Electra

"I dunno, I don't think so," Erin said dubiously. "I don't want to hurt his feelings or anything, but if he's just doing it because the guys are telling him to and because I'd be a safe target, I don't think that's much of a problem." She shrugged, dumping her socks onto the bed and starting to sort them. "What would be the point? At least with you and Mark, you know he really likes you, and you guys have a good time. I can't even visualize going out anywhere with Mike. We'd just stare at each other or start sparring or something."

"They won't let it go at that," Stesha told him with a sigh. "Especially not my brothers. But I'll figure something out," she told him, deciding it would be silly to waste the evening worrying months into the future. "Family is complicated, but you just have to know how to deal with them. And if I do just woman up and tell them what I've been doing, assuming they don't flip out big-time, I can go visit a lot more often, and my mom will stop bugging me to quit dyeing my hair green," she added cheerfully. She turned her attention from him as a few faint noises sounded in the trees. "Hey, did that sound like barking to you?"

Erin stopped folding for a minute to think about that, an odd expression on her face. "Huh. Yeah, well, that's not gonna happen, but I guess I can see the reasoning. Ouch." She shook out another t-shirt and started to fold it, looking at Alex. "Don't you worry about that? If you're gonna marry him and have kids someday, isn't that something you're going to have to think about? Even if he doesn't know what to do with it, I'm pretty sure he even beats me for just raw being strong."

Erin cocked her head, interested by that reaction. It wasn't very easy to get a rise out of Alex, especially when it came to discussing Mike. "And what?" she asked. She thought about leaving aside the matter of Zoe entirely. Maybe she couldn't actually say anything, but it was nice to know that her skepticism about the likelihood of Zoe being able to keep her secrets was justified. But still, she felt she owed another refugee a little something. "And couldn't the sample be contaminated already? Anybody could've touched your sleeve, you, Mike, any of us." There, that was her good deed for the day.

Erin did a double-take, then laughed. "He was doing what? But why? He and I... there is no way that wouldn't be doomed to awkward and miserable failure. We could probably set a world's record or something. I mean, he's my friend, mostly, now that we patched up that stuff about fighting. But he's your guy. It's practically written in stone. And I'm not exactly dating material." She leaned over finally to watch Alex. "What are you doing?"

Erin collapsed the bat and shoved it into her pocket. "So what was he trying to do, anyway?" she asked, picking up her own bag of clean laundry and starting to fold it. She gave a curious eye to Alex's mauling of her clothes, but decided to take one mystery at a time. "Have the other guys been telling him he should be more like Mark or something?"

"I'd love to take you with me, but I'm worried about telling my folks everything I've been doing this year," she admitted. "I hate lying to them already, but I'm doing it because I don't want them to be scared or worried about me, or try to stop me from doing hero work. If I take you with me for Christmas, it means I either have to find a way to tell them everything, or ask you to lie to them as well. I don't think it's fair to do that to you, or to them. I really think they'll like you."

This is the OOC thread for Alex and Erin talking about stuff. One of the many threads where they do that.

It was nighttime before Erin and Alex caught up with each other again, back in their room after evening training and homework sessions. Erin should still have been doing her homework but she was playing with her new toy instead, practicing collapsing and expanding her bat to its full impressive length. That wasn't new, she'd been doing that for a couple of days now, perhaps because it was the only toy she owned, or she just liked fidgets with violent applications. Right now, though, she was distracted by the conversations she'd had earlier. The Zoe thing was first on her mind, obviously, but she couldn't talk about that. Trying to imagine herself still alive in thirty years was really weird. Up to this point, she'd been planning month to month, maybe into next year if pushed, but not much beyond that. What would she do for all that time? To avoid that, she asked the other question that had nagged just a little lately. "Hey Alex, do you think Mike was acting a little weird this morning?"

"It wouldn't be the same," Erin said with a dismissive wave, a smirk playing around the corners of her mouth. "But for just utility and something that'll be good to drive, I say the truck's a good bet. You never know when you'll need one, and it should off-road without much problem if it needs to. It's not a jeep, but if I never drive another one of those, it'll be too soon. I like it."

