The Thrilling Adventures of Verve

Back to Verve.

The (often anxious, though less so than before) thoughts of Verve, about her time on Big Team. (Season 5 Journal.)

## S5E5 - Equal Heroes, Equal Opportunities

I kinda forgot to keep track of Big Team stuff this summer, but today a huge thing happened, so I figured that I should start up again! Besides, I like keeping a journal, it’s fun. I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow to write it, so I asked Boon to get me this one from the hospital gift shop. I think it’s cute. ♡ ♡ ♡
Okay! So earlier there was a forum on education reform to help accommodate people with powers. It was stuff like having more discreet power negation bracelets for those who want to use them, having training programs in gym class to help people control their powers, that kind of thing. I was watching it at the community center with Grandy and Jasper. And OF COURSE it was interrupted by some jerks who are all like “no one should have powers because some of them are destructive and some people can’t control them” and like, first of all, what assholes, and second, having more places for people to train their powers will mean they can control them better, and that means they’ll cause less damage. But like, they didn’t seem interested in logic or being reasonable, so what can you do? I said bye to Grandy and Jasper and lightninged over.
Well, before I got there, Whiz had been at the forum, so he was helping hold off some of the goons, but the leader, whose name is Iconoclast (found that out later), had already injected one of the panelists, Dr. Jillian Flame, with something. We also found out later that it was a serum made from Zodiac Tree sap and old GREY tech that permanently takes away people’s powers. So...that super sucks for her. If only some of us had gotten there earlier, maybe we could have saved her. I only lost one of my powers last December and I was devastated...I can’t imagine losing all of them.

Anyway, Bolt and Challenge also came, and we fought Iconoclast’s goons, I Pocketed Dr. Flame to keep her safe from the goons (I asked her permission first! I think she mostly understood...). The goons were really scared for her when I did that? Which makes no sense, they were trying to hurt her. You know, I guess on further reflection, if they don’t like powers, me using my powers was probably what scared them.
Anyway, Iconoclast did a cool sandbag trick where he rode a rope up to the rafters, and Wingnut and I followed him up. And this is where the big thing happened. See, Iconoclast threw a knife at Wingnut. And I wasn’t just going to let Wingnut get hurt, you know??? So I tried to block it, and, you know, technically I did. With my own shoulder.
I fell back down to the stage. Whiz came over right away. He was really worried. It was sweet. I let Dr. Flame out of my Pockets in case I passed out. And uh, the next little while is a bit of a blur. I mean, I’d just been stabbed. Iconoclast got away. I remember saying how Boon was gonna freak out, and then I remembered that MY DAD WORKS AT THE HOSPITAL and HE was gonna freak out. I think I tried to convince everyone not to take me to the emergency room, since my dad was there...I mean, it’s a good thing they didn’t listen to me. I needed to go. Even though Dad is angry with me now.
So yeah, everyone (including one of Iconoclast’s goons who Challenge brought with her for some reason?) piled into the ambulance with me. It was really sweet of them. I guess I expected at least two of them to stay behind and follow up Bolt’s lead about an apartment across the street. But we got to the hospital, and of course Dad was the first person I saw. He and a doctor patched up my shoulder, then he stayed behind to lecture me about being safe and smart on missions. He also told me that I wasn’t allowed to leave the room for the rest of the day. I agreed, but obviously that was a lie and as soon as he left we came up with a plan for me to sneak out. Whiz fashioned a little hologram thing that looked like me sleeping, so I definitely could have snuck out.

But before we had a chance to, Lizzie Lowman knocked on my door. She came in and was talking about breaking a story, and Whiz was SAVAGE. He pointed out all the flaws in her logic, called her a child (something about a child not having real sources). I mean, I kinda felt sorry for her. But also after today I 100% see why Samantha likes him. (Also he blushed SO HARD when I told him that. Adorable.)
Anyway, Lizzie gave us this notebook about what she knew about Iconoclast and his group. It didn’t have much. It gave us the lead that Bolt already got from the cameras about the apartment across from the auditorium, plus told us Iconoclast’s name and info on the serum that he injected Dr. Flame with. Oh! And that Dr. Flame was one of several high profile targets they wanted to inject to make a point. But I agreed to give her an interview in exchange for the information, just so no one else would have to deal with her. I uh, realize now that might not have been the best idea. I was given some painkillers. I have NO idea what I told her.
...Maybe it’s for the best that we didn’t end up continuing the investigation.
After she left, I do remember thanking Challenge, Bolt, and Whiz for coming with me. They acted like, of course they would come with me, but it still means a lot to me. The others stayed with me for a while, but I asked Bolt to stay for when Boon and my mom came. As support, because I knew they’d freak out. Especially Boon. Then he told me that HE got stabbed yesterday!!! So he could tell Boon about that and spread out her worrying. Which, uh, now that I think back on it was probably overwhelming for Boon. Sorry, hon.

Also! Whiz had a succulent for some reason, and he gave that to me for my hospital room. It’s adorable. When I get to go home, I’ll put it on my desk next to the lamp that Luna gave me.
So yeah. Boon came over after I texted her. She was freaking out, as predicted, and in order to try and calm her down, I said she could try to kiss it and make it better. And she DID. You know, with her magic healing. I uh. My face is red again just thinking about it. I...she...ANYWAY.
Mom was disappointed. I mean, she understands better than Dad, and was much less freaked out about it. Or at least she didn’t show it in front of me. She’s also better at that than Dad. Grandy and Jasper did a video call with me, to show Jasper that I was okay. Boon’s still here. I think she’s planning on staying the night. And like, honestly I don’t think any of the nurses are going to try and make a worried Valkyrie leave. I texted my friends to let them know where I am. Melody might be coming over.
I know he’s a villain, but I hope Iconoclast never runs into Melody, Boon, Tay, or Ellen. They uh, definitely didn’t take me getting stabbed very well.

But now that everyone knows and I don’t have to brace myself for their reactions anymore...I got STABBED. Like, I’ve been hurt doing this before, but this is something new. Being shoved through several floors by Kieran’s gravity powers, getting hit by someone with super strength, it’s all a lot different than a knife. Like, those are all bigger than life things. I deal with those every day. But a knife is so...mundane? And more real, maybe? Like, I can do superhuman things, but a knife could have killed me...I don’t know. I think I’m gonna stop thinking about it. Maybe I can convince Boon to try and cuddle with me on the tiny hospital bed. I can ask her how Valkyrie training or derby is going. She’ll go on for hours about that.
I love her.

## S5E8 - The Steel Spirit of Summer

Holy SMOKES I thought yesterday was a lot, but today was something else!
Okay, so first of all, Dad let me leave the hospital this morning. He wasn’t super happy about it, but I think he knows I wouldn’t have stayed there all day. So he let me go. But he had Mom and Boon take me to the beach to babysit me/keep me out of trouble and not overuse my arm [insert ironic laughter at how well that worked out]. GAIA called Boon to ask her to take Jason to the beach while we were on our way, which was a happy coincidence. He’s new on the team, and GAIA wanted him to have some team bonding time or something. He seems sweet. He’s got the “quiet with a tragic backstory” air about him, but I hope he finds a home here on Big Team and he gets more comfortable. Boon said he’s possessed (or something), and also that she’s adopted him because of that. She’s so cute.

And then when we got to the beach, we ran into Faith! She was there with her dad, and also Maggie and Helen showed up. But it was SO good to see Faith again!!! She’s been in Australia all summer. She must have just gotten back. Boon and I filled her and Jason in on what happened this summer.

Flick and Hana came by. Apparently they know Jason from the skate park! They mentioned a volleyball tournament. And OF COURSE I wanted to play, but Mom was there. She told me that if she didn’t see me play volleyball, she couldn’t tell Dad that I’d broken his rules. (The rules being take it easy on my shoulder for a few weeks. WEEKS.) And this was a great arrangement until she, Maggie, Helen, and Fallon showed up as the first team we played against in the tournament.

It’s okay, we kicked their butts. \*muscle emoji\*
Oh! Before the volleyball tournament, we saw Greta and Cambria! I was in a hurry to get to volleyball, so we didn’t stop to chat, but I waved. (Our team name was Leap of Faith, btw, which I came up with and I’m very proud of.)
Our final round was against a team with Mike from Philosotea, Mattie from the volleyball team, Tanya, and a hero called Flashing Fist (but he said we could call him Carlo). We had some fun banter with Carlo. Like, he told us that second place isn’t all that bad, and I told him it was good that he’d accepted his team’s fate. Like, wow, hanging out with Whiz yesterday must have rubbed off on me lol.
Anyway, like I said, we won that round, too! Jason got the winning point, and let me give him a victory hug! We didn’t get to bask in our victory for long, though, because that’s when today went from “a day at the beach” to “a superhero day at the beach.”

Remember the old villain Undertow? Yeah, that one. The one who Cyclone defeated all those years ago. She came back. She summoned a huge wave that hovered above the water. And then she demanded that we give Cyclone to her or else she’d destroy the city. The wave was definitely big enough to do a lot of damage. And like, obviously we’re not going to sacrifice anyone. But Boon had an idea, and Maggie flew off to get him anyway.
So the four of us, Flashing Fist, Daybreak, Savior, the Black Magic club (see, I knew they’re really not bad when Vic isn’t there), and probably some others who I didn’t see started to fight these dark water minions that Undertow summoned.

We fought pretty well. All of us. But there were too many of them. The constructs just kept coming and coming. There were thousands of them. We needed to fight Undertow to stop them, but if we stopped fighting the minions, they’d overtake the civilians.
And then Focus, in a moment of bravery and stupidity and absolute badassery, used her spectral bow to grapple up to Undertow. And then she TACKLED Undertow off the back of the wave. And fell.
Maggie had gotten back with Mr. Crossover, but I had to get to Faith. I lightninged through the wave and caught her, absorbing the energy of us impacting the water. Undertow caught herself using some water tentacles and disappeared into the wave. First of all, the water in the wave was scary. Like, scary in the otherworldly way that the Abyss was. But like, Deep. I...don’t really want to think about it.

So anyway, then Boon did something super cool and amazing, and somehow she led the crowd into cheering for Cyclone and HE GOT HIS POWERS BACK. He got them back, and then he, Mom, Savior, and Valkyrie defeated Undertow. The wave falling back into the ocean washed Faith and me back a ways, but we were fine. We swam back to shore. And it was over.
It’s the second day in a row I could have died.

I’d say I hope Dad doesn’t find out, but I’m sure Mom will tell him.
But um. Anyway. Most of us talked to Mr. Crossover after. It doesn’t seem like that long ago I had no idea he used to be Cyclone. When he was just Mr. Crossover at the community center to me. And then he helped me become a hero. And now he has his powers back. He seemed a little overwhelmed, which seems like a reasonable response. Getting my flight back a few months ago was a lot, I can’t imagine all of my powers flooding back at once. (Flooding is probably a bad word to use there, huh…considering the city was almost destroyed in a tidal wave.)
I decided to pull a Gwen and invite Boon, Faith, and Jason to get ice cream. Jason especially looked down. I hope ice cream and hanging out helped, at least a little. I should find out what his favorite cupcake flavor is...
So yeah. That was today. And I’m gonna be honest, I hurt my shoulder again. Just, all the stuff I did was too much for it. To be fair, if volleyball had been the only thing I did, I would have been fine. Like, the most strenuous parts of volleyball are spiking and serving, and I use my right hand for those. But also all the fighting and swimming really made it hurt.
I need to be careful that dad doesn’t notice me being careful with my shoulder tomorrow. Or I’ll be SO grounded. I know Boon would heal it for me again, and I might ask her to, but I also should be more careful. I mean, her healing isn’t perfect, and I can’t just ask for healing every time I have an injury, you know? I know she WOULD do it, of course. But I think the last bit of healing needs to come naturally. Maybe? I don’t know how this works.
Speaking of regular healing, I’m gonna sneak downstairs and get an ice pack for it. And then go to sleep. I’m exhausted.

## S5E13 - Urban Exploration

Okay, so I don’t have a lot to say about today’s mission? It felt kinda bad. Overgrowth, Songbird, Astra, and I took a job through the iSupe app for a company called Human Tactics. The posting was specifically for Big Team? Which was super sketchy. Well, maybe it isn’t inherently sketchy, but considering everything else about the job was sketchy, I’m going to say that part HAS to be sketchy, too, right?

And also just, using the iSupe app feels bad? Like, I don’t do this because I want money. Taking jobs like this for money just feels wrong. I donated my earnings to keeping the base running, which I guess is a good thing, but...idk. Feels bad. I don’t have anything more concrete than that.
Right, before I get started, I should say that I had to call in Toni to babysit Jasper while I went on the mission because Jasper was being a big baby and didn’t want to go to the Ostenberg-Welles house OR find someone at the community center to watch him while I was gone. I mean, I would also rather hang out with Toni than Maggie but that’s not the point. Anyway. Toni got there and was great about me calling last minute.
Okay, so we went to a place called Human Tactics, who sent out the call for Big Team members. I knew about Human Tactics because they’re an architecture firm that does a lot of cool design work with making buildings that can withstand superpowered fights and stuff like that, so Jasper absolutely loves them. Like, if Daniel Zhao hadn’t been so suspicious and also a gentrifier I would have asked him to sign something for Jasper. End conclusions about Human Tactics: Daniel is very suspicious, at the very least pro-gentrification even if they don’t do illegal evil things. Iris Zhao seemed marginally less suspicious, but I’m not trusting her by association. Although at least she was against gentrification.
Okay, so I don’t really want to dwell on today because it didn’t feel great. We were hired to get rid of a crime family in the warehouse district, which HT is trying to gentrify. It seemed like HT had some bad plans involving an exposed Zodiac Tree root there. We went to the HT construction site, and Overgrowth’s dad was there. He’s like, in charge or something. Songbird talked to him so that OG didn’t have to. I stayed back with OG.

Long story short, we went to see the crime people, we tried to talk with the person in charge, there was no person in charge, they tried to kick us out, I asked OG if he could talk to the Zodiac root and get it to go back underground, he did, it decided that first it was going to destroy some warehouses, OG and Astra saved the people inside, Songbird and I stopped some crime people goons from attacking the construction site, OG confronted his dad, and then we reported back to HT. They weren’t happy that the Zodiac root was gone, but them not having access to it is the only upside to today’s mission. Well, I mean, the results. The real upside was getting to hang out with OG, Astra, and Songbird.
Okay but exciting news!!! OG is going on a date with Eddie!!! That’s so cute!!! I can’t wait to hear how it goes.
Astra and Songbird are great. I wish we’d had more time to hang out, and that I’d tried to involve Astra more. I know it’s hard to get involved with stuff when you’re just starting on the team. I don’t know what I’d have done if Ellen hadn’t really made me feel welcome. I’ve realized that I’m like, a senior team member now? Like, most people on Big Team are newer than I am. It’s so weird. I need to step up and lead more, I guess? And make more of an effort to include people. I’m gonna try at least. I just get caught up sometimes and I don’t think about it.
But I did pull a Gwen and invited everyone to get some ice cream after the mission! OG and I kinda showed them a bit of Zodiac City because neither of them had been there yet. And Astra has this very cool cloud ship!!! I had to rush home so Mom and Dad wouldn’t know I’d skipped out on taking care of Jasper, but it was nice to hang out a bit.
When I got home, Toni and Jasper were coming out of my room? Toni said that Jasper ran in and he was trying to get him to come out. I’m lucky that I don’t keep any of my Verve stuff out in the open. Old habits die hard, and for good reason this time. Anyway, Toni left. Jasper and I prepared for a family movie night, and Mom and Dad would have been none the wiser if Jasper wasn’t a snitch. I will be eating the last of the Fruit Boops as revenge.

