Bee It Ever So Humble (IC)

[Electra]

Stesha had a problem. Or rather, her best and so far only tenants had a problem that she'd promised to help solve. Now that the queen and the rest of the bee colony had moved in, there was plenty of excitement and activity in the Bee Meadows, but precious little space. The weather was getting colder, and the bees were taking to sleeping in shifts and speeding around the meadow all night to try and stay warm. The earthen mounds they'd built simply weren't big enough or skillfully constructed enough to keep out the chill. She'd put up windbreaks of trees, which helped somewhat, but there'd been snow now, and more was coming. Her power was on the wane for the winter, and it was only going to get colder. As she watched Beeatriz and the others trying to pat more dirt down onto the newest, half built mound, she knew she had to help.

What she needed, she realized, was a builder who could work in the medium the bees used. She didn't know anybody with wax powers, but she did know, vaguely, someone who could move earth the same way that she could manipulate plants. Perfect! Teleporting herself back to Prime with a thought, Stesha dug through her phone's memory and placed a call to Gaian Knight, hoping he would remember her after all this time.

[Fox]

Tarrant was in his office, legs kicked up on a chair, when his phone rang. Without putting the students' papers down, he reached out and grabbed his cell phone from his coat, flicking it open. "Hello. This is--" This is not my normal phone. "--ah. One moment."

With careful haste he walked - nearly scurried - over and shut his door, flipping a sign over to indicate that office hours were canceled. Apparently grading homework would have to wait. "Gaian Knight here. Who's calling?"

[Electra]

Stesha smiled, relieved that the phone number at least still worked. That was a good start! "Hello, Gaian Knight, this is Fleur de Joie. We worked together earlier this year, on that landslide? I've got a situation that could use your special skills. It's not exactly an emergency, and it's not even exactly protecting Freedom City, but it would be helping some folks who've had a very hard time of it stay warm and dry this winter. I was hoping that if you had some free time, you could meet up with me and talk about it."

[Fox]

Tarrant glanced at the stacks of paper on his desk, and grinned. Oh dear. Taking the red pen to students who can't tell the difference between quartz and salt will have to wait. How awful - truly, the life of a hero is a hard one. "Fleur de Joie!" he repiled, not trying very hard not to keep the smile out of his voice. "A pleasure to hear from you. That hill's still holding, you know. I'd be happy to help - I wasn't taking care of anything that can't wait. I can be dressed up and out the door in a couple minutes for a cause that good."

Even as he spoke, he was pulling out the large, heavy bag from its shelf, where it usually sat next to a half-dozen other large, heavy bags - samples, geology tools, climbing gear. This one, of course, was a little different - and made a heavy thunking sound as the armor inside hit the floor. "Did you have anywhere in mind?"

[Electra]

"Actually, we'll have to teleport to get to where I'd like to show you," she admitted, "so we can meet anywhere that's convenient for you, as long as there are plants nearby." She chuckled, even as she dug her costume out of her closet. She wasn't able to button the top button her pants anymore, but if she left the tunic untucked, it still looked almost normal. "I'm pretty flexible. You name the place and we can meet up, say, fifteen minutes from now?"

[Fox]

Tucking the phone between his head and shoulder, Tarrant glanced at the map on his wall. Teleport? This is going to be a strange day, I just know it. "Hm. Maybe the center of Liberty Park? Plenty of plants there, and at this time of day probably decent privacy for....uh. Teleporting."

Leaving his office and locking the door, Tarrant swung the bag over his shoulder and headed for the stairwell. Fifteen minutes...better get going. "If that works for you."

[Electra]

"That sounds perfect," Stesha confirmed, holding the phone to her ear with her shoulder while she dug around in the closet for her boots. "I'll meet you next to the big fountain in the middle of the park. Thanks so much, I really appreciate it. I'll see you then!" She hung up and wiggled into her costume, not exactly the sixty-second operation it used to be. In another three months, she'd probably be back in the hoodie and yoga pants that had been her first uniform... if even those fit by then. Stesha sighed over her own vanity even as she checked herself in the mirror. Deciding she looked fine, she checked her pouches to make sure they were well-stocked, then put on her hat, scarf and gloves and teleported to Liberty Park.

[Fox]

Making his way down to a large, unfinished basement room of his building, Tarrant glanced around to make sure no one was nearby and dropped down through the ground, stone closing up above his head as he made a little pocket of space around himself to change in. The chestplate was always the worst part - he once again reminded himself that he really, really needed to figure out a better way to protect himself. Even if he was sort of abnormally durable these days....

Just under fifteen minutes later, the fully-costumed Gaian Knight swept in toward the center of Liberty Park, waving to Fleur de Joie as he flew in seated on a nice big rock. "Hello! Have you been waiting long? Chunks of dirt just don't fly as fast as you'd think."

[Electra]

"No, not at all!" she assured him with a laugh. Long or not, the green-tinted heroine was looking decidedly chilly on the cold December day, despite the fact that she'd bundled up. "I'm so happy that you could come out on such short notice! If you have time, we can go to my place and have a quick cup of coffee, and I can explain what I'm trying to do. It'll be easiest if I can show you, but I've been working outside half the day, and I could use a break to get warmed up."

