Location: Hourglass Facility, Canada

Date: July 3rd, 2010

"Warning. Force shield generators damaged. Shield failure imminent."

The masculine, robotic voice echoed through chrome-and-white hallways, its serenity contrasting with the chaos going on around it. Men and women, some human but many not, were dashing from room to room frantically. Some, wearing white lab coats and safety gear, carried equipment, while others in military uniforms ran the other way with weapons. All of them wore the same symbol, an hourglass, emblazoned on their clothes and gear.

The elevator at the end of the hall opened its doors, and a Power Ranger stumbled out. His blue-and-bronze suit was blackened and torn, and he'd lost a glove; his hand streaked the walls with soot and blood. At the sight of him, the nearest technicians dropped what they were doing and ran over, helping him stand.

"We can walk," the Ranger assured them. "We simply need to report—"

"Nonsense," one woman told him. "We'll get you to the command center. The elevators are starting to shut down, and whatever your species is I don't think you're gonna be able to climb three flights of stairs in this condition."

The Ranger chuckled weakly. "You have a point."

"Shield generators one, two, five and six down. Force shield breached," the robotic voice repeated, as the cluster of people entered the fire escape and struggled up the stairs. An explosion echoed through the building, and the lights flickered. One of the technicians broke away from the others to open the door, and they all spilled into the command center.

The room was oxagonal and covered with computers, each manned by its own technicians. Screens showed the battles going on around the building, and now entering its lower floors. The soldiers were working with professional speed, mowing down the invaders with gunfire, but the lines were beginning to break.

"Zai!" A nonhuman woman who looked rather like a bipedal, scaly dog hurried over to the newcomers. She helped Zai to a seat on a nearby bench. To the men and women who'd helped him she said, "Thank you, now go to your evacuation points, there's very little time."

"Oh, the irony of that," Zai muttered.

"You've lost a lot of blood, you need to rest," the woman told him.

"Rest where? The Akra are going to be inside within the hour," Zai replied. "All we can do now is fight or flee."

"We haven't lost yet," the woman retorted, but Zai shook his head.

"Isinia, we're beyond the point of no return. No matter what happens from this point onward, Hourglass Facility has fallen."

A loud bang echoed through the speakers, making Isinia jump. On the screens behind her, Akra were breaking through both the facility's defenses and the walls. The entire building trembled as another explosion rocked its base.

"First floor defenses breached," the security system announced. "Second floor defenses breached."

"This isn't the end," Isinia insisted.

"No, not for you," Zai said. He nodded toward the portal. "You've got somewhere to be, where the Akra won't dare chase you. There are a few points in the timeline they actually don't want to change."

"Emperor Gruumm's ship," Isinia said reluctantly.

Zai demorphed, revealing a man who was probably pale on a normal day, but now looked almost grey from blood loss. He lifted a necklace over his head and held it out to Isinia. A bronze gyroscope dangled from it, and in the middle ring a little hourglass full of blue sand glinted.

"Take it—"

"Zai, don't," Isinia snapped. She closed a paw over his hand, pushing the necklace back towards him, but he resisted. A few more people made their way into the room, but even the technicians were heading for the portals. The screens started going dark.

Zai's expression was intent."Take it. We trust you to find someone who is worthy. We will safeguard the portals as long as possible. We would rather face the Akra on our own terms, without letting our powers fall into their hands."

Isinia hesitated. The lights flickered around them. Finally, she took the necklace, backing up. Zai gave a slight nod, and with a grimace, abruptly split into three versions of himself, all identically wounded. Turning away, Isinia ran through the nearest portal, one of the last to do so.

Something struck the far door hard enough to dent it inwards. Rising, the three Zais moved to the various remaining controls. They started switching things off, ripping out wires, even breaking the equipment. Nothing else would fall into the Akra's hands. One by one, the portals vanished.

Three more blows knocked the door inwards, and a white-clad Ranger stepped through the doorway. The figure was female, and though the design vaguely resembled the original Mighty Morphin' Green Ranger, the helmet was based on a unicorn's head rather than a dragon's. The three Zais looked up as she walked in.

"Can't hold yourself together, huh, Triforian?" She sounded like an amused teenager more than anything else, certainly not a fearsome general. "You know, if you let me have that morpher of yours, we can fix that hole in your side."

"That is not an option," one of the Zais replied, from where he stood next to a ruined console. "I'm afraid you'll have to content yourself with this base. The Rangers, and all of their powers, will keep fighting you and your creatinons no matter where, or when, you attack."

The cheerfulness vanished from the White Ranger's voice. "Fine." She raised her hand, and a sword materialized in a flash of white light. Her next movements were almost too quick to see—in a swirl of silver and white, she moved around the room, finally halting at the far end with sword extended back behind her. One by one, the three Zais collapsed, barely making a sound. The White Ranger didn't even look back; sheathing her sword she reached out and touched the place where the portals had been, tracing a gloved hand over the wall.

"One down, three to go," she said quietly. "Don't worry, lost little Rangers. We'll bring you all together again very soon."


