First Night Out(IC)

[Flare Knight]

It's really cold... floated through Powerhouse's head as he drifted through the air in the dark sky, his Blue spandex and silver collars bright, and contrasting heavily with the old brown backpack over his shoulder, covering several miles in a single bound, before coming down on a rooftop. Crossing his arms in front of his bare chest, even the glinting silver on his wrists was chilled to the touch. He spared a look down at the building he landed on, and was pleased to discover little damage, even physically, on the large structure. He was getting even better at the landing thing, his first jump had almost collapsed the roof by accident. Uncrossing his arms, he looked out over the city. For most people that looked at him, he would look to be a superhero on patrol, one they had never seen before, sure, but that wasn't so strange in this city, but he wasn't. Powerhouse was, tonight, looking for inspiration, while simultaneously getting used to the idea that half his live had just become devoted to helping people. His backgrounds on his stories had become very dull to him lately, and he wasn't good at night backgrounds, so he had suited up for the first time, out of his apartment, around 11PM that night, and gone jumping to really *see* how the dark interacted with the way people and buildings look in the dark, and how much collateral damage all his jumping from place to place would get him charged for, but he hadn't expected it to be this cold, and he wondered why he didn't get a shirt for his outfit, before he pointed out to himself that the shirt could get caught up or ripped easier then the pants. Shrugging off his own questions, he saw with a start that he was actually near the Freedom City park! There was no place better to see the shadows dancing off plants, so, with a massive bound, he leaped off the building and headed towards the ground to the park, enjoying the wind on his uncovered face. That was something that most superheroes who wore masks wouldn't get to have, but because Powerhouse did all his hiding in his Normal Identity, he got to feel the wind across his face as he jumped, got to let it tussle his hair. There were also bad things about that, but he didn't linger on those, they were less fun.

With a loud enough crash, Powerhouse landed on the Sidewalk next to the entrance of Freedom Park, on the side near the Hunter Museum of Natural History- which he had been studying earlier without realizing it- buckling the concrete and sending small bits into the air. "I got distracted." he said, stepping out of the mini-hole his feet had sank into and into the park. For all his attempts to be quiet this night, a man wandering around bare-chested in blue spandex stuck out like a sore thumb in the middle of all the darkened greenery, and Powerhouse wasn't exactly trying to sneak around. His booted feet trudged along the 52th Avenue path for several minutes, taking the time to look at everything around him with the eye of a comic artist, seeing how they connected to each other, everything at an Angle. After enough of that walking, he hit the edge of the reservoir, where the road curved around it. Stepping off the road, he walked to the shore of the reservoir and picked up a small rock at the edge of it. He knew the Hero's Knoll was across the reservoir, and he didn't want to hit that, so he twisted slightly to the side, and, with a twist of his wrist, sent the rock skittering across the surface of the reservoir. He exhaled as he lost track of it, dropping his bag on the ground, and sat down on the bank next to it. "I wonder if it went all the way across the water." He said, curling his arms around his legs and resting his chin on them as he watched the water, half-studying it, half-thinking. After a bit, he uncurled his arms and pulled a notebook out of his bag, page after page of it covered in sketches and drawings of Heroes, Villains, and Backgrounds. Turning to a clean page, he began to draw the reservoir as he saw it, sitting on the bank at night, his pencil drawing lines, then erasing them, not focusing on the individual line, but instead on the end result, and considering how he would get to that.

[Electra]

He was so absorbed in his work that it took him awhile to notice when someone else entered the scene, just a little ways away. For her part, Stesha didn't notice one more large shape in the dark, concentrating as she was on laying in bulbs and clearing away dead greenery. The dead plants dissolved away as she passed, while the live one perked up even in the darkness. Tonight Stesha was wearing her Fleur de Joie uniform, but underneath the cowl and green clothes she had leggings and an extra shirt, and had added a green scarf and mittens for the weather. It was cold out! Even so, she amused herself by growing a circle of flowers around herself, just for a lark.

