Electra
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Freedom City Guidebook
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"I've never been to Mexico City," Raina admitted freely, "just Los Cabos and Puerto Vallarta when I was a kid. We would go all over the place on holidays, either me and my family or me and my friends and their families. Puerto Vallarta was fun for the horseback riding, but Cabo had way better shopping," she decided. Her eyes widened a bit when Anibal namedropped Miramontes Tequila. "Wow, that's your family, huh? Everybody's heard of that." She grinned. "My best friend in middle school, she had an older brother in college who kept a whole cabinetful of liquor where his parents wouldn't find it, but we did. At her birthday party, we took tiny little tastes of tequila and whiskey and Jaegermeister, then rolled around pretending to be wasted. He must've had good taste, cause he had a bottle of Miramontes." Raina forebore from mentioning that she'd thought it had tasted just terrible, much worse than the bubblegum sweetness of the Jaeger. "Seeing the sights sounds like fun," she agreed, cutting into her slice of pie with the edge of her fork. "I hear we're supposed to get at least some Saturdays free, we could make a day of it. I hear Pyramid Plaza is pretty cool, and the Sentry Statue, Freedom Park, the theaters... there's a lot to see besides the museums they keep dragging us to."
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"Nope." Raina shook her head and set down her burger. "Not even close, really. I grew up in a little town in Indiana, that's just a little ways east of Chicago," she added, in case his US Geography was not great. "My family lived there for generations, my dad was the mayor, all that kind of thing. But who wants to live in Indiana when you can come to Freedom City, right?" she asked, deftly eliding over a mountain of unpleasant realities and uncomfortable accusations. "There so much to do around here, it's crazy. Where did you grow up?"
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Wander Where They Have To Take You In Right Place, Wrong Everything Like Riding A Bike Fleur de Joie Sweater Weather Seven is the Number The Ashes of This World Miss Americana Paradise Patriotic Gore Hologram The Killers Sparkler Hazard Pay New Shipments Let's Get It Started Unstill Life Hard to be Cool (In a Minivan) NPC A Picture of Sophisticated Grace (Singularity) Shark Week: Uncharted Waters (Singularity) How To Build A Better Scythe (Papercut) (Guest Star) All points and rollovers to Sparkler, please!
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"Yeah okay, that sounds good," Raina agreed after a slight hesitation, hooking one too-large foot around the back of her other ankle. "I, um, it would be good too if I could learn how to move more silently. I can make myself invisible, but it doesn't help much if people can hear me, you know? How long do you think it'll take to learn all this stuff?" Merlin studied Jack for a moment, his fuzzy little face surprisingly perspicacious. Apparently finding whatever he was looking for, he gave one quick nod, then sat down comfortably on the desk to watch Raina's training session. He let Erik know that no force in the world would keep Raina out of trouble, but being able to get out of it would be a nice start.
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"Not that much to see on campus," Raina opined, "the grand tour takes about ten minutes. You could try putting some jalepenos on that," she suggested. "I don't like 'em, but I think there are some up there next to the pickles and stuff on the salad bar." She took a dainty bite of her own burger, which apparently passed muster, chewed carefully and swallowed before saying anything else. "The classroom building looks like a couple of typical high school hallways, except it's weird because there's no office, gym, library, any of that stuff. It's all in separate buildings. Did you get assigned a roommate?"
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"Money's not a problem," Raina said confidently, "at least not tonight. Merlin got us some money, and I've got a bank card and everything. He swears it was even legal except for the whole monkeys have very few legal rights thing he had to get around." Raina shrugged ignorance. "And he got us the ID cards, too. He's awesome." From Raina's backpack, Merlin raised a fuzzy arm in a thumbs-up gesture. "So we'll all get something new and actually attractive, we'll dress in the bathrooms, and we'll go. You guys can't use my makeup, obviously, but we can get that too, if you haven't got your own. It's gonna be great, and the more different you guys look from the normal, the less likely we are to get caught! Which is going to happen anyway if we don't get moving!" she insisted.
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The cafeteria food looked reasonably appealing, if nothing compared to a normal meal at Anibal's home. Raina filled her tray with a hamburger and french fries, a salad, a soda and a slice of pie before heading with Anibal over to a two-top in a sunny corner far from the other students. "So how do you like it here so far?" Raina asked as she sat down and began organizing her meal for consumption. "I mean, aside from the crazy sadistic training simulations, obviously. I'm kind of hoping that was an aberration."
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(Takes place directly after events in "Let's Get It Started.") By the time Raina and Anibal walked into the cafeteria, the lunch rush was long over, but the dinner crowd had mostly not begun to arrive yet. Raina'd made good use of her time in the locker room, changing back into civilian clothes that were considerably more flattering than the workout uniform and doing something to her hair that made it shinier and more wavy than before. She smiled at Anibal as she took a tray from the pile near the door. "Looks like they're just finishing up the first batch of burgers, our timing's pretty good."
