Author's Note - Please Read
Set after about episode ten of Time Force, and after the last episode of Evolution, if anyone wants specifics. I am still writing X-Men: New Start, don't worry - I just needed distraction over a few days, travelling to the funeral of someone very close to me. Writing is my main coping mechanism, so... Since I'd watched part of Time Force and have always loved Evolution... well, this idea wouldn't leave me alone. Enjoy!
Jen's world shifted in the blink of an eye. One moment she was practicing new fight moves, suited up with the other Power Rangers - and then the world shifted, spinning in one dizzying instant until she was forced to blink, and the world changed completely. Gone was the clock tower, the familiar streets, and the other Rangers, replaced by an unknown city.
Confused, she looked around. It looked like a perfectly normal city centre of about the time she had just left, but nothing was familiar. She could see the looks on the passing civilians' faces that clearly said you're crazy; given that people had started to get used to the idea of Power Rangers in 2001, the looks confirmed that the portal had taken her somewhere very different. She stepped in front of a middle-aged woman, ignoring the slightly worried look she gave her. "Excuse me, can you tell me what year it is?"
The question would have been unusual at the best of times; given Jen was currently a bright pink Power Ranger, the woman looked as though she wanted to run. "2003," she replied as she backed away.
Jen blinked in surprise. 2003 was only two years into the future - or less far into the past, depending on how you looked at it. She had expected the strange portal to take her somewhere much more unusual than that. She was about to find another civilian to ask where she was, when a warning flashed onto the display in her helmet, and she froze. That warning meant there was a mutant somewhere, and it only took a few seconds of scanning to spot the mutant casually walking past. The woman looked human enough; she looked to be of African descent, aside from her definitely unusual white hair. If not for the warning flashing in her helmet, proclaiming her to have mutant DNA, Jen would have just walked past without a second thought about what she would have assumed was a dye job. "Stop there, mutant!" she yelled, running towards the woman.
To say that Ororo Munroe was surprised would be putting it very mildly. She put the bag of groceries she had been holding on a low wall, not taking her eyes off the helmeted, pink-spandex-clad woman threatening her. She resisted the urge to pinch herself as she tried to take in the definitely odd sight in front of her. A dozen questions rushed through her head, chief among which being What the hell are you wearing? "Who are you?" was all she managed to ask.
The odd stranger showed a badge Ororo did not recognise. "Time Force," she announced, as if that was supposed to mean something. "You're under arrest."
Oh, no. She had not survived everything she had - from Sentinels to Apocalypse to her own traumatic childhood - to surrender to this crazy person. "I don't think so," she replied, her tone as calm and confident as she could make it.
Jen charged, and Ororo reacted on instinct, sending a sharp blast of wind to knock her assailant aside. Her eyes clouded over, and the weather reacted on her command, the skies clouding over in seconds. Lightning flickered overhead, accompanied by the deafening boom of thunder, but if the pink-clad stranger was surprised or afraid the reaction was hidden behind her helmet.
Ororo let the clouds continue to swirl overhead, keeping from attacking with her full powers until she knew the strength of her strange enemy. They traded a few blows, Ororo stunned at how hard the other woman was hitting; she suspected that whatever was giving her the unnatural strength and agility was also protecting her from harm. With her next punch, she added a blast of lightning that would have disabled most enemies, but it barely seemed to make Jen stumble. They fought on, both being careful not to hurt the fleeing civilians as they traded blows, Ororo slowly gaining the upper hand with her mastery of the weather. Freezing cold, blinding gales, and powerful lightning blasts slammed into the Power Ranger with each of Ororo's punches.
Jen hit the wall hard enough to hurt, and she crumpled to the ground. That last blast had left her suit smoking and sizzling audibly, and before she could even think about getting up it powered itself down automatically. A quick glance at her morpher told her she would have to do without it for at least a few minutes. Unfortunately, it also told her it could find none of the other Rangers in range, so even running like hell and calling for backup was out of the question.
By this time, Ororo thought she had seen enough that nothing would surprise her. Of course, that thought lasted only until the bright pink spandex vanished in a moment, replaced with more normal clothes - still pink, though a lot more subdued. Clearly, whatever the source of her power, it had conjured the garish outfit as well. "Stay where you are," she ordered, not really expecting her to obey.
