Hello everyone! It's been too long. Sorry. This one was a lot of fun and a total pain to write. I had way too many ideas and options of people to bring in and I kept reconsidering them even while writing. This is where I ended up. Maybe it's too much but I enjoyed it. Hope y'all like it too, it's more fun and less important to the story arc, still with a bit of angst because I'm an angst machine. I expect you all know that by now.
I'll be back as soon as I can be with the next one, then we're on to the finale. Read and leave a review.
Danger S1E27: Not Helping
March 17, 2022
"I'm sorry, repeat that," Henry requests into the phone. "…There's a dinosaur downtown?" he repeats their words back to them. "… a dinosaur? ... okay. Sure, we'll be there in a minute." He hangs up the phone, shaking his head.
"Did you say 'dinosaur'?" Schwoz questions.
"Yeah," Henry says. Grabbing his gum tin, he sends a group message saying 'Gear up'.
Piper peers at him confused as she changes into her Rolling Thunder uniform. "Dinosaurs?" she questions with scrupulous raised eyebrows. "We're going to fight dinosaurs?"
"Apparently," he shrugs, belting the dark angel sword to his side. "At least one. It just came out of nowhere downtown.
"What?" Miles asks, entering the room with Mika and Chapa in tow.
"A dinosaur?" Mika asks.
"That's what they said!" Henry answers again. "I know it sounds ridiculous. Let's go see what's really happening."
"Bose will meet us there," Mika says, reading his text on her phone.
The four there grab hold of Miles, who teleports them to the street corner the dinosaur is supposedly on. It is a chaos of screaming people. "Oh my god!" Volt says. "There really is a dinosaur!"
It is unmistakable, an enormous orange dinosaur is stomping around down the street. People are running away from it in every direction. "Wait!" the dinosaur roars. "Don't! I won't hurt you."
"And it talks!" AWOL says, giving the thing a look of astonishment and a bit of horror.
"Right, um. Let's go see what we can do against this thing," Danger says. "Somehow I don't think punches are going to do much."
"I can zap it," Volt says.
"I can try soundwaves," Shoutout also volunteers.
Danger nods his approval and AWOL teleports them closer to the dinosaur. It's even bigger up close. Volt leaps at it and only reaches the height of his knee, which she sends a huge bolt of red electricity at.
"Ow!" The dinosaur growls stumbling. "What the…?" it looks down at them. "Who're you guys?"
"You're worst nightmare, Dinosaur!" Volt shouts. She throws another bolt at it.
Then with a green flash, the dinosaur is gone. In its place is an enormous-headed orange crab-like thing. "Brainstorm! You think me incapable of conducting your unique voltage, eh?" it asks. The voice entirely different from the dinosaurs, accented and far more sophisticated.
"Oh! Woah!" AWOL shrieks, backing away.
"What the butt?!" Rolling Thunder matches his pitch and volume.
The crab-clawed creature's skull opens, exposing its brain. A crackling surge of yellow electricity comes out of the brain and towards them. Danger deflects it off his forcefield. "Great," Volt grunts. "Shoutout, it's your turn."
"Gladly," she accepts and steps forward to scream at the crab-thing.
It rolls backwards over itself several times but scuttles its legs around to catch itself several paces down the block. "Oh…" it says in the crab's voice before another flash of green replaces the crab with a small white silicon body. "I can do that one too," it says in a new crackling, echoey voice. "Echo Echo!" the small thing sends a sonic scream back at Shoutout.
She flies backward with a pained cry, holding her ears. Danger catches her as well as he can. Putting and holding his shield up around them all as he checks on her. "What is going on?" AWOL shouts. "Where are all these things coming from?"
"And where are they going?" Volt asks. "How're they replacing each other?"
"The way they're talking makes them all sound like the same person, or whatever it is," Rolling Thunder notes. "Maybe it's a shapeshifter or something."
"Great," Volt complains. "Then how the heck are we supposed to stop it?"
"Working on it," Danger says, studying the little sonic screamer as it studies him back.
"Who the heck are you guys?" it asks.
"Who the heck are you?" Brainstorm returns, coming up behind the silicon creature and lifting it off the ground with his telekinesis. "What're you doing to my friends?" He looks at them to ask. "I thought you said we were going to fight a dinosaur?"
"It was a dinosaur," Shoutout says, still holding her ears.
"I can be!" the creature says. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to get out of here before your friends attack me again."
Another green flash and the little thing becomes a big blue and black butterfly man. With a call in a new raspy whisper voice it calls, "Big Chill!" then promptly spreads its wings and launches itself into the air while turning invisible.
"I am so confused," Brainstorm says. "What just happened? What was that thing?"
Danger shakes his head. "I have absolutely no i…"
Another green flash lights up the sky not too far from them and a new voice, a human voice, shouts a complaint, "Oh come on! Really?!" A figure in green and blue falls from the place where the flash had happened. He struggles and shouts some more things as he drops through the air. He's just about on the point of panic, nearing the ground, shouting, "Come on! Work! Work!", when he's pulled out of his freefall by a smaller figure with rocket boots catching him. Lil' Dynomite is able to redirect the fall to a better angle and a slowed crash, but the person he's catching being bigger than him pulls them both to the ground, nonetheless.
"Ow," Lil' Dynomite complains, cradling his injured arm. "Are you okay?" he asks the older teen he'd saved.
"Ugh, yeah. Thanks, whoever you are," he returns, fiddling with a strange green watch on his wrist. "Are you?"
"I've never had to catch anyone falling from the sky, let alone with a bad arm," he grumbles. "Also, why were you falling from the sky?"
