Merry Christmas Everyone

and then all we need to do is get out again.
Oh God. Broadcast, what the HELL have they done to you?
He's in a chamber of weird fluid, but his head's above the surface. There are wires plugged into him, it looks like they've just been stabbed in, man they look so painful, he's got a silver patch stabbed into his shoulder, and a strange metal headset. He looks like he's in a coma or something.
He's connected to a machine for controlling the transmissions near the roof, and that's connected to the dishes outside.
Damn, guards are trying to break through the doors. Luckily their own defenses are working against them.
Oh, hello, what's that screen saying? Huh, incoming transmission eh? Hooded wants to say something to the new world, and is about to patch it through my friend here.
'People of the world, this is your leader. Glorious news! The infamous rebels, Hana Phonebot and Eric Bermuda, known accomplices of Enemy one, Tempest, and the captive Broadcast, have been captured. Sadly, rebel Doolittle, who escaped using a termite last July, is still loose. Any loyal subjects who find or capture the fugitive will be rewarded. Anyone found to be aiding her in any way will be destroyed.'
So many questions, but he's making Broadcast moan and struggle with pain. That's a mistake. Let's fix that shall we?
Right, screens off, he'll be a bit surprised, bigger things to worry about though. Namely, Broadcast and the guards.
'Diffy, find a way to shut off the power, and Jingle, block the doors. I'll get working on Broadcast.'
'Right!'
Webs of Tinsel, nice. Diffy's exploring switches in the corner, I've nearly found the way round the security of the Transmission machine...What?! The screens back on?
'Intruders! Sound pillar! Stop them! Broadcast! Wall of noise!'
Wall of noise? I know Broadcast was getting better at his power, but surely-
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Whaaaaaaaaaaa!
Ouch! It's like a gale force of wind made of screeching and booming. Broadcast's actually screaming, and it's making this huge wind that's pushing us all against the wall. It's causing Broadcast so much pain, and killing our ears. This must end. I can't create a big enough stone slab solo, and not being on the ground floor means I can't just flip up a bit of earth. Forcefield? Flying towards me aswell. Right old fashioned way. Arms up, brace self, and... step. .....Step. .......Step. Not...working....Phasing! Viola! Much easier! It's sound, so it's still getting at me, but it's solid element is much easier.
'You guys ok?'
'Pardon! This things killing us!'
Well, that answers that. Oh no! Now the guards have got through! Ha! They were knocked back by the sound too! Ok, try turning off the patch on B's shoulder, it's blinking as if it was involved in the wall of noise.





'T! Wake up!'
'What?! What's happening?! What went wrong?'
'You stared at Broadcast, collapsed, became solid again and got slammed against the wall. One of the guards shot at us, the noise made it hit the thing over my head, which seems to be a power source for the tank, because the wall of noise got weaker. We managed to move, and Jingle's covering us while I woke you up?'
'Covering us? With the guards?'
'Pine needles. Hundreds of them. Tiny scented needles of pain.'
'Nice. Thanks. OK, let's try this again.'
Enter patch, bypass security, oooh, kickback of feedback to cause strong interference incase of tampering. Nasty. Ok, past that, onto the secondary loop. Secondary loop? What secondary loop? Oh Bugg


'Went well did it?'
'Yeah yeah, shut up Diffy, I'm doing my best. He's good. I need to pull it off manually.'
'Good luck, I'll help Jingle.'
He's leapt up and tackled a guard. Urgh my head. OK, standing up, I can do that. Oooh, room spinning. Yay, this is going to go well. And these guards seem more alert than the ones outside, great. Diffy seems happy about that though.
'Is that a glint in the eye? That's a glint in your eye. Excellent. Glints mean you're aware. Goody.
Aaaaaaaaand now there's quite a lot of fire and some sort of little red demons. Guards are scared though, that's good.

Oooh, still windy. OK, arms up again, and push. Step forward. Lightning guard. Step. Step again. Forcefield between Jingle and bullets. Move it to be between Diffy and bullets. Hold bullets statically in Forcefield. Spin forcefield. Release bullets. Cause fire where that fake bit is to actually burn that guard. Step again. Try and build a run. Nearly there now. Grab guard from behind. Phase into floor. Release grip. Cone of water around guard with two guns. Freeze water. Made it. Which power can I use that won't harm Broadcast. Oh well. Punching it is.

