Stripes and C3 belong to Disney. Vamp, Caylee, and Superstar belong to me. Sort of.

Vamp: Well, we always knew that Stripes and C3 were whipped.

Stripes + C3: Hey!

Superstar: Bad-dum, cha!

Caylee: Don't make me come over there and sock you!

"Candracar is going to have my ass," Superstar muttered to himself as his hand began to inch towards his sword out of instinct. To their adversary, he said, "Hey, there! Caleb, right?"

"It depends completely on whose asking," the sixth Caleb replied, in an unnervingly civil voice.

Superstar's hand was almost to the invisible hilt. He heard Vamp let out a low growl from behind him and knew without seeing that C3 would be reaching for his own sword and Stripes would be diverting his magic to somewhere useful.

"Well, I'd love to explain but it might take a little bit," Superstar replied. "You're arm actually might start hurting as we get into the second hour so why don't you just set her down…"

"So courteous, aren't we?" the sixth Caleb replied with a smirk as his grip around Caylee's neck visibly tightened.

The next thing anyone was aware of, something black and furry hit the sixth Caleb with blinding speed. He faltered, distracted, and dropped Caylee to the floor though he did little more than stumble. The attacker recovered and all heads turned to see an ebony-black wolf snapping and snarling at the new Caleb.

It had Vamp's violet eyes.

Despite the fact that the attack took all of five seconds, it was all the time the remaining Calebs needed to arm themselves. The Sword of the Elements pulsed a slight pink with the Heart's power in Superstar's hands while C3's sword reflected the clear blue magic swirling like water around Stripes' hands and Vamp prepared himself to leap again.

"Now, now, now," the sixth Caleb chided taking a step over Caylee so that his robe concealed everything but her head and pointed a glowing hand at her, "we don't want to do anything as equally rude as your vampiric companion, do we?"

"Relax, Vamp," Superstar told the wolf without taking his eyes off of the sixth Caleb. "You guys too," he added to Stripes and C3 behind him as he lowered his sword to the ground. Stripes and C3 shot each other concerned looks but both knew better than to defy any orders given in the middle of battle and lowered their weapons. Vamp was a little more reluctant but transformed back, the only thing remaining of the wolf's long, shaggy mane shortening into his hair. His eyes stayed the same in both color and intention.

"Perfect," Superstar commended as he casually lent on his sword like it was a walking stick. "So what can we do for you, Caleb? Or do I call you Altermere? Would Mere work for short?"

Mere's eyes narrowed. "What on Meridian are you talking about?"

"Altermere? It's a pretty common term in the Candracar business. Basically it's someone or something that posses Guardian powers that doesn't have the Candracar go-ahead to posses," Superstar explained.

"Not the best time for a lecture on your crazy job," C3 muttered as he and Stripes slowly came forward to flank Superstar on either side.

"Actually, I feel it's the perfect time," Mere replied. "Who are you and how did you manage to make it into Meridian with a Veil as strong as this one?"

"We're you," Superstar supplied, leaning a little more on his sword so that the glow intensified momentarily then softened once more. "Well, we're 'Caleb' technically, from alternate universes. And we're here to help you"

To anyone who didn't have Vamp's vision, it would have merely been another, simply stronger energy pulse from the sword. But Vamp caught the word that appeared on the sword for a split second from behind Mere: DISTRACT.

Mere chuckled as if he'd heard a good joke and it sent shivers up Stripes spine though he couldn't place where the fear came from.

"Whatever gave you the impression I needed help?" he asked, still casually as he shifted his weight so that he was more over Caylee. The other Calebs tensed and Mere's smirk grew more pronounced.

"Oh, don't worry about your little harpy," he assured them, "she's nowhere near dead, yet"

"I know that, zhotla," Vamp said from behind Mere in a contemptuous voice. "I can hear her heartbeat from here"

At the insult, Mere looked over his shoulder to glare at Vamp as the energy in his eyes and hand glowed a little brighter. It was exactly the distraction Superstar was looking for but before he could make any command, Mere jerked and howled in pain, losing his balance and stepping back to reveal a coughing Caylee holding one of her sais, dripping with Mere's blood.

