A/N: Thanks as always for your reviews and reminders not to give up on this fic, it's appreciated! I hope you enjoy this next part!


Chapter Nine – Tomorrow is Yesterday

Linka felt the pincers release and immediately shook herself free, throwing her arms around her father and begging him not to let go.

"Mal! What do you think you're doing?" Blight screeched, not liking the way things were going.

"Sorry Doctor, the controls shorted out." Her digital henchman replied.

Plunder looked at the boys, "About time, take Alina back inside now."

There was a chorus of negatives but it was Wheeler's that startled his mentor. He walked up to the Russian girl and her father and dumped her rucksack at their feet. "If she wants to leave, let her, we don't need her anyway."

Mr Orlov stiffened, sure that the words would hurt both incarnations of his daughter but the younger girl squeezed his arm reassuringly. Looking at the American she said, "Come with us?"

"I'm not going home." He shook his head.

"Not your home," Linka persisted, knowing how hard it was for him. "Mine. You can live with us now."

The older Planeteers gasped and Plunder stepped forward, laying a hand on Jason's shoulder. "You belong with me, my boy. I'm going to make you rich and powerful. If you leave now you'll be nothing but an encumbrance to a man who must want you less than even your own father, in a country that can't even speak a civilised language… and for what? To be a pet to a girl who has more in common with Blight's computer than normal human beings."

"I have more in common with human beings than you and Doctor Blight!" Young Linka snapped, surprising her father once again. "Do not listen to him Jason, you would have a family with us and…"

A laser bolt exploded at her feet and she screamed, jumping back and putting a small distance between herself and her father.

Blight laughed and levelled her blaster again, "Betray me will you, you futile excuse for a zephyr? I offered you everything a girl could want, and this is the thanks I receive? The first chance you get you run home crying 'Daddy!'"

The mad doctor's voice had been getting shriller as she went on and the last word was almost painful to hear but then it suddenly dropped back into her normal conversational tone. "This one has your name on it."

Realising that Blight meant it a second before everyone else did, Wheeler hurled himself at his friend knocking her out of the way a split second before the laser bolt passed through the space they'd just occupied. Then he was dragging her to her feet and pulling her into a run, making for the other side of the plane.

"WIND!", "WATER!" Behind them the elements clashed as the female planeteers both tried at the same time to incapacitate Blight.

Linka's father began to grapple with Plunder while little Gi and her parents looked on in shock. Ma-Ti stayed back too until Plunder called to Kwame for help and seeing the young African move to assist him, attempted to put himself between him and the struggling men.

Blight pulled herself out of the water where the girls had thrown her and raised her weapon again, this time aiming at the older version of her protégé, "This just means I get to shoot you twice."

The shot was too close and threw Linka off balance but she rolled and came to her feet again. Gi too had to duck and so wasn't prepared to retaliate before the mad scientist got in another volley.

Dropping flat in the sand and hoping there was no one behind her as the energy sizzled over her head, the Russian Planeteer took only a second to respond, "Wind." The sand in front of her outstretched hand began moving forward into a localised storm that surrounded her opponent, stinging her bare skin.

"Mal!" Blight screamed over the roar before she had to cover her face.

Hurrying to her rescue the modified chess program came zipping out of the ship in his remote unit and managed to pull her free. "Good work my load balancing liberator. Now get her!"

Gi however saved him from that particular dilemma by raising another wall of water that soaked everyone present and had the computerised sidekick seeking immediate transfer back to his mothership.

"We need to help them." Young Linka exclaimed but Wheeler held her tightly.

"No, let the adults deal with it."

She glared at him. "Since when? That is my father out there!"

"He'd want you safe." He pleaded with her. "Blight wasn't kidding, she wants you dead, she's finally flipped her lid!"

Two watery eyes looked up at him, "Please Jason?"

He shook his head and tightened his grip, "I'm not going to let anything happen to you, even if it means you hate me for the rest of our lives."

"Wind!" Linka knocked Blight onto her back, sparing only a glance to see that Gi's father had stepped in to help Ma-Ti restrain Kwame while her own had Plunder pinned down. "It is over Doctor Blight."

"Listen Levantera*," the eco-villain replied, once more pulling herself to her feet, though she forgot to pick up her gun. "You've had your fun, but you lost before you ever came here. Plunder has Wheeler and Kwame eating out of his hands and if they know what's good for them, it'll stay that way. You want out? Fine, take your tiny-self and go, I don't need you. One way or another, Captain Planet is history!"


"Linka?" her father's voice called to her in the silence that followed Blight's announcement, and Wheeler finally released her.

They returned to the scene of the battle together, Linka continuing to her father's side but Wheeler staying back out of the way, not sure what he was going to do.

The girls had Blight restrained and Gi and her mother had run back to their settlement to get something to tie up the prisoners with, though they were still unsure about what was going on.

