Electra

She nodded and took his credit card information, then got the specific address for delivery and made sure to set aside the sheet with his phone number. Stesha knew that, superhero or not, she was unlikely to ever have the courage to call, but at least it was an option. "It looks like everything's take care of. Your friend is going to be very happy with this shower, I'm sure. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

Stesha couldn't quite help blushing, the pink in her cheeks matching the daisies in her green hair. "Um, sure, that would be great," she told him. "I get off work at 5:30, so if you call after that, I can give your project my, ah, full attention." She inked her own initials on the estimate, then impulsively inked in the friends and family discount and wrote the new total at the bottom of the sheet. "Go ahead and sign there, and I'll start the ordering today."

There was nothing inappropriate in the words, but something about the way he said them made her shiver, and not in a bad way. "Every step," she promised. "You won't have to worry about a thing." She wrestled with herself a moment, then boldly took a business card from the rack on the table and jotted her cell phone number on the back. "This is my personal number," she told him, passing it over with a smile. "You can call me if you have any questions about anything." A little embarrassed by her own boldness, she quickly printed out the estimate sheet and handed it over as well. "Make sure it all looks like what you want done."

The movie star smile he turned on her was enough to have Stesha gaping for a few moments before she could gather her wits and return the smile with the best one she had. "We'll make it work," she promised him eagerly. "I know the price is steep, but we really are the best in town, and you'll get your money's worth. I wouldn't even be able to recommend another place in town to do the work at all on this sort of timetable. But I'll oversee your order myself and make sure it's perfect." She shook herself a bit, trying to stop her babbling. "Um, if you have blueprints or a diagram of the house we could work with and approximate dimensions of what you're looking for, that will help a lot."

Stesha typed notes rapidly as he spoke, pulling a calculator from her pocket and working some figures. "You're not giving us very much time," she warned him right off. "Most of the work we do comes in at least a month in advance, often as far as a year in advance, and June is, of course, our very busiest season. We're talking custom dye job, flower sculpturing, a fair amount of bouquet work, and in-house setup, while we're working you in..." She pursed her lips, did a little more math, and quoted the price they could do it at and still turn a profit. It was quite high.

"A... birth?" Stesha hesitated, looking up from the notes she was typing. "You want black roses and moonflowers for a baby shower? Are you sure?" She knew it was rude to ask, but she just couldn't help herself. It was the weirdest thing she'd heard in all her years of floristry thus far. "I mean, of course we can arrange with your caterers to take away the arrangements if you like, though most guests choose to keep them. Our arrangement fees include the cost of the glassware, so it's all yours to keep."

Stesha hesitated, but the idea of monsters had caught and held her attention. She got up off the ground and followed the slimy woman, brushing herself off as she went. "Monsters? You saw monsters? Did you fight with them?" She hesitated a little before actually stepping inside, but she was a hero now, and not constrained by small rules like not going into the homes of strange people. If worst came to worst, she could grow something to let her escape. "What kind of monster has slime like that?"

Stesha pushed herself to a sitting position, wincing at the pain in her hands, for all the skin hadn't broken. "How about 'I wasn't doing anything wrong?'" she offered. "I was just, um, doing deliveries. Plant deliveries." She nodded up at the planter on the porch. "From a secret admirer." She certainly didn't look very threatening now, with a rip in one knee of her purple leggings and her hood draped nearly over one eye. "You scared me. Why are you all slimy?"

Stesha, who had been busy curling a trail of ivy artistically off the side of the pot she'd just made, squeaked in alarm at being spotted. Jerking her head up, she saw some kind of slimy...thing shambling at her out of the darkness. Not even stopping to think, she dived off the side of the porch without looking to see what was beyond it, and wound up scraping her hands rather painfully on the concrete apron around the house. There were no plants here, nothing she could grab hold of to make her escape! She rolled to her back and peered upwards, hoping against hope that whatever it was would go away.

