Electra

"Three cheese it is!" Raina agreed, taking out her phone and navigating to the pizza place's website. "Oh hey, they've got hugenormous cookie on sale this week as well. Let's get one of those too." She tried to show Eden the picture, but the bouncing made it tough. "Okay, how about you cool it with the crazy jumping so nothing gets broken, and then in a little bit you and I can go flying?" she offered. "It's even better than jumping." She gave Mia a confused look, then bent down to straighten out the inverted baby, not sure what else to do with her. Babies were very mysterious. "And there's a bottle in it for you if you behave yourself," she told Mia. "You don't get pizza until you have teeth, I'm sure about that much."

Raina had done her best to look both responsible and trustworthy despite nature and inclination, not entirely sure that Erik would ever leave the house at all if she didn't manage to convince him of her bona fides. Who needed ten contingency emergency phone numbers anyway? But finally they did leave, the echoes of their voices fading away down the steps as they headed out. Merlin rolled his eyes at their antics, but kept most of his attention focused on the baby, who he was regarding like some kind of alien life form. "All right," Raina said, surveying the situation with her hands clasped in front of her. "All the grownups are gone, the television is ours, and I'm pretty sure your sister can't actually swallow her own feet and choke. So the house is ours! We get to fool around and do fun stuff and stay up past your bedtime," she informed Eden. "But we should get dinner ordered, because it takes forever for pizza delivery guys to actually bring food. What do you like on your pizza?" she asked the little girl.

Fleur cocked her head and listened attentively to the semi-angelic being, while keeping half an eye on Ellis as well. He seemed especially tense, and she wasn't sure if it was because he was uncomfortable mixing his work and heroing life, or if he just didn't like Ray, or if there was something else going on there. But he was sticking to his professionalism, which she had to give him credit for. "So what lesson are you supposed to be learning?" she asked Ray when he was finished. It seemed like important information.

Miss A is going to just laser the hell out of Mastermind for that stunt with the boat. She'll be power attacking for two. She rolls a 28! That'll be a DC 35 toughness check for Mr. Mastermind.

Gina took a moment to take three deep breaths and remind herself that her windows were tinted to the maximum legal limit for backseats; nobody was going to see her back here. With that done, she assessed the situation more calmly. Whatever was going on, it was big, and something that was going to severely tie up the traffic. Nobody near the scene was honking yet, though there were a few annoyed blasts from further back. People in Freedom City were used to having their commutes disrupted, and everybody would just count on having a story to tell later. Resting a hand on the car's rear electric panel, Gina tapped into the radio communications to see what was going on.

"I'll keep you both in the loop," Erin promised. "Call me as soon as you have anything." She hung up the phone and looked over at Trevor. "She's nowhere in the city. Alex is looking further now, but it'll take hours. We need some better clues to what happened, who took her and how. Is there anything around here that might let us get, I dunno, traces or something, from the teleporter or whatever it was? Or should we start calling in favors? I can call work and ask if they have some tools we could use." She subsumed the urge to pace by putting on the rest of her clothes and finger-combing her hair. "If we know where they went, maybe we can find a way to follow. It looks like they took Aquaria too, or at least her tracker and phone are dead as well. Maybe that's a clue right there, or maybe it was just more convenient that way, a surprise attack? I thought I heard her voice in the background, or somebody's voice, in the message." She gave up and paced anyway, running her fingers through her hair and disordering what little good she'd just done.

Fleur's level gaze was entirely too analytical for comfort as she watched Ray get himself together. She pulled one of the flowers from her hair and twiddled it idly in her fingers. "On sabbatical could mean a lot of things, for an angel," she pointed out mildly. "And not all of them are very good. I believe you that you want to be doing good, but we've had some bad problems in the past trying to deal with visitors from the heavenly -and otherwise- realms. We want to help you, but you need to be as truthful with us as possible, for everyone's safety. When you say you're on sabbatical, and you don't want to talk to Heyzel... are you a fallen angel?" she guessed.