[Flare Knight]

The man had been distracted in his drawings, ignoring that someone had been wandering, the same as him, he supposed, around this place at this time, but upon looking around, he did see the woman, but he wasn't sure he saw what she was doing, or at least saw it correctly. Standing up and placing the book down on the ground, making sure to close it so the contents could not be seen, he walked towards the woman, not attempting to be threatening, his arms dangling on the side as he stepped closer to her. As he looked closer, he was actually surprised that his mind was not making things up, the Woman was actually making plants! Rolling through his mind what characters he had done, he determined he had yet to draw such a character. stepping closer, he looked her costume up and down, and then looked at the plants. "That's...really cool." He said, smiling. "Are you a superhero?" He asked, in wonder of someone being able to control plants, he had never seen someone who could do that in action before. Maybe he'd read about them or drawn the Green Man a time or two, but he'd never actually seen someone making plants grow in real life, it was a first time experience, and he was very excited."Do you have a name? Like, a Superhero Name, I mean. Do you do this every night? Do you stop villains too, or do you just help the plants grow? That's a pretty awesome power, all I can do is lift things and jump, but yours is so much cooler." He brought question after question to the woman, like a child tasting a new piece of candy for the first time, and even as he asked the questions he knew he should probably tone back on them, so he eased off, slowly slipping back into quiet with only a statement of his name. "I'm Powerhouse, by the way, one word, lower-case h." He skipped over the fact he was new, having already seemed strange enough in his eyes, and promised to himself to fix it when he got a chance.

[Electra]

Even behind the black domino mask and shaded by her cowl, Fleur's eyes were crinkled with amusement, once she got over the initial startlement. The big man's enthusiasm was endearing, in an odd way, and he was hardly the first new hero who'd been excited to meet her. In fact, despite the outward differences, he reminded her a little bit of herself, more than a year ago now, when she'd first met Divine by falling over her porch.

"I'm Fleur de Joie, and it's a pleasure to meet you, Powerhouse," she said cordially, extending a hand. Fleur de Joie was a reasonably well known hero in Freedom City, and when she stepped into the moonlight, it was easier to recognize her distinctive costume. She rarely entered combat in front of the cameras, but spent a great deal of time beautifying Freedom City's parks and gardens. "My power is plant control, but I occasionally jump in to stop a villain. Lifting and jumping are important powers too, though."

[Flare Knight]

Shaking the woman's hand- and being careful not to use too much power- the blond-headed hero nodded as she stepped out. He knew this hero, now that he had seen her, and felt silly for asking his questions. Regardless, he wouldn't be put down by a tiny mistake, so he smiled and offered an Apology, the slightest tinge of red on his ears. "I am sorry, Ms. Fleur, I hope my lack of knowledge did not offend you." he said, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

As she brought up her powers versus his, the man nodded, his face obviously showing some gears working in his head- though not very fast-. "I know that my powers are good, I'm just, you know, Your powers have more substance, you know? I mean, just as a for-instance, if someone wrote a Comic Book about you, there's a hundred different things you could do, your powers would never get old. Mine are really simple though. I either lift things up and throw them at bad guys, or I punch bad guys really hard. I mean, I guess you can say I'm 'specialized', but I mean, I don't think that's a bad thing. I'm not some mopey guy!" He exclaimed. "I love my powers, and I love that I can help people! I'm not whiny about it, I'm just saying that, you know, it's really cool that you can do all the things you can do! I like just how different everyone's powers can be, I mean, there's tons of superheros, and everyone can have different powers, and still be effective!" he explained. Then he distinctly looked over his shoulder for a second, towards the monuments across the reservoir. "Everyone can do something, so I know that just because my powers are basic doesn't mean I can't do anything, that's what I mean." He finished, more serious.

Powerhouse was silent for a time as he contemplated his next question, mulling the words over in his head before saying them slowly to make sure they came out right. "You've been a superhero for a really long time, so I was kind of wondering, what advice can you give to me? I know your powers are a lot different from mine, but, what general advice do you have, about everything really. Like, about how you manage to fit in time to be both a Hero and a Person- if you do that-, or about avoiding damaging stuff when you fight a villain, and anything like that, really. I'm like, really, really new at this, you know? I haven't even gotten to stop a Bank Robbery or anything." After all, didn't all Superheroes stop Bank robberies for their first job? The Centurion did, he knew that much, and he did look up to the man- then again, most people did.

