xx49.07.30 | 08:23 | Still Wednesday

Finally have some time to take a breath and update. I'm in Dad's car, along with him and Mum and C2. We're heading for the city, the proper city, or true city, or city centre or whatever. Apparently we have an appointment, Dad wouldn't say anything more than that and Mum is remaining suspiciously silent. She keeps smiling, though. That can't be a good sign.

Anyway, we got Little Mercy back to Motoplasm's base without any problems, nobody even really looked at us funny, I guess people around here are used to minding their own business. Motoplasm wasn't surprised at all that we brought back a guest, although it wasn't until later that I found out Chass had sent him a message. He sent me one, too, just 'nice work with Mercy', not even signed but of course it was from Chass. That guy is just so creepy—I mean, what, was he WATCHING? Thinking about it now, I wouldn't be surprised if Motoplasm asked him to keep an eye on me and C2. He let us go kind of easily. The more I think about it, the more likely that seems. Hmm. Motoplasm's great, obviously, but I don't get his thing with Chass. He trusts him way too much.

Anyway, even though I definitely do NOT trust him (Chass I mean, of course I trust Motoplasm), he is kind of useful. He's already found out some stuff about the drugs, tracked down where they came from, don't ask me how. Apparently he was too late, though. The chemists were dead and their lab was trashed. Not recently, either, Motoplasm said that Chass said it must have happened at least six days ago (again, don't ask me how he's so precise, probably just guessing to try to look smart or something). Apparently either the lab was destroyed by regular gang violence, or by someone trying to make it LOOK like regular gang violence.

I will (grudgingly) say one good thing about Chass, at least he takes this supervillain threat seriously.

Oh, I guess I should write about what happened with Little Mercy. She was still unconscious when we left, in Motoplasm's little jail. We took out everything like chairs and stuff because we (well, Motoplasm) figured she'll start throwing her power around once she wakes up. So all that's in there now is a plastic bottle filled with water and some leftover pizza in its box. I think Motoplasm might have been impressed with me using his power, he was surprised at first but then when I explained he ... well, he didn't seem upset, anyway. His attitude towards Mercy is really weird, though—it's like with Shade, who APPARENTLY is also invited to the thing tonight, WHAT? Motoplasm and The Force are vouching for him, I don't get it at all to be honest. Maybe he's a super, but there's a WORLD of difference between being a super and being a superhero, doesn't anyone but me understand this? I thought Dad at least would be on my side but no, "We need all the help we can get, Lotte, and you can't judge people before they've acted". So we're supposed to just trust everyone even though this thing is supposed to be so TOTALLY secret that they didn't even tell their OWN DAUGHTER about it?

Anyway. At least Little Mercy isn't invited, although to be perfectly honest I wouldn't have been surprised if she was the way Motoplasm goes on. Here's how the whole thing happened, I'm only writing it down because I still can't believe it:

"Hate to put her in here, but right now we don't got a choice."

"What do you mean, 'hate'?" I asked, as Motoplasm locked the door. "She's bad! Really bad, she was going to shoot C2 in the head!"

"Was she?"

"Yes! She definitely was, you weren't there, you didn't see how she was, or how she talked, she was going to try to kill C2!"

"Calm yourself, child, this ain't worth getting worked up over."

"But ... but ... yes, I think it IS worth getting worked up over—and maybe there IS a choice here, maybe we could get the police involved. The proper police, I mean, I'm sure Mum and Dad could get someone competent to lock her up or whatever."

"Now what on this glorious earth makes you think the police are capable of handling a girl like that? What happens when she wakes up and starts acting the fool, throwing that power of hers around?"

"They ... I'm sure they could ... well, all right, what if we gave them some of the drugs? We know they subdue powers—"

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"Child, think for a moment and I know you're gonna realise that ain't a good idea."

Okay, so NOW I get what he means. We still don't know what the drugs actually do, apart from making powers weaker. Shade's okay now, and he's got his power back at full strength, but ... I don't know, I guess Motoplasm's right, we can't just use something like that without knowing more about it. At the time, though, I said:

"What's so bad about it? We need to weaken her, make sure she can't hurt anyone else, why not use the drugs to kill her power then hand her to the police? What are you going to do tonight? You can't bring her along, and if you just leave her here then you KNOW she's going to bust out—or her gang's going to come along and get her, and probably wreck this place while they're at it. You and The Force will both be at the thing, how are you going to protect your base?"

