When a Problem Comes Along (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

Mid-November 2011

Southside

The old Sanderson office building was mostly deserted after working hours, not that it was in great shape in daylight thanks to the general decline of the neighborhood. By the time the cleaning crew had finished, it was very late, and the neighborhood around was almost deserted. Almost, anyway. As the crew headed for the van for the ride back to their central office so they could change out of their uniforms and head for home, a gigantic insect descended from the sky! One of the maids screamed in surprise at the sight of the thirty-foot long giant honeybee, easily the size of their truck, as it descended from the sky nearly to ground level as it hovered over the intersection. Wings buzzing loud as an aircraft in flight, the giant bee hovered from corner to corner, bending its giant face towards the streetsigns and frantically rubbing together giant limbs large enough to pierce the sides of a car. As she listened closely, Helen picked out sounds coming from the bee that sounded like words spoken by a jet engine's hum.

"OH DEAR OH WHERE IZ THIZ?"

[Derin]

Helen froze in the building's doorway. Who had screamed? Didn't matter, they weren't there any more. Apparently the appearance of... giant... bees... caused people to panic. Bees? Bees?! What kind of crazy city was this? She turned and dashed back into the building, rummaging in her pack for the miscellaneous parts of her costume that couldn't be worn under her uniform. Thank goodness she'd arranged her schedule to grow straight on patrol, or she wouldn't even be carrying the outfit.

Getting changed was a matter of moments, hurriedly achieved behind a large and tastelss ornamental statue in one corner of the building's foyer. Yeah, this is safe. This doesn't compromise your identity at all. Seeing a superhero dash out of the building full of cleaners? Not remotely suspicious. Just better hope that everyone's too panicked to think straight and nobody finds your civvy clothes. The clothing in question was wedged out of sight behind the statue.

Now, to... to what? She had not chosen heroing for this sort of thing. It had spoken. She was pretty sure the giant bee had spoken. It was... lost? And a giant, panic-inducing monster. But there wasn't much she could do about that.

Cautiously, she looked out the open glass door of the building, tried to hold her whip in the most nonthreatening way possible and called, "Um, are you... are you alright?"

[Avenger Assembled]

The giant bee instantly whirled on Whiplash, flying close enough to talk without seeming to try and overrun her position. It was tough to read emotions on an insect face as wide as an oncoming truck, but those compound eyes did seem fixed directly on the whip-wielding heroine. "I WAZ LOOKING FOR ZMITH ZTREET," the giant bee said cautiously, its feminine buzzing sounding a little wary. "BUT THE ZTREETZ HERE ALL GO IN THE ZAME DIRECTION AND I WENT THE WRONG WAY." The giant bee didn't seem to see there was anything strange about her flying through the skies of the city by night. "CAN YOU TELL ME WHERE ZMITH ZTREET IZ?"

[Derin]

"Okay, don't worry; I can show you where Smith Street is," Whiplash said in the soothing voice that always worked on frightened children. But what could she do? Lead a giant bee through the streets? If the reaction of the other cleaners was any indication, that might cause a few problems. "Just follow me."

She was pretty sure that the giant be, disconcerting as it was, wasn't going to try to kill her (at least not immediately), so she tucked her whip into her belt, found a handhold on the side of the building she'd been cleaning minutes before, and began to climb. Climbing such surfaces was old hat to Whiplash, and it was almost second nature to seek out crevices and ledges for her fingers and toes. Once on top of the building, she sighted the next building. Easy jump. No problem. If there were no complications, she'd simply lead the bee to Smith street across the building roofs, out of sight of easily panicked crowds.

"Why do you want to go to Smith street?" she asked the bee conversationally, trying not to look like the creature was creeping her out. "Is it anything I can help with?" There was no point in leading the bee along the rooftops if it was immediately going to drop to street level and head into the crowded city.

[Avenger Assembled]

"ZMITH ZTREET IS THE FAZTEZT ROUTE TO BEEDOM HALL," explained the giant bee, evidently relaxing in the presence of a trustworthy-seeming human. "I KNOW THERE ARE MANY HUMANZ AND FLYING MACHINEZ HERE, AND I DID NOT WANT TO FLY TOO HIGH AND CRASH INTO ONE. YOUR ZKIEZ ARE ZO CROWDED! ANYWAY, I AM GOING THERE TO MEET FLEUR DE JOIE ZO ZHE CAN TAKE ME BACK HOME." She buzzed along for a moment, then added, "I AM GOING TO ZCHOOL IN BEEDOM CITY ZO I CAN LEARN MORE ABOUT ZIZ WORLD. MY HOME IZ VERY DIFFERENT." She rubbed her face with one of those giant forelimbs and added, "MY CODE-NAME IS ZUPER-BEE."

