The Lost

Hercules frowned as he helped fit several huge components together at the behest of his comrades. The sky suffered under a vortex spinning the air into a virtual hurricane that stood still above them. He wondered how much time they had left.

"How much time do we have left?" Harvey Hawk flapped his glowing feathered wings against the wind. Luckily his cowl protected his face as the ties flapped behind him like a giant scarf.

"Not much." Abraham leaned on his staff, digging its end into the ground. "Are we ready?"

"Powering up now." The Blue Dynamo ran cables to the dark armor he wore, plugging the machinery they had built into his internal reactors. "Let's do this guys."

G-3 poured himself under the machinery. He blew himself up like a balloon, lifting the device off the ground as power ran from the Dynamo's power source. Then he solidified into a cube of solid material like steel.

Hercules stood back, looking at his friends. Harvey Hawk and Abraham stood side by side, one wearing a technological harness that allowed him to generate wings of fire, the other a turban and a tunic over cotton breeches with staff in hand. Blue Dynamo stood beside them, connected to the machine they hoped would save the world. G-3 supported their last hope, featureless as always with a yellow three on one side of his green cube body.

"Do it, Dynamo." Hercules had to use his hands as a megaphone to shout over the rising wind. Debris swept against his naked torso and legs unnoticed.

Dynamo pulled the only switch on the handmade machine. Light poured out of the top of the machine. It reached into the vortex, started another spinning against the first.

"I hope this works." The Dynamo looked up at the two hurricanes battling it out high above.

Hercules was about to say something to that when he noticed the Dynamo had someone in blue armor standing beside him, copying his movements. It looked like the same armor with different features added to the outside. More and more Dynamos arrived, still recognizably the same hero but just a little off in some way.

The wind died from above. He looked up at the glowing rings rotating above. Then the rings vanished. The machine followed. Then each of his friends did the same. Hercules raised his hand, then disappeared.

All over the world traces of the Fighting Five vanished as history rewrote itself. Enemies met other opponents, never came to be, died of deaths that no one could save them from as time marched on. The world remained the same with the gap in its memory glossed over.

Eventually a house was built on the site of the near disaster. A young man given to wearing black labcoats bought it after a succession of owners moved out after only months of living in the place. He settled in, built a lab under the house, opened the place to his friends.

After the things he had dealt with over the years, he was hardly surprised to find his house had become the center of ground zero again. He had almost expected it for some reason. He just didn't think it would happen while he was on a date.

Nor did he expect that if he wanted to save his world he would have to consider being erased from time like the heroes that had come before.

In fact the only thing on his mind was a certain young woman's cooking and how to avoid it without seeming like a snob.

Hector Hex felt uncomfortable wearing a plain brown suit, white shirt, and a brown and red striped tie. He usually wore black from head to toe, with wide sunglasses over his face. The expression on his face made it clear he was wondering why this was necessary.

"We're just going to Taco Bell, then working." Hector looked at his friends. "I don't think I have to dress up for that."

"Molly will appreciate the extra effort on your part." Nick Number stood back, making a frame with his fingers. "Something's missing."

The Network had assembled for this arduous task with smiles and a whole lot of kidding Hector which he didn't like. He looked at his friends with the thought they could be good frogs in his mind.

Hector took a deep breath, telling himself they were trying to be supportive.

It wasn't like he had dated much after all.

Sometimes he barely left his lab in the basement of the house he had redone to be their headquarters.

Nick worked for a global conspiracy that tried to keep the world safe as their agent. He joined the Network as a handle to use, and because they needed a man like him who could get in anywhere he wanted.

Joe Boxer had joined for a place to stay while he tried to deal with the demon who had cast him away. He was quick with his mind, and fists. He produced a flower for Hector's lapel to the amusement of the others.

"I think you're ready." Chemical Girl laughed quietly. She was a powerhouse, capable of superhuman strength and flight. She wore a striped dress with a belt around her waist. Her long hair was pulled back in a pony tail this month.

Sometimes she cut it short with her eye beams because she grew tired of dealing with it.

The Hole stood off to one side, a star field as his costume, with a full hood over his head. A whirling pattern like a black hole decorated his chest. He typically resided on Mars, far away from the rest of the Network but had shown up for this.

Someone must have told him to arrive and watch if he wanted. The Hole almost never laughed. And his mask hid his expressions effectively.

It wasn't hard to imagine him smiling behind his cloak of solemnity.

"Is everyone finished making me miserable?" Hector crushed the flower and threw it on the floor. "This is a working meeting, nothing more. Molly and I aren't suddenly going to throw ourselves on the floor and do things."

"Hopefully not in the lab anyway." Nick made a creepy crawly gesture. "There are things down there that will throw off your game."

"Do you mind?" Hector straightened his unfamiliar jacket. "It's almost time to open the portal for Molly to cross. I think I am too old for four babysitters."

"We're going." Chemical Girl waved the other three ahead. "There's a movie we can go see."

"Thank you." Hector shook his head, opening the door. "If something bad happens, I'll call you."

"Don't worry." Chemical Girl pushed the others out ahead of her. "What could possibly go wrong if all you're going to do is work in the lab?"

"What couldn't go wrong down there?" Nick walked down the front steps.

Hector closed the door, loosening his tie. He made a gesture and his clothes became his normal work gear. He checked his watch, and hurried to open the portal. His friends were crazy.

What would a girl like Molly ever see in a guy like him?

Molly Cule looked at the dress she wore, and shook her head. Its rainbow brightness was a far cry from the black garments she preferred. In fact, she thought it was making her eyes bleed from looking at it.

"It's the best I can do, Molly." The Pixie looked aggravated. His butterfly wings flapped with a distinct difference from the plain brown suit and tie he wore. A yellow cowl covered his face. "Why would you even ask this? Can't you buy your own clothes?"

"Yes, I can buy my own clothes." Molly looked at the other member of the Theater. "I thought this was your idea."

"I thought it was yours." The Pixie tapped his star tipped wand against his hand. "Otherwise I would be at home sorting through my paperwork."

"Denver." Molly grimaced. "Just give me back my regular work clothes. You're not the only one who has work to do."

The Pixie touched the dress with his wand. The fabric tightened into the coveralls and boots that Molly usually wore. He nodded at the change.

"Thanks." Molly smiled, picking up her tool belt to wrap around her waist. "I should have known something was fishy from the word go."

"I'll see you off, then I have to get to my real job." The Pixie went to the door, and opened it. He waited before stepping out in the hall. "I can't believe Denver went to the trouble."

"I can." Molly groaned. "You're an easy fashion designer with the wand. Why spend money when you can alter the clothes?"

"I mean why bother?" The Pixie strode along. "This Hex guy has already seen you at your worst. I doubt seeing you at your best is that much of an improvement."

Molly paused in mid-step as the Pixie kept walking. She didn't know whether to be angry at the remark, or put it down to general annoyance. Her colleague wasn't much for other people's feelings.

She put it down to him being an accountant.

The Pixie always seemed rushed, unhappy at being drawn into cases, wanted to deal with things in the most direct way possible. She doubted he had a friend in the world outside of the Theater. That wasn't a good way to live in her opinion.

Of course Molly spent a huge amount of her downtime in the lab as far away from others as possible.

Who was she to throw rocks from the inside of a glass house?

The two friends walked in silence to the lab where the dimensional door waited. Denver Dead, The Elementalist, and Betty Bit waited for them. They seemed dismayed to see Molly in her trademark black.

"You're going on a date." Denver looked horrified. "Don't you have anything else you can wear?"

"It's not a date." Molly frowned at the trio. "We're going to be working on the door so we can research other earths."

"Sounds like a date to me." Denver shook his head. "All alone in a high tech lab for who knows how long. It's the perfect stage for romance."

