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Taz Shutter

Taz Shutter (a.k.a. Trickster)

Taz Shutter grew up surrounded by people who were normal, but she had a secret that her parents were very keen on her keeping - she had some powers. She took up the identity of the Trickster when she was feeling bored or boxed in so she could escape from her normal mundane life, and relished in causing frustration to those she deemed villanous   Her powers are illusions and teleportation, making her a tricky foe. She met the Doll after an indiscrete telepotation and together they fought off an attack by StarGazer in a museum. The Doll was the one who introduced the Trickster to the rest of the group, but is the only one who knows her real name or who she is, and she'd like to keep it that way.

Physical Description

Identifying Characteristics

Blue black asymetric hair - very distinctive so she ensures that it is hidden whenever she is in her Trickster form

Special abilities

Teleportation - both herself and others (plus objects) Illusion magic

Apparel & Accessories

Few gill rings and earrings - Her favourite outfit is a yellow crop top with a black radioactive symbol, Black cropped fake leather jacket and black tight quick dry trousers

Mental characteristics

Personal history

From her perspective, there's not much to share. She grew up with her powers (from her knowledge she was born with them)   Her parents both focussed on keeping up outward apprearances and ensuring that her powers are not known about, punishing her severely whenever they found out she'd used her powers in public. Tazmin rebelled in other ways by playing truant from school, experimentation with alcohol and drugs (though given the experiences of Ami, experimentation on drugs has all but halted)   Her parents have dull jobs - Dad's a government official so tends to have a lot of higher profile visitors to the house, and Mum's works in a corporation but tends not to talk about it too much, and Taz really doesnt care. They do not yet know that she has a secret identity and has been using her powers more openly but they are familiar with her powers so with some new articles / videos they will probably guess fairly easily.   Her best friends are Gade and Saph, both atlanteans that go to Eastern High. She also knows a few others on the rave scene, including Zion who introduced her to quite a lot of the more rebellious "cool kids", whom she looks up to and tries to replicate. With Gade and Saph she doesnt need to pretend to be cool so much, and trusts them entirely.

Gender Identity

Female

Sexuality

Experimenting but not sure at this point

Education

Currently "studying"at Eastern High on 5th ring of Atlantis - not a good student, she bails when she feels like it. Tends to be rather confrontational with the teachers, though she gets on well enough during history and literature

Mental Trauma

One of her friends, Ami, almost died when her drink was spiked with a drug cut badly, and was snuck out before any of her friends realised. She was found the next day and taken to hospital where it took two week for her to recover and she came close to death. After that Taz might have pretended to be cool with drugs, but it put her right off and she would only take stuff which she knew was good. She began to avoid Ami, as she seethed in guilt from not noticing that she had gone missing

Personality Characteristics

Motivation

Taz is predominantly focused on having fun and if she can, getting the better of others. She's not super invested in saving people or making the world a better place, and in her opinion people die all the time and the world is always going to suck. However, she enjoys using her powers especially if she doesnt feel like she has to hold back, and any villains that cross her path deserve it.

Likes & Dislikes

Playing video games particularly at the arcade Atlantean Fried Chicken (AFC)

Virtues & Personality perks

Has some decent contacts in the "cool" scene

Vices & Personality flaws

Playing truant from school Trying to look cool no matter what Tends to speak without thinking, particularly when feeling vindictive

Social

Contacts & Relations

Father - Gared Shutter - middle rank official in the Atlantean government Mother - Ezme Shutter - working for the Zesta Corporation Saph Lemmis - Best friend (female) Gade Vie - Best friend (male) Zion - contact on the rave scene, circa 23

Hobbies & Pets

She has a fish called Angel

Wealth & Financial state

Parents are well off but given the friction between them she doesnt have much herself - most she has gotten through petty criminal activity

An Atlantean 17 year old who has a secret identity of the Trickster and who has teleportation and illusion powers.

View Character Profile
Year of Birth
2005 17 Years old
Birthplace
Atlantis
Children
Current Residence
Noxtis Way, Outer ring, South Eastern wing (towards Luna canal).
Gender
Female
Eyes
Amber
Hair
Black and Blue, asymmetric style
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Dusky dark turquoise
Quotes & Catchphrases
Game 1 - "Smells like leftovers to me"
Known Languages
English Atlantean

Secret Diary - Keep Out! Game 5
23/01/2022

23/01/2022 – Cont   Anyway, yet another eventful day … getting to be a bit of a trend. I was feeling pretty shattered this morning so I headed over to the junkyard to have a bit of chill time since it was a Sunday – like it there since it’s so quiet and quite fun to scavenge cool stuff, especially when I find something cool for Saph to use in her art.   Velocity sent a message to say he’d heard a bit more about the guy who left the symbol at the mall – apparently he’s called Mirage, bit of a light-fingered thief who tends to be a small time villain, he has illusionary powers and hangs out at the “Hive of Scum and Villainy” – I can’t believe they called it that!   Dunno, everyone seemed a bit meh about doing anything about it with Impulse suggesting we just continue to let stuff turn up where we are. I dunno if there’s anything connecting us to it! It is kinda weird that stuff has kicked off a bit but … how would they know we were at the mall? And why would they care? It does seem to keep happening around us though. And I guess I’m feeling a bit nervous about it now – what if it’s because someone is trying to find us so they can get their hands on the Horn of Destructus? Or even worse, is trying to get their hands on us for another reason that we don’t understand…. Gah, it’s probably nothing!   We had a chat about super-suits and whether they were tracked – I mentioned that I didn’t wear one, so Doll snarked at me, but offered to help hook me up with some as the guys suggested that if I went unconscious then the illusion would probably fade.. which is definitely not something I want to happen. I guess I’ve been a bit careless not considering that, and if everything starting to kick off around us is in some way connected to us I definitely need to be more careful, I can’t risk anyone else connecting my identity and my powers. I mean, I figure all the rest of the guys actually seem to have superheroes for their parents so at least they can take care of themselves and help if their kids get into too much trouble – if someone goes after them to get to me there’s nothing they can do to protect themselves… that nightmare last night really messed my brain up!   Anyways, mid text conversation Velocity mentioned that Alison was suggesting that we meet up at the mall as she had a lead on some robberies? It was still on lockdown but she was out in full princess garb outside… definitely naïve! When we were all there (apart from Sharky) she told us that goods/currency had been nicked over the last few days and there were orcs and unicorns that had appeared in front of the vans, and that they were all from an armoured truck company called “Securicorp”. Alison even suggested that we just go up and ask them what their next deliveries were, but we pointed out to her that we weren’t registered heroes so we’re just a load of costumed kids.   Sharky then turned up, apparently he’d been having brunch with his dad! The conversation turned hilarious at this point as apparently Alison thought he was a golem, and apparently he’s naked in his metal suit! There was a lot of fun teasing of him, and I think doll tried something … definitely a bit of a chat about how many unicorns it would take to pick him up!   Anyways, Velocity sent one of his duplicates around to find a van and apparently did manage to find one so we all headed over to a roof to chill and wait for something to happen – there was even Atlantean fried Seagull which is one of my favs! Wasn’t too long until the van skidded to a halt with a load of kindergarden kids from fantasy such as goblins and cyclops in front of it!   It didn’t take long to descend into chaos – none of the kids reacted to a sweet stall so they were definitely not real – I realised that they were invisible but wasn’t strong enough to get the fire hydrant to spurt water all over them. Velocity grabbed glitter and tossed it into one of the vans, revealing some of the guys in there, grabbing bags of cash and throwing them into the non-descript vans, which Doll used to turn over the heads of the minions in one of the vans and tied them up with them. The other getaway van Impulse went to and grabbed the keys out of it but got shot in the process. Sharky went into the armoured van and found a huge muscly man who he started to wrestle. I made an illusion of setting the other van on fire, leading to the men from that van jumping out.. including someone wearing a mask and with a katana sword, who pretty much immediately locked eyes on me and instructed the others to get me, I guess realising I was the one responsible for the fire. Adding to the chaos was the sound of police sirens, but the car leading the way was not a normal police car, but instead was a bright orange muscle car, with a massive guy yelling out of it “you’re all under arrest” and brandishing a machine pistol… apparently he looked like Sharky’s dad… sheesh!   Just as the guys aiming at me started to fire, the Doll whipped up a few plants and knocked them flying, as one of the other guys gets out of the other van and flees. The guy with a mask looked at us, made a throat slitting action and then started to run away, but I teleported him back into the middle of us so we could capture him, which me managed to do, calming the chaos just as Sharky’s “Dad”, or what appeared to be him, came up and started yelling at us that we were causing trouble, they had been stalking them in order to lead them to bigger fish but we’d ruined that. He got them loaded into a police car which headed off and he asked that we stayed quiet about this so he didn’t have to make us give statements. I mentioned that we thought they were involved in the incident at the mall.   At that point the Doll jumped off a nearby roof and said that she had been attacked from behind. I went up there and teleported him down – at which point everything went back to chaos. I guess the others, knowing Sharky’s Dad, realised that it wasn’t him and tried to knock him out, with him reverting into another guy in a minion outfit in front of our eyes. Velocity in the meantime, sent his duplicates after the police cars which when he dragged them back were empty of the enemies and instead had people tied up with duct tape, with blinking red lights like a bomb. At this point Velocity got them out of the car and AJ winched the cars up above the city where they just splatted blue paint across the inside of the cars.   That was it. We were left with a load of old cars (as the illusions had dropped), the hostages from the fake police cars, the van driver who looked really dazed and a collection of low level minions… that was it. It sucks, we really screwed that up, and we got completely taken for a ride. Not only that, we gave a pretty clear display of our powers and what we knew. I guess on the upside, I’ve always thought my powers were a little lame, but all he used was illusions and he completely got us so I guess if I can learn to use my powers more maybe I can do more than I thought, though apparently Alison didn’t agree as it wasn’t “real magic” – not that she did much during that fight!   We had a big chat then about what to do – check out clinics, go to the police, take the minions to be interrogated separately, call Impulse and Velocitiy’s “Mum” … which I think they’ve mentioned is Mrs Bruiser! Crazy.. though can definitely see her influence in Impulse at least. We even talked about registering as heroes, which I would do only if it doesn’t mean giving up my true identity – I’ve always been told to hide that and stuff seems to be getting more and more dangerous which definitely makes me keen to keep it secret, even if you get badges to help you skip school (like I need that to skip school anyway!) Sounds like I wasn’t the only one trying to keep their superhero activity quiet, though I’m going to guess that Sharky’s been … less effective at that than I have given he’s very very visible.   Impulse and velocity ran off, fighting over a phone, leaving us to do clean up – AJ decided to call the police and get his licence afterwards, and Doll said she knew somewhere to go and we headed off, eventually creating an illusion over the unconscious minions as old people, since we started walking into a much nicer neighbourhood, lots of fancy traditional atlantean homes, dry sidewalks but a good amount of underwater accommodation. Doll lead us to a rather nice looking house, but before we headed in I noticed the nameplate was “Orientalis” which meant I knew them, and so did my parents!   I fricking panicked I’ll admit, quickly disguised myself as a nice looking human girl with blonde hair (which I’ll have to remember in case I need to do anything with them again, hopefully not!). Doll clearly knew them as well as she just headed to the front door and asked if Servila was home – their daughter. I’d definitely met her at one of those awkward fancy dinners my parents like to host with the well to do, where I’d have to put on a very polite front – totally sucks. Never talked to Servila much apart from polite stilted conversation though, so was pretty shocked at how comfortable the Doll seemed with her- and even more shocked when it turns out that she had been practicing and was capable of reading minds!   When I spoke she turned her attention to me, and I just gave a fake name – she started to say that there was something about me, but after a sharp “don’t” she at least seemed to drop it… I hope! I don’t think she read my mind (if she did there was no way she’d not know exactly who I am) but I need to be really careful about her.   I guess I was a bit distracted, think they chatted a bit about how bad the costumes were, but keen to get things moving I cleared my throat and she started to read their minds and got a chunk of information   1. Mirage (the mask guy) was attached to Edd (the muscle guy) and they had been caught in … interesting circumstances! 2. location of their hideout at a movie theatre (and with an address that’s something we can follow up) 3. The minions might have worked for someone called Dark Otaku but he wasn’t paying enough and was known for being pretty disposable with his minions (maybe something to do with the Anime Expo taking place at the docks?) 4. Mirage was involved in the mall which was a “chemical test run”, I guess checking out the impact of that juice on the guys at the mall. No info on where he might have got the chemicals 5. Not seen with his mask off (but seen other bits of him!) 6. He seems to only use illusions but he’s clearly got those on lock, carries a sword but never seen him fight with it)   Big chunk of information but we couldn’t think of anything else to ask, so to my relief we headed back out of their house (renewing the illusions!) - My head is still just churning all the stuff we learnt plus the whole is it related to us or just a coincidence... and the more I think about it the more I don't know :(

