The Continuing Adventures of Verve

Back to Verve.

The ~~somewhat anxious~~ thoughts and feelings of Atlanta James, also known as the superhero Verve.

## S3.5 OVA - Godspeed Makes Amends

January 31, 2020
Holy COW today was. Just. Wow. But like, mostly in a good way.
Okay maybe not mostly? Mostly it was weird and unnerving and I didn’t like it. But it ended really good.
Okay, so it started pretty normal and all. I met Boon between classes and we maaaay have talked for too long and were late for class. But then there was an announcement summoning Big Team members to the base, it was supposedly from Godspeed. I mean, we should have realized it was weird that he was contacting us that way instead of using the team messaging and stuff, but weirder things had happened and no one thought twice about it.
(I just realized...I skipped school again. Oops.)
So I snuck away and changed into Verve, but a door locked behind me and I had to go back through the hall where the others were. Ellen covered for me and said that she texted me to tell me about the announcement, which was super nice, although I think even Boon probably assumed I went to school at Big High after that. But it doesn’t really matter now.
I was going to ride with Ellen on her bike, since, you know, Verve isn’t the one dating Boon. But Anaya refused to let Boon carry her so I volunteered so she could go with Ellen on the bike and THEN SHE JUST STOLE A CAR INSTEAD??? Ugh. I know she’s royalty from like a different plane or something but seriously. So I ended up with Ellen anyway.
At the base, we went to Godspeed’s office. As soon as we got in, it was so weird. First, he was sitting ON his desk. Second, he doesn’t look like he just got out of the hospital. And then he starts to monologue, and honestly it sounds mostly like him? I mean, I only ever met him in person for like three minutes when he invited me, Pinnochio, Ophanim to join Big Team, but I’ve heard a lot about him. And saying that of course we wouldn’t have been doing any heroing without him here to guide us, and that we were “sitting on our morals” instead of doing anything (whatever that means?) sounds like him. Then he admitted that the trackers were a bad idea, but because they were easily removed. And his solution was that he took out everyone on Big Teams brains during the night last night??? And there were incision marks on the backs of our necks.
So this is definitely not Godspeed. Like, I was pretty sure when he was sitting on his desk, but now I knew. He showed us the hallway with our brains in jars, and Boon just punched her jar. It shattered, as did the entire illusion of brains and the incisions in our necks. So. Good. But Not-Speed was still there, aaaaand the hallway was coming down around us. Some of the illusion magic embedded itself in Boon’s arm, and I absorbed that out before we chased Godspeed to the kitchen.
Side note: you know how I absorb things and THEN realize it was probably a bad idea? Yeah. This magic started to change my arm? Like shapeshift. It was weird. But it didn’t end up actually changing my arm, so that’s good.
Anyway, we’re in the kitchen. Not-Speed is gone. There’s some creepy giggling. And then a cupcake sprouts legs and runs out as the doorbell rings. None of us knew there was a doorbell? Boon and Ellen go to answer the door while Anaya and I go after the cupcake. I suggest we can use my hood as a net, since apparently Anaya finds our lack of nets unacceptable. Why would we need nets? And instead of letting me take it off, she just RIPS MY HOOD OFF. Like. I’m going to have to fix this now. I like my hood.
Anyway, I chased it down and Anaya caught it in my hood. But then it changed into something with fur and teeth and got away. Later we found out it was a gramlin, which is not a gremlin? I don’t get it.
We run into Boon and Ellen, who are carrying an absurd number of Big Burger boxes up to the roof. They all had mouse burgers in them. Anaya thought they tasted good but I wasn’t brave enough to try. Plus the whole day made me kinda queasy.
So we set these up as bait on the roof, and Not-Speed shows up pretty quickly. And he’s got Brayden Godfrey with him. I’ve never met Brayden before, but wow is he a dummy. When we told him that wasn’t his dad, he hadn’t realized??? Boon asked him if he’d ever seen his dad smile before, and Not-Speed provided him with a very creepy smile.
Anaya tackled Brayden out of the way, and we got Not-Speed to revert back to her regular form, which is a little girl. Her name is Siofra and honestly she’s scarier than the Abyss. I think one of the scariest parts is that the others didn’t seem to think what she was doing was bad or scary. Sure, pulling a prank on us with the brain thing wasn’t really hurting anyone (except Boon when she smashed it), but the rest of the stuff is just terrifying on principle. And maybe it’s because I was the only one she turned into, or because I used her powers (that comes up later), or because I have so many secrets, or because I’m the one who had to fend off rumors of being in Gambite last year and seeing Bad-lanta in the danger room, but like, she’s not just some cute prankster. She could do some serious damage, and she almost did.
Apparently someone named Medea told her to come and check on Big Team, and this is her version of checking on us. Then she told us that as Godspeed, she’d done a bunch of things besides scare us with brain removal and order obnoxious amounts of food (and there was more on the way, we just didn’t know it yet). The most concerning were that she’d locked up GAIA, and given interviews as Godspeed, and there were gramlins running around the base now. I let GAIA out and they promised they could take care of the gramlins, so that wasn’t a big problem, but the Godspeed interviews were bad. She said things like Big Team attacked Gambite, we had world domination plans, killed all the Gambite members’ parents, that kind of thing. And it’s ridiculous, but news stations were airing them. The others didn’t seem to think so, but this was a problem.
Siofra turned into me at one point, and started saying things that she suddenly knew about me. I didn’t let her get very far. And then she turned into Challenge and said some embarrassing things and Boon filmed it and put it online. I didn’t feel like she’d listen to me and not do it, so I didn’t try to stop her.
I managed to convince Siofra that since she told Medea that she was checking on us, then she had to report back or it didn’t count. I’m glad the whole “fey take promises seriously” thing is real. It didn’t really matter though, since at one point a hand came out of a portal and pulled her through. Some of the others wanted to go “save” her, but decided against it (thank goodness).
The problem about the interviews still remained, and I had an idea. Remember that shapeshifting magic I’d absorbed earlier? Yeah. I shapeshifted into Godspeed.
Okay so first of all, shapeshifting is weird. It could just be Siofra’s version of shapeshifting, I guess, but I didn’t like it. (Except for the being tall part, that was kinda neat.) But like, I know things that Godspeed knows now? Like the code to his office, or Brayden’s birthday, weird stuff like that. Also being a guy was just. Nope.
A question I can’t get over is how much does Siofra know about me because she was me for a minute? Or Challenge, she was Challenge for a while. I know the others thought she was harmless, but like, that’s creepy and terrifying. Does she know about Jasper now? She’s proved she’s the type to go after family members for fun. I know Jasper is better prepared now that he knows who I am, but he’s still just a kid.
It’s probably useless to worry about it. I’ll just rile myself up into an anxious mess.
Anyway, Ellen called Mr. Crossover to get us a press conference (she has him on speed dial?), and we had Anaya write me a speech since she’s royalty and we figured she’d have experience doing that? It uh, wasn’t super good. So I wrote a new one. Ellen told me that in order to exude the right air of contempt for everyone else I needed to imagine that they were Kieran Khan and I’d have the right expression. And I think that worked. I went outside and made a statement to the reporters, dodged their questions (and by dodged, I mean glared at them and they went away). (Also so much more food showed up. Godspeed is gonna have a huge credit card bill when he gets out of the hospital.)
Um, here’s the speech I gave, just because I’m kinda really proud of how well it went? I figured SHILF aliens were easier to explain than “some random fey girl decided to do it on a whim.”
“Earlier today, SHILF aliens took over my image and spoke as me. It was not my fault and all of these horrendous allegations are insulting to myself and Big Team. This slander will cease, or we will litigate. My image has been co-opted, and frankly, after everything I and Big Team have done for this city, I'm astonished anyone would believe such a thin façade. I will not be answering any questions. Good day.”
And then I collapsed inside in a post-adrenaline anxiety puddle. As me. Not as Godspeed. Thank goodness. I never want to do that again.
Ellen tried to make me feel better by telling me I did a good job, but then she went on and on about how good I was at doing all these things she hated about Godspeed and that kinda ruined it.
Boon thanked me for getting that magic out of her arm, and thanked me again for helping her with asking out Atlanta. I thought about the talk I had with Ellen and Melody, and I asked Boon to meet me when we were done cleaning up. Ellen gave me a thumbs up because she overheard, and texted me good luck.
And I did the thing. We met on the roof and I asked GAIA not to listen for a bit. I couldn’t quite figure out how to say it. I think what I said was “so about Atlanta” (like a doofus) and took off my mask. And Boon started crying, and it was really good. Like, she wasn’t mad at all. I’m so relieved. Melody was right. This is such a weight off my shoulders. I’m so happy.
And hopefully Boon will be better at keeping up appearances that I’m not Atlanta/Verve when I’m the other one when she’s not so excited about it.
(...right?)
Side note: I kept the paper I wrote the speech on. Should I do that? If someone finds it will I get in trouble? Is that just plain weird? I should probably throw it away.

[pasted in is a torn slip of paper with the speech above written on it]

## S3.5 OVA - Pix's Pretty Passionate Parade

I wasn’t going to write a journal for today, but a couple of important things happened, so I figured, why not.
First of all, Boon is so bad at this secret identity thing. I feel like maybe I should have known, since she doesn’t have one. She’s almost called me “dear” so many times, and keeps emphasizing how she and Verve me hang out platonically. Like, enough that Ernest looked a little suspicious. Like, I’m really glad she knows. I hated feeling like I was lying to her. But she is so bad at secrets. I’m just...not ready for everyone to know, you know? And I want to be the one to choose to tell more people. It felt really nice to actively make that decision for myself, you know?
Also, I met Shade and she’s really cool! And there’s a secret base apartment under the community center? I’d seen her around there, but didn’t realize Sledge was training her. Sledge seems really cool, I bet training under her is...well, maybe not fun, but I’m sure she’s learned a whole lot. I wonder what that’s like, to have a mentor. To have someone to guide you through this whole hero thing. It sounds nice.
 To backup a bit and start at the beginning, what happened was, we were snowed in at the base (and the snow wasn’t Ernest’s doing, regardless of what those people were saying on Chitter). It was kinda fun to have a sleepover. I made everyone tea or hot chocolate in the morning, and Ernest was at his shenanigans of tossing marshmallows into the drinks of unsuspecting victims. I protected my tea, but Shade and Boon’s were both hit. A moment of silence for their tea. (Because marshmallows DON’T BELONG IN TEA, ERNEST. IT’S GROSS.) (...it is a fun gag, though. Don’t tell Ernest.)
But then GAIA told us that Pix was missing. She was supposed to be the groundhog for the Groundhog’s Day thingy (gonna be honest, never have been quite sure what that’s all about). So we went searching for her in the sewers. We found her room, and in it was this necklace with foul time energy on it. We went through several different times before we found her. (We did, and she was fine, just sleepy. And I mean, I have also wanted to sleep through my obligations sometimes, so I get it.)
The other thing I wanted to mention was that I used my new power to try and pocket the time device, because it felt icky to hold and I figured that way no one would have to do it? And Ernest kinda freaked out about it? Like, the fact that I have this power at all. He had me take it out of the pocket and held it himself. (He put it in the vault after the mission.)
After the mission, he apologized about it, and told me that he gave energy to someone who then made the bay, you know, into the bay by pocketing all the land that was there. Time shenanigans, I guess? And that I need to be careful with this power. I told him I couldn’t do that. Like, I can’t even pocket a house fly (which I did try, just to experiment, so I doubt I could pocket anything alive), and I can only have one thing in there at a time. That didn’t really seem to make him feel better.
 But at least the blizzard cleared up soon after we got Pix to City Hall and all the people yelling at Ernest about it on Chitter shut up (even though he didn’t start or stop the blizzard).

## S4 E4 - Valentine's, Halcyon Style

This wasn’t a mission, so maybe I shouldn’t write about it here, but I’m gonna because I need to think through it and I don’t have another secret journal. So. Here goes.

I know I’ve only been on two dates ever but this is the worst one I’ve been on and I feel like it’s my fault because if I wasn’t friends with Ellen the double date wouldn’t have happened and then no one would hate each other.

Okay I also know that’s stupid but I will find a way to make everything be my fault because that’s how my brain works.

I’d been wondering if I should ask out Boon for Valentine’s Day because like, we’re not really dating yet, and it had gotten to Thursday and I figured, well, since we hadn’t talked about it yet we probably weren’t going to do anything. But then she called! I probably made a fool out of myself with how fast I said yes. She had four tickets to Fun Zone. I grew up here, but I’ve never been. And since she had four tickets, she asked if I knew of another couple we should invite. And duh, of course I thought we should invite Tay and Ellen, especially after Ellen suggested a double date during our pancake party. And Tay apparently got a reservation for a fancy restaurant, so we were gonna do Fun Zone and then go out to eat.

So it’s a fancy restaurant, right? And we needed to dress up for it. I have some nice black pants, but I kinda borrowed a suit jacket from my mom’s closet while Dad was at work. And I forgot to put it back so now it’s just in the back of my closet. I doubt Dad will notice it missing? But he could notice that things have been moved around, that I’d been in his room? I don’t know. It’d serve me right to get caught. Another day another secret.

It started off really well. Boon met me after school and she flew us to Fun Zone. She carried me. That’s uh, always really cool.

ANYWAY, we got there, and Boon wanted to do the test your strength thing. Apparently the guy running the it is the same guy who ran it back in the 90s when Ellen got banned for breaking it? And then Boon broke it. In her defense, Sean (the guy running it) said to hit it with all her strength. You’d think he’d have learned by now that a ton of people in Halcyon have super strength. I don’t know why she felt like she needed to do it anyway, since all three of them have super strength. Maybe I should have done it, since I’m the only one who definitely couldn’t break it. Oh well, maybe I’ll come across another one sometime. Carm also hit it, but it was already broken so it didn’t work very well.

Then we decided to do laser tag! I haven’t done it in forever, so I was really excited. Our first match was against Val and her friends. It was really fun! I guess they were also on a double date, which is cute. (She and Sahar are adorable together and so are Bronx and River.) I hope the rest of their day went better than ours…
Um. Anyway. Our second match was against some girls I didn’t know and Flick. Flick was apparently on a date with Hana and got abducted by them to do laser tag? Weird. One of the girls was named Greta, and she seemed nice! I guess Boon knows her? We met her outside after.
Also, a piece of wood fell from the ceiling and almost hit me on our way out. Boon blocked it. I’m just glad it didn’t hit Tay. (Is that a thing? Or is that just a fake legend? Not that a piece of wood hitting her on the head would be like, a problem? But I worry okay.) Winning laser tag got us some tickets to the Tunnel of Love. Which apparently isn’t cool? I thought it sounded fun. I mean, it’s just a boat ride, right? Not that it matters, we didn’t end up going.
Anyway, we met Greta outside. She seems nice. Apparently she has a brother named Hans who isn’t very nice. That stinks. But as she walked away and we were about to get on with our date, a sinkhole opened up under her and she fell in??? Like, that’s really weird, right? Tay turned into a bat and found the medical tent while Ellen and I helped her out of the hole. I did a field concussion test like Dad taught me, and she definitely had one. Ellen carried her to the tent with Tay leading the way.
I don’t know why, exactly, but this seemed to freak Boon out. She wanted to try and heal Greta, which I didn’t let her do because the concussion didn’t seem all that serious and it takes part of Boon’s soul to do that. I didn’t ask about it. I probably should have. But I held her hand as we walked to the tent. I think that helped. I also, um, you know, like holding her hand. So. Win-win?
I talked to the medic, and he told me that weird accidents had been going on all day. I say he told me, because Boon disappeared while I was telling him what happened to Greta and Ellen and Tay also left. I don’t think Tay liked the medical tent. The medic assured me that Greta would be fine, and then Boon came back.
Boon said she had a vision and talked to Sapphomet. And she was worried that her dad or Yamato might be involved because her dad had luck powers? I don’t really understand, but I guess she was right. I told her that I had her back and gave her a hug, and I think that made her feel a little better at least.
We met back up with Ellen and Tay. Tay still looked a little upset so I gave her a hug, too. What if that’s the last hug I ever get from her? We were going to investigate this secret door that Boon saw in her vision, but then we saw Adult Ellen. We followed her into the secret door we were going into anyway.
Down there was an old (and probably illegal?) casino. We tried to be sneaky, but a stair crumbled under me. Boon caught me, but it was loud and Adult Ellen knew we were there. She told us to leave, called us shitty teenagers. She said we couldn’t understand what she was doing, but Ellen said to try her. They sat down at a table and Adult Ellen held Ellen’s hand and I guess triggered her powers? Ellen looked really upset when she came out of her trance/vision/thing.
And this is where everything went just horribly wrong. Ellen asked what “Eric” took from Adult Ellen, and she answered that he took someone called Cassie from her. The night that she showed Ellen, he took her luck, I guess. And she didn’t live much longer. It was Cassie’s spirit or something that was causing all the accidents. Boon got mad because Eric is her dad. She insisted that her dad wouldn’t do that. But I don’t know why Adult Ellen would lie about that.

Adult Ellen got up and was looking like she was going to punch Boon, but I got between them. But then Boon tried to punch Adult Ellen. Tay got between them and Boon hit them both. And then Adult Ellen tried to grab Boon and I wasn’t thinking but I couldn’t let that happen and I got between them and used my powers to send Adult Ellen flying across the room. Which I guess stopped the fight, so that’s something? But now Tay knows. And she’s mad at me (again). I mean, she should be mad at me. I deserve it.

And that was the end of the date. Adult Ellen said she’d settle Cassie’s energy (or whatever was causing the accidents). Ellen left right away. Tay talked to Boon for a minute, then to me. Mostly about how it was stupid and hurtful for me to keep my identity a secret from her after she became friends with me as Atlanta. And she’s right. But Tay said we’re still friends even though she’s mad at me. I don’t know if I believe her. She was probably just sparing my feelings. I can’t imagine why she’d ever want to talk to me again.
But she said that I was family. I didn’t realize I meant that much to her. Which makes me feel extra shitty...

What am I doing? Why am I like this? What am I so afraid of?

...I don’t know.

She suggested on Chitter a few weeks ago that I could try to make cupcakes she could eat. I think I’m gonna try. Not as a way to like, make her forgive me, but I make cupcakes to accommodate other people’s dietary needs, it’s only fair I do it for her, too. I don’t know where to get the right kind of blood, but I can try with other types to figure out proportions and stuff before I try to find that. I’m sure there are some places that specialize in special diets for Transformed that I can ask for help. I can’t do the baking at my apartment or the community center, though. Dad would flip out and there are probably regulations against it at the community center. Besides that I don’t want her to see. Or make the place smell. Maybe at the base? She’ll be there less than at the community center at least…

I texted Ellen that I was sorry. She didn’t respond. I don’t blame her, she had a lot going on. I hope she’s okay.
After that I realized Boon wasn’t there. So I went to find her. She was really upset about her dad and the vision and Adult Ellen’s accusation...I tried to be there for her, but I don’t know how much I could really help. I wish I could.