"I was trying to get away from…" the guy says.
"Lil' D?" Danger asks coming up on them. "You okay, kid?"
"I'm okay," Lil' Dynomite nods. "Feel like I'm late to the party. I miss much?"
"Kinda," AWOL admits.
"Your friends, apparently," the guy in the green jacket finishes.
Rolling Thunder eyes him with an amused raised eyebrow. "No way. You're the dinosaur?"
"Dinosaur?" Lil' Dynomite asks.
"I'm Ben Tennyson. Ben 10," the guy, Ben, says like he thinks it's obvious. His look says the same as he overtly displays his weird watch. "Wielder of the omnitrix: most powerful device in the universe. Saved the universe from the HighBreed."
"HighBreed?" Lil' Dynomite questions. "Omni-what?"
"Most powerful device in the universe," Ben repeats. "Holds the DNA of thousands of aliens. Give me the power to turn into them."
"Aliens?" Lil' Dynomite asks further.
"Yeah, he also became an invisible butterfly," Rolling Thunder says.
"A lightning crab," Volt adds.
"And a loud shrieking thing," Shoutout complains while completing the list.
Ben nods, "Big Chill, Brainstorm and Echo Echo."
"Hmm?" Brainstorm asks.
"Those are the names of my aliens," Ben says. "Who're you guys? What alien species do you come from to get powers like those?"
"I'm an alien?" Brainstorm asks. His friends look at him exasperated.
"No!" Shoutout says. "You are not an alien. None of us are aliens." Her last statement she directs towards Ben.
"Then what are you? You look human and this looks like Earth," Ben says. "Is it not?"
"This is Earth," AWOL confirms with a raised eyebrow.
"And we are human," Shoutout seconds in the same dubious tone as her brother.
"Then you've got to be part alien," Ben says. "Humans can shriek at the level you did. Or blast lightning from their hands, or fly."
"I fly because of my suit and rocket boots," Lil' Dynomite explains.
"We're supers," Danger explains at the same time. "Humans with superpowers. Like every other superhero in the world. Every hero you've ever heard of."
"Superheroes?" Ben asks. "I'm pretty sure the plumber kids are the closest thing Earth has to superheroes," Ben says. His look of confusion matches the ones they've been giving him.
"Plumber kids?" Lil' Dynomite asks.
"Yeah," Ben says fully serious. "The children of the Plumbers: the galactic police force."
"Uh…Hmm?" Danger says.
"Plumbers are alien police? Okay, sure thing, Tin Hat Man," Rolling Thunder grumbles, rolling her eyes. "Can we take the dinosaur/conspiracy nut to a psych ward and be done with it? He's totally insane."
"It's not a conspiracy and I'm not insane," Ben argues. "Now, will you tell me where I am? I'd like to go home now."
"Where are you from, Alien Shapeshifter Dude?" AWOL asks. "How did you get here?"
"And why did you turn into a dinosaur and stomp around the streets?" Brainstorm asks.
"I didn't, at least, I didn't mean to go stomping around the streets. One minute I was fighting the Forever Knights then a portal came out of nowhere and I was here. Which again I'll ask; where is here?" Ben says.
"Swellview," Danger answers.
"Never heard of it," Ben says. "Is it in America? You're accents sound American. Which state?"
"It is a state," Rolling Thunder says.
"Smallest state in the west and better than all the rest!" Danger Force and Lil' Dynomite recite with her.
"I had to learn all fifty states in school and I'm pretty sure none of them are called Swellview," Ben argues.
They all frown at him. "There are fifty-one states in America," Shoutout says. "Swellview was the 46th state to join the union; before Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska and Hawaii."
"That is not a thing," Ben argues. "Like, I know I'm bad at history, but I'm not that bad."
"You think we don't know what state we live in?" Volt asks aggressively.
Ben raises his hands and shakes his head. "I don't know. But I'm sure there's only fifty states."
"Who taught you that?!" Shoutout demands.
"Every school class ever," Ben insists.
"Wait," Danger forestalls his team from arguing any further. "You came here through a portal?"
"Yeah," Ben says. "That's nothing new. I've been through several portals. Crossing the galaxy and traveling from earth to spaceships or to other dimensions…" he slows, realizing as Danger does.
"…You came from another dimension. One where Swellview doesn't exist and superpowers come from aliens?" Danger says.
"That would explain things," Ben agrees.
"Another dimension?" Rolling Thunder asks. "Like the cat versions of us? And the bloopers?"
"Yeah," Danger says.
"But how would Ben have come to be in our dimension?" Lil' Dynomite asks.
Danger's face scrunches displeased and he says, "I can think of one easy answer for that, and if it's him again, he's going to be in big trouble."
(Theme Song: Henry's Voice dubbed over the image of Captain Man's bronze statue. "It all just kinda happened. It wasn't supposed to be this way. He shouldn't have died. But now here I am, doing his job." Cut scene to Man's Nest in chaos as the members of Danger Force and Schwoz run around reacting to an emergency alert blaring through the base. "I'm not sure I'm ready for this." Henry states and the music of the theme song begins to play...)
"Bill!" Danger shouts, walking into the little office room and only finding Bill Evil's Secretary. "Where's Bill?"
"Oh, hey," The unfazed woman says. "Thought we'd be seeing you soon."
"He built another interdimensional portal," Danger requests the confirmation.
"Yeah. He's in the lab with it," she says distractedly while filing her nails. "Go on in."
"Thanks," he replies tersely. In the lab there are a handful of scientists, including Bill Evil, gathered around the new portal machine. The machine sparks and spurts as a shifting window gives peeks of a cityscape in the next dimension. "Bill!" Danger repeats his initial growl.