Exactly as anticipated, Jen picked herself up gingerly, taking up a somewhat shaky fighting position. "I won't stop fighting you, mutant."
Ororo kicked the woman backwards as she attacked yet again, trying to be careful not to hurt her too badly. She wondered if perhaps the reason she insisted on fighting might be fear; it was clear she was in pain, possibly injured, yet she refused to back down.
"Storm!" It was Scott who had called her name, running up in full X-Men uniform. "What is this?"
"Time Force, apparently." She glanced at Jen, who was struggling to pick herself up, before turning to face Scott. She hesitated, before shrugging helplessly. "I'm not sure how to explain it. Today has been a strange day."
Scott looked surprised at the lack of explanation, but nodded slowly. "The others are on their way, but I think you won."
Ororo nodded, even as Jen took up an even shakier fighting stance. She sighed, before replying to her former student. "So do I, but she disagrees." The next thing Ororo saw was a flash of yellow - she would later realise it had belonged to a newly arrived Katie grabbing her from behind - then a rapidly approaching street lamp and the feeling of suddenly moving very fast - then she felt nothing at all.
Katie and Jen barely had time to exchange a triumphant glance before the former was thrown into the latter by the newly arrived Jean, even as the other three Rangers appeared in neighbouring streets. They arrived in moments, running towards the sounds of combat, and the fight escalated in only moments more.
"Time for Time Force!" The shout from Jen came just as soon as her morpher was able to turn her back into the Pink Ranger. She pulled out her blaster, still in pain from her last fight - even with the power suit, Storm had hit hard enough to hurt. Wanting to avoid directly tangling with any of the mutants if she could avoid it, and with Storm still slumped where Katie had left her, Jen used her blaster to back up her friends as she looked around at their fights. When it came to fighting this particular group of mutants, the Power Rangers were at a distinct disadvantage to start with, being on unfamiliar turf, and their situation was rapidly getting worse.
Wes had found himself in the unfortunate situation of facing both Scott and Jean; whenever he made to attack Scott, he would find himself being hurled backwards through the air by an invisible hand, and whenever he tried to attack Jean, Scott would blast him into a wall with his powerful optic blasts. Unable to get close enough to either of his opponents to get a decent strike, he was reduced to trying to defend himself against their attacks.
Lucas in particular was having a worse day than usual; hitting tiny sixteen-year-old girls was hard enough at the best of times, but Kitty Pryde easily phased through any punches he could bring himself to throw. Strictly speaking, he was not losing against her as she was not making many attacks, but he was definitely not winning either.
Trip, somewhat surprisingly, seemed to be winning his fight - although this fact was not as surprising to Rogue, whose powers were useless against an opponent who showed no skin. Against Trip normally, she may have stood a chance, but against a Power Ranger she was losing rapidly.
Meanwhile, Katie was having even less luck than Lucas in her fight against Kurt. No matter how useful her strength might be most of the time, trying to use it against an opponent who kept disappearing and reappearing behind her was clearly an exercise in futility.
"Guys, we need to regroup and use our weapons!" Jen's shout was quickly heeded, the other four gathering around her.
The weapons in question turned out to be colour-coded, each one appearing in the same shocking shade as its wielder, and each one announced dramatically by the Power Ranger summoning it. Ridiculous as some of the X-men's exploits could occasionally get, the spectacle made them pause for a moment, especially when the weapons in question actually appeared. The red, pink and blue Rangers called for their 'Chrono Sabers', which promptly appeared as a pair of clock-hand-shaped swords, the pun with Time Force not being lost on the bemused X-Men. 'V4' and 'V3' appeared as ridiculously large guns in the arms of the green and yellow Rangers. Their size would have been hilarious, if the X-Men had not promptly become the targets.
Even knowing they should have pressed the advantage while the Rangers were busy being over-dramatic, the X-Men exchanged looks. "Are they for real?" Scott muttered to himself.
His attention was drawn to Ororo as she sat up with a groan. "They're more dangerous than they look, so take them seriously." She rubbed her head where she had hit the lamp post, not trying to stand yet. She looked at the five brightly-dressed Rangers, before relenting and shaking her head. "I know that's hard, but do try."
