the batting order on it, which currently wasn't filled out. It was a fairly intuitive matter, with each player having a number from 1-9 on the back of their jersey, with her 8 and Mike 9. "You can go first," she told him, putting his number at the top of the list, "and lead us off. We'll know if we need to tweak the simulation then." She studied the field, watching their teammates. There was one obvious speedster and another who had arms the size of tree trunks, but the rest seemed normal. "I'll put Number 3 in second, and then 6, because he's obviously fast enough to steal. I'll take cleanup, just to see if I can do it." Grinning a little, she filled out the rest of the order, then hung it back up. "Okay, you're up. Good luck."

"Nobody ever told us not to," Erin pointed out. "If we play through the brawl in the fourth inning, we can even say it was fight training. Course, it's kiddie pool level stuff compared to what Archer throws at us, but still." She walked into the the room, where the simulation was already taking shape. This wasn't a professional stadium like the one they'd fought at a few months ago, it was much closer to the high school field she'd played on a lifetime ago. Base paths were traced in dirt on a grassy field, and a high back fence separated the field from the spectators. The warm air smelled like barbecued hot dogs and newly-cut grass. A few dozen spectators were seated on the bleachers, with more milling around or still approaching. Out on the field, two teams were warming up, one in yellow and one in blue. As Erin and Mike walked in, both their t-shirts turned blue as well. "Guess we know where we belong," she said, heading over for the cluster of blue team players.

"I haven't played since I got really strong," Erin replied as they rode down the elevator. "I might just end up breaking all the bats and sliding into the outfield. But nobody else is going to be watching, and I won't tell if you don't," she joked. On a Friday evening, the hallway to the Doom Room was even darker and emptier than usual, but they were both used to the forbidding atmosphere down here by now. Erin stopped at the door and let it scan her eye, then keyed in the program she'd found. "And you know, if it doesn't work right or it turns out boring, no big deal, right? It's just an experiment." She wasn't sure whether she was talking about the experiment or the "date" thing, but it seemed to apply.

Stesha went immediately for the cabana, tugging off her wet and sandy clothes as she went. "I'm going to grab a shower first," she told him, "then eat, and then I'm pretty much open to whatever. We've done all the things I want to on this trip so far, you should have a turn to decide." She tied a towel around herself like a sarong for the trip to the shower, then came out and began very carefully untangling her hair from its braid. The suns were starting to rise in earnest now, with just a slight haze in the air to hint at rainy weather later.

Erin hesitated for a moment before taking his arm, a little awkwardly. It felt weird. She guessed it was okay, at least it felt a little better after her brain was finished calculating ways to throw him. "It's been a long time since I played baseball," she admitted as they walked. "Not since eighth grade, but I figure it's not like you forget. We'll both be on the same team, and playing against some people with powers, some without. Near as I could tell from the docs, anyway."

Stesha, who had no experience talking to police as anything but a civilian witness, was more than happy to let Dark Star take over and do the hero talking. She rattled off her code name and said she'd come along to help the Knights, and that she was ready to remand the miscreants into their custody whenever they wanted. Since she still wasn't entirely sure what had happened to the building, except that it was probably out in space somewhere, she couldn't be much help there. She was more glad than ever for the costume, which made her look and feel at least a little more like a real superhero while she talked to the police. Doing this in a sweatsuit would've been tough.

Erin met him at the door, fast enough that she'd probably been waiting just on the other side. She'd dressed for the occasion too, sort of, in a Ocean Heights t-shirt and blue jeans, with her hair in a ponytail and laced through the back of a baseball cap. He could tell that the cap was borrowed from Alex, because it was pink and studded with green plastic jewels. She gave him a quick, slightly uncertain smile as she opened the door. "Hey. You ready?"

Stesha made an eeping noise as she left her feet, but she hadn't grown up with three older brothers for nothing. She slapped the ground as she fell and rolled over quickly, brushing aside tendrils of green hair that were already escaping her braid. "That was a good throw," she commented, rubbing her shoulder.

"Thanks," she replied, hefting her bag on her shoulder and turning towards the other locker room. "But he's always in a weird mood. I think he's psychotic. See you on Friday." Grateful that the first hurdle was taken care of anyway, she hurried into the locker room before either of them had a chance to screw up and make fools of themselves. It could've gone a lot worse, and anyway, she was good at baseball and fighting. It couldn't be that bad.

Erin repressed a grimace at that suggestion, eating food out of a bag somewhere far from where people were wasn't exactly her cup of tea anymore. "Do you want to play baseball?" she suggested. "I checked the computer in the Doom Room, there's a simulation for it. It's got an optional brawl, if we get bored. We could book it for Friday night and see what it's like." It sounded entertaining, at least, and more friendly than datey, which worked just fine for her.