The Weather Channel

Back to The Weatherman.

The third volume of the Weatherman's journal, corresponding to events in the later part of Season 4. Featuring videos from the Weatherman's BeTube channel, entries in Ernest's diary, and email correspondence.

See also The Weatherman's Journal for Season 3 and The Weatherman's Journal: Book Two for Season 3.5 and the first part of Season 4.

## And Now, the Weather

*Time Passes*

*April 26, 2020*
**To:** ernwelles@bmail.com**From:** timwelles@bmail.com
Ern, you’ve gotta know that you’ve been all over the internet, right? I mean unless you literally haven’t looked at any kind of screen in the last 12 hours. A lot of the wild stuff you tell me about happening in Halcyon doesn’t make it onto the news in New York because if they reported on every crazy thing that happened in Halcyon they wouldn’t have time for anything else, but they keep showing that rainbow-lightning-you on TV and just like. You’re everywhere over Chitter.
People at school who I haven’t talked to since like 3rd grade are suddenly asking me about being your brother? CJ said they wanted to freeze an image of the giant-lightning-you on all the projectors as a prank which is a thing they’ve done before with other internet stuff but I told them it might be weird since you like used to go here, you know? But they’re probably going to do it anyway.
How’s it all going on your end? And I know you probably have a million people asking you right now, but you’ve gotta tell me what was up with that rainbow lightning sometime.
Timothy
**To:** timwelles@bmail.com**From:** ernwelles@bmail.com
Trust me, I definitely know. I think I finally managed to turn off all of the Chitter notifications. They were getting so bad that I could barely use my phone, I was about to just give up and uninstall it.
And yeah, I’ve been getting tons of messages from people asking about what happened and who I am and everything. I feel kind of bad ignoring them but I don’t have time to even read them all, so forget responding to everybody. I tried to figure out a way to describe it in a cheet that everyone could see but it’s kind of complicated and I couldn’t get it to fit in the character count.
There have been some news channels asking for interviews so I guess I could do something like that so people could hear about it? But the news anchors in Halcyon are the worst, most of them hate me for that time I blew a hole in the roof of the mall when Gambite attacked.
-Ernest
**To:** ernwelles@bmail.com**From:** timwelles@bmail.com
Hey, why go on the news when you could make your own channel? Start one on BeTube, then you can talk about it for as long as you want!
Timothy
**To:** timwelles@bmail.com**From:** ernwelles@bmail.com
Like make a video of me talking about what happened on Zodiac? I don’t know, would people actually watch that?
-Ernest
**To:** ernwelles@bmail.com**From:** timwelles@bmail.com
Ern, you could probably post a video of staring at the wall for half an hour and people would watch it. They wanna know what’s up with you!
And even if no one else cared, I’d watch it. I love hearing you talk about your missions, I bet other people will too.
Timothy

Uploads

**The Weather Channel Introduction**Video posted April 27, 2020
*[The video shows the Weatherman in his bedroom. The framing cuts off the top of his head. The lighting is terrible, and every so often the white balancing adjusts and shifts the colors of the entire video.]*
Hi everyone! Welcome to The Weather Channel, I’m the Weatherman. You, uh, probably know me as the person who summoned the giant rainbow lightning version of myself in Zodiac City a couple days ago. If you haven’t seen that, I put something at the end of the video so you’ll know what I’m talking about. But yeah, a lot of people have been asking about who I am and what happened in Zodiac City and everything, so I decided to make this video.
I’m the Weatherman… I already said that, didn’t I… and I have, well, weather powers.
*[The Weatherman holds his hands up to the camera and summons a tiny whirlwind, mini raincloud, and a ball of lightning. The lightning shifts through a few different colors before he dissipates it.]*
I’m part of the Big Team, which is why I was up in Zodiac City when the treequakes and everything were happening. To do hero stuff and everything. And because we heard that Bishop was – okay I don’t know how many people outside of Big Team actually know this but Bishop is evil? They make like the Rubicon armors and stuff which are terrible and also are doing all kinds of weird experiments with superpowers and they just suck in general. So when we heard that Bishop was up to something in Zodiac we went to go stop them.
Uhhh we ran around the city a bit and ended up fighting a bunch of people but I think the part everyone wants to hear about is the rainbow lightning. We found that Bishop had this time machine thing that was hurting the Zodiac tree, and they were using my lightning to power it. Bishop had my lightning because…
*[The video is quiet for a moment as the Weatherman stares into the middle distance.]*
Well, they had a lot of my lightning in these batteries. So in order to shut down the time machine, I pulled it the lightning back to myself. And I ended up pulling all of the lightning Bishop had been storing, which turned out to be a whole lot, so I ended up making a giant lightning clone of myself. Usually I just make regular-sized ones. Oh yeah, I guess I can show you that.
*[The Weatherman stands, wraps lightning around himself and steps to the side, leaving a lightning clone where he had been standing. Because of the camera angle, he and his lightning clone are only visible from the waist down. The Weatherman waves his hands and the clone dissipates, and he sits down in front of the camera again.]*
Okay, I think that’s everything I wanted to say. But I put together something cool to show you after this!
*[News footage of the Weatherman’s giant rainbow lightning construct plays, edited to sync up with the EDM music playing over it. The music is much louder than the rest of the audio has been up to this point.]*
**PARANOiA survivor MAX - Full Combo**Video posted April 28, 2020

*[The Weatherman is at an arcade, dancing to an extremely fast DDR song. His eyes are closed the entire time, but he doesn’t miss a single step.]*
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**ILLUMINATI CONFIRMED - ZODIAC RAINBOW LIGHTNING**#Weatherman #TheWeatherman #Illuminati
**Weatherboy would like YOU to know**#Weatherman #Weatherboy
**25 Reasons Why Bishop SUCKS**#Weatherman #Bishop

Journal

April 27, 2020
Hi there! Starting a new journal, which means I’ve potentially got a new hypothetical mystery reader, I guess. If you like, stumbled across a bunch of books and happened to open this one, there’s a couple that come before so maybe try to find those and read them first? I guess I could number them but having a big ‘1’ or ‘2’ on the front would just give off the wrong vibe for those. Anyway, all the entries have dates, I’m sure you can figure it out if you want.
Just in case this particular book got separated from the others, here’s a quick introduction: I’m Ernest, also known as the Weatherman. I guess probably better known as the Weatherman at this point? Huh. Anyway, I’m a superhero on Big Team in Halcyon City, and I write about what’s been going on in missions to sort them out in my head and also maybe someone will end up reading them in the future or whatever (probably just future-me, but I’ve been pretending it might be someone else because it’s easier to write to an imaginary person than just a book).
Since I’ll be telling people about missions and stuff on my channel now, I might not write about them as much? I mean, I still wrote about missions after telling Timothy about them. But also editing videos takes forever it’s like telling the story ten times over, so I might get bored. So I guess if you wanted to know more you could try to find my BeTube channel? I feel like my physical journals are probably going to last longer than anything on the internet, though, so who even knows if that’s still around when you’re reading this.
I’m glad that Timothy suggested making videos, people really seem to like them. Or at least a lot of people are watching them and talking about them. It’s kind of weird, I’ve never had this many people pay attention to me before. Okay, maybe that time I blew a hole in the roof of the mall when we were trying to stop Gambite from blowing up the city, but people were mostly mad about that one for whatever reason. Most of the time people used to notice me because of bad stuff like that, like when I used to lose control of my powers during class back in my old school. So it’s nice to have people actually excited about what I’m doing now.
-Ernest

## Time and Again

*Hangout: Ellen and Carm's Going Away Party*

**About Time - Rescue; The Girls - Guitar Cover**Video posted April 29, 2020
*[The Weatherman plays guitar and sings. A cassette recorder is visible in the background.]*
**Engage Directly - The Flex Girls - Guitar Cover**Video posted April 30, 2020
*[The Weatherman plays guitar and sings. A signed Flex Girls poster is visible in the background.]*

Journal

May 1, 2020
I can’t believe I thought I’d write in this less just because of making videos. There’s so much stuff I can’t talk about in those, I don’t know what I was thinking.
Carm and Ellen left for the past today. I knew it had been coming for a while, since Carm told me, and they announced a whole going away party to the team and everything, so it wasn’t like it was a surprise. And I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t ruin the time we had left together moping about that, but when the time for the party actually rolled around, I just couldn’t stop crying. I didn’t want to rain on all the pancakes, so I showed up late once I had it more under control. Kurt waited with me in the rain until I was ready, which was really nice given how everything’s been so awkward between us.
I wish all this time stuff wasn’t so complicated. I wish everyone could just stay here in this time and we wouldn’t have to worry about whether we can change the past or the future or if we’ll end up in different timelines and never see each other again. I wish Carm didn’t have to choose between staying with her friends in the present and going back to the past with Ellen.
But at least that means Carm and Ellen have each other. Kurt was in the future all by themself. I mean, they had Mr. Otter, but still. They’re a lot more intense about training and research and missions and everything, it must have been really tough there. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that they’re a little different now, it’s been a whole year for them. A year ago, I was still in New York. I could barely control my powers, and I hadn’t even heard of Big Team yet. Someone can change a lot in a year, I’m proof of that.
Sometimes I think about if I could have gone to the future with Kurt, whether I would. I don’t know. Maybe that means I’m a bad boyfriend. Carm knew what she wanted, even if it meant leaving the present and her friends behind forever. I can’t decide if I’d be willing to leave my friends for a year, even if I knew I’d be back soon enough that they’d barely have time to miss me. I know it’s a stupid thing to think about. Kurt didn’t even choose to go to the future, so it’s not like he could have asked. But I don’t understand what he thinks I need to figure out before I can actually be his boyfriend again, so I end up thinking of all these things I might have done wrong or could do wrong in the future. Maybe I should just ask what it was he saw in the future that messed everything about our relationship up. But there’s probably a reason he didn’t just tell me.
The apartment seems extra quiet now. I’d gotten used to Timothy being gone, but it was really nice to have Carm around for the past month or so just to talk to and hang out and play video games. She left her Bitendo Verse behind, since she didn’t want to take future electronics back to the past, and I took it home with me because… I don’t know, to like remember those moments or something? But I should probably just bring it back to the Base. I don’t think I’d really play it by myself, it would just feel wrong.
I made Carm and Ellen each a mixtape as a goodbye present. I don’t think the songs are really the kind of music Carm or Ellen really listen to on their own, but they’re songs that I listen to that make me think of them. And maybe they’ll think of me when they listen. I wasn’t too sure about putting them on cassettes, but Ellen seemed really excited about that part, so I think I got it right.
Wherever and whenever you two are, I hope you’re doing great.
-Ernest
*[stuck to the page are two sticky notes with tracklistings on them]*
For Carmilla

1. Still sorry about giving you mega-sunburn the first time we met
2. Remember that time you told me it was natural to be afraid of death? Well, this isn’t a nature documentary
3. George the Wacky Inflatable Tube Man Will Live Forever
4. Yes this is just from the Bash Sisters soundtrack but I always think of you when I hear it don’t laugh
5. Song to make up with your friends to (even if you’re a little bit angry sometimes)
6. You’ll always have a home here in Halcyon if you want one (yes even if you’re 40-whatever in vampire years when you get back to 2020)

