That's not a cost, come the first, second, and third thoughts of Diana Alicia Vaudelle, but if I mention that, will this person find another to inflict just for the balance?  Best not to risk it.

"If the cost is being of a feminine persuasion, that's a price I am more than willing to pay, for the ability to transcend mundane existence."

"Ahahah. Naturally." There's an impression of an impish grin. "Too much of any one thing is so very... Well, boring, isn't it? Go back to dreaming, dear, you'll see the results come morn."

She can't wait.

...What does she find in the mirror, come morning?

Well, herself.

But there's a new string of attention. A feeling. A hint. A suggestion. It almost seems like a character-picker from a game, or a row of figurines. Plenty of room for lots of options, but for now- Only one available. It feels... Pink? Yeah. Calm, caring, pink.

Interesting.  How very interesting, that this even comes with the promise of more.

Nothing left to do but -

...She pulls on the string..

It takes about two seconds. She changes. Slimmer, longer legs, narrower waist, breasts, tanned skin, pink hair in a cutely slightly-disheveled arrangement that threatens to cover one eye. Heart-shaped face.

And gossamer-pink butterfly wings spread out behind her.

And, in her hands, a pink-and-white metal bow with a string made of light, full of heart motifs, and a quiver full of arrows in six colors.

...Holy fuck she's hot.

And cute too.

And she got taller?!  She was already incredibly tall!

Not to mention the breasts.  They're very nice breasts and apparently they're all hers now.  Gods, this is such a way and she never wants to stop.

Dear gods, who does she need to thank for this?

...Though she does hope she can get the hair to be a little more neat, just to make sure none of it gets in her eyes when she's using this fancy! magic! bow!!!! - How on earth is that going to work, anyway?  Does it have some sort of magical simulacrum of draw-weight?  Is it, like, somehow just Magic enough that the string doesn't need to be capable of behaving like a typical bowstring?  She doesn't have all that much practical experience with archery, but she knows enough of the theory to have some ideas - come to think of it, she should take a look at the arrows, and also, like, at herself, see if there's any new weird instincts or senses or something, she's getting this feeling that she maybe should have some sort of sense for something now even if it's just some sense for Her Stuff, from the part of her brain that has her genre savvy locked in - speaking of which, ah, can she fold those pretty wings away all neatly for right now?  And what happens if she tries - incredibly reluctantly, but it's necessary to know even if she's going to hate every minute stuck inside that other shape - to de-transform, if she's set the bow down somewhere?  What about the arrows and the quiver?

And, hm, when she does transform back - with almost a desperation to her, if she's honest with herself -

...Okay, no, she's not actually going to successfully pull off only halfway transforming even if it is possible, which she doesn't even know, when she's too busy feeling the weight on her chest take weight off her chest.  Not to mention the sheer rush of energy in her veins.  She wants to do a flip.  She hasn't done anything remotely like gymnastics since the age of five, but she wants to do a flip.  ..She's going to do it somewhere there are less hard surfaces.  Bashing her head open would be stupid.  And she might be positively manic right now - but she's not gonna do something quite that stupid.

...Also she does want to investigate the arrows in more details - the colors probably have meanings, or they'd just be generic arrows.  Can she summon a generic magical arrow?

She cannot transform back right now. There's a sense of a burning wick or a cooldown bar. Feels like a long one. Twenty minutes? Thirty? Ish?

It has a magical simulation of draw weight! The arrows are also magic! Green feels helpful. Black and red feel dangerous but there's a distinct sense that they're not deadly. Gold and white and blue don't feel like anything. She can summon a generic magic arrow. It's pink, and it feels a little bit draining, like dashing up a flight of stairs.

It's very easy when thinking about flips and acrobatics to accidentally start hovering with a slight tingling of her pink fairy wings. It's no more effortful than standing.

"...Huh.  That's odd.  Why is there a timer?  Real life isn't supposed to have game mechanics, but then this whole thing..."  She really wants to figure out what on earth - or rather what not on earth - is going on with that, but that's going in the 'for later' pile by sheer dint of not having the tools she needs to build the tools she'd need to observe the inner workings of the tools she has.

"Really, knowing all that, I kind of expect that's the catch and I got fairy-truthed a bit.  Being a pawn in someone else's Great Game...Pfah.  Still...  It's power, it's leverage.  Maybe flipping the table's still in the cards if I need it..."

...That's odd, what her instincts are saying about the arrows not being deadly.  She's going to just sort of flick that pink arrow she just made at a convenient tree stump.  Not really trying to get it to sink in or anything, just loosing it from the bow with enough pull to get it loose from the bow - she double-checks with The Internet that she knows the right way to hold it - well, okay, first, she needs to have pants on.  And a shirt.  She might be in absolute awe of the sight of her present anatomy, but that's no reason for her to show it off to all and sundry.  All and sundry would probably be more scandalized by it than she'd like.  ...Shit, how is she going to make clothes work with the wings?  That's going to be annoying.  Maybe if - well, at the moment, all she can think to do is improvise, unless she has magical cloth-conjuring powers to go with her magical arrow-conjuring powers.

No?

She figured as much.  Dammit, she didn't exactly have any incredibly low-back blouses lying around in case of sudden gender acquisition!  Not to mention the -

...Are these wings as fragile as they look?  To be clear, she's not going to just randomly engage in destructive testing, but surely she has some instincts on the matter to consult.  And maybe then that would allow her to know whether it's safe to stuff them into the back of a shirt.  ...She could probably cut a t-shirt open if she needed to, she has a couple of those and it's not like she's worn them for anything else whatsoever...

Her wings will be fine in a shirt. But maybe not fine under any treatment much rougher than that. They're very soft, and a little tickle-y on her skin. Covered in tiny little hairs.

...Right, that she is going to need to fix before someone takes advantage of the giant pink weakpoint.  Magical healing - and she does expect that that's what she has with the green ones, even if she's not sure what's up with the other flavors yet - is the kind of thing that absolutely gets you kidnapped by supervillains.

...Shit, is she actually at risk of that?  This isn't that one incredibly depressing web serial, she would have already been kidnapped-and-or-pressganged if that was the case, but - the news has been reporting on superheroes and supervillains starting to make their debuts.

Fuck.  Maybe having encountered this problem before outsideness happened was the best of all possible options.  ...Uh.  Internet, what've you got for her on the general state of societal handling of newly emergent powers?  Let her just...bounce that through a proxy server first, actually.  Couldn't possibly fool the NSA, but they're not looking for her, yet at least.  It'll do.  And she rather expects they won't bother or need to bother anyway, it's not like she's going to be quiet about attempting to do good in ways that are not, in fact, 'beat people up', and that's going to narrow down her location rather severely just by dint of who she's working with and how she could have gotten there.  So it's rather kind of pointless in a sense to bother obscuring.  Still, though.  She does actually want to do the search, rather than get caught up in thinking about whether and how she should search.

Barack Obama has asked supers to please be good. A bunch of states declared that super-powered vigilantism is still vigilantism and will be punished if they catch you. Heroes mostly ignore this. Villains definitely ignore this. Lots of people on the internet LOVE the heroes. A few heroes are openly working with or for the government. Or big corporations, like Everyman, the shapeshifter. But a lot are more secretive about it. Villains mostly seem to be in it for cash or glory, with a few ideological nutjobs thrown in for good measure. There seems to be a general wink-wink-nudge-nudge Unwritten Rules thing going on? But, like, superpowers started showing up just three or four years ago. Honestly, legislation about supers is still being churned through the US legislation. Nobody really knows what to do about supers besides try to shove them into the normal justice system. Badly. About the highest power levels out there are Stella Sky, who built a space shuttle in her garage, or some guy with over the top theming going by 'Chronos' who can give himself and his buddies Haste, more or less, and wins fights via action economy.

There are ALSO, lower profile but there if you're willing to look, a lot of super-powered individuals who don't play the cape game. They're just less news-grabbing. Speedster working his mail route. A pyrokinetic who runs a bakery and a YouTube channel. A super pornstar called Salem who has only ever Done a Crime Fighting, like, twice. And more.

Yeah, she'd rather stay out of the heroing business even if she wants to help people with her new superpowers.  Picking fights for the sake of picking fights is stupid.  ...Not that she expects she'll get to stay so low-profile as all that, given, healer, but.

...Also Stella Sky seems really awesome.  She wants to meet them sometime.  Building a space shuttle in your garage is such unmitigated bullshit.

...This "Everyman" fellow...  Honestly, she's pretty sure she'd rather have him working with corporations, given he's open about it - and that's not a sentence she'd ever thought she'd say - but she would be absolutely terrified of the possibility of his existence in a government position given just how badly any given government would muck up the capability to assassinate anyone and pin it on everyone else.