"I (cough) I'm not anybody's harpy," she managed, rolling on to her side and coughing a little more forcefully.

"YOU LITTLE—," Mere screeched, clutching at his foot with one hand and powering up the other.

His attention was pulled away from Caylee, however, by C3 who came charging at him, sword raised. Mere stepped down on his injured foot and dodged the blow easily, outstretching his hand to fire at C3's unarmed back. He was forced to withdraw that attack too as Vamp's canine teeth snapped shut on the air where his arm was seconds before. From several yards away, Stripes made a pitching motion and a baseball-sized ball of magic hit Mere in the shoulder as he tried to dodge C3's sword again.

Caylee quickly pushed herself up on her knees, rubbing her neck with her stabbing hand as she removed her other shoe's heel which transformed into her second sai. She got to her feet in perfect time as Superstar plunged Hector into the ground and shouted, "Terra!"

The earth rolled and rumbled beneath the combatants and Caylee almost lost her balance again. She watched as Mere dropped to the ground at the same time that Vamp and C3 attacked from either side.

"Two can play that game!" he shouted, gripping the ground. At the same time that the earth reared up in a wave against Superstar, Stripes, and Caylee, vines shot out of the cracks of the earth and grabbed C3 and Vamp right before they collided. Superstar and Caylee kept their footing with their weapons plunged into the ground. Stripes was thrown, however, and once the vines had slammed Vamp and C3 into the ground, both headed for the Murmurer.

"How about a little fire, Scarecrow?" Mere snickered, pulling back a hand and forming a fireball as the vines brought Stripes to him.

Stripes paled and choked as he fought against the vines. Mere was just about to toss it when he sensed Vamp's attack coming at him from behind. He spun and threw the mystic fire at the vampire.

The attack hit him full in the face but Vamp barely noticed it. The now flaming wolf collided with Mere again, but this time managed to snap his jaws onto the Altermere's cloak. Vamp would've taken his double to the ground if an energy blast from Hector hadn't jerked him the other way, causing the wolf to lose his grip and rip a piece out of the cloak.

Vamp landed on all fours, flaming and snarling like a demented fire demon, as C3 cut Stripes out of his vine prison and Caylee and Superstar ran up to join them.

"You," Mere hissed at Superstar, looking in between the hole in his stomach and the cause of it, even as the wound glowed and healed in record time. "You hit me"

"You kinda do that in combat," Caylee informed him, winding up and throwing a sai at him at the same time that Stripes and Superstar shot magic. The two magic attacks hit Mere's shield simultaneously but made no impact and Caylee's sai lodged itself harmlessly in the wall of magic.

"Fools! You can't defeat me!" he shouted as he plucked the sai out and threw it back at Caylee with a kick of magic. She dodged it even as C3 swung his sword and deflected it.

"I should've squashed the rebellion the first time around!" he snarled, magic pulsing all the way up to his elbows.

The Calebs exchanged looks, Superstar and Vamp particularly. Superstar nodded once at Vamp and at the same moment that Mere drew back to fire, he swung Hector like a golf club with another cry of "Terra!" and a wall of earth rose to block the attack. Vamp bounded out around the side of the make-shift trench to resume an offensive. Caylee and C3 made to scramble out after him but Superstar held them back.

"Hold up! Time out!" he called, grabbing them by their shirts and dragging them back behind the wall. "We need a new strategy now that we know Phobos is running the show"

"What? Phobos is running the show?" Stripes asked, leaning his back to the wall as explosions rocked it from the other side.

"Please, did you hear him?" Superstar told them, rolling his eyes. "There is no way in any universe a Caleb would have an ego that big"

"Beg to differ," Caylee replied, fixing her shirt and glowering at Superstar.

