The Weatherman's Journal

Back to The Weatherman.

The first book of the Weatherman's journal, corresponding to the events of Season 3. Primarily entries in Ernest’s diary, with the occasional scene, letter, or dream sequence.

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

## Not So Secret Identity

*Character Generation: Never Have I Ever*

*September 15, 2019*
Ernest sits on the couch, headphones off for once, trying to accustom himself to the noises of Halcyon City. The cars whizzing by on the street below send lime green threads pinging across his vision, and each horn adds a splash of fuchsia to the mix. It’s distracting enough that he could lose sense of the living room in front of him if he doesn’t focus.
Focus, that’s right. He’s trying to focus. He hefts a small rubber ball and tosses it at the wall, which it hits with a soft thud and a shower of indigo sparks. It rebounds off the floor, setting off a flash of yellow before slapping back into his hand with a magenta fuzz. He bounces it again - indigo, yellow, magenta - concentrating on the sounds within this room alone and ignoring the tapestry of street noise clouding his vision.
He knows that it doesn’t need to be this overwhelming. New York City hadn’t exactly been quiet either, and the ambient noises there never bothered him. In the same way that a few minutes after putting on a shirt he stopped noticing the texture of the fabric against his skin, the silver spirals of subway cars and chartreuse screech of taxi brakes had dissolved into the background, subtly present but not demanding his attention. He’d always taken it for granted until they moved.
Despite both being bustling cities, Halcyon sounds different enough from New York for him to notice, constantly. The streets were smoother – probably because of how often they had to be replaced – which shifted the hue of tires rolling across their surface. The traffic lights followed an entirely different pattern than the one he was familiar with, triggering a symphony of car horns when they changed.
He would probably adjust over time, but in the short term it was so much easier to pull on a pair of headphones and let the noise cancelling filter for him. In the long term though, it would be nice if he could cross the street without needing to plug his ears. That’s why he’s practicing now. Just center on the bounce of the ball - indigo, yellow, magenta - and let everything else slip away.
“Hey Ern, I’m home!” Timothy’s piercing sky blue voice cuts through the collage and Ernest stills the bouncing ball with a small grin.
Ernest waits until Timothy makes his way from the front door to the living room, angling himself to face his brother’s direction. Timothy might claim he doesn't need it, but Ernest can tell that being able to read lips helps him understand better these days. “So how did auditions go?”
“They went great!” Timothy says, dumping his backpack on the floor. “With the way things are going I think I’ve got a real shot at the leading role.” He’s sporting a mischievous grin that lets Ernest know he’s not actually quite that overconfident.
Ernest snorts, only partially willing to play along. “I hate to burst your bubble, but you know one of the seniors will get that part, not a sophomore, no matter how much you dazzled them.”
Timothy’s smile widens by a fraction. “So you’re saying that you’ve got a better shot at it than me?”
Ernest tilts his head to the side considering. “I could give you a run for your money in terms of singing, but you’ve got the edge in acting,” he admits. “But you know what I mean, they’re gonna give the part to someone who’s been here for years already.”
“I suppose I’ll have to make do with a supporting role then,” Timothy sighs dramatically before flopping down onto the couch. “How about you, how’s everything going on your end?”
“Fine.” Ernest shrugs. Having to start senior year over again at a brand new school wasn't ideal, but he certainly preferred it to last year’s nightmare. It might take time, but he'd adapt.
“Just ‘fine?’ Are you sure?” Timothy raises an eyebrow, clearly finding his answer lacking.
“Yeah, I guess.” Timothy’s fishing for something, but Ernest can’t figure out what he wants. They’ve talked about his synesthesia before, and dealing with it is hardly a new problem.
Timothy gives him another moment to respond as he pulls up something on his phone. With a final glance in Ernest’s direction, he rolls his eyes and reveals the screen. “So…. when were you planning on telling me that you’re a superhero?”
The video that plays is blurry and shaky, apparently a recording from someone’s phone, but it’s clear enough for Ernest to recognize the sign for the nursing home across the street. A few seconds later, the sky darkens and he sees himself in his Weatherman hero gear float into the air, crackling with electricity.
“Oh, right. That.” He hadn’t meant to keep the hero thing a secret from Timothy. Some heroes tried to hide their identities, but his powers were hardly a secret. It wouldn’t take a genius to draw the line connecting ‘new student with weather powers’ and ‘new hero with weather powers,’ so he hadn’t even bothered to hide his face. He just hadn’t finished thinking it all through, and there was never a great opportunity to bring it up at home.
“So, you’re part of that hero team now?” Timothy asks.
“The Big Team? Yeah, Seth invited us after the robots.” Ernest can see that Timothy is about to burst with curiosity, so he caves and describes the two fights from last week. He tries to leave out his more embarrassing mistakes, although for all he knows there are more videos documenting those. Timothy soaks up the information, asking questions here and there but mostly letting Ernest direct the story.
After the tale concludes, the two of them sit quietly for a few moments. Timothy had seemed excited to learn about the Weatherman’s adventures, but his expression grows serious as he says, “Please tell me that you’re not becoming a superhero just because mom thinks it’s a good idea.”
“No, I wouldn’t have accepted the offer to join the Big Team if I wasn’t interested in trying it out for myself. I just… want to help people with my powers, instead of hurting them.” He’s unable to keep looking directly at Timothy as he finishes the sentence.
From the corner of his eye, he sees Timothy nod. “Okay. Well, you know you can talk things over with me if you need to, right? I may not have superpowers, but I’ll always have your back.”
“Yeah. Thanks for that,” Ernest says with a small smile.
As Timothy heads to his room to study, Ernest returns to bouncing the ball against the wall. Indigo, yellow, magenta. Forget the bus shuddering to a stop and the people spilling out. Forget the clatter of feet on the sidewalk. Forget the lightning simmering under his skin, prickling for release.
Just focus in on this moment. Indigo. Yellow. Magenta.

## Memento Mori

*S3E99: Midnight Train to Halcyon*

*(cw: musings about death)*

September 16, 2019
Dear Diary,
That’s how you’re supposed to start these things, right? I dunno, might not keep that bit. It feels weird addressing a book like it’s gonna be able to read what I’m writing. I’d rather just think of it as a conversation with myself. Like maybe I’ll go back and look through them someday.
So yeah, some of the Big Team members suggested keeping a journal and I guess I’ll give it a try. Might be a good way to keep track of my progress on controlling my powers. And clear out the thoughts when they get all tangled up in my head. Probably more productive than summoning hailstorms into dumpsters when I’m frustrated, anyway.
Last night I had my first official Big Team mission! Got called in by Godspeed and everything instead of just bumping into trouble like the last couple of times. It was pretty late at night but mom didn’t make too much of a fuss about me going. I mean, the superhero thing was kind of her idea originally, so I think she wants to be supportive about it. Plus we both know I could just sneak out if I really wanted to, although I’ve been trying to avoid doing that since we moved.
Carmilla, Grim, and I were supposed to help the Silencer prevent some magic thing from being stolen, but then it turned out that who we thought was ’Silencer’ was actually the thief in the first place. If anything we helped them steal the magic thing, which turned out to be something Rescue’s dad was trying to sell and also ~~Atlas~~ ~~Altus~~ this angry guy’s family heirloom so... we pretty much failed on that end. In between the getting the mission and failing was kind of a wild ride though, and not just because we were on a magical train.
I saw a dead body for the first time.
Okay so that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but that’s what it felt like. I mean, yeah, I’ve been to funerals before but that’s not the same as seeing the body of someone who just died. Well. It also turned out that the body wasn’t even actually dead but in some kind of weird headless magical stasis thing, but I didn’t know that at the time, so I freaked out a little bit. Carmilla said that it’s natural to be afraid of death, but Carmilla is also technically dead herself, because of the whole vampire thing I guess, which is pretty unnatural. And someone did end up dying, just not the person we originally thought? The magic made everything confusing.
Speaking of magic, the witching hour was something else. It made my powers get way out of hand, even more than usual. Like, I’m fairly certain I can’t vaporize train cars on my own. Although I’m not really sure why that happened? My powers aren’t really magic, at least not the casting spells type of magic the other people on train were using, since the witching hour affected them completely differently. The witching hour also might have reversed my synesthesia for a moment?? While I was using my powers, I saw some kind of color, a really strange one, and I think I made the sound that should have been the color???
*[several highlighter and colored pen marks follow]*
I can’t seem to figure out what color it was though. Maybe it only exists in that magic space. Not that I want to replicate that particular effect any time soon, given that it made the whole situation worse.
If I’m being honest, I feel kinda bad for ~~Killith~~ ~~Killeth~~ the old fateweaver dude. I mean, clearly he’s the bad guy here and just because it’s really sad doesn’t mean he gets to kill a guy. Just…there were a few days after I struck Timothy with lightning when we weren’t sure if he was going to make it and at that point, I would have done almost anything to get him back. I mean, not to the extent of killing someone, but stealing some cursed magical artifact? That would probably make the cut.
From what angry guy told us, it wouldn’t have really worked anyway. Makes me wonder what the thief is planning to use it for. Bet we haven’t heard the last of it yet.
-Ernest

