Escape?

I forgot to tell you something a couple of letters ago, before we were warped back here my Terrakinesis/Plant control had begun to come back, as had my forcefields.

So Healthbar explained that she had quite alot of solar energy left, but not for any big things.
'That's ok, we only need a few minutes.' said Cleo, and explained that if we could reverse time to when the void opened again, at least a few of us should be able to escape. Don and Stan, as the non-powered, and therefore free people, seemed the obvious choice, but Don refused to leave.

'Fine, I suppose it could be useful having one of you free around here.' said Cleo, slightly annoyed, but we agreed just Stan should go back. The next question was, how could Healthbar use her ability properly? With effort, Cleo managed to raise my staff (Which had fallen on the floor) a few inches into the air, I could phase a couple of inches in any direction, Diffy made a basic swirling cloud of colour, but no definite object, things like that. 'I won't be able to do much like this.' said Healthbar sadly. 'And the longer we try, the further away the portal gets.'

'Hang on' said Cleo, and screwed her eyes up concentrating. A lone red spark flew from her finger, and sank deep into Healthbar's arm. Cleo opened her eyes and slumped, panting, looking worn out, as Healthbar, temporarily at full strength, rewound time as fast as she could. 'The void started to open again, no more than about the size of a plate, but it grew until it was about the size of a large porthole. Time froze, and Healthbar's nose started to bleed. 'Stan, I can't hold the sun still much longer, will you please just RUN!'
Stan ran towards it, and with a telekinetic shove from Cleo, he flew through the gap, into whiteness. Healthbar gasped loudly, as if in pain, and time shot back to the present, with everything as it had been, but for the absence of Stan. 'He'll get help, trust me.' said Sam, who looked relieved that Healthbar and Cleo were ok.

After that we were stuck again. Don noticed a sort of opening in the ceiling, a natural vent in the rock I suppose, but it was impossible to get to. 'I wish we'd brought those shoes now.' said Pete, smiling sadly at me.
'What shoes?' asked Gravity.
'An experiment of mine and Tempest's back when we first set out collecting powers. I'm sure Cleo told you about him and me doing that? Well, we tried putting some powers in objects, like gadgets or something, like when we put John's powers in a box recently, only he regenerated them. OH MY GOD THE BOX!!!'
He frantically stared feeling down towards his pocket, trying to get inbetween the loops of rock. 'Tingle...yougave it..back to me...afterwards...oh come ON, you stupid thing!....it's still...in my pocket....nearly, nearly....a blast from that should....nyuh....break these loops....damn.'
He straightened up. 'I can't reach it. Anyway, one of our experiments was putting a wall crawling ability into a pair of trainers, but you couldn't really wear them anywhere else, because they were ONLY good on walls, they kept sticking to the floor to. That's what that big chest is in the base. I vault of experiments that failed, or just weren't as good as something else we came up with.'

Don was going over to Pete to try and get the box from his pocket, when three things happened, at the same time. There was an explosion above us, and a part of the wall fell in, narrowly avoiding us. A voice cried out: 'Be sad no more! I am 'The Eye' and me and my crew shall free you all!' and Don, caught in the blast, was thrown across the cavern, landing hard in a dark corner. He got up, and in the silence that followed the explosion, he called out, 'Ow! My left ankle's hurt. People, if any running happens, I'm going to need to be carried!' Then he looked round him and called out again 'Hey! There's some sort of door here! I didn't notice before because it looks like the rock. It says 'For further observation: Re-enter the world?''

We saw him open the door, and start to describe the interior, but a bright glow of yellow struck him in the chest, he gave a yell of surprise and pain, and collapsed, as more explosions began around us. People descended from the ceiling, and got to work on our rocky bindings. 'The Eye' had arrived.

More on who they are next letter.

Trapped?