"Night blooming? How unusual," Stesha replied, still smiling. "I'm sure we can find something for you, if we have enough lead time. What sort of time frame and event are we looking at?" Gathering up her books and a small laptop, she stepped out from behind the counter and walked with him over to one of the small tables near the window. "Nottingham catchfly is not, I don't believe, cultivated for the flower trade, mainly because it's not very showy and some people find the smell really objectionable. I'm sure we can find other night bloomers, though, and if you're not averse to dyed flowers, we have created some really stunning black roses in the past."

"We absolutely do," Stesha confirmed warmly. "We can create floral themes and viewscapes for any occasion. We have books you can look at to get ideas, or we can work with anything you already have in mind. I'd be happy to help you with that. My name is Stesha," she added, obviously expecting that he would reciprocate with his name. As she did so, she picked up several idea books from behind the counter, stacking them up helpfully.

The inside of the shop was a little surprising to someone used to florist who dealt in, well, selling flowers. There were certainly flowers around, pots of cheerful spring blossoms, elegant roses in bud vases, bursts of stargazer lilies arranged in urns, but they weren't in coolers and it didn't look like they were actually for sale. They looked more like decorations in a very high class waiting room. As soon as he stepped to the counter, a smiling woman came out to greet him. The most noticeable thing about her was definitely her hair, which was green as a leaf in the springtime and pulled back in a bun that was ringed with pink daisies. She brought the smell of flowers with her, either as perfume or simply because she'd come from a back room where all the flowers were.

"Welcome to Flowers by Design," Stesha said cheerfully, taking him in with a look. He didn't seem like exactly the type who patronized her establishment, but she didn't like to judge. Sometimes people came in with the wrong idea, wanting to buy a vase of flowers for a girlfriend rather than all the flowers for a large wedding. But she could always steer him to the place down the street. "How can I help you?"

She stuck with the street she was already on, skulking through the shadows and keeping an eye out for trouble. As she went, she perked up windowboxes and tamed gardens, sending runners of ivy running along old banisters and through porch rails, and perking up the dying grass in the median strip. Some of the houses and apartment buildings had no flowers at all though, not so much as a planter on the porch. She decided to fix that. Even though it meant the added risk of stepping up onto porches where she might be seen, Stesha was starting to feel a little more super as the evening went on. There was no one around, after all, this late on a Monday, not in a residential neighborhood. She darted up onto porches, every other porch or every two, pausing just long enough to create a pot full of flowers, then dropped back into the darkness to sneak onward.

Despite her bold words, it took a minute for her to pry her fingers from the trunk of the tree she'd been hanging onto. It looked a little droopy, so she gave it a little boost, then the trees around it as well. Their branches straightened as they grew taller, new leaves rustling as they unfurled from nothing in mere moments. Buoyed by the reminder of what she wanted to do, she planted some flowers in rings around the trees, then moved on, satisfied that that one small patch of nature was more beautiful now.

She traced a winding path through the park, keeping out of the way of people, and leaving a trail of flowers behind her. The seeds she'd chosen for this jaunt were the hardy perennial variety, and by keeping them close to the trunks of the trees, she figured they'd be safe from the lawnmower. Digging through the seeds in her bag with the skill of practice augmented by intuition, she mixed up the heights and colors, creating a pleasantly varied look that really brightened up the otherwise sparse landscaping. It stopped looking like a half-hearted effort at a municipal green space, and more like a fairy garden. She was very pleased. In fact, she got so caught up in what she was doing, that she almost didn't notice the policeman coming till he was all but on top of her. She hit the ground with a soft thud, hiding in the shadows until he'd passed by, then dusted herself off and kept going. She'd come too far to stop with the job half-done!

When she'd made her way around the park and wound up back at the front, she decided to do something special for the entryway. Concentrating hard, she extended a hand and held it over the ground on one side of the broad sidewalk. In just a moment, dirt began to rise up, swirling like a minature tornado that thickened and widened and darkened, rather than growing larger. After a few moments, the clayish earth separated itself to the outside of the scrum, patting itself down and hardening into a red terra cotta pot, while the rest of the dirt settled inside it. Stesha pushed a dozen seeds into the soil and grew them all, filling the air with the scent of green leaves and flowers as the empty pot was suddenly filled with the color and scent of a summer meadow. She wished she could see it in the daytime, but she didn't want to be caught. Pleased with the look, she repeated it on the other side of the sidewalk, so that the park's entrance was flanked with big pots of flowers. It looked great, if she did say so herself. Turning herself all the way around once to take in her work, she headed onward, looking for more to do.