Secret Diary - Keep Out! Game 4
22/01/2022

18/1/2022 What a surprise, all that stuff about the dragon ended up in the papers, including a bit of footage of me teleporting away – you can’t see my face but it’s enough to make me nervous that my parents are going to put two and two together and suss that it’s me, so I’m going to focus on laying low for a while. The news even had the nerve to ask if we were superheroes or supervillains!   22/1/2022 Our next run in – ever since meeting the others it’s been a constant barrage of attacks and battles. This time we were all minding our business at the mall and there was a sudden load of crashing and shouting. I was there with Gabe and Saph just checking out the record store but when it all kicked off I suggested that I wanted to go check it out and just headed off even with them shouting out after me. I saw some big greasy nerd with a super orange slurpy who was all hulked out and shouting at velocity. There had been a manga signing event on at the comic store and apparently there was a load of controversy over the “Black Cat” character, who was now this black human dude rather than a scantily clad chick… hearing what he was shouting I transformed into the likeness of the new Black Cat and started sashaying around getting him to chase me, with the Doll coming in and completely covering him with vines, turning him upside down and pulling his trousers down so we could see his spiderwoman boxers, then dragging him around to the other side with us as apparently there were a load of mimes the others were dealing with. Once we trapped the mimes in the room and noticed them looking at the coke machine warily, Sharkey started freaking out about “Bill from school” who he asked us to go and tell that he wasn’t actually radioactive since he’d managed to scare the mimes stiff by yelling about killing them with radioactive poisoning. I just thought it was pretty hilarious and that it would be fine, when Velocity let us know that there had been a bomb in the security room but he’d exploded it in the carpark, and there was this black box up in the room. I headed over there to back him up while the others dealt with the mimes and started analysing the drinks. When up there all the monitors were off and Velocity was holding this black box in his hands that he had grabbed out from all the wires surrounding it. There was a little ink drawing signature on the bottom of the black box of an oasis, and I just grabbed a few bits and bobs from the confiscated box (a homemade taser and a few cherry bombs) Heading back to the others, the police were arriving and yelling at us, asking about what we were doing here and who were we. They asked about if we were a team but then asked whether we had a team name, and suggested that we come up with one sharpish as otherwise the media would just give us one. Apparently several stores had tills cleared out, which could have been connected, but also could have been someone with light fingers and a good opportunity. It sounds like Sharky was analysing the liquids in the coke machine and energy drink machine and the police were giving him a hard time, and they’d found the same oasis symbol on the side of the drinks machine. Apparently they were a bit of a low life criminal but a bit of a mercenary type who tended to tag places he’d been active. We ended up giving statements, during which my phone went off and it was my parents asking where I was, and getting pissy about me “having dinner with my friends” when she’d already started cooking, and ended up setting a curfew for 10pm which sucked. I guess one of the others talked to their parents as it wasn’t too much later that the police let us go and with an apology to Sharky - I gave my friends the heads up that I’d seen a dude at the comic shop, acted pissed off that they had seen the mime dudes, and asked them to pretend I’d had dinner with them… just in case I needed an alibi We all headed back to the hideout after that and started talking about team names – there were a load of ideas kicking around (Ultra Plus, Zephyr, The Prodigys, The Juveniles, Les Heroes do L’anomialie, Arise … even “Human Beings” got suggested which sucked). After a load of throwing ideas around we finally settled on Ultra Force, with the symbol of a phoenix on a shield … not bad, a bit cliché but whatever. Stuff kicked off a bit after that though, when Sharky ended up suggesting a team pose for the media, which I brushed off and said that if the media turned up I’m off, and luckily Velocity suggested it wasn’t their business when he started pressing. No idea how but that got into a discussion about whether if you dropped Sharky on someone would they get killed.. but when I asked if he had killed anyone he said yes almost instantly, then tried to backtrack. I asked who and he said it was his mum. Wow, that got a lot more personal a lot quicker than I was expecting! The Doll immediately bailed, and I wished I could but decided to stick it out at least – there’s not freaking anything I can say to actually help though, but I at least suggested that he’d not killed anyone since then? I dunno why but the floodgates opened at that point, and it was pretty horrific. Apparently he wasn’t always radioactive but suddenly started glowing. His mums hair fell out and she had to go but never saw her again, and his dad had been frequenting a graveyard on the mainland, that Sharky had never been too and didn’t want to. Meanwhile he was stuck in his mechanical suit unable to leave it, and could go nuclear at any point. He even was worrying about how much he was contributing to the “team” given that he had ended up unconscious a few times. I suck at this kinda stuff but I tried to talk to him at least, even opened up a bit more than I intended, since I mentioned that I felt pretty insecure about my lack of physical ability given I can only mess with people, and when he mentioned that we were friends even if he doesn’t know who I am, I slipped out that the Trickster is the only one that matters. Luckily I don’t think he caught that and we ended up hanging out at the bar until just before my curfew when I popped home.   23/01/2022 This stuff is getting to me, had a nightmare last night about my powers going crazy and at one point it was my parents who were causing my powers to go haywire as they watched with cruel expressions on their faces, and the next they were screaming and being killed by my out of control powers – it was almost like my illusions started ripping up reality and slashing into them with tendrils of magic. Guess the conversation with Sharky messed me up a bit, especially how obviously his dad cares for him (even if he’s dumb for not saying the truth), he might be missing one of his parents but I guess I’m a bit jealous of him, since he doesn’t have to hide from his dad.

Secret Diary - Keep Out! Game 3
17/01/2022

15/1/2022 Well I suck. Yeah, I was pissed off, and I still am, but apparently not only is the Dandy the Dolls father, but Jenny Sparks is her mother – and that’s who I ratted her out to. Only found out after I put her a letter in her locker and she DM’d back. She offered to have me go over to her house to look at data but I just said I was busy… not looking forward to seeing her again. It still sucks though! Even more than just being a high while on her own, it was a new drug on the scene and they tend to be cut with the worst stuff. Even Impulse didn’t take any (though I thought she might have been forced to in order to keep up the charade). I had a nightmare about Ami last night.   17/1/2022 We got dragged to the Hunter Natural History Museum today on a school trip and apparently the same one as the middle schoolers as well since I spied the Doll from afar – still avoiding her though so kept my distance and snuck off to look at the dinosaurs. I was starting to consider teleporting random bones around to make up my own dinosaur when the lights suddenly went off and there was the sound of crashing glass. Pulled out my cell phone and used it to light my way, finding a security guard down and turned to stone, presumably from something downstairs. I started sneaking my way down but quickly realised I wasn’t the only one since AJ began barrelling down the other side, which did mean that he was acting as a great distraction for the Creeping Terror who was the one seeming to guard the entry to the museum, and I was able to teleport the (probably priceless) sarcophagus onto his head and knocking his helmet off… but the moment I did that he turned and reached a hand out towards me and I felt myself being siphoned off, making me feel weaker and weaker until Impulse appeared from behind and knocked him out. I have no idea what he did to me, even now, but I still feel sick… thank god for Impulse, no idea where AJ went. We snuck down towards the Atlantean exhibit as we could hear voices arguing in that direction (joined by the Doll and Velocity), when we entered we could see a load of broken displays and artefacts lying around (pissed me off a little since that was my history they were destroying … even if it was boring) with a dude dressed as a bard with a fricking lute in his hand (the Minstrel), a woman with loads of colours around her (Colour Queen), and finally some creepy sexy woman (Alchemistress) who I’d heard of before and was probably the one who turned that security guard to lead. We started to do our thing, grabbing a cracked horn from the ground which seemed to be what they were arguing about. Glancing down it said “Beware the Dread Destructus who hears only this horn” which freaked me out and I threw it away from them as hard as I could before diving in and nicking the guys lute. In all the chaos the Alchemistress started making her way out towards where I had chucked the horn so I bailed – grabbing the horn and teleporting away as often and far as I could. Back out in the open outside the museum things were… not well. There was a load of raid sirens and rumbling and the air defence grid came up and started firing at an enormous winged shape in the sky, plus a load of flying supers headed towards it. Guessing it had something to do with the horn I just decided to blow on it to see what would happen… and it definitely had a reaction! There was a roar from above and a huge dragon creature with multiple heads ended up plummeting towards me. Not… what I was hoping to happen and even though I kept teleporting it was definitely following me! The others had cleaned up the freaks at the museum by this point and one of the old heroes turned up to airbag at them and deal with the aftermath (since we hadn’t been entirely kind to all the exhibits), so when I messaged to say that I had a dragon following and asked if I could keep it (impulse said yes) they got on the case, or at least the doll certainly was as she started researching it. Turns out it was indeed Dread Destructus (cute name) and it was there to defeat anyone that the summoner asked it to. At this point, and pretty shattered from the constant teleporting, I headed over to the docks and then when it came close I shouted at it to go kill a shark, which lead to it diving into the water, rather than killing me. Apparently there was a way to unsummon it which was to blow the correct tune on the horn, so while the Doll was researching that it flew back out of the water and started to go after AJ since he’d just arrived. I panicked and shouted at it to kill a starfish. I thought I was a goner since it turned to me and started to speak, saying that such pray was meagre and beneath it, even as the blood from the huge shark in its jaws dripped into the water. It asked for bigger opponents but I asked it to kill a single starfish while I worked out who to set it against, and yet again it dived into the water, returning with a dead starfish the size of a car just as the Doll managed to sent through the tune to unsummon it and I managed to play it… and it was gone. The day wasn’t even over then! Apparently Velocity and AJ had come across “Princess Silverwing” who was wanting to talk to the nice dragon, free it and ask it to help her go home. Was a bit nervous about it but we did agree to meet her at the hideout once we’d hidden the horn. She seemed super naïve (I mean, who else would follow someone else they just met to a secluded warehouse to meet their “friends”!) and I did recognise her (Alison from Class A), also seems to have pissed of AJ as he just went home rather than deal with her again. When she asked about the dragon I just said that I didn’t trust her since we’d only just met her. She was from the world of Avalon, and the kingdom of Asguard, with only a magic sword, and ancient tome and some spells. Pretty odd, and definitely don’t trust her but she could be useful at some point I guess, as long as she’s not acting like a pompous idiot. We’ve still got the horn hidden away, not sure what to do with it, but for now I’m hoping we keep it – might come in useful.  

Secret Diary - Keep Out! Game 2
14/01/2022

13/1/2022 We just did a bit more digging today – There were some files on the Corrupter about him dying in jail in 90s, and was put away by champion and jenny sparks, and all the people who visited him in jail had been redacted. The Doll also talked to her father, and found out that one good approach was to pretend to be customers, follow the dealers and use that to find out where they get the supply. The records were redacted from his visitors as they were in witness protection, but it was his daughter and grandson, who was about 30. I spent some time practicing my illusions and in particular how to make my face look like Jystyna Voz whose one of those new pop stars – figured it could be a good disguise to get us inside. Schools sucked as always, but I felt like sticking it out today – Saph and Gabe did ask where I’d gone yesterday but I just said that since when I got to the canteen it was chaos, I ditched to go grab food and couldn’t be arsed to go back to school afterwards so hit up an arcade. They seemed to buy it so guess I must be good at lying   14/1/2022 The Doll’s a fricking idiot! We decided to make our move and hit up the Succubus and it started out well – I put illusions over everyone (including making The Doll look much older) and looking like Jystyna I walked up to the front of the line, demanded to be let in as my name should be on the list, then complained about my agent and bullied them to letting us in. Gotta admit, it felt good! The guys were actually then talking about doing a performance so I switched up the illusions to make The Doll look like Jystyna since she could sing, and looked human with bubble gum hair. Impulse went off to be bait and before long she’d hooked some guys and was heading to the VIP section. At that point we all headed over, an argument between “Jystyna” and her bodyguard let Velocity run through, then AJ just marched past and ended up with the doorman hanging onto him – idiot! We scattered in the room, with Impulse following the drug dealers as they panicked at a “superhero” and snuck out of a side door. Velocity and I trailed her, noticing that she was acting drugged. THEN … the Doll decided to get her hands on some of the new drug, pleasure… and she just took it. She’s clearly got zero sense – I know she’s 14 but I would have thought she had SOME instinct of self-preservation! Apparently after this AJ just turned around and left, leaving Doll on her own and drugged up… though to be fair I don’t know if he realised. Slipping out the fire door downstairs we ended up in the back alley. Realising that we were splitting up, I texted both the Doll and AJ and mentioned that their illusions might drop so to stay low until it’s gone. Impulse ended up climbing in the back of this van so Velocity grabbed me and we headed out … and AJ ended up following behind on a jet pack as they tried to shake him. Suddenly Impulse and one of the drug dealers come bursting out of the van with Velocity managing to grab them before they crashed into the tarmac, meaning we lost the van – but given that I did manage to loot some fun stuff off the dude, including his phone (which we unlocked with his own finger), a bit of cash and some of those yellow pills they were passing off. Eventually we managed to catch up to everyone on the outskirts of Mars Harbour (must be getting good sales from the Navy dudes). Realised there was something up with the Doll when she kept babbling about playlists and narcs and found out she’d ended up taking some of the yellow pills which just sucked – No idea why she wouldn’t just hold off on it and wait until after to have some fun and just pissed off at everyone that no-one was watching her. It just reminded me of Ami who had her drink spiked at one of these clubs and despite being there with a few of us she was snuck away without any of us noticing. She was found the next morning and rushed to hospital since apparently it was cut with something ugly and they’d just ditched her when she wasn’t well – took her weeks to recover and she ended up being a killjoy after that… not that I can blame her. Anyways, we decided to head over to this warehouse which was where they were based, seeing several masked goons loading bags of powder and pills into the backs of a couple of vans. The dude we’d heard about was there with white hair and a red outfit with white fur trim – looked like a real pimp. We gave it a full frontal assault – sounds like some of the guys were just holding them off until the “supers” got there but I was at least hoping to take them down properly. What followed was chaos – there were multiple Velocities running around, I set the van on fire with illusionary flames, “Snowflame” grabbed a load of drugs from the back and took a hit of cocaine which then burst over everyone, AJ slammed into him with his jetpack, the Doll cocooned him up using the navy uniforms in the crates (which Impulse had used to get them all covered in crates). At one point he was coming for me but Velocity jumped in the way… utter chaos Suddenly there was a load of lightning coming from the skylight and Jenny Sparks ended up coming to the rescue, not that we needed it since we had him right where we wanted him. That said, she did tase him which was pretty funny! She asked if anyone had taken anything and I lashed out at the Doll, snarking that she’d taken something and we were covered in cocaine so best not to see the cops. She marched over to the Doll who looked super pissed and just said “Shower and Coffee, and you’ll have a shit day tomorrow” As soon as possible I teleported away, had a dip in the sea to wash off the worst before heading back home… since me coming covered in “flour” wouldn’t have gone down well. Good thing I did as they had guests over.  