The mad scientist jumps and turns around with his arms outstretched as if to obscure the machine. "Uh, Danger, hello. There's nothing going on here, you don't need to worry about anything," he assures quickly.
Danger glowers with the look that conveys his knowledge. "We already confiscated your first portal opening machine. What made you think you could ever be allowed to make another?"
"Because I'm using it to bring in help, to stop Shadow Man!" Bill Evil defends, straitening to project a confidence he doesn't fully have in the young man's presence. "Like that guy!" he gestures to Ben. "He's a superhero from another dimension. Maybe he can stop the villain."
"You can't kidnap heroes from other dimensions!" Danger lectures.
The shifty portal begins to flicker less smoothly.
"You need the help!" Bill insists. "You haven't stopped him. I'm finding someone who can!"
"Uh, guys?" Ben tries to get their attention.
"I do not need you kidnapping heroes from other dimensions," Danger says. "I will kill Shadow Man. All you're doing is causing a distraction, another problem for me to deal with!"
"You've proven you can't Handle Shadow Man on your own! You've even called in your own backup!" Bill gestures to Rolling Thunder.
Shoutout glances worried at the fluctuating portal.
Danger's glare sours at Bill. "She has nothing to do with this. She's not here to help me kill him."
"Yes, I am!" Rolling Thunder puts in immediately.
Danger casts her a quick look to discourage her arguing with him. "She's here because she's one of Shadow Man's biggest targets and I'm not willing to lose any more family to him."
"Um, Dr. Evil," one of the other scientists tries to get his attention.
"What about everyone else's families? You haven't given as much attention to protecting them," Bill grumps back at Danger.
"Danger," Brainstorm tries to warn as well. He and the rest of Danger's sidekicks having noticed what the scientists have. They are likewise ignored by the arguing pair.
"I am doing everything I can to protect them. I'm trying to find and kill him! But I can't very well do that when I'm being distracted by your little side quest of pulling dinosaur-alien-guys from other dimensions!" Danger shouts.
"Well…!" Bill begins to holler back but they are cut off by all the other people in the room crying out at them.
"Dude!" "Sir!" "Danger!" "Doctor!" "Bro!" "Bill!" the rest of the room shout at the pair until they finally get their attentions.
An alarm also begins to sound as the highly unstable portal causes a huge commotion. "Ooooh… that doesn't sound good," Bill Evil says. With a burst of light and sound the portal explodes. Danger is swift to activate his forcefield and block the majority of it from hitting his team or the scientists. Something large bounces off the shield just before the light dissolves into the air and the sound silences. The portal is gone and the machine is no longer sparking. It in fact seems quite dead. "Definitely not good," Bill groans.
"What just happened?" Ben asks.
"The portal collapsed," Bill bemoans. "It wasn't stable."
"Why are you opening unstable portals?" Danger asks.
"Because you took my perfected machine and I'm having to recreate it from memory without the help of that genius Twitler," Bill Evil explains. "We're having to go through trial and error."
Danger shakes his head. "Another good reason you shouldn't be messing with interdimensional travel," he points out.
"Interdimensional travel?" an unknown voice asks from above their heads. A person in a skintight, full body, red and blue suit is crouched on the ceiling several feet above. He speaks again, to himself this time in a mutter of, "So that's what that feels like." With an acrobatic flip he comes off the ceiling and drops to the ground. "Hey!" he greets, his voice young and friendly. "I'm Spider-Man. Care to tell me who you are, where we are, and why I was brought here from my dimension?"
(Commercial Break)
"I'm trying!" Schwoz insists. Danger Force are back in the Man's Nest, having brought the interdimensional teleporter and their two new interdimensional friends with them. Schwoz climbs under the machine to work some more on it. "This machine is not as advanced as the last one, and it's very broken right now. I need a new quantum-frequencing coil and I'm going to have to build something into this that will allow us to find and open portals into specific dimensions in the multiverse."
"How long will that take?" Miles asks.
"I'm going to have to try to recreate the interdimensional frequecy listening device from memory," Schwoz grimbles. "I can do it, but it will take a while.
"Have you tried running subatomic particles on a mobius strip to allow for the manipulation of the quantum field fluctuations that span across dimensions?" Spider-Man suggests.
Based on the silence that follows the question, Schwoz has stopped tinkering around with the machine. After a moment long enough to almost be awkward, he rolls out from beneath again and stares at the red-costumed man. "That's not possible. In order to use quantum fluctuations, you'd have to be smaller than the quantum waves."
"Yeah," Spider-Man nods. "But that's easily achieved with the Pym Particle, particularly since the function of reverting that subatomic state was discovered," he scratches at his head.
"Pym Particle?" Schwoz asks. "Nothing can be forced to a subatomic volume. Atoms can't be shrunk."
"Well, that's not entirely true. The Pym Particle compresses the atom. Since atoms are made mostly of the empty space of the electron valences, by compressing those empty spaces together objects can become a lot smaller without losing mass." Spider-Man explains. "And if left without restraint, the Pym Particle can cause that atom to keep pressing until it's forcing the protons and nutrons of the nuclei into smaller sizes as well. Given enough time and the proper equipment, things can become small enough, without losing any mass, that they can interact with quantum dimensions. At least, in my universe. My mentor used Pym Particles and a mobius strip to create a device that allowed the Avengers to ride quantum field fluctuations to travel back in time in our own dimension. Theoretically, the same process could be used to travel between dimensions."