* (Hidden Track: My cover of About Time)

For Ellen

1. The last verse is the color of your voice
2. I always meant to suggest this for one of your wrestling intros but I kept forgetting
3. Remember when we nearly wrecked Boon’s house?
4. ... and then we did wreck that Bishop building?
5. Song to crash your motorcycle to (please don’t crash the Timecycle)
6. Pretty cool that I got to meet the best possible version of you first

* (Hidden Track: My cover of Engage Directly)

## Offbeats and Aberrations

*S4E62: Super Mother's Day*

**Channel Update!**Video posted May 3, 2020
*[The video opens on The Weatherman sitting back from the camera so that his hands are visible. As he begins to talk, he signs ASL along with his spoken words]*
Hey everyone! You’re watching The Weather Channel, and this is The Weatherman.
*[He fingerspells ‘The Weatherman’ first, then gives the sign for ‘weather’ using the finger shape for E instead of W]*
So Jasper was telling me how he couldn’t understand my videos, which was my fault for not thinking about who might be watching these. So I went back and put subtitles on my old videos, so that should make it easier for people! I’ll try to sign when I can, but sometimes I’ll need my hands for punching villains, so I won’t be able to do it all the time. Those will probably also help because I’m still kind of a beginner at ASL, I’ve only been learning for… huh, I guess it’s almost half a year now. Shoutouts to Atlanta for being a great teacher!
*[The Weatherman gives nervous fingerguns towards the camera]*
I was also trying to think of what to do about the music on this channel, since I’ve been doing things like DDR and song covers. And, well, subtitles can tell you the lyrics, but they don’t exactly get across the feeling of the music, you know? But I figured there had to be a way for me to *show* what the music sounds like because, well…
*[He closes his eyes for a moment and takes a slow breath before continuing.]*
I have this thing, it’s called synesthesia. It means I see all these colors and shapes whenever I hear stuff. Not just music, all sounds really, but music tends to look really interesting. And I was thinking about trying and edit the videos to show that, but it would probably take a lot of time and I’m not exactly and artist, so I don’t even know if I *could* pull that off, so I was thinking that might not work at all, but then I figured out I can do this!
*[The Weatherman holds his hands out in front of him and summons a ball of lightning between them. It starts a crackling white, but as the Weatherman begins to whistle, the color shifts to teal, then lime green, then magenta, changing with the pitch. He grins excitedly at the camera. The lightning turns a deep purple as he begins to speak again.]*
The color of my lightning matches the colors of my synesthesia! So I can actually show all of you the kinds of things that I see when I listen to music! I’m still figuring out how to make it do shapes and stuff, but I think it will be a cool way to let people who can’t hear the music get a feel for what’s going on. And hopefully it’ll be interesting to look at!
*[The Weatherman pushes his hands together, collapsing the lightning so he can begin signing again.]*
Okay, just wanted to give everyone that update! Oh, also people have been asking if they can send me stuff or like longer messages and things, so I put my address and email in the description! Catch y’all in the next video!
**Flying Tour of Halcyon**Video posted May 6, 2020
*[The Weatherman unboxes an action camera he received as a gift from a fan. He takes the camera on a tour of his favorite places in Halcyon, flying between them. At one point he drops it, sending the view spinning wildly, but he manages to dive and catch it before it hits the ground.]*
**DIY Anodizing with Rainbow Lightning**Video posted May 8, 2020
*[The Weatherman anodizes strips of metal, using his lightning as the power source.]*

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**Marshmallow War CAUGHT ON CAMERA**#Weatherman #Mithril #Frithr #Fridr #DoesAnyoneKnowWhoThatOtherGirlIs

Journal

May 10, 2020
Gave mom the earrings I made her as Mother’s Day present! I think she really liked them. The colors ended up turning out really well, even if I did end up having to use the dyes because my lightning couldn’t actually stain the metal like I was hoping. I got Mithril’s help with the metal shaping part because I couldn’t get the spirals to form how I wanted them, and her powers are really good for that kind of thing.
I hope that Mithril’s been doing alright with everything that’s been going around online. It’s all because we tried to do a disguise thing so that people would stop bothering me yesterday at the mall. Honestly, I didn’t really want to try and hide because it feels like lying (although Atlanta didn’t have a problem running off as Verve and showing up two minutes later as Atlanta right in front of Mithril), but Mithril was really excited about it so I gave it a try. It worked for a little while, at least long enough to get out of the bookstore where Boon was getting a book signed for her mom. But people definitely still recognized me later because they recorded the marshmallow fight that Atlanta and I had in the food court, and Greta asked me for an autograph. The marshmallow fight was still worth it though. Atlanta's definitely improved since the last time I challenged her to battle.
But uh, as part of the disguise thing, Mithril ended up wearing my Weatherman jacket, because I definitely would have been easily recognizable while wearing it. And I didn’t really think about it at until we ran into mom and she pointed out that Kurt’s usually the one who wears my jackets and stuff. And I guess people on the internet took it that way too because now people think that I’m dating Mithril or something? It’s weird. I don’t really want to make a big deal about it. I just hope Kurt doesn’t hear about it since stuff has been weird between us.
On the other hand people have been really cool about the whole synesthesia thing? I was really nervous about making that video because sometimes people are weird about me seeing things that they can’t. But I remembered how Melody and Gwen were really interested in it, and now that I can kind of show people what it’s like, it’s really nice to be able to share that with everyone. Not that it was a secret before, but I think it’ll be easier to talk about now.
Oh, I also ran into Carm and Ellen at the Base. I saw Ellen first and almost told her to get out because I assumed she was one of the alternate Ellens from like more of a future-tech dimension or whatever, but then Carm was there too so… they’re actually back. It sounds like they’ve been gone a while - definitely more than a week, but maybe even longer than Kurt was gone. They didn’t just go to 1992, but also like the future and stuff. Even farther in the future than Kurt ended up. Carm has this spaceship-shield-thing that protects her from the sun now. Which is great because it means I don’t have to worry about burning her by accidentally letting sunshine through clouds anymore! But it’s… different, I guess.
It sounds like they’re staying at the Base for now which makes sense. I kind of wish Carm would stay at the apartment again, but she’s been traveling with Ellen for a while, so it makes sense that they’d want to stick together. Mom was really nice about letting Carm live with us for a while, but I don’t think she’d be thrilled about having two extra teens in the apartment, and plus we’d told her it was temporary because Carm was going to be leaving eventually. I didn’t ask how long they were planning to stay in the present. I hadn’t really gotten over them leaving the first time, I don’t want to think about it happening again just yet.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m really glad to see them again, especially after I thought I never would. It’s just… I don’t know, all of a sudden Kurt and Carm and Ellen have all these months worth of new experiences and I… don’t. It’s like all of their audio tracks suddenly jumped ahead but mine stayed where it was, and now we’re out sync.
Mom said not to worry too much about the future with me and Kurt, but honestly, it’s hard not to with everything that's going on. I can’t stop thinking about what he might have seen about us there. Like maybe we broke up in the future and that’s why he doesn’t know if I really want to be his boyfriend? I really should just ask, or it’s going to keep bothering me.
But even outside of time travel shenanigans, I guess I’ve started thinking about the future more now. Like, I’ll be graduating soon. I mean, there’s always the possibility that I could screw up at the last second, but I made it this far. I wasn’t even sure I could do that when I started school here in Halcyon.
Dad’s started talking about college again. It’s easier to talk about now that we’re not fighting so much anymore, but I’m still not sure. It’s not like I have an idea of what I’d do instead, though. I guess I could just keep doing hero stuff? Did Cyclone and Sledge go to college?
Well, whatever’s in the future, I’m planning on taking the slow route on getting there. No point trying to rush things.
-Ernest

## Fair Weather Friend

*S4E65 Planet Battles*

*May 11, 2020*
**To:** tere5934@bmail.com**From:** therealernwelles@bmail.com
Hey Teresa, it’s Ernest. You should probably send me emails to this address now because ever since I gave my other one out online, I’ve been getting too many messages to keep track of so I might miss something if you send it there.
Also, for the record I didn’t have anything to do with the plushies of rainbow-lightning-me, those just got made by some company. I’m making like, a few bucks from ads on the videos though if you cared about that?
-Ernest
**To:** therealernwelles@bmail.com**From:** tere5934@bmail.com
Okay cool Timothy and I were starting to get a little worried but you were still posting videos so we figured you probably weren’t dead. Timothy may have started a conspiracy theory that you were being held hostage for videos, so don’t be surprised if one of his friends makes an online musical about it or something.
Also, you gave out your actual regular email address? You should know that’s a terrible idea to do online, even if you aren’t super popular. Half of those messages are probably spam.
Also dude, you know I was kidding about the royalties thing right? I don’t think my art style heavily inspiring your costume design gives me any actual legal standing to make money off of it. Although again, art school, not law school.
Teresa
**To:** tere5934@bmail.com**From:** therealernwelles@bmail.com
Do you, uh, want one of the plushies? Cause ever since I gave out my address, people have been sending them to me. I don’t know why they think I want them because like, I’m me? But also I feel bad about just throwing them out?
I don’t know, I guess I just was thinking about you talking how art school’s been expensive. And like, I wouldn’t have made the Weatherman’s costume without your art? Even if you didn’t help me directly. I feel like you should get *something* from that.
-Ernest
**To:** therealernwelles@bmail.com**From:** tere5934@bmail.com
Wait, you gave them your literal physical address too? I know you have superpowers so you probably aren’t as afraid of getting assassinated or whatever, but aren’t you worried about people like camping out in front of your door for autographs?
And no thanks on the plushie, as weird as it is for you to have them, I think it would probably be weirder for me.
Look, if you really want to help me out with money or whatever, you can just tell people to check me out for commissions. Just make sure you give them my commission email, not this one, alright.
Teresa
*May 14*
**To:** therealernwelles@bmail.com**From:** tere5934@bmail.com
Ernest, I regret everything.
Teresa