## Phantoms and Fanfare

*S3E101: Music of the Night*

September 21, 2019
Hey there, whoever ends up reading this,
This Big Team mission went a lot better than the first! Even if a few buildings were destroyed, we saved the people inside them, which is the important part. And only one of the destroyed buildings was my fault.
Dealing with the fire at the first building went really well. Maybe if the whole hero thing doesn’t work out, I can be a firefighter. I’d definitely need to get the lightning under control for that to work, though. No one wants a firefighter who sets more stuff on fire while putting one.
We also met another vampire? I thought he seemed alright at first, if a little bit aggressive for someone who was trying to do the same thing as we were. But later Carmilla said that most other vampires aren’t like her, and shouldn’t be trusted, so I guess I’ll keep a closer eye out from now on. Timothy’s started calling the other vampire “The Phantom,” which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Last time I checked, the Phantom of the Opera was just a guy in a costume and not a vampire or anything. But Timothy won’t let little things like accuracy or logic get in the way of making musical theater references, so I bet it’ll stick.
The second building… probably could have gone better. Like I said, we got everyone out, but I also kinda caused it to get also laser-ed all over. At least Christopher Crossover didn’t seem too mad about it. If anyone else is, I hope they blame the people who sent the laser drones and not me.
I looked up Crossover after I got home, since everyone else seemed to know about him. Turns out he was a big time hero in Halcyon until a year or so ago when he lost his powers. And after that he started the Big Team and now he’s helping out a bunch of kids who were experimented on so it seems like he’s doing pretty good even without his powers.
It’s funny, if you offered me a way to get rid of my powers a couple years ago, I would have said yes in a heartbeat. I mean, all I was doing with them at that point was trying to make sure they never went haywire. After I hurt Timothy… clearly I wasn’t a big fan, so I might have accepted the offer. Although if dad brought the idea up I would have fought it every step of the way because fuck that. Now though, I’m pretty sure I’d say no because I actually want to keep them. Even if I can’t fully control them yet, I’ve done a bunch of useful stuff with them, stuff that not just anyone can do. I don’t want to give that up anymore.
Crossover’s right though, I’m definitely not ready to start taking on supervillains on my own or anything. I’m pretty sure that apartment building would have completely collapsed without Carmilla and Grim holding it all together, even after Boreas blocked some of the lasers.
Speaking of Boreas, it was great to team up with him! Grim, Carmilla, and me are all new to the hero thing, which isn’t to say we don’t make a good team, just that we don’t have a whole lot of experience. So it was nice for Boreas to take the lead and strategize about how to tackle the problem. He was also totally on board for singing along when I asked him, which I’m grateful for because I really needed something to wind down after the fight. Plus his suit is super cool. I remember hearing around school that he works with some kind of research organization, maybe I could ask him to introduce me sometime.
-Ernest

## Paralyzed

*S3E103: On the Nickel*

*He can’t move.*
*Leap Year is lying on the ground in front of him, caught in the grasp of a pair of zombies. He’s supposed to do something. He’s supposed to be a hero.*
*He can’t move.*
*The air crackles with electricity. He has to take hold of it, wield it as a weapon, stop the things that are hurting his teammate. He has to do something.*
*He can’t. If he misses, or doesn’t judge the power, he’ll hit Seb too. He can’t risk that.*
*There’s no time, but his feet are fixed to the ground, and he can’t hold back the storm for much longer.*
*Seb is shouting something now, but he can’t make out the words over the humming in his ears, in his head, in the air.*
*Something slips.*
*Lightning explodes outward, frying the air in a dome around him, and he can’t move, can’t shut his eyes or block his ears against the piercing blue screams.*
Ernest jolts awake, scrambling from his bed, white flashes sparking from his fingertips. The room is silent except for the lime green rasps of his labored breaths.
A low roll of periwinkle thunder growls in the distance.
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September 25, 2019
Yesterday’s mission was a success, I guess. Not the way Godspeed would have wanted it, but we accomplished what we wanted.
Doesn’t mean it feels great. Seb said he wasn’t worried about me hurting him, but I don’t think he knows how badly it could have gone.
Having those nightmares again.
Too tired explain everything that happened yesterday. I don’t think writing is really helping.
I’ll do better next time.
-Ernest

## Self-Taught Skills

*S3E104: Good Girl Gone Bad*

September 28, 2019
Hi again, mystery reader and/or my older self looking back through these on a future date,
A whole lot has been happening on the superhero side of things - blackmail, people going missing, apparently a team of villains that are out to get us. I think some of the Big Team members are planning to meet up this weekend so we can catch each other up on what we know. Which will be helpful for me, since it sounds like some of the villains we’re dealing with have major grudges against the Big Team, but I didn’t pay any attention to Halcyon news back when we lived in New York so I have no idea who half of them are.
Yesterday’s mission came from Principal Crossover, of all people. She’s kinda intense. Let’s just say I probably wouldn’t have skipped class so much last year if I thought Principal Winchell would send a group of superheroes to track me down.
Star-Studded did turn out to be in worse trouble than just not coming to school though, so I guess she was right about that. It sounds like Kieran went full-on villain, although he ended up fighting the people who went to check out the old Big Team base, not our group. I doubt we’ll see him at school for a while. The rest of them seemed like they were being manipulated by this shadow lady that Big Team has fought before, so I hope they’re alright. Although Rocky seemed pretty eager to bash my head in when he had the chance, and I don’t think he was being shadow puppet-ed at the time. He might find some rain clouds following him around the next time he shows up for class.
This mission definitely made me realize I’ve got to start practicing with my powers, though, not just expecting every new thing I try to work out the way that I want. Being able to launch myself a few stories up with a gust of wind does not translate to drifting gracefully down an elevator shaft, apparently. I practiced lifting myself up and down the fire escape, which resulted in a couple close calls that no one needs to hear about, although the bruises might stick around for a week. I had to stop after about an hour because my motion sickness started to kick in, but I think I’ve got a better handle on it now. I’m not going to be floating down the street like Grim any time soon, but if really need to be somewhere, I should be able to get there.
I still wanted to get some more practice in with my powers, so I checked out that abandoned building where we found the computer. There’s still a massive crater, but it definitely would have been worse if Rescue and Mini hadn’t contained the explosion. I wasn’t any help then - so far most of my “protecting” has been in the form of destroying whatever the danger is, but that only works when the danger is actually destroy-able.
Rescue and Mini used terrifying spirit things which I have absolutely no desire to use myself, but watching them hold back all that force gave me an idea. I tried summoning a field of wind around the building, which seemed to work pretty well. I mean, there wasn’t actually anything attacking it at the time, but birds didn’t want to fly anywhere near it, so that’s something.
~~Then I accidentally threw a dumpster into a car~~ I realized a little bit late that the wind had started to push a dumpster into the parking lot, so I had to reverse the direction of the wind to stop it. It did hit one of the parked cars, but I slowed it down enough that it only left a little dent. Who parks their car outside of an abandoned warehouse anyway? The car was probably abandoned too. I’m sure it’s fine.
I know I’m probably supposed to use the Danger Room for practicing my powers like this, but I’m not about to go back there if it means getting yelled at by Godspeed again. He probably wouldn’t have been happy about the whole ‘summoning lightning through several stories of a building to create an escape route’ thing, but he seemed pretty busy with what happened at the old Big Team Base, so I didn’t bother mentioning it. In my defense, the entire building was about to explode before Mini did her thing, so I wasn’t really concerned with keeping it intact.
It would be great if I never needed to use my powers to protect people from huge threats, but the way things are looking, I’d rather be prepared.
-Ernest

## Internet of Things

*S3E108: From TB to MB!!*

October 5, 2019
Well, notebook, you don’t have to worry about being replaced with a digital version anytime soon. Because apparently the internet is made of people?? I’m not talking about the people who use the internet, the data making up the internet seems to take the form of sentient creatures and some of them do not like humans. The last thing I need is for them to be able to read this somehow.
But to the person reading this good old fashioned pen and paper diary, that means you’re probably not a digital being who wants to throw me in a dungeon for hundreds of years. Congrats!
Weird things about being turned into data: I guess however the digitization process works, it doesn’t quite replicate exactly who you are in the real world. None of us had our powers, and I didn’t have my synesthesia either. Honestly, if we hadn’t been trying to save GAIA, getting a break from my powers would have been nice. Sometimes you just need a good cry without having to worry about flooding the city streets at the same time.
Not having synesthesia was much weirder. Since I only got my powers a few years ago, I know what not having them felt like, but I’ve had synesthesia since I was born, or at least as long as I can remember. I figured out that most people don’t see the same things I do, but it’s hard to imagine what that would feel like. Without it, everything seemed a little bit distant, like hearing movie from another room instead of watching it - although maybe part of that was because of the difference between the data world and the real world, I don’t know.
Upside of being turned into data: we get to have cool transformations sometimes? Boreas turned into a bird man, and Mithril turned into a giant metal wolf. I got these fancy butterfly wings, flying with them was so much easier than keeping myself in the air with gusts of wind.
*[in the margin, there is a rough sketch of a technicolor butterfly wing]*
I had some sort of powers while in that form, but completely different than my weather powers. My wings let me concentrate light into particular places, and when I shouted, I sent out these sonic blasts. The blasts were colored, and for a moment I thought my butterfly form brought my synesthesia back, but I couldn’t see any other sounds. Besides, with my synesthesia I don’t actually see where sound is in the air, the shapes and colors just appear in front of me no matter what direction the noise is coming from.
Definite downsides of the data world: some of the people living there really dislike humans, and immediately threw us in a dungeon even though we said we were trying to help. Our plans for getting out of the dungeon were... not the smartest, if I’m honest. Note to self: before asking one of your teammates to punch you, consider the fact that many of them have been training extensively to punch villains, so it will probably hurt. A lot. Boreas eventually realized that the bars were wide enough apart that we could slip through. It took us longer than it should have for us to figure that out (and made the getting-punched plan even worse in retrospect), but at least we hadn’t been there for days without noticing like the doctor.
We had to run away from a lot of stuff in the data world. Creepy tree things, giant knights, a scary rose lady. Just thinking about it makes me tired, even though I don’t think my physical body got any exercise from all that. The only thing we actually managed to defeat was the corrupted monster attacking GAIA, which was good because it meant we got to go home.
When we got back, 30 hours had passed in the real world, even though it just felt like a few hours to us. Boreas had warned us that would happen, so it wasn’t a complete surprise, but it was still pretty unnerving. Mom and Timothy were understandably concerned, especially since Godspeed couldn’t explain what was happening, but I told them everything was fine. I mean, at least I didn’t go missing for months like the doctor.
It did make me worried about what could have happened if I got stuck there for a long time. You know how in those sci fi movies, when the astronauts go really fast and because of physics or whatever when they come back their kids are older than them? If I stayed long enough, Timothy would go from being my younger brother to being my older brother, which would be a fundamental upset in the order of the universe.
Anyway, between training with Godspeed going badly and getting sucked into the internet, I think I’m going to avoid the Danger Room for a while.
-Ernest

