Midnight Bloom (IC)

[Electra]

It was just after dusk when Stesha popped out of a stately elm tree on the grounds of the Hunter Estate. She'd hoped to arrive earlier, knowing that her host was of advanced years, but a nasty Bridezilla had complicated her afternoon on a day when it had been hard to concentrate on work in the first place. Someone was killing plants out in Wharton Forest, killing them so dead that she couldn't bring them back, and she had no idea who or how or why. Her botany degree only took her so far; for this, she needed a chemist.

Adjusting her cowl, she walked up to the front door of the large home. This place wasn't too far away from Ace's house, she realized, though the security was of course far less elaborate. Even a chemist who assisted superheroes was less likely to attract mayhem than anyplace Ace Danger stayed for any length of time. Glancing around the front stoop as she walked up, Stesha rang the bell and waited.

[Gizmo]

After a moment, the door opened to reveal a young, dark haired youth with nearly a foot of height on the botanical heroine despite the notably lean build under his dark brown turtleneck. He offered Stesha a courteous nod as he gestured for her to step inside. "Fleur de Joie, I presume. Please, come in. My grandfather has been expecting you," the teenager' told her in a resonant but surprisingly soft baritone as he led her through the elaborate home's halls to a large sitting room.

A fireplace crackled at one end of the room, surrounded by several large, comfortable looking chairs and a gently curving couch of matching material. In one of the recliners sat an elderly gentleman, resting both hands atop a cane balanced between his knees. Travis Hunter was well into the ninth decade, but even now his wizened frame showed hints of the tremendously athletic build he must have once possessed. Spectacles perched atop features strikingly like those of the young man who had answered the door, and a neatly trimmed goatee which had long ago faded to snowy white framed a faint smile. Dark intelligent eyes looked over to the new arrivals as he lifted his cane momentarily in greeting.

"Ah, Miss de Joie," he greeted Stesha amiably in a voice which retained much of its strength, apart from a touch of raspiness. "Forgive an old man for not standing; knees aren't what they were. Have a seat. How can I help you?" The aging chemist got right to the point as his grandson moved to stand nearby.

[Electra]

Stesha both men a smile as she took a seat, her face only a little shadowed by the brown cowl she wore. For this visit, she hadn't bothered with the domino mask. She simply wasn't that worried about her secret identity at this point. The uniform itself was, well, a uniform, she wore it because she was working. "I very much appreciate you agreeing to meet with me on such short notice," she told Travis. "I have a puzzle to solve, that needs to be dealt with quickly. Someone has been killing plants out in the state forest. I think they're using a chemical agent, but it's nothing I've seen before or can analyze myself. I was told you're the best in the city at this sort of thing."

[Gizmo]

Travis responded with a breathy chuckle. "Was something of a puzzle solver in my day, yes," he confirmed. He looked over to his younger family member. "Trevor, if you would?" With a brief nod, the youth disappeared into the mansion out one of the room's many entrances. The elderly chemist, for his part, turned back to Fleur. "At your disposal, of course, young lady. May be past my prime, not out of the game just yet."

Hunter's grandson returned with an ornate tray holding a pot of steaming tea, strong enough that the botanist could smell it before he'd even set it down on the table in the middle of the circle of chairs, and the various accoutrements. "Habit picked up from a friend during the war," Travis explained, picking up the cup Trevor poured for him in a surprisingly steady grip. "Now. Details."

[Electra]

"I don't have many," Stesha admitted. "A park ranger out in the state forest noticed it first, three days ago. I went out to look at it, and found circular areas where the plants were entirely dead, withered and already rotting. I can normally bring plants back, even after they're pretty much dead and gone, but they were beyond my ability to recover. It happened again the next night, and again last night. There's about a dozen sites now. Last night I noticed that the newest dead plants looked shiny, almost greasy. I began to wonder if they were coated with some kind of chemical. I have samples," she told him.

[Gizmo]

Travis's smile broadened. "'I have samples.' Are there any sweeter words?" Standing with Trevor's help, he began walking away from the fireplace, one hand on his cane and the other carrying his tea, nodding for Fleur to follow. In one of the adjoining rooms, the botanist found herself surrounded by shelf upon shelf of test tubes, beakers and Bunsen burners, the varied equipment ranging from cutting edge to practical antiquities. Taking a seat before the largest of the room's desks, the aging chemist switched his glasses for a pair of bifocals sitting there. Flexing his thin fingers, Travis indicated for Fleur to hand over the chemical's she'd gathered.