Archer shrugged, letting the door close at his back. "We have to monitor your progress," he told her nonchalantly. "You're doing better with the low-level thugs. Why did you toss the bat away in the last fight?" "It wouldn't do anything," Erin told him. "It wouldn't hurt her. She's a flyer, and I had to be able to grab her." "You wanted to hurt her," Archer corrected, "because she beat you last time. And you didn't trust your weapon to help you do that. Stopping is always preferable to hurting," he reminded her for the thousandth time. "You still need to work on that. And on the stick-handling." He raised his arm and tossed something to her. Erin reached out and caught it automatically, giving it a puzzled look. It was the bat again, barely as long as her hand from tip to tip in its collapsed form. "What am I supposed to do with this?" she demanded, looking around to see if he was about to start the simulation again. Surely she wasn't going to get a chance at Archer himself, no matter how tired she was. "That one's real," he told her. "You've had a chance to train with it in the simulator, now I want you to start taking it to group training and learning to use it in real combat. It has the same properties, it'll keep you from killing the people you're hitting, and make your strikes more effective. "If," he emphasized, "you actually use it. Hit the showers." Even making a snarky comment seemed like too much work at this point. Erin stuck the bat in her pocket and dragged herself out of the doom room. Some days she hated trying to be a hero.

When Erin opened her eyes again, she was, of course, curled in a little ball in the middle of the empty Doom Room, looking and feeling like a beaten-up fool. She could curse herself, but there wasn't any point to it. He'd gotten her again. Even now her heartbeat wouldn't slow down, and she kept looking up to wait for the next enemy. She put her head back on her knees and waited for her aching body to put itself back together again. The exhaustion wouldn't fade so quickly, but she'd live with it until she could drag herself back to her room for what was sure to be an exciting round of dreams. She'd been telling herself lately that at least her dreams weren't as bad as James', but right now that wasn't much consolation. Come to think of it, maybe she'd better take a page from his book and find somewhere else to sleep, lest Alex get another unintentional ride through the darker parts of her roommate's subconscious. Archer was not a foolish man, he left her alone until she was mostly finished healing and was once again standing on her feet. Even with the downtime, she jerked back to attention as the door opened, ready to fight if she had to. "What was it for?" she demanded, her voice holding more exhaustion than anger. "I couldn't do anything to her, again."

The light Lady Thunderbolt gave off was a weakness, providing a useful beacon for Erin, even on the other side of the wall. Leaping high into the air, she put her feet together and aimed for the flyer as she came down, driving her feet into the villain's back and trying to force her to the ground. They both went tumbling from the attack, Thunderbolt with a satisfying yelp, but when they fetched up against the wall, it was Erin's arms that were pinned. "And now you learn what happens to lonely little wannabes," the villain grated, before sending a thunderbolt straight into Erin's body. Erin jolted and saw starbursts exploding across her field of vision, but fought off her body's need to just stop moving for one goddamn minute until it didn't all hurt so much. Bringing her legs together, she levered her feet up into Thunderbolt's pelvis, throwing the villain off her with a grunt of effort, then diving after her. They wrestled across the roof, trading punches, kicks, all but spitting in each other's faces. Erin forgot her training, forgot the test and the hostile viewing audience, forgot everything but the overwhelming urge to survive. If she could've gotten ahold of that neck, she'd have shaken the head right off it, and damn the consequences. Even then, it wasn't enough. She couldn't dodge every lighting bolt, and her own blows, hard as they were, seemed to hardly do any damage at all. Finally, desperately, she broke off the attack and rolled into the hole in the wall the missile had dug, huddling like a rodent and waiting for the blast that would finish it. There was a wash of light from beyond her closed eyes, and everything went away.

The armored man let out an anguished cry and tumbled over, taking her with him when she didn't jump out of the way fast enough. That didn't feel good, either. She crawled away, painfully battered, her uniform scorched nearly black across the front and legs. Crouched on the roof like a gargoyle, she gasped for breath and waited to heal, still clutching the bat like a security blanket. One thing she'd learned fast was that even if the wounds healed quickly, that didn't make them hurt any less. Since she was staring at the gravel, she wasn't even aware of another approach until she heard the familiar voice from overhead. "Back for more, Wander? You really do like punishment." Without even thinking about it, Erin vaulted backwards, avoiding the lightning bolt by the skin of her teeth as Lady Thunderbolt swept in for the attack. The flying villainess was fast, deadly fast, and avoided the half-assed blow Erin aimed at her with ease Erin scrabbled backwards like a crab, seeking cover behind the blasted wall. With her concentration fractured, her nerves jangling, and her body still trying to knit itself back together, Erin would've run, if she'd thought there'd been anywhere to go. But she'd fought this battle before, and she remembered how it went. There was nowhere to go, and no backup coming. It was the endgame. She levered herself to her feet with the help of the bat, then tossed it aside. It wasn't going to help her now.

