Mind Over Matter (IC)

[Supercape]

Supercape looked at the factor 4 somewhat shocked. Who are these chaps? he wondered as he marvelled at Wanders fluid strength and speed.

"Errr...." he started.

"Please refrain from further illegal activity!" he declared in a loud voice, waggling a finger in a theatrical manner. "Your presence here is both unwanted and futile! you cannot hope to succeed!"

He coughed.

"I must ask you to descend immediately and turn yourself into the relevant authorities! what say you?"

[Supercape]

GM

In response to the obnoxious and frankly pointless monologue by Supercape, Pyre became distracted from the flurry of fists next to him and flicked of a bolt of fire towards the offending article.

"Oh dear" whispered Supercape, as the blast hit him square on. The heat ablated a little on the force field he had erected, and then broke through, hot air searing through his costume and singing his hair a little. He coughed, spluttered, and fell to his knees.

[Electra]

Erin looked over just in time to see Professor Cape get hit and go down. He obviously wasn't very strong, which made sense for a scientist, and he definitely wasn't a fighter. She wasn't sure how she was going to deal with the floaty one, but she'd deal with that when she had to. For now, she concentrated on the watery one, smashing her bat right into his midsection! He looked watery, but he was still solid enough to double over in pain when she smashed him. That was good enough for her.

The smarter fighting strategy would've been to stay toe to toe and fight him until he crumpled, but Erin instead left the water man to his own devices, racing across the room to where Professor Cape had fallen. Standing over him with her bat raised, she told the villains, "Nobody comes at him without going through me. Do you really want to try it?"

[Supercape]

GM

The gaseous form of Slyph flew over to Wander and giggled "oh my dear... for all your strength, you can't hurt me you know!" she floated around Wanders head, cutting off the oxygen supply. However, Wander remained to evasive for her.

"Curse you, stay still!" she cried, more vexed every moment. Her initial jocularity had turned to irritation. "You can't keep this up forever!"

Meanwhile, the two Professors, Fathom and Cape, groaned almost in unison.

[Supercape]

Supercape looked up at Wander "oooh, well done madam!" he moaned, dazed and ever so slightly confused.

"Jolly good show heh? give them what for! bish bash bosh!"

He swayed slightly from side to side, then looked around. "I say, these chap's are complete rotters! that fellow wasn't playing fair!"

[Electra]

"The secret is to talk and fight at the same time," Wander advised him, even as the bad guys bore down on them again. Erin watched with some bemusement as the air lady circled around her head. "Are you really trying to suffocate me?" she asked, sounding amused. "You should probably know I can hold my breath for like twenty minutes without a problem. That's plenty of time to go find a Shop Vac or something." She looked down at Supercape and jerked her thumb in the direction of the air person.

In the meantime, since she couldn't do anything about the pesky breeze, Wander went for the firebrand instead. "Look what I can do!" she told the man, turning a flip and standing her entire body up with the tips of one hand's fingers. "And this!" She flipped over in the air and landed neatly on the fingertips of the other hand. "And this!" Without further warning, she sprang to her feet and charged him, pummeling him with both ends of her bat until the tips turned bright red with the heat and he fell down to the floor.

[Supercape]

Professor Fathom shook off the stars that clouded his eyes and shouted "Curse you, woman!" at Wander.

"Time to make a getaway, Slyph!" he added, as his watery body slipped through the elevator door crack and down the shaft.

Irritated at her inability to pin down Wander, Slyph started to follow Fathom, but was suddenly bathed in a fierce purple green light.

"Not so fast!" declared Supercape, brushing the soot from his brow. It had been a simple matter to excite a few key atoms around her gaseous form, and the effect was spectacular. Slyph sunk to the ground, still glowing with radiation, as her coherence and consciousness slipped away.

[Electra]

"Nicely done," Wander told the professor, barely seeming winded by the fight. She put her bat away and hauled the unconscious rock man out of the elevator, dumping him down next to his fiery colleague. "Guess we call the STAR Squad to come pick these guys up now. Do you have any idea who they are, or what they wanted?" Now that the battle was over, there was time for talking and answering questions, in Wander's lexicon. "I mean, you've got lots of stuff here, but they seemed to have something in mind."