Secret Diary - Keep Out! Game 1
12/01/2022

11/1/2022 So, we hung out again after school, after setting up an obstacle course in the warehouse. I might have had a bit of a trick with Velocity while he was doing the course with a few illusions, but all in good fun! Paloma just hung by the side, swinging away on a swing she created but did take out a number of the targets we set up. Atomic Justice got a bit annoyed after he broke some of the course, and I did a bit of illusion work but unfortunately it didn’t work as I’d like – might have been using my powers all my life but I guess I do need more practice  Ended the day with a takeaway and talking about school, played video games, and then I got dragged off to have a sleepover with Impulse (literally dragged as I put some roller-skates on and got pulled through the city. I did teleport away back to my home when she’d fallen asleep as I didn’t want to risk being identified, bet I get an earful tomorrow though   12/1/2022 So… bit of a day. No surprise, got yelled at by my mum for not letting them know I’d be out late, and even when I said I was having an impromptu sleepover they seemed to get even more pissed off. I was on my way to lunch when I heard a load of crashes and screams. I snuck off and switched into my costume before teleporting in, finding a huge creature made of food, with a lunch lady the likely suspect. Since she always got really pissed off if we made a mess… I started throwing food around and yelling that she would have to clean it up,. Might have been what I intended but when the monster thing started crashing towards me I’ll admit my heart was in my heart., and it would have grabbed me if I hadn’t teleported away and dropped a water dispenser on it. The others were wading in as well (which means I guess we all go to this school) and eventually the others beat it down to the point of being a teeny little disk covered in waste. The lunchlady started running, but I just teleported in front of her and hid the door with an illusion, while Atomic Justice ran up behind her as a hulking mass. She started to yell about how we didn’t see her and kept making a mess which pissed me off so I started screaming back at her – whatever I said must have worked as she just seemed to give up at that point The pompous principle charged in demanding answers but at least I didn’t have to deal with him since I just called the police. Freaking Archangel turned up at the school then, and started talking about how we’d” broken less rules” and” we’d done a good job” – super pompous and didn’t even laugh when he’s suggested the disk smelt of magic, and I suggested it smelt of leftovers! Adults suck. Ended up having to be questioned by him afterwards, and we never even got lunch, so I ditched school after for some AFC and video games, I didn’t want to face all the dumb gossip afterwards plus I definitely didn’t want anyone to get any ideas over who I am. In the evening everyone went back over to the hideout, and did our own stuff – and I’ll admit seeing the twins chatting together quietly kinda pissed me off, so I threw the controller out the window, felt a bit bad afterwards since Velocity had to fix the window back up. Seems like he can read a book and just remember everything which seems pretty handy Just after Paloma got back the radio mentioned a party drug going round being distributed by a costumed villain called the corrupter, and targeting various raves. We decided to take him down which I’m glad for, lots of my friends go to those raves so if he was putting them in danger he was going down. We also picked up some clothes ready to sneak into the next rave which is on Friday at the Succubus club. We got some info on him but could really do with more, especially since we couldn’t find anyone matching his description (which Zion gave me) on the video cameras around any of the clubs he’d been seen at.  

Secret Diary - Keep Out! Game 0
08/01/2022

8/9/2021 Pretty dumb, but Gabe suggested I start a journal so I could “get my feelings out”… Not sure why he thinks I need to do that, but whatever, I’ll give it a go. It’s got a lock on it so I guess I can be open with it. It’s a Tuesday. I had school. I did manage to sneak a letter into Vince’s locker that was a pretend love letter from Saph, so that was pretty funny. Ignored my parents and listened to some awesome beats. Yeah, this is pretty dumb.   9/10/2021 Another day of the mundane, sometimes I don’t know why I bother. Stuff is so boring and everyone just lives in a façade of idiocy. Like, it’s all rebuilding and stuff, and you’ve got the “saviours of the world” just plastered on the news, and their kids just strutting around milking it all in. They have it so easy, I’m sure their parents are really supportive. Meanwhile mine can’t even stand to look at me. I don’t care, they’re just background noise. At some point I’m sure it will come to a head but for now we keep up our own façade.   7/11/2021 I could kick myself, but someone found out about my powers. I didn’t notice anyone and teleported after a particularly sucky maths class, but the next day this 14 year old came up to me and started bugging me about my powers, saying that they wanted to work with me . Get this, they were even dressed up in this fancy lacy number with frills and bows – super sickening! I got out of there but have a feeling that’s not over.   24/11/2021 Today was… interesting. We had a school trip to the planetarium and while looking around there was a crash and this dumb ass dude attacked attacked. Super load of chaos, kids running everywhere, but that 14 year old from a few weeks ago was there and grabbed me, tugging me into a quieter corridor. She asked to team up to try and take this loser down, and to be honest I was pissed so agreed, creating an illusion of a lilac and blue suit with a jester hat so no one would know who I was. Together we took the loser out, I used my powers to teleport exhibits on him and the kid had some ability over the plant life which was scattered around the planetarium as decoration … actually didn’t take too long for us to get him all tied up and covered in rubble and tied up in a plant cocoon, at which point we both ducked away, changing back and going our own separate ways. I’ll admit I had quite a bit of fun!   25/11/2021 So, Paloma was waiting for me after class. Did look odd and Saph definitely gave me an odd look but I just said that she’d lost a bet against me and must have come to pay me back. I ducked away with her and we had a chat. Apparently their father is The Dandy, which explained the clothing choice I guess. For a 14 year old she was alright though and that power over plants was definitely something so after the adrenaline rush of yesterday I ended up agreeing to team up for a while and have some fun. We’ll see how it goes at least, worst case scenario I ditch her.   3/1/2022 So, turns out that Paloma knows a few other kids with powers. She won’t say much about them but I’ve at least agreed to meet them at some point. She apparently goes by the name “The Doll” with them, so I said I would have a think about what I should be called – I definitely am not interested in more people knowing who I actually am- she’s one too many as it is.   5/1/2022 Not as bad as I was expecting, they’re a bit of a group of do-gooders, but at least the other girl (Impulse) is pretty fun – seems like someone I can get into hijinks with. There’s another guy (Velocity) who’s got a really similar costume so I guess they’re related (maybe brother and sister?). He looks like he’s got a bit of a stick up his ass, but I can probably work on that. Lastly there’s that dude from school who is basically built into a mech suit. He’s pretty bullied I think but don’t know much about him as he’s a year above me, and he calls himself Atomic Justice…. I’ll keep it quiet that I’ve had my fun with him in the past! I decided to go by Trickster – feel like it suits me pretty well!   7/1/2022 Ok yeah, they might be do-gooders but again, that was pretty fun. We were hanging out briefly when we heard something about an incident downtown on a radio so we headed down to find that there was a dude dressed in some kind of Alligator or Crocodile, being a bit of an idiot. I mostly stayed to the background chucking around illusions and teleporting stuff at him. There were some really annoying journalists there so after Sharkey (aka Atomic Justice) smashed their car a bit I made a pack of illusionary dogs to go chase after them. Right at the end Jenny Sparks and Champion actually turned up, definitely made myself scarce then!   8/1/2022 Yeah, pretty fun evening. After the joys of school (I did bail part way through to get some Atlantean fried Chicken) we met up at this warehouse that they had found, and after a bit of messing about there I persuaded Impulse to go on a motorbike joy ride, racing Velocity. I’m sure the owners won’t miss the bike! Funniest bit about it was Velocity was the one who got caught, whereas Impulse and I got off scot free! Oh, and that crocodile like villain we dealt with yesterday, not only is his name Anaconda Crocodile, he has the pet name of Noodles online! Awwww diddums

LOG 7 – Underwater base – 07/02/2022
07/02/2022

We headed over to where the Doll suggested that the underwater base was based on the stories she had heard from her Papa. Sampson was our guide, taking us out during the night so we were harder to see. Didn’t take too long to get to the random patch of water we were looking for so we headed under the waves while Sampson headed off to another part of the ocean ready to be called back to us.   Was nice to have a proper swim, even if it was night – we did find a formation of rocks with a ventilation cover and a keypad, with Atlantean runes on it. The Doll spelled them out using seaweed and I pressed them in at which point a load of old mechanisms opened up an airlock thingy so we could go in (had to wait for AJ since he wouldn’t fit, but talked about why we have some stuff in the water and some outside of it, and why soggy food isn’t super appealing and that humans tend to complain about being underwater all the time while we waited for him)   It opened up into a room with scuba gear and equipment racks, clearly not touched in a very long time especially with the lights flickering and just lots of dust. Apparently back in our timeline the crown was being studied in the lab so that’s where we headed first… but of course as soon as we did that the alarms went off and a few gun turrets came down and started shooting at us, or at least at some illusions while the others destroy them. unfortunately in smashing up the gun turret the computer got busted, but super weirdly, the Doll ends up staring at the screen and her eyes start flashing crazy- I pulled her away and she just said that the crown was under the communications hub and that the computer told her… she was definitely acting super weird though.   Deciding to head there, Impulse managed to figure out the code by looking at which key pads had been most worn and trying those combinations. The meeting room we entered had a few drones, but with an illusion between them they started shooting each other and thinking it was the intruder which was kinda hilarious! AJ managed to rig up one of the cores of the robots that Impulse threw him to give the all clear signal so we had a bit of quiet time, during which we explored a security safe in the next room (the Doll lead us straight there, pretty freaky) and not only did we get the Crown, we also grabbed a crystal sceptre and a man’s beard.   With those in hand I figured we were done, but the others decided they wanted to check out the hanger. Seemed pretty dumb to me to go exploring when we had the fricking Crown of Atlantis, but I certainly wasn’t going to just leave it here or at the rebel’s hideout, so caved and went with everyone else to the hanger bay. I guess in the end they were right (not that I like to admit it) since we found this Atlantean military shuttle, still hovering so clearly working, and would be super useful … could even take us into space! I guess I was pretty surprised, but I managed to teleport it out of there and into the Dolls base – I’ve never teleported anything that big before so I guess that’s pretty cool. Think the Doll named it Taarna, which is a decent name I guess, think it’s something to do with the music she listens to? Anyways, with that done, we FINALLY teleported out of there and back to the base.