...Really, she still is terrified of that, just slightly less so given there's at least one person who does not appear to be being buried in the black budget for this purpose.

And of course vigilantism is vigilantism.  ...Man, where's WWE in all this?  They should be on this shit like white on rice.  Anywho.  Uh.  ...Well, while she's letting the idea of writing Stella an email percolate, and letting the idea of emailing the local prestigious hospital to see if they've got anything put together to solve the problem of figuring out the extent of her ability to heal, assuming she has one...

...She rather still does need new shirts.

Order some of those, goddammit she does need them delivered ASAP - gotta let the wings out - so she's going to have to pay for the fancy shippping...  She's kind of glad that the other occupant of this house is on vacation right now.  Gives her time to get things in order before their return.

...Oh right, she was wondering if anybody was talking about their trigger events.

...Well, no, these aren't trigger events qua trigger events, but still.  Has anyone talked about the experience of being given powers or acquiring powers?  She needs to find something and write down what she remembers of the person responsible for hers.  Strange, that the memory is so crystal-clear still, but she will neither look the gift horse in the mouth nor bring it inside the walls of Troy.  And with that done, she's going to write that letter to Stella Sky she was contemplating.

Dear Ms.? Stella Sky,

I have recently come into possession of... a gadget, that I am interested in hopefully reverse-engineering in some way, or at least coming to any understanding of why it functions rather than merely knowing the basest details of how it must function given what little capability I have to even properly experiment therewith myself.

I do not know if your abilities lend themselves to this purpose, but as your name has become a byword for Tinkers entire, what with the space shuttle - which is really dang cool by the way - I can but hope you might be amenable to such a thing, or if not, knowledgeable as to who might be.  If this even gets through the filters that you presumably have these days.  I imagine you get messages like this rather a lot, and most of them are cranks going on about microchips in vaccines rather than, exempli gratia, magical bow and arrow.

I hope this message finds you well.

Sincerely,

--@StellarCupidity

P.S. I...ah, hope that I have not offended with the choice of pseudonym; it rather jumped out at me and refused to let go.

(This is, of course, a completely fresh account.)

And now...

Ugh, she should probably call the hospital front desk or something.  She rather suspects that the email will get circular filed if she tries sending it sight unseen.  But that then runs risks of its own like "some asshat deciding she's just delusional and siccing the cops on her via a phone trace or something", which...She is really not prepared to deal with right now.  So maybe it's better that she just send the email.

To Whom It May Concern,

I am hoping that there has been some thought given to supernal abilities and the medical consequences thereof within your hallowed halls, because I have recently come into some that may have medical function, and am hoping that some guidance exists on the matter instead of just having to hope that I will not by attempting to heal someone instead subject them to turbocancer.  If no such protocols exist as of yet, I would be glad to assist in developing them, if such assistance is needed?  I've no formal training in medicine, but I might hope I am at least well-read enough from experiences on the patient side of things that I might have a hope of keeping up with the broad strokes.  Not to mention that there are things I know I do not know about my own capabilities, and do not have methods I believe are safe to discover without support I do not yet have, that would likely benefit from professional insight.

Sincerely,

-- 

...Oh, hell, she's going to need a proper persona for this... ...whatever this is....

Right now, though, she's just...going to politely elide over that question by not signing a name to the email.

...I hope this message finds you well, whosoever eventually receives it, and look forward to hearing from you, at your convenience.

She gets a reply instantly from Stella Sky's account.

Hello StellarCupidity,

This is an automated response system.

I understood that you say you have an object that you imply was created by or has something to do with superpowers. If you would be so kind, please reply to this message with photos and/or videos of the object that demonstrate this. More is better, as they can be analyzed for consistency to reduce the probability of this being a hoax.

I also understood from context that the object is a weapon. Please be cautious with unknown weapons! Do not attempt to fire it if you are uncertain how it operates. If you feel unsafe, please avoid conflict and call 911 or other emergency responders.

AutoResponder

....Holy shit that just beat everything in the field of computer intelligence's pants off if it worked like she thinks it might've.  Watson, eat your heart out.  (She still vividly remembers the time it played Jeopardy and got a very human-obvious "Who is Voldemort" confused with the protagonist of that series instead.)

Of course.  ...Also, uh, holy shit, I don't know how much of this could have been just simple keyword search, but if the automated response was generated in the way it is implied to have been generated, which is to say, presumably Ms. Sky having actually taught or caused to be encoded English as more than a series of X-follows-Y associations but instead a fully realized model of meaning, and you do not already have the entire field of computer science beating down your door to give you, like, the Millennium Prize or something (n.b. I don't think it's actually the Millennium Prize, I'm pretty sure that's pure math, but, like, something of equivalent prestige would well be warranted if the process can be replicated by mundane means), you should know that nobody knows how to instruct a computer program how to do that under normal conditions and, er, also, hi, Autoresponder, thank you for your promptness!  Because I'm pretty certain that that sort of self-reflective capability to understand and reason is what makes a person so I'm going to err on the side of caution, aheh.

She can get some pictures.  Maybe even a video of making an arrow, if she can do that without flashing the camera.  (And certainly of her pulling the string, both with a hand and with, like, a mechanical grabber.)

So here's some data.  ...My apologies for some of the awkward camera work, but I haven't yet had time to acquire something that would be suitable to cover all of what needs covering while not itself posing an unfortunate obstacle to safety or comfort, and didn't have anything i could make suffice on short notice.

This one takes slightly longer. A few minutes.

Hello StellarCupidity,

This is an automated response system.

I understood that you are impressed/shocked by the capability of the AutoResponder system. Please note that I am not fully reliable, which is why I clearly state what I understood from your message. If I seem to be confused, you should rephrase your reply.

I understand that you think AutoResponder may be a person. Thank you for your concern, but this is not the case. I am a proprietary computer program developed by Stella Sky. I am only capable of simple responses and am incapable of higher thought.

I have received (17) images and (3) video files. I think they show [Pink Bow and Arrows]. Thank you! I will forward these to Stella Sky for analysis.

AutoResponder

....Well.  Thank you, nonetheless.

Hokay.  Can she figure anything out about these arrows while she's waiting for her package to arrive?  Like, in 'poking them with magic and seeing what happens' ways, or any other ways that might reveal themselves to have poking enabled.

Gold and black feel a little similar. Emotional? Red and blue and green feel a little similar. Immaterial? White feels... Heavy?

And Pink, for comparison?

Pink doesn't really feel like anything in particular.

Great, that's totally helpful, thanks, magic,

...Say, if she has a pink arrow, and other examples - could she change the pink arrow to be a different color?  And can she do...She doesn't know, a controlled detonation of just the arrow without shooting it at somebody?

Changing colors........ No? Making a pink arrow feels like a primitive action, kind of like breathing out really hard, and there aren't a lot of ways to do that differently.

If she intends to set a pink arrow off too hard, it will explode into pink light in her hands! The wash of light leaves her a bit stunned. It's not painful, and it's even kind of pleasant in a warm-tingly way, but mostly it just really seems like doing anything would be really hard right now. It would be really lovely to just stand there instead.

It fades after about thirty seconds.

"...the hell kind of executive-dysfunction-ass effect is that," she mutters, frustratedly.  She hadn't actually been intending to set it off in her face.  "...Well, at least I have a good fuck you to people with big red buttons.  And holy hell this should have pinged the emotion signal, for fuck's sake...  I guess that means that the magnitude of the effect is therefore that much greater in the case of black and gold....  But then there's...Huh.  What could it be?  "

...There are like half a bajillion different ways to breathe out really hard, she might never have done much herself but there's a whole family of wind instruments - but she was thinking more about using an existing pink arrow as a vessel for further empowerment, not - creating a further-empowered arrow directly by the same means.  She's not sure how they work but she's sure there's going to be a method, considering it would be poor game balance if she only ever got so many arrows of those colors ever.

...Here, hold on a second, these bits don't make sense -

...Well, maybe they do if they - but then - how?

What the hell are these things supposed to be doing?

...Alright.  So.  Rebasing the value of 0 to pink...

Maybe the danger-signal arrows are nociceptive?  Or - but then why would - oh, but hm, black has the emotional bit set, and if 'emotional' therefore has something to do with amplifying the stunning effect -

--

If she has magic horny powers she is going to have to email Salem.

...But then what's gold, if black is possibly "incredibly disastrous amounts of arousal"?

What does it play up relative to -

- and is red simply pure nociception?  Yikes.

- But really, what is gold?

...She supposes the answer is kind of obvious, given the givens, and especially looking at the cultural associations that could be in play - it's magic, after all.

