Electra

Erin shrugged, walking in and taking a seat on the empty half of the couch. "Every few days, when I need it," she told him. "I actually do better when I can take a couple hours for a nap in the daytime, then I can go pretty much indefinitely. And it's almost one, so I guess it counts as morning." She set her water bottle on the table and leaned back, giving the TV a look. "Been playing with the video games?" she asked. "I fooled around with them for awhile, but most of the solo games are boring. And I already broke one X-Box controller," she admitted with a grimace. "You any good?"

Erin had been thinking about going to the gym after Alex went to sleep, which was where she spent a lot of her nights these days. Tonight, especially, she really didn't want to see what was behind her eyelids in sleep. The memory of bounding up the stairs, waiting to see a stadium full of corpses, was far too fresh in her waking mind. The last thing she needed was to see what sorts of tricks her dreams would play with the scenario. She filled her water bottle at the drinking fountain in the main hallway and headed for the door, but turned her steps when she heard strange music coming from the common room. She peeked in the door, wondering who else was up this late. When she saw it was James, she took another step into the doorway, waiting for him to notice her. "Mind some company?" she asked.

A moment of silence passed while Stesha thought about that. "So what are you doing here," she asked at length, "if you're not allowed to be around human beings? I mean, you can't be from around here, right? If you're free to go where you want, can you go back... to that place where you were, and pick it all up again?"

Stesha cocked her head and studied the scene as it played out on the glowing ball. From the talk of lost love and deep melancholy, she'd been expecting something a little more epic than being taken in a fight, but some people were really serious about that sort of thing. She looked up at the being. "So you fought the man with the cloud-weapon thing," she asked, "and he beat you?" She thought again about what she'd seen. "Or you beat him, and he died, and you got locked up for it?" she guessed.

Fascinated almost in spite of herself, Stesha forgot most of her nerves for a moment. She leaned in towards the shiny ball, trying to see what was inside it. Her fingers itched to touch, to see if she could, to see if it would be warm to the touch, she kept them firmly down at her sides. Hopefully the pictures would explain what the cryptic words didn't.

"I don't understand," Stesha admitted, taking a step back to put just a little more distance between them. The... guy, the being, whatever she called it didn't seem quite right, he seemed sad. But being in prison could make someone melancholy too. "Who locked you up for so long? How did you manage to get out?" She quieted the trees, but she herself was feeling pretty fidgety. She wished Moira was here, or even Jack, someone who would know what to do with strange ethereal beings who'd just gotten out of jail.

Stesha startled visibly when he appeared close to her, and leaned away just a little. "Why were you chained up?" she asked him, trying not to look too hard and see through his skull again. "Did someone have you locked up somewhere? How did you get out?" Around them, the trees rustled uneasily, as though touched by an unfelt wind.

Erin shook her head. "I gotta do my actual training. I need to be concentrating for that, though, or I'll likely knock the stupid punching ball through the wall again and get yelled at. I'll be here for a few hours yet, but maybe I'll catch up with you guys later. And maybe we'll play video games some night," she added with a small smile. "Nice to meet you, James."

"I'm going to be a hero," Erin said simply, flipping the fifty-pound weight end over end and then catching it in her hand a few times, meditatively. "There's a lot of people out there who could really use some help, and this is the place to come to learn to help them. Plus the endowment pays for my schooling, room and board, all that stuff. If nothing else, I'd owe them something for taking me in, but that's not why I want to do it. You need a purpose in life, you know, or what are you doing except wasting time?"

"Nope," Stesha said dreamily, closing her eyes. "I can fly." Looking perfectly happy to stay right where she was for the moment, she passed out or went to sleep, it was hard to say.

Stesha let go of the tree abruptly, falling backwards into Moira's lap. She seemed a little stunned by the experience for a moment, then looked over at Jack. "Okay," she finally said. "I forgive you if you're really sorry. But y'know, Moira says you're a hero. You said that you weren't. But I don' think she's wrong about this kinda stuff." She looked up at Moira with a silly, half-infatuated smile. "'Zat good enough?" she asked.

Stesha opened her eyes to slits when she realized that she had company. "I feel woozy," she complained. "Everything won't stop movin'." She held onto the tree a little tighter. "Think I had a little too mush to drink. "'S'good though," she told Jack. "You should try it. Even though I'm mad about tha hickey." She tipped her head all the way back and let it fall to the side to look at Divine. "I dunno," she told her friend. "I think I'm still mad at him."

Once they got outside, it didn't take either of the heroes very long to notice the loud, tuneless humming from the far edge of the front yard. There didn't seem to be any song in mind, or if there was, it was beyond recognition. Zeroing in on the noise, Jack and Moira could see Stesha at the foot of the biggest cedar tree. She had her arms and legs wrapped around the trunk and her cheek pressed against the bark, her eyes closed. She looked as though she were worried she might fall off if she didn't hold on tightly enough, even though her butt was on the ground.

It was a little hard for Stesha to look at the weird misty guy, but she kept an eye on him as she created a few more flowerpots, setting them down near the swingset and on either side of a bench. The first pots were bursting with flowers now, of all colors and sizes, with vines trailing down the sides. "So," she finally said, "are you new in Freedom City?"