The fates were floating down to surround us, cackling with glee. I then realised that Evn had been holding my Staff from Strawberry Fair, and he threw it into my hands. 'Dragon said you might need this.' he said, and turned to glare at the Hags as they landed. One laughed even louder, and called out 'As if that's going to work, little boy, we gave you all your abilities in the first place, did you reallly think telepathy would work on us?'
One of the two I hadn't met yet glared at me. 'So, you're the one that the old fool is supposed to have given my power too? Hmm....Strange, I CAN actually sense it in you, though far below it's true potential. I'd be surprised if you can even kill someone with it.'
'I don't want to.'
'No matter, you won't be able to soon.'
She waved her hand, and frowned. She gestured at me violently, and growled, but seemed slightly happier, but looked round at all of us as if confused.
'Sisters, he has done something. We cannot delete their abilities. I have dampened the boys version of mine own power, but it proves impossible to remove. He has done it to the others. We can stop them using their abilities, but not get rid of them. We could kill them of course, but that does not suit the plan....apart from the two girls of course' (She pointed at Sam and Chelsea) 'and perhaps the small one, I grow tired of his ways' (Diffy) 'but no. I think, as these three were SO determined to join us, they can participate. make them a little...incentive for the others.'
'Yes, we shall take them all!' screeched the third delightedly.

We were suddenly in a dungeon, with no idea how we'd moved. Everyone except Don (Who had grabbed onto Healthbar's hand as soon as 'Taking us' had been mentioned) was stuck, with large loops of stone sliding smotthly out of the walls, dragging us into them, making us part of the walls, but with a certain degree of freedom (We could turn our heads, move our arms, but not actually move from our spot in the wall) The Fates smiled round at us, and the warper one said 'Eleven new experiments! We'll send our littel protege after the rest of your band, and then the fun will really begin.'

And then they just vanished. We were in a large cavern, fairly hot, and glowing a sort of dark red, lighting up the rock in most areas, and leaving deep areas of shadows in between jagged areas of rock. Sam questioned Don's freedom and the 'Eleven' and we explained it to them, and Don made some failed attempts to get us out. By concentrating on my phasing as hard as I could, I was able to shuffle a couple of inches in any direction, but that was all. What seemed like about half an hour later, there was a burst of light and Cleo, Gravity, Stan, Brad and Powerpoint fell out of a hole like the void, I saw the shape of a thin man vanish from the otherside of the portal, and it slowly closed up again. The wall instantly reached out and swalloed them as it had us. Don was exploring the cavern looking for something to help, when Tingle spoke.

'The way I see it, and the way my power explained it to me before it was blocked, is that they don't actually know what we are up to unless they're focusing on us because of what Dragon did, whatever that is. They don't notice Don at all, because he has no special ability (At least not like ours, but your Karate is of the most excellent quality my friend.) and they don't really notice non evolved humans anymore. Whatever Dragon did prevents them knowing what we did while they weren't watching us, that's why they leave us like this, to make sure we CAN'T do anything in their absense. They can block our powers, but not destroy them, and with effort I have managed to make a slight shimmering in my vision around Diffy and Cleo, meaning that I believe that their block is only full strength when they are thinking about us.'

'Huh' said Cleo, thinking. 'In that case, we may be able to escape, or at least get out a call for help. Healthbar, you got any solar energy stored up?'