Journal

May 11, 2020
~~Hey there future me.~~ Okay now that I’ve heard what at least future me is like, maybe I shouldn’t be writing to him? I’ll get to that in a bit.
We went to space today! I’ve been to so many weird places like the Dataverse and Shadow Halcyon and time traveled that I kind of forgot that I hadn’t actually been to space like a lot of the Big Team has? But there was a like space diplomatic event type thing and I guess Big Team was involved in some space diplomacy stuff before, so GAIA took me, Kurt, Box, and Taxon to help represent Earth. Oh also GAIA can turn into a spaceship (originally was a spaceship??) so that’s cool.
It was supposed to be a fake battle for like… practice? Teamwork, maybe? Honestly, I was mostly thinking about how space stuff would make a really cool video, since there weren’t like actual villains we needed to fight or anything. But then we accidentally discovered that the planet we were fighting on was actually a weapon of mass destruction and it activated and needed to fire.
We all started panicking because it needed a target and wouldn’t let us just discharge the energy into empty space or destroy itself or anything. Kurt tried to hold back the energy, but it seemed to really hurt him. At least that gave us enough time to find a random completely empty planet for it to destroy, so that fixed the problem.
I was thinking about trying to figure out a way to destroy it, but when I tried sensing what was going on with it through the atmosphere, I kind of tapped into its memory? It was so big that instead of the little bits of electricity in computers or whatever, its memory was like lightning. And even though it had destroyed planets before, it hadn’t actually destroyed ones with any people on it. So I wonder if it was made to like contain and focus some kind of destructive energy not like a weapon? Seeing what the energy did to Kurt I was worried that releasing it might be really bad, so we just decided to leave the armadillo (oh yeah, the planetoid unfolded into a giant armadillo when we activated it) where it was. It’s gonna take another 500 years to charge up anyway, so hopefully whoever finds it then can just do the same thing.
I’ll probably still make a video if I can get the footage from those news drones that were flying around. Just, leave out the parts about the armadillo of mass destruction. Even if it hasn’t actually been used for evil, probably better to not give anyone ideas.
Speaking of things being used for evil…
I finally asked Kurt about what they saw in the future about us, like whether we broke up. And it turns out the answer to that was yes, but they hadn’t actually remembered that part until I asked. And the reason that we broke up in the future was because when I found out that Kurt had taken on a new secret identity to become a villain, I turned against my team to defend him.
I’d been worried about the future from like, a year from now, but this apparently happened? happens? will happen? way after that. I’m not really sure what to think about it. I mean, I guess Kurt and Ellen have been dealing with the whole “knowing a future version of yourself is evil” for a while. But if their advice is gonna be “go to the future to fight your evil self,” I’ll pass. Maybe Cypher would be better to talk to, since Kurt remembered stuff about her being a villain in the future too.
I guess that conversation still went pretty well though because me and Kurt are boyfriends again! Once I knew that he wasn’t worried about future stuff, just about whether I still liked him after he’s changed in the year he was gone, it was easy to tell him that I did still want to be his boyfriend. I mean, he is still worried about future stuff just, not like for our relationship or whatever. I hope he’ll let me help him deal with all that, and not just because I want to try and avoid becoming a villain in the future.
Oh, I also got a love letter from a fan in the mail today? I guess I’m probably supposed to be flattered or something but I have no idea who they are and it’s not like they really know me either. But it was kind of sweet so I don’t want to be rude about it. I mean, I could just say “sorry, I already have a boyfriend,” but I don’t really want everyone following me on the internet to know that I’m dating Kurt? I feel like they’d just be weird about it, the way that they’ve been weird about thinking I’m dating Mithril or whatever. And it’s not really any of their business. It’s probably better if I just don’t respond at all.
-Ernest

Uploads

**The Ballad of Jichael Mordan, Space Pirate King**Video posted May 13
Hey everyone, sorry for not posting anything for a bit. I had to wait to get some video from space journalists, but I promise the wait was worth it! They had these drones to get way better action shots than I could have. Anyway, here’s the story of how Jichael Mordan and the Big Team stopped an alien invasion on another planet.
*[A song about Jichael Mordan, Space Pirate King, plays over shots of the Weatherman, Libra, Box, and Taxon fighting alongside the space pirate king himself. The video ends with shots of the opposing aliens teleporting away, although in the background it can be seen that the Big Team’s allies are teleporting away at the same time.]*
Also, shout-outs to my friend Teresa, who’s art inspired my costume design! So if you like my costume, you should consider getting a commission from her! I put her contact stuff in the description so you can reach out to her if you’re interested in something. See you in the next video!

The Future?

*July 14, 2036**Downtown Halcyon City*
It was supposed to be a simple mission. They finally had a lead on the villain Princeps, who hadn’t been especially dangerous or destructive, but had managed to evade all attempts at capture for some time. Just to be certain, the Weatherman had decided to bring along a full team.
As soon as Princeps’s mask comes off, he wishes he’d taken on the mission alone.
When he sees Kurt’s face staring back at them, the Weatherman tells his team to stop, to wait for just a second, but they’re angry and hurt and they won’t *listen*—
Three bolts of lightning strike. Indigo, yellow, magenta. The Weatherman’s teammates crumple to the ground instantly.
Kurt glares at him with a mixture of disgust and betrayal, almost as if the Weatherman had just turned against them rather than the rest of his team. “You don’t know the trouble you’ve gotten yourself into, Ern,” Kurt says before disappearing.
The Weatherman can hear the burgundy sirens of an ambulance in the distance. He leaves before the paramedics arrive.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
 *July 15, 2036*
Every channel is full of the Weatherman’s lightning. Indigo, yellow, magenta. It reminds him of another time, many years ago, when the colors of his lightning had flooded the news.
He finds the contrast between the two circumstances almost funny.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
July 16, 2036
Dear Diary,
I guess that’s how I should start this. It’s been a while. I used to write these like someone might read them in the future, but I’m destroying them all anyway after this. Just felt like they deserved one last send off or something.
You were right about one thing, past-me. Future-you will be the only one who ever reads what you wrote. I read back through all of this just to see how you’d managed to fool everyone into thinking that you could be a hero. I guess the fact that you tricked yourself probably helped.
You were so scared about accidentally hurting someone with your powers. Of others using your powers to hurt people. You told yourself it was because you never wanted to hurt someone, but deep down you must have known the truth.
You always used the fact that you couldn’t control your powers as an excuse for how you ended up hurting Timothy. That you let them slip at the wrong moment, that you didn’t mean to do it. But in that moment you really did want to hurt someone with your lightning. You just missed.
Well, I didn’t miss this time. And I don’t plan to again.
-The Weatherman
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
*July 17, 2036*
Three journals lie on the rooftop of a high rise in Halcyon. Lightning touches down on each one. Indigo. Yellow. Magenta. The ashes blow away in a stiff breeze.

## Exit Stage Left

*S4E69 The Villain Scene*

May 15, 2020
~~Hey, future me~~ I have got to start using a different way to open these.
I’ve got a new collaborator to make videos for my channel with! He was briefly this villain called Subterfuge, but we talked him out of it and he actually seems like a pretty cool guy. He robbed a bank and tried to rob Aman’s uncle’s museum, but we were managed to catch him. Turns out he was actually Artie Hall, who ~~Faith~~ Focus and Overgrowth had met before, and he was more interested in giving Big Team a flashy villain to fight than actually steal things. So I said, why not just skip the whole stealing part and we can pretend to fight and post videos of the fights on my channel? And he was excited about that so now we’re going to start making a series together! He’s got a pretty cool aesthetic going as Subterfuge so I’m looking forward to it.
It’ll actually be a big help because people keep bugging me to post videos of me doing hero stuff more often but I can’t exactly control how often I go on missions. And I’m also going to help Artie out with his radio show by doing some interviews on it. I didn’t really know that people still listened to the radio for anything other than like music and traffic and weather (hah) while driving, but I guess they do if Artie’s got this show. He said I can pick out my intro music, which is fun. Apparently it’s a lot easier to get that kind of thing licensed to play on the radio. When I tried to put my favorite songs in my videos then got taken down for copyright or whatever.
Anyway, we’re going to do a staged fight to make an ending to the stuff that I recorded at the museum where we stop Subterfuge but he gets away at the end. It would be cool if we could tape it in the museum, but Aman’s uncle seemed worried about us damaging the exhibits when we were there to stop Subterfuge and I think he might have figured out that I stole that Egyptian snake bracelet, so I don’t really want to ask him. Guess we can find a green screen version or something. I should also see if anyone else would want to join in. Focus was pretty on board for the jailbreak thing, so I feel like she would be. Plus I think that drone she brings around has cameras, so that would be useful for filming. I’ve got to work out something better than just a camera taped to my helmet at some point, editing that video makes my motion sickness act up sometimes.
Right, speaking of the jailbreak… after we topped him at the museum, Artie said he wanted to break Smoke out of jail, and Whiz wanted to try too since he’d worked with Kenneth Ribaldi back before we knew he was Smoke. Overgrowth and I didn’t think it was a great idea. Partially because it seemed like Kenneth would get in a lot more trouble if he tried to escape. But also because maybe he should be in jail for a while? I don’t know, I don’t think he’s like a terrible person. He thought he was doing the right thing, and I agree with some of what he was trying to do. But if Big Team hadn’t stopped him, he probably would have kept doing it. And maybe he should face some consequences for it so he doesn’t do it again? He ended up telling Whiz that he should stay in jail, which I think was the right call.
I guess I’ve just been thinking about what should happen if I started to do bad things. Like, I thought I was doing the right thing by giving Hyacinth and Denise that artifact, but it definitely was still stealing. If I started to do worse things and thought I was right, I’d want someone to stop me. Otherwise maybe I really will end up turning into a villain like Kurt saw in the future. I don’t know. At least if Aman’s uncle does know me stealing the snake bracelet, he didn’t seem too mad? But I feel like I should probably tell him about what happened. And maybe see if Hyacinth and Denise are done with it yet. I’d feel better about letting them use it for a while if I could give it back.
-Ernest

Uploads

**Subterfuge Robbing Spree Stopped! For Now…**Video posted May 17, 2020
*[The video opens the Weatherman, Focus, Overgrowth, and Whiz investigating the scene of Subterfuge’s crime at the bank. The scene shifts to the Halcyon City Museum of Culture and History. Whiz tries to trap Subterfuge in restraining foam, but he snaps and switches places with Whiz, leaving him trapped instead. The Weatherman summons lightning in various colors and shapes to hold Subterfuge’s attention, then Overgrowth wraps Subterfuge’s hands in moss to prevent him from activating his powers.]*
*[Halfway through the fight, the lighting changes dramatically and shifts to camera shots from drones. The Weatherman and Focus manage to briefly pin down Subterfuge and take the jewels back from him, but he teleports away leaving a taunting note in his place.]*

**I HAVE A CAT NOW**Video posted May 20, 2020
Okay first things first please please please don’t try to send me anything alive. It’s super dangerous for whatever it is and I might not be able to take care of it. But. Someone left a cat in a box outside my door and I may have convinced my mom to let me keep her.
*[The Weatherman reaches down and lifts up a cat in view of the camera. She has long white hair, one green eye, and one blue eye. She looks curiously into the camera and starts walking towards it until the Weatherman pulls her back into his arms.]*
No Lacey, you’re not allowed to lick the camera!
*[Lacey meows in protest, but settles into the Weatherman’s arms for the rest of the video]*
This is Lacey! We brought her to the vet yesterday, just to see if she needed anything taken care of. She was in pretty good shape, although the vet said it seemed like she was probably deaf. I guess that’s a pretty common thing for white cats? So she’s not supposed to go outside by herself. But hey, it means she won’t get scared by my thunder. And apparently cats can learn signs so I can still try and teach her tricks.
I do really really mean it when I say don’t send me anything living though, Lacey could have gotten hurt if she was stuck in that box for too long or if she escaped and wandered outside. Also I don’t think I could convince my mom to let me keep any more pets.
That’s all from me for now! Say bye, Lacey!
*[The Weatherman shifts his arms and Lacey lifts her chin from his shoulder but looks at him rather than the camera.]*
She says bye. See you in the next one!

