April, George, Fern, and Alan were left speechless and disoriented by the sudden disappearance of Augusta and Portinari. They looked in all directions, hoping to find the couple nearby. They cared little that the spell binding their legs had dissipated.

"Augusta! Where are you?" April cried out in agonized horror.

The other three kids gathered around the cat girl, who seemed on the verge of tears. "What happened to them?" George asked her. "Did they go back in time?"

"No," said April, sobbing like a child. "He took the time reverser. He didn't push the button. Augusta's plan failed, and now..."

"Did I hear her say something about becoming a god?" asked Fern.

Then they were all distracted by an unpleasant, frightening sound. A gunshot. Another one followed two seconds later, a bit closer and louder than the first.

A sudden scream caused them to turn their heads. In the street a block away, two men were throwing fierce punches at each other.

Alan felt his stomach twist when he realized the true nature of Augusta's failure.

"Omigosh...omigosh..." he muttered anxiously. His fear turned into indignation, and he glared at the weeping April. "Augusta didn't suck the evil out of the world. She sucked the good out of it!"

April nodded weakly and wiped the tears from her cheeks. "Not the whole world," she said sorrowfully. "Just this continent. And maybe a little bit of South America and Asia."

Alan turned to Fern and George, gasping for words, his heart filled with anger and hopelessness. Another gunshot echoed through the neighborhood, and furious shrieks were heard from every direction.

"So that was her plan," he said, fighting to remain calm. "Suck all the good from the people of this continent into the crystal, go back and time and stop herself from doing it, and then absorb the good from the crystal into herself, to become an all-powerful, benevolent deity. Just like what Dolly wanted to do, only with good instead of evil."

"Like you said, Alan," replied George in amazement. "Omigosh."

Before the four kids could reflect further on their situation, a dog man with a crazed expression came running at them through the trees, screaming and waving a large kitchen knife.

"Look out!" yelled George. At the sight of the approaching maniac, Alan and Fern threw their arms around each other and screamed in terror.

"Kill...kill..." ranted the madman as he raised his knife above the petrified pair. It seemed to them as if the man's pupils had shrunk to pinpoints.

As he was about to strike, April sprang into action, plunging her fist into his abdomen. As he doubled up in pain, she followed up with a volley of karate punches to his face, sending him sprawling into the grass, his knife spinning away. He struggled to push himself up, then fell and became silent.

"That was pretty good, April," George commended the girl.

"We're not safe yet," was April's reply. "Everybody on the continent is like him now, except for us. I hate to say it, but if we want to survive, the only way is to hide somewhere until they kill each other off."

"Millions of people," Fern growled at her. "How could you do this?"

April shrugged. "It was going perfectly until Augusta and Rick disappeared."

"Where do you suppose they went?" Alan mused.

----

She was in what appeared to be a small room, about the size of a classroom. The walls were bare and off-white in color, and looked metallic instead of painted. The temperature was slightly colder, and there was no sunlight. Rick Portinari still had his fingers around her wrist, and was staring at her emotionlessly.

He grabbed Augusta by the shoulders and swiveled her around. Before her was a sight so incredible, so shocking, that she nearly fainted. The Los Cactos crystal dropped from her raised hand, plummeted to the floor, and cracked in half. The beatific light contained within started to fade.

About a dozen beings were seated in ascending rows of chairs. Each one was about eight feet tall, with scaly green skin, an overhanging forehead, a nose like a tentacle, beady red eyes, a slim torso, and four arms with eight slender fingers on each hand. It was hard to tell, but they seemed to be focusing their gaze on Augusta and Portinari.

The being at the front of the group opened its cavernous mouth. "Report," it said with a high-pitched, hissing voice.

Portinari pulled his hands away from Augusta and stood, soldier-like, in front of the assembled creatures. "I have brought in the offender," he announced. "Her Earth name is Augusta Winslow. I confiscated the time device from her" --he held up the time reverser--"but she succeeded in taking it back. I was, however, able to stop her from using it again." The strange beings turned their heads about and muttered to each other in lizardlike voices.

Augusta stepped over the broken crystal and confronted the creatures. "Who are you?" she demanded. "What is this place? What do you want with me?"

The foremost creature responded without a pause. "We are the members of the Time Council. You are in the council chamber, on a planet which we call Kron. You have been arraigned for operating an illegal time device."

Horror gripped Augusta's mind. "You...you're aliens," she stammered. "Aliens from space. You must send me back to Earth at once."

"The Time Council will decide whether you are allowed to return to your planet," the chief alien continued.

"You don't understand!" cried Augusta frantically. "Unless I use the time reverser to warn my past self, millions of people on my planet will die!"

"We are aware of the state of affairs on Earth," said the alien in an unfeeling tone. "Time Enforcer Grobblitz, I believe the human will feel more at ease if you explain things to her."

Portinari turned to Augusta and raised a hand to lift up her chin, but she stepped back in horror. "Rick...you're...you're one of them..."

The psychiatrist nodded. "My real name is Grobblitz, as you now know. My race, the Kron, are members of an interplanetary alliance that has existed for millions of Earth years. The many races have various responsibilities as Alliance members, and the Kron are masters of time travel. As a Time Enforcer, my job is to travel from planet to planet, investigating experiments in time travel and preventing those that may cause serious damage to the space-time continuum. I analyzed your time reverser, and determined that each time it is used, it has a one in ten million chance of destroying a large section of space-time."

"One in ten million?" Augusta's tone became one of outrage. "That's ridiculous! And even if the odds were that high, it hardly warrants sending an alien enforcer to interfere with my plans."

"It may seem that way to you," said Portinari calmly, "but consider that there are more than five million inhabited planets within the bounds of the Alliance, and a great many of those planets have scientists who conduct time travel experiments. If even one of those scientists makes an error, entire star systems could be wiped out."

"I don't have time for this, Rick," Augusta protested. "I need to get back to Earth and reverse what I just did."

"The Council will decide whether you are allowed to return," Portinari droned.

Increasingly fearful, Augusta lovingly placed her hands over the man's shoulders. "Please, Rick," she cooed. "I know you love me. Take me back to Earth." Then she kissed him, but he felt almost like a block of ice to her lips and hands.

"You should have listened to me," he said dispassionately. "I hoped I could resolve the situation without revealing my alien identity to you, but you made that impossible. I do love you, Augusta...but we can never be together again. I'm sorry."

Tears streamed down the rabbit woman's cheeks. "All those people will die," she said bitterly, "and it will be your fault."

"The loss of life is tragic indeed," Portinari replied, "but my duties in regard to your planet have been fulfilled. If you wish for further assistance from the Alliance, you must request it through other channels--once the Council has decided your fate."

Augusta sobbed in anguish as she imagined the awesome death and destruction that were surely taking place on Earth as a result of her actions. Once again, her plan to bring about a perfect world had failed terribly due to unforeseen complications.

But wait...she still had the power of the Wicasta...would it work on aliens?

TBC