Oww! Ok, really thick glass. Forcefield fist. Ah, slightly better. just a thin layer left. Feeling weak. OK, no Forcefield this time apparently.

CRASH!!!

Argh! Glas in hand! Glassin hand! Owowowowowowowow! arhahahahahahhhhh, and this liquid stings too. Ow! OK, wires next. Let's hope I can phase for this. Grab Broadcast, phase, and, yes! The wires have dropped! Hanging loosely! Right, drag Broadcast away...Wall of noise has stopped, that's helpful...forcefield against stray needles, fire them at guards, grab Diffy and Jingle, and we are out of here!

'Wha? Tempest, is that really you? Why do you look weird?'
'Later Broadcast, rest now.'
'I see why Diffy called you in now. Apart from fainting twice, that was all rather impressive.'
'Thanks.'
'Yeah, thanks T, we couldn't have done it without you. I'm glad you're here.'

Well, not as stealthy as we planned, but we're one down. Quite a few to go, but watch out HG, we're coming!

Merry Christmas Everyone

We've traveled for so long to get here. A huge tower, gleaming silver, with a giant transmission aerial at the top, covered in dishes, surrounded by wasteland. Reaching into the sky, walls so smooth I doubt any sort of ability would give you grip, a massive cylinder of impregnability.

Or so they think.

I've got the guards uniform from the 'flipbrain' that we captured, and his ID and whatnot. He looks nothing like me, but I don't plan on showing it to anyone, I just need it for getting in. If anyone tries to Technopath it from outside, and alarm goes off. Any tampering, and all hell breaks loose. Inside however, safe guarded by ID's, guards, and fortified walls, and useful for any Equinoxes that may be working for HG, abilities should be fine. Assuming FDiffy's research is right. Let's hope. According to Diffy, it's Christmas Eve. You wouldn't know it to look around though. No sign anywhere. I asked FDiffy about this as we were making our way here.
'Christmas? You've got to be kidding. Jingle's as close as anyone is going to get these days, and as you can see he's pretty down about it all. HG finds it trivial and frivolous, so he got rid of that very quickly. I remember, the first Christmas under HG's control, Glutton kept fighting for Christmas. HG tried to cancel it in Britain as soon as he took over. It interfered with his plan. I actually miss Glutton.' He smiled sadly. 'Wow, didn't expect to ever hear myself say that. No, not even Jingle's used his REALLY Christmassy stuff for a while.'
He sighed, and then Jingle caught up and we stopped talking about it.

So, with FDiffy's illusions near useless against the guards, our plan is: Me, being the least recognizable, uses the guard disguise to get in, and then....get the others in somehow. To be honest that bit really hasn't been thought through. OK, here we go! Walking, still walking, calmly, I do this everyday, I've been flipped so nothing shows as I do the job I do everyday...approaching another guard....'You, new guard, why are you here?'
'Orders to check inside. Reports of resistance members in the area. I'm extra security for the control room.'
'That is logical. Wait, we have had no reports of Resistance?'
'Until now. I have come to let control know, they will spread the message to all guards. Let me pass.'
come on, come on....yes! He's standing aside. Persuasion, I love you! Ok, at the door, swipe card...eye scan! What eye scan! I suppose they need SOME sort of security against stolen cards, oh hell! Wait, I can do this, The scanning tube is still sliding out, there's still time, quick, glance at card. Dazzling blue, I can do that. Colour manipulation, look down tube like I'm having an eye test, yes! I'm in! Slip through the door before anyone stops me. Right, how to help the others.....Aha! Parked security carts, for driving out into the wastes, or catching resistance members. One with tinted windows, excellent, no chance of seeing inside. Check it's empty, Technopath my way in.....there we go. Off you drive, little empty cart, trundle trundle, round behind the broken remains of cottage, remotely open the door pointedly....Argh, how do I know if they're in? Ah, they're randomly jabbing buttons on the dashboard. Good thing I'm blocking the signals they just called for back up. Ok, swing door shut, and back you come trundle trundle, dum-de-dum-de-doo, voila!
'Nice one!'
'I do my best. Where now?'
'Up to the top.'
'Ok, express route I think, they're suspicious, we can't waste time.'
'Hey Diff, when he says Express route, what does he me-Waaaaaah!'
Forcefield plus phasing. A handy combination.
'You should really warn people before doing this!'
'Sorry, forgot you're new to it.'
Wait, was that a yell! and a bang?
'Yaaaaergh!'
What! FDiffy! something got him in the arm! As we came up through the floor some guy shot at us! Over there! Taking aim again!
'Oi!'
Jingle just lunged for him, and, what? Haha!
'Did you just...spiderman him with Tinsle?'
He's staring at his wrist. 'Uh.....yeah.'
'I have no idea how your power works, and what sort of brain you must have to get a power like it, you strange, strange boy, but I'm very glad I met you.'
'Thanks, I'm glad to have met you too.'
He's smiling, but the guards struggling. I hate to do it to him, it's not his fault, but needs must. Lightning to the leg. He's not following us now.
Up we go. 'You ok Diffy?'
Yeah, thanks T, although it's times like this I REALLY miss Healthbar, you know? Good work Jingle.'
'Thanks.'
'Hang on, the bullet's embedded. I'm going to try something. Eww,eww,eww...'
I'm poking into the wound, urgh, this is gross...poor FDiffy..There it is! Viola, the bullet is now in a subdimension. Water for my hand, bit of soothing cool air on the wound, bit of guard sleeve tied round it, best we can do.
'Ah, thanks, that's better.'
'Well, I'm no super solar battery life goddess, but it should help. Ah, and here we are.'
Top floor. Just the one room, taking up the whole, huge floor, save the ring of corridor round the edge of every level, with stairs etc. . Right, first things first, click fingers...every entrance locked. Now, Mr. Big fancy machine in the middle, give us Broadcast.
HG is using Broadcast as a sort of global speaker. Any announcement he wants to make to the world, he sends through here, and the machine uses Broadcast to transmit it to the whole planet. Plus HG can use him as a sound system. No idea why, and his taste in music is probably horrible, but apparently it happens. Ok, that's clearly a chamber of some sort. Aha! I've TP'ed into the override. Open! That's it, should be a piece of cake now to