[Electra]

"I've never stopped a bank robbery myself," Fleur admitted with a laugh. "We all have our skills, and our areas of expertise." Leaning down, she picked a yellow tulip and handed it to him. "I think the best advice I can give to you is to do what you can. If you can lift things and jump, learn how to use those skills the best you can, in all the different ways you can. Growing plants may not sound like a particularly good power for getting into fights, but I've learned how to adapt my powers to do a lot of different things. Work with your powers, get creative, and practice all the time. You'll do fine."

[Flare Knight]

Powerhouse gave a small laugh as the Heroine admitted she had not stopped a bank robbery herself, and filed away telling his writer tomorrow that not every super-hero origin needs to start with them stopping a bank heist of some-kind. He stopped laughing as Fleur plucked a flower out of the ground, and instead went silent as he waited for her to explain what Cherubim had told him and repeated to him for a long time, but hadn't really sank in. Having it repeated by someone who wasn't in Yellow Forest made him believe it far more.

Taking the flower in his hands gently, the blue-eyed man in his mid-twenties smiled at the tulip, holding it up in the moonlight over his head to examine it better, enjoying the way the yellow flower looked in the dark light and his hands, before returning it to his side, held lightly in his hands- and he cursed his lack of pockets while doing it- before contemplating for a bit. "I kinda get what you mean, but I don't really know where my powers come from. Do you know of someone who could help me with that? And while I'm on the discussion of that, I also have to ask about the other Heroes in this city. I've seen a few of them, but only from really far away. Which ones do you know, or that are your friends maybe?" He had drawn a few of them, but he knew the books he drew were not the best way to find information out about what a Superhero was, so maybe if he met a few more, he'd really understand. He knew he wanted to be a Superhero, and knew that meant helping people, but wasn't sure exactly what else it meant.

[Electra]

"The person you need to talk to is Doktor Archeville, at ArcheTech," Fleur told him with great confidence. "He studies superheroes and metahumans, and he knows a lot about the origin of various superpowers. He's very trustworthy, and he knows most superheroes in Freedom City. If anyone can figure out where your powers come from, especially if they're from a scientific source, he's the man who can do it." She dropped a few bulbs into the ground where she was standing, the brown spheroids burrowed their way into the ground without any further assistance, ready to hibernate through the long winter.

[Flare Knight]

Nodding as the woman spoke, he filed away 'ArcheTech' and 'Doktor Archeville' in his head, Powerhouse watched as the woman put more plants into the ground. Even in the late fall, she put them into it, so it made him wonder about just how strong her powers were, when she was apparently causing flowers to bloom in fall and considered the fall a good planting time. Remaining silent on that subject, he slowly walked back to his book and picked it up, flipping to his next page, placing the tulip in the ringed binding so he didn't have to hold it, and went to drawing on his paper, even as he asked another question of the woman, his mechanical pencil floated across the page with a light scraping sound. "What about other Heroes? You mentioned the Doktor, but are there any others you would recommend me seeing? Not necessarily about just my powers, but about just plain being a Superhero, not that your advice was bad." He said quickly. "Its just that I like I like advice from many different sources, maybe someone you know has powers that are more similar to mine who could teach me about smarter ways to use them." he explained, attempting to avoid offending the more experienced Hero.

[Electra]

"Hmm, jumpers and lifters..." Fleur said thoughtfully, continuing her work as Powerhouse drew. "Well, I believe there's Wander on Young Freedom, but she's just a youngster. I think Cannonade is a jumper, or so I've heard. I don't know much about him. Fulcrum, from the Interceptors, is very strong, but I think she actually flies. You could try looking up any of them, or ask Doktor Archeville about them." She chuckled, dropping a few more bulbs. "It's a little strange, but most of my contacts tend to be heroes with more supernatural powers, a little closer to my own."