Raina had spent three hours getting ready for her date this evening, a pastime that had required foregoing her hero history class, but that was a sacrifice she was willing to make. She could've glamoured herself up the perfect outfit, had seriously considered it in fact, until Merlin had pointed out that if anything went wrong and she needed to call upon her magic talents, the glamour could fail and she could find herself suddenly revealed in a cruddy old t-shirt and jeans. That was entirely unacceptable. Eventually she'd settled on her favorite cream-colored Philip Lim sweater and tailored slacks, and instead used the glamour to hide the fact that both were a little short in the arms and legs since her last growth spurt. They were also a little snug in the chest and derriere, but she didn't alter that. After a great deal of agonizing, she settled on a pair of nearly-sensible no-name black pumps instead of her precious shoes from Talya. The occasion wasn't formal enough for that, plus they made her tower over Anibal. That was okay sometimes, but if she towered over him on every date, she'd look like she had something to prove. Merlin had been no help at all during the proceedings, and was also insufferably smug about the fact that he could go on a date naked. Raina had reminded him acerbically that at least she did not need flea baths four times a year since she could just change her clothes, which was enough to shut him up for awhile.The restaurant sounded nice but not formal, so she went light on the makeup, double and triple-checked her appearance, then hustled Merlin into her backpack so that they wouldn't be more than a little late. Raina knew she shouldn't be on time, but she was too impatient to wait very long. She arrived at the restaurant only five minutes tardy, parking her broom out of sight and sauntering in with the air of a woman who had all the time in the world.

Fleur studied Ray's face for a long moment, unsmiling, hardly blinking. She prided herself on her ability to spot a liar, but if Ray was lying, he was much better at the game than she was. "Well I won't say I don't believe you," she finally told him, "cause I know there's more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in my philosophy. Plus, I've got a friend who's an angel, and I know a couple of guys who became temporary horsemen of the apocalypse. But it's still not something you see every day. Do you know an angel named Heyzel, came down to Earth a few years back?"

Jessie raised the bat a little higher as Ruby approached, then startled when she began to speak English. "Not when you still have a gun," she began, then was distracted from that and the issue of her own name by Aquaria's sudden agitation. She turned to her friend, confused. "That's not Bie Yie," she told Aquaria. "He doesn't look anything like Bie Yie. Except for being the same kind of alien," she allowed. She swung back on guard abruptly as Bliss approached, then blinked when the alien went away again. "Who are you?" she demanded of the group in general.

"Well he does have very nice hair," Stesha pointed out to Ray, giving Ellis a look from the corner of her eye. "It's a good feature to highlight. Though he may have been working on not pulling it out on your account, and it just wound up touseled." She tucked away the little tub of balm, so apparently Ray would not require a second helping. "I'm going to assume from your reaction right there that you're not as average and mammalian as you look," she intuited. "And you wouldn't have put it that way if you didn't want to talk about it. What are you, then? Does it have something to do with the sigil tattoos on you?"

Stesha grinned over at Ellis and raised an eyebrow before turning back to the patient. "You're a troublemaker, aren't you?" she asked Ray, looking amused despite her ongoing concern over his bruises. She ran gentle fingers along his jaw, sending up a faint whiff of flowers to his nostrils, then over his shoulder. "Let me put something on there that'll help you feel better." She reached into one of the pouches on her belt and took out a little plastic container of some herbal unguent, which she proceeded to smooth liberally over the damaged areas. Whatever it was, it was very effective at relieving the pain and causing the bruises to fade. "You'll want to get extra rest and drink a lot of water for the next couple days," she advised, then wiped her fingers with a paper towel and perched herself on one of the room's rolling stools. "So what brings you to town fighting sewer monsters?" she asked, sounding as though she were settling in for a chat rather than interrogating a potential enemy. "Are you getting into the hero gig?"