As the blocky shape came closer, it resolved itself into a metallic humanoid form, bristling with weapons. Erin thought it was a robot initially, but caught sight of the human face behind the armored helmet. "Prepare for your doom, puny hero," he chortled in a gratingly metallic voice, raising his arm to fire another missile. "You first," Erin grunted, leaping into the air and smashing him in the head with the bat as she jumped behind him and out of the way of his projectile. The bat sang as it crashed against the metal, but she couldn't tell if it was actually doing anything against the figure inside. She'd already learned it was useless against robots, but this guy was something in-between. Even as she landed, he was pivoting around on legs that remained still, lashing out with an arm that glowed and sparked with electricity. It hit Erin full across the front and sent her flying into the already damaged wall, knocking a few more pieces down. It took her a moment to recover from the double impact, and by the time she did, he was upon her again. She dodged another hit from that armpiece and leapt away, gaining a little height by hanging off an antenna array. It took him a crucial moment to locate her again, a moment she used to her advantage, dropping down onto him and ripping off his helmet. Electricity jolted through his suit, giving her a painful shock, strong enough that she swore she smelled her hair burning. Sheer force of will had her holding on anyway, even as she brought the bat to bear against the villain's skull. Her fist would've been faster and surer, but even now she remembered dimly that this was all a test.

Erin rolled to her feet a second after being knocked down, deflecting a strike from a broom easily with her bat. These weren't just flying goons, though, they had some kind of energy blast as well, and she was quickly tumbling out of the way of green lightning strikes, trying to close in without getting too many shocks. The bat helped, giving her more flexibility to hang back and dart in for strikes, and let her target the vulnerable heads without worrying quite so much about taking them off. She got tagged twice with the lightning, which hurt quite a lot and burnt her uniform, but managed to take out the trio without too much trouble. She was still rubbing her side where she'd taken the last lightning burn when another light appeared, this one rocketing across the rooftops and coming her way fast. Instinct had her jumping out of the way, which was all that saved her from taking the missile square to the chest. It exploded into the wall behind her instead, sending masonry raining down in chunks all around her. She ignored that, readying herself for the darker shape following close behind the missile.

No sooner had she reached the mouth of the alley than another group of toughs was on her, this group eschewing bricks in favor of bats and guns. She gave her surrender spiel again, but that was cut short when one of them shot her in the chest without even waiting for her to finish. The first bullet was always a shock, a quick hot sting to the flesh that seemed like it should hurt so much more, but after the first hundred times, it had mostly lost its novelty. She stood where she was for the first volley, so as to minimize collateral damage, then was once again diving amongst them as soon as the bullets stopped. Again, it was too easy. They were obviously humans, even if they were just as obviously bad guys, and none of them could hurt her. This wasn't Archer's style. What was he playing at? Deciding to depart from ground level for the moment, Erin leapt up onto a fire escape, then to the roof of a nearby building. Usually it wasn't hard to at least spot the beacon, but today he'd hidden the damn thing, so she'd have to go looking for it. As she debated the best search strategy, a flicker of motion from above caught her eye, a second before she was knocked off her feet by a bevy of cackling women on broomsticks, flying in from overhead. God, she hated flyers.

A heartbeat later, there was a scrape of sound from behind her in the alley. Erin spun just in time to dodge the brick hurled at her by one of the four thugs coming her way. No crowd of civilians, this. "Surrender now," she warned them, "or I don't count myself responsible for what happens to you." She brandished the bat, but these guys were stupid enough not to be intimidated. The leader of the group laughed and made a lewed suggestion about what he was going to be responsible for if she surrendered. "Okay, but you asked for it," Erin said with a shrug. With just a moment's calculation she leapt into their midst, using her bat to mow them down with blinding speed. These weren't much of a threat, and went down easy, without so much as a punch. When the last one went down, she checked his pulse to make sure she'd passed, then moved on. The goal in these solo scenarios was always the same, somewhere in the city nearby, there was a glowing beacon she needed to reach, without killing or being killed in the meantime. It was a stupid game, but it was the only one in town.

