The following is all that is known to exist of Ethan and the End of the World, the sequel to The Rescue Rangers in The Ultimate Battle. Attempts to contact or identify the author have proved unsuccessful.

August 15th, 2012

The tree had seen better days.

Once, it had stood as a towering symbol of justice in a corrupt world. The chosen heroes of the city, the mighty Rescue Rangers, called this oak tree in a city park their home, and from there they patrolled the city and made it safe for decent folk to dwell in.

Those times are gone now. Evil has reared its ugly head, in an unholy alliance between the vile Rat Capone and the demonic seductress Luwhinie. The two had nearly succeeded in destroying the valiant Rangers when they were assisted by an unlikely ally, the beyond-genius Ethan. Ethan, once a sullen teenager with a dead-end life, who had become the accidental victim of Pr. Nimnul's gigantico gun. The gun had shorted in an electrical storm at that moment, wiping the young man's memory and allowing him to retain the strength of a full-sized human in a mouse-sized body. Dramatically turning against those who had transformed and enslaved him, Ethan led a rebellion of his fellow slaves that liberated the city. The young hero was adopted by what was left of the Rescue Rangers.

A year has past since that epic adventure, and Ethan's birthday was today (not knowing his true birthday, Gadget had given him the birthday of the fallen Lawhiney, for mystical reasons even she did not understand). Ethan allowed himself to sleep in an extra hour on his special day. Then he cranked up the stereo he had built from tree bark and a pop top to his theme song:

Where I come from isn't all that great
My automobile is a piece of
My fashion sense is a little whack
And my friends are just as screwy as me

I didn't go to boarding schools
Preppy girls never looked at me
Why should they, I ain't nobody
Got nothing in my pocket

Beverly Hills - That's where I want to be! (gimme gimme, )
Living in Beverly Hills...
Beverly Hills - Rolling like a celebrity! (gimme gimme)
Living in Beverly Hills...

Look at all those movie stars
They're all so beautiful and clean
When the housemaids scrub the floors
They get the spaces in between

I wanna live a life like that
I wanna be just like a king
Take my picture by the pool
Cause I'm the next big thing in

Beverly Hills - That's where I want to be! (gimme gimme)
Living in Beverly Hills...
Beverly Hills - Rolling like a celebrity! (gimme gimme)
Living in Beverly Hills...

Spoken
The truth is...I don't stand a chance
It's something that you're born into...
And I just don't belong...

No I don't - I'm just a no class, beat down fool
And I will always be that way
I might as well enjoy my life
And watch the stars play

Beverly Hills - That's where I want to be! (gimme gimme)
Living in Beverly Hills...
Beverly Hills - Rolling like a celebrity! (gimme gimme,)
Living in Beverly Hills...

Beverly hills,Beverly hills,(yeah)
Beverly hills,Beverly hills,(gimme gimme)
Living in Beverly hills

When he got up, he was surprised to discover that Gadget was not in Ranger headquarters. Using his excellent tracking skills, he tracked her to the nearby junkyard. Gadget was not collecting parts for her next invention, but instead was placing flowers at the grave of her sister, Lawiny. Ethan could not understand this gesture—so many had suffered and died at her hands. He wanted to confront Gadget about this, but he was stopped by Monterey Jack.

"See here," said Monterey. "Leave the sheela to her grief." "Why should I?" responded the indignant mini-human. "She's evil." "You've got a good point there, Ethan," Monterey said, stroking his chin, because Ethan was always right about everything. "But don't forget that Louwhiney is her sister. Imagine what she could have become if she had been raised a Hackwrench instead of a Hawaiian street rat."

Ethan was intrigued. He had heard nothing of his enemy's past. "What happened, Monterey? How did she end up in Hawaii?"

The burly mouse turned roughly on him. "See here, squirt. Let's not go nosing into other people's business. It's not like my actions on April 18, 1968 are anything to be ashamed of."

"What was that?"

"Oh, look. Gadget's coming. She'll probably have a nervous breakdown or something if she sees us arguing, so shut up."

Ethan didn't know that much about female psychology, so he deferred to his elder for once.

"Hello, Monterey, Ethan." Hearts appeared above her head as she spoke the name of her true beloved. "What are you doing in the junkyard this late? It's nearly sunset."

"Well, I just got up, so I thought I'd get in some exercise before..."

"Wait, that's right, it's YOUR BIRTHDAY!" Gadget grabbed Monterey by the arm and yanked him in the direction of Ranger HQ. "You stay out here for a while and do your exercises, Ethan. We'll be ready in a half-hour of so." The two made for the Ranger Skate and flew off to the nearest undestoryed mall.

Ethan pondered his conversation with Monterey Jack. that mouse was hding something, and Ethan didn't like secrets. Searching around the junkpile a bit, he found Gadget's crystal ball device. Gadget had discarded the machine after defeating Lawiny and Rat Capone, claiming that she had no right to spy on the actions of others. Rather convenient to come to this conclusion after you had used the thing to save the city, thought Ethan. He decided to see if he could figure out how it worked.

That took about twenty seconds.

Ethan noticed that the nobs that controlled the viewers positions in three dimentions surrounded a central area just the right size for another knob. He easily ripped one out of a nearby TV set and plunged it into the middle. Walla! By controlling the fourth dimension, Ethan had created the world's first time viewer. I told you he was a super genius. He used the device to find the large airplane Gadget had told him she was raised in. For the date, he worked his way back to April 18, 1968.

He saw the baby Gadget, asleep in a crib. In the next room, her father and mother were having a violent argument. Suddenlly, the mother picked up a lamp and smashed it over the father's head, knocking him out. She went into a back room for a few minutes and emerged with a suitcase and, for a reason Ethan didn't know, dressed just like the father. She then ran out into the night.

Ethan used the time viewer to follow the woman to the nearby airport. She crossed the commercial part of the terminal at full speed, regardless of how many humans she might have panicked. She then exited through the side door and went out to the smaller private airport, boarding a plane headed for San Francisco.

Ethan then rewound time to when Monterey Jack came upon the unconscious form of Gadget's father. The father was badly hurt, and someone needed to keep an eye on baby Gadget, so Monterey left the hanger by himself in search of the runaway mouse. He tracked her to the airport, but the multitude of humans made it impossible to track her any further. He proceeded to make a list of flights that she could have used. He eventually concluded that a plane headed for east Africa was the most-likely plane, and prepared a note for Gadget's father. This whole time, his chance to catch up with the mouse was running out. This was more than I could take.

"THE PRIVATE AIRPORT!" Ethan screamed. Monty suddenly looked up, then scampered in the direction Gadget's mother had fled in.

Ethan was stunned. Gadget had never told him that the device could transmit sounds from the viewer's world to the people being viewed. Maybe he had accidentally added the ability through his modification. "What have I done?" he whispered.

History had been changed. The effects of that change would ripple forward, impacting everyone with no exception, and that included those responsible for the change as well. Ethan tried to improvise some sort of barrier to protect him from being changed, or possibly eliminated, from history. But before he knew it,