[Flare Knight]

The man nodded thoughtfully as the pencil scratched across the paper and the plant came to life on the sheet. He did so enjoy individual drawings, when he got to do them, instead of the often cramped comic pages. Looking at the bulb in the rings on his book instead of on his page to get a better view, he finally spoke after some quiet. "I don't think it's too strange that you would do such a thing. A person who spends time with those similar to him always ended up growing faster then the ones who spent time with others of different power." He sounded like he was talking from experience, with a hint of sadness in his voice. "It could be a form of competition. who can advance faster? or something like that, that causes it, but it seems, excluding super-teams, that people work with others similar to them, for various reasons." he said, turning the book around and showing the completed drawing of the tulip to the green-haired woman. "How's it look?"

[Electra]

"It's beautiful," Fleur told him with a smile. "You're very talented. Is that what you were doing out tonight, making sketches?" She noticed that he seemed to have plenty of stuff on hand for drawing, but not much for villain apprehension. "You know," she continued, "one area where lifting and jumping is amazingly useful is disaster rescue. Were you here when the Grue invaded this past summer? Every superhero who could lift a car or more was in high demand, trying to get people out of wreckage or move debris out of the way of emergency teams. You could concentrate on things like being able to read a disaster scene, learning first aid and CPR, things like that. You could save a lot of lives someday. Not all of hero work is foiling bank robberies, after all."

[Flare Knight]

Nodding, Powerhouse smiled at the compliment, twisting it back around, he shut it and thought a bit more, the gears in his head still turning as fast as they could, though probably not too fast. "Thanks. Pretty much, I was mostly trying to figure out how the Shadows in the moon play off the buildings. Sometimes you have to... He got real quiet very fast, and changed his statement. "Yeah, I was out here sketching." he said, rubbing his head. The speaking of the Grue Invasion intrigued him, but he shook his head finally. He had been here for the Invasion, but he had refused to help others, because he did not want to be found out as a Superhero. He looked away from the Super-heroine as he spoke again, his voice a little lower then usual"No, I...wasn't here for the Invasion. I heard about it though. I felt really bad for the people, it was part of what made me decide to help people when I got here." He explained, as he thought more on the subject of helping in non-heroic ways. "I suppose that it could be very useful to have someone who can walk through a fire as a temporary Fireman, huh?" he said with a chuckle. "I'll try that next time, instead of just focusing on the Super Criminals. Sometimes you just have to stop a fire or lift a car or something, right?"

[Electra]

"Exactly!" Fleur confirmed, pleased with his understanding. "Helping people is the most important part, whether you do that by stopping a criminal or saving a life more directly. Myself, I rarely throw down with supervillains if I can help it. But I can feel proud of the work that I do, getting people out of dangerous areas and to safety, not to mention feeding them and making the places where they live nicer. No hero is ever superfluous. We all have our part to play to keep the city and the world safe."

[Flare Knight]

The man once more nodded as thoughtfully as he could, flipping to a new page and beginning to scratch his pencil across the paper again, this time, however, it was fairly obvious he wasn't really focusing on it, because he had to stop several times and erase, and eventually got fed up and ripped the page out. He crumpled it up and was about to throw it on the ground, but he realized who he was talking to right before he did, so his arm did a swinging down motion, followed by pulling it right back up, and he chuckled nervously. "Sorry about that...I forget sometimes." he explained, hoping she wasn't offended. "It might take a while for me to get used to the idea that you don't have to just stop villains to be a Hero...it's not how I was taught." He muttered. "I was taught that a Hero only stops villains, but reading comics, reading about what people have done, I see it's more then that. It might take a long time, but I'll try my best, Ms. Fleur." He muttered, as the pencil scratched across the paper again. This one seemed better to him, and he nodded as he drew it. "What was your first Heroic Action, Ms. Fleur? Did you save some people from a collapsing building, or end a famine, or something like that?" He said, going silent once more, looking at the flowers around the woman's feet as the scratching of the pencil was replaced with the consistent sound of shading.