"It's been a long time for you, hasn't it, Denver?" Molly shook her head. "I'm not getting involved with the guy. We're just working together."

"I think you're in Egypt." Betty's practically frozen face didn't hide her sarcasm.

"Egypt?" Molly remembered something vaguely connected to Cairo. What was it?

"You're swimming in denial." Betty almost smiled.

"Look, guys." Molly looked her friends over. "I know you think I should get out of the lab more but I am not dating someone across a dimensional divide."

"Are we done?" The Pixie scowled. "I have things I have to do."

"Yes." Molly shook her head slowly as she went to the door controls. "No more matchmaking please. It gives me the hives."

"Would flowers count?" The Elementalist held a bouquet behind his back.

"Yes." Molly opened the door to the space time coordinates of Hector's door. She smiled as the frame showed Hector standing by his door, looking at her. At least he wore his normal attire. "Don't wait up for me."

She stepped through the door, waving at her friends as she went. The door closed behind her.

"I hope she doesn't post her date on the Internet," Denver said.

Hector Hex and Molly Cule enjoyed dinner, talking over a plate of tacos and quesadillas, writing on pads with pens. They worked on portable doors, windows, designs for alarms and radars. This led into ideas about other things that branched away from the original ideas.

"This has been great, Hector." Molly sat back in her chair, sipping tea. "I have notes for enough projects to keep me busy until next year."

"So do I." Hector flipped through the loose pages. "Hopefully I won't have a lab emergency while I'm working. That always causes problems."

"Do you have many of those?" Molly's lab obeyed her wishes, every robotic servo knowing its place in the grand scheme of things.

"Some." Hector put the sacred equations in an inner pocket. "My friends and I got together over one. The Lab likes to come alive."

"It likes to come alive?" Molly smiled. "We are talking about an inanimate place with inanimate objects, right?"

"Not really." Hector shrugged. "It's a case of seeing is believing."

Molly nodded. Anyone else, she would have laughed. Labs didn't come to life in her experience unless some experiment had strange side effects. Hector and his friends had helped save the multiverse and then helped with an invasion from another Earth. She was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"Let's go see your lab." Molly stood up, reaching for her wallet.

"I got it." Hector placed some bills on the table for a tip before grabbing the check. "Your money's no good here."

"I thought we were going dutch." Molly followed him to the front of the restaurant.

"I would have." Hector paid the bill with a thanks before he held the door for Molly to step out in the parking lot. "Except your money is too different from what we print."

"Why didn't you say something?" Molly couldn't quite glare at the taller magician scientist.

"It seemed simpler just to cover it." Hector adjusted his sunglasses under the light from a lamp post. "You can pay for the next meal we have together."

"The next meal?" Molly smiled. She took his arm, leading across the parking lot toward the sidewalk. "Is that a strange way of saying please go out with me again?"

"Yes." Hex felt blood rush to his face. "I don't have a lot of practice but I think it would be great if we got together again."

"I'm not the social flower either." Molly looked up at the starry sky. "Let's go slow with this. Okay?"

"I don't have a problem with that." Hector liked the feeling of her arm through his. Usually he was keeping people at bay. This was a welcome change of pace.

They walked along the sidewalk, away from the restaurants and small strip malls that formed a corridor near Hector's house. They walked silently, thinking their own thoughts. Any romance would be as long distance as you could get.

The Network's home came into sight as they walked along the street after several turns away from the main road. It waited patiently for owner and guest to finish their walk, to decide if they were going to end their evening. A hum preceded the howling of neighborhood dogs.

"Is this your lab coming to life?" Molly looked around.

"No." Hector reached up for his sunglasses. "This is something else."

A line appeared in the sky above Hector's house. One end chased the other until it formed a spinning circle. It seemed to rip the air as it spun in front of the stars above.

"That doesn't look good." Molly pulled out a scanner, pointing it at the anomaly. "I can't get a reading."

"I can't either." Hector's sunglasses glowed as he tried to figure out what he was looking at. "It seems to cross several planes of existence at once. The echoes are all I can see."

"Let me call the Theater." Molly kept her gaze on the circle as she walked toward the house. "We still owe you for the help with the Kings."

"I'll have to get the Network here too." Hector unlocked the wards to let them pass through the front door. "This doesn't look good."

"What do you think is going on?" Molly followed her colleague to the monitor room. Hector pressed a red button on the console as he sat in a central chair.

"A rip in the space/time that will tear the planet apart." Hector trained the optics from the outside cameras on the vortex.

"Can't be." Molly checked her instrument again. "That would have registered."

"Then I am all out of ideas." Hector worked the keypad to his computer with a slight tapping.

"I'll get the others." Molly went to the door. "We'll figure this out."

Hector Hex left his house to stare up at the ring expanding in the sky. He gestured with gloved hands. His sunglasses formed tubes and lenses to better help him direct his magic. He didn't know at what he was staring but the first step to solving a problem was figuring out what the problem was in the first place.

The ring defied his glasses. It simply whirled, taking in every signal, but not releasing them. He couldn't take a reading of the whole thing. It wouldn't let him.

He decided to focus on one piece. His glasses zeroed in on one inch of the ring, keeping it centered as the ring spun, marking it as it passed. Then it took a picture for him to examine.

That was the best he could think of to do for the moment. Perhaps the picture would give him something to work on.

He restored his glasses and walked against the wind to the door of his house. He looked up at the sky one last time. What was going on?

"What's going on, Hec?" Chemical Girl had arrived first, and chomped at the bit to do something.

"End of the world." Hex took the picture from the air, studying it with enhancement. "It comes with dinner and a movie."

The Network and the Theater had assembled at the house, waiting for an analysis of the unnatural phenomena overhead. Chemical Girl wasn't the only one who wanted to do something instead of wasting time looking at things.

"This looks like a face." Hex turned the picture one way, then the other. "It can't be, but I swear that looks like a face."

"Let me see it." Betty Bit took the picture. One of her eyes popped out of its socket as she read the paper. The human eye tended to see things that weren't there. They imagined a man in a coat from a rack with a piece of cloth hanging down. "It is a face."

A beam of light erupted from Betty's other eye. It projected a giant picture on the air in green lines. Other details showed arms and legs, torsos, clothing of other eras. The face had been caught out from the tangle by chance.

"What is that?" Molly walked around the picture. "I've never seen anything like this."

"Maybe we can get it to tell us something." The Pixie struck the picture with his wand.

The face stuck out of the drawing, looking forlorn without the rest of its body. Dark circles formed eyes, presumably where shadows fell in the sockets.

Molly hoped it was from shadows and nothing more sinister.

"Who are you?" The Pixie watched the image for trouble as he touched the face again with his wand.

"My name was Sparrow." The words weren't sound. They were thought. The face turned to survey the room with its dark sockets.

"What can you tell us about what's going on?" The Pixie felt a strange sense of deja vu. He almost remembered a Sparrow.

"An experiment in time went wrong, sending a wave of destructive energy back along the time stream. Heroes have tried to stop it over and over, buying time with their efforts. Now the ring forms to wipe out the future again." Sparrow looked back at Pixie. "The last attempt was performed by the Fighting Five."

"Do you know where the Five are?" Molly stepped forward. "They could tell us what they know."

"They were erased from the natural order of time and sent randomly across universes." Sparrow stared at her. "They didn't come here to the limbo inside the ring."

"Do you know how to find them?" Molly's eyebrows knitted, gears turning inside her head.

"No one knows how to find them." Sparrow turned away. "They were erased."

"Thank you for your help." Hector nodded at the Pixie. "We'll take it from here."

The Pixie touched the image. The face returned to a two dimensional picture with the slow dissolving of melting wax. He checked his watch.