## Graphing Gambite

*Hangout: Previously on Big Team...*

October 6, 2019
Hey, what do you know, it’s me again,
So you know how I said I was going to try and avoid the Danger Room? That didn’t last long at all.
GAIA organized a meeting for us to talk over what we’d figured out about Gambite so far. There were a whole bunch of people there, some I haven’t done any missions with yet, and I think someone who just joined the team? Guess it’s nice to not be one of the newest members anymore, although I hope they don’t expect me to start teaching other people how to be superheroes right away.
There was a lot of explaining to do but luckily GAIA had this chart thing for us to work on, which helped a bit with organizing. It was pretty fun to use, which made going back to the Danger Room worth it. It ended up like one of those conspiracy boards with all the thumbtacks and string, crossed with those neat holographic displays they put in movie spaceships.
There’s definitely a lot of stuff we still need to figure out about Gambite. We know that they’re bad, and who a few of the members are, but we have no clue what they really want. We made a few plans to get some more information, although I’m still figuring how I’ll be able to help with them. They know I’m part of the Big Team by now, so I don’t think I’d be able to pretend to join them to infiltrate them. Carmilla offered to say she turned evil and hated the Big Team, but I definitely wouldn’t have the acting skills to pull something like that off. Or maybe one of the brand new members Gambite hasn’t seen in action could try? We also want to find out more from Bella, who’s still in a coma. I’m guessing that’s gonna be more up Grim’s alley, what with her telepathy and all. GAIA did also mention someone named Atlanta, who might be involved in recruiting for Gambite at Big High. I looked her up in the school directory, and she’s a sophomore, so I might ask Timothy to keep an eye out for her.
Whatever happens next, the one thing that can’t hurt is… more training. Gotta get back to that now, I’ll catch you up later.
-Ernest

## Letter to Carmilla

*S3E112: Dead Man's Switch Statement*

October 11, 2019
Hey Carmilla,
I know getting a written letter in 2019 is probably a little weird, but I wanted to make sure I got all these thoughts down before I forgot. I’d normally send this kind of thing by email, but I recently learned about a certain scary rose lady who lives in the internet (is part of the internet?) and hates humans, so I’m being a little cautious about putting deepest darkest secrets and whatnot online. (I’m kind of assuming her dislike of humans extends to vampires here, since it seemed to be more of “I blame people from the real world for what is happening to the digital world” thing, not like, human beings in particular. But I’m getting off track.)
Sorry I left so soon after that fight at the police station - my mom got a flat tire and needed an emergency substitute for dog sitting, and things seemed relatively under control, so I decided to fill in. Since I booked it out of there, I didn’t get a chance to say how much I appreciated that you had my back during the fight. There’s no way I would have been able to stop that old crow lady on my own, but together we managed to capture her!
I know that you’re worried about hurting someone again, but I hope that you stay with the team. I think I’ve mentioned before that I hurt my brother pretty bad about a year ago when I lost control of my powers, but I don’t really talk that much about what I did afterwards. Mostly because it’s kind of embarrassing. I still didn’t know how to control my powers, and I was afraid of hurting someone again, so I tried to just not be around people very much. Skipped a lot of school, ran away from home a few times. But it didn’t really make the situation any better, and it freaked out a lot of people who cared about me.
I’ve only known you for a little while, but I’d really miss you if you decided to hibernate for a few months. I think that if you stick around, we can figure out a way to help you. And now that we know to watch out for it, we can keep an eye out and make sure nothing too bad happens. I still worry about hurting people with my powers sometimes. I mean, today I had to concentrate so hard to keep my lightning storm from hitting any of the police officers, I wasn’t able to stop it from damaging the building, which ended up putting a lot of people in danger. But you were there to get everyone out before it collapsed, so things turned out okay. I definitely wouldn’t be able to use my powers half as effectively if it wasn’t for you and the rest of the team. If we look out for each other, we can get through so much more together than on our own. So if there’s anything else I can do to help, just let me know and I’ll be there.
See you around,
Ernest

## Terminal Velocity

*S3E113: The First Hundred Days*

October 16, 2019
[the first half of the page is covered in tangled mess of pen scribbles]
I messed up.
I should have known better than to not wear my headphones in that big of a crowd. Jawbreaker’s dresses were fun and all but I should have just kept my helmet even if it didn’t match the aesthetic. There was too much noise and I couldn’t focus and when I tried to protect Seb from the crowd I ended up hurting him and a bunch of other people.
I should have been able to do it right. I’ve been practicing using my wind powers a bunch. I mean, I was able to give Jackal a boost when she asked for one right after. I’m not sure why she trusted me to do that right after I messed up but at least I didn’t let her down.
I don’t think anyone was really badly injured. I don’t know what I would do if that happened again.
-Ernest
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*October 17, 2019*
*3:14 AM*
The glow of Ernest’s laptop illuminates his sleeping face resting on the desk next to the keyboard. The screen displays a chitter feed of the trending #HHTTW. Blurry pictures of aggressive aliens and mayoral championship belts dominate the posts, with a few images of rubble and bruises scattered throughout. Across the bottom of the screen, half a dozen DMs are open. Each contains a single sent message:
i’m sorry
*The roar of wind sends dull shapes tumbling across his vision, spinning so fast that he can’t tell which are physical objects and which exist only to his eyes. He covers his ears, but that just adds the burnt orange pulse of his heartbeat over the rest of the noise.*
*The vortex swirls faster around him, fueled by fear and confusion. He needs to calm down, but that’s easier thought than done.*
*He closes his eyes, ignoring the smears of color that continue to fly by beneath his eyelids. A slow breath in, even slower on the way out. Dust scrapes against his throat, but he refuses to cough. With each inhale, the wind falters and eventually quiets altogether.*
*His vision finally clears, revealing the wreckage strewn around him. Overturned chairs, the splintered half of a dining table. The pieces of the building should hardly be recognizable, but he knows where he is.*
*Home.*
*Only... his confidence in that knowledge wavers. The room is nothing like those in their apartment in Halcyon. It seems closer to their old home in New York. But how could he be back there?*
*The realization that he is dreaming settles slowly into his mind. The wind picks up again as panic rises in him, because he knows what happens next, knows he won’t be able to block out the sound of screaming —*
“Ern! Hey, wake up!” The sky blue voice is barely above a whisper, but it’s enough to pull Ernest back to full conciousness.
He rubs his eyes and turns to face his brother, standing in the doorway of his room. Perfectly safe.
“You were kind of muttering stuff. Nightmares again?” Timothy asks.
He nods, because it’s easier than speaking when it feels like the world might fall out from underneath him at any second.
“Ernest, you know that I’m okay now. And I know that you’re not going to hurt me.“ Timothy says firmly.
Ernest is reminded of when he couldn’t always believe those words, when reality felt like another dream to be ripped away from him. It isn’t as bad anymore. He can handle this.
“Thanks, Tim,” he says with a strained smile. “Don’t you have a test tomorrow? You should get some sleep.”
“Alright, Mom.” Timothy rolls his eyes, but his expression is more relieved than annoyed. “You get some rest too, okay?”
“I’ll try.”

## Book Fair 2: Electric Boogaloo

*S3E115: Falling Empires*

October 21, 2019
Hey you there in the future, or also possibly the past because there’s enough time weirdness in Halcyon for this notebook to plausibly end up back in time somehow,
Ended up dealing with some kind of supervillain plot during school today. Aman noticed that Kurt had been missing, and we decided to try to look for him, which turned out to be way more complicated than we thought. I mean, I knew that he’d been involved in some shady stuff before, but I didn’t think that would mean we’d have to fight him merged with his evil adult self and miss most of class due to time shenanigans.
We had to run around a bunch looking for Kurt but kept losing his trail, and when we found him the first time we all got blasted back in time and had to find him again. But Gwen showed me how to do a really cool thing! She turned her weapon into a lightning rod and I hit it and it went exactly where we wanted! It also made Kurt smash through a few walls so it might have been more than necessary but that was also before we realized teen Kurt was in there too. But that trick worked really well again when Boon threw a bunch of quarters at Kurt and I electrified them and even though Kurt was holding Aman it didn’t come close to hitting Aman at all! I’ve gotta keep that trick in mind next time I need to direct lightning precisely. Unfortunately we weren’t able to catch Kurt or figure out exactly what he was up to. Evil future Kurt got pulled back into the future, but teen Kurt disappeared as well and we still don’t know where he went.
We ended up getting detention (well, except for Gwen since she’s graduated already) because time got really messed up and made us miss most of class, so there goes my goal of avoiding it this year. At least this time I was doing something important instead of class, although not in a way that would actually make it an excused absence. Mom was a little skeptical when I told her it was because of hero stuff, but I could tell she’s trying to give me the benefit of the doubt. On one hand, being a superhero feels way more exciting and important than sitting in class, but on the other I really want to be done with high school forever after this year, so I don’t want to make ditching a habit again.
I wonder what happened to those other-selves that we ran into when we got sent back in time. I don’t remember seeing other-selves when we went to the book fair the first time (the same time?) so I guess we didn’t change that past? Maybe they were from a different timeline or something? Space and time were both kinda folded over themselves so maybe we got all tangled up with another dimension. It’s also possible that we created some kind of horrible paradox that’s eating away at the fabric of space-time as I write this. So if getting detention because we skipped a bunch of time is the worst thing that happens because of all this, I’ll take it.
Alternate-timeline Ernest, if you’re out there somewhere, I hope you’re doing alright.
-This timeline’s Ernest