Silent Night

We're in. Can't stop, just thought I should let you know. If you're reading this. Is anyone reading this? Is there anyone left? We've captured a 'flipbrain', got all we need, we're approaching the facility undetected. Night is weird here. It just happens, suddenly. It's daylight, and then it's dark. And there are no stars. It's just blackness. There's still the moon, but it isn't reflecting the sun's light, so it doesn't shine. There's this really faint feeling, when it goes black, like something, or someone, is trying to break the silence. It's almost a faint tingle, but it doesn't hit you like that. It's too faint to even try to identify. I'm only mentioning it because everything here puts me on red alert. I don't like how this new world works.

Ah, the door! Bye for now....

Jingle Bells

Hello from the future once again. It's been a week since my last post. (Or has it for you? Who knows? Wibbley wobbley timey wimey and all that.) We're abroad, trying to get into Belgium undetected.

Sorry, where did I leave you? Oh yeah, strange shape in the sky. As it came closer, I could make it out better. It WAS what I thought. Now, I have to admit, after all I've seen, and from Hints Dragon has dropped, I'm fine with Santa. Seems perfectly possible. But this? This was a boy riding a flying reindeer. There was a small flurry of snow, a faint ring of sleigh bells, and a teenage boy on a reindeer galloped to a stop in front of us. 'Season's greetings! Name's Jingle. You must be Tempest, Diffy's told me SO much about you!'
He stroked the reindeer's neck, and it galloped of round a corner. 'He'll be noticed from now on, it's too risky to continue with him.'
So then we waited for the others, but we had to set off eventually. Diffy has heard since that two of them were killed trying to make it to us, but the others are unknown at the moment. We slowly made our way (Carefully, he has spies everywhere) across the channel, and when possible, I sped us through Europe. Diffy has managed to hide us very well a lot of times, but the weird subjects he makes by 'flipping' rebels brains are weirdly resistant, because there isn't enough sentience left to react fully, or something, so we were illusionless against them (His passive stuff works, they see him as we do, but he can't do distractions, or hide us from them. It's bizarre.)

Oh yeah, Jingle. Joining the list of mimicries we've encountered or found through research (Water, Snake, Wolf, Ice, Sand, Phoenix, Quite a lot of Rag's stuff, Smoke, Metal) and the manipulations that go with them, is Christmas. Don't ask, I don't know, and currently can't see responses anyway. Strictly one-way transmissions. Jingle is a natural force of Christmas magic. He manifested Christmas the year I left, and can essentially create, mimic, and manipulate all things Christmas. He hasn't really made much use of the full extent of his powers recently, apparently there hasn't really been a Christmas since HG took over. He's mostly just hidden, using the odd scattering of snow, reindeer, or 'pine powers' to escape capture. As soon as we set off, and his ride had left, he became quite serious, and seemed fairly low spirited. Poor guy, must be hard having lived in the world like this for the past few years.

