Electra

"I'm going to be a terrible host and bring over the picnic basket," Stesha admitted, selecting the DVD from the shelf. All her DVDs were alphabetized, so that made it easy. "But I'll save some for you,' she promised with a smile as she queued up the movie. "When you solidify again, we can have some popcorn and the rest of the cupcakes." She settled in on the couch, leaving space for him to float down onto it if he wanted to, and hit play. Watching Ghostbusters with a living ghost was not an experience she'd ever expected to have, but she decided it was all right. She'd still be counting down the minutes till he managed to pull himself together again, but best not to dwell on that!

Erin actually rolled her eyes at that. "We're damned if we do and damned if we don't," she murmured to Edge, loud enough that Archer had to be able to hear. Normally she'd never be so rude to a teacher, but Mr. Archer had a special place in the dark and angry recesses of her heart after the rigors of this summer. "Is that it for today?" she asked the gym teacher.

"Don't apologize," Stesha replied, "not when it's me who's been asking all the personal questions. Even if it's in a good cause. I hope I can be a better friend even if I'm not in the thick of hero work if I can at least pass on some advice from an expert." She folded her hands, looking around the garden and trying to think of something else to say. She suspected that trying for scintillating or witty wasn't really an option, but she could at least try not to be boring. "How do you know Taylor, if you don't mind me asking?" she finally asked. "Do you work with the Knights?"

Erin looked for the bat she'd stuffed into her pocket, but it was gone too, just a simulation. "It worked well," she told him. "I'd do better with more practice. It's a little awkward getting it out to full length. I'd have to say the gun worked better though," she decided, with a half-amused look to Edge. "Part of that was probably Edge's doing, though. What would it've done to one of us if we'd gotten shot?"

"Um, all right," Stesha agreed, putting her hand in Taylor's. "Is it going to hurt?" she asked. She still wanted to meet the scarab and hear the end to the imp mystery, but the idea of whatever the Phantom considered an unpleasant journey had her a little nervous. Still, she was a hero, and heroes didn't balk... much... at a little discomfort.

"Wow," Erin murmured, looking at the gun. "That's pretty powerful. I wonder if it's modeled on something real. Lucky it didn't hit us." She shaded her eyes with her hand and looked out to the sea. "Do you think that was it?" she asked. "There has to be something bigger coming, you'd think. We're supposed to be seeing a big gun here." She looked over at him. "You did something, didn't you? I could sort of feel it, sort of see it. You changed the way the gun hit."

"You know, I was joking about Candyland," Erin pointed out as she got up and went to look at the attic haul as well. "If you're going to play a little kid game, might as well make it an interesting one like Operation or Hi-Ho Cherry-O. And the last thing we need is fighting over who got who caught in the Molasses Swamp. Board games and cake and presents beats sitting around and watching television for any birthday." Draping her towel over her shoulders, she joined the group looking at games.

"Depends on what you're in the mood for," she told him, gesturing to a bookcase half full of DVDs, half full of knick-knacks and potted plants. "I don't know about you, but I think I could use a few laughs right about now." Stesha smiled over at him, mentally sliding an image of Derrick into the void in her apartment. "I do have Ghostbusters, if you'd like to see that one again. No one can say it's not a classic."

Erin had hoped to wait until Edge could help her out again, but he just wasn't quite as quick to respond in a fight as she was. When the alien creature raised its... hand-things, she was done waiting. Keeping her own body between monster and teammate, she sighted along the barrel of the alien gun, took careful aim, and squeezed off a shot, right at its ugly head.

Erin fires her gun at the alien as it makes weird gestures. Spending a hero point, she rolls a 24.

Erin hung onto the bar as the ride began to move, leaning sideways as their pod began to rotate slowly. The rock music that played along with the ride didn't cover up the growl of the motor as it sped up the rotating tray, sending them whipping and whirling around on the round platform. Erin laughed as the speed blew her hair into her face, surrendering to the velocity and momentum of the ride. She closed her eyes, and for a second she was thirteen years old again, and the smell of the ocean that underlaid the scents of fair food was the Pacific, not the Atlantic. The King County Fair was always the last hurrah before a new school year started, and she and her father and Megan would go on all the rides... Erin opened her eyes. That was a memory for later, one to hang onto. For now, she yelled with excitement along with everyone else as the whole world spun around.

