Healthbar's Tale

I don't really have a big story like Diffy, but Tempest wanted a bunch of us to take at turn at this, so I thought I'd give it a go.

Hi! I'm Healthbar, and before all of this I had a simple life. I went to college, I hung out with my friends WITHOUT villains or abilities disturbing us, and, I played video games. I was great. I was an expert, never giving up, always trying again and again until I won, never letting a game beat me, I always wished I had more health, my technique tended to be run in and think later. Tempest kept jazzing up my games for me when he got Technopathy, but playing against him was always too hard, how do you beat a guy with TP? CHEAT!!!!

Anyway................god I miss games. My playing quota is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down since this got so big. I got two hours to play yesterday, but we're kind of bust at the moment.

pffffffffffffft dum de dum...................what to write? Oh! I know! I guess I could tell you a little bit about when I first got my ability, nobody really knows what happened then, it might be easier to put on here:

OK, so, bad guy bursts in during lunch break and T beats him up and sends him running, we find out about it all, we get in on the whole abilities bit, yada yada, you know this part, it's in an earlier post. A day or so after the 'Power boost jab', just after we'd saved Diffy and his mum, and I'd got the hang of my healing power, I started to feel strange. I felt like there was fog in my mind, like something was filling my head, trying to get out. Then I woke up in the middle of the night, completely alert, and feeling myself compelled to go outside. I crept out in a dressing gown, into the street where VHS is, and caught myself on a bent nail as I went out the door (The renovations to the base weren't finished at that point) and I felt a pain in my arm. I saw the nail had cut it, just above the elbow, and a drop of blood was slowly working it's way out. I swore and continued. It was a clear night, and moonlight fell on my face. I felt the street filling with black smoke around me, and I could suddenly feel the moon's gravity. I knew about it of course, but just then I could feel it and knew exactly what effect the moon had on the earth. I could feel that the moon found me special, and was dragging me upwards. I slowly lifted into the air, and, very slowly, started towards the moon. I knew it was pulling me, that it's gravity had a greater effect on me, and that I wouldn't stop unless I did something. I was distracted by my arm, and I looked down to see the cut bleeding freely. I sensed the fog thickening, and saw a bit of it become a tendril that snaked out of the alley, and found a cyclist, heading home from some late night party (This was like, 2 in the morning, but you know what students are like). The smoke coiled round him, and he crashed his bike with a yell. I saw him start to choke and cough, at the same time feeling a slight tingle on my arm. I saw the cut heal itself, something I hadn't managed to do yet, and the smoke withdrew from the man, and he stumbled away, staring back at the fog and swearing, now looking like he had the flu or something. I was so shocked I managed to stop the moon's pull on me, almost by accident. I drifted slowly back down, landing with a slight bump, realising for the first time the full extent of my powers. I also had this sensation at the back of my mind, a sort of hunger, it started when the smoke had grabbed the cyclist, like a bloodlust but more than that. A tiny part of me LIKED that my power could cause pain. I hadn't noticed before, my power had brought it out, but a tiny part of my mind had woken up, and it liked my ability draining health. I was scared. I knew that without my power that part of me would sleep again, as if they needed each other. That part of me didn't exist without the ability. I knew how my power worked, and how the fog could shut things down. I turned it inwards, creating invisible barriers for myself to lock away the harmful potential of my power. I knew it would lock the more powerful solar too, it needed the lunar as balance so it would shut down aswell, but it had to be done. It made me forget most of what happened, with only a hazy idea that I had more than just healing. with my ability back at it's basics, I went back inside, now a bit confused as to what had made me go out in the first place.
I found Playwrite waiting at the top of the stairs.
'Couldn't sleep either?'
'On the contrary, I was having a lovely dream, I think I picked up part of Doolittle's at one point, this squirrel kept turning and talking french, but I woke up when you crept past my room thinking 'Moon, outside, Moon, outside.' really loudly, what was that about?'
' The moon..............no idea. Hmm.'
He looked at me 'No, you don't do you. That's.....odd. Oh well, sorry I asked, can't stop drifting into your heads and picking up stuff. I'll get the hang of it soon and leave you guys to your own thoughts. Night.'
And we both went off to our beds. I kept looking at the moon at night and wondering why it fascinated me so much, and then John went and broke the barriers by nearly killing me and brought the memory back, damn him. Only extreme pressure and pain could have done that. Still, hurt him pretty badly back, didn't I? He should know better than to take on VHS! Haha!

Wow, it WAS easier to put on here than say. Well, I'm sure Centaur will be along soon to do his. Bye!

Diffy's Tale

Me first me first!!!

Hello Peoples of Bloggy world! Hello! (Cept Damian, you gets no hello if yous reading this, me no like you! You big meanie! But if yous saying a big sorry then MAYBE I likes you again, but only maybe!)

Anyways, Hi! This is where I gets to tell you about a scary bit from ages ago that meant Tempest let in da team! YAY! I bet you was wondering why someone little like me gets to stay with them and was gived my spooks instead of being left with mummy and daddy, wernt you? Now I tell you!

Okey dokey, timey line stuff. About a week before this, Tempest did his trip to america and pineherst, and nicked all of them little tubes of black goop. Mister Arfur was all mad about that and sent some nasty peoples after him, but we get to them later, stop making me skip bits! OKey doke, So Tempest gave evryboby else da tubes, and they was getting all superpowery, but I not know any of dat at da time. First I learnded of any of this cool stuff, I was at home in me room. I was playing wiv toys, and there was a big bang on da front door. I heard mummy open it, and ask who it was.Amumbly man said somefing mumbly, and then mummy mentioned Tempest. (Cept his real name obvusly, but he made me promise not to put any of our names on here, so where my real name is said I gonna put Diffy (IS my real name now anyways, I likes it ) and where Tempest is mentioned I gonna put Tempest and so on for evryboby.) So, mummy says Tempests name and I wonders into the hall to listen.
'Yes, he's a good friend of ours and looks after Diffy for us quite often, takes him to the park and things, why?' said mummy.
'He's annoyed my boss, and we need a word with him.' said mumbly.
'Sorry, he's not here right now, what did he do?' said mummy.
'Took something from the boss that he wants back. Lots of somethings. Can I have a word with with Diffy? We need Tempest.' said mumbly.
'Well you've got him!' yelled Tempest, and I heard a crunchy noise as they landeded on da gravel. I made a big smile and called 'Tempest!'and started downstairs to see my friend. I heard mummy saying 'But, you were in a .....purple bubble....flying....' and then mumbly grabbed mummy and ran into the house. I went 'OI!' reeeeeeally loudly and ran down da stares, calling 'Let go of mummy!' and I went in da living room after dem. VHS was alredy in, and it was a stale mat. They was all glaring at mumble, and he was holding mummy in his arms, hugging her hard. Tempest was miserble and saying to mummy: 'I'm really sorry Mrs. Diffy, I tried to stop this from happening, I've spent most of the week hiding people I know, by getting rid of files, wiping databases, putting up protections, they must have seen yours before I got to it. I'm really sorry.'
'Explain later. Save Diffy.' said mummy, shes so awesome, I love her!
Mumbly said he not letting go until Tempest give back da tubes, but he say he cant because he useded some already and Arfur not deserve dem. Mumble says he sorry to heer dat, and dat me and mummy in trouble. I runs at him yelling, and he looks at me, and stamps his foot. A big tremble in de floor sends me backwoods, and I go crash into de wall. Mumble says he will kill mummy if we not be helpful, and he killed before and is fine wiv doing it. Tingle says he lying and Playrite says that he's being made to work for Arfur but he not want to. I gets up and sees Mumble looking unhappy and Healthy going sneeky sneeky sneek over to mummy. Precog says he finks he undystands and get out a bit of paper. He say dat Mumbly will be happy and shows him the paper. Mumbly crys out and grabs the pichure, droping mummy, but Healthy gets her and makes her better where she was hurt and covered in ouches. Precog and Platrite take mumbly outside and say we gonna get his dawter and wife back and Tempest starts to tell mummy whats hapning and why. Precog comes back in and says he know where mumblys famly are, and dat we can get dem back and hide mumbly.

So in de evening, when daddy gets home, Tempest and evryboby explanes to him aswell abowt it all, and say dat even thow he debleted ALL of our files, dey alredy knows abowt me, so maybee I shud go wiv dem and be safe. Dey not know about mummy and daddy, mumbly sed so, dey only fownd me, so dey safe and I can see dem wenever we likes, but I needs to be safe. Dey agrees, and takes to all de powers stuff kwite well, and help me try out new bits of my powers befor we leeve (Doolittle injectored me after mumbly left, evryboby, even mummy finked I shud have a power to protect me. Like I sed, mummy's awesome!)

Anyways, dat is how I becamed one of VHS. I hope you enjoyeded it!

One final fing, I bet yoos wondring how old I ATCHUALLY is, becos of my ritings an stuff. Well:
I NOT TELLING!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! He he! But I will giv yoo cloos:

I is under 8.
I rite like dis mostly cos I wantsd to, I was told to rite as I feel, and I feels like riting like dis!
I do spell a lot wrong, but I no like spellings, so dey gived up teaching me. I rite as I want, not wat people fink is rite, SO THERE. If you fink this is silly, I stiks my tung out at you!

Bye for now bloggy persons! I hope Tempest let me do mor postys soon, dis is fun!

Now I hands over to Healthy. Yay Healthy! Bye!

And now a word from our sponsors......

Well, our friends anyway..........

You've heard a bit about my origins, and how our Group was formed, you've read how Don became one of our group, but here are some stories that have not yet been told. There were a few incidents when the rest of VHS got there powers, and some tales of what lead our friends to be the heroes they are today. A lot happened after the fight between Linda's Ghost and Don's, and we're still sorting out, so you'll just have to wait to hear Don's fate (and others, you may have noticed someone left, and other things after last post have left a lot 'up in the air'). So, read the stories of our friends, and I'll post when I can about the fates of many lives................


You'll here from these people separately:

Diffy
Healthbar
Centaur
Cecil
Broadcast
Doolittle

Others may tell their tales, in time, but these are the ones waiting to do it now. I'll hand you over to them, and see you after the break!

Of Don and differences

Well, I suggest you read the most recent few posts on Cleo's blog to catch up on recent developments, or a lot of this won't make sense.