Meanwhile, Trevor moved about the room, turning of small flames and setting a number of liquids bubbling. As he finished preparing the lab, he moved speak with the green haired heroine. "This may take a while. Is there anything I can get you?" The young man's earnest nature softened a tone otherwise without inflection.

[Electra]

"No thank you," Stesha told the polite young man. He seemed to have a lot of his grandfather in him, and she wondered if he was going to follow in the old man's footsteps. Those would be awfully big shoes to fill, from what she'd gathered of Travis Hunter's reputation. Taking a seed from her belt, she cupped it in her hand and closed her fist around it. In a moment, a step was growing up from between her fingers, and in just a few more seconds, a pretty yellow tulip had bloomed right there.

She reached into the cup of the tulip with one gloved hand and brought out a plastic baggie filled with dead plants. These were not plants that were dead from drought or temperature, they were rotting as though they'd been dipped in something caustic that was eating them away even now. "I don't know if these plants are hazardous," she warned the elder Hunter, "but we've been treating them like they are."

[Gizmo]

Travis nodded sagely, stroking his beard with one hand while he fished around in a drawer on the desk for a pair of nitrile gloves with the other. "Hmm. Yes, wise precaution." Donning the thick black protective wear he accepted the samples from Fleur and turned to his equipment, his attention given over entirely to his work.

"Best to leave him to it," Trevor advised, leading the heroine back into the larger sitting room. "He'll call when he has something." The lanky youth made a small gesture to the fireplace and the still warm tea sitting before it. "You can have a seat if you'd like. There's also an extensive library and a small greenhouse if you're interested. Botany, yes?"

[Electra]

"Good guess," Stesha replied with a chuckle, settling in and picking up her tea. "Just to be on the safe side, though, I think I'll stay out of your greenhouse till we know more about what that chemical is and does. I don't mind waiting." She pushed back her cowl to sip her tea, revealing a glimpse of very green hair. "Are you studying chemistry like your grandfather?" she asked him.

[Gizmo]

"Engineering," Trevor responded simply as he moved to the fire place. Retrieving the fire poker from it's rack nearby, he nudged the gently burning logs inside, stoking the flame. "About taking things apart and seeing how they work, either way," he elaborated in what Fleur could only assume passed for a conversational manner with the laconic youth. "Gramps is just a little more thorough," he deadpanned replacing the tool and taking a seat himself, leaning forward slightly with his hands folded in his lap.

[Electra]

"That's a good way to think about it," she decided with a chuckle. Sitting in a quiet room with a cup of tea for a few minutes was heavenly after the day Stesha'd had. Really, anything that didn't involve being screamed at or picking around giant patches of dead and rotting plants was pretty doggone good. It was a few moments before she roused herself for more polite conversation. "Do you live here with him?" she asked Trevor.

[Gizmo]

If the brief silence bothered the lanky teen it certainly didn't show on his impassive visage. "Until recently. Split my time between here and a boarding school in the city now," he explained. Staring into the fireplace, he added, "Gramps raised me. He can still take care of himself." Something about the way the set of Trevor's eyes changed as he made the last statement made Fleur wonder if he was trying to convince her or himself.

[Electra]

"He certainly seems to be doing well," Stesha replied reassuringly. "It's nice that you can still come by and help him out. I'm sure he appreciates it. So are you a student at Freedom City University?" He looked young, but not so young that he couldn't be a freshman or sophomore. She wasn't sure why anyone who lived in Freedom City would go to boarding school there, but she could certainly understand the impulse to get out of the house when you hit college, even if you were going to school locally.

[Gizmo]

Trevor shook his head slightly. "Senior year at Claremont Academy in the fall. Been taking summer classes, fitting in electives." Off of the botanist's mild confusion, he explained, "The on-campus community is very... active." After a beat, the dark haired youth added, "Plus co-ed dorm building, so." The teenager's dry tone didn't change at all from his previous statements, and it took a few moments to decide whether or not he was making a joke.

[Electra]

Stesha looked at Trevor with sharper interest. "You go to Claremont?" she asked. He didn't look much like a superhero, but she of all people knew how deceiving that was. And she supposed that there were all sorts of ways a famous chemist's grandson might wind up with some extra powers. "My fiance teaches at Claremont."