Location: The Desert

Time: Unknown

A small train of military trucks wound through the desert, looking like a line of black ants against the yellow-brown, stained earth. Although they were alone, the soldiers in each vehicle watched the sky anxiously. For now things were quiet, but it was only a brief respite in the war—or more accurately, the extermination. The forces of the computer virus Venjix had already taken control of most of the globe, and now all the survivors could do was chase transmissions from a place called Corinth, which claimed to be a safe haven.

The truck in the rear of the caravan went over a rock, and inside a man with a bandage over his eyes bumped his head with a thud.

"Bloody hell! Ow..." He slumped back in his seat, holding his head. His hair was sandy-blond, the same color as the stubble on his face, though like everyone and everything else in the truck it was dusty. The soldier beside him, Asian and stocky, put a hand on his shoulder to steady him. He looked to be the older of the pair, in his mid-twenties, while the blond was probably not even twenty yet.

"Woke you up, Brooks?" He had an Estuary accent, the kind that bordered on Cockney but was a little softer. Both he and the rest of the men in the truck wore the uniforms of the British air force.

"Yeah, yeah." Brooks sat up straighter, leaning a little on his friend for balance. "Thanks, Hsien. Have any water you can spare?"

"A drop or two," Hsien said, putting a canteen into Brooks's hands. Brooks took a couple of careful sips, though he clearly wanted to gulp it down. The canvas roof flapped in the wind, its shadow shifting as the truck began to turn. Finishing, Brooks slumped back in his seat.

"You're sure that wasn't piss?"

Hsien let out a laugh and took back the canteen. "What exactly does it taste like to you?"

Brooks sighed, his jokey mood fading. "We're doing this again?"

"You're going to need to practice with your other senses. That's what the medic said," Hsien said.

"The medic also said he wasn't sure if my eyes were going to get better," Brooks retorted. "Even if I don't heal up right, I'm not going to start licking everything to identify it."

"Just try, please."

The truck jolted again, making everything inside sway a little. Resigned, Brooks reached up with one hand. "Lemme have another taste."

Hsien gave him the canteen, and Brooks tasted a mouthful. He pursed up his lips, swallowed, and gave a little nod.

"Yep, that's piss all right."

Hsien laughed out loud. "It's not that funny," Brooks said, his face still wrinkled up.

"It's water, Brooks, and probably the cleanest you'll get this side o—" Hsien was interrupted by a deafening bang. The truck swerved left hard, throwing Brooks and some of the other soldiers out of their seats. Hsien grabbed the canvas and managed to keep his balance. Grabbing his gun, he leaned out the back to see what was happening.

"What the—"

Brooks had both arms out, trying to find something solid to grasp. His hand brushed a seat and he grabbed it, scrambling over and clinging to it as the truck lurched down the road. The rapid pops and bangs of gunfire already sounded out elsewhere in the caravan. Men and women were shouting, mostly orders.

"Hsien?" Brooks called, clearly trying not to sound as scared as he felt.

Hsien was gaping up at something in the sky overhead. It wasn't Venjix drones this time, nor was it a plane from an Earth military. A large, pearly-white disc hovered above them, outside the range of their guns but close enough to return fire. Blue-white balls of energy were shooting out of a ring of small holes in the bottom center of the disc, each impacting the ground with a loud crack-thump. One glanced a truck, knocking it sideways. Men and supplies spilled out the back, scrambling for cover.

Brooks tried to stand up as Hsien moved back into his seat, and Hsien quickly caught his arm, steering him into a seat.

"Stay down, airman, we're under attack."

"How many? Are they flying? We can't outrun them here—"

"Be quiet and stay down!" Hsien ordered him, almost shouting. An energy ball hit the ground behind them with a blinding flash, throwing everyone forward. Brooks hit his head on a metal crate, and the impact sent a new wave of pain through the wounds on his face.

The next thing he knew, he was lying in a pile of tarps and boxes in an unmoving truck. Brooks tried to sit up, but he wasn't entirely sure which way was up. He tried to focus on his other senses, like Hsien had reminded him to do, try to understand what was going on, but his head was pounding painfully. Feeling around, Brooks crawled out of the pile, finding his way back onto what he thought was the floor. He caught his breath.

He could still hear yelling, but the explosions had stopped. The air smelled like dust, smoke and gasoline. The truck's engine was silent, and it felt like it was listing to one corner, as if it had lost a wheel or something. He still tasted the water in his mouth, which truthfully tasted more like rust than anything else, but the sharp tinge of gasoline was there too. He needed to get out of the truck. Only he didn't know which direction "out" was.

Brooks began feeling around with shaky hands. Someone yelled outside, something about "not taking us!" and there was a brief burst of gunfire. It was the silence that followed that made Brooks nervous. The noises outside didn't match that whirring, nightmarish sound Venjix's Grinders made, so what exactly was out there? He hadn't seen the disc or the energy blasts, only had the suspicion that this new threat wasn't human.

His fingers brushed hot metal and Brooks flinched, realizing what it was a second later. A single neat patch of warmth in the middle of otherwise cool metal; the sun had been shining here recently, which meant he was near the back of the truck. Brooks crawled forward, feeling sunlight on his head and shoulders as he scrambled down the sloping floor. His extended hand met sand, and gravity soon got him the rest of the way out.