"But why is Phobos possessing Caleb?" C3 asked heatedly as he peeked around the wall to keep look out as Vamp kept Mere occupied.

"Well, I don't think it's intentional," Superstar explained, wiping some dirt off of Hector with his sleeve. "The Oracle said that the Veil here is extremely reinforced. My guess is that Phobos' soul—"

"—or what he has of a soul," Caylee interrupted, catching on, "also got stuck in the Heart with his powers."

"Cookie for the estrogen," their leader commended with a grin. Caylee sighed and crawled the few feet to where her sai landed to retrieve it.

"But if it is Phobos running the show, we can't kill him," C3 said, then faltered, "Can we?"

"Hmmm…I have an idea," Superstar mused, in a more serious voice. "We need to try and restart him"

"Well, he's not a robot last I checked!"

"No, Stripes, seriously," Superstar said. "Think of the mind like a heart with an irregular pulse, a foreign item. You need to send a shock through it to get it to stop and restart itself correctly."

"Except none of us can shoot lightning or anything close to an electric shock!" Caylee reminded him, returning to the wall.

"Maybe not a literal shock," C3 pondered, catching on to Superstar's idea. "Maybe simply a surprise or a fright big enough to force Phobos to lose his hold of the body for a second so this Caleb can take over. Something like a—"

Vamp appeared suddenly around the wall and growled something at Superstar.

"Vampire bite?" Stripes guessed.

"Or he needs me to douse him. Acqua!" Superstar corrected as Hector shot water out at Vamp and quenched the fire. "Either one works"

Vamp's responding growl was deafened by a blow of power that shattered the wall and the group scrambled out from behind it.

"We'll get you close enough!" C3 shouted to Vamp through the kicked up dust as he pulled out his sword again. Caylee twirled her weapons expertly and dangerously as Stripes and Superstar powered up. The black wolf disappeared back into the cloud of dust and an eerie silence fell. No one could see five feet in front of them and Mere was silent.

"Um…someone want to clear this?" Stripes muttered after a few seconds passed.

Superstar decided to take the risk and lifted Hector up the sky.

"Aria!"

A whirlwind whipped up and lifted the dust cloud but Mere and Vamp were nowhere to be seen. The Calebs looked around but with the exception of a few more craters in the ground, the landscape looked exactly as it had when they arrived.

"Anyone else want to jinx it by saying something cliché or should I?" Superstar asked jokingly.

The ground erupted from beneath them, then, spewing lava in all directions. Stripes managed a barrier around the four as they hurried to get away from the rising volcano, with Mere rising on top.

"Did you really think you'd seen the last of me?" he cackled.

"Urgh, you're right," Caylee said in disgust. "There's no way I'd quote the Evil-Super-Villain Handbook even if I was crazy-nutso"

If there was any doubt remaining that it was indeed Phobos in charge, the magic was pulsing from Mere so strongly that it was actually dying his hair blonde.

"O—argh—kay," Stripes groaned as the lava began to flow faster than the group could retreat and began to rise higher against the barrier. "Plans on fighting a—urgh—volcano"

"Rrrr—none, really," Superstar replied, adding water magic to the barrier so the lava would solidify on contact. "Just keep him occupied until—wow this is hot—until Vamp makes his move"

Mere threw his hands foreword and the boiling magma oozed around the barrier even faster so that they were surrounded on all sides. Fortunately, Vamp chose this moment to re-appear and faster than any eyes could follow him, he shot up the back of the volcano and leapt at Mere's back, transforming back to a vampire with his teeth bared and ready.

But Mere was waiting for him. Even though he couldn't see him, he felt the magic in the instant that he changed forms and ducked with a fistful of magic ready to catapult him down the volcano to where his teammates were behind the barrier. C3 managed to catch him, though. Sort of.

"Insects, that's what you are to me!" he screamed, cackling with insanity as his magic began affecting the environment and lightning began crashing down from the sky accompanied by large chunks of hail. Stripes switched to protecting their heads as Superstar and Hector tried to keep the oncoming river of lava from coming.