## S5E18 - Home Aloneish

Oh gosh, okay. A day late, but I had my 6 month anniversary date with Boon and getting ready for that was way more important than this (sorry not sorry, journal).
First I want to say that I love the community center. It’s absolutely amazing. There’s never a dull day there and I love it so much.

So yesterday was the second day of HalcyCon, and I was planning on going with Jasper, but Hana needed help at the community center and I couldn’t just ignore her. Besides, Jasper was meeting up with his friends there, I’m sure he had a great time with them and Grandy. I’m going again today, so I’ll make up for it. I went dressed as Frithr on Saturday, which was Jasper’s idea and I wasn’t sure if it was cute or weird, but Boon thought it was cute, so that’s what matters.

I do feel kinda guilty that I wasn’t with Boon, though. After everything with Iconoclast...he’s a brand new villain and if anyone didn’t hate him for stabbing me, I think they probably do for stealing Boon’s powers. It might be a record from going from an unknown to hated. But I’m not here to talk about that, or HalcyCon. Or even my date with Boon, because I could go on for many many pages and give myself a hand cramp before I even got to the mission if I let myself talk about any of those things.

So, the community center! As soon as we got there (Fearless, Carmen, and Ellen also came to help), Hana met us outside and told us that the doors weren’t working right? Like, you’d open them and they’d go to the wrong places. There were also lobsters again, but they were aggressive, which was weird. Hana wasn’t sure where Samantha and Olive-Quan were, but they were off somewhere looking for a solution. To get into the building, I used the stones I got from Grandy a while back. I still don’t totally understand how they work, but I was able to use them to get the door to open into the correct dimension.

Then some Cockney orphans from the 1800s showed up and pickpocketed Ellen (and me, but I didn’t notice until way later, whoops). Ellen used her portals to drag them back. So they were both time and location displaced? But also like, they’re gonna be way better off living in this time than they were then.
Ellen and the leader of the orphans, Sass, had a bit of a banter going. I bribed them with cupcakes in order to talk to them. They agreed to stay, and I later got adult Ellen’s number from Samantha and she took them in.
Oh gosh, so aside from being kinda worried about a bunch of people (including Hana, Samantha, and Olive-Quan) vanishing into other dimensions and through time portals and stuff, I just had a blast. Like, I got to help out those kids, and there were these mobster kids who tried to pay us in toy money to get everyone home (they were SO cute) (oh also they called their leader Don and I thought they meant Dawn like Solae and Luna’s Dawn at first), and then we found this lobster man (who called himself the Lobstar) in the sewers. I think he was very silly, but I told him about the lobster sanctuary out in the bay, and he took all of the lobsters (aside from some that we’d caught already) there. So that might be the end of the community center’s lobster problem? It’s unclear if he was the cause or just like, took advantage of there being a lot of lobsters there.
Okay, so I guess the rest of it isn’t so fun. We figured out that the cause of all of this was coming from the attic. We decided that since the doors were being weird and stuff, we should go in through a window. Fearless and Carmen can’t fly, so I Pocketed them for a minute while Ellen and I got up to the roof.
Ellen stopped me for a minute, though. She kinda made a goof about being proud of me for using my Pockets, but I think she was more sincere than she let on. We hugged. I love her so much. And I’m glad she like, took a minute there. Sometimes I get so focused on the mission that I forget that most of the time it’s not a problem if we stop to talk with each other. A few minutes aren’t going to mean we fail the mission. You know, most of the time at least. And like, I don’t know how much longer she’ll be in this time, so I want to make the most of the time we have left.

Okay so the rest wasn’t so fun. So this guy Rasputin is stuck in a B-Blade, and suddenly he’s a teenager (kinda like how Merlin is now a teenager I guess), and he’s obsessed with Morgan le Fey, and he was trying to summon the goddess Nyx to prove he’s better than her or something because Morgan said he was hot??? I’m not totally sure. He was weird. Anyway, Carmen and Fearless had met this guy before. Ellen and Carmen distracted him while I tried to absorb all the chaos energy from this ritual to summon Nyx and Fearless did something cool with faer magic sword to help. But uh, when Rasputin started talking about Morgan, fae kinda stopped helping and attacked him. So all the chaos energy kinda flooded into me. It was too much too fast, but I couldn’t stop. I don’t know exactly what else happened, but the others got him to stop the ritual.

And then I flew out the window and threw up. It wasn’t pleasant, but we won! (And I wasn’t queasy by date time, thank goodness..) And then I used my Pockets to convert the chaos magic into neutral magic and release it. So that was great! The others came out to check on me, and then we went inside. Everyone who was somewhere they weren’t supposed to be was back where they belonged. Samantha used magic to keep the orphans here, though. She’s so great. Hana came out of a door and apparently had been in ancient Lesbos. Which she seemed to have enjoyed.
Then Sledge came back and said we all did a good job. I’m glad Hana has such good Moms now.
Oh! And then I realized I’d forgotten to make the cake for my anniversary date and the lobster mac and cheese that I’d promised the orphans! (Also the orphans gave me my wallet back.) But everyone helped me out, and it was great. Or, well, tried. We’re going to have to try and teach Carmen how to cook. She’s great but she is a disaster in the kitchen. Fearless also helped me do my makeup. I’d thought about asking Samantha for help with my eyeliner but she wears so much and just...okay, so I was crying in the bathroom because I couldn’t get it right and Fearless rescued me and honestly eyeliner is cool but it’s evil.
And then it was my date, and it went amazing. I love Boon so much. I don’t know what I did to deserve someone as wonderful as them.
I’m meeting up with Melody today at HalcyCon. I’m cosplaying as her (you know, Jackal), and she’s cosplaying as me (you know, Verve). I can’t wait to hang with her today. I’ll also have to give her back the mask that Jasper stole for his cosplay yesterday. I don’t even know where he got it from??? That kid is too smart for his own good. Until next time!

## S5E22 - The Fox and the Wolf

I feel drained. Not like, in a powers sort of way, but in a “things were super stressful and I’m still kinda stressed but also tired” kind of way.
When I think about it, not a lot actually happened. We got a message from Syndra Fox about Iconoclast. We met with her about it, we went to this apartment with her second in command (code name Fox 02, who is hella sketchy and I don’t trust at all). There had been a fight there. We found Daniel Zhang passed out in the closet. Fox 02 disappeared. Daniel Zhang is Iconoclast. Fox 02 had broken in last night, fought him, and taken his helmet. The powers he’d stolen were stored there. AEGIS came and took Zhang. I traced the helmet back to Falcon & Fox, then led the way to a storage room where we found the helmet. The attendant for that security room let us take it, and told us that Fox 02 was the person who put it there. Whiz figured out how to give Boon their powers back. There was a huge catalogue of other powers in there. He hurt so many people.

I don’t understand. I don’t know why someone would hurt people like he does. He’s in jail now, and I guess it doesn’t super matter. Some people decide to hurt others. They have their reasons, but I still don’t understand. Can’t they see that they’re hurting people?

It’s over. Iconoclast is gone now. But part of me feels like it was too easy? Like this isn’t over. But hopefully it’s just my anxiety. I feel like I should be happier. Boon has their powers back. I should be happier about that.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m just jaded and can’t accept an easy win anymore.

## S5E27 - Wandering Hart

I’m a bad friend. And also a bad teammate. I don’t really want to talk about it, but I know writing these tends to make me feel better. You know, most of the time.
Mom and I were training, which was great. I was able to absorb some light without even touching it! And then she got some calls. These vines were wrapping up around a bunch of buildings, including the community center and the hospital where Dad works. And Jasper and Grandy were at the community center. Mom went to the hospital and sent me to the community center.

Weaver, Cadenza, and Overgrowth were also at the community center. We got everyone out. Sledge ran through a wall and into me, but other than that it went well. Like, Sledge told me I did a good job! The news is blaming Overgrowth for the vines, which is just...ugh. Why are people so mean?

The rest of the mission didn’t go so hot. Overgrowth tracked these vines to the forest he helped make a few months ago. We met this fox there (the one who was a jerk to the other group before prom). They were cryptic. I don’t trust them. But they told us what was up, and that a white hart was causing the vines. The fox wanted us to bring it back so that they could send it back to where it belonged. We agreed, even though we weren’t sure we could trust them.

As we left, I had an idea. I’ve had this theory, based on the first time Grandy and used the stones to get from Reaper One’s Pockets back home. See, if I provide the power, it’s possible that someone else could be the focus. Like, I can guide the stones to a place I’ve been before. What if someone else could do the same? Like the hart. Then we could get it back home without having to trust the fox.

We passed the hospital on the way to where the hart was, and I saw my mom outside. I asked her what she thought I should do, and she kinda guided me toward figuring out that if the hart was from Avalon, we could see if Elle has a portal there like Boon has to Asgard. She’s so smart. It was a way less risky plan than mine.

So the four of us made our way to the nature reserve. We found the hart pretty easily, and then someone else found us. Her name was Lachesis, and all I knew at the time was that she thought she was going to take the hart herself, like she wasn’t concerned with the four of us who were there. And like, Overgrowth and I are pretty powerful. I don’t know about Weaver, but I’d heard about Cadenza. Like, what is one person going to do against the four of us? I don’t think I made the wrong choice based on what I knew at the time, but that doesn’t exactly make me feel better.

So when Overgrowth went after the hart, I went with him. I figured Cadenza and Weaver could handle one person. And like, I knew getting the hart would mean the vines would go away. The vines at the hospital, where dad was. I knew that he was okay. Mom had said so. But still, there were other places where people probably weren’t. Stopping the vines was my top priority. I know I’m making excuses now, but...anyway.

The fight went badly. The hart didn’t respond when I tried to talk to it and attacked. Then Weaver and Lachesis knocked over some trees nearby, and I realized I needed to help her. I figured Overgrowth could handle the hart.
I didn’t help. I hit Weaver with lightning instead of Lachesis. It knocked her out. I let Lachesis get away and went to her, but first aid training doesn’t exactly cover being hit by lightning. Cadenza had also been knocked out. I don’t know what Overgrowth did, but he came back with the hart a little while later. He was upset. We carried Cadenza and Weaver back to the forest. Cadenza woke up right before we got there. Overgrowth told the fox that hart was going to fix what it had done, then stay in the forest. The fox didn’t argue.

Then Overgrowth took off. I should have said something, but Weaver still hadn’t woken up, and Cadenza also looked down, and I...I’ve never hit something I didn’t mean to like that. Like, I hit Boon that one time in June, but it was because the crystals encasing my arms made my lightning go in weird directions. I wasn’t in a great place, is what I mean. I’m gonna try and find him at school, to make sure he’s okay. I’ll ask Eddie what his favorite flavor of cupcake is.
Cadenza and I tried to get Weaver to hang out after, but she wasn’t interested in any of our ideas, so we gave up after a while. She told us that Lachesis is her sister, and is still trapped with the people who gave them both powers. If I’d known...I guess it doesn’t matter. I didn’t know.
Cadenza and I went off on my motorcycle to get donuts. And then we spun donuts in an empty parking lot because that’s what she had actually meant when she said donuts. Oops. Ellen will be smug. She insisted on teaching me how to do them even though I said I wouldn’t ever actually do them. But the things we do to try and bond with new teammates, right? Cadenza is sweet. I do feel a little better after hanging out with her, but...yeah. It’s been a rough day.

I’m gonna go to Boon’s. Maybe I can use my best imitation of Jasper’s sad face to get everyone to make a cuddle pile with me. Me, Boon, Ernest, Mel, Jasper, all the pets...maybe it’ll help me feel better.
PS from the next day: cuddle pile was a success. Even Lacey graced us with her presence. And of course it helped because being with my friends always helps. I love them so much. I still feel bad, but I don’t feel alone, and that’s something.

## S5E34 - Music and Mythology, Einstein and Astronomy

I hate Kieran Khan. I just HATE him.

Ugh so yesterday wasn’t a mission, but a lot of stuff happened and I need to vent somewhere.

I went to the school to help out Samantha with some ritual her club was doing. Carmen, Faith, Kurt, and Tiago were all also there for other reasons. But it was a whole deal getting inside. The others tried to break instead of letting me just call Samantha to let us in. The security system went off. Those stupid energy bats came out again and I accidentally absorbed them again. So I’m glowing. Again. \*insert drawn-out sigh here\*

Anyway, somehow Tiago swapped places with Miraya, who was able to turn off the security system because she had keys and was supposed to be here. She's the president of the astronomy club, who were having a meeting. I wanted to make sure that Tiago was okay, so I texted Samantha that I would be late and then Miraya led me and Carmen up to the telescope, which is where she was before she swapped places with Tiago.

We found out that Carmen was there because Zabrina from the cheerleading squad told her there were tryouts at midnight. Which is super mean. I’m just getting out of the shadow of the Y Girls, so I hope she doesn’t get pulled into that kind of thing.
OH and before I get to the worst part of it, here’s something cute: Faith was wearing Toni’s letterman jacket. She insists that it didn’t mean anything, but I know better. I’m thinking of ordering a huge size so that Boon can wear mine this year. Kurt and I teased her a little before he and Faith went off to do fan club stuff. She definitely has a crush on him. Which is just adorable. I’m not totally sure about him yet, but signs point to yes. Kurt and I got her to text Toni to come over.
Then we went our separate ways, and Miraya took me and Carmen up to the telescope. And that’s when things went badly. You see...Well. Kieran was there. And I punched him. Well, I tried to punch him. I made contact with his face, but it hurt, and he didn’t seem affected. And the feedback from it made me lose control of my powers.
I Pocketed parts of the telescope. From a distance. I’ve never Pocketed anything from a distance before. I don’t know how it happened. But the telescope was broken, and it fell over. Nobody got hurt, though, thank goodness.

Miraya was angry with me. Which, I mean, is fair. I did break the telescope. And I feel bad about that. And for ruining her evening, along with the rest of the astronomy club. But I’m not sorry for punching Kieran. He deserves a lot worse.
But in the moment, all I could see was Miraya defending Kieran, and he doesn’t deserve that. I don’t know what his game is, but I don’t trust him. So I argued with her for a bit before storming out. Kieran was smug about it. It was either leave or initiate a full on fight, and even as angry as I was, I didn’t want anyone getting hurt. What was I going to do, throw him through the wall?

And thinking about it now, if I had, my identity would have been totally blown. I haven’t used my Pockets as Verve a lot, especially not publicly. And I’ve never done that from a distance. But if I’d attacked Kieran, I would have used the others and everyone would have known. And what kind of hero would I be? Kieran is a piece of trash, but he didn’t do anything to me today. I know how he and his friends would spin it. They’re already trying to out me on Chitter.

Ughhhhhhhh I just. Hate him.
Anyway, I left. Carmen and Tiago came after me. And Carmen defended me to Miraya. I don’t think I really expressed how much I appreciated that. And then Carmen said I was cool and talented and that everyone respects me. Which, first I don’t think Miraya does anymore. Which feels worse than it probably should. It’s not like we were more than passing acquaintances, but still.
Oh no, is this how Gwen felt when I told her I looked up to her? \*small existential crisis\*

Anyway. Tiago and Carmen did help me to feel better. I mean, I still feel bad but it’s not as bad. Tiago suggested that we ask Rewind to help fix the telescope. I hope they say yes. (Update from later: they did.)
Tiago and Carmen said that since I can’t just punch Kieran, I should try to do a social punch instead. I just...I don’t know what I could do. I’m not good at this. If I was, the Y Girls wouldn’t have been able to control me like they did.
I realized that I should probably warn Kurt that Kieran is here. Since they have as good or better of a reason to hate him, too. So we headed that way, then ran into Toni. He brought pizza. And gave me a hug because I still was pretty clearly upset.
Don’t tell anyone, but Toni hugs are my second favorite hugs, right behind Boon’s.
We all went to the Fan Club room, where I told Kurt and Faith what had happened. And in the process, told Toni I’m Verve. He went Toni.exe has stopped working for a minute, then asked if it was still okay if he wore pink crop top hoodies. He’s such a sweetheart. I can see why Faith has a crush on him.