Also looking at the emotive-tactile experience of the pink one detonating, since it already had quite a bit of what she suspects might be in the gold, hidden beneath or within the fuzzy nature of the fuckery around executive action.

...This is going to be an interesting powerset, that's for sure.

She needs another space on the table for what she expects the arrows to be, doesn't she.

...Hm.  She wants to take a closer look at White, actually and see if it has, like, less emotion than pink, comparatively.

And she has this funny feeling that blue's actually sleep, but no solid reason why besides the utter vibes of it.

White does seem to have less emotion than pink. Actually, so do red, blue, and green. It's almost like Pink's emotion signal is, like, 0.1.

Interesting.  And explanatory of much - she's a lot more confident in her read of red, black, and blue, knowing that - as well as white, obviously.  From the fact that these are arrows, that these are weaponry in general --

That is what has her suspecting that the white is a physical sort of restraint, from the principles established by pink acting as executive restraint.

...Mm.  She could be incredibly force-multiplied by Chronos.

Anywho, she never really did finish that deep dive into Capes Lore Tee Emm - has anybody been talking about their trigger events?

And she should proooobably update Ms. Sky on the actual effects of Pink Arrow.

After what I am going to call an 'oops' moment, I would like to inform you that I now have some idea of what the arrows that came with this bow actually do do, if that is of interest.

Hey this is Stella, not my bot. You managed to say enough concerning things to bounce up to the top of the list, congrats.

That's definitely either a superpower-weapon of some kind or someone went to a LOT of video editing effort to fool me about it. 

When you say you 'came into possession of' this thing, it's actually important whether you found it somewhere, or you took it from somewhere. If it appeared for you, for example in your room or in your hands, it's likely that you've gained superpowers, and the bow is part of them. In this case it's probably safe for you to handle them. Almost all powers seem to come with built in safeties for their users. If you found it on the street or in storage somewhere or anywhere else, it's probably someone else's tinkertech and there will be no such protections and your little 'oops' could mean you need to run to the hospital now in case something subtle is wrong. If that's an actual risk, I'd advise you to get it checked out. Secrecy is not worth your life in my opinion.

Also, good on you for taking basic cyber-sanitation. All I found in thirty seconds was your VPN. I won't say it's definitely necessary, but better to have and not need than need and not have.

-SSky

On the one hand wow it's really cool to be talking to you, on the other hand ouch I wish it was for a less That sort of reason!

I did not find the magical artifact on the side of the road, no.  It's mine.  Or it was at least given to me as part of the same coherent powerset, with the arrows.  Goodness knows that I've not the slightest clue if someone made it, as a separate invention, prior to it ending up in my hands, which is honestly one of the things that has bemused me the most about the contrast in what I instinctively expect our respective situations to be.  Like.  You're a Tinker, not a thaumaturgical engineer (Right?).  And then over here I'm getting a magical bow handed to me in my dreams because of reasons.  Which said reasons seem to have mostly been 'for shits and giggles' as best as my limited ability to analyze whatever the fuck that was, suggest.  ...Really, though, there's a lot of things about this that have me scratching my head.

You had a power dream? That's uncommon.

It's sounding like we should maybe talk in person. I'd be up for a few hours of advising and helping you figure your powers out in exchange for scans of it in use.

Yeah, and I still remember it while I'm awake and thinking, which is even weirder than usual for my dreams.  They usually drop out of cache rather quickly, though there's clearly some underlying memory of them given that I have on occasion remembered the future events of a past dream that's being repeated in the now, while I was dreaming - utterly trippy and mostly useless because they never do like attempts to throw them off the rails, but still, an interesting bit of neurology or something.

I'd be quite glad to let you take a look at some of this stuff - if it's possible to crack the thing that I'm pretty sure is straight-up healing into something someone could automate production and perhaps even distribution of, then I have already accomplished a lot of what I hope to achieve with my life.  Bonus points for creating some sort of photo negative of the executive dysfunction arrow, while I'm at it, because dear gods executive dysfunction is absolutely the most awful thing ever.  (This being the one that got 'oops'ed.)

...Though I will admit to some amount of hubristic desire to attempt to crack open the underlying mechanisms of powers qua powers.  There's some things I've already found digging around in the backend that already suggest rather a few interesting implications of future possibilities.

...I wouldn't want to say more on an unsecured line, so, yeah, uh, we probably should meet.  I don't know if I'd know where you work from, these days?  Like obviously the space shuttle in your garage mentioned your garage but if I were you I would have absolutely moved so people stopped trampling down my door about it.

Figuring out powers hasn't really worked so far but I think it's early days yet. It would certainly be the most important modern discovery. I can at the very least help quantify your healing. If it really is healing. I hope you haven't tested it on anyone, least of all yourself.

I'm pretty private and cagy about my actual powers and operations, for bigger fish reasons. I can send you a VTOL jet tho. Same tech as the shuttle believe it or not! I do also realize you don't have THAT much reason to trust me, positive reputation or not. So feel free to suggest precautions.

Goodness, no, I am not that reckless, to test healing I don't know what it even does, on anybody, least of all myself, outside of direly exigent circumstances.  I actually also asked a certain local internationally renowned hospital if they had their own two cents to chip in about the appropriate procedures there, though they clearly don't have your autoresponder, and do have much more bureaucracy, so I haven't heard back from them yet.

Incidentally, by the time we we meet, I'm probably going to have completely forgotten this thought I just had, so I hope you don't mind if I mention that the thought crossed my mind that given certain aspects of the framework under which I believe these arrows may be constructed, there may be multiple pure-ish sources of something that would not otherwise be readily apparent - though, it's equally possible that the visual effects of production choices are purely cosmetic, or that the almost synesthetic pinkness that's part of the 'baseline' is just its own thing...But I do wonder if it could hold true on a wider scale.  ...I suppose I should see if I can make an arrow that comes in 'translucent' the same way the default is pink...

...Okay, I really hope you don't mind me rambling a bit, that sounds kind of absolutely fuckin' nuts when I read it back, especially with the layer of indirection I slapped on, but it does, like, actually contain a thought or two that I want to poke at with, like, better sensors and all that jazz.

...The dramatic irony of your choice of idiom with which to reference opsec sure is dramatic, especially since from my perspective you're the biggest fish in the whole dang pond.  But I do get that you would rather not get caught up in any Grand Games that may be afoot - and neither would I, really, despite my suspicions that this whole thing is one.  So I'd rather follow your lead on actual precautions, because it's not like I understand the threat surface better than you.

Though I suppose there are some modest subterfuges it could be useful to pull, with the local geography and points of interest known to me - like, if you already hang around at JPL I could probably show up - and it's not like I actually have room for a wholeass VTOL in my back yard at the moment!  Or ever, considering that it's a pretty steep hill right into a cul-de-sac.

My VTOLs fit in a driveway and can land on 30 degree slopes. Kind of have to if I want them to replace cars for me! And I suppose I am a pretty big fish in the super pond, but I'm also one of the most visible. There are certainly some who are hiding their existence or ill intentions well, and some of those might be dangerous.

I'm not at all sure what your musings on color have to do with anything. Anything sensitive about your power should wait for a lab visit. 

I wouldn't expect an American hospital to respond quickly, no. By the way, I hope you don't mind the use of lab rats. (For what it's worth, I think 'induced executive dysfunction' is actually a very interesting concept for nonlethal takedowns. Drugs and restraints can both be very dangerous.)

> Drugs and restraints can both be very dangerous

Don't I fucking know it; I've read the literature on that one - thank goodness I've never been on the receiving end of it myself - and it is not pretty.  And yeah, sensitive information is sensitive, I just want to make sure I can pick up my train of thought, so it's good to know the layer of obfuscation worked!  ;P

But anyway, the thing I was hoping to elide over is that your VTOL landing at my house would be, uh, the death of any privacy I could possibly hope to have.  So I figure maybe I could meet it at the airport or something. (Which airport, I'll tell you when we're down to the brass tacks phase, but right now it's a bit premature.)  It's not that much additional travel for me, and I say that as a horrible NEET.

Something came up. Villain.

Negotiate with the bot plz

Bye

Best of luck.  Stay safe out there.

And she can hammer out the details with the Autoresponder, presumably.  Belying its so-called simple responses, if she says so herself, but she supposes she's no way of proving one way or the other short of seeing if her magic affects the computer.  And even then, it could be her own subconscious pressuring her powers, so who knows?

Still, she can't help but think of Person of Interest, for some reason.