"What do we do now?" The Pixie tapped his wand against his hand impatiently.

"We find the people he was talking about and see if they can help us." Hector smiled for the first time, already seeing a solution to his problem. "We'll probably have to split up and chase them down."

"Let's start with how do we find these people." Denver matched everyone's dubious expression with his own.

"I have something called a timescope." Hector smiled. "It's down in my lab. Even if all traces were erased of the Fighting Five, the ring should still give us some kind of picture of what happened and how to trace them."

"Let's decide who's going with whom." Molly looked at the assemblage. "One Theater, one Network."

The groups split into pairs, following Hector down to his lab. Everyone searched the crevices and shadows of equipment because of personal experience and stories of doom. The time scope stood in a case at the back of the cavernous room.

"Let's fire that puppy up." Denver rubbed his gloved hands together.

Hector took the time scope out of its case. He flipped the switches for it to warm up, to connect with the universe. The screen at the top of the control panel filled with white fuzz. He adjusted the time coordinates in five year sections until he spotted where the jags of time suddenly straightened out.

"Okay, I think this is the right year." Hector fiddled with the controls. "I just have to find the right day and month."

"This would be great for solving unsolved crimes." Molly smiled. "I can't believe you just store it away in your lab."

"It grows tentacles." Joe Boxer made sure to stay away from the invention. "And it tries to eat you."

"Plus there's a timeline problem." Hector dialed through the days. "Even if you know what happened, another outcome will be shown at random. I don't know why it does that. It's like events from the future changed the past so that the timeline wobbled for some reason."

"Given what we know has been happening, maybe that's exactly what has been happening." Molly pulled out her monoscope and tool kit. "Maybe I can fine tune it for you so it will narrow down each wobble as a separate intersection path."

"Not now, Molly." The Pixie shook his hooded head. "First we have to save the world from blowing up, then we can fix the machine."

"All right." Hector looked at the scene on the screen. "I think I have the exact moment. We'll alter the dimension door to carry us where the Fighting Five went."

"I don't know, Hector." Nick checked his weapons liberated from the armory. "That thing is the most reliable thing you have come up with in a long time. Maybe we shouldn't tamper with it."

"Tentacles are bad." Joe's eyes roved the strange equipment for anything moving that shouldn't be.

"It will be fine." Hector frowned. "There will be no tentacles."

"Let's go ahead if we're going to do it." Chemical Girl tapped her foot. "You guys are being babies."

"We'll see who the baby is." Joe set his jaw.

"What did you say?" Chemical Girl's eyes started to glow.

"Time to go." Hector opened the door with the remote pulling coordinates from the time scope. "Let's get this show on the road."

"We're not done." Chemical Girl glared at the boxer. She allowed Denver to lead her into the door.

"I'm shaking." Joe glared right back until Betty Bit dragged him into the wire framework.

"Are they always like that?" The Pixie and Nick Number waited until the first set of partners were well and gone before they stepped through to another dimension.

"You should see them after two bottles of soda." Nick tried to smile before he vanished.

"Are you sure about this?" Vic Ing looked at the two masterminds. "Traipsing across the known multiverse seems like a bad idea."

"If one earth goes, there could be a chain reaction." Molly shrugged. "I don't want to lose our earth because we didn't help another."

"Hole will protect you." Hector tried to smile, but his eyes followed the pattern on the timescope.

The Hole stepped into the crack in reality, vanishing as his starry appearance faded from sight. Vic jumped in after, trying to catch up with a step. He hoped he hadn't made a mistake by delaying.

"I haven't had a date in forever, and now I have two with the same beautiful woman." Hector shook his head. "I can't believe my luck."

"I wouldn't say beautiful, or a date." Molly smiled. "But going out with me just happened to be the day the world is ending. I can't believe it either."

"There has to be something positive about this." Hector put the remote in his pocket.

"We're saving the world together so we can get to know each other a bit better." Molly grabbed his arm, leading him to the door. "I want a husband that caters to my every need."

"I don't know about that." Hector blushed.

"Let's see if we can change your mind." Molly pulled him into the wire frame with a laugh.

Denver Dead and Chemical Girl appeared on a lonely hill top. Birds called from every direction, as did some wild cat far away to their right. Bee Bee looked around with a frown.

"This can't be the right place." She walked two steps, then paused at a fall into what looked like bottomless clouds. "All I see are islands floating in the sky."

"Let's see if we can find our guy." Denver took to the air, pulling his goggles down to cover his face. "We still have to figure out how they stopped the ring from destabilizing time."

"Hector could figure something out without these guys." Chemical Girl blasted off at the end of a rainbow. "We're wasting time with this."

"You sound like the Pixie." Denver smiled. "Let's hurry this along. I have to be somewhere."

"What kind of name is Pixie?" Bee Bee glared ahead. "Why not Butterfly Man?"

"I think he made a deal with a fairy, or something." Denver followed, finding that he had a hard time keeping up with Chemical Girl as she plowed along. "He doesn't talk about it."

"I wouldn't either." She landed on another island, underneath something that looked like a palm tree. "This could take forever."

"Our guy has to be the only human here." Denver hovered beside her. "If he survived, he'll want food, shelter, security. He'll want to be able to run if he needed to from all the wildlife we're hearing."

"That's exactly right." Bee Bee smiled. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"I don't get it." Denver frowned.

"Our guy has to be the only other human here. That means his heart will stand out if I listen for it. That means I can track him down to the exact place he made a home." Chemical Girl closed her eyes and listened. She turned slowly, sorting the ambient noise for the one thing that would sound familiar to her.

"That doesn't necessarily track." Denver looked around. "There could be something like a human here somewhere."

"I got something." Chemical Girl pointed, then lined up where the rhythm called out. "That way."

"Let's go see if you're right." Denver leaped out along the line, sighting on the floating trees to keep his path straight.

Chemical Girl followed, peering ahead with her extraordinary vision. She could see things moving miles away without trying. She locked on a winged man she saw flying across the golden sky and ignored anything else.

So she didn't see the sailing ship crossing the sky until it blocked her immediate view of her target. She growled when she did notice it. At least the crew couldn't see her or Denver yet.

"What's wrong?" Denver had a hand on her shoulder to help his own keeping up with her lightning like speed. He had thought he was fast with his ghostly powers.

"There's some kind of boat chasing our guy." Bee Bee arced her path a little to keep both of the other fliers in view. "We might have to take it down before we can get our guy, and get out of here."

"Get us out in front, get our guy, and let's get out of here." Denver felt the wind whipping his hair and was glad for the goggles. "If push comes to shove, I'll hold them off while you get him out of here."

"I'll sink them then we won't have to worry about it." Chemical Girl pushed harder. "They won't see what hit them."

"I see our guy." Denver pointed. "Let's split up. We can do more damage that way."

"Let's do it." Chemical Girl grabbed his arm and body. "I don't want them chasing us while we look for an exit."

"What are you doing?" Denver didn't have time for anything else before he was flying through the island filled sky like a bullet. He channeled energy to his hands, realizing he was flying much faster than he normally could attain, and that he was heading for the top deck of the ship.

Denver flew by, blasting at the crew as he passed. His green beams forced gnomes in pirate gear to hunt for cover as he tried to punch holes into anything in front of him. The Theater ghost got out ahead of the ship, realized he was slowing down without Chemical Girl's boost. He pushed himself to catch up with the bird man in front of the chase.

A loud boom told everyone that the flying ship had been holed. Denver glanced back, surprised that a fire billowed out the hull big enough to cast a smoky pall behind him. Then Chemical Girl broke through the bow like a human battering ram.

Don't make her angry, Denver told himself. Then he turned and headed for the slowing bird man who waved at them.

"Thanks for the assist." The bird man hovered to let the duo catch up with him. "Name's Harvey Hawk."