**Kurt said also that they convinced Lizzie Lowman (who had seen me in Pocket part of the telescope) not to investigate me in exchange for giving her an exclusive about their time on GAMBITE. Which I know isn’t going to be pleasant for them. But they’re going to smear Kieran in it, so that’s a bonus. Step one of that social punching we talked about.**
Then we all went to the roof to eat pizza and look at the stars. I told Samantha I wasn’t coming, then got high with Kurt and Toni and Tiago. It was kinda nice. Like, floaty. Looking back on the texts I sent Boon, I also got very sappy. Like, sappier than usual. Yes I know that seems like it would be hard because I exist at a high level of sap already.

Kurt also talked to me about the future. It started off with something about Kieran, but then talked about me. About how I build up a cupcake empire and use the money to fund children’s food programs. That I turn out great, and I don’t have to compromise my secret identity to be successful and be a hero. I can do both. They said that I’m a genuinely good person, which isn’t a thing they usually say about people. And also that if anyone ever hurts me, they’ll (to quote Maggie Ostenberg) put them in the ground. And we hugged. I’m so glad they joined Big Team. Toni joined in on the hug. I was very cuddly while I was high. So was Kurt. They were also texting Ernest sappy stuff.
I’m gonna cry again. I just love all my friends so much.

Faith fell asleep and looked cold, so I told Toni that he should sit next to her, and wrap an arm around her, to keep her warm. It’s not meddling...okay maybe it is, but in my defense Toni is a heater and Faith really did look cold. And also they’d be super cute together.

We hung out there for a long time. I realized that if I came home high and smelling like weed that Dad would kill me, but I texted Ellen and she and Tay babysat me at the base overnight. It was nice to spend time with them. Even if I was being very silly. It seemed appropriate that I went to Ellen again, since that’s what happened last time I was glowing from those darn bats. I’m still hiding stuff from my Dad, oops lol.
I know it started really bad, but it was a nice evening. Kieran can’t ruin everything.

I should apologize to Miraya about the telescope. I don’t think I can handle her looking at me like...that again though. Maybe I’ll just drop off cupcakes and a note.

[the next page has a number of apologies, most crossed out, but the following is circled]
I’m sorry for breaking your telescope. Rewind fixed it. I’m not sorry for punching Kieran, and I stand by that. But I didn’t mean to ruin your and everyone else’s evening.

## S5E37 - Gimme Candy

So on the one hand, I feel like I should do a full report on what happened today. On the other hand, the only parts I super want to talk about are the silly ones at the end. So I’m going to compromise and do a highlights bit.
Okay, so Mr. Crossover called me, Carmen, Seb, and Melody to City Hall to babysit a visiting mayor’s son, Güber, during a mayor meeting. He tried to warn us that the kid was a “rapscallion,” but like, I watch Jasper all the time, so I wasn’t really worried. And then this German mayor showed up, talked a bunch like Tiago does now, and then went into the meeting. And didn’t know where his kid was??? He said something existentially unhelpful when we asked.
So we had to go find Güber, and he was at a candy store nearby. (Carmen found out where he was using some like, spirit powers and asking some ghosts? It was cool but I didn’t understand what was happening.) He was surrounded by a swarm of candy, which we eventually convinced him to drop (I felt bad for Petuna, who works there now. I’m sure she doesn’t get paid enough to deal with that mess). The concept of ownership and how he didn’t own all the candy in this store eluded him. Also he claimed he didn’t have powers, but things just did what he wanted. But only sweets, somehow. We all thought that sounded an awful lot like having powers, so we decided to take him to the base to let him try them out. On the way, Güber saw an ice cream truck and teleported inside with Carmen. It was a trap. Closure (a space dragon) and the Terminus (not a space dragon) were trying to kidnap him for some reason. They were with some evil organization or something. I didn’t catch the name of it.
 Seb stopped the van by getting the keys using his time powers, which was cool. Melody fought the Terminus and seemed to be having a great time. I convinced Closure to stop being a criminal and take up professional wrestling instead. He was nice. I think he’ll be a lot happier with HHTTW. AEGIS arrested the Terminus. Carmen called in someone to take care of the lost ice cream truck, which was nice of them to do. Then we all went to the base to figure out what was up with Güber. Carmen’s uncle Max gave us a ride there! He was very nice, but uh, not the safest driver. He seemed to think that traffic laws were suggestions. But we arrived in one piece.
We went to the kitchen and gave Güber some cupcakes, which he turned into a tornado again. It’s the only time that I’ve thought that maybe I have too many cupcakes in the base kitchen. This time, I recognized some of the energy he was giving off. I don’t know if it’s because he was interacting with cake, but I could sense Cake Dimension energy coming off of him as he did the sweets tornado. And Seb figured out that someone was trying to use Güber as a gateway into our dimension. He stopped it for now, but also Güber passed out. We left him with GAIA, and since I’ve been to the Cake Dimension, I used the stones I got from Grandy to take us there.
 Once, there we were greeted by some cake person named Jaconde, who told us that the Red Velvet entity wanted to escape and earn everyone’s respect or something. We beat up Red Velvet, blah blah, but the EXCITING part is that during the fight, the Cake Dimension did it’s weird thing and turned our powers into cake!!! Melody ate the cake with my flight, I ate the one with Melody’s shadow chains, and Carmen ate Seb’s time powers. And we messed around with them for uhhhh, a little longer than probably we should have. Maybe a lot longer. But we had fun!
 Destroying things made of cake with Melody’s shadow chains was a blast! I was sent flying a few times because of the backlash, and gosh I can understand how she has a hard time controlling them. But that cake street was absolutely trashed and I had such a good time. Melody was flying around with my powers, and she was also having a blast. Presumably Carmen was, too, but I didn’t see her much. I think that’s because of how Seb’s powers work? I’m not totally sure. Despite having been on Big Team for a long time together, I haven’t been on many missions with Seb.
 Anyway, we caused some mayhem (like seriously, I destroyed a LOT of things with Melody’s powers -- I had SO much fun), ate too much cake, and eventually the cake person who had greeted us, Jaconde, heavily implied that we outstayed our welcome. Oops. We’d also left Güber alone for longer than is responsible. Extra oops. But honestly? I have no regrets. I cannot emphasize how much fun I had using Melody’s powers. Like, I wish I was able to articulate it better.
 Our powers all got put right when we came back to our world. Mr. Crossover had been calling, though, so we rushed back to city hall with Güber to reunite him with his dad. Mr. Crossover told us that we did well, and then we all went to the commissary to eat real food. (Although I think Melody ate more dessert. She’s such a sugar fiend. I love her.)
And then we all went and passed out at the base while watching a movie (or at least I passed out; I can’t speak for the others since I was, uh, asleep). Food comas all around.
It was such a good day.

## S5E46 - Augtoberfest

Today was Augtoberfest! Grandy thought that a combination Octoberfest and cybernetic augmentation trade show was a little odd, but honestly in the whole Halcyon scheme of things, it hadn’t even ever blipped as strange before.
 Mom had a Sweet Nothings booth there, which she and Pascal ran while Jasper and I went off to get food. Since this is the kind of event that tends to get targeted by villains, she also told me to keep an eye on things. (Spoilers: it did. She’s not the smart one for nothing.)
Oh my gosh, and the WORST THING happened. You know Carlo, Flashing Fist? He was FLIRTING with my mom. I just. Ahhhhhhhh. No. Nope. I can never look at him again.
 But before any shenanigans -- well, before any super shenanigans, it was time for food! Jasper is in a phase where he’s putting ketchup on everything, so I told him he wasn’t allowed to put any on his pretzel. There’s such good cheese sauce! Ketchup ruins it! But before we got food, we ran into Jenny, Seb, Mel, Cambria, and Grace, which was great! Seb also is learning to sign! I didn’t know that. He talked to Jasper a bit, asked if Jasper was Ernest’s little brother. Jasper said yes. I mean, I also think of Ernest as a brother but Seb might get confused now lol. Then we got food, and OF COURSE Mel not only encouraged Jasper’s ketchup-smothered food crimes, he decided to get a bunch of condiments and try them in different combinations on the pretzels.
 Monsters. I can’t believe I’m related to them.
 But it was cute. They had a whole scientific (or maybe just “scientific”) process going on.
 And then we saw Kenneth Ribaldi with someone across the room and Mel said he thinks she’s Kenneth’s girlfriend. And that it might be a secret. Which of course I’ll keep, barring telling Samantha because I’m a good friend and not about to keep that from her. (Look at me, not keeping secrets from my friends.) Also the date was Jenny’s aunt, which like, small world.
 After the assorted pretzel food crimes (all of which were documented and sent to Ernest), we headed over to listen to Helios’s announcement. Helios is the CEO of Fractal Cybernetics, and was at that very sketchy meeting at prom. The speech was mostly generic stuff, but the big deal was a partnership they had with Gethin and Bishop. They were announcing a space colony called Horizon Hope Colony, and it was going to be ready in a few weeks. On the one hand, definitely sinister. On the other hand, Boon is going to want to go. They want to go to space SO bad.
Cambria didn’t think that only evil companies were at the meeting at prom, but I’m not so sure. Either way, I don’t trust any project run by Bishop. (This obviously doesn’t include Jenny because she is a person.)
That Dr. Terrick guy was there, too. He scared Jenny, so I gave her a hoodie I had in my Pockets to hide in. It was one of Boon’s, so it was as huge on her as it is on me. I hope it helped.
 But we walked around a bit after the announcement to look at all the stuff. Mel was, of course, geeking out about the robots. What a goof. I was very interested in some waterproof hearing aids. It would be really nice to have those for swim meets…I’ll talk to Mom and Dad about those later. The Terrick guy was doing a demonstration about sensing time anomalies, and well honestly all of us could be setting it off. And it looked like we were. But Seb did something with his powers to draw attention to himself, to make it look like he was the only one setting it off. To protect Jenny more than me or Mel, but I helped boost the power of that a little, so I think it was successful.
And then because it’s Halcyon and it was inevitable, the place was attacked. Some D-list villain called Approxi-Mate (or Chance? Some people call him chance because it’s a better name) made a speech about joining the Syndicate because there’s no more League of Heroes. You know, villain monologue stuff. He said he was working with Bronze Bomber, and there were some of the Bronze Bomber’s automatons running around causing chaos.
 I asked Cambria to take Grace and Jasper somewhere safe, and she had them plus Scrap-Scrap all hold hands and she teleported them away. Which was a huge relief.
 An automaton was headed for the Sweet Nothings booth, and it almost hurt Pascal when it exploded. I saved him, and at first I was worried that he’d be weird about finding out that I’m Verve, but I talked to him after all this and it turns out that he knew the whole time but just didn’t say anything to be polite. Am I really that bad at keeping a secret? I guess it doesn’t really make sense that I take friends down to the basement when it looks like there’s only mom’s small office down there…
Anyway, I changed, and Mom checked in with me (as Daybreak). As much as I wanted to go do hero stuff with her, I’d gotten separated from Jenny, Mel, and Seb, and I was worried about them. So she went off to handle the automatons with Flashing Fist and some other adult heroes while I texted Mel to ask where he was and found Jenny. Mel said he was going to the Fractal Cybernetics HQ building, and that Cambria was there and acting suspicious. I told him I’d be there soon.
 I found Jenny fighting Approxi-Mate and uh...well she seemed to be losing. Which is embarrassing. So I went to help. And I also wasn’t able to land a hit on him. We had to be saved by Flashing Fist. Which is embarrassing in and of itself (aside from NEVER being able to look at him again), but like, I can’t even take out a D-list villain? Since when did I get so bad at fighting? What’s happened to me? I used to be good at this.
So. I pushed aside my mortification about having to be saved from a low-tier villain, and Jenny I went to meet up with Seb and Mel. They were inside the Fractal Cybernetics HQ and were just pulling Bronze Bomber (who was unconscious and not actually involved in the attack) away from Graviton, a new villain who is working with Vic. Oh, and also someone called Quantum Knight? Who I’d never heard of before but Seb and Jenny seemed to know who she was talking about. She was stealing some augmentations that increase your focus, and on the demo floor they were saying they could be used for spells. (Mel sabotaged the ones she was stealing, so ha.) Cambria was also in the room.
 Then she increased gravity around all of us and we had a short fight. It ended when she called Jenny “Omen” and said that in another timeline, Jenny was one of Quantum Knight’s lieutenants. And Quantum Knight has apparently destroyed whole timelines, which is a whole lot of murder. So I don’t blame her for losing control of her powers. It’s distressing information. But somehow Jenny’s timeline powers let Graviton get away. Seb and Jenny ran after her and saw her escaping with Vic, but weren’t able to catch her.
Ugh. Vic. Why couldn’t he just stay gone?
 But Mel and I stayed behind to talk with Cambria. Mel doesn’t trust her, because of the Black Magic Club stuff (since the Black Magic Club manipulated him and some of the others into breaking Mirror out of AEGIS) and also she was breaking in like Graviton was. My first concern was Jasper and Grace, but Cambria assured me she left them with Dolores. I mean, yeah. I know she wouldn’t let Grace be in danger, but I’m allowed to be worried about my little brother.
Mel was mean and tried to demand that Cambria tell us what she’s up to, and she answered when I told her that I trusted her. Because I do. I trust Cambria Newbridge, even though maybe it isn’t a good idea, but I believe in her. This is a choice I’m making, and I refuse to believe that it’s the wrong one. Like, it’s definitely not the smart choice, but it’s the right choice. Cambria has made mistakes, but with good people to be around instead of Vic and Keith -- people who believe in the good parts of her, I think she can be someone she can be proud of. Someone who Grace can be proud of.
 So, Cambria told us about this huge ritual to do with the leylines under the city, and how Vic wants to use this ritual she’s been prepping to do something bad and selfish. She didn’t say exactly what. I probably should have asked. But I did ask what Cambria was trying to use it for, and she wanted to use it to give everyone in the city superpowers. Because people with powers are safer. It’s harder to feel safe without them. People without powers are inherently in more danger than those of us with them. She wants Greta and Grace to be safe. She asked me about Jasper, and don’t I want him to be safe, and yeah, I do. I understand why she wants to do this. But I told her that she sounds like GREY. She would be taking away people’s choice, and she can’t decide for everyone.
But I also told her that if there was a way to do this, to give people powers who want powers without forcing them on people who don’t want them, I’d help her find it. Because I’m her friend and I care about her. And I think that really hit home for her. She said she’d try to change the ritual.
 And then I said something that I probably shouldn’t have said, but you know what could give and take powers? Iconoclast’s helmet. We could take powers from people who don’t want them, and give them to people who could. You know, maybe. I don’t know where it is, though. Tiago had it, but then he was gone in time for a bit and I don’t know if he remembers where it is. Cambria said she’d look into it. And as much as I hate what Iconoclast did, there are people we could help with that helmet. Like, if my dad developed powers tomorrow, he’d want to get rid of them. He wouldn’t want anything to do with them.
Anyway, Cambria told Mel that she didn’t like Mirror, either, but he said he still didn’t like Cambria. I’m sure he’ll come around.
She left, and Mel and I talked for a bit. Mirror is kinda his Kieran, from the way he talks about her. But also he’s so obnoxious. I was trying to have a sweet moment and he ruined it by giving me a noogie. Ugh. Little brothers who are taller than me shouldn’t be allowed. But I told he was family, and I’d always be there for him. And we hugged before going off to find my other annoying little brother.
 And I know that the company is sketchy, but I’m going to talk to Mom about those waterproof hearing aids. That would be so nice for swim meets. People have to shout at me in order for me to hear, plus it’s so echoey in swimming pools.
 Maybe for my birthday…