## Hide and Seek

*S4E76: Get Drywalled!*

*May 19, 2020*
**To:** ernwelles@bmail.com **From:** dtonner@aegis.gov
Hello Ernest,
Thanks again for coming in to talk with me last week. I know our conversation got cut short by those fire alarms going off, so if you want to schedule another meeting with me sometime, just let me know!
Have you had a chance to look over the paperwork I sent you a few days ago? If you have any questions about the forms, I can help answer those.
Daisy TonnerAEGIS AgentHalcyon, New York
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
*May 20, 2020*
**To:** ernwelles@bmail.com **From:** cykostas9@bmail.com
Hi Ern,
This is Cy. It’s been a while, huh? Sorry about losing touch after I moved. I recognized you when you started popping up all over the internet, so I thought I’d reach out with something that I’ve wanted to ask.
Do you remember a few years ago when you asked me to go to homecoming with you as a friend? I said yes, but the truth is, I’d actually been hoping that you would ask me as a date. I’ve always wondered what you would have said if I’d told you that I wanted to go as more than friends. When I saw you’d given out your email, I figured I might as well give it a shot.
Anyway, I hadn’t realized until now that you’d moved to Halcyon from New York. If you’d be down for it, it would be cool to hang out sometime? Even just as friends would be fun.
-Cy
Cyril Kostascykostas9@bmail.com
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
*May 21, 2020*
**To:** ernwelles@bmail.com **From:** dtonner@aegis.gov
Hi Ernest,
Just checking in again. I know you must be busy with school and Big Team, so take all the time you need to look everything over! Could you reply to this email so that I know this is the right place to reach you?
Daisy TonnerAEGIS AgentHalcyon, New York

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Journal

May 20, 2020
*[The top half of the page is haphazardly shaded with a variety of colors.]*
Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
I think Kurt and me are fighting? I don’t know. He agreed to help me hide the fact that we’re dating from the internet, but he still seemed pretty upset about it.
And I’m kind of upset too? I’m mad that Kurt thought I might be dating Mithril without telling him about it. And if he believed that just because people were yelling about it on the internet, what would he think about things that people would say about us if they knew we were dating? They already make stuff up about me and Mithril like fighting or breaking up or whatever and it’s easy to ignore because I know that it’s all nonsense. But if people started saying those things about me and Kurt it could get really complicated. It’s just easier if we don’t have to deal with that in the first place.
I don’t get why it’s such a big deal. Back when Kurt being Libra was a secret, I pretended I wasn’t dating Libra. And we tried to hide it from my mom, although it turned out that she knew the whole time anyway. Hiding from like the team and friends and parents is way bigger than hiding it from random people on the internet. All of the important people know already, why should it be anyone else’s business?
Anyway.
After that talk, I worked through some of my old email inbox tonight. I’m never going to be able to actually read every piece of fanmail. Which I feel a little bad about, but a lot of them kind of say the same things anyway? At least they make it easier to ignore Agent Tonner’s emails. I hope she gives up sending them soon, because I definitely don’t want to join AEGIS but also don’t want to say anything that would make them suspect those fire alarms weren’t an accident. So I haven’t been replying just to be safe.
I also got some more love letters, but one of them was different? Because one of them was from Cy, and I actually know Cy and he knows me. Or, we used to anyway. He knew about me asking him to homecoming and everything, so it’s definitely him.
I had a MASSIVE crush on Cy back then. The reason I asked him as a friend instead of as a date was because I was still trying to hide my powers and I was pretty sure I’d hail on everyone if I asked him on a date and he said no. I guess I should have just gone for it, because it sounds like he would have said yes. And going as friends turned out to be a terrible idea. That was the most awkward dance that I’ve ever been to.
I kind of want to tell him that I had a crush on him too? Since it was nice to hear that he felt the same way about me. But I don’t want to give him the wrong idea about anything happening now. I would tell him that I’m dating Kurt, but I’m worried because I don’t really know him that well anymore? What if he tells everyone on the internet about it? Then I’ll just have ruined the whole reason me and Kurt were fighting in the first place.
I’ll think about it, I guess. And maybe work things out with Kurt first.
-Ernest
May 21, 2020
~~Kyle’s~~ Kevin’s prank plans went off really smoothly today! Melody ended up joining us because she saw me, Cypher, and Kurt in St. Smithton’s uniforms at the base and apparently she’s had some experience sneaking St. Smithton’s before. We did some spooky stuff to scare Brad and I got back at him for graffitiing the Base that time. And messed with Miranda’s presentation so it seemed like she actually wanted the senior prank to happen. The rest of the senior class loved it, so it seems like the the class prank is back on.
Afterwards I talked a little with Cypher about how even though maybe pranking people with our powers wasn’t exactly the most heroic thing, it was just for fun and not necessarily a sign that we’ll actually become villains like Kurt saw in the future. I mean, we can’t spend all of the present worrying about that stuff. At least some of it has to be saved for dumb teen stuff, like pranks. No one got hurt. It would be silly to worry about that kind of thing setting us on a path to evil, right?
… I should probably ask her how she’s been handling everything when we can actually be more serious about it, though.
After we were done with the pranking stuff, I met up with Carm at the Base so we could go play video games at my house. Which we’ve started doing again! It kind of came up when I asked if she wanted her Bitendo Verse back. She still wasn’t sure about whether she should bring it back to the past with her, so she asked me to keep hanging onto it. Even though she’s got like her super high tech phone and her shield things from the future and those are fine in the present? I think there might be something else she’s trying to figure out there, but I didn’t want to push her on it. Besides, it gives us a reason to hang out at my place.
Anyway, the reason we met up at the Base first instead of just going directly there is because it turns out Teresa was right, I should have been worried about fans camping out by my apartment. I mean, they’re not so bad. It’s just, I never know how to turn people down when they want pictures and autographs so it ends up taking me half an hour to get into my front door. Which is where Carm comes in. She can do this thing where she just \*looks\* at someone and they back off. And if that doesn’t get the message across, hissing usually does. It’s surprisingly effective. Maybe I should take up hissing when I want people to give me space.
Speaking of hissing, Lacey was not happy about Carm coming over at first. I have no idea whether it was because of the vampire thing or the cat thing. Maybe both. It took me like 20 minutes to get her out from under the couch. Then they kinda fluffed up at each other a few times, but after that Lacey chilled out and they seemed to get along pretty well.
So yeah, we played video games for a while. I thought I was actually getting better but I think Carm was just a little out of practice before and now that she’s back in the swing of things I’m hardly winning at all again. I don’t mind though. If anything it makes it feel more like old times again.
Since I was just staying home and didn’t need a bodyguard anymore, Carm just turned into bat and flew off. Which I thought was entirely fine, until I saw someone posting on Chitter about how she hadn’t left yet. And she’s not going to, because she’s already gone. Which I’m sure people will take entirely the wrong way tomorrow.
It sucks. I just want to be able to hang out with my friends without everyone thinking I’m dating them. I don’t want Mithril or Carm to have to deal with all this. And I don’t want Kurt to have to deal with it either, even though it seems like Kurt wants everyone to know. For some reason.
He’s not going to be happy when he hears about this, is he.
-Ernest

## Cats and Curiosity

*S4E75: Disaster Pay*

**Big Base Tour - Featuring Cats!**Video posted May 21, 2020
*[The Weatherman wanders around the Big Base, describing the rooms and pausing whenever Lacey takes particular interest in a potted plant. Lacey and StanB meet, leaving Lacey dusted in a light coating of glitter. The Weatherman spends 5 minutes trying to negotiate a cupcake/cat toy hostage exchange with Trevor, but eventually gives up.]*
**Grim Darkness of the Future - The Flex Girls - Music Video Cover**Video posted May 24, 2020The video appears to have negative views. The comments section simply reads “Comments have been consumed for this video.”
*[ Verve sings the lyrics to Grim Darkness of the Future, with cuts between her dressed in different costumes to cover different parts of the song. Her voice has a slightly eerie quality. The Weatherman and the Jackal provide backup vocals and dancing.]*
*[During the spoken portion of the song, the video abruptly shifts to a slideshow of The Weatherman, The Jackal, and Verve in various surreal locations – a cave with a single peach on the ground, inside a giant refrigerator, and within an enormous amethyst geode.]*
*[The audio seems slightly out of sync with the video, sometimes a little behind and sometimes a little ahead.]*

Journal

May 22, 2020
~~Demeter~~ Well, Daybreak I guess, picked me out for a mission to go on with Verve, along with Melody and Mithril! I hope that means she’s forgiven me for being involved in what happened with Hero One’s pockets and that reaper and everything. (Side note, I don’t quite understand why they put Daybreak and Verve’s hero base underneath the shop that they work in as Demeter and Atlanta? I guess it’s convenient but it doesn’t really help the whole secret identity thing.)
Anyway, we went to go check out this site that had some weird security footage taken near it. There was this construction site, which turned out to be a Consortium project, and the weird security footage was because the construction company was turning their workers into monsters. Which was technically allowed I guess? But it didn’t seem great.
Conmoro was there too. They knew about the gay lightning memes which I hadn’t really expected? They’re so fancy and wizardy I didn’t think they did normal things like use the internet but I guess they aren’t actually above all that.
They asked us check around the site to make sure nothing bad was going on. While we were looking around, Atlanta told me about how her pocketing powers have been getting stronger and harder to control. She was really nervous about telling me, which I guess I can’t blame her after how I reacted the last couple times we talked about her pockets. But after we managed to defeat that reaper, I realized that I shouldn’t have been scared about her using them in the first place. And if she’s going to learn how to control them, she’ll have to feel safe using them.
I felt like all of the things I’d said before about how dangerous her pockets could be probably made her more worried to use them, so I wanted to do something that would help her feel better about them. So I asked her to pocket me. I remembered how I’d been able to find my way back into that reaper’s pockets, so I figured that once I’d been in Atlanta’s pockets I could go back there and rescue anything if she had a hard time unpocketing it. Atlanta was thrilled about the idea, but I promised her I’d be okay, so she did it.
It was a little weird in there, kind of intersecting and overlapping with different dimensions? And I sensed some energy around. Hero One’s pockets were powered by their energy absorption, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Atlanta’s were connected too. She seemed a little confused when I told her about that, but me and Melody said she could practice training powers with us if she wanted, and that seemed to cheer her up.
It turned out that there actually was some bad magic around the construction site, but Conmoro figured that out without much help from us. It all just looked like weird art installations to me. I guess Kurt might be able to explain what was up with all that, since he’s working with the Consortium now. Atlanta helped absorb some of the bad magic, and apparently one of the ways to get rid of it is through singing, so I’m going to try and convince her to do a music video with me.
Oh, I kind of got ahead of myself. Before Conmoro figured out the bad magic stuff, Pascal, one of the construction workers, started having a bad reaction to the pills that turned them into monsters. Conmoro stabilized him with magic while we went to the company the pills to get the cure.
Except it turned out that the cat lady running the company that made the pills was just completely evil and wouldn’t give us the cure. She tried to get us to play this game with pushing buttons on remotes to try and stop the transformation, but luckily Atlanta figured out that the real button to stop everything was on her desk. She even pocketed the cat lady for a little while to push the real button! So I think me and Melody really helped her feel more comfortable with using her powers again.
The cat lady also made these Weatherman plushies that make you feel all safe and happy because she put the feelings of hostages being rescued in them. But she actually took those people hostage just to get those feelings in the first place, so really they should make you feel terrible and gross. I’m not really sure what to do about those. Apparently they’re already sold to some company. I’m worried if I say anything about them on my channel that will just give them more attention and make more people buy them. Maybe I should see about actually trying to stop them from selling merch without my permission?
Unfortunately, all of the evidence in the room started self destructing after Atlanta pocketed the cat lady and pushed the button. She brought the cat lady back, but that didn’t stop the self destruct program either. It seemed like we might lose everything, but I managed to make these lightning… sphere things? To keep the cat lady from doing anything else and protect the desk from self destructing. I’d never really managed to contain stuff with lightning like that before. But I’d been practicing making shapes and spheres recently so I actually managed to keep the lightning around her without hurting her or anything. It was kind of exhausting, though.
AEGIS came to collect what was left of the evidence and lock the cat lady up so she can’t cause more trouble. I might not want to join them, but at least they’re pretty effective at keeping super villains locked up.
-Ernest

