1.8 Dances Part 3

What happened?

I had to reboot you for lack of better a term.

Why? What exactly does that mean?

The girl that manifested as an ability that controls both the mind and body of a person. To counter that, I broke the control and reloaded the version of your mind from before you were put under this girl’s control.

Will she be able control me again?

Physically yes, but mentally, no. Now I have experienced it, I can block the mental control and while I can’t stop her seizing control of your physical form, it will take me up to two seconds at most to restore your own control.

So what exactly happened? What form does this mental and physical control take?

For starters her power seems to be based around dancing and her joy in partaking in it.

Dancing. I have read about that. So how is that relevant?

Her power makes others dance and they can’t stop. She also puts under in a state of bliss so they don’t want to stop even if they could do so. I’m not sure about the limits of her power’s range because while you, Alexandria, Flamefly and most of the other people were affected, Defender and Quicksteel weren’t.

Anything else I should know?

Yes, the girl can change the outfit of those that her power is affecting.

Wait a moment...

Yes, she replaced your armour with a dress.

She is going down.

“-Yeah, I’ll see if I can, wait, she is seems to be back in control,” says Defender into the Guardsmen’ comms, “Talk with you in a bit. Bye. Hey Guardian.”

“Hello Defender,” says Guardian as she inspects the dress that the annoying girl has replaced her armour with.

Perhaps you can reason with her to restore your armour?

And if she refuses, we beat her up real good.

You’re overacting.

That was my armour! My pride and joy! Someone has to pay!

You can also build more and you also have a spare back at the base.

Bah!

The dress is a silky light blue with a loose skirt and tight bodice. There are no sleeves or even a right strap, but there is a large, frilly one on the left. A white ribbon surrounds her waist, but fortunately there is no bow.

“Are you okay?” asks Defender in a worried voice, “Your armour disappeared and was replaced by the dress and then you went all blank while everybody else started dancing.”

“I’m fine,” says Guardian, “Get Quicksteel away so he doesn’t escape. You should also avoid going after the girl. You might not be immune and it is a bigger deal if people see your face than if they were to see mine.”

“That is true,” admits Defender as she picks up Quicksteel, “I’ll be going then. I have also informed Gears of the situation. I have also come up with a name for the girl. I’m calling her Dancing Queen.”

“Okay,” says Guardian, “Tell him that I can handle it and the others should keep out of it. I’m effectively immune to her powers now that I can counter them. But please pass Quicksteel’s phone to me before you go.”

“Sure,” replies Defender as she tosses the device to Guardian while flying up into the air, “The dress looks good on you by the way.”

I don’t care about that. I prefer armour.

Function over form.

Yeah!

Guardian glances at Alexandria, who is dancing with Flamefly whilst wearing a white, red and blue party dress. Both superheroes have this dazed look of bliss on their faces, oblivious to the rest of the world.

At least she is happy whilst under control of Dancing Queen.

From what I can tell, Dancing Queen doesn’t seem to be malicious. Rather, she seems to be confused and scared and is acting out of panic and instinct. I recommend we try and reason with her rather than attacking her.

Humph!

Don’t be petty. Focus on what on doing your duty.

I better call Glowbug then and inform her of what is going on.

That is the spirit.

Guardian takes a moment to use her power to customise Quicksteel’s phone, including adding a voice distorter so Glowbug will recognise her voice. Once that is done, Guardian phones Glowbug’s number.

“Hello, Nicola Hatheway here,” answers Glowbug, “Who is this?”

“Guardian,” replies Guardian. “I need to inform you of the situation.”

“Yeah, I was wondering what happened,” says Glowbug, “We suddenly lost all contact with Alexandria and Flamefly.”

“Well, the thing is that we got a newly manifested parahuman on the loose,” says Guardian before explaining the rest of the situation to Glowbug.

“That is not good,” says Glowbug, “Pathfinder and I will go after Dancing Queen then. We’ll try and talk some sense into her.”

“She is very dangerous,” points out Guardian.

“Yeah, but her power is dancing,” says Glowbug, “Pathfinder will find her and try to talk to her while I will nail her at range if that doesn’t work. See ya later.”

“But she took out Alexandria and Flamefly by accident,” Guardian tries to tell Glowbug, but she has already hung up.

She completely ignored my warnings!

Her preconceptions about some having a power based around dancing has stopped her from realising that Dancing Queen’s power is actually a very strong ‘control’ power.

Yeah. We should get moving. You know where she went?

I can point you in the right direction. We still have our spy network and I can access it simply by connecting the phone in your hand to the network.

Cool.

Following Ceta’s directions, Guardian begins to run down the street, only to stumble as she picks up speed.

What on Earth?

Guardian looks down at her feet.

Heels. I’m wearing heels.

Throw them away and wrap cloth around your feet to protect them.

Good plan.

Doing as Ceta suggests, Guardian takes off the heels and tosses them aside. She then heads back to one of the two people that weren’t affected by Dancing Queen and rips off several strips of cloth off of their clothes. Guardian wraps them around both of her feet before darting off.

Time to hunt down Dancing Queen and make her pay for getting rid of my armour.

Actually we’re going to try and reason with her.

Uh-uh.