So, We were trying to help Omni, who we had rescued from the caverns of the Fates, and we were still attempting to break her out of the blue aura shell thing she was in. At the same time, we were trying to help Don, who was split in two, His spirit, the bit that was Don, was literally a spirit, and his body, which we had recently recaptured, but was being controlled by a polluted version of the formula and determined to kill us all, with the ability to make us use our powers against each other. Don had discovered that he could repossess his body, but we still hadn't managed to remove the formula, so he kept having a jekyll and hyde thing going on, with his body constantly changing control. In the end he had to come out again.
'It's not fair' he sulked as his body punched away at the table I'd pinned it to the wall with. 'I wish I could still hit things, but I just go straight through. What's the point in all my training if I can't touch people? My one strength in this group, gone.'
'You are a respected and important part of the team.' I tried to comfort him as Diffy wandered over. 'You've helped in more ways than fighting. That was quick thinking when you came along to greece and knew the fates couldn't see you.'
'I suppose'
'Aaaaaaaand' said Diffy, grinning up at the ghost 'You was very helpful wiv the teachings of all your kicky punchy foo stuff. I learnded loads and foughted off baddies using it, remember?'
'Meh, I'm glad SOMEONE's using my talent...'
CRUNCH
The table snapped in two and fell to the floor in a shower of splinters as Don's body hurtled across the room. There was a short fight of a couple of minutes where I was made to nearly flatten Healthbar with a rock, Precog drew nothing but our own deaths and Playwrite fought desperately to stop us from being knocked out by his power, and more perils than I can put here.It ended when Don leapt into his body, causing it to stumble and falter, and yelled 'I've got it, somebody do something!' and Doolittle sprang from a chair to crash a bucket over his head. They hit the floor at the same time, and Don shot out of his body as if pushed suddenly, and cried 'OOOOOW! Not that!'
It was at this time that we all found ourselves suddenly in a university or college in america, face to face with Cleo. She explained the situation and we made a forcefield round the group. I knew she could tell I wasn't quite happy, and explained, as the world whirled around us as time reset, about some of the theories I had read from fiction, sci-fi and some I had come up with myself about the dangers of time travel and paradoxes. It all basically happened as she says in her blogs, but she seemed confused when I mentioned the trip she had taken with us in search of immunity girl. She said she didn't remember, but she'd look into it. Anyway, as I say, she has the details of what happened, I have to tell you what happened when we got back. Cleo sent us back home, and we instantly noticed differences. Most of the signs of repaired walls and furniture were gone, as a lot of fights hadn't happened anymore and less repairs were needed. The bucket was back in the corner, with no bloodstain to show it had hit Don, (His body came with us, we explained to Cleo and I pointed out that whatever it might change it was probably better to keep Don out of the shift too, who knows how much of his time with us it might have erased, it was too complicated to have one person out of the loop) and the table was fixed as if it had never broken (Which of course, it hadn't) there was an email from Damian titled 'I need some advice from my friends' on the computer, and all the notes about Linda on my timeline had vanished. Precog ran for the door, but was interrupted by John entering. 'Well, you look like you've just been somewhere, I should have known you'd be to blame. Cleo had something to do with it too, according to my friend here, but we need your help sorting out a little problem.............'
Linda floated in, fully grown up as she was when Cleo first introduced us, but see-through, ghostlike, and fuming with rage. 'Look what has happened to me!' she screamed, and we all felt ourselves go stiff, unable to move. 'Cleo never knew about this power, and I sensed she hoped to alter my timeline, and I sought shelter with a friend, and just in time. I was partially protected from the shift, and whilst my body and my actions were stripped away, and I have been wiped from many, many years, this ability made sure that my spirit, and my memory, were kept very much alive. I know what has been done, I know what time should have been like, and I know who was there at my killing. Even as a ghost, I am far more powerful than any of you could possibly imagine. Prepare to pay for your sin!'
We all felt suddenly very cold, as if death itself were creeping into our bones. I saw Don staring at Linda, and a smile was appearing on his lips. 'Now her, HER I can hit!' he roared, and flew at Linda, punching her sqaurely in the jaw and sending her reeling. She snarled, and open her mouth to call someting, but Don simply said 'Please, enough of the angry rants, they are incredibly dull and eating into my fighting time, and I have a lot of catching up to do.' and flew at her again, this time landing a kick. We were released from her hold, and I heard the main door slam as I went to fight John, and saw a figure running up the alley through the glass front. I noticed a page from a book wedged in the door as I trapped John's attack in a forcefield, which I threw at him as the others joined in, forcing him to flee from the shop. I looked to the ceiling to see Linda firing transparent wisps of colour at Don, and causing deep burns on his clothes as they hit. He managed to dodge the next one, strike with a volley of blows, and then get thrown across the room. Linda smirked as she aimed to (kill? wipeout? eliminate?) and I saw Don ready himself, grit his teeth, and dive INTO Linda's ghost. he shot out the other side, hit her in the back of the head, and then gasp as he floated down to our level, exhausted. We thought it was over, until a blast from Linda made the table tremble and creak (it was not having a good night) 'That should have destroyed it, but I hope you realize I have enough strength to hurt your friends' Linda smiled, and froze Diffy and Tingle, her hands glowing as she watched Don carefully. He growled, called 'I'll stop you for good!' and then shot at her, and as she fired at the frozen two He collided with her, and I Forcefielded the blasts she had sent, but we were all thrown to the floor as a massive wave of power exploded from where the ghosts had been. Linda's energy cascaded over us as the building shook, and we clasped our hands over our heads.
When it was all over, we sat up slowly. I stared at the place where the ghosts had been. There was no sign of either of them. Don had vanished.

A perfect disguise, part three

Nobody was quite sure what to do, but all offensive powers were turned off and we followed him in. We all trusted him completely, that tends to happen when the person in question has swept in from nowhere to save you from a collapsing volcano and three beings threatening to wipe you from the face of existence. He lead us to the back of the cave, where three familiar faces met us. Stun, Tremor and Warcry, from the cavern. They stood aside to reveal a girl, about a year older than me, a couple of years younger than Cleo. She was wearing grey, and had a very pale face. She kept fading in and out of sight, as if the world kept forgetting she was there. When she saw us, she looked like deep in her eyes, an emotion was stirring, but her body remained the same. 'at last, i was told you would come.' she said, in a slow, flat, deadpan voice.
'i think i am getting my first experience of pleasure at your arrival a slight increase in heartbeat that means that after years of hard work i am beginning to beat my ability but I cannot win you must help cleo trellis take it from me so that i can live and you can all be saved from ancient greece or else you will all be wiped from existence and unable to be here and the eye will never gain my ability and the world will die'

