She blinks away the sudden sunlight, and shakes off the popping of her ears. It looks she's not in Kansas anymore, so...

She steps back from the street a little, and takes a good long look at the cars, and glances over to the source of the laughter. 

Down the block, a man in an unseasonable parka points a blue gun at a boy in a yellow skin-tight leotard. The boy's feet appear to be frozen to the ground. In the background, an armored truck has been overturned.

A gentle, hesitant feeling pokes at her mind. Does she want the ability to intuit things about people who are laughing, maybe?

The question comes with the sense that this is truly an option — she doesn't have to accept. And the feeling that if she pushes away the source of the question, it will leave her alone.

Oh hello telepathic nudging thing! 

That probably wouldn't be that helpful? Probably better then not having it - goddess knows that she's bad enough at taking advantage of social cues to make good use of it but. 

But that did sound kind of like a first offering, based on what she was thinking, or something like that? A power to help out here would probably be a decent place to get started - something medical, maybe, or something to help deal with that ice on that kid's feet would be good, assuming you're not a demon or something? That outfit really does scream 'supervillain' to her...

It's not a demon, it's a gift! It can do all kinds of things.

Does she want the ability to make ice melt quickly? Or maybe an intuitive knowledge of the best way to treat cold-related injuries?

Okay, as long as it's not irreversible... Let's.

Melting ice off is probably more useful, especially if it's reasonably precise or decently ranged - this looks modern enough that there's no reason to think they couldn't do better than her once this whole mess is over, she thinks? 

There's a sense of deeply considering her response, and then a dim spark flares to life somewhere inside of her, and it becomes obvious that she can shoot a weak beam that will cause ice to melt faster. It's not anything foreign, or even unfamiliar, it's just something that she can do now.

The spark orbits gently inside of her, and she can tell that she can push it away when she's done with it, in the same way that she could push away the whole gift, if she chose.

"... and when he comes for you, my gelion trap will activate ..."

The man with the gun seems to be monologuing, now.

She takes a deep breath, swallows down her fear, and feels out the familiar confines of the power. That's a supervillain monologue if she's ever heard one, and there's no time for hesistation or inaccuracy, and no need to have more of a profile then she needs to have. 

She gets down to the ground, and extends out her hand in the direction of the kid in the yellow and red supersuit, and shoots the pale blue beam at his feet.

The kid is momentarily taken aback, but ultimately reacts faster than the man with the gun, ducking under another shot from it.

And then several things happen very quickly.

The man in the parka releases a button held in his other hand —

The kid hits him in the solar plexus and then starts to slow —

An older man in a predominantly red body stocking appears from nowhere, throwing a rock —

And parka guy manages to tag him with a blast from his gun, creating a cone of ice around the man's head.

"Don't!—"

She flinches slightly at the flurry of action, wincing at the sight of the ice covering that man's head - that seems like the sort of thing that in real life ought to be horrifically lethal but she has to try. Her first beam disperses in a barely visible fuzz as her hand tilts up and fires out a second beam at his head, unfocusing the stream of whatever-it-is just a little to make as much of his head as possible is saturated in the effect, even with how much he's moving.

Her beam reacts strangely with something the man does, and the ice goes flying away from his head just as the stone knocks against a device on the ground —

And then it's all over. The man with the parka is down on his front with his hands handcuffed behind him, and the man in red is blurring around in and out of the car.

The boy in the bodysuit — who, on closer look appears to be about 15 or so — appears over her just as suddenly.

"Hey! Thanks for the assist! Are you all right?"

Does she want faster reaction times?

She startles and blushes self-consciously. Why did she have to get introduced to the heroes looking like this... The plain blue t-shirt and the loose pants are reasonably comfortable but give her a certain 'scruffy 20-something boy' look that she's never really managed to shake. Being able to do something about that really would be good.

She gathers herself up, and nods a little shakily. 

"Sort of? I'm not injured or anything, but I just... appeared here suddenly, so I'm more than a little disoriented." 

A little sheepish laugh spills out of her lips. 

There's a sense of sorting through different options. Does she want a tailoring ability? A slow regeneration ability? The ability to summon decorative aesthetic sparkles?

"Just appeared here, huh?"

Well, it wouldn't be the weirdest thing he's seen since becoming The Flash's partner.

"In that case, you're pretty on top of things!"

"I suppose!" 