## The Talk of the Town

*S4E72: The Forbidden Secrets of Molecyon*

**Top 3 Reasons to Visit Molecyon!**Video posted May 25, 2020
Hi, uh, Weathervanes? I think that’s what you’ve been calling yourselves. I’m the Weatherman and today on the Weather Channel I’m going to tell you about the top three reasons why you should visit Molecyon.
The number three reason is…
The entertainment! If there’s one thing everyone knows about Molecyon, it’s their love of sports and competitions. If you’re looking for some thrilling matches, you won’t be disappointed!
*[A clip of the Weatherman breakdancing to dodge an attack from a mole dressed like the Jackal plays.]*
The number two reason is…
The culture! Do you know how long the gestation period of a mole is? You can learn all kinds of things about our sister city under the surface by taking a visit.
*[Clips of the Ancient Protectors of Molecyon running in circles and the Molegic School Bus drilling through rock play.]*
And the number one reason is…
A secret! You’ll have to discover it for yourself! Molecyon has so many different things that are great about it, everyone can find something to love about it! So give Molecyon a visit soon!
*[A clunking rhythmic instrumental version of We Will Rock you plays out over the end of the video, getting mysteriously farther and farther away.]*

Journal

May 23, 2020
Today was… a weird day. A good day overall, I think. But definitely strange.
Kurt and I were hanging out at the base when GAIA showed us this video from Molecyon challenging me to combat. I think they were mad about the Weatherman memes or something? So they had us fight against a mole dressed like the Weatherman and two moles dressed like the Jackal. We would have won fine except Melody and Kurt each broke one of the like three rules that we were supposed to follow so we got in trouble and had go through this dungeon tunnel place with traps. That wasn’t too bad either. I mean, Melody thought that Kurt and I were possessed Anaya and Bloodshot, and that a lava spider was Challenge, but other than that everything went well. Although Kurt still won’t tell me how he solved the puzzle.
It turned out the moles really just wanted more attention from Halcyon, since everyone has been so focused on Zodiac City lately. You’d think they’d be happy that villains weren’t trying to destroy their city, but I guess I can understand them wanting people to consider them important. I told them that I’d make a video telling people to check out Molecyon, which I’m working on putting together, and also that maybe they should stop yelling about hating surface dwellers so much if they actually want visitors.
Kurt was kind of mad about people thinking the Weatherman and the Jackal were dating, after we posted those pictures in the Consortium’s art installations on Chitter. Luckily he didn’t really hold it against Melody, they actually seemed to get along pretty well. We argued a bit about hiding things on the way to Molecyon, but on the way back Kurt explained how he’d been feeling left out with people thinking I was dating so many people other than him. And I told him how I was worried that the made up stuff people would say about us might actually affect us, but he said I could always ask him whether the things people were talking about were true. Which made sense. So I said I’d stop hiding the fact that we are dating. Although I’m pretty sure that’s not going to stop people from imagining I’m dating someone else.
I’m still a little bit nervous about everyone knowing. But it is nice not having to worry about people finding out. It means that Kurt can walk home with me to my apartment again, and we can post photos on Chitter together and stuff. I’m really hoping we don’t end up on one of those magazine covers, because mom would definitely make fun of me. I guess it’s just a risk I’ll have to take, though. And it’s really great not to be fighting with Kurt anymore.
I was going to email Cy to tell him about having a crush on him before but having a boyfriend now and everything, because I think it would be fun to hang out as friends sometime. But I couldn’t find that email he sent me. I think I might have accidentally deleted it along with the AEGIS emails. Oops. Unless I just dreamed it up or something? Dreaming that your old crush actually liked you back sounds like a thing that might happen. I do really think he emailed me though. I just hope he emails me again sometime, because I don’t actually know what his email address is now.
-Ernest

## C'mon Cloudy

*C'mon Lucky*

*June 6, 2020*
Ernest walks home from the police station. Flying would be faster, but he’s exhausted and falling out of the sky seems like a particularly bad way to end an already trying day. He could take the bus to save some time and energy, but he doesn’t think he can handle the stares from people who think they know him right now. So he walks hurriedly with his hood up and his costume tucked under his arm, pretending that he doesn’t hear any of the questioning calls in his direction.
From time to time, he finds himself humming a particular tune, but stops whenever he notices the purple thread of his voice twisting alone in the corner of his eye.
A few of his more determined fans have camped outside his apartment building, so he can’t completely avoid them, but he manages to get away after signing a few autographs and dodging questions about what he’d been doing since he left with the police.
Helen rushes over with questions of her own as soon as the apartment door opens. “Ernest! What happened, are you okay?” She looks him up and down for injuries. If he were still wearing his costume, she might have noticed the scorch marks on the shoulder from where Dez redirected his own lightning into him, but as is he mainly looks bedraggled and tired.
“I’m alright. Sorry I’m home late. Got caught up in hero stuff,” Ernest mumbles, beginning to pull off his shoes by the door.
“At the police station?” Helen asks. “They were saying something on the news about a coup. I tried to look for you, but I didn’t see you in any of the footage they were showing, just some of your friends.”
Ernest shakes his head. “I had to help stop those giant animals from destroying everything downtown before we made it to the station. By the time I got there, they were dealing with the coup and whatever so they said they’d talk to me some other time.”
“I still think you should talk with a lawyer before anyone else. I don’t want you getting in trouble for saying the wrong thing.” Helen says, her lips pressed together in a slight frown.
Ernest shrugs. He’s not planning to lie, even if a lawyer would probably tell him to keep his mouth shut. And if he gets in trouble, he probably deserves it.
Helen looks as if she wants to press the point, but thinks better of it. “While you were out, one of your fans left a box for you on the doorstep. I put it in your room.”
“Thanks.”
“I hope I don’t need to remind to give your fans someplace to mail you things other than our new address after we move,” she says, crossing her arms.
“I know, mom.” He’d made the mistake of assuming his fans wouldn’t abuse their knowledge of his home address once, but didn’t plan on making it again.
She pulls him into a quick hug before stepping out of his way. “Get some rest, we can talk more about things in the morning.”
Ernest nods and then heads to his room, immediately flopping onto his bed and pulling out his journal. Whatever fan gift he’d gotten could wait until tomorrow. Or maybe longer, since he’d just have to box it up again in a few days. But before he begins writing, the box rattles on its own. Lacey hisses and takes up a defensive posture at the foot of his bed.
“They better not have tried to send me another cat,” he mutters, putting his journal to the side and approaching the package warily. Surely his mom would have noticed if there was something living inside.
The top of the box has ‘To: The Weatherman’ written in thick black marker. No sender or return address. No delivery address either, for that matter. Whoever had sent it must have actually come by to drop it off in person.
The box shakes again. “Okay, okay, give me a second.” He rummages through his desk drawers, returns with a pair of scissors, and carefully slices through the tap.
Immediately after he pulls back the cardboard flaps, a white shape approximately the size of a hubcap whizzes past his face. A song starts blasting at top volume, and Ernest claps his hands over his ears, dulling the bright pinks and blues. Lacey tracks the shape with interest, unbothered by the noise.
“Shhhh!” Ernest winces as he removes one hand to block the flight path of whatever is circling his room. It pauses and turns, hovering in front of him. Now that it’s still, he can see that it has the shape of a cartoon cloud, with a screen displaying a smiley face emoji. “It’s late, people are trying to sleep.”
The image on the screen changes to a series of zzz’s, and then an emoji of a sleeping face.
“Yes, sleeping, so please be quiet!”
The volume drops gradually, and Ernest nods in encouragement until the music is no longer audible. “Okay, thank you. What are you?”
The screen displays a smiley face, a cloud, and a smiley face again. The artificial cloud zips around the room again, then stops over the package at Ernest’s feet. He looks down to see that there’s more inside the box - a note, and something that looks a lot like his Weatherman helmet.
He picks both up and reads the note aloud. “Dear Weatherman. The robot you should have just met is called Cloudy.” The cloud does another lap around the room and displays an emoji with a wider grin. “I hope you’ll find them helpful with fighting supervillains and making videos for your channel. Just put the helmet on, and they’ll show you what they can do. From, Cumulonimbus.” Ernest flips the note over to check the back, but it’s blank.
Cloudy nudges up against the helmet in Ernest’s hands, flashing a helmet emoji between more grins.
“Alright, I guess I’ll let you show me what you’ve got,” he says, gingerly putting on the helmet. It fits about the same as his usual Weatherman helmet, but he immediately notices a difference in the visor. Where his usual helmet simply has a piece of protective plastic, this one has a transparent screen with images and overlays starting to pop up. A small box in the upper left corner shows his own face wearing the helmet, which he quickly realizes must be a video feed from Cloudy.
“Oh, you’ve got cameras, that’ll be great for videos!” he says. Cloudy spins in place, then traces out a more deliberate path through his room. A question mark comes up over Lacey as she steps in front of Cloudy’s path to bat at them.
“That’s Lacey, she’s my cat.” Cloudy displays a series of cat related emojis, then lets out a few musical chimes. Lacey remains blocking the path. “Ah, she can’t hear you. C’mon Lacey, let Cloudy finish whatever they’re doing.” Ernest reaches down and beckons Lacey, who meows loudly, but moves aside.
As Cloudy finishes a complete sweep of the room, a lime green mesh overlay pops up in Ernest’s visor, hugging tightly to the furniture even as he moves his head. Cloudy begins playing a song, and Ernest starts to shush them again, but stops as he realizes the music is only playing inside his helmet.
He recognizes the tune as one that he frequently practiced on a DDR machine back in New York City, but hasn’t been able to find at an arcade in Halcyon. When arrows start scrolling from the bottom of the visor, he laughs. “You want me to dance? Alright.”
It takes him a few tries to figure out that Cloudy wants him to fully move in the direction of the arrows, not just stand in one place like he would in an actual DDR machine, but once he realizes, he quickly finds his rhythm.
“The display is neat, but I’ve already got this one memorized, buddy,” he tells Cloudy. He starts to close his eyes to demonstrate, but Cloudy gives an error sound when he does. Ernest checks the pattern of arrows and realizes it's changed what he remembers - the steps are still in time with the music, but not in the directions he expects. He frowns, but follows the new sequence of steps – and quickly finds himself dancing in a circuit around the edge of his room.
“I think I see what you’re going for here. Can you have me do a figure eight?” Cloudy displays an infinity symbol and chimes, and the pattern shifts once again. Ernest follows and the dance loops him through a precise figure eight, even adjusting to avoid Lacey when she tries to weave her way between his legs.
When the song ends, Ernest pulls off the helmet and collapses onto his bed again. “Alright, that was pretty cool.” Cloudy shows a blushing emoji, and starts playing another song. “Hey, hey, I’m excited to try things out too, but it’s been a long day and I need to get some sleep.”
Cloudy briefly makes a disappointed face, but switches to a sleeping emoji and comes to rest on Ernest’s desk. “Thanks, Cloudy. See you in the morning.” He picks up his journal and begins to write as Lacey curls up next to him.