Schwoz blinks and is speechless. Everyone is looking at him, not having understood any of what Spider-Man was saying. Another long moment of silence is ended by Chapa asking Mika in a hushed voice, "Did Schwoz just get out scienced?"
"I… I think so," she whispers back even more quietly, scared to say it.
"You guys don't have things like Pym Particles and time travel in this universe yet, do you?" Spider-Man asks suddenly more awkward.
"We got time travel, but it ain't like that," Miles says.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's not how it works in my dimension either," Ben says.
"Oh," Spider-Man says. "How about magic then? Do you guys have that? Magic can be used to transverse dimensions."
"No. No magic," Bose says fervently.
"Magic would work," Ben disagrees. "I don't understand a word this guy's said about the quantum, science stuff but magic I know a little about. My cousin's tracked me across dimensions before and opened portals to get me home."
"Your cousin uses magic?" Bose asks distastefully.
"She's an alien made of magic," Ben says.
"I thought you said you were human," Mika says.
Ben nods, "I am. She takes after our Grandma."
"No magic," Chapa insists.
Ben gestures unsure, "Why?"
"Because magic sucks," Miles answers first.
"It's evil," Chapa seconds.
"We all hate it," Bose adds.
The tube ascends with Henry, Piper and Dawson on board while Spider-Man shrugs, "Fair enough. I kinda hate magic myself anymore."
"Why are we talking about magic?" Henry asks, stepping off the tube platform.
"Discussing ways to send these two back to their dimensions," Miles says.
"We aren't using magic," Henry insists.
"That's what we told 'em," Chapa says.
"What do you all have against magic?" Ben demands. "Magic isn't evil!"
"It is in this dimension," Schwoz says, rolling back under the machine. "Spider-Man, since you know so much about science, come help me with this thing."
"Sure thing. And you can call me Peter," he pulls his mask off his head. His sweaty brown curls fall over a face younger than the Dangers would've guessed.
"Wow!" Piper lets slip, looking at him.
Henry frowns at her. "Don't embarrass yourself," he advises quietly.
"I'm not embarrassed," she insists. "He's hot."
"Um…" Peter mumbles with a flushed face as he ducks under the machine with Schwoz.
"Alrighty then," Henry dismisses the subject and moves on. "While you figure out how to fix that, the rest of us should go find the rest of the interdimnesional travelers."
"The rest?" Miles asks.
"Bill Evil confessed that he opened three other portals and brought severl other people through," Dawson explains.
"Another few," Henry confirms. "A purple girl and a pair he only described as oddly dressed."
"Descriptive," Chapa comments.
"They disappeared quickly," Henry adds.
"Any idea where or are we searching cluelessly?" Mika asks.
"No. No clue at all," Henry admits.
"At least they were smart enough to get away from that doof," Piper says.
"Well, if it's as bad as all that, let's get going," Chapa says.
"Not you," Henry stops her from leading the movement to the tube pad. She glares and is about to demand why when he speaks again, "There's a Marine Corporal at the police station begging for help finding his little sister."
"Leon?" she says, a different determination lighting in her eyes.
Henry nods, hands her his cell phone, and instructs, "Give him a call and go find him."
She takes the phone quickly and dashes off while dialling her brother's number.
"What's that all about?" Ben asks.
"Long story," Henry dismisses. "You're welcome to stay here or come with us to search the city. You too Peter."
"He's helping me!" Schwoz claims. The machine sparks and sputters at the two of them. They jump away from it. "Aye!" Schwoz exclaims swatting at a little fire that breaks out on the top.
"That can't be good," Ben says.
"Nope," Schwoz grumbles, taking in the damage. "I changed my mind, you can take Spider-boy with you too. He won't be of any help to me until I get all the things I need."
Peter peers over Schwoz shoulder and grimaces in agreement. "We're going to need some new conversion valves and vibranium wire."
Schwoz frowns, "There's no such thing as vibranium. We need hyper-tempered copper-alloy."
"Whatever the best is in this universe." Peter decides.
"And some peizo-electric stones," Schwoz adds. "Iridium if we can find some."
"We can grab those while we're out," Dawson volunteers.
"No, I'll have to do it, you don't know what you're looking for," Schwoz says. "Just take Spider-boy and go."
(Commercial Break)
"There's something really bad happening here, isn't there?" Spider-Man asks seriously of Danger. They're out on the streets of Swellview with the other heroes, looking for anyone who seems out of place. Peter is casting his gaze around quickly, his senses tingling at seemingly everything.
"Well, it's not great that a mad scientist was opening portals to kidnap heroes to come fight our battle," Danger comments offhandedly.
"Not that," Spider-Man says. "The interdimensional stuff isn't great but I mean something else here, going on in this dimension. What battle is he pulling us over here to help with?"
Danger slows. He silently thinks about it but answers with only, "Don't worry about it."
"How can I not? Everyone around here is. They're all skittish and wearing such defeated, horribly sad expressions. That can't be normal, can it?" Spider-Man asks, slowing to walk beside Danger.
"It is anymore," Danger admits smally. "Hey!" he shouts out of nowhere, shouting at Rolling Thunder. "You're still with me, don't slip away!"
She rolls her eyes but slows her pace. Not going far but maintaining a gap of several feet between herself and her brother. Danger scowls at her back before turning back to Spider-Man.
"What's with that? What's happening around here?" Spider-Man questions.
Danger takes another long moment before answering, "Our world turned upside down. It's been spiraling continuously down ever since. One thing after another, worse and worse as it goes. Nothing we do seems to make anything better."
Spider-Man nods and mutters, "I know how that goes."
"So, you wanna compare tragedies?" Danger asks.