"Harvey?" Chemical Girl fought back a laugh.

"Hawk?" Denver smiled, nudging his companion with an elbow. "We've come a long way to find you. We need you to help us save the Earth."

"What's going on back home?" Harvey Hawk flapped his artificial wings. "I don't know how long I've been here actually."

"We just found out that you were alive." Chemical Girl looked around for more flying pirates. They reminded her of Nick Number's Air Pirates. "We don't know how long you've been here."

"We can deal with that later." Denver smiled. "Let's head back to where we entered. That's where the door will open to go home."

Betty Bit and Joe Boxer stepped out of the dimensional void and took a minute to catch their breaths. Joe caught his breath. Betty took a moment to realign her logic center to match what her scanners were seeing.

"There is not a natural progression." Betty went to the edge of their perch. "I wonder what caused this."

"I don't know." Joe Boxer looked around for a way down from where they had landed. "And I don't think it's important right now."

Betty nodded in agreement.

The two travelers had landed on a round piece of land supported by a natural stone outcropping. All around their point, the ground ran in ribbons that produced vast canyons between the high points. Ledges hugged the walls as they disappeared from view. From where they stood, the valleys were bottomless.

"Let's find our guy and get out of here." Joe started down the outcropping. "This is making my eyes hurt."

Betty nodded as she fired up her feet jets. As her mother modified her body, being able to fly had been on her list so that her robot body could soar like a bird. After that it had been an easy step to flying to help people in need of a rescue.

It was one of the best design decisions made as far as she was concerned.

"I have the signal." Betty hooked Joe with her arms. "Let's fly there."

"I forgot you could do that." Joe smiled. "Good thinking. Let's go."

The two adventurers soared across the sky on jet power. They noted the air moved along the ribbons, running faster the deeper they went. They discussed the theory the air had carved out the canyons they followed like tourists in a hedge maze.

The ribbed land finally gave way to a vast bowl. Joe thought of it as the center of the maze since the canyons radiated outward from the edges of the bowl. The wind was quieter there almost like it plowed straight on down the canyons and then gently circled the centerpiece.

Joe admitted to himself he had never seen anything quite like the display he had in front of him as Betty carried him along.

"The signal is coming from inside that formation." Betty nodded with her head. "Who do you think we're after?"

"I don't know." Joe scanned the ground ahead. "We have five choices."

Betty flew to a clearing in the jungle that covered the bowl. She landed to have her hands free if there was trouble. Joe stretched the kinks out before following her through the strange trees.

"Hey!" Joe used his hands as a megaphone. "Is anybody here?"

"What are you doing?" Betty detected movement around them in the trees. "A lot of things woke up when you called out."

"Maybe one of them is our guy." Joe scanned the trees. "Keep your eyes open."

"I don't think one of them is our guy." Betty grimaced as well as she could with her frozen metal face. "They all look like monkeys to me."

"I really hope you're wrong." Joe kept going. "I hate monkeys."

"You must have had some bad encounters with the animal kingdom." Betty flipped her right hand to cannon mode. "Tentacles and monkeys, what else do you fear?"

"I don't fear them." Joe took a moment to listen. "I just don't like them, especially tentacles. Monkeys fling poop, and I don't like that."

"Okay." Betty turned a half-circle. "That's understandable, and logical, reasons for being afraid."

"I'm not afraid." Joe smiled. "I don't like them. There's a difference."

Blue primates dropped out of the trees. They growled angrily at the two strangers, walking around on all fours like great apes. One stood up, beating his chest angrily, roaring a challenge. Joe stepped in, swinging both hands like an axe handle. The native went down, eyes rolling up under a craggy brow.

Joe waved his fingers in a come here motion.

The primates took to the trees with screams of disbelief. They waved their arms. They faded into the foliage.

"I don't like monkeys, but it doesn't mean I can't deal with them." Joe started down the path.

"How are you with robot cats?" Betty followed, keeping her eyes on the trees, switching vision modes to help targeting.

"I can take them or leave them." Joe called out again. "Why?"

"When this over, I think I need to introduce you to my neighbor's cat." Betty pointed the cannon at something that fled through the trees. "I think you have a way about you that will convince her to stay on her side of the property lines."

"Sounds easy enough."

Nick Number and the Pixie stood at the edge of a vast river pulling white lines along a shore of rocks thrown up by the current. Mountains bordered the sides of the river, forming canyon walls above and behind the two travelers. Nick listened to the landscape, heard only the ceaseless water flowing in front of him.

"Which way do we go?" Nick kept one hand near the sidearm holstered to his leg. Strange places made him nervous.

"I would have to say downstream." The Pixie pointed with his wand. "The river and this bank seem to be the only things of interest here. The natural response is to follow the water down until you find civilization."

"The only problem I see with that is there might not be any civilization here." Nick looked around again. Then he concentrated his gaze on the fast-moving water. "A regular boat would break up under the beating the current is giving out."

"We don't have a lot of time." The Pixie touched one of the rocks on the ground with his wand. "Did anyone like us pass by recently?"

"Sure, buddy." The rock bounced on the ground. "He used the water to go downstream."

"Okay." Nick smiled despite himself. "You win."

"Let's go." The Pixie slammed the shore with his wand. Magic lifted the stones into a platform on the river with protective siding to keep the water out. "This should get us where we want to go."

"Wouldn't it be faster to fly?" Nick looked at the platform coasting on the surface of the raging tide.

"Maybe, but this will take us right to where we want to go if our man decided to leave the water for any reason." The Pixie floated onto the bobbing raft. "Don't worry. It's completely safe."

"I have to be crazy." Nick judged the distance, jumped over the side of the weird craft, and found it as steady as the shore he had just left. "This isn't half bad."

"Get going, Titanic." Pixie tapped his wand on the transportation. It began moving slowly down the river. Nick had to admit the movement made him feel like he was in a bubble since it didn't match the current he watched as they drifted down the mighty torrent.

The raft slid along the river which stayed the same width cutting through the mountains as far as Nick could tell. He watched the tops of the passing cliffs with the assurance the raft would not dump him in the water to drown once they were underway. He felt eyes on him, but didn't see anything moving.

"I don't want to sound crazy but this bothers me." Nick watched the water flowing around him for a second. "Where are all the living things we should be seeing?"

"I noticed that too." The Pixie shrugged, causing his butterfly wings to go up and down at the back of his business suit. "I thought it was just me."

"We should at least see some type of bird in the air, or bugs." Nick looked back at the passing cliffs. "I have never been to a natural place like this that didn't have some kind of animal running around."

"I know what you mean." The Pixie crossed his arms. "I'm wondering how far our guy went to look for food if everything here seems to be this river and those cliffs. If this is just a small piece of a dimension, we might ride this river in a continuous loop without knowing it unless we marked the bank."

"That's a cheerful thought." Nick shook his head.

The Hole looked around when he stepped through the dimensional door. At least the gravity felt normal as he stood on top of a giant mushroom. A forest of the huge fungi stretched out as far as he could see.

"The ground is so far below." Vic Ing, the Elementalist held up his hand. "The air seems okay, but very static. Not much wind for this height."

"Wind is caused by solar radiation in our universes." The Hole pointed to a glow above them. "I don't think that's a sun up there."

"So which way do we go?" Vic looked around. "Our guy could have gone anywhere from here if this is where he entered in the first place."

"I'll have to say down." The Hole floated to where indentations formed a hole through the top of the mushroom. "He must have really been heavy."

"So we go down after him." Vic sighted through the hole. "I don't see a body in all that debris down there."

"We could have a flier." The Hole generated a bubble of antigravity for his colleague to ride in. "Let's check it out."

"This is pretty good." Vic floated after the star-based hero, holding his hands outside the gravity field. "How do you do this?"

