Electra

Stesha insisted on buckling the bucket into the front seat, which took a little bit longer, but the last thing she wanted was to tip the precious plant on the way home! When it was secure, she took the proffered card, then dug around in her purse for one of her own. "I know you already have my number at work, but here's my cell number as well. Let me know if I can help out with anything else, or if your mankana starts acting weird. And thank you again, so much, for the split." She smiled at him and extended her hand, ready to shake although she suspected he might kiss it again.

Stesha was personally very interested to hear some of the stories behind the stories she'd watched on television growing up, and wound up staying far longer than she'd planned. When she realized it was well and truly dark outside and she'd intended to be home several hours ago, she was rather startled. "I need to be getting home," she admitted, "I have a bunch of work I'm taking home with me for different projects. It's really nice to have met you, and I'm glad I was able to help. We can meet up next week and I'll check on how the plant is recovering?"

"You know, it's Alex's party, and Alex's mom's stuff," Erin broke in over James and Eddie's plans. "She should get to decide if and how we go looking for whatever might be on that paper. Maybe we should just leave well enough alone, since none of it belongs to us anyway." It wasn't that she herself wasn't curious, but digging into other people's secrets was rude, as was ruining other people's parties. "There's plenty of stuff to do here."

"They shouldn't just be able to take you away because they want to!" Stesha replied indignantly. "This is a free country, mostly, and there are laws even for supers. And you have so many friends who would help you! If you don't want to go, I'm sure they will help you. I would help you, but I don't know what I could do except hide you in a plant until they stopped looking, and that probably wouldn't help very much." She sighed. "Do you think it's going to be very bad?"

Stesha hugged her back. "I think you're doing just fine the way you are," she told Moira staunchly. "Why do you need more training in anything? You're already on the Knights of Freedom, and you can handle practically anything or anyone." She lifted her head and looked up at Moira, momentarily distracted as her words percolated. "I didn't even know you knew Ace," she admitted. "It really is a small world. And you should be here!'

"It's beautiful," Stesha agreed, taking a few steps forward to look into the box. "But if you already knew who you are, why do you have to leave now? Do you actually have to go and live in Greece and do... whatever hellenistic deities do?" Her face fell. "Are you ever going to be able to come back? You know I'll take care of your plants, but I thought you were only going on vacation!" she exclaimed, her voice wobbling a little.

She gave him a small smile in return. "It was interesting. Fighting with someone else is a lot different than fighting alone. But so far it's pretty effective. If they're going to put us out in the field, it's something we should be working on. I guess I'll see you at the recruitment thing tomorrow, get some pizza." The elevator doors opened, dumping them both out on the main floor. "See you later."

"I don't know, what time is it?" she asked him. When he told her, she pulled out her notebook and checked her schedule. "Counseling appointment," she told him, sounding like she was trying hard not to sound defensive about it. "Then I'm back in the Doom Room solo before supper. How about you?" She shoved the notebook back into her bag and ran her fingers through her hair to try and put it in order. They both still smelled a bit like smoke, thanks to the odors pumped into the room during the fight, but neither of them looked any the worse for wear after seven aliens and a little interstellar diplomacy.

Stesha's eyes went big as she took a step or two back at the glow and the voice. It seemed to take her a second or two to shake it off, even after Moira turned down the volume. "Wait, you mean seriously? Like, literally a Greek goddess?" Sometimes it was very hard to tell when people, especially superheroes, were taking a self-deprecating poke at themselves or when they were being serious. On the other hand, Divine certainly looked every inch the part, wearing the toga and glowing like a goddess.

Erin shrugged. "He doesn't want anything, it's just a punishment. I'm already in class so many hours that I've got no time to serve detention. Sorry it got dumped on you too, though. Usually when he and I have a go-around, it's just between us. I doubt he'll go very hard on you, he's sort of like Mr. Skyler that way, he only dumps on the people who are supposed to be really good at it. He's actually pretty good with a grappling gun," she admitted reluctantly, "I've seen him use it in old videos. He might be able to give you some pointers."

"We don't want to blow it up if we can disable it," Erin pointed out. "There's a lot of salvage value in a place like that, if we can get it away from the Nazis. Even in just raw materials, much less all the top of the line equipment they must have to be turning out brand new robots." She looked to Lilith for confirmation. "We need to break it so they can't fix it, but if you can get in there and clean it out, that's better, right?"

"What do you mean?" Stesha asked, walking around to look at the way the toga fit. It certainly looked a lot better than most of the getups she'd seen at toga-themed parties, but part of that had to be the person underneath. "Are you actually going to be going on a mission... are the Knights going on a time-traveling mission?" she asked, her eyes wide. "Is that why you're all dressed up?" Derrick hadn't mentioned anything, but she didn't think all the Knights went on every mission. Surely he'd have said something if he'd be going away long enough for plant-watering to be necessary.

Erin hopped out of the car while Mike was giving Alex a hand, ignoring or not seeing his offer of assistance. She didn't need it anyway, the ride had been entertaining, but she wasn't dizzy afterwards. That was almost disappointing, since watching the world spin around afterwards was part of the fun, but the idea that she could theoretically ride the Tilt-a-Whirl indefinitely was sort of interesting. "Roller coasters don't take a lot of walking," she agreed, heading back down to the path with them. "Though we could always stop at another shop so you can see if they sell theme helmets for the low places," she offered to Mike in a helpful tone.