LOG 6 – The Bunker – 06/02/2022
06/02/2022

So, we had a joyous trip upstate, bundled in some crates that were loaded to trains and then a lorry, they did start searching it at one point but luckily the driver paid them off so we got dumped on the side of the road and the lorry driver headed off. We went to the site and given our not brilliant German skills the Doll used the nearby tree roots to create a tunnel into the building. We ended up in a storehouse where I just disguised everyone as guards (and AJ as a crate) and we started rolling it across the building. Some of the guards were talking about a VIP (luckily Velocity translated) so when we were part way across, the main doors opened, and not only did this world’s version of the Dandy (Eitler Mann) steps in, but crazily enough, another version of me also walked through the door. He was saying something about having a personal interest in her heritage, and assuming she was cooperative her unique talents could be very useful to them.   The Doll peeled towards the two, but rather than join her I kept with the others since we still needed to sneak in, and to be honest my brain was super overloaded, trying to work out how the hell there was another of me, especially since I’d figured my parents were dead or frozen.   We continued downstairs, just pretending that we were doing exactly what we were supposed to, which worked like a charm as always. Inside was some crazy experiment shit, with dudes floating in green liquid in these tubes, and of course loads of scientists around. We pushed the “crate” through to one of the other rooms with the scientists who were apparently waiting for something so they just directed us to slide the crate into the corner. While this was happening we saw the Doll leading Eitler Mann and the other Trickster through to another door.   While stacking up the crates we started to coordinate a plan, and the speedsters created a number of duplicates using the crate as a disguise. When we were ready I was ready to provide my distraction… in the form of a couple of massive bears appearing and causing a bit of a ruckus. Didn’t take too long for stuff to get crazy , with vast quantities of the speedsters running around and attacking the guards, AJ literally used a drill on someone’s chest and smashed up the place so much that it started to collapse, and I pretended to wreath my hands in fire and threatened to blow up the place, before rushing towards where the fake Trickster had gone, especially as the Doll sent a message to say that “Evil Trickster” was on the way … and pretty much at that moment she popped into the centre of the room and locked eyes with me.   It was actually really freaky, as almost immediately she burst into manic laughter while staring at me. I ran over yelling at her and she started almost talking to herself saying that she thought she was the real one and I was the copy, but I’m much more substantial. At this I tried to touch her, but my hand just passed through her.   I was freaking out at this, particularly since she started asking whether when we create illusions of ourselves, we kill them when we’re done with them. She said that she was created in the reactor room in Professor Echo’s base, and that when that rip in reality happened she was pulled through and ended up here, with no-one coming to help her.   I’d decided to experiment a bit thinking that if she was one of my illusions I could change her – and as soon as I did that she started to fight with me. I immediately stopped but I guess I learnt she’s got control of her own form… and I don’t. She also said that she was looking for a way back home and Eitler Mann had promised to help … she didn’t trust him, but she was hoping to use them at least, and with the ability to teleport figured she could ditch them as soon as she needed.   I guess that’s when I figured she really was like me… finally someone who gets it! Might be a bit of a mistake, but I asked her why she didn’t come with us. We’re of course working towards going home, and at least she seemed amenable to pissing the Nazi’s off.... I mean, I don’t trust her fully, and I dunno what would actually happen if we do manage to get home and I have a living illusion, but she’s like me, and I can certainly imagine how she could have felt. Plus, she’s too dangerous to be running around.   So… by this point Velocity had found the “Declaration of Independence” so we called all the others over, including the scientists and one of the unconscious guards. The Doll had reappeared at this point but no sign of Eitler Mann, and with a small seed planted by the Doll we split the group to teleport back out of the bunker and into the trees. The Doll asked to make sure she went with me but AJ and Impulse at least trusted her to teleport them…. except that she did manage to teleport one of the scientists into a tree!   Not long after we were out a huge tree erupted from where the bunker had been, with a couple of branches looking like it was flipping us off.   So, anyways, we were stood around with 6 random Nazi scientists who just seemed super grateful that we’d saved them, and a few unconscious guards. Initially just talked about taking them to the resistance, but my twin pointed out that we would be just leading them to their execution … weirdly enough some of the others seemed cool with that and yeah, we didn’t want them to identify us but seemed a bit cold blooded – till my twin suggested that we just pop them somewhere in the wilderness – that was a lot of fun, as I left my guy up a tree on a mountain… it did at least have a village close by!   Well, we decided to call my twin “Nebula”, since she kinda came out of that weird cosmic energy back from the Reactor. We agreed to teleport back to Central Park, yet again splitting the group, and then pop everyone to Lilith’s apartment, that said my teleport was a little wonky so everyone ended up split up. Hilariously, Nebula was in charge of the disguise for AJ, and she made him look like Inspector Gadget, after he requested a big trench coat and hat   I quickly popped to Lilith’s apartment to scout it out, but as soon as I got there I realised there was something wrong. It was all torn up and the secret cache was entirely empty… so no way that we could use it for hiding people. I just popped over to the hideout and found Samson who was sorting through a large crate of air cylinders and scuba gear for the others. I asked him if there was another safehouse that only a few people knew (Lilith, Maketh and Tyrone from another cell) and was quite new, so I got the details from him and headed over there to check it out before popping back to the park.   Everyone was just waiting around, with AJ over by Nebula and talking, so guess they’re getting along? Though pretty sure Nebula was teasing him, I recognised that smile! I filled everyone in and mentioned the old busted apartment … at which point the Doll mentioned a traitor in the resistance. Like seriously, she could have mentioned it earlier! So, super speed getting everyone settled in the hideout and then get everyone over to the hideout.   Still just Sampson there, gave him a bit of a drilling about where the others were and whether he trusted Lilith, plus the Doll gave me a bit more info on what she had talked about with her not-dad and we agreed that we needed to talk it through with Lilith and the others asap, and at least it did seem like Sampson trusted Lilith, and he seemed a bit too … slow … to be the traitor. We also decided that we should just leave uncovering the spy to Lilith herself since we had plenty on our plate!   Anyways, we gave Lilith some coordinates and I teleported us there too – going to the equivalent of the Doll’s hiding place in the other world – turns out this place had it turned into “The Fuhrer Memorial Grounds” but she was at least able to make a nice new hideout there that we were able to sneak into with Lilith and have somewhere to talk privately.   Speaking of Lilith, she turned up just as the Doll was finishing up. It was bit rough and ready but certainly worked well enough. Anyways, the Doll finally spilled more info on what went down in the bunker. Apparently she ended up actually talking to EitlerMann a bit more frankly rather than just tricking him – guess that’s not a surprise since she literally doesn’t know german! Apparently he is part of the Foremost Nazi Supervillain team who hunts rebels,but the Doll seems convinced that he was just faking. I dunno if I believe it, the Doll always seemed pretty attached to her Papa so I can imagine that she’d jump on any chance to think the best of him. He apparently had a black dude with him though (called the White Knight lol) which at least gives it a bit of credence.   Apparently he was hoping to use Nebula’s blood to do something with Atlantean tech (pity we started our crazy attack before he had the chance to try and fail cos that would have been hilarious!) As we mentioned her we had to fill in Lilith on our new “friend” and that she was a illusionary copy of me that gained sentience in a reactor/cosmic rift incident, and that we’d hidden her away with a load of Nazi scientists we saved… she seemed a bit overwhelmed at that point especially when we handed her the declaration of independence, but agreed at least to look into the whole traitor thingy while we decided to hit up the underwater base to look for the crown.   Stuff was happening on the Space Centre side of things with some major project starting, and some object crashed into the ocean but with the heir revealed felt like Atlantis had to be our priority – plus once Atlantis was raised we could leave a lot of retaking the world to them… at least that’s what I’m hoping! Maketh was at her job which is why she wasn’t around, better to carry on like normal so as not to arouse suspicion.   Anways, I’m just sitting here while the others are watching a dumb video about how to use the scuba equipment that they got for us- I did have some fun with creating illusions on the screen while the video was going on but figured it was a good time to write all this stuff down.

LOG 5 – The Dream, Breakfast & Planning – 06/02/2022
06/02/2022

Well, after our last foray we all headed to bed, and at least a few of us had a similar dream- or at least it sounded similar. It was pretty weird to be honest, there was this barren rock floating in space that I was standing off, and I was watching the stars around me going out. Then there was this huge but indistinct form above me, with huge eyes staring at me… really freaky, though “apparently” the Doll had a dream about being chased by Bananas instead… pretty sure she’s joking though.   I’d already been thinking about why we were here, so I at least suggested to the others that the eyes could be the one who bought us here – since we all arrived together despite being apart, and the first person we met lead us to the heir of Atlantis, and of course the others are the kids of those who raised Atlantis last time. I did also ask Abel about whether there was a dream related super, and he knew one but they were more nightmares than dreams, so less likely to be someone messing with us?   AJ started to look for breakfast so I might have had a little fun with him, creating an illusion of bacon and eggs. He totally took the bait and came back round looking kinda pissed off – it was really funny, he is so easy to tease! I first said that I was super hungry so must have accidentally created it, then the others waded in since he’d tried to grab them not knowing breakfast it was  We were still messing about when Abel came through to see what the fuss was about, and I mentioned being so hungry I created the illusion of food – he was pretty nervous at that and I said not to worry, it only happened when I was really hungry and it was entertaining … cue indignant AJ! Realised I’ve been calling him AJ for a while now to his face, but I guess he doesn’t mind.   We spent ages just talking about what we would do over our bowls of delicious cereal. Eventually we just decided to scope out the space control centre place and then get smuggled up to the bunker with the paperwork in it so we could liberate it and blow off some steam. I did get some info so I could teleport over there if needed but we decided to go the slow way, just in case.   Anyway, yeah, the Space Centre was pretty well defended; there were towers full of guards, lots of patrols and cameras. The street itself was busy, and Impulse noticed that there was a hotel opposite that could be a good vantage point to try and teleport in. There are some vehicles that could be a good way to get smuggled in, and the speedsters could probably get a tower taken out before they let off a peep. AJ also noticed a fuel tank area which could be a bit of a danger if it got exploded so that’s something to be careful of. Velocity left a duplicate just to keep an eye on the place while we headed off to bunker ville

LOG 4 – Breaking into the Records – 05/02/2022
05/02/2022

Our mission went pretty smoothly all things considered. Hearing loads of confusion and shouting in the direction of the nightclub the distraction was definitely happening, so we headed through the tunnel and Velocity smashed through the concrete wall into a small corridor. Through a small slit I could see rooms with lots of books and records on a number of shelves, with two armed guards and two researchers or I guess keepers of the records. So, pretty easy, both the twins made some duplicates, and after teleporting us in they took care of the guards while I threatened the researchers with burning their records … I love people who are easy to manipulate! I also slammed up some illusionary walls where the doors were to make sure they didn’t try to scarper.   They directed us towards the census records so the speed readers began churning through the records looking for what we needed. We didn’t quite get to the exact information on who our heir was before the gunshot that the guard Velocity was taking down got a reaction, as we could hear pounding on the “wall” and shots for explosives to blow through. We’d at least got to the point where we knew the info we were after was in a pile of records that Velocity had identified, so we grabbed them, I grabbed a random other load of records and books just because I could, and I teleported us all out to the tunnels in front of the bunker, before heading back out to see if AJ and the Doll needed a lift   When I got there, I got to see the Doll catapult the Nazi AJ out into space using a huge slingshot, and even better, apparently they’d already destroyed his rocket pack, so hopefully that’s the last we get to see of him! There was however a tank trundling towards them so I put up a quick wall illusion (complete with anti-Nazi graffiti), let them know that we’d been successful so we just headed back.   We got let through into the bunker where they had been watching the TV broadcasts talking about a terrorist attack, so Abel at least was pretty happy. The twins finished off their research and found the last person matching the bloodline, “Priscilla Montgomery”. She was executed along with her human husband in the 70’s. Additionally they had a daughter but no record of what had happened to them.   So….at this point Maketh spoke up and said that Priscilla is the name of her grandmother…. So yep, we found the heir I guess? She seemed a bit blown away and was a bit pale, but yeah, guess that was crazy news, and definitely makes me feel more suspicious about what was going on. I mean, what are the odds that we crash land into a basement right next to a resistance member, who just so happens to also be working with the heir of Atlantis, where the others would probably be some of the only people who had specific knowledge of how to raise Atlantis, considering that their parents were the ones who helped raise it in our world. Yeah, even I know the name of the queen, and that it was her crowning that raised Atlantis, but we certainly didn’t get taught her genealogy, or the exact location of where the crown was found.   Anyways, not a huge surprise but that moved all our focus to where the crown had been hidden in our world, which was apparently an underwater bunker which was previously owned by Dr Destruction, and subsequently used by the Aquarian. It being underwater would probably cause an issue for the others, but Abel suggested scuba suits (that would take some time to get hold of, but would take at least a few days to source), and AJ suggested using a camera to get me a good look in there so I can teleport us there.   There was also a discussion about how similar our timelines were, but after talking about the fact that we had already seen that there were some people with Nazi duplicates (AJ, Stormrider, The Dandy at least) we figured that they had to be pretty close. Also turns out that Dr Tomorrow, the only super who was working with the resistance, was actually Dr Destruction… and was killed a few weeks ago.

LOG 3 – Creating our plans – 05/02/2022
05/02/2022

Anyways, they had a safe-house so ended up disguising everyone and we headed through a load of sewers and tunnels which looked dug by hand, till we got to their high tech metal doorway. Approve of their security measures, since we got “disinfected” and had guns aimed at us when we got there (until Lilith gave the right passcode) – we then met Abel (with crazy tattoos!), Samson (pretty quiet) and Maketh … more on her later!   Lots of questions and talking, I wasn’t really paying a huge amount of attention since I was still thinking of Atlantis, but they effectively talked about them helping us if we help them, in particular requesting that we go after the “Declaration of Independence” that was being stored in a Nazi Bunker under lots of security… which they were hoping to use as propaganda to rile up the population against the Nazi, and with us helping them, they would then help us get home.   Velocity and AJ ended up at each other’s throats at one point, but not much of a surprise with tension running high. It changed a bit though when they bought out the map to help us see where the bunker was. Atlantis wasn’t even marked. My first reaction is that it was because Atlantis had been destroyed, but the others suggested that it was because it hadn’t been raised up. Turns out the Germans had dropped some depth charges into the water, but of course the V’sori had also bombed the underwater Atlantis and their parents still managed to raise it.   That bought up a bit of an alternative, and despite myself I started to feel some hope. If we raised Atlantis, by finding the heir and crowning her, then it could turn the tide of the war, especially with the technological advances of my race, and not only that, but my parents may still be alive, frozen under the waves.   At this, a thought that had been circulating my mind came to the front and I told the others that if I was doing this then I wanted to do it as myself, finally taking off my wig and revealing my identity. With the people I wanted to protect dead, frozen or never existing, there didn’t seem much of a point any more.   As we discussed what the impact would be of raising Atlantis and what we needed to do in order to make it happen, I heard a voice in my head asking if I really thought it could work. Turns out that Maketh is one quarter Atlantean (on her Grandmother’s side!). We kept talking while conversations in the room continued, looking at where the census records are being kept which could allow us to trace back their family, whether a power plant might be a good place to destroy as a distraction, and whether we should be trying to get into Dr Null’s laboratory as this might be something which helps us find our way home. Apparently the lab is in the same place as Von Brohn’s Space Control Centre   At this point Maketh joined the conversation again, suggesting that some recon was required before trying to break into the Space Control Centre, but she had an idea about getting us into the records building, with a load of the nearby nightclubs very popular with Nazi Officers, and could easily serve as a distraction plus an embarrassment for the New Order. She initially meant blowing it up, but since we were not happy about potential innocents being hurt, they switched the plan to music and smoke bombs.   With that the plan was set, with the Doll and AJ causing the distraction in the Nightclub, and the two speedsters and me breaking into the records building via a tunnel that the Doll would create for us.