"Most of my powers are based on gravity." The Hole hovered over the pile of debris on the floor of the mushroom kingdom. "That's how I can lift you and fly."

"That's pretty cool." Vic played with the air for a moment, sweeping the debris to one side. He was pleased there was no body. "It looks like you were right. The one we're after can fly."

"So which way would he go?" The Hole lifted them up over the mushrooms again. He looked along the top of the mushroom heads, wondering if anything but fungi lived there. That could be a problem if something wanted to hinder the search.

"I say we go in the direction he fell in since we have nowhere else to go." Vic pointed to indicate the path. "He probably had the same thoughts we're having. Are there anything like people here, can they get him home, how to maintain a place if the mushrooms buried everything? I think he would have set off to at least look around before he gave up."

The Hole nodded. He pulled Vic along, looking at the tops of the giant mushrooms in case they were wrong and the guy simply leaped from caphead to caphead and that's what caused the hole. Hector's magic would have found the missing hero in seconds.

How long did they have before the Earth was destroyed?

"Something's moving ahead of us." Vic put his hand over his eyes as shade. "I can feel it."

"Let's see who it is." The Hole sped up to catch up with whomever was out there. They needed one of two things. Either they needed a guide who saw the stranger coming and knew where he was, or they needed the stranger himself.

The Hole brought them to a stop when he spotted what looked like walking toadstools following a green silhouette with a three written on the front in a bright yellow. The bigger humanoid had to be G-3.

The Hole brought his passenger in for a landing. The green shape held up an arm to hold his friends back.

"We're here to take you home." The Hole held himself ready in case there was trouble. The toadstools jumped up and down, waving spears of some kind of wood. "I'm the Hole, and this is the Elementalist."

"Thank you, but I have to help my friends out first." G-3's voice sounded almost like a synthesizer. "A caterpillar has started raiding their village."

"We might as well help out." Vic smiled. "The faster we knock it out, the faster we can go home."

"Where is this caterpillar?" The Hole's full face mask hid the grimace he felt on his face.

"We were trailing it." G-3 pointed with a blunt finger. "It went that way from the last raid."

The Hole took to the air again, flying higher to try and get a better view of the terrain. A clear path of destruction stood out with the increased height. That must be one hungry caterpillar. He started down the lane laid out before him at full speed. He hated to see what a butterfly must look like.

The Hole found the raiding beast sunning itself while it chewed on a mushroom towering above the floor of the weird jungle. It looked at him with multifaceted eyes as he tried to decide what he should do. The thing was as big as a Mack truck with a body carried by stumpy legs. Feathery antennae projected over a round head. The coloring was the same pink brown of the mushrooms around it.

He could see how a monster like this could destroy a village without thinking.

The Hole turned and flew back to the traveling party. Everyone was silent as he dropped out of the sky.

"It's ahead about two miles, eating." The Hole regarded the toadstools. They couldn't possibly think they had a chance against something like that. "It ate everything in its path, and is still going."

"It must be getting ready to spin its cocoon." G-3 looked up at the sky. "If it transforms, the adult form will be twice as ravenous."

"Killing it seems impossible with what they're carrying." The Hole indicated the simple spears.

"Don't worry about them." G-3's tone carried pride. "They've been eating caterpillars for as long as they can remember."

"How do you know that?" Vic's face screwed up at the thought of eating a giant bug larva.

"They keep records." G-3 shrugged. "I have been working on deciphering them while I waited for the others to find me."

"So if we kill this caterpillar, you'll come with us." The Hole looked back the way he had come.

"I would like to go home." G-3 started walking.

"I'll handle it." The Hole took to the air, heading back to the dragon he was going to slay.

Hector Hex and Molly Cule stepped out in neon lights. Swirls of dazzling light flashed by in clear lanes marked by glowing dots. Hector pulled out an instrument to find their quarry. He smiled.

This might be easier than they thought.

Then the scanner buzzed itself to oblivion, and Hector put it away with a shake of his head.

"I should have known something like this would happen." Hector straightened his shades as he watched the lights cut through the strange landscape in front of him. "There's too much high tech here for me to get a good reading on any of the Fighting Five."

"It's okay." Molly pointed at a tall tower in the distance. A beam of light erupted into the dark sky, splitting the perspective like a sword. "That's the biggest building in town. Let's go over and ask if anyone has seen them."

"Let's go do that." Hector gestured a carpet of lettering into existence. It lifted the couple into the air, over the lanes the boiling bubbles roared down like cars made of lightning.

The strange world looked different from the air. From the ground, it looked like a weird conglomeration of lights and darkness into line buildings that didn't quite make sense. From the air, the whole thing looked like an electronic board spread out in a square fashion. Another of the lightbeam towers came into view as they drifted to the first one they had seen before calling the flying carpet.

"My first impression is this is a random gathering mimicking the appearance of a computer chip." Hector brought the carpet to a landing on a ledge about halfway up the tower. He dismissed it with a wave.

"I have to agree." Molly kept one hand near her tool kit as random lights acted like people, pointing at the two of them in their dark clothes. "The weird thing is we're here as a solid mixing with what has to be energy patterns of some kind."

"I don't see anyone else like us around." Hector made an adjustment of his glasses. "Let's go inside and see if we can communicate with these persons."

Hector and Molly walked inside the tower, using an open door for the inhabitants of the place. More of the blobs cleared out of the way, pointing rudimentary hands at them. Static filled the air.

"I think they are talking about us." Hector made a gesture. Excited cries came to them. "It looks like someone like us came through before now, and they recognize our species. I don't know if that's good, or bad."

"Ask one of them if they know where our guy is." Molly looked around. "I think we're causing too much of a stir. Someone is bound to show up and try to arrest us."

"Right." Hector hadn't wanted to say anything out loud, but he thought Molly was right. Sooner or later, someone like the police were going to hear about this and respond. Then they would have to do something about that to keep their freedom.

Hurting someone because of a misunderstanding wasn't cool, but Hex wasn't going to allow himself to be locked up while his world faced destruction.

"Excuse me." Hector picked the nearest blob to ask for directions. He used a certain amount of mind scanning as he talked to make sure he had a clear picture of what the other was saying. "I'm looking for someone who looks like me who might have arrived here."

"The authorities took it away." The blob jumped back, afraid of this thing that talked to it. "I assume they took it to the Prime's quarters."

"Thank you." Hector cut the contact, but kept the translation program running. "Let's go, Molly."

"I heard." Molly pulled out a screen. "They took our member of the Five to the president's house."

"Let's see what we can do about that." Hector kept an eye out for blobs trying to stop them as he kept an arm around her shoulders. "What are you doing?"

"I had an idea." Molly pressed buttons on the screen. She held it up in front of her. The world disappeared in front of the rectangle. She turned a complete circle. "I think I see him. It looks like a suit of armor in this."

"Get ready." Hector tried to walk fast but nonthreateningly away from blobs with a blue coloring. He didn't need to be told to know the cops were there to find out what was going on. "We might have to fight our way out of this."

"All right." Molly pointed the screen at the distant figure ahead and above them. "Let's go."

Hector called some of his magic up from the wellspring he tapped inside his lifeforce. He spread his arms and swirling light formed half rings around Molly and him. The crescents spun around the two of them. When they stopped, the curved forces faded away from an empty spot in the air.

"That was wild." Molly jumped and down. "Do it again."

"Let's do what we came to do first." Hector tried to smile at the man chained to the wall. "I'm Hector Hex, and this is Molly Cule. We came to find you so we can save the world."

"I'm the Blue Dynamo." The man rattled his glowing manacles, but his armor barely moved his arms. "Unfortunately I used up most of my power. I can barely get my armor to move."