She smiles bashfully. Her thoughts whir a little bit in the background, her eyes darting up into the air to help her think. 

Some sort of shapeshifting power, maybe? Really it depends on what's easy - some sort of super (femininization) hormone production ability or even a zero range illusion power could make sense for this, amongst other options? Not that she's sure that they would treat her alright if she suddenly started girlifying... 

"Really, I just felt like I couldn't just stand there when people were getting hurt and I had the option to do something about it." 

Oh! It can do feminizing hormone production! But the actual uptake by her body tissues would be slow, without a regeneration power. A zero-range self-targeted illusion is totally possible too.

Does she want the ability to appear to others as she would if she had been born with androgen insensitivity?

A regeneration power isn't a bad thing to have, by any means? It depends a bit on how many powers she gets and how good the powers would be, and of course how safe it would be to actually go through with it. And honestly she's not even that sure that she'd look great directly distaffed? Not that that'd be a bad place to start, necessarily, if she's going to be working up to her ideal body slowly. 

Probably the most important thing is knowing if and when it'd be okay to try to start down the path...? 

She gets the sense that there's no limit on the number of powers she can get — only a limit on how many she can hold onto at once. And she's not very full right now.

Does she want the ability to intuitively guess whether someone would be upset if her appearance started to change?

The kid grins at her.

"I know how you feel. I'm Kid Flash, by the way, since you're not from around here."

He sticks out a hand.

"Have you got a nom héroïque?"

She nabs that power and reflexively reaches out her hand to shake his.

...Would it be okay? 

"Not yet! I just got this power, but if you're looking for something to call me... 'Topaz' is a name I've always been fond of the thought of bearing." 

It's a little endearing how enthusiatic he is, even if he's a bit much. 

A second spark blooms to life inside her, and with it comes the impression that she's half-full. The two sparks don't seem to like each other much, and settle in a wide orbit around each other.

... and yes, she's suddenly pretty sure that Kid Flash wouldn't have a negative reaction if her appearance started to change.

"Topaz ... Oh, like the color of your beams?" Kid Flash — who, despite his excellent chemistry grades, has somehow come to the conclusion that topazes are all blue, through no fault of the American educational system — asks.

She chuckles faintly. 

"You would think! But no, I've... always aspired to be a magical girl." 

She grins soft and shy, and plops in the 'born with androgen insensitivity illusion' power. She'll get something better figured out later - she's got so many ideas for how she's supposed to look - all leggy, tall and elegant, with cerulean blue hair and bombshell curves, or a body that's a little more modest and genki girly and a few embarrassing flickering little thoughts about what she'd want to do with her genitals, but... this should get the message across. Could she get a power that makes her body shift towards the body the illusion is showing, or something else she has in mind? 

When this spark blooms, it ends up orbiting closely with the previous power, and she gets the feeling that she could push them and make them snap together.

And yes! She can get a slow regeneration power that shapes her body toward a particular mental image. It would have to be pretty slow to avoid being too 'big', though.

"Oh!"

Kid Flash's eyes widen, and then he gets a look of understanding.

"Shapeshifter — gotcha! That's why you don't have a ..."

He makes a vague gesture at his own mask.

"Well, I guess you're just all around pretty, then, not just pretty on top of things, yeah?"

A little chortle spills out from her lips at that, her hand slipping up to cover her lips. He's so clumsy but it's kind of adorable and it just makes her ears glow pink with pride at being flirted clumsily as a girl. As a girl! 

Her lips curl up into a faintly giddy smile. 

"I don't think I'll need one, no. But I think you misunderstood - I just... randomly appeared here, got some pick your poison superpowers, and bam! There you were, fighting the" presumably "good fight!" 

"Wait, really? Justaminute—"

He blurs away and then reappears a few seconds later with The Flash in tow.

He holds out a hand, apparently not self-conscious in the least about greeting people while wearing a skin-tight red suit with weird little lightning-helmet-antenna things.

"Hi, Topaz. It's good to meet you. Kid Flash was telling me you just appeared here — do you remember where you were before this?"

Oh and she nabs the idealized mental image regeneration power, slotting in the less ambitious genki bluenette look to work on the background. Can't forget that! 

She reaches out her hand to shake his. He's presumably the guy in charge of Kid Flash and the metahuman response, here, so no reason not to be polite and accomodating.