[Derin]

Whiplash took a moment to decode the message behind... super-bee's... accent, then nodded. "Do you want me to come with you to find this Fleur de Joie?" A giant bee flying around by itself looking for somebody was not going to be great for anyone, even in a place as strange as Freedom City. It was possible that she could help calm people down, or at least ensure a safe kind of panic. Or conceal the bee. Or... something. But maybe super-bee made this journey all the time, and people were used to it. Presumably the bee was referring to that school for the super-powered that seemed to have sprung up, and she imagined there were stranger things there than giant bees. Probably. Whiplash realised she was going to have to learn a lot to be an effective hero in Freedom City.

[Avenger Assembled]

Escorting a giant bee across town might not have been what Whiplash had had in mind for one of her early Freedom City missions, but it turned out to be less difficult than she might have expected; Super-Bee was smart enough to stick close to her and to not alarm anyone down below, and though a thirty foot bee wasn't exactly stealthy, the sight was odd enough that most people who looked up from down below seemed to dismiss it as a hallucination. As they approached the bridge to the heart of the city where Freedom Hall lay, the bee seemed to regard her with huge faceted eyes. This close, the bee was very warm, much warmer than the cool night air. "IT WILL BEE TOUGH FOR YOU TO ZWING ACROZZ THE BRIDGE. WOULD YOU LIKE A RIDE?"

[Derin]

Every time Whiplash thought that the day couldn't get any wierder, it did. Perhaps she should just give up making assumptions on what to expect. Was it safe to ride a giant bee? It must be. Super-bee would surely know.

"Yes, thank you," she said.

Whiplash hadn't even ridden a horse before, unless you counted pony rides at shows as a kid. She rode a motorbike, but somehow she doubted that that was the same thing. She tried not to touch anything that looked fragile as she climbed onto the bee, for fear of hurting it. Bees couldn't be that delicate, could they? They had exoskeletons. She gripped with her knees as she'd read somewhere you were supposed to do with a horse, held on with her hands as best she could without touching the wings, and tried not to pull on any of the bee's hairs.

It was safe. Surely. The bee would know what it was doing.

But she double-checked her grappling gun, just in case.

[Avenger Assembled]

Super-Bee gave Whiplash a safe, easy flight over the bridge, clever enough to fly low and underneath so that the drivers wouldn't gawk and cause an accident: evidently she knew something about urban flying. "I DON'T UZUALLY GIVE RIDEZ TO BIPEDZ I DON'T KNOW, BUT YOU ARE NIZE. NOT MANY PEOPLE WOULD HELP A BEE THEY DID NOT KNOW." Super-Bee wasn't a particularly fast flier, but she was graceful despite her bulk, and soon the giant bee was descending onto the big grassy area behind Freedom Hall, where a costumed figure was rapidly approaching. Shamefacedly, if such an emotion could be read on a bee's face, the giant bee waved at the newcomer. "HELLO FLEUR DE JOIE. ZORRY I AM LATE!"

[Derin]

Riding a giant bee. Cross that off the 'things to do before I die' list.

Whiplash dismounted carefully and stood about awkwardly, uncertain of the protocol. Should she hang about in case they needed more help? Should she just leave? The bee and de Joie seemed to be friends, judging by how super-bee spoke of her, but Whiplash at least wanted some sort of confirmation that this hadn't just been a hallucination, preferably from somebody who wasn't a giant bee.

"No problem," she said in response to the bee's comment about her help. She glanced from the bee to the costumed figure approaching. "I'm, uh... Whiplash, by the way. Is there, um, is there anything else I can do to help?"

[Electra]

Fleur de Joie waved to the pair as they descended, a worried look on her face that didn't fade until they were safely on the ground. "Baybee!" she called, hastening towards the pair. "Where have you been? I was so worried! I called the school twice looking for you. I almost called out the League!" she scolded with the affectionate anger of somebody's mother. The maternal tone was obviously fitting, since despite wearing her familiar green and brown hero uniform, the heroine was balancing a giggling baby on her hip.

She switched gears when she noticed the new face who'd appeared alongside her errant charge, offering Whiplash a friendly smile and, after juggling the baby to her other arm, a gloved hand to shake. "It's nice to meet you," she said cheerfully. "I'm Fleur de Joie. Thank you so much for finding Bay... ah, Super-bee. She's new to the city and so curious, I suppose she was bound to get lost eventually." She paused for a moment, sorting through her extensive mental rolodex. "I don't think I've heard of you before," she admitted. "Are you new in town?"