"Don't worry about that." Molly produced a small windup toy. "I have a generator right here that will do until we can get home."

"Then all you need to do is break these cuffs so we can leave." The Dynamo wondered why the both of them smiled. Then they had him loose in a second. "Nice work."

"Time to head home." Hector raised a hand to activate his magic.

Joe Boxer held his companion's arm as he stopped to listen to the jungle around them. The monkeys watched from the tree limbs to his left. After what had happened to their spokesman, they had decided to stay well away from his hands.

Joe was fine with that. He didn't want to beat up every furry monster between him and the guy they were supposed to bring back. That didn't mean he wouldn't do that if he had to do it. These guys only liked people who could stand up to them.

"I got the signal." Betty Bit pointed one of her hands. A reception dish replaced the hand at the end. "He's this way."

"Go slow and be careful." Joe kept one hand on her arm in case he had to do something. "If they got monkeys, there's no telling what else they got in here."

"No worries on that score." Betty walked slowly forward. "I'd hate to see if there were dinosaurs running around."

"That's a cheery thought." The pair walked under the trees to where vines had been pulled from the trees. They had been lashed into a lean-to made out of the local wood. "Maybe this is our guy's house."

"I can see that." Betty ran her hand around to get readings. "I thought he was right here. Where could he have gone?"

Vegetation dropped down from the sky, wrapping around the travelers. Before either could think of what to do, they were flung through the air at the end of a natural catapult. Joe spread his arms out to catch the air. He hoped to steer near one of the strange canyon walls so he wouldn't fall down to the bottom.

The sound of Betty's feet lighting up told him he didn't have to worry.

"You don't think that's what happened to the guy we came to look for?" Betty caught Joe under one arm. "If he fell down to the bottom, we might never find him."

"Let's follow the flight of the catapult." Joe pointed at the wall he had tried to steer toward from the bowl above. "We'll use that to search with before moving on."

"I get it." Betty let cheer infect her monotone voice. "If he tried to do the same thing you did, he might have left traces on the wall somewhere."

"We're hoping to find more than just traces, Betty." Joe pointed at the wall. A handprint stood out against the stone. "We're hoping to find the whole guy so we can go home."

"He must be stronger than me to catch hold like that." Betty started dropping down. "That's a lot of force exerted on the rock."

"Anybody down there?" Joe cupped his free hands to make his voice heard. The echo traveled for some ways as far as he could tell.

"Yes." A strong voice rose up like thunder. "I'm down here."

"I told you." Joe smiled. "The direct approach always works."

"I'll remember that." Betty pointed her radar hand down into the canyon. She ran the dish back and forth until she got a signal to point her in the right direction. "This way."

The adventurers descended on Betty's foot jets until they reached what looked like trees after a hurricane hit. They paused at the destruction. Betty extended her optics for a better view. She saw a man ripping plants up with his bare hands under the red light. The stems wiggled as he flung them off the side of the canyon walls.

"Do you need help?" Betty asked. She put Joe down so she could work without worrying about him.

"These plants are worse than the Hydra." The figure pulled the next pair of grasping limbs out of the wall with what looked like little effort.

"I'm going to count to three, then I need you to jump out of the way." Betty dialed her plasma upgrade up.

Some of the surviving limbs around them reached for Betty and Joe. The fighter began punching them to keep them back. If they grabbed the robot girl, Joe would be hard pressed to save her from their grasp.

"Three...Two...One." Betty dialed her aiming reticule to fire at the center of mass. She hoped a brain there would be hurt enough for them to withdraw without further problems. The man in the loincloth leaped straight up and back when she announced one. The robot girl fired.

Betty liked to fire in bursts. Experience had taught her that delivered firepower to the target in such a way that the target went down and stayed down. Three shells, then three more, then three more, jumped from her gun hand as the man in the loincloth landed and began helping Joe keep the vegetation off her back. The nine rounds hit within an inch of each other, sliding through the moving tree's defenses like a knife in the back. Then they blew up in liquid fire one right after the other on impact.

Joe glanced at the instant bonfire, but mainly kept an eye on the limbs twitching around him.

"That's a little bit of overkill, Betty." Joe winced as the thing lurched up out of the wall, started toward the three of them with its core on fire.

"I hate gardening." Betty switched to regular missiles as she eyed the burning heap. Then she released a thousand hornets in the shape of rocket powered bullets. The combined explosions knocked the burning pile over the edge and bouncing down the canyon wall toward the bottom. "I really hate gardening."

"That'll do, robot. That'll do." Joe shook his head slightly. "And you were kidding me about not liking monkeys."

"I'm Hercules." The man in the loincloth smiled at his rescuers. "Can you tell me what's going on?"

"I'm Joe Boxer." The fighter indicated himself with a thumb. "This is Betty Bit. We're here to rescue you because there is this ring, and your Fighting Five were the only ones that beat it."

"I'm just the muscle." Hercules shook his head. "Blue Dynamo and Harvey Hawk came up with the idea we used."

"The rest of our teams should be gathering them." Betty Bit fixed her hands with a flick of her forearms. "They probably beat us back home."

"How long have I been away?" Hercules looked at the two of them.

"You were erased." Joe shrugged. "We didn't even know about you until the ring appeared."

"I understand." Hercules frowned, obviously thinking about all of his history that had never been.

"We really need your help." Betty held out her hand. "Will you please come with us?"

"It will beat being a gardener." Hercules took the hand. "Let's save the world again."

The Pixie and Nick Number followed the trail the wand wielder had conjured up from a small landing on the river. The rocks cast by the river danced when the Theater member tapped the ground with the star at the end of the baton he carried.

"How are you doing that?" Nick frowned at the hopping rocks. "I thought you could only affect one thing at a time."

"I set up a chain reaction." The Pixie walked after the stones. "I touched a group of them and told them to change places with others in the same path that we want to travel. The hopping is the teleportation effect as they move forward. We're not seeing a long line of rocks hopping but five teleporting to new positions and letting us know we're going the right way."

"At least we're going the right way." Nick looked around. He still felt eyes on his back. "I think we should hurry. Something isn't right."

"That's my line." The Pixie offered a rare smile. "Let's see what we can do about speeding things up."

Nick stood out of the way as the Pixie touched the ground again. A solid carpet of stones picked them up on its back and started after the markers. The ride resembled being on an escalator more than anything else.

The carpet carried them to a lake in the middle of the canyons about a mile away from the river. They saw a man tied to a stone stake carved from the wall. He wore a turban, a tabard over a shirt, loose pants, and boots. A staff rested nearby, propped up against the wall with a metal tip gleaming slightly in the strange sun.

"That must be our man." Nick pulled a knife as he jumped off the carpet. "I wonder what's going on."

"I think we're about to find out." The Pixie took to the air on his butterfly wings. "There's something going on in the lake."

Nick looked at the water as he cut the ropes holding his quarry to the stake. The rocks jumped at his feet and fell dead with their mission completed. He hoisted the man over his shoulder, sheathing the knife. He grabbed the staff as he backed up from the stake.

Human sacrifice was the first thing that crossed his mind as he watched the lake's surface bubble as if boiling.

"I think we should get out of here." Nick headed for the carpet, still wiggling thanks to the Pixie's magic. He frowned at the fish men arrayed behind the transport, holding tridents in their webbed hands. He didn't want to hurt anybody, but he wasn't going to let his planet down.

A gigantic head emerged from the lake. It was triangular like a snake's with slitted eyes and a long tongue to grab its prey. The neck was wider than a van and disappeared into the water cascading with its movements. It examined the scene, wondering which morsel it should eat first.

The Pixie decided that he needed to buy time for Nick to think of a way to get through the fish men below. That meant stalling the dragon trying to climb out of the water. He frowned as he decided that he needed to impede its ability to move without being able to use his wand's power on it.