"It's good to meet you too!"

"I remember where I was - I was in my bedroom at home, in a whole other universe where I'm pretty sure none of this" she glances around a bit timidly, gazing pointedly at the two of them. "could normally have happened. So unfortunately, that's probably not too helpful for you?" 

This power likes the most recent two, and they end up twirling in a tight dance, the ice-melting power forming a distant counterweight. She also gets a feeling something like fullness, and something like her mysterious partner relaxing into the background.

The Flash slumps a little.

"Ah, shoot. Those ones are always tricky."

He glances over at Captain Cold to check that he's still bound.

"We have to wait for the police for a few minutes, but after that I can take you to a friend of mine with good scanning equipment, and he can see whether there's any hints as to how you got here, if you'd like."

She hums, and pokes at the sense of the power discarding function. Is there anything she needs to worry about, there? 

"That's probably a good idea, at least for thoroughness sake."  

She glances down a little. 

"Do you have any advice for how I can stay on top of things, if there isn't an obvious resolution to all this after the scans? I've got a powerset that'll probably take a good bit of explaining that I'm sure can be put to plenty of use, but it's not like I have immigration papers, given how I ended up here." 

There is a nuance to it, but it's not one that affects her right now. She can push any of these four powers away if she wants to.

"The government technically has a special visa for superpowered individuals, but, uh, it's probably better to establish a separate civilian identity," Flash advises. "Batman can help with that, too."

The man in the parka manages to get a hand free, somehow.

"Ah, shoot. Kid Flash, can you fill her in on stuff while I—"

And then he's gone again, bearing parka-man back to the ground.

Kid Flash thinks for a moment.

"So, like, are you a Junior? Senior? Batman will probably want you to finish High School in your cover identity or test for a GED, since he's all serious like that."

Okay, let's get rid of the anti-ice power and... sure might as well keep the transformation information one, since it's networked in, somehow?  She's really got to sit down and figure out what this power does, sometime.

"Oh - I've been through high school already? I was about to go into university, back home."

She shakes her head lightly, then hums lightly. 

"I guess things probably aren't too different, given that we're speaking the same language, somehow? But I have to imagine superpowers have changed things a good deal. That alone will be plenty for me to study, really." 

The spark pops free, drifting away and out of her awareness.

He rubs the back of his head.

"Whaw. I guess they'll probably want you to do a GED, then — even if you've already graduated, it's easier to slip in a test record than it is to slip in an issued diploma, Robin says. Something about how diplomas are cross-referenced by the State department ..."

"Oh! Robin is Batman's partner, like I'm the Flash's partner. He's like a hackery-acrobaty sort of fighter."

She nods along. They sound like they're sort of... extraterroritorial paramilitary people, but also sort of half government-entwined people? It sounds like it's going to be a headachey to figure out, at any rate. 

"Interesting! Is there some sort of superhero guild that you're doing your apprenticeships under, or is it some other arrangement?" 

Kid Flash looks thoughtful.

"I hadn't really thought of it like that, but I guess the Justice League is sort of like a guild. Although I tend to just work with Flash, and sometimes Robin and Batman. I think I've met Superman, like, once. During this big tornado thing. It's all pretty informal, honestly."

She blinks a little, before nodding along. 

"So it's just that there's more senior people in the league who happen to be your personal mentors, then? I suppose powers means that things are a lot less universal there than they'd be otherwise." 

"Yeah, that's pretty much it. Powers can be pretty unique — Flash and I have powers that come from the same place, so he's taught me a lot of tricks about how to use it better. Even if I'm not as fast."

He visibly has an idea.

"You mentioned your powers being pretty hard to explain — are you willing to share what you can while we wait for the police? Maybe we could figure out a League member who'd be willing to show you the ropes!"

She nods lightly. Poor guy. 

"I think it might be best to wait 'til I can do a full debriefing? I don't want to have to explain everything twice over if I can avoid it, and I imagine they'll want to record it for later when the time comes." 

"Oh! Cool, yeah, that makes sense," Kid Flash agrees, just as the police pull around the corner.

"I've got to go give a statement — just hang tight, we'll be right back."

And so they leave Topaz standing around on a streetcorner for a few minutes while Captain Cold gets bundled into a cruiser and a tow-truck arrives to help right the overturned armored car.