## S5E49 - A Liminal State of Mind

So today was uh...weird. You know, more than just typical Halcyon weird.
It started out normal, as days like this usually do. This sweet old lady who Boon had met before, Subliminal, had invited them over for tea and told them to bring some friends. So Boon brought me, Shade, and EliZe along after school! I hadn’t met EliZe yet, but she’s very nice. Confusing, but I like her.
Subliminal was absolutely the sweetest but also!!! Subliminal and Liminal were icons. I mean. Uh. They were. You know. Also. Um. Very pretty. I MAY have had an old vintage-looking poster of them in my room when I was little (not actually vintage, no one should trust a kid with that).
But I held it together pretty well, I think. Subliminal is just like, a grandma now, and that makes her less intimidating to meet for the first time.
There was a wall in her apartment just covered with old photos of her and Liminal with a bunch of heroes. Like, I saw Sledge and Maggie and a whole bunch of others on there.
 Anyway, we had some sweet small talk, had some tea and cookies (did you know the retirement home where she’s living limits the amount of sweets people can bring her? How can she get enough cupcakes?), and then she told us why she asked us over. It turns out that Mr. Barrett, my English teacher, had been missing for a few days and she wanted us to check up on him. He used to be a teen hero called FortiTude. Which is so weird. Like, he’s my English teacher, arguably the most boring type of teacher after math. I mean he’s a good teacher and loves what he does, but being an English teacher is just so normal? Like, what superhero grows up to be an English teacher? It’s just weird to me.
Oh, and she asked Boon about their plans. And Boon talked about school and Valkyrie training and stuff, but then they mentioned how they’d been thinking about leaving Big Team. Which was news to me. Subliminal said something really nice and comforting about making big decisions at our age. Like, even if we change our minds in a few years, we can do that, and the time we spent doing what we’ve decided now wasn’t wasted.
And then we went off to check on Mr. Barrett. Hana came up with this elaborate plan to hack into the school in order to find out his address, which reminded me of a few weeks ago when everyone wanted to break into the school instead of just letting me text someone inside to let us in and it went horribly wrong, so I texted Jerry from swim team and he texted me the flyer for the last poetry club meeting, which was at Mr. Barrett’s house. Since three of us can fly, we flew over there. Hana carried EliZe and even though I can fly, Boon carried me. You know. For reasons.
 At Mr. Barrett’s house, Hana used her new armor to scan for life signs, and she saw Mr. Barrett on the ground through the window while she was walking around the house. So I lightninged into the house and opened the door for them all. Mr. Barrett was on the floor in his study. Boon couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him with their magic, but it didn’t seem like he was actively hurt. EliZe ran to get him some water, but spilled a bunch and he couldn’t actually drink anything since he was unconscious, but it was very sweet of her. We called 911 to get him to a hospital, and I looked at what he was writing when he passed out.
 Okay, so here is where my memory gets kinda fuzzy, so instead of being confusing, I’ll say what happened as I know it now not as I knew it at the time. Mr. Barrett was writing down an old Asgardian story about an Earwyrm, which grows more powerful the more people know about it. But all I knew at the time was that it felt bad and gave me a headache to read. The knowledge of what I’d read was sealed off in my brain. So I didn’t actually know what the paper said, just that it had bad vibes. Hana was the same way, but EliZe and Boon could read it. They realized it was Asgardian and that Maggie knew about it. Somehow. Like I said, I’m fuzzy about the details.
 So we went to see Maggie. Which was fine. I’m totally not still scared of her. Nope.
Maggie told us how in the early 90s, a bunch of heroes including herself, the Liminals, and FortiTude fought the Earwyrm. And the stuff about how it gets more powerful the more people know about it. So they sealed away the knowledge of it inside the brains of whoever already knew it, and prevented them from telling anyone else. But Mr. Barrett writing it down broke this, and now it’s free to do evil (or whatever) again. Sealing it away in their brains was supposed to only be a temporary measure, but they never found a way to defeat it for real, so it’s what they stuck with.
 (Okay maybe some of that is stuff Subliminal told us later. I don’t remember exactly and I figured the infodump being all in one place is easier to read...not that anyone reads this. But. You know.)
Maggie said she’d do some more research, and we went to see Subliminal again. Only when we got to her rooms, the Earwyrm was THERE. And trashing her apartment. There was a nurse there, too, but Boon got him out. I don’t actually know what happened cuz, uh, it wrapped around Shade, and EliZe and I got her out, but it did this trill thing at me, and I passed out. I’ve been so useless in fights lately.
 But they defeated it, and when I woke up, Boon was back. We talked for a bit about how we have each other’s backs, even though it’s scary to see each other in danger all the time. And about leaving Big Team. Which, like I said, wasn’t a thing I’d thought about really. But Boon feels like they’re ready to move on, and maybe forming a hero duo with me. Like the Liminals. Which, you know, would be super cute. It’s a thing I’ll need to think about. But they said that no matter what they do, they want to do it with me. Which is just adorable. My joyfriend is adorable. The most adorable person. That’s so gay. I love them so much.
 But uh, back to the mission. Shade had taken the Earwyrm out to the bay and chucked it in because they’d tied it up at the end of the fight. So it was loose, because there’s no way it didn’t get free. I’m not exactly sure what Shade was thinking?
 Boon got a call from Maggie saying that she’d found a way to trap the Earwyrm, but she needed Boon’s help to forge it. So Boon went to go help with that.
I mean, they kissed me before they flew off. But yeah.
 \*ahem\*
 So um. Right. Then Shade found Subliminal, who was fine. She wasn’t in the room when it had been attacked. I looked up to see what events were going on today to see what places it would be likely to go, since it would want to infect a lot of people at once. We weren’t totally sure where it might attack, but there was an anime convention that looked promising.
 Long story short, we were right. EliZe used...time stuff?...to figure out that it would attack the biggest panel, which makes sense. The line was SUPER long though, so I Pocketed her and Shade and went in through the wires. I was worried about like, imploding all of space and time by putting EliZe in there, since she’s...you know, her, but she assured me it would be fine and it was. She and Shade found some cupcakes and at them all. I had to stop EliZe from eating the tupperware, too.
I would be annoyed, but it was cute. They’re both sweethearts.
 Anyway, the panel started, the Earwyrm showed up, EliZe led the charge getting the civilians out, and then we were kinda getting our butts kicked (here’s me being useless in a fight again) (okay I guess I helped do a few things, but I certainly didn’t do great). But then Boon flew in through a hole that had been knocked in the ceiling! I’d been texting them updates about where we were. They and Maggie had made this large medallion thing that would act like a brain to trap the Earwyrm like it had been trapped in the minds of the people who had helped fight it the first time. Since Boon was pretty drained from forging, and Shade and I couldn’t understand it yet, EliZe told the medallion the story of the Earwyrm, trapping it away.
 It was pretty cool. That room was pretty messed up, but you know. Not nearly as bad as a lot of Big Team fights.
 Then we went for ice cream at the place called Whole Gelato Stuff, and when we were done, we went to Subliminal’s to report in. Plus, while we were there, we got added to her wall of heroes! That is possibly the coolest thing. Like. She thinks I’m a hero. I know I’ve been doing hero stuff for a while, but I’m not popular like Ernest or Boon are. I’ve just kinda flown under the radar. I mean, aside from Tony, I don’t think I have any fans who aren’t my friends or family. (Yes Tony is my friend now, but he wasn’t when he started being a fan of Verve.)
 Anyway, I still kinda have a headache. I’m gonna head over to Boon’s and cuddle with them. They’re still pretty tired from forging. Plus, Maggie is probably also tired, which means less of a chance to run into her.
 ….Not that I’m still afraid of her or anything.

## S5E51 - Another Life, Another Time

Today was a whole lot of fun. Okay, I mean, a lot of bad things could have happened, but they didn’t, and we had a very successful double date! Now maybe Boon will stop thinking we’re cursed to only have bad double dates. That was ONE time.
So Aman, Melody, Boon, and I went on a double date to paintball. Before we got started, Melody made a bet that the losers would pay for supper, and we all agreed. Boon wanted to use powers, but there were video cameras, plus there were signs asking participants not to destroy stuff. So we all agreed not to. Plus, if we used powers, Boon and Aman would have lost even more badly than they did. And they were totally losing. Don’t listen to them if they say otherwise.
So Boon and Aman were well on their way to paying for dinner when I got a call from Cambria. And, you know, who calls unless it’s an emergency. So I took it, and she needed my help to manage the energy from her ritual. I asked if it was okay if I brought the others along, and she reluctantly agreed. We stopped the paintball match (the others thought I was joking at first, which admittedly would have been a good distraction tactic, but I don’t want to be the “cries super emergency” person).
Cambria was at ReBAR, which is the Black Magic Club headquarters apparently. Aman was pouty about having to stop the date to help Cambria. He doesn’t trust her. But I do, and she explained that she was altering the ritual to give people a choice when there was a strange influx of energy that threw it off balance and made it start. So there’s an overflow of energy. She and the others in the club had done what they could to siphon off the energy safely, but it wasn’t enough. That’s where I came in! Absorbing energy is my thing.
Aman was still super suspicious, but Cambria explained that she’s changing the ritual to give people a choice if they get powers or not, it’s just not ready yet. Cambria led us down to the basement where this magic flame was glowing very brightly. It was very hard to look at. It was connected to the leyline that connects to the Zodiac Tree. Now I don’t understand much about magic, but it seems like everything that has to do with Zodiac Tree energy goes badly. Anyway, all I needed to do was absorb the energy so that Cambria could put a stop to the ritual.
Boon started critiquing the ritual circle, and there were some thuds from upstairs that Aman and Melody went to investigate. Cambria didn’t seem to want them to go up, but stayed downstairs with me and Boon. I never did find out what was up there. Probably Stacey, Keith, and Greta, considering that’s who Cambria looked for later. They probably just knocked something over.
Cambria was definitely saying that she had things under control too many times. Like, saying “it’s fine” in a me way when things are NOT fine. But I figured that if things were that bad, I’d help and could talk to Cambria about all this later. So Cambria showed me where to siphon the energy from, and I planned on absorbing it straight into my Pockets.
But as soon as I tried, everything went wrong.
 Instead of absorbing the ritual’s energy, it sucked all of the energy I’d had stored out of me and my Pockets. I haven’t had nothing absorbed since I got my powers. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling. The magic turned dark with iridescent cracks, and then I woke up at my kitchen island.
 My brain felt fuzzy, like I’d taken a bad nap. My homework was in front of me, and none of this really registered as weird. Like I said, my brain was fuzzy. I could feel Jasper poke me in the back, and hear him giggling, but I didn’t see him. I still felt drained, so I absorbed some electricity from the outlet in the kitchen island. And then Jasper just APPEARED because he was invisible! And scolded me for doing that! (To be fair, I’m not supposed to absorb energy from random outlets in the house.) He told me I needed to catch him, like this was a game we’d played before, and turned invisible. Jasper is not very good at being quiet, so it was pretty easy, and I tickled him when I caught him.
 Then Mom and Dad come down the stairs in their hero outfits. Yeah. Both of them! Like, Dad looked so weird. I asked Jasper if Mom and Dad knew he could turn invisible, since to me this was an exciting new development. He looked at me like I was crazy. I didn’t understand why Dad was dressed up, and then Grandy came into the room asking if Jasper and I were ready to go eat brunch. And they were OLD. Like, I guess, the age they would have been if they hadn’t bounced around time for a while.
 And that’s when I realized I was in the wrong timeline. I immediately text Cambria to ask if she’s also in the wrong timeline, and she was. She told me to find my friends and meet her at ReBAR. And then there was a knock at the door and there were Boon and Eric Ostenberg. Her dad. I started tearing up and asked if they were MY Boon and then they also started crying and said yes. We got ourselves under control and Boon introduced me to Eric, who is not bad in this timeline and I should not punch. I offered. It seemed like the right thing to do.
The adults were very confused about what was going on. Were there really so few time shenanigans in that timeline that people didn’t recognize them when they happened? Considering that Grandy is the correct age, maybe.
Hold on, let me talk about this timeline for a sec. First of all, this new timeline’s Boon and Atlanta weren’t dating. Boon only moved to town a few months ago, which is weird. Ellen never came to the present in this timeline. I wonder if Tay is there? Gosh, with no Ellen or Boon to temper it, I wonder if that Atlanta also had a giant crush on Tay. It didn’t seem like that Atlanta was dating anyone, though, or else the adults probably would have said something. If there was a Tay there, she probably wasn’t interested in that Atlanta, either. If they’d even met. There also wasn’t a Big Team, so that me probably didn’t really have friends. Since I didn’t before Big Team. No Big Team, no Ellen...I know I’d still be very alone without those two factors. ALSO we realized that there was no Bay in this universe. Grandy never Pocketed New England. Vermont exists. That’s just...wild.
 Oh, right, the big thing about that timeline was that nearly everyone had superpowers. That was just how things were. Which is probably why we were taken there, since that’s what Cambria’s ritual would do if it went off as-is.
 And can I just say that I’m SO glad my Jasper can’t turn invisible. He’d be such a terror.
 I called Melody, who was thankfully my Melody, and she was with the correct Aman. Dad made a SHADOW PORTAL and took me, Boon, himself, Eric, and Mom to ReBAR. Aman, Melody, and Esam met us there. I guess Esam isn’t a jerk in that timeline.
 Cambria was already there, and explained that Keith, Greta, and Stacey hadn’t swapped, and they were inside helping Vic with a ritual that would take away everyone’s powers. There were a ton of people flying when the ritual started to go off, and all our alternate timeline families felt it. We were unaffected, probably since we didn’t belong there. But Mom, Dad, Esam, and Eric were. I had to convince Mom and Dad to stay outside. I told them that I’d get their Atlanta back. They were worried about us kids going in alone, but like, we weren’t alone. There were four of us. Plus, I told them that I did this kind of stuff without an adult all the time. (Wait, does Boon count as an adult? ….) I uh, wasn’t the best at reassuring them. I brought up that Mom had been gone when I’d started, and that Dad wasn’t super supportive at first but he’s doing better now, and that I got stabbed a few weeks ago...which, yeah, not the best strategy. But I did also manage to reassure them that we knew what we were doing. I hugged them, and whispered that Boon is non-binary, so if they could drop hints to their universe’s Boon that’d be cool, since they’re a lot happier with themself now that they know.
 The others had likewise convinced their alternate families to stay outside, and we headed inside to fight Vic. Unfortunately, considering my powers, I needed to help Cambria with the ritual, so the others got to punch Vic. Who went by Victor there. So pretentious.
 But before Cambria and I could fix the ritual, Greta came up to us. I tried to explain to her that what Victor was doing was bad, and taking people’s choices away is the wrong thing to do. But she said she’d need to stop us. I stopped her from attacking Cambria and tried to convince her not to do this. I know she’s not my version of Greta, but it still hurt to be fighting a friend. I know my speech was good, but it didn’t stop her. So I tased her. Which I hated to do. But at least I wasn’t useless in this fight.
Cambria and I fixed the ritual, and the others broke Victor’s concentration. The ritual was fixed, and stopped, and the walls of the building went translucent as the timelines fixed themselves. We could see our alternate families outside, no longer being hurt by the spell. Then we saw ourselves fading in as we were fading out. Our other selves were wearing paintball gear. I wonder who won. Boon kissed me in front of them to give our other selves a hint. Which was very funny. Everyone had a message for their other selves, and I told mine that she could let people in. People liked me once I gave them a chance and didn’t keep them at a distance, assuming they wouldn’t care about me outside of the context where we knew each other. I hope it helped.
 And then we were back in ReBAR, where we were before we vanished. We met up with Aman and Melody. The others were more upset with Cambria than I was, but I defended her. We can’t only judge her by the times she’s messed up, because we wouldn’t want people to judge us like that. I mean, what if people only judged me about being a bad friend to Ernest and Tay back when they didn’t know my secret identity? Aman wanted to argue that she only ever calls when she needs help, but to be fair MOST people only call Big Team when they need us. Besides, Cambria and I hang out outside of team stuff. She doesn’t only talk to me when she needs something. But Aman also said that he wanted to trust her, so there’s hope there.
 Cambria said that we could get back to our date, but I pulled her aside to talk to her about the ritual for a second. I asked if seeing it from the other way made her realize how bad of an idea her ritual is, and she said that already agreed that not giving people a choice was bad. But she’s not giving up on it. I trust her. If she thinks she really can fix it, I support that. I gave her a hug, and then confirmed that we were getting together on Thursday with Jasper and Grace.
 Oh! And Boon showed me that they can turn into a bird! With their cape of feathers! That’s so cool. Omg if they fall asleep while a bird will they tuck their head under their wing? That would be so cute.
 Despite not having a winner from paintball, we all went to Flick’s family restaurant to eat. After we were done, Melody brought up future plans. Boon said that they felt like their time on Big Team was over, and Melody and Aman are going to college. Plus, Melody is picking up a lot of Old Jackal’s duties. But Aman hadn’t really thought about leaving Big Team, mostly because he doesn’t want to. Which is a mood.
 But then Melody brought up forming a new League of Heroes, and how she’d been talking about it with Gwen. Boon was very excited about the idea. I think it sounds fun, although like, I’m still just a junior. It would be weird for me to be on an adult hero team, right? I mean, I’m 16. Well, 17 now.
 Aman was less than thrilled, but Boon said that Big Team is in good hands. The others who haven’t been on the team as long are good. We can let them go.
I don’t know if either Aman and I are ready for that, but that was very profound. I guess Boon really took Subliminal’s words to heart last week. It seems like they really are ready for new things.