So, now we're trying to get into Belgium. There are huge numbers of 'flipbrains' as Diffy calls them, on patrol, so he can't use his powers to get us past. There's a stronghold here. A VHS member is being held inside, and if we're right about who and why, it will be a major blow to HG if we can break them out. I don't want to say too much in case we're wrong, or if they're....no. He's keeping everyone alive. They're 'useful' to him.

Wait! A gap in the patrols! We need to catch one, but there! He's standing alone! And he's got his back to us! Idiot. Bye for now!

Lonely this Christmas

Less than a month to Christmas. This time last year, in my/your time, we were getting ready, decorating the base, shopping, I grew the tree, so much fun. Now, it's just me, Future Diffy, and Hana. We've made it to Dover, we're just waiting for Diffy's new friends to arrive. Apparently the guy from scotland is nearly here, the rest are unaccounted for. Oh well. Diffy's been filling me in on bits of the new world while we wait.

'Something happened a few years ago, which changed everything, even for HG. The balance of evolved humans shifted. About 50% of the world has powers now. Nobody knows why. There was an eclipse shortly before it was noticed, but it's never affected that many people before though.'
'It was an eclipse that did it for me.'
'Yeah, it must be how, but it changed things for him. There was a huge wave of resistance against him, for one thing. A lot of people that had been downtrodden by him could suddenly fight back. Didn't last long of course, he beat all who tried to fight him. Most people didn't even get to him. The ordinary people fought on for a long time, in smaller ways, but he won. He's the ruler now. Every city or town where a major rebellion happened was destroyed. Anyone who resisted was flipped into a loyal zombie. Then he set about working on the planet.'
'Yeah, has he done something to the air? It feels really weird, my Weather Control's picking up so much difference.'
'That'll be the Ozone. A group of 'Equinoxes' with the right powers fixed it ages ago. He killed them afterwards of course, they were 'too powerful to live''.
'He...would..yes...'
'This was after he restored the polar ice caps to stop his world being flooded of course- oh look, he's arrived!'
I can't see him, oh wait, there's something. Up in the sky, it's a weird shape, it's, no, it can't be. No, that's just absurd.......

The quest begins.

Hey, this is about half an hour after the last post. I have no idea how long it's been your end.

We're about to head off. We gathered a few things together, a quick visit to the old SOLAR base (Someone had destroyed most of it, looked like the selfdestruct protocol, but the planets room survived, it can only be blown up by Rag using the big red button, it's fortified against most other stuff. I grabbed a couple of survival packs from inside Earth, and activated Mars. It burst through what was left of the skylight, and shot into the sky, waiting for further instructions. It'll be fine there until I need it.

Diffy knows the locations of five of our friends, and has made a couple of new ones, so we're starting with the information he has, and we hope to learn more as we go. He may have grabbed me earlier than planned, or because of how events worked out for him he remembers a little out of sync, because he asked me if I noticed anything significant while attacking HG's stronghold the first time.
'I haven't attacked it yet?'
'What? Oh, that's be after you escaped HG the first time, that can't have happened yet...'
'Actually-'
'That or Moira grabbed you earlier than planned.....Then you won't know the truth about 'The Eye' yet......'
'What?! What about the 'The Eye'?!'
'Spoilers. I'm not going to divulge any more on the subject.'
'Divulge? Diffy using the word Divulge. You're right, something went horribly wrong in this timeline.....'
'Hey, I had to grow up pretty damn fast! And yes, I've moved on from 'stinky' this new world does things to you, changes you, and cute can't survive anymore.'

Apparently one of his new allies is coming down from Scotland and will meet us at Dover. One's already there, and there's a guy in america he lost contact with when the VHS Satellite was discovered and destroyed. A few more are trying to make it to us, but the world is a dangerous place, so who knows.

On our way to Dover, Diffy's going to tell me about this new world. He refuses to go into details about My near future, but he's going to tell me how the current situation arose. What's he's told me so far is pretty bleak. Turns out SOLAR tried to beat HG, and everyone but Glutton died, he only last a few more months, along with most of the people we've met or helped. There was a lot of resistance for about a year, but he always won in the end. He's turned the most resistant into zombie-like drones, incredibly loyal slaves that do his bidding and patrol, looking for rebels.

