xx49.07.29 | 21:23 | Still Tuesday

So. Yep. Mum and Dad. Here in Powerstone City. Didn't see that one coming. I really thought they were ... well actually I had no idea where they were, but I didn't think they'd be HERE.

I guess I should start at the beginning. Here's the message Daniel sent me:

Hey Curls. Worst luck, huh? Turns out Mum and Dad were in Powerstone as well. As soon as you got there your Opal synced itself to the local nets and they picked up your OID from that. Guess what they did first? Yep, you guessed it, they blocked me from contacting you. By the time you get this it'll be too late, because I figure they're not going to release the block until they track you down. So say hi from me, and do me a favour, tell them you forced me to send you there. No sense in both of us going down, right?

Hope you're at least having fun in the 'big city'.

Daniel

Everything happened pretty much like Daniel predicted. Mum and Dad tracked me down to Motoplasm's base, beat up most of the gangers outside, drove the rest off, and then grounded me. Kind of. Okay, not really, but ... well, I'll just write down what happened.

"Daaaamn, Charlie! Your ma be SMOKING!"

Dad looked at Shade, then at me.

"Who is this perceptive youth?" he asked.

Mum wasn't in quite as good a mood.

"Charlotte," she said, "would you care to tell me how, precisely, you came to put yourself and C2 in this particular situation?"

And so there were explanations. Lots and lots of explanations. And some arguing. And some yelling. But mostly explaining. C2 was great, and even Motoplasm kind of supported me, but there wasn't much that could be done. But still, no punishment. Not yet, anyway. Now C2 and I are in our shared room, Mum eventually sent us in here to get some rest before tomorrow—but I'm getting ahead of myself. Um. Kind of trying to figure out where to start writing about all this—maybe with the ironic part. At least, I think it's ironic. Maybe not? But anyway, we didn't need to come here. I mean ... we didn't need to sneakily come here to do some secret investigating because Mum and Dad were going to bring me here anyway. Like, tomorrow. That IS ironic, right? Apparently ... apparently, I should have given them more credit. That's exactly what Mum said to me:

"Charlotte, you should've given us more credit."

"Lotte, I'm sincerely disappointed in your lack of faith," Dad said, which really hurt, actually. "Did you really believe we were doing nothing?"

"That's unfair!" I said. "That's so unfair, you didn't tell me anything, you just let me believe you were doing ... I don't even know what, just doing tiny little slow useless investigations or something! And Mum, how did you even HIDE this from me, you can't lie!"

"By choosing my words very, very carefully. In some cases rehearsing."

"Huh. That seems a little excessive."

"Lotte, you have to understand how important it was that this was kept a secret."

"Oh what, you thought I'd BETRAY you?"

"Not intentionally," Dad said. "But as your actions today have proven, we couldn't trust you to stay in Seclusion."

"So you thought, what, that I'd just get captured or something and give EVERYTHING away?"

"Charlotte," Mum said, "what's happening tomorrow?"

"You're bringing together as many of your old allies as you could contact in order to create a new team of superheroes to fight the supervillains all together WHICH IS SO EXCITING."

The way Mum smiles when she's scored a point over me is INFURIATING.

"Okay fine so I can't lie, that doesn't ... that doesn't..."

"I'm sorry if this seems like a betrayal," C2 said, "but your parents' reason for not telling you about this does seem sound."

"We didn't even tell Daniel," Dad said. "Partly because we knew he wouldn't be in the slightest bit interested, but also just in case he let something slip to you. Lotte, it's not that we don't trust you—"

"It's that you can't trust me," I finished for him, kind of miserably.

"Cheer up now anyway," Mum said. "No more secrets. Well, not for a little while, at least. Leroy and Malcolm are the last to be invited, and so all of our careful preparations are complete. Tomorrow we'll have fun shopping for new clothes! You as well, C2, I know you haven't got any money but don't worry, we're rich, we'll pay for you."

Which totally embarrassed C2, Mum is SO tactless sometimes. I know she can't help it but ... but BLEH.

"It's an enormous relief to finally tell you, Lotte," Dad said. "You don't know how many times I've wanted to, over the last months. I knew you'd be more excited than anyone else."

And I am excited. Truly, utterly, fantastically excited, I mean a NEW fellowship of superheroes? Knowing that now we're actually going to be doing something against these supervillains? That everyone's going to be fighting together, not just me and my family and C2 but SO MANY supers from the old days ... it's amazing. I'm going to be part of a superteam, of a GENUINE superteam, just like before The Event, it's so exciting I can barely breathe.

Even so, right now I can't feel totally good about it. C2's right, my parents' reason for not telling me IS sound, but still ... it hurts. They couldn't trust me because of my curse, in case I got captured or the supervillains somehow got in contact with me ... I know it's not really 'me' but ... but I don't know. It hurts, that's all. I really hate this honesty curse.

Anyway. I told them about C2's theories and actually they seemed pretty open, but at the same time kind of dismissive—later on C2 made a good point, that they must be preoccupied right now thinking about security issues and that kind of stuff, it's a really big deal bringing together so many supers, nothing like that has happened since The Event and we know the supervillains are smart and sneaky, we have to be so careful. C2 also made another good point—I'll just write down what she said, it'll be easier:

"If a new fellowship is going to be formed then discussion of objectives and possible leads will almost certainly be part of the meeting. This would present an opportunity to bring up the georod plant and the powerstone."