(Well.  Because Person of Interest is really fucking cool and also good commentary on the surveillance state and AI risk in practice instead of in Yudkowskian xrisk theory (Hello, Samaritan, yes, she does mean you.).  But also because it's vaguely relevant.  And the music's pretty awesome.)

(...She wonders if Stella's watched it at all.)

Anyway.  She's going to distract herself by seeing if she can a) hover and b) infuse arrows with powers that aren't the ones she natively started with - can she make a levitation arrow, since she can levitate?

AutoResponder will negotiate logistics all day.

She can hover and float slowly in any direction. She can't make any new kinds of arrows. She does get a sense that the colored ones will come back over time.

"...Well fuck you too, magic powers, I want to make cool and new magic arrows."  Can she make a magicless arrow?

This fails to work. 

God.  Dammit.  This should work.  But it doesn't.  Presumably for, fucking, balance reasons or some shit.  She bets she can't even change the ratio of arrows she gets despite the fact that there's no fucking way she's gonna go through nociception arrows as much as she goes through healing ones.  Right, magic?

Grumble grumble.

Anywho.  Other tests: are the arrows, like, sharp at all, or are they just arrow-shaped?

The tips are sharp. Mysterious insight informs her that if they pierce flesh, the effect goes into one person. If they shatter, it splashes. 

The power goes out.

"...Well, fuck.  That ain't good.  And I'm near a fucking trunk line so something's really fucked."

Cell phone?  Local news radio?  What've you got for her?  Fuck, is this Stella's villain nonsense?

EAS comes on, on her phone. Major power outage across the region. More details forthcoming. Please remain calm. 

Gre-aaaat.

Shit, is this power outage that just hit me and half the state your villain?  I'm not sure what I can do but if you need my help you have it.

AutoResponder

Stella Sky is currently coordinating a battle against a highly dangerous individual in downtown Baltimore. Do not approach, for your own safety.

If you wish to help with search and rescue related to the power outage, I am programmed to assist with that.

Bloody fuck, it is.  I'm like thirty minutes out of the way under normal travel conditions - near the airport - but obviously nothing about this situation is normal; can give her some arrows if she wants them, tentatively as follows -

Pink, "executive dysfunction", sort of tingly lassitude feeling, available in bulk - other stocks are like, two of them regenning slowly.

Green - healing, obviously still untested

Red - I think they're nociception

Blue - I think this one is sleep

White - I'm pretty sure this conjures something, and based on the general theme I bet it's, like, bindings of some sort.

Black - Lust, for some reason.  I'm like 90% sure of that.

Gold - My best hypothesis here is, like, the bit of my power that does the fuzzy pink feeling, turned up to eleven, and then you XOR the lust out of it.  Heavily emotion-affecting.

Piercing the skin will, according to power instincts, deliver the full effect to a single individual, but they can and will flashbang areas with their effects too.  And I think I might be able to remote detonate them but I have not tested this.

Otherwise I do have what I'm pretty sure is human-speed vector-thrust flight incl. hovering, and also probably some peak-human muscles, so that might be useful S&R-wise.

Right.  She's going to get a damn shirt on.  This is going to fucking suck but if she can help then she will help.

Sending drone. Red, blue, black (disrraction). Won't use unless we have to but options r God.

Pay u l8r

You're saving my ass, don't worry about debt.  I'm the one with the pink butterfly wings.

She's going to spend the rest of the time until the drone gets here either churning out pink arrows - and hopefully seeing if she can remote-detonate them, she has enough spare to waste one testing - or seeing if she can make even one extra of the good shit.

Focusing on 'the good shit' is HARD and drains some sort of vitality but it appears to be working. She can feel a new arrow slowly forming.

Ok things are stable

Guy is an electricity eater, I'm the one who tripped the grid

He's hiding rn and we let him so we can gather forces

I see you, drone coming 3 mins

Ah, bloody hell, electrivore powers are OP against modern society.

...She's not casting from HP, she hopes?  Er, well, more like "not risking soul damage", she has no idea if there's HP/MP here - just - working on a higher level of exertion than the pinks?

It doesn't feel like she's hurting herself. It feels like she might suddenly untransform if she pushes too hard.

Ugh, that's gonna be annoying.  She's not going to push transform-breakingly hard, but this is kind of an emergency so she's willing to push close to it.  Fucking game balance.

She can manage one whole extra special arrow by the time a person-sized sleek and quiet arrow shaped attqck drone looking thing zips up next to her at alarming speed, and opens a side door.

"Thanks for the contribution, hon." Stella's voice comes from a speaker and is recognizable from TV, a southern drawl. "This big fish, we're just lucky he's a brash idiot."

"Least I could do."  The arrows get bundled off.  "If I won't help with problems in my own backyard I have no business believing I can be of any use helping with the world's problems."

"Sorry your first day knowing me is like this. I don't actually like bein' one of the only ones who can deal with it, but this is the world we live in. Talk later."

Attack Drone accepts the bundle and zoops off, again Very Fast.

"Shit happens, we all make do.  I'm just glad to meet you.  Be safe."

And then: zoop.

Alright.  Now that that's as sorted as she's going to get it, she needs to test her lift capacity, if she actually intends to help with S&R.  Which she does so intend.  ...Now how is she going to do that, though?  Ugh, this is going to be annoying.  She doesn't have any convenient large rocks.  Or even any actual weights.

There doesn't seem to be much going wrong in the immediate area. No fires, no car wrecks that she can see just glancing around from the sky. There's still cars on the road, lots of them. There's some ambulance and fire truck sirens echoing in the early afternoon sun.

Oh, sure.  But she's going to be making a trip to Baltimore soonest once it's no longer an active fight scene, because she bets something's gotten wrecked there by now.

It turns out that she can't really lift much weight before floating around becomes untenable. Thirty, forty pounds or so.

The damage is, apparently, contained. The power has come back on by now. A few buildings have holes and broken glass, near the downtown area. A couple of fires which are, even now, being fought. The worst off area is a big parking garage. A couple of water mains are busted and spraying, and part of a road is collapsed.

...Well, that's better than she expected, given everything.  ...Huh, she could sweep up broken glass without having to risk sticking her feet in it, that's a neat trick.  Probably not needful, but who knows.  And if the fires are bad enough and fire department wants her help getting the hose aimed somewhere specific faster than the ladder trucks can swing around, she could probably help with that, too, she doesn't think it's over her weight limit to haul a hose even with how heavy firefighting gear gets....  Damn, though, she needs at least enough flight to carry another person, magic, come on, stop being so stingy.

Ironic that on the one hand there's fires over here and too much water over there -  a shame they can't just cancel out like a math equation.

...Any sign of Stella, incidentally?  She rather expects not; squishy Tinkers do not get into the fight directly, surely.  But she knows she'd have trouble staying too far away even with the tactical sense it makes to work remote in most cases, so she kind of expects to find the Stellamobile(tm) somewhere nearby nonetheless.

...Huh, she recognizes that parking garage, come to think of it.  Damn.  They really did a number on it, because until she thought about the intersection for a few minutes, she hadn't recognized the place.  But, well, it's a parking garage, those are pretty sturdy things all things considered.  It's probably fixable.

A very Stella-styled VTOL craft is sitting on the roof of the broken parking garage. It's not THE StellaMobile, though. Rumor has it she barely leaves her secret base, wherever it is, anymore.

AutoResponder

From StellaSky: Can you carry an adult person safely while flying?

If yes, please help evacuate civilians from the top floor of the 8-story apartment building with balconies on the left side.

If no, please wait for a drone to deliver a scanning set and fly where instructed to search for survivors and evaluate structural integrity of buildings.

Signs point to no on full flight with an adult human - though I do still have a controlled descent of sorts I wouldn't risk it without serious need.  Can carry, like, a baby, or small dog, without apparently running up against my present limits.  Send the scanning set, though.  Probably a better use of me.

AutoResponder

Stella said 'thanks'.

Please be aware that the villain is inside the vehicle on the garage, held in a stasis field. Containment failure or a rescue attempt is unlikely but not impossible.

Kit on the way. It's a helmet with over-eye display.

Said helmet arrives within 15 seconds. It's bulky and bulges out to the sides somewhat. The display sets her off on a grid search above the damaged parking garage, first.

So noted; I'll keep an eye out.  Did my gear get used in the apprehension?

She can do that, sure.  She keeps her bow in her hand, ready to draw and shoot if need be.

AutoResponder

I don't know. I will ask Stella at low priority.

Scanning is perhaps tense, but boring. The data showing up on the visor doesn't make much sense to her, except for the visualization of bent and cracked supports, and rubble everywhere.

A few minutes later it beeps and highlights a figure in blue. A body shape, huddled in the back seats of a car two levels down. The scanner routes her to get as close as she can without going into dangerous areas and asks her to move around from all sides, then tells her 'rescuer dispatched - return to search pattern'.