## Solo and Ensemble

*S4 Finale: Sprechgesang*

June 6, 2020
Hi again, future me. I think I’ll keep addressing these entries like that, even if future me does turn out to be a villain or whatever, because I am mainly writing these for me. It used to be fun to think about some random person eventually reading these or whatever. But now that I’ve got my channel, if there’s stuff I’m fine with just anybody knowing I can talk about it there. This is more for trying to clear out my head, which I definitely need today.
Today was a lot. Even though I think there was some kind of dimension hopping time nonsense that meant we left in the morning and got back in the evening after only spending a few hours in that HELIX facility, it feels like I’ve been awake for a day and a half.
I guess you know it’s not going to be a great day when the first thing you do is get arrested. Okay, so I wasn’t technically arrested, but some detectives wanted to talk to me about that Bishop facility that was destroyed. That I destroyed. They weren’t accusing me yet, but they would have found out if I’d talked with them at the station. I don’t even have an excuse of trying to do it to save people or losing control of my powers. I wanted that building destroyed, and I could, so I did.
Sorry, I’m not worried that I’ll go on a building-destroying rampage or something. It’s just, I made a really bad decision when I wrecked that Bishop place. And I’m worried that I’ll keep making bad decisions if no one’s keeping an eye on what I’m doing. Mom doesn’t want me to get in trouble with the police, but I kind of feel like I deserve to be in trouble for this one.
I don’t really blame the guy who worked there for designing a new Rubicon armor for Dez specifically to mess with me. And I finally found out Bishop ended up using that donation dad was going to use to study my powers ended up going. I still haven’t told him about what happened with the lightning batteries. At least he stayed in New York instead of working at Bishop these past months, that would have been a nightmare.
Anyway, I left with the detectives but didn’t actually talk with them because these giant spectral animals started attacking Halcyon. Denise and Hyacinth and their friends, Holly and Dash were there. They knew that HELIX was responsible for what was happening and they asked Big Team for help, and of course we said that we would.
Things went pretty well at first. Well, except for the fact that I got Anaya shot with a laser gun while I was trying to save Focus. And had my own lightning shot at me and Dash because I didn’t think through trying to use my lightning against Dez even though she’s turned it against me before. So maybe it never was going that well. Either way, it got worse.
We argued a bit with DNase about not hurting people more than necessary. I thought I’d implied that they shouldn’t do that when I gave them the snake bracelet I’d stolen for them but I guess they interpreted it as “hurting people is fine as long as we don’t kill them” which is only slightly better than their previous “killing people is fine if they're part of HELIX” attitude. At least they seemed to listen after we talked to them.
Turned out that the whole “not hurting people unnecessarily” was all talk from my end, anyway.
See, we weren't just there to stop HELIX from destroying Halcyon, we were also trying to rescue DNase’s friend. Friends? Aman and DNase warned us that Gestalt might try to get in our heads. But I wasn’t prepared for what that would be like.
I guess I expected something like a pressure or a battle for control. Something I'd have to fight against. Their song wasn’t anything like that. It was more of an invitation. A promise. Like someone could see all of times I’d felt completely alone – Opa dying. My dad talking about sending me off to a research facility across the country to deal with my powers and no one saying anything because they were just waiting for me to lose control of my temper and my powers. Timothy telling me he wanted to move back to New York with dad. Sapphomet saying my friends didn’t love me after finding out that they’d been lying to me about Verve and Atlanta. Carm leaving and thinking I’d never see her again – and they knew exactly how I felt, reached out a hand, and promised I’d never have to feel like that again. So I took it.
I felt… great, when I was singing with them. I forgot all about what we’d come there to do. Even though I’d just told everyone we were there to rescue Gestalt and save Halcyon from HELIX’s experiments. Those things just didn’t seem important anymore. I wanted everyone to feel the same way I did. And when Focus tried to stop me, I attacked her with lightning.
I haven’t talked to her about it yet. When we brought her back to the Base, GAIA said she’d be alright in a little while, so at least I didn’t hurt her as bad as I did Timothy. I don’t know what I would have done if that had happened again. I don’t think I could face Kurt if I hurt his best friend that badly.
Eventually Aman and Anaya snapped me out of Gestalt’s song. We were able to destroy the Zodiac sap experiment and get everyone out of HELIX after I made a counter song in a storm to clear everyone’s head. So I guess we succeeded.
Dash and Anaya and Aman tried to say that hurting Focus wasn’t my fault, since I was part of Gestalt at the time. But the thing is, I didn’t feel like Gestalt was controlling me. I just felt like me, and also more than me, but still me. I feel bad about hurting Focus now, but in that moment, no one forced me to. It just felt like the right thing to do.
I bet the me in the future that Kurt saw, the one who betrayed his team for future Kurt, felt like he was doing the right thing too.
That’s the thing, I don’t know how to be sure that I won’t do it again. I could say I don’t want to, that I feel awful for hurting Focus, but I felt the worst I’ve ever felt about anything after hurting Timothy with my powers. And wasn’t enough to stop me from turning my lightning against my own teammates when they trusted me to get them through this mission.
You know what the worst part of it is? I want that feeling back. Even after hurting Focus. Even after everything Aman and Anaya said about finding my own song and having my own voice. Because even if they’re my friends, and even if they forgive me for hurting them and stealing, and lying about it, they won’t ever really know all the things I’ve done. They can’t know every thought and doubt and regret I’ve ever had. If they did, they probably wouldn’t want to be my friends anyway.
When I was Gestalt, Gestalt knew everything about me, because Gestalt was me. And I was okay. I can’t stop thinking about that certainty. That I would be okay, and never feel alone again, forever.
I betrayed my friends for the promise of that feeling. And maybe I would do it again. I don’t know why they still trust me. They probably shouldn’t.
*[A jagged pen scrawl covers the next few lines.]*
Lacey keeps trying to lie on my arms and Cloudy is showing me zzz emojis again – oh right, I got a robot cloud from a fan, which made the end of my day a little bit better – but anyway, I should probably get to sleep. Maybe I’ll feel better after I have a chance to talk to everyone tomorrow.
-Ernest
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
*He hears a familiar song in the distance. Welcoming, comforting. A harmonious chorus with the thread of each voice blending almost indistinguishably with the others. Every time he tries to join in, the song fades away, leaving him alone.*

## Aftershocks

*Season 4 End of Season Hangout*

**Dr. Disaster’s Crimes Exposed! - Documentary**Video posted May 28, 2020
*[The Weatherman interviews several employees of CyTek Multinational, including an extended talk with Pascal Kamiński, about their experiences taking the pills designed by Dr. Disaster that turned them into monsters. The video ends with an anti-commercial warning fans not to buy the Weatherman plushies produced by Disaster Doctors.]*
**Chimera Cooking - Episode One - Shiver Me Timbers Lava Shark Pie**Video Posted June 1st, 2020
*[The video shows the Weatherman, Bolt, and Jasper James in Atlanta’s kitchen, haphazardly combining various ingredients to create a dish. The cooks seem quite proud of their creation, and the Weatherman promises future videos in this series.]*
**George the DANCE MACHINE**Video Posted June 3, 2020
*[The Weatherman stands outside the Big Base, controlling the wind to direct the motions of a bright red Wacky Waving Inflatable Tube Man standing outside. He starts by having the Tube Man wave its arms in time with music, and by the end of the video, both of them are dancing in sync.]*
**Subterfuge Nefarious Death Trap!**Video posted June 6, 2020
*[What appears to be grainy security camera footage shows Subterfuge setting a series of traps for the Weatherman in an abandoned warehouse and luring him inside. The Weatherman sets off several of the traps, and barely manages to avoid being hurt by them, but Subterfuge gets away. The video ends with the Weatherman recommending that viewers check out Artie Hall’s radio show to keep up to date on all of Halcyon’s weirdest news.]*

Journal

June 7, 2020
Hey there, future me. It’s present me again. Or past me, I guess, by the time anyone would be reading this. Whatever, I don’t want to think about time nonsense right now. It’s bad enough that Lugnut got sent to the future so that Bolt wants to do a time traveling rescue mission. As if anything Big Team’s done involving time travel has turned out well.
I talked to a couple of people about being worried about betraying everyone in the future. Cypher because Kurt saw she was a villain in the future too, and Carm because I wanted to ask if she’d run into any other future mes while she and Ellen were time and dimension hopping. She hadn’t, but we talked a bit about me hurting Faith. I think she thought I was being silly since she’s done worse as a vampire and everything. But it was nice to talk it over at least.
I also went over to Faith’s apartment to apologize about what happened. She wasn’t mad at me, even though I would have understood if she didn’t want to talk. She was working on recreating that counter song that I made with my storm, that cleared Gestalt’s song out of everyone’s head. It’s a little bit tricky to figure out how to make the sounds with regular instruments, but I think we’re getting somewhere. I’ve loaded up the version we’ve got now to Cloudy, so they can play it whenever I start humming Gestalt’s song again. Which is a lot, it turns out. I don’t think I would have even noticed some of the times if Cloudy hadn’t interrupted me.
Most of the rest of the day I hung out with Kurt. They said they’re planning not to go to school next year, to study with the Consortium instead. I hope Nicholas can help them get their magic back. I have no idea what that must be like. I’m glad Boon and Atlanta were there to keep things from going any worse than they did, even if I couldn’t be there when Future Kurt showed up again. Sounds like Atlanta’s going to be making trips to the Consortium’s library prison in Madagascar too. Conmoro found out about the pockets, but luckily they didn’t want to lock her in a bookshelf forever, just try and study what the pockets are like.
Oh, I also asked Kurt to prom! He said yes, which I guess shouldn’t really be a surprise given that we’re dating but it still felt great. Originally I’d planned to do the whole thing with the clouds in the parking lot after school, but that was before there were tons of people arguing on the internet about who I’m dating. So having it just be a private thing for the two of us was nicer. Besides, if neither of us is going to be at Big High next year (I swear I’m going to graduate this year, I’ve only got a few more weeks), there’s no point in making it a big deal at school.
Anyway. At least I’ve got prom and graduation and all of that other end of year senior stuff that I missed last year to look forward to, even if everything else is confusing right now.
-Ernest
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
*He sits up in bed. A robotic bird is perched on the back of the chair at his desk, cocking her head at him expectantly. He looks around in confusion.*
*“Where’s Bolt?”*
*“GONE,” Wingnut croaks, her voice dripping with the same violet glow as her eyes. The shape of the noise molds itself into the letters of the word she’d just said.*
*“What do you mean, gone? Does he need help?”*
*“GONE,” Wingnut repeats. He rubs his eyes to try and clear the word shining behind the lids.*
*“You’re lying. He said he would be careful. He wouldn’t just leave.”*
*Wingnut opens her mouth and a familiar song begins pouring out, filling the room with the swirling colors of multiple voices in perfect harmony. He covers his ears with his hands, but it does nothing to muffle the sound.*