[Supercape]

"Just a moment, my dear" gasped Supercape, still covered in soot "...in case our gaseous friend awakens..."

Gesturing at the gaseous body lying several feet from them, a crystal ball of quantum material formed itself around said figure. The ball was hermetically sealed - quite airtight"

"I hope she wont be getting through that, although you never can tell!"

"What happened to the liquid fellow?"

[Electra]

"He got away," Wander admitted with a frown. "I stunned him momentarily, but I came over to make sure they didn't hit you again, and he escaped down the elevator shaft. But I'm sure he didn't get whatever he came for. You should probably have your security make a sweep of the building, just to make sure he doesn't hang around as a puddle or something and try again later. And maybe figure out how they got in here in the first place." Walking over to the water cooler, she filled a paper cone with cold water, then brought it to him. "Here, this should help some."

[Supercape]

"mmmm. Thankyou my dear" he gave a theatrical cough, not entirely acted. That bolt of fire had gone right up his nose.

"Dying for a cup of tea you know. But I should probably go to the Infirmary here. Floors 11 or 12 will do. I don't know how your first aid is, but I could do with a pair of eyes and hands just to patch up the eyebrows if you don't mind?"

"Oh, and milk, no sugar" he produced a tea bag from his cape.

Won't be caught out short of a teabag again! he thought, triumphantly.

[Electra]

"Yeah, sure," Erin said a little uncertainly. This wasn't typically her role to fill after a fight, and she'd rather have gone after that water guy or at least monitored the prisoners. She wasn't in charge today, though, and she needed a good review. Dusting herself off, she checked one more time that the rock man and the fire guy were contained for the moment, used her radio to confirm that the squad was on its way, then helped the scientist to his feet and over to the elevator. "If you've got a cough that bad though, maybe you should go to the hospital. You might have singed your lungs or something."

[Supercape]

"We have a pretty good hospital here" Supercape replied "and I don't think its serious. He felt his forehead. I'm sure my eyebrows will grow back beofre you know it. Can probably rustle up some stem cells down in the infirmary if they don't. "

He went to the elevator shaft and called for the lift. "I admire you skill in the noble art of pugilism, my dear. Even if it wasn't quite Queensbury rules. Flip-flop tumbling all over the place. All very acrobatic"

Ding! sang the lift as it arrived and opened. Supercape entered and pressed the touch-sensitive screen for level 11, primary infirmary.

[Electra]

Erin shrugged. "Some people are smart and are good at science and math. I'm good at punching things till they fall down." She shifted from foot to foot as the elevator rose. "And when you're fighting for your life, the last thing you worry about is fighting by the rules. That's why they took you down so fast," she told him artlessly. "You stood there and tried to get them to surrender, even though you couldn't take a hit. That bubble thing you do is pretty cool, you've just got to learn to get to cover first."

[Supercape]

"I need a vacation" mumbled Supercape.

Ding! Level 11. Primary Infirmary! intoned the pleasant female voice of the lift.

"Here we are"

The infirmary was white, clean, and highly automated. There were only a half dozen beds, but each where fully equipped with isolation facilities, scanners, and living luxuries. Surgical facilities and laboratories also peppered the level.

Supercape pottered into one of the rooms and touched the computer interface screen a couple of times. A beam of green light swished across his body.

"GPS. General purpose scan. I'm no physician, but it should do the trick"

He went to a basin and started to wash the soot of his face. "There, I feel better already"

Examining himself in the mirror, he took careful note of his eyebrows "not too bad. touch of make up, nobody will notice" he commented.

[Electra]

Since Professor Cape didn't seem to need help putting his face back in order, Erin wandered around the infirmary, looking into the rooms and at the beds. "This is a lot like the stuff at the Goodman Building," she observed idly. "The same sort of layout and everything." She walked into one particular alcove, a state of the art medical bay with positive pressure and forcefield quarantine potential, able to handle almost anything modern science could throw at it. She ignored all the technology, and instead looked out the small triple-glassed window. The view was different, of course, but the rest of it was all practically the same, just newer.

[Supercape]

Having washed his face, Supercape's costume gave a quick burst of sparkles and reformed again into his modified Professor Cape costume. With his face washed, he looked pretty much back to normal.