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Raina rolled her eyes, but she looked more amused than annoyed. "Come on, Cathy. What are they gonna do if you get caught, give you detention? I've been in four days already, it's not that bad. Mostly boring, after you get the long lecture over with. Be even easier for you, you just give 'em the big eyes and the "my evil roommate pressured me into it, I didn't know how to say no!" spiel and you'll get off easy. And you don't have to talk in a club, the music's too loud for anybody to hear you. And your outfit is fine, if you're going to some kind of knitting hoedown potluck, but you are doing your body absolutely no favors. You need something sexy, or at the very least fitted. Are you really going to spend the school year in Freedom City and go home with no stories to tell?"
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"Do you like it?" Jessie asked carefully, sounding as though the answer to the question was more important than just small talk. "Going to school, making friends, all that stuff? Do you think about not having your name and your memories all the time, or does it sort of just go away after awhile?" She forked up another bite of waffles and studied Kimber carefully. "And how come you didn't get to rest, if it was your time? Did they do the ritual wrong on you and now it's broken?"
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"Size ten," Raina admitted with an embarrassed grimace. It sucked to be tall. "I can run in heels okay, I've been wearing them since I was in pinafores. I've just never really had to do any fighting, you know? I don't even know what to do with my arms and legs except what you see in the movies. I want to learn enough to defend myself if I don't have my magic," she told Talya, very definitely. "Not even to, like, win a fight, but to get away. There are plenty of kids going for superhero at the school and that's fine, they can throw down and throw punches at each other, but I'll be happy if I can live to fight another day." Merlin seemed unconvinced by Erik's protests, but he set down the papers when the line of questioning changed. His disgusted expression and brief raspberry were enough to convey the monkey's disgust with the way he and Raina had been treated up and down the line. Bad enough to be removed from home and parents, then placed with strange, unknown family members, but to be left peniless and alone in the world at a school potentially run by dangerous sadists was beyond the pale. Merlin indicated that he had plans to make things better, but he didn't seem to care to elaborate on them.
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"Eating terrible food and sassing me," Gina muttered. "At least to go by the representative sample I had access to I've got some upgrades make for his holosynthesizer, you can give him the new version once it's ready, if you want. He should actually be able to ingest food and dematerialize it to energy so that it doesn't spill out all over everywhere. A gift to both of us, really." She grimaced, and barely noticed the houses they were passing, at least until she thought about how she was barely noticing them, whereupon they jumped back to the front of her mind once more. "We really should've done this at night. It's too hot."
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"Ready!" Raina slipped out of her room, her backpack on her back and her broom in hand. She took a look up and down the hall as well. "Once we get a little ways out from the school, I can fly us, we'll save some time. We want to get to the mall before they close, and have time to find some good stuff to wear. No way we're gonna get in in this janky stuff." She indicated both their clothing in disgust. "Cathy, come on!" she hissed into the door. "We gotta go! And try to keep a lid on the temperature, that's a dead giveaway!"
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Gina frowned at him, momentarily able to sublimate the feelings of exposure under a general annoyance. "You know those are weeds, right?" she asked. "Though I guess I can't get mad at you for paying me false compliments, so that's something." She took it anyway, but could barely keep from crushing it between the fingers she couldn't stop kneading together. "Tell me something interesting that's not about any of this. What did you do at work this week? Anything going on at HAX I should know about that's not protected by your NDA?"
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Singularity danced out of the way of the shark's chomping maw, instinctively moving to avoid running into Aquaria or the human she was busy rescuing. The words the shark was saying didn't make any sense, but she could understand his violent rage and met it with her own. There were people dead and this thing ate them, it was gray and dead-eyed and it ate the people while they tried to run away... Grabbing a piece of the cage that had been knocked loose by the impact with Megalodon, Singularity lashed out and opened a long, deep wound along the shark's belly, driving it backwards a few steps. No more unearthly screaming now; Singularity was focused, intent, and deadly.
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Jessie is pretty enraged as well, and will do an All Out (only for 2, as she hasn't got the feat) Power Attack (for 5) against Megalodon, which will drop her defense by two, her attack by three, and increase her damage by 5. And she gets a 25! That'll be a toughness save of 30. Edit: She is doing Lethal Damage.
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"Pfft, you wouldn't be alone. Robin and I would go too. We're gonna get some fake id put together, then figure out some outfits. Merlin's doing some kind of really obscure stock manipulation with the profits he made from designing this one website for some guys in Stockholm, and he's promised I'll get 30% of the take when he's done. Which really should be more considering he's my familiar and I saved his life! she added pointedly. Merlin just waved a hand in absentminded dismissal. "Anyway, we'll hit up the mall and get something to wear, it'll be great. You can't be afraid when you look awesome."
