Dominion (Futuristic Four)

"You'll Only Mess This Up."

"You're hopeless," Hiro moaned as he leaned against a box.

"Hey, it was a good idea at the time!" Wilbur protested as he peeled off the ninja costume. Evidently it had been too small for him, making extracting himself and his clothes from beneath it a chore.

"Where'd you get the ninja costume anyway?"

"Magic."

"Sure." Hiro sighed. "What are we going to do? He's here, but now he thinks that I was kidnapped!"

"Can't you just convince him it was all a mistake?"

"Oh, that conversation would go great. 'Hey Doctor Callaghan, you know how you just saw me get kidnapped while we were talking? Well, that was actually my friend Wilbur and he's just trying to get you here so we can fix time and restore my memories. Sound good? Ok, great, bye!'"

"Maybe you should just tell him he's hallucinating?"

"Even worse."

"All we need is for him to see your microbots. I think things will work themselves out from there."

"It'll be easier just to brainwash him."

"Now that's an idea!"

"No." Hiro folded his arms and glared at Wilbur, who now looked thoroughly normal. "We are not going to brainwash him."

"All we need to do is make him forget the last fifteen minutes!"

"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

"Just a solid whack on the head! Concussions make people forget things, right?"

"I take it back. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

Wilbur paced across the floor. "You don't even have to do anything. Just stay out of sight. I'm happy to do the hitting."

"Are you crazy, Wilbur?"

"I don't hear you saying any great ideas!"

"I already did! My great idea was to go to his house and convince him to come here! Without sending him to the hospital in any form!"

"I don't know why I even bothered asking you. Just stay here, ok? You'll only mess this up."

"Wilbur, wait-!"

Wilbur was already out the door. Hiro groaned. He didn't know what would be worse: staying put and allowing Wilbur to carry out his plan or trying to stop him. Both things could go terribly wrong so easily.  No options were safe.  No options were reasonable.

All Hiro could do was wait . . . and hope.

- - - - -

Wilbur tried to go with the flow of the crowd, all the while keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of Callaghan.  Sure, maybe his idea hadn't been a great one, but did Hiro have to act all high and mighty about it?  No!  He didn't.  This was all his fault, really.

But his memories are gone.  He doesn't remember us, or what we went through.  He doesn't even know what's going to happen to him . . .

Wilbur forced himself off of that train of thought.  Stay in the present.  Focus on the mission at hand.  Fix time first.  Then you can focus on saving Hiro.

If there's anything left of him.

Wilbur finally spotted him.  A head of gray hair moving through the crowd, asking questions to people.  This was the man who was going to make it all happen.  One hit and things would be back on track.

But did he really want to do that?  Fixing time meant putting things back on track.  It meant setting into motion terrible things.  It meant bringing the other future, the real future.

What if I can't save them?  What if we can't change his mind?

Callaghan had moved away from the crowd so that he was behind a booth.  It was now or never.  Wilbur picked up a nearby self-help book and smashed it into the back of Callaghan's head.

- - - - -

A flurry of light and sound exploded into Hiro's mind from all sides.  He cried out and stumbled against the wall as images assaulted him.  Wilbur crouched behind a tree.  Time traveling.  A huge robot, a motionless Violet.  Pain, running, fear.  Playing games in an arcade.  Attacking robots in a hallway.  Fire, explosions.  Waking up in a hospital to an unfamiliar face.  Racing through the streets towards a rampaging Baymax.  Facing down a man with flaming red hair.  Holding a sobbing Violet.

And then the graves came.  Tadashi, dead.  Aunt Cass, dead.  Unknown faces, gone forever from the world.  So many lives lost.  And between it all, surrounding it all, the floating image of Violet . . .

"It hurts, doesn't it?" a voice asked.  Hiro forced his eyes half open.  He was no longer alone in the room.

The stranger stood only a short distance away.  He still wore the same sunglasses and hat as the night both Piro and Hiro had encountered him.  His face was expressionless as he continued to speak.

"I tried to keep you from that.  The memories.  The pain.  The deaths.  They all die, you know.  We could have stopped that."

"Who are you?" Hiro growled.  "Kyuubi?"

"What a ridiculous name."  The man shook his head.  "I can't believe you trust them.  You realize this is what they wanted, right?  They're using you.  I knew who you were the moment I saw you outside of Aunt Cass's.  I knew what they were trying to do."

"We'll stop you," Hiro promised as he pushed himself into a standing position.  His head throbbed to a steady beat.

"You've only made this more complicated," the man responded.  "So you sealed this timeline.  Fine.  I can't come back here any more without risking blowing up the universe.  But there are other timelines we haven't touched yet.  You think losing your memories was hard?  You haven't seen anything yet."

The man turned to walk away.  He paused next to the door.  "Maybe you don't understand now, but you will.  We're going to save lives, Hiro."

He opened the door and vanished into the night.