Electra

Stesha put her hand in his without hesitation, palm side down. She had a little dirt under her nails and in her cuticles, an unavoidable occupational hazard. Her skin was warm and soft, not even callused the way a gardener's might be, much less someone who could bounce a bullet. "Not anything specific," she admitted, "but I've always thought they were beautiful. I was going to get one in college, but my dad would've had an even bigger heart attack than he did when I moved into off-campus housing, so I held off awhile, and then superpowers!" She made a little exploding motion with her free hand, laughing slightly. "Back then I always thought flowers because I was studying botany, but now I feel like that might be a little too on point with my whole theme." She studied his skin, not bothering to be circumspect about it, not with his arm right there and her hand in his. "Which was your first one?"

"You wear the tortured artist look well," she assured him with a half-smile, directed mostly into her coffee cup. "I assume you're the one who handles any unusual commissions that come in? People who would be hard to tattoo otherwise?" Stesha flexed her own fingers, looking down at the very normal, nearly fragile-looking skin. "I have never personally tested it, but a couple scientist friends of mine are pretty sure I could withstand a direct hit from a strategic nuclear weapon," she commented idly. "Nothing has been able to break my skin in years, and anything that hurts me heals almost instantly, so I've always just assumed tattoos are off the table. I imagine yours don't use normal needles?"

I did 10th-Anniversary Vignettes for Wander and Miss Americana. All points to Sparkler, please!

"It's okay, she's with us," Raina called out, raising her hands nonthreateningly and stepping out from behind her parents. "She's cool, she just doesn't know much about magic and stuff. What are they teaching us these days, right?" she joked, a little weakly. "But it is basically true that leaving a portal patent like this for too long is asking for trouble. It's already got some weird resonance thing going on that's making my fillings hurt." She ran her tongue over her teeth, then turned to her parents. "You can close the portal and open it again right here, can't you, so long as the ritual circle's' still in place? I've seen you guys do portal work before."

Erin withstood the pressure of Nina's hand without wincing, though a normal woman might've had a sprained wrist already. "Nina, are you sure you want to give him any ideas?" she asked, keeping her voice as calm and businesslike as she knew how. Having a lot of training in life or death situations helped a lot. "I've seen Mark as a woman, and although she's very pretty, she's even more highhanded and overbearing. Now you're almost done," she reminded Nina, "and this is as bad as it's gonna get. This is one time Mark's not going to be interfering with your plans at all, it's just you and your body and your exquisite control. You've got it in the bag." She looked over at Mark, whose fingers were starting to turn an alarming shade of purple. "Just to be on the safe side, Mark, you wanna step back for a second and check the door?" she asked reasonably. "Nobody needs any surprises right now."

"You sound like me six years ago," Stesha pointed out, tongue in her cheek. "Back then I was going out at night to save people's gardens and perk up the flowerbeds at the park. I think the only real constant in the superhero game is surprise. You never know when something could come up to change everything for you." She walked across the room to look at one of the portfolio books on display. "But I understand being happy with an auxiliary role. You've got a great setup here, but it must take a lot of your time." She paged through the book, admiring the intricate tattoo work inside.

Stesha laughed. "There's more paperwork than I thought would be involved when I first decided to become a superhero," she admitted, "but it's really not that bad. A lot of it is paperless these days, I have an app on my phone that I can plug information into and be done before debriefing. And a lot of the paperwork is designed to make sure that when I see something that's been destroyed or someone who needs help, I can make sure they get a referral to the right city services before I forget in the crush of everything else that's happening. I figure it helps me keep my promises when I tell people that everything's going to be all right." She took a sip of the coffee, then added a judicious amount of cream and sugar. "And I'm sure there's plenty of politics going on, but it doesn't touch me directly. Most of the people on the League right now are good friends of mine, so it's not as though we're jockeying for status or leadership or anything like that. Sometimes it is frustrating," she allowed, "especially when we have to wait to go into a situation when we're needed because of logistics or politics or whatever, but as long as I'm convinced that it's nobody on our end engaging in pointless politicking, I can live with it. To a certain extent." She smiled into her mug, a look that suggested she may have taken matters into her own hands a time or two. "It's good of you to consult for the League, we need all the help we can get. Today's consult was a bust, though?"