June 1, 2009 Fleur de Joie joins the roster of Freedom City super(ish)heroes. Learning Curve

Monday, June 1

11:00pm

Stesha was ready. Well, she was almost certain she was ready. The little knot of butterflies in her stomach suggested that she might not be quite ready, but she ignored them. She'd moved to Freedom City so that she could become a superhero, and she'd been piddling around long enough. Today had been a day full of mundanity, planning weddings, putting together corsages for a half-dozen proms, paying the rent and balancing her checkbook. It was time to move beyond all that and start doing something extraordinary.

She didn't really have a costume, and wasn't sure she wanted one. She definitely wouldn't look good in the spandex that other heroes tended to wear. Even though she didn't really need to eat anymore, she still did it fairly often as a recreational activity, and was displeased at the way it showed up on her hips and her bottom. So instead of the spandex, she settled on purple leggings and her favorite sweatshirt, a dark green one with a big pink daisy on the front. She thought she probably looked more like a Care Bear than Captain Thunder, but it would do. She wasn't out to let anyone see her, after all! And with the hood up, it covered her green hair, the only really remarkable part of her appearance at all. She packed up her bag, checking to make sure she had her keys, her water bottle, all the seeds she wanted, and her cell phone, set to vibrate. Her mom had the superpower to call at absolutely the most inconvenient times.

Prepared and attired, Stesha took a deep breath. "I am a superhero," she said aloud. "I am working to make the world a better place. My name is Fleur de Joie, and I am really extraordinary." With those affirmations in mind, she wrapped her fingers around the trunk of her dwarf weeping willow, and in a moment, had disappeared from her cozy apartment. When she popped out, seconds later, she was halfway across the city, standing on the edge of a park in the west end. "Okay," she whispered to herself. "Okay."

This is the OOC thread for the Learning Curve story. Please feel free to post if you'd like to drop in!

Fleur de Joie will be up for a late entry, once she's approved and gets on her feet.

Are the Claremont kids invited, or is it for grown-up heroes only?

That costs more than 5, unfortunately. Accurate is 2 pp for one normal sense, 4 pp for all under that sense type. Track, I assume is the feat? And Immunity should be formatted: Immunity 2 (suffocation, Flaw: Limited to half effect)

Okay, how about I solve both my problems in one fell swoop and lose the immunity altogether, thereby solving my point problem? =)

So for this month:

Accurate Hearing (normal only) 2

Luck 1

Tracking (the feat) 1

Benefit: Temporal Inertia 1

Ecalsneerg'd

We're pretty much done with our orientation thread now, so a power check thread would be awesome. =)

Since Erin has only been active for one in-game day, I'm focusing more on adding things that made sense for her to have originally, but that would not fit into the build. I would like to add the following feats and features for my 5 points:

Accurate Hearing (normal only) 1

Luck 1

Tracking 1

Immunity (half)(suffocation) 1

Benefit: Temporal Inertia 1

Because Erin's not from this universe, changes that are made to its timeline shouldn't affect her the way they would someone who was native to this universe.

Erin shrugged. "I was thinking about taking a walk around the grounds, but not really anything special," she told them. "I know you guys both have some unpacking to do. Maybe we could meet up later and find the cafeteria? I don't know when they've got us scheduled to get tested or classified or whatever, but I bet they have some way to find us. The campus isn't that big."

[floatr][/floatr]

Players Name: Electra

Power Level: 7 [110/110PP]

Trade-Offs: -3 Attack for +3 Damage, -3 Defense for +3 Toughness

Unspent PP: 0

Click here for PL 15 version.

Characters Name: Stesha Madison

Alternate Identity: Fleur de Joie

Height: 5'3

Weight: Curvy, just leaning toward heavy

Hair: Green

Eyes: Blue

Description: Stesha is an engaging and friendly-looking young woman, small in stature with a curvy body and five pounds she keeps meaning to take off with extra exercise. She smiles most of the time, and always smells like flowers. Her most striking feature is probably her curly green hair, which she usually keeps pinned back and decorated with seasonal flowers. Overall, she's not much of a hero archetype, but she's pretty darn cute.