But I gave her my gift, and it seemed like she liked it. I found this place that did little custom metal stamping, and I thought it was both minimal and cute? And keychains are useful (even though I’m not sure she has keys because I don’t know how mansions work). And I thought having the metal stamped with her roller derby name was a good personal touch? I wanted to remind her she’s got stuff to live for, you know? That she has a home here. And maybe a keychain is a stupid gift, but it’s not like I can afford a lot, and we’re not even actually dating...I don’t know.
She offered to bake for me sometime, which is really sweet. And she also made me a coin with a lightning bolt on one side and a cupcake on the other. Which is really cute. I don’t really know what to do with it? But I put it in my backpack and the ridges are good for when I’m feeling anxious. More anxious than normal, I mean.
Okay and this is really stupid especially considering everything that happened but I kinda wanted my first kiss to be on Valentine’s Day and that’s like the least of my worries right now and it wouldn’t have made any sense for it to happen but I’m still kinda disappointed?
Shut up, Atlanta. Just because the date went bad and everything ended up shitty doesn’t mean it was your fault and definitely doesn’t mean your gift was bad.
So that was my second date. If I ever get a third, at least it can’t be worse?

PS from a week later: Melody made us do pancake night this week. Ellen’s not mad at me at least. Which is a big relief. We didn’t really talk anything through, but I didn’t really feel like I could say much since these are Boon’s secrets, you know? But I’m glad things are at least a little better between the two of us. Having Tay mad at me is bad enough, but I don’t know what I’d do without Ellen.

## S4E12 - Dark Web, Darker Powers

Today was...well...it was, I guess.

It started really great. I was dropping cupcakes off at the community center and Sledge called some of us in for a mission! Shade was there. I hope we get to work together more in the future, I like her. Ernest and Libra were there, too. I thought that Ernest and I were on better terms after we talked last time, but I guess not…

But I’ll get to that. Sledge and Temperance had been tracking some weapon smugglers, and it looks like they were storing them in the Dataverse. They knew that a shipment was coming in soon, so we headed over to the financial district to intercept it. I rode with Shade on her motorcycle, Libra teleported, and Ernest...flew? Mostly, anyway. He’s not very graceful with it yet.
When we got to the financial district, Ernest must have flown into a Datapoint (which is how people enter the Dataverse) because he got pulled into the Dataverse really suddenly. I followed, and then the others followed me. Ernest was there, thank goodness. He was like a cyberpunk butterfly? Which is really cool. Ernest with wings is a very graceful flier, for the record. Shade turned into a motorcycle and Libra turned into a fast electric rat(?) thing. I didn’t transform. Not sure why.
This part of the Dataverse was different than the parts I’d been in before. It was darker, more dystopian-looking? Cyberpunk is probably the word. My pink hoodie stood out, so I took it off and put it in my backpack, which thankfully I could still call out of my pockets. I forgot that Ernest didn’t like them, or else I might have like, stepped away or something? But I guess I didn’t realize just how much he didn’t like them…

Um. Anyway. Temperance told us to try and get in contact once we got there, so I did. And it worked! She told us to watch for a light, and that’ll be the shipment coming into the Dataverse. Ernest flew up to the top of a building. Shade tried to drive up the wall, but failed. I told her to run into me so I could absorb that energy and fling her up to the roof. Libra tried to run up the wall. Shade ran into me but we kinda crashed. Libra fell down, Ernest tried to catch them, and we all just kinda ended up in a pile. But at least I absorbed that energy? It came in handy. I’m going to try and keep some of that energy around from now on, since it’s become easier to store non-electricity for long periods of time.
(Okay don’t tell anyone but that actually hurt a lot. Maybe being in the Dataverse made it harder to access my powers? Or maybe just the disaster date last week was still distracting me...I don’t know. Also maybe why I told her to just try to run me over? Objectively a bad idea...now that I know it didn’t work anyway.)
We saw the light from our pile, so trying to get the roof was pointless anyway. We headed over to where we saw the light. Ernest flew and Libra and I rode on Shade, since she was, you know, a motorcycle. (She kept phrasing it awkwardly, and I couldn’t tell if she was doing it on purpose.) Ernest was supposed to be keeping an eye out, but he didn’t see whoever threw a trident at him. I launched myself off of Shade and intercepted it...with myself...I was trying to absorb the energy from it and catch it but that didn’t work. And then because I can’t fly I fell down. I felt stupid but at least I saved Ernest.
Ernest flew down to make sure I was okay, and Shade and Libra came over, too. And then the smugglers found us. They had us surrounded, but it’s not like they were much of a fight even with their fancy magic trident weapons. They were all wearing Big High letterman jackets, and turns out they were all Big High students. There was Stacy from the Big Team Fan Club (is everyone in that club inclined toward evil?), Jerry from swim team (really Jerry? You’re going to risk your scholarships for weapon smuggling?) and some guy named Keith Rodriguez who I’ve heard is a bully (I don’t expect better from him).
Libra seemed to know Rodriguez and said we would tell his dad that he was involved in illegal weapon smuggling if he didn’t cooperate. I backed them up, saying I could have Temperance call his dad right then. He told us that they were taking the weapons to someone who called themself the Wizard (after like the Install Wizard, which we agreed was a dumb name). Rodriguez didn’t have any more useful information, but I had him and the others give us their jackets and masks so we could pretend to be them when we snuck into the Wizard’s tower. The other two smugglers didn’t really want to, but Libra backed me up and they did.
I didn’t want to waste time taking them in, so I said we’d let them off with a warning. Libra took their pictures as evidence, and we knew their names so it felt like the right thing to do at the time. Maybe it wasn’t. I don’t know.
So the three of us who still had arms put on our disguises. I ripped a hole in Ernest’s jacket so his wings would fit. But then we realized we had to deal with the tridents, some everburning torches they also had for some reason, and the smuggler’s wrecked car. And I had the perfect idea. We put all the stuff into the wrecked car, I took my backpack out of my pocket and put it in the car, and then I pocketed the car! And it worked! I’d never pocketed something that big before, so I wasn’t sure if it would work but it did!
I didn’t have time to be excited or proud, though, because Ernest tried to stop me. Like, grabbed my hands to keep me from touching the car. But he was too slow.

I don’t understand why he’s so scared, and the worse part is that I’m not sure he could tell me even if he tried right now. Like how I couldn’t really tell Tay why I kept my identity a secret from her. But he’s definitely more scared that he let on last time. I feel guilty for making him scared, but I don’t know what to do about it.
Shade told me that she thought my power was cool, which was nice of her.
So we put on our disguises and headed to the Wizard’s tower. We got up to a room that had a bunch of TV screens that were playing live security footage. One was a club room in Big High (knowing what I know now, I wonder if it’s the one that Samantha’s Black Magic Club meets in), one was the community center and we could see Samantha reading, and one looked like a support group. Ernest’s mom and my dad were there. I recognized some of the other people, and they were all parents or guardians of people with superpowers. One person I didn’t recognize was Vic, but I found out later that he was there, too.

Ernest was obviously also upset about this, and got the sound turned on. His mom was talking about how it was hard to talk to him, how he didn’t listen, how she didn’t feel like she could connect to him. That uh, that didn’t help. Libra tried to turn off the computer but I think they broke it.
Before we could really process that, the Wizard arrived. He figured out pretty quickly that we weren’t the people he was expecting. Libra went over to him and whispered something, then the Wizard called someone called Spegulo (I googled that one, apparently it means mirror, so objectively a better name than Install Wizard), then announced loudly that they didn’t work with Gambite? Which, on the one hand, at least him and his pals have standards, and on the other, where did that come from? Was Libra pretending that we were all in Gambite? Why?
Then the Wizard attacked Libra. He threw lightning at them, which of course I jumped in front of to absorb, but I guess I wasn’t prepared enough or something because the car kinda got un-pocketed as I got hit. Whoops?

The Wizard also had this clock thing. And it sent the building backwards and forwards through time. It was weird. I didn’t like it. The building aged or de-aged with each new time. Eventually Shade took us back to the 1950’s, and the Wizard was a baby? I don’t understand why, since none of us aged with the building as it went through time. But it stinks because by that point in the fight he’d thrown me out of a window and I really wanted to punch him.

The thing is, Shade also broke the clock, and this really freaked Ernest out. He summoned all of his regular powers on top of his Dataverse powers and took us back to the right time. It got really stormy, and honestly I was scared for a minute, but it all turned out fine. I mean, technically. I don’t think Ernest is fine.

But we handed the weapons and the Wizard over to Sledge and went back to the community center.

I went to talk with Ernest. It didn’t go great. I think he’s still scared of me. But I gave him a cupcake and a hug. I guess that’s all I can do. As much as I don’t like it, I don’t think anything I say will make Ernest feel better. Or being around him at all. I’m not going to avoid him or anything, but I think he’ll be happier if he doesn’t have to think about me.
Then at home, I talked to Dad about the support group thing we saw. Yes, I actually talked to Dad. I feel like it was pretty long overdue. Jasper was in bed already. He said the support group was for people without powers who have family members who do have powers. I got a little upset that after everything I’ve gone through to keep this a secret that he’d just go and tell all those people, but he said that he went and talked about his “nephew” who has superpowers. I mean, I’m glad he didn’t just out me like that, but it’s also a pretty thin lie. It wouldn’t be hard to disprove. I really hope he’s a much better liar than I am, but he said that most people didn’t ask too many questions, except for Vic.
And that’s when it all clicked. I didn’t know what he looked like, but I’ve heard Samantha talk about Vic enough that now with a name I could put the pieces together. I warned Dad not to trust him, and to warn Helen the others in the group. He believed me. I didn’t even have to explain why Vic wasn’t to be trusted. I texted Samantha a warning as well, since she was also being watched.
But then Dad asked if I wanted to watch a movie. I don’t remember the last time we just watched a movie together. It was really nice. Princess Bride was on. It’s been a long time since we’ve quite felt like a family. And some of that is my fault. I want to try harder. I realize I missed being a family. But it’s not too late.

## S4E13 - Renewal of the Timeline

Today brought up some feelings that I haven’t had for a while. I didn’t really think that I’d ever be as confused as I was during my first Big Team mission ever again, but here we are. Out of my depth, no idea what was going on, and Wren was there. Just like old times.

That’s probably unfair to me, but I’ve been feeling a lot more confident with this hero stuff recently, and today I felt like I was back at that first mission. My first mission with the Big Team, and our first contact with the Dataverse.

Okay, I need to start at the beginning or this will make no sense. I went home early from pancake night because Dad suddenly needed to work a shift and I needed to be home to watch Jasper. It was fine. I got home, Dad rushed off, telling me he’d be back at 3 am. I checked on Jasper, who was already asleep, and then went to do some homework.
A little while later, I heard a noise, and then someone in Jasper’s room. It was a child’s voice, and my immediate first thought was that Siofra was back, and her turning into me for that little bit did reveal who I was and stuff about Jasper, so I ran in there.

Good news: it wasn’t Siofra. Less good news: it was this girl named Caldera and she’s a jerk. She looks like she’s 13 but apparently she’s a lot older and she should know better but apparently she’s too good to knock like a civilized person and instead thinks breaking into my little brother’s bedroom is a good idea.
She gave him a train that flies. Which was really cool but there was no way I was letting that thing be around Jasper before I knew if it was dangerous. I told her to get out of my apartment, and she said some stuff about how I had rank time energy on me. So I guess that doesn’t go away after I get rid of it. Also, rude. It was how she tracked me down. So I guess she knows who I am now, too. I told her I’d go with her so long as she promised never to come back to my apartment, and she kinda agreed. She left to wait outside and I told Jasper that he needed to make noise if someone breaks in, even if they give him cool toys. I also took the train, which he wasn’t thrilled about.

I almost left in a huff, but he threw a pillow at me. That snapped me out of it a little, and I tucked him back in and kissed his forehead. He tried to bribe me into letting him keep the train in exchange for him not telling Dad that I’m leaving, but I told him I’d give it back after I made sure it wasn’t dangerous. I don’t think he’d really tell Dad, either. I told him I loved him and then I left.
Caldera was waiting outside and called the elevator, but the inside wasn’t my building’s elevator. I changed into my hoodie and mask during the ride. When we got to where we were going, we were in this steampunk room. Wren and Rescue were there, which was a relief.

Right, so apparently Caldera is part of a thing called Branch, which some people on the team call time cops but Caldera said were more like timeline plumbers. I rubbed that particular phrasing in her face a little. (If she wanted me to like her she wouldn’t have broken into my house and put my brother in danger.)

Anyway, apparently Wren has worked with these folks before, so that’s something. We got a briefing how there was a monster and a portal and some kind of other timeline that’s collapsing or colliding with ours or something, and there were some people in the portal who we needed to save. If I’m not being clear it’s because I had no idea what was going on.
The Branch people led us through some tunnels and then we came out in like Russia or something, and took a boat up to near where the portal was. Rescue was off by himself during the ride and didn’t talk to us. I don’t know if Rescue is just like that or if it’s because he knows about my pockets and hates me now like Ernest does.
We got out onto an ice floe, and I could sense where the portal was. It had that bad time energy.  So we got there, and when I tried to enter the portal some kind of white noise in physical form monster thing swiped at me. Before it did, though, I saw some people in there. Rescue made a hand out of magic to keep the distortion creature from hitting me, which was nice.
Rescue and I distracted the monster while Wren got some people out of the portal, and then I went in to get two more out. The world inside the portal was decimated. Everything was turning to ash. I don’t know if that’s because the timeline was being weird or if something happened. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to think about it.
We defeated the monster and everyone was saved. The people from the portal’s names were Amita, Carson, Julio, and Zane. They’re heroes. And apparently from 2013.

Just when we were wondering how we were getting back to Halcyon, some former Big Team members showed up??? It was Dom and Jake, and they got us back to Halcyon really quickly with some...you know, I was tired and I’m not sure I could explain it if I tried.

We took the rescued people to Mr. Crossover. I realized that all of them had the same kind of energy that I feel from my pockets. And none of them could use their powers. I gave them my number and told them to call me if they developed a weird power, since I guess that can happen when you mess with time. Ernest would hate that. Good thing we’re not talking, I guess, so it won’t come up.
Wren and I ran off as soon as we could. I’ve never worked with Wren except those two times in the Dataverse, but I hope we get to work together more.
I got into bed and my mask off right as Dad opened the door to check on me. Which was a relief. As he left, he said maybe sometime we’ll actually talk, but in a “I don’t think you can hear me” kind of way.
The next day I got GAIA to check over the train, and they said it was safe. Weird, but safe. Jasper was excited. I hope Dad doesn’t ask too many questions about where it came from.

So like, that’s what happened. But there was something that Wren told me on the boat. He asked when I’d gotten the time energy that Branch used to find me, and I told him about the fight with the Abyss, and how’d I’d sent the warning back in time to save everyone. And then he mentioned that he’d been there. To the timeline where I failed. Where the team wasn’t warned and everyone died except for the four of us who were in Casper’s head. I didn’t know how to respond to that. I still don’t.
I haven’t written about those days in Casper’s head because I don’t like thinking about them. Watching the city get destroyed was awful, but I’d mostly gotten over it because it didn’t happen. But now I know that it did. And that somewhere a me and a world where I failed exists. And I don’t know how to feel about that. How could I live in a world where I’d let all my friends die?
I hope the nightmares don’t start up again.

## S4E17 - Earth's Mightiest

Today was really different and aside from Melody feeling bad at the end, it wasn’t actually really bad. Which is nice considering how things have been going lately.
I dropped some cupcakes off at the base (strawberry with some cute candy decorations that I sculpted out of chocolate), and Melody, Phoenix, and Whiz were there. Melody and Phoenix were about to start a spar in the danger room, and I hadn’t met Phoenix or Whiz before, so I wanted to stick around.

They started, but were interrupted almost right away by GAIA showing us some news footage from earlier in the day. J Jonah Fallon was talking with a tall cloaked figure who was ignoring Fallon and told the camera "Warriors of Earth, heroes, legends, show me what you've got." Which is ominous.

GAIA showed us this because there were AEGIS agents at the door. One was called Carson, and the other was Samantha’s uncle! His name was Kenneth. Jackal and Whiz had met them before, and apparently didn’t like Carson. They told us that Savior, Sledge, and Old Jackal had gone into the cloaked figure’s weird ship to investigate, and they hadn’t been heard from since they went in.

Before we could get very far talking with them, SPEAR agents showed up. SPEAR deals with space stuff, and had never heard of this person before, which was concerning. Side note: the one who talked to us, Salesa, has definitely had a romantic thing with Carson. I want to know the story but also I will never ever ask.
They argued about jurisdiction for a bit, but SPEAR ended up taking over. Carson left kinda angrily, but I offered everyone cupcakes. Samantha’s uncle took one. Renata apparently didn’t know that I was the one who made them and she gave me a hug because she loves my cupcakes. That was really nice. I like her. And not just because she appreciates my cupcakes. I just immediately felt like I needed to protect her. Not in a “she’s incompetent” kind of way, but in a “she’s precious and I want to keep her safe” kind of way. If that makes sense.
Salesa led us outside where there was a SPEAR ship and I’m not a big fan of cars or anything but I have never wanted to drive something more than I wanted to drive that. And they let me! I was so excited. I mean, I didn’t fly it for long, but it was SO COOL!
Then we got caught in a tractor beam (NOT MY FAULT...I think). Whiz tried to get us out of it, but kinda broke the ship instead? Not sure that was totally his fault, either.
So we landed, and the Overlooker (which is what the cloaked figure is called) welcomed us heroes, but told the SPEAR people they had to watch from somewhere else. Melody gave Salesa a communicator, as well as all of us. The Overlooker was concerned about the communicators for a bit, but analyzed it and said that since it couldn’t broadcast out, it was fine for us to have them.
And that’s how we all got pulled into Clashopolis, a fighting ring that may or may not make us fight each other to the death. Also apparently an intergalactic reality show? Overlooker said it came to Earth because we have diverse and interesting heroes, which is true I guess. Melody was excited to sign up. It probably reminded her of wrestling, and I know she loves doing that.