"Coffee, please," Stesha requested, setting the fire flower on a counter before pulling off her gloves and tucking them into her pocket. The room was warm enough that she unfastened the buttons of her cowl and let it drape as she walked across the room to examine the mural. Unlike most of her Freedom League cohort, Fleur de Joie didn't wear a snug morphic molecular uniform, instead choosing sturdy trousers and a work shirt in vibrant green. "This is beautiful," she told Ray, examining the partially-finished painting. "Is this your work too?"

Stesha leaned over to observe the tattoos with fascination, especially the glowing lines near his wrists. One hand came up a little as though to touch, but she restrained herself politely. "Those are really beautiful," she told him. "The ones you did, and the other ones too." She smiled suddenly, crooked and almost rueful. "I'm sure you get this all the time now but I have to ask or it's just gonna eat at me. Have you seen the movie Moana?" She waved a hand and laughed before he could even answer. "I know, I know, it's just that I have a six year old daughter, so I've seen it about a million times and I know the question would just eat at me. Sorry."

Stesha quirked an eyebrow at the suggestion of licking the globe, sternly suppressing the very inappropriate desire to try it just to see what would happen. Instead she dropped a seed into her palm and grew it around the ball, till it was the glowing center of a pink water lily. "Now there's a floating candle," she decided, rather charmed by her own work. "I will make sure none of my undead friends lick it." She leaned back comfortably against the seat, turning her attention back fully to Ray. "Do you do your own work?" she asked, gesturing to his inked skin.

Stesha took the ball with no hesitation, cupping it between her palms. The heat and light brought a faint green flush to her skin, but she looked a lot less uncomfortable. "Yeah, I know that feeling," she laughed, walking with him toward the taxi stand. "Part of the reason I don't usually go home on days when I have League duties. It''s a little embarrassing when I'm supposed to be on call but I've snuck out of the dimension for lunch. I'd love to see your place, though. I've never been in a tattoo parlor," she admitted with a small grin. "It sounds fascinating, and if you have both heat and coffee, it should be just about perfect." Still carefully juggling the ball, she slid into the taxi that stopped for them, then pushed her cowl back all the way to let it drape over her shoulders. Fleur de Joie had never had much of a civilian identity anyway. "It's warm," she observed, getting a closer look at the little sphere of light, "but it doesn't hurt. What's it made of?"

"It is too cold for any philosophical debate," Stesha agreed wholeheartedly. "Winter is not my favorite time of year in this town. She grinned and waved a hand vaguely. "I don't really know what I'm doing, I have three hours to kill before my next meeting in there and I didn't feel like going all the way home and coming back. I had some vague thought about asking a cab driver to take me to whatever restaurant they liked best. I'm not too picky, so long as it's warm." Even though she was wearing fuzzy brown mittens (slightly incongruous with what was, on closer inspection, a superhero costume), she still scrubbed her hands together to warm them. "Now remind me again, you're an artist?"

Her expression brightened with recognition. "Oh, of course! I thought you looked familiar." She pushed her hood back despite the cold, simultaneously improving her vision and revealing her emerald-green braids. "I'm Stesha," she added, just so he'd be spared the embarrassment of asking if he'd forgotten. "And everything's inevitable, on a long enough timeline. But there's no reason it has to happen today." Up close, the piney smell of the trees was stronger, mixed with a faint floral aroma that was Stesha herself. "What brings you to HQ?" she asked curiously.

As he watched, a woman hurried out of HQ's front door, immediately hunching over a little from the cold. She was dressed unusually, in what looked to be a long brown cloak with a jacket front and a heavy hood, but this being the Freedom League, weird clothes weren't actually that out of the ordinary. She seemed intent on heading for the taxi stand but paused just a few feet from Ray, her attention caught by a couple of struggling Christmas treelets in heavy concrete planters. Some optimistic soul had decked them out in lights and decorations, but the small trees were looking more brown than evergreen. She considered them gravely for a moment, then waved a hand in their direction.. Immediately the trees began to look healthier, growing taller and straighter, filling out with extra needles of the most lustrous green. Nodding to herself in approval, the woman stepped away, catching Ray's eye as she turned. Noticing him looking, she gave him a friendly, almost self-deprecating smile, as though she were just a little embarrassed to be caught.

