"Hey, Kids!" an eccentric looking man in a lab coat greets you. "I'm Bill Nye, The Science Guy!

"And I am Doctor Emmet Lathrop Brown." Doc Brown, no longer a cartoon, but like Bill Nye, a living, breathing human, says in a fairly restrained manner. Restrained for him, anyway.

"Today our experiment will be base on Ghosts!" Bill Nye says. As he pulls into the frame a chalk board, Doc Brown, goes off screen, only return briefly with a cart and a Fenton Ghost Portal on it. Then the two scientists begin to explain the concepts behind Ghost physiology in terms you can barely understand. Finally, after several minutes of fiddling, Doc Brown gets the machine to turn on…

And abruptly, Wulf, the Esperanto-speaking werewolf ghost pops out of the portal and tries to bites Bill Nye's head off. Literally! He dives to the floor whimpering and twitching.

"GREAT SCOTT!" Doc Brown exclaims, pressing a button on the portal, causing it to suck the Wulf back in and close the portal. "Perhaps I should stick to the science of Time Travel."

The screen fades to black.

(Imagine the Back to the Future Theme Song "Back in Time" by Huey Louis here)

Amity Park, Saturday January, 9, 2005 5:45 AM.

Danny walked slowly through the early morning. Even though it was late January, he didn't need any protection. Thanks to Sizzle, the local temperature had risen drastically, and it was a tolerable, if not confortable 58 F.

He was accompanied by the mysterious Future Man, who'd identified himself as Martin McFly, a semi-legendary minor Rock Star, famous along the west coast as the lead singer of the band the Pinheads. His mom had once told him that the Pinheads had played at a Beach Resort down in Dimmsdale, California, only about ten miles east of Marty's native Hill Valley.

Marty and Danny arrived at the car. There was crime-scene tape around the whole area, but some things were more urgent than an investigation. It was little more than a token gesture. The real villain was probably back in his castle in Wisconsin, probably waiting on Danny's surrender or counter attack….

Master's Castle, 9 miles southwest of Green Bay.

Vlad was, in fact, waiting, very impatiently, I might add, for one of those two things. He began to wonder why Danny didn't show up with and bust down his doors, and while he was at it, why not just call in a bunch of his metahuman buddies down in Jump City to help? Was he wising up to what Vlad had planned?

He hoped the second half ghost Jack's foolishness created would arrive soon. Vlad had to concentrate hard to stop the body of Valerie from decaying. Eventually he'd have to put it on ice, at least until he was able to create a suitable hard-light hologram. But for him to do that, he'd need more than money. There was some technology that nobody could sell. Yet at least. It was only a matter of time…

Amity Park, 6AM

I knew it was only a matter of time, a voice seemed to yell.

Timmy sat up strait. He'd been gone from his house for a while. But he could always wish his parents would forget that. Then it hit him: What woke me up! He looked out the window and saw the Phantom kid and the guy who'd arrived with the Time Machine coming, and with typical teenager grace (that is to say, infinitesimally small amounts of it) he leaped into the magic invisible back seat, accidentally kicking that Y-shaped flashy thing, cracking the glass. He hoped it wasn't too much of a problem…

Yeah. I'm sure you all know it's gonna be.

Marty handed Danny the newspaper, upon his request. Danny leaned against the DeLorean and read the newspaper.

In the early morning hours, in a field in Wisconsin, 20 of the world's finest superheroes were slain. Flags will undoubtedly being flying half-mast for weeks to come. The reason for the fight is as of yet unknown, but appearantly a teenage superhero known as The Phantom called in the Teen Titans…

Danny scrolled down the page, 'til it listed the deaths. Robert Candide…Koriand'r of Tamaran, alias Starfire…Ritchie Foley, alias Gear…… Noel Collins, Alias Savior; and Daniel Fenton, alias The Phantom.

Some of the names on the list weren't just teenagers. Vlad had taken out big name metahumans. Hawkgirl herself, Shaera of Thonogar, had died. Twenty in all. Danny turned to the guy from the past. "This happened because we made a stand."

"Yeah. How anti-cliché, don't you think."

"Then I'll go with you. I can go back and stop this from happening."

"Daniel.. Er.. Danny.. You and 19 other superheroes were killed by this guy! You won't be able to beat him, even if you team up with you past self. And even if you were to do that, you could cause a paradox!"