She lets out a loose little breath, exhaling gently. For all she knows she's in super fascist evil land and everyone is just being polite to her as a psi-op, but this... looks relatively normally western and liberal and everything? She's sure that even if shifters were a thing in her world that plenty of people who freak out seeing someone sex swapping in front of them. They seem kind, and reasonable, and there's really not that much to complain about, given how eager they are to jump to accomodate her and make things work reasonably and right. She's probably not going to start a superplague from different immunity profiles, given the way that they were chill with world travellers? Still, it's... rattling, that either of those things could be the case. 

These powers are good, the sort of thing that could make a career or a fortune, even just a single one alone would be enough for that. It's a little thrilling just... thinking about the idea of doing more with what she has already. Her body feels good, too, even with just the slight change to the texture of her skin and the feeling of her hair on her scalp. 

Would it make sense to get a power to say, know more about the power? The assistant seems happy to talk about possibilities as they occur, but that doesn't really mean that she can give a real answer of what's possible. She should probably figure out a way to get around some sort of model village - some sort of research power or way to confirm things against the common sense or the outside web? 

She's not sure, and she lets the thoughts linger in her mind, idly half-meditating on her powers and her ability to keep herself safe, if the worst comes to past. 

Oh! Does she want an intuitive understanding of what powers she can have? Or maybe a sense for whether people are manipulating her?

...You know what, let's try the first. 

As the fourth spark blooms, it suddenly becomes clear what each spark represents: a power or ability just on the far end of what is possible for an unempowered human. That could mean peak human strength, speed, agility, memory, insight, and so on. Or it could mean supernatural powers that are slow, situational, limited in some way, or that only reinforce something that she can already do.

Her current powers show this pattern: her intuition about her powers is as good an intuition as she could have; her ability to tell whether someone would be upset by her appearance changing likewise. Her illusory appearance is definitely supernatural — but it's passive, limited only to one appearance and to her own body. Her regeneration is the same: faster than an unempowered human, and guiding her body in a direction it wouldn't go without assistance ... but not very much faster than an unempowered human, and mostly focused on reinforcing her body's built-in ability to change itself.

She's already seen that she can discard sparks and get new ones, but her latest spark draws her attention to an almost unnoticeable feeling of fatigue or strain: she has a volume limit (four), but she also has a throughput limit, although she's nowhere near it yet. Subject to those limits, and within the constraints of what can 'fit' in a single spark, she can do all kinds of things.

Along with this burst of understanding comes a strong impression that powers that synergize with each other are important, and that she could go farther by merging her three appearing-female-related powers.

Is there a reason why she shouldn't just throw these out and get in new ones to merge? They were kind of hastily thrown together as situational answers to problems rather than anything else, so they aren't exactly ones that were perfectly picked out to work well together.

There doesn't seem to be any intuitive reason not to, other than the fact that if she pushes all of these sparks away with nothing to replace them then she'll go back to looking like a boy.

Okay so... 

Let's get rid of the appearance change acceptability power, and get something that'll merge well.

The most obvious thing to do would be something that just boosts her body (or perhaps anyone in touch range? It probably doesn't have to be very impressive to merge up well) to speed up the process, or something that makes some sort of more... qualitative improvement. People in this world can have weird powers like the superspeed that Kid Flash has - maybe there's something that she can do with that? It might make more sense to get some sort of analysis of it done first before trying to implement any part of it, but maybe it's easier then she thinks? 

Does she get a sense of how those ideas would work? 

The intuition from her most recent spark seems to suggest that her newfound powers may be able to replicate native weird powers, but they don't work the same way. That said — sparks are more efficient when they're more ... focused. If she can break a power down into small, focused pieces, she'll be able to stretch things farther.

The sparks she has (and the source of her powers) don't seem to have more detailed ideas about how to do that in her case, though. Super-intuition about what powers she can obtain doesn't stretch to any special insight about what powers she actually wants — although it does help a bit with brainstorming.

Okay hm. 

Let's try... a zero range regeneration booster power - probably want to keep it relatively narrow, given how much the assistant emphasizes that - if you can do that, and then merge it with the ideal form healing power, if you can? 

The sparks spin for a moment, a fourth one blooming in her chest. It latches strongly onto the regeneration spark, and then sort of shyly swings around the illusory power, before all three click together under her nudging, like magnets prodded a bit too close.