"I guess so," I said. "And the drugs too, they're definitely weird."

"Yes. I'm almost certain that they will be of interest to the others. Even if you do not, Mr Johnston would perhaps raise the issue."

Which kind of got me excited again, we're really all going to be working together, pooling resources and information, this is why superteams are SO important, there's only so much that a person can do on their own. I mean, look at me! I'd be completely stuck if it wasn't for C2, I wouldn't even have known to come to Powerstone! Which ... which might've been better, actually, but let's not go there. The point is that she's good at lots of things that I'm not so good at, but I'm good at things that she's not good at, that's the basis of a superteam, right? Everyone covers each others weaknesses. And we'll watch each others backs, too, that's also really important—okay, NOW I'm getting properly excited. This is going to be amazing, we'll investigate the drugs properly, and the georod plant, and maybe organise some kind of rota for 'powerstone watch'—because I just KNOW the supervillains MUST have their greedy little eyes on it. Protecting it has to be a priority. And of course the others will have ideas too, and potential leads, Lightning White's going to be there and he's spent the last ten years in Dzodestra, he must know HEAPS about what's going on there, and Trigger Harpy is coming from Horne, TRIGGER HARPY! Sorry, I got a bit excited then, I just can't believe that I'm finally going to meet all of these legendary supers—even Envy Death is going to be there! I know she used to be a supervillain but even so, she's a LEGEND. Even though her power isn't that impressive, it doesn't even have its own power icon, it's classified as a form of reverse empathy even though that's not really accurate, although now that I think about it I can't really think of a nice snappy name for 'stirring up negative emotions', 'negative empathy'? Negempathy? No, now I'm just being silly. Ah, but you know one person who's NOT coming? Apart from Daniel I mean, of course HE isn't coming, he hates parties (or so he says, he's never actually been to one). Really he's just more of a 'support' person, which is actually fine, support is important for superteams, I mean Dad says all the time how their collective would have just fallen apart if it wasn't for Mr Falchion. He helped them focus their efforts into really doing good. He's going to be there tomorrow, I'm sooooo nervous about meeting him, maybe more than anyone else. He's not exactly a legendary super but he's so smart and so amazing and pretty good looking for an old guy, he definitely pulls off that elegant silver-haired look really nicely and I kind of love the amazing suits he wears.

Um, anyway, I didn't mean to distract myself so much then, I was talking about who ISN'T going to be there. Give up? CHASS. Hah! He's not even invited. Mum and Dad think he's untrustworthy and I TOTALLY agree. There's just something weird about that guy, right? And not just because he seems to get off on annoying me, he's just ... just WEIRD. And he's not even a super! That actually led to kind of an argument between me and C2, she thinks we should give him a chance. Her reasoning is that he hasn't acted dishonourably, I mean he hasn't broken his word or lied or anything like that. That's not really the point, though. There's some pretty hard stuff in his file, just because he's acted okay recently isn't reason to trust him. Right? He could be, I don't know, it could all be an act, and do we actually know anything about him? Like even his real name? Where he comes from? He just kind of appeared a few months ago, that seems really suspicious to me. (I've been reading his files a lot lately, apparently when someone annoys me I get a little bit obsessed with them.) Anyway, even though it's so clear to me that we can't trust him I don't think I got through to C2. Maybe I'm just not good at arguing, things are clear in my head but when I try to tell other people what I mean they usually just don't get it.

Just had a huge yawn, maybe I should get some sleep. We're still at Motoplasm's, did I mention that? Mum and Dad and Motoplasm and The Force are all talking in the living room, of course I totally want to be there too but no, off to bed Charlotte, you've had a busy day Charlotte, you're nothing but a child Charlotte. So now C2 and I are in the spare room and Shade is ... actually I don't know where Shade is. I don't really trust him, either. Too, I don't know, too 'easy'. And I don't like the way he flirts with C2, that's TOTALLY uncool. Doesn't he get how sensitive she is? She's not prepared for that kind of stuff!

Getting angry now, maybe I'll stop this entry. Oh, just one more thing. Mum and Dad didn't come here in Mum's spaceship, they came by car. Yep, their old supervehicle, I didn't even know they still had it, I thought it got destroyed when they were fighting NullSync (the first one, with machine empathy). Apparently not, though, because right now it's sitting in The Force's garage. It's a really old-fashioned Impaler, deep metallic blue-black, big long curved front, massive engine at the back, huge thick rear wheels, just totally impractical but kind of cool I guess. Dad seems really happy to be using it again, I guess because unlike Mum's spaceship he can actually drive it.

"What do you think, Lotte?" he asked me, when I went out with him to get it. (All of the gangers were gone by that point, Dad got some private security guys to arrest them.) "Pretty cool, huh? And just a little more subtle than the old 'invisible jet'."

I looked at the big long ridiculous car, then I looked at him, then I looked at the car again.

"Yes," I said. "This is totally inconspicuous."

Kind of surprised my honesty curse let me get away with that level of sarcasm.

Just yawned again, and C2's already asleep—we're sharing a bed, I thought C2 might be more uncomfortable about that but actually she seems fine. Anyway, I'm pretty sleepy and like C2 said, there's nothing more to be done tonight. I might as well try to sleep.

After all, tomorrow is going to be a HUGE day.