All new Zodiac, and an important decision.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dragon's friends.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Escape to the void.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Return at last

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

Talk to you soon.

The hall of lost souls

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?'