The back up arrives

With no time to come up with a plan, I phased us all down through the flat platform, and found a fairly low, dark, hollow chamber underneath, where the first ten or twelve stepped platforms had rectangular holes in, making a low chamber underneath.
'I can't see!' moaned Diffy loudly.
'Allow me.' said Healthbar, and she began to glow, lighting the chamber and casting a warn light on all of us.
'Thanks. This is a convenient hiding place until we work out what to do.' I said, heading to where the letter was on the outside and feeling through the step for it. 'Playwrite, any chance of making them think we're nice people that they should help?'
He tilted his head and looked slightly upward in the direction of the now hidden crowd. 'No good, they're thinking in greek. They would I suppose.'
Doolittle looked up at him from having sat down. 'Try doing it through my mind, I might be able to translate.'
She got up and went over to him and they stared trying.
'I have a question' said Playwrite, who'd been looking round at us in confusion.
'Yeah?' I answered, still up to my shoulder in stone trying to find the envelope.
'That Fate she wanted to send all '8' of us back here for observation, right? Then how come there are nine of us?'
I span round, the envelope in my hand, and checked. He was right. Everyone one else was checking too.
'Hello!' said Don cheerily, waving with a grin.
'Ah, this is about what Dragon said, isn't it?' said Tingle wisely, looking at Don 'About the Fates not noticing normal human's anymore?'
'Yeah, I realized it was true when she said the eight of you were being warped here, I knew she hadn't noticed me, but if damned if I'm staying there without you lot.'
'And that's why you suddenly grabbed my arm!' I exclaimed, it suddenly made sense. 'You needed to be touching one of us in order to come too. We should count ourselves lucky whatever Dragon wrote in this envelope came through! Oh thank god one of us was paying attention!'
Don smiled and then looked round at us all. 'So, what now?'
'Well, we can't get the crowd to go away, there's some sort of anti-telepathy on them, and Doolittle's got too much of a headache for me to work on getting round it.' said Playwrite, helping an apologetic Doolittle sit down. 'Sorry guys, something in the block gave me a huge headache.'
'The block was the fates.' said Precog, having just done three pictures. 'They're busy playing games with Damian and Jorge at the moment, and I think setting things up for us, so they haven't even heard about Don sneaking along either, they excited and protected the villagers to keep us busy.'
'Well, I'm going to read this letter. It must be important.' I waved it at them, but Diffy cut in:
'Teeeeeeempest, can I watch one of my docymentries what's stored on your phone?'
'Yeah, if there's enough battery left. But stop if Hana wants anything.' I threw my phone and he caught it and scrolled through some videos I's stored previously. 'Where you say we is again? Affens?'
'Yeah.'
'Okey Cokey.'
I settled down with the letter:

'Tempest, I wrote this awhile ago because I knew there wouldn't be time to explain everything. 'I am sure you remember me telling all of you about the first Dragon using two abilities, one to allow him to see time spread out before him, and one to manipulate the lines of fate, in order to entwine members of Zodiac throughout eternity? Those are two of the four Dragon powers I gave you, two that are more to be guarded than used. The fate ability is much weaker than when it was in it's original vessel, the Fate I spoke of beating, but it is powerful none the less. When I gained it, I realized it must be the power the first Dragon used, so I found a way of going back to the time of the first Dragon, and got the power transferred to him. I see that may have been confusing. I did not lose it, because it was then passed down to me the long way, you see?'

It said a couple of other things too but that's all that's important now.

After that we settled down for the night. We woke next morning to hear shouting in the square outside, and discovered they were scared of us and planning an attack on the steps hiding us. We were stuck for what to do, but Diffy seemed excited and whispered to Doolittle, who giggled and nodded.

I phased us out of the little cavern and saw a huge crowd of scared, angry greeks. 'Right, Healthbar, can you do your glowing trick again? they might think you're a messegner from the heavens. Me and Playwrite can both try and convince them we mean no harm, and try and get round the block, and Precog-'

There were gasps from the crowd and I turned to see wisps of light swirling round Doolittle, who smiled warmly, grew much taller, gained a helmet, a spear, a sheild, became dressed in Greek robes, and became much more menacing, but in a beautiful, peaceful way. I saw Diffy doing Tai-Chi like motions with his arms as he controlled the transformation, making gentle movements to make the chance a smooth, graceful art.

Playwrite linked us to Doolittle's mind so that we understood her as she called loudly in Greek:
'Mortals! People of my great City, I am Athena, your goddess, and I came to you in disguise as a test of your hospitality. I am appalled at my people. I bring my friends from far away lands to show them the wonders of my city, and they are forced to hide, in fear of their lives! Athena is angered by you all!'
Instantly the entire crowd fell to it's knees and bowed, frantically, making apologetic gestures and begging the 'Mighty Athena' for forgiveness.
'Or that.' I said, staring in awe at Doolittle 'That's a good idea too.'
Her face appeared out of Athena's back, delighted and trying not to laugh. 'Buying Diffy those films was the best move we ever made!' She disappeared inside again and with a wave of Athena's hand the crowd parted to let us through.