Jen took advantage of the pause in combat to glance at her morpher, then sighed. She gave a glance at the gathered mutants before turning to the other Time Force Rangers, her voice low and worried. "I can't reach Circuit. If any of them expose their mutant DNA, we're in trouble. Don't let them grow, no matter what."
The mutants exchanged a confused look, and this time Ororo actually did pinch herself. It was Scott who spoke, stepping forward with one hand on the controls of his visor. "What are you talking about?"
"Doesn't concern you." Jen was certain the mutants knew exactly what she was talking about, but either way she was not about to stop to explain mutant biology to them. A heartbeat later and the fight resumed in full force, the Rangers and X-Men finding no more time to debate the subject.
Jean was flying overhead, dodging laser blasts fired by the Yellow Ranger, when she felt a sudden stabbing attack on her mind. Unable to focus on too many things at once, she dropped down behind Scott, trusting him to cover her. She closed her eyes, focussing on the psychic invasion coming from one of the attackers - Power Rangers, they had called themselves. Fortunately for Jean, the invading psychic had not expected any kind of retaliation, so it was an easy matter for her to do the mental equivalent of slamming him hard against a wall. Stay out of my mind, she told him firmly, easily pinning him in place.
Trip made no attempt to struggle against Jean's grip, instead merely radiating surprise. You feel so... normal...
Normal? Jean loosened her grip on his mind slightly, but he did not take the opportunity to attack. You're one to talk. What do you mean?
Trip gave the psychic equivalent of a poked a little further into her mind, very aware that she still had him at a distinct disadvantage. She still held him tightly enough to do some very real damage to him if she chose, but instead she let him into her memories. What he found there staggered him; to all intents and purposes, she was a normal teenaged girl, freshly graduated from a normal high school, trying to lead a normal life. He supposed a criminal past could be hidden in that part of her mind she was blocking him from, but given the memories he could read he found that hard to believe.
Jean took the opportunity to dive into his memories. One of the main advantages of reading minds was that you could read things that would seem utterly crazy if told to you - such as the fact that Trip was an alien from the year three thousand who had travelled back in time to catch a group of criminal mutants. Images of the mutants flooded her mind, Trip eager to share so she could understand. She moved past the grotesque monsters, quickly reading many memories of the five Power Rangers at rest - she stopped herself then, when she realised Trip was making no attempt to block her from any part of his mind. All she could sense from him was open, even naïve trusting, and she did not want to pry too far.
It did not take a fool to work out why Trip had suddenly frozen in the middle of combat, nor to work out that the red-head who had fallen equally still was responsible. There were many possible ways to resolve this problem, but for Katie the simplest solution was usually the most effective. Certainly, throwing a car at the mutant psychic provided a handy distraction; Trip stumbled back to life immediately as the mutant caught the car with her powers.
What Katie had not expected was Trip throwing himself in front of her, arms outstretched to stop her pressing her advantage and attacking. "Wait!" he shouted, standing in front of Katie's gun without any sign of hesitation, his own dropped when he had been freed from Jean's psychic grip. "They're not like Ransik's mutants, they're nice!"
Putting the car down to one side out of Katie's reach, Jean stepped forward. "I have psychic abilities, like Trip. I've seen what you're fighting, but we're different. We're not criminals, we were just trying to defend ourselves."
Jen hesitated, then looked to Trip for confirmation. He nodded eagerly, clearly desperate to be believed. "Power down." She matched actions to words as she stepped forward, the others following suit behind her, and she turned to Jean. "We need to get back to fighting Ransik, you saw what's at stake for us."
The young mutants looked to Scott, but it was Ororo who made the decision, standing with Kitty's help as she spoke. "Come with us to the mansion. We can work out where you came from and get you back there."
Author's Note #2
I wrote the first note when I had only a few paragraphs written. I wrote this one at the end. My god, this fanfic kicked my ass! Sorry if the quality's lower than it should be, it was so hard to get this written. Fun, but so hard. I actually finished Time Force long before I finished this one. I had to ban myself from moving on to Wild Force until it got finished as incentive!