Electra

"Good," Stesha murmured back, her face a little flushed as she smiled. She kissed him for a few minutes and was happy when he returned the favor, and it certainly seemed like one good turn deserved another! They'd missed a fair bit of movie by the time she pulled away, her heart pounding. She didn't think she was quite ready for more than really good kissing yet, no matter what ideas her body had on the subject. "That calls for some kind of celebration, I think," she joked. Reaching into the picnic basket, she took out the last of the cupcakes and the cans of pop that had been ignored in favor of wine. She popped the top on her Coke, then raised it in his direction. "You're very good at many things."

Erin let out a surprised burst of laughter at that suggestion. "Me? Yeah right. I'd throttle him maybe three days into a relationship for being too cheerful when I'm in a bad mood. I think you're right about his attitude, but I don't think I could get, you know, close to a guy who doesn't believe anything very bad can happen to him or anybody." She shrugged, the movement a horizontal one since she was still laying in bed. "You're more laid back about that sort of thing than I am, so he's a lot more your type, short term or long term." With a snort, she added. "Who knows, maybe with another ten years of therapy, I'd finally be well-adjusted enough to date anyone, even Mark." She sat up, ducking her head to avoid cracking it on Alex's bunk. "I'm glad you had a good time, though. You've practically got little happy thought balloons floating off you. That's what a first date should be like, I think."

"Good idea," Erin agreed. "And even if Mike is in your ten year plan, there's no point in letting him get too comfortable about it. He should have to work and wonder at least a little, or where's the challenge?" She smiled up into the dimness. "You going to be officially dating-dating now, or keeping it quiet?" Not that there were any secrets in a peer group this size, anyway.

The movie was entertaining, but Stesha had been thwarted once that day already, and she'd seen Ghostbusters about a million times anyway. "I don't want to forget," she murmured, "I owe you a thank you for saving me today." She scooted upright on the couch and kissed him on the cheek. "And another thanks for a lovely picnic," she added, giving him a more lingering kiss on the corner of the mouth. "I also owe you a cupcake, but that can wait." Putting light fingers on his cheek, she turned his face in her direction, kissing him on the lips. It was, she decided, even better that cupcakes, and she hoped he thought so too.

"Pretty urgent," Stesha said, a little taken aback by the sounds of fighting on the other end. "But don't get yourself hurt trying to get here..." She was about to explain more when Phantom cut her off, and she supposed she couldn't blame her. Talking on the phone was pretty distracting, even when all you were doing was driving a car. Closing the phone, she told Derrick, "Taylor's busy, but she'll be here in a few minutes. I should probably call Ace too, Moira said he's her friend. He knows just about everything about everything, if anybody in town has actually been to Mount Olympus, it will probably be him. And maybe I should call Jack, too." An expression of distaste crossed her face. "Any port in a storm, right?"

Erin strapped in as well, intent enough on the mission to keep her from being more than a little nervous at the idea of Geckoman piloting the flying submarine. She shrugged at Mike's question. "She said if we can destroy the robots, the Nazis will decide the new technology doesn't work very well and scrap the program. I'd say that's what we should concentrate on, then play the rest by ear. Once the robots are gone, we should have time to decide what to smash and what to take."

"Yeah, I thought you said you weren't gonna wear them. They looked good with the dress, though." Erin rolled to her back on the bunk while Alex changed, looking up at the wood slats and metal bedsprings. "Two dates does make it more of a, you know, a thing than one date," she pointed out. "After two dates, if you don't break up, you're going out. Which isn't bad, if you're happy. You ready for that?"

Stesha nodded agreement, though she was a bit thrown off by the idea of Mount Olympus being an actual place, rather than more a sort of idea or fantasy. But if you started believing in Greek gods, Mount Olympus was the natural next step. "I'll call her, and Moira's other friends too. They need to know what happened. I know everyone will want to help." She opened her phone again, rubbing the last of the moisture off her face with her free hand, and looked up Taylor's number. "Hello Taylor, it's Stesha again. I've got a big problem, bigger than imps this time." Her voice was under better control now, if still a little wobbly.

