Electra

Doktor'd! Little addition to Chelone's sheet, spending the last spare point in her Create Object AP Create Object 10 (testudo 2.0, Extra: Movable, Flaw: Range [Touch], PFs: Precise, Selective, Subtle, Progression 1) {24/24}

"It might still be good to ask," Fleur offered. "I can understand wanting to get away from the craziness, but if craziness is bound to happen eventually, she might be happier if she gets a heads-up that it's on the way." She took out another post it note, consulted the phone she kept in a holster on her belt, and then scribbled down another number. "That's the main office for the Nicholson School. If you do want testing, they'll be able to help you get set up. And they also have a staff social worker with experience in talking to parents who are, mm, not quite prepared to deal with a child with powers." She passed him the second slip of paper. "So far my Amaryllis is still mostly doing plant control, but she can fly now, and drop a tiny little flower that hits like a fifty-pound boulder when it lands. Nicholson doesn't do combat training, thankfully, but I imagine she'll find lots of uses for powers like that when she's older."

"You need a better union rep," Raina opined. "I only came with you that one time, but your job sucks large, and you don't even get paid. Come on, Fang," she addressed the dog, "can't you at least get the guy a vacation? You know he needs, like, mental health and stuff if you want him doing this his whole life." She took a sip from her new drink. "And I think you vastly underestimate the amount of alcohol in these places. We'll get you in chaps in two hours or less, no problem."

"She takes after both," Fleur told him with a sympathetic look. "Plant control and gravity control. It's... kind of a challenge sometimes, to be honest. Her plant powers manifested when she was just a baby, the rest of it is developing more slowly as she gets bigger. There's an elementary school in Freedom City for powered children; it's very good about teaching them control and ethics and all those extra things they need to know on top of the reading and 'rithmetic." She studied him for a moment. "You could get her tested," she finally suggested. "It's not foolproof, but there are places that can scan for latent powers and see if she's got potential. A lot of children don't exhibit any powers until puberty or later, which is why the high school is bigger, but at least you'd have a heads up. Has she ever done anything, ah, unusual?"

"Dark Star," Fleur agreed faintly. "But that was a long time ago." She looked happy to grab hold of the new topic. "The teenagers are so unpredictable!' she agreed. "My first impulse is always to try and get them turned around, but you have to figure out first if it's a trauma response or they're just going through that rebellious phase, or if they're being groomed by an adult villain or exactly what else might be happening." She sighed. "Honestly the teen heroes are a very mixed bag too, but at least they've got a good school helping them go in the right direction. They're just all so young!" Her smile now was rueful. "My daughter is already agitating to be on a hero team and she's not even in middle school. I put my foot down on that! Claremont won't let them patrol til they're at least sixteen, that's something anyway."

Raina grimaced. "So you like, what, walk through them and it screws up their organs and they keel over? That's messed up. But I was starting to think we might have to bury that last guy in concrete and put him in some new construction to stop him, so whatever works, I guess?" She shrugged, not ready to shed tears over the bikers who had, after all, started everything in the first place. Civilians were starting to come back to the scene now, people inspecting their damaged vehicles and taking pictures, or a few hardy souls still trying to head for the bars nearby. Everyone was giving the two heroes a wide berth, for the moment at least. Merlin, who'd still been perched on the floating broomstick, scampered up to Raina's shoulder to inform her that he needed a better wifi signal if he was ever going to get anything done, and that she still had homework she'd better not blow off again. Oddly enough, though the little monkey spoke in chitters and squeaks, Ghost was able to get the gist of what he was saying perfectly easily. "Gimme a break," Raina muttered back, "it's not even ten yet. You just want to get back to your computer."

"Yeah, the whole insubstantial partner thing can be a little strange until you get used to it." Fleur's smile became perhaps just a little strained at that, her voice a little bit forced. It was gone again a second later. "I think having other heroes to connect with is good for everyone. Even if you have plenty of friends in your civilian life, there's something about having people around who understand what it's like. And that's even without the benefit of having people to count on if there's trouble and you find yourself needing backup! I can't count the number of times I've thought I was dealing with a normal night's work and ended up finding a bigger bad than I expected." She laughed. "Or conversely, there've been a couple of times I expected to find something big and bad and found kids making a movie or somebody with illusion powers they wanted to show off. Those nights you just get to go home early!"