We found the box Dragon had showed us on a market stall, and the Stallholder was only too happy to give it to us. I started by putting the folded up letters I'd written the previous night under the steps in it, and put it in my pocket.

We had just made it as far as the main building (Sort of Town Hall I guess) when part of it's wall lit up, seeming to fade away, leaving nothing but empty whiteness. Three small shapes could be seen in the middle fo it, getting bigger all the time. We heard a drawn out scream, and three people shot out of the void, slowing down to a standstill in the air, then landing with a bump.
'Fat lot of good Technopathy is round here!' complained Sam, getting to her feet.
'Tingle, next time you see Moira, please tell her that her method of travel sucks! It was all I could do to stop us crashing.' said Chelsea, as she too clambered up.
Evan said 'Geoff is watching our branch of the restaurant, and Shifter was, sadly, killed by Damian. Only us three could come. Want a lift home?'
We were delighted, and were heading over to the slowly closing void asking what had happened, Evan explained he'd asked Dragon to summon them, and when they saw VHS was no good for voids, they got him to take them to The hotel in DC, which still had a bit of a void because it was so huge in the first place, when there was a cackling laugh, the void closed, and The Fates descended upon us.

Uploading.

This is Dragon. I am writing, word for word, what Tempest has asked me too write, as he is still in greece. This is coming from me, as I feel I should explain. The most recent post, mentioning the punching of Plato (I wouldn't have thought of Tempest doing something like that, but he really does seem to hate this him) took place, for them, last night, immediately after the previous one, but I do not have technopathy and have never really found the time to acquaint myself with a computer, so I have been a bit slow updating these. I had to rest after the last one, the Fates suspected I would still be here and tried to kill me, but I believe I have now secured the base against them. My apologies for the slowness of these updates, but Pig, Dog and myself are on our own, and I am still getting used to all of this.

A little conversation and a punch in the face.

Time seemed to have stopped. Nobody was moving, and then the Fate materialized in front of us. 'I think we should do some little tests before destroying you. And as for that drivel about my sister being destroyed, well, we can see our own futures, and we are never beaten.'

'Wait, before you leave us to, I don't know, observe us or something, can you tell us a bit more about all this?' Precog said, facing her confidently. 'I mean, it's not like we can do anything about it, and I know that you must decide to kill me off, because I've seen my death, so you might as well tell me about it all now.'

He ignored our looks of horror and stared hard at her face, and she gave a little chuckle. 'Ah, I was always proud of you, we did a good job there. One of the simpler powers, but such confidence, and put to such good use....very well. As I know Damian told you, I am one of three sisters, and we control the entire universe, as we were the first three to be granted abilities. And such powers. I warp reality, with more ease than any other you have seen. One of my sisters, the one Dragon claims to have defeated, can manipulate fate, and guide people's lives, make certain people meet, make events more or less likely to happen, and if need be, cut a path short, ending that life. My other sister has incredibly strong Thought Form Projection, meaning she can create anything through thought, including abilities. She can summon lightning, or a jet of flame, not just objects, you get the idea.'
'Damian said you were all warpers'
'He didn't stick around long enough to find out, did he?'
'You mentioned a brother?'
'Yes. Once, a millennium or two ago, we were tired of being the only ones like us in the universe. We wanted someone like us that we could teach our ways to, that would look up to us, and learn from us, so we created a brother. He was just as we wanted him to be for a while, but he rebelled against us and fled, out into the world we had created, and made the purpose of his life to destroy everything we had made. We have not spoken to him since, though we see what he's been up to whenever he gains too much power to hide from us.'
'He's not called Howard is he? Or Morto?'
'We never gave him a name, it wasn't important, we just referred to our brother as HIM.'
'Oh.OH. You mean-?!'
'Yes, he is who you and Tempest worked with his cousin's and Dragon to defeat a few years ago. For that, we have decided to test the eight of you before coming to a decision on your lives.'

