“Your powers are those of a demon, augmented by an alien ring given to earth for someone to use for good,” said Benton, “We don’t yet know how it was meant to be used. I can study that in my lab. Now that Chuck and Nancy know the truth, only they can use the ring. Your use of it was done either before their arrival or through their presence at any given points in time. That’s no longer going to be possible. The powers of the rings belong to them.”

“We don’t even know what powers it would give us,” said Nancy, “We only ever used it to call him.”

“That’s just the illusion he fed you, remember,” said Benton, “But here’s something. I’ll bet demons aren’t normally giant sized.”

“Then he got that power from the ring,” said Nancy, maybe I can get the same power.”

“It’s probably how that ring half works,” said Samson, “It hasn’t given Shazzan the same powers as Mightor and me. Even our devices give us slight variations on our abilities.”

Nancy concentrated on growing and found that the ring enlarged her to giant size, along with itself, so that it still fit on her finger. She hadn’t even needed to touch it to Chuck’s ring in order to experience this influx of super hero growth power. As she grew to Shazzan’s height, he lost the proportionate power and shrank to the height of a normal man.”

“What about invisibility?” said Chuck.

“That came from the cloack, one of his constructs,” said Benton, “The clue to your powers must be in some change that actually occurred in you. The ring would have enabled it, at Shazzan’s command, and he took the credit for it.”

“What about the time we faced Mysterio the Mini-Magi,” said Chuck, “Nancy and I actually shrank to Mysterio’s size. We saw it. We felt it.”

“And when I said I thought Mysterio was mean because he was an imp and asked Shazzan to turn him into a human being, all Shazzan did was turn off his Mysterio construct’s powers and make the wings disappear.” (See 1967 episode “Mysterio the Mini-Magi”).

Chuck concentrated on shrinking, and was reduced to tiny size, even smaller than Mysterio had been.

As this happened, Shazzan began to fade away.

“No, young masters! You can’t! You mustn’t!” said Shazzan, showing the first sign of panic they’d ever seen.

“Demons are normally invisible, and intangible. They can rarely manifest perceptibly,” said Benton, “They rely on mind games and possession to influence people for evil. Shazzan’s giant size and visibility were maintained by his interference with the rings he stole, which the aliens must have meant for you.”

(Benton had deduced all that he’d previously said about the alien benefactor theories by piecing together what Tod told him about the Mightor legend, along with Space Ghost’s having shared his origin story and Young Samson having done likewise).

“Shazzan’s disappearing then,” said Jonny.

“So is this dimension!” said Hadji.

Suddenly their surroundings took on a familiar appearance.

“We’re back in the cave off the coast of Maine,” said Race.

“We always were,” said Benton, “Shazzan used the ring’s growth and reduction power properties to compact a whole ancient counterpart Arabia into one cave. He might well have reduced you both to tiny size right at the start, enabling him to seem like a giant, and his pocket dimension Arabia was really just an illusion which disguised this cave’s natural appearance.”

“So we’re back where it all started,” said Chuck, who was still tiny.

Jan picked him up and sat him on her shoulder.

“You can ride there until you get the hang of restoring your size, little cutie,” she said.

Nancy’s size had already reverted to normal, or had it been normal all the time if the others had all been reduced the moment they entered Shazzan’s pocket dimension in the cave with all its properties. It didn’t matter. She went outside and found that she could grow to a real giant size relative to normal sized earthlings. It would be a valuable power in the future.

For now, she shrank back to normal and boarded The Phantom Cruiser. Some of them went with her and others went in Questor Two. They all met back at I-1 base and agreed that the best report to be made to Benton’s superiors was that they had found the kids (Tod in a misty valley near the plane, Tom and Tub diving near Salamandro’s new base, and Chuck and Nancy lost in a cave off the coast of Maine).
The secrets of the alien power source objects would remain that. Only Samson had been able to name Galaxia Kentron as their origin, being the only surviving earthling who had met the aliens. Space Ghost need not have told his origin on Ghost Planet to I-1.

After some discussion, Samson, Mightor, Chuck, Nancy and Jan agreed to stay together as a team which would not be part of I-1, nor its agents, but would be open to being called on for help by Benton Quest or working with Quest team sometimes. For want of a better name, they tentatively called their team ‘The Kentron Contingency’.

Jace returned to Ghost Planet with Space Ghost, and left Jan the Space Coup, so that she could still visit them from time to time on Ghost Planet.

Chuck and Nancy were keen to meet the other rescued survivors (Tom and Tub), and like Chuck’s blossoming romance with Jan (who would now frequently visit earth), Nancy found herself seeing a lot of Tom.

1975, Galaxia Kentron….

“That’s why we don’t interfere anymore,” said the Kentron leader to his female assistant, shortly after 1974’s visit to earth’s upper atmosphere, “After what we set off in 1967, we won’t take a chance on leaving our power objects on a planet where demons can get hold of them. Samson and Chuck and Nancy and Tod can keep the gifts they have, as long as they use them for good. We will never give any earthling such power again. From now on, they’ll have to find their own way.”