Cleo thought and then smiled 'Ok, sure. We were told a similar thing last time we met your friend over there. Now what exactly is your power? It helps to know what I'm taking.'
'immunity immunity to everything and anything i bet youre wondering how i managed to disappear from the cinema well i became immune to the earths orbit and gravity until i was over where i wanted to be and then let it affect me again i am lucky that there certain aspects of my power that i can control but without you i am doomed to live a life of nothingness and the world is finished and i well be left alone once everyone dies and i will float in space forever you have to help it is written in the visions of my associate'
'Hang on, surely if you're immune to fate, which is kind of the point, then you won't show up in visions?'
'i am immune you are not yet i have been shown a picture of you all coming to this cave and taking my ability i was not in the picture of course but the meaning was quite clear'
'Ok, I'll give it a go. Brace yourself, a power like this could cause a serious change in you once it's gone.'
'i hope so'
Cleo stretched out a hand and closed her eyes. Tingle was watching, wide eyed, and when I gave him a questioning glance he grabbed my hand, and I suddenly saw what he was seeing: there was a whirling mass of dark light near the immunity girl, and it kept breaking into strands which flew over and soaked into Cleo's hand. I could only see the bit where her power was actually active, Tingle can't see Auras. All of the wisps suddenly escaped back out of Cleos hand and faded out of sight around the girl again. Cleo opened her eyes. 'You're not immune to abilities by any chance, are you?'
'yes it tends to rub off on things and places near me that it why the door was unaffected by your abilities'
'Great. So what do I do?'
'Perhaps I can help?'
'The Eye' (actually, can I just call him Eye from now on? So much easier!) leapt forward. 'If I use my immunity to cancel out hers, then maybe it will work?'
He took hold of Cleo, and explained that he was making her power immune to immunity. Cleo tried again, and seemed happier with how it was going. 'Do you have any idea how big a paradox this is?' she said as immunity girl started to glow, and colour flushed into her cheeks. 'If you weren't able to cancel her out with her own ability that I already gave you, then I wouldn't be able to get it in the first place and you never have it, meaning-'
'PLEASE can we not have another of those conversations' said Centaur, and Doolittle nodded. 'My heads starting to hurt.'
Then four things happened at once. Eye let go of Cleo and stood, as if frozen, while his eyes glowed a brilliant white 'We're on the right track!' he yelled delightedly 'The future is going the way it must! As long as you give me the ability before the Fates find me, your rescue will be set in stone!'
Immunity girl stood up, her face a proper pink at last, and beamed for the first time in her life. She smiled at us all, and then collapsed to the floor as spasms rippled over her body. My phone went off, and I answered it to hear Precog screaming 'WHAT DID YOU DO! The future is changing! My head is in so much pain! Cleo has to get to 'The Eye' fast, or so much stuff is going to happen, and it's all bad! Wherever you are, get out now, they're after you!'
The fourth thing to happen was Cleo. She looked ill, and fell to her knees as the colour began to fade from her cheeks. She seemed to finish absorbing it, and looked up at us with a pale face and blank eyes, which flashed between their usual colour and an empty grey. 'urgh, how do you live like this?' she asked, disgust fading in and out of her voice as she spoke. 'I can fight it with my other abilities because its not my real power but Surely this bad enough, it feels Horrible.'
The girl sat up, her grey hair now a glorious brown, and clutched her head. 'That's because I had the full dose and my emotions were blanked out, so I didn't know how bad it felt. Hang on, I can FEEL. Wow! This is so cool! This is happiness, yeah? Oh my god, I love emotions! Oh and to answer the paradox thing, I came to this cave because because it's close to those bitches that made me, so Time and Fate can be messed up here, it was the only way it would work. Oooooooooh, this is anger? Yes, definitely anger. Wow! I really hate them! Oh that feels really strange, is it wrong to enjoy anger?'
'I think under the circumstances we'll let you off.' I said, as I saw her suddenly clasp her hands to her cheeks with a look of horror. 'Umm, what was that you were saying about neighbours?'
'I'm guessing this one's fear? It's not as fun as the others. I just realized, now I don't have the power, they'll be able to find me, not even Eye can block them now. I was the balance you see, for all the people like with powers. They made me with all the immunities to stop you being to powerful or something, I don't really understand, but once I was fully immune, I was immune to their control too, and I fled, but they can find me now! Oh, I don't like fear at all!'
'You!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sisters, she is under our nose!' yelled an all too familiar voice.
'Ah' I said, pulling Cleo to her feet and having gravity lift her into the air so I could lead the girl away from a crack in the wall. 'We're in those caves. OK, success with paradox explained, may I suggest we introduce you to something called running? Now?' We all ran for the door, and our new friend stumbled, unable to keep up. 'I've never run before! I can't go fast enough!' Centaur stopped and gestured to his back, and I helped her up. 'There you go, something none of us have experienced either.' I told a delighted IG (Immunity girl) as she was carried off into the passage.
Precog, of course, is only able to draw the fates themselves whilst in this volcano, and as he was not, I worried that he had meant other people were after us. They chose this moment to arrive. I heard the boy ahead of us yelling 'No! you don't have a ghost, a centaur, OR an egg monster, you can't go through!' and then scream as John yelled 'You think I care? We need to get to the girl before that meddling Trellis and her friends do!'
'Sarah!' the boy cried before there was a horrible crunching noise. 'NOOOOOOOOO!' she yelled from Centaur's back, and then grabbed my staff out of my hand. 'Thank you!' she grinned at me, and as we turned the corner and saw John, Shade, and Don looming over the small boy. 'Leave max alone!' screeched Sarah, and jousted into John, using my staff as a lance to throw him off his feet. Tingle pulled Max to his feet, Warcry and Healthbar leapt at Shade, and confronted himself. Our Don was at a loss for what to do, but Diify ran threw him calling 'Just like yous taught me, jump and kick!' and jumped into the air, kicking Don's body in the chest. Blast caught Diffy as he fell, and I took hold of Don's body. 'We're taking him with us' I said to the others. 'Try and keep those two busy. Eye, Dragon, any way out of here?'
'Sarah pointed at a space of wall just like the rest. Can someone break through there?' Tremor thrust both hands at it, and a large patch of wall crumbled to dust, revealing a heathaze like the one at the cinema. 'That will get us back to that cinema' Sarah explained. I had it covered up so that I only had one open at a time.'
Dust and smoke filled the tunnel, and three figures were silhouetted at the end of the passage leading to Sarah's chamber. The Fates flew towards us, and we piled through the door. I noticed Eye and his group were staying behind. 'We'll hold everyone off until we can close that thing' he pointed at the heathaze' we don't want any of this lot getting through.' I nodded, and shook his hand before diving through after the rest of the group. dust and smoke surrounded me as I hurtled over the planet, and crashed with the rest outside the cinema, to see a large crowd staring at us. A large group of people appearing in a puff of smoke, some of which are a centaur, and small egg shaped creature, a ghost, a solid version of the ghost spitting yellow sparks, a boy with a staff and cape, a boy levitating a girl, and a oldish man in ancient chinese robes does tend to draw attention to itself somewhat.
'I can't get everyone, there are too many people and we're too big to hide properly this quickly.' muttered Playwrite, looking at me.
'Umm, we're here till tuesday?' I said to the onlookers, taking my stuff back from Sarah and sprouting a bunch of flowers from the end. Diffy lifted his hat and released a pink rabbit, which sprang into the air and exploded in a shower of coloured sparks. Gravity raised and lowered Cleo, who managed to wave at the crowd. 'Doesn't seem to be enjoying it much, does she?' muttered one mum to another, referring to Cleo's pale face. I juggled some coloured fireballs (I can't juggle normally, but I could control these ones with my mind), while Playwrite went up to one of the onlookers and offered to guess what he was thinking. Doolittle spoke in tongues, Cecil and blast did a little show with her blasting him in the chest and he gets up and shows the crowd he's fine, and various other little tricks until Playwrite was able to convince everyone that we were a harmless magic act, that shouldn't be mentioned to anyone. Once he had made them leave, we ducked round into a sidestreet and I FFed us home. We entered the base to find Eye waiting for us, but he was alone, and looked worried. 'Ah! At last you're back! They're onto me, I don't have much time. I believe you have something for me?'
Seeing this was clearly an earlier Eye, Cleo transferred the bits of the power he wanted across, and put the rest into a badge with Pete's help (Her aura power can transfer abilities person to person, but Pete can do objects and we didn't want anyone having these parts of the power). Her colour and health restored, Cleo left for C.H.A.S.E again, and we were left wondering what to do about Don........

A perfect disguise, part two

we watched Tildy vanish, and made to follow, but the little kid got in the way. 'You can't go until you prove to me you're who my friends looking for.'
'Sure we can, you said we were' said Cleo, giving him a shove so he fell in ahead of us. 'Come on everyone.'
'Into the squibbly bit we go!' cried Diffy as we followed her in. Entering the haze was strange. As soon as I got in I felt as if I was being plucked gently off the earth, and yet, I was clearly still there. I opened my mouth to yell, and heard other cries of chock around me. Then a hand grabbed mine. Cleo grinned, and said 'We have to keep together. I've moved like this before. Hold on tight.' As I felt around found Doolittle's hand, I saw through the blur that everyone was grabbing hold of each other. Then there was a tremendous tugging sensation, and we shot off at incredible speed as the world became mere streaks of colour round us.
As we whirled round the planet at supersonic speeds even Cleo couldn't have made. I thought through what Cleo had said, and remembered that one of the members of C.H.A.S.E could move by spinning the earth around them. I knew that we were outside the earths orbit, and it was spinning without us, but how did this girl do it?

All of this took hardly any time, and after only a few second we felt a sudden braking sensation and were thrown back into the planet's rotation, finding ourselves in complete darkness. We couldn't see a thing, and there were noises of panic. 'What's going on small person!' called Blast, and I saw a tiny flash as she tried to penetrate the darkness with her lasers. We heard something break, but still saw nothing. Healthbar solved it by glowing, lighting up a room of black, all the furniture and walls were black and there was no light. I coloured everything in, and Blast made a hole in the ceiling, letting some natural light in. We found a door and struggled out, to see the boy waiting for us. 'Finally made it out? the other lady stumbled out without using her powers, but what you guys did was cool.'
'Other lady?' Tildy ran up to us, glad to see us but worried. 'He says we need three creatures to prove we're the right 'wizards'. What do we do?'
'Well you have one' the boy said, nodding at Diffy. 'The white egg shaped monster.'
'I not a monster, I a Diffy. Be scared!'
'..........Sure. Ok. My friend's advisor says you need an angel and a ghost to prove you're the right ones though.'
'Perhaps I can help?'
There was a small ripping noise as two holes were torn in the back of Centaur's shirt to make way for two wings, large White Dove's wings, sprouted from his back, big enough to wrap around his entire torso, extending to lift him into the air. He smiled down at us. 'This is much better! Now I don't have to worry about falling over!' He looked over his shoulder and pulled his t-shirt so as to see the holes better. 'Shame, this is my favourite T-shirt, but it would have been hard to morph just that bit...' he began spinning slowly on the spot as he tried to get a better look.

'And as for a ghost.......BOO!' yelled Don, bursting into solid visibility with a nod to Healthbar and Tildy. He had his hands reaching out towards the boy, and his whole body was glowing, with a demonic look on his face. I made his eyes flash red.

'AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!' screamed the boy collapsing to the floor, unconscious.
'Teach you to try stopping us. Through here is she?' said Cleo airily, stepping over him and down a rocky passage ahead of us. 'Good. I need to meet her, or the whole of time will explode or something. bye.'
Once again, we ran after her, Healthbar pausing to shine a beam of sunlight over the boy's face. He blinked sleepily, opened his eyes, muttered 'you pass' saw Don, and fainted again.
'I could get used to this' chuckled Don, floating alongside me. 'I miss punching people though. At least joining you let me fight evil and stuff. I'd like to do that again.'
We'd reached a split in the tunnels, and Cleo sped down one, then back up and down the other. Luckily, she still had superspeed. 'Right is a dead end, Left leads to a door. Come on.' She lead us down the left passage until we reached the door, which was small, and made of wood. 'None of my remaining powers work on here.' she said, kicking it in frustration. We all tried, but none of us could make a mark. Don couldn't float through it, Blast didn't make a scratch, Centaur reverted to his normal form (normal for him, his centaur form) and kicked at it, Tingle tried to use his ability to see how to unlock it, nothing, but we heard footsteps on the other side, and prepared forcebubbles, hands full of fire, glowing eyes, spooky ghost faces, hooves, everything we could think of as we heard the door being unlocked from the other side. It was flung open to reveal 'The Eye' with a huge grin on his face as he gestured for us to enter. 'VHS! Cleo! At last! Welcome, welcome! The patient is through here! Come on, come on, she's waiting! Once you've cured her you've got to find me before I have it and give it to me, and dispose of the rest before it kills you! There isn't a moment to lose!'
What on earth was going on?

A perfect disguise, part one

Cleo had dropped in with news from C.H.A.S.E, I hope she'll post what exactly happened when she went there, but she might leave it till she gets back there. Anyway she said that C.H.A.S.E spies had seen the girl with the immunity ability, and traced her to the cinema where the fight with Shade and Leech had taken place, but she'd disappeared. It looked like she'd teleported, which was confusing. Dragon said that, like Damian, he could trace where she went. Diffy hid us as I flew us in, but I landed the FF a little way away behind the garage so we could approach normally, instead of suddenly turning up in front of passersby. Precog hadn't come, unhelpfully, he was sitting in the base leaning over his new book. We were still quite a large group as we walked along, because the new members of Zodiac had come along, including Gravity, who had been made Rooster, completing the group of twelve. Even Centaur had come along, consenting to return to full human form in order to go on the trip with us, he was very keen to become a proper part of the group, and wobbled ominously as his horse legs morphed into brown jeans (Chinos? I don't know) and bare feet. He refused to wear anything but sandals, saying shoes would feel too weird, and then clutched Doolittle for support as he stumbled and almost fell. 'Sorry.' he mumbled, grinning as he was helped upright again. 'I've had 4 legs for so long, 2 just feels weird. I'll get used to it, I'll be fine, don't worry.'