Stesha took a quick step back at the vision of red magma, still trying to decide whether this entity was scary-but-benign or scary-malevolent. "Well, it's a public park," she said, a little uncertainly. "If you just want to enjoy nature, it's open to everyone. I'm just gonna... you know, finish up here." Still keeping an eye on him, she formed up another flowerpot and seeded it. The plants in the first pot were already opening flowers, releasing their pretty scents into the warm night air.

"You think this is bad," Stesha demanded, pointing at the bee stings, " you shoulda seen the damn hickey you gave me before you made your yicky poopy face and decided the movie was innereshting! I had to wear turtleneck sweaters for three days, and it's the middle of summer!" She glared at him and tried to tap her foot, which nearly overbalanced her again. "And I don't think you're really... you're really..." She blinked hard a few times. "I gotta sit down," she said abruptly. She put a hand to her head, covering the flowers in her hair, and suddenly vanished.

"Oh, I was working," Stesha said, looking down at the pile of dirt near her face. "Making the park beautiful." She extended her power again and the pile of dirt once again spun up into a little dust devil, then organized itself into a large terra-cotta flowerpot. With one eye still on the stranger, she tossed the handful of seeds into the pot, where they immediately sprouted into shoots and new green leaves. Even with strange interruptions, she didn't like leaving a job half-done. "I"ve never heard of Dalkaresh," she told him. "What are you doing here?"

"You told me it was a baby shower when it damn well wasn't a baby shower and I'm not about to believe that it was some kind of religious ceremony that involved black roses all over a couch... but that is beside the point!" Stesha replied. She reached out and put a hand on Jack's chest, this time to balance herself as she swayed again. "Whoa. The point is that yes they are bee stings, and I think you at least owe me an apology for being an ass about the whole thing."

The new visage didn't do much to reassure Stesha, but at least the... whatever he was, didn't seem overtly hostile. He had a very nice, very human-sounding voice, for all that it seemed to echo a little, and at least he said he didn't mean any harm. Stesha took a step to one side, bringing her onto the grass, just in case. "I'm Fleur de Joie," she told him cautiously. "Who are you?"

"My face?" Distracted, Stesha poked her finger at her own face, then immediately wished she hadn't when she remembered the bee stings. "Ow, crap! I fought a supervillain," she told Jack, jutting her chin out as though daring him to contradict her. "I fought him all by myself, and I won, too. And you know why? Because I can confront my problems! Unlike some people, who have to try and handle them through Merry the Orgy Queen or over the telephone!"

"Don't come any closer," Stesha told him, looking around for running room, or better yet, something to transmit from. "I'm a superhero, so don't think I'm a pushover or anything..." The quaver in her voice belied the brave words a little bit. "Who are you, and what do you want?" Her hand closed over a dozen seeds in her satchel, making her feel a little better. It was always good to be armed.

"Yeah!" Stesha chimed in, worming her way between Moira and Jack so she could poke Jack in the chest with one finger. "You're the one who should be ashamed! And there's no such thing as client-florist confidentiality! Maybe you thought you could buy me off with a big tip, but I'm not that kind of girl!" She wobbled again, then steadied herself. "Moira was just being nice to me. She said I should confront my problems, and that means telling you all those things I should've said on the phone but I was too chicken."

Stesha hadn't spent much time in Lantern Hill since she moved to Freedom City, but she rather liked it. It was a quiet neighborhood and relatively safe, so she wasn't nearly as worried about running into bad guys when she did her work. Not that she didn't think she could take a normal mugger, of course, not when she was a real-live superhero, but it was still a big hassle. In Lantern Hill's parks, the pathways were clean and there were very few junkies and homeless people, and that was nice. People in Freedom City liked what she was doing, for the most part, and there'd even been a few articles in the newspaper, even if they were very small. Tonight she was doing her usual job in a medium sized, park, lining the paths with flowers and making all the trees healthier. She was right in the middle of making a pot to go next to the water fountain when suddenly... something appeared right in the middle of the park! Startled, Stesha's concentration broke, and the half-formed flowerpot collapsed back into dirt as she squeaked with alarm.

Sensing her cue, Stesha stepped forward boldly. She was still weaving a little, but that didn't matter too much. She fixed Jack with a Stern Look. "I've been thinking about it, Jack," she told him. "And talking about it with Moira, too. We don't... I don't think it was right how you treated me. You shouldn'ta set me up just to drop me when you had your shup- your stupid flowers. And you didn't even invite Moira to your orgy party, and I think that was rude. You don't treat people right, and I... I think you should know that!" She gave him a defiant look, then hiccuped.

"That's right," Stesha said, nodding vehemently. Now that she was actually inside the building, she didn't feel so sure of herself, but they'd come too far to stop now. She studied herself in the mirrored panel of the elevator, perking up the tea roses braided into her green hair and wishing she'd thought to wash off some of the baking soda from her face and arms. If she looked like Moira did, she would be much more confident about this whole confrontation thing. It really wasn't her style... She took another drink, pinkening her cheeks and strengthening her resolve. The elevator let them out on the correct floor and, at Moira's direction, Stesha walked right up to the door. At the last moment, she handed Moira the bottle for safekeeping, then pounded on the door before she could think better of it. Folding her arms across her chest, she swayed back and forth a little as she waited.