So the Overlooker also had a bunch of “interns” who looked just like them but shorter and were also called Overlooker, and they led us off to a dressing room. On the way, Melody pulled me aside to ask how I was doing. I gave like a half answer. Tay still hasn’t spoken to me since Valentine’s day, but I didn’t want to get into it. She said she was glad I was there, though, and there’s no one she’d rather have with her in a fight like this. I almost started crying. I gave her a hug and told her the same. Then Overlooker ruined it by saying they weren’t filming so we should do it again. Which is just weird. We didn’t repeat anything.
In the dressing room, an Overlooker dressed like J Jonah Fallon called Melody’s look boring and kinda forcefully gave Whiz a makeover? There was nothing wrong with how either of them look. They said Phoenix was perfect and would be very popular. I tried to defend Melody by saying I was also boring, but they said I would be pretty popular. I’m not going to try and figure out why they thought any of this. Which is to say, I have thought about it, but trying to figure it out gave me a headache so I stopped.
So while Whiz was getting a makeover, Phoenix, Melody, and I had a little talk. We figured on a scale of 10, it was like 6.5 likelihood of this being death matches. I asked one of the interns about Sledge, Savior, and old Jackal. They said that all of them were there, and implied that Sledge and old Jackal were being about as cooperative about all of this as you’d expect. I asked to see Sledge, and they were hesitant at first, but I said that having me talk to her couldn’t make her any LESS cooperative. So they let me go.
They led me out of the same door we came in, but the hallways were different. I saw the Savior through an open door. He was flexing into a mirror. I’m sure he loved all of this. He seems like he likes a spectacle. I know I haven’t really met him, but he seems like such a wind bag.

As I entered Sledge’s room, an intern hit the wall next to me. Apparently they’d been trying to give her a makeover and she wasn’t having it. She’s so cool. The interns cleared out when I asked, then I told her what was going on and gave her my communicator. She said we needed to try and escape, but I said that we didn’t know where old Jackal was, and I might not know him, but I wasn’t just going to leave Savior here in case this was a death trap. She said she’d try to figure something out, and then she told me I was doing a good job. Sledge. Told me I was doing good. She’s like, a real hero. It must be great for Shade to have someone like her around to teach her.
As I left, an intern told me it was my turn to go out. And I thought they meant alone. And without my communicator, I was actually really alone. The halls were different again and panic was rising, but I was taken back to the room with the others and I was so relieved. We were all then taken through, once again, different hallways to a room with little pedestals in it. Renata hopped on one right away, and the rest of us followed.

You know, looking back, we could have probably asked them the rules of the game. But I was more than a little scared of the answer, so I wasn’t going to ask.

We were taken up into this arena. Across from us were Savior, an Ellen, an alien named Mor, and an alien named Wyle. The J Jonah Overlooker apologized that Sledge and old Jackal weren’t going to make an appearance, but Mor and Wyle were there in their places. I’m sure both of those women were more than the Overlookers were expecting lol. The arena had shifting terrain. Like, pillars would sprout up out of nowhere and twist and stuff. We were all supposed to try and get this orb thing. Since we all thought this was a team thing, Renata and I went for the orb. Renata flew, since she can do that, and I had Melody throw me. She uh, didn’t aim great, though, and I hit a pillar. I was fine; I absorbed the energy of the impact.

Mor was flying toward Renata, so I yeeted myself over to them, and used the force I’d just absorbed to push them toward the ground. It looked like hitting the ground hurt, though, which I felt bad about.
When I landed, I was next to the Ellen. And I may have said something mean about her not being the real Ellen, but I’ve been feeling defensive about Ellen recently okay. And she said that she was the real Ellen and all the others are the fakes. I guess I hadn’t thought about how weird it must be for the Ellens who have gotten shoved here from all over. If I ever see her again, maybe I’ll apologize. Honestly, I kinda hope I do run into her again. She has an Eye like Aman did. It was the right one, though, and he had the left one. She said she’d always had it. So is this an Eye from another universe? Did she come to this timeline a long time ago? Or maybe she just looked like an Ellen but wasn’t actually one? I’m probably overthinking this. But I know that someone took Aman’s Eye, so she should be warned that someone might come after her for it.

Anyway, I didn’t think of any of that in the moment. I just tried to keep the Ellen from blasting Renata. I’d never absorbed sunlight before, but honestly it could be really useful to have around. I wonder if I could absorb it from just standing outside. I’ll have to test that.
Then I heard Wyle screaming, and I didn’t have time to think about Eyes or the philosophy of Ellens. I touched Ellen to use energy to throw her across the stadium, and both Renata and I ran/flew over to Melody.
She and Wyle must have been fighting, because she had them wrapped up in those chains the Jackals gave her when we were in Casper’s head. She didn’t really have control over them though, and she was hurting Wyle. Whiz pulled out some gadget that broke the chains, but the backlash hurt Melody.
She started shaking, and when I asked if she was okay she said she wasn’t. She said that she couldn’t control her chain powers and she kept hurting people with them. I gave her a hug and told her that sometimes we do hurt people that we don’t want to, but we get better. Because we’re heroes, and that’s what we do. Sometimes I don’t know if what I’m saying makes people feel better, but I knew I helped that time.

This was when Renata told us that this wasn’t a team thing, and now we were supposed to fight each other (not to the death though, so that’s a relief). None of us really wanted to, and my willingness to play along was gone now that Melody was feeling bad. Fortunately, Salesa and the SPEAR agents came along to tell the Overlooker to get off the planet. Renata and Savior stuck around to help them all work things out, but Melody and I were ready to go. The Overlooker said that they’d be in touch with us if any merchandising deals go through with our images.
An intern showed us and Whiz to a door that went straight to the base. We ran into Sledge on the way, who had apparently been trying to escape but couldn’t because the halls kept changing. I probably should have told her that when I saw her. Whoops. And yeah, the door opened inside of Clashopolis and the base was on the other side of the door. Weird. Honestly though, not as weird as a lot of superhero stuff.
We all hung out at the base after that. I stayed near Melody to make sure she was okay. We watched the news and J Jonah Fallon got Renata’s hero name wrong, and also implied she wasn’t part of Big Team. Which is rude.
So that was Clashopolis. A space reality show that apparently wasn’t sinister. Who’d have guessed?

Oh yeah. Remember how I was worried about nightmares? They’re getting bad again. I don’t want to talk about it.

## S4E19 - Hello!

Oh wow. Okay. Today was...

I’m so happy.
It started out pretty chill. I was at the base researching cupcake flavors after I dropped some off. The chocolate ones with coffee filling went over really well, as did the blueberry white chocolate ones. The butterscotch ones with lime frosting weren’t my best idea, but you never know!
Anaya seemed really interested in how cupcakes work. I guess it makes sense that there isn’t really baking underwater. I offered to teach her how to make them. She seemed interested, but I’ve offered to teach at least six people how to bake cupcakes and no one has actually taken me up on the offer so I don’t know if it’ll happen.

Anaya also thought she was allergic to coffee because it gave her jitters, and I told her that pretty much everyone gets like that when they’ve had 5 cups of coffee but I don’t think I explained it very well. I think she thinks that everyone is allergic to coffee. Oops.
While we were talking, Lisa basically threw Manline into the room to make him socialize, and she took a cupcake. After I said hi I remembered that she only met me as Atlanta that one time at Bella’s party and never as Verve so whoops?

We heard the fax machine going nuts, and there were some magic papers that some wizards on the east coast were sending anyone who looks like they’re a magic hero on Big Team, trying to sponsor them. Most of the papers filling the room were sponsorship stuff. And then we found out from GAIA that we were maybe going to become technically vigilantes because our contract with the League of Heroes that makes us legally heroes (or something) was expiring since you know, most of the League was stuck in paintings in the Dataverse until a few days ago so no one remembered to update it. And usually this wouldn’t be a big deal, but with the Halcyon Office of Villain and Vigilante Affairs not being fans of Big Team, it could have been a real problem for us.
Also someone keeps breaking into the base and doing a lot of graffiti and messing with GAIA’s robot body and their cameras. I should have probably looked into that, but I got distracted. I mean, a lot happened!

Then some people rang the doorbell while we were trying to clean up some paper off of GAIA’s robot body. I went to answer it, and it was more people wanting to sponsor us. Apparently they sent faxes, which is just stupid who sends faxes anymore. There was someone from that Electroad car company, WacRonald’s, Heimdall (that athletic company), and Bapple (the electronics company). They all gave us a pitch, and if I hadn’t been so worried about being a criminal I might have thought about the Heimdall one more. I don’t think I’d actually like having a sponsor, but they had really cool stuff. At least we got to keep the sample clothes and stuff? Boon took them, so I’m sure I could have some of them if I asked. Since we weren’t really interested, Anaya told them all to go. Except the WacRonald’s guy. We let him stay because he said he’d get fired if he didn’t stay for half an hour or something. He just hung out on his phone in the corner.
In the middle of all this, I got a call from Dad. A lot of people have been laid off at the hospital because they’re trying to build robot nurses? Which seems like a remarkably bad idea. Just as bad as the robot police that’s happening. I wonder if they’re connected...But the reason he called was that I needed to babysit Jasper because he needed to take a double shift. So I had to cancel pancake night, but that kinda turned out for the best. Because of...well, I’ll get there :).
Anyway, Manaline found a list of lawyers who could help us, and one of the people on the list was Rekken! Anaya also somehow found Rekken’s number. I didn’t ask how, now that I think about it. Anyway, I didn’t know Rekken was in town. And she’s also not a lawyer, but she was able to extend our contract. I’m not totally sure it was legal, but I’m not gonna question it at this point.
Since that’s just a stop-gap thing, Manaline found out some stuff about the other people on his list using his powers. We decided to go with an S. Krinn. He and GAIA contacted them and I guess we’ll see what happens.

It was really cool to meet Rekken! Although apparently at some point she kidnapped Anaya’s little brother? I’m sure there was a good reason, although I don’t blame Anaya for being angry at her. I’m really relieved that I got her to accept that we needed Rekken’s help. Also apparently Rekken knows that Boon asked out Gwen, so that was a little awkward. But overall it was all fine! And she took a cupcake when she left so I consider that a successful first meeting, even if she really wanted to get out of there in order to not talk to half of us.
So this is out of order, which isn’t usually how I do things, but I wanted to get all of that out of the way before I talked about what I really wanted to talk about (seems like I’m doing that a lot lately). After Anaya kicked the reps out and before Manaline got back from getting that list of lawyers, Boon took me aside to tell me something. So apparently she’s dying? In like, a Sapphomet is killing her kind of way. Like, the fact that Sapphomet exists and has a deal with Boon is killing her. But she’s not gonna die. I went into that weird upside down dimension in Casper’s head to save them from the Abyss, and I didn’t even know them. And the Abyss ~~is~~ was WAY scarier than Sapphomet. So I won’t let that happen. And I told her that. I think it helped.
To be totally honest, it is really scary. I don’t want to lose her. But she’s scared, so I’ve got to pretend I’m not. I wasn’t lying, though. I do think we will take care of this and we’ll get through this. What’s the point of superpowers and having superpowered friends if you can’t save the people important to you, right? ...

Remember what I said about hoping my nightmares wouldn’t come back? They did. Because of course they did. In addition to the ones about me failing back in December, I sometimes have nightmares about people just vanishing, like what happened to my mom. It used to just be Dad or Jasper, but now sometimes it’ll be Melody or Tay or Ellen or Boon. And sometimes it’ll be that Ellen’s gone, and we’re left with Adult Ellen who was our Ellen all along and was always going to turn evil. And remember way back when Carm attacked the fake hologram Atlanta in the danger room? The nightmares of that being the real me had stopped, but they started again after she found out... And now I know that Ernest is going to hate me when he finds out...
Anxiety is so fun, right?

This was supposed to be a feel-good journal entry! I am putting this journal back on the tracks to feel-good-ness because I’m happy darn it.

So after we got all the stuff with the lawyer figured out, I needed to go get Jasper. So I ran off to change and wait for Boon, because she asked to come hang out with me. And of course I said yes, since I a) love hanging out with Boon and b) don’t want her to feel alone right now. But after I ran off, Anaya offered to babysit so the two of us could hang out. I wasn’t sure at first, because Anaya doesn’t know ASL, but she was writing in a little notebook all day and Jasper has pretty good reading comprehension, so I said yes. Boon really seemed to want to. Besides, it’s not like Anaya could be a worse babysitter than Bella.
I wonder if Rekken showing up got her thinking about her own little brother. I bet she misses him. I need to work at being better friends with her. It probably gets lonely up here without her family. And she already knows who I am, so it’s not like I can ruin things that way.
Anyway, she did a good job. Or at least not horrible. Jasper didn’t complain at least.

So uh. Boon and I went to a park. She’d picked up her guitar while I took Anaya and Jasper up to the apartment. And she said that she had something for me, and she sang me a song. She wrote a song for me. I feel like I’m failing with my friends a lot, but if two of them have written me songs, I can’t be doing all that badly, right? And she asked me to be her girlfriend. In the song. I cried. I can’t even begin to explain how happy I am right now. Boon asked me to be her girlfriend. IN SONG. I might start crying again. I never imagined anything half this romantic happening to me ever.
I uh, I also asked if I could kiss her. And she said yes. And I did. And that was nice. Um, yeah. Really nice. Did that count as a date? Have we gone on three dates now?

Also, some people in the park were watching which was a little weird, but Boon asked one of them to send her the video of her singing to me. I’m glad we’ll have that. I can watch it when I can’t believe this actually happened. Is that weird? I don’t know. I’m going to do it anyway.

Shoot, I should text Ellen and Melody. They’ll want to know. Especially since I cancelled pancake night.
I have a girlfriend now. And I kissed her. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep. (And not because of the nightmares this time.)

