Reunions and Revelations.

I landed next to FDiffy, who was waving up at me. There was a group of people I recognised nearby, and I scanned the faces as they ran towards me. Future me was clearly still MIA, and there was no sign of Healthbar, no members of SOLAR (not even Ragnarok!) but Broadcast, Centaur, Jingle, Jump, Scorch and the rest of VHS were all there. Everyone looked older, battleworn, with a few scars and bruises, but it was great to see them all again. Well, everyone that was there anyway.

So, after a lot of hellos, hugs, and catching up, we discussed what to do next. Getting past patrols would be easier now, because HG had been using a machine to boost Playwrite's power to give all the flip-brains a sort of hive mind, and without it they wouldn't react, they were blank, empty shells, so now we only had regular guards to deal with. As well as any super powered lackeys sent to stop us. And whatever the shadow figures were. And HG himself. Yay.

I still had a few questions. 'So where's Healthbar? She'll have survived surely? She has that whole Captain Scarlet thing going, she always got better.....'
Everyone looked really awkward, and Doolittle choked back a sob.
'What? What is it? Tell me!'
Silence. FDiffy looked away when I glanced at him.
'What's wrong? Where is she?! Diffy, you called me here to help rescue everyone. If you know something, you have to tell me. It's not a spoiler, it's important information!'
FDiffy grimaced, but he decided to tell me. 'You said you had a weird feeling about the sudden switch from day to night?'
'Yeah....Oh god! No.......'
'And you said it sent a faint shiver through you? Like someone, far away, was screaming?'
I sank to the floor, feeling sick.
'You can't be serious......please, no......'
'HG wanted complete control of everything. When he got rid of the stars, he wiped out the sun too. Then of course, he needed something to put in it's place, to keep the planet alive. And there she was, a girl with the power of the sun itself flowing out of her. So she was thrown into space, and he controls her with a collar. He has the power to turn the sun on and off. And every time he does, it kills one of our best friends.'
'...........He's dead. I'm going to turn him to dust. Then I'm going to back to my time, and do it again. I can't believe..........but she.........how? I mean, How? With no real sun, how does she survive out there? The lack of air, food, water, sunlight, heat? How the hell does she live out there?'
'She IS the sun. The power it takes to do that every day, it's immensley painful. It's so strong, that even though it's her power making it, the energy, the fire blazes through her. Every morning, she's torn apart and burnt to a crisp by her own ability. But, her ability takes all the sunlight, and heals her again in the same moment. In a single second, she is destroyed and restored. Her dark side of her ability keeps her alive overnight, and then next morning, she explodes again. It's sent her into a sort of coma, she barely notices anymore. We think that's better.'
'.........How do you know all this?'
She thought out a while ago, and Playwrite found her. He opened the channel to everyone that hadn't been stuck in machines yet. We got a flash of what it was like for her, and then....her mind shut down. We...we felt it happen.'
He was crying now, and from the blurring in my eyes I discovered I was too. I stood up, wiped my eyes., and looked at the others.
'And me? What's the latest news about me?'
Playwrite took over for FDiffy. 'Last we heard from you, you were escaping from an attack you made on one of his factories. You were badly injured, and said that you were going into hiding to recover, and that you knew someday, you would be called back to join the fight again.'
'Oooooooooooooooooook. What had I been up to before that?'
'We can't give too much away.....'
'Urgh, that again. Aren't I supposed to be changing this timeline? So, surely it doesn't matter? Please, at least tell me, did I try and rescue you guys at all?'
'Of course you did. When HG came for you, you vanished for ages. He'd caught all of us. Diffy was sure HG had won. We tried to send you every clue we could on how to fight him, and Diffy kept looking for you, hoping you'd got away, before starting the fight alone. Glutton kept going for a while, but he was found in the end. Next thing anyone knows, you're breaking us out of the fortress we were being held in. From the inside. Apparently, Hana helped you out of whatever was holding you, then you broke us out. Doolittle fled to the rainforest and gained an army of beasts, Broadcast created his own mini group, Some of us went to help Diffy, etc. Then HG caught us all again, and you kept running, fighting him when you could. You'd learnt from the first round, and kept dodging, fighting him on the move. Then, after blowing up one of his factories, you vanished again, like we said.'
'Why couldn't you just have run in the first place?'
FDiffy looked at me, distressed. 'I NEEDED you. I needed someone to help. You promised my parents you'd always be there to look after me, and then you just...weren't! Do you have ANY idea what that does to a person?!'
'Hey, I'm sorry! Really, I am! This was all out of my control you know! It's not my fault I did something I haven't done yet!'
'But we grabbed you after you freed everyone. That way they could keep everything going until you got back. Hopefully your second dissappearance won't be as bad this time round as it was for us.'
'.....right. But, I got timesnatched just after I found out everybody else had been got. HG was coming for me, he was reaching out towards me. Then.......shwoolp! I was here.'
FDiffy looked shocked. 'No.....no no...we took you from later on.'
'That's what I was trying to tell you.'
'No...dear god...oh hell, then it was all my fault. I.....I caused you to vanish. I talked to Moira. I asked her to get you. It's because of me that I was alone. because of this, everything went so wrong that I needed to call you here in the first place!'
He sank to the floor, his head in his hands. 'I've done one of those self-fulfilling things haven't I? Oh man, Precog was always on about stuff like that. Oh what have I done?'
I didn't know what to say. I tried to tell him it wasn't his fault, tried to point out that Moira had claerly messed up, but he wouldn't hear it. He needed to be alone for a bit. FVHS crowded round him to help, trying to comfort him. I was feeling lost, with no idea what to do next, when I felt the pull of the tree again. It had set off so many alarms with my powers, but there was more. It called out, not just to my nature control, but every power I had, drawing anybody with an ability in towards it, like a lighthouse, or a huge ability magnet. No, there was still more. It seemed to be calling to me on a personal level, like, I don't know, as if I'd met it before? But that made no sense! I started to walk towards it, my hand outstretched. The tree began to glow.