History:

From the time she was a little girl, Stesha Madison loved plants. At a very early age, she put away her tea set and equipped her dolls and bears with little rakes and shovels so they could help her in the garden. It helped that she grew up in a family that was very big on gardening. Dad taught botany at the university, and Mom was a complementary medicine practitioner and midwife who grew most of her own remedies. Mom always that they met on the opposite sides of a campus protest in the sixties. It was true that they argued a lot, but in the way of people who liked to argue. Stesha's older brothers and sisters liked to argue as well, and so did she, up to a point. But mostly she liked to garden. There was always something that needed to be done, and every day brought new growth and new beauty to look at.

It was hardly a surprise, then, that Stesha followed her dad into the university, majoring in botany. She did well, devouring all the information that was presented to her, but it wasn't her cup of tea. Studying flowers and plants too hard took the magic out of it. Once you'd dissected a rose, it wasn't beautiful anymore, it was just broken and sad, no matter how much you learned. She was more interested in the joy that flowers could give. Her parents were very proud when she graduated with honors, even if her father was a little disappointed that, instead of joining her in the lab, she decided to go to work at a florist.

It wasn't just any florist shop, mind you. Chicago had some very exclusive floral boutiques, and with the contacts both her parents had, she got a job in one of the best. Soon she was doing society weddings, making bouttonires that cost more than her entire prom dress had, and putting together elaborate birthday and anniversary bouquets that would gladden the heart of anyone who saw them. It was a great life, despite the occasional Bridezilla, and she loved it. She'd have been happy to go on that way indefinitely, if everything hadn't changed in a most unexpected way.

It all started with a very unusual piece of window dressing. Even with her degree in botany, Stesha had never heard of the Fleur de Joie blossom until the day her boss brought it into the shop. A very rare, extremely exotic bloom, it flowered only once every hundred years, and this one was set to go soon. "I had to call in a hundred favors," Amy, her boss, enthused, "but this sort of opportunity comes once in a lifetime. Front row seats to history!" That was why Stesha liked Amy, they shared the same enthusiasm for plants. The Fleur de Joie was placed in the front window and monitored like an expectant mother. As its pistils swelled with the coming bloom, Amy began stationing employees to watch it at night, just to make sure they took plenty of pictures and didn't miss a thing. No one knew for sure if it was a day or evening bloomer, and they weren't about to miss out.

After a few days and nights of anxious watching, Stesha's turn came up in the rotation. She staked herself out just a few feet from the plant to make sure she would catch so much as a twitch, then started reading a catalog. A sudden motion caught her attention, and she saw a leaf begin to curl back. Eagerly, she called Amy and told her something was happening, then got ready with the digital camera. As the petals began to uncurl themselves, revealing a beautiful mother-of-pearl color the likes of which Stesha had never seen, she leaned in with the camera and began to take pictures. Suddenly, when her nose was bare inches from the flower, it released a large puff of pollen into the air, right into her face, right into her open mouth. "Yie!" she yelled, reeling backwards in surprise, trying to wipe her face. The whole room seemed to take a long, lazy twirl, and then she passed out.

She woke a few minutes later, sputtering at the glass of water Amy had upended over her head. The flower was still there, huge and immensely beautiful, and Stesha was still covered with pollen. "What happened?" Amy demanded. "Are you all right? Did you see it open?"

"Yeah," Stesha replied, dragging a sleeve across her wet, powdery face. "It was beautiful! And I think I'm allergic," she added wryly. They took hundreds more photos from every angle, and so did the newspaper, and the local news channel. It was a cute local interest story that brought publicity to the shop, just as intended. After a few days, it closed again, and Amy returned it to its owner, and things seemed to settle into their normal routine.