She vanished after that, and time started up. People turned to stare at us, and Doolittle walked over and conversed with a stall holder for a few seconds. He seemed puzzled by her, but seemed to talk politely. 'We're in Athens, in about 380 BC' she said cheerily when she got back.
'Huh, really, that's about the right time and place for- Doolittle, you know how I'm doing Philosophy at college?'
'How could any of us forget, you won't stop being rude about all the dead people that think we're stupid, especially that Plato one.'
'Speaking of which, he should be around here somewhere, could you ask if he's about?'
She frowned, and shrugged. She asked the stall holder, who pointed at a group of men reclining on marble benches in a sort of temple area, a posh roof held by pillars, with a flat, open space underneath. Everyone followed me up to the group and Doolittle found at which one was Plato.

'This' I said, in english, pulling back a fist. 'Is for me having to read about you insulting the human race for a whole year.' and I punched him squarely in the chest, causing him to let out a loud cry and fall of his bench. He lay on the floor, looking up at me and wheezing.

'I've wanted to do that for almost two years now' I said, grinning widely. 'Bring on the challenge of the fates!'

I then noticed the envelope. It had my name on it, and clearly din't belong in ancient greece. It was halfway down the stairs to the area we were in. I remembered Dragon throwing something into the ripple with us. I also noticed a group of advancing Greeks. Things were about to get even more awkward.

The Fates intervene.

I am writing this to you via Dragon, apparently, and I only recently realised what he meant when he said he might need to do some updating for me, but this way you're being told about it as it happens to us, kind of. You're hearing it in the same timeframe we experienced it, if that makes sense.

So last night, me and Playwrite and Don had managed to calm everyone down, there were a few minor injuries due to emotional bursts of abilities, but once Healthbar calmed down she fixed us all up.

Tingle had, after almost being attacked by Precog, tried to get in touch with Moira, but with no success, so Precog was frantically trancing for answers, muttering 'One of her friends...that's how they travel so much...he can bring them all back.....' he was going crazy. At one point, he went into a trance involuntarily, and actually fought his way out of it, saying furiously 'No, I don't have time for other visions, I have to help Omni and the others!' We protested that it could have been important, but he just said 'It started with a view of a bunch of greek columns, but in good condition, it was probably about Damian, and funnily enough, if danger is heading his way, or was, clearly he's back now, I don't feel like warning him. Maybe I'll change history by not telling him by having him injured back then, and he won't be able to kill Omni.' and he went back to it.

Dragon turned up, with a young boy and a woman, but seemed very concerned. As soon as he saw us, he reached inside his long robe and pulled out a small marble box, flat and rectangular, with greek carvings round the side. 'Good, you are still here my friends' he said quickly, as if there wasn't much time, and then gestured at his friends. 'These are Pig and Dog, the other survivng members of Zodiac, but there's time for that later, just now, I must warn you of the Fates.'
'Damian's mentioned them, they sent him back to ancient greece' Doolittle said, just as Diffy laughed, giggling 'Pig is a funny name!' then he gave a small cry of shock as he leapt out of the way of a thin beam of whitish blue energy that shot from the eyes of the woman, followed by a finger laser burning a smiley face in the floor where he'd just been. 'Still think it's funny short stuff? I take my job seriously.' said the woman, a grin on her face. 'These people are our friends' scolded Dragon 'Please treat them with respect.'

He waved the box in my face. 'Remember this box Tempest, and when you need to contact me, use it. I am not able to warn you exactly what is soon to happen, and I will not be able to join you, but you make contact through this, understood? It makes it's way to me and the fates don't find it, they can't find me, I don't exist to them, you must use this to your advantage!'

'What?! More information please?'