Miss A shot a look at the towel that suggested she was making a mental note to collect it, for analysis or thorough destruction or both, but she said nothing about Tarva's performance as she moved to the nearest wall screen. "We've got a location, that's a good start. If this were four months ago, I could send out a drone flyer to get a look at the place, but I haven't got anything that's going to get through that wind." She gestured vaguely outside the dome, where a moderate winter gale was howling against the sturdy geodesic walls of the main lab. ""A land unit will take at least ten hours to go fifty klicks through snow, if it can even climb to the required elevation. I'm open to suggestions, but we may have to consider an in-person recon mission."

Mentally Raina was flailing, but looking like she didn't know what she was doing had never proven to be a very good strategy before. "What, you think I can't get away from a boarding school?" she scoffed. "I was breaking into secure scientific testing labs before I was a teenager, and they don't even lock the dorms from the outside. I have to admit I'm kinda surprised to see you here though," she told them, which was both true, extremely true and also a lie. "I mean, I felt the magic and all, but I thought you guys were still, um, you know? What are you guys doing with Riley's mom?"

Miss Americana Where the Heart Is 2007 (nineteen) Gina looked down at the key in her hand. The realtor had given it to her at the closing, in a little manila envelope with a stupid red ribbon on it. Like a present, except one that she'd mortgaged herself to the hilt to afford. She had more money coming in now than she ever could've contemplated a year ago, but Freedom City was an expensive town. For what she'd paid for the little two-bedroom bungalow in front of her, she could've had the biggest, fanciest house in Blackwater, Missouri. Maybe twice over. She considered it money well spent if it meant she never had to set foot in Cooper County again. Shouldering her backpack, she picked up her single suitcase and walked up the sidewalk to the front door. There was a little screened in porch at the front of the house, its screens dark enough to make them nearly opaque. She could do more with that, make it more private. She'd already made the phone calls to have the chain-link fence in back ripped out and replaced with a twelve-foot privacy fence, the highest local ordinances would allow. The glass guys had come through already, installing privacy windows everywhere, along with heavy-duty built-in blinds. In this house, nobody was ever going to look at her unless she wanted them to. The door unlocked with a soft click, opening into the living room of the first place that had ever really belonged to her. The place smelled of new carpet and fresh paint and bleach cleaner, nothing like the musty old smell of the hotel she'd been living in for the past year, or the faintly acrid air freshener tang that Mama preferred at home. It was empty, of course, but for the kitchen appliances, but the cable was already connected and her computer equipment was in her backpack. She could have everything she needed ordered by tonight. When the door closed behind her, sealing her off in her own private sanctuary, Gina felt the constant pressure in her chest finally loosen. Nobody knew her, nobody was looking at her, nobody even knew she was here. For the first time in a long time, maybe ever, she could relax. It was a heady feeling. She took another tour of the home, though she'd already gone over it with a fine-toothed comb during the last walk-through. The place wasn't new but it was in good shape, and she had all sorts of ideas. Completely renovating the basement was first on the list of course, she'd need lots of room for computing space and additional protection. Even with a state of the art security system, she was still a woman living on her own in the big city. That would require moving out for at least a week, an idea that wasn't appealing, but she could probably get the upstairs walls rewired at the same time, get the built-in generator into place and configure everything for remote operation. It would look nearly the same when she was finished, but it would be so much better. Gina's original plan had been to go out and get some groceries once she'd dropped her things off, sort of christen the house by filling the cupboards. Now that she was here, though, the idea of going out again tonight sounded tremendously unappealing. She ordered pizza instead, figuring she was christening the house by putting herself on the delivery list at the local Papa Johns. When the delivery guy arrived and rang the doorbell (a particularly grating buzz, she'd have to address that as well) she found herself curiously loathe to even open the door, as though she would breach her precious wall of security by letting anybody so much as see inside. That was stupid, though, so after just a moment of hesitation, she opened the door and took her pizza. Left a nice tip, too. This was her neighborhood now, and her pizza place, and it always made sense to get on the good side of the people who you'd be seeing a lot of. 2017 (twenty-nine) Gina was the first to admit that therapy had not been going very well. After Steve had gotten himself accidentally shot into space a couple of years ago, it had come to her attention that even with an invulnerable robot body, agoraphobia was limiting her effectiveness in emergency situations. Sure, she could haul herself out of the house if it were literally a matter of life and death, but she was barely functional, certainly not the help she'd like to be. It was stupid to not be able to go outside. It was stupid to believe that anybody really cared what she looked like or what she did enough to mock her for it, or that even if they did, it should mean anything. It was stupid to be so afraid. And if there was anything Gina prided herself on avoiding, it was stupidity. Unfortunately, knowing all those things didn't change the fear itself one little bit. Cognitive behavior therapy was easy enough to practice, with her mind happily dredging up pitch-perfect memories of every time someone had called her ugly or weird, every time her mom had talked about how she'd be so much prettier with a smaller nose or more sculpted cheeks, every time she'd stood on a stage like a painted doll and failed to come up to par. She could play those scenes over and over in her head like YouTube videos, complete with