[Derin]

Whiplash swallowed and nodded, trying not to stare at the... well, the real superhero. She spared a smile for the adorable little baby, of course; that was almost mandatory in Whiplash's social manual. "Yes, I'm new." There wasn't much else to say for someone with a secret identity, but she didn't want to just stand there awkwardly. "I normally patrol for street crime in Southside, but super-bee got lost. She said she attends the school," she added, curiosity overcoming her. "Are there a lot of bees there?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"NOPE, JUZT ME," buzzed the bee proudly. A little nervously, she added, "THE ZCHOOL IZ ZECRET, THOUGH. IT WOULD ATTRACT A LOT OF ATTENTION IF BIPEDZ KNEW THERE WAZ A GIANT BEE GOING TO ZCHOOL HERE." She rubbed her forelegs together at the sight of the familiar Fleur, and added, "I WENT BUZZING AROUND THE ZOUTHZIDE AND I GOT LOZT," she admitted. "ZIZ BIPED HERO HELPED ME GET BACK TO BEEDOM HALL ZO I DID NOT HAVE TO FLY AROUND AND ZCARE ANYONE. I REMEMBERED WHAT YOU ZAID ABOUT FLYING AROUND. WHIPLAZH IZ VERY NIZE!"

[Electra]

"I'm glad you remembered that much, anyway," Fleur told the truck-sized insect with affectionate exasperation. "You obviously forgot the part about not wandering in the city by yourself, especially after dark!" While Fleur addressed the bee, the human baby, dressed up for the weather in a puffy snowsuit and a hand-knitted flower hat, regarded Whiplash with great interest. She looked to be about six months old, chubby and healthy, and with wisps of green hair like her mother's peeping from under the cap.

"You're lucky a nice hero found you," Fleur told Baybee, then turned her attention to Whiplash again. "Super-Bee's family lives on Sanctuary, with me. I bring her here for school and take her home again. I really appreciate you taking the time to help her make it back here. Would you like a cup of coffee?" she asked. "It's getting so doggone cold and it's only November!"

[Derin]

"Thank you," Whiplash said, ready to follow Fleur. The cold didn't bother her unduly. It wasn't fun, but she'd worked in worse. Still, that was no reason to turn down a perfectly good coffee. She smiled again at the baby, already dressed up for winter. "Your child is adorable," she told Fleur. Whiplash remembered when her Anna looked like that... well, like a chubby toddler, not a green-haired one. That was... wow, a decade ago now. "What's your name, little one?" she added, automatically switching to a high-pitched talking-to-babies voice. She'd spent a lot of time around her mother's charges when she was a child, but it'd been years since she'd interacted closely with a small child.

[Electra]

"Her name is Amaryllis," Fleur told Whiplash with a smile, "but we call her Ammy." The baby coyly hid her face against her mother's cowl, peeking out after a moment to give the stranger another gummy grin. "And it's already getting close to her bedtime!" With that, the green-tinged heroine took a seed from one of the pouches on her belt and tossed it to the ground. In moments, a giant, flat flower was growing beneath them, raising them like a platform. "Don't be afraid," Fleur thought to add as they were surrounded by blossoms and the overwhelming scent of hollyhocks filled the air. In moments, they were engulfed. Whiplash saw green light, smelled the strong scent of pine needles...

And suddenly they were elsewhere, standing on another patch of grass in a place that definitely wasn't Freedom City. They were next to a cozy looking cottage with walls that seemed oddly irregular in the darkness and crystalline windows that beamed greenish light through leafy curtains. Around them were a few other similar buildings, some with lights and some without, but this was definitely the biggest. Beyond the little clearing it wasn't city that rose up, but a massive forest. It was very quiet, and the air smelled of dead autumn leaves instead of exhaust.

"Say goodnight, Baybee," Fleur encouraged the giant juvenile bee. "Beeatriz and the others are going to be worried about you."

[Avenger Assembled]

"GOODNIGHT," said the giant bee with a wave as she took off, hovering in the air over the two heroines and Ammy. "THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP, WHIPLAZH! I WILL MAKE ZURE EVERYONE KNOWS YOU WERE A GOOD FRIEND TO BEE. ZEE YOU TOMORROW FLEUR DE JOIE AND AMMY!" She was happy, a frightening night having resolved itself very well for her, and seemed to be humming something under her breath as she went. And with that, she was off, thrumming away into the night with a sound like a helicopter's whirring blades, heading towards a just-visible shadow in the darkness of Sanctuary's night that looked more like a mountain from a distance than anything else.

[Derin]

Whiplash stood very still on the floral platform as it moved. She had no doubt about her ability to keep her balance on most surfaces, but rapidly-growing-flower was something new and it wasn't until they stopped moving that she relaxed.

"Goodbye, super-bee," she said with a smile and a wave. It was amazing how quickly somebody could get used to something completely strange and nonsensical, she thought. Giant bee? Magical forest sanctuary? Why not? She prodded at the grass with one foot. It felt real. She stopped herself from asking anything too naive stupid-sounding, like 'where are we?', 'do you live here?' or 'what just happened?', which left very little to say. Nagging at the back of her brain was the feeling that she didn't exactly know how to get home from this place by herself. She was, in effect, in a new place with her escape routes cut off.