LOG 2 – Finding out where we were - 05/02/2022
05/02/2022

So, now I’ve covered how we got here, now I can talk about where the hell we are. Our entire group woke up in some crummy basement in a slum area – based on the German advertising, Star City skyline but with Nazi symbols everywhere, and what we found out at Professor Echo’s base, it didn’t take us too long to put together that we must be in Erde, the world where Germany won the war… which sucks.   With the sound of rumbling tracks and small jet engines approaching I panicked a bit and disguised our clothes and teleported us into one of the nearby apartments, where we met Lilith.   Unsurprisingly when we teleported in she was a bit … startled, but we started bombarding her with crazy questions (from her perspective), and were at least able to confirm that we hadn’t moved in time, and that the “Ubermench” (I guess supers?) all worked in the German Army.   Lilith got a bit more canny here, figuring that we were keen on not being questioned by the Nazi troops outside (bought here by the energy signal from whatever teleported us here). The Doll yelled at her and threw the couch across the room, busting a hole through the wall and into a stash of machine guns and explosives. She dived for the kitchen, but realising that now neither of us wanted to get caught Velocity suggested a truce, with us hiding behind an illusion of the wall that I would create.   She agreed and we hid, hearing hard voices and in fact the voice of the fake AJ who was yelling about a “Shtermdreider” (guess who) and that others may have come thorugh with him. They’d also tracked someone else down who was escaping on foot to the northwest (Apparently the description looked like the Doll, so guess it’s either that weird kid, or the Dark Doll), so pretty quickly they all disappeared off and it all got a bit quiet.   We popped out of our illusionary hideout to have a bit of a chat with Lilith. She asked if my skin colour was actually real, and at first I didn’t even really thing of what she was asking. When she figured I must have been an Atlantean I’ll admit my blood ran cold. I couldn’t help ask what had happened to them… but in hindsight it was pretty obvious, given how they were so focused on their ideal Aryan. When I asked if there were any left she couldn’t even confirm there were… meaning for a while though they were pretty much all wiped out.   I lost focus on the conversation then – thinking about my parents (apparently the others might have a german version of their parents, but I definitely won’t), my friends, our entire society and culture wiped from the map as though we never existed. I mean, I grew up in Atlantis, where most of the population is Atlantean (even if apparently the superhero population is not). I’d never understood the phrase “like a fish out of water” so well…   I know that there was some mention of Australia being a bit of a haven, Glorious Japan taking over the lands to the east while the Reich had Russia, America, Europe and a bit of Africa, and being at war, and whether we try and find Dr Null and see if he has a lab in this version of Star City too. I did create some illusions at one point of some of the superheroes we knew, but only the Dandy rang bells, apparently called “Eitler Mann”. Apparently their leader is Dr Vielhelm Volf, and there’s a number of other ones, like White Knight and The Overman.   Lilith jumped in at this point and asked if we would be willing to help – apparently they didn’t have any supers on their side and the last one they had was killed a few weeks ago. I did suggest that our focus was on getting home but we did all conclude that we were willing to help out, especially if they would help with getting us around providing information – this is such a nightmare place that if we could change that even in some small way it would be worth it, even if it’s not our own world. I guess normally I’d be bit more suspicious, but I just didn’t know what to do… I still don’t.

LOG 1 – Getting to Erde - 05/02/2022
05/02/2022

Day 1 in Erde, and I’m definitely not a fan   I guess the first thing to cover is how we got here … which to be honest is a bit of a question as I’m not entirely sure.   Today started out pretty standard, with us just hanging out at the hideout (The Doll was off somewhere else but the rest of us were there, messing about and looking at this old arcade machine Velocity picked up).   Saph sent me a message with a video of AJ attacking a Casino (even though he was standing right next to me at the time) Of course, us idiots decided to head over there to wade in, even though it was really obviously a ploy to get us there, but we were so confident we could just deal with whatever came our way… easy to manipulate.   AJ called the hero association and let them know that there was an evil doppelganger of him, cue extended questioning but ultimately the news that there were a few big incidents happening across the world and there wasn’t anyone else to help. Red flag number 2.   None of us could get hold of the Doll, although a weird kid called “La Poupee” with a similar style and powers sauntered along to “help”. Red flag number 3… though I don’t know if she was actually involved in the end, she might just have been actually trying to help.   We just charged in with our disguises (apart from AJ) and saw pretty much a swarm of villains robbing the place blind. Initially I focused on creating distractions (first the sight of our team swarming into the building from the other entrance, and then a load of the others parents coming in from the other side. The Doll arrived during this chaos but quickly noticed the weird other Doll and had a few choice things to say!   Anyways as the others scattered to deal with the ice guy (since he was freezing the whole place, one dude in a domino mask wandered over to me with a grin, asking me to drop the illusions and ask my friends to stand down. Felt something trying to control me but I’m pretty hard to control, so I just gave him a grin and a sarcastic response. At that his expression fell, and he instead had some normal dude who was hiding nearby walk up to him and hold a knife to his throat. I tried to teleport him away but I just couldn’t get them to take hold, probably something to do with the other guys influence. Out of ideas, I did drop the illusions, but also let he others know that there was a villain here who could control people so wasn’t super long before he had fabric shoved in his mouth, punched in the throat and thrown out the doors we’d entered by.   Meanwhile AJ had put his evil German version in a bubble and kept waring him down, and the dude who was throwing Bola’s fired at velocity but he managed to dodge, while the Doll made a huge Frankenstein plushie out of the poker table fabric. A few other villains joined the party at this point, one apparently called the firebug, and the other was a lady in a white dress. Velocity ran in and nicked their loot as well as the hostages and ran out. Impulse ran out and completely pounded the firebug into the dust leaving him broken and bleeding   I decided to turn my attention to the guy in the Bola, dressed as a desperado I figured he could probably be manipulated by a pretty woman – so of course I made myself one! Beautiful body, sparkly dress, one of those voluptuous models with super unrealistic bodies… easy enough to head over, put a sword to his throat and start flirting, and boy did he flirt back.   Didn’t take too long before he started talking about what was going on – they would get the loot and their employers would get what they wanted… a distraction. Apparently, someone’s eyes had turned to the death ray and energy cells that had been confiscated from Professor Echo, and given that most of the superheroes were dealing with the stuff going on in Tokyo it was figured that this would pull in any other superheroes who might have been left, leaving them free to do their business.   Looking around, the weather witch was being swallowed by the Frankenstein plushie, and although the other woman was still free I figured wouldn’t be too long before they had cleaned up, so I suggested to “The Bola” that we have a bit of a jaunt over towards the inner city where this would be going down. Putty in my hands, so he agreed and I teleported us both away, meaning to let the others know at some point when I’d seen what was going on.   Pretty much the last thing I saw at that point was a huge hole knocked in the building, the sound of energy weapons discharging and a huge flash of blinding light – then darkness.   As I said, not sure exactly what caused us to end up here and why we did. I mean, there was definitely something going on in the Hero Association building I headed to, but the others seemed to think it was to do with the German AJ. It sounds like maybe La Poupee ended up here so guess that leads credence to it being to do with the casino and German AJ… but then I wasn’t really close by at the time. The other consideration is that the Bola was nowhere to see, and I ended up in the same place as the others even though I was nowhere nearby…. It definitely feels like someone is manipulating us, especially given who was nearby and who they lead us to….and if someone was targeting us particularly, gotta ask why us?

Secret Diary - Keep Out! Game 12
04/02/2022

Fri 28/01/2022   Had the “honour” of Super Buzz Kill giving me a lesson. He spent ages just talking about himself and how amazing he is. He actually is a decent competitor against Principal Tremerus as the greatest windbag in the universe, though I still think the Principal wins that fight of the ages.   At least he is easy to distract and manipulate so far, he started prying into what I thought my weaknesses were and just got him talking about himself again. Like I would actually tell him anything about me that he could use against me! Apparently it’s the duty of veteran heroes to guide the younger generation, which means he’s probably going to be harder to get rid of, kinda wish it was just cos he was being paid or whatever. Course, still not entirely convinced he’s not working with one of the guys we’ve obviously got the attention of… Though if that is the case he’s a really really good actor.   I had a little bit of fun, but he ignored it most of the time – think I pissed off his bees though :D   Did hear a bit about a few other superheroes/villains though including some Atlantean ones. Maybe it’s dumb, but I kinda like hearing about them, makes me feel less alone and less like a freak, even if we’re really few an d far between. Sounds like Neptune uses water control and Mirror Mask is just good at fighting – they’re fairly new to the scene as well which is kinda cool.   My parents keep bugging me about my project yesterday since I was out much later than planned, so might need to actually do one to keep them off my back.   Sat 29/01/2022   Man, it really sucks being grounded on the weekend. Just a load of waiting around in my room – I did ask the Doll about my supersuit and she said she’s been sorting something out for me and should be ready in a few days – rather looking forward to it!   Mon 31/01/2022   I was so pissed off yesterday I didn’t write anything in my diary, but to be honest nothing actually happened so real waste – ended up annoyed as my parents gave me a talk at the end of the week saying about what I’d learnt from the week, and they were proud of me for asking to leave on Tuesday rather than just running off… (still not told them about Thursday, and not really planning to!)   Anyways, turns out my parents talked to Saph and Gabe about whether they knew about my superhero antics, so I got bugged all afternoon by them asking about it and what kinda stuff I’d been up to. Of course I got the “I can’t believe you never told me” and the disappointment, they should be used to me being a disappointment anyway!   Tues 01/02/2022   One month down for this year, 11 to go. Does make me think about how crazy stuff has been so far this year, I hadn’t even met the others at this point, though Paloma had mentioned them. It’s escalated a lot, and especially that shit with the reactor has felt rather above our pay grade. Still of two minds about that, I mean we did manage to fix the issue and stop it blowing up, but if we hadn’t gone there then there wouldn’t have been any risk of it blowing up, and it’s really the first time I’ve seen dead bodies up close and personal. Guess I’ve been putting off thinking about it too much, especially since no-one should really know that we were there.   I keep thinking about the mistakes I made, leaving that Floyd dude alone even for that short period of time, not being strong enough to hold on the that invisible guy and having him almost sucked into some other dimension, whether or not we should have told anyone. Makes me think we should be more careful... but then that itch to just go and do stuff is still there.   Anyways, more talking to Saph and Gabe, mainly about the other guys in my “team”. Not going to give anything personal up since that’s not my secret to tell, but to be honest they obviously know AJ anyways, even if by the name Sharkey.   Thurs 03/02/2022   Yet another few days of mindless nothing. The Doll sent me a message that my super suits were ready so I popped over to pick them up – they look pretty close to my illusion version but they’re really comfortable, less random fabric flipping around.. Makes me feel a bit more sneaky and harder to tie down – I like it! The wig as well is pretty good, lots of clips to keep it firmly on the head but pretty quick to fix in place, and means that I can use less concentration on keeping up my own appearance.   Additionally, spent some time with Impulse at her favourite Dojo. Obviously, know I’m not going to just immediately pick this stuff up but at least feel a bit better trying to deal with one of my weaknesses.   A bit of stuff about the whole Glomco incident ended up on the news but no mention of us, so glad to keep it that way.   Fri 04/02/2022   Glad schools over for the week, gotta hate a pop quiz. Spent some more time with Saph and Gabe, think we finally got through my more public adventures (so no mention of the drugs dealer or the reactor incident, but we kinda covered everything else). Think they’re not so used to me being so paranoid so they roll their eyes whenever I ask them a probing question, but they at least seem to have accepted that this is my life now – Saph thinks it’s cool and keeps trying to think up new ways I can use my powers, Gabe is always quiet – think he’s a bit worried about me but I at least know how to take care of myself.   (last entry)