absolutely biting commentary from the asshole trolls who lived in her own mind. But the thing about having eidetic memory was that playing the videos again and again never softened them. Every time was just as bright and cutting and painful as the first. It was... somewhat counterproductive, really. Exposure therapy was going a little bit better. Steve had mostly given up dragging her around the block on walks, realizing that coerced time out tended to increase Gina's stress rather than allow her to acclimatize. (Steve had gotten a little therapy of his own as well.) Periodic forays into her own backyard, her front yard, the little concrete patio outside her lab, all of them had started becoming easier as long as she didn't have to interact with anybody. Once she was outside, she could stay there for up to half an hour sometimes before she needed to retreat. Progress was maddeningly slow, and she was mad at herself for letting things get to this state, but it was still progress. Right now the house was the biggest remaining hurdle. What had once been her sanctuary was now at risk of becoming a prison, even a solitary confinement cell. Steve had braved a great deal in order to join her there, putting up with more than any sane man would in terms of her neuroses and nerves. He had his own reasons to want a fortress from the world, so maybe they complemented each other to that extent. But the house had become her dark burrow, her hidey-hole, her lightless escape tunnel from the world, where not only could nobody see in, she could barely see at all. Things became distorted there, she suspected, the way things were always scarier in the dark. She and her home both deserved better. Gina didn't use her front living room much, partly because she wasn't sure what to do with both a living room and a family room, but mostly because of the large front-facing windows. With their shutters drawn they looked like blind eyes that took up most of one wall. It was creepy to sit on the couch opposite them, watching them as though one might suddenly wink and show her something she really didn't want to see. And honestly she didn't really know what they looked like with the shutters open. But that changed today. She'd asked Steve to stick around today for moral support, then had banished him from the room at the last minute due to a case of performance anxiety. He really did tolerate a lot from her. It was nice to know he was there, though, just out of sight in case courage failed and she needed a quick escape to the basement. But she wouldn't. Because she could do this. Carefully, every movement precisely calibrated, Gina raised her hands to the window. A flick of her finger disengaged the catch, and then it was just a matter of moving her fingertips (move, fingertips, you can do this, goddammit) and suddenly the shutters were swinging open, flooding the room with brilliant morning sunlight. Gina blinked into the sudden glare like a baby rabbit emerging from its hole, but she didn't run. 2027 (thirty-nine) How had it come to this, Gina wondered as she stared into the hall closet. How had she become this kind of person? She was a genius billionaire superhero philanthropist, and these days everybody knew it. How had she become the sort of person who wondered if she had enough scented candles set out? Gina closed the closet door firmly enough to make the picture frames on the wall shake slightly, then spun on her heel and marched away from the closet with great strength of purpose. She made it exactly as far as the living room, where a trio of scented candles mocked her from the coffee table, their flames flickering innocuously, their inoffensive aroma of vanilla and bayberry lightly perfuming the air. (Gina didn't know how a real bayberry smelled, but a bayberry candle smelled like pink Smarties.) It was enough, she told herself. Three was a good number, a perfect number, a mathematically pleasing number that wouldn't set off the smoke alarms. Speaking of which.... shit! Abandoning the question of candles, she raced into the kitchen just in time to catch the oven timer as it began to beep. Normally she didn't need to set things like timers, eidetic memory and all, but since tonight she'd clearly lost her mind, it had seemed prudent. Just as well, too. The canapes were perfectly cooked, little pigs in a blanket nicely gold on top, wontons crisp on the edges but not blackened. She ate one of each to test them out and settle her nervous stomach. They were good. She opened the wine and poured it into a juice pitcher to breathe (she and Steve had broken the decanter at Thanksgiving in an ill-advised dishwashing splash fight), then popped the cork on the champagne as well so the noise wouldn't bother Steve. He'd planned to be here an hour ago, but had gotten tied up at work, possibly literally. That was okay though. Mara and Ellie were their friends, and even if it had taken years, it was important to return hospitality for hospitality. More importantly, they were both the sort of people who would understand if this didn't work out. It had been years since Gina wasn't able to leave her house, years even since she'd stepped out from behind the protective veil of Miss Americana, but this was different. Inviting people willingly into her safest space when there was no disaster brewing and lives weren't on the line... it was different. They might tease her just a little bit later if she freaked out and threw them out the front door after ten minutes, but they'd understand. It would be okay. Drinks, food, scented candles, music... little towels in the bathroom? She had to go check. Little towels in the bathroom, and the nice soap, and plenty of toilet paper. All the shades were up, revealing the Christmas lights shining up and down the street, including the ones Steve had painstakingly hung on their own eaves and bushes. She hadn't been able to bring herself to look in a mirror, too stressed out for that, but she knew her clothes were fine, her makeup done by touch, her hair neat. It was the best she could do. The doorbell rang, a pleasant chiming of bells that echoed through the house. As Gina put her hand on the knob, she hesitated for a moment, waiting for the familiar racing of her heart. It usually only lasted for a few seconds before she could open the door and go out. Tonight, though, it was steady. There was nothing to be afraid of on the other side of that door. Taking a deep breath, Gina smiled and opened the door for her friends.

