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.