"I'm good," Erin told Mike, "I don't want to get food gunk on anything I buy. I'll be just a few minutes." She ducked into the row of shops lining the food area and began a quick perusal of what was on offer. They had swimsuits for the waterpark, and though she choked a little at the price, it would be nice to pick up something better-fitting and more flattering than the suit she'd borrowed at Alex's party. Shopping took a bit longer than she thought, even when she passed up the cuter stuff and the accessories and concentrated on clearance items, but by the time she'd finished, she had all but cleared out her card and gotten two more bags of goodies to somehow shove into her locker. Rejoining the others, she dug around in her bag and pulled out the earrings she'd gotten, peeling off the tape backing and putting them on right away. They were little penguins, and since they were Christmas stuff. they'd been cheap. "Any luck on finding James?" she asked Alex.

"If it works, it works," Erin replied with a grin. Alex's happiness really was contagious tonight, and it was good to know that she'd had the promised good time. It was also good to know that Mark wasn't secretly a jerk who needed a beating, because that wouldn't be good for trying to build up good teamwork. "And if you're going to the movies, you could get a lot of chances to build up from that first one. How'd the dress work?"

Erin set aside her textbook and rolled onto her side, giving the conversation her full attention. The little bubbles of projected emotion were kind of weird, but she wasn't going to say no to a little extra happiness, especially when Alex was so happy. "Sounds like a good time. So... is he a good kisser?" Her interest was purely academic, but it would be nice to know if she was right in her assessment.

Stesha took a couple of deep breaths and pulled herself together, concentrating for a moment on reeling back the viney branches that still lay abandoned in the middle of the room like a topiary sculpture to futility. "It was her family," she told Derrick, passing the phone nervously from hand to hand. "I wanted to know where she was going, and when she would come back. That's when she told me her family was taking her, and she didn't have a choice. They'd decided she should learn how to be a goddess. That's who her family is," she explained with a jerky nod, "no-fooling gods and goddesses, like in Greek myth stories." It still seemed unreal, but she'd believe almost anything at this point. "I told her that she shouldn't go if she didn't want to, if she was afraid to go. I said that we would help her, that I would and the Knights would, but she didn't think anyone could do anything. She acted like there was nothing she or anyone could do to stop them from taking her, and she didn't know if she'd come back, or if she would even be okay. Then she started talking in a strange voice, like there was someone else in her head with her. It was a goddessy voice. I think she did it as a joke at first, but then it was like she couldn't stop it. I said I would call Taylor and Ace, people who would know what to do, and she wanted to, but then this column of fire-looking stuff appeared and it took her away!" Stesha still had a few more tears for that. "I couldn't stop it! She asked me not to give up, and then she just disappeared. What are we going to do?"

Stesha looked up as he rounded the couch and sat down, smiling as she saw that he'd returned to his normal self. "Hey, welcome back," she said warmly, scooting over to put her head on his shoulder. That position cuddled them up nice and close, so that she could feel the very human warmth and solidity of his body against hers. "That's much better," she decided, pleased. "Not that I don't like your crimefighting side, but this is the perfect way to watch movies."

This is the thread for Erin and Alex's gossip about the date with Mark. It takes place August 3, immediately subsequent to the events of D(ate) Day.

August 3 The room was half-dark when Alex stepped in, with the fluorescent overheads off and the desk lamp pointed towards Erin's bunk. Often at this hour, Erin was out and about, but tonight was a little bit different. Erin didn't precisely feel responsible for Alex, but she did want to make sure that everything had gone all right. She'd advocated going on the date, and if Mark had screwed it up and hurt Alex's feelings or worse, he would have to answer for that. Erin was a firm believer that determination and the cause of justice was more than a match for luck any day. Besides, whatever their personal differences at the moment, she knew Mike would help her on this one. One look at Alex's face as she came in, though, and Erin suspected that Mark probably wasn't going to need a beatdown today. "So, how'd it go?" she asked, smiling a little bit herself. "Did you have a good time?"

Stesha nodded, smiling back at Taylor, then followed the other hero's gaze towards the monitor. As she watched the interrogation, she folded her hands closed around the spent aloe leaves, wadding them up into a juicy ball that got smaller and smaller, then finally wore away to nothing between her fingers, almost as if she'd absorbed it into her skin. "What was it doing down on the South Side tonight?" she suggested quietly, aware she was out of her depth here.