...Ah, Tinkertech.  It sure is Tinkertech.  She would have expected her experience with various structure-engineering games to have had some relevance, otherwise.

...She can do the scanning.  And, like, call out and let them know.  Assuming they're, uh, alive.  She hopes they're alive.  "Hey, in the car there - the fight's over, someone's on their way to get you out safe, alright?  Are you injured?"

"I'm- Oh, thank god. I think I've gone blind. That guy just - exploded. But nothing else hurts. I'm- I'll be okay. Don't know if whatever's on my car is going to finish crushing it though..."

"You getting this?", she mutters to the software.  "Rescue says they think they've been blinded by an explosion."

Then, she raises her voice again.  "I'm sure the response coordinators would know better than me; I'm just floating around with a scanny thing.  But I think you're not in danger of that, the rubble's fallen where it may, at this point, and the structure's...not fit for further use as a parking garage, for sure, but it's holding.  We'll get you out."

We're getting this. Agree that the structure seems stable. And passed on the medical info.

"Thank you. Thank you. Fucking supervillains, what the fuck... At least I'm not dead. And there's people trying to help."

"Yeah, I can only second the sentiment.  It's really the least I can do, you know?  With great power and all that.  ...I've gotta get back to searching, okay?  But you'll be out of there shortly.  Promise."

"Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. You do that. There might be someone else."

He sounds shaky, but his voice firms up. "Just go. And if there's a healing hero out there I'd appreciate not wearing a cast for months."

The rest of the cleanup doesn't turn up anything super notable. Except a... Stain, if one looks closely at a particular damaged wall.

The VTOL craft takes off after a while, going northwest. Stella Sky delivers the two unused arrows back to her via drone and asks for the helmet back. An email says 'We used two red, one blue, and one black. Blue had no effect. Black missed. Reds hurt him enough to confuse him while moving in for the takedown, and more likely than not prevented a major injury or more fighting. City wants to take the cleanup from here. Good work on an upsetting first day. Thanks for being a team player.'

"I'll see what I can do on that front.  Nobody on call has a healing power that we know to be reliable, and not secretly super cancer, though, as far as I know, so you will...probably be in a cast for at least a little while."

...poor whoever that was.

And of course Stella gets the helmet back, it's her helmet, not their own.

It's really the least I could do.  Thanks for the info, and I'm glad I could help.

...She tucks the remaining arrows into her quiver and, despite how that's going to suck in its own way, detransforms, because she can't spend the rest of her life on high alert like her brain seems to have started associating this transformation with.

...Has anything, she doesn't know, accumulated in any of the other slots while she wasn't paying particular attention, incidentally?

...There might be a sense of building pressure?

...It might be waiting for something?

...Would that something be "a chance for another dream sequence"?  ...Shit, can she actually - okay, she can take a nap in her transformed form, or more accurately, get her arrows back for napping purposes - she can in fact just immediately transform back even if she's dropped the shape immediately before.  Just the getting into a form seems to lock it.  Okay.  She can work with that.

...Blue arrow please do the thing.  Ain't no way she's getting to sleep otherwise, it's too damn bright in here.  ...She probably needs the sleep anyway.  And it's more comfy to be in this body than the other one.  So.  Experimental shenanigans, ho.  She hopes that that's her weird luck quota for the week met.

Stabbing herself with the blue arrow sends her straight to a deep, dreamless sleep with barely any time to register it. She is still in pink-butterfly-wing form when she wakes up at least six hours later.

Well, that's...  On the one hand it's weird that that worked so powerfully and immediately for her when it didn't on the other guy, on the next hand, it's annoying that she didn't seem to have any recallable dreams because of this, on the other other hand, yay, she can just stay like this kind of all the time probably.

...Kind of.  Probably.  Being locked into the transform like this doesn't...let her see much about anything else she's got.  Let alone that she can't find a button to actually shift between multiple transforms or anything.

She'd really rather not, but she does feel like she kind of has to detransform, again.

Dammit.

So.  What's actually in that new slot?  Now that she's presumably filled it.  ...She hopes it's something neat.

It feels... Bigger than the first one? Slightly stronger, slightly more powerful. It feels cool, dark, quiet.

Shy. Like an ambusher.

Does she try it?

...Hmm.  On the one hand, she definitely wants to.  On the other hand, it seems like this one might want more ability to test literally anything than she can do at home.

She'll shoot an email to Stella.

Is that offer of power testing still open, by the way?

This is an automated response system.

I understood that you are inquiring about Stella Sky's previous offer to help you learn about your powers. Yes, the offer of power testing is still open. I will query Stella Sky for a good time. What times work for you?

AutoResponder

I'd rather be available at her convenience, but I do normally tend to prefer to do things afternoons and evenings.  I've no particular schedule to adhere to, otherwise.

This is an automated response system.

I understand that you prefer 12:00 PM-8:00 PM. After reviewing schedules and availability, please approve the following itinerary:

1:15 PM - Pickup from any location in or near Baltimore

1:37 PM - Arrival at unspecified location.

1:37 PM 3:48 PM - Power Testing with Stella Sky

3:51 PM - Depart from unspecified location

4:06 PM - Dropoff at any location in or near Baltimore

AutoResponder

...Sure, that would work.

This is an automated response system.

I understood that you accepted the previous schedule. Great! Please tell me where you should be picked up from at 1:15 PM.

AutoResponder

If Ms. Sky's transportation is sufficient to navigate air traffic control, then BWI would make a reasonable location for pickup.

...That's some Oddly Specific Choice Of Times, she really can't help but notice.  Other than the 1:15 PM.  Like, sure, it would absolutely make sense for the times to be like that, but also, that gives a search radius, doesn't it?  If she just circumscribed a circle..  If it's right.  It's probably not right.  Or maybe it is.  ...1:37 - 1:15 = 22m, 4:06 - 3:51 = ...66 - 51  = NOT 22. Okay, so the times are just fucky because of...reasons.  Okay.  ...Actually, why did it even give specific travel period timings?  That seems like something it can't actually know.

Probability that the AI is sentient and/or sapient: dropping!  A thinking being would not perform such Markov-chain-esque itinerary nonsense.

This is an automated response system.

I understood that you wanted to be picked up from Baltimore/Washington International Airport. Ms. Sky prefers to perform pickups in unobtrusive locations away from commercial airports and other restricted airspace. The VTOL craft can land in most areas. Can you select a different location?

AutoResponder

I thought that might be the case.  ...Ironically, I don't believe I know of any such place in my usual travel radius.  ...Travel radius, I say, like it's not depending upon public transportation or, like, where I can get a taxi to for less than twenty bucks.

...I suppose there's always the option of me flying somewhere.  I'd just really rather not, because it's not like I can navigate worth a damn without fucking over compartmentalization more than I already have and will be.  No compass for doing it manually or anything.

...Maybe if I use offline Maps...  Or, I suppose, there's the Park and Ride that would provide some cover while not being literally BWI.  ...Though that still has airspace negotiation troubles overhead, if I recall correctly.

This is an automated response system.

I'm sorry, I did not understand your response. Should I forward this conversation chain to Ms. Sky to clear up my confusion?

I believe that may be advisable.

There's nothing for about ten minutes, then:

Cupid,

Looks like you ran into the bot's limits. Every time someone does I make it a little bit better, though.

I really just don't want to pick you up right at the airport. Isn't there a parking lot or field or something I can grab you from? Or you can just fly around for a while and I find you that way, like last night?

-SSky

I did mention there's a parking lot, yeah.  There's probably a lot of parking lots to pick from, if I actually think about it, some more commercial than others.  The Park and Ride I mentioned is kind of In BWI's Airspace still, since, like, the flights go right overhead - but it is there if that works better.  I'm admittedly kind of surprised you...have the option?  To do that, ngl.  I guess if you're doing something where you just never come within the FAA's jurisdiction, that'd do it...

 

Anyway.  Just...Tell me how far you need to be from the airport itself and I'll see if there's anything close to me?  I dunno.  I use BWI as a Schelling point of location-ness for myself pretty damn often, so, like, I don't have much ready in terms of Places that isn't like, right there, especially in terms of staying out of the way of planes and shit.

Not being able to actually STOP me in any meaningful way without causing a whole bunch of problems inspires a lot of creative interpretations. We can get into the philosophy of super powers and their proper interaction with the government later if you want, but it's better for everyone not to push the envelope. Five miles away should be fine. Or I could give up my lovely VTOLs and literally give you driving directions to a lower security telepresence type setup. We'd have to do that tomorrow though so I have time to ship power testing equipment there.