[Gizmo]

...nuts. The anonymity Summers had promised of Claremont had held up well against the general public, but the school's true purpose was evidently a distressingly open secret among the active hero community. Which isn't particularly surprising, really, he admitted to himself, despite his annoyance at inadvertently compromising both his grandfather's and his own secret identities. "Oh?" he said aloud. "...not Archer?"

[Electra]

"No, Dark Star," Stesha told him. "I don't know if you'd have met him, he only teaches part time. Intergalactic Civics, I think the class is called. I keep meaning to visit there myself, but I never seem to get the time. It sounds like a really interesting place to go to school though. Your grandfather must be very proud of you. Do you like it there?" she asked him curiously, then grinned. "If you don't, I promise not to tell on you."

[Gizmo]

A faint smile touched the laconic youth's lips. "Suffice to say it's refreshing having something in common with my peer group." He considered Fleur's description of her fiancee's class. He was familiar with Dark Star from his study of Freedom's prominent heroes and villains, both active and retired. "Cosmically powered instructor teaching a class on other worlds and sentient species?" he considered, clearly intrigued. "Novel."

[Electra]

"He loves teaching, even though it's just a sideline right now," Stesha told Trevor. "He's told me about the class, and I think it sounds really exciting. Lots of field trips all over the universe, visiting new planets, learning about other cultures. It's hard for me to imagine doing that sort of thing in high school instead of visiting museums and historic sites, but It does seem like a lot more fun. If you get the chance, I think he's teaching a seminar this summer, so that's not as much of a commitment as a regular school-year class."

[Gizmo]

"Visiting new...?" Trevor blinked a few times as he took a moment to mentally process the full implications of Fleur's suggestion. "Wow." It was a subdued statement, made softly and calmly, but from the laconic teen it was a significant exclamation.

A slightly muffled sound of triumph came from the laboratory. "Believe we have something," Travis Hunter called, appearing in the doorway, holding a vial of clear liquid in one gloved hand.

[Electra]

"Oh, wonderful!" Stesha exclaimed, setting her teacup down and rising as Travis came into the room. The vial didn't look like much, but that was why she was a botanist and not a chemist. "I was afraid it would take much longer. Have you figured out what the poison is?" she asked eagerly. "Or how we can fix it?" Who and why were also pressing questions, but she suspected that the elderly chemist would not be able to help her with those. She'd be happy enough to save the plants, for a start.

[Gizmo]

Travis shook his head. "Not a poison, precisely. Identified at least a half dozen component toxins and caustic acids, all of them blatantly artificial." The elderly chemist grimaced with disdain. "'Overkill' doesn't begin to describe it."

Trevor, having risen from his seat along with Fleur, considered. "Someone really wanted those plants dead."

The chemist snorted. "Someone is showing off. Fiendishly clever, but totally lacking in restraint or efficiency." He nodded to the botanical heroine. "Textbook sciencevillain. I suspect your destroyed flora had the misfortune of being a test run."

[Electra]

Stesha's eyes widened at that pronouncement. "That's not good news," she managed, staring at the little vial. "Dead plants are bad enough, but if someone's about to escalate to buildings or god forbid, people, we could be looking at serious trouble. And we haven't even found any clues to who might be doing it, except for the poison itself!" She looked from Travis to Trevor. "I'm probably going to need to get some other heroes in on this," she admitted. "I'm not really much of an investigator."

[Gizmo]

Travis nodded sagely stroking his snow white goatee. "Indeed. I may still be good for a favor or two from the old days, consulting for the Liberty League. Let me see if--"

"Gramps," Trevor interrupted, "her fiancee teaches at Claremont."

The chemist froze for a moment before giving his protegee a flat look. Trevor could only shrug mildly in response. With a soft sigh, the elder Hunter turned back to Stesha. "Well. My grandson's skills are at your disposal, naturally. I trust we can count on your discretion on the matter?"

[Electra]

"Of course," Stesha said immediately. "If he has skills that can help, I'll be more than happy to have him along. I know time is of the essence, so someone who is already up to date on the story thus far could really help." She looked over at Trevor. "How long do you think it'll take you to be ready? I can take you right back to the latest defoliation site as soon as you are. I'd like to get back there anyway, I'm hoping that next time it happens, if there is a next time, I'll feel it and can get over there before whoever it is escapes."