"Nah," Spider-Man smirks ruefully. "No need to bring this place down any more than it is. But, if you need help with whatever it is, I'm free for a while."
"Because you're trapped in a dimension that's not your own?" Danger asks humorously.
"Does pretty effectively make me miss my busy weekend of doing nothing, alone in my apartment," Spider-Man replies.
"No plans?" Danger asks. "Not even crime-fighting?"
"Depends on the criminals' plans," Spider-Man replies.
"Always does," Danger chuckles.
His eyes flick anxiously ahead of them, eyes attracted to Rolling Thunder's change in motion. She pauses in front of a condo high-rise, then darts inside it. Henry instinctually follows, running after her with a concerned cry of no real words. He and Spider-Man follow her into the building. "What are you…?!" Danger sputters out, seeing what she's doing.
A man is throwing chairs and anything else he can pick up at the wall. He's screaming furiously but in an inexpressibly devastated way. The doorman and lobby's receptionist are cowering while trying to get through to the angry man with words. Rolling Thunder isn't bothering with words, she's running right up to him to force him to stop. Grabbing his arm and causing him to drop the heavy vase of large flowers he'd been about to throw after its twin from another table. "No! No! No!" he shouts at her.
"What's going on?" Spider-Man asks.
"He is upset," the doorman says with an accent.
"Obviously," Danger says. "Why?"
"His family," the doorman explains. "He has had many tragedies over the past few years. His young niece, he raised her as his daughter for much of her youth, but she was killed in Shadow Man's siege of the city." Danger bites his lip as he stares at the man his sister is restraining. "He came to visit her every week, but now she's gone. He's just angry, he doesn't want to hurt anyone."
With a breath and a stressed hand scraped through his hair Danger nods and approaches the man. "Stop," he tells his sister, "He doesn't need restrained."
"He's smashing up a wall," she protests. "And doing a really good job of it."
He nods and explains, "And I broke my door a couple days ago. He's angry and in pain." She scrutinizes the man and releases him. He's still wailing as he pulls away and turns to face them. "Sir, I…" Danger doesn't get a chance to speak before the man is shouting at him furiously.
He blames Danger for the death of his niece, for not stopping it from happening, for Shadow Man still being out there. The man's exact words get lost in the echoes of so many others inside Danger's head. Voices that most prominently feature his own, Henry's own enormous guilt badgering in his mind things the man himself has not said, things he doesn't know the full extent of. Danger can make no response leave his lips, chocking on his feelings of failure and inadequacy.
"Hey! Stop!" Rolling Thunder cuts across the vicious spewing of words. She grabs Danger's arm imploring him to the same demand she'd made of the angry man. Neither seem inclined to obey.
Spider-Man steps in, placing a strong hand gently on the Man's shoulder. "I know you're hurting," he says with greatest compassion. "But this won't help."
"You don't know me!" the man shoots back viciously.
Spider-Man doesn't flinch nor release his grip. "You've lost everything. Your world has fallen down around you. The one thing you're certain you can't live without, she's gone," the weight in his voice forestalls any other possible comment. "It's a terrible unreal yet undeniable truth. It's consuming every part of you with the most excruciating pain. You don't think you can go on. You're not sure if you'll ever be able to breathe again.
"You feel so guilty; it tears you up. It makes you wonder. How could this have happened? How come you didn't see it coming? How might you have been able to stop it? That's you job: you're supposed to protect her. But she's gone.
"Then you ask 'why?' Why is this happening to you? You've tried to do what is right your whole life. But no matter what you do it's never enough. You lose and lose, everything that matters, everything important, over and over and over again. What could you have possibly done to deserve this?" Spider-Man stops, breathing heavily. The man visibly reacts, feeling every word; and he's not the only one. Henry is tense and desperately trying to ignore the soul-piercing words in order to stave off tears. He is actively failing; and behind the mask, Spider-Man's eyes are surely wet too.
He goes on, "It's too much. You don't know how to deal with it. All you want to do is quit. To quit feeling. To quit caring. To quit existing. Because it's all too much, and it's not fair. How can you go on? It's impossible. You'll never move on. The pain, the losses, they'll never leave you." Spider-Man cuts off as his voice cracks. "But you have to go on. You don't have a choice. You can't quit feeling, or caring, or existing.
"Somehow, as you go on, you have to hope you'll find a reason to: something else, somebody else. You go on doing your best cause it's all you have left.
"I don't know you, or what you've lost. I don't know what evil is plaguing this world. All I know is that you're suffering, that everyone here is suffering. Every person I've met or seen since I got here is in pain like yours. We've all suffered losses that cut us deeper than we can say.
"Blaming others, holding onto the pain and anger, searching for revenge or sometimes even justice is a consuming, debilitating practice. The only thing we can do to make it better is to do good. Help protect others from that pain. At least, that's all I've found to help, to make it all bearable," Spider-Man finishes in a meek whisper.
The moment that follows in long and silent. There are enough tears to soak the oriental rug on the lobby floor. The formerly angry man sobs brokenly. "I'm sorry," he says, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to break the wall. I'll pay for the damages. I don't want to hurt anyone."
"I know," Spider-Man assures honestly. Another moment passes without words. "Can we help you get home?" Spider-Man speaks eventually to the other man.
After a few more sobs, and efforts to regains control of his breathing, the man agrees. They take him out of his niece's former building, Danger and Rolling Thunder trailing behind him and Spider-Man. They say nothing about this new plan of getting the man to his home, they'll get back to searching for the rest of the interdimensionals when they're done.
They've not even made it past the building when a voice calls out of nowhere, "Fais attention!"