## Letter to Teresa

*Time Passes*

*Ernest’s phone is open to a text conversation. The contact name is a series of emojis. The last sent message is dated months ago.*

< Messages
                         ❤️ ⭐️ 🔥
               *(Fri, July 12, 1:03 AM)*
                          **you know that super**                          **lopsided ginkgo tree?**
I’ll be there in 10
                                                          💜
❤️
               *(Tues, Jul 16, 9:29 PM)*
Hey remember where our firstwildstyle piece went up?
                                                  **gotcha**
❤️
                                                          💜
               *(Wed, Jul 17, 1:12 AM)*
                        **okay the fire trucks did**                        **show up eventually**
                           **so i think we’re good**
We are never doing that again
                            **i mean yeah but also**
                **we said that the last 7 times**
Okay fair point
                                                          💜
❤️
               *(Sat, Jul 20, 12:42 AM)*
                   **i think we could still make**                        **it to that open mic night**
Race you there
                                  **you’re way closer**
Giving up already?
                                            **okay it’s on**
🔥
                                                          🌪
               *(Tues, Jul 23, 3:05 AM)*
Wanna hit up that 24hrnoodle place?
Oh are you actually gettingsome sleep for once?
That’s a good idea tbh
I should give it a try
               *(Thurs, Jul 25, 6:19 PM)*
It’s your birthday next week,right?
We should do somethingto celebrate
It’s been forever sincewe made trash fire smores 🔥
Unless you wanna tryfor cloudsicles again
But ngl that one waskind of a disastereven by our standards
               *(Fri, Jul 26, 4:58 PM)*
Hey are you okay?
You’re kind of scaring me, Ern
               *(Sat, Jul 27, 9:27 AM)*
Tim says you guys movedto Halcyon?
What the fuck, Ern?
Why didn’t you tell me?
                     **i didn’t know what to say**
Literally anything wouldhave been better than nothing
You don’t just move acrossthe entire state withoutletting people know
                  **it all happened kind of fast**
             **we didn’t know that far ahead**
We met up a day anda half before you moved
I refuse to believeyou didn’t know then
               *(Thu, Aug 1, 10:32 AM)*
Hope your birthdayis fucking peachy

*The conversation contains a typed, but unsent message:*
                                                    **i’m sorry**
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
October 22, 2019
Dear Teresa,
I’m really sorry. I’ve probably typed that a thousand times into my phone but haven’t been able to hit send. So instead I’m writing this in pen, because then I can’t just delete everything when I start feeling guilty again. I know it’s been forever and maybe you don’t care anymore, but I’ve been trying to actually deal with my problems instead of just running away from them.
I should have told you that we were moving. I was ready for a new start in Halcyon and I didn’t want to think about what I’d have to leave behind. I couldn’t figure out how to say goodbye, so I just didn’t. For some reason I thought that if the last time we saw each other was the same as always, then it wouldn’t really be over. But that was selfish and unfair and messed up everything way worse than if I had just said something. If you can’t forgive me for that, I get it.
Things have been going alright in Halcyon. I don’t know whether Tim told you, but our dad didn’t move with us, so things at home have been a lot calmer. I’m doing senior year over again, but I’m actually going to try and finish this time.
How is everything back in New York? Did you end up deciding to finish community college or transfer to that art school? Whichever you picked, I hope you’re doing alright. I know that we can’t go back to the way we were, but maybe we can at least keep in touch?
Miss you,
Ernest
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
*Ernest’s phone vibrates, the screen lighting up with a received message.*

< Messages
                         ❤️ ⭐️ 🔥
               *(Fri, Oct 25, 6:48 PM)*
🖕🏽

## Dance Dance Retribution

*S3E116: Saturday Night’s All Right for Fighting*

October 26, 2019
Hey there and all that, you know the drill by now,
Okay so, today was a lot and I’m still waiting for my brain to stop throwing patches of multicolored static tinnitus hell at me every few minutes so I might as well write about what happened.
It started when I convinced Grim, Aman, and Melody to come with me to that arcade with all the DDR machines on Terrorgate Street, which was nice of them since I don’t think any of them are particularly into DDR like I am. I was planning to just have some fun and get the others playing, but apparently I starting doing well enough to attract the attention of this guy AJ who claimed to be the “reigning champion of DDR” or whatever and he challenged me to a dance off. I don’t usually do that much competitive DDR, but a whole crowd was gathering and I had kinda told the other Big Team members that I was pretty good, so I didn’t want to back down.
The competition itself actually went really well! We seemed pretty evenly matched (although it turned out AJ might have been cheating, possibly?), until the crowd called for PARANOiA MAX and he started looking nervous. For my part, I was excited for all the hours I’d spent practicing that song in middle school to finally pay off. It was pretty exhilarating - I’ve been avoiding the hardest songs since my powers showed up because I was worried about shorting out the machines, so I haven’t really challenged myself like that in a while. But I aced it and my powers didn’t give me any trouble at all! Oh, and I did it with my eyes closed, which probably looked like showing off, but you need to memorize the steps for songs that go that fast anyway, and it’s easier for me to concentrate when I’m not distracted by the colors from my synesthesia clashing with what’s on the screen. Anyway, that was definitely the highlight of the day. Everything got more confusing and painful after that.
So apparently after I won, AJ was threatened by a bunch of people and ran off to look for his brother, which I missed because I was kind of getting mobbed by the crowd (and also possibly all of those people other than AJ were fake?? more on that later). Melody eventually clued me in that we should help look for AJ’s ‘brother,’ and I said I could fly up and look around for him. Only as soon as we opened the front door, the arcade got disconnected from the rest of reality.
For a second I was a relieved because my flying still needs work and I didn’t want to mess that up in front of Melody. After that second I was definitely panicking because the arcade was floating in empty space and we were definitely trapped inside. I also heard this chime that seemed kind of familiar, but I couldn’t really place it until just now, when I was trying to remember what color it was and realized wasn’t any real color. I saw something like it once before, back on that magic train that I accidentally vaporized when I summoned a storm during the witching hour. Which lines up with what Samantha told us about us being sealed in a magic reality marble, so I guess magic just has its own set of colors. But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.
After the arcade was sealed off, this dude in a luchadore mask appeared on all the machines started talking about a battle royale. I thought he meant we were gonna play some fighting game on the machines, but then all of a sudden everyone started punching each other in real life. Me and Jackal were able to keep people from landing too many hits, but we couldn’t convince them to stop fighting. They completely ignored her status as Co-Mayor of Halcyon Wrestling, which was just rude. Eventually Herald made the whole room spin to get everyone off balance, and that worked pretty well. I’m glad I was focusing so much on keeping my wind blasts under control, or I definitely would have been one of the people who needed to sit down for a few minutes and let the nausea pass.
That’s when we talked to Samantha and she told us about the reality marble and that we should probably try and find out who was using it, but no she wouldn’t help us because something something Consortium something something black magic. So I think I’m caught up now in terms of getting things in order.
We went downstairs, which turned into this cool spiral staircase and gave us the idea to go to an escape room later which will hopefully be more fun than what was waiting for us at the bottom. We ended up in this Colosseum and all got split up to fight against the people who had done well back in the arcade brawl. I was facing off against a guy with a bunch of fighting analysis tech and another guy who could actually properly fly. I had some trouble at first, and I was wishing I had a teammate to back me up, so… I made one?
I’ve been practicing wrapping lightning around myself, because it doesn’t hurt me and it’s a little easier to control when it’s close to my body than just shooting through the air. I figured it might be useful as a shield, or just to add something extra to a punch. But this time, instead of keeping the lightning around me, I stepped out of it and left a me-shaped lightning shell behind.
Part of the trouble I’ve had with controlling my powers is because the way a storm moves is super complicated. I can usually get one started if I want, but moving it around and getting it to stop are way harder. I try to direct them, but it feels like pulling on puppet strings that are tangled up in a knot. There are so many levels of pressure and humidity that everything spirals into chaos. On the other hand, I’ve been moving my own body around for about 18 years, so I know how that works pretty well.
I sent lightning-me after the analysis guy, who was completely caught off guard. I got grabbed by the flying guy though, and he dropped me off the pillar we had been fighting on. Directing wind to catch myself when I’m falling through the air and catch tell which way is up is not a trick I’ve figured out yet, so I thought I was in for a rough landing. Luckily Grim had finished up with her fight, so she was able to catch me and we defeated the flying guy together.
Looking back, I may have gone a little overboard with the fight. I kinda got caught up in the video game tournament feel of everything and sort of forgot there were regular people on the other side. I mean, they were also trying to fight me, so it’s not like I attacked them completely unprovoked. But they were also just some guys who happened to get caught up in the whole reality marble thing, which wasn’t really their fault. I wish I had managed to fight the people actually responsible, but that went terribly.
As soon as we took out the flying guy, this angry fish lady showed up to fight us. She yelled about hating Big Team, although I don’t really know what her deal is because neither of us had ever seen her before. I assumed that she was a fish Transformed when I first saw her, but Herald said later that she looked like an ~~Aquolia~~ ~~Aqualonia~~ this kind of merperson that lives in Montreal? Which explains the whole fish thing I guess because last time I checked Montreal’s been underwater for decades?
She started attacking us with her Trident, which seemed to completely ignore my powers. I tried blocking it with a wind shield, but it went straight through and I would have gotten skewered if Grim hadn’t made me incorporeal at just the right second. Having a weapon pass straight through your body without actually touching you is a super freaky experience that I would not recommend, but at least it’s better than the alternative. The Trident even absorbed my lightning clone when I tried to have it punch her. I figured I’d need to get the Trident away from her to have a shot at actually fighting her, so I tried to just grab it.
That turned out to be a big mistake. As soon as I touched it, terrible noises started running through my mind. I managed to pull the Trident out of her hands, but had to drop it immediately after because of how bad it got. It was way worse than even the loudest concert I’ve been to, there were so many colors streaking past that I couldn’t see what was going on. I could hear a little bit past all the ringing in my head, but most of it was my teammates screaming and getting beaten up so that wasn’t great.
I’m not exactly sure what happened after that, but I guess someone popped the reality marble bubble and we ended up back in the basement of the arcade. Grim and Herald helped clear out my head most of the way, although I’ve still got some lingering after effects with my vision clouding over every so often. At least those moments are getting farther between, so it doesn’t seem like anything permanent.
Honestly, I shouldn’t be complaining because Jackal and Herald came out way worse than I did. While me and Grim were fighting the fish lady, they were fighting Bloodshot, the villain Aman had fought back at the Old Big Team Base. Jackal’s arm looked really bad and Herald passed out before we made it upstairs, so I don’t think it the fight went well. They went to get patched up at Jackal’s mentor’s place, so I hope they’re feeling alright now.
While the mess at the arcade was getting sorted out, AJ still couldn’t find his brother, so I tried to learn more about what happened. He said his brother had been to the Dataverse and came back with some kind of data manipulation powers and a group of people were threatening him to make him use them. Aman said later that he’d seen AJ’s brother hacking the DDR machines to give him a higher score. The Dataverse thing seemed believable to me, since I had a whole different set of powers there, and I could see someone keeping them when they came back. By the way, I can’t believe the doctor we saved is still trying to set up her virtual reality thing that connects to the Dataverse. Even after she was trapped in a dungeon for months! There’s no way that’s not going to turn out terribly for someone!
Sorry getting side tracked again. The Dataverse stuff might not have even actually happened, though, because when Grim checked AJ’s memories to find out more about his brother, she saw that his brother never really existed? And neither did the people who were threatening him?? They were all just a part of the reality marble mind trick to get us down to the fighting ring??? What the fuck, Gambite????
I really don’t understand what Gambite wanted out of this, but whatever it was I don’t think we stopped them getting it. I mean, I know that having a bunch of teens to fight each other has kind of been their thing, but implanting false memories in some random guy’s head just to get us into a fight so that... they could beat us up I guess??
I don’t know, I’m too tired to figure out what’s going on right now. I think I’ll just sleep the rest of this Trident-induced migraine off and hope that things make more sense in the morning.
-Ernest