Relax. You're not breaking and entering.

[Electra]

Fleur waved to the bee as it flew away, then turned back to Whiplash. "Come on in," she invited cheerfully, pulling open the door to let her visitor enter the cottage. Inside, Whiplash could see that the entire structure seemed to be composed of living plants, from the walls of trunks and vines to the arching and closely interwoven branches that made the ceiling, to the soft grass carpeting underfoot. Besides its strange architecture, the cottage was an appealingly homey setting, with a living room grouping of chairs and sofa around a coffee table and television, a kitchenette in one corner, and a hallway leading to other rooms. "Welcome to my home," Fleur told her, stripping off her cowl and mittens, then doing the same for her daughter. "Have a seat anywhere."

[Derin]

Whiplash was not at home among greenery. She wasn't opposed to it, it was just unnervingly different from the sharp lines and reliable girders she was used to navigating. How does that television even work? she wondered. Does this place have electricity? How do the plants not... I don't know, catch fire or something? (Of course, her own houwe was made largely of dead plants, but at least they didn't grow into anything they weren't supposed to.) It was beautiful, she had to admit, but it wasn't all that often that she had to worry about damaging carpet when she walked on it. Except for that one place with the really old shag carpeting, that had taken her five minutes to navigate without leaving evidence she'd been there. Still, her footsteps were self-assured, and only somebody who'd paid attention to her normal silent, balanced gait would notice it as hesitant.

She cautiously took a seat on a chair, glancing up at the ceiling as if expecting it to fall on her. But plants were strong, right? Monkeys swung through them. And... big cats climbed them, and... Whiplash had to admit that biology wasn't her strong point. But trees stayed up. That she knew.

She smiled at Fleur. "You have a lovely home."

[Electra]

"Thank you!" Fleur replied, setting Ammy down to play on the floor while she went to make coffee. The baby, who would've looked uncannily like a cherub if her curls were blond instead of green, kicked the air till she managed to roll to her stomach, then began belly-scooting across the grass floor. "So how long have you been in Freedom City?" Fleur asked her guest, the question obviously much more small talk than interrogation. "There was a time when I thought I knew all the heroes in town, but I've been a little busy lately." She looked indulgently towards Amaryllis, who was trying to get her mouth onto blades of grass that mysteriously moved or shrank away just in time to avoid her. "How do you like it?"

[Derin]

"I've lived here as a civilian for a few years," she said with a shrug. It wasn't as if random, vague details would blow her cover even if Fleur was trying to figure out who she was, which Whiplash seriously doubted she cared about. Besides, she was a hero. Small talk was safe. "But I haven't been doing the hero thing that long. It's a nice city, on the whole." She watched the kid try to stuff random carpeting into her mouth in the nature of babies everywhere. "Is she your only child? I have a daughter who used to try to eat mud when she was that age. She ate a whole snail at one point."

[Electra]

"Yes," Fleur answered, "she's our first, and she's a handful all by herself." She smiled indulgently at the baby as she poured water into the coffeepot and set it to brew. "You have a little girl? How old is she?" As she chatted, Fleur reached through a flower growing on the wall and withdrew a baker's box of cookies, arranging some on a plate. "Ammy's just started getting around on her own, and I'm sure she'll be trying to eat everything she can get hold of. It's exciting and exhausting all at once!"

[Derin]

"Older than yours," Whiplash replied. "She's in school. But she was a handful as a little one, too." Whiplash was an expert in techniques to stop people having access to important things, but nothing could defeat the curiosity of a toddler. If she just had a group of toddlers convinced that bank vaults were full of sugary treats, she used to joke, they'd get any vault open within ten minutes. "I'm sure your little girl at least won't have any trouble getting the right amount of vegetables," she added, raising her brow at the grass-chasing baby. "Mine mostly focused on inedible things. Is she teething yet?" Whiplash had to admit that she knew nothing about the development of... magical half-plant babies. Or whatever Ammy was.

[Electra]

"Oh yes," Fleur said with a sigh that any mother could empathize with. "No actual teeth yet, but plenty of drooling, and crying. I'm luckier than most," she added, adding a few napkins embossed with fall leaves to the cookie arrangement. "As long as I spend a few hours a day in the sunshine, sleep is optional for me. I don't know how most women do it," she admitted with a laugh. "It seems she's up all day and half the night. My husband is away most of the time," she added, looking sad for just a moment, "so it's just Ammy and I nine times out of ten. Well, us and the giant bees, and the human colony, and Gaian Knight, and whoever stops by to visit," she amended, laughing again. "Not really so lonely." She carried the tray of cookies over and set them on the table in front of Whiplash, then went back for the coffee.