So we walked past the destroyed college, and Don, almost invisible in order to hide his ghostly-ness, tutted. 'You lot and your powers. You could fix it so easily if you wanted, I bet Lily could have it done in no time, instead of those builders taking months. Do they even know how it happened?'
I laughed. 'No. What could we say? 'Sorry, one of us, using a ring to give them super strength, threw a super powered villain into your chemistry lab while he was still on fire, causing him to blew it up, triggering all the powers he'd absorbed, making him explode, ruining the rest of the building, but don't worry, my cousin can reassemble things by waving her hands so we'll fix it for you?'
'You could have got Playwrite to wipe their minds, or just fix it the same night?'
'Lily wasn't there then. Besides, our powers are only to be used if we really need them, or an emergency, we mustn't mis-use our powers, or rely on them too much, we never know when we'll have to go without them.'
'Yesterday you re-filled your glass of water with a miniature raincloud!'
'That WAS an emergency! I was thirsty! Besides, your college sucked, it's no loss. Now shush ghostboy, you're making yourself visible again.'
'When you two are quite finished, I have a question?'
I turned to Cleo, who was looking at my Staff pointedly. 'We're trying not too attract too much attention, right, so why are you wearing the cape and carrying your staff?'
'It allows me to do small things in public without loads of covering up, so I can do a little bit without causing a fuss, if needed. Watch.' I used colour manipulation and made small sparks of coloured light shoot from my hand, and tiny fireworks leap into the air. A group of kids passing us looked round and clapped, and I waved my staff over there heads, creating a rainbow, arching it over them until it faded into sparkles of light, and then nothing. Then I sprouted a rose from my staff and handed to her, saying 'for my glamorous assistant' she actually laughed and lit her hair on fire, much to the amusement of the kids. we walked on and her hair returned to normal. 'Fair enough, but I'll get you for the assistant comment.'

A boy ran up to us, saying 'I found you! You're the wizards! My friend wanted my to wait for you. She said that a friend of hers wants the assistant lady to cure her.'
As we tried to translate this, we reached the cinema. Tildy looked at the construction, and touched a bit of bench. 'She was here. He's telling the truth. She used her power to vanish but that makes no sense. Oh, I've found your fight, wow, it's quite exciting, isn't it?'
Don was floating past, and stopped just by the doors. 'This is where Brian....' He floated over to a charred bit of pavement. 'Hey, this is where I was when I took the Wahhh!' He had reached out, as if trying to grab something we couldn't see, and sort of sucked into a point in the air with a pop! Tildy panicked. 'Dragon! That must be where she disappeared! Open it, without one of us he'll be sucked back into the formula!' Dragon nodded, and a heathaze appeared where Don had been, like a blur in reality. Tildy ran forward and vanished with a scream.

Cleo departs

'Whatever that thing is inside you, it needs you to help it.' Cleo said, looking sadly at Don. 'It needs your mind to know who to attack, who we are, understand it's instructions, everything. Whenever you're a bit faint and losing track of yourself, it's getting information from you. When you're in control of your thoughts and more 'with us' it's asleep or not thinking or whatever.'

'There's somefing I still not get.' piped up Diffy. 'The ugly Fatey peoples are making Don a big meanie, yes? How? They didn't even know he was wiv us in da cave. They not know he existed.'

We realised he was right. How DID that make sense. I thought about it. 'They set up that machine with the yellow energy as a trap for one of us, but Don went in first. He tried to dodge, and it hit his phial of formula instead. When he injected himself they must have sensed someone under the influence of that energy, and noticed him then.'

'Oh, please, do feel free to talk as if I'm not here.' said Don, looking at me.
'But you not, really, sort of, me not sure.' muttered Diffy, walking through Don's legs, shivering, and waving a small paw like arm through him. Don stuck his tongue out at Diffy, and Doolittle, pulled Diffy away, as Cleo nodded.
'That energy was supposed to make whoever it hit use their ability against the rest of us, but when it hit the formula, it sort of programmed that in as a complete ability. That's why Playwrite got a headache and you all blanked out when Don first took it. The formula has the ability to use other abilities against people, that's why I was shattered and burnt and things. When he took the formula, the Fates noticed someone under the influence of the betrayal energy stuff, but they aren't sure exactly who took the formula, but they can tell it was the same person with the almost unnoticeable energy signal that was in the cave. They didn't notice the significance of that signal until we escaped, but now they know there was someone else with us that they missed. This energy lets them actually control a victim, whereas the rest of us, there are so many lifeforms in the universe they can only give us nudges, guide us in certain directions, make sure certain people meet, control fate, but not individuals, see?'

We waited for Don to turn up, but his body never showed. After a few Days Cleo said she'd see if the C.H.A.S.E had any leads, so she left, but promised to visit soon with news. Precog became very occupied with a notebook, and spent days adding to it. Doolittle refused to explain about her new bag and locket, but saw Playwrite's look of surprise and he smiled at her, but she just glared and said 'Don't you dare tell! It's a surprise, for an emergency!' The bag at her belt was more rigid than most, and looked more like a box really. Don was quiet most of the time, but kept talking to Tildy about trying to see what the rest of him was up to. We haven't seen Cleo since, but I got a text from her yesterday saying that to find someone, and could my equipment and Tildy's clairvoyance help, so she's going to pop round sometime soon. Maybe we can help with finding him, and I hope Healthbar can sort out her new, rather shorter life expectancy. I just hope there's something we can do....

Doolittle asks a favour of Cleo, and a cup melts.

Don had been around for a few days as a spirity-ghost type thing (Not sure exactly how to describe what he had become) and we had discovered that he had to kind of 'latch' himself on to Cleo, Healthbar, or Tildy almost all the time in order to stay around properly. If he strayed too far any of them for more than a couple of minutes he would begin to fade rapidly into nothingness, and at least two of them would have to go to his aid and firm him up a bit. about a week after they'd brought him back, Cleo, who'd been boosting his Aura, asked him to float over to Tildy and stay with her for a bit. As he floated off I saw Cleo go over to Doolittle. Doolittle looked curious and Cleo said 'That's quite an idea. I'll help if I can. Don't look so surprised, Playwrite let me into the little barrier thing you guys have, we all trust each other. I don't listen in, but I pick up if anybody says my name in their head, which you did. I don't have that ability, but there's a really annoying man in Oxford who does. I never saw the point in taking it, but I think you could make good use of it. We'll make a couple of stops on the way back so you can stock up, and who knows, maybe we could trash some Oxford buildings while we're there? I know about the Cambridge and Oxford feud, and having been to both, you lot win. Cambridge is Better. Oxford's just trying to copy you really. Let's go.

Doolittle waved goodbye and grabbed Cleo's hand, and they sped off at superspeed. Nothing much happened for a few of hours, Don had an hour or two of clarity where he was almost his old self, apart from being see-through and bobbing between two and three feet of the floor, of course, and started up a bit of a self defense class for Tingle and Precog, as they didn't have very battle friendly abilities. Diffy joined in, and was actually a really fast learner, even though he fell over twice. Don deteriorated after a while and had to stop, so Tildy and Healthbar tried to help him while Diffy did some worksheets and Precog and Tingle went to work on trying to help Omni. a little later there was a whirling noise and a blur span into the room. It slowed to reveal Doolittle, who span to a stop, and stared round at us all. She was now wearing a locket with a small hole at the top, and a belt bag. She collapsed onto the floor and looked at us, panicked. 'Cleo....sent me back here...not sure how....but on the way back we met Don..sorry, Don's body and that thing the Fates are controlling him with, and she started to go crazy, but she managed to send me back here first.'
Cleo rushed in half an hour later, with a bleeding lip and a torn sleeve, Healthbar healed her while she muttered something about 'find that cheerleader' and she kept glowing, blurring and sending telepathic yells through our heads, as well as fire, ice and electricity shooting all over her body. I went to hand her a plastic beaker of water to cool her down, and heard Precog gasp and felt him reach out to stop me, but Cleo grabbed it with a grateful smile. 'Thanks. Don turned up, and my powers went crazy. I became solid Ice, and summoned fire all around me and started melting myself, and shattered with TK, and so many things. And I know Don's spirit isn't in his body anymore, but it remembers the moves. If I hadn't got those extra ones off Chan there's no way I'd have got free. BUt I found out why you can't always think straight or remember things, Don, your spirit isn't whole because you're still alive, so you can't leave your body properly. That thing has part of you in it, despite our efforts-oops! Sorry! My powers are still a bit crazy from the fight.'
There had been a hissing noise and the beaker had melted in her hand, falling to the floor as a steaming puddle of molten plastic. 'It is nearly time, but there is so much still to do!' yelled Precog, and ran from the room, and we noticed that the bit of wall he'd been leaning on was no longer clear: it showed three small pictures and a few words: A picture of a glass, a picture of a puddle, and a small book, titled 'For those who need guidance.' The words scattered around the pictures were 'Beaker', 'Cliff', 'Dragon', 'Omni', 'Prophecy can't be fought' and 'Immunity hid the Truth'
'Precog looks unhappy and sad.' said Diffy.

'Precog later, my news gets worse. Evil Don is on his way.' said Cleo.

Cleo's visit

Where have the last few months gone? They've flown by so quickly, and the search for Don has kept us busy. Cleo's left for the CHASE now, but I'll catch you up on her stay with us.

Cleo game through the door between VHS and TP not long after the fight at the Cinema, and explained what had happened at TP. She went to see how Dragon was doing with Omni, while we sealed the doorway. I filled it with a slab of rock and Diffy made a passive illusion of a wall, while Tingle did something to it to make it hard to spot as fake. Cleo said the telepaths hadn't explored the basement yet, so they didn't know about it. Playwrite cancels out some of their power, so they shouldn't find us.

We followed her downstairs to Dragon, and saw him and Precog hard at work. Dragon was glowing, and had a hand pressed to the cocoon holding Omni, causing it to glow too. Precog was surrounded by papers, his eyes shining white, drawings blooming into being all around him, he wasn't even holding out his hands to the paper, his imprinting was creating his visions from his head, and he kept screwing up the papers and throwing them aside, shouting 'Useless, Useless! Lottery numbers, sports results, fifteen different ways the world could end before the year is out, Diffy's christmas presents but no knowledge! What's the point of this ability if I can't find what I want!'
Diffy dived for the most recently discarded paper, but Pig blasted it. They stared at each other, and yelled 'Cheat!' at the same time.