[Fox]

Gaian Knight chuckled, coming down to ground-level and hopping off his 'ride' - said ride dissolving into dirt and rocks and spinning away to become food for surrounding plant life. "I understand, believe me. I swear if I didn't have a layer of cloth between me and my armor-" he rapped the chestplate with his knuckles "- I'd freeze to it. Some coffee sounds fantastic."

[Electra]

"Well then, by all means!" Fleur reached out and put a hand on his arm, tugging one mitten off with her teeth to touch her fingers to the flowers in her hair, under her hat. There was a quick flash of green and the scent of fresh-cut grass, and suddenly they were elsewhere! The pair now stood in a cozy little room with walls and ceiling made of leaves, and a floor of grass and area rugs. Lamps in the corner cast pools of golden light across the room, and a space heater made the place very comfortable. One corner held a kitchenette and a table, with most of the rest of the room devoted to a sitting area with a couch and comfy chairs.

"This is my headquarters," Fleur told him, chuckling at the incongruity of the term. "Or my home away from home, at least. Is decaf all right with you?" She went over to the kitchenette and began measuring water into the coffeepot.

[Fox]

Gaian blinked, glancing around as he reoriented himself. Teleporting was always a little disconcerting - the sudden, if brief, loss of connection with nearby earth never failed to weird him out. It was like having the lights flicker - for just that instant something reliable is gone, and it never sits right.

Still, it was a pretty neat 'house'. He unbuttoned his coat and rubbed his hands, glad for the space heater. "Decaf's fine by me. You have a nice place here. Very...green - it suits you." A note to self: having headquarters sounds like a really, really good idea. I should work on that.

[Electra]

"Thanks, I made it myself!" she told him proudly. "Go ahead and have a seat, this will only take a minute or two. How do you take your coffee?" She shrugged off and set aside her hat, mittens and mask while she worked, then took off the long brown cowl that was part of her costume as well, setting it over a chair. Without those accessories, she looked more like a woman wearing surgical scrubs and a toolbelt than a superheroine, but she was a lot more comfortable.

[Fox]

He kept his coat on, but removed his hood and pulled his face cloth down around his neck, still looking around through the goggles. "Oh, just with some milk, if you have it."

The earthshaper made his way to a comfy-looking chair, pausing for a moment while dirt and dust trailed across his outfit to collect in one hand, forming a little rock that he tucked into a coat pocket as he sat down. "I don't mean to pry, but I really have to ask - how do you power this place? I didn't think utility companies visited plant houses."

[Electra]

Stesha reached into a mini-fridge under the counter and pulled out a pint of milk, sniffing it cautiously and checking the date before pouring it into both cups. She laughed at the question about power companies. "Not so much, no. Even if there were a power company anywhere on this planet, which as far as I know, there's certainly isn't. I have a small sun and wind generator out back that pulls enough energy to keep the lights on in here, and another one for the only other powered building, but that's about it. Clean green living... and it really doesn't get much greener." She poured the coffee over the milk in the cups, and set them on a tray along with a plate of frosted Christmas cut-out cookies. Carrying them over, she set them on the coffee table and handed one mug to Gaian Knight.

[Fox]

He absently took the cup, blinking. No utility companies on this planet?

Carefully, gingerly, he sunk his senses into the earth, soft golden glow showing through the goggles as he felt his way through the soil and rock under his feet. It was mostly familiar - sediment, stone, the usual suspects (Hmm, glacial scars.), some decidedly unusual suspects (And...that's not natural. Is that a foundation?), but it all felt...weird. Off. Unfamiliar. The personality wasn't quite the same, like meeting a good friend's sibling. The features were there, the family resemblance was obvious, but...

He sipped his coffee, glow fading. "This is...a very interesting place. Where in the world - uh, worlds? - are we?"

[Electra]

"Oh, it's Earth," Stesha assured him with a smile, "Freedom City, in fact. My powers only work on Earth. We're just not on Prime anymore. This planet is designated Earth EDS7, extinct, going by the Freedom League's notation. It started out similar enough to our own to be classified earthlike, and it's theoretically habitable, though outside my little bubble here I'm not sure I'd like to try. It used to have a Primelike population, but they wiped themselves out a long time ago."

She frowned thoughtfully. "If you go out beyond the trees, towards the ocean, you can still see the ruins. They destroyed their world, and when I got here, it was empty. It was so sad. I couldn't resist the opportunity to clean things up and try to make it a little better than it was. It's also a perfect place to practice all sorts of disaster management techniques without hurting anyone!"

[Fox]

"That's...huh." He wasn't really sure what to think about that. "That's kind of depressing, really. It's like where we could be if we'd taken another path. Or...literally where we could be if we'd taken another path. That's...huh." I guess teleporting to other realities smells like grass.

He sipped his coffee while he mulled that over. "If they went all crazy on each other, you've done a heck of a job cleaning up your - ah, bubble. The earth here is pretty happy - full of concrete skeletons, but remarkably clean for a disaster zone. If the population wiped themselves out, though, who's needing help?"