## Potential Barrier

*S3E122: A Very SHILFtastic Halloween*

October 31, 2019
Hey whoever’s reading this,
You count as someone, right? Oops, it sounds rude when I say it like that. I mean, you definitely count as someone whenever you’re reading this, but I was trying to figure out if you count as someone right now, while I’m writing this. Because Seb said I should probably talk to someone about my nightmares and all, but I can’t think of anyone who’d want to hear about them, so you’re the best I’ve got for now.
Speaking of which, I told Seb about the nightmares I’ve been having about him. Well, not about him exactly. They’re the same kind of nightmares I used to get about hurting Timothy, so Seb isn’t always in them. But they started up again when I kept putting him in danger with my powers. I’m kind of relieved that I finally told him. It always feels like keeping a secret from someone when you dream about them but don’t tell them. I was worried he would think I’m crazy, but he seemed pretty sympathetic about the whole thing. I guess you can still be sympathetic to someone you think is crazy, though.
At least today’s mission went a lot better in terms of controlling my powers. I still destroyed a lot of stuff, but it was stuff we were trying to destroy and actually planned it out and everything. Plus Jackal and I saved Seb from getting munched on by an alien without putting him in more danger, so take that nightmares. I wish Hazard had trusted us enough to stick around during the fight, but they’re pretty new to the team so I can’t really blame them.
Seb’s probably right about talking with someone though. I mean, I did feel a lot better the first time I told Timothy, back when I started getting the nightmares. But I hate bringing up the fact that he’s in them all the time. I don’t want him to start feeling like they’re his fault or anything. I used to talk to Teresa about them sometimes but... yeah that’s not exactly an option anymore.
Any adult would probably think I was making it all up for attention or something. “Oh, you didn’t get hurt at all, but you’re the one having nightmares about it? Likely story.”
There’s probably some people on the Big Team that would listen, but everyone’s got enough going on with Gambite and all their own stuff, so I don’t want to bother anyone with stupid dream things. Whoever you are reading this is like, you’re like way off in the future or whatever, so I’m not worried about you judging me. And if you’re busy you can just stop reading so, whatever.
... Okay, yeah I feel like this doesn’t count as talking with someone. I don’t know. I’ll think about it, I guess. No promises.
-Ernest

## Thorns for Flowers

*S3E125: A Royal Knight Is Born!*

November 10, 2019
Hey there, abstract future someone that I communicate with through writing,
I had a bad feeling about that doctor’s virtual reality thing after what happened in the Dataverse last month. I figured someone might get hurt, but I didn’t expect it to be me, specifically. It’s a good thing that getting run through by a digital sword is a lot less fatal than getting stabbed with a real one. Still hurt like hell though.
So yeah, apparently after the doctor’s demo went south last week, the digital world started overlapping with real world Halcyon. Which means all those people from the digital world who hate humans can come attack them here now! And a bunch of the League of Heroes was captured on top of that!
The places where the digital world is bleeding through look all pixellated, which means those weird effects I’ve been seeing on the horizon weren’t just my synesthesia acting up. It happened to the library, and they weren’t letting anyone in, so I was going to find another place to work on math homework until Grim called us in for a mission. Gabumon had been captured, and needed rescuing. Standard hero stuff, right? It didn’t seem like it should be that difficult.
Once we got into the library, we got access to those cool data transformations again. I was just so excited about the chance to fly around with those butterfly wings again, I didn’t really think about the warning that we wouldn’t be able to transform back. Grim probably had the right idea in sticking with her regular form. I bet weather powers would have been way more useful in the fight.  The giant sparkly wings were fun for a while, but they make a really obvious target. I hope Faker and Atomica enjoyed their digital forms at least. Although I think Atomica also went through the whole getting-stabbed bit, so maybe just Faker then.
The whole rescue mission thing was going alright until that terrifying rose lady who threw us in a dungeon showed up again. I’m not even sure what happened since I went down so fast. At least we managed to save Gabumon and defeat the villain, I guess? I’m not even sure I should say “we” given that I didn’t help at all. Even Agumon and Gabumon managed to do more than I could, which is great for them, but heroes are usually supposed to do the rescuing, not have to be saved by the people they’re trying to help.
I’m not sure whether Faker didn’t believe me about how dangerous rose lady was, or if she thought that we were more powerful than we actually are because she was ready to charge right into that fight. Or maybe she is just that brave. I was terrified, but we’d just talked about not leaving the dangerous digital beings roaming around to hurt people, so I tried to stand my ground. And it more or less worked in the end, in that we prevented rose lady from attacking anyone else. I didn’t even get hurt that bad. I’ll be fine.
I wonder whether getting stabbed by a homicidal rose lady from the internet is an acceptable excuse for turning in your math homework late. With my luck, probably not.
-Ernest

## Notes and Knights

*S3E128: The Crimson Knight*

November 16, 2019
Hey there, mystery reader,
Turns out not all missions involving the data world have to be utterly terrifying experiences! Sometimes you actually manage to accomplish what you set out to do without getting curbstomped by a powerful rose lady. I’m just gonna go ahead and guess that having taken care of the rose lady previously played a big part in our success today.
Omnimon said that he managed to track down one of the Royal Knights, so we went looking and found a construction site completely covered in data and viruses. Gwen, Boon, and Manaline hadn’t been in the Dataverse before, so Wren showed them how the whole data transformation thing works. I wasn’t planning on using my transformation after what happened last time, but everyone else was trying it out and Boon said she wanted to see what mine looked like, so I decided to give it another try. And I’m glad I did, because it turned out fine! I shouldn’t have been so quick to give up on it after one bad mission.
We started getting attacked by dataeaters almost immediately after starting to explore the construction site. We were holding up okay at first, but more and more dataeaters kept pouring through a hole in the wall, until a massive swarming dataeater came through. I thought we might get completely overwhelmed, but that’s when Gallantmon showed up to help push back the tide with his giant shield.
Manaline highlighted the huge dataeater’s weak point, and Wren wanted to shoot it but couldn’t quite line up how he wanted. So I told him I had an idea for how to guide the shots to the right spot, and started singing. I was able to guide my sonic blasts much more precisely that way, compared to when I was just yelling. Together we managed to hit it right at the weak point!
Wren got thrown into a wall when the dataeater lashed out, but he just got back up and started singing along with me, which was amazing. I almost wished I still had my synesthesia in my data form, because I’m sure it would have looked spectacular. The dataeaters’ horrible metallic shrieking probably would have been extra terrible with synesthesia on top though, so maybe it’s best that I didn’t.
With both Gallantmon and Omnimon fighting by our side, we were able to defeat the dataeaters and stop the digital world from overlapping so badly with the real world at the construction site. We went back to the base and begged/persuaded/threatened Gallantmon to join the Big Team in finding a way to help both the digital world and the regular world instead of attacking humans. We kind of managed to say all the wrong things, but turns out he wasn’t interested in attacking humans anyway and just wanted to see how willing we were to help, so it worked out in the end.
Boon seemed to have a good time in her dataverse form, although it sounds like she’s having some problems around her regular world powers. I don’t really know how her powers work, and they seem completely different from mine, so I hope my advice was at least a little helpful.
Wren said that I should try using music to control my weather powers as well. I don’t know if I’d be confident enough to sing in front of everyone when I don’t have sonic powers, but it seems like a good idea. I already use music to psyche myself up and get my powers flowing during fights, so why not see if I can get more out of it?
-Ernest