Wander Vignette "Time Spent With Cats is Never Wasted" December, 2007 (fifteen) It was cold, and getting dark, and Erin didn't know where she was. None of this was anything she wasn't used to by now. She didn't suffer from the cold the way she used to back in Seattle, didn't shiver from it or get blue around the lips, but she could still feel the bitter sting of it against her bare skin. She was still wearing t-shirts and blue jeans every day, picking up new ones by rote whenever the current set got too torn to stay on or too caked with dried blood to wear without scratching. It would be a trivial matter to pick up a sweatshirt or a coat the next time she raided the dark and fetid shell of a Walmart, but that seemed unlikely. Changing from summer to winter clothes meant acknowledging the passing of time, meant remembering that the last year of her family was drawing to a close. Even if she could find other living healthy people by Christmas, which she was determined to do in her less depressed moments, this had been the last year on earth for everything she loved and she needed it to last, possibly indefinitely. She compromised tonight by finding shelter in an old barn next to the burnt-out shell of a farmhouse. The cold didn't hurt her, but it was still nicer to be warm and out of the wind. The doors of the barn had been opened at some early date so there were no dead animals inside, just piles of old farm equipment and half a dozen well-fed cats still hanging around. The loft still had hay in it, baled and unbaled, so just a little work got her a relatively cozy bed for the night. On a whim, she opened a couple cans of tuna from her pack and began making friends. The cats hadn't really had time to go feral yet, though the kittens had never seen a human and were wary of her at first. One particularly bold orange tomcat polished off most of a can by himself, then plunked down in her lap like he owned the place and started purring. “Guess you were the housepet type, huh?” Erin asked him, her voice scratchy and strange in her own ears. When was the last time she'd spoken aloud? She had done for awhile, after Megan, just... after. When the grief had no longer stuck her throat closed she'd made herself talk, sing, fill the silence with her own human noise in pointless defiance. It attracted zombies, but that was okay because she wanted the violence and the blood on her hands that didn't belong to anybody she loved. She couldn't remember when she'd stopped doing any of that. Maybe when she realized that the zombies came anyway, or maybe she just stopped being afraid that she'd forget how to speak English. At any rate the cat seemed to like it, butting her hand with his head encouragingly. Erin kept petting him, even after she laid down when he obligingly curled himself up on her chest in a heavy purring weight. She kept talking too, nothing important, just telling him he was a nice kitty and talking about the kinds of food she would have when she finally got to Freedom City and found a restaurant again. It was the warmest sleep she'd had since the end of summer. The next morning Erin tried to coax the cat into the Jeep with her, but even an entire can of tuna wasn't enough to get him to hop onto the seat. “Come on,” she told him, “you can be a traveling cat. See the world. See what's left of the world, anyway. Keep me company.” He cocked his head at her and murred, but still refused to jump in. She picked him up and put him in the jeep, his face practically in the tuna can, but he turned around and hopped out again, sprinting halfway back to the barn before turning to look expectantly at her. “I can't stay,” she told him. His expression clearly asked why not, what was there out in the dead and empty world for her now? “I just do,” she insisted. “There's got to be something left somewhere, and I'm going to find it.” Leaving the rest of her cans of tuna open on the ground, she drove off, keeping a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. December, 2017 (twenty-five) “I can't get him an espresso machine for Christmas, he already has like five espresso machines,” Erin pointed out lazily, her eyes half closed. “Besides, it's not personal enough. A really good present has to mean something, like, important to the person who gets it. Last year was easy, I got him that big canvas print of the wedding picture to go with the picture of his grandpa. That was a pretty good present. But we're running out of time here.” She sighed and lifted her cocoa to her lips, gazing pensively into the fire. Her recliner was set at a strategic distance, close enough for warmth and atmosphere, far away enough that she did not bake even with the footrest up. It