As soon as Bliss got within ten feet of the gangplank, another sentient emerged, this one built much more along the lines of the Lor and their associated races. This one was obviously female, with shoulder length blonde hair, a muscular build, and a facial expression that could best be described as a combination of terrified and murderous. She also had a length of metal pipe in her hands, one that looked like it had been ripped free from the underside of a standard three-bank of shuttle benches. "Don't come any closer!" she snapped, her words unintelligible to anyone not familiar with extremely backwater languages. To Roulette, the voice and the face were unmistakeably familiar.

It was just a couple of minutes before there was a soft knock on the door. "May I come in?" came a friendly female voice. The door opened a moment later to reveal the familiar face of Fleur de Joie from the Freedom League Auxillary. She gave Ellis a warm smile, then a polite and friendly smile to Ray. "Hi there, I'm Fleur. Ellis asked me to come in and have a quick chat with you." She took a few steps closer, frowning in concern over his bruises and icepack. "Ouch, that looks painful. What happened? Do you mind if I take a look?" That last question seemed directed to both Ray and Ellis.

"Cool," Raina agreed, looking reasonably impressed by the firey sword. "The magic smells like sulfur, but it's still an awesome effect." She ran an experimental hand a few inches over the flames, but they weren't natural fire and not terribly inclined to respond to her commands. She took her lighter out instead and flicked it, growing the speck of flame into a softball sized sphere that she could hold cupped in her palm. "I like fire," she told him with a grin. "So if you grew up around here, you must know what's fun to do, right?"

"Oh no, it's no trouble at all," Stesha assured him hastily. "I'm just helping to oversee the sheep dip on the new arrivals from Prime, and I'm actually not sure I'm being of any help whatsoever. I know nothing about livestock except that they're large and loud and I wouldn't want to meet any in a dark alley." She chuckled ruefully. "Heyzel's not on the League at the moment, he's sort of freelancing, but I think I can at least still get his voicemail. Let me see what you've got going on, and if we need another consulting opinion. You're at Freedom Medical Center, right? I know some plants there. Just give me the floor and the room number you want and I'll be right over."

The phone rang twice, hiccuped in the weird way that whatever relay sent calls between dimensions usually caused, then rang twice more before Stesha picked up. "Hi Ellis!" came the plant controller's cheerful voice, slightly obscured by the noise of what sounded weirdly like baaaa-ing sheep in the background. "You know I was just thinking about you this morning? The kids in the creche are going to be doing a hiking field trip, and I thought your guys might have fun tagging along. I'm going to be chaperoning, it'll be totally safe," she assured him. "What's up with you?"

Miss A fails the reflex save She fails the toughness save. She is bruised and buried under 100 tons of building. Gina rolls a toughness save. She is bruised and dazed. She does succeed in the concentration check

Raina carefully, almost reverently, put the shoes back in their box, then did the same for the less spectacular but still very nice heels she'd been practicing in. "I wonder if we're due for any unseasonably warm weather soon," she mused. "I guess there's always next semester." She put on her old shoes to go back to school in, then shrugged her backpack onto her back. "See you next week then, and maybe I'll bring some people. Maybe you can meet my boyfriend. Well, not my boyfriend yet, but he's going to be, once I whip him into shape." On that note of cheerful confidence, Raina scooped up her prizes and headed for the door.

"It's all right," Jessie told her without looking, her attention fixed on the front window. The rapidly-growing planet was reflected in her too-wide brown eyes as they hurtled downwards. "It could be much worse. If we don't burn up, we'll die on impact and we won't suffer," she ruminated softly. "Unless your armor might protect you? You can go out into space with it, so it must be very strong. Maybe you should take it off," she suggested. "It would be better to be killed than maimed and helpless and starving. Nobody should have to die like that." She shuddered and hugged her elbows to her own chest, then arranged herself crosslegged on the front bench to wait.