(Also I KNOW that she wasn’t my Greta, but I’m going to make this one cupcakes as an apology. I know that makes me a hypocrite because I told Ernest not to worry about hitting other mes that one time, but I feel bad and I don’t know how to fix it other than cupcakes.)
 (Also I did get those waterproof hearing aids for my birthday! Since I mentioned it a few weeks ago in here I figured I’d update that. I got a ton of very cool presents, too, but those aren’t mission related.)

## Hallowe’en OVA: Sending Shivers Down Your Spine

I love Halloween so much. The costumes, the treats, just the general atmosphere, it’s so good. I know I’m an October baby so that’s probably why I love it, but who cares about the reasons. I love Halloween.
 I was planning on spending most of my Halloween with Boon, and we even made matching costumes! We were Scorpia and Perfuma from She-Ra. They are the most perfect Scorpia. I mean, they’re the most perfect in general but you know.
But plans changed when I found out that Cambria had contacted Ernest about some bad magic stuff happening at this big influencer party. I’m kinda sad that she didn’t contact me about it? I mean, I told her I was there for her with hero stuff, and I’ve helped her before. I hope she isn’t mad at me for some reason. She didn’t seem to want to talk at the party…
Anyway, I was already going to the party to deliver cupcakes, so all I needed to do was take off my apron after getting inside and stay. Easy. Tay was invisible and helped me carry in the cupcakes, which was nice. The guy who let us in was disappointed that I told him I wasn’t magic (since with Tay invisible it looked like the box of cupcakes she was carrying was floating), but then he peeked under the box that Tay was carrying and got excited again, thinking I really was magic because he didn’t see a drone or anything holding it up. I’m glad I could make his night, even if it wasn’t really magic.
I set up the cupcakes while Tay snuck over to mark that we’d left on that guy’s clipboard. And then I followed Tay around as she got a drink (then dumped out the drink and put her own drink in the cup). And she was like “hey what’s wrong? Oh have you never been to a party before?” because I looked super uncomfortable I guess (which isn’t wrong but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I wasn’t hiding it well). But like? This was a grown-up party? Like I know a bunch of teen influencers were there but this was nothing like Bella’s or Tadd’s parties. And I told her that yes I had been to two parties before, like that made me sound like less of a loser. But she’s Tay, and she thought it was sweet. And also I guess remembered that I’m barely 17 and also not a cool person who gets invited to parties. But she drug me off to dance, which did help me get more comfortable. She’s so good. I’m gonna miss her so much when she and Ellen leave again...
ANYWAY WE’RE NOT HERE TO THINK ABOUT THAT. The other thing about parties is that they’re very loud? I kept turning my hearing aids on and off, so that when I didn’t really need to hear it wasn’t so overwhelming.
We finally found Melody and Ernest when we saw a dance circle. Ernest was in a dance battle with Bronx. He beat Bronx, which made Bronx upset. I’m not super close with Bronx, even though we used to work at the mall together. I know he’s friends with Val, but like, Val didn’t like me, so I don’t know him that well. Tay went after him, and I went with her because to be honest, the party was big and loud and I’m very small and I didn’t want to get lost or be alone and I felt safer with Tay. Which sounds silly and childish but no one reads this.
 Tay talked with Bronx for a bit, telling him that he did well, and that she tried to beat a younger Ernest at DDR when she went back in time and was barely able to after training for months, so he shouldn’t feel bad. I think maybe it would have helped, but then Ernest and Kevin came over. Bronx yelled at Ernest and stormed away. River asked us to give him some time.
We decided we should probably find Cambria to take care of whatever bad magic thing was going on. But when we did, she said she misread stuff and that there wasn’t anything magic going on after all. (Side note: she was wearing a super pretty Morticia Baddams costume. Pretty probably isn’t the right word? Regal? Elegant?) Cambria had gotten into the party with a cosplayer I’d never heard of. They went off to enjoy the party, and so the four of us decided that since we were here, we might as well enjoy it, too.
And then Good Times showed up.
 So back on the Fourth of July, Jasper, Grace, Scrap-Scrap, Timothy, and Mishel stopped Good Times from making an eternal party in a graveyard during the blackout. (And on the one hand, I’m very proud of the kids and Timothy, but on the other hand, I hate that Jasper was in danger.) And here is this shiny mirror skeleton, at this party. Ernest and I were both concerned, but Melody and Tay were really into it, so we decided to wait and see what they did despite Ernest and me being pretty sure that the dance Good Times was teaching everyone was some kind of mind control dance.
Spoilers: It was.
I had turned off my hearing aids again, so when the music started, it didn’t hit me like it hit everyone else. Apparently, everyone else was convinced they were now Good Times’s skeleton army. And I mean everyone. Good Times told them to go out and tell everyone to join the Syndicate (what’s with the Syndicate lately?). I used my electricity to magnetize the doors all shut, which kept people in at least for a minute. And then Tay came up trying to cut open the doors with her claws, and I lightninged over to try and get her to stop. Thank goodness she did. Her claws were very close to my face and I don’t want scars on my face to match the one on my shoulder.
 Now that she was snapped out of the mind control, Tay went to try and hold back the crowd. The thing is, Melody was there and they started fighting. I think Tay said something about Melody wasn’t demonstrating good undead solidarity? My hearing aids were still off.
So I knew that I needed to shut off the music, or at least get people to not listen to it, and I wasn’t sure how to do that. But then I remembered Cloudy! I had Cloudy come up with a counter-melody and they started playing it, and also shot out some bluetooth speakers that stuck to various walls to get a wider spread. One landed by Ernest and one by Melody, thank goodness. (Tay had thrown Melody through a wall, but she was fine.)
 Now that we were all snapped out of the mind control and knew we weren’t skeletons (not everyone was free, but at least the team was), I told them we needed to stop the music. Tay and Melody held the crowd back from me while I did some energy sensing to figure out how to turn off the speakers. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a targeted way to do it, just turn off the power to the whole building. Fortunately, turning off the power to the entire building is easy for me to do.
While I was doing that, Ernest and Tay went for Good Times, and Melody called up a bunch of shadows that turned into skeletons. It was super cool. Tay and Ernest talked to Good Times (they told me that Good Times didn’t want to be doing this, but someone in the Syndicate has their soul jar so they’re being blackmailed). Tay made an announcement about how they should all change their undead army into an Undead Alliance, which the influencers who still thought they were skeletons were open to.
 But then I got the power turned off, and the music stopped, and everyone realized they weren’t skeletons, so the Undead Alliance was pretty short-lived.
 The thing about turning off power to a building to stop the music is that it also turns off the lights. And it was nighttime. So people were starting to freak out. Fortunately Ernest made some lightning lights that prevented a real panic.
The others were over talking with Good Times, so I headed over there as well. When I got there, they sniffed me and asked if I’d been at a library prison on an African island...which was a surprising enough question that I said yes. They asked me to tell Nicholas Goldman hi for them next time I saw him, then told me not to, and also called Nicholas Goldman a “young rapscallion.” And I have no idea how to process that. Nicholas Goldman popped into existence as an old man and you can’t convince me otherwise. We let Good Times leave. Melody said something about having an uncle named Nicholas, which is weird and I’m sure it can’t be the same one, but then pulled Tay off to talk. Ernest went to find Bronx, and they made up.
Since I was alone all of a sudden, I went over to the cupcake table. The party was over and everyone was slowly leaving, but I set the ones that weren’t on the floor upright. I wasn’t sure what else to do. Ernest found me there. He was excited, thanked me for helping snap him out of the mind control. Cloudy kept doing the zap emoji and the cupcake emoji, which in combination seem to be my name. Which is cute. He was saying how we needed to tell Jasper and Timothy about this, since they’d run into Good Times before. And yeah, we do. I’d been getting lots of pictures from Jasper about his night out trick-or-treating with Mishel, Grace, Timothy, and Mom.
I don’t remember exactly what he said, but he said something that proved he no longer thinks doing bad things while being mind controlled makes him a bad person, so that’s good. But he noticed I was kinda upset, and so I told him about how people were talking about leaving Big Team, and how it seemed like maybe they expected me to, and how I’m still a junior and have two years of high school left so I can’t be an adult hero. And I guess there isn’t only “Big Team” and “adult heroes,” but that’s kinda what it feels like. He said that he joined Big Team to learn how to be a hero, and now that he has, he feels like he’s ready to move on.
 So I told him about Mom being pregnant, and how she’s going to retire soon. I haven’t even told Boon yet, even though I have permission. Ernest said she isn’t just going to disappear (which he realized was a bad thing to say as soon as he’d said it). But what he meant was that she’s still going to be around and be my mom and help me if I need it even though she’s not being a hero. And yeah, I know that. But also...Mom hasn’t just been my mom since I was twelve. It’s been five years since that’s all she was for me. She was gone for four years, and since she got back she’s been my mentor, too.
But the worst part is that when Daybreak retires, people will expect me to be her. But I’m not strategic and smart about fights. I rush in. Today, I took out the power to the entire building even though that took out the lights, and if Ernest hadn’t given everyone light, they would have panicked and people would have gotten hurt.
Ernest pointed out that I was the only one who resisted the mind control, and that’s true. And that I’m a good hero, which I mean, is probably also true. And then he joked about how long before he gets the baby on his food crimes show, and that made me laugh. I really love him, and Big Team, and maybe I’m just scared that if I’m not on Big Team, all my friends will go away. Which I know isn’t true. But changes are coming, and I can’t help but be scared by them.
Oh wow, I just realized that it’s a good thing everyone was kinda out of it while I was doing lightning stuff, otherwise a bunch of influencers would know who I am.