Cleo knelt down by Precog, put her hand on his shoulder comfortingly, and said 'You look like you need some sleep.' He closed his eyes and collapsed, having been knocked out telepathically.
Cleo scrutinized the shining body of Omni, muttered something about 'that cavern' and stood up. 'I think that cave we found her in is the answer. After all, Sage was released while in there. I think we need to go back, maybe we can free the others too. Whatever these fates have been planning, they seem to be keeping everyone important in there once they die.'

'We are not breaking in there again! We were lucky to get out alive! If it wasn't for that 'Eye' boy and his group, we'd be dead! You need to stay here and find the person with immunity, like he said!'

'Tempest, I will do what I like. I came here because, of all the people we've encountered, I thought I could still trust you lot, I still thought of you as friends! But I'll go on my own! I should have known, you're just a bunch of teenagers! This just proves my theory: Trust nobody.'

She began to storm out, and Dragon chased after her, calling 'Miss Cleo! Miss Cleo! You are needed! Surely you can see some planning is required before entering such a place again!'

They both got back an hour later, when both she and I had calmed down, and we agreed to tackle it together. Dragon had just recruited Cleo as the final member of the new Zodiac (Rabbit-she has super speed) When my cousin Tildy, now Sheep of the Zodiac, stepped forward. 'You haven't had mediumship for long' she said to Cleo 'So you won't have reached my skill level yet, but it's part of my ability of being a Psychic. I thought I might be able to help with Omni and Don. both of them are halfway between Death and Life, Omni because, although she' dead, you have almost brought her back, and Don because when he took the formula, something else took over. Something the Fates created. I can't reach them as I do the normal dead, but my astral projection should help.'

Healthbar took her aside to talk urgently, then they returned, gathering everyone together. 'My Clairvoyance is needed to, get ready.' whispered Tildy, and closed her eyes. After a minute she frowned, and started muttering. 'How on earth did he get there so quickly? Ah, I'm managing to separate the real Don and the thing in him, no, Don, I KNOW your body's still alive, but you aren't quite anymore, so I need to leave it because, uh, oh, how to explain the situation to a half dead non powered friend of my cousin who's only met me once? Don it's me, Tildy, I need to take you to the others...........'

She quivered, and leant to one side, as if pulling on something we couldn't see, and then exclaimed 'That's right! The VHS base, you recognize it, at least the Fates haven't scrambled you too much, oh you poor guy, come on, nearly, nearly, now float next to me. NO, that's Doolittle. Hang on, as a ghost you should be able to see my power, can you see the girl a couple of years older than you that's glowing white?' (We stared at her, she wasn't glowing at all to most of us, but Cleo sighed deeply, and breathed 'Oooooh' and ~Tingle squinted, as if almost seeing something.) She suddenly called 'Healthbar, Now! On my right!' and Healthbar thrust her hands at the space indicated, causing a beam of sunlight to concentrate upon it. 'I'm trying, but there's nothing to heal! I think I'm doing something, like the sense of him is stronger? Cleo, is it his Aura?!'
'Yep, I'll give it a boost, so your power has something to latch on to.'

She too held out a hand, and together, very slowly, the three of them created a glowing presence in the middle of the room. Don faded into view, completely see through, and most devoid of colour. Like pale coloured glass, with just vague hints of what shades and hues should be there.

'I? What? You! At the cinema! The formula! Something fizzy happened! Me power wrong boom something playwrite rebound weakness doom shiny eyes fizz fates doom energy floaty evil lost found ghosty friend drag poof base spirit light shiny shiny see through AHH! Help?'

Everyone just stared........

Brief update

Still no luck finding Don. Gravity found Jorge's Doorknob and made a doorway between the back of the main TP Base and our VHS base, then tried pulling off the Doorknob to make it permanent, which worked but the doorknob shattered when it was taken away. So it's no more. But hey, permanent quick and easy travel to TP is cool. The bit of wall that swung inwards to make a door vanished too, so we just have an empty rectangle. We're thinking of putting a proper door in soon.

Anyway, with that link established, we took Omni through to the remaining members of TP, Dragon still working on helping her, but he said that we need Cleo to find the 'Fate-Proofing' ability to help. Cleo was indeed suffering from amnesia. When she saw us, a glimmer of recognition passed over her eyes, and she stared at me, muttering something like 'begins with a t....' before noticing Omni and gasping, saying 'I know her! Who is she and what's wrong?'

I left her with Playwrite trying to fix her memory and the others reminding her of themselves and went to see the infamous Clara. I found her sitting in a corner away from all the people near Cleo and Omni, watching them. I got a first hand account of Cleo's accident and we had a chat, from which I believe she is not a bad person, just a bit confused with her new power, and in her desparation to keep her new found ability a secret, acted a bit rashly towards Cleo.

Playwrite says he and Healthbar worked on Cleo's mind, and it will take a few sessions, but bit by bit her memories are healing. By the time we were going back to VHS she remembered our names.

Don's phial.

Everything kind of calmed down, and once Healthbar had recovered she looked miserable and horrified at what she'd done.
'I made the wrong choice.' she said, staring at where Shade had been. 'I could have saved them, but the moon's influence....it makes my dark powers stronger, and clouds my judgement. You remember when I was 'The Vampire'? I could have used my ability to bring them back out of him, but my dark ability had control of my light ability, and I only had enough power to save OR destroy. I should have saved them.'
'I'm so sorry, it was the only way to heal you, you wouldn't have lasted till morning.'
'I know, I can heal with moonlight without sucking it out of people now, but...I almost wish you hadn't done it. Don, I'm afraid we'll have to wait until morning for me to heal that leg of yours, I've got no light left at all.'
'That's ok. I've decided. I can't do this anymore. I can't try and be part of something as big as this and stay powerless. I thought I could just join when I wanted, and then go off and forget about it. If I had an ability, I might have been able to save them. I need to be in or out, all the way. I'm in.'
He took out his phial, unwrapped it, and removed the stopper. 'He looked at it, we all did. 'I'm impressed it survived that blast of yellow energy, it hit my pocket hardest.'

As he put it in the syringe (Why did he have one with him?) I saw a small glint of yellow crackle through the black liquid. 'No Don, wait! NO!'
Too late. The formula had vanished into his arm and he began to shake violently. His eyes began to glow bright yellow, and bolt of the energy raced over his body and out of his eyes as the infected formula took control. He looked up at us, his body fizzing dangerously as he stared, and Playwrite fell to his knees, clutching his head and groaning, and we all blanked out. We woke up a few hours later, and Don had gone. I knew the Fates had done something, maybe even been playing us from the start. We did what we could to fixthe place up and went home. Dragon and his friends had made no breakthrough with Omni.

I haven't heard from Damian or Cleo for a while. From recent posts it seems they've both lost their memories, but I was expecting news of some sort. I may visit Cleo when I have time to check that she's ok.

Collateral Damage

I would have posted this earlier, but, oh, SO many things happening since this took place, wiping memories, looking for Don, we don't know if he's still angry, or if he's in trouble, he might just be a pile of dust by now, it depends how that yellow energy affected him. Let me explain:

(It should be noted that Dragon stayed behind during this to work on the Aura around Omni, which still wouldn't open.)

During our evening of attempted 'normal' life, I got a call from Don on his evening out. He was in a panic by the sound of it, and I put him on speaker phone so everyone could hear. It sounded like he'd done the same, because I could hear his friends clearly:

'Tempest! It's Don! There's...trouble at the cinema......my friends are here... hang on...' There were sounds of fighting, a yell from Don, a clatter as he dropped the phone, a grunt of pain from someone who sounded familiar, and a few new voices calling out warnings to Don. There was a lot of panting and a new voice spoke into the phone, sounding winded and in considerable pain. 'Tempest? Is that you? We were told you could help. These two men showed up, one of them leered at us, and then-'

There was the sound of a large explosion, and I heard Don yell from far away 'Tell him it's Leech! Have you got that? Tell him it's Leech, and a shadowy guy!'
'Did you hear that, Tempest?' asked Don's friend hurriedly, and there was a scream for someone in the background. By this time I'd picked us up in a forcefield and we were flying to Hill's road as fast as I could manage. Before anyone starts to wonder I couldn't use the doorknob that Jorge gave us, I'm pretty sure it got left in TP, or the void. It had been left behind in a rush at some point anyway.

I gave my phone to Doolittle while I navigated us at top speed. I heard her call 'Don? Are you still there? What's going on? Who's the shadowy guy?' Precog sighed and muttered to me. It's probably shade. You know how I can't sense him while he's a shadow? He could twist all my predictions out. The way I see it I think there are two ways this could go.' I could hear things getting worse at the cinema and we flew round a corner at top speed as I heard Don yelling 'From what you said about him, I think it is Shade, and, listen, I guess you were right about not being able to have a normal day, but he's got worse guys! Leech is worse! He's learnt how to absorb kinetic energy too! Every time he can see an attack coming, he absorbs the force of it! Most of my hits do nothing!'
'Don, we're nearly there! We're at the end of the road!' I yelled, as The college and the cinema came into view, tiny at the end of the long road. We tore up it, and I could see shadows racing us there, leaving buildings and trees and converging on the cinema, and a distant dark something growing in front of it.
All of this only took a couple of seconds, I was taking us at the speed that gets us to America in under four hours, but while it was happening we heard one of Don's friends on the phone 'Why do they keep calling you Don? Your name's- AAAAARGH!!!!' there was a strangled cry, screams, a loud thud, and the line went dead.
We could already see why. We had reached the cinema, and as we descended, and I split us onto separate forcefields so we came down surrounding the chaos,and saw a horrific sight.