was just about perfect. In her lap, Charlie stirred and stretched, his claws piercing her denim jeans without ever poking the skin. “Keep petting,” he insisted. “I've been petting you for forty minutes,” Erin protested. “My hand's going to fall off.” “Superpowers,” Charlie reminded her lazily, settling down into full-meatloaf position. “No real danger. More petting.” He closed his golden eyes and purred as her hand fell back into rhythm. “Better.” “You,” Erin told him, laughing as she stroked his silky back, “are the least helpful animal I have ever met.” “Not true,” he insisted, stretching his legs and kneading biscuits on her jeans. “Very helpful. Good for blood pressure, good company. Protect you from many insects and mice. Also there is Baxter.” Erin paused and considered that. “Okay, good point. You're much more useful than Baxter. But you still have to be nice to him when they come for Christmas.” Charlie didn't say anything to that, choosing instead to ostentatiously close his eyes and pretend to fall into a feline coma. “You have to be nice,” Erin insisted sternly. “Christmas is hard enough for Jessie already, she doesn't need to be worried about you taking a swipe at her dog. He's not smart like you, you need to be the bigger, ah, creature.” He opened one eye, rolled it at her. “Will not bite first,” he allowed with great reluctance. “Marking will require retaliation.” She snickered. “You know, I don't know if you talk like this because you're still learning magic human talking, or if it's because you have Trevor as a role model. Are all the other magical cats going to look at you someday and wonder why you don't use articles?” Charlie ignored the question, but his usual look of smug satisfaction was even more pronounced than usual. “Right, you don't care at all. I guess I need to get Jessie something for Christmas, too, and her froggy friend. I wonder if they'd like to visit Seattle, like plane tickets and a hotel or something. Jessie hasn't been back except for a few minutes since she got here, and Aquaria would probably get a kick out of Pike's Place. Could be good.” “Baxter gets boarded,” was Charlie's only, very firmly delivered, comment on the subject. “You mean you don't want us keeping him here?” Erin asked, tongue in cheek. “That's not very friendly, he's practically your cousin. Wouldn't you rather go to Dutemps if I needed to go somewhere for awhile rather than be boarded at the vet?” Charlie visibly bristled at this set of choices. “Unacceptable.” he practically hissed, his claws digging in just a little further on her pants. She laughed, smooshing his ears down momentarily before scratching under his chin the way he liked. He purred, but it was a reluctant purr. “You're so spoiled, you know that, right. Richie Rich as a cat, the whole world in a silver cat dish. When your dad lived with me, he stayed warm by sleeping under the covers of my dorm room bed with me or sleeping on the radiator vent in the girls' bathroom. And then he had to go off and save the universe or something.” “Should've stayed here,” Charlie opined lazily. “Nicer here with you.” “I'm glad you think so,” she told him. “It's nice here with you, too.” December 2027 (thirty-five) “Help, help, help, help, help!” Erin barely had time to straighten from her crouch in front of the Christmas tree before a flying orange blur hit her at full speed, ricocheted off her shoulder, and rocketed into the higher branches. “Evil spawn, evil presents, evil!” Charlie hissed, his gold eyes glowing. Another clatter behind her had Erin turning to find said evil spawn screeching to a halt in the doorway, attempting to reverse course before being seen. Travis was the first to realize they'd been made, shoving both hands behind his back and looking innocent. Cecily wasn't quite as sophisticated, catching on quickly to the need for subterfuge, but forgetting to hide the frilly wad of fabric she was holding. They both gave her their best cherubic grins. She sighed. “Okay, Evil Spawn, all hands in front. Why are you tormenting the cat?” Travis scowled, but brought his hands from behind his back to reveal his allegedly kidproof phone in its utilitarian black case, along with a string of battery-powered Christmas lights. Cecily raised her hands, the lump of fabric resolving into a truly hideous green and red dress sized for a large doll or possibly an average cat. “We want to make a cat movie, but Charlie won't help us,” he accused. “It's gonna be so cool but he won't hold still!” “Cat video, mommy!” Cecily agreed, nodding vigorously. “Like Uncle Mark made!” “Uncle Mark turned himself into a cat for that video,” Erin explained, “he didn't force any animals to be in it for him. Charlie