## S5E59 - Special Delivery

Today wasn’t really a mission, but it was a lot of fun so I wanted to write about it! Pascal accepted a bunch of deliveries that weren’t within our range. So Mom and I had to run all over the city and beyond to try and deliver them! The first order we took to GAIA at the base, and we ran into Ophanim and a new teammate, Michaela, aka Hummingbird, aka Birdie. She seems super nice, but her dad and Mom were kinda enemies back when Mom was a hero the first time, so she was suspicious of her. I invited Ophanim and Birdie along with us. Mom was less than thrilled (she’s suspicious about Birdie because of her dad), but Ophanim and I have barely done anything together since we joined Big Team together, so I wanted to! Plus Birdie seems super nice.
So the next delivery was up to the UN side of the old League Watchtower, to the Mayor of the UN part of space. There’s still a teleporter in the base that goes up there, so we took that up. By we, I mean the three of us on the team and not Mom. We realized that maybe rearranging Mom’s atoms right now wasn’t a good idea? So she stayed in the base while we went up. We didn’t tell the other two that’s why, since Mom hasn’t announced the pregnancy yet. They were suspicious but didn’t push it.
 Birdie was super excited at getting to go to space. And the view of Earth from up there is beautiful. After we stared at that for a bit, someone with a clipboard asked why we were there, and I showed him the cupcakes. He gave us directions to her office. An engineer stopped us on the way to talk with Ophanim, to try and ask em to ask Ernest to come up to see them (since Birdie is new to Big Team and I wasn’t in costume, e was the only one who was clearly Big Team). Apparently this station does a lot with weather now, and they’re all Weathervanes. This guy’s name was Sven and he shipped Ernest with Cadenza, which is an extra gross ship. Nat is a lesbian, people!!! And he didn’t think I would know better than Real Big Team Scoop, which, gross. I told him rats could know better, and we went up to the mayor’s office. The receptionist was nice, and asked for a cupcake before she let us in. I gave her one, and then Ophanim asked if that was a bribe. And I don’t think so??? But like, what if it was? Did I accidentally do something really bad?
The Mayor of Space was nice, but she was also a Weathervane and holy cow is this what Ernest has to deal with all the time? Like, I know he’s internet famous now, but like, all of the Weathervanes I’ve met have been...so weird? Obnoxious? Idk exactly what the right word is but I didn’t super enjoy those parts of our interactions. And oh my gosh the shipping is terrible. I’m glad I’ve mostly avoided that. Some people have started shipping me with Cadenza now, and like, at least it’s not Ernest (for, again, the aforementioned lesbian reasons). The Mayor recognized me from Ernest’s videos, and asked me about his dating life, and I’m just like “He’s dating Kurt??? He’s said this on chitter???” She still seemed skeptical. The cupcakes were for a Chimera Cooking watch party, which is even weirder. But she didn’t seem upset that I’d given the receptionist a cupcake, which was a relief.
 But I will tell Mom that we should keep catering to the Watchtower. It’s not hard to get to, and it’ll be good business for us. Plus they give good tips.
 Okay so also we stopped by the Zero G chamber before we left. That was a blast. We probably shouldn’t have wasted time there, but Birdie was so excited. Boon is going to be so jealous that I got to go to space without them again. Maybe next time I get an order I’ll take them with me.
 When we got back down to Earth, Mom was waiting impatiently. She wasn’t super happy that we took a detour to the Zero G chamber, but she’ll live. I have no regrets.
Next we went to deliver cupcakes to Maggie, and I uh, may have overloaded Ophanim and Birdie talking about Boon on the way. But it’s not my fault! They’re just perfect. Maggie was in Folk-van-gr (no I don’t know how to pronounce or spell it, leave me alone), we headed to Boon’s house to use the teleportal in their base.
 Boon was more than happy to help. Ophanim almost got stuck in the stairs down to the base, because e is very large and those stairs are not, but it was fine. Boon told us that Maggie was at a meeting with a bunch of other valkyries and Norse people to talk about Sutr and the upcoming Ragnarok. So she ordered cupcakes for morale. And also Freya herself was there. Boon said that Freya was scarier than Maggie, but Boon also doesn’t think that Maggie is scary. Boon wasn’t allowed to go because they needed to rest after being turned into a sheep yesterday.
So once again all of us, sans Boon and my mom, hopped through the portal. Boon said that Mom had “portal sickness” from going through too many portals but I don’t think the others bought it.
The thing is Ophanim is very big and apparently in the folk van place being big makes people assume that you’re a Jotun and attack you. Ophanim asked them to “please do not be afraid” but that didn’t work. Birdie and I convinced them that we had cupcakes for Maggie pretty quickly, which is a relief. Birdie offered them cupcakes and I asked Ophanim if this counted as a bribe but e didn’t have a solid answer for me. Then the valkyries walked us over to Maggie, who was talking with Freya.
  (Okay side note, one of the valkyries talked with Ophanim, and she had red hair and an undercut and oh wow she was SO pretty.)
 Ahem. So uh. The ~~pretty~~ valkyries took us over to a tent where there were lots more very buff people doing planning stuff and also Maggie and Freya were there. Freya was super tall (okay not next to Ophanim, but she was tall next to Maggie, and Maggie is pretty tall) and Boon was right she was super scary. Definitely scarier than Maggie. She asked me about my bracelet, which is the necklace that Boon made for me but I wear it as a bracelet. Apparently it’s based off of hers, and she said Boon did a pretty good job for a mortal. Then she ate a cupcake and said something like the Norns themselves guided her to this cupcake and like, I don’t know what that means but she’s terrifying.
(Also when she asked for Ophanim and Birdie’s names, Ophanim introduced eirself as Mohammed Hadi and is it bad that I just realized I had never heard eir real name before? I met em over a year ago.)
 She talked to Birdie and Ophanim for a bit longer, but I wasn’t super paying attention because I wanted out of there. When we finally got back to Boon’s, they asked what I thought of Freya. I told them that they were right. They thought that somehow this would mean that I’m no longer afraid of Maggie, but I can be scared of two things. Then Boon kissed me and I tried to rush out to hide my blushing but I ran into a doorway. Mom laughed at me.
 Birdie passed on the message that Freya complimented Boon’s work on the necklace. I would have remembered later. I was flustered!
 Mom said we had time for one more delivery after that, so we decided to try and find the van. Birdie said she knew a way to find information, and took us to a secret base. It turned out to be Jackal’s secret base, which I didn’t recognize until we went inside. In my defense, I’d only been there once before, and it was covered in shadow at the time, plus a forest has sprung up around it since then. Apparently Birdie’s dad had told her about this place. I guessed that Old Jackal’s computer password was “fucktheleafs” and we were in! We found a folder cataloguing suspicious vehicles, and one was the green van we were looking for!
When we got to where the green volkswagen bus was parked, there was smoke billowing out of the windows. Birdie and I thought it was on fire, so we tried to help, but it turns out this weird dragon lady was just hotboxing it. She’s Closure’s mom, which is cool! I wonder how he’s doing, I haven’t seen him since I convinced him not to quit his bad crime job and go into professional wrestling. Hurricane asked if superheroes always deliver cupcakes in this city, and Birdie told her that only this one does because their daughter is a hero, and I was like “ahhh hey that’s a secret” cuz apparently Birdie didn’t know. Whoops. I’m sure it’s fine. Hurricane didn’t even remember that she’d ordered the cupcakes, so even if she remembers that Birdie told her that, she might not remember which cupcake place she ordered from…Right?
 Oh, and uh, she’s the one who transformed Boon to save them yesterday. Not sure how I feel about that. Then she offered us weed and I said we had important cupcake business to attend to.
 Back in the van, Mom said she was glad that I never did weed, and uh, well. Let’s pretend that’s true. There’s a reason I hid at the base with Ellen and Tay after. Mom said that maybe she was wrong about Birdie, and invited her and Ophanim over for dinner. Birdie said she had to cook for her dad, but Ophanim accepted. So we dropped Birdie off at the base, and then we went home. And the moment we got into the house, Dad yelled excitedly about something he bought for the nursery, and uh, so Ophanim also knows about the baby. And why Mom didn’t go through the teleportals.
Anyway, that was today! It was a lot of fun. I haven’t really hung out with Ophanim before even though we joined the team together, so that was extra nice. And the two of us invited Birdie to the team a few weeks ago, so it was also super fun to hang out with her!

## S5E63 - Oops All Proteges

Today was bad.

I don’t really want to write about it, but I know this helps me to feel better, so I’m gonna.
I got a message from Mel on the Big Team Biscord that his dad had been kidnapped and he needed help. I was supposed to babysit Jasper because Dad was at work and Mom and Grandy were at a meeting at City Hall, and no one was available on short notice, so I brought Jasper with me to the base. I figured surely someone there would be able to watch him.
So the reason Mel knew that his dad had been kidnapped was because a note had been left for him at the base saying so, and with an address on where to go. Hana and Melody had also responded to Mel’s SOS, so the four of us planned on going to this address. The problem was that we couldn’t take Jasper with us, and he really really wanted to come along. I told him that he’s going to be a big brother soon, and that means setting a good example. Which I signed, because no one there knew yet. And then I realized that Melody has been learning ASL and Mel and Hana had turned on translation stuff. Fortunately no one asked me about it. Melody finally convinced Jasper to stay behind with GAIA and Blue (who’s an alien from that time the pastaliens decided Boon was their Chosen One, which is still amazing and I tease them about it) and watch what’s going on through her drone. To be our Dude in the Chair for the day. He reluctantly accepted, since that meant he could be like Mishel.
Before we left, I asked GAIA who had delivered the note, and it was someone who looked like Melody. We all were pretty sure it was Mirror, although she didn’t wink at the camera or anything, so that should have tipped us off that it wasn’t. But to be fair, the note that Mel got was also signed “your nemesis” and like, who else were we supposed to think it was? It also didn’t say which dad, since Mel has like 8. Three of us thought it was Smoke, but Mel insisted that it had to be Dan Mercury.
So with Jasper assuaged, we all headed out to this Denny’s. Yeah, the note told us to go to a Denny’s. Melody and I took my bike, Mel rode on Lugnut, and Shade carried Lugnut. For reasons. It was funny. When we got there, I completely forgot why we’d gone because who else was there except Kieran, Weird Eyes, and the Whistler. The three people responsible for kidnapping Jasper last year. (Greta was also there, but she wasn’t with them). Melody held my arm when we got there, but as soon as she let go I made a b-line for Kieran and punched him.

**Or, well, I tried.**
I don’t know why the universe doesn’t want me to punch Kieran, but instead of landing the punch, he turned off gravity for me and I got shot up into the air. Melody sent her drone after me to slow me down, and then Hana caught me. Weird Eyes tried to take her powers, but thankfully she shook it off. I told her if she set me down I was going to try and punch Kieran again. She said she wouldn’t stop me, but three times was a pattern. I didn’t care. I wanted to punch Kieran.
Before Shade and I touched back down, Mel and Melody (sounds like a sitcom title) asked them what they were doing here. Apparently they’d been hired to wait here and fight us. And like, you know, I was okay with that.

As soon as we touched down, I went to try and punch Kieran again and I did it! Take that, universe. Fourth time’s the charm? He wanted to run away, but Mel brought Lugnut over and he sat on him. Mel asked them what they were doing here, and they got hired through iSupe to wait here and fight who showed up. I asked Greta what she was doing here, and she said that Misery had also been kidnapped and Greta was following her own weird note. Hana borrowed Kieran’s phone (he couldn’t exactly stop her with a giant metal dinosaur sitting on him), and found out that the account that hired Kieran had done it from a certain Bishop facility. In fact, a Bishop facility that we all had broken into a while back to steal a battery for Gwen. And the account had Shade’s dad’s name, the one who’s lost in time and saved her from GREY. So it’s personal to more than just Mel. The others discussed some stuff, but I wasn’t super paying attention.

I’m...ashamed of what I did next. I told Kieran that he needed to stop trying to impress his dad, because Orbital is gone and also was a piece of trash. And then I said that if came near me or Jasper or anyone else I care about again, he’d vanish like New England.

Which uh, was a threat. A threat that I knew I couldn’t fulfill. Even if I did Pocket Kieran indefinitely, I wouldn’t keep him there. It’s not a thing I could do, even to Kieran. So I tried to get Melody to do it. To send him to Shadow Halcyon. The place with opposite gravity. She didn’t do it. Which is a relief. She told me that he’s not worth it, and we should just go. I broke down and cried when she hugged me.
How come when everyone else punches the people they hate, it makes them feel better? I just feel worse. There’s nothing I’m willing to do to Kieran that will make him stop. It makes me feel powerless and just...shitty. What am I supposed to do? I’m gonna talk to Mom about it later. And Boon. Boon’s dealt with revenge stuff. I just wish punching him would have made all the bad feelings go away.
Mr. Denny came out of the Denny’s and told us to leave. We took the wannabes inside so they didn’t freeze to death while unconscious, and then headed to the Bishop facility.

On the way there, I remembered that Jasper was watching, and had seen at least most of me attacking Kieran. With everything else that happened, I don’t know if he’ll ask me about it, but I don’t have a good answer. At least he couldn’t hear what I said. I don’t have an explanation. Nothing to defend myself with.

We invited Greta to come with us, since the likelihood of the kidnappings being unrelated was low. And then we headed to the Bishop facility, which was actually now a Visionics facility. When we got there, a building was on fire. I’d like to be very clear that it was on fire well before we got there. Mel snuck over to a firetruck (which were like, private fire trucks and not like, normal ones?) and stole us some firefighter outfits. We changed and snuck into the building. As soon as we got inside, we could hear a fight. Signal and I ran toward it immediately, but Shade and Melody stayed to fight a fire for a minute. Melody joined us pretty quickly when she heard one of the voices in that fight was Old Jackal.
We got to a room where we could see Old Jackal fighting some human-sized Rubicon robots, but she had power-removing handcuffs on. Sledge was also there, but strapped into this chair that was siphoning off her energy. Dan Mercury was up on a platform by a control panel, and looked frantic.

Mel sprouted his wings and Melody ran to help Old Jackal, so I went to help Sledge. When Melody cut Old Jackal loose (using this cool ice knife I hadn’t seen before), the whole room felt stifling. It was the Jackals. Not like, the two women in the room, like the shadow beings that Melody and I met in Casper’s head last December. Old Jackal was terrifying. She and Melody cut through the entire horde of robots by the time I’d cut the power to the chair restraining Sledge. Sledge was pretty drained. Shade caught up to us, saying how the firefighters were onto us and knew that Shade wasn’t a real firefighter. And they had guns????

Sledge and Old Jackal were reluctant to tell us what was going on, but apparently our four mentors have like, a pact thing where if something bad happens to one of them, the others would intervene before their proteges got involved. So they were here to find Smoke, because he’s the Dad the note was referring to.

Mel was talking with Dan Mercury, who was there of his own free will (didn’t actually ask why he was there, now that I think about it).

Then Mom texted me that she was on her way home, and I did something incredibly out of character for me: I went to the side of the room where no one could hear me, called her, and told her the truth. I told her where I was, what I was doing, and where Jasper was. She asked if I wanted her to come, and I didn’t say yes but she took my silence as a yes and told me she was coming.

I joined the others again, and Sledge was telling them that Temperance had found footage of Smoke further into the building, so that’s where we were heading. Sledge still looked really rough, so I offered to give her some of my energy. I can’t like, convert lighting into life energy, but I can just give her some of mine. She said yes, and it worked really well! I’d never done that kind of transfer on purpose before. That’s a positive from today that I’d forgotten.

We needed to go further in to find Smoke, but first we had to figure out what to do with Dan. Mel went up to talk with him again, and looked upset. When he came back, he said that Dan didn’t have a way to get out safely. I offered to Pocket him and take him outside, and we agreed that was the best option, since I could lightning past any obstacles. Dan wasn’t thrilled about the idea, and started guilting Mel and just generally being mean, so I cut him off by Pocketing him and took him outside.
I told him that Mel has a family, and it’s not him, and being mean to Mel isn’t helping his case. That he needs to get his own shit together and be a better dad before he can demand anything else from Mel. Lugnut came over for pets and looked cute, and somehow I think that helped drive home my point about Mel making his own family. (We’d left Lugnut out there because he is not stealthy in the slightest.) Dan still snapped at me, though, saying something about whatever he’s done didn’t make him less of Mel’s father. To which I said that a parent is whoever acts like one, and that wasn’t Dan. And then I went back inside.

The whole scene was made a lot sillier by the fact that Dan was covered in green glitter from my Pockets.

Anyway, I joined the others inside, and there were alarms going off. We knew from the security footage that Temperance found that Smoke was in an energy-draining chair like the one I’d found Sledge in, so I did my energy sensing thing and found him. We all ran to that room, and we found Smoke, Misery, Hayeli, and Agent Tonner all in energy draining chairs.

There was a weird AI thing on a screen, and it was some weird amalgamation between Smokescreen and Prometheus. It was really, really weird.

I hate writing about fights. And especially this one. I don’t need to relive it. But there were robots that looked like Smokescreen and like Melody. I lost control of my Pockets and everything got shot out of them. (I never did go back for any of that stuff…) A cupcake tin hit Hayeli in the head, and she turned into Spegulo. (Apparently it’s a body-sharing situation.)

But Mel got knocked out. And Melody got really hurt. And then …….
Smokescreen broke Old Jackal’s back.
I...what good am I at being a hero if I can’t protect my friends? That’s why I’m here. To protect people. I…

I don’t want to think about this right now.

Um. So, Shade had been trying to hack the room, and that wasn’t working. So she like, merged more fully with Athena and just, annihilated robo-Smokescreen and robo-Jackal with a big energy beam from the energy well inside of her that powers Athena and gives her super strength. It was cool. I mean, I think it was. I was more focused on making sure Mel was alive than anything else at that point. But Shade saved us. I don’t know what we were going to do if she hadn’t done that. I’m useless in a fight anymore.

...anyway.

The goons that Sledge and Old Jackal were fighting ran away. I went to Melody, who was trying to get to Old Jackal, but she passed out part way there. I caught her, and just held her. Spegulo said something jerky, and I told them I’d taze them into next week if they said anything else.

That’s a threat I was very willing to fulfill. But they stayed silent.
Mom finally got there. The first thing she did was hug me. Which I super needed. I told her what was going on (well, I rambled some things; I don’t know if they made sense), and then I realized that Jasper was watching all of this through Melody’s drone. (GAIA turned off the video feed to Jasper before Old Jackal got hurt. I wish they’d done it earlier, but at least he didn’t see that. I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets nightmares...but I didn’t know that GAIA had shut it off at the time.)
Mom got all of us to the hospital. It’s kinda a blur. She and Dad gently forced me to get checked over before letting me see Melody even though I was fine, just a few bruises. I remember checking in on Greta and Misery, who were both fine, thank goodness. Greta gave me a hug. I don’t remember what she said, but she made some bad joke to try and make me feel better. She’s a good friend. (Also later she told me that Misery got kidnapped because the AI thought she was Samantha? Which like, makes sense why Samantha would be kidnapped with that group but she and Misery look nothing alike? Did the AI just think that all goth girls are the same or something? Rude.)