## OVA - The Devil's Due

Okay. I need to start this by saying that we won. Boon is fine. Boon is actually great. I mean, she’s always been great but you know what I mean. Sapphomet (or whatever her real name is) is never coming back. Boon is safe. So while things went badly for me personally (which was all my own stupid fault), we won.
Since I’d finally gotten the recipe for Carm-friendly cupcakes as good as I can make it without a taste tester, I went to the community center to drop them off for her. I knew she still didn’t want to talk to me, so I snuck in. Or, well, I tried to sneak in. She lives in a closet, so it’s not like there’s a lot of space. And I knocked over some brooms, which made it very obvious someone was there. Her coffin lid started to open and I hurried out, but I think she saw me leaving. Also, like, who else would leave cupcakes.
As soon as I got into the hallway, Boon called. She was panicked, saying that today was the day that Sapphomet was going to take her soul. I asked where she was so I could go to her, but she said she’d come to the community center instead.
 When I got off the phone, Ellen had shown up. I said I needed to help Boon with something, and they both -- well, I wouldn’t say they exactly seemed like they wanted to help, but they both were going to. I didn’t explain exactly what was going on because I didn’t know how much they knew or how much Boon would want them to know. But Ellen apparently also knew that Boon was dying. I don’t think I asked how she knew. I wasn’t really in the mindset to ask questions at the time.
That’s when Boon got there with Ernest. He must have been at the Deaf meetup. I haven’t been going to as many lately since Tay’s been mad at me. And, you know, she lives at the center so I was trying to give her space. She burst into the room pretty clearly panicked. I took her hand to try and ground her, and it seemed to help. Boon started to explain what was happening for Tay and Ernest, but halfway through there were screams from outside.
 I ran out to see what was going on and very nearly got hit by a car, but Carm stopped it before it hit me. In my defense, the car was flying through the air. A snake demon with arms threw it. And even in Halcyon you don’t just expect that! I mean, I would have been fine, but Ernest would have had a heart attack I’m sure. And found out earlier. I don’t know if that would have been better than how he did find out.
 But I didn’t, and he told me to go inside and let them take care of this. So I did. I mean, I changed into my Verve outfit while I was in there. They’d taken care of the snake demon by the time I got back. We decided that we needed to split up, and Carm said she and Boon should go. Boon wanted me to go with her, but Carm aggressively didn’t want me to go with them. And I wasn’t about to start a fight with Carm while she was already mad at me, so Ellen, Ernest, and I went to Shady Glen because apparently demons were destroying it. Ellen and I took her bike and Ernest flew.
On the way there, Ellen asked if Ernest knew. And I told her he didn’t. She said it was just like old times. Which I’m pretty sure was a dig at me not telling Tay, so I said that I was going to tell him but now didn’t exactly seem like a good time. She said it seemed like a day to find out new things. I didn’t really know how to respond to that, so I didn’t. Maybe I should have realized she was upset with me at that point, but it didn’t even occur to me. I was distracted by the threat of Boon’s imminent death, for one, and also I don’t know why she’s mad at me. She’s assured me that she wasn’t mad about Valentine’s Day -- and she did it at pancake night, and she wouldn’t lie to me there -- so I don’t know what I did or when I did it.
 Anyway. We got there. The portal was pretty clearly in the basement, but we could also hear groaning from the garage. I was going to head to the portal because I figure if it’s made of energy, I can shut it down. But Ernest asked if I had any first aid training, which I do, and said if someone is hurt I was better able to handle that. So I went for the garage and they went for the basement.
 In the garage, Lukas had been beaten up and tied to a chair and the garage door was down on top of the Baroness’s hood. A demon with rocky skin was in there, and I figured that it had to be intelligent since it tied up Lukas, so I tried to talk to it, but it just attacked. I blasted it away from me and went for the garage door opener. And I got the garage door open, but it also got me. It hurled me around for a bit before the Baroness shot it with tranquilizers. And uh. That’s definitely gonna bruise. Just. Ouch.
But I got Lukas free and asked if anyone else was home. No one was. He said he was going to grab something before he left, and I didn’t stick around to ask questions. He seemed like he knew what he was doing.
 I joined Ellen and Ernest down in the basement. The stairs were gone, but I jumped down just fine. Sapphomet was there, and as soon as I landed she said, “Oh great, the girlfriend is here.” Which is just about the worst thing she could have said. And Ernest was confused and wondering if I was also dating Boon and I just couldn’t lie anymore or say nothing and let him think that Boon was cheating on me or anything so I just blurt out that I was Atlanta which was apparently the wrong thing to say because his powers started going haywire. Like, he didn’t lose control, but it was close.
Ernest’s wind storm drowned out what Sapphomet said out loud, but I could hear her in my head. She told me I had a lot of problems -- which, first of all, rude. And she said she wanted what was best for Boon even if she didn’t know it. Which is such a lie. Then she said she could make my dad’s mind change about my powers and being on Big Team, and make Jasper hear, and bring Mom back. And first of all, Jasper’s not broken. He doesn’t need to be fixed. But also if Mom wanted to be back she’d be here. And I know what Sapphomet said had to be a lie. But she implied that Mom did want to be here, but couldn’t. And I don’t know if that means she’s dead or trapped but I...Sapphomet is a liar. Anything she did to Dad would be a lie and cruel, and if she brought Mom home it wouldn’t be the real her. My real Mom is gone. She’s not coming back. It’s been four years. I’ve accepted that. I’m trying to accept that.
 I used my powers to throw a barrel at her to make her shut up, and it broke. It was full of ale. It smelled awful. And it got swept up in the wind storm so we got splashed but not soaked (thank goodness). Then Ellen grabbed Sapphomet and got this look on her face like she did back on Valentine’s Day when she used her powers on adult Ellen. She held onto her for a moment, then tried to get away. But Sapphomet grabbed her and pulled her through the portal to hell.
I cannot explain how much I was NOT going to let Sapphomet take Ellen away from me. I caught her and pulled her back through. She was crying and saying something about a cabin. Ernest heard Ellen, too. He knew where to go. He grabbed both of us and tried to fly us away, but I pulled away. I needed to close this portal. I could see the betrayal in his eyes right before he sprouted lightning wings like he did in the Dataverse, and he and Ellen turned to lightning to blast out of the ceiling.
I could have been lightning again for a moment.
 But I had to close the portal. And I did. I used my powers and it worked exactly right. I pulled energy from the portal, then redirected it to close it again. It was almost circular. As soon as I had the energy, I put it back but in a way that closed the portal.  I wasn’t just using my powers, it was more like I was wielding them. I could see Sapphomet on the other side holding the strings to the portal or something, so she could open it again, but I closed it at least for a little while.
I had about ten seconds of silence then. The portal was closed. I caught my breath. And then Boon and Carm got there. I was so relieved that she was still okay. I told them that Ellen and Ernest went to the cabin, but then Sapphomet reappeared and immediately reopened the portal I just closed. She yelled something at a big demon inside that armies could come through, and a ton of demons swarmed in.
We needed to follow Ernest and Ellen, so Boon made us a portal to take us over to her cabin. When we got inside, Ellen threw a book at Boon and told her that she needed to banish Sapphomet forever in order to get out of the contract, and then just hugged Carm for a long time.
 Boon figured out what she needed to do. I helped as much as I could, which wasn’t really much. Boon had to call Rhiannon to get some last minute advice on how to do the magic banishing circle correctly. And then it was ready.
 Conveniently, Sapphomet popped up next to Ernest, who shoved her into the circle. Boon did some chanting while Sapphomet does some final desperate attempts to let us let her go. She almost took Boon’s dice with her, but I reached out to grab them and Ernest used his powers to buffet them into my hand. Boon’s horns changed as she chanted. They’re all goat-like now. Less demon-y.
Sapphomet did get in one final blow. I don’t know what exactly she did, but there was some sort of blast as she was dragged away. Ernest and I both lost control of our powers. I absorbed most of the lightning from the thunderstorm that Ernest summoned, which I know he can’t have been happy about, and then I blacked out for a bit. When I woke back up, we were outside. The cabin was on fire. Sapphomet was gone. Boon was free.
She is free.
 After catching my breath, I tried to talk to Ernest. But he’s mad at me. Really, really mad. He stormed off. Boon tried to talk to him, too, but he didn’t listen to her. It’s okay. What I did was awful. He doesn’t have to forgive me. I just hope he doesn’t stop talking to Jasper. Jasper really likes Ernest.
 I tried to explain to Boon why Ernest is so scared of me, and she still thinks he’ll come around. But I didn’t really want to talk about it, so I changed the subject to something I did want to talk about. That Boon was safe. We hugged. And I tried to kiss her but she’s too tall and she had to bend over to kiss me. Maybe I should carry around a box in my Pocket. Just a little step stool so I can bring it out when I need to kiss my girlfriend. (I mean of course that wouldn’t work because Atlanta can’t use powers and I just need to ask Boon to lean down but still it’s a fun visual.)
 When we got back to Shady Glen, Gwen was there! She gave Boon something, but I was just so excited to see her. I uh, maybe accidentally tackled her. She wasn’t expecting me. Oops.
 After catching up with Gwen a little, I went back to the community center. I wanted to check on Tay and Ellen. When I got there, Tay was finally eating my cupcakes.
 Ellen was trying to sleep in the coffin but it wasn’t working very well. She still looked pretty upset when she got out of it, but she didn’t let me give her a hug. I almost cried. I mean, she’s allowed to not want a hug or to talk to me. But I don’t know what I did. I told her to take care of herself because I didn’t believe that she was fine. But she just left. I don’t think she’d just brush me off like that and leave if I didn’t do something wrong. I don’t know. Maybe this is just me being shitty and self-centered and assuming everything revolves around me and everything is my fault.
But what good am I if my friends won’t talk to me? Is this how Ernest and Tay feel? Sometimes I wonder why anyone likes me at all.
Neither of them had really answered when I asked how they were, but I told Tay that I was upset that another person found out who I was before I could tell them. She seemed to think that I was never going to tell her, but I was planning on telling both her and Ernest. I just didn’t get the chance between deciding it and the bad reveals. I apologized again, and said that I was working on letting people in. She said she accepted, which is a good start.
 I was going to just go because I didn’t think Tay would actually want to talk to me, but she told me that the cupcakes were good. I’m glad they turned out. We talked about them for a bit before she told me that she talked to Ernest. I told her that I didn’t expect him to ever be okay with it. And then she said just, the most basic but true thing that I should have realized from the beginning. She said that I expect people to react badly, so I put it off for too long so that people will feel betrayed and react badly, when if I’d just told them to begin with they probably wouldn’t have.
The truth of that was basically a slap in the face.
 I asked if she was going to be mad at me forever, and she said she didn’t want more apologies and she wanted things to go back to normal. I asked if it was too soon for a hug, and she gave me one. I could tell she was still upset, though, so maybe it was.
 I’m in the park now. I thought maybe writing all this out would make me feel better, but I think it just emphasized the bad parts while burying the good ones. But I’m on the bench where Boon asked me out. At least she still likes me. And I’m meeting her and Gwen for breakfast tomorrow morning.
 Shoot, I hope no one filmed me crying here. That’d make those creepy gossip magazines go wild.
 It’s late. I should go home. I’m sure Dad’s seen the news about demons. If he’s waiting up on me, I can be sad about my shitty friendship skills after I tell him I’m okay.

## S4E26 - New Shields

The team’s financial situation hasn’t improved, unfortunately. Today we were approached by AEGIS for sponsorship. Okay, I guess first, we stopped a bank robbery. It was me, Bolt, Jackal, and Renata. After we stopped the bank robbers and saved everyone, some jerk in a beanie was whining about his phone getting broken (because Bolt set off the sprinklers), and I was just like, better your phone than you. And I kinda almost yelled at him? I guess I was more calling him out for being a jerk about it, which I NEVER do. And then Old Jackal asked us for help, but was all high and mighty and “I don’t actually need help as I’m literally standing here asking for your help and insulting you to boot.” Ugh. She told us that AEGIS was coming and that she wanted to know what they wanted us to do. Like, sure, that’s not a big request, but she was so condescending about it!

Melody pulled me aside and was like, “Okay so I love that you’re calling people out and all. But what’s wrong?” She knows me too well. So I told her everything that was up with Boon and Ellen and Tay and Ernest. I think it all took her by surprise, but she’d noticed that something had been up with Ellen and Ernest. She said she’d talk to Ellen. I hope she’s okay.

When we went back to the others, Phoenix and Wingnut were having a staring contest and poofing out their feathers at each other. It was very cute.
Anyway, AEGIS showed up. It was Agent Carson again, but also an Agent Tonner, who he brought along to talk to us because he didn’t want to. She said that AEGIS wanted to offer us a partnership. We’d help them with some problems they were having, and then they’d help us with our PR problem. We agreed to go with them. There’s no point in not hearing them out.
Then on their helicopter plane thing, Agent Carson started being a jerk, and I got really frustrated with everyone asking for our help and then insulting us! So I called him out on it. Did that a lot this morning. This made him stop talking to us, so oops? Only I’m not sorry at all. But what’s with everyone asking us for help and then insulting us today???
And then we got to AEGIS, and it was fine for like a minute because we met Samantha’s uncle Kenneth? He seems nice. But Director Hussain is so out of touch with reality if she really thought that we’d agree to work for AEGIS, especially when we wouldn’t get to pick when we helped! How stupid does she think we are???

But we listened because Bolt wanted to hack into AEGIS’s systems. Right, I met Bolt today. I like him. He seems great. We had a fun moment where I sat on his shoulders to shut off these hidden cameras so that we could “talk about this in private” when really it was to hide Bolt hacking. Also he has this cool mechanical bird that he rescued from a supervillain! Her name is Wingnut, and she’s adorable.

So Bolt hacked in, and AEGIS has huge files on all of us. They even had DNA samples from some of us, including Melody. There’s no non-nefarious reason to have that! And they know who I am. So. That’s not great. I mean, they’re a surveillance organization and I’m a teenager with subpar secret keeping skills, but still! I hate that they know, that they can use this against me and my family if they want. Later the Director said they’d only use that information if they needed to, who gets to choose that? I sure don’t trust any of them to make that call. Bolt deleted all the files, but I’m sure they have backups.
And then these two chuckleheads break in. One, Mirror, straight up blows up the wall to the room we’re in and smoke starts pouring in. Jackal yelled something about not trusting the smoke because it had illusions and there’s a person who can copy powers and look like one of us, so also don’t trust any of us? And then she ran off! Phoenix followed her, and I decided that if the smoke was a problem, I should just get rid of it. So I tried to Pocket it. This uh, didn’t go great. I burned my hands.
(Okay, maybe Ernest MIGHT have a bit of a point about me using my powers recklessly.)

I got pulled into an illusion. J Jonah Fallon was announcing my identity to an audience. It was like a nightmare. I ran away from him, which also apparently made me run away in the real world. I did remember after I did this that this was an illusion, but I had no idea how to get out of it. Apparently I’d run into the person making the smoke (whose villain(?) name is just Smoke, still better than the Install Wizard) and he pulled me out.
Long story short for this next part, Smoke wants to take down AEGIS, which is a cool goal, but we didn’t want to help him steal stuff. Burning all of our bridges with AEGIS didn’t seem like a good idea yet, especially with all of the other legal issues we’re having. Them not liking us is much different than being wanted for theft. We were just going to let him take what he needed, but then he attacked us! (Also, his crime partner, Mirror, doesn’t seem as trustworthy. Also she can look like other people, so I immediately don’t like her.)

The attack didn’t hurt me as much as everyone else. Mirror straight up took out Renata, and Bolt was fighting Smoke. But Melody lost control of her chains again. I ran over to help her, which maybe wasn’t the best thing to do? Maybe I should have helped Bolt or made sure Renata was okay...but Melody’s one of my best friends and I know how much losing control of the chains bothers her. Besides, I still don’t think that Smoke really wanted to hurt us. (Still not sure about Mirror.)

Also I’m the worst friend (again) because when I told Melody that she could control her chains because they don’t have a mind of their own and don’t control her, she took that to mean that she must want to hurt people. Which is NOT what I meant, but I stumbled through a bad explanation and I did help her regain control. But I made her feel bad and I hate it.

Unfortunately, Smoke got injured before Melody regained control. We told Mirror to take him and get out, and she did. We saw her face first, though. I don’t know if she did it on purpose or not, but the reflective part of her mask was clear for a moment. We told AEGIS that the damage from Melody was from the fight with them. They didn’t have any footage of what happened because I wrecked the security cameras. I’m not mad about it.
The conversation with the Director was just frustrating. She called the files on us a necessary evil. So she admits they’re evil. I told her that we’re going to keep doing hero stuff on our terms, not hers. Bolt and Jackal agreed with me, but Phoenix said she needed to think about it. She had just woken up from being knocked unconscious, so I get that this could feel confusing. I told her we’d keep helping AEGIS in the same capacity that we have been, and that if she used the information about me against my family, I’d make problems for her.
Carson actually was smiling when we left. Said he was impressed at how angry we made the Director. So I guess that’s something.

Ugh. I’m just. Mad about everything today. Nothing feels like a victory.
Melody did say as we left that she’d break into every AEGIS facility on the planet to delete my file if it meant helping me keep my family safe, which was really nice of her. I don’t know what I did to get all these amazing friends, but I’m glad I have them. I offered to help her train with her chains. She agreed, and said she trains with Ernest now. I won’t intrude on that for now. Ernest is still really mad at me.

Bolt and I talked, too. He asked if we messed up, and I didn’t know. We agreed that all of these big companies trying to make their own superheroes is a bad thing, though. I asked if he’d read any of the file on me. He didn’t. He only read parts of his own. He was really happy that AEGIS considers him dangerous. I’m glad that he seems to be in good spirits about the whole thing.
I think I’m gonna go make cupcakes. Take my mind off of all this.

## S2E28 - The Library

So to start, Ernest and I are on better terms now, which is such a relief. And we had a mission together! And I had my first real mission with Libra and Whisper!

GAIA sent us on a mission to investigate some sketchy people up who were cutting a hole into a building. Ernest had run into them before, some organization called Bishop. I didn’t know a lot about them except that Smoke said we shouldn’t trust them.

So some of them were using some kind of knife to cut a portal into the side of the building, and others were trying to block us. Libra and I avoided the first group (I yeeted myself over them, Libra teleported past), and Whisper and Ernest fought the goons. I almost fell off the bridge the goons were on, but Libra caught me. That made us too late, though, and some of them got through the portal. But we all followed them through.

The portal led to this HUGE room full of bookshelves and flying animals. I can’t begin to do justice to describing it. But trust me, it was super cool. Ernest said we were in some tower in Madagascar. Not sure how he knew, but I was a little shocked and didn’t ask. This monkey flew up to us and was all like “Welcome to the library, how may I help you?” Long story short, this place is a Consortium library, and the monkey assumed that we were wizards because that’s the only way we SHOULD have been able to get it. But we pretended that yes we were totally wizards. But there was no sign of the Bishop goons.
One of the goons had this energy bandolier, and I could sense that above us, so we knew we had to go up. And then Libra just teleported away??? Not a good plan, we should have stuck together. The rest of us convinced the monkey that we of course COULD teleport, but we were tired from doing a ritual earlier in the day so we needed to use the teleportal for kids. The monkey implied that we should be embarrassed having to use it, but who cares, really.
Oh, small point to bring up before I get to what happened after we teleported up: THIS IS A PRISON. There are people imprisoned in all of the bookshelves, and the books are their memories. It’s a prison for magical criminals. We broke into a prison. That was terrifying. Like, what if someone less nice found out we weren’t supposed to be there? I’m getting ahead of myself.
So we ran back into Libra, who had gotten help from this absolutely adorable flying otter familiar. The otter led us through the library/prison after the Bishop goons until the goons split up. I said that Ernest and I should each probably go separate ways, since we’re the most senior members of the team. He looked like he wanted to argue, but didn’t. I don’t think he quite trusts me yet. But he and Libra went one way and Whisper went with me.
So the bookshelves all have plaques on them, and as we went through, I noticed a theme in this wing. All of the people in these bookshelves went evil after being exposed to Reaper One. So that’s terrifying. Ernest might be more right about Pockets than I want to admit. Whisper could tell that the plaques scared me, but I said I’d explain after we caught the Bishop goons. It seemed like time was short to stop them from whatever they were doing. I actually forgot to talk to her later, though. I’ll have to do it the next time I see her.
Whisper could sense where the goons were, so we caught up to them pretty easily. They were stuffing books into a bag that held way more than it should. But we took them out pretty easily, even though they had these TERRIFYING magic claw gloves. We worked well together. We took those off, then Whisper tied them up using some spectral chains. Then Whisper contacted the others and they did NOT have as easy of a time as we did. We hurried over that way.

By the time we got there, Libra was passed out on a couch in this alcove and Ernest was not in a good place. Libra woke up and comforted him a little. Then Ernest said that he broke some of the bookshelves and a wizard was preventing all of the criminals from escaping. As soon as I heard that, I hurried that way. I don’t know a lot about magic, but magic is energy and I have a lot of that, so I thought maybe I could help?

But the wizard didn’t need help. Their name is Conmoro and I guess they’d put all the criminals back in the bookshelves by themself? Which is really cool. I gave them the books that I’d saved from the other Bishop agents (I guess the ones that Ernest and Libra were chasing were able to send their books away before getting caught). Conmoro thought it was funny that we thought we’d be put into a bookshelf for breaking in, and assured us that those were only for really bad magic criminals. Still, it was probably best that we weren’t caught. They offered to open a portal so that we could get back to Halcyon. Libra went to give the otter back to its wizard (but they ended up being able to keep it, which is great!), and I asked them about the wing Whisper and I had gone to. If there was anything else they could tell me. They couldn’t right then, and also I didn’t want to mention Reaper One around Ernest, but they gave me their card.

Then they made a portal for us to go back to Halcyon. As we stepped through, they said, “If you ever meet a phoenix, run away,” which was weird. I wonder if phoenixes are usually mean or something? Like vampires? They should meet Renata if that’s the case; she’s super nice.
Ernest asked what I’d talked to Conmoro about, and I said I’d tell him if it turned out to be important. Which was kind of a lie. I know it’s important, but I don’t want him to freak out about it until I have more information. And who knows, maybe it’s nothing to worry about.

Okay. So. I can’t actually end this until I say something else about Conmoro and it’s that they’re incredibly beautiful. Just. I’m not sure I made any sense at all when I was talking to them. They have the most perfect cheekbones I’ve ever seen??? And just, their aura and stuff? I just. Couldn’t.
And if you think I’m being a hypocrite, I’m talking about how attractive they are here in my private journal and not out loud during a date with my girlfriend. Why am I defending myself. I’m the only one who reads this.

PS from later: Kurt asked out Ernest??? That seems like it came out of nowhere but I always ship my friends and being happy, and Ernest definitely seems happy about it. ♡

PPS from even later: I talked to Conmoro about Reaper One. This is...really scary. So those people in the bookshelves were exposed to Reaper One when they did the Pocket thing. And even though they weren’t evil before, they all were corrupted. Apparently there are a lot of theories why, but the Consortium doesn’t really know. And apparently Pockets like Hero One and I have are unique. Magic can do similar things, but not that exactly. So they don’t know if Reaper One corrupted the entire pocket dimension, and it’s possible that the people corrupted were using dimensional magic when Reaper One made the bay. (Also I don’t know if I share the same pocket dimension as them?) Another theory is that the power just is inherently corrupting, at least to magic. What might be the worst part is that there’s still a task force dealing with it, on the lookout for anyone showing similar powers. Since Hero One is the only person they know about who has Pocket powers, they don’t have much work, but it poses enough of a danger that it’s still a thing.
Maybe Ernest was right about my powers...

