Several minutes earlier, right before the concluding events of the last chapter, a deep voice cut off the cursing by someone else about having to fight his way through a head wind, rumbling, "Will you pipe down? I want to listen to this!"
From where he sat, leaning back against the large object sharing their ride, a man looked up at hearing that annoyed comment. This man was dressed in a Robin Hood costume of boots, stockings, shorts, a sleeveless leather tunic known as a jerkin plus a quiver filled with numerous arrows strapped to the back of the jerkin, wristbands, and a jaunty pointed hat with a large white feather jutting into the air from the back tip of the hat. Save for this feather, everything else worn by that man had been dyed a brilliant canary-yellow.
A panicky expression now blossomed upon the golden-clad man's face, as he started moaning in fear, all while clutching his hundred-pound-draw archer's bow in his suddenly-damp palms. "Oh, my god, what's gone wrong? We should have come up with another plan! We're doomed, I tell you, DOOMED!"
"YOU shut up, too!" snarled the deep voice coming from the man lying on his back along the green, rubberized casing of their transport. Rolling his eyes in exasperation at his seated companion, the prone man then glowered at the other through his black upper facemask. Taking a calming breath that swelled his massive chest, with his costume there stretching over the white letter 'A' detailed on the front of his body, the man in the black form-fitting uniform that showed off every bulging muscle now said in a more composed tone, "Herman, are we there yet?"
A preoccupied grunt came from the front of the twenty-foot wide flattened cylinder that would have ordinarily caused any inhabitant of the small California city truly serious strain in maintaining their Sunnydale Syndrome while at this moment accidentally catching sight of something that was totally weird. Even for residents of that town more than capable of ignoring just about anything bizarre occurring in their vicinity, it would have been a considerable shock for them to look up in the air and see a small, green blimp floating in the air several hundred feet up in the sky. Particularly if these dumbfounded witnesses had very keen eyesight, or just binoculars, to be able to see the human head sticking out from the front edge of the blimp, with this head having a green helmet with pudgy fins running along the sides and top of this headgear.
This cranium was now looking down, clearly searching for something, until a flash of satisfaction now appeared on what was underneath this peculiar green helmet, namely a young man's chubby features, with him now happily reporting, "We're right there, Leander! A couple more seconds, and I'll stop over it!" A look of intense concentration now appeared on Herman Cramer's face, as he lifted his head to stare at the horizon and then he opened his mouth as wide as he could. An instant later, a massive belch erupted from this orifice, with this strong gust of wind continuing longer than thought humanly possible. The blimp formerly floating lazily through the air now came to a complete stop.
"Okay, William, check it out," ordered Leander Brent.
"You know I hate heights!" whined the archer. "Besides, why are we using our own names? I thought we made a pact to call each other by our superhero titles, after that little mix-up with the JLA and our secret identities."
Gritting his teeth, Leander snapped, "Like Myron said, nobody knows who we are in this dimension! So, it doesn't matter if we use our real names, not to mention that Athena certainly finds it a lot easier remembering who she's talking to. Now, stick your head over the side and check our target! Unless you want me to do it?" At that last question, an irritated gleam appeared in the eyes of the man in the black costume, as he began to shift his body with its mammoth muscles.
"NO!" yelped William King, with real horror now in his voice. Right after that, while sending a disgusted look at the prone man smirking at the archer, William sullenly reached back with the left hand holding his bow, to hook this weapon securely to his quiver. Then, the bowman dropped onto his stomach to wiggle his entire body past the other man lying on his back, until William could hesitantly peek over the edge of the blimp and look down at the ground far below, followed by his face turning almost as green as Herman's costume.
Shuddering, the man in the yellow uniform then pulled his head in and crawled backwards until he felt it was safe enough to then get up on his hands and knees at next to Leander's head looking up at him. Taking a deep breath of relief, the archer nodded, "Okay, it won't be a problem for either of us."
"Good," grunted the man clad in midnight-black. "Because, from what I'm listening to inside that warehouse, Spike has a really good plan that could actually work. So, everyone, it's game time!" At those last words, Leander reached down with his right hand to his belt buckle, to grip it and squeeze, once.
Up in the air, William and Herman simultaneously felt their own belt buckles beginning to vibrate. This pulsation was also sensed by two other people inside the warehouse anxiously awaiting their call to action, with someone clad in their purple jester's costume now carrying out his portion of the plan he'd laid out for everyone earlier today, as he cheerfully spoke a classic comedy line in his carrying voice, while the young man then moved out of his hiding place among the wooden crates.
Right after Leander's action, William promptly got up on his feet, though the archer still remained in a crouch as he scooted over to stand next to the right side of his friend's colossal body. Leaning forward to grab Leander's lower right arm just below the elbow, William's gripping fingers only went a third around that limb that felt as hard as steel. Still, that was enough for him to have enough of a hold, as the archer now carefully checked his posture, making sure he'd be using just his legs for this. It would be an absolute disaster now if his back went out at what he was going to do.
In the next second, William then heaved upwards, while Leander remained absolutely immobile during his body being turned over on its side, to teeter for an instant on the edge of the blimp, until William shifted his straining muscles from lifting into pushing, and he now shoved the man in the black costume over the side of the airship, for Leander to start plummeting at an ever-increasing speed down towards the very hard ground far below.