[Electra]

"Do you remember a few months back when Beekeeper II tried to hold the Freedom League hostage?" Stesha asked, selecting a cookie from the tray. "One of the weapons he was using was sixty-foot long bees, the size of semi-trucks. After the battle, once the Beekeeper was incarcerated, we realized that the bees were actually sentient and endowed with moderate intelligence, and also that they had nowhere to go." Her face was sympathetic as she nibbled. "The Beekeeper had an underground bunker where he kept them, but it was not a very nice place to live, more like a warehouse or a zoo than a home. Since I was rehabilitating this place anyway, I volunteered to take them on, and eventually the whole colony, about fifty workers, ten drones, and a queen, got moved out here. They live in a patch about five miles from here, in a meadow full of giant flowers I've been fixing up for them. Eventually I'll make it bigger, but they've been pretty happy out here."

She leaned back against the couch, drawing her legs up under her. "They're much better off here than on Prime, except for one thing. They have no real home. These poor bees are caught in that gray area between their instincts and their intellect, where they're smart enough to know what they need to do, but they can't. They've been building earthen mounds to keep themselves warm this winter, like their instincts tell them to, but they don't know how to build on the scale they need. What they really need is an expert in shaping earth to help build their home."

[Fox]

Gaian Knight paused, coffee halfway to his lips. "Bees. Bees the size of...sixty-foot bees?" He was having an awfully hard time imagining this, much less flowers big enough to...sixty-foot bees. My god. "That would be a pretty big earthen mound. But..." Sixty-foot bees. "Yeah, I can probably help them with that. If they know what they need, I can help them make it happen. It'd be...interesting."

He thought about the sheer size of the hive - mound - required to house sixty-one semi-sized insects as he picked up a cookie and nibbled. "Do they, uh. Can they point out directions, or write things, or...how smart are they?"

[Electra]

"They don't have thumbs, so they can't write," Stesha told him, a little amused at the way he'd paled. That wasn't an uncommon reaction. "But they speak English, and they understand a lot of basic concepts. They aren't rocket scientists, but they could probably work retail or food service if they weren't sixty-foot thumbless bees. They have a few mounds half-built already that they cram into at night, but they don't meet their needs right now. I'm sure that Beelisima, that's the queen, and her daughter Beeatrizz will be able to explain some of what they need in a hive. But the main need right now is just somewhere that they can stay warm, where the wind and snow can't get in."

[Fox]

"'Beelisima'. Naturally." Oh. Sixty-foot talking bees. How silly of me. He had a look of great beemusement, now trying to imagine giant bees working retail. "If they can describe what they need and, er, provide some advice I'll certainly see what I can do. No creature should have to deal with the winter cold, much less...giant, intelligent bees." He had to admit, the mental image of a bunch of bees trying to pack into a cramped, half-built home was pretty sad. Even if they were massive, massive bees. That talked.

"Is there a limit to how much space you want it to take up? Not that they're likely to have, uh, other neighbors, unless you took in a colony of forty-foot carpenter ants...."

[Electra]

"Sky's the limit," Fleur told him expansively. "I use this world for a retreat, for practice, to relax. This is the only home they have, and they'll probably be here for the rest of their lives. They were created by a selfish man for selfish purposes, and now they have a chance at a better life. I want to make things here as nice as I can for them, to try and make up for what the man who styles himself my archnemesis did to them. The area around there is pretty flat, but I can teleport in rock from upstate if we need to, if the earth around here isn't going to be enough." She'd given this some thought, but without an earth controller, there wasn't much she could do.

[Fox]

There was a lot of wisdom and compassion in that. Gaian scratched the back of his head, finishing his coffee and trying to get a better feel for the ground. "Everyone deserves a good home, right? Especially people who've had a bad life. Or...bee people. Beeple?" He raised an eyebrow, pondering that. "I guess I won't know what I need until I get there and see - well, not see, you know, but - see what's in the area. And...meet some giant bees." This almost, almost beats out the magic answering machine. Almost.

Politely finishing his cookie - which was delicious - he set his cup down and adjusted his gloves. "I...I guess I'm as ready as I'll ever be, whenever you're ready to brave the cold again. I'm actually kind of looking forward to meeting a giant bee queen." He chuckled, adding, "I've never been face to face with royalty before."

[Electra]

"Well then, you're in for a treat," she told him with a laugh. "It should be a memorable experience. Just remember, they look viscerally frightening, but they're really very peaceable. Nothing here can really threaten them, so they're very calm and relaxed most of the time, much less touchy than you might expect from a hive of bees." Rising, she went and put her cold weather gear back on, then polished off her coffee. "All right, back into the cold!" She took his arm again, and with another quick rush of green and grass, they were standing on a plain in front of a pair of what looked like massive half-melted sandcastles, studded with giant holes.

"This is what they've got so far," Stesha told him, pulling her hat down a little further on her head. "I told them we'd be stopping by, so someone should be out soon."