"Oh, it's a sight that sticks with you," Stesha assured him with a chuckle. "He really does like warm weather and the ocean. We don't have a lot of League social functions for the same reason that we don't have a lot of League business meetings, but when people let their hair down, so to speak," she added, given her own noteworthy tresses, "it can get pretty exciting! Sometimes it's nice to just spend a little leisure time with people who don't even blink if you use your powers for something silly or mundane." She paused on that thought for a minute. Maybe she ought to try holding some get-togethers for heroes, maybe on Sanctuary, or just some isolated spot on Earth. It had been a long time since Ace had thrown a big party, and a Christmas get-together once a year for certain heroes really wasn't that much. It would be a logistical challenge, but there might be ways around that. Something to think about...

Even with the hostess out for a few minutes the party continued just fine, with music and food and plenty of conversation! Things were just starting to hit a lull when Danica came back in, followed by Elena, who was carrying a very large square container with a handle on top. The whole thing was covered by a plaid flannel blanket. They made their way past the snack tables and down to the far side of the gym, where a little section had been fenced off by a big plastic play yard fence. It was far enough away from the action that nobody had paid it much attention so far. A quick whisper to Judy got Danica the microphone, which she tapped once before speaking. "Hey everybody!" she called. "I hope everybody is having a super-good time tonight! You are all some of my favorite people in the world, and it's great to celebrate Valentine's Day with you! Valentine's Day is one of my favorite holidays, because it celebrates all kinds of love! There's romantic love, totally awesome, and friend love, radical! And there's my favorite kind, perfect, unconditional love! So I want you guys to meet some other awesome friends of mine, who are here by way of the Freedom City Humane Society!" With a flourish, she pulled back the blanket on the box Elena had set down, and opened a door to release six excited puppies into the fenced area! "These guys love people," Danica explained, "and they love being petted! I've got some toys and treats here too! They have to stay inside the fence, and just be gentle and calm with them. Puppy love is the best love!" To demonstrate, she set down the microphone and lifted one of the pups. It barked and licked her face. "See?"

"It doesn't weight 460 pounds!" Danica laughed. "That would be... that would be a lot!" She put her shell back on and began heading down the hall towards the gym building's back door. "From what my mom was saying, it's like ten pounds, times six, plus the weight of the box... it'll be fine!" Danica walked very slowly, but she made up for her lack of speed with enthusiasm. "I'm really glad you're feeling better, El. This is going to be so much fun!

"Yeah, definitely!" Danica agreed, returning the hug with another quick poof of her shell. She gave Elena a conspiratorial grin. "Actually, if you can wait just a couple more minutes, you can help me with this surprise I've got arranged! It's a good surprise, a totally awesome surprise," she assured her, "and I think it's gonna be super fun. I need help carrying a big heavy box though. My mom was gonna do it, but if you can help, that'll be awesome! We just have to go out to the parking lot. Ready?" She gave Elena a good looking over, obviously trying to make sure the tall girl was really feeling good enough to go back.

"Hmm?" Raina had gotten preoccupied enough watching the bad guys get hauled away and listening to Merlin cackling over what he was going to do with them online that she'd sort of forgotten the other hero present. Good situational awareness, Talya would be very proud. She ran a hand quickly over her bare arm, hiding it under an illusion of unmarred skin. "Yeah, yeah, no problem." Up close this guy looked kind of familiar, like somebody who she'd seen or heard of before, but she hadn't been great about memorizing the lists of Freedom City heroes and villains that Claremont students were supposed to know about. "Good job, you know, kicking everybody's asses," she offered. "What the hell did you do to them, anyway?"

"I'm sure we could find somebody to work on your suit," Danica told her, looking thoughtful. "I mean, here on campus there's Eira, but she can be kind of, um, a lot?" She grinned, half-apologetically. "Don't get me wrong, I like her but she can be a little aggressive with people she doesn't know and maybe just a teensy bit high-handed?" She held up pinched fingers to describe the teensy bit. "But there's lots of super-science people at the Lab, and some of them are going to help me get a new scooter because my old one got kidnapped by space pirates. If I meet any super-scientists there, I can get their phone number and put you in touch! Somebody in town definitely does battlesuits, I'm sure."