"What do we do now?" Ma-Ti asked the adult Linka, and she realised that all eyes were on her, waiting for instructions.

Swallowing hard at the new responsibility they'd placed on her, the Russian said, "We need to take them back to Gaia, she will know what to do about the damage they have done… I hope." That last was said under her breath, not really meant for the ears of the others.

With their enemies secured, Mr Orlov was once again free to embrace his young daughter and ask her if she was ok. He spoke in their native language, more from habit than a need for privacy but the others left them alone anyway, while they decided on the best way forward.

Wheeler watched them from a distance, his face inscrutable, until a gentle hand on his shoulder made him jump. "Are you okay Jason?"

The young boy looked up into the face of a beautiful woman that seemed somehow familiar, and shrugged, trying to look nonchalant . "Sure."

"Come on." She smiled and guided him over to his friend and her father.

Young Linka beamed at him, "Papa says it is ok, you can come with us."

"I owe you a great deal for looking after my daughter," the older man told him seriously, and then smiled glancing at the older version of Linka, "And from what I am told, I would be lucky to have you as a son, please, join us?"

Wheeler swallowed and gave another shrug, not able to find the words to express what he was feeling, and thinking it was a little too good to be true. Instead he pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and held it out to the older man. "Here."

Before Linka's father could take it however, Ma-Ti stepped between them and snatched it from him. "No."

"Hey!" the young American immediately fired up, "Give that back, it's not yours!"

The three Russians looked confused as they watched Ma-Ti raise his ring to his forehead. Wheeler's eyes opened wide for a moment and then he turned away.

"What did you do to him!" young Linka exclaimed, taking a swipe at the Planeteer as she rushed to her friend's side. "Are you ok Jason?"

He couldn't look at her. "I can't go with you."

"Nyet… you can!" She shook her head, tears in her eyes, "I do not understand."

Future Linka had tears in her eyes as well, she didn't know what her colleague had shown him but she was sure he'd done the right thing, no matter how painful it was. "We should go."

Her father nodded and came to rest his hands on his young daughter's shoulders, "Come DorogAya moyA, we are going on a trip. We can try to convince Jason on the way."

Wheeler shook his head but when his young friend slipped her hand in his with a quiet "Please?" he allowed himself to be lead away.

The Wind Planeteer approached Ma-Ti, "What was it you took from him?"

He showed her the page of the biography that detailed her father's death and her eyes filled with tears again. "He wanted to save him."

"I am sorry Linka." The Heart Planeteer told her, "I know better than anyone how much you are all hurting over this, but it would be wrong to change history…"

"Would it?" She asked sharply, "So much has already been changed, would it really be terrible for Wheeler and I to grow up together with a loving father?"

He looked down at the ground, knowing that she already knew the answer and not wanting to argue with her. Finally he said, "Perhaps Gaia will agree with you, let us leave it for her to decide."

Linka bit her lip and walked away, not sure she could trust herself to answer.


Between Linka and Gi, they were able to take the control of Blight's ship away from Mal, and the Russian undertook to pilot it alongside the Geo-cruiser towards Hope Island and the time portal they hoped was still there.

After a short discussion they had decided not to try to persuade Gi and her parents to join them but the Water Planeteer had been very quiet since they said goodbye and Linka had caught her looking longingly at Teesa. When she tried to speak to her however, the Asian looked away and said, "You haven't said anything about… about what you're going to lose. I don't see what right I have to." Then she walked over to the Geo-Cruiser and got in beside Ma-Ti before anyone else could say anything.

Now piloting Blight's craft with her father watching over the bound prisoners (all still slightly damp from the soaking they'd received,) as well as the two children, Linka wondered if the Planeteers would survive the guilt and grief that now raged between them.

Blight might have been right, the damage has already been done… and how can we make Wheeler go back to his father? And the fates of Papa, and Teesa…maybe even Ma-Ti's parents, just within our grasp if we are willing to risk our future... But there is so much at stake…it is all so unfair!

She glanced around to watch the younger version of herself, (now back in her school uniform instead of her Blightsuit,) sitting close by her friend's side and filling his head with all the things she loved about her home. She was, Linka realised, terrified of losing her one real friend and doing her absolute best to hold on to him. She didn't blame her.

Wheeler smiled and listened patiently but he looked sad, and the older woman guessed that he couldn't face going with them knowing what he did about her father and not being able to do anything about it. How long would his resolve last after we leave? Nyet, Gaia will not let him go with us… with them, anyway, any more than Ma-Ti would. Perhaps I could…

[Coming up on the portal now.] Gi's voice broke through her reverie as it came over the ships communication system. [We'll wait for you to go through first, if anything goes wrong we don't want those eco-villains stuck on this side.]

"Acknowledged." Linka replied, forcing her mind away from more painful subjects, but not completely giving up on the idea of changing her past.


* Levantera - A persistent east wind of the Adriatic, usually accompanied by cloudy weather.

To Be Continued...