Don and four boys were there, everyone else having fled the scene. It looked like Don's friends had tried to help him fight Shade and Leech off, and got involved, while all the civilians had left the scene in a hurry. there were shopping bags, handbags, empty pushchairs, bits of food, scattered over the ground, with other items, all showing a hasty evacuation. Don was on the ground, a gash in one leg, furiously pummeling Leech's legs, while one of the other boys was being strangled and attempting to hit him with the handle of a pram that had been smashed to pieces. One of them was spread-eagled on the concrete, his eyes closed and a nasty burn all over his left side. The third friend seemed to have injuries to both legs, because he was sliding around on the floor, pulling himself along by grabbing hold of supports in a row of bike racks, and he kept turning round to look at the front of the cinema, and throwing a piece of stone from the smashed flagstones around him at someone there. We followed the stone shard with our eyes and saw Shade, a wide grin plastered on his face, growing slowly darker and larger as the shadows around him gathered round his and merged with him, while the fourth boy we didn't know hurled a jet of fire from it from his hands, desperately trying to dispel the shadows as Shade grew in size. Shade laughed and spread his hands, and shadowy tendrils snaked out along the ground, and made the boy fall as they shot towards the burned victim. We all leapt into the fray, as Don yelled 'Finally! What took you so long! Turns out Brian can make flamethrowers, we only found out ten minutes ago when his life started being in danger. He attacked Leech before I could warn him, I was still in shock, and, well, Leech used that to get Dave. Taz got both his legs broken from an attack Leech did before I knew he could absorb kinetic force now, and the shade got my leg when I went for Leech again. James? James are you ok?!'

By this point I'd tackled Leech to the ground,Diffy had taken up the role of hitting Leech with the pram handle because James had gone limp, and Tingle had wrestled James from out of Leech's hands. Healthbar had been running to Dave and Taz, but Shade had cried 'Ha! Too slow!' and grabbed her with a wisp of darkness, lifting her into the air by her ankle as she screamed. Precog had looked at the scene in pure horror, yelled 'This isn't right! Shade is messing with my visions! I can't see him so his presense wasn't taken into account! I have to stop him!' He checked three things in his notebook, went even paler, gazed up at the slashing tentacles of shadow between him and Shade and, for what seemed to be the first time in his life, turned on his new near-sight vision by choice. His eyes shone white, he made a dash for the shadows, and began ducking and dodging, calling things like 'Ha! Totally saw you coming THIS time! Oooooooh, so close! Too slow! Did I mention You're stupid and I'm awesome! Ah, you nearly had me that time, keep trying!' and he ducked and dived his way towards a snarling shade. Playwrite was standing between Leech and Shade, concentrating, and every now and again he struck his hands towards them, out sideways, with his eyes closed and they would falter, or clutch their heads and groan, but then he would start to shake and let go of his mental hold, crouching down and panting, while they recovered and began fighting again. Doolittle helped Don into a kneeling position and sat on Leech, preventing him from getting up, while Diffy leapt onto his chest, yelling 'Remember me?!' and Leech gave a small scream as Diffy world of nightmares descended on him once more. Don and me were looking at James with concern. He wasn't moving. I checked his pulse, but it was very faint. 'Healthbar! Help James!'
'With you in a minute!' She screamed at Shade, and burst into a brilliant, glowing white. Light shone from her, lighting up the night sky, and Shade shrieked and shrank as the shadows around her broke apart, dissolving into the light that she was casting. I caught her in a gust of wind, and she hurried over to us, freeing Precog, who's new sight had faded again, from the clutches of a shadow as she passed. There was a yell and a thud from behind us, and I turned to see Leech, on his feet, with Doolittle cast down next to me, as he and Diffy fought, with Leech now touching Illusions, absorbing them, and sending out his own. Diffy was looking fiercely at his, saying over and over 'They only my spooks gone bad, they only my spooks gone bad...' and with a wave of his hands a huge teddy bear leered down at Leech, and a nightmare cloud started to engul his head, but he broke free and ran for Healthbar, slamming her to the ground with a cry of 'I don't think so! The humans stay dead!' and before she could retaliate, he crashed her head into the paving slabs, knocking her out. Her head started bleeding, and in the background I saw Shade, sort of enveloping Brian in shadows, and he was beginning to moan. I stood up. 'Doolittle look after the others. I have to stop Shade. I'm beginning to think Cleo's right. Get rid of them when you have the chance.'
I made a forcefield and flew into the air. The clouds thickened and thunder rolled out over the sky. I was really angry. I knew I should have fought properly earlier, but I was afraid of using my abilities on Leech and I'd left Shade to Healthbar and Brian while I saw to Don. I heard Don below me, muttering to Doolittle inan urgent whisper, and caught her answer 'I know. I've only seen him like this twice. When he gets really angry, his powers just sort of surge out of him in a wave. That's why there's a thunderstorm.'
I looked down at Healthbar, and then at the dark, cloudy sky above me. 'It's the only way. I can't believe I'm doing this.' I muttered, and I created a wind that swept away some of the clouds, revealing the moon, and letting it's light shine down on the scene. And on Healthbar. I charged at Shade, my forcefield crackling with electricity and struck his huge shadowy mass, blasting fire in all directions, and I heard a screech of pain as he fell to the floor, more shadows deserting him as he became more and more human again. I had one of those moments where time seems to slow down, and everything seems earily calm, even when your surrounded by deadly whisps of shadow and fighting with everything you have. I was using Ice, Fire, Electricity, Wind, Water, Earth, everything I had, and yet I heard, quite clearly, Healthbar moan and Don explain to Doolittle about how Leech could only absorb physical force he saw coming, and her asking to borrow the ring he had. I saw Pete thrown aside as he tried to take Leech's power, Tingle trying in vain to pull Brian from the shadows, and having to give up before they got him too. I saw Taz get pulled in by a tendril and dragged towards us, and Shade turn to smile at me, through my attacks, and melt into a shadow, only to appear behind me, mutter 'These pathetic friends of yours will soon be nothing more than shadow fodder' and sweep down to enclose Taz in his dark embrace, sending a wave of shadow to throw me backwards, where I just managed to avoid a metal column of the cinema building (One of the few bits left standing) by regaining control of my forcefield, and seeing Shade was nothing but a shadow on the floor, and untouchable by me, I went for Leech. Don yelled 'Distract him!' and I rammed into him with my forcefield. He grinned as he was shunted forwards, he had his hands out to touch the forcefield, and dug his heels in. He came to a stop and shoved at me, sending my flying backwards into the air. I came at him again, I felt unsure about using fire but, as a distraction.....

I shot him with it,and as he was cackling as his hands glowed with the fire, gaing power from it ready to strike back, Doolittle yelled 'Absorb this!' And swung one of the large metal benches from near the bike racks into his chest. He gasped as all his breath left him and he was flung backwards, over the road and crashed into the college through a window and disappeared.

'Oh dear' said Don, staring.
'What? Surely that's good?'
'Nope. That's a science lab.'
'Oooooooooooooh.'

BOOM!

The college exploded. Nearly completely destroyed. I managed to enclose most of it in a forcefield, but some people are going to find little bits of college in street tomorrow. I saw Healthbar standing, her head fully recovered, with the gaunt look on her face, but not quite as bad, as if she had a bit more control this time. She looked at the shadow that was shade, and she ran to him, forcing all his remaining shadowsout of him, leaving him nowhere to hide and making him become human once more. She shone with light again, and seemed to become more light than girl, as she leapt onto him and leapt onto him, tackling the screaming man to the ground. She seemed to drift into him and he seemed to cheer as his darkness blotted her out, and she dissappeared, and he smiled as we looked on shocked, but his smile was replaced by fear as he began to crackle with energy, and light shone from folds in his clothes and from his eyes as he screamed a terrible note of pain, before breaking into tiny wisps of shadow that faded away into the night, leaving a brilliantly white Healthbar standing where he had been. She looked dazed, and smiled at us dreaily as she said. 'I have no idea how I did that, and I don't want to do it again. It was gross.' and with that she collapsed, falling to the floor, having fainted.

I will post what happened to Don and the repercussions of Healthbar using the moon later. I can't bear to go on just now.

A normal evening.

We're trying to have a normal evening, inspired by Don, who has gone to the cinema with a bunch of his 'normal' (a.k.a Boring) friends from his college, having said:

'Look, this world of yours is cool, and so much more exciting than mine, but, I need some normal time. I'm going to go to the cinema with some of my Hills friends, from sixth form, you know, the ones I was hanging out with when you Long Road people were under attack from that Sylar bloke and having adventures without me? I'm going to the cinema on Hill's road, near my college, to hang out with my normal friends. I need some time away from powers, and bad guys, and explosions and time travel. You know where I'll be if you need me, but really, I just want this evening to be uneventful, and spent away from all of this, ok?'

I tried to persuade him that we can't hide from this, even though he has no real ability of his own he's part of this now, and a normal life is impossible. 'We've all tried.' said Doolittle sadly. 'We all tried to go back to our normal lives, even before we had powers. Before I had omnilingualism, I tried to go back to everyday life. But we'd all been there with Precog and Tempest when Sylar attacked, we all wanted to help, we helped hide their powers, we met Tempest's cousins, we joined in looking for others with powers, we got in too deep. Don't get me wrong, this DID ruin my everyday life, but I wouldn't change it for the world. We can never have a normal life, Don, whether we like it or not. I miss the boring days, but I chose to become a part of this and love every second of it. You chose to join in the second you starting fighting leech.'

'You're wrong. I don't want out of this, I just want an evening off.' I'll be back thinking about that phial and punching people tomorrow.'

We finally persuaded him to take the ring, just in case, but he seemed annoyed. I heard Precog sigh and saw him watch sadly as Don left.

So Precog is helping Diffy do some drawing, Tinlge is doing a crossword, I'm here on the computer, Healthbar's gaming, we're all just being normal. For a bit. It feels nice.

A hard choice

We were all silent as Don contemplated the phial. 'I don't know.' he said, looking at it hard, as if hoping to find an answer in it's swirling liquid as he swung it gently. 'On the one hand, yeah, having an ability would be cool, and I wouldn't feel so weird round you lot, but then again, I mean, John used to be a friend of this Damian person, right? You all met him and liked him, and then he got a power and it corrupted him and he kidnapped Pete and got all those extra powers by force and now he's trying to kill you all. And me, now I've been dragged into all of this, thank you very much.'

'Hey, how were we supposed to know that Leech bloke was going to turn up on John's orders?'

'I'm not blaming you, but it WAS because I was hanging out with you that I got involved.'

Dragon looked around at everyone, staring unashamedly at Don. 'Everyone, why don't we leave Don with Tempest and go and show these newcomers round the rest of the base?'

Everyone else left and Don looked at me, asking 'Those people you got your extra powers from, they didn't want them either, did they?'

'Mostly. The man with Phasing liked his ability, but was misusing it, and his brother made me take it from him. Some didn't like them because of accidents they'd had, but I think they'd have learned to love them. The man that had the wormholes liked his power, but didn't like the attention from the American government it got him, so he had to choose. but yes, some people were unlucky enough to hate their powers.'