The wand wouldn't work on something alive.

Nick pulled a grenade from his arsenal and threw it down in front of the fish men. Some of them knew some kind of trick was on, and stepped away from the cannister. Most of the group didn't. The can blew up in a cloud of greenish gray smoke. He smiled when he heard the choking commence.

The Pixie dropped down to the surface of the lake and touched it with his wand as he avoided the long tentacle of a tongue. His wings carried him into the air as the lake froze over. The serpent pulled against the solid water, hissing in frustration.

"Time to go." The Pixie landed on the carpet of stones as Nick dropped his burden and pulled his rifle forward to start dealing lead. "Hold on to our guy."

The rolling stones carried them forward into the cloud of smoke and retching. The Pixie waved his wand in front of him like a fan. Air displaced in front of the group, blasting the cloud and anyone in it out of their way.

"Let's head back to where we first saw the river." Nick turned to make sure none of the fish men boarded as they rolled down the path back to the raging water. "That's where the door will open to take us home."

"Thank you for the rescue." The sacrifice sat up and rubbed his face. Nick saw that he had a huge welt on the side of his head. "I'm afraid I was taken unaware by the Ithicapoids. I'm Abraham of the Fighting Five."

"Don't thank us yet." Nick kept an eye out for anyone trying to stop the rolling rocks. "We need you to help save the earth."

"And we will." Abraham raised his staff. He stabbed it into the moving rocks. Suddenly the whole thing was moving through the air. "Don't doubt that."

"You guys are great for transportation." Nick looked over the side. "Turn left at the river. We have to go back upstream."

"I'm the Pixie and this is Nick Number." The Pixie frowned as the carpet roared along. "Hopefully we'll be in time."

The Hole considered his options as he hovered above the giant caterpillar. It munched on the mushrooms around it, but seemed to give him consideration as a threat. Or maybe it was thinking about how it could tear him apart with those mandibles at the front of its round head.

He wasn't going to give it the chance to grab him out of the air if he could help it.

Unfortunately the caterpillar had other ideas.

Strands of silk reached out from its mouth. The ends latched on the startled Hole's legs. An inexorable pull started him toward the voracious maw.

The Hole cut the strands with a burst of energy from his fingertips. He flew free, avoiding more of the grasping ropes of webbing. The caterpillar looked up at him, evidently judging range with its compound eyes.

The Hole fired a burst at the caterpillar. The mushroom eater curled up in a defensive ball and started rolling away from the line he drew in the air. It came out of its spin and started jogging like an elephant along the path it had chosen.

The Hole wasn't going to let it get away. He had a job to do. He didn't like the job, but who else was there?

He decided the best way to end things was with his shield. He matched speeds with the multi-legged horror. It turned its head once to look at him, then balled itself up to protect its vitals. That caused it to spin forward faster than it could run.

The Hole got in front of it, spreading his shield of black in front of his body as it crashed down on top of him. The shield cut a hole through the body of the beast, absorbing everything close enough to touch its black surface. The space Networker came out the other side of the rolling mass, untouched by the body he had cut through.

The thing came to a halt, wiggling uncontrollably. The Hole turned, his shield still intact. The damage seemed to be slowly healing from the hideous wounds he had inflicted. In anything else, it would have been a fatal wound.

Time to think of something else.

The Hole wondered how the natives killed these things with their pointy sticks.

The Hole decided to go for the head. Maybe cutting the head off would do the trick. If he was wrong, he would have to think of something else.

"Having problems?" Vic Ing stood on a nearby mushroom. "Regenerates? That's not good."

"Any ideas?" The Hole decided that he would not simply blast chunks away from the mass. He didn't want to create more of the caterpillars if they regenerated into full-grown beasts.

"If we had some fire, I could cook it." Vic grimaced. "That's how they do it here."

A green ball rolled up, a yellow three prominent on its face. It became a man shape, taking in the scene.

"If we can keep it bound, I can take it to the fire pits to cook." He grew to giant size to match the mushrooms around them. "I wouldn't want it to bite me while I was carrying it."

"No problem." Vic gestured with his hands. Earth burst from the debris on the ground around the leviathan. He wrapped it tight around the struggling form as tightly as possible. "That should do it."

"Now to take care of the next step." G-3 picked up the mass. He turned and started walking away. "Follow me back to the village and then we can go back to Earth."

The Hole picked Vic up in his gravity field and carried him along as they flew through the air. G-3 put the wrapped caterpillar down on cooking pits. Then he shrank down to his normal size. The two visitors dropped down beside him.

"I'll carry us back to the door." The Hole looked at the devastated village. The people cheered at the arrival of food enough to feed them for months. "Then we can save the Earth."

"They'll be able to rebuild without fear." G-3 looked around, featureless face revealing nothing. "The caterpillars seldom range here. This one must have been a fluke."

"That's a lot of meat to eat." Vic smiled at the people who looked at him in something akin to fear and awe. "It might take them months to get through it all if they store it properly."

"After we're gone, they can go back to living their lives like they should." The Hole lifted his companions with his gravity powers. "That's not our call. We have our own problem to deal with at the moment."

The Networker carried his comrades in the direction they had traveled from as smoothly as walking. He had developed his ability to navigate in space with some experience. It served him in good standing when he floated above planetary masses with their own landmarks.

"I wonder how much time we have left." Vic watched mushrooms fly by from the weird floating cushion he rode in. "Do you think the Earth is still there?"

"Yes." Hole squinted behind his mask. The door activated on top of the mushroom he and Vic had landed on when they arrived in that dimension. "If it wasn't, the door would be gone."

"I don't know how my comrades and I can help you if our attempt didn't succeed in the first place." G-3 looked back at his adopted home as they descended toward the door.

"Molly is a sharp cookie." Vic smiled. "There's nothing she can't fix."

"Hector can be brilliant on occasion himself." The Hole thought some of the errors he had been involved in fixing were better left unsaid.

The Hole brought them down for a soft landing. The door opened a hole in reality within its frame. Hector's lab stood on the other side. It looked like the others were as successful as he and the Elementalist. The three of them stepped over the threshold to join the others. The door closed behind them, the frame collapsing to nothing.

The Hole heard the familiar sound of the door opening, ushered his colleagues out of the way as Hector and Molly appeared with a man in a metal suit. Hector adjusted his customary sunglasses as he looked around, nodding at the success of the two teams.

"Gentlemen, thank you for answering our summons." Hector made introductions for everyone in a terse fashion. "Now we have to get to work on saving the planet."

"Our gun apparently didn't work like we thought it would." Harvey Hawk collapsed his glowing wings to nothing. "Still, it should be able to push the ring back to where it came from after we assemble it. We'll need help to get the parts and materials."

"Give me a list and we'll see what I have in my lab." Hector held out a pad and pencil.

The machine assembled itself almost by magic for the three teams. With Hector's involvement, that wasn't too farfetched an idea. He smiled as things went smoothly for them.

The teams assembled a smaller device thanks to the advancement of science on the yard behind the house. It was almost the same spot as where they had built the first device years ago. Hercules, for one, had a case of deja vu as he watched the tower come to life with the cables linked to the Blue Dynamo just like before.

Hector Hex and Molly Cule had stations set up to help monitor the device as the ring pushed toward the earth. When it struck, the world would be vaporized by its touch as it unmade everything. That would disrupt the solar system and then the effect would move other things across the galaxy, perhaps the universe, all the way to the beginning.

That was the calculated endpoint but no one knew for sure, and Hercules definitely could do without finding out from personal experience.

"Everything's green." Molly's voice sounded clearly in the earpiece the hero had been given. The wind had risen remarkably in the last few minutes to muting even a screaming voice. "We are at 90% and rising."

