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.