I haven’t updated this in a while, but it’s been a crazy couple of weeks.

Adamast Cross started a new tradition back on the 6th. He decided to do the friendly thing and buy me a Japanese lily from the store we’d passed. He said it was a simple thank you for helping him learn new tricks with his ice powers. While the flower sat in my room over the next week, I found myself aiding another hero who isn’t in the League.

The new hero was in over their head with a mission, and I accompanied her to act as backup. When it was over, she wanted to thank me so much for helping her, and we ran into War Lagoon when she pleaded that she owed me one. War Lagoon said that I like flowers, and I tried to deny it. The next thing I knew, I had another lily.

The same kind of lily. What are the odds? So then Jeffers (War Lagoon) joked that someone was going to have to keep giving me lilies now.

Speaking of the League, we’ve raided a few old hideouts belonging to the Arachne Regime. At most, we found three active members and one crippled retiree from that organization in one of them, and a den for illegal gamblers in another. We know that the group is active, but we don’t know the full extent. Nor are we any closer to finding out what the Manifest is about.

The odd thing was the hideout in the middle of Siren’s Gauntlet. None of us really knew about it, but Denise’s mom did. She brought it up casually one night when I was having dinner at their place.

The hideout, by the way, was unkempt despite the two men we found in there. One of them definitely knew nothing about the Manifest. The other freaked when we mentioned it, and bit on a pill thinking that it was cyanide. It was a laxative. That had been discontinued. For being dangerously effective.

The same former agent of the Arachne Regime tried to hang himself in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, but he only pulled down every curtain in the ICU and collapsed, letting out a big dump in the middle of the floor where he landed.

We won’t be able to talk to him for a while.

I saw my father again. He’s still not happy about what’s happened, denying that I am a girl as best he can. However, Patrick has calmed down and isn’t so violent.

He said he spent most of his night in jail trying to convince the police that the knife they found wasn’t his, and that someone else must have planted it on him seeing as how there was a pickpocket at the party on Halloween. The police expressed their doubt that someone would plant a concealed weapon on a man who would later be arrested.

I asked him what he did for work, but Patrick said he was presently unemployed since the restaurant that was supposed to hire him had burned down the night before he got to town.

So I contacted Jeffers’ friend Marten at the pub I went to. He said we would see what he could do if Patrick called the manager the next morning. It was the least I could do, telling my father that he had a job opportunity waiting for him. He called me “the bigger man” for it, but I’m letting the pronoun slide. For now.

Also, a boy asked me out. I was caught off guard by this of all things, and tried so hard to find a nice way to say no to him, because I was busy with heroics, that I might have maybe possibly said yes.

Shut up.

I’ll have you know he was a perfect gentleman while we went to see a movie, as well as when he kissed me on the cheek once we got home. And he was so understanding when I told him the following Monday that I wasn’t sure we could keep going out that he treated me to a root beer float after school. Then came the kiss on the lips.

Denise caught us in the act. I tried to signal her to come help me, but she left without any readable expression on her face.

I had to abandon my drink, and Travis (the boy), to chase after her and ask what was wrong. Instead of saying anything, Denise kissed me on the lips and then left again. She hasn’t talked to me since. That was three days ago.

At least I finally got Travis to stop trying to kiss me.

Meanwhile, at the League’s base, Mortar still hasn’t gotten the computer’s voice system to work. He says that it makes zero sense because he’s tried every technical and scientific thing to get the one feature to work. Every other major feature of the base is working now, however, so now he’s taking a break from working on the base. Meanwhile, he has a book on order from a far-off mountain top that Mortar Mage says might help him if he doesn’t come up with something on his own first.

Walter has plans to have defense systems installed in the future in case someone enters who means us harm. We have the end of January to look forward to on that one.

Princess Undercut made a fun discovery too regarding her powers. She can teleport with them now. Presently, she can only go as far as about a mile, but a few of us think her power is still growing. To cheer me up on Tuesday, she teleported me to a number of cool places around the city where we could enjoy the view.

“Just enjoy the ride and have fun,” she said. “Relax, and your troubles will either go away or find my fist in their face.”

I don’t know why, but I’ve been feeling more tired than usual lately. I’ve also been sore in a few places including my boobs. Somehow my only relief has been the chocolate covered bananas I’ve been pestering my mom for, all day, for the past couple days.

All she’s done is roll her eyes and buy a big enough gift card to the ice cream shop I like where I could buy those bananas a few times a day for the next week. I think she’s done something else too, but she won’t tell me what it is or give me any hints.