"Huh?" The speaker is nowhere to be seen as the heroes cast their gaze around.
"Look out!" Brainstorm calls from down the road. He, Lil' Dynomite and Ben 10 are approaching.
Above the heads of Danger, Rolling Thunder, Spider-Man and the man they're escorting home, the façade on the front of the condo high-rise is cracked along the base and a corner of it is falling right over their heads. Danger and Spider-Man tense, the latter preparing to catch the huge slab of wood and the former tensing to put his forcefield up. The green shield forms barely over their heads, only just in time to stop what had been the façade. The foreign voice from before shouts again, this time saying "Cataclysme!" and a small figure that almost seems to be a cat blurs past the slab with it's claw outstretched. A pile of ash is all that hits the glowing forcefield.
Danger releases the power, leaving the ash in a ring around them, and looks around confused. The cat-like figure stands several feet away. A young blonde boy in a black cat costume, golden bell at the throat and black ears in his hair, his eyes entirely green except the black slit pupils. "Est-ce que vous allez tous bien?" the cat boy asks.
"Chat!" another foreign voice, female this time, shouts and a second costumed teen appears. She is petite, with short dark pigtails and a black-spotted red costume.
"Ils allaient etre ecrases!" the cat boy says.
"Vouz avez vu son pouvoir. Il a une protection, comme avec la tortue miraculous," she responds.
"Am I the only one confused?" Ben asks. "What just happened?"
"I am also very confused," the civilian man from the condo building says. "Who're they?"
"I'm guessing they're the oddly dressed pair Bill mentioned coming through before Ben did," Danger suggests. "and they speak French. That's an unforeseen complication."
"No, it's okay. I speak French. Bonjour, comment vous nommez-vous?" Brainstorm asks the two with ease.
"We speak English also," the girl says. "I am Ladybug; he is Chat Noir."
"Bonjour," Chat Noir says. "We are in America, yes? Do you know how we came here?"
"Interdimensional portal," Danger answers. "A mad scientist brought you here from your world."
They exchange a perplexed look. "Interdimensionnel?" Chat Noir questions. "Like another univers?"
"C'est mauvais, Chat," Ladybug says to Chat Noir. "Paris est en danger; Monarch detruira la ville. Nous devons revenir. Can you help us go home?" she asks the other heroes.
"We're working on that," Lil' Dynomite assures.
"You're not the only ones misplaced from your universes," Ben says.
"You also? Are there many?" Chat Noir asks.
"Me, Ben and the two of you, so far," Spider-Man informs.
"At least one other we haven't found yet as well," Ben says.
"What are you talking about? Other universes? Interdimensional portals?" the civilian man still with them questions.
Danger grimaces sheepishly at him. "Uh, better you don't know. Probably best you forget about it," he says.
"Let's get you home. The Dangers can help the Ladybug and Cat. I'll find you guys again after." Spider-Man says leading the man down the road again. Danger nods his understanding and approval.
"M'lady, ma bague," Chat Noir says to her showing her the ring on his finger where the glowing green pawprint is blinking out slowly.
"Something wrong?" Lil' Dynomite asks.
"Oui. Yes, um, do you have a place that is private? Chat needs to recharge his kwami." Ladybug says. "He will detransformer very soon and no one may know his real name."
"I don't know what a kwami is, but yes," Danger says. "You're welcome to come to our headquarters."
"We understand the need for secret identities," Spider-Man says.
"She won't even let me tell her my identity," Chat Noir complains.
"Seriously?" Piper asks. "Aren't you two partners?"
"Oui," Chat Noir laments. "She won't change her mind, no matter what I say."
"We cannot know each other's…" Ladybug says.
"Oui, Oui. Je sais," Chat Noir says.
"You're about to change, we need to go fast," Ladybug retorts.
"We can teleport there. Just let me call AWOL," Danger says.
(Commercial Break)
"Are you close Schwoz?" Henry asks yet again.
"Nearly," Schwoz repeats his answer.
"We've made a dimensional mapper to identify and locate any dimension in the multiverse. It's not been fully tested yet but it should work," Peter says, sitting on the ceiling above the machine, working with some pieces of it to build some device. "But we're not having any success in manufacturing a new quantum-frequencing coil. We need a hyper-tension screw to manipulate the metal so it can resonate finely enough to tune into the quantum frequencies and open the portal."
"Hmm?" Piper asks.
"Is there anything we can do to help it?" Ladybug asks hopefully.
"Not unless you have a hyper-tension screw," Schwoz says, throwing a piece of metal upwards, Peter snatches it out of the air reflexively.
"Nous sommes ici depuis trop longtemps. Nous devons rentrer chez nous," Ladybug mutters less than happily to Chat Noir.
"Detendez-vous, M'lady," Chat Noir says more jovially. "Ils font de leur mieux."
She frowns at him, "Il doit y avoir une autre facon."
"That thing can locate our exact dimensions?" Ben asks Peter.
"Not this," Peter says about the device he's working on. "The dimensional mapper is there on the front of the machine. It's the helmet thing right there, put it on and an electrode scanner connects to your neurons. By using that connection, the machine can access any dimension the wearer can think of."
"It reads minds?" Bose asks.
"Basically," Schwoz says. "I knew how the first machine connected to the other dimensions and brought all that information into the wearer's head. This time I was able to reverse that effect with the help of Peter."
"A single dimension can be located through the multitude of universes any given brain has information on," Peter completes Schwoz's thoughts.
"Cool," Piper says. "But you still can't open a portal."
"No," Schwoz grumbles. "Without the coil we cannot match the subatomic excitations of strings that will allow us to permeate the membranes between universes to open portals between them."