'What about the people Cleo's got powers from?'

'Ah, well...she works rather differently to me and Pete. She tends not to ask, for one thing. She just finds one she likes, and, takes it. She used to kill the people she took them from, but I think we're a good influence on her.'

'Oh, yeah. Having an ability would be useful, but what if it's one I don't like? Or can't control? What if it changes me, or it's a good power but costs me, I don't know, my ability to move or something?'

'Pete can always remove it if you don't want it. And remember. We're all here, to help if your ability starts to mess with you.'

'If you had the choice, would you have your ability.'

'Yes. But only because I know what I'd be missing.'

Pete and Precog came in, and Pete excitedly grabbed Don's arm. 'I've had an idea! Come on!'

He dragged him away upstairs and I turned to Precog, who didn't seem his usual cheerful self. 'You know what he's going to do, don't you?'
'Yes.'
'Do you know what would happen if he chose differently?'
'Yes.'
'How much can you see?'
'I know the outcome of every decision he could make about that phial. Using it, not using it, using it in a month, a year, destroying it, pouring down a sink. I can see every option he has, and every consequence.'
'Any happy endings?
'Four. Only one of which ends up with him having an ability.'
'Does he make the right choice?'
'No.'
'Does he regret it?'
'Oh yes. More than any of you can imagine.'
'Can't you go and tell him?'
Precog stared at me, clearly shocked. 'If I did, not only would I be going against my visions, but I would create a paradox. If I went and told him the right choice, he would make that one. My visions say he doesn't, so if he did, my ability would have been wrong, which is impossible. I see things that will happen, one way or another, or I don't see things. I never see things that are wrong. If he made the right choice, I would have seen that, and felt no need to advise him, meaning he is quite likely to make his original wrong choice, meaning I would want to advise him, which means he'd make the right choice, which means I wouldn't need to advise him. See? Paradox.'
'Er, yes. Probably. Yeah, that makes sense. But couldn't you have your vision of him making the right choice, AND tell him the right choice to make sure he does it?'
'Not if I didn't see myself telling him. I can't do something AGAINST my visions, I have to work round them, allowing for the vision to come true AND twist the outcome if possible.
'You didn't care about your visions when we were changing the future by rescuing Omni from that cavern.'
'Yes, well.......Visions....and Time....and indeed Fate.....work..differently in that place. Things can change while you're in there. So Cleo may have come out better than my vision showed. I hope so.'

Precog keeled over at that point, his eyes glowing, and he rasped 'Oh gods....events..changing....that phial......shouldn't exist.....Double and Don.....unprotected phial...short range vision....John wants that...'

BANG!

The door burst open as John stormed in, yelling 'I sense an unprotected phial! GIVE IT TO ME!'
Don, who still had the phial, was to far away to hear the exact words, so John's control failed, and he didn't know who to concentrate on for the mental part of his control, so nobody came and gave it to him. He roared, and aimed a blast at us, so I made a forcefield round us and lifted us into the air, saying to precog: 'That wasn't like your normal visions, you talked during it and didn't draw anything!'
'I know! It's been happening more and more recently. Short range visions of small things that are going to happen around me in a few seconds or a couple of minutes time. It's like I keep getting short flashes of my near future!'

The cricket bat, like my staff, is made of wood, meaning my nature power can control it, and I made it whack John on the head as it zoomed towards me. I handed it to Precog and landed him behind John in another forcefield while I kept him busy. I could hear voices and running upstairs as I sent an icy blast of wind at John, and Precog hit him with the bat. John turned and shot a laser at Precog, but Precog was already off to the side, and I could see his eyes were completely white again. 'HA! I saw that coming!' he yelled triumphantly, and gave John another whack with the bat, this time in the shin. I froze John's feet to the floor with Ice, sent a jet of fire at his chest, and dodged a ball of radioactive light. John roared again and let loose more lasers, but they were met by ones from Blast, who caused them to veer off and miss everyone. they clattered down the stairs and joined the fray, and John was definitely coming out worse when Don, leaping down the last few steps ahead of a grinning Pete, charged John with his fist forwards, meeting John with a huge cracking sound. John screamed with pain and was thrown out of one of the windows, smashing it, and colliding with the wall on the other side of the alley with a nasty squelchy sound. Diffy gave a cry of shock and ran to the window, where the pile of videos he'd turned into a castle that morning had fallen down. 'You smashed my dishplay!' He called to Don, and set about putting them up again. We were all staring at Don in surprise, but Doolittle knelt down to Diffy and said quietly 'But Diffy, sweetie, this isn't even a real shop! It doesn't matter.' He stuck his tongue out and said grumpily: 'Its a dishplay window, yes? Dishplay windows are for dishplaying stuff.' and went back to his building.

'Um, what just happened?' asked Healthbar, staring at Don.
'Did you take it?' I asked.
'It was convenient that you got Super-strength.' muttered Dragon.
'Nope.' he grinned and showed us his right hand, which now had a thin silver band on it's middle finger. 'Pete took me to that trunk you told us about and found me this. apparently you didn't want super strength, so you made it one of these experiments?'
'Oh Yeah! I forgot about that one! I can't control physical powers like strength and speed as well as I can do mental and elemental, they're more sort of mind related, I had trouble turning that off and I kept breaking everything, so we put it in a ring because the girl that had it didn't want it, she kept breaking things too. This way it's an on/off power, you can just take the ring off and stop having it, I just never needed it so I forgot about it.'

'Well, it'll do until I make up by mind about this.' Don held up the phial and pointed at John's body, which Blast was now completely destroying 'Was that the real one?'

Playwrite and Tingle both sighed. 'Clone' they said at the same time.

A bit later Don came to me and pointed out his big problem. 'If I take the serum, I may get a power I hate, and it may do major harm before you lot can help. But if I don't take it, I'll always be haunted by not knowing what my true ability is. I guess I'll just keep using this ring whenever I HAVE to have an ability.'

I know Precog's right, but really, I wish he could just chip in some advice. I don't like the sound of those consequences.

All new Zodiac, and an important decision.

'Now that your ability is at full strength, you are ready to take your position in Zodiac' Dragon said seriously to Healthbar. 'I have been waiting for someone with your ability for a long time. Solar and Lunar energy fills you with strength, and give you mastery of the balance between light and dark, life and death. This is a position that cannot be compromised, there is one ability, and one alone that can fill this role. You seem to have a more complete version, in the past we have had members that can only heal and harm, or only have the lunar part, or only the solar part, but they are all minor versions of the same power. You must take the role of Tiger, and you must keep the balance, because it is the lack of a Tiger that has allowed HIM to gain so much power.'

Healthbar nodded, frowning as she thought, and went and sat down in a corner, thinking solemnly to herself.

Dragon assigned Diffy the role of Monkey, which everyone agreed suited him perfectly, and Playwrite, who could use his telepathy to go unseen, was given the role of snake, who as Dragon said 'often gets marked as a bad lot, but I was never let down by by old friend Snake, I couldn't have asked for a more caring man. Never in the history of Zodiac has a snake gone bad, and I see no reason for that to change.'

Dragon turned to Don. 'At last, we come to you, Don. I was hoping Tempest had a friend with fighting skills, and then there you were, at strawberry fair. I was delighted. You must become the Ox, who is by tradition a fighter, good at hand to hand combat. Of course, we've never had someone without an ability in Zodiac before, we all have friends with abilities of course, but sending one out in the front lines, as it were, was always too dangerous. As a martial arts expert, you would cope better than most, and suit the role of Ox well, but normally the ox has superstrength, or super athleticism, or some other ability that boosts his fighting technique. We have had a normal human as the veil before, but as one of the twelve...'

'Well, I could always join you, Double said he made this before Playwrite gave the original to Freezeframe.'

Don reached into his pocket and pulled out something wound in bubble wrap. 'I'm surprised it survived greece, but I can become one of you with this.' he unwrapped it to reveal a phial of dark liquid, with a number 9 written on it in white, exactly the same as the one Playwrite had given to freeze frame.

He held it up for us all to see. 'The question is, do I want to?'

Dragon's friends.

Sorry I haven't posted for a while, Dragon's been keeping us busy and we've just been trying to recover from Greece.

'The Eye' and his team left, hinting we should know them, but he grinned when nobody could place him. 'Another little gift Cleo will give us with the ability to be outside Fate. The Fates can't see us, or affect us, and it's all their own doing. Tell Cleo to look out for a girl that's immune. To everything. Hunger, Thirst, Disease, Injury, Abilities, Time, and, most importantly, Fate. She needs to take the fate bit and give it to me. After that, the immune girl can be affected by Fate, and Reality Warping, so Jorge can make sure she's happy. This ability let's us be hidden in plain sight, meaning none of you can realize who we are.'

And then they left, leaving us confused but in awe.

Dragon introduced us to his friend with the position of Horse, who had arrived late. He told us that he had the position of horse because of the most frequent use of his power, which wasn't healing, despite tradition. 'Some of the positions tend to have different abilities each time.' Dragon explained 'The position of Monkey for instance. Sometimes it is someone with shapeshifting, sometimes it is an illusionist that specializes in creation of things, such as animals, sometimes it's someone who can control animals. and Snake. We've had illusionist's, invisible people, and Telepaths, all of whom can go unnoticed. Our current Horse, a dear friend of mine, has Animal mimicry, meaning he can craft himself partial transformation around animals he has met. Once he has encountered a Tiger, he can grow it's claws or it's fur. Once he's encountered an elephant, he can grow a trunk or tusks, and increase his size or harden his skin. And, well, his favourite mimicry, which greatly improves his speed and power but impedes normal movement, is that of horses legs.....'

We had got downstairs by this time, and we were greeted by a centaur. Not one created in a battle of warpers, like in Paris, a real, definate centaur. Wearing a blue T-shirt with a picture of penguins on it. Pale pink skin faded seamlessly into deep chestnut brown horse, the same colour as his hair. He grinned and waved at us, and introduced himself as Centaur. 'Seemed like a good choice of Codename.' he said cheerfully.

The lady introduced herself as Blast, explaining she could generate beams, or lasers of energy from any part of her body, and the young boy explained that he was called Cecil, he was 103 and his regeneration had been almost at the speed of his aging from age 6 due to an exciting couple of years, meaning in the last century he'd only aged a couple of years, making him seem like a small eight year old.