## Time Passes: March 25, 2020

*For Cupcakes and Anarchy Hangout and Box character creation*

This wasn’t really a mission, but I figured I’d write about it because a couple of things happened and I'm writing about a team thing anyway. First of all, we hung out at the base a few days ago and it was so much fun! Whisper, Bolt, Focus, Melody, Erenst, Aman, Anaya, and Boon were all there for at least parts of it.I taught some of them to make cupcakes and it was great! Ernest made some kind of abominations that I will NOT call cupcakes (but they were somehow kind of good, don’t tell Ernest). Melody made Aman’s favorite flavor and he helped her and they touched hands and it was super cute and then she gave him one and I was just like OH MY GOSH TELL HIM ALREADY but of course that was just in my head and made no impact.
Also, when Boon came in, everyone stopped and stared. Like, I’ve already thought that Boon was pretty, but she’s like, extra super pretty now? And super in the like, SUPER sense, you know? Apparently it’s part of her new Valkyrie powers. Everyone was just stunned. I blushed so hard I couldn’t talk for a couple of minutes.
During the cupcake making, Boon teased Ernest about Kurt (the temperature went up in the room, which was adorable). And Anaya brought up kissing and how she would go around figuring out if she wanted to kiss someone, and who would be acceptable to ask. And SOMEHOW, the conversation got around to whether or not I wanted to kiss anyone, and as much as I tried to deflect, Whisper kept coming back to it because she is too smart and saw through my attempts to dodge the question. She brought up Conmoro, too, and because I can’t control my face now everyone there saw me blush when she mentioned them. And Boon seemed very interested in knowing that I found them very attractive and brought up how sometimes people think other people are hot but then I said I wasn’t on a date with my girlfriend and talking about that. Um. Anyway.

After a bit, Whisper and Bolt started making their own cupcakes and were singing really badly, so Ernest, Boon, and I left them alone. Ernest and Boon established that they’re okay now, and then Ernest left. Boon and I talked for a bit. She apologized for going off about thinking people are hot. I said it was okay and explained that my objection to it was that she was talking about it while we were on a date. And then she asked me about Conmoro and I described them and I was so incredibly red, so Boon got her revenge. I asked about her new looks, and she said it made her a little uncomfortable that everyone stares now. I was going to promise not to do that anymore, but realized that was a lie and said I couldn’t do that. She laughed at that, and said she didn’t mind when it was me.
Gosh, I just, really like Boon.

She had to go practice her Valkyrie stuff, and invited me to go with. I changed so that we could hold hands. And that was that day! It was a lot of fun. And got me thinking about maybe telling the team so that next time if someone on the team asks who I want to kiss I can just say Boon.

A few days later, my friend Spencer joined the team! He helped teach my first aid certification course, and we’ve hung out at the hospital since then. He uh, he’s told me about his powers, and how he intends to die instead of using them. I don’t know how to really feel about that.
Faith, Aman, Spencer, and also prevented Tadd (his jerk brother) from attacking Toni the Tiger a few weeks ago. We got banned from the next dance, though, and uh, I haven’t told Boon yet. Maybe she won’t even invite me. (Yeah, right.) I’ll figure something out.

So today Box (which is Spencer’s hero name) got a call from Nursemaster and we went to a suspicious house fire. I absorbed all the fire, and we went to the basement. There was some kind of fire elemental thing down there. I tried to absorb the heat out of it to make it inert, but I just burned my hands. Box freaked out about that later. I’ve gotten hurt worse, but I didn’t figure he’d appreciate that argument.

Eclipse took this thing out with some kind of device. There was a sketchy technomagic summoning circle, and I called Temperance, who called AEGIS. We didn’t really want them to have it, but we certainly didn’t have any means to dismantle it safely. They tried to take Eclipse’s device, too, but I had Focus make a distraction, and I Pocketed the thing and we left. I didn’t leave it in there for long, don’t worry. Just long enough for the agents not to see me handing it over to Aman.
Box has put up sign-ups for everyone to come in for a checkup. I should tell him before I do that. I mean, we’re friends. So like, keeping this a secret from him isn’t going to go well if I keep it for much longer.
Anyway, that’s what happened!

## S4 OVA - You Can be a Hero Two

I can’t believe what happened. Every time I think about it, I feel like I must be imagining things. Is this shock? Denial? I’m not sure.
It started like a normal team thing. Some time-travelling Aqualonians were attacking the community center when I was going over to talk to Ellen and Tay (Ellen told me she wasn’t actually mad at me, which was a relief). Boon, Ellen, Tay, Melody, and I fought them off, an Ellen who was a demon came through a portal, we got a weird gem from one of the Aqualonians, and the energy of the gem was pulling us toward the hospital where Dad works. So we followed that. Boon carried me while flying (which is always nice) and the others went on Ellen’s bike.
Boon and I got there first, and Kieran, Weird Eyes, another Ellen, and some others were there on the roof in their villain rehabilitation outfits. I tried to punch Kieran in the face, but he saw me coming and flipped me off the roof. Boon caught me. The lady in charge of the villains told me off, but I don’t care. I’m not sorry. He hurt Jasper. I’m going to try and punch him every chance I get. I hate him.
Boon defended me to the lady, but said that Kieran had kidnapped my (as in Verve’s) little brother. So if Kieran and Weird Eyes didn’t know who I was already, it won’t take much effort for them to find out now.
I’m getting angry just thinking about him. Let’s move on. Boon held my hand, though. I was still mad at seeing Kieran, but it helped. The others arrived (Ellen had driven her motorcycle into the elevator). We stood around for a bit, not sure what to do, but then the other Ellen who was there came up and told us that we could use the gem as a beacon to get to whoever was tracking them before they got to us.

So I tapped into that energy, and a portal opened. We walked through. On the other side, we were standing on a floating island of land, surrounded by other small islands. We could see some of those strange Aquilonians from earlier on other pieces of land, and portals on each of those with more Aquilonians coming through. Melody knew where we were, because she’d been there before. We were in Reaper One’s Pockets. I don’t really think I need to say how scared I was.
Carm turned into a bat to scope out the area, but got hit with an arrow and fell to the ground on another island. Melody threw Ellen over there, then used her chains to connect the two islands so the rest of us could cross. She wasn’t quite going to make it, so I touched a chain to put some energy into it, and it made it. I don’t think it worked the way I meant it to, though. Looking back, it felt more like I was shifting the Pockets around us than giving the chain energy...I’m not sure I want to think about what that means.
When we got to the other island, the demon Ellen and a vampire named Regina, who Carm knew, came through a portal. Jackal threatened demon Ellen into telling us what was going on. They were apparently sent by Sapphomet, and I was the primary target. Not sure if it was just because hurting me would hurt Boon the most, but who knows. She and Regina were chosen because them being there would hurt Ellen and Tay the most. Since Melody hadn’t been involved in sealing Sapphomet away, they told her she could leave. Demon Ellen also had a blue gem that was tracking the red one I had.
We fought them and some of the Aqualonians. Melody took the other gem from demon Ellen. When it seemed like they were going to lose, demon Ellen and Regina teleported over to a different island. This one had a lightning cage on it. Melody used her chains to get us over there after we regrouped a little. Carm and I headed over to the lightning cage while the others headed to fight Regina and Demon Ellen.
Inside the cage was Hero One and another hero named Daybreak. I absorbed some of the lightning to get them out. It was definitely Ernest’s. Admittedly, we didn’t know they were good guys until we got them out. But they are. I know that now. Daybreak didn’t seem to think she’d been there for very long, but Hero One knew that they’d both been there a while. They also told us that these weren’t their Pockets anymore, they belonged to the Reaper completely. But they saw that I had the gems, and said that they could get us home with them, and seemed confused when I said I’d used one to get us there. They didn’t know anyone else could use them like that, apparently. I guess it makes sense why I can now.
We went back to help the others, but they were doing fine without us. Somehow they’d gotten shadow instruments and were having a music battle with demon Ellen. I don’t know where Regina went. There was an altar there that demon Ellen was going to summon the Reaper with, but it got smashed. She left in a dramatic burst, nearly hurting Melody and Ellen, but Carm blocked it with her cloak. I think she manifested some of those other vampire powers that she says she can’t because she doesn’t just eat people all the time. Maybe this means she’s wrong. I wouldn’t exactly be surprised if the evil vampires just told her that to make her do what they wanted. Then again, she fainted after. Boon tried to heal her, but apparently her healing magic only made things worse.
Then it was time to go home, before anything else bad showed up. Hero One and I used the gems to get everyone back to the roof, where we watched ourselves walk through the first portal. Carm woke up and was pretty much fine. The rest of us were ready to go, but Boon stayed behind to talk to that other Ellen for a minute. We hugged before I left. Melody and I talked for a bit in the elevator. She said she was going to the cafeteria. When we got down, Mr. Crossover was there talking to security. Apparently they were mad at Ellen for driving her bike into the hospital. I mean, fair. We distracted them by saying “Hey we found Hero One” and used them as a distraction. I feel a little bad about that, but we needed to get out.
Ellen, Tay, and I eventually got outside. We finally talked about what had been going on. Ellen is going back to 1992, and Tay is going with her. She was avoiding me because of that, not anything I did. I’m gonna miss them, but if that’s where they’re going to be happy, I’d be a terrible friend if I tried to stop them. We said a lot of mushy things about how much we care about each other, and how much we’ll miss each other when they leave. I think Tay and I are okay again.
We got interrupted by texts from my dad coming in. I’d forgotten that I was supposed to pick up Jasper, and he was waiting in the cafeteria for me. We hugged, and I asked them to promise not to just disappear on me. Daybreak saying she’d been trapped in the Pockets unexpectedly had me thinking about my mom (which also makes a lot of sense in hindsight). They didn’t promise, just told me to go to Jasper. I don’t know if that was because they didn’t want to, or because they didn’t feel like they needed to or something.
I ran off to change, then found Jasper sitting with Jackal, Hero One, Daybreak, and Mr. Crossover. Melody had bought him ice cream. Daybreak was signing with Jasper when I walked up. I remembered to introduce myself again. Then Dad came up and saw Hero One. He wasn’t mad that I’d forgotten to pick up Jasper, but I should have told him I was with my grandparent. Hero One is my grandparent. I uh...well I’d gotten a lot of intense news, okay? I ran away. Everything was just...overwhelming.
The rest of the day was also pretty intense, so I’ll paraphrase even more. Hero One came over for dinner. They brought my mom, who is Daybreak. We all cried a lot. I can’t believe I have my mom back. And a grandparent I didn’t even know about. I don’t even know what to say. I’m so happy. They’re both living with us. There’s three bedrooms, one bathroom, and five people, so that’s not ideal. Jasper is sleeping in my room on the floor. It’s a lot. But I’m so happy to have them back. If they both weren’t in the apartment, I’d probably be able to convince myself that it was all a dream. But it wasn’t. I have my family back.

## S4 OVA - Time Heist!

I don’t really have time to write much about this, but Ellen recruited me, Bolt, Whiz, and Whisper to steal a time travel device from Dr. Doorheart. They’re who sent Ellen forward in time. We got it from them, and without a whole of difficulty, to be totally honest. I got to bond with Wingnut during the mission, which was great. And I got us out of Dr. Doorheart’s office using the gems I got from Hero One. Being able to travel home from other dimensions seems like it’s coming in handy a lot more than I would have thought it would. That’s Big Team for you, I guess.
Before we left, though, Dr. Doorheart said that Ellen had promised to get them something, and she hadn’t, and that’s why Dr. Doorheart wouldn’t send her back. I asked Ellen about it later. She didn’t remember what it was called, but Dr. Doorheart wanted her to steal something from Mr. Crossover. That’s why she was looking for him so hard when she first got here. But she decided not to help Doorheart. I gave her the device, and offered to try and help her figure out how it worked. Whiz had offered as well.
We hugged, she thanked me, and offered to drive me home. On the way, she let me rant about there being five people in one apartment with one bathroom.
I’m really gonna miss her.

## OVA - Beyond the Shadow of a Doubt

So today was...a lot. Okay, so you know how rescuing my mom and Hero One from Reaper One’s pockets was a lot? This was like that level of a lot.
It started out really really good. I stayed over at Melody’s after pancake night. (Have I mentioned how happy I am that those are back on? Because I am. I wonder if Melody and I will keep doing them after Ellen leaves…) And in the morning we helped the Goldmans set up for a Passover cookout! It wasn’t really part of Passover, just like a fun excuse to invite friends over. Ernest and his mom came over, and my whole family was invited. We were all very glad to have an excuse not to be in the apartment. Aman’s family was also there! His little sister is a delight but also she and Jasper are best friends now and are going to get in SO MUCH trouble.
Aman was overdressed, it was funny. He was wearing a tie and everything. Ellen chased him around to get a polaroid with him. I think she told him she was leaving. He had that look on his face. I took a good picture for them. Kinda. Mishel photobombed it, and I gave her time to do it.
And because things were going too nicely, suddenly there was an explosion over at Jackal’s base (which I didn’t even know she had until later that day). We could see shadows coming out of it. Aman’s uncle Hisham tells the other adults (for Melody and Aman’s sakes, I think, since their parents don’t know they’re heroes) that he’s going to take us on a juice run. Mom didn’t buy it, but she also knows, so it doesn’t really matter. Aman also said we needed to get instruments for the band to play on the stage that Hisham had built, which was a better reason for all six of us to go.

Aman and Ellen went ahead on Ellen’s motorcycle, and the rest of us went in Melody’s van. I didn’t really have another option, but I put on my mask in front of Hisham. And no one seemed to care or even realize how big of a deal that was for me. I guess I just make too much of a fuss about this secret identity thing. I also put on my new costume, and no one noticed that, either. (Ernest complimented it later, to be fair.) Sure, explosions were happening and we weren’t sure if the old Jackal was okay, but still. Having someone acknowledge it would have been nice? I’m probably being selfish…

When we got to the warehouse base, Ellen and Aman weren’t there. They’d gone in already. The rest of us followed, including Hisham. Melody tried to get him to stay behind for an awkward moment, but that didn’t work. Melody controlled the shadows inside of the warehouse so we could get through. There was some kind of portal there to that weird upside-down Halcyon like what was in Casper’s head.
Ellen was there, unconscious, but she woke up and was okay. Mostly. Ernest could tell there was someone in the next building over, so we headed over that way. Melody made a shadow chain bridge so we could cross without falling down into the sky. I stayed next to Ellen, who was still looking shaky. No one was falling forever on my watch. The person was Old Jackal. Still no sign of Aman. I checked over her and she needed actual medical attention, but wasn’t in imminent danger. Hisham took her back across the bridge to the building we came in through.
And then Aman was thrown through a wall. By Reaper One. Even before they entered through the Aman-shaped hole in the wall, I could feel something tugging at my backpack in my Pockets. They were looking for Melody this time. (Even though they’d wanted me like two weeks ago? Make up your mind, dude.) I overheard Melody telling Ellen to stay near me and not let anything happen to me, so she was probably thinking of last time, too. Then Melody told Reaper One that they could take her if they left the rest of us alone, and all of us said fat chance.

Okay, so the rest was really stressful and scary, so I’m going to paraphrase. Melody jumped in front of the rest of us and got stabbed with their scythe. It didn’t seem to hurt her as much as maybe it should? Aman manifested this staff thing? Which was very cool. Reaper One possessed me when I tried to punch them (no, I’m not going to elaborate). This was basically Ernest’s biggest nightmare come true, so he lost control of his powers. Ellen punched them out of me almost right away (doing what she promised Melody and looking out for me). But before she did that, Reaper One pulled some smoke out of Melody that was Yamato, who had apparently been hitchhiking in Melody’s brain since she went back to the 50s? Reaper One said that it’s too bad they can only possess someone once (which is a relief). (I also signed “marshmallow” at Ernest so he knew I was okay once I was no longer possessed.)

Then Melody cloaked herself in shadows, and we fought both Yamato and Reaper One. The house we were in got pretty beaten up. Ernest summoned a tornado, which blew Reaper One out of the building, leaving behind their scythe. Yamato possessed Melody again and almost stabbed Aman. But he tried to kiss her, and that didn’t work but it must have snapped Melody back into control, because she locked Yamato back inside her brain (I guess?) and kissed him.

First of all, YES. Second of all, everyone then thought the fight was over. The spirits of the Jackals were chasing Reaper One off. And then Ernest, who I love dearly, but THAT BOY IS SO STUPID HE WENT AFTER THEM ALONE AND I CAN’T FLY ANYMORE SO NO ONE COULD FOLLOW HIM. And I tried. I tried so hard to be able to fly again. But something is still wrong. We all headed back over to the first building to wait for him to come back because the one we were fighting in was falling down.

I watched for Ernest as best I could, and then I felt his and Reaper One’s energy leave the dimension. And what if Reaper One had possessed him? Or worse? And the only thing I could think of where they would go is back to Reaper One’s pockets. I used the gems that Hero One gave me and called the others together and I took us there. I can’t believe it worked. It’s good I’d been there before, I guess.

We got there in time to see Ernest stab Reaper One with their scythe (and took his lightning back from them). And I guess this made the scythe do it’s reaper thing, and sent Reaper One back to the reaper dimension? Or something? But it knocked Ernest out. I caught him and used energy to get myself back to the others, and we got out of there as the Pockets collapsed around us. I guess since Reaper One wasn’t around to maintain them, they couldn’t exist. And I don’t know what would happen to anything in the pockets, but I didn’t want to find out. I got us back to Jackal’s warehouse, thankfully.
Hisham and Old Jackal were there. Jackal is fine. We all yelled at Ernest when he woke up, then hugged him a lot. I think I cried. Probably. When I talked with Ernest, he was happy to have his lightning back. I think he feels a lot better about my powers. Like maybe a weight has been lifted off of him. I told him I’d punch him if he did something that stupid again. He offered to let me punch him then, but he was still so beat up from the fight I would have just felt bad. We talked about Hero One for a bit. I told him that I doubted they blamed him for what happened. He said he’d talk to them when we got back to the party. I don’t think I actually made him feel better. This is when he complimented my new outfit. I’m glad someone noticed. I’m really proud of it.

Hisham remembered that we needed to get juice, and said the instruments for the band were taken care of. Gwen and Dad-celot were at Melody’s when we got back there! Getting to see Gwen made the day a lot better. Tay and Boon showed up later, too, to play with the band. The rest of the day was honestly pretty great. Mishel even saved me some kheer, which was really good! I’ll say it again: she and Jasper being friends is going to be gremlinry to the max. Don’t tell anyone, but I can’t wait. I love those two, and I love all my friends. It was great to be able to end the day on such a normal note.
PLUS Melody and Aman are dating now. Glad he took my advice when I told him to go for it when he helped me make my new costume on the base’s fabricator.

## S4E48 - Eagle Eye

I brought cupcakes to the base today, and it spiraled out of control, as it often does.

I hate Kieran Khan. I fucking hate him.