I do agree that the state of government was Unprepared For Sudden Superpowers, I just kind of think that it makes sense for the FAA to be one of the agencies our lot actually listens to, so we don't get splatted by planes.  Or become part of Edna Mode's "No capes!" slideshow.

Lemme just check the map real quick.

...The Park and Ride should work, it's more than five miles off of the airport proper.

Pickup at 1:15? Should be about a half hour flight to my place, which is secret as hell, and the same back.

We'll test the effect of all the arrows you want on laboratory rats, and I have a damper device that for most supers makes them act about like a human-size target would. I also have target dummies that try to register what powers would have done to thme, but those are a lot less reliable. Powers Are Weird (tm). I'll offer advice and whatever training we can fit in, too.

Sounds fine by me.  And yeah, powers are very weird.

See you later.

I am totally gonna insist on rewarding cooperation to take down a baddie, btw. 

It's how I get less altruistic types to do it, too.

Well, it's not like I can stop you, even if honestly like nine-tenths of me is just blinking at this idea in sheer bemusement because of course people should help other people and why on earth should I be rewarded for doing the barest minimum of that?  Like, I had power, I had responsibility, it was in my fucking backyard, (metaphorically), Q.E.D.  But, yeah, I get the optics of it.  ...One thing that I think could/would help a lot is, like...

If you're doing gravitics at all, I could absolutely use something to soup up the anemic carrying capacity I have with my flight so far?  I don't...have any particular reason to believe that it will increase with time, effort, practice, what have you, though I don't have a huge reason to dis-believe that, either.  Though like, there's bound to be another bajillion things your resources could be better used on.  Like taking that exact (magi)tech and going to space with it for science purposes.  I know you try to not get on the FAA's radar, ha, but surely NASA would love to have you?  Please tell me that they weren't such utter fools as to -

Well.  You built a presumably fully-functioning space shuttle in your garage.  Please tell me someone's actually making some use of it.

Oh I'm putting stuff into space all the time. I just don't advertise it much.

Talk more when you get to my lab? You might be able to imagine how busy I am.

Yeah.  I can only guess but my guess starts at 25/7.

...Well.  She has no idea what she's going to be doing until then.  The Internet is always there for her, she supposes - and what's the news on that attack look like, anyway?

Some takes include:

Stella Sky, true American patriot, prevented disaster, saving lives and millions in damages!

Insane super's radical screed against the pillars of society shows the need for change at the highest levels...

Who's Who of the Baltimore Incident - Full list of every super involved! (She is listed in this as 'Flutterscout (tentative name)', involved with S&R only)

It's insane and unfair that Stella Sky can just shut off part of the national power grid on a whim. The government needs to do something about this.

Today we mourn with the victims of the Baltimore Incident, where a crazed radical with superpowers caused an estimated 24 deaths with many still injured or missing...

You should be required to have a background check or registration to have powers, like with guns.

The Baltimore Blaster had a point you know, went about it all wrong and murder is bad but the rich are exploiting America.

Oh dear.

...Well, she has some fucking opinions of her own to have right back at some of that nonsense, but she doesn't want to get into the bluecheck life.  ...Some sort of certification for being trusted to use one's powers competently for various purposes would be a good idea, but fuck no compulsory licensing for having powers can die in a fire.  Powers can be forced upon you, for fuck's sake.  That's just completely untenable, to place burdens on some because of the actions of others.

And the rich are certainly exploiting America, generally speaking.  She's just utterly bemused at how that came into anything.  Presumably this guy had a manifesto, or something.

...She's going to write in to the people with the 'who's who' page, though.

I might not have any better ideas, but I am certainly not called Flutterscout.  Leaving aside how uncomfortably reminded I am of the existence of My Litttle Pony by that, the butterfly wings aren't all I have going on.  Please try again, or just list me as presently unnamed, thanks.  I'm working on it, alright?  Names are hard.

Sincerely,

-- You Guys Called Me Flutterscout For Some Reason And I'm Vaguely Annoyed By This Even Though I Don't Have Any Better Ideas At The Moment And It's Not Really Like I Want To Put In The Effort Necessary To Stop You.

(Yes, exactly like that.  From a random email/as a random anonymous commenter.  She's mostly just kvetching.)

When will it be time...

Trawling the internet takes a surprisingly long while.

How about now? Time to leave.

Sure, that works.  Off she goes.

The VTOL craft landing on the Park & Ride lot inspires everyone to back away from it and a few to take pictures, but nobody objects.

Stella Sky is on a video screen in the small seating area. Her wind and sun themed mask is pretty distinctive. It's like first class on an airline. Four seats, a good amount of space.

"Hey there, Cupid! Oh, it's going to be good to do some nice simple power testing after the day I've had. Is Cupid even the right name though? You signed Stellar Cupidity the first time, and it's the obvious theme..."

"That remains to be determined, I think.  Frankly, though, I'm shit at names, so feel free to go with it for now.  It's lovely to meet you."

"I have to say the same. You're one of the sensible ones. Doing something with your powers, but thinking things through and followin' instructions instead of just running around in tights. Well, it's gonna be about a twenty minute flight. And I want to finish up a pathfinding thing I was doing. Refreshment cart?"

"I certainly wouldn't mind.  And thank you for the compliment!  I will admit that there's this atavistic part of me that's always tempted to go smite evil with the power of love or whatever, but that's, well, stupid.  Violence is so rarely the answer to begin with and I've hardly any special skill in the field."

"Oh, yes, we just have to keep reminding ourselves of that. That's why- I mentioned my shuttle? The world's space agencies- Except for Roscosmos- Are helping me with it, but we're planning to deorbit a whole lot of space junk. Do sit down and buckle up though, please. I don't have to follow airline regulations but many of them are, in fact, a good idea."

...Right, yeah, she does kind of need to finish doing that before they can go anywhere.  "Ooh, that does sound like a good plan.  Really, I might actually - how good are you at like, recycling?  Because there's stuff it's easier to make in zero g, or so I'm told, and depending upon how badly you overthrow the tyranny of the rocket equation because magic..."

"I don't have any special advantage for recycling. And the impeller tech has... Other limits. I don't want to reveal all my secrets too easily though! I might have dreams of a city on the moon or domes on Mars, but there's quite a lot of problems to be solved for those to be suitable realities. Life support, in-situ resource utilization, generating power, generating fuel and remass..."

She can feel a sudden surge of motion as the vehicle lifts off and accelerates. Not much, but a bit. Then it's smooth as silk, with a quiet engine noise. A robot drink cart emerges from a wall port. Sodas, water, ice, chips, and other snacks.

She cracks open a soda - she might even pour it over ice, depending upon how she's feeling at the moment.  "...Really, come to think of it...  Oh, but hm, no, there wouldn't be random bits of ceramics in orbit...  But still, I think I saw something about monocrystals being massively easier to produce in space if only we could do, because of both the effective lack of gravity and the vacuum?  Not sure if there's much else doing, but it's not like we don't already have that on the ground.  And then you'd probably have to ship them back down, but it's not like you couldn't...  ....Come to think of it, I wonder what the hell would happen if I just.  Dropped an arrow from orbit sometime.  ...Well, probably not me me, but they're clearly more like constructs that are pretending to have physics, than actual molecules and shit - I wonder if they're photonic on the physical level - wasn't there something about smooshing two photons together so they stuck, recently?"

"Anyway if you have existing techbase to borrow I bet it'd be possible to...  I dunno.  But it's something that might be worth bringing up with your colleagues, if you haven't.  I dunno, maybe they've already tossed that around and found it not particularly worth the trouble, I'm just someone who ever reads hard-ish sci-fi and then the people you're actually working with are rocket scientists who have probably also read the same sci-fi as me and actually understood the math that goes into Alcubierre drives instead of my pop-physics-tier grasp of the subject."

"...On the third hand, the way you describe it as impeller tech...

"...How fine a thrust can you apply?  Because my brain immediately leapt to - Well, I've been playing a lot of puzzle games of the 'assemble molecules' kind, lately?  And you don't need that for everything but I just bet there are people who'd want that for science reasons."

"Frankly hon, you don't know how tinkering works so I'm not likely to get much more than inspiration chatting about it. Better to focus on the things in front of ya. Like how, exactly, your arrows work. Whatever we can measure about them. They do seem to be pseudoreal in a way a lot of power constructs are. Mass isn't right. It was a bit cheeky of us to use 'em on Power Surge with just your pinkie-promise they're non-lethal, honestly. Glad we got away with it, but bad habit..."

"Of course I don't know how tinkering works, I'm not a tinker.  ...Yet, at least.  Who knows what the future will hold.