## Coup d’État

*S3E129: Dirty Dancing*

November 17, 2019
Dad showed up in Halcyon today. I still don’t know what to do about it.
This morning, mom told me that dad sent a letter and tickets inviting me to a Gala at the French Embassy in Halcyon, and that he wanted me to go so he could apologize. I didn’t know why he wanted to make a whole event out of it. If he wanted to apologize, he could have stayed in New York and called me. Okay, so he couldn’t have actually called me directly, because I blocked his number, but he could have called mom or Timothy and asked to talk to me, or something. It turned out he wasn’t really there to apologize anyway, so that made sense in the end, but it felt super cryptic at the time.
I probably should have asked Timothy if he wanted one of the tickets, but I was panicking, so I took them all and thought I’d figure out later if I wanted to go or not. It just came out of nowhere, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to see him again.
The decision kinda got made for me when it turned out that Hazard needed a way into the French Embassy to find some sort of particles. Jawbreaker told Boon who told me, and since I had enough tickets for all of us and Faker, it made sense to go even if I didn't meet up with dad. We did have to explain to Hazard why breaking into an embassy would be a bad thing, especially when we had a legitimate way in, but eventually we managed to talk them into waiting for the Gala.
We spent the rest of the day getting ready for the Gala. Everyone else was having fun getting all dressed up, but I couldn’t really enjoy myself because I was worrying about talking with dad again. I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone yet, because I thought I might just avoid him, and no one had asked about how I got the tickets.
When we arrived at the Gala and everything started to fall apart pretty much immediately. My dad was talking to some lady that turned out to be Yamato - you know, probably leader of Gambite, possessed Star-Studded, out for Big Team’s blood, shadow lady Yamato. Then Hazard realized that my dad had the particles they were looking for and decided to steal them right then. I tried to convince them that we needed more of a plan before just rushing in, but they weren't interested in listening to me.
Hazard managed to nab the particles from my dad, but instead of portalling out of the Embassy, they ended up portalling my dad and Yamato right on top of us. So there went any chance of avoiding him. I started yelling about how Yamato has been trying to kill my friends, and Boon said that Yamato killed her dad, which I had no idea about until today. Dad claimed he thought Yamato was some French ambassador that he was discussing a deal with, but I don’t know. I mean, I don’t want to think that dad’s involved with all the Gambite stuff somehow, but Yamato is super sketchy and I’m pretty sure she’s not really a French ambassador.
Then dad started talking about the particles that Hazard stole, I think he called them tachyon particles? He said that they’re related to my powers somehow, and that they might be useful for energy stuff. I wasn’t really paying attention to the details because I was busy feeling like an idiot for thinking he had actually come to Halcyon to apologize to me.
I should have guessed he had another reason to be here. When was the last time he cared what I thought about him? He just found a new project he's interested in and he happens to need my cooperation to make it work. But he can fuck off if he thinks I’m going to be his lab rat so he can test out all his theories about these particles or whatever.
This is just like when he finally started believing that my synesthesia was a real thing, and not me lying to get attention. He signed me up for all these studies and kept going on about how I was going to be a musical prodigy without even asking me about it. So I really shouldn’t be surprised.
We didn’t have time to talk about it right then, because Yamato started attacking Hazard and Faker. We managed to get them free from her shadows, but by the time I cleared out the smoke, she had disappeared. In her place, this metal mole robot showed up and grabbed dad. I managed to knock dad out of its hands and caught him with a gust of wind before he fell, but the robot shot rockets everywhere and set the whole ballroom on fire. We had to spend so much effort saving the Gala attendees that we couldn’t stop the robot from flying off with the mole king.
After the fight, Hazard was really pissed off for some reason. I don’t know what they expected would happen when trying to steal something right from under one of the most dangerous supervillains we know, but I guess this wasn’t it. They went off about there being infinite dimensions and not caring about this one. But y’know, this is the only dimension a lot of us have, so maybe don’t be an asshole about it? I don’t know what their problem is, but at least they got their hands on the particles they wanted, so maybe that will help.
Once that was sorted out, I went over to talk to dad again. And by talk I mean we yelled back and forth at each other for a few minutes without really listening to each other, because that’s how most of our conversations go. He said that he wanted us to be together as a family again, but maybe he should have thought about that back when he was fighting so hard to send me away. I told him that I wanted to use my powers to save people, and that I wasn’t interested in his research project, but he just told me to think about it and contact him later.
I still haven’t talked about it with Timothy or mom yet. Originally I wasn’t planning to tell them if I went to the Gala or not. But you can see me pretty clearly in the background of that one clip of Black Mole Sun kidnapping King Demolio that they keep playing on the news. Plus the whole storms getting summoned inside the French Embassy thing makes it kind of obvious. So they definitely know I was there.
I know that Timothy’s been in touch with dad since we moved. The two of them were always closer than I was with dad, so he probably misses him. We don’t really talk about it though, since he knows I’m still upset about everything that happened. Dad must not have told him he was coming to Halcyon, since there’s no way Timothy would have kept that secret from me. Then again, mom only told dad that we were leaving for Halcyon like, the day before we moved, so I guess turnabout's fair play.
Dad says he’ll be staying in Halcyon for now, so I guess I’ll have to figure out whether I want to talk to him again. It was so much easier to just forget about him when he was off on the other side of the state. But I should know by now that ignoring your problems doesn’t actually make them go away.
Boon says I shouldn’t feel obligated to talk with my dad just because he’s my dad, but I don’t know. I don’t want to be the only one holding onto a grudge if everyone else wants to try and fix things. Timothy deserves better than that.
I decided to unblock dad’s phone number for now. It’s not like blocking it was keeping him from contacting me or anything. He always could have emailed me, and I guess he did send me that letter eventually. And if he’s going to be chatting up supervillains at parties, I’d rather him be able to reach me if something goes wrong.
Or, you know, if he actually wants to apologize.
-Ernest

## One Year Later

*Time Passes*

*(cw: focuses on an incident of non-fatal electrocution)*

November 19, 2019
I’m skipping school today.
I know, I know, I promised myself that I wouldn’t fall back into bad habits again. But I feel like today of all days should be an exception. They aren’t going to fail me for missing one day of class. And I haven’t managed to get this stormcloud hovering over me to go away yet, so I’m probably doing the other students a favor by not going.
… Okay, no, that’s the kind of excuse I would make before. The truth is I just can’t handle school today. I can’t sit at a desk and pretend that everything’s fine, when it’s the anniversary of - is it still called an anniversary if the thing that happened was terrible? It feels like that word should be used for happy things like weddings. Not the worst mistake you ever made. Anyway. It’s been exactly a year since I struck Timothy with lightning.
I can’t stop thinking about it. I mean, I don’t think I’ve gone a single day this past year without thinking about it at some point. Not to mention all the nightmares. But right now it just keeps running through my mind over and over and it’s hard to think about anything else. Maybe if I write it all out here, I can get it out of my head for a minute.
I don’t remember what me and dad were arguing about. When I replay the scene in my head, we’re usually arguing about my powers. But I know that can’t be true, because he didn’t even know about weather powers at that point. We fought about my powers a lot, but that was all afterwards. It must have been something else, like grades or college or something.
Whatever it was, it got heated enough that we started shouting. I wish I could say that I was so distracted at the time, I didn’t notice the stormclouds building up inside the room. The truth is that I realized it was happening, but I didn’t care. I knew that the only way to make them go away would be to calm down, and I didn’t want to be calm. And that stupid decision is why Timothy got hurt. I probably won’t ever get his screams out of my head, and I deserve that.
Even after Timothy came back from the hospital, everything was broken. I was hardly going to school anymore, and basically every conversation with dad ended with me running out of the apartment so I didn’t hurt someone again. And it’s all my fault for not controlling my powers.
If I’d just kept my head down, everything would have been fine. I’d probably be in college now, and Timothy would still be able to hear properly. I’ll never forgive myself if his bad hearing ends up getting in the way of his acting career. Musical theater is everything he's every wanted to do, and I might be the reason that he can’t. I don’t care what Timothy says about me apologizing too much, he deserves an apology today.
Well, fuck. It’s raining now, because of course it is. I’ve gotta get outside if I don’t want my entire room to get drenched. Paper doesn’t really hold up well in a downpour, so I guess that’s it for this entry.
-Ernest