And then there are just two sparks within her: a dim one, providing her insight into the kinds of powers she can get, and a brighter one that gives her noticeable regeneration toward a mental image she sets, fast enough that she can feel her facial structure changing.

Ooo okay, that is a weird feeling! Having her jaw sort of click and the bones sort of wriggle and melt into her face is odd, though thankfully not painful. The mental image is the fairly conservative one, but it still is good to just feel her chest filling out a little and the fat flowing into the different places, little shivers spilling down to her toes as she breathes out a satisfied little sigh-smile. It feels like her, with the blue eyes and hair all packaged up in a fit everygirl package. 

Hm. If she can do information powers, including information powers about the power itself, can she get a bit more of an explanation of how the power works, if not by the rules of this universe? Might as well nab a power for that...

Another spark blooms to life, and it suddenly becomes obvious that the sparks are the seed-pods of an alien entity that has gently draped itself around her very being, wrapping her in its fronds — but not maliciously; it's here to help!

It wants to help her, and it does its best to make that happen, but it doesn't really know how. It acts on the level of instinct, feeding on the background energy of the cosmos and growing sparks according to her desires and requests. The sparks are not truly aware in themselves, but they do have synergy or dissynergy with each other. Cliques of sparks of the same level that are all mutually synergistic can be combined into a stronger spark that subsumes their functions. Anticliques of sparks (a group with mutual dissynergy) sort of push on the boundaries of her soul in proportion to their magnitude — not in a dangerous way, but rather like a long stretch at the end of the day, or like a shoe stretched on a block.

When she pushes a spark away, it drifts off to somewhere else to take root. Combined sparks are too 'big' to pass through the boundary of her internal space, but she can pry them apart into their component sparks and cast them off individually. That does mean that she can end up in a situation where she doesn't have enough room to get rid of all but one of her powers, but she can never get 'stuck' and be unable to reconfigure things with enough time.

There is no limit to how bright the sparks can grow, with time and cleverness and attention ... except that they're practically limited by the space she has to create and merge them in.

Oh that is kind of cute! She's picturing each of the nodes having it's own little smiley face and it's kind of adorable? Or maybe some sort of lightning elemental with googly eyes that are also the nodes. Either way, that is cool! If maybe a bit intimidating.

Synergy seems pretty intuitive so far, but is there any sort of definition of dissynergy here? Is it just being sort of unrelated or is it more of an 'opposing elements' thing? Oh, and is there anything she can do to directly optimize at these? Like... can she just ask for a power that's as dissynergistic (or synergistic, if there's ever a reason to do that) as possible to minmax the soulspace expanding thing, or certain things she should look out for to get it the best environment and food to grow? 

Does she have a sense for how the regeneration power would work on someone else? Hopefully it doesn't require her to heal them into the same template that she is using... 

The idea of 'synergy' and 'dissynergy' is really a binary discretization of a continuous attribute. But the attraction and repulsion between sparks isn't actually linear in the underlying space of synergy — she gets a kind of wordless visual impression of something a bit like the arctangent function, when she prods at the 'mechanics' spark — so functionally it makes sense to treat synergies as being either 'present' or 'absent'.

Does she want a power that is maximally dissynergistic with her current set of powers? Because that's actually pretty easy for it to produce, compared to trying to interpret her alien thoughts into a stable spark-seed.

The template for her regeneration power is pulled from the person being regenerated, so applying it to another person (using its extremely limited range), will regenerate them toward the shape that they think of as being healthy/correct. She can't use it to forcibly shape other people — although a different combination of powers could do that. There's also the background impression that applying her regeneration power to someone else will be weaker than the effect on herself, because of something complicated about the way ranges interact when sparks merge.

Oh that's not a problem at all! She was hoping it'd work that way, honestly - managing the mental images from her side sounds like it would be a big headache. 

...It said 'soul', didn't it? That's something to unpack. Presumably that means that it's a magic thing and that magic things are a thing? Maybe they have people with skills in that area here that could do something with this... Or really, it's probably worth poking if it can do anything with 'magical potential' or something like that? Getting powers that help out when she hasn't gotten them slotted is probably a wise investment, even if it probably won't be the most helpful in the here and now, the ability to do that seems like it'd be really helpful for keeping the versatility in live in practice. 