"...What's interesting is how the sleep arrow didn't work on him, in my opinion.  How'd you end up using it?"

"Hm? Think you can get more powers, do you? It's possible, I guess. I've heard of a couple cases like that. One of the responding heroes is a ghost-type with a slingshot. As far as I can tell he powered straight through the sleep effect with some of his consumed energy... Pain was a lot harder to ignore, I guess."

"If I did, I wouldn't want to do anything more than allude to the possibility, even over nominally secured communications, you know?  Never know if there's someone listening."

"Anyway - huh.  That would kind of explain it.  ...And, I'm sure you noticed, the guy who got caught in the crushed car, he wanted to be healed if anyone had such abilities?  I figure that maybe if the animal trials don't result in super-cancer, it...would only be appropriate."

"That's beyond my sphere of caring. I'll give you his contact info. Arranging it is up to you. Okay well... See you soon. Enjoy the flight. Time to test this on my end."

She settles in for the ride and waits.

When the VTOL swings to decelerate and then sets down, it lets her out in a movie set designer's dream. The place looks like it's underground, high concrete walls and a cavernous space broken up by shiny chrome shelving units and vehicles in neat rows. A robot arm is assembling something in a corner.

Stella Sky meets her as the door opens, waving. "Ya ready to be scanned and advised and poke some lab rats?"

"Looking forward to it."  Though with some trepidation!  "Let's do this thing.  Albeit, you know that thing I wouldn't get into over the phone?"

She drops her Cupid transform and immediately selects the other one.  "Well, I have some evidence that I'm gonna end up with a wide selection of powers as time goes on.  I didn't have this option yesterday."

...She looks down at herself.  At the, of all things, lamia-esque tail that she had no idea was going to happen to her.  "...I see the universe is conspiring to have my cape outfit mandatorily include a skirt, in addition to the backless shirt it's already made quite clear I'll probably need.  Good grief."

Stella's hand went to a subtle holster when Diana suddenly shifted. But she plays it off, cocking her hips instead. 

"Well I'll be. Here, emergency toga." She pulls a utility belt pouch open and tosses a soft palm-sized cube. "For costume accidents and rescues from cold water, like. Surprisingly frequently needed. You had hunches about the pink-winged shift, how about this one?"

She catches the motion, but really can't blame her.

...This toga...is a cube.  Right, how does she even operate this thing?

"I'm feeling like...some sort of sneakyness...and, well, you did just say rescues from cold water and that seems to be putting ideas in my head."

"Just squish it. You've definitely got the supermodel-super effect going, I'll say that. Nobody's sure why that happens either. And it doesn't, to some. You think that form's a swimmer? Or did you mean cold resistance? I've got a test pool."

"Swimmer, more than cold resistance.  But presumably some cold resistance because swimmer."  ...She is, now, blushing, as she gets the toga on.

"...If I had to hazard a guess, I'd put it on there being multiple power sources, with different...aesthetic opinions."

"Power dreams come in any flavor from Allah to Zeus to interdimensional FBI to eldritch things to the power was within you all along to comprehending the pure math of the universe. I don't quite know which to favor, myself. Swimming powers are niche. But damned useful for rescue, I'll say. C'mon, into the lab?"

"Yeah, uh, I did not get someone I recognized."  Sure, she can follow along into the lab.  Entirely silently, apparently.

"I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours."

There are wide hallways. Then there is a large room with a gym-looking area except with weirder equipment, and a raised platform with controls.

"Sure, seems fair.  ...Did I actually remember to write it down?  ...Uh, give me a minute, gotta get my thoughts in order here..."

"...It smelled like a devil deal of some sort that I was quite conveniently not going to find the 'catch' of, to be a catch.  Being as I was, in fact, already a girl, and the catch was, significantly, implied to be - well, specifically I was told it was a cost, I believe - well, that the only transformations I'd get were feminine.  ...Anyway.  Uh.  Quote, 'This is an interesting little situation', 'Normally, I wouldn't be able to do this at all, but this world has opened to my influence a tiny bit', 'Here and now, tonight, I can make you an offer' - emphasis mine.  I imagine I could have refused, but who the hell would do that?  Oh, and she specifically said 'Best to think of this as a dream', implying that it was not, in some meaningful way - which, well, I was lucid, and not just the sort of pseudo-lucidity I recall having ever experienced where I'm aware that I remember a dream like the dream I'm presently having.  I've never had that happen in a novel dream like this.  And it came complete with a sort of fade out, with specific instructions to 'go back to dreaming'.  ...Which I do think I did do.  I don't normally have recollection of my dreams stick even half this well except while I'm dreaming the same thing I have at some other time dreamt.  And that's only valid while I'm dreaming, for that matter!  It goes whoosh when I actually wake up after!"

"...I didn't even describe the environment, did I.  Or what the hypothetical agent of powers-giving was actually like, beyond how the conversation went.  That was another odd thing, because it was decidedly not the same sort of environment my brain will hallucinate left to its own devices, I've never had it do some bland infinite expanse, it usually tends more towards geometries that wouldn't be physically possible - turning a corner into a room that's not even the same building, for example - but are internally consistent - let alone the - when there are people in my dreams, they are usually fully rendered?  But this one was...abstract.  I'd know the sound of her voice if I heard it again - and, come to think of it, that's completely backwards because I normally couldn't fucking tell you what people sound like, like, it's just all sort of ...dubbed over in the internal monologue voice, but I couldn't tell you anything else about her - and I was somehow...there-but-not, too.  Not in the usual sort of...operating a third person camera...way.  Just a sort of abstraction of...presence?  No real proprioception but a surprising amount of other, non-physically-consonant, sensation.  ...If I've ever slept somewhere that feels like floating in an infinitely extended cloud, like, off to the horizon except there is no horizon, there is just...infinity... it is not my bed at home."

Stella Sky nods slowly, thoughtfully.

"Thorough. I'll be likewise. Well... Don't spread it around too much but near as I can tell, I was one of, if not the, first. I spent years building things secretly and figuring myself out before I made a few quiet deals and... The shuttle as my big go-public. So I was one of the first. Maybe the first. Earlier than any others I could confirm, at least. December 31, 1999."

Stella... Takes off her mask. She doesn't look supermodel pretty. She looks like a soccer mom.

"Got a guess where this is going? But no. Not midnight. Four thirty-seven PM. Mine felt like it lasted forever. I know what you're talking about, I think. That sense of unreality. More a feeling than a specific sensory event. I had the impression I was standing on a tiny platform like Atlas, with something unfathomably huge in front of me. Weighing on me with its presence. It was black, like rough obsidian. Tiny cracks bled silver and gold and and colorless light that felt like the sky. I felt like I was there for hours, looking at a whole planet and wondering if I was dying, if I was insane, dreaming... But it felt too real to be a dream. I was having thoughts and tracking them. I was following patterns in the cracks as they slowly grew. Still, hours and hours. Maybe days. I don't rightly know. I didn't see anything around except this... Wall or planet. But it got closer and closer and I knew, just knew it was gonna crush me for real. I was already pinned by its presence. Moving wasn't a thing that could happen. Trying to run was like trying to draw a five-sided triangle. So I fretted and fretted about it, and I decided I hoped for the sky color to be what washed over me. Gold looked like lava, and the silver was sharp and splintery. I though the colorless sky would be least painful. And wouldn't you know it, that uncolor bloomed and bloomed and washed over me. Filled my head up to burst and then kept going. I heard lots and lots of voices then. Gods choosing me. My parents lecturing. My own voice claiming to be from the future. Other people. Woke up in the hospital a week later."

"Damn.  That's..."

"That's."

"That's."  She can't find the words.

"If some of that dream is not itself somewhat revelatory of why the unknown figure in mine was able to make her offer I will eat my hat.  ...Notwithstanding the complete absence of my wearing a hat.  But...It makes sense.

"...And of course I'll keep this quiet.  ...Did the voice that was possibly future you leave any testable predictions...?"

"Nothin' that couldn't have been... Prescience under stress. Or I'd be keeping it a lot closer to my chest. I told myself that the internet was the future, that we'd get a black President, that America would go back to Iraq, that I'd go to the moon, that some idiot's gonna set off nukes, China's economy will collapse, there'll be a nuclear accident in India... Russia would invade Ukraine... Sure doesn't seem specific enough to be time travel, eh? I'm still not sure whether to think it's my own brain making predictions, making sense of whatever random cosmic ray changed me, or something... Real. Most days, I think it doesn't really matter, day to day."

"True enough.  Most of them seem to have been right though.  Have you ever thought about how you might...?"

Oh, by the way - is she, uh, growing or gathering or whatevering, another roll on the gacha?