Fleur raised her eyebrows in amusement at Nightscale's choice of greeting for his fellow student, but gave him a smile and shook his hand. "It's very nice to meet you too," she replied. "Now I think you probably know that this is our first excursion as part of the collaboration between the Freedom League and Claremont. We're going to do our best to show you the basics of safe city patrolling, and you should definitely feel free to ask questions or make suggestions." Fleur de Joie was the sort of person with a very good speaking presence, friendly, warm and professional. "We'll be taking a route around Bayview for part of the evening, but I'd also like to check out a couple of tips that have been called in to the Freedom League hotline. If anything major turns up, Tiamat and I will handle things, but otherwise you'll be working with us to handle anything that we come across. Do either of you have any questions?" She glanced at Tiamat as well, to see if her colleague had anything to add.

Freebooter has a skill mastered 34 in Computers

Erin accepted the baby without complaint, tucking him securely in the crook of her arm so he could look around and chew on his own fist. "Doctor Espadas has faced the Terminus by my side before," she said, talking towards Aarden but looking at Serpa. "We answered a distress call from a world about to be overrun for the final time by Mandragora and his forces. The world was beyond help, but we mounted a rescue mission to save the last survivors. Ellie saved dozens of lives with her medical care, including those of men and women poisoned by dragon bites. Her skill and her courage are unquestionable, and so is her compassion. If anybody can help Lightbringer, I'm convinced she can."

That got Paige sitting up straight. "What?" she demanded. "Show me." The evidence Richard had gathered so far wasn't overwhelming; a couple of shipping manifests here, some flight records there, a couple of superhero sightings, some vague police and emergency services reports. Along with an eyewitness account from someone who claimed to have been on an S&K team that delivered Curator-drone wreckage to a secret underground bunker that was now a solid block of iron two hundred feet thick. She leafed through all of it, then looked up at him. "There may be something here. I had assumed all the Curator's drones burned up like the infiltrators did, but if they didn't, if there were more and they disappeared..."

"Okay, the fact that conspiracy theorists on the internet don't have records of anybody taking a physical after they got rescued doesn't mean it didn't happen," Paige pointed out immediately. "Or that there weren't actually security measures put in place. They wouldn't be very good security measures if anybody could find out what they were by looking on the internet. It is a little strange that you and I haven't turned up any information about how the number of abductees was confirmed," she admitted, loathe as she was to contribute to Richard's little journey down the rabbit hole. "But it's been ten years, and after that day we have had nothing Curator-related pop up for a decade. What could the plan possibly be?"

"That's right, I seem to recall quite a few of the members of the Liberty League came from Young Freedom." Paige nodded, sliding easily into the rhythm of the interview. "So it would've been sort of a natural way to graduate onto an adult team, but you were all still fairly young, I imagine?" The actual mechanics of Claremont's superteams were not made public, of course, but just looking at groups like Young Freedom and Next Gen made it clear that they were teen teams. Paige's own math put Cobalt Templar at probably no more than nineteen, with his teammates not much older. "You were working a mission together on the Day of Wrath, right, even before everything started changing?"

"Frost is a mystically powered thermovore," Stesha explained, toeing the company line for how much they talked about where Frost's creepy powers came from. "He sucks the warmth out of things and uses it to power himself. It's a little funny because it means he actually hates the cold places where you'd expect him to be happy. He loves tropical places, the warmer the better." She grimaced. "As you might expect, having him around too much is hell on my plants!" The mention of Freezeburn got an even deeper grimace. "I've never met him myself, but I've heard of him. I believe the last I heard was that he's in the maximum security wing at Blackstone with nullifying cuffs on. Definitely the place he belongs." She gave a little shudder. "Most villains are bad, some are truly awful, and some are just creepy. Blackstone seems to get its full share of that last group. I never like going down there."