## No Place Like Home

*Time Passes*

**Introducing Cloudy!**Video posted June 8, 2020
Hey there, Weathervanes! I wanted to introduce you to someone who’s going to be helping me out with the channel from here on out. Say hello to Cloudy!
*[The Weatherman gestures offscreen, and a white blob in the shape of a cartoon cloud hovers into view. On the front is a screen, which displays various emojis of happiness and excitement.]*
Thanks a ton to Cumulonimbus, whoever you are, for sending them! They’ve got a ton of useful stuff. For example…
*[The camera angle switches to a profile view of the Weatherman, who turns to face it and waves.]*
Cloudy’s got cameras! Which will be great for when I’m filming hero stuff. I know some people mentioned getting motion sickness when I tried to carry around a camera or tape one to my helmet, so this should help a lot. But filming isn’t the only thing they can do. Ready, Cloudy?
*[The camera switches back to the original angle as Cloudy begins emitting an odd sounding series of broken arpeggios from their speakers. The Weatherman closes his eyes and holds his hands in front of him, palms facing together. As the music loops on repeat, a multicolored strand of lightning starts from one hand and threading its way over to the other and tracing out the silhouette of a butterfly. When it’s complete, the Weatherman opens his eyes and beams at the camera, before clapping his hands together and dissipating the lightning.]*
Remember how I was showing all of you that my lightning changes colors with my synesthesia? Well, I’ve also been working on tracing out the shapes I see with it, like that butterfly! So I can show Cloudy what I see, and they can remember so that if I need to make those shapes again, they can play the right music. Like, Cloudy, give me a blue circle.
*[Cloudy plays a few low chords, and the Weatherman summons a circle of blue lightning around his head.]*
My lightning is way more precise when I’m directing it along something I’m familiar with, like my body or my synesthesia, so I think this will be a big help for fighting. Plus it looks really cool! We’re working on practicing other stuff together too, I can’t wait to show you. See you later!
*[The Weatherman waves goodbye, and Cloudy displays a waving emoji as the video fades out.]*
**Unboxing and Boxing**Video posted June 10, 2020
*[The Weatherman sits in his bedroom, the camera pulled back as usual so he can sign while he speaks. A stack of packing boxes is visible in the background.]*
Hi Weathervanes! This will be my last video recorded from this room. Because I’m moving to a new house! Actually, by the time this video is posted, I’ll probably have moved out already. I wanted to let everyone know because people have been hanging out around my apartment.
*[The Weatherman glances to the side, apparently looking out a window.]*
Yeah, looks like there are some of you out there right now. Which has been a bit of a hassle for the people living here, so now that I’m moving, I’d really appreciate it if you stopped coming over here. I also won’t be giving out my new address either so that it doesn’t start happening again at the new place. But don’t worry, you can still mail me stuff! I’ve set up a PO Box so that you can send me things there instead of the actual house. That address is in the description! Just, uh, still no living things, alright?
*[On cue, Lacey walks across the camera’s view, bumping it out of position. When the video cuts back, she’s sitting on the Weatherman’s lap looking quite pleased with herself.]*
Also, I wanted to thank everyone for all the things you have sent me before I have to pack everything up for moving, so let’s get to that!
*[The Weatherman spends the rest of the video opening letters and gifts from fans. A large percent of the gifts are Weatherman plushies of varying degrees of quality.]*
**Counterstorm - Some of Parts - Original Music**Video posted June 12, 2020
*[The video is divided into six sections, all playing simultaneously. Two sections show Faith playing the French horn. The other four sections show the Weatherman playing piano, guitar, cymbals, and harmonica. The overall effect is quite discordant, with only the hint of a difficult to follow melody, and in places sounds more like thunder than music.]*

Related Videos

**Weatherman ELOPING to Secret House?? - What We Know**#Weatherman #Weathervanes
**5 Biggest Clues to the Weatherman’s New House: Operation Stormchase**#Weatherman #Weathervanes #Stormchase #Stormchasers
**Some of Parts MORE than the Sum of its Parts**#Weatherman #Faith #SomeOfParts

Journal

June 8, 2020
Finally finished moving all of our stuff into the new house! Boon managed to convince her mom to get a place a few doors down from Atlanta’s house, which will make it super easy to visit. I’m sure Jasper will be thrilled. I think I’m still getting used to the idea, honestly. It’s an actual house with like a yard and everything. Maybe we can even throw parties outside like Melody’s family!
Well, that might not be the best idea. Since I’m trying to keep my fans from finding out where I live and everything. Mom would be pretty mad if she had to deal with people crowding around the front door again. So I’ll need to make sure that nobody’s around when I’m coming in or out, or just sneak in through the back window or whatever. Or get Boon to disguise me with her illusions like she did when we first came over.
There’s great stuff inside the house too. I guess since she’s been a superhero for a long time, Maggie knows about secret bases and everything, so the basement has a hidden entrance. It’s all set up for Boon to practice magic and forging and stuff, which is great since I know she used to have a whole cabin for that before I kind of burned it down when we fought Sapphomet there. There’s also a bunch of video game stuff including an arcade DDR machine! Which is great since I can’t really go to the arcade anymore without getting swamped by fans. I’ve tried setting up the Danger Room at the base for DDR and it works okay, but it’s not really the same as an actual machine.
The part that I’m really looking forward to though is living with Boon and Maggie. Maggie can be kind of intense sometimes but I know mom really cares about her. And Boon is… we’ve been through so much together. I’d trust her with anything. And with more people around than just me and mom, maybe I’ll stop feeling so lonely.
Oh wait, I lied. This is the best part of moving to the new house.
*[taped into the notebook is a picture of Brimstone and Lacey curled up next to each other sleeping]*
-Ernest
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
*He’s talking with Atlanta. Well, talking with Verve. She’s wearing her costume, so technically she’s Verve right now. It’s important to her that there’s a difference. So even if it hurts a little bit every time he’s reminded of the lies that she told to keep that difference, it’s important that he remembers. He wonders why she’s wearing her old costume, the hoodie with the branching lightning that reminds him of Timothy’s scars, but he figures it must be important too.*
*He blinks, and when he opens his eyes, Verve is gone.*
*It’s okay. That happens sometimes, with her powers. They have a plan for this situation. He summons his lightning wings and jumps forward, concentrating on finding his way into the pocket dimension she must have disappeared into. He floats in the empty space. There’s nothing as far as the eye can see.*
*“Verve?” he calls. A few minutes pass with no response. “Atlanta?”*
*He uses his wings to twist himself everywhere he can think to look. The Big Team Base. Boon’s room. The community center. Her house. The bakery. Nothing.*
*His fingertips are beginning to fizz with the effort required to keep hopping from place to place. With the last of his energy, he manages to push back to the void of Atlanta’s pockets. She must be somewhere. She isn’t here.*
*He’s alone.*

## Unexpected Guests

*OVA: Super Father's Day*

**Chimera Cooking - Episode Two - Ultimate Health Smoothie**Video Posted June 15, 2020
*[The Weatherman, Bolt, and Jasper James return to the kitchen for their next creation. This one largely involves tossing assorted ‘healthy’ ingredients into a blender in various combinations. The blender burns out halfway through the episode and needs to be replaced.]*
**When Maggie Isn’t Home – Some of Parts – Cover**Video posted June 18, 2020
*[ Faith loudly plays trombone while the Weatherman rhythmically slams an oven door. The oven appears to be on, with something indistinguishable cooking inside.]*
**Cloudy Combat Training! ft. The Jackal**Video posted June 20, 2020
*[The Weatherman and the Jackal spar inside the Danger Room with Cloudy hovering nearby. An overlay in the bottom right corner shows Cloudy’s real time analysis of the Jackal’s motions and the DDR-style dance step instructions sent to the Weatherman’s helmet. The Weatherman moves in time with the steps, managing to barely dodge out of the way of the Jackal’s attacks. The display flashes red when the Jackal leaps into the air and wraps her legs around the Weatherman’s torso, bringing him down to the mat with a flying scissor takedown. Everyone seems surprised that the attack connected for a moment, then take a break while the Jackal walks the Weatherman and Cloudy through the move before returning to sparring.]*

Journal

June 21, 2020
Well. Dad and Timothy are living with us now.
Not like, forever or anything. With the death glares that Maggie keeps giving dad I don’t think all of us would survive living in the same house long term. But I guess we forgot to tell dad about graduation being delayed so he thought it was still this week when it isn’t for another couple weeks and they’d already driven all the way over here and if they went back they’d just have to make the drive again and we have a guest room and everything so I said they should just stay until graduation.
Which might not have been my best idea. Given that Maggie had already escalated from death glares to threats of violence by the time I even got home after dad called to say he’d arrived.
But I’ve missed Timothy so much. Especially these past couple of weeks. And he’s out of school for the summer already so it’s not like he needs to get back to New York. Even if we talk all the time over video, it isn’t the same as being around him. Like, I can hear him in the other room right now working on lyrics about Kurt’s time in Gambite for that musical he’s writing. I’ve missed that.
Anyway, dad and Timothy showing up wasn’t even the only eventful thing today. We brought that marshmallow goulash I made over to Kurt’s dads for Father’s Day. I know it must have been good because Shade tried some yesterday and liked it, and I know she wouldn’t pretend to like it to make me feel better or anything. And we brought some gifts over to Mayor Crossover from Big Team members who were on the team back when he was in charge of the Big Team.
He was pretty friendly about everything even though he’s probably really busy as the Mayor these days. I can see why some people liked him being in charge of the team. I don’t think anyone got gifts for Godspeed. I made a thing for dad, sort of like a desk decoration kind of thing? But I thought he'd still be in New York so it's probably in the mail right now or something. I guess he'll get it when he and Timothy go back.
Mayor Crossover told me and Shade it was okay we hadn’t figured out what to do after graduation yet – Shade also isn’t going to college right away. It’s kind of nice to know I’m not the only one not going to college next year. Boon seems to know exactly what she wants with her medical program and everything, which is really great, but it’s hard not to feel like I’m falling behind in comparison.
Shade also found out some stuff about her dad today. Possibly? I guess she didn’t really know anything about him before, but he might have been involved with making GAIA. And is probably dead. Which is a lot to find out about at once. I’d have talked to her more about it, but that’s when dad called about being at the house and everything so I had to leave. But I hope she’s doing alright.
Anyway. It’s going to be a weird few weeks until graduation. Hopefully all of us make it out alive.
-Ernest
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
*He and Melody are sparring in the Danger Room again. It looks different than normal - washed out with muddied grays, and the door appears to be located far above them for some reason. He doesn’t have time to pay much attention to these details, as Melody presses him relentlessly with an onslaught of attacks.*
*Inky black shadows begin to creep up her legs and he hesitates to strike back, knowing that she’s more likely to get hurt in this form. When she’s completely covered, he takes a few steps back, disengaging from the flurry of punches and kicks.*
*“Melody, isn’t this kind of dangerous?”*
*He can barely make out the corner of Melody’s mouth twisting upwards into a cruel smile. “Melody isn’t home right now.”*
*The shadows around her hand lengthen into a sword and she sends it crashing into the side of his head.*
The force of the impact rings blue and green swirls in his head. He sits up in bed slowly, struggling to calm his breathing.
A flicker of movement in the corner of his eye catches his attention. A shadowy figure stands with her hands on her hips on the far end of his desk.
“Melody? What’s going on?”
“Oh, give it a rest already,” the figure responds. “She isn’t coming back this time, and you know it.”
She leaps forward, and he tries to dodge underneath her, but gets tangled in the sheets in the process.
*He wakes when he hits the floor with a resonant crimson thud that knocks the air out of him. As he struggles to stand, the door to his room swings open.*
H*e lunges forward, determined to get the first hit this time. At the last second, he recognizes Timothy in the darkness and manages to redirect the punch to the side of his brother’s head.*
*“Ern, what’s going on?” Timothy tries to rest a hand on his shoulder, but he flinches back.*
*“Tim? I haven’t had nightmares about you in months,” he mutters, swinging around to check the rest of his room.*
*“There was a loud noise, so I came to check on you. Are you okay?” Timothy asks.*
*“You should still be in New York, I must still be dreaming,” he replies, still on guard for the next attack.*
*“Hey, Ern. Look at me.” Timothy snaps a few times, sending a series of concentric teal circles across Ernest’s vision. “You’re awake now. Everything’s okay. Me and dad drove up for graduation, remember?”*
*The memories gradually filter back, and Ernest stumbles over to sit in the chair in front of his desk.*
*“Right. Yeah. Sorry.”*
*Timothy walks over slowly, and this time Ernest doesn’t move away from the steadying weight on his shoulder.*
*“Are you having nightmares again? You hadn’t mentioned it.” Timothy says quietly.*
*Ernest rubs his face in his hands. “These are… new. Just in the last couple of weeks. Sorry about almost hitting you.”*
*Timothy moves over to sit cross legged on the edge of his bed. “Well, it’s been forever since we’ve stayed up in the middle of the night while mom and dad think we’re asleep. Want to talk about what’s been going on?”*
*Ernest manages a smile. “Alright. It’s kind of a long story.”*