"Wow," Stesha said, looking through the portal. "Now that's door to door service." She put a hand on the basket, more to guide it than to lift it, and stepped fearlessly through the portal, emerging back into her living room. "Now that's a convenient talent," she decided. "Can you just go anywhere you want to by opening a door there? Or just anywhere you've been before?"

Erin was a little surprised that the bottle didn't break on Mike's tough skin, but then, Alex couldn't hit very hard. She listened but didn't respond to the byplay that a lifetime of shared history made so easy for both her companions. It was hard to know how to interject anything to that. Fortunately, the tilt-a-whirl wasn't far away, and it provided a distraction for everyone. The line wasn't very long, with most people more interested in roller coasters than in whirling along on the ground. Erin scouted the cars as they waited, looking for the ones that spun a bit faster than others. When she'd picked her car and they finally got onto the platform, she made a beeline for it, waving Alex and Mike over. "You take the inside edge," she told Mike, "Alex in the middle, and I'll be on the outside. And if you puke," she reminded Alex, "aim for him. He has way more clothes to spare."

Stesha recognized the man from the park, looking a little bit different now in his place of business. He certainly seemed to be busy with something, though it looked more like a very, very old novel than like a sales catalog or price list. "Sorry," she said, amused. "I think you were expecting someone else. It's nice to see you again, Mr. Silver." Stesha, too, looked different in the daytime, having traded her hoodie and leggings for a pretty pair of slacks and a jacket with a pastel shell underneath, just the sort of thing for working in an upscale boutique shop. Her green hair was more noticeable in the daylight too, wound up into an elegant twist behind her head and ringed with yellow forsythia. "I'm looking for some gifts, and I was hoping you might be able to help."

"I don't know if it's even so much the failures that I'm thinking of," she admitted thoughtfully. "Even when you succeed, doesn't that just make it more important to keep succeeding? If you hadn't been there just then, something horrible would've happened. Most of the heroes I've met, that weighs on them, the idea of not being there." She thought of Taylor and of Derrick, the work they did and their dedication to it. "And if it's that way in Freedom City, where there are more heroes than anyplace else on Earth, you'd think it would be even worse somewhere else. Do you ever have to remind yourself that you're not the only one who does the work, or is it just something you come to accept?"

It was strange to be traveling through Lantern Hill when the sun was still up, and even stranger to be driving her car instead of taking the much faster plant subway she was getting used to, but Stesha was on a special mission. Chloe's birthday was coming up at the end of the month, and her big sister still hadn't picked up a present, much less mailed one. Some calligraphy pens and paper might do it, she thought, especially if they were unusual and interesting. Chloe wasn't too bad to shop for. Derrick, on the other hand, was a lot more of a problem. What did you get for a man who brought you candies from space, and was going to take you, literally, to worlds you'd never seen before? The only thing she could think of was something book-related, because she knew he liked to read. He'd talked about how his books were occasionally destroyed in transit and there wasn't much he could do about it. She wasn't sure it existed, but if anyone had a bulletproof book cover, Silver's Rare Books and Antiquities might be the place. If its proprietor was anything to judge by, it wouldn't be the average bookshop. Stesha windowshopped her way down the sidewalk without wasting too much time, finally arriving at the shop itself. "Here goes nothing," she murmured under her breath, then pushed the door open and stepped inside.

Stesha took a seat and nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, I'm starting to understand that, I think. It's a little bit different for me, since if I get busy or if I'm tired, the plants will wait. It's different for people who have lives riding on their actions. That's such a heavy weight, though, and they never seem to get a chance to take it off. You've been doing this for such a long time. How do you cope?" she asked sincerely, hoping she wasn't digging too deeply, but really wanting the answer. "I mean, with day after day, year after year, of having so much responsibility." Rumor had it that he hadn't always discharged that responsibility, but that didn't necessarily mean that it didn't weigh on his mind.