Only it wasn't exactly normal. Stesha started noticing that things were getting a little strange around her. Plants seemed to... respond to her in a way they hadn't before. Her African violets grew to twice their normal size in a week, and the rest of her houseplants quickly followed suit. After that, it was the potted plants in the shop. Soon, rosebuds were blooming at her touch. Something very strange had happened to her, and it all had something to do with that plant. She was afraid at first, but that passed quickly. All of her powers seemed good, seemed helpful, and they let her do what she loved better than she ever had before. She started small, learning to control the growth of plants around her, making sick ones healthier, growing seedlings into mature plants with a thought. It was cool.

As Stesha's control grew, so did her boldness in experimenting. She began to try more things, more heroic things, and found she could do a lot more than she'd thought. When she concentrated hard enough, she could sort of become one with the plants, seeing through their flowers and leaves, even traveling along their vines and coming out somewhere entirely different. (The first time she did that, she nearly wet her pants, but the fear soon passed.) She could even make first dirt, then ceramic pots full of dirt, in which to place her plants. One memorable day, she even managed to snake out a vine and trip a purse-snatcher in Grant Park, sending him flying and letting the victim reclaim her belongings. She was like a superhero! She found that she needed to eat and sleep less, and that just laying in the sun made her feel totally refreshed in ways it never had before.

It wasn't entirely without its drawbacks. One morning after an especially exciting evening of practice, Stesha woke up to find her hair had gone entirely green. Since that wasn't something she could hide, she decided to flaunt it, curling it up in a bun and sticking a wreath of flowers on it. Amy was a little skeptical, but the customers thought it was adorable, so she didn't give her any trouble. Stesha hadn't figured out a way to tell Amy about any of this. It just seemed so unbelievable. As she mastered her powers, though, the florist business began to seem very small. She still loved it, but she felt like she could do more. She wasn't up to the standards of, say, the Freedom League, but she could be a small superhero, she was certain.

Moving out of Chicago was a real leap of faith. Amy was sorry to lose her, but she gave her a great recommendation that landed her a job in downtown Freedom City at another exclusive boutique shop. Stesha took some time to settle in and get the hang of her job and her neighborhood before she tried anything else. After a few months, though, she knew she was ready. Stesha thought about donning a domino mask, but in a city full of costumes, it seemed like it might be asking for trouble. She came up with a name for herself, Fleur de Joie, after the plant that had made her and the idea she had in mind, and set out to make the world a more beautiful place.

Personality & Motivation: Happy and optimistic, Stesha firmly believes that beauty makes the world a better place, and there's no better way to express that than through green plants and flowers. She wants to spread happiness to people first and foremost, by brightening the world in which they live. And if occasionally she manages to foil a bad guy, well, that just makes her feel even more super!

Powers & Tactics: Most nights, Stesha contents herself with scattering flowers in parks, healing peoples' sick windowboxes and gardens, and putting the occasional pot of flowers on someone's doorstep. If she gets in a fight, though, she can call the plants to her defense, using them to trip, snare, and incapacitate the bad guys, hopefully before they can hurt her. She has nascent earth control powers along with her plant control, but she hasn't explored them to anywhere near the extent she has with the plants. Right now, all she can do is create flowerpots, but that may change in the future

Complications:

Compassion: Stesha will safeguard all lives, even those of villains, whenever possible.

Day Job: Stesha works 9-5 and weekends as a florist's assistant at an exclusive boutique. They do not know about her extracurriculars, and would not be happy if they did. She cant' afford to lose her job.

Interfering Family: Stesha has a big extended family, mom, dad, four siblings, grandparents, and many, many aunts, uncles and cousins. They sometimes come visit this neck of the woods, and they do not know about Stesha's double life.

Responsibility: Helping her new friends Divine, Dark Star and Phantom if they ask

Phobia: Jack Faretti. Whenever he's anywhere she is, she wants to leave immediately. This raises problems in "ally of my ally" situations.