The roller coaster wasn't as much fun as the tilt-a-whirl in Erin's opinion, though that might have been because she'd recently spent a month deliberately jumping off buildings to learn how to land. The steep drops with her stomach in her throat weren't quite as novel anymore. Still, it was fast, and she didn't have to steer or worry about placing her feet, and that was fun. "A food break works," she said as they disembarked. "There's that retail pavilion thing at the back of the park, I want to look at the shops there while you're getting cotton candy. Then maybe we should try and hook back up with James. It's his party, after all."

Stesha looked blankly at her phone for a moment, then at him, as though finding it hard to conceptualize that he was suddenly in the room with her. She was sitting in the middle of the couch and crying, but other than that and the rather out-of-place vines coiled like garden hoses in the living room, the place looked entirely normal. "It's Moira," Stesha choked, closing the phone and opening it again. "She s-s-said she was l-l-leaving, you know, b-but it wasn't just a trip. They made her go, and she d-d-didn't want to, and she might not come back. I couldn't stop it," she told him, wiping her face with the backs of her hands. "I tried t-to hold her here, but she just disappeared! We have to help her..."

August 16, 2009: Divine bids Fleur de Joie a sad goodbye in When All is Said. Unwilling to accept her friend's abduction, Fleur immediately calls out the troops in Holding Out for a Hero.

This is the OOC thread for the thread where Stesha freaks out and calls every-freaking-body she knows. It is on August 16.

"Moira, wait!" Stesha reached out into the painlessly burning flames, but she couldn't reach, as though Moira were growing more distant without moving at all. Instinctively she lashed out with her powers as well, sending skinny branches whipping out of the bonsai trees and racing through the air towards the pillar of light. Their aim was true, they wrapped into a round snare right where Moira should have been, but Moira just kept getting fainter, till it was hard to see her at all. "I'll get help!" Stesha promised. "We'll find you, just hang on!" Even as Moira whispered goodbye, the flames faded entirely from view, taking Moira with them. "No!" Stesha cried, stumbling into the space where her friend had been, nearly tripping over her own slack vines. "Moira!" Tears began gathering behind her eyes, then trickling down the sides of her nose as she tried to decide what to do. Moira hadn't wanted to go, it wasn't fair... what if she never came back? She ran back to the couch and dug into her knapsack, searching for her phone. "Please be charged, please be charged..." Flipping it open, she dialed the one number she'd memorized most recently. "Derrick?" she asked, her voice thick with tears. "It's Stesha. Something bad has happened, I need your help..."

"Moira, wait!" Stesha reached out into the painlessly burning flames, but she couldn't reach, as though Moira were growing more distant without moving at all. Instinctively she lashed out with her powers as well, sending skinny branches whipping out of the bonsai trees and racing through the air towards the pillar of light. Their aim was true, they wrapped into a round snare right where Moira should have been, but Moira just kept getting fainter, till it was hard to see her at all. "I'll get help!" Stesha promised. "We'll find you, just hang on!"

Stesha stood on tiptoe to murmur into Moira's ear, still holding on tight. "I'm always on your side, you know that," she reassured her friend. Or what was mostly her friend, but also something different and strange and a little frightening. "Let me call Ace, or Taylor," she implored softly. "They'll know what to do and how to help. It isn't fair that you should have to do this and not even know what you're getting into. If your family wants to be a part of your life, they can't treat you like this!"

Stesha looked unconvinced. "If you want to go, I'll tell you good luck and that I hope you have a nice time. But I'm serious. Maybe your family calls themselves gods, but they're almost like metahumans too. They're not invincible or unstoppable. I don't know any hero in Freedom City who wouldn't do anything they could to try and stop you being kidnapped to someplace you don't want to go. You shouldn't just accept it like this if it's not what you want!"

In a spirit of fair teasing, Erin nudged Alex up against the "You must be this tall to ride" yardstick as though unsure she'd be allowed, but all of them managed to get into their harnesses without any trouble. Erin swung her feet idly in the air as she waited for the ride to start. "If we get stuck upside down a hundred feet in the air, I'm nominating Flyboy to unhitch himself and get us all out," she said to no one in particular. "That'd be a heck of a news clip."