In the back of the little ship, Jessie startled badly at the sudden loud male voice, then settled again just as quickly when she recognized the inscruitable mechanical voice that had periodically made announcements for the past few days. She wasn't sure what it was saying, but so far it didn't seem aggressive or able to hurt them, so she tuned it out. She'd been staring at the bulkhead for, oh, it was hard to say, probably a few hours now, not thinking of anything in particular, just drifting along through space along with her body. The bulkhead was a soothing pale blue, scuffed and pitted from years of use, so that the metal beneath was visible in parts. The metal parts were cold to the touch, like the blue paint was some kind of insulator and not just decorative. Jessie knew that the metal was cold because she had touched it herself, though it had taken most of a day to get her courage to that point. She wasn't sure why she was surprised that it hadn't hurt. There was a foil packet next to her on the seat with half a food ration in it. Aquaria said that there wasn't very much food left, so it was better to conserve what they had. Jessie didn't need to eat every day, she was sure of that much. She had Erin's memories of many days of no food, either because she was busy, or too bereft, or just because there was nothing to be had. Normally Jessie was careful to never miss meals because it made her feel safer not to, but these were unusual circumstances. Nothing was safe. They were lost and helpless, and saving the food probably only meant they would die of thirst instead of hunger, because even though Jessie knew how to purify bad water or make a solar still, she couldn't make one without a sheet of plastic or any sunlight. She wondered which Erin's heaven she would wind up in, and if anybody would help her get to where she was supposed to be. Erin had told her heaven owed them a favor, Erin had said she would make sure it worked out. Jessie had faith in Erin's efficiency, but it did seem to be asking a lot. She wondered if Erin would realize that Jessie was dead. Did a person feel it when their double died, like someone walking on your grave? She glanced over at Aquaria, who was deep in her croaky prayer songs and looked unready to be disturbed. Aquaria did not feel good at all about the way things had gone on the planet. Jessie found it hard to blame her though. Aquaria didn't understand how dangerous things were, in general. She settled back in for another round of wall-meditation when suddenly the atmosphere changed, sending her bolt upright all over again. They were falling...

Despite her serum-granted immunity to venom, getting chomped on by an enormous snake monster hurt! Jessie flinched hard enough that it couldn't get a good grip on her and managed to slide out of its jaws without making any noise, but it took a second for her to get her wits about her again. Aquaria chose that moment to join the fight, much to Jessie's relief. With her friend leading the way and holding the snake still, Jessie had no problem moving in with great confidence and delivering a one-two punch to the back of the snake's head that left it thoroughly unconscious. "So was that it?" she asked, looking around. The whole temple still looked very sketchy to her, but she kind of thought Aquaria might be upset if they tried tearing it down or something. Maybe it was just old and creepy. "Are we done?"

"And you've gotten a lot more tiresome since you started hanging around on anarcho-libertarian message boards," Miss Americana shot back. "Makes me miss the days when you were putting cat memes all over CNN's homepage. That was actually pretty funny," she allowed. "Come on now, you know the gig is up. Tell me where the rest of the booby traps are and I'll put a good word in for you, maybe you'll get internet access again before you start cashing social security checks." It was hard to keep track of time in here, but she knew that she needed to be getting back to her body, before people started getting suspicious.

"We'll find her," Erin agreed, "I just hope it's soon enough." She looked over to Trevor, nodded at his words. "Trevor's talking to the people at the DuTemps building, he says they found signs she and her roommate might have been teleported. No real signs of a struggle, so she didn't fight." Jessie didn't have Erin's training or many of the same instincts, but she would fight like a demon if she knew someone was trying to kidnap her. "She might be unconscious, so, um, look for that, I guess?" Erin rubbed her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut. "I'm gonna... I think we should get over to the DuTemps building and take a look for ourselves, maybe there's something that'll give us another clue." It was the only thing she could think of to do. "Let me know if you find anything, even a little hint of something, okay?"

Okay, backing up a little bit for Singularity's turn, she's going to attemt a coup de gras against the grappled Coral Snake. She takes a full round action and delivers the hit, which is an automatic crit, so a DC 30 toughness save.