doesn't want to be in your video and it's not nice for you to chase him,” she scolded. “What do you say?” Travis heaved an enormously put-upon sigh that let Erin know she was an utter philistine for stifling his creative vision, but he turned towards the tree anyway. “Sorry, Charlie,” he said ponderously. “Sorry Charlie,” Cecily echoed. “Please wear the dress?” “Never!” came the very certain voice from deep inside the tree. “But how can we make our video, Mom?” Travis whined. “We can't turn into cats!” “I can!” Cecily insisted, dropping to all fours and starting to meow. She butted her head against Erin's leg. “You're a very nice cat,” Erin assured her. “Why don't you call Uncle Mark?” she suggested to Travis. “Maybe he'll pop over with Richie and help you make a sequel to their video. That would be fun. Just make sure to clean up any water that gets spilled.” The idea of a visit from the Lucases brightened the kids immensely. “Okay!” Travis agreed, racing from the room with his sister at his heels, surprisingly agile on all fours. Erin turned back to the tree. “You may want to get while the getting's good,” she suggested to Charlie. “The upstairs ballroom balcony is going to be warm with the heating on and it'll be nice and quiet.” “Like it here,” Charlie insisted. “This Christmas tree is full of presents,” Erin pointed out. “It's like catnip for small humans.” With great ill-grace, Charlie jumped out of the tree, shaking himself all over as he landed on the ground. Even though speed was of the essence, he took the time to groom one shoulder contemptuously at her before heading for higher ground. Erin laughed before turning back to her interrupted task, tying sloppy ribbons around the packages she was placing under the tree. She wasn't really much of a decorator, but the ribbons ensured that present-opening lasted long enough for them to snap a few photos, at least. Early morning presents and the big breakfast and the video call to Aunt Jessie would round out the Christmas morning tradition very nicely, especially when knowing the right people meant they could spend the afternoon sledding on an assured blanket of snow in the backyard. She was just thinking about whether they might need a bigger toboggan for all of them this year when another strange noise caught her attention, this time from the fireplace. Someone was sneezing. She turned again, automatically angling her body to minimize her front exposure and glancing toward the bat hidden in the arm of the sofa. It wasn't necessary, though. The creature in the fireplace was obviously a cat. At first she thought Charlie had somehow fallen down the chimney, but this cat didn't have white socks, nor could Charlie float in the air to get over the grate or vanish soot from his fur with no effort. “Oliver?” she asked, startled and uncertain. “Hello, Erin,” Oliver walked over to her as though he owned the place, twining around her legs in a friendly way. “It's been a long time.” “It really has,” she agreed with a half-laugh, crouching to pet him. “I wasn't sure I'd ever see you again. How's life out in the universe?” Oliver's fur was soft under her fingers but she could feel scars in his skin that hadn't been there before, the marks of hard battles. She had more scars now than she used to, too. “It keeps me busy,” he assured her. “My champions are brave and strong, and their work is praiseworthy, but none of them have been as gifted or as willing as you were. I miss our time together often.” She smiled. “I miss you too. I'm really glad you introduced me to Charlie, he's really something, but you and I had some really exciting times together. He's off hiding from the kids right now, upstairs. Did you want to talk to him?” Oliver gave her a feline smile. “I had heard you were kittening these days. It looks good on you. You seem settled. Are you happy with your choice, then?” “Yes,” Erin told him firmly. “I miss you, but I've never regretted it. Earth needs me, and I need it. And I'm very happy.” “Good.” He purred and rubbed his forehead against her hand. “I find myself in want of a place to rest for a little while. The battle is long and it never really seems to end, but one cannot always be fighting. May I stay?” “Of course.” Erin scooped him up and carried him over to the couch, just like she had when he'd been her pet, such a long time ago now. They settled in together next to the tree. Oliver's purring loud in her ears as she stroked his fur. She yawned and propped her feet up on the table. “You're family, you're welcome here as long as you like.” "Thank you," he told her gravely. "You've always provided a superior resting place for cats." "Well I do try," she replied, equally soberly.