Secret Diary - Keep Out! Game 11
27/01/2022

Thurs 27/01/2022 cont The labcoat guy turned out to be Professor Echo, who could apparently copy powers – glad the others said that since if they hadn’t and I’d teleported near him since then he’d definitely be gone! He was yelling out for “Mordrid” which turned out to be some robot minion he had to protect him, and ended up with AJ, Impulse and Velocity all heading off to deal with it, and apparently having a pretty epic fight with it by continually slicing off his limbs.   Meanwhile the light in the pit started pulsing erratically and whips of energy started shooting out dangerously.   I sarcastically asked Professor Echo whether that should be happening and he just started calling us pipsqueaks and that it could end up blowing up Star City… which would not be idea. His kid seemed smarter than he was since APPARENTLY it was a feature that it would blow up if interfered with rather than a bug, and even the kid could see the issue with that! Duh! Luckily the Doll still had him trussed up in her Jellyfish plushie so he couldn’t move – sweet trick!   Apparently the professor didn’t have a plan but did mention his research notes were in a vault in his office that only he could open. I initially thought we could fly him over the pit, but seeing the energy whips suggested that was a bad idea, and since I didn’t want to teleport we ended up going the long way around to his office, and while running through the complex we could see cracks snaking through the walls and concrete falling to the ground, and alarms continually going off.   Having got to the office the professor did open the vault, and I popped in to grab his laptop – did find some other interesting things in there too – a ray gun, some weird police badges that didn’t match up to any countries I would have expected, and a can of Rock & Roll Spaghettio … not a bad haul!   The professor started pulling up his schematics and talking about exactly what needed to be done … not like we could really understand it – I started to try, but the Doll instead gave me some coordinates and a photo for me to try and grab someone who might be able to. Teleported there, but managed to get my foot stuck in a trolley. Definitely startled the dude I found there, apparently someone called Dr Floyd Williams. Started to ask him how hot he was on his reactor tech and cosmic rift stuff, but gave up and just grabbed him, informing him he was coming with me.   Back at the underground base, tugged him into the office and once he recognised Paloma he started to finally get a clue as to what was going on and pretty quickly ended up talking shop with Professor Echo. He seemed to get a view of what needed to be done, so I ferried him over to the reactor, back to see if I was needed with the cable stuff, but when I ported back Velocity was already on the case so back to Floyd.   Pretty sure it was barely 30 seconds since I was there but I guess that was long enough for him to get stabbed, as he was slumped over the console with a knife in his back. Couldn’t see anyone else but heard a whisper “The Outsiders Will be Done” so great…. Invisible assassin.   Luckily I had that can of Rock & Roll Spaghettio which I whipped out and gave to Floyd to keep him going and his mind off the pain (and on the delicious taste of Rock & Roll) while I called for AJ to get over pronto, after a bit of confusion he started to heal Floyd, while I panicked and made many versions of myself in the room to try and confuse things in case the invisible assassin was still in. Luckily the Doll came over too and she could sense the fabric in his outfit so slammed him into the reactor and then covered him in glitter – definitely made him much easier to see that way! While taking him out, Velocity took a knife and feel unconscious after staggering back. Wasn’t too long before he was knocked out, and Impulse ran over to her brother to help him.   The dude materialised in a full body suit with an Omega symbol on him. He’d nicked this crystal from the death ray which we were able to put back in place, and finally Floyd was able to flick a few switches and reverse the polarity of the death ray (or some shit like that)   Seemed to be going well, until suddenly a tear in reality appeared across the side of the wall. It began sucking us towards this vortex, and I ran over to the other unconscious invisible guy to try and hold on to him, but he slipped through my fingers. Luckily before he fell through this void AJ jetted over from nowhere and grabbed him, while the Doll caused these weird plants to erupt from the tear and start knitting it back together. After another moment the rift was repaired and we all fell to the ground exhausted but all accounted for. The kid (Chibi Lotus apparently) was a bit freaked out but we distracted him with a few stories from our other escapades… did have to broach the subject that we weren’t going to be letting his father go and that he needed to get locked up to stop him doing more bad stuff. He did seem to get it though was pretty sad about it, no mother but did have some cousins that he figured he could stay with. Kid seemed to be one of the only ones who got that the easiest way to keep your relatives safe was to keep your true identity out of the wrong hands. Finally! Though the others did suggest that there were advantages and disadvantages to both… except they all have superhero family so whatever.   There were some noises coming from the landing pad, so AJ and Impulse went to check that out while we headed off towards the tunnel out that AJ had made, just in case we needed a quick escape. Wasn’t super long before AJ called the doll. He even asked her to warn me in case I wanted to scarper, but by this point I had had such a rough day (almost died, almost had two other people die on my watch, realised that if I had died then my parents would never know what happened to me…) I just decided to hell with the consequences and I’d see what happened.   Wasn’t super long before a guy in dumb armour turned up telling us to hand the professor over so they could cuff him, but before he could I got in the way and in his face, trying to get him to confirm who he was… he got super prissy with me but eventually said something to that Floyd dude which confirmed his identity, just as Professor Echo started to try and use Dolls powers against her, so he got the cuffs put on him. We also cuffed up the dude from Omega.   He remained super prissy about it going both ways but duh, he doesn’t know who I am so I could tell him anything! Anyways, he could confirm that the Doll was who she said she was and since we had the code word thing set up became pretty easy after that. Apparently though, he ended up having his pants pulled down while drinking! Anyways, once he simmered down slightly he did at least say it made sense, as could have any number of evil weird doppelgangers running around, and a load of different worlds (like one where the Nazi party won the war, reckon that the police badge I stole might have something to do with that!)   We tried to explain a bit about what we were doing here and why we were in the lair of a supervillain and messing about with space time continuum and didn’t get more back up than a voicemail to Stormrider like maybe calling in Alpha force from the start? Of course, we’d managed to stop him AND save the island, but apparently that wasn’t enough for him since we were just kids, and we were trying to save the day ourselves rather than get someone with more experience. Dunno though, it might have pissed me off (and DEFINITELY pissed Velocity off since he just freaking ran off!) but after the crazy day we’d had I could kinda see his point. Didn’t let him know that he’d got to me though! Didn’t help that it turns out all the scientists upstairs were all stabbed and dead which really sucked – I’ll admit I’ve not seen much in the way of dead bodies before so it shook me up a bit more than I would like.   Anyways, having had to deal with that I popped Chibi Lotus back upstairs to his room and we all headed back, a bit later than ideal but I just told my parents that our project work had run on and headed to bed – glad my illusion magic could at least make sure I didn’t look bruised and battered from the days adventures.

Secret Diary - Keep Out! Game 10
27/01/2022

Game 10 Thurs 27/01/2022 cont   Anyways, once he disappeared upstairs we got our heads together to come up with a plan. We figured we could probably get down there but at the moment we had clear instructions not to go downstairs. We split, did a bit of a scout out and upstairs there was a suspicious room above us but one we needed a keycard – quick distraction from the Doll and a quick teleport and we had one from the security in the garden. They looked super freaked out which was hilarious!   Whole place seemed pretty sterile though, pretty sure they don’t actually live here, even if the kid was there, they even had this big martial arts studio, and super fancy rugs over their super fancy wooden floor. I dunno, seemed clinical? Anyways having got the key card we snuck upstairs and tricked the guards by pretending to be sweeping for bugs and that we saw something in the garden (disguised as the guys in the garden) – they knew the guys we were disguised as by name so they definitely let their guard down. Weirdly enough they were monitoring air traffic it looked like! There was of course a tonne of security cameras, and between huge robot thingies, blue crackling lightning and just a hell of a lot of minion people in helmet and goggle combinations, it was definitely evil lair to the tee.   Having checked out some faces from downstairs we were set for our infiltration. There were some big suits of armour or robots so that’s what AJ became, with the rest of us being standard minions. Downstairs there was a dude on watch but barely a blink and the Doll wrapped him up and had him bundled into a store room. We then headed towards the side with that blue lightning stuff, there was a super weird machine with these metal balls which seemed to be continually generating this lightning, and a person inside this tube in the centre of the room. After teleporting everyone through the lightning room I headed upstairs with Impulse and AJ, while The Doll and Velocity tracked the thick cables.   Upstairs there were people pressing lots of buttons. So many buttons, and talking all super technical. I disguised myself as the weird swarmy dude who hired the mercenaries, and went up asking for a report. Kinda sucked at getting much info to start since “The professor” was the one calling the shots but somehow managed to persuade them to give up some info, including that they were doing some freaking thing with a death ray pointing at an cosmic energy rift which was somehow going to be making a super strong reactor, which they were going to use to power a large army of mechanised security troopers. I mean, how cliché an evil plot can you get? Seriously!   There was also literally a minute or so before it reached capacity so I panicked and pretended we’d had some kind of call to say we were compromised and yelled at them to switch it off. Surprise surprise they did but also triggered the alarms, and wasn’t super long before heard crashing from where the Doll and Velocity had gone. Did help reinforce that they really needed to cancel the test which I guess is good, they seemed very keen on getting it shut off shall we say! AJ headed off to bust through the building and upwards so we had an escape route, and Impulse and I ran towards where the other two had gone (Impulse obviously faster!)   Was a pretty crazy sight when we got there, that weird blonde kid from before was all floaty and sparkly and pleading with this other dude in a labcoat, which the Doll and Velocity seemed to have been fighting based on how beat up the area was, but at the time I got there the Doll created this cute plushie thing with the tablecloth and was giving the labcoat man a hug.

Secret Diary - Keep Out! Game 9
26/01/2022

Game 9 Wed 26/01/2022   Anyways, feeling paranoid, I got everyone (including me) to answer questions about themselves just to double check they were who they said they were – got ribbed about being paranoid, but duh, we just got completely taken advantage of and I was really worried about the horn. I then implanted a word in everyone’s heads that we could use to identify each other. Gave Sharky the horn since he had somewhere safe to stash it, and the Doll suggested that she might know someone who could help us get a new hideout that was a bit safer.   We decided to head over to Sharky’s parent’s RV, one of the sucky things about teleporting is I kinda need to know what it looks like to do it. I was hitching a lift on Sharky and after apologising for ditching him he just said “bit too late for that” and went as fast as he could. Seriously made my face feel like putty and if he hadn’t grabbed on I definitely would have splatted. We got there but took a little time for me to get my bearings as feeling super unsteady.   Sounds like we are going up against some dude called Dr Knole whose a time travelling clone of Vector who has a moon base, has powers to clone himself and a bit of scientist. Sounds like originally he was part of Omega and while saving the world Vector disappeared but another Vector (the current one) came and took over his role – however the original got pissed and became Dr Knole. Sounds super crazy to me! I guess pretty important though is that the guys did know a bit about his powers – apparently he doesn’t have a healing factor and isn’t as quick (ONLY the speed of sound lol) but is much better at hand to hand combat.   Bit more chatting, sounds like the Doll wanted to deal with the “Dark Doll” herself, and yeah, I think that’s fair – she’s the one who she took the appearance of, and yeah that sucks. We said we can be there as back up but she’s pretty strong so doubt she’ll need us. She also had the backup of the hard drive so suggested she take a look at it and we meet up again tomorrow.   Got asked a bit about “Buzzkill” and yeah, mentioned that I’d told them and they exploded into paranoia so he was theoretically my tutor but I had a feeling that he was more of a minder. I did acknowledge that my powers were pretty sweet, and there was definitely stuff Mirage could do that I wanted to try, but you get up close and personal with me and I’m not particularly great so might have to join Impulse at a dojo.   We had a bit of a look into “Omar” who was the founder of Glomco, and turns out he has two mansions, one in Star City and one in LA. Wasn’t much more we could do so we headed out, agreeing to go to Star City tomorrow to see what we could find!   Of course, stripy pants was at home when I got back, complaining that it wouldn’t be as easy for me to give him the slip next time. Lol, doubt that! I bluntly told him that I couldn’t trust him, so we went to check in with my parents. Yeah, turns out this is the dude they hired…. Seriously. Apparently he was “highly recommended” by some dude at dad’s work. After we agreed to meet up on Friday (said I was busy tomorrow!) he left, and my parents did ask whether there was anyone I would trust… but I dunno if there is anyone – I can’t ask any of the others parents, they’re already busy with their own kids, and the other ones all seem like they have a stick up their ass. I really wish there was someone I could say, but it sucks.   I dunno, I’m trying here, but it all just sucks   Thurs 27/01/2022 Well our new base is awesome! Doll managed to get one in an abandoned aquarium – had to go there once to start off with but now we did that I can just teleport us there. We also double checked with our code word and got a new one. Seriously, this place was amazing, it even had a glass bottom so there were fish swimming right underneath us. Apparently the Doll has already named a load of the fish, including her favourite, Dio! She also had some techno stuff with a massive display, and had made binders with the info from the hard drives. Sounds like a lot or porn, but probably more interesting was the death rays, and the fact that there was a tracking device in the case that was stolen (but so does the Dark Doll). Also apparently there was a dude called Gerry Anderson in Star City who was his Glomco contact.   The guys asked if I could teleport all the way to star city…. But I’ll admit that I just went nope – maybe at a push, and I guess if I’m not going to be using my powers much it might be interesting to try and see if I can, but I’ve never gone that far before. So, instead, apparently the twins can run on water, and AJ can obviously fly, so that works I guess.   We went to the mansion first just to scope it out – the Doll raised us up and we had a bit of a peer in – a few potential ways but definitely well guarded. Pretty quick we just decided to head to the office block instead and broke in. Hilariously enough, even though the Doll created a massive flower to rise up on, like, no one seemed to bat an eyelid. Guess what they say about the number of supers in Star City is true.   The office itself was dull, but Velocity did manage to find some Nazi reading shit, gun and most interestingly some documents, including a super power serum which makes people kinda lose control of their powers (duh, what we found in the Mall), Mechanised android combat drone plans and readouts of some new energy source thing. At this point the dude comes back, so velocity cleans up and I port us out. He ends up on the phone and I ported over to hear better.   He ended up calling Dreadnaught as the “final components were being delivered” and he wanted an outfit of supers to help protect it, including someone who could see invisibility and one who could detect listening devices. Turns out this dude has a major vendetta with Stormrider, so wasn’t long before we put together a plan to disguise Sharky as his dad and see if we could lure them away. While this was going on Velocity disappeared for a while but he did turn back up pretty soon.   Sharky tried to get some additional info from his dad about it and got some, but apparently he was mid fight so didn’t get much – surprised he got any at all! Anyways I piggy backed on Sharky again and disguised him, as we headed over to the docks which is where we thought that he might be coming from, and so he was. Initially the distraction worked well, though I was super not keen on the missiles that attacked us and pretty quickly some other supers came out and pointed out that there was something suspicious about the Storm Rider they were fighting. – I teleported off fairly quickly since Sharky had to keep protecting me and thus couldn’t move around easily. The Doll easily burst some plants out of a nearby truck and wrapped up the two that he’d bought in with him, while I ported Dreadnaught inside so the others could smash him up.   Soon as we did that, we took on their identities and headed over to the address of the reactor… the same mansion we’d been at earlier. After being shown in we were told not to mess with the bosses kid and that we were to keep anyone from going into the basement. Shortly after the blonde kid turned up, super wide eyes and asking if we were villains. Doll started to mess with him a bit and wanted to drop the disguise, which I did as well as myself. Turns out he’d seen us on the news so apparently we’re “awesome” and yeah, hopefully that means he’ll stay out of our way. He looked super naïve anyways, pretty sure anything we tell him would be believed.

