AN: Just a quick heads up: this story is a sequel to a story I made already called Divided We Fall (not to confuse it with this chapter's name). So if you want to know the full story leading up to this without spoilers, I recommend you read that first. If you already have read that (or if you wanna just read it anyway), I hope you enjoy it.

Prologue - Divided We've Fallen

September 23rd, 2006 12:27am

Retroville, TX

The dark night was only lit with the ashes and flames of the battlefield. There was so much debris that you couldn't see the moon. Smoke and steel powder were flowing around. Several buildings have collapsed because of all the chaos that took place in the past six hours. Most civilians have fled to the safezone, waiting for evacuation. The Yolkian invasion has ceased at this point with most of their forces neutralized. Same goes for the League of Villains who have either been captured or have retreated. However, one threat remained at large. Gortox the Irritable, a gray, scaly creature with horns on the side of his head, a tail as a lower half of the body, dark orange gloves and a dark blue jumpsuit. He had both Matrix Generators on his wrist which allowed him to manipulate reality at will. Countless soldiers including General Abercrombie died at his hand, and he was at the doorstep of the safe zone right as the evacuation crew came to pick everyone up. With his power, he already took down one of their evac helicopters. To make matters worse, Nick was gone, Jimmy and Cindy were down for the count and Carl didn't have his powers anymore.

Not all hope was lost, however. As Gortox was about to target the shelter itself, Sheen, Libby and Betty stood up to face this threat. Sheen and Libby had their powers recharged from Meldar's counterfeit Matrix Generators which had a short supply of energy left and Betty's tech didn't come from any N-Men powers. As they fought Gortox, Betty was injured, so Sheen ran her along with the Matrix Generators that Sheen was able to steal from Gortox back to the safe zone. Then, while Sheen and Libby fended him off, Sheen threw a tiny Chrono-Arch past him and fired the shrink ray at it to grow the machine. From there, it was activated and while Libby kept him in place with her force field powers, Sheen threw a final kick to him which threw him through the arch. The destination, about halfway across the universe. Sadly, just when they thought they could finally have a sigh of relief, Gortox forced his way through the portal.

He made one final declaration as he clawed at the edge Chrono-Arch, "Oh I may have lost this round, but the war has just begun!" The arch then exploded, knocking the villain back across the portal, finally away from the ruined city. Libby instinctually used the remaining energy from her counterfeit generator, to make a shield to block her and Sheen.

"LIBBY!" Sheen attempted to run towards her, but she used the final fumes of that energy to push him away after giving him a sad smile with a tear running down her eye. The next thing Sheen knew, he was pushed back immensely. He couldn't tell if it was Libby's energy or if it was the impact of the explosion, but everything went white for a good few minutes. He couldn't see nor hear anything beyond a ringing noise in that while.

Eventually, the dust had settled. Sheen started to pull himself together and sat up. He looked around him and all he saw was ruins of the city, he and many others called home. He could barely see the moon looming above through the smoke. He then attempted to stand and run towards where Libby was, but two things stopped him. One, the counterfeit generator he had ran out of energy to give him to run like he would with the N-Men packet, and two, the impact damaged him a little bit. The best he could do was limp over. As he was doing so, he called her name in hopes of an answer, but there was none. Eventually, he found her lying still, with a little bit of the remaining force field glitching away. Her body was partially burnt, leaving a scar across her upper face and her right arm. He kneeled beside her, attempting to wake her up, but nothing worked. He then put his head to her chest in hopes of hearing a heartbeat, but with how disoriented he was, he couldn't tell. After thirty seconds or so, he realized that Libby was not going to wake up anytime soon.

He looked up to the sky and let out a blood-curdling scream as tears escaped his eyes. Then, he looked down. "Why… WHY DID THIS HAVE TO HAPPEN?!" He looked around but no one was there to answer him. As he wept, he went to lay down beside her. After a while, a light shined on the two of them. He looked up to see a few soldiers searching the area for survivors.

"There they are!" One of them exclaimed. Next thing he knew, both of them were being carried into an evac helicopter.

As they were laying in beds in the helicopter, he looked to the doctor examining Libby. The doctor used an AED a couple times to get her heartbeat going. Sheen could barely muster, "Is she…?"

The doctor sighed. "While we won't know for certain until we're at a hospital, her vitals are severely low. We can only detect a faint heartbeat so I'm not sure how much longer she has."

As the last helicopter flew away from the city's ruins, other villains who didn't get arrested made their escape. Meldar Prime was without his power, made his way over to one of the crashed chicken ships. I guess that's the first phase of the plan, he thought to himself, feeling annoyed as he searched for an escape pod to fly away. You better have something planned after this, Gortox.

In the distance, another one of the crashed Yolkian ships broke open at the top. Yoo-Yee screamed in anger as he freed himself from the wreckage. He then attempted to fly away. As he was about to do whatever it took to find Sheen, he didn't realize his energy was all but gone from breaking the ship earlier, as well as the previous battle. He breathed heavily as he fell and collapsed on the pavement. "I… lost again…" He then passed out with only sad thoughts plaguing him. A little while later, Junkman flew over with his ship to scour the area for parts to sell. He found Yoo-Yee unconscious near the rubble. He decided to take him back to his ship.

Meanwhile, on the outskirts of the city, in the abandoned bomb shelter, Grandma Taters and Baby Eddie observed the battle from the monitors. "Well, I'm happy to say my broadcast skills were put to excellent use," she commented. "What better way to use it than on our worst enemy?"

"Yeah, except we now are stuck waiting for what we can do next now that Gortox ain't here," Eddie rolled his eyes.

"Who says we have to wait for him to do something?" Taters remarked.

"Good point," Eddie chuckled. "I suppose we could cause some chaos anyway, even if we missed most of the fun."