'And now for two people I'm sure most of you already know' said Dragon with a flourish, and the door to the base swept open, revealing Tildy and Freezeframe.

After introductions again, Dragon explained their being here. 'Freezeframe is going to be our Rat, with her ability of animation, the first one to have the traditional power for 76 years. We've had a man with control over stone, and a lady with possession, who could take over statues as well, but we haven't had someone with the original power of animation and deanimation of all things since Puppeteer, three Rats ago. Now miss Tildy. Her mastery of the Psychic forces is what calls her into Zodiac's history today. Her single ability of being a psychic, as I'm sure Tempest has told you, gives her Precognition, Clairsentience, Clairvoyance, limited Telepathy (She can hear thoughts and sense emotions, but not do anything like Playwrite, she just has the sense part, not the controlling input.), and, most importantly, Mediumship. That which allows her access to the spirit realm. It is for that purpose she become our new Sheep.'

'And you give off Telekinetic bursts when you get angry' I said, grinning at her. We discovered ages ago she can't really do proper telekinesis, like Cleo, she can't pick things up or do fine work with it, like picking things up and floating them over to somewhere else, but she gives off sort of poltergeist like bursts of Telekinetic energy when her emotions are high, making things break, or send things flying across the room, stuff like that. She grinned back at me and told me that Lily had made it home ok, although her ability was weakened from having to rebuild herself.

'And now we come to you' said Dragon, turning to Healthbar, and, for some reason, Don.....

Escape to the void.

'Sage, is that you, or Howard? Do you still have reality warping, or are you good again?'
'I have returned, and once I'm through with you-'
'Well, that's enough of an answer for me' snapped Cleo, and she telekinetically snapped his neck, while a brought a large chunk of ceiling down on him.
'Dragon told me that me and Omni have a big part to play in Zodiac.' Precog sniffed, trying not to cry 'And, we have to save her, because, well, I...'
'I agree, we have to try' I said, as another rumble shook the cavern. Cleo nodded, and seemed lost for words looking round at all the people we had lost, as well as many others in the distance. There was a woman with short white hair, Arthur Petrelli that I'd met at Pinehearst, what looked like Nathan Petrelli, A wise looking Japanese man, and so many more, too far off to see. Cleo waved a hand and, using telekinesis, moved Omni, still in her blue Aura, towards the door. She bobbed along, out the door, and Cleo turned to the others, looking upset as she saw all the TP and CHASE members that had died so recently. 'Take Omni and go.' she said, watching the pile of rubble to make sure there was no movement. 'I'm going to do what I can for the others. If the portal closes, I'll just have to use my superspeed plus augment time travel I suppose.' A large boom sound was heard and there were screams and sounds of moving rocks from outside. 'GO!' she yelled practically throwing us out.

We saw Gravity, swearing loudly and constantly, holding half the ceiling up with his ability, and Doolittle struggling out from a large boulder which had crushed her leg. Tremor turned it to dust, and I made flat strechers of forcefield for Doolittle and Don. Evan led the way to where he said Moira had told him she'd open a portal, and Gravity helped carry Don and Doolittle because my forcefields weren't at full strength yet and starting to fail. More ceiling started to collapse, and Healthbar yelled 'I am NEVER making fun of Indiana Jones EVER again!' Just as Precog stopped dead, his eyes a blank white.

'Oh my god, Precog, NOT THE TIME!' I called, dashing back to grab his arm, and me and Playwrite just dragged him along. Tingle was talking to Evan about Moira, and narrowly missed a huge lump of rock that escaped Gravity's hold and fell behind him. Tremor started sending waves upwards and helping him by turning the rocks to dust, and as we rounded a sort of natural corner in the stone Evan cried 'NOW Moira!' and a blinding white light exploded infront of us, revealing a rip in time and space. Precog woke up, causing Playwrite to exclaim:'Now? Now you wake up! Perfect timing Pre.'
'We have to go back for Cleo.' was all he said. But Evan wouldn't hear of it. 'Cleo is a resourceful lady, I'm sure she'll be fine. I'll keep this open for her, and go and help if she calls me. Go quickly, the ceiling won't hold much longer. Save yourselves.'
Everyone piled in, but I stopped next to him. 'You're wise beyond your years, Evan. I think all the stuff that's happened since you met us has changed you, and for that I'm sorry. I wish we could have spared you from this.'
'Thanks. You talk like we're never going to see each other again.'
I looked round at the collapsing Cavern. 'If you stay here, I'm afraid we might not.'
We shook hands, and I asked him to come with us. he agreed, and went right up to the entrance with me. then he looked back at the collapsing rock, said quietly 'Cleo can survive this, but she needs the portal.' and then turned to me and pushed me, hard, into the white void, calling 'I'm sorry' as I sailed away from him into the void.

I caught up with the others, mostly by thinking about them, I think that's how that place works, and we floated gently through the nothingness. Looking around us, we saw glimpses of other moments in history, between the one we'd left and the one we were going to. I finished all the letters for the box, and as I put them all in, I saw a temple below me. It was partly see-through, and ripples kept going across it and distorting the picture, as with all the images of history, but I saw a small plateau of stone, withe the ruins of pillars round three sides and a temple behind them, and a man, leaning over a younger man, who crackled slightly with red energy, and seemed to be bleeding, with a hole in his chest, his face covered in blood. One of the Fates lay nearby, dead, with several severe wounds. I dropped the box, and it travelled through the ripples, and with each one it became less a part of this time and more a part of that one, until it left the void altogether and hit the man on the shoulder. I knew I'd guessed right when he looked up, and Dragon's face stared up at us, confused, unable to see where the box had come from. He put it in his pocket as we sailed away from the scene.

Eventually we tumbled out of the other end, all of VHS, Omni, still cocooned, Sam, Chelsea, and 'The Eye' and his friends. Dragon was waiting for us, and looked down at me, saying: 'You missed. It was supposed to land at my feet.' and then became very happy that we'd survived. Precog tugged on Dragon's robe from his place on the floor, and moaned 'Please, can you help Omni?' Dragon saw her and exclaimed 'Oh Lord! Whatever is wrong with her dear boy?' and knelt down to look at her. 'Pig, Dog, and Horse are waiting downstairs, Horse arrived shortly after you left.'

Healthbar had flung a window open and was soaking up sunlight, and turned it on us, shining healing power on us until everyone was standing again.

Sorry this took so long, I fell asleep not long of saying we'd got back so I haven't been able to do this until now.

Return at last

Well, we just got back. I'll take over from Dragon now in explaining what happened to us. I'm not sure if Cleo is back yet, we got separated before the Void, but we did bring someone back with us. I think it's been more days here than it was for us there, but that can't be helped. Double says he had clones of each of kept just in case, sort of powered down, as it were, but he sent them to our exams for us, and as they have exactly the same knowledge that we do, it's just like if we'd been ourselves which, in a sense, we did. Wow, clone talk gets confusing. Anyway, I'll explain more about the end of our trip after changing out of these ash coated clothes and everyone is fixed up and rested.

Talk to you soon.

The hall of lost souls

A small group of people descended from a large hole in the ceiling, and one started planning immediately.

'Right, Warcry, you work on the rock with Tremor, Stun, you watch for the Fates and give anyone that comes a quick jab, I'll go and see to Don. Move people, GO GO GO!'

'The Eye' ran off to check on Don, and the others went about their jobs. Warcry took a deep breath, aimed at Cleo's rocky bindings, and let loose a huge sonic scream, a high pitch echoing through the cavern causing us to clap our hands over our ears. The rock around Cleo shattered, and she fell to the floor. Tremor went to Healthbar, put a hand on the rock around her, and concentrated. There was a slight ripple, and it crumbled to dust. 'The Eye' called out 'Your abilities will work again now, we weren't dulled because of a useful little skill Cleo will give us when she finds it, in her future.'
'I will?'
'Yes, and it is vital you give it to me when you find it, or we won't be able to rescue you now, and you'll be stuck here forever!'
'Right, I'll make sure I look out for it.'
Cleo threw my staff to met and I gripped my rocky bindings until I felt my Earth ability surge and they unfolded to free me. I channeled it to my staff and threw it like a javelin into the wall, where huge cracks spread out and helped destroy the rest of the trappings. I reclaimed it and ran over to Don, closely followed by everyone else. 'The Eye' had lifted him into a sitting position, and as I got there a huge rumble shook the cavern. 'That wasn't us, said 'The Eye' looking up, concerned. 'I think the place is coming down. We need to move.'
Cleo, meanwhile, had gone off with Sam and they were opening the door Don had looked into.
'Oh my God! Omni...Tayla...Shifter..They're all here!'
'What?'
'Look!'
I went to the door and saw a huge room, full of people floating, in sort of aura things, eyes closed, marked from their last minutes on earth. Omni was nearest, floating gently, bobing slowlt, in a blue aura, with a hole going right through her where Damian had struck.
'Her Aura is usually a totally different colour' frowned Cleo 'This was made by someone else.
Further into the room, it was divided into sections, and there were some signs saying things like 'Need editing' or 'NEVER to re-enter the world'

'This is sick' I said, staring round at the huge hall. I saw, close by, a creature, a disgusting, ugly little hunched thing, curled up a short way ahead. 'Is that...'
'What hit Don? Yeah, tried to do the same to us.' said Cleo, but we were shoved aside by Precog, who had rushed in and gasped at the sight of Omni. He ran over to her and started pounding on the blue aura, slamming his fists against it.

'I always thought she looked two grown up' sighed Cleo, as we tried to drag him off, while he screamed about visions and kept yelling 'to hell with Destiny!'she looked over at the still Omni. 'I kept thinking she must be younger than she pretended. I saw it a bit when she had healing instead. I think, even though she tried to hide it, she was the youngest of the TP founders. 19 or 20 I'd say. I think Precog got closer to her than any of the four of us ever did.'

The volcano gave another huge shake, and a large piece of ceiling nearly crushed us. Tremor appeared in the doorway. 'I'm trying to cancel them out by causing one the other way, but it won't stop them forever. Can we go?'

'In a minute!' screeched Precog, and then we all turned to stare to our left. An aura there was changing. It surrounded Sage, and it glowed aqua, and then faded, causing him to float to the floor. He opened his eyes, focused on us, and grinned widely. 'Well well well, what do we have here?'