[Electra]

She laughed again, a pleasant sound, not as though she were laughing at the question, but rather at herself. "Oh, I started very small," she confided. "I was afraid to try catching crooks too soon, so most of my early months were spent doing the same thing I'm doing now, visiting the green spaces of the city and making them more beautiful and healthy. The population of a city lives and thrives when its natural beauty is preserved, and I wanted to help that along. Eventually I took on a couple of thieves at a museum, and a villain called the Beekeeper started harassing me and I had to fight him before he started in on my civilian friends. Eventually I started getting the hang of fighting when I needed to, but it's never been my strongest suit."

[Flare Knight]

Tapping his chin with his pencil, he applied a few more strokes of his pencil to the drawing, as it took on the better . Almost done., he thought to himself, stopping for an instant to focus on the Green Heroine's question, planning his response out with measured words. "Well, Ms. Fleur. If I remember correctly from what you've been teaching me, it wasn't stopping the Beekeeper that was your first Heroic action, but it was making the parks and forests more beautiful. You said yourself, it's not necessarily stopping a criminal, it's just helping someone, so wouldn't it be better to say your first heroic action was that you started using your powers to help the parks? I mean, if making a park helps hundreds of people, that's just as good as going out and stopping some mad-man with a bee fetish from killing people." he asked, scratching his head with the pencil again. It was obvious he did that often, as the entire pencil looked extremely worn upon closer inspection, so he had either been using it awhile, or wore through pencils quickly. "Not that stopping the Beekeeper was not a heroic action, I would not say that, it was a very good deed, of course, I mean no disrespect, Ms. Fleur, I am just trying to apply the lessons I have been taught by you." He explained, his fingers flying across the page, not frantic or rushed, but calm, cool, giving the impression it was just because he knew his work so well that it was fast. It would be hard to tell, with the way he moved so sure of himself, that he could, and had, accidentally crushed many pencils in this same way by accident.

[Electra]

"Heroism comes in many flavors," Fleur agreed. "And it doesn't have to be very big. If I didn't think that beautifying the parks was worthwhile, I certainly wouldn't be out here tonight freezing my bottom off!" she laughed. "And I won't be for many more nights till spring," she allowed. "Here." Reaching into a pouch on her belt, she withdrew a little case and opened it to take out a plain-looking business card that smelled faintly of flowers and bore the simple name "Fleur de Joie," along with a phone number and an email address. "If you ever need anything, you can reach me here. We all need to help each other out."

[Flare Knight]

Taking the card, he examined it closely and smelled it happily, liking the scent that wafted into his nose. Placing it on his bag, he pulled slowly on the paper that he had been working on, careful to pull along the lines to rip out, and blew on it. "Well, if we are exchanging contact information, I might as well give you this." He said, turning it around and presenting it to her. 'It' was a detailed drawing- in comics style- of Fleur standing in a position surrounded by flowers. It was not colored, he had only had a basic pencil, but the drawing was fairly good looking, in his own opinion. At the bottom he had signed it with a pair of Ts surrounded by a C. He smiled. "I just doodled it while we were talking, but I work at Castle Comics, so if you have that sketch and show it to someone there, they can probably present you to me, if you ever need me for something. I'd be glad enough to help, Ms. Fleur, I have flexible hours." he said, as a joke, mostly. "Who knows, maybe one day I'll get to actually draw you. Wouldn't that be a bit funny? To read a comic about yourself that I drew? It always struck me as strange, but I don't worry too much about it." He finished, closing the book and, after taking the Tulip out of the rings, placing it back in his bag. "Thanks for all your help, Ms. Fleur, and I'll be taking my leave now to think about what you've told me. I'll make sure to see this Doktor fellow soon too, maybe I'll make an appointment in the next few days." he said, getting down into a crouched position. "I hope your night goes well!" he exclaimed, as his muscles in his legs propelled him up, then up some more, and then even more, miles into the air at a single leap, the wind rushing through his hair and against his face as he landed on a building, then jumped off again. 'That was nice. Ms. Fleur is a very good teacher. I suppose it's much better to meet someone like her on my first night out as a Superhero then trying to stop a bank-robbery or something.' he chuckled to himself as he headed back to his small apartment.