## All Hell Breaks Loose

*S3E132: Mole in the Metal Mask*

November 23, 2019
Hey there, it’s me again,
So I’ve literally been to hell and back today. Hopefully that doesn’t have any long term side effects. It did make me pass out and also see hellfire in my synesthesia for a while, but it’s not like I haven’t experienced anything like that before. And you know what? I’d choose being temporarily transported to a hell dimension over spending the rest of the afternoon at the museum with dad.
Dad tried to do a whole family outing thing with me and Timothy to the Molecyon Hall of Fame today, but it completely fell apart because he couldn’t not be an asshole for five minutes. Started going on about how you don’t have punch super villains to be a hero, even though our last conversation had ended with me telling him that’s exactly the kind of hero I’m trying to be. Not that it surprised me this time. I wouldn’t have gone at all if Timothy hadn’t wanted me there, because I figured it would turn out like this. I feel kinda bad that it didn’t go as well as Timothy hoped, but the two of them probably had a better time without me anyway.
I made up an excuse about having to go on a Big Team mission and needing to leave. Which was partially true, since I did get called in for something in Molecyon, but “hey we want you to talk to this guy who’s locked up and presumably not going anywhere” didn’t sound like the most time sensitive thing. I would have skipped it to hang out with Timothy if that didn’t also mean dealing with dad. I’m not even sure why I tried to act like the mission was really urgent, Timothy and dad both know I’m a terrible liar. Next time I should just call dad out for ruining things instead of pretending it was because of mission stuff.
I met up with Boon, Hazard, and Jawbreaker, who had also been asked for by this prisoner guy. Everyone else was in costume because they’d actually shown up for hero business, while I was just wearing my usual hoodie because for some reason I’d been optimistic enough not to bring my costume with me. I wonder what mom would think about me being underdressed for hero missions, given how much she was fussing over me wearing a hoodie in a museum. Which is definitely a thing people do? Especially in a sports museum? It’s not like the Louvre or anything.
Okay okay getting side tracked. Jawbreaker and Boon had apparently been on the team that captured the prisoner - Burrower I think? He had been using that mole robot suit before, but he was in jail when it crashed the embassy, so we weren’t sure who had it now. Boon was also worried about this mole kid Molevin, since he got hurt when they fought Burrower. I was really concerned for a bit because she kept saying she broke Molevin’s legs and she’d been talking about losing herself to her powers. Turns out it was more of a losing control of her powers and accidentally ended up hurting Molevin situation, rather than directly breaking his legs, which I totally understand feeling guilty about, but it’s a lot less upsetting than the alternative. I’m still worried about what’s going on with Boon’s powers though. More on that later.
We went into the Molecyon prison to see if Burrower would tell us anything about where King Demolio had been kidnapped to or what Yamato was planning. Jawbreaker’s mom was in there too, and thought that Jawbreaker had come to break her out. Dad’s whole “don’t be a superhero” thing is annoying, but at least he’s not actively encouraging me to become a supervillain, I guess.
Hazard started questioning Burrower and things were going pretty well until Kurt showed up and started breaking him out. I’m really glad the kid is alive and not lost to the time void or whatever, but if he could not join Gambite and start prison breaks that would be cool? Oh and Gambite apparently has this blue G logo now, which definitely feels like they’re trying to cramp Big Team’s style.
As if Burrower getting away wasn’t bad enough, all of the cells opened up and the supervillains started escaping. I tried to keep everyone inside with a really strong wind, which worked for a while, but eventually the mole robot suit showed up and crashed into me and I couldn’t keep it together.
Boon realized that the new person piloting the robot suit was actually Molevin, and she tried to talk him down, but couldn’t get through to him. I thought we were going to completely lose control of the situation, but then Boon pulled off something terrifying.
I only vaguely remember what happened, since I was basically in the process of passing out throughout the whole thing. Boon started looking very demon-y, way scarier than the gargoyle form she usually shifts into. All these chains started dragging people through hell portals - including everyone on the team other than Boon. That’s when I realized she wasn’t in control and I tried to snap her out of it. Boon said later that helped her regain control, but I don’t know exactly how that happened, because the next thing I remember was waking up on the floor of a cabin in the middle of the forest.
It sounds like Molevin and Kurt and Jawbreaker’s mom got away, but Boon was able to keep the Burrower and most of the other prisoners from escaping. But honestly, I’m more concerned about the fact that Boon’s powers come from an actual demon who sometimes takes control of her? Looking back it makes a lot of things she’s said about her powers make more sense. I was too exhausted to really say much about it in the moment, but I feel like she probably needs someone to talk about it with her.
On our hike back to Halcyon, Hazard apologized for what happened at the embassy last week, which was nice. They didn’t even try to run away from the fight this time, and I think they’re really starting to come around to this whole teamwork thing. Even if they do have to get back to dimension hopping eventually, I hope they stick around on Big Team for a little while longer.
We might not have been able to catch every single villain this time, but I’m sure things would have gone a lot worse without us there. I don’t care if dad thinks I should do something else with my powers. I used them to help today, and that’s what matters.
-Ernest
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
As Ernest places his journal back in his desk drawer, a cherry red knock rings out from his door.
“Hey, Ernest? Are you home?” Timothy calls, his sky blue voice muffled through the wood.
Ernest stands and pulls the door open, inviting Timothy into his room. His brother looks uncharacteristically serious, without a trace of his usual grin. “What’s up?”
Timothy settles into the chair at his desk, so Ernest leans against his bed, facing him. Timothy struggles to start a sentence a few times before blurting out, “I thought you were coming back to the museum after your mission.”
Ernest has to think back their last conversation - even though it had just been a few hours ago, after everything that happened in the prison it feels like several days could have passed. “Ah, right. Sorry, I thought I’d just be doing something quick in Molecyon and I’d be able to hop back over once we were done. But then it turned into a whole prison break, we got transported to a hell dimension, and I ended up in a cabin a few miles outside of Halcyon. I figured you guys would be done by the time I hiked back to the museum, so I just came home.”
The mentions of his superhero exploits fail spark Timothy’s usual enthusiasm. He leans back in the chair and sighs. “I still don’t understand why you left in the first place.”
Ernest frowns, avoiding Timothy’s eyes. “You heard how dad started talking about technology this and not being a superhero that. If I’d stuck around, he whole trip would just been him giving me a sales pitch to join his research project. I bet you guys had a better time without me there.”
Timothy shakes his head. “I don’t get it. Mom moved us to Halcyon, the superhero capital of the world, because she thought it would be a good idea for you join a hero team, and you were okay with that. But dad’s not even allowed to talk about you doing research with your powers? He’s not asking you to move back to New York. You don’t even have to do what he wants, but could you just listen to him for two minutes without running off?”
The room falls silent, Timothy belatedly realizing how loud his voice had become by the end.
“I’m sorry that we had to move,” Ernest begins quietly. “I know that wasn’t fair for you.” He might have burned all his bridges well before leaving, but he knows that Timothy still has friends in New York that are harder to keep in touch with from hundreds of miles away. “Dad and I… it’s not just about this hero thing. Every time we argue, it just reminds me of all the other times we’ve fought. And I start getting so angry, I worry that I might hurt someone. And prove him right about how dangerous I am to be around.” He can’t keep his eyes from straying to the branched scar extending across Timothy’s face. “I know you want to fix things, but I don’t think a museum trip is going to make that happen. And I don’t want us to start fighting too.”
Timothy’s shoulders slump forward, but he mumbles, “I don’t want to us to fight about it either.”
After a few moments of silence, Timothy stands and turns to leave. Before he reaches the door, Ernest speaks up. “Hey, you’ve got a break from rehearsals this week because of Thanksgiving, right? We should hit up one of the arcades. I can crush you in DDR, you can demolish me in Tetris. It’ll be just like old times.”
“Wow it’s been forever since we’ve done that, hasn’t it?” Timothy finally smiles, if a bit wistfully. “Yeah, that sounds like fun.”
“Love you, Tim.”
Timothy rolls his eyes, but his smile becomes a little less strained. “Love you too, Ern.”

## Don't Meet Your Heroes

*OVA: Back to the Beginning*

Here’s hoping this book doesn’t end up sending someone back into the past to all the events I’ve written about. That would definitely get awkward. Or since I haven’t seen a random time traveler show up yet, does that mean I don’t have to worry about it happening? I don’t know, I’ve time traveled at least twice now and I still have no idea how it works.
So yeah, we got sent back to ~~1960~~ ~~1950?~~ ~~1850??~~ 1955 Montreal by the Consortium to try and find out what happened the day that the whole bay appeared. I wish I had paid more attention in history class, because I had no idea what was happening or who was who half the time we were there. At least Jackal was able to fill us in on who the most important people were.
The mission got off to a pretty rough start - I guess they didn’t have anything like Big Team in the 1950s, because everyone seemed really surprised that we were a bunch of teenage superheroes. They did have a League of Heroes back then, though. Unfortunately, some of them wanted to arrest us, so Rescue put them all in stasis bubbles so we could get away.
We still didn’t have a great idea of what we were looking for, but some important meeting was happening at an embassy kind of building, so we decided to check that out. Jackal noticed that Yamato was possessing one of the agents (I guess crashing embassies is an old habit of hers), and we decided we might need help from the League of Heroes after all.
While Grim went back for reinforcements, Rescue, Jackal, and me snuck into the meeting. We tried to grab the agent that Yamato was possessing without anyone noticing - I summoned this great fog and everything - but we ended up drawing a lot of attention. I had to use my powers to save Jackal from security, but I ended up summoning a storm by accident.
Then Hero One, one of the old League of Heroes members, showed up. They were able to make the guards’ bullets and guns disappear, but said they needed more energy to work with. I figured we could kill two birds with one stone if they absorbed my storm, since I was having trouble dissipating it. That turned out to be a really bad idea.
It did work, in that they were able to absorb the energy. But Hero One started disappearing way more stuff than necessary, which was a little scary. And then they accidentally tried to disappear a reaper and ended up possessed by it, which was absolutely terrifying.
Apparently there was (is?) another reaper in this dimension besides Grim, except this one was a lot less friendly and a lot more about sowing death. They managed to steal my lightning and clearly were planning to do something terrible with it.
I wanted to fight, but Rescue tried to keep me out of it by putting me in a stasis bubble before flying after them. Of course it was dangerous, but you don’t become a hero if you’re going to sit on the sidelines every time you might get hurt. I broke out eventually, and managed to pull my lightning back, but it was too late. The reaper/Hero One still had all the energy they had absorbed, and some of Rescue’s horrible dark spirit things too. When they clapped, everything disappeared - all the people, all the buildings, even trees. If this is what caused the bay, I guess it must have been multiple states worth of stuff. All floating in the void of Hero One’s pockets.
Aquarius managed to send us back to the present with a ritual, so hopefully that means the rest of the people were able to get out of there okay too? The bay is still here in the present (I ran down to the harbor to double check after we explained everything to Mayor Crossover), so I guess everything still got flooded.
I wish I could have done something more to stop it. If Rescue hadn’t trapped me, I might have gotten there soon enough to make a difference. Maybe we couldn’t have actually changed the past, but at least we could have tried.
-Ernest