He ALWAYS wins. I have no idea how we are going to survive this, but we need to reunite VHS. Friends, wherever you are, don't worry, we're coming!

Alive, confused, but not alone.

Hey, it's Tempest. I only just understand how this is working, but you should be able to read this.

Firstly, it's only about an hour since I got here, but there might be lag at your end, because of fluctuations in the temporal connection. You might have got this moments after the last one, I don't know, but it should get through at some point, so that's good.

We discovered my phone still had all the information from my time, and connected to the blog, with a little boost from me, but connected to the blog as it was in my time. Because my phone and my mind were both technopathically linked to the main computer and the blog when we left, we brought most of the connection with us, so, allowing for a bit of a bumpy ride backwards through time, any posts I do through my phone should end up in my time. The connection can't get me home though.

After the weird distorting of the world around me, I felt a jerking sensation and everywhere went white. Then everything cleared, and I was exactly where I had been, but Hooded Guy wasn't there anymore. Feeling ill, I fell to the floor, and noticed that someone was watching me. He held a hand out to me, and pulled me to my feet. I blinked, trying to make the world stop spinning, and looked at him. A young teenager, with a bright white short sleeved overshirt and trousers, blond hair, and yellow sleeves coming out of the short sleeves and going down to his wrists. His smiling face was in shadow from his bright red baseball cap, that had a white line drawing of a smiley face on the front.

'Future Diffy?'
'PRESENT Diffy. You're PAST Tempest. So glad you're here, Moira wasn't sure if it would work.'
'Um,wow? Oh, SO many questions right now.......'Why I am I here? When is here? How am I here? Where's everyone else? Have you actually MET Moira then? What happened about that Hooded Guy? Did we win? What's with the extra sleeves?'
He suddenly looked sadder. 'I need your help. A few years ahead. Moira. That's WHY I need your help. No. He took over the world. No.' Then he smiled. 'What can I say, it's my look. I found a colour scheme I liked, and it stuck, even though I've 'come out of my shell', as it were.'
'Ok, I didn't like the sound of nearly all those answers....'
'And THAT's why I need your help. This world is, to use an old favourite of mine, 'Stinky'. I got Moira to bring you here so you can bring back the old team, take on Hooded Guy, and beat once and for all. Then of course, go back to your own time, and beat him back there to stop this future from even existing.'
'oooooooooooook.............not to sound selfish, but why don't you just tell me what I need to know to beat him, and I go back and beat him in my time without having to fight him here aswell?'
'Three reasons. One, Moira says that our group has made such an impact on history, already having changed it at least three times, and one of those times Cleo changed history and kept us immune from it, that by bringing you here at all, we've made another link between two times, so if you change the past, the future will try to compensate by changing us as little as possible, so if you go back and change everything now, with everyone split up and separately doomed, We'll most likely still be like that after you change history, but for different reasons.'
'That makes NO sense.'
"I'm pretty sure she simplified it for me to hide some other more complicated reason, but she definitely wants you to save everybody here first. And she's got a point about the messing with time thing, we have a history of changing results but keeping ourselves as similar as possible.'
'Riiight, I'll think about that later. The other reasons?'
'Oh yeah. Two, there's very little I can tell you about how to beat him, because we didn't. You need to beat him here to learn how to in your own time. And three, Moira said that your arrival here would be detected, and that any attempt to send you back would be blocked, so we need to beat him before you can get back anyway.'
'Those reasons I can deal with. Ok, what first?'
'To the roof please, I want to do one of those big reveals you were so fond of.'
'Reveal?'
'Please.'
I phased us on a forcefield straight up, onto the roof. My jaw dropped. I sank to my knees, stunned at the sight before me. It was all I could do not to yell.
'I made the base look how it used to so you could get used to being here calmly, but I'm afraid you have to see this.'
Ruins. A glorious sun blazed in a blue sky, over what was left of Cambridge. There were craters in the pavement, the twisted scraps of metal from a car scattered around, shifting slightly in the breeze. Half of King's college chapel was at 45 degrees, and looking like it could collapse at any time, and the other half was dust. Single walls and foundations of buildings crumbled, as piles of rubble littered the scene. There was a skeleton lying in the alley by the base, and there wasn't a living creature in sight.'
'SO' said Diffy, sounding more serious than I could have believed possible 'The quest of reuniting our friends and saving the planet has begun.'