Shrug. "I've thought about it. Never come up with anything that seems like it might work. So your power dream was a goddess type, you got transformations. And mine was an eldritch type... I got my deliberately obfuscated tinker-type stuff. Some people say the power dreams are reflections of who you are on some level. You got made an offer? Maybe you think there's no such thing as a free lunch. The price was turning into a pretty lady? Lots of people want to be pretty ladies. But too often it's a stretch. It's like tarot, or horoscopes. You can find meaning in anything if you let your brain do it. Let's move on to actual testing. No good to linger on this stuff. Can you change back to your archer form?"

(...It doesn't really feel like she's progressing? It was a subtle thing, before, like a bit of muscle strain, unclear and non-obvious.)

"I got a giant closet that can accumulate transformations based on some unclear metric."

...Uh.  Can she change back.  "...And there is sort of a 'cooldown' that triggers when I transform into any given shape, which is kind of odd because - well, it's kind of backwards of how most video games handle it, and I'm getting that kind of vibe from the whole thing."

It's too soon to change back! It's only been a few minutes!

"I keep saying it because it's true, everything about powers is odd. You should try and time it, then optimize over it. That's what I'd do. Let's head to the pool test chamber instead, then."

It's just two doors down on the same hallway. Bigger than Olympic. More tile than steel and concrete. The water looks very deep, and there are a lot of odd props and machines around. Smells like pool chemicals.

"I think there's a nebulous activity component stacked atop a regular timer, if I had to hazard a guess.  Incidentally.  But that doesn't really cut down the timer much over, ha, time."

Time to go swimming!  ...Gods it's been a while since she's done that.

...Even the splash of her jumping in the pool is utterly silent.

Swimming is easy, and she can see very clearly through the water. This pool is deep. It must be sixty meters or more. There are props of concrete buildings and pipes and caves and rubble down there; Something about these twisty spaces in deep water seems comforting and safe. She cuts through the water like it's barely there, almost easier than slithering along the surface was. And her swimming is silent to a degree that can be measured. That's interesting.

There's a tiny bit of noise from the eddy currents the splashes leave, and a bit of flow noise that Stella puzzles over before deciding is from the toga. Stella reports this when Diana surfaces.

"And I can't keep calling you 'Cupid' in my head, unless you're fine with that. Doesn't really fit a shifter who expects to get even more powers. But then, maybe you want a separate identity for each form, as long as you can maintain it."

"Goodness knows I've no better ideas.  I suppose Wildcard would fit for the overall aesthetic if someone hasn't already taken it."

The report that the clothes are interfering with her noise cancellation has her - well, first, seeing if it holds if she takes, like, a skintight glove, and slaps the surface of the water, and second, muttering "the catch is being a girl my ass, the catch is being mandatorily sexy -" when that produces a noise that the equivalent action with her hand does not..

"...It bothers me that I can't immediately think of something to disprove or discount that. My word. Wildcard, then. Perhaps my little present can be some Y-6 as a bodysuit. Stealth fabric."

"Powers are weird."  She can't help but laugh at the echo of Stella's earlier comments, her expression rather wry.  "I really probably could use proper costume support if I'm going to be out in the field - and I expect I will need to do something active if I want to keep finding new transformations in my back pocket, as was."

....Has she done anything, in her various bits of splashing around (or rather specifically Not doing that,) that has generated pull-strength?

"Mmh. I don't know if I can commit to doing that full time. I have a few people helping out- None of whom you're seeing today for opsec type reasons mostly- Well, I'm not really in the business of actively equipping big teams. I coordinate and deal with big issues. You also didn't need air. Or suffer negative effects from the pressure at all. And I think you're stronger and tougher than mere flesh and blood- The brute effect. These are all things we can measure, if you wish. Maybe every form will have a baseline level of enhancement."

(She does not have a pending roll, and can't tell if she has progressed towards it. She only noticed it last night when it was heavily built up already.)

"Yeah, I wasn't really expecting you to handle that, I just wondered if you knew Edna Mode.  ...Well, presumably there isn't anyone who has literally become Edna Mode, but.  You know.  Someone who saw the emerging supers and thought 'They're gonna need costumes'.  I don't exactly trust my ability to improvise remotely as far as that."

"I don't know any Edna Modes, sad to say. I know some supers have people they use and could maybe get you some phone numbers, but your best bet may be cosplayers plus tinker materials. Or someone who does custom tailoring plus tinker materials."

"...Well, that makes sense, and is also kind of terrifying."

"...Also, the question of names has been rattling around in the back of my head, and apparently my subconscious has decided only now to inform me that I probably have a better claim to the name 'Eidolon', from a linguistic and powers-mechanics perspective, than the miserable human being that has the most prevalent fictional claim thereunto.  Alas that it would probably confuse a bunch of people if I tried, like if someone just up and called themself Superman in real life."

"Most people don't have transforming to deal with... If you want to call yourself Eidolon, do it. Ignore the haters. It'll catch on if you get much done. I, for example, have never heard of whatever you're referencing."

"Really?  You must know somebody who would, I can't see using some of the terms of art you've done otherwise; it was the work of fiction that standardized the meaning of Tinker as a type of superpower.  ...That or it just osmosed.  ...I can't recommend Worm as a work of fiction, it's utterly depressing, but I do think that the author was on to something with the whole threat rating thing.  Though I'm not sure they're actually comprehensive over these powers.  They're not quite comprehensive over the powers in that work, really, but the line between human and animal Masters is thinner than you'd think..."

"I use colors for threat estimations informally. Green yellow orange red black. You're orange. And a few mix and match labels like speedster, sneak, tinker, brute, or nuker. Doing it formally risks getting stuck in your own head when most powers are fairly unique."

"Oh, definitely.  ...Wow, I'm an entire orange?  That's kinda nuts.  Not that I don't disagree that I likely have the range, but boy do I not feel like I can remotely punch at that level yet.  But yeah the whole point of the threat rating system was to get simple buckets stuck in your head so you had good reactions to fall back on in the face of unknowns.  It grew out of the non-powered first responders, in the relevant lore, and frankly given the bullshit they were working around they needed all the help they could get.  ...Though if you want something that's actually taking the idea of a threat rating seriously, I've got other stuff in mind if I can just remember where I put it."

"You haven't really noticed it yet but that body of yours can snap a man like a toothpick- or maybe a particularly tough carrot- And probably shrug off large caliber bullets. Combine with transformations and the potential for new powers, and yeah, solid orange."

"...I had been wondering.  I mean, constrictors are such bullshit.  But that's good to know for slightly more sure.  ...Speaking of transformations, though, we should be good to try the other one?"

"You could use the heavy duty exercise machines in the other room in this one first! I recommend it, to start internalizing how much damage you could cause! Or maybe you want to nail down the transforming time thing more?"

"No, it's better to know what I can do, you're right.  I think I have enough of a handle on the actual transforming part of this for now.  Uh...How do we do this, then?  I will admit that I'm not very physical by default."

"Oh, there's a whole routine I cobbled together with a couple of physical therapists. I'll talk you through it."

Back in the big gym-room, Stella Sky keeps to her word and guides her through some physical testing. There's a fun obstacle course, too, which she can compete for time on with some other recognizable names and Stella Sky herself in various suits (Owl, Albatross, Eagle, and Ostrich Suits- She seems to have a naming theme going.)

Moving on land is harder, but she has natural instincts for it and the long coil body proves quite adept at crossing things like rough 'rubble', ladders, walls, rope bridges, etc. It just suffers in open flat areas and smooth surfaces.

As she supposes it might, for all that having thought about desert snakes makes her vaguely suspicious that she's just not got the trick of it yet.

"...Well, that was oddly invigorating.  Ah...there were tests you had in mind for the Cupid, I believe?"

"The mice, yes. So we can confirm exactly what the unknown effects do, perhaps try to quantify them. We can do that when you're ready, or repeat these physical tests with your cupid form."

"...It would probably be a good idea, but I'd rather find out about the arrows first."  With that said, she transforms.

The mice are in a side-room from the big exercise room. It has a big, tinkery looking platform in the middle.

"So the way this works is the platform here... Amplifies the life force of a mouse to about an average adult human. The key component here is actually from a friend in India, don't quite know how it works, but it sure seems to. We can confirm and measure all the arrows' effects this way, try to get numbers on how long they last and how harmful they all are. It sounded like you had a generic and then six special ones? Not sure you ever actually told me, I can go look up my notes if you need or you can just tell me again."

"Yeah, a generic and then six special ones.  Uh, and one of them seems to do conjuring objects rather than psychosomatic effects based on my instinctual read."