"And I know just where to start," Taters said with her dark eyes and deeper voice as one of the screens showed the prisoners that took part in the invasion.

September 26th, 2006 4:24pm

Dallas, TX

Sheen was lying in the hospital bed channel surfing between shows that didn't interest him and news reports showing the damage done to Retroville. Not exactly something he wants to think about at the moment. He tossed the remote to the side. His N-Men suit was set to the side and worn for wear. He had a basic t-shirt and shorts under the hospital robe. He was almost free to go, but they needed to run a few more tests to make sure his concussion was gone. As he waited for them, he had only the sound of the heart monitor to keep him company, that is until…

"Hey Sheen," a nurse called to him. "You have a visitor."

Instinctually, he lit up at the thought that Libby had recovered and turned around with a smile on his face. To his surprise, however, it was his mustachioed father, Harp. "Hello son," he spoke solemnly. Sheen was disappointed for a second, but still forced his way out of bed to hug him. "Hey dad," Sheen let out a few tears as his father did the same.

"I'm glad you're alright." Harp began. "They told me, you'll be out within the hour."

"That's great!" he sadly smiled. "Do you know anything about Libby?"

He shook his head. "All they told me and her parents was that she is in a coma with no way of knowing when she'll wake. It could be anytime between now and the next five years."

Sheen looked the other way and punched his bed. "It should've been me!" he said angrily. "Why did she have to-?!"

"It wasn't your fault." his father comforted him as he put his hand on his shoulder. "You did the best you could, and so did she." They sat in silence for a bit until the papers were finalized for Sheen to go. "Let's get going. Tu hermana te extraña." Sheen nodded. He could use his sister to distract him.

September 28th, 2006 12:00pm

In these rough times, the citizens of the late Retroville were all able to find new apartments in other places. Dallas was the closest town, so most chose to reside there. Before everyone could even begin to move on, one last look back was deserved for those who have fallen. While most lived to tell the story, many soldiers who fought there and a few hundred civilians didn't make it. A new spot was made in Restland Cemetery dedicated to them. It was called the Retroville Memorial. The survivors gathered around those who were being buried or cremated. With General Abercrombie, the soldiers there gave a 13 gun salute.

Among those being buried, Nicholas Dean was next in line to be buried. His mother would give a speech. A good amount of his classmates and teachers were there. Notably, Jimmy's parents, Carl and his parents, Sheen, his sister and father, Libby's father, Cindy (in a wheelchair) with her parents, April and Betty with her family were there among countless others, all in formal attire. While there was some tension between Jimmy's friends and the rest of town, they set it aside to mourn together. They all took it differently with most expressing tears.

Nick's mother gave a heartfelt speech. "Nick was my hero. Even in the hard times of my life, he was able to make me smile even when he was a baby. And I can tell that… even now," she broke down. "...He took part in… saving most of us… With him… gone… I don't know what I'll be able to do… Thanks for being in my life."

A few people went to comfort her as she fell in tears. Many others followed suit as he was being set in the ground. Everyone met at a restaurant and ate in silence. Nobody really knew what to say or do. Someone offered April an entree, which she reluctantly accepted since she wasn't used to Earth food.

Cindy and Sheen greeted each other. She attempted to lighten the mood. "So, see any new episodes of Ultralord?", she half smiled.

He said in monotone, "I haven't."

She was somewhat taken aback by this lack of enthusiasm, but she was quick to see why.

"So, how are you feeling?" Sheen pondered.

"Stuck in a wheelchair, I'm just doing dandy," she joked as she motioned to the area in her hip that she got stabbed. "Hopefully with some physical therapy, I'll be able to walk again."

"Do… Do you think Libby and Jimmy will be okay?" Sheen struggled to ask as he looked away.

"I…" Cindy stopped to ponder. Truth be told, she wasn't sure, but then she looked at her scar once again. "Well, I got stabbed and I'm still here. Ain't no way, I'm letting Libby and Neutron get away from us that easily!"

Sheen laughed. "I kinda forgot how much of a jokester you were."

"Hey, I got you to smile, so I guess it's good for something."

"Yeah, I guess so-" Sheen was cut off by Cindy's mother, Sasha came to push her wheelchair.

"It's time to go, daughter."

"But I was just," Cindy protested.

"No buts, we're going back to the hospital now." Cindy then frowned as she and Sheen waved one last time. She managed to catch Jimmy's parents and they all waved as she left.

Sheen then approached Betty. "Hey," he spoke.

"Hey, Sheen." She sadly smiled.

"First, I wanted to say, I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thank you," she said. "Nick and I were close. We were hoping to achieve our dreams and show off to each other. He was the brother I never had."

"I can imagine," Sheen then was about to say something else. "I was wondering…"

"What is it?" She looked at him.

He then realized this wasn't the time for him to ask a favor. "I- never mind. I'll say it later."

"Okay." Betty then looked at him. "Well, I'll be waiting. Feel free to drop by. After all this, I could use some good company."

"Sure!" he gave a thumbs up.

After the reception, Carl snuck away, something April noticed. A horde of depressing thoughts consumed him. He didn't know how to process it. With the exception of Sheen, Cindy and Betty, he believed that everyone else died. "Jimmy… Libby… and Nick…" He silently said. "They're all gone!" From there he didn't know what else to do. "Elke… she might be… No! I need to find her!" as Carl ran away, that was the only thing he could think of. The only thing that kept him sane was finding the one he loved. April snuck away, worrying for Carl's safety. She decided to follow him in secret. Whether it was out of curiosity, or out of atonement for failing to protect her home and to a degree, Earth, was unknown.

To Be Continued…

AN: Aaaand that's the start of it. Admittedly, this story does start a little on the depressing side, but rest assured it will pick up steam. Let me know what you guys think and I'll be back for a new chapter soon!