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"That's me," Raina offered with a quick wave of her hand and a sardonic grin. "Looks like you and I will be spending some quality time together. You'll be happy to know my stuff doesn't take up a lot of room, but I hope you're not allergic to pet hair." She gave Cathy an appraising look. "Clouston, huh? Well, I guess we better get a look at our room and drop off our stuff. I call top bunk." She made her way through the crowd to collect their keys, her suitcase nudging people aside as it went.
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"No, no, a club would be great!" Raina insisted, warming to the idea. "You're not getting intimate with anybody, you don't even know anybody, so the stakes couldn't be lower, right? Plus it's like 95 degrees inside most clubs because they pack 'em in like sardines." Raina had read about this, and heard verification from unimpeachable sources. "So even if you go in and something stresses you out, all you're doing is dropping the air to something comfortable for dancing anyway, yeah?" She grinned and spread her hands, the fireball following her left hand like an orbiting moon. "Hell, maybe a place like that would hire you on. You're pretty enough, got that weird hair thing going, you'd just hang out and dance all night and keep the place cool, it'd be awesome. Then you could get your friends in for free."
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"Well it depends on what outfit I wear," Raina replied, sounding a little baffled by the question. "Right now I've only got one pair of heels, one pair of tennis shoes, some nice little wedge sandals and sneakers, but someday I'll have a whole closetful again. But these are what I have for everyday," she admitted, indicating the worn pair of tennis shoes she had on. "So what's on the menu then, if punching's a last resort?" At the desk, Merlin chirruped absently at Erik, assuring him that Merlin was, in fact, smarter than whoever was keeping Erik's books in the first place, and that the filing system here was a disaster. Erik ought to have all of these records in a database so he could cross-reference student attendance and performance, plus improve retention rates for students who might be persuaded to take new classes.
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She grinned. "That could be logistically difficult," she admitted. "I have an apartment on Prime, but some refugees are using it right now, so I'll probably just be getting ready at my house and popping in from there. But Reese Park is a couple blocks away from the restaurant, and that's where I'll probably open a portal. You could meet me there and we could walk together? We're due for some nice weather, and it's not too far." Stesha picked up her coffee and finished it, rather enjoying the feeling of his hand still holding hers. It wasn't too fast, she reminded herself. It was eight months now since the last paperwork had been filed. God, it was going on three years since she'd gone to bed with anyone. If anything, her friends would probably say she was moving too slow. But slow worked for her.
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"Frank designed Trevor and my costumes, and pretty much any formal thing either of us has ever worn," Erin explained to Mike. "He's totally impossible to deal with, really strong opinions about everything, and really likes trying to show off my shoulders. But he's pretty impossible not to like. He can make you something that makes you look good," she assured him. "And the private army thing is just Nina being Nina. She likes to think in terms of wars and government overthrow and stuff. You get used to it." As Joe came in, Erin grabbed a pencil and paper and began making a list of Chinese food dishes to order. "Hey Joe, nice to see you. All right, got egg rolls, crab rangoons, fried rice, the beef on a stick thing I don't remember the name of, sweet and sour chicken... what entrees do people want?"
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Stesha let out the breath she'd held without noticing. "One nice thing about being superheroes, we don't always have to worry about normal," she told him with a small smile, wrapping her fingers around his. "Dinner sounds great. I know a hole-in-the-wall place down near the theater district, the food is amazing and on Friday nights they have live music. I haven't been there in ages, but it's one of my favorites. Are you free?"
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Stesha looked a little bit nervous as Ellis began to ask his question, but began to smile as he fumbled the words, his discomfiture seeming to relax her. "It's okay," she assured him. "I'm pretty rusty too. I'd love to go out with you sometime, to any meal. It's just... I was only married for three years," she began, her smile slipping away as she wrapped her hands around her cup. "And most of the time they weren't very good years, but I loved him. I... it's not like I'm waiting for him to come back, or that I would ever be with him again if he did, but I have a lot of feelings I'm still working through from that time. I don't know what exactly I'll be ready for, or when. But I've really enjoyed talking with you, and I'd like to see more of you." She studied his face, looking more uncertain than he'd seen her so far.
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"Heroes are cool, especially in Freedom City," Stesha agreed with a grin. "And it's nice if you can expose them to the good parts of heroing, and not just nights when you have to be away, or times when they understand you might be in danger. It's good to know that there are upsides, especially if it's a choice they'll be making one day. They'll see a lot of hero work just by living in Freedom City, most likely. It was a huge change for me when I moved here from Chicago, there are only a handful of superheroes living there. I guess you didn't grow up in Freedom City either?"