Danica considered that. "Yeah, I guess I wasn't thinking about it very much, but that girl with the guitar was acting pretty sus. Who starts taunting a big guy who's already melting down unless they want to cause trouble?" She closed her eyes and tipped her head back. "Hang on, I've got a really good memory if I have a second to think about stuff." Raising her hands, she began slowly moving them to sketch the imaginary scene. "She was like a teenager, kind of a punk look, leather jacket, chokers, purple stripe in her hair. She had an electric guitar that wasn't plugged in, so dark red it almost looked black. She was playing, but when things started going bad, she started playing bad." She opened her eyes and looked at Ryder. "Do you think maybe she used the guitar to do some kind of spell? That might explain why I couldn't make people calm down even though that almost always works! I don't think I saw her again after I made my shell big. She might have gotten scared away by heroes being around."

"Ryder!" Danica called out cheerfully. "You're just in time! The bus is here!" After everything that had happened, it was kind of funny that it was just the two of them boarding the bus. Danica wasn't sure where the terrible guitar player had gotten off to, but she'd probably had the good sense to take off when a monster had appeared! The bus driver of course made no apology or even comment about being so late, but Danica just smiled at her and scanned her reduced-fare pass, then slowly made her way to on of the front seats. Once they were safely seated, Danica stashed her backpack under her legs and looked at her friend. "So what do you think Ragin are? Some kind of monster made up of, like, angry feelings?"

Erin looked over, obviously surprised. "That was a group effort," she insisted. "Do you have any idea how happy I was to have not only a medic but somebody who knew how to talk to people on that trip?" She grinned, one quick flash across her face. "Steve and I could've survived the world, but I don't think we could've kept everybody together long enough to get rescued, not with Tona and Beekeeper being so squirrelly. I was scared to death about what was going on back home with all of us gone, but I was glad you were there." She gave her hair one more quick tug, settling it back into place as they approached the conference room. "And if they want to make a statue for you, I'm going to let them. Why should I be the only one to suffer?" With that, she pushed open the door.

Paige leaned back in her seat. "Okay, let's drill down on this then. Your 'theorists' believe that, what, there are a bunch of Curator robots still running around pretending to be superpeople? And they have some kind of nefarious long range plan to... do something bad, I guess, but probably not connected with the Curator that nobody's heard from in a decade? And the reason nobody knows about them is that there's an organized coverup by the heroes of Freedom City for some reason related to it making them look bad?" I can see about seventy ways this could blow up in our faces if we start demanding every hero in Freedom City prove they're not an evil robot, starting with the fact that we're gonna look like assholes and ending with a witch hunt against innocent metahumans who just want to preserve their secret identities. What evidence have we got so far?"

"Oh yeah!" Danica assured her. "It's kind of weird nobody talked to you about this stuff already, but that maybe just means they're trying to figure some stuff out before they get someone in here for you. But there's at least a couple kids from other dimensions enrolled almost all the time. Dr. Marquez keeps an eye on that, he has kind of a support group for kids who are living outside their dimensions so they can talk about what it's like and stuff. Some of them don't even have powers, but they come to Claremont anyway because it's easier here than at a regular high school where everybody's basically from one place." She cocked her head to the side, obviously thinking how best to address Elena's questions. "Okay, the Master Mage, that's like, the central contact point for all the magic-users on Earth. He or she doesn't have to be the strongest, like, they don't hold a competition or anything, but they have to be super strong in magic and really, really smart, and willing to devote their whole life to basically making sure the world is not going to fall apart magically. Every world with magic has one, and for big huge threats, sometimes they can work together and sort of bring all their magic users with them. I've never seen it, but I hear it's pretty intense. And a super scientist is just like, a scientist with superpowers!" She beamed. "They're super smart or super fast, so they can do stuff in ways that normal scientists probably couldn't. It's super-science if the things they invent can be reproduced by other people using the same plans, even if the plans are so complicated only other super-scientists can use them. If it's only usable by the inventor, it's called magi-tech instead. And the Freedom League has a whole system for noting down any other universe anybody goes to, and there's a database you can use if you get permission from the school! Anybody who falls into a new dimension is supposed to report what it's like and what they saw there and how they got there and back, so they can have as much info as possible during an invasion or if someone gets lost."