**And then I went to see Melody. She was in much better condition than Old Jackal, but still not great. Shade came to see Melody, and told her about Spegulo and Hayeli having a shared body situation, but eventually they’ll split. Melody explained that she hated Spegulo because they helped take Aman’s eye. Looks like she’s got a Kieran, too. Before she left, Shade said she’d make sure that Sledge came to visit Old Jackal.**

**I’m staying with Melody overnight. We had a good talk. She’s asleep now. Grandy packed my backpack with some things for me to change into, and either they or Jasper put my journal in there. I’m glad they did.**

I should get some sleep. Mom and Dad might let me skip school tomorrow, but probably not. Goodnight, journal.

## S5E70 - The Pink Silk Ribbon

What do I even say about today. I mean, I’ll do what I always do but sometimes you just gotta write a rhetorical question before your brain says “yes, writing can commence.”
So it started with me and Jasper making cupcakes. He wanted to put in mayonnaise instead of eggs (disgusting), and when I absolutely refused, he tried to get me to use gummy eggs instead. Why do Mel and Ernest do this to me. I don’t understand. What did I do to deserve this???
Then the doorbell rang because Conmoro showed up? To my house? Which was, admittedly, very weird. But they were nearby already and had some questions about my Pockets and wanted to go to Camelot Park, which Merlin has apparently talked about quite a bit, so I set a timer on my phone for the cupcakes and told Jasper to tell Grandy to stay upstairs, and the two of us left.
They asked some questions about how it was going with my Pockets, and I uh, mentioned how I lost control last week? Which probably I shouldn’t have. Although I’m sure they were relieved to hear that the glitter is all gone. They asked if losing control worried me, and I lied and said no. So like, on the one hand, I do really think they want to help me. On the other, I know that if they really thought the best way to help me was to lock me up or try to remove my powers, they would. And I know my friends wouldn’t let that stand, but it’s still scary? Conmoro offered to help if there was anything I was worried about or wanted to focus on, and that was nice. Maybe I’ll try to learn to convert the energy in my Pockets. I really only have made bad magic into good magic, but maybe I could do it with other things? I might talk to them about it next time I’m in Madagascar.

My cupcake alarm was about to go off when I saw Tay and Ellen pull up on Ellen’s bike. They came over to see me when I waved, and I introduced them to Conmoro as the wizard making sure my Pockets weren’t evil. Then they said they didn’t think I was evil, they just wanted to make sure nothing went wrong. I didn’t really have a chance to respond to that because we all could hear Lugnut coming.

When Mel finally came into view (you can hear Lugnut long before you see him), he also came up to see us. He asked us what we were doing here, and said he was there to kill someone. I had to immediately assure Conmoro that he didn’t mean that.

I could tell by now that I wasn’t going to get back in time to get the cupcakes, so I texted Grandy that it was time to take them out of the oven. I soon got back a picture of the cupcakes. Jasper had put the gummy eggs into them before they baked, so they looked like burnt demonic eyes. I showed Mel the picture, and he said he was very proud of Jasper but still needed to kill Mirror.
And then there was a huge wave of energy, Conmoro tried to shield us but couldn’t get to us in time, and then we were...standing in the park. Again. Except that Conmoro was gone.

Mel tried to run at the gazebo, but Ellen held Lugnut back and did a scan. We were in a new dimension, which was only a little different from our own. She figured Conmoro was still back in our own timeline.

And then some guy came up to us and said that we needed to work together. Ellen said he was a Doorheart, junior edition.
And then I realized that I didn’t have my backpack, which meant I didn’t have my costume, which meant I didn’t have my dimension stones, which meant that I couldn’t get us home. I started to freak out, but Ellen calmed me down. Tay tried to help by saying that if I revealed my secret identity, the consequences would be on this universe’s me, not me, but that didn’t super help.
Mel still wanted to do murder, and Ellen told him she’d ground him if he did. But we go over to the gazebo. No one there seems like they’re Mirror? No smirking or anything. And some lady was putting up a banner that said “Vote Ribaldi, the Savior of Halcyon,” which at the time I assumed meant we were in the future and Samantha was running for mayor.
Mel was yelling at the civilians, trying to figure out which one was Mirror. Someone asked him if he was supposed to be Smokescreen Junior, which made sense later. I stepped back and did my energy sensing thing, and thought I sensed Mirror a few blocks away. So we headed that way.

Ugh. And on the way Caldera found us. She’s just as obnoxious as last time. So she was a brat at us for a bit, Thaddeus tried to run away, Ellen caught him and had Lugnut hold onto him by the scruff of his jacket, and then Ellen distracted Caldera so we could go into this coffee shop to look for Mirror. Tay turned invisible and picked up Lugnut so that we could sneak away better.

Mel immediately started yelling at patrons again. I borrowed Tay’s invisibility cloak so I could sneak into the back, where I felt the energy coming from. I didn’t tell Mel, he was busy yelling at the coffee shop employee. Plus, I didn’t want him to immediately attack whoever I found. Also Tay suddenly becoming visible right outside the door holding a big metal dinosaur was a good distraction.

In the employees-only room, I found a girl named Alyssa, who is this universe’s Mirror. After a short and awkward conversation with her, I found out that she doesn’t have powers, and most people in this universe don’t.

Back out in the regular room, Mel was puffed up like a big angry robo-bird. I told him that Mirror wasn’t here and that I messed up. But apparently Mel knew the barista from our world, and then Alyssa came out and was very interested in people having powers. (You know, this is the second time recently that Tay’s invisibility cloak has made people think I have different superpowers than I do.) I thought the jig was up, but Mel apparently didn’t recognize her as Mirror. In his defense, I guess the day that we saw her face, he was pretty distracted.

Then Alyssa told Mel that his suit looks like Smokescreen’s, and he’s the mayor here??? Which almost broke Mel, so I forced us to go outside where Mel could pet Lugnut. Thaddeus pulled Ellen aside for something while I gave Mel a hug and Tay gave him a cookie that she bought from the coffee shop. Then Mel and I had a cute moment again before Mel ruined it by being a brother. Nightmares, all three of them. I love them so much.

At that point, Conmoro’s business card started to ring! I could hear them on the other side, even though it wasn’t super clear. But then Tay hooked the card up to her shield generators and it boosted the signal! They confirmed that we were in a different dimension, and that about 27 people from the park also got yoinked. Some others from the Consortium were with them and working on getting us home, as well as some agents from the Branch. We hung up, and Tay kept the card hooked up to her shields so that it would be easier for Conmoro to get through to us.

Then Mel asked if was talking to evil wizard Conmoro. Which, I mean, I don’t think their goals totally align with Big Team’s, but I wouldn’t call them evil.
Anyway, we decided to go to where the Big Base would be to try and use the weird time thing that Tay made a few weeks ago and yeeted Vic Toxic into (I high fived her for that). Caldera split off to find the others who got yoinked here from our timeline. I wasn’t sad to see her go. I don’t hate her, but I do dislike her a whole lot. She broke into Jasper’s room. I refuse to not be salty about that.
Alyssa came out of the coffee shop before we left, and offered to be our guide. I didn’t want her to come in case Mel realized who she was, but I couldn’t just say that, and everyone else was on board, so she came with us.
On the way to where the base would be, Ellen asked me if I could use my infinity stones to come back to this dimension and save her, and I was like “yeah of course,” but she wouldn’t tell me why before she talked to Tay. Then she talked with Tay.

Also Alyssa said that in this timeline, Samantha is a preppy cheerleader. That officially made it a Bad Timeline™. Not the part about Smokescreen being mayor or Cyclone being a villain. Samantha being a prep is the line.

Ellen came back and asked me why I was being cagey about Alyssa. I tried to say I wasn’t, but like, first of all I’m not great at lying, and Ellen knows me better than to believe that. So I told her that Alyssa was this universe’s Mirror, and I didn’t want Mel to flip out. Then I tried to ask her why she would need me to come back and save her, but we were interrupted by Alyssa’s eyes turning black, her rising into the air, and all of us being yoinked into yet another dimension.

Except Alyssa wasn’t with us. Mel realized who she was and started flipping out, as was to be expected. We were on a pier. Thaddeus was still with us. Ellen got Mel to calm down a little by getting him to admit that Alyssa isn’t the Mirror he wants to punch, and not all Mirrors are the same person.
And then the best thing of the whole time happened. This person with little horns and wearing a punk jacket with cute spikes on it yelled at us. Said we were on their turf or something. It was this universe’s Boon! They were so adorable! And angry! And easily flustered! It was the best thing. Ellen made some sheep jokes about turf, which didn’t make sense to this Boon because they weren’t a sheep. I mean, they said we were on their \*turf\*, how adorable. Look at them, living their best life!!! Uh, anyway.
They asked us what we were doing, and I said we were from an alternate universe where they and I were dating, and they called us druggies. Which, first of all, fair, that does sound weird if it’s the first time you’ve heard something like that. Second of all, I did weed ONE time. I don’t think that counts even a little. Also, they finally told us that here they go by Barb Wire and OH MY GOSH THAT’S SO CUTE???
Okay, Atlanta. Rein yourself in. I know this is my own journal but I need to get to the point.

Okay, so Barb Wire (insert squee) eventually figured that we were weird enough that we must be telling the truth, but they still didn’t trust us. But they told us that She Who Leads (GOD what a pretentious name) sends out Prowlers to make sure everyone is following the rules. Essentially. And they’re bad and dangerous. She Who Leads lives in this tall mirror-coated tower. So we knew where we were going.
Barb Wire agreed to show us through the sewers to close to the tower, although also said that this was a very bad idea. Right before entering the sewers, an origami butterfly landed on Mel’s nose. It was from Caldera, who was angry with us for being in yet another dimension (like, chill, it wasn’t our fault) and told us to stay out of trouble.

[insert raucous laughter at that idea]

We saw AU Aman in the sewers, and then Tay asked Barb Wire what powers they had. They said no one here was allowed to have powers, which was a very good dodge of the question. But like, apparently if you showed powers, you got drug off by Most Evil Mirror (which is what I’m calling this universe’s Mirror and no one can stop me) and when you got back, you didn’t have powers. I asked if it was some Iconoclast nonsense, but of course they didn’t know who that was, so I explained, including the part where he stabbed me, and I showed them my scar. They blushed (hehehe) and Mel called me a harlot for showing my shoulders.
Uh, anyway. Barb Wire also told us that some of the new Prowlers have messed up people inside, but they’re also robots. Which...yeah, we’ll get to that. But a last minute of cute before we get to the worst parts of today: I told Barb Wire that they should look up Atlanta James. You know, for reasons. They said they knew Noah and Demeter (they delivered food to some neighborhoods -- look at my parents, doing good even in a cyberpunk dystopia), and if they did have a daughter named Atlanta they’d consider believing everything we told them. Then we headed up into the city.

I can’t wait until they meet that universe’s me. I mean, obviously those two are different people than me and Boon, but still. I like to believe that the two of us can be together in any universe.

So the others who are good at planning made a plan. There was a snake Prowler nearby, and Mel was going to hack into it to gain access to the stuff we’d need to get into Mirror Tower. And I was the distraction. Which uh, was kinda scary. It pounced on my and said it would take me to She Who Leads to be punished for breaking curfew. Thank goodness that Mel’s hack was successful.

Although...okay, so this part is really messed up. There was a person inside the Prowler. It was an AU Mirror. Mirror has been kidnapping herself across timelines and corrupting them to be her army. And they can’t survive outside of the robots anymore. (And people said what Dr. James was doing was bad, but like, she’s got nothing on this.)

Snake Mirror let us into the building and past the security, so I could then Pocket everyone and take us up to the top floor, where Most Evil Mirror was.
On the top floor, there was a hallway full of cells. Our Mirror and the nice Alyssa we met were both in there. I un-Pocketed the others, we let the two Mirrors out, and then I went and shattered the giant obnoxious mirror door that led to the throne room before Mel could flip out about Mirror once again.
Inside was a room lined with mirrors, and Most Evil Mirror was standing in front of her throne. She said we needed to put the other two back, or else it wasn’t a hall of mirrors. Ugh.

Anyway, there was a fight. Mel defended our Mirror from Most Evil Mirror and got his wings destroyed. Ouch. Anyway. Stuff happened. We won the fight. I tased Most Evil Mirror into unconsciousness after she hurt Mel.
And then there was a rip in space. Conmoro had found us and was bringing us home. And Ellen stayed behind.

We got back to our universe’s Camelot Park, and Tay was crying and Mel was confused. No one had explained anything to him. I didn’t wait to. I wasn’t in costume, but I lightninged back home to get the stones, and lightninged back. I started to activate the stones.

And that’s where things went wrong.

When Ellen asked me to come back for her, we were in a different dimension than the one I left her in. We spent more time in that first one, and by using my energy sensing I’d attuned to its energy more than I had to the cyberpunk one. And so I couldn’t find it. Tay boosted me using her shield generators, and Mel yelled something about me getting Ellen, and that made me realize that I might not have a strong enough connection to the cyberpunk dimension to find it, but I do have a strong enough connection to Ellen to find her. And then it worked. But Tay’s shield generators were destroyed.

But I found Ellen, and I brought her home. There was lots of crying. Tay turned into a bat and hid in Ellen’s pocket to hide from the sun. I told her I was so sorry, and she rubbed her cheek on mine. Thad and Mirror had left in the meantime.
And then we all headed to the base. I was going to stay to take Alyssa home, since I \*could\* get to that dimension. But Caldera gave her a pink silk ribbon that could do that instead. She also said that she didn’t like that I could just hop between dimensions, but I don’t care what she thinks.
We all hung out at the base. And had pancakes. And were sad together.

The reason Ellen stayed behind was to break the time lock. It was put on the pair of them as if they were a single entity, and so them being in different dimensions broke it.
Which means they could leave at basically any time now.
I’m gonna miss them so much.

## S5E72 - The Terrible Secret of Mt. Nomani

Today was SO cool. Okay so some parts weren’t but like, I’m so excited.
Okay, so first of all, Ryan’s brother Jake is in town and he said Ryan could invite some friends to ride on his ship around the bay. Specifically, this meant we could get a close look at the volcano island that popped up in the middle of the bay a few days ago. There’s some kind of border dispute between Canada and the US both claiming it, but that’s not really interesting.
Boon texted me a gif from Titanic (you know, the one with Jack and Rose at the front of the ship) with the caption “us????” so uh, I mean I had to go. I asked if I could bring Jasper along, too, and Ryan said yes. When I got there, I found out Ernest and Boon had invited SO many people: Timothy, Wes, Helen, Maggie, and Ernest’s dad. All of the Youngs had pirate hats on. Ryan gave Jasper theirs. He was so excited. I think Ryan was relieved not to have to wear theirs, so it was a win-win. He, Wes, and Timothy absolutely fell in love with Jake. Jake is super good with kids, and with the pirate aesthetic the boys were helpless. Jasper follows everything Jake does on Chitter now, and has one of us explain all the research terms when Jake actually cheets about his job instead of just dunking on Ryan.

Our little trip started out super fun. Boon and I did the Titanic thing (Jasper recorded it and put it on Chitter, the brat), Ryan pushed Boon and Emmy together to bond because they go to the same college, Maggie showed Violet a baby lamb photo and tried to convince her it was a baby picture of Boon, Wes, Jasper, and Timothy followed Jake around and mirrored everything he did until Wes and Jasper got fake swords and started sword fighting.
Um, and then I went off to the bathroom and on the way back, there were these two people waiting for me. A woman with curly hair and a guy wearing sunglasses. They looked super intense, and on the one hand I was on my guard, but on the other I wasn’t super worried? Maggie scares me more than they did.