You know what, sure! At least assuming that she can just have the dissynergy power and not use it if she doesn't want to and it's like, safe to have and all that. And while she's messing around a little recklessly, she might as well merge the two power intuition powers, too. 

The power-intuition-powers click together, brightening to the same level as the other combined sparks.

The newly bloomed dissynergistic power is ... strange. It doesn't feel dangerous to her, but it does feel like it could be dangerous to her surroundings. On the other hand, trying to feel out what it does is an exercise in futility. The concept of it is too complex, too situational to fit into a small sequence of thoughts. It is the singular thing which is least like regenerating or understanding powers, which is a very strange thing indeed.

As to granting her 'magical potential' — that is too big, and too vague for the gift to parse. Does she want a power that makes her better able to sense cosmic background energy?

Ookay then. Odd, and probably not a good idea to try out, then. 

She was thinking... maybe some sort of elemental affinity - for water, maybe - or something like that, or maybe some sort of intuition about the steps required for 'initiation' into being a magic person, or some sort of magical heritage, like from a dragon? Dragons are cool. Really, without knowing more about what's going on with magic trying to specify something more particular might not be the most effective thing in the world. That sensory power might be worth poking at later? 

She'll leave it like that for now. Keeping her head in the clouds is only going to make this a bit more awkward, honestly, and a true healing power is probably enough already to prove that she has something genuinely really useful to offer. 

She does a few quick little grounding breaths, and fidgets her hands quietly. 

She can set the mental image of her regeneration power to involve parts of a dragon? But 'magical heritage' is still underspecified. It can do a power that makes dragons think she's a hatchling?

On the other hand, it can definitely do a power for manipulating water! Or one for sensing it, or one that boosts the effect of other powers on water. Does she want one of those?

As it is trying to puzzle out that latest set of thoughts, the superheros finish up with the police and head back in her direction.

"Hey, Topaz! Sorry for the wait," The Flash says. "I called my friend, and he's prepping his scanner, but it's a bit of a trip. Do you mind if I carry you?"

Her eyes flick up appraisingly, not quite parsing it for a moment. 

"Um. Sure?" 

He sweeps her up in a bridal carry.

"This is going to seem quite fast, but I actually keep it slow when I have a passenger, so know that everything is under control."

With that reassuring statement, he starts to move, and the world extends into a tunnel of wind and light.

Kid Flash — for all his whispered comments ­— doesn't appear to have trouble keeping up, and a moment later the three of them arrive at a high-tech-looking door, incongruously located in what appears to be a natural cave. Kid Flash steps forward and presses a reinforced doorbell.

The Flash gently lets Topaz down, holding her until she finds her feet again.

"You might want to fix your hair," he advises, gesturing at it. "I can never seem to smooth things out enough for people's hair."

She nods appreciatively, then shakes out her hair, a hand swishing through the frazzled mess. Maybe the regeneration power can help her out a little here, fudging things? But regardless...

Goodness that was a bit of a rush! The contextlessness was a little disorienting but honestly she kind of wants to take that ride again? But yeah, that's a later thought, not a thought for entering the superhero doombase. 

A moment later, the door opens to reveal a man in a bat-themed cowl. The majority of his outfit, however, is a dark grey — the kind of dark grey which, if it were not for the bright yellow symbol right over his center of mass, would make him extremely stealthy in the shadows. Black, true black, isn't grungy enough to blend into the night, and this costume was clearly designed by someone who knew that.

And then decided to add a big yellow logo anyway.

"Welcome," the man intones, in a voice striving for a hard-won compromise between 'gruff' and 'comforting'. "You must be Topaz. This way, please. If you're hungry, I can have some sandwiches sent down."

Immediately, her attention snaps up to take him in. It's the sort of solid sensible armor that she'd expect, and he's clearly buff enough beneath that he just... looks like he's the guy in charge. The emblem looks like a... concession to the style of that the Flashes are using? Probably there's some sort of colorshifting or rotating system to get past that. 

She takes a moment to meet his eyes - eye contact is always hard but getting a sense that he's watching not staring really helps. She relaxes infinitisimally, and nods, trying not to think of it too much as a pure dominance thing, head tilted forty-five degrees down for a solid moment before she picks herself back up and follows. 

"I suppose that makes you Batman, then? I'm not hungry quite yet, but I'd certainly appreciate a glass of water."  

"Indeed," he agrees. "I'll call for one."

