Jubilee groaned. She'd never been a big fan of sleeping outdoors, even when in a sleeping bag on top of an air mattress in a tent. She was most definitely not a fan of sleeping outdoors in a damp bathing suit in a tree with a branch digging in her back and Daria flopped over her feet.

They had finally given up after their encounter with the harpy, somewhere around four in the morning. Before bedding down, Monet had tried to fly back to the car, but couldn't find it. She omitted reporting to the others that what she had found involved a brown-skinned man working on a stone knife. She had a disturbing inkling of what was going on, but wasn't prepared to tell the others.

She noticed Jubilee stirring, reached over, and poked her. When Jubilee turned to look at her, she motioned towards the ground. Jubilee nodded, then gently squeezed her feet out from under Daria and climbed down.

"I know that look." Jubilee whispered, trying not to wake the others. "What's up?"

"I'm not sure. I have an inkling, though, and before I start propounding any theories, I wanted to check something. Have you ever heard of any kind of invisible dimensional portal? As opposed to an object or person who controlled it?"

Jubilee frowned to herself. To the best of her recollection, all the dimension-jumps had had some sort of visible phenomena connected to it- a glow or mist or a small aboriginal dude. Even crystals and many-armed alien bimbos, but none that were invisible. She said as much to Monet, then whispered, "Do ya think that's what happened? That we've fallen into another dimension?"

Monet nodded. She noticed that the other three were awake. "Did you guys already hear all that?" They assented. "Right. Well, I wasn't going to mention this, but when I flew back towards the car, I not only didn't find it, but I met a rather pleasant gentleman. I couldn't understand what he was saying, but I'm pretty sure that he was speaking Mayan. He was working on a stone knife, and behind him was San Felipe." She noticed Jubilee's frown. "A post-Classical Mayan coastal city on the Yucatan Peninsula. It's in ruins today, with only a few walls and towers visible- but when I saw it yesterday, it was intact, filled with people, and-" She took a deep breath. "-And, it was still being built." She saw the look of shock, followed by understanding, which crossed the others' faces. "Now, either we've slipped into another dimension, or we've gone back in time, or we've do! ne both. That would explain the dragons and such, but- I don't know why I would see a city on the Yucatan instead of, well, Floridian coastline."

Angelo interrupted. "Maybe the dimension we're in is floating around with regard to Earth. Then whenever, we leave, we'll be somewhere new."

"Oo-oo-ooh!" Jubilee waved her hands frantically for attention, then said breathlessly, "What if we're floating through time, too? How are we going to get back to our own time, instead of-" She looked at Monet.

"About 300 BC."

Jubilee gulped. "Uh, yeah. How are we supposed to know if we're in 300 BC or 2001 AD? I don't really wanna spend the rest of my like living without the necessities, like plumbing and TV and ice cream , y'know?"

Monet blew a lock of hair out of her face. "I don't know." Oh, if only they knew how it hurt to say that! "We can worry about that later. Right now, what we need to figure out is how the boys are traveling so far and so fast. We should have come across them by now. For one thing, I doubt that they would have kept walking after dark, not to mention that they should have gotten hungry and turned around." Of course, they didn't know that the boys had been just out of telepathic reach the night before. "What we need is to speed up our search somehow. I can't see through the foliage when flying, and the canopy is too low for me to fly along the path. There simply isn't enough air resistance for me to stay airborne. Jono and I have both been broadcasting since yesterday without any success. Walking isn't getting us anywhere."

Angelo snorted. "Monet, there isn't exactly a Toyota dealership around."

She glared at him. "I know that. What I propose is that Daria and I fly ahead and try to find someone to loan us horses or something."

"Split up? Here? Are you nuts? What if we run into another dragon?"

Monet sighed. "Then you'll just have to take care of it yourself! The point is, does anybody else have a better plan?"

..

"That's what I thought. We'll try to keep within range as far as possible, in case anything comes up." She noticed Jubilee staring angrily at her, gulped and took off. Daria paused long enough to look around apologetically, then flew off after Monet.

* * * * *

<*Great*> Jono scuffed one boot against the rocky path. He knew he should have stayed home in his basement. <*Any ideas?*>

Jubilee was about to answer when - grrrrmmble grrrmmble - her stomach did it for her. She smiled sheepishly.

Angelo snickered. "Jeez, Jubecita, even when you don't open yer mouth, yer still the loudest one of us!" He ducked her swing and ambled off down the path, looking for berries or nuts or something. Knowing his luck, he'd find the poisonous ones first.

* * * * *

Daria was floating along, scanning the area for some sign of habitation. Supposedly. In truth, she was scanning the trees for food. "I like to eat, eat, eat, apples and bananas..." she sang softly under her breath.

About a quarter mile to the side, Monet was doing the same thing. "I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts..." She sighed wistfully and brought her gaze up from the trees in time to let out the telepathic version of "Eeep!" before she flew headfirst into the giant black cloud.

To be continued...