Why have I been keeping my identity secret?
26/01/2022

Yeah, this is a tough one, I don't really have one reason, but I kinda wanna work through it and figure it out, maybe then I can decide once and for all whether to open up a bit more. Glad this diary has a lock!   So.... Why keep it secret? Guess the first reason is to protect my friends and parents. Yeah, they don't really have any powers so if I got on the bad side of someone and they were able to work out my real identity, then that's a hell of a trump card - really don't know what I would do, I think I would have to back down. Worse, if they were just pissed off and hurt them straight out to make a point...I just don't want that to happen Secondly.... I dunno, force of habit? like, I've been keeping the fact that I have powers a secret from everyone my whole life. and I guess life was pretty simple until the Doll found out, now stuff is all over the place, so I dunno if I tell anyone more whether it'll get crazier. Then, when I opened up to my parents I got stuck with Buzzybody whose just making me more and more paranoid that someone's watching me and is very very good at winding me up. If that's what you get when you open up, then I'm not particularly impressed. I guess it's fun? Feels like I have a secret, and especially with AJ i know he wants to know so I feel um... better? or just its kinda funny watching him ask all the time. Don't think the twins care at all, which I guess suits me... I think Um... I guess I'm scared too, with how intense it's gotten so quickly. We've definitely got their attention all right, and they know who they're dealing with, since that plant thing was disguised as the Doll, and Mirage used AJ's dad... so they know about us, they fricking knew where our hideout was and now nothing feels safe. I'm alright with the group, but if they catch me alone ... I don't have super strength or any actual fighting experience to fall back on if they come in close, and although I guess my first instinct would be to teleport away if they are coming after me directly then they are going to know what I can do so I don't know if I can trust that.... and illusions suck if you know they are illusions. So yeah... I might be pretty awesome at some stuff, but I've not exactly kept what I can do secret. If they only know the Trickster, and I keep people from connecting the dots, then they are way less likely to catch me solo. So, last thing.... I guess I don't know why anyone would care. they know Trickster, and she's the awesome one with the superpowers whose able to make shit happen, deal with obstacles and can be pretty damn effective when she needs to be. I'm ... just me. A sucky teenager who keeps making mistakes, keeps trusting the wrong people and couldn't even help Ami when she needed it. Trickster gets to be free, and I get to be locked up in my room on my own, going to school and effectively achieving nothing. Twins have it right really, I'm not worth knowing if I'm not actually helping everyone else, and by that trying to keep everyone free to do their own shit.   Ok, had to come back to this, that last bit sucked. Frick, I feel messed up in the head right now. Right, so time to look at the other side of the coin I guess...   I guess the first reason is the same, to protect my family and friends. I'm not the only one with these powers, and it's not only us kids too, since apparently I'm the only one without superheroes for parents! I guess if I let them know and say that I'm actually worried about my parents, then they'll maybe keep an eye on them? Though they've probably got better things to do that parent-sit. But... if something happened to me, like genuinely happened, I don't want them to think I just disappeared and never came back. The Doll could tell them, but if there's just a few more who know then I guess that's better, just in case. I mean, I do really trust the twins and AJ, though AJ is waaaay to trusting for his own good. They've proven themselves... I mean, Velocity saved my life when I was being strangled, and AJ ... well, he opened up to me about his own mum, and even when I slipped up about feeling a bit inadequate about my own powers he said he'd protect me, just like that. Him opening up did kinda seem to make him feel better though, guess I'm kinda jealous of that. Impulse is kinda like me but more ... bouncy... I guess... I know I've not really just talked to her as much, but I guess I feel a bit of that kindred spirit with her? Besides, she's ferocious and I kinda just know she's got my back. Thinking about it, I guess even though the aftermath of the argument with mum happened, it was a bit of a relief not to have to hide it any more. I'm pretty sure they're not going to be cool with us going up against some stupid corporation but I mean I just asked and they ... well, weren't ok with it, but did let me go. And, I guess for those blissful two days between them suggesting they find me a tutor, and actually finding out who it is, I did kinda feel a bit better and a bit more supported, like they were going to respect my decisions. Finally, just everyone seems to be telling me the same thing. AJ clearly wants to know, the Doll is the one who suggested that I talk to my parents even if that didnt turn out quite as I expected, and even StormRider gave me a dig about it and suggested it's better if you open up ... can see where AJ get's it from!   That's all I can think of.... Um.... maybe I just let one of them know as a starting point and see how things move on? But it would suck if the others felt bad if I didnt tell them at the same time I guess... Or maybe I just tell them at once and get it over with. But... does it even matter? The one who really matters is Trickster so I dunno if I'd push them away if I let them see the boring me. I dunno. If I had to pick one to tell, I guess it would be Velocity for now, especially after he came to me for help with Mumzilla, plus that way I dont have to stop teasing AJ about it. Hey, I even have some blackmail material on Velocity if I need it (though I don't think I will)    

Secret Diary - Keep Out! Game 8
24/01/2022

Mon 24/01/2022   I dunno, I was so stressed about talking to my parents and it ended up like a bit of an unevent really. They really really hated it that I had snuck out of the house to go into danger, and although they could understand that I wouldn’t sit and watch people getting hurt, that was different to going out and seeking danger. I just figured they wouldn’t approve (which they don’t, duh) but after suggesting that I hold off until I was in college or had more training, they just said they would get a tutor for me who could keep an eye on me and teach me. I dunno, I’m kinda willing to give that a go, especially if they are cool. Like, I know I need more training, our run in with Mirage very much proved that, and I guess I am kinda jealous of the others who have parents who at least get what it’s like to have powers We’ll see though… I guess I’m definitely thinking that I should tell at least the twins and Sharky who I really am. Well, dunno if the twins really care, but I know Sharky wants to know, and I guess if something happens I would want someone to be able to tell my parents.   Saph and Gabe were on me about what was going on and why I needed that excuse. I just told them that I’d snuck out to meet Zion and a couple of his friends on a spur of the moment thing and they had realised I wasn’t in my room and were waiting for me. Saph didn’t look too convinced but good old Gabe settled her down. Told them about being grounded as well, so not going to be a fun week. Evening sucked, still feeling a bit raw from our talk so a quiet dinner and then listened to music and did some research on Glomco. Turns out they have their fingers in a lot of pies, including military stuff like missiles, but most of the bigwigs have those totally manicured social media accounts, including that Austin Dexters. Apparently it was set up by a dude called Omar Cooper, who actually profited so much from the invasion that he got investigated, he doesn’t even have a social media account!   Tue 25/01/2022   Well, that was boring. Like, nothing happened at school, then I went home and waited there. Dunno, stuff is still tense with my parents, but I just feel itchy to do something and actually live rather than exist. This sucks! None of the others were up to anything in particular either, and not really hearing a peep out of Velocity at all, guess he’s still hiding.   Wed 26/01/2022   Urgh!   Ok, well today sucked, there’s no other word for it. Morning was the same normal drone as always, but just after school finished I got a message from Sharky, who had apparently been scouting out the hideouts we’d heard about relating to Dr Otaku. He broke in and grabbed a computer, then got stopped by a couple of atlanteans in armour who flustered him into giving up the laptop to them while they began to “document the break in”. After he left he realised he’d been duped but by then there was no sign of them – however there were a few vehicles leaving the area.   So… I tried! I went to my parents, said that one of my friends needed my help and where it was… and they said yes. So… guess that’s something.   We all split up, the Doll took the Glomco van, Impulse took the stolen car and Sharky and I went after the unregistered boat… that said we weren’t super coordinated with this and I’ll admit I probably should have given Sharky some warning, but I made myself look like Mirage and just teleported on board. Guy steering freaked out, but after I just said “Did you get the stuff? Come on, haven’t you seen whose following?” and he just seemed to accept it and prepare to dive (lucky I’m Atlantean since I wouldn’t have had breathing apparatus, though had to pretend I had with an illusion!) … until Sharky bust through the submarine boat and tore a huge hole in it! I yelled that we needed to protect it and followed the guy, entering a room with another minion… and Sharky … who recognised my form! I just made a tonne of Mirage illusions to cause confusion and yelled at the minions to hand over the package and I had a way off this boat. And they did! Suckers! I just teleported away and messaged Sharky to let him know Mirage was me and I had it.   Gotta admit I felt pretty proud of myself after that, figured I was a quick learner… but not quick enough as it turns out.   Anyways, pretty shortly after teleporting away Sharky called and said there was a guy from the hero association who wanted to “have a word”. They had seriously only just pretended to be authority figures TWICE to hookwink us so I just went nope, I’m not part of the hero association and hung up, but ported to the Doll, who was clearing up after the Van incident (apparently someone *cough Velocity cough* had just stepped out in front of the truck and effectively the Doll saved him, but caused a big crash, so a bit of collateral damage. Anyways, rather than take it herself, she gave me coordinates and I headed over to this amazing cathedral of plant life that she’d hidden away in the botanical gardens. Stashed it and headed over to Sharkey.   When I got there I got to meet “Buzzkill”, and boy is he one! Crazy stripy costume and a swarm of bees, including ones with little recording devices and stuff. He immediately greeted me as “Trickster, my new student” … so I guess I fricking found my tutor, and he sucks. Seriously! I did a little bit of checking and yeah, he’d been contacted in the last few days, guess that’s why my parents wanted to know where this was going down. He totally waffled on and on like a pompous windbag and started on us on the best way to deal with criminals who we’d captured. Pretty quickly I made an illusionary copy of myself and ported away just to stop having to deal with him, though once the Doll sent a message about some androids I ported over there to try and make myself useful.   Apparently he realised since Sharky rang and told me that he’d they were heading over to us since he knew where I was … he’d planted a fricking tracking bee on me! Apparently he’d just turned to Sharky, waved his hand through the illusion and said “Does she do this all the time?” The Doll helped me get rid of the bee, but rather than bail at that point I decided to try and stick it out, so we watched the ridiculous bee car approaching with a loud buzzing sound (at least he’s not going to be creeping up on me!). While waiting for my fate we had a quick look at the androids, but not really sure if there’s anything we could do about them as it’s not really illegal since we know they trade in that stuff. As soon as the buzzing annoyance arrived, the Doll fired into action and started talking appearance and clothing at him, not too long before I give up yet again and teleport again, this time to the Scrapyard to check for bees. I also met Velocity there and disguised him to look like his normal self before we teleported to the hideout.   Turns out that Impulse had taken out the car, but it was driven by a load of teenagers who were apparently borrowing their parents car without permission … so yeah, bit of a bust there, though I think Impulse had fun telling them off and making them squirm! “The Doll” turned up, and I was suspicious – when I asked her where it was, she said she though Atomic Justice had it…. But she knew I was the one who picked it up. I asked her what the last message she’d sent me was, but she did say it was the coordinates, and just sounded a bit confused so I kinda dropped it…. Don’t I regret that!   So yeah, topic of conversation was Buzzybody, Sharky was optimistic that I’d learn something, and I’m certainly going to get better at sneaking around with him around so there’s that, but yeah, not optimistic. “The Doll” suggested a plant to eat the bees, but instead I was more interested in something that would keep them off of me so “she” got to work and created a little plant that sat on my shoulder … and then the ACTUAL Doll walked in with the laptop.   My suspicions snapped into focus and I went for the laptop but that fricking plant came to life and started strangling me before Velocity ripped them off so I could breathe. Meanwhile it all started to go crazy, with AJ busting out of the building entirely, Impulse getting slapped aside by a huge vine that the fake doll created, who started to gloat, she even got a fricking call from some dude called Dr Nole? Something like that at least. The Doll had tossed the laptop bag away from her, but she just scooped them up in her vines and then pulled them in towards herself, covering herself in vines. I rushed forward and teleported them into the river but yeah, by that time she’d clearly already gone, as we were left with a fake fake doll, turned away from us and full of pollen and plant petals once Atomic Justice punched through her making her explode. There was a hole in the floor but by the time I’d gone down it to take a look I couldn’t see any sign of her, even plunging into the water.   Turns out that the Doll had actually made a copy of the hard-drive, so we weren’t completely screwed but one thing we were is paranoid! Started checking for trackers and bugs, Sharky called up Alison to make sure she'd not told anyone about where our hideout was, and the Doll and I talked about how she could have known about the coordinates.