"I am Candracar! I am Meridian! You are nothing tome! You are dead men!" Mere began descending the volcano, the lava solidifying where he stepped forming a manner of stairs.

"I'm already dead, technically" Vamp informed him as he got up off of C3.

"And I am a woman," Caylee corrected hotly, as C3 sat up, rubbing his head.

"More—pressing—issue!" Stripes reminded them, having difficulty with the lightning hitting against his overhead barrier.

"I am unstoppable!" Mere declared. "No one anywhere, on any world, with any power can do a single—"

But Mere froze in place as if he had run into something and then spoke in a completely different voice.

"Beg to differ"

As suddenly as it had all started, the lightning and hail stopped. The entire volcano solidified and shrunk back into the ground as if it had never been there as Mere fell to his hands and knees, trembling and gurgling, muttering inaudibly.

Silent as a cat, Caylee rolled out from behind the barriers and stood up in a semi-crouched position, balancing on the balls of her feet.

"What is she—" Stripes began as he removed his barrier but Superstar shushed him as Caylee began making her way to Mere.

As she got closer, she began to catch snippets of what Mere was muttering to himself.

"—tell Matt I—dammit! Not dying like—gurgh!—don't do this to me—ragh!—kill them!—Heart of—dirguh!—"

In a very gentle and soft maternal voice that any member of her team could have sworn she was incapable of, Caylee cooed, "Hey…it's alright. You're alright, Caleb"

Mere jerked violently at the sound of his name and fixed Caylee with a wild stare.

"Oh God!" he choked, "Oh G-GOD! They're in my head! They're—"

He howled then, not unlike Vamp would have, and clutched his head in agony.

"It's okay, it's okay," Caylee goaded in the same soothing voice as before. She kept inching closer and closer to him, reaching into the back of her pants as she did to retrieve a sai.

"Rrrr—help me," Mere pleaded into the ground. "Help me, plea—what of Peter—juh!—give it up, boy—out of my head!!"

"You can beat this, Caleb," Caylee promised. "You can beat them"

She was fingering the sai in her hand and calculating where would be the most efficient place to stab him when movement made her look up at Superstar inching around from behind the whimpering Mere, Hector pulsing in his hands.

Just like the Calebs had known without words how to coordinate their offensive and defensive attacks perfectly (even now Caylee knew exactly where her other tense teammates were behind her), Caylee saw the plan written on Superstar's face as clearly as if he had told her outright. She also saw that his way was the better way and that there was no room for compromise, as much as she wanted to final attack to be hers.

She put her sai back and knelt directly in front of Mere, even though her eyes were still watching Superstar.

"—I killed them! I—forget it, don't try to—guh!—love you—help, God, please!—"

"It's okay," she murmured, placing a comforting hand on his exposed back. He jerked at the touch.

"Just hold—"

"Cuoro—" Superstar whispered, lifting Hector.

"—perfectly—"

"di," he had Hector tensely above his head.

"—still"

"Candracar!"

Superstar swung Hector down on Mere with full force. Where a physical blow would have cut him in half, Mere screamed as six multi-colored balls of light shot out of his torso.

Immediately releasing The Sword of the Elements, which disappeared the second he let go, Superstar slammed down on his C.O.R.E. and shouted, "NOW!"

A flash of purple light erupted from the sky over head, signaling the removal of the Veil, and the six lights, as if starved for escape, streaked straight upwards and disappeared from sight as Mere's posture went slack and he fell unconscious.

Vamp, Stripes, and C3 came then, now unarmed, and formed a circle with Superstar and Caylee, now on her feet, around Mere.

"Well," Superstar said brightly, placing his hands on his hips, "that could've been worse!"

Now with Mere taken care of, Caylee's voice regained its cattiness. "I hope you know this is entirely your fault!"

Of all the things Superstar was bracing himself for, blame hadn't been high on his list from Caylee.