Hercules stood in the wind, ignoring the bite of small debris being flung at his nearly naked body. He squinted around him, making sure his allies were safe. This was uncomfortably close to when the Fighting Five had fired the cannon in the first place.

That had erased them from time, altering everything they had done to protect the planet.

"Ready to fire." Molly's voice didn't have any strain in it.

"Ready to fire." Hector looked around. His allies were using their powers to hold off the wind while he, Molly, and the Dynamo operated the cannon.

"Firing." The Blue Dynamo triggered a relay with a command from his helmet.

Energy ran down the attached cables, feeding the cannon as it directed its speaking end at the center of the descending ring. Blue lightning sliced the sky, punching the very center of the spinning circle. There was a moment when nothing happened. The lightning continued to pour into that spot but the ribbon kept revolving.

Then the ring came apart in streaks of light.

The wind slowly died as the gathered heroes let out a cheer at their victory. Hercules looked down. His hands were fading. He realized they had succeeded but the Fighting Five and their allies were not going to be erased. Instead time was going to reshape itself back to the way it should be.

He was returning to his wife and son.

Hercules laughed as he went with the pull of history, fading from sight. His comrades followed suit. The Blue Dynamo, the member of the Five closest to the cannon, faded last. Before he went, he disconnected the cables hooked to his armor. He raised his hand to wave and slipped away across the gap into history.

"You sure know how to show a girl a good time." Molly grinned at Hector.

"Same time next week?" Hector brushed his hair down with his fingers. "I'll see if there is a world destroying menace we can deal with then."

"You're on, buddy." Molly offered her hand. "We'll even use my world for the meeting place."

"I'm game." Hector shook the hand with his own. It felt good through his black glove.

"Nothing like saving the world to base a romance on," Chemical Girl whispered to Denver Dead from behind the back of her hand.

"I'm with you there." The ghost smiled. "At least some kind of happy ending came out of all this."

"I wonder how long they're going to be courting." Nick Number unstrapped his equipment vest and let it hang in his hand. "Long distance relationships rarely work out."

"At least if they're together, they can't wreck anything." Joe Boxer smiled.

"Don't be too sure." The Pixie started toward the house. "In any case, I have to get home and get back to work. All this running around has thrown me off my schedule."

"I need to clean that plant matter off myself." Betty Bit looked around. "The Hole vanished with the Fighting Five."

"No." Chemical Girl pointed up in the sky. "He's heading home to Mars."

The two groups walked inside the house, Molly and Hector last, still holding hands. They went down to the lab where the door waited for the Theater to arrive. They stepped across with the Pixie going first. Molly was last, smiling at Hector.

"I'll see you next week, Hector." Molly straightened the collar of his coat. "I'll even cook."

"Kiss, idiots." The members of the Network all looked in some other direction when Molly and Hector glared at them.

Hector stared down at Molly, realizing he was stepping into unknown territory. This was like an experiment where you didn't know what was going to happen, or why it happened in the first place. He didn't even know how to hug the way he held his arms apart trying to think of a polite move.

Molly grabbed his head in both hands and kissed him hard. He thought 'What is going on here?' Then he didn't think at all. He felt numerous things that placed his mind out on cloud nine somewhere. When he returned to the real world, Molly waved at him before stepping into the door.

"As far as first dates go, I have seen worse." Nick Number smiled, then turned away whistling some song he had heard somewhere.

"And we saved the world from a menace from beyond time and space." Joe Boxer started up the stairs. "What could be better?"

"Young love." Chemical Girl followed them.

Hector stared at the dimensional door long after his friends were gone.

epilogue

Hercules blinked and everything was all right with the world. He took in a deep breath of calm air. Ribbons of light above him faded as others moved back to their own time and space, rearranging the Earth once more.

Hercules laughed, glad to be alive.

"We did it." The Blue Dynamo pulled the cables from the outlets in the breastplate of his armor. "I can't believe it, but we actually did it."

"What about those others that we met?" Abraham tapped his staff on the ground. "Will the world be the same for them as it is for us?"

"It'll probably be a little different." The Blue Dynamo checked his instruments as he realized only his armor was holding him on his feet. The adrenaline emptying out of his system left behind fatigue and sweat. "The changes should be minuscule."

"We'll have to pack our time/space modifier and take it home." Harvey Hawk landed, letting his fire wings fade out. "Then I guess we can meet for our after action reports tomorrow."

Hercules fought the urge to go directly home. He wanted to check on his wife and son, not stand around cleaning up after victory. His friends needed just a little more help before he left. He could spare them that.

Julia would understand. They had been married for several years, and she had even been with him on some of the cases he had worked on. She knew the heroing profession was dangerous before they married and helped him now when he was away from home.

He wanted to be by her side, but had to help clean up the mess they made. He decided to call. That was the least he could do.

"I have to make a phone call." Hercules looked around. "I guess I will have to find a pay phone."

"Sure, Herc." Harvey Hawk produced a quarter. "I thought I saw a booth down the street."

"Thanks, Harvey." The strong man jogged away. "I'll pay you back tomorrow."

Hercules saw the phone booth. He ran to it, checking the phone to see if it worked before putting in his borrowed quarter. He dropped the quarter and dialed his home number. It would be good to get back home.

"Hello?" The voice matched the lovely heart-shaped face in his mind. "Sampson residence."

"This is Len, honey." Hercules's smile grew broader. "It's been a tough day but I'll be coming home as soon as we clean up."

"Thank God. I have been waiting for you to call forever." Julia sounded close to crying. "I have some things I can throw in the oven."

"I'm thinking about retiring, Julia." Hercules looked back at where the group was trying to dismantle the cannon without his help. "I think it's time to let the younger guys take over. I was wondering if we could talk about it when I got home."

"Being a hero is in your blood, Len." Julia's voice carried her concern. "You would hate being a layabout all day."

"We'll talk about it when I get home, honey." Hercules thought about all the things they hadn't experienced because the constant need to answer the call to arms. "I just need a change for a while if you don't mind."

"I'll be waiting, Len." Julia seemed to be looking at him from miles away. "I love you."

"I love you too, honey." Hercules left fingerprints in the phone's receiver. "I'll be home as soon as I can."

Hercules carefully hung up the slightly bent phone. He had been battling menaces for a while now, both on his own and as a member of the Fighting Five. He had almost lost his family saving the world. Maybe it was time to reevaluate what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.

He had been given his gift to help others. He had done so the best he could. He didn't want to lose his strength, but he also didn't want his family to be alone if he failed one time. That was too much to ask of them.

He looked at the rest of the Five trying to take their invention apart. He had to tell them that he was leaving the team. They needed to pick up another member to take his place. First he had to hash things out with Julia.

He knew his own mind, but also he knew his reasoning could be born of fear. That was something only applying reason now that the threat was over would help with his decision. The others might not understand his decision, but they would support it because they were his friends.

"Thanks, guys." Hercules looked at the contraption, some of which had been dismantled while he was talking to Julia. "How can I help?"

"We just need to unscrew some bolts and put everything back in their cases." The Blue Dynamo looked around. "Except the cases are gone."

"I'll take everything apart for you while you guys get some more cases." Hercules moved to the machine. "It won't take a second."

"G-3 and I will help Hercules." Abraham raised his staff. "Our combined efforts should expedite things."

"Let's go, Dynamo." Harvey's wings stretched out to lift him in the air. "We can find where the cases went faster from the air."

Harvey Hawk and the Blue Dynamo took to the air, circling the area. Hercules grabbed the massive components of the machine while Abraham and G-3 worked on the bolts. Within seconds everything was laid out on the ground ready to be packed away.

"I have to head out." Hercules smiled. "I'll see you guys tomorrow."

The strong man walked away with a wave at his friends.

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