## Dance the Night Away

*Prom OVA Part 1: From Halcyon with Love, Prom Hangout*

**Chimera Cooking - Episode Three - 15 Layer Cake**Video posted June 22, 2020
*[The Weatherman, Bolt, and Jasper James create fifteen batches of cake batter, flavoring each differently with various fruits and spices not typically expected in cake, and making each a different color with food dye. They attempt to stack the layers in rainbow order, but the layers are far too tall for this to be reasonable, and they end up with more of a cake mountain than a cylindrical stack. This is declared a full success.]*
**Bash Sisters Live From The Big Base**Streamed live June 24, 2020
*[The Weatherman and Ultraviolet livestream playing the Bintendo Verse’s popular fighting game Bash Sisters. Ultraviolet expertly mains the character clearly based on the Valkyrie in moveset and appearances. The Weatherman moves to a new character every two or three matches, playing decently with most of them, but getting crushed the majority of the time.]*
**Subterfuge Strikes Again!**Video posted June 25, 2020
*[In a voice over, the Weatherman explains that he was alerted to an upcoming robbery at a jewelry store and staked out the place. Sure enough, Subterfuge shows up. The Weatherman manages to drive Subterfuge back, but at the last second, Subterfuge reveals that they’d managed to swap a pebble for a bright red jewel, and absconds into the night.]*
**Gay Adjectives but in a minor key – Some of Parts – Cover**Video posted June 27, 2020
*[The Weatherman and Faith play an instrumental cover of Gay Adjectives by Rescue; The Girls, but shifted to a minor key. The video cuts between shots of Faith playing French horn and violin and the Weatherman playing piano, guitar, and harmonica. In each shot they are staring directly at the camera. The entire video has a vaguely threatening energy.]*

Journal

June 27, 2020
Hey there, it’s me again. I usually think of writing these as talking with my future self, just on a delay. Like you know, I’ll go back and read them when I’m hopefully not a supervillain and think about all the stuff I went through or whatever. But I kind of wish that I could write this one to my past self? Not like, literally, I absolutely don’t want to mess with time or anything. It’s just, if I could send a message back without creating some kind of paradox, I’d want to tell the me from a year ago that things are going to be okay for him. That’s he’s going to move to a new city, and actually go to school, and only get detention like twice most for reasons not his fault, and make a bunch of new friends, and go to prom with his boyfriend. I mean, I know there are a lot of other less-okay things that happened in the past year too, but he doesn’t really need to hear about those. Just knowing that things weren’t going to be absolutely terrible forever would have helped a lot.
We did get pulled into a bunch of hero stuff at prom too, but it mostly worked out okay. One of the St. Smithton’s kids we pranked tried to get back at us by driving me, Atlanta, Carm, and Aman to the wrong entrance of the aquarium, which really wasn’t that great of a prank. Except it turned out there were a bunch of evil companies having a meeting in a reality bubble on the other side of the aquarium from prom. Not that we realized that right away, because I saw that Bishop scientist who hates me and made Dez’s new suit so we just went around to the prom entrance. Luckily he didn’t seem to recognize me.
But then at prom, we couldn’t find Kurt, Boon, Ellen, or Melody. Cambria was also looking for Greta - more about them later because that was also a whole thing I found out about tonight. We were worried that Bishop or one of the other evil companies or whatever had kidnapped our dates, but they actually only had Greta. Well, I guess Greta wasn’t technically Cambria’s date, since they were going as friends. I tried to warn Cambria about not saying “as friends” if you really wanted to go as more than friends because of how badly that worked out with me and Cyril, but I don’t think she really took me seriously. It turned out that Kurt and everyone else had gotten caught up in that new forest from the Zodiac tree. Had to catch a unicorn and fight a fox. Like I said, hero stuff.
Anyway, we managed to sneak into the reality marble meeting. Atlanta distracted the guard by pretending Boon had broken up with her at prom, which was convincing enough that I thought I might need to have a talk with Boon or something. Sometimes I forget Atlanta can actually lie when she needs to. Also, Frankie did break up with Bolt at prom, although it didn’t sound like that was a huge deal. Frankie’s also leaving Big Team to join Rat’s biker gang to focus more on protecting the Zodiac Tree than general hero stuff.
I’m getting sidetracked from the whole evil company thing. We saw Greta with some guy and followed him, but he turned out to be the Pharaoh. Like, Aman’s family’s greatest enemy, super bad news, accidentally helped the Red Falcon steal a magical artifact from him that one time, that Pharaoh. He seemed to recognize me from the theft incident which probably isn’t great. Aman was really worried about trying to fight him, so instead we got him to release Greta by agreeing to help him stop some vampires from getting shielding tech like Carm has to protect them from the sun. Which, you know, we don’t really want evil cyberpunk vampires running around either, so it wasn’t the worst deal. The Pharaoh did also put some kind of curse or something that would give us stomachaches forever if we didn’t do it, to make sure we held up our end of the bargain.
We totally wrecked the vampires in a speedboat chase, which was actually a pretty good time. It’s been a while since I’ve actually had a chance to fight alongside Carm, reminded me of back when we both joined Big Team. Atlanta’s hair and outfit got a bit messed up from falling in the water, but Cambria and Greta were able to use magic to fix everything up before we got back to prom.
And speaking of Cambria and Greta! This whole time I’d been kind of mad at Greta because of the whole thing where Vic bodyswapped a bunch of his Black Magic Club people with Big Team members and stole a bunch of stuff from the Base, and I ended up in Greta’s body so I assumed she ended up in mine. But it turns out it was actually Cambria who ended up in mine and almost buried the city in a blizzard. Greta did punch my body while she was in Melody’s body though, so I can still be mad at her for that.
Although to be honest, I’m not that mad at either of them for it anymore. Like, Cambria did actually seem sorry about what happened and she didn’t have to tell me it was her. I could have just kept thinking it was Greta. And Greta was just really excited when I told her that I thought she probably had powers, since I could have sworn I sensed some we were all swapped around. I guess I mostly blame Vic for all of that stuff. If Greta and Cambria stay away from him, I think they’ll probably be okay. Maybe. Still going to keep an eye on the Black Magic Club to make sure they’re not getting up to anything shady.
One other thing that came up - we got Cambria to make a listening spell so that we could try and hear what the evil companies were talking about in their reality bubble meeting. Most of it was pretty boring (Bishop wants to make more Rubicons, surprise, surprise), but Fractal Cybernetics said that they’ve been looking to make implants for people with mild to moderate hearing loss. Like Timothy.
I probably shouldn’t get my hopes up since like, most of the companies there were bad news and apparently the CEO of Fractal Cybernetics gets mad at random people on chitter all the time which isn’t a great look. But I’m pretty sure Timothy’s hearing has gotten worse. For a while I thought it was that the connection for our calls was bad and that’s why he was missing stuff a lot, but now that we’ve been living together again for a bit, it’s pretty obvious he’s having more trouble than he used to. Maybe I can convince him to talk with Atlanta about trying out some hearing aids. I know he didn’t want to need them for a while, but I think they could be really helpful for him.
But yeah, overall prom was amazing. Once we finally got back after hero stuff it was great to dance with Kurt and just have a great time. I may have used my powers to make sure none of the teachers found us making out by the coral reef exhibit. I think we deserved it.
Just one more week till graduation. Then I’ll finally be done with high school. Weird to think about nearly being done. I’m not totally sure what comes next, but I think I’m ready to put a close on this chapter.
-Ernest
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*He sits on the couch next to Carm, tapping at his controller while staring intently at the screen. A pixelated Weatherman sprouts rainbow lightning wings to jump over a slash by Ultraviolet. Her sprite flashes and vanishes for a moment, reappearing directly in front of the Weatherman, but he’s prepared for it this time. Smoothly sliding underneath the attack, he hits her in the back with a blast of lightning, knocking her off the stage. He turns to Carm, ready to celebrate the victory.*
*She isn’t there.*
*He waits. She must have stepped out for a snack, or to sharpen her claws, or something.*
*The Weatherman fighter loops through several idle animations. Tapping a foot. Sparking lightning off his hands. Whistling a few notes, which appear as colored lines swirling around his head.*
*Eventually, the sprite appears to get bored with idling and turns to look out from the screen. “You can turn the game off. She’s not coming back.”*
*“What do you mean? She just left for a minute,” he says, flicking the joystick.*
*The figure on the screen doesn’t move. “She left for good. Like everyone will. You might want to take a page from her book and get out before you’re the only one left.”*
*“She said she’d come back, at least to visit.”*
*The Weatherman scoffs. “So what, you’ll just wait here by yourself forever?”*
*“Yes,” he says, stubbornly.*
*“Suit yourself.”*
*The screen goes dark, and he’s left staring at a reflection of himself sitting on an otherwise empty couch.*
*He waits.*
*And waits.*
*When he wakes up, it still feels like someone is missing.*