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Eden is about to move. She's got her backpack full of stuff - including fresh fruit and a bottle of water she liberated from Lucy's kitchen - and wears her traveling outfit of slim jeans and a fitted T-shirt.

She waits on a lawn chair in front of the Cooper house, reading a book, looking around every few minutes for people she needs to talk to.

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"Well, I'd be careful around bugs, too. Fireflies, especially. All that blinking - I think it's something sinister."

Said jokingly. ...Well, she's trying to joke. She winces apologetically when she's through, acknowledging that it's not going all that well.

Trying is good! Steph gives her a thumbs up and a laugh for the effort.

"Hey, I once fought a giant moth that was hatching full-grown humans in a swimming pool," she says, grinning. "After that, bugs are never gonna be the same again, seriously."

Eden's expression cycles from confusion, to being impressed, to being concerned, to being creeped out, then back to confusion.

Before the process can repeat, she simply asks, "Story, please?"

Steph giggles.

"Hey, if I knew why there was a giant moth hatching humans, I'd be Batman. Something about Charaxes getting out of gaol, dying, and wanting to reproduce. I have no idea why he picked people, though. Nah, I just went in there and tried to stop it -- the little redheaded men kept killing real people, see."

Welcome to Confusionville. Population: Eden.

(If Batman rings a bell, she's too confused to note it.)

"If you could start from the beginning and explain about Charaxes, who the redheaded man is, and why he keeps killing real people?"

Steph grins, settling comfortably cross-legged.

"Charaxes is the new name of this supervillain wannabe; he used to be called Killer Moth. And when he was called Killer Moth, he was just a basic human, no powers or anything, he just liked to dress up as a moth and kill people."

Beat.

"In my world this isn't even weird!

"So he somehow metamorphosised in gaol into this -- moth-hybrid thing, and lemme tell you, moths the size of humans with big blood-sucking prob-probiscis-things? CREEPY.

"And he wanted to have kids.

"Or whatever.

"So he holes up in this swimming pool in an abandoned school and starts laying eggs. Only the eggs hatch into tiny little clones of his human self, which grow bigger -- that's the redheaded guys -- and they start escaping from the pool and getting out into Gotham, and killing people. Just like Daddy.

"See, it all makes sense. Um, except the why."

Steph grins. HER HOMEWORLD IS THE BEST WORLD.

After Eden absorbs all that (it's a rather long pause), she says, though she's still not sure exactly what to say, "Wow. Good for you for taking this guy on."

Pause. "And I really hope we don't see a lot of these mutating crazies in this world." Apart, Eden adds silently, from all the members of the Cooper household - granted, not all of them seem crazy, but it certainly does seem to be Strange Powers Central.

Steph giggles. "Yeah, I hope not. But if there's a Gotham here, we might. I wouldn't worry though. I'm pretty sure we can take them. 'Specially with Clark around."

"He'd probably be helpful," Eden agrees.

"So, you're a superhero, huh?"

Steph hesitates, but honesty wins out, and she admits "Well... I'm a superhero in training. Or I used to be, before getting stolen by Eden. Um, the world, not the you."

Eden raises an eyebrow. "If you take on Mothman while you're just in training, what're you expected to do when you're a fully-fledged superhero?"

"Well, uh." Steph laughs, and confides "I ... maybe sort of wasn't exactly supposed to take on Mothman. But I was there, and nobody else was close, what else was I gonna do?"

"What you had to," Eden finishes, smiling in a bewildered sort of amusement. (Still a little bit stuck on the 'fighting Mothman' side of the story.)

She sobers, just a bit, to say, "That's very admirable. I'd never do something like that."

"I just like the rush mostly," Steph confesses, grinning at her. "The adrenaline too, but it's totally a high saving people's lives."

Eden can understand the lure of highs, though none of hers involved saving people.

Her smile is bright and knowing when she says: "Mmm, I bet. You're talking to a girl who flunked her first year of college because she went clubbing too much."

And drinking and drugging and sexing and stealing. But Steph is young and innocent and will not be subjected to tales of Eden's sordid past.

Well, fairly innocent, anyway. Although certainly not by any old-fashioned definition.

Or most modern ideas.

She laughs. "Hey, I can't talk. Technically, I dropped out of high school at sixteen, what with being sucked into another world and all."

She looks thoughtful for a moment.

"If this is my world, though, I think my sudden disappearing a year ago is probably the least of its worries."

Eden chuckles. "I think being sucked into another world a valid excuse for academic failure. Better than shakin' it for some hot guy to the tune Gwen Stefani's Holla Back Girl."

"Yes," Steph agrees, and gives her a mischievous grin. "Not that I didn't shake, it's just I didn't get busted."

Her face falls a little, though.

"Did end up repeating a year, but ehhh. That happens when you miss three quarters of it."

Eden frowns a bit at the face-falling. Fortunately, she story she cooked up on the fly lets her add, "I did too. I had to take a year off to work and get enough money to give it another try. It was rough - particularly for my own self-image, you know?"

"I totally hear you." Steph grins at her. "Man, if I hadn't had good friends, I would have been the most miserable kid."

She's tossing up whether to tell Eden or not. It's ... She never even told Sokka, and not even Cass knew back home. But Eden would probably understand. She's nice.

"Got back eventually, though. Did you?"

Eden brightens in sympathetic happiness at the news of Steph's good friends. She's long past feeling wistful for her lack of them at Step's age. (Most of the time.)

"Four years," Eden says proudly. "Is it wrong that I want to wave my English B.A. around? It's probably wrong."