"I do not know enough English to understand what you just said," Chat Noir comments.
"Neither do I," Henry says sociably. "Schwoz, how long will it take to get the coil-thing you need?"
Schwoz sighs, "My best guess, several months, if we're lucky."
"We don't have that long," Chat Noir says.
"I need to get home too," Ben says, checking out the device. "Isn't there another way?"
"Lucky?" Ladybug wonders. "Bien sur, c'est tout!"
"Quoi?" Chat Noir asks.
"Chance. Votre cataclysme a functionne," she says. "Tout comme mon Lucky Charm!" she tosses her yo-yo up in the air and with a swirl of pinkish magic a red and black spotted tool appears above her. "This is what we need."
"What was that?!" Miles asks from the floor, having fallen when the super-power had flared.
"That's a hyper-tension screw!" Schwoz says, jumping up excitedly. "That's exactly what we need. How did you?"
"She always makes what we need," Chat Noir smiles. "Those it's never this straight forward."
"Be glad it is this time! With this we'll be done very quickly." Schwoz says. He and Peter work tirelessly into the early hours of the morning. No one leaves the room, waiting, and falling asleep as they do. Finally, they are woken by the cheers of, "Yes! We did it!" and "Got it! That's it!" of the two geniuses.
"Quoi?" Ladybug asks, alerting quickly. Her cat stretching lazily beside her. The others stirring too. All asking the same question of, "What?"
"It works!" Peter cheers.
"Wait! Wait! Wait! We need to be sure! We need to test it!" Schwoz says. "One of you needs to put it on your head and think of your dimension."
"With happiness!" Ladybug volunteers, stepping up. The helmet is rather loose on her but it sparks to life when she dons it. The machine hums and a seeming hole opens before her, through it the unmistakable city scape of Paris, France glows with sunlight.
"Vous l'avez, M'lady!" Chat Noir cheers.
"That's your world?" Henry questions.
"Yes!" the bug and cat agree.
"You're positive?" he presses.
"Yes," they agree again.
"Good, go fast," Schwoz encourages. "This is still a bit unstable; it may not be open for long at all. Go!"
"Merci!" Ladybug says, leaping through.
"Au revoir!" Chat Noir says following her. The portal closes behind them.
A moment of baited silence reigns until Schwoz starts cheering, "I did it! I did it!" and the others clap and congratulate him.
"Uh… Peter helped," Mika points out.
"Yeah, yeah, awesome," Ben says. "Can I go home now?"
"Grab the headgear," Peter offers.
Ben barely has a chance to get it over his ears before the portal is bursting open with an extra magenta light, causing everyone to jump. "There you are!" a girl's voice calls, a head of long red hair sticking her head through the portal.
"Gwen!" Ben greets delightedly.
"We've been looking for you everywhere!" Gwen chastises. "What happened?"
Ben chuckles and takes her offered hand. "Long story," he explains climbing through the portal.
"Bye Dino-guy!" Piper calls after him as the portal closes. "How rude, he didn't say bye back."
"You'll get over it," Henry tells her. "Peter, you up?"
Peter looks at the portal machine reluctantly. "I can stick around a little longer," he decides, "help you guys find the rest of the travelers. There's a bunch more, right?"
"A few, but don't you want to go home?" Mika asks.
"Sure, but we should probably not do too many at a time, the machine isn't perfect. We don't want to cause another accidental explosion and break it," he excuses.
"Well, we still have an unknown girl in purple," Henry says openly. "An extra pair of eyes couldn't hurt."
"This purple girl?" Chapa asks, coming in with two people in tow. One is her brother, gaping and speechless. The other is a pale young woman in a long purple cloak, a red stone fixed to her forehead.
"That was serendipitous," Mika says.
"Great word," Miles compliments. "Also, how amazingly coincidental is it that Chapa showed up with the last interdimensional traveler right when Henry mentioned her?" Mika sighs and facepalms at her brother.
"The police caught her doing magic, brought her in while I was there with Leon," Chapa explains. "I realized who she was and had them send her up here. I made sure to get here the same time."
"Doing magic?" Henry asks displeased.
"I was trying to get out of here, back to my own dimension," the young woman says. "I can create portals with my magic. I was nearly through the dimensional barrier when your police interrupted. If they hadn't, I would've been home by now."
"Well, we don't condone the use of magic here," Henry says.
"Yes, your police said the same," she responds rather aloofly. "They gave me a spiel about magic being evil and accused me of being a villain. Which I do now find a bit hypocritical considering you, their hero, wear a sword of dark magic on your hip."
Henry presses his lips, anger rising. "It's an unfortunate and necessary evil."
"Semantics," she retorts.
"I don't want to use the sword, I don't use any other magic," Henry insists.
"Maybe," she shrugs. "But you argue all magic is evil, while using a normally wicked form of magic for a noble purpose. The tool does not, cannot, commit any act for good or bad. It is the way it is used that matters. I am magic, it's a part of me, as inherent and inextricable as any other trait I was born with."
"You're made of magic?" Piper asks surprised.
"I was born of a dark magic and raised by mystics in a realm between realities," She explains, her tone unfriendly and defensive.
"I can manipulate reality and energy, project my soul and senses outside my body, travel between dimensions and am a tele-empath. And I do not use any of my powers for evil, not if I can help it. I try to do good, to protect people, I helped save Earth from its near total destruction. I may have come from dark magic, but I am not a villain."
"Alright, you're not a villain, magic isn't totally evil," Peter says pacifyingly. "You obviously know more than the rest of us. But these guys have only seen it used for murder and desecration of their friends and city. You can't blame them for not liking it. I don't like it anymore either, and I've seen good magic used to save people. No one's going to win if we have a fight about this; so please, everyone, calm down. We're all good guys here."