He leads their party past a series of displays that look flashy, but which, upon close inspection, are probably not actually particularly valuable. A moment later, they come to a large room containing a dizzying variety of analytical equipment.

In the corner, a dumbwaiter chimes and opens to reveal a glass of water.

"So first I'd like to try and measure your quantum flavor ..."

After a thorough scanning by all manner of devices, Batman runs out of things to try.

"I'm afraid that there is no trace of your origins," he tells her. "Which will make it ... quite difficult to figure out how to send you back."

On the other hand, he has gotten some excellent scans of her shapeshifting power in action — even though it seemed to settle down and start focusing mostly on her organs after a certain point. He'll be updating the cave's monitoring systems with a matching detector this evening, just in case.

"Have you given any thought to what you might like to happen next? I have some experience relocating young metahumans who can't return to their homes, for whatever reason."

...Okay, probably now is the time to get a general research power slotted in. Maybe something that would let her search the internet or 'common knowledge' somehow? Getting a sense of relevant taboos here and the general political enviroment would probably be a good idea. Or maybea social intuition power about general trustworthiness, failing that? Her intuitions about what really matters in this sort of - social combat have never been the strongest. She looks around for a spot to sit, and settles down if she can. 

"It's really hard to say? I've been here for less than an hour, so I don't have a great sense of how... any of this works. You've been nothing but reasonable and respectful, but I don't know really much of anything at all about what this world is really like politically or for a..." 

She bobs her head down and hums lightly. 

"Metahuman, you said?" 

She looks up into the air, eyes unfocusing a little. 

"In an ideal world, this is when I get a general sense that I don't have anything to fear, right now, and I tell you in detail about my powers and tell you about how I feel like I might be able to help - as a 'superhero' or otherwise. I'm just not sure how to get there." 

"Though... it might be a good idea to - explain a bit about where I'm from, first?" 

She cocks her head to the side a little, bouncing the idea around in her head. 

It can do any of those, actually! But not all three at the same time unless she makes space first. Which one(s) does she want?

There's also a verging sense of tiredness — she hasn't hit the limit of how many sparks the gift can make, yet, but it's starting to deplete its reserves of cosmic energy.

Let's do... common knowledge. What does that say about the Justice League and the local government? 

A spark providing common knowledge blooms. Being full of dissynergistic sparks gives her a slight stretching feeling, barely noticeable.

The local government is ... surprisingly similar to the America of her native world, given that metahumans are apparently a thing. In the way of properly functioning democracies, it's not great but it's not terrible, either. It has a bill of rights that is mostly upheld, except for probably-unconstitutional exceptions in the name of border security. The majority of people have representation in government, but Puerto Rico and felons both muddle along without it.

Common knowledge about the Justice League is considerably more interesting. Formed as an alliance of convenience to fight an alien invasion, and headquartered in the Hall of Justice in D.C., it is a team of loosely-aligned top-tier superheros who coordinate to fight global disasters while mostly focusing on their own home areas. While nominally international — and given legitimacy through a U.N. charter — a supermajority of the members are (probably) American.

Some of the members have known identities and origins: Aquaman (who is King of Atlantis), Wonder Woman (who comes from Paradise Island in Greece), Plastic Man (who can't really hide his powers), and Superman (who is an alien). Other members of the league include The Flash, Batman, Black Canary, and Captain Atom.

The League is generally considered trustworthy, although there is perpetual grumbling about their inability to head disasters off before they occur. And the more conspiracy-minded individuals who insist that they're secretly in control of the world, given the group's power and lack of accountability.

"If you feel comfortable with that, I think we would all be interested to hear a bit about your home," Batman agrees.

Okay, yeah, that's about as good a scenario as she could have expected, honestly. 

She drums her fingers against her seat. 

"I come from the Canada of another Earth. It looks a lot like this world, but I'm pretty sure there aren't any metahumans or magic users - there's a few people who have developed a handful of weird party tricks really really far, but not anything even remotely as... 'ungrounded' or impressive as what the Flash can do, and the only evidence we have of alien life existing is a some pictures rovers took of mars that suggest that there was maybe possibly microbial life there, at some point? I don't think the timeline quite lines up, either - it was 2025 when I left, and I think it's a little earlier than that from you, judging from what the cars looked like? Though the technology that they had back in my world is way less advanced then whatever you're using here, so I don't expect anyone from that side will be poking their heads in here." 