"That's bad, right?" Danny asked.

"Yes that's bad. According to Doc, a paradox could unravel the fabric of time and DESTROY THE UNIVERSE!"

"Uh. Trucking Skit comes to mind," Danny mock-swore. (Go read Danny's Inferno!)

"But the effects might be more localized. It might only destroy our own galaxy."

"That's a relief," said Danny sarcastically. Marty had a very strong feeling of Déjà vu.

The two got in the DMC. This wasn't the original, of course, as it had been destroyed by a train 20 years ago. The Doc had converted a new DeLorean he'd gotten from a salvage yard in 2020 and strapped to the top of the Time Train. When he and Clara had moved back to the present, he'd given the time vehicle to Marty as a gift, but Marty had no desire to travel through time after the ordeals he'd gone through. So Doc, not wanting to warm up the Train, had oft borrowed the Time Car. In which he'd gone to the future and discovered that something of Marty's rock and role career or his patronage of future establishments of business—no one could really know which—had butterflied into Valerie Gray—or in reality, Vlad Masters, the evil half ghost—controlling a good portion of the Northern United States by 2015. Marty engaged the engine. The car had been locked, and that didn't seem to have changed, so he gave no second thought to the condition of anything. He felt strangely urgent for a man sitting in a quasi-omnipotent time machine. Probably because all he really wanted to do was go home and be with Jennifer, and the shorter amount of time he spent away from 1995 the better.

So, with the Time Circuits engaged and the Fusion Gage reading full, he stepped on the accelerator.

The speedometer climbed… 38

48

68

80

85

86

87

88…

90!

"What the?" Marty said. He looked back at the Flux Capacitor. Which was nost definitely not fluxing….

"What's wrong now?" Danny inquired, half whining. This was growing exasperating. He briefly wondered if dying in a Wisconsin field was such a bad thing. What am I saying? No. Vlad will pay for what he's done…

"The Flux Capacitor has been damaged. We can't time travel. In this car at least…"

Suddenly, two things occurred to Danny.

One: The care they were riding in was flying. He was so used to flying he'd barely noticed. But cars normally couldn't do it.

Two. The car was heading very quickly out of Amity Park and towards the coast. Towards Southern Cali.

"Where are we going?" Marty asked.

"I started something in 1995. And I'm betting the universe on whether I finished it.."

Danny sighed. "I wonder what important and life-altering, life saving causes the Teen Titans are championing now that I didn't get half of them killed.."

Jump City

The white strands of the Shimmer, Savior's nervous-system-based energy rope that could lift more than the average metahuman, flung Gauntlet over his head in a torturous swinging motion. That was the last time Robert would ever pour Nacho cheese, no matter how cold it was, on on his head!

"Aw DARN IT, Legend Maker!" Robert screamed! "I am not Noel's whipping boy!"

After that, Savior dropped Gauntlet against the wall. "Serves you right."

"Besides," piped in the leader Robin, "It's not even Legend Maker this time. It's some newbie who calls himself Chaltab."

"Is that why I can't even swear? I mean c'mon. I never say 'Darn it' do I?" Robert asked.

"Nope. Your mouth is usually fouler than Vanessa Carlton's singing," Cyborg said.

Raven looked up from her book, upset. "Rob, why is it that whenever you come around, the fourth wall comes crumbling down?"

"Beats the heck out of me," Robert said, cringing that such pseudo-swearing would ever escape his lips. "My gosh, Chaltab!" he yelled! "You're killing me!"

"Man I am so glad I am not really angry," said Noel. "I'd hate to see how this guy butchers MY dialogue."

"When you're angry," piped in Terra, "Noel, Your mouth would be better compared to William Hung's singing."

On second thought, maybe Danny's story is more important for now….

Writer's Note: I apologize greatly for all the boring exposition. I really do, and I promise more action soon. This story doesn't lend itself well to spontaneity; so instead, I'll turn to Jump City and the Titans Tower for a much needed break… Action next chapter, I promise. Until then… Enjoy. For the Record, the original characters Noel Collins aka Savior and Robert Candide aka Gauntlet were created by Legend Maker's brother and Bobcat, respectively. Go read their stuff!