Secret Diary - Keep Out! Game 7
23/01/2022

23/01/2022 – Cont 3   Before too long Sharky made me get rid of the final illusions on him so he looked normal (pity, but the main fun had been already had so I guess it didn’t matter. Edd had really grown on me so I did say I liked him, though Stormrider didn’t seem to think much of that and suggested that it was up to the court. Then yet again the whole “secret identity” thing came up , saying it’s better to be open than not. I went back at them that it was easy for them as they don’t need to hide and can’t even hide, but more and more people seem to be saying the same thing, and it was definitely getting to me.   Anyways, we ditched Stormrider to get nullifying cuffs on Mirage and deal with the whole “getting them to the station” while Sharky and I headed out, but quickly realised that there was shit going on at the convention centre – we saw the twins fighting with a maid who had arms transformed into a gun, and not doing particularly great against her as Velocity took a nasty hit to the face. Sharky had a super fun idea of going full pelt and then me teleporting him directly at them and it worked a charm, completely smashing into her – definitely a move we need to keep practicing!   As we caught up with the others (I LOVE being able to teleport!) got a message from Doll who was apparently at the convention centre and there was a dude who was onstage at the auditorium causing a scene , and someone called P-chan dealing with the technology – she suggested one of us look for this P-chan so of course I volunteered (fight with the maid thing not so much my style) and so I headed in. Health food area was a bust, but not too long after I found a dude concentrating on a laptop during a video panel… I might have made crazy stuff erupt from his laptop and he panicked and ran out, with me chasing him as a unicorn! (He yelled “It’s happening again!” … wow, sounds like he’s messed up!)   By the time I chased him to the big auditorium, it was pretty crazy. Some dude was on stage putting cardboard around himself, Doll seemed to be surrounding herself in weird cushions with anime pictures on them and there was some announcer dude yelling about this battle. No IDEA what was going on, but we were clearly against the dude with the cardboard so I illusioned myself to look like that maid outside. The cosplayer at the entrance asked why I wasn’t at my post but I just walked past her and started seeing if I could needle him into doing something stupid, saying “Must destroy master, master is useless”   Didn’t work super well, nor did the illusion of the naked dude on the stage, so he ended up putting on the last bit of cardboard and growing much larger in size, shouting about a final form, then going straight at Doll who was now a giant snorlax. The dolls started aiming their guns at me but Doll grabbed him into a bear hug so I teleported up onto his shoulder and ripped his cardboard helmet off. Absolutely ridiculous but he started shouting about the reactor was unstable, and his fricking cardboard backpack started glowing! The doll grabbed up both Pchan and the dude from the stage (who to be fair had to be Dr Otaku based on what we found out previously) and launched them out the skylight … so that was that.   The maids started talking about activating their final protocol, but luckily Velocity managed to persuade them not to, and the Doll started questioning them – we got some confirmation of what we’d heard before from Edd, but also a bit of info on a few of Dr Otaku’s bases (including a warehouse in Star City) , and that Glomco was being run by a supervillain – either Professor Ecto or Dr No - “Austin” was just a normal minion . They were all just required to cause a stir, showing people how unprepared to react the police and general security , so it’s all about how safe people feel with the police.   At this point there was a super big cheer from everyone as they’d been standing around in shocked silence, made a bit of confetti and streamer illusion but slipped out pretty quickly, sneaking back home Having had to deal with Mirage not once but twice, and THEN the attack on the convention centre, I was looking forward to just getting home and letting myself just digest what the hell had been going but apparently that was too much to ask! Was about to teleport into my house but realised that the light in my bedroom was on, and when I peered in I could see my pillow body in the duvet had been discovered and there was someone waiting for me in my room. Panicked a bit and went to the hideout, messaged Saph and Gabe to see if they had any emergencies I could use (Saph suggested a fight with her boyfriend if I needed to), but even as I was doing that I kept thinking about what I’d been talking to the Doll about and that I was sick of just having to hide everything, especially since everyone else didn’t seem to have much of a problem sharing their identities and being open about it.   Pissed off, I teleported to the front door and snuck upstairs, finding my mum pacing around and fiddling with her phone. She immediately started on me, asking what time did I call this and where the hell I was, but after fighting with myself over whether I try to lie and use the excuse Saph gave me or just come out and say it, I found myself asking her why the hell she was so paranoid about me keeping my powers secret She gave me some crap about it being for my own good and to keep me safe, and not having people manipulating or trying to use me plus making sure I got a “proper education”. I got back at her about how it was definitely not making my life any better and that I was helping people. She then went off about worrying about me getting kidnapped (duh, I can teleport!), and that they make cages and handcuffs for people with powers so they cant use them (like the ones Sharkey’s dad used on Mirage) Like, there are loads of people who have powers so why the hell would I be at particular risk I have no idea, especially since some of the powers seem way more powerful than mine, but I guess she’s got into a super paranoid space with all the shit on the news and that fact that Alpha force keep getting into fights and even they get hurt. Yeah…. Can’t wait for her to find out the one being chased by the dragon was me, still amazed she hasn’t worked it out! Anyways, my powers aren’t going to just go away if I ignore them!   Mum gave up at that point, saying that we’ll talk about it with Dad tomorrow rather than in the middle of the night but that this was not over, and I was super grounded (like, just school and home) for a week … I guess I’m not surprised but there’s so much shit going on right now and I’m sorry, but someone needs to do something about this Glomco stuff cos that’s just messed up! I said as much to her and said I would abide by it but if something urgent came up then I was going to do what I needed to. Started ignoring her shortly after that, so she went off, but not long after I got a message from Velocity to say that he was at the hideout and we needed to enact “Avoid Mrs Bruiser”, so I totally snuck off again, teleporting directly over there to hand over the fake ID I’d made him and let him know what hotel I’d got set up and that I was grounded :( made it quick as feeling pretty guilty about it.   Seriously, what a day, and its fricking school tomorrow

Secret Diary - Keep Out! Game 6
23/01/2022

23/01/2022 – Cont 2 I ditched the doll at the police station since she’s a registered hero and I’m not, and just headed back to mine to try and digest stuff. After writing stuff down and trying to think it through, I messaged the others with the info that we got from the minion, and asking if we wanted to hit up the theatre. Turns out the twins had a bit of a spat in the middle of the street, got dragged home and grounded. Sounds hilarious, but Impulse broke her phone, and it did mean that they had to lay low until their Dad went to their secret Lair so they figured they could sneak out. Sounds like there was something about Mrs Bruiser coming to visit based on the messages between Velocity and I, so I spent some time preparing some ID for him and a bit of blackmail material should it be required. Pretty fun! Also asked if he would mind researching whether or not my teleporting could be tracked.   I also spent some time messaging with The Doll, and it kinda made me really question why I was actually protecting my identity. My parents have always really been uppity about it, and I guess it kinda made sense to me that I wanted to protect them, and the best way to do that was to keep my identity secret… but now having a group, especially one with super parents I figure that there can be a lot of people looking out for them and in fact might be less safe for me not to tell them. Plus everyone seems to be telling me to be more open with it and I guess maybe they have a point.   Anyways, we’ve agreed to meet up later tonight at the roof of the pet store on Vine Street as soon as Impulse and Velocity can sneak out, feel like I have a lot of thinking to do in the meantime.   23/01/2022 part 2 What a night, seriously I don’t even know where to start! I “went to bed” early and just ‘ported out to meet the others. The Doll had gotten caught up at the Convention centre, but the rest of us were ready to rumble – particularly Atomic Justice since he’d gotten his official hero licence It was still crazy busy around there, cos of that anime convention next door, loads of peeps walking about in costumes. Pretty useful as a distraction and disguise though, so I illusioned costumes for us – AJ was obviously Armstrong, Impulse was Winry, Velocity ended up being Edward Elric and I went for Mustang. We headed into the theatre, few pics and started making our way towards the screens but realised that since they were scanning the tickets I wouldn’t just be able to illusion some up which sucked. Luckily Velocity stuck his hands in his pockets and procured some tickets so we headed through. There was a door at the end but there was a CCTV camera above it. Never done it before but I tried creating an illusion over us that looked like the corridor so that the cameras wouldn’t be able to see us – it was really tough though, I managed it but we didn’t have long so had to rush through the door, at which point there was a guy who yelled at us to get out. As we stepped back I teleported behind him and tried to knock him out but my hand went right through him so went and just teleported the others to behind him so we could ignore him. He was even set up to have solitaire set up on his screen! I did notice and bag a 35mm film real of “The Empire Strikes Back” … might end up being useful, or at least lucrative. There were a few cabinets, but suspiciously two of them had exactly the same labels and scuffs on them so we just passed through it and opened a door that was hidden behind, ending up in a dark set of corridors. We did a bit of exploring, AJ grabbed some chemical which had been labelled as Glomco., and the twins apparently found a plush office which had bank account records with Mirage receiving payments from Austin Dexter for “services rendered”, and which timed out with just before and just after the mall incident. Also found some account records of someone named Dwayn Wilson, which figures could be the real name of Mirage. Hearing loud music on the other side of the door we came up with a quick plan. For the lols I made AJ look like his Dad, StormRider, and BOTH twins to look like Mrs Bruiser! I myself switched to the Black Cat again :) In the meantime, AJ called his Dad and asked him to get over here as backup. So plan went super well! AJ burst in and went super crazy, yelling about ripping their heads off and destroying the projector that they were watching… It was pretty crazy but I mean, he was just letting off steam and it was definitely effective! Immediately the two speedsters ran in while they were all stunned and completely took him down together! Like, smashing him between them like a ping pong, chairs on the head … the works! And boom! By the time I teleported to the back of the room, getting ready to surprise from behind, he was completely unconscious, and Edd was there getting ready to start smashing, and I had a rather fun idea! I created an entirely naked version of Edd on stage and got him to start doing the hula in front of everyone! The reaction was hilarious, Edd ran over to the illusion and tried to hide it from everyone and at that absolutely burst out into tears, wailing about why we were all so mean! We did a bit of intimidations (the minions with guns dropped them pretty sharpish) and started grilling Edd for information… which was like taking candy from a baby to be honest. I knew StormRider was coming so wasn’t too concerned about him escaping, but I’ll admit I started to feel a bit sorry for the guy – He didn’t see too much wrong since they weren’t robbing houses and everything was insured, and they were breaking the capitalist system (which is what Mirage told him). He liked Mirage since he didn’t make him just hit people but let him do other stuff too, and couldn’t get another job cos of his rap sheet. They’d been hired to try this experimental drug from Glomco on some people from the mall – it wasn’t at a specified time just on a particular day (which made me feel way better about the whole “it’s about us kinda thing”) They robbed a few tills on their way out, and the operation was considered “broadly a success”. Turns out they have a plan to destabilise the city and create demand for security, which Glomco could then supply. They’ve got a number of jobs out to other villains in the area – one is a job for Doc Otaku to steal a rare item from the convention auction tonight. There was another artefact (one from the V’sori invasion this time) which is being held at the museum in star city and apparently the thieves guild is going to nick. The final news (saying I was SO close to letting him go) was that the thing with the Dragon was another of those jobs from Austin, and there’s a bounty of 6 mil for anyone who returns with the horn… which we still have hidden up in the hideout and made me super conscious that there were totally videos of me leading the dragon around! I just told him at this point that he was not cut out for this – he seemed like a nice guy but this was not the line of work for him! I guess calling him nice threw him for a loop as he said that he’d never been told that before! At this point Stormrider crashed into the room… and hilarity ensued! What he saw in that room was two Mrs Bruisers, and another person who looked like him, a comic book character and all the villains completely subdued! He FREAKED OUT, and panic called I guess Vector, telling him that two of his wife was here and she must have worked out how to duplicate or clone herself – He then said that he was busy on a date (amazing acting by Vector and Impulse here!) and called someone else who didn’t seem particularly phased about the whole thing! At this point AJ stopped the fun and asked if I would break the illusions … I thought about it and at least switched his out so he was a double height version of himself. Meanwhile we de-masked Mirage – turns out he was a slightly chubby but normal looking guy, starting to go a bit bald – Stormrider suggested that illusionists were tricksy like that – which I definitely enjoyed! He then said it was our bag so up for us to work out what to do with them. During this conversation the twins decided to bail, I guess thinking about them having snuck out (definitely glad I kept their illusions up)

Is it all linked?
23/01/2022

Right, my brain can't stop turning this around now so I'm gonna write it down and see if it leads anywhere... maybe Impulse has a point, maybe it's just all a coincidence.   1. Noodles - he was kinda just there and so were we, but it wasn't immediately where we were, so not sure I feel if we were connected. We also hadn't teamed up at that point. Could be the first opportunity for someone to have got their eyes on us, I guess apart from the Doll and I...   2. Lunch lady - Thinking back, it was at our school so of course we were there, and it was a bit out of the blue that she suddenly started using her powers against us kids. Could she somehow have had some of that superhero juice? Some attention as videos made so could have been a sparking point but it wasnt super crazy.   3. The Corrupter - We sought him out so dunno if he was linked. Since it was all at a night club and warehouse on the docks not much attention, unless we pissed off someone who was the mastermind behind the drugs. Only thing I can think that links this is that the original corrupter died, so I guess either the powers were hereditary or he got them some other means......   4. The Museum - It happened on our school trip, so if it was related to us then they have some info on what's going on at our school. There was a very clear reason for them to attack though as they were after the horn and post dragon I can see why. we've still got it so can imagine that painting a target on our backs if someone wants it.   5. Mirage 1 - the Mall - We did just so happen to be there in the mall when they attacked which is a crazy coincidence... or not! But, I didnt know the others were there, so either they have some way of tracking us, or it's not all of us they are after but instead a particular one/few and they've got a way of tracking that person.... or it was a coincidence. They were there to experiment, and it seems like that was experimenting on what happens when regular peeps are fed that supajuice and go crazy, but I guess the experiment could have related to us? like... what we would do? or how our powers worked? He's a mercenary so was hired for this rather than his plan   6. Mirage 2 - the theft. We sought him out this time, but somehow Alison both knew about what was going on and could give us a steer towards him even though she wasnt there at the mall. She also goes to our school and so would know what was going on there including the school trips. Unless there's some outside info there or someone's been careless, she probably only knows who Sharky really is so is that who they are targeting? I'm also suspicious that they were just after money since in terms of power feels like that would be easy to come by so could it be more an excuse to lure us out? Though I guess if he was just after money that makes sense, but if he was hired for it then that seems really unlikely   Why? 1. We have powers, so they want to use us to experiment on for their formula or to fuel it or something ... doesnt actually matter that it's us, just that we have powers. 2. I'm an Atlantean and it's much rarer for us to have powers (just look at all the supers I've met so far!) so I guess the could want to look at how I ended up with powers? 3. We have the horn, and thus access to the dragon, and they want it for either general power or cos they have a plan 4. The other's parents - between Mrs Bruiser, Jenny Sparks, Vector and The Dandy, that's a pretty crazy lineup and sure they've made enemies in the past. 5. Something to do with our school - few of the fights have been related to school, so could be someone there is the connection. 6. One of us has pissed someone off. I guess from one of our earlier escapades.... but could be completely unconnected 7. There's either something that we dont know or something that someone's not talking about 8. It's just a coincidence. The lunch lady could have just had that bad day, we sought out mirage and the corrupter, the whole heist on the museum was to do with the horn rather than us, and the mall might have just been at that time for no reason, or cos of that anime signing thingy going on.   Conclusion I dunno, but I trust Alison less...
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Character
World
Γαῖα
Category
Player Characters in People
Author
DarkerLink
Publication Date
21 May, 2020
Creation Date
21 May, 2020
Last Update Date
22 May, 2020
Visibility
Public
Views
239
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