## Comfort and Support Alleyway

*S3E138: Niccals Center Food Drive*

December 1, 2019
Guess who it is? If you guessed me, you’re right. It wasn’t a trick question.
Today was… if I’m being honest, the most positive I could describe it is okay. It certainly wasn’t great. But the last couple of weeks have been awful enough that okay feels pretty good right now.
I’ve been on edge ever since dad showed up, which hasn’t been great for keeping my powers under control. I’ve at least made it to school every day (aside from that one day I skipped, that was a special case), but I’ve had to miss a few classes hiding out in the locker room or on the roof waiting for a storm to die down. And the smallest things can set them off sometimes.
Like earlier today, Sunny’s mom started bugging me about how I was sorting cans at the community center food drive. And it shouldn’t have really mattered, but all of a sudden I was so frustrated and building up lightning around all these people helping out with the drive. I had to duck out just to make sure that I wouldn’t end up hurting someone.
But Carm noticed and came to talk with me, so I told her about what’s been going on with my powers and dad and everything. It was nice to have someone listen, and pretty soon I was calm enough to get back to helping out with the drive. When we were heading back inside we ran into a group of kids stealing blood from the drive because they were pretending to be vampires. Plus it turned out they were Jawbreaker’s fans from back when she was more about doing crime than stopping villains, so maybe they just wanted to cause trouble. Obviously this was upsetting for Carm, but we managed to scare them off and snag some blood for her at the same time. Unfortunately, they had already ruined a bunch of the donated blood inside the community center, so we had to figure out a way to get more donors.
Carm had the great idea of getting one of those wiggly inflatable men, so we bought one and set up a bunch of signs. Sunny and I both used our wind powers to make his arms point in the right direction, which was fun. The wiggly man’s named George by the way. I brought him over to the base after we were done, since he’s red like the Big Team logo and everything. And with his help we were able to get a bunch of donors to the blood drive! Enough that we could convince Carm to keep the blood we’d gotten from the kids.
I’m glad that Carmilla got something to eat, even if she did seem kind of conflicted about it. Personally I think she shouldn’t feel bad about taking something that she needs, but I also don’t think very hard about where my food comes from, so maybe she’s just more philosophical I am. I’d definitely give her some of my blood (the nurses thought I shouldn’t donate in case my powers make it weird or something, but I figure a vampire would be able to handle something like that), but she wasn’t that enthusiastic about the idea last time I offered, so I guess I’ll just keep an ear out for more blood drives. Maybe next time she can ask for some blood instead of those free t-shirts they always hand out for the volunteers.
The drive was looking like a big success, but towards the end I caused a bit of a scene. Timothy came over to talk to me after he and mom had donated blood. He said that dad might be heading back to New York because his research project wasn’t working out, which sounded like great news at first. But then Timothy said that he’d probably move back with him.
I didn’t really handle the news well. By which I mean it started pouring rain inside the community center.
I had to leave again, and this time Sunny came after me. We talked for a while and Sunny told me about how… Hm. I’ve been writing these like someone will read them eventually. Which will probably just be me looking back through them, but either way it’s not like I keep this journal really secure or anything. I mean, it wouldn’t be great if someone snooped around and found this, but I don’t really have any important secrets to hide so it doesn’t seem worth the effort. But I should probably be a little more careful with other people’s secrets. Sunny definitely has enough on their plate what with their mom trying to get them to uphold the Celerity image, and this whole secret thing, I wouldn’t want to make their life worse by letting it out somehow. Good thing I don’t even know who their dad is, so I probably don’t have to worry about the topic coming up in a random conversation.
I’m not sure if Carm or Sunny can actually do that much to fix everything that’s going on with me right now, but just hearing them offer really helped. Knowing that I’ve got friends here who want me to feel better makes it feel like it’s worth trying to figure this out instead of just trying to ignore it like I would usually.
So I’m going to call dad and try to help him with his project so he doesn’t have to go back to New York. I’m not exactly thrilled to have to spend more time with him, but I’d do anything for Timothy to be happier here. I can handle this one thing.
It’s going to be okay.
-Ernest

## Till the Sky Falls Down

*S3 Finale Part 2: Beautiful City*

December 15, 2019
Hey there possibly future me, but hopefully not several alternate villainous versions of future me,
I think we just saved Halcyon today? And beat Gambite? Those might be slight exaggerations. Like, only a significant part of the city was going to be blown up, not the entire thing. And we didn’t manage to capture every single member of Gambite. But we stopped their awful plan about destroying all heroes! That deserves at least some celebration.
So Marlie and I were hanging out playing air hockey (side note: I don’t know if I can play air hockey fairly anymore. Marlie thought the table was broken but it was definitely my powers making it act up) when we got an alert from Godspeed to go to City Hall and Yamato started making some speech on all the screens about how heroes are bad, actually, and whatever. So we raced over to City Hall by combining our powers - I created an ice track with a cloud of freezing rain for Marlie to ice skate on while she used her hands like rocket blasters speed us on our way. Probably the second best way to travel, after flying.
There was this huge windstorm when we got to City Hall, so I had to try and calm it down. It was weird trying to control a storm I hadn’t created. I’ve avoided messing with natural storms after… well, I try not to think about that one too much. This one wasn’t natural anyway, one of the Gambite villains was messing with the air. But Carm showed up with her girlfriend Ellen (I hadn’t really gotten the chance to meet her before but she’s pretty cool) and together we kicked her ass no problem.
After that we still had to deal with the reason that Godspeed had sent us to City Hall in the first place. Carm and Ellen explained how Gambite had set up signaling beacons for a giant space laser to target, so we had to find the one in City Hall and destroy it. We eventually found it in the safe room underground, but it was protected by some kind of force field and we got locked inside with a bunch of puzzles.
I really just wanted to explode all of the puzzles with lightning, but I guess whoever made them thought of that, because they had some kind of foam that neutralized Atomica’s and my powers for a while. I don’t think I helped that much with the puzzles. They were super weird anyway, with all kinds of personal details like where Carm was buried and my dad’s name? I know dad talked to Yamato that one time, so Gambite might have known about him from that, but I have no idea where they got all the other information from.
We managed to solve all the puzzles and break the beacon thing, although Carm was exposed to some kind of pink gas that gave her cat ears and a tail later? She didn’t seem too bothered by it, fortunately. I would have been freaking out.
Also it turns out that Ellen and Marlie are both from past, which is wild. And they both knew Mayor Crossover when he was a kid, which is even weirder to think about. Ellen told me how the adult version of her from the present is a villain, and that I should lightning punch her immediately if I saw her. Which turned out to be relevant sooner than any of us expected, because when we got out of the secret tunnels from under City Hall, adult Ellen was in the middle of taking a bunch of hostages by *another* beacon in the middle of the mall.
So I lightning punched her in the face, of course.
I think that caught her by surprise, but unfortunately it didn’t stop her plan of having Dr. Doorheart summon an army of evil Ellens from other timelines to beat up Ellen from the past. Carm and Atomica held them off, but we still had to deal with the problem of the beacon powering up.
I managed to strike the beacon with a bolt of lightning without shocking any of the hostages. I think I’m starting to get the hang of that part of controlling my powers. Unfortunately, I still need to work on preventing collateral damage to structures. One of the giant statues started to fall over onto the hostages, so I had to push it away, but then it nearly toppled onto Atomica. Dr. Doorheart started doing some time loop shenanigans, so Carmilla grabbed her timepiece, which ended up sort of fast forwarding all of us for a bit.
When time started moving normally again, there was a loud noise and a really bright light. I thought that I might have destroyed the beacon too late and that we were all going to be vaporized by the space laser. But it actually turned out to be the laser getting destroyed by another group of Big Team members. I only found about that later though, at the time it just seemed like a really pretty meteor shower.
In all the confusion, this timeline’s adult Ellen managed to escape. Fortunately the rest of the Ellens seemed to have chilled out some after time jump? They weren’t immediately trying to beat up our Ellen anyway, just maybe steal her girlfriend. We couldn’t deal with all of them at the moment so they’re still here, I guess. That’s a problem for future hopefully non-villainous versions of us to deal with.
But we did it! We stopped Gambite’s plan, and everyone is safe!
Well, almost everyone. Grim is… gone. She’s not dead, exactly - more like she became Death? Which I guess is slightly better? But she won’t be around in Halcyon or going on missions with the Big Team anymore. I’m glad I at least got to see her one last time before she left. I wish I’d managed to say something, but it was a little overwhelming and she disappeared before I could speak. I tried calling her, but the number didn’t work, which I probably should have expected. I’ve got an idea for something, but I have no idea how well it’ll work.
So much has changed since Grim, Carmilla, and me joined the Big Team, sometimes I forget that it was only a few months ago. With Grim gone and Carm leaving for her road trip with good-Ellen soon, I guess I’ll have to hold down the fort here in Halcyon for them.
Oh and one other thing - I don’t know whether meteor showers caused by space laser debris smashed up by reapers follow the same rules as regular falling stars, but I made a wish, so here’s hoping they do. Of course, I can’t tell you what it was, that would ruin the magic. We’ll both just have to wait and see.
-Ernest
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Dear Grim,
Sorry I haven’t figured out how to write your true name in musical notation yet. Don’t worry, I’ll get there eventually - with how beautiful it is, I won’t be forgetting it anytime soon. Would it be weird to make a song out of your name? People kind of do that with regular names already. Wait, why I am I asking you if it would be weird? I’d probably know better than you would. I guess the question should be if you’d mind?
Oops, I’ve gotten sidetracked already. I wanted to write this letter about what you said to me before you left. I’m not totally sure how to send this to you. I mean, I’ve got one idea, but that would hopefully be a long time from now, so I’m writing it now while I still remember.
You asked if we were friends, and I want you to know that I saw you as one. Sorry if I didn’t do a great job of showing it. I never had that many friends before joining the Big Team, and I’m still learning how to be a better friend myself. But I was so excited to join the team with you, and I always felt safer on missions with you knowing you’d have my back.
I hope you’re happy now that you’re back home, fulfilling your destiny and whatnot. I’ll do my best to keep Halcyon safe now that you’re gone, but you’ve seen how it gets around here, so no promises.
I’m going to miss you. I know you said not to be sad, but it’s hard not to be knowing that you won’t be around anymore. But I’m glad that at least I got to meet you in the time you were here.
See you on the other side,
Ernest