"Fine," the woman in purple huffs.
Henry grumbles an, "Okay".
"Good!" Peter says.
"If you have another way for me to get home, show me to it," Raven says. "I want to go back to my friends and the world I'm accepted in."
Henry matches her frown and shows her to the machine. "Put it on your head and think of your world," he instructs her.
The portal opens for her onto a dark stone cavern lined with catwalks and technology. A young man in a black, hooded cape stands at an enormous computer monitor mere feet away in that universe. He reacts immediately after the portal opens despite facing away from it, whirling around with a hand on a sword hilt at his hip. At first his expression is a suspicious glare at the portal, but it softens very quickly as he recognizes and greets, "Raven."
"Damian," she returns with an air of mellow affection. She steps quickly through the portal without another word to the Dangers. It closes silently behind her as she and 'Damian' embrace, him offering concerned questions to her.
"Great that's over! You're welcome!" Chapa decides, speaking up. "I'm going to go explain things to my brother. I may have broken his brain by bringing him here." She turns and grabs Leon; he sitting on a chair gaping at the lot of them. "C'mon."
"Lula… what…?" he says.
"Don't call me Lula, Leonardo!" she growls, pulling him out the door into the depths of the Man's Nest.
"That's everyone," Henry says. He turns to Peter. "You're the last left"
"Do you think Chapa's brother secretly has an extra long name like she does?" Miles wonders.
"Probably," Mika answers. "All her siblings must have."
"What do you think it is?" Miles questions.
"Leonardo Raimundo Ignacio de Silva," Bose answers.
He twins look at him confused, "What?" "Why would you guess that?" they ask.
"I don't know," Bose says also confused. "But I think that's right."
"And you're sure you don't need my help with anything else? Like whatever bad thing you're all fighting here? Because I can stay and help," Peter offers Henry.
Henry frowns and asks, "Why don't you want to go home?" Peter doesn't answer. "What tragedy could be so bad you'd rather be a stranger in this dimension than return to your own?"
Peter looks away guiltily. His open mouth produces no excuse. "You lost someone, pretty horribly, right?" Piper prompts. "That's what you were talking about to that guy yesterday."
"More than one," Peter mumbles.
"Everyone?" Bose guesses.
Peter looks up at him, Bose frowning deeply empathetic back at him. "I don't have anything to go back to," Peter admits. "No cousin Gwen. No Damian. No city saving mission with my semi-romantic partner. Everyone I ever had is either dead or forgotten I exist. It's just nice to be somewhere people see me again, and know who I am. Here."
"You must have someone, not everyone could have forgotten you," Mika is sure.
Peter sakes his head. "I messed up a lot. Almost got the world destroyed. I got my aunt killed, nearly everyone else that matters to me. I ruined their lives. And the only way to save the world and everyone I care about from the consequences of my mistakes was to magically wipe me from everyone's minds. Not even my best friend or girlfriend remember I ever existed."
"Dude!" Miles whispers astonished.
"Why would I want to be in a rush to go back to that world?" Peter questions rhetorically.
"They need you, you're a hero there," Henry says. "You spend most of your time out as Spider-Man, saving lives. You have that to go back for."
Peter sighs. "There are so many heroes in my world. No one would even notice if Spider-Man disappeared."
"There is no way that is true," Henry says.
"I've only known you for like one day and I'm sure I would notice you missing," Piper says.
"I've known you for a day and I'm one hundred percent sure that no matter how many heroes there are in your universe, you will be missed," Henry agrees with his sister, if somewhat more sincerely and far more seriously. "You're not just one in many, you're one in a million. From everything I've seen, you're a better hero than anyone I've met and a better person. I couldn't have calmed that man down, it was your experience, your wisdom that got through to him. You cut through all the nonsense we would have got caught up in otherwise and helped us get everyone home quickly. Also, you fixed the machine so we could send them home. You're not a person who can be forgotten, even if magic is involved."
Peter sighs. A long moment passes. "I know I should go home, but it's hard to want to."
"You can come back to visit," Schwoz offers. "You were trying to make a portable transporter; you can use it to come back whenever you want."
"It's not done yet," Peter points out with a wry smile.
"Well, then finish it. You're smart enough for that," Schwoz says.
Peter smirks, "You know it kinda feels like you're all trying to kick me out. You don't like having me around?" They chuckle with him. "Okay, I'll go. But if you ever need my help, I'm just a portal away."
"We'll be sure to bug you at some point," Piper assures.
Peter grabs the helmet and another portal opens, a sky view over New York City seen through it. The Dangers give him fond farewells, Henry and Peter bro-hug, and Peter backflips through the portal and falls into his city. The portal closes.
"This has been a weird couple of days," Miles sums up efficiently. Getting a slew of agreements.
"Back to hunting Shadow Man?" Mika proposes.
"Yep," Henry says. They all turn to step away from the machine.
Bose hesitates, "You know, hearing what happened to Peter, I cant help imaging what else could've gone wrong for us. How many times one or more of us almost died. What would we have done if Shadow Man was really only out to kill Henry? Henry would be dead."
They all look upset back at him. "Let's just be glad that didn't happen," Dawson says.
Even as he finishes the thought the portal machine makes a familiar but unexpected noise. Despite no one touching it the mind reading part activates and a flickering portal begins opening. They all stop and stare. The unstable portal doesn't spit anyone out, rather it begins pulling things in.
Next episode S1E28: Dangers of the Other Side