Chapter 23

B-beep...B-beep...B-beep...

Her eyes snapped open to read the glowing red numbers of the digital clock.

"Oh no! I'm late!" Betty shouted as she jumped out of bed. "Wait a minute, late for what?" Something seemed off this morning. What was she late for? School? No, impossible. School blew up with the rest of the world. Looking around she realized she was in her bedroom. Her real bedroom on earth, exactly the way she remembered it.

"No," She reasoned, "No, this is just some dream, a cruel sick dream." She closed her eyes and stared pacing the room to try and wake herself up. All she managed to do was hit her foot on her bedpost giving her a stubbed toe and a throbbing pain in her shin.

"Okay, that seemed real enough. But how?" She sat down on the bed and tried to go over the last thing she remembered. She was in the Avenger flying through the Medusa Cascade. Speevak was on her tail and doing a surprisingly good job of keeping up. He fired on her and managed to actually hit her, the ship shook and then…she woke up here. But that didn't make any sense. Unless the blast was more powerful than she thought and she was dead. Betty forced that thought out of her head and tried to remember anything else.

Then it came to her, something Phantom had said. "What if we could bring the Earth back?"

She had told him it was impossible, but what if he found a way? She remembered what else Phantom had told her shortly after, "Round up the others if this works."

"Of course!" She exclaimed. "That was his plan, find a way to go back in time and change history. Phantom I could kiss you!" Her admiration for the ghost boy was cut short by a familiar voice.

"Hey, Betty!" came a voice from her window.

"Noah!" she exclaimed, remembering the events of what seemed to be the last normal moment of her life. She leaned out the window and saw her friend there, "I'll be right down!"

She ran over the events as best she remembered them in her head. Noah came over, they were going to walk to school together because . . . because . . . because of the project! Right! But she couldn't make it because Admiral DeGill called just as she reached the bottom of the stairs and she had to feign sickness for what must have been the hundredth time that week. Without hesitating she snatched up the poster for the project and rushed down stairs. Right on cue her bracelet went off at the bottom of the stairs.

Ignoring the bracelet she swung the door open to see her loyal friend Noah, standing there, waiting for her patiently. She suddenly realized just how much she had missed him. Emotions she had forced down and bottled up finally broke through. Though now the feelings and memories were no longer tainted with regret and sorrow. They were laced with happiness. She was so happy the Noah was alive, that the Earth still existed. Heck, she was even happy that her mom's annoying cat Pursy was still around. She felt warmth well up inside of her, tears rolling down her face and her lips . . . on someone else's? She suddenly realized she had, in her excitement, begun kissing Noah.

She pulled back and held him at arm's length and her face turned as red as her hair. Noah seemed dazed, unsure of what to think. The flashing and beeping of her bracelet snapped Betty out of it.

"Hey Noah, uh look, I'm not feeling so good to day. You don't mind doing the presentation on your own, do you?" She asked as if nothing happened.

"Uh...well, I guess...uh, sure." Noah said, wondering if it really did just happen

"Great," she replied, handing him the poster, "just read off the notes and you'll do fine." she quickly gave a fake sneeze and coughed for good measure.

"Well, hope you feel better, see ya." With that Noah began shuffling to the edge of the walkway like a sleep-walker.

"Noah!"

"Huh?"

"School's the other way!"

"Oh, okay." Noah corrected himself and Betty slammed the door behind her.

"I'm gonna have to deal with that later." She moved her hand over her bracelet. It felt so good to have it on again. "Atomic Betty, Reporting for duty." she said with a salute.

"Ah, Betty." Replied Admiral DeGill. "My apologies for calling you so early, but we have a bit of a crisis on our hands. It seems-"

"The Chameleon has stolen an X-HLT prototype called the Avenger." Betty finished his sentence. Seeing the surprise on the Admiral's face she quickly explained. "I know, I seem to be dealing with DR-2 occurrence."

"A Time Loop? Oh my!"

"Yes, and I need my crew for another mission of the utmost importance."

"Yes, of course, but what shall we do about the Avenger?"

Betty bit her lip, she hadn't thought about that. An answer came to her, "I know just the person for the job; Sprig Speevak. He's a cadet at the Celestial Academy, but I really think he's got the stuff for this mission." Speevak had done remarkably well in trying to catch the Avenger when she was piloting it, and come amazingly close at times. With an idiot like the Chameleon at the wheel, Speevak would have little problem.

"Very well, Atomic Betty, I'll re-rout the mission. Do what needs to be done. Good luck." DeGill's hologram gave a salute and vanished.

Betty signaled her ship to beam her up. Her pajamas were transformed into her usual Galactic Guardian uniform. Once on her ship she couldn't help but drink in the familiar sights. Sparky sat up front, pretending to be doing something important. X-5 hovered in his seat actually doing something important.

"So, Chief," Sparky blurted, "Ready to go kick the Champion's tail?"

She grinned, "Sorry Sparky, change of plans. We've got a DR-2 situation on our hands."

"DR-2?" Sparky muttered, trying to remember what that code stood for, "You mean it's a zombie pony invasion?"

X-5 sighed, "No. That would be an LF-4. DR-2 is a time loop."

"Time loop? I don't remember any time loop."

"Thank goodness." Betty muttered sliding into her seat.

"What was that Chief?"

"Oh, uh, I was saying we should probably get going."

"Excuse me, Captain," X-5 said turning his attention to his console, "I'm picking up a strange reading from the Delta sector, perhaps it's related to the DR-2 event? Should we investigate?"

"We can do that later X-5," Betty decided, "Right now we need to get some muscle. Set coordinates for New York City, Earth."

The next chapter is going to be a while (big surprise). I'm moving for college and it will probably be a while before I can get the next chapter finished an posted. On top of that I plan to make it one of those long chapters you never see from me.

Now, I've been dragging you guys on with the 'who blew up the Earth' question for a long time now. And you know what? I'm gonna keep on draging you along. At least for a little while longer. But don't despair! The big reveal is coming. It won't happen for another chapter or two but it is coming. But I want to test your deductive skills.

You see, I've had a very specific villain in mind for this entire story, and I made sure to place clues as to that villain's identity throughout the story. I want to see if you guys have picked up on those. Let me know who you think blew up the Earth in the reviews. The one who gets it right receives...well, just bragging rights, but still!

I'm also going to give you a hint: This particular villain is in the rouge's gallery of one of the Avenger's crew. That is to say, a member of the crew has fought them before.

Good luck and please don't hunt me down and kill me!