She hums a little, her tone getting a little meandering as she slips into storyteller mode. 

"I think my home world is a good bit less - liberal and internationalist then this world? I can't imagine the great powers tolerating something like the Justice League, and there's been a bit of an uptick in right wing populism and nativism that's been a little scary. Still, things... mostly have been chugging along pretty well, and it's pretty prosperous, all things considered. Bililons of people have internet access and smartphones, and absolute poverty is going down all the time, and a lot of the diseases that have been killing people throughout history are finally getting dealt with, at least in richer countries. There's a lot of hate against trans and gay people, if you look in the right places, but it's broadly legal and tentatively accepted, so it's not so bad there, either."

 She smiles a bit wanly. 

He leans back in his (custom, bat-themed) chair. What an interesting set of comparisons for her to draw.

"I think it's sometimes easier to see the bad side of our own situations," he comments after a moment. "One might say that our world is more international because it must be, to counter extraterrestrial threats. But I am always glad to hear about a world where people are overcoming poverty and disease."

Kid Flash, who has been alternating between examining the various scanning machines and losing at ping-pong during the whole scanning process, leans over to whisper to The Flash.

"Is Batman okay? That's, like, a lot more optimistic than I would expect from Mr. 'I am the night'."

The Flash just makes a shushing gesture at him, and then there's a half second of tussling followed by another half second of ping-pong.

She bobs her head from side to side. 

"Maybe? We did still have nuclear weapons, which have caused a lot of problems around just how threatening those can be the world over, and those still ended up in the hands of some pariah states and that's caused a good deal of problems. I suppose a big obvious external threat can be a lot more convincing than just the game theory, though, and aliens would probably be at least a little bit bigger of a problem." 

She taps her lips together with thought. 

"I've always had a bit of a problem of giving overly critical feedback - to me, the things that are wrong just... jump off the page at me as jarring and incomplete, and the things that are working right as natural, right, and beneath notice because when things are working correctly you shouldn't have to think about how things are working? Still, there's a lot of things that do just... work, and problems that you can just solve with a bit of time and money, or things that you can get that are just uncomplicatedly good, and... that can really mean the world, to me." 

"When you see those negative things — how do you handle them?" he asks, his voice tinged with genuine interest.

"My first instinct is usually to just sort of... write them all out in a big unstructured list, and then go down the list and see how addressable they are? There's a - charitable movement in my world called 'Effective Altruism' that have clarified my thoughts a lot on how to think about this - the way they try to think about bigger scope problems is in terms of how important, neglected and tractable they are. How big of a difference would it make to solve the problem, how much are people already putting in (the right kind of) work to solve the problem and how much can the current state of the art on the problem be improved? Thinking through that, implicitly or explicitly can really help clarify what's going on in a problem." 

She furrows her brow and leans back a little. 

"Though a lot of the time, I feel like that sort of - assumes a certain ownership over the area? A lotta the time in more ordinary situations people just want to see if they missed anything particularly meaningful or how much the problems they know about are obvious to other people, so working like that can be a pretty different project." 

To Batman — a man who decided to single-handedly clean up a corrupt and dangerous city while dressed like a small furry animal — that seems like a perfectly reasonable response.

"And your new-found powers give you a good deal more traction, or at least leverage, than you once had," he concludes. "I understand you haven't had much time to consider, but in our world people such as yourself often end up in costume, on one side or another. The League has been working on something that could help ..."

He glances over to The Flash.

The Flash lays a hand on Kid Flash's shoulder.

"These two did help me actually capture Captain Cold just a little while ago," he points out.

Batman thinks for a moment, and then nods decisively.

"Topaz — would you be interested in joining a team of young heroes, where you could learn from those with more experience—"

He nods to Kid Flash, who stands a bit straighter.

"—and use an existing support network to help keep you on your feet while you reorient yourself to a new world?"

"Oh um!"

She startles, and laughs lightly. That was a shorter interview then she expected, especially given that they're taking her up as a bit of a mystery box! But honestly, her power sense seems pretty sure that they're reasonably legitimate, and worst comes to worst she'll more or less be back where she started so...

"I'd be interested in trying it out, at least! I don't think that - all of my work would one hundred percent make sense through that lense? But I do sounds like you do a lot of important work and I'd love to get to be a part of that."