This is the OOC thread for Stesha and Moira moving bonsai trees and saying temporary farewells.

Stesha blinked. "We have to stop meeting like this," she blurted out, smiling crookedly. "But I guess so... are you going to a party?" She picked up the trailing edge of the long, long fabric, startling a little at the way it seemed to cling to her fingers for a moment as though examining her before going limp. "I should've called before I came, but I was running late. You need me to watch your plants for awhile?"

Just a little more... a little more... why couldn't I have gotten a teeny bit of super strength, anyway? With a grunt and a gasp, Stesha finished moving her bookcase the last six inches to its new home in the corner of her living room. With a couple of new tenants moving in, she needed to free up some extra space around the apartment. Moira hadn't told her exactly where she was going, just that she needed someone to take care of her plants. Stesha wasn't one to turn down a friend, or a plant, in need, so she'd said sure. Now she had to go and get them... but first, space had to be cleared. It took another twenty minutes of pushing and gasping and some very mild cursing, but eventually, she had sufficient space in the garden area by her front window for the visitors. Stesha had planned to take her car to go pick them up, not wanting to be too dependent on her powers in the daytime, but she was already exhausted and running late. The last thing she wanted to do was fight traffic. Closing her fingers around the leaf of a cheery diffenbachia, she willed herself across town, right into Moira's living room. She hoped nobody was naked.

"I don't know yet, this is my first year away," she told him. "Northwestern's not exactly a commuter college, but we lived right in town and I just rode in with my dad every day. Even when I graduated and got a job, I was only a half hour away in Chicago. But with the two grandkids and now Jasha's new baby, I'm sure things are going to be very exciting at Thanksgiving, and especially at Christmas." She smiled. leaning back and putting her bare feet on the coffee table as the opening credits began to roll. "Six kids and now grandkids too, plus aunts and uncles and cousins and whoever happens to be visiting from Russia this year, it can get noisy. Here, watch this, you'll like it," she told him with a grin as the movie started.

"Hong Kong Harry?" Stesha couldn't help but chuckle. "I remember him from the cartoon show, but I always thought he was made up, like Hong Kong Phooey. And he's Taylor's relative, too. It's a very small world out there. Maybe you should write your memoirs, with the names changed, how it really was behind the comics and the TV shows and the tabloids. I'm sure it would be amazing."

"I'll let you know if I start feeling weird about anything," Stesha promised him with a laugh. "I'm not very shy about that. I tend to blurt it right out. I really like the idea of spending an evening with you. Especially when you're solid again." Turning on the second movie, she returned to the couch, once again leaving a space for Derrick when he was able to use it. "I love my apartment, but it can get boring and kind of lonely around here sometimes. I come from a very big family, and it feels kinda strange to live alone."

Stesha spends an HP to remove the drawback "plants only" from her Healing 8, which should make the aloe considerably more potent than usual.

"Here, let me help..." Stesha hurried over, rather grateful to have something to do besides stand around and stare at everything. Digging into her bag, she rummaged around and pulled out a seed, cupping it in her hands till it grew into an aloe plant with one long leaf and several tiny ones. She broke open the big leaf and smeared it over the bite mark, leaving a cool and somewhat slimy tingle on Taylor's hand. "Aloe is good for little wounds like that. It helps it heal faster."

"I don't mind at all," she told him. "I don't really sleep, and it's not like the neighbors will be scandalized. They didn't even see us come in!" She laughed. "As if they'd think anything about it. You can stay as long as you'd like." She got up to change the movie, walking around a little bit to stretch her legs while the unskippable previews played. "And if you never saw Ghostbusters II, you've got to. It's even better than the original, at least I think so. And hey, maybe by the end, we'll get our popcorn yet."

Stesha's eyes were already wide after the short trip through the void, but she lost no time in goggling at the setup of the lair, and at the Scarab herself. This was pretty much the way she'd always pictured a superhero's headquarter's as being, sort of like a cross between the Pentagon, Star Trek, and a museum. "Wow..." she murmured, before focusing her attention on their host. She didn't think any of that impressive armor came from a costume shop, either. "Ah, hello," she said politely, firmly resisting the urge to duck behind Phantom's voluminous cloak. "I'm Fleur de Joie. I caught one of Phantom's imps, and we were hoping you could tell us what it's doing here."

Stesha had stretched out on the couch a half hour in, when it became obvious that Derrick wasn't going to join her. It was sort of weird seeing him standing there completely motionless for an hour and a half, like a cardboard profile cutout whose colored side was pointed in the other direction, but she did her best to ignore that. "It's an hour and a half," she told him, stretching her arms over her head as the credits rolled. "That's a lot longer time when you're sitting in a theatre and have just had a jumbo pop and the mega-popcorn." Realizing that he wasn't ready to change back to human yet was disappointing, but she decided to make the best of it. "We could watch the sequel too, I guess."

Erin gave Mark a slightly apologetic glance. Being assigned acrobatics training meant nothing to her; she was in the gym most afternoons anyway. It might seem like more of a punishment to someone who generally had free time. But it wasn't like he couldn't use the training, she thought, a bit uncharitably. It would be helpful if eventually she didn't have to pick him up and carry him into battles. She shrugged and nodded acknowledgment of the new assignment.