But uh, they asked if I was me and I said yes, and they said they needed my help for the safety of the city. They saw me use my powers in the park last week. (Oops.) I said there were some members of Big Team nearby, and I could go get them. They weren’t into that idea, but I went to get them anyway and one of them grabbed me. I tried to lightning away, but sunglasses guy negated my powers. It was really disorienting not to have any of them, and I couldn’t fight them both off without any of my powers, but I was able to drop my phone with a picture of the volcano pulled up, since that’s where they were taking me. They took me down to the submersible dock, and took me out to the island.
So these two are Null and Void. They told me on the ride over. There was an entire facility built inside of the volcano. I was put into a glass cell with a glass floor that was over magma. My powers didn’t work in there, either.

After leaving me there for a bit, another villain came in to talk to me. Her name is Extraction. She went on some grand speech about how Big Team’s ideals are off or something, and she led me to another room. My powers came back when I left the cell, but I figured at this point I should find out what they want before bailing. She went on about how Ragnarok was coming, and to protect Halcyon against Thimble Winter, she needed me to activate this rock thing called the Heart of the Dawn and use the volcano’s heat to warm up the city.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the smartest, but that seemed like a phenomenally bad idea. But I went along with the idea, pretending to consider it so I could learn more. Extraction told me that she needed someone who could channel a lot of energy, and she knew the hero Verve could do that.

I was pretty sure my secret identity thing had been blown, but out of habit I was like “haha, I don’t know, I’m not friends with Verve.”

She didn’t buy it.
I was able to figure out that this whole volcano base belonged to the Syndicate, and they wanted to use this stunt to gain trust with the city. Like, warming up the city won’t stop Ragnarok or Thimble Winter, but it’ll help protect Halcyon. And that would make the Syndicate look really good. I said I needed to think about helping, and I tried to figure out a way to get out of there.
But then I saw my friends, my lovely friends who I love very much, doing a horrible job of sneaking in on some security cameras. I loudly said that I’d do the thing to keep everyone’s attention away from the security monitors, to hopefully buy them a little more time before their cover was blown.

So I went over to the Heart and made a big show of lightning sparking around me without actually channeling any of it into the Heart. Extraction was disappointed, but said maybe we should try a different kind of energy. A woman in a mech suit who I’d never met before came in, and I knew who she was because Ernest complains about her so much. Her name is Dez. And she shot me with plasma for me to absorb. I wasn’t prepared enough, because it went into my Pockets by accident and hit Ernest, who had just jumped in there. He lost control of his powers and started a hurricane in my Pockets and completely ruined some of my math homework. Ryan, Boon, Maggie, and Agent Carson (who was there for some reason) came in at the same time.

Ryan shouted: WHY ARE YOU FIRING PLASMA BLASTS IN A VOLCANO

While Boon shouted: WHY ARE YOU FIRING PLASMA BLASTS AT MY GIRLFRIEND

Ryan tried to talk with them for a second, I told them the Syndicate had a terrible plan, Boon asked if was kidnapped, I said yes, and Boon charged in to punch Extraction. I took a second to get Ernest out of my Pockets. I could sense him using the lightning in there to sign “marshmallow” at me, so I knew he was back in control of himself. I just had to be careful to just take him out and not the hurricane, since I’m pretty sure a hurricane in a volcano would be a bad thing. But I made it, and Ernest immediately noticed Dez and charged at her.

I joined the fight, but we weren’t doing super well. Ryan managed to get the Heart and we all tried to run.
Well.

Everyone tried to run except Ernest, who didn’t want to leave. He was really angry. Part of that was Dez, but a big part was because he was feeling protective of me, and I just...that made me feel really cared for. Yes it was stupid and stuff, but still. I love my friends. My Big Team family.

Ryan tried to get Carson to take the Heart and leave with the sub, but he didn’t go. Ryan and Boon tried to get Ernest to leave, but he still refused.
And then a door to deeper in the facility opened, and Yamato, Null, and Void entered. The fight paused for a bit while Boon asked Yamato about their dad. He’s not dead. His soul is in the dice that Boon has, and Yamato has been trying to make him a new body. The Heart of the Dawn could do that without needing to sacrifice anyone to get Eric a new body. We were like, cool, we have the Heart, you kidnapped me because I can use it, we don’t need you. Yamato said we couldn’t wield it, and I don’t know if that was true or not. But we refused to give the Heart back, and the fight started up again.
And this is when I felt like a hero. My thinking was that Yamato was the biggest threat to my friends, so I put myself between her and them. And I held my own. She trapped me with herself and some of her shadows, but I fought her. And impressed her. She offered me a place on the Syndicate, which is one of the stupidest things I’ve EVER heard, said something about wanting to offer me something other than defeat, but like, I wasn’t the one losing. I knocked her sword into the volcano. Ryan kept some of Yamato’s shadow clones off of me using a time moat thing, and Ernest threw lightning at me to boost a hit I was making on Yamato. She did get a hit in on me then, and put me in a headlock. That only worked for as long as it did because Boon was unconscious, and I was only just then in a position to see it.
Yamato tried to use her position to get us all to surrender, but Ernest said he hadn’t forgiven her for trying to blow up the city last year, and that no one threatens me and gets away with it. That boy doesn’t know when to quit but I love him. This must be what being a younger sibling feels like. Yamato threw me at him, but he caught me and then knocked Yamato back into Ryan’s time moat, freezing her.
And that was everyone. All the villains were down. But we could hear more coming. We finally were able to get Ernest to leave. I carried Boon out, which was very awkward because they are much bigger than me, but I managed. Maggie told me good job, with fighting Yamato. Boon woke up as we got to the submersible that the others took to get here. We assured them that we won, and then they turned into a bird because it was a very tight fit to get all of us in there. I pet them on the way back.
We all looked like we’d been fighting supervillains in a volcano, but no one questioned it? The others tried to keep it a secret that we’d left but it seems like everyone knew but thought no one else did? I don’t know exactly. I was exhausted. Boon slept a lot on the way back, and I sat with them. Maggie sat with us at some point, too, and maybe she isn’t quite as scary as I thought before.

After all, I fought Yamato one on one and WON. What’s a Valkyrie compared to that?
Okay I’m mostly joking with that. I wouldn’t underestimate Maggie. But still, I really feel like maybe I am ready to leave Big Team. Like, I’d decided to leave with the others already, but I really feel like I deserve it now. Like I really am ready for whatever comes next.
(Also at some point during the fight, Ernest got Good Times’s soul jar from Extraction, who had it. He was really unstoppable in that fight.)
What a life I lead. Yamato. I still can’t believe it.

## S5 Finale - The Halcyon Candidate

I’m here, and you know what that means. Today was one of those days. It started out super duper good. Boon and I went on a double date with Ernest and Kurt. (Maybe now she’ll accept that double dates aren’t cursed because of that one bad one.) We went ice skating and got lunch, and then I told them I needed to go help Cambria with that ritual she’s been working on. You know, the one where she’s going to give people powers but it’s an opt-in thing now. The others decided to come with me, because if something went wrong it would probably go very wrong, and if it didn’t, we could continue with the date.

Oh! Speaking of Cambria, a few days ago at her tennis match, Grace asked me how I knew when I liked Boon. I told her, uh at least kinda. It’s not a super easy thing to describe? Like, how I want to hold their hand, and how ze always makes my day better, and how I can’t imagine not being around him all the time, and how she feels the same about me. She wouldn’t tell me why she asked, but my guess is she has a crush, and I have a feeling I know who it is, but my lips are sealed. I’m not interfering in any romances under the age of 15. But I hope she knows she can talk to me. Anyway, after Cambria won the tennis match, she came over to talk to us and that’s when she asked for my help today.

So we met Cambria at reBAR, which is the Black Magic Club’s base. Boon and Kurt immediately started nitpicking at the ritual while Ernest and I just kinda stood there. We don’t need to know magic, that’s what our date friends are for. Also apparently when Boon was a pangolin, Cambria was in Ernest’s body? We finally got a somewhat coherent explanation of what happened that day.

Kurt said the ritual was essentially a magical rube goldberg machine, and also there was a one percent chance of ending the universe, but both they and Boon said screw it and we did the ritual anyway.

It went well! I think. Like I said, magic isn’t super my thing, but nothing exploded, and we didn’t end up in a different universe this time! I had to catch some stray magic and put it back into the ritual, and the others all also helped keep it going on track, but like, it worked! Boon got their gargoyle powers back! So we knew it worked right away.

(A major downside to this ritual that I didn’t find out about until later: JASPER CAN TURN INVISIBLE NOW AND IT’S TERRIBLE. Wes and Helen also got some new powers and that’s fine but Jasper causes enough trouble on his own. I feel like maybe when the ritual went weird a few weeks ago, I should have guessed this would happen, since the Jasper there could turn invisible. At least he isn’t very good at being quiet...)

But it worked! We were all very excited, and Cambria called Greta to see what powers she got, but she didn’t answer. Greta was in the sewers by the community center with Keith for her part in the ritual, so we went there to make sure she was okay. Boon was a little worried about her gargoyle powers meaning Sapphomet was back, but I told them that wasn’t likely, and if Sapphomet came back, I was here to protect them. That cheered them up, and they said now they were a stone butch. To which Kurt immediately responded that they were a high femme. I love my friends. We could see a few people flying and shooting fire on our way to the community center, and not like in a controlled way, so we could tell they’d been affected by the ritual. The community center was shut down for the day by Adamant Industries? Which was weird. But we went in anyway, and down to the sewers.

Vic was there. Ugh. He’s so obnoxious. He’s older now, and has a cybernetic arm after being flung through time for a while. He brought a woman on fire and some person with a man bun back with him. Keith and Greta were there, too. Vic was an asshole, we all fought, I threw Keith in the sewage, it was great. He said, and I quote: “You’re five foot nothing. I’m not afraid of you.” Your mistake, Keith. Hehehe. Oh, Boon got Greta out from under Vic’s control (of course he’s not just an abusive, manipulative, asshole, he can also magically coerce people into doing what he wants). I got blasted through a wall and all the way into Hana’s apartment and knocked over the friendship couch.

By the time I got back to the fight, Ernest was gone and Kurt was talking to Vic, who told them that the Syndicate kidnapped Wes and they want the Heart of the Dawn as ransom. Apparently Vic fighting us was in order to give the Syndicate time to kidnap Wes. Who was with Jasper. At my house. I was all for getting out of there right away. Like, as much as I’d love to punch Vic, I don’t care about him. Wes and Ernest and Jasper are so much more important. We left with Greta and Cambria (Boon was also gone but they were just in my Pockets by accident...oops). Vic kicked them out of the club. I Pocketed a bunch of magical ritual items that were laying there. Nothing Vic was planning could possibly be good. Kurt made Vic cry. Vic tried to attack Kurt but I dispersed the magic.

Outside, I called Mom, since she’d been watching the boys. Dez answered. She said that Mom, Jasper, Wes, and Ernest were all there (at Mt. Nomani, in case that wasn’t clear). I yelled at Ernest not to be a dumbass and we were coming. Boon also called Maggie, who was at the gym with Flashing Fist. They met us on the island.

Okay so I know everything else is way more important but every time I talk to Flashing Fist is awful. He had to save me at Augtoberfest from a C-list villain, plus he flirted with my mom…..and he didn’t even remember my mom’s NAME. Ahhhhhhh. It was terrible.

Kurt came up with a plan to make illusions that we have the Heart so they’ll let us in. I Pocketed everyone except for me, Kurt, and Boon so that we looked less suspicious. Maggie told me it was a good plan, which was very nice. Don’t get me wrong, she still scares me, but just….less.

So we went up to the front door and Kurt was like

Extraction, Dez, and some generic goons came to the door and demanded to see the Heart. Boon and Kurt combined their illusions to make it look like I was summoning it from my Pockets. They let us in. We all went past the room where we stole the Heart from, and then into a room with those power-negating cells. Mom and Ernest were in one (yeah, looks like he just immediately got captured on arrival), and Wes and Jasper were in the other. Also present were Future Kurt, a tired-looking Yamato, Null, and Void. Mom immediately gave me a pointed look at a control station, where Yamato was standing. That’s where the controls to open the cells were.

Yamato asked for the Heart, and I said she had to let my family go first. As a sign of good faith, or whatever, she let the boys go. She didn’t want to let Ernest go because she was pretty sure he’d just attack. And you know, it’s not like she was wrong. The boys ran over to me. I made sure they were okay, then quietly told them that I was going to Pocket them, and they’d be safe, and to tell the others to get ready. I Pocketed them, Kurt said it was time to give it to them, and I un-Pocketed everyone else. Yamato dropped the floor out of the cell with Ernest and Mom, but Kurt teleported Ernest out and Boon caught Mom.

I went for Yamato again. I mean, she’s the biggest threat, and I’m not going to let her hurt my family. There was a fight, Kurt and Ernest managed to convince Future Kurt not to be evil (or something? I didn’t hear anything that they said, I was kinda busy), the adult heroes were handling the goons, Greta and Cambria were in over their heads but holding their own, Dez and Ernest had another throwdown that Ernest won again.

Yamato, Boon, and I talked. Yamato really, really wanted to bring back Boon’s dad. And the Heart would let her do that, but also could a lot of magical energy. She also wanted the Syndicate to provide more security for the parts of the city that are tired of their biggest defense being a bunch of teenagers. But also that would somehow help whatever evil plans she’s got going on.

Long story short, Boon gave her the dice with her dad’s soul inside, and we let her do the ritual to bring him back. And it worked. He’s back. Unconscious, but back. And I know that Yamato respects me now, which is uh, super validating? Like I know maybe I shouldn’t care what a supervillain thinks of me, but the fact that YAMATO thinks I’m a threat and a competent hero uh, feels nice.

But the thing about summoning a bunch of magical energy into an active volcano is that uh, volcanoes tend to explode. So that was starting. And then who shows up except for the main bitch herself, looking all smug and being all like “ohohoho I’m here for you souls.” Yeah, Sapphomet also rose up from the well of magical energy that Yamato used to bring back Eric. Boon attacked her, and then she tried to hit Boon, but I stopped her. I grabbed her arm and absorbed the energy of the impact, and I told her that she wasn’t going to hurt my family. I don’t have a cool way to describe this, but I absorbed all of her magic, and all of the magic in the room. I kept draining her magic until there was nothing left, and she’d never be able to access it again.

That turned her into a snake for some reason, which was weird.

Boon was able to figure out the last part of Sapphomet’s true name from this, and used it to forbid her from hurting anyone Boon cared about ever again.

And uh, that was kinda it. Absorbing the ambient magic in the room stopped the volcano from erupting. No one super felt like fighting anymore. Mom hugged me. Future Kurt pointed Kurt and Ernest toward a hidden cell where the Syndicate had been keeping Mayor Crossover for a few weeks. Mirror had been impersonating him. We told Yamato that she was NOT keeping Eric, we were taking him to a hospital. Boon and I were sappy. (They told me thanks for being their savior. I love them so much.)

And yeah, we all just…...left. The four of us on Big Team ended up at the base, and we watched the sunset from the roof. It was a lot, but it was good. I feel like this was the closing of a chapter. And with the new league starting up soon, this might really be my last mission on Big Team. It’s sad, but not bad. Nostalgic, maybe? I’ll probably need to start up a new journal. For adult hero me.

Here’s to the future.

PS from a few days later: Boon’s dad and Yamato ARE dating. Gross. Also he’s awake and fully planning on still being a villain. Guess that’s more important to him than his kid. No wonder Maggie dumped him. In better news: Maggie proposed to Helen! There's another wedding in my future.

.

Link to the notebook pictured above