He punched a few buttons on the infirmary computer terminal, and examined the readout. "No permanent damage it seems. Only an automated analysis, but good enough for the basics".

He stretched his back. "Always a barrel of laugh, this heroic business, eh?" he groaned.

"So what got you into the fisticuffs business?"

[Electra]

Erin took a moment to turn away from the window and shake off old memories, then she shrugged. "I live at Claremont," she told him. "They train people to be superheroes." That was only some of it, though, so after a moment she continued. "I guess I wanted to be able to use my powers to save people. And I don't have much in the way of cool powers, I just hit really hard and fast. So, um, fisticuffs was the natural way for me to go."

[Supercape]

"Claremont eh?" replies Supercape, scratching his chin "I could do with a few lessons myself in how to be a Superhero. Although I guess I'm a bit to old for school. Or backflips, come to that. "

"Mind you, jolly good stuff on your part. Bish Bash one-two eh? You must be their top student!" he beamed with encouragement.

The computer panel beeped, attracting his attention. "Looks like Fathom's cronies are getting picked up. Taking out the trash, thank goodness. "

[Electra]

"In a straight-out melee fight, no one at the school can beat me, including the teacher," Erin said matter-of-factly. "But I'm not that great a student regularly, so I guess it balances out. I don't think the school has any adult students, but if you ask, they might set you up with a tutor or something. Maybe like after-hours lessons. You don't really need to do backflips, you have powers that mean you can fight from a safe distance. You don't have to get in there and mix it up." Erin looked back towards the alcove again, almost in spite of herself. "It's a nice thing to have."

[Supercape]

Supercape gave a polite cough "Yes, its rather splendid. Fascinating stuff. I have just worked out how to meta-entangle any two points in the multiverse. By entangling them, quanta of data can be transmitted, and I can take a peek practically anywhere I fancy. Its so exciting!"

He started gabbling a little "and you know... by opening up the entanglement to actual physical particles, I can actually teleport between the two entangled locations! I can't wait for my next holiday! I'm searching the coma supercluster for a resort right now! I just need a space suit!"

He stopped, and brought himself back down to earth. "*Ahem* Yes anyway, its all rather exciting. But I'm a scientist dear, I like to go where no man has gone before"

"Errr... where no-one has gone before that is. Sorry."

[Electra]

Erin stared at Professor Cape blankly as he launched into his enthusiastic explanation. She wished Alex were here to interpret what he was saying without having to ask. "I like Star Trek," she said inanely, for lack of anything better to say. "Are you saying you can go out into space with your powers? That's cool, we have some teachers who can do that. And my friend has a spaceship. Um, are we going to finish in the lab today, or do you think you want to rest now?"

[Supercape]

"Well, I'm not feeling to bad, to be honest, my dear. Nothing a cup of tea won't sort out. " He pushed a button at an automated hot drinks dispenser.

"Given your kinetic performance today, I am more than happy to give a spiffy report, commenting on how you helped me with Studies in elemental deformity and tensile resilience: Application of biomechanical stressors although I am probably going to take a look at some more quantum matter stuff. You are free to hang out - as you kids say. I hear the zero gravity simulator is quite good fun - tempted to try that out myself!"

[Electra]

"Um, thanks," Erin said, wishing she had her notebook with her so she could write down some of those words to look up later. It would look a little suspicious if she couldn't name what she was supposed to have done in the lab for her report. "We have a zero gravity simulator at the school, I train with it sometimes, just in case. It's okay, if your stomach is strong and you don't just barf." She hesitated for a minute, weighing the pleasure of getting off school early with the necessity of a good grade on this report. "Maybe I could help you move those boxes?" she suggested again.

[Supercape]

"Well of course you could my dear girl" answered Supercape "woman of your prestigious strength. Very useful. Although I suspect I am meant to be teaching you some science stuff. "

He pondered the matter for a while.

"Tell you what. Rather than me lecture you on boring quadratic equations, is there any science you would actually like to see? I am at your disposal, seeing as you practically rescued the Lab. Trip to Mars? The Northern Lights? Peek at some alternative dimensions? Some big explosions?"