Erin shrugged. "Tilt-a-whirl it is, then," she agreed, securing the locker key around her wrist with the attached plastic band. "I call not-middle right now, though. Then maybe a coaster, then we can hit the shops at the back of the park and get some food." She consulted the map again, then shoved it back into her pocket and headed off along the path. "And no puking!"

Erin's iniative is 29, but she'll wait for her boost from Edge unless the robot gets too up close and personal.

Wander: Sixteen-year-old Erin White is the lone survivor of a devastating zombie plague in an alternate world that was once very close to this one. A Claremont Academy student and Young Freedom member, she is learning to channel a devastating talent for destruction that she learned while fighting for her life into the heroic skills that will let her save others. Fleur de Joie: Stesha Madison is a weekend heroine who spends her days arranging flowers and her nights arranging the city's parks. She's not terribly skilled in combat, but she prefers supporting her more skilled friends, anyway. She has a knack for making unusual friends, which is fortunate, since she also has a way of getting herself into trouble while out beautifying Freedom City.

"It's part of you too," Stesha pointed out with a little smile. "It's kind of weird now, I admit, but it's not, you know, scary or anything. I wouldn't like it if you got weirded out every time I worked with plants. If you don't mind cutting me a little slack when I forget and put a hand through your arm or something, I'm sure I can get used to it. I think we'll have to travel home you're way, though. If I can't touch you, I don't think I can move you with me." She finished her wine and put away the glass, then folded the blanket and set it on top of the wicker basket.

Even as Edge answered, Wander was picking up another of the ray guns. "Let's go," she told him, jerking a thumb towards her back. "We can see if they're immune to their own weapons." When he was on board again, she leapt to the ground and sprinted for the beach, dirt and sand flying up around them as she went. His weight didn't seem to bother her or slow her at all, hardly a surprise given what she usually pressed in the gym. "Guns first if it's far away," she told him, not sounding winded by the running, "then you give me that boost again if you can, and I'll try and take it out."

Erin leapt into action as soon as the chaos abated, jumping over the sizzling wreckage of the HVAC and into the middle of the alien swarm. She took out the one that was bruised but still standing first, smashing him across the throat with the bat and sending him flying. A flick of the bat and she was jamming the end into the solar plexus of a second alien, then bringing it up to smash into his chin, dropping it as well. A quick twirl and a hard smash across the head had another one seeing stars. She took the bat in both hands to clothesline the fourth alien, making him gag and fall backwards, and then incapacitated his two stunned comrades with quick smacks across the head. With the battle over as fast as it had begun, she stood in the middle of the pile of bodies and caught her breath. For once, everything around her was still breathing as well. "You all right?" she asked Edge. "That was a good maneuver, I think you caught half of them before I got there."

First attack, with aid 33. No Power Attack or All-out, but stick raises the damage to +12. Takedown attack on second alien, no aid, full-out power and all-out attack. Defense is dropped to +5, attack is +15, damage +12. Roll is a nat 20, total 35. Takedown attack on third alien, no aid, same bonuses Another 20, total 30. Takedown attack on fourth alien, no aid, same bonuses. Total 26. Takedown on fifth alien, same bonuses. 19, but he's already laying down. Takedown on sixth alien, same bonuses. 18, these prone aliens are sneaky.

Stesha sighed, putting aside her glass. At least he wasn't like Dalkaresh, with the eyeballs poking out the back of his head and the weirdly echoey voice... he was more like a person-shaped absence of light, as though someone had taken shears and cut a gingerbread man out of reality. Not actively disturbing, but weird. Certainly not as pleasant as before, though at least it wasn't permanent. "Maybe... maybe we could do something else for a few hours?" she suggested, trying to make the best of it. "If you don't have to go off and do other things while this is fading. Maybe watch a really long movie or something? I've got some DVDs at my apartment." This sort of anticlimax wasn't exactly the finale she'd hoped for to their third date. She wished she'd kicked the Beekeeper instead of his uniform when she'd had the chance.