Abilities (2+0+10+2+2+2=18pp)

Str: 12 (+1)

Dex: 10 (+0)

Con: 20 (+5)

Int: 12 (+1)

Wis: 12 (+1)

Cha: 12 (+1)

Combat: (8+8=16 pp)

Attack +4

Grapple +5

Defense +4 (+2 flat footed)

Knockback -4

Initiative +0

Saves (1+3+3=7 pp)

Toughness +10 (+5 Con, +5 Protection)

Fortitude +6 (+5 Con, +1)

Reflex +3 (+0 Dex, +3)

Will +4 (+1 Wis, +3)

Skills: 56r = 14pp

Bluff 8 (+8/+12)

Knowledge (Life Sciences) 8 (+9)

Notice 12 (+13)

Profession (florist) 8 (+10)

Search 4 (+5)

Sense Motive 8 (+9)

Stealth 8 (+8)

Feats: (3 pp)

Attractive (cute)

Luck

Skill Mastery (Knowledge: Life Sciences, Notice, Profession: Florist, Stealth)

Powers: 2+0+2+5+6+3+5+31 = 54 pp

Feature 2 (Can instantly differentiate between types of seeds; Can shape earth into pots filled with fresh soil) [2pp]

Feature 1 (Can breathe C02) [0pp]

Immunity 3 (need for sleep, food, water, Suffocation in C02 Environment (usable by others)) [2pp]

Protection 5 [5 pp]

Regeneration 10 (+4 recovery bonus, bruised/unconscious 1/round, injured/staggered 1/20 minutes, disabled 1/hour; Power Feats: Regrowth; Flaws: Source [sunlight]) [6 pp]

Earth Control 1 (PF: Subtle) [3pp]

Immortality (Immunity to poison, disease and aging; True Resurrection 1/day) [5pp]

Snare 10 (entangling vines; PFs: Indirect 2, Alternate Power 9) [31pp]

AP: Corrosion 6 (Extra: Duration/Sustained; Flaw: Limited/Plant Material; PF: Incurable, Precise)

AP: Dimensional Pocket 2 (Extras: Duration 3/Continuous, Range/Ranged; PFs: Progression 9 [50,000lbs])

AP: ESP 4 (one mile, sight and hearing; Extras: Action/free action, No Conduit, Simultaneous; Flaw: Medium/Plants)

AP: Growth 10 (Extra: Affects Others; Flaw: Limited/Plants)

AP: Healing 10 (Extras: Area/Burst, Total; Flaw: Plants only (-2); PFs: Regrowth, Stabilize)

AP: Healing 10 (Extras: Persistent, Action/Standard, Total; Flaws: Distracting, Unreliable/5 uses)

AP: Move Object 8 (effective Str 40; PFs: Precise, Indirect 3, Accurate)

AP: Stun 10 (pollen burst; Extras: Range/Ranged, Sleep; Flaw: Action/Full)

AP: Teleport 8 (800 feet/2,000 miles; Extra: Accurate; Flaw: Medium/Plants; PFs: Progression 4 [2,500 lbs])

Drawbacks: 2pp

Power Loss, uncommon, minor: (-1pp)

Having her hair cut to a length of less than six average inches (shave head, chop off braid, stylish summer cut) will remove her ability to photosynthesize (immunity to starvation and thirst, immunity to sleep) and regenerate until it regrows. Regrowing to useful length takes 72 hours, including 24 total hours of sleep if hair is partially removed, or 168 hours with 56 hours of sleep if totally shaved. Without sufficient rest, growth will be delayed.

Weakness, uncommon, minor: (-1pp)

The last six inches of Stesha's hair are dead and inactive cells, like normal hair, and can be trimmed normally. The rest of her hair is much more alive than normal hair, and hurts if it is damaged. Cutting or burning her hair invokes toughness saves as though her body had been attacked.

DC Block:

Type -- DC -- Effect

Unarmed --- DC 17/Toughness --- Bruised

Corrosion -- DC 16/Fort, then 21/Toughness -- Toughness Drain, then Damage

Snare --- DC 20/Ref --- Snared

Stun --- DC 20/Fort --- Dazed/Stunned

Costs: Abilities (18) + Combat (16) + Saves (7) + Skills (14) + Feats (3) + Powers (54) - Drawbacks (02) = Total Cost 110/110

"That's probably lucky," Erin replied to Alex as she stepped up for her own fitting, "if you don't ruin your own clothes, maybe you won't need to wear the uniform as often." She endured her own fitting stoically, then managed a nice smile for the camera. She jotted a few notes on her orientation packet as she went, noting down windows and exits in the buildings they explored, just to be on the safe side.