Erin stood in the Doom Room as the nighttime city coalesced around her, dark and ominous and clothed in secret shadows. She'd had so much group training and fighting in the last month that it was almost starting to seem natural to have people at her back, but this was what it always came down to, fighting alone against a world that wanted you dead. Her bat lay at her feet when the city was finished forming; she picked it up and gave it a twirl to extend it to its full length. Archer had been running her up against crowds of civilians at the beginning of her scenarios, but she suspected he'd be changing it up today. She looked to the sky, towards the unseen windows where she knew he was watching. A moment later, his voice filtered through the air. "The scenario begins... now."

"I see..." That one would take some serious thinking on, later, Erin decided. "Alex and my room is right down the hall, it's the one with the sparkly stickers on the door. You can ask us or the RA if you need anything. Later." She ducked out of the room to leave Zoe to her conversation, heading back outside to see if any of her friends were still around anywhere. She wasn't sure what she was going to say to any of them, but she figured she'd think of something.

Erin stood in the doorway for a minute. It looked like Zoe was done with their conversation for the moment, but she had one more question. "It's true that you know all of us in thirty years, isn't it. Not as teammates, maybe, but you recognized Mark and I too, didn't you?" The idea of still being around in another thirty years was somewhat surprising, even in a timeline that had just gotten blown all to hell. It wasn't something she'd really considered as part of her lifetime program.

Erin tucked her hands into her pockets. "I think you're making a mistake doing it this way," she told Zoe. "Alex," she couldn't say your mom, it was too weird, "is smarter than you're probably giving her credit for, and very curious. She's going to figure you out eventually. Anyway, she already plans to hook up with Mike, just not for another ten years or so. This thing with Mark is... I dunno, just a thing. But I won't tell," she finally added. "That's for you to do." Even back now, Erin was big on people being responsible for their own actions. Possibly why she and Uncle Mark hadn't gotten along well as far back as Zoe could remember. "What are you going to do?"

Erin turned the ID card over in her hands, listening as Zoe told her story. It was at once wildly implausible and made far more sense than the one she'd been telling earlier, and the ID card, strange as it was, seemed to corroborate it. They certainly hadn't shared around the location of the brand new headquarters they were setting up, and yet there it was, listed as Zoe's home address. She could even see Mike and Alex eventually settling down there someday. And Zoe... Zoe looked like both of them. Not so much that it couldn't possibly be a coincidence, but it was a good likeness, nonetheless. That, the ID, the computer, it all led to a scenario that could have been crafted together, but what would've been the point, going to such a ridiculous amount of effort to fool them? And then there was the mental link, which seemed harder to foil... Maybe Erin didn't want to believe it, but she was finding less wiggle room for doubt as Zoe talked. But to believe part of Zoe's story didn't make the rest of it any easier to swallow, or to want to believe. Thirty years, and that was it? Freedom City gone, the eastern seaboard gone, Alex and Mike and maybe whoever else from the school had made it that long, all gone in a single stupid act of violence? Erin had seen too much to disbelieve that it could happen, but that didn't mean she wanted to. Watching Zoe tell it a second time seemed less like an act and more like she was rushing through it as fast as she could, ass though it couldn't hurt if the words were said faster than she could think about them. Maybe it helped a little. Erin passed the ID card to the headmaster and knotted her hands into fists in her lap, keeping her own counsel for the moment as she tried to figure it all out.

That took another moment of quiet thought on Stesha's part. "Wow, you can come back from everything... that would be really weird. Good to know, though, I suppose." She scratched her head, then took a sip of her tea. "If it ever comes up, I'll make sure nobody decides to cremate you, if there's anything I can possibly do to stop it. You should probably at least write special instructions in your will or something, that says you don't want to be burned or buried..." She nibbled on the edge of her thumbnail. "Maybe you could buy a slot in one of those mausoleum things, so you'd be above ground, at least?" Stesha cracked a tiny smile. "Or invest in a walk-in refrigerator at your new place, I guess."

"What?" Stesha picked up the chenille bathrobe and handed it to Taylor, trying to puzzle out where that request had come from, and what it might mean. "You're not going to die, not for a long time," she tried to reassure Taylor. "Maybe not ever, right? What happened tonight was just a fluke, like you said. It's good to take precautions, but not to get too worried."