'There's no time! Please, everyone, listen, I can only stop them knowing what we're doing while they aren't here. The Fates are targeting you Tempest, and Damian and Cleo. Healthbar, with your new mastery of your larger ability, it probably won't be long before they go after you. I wouldn't be surprised if they came for all of you at once. They don't like people working together, it makes them too strong. Twos and Threes yes, and of course evolved humans have been meeting each other for centuries, it's destiny, but always in a large team? They will want to stop you. They really only concentrate on people with abilities these days, normal humans have started to bore them, but-'

There was a large bang, and a flash of light, and a wizened old hag was staning in the room. 'Never could resist an entrance' she wheezed, and glared at Dragon 'I was sent to see what the black spot in our sight was that obscured these children from our view, but now it all makes sense. I should have known it was you, you meddling fool, we thought you'd died!'
'I...am guessing.....your sister....hasn't....met me at the temple in Japan yet.....my past...her future....your sister, the fate manipulator...I defeat her, and take her power, it's in Tempest...right now....'
'Hold on, What!!!' I was shocked.
'The ability to manipulate fate....is one of the four Dragon powers I gave you....one of the ones you must guard, and only....use when there is no other solution...' he seemed to be in an invisible struggle with the Fate, as if his energy was being drained. The Fate grinned at us and simply said 'I suppose I should just destroy you all now, but, you're such interesting subjects, and after all, the thing with my brother.....'
Tingle interrupted 'Brother? Damian warned us about you, but never mentioned a brother'
'He didn't know, did he? Our brother is a disgrace, we haven't heard from him for many, many years. But I think you eight are worth further testing...maybe a bit closer to home...'

Don grabbed my arm, and there was a wave of invisible force that rippled through us, a slight prickling sensation, and the base, and Dragon and his friends disappeared, but Dragon threw something at us, which got caught in the ripple and left with us. We suddenly stared around to be surrounded by a similar sight to Damian's: Greek columns, huge white buildings sitting on platforms that went up in steps, and people wearing large bits of cloth wandering around.

'Ah' said Precog, looking guilty. 'This MAY be what my ability was trying to warn me about earlier'

We glared at him.

I assume you'll be updated again soon.

Stressed reactions

Cleo, and anyone else who might be reading this, read the comment on your (Cleo's) 'Damian's rampage' post for a better idea of how this started.

It's chaos here. I'm having to right this through thought (Thank god my technopathy's back at full strength!) as I hold Diffy back from running downstairs and out the door, because he's screaming 'Stinkies! How dare you hurt all my friendy peoples! OOOh, Damian, how could you, me liked you, but now Diffy very, very mad at you all! You all get spookyed to DOOM! Lemme go, tempest, me's got to go teach meany stinkys a lesson!'

Playwrite's helping me hold him back from the stairs, all telepathic attempts to calm him Diffy down on his part is failing thanks to Diffy's annoyingly strong mind, Doolittle is in tears and surrounded by every creature within a mile radius (We think she sends out some sort of animal signal subconsciously, they just come to her when she needs them), Healthbar has come back in having failed to find Dragon and is glowing Black, if that makes sense, her anger and misery spreading from her in wisps of black fog, and she's just standing there, alternating between calling Dragon to demand he get back here, with things like 'The sun is so bright in the desert, I can bring them all back easily! I've brought people back to life before, never a mass job but with with sunlight of that intensity-', once she called Cleo to ask exactly what had happened, who'd been killed, and what had happened to Cleo's resurrection power that meant she couldn't bring them back, and the rest of the time she left messages on Damian's phone yelling that she had trusted him, telling him off with increasingly imaginative swearwords, accusing him of treachery, and telling him she wish he and John had never become part of our lives. I knew she didn't really mean that, at the beginning they'd got on really well, but she was angry. Precog was gripping Tingle tightly by the arm, saying 'Tell me how we can get in touch with Moira! WHERE IS SHE!!' Tingle was confused and in a state of shock about it himself, but asked 'What can she do? Why do you need her?'
'THE PICTURES!! Never doubt my pictures!! Are you saying you wish to mess with fate? Bring our only hope of a happy ending crashing down around our ears! Why? WHY!'

Don's just trying not to be killed. I'll keep you updated.