"I ain't particularly worried."

I'm still not sure what he meant by that. Maybe he's got secret defences or something, I don't know. Of course, sending Little Mercy to Jailer's floating prison would probably be the best option, but we couldn't get in contact with him.

"Look," Motoplasm said, while I fumed a bit, "just think this through. Even if we drugged her up and handed her over to the police, that's gonna wear off eventually. What happens then, once she tries to blast her way out—and you know she's gonna. How do you think the police are gonna reply? Because the way I see it they've got two options, they either shoot her to death or they call up Mr Red & White to cart her off to one of their 'special' prisons, and I honestly don't know which of those would be worse for the poor child."

"Poor? POOR? Didn't you hear me when I told you she was GOING TO KILL C2? Just like she would've killed all of us just to get her drugs back, and she doesn't even know they're special! She just thought they were drugs! Maybe she DESERVES to be taken by the military!"

Motoplasm sighed and shook his head. "She's a foolish, cruel little girl, but she doesn't deserve that. Nobody does."

Which kind of made me feel guilty. Last year, in Emerald Hill, even though Veronica Flux and The Head and whoever else was involved got away, one person didn't. I don't even really want to write his name, but he got taken by the military. At least, I think it was the military. I'm not entirely sure, at the time I didn't care what happened to him, I just wanted him as far away from me as possible. Now ... now I still don't want to think about it. But I do feel guilty.

Anyway, at that point Chass's messages came through, which kind of broke up the Little Mercy talk. I tried to get Motoplasm to tell me why he trusts Chass, but he just said something about good guys sticking together and that was that, apparently. Then I tried to get him to tell me why he lets Shade get away with so much, and why he's being so soft towards Little Mercy, but he just shook his head in that sad way of his and said:

"You're young, child. So are they."

Which quite frankly I don't get at ALL.

Anyway, after that my Opal pinged, Mum and Dad telling me they were going to come get me and C2 and to make sure we were dressed—what do they think I am, a little kid?—and then about five minutes after that they arrived in Dad's totally conspicuous but kind of cool car.

To say that they weren't impressed at what I'd gotten up to while they were away would be an understatement. They didn't yell, they've never really yelled at me, but sometimes I wish they WOULD get worked up like I've seen parents get worked up on TV. That'd be easier than the waves of disappointment they send at me, WOM WOM WOM.

"It was a completely unnecessary risk," Dad said. This was down in the control room. Dad's always the one who tells me off when I've done something they REALLY disapprove of, because Mum's honesty curse means she ... well, I've got the curse too so I have to tell the truth, she gets mean. "You deliberately put yourself in danger—"

"I just took a walk!"

"With the intention of presenting yourself as a target."

"Of course!"

I had intended to add 'not' to the end of that, but, y'know, honesty curse.

"The worst part is your constant involvement of C2—"

"She doesn't mind! She loves being involved! Don't you?"

C2 was down there with us too. Actually, I think she was supporting me. I didn't realise that until just now, thanks C2! Anyway, she said:

"It is exciting and interesting."

"See? And her power is aura hardening, or something similar, actually we haven't quite figured it out yet but it means it's pretty hard to hurt her—"

"We'll talk about this more later," Dad said, in his 'I can't be bothered arguing' voice. "Right now we've got an appointment to keep."

Which is where we're heading now. We've been in the city for ages, it's so big! The buildings are tall and the streets are wide, it's so different from Motoplasm's neighbourhood. Everything's kind of blue, is that a weird way to describe it? Motoplasm's neighbourhood was mostly yellow, this part of the city is mostly blue, even the roads look different. Far less cracks, for one. And the shops all look SO exciting, we're in what seems to be a fashion area now, all of the window displays are amazing, some of these colours are like nothing I've ever seen before! C2's just as interested as me, I can tell. It's taken me like ten minutes to write this paragraph, I keep stopping to look out, just this sentence is—oh, we might be there. Clothes? Is it clothes? Do we have a clothes appointment? Is that a thing?

Okay, got to end this entry now, I think I may have cause to get a little bit excited. More later!