Okay, before I get to that part. I told Box who I am. He was talking with Focus when I got there, and she took some cupcakes and then left. It was so incredibly awkward because I couldn’t get to the point, and he said I reminded him of a friend, and I was just like “Is it Atlanta, because that’s me.”
Ugh. Why can’t this just get easier.
He wasn’t surprised, since he’d noticed the bandages on my hands from when I burned them on that fire elemental thing even though I tried to hide them. And then it got more awkward, because while he did the check-up medical thing, he told me I have super strength even though I’m not in shape? And then he said that I definitely don’t eat too many cupcakes, which I know means that he thinks I do, but like, I’m not out of shape??? I think what he meant was that I don’t have huge muscles for how strong I am, but he said it super weird. Also...I have super strength??? Since when???
Thankfully, we got interrupted by GAIA calling anyone at the base to the briefing room. Solae, Anaya, and Focus were also at the base. I’d talked a bit with Luna, but hadn’t really met Solae yet. So basically, GAIA had received a sketchy message that was definitely a trap telling us that there was stolen AEGIS tech at a Bishop warehouse. We decided to go anyway.

We all introduced ourselves, but in the most awkward ways possible? And at one point Anaya asked if she should get me a knife, and Box said I can accidentally kill someone without it. And like, I wasn’t expecting that from him? Is he mad that I didn’t tell him sooner? Was he just having a bad case of foot-in-mouth today??? Focus introduced her drone as well, and said he’s nice unless you’re a bad guy. Box asked if any of us were bad guys. Anaya raised her hand but I put it down. She’s not a bad guy. I tried to get us moving, hoping the awkward fest would stop if we got going on the mission. But I tripped over the General on the way out.
I haven’t had this awkward of a meeting with teammates since the first time I met Faker...
Eventually, we made it to the warehouse. The General scoped it out, and it belonged to Falcon and Fox, not Bishop. But we figured if this was a trap, the easiest thing to do is to spring it. I mean, how else do we know what’s happening? So we went in, I found a crate with a weird energy signature, and inside was a camera filming us breaking in. So this was clearly a setup.

That’s when Syndra Fox, Kieran Khan, and Hans Thoreau showed up. Ms. Fox said that Kieran had warned her that someone was going to break in. And I uh, didn’t really do the smart thing here. I just went straight to punching Kieran instead of explaining to Ms. Fox that he’d set us up. I just. Really hate him. He threatened Jasper again. Anaya joined me in punching him, but I uh, don’t really know what else went on in the fight. I got tunnel vision.

Box lost control of his powers and knocked out Kieran and Hans. Which is technically good, but I was still mad at Kieran. I didn’t WANT the fight to be over. All of us (except Box, who still wasn’t in control of his powers -- in my defense, I thought he’d snap out of it after a bit), talked to Ms. Fox to explain that we’d been set up. After seeing the anonymous tip Kieran had sent us, she agreed to let us go. She even took my suggestion to frame Kieran and Hans as the people who broke in, since the police were on their way.
She did recognize Focus as Faith, though, and the General as F&F tech. I tried to cover for Faith, since I’ve known since she joined the team because the General is a bit of a giveaway, but it didn’t go well. I’m not sure why, it usually works for me. But we had to get out of there before the police arrived, so I put Box’s gloves back on and we all got back to the base. I got to use my motorcycle, which was cool. I’m not super comfortable driving it yet, but I got me and Box back to base. He was still unconscious. I didn’t even fall over when I stopped this time! I put Box in the med bay. I figured that was the best thing for him until he woke up?

Then I tried to get the danger room to pull up a hologram of Kieran, but I don’t know how to work it and I didn’t want to ask GAIA for help. Focus came in. We talked. I told her about how Kieran knows who I am and likes to threaten my brother. She made me feel better about it, though. I mean, I still hate him, but I feel better. If that makes sense. I asked her if she’s okay after Ms. Fox figured out who she was. I know how vulnerable it can make you when someone, especially a parental figure, finds out who you are. I thought for sure she was going to ask me who I was, but instead she asked if it was weird if she’s on the team and in the fan club at school. And I told her that yeah, it is, but if she was going to listen to people telling her not to be a hero, why would she listen because of that? She has no powers, but she chose to be a hero. If she was going to let something stop her, she would have let it already. That seemed to help. I’m glad. And then she turned on the danger room so I could beat up Kieran. Focus is great.

Later, we all went to check in on Box, who looked a lot less sickly because he’d used his powers. But he was trying to quit the team because he thought he’d almost killed us. I mean, yeah, but like, a lot of our powers have put teammates in danger. We all managed to convince him that he was better with the team than off of it, plus we wanted him here. I think Anaya did the most to convince him, though. I’m glad she seems to be fitting into the team better all the time.

And then Luna reminded me of our project! (She’d turned from Solae to Luna sometime during the fight.) I un-pocketed my backpack (and bike, since they’re connected, but I put the bike back), and took out our gifts for Anaya! One was a waterproof poster of Montreal, but we weren’t sure if she’d always want to look at her home, if it would make her homesick or something, so the Halcyon skyline was on the other side. And I called in a few favors to get a photo of Kesso, which I printed out and framed. Anaya started crying and hugged us both. I think she’s been lonelier than I’d realized. I’m gonna try to be better about being a friend to her.

And later Luna gave the other two some cute cloud lanterns to hang in their rooms, and a cute little cupcake lamp to me. Luna’s such a sweetie.
I hugged Jasper for longer than usual when I got home, and told Mom, Dad, and Grandy about Kieran. Just so they know. Something happening to Jasper...I don’t want to think about it. I let Jasper decorate some cupcakes how he wanted. He put gummy worms and marshmallows on them. Ernest is such a bad influence on him lol.

## S4E49 - The Worth of a Good Education

Today wasn’t a mission, but I wanted to write a bit about it anyway. We participated in the Original Halcyon Open Highschool Olympics up in Zodiac! The team was me, Wren, Boon, Melody, and Riley. I hadn’t met Riley before (she’s Mithril on the team), but I like her a lot. She’s fun. Even if she does want to break into banks? And Wren had to leave early, but I always enjoy getting to hang out with him.

Also, I told Boon that I’d just found out I had super strength, and apparently she knew??? Had everyone realized except for me??? I’m not half as strong as Melody or Ellen or how strong Boon used to be...and also we realized that I’m probably stronger than her now? Which is weird. We didn’t test it. Maybe we should...

We won the competition, but Melody accidentally revealed her powers to everyone, including her parents. I also beat Casey AND the Aquilonian team in the swimming relay. So. There’s that. I would have been a lot more excited if I hadn’t been worried about Melody. But now that I know she’s okay? I BEAT CASEY! Casey did come to talk with me later, and she flirted with Riley??? Riley asked me some questions about if breaking into a bank (and not stealing anything, apparently) counted as a date, and I mean, yeah? If they want it to? How did I become the person people ask about relationship things on the team? I don’t know what I’m doing!

Greta had been on the other team from Big High, and she challenged one of us to wrestle right before we went on stage for the awards. Like we couldn’t be declared winners because her best sport hadn’t been one of the ones in the competition. Boon tried to say that I should, since I’m the strongest but GRETA DOESN’T KNOW I’M VERVE and she already made sure that Kieran and Weird Eyes know. I love her, but she’s really not good at the secret identity thing. Anyway, Greta threw Boon onto the stage. I could tell she was upset about something, and I know who her brother is, so I tried to tell her that no one was saying she wasn’t good at sports, and that we were here for her if she needed something. It seemed like I’d gotten through for a second, but then she threw me, too. But Riley pulled her onto the stage with us as part of the winning team. I don’t know if it helped. Greta was crying.

And that was it. I hope I can see Greta again. I think she really needs a friend. I’m not the best at it, but I hope I can at least help her out a little.
Winning the swimming relay made me realize that I had been cheating at swimming, though. So I told Coach Stawkfoto about my super strength. I’ll be wearing a power negation bracelet from now on for practice and competitions. I asked her not to tell anyone what my powers were, though. There will be rumors, I’m sure, but I don’t want more attention on Atlanta. And maybe this is the wrong way to go about that, but who would I be if my first instinct wasn’t to keep secrets? Everyone knowing I have super strength just feels really exposing, or something. I don’t know. We’ll see how this goes. Maybe no one will notice the bracelet?

## Time Passes: April 22, 2020

“Atlanta, time to go!” Noah’s voice shouted from the kitchen.
 Sighing, Atlanta set aside her cupcake ideas notebook. Her parents had been excited about something all day. They didn’t let her go to Screamin’ Beans to do homework or work on her cupcake ideas. Normally she didn’t mind doing that at the apartment, but five people, three bedrooms, and one bathroom was not good math. All of them were taking every opportunity to get out, and her parents stopping her for some mystery scheme was both unusual and frustrating.
But mostly frustrating.
Hikari had taken Jasper to the park about an hour ago, so it hadn’t been quite so bad, but still. The energy of the apartment had gone from cozy to cramped overnight, and the tension had been building.
Noah and Demeter are waiting by the doorway as Atlanta exits her room. Both have huge smiles on their faces. Noah in particular looks pleased with himself.
“Come on, Bean, we’ve got to get going!”
Atlanta lets herself get herded out of the apartment and into her dad’s small car. As they start moving, she asks, “Can you tell me what the secret is now?”
“Nope,” Noah responds cheerfully.
Demeter reaches back to pat Atlanta’s knee. “You’ll see. You’re going to love it.”
After rolling her eyes for good measure, she settles in to wait. Not too long later, Noah parks in front of a blue two-storey house on a residential street and beams back at Atlanta.
 “Here we are!”
“Are you going to tell me where that is, exactly?”
“You’ll see.”
Suppressing an audible sigh, she gets out of the car and follows her parents up to the front door. There was no reasoning with her dad when he got like this. To her surprise, Demeter unlocks the front door with a key.
Confused, Atlanta looks between her mom and the key. “Why do you have a key? Who lives here?”
“You’ll see,” Demeter answers with a wink.
 Noah puts a hand on Atlanta’s shoulder and leads her inside. The house is bright, but devoid of furniture.
 “This is the living room,” Demeter says, gesturing at the room, then leading Atlanta and Noah further in as she narrates, “Or it will be, then there’s the kitchen. Just look at this island! Plenty of space for baking. And there’s a dining room! It’s not huge, but the whole family will be able to eat together. The bedrooms are all upstairs. And a laundry room! Won’t that be great?” Demeter gestures at the stairway leading up, then looks at Atlanta expectantly.
 It takes Atlanta until that moment to realize exactly what’s going on. “I, you...you bought a house!” She looks around the empty spaces again, taking it in with the knowledge that she would be living here. That island could hold so many cupcakes. Holding back tears, she looks at her parents. “You bought a house?”
 Demeter nudges Noah gently. “Told you she’d cry.”
Noah shakes his head. “I don’t know why you’re happy about that.”
 “What, no, I’m not crying.” Atlanta takes a deep breath, trying to hold it in.
 Smiling, Demeter walks over to hug her daughter. “You can cry, sweetie. It’s okay. We’re all ready to be out of that apartment.”
As Noah joins the family hug, Atlanta gives in to the tears. They stand like that for several minutes. When Atlanta finally pulls away, Noah hands her a tissue.
“Do you want to see the rest of the house now? There’s even a backyard! It’s not as big as the Goldman’s, but we could have all your friends over if you wanted.” Noah nods at a door in the living room leading to the backyard.
 Atlanta wipes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “Yeah. I want to see the rest.”
 Her parents excitedly lead her through the rest of the house, with Demeter talking about paint colors and arranging the spaces and Noah saying who would stay in what room. After a tour of the second floor, Atlanta was starting to worry that she’d be sharing a room with Jasper, again. There were only three bedrooms. Admittedly, there were also two and a half bathrooms so far, which was a huge improvement. Noticing her looking around, and probably her worried expression, Demeter leads Atlanta to a door that she’d assumed was a closet. There couldn’t be much space behind it, judging by the footprint of the first floor.
 “Don’t worry, we didn’t forget about you. Open it.” Demeter urges.
With a confused look, Atlanta opened the door. After a short hallway, she enters a room situated over the garage. Sloped ceilings took up some of the usable space, but the left wall was dominated by an opening to a small balcony. To the right there was an open door, showing a small bathroom.
“This is for me? I get my own bathroom?” Atlanta looks back at her parents, mouth open.
Noah wraps an arm around Demeter’s shoulders and she nods at her daughter. “And a balcony. We know you’re going to sneak out, I was a teen hero once, too. Just stay safe, alright? And tell us that you’re leaving. Your father tells me you haven’t been great at that.”
 Atlanta tries to answer, but the words get caught in her throat, so she just nods. *I’m not gonna cry again, I’m not gonna cry again…*
With a knowing glance at each other, her parents come and wrap Atlanta in another hug as tears do indeed start to fall despite Atlanta’s best efforts to stop them.
 “I can’t believe all this is happening,” Atlanta sobs. “I got my mom...and a grandparent I didn’t even know about...and now this…it doesn’t seem real.”
 Demeter kisses the top of Atlanta’s head. “It’s real, sweetie. And we’re so glad to be back.”
 “Love you, Bean,” Noah whispers.
After several more minutes of a family hug, Atlanta finally gets her emotions under control. “I love you, too. I’m so happy all of this is happening.”
 Demeter pulls back and puts her hands on Atlanta’s shoulders. “Come on, we need to pick up your brother and grandparent. Your dad owes us all ice cream because I bet him that you’d cry and I won. Then we can come back and pick out paint colors. Zaza helped us decide on the house, but Jasper doesn’t know yet.”
 “You made a bet on whether or not I’d cry???” Atlanta covers her face in embarrassment, but Demeter just winks.
Noah sighs and shakes his head at his wife, but still grins.. “If you get any of your tall friends to come help with the painting part, I’ll make them food,” Noah offers. “Plus, there’s one particular tall friend of yours who you mother hasn’t gotten to have a properly awkward parent-to-child’s-date-friend conversation yet.”
Atlanta flushes at the mention of Boon. “Uh, yeah. I’ll ask. On the way.”

Demeter laughs at Atlanta’s discomfort and kisses the top of her head as she and Noah head out. Atlanta pauses at the door to her room, giving it a last look over, trying to prove it’s real, before she follows her parents out.

## S4E56 - White Tree, Black Magic

There was a lot going wrong in Zodiac City today. Challenge, Mithril, Rewind, and I got called to help evacuate a school in Zodiac because Derek the Centaur sent GAIA a distress call.
When we got there, two Consortium agents were there, Agents Austen and Dumont. Something magic was going on. Agent Austen came inside with us. But she went off on her own and got caught in a trap for magic users. Derek had also been caught in a trap, but got out at the end.
Long story short, Jerry Phelps, Stacy from the fan club, and some jock were there. I convinced Jerry that being a villain was stupid. So that’s a good thing that happened. He told us that Vic and the Black Magic Club were there. I went immediately to the boiler room (why are school boiler rooms always where bad stuff happens?). I’d said I’d help with the evacuation, but I uh, kinda switched gears as soon as I heard Vic’s name. Mithril followed me. Challenge and Rewind went to get some students out.
The fight didn’t go great. Vic and Cambria were there. They were doing some kind of ritual around a hole they’d cut into the floor and into the Zodiac Tree. I tried to punch Vic, but he had some sort of force field protecting him. It hurt to hit. And I uh. I lost control of my powers. By Pocketing myself.
My Pockets are different from Reaper One’s. Theirs were big, but felt finite? Like, if we’d gone far enough we would have reached the edges. Or maybe they just felt like that because there were things and people in there. Little islands. And gravity. Mine have none of that. They’re just...empty. There’s nothing. No gravity, just...nothing. Forever.
I don’t know how long I was in there. I freaked out for a while before remembering that I used the gems to get out of Reaper One’s pockets. Thank goodness using those worked. And that I got back to the right place. The fight was still going. Vic bullied Cambria into summoning Scrap Scrap, who I hadn’t met before but have heard people talk about. They’re a big altered Rubicon. But Scrap Scrap had Big Team and Cambria entered in as people to protect, so summoning them didn’t really help Vic.
Spegulo (who must have shown up while I was...gone) teleported the three of them and Mithril (who had tried to stop them from leaving) up to the roof. Challenge and I went up to try and stop them, but they got away. Greta was there, too. She arrived as their backup and escaped with them, although Mithril demolished the modified Rubicon armor she showed up in. I didn’t get a chance to talk to her. But at least Mithril was okay. Rewind and Scrap Scrap cleaned up the boiler room, so they couldn’t come back and keep doing their ritual.

So everyone was okay. I talked to one of the Consortium agents for a bit in ASL. He told me that Agent Austen would be okay in time. Which is a little concerning, but I didn’t press it. I wasn’t in the mindset to. Also Scrap Scrap was too big to fit up the stairs...not sure how they got out…
Anyway. Later I did a big dumb. I was tired. I was at the community center. I said hi to Samantha, who doesn’t know me as Verve. And I forgot I was still in costume. I told her about what happened with Vic, and mentioned when I told her about him spying on her and being in my Dad’s support group. So uh. She knows who I am now. Fortunately she took it well.

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

Ellen and Tay left yesterday. I knew they were going to. I had time to prepare. But that doesn’t really help. I mean, I guess it helps in that this isn’t as bad as when Mom disappeared. But it still hurts. And I’m trying so hard to just be happy for them, and I am, but being sad for myself is my overwhelming emotion right now. And then I feel guilty about being sad. And it’s a whole vortex of feeling bad.
Ellen and Tay had a going away party. I went as Atlanta, even though it was at the base. It wasn’t the kind of day to hide. And I feel like I’m closer to them as Atlanta, you know?
I gave Ellen a picture of me, her, and Melody after we got into a flour fight during pancake night a few weeks ago. It was such a mess to clean up, but worth it. It was so much fun. I’m gonna miss pancake nights…
I also put a note on the back. I’m gonna write it here, too, just so I don’t forget it.

Ellen,
You'll always be my best friend, and the first person I ever chose to tell. I know neither of those are things you did on purpose, but I'm really happy that they happened. Keep making the world a better place.
Love, Atlanta

I didn’t have any good ideas for what to give Tay. She had pictures on her phone, and GAIA printed them for her during the going away party. So I just made her some of her cupcakes and gave her my recipe. I wish I’d had something better. I have her a note, too.

Tay,
I know I messed up a lot, but I'm really glad we got to be friends. You're gonna love your new timeline.
PS - attached is my special cupcake recipe for you. It's not perfect, but I hope you can improve on it.
♡, Atlanta

Ellen seemed to be trying really hard not to cry when I gave her my gift. I hope that means it was good. I held it together for most of the hangout. Until they were about to leave. But by then basically all of us who they left behind were crying. I hugged them and told them I loved them. And then they were gone. And we all cried and left. Ernest made it rain, but Anaya kept it off of all of us. I don’t think I thanked her, but I appreciated it.
(Also at one point Boon and I talked to Kurt. They’ve had a rough time since the Zodiac thing...Got stuck in the future for a year...And there’s some stuff with Ernest...I told them that I’d be there for them if they needed it. I’m not close to them as either Verve or Atlanta, but they seemed to appreciate it.)