"Stay up here," Raina advised Robin in a whisper, even as she set down her backpack. Merlin didn't look entirely happy to be left behind, but he offered no actual protest. "At least till we get a bead on the situation." She fixed a smile on her own face, tremulous and hopeful, and turned to step off the catwalk into thin air. She floated of course, drifting down as gently as a bubble. "Mom? Dad? What are you doing here?" That question, at least, was totally genuine.

"What?" Raina looked at Riley, a slightly hysterical edge to her voice. "That's your mom?" She looked frantically down at the action on the floor, with no idea whatsoever what was happening or what she was supposed to do now. "Why is your mom with my parents? What the hell is going on?" Merlin chittered anxiously in her ear that he was trying to locate the mind-control devices and he had no idea how that related to anything else, but if that if that portal ritual fell apart it was probably not going to be good for anybody. Raina bit her lip and pushed power in the direction of her mother, a magical gestalt she'd been trained in since she was little. It took almost no thought, which was perhaps why she didn't remember till afterwards that it might give away her presence as well.

Raina leaned in close to the bathroom mirror, studying herself from inches away as she applied the brilliantly red lipstick that Fred wanted to try out this week. She wasn't sure it was entirely her color, but the texture and saturation were just fine and- Her train of thought was rudely interrupted as the whole universe seemed to brace for a sudden sneeze, then relax. She looked around the bathroom for a minute, waiting for something to happen, then extended her senses. Next to her, Merlin looked up from his phone with a confused chirrup. "Yeah, I don't know either," Raina agreed. "Something is changing though, something big." She put the makeup away hastily, then headed back towards her room. "If we still had magic friends, I'd check with them about it. As it is, let's go find Talya and Eric." They would know what to do.

The moment Raina was in the shadow of the speakers she stopped dancing and pulled out her compact. A quick spell rendered her invisible, though unfortunately not intangible, so she had to work twice as hard to stay out of the way of the crowd. Noises and shouts on the edge of the dance floor drew her attention momentarily; apparently Riley and Robin were hard at work already, but they were on their own with that for awhile. She fully trusted them to manage their own mayhem while she got to work. First things first. It was the work of a moment to unplug the speakers and shut down the projection of the magically tainted music. Another few seconds with her tiny screwdrivers ensured that nobody would be turning them on again without some repair time. Now she just needed to find the source of the magic itself. It probably wouldn't hurt to look at the band for that. Raina headed for the stage.

Singularity stepped forward then, her face completely blank, her voice expressionless. If it weren't for the preternatural sinuosity of her movements, she might as well have been an android. "This is what happens now," she told the guards, her voice pitched low enough that they'd have to listen close. She stopped a few yards away from the closest one, resting a hand lightly on a metal folding chair. "You are going to drop any weapons you have and lay facedown on the ground. You will be silent unless spoken to, and you will answer any questions we ask you to the fullness of your abilities." As she spoke, her fingers clenched and unclenched over the back of the chair, first crimping the metal as easily as one might worry the edge of a paper cup, then beginning to crumple it up into a surprisingly small tube of metal, never touching it with more than her fingertips or seeming to pay it any attention at all. "Or we will hurt you."

Singularity will indeed use her Skill Mastery for this check, which gives her a 31 if you include the circumstance bonus.

"Yeah," Raina agreed, "just be careful. There's magic all over the place here, weird messed-up magic. I don't really know what to make of it," she admitted with some reluctance. "Be especially careful about anything you see in there, or anybody. Could be illusions, could be, like, projections or hallucinations even. Magic's good at making you see what's not there. So no indiscriminate shooting of anything." With her compact already in her hand, she craned her neck around. "Hey Merlin, you're already into the camera system and security, right? Can you give us a hole so we can get in without setting anything off?"