"My fault?" he asked incredulously. "Caylee…"

"If you're not going to apologize for being a sexist, self-centered jerk then I'm not interested," Caylee insisted crossing her arms and turning her back on him.

"After all this, that's what she's most upset about!" Superstar sighed in disbelief, turning to his other teammates. C3 and Vamp were snickering and Stripes was trying to look somewhere else but was also smirking. Caylee fixed herself and didn't move.

"Argh, fine! If it makes you feel better, 'I'm a sexist self-centered jerk and I'm sorry'"

He grumbled. "Are you happy now?"

Caylee turned back to him and, failing to contain her humor, broke into a playful grin. "What, no roses?"

Seeing Caylee smile for the first time seemed to have an infection quality and Superstar found himself smiling back.

"Put it this way: The only things in my way are a great number of miles to the nearest flower shop and a super-powered red-haired girlfriend"

"You could probably take her," C3 joked, now smiling as well.

"Damn straight," Stripes chimed in, happily. Vamp looked at Stripes with a raised eyebrow and a half smirk on his lips.

"Did goody-two-shoes here just use a swear word?" he asked suggestively.

"I told you that you were a horrible influence," Superstar chided, messing with his C.O.R.E. again.

"Yeah," Stripes added somewhat sheepishly to Vamp, "um…thanks for saving my life out there, by the way"

Vamp shrugged, nonchalantly. "You're on my team"

Stripes raised an eyebrow. "But I treat you like a phrelic. And you hate me"

"You're. On. My. Team," he repeated, groaning and rolling his eyes. "Geez, Zebra-Boy, did the explosions knock out your hearing?"

"Shame you're just smoldering now; I would have preferred you extra-crispy!" Stripes shot back.

"Oh boy," C3 muttered, getting ready to intervene just as Superstar finished with his watch and gave it a slow turn.

Like the hologram had appeared in the middle of the table at their first meeting in Candracar, an image of the Oracle appeared on Superstar's watch.

"Well done, Calebs," the Oracle commended, inclining his head. "The Candracars are extremely grateful for—"

"Saving your inter-universal asses?" Caylee supplied, smirking.

"In much more formal terms, yes," the Oracle smiled, which made Caylee blush slightly. She swiftly kicked C3 who make the mistake of chuckling out loud.

"We will send members of the council to retrieve the renegade Caleb. Farewell and thank you once more"

The Oracle completely disappeared then and Superstar began another rotation sequence on his C.O.R.E.

"Well that doesn't happen every day," Stripes mused.

"Right," Vamp replied impishly, "as opposed to this," he indicated Mere at his feet, "which does"

Superstar finished up with his C.O.R.E. and addressed his teammates. "All right then! That's that and we're homeward bound. Any last words before we depart?"

The five stood around looking at each other for a couple of awkward seconds without saying anything.

"I think we're good. Um…we don't have to have, like, a group hug, do we?" C3 asked nervously.

"Nah," Superstar grinned, twisting the watch a final round, "save it for next time"

"Next—?"

But Superstar had already pressed his C.O.R.E. and as quickly as they had arrived, the Calebs were elsewhere.

Holy gerrlic.

Three years after first publishing something on , I have finally, finally, written my first fight scene. I usually shy away from writing fight scenes (and by 'shy away' I mean 'run screaming in the other direction') and it's been a detriment to my writing capabilities but I finally (finally!) got down to it. Thanks goes to koolkame for beta-ing my fight scene and to Kikyo-Pyroana-Sulane for…well, cheerleading more than beta-ing but the help was still appreciated.

Oh yeah, and about that 'next time' thing…

Be on the alert for an 'Everybody Loves Caleb: Adventures' story to be posted. The last has not been seen of the boys (and Caylee) as quite a few more inter-universal crisis' remain for them to help fix up including those lovely sets of vampire and boy Guardians as well as Superstar's troublesome set of sisters and—oh, yeah—something about a bartender/Oracle Caleb.

Yeah and Mere's 'Scarecrow' quote is from the Wizard of Oz. Go figure.