Boon, Brimstone, and I went to my house afterwards (it’s still great being able to write “house”). We hung out in my room for the rest of the day, just kinda being sad together. Having her and Brimstone there really helped. When it got dark, I uh, asked if she wanted to stay. Maybe it shouldn’t feel like a big deal. I’ve fallen asleep at Shady Glen before. But this was on purpose. So it felt different? Anyway, she said yes. And we watched cartoons until we fell asleep. It was really nice.

Brimstone snores. It’s pretty cute. My girlfriend is also incredibly cute. For the record. Uh, a different cute than Brimstone. (Why am I defending myself? No one reads this.)
I got the feeling this morning that Mom and Dad would have teased me about Boon staying over if we both weren’t still pretty down.
I didn’t tell her about what happened with my Pockets. I didn’t want to add to the sad. Besides, what if this is like my super strength and she already knew? I mean, I did TRY to Pocket things that were alive back when I got them. (Plants: yes. Bugs: no. In case you were wondering.) So it’s not like I was just being obtuse.
Okay, I know she wouldn’t do that. It’s just...really scary. I’ll do it...after I stop feeling quite so sad about Ellen and Tay.

## S4E62 - Super Mother's Day

Boon, Ernest, Mithril, and I were at the base today. Everyone else was making Mother’s Day gifts. All of their gifts were so thoughtful? I just made cupcakes for Mom. And like, I designed them specifically for Mother’s Day, but I make cupcakes all the time. It’s not really special. Mithril was making a thing for GAIA. (They later told us that they’d prefer to be called Zaza than Mom, but I don’t think they’ll mind since Mithril had already made the gift when she found out.) (They picked Zaza because they heard my mom call Grandy that, which is cute)
Boon was trying to make a knife for her mom, but it uh, didn’t work. So we went to the mall so she could get a signed book from a romance author, Susan Moonlight. We saw Joy, Misery, and Samantha at the signing. I talked with Samantha for a bit. We’re going to make some magic cupcakes on Friday!
I just realized that sounds like we’re going to be making them with drugs or something, but I really mean actual magic!
While I was waiting for Boon, I overheard Susan telling her that she’s Kieran’s mom??? And she thought that Boon had dated him. Gross. I uh, got mad. I may have yelled about Kieran being undateable in the middle of the bookstore? And then I stormed out.
I waited outside of the candy store for Boon to leave. But then I saw Greta talking with Jerry from the swim team in the candy store. And since I thought he’d given up on his villain stuff, I changed out of my costume to spy on them.
He was talking about the Black Magic Club, and how he’s quit and wants her to quit, too. Cambria showed up and told him to leave. And he did. Bella and Rocky caught me spying, though. And was a jerk about it, like usual. Cambria and Greta came to see who was talking, and we talked for a minute. Cambria and Bella had some kind of stare-down. Some kind of popular girl thing I guess. Bella didn’t rat me out for spying, which I guess is something. We talked for a bit, and she’s planning on doing some kind of petty stunt or something to recover from when the other Bella verbally demolished her at that party last fall. I don’t get her obsession with being popular. Popularity is so fleeting. And shallow. When she flounced off, I talked with Rocky for a second. I asked why he puts up with her, and he said that he’s loyal to his friends, the same way I am. Which...I guess is fair. He asked about Jasper, which was nice. But then Bella called him away.
Boon came in to check on me, and offered to buy me ice cream. We rejoined the others (Mithril was a little confused, but I said Verve had to go and I’d just happened to be around). We all got ice cream. I got lots of marshmallows on mine. I was prepared this time! For the epic marshmallow fight that ensued between me and Ernest! It was fun. I feel like maybe we’re really actually okay again. Like back before I messed everything up. I hope so. Maybe we have been for a while and this is just my anxiety talking. Or like, how I’ve been thinking everyone is going to leave me for the last week? Which I know is probably wrong. But it hits me how fragile everything is every time I think about how easy it is to mess everything up. Like, what if me not telling him that he was right about my Pockets ruins everything again? What if me keeping it to myself makes everyone hate me, like they hated me for keeping my identity a secret?
Breathe, Atlanta. It hasn’t been too long yet. And I think Boon’s idea of keeping my coin in my Pockets is helping. Probably.
The marshmallow fight was filmed and put on B-Tube. Ernest being famous is so weird? It’s a fun video, though, so I can’t really be mad about it. He was supposed to be in disguise, I guess? It was Mithril’s idea. But it didn’t work.
ALSO Maggie Ostenberg and Helen Welles were having a date at the mall while we were there??? They came over and made things awkward, but in a normal mom kind of way. Helen didn’t approve of Mithril wearing Ernest’s jacket (as part of him not sticking out, which, you know, didn’t work). And, you know, Boon’s mom is terrifying. After they left, Boon went to find Joy and talk with her. And that was pretty much the end of the day.
I saw another Ellen before I left the mall. She was blonde, so like, I knew she wasn’t my Ellen, but seeing them is even worse now than it was. I’m glad I don’t work here anymore and have to see them all of the time.
...I wonder if the rest of them want to go home, too. Maybe that’s why they were helping Doorheart when we stole the time machine from them. Under the promise of being able to go home.
I haven’t really talked to Melody a lot since Ellen left...I should fix that. I guess I haven’t really talked to much of anyone except for Boon though...Here’s to me not being a bad friend ~~anymore~~. (Hopefully.)
PS from Sunday afternoon: I just gave mom the cupcakes I made. And Jasper made her oven mitts with his handprints on them, painted to look like flowers. It was cute. She liked all of it. She told me that I can just make her macaroni jewelry next year if I want to give her a traditional Mother’s Day gift. And if she thinks I’m going to forget, she’s mistaken. Then my whole family had a cookout for lunch. Dad’s been really happy to have a grill. He’s been using my aprons, though. Which isn’t a bad thing, but he got a grease stain on one of my favorites. Maybe I should get him his own for Father’s Day. And a grilling cookbook. He really only knows how to make hot dogs and hamburgers. That’ll get old pretty quickly. It’s so much easier to think of gifts for Dad than Mom...I mean, it makes sense, but it’s still sad.
I haven’t told any of them about the stuff with my Pockets yet, either. I don’t think they’d get it. I mean, two of them were trapped in Pockets for years. They’ll probably think I’m overreacting. Or stupid for not realizing it earlier. I don’t know. I’m probably being silly. But I’m not ready.

## S4E70 - The Beacons are Lit!

Today I got a call from Gwen while I was at the base with Shade, Melody, and Bolt. She needed us to go on a scavenger hunt for some stuff so that she didn’t get turned into a block of ice by some fey (long story). Also she was in Quebec. So we went to ask the Baroness for help, since there’s no way the Jackal Van could get us there in time. We weren’t given a time limit, but usually this kind of thing expires at midnight? So time was of the essence. Probably. The Baroness was disassembled for maintenance, but agreed to help us put her back together. In exchange for helping us, we had to get her a new battery, which brings us to our next scavenger hunt item.
The second thing we needed was a super strong power core. Bolt said he knew where to find one. And by that, he meant we could steal one from Bishop. I know they’re bad guys, but maybe that shouldn’t have been our first instinct? If I hadn’t been worried about Gwen, I might have questioned it. He also hacked into AEGIS the last time I was on a mission with him. And he knew where this facility was because he’d broken into it before. Does he break into places a lot?
So in order to get into this place, we decided to go undercover. Melody asked us for some fake names, then ran off to make us some fake badges and grab us disguises so we could get inside. I picked AJ Satou. AJ because Atlanta James, and then Satou because it’s Grandy’s last name. While she was gone, I realized that in order to get in, I’d need to take off my mask. Interns don’t wear domino masks. And neither Bolt or Shade knew who I was. But I told them! I didn’t even beat around the bush for too long. Okay, that’s not totally true. It took me a few minutes. But I did it! And then Bolt didn’t even know who I was. He just spent a whole weekend with Boon and couldn’t remember who I was except for “cupcake girl.” I’m not totally sure how to feel about that. Shade had a more normal reaction. But not a bad one, thank goodness. On the other hand, apparently she’s bad at keeping secrets? But she said she’d try not to let it slip.
Shade gave me some pointers on how to act like an intern, which was nice. I wonder where she works? I didn’t think to ask in the moment. But she must be an intern somewhere, since she knows so much about how to be one.
Then when Melody got back, she had a Mission Impossible style mask that would have allowed me to not wear a suspicious domino mask but also not show my face. But I’m glad I told them. I told Dad and Ernest that I’m trying to trust people more. And I am trying. It’s just, really hard to let go of this secret. I wish I could explain why.
We found the battery really easily. Apparently this facility was using a thing called Future Site (which has something to do with Whiz?) to make batteries for some Rubicon Whites. Which was bad. Time stuff is almost always bad. A security guard tried to stop us, but I actually lied well(!!!) and told her that I needed to get a number from the Future Site for some guy who I made up. And she bought it! Then Bolt created a distraction, Shade got one battery, and then Melody said something that made me realize that leaving this thing probably isn’t the best idea. So I should Pocket the whole thing.
I told her that if I disappeared, she should grab my coin and get out. And then I tried to Pocket the entire thing. And I guess, to be fair, I did. Pocketing more than one thing at a time is a thing I can do now, I guess. Because I also Pocketed myself. I...don’t want to talk about what it’s like in there again. But somehow Melody followed me in? And she got us out. I grabbed my coin, we rescued Bolt from some Rubicons, and the Baroness (IN SPACESHIP MODE) busted in and got us out.
The last thing we needed was a box Gwen had given Samantha before she left. And apparently her uncle Kenneth is Smoke??? And arrested by AEGIS. I feel like someone should have told me this. Especially, say, my good friend Samantha. I guess I can’t actually blame anyone for keeping secrets, though...
Anyway, Shade and I went up to the door to ask her for the box. She was a little confused, but brought it to us. I gave her a hug before we left.
And then we were off to Quebec. Since Melody had already driven, and I kinda really wanted to, and no one else had a driver’s license, I drove the Baroness this time. It uh...didn’t go great? But we got there really fast? I doubt the Baroness will ever let me drive again. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.
We got to Gwen’s location, and apparently the fey wanted her to perform a concert for them? The battery was hooked up to the amp, and then Gwen opened the box. It had a ukulele in it. She asked me to join her on stage, and then she gave her guitar to Melody and we got some drums from somewhere so that Shade could join. And we gave a concert! It was a lot of fun. Good stress relief after that drive.
So here’s the thing. The Baroness needed time to recover after that drive up. So we had to drive back to Halcyon at regular car speeds. And the reception up there was terrible. It took a long time to get home is what I’m saying. I filled Melody and Gwen in on what’s going on with my Pockets on the way. We also took the Future Site out of my Pockets, disassembled it, gave the Baroness a new battery, and scattered the pieces of it while we were out in the middle of nowhere.
PS: I Spy is a terrible road trip game and if Bolt wasn’t so likeable I’d hate him. That is all.

## S4E73 - Don't Bat an Eye

Sometimes I feel like no matter how much good we do, people are still going to just see us as the problem.
I don’t have a lot of time (gotta head over to the bakery soon), but the short version is: Tay, Ellen, Bolt, and I were chosen to represent Big Team at this weird public forum. It wasn’t going great. Whoever chose us to talk at it didn’t think this through. Fortunately (well, not *fortunately* exactly), it was interrupted by some bounty hunter robots who were there to arrest Tay. For treason (among other things). I really don’t have the time to explain how stupid it was. Moreso because it’s a lot of stupid than me being in a hurry.
So a bat transformed cop from Zodiac told Tay she should leave and pretended to arrest her. I guess? We had to shut down some Rubicons that showed up, burst through the wall, and were about to start attacking everyone. Because that’s what Rubicons do. Sigh.
Anyway, we all headed to where the bat cop led us. I rode with Ellen on her bike. I wasn’t sure if we were okay yet, but I wasn’t going to refuse. What if that was the last time she talked to me? I wanted to pretend like things could be okay for ten minutes. Bolt rode on Lugnut, who is very cool.
The bat led us to a sketchy office building. Tanya, Brayden Godfrey, and a robot who was never introduced were down there. The bat also was actually a SHILF. The Love Prophet himself, apparently. Bolt didn’t know what a SHILF was, and I wasn’t about to say that out loud...and neither Tay or Ellen did...I told him what the SH stood for...he figured it out eventually.
Anyway, the others were actually themselves and not SHILFs (thank goodness), and Tanya needed our help to prevent her dad from taking out elected officials and forcibly installing himself as the leader of the city. Her dad’s the commissioner. He hates me because I accidentally knocked out the power during one of his busts way back when I first started doing hero stuff. Also apparently he’s just a massive jerk. Or, I guess a police coup is more than a jerk. But you know what I mean.
His first target was Monkey. Monkey isn’t super popular right now because the commissioner set him up to look like he was meeting with Seeker agents. So we four Big Team members went to prevent Monkey from getting wrongly arrested and/or killed, and Tanya went to help out Pix, who had disappeared while trying to steal files from the commissioner’s office. Putting Pix in that kind of danger was not a good idea, but she was fine. Desperate times and desperate measures, I guess, but Pix is a sweetie and should not be put into dangerous situations.
So we went to where Monkey was staying after fleeing from the Zodiac police (he was at Mr. Crossover’s, for whatever reason). A LOT of police were there, including a very large Rubicon. I was prepared to Pocket Monkey if it meant keeping him safe. I guess that’s progress? But I didn’t need to. Thank goodness. I convinced some of them that following Gordon’s fascist plans wasn’t doing their duty as police officers. Well, I convinced the elite bat cops of Zodiac City that at least. The HCPD wasn’t as moved. But still! It helped. Then we fought the Rubicon, a bunch of bounty robots showed up again, turns out Gearhead was trying to prove his bounty robots were better than the police ones. Bolt somehow revealed that Gearhead didn’t have a bounty hunter license, which made his robots turn on him. And then I asked Tanya for the evidence she’d collected, which she sent me. Then Bolt sent it to all of the officers present and I posted it on Chitter.
I mean, the commissioner already hated me, so it’s not like this could make things worse for me with him, right? Later on Chitter, Boon told him that he better not come after me for this. It was really sweet. Idk if he’s on Chitter or would ever see it, but it was still sweet.
The most important part of the day was that I talked with Ellen, though. I kinda did that thing I do where I rant about something without letting the other person talk, and I said how I still wanted to be her friend and I wouldn’t try to convince her to stay so she doesn’t need to avoid me. She assured me that she wasn’t going to self sabotage again, and that just because she was gone for a while doesn’t mean she doesn’t like me anymore. And then we hugged. So we’re good now. That’s such a relief.
Side note: Tay’s shields are so cool!!! And Ellen has portals??? Super cool. All their future stuff is incredibly cool. (how many times can I say cool in one paragraph?)
Bolt went all geek on Tay’s implants, and somehow the conversation turned to if she could survive in space, and since she could, could she travel between planets. And she thinks she could, but it would be super boring since it would take an incredibly long time. And then he was talking about all the podcasts she could listen to on the trip...I didn’t think getting an existential crisis while thinking about podcasts was possible, but it is.
Anyway, Ellen raced Bolt and Lugnut back to the base. Lugnut and Bolt won. Overall, it was a good day.

## S4E75 - Disaster Pay

Mom gave me my first mission today! I mean, I’ve been on missions before, but this was the first one from her! She handpicked which team members would be coming with me on it, which is a little bit much. She said she didn’t ask Boon to come because I’d get distracted. And. I mean. *Sure*, Boon is super pretty and my girlfriend but we’ve been on missions together before. She also said that she thought Ellen and Tay were a bad influence on me, which I don’t get? But she picked Melody, Ernest, and Mithril, so I was happy with it!
So the mission was to do recon around some weird shadows and stuff that had been spotted near this construction site. When we got there, Melody sent out her recon drone, and we saw a site foreman giving this guy a pill, saying he’d been promoted. He took it and went down this ladder that was in a dumpster in the alley. Very sketchy. Mithril ripped the lid off of the dumpster, and we went down.
We came into this room with six pools of water leading down into tunnels. Some of the part animal people who were on the weird surveillance footage came out of the water and attacked us after we set off some alarms. We escaped further into the underground building. Mithril had to go. We ran into the guy from earlier (his name is Pascal) and another foreman. We apologized for the disturbance and explained that we’d been sent because of some sketchy things going on. The foreman was pretty chill about it, and explained that what the company (CyTech Multinational) is doing to its employees is legal, since it’s now legal to turn someone into an animal so long as you have their consent. But it’s still kinda awful. Pascal was excited for the promotion because he wanted to better provide for his family. But he shouldn’t have to turn into a creature for his job in order to do that.
I don’t really have the energy to describe what exactly happened. Long story short, the foreman blamed everything sketchy about the construction site on the Consortium, which is who had commissioned the building. Lucky for us, Conmoro was there and was chill about us looking around. They thought the construction company seemed really suspect. We decided to go talk to some of the other workers who had been “promoted” while they finished their inspection of the site and then meet back up. Then they vanished. (They’re...just...so cool.)
We talked with the other workers (they were also just doing this to support their families), found out the name of the company that supplied the pill (Disaster Doctors, Inc.), investigated the tunnels, and met back up with Conmoro. Side note about the tunnels and the building: So, in order for the building to do the magic stuff it needs to do, it has to be built in a certain way. And there were these weird rooms at the end of the tunnels! One was a giant fridge. Like, there was cheese bigger than me in there! Another was a cave with a peach on the ground. A third was a giant amethyst geode. That was my favorite. It was so beautiful.
And while we were in the cave, we sat around for a bit. And I told Ernest about what my Pockets have been doing. He took it so much better than expected. And said that he was wrong to be scared of them in the first place. I told him that I’d Pocketed Boon by accident, and I was worried about getting myself or someone else stuck in there, so I haven’t been using them. And then he asked me to Pocket him. Ernest. The guy who has been scared of me since he found out about them. Who made it hail on me the last time I told him news about my Pockets. He wanted me to Pocket him. I wasn’t going to. Even talking about my Pockets in a Consortium building wasn’t the best idea. But he said that if I got stuck in there again, or anyone else did and I couldn’t get them out, he could go in and get them if he’s been there before. So I did. It took me a little bit to get myself together mentally in order to get him back out, but I was able to.
When he came back, Ernest said that he felt energy in them? That he felt like he was passing through energy. Which doesn’t make any sense. I don’t keep energy in them. I mean, I know that I can, but I don’t. But he and Melody invited me to join them when they train with their powers and with fighting and stuff. That made me feel better, at least for a little bit.
Sometimes having your friends who aren’t your reckless (but incredibly lovable) girlfriend also say they trust you not to trap them in a void dimension forever really helps. And like, especially Ernest. Him trusting me after all this means a lot.
He also promised that if I ever lost my girlfriend in an interdimensional void, he’d fish her out for me. Which doesn’t sound super funny when I write it, but it made me laugh in the moment.
I love my friends.
Okay. So then we went back to meet up with Conmoro. They were with Pascal, who had collapsed and was turning into goo. We decided to go to this Disaster Doctors place to get the cure while Conmoro stayed with Pascal to keep him from dying. They also mentioned that they felt something about ten minutes before that they needed to check up on. That’s about when I Pocketed Ernest. So. Yeah.
Anyway, we went to the place. I called Mom on the way there, and told her what had happened. (Nothing about my Pockets, though.) She said she hadn’t really expected us to only do recon, but she emphasized it so that I’d think before running in. Which. I mean. Fair.
Once we got to the place, we found an infuriating cat transformed who wanted to make us have to face some moral quandaries. She succeeded. There were two remotes, and she said that one would send out the cure and one would make the virus in the pills contagious and infect the whole city. She was lying, though. Both would have made it contagious. But I Pocketed her, and we pushed the button on her desk that sent out the cure to everyone who had been changed by her pills. Then we called AEGIS to come get her. Most of the evidence was disintegrating (some kind of trap, I guess), but Ernest saved some of it. AEGIS took her away. We left.
Back at the site, Pascal was doing a lot better. Still unconscious, but Conmoro was pretty sure he’d recover and be just fine. They were worried about what they’d found, though. The building was built to generate chaos magic, apparently. That’s not what it was meant for. It was meant to stabilize the magical energies of Halcyon, to help them not get corrupted or something. But the building was built to also channel aggression, or something? There was a buildup of chaos magic anyway, and they didn’t know who in the Consortium approved the change to the building plans, but it’s bad. They think that the Seekers have infiltrated. The Seekers are the ones with Cypher’s mom. They hunt magical artifacts, especially a thing called the Night’s Paragon. Until now, Conmoro hadn’t thought they were a threat to the Consortium as a whole.
I offered to absorb the bad magic. Magic is just energy, and I’ve done it before. They liked that idea, and we went around to various points in the building for me to absorb it. It’s uh. Raw chaos energy. So like. It doesn’t feel great to have? But I also don’t want to release it all at once. I don’t know what that would do. I don’t understand magic. But they said I should try to channel it into weapons, or dispel it with the help of music. (Ernest wants to do a music video now. I’ll probably say yes. I don’t want to keep all of this inside me for too long. Plus, I like hanging out with Ernest.)
Before they left, they said there was one last thing. They mentioned phoenixes being dangerous again, but before we could ask about that, they went on to say that they think the Seekers are working with someone with a very dangerous power: Pocketing. They felt someone use Pockets, and thought that person was with the Seekers. I mean, I’m not. But they also said that they’re on the task force assigned to track down people with Pockets.
So I am VERY glad I didn’t ask them for help figuring out more about my powers.
And then they vanished again. (Still very cool...even if they might try to put me in magic prison...)
We talked for a bit about that. Decided that the phoenix thing must be a misunderstanding. And then we went back to the bakery. Before we left, though, I wrote “if you want a new job” on the back of a business card for Sweet Nothings, and put it in Pascal’s shirt pocket. I hope he does. He deserves better. I mean, they all do, but maybe at least I can help him.
Back at the shop, Mom told me she was proud of me. My first mission for her, and I did good. I’m...really happy about it.
PS: Okay, so this has nothing to do with the mission, but today was Jasper’s birthday! Aside from making him amazing cupcakes, his present was to go to the shelter and pick out a pet! It was a thing the rest of us had been talking about for a few weeks, since we got the house. And after Ernest got a cat, Jasper wanted a pet even more than usual. He was so excited when he found out he would get to pick. I was expecting him to go for a cat, since that’s what Ernest has, but he went straight for this three-legged dog. And fell in love instantly. I think she’s part pit bull? I’m not sure with dogs. All I know is that Jasper loves her, she’s a sweetheart, and she was so happy to come home with us.

Jasper named her Sheila, after Sheila Sri Prakash, who’s an architect. That kid. I love him.

## Season Finale: Apotheotic Siphon

Okay so today was absolutely WILD. I have super exciting news!!!

….and also bad for some other people and some Consortium people kinda died…..
Okay, so that does make me a little less excited than I was. But I still had a pretty good day?
It started out great. Boon, Brimstone, and I were in my room, watching cartoons. And then that card that Conmoro gave me the first time I went to the library started to chime. I fished it out of my backpack, and a little floating sigil popped up and there was some text that said it was a summons from Conmoro and asked if I was going to accept. I put on my mask, just in case this was like, visual. And I accepted.

And Boon and I got teleported to Conmoro’s office in the library in Madagascar. So uh. Glad I put on the mask. And uh, I mean, Boon agrees with me about Conmoro. Being uh. Incredibly aesthetically attractive. She had a similar reaction to them that I did.

BUT THAT’S NOT SUPER IMPORTANT LET’S SKIP TO THE IMPORTANT PARTS. So the stuff we discovered a few weeks ago at that weird building was worse than they thought. The Seekers had infiltrated the Consortium even more than Conmoro had suspected. They’d been working with Kurt and Nicholas Goldman (it’s got to be a common name, but I wonder if he’s related to Melody at all?) to identify who the Seekers could be. So the building was SUPPOSED to gather spent mana, purify it, and release it back into Halcyon. But it like, was going to gather it and corrupt it and generally be bad for both magic and anything alive in Halcyon instead because of what the Seekers did to it. I don’t super understand the magic stuff. But Conmoro needed our help to fix it. They called in Kurt and Nicholas Goldman, and we talked over a plan.

So the three of us on Big Team were going to check out that building and try and fix what was wrong and fix it as much as we could, or at least mitigate the stuff going wrong. There was a big ritual going on today, so we all had to work quickly to try and stop the Seekers from co-opting the ritual for their own purposes. They were also infiltrating the Consortium from the Madagascar end, but Nicholas and Conmoro were going to try and take care of that.

But first Conmoro re-opened the portal that brought Boon and I there so that we could change into our hero gear. I mean, I’ve done hero stuff in a crop top hoodie for most of my time on Big Team, but like, it was a designated hero hoodie, you know? Then we went back through the portal, and went through a weird portal in a brick wall to get to the building.
This took us to the amethyst geode room, where we knocked out the first Seeker agent. Kurt and Nicholas had been subtly marking them for a while, so we knew for sure she was a Seeker. We found her body knocked out in several of the other rooms, and she was also a rat in the peach room. And the peach was a pear now. Kurt realized that by taking out the Seekers but not replacing them, we were disrupting the magic in a bad way. And consequences of that could be duplicating a person, turning her into a rat, and turning the peach into a pear. But since we didn’t know how to get around that, we decided to keep taking out Seekers and try to stabilize it later. It’s not like we had a good option, you know?

So the three of us knocked out everyone else we could find and met up in the big round middle chamber. We could feel the magic floating through the air and forming a helix shape in the middle of the room. But there were gaps in the magic. It needed more. And conveniently, I had a lot of chaos magic that I’d absorbed from last time. Boon asked if it was safe because of my Pockets. First of all, I don’t store magic in my Pockets because of Ernest, I just store it in myself, so that part isn’t a problem. Buh uh. Kurt is part of the Consortium, you know, that place that has an entire wing of people who were bookshelfed because of Pocket corruption. Kurt was cool about it, thankfully. But they warned her not to mention them again. But I did it! I filled the gaps, and for a minute it looked like it was going to be okay.
Then a Consortium woman (not a Seeker) came because she knew something was wrong. She asked what was wrong with the unconscious Seekers around us, and Kurt covered and said that they took in too much magic and got knocked out. She didn’t quite seem to buy it. And then she said something about the position of Libra being cursed? Kurt seemed to know about it and didn’t seem concerned. So uh. I guess it must not be a big deal. We had a quick huddle to come up with fake Consortium names for Boon and I, but when we turned back, the woman was covered in red crystal. As were the people on the ground, and crystal had started to cover the walls and stuff, too. The helix pattern shifted and turned red. And then a spooky voice was all like, “You didn’t really think it would be that easy to stop us, surely.”
It was one of the foremen from the construction company. I met her last time. We fought her. Kurt tried to fix the helix, but the crystal kept like spurting out this red kool-aid? I don’t know what it was, exactly, other than bad magic stuff. Some small crystal creatures were attacking Kurt, and I tried to shoot lightning at them. But uh. I had gotten covered in crystal myself without noticing. Probably because of all the chaos magic I’d absorbed. I mean, it was almost all gone by this point, but the crystals didn’t seem to care. And I uh. The lightning. It didn’t go toward the crystal creatures. It got corrupted as it passed through the crystals on my arms. And it hit Boon. She was okay. But I hated that. I...don’t want to dwell on that. Boon seemed fine, thank goodness. She knocked out the foreman. The crystal creatures fell apart. And the fight was over.

But the ritual wasn’t fixed. The rest of the crystal was still there. Including the stuff on my arms. I was trying not to panic, but Boon could tell. She used her healing magic on me. The crystal fell off, and the magic went back into the helix, but this red kool-aid-like substance absorbed into me. I said it was fine, but she asked if I meant actually fine or “Verve fine” and uh, I mean, I wasn’t going to lie. So I admitted it was “Verve fine,” which we all know by now means very not fine. She gave me a hug, but it didn’t quite make me feel better in the moment.
Kurt found a message book tablet thing on the foreman. There were some messages that made us think that Conmoro was in trouble (which was correct), so Kurt opened a portal for us to Madagascar. And they did that by throwing out a hippo -- like from hungry hungry hippos -- and we walked through its mouth. I hope the people who were there and covered with crystals were okay. I mean, I know they were Seekers (or at least most of them were), but I still hope they were okay.

(I also found out later that everyone in Halcyon who was magic was turned into crystal for a bit? So I guess they were probably okay? Since, like, Cypher was fine.)
When we got to Madagascar, we were in Nicholas Goldman’s office. Concerningly, none of his familiars were there. And Nicholas Goldman has a LOT of familiars. In addition, there was an oppressive magic in the air, like humidity but bad magic. And everything had a red sheen to it, because the bad kool-aid was filling the air. Kurt quickly gets a potion that will let us get to the top of the building. All of us (including Brimstone) drink some and we all turn into clouds. I’m not gonna lie. It was weird. But also part of it felt like being lightning again. Slower, obviously. But it was kind of nostalgic. I stopped thinking about it every day a while ago...but this just reminded me how much I missed it. It reminded me of that time I was trying to fix it in Camelot Park, and Boon found me. How desperate I was to get it back that I was really reckless…but anyway.
We floated up to the floor where the ritual was being held. There were a few Seekers in the room we entered, but we took them out pretty quickly (mostly due to Kurt laying a magic trap). In the hallway, there was a golden bubble with some people and a few of Nicholas Goldman’s familiars inside. (One was called Kansas City Comma Missouri and was a pine marten. His familiars all have really cool names.) Boon popped it, but the people and familiars were still frozen. Kurt and I were both positioned to absorb the energy from it if it exploded, but it was fine.

Boon said we need to have faith in her, but I said that we did, but it could have exploded. Boon said I was probably right. I said I’m usually right, and then Boon said "You're right, dear." Kurt said this was too cute for the mission, but also didn’t seem to notice that she called me dear. (Okay, so apparently Kurt had figured out I was Atlanta by this point. More on that later, I guess. I’ll get confused if I don’t go in at least mostly chronological order.)

We follow a trail of time frozen wizards like they’re breadcrumbs. Plus there were more and more crystals. This leads us right to the ritual room. Inside, a huge magic sigil is carved into the floor, and eight wizards are frozen there. Nicholas Goldman was knocked out in the corner. Conmoro was also there, maintaining the time stop spell.

Kurt went right for this wizard in a cowboy hat who was casting a different spell. They shot out some magic, but the cowboy hat wizard did the same thing at Kurt, and his spell overwhelmed Kurt’s. They were frozen in time (at least for a minute). Cowboy hat’s magic was green like Kurt’s. Because he was Kurt. Future Kurt, who I’ve heard a little about. Just bad things, honestly. I tried to get him to lose concentration on his spell, but it didn’t work. And he uh, teleported me INTO the ceiling. I was stuck upside down. Boon immediately flew up to get me out, which is sweet but her priorities should have been elsewhere.
But Boon’s spear bounced off of the ceiling, and her magic did something weird? Like, I couldn’t look away. Because she’s beautiful. And I mean, I always want to look at Boon, but this was like her normal self turned up to 11.
The thing is, everyone else in the room also had to stare at Boon. Including Conmoro. And they lost concentration on their spell. Fortunately Kurt grabbed Future Kurt’s hands to keep him from completing his spell, but the entire room immediately filled with crystal. It hit all of us, and the magic in the room was almost suffocating. Kurt got covered in crystal, but it shattered. And Mr. Otter started freaking out. (I later found out it was because Mr. Otter couldn’t sense Kurt anymore, because Future Kurt took away his magic or something?)
And it really looked like we lost. I didn’t know what to do. I was caught on the ceiling. Boon was cut off from her divine magic (found that out later, too). Something was wrong with Kurt. Conmoro’s spell was lost. Future Kurt’s spell was almost done.
But then I thought about being a cloud earlier. And how losing wasn’t an acceptable outcome. I turned into lightning. I got out of the ceiling. And even though I knew Conmoro was watching, I Pocketed all of the crystal and magic in the room. And I realized something about my Pockets. They’re not evil. In fact they’re pretty neutral. They’re just empty. There’s nothing inherently *anything* about them. And because they’re neutral, I converted that bad magic energy from the crystals into good magic energy. Then I released it back into the room. But I think some of it went somewhere else? I’m not totally sure where or why, but it felt like some of the energy was going somewhere else, and it felt right? So I let it.

I can’t really explain how I did it. Everything just suddenly clicked together? And I’m not sure I’m totally over my fear of my Pockets, but I don’t think they’re evil anymore. This was the first time I felt totally in control while using them, and I can’t explain how amazing that felt. I uh, still don’t totally understand how they work, but I think if I store the energy in my Pockets, I can convert it into another kind of energy? Which is very cool. I can also store multiple things in there a lot easier! Like, at least three things really easily. That’s so many!
The influx of good magic knocked out the rest of the seekers in the room. Oh, and then Boon threw her shield at Future Kurt, but he did a magic and escaped. He did something to Kurt, though, and I wanted to go make sure they were okay, but uh.

I realized my mask was gone. And I’d just used my Pockets in front of Conmoro. So I was bracing myself for...something. Getting arrested? Attacked?

But they didn’t do that. I think they were mostly...surprised? They asked how I wasn’t evil, and I think I said something stupid like “I don’t know, because I’m not possessed by a rogue reaper?” They said they’d need to report this. Kurt told them that in the future, the Consortium is okay with Pockets. Conmoro said they can’t just take Kurt’s word for it, but they said that if I helped them research the Pockets, they wouldn’t need to do anything to me. Like, you know, put me in a bookshelf. They didn’t sound threatening, exactly, but if I didn’t agree I’d have to be on the run from the Consortium. It was way more matter-of-fact than a threat. Now that I think about it, maybe that should have been scarier. I told them that if they did try to bookshelf me, my friends would come for me. And they seemed to take that seriously. I guess by now they know what Big Team can do when we put our minds to it. Plus like, Ernest almost released a bunch of magic criminals from the bookshelves by accident. I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard for him to do it on purpose.

Conmoro said that we saved the Consortium today, and most of the magic users in Halcyon. I’m not sure I can process that...Four of the magisters died, though. I don’t know exactly, but they’re part of the hierarchy in the Consortium. So there’s a big power vacuum, apparently.
By the time I was done talking with Conmoro, Kurt was gone. He lost part of his magic. Or maybe a lot of it? Boon had to heal him in order for Mr. Otter to even be able to sense him. I mean, I know at least kind of what that’s like, losing your powers.I wanted to make sure he was okay, but we couldn’t find him. So Boon and I went home. We cuddled with Brimstone. Boon was supportive and wonderful. I love her.
So that was it. A bunch of bad stuff happened, and I’m worried about what’s going to happen with the Consortium studying my Pockets, but...I need to be selfish for a minute.

I can FLY again. I just...I can’t explain it. How I feel now. I mean, I’d learned to live without it, but there was always this piece of me that was missing, you know? And now it’s back. Maybe being a cloud reminded my body how to do it. I don’t know. But I’m just so incredibly happy. The part of me that was gone is back. And I feel like I shouldn’t be so excited about it because of all the bad stuff that happened? But I am.

PS from a few days later: Got back from the Consortium. Kurt and I are going together, since I can’t get there on my own. It was weird. Conmoro and some other wizards just like, had me Pocket a bunch of stuff? I don’t know what they want or what they’re looking for...I guess I need to focus on the “not being magic arrested” part of this arrangement…
I asked Kurt if they were okay, and the answer is kinda no? Like, they lost their magic. And it’s not just going to come back. I told them that I’m here for them if they need. Or not, if they didn’t want me to be? Like I’m not totally sure how good of friends we are and if that was weird to offer, but they laughed and asked if I was always this awkward. (Which I probably am.) They also told me that they figured out who I was. Between the Pockets and being related to Hero One, the double thumbs up, Boon emphasizing how platonic her relationship with Verve is...maybe it’s weird that more people haven’t figured it out? (Not that it matters. Cuz I told the team who I was. And by told them I mean walked around base in costume without my mask because I’m just super awkward so I picked the MOST AWKWARD way to do this.) They also asked if I wanted to get high, and I don’t know. I’m not sure I’d like it?
While I’m filling in important things that happened since my main entry, I talked to Grandy about Pockets. I told them everything about the Consortium, and mine, and how I’m working with Conmoro to figure them out. I asked if they still had theirs (since theirs became Reaper One’s, I didn’t know if they’d gotten new ones). They tried to be cagey about it, which really just confirmed that they had them. Their new Pockets aren’t large, and the more energy that goes into them, the greater capacity they have. But they’re going to stay out of the hero business. They like spending time with their family. With us. And I’m glad, because I love having them around. They offered to help me with my Pockets, and said I need to tell mom about all this. And I will. Maybe I’ll do it tonight. They also want to meet Kurt, since Kurt is the one taking me to and from Madagascar. I don’t think getting Kurt over for dinner will be a problem. I imagine they’ll be so excited to meet Grandy.

S#E# - Session Title

Filler text

Purchase that cool notebook from up top here.