Outside, Brooks noticed an uncanny humming noise that seemed to be coming from everywhere around him. He tilted his head back, unknowingly looking up at the white disc.

"There's another one!" The female voice was unfamiliar, sounded American maybe. A woman in white was approaching him, and hearing her footsteps, Brooks recoiled. She stood in sharp contrast to her surroundings, almost uncannily perfect, from her uniform to her hair to her makeup. She touched the earpiece in her left ear and spoke.

"We've got one more down here." There was a pause as whoever was on the other end of the call replied. Her eyes narrowed and she looked Brooks up and down. "Maybe, but there's a bandage over his face, no idea how badly he's messed up beneath that."

"Who's there?" Brooks called.

"Sure. If you don't like him you can just dump him in the Energy Room with the others." The woman said into her earpiece, and held up something small that looked like a laser pointer. She clicked the button on the side, and a glowing blue portal opened up beneath Brooks, who dropped with a yell. It closed after him, and the woman smiled. "He's all yours."


Location: Mariner Bay, California

Date: June 10th, 2000

Carter Grayson, Red Lightspeed Ranger, was alone in the base galley, drinking coffee—or at least holding a cup of coffee. It was starting to go cold. It was past midnight, but it seemed he had something on his mind. There was a pensive look on his face, like he was trying to remember something but couldn't figure out what. The door opened and he looked up sharply as a girl entered the room. She looked to be about his age, was at least partly Asian, and wore a Lightspeed jacket like his, although its shield sigil was purple and had a number 6.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't know anyone else was up," she said, halting just inside the doorway. She smiled shyly at him, but Carter broke eye contact quickly.

"Hi Zanna." He finally noticed his coffee was cold and went to the sink to pour it out, turning his back on her. "Nobody but us and the night shift, as far as I know."

Zanna came further into the room, watching Carter, her eyes slightly narrowed. "Are you okay?"

"Me? Yeah, I'm fine." He finally looked back. "How about you? Have you heard from Ryan?"

She sighed and shook her head. "No, nothing so far, but that's probably a good thing since we'd notice if the demons went after him. It's been tougher on Dad and Dana than me, though, since they actually remember him. I was three or four when...when they lost him the first time."

Zanna's expression saddened a little. She'd been there, at the car crash that forced Captain Mitchell into a deal with the devil to save Ryan's life—in the other car, the one that had caused the collision. Her parents hadn't survived, so the Mitchells had taken her in. It was something she always said she didn't like to talk about, but it came up a lot anyway.

Carter nodded, and got started making a new pot of coffee, still not looking at Zanna. She followed his movements for a bit, then approached, coming right up beside him.

"Carter, something's bothering you, I can tell. What is it?"

"Nothing," he said, but she put a hand on his arm and gazed earnestly into his eyes.

"You've been acting weird around me for weeks now. We're a team, you can tell me."

"It's just—" Carter stopped, gathered his thoughts. "Something doesn't feel right. I don't know what it is, but sometimes I just remember things that don't make sense. Stuff like Kelsey being the one who made friends with that astronaut instead of you, or forming the Megazord with only five Zords."

Zanna managed a brief smile despite the obvious discomfort on her face. "Maybe you should stop drinking coffee so late at night and get some sleep, huh?"

"It's not like that," Carter said. "Doctor Fairweather's noticed it too, she was talking to me about it earlier."

"Was she?" Zanna's smile was like a cheap plastic mask, bright and mildly unsettling. "Huh, guess I'll have to ask her too."

"I'm not crazy," Carter insisted. "I've checked the blueprints; your Zord is almost exactly like Dana's even though all of the other ones are unique. The Megazord could form without yours. It's like—"

"Like it was designed to work without me," Zanna interrupted. She looked serious again, almost sad. "Like someone in charge wanted to be able to take me out of the fight and keep the rest of the team running, because he couldn't lose all of his children."

Carter hesitated, and she put a hand on his. There was a brief flicker of gold in her eyes, and a faint ripple of light zipping down her body through what looked like nerves or veins, webbing across her skin. As it reached her fingertips, Carter visibly relaxed.

"You just really wanted to be part of this fight, I guess?" He asked, half-smiling.

"Oh, we argued for years," Zanna said, grinning genuinely this time. "He still threatens to take away my morpher sometimes, but I just remind him that I'm surrounded by people who'd do anything to keep me safe."

"He's not wrong."

Zanna flushed, and became shy again, withdrawing her hand and stepping back. "Seriously, though, you should give the caffeine a rest. The demons could attack any time now and we need you at full strength."

"Oh yeah? I'm not the one sneaking out of bed to talk to a boy," Carter teased her, making her giggle.

"Okay, okay, you've got me. But you're still up way past your bedtime and you'd better get some shuteye, or else." She waved goodbye as she left, and Carter waved back. He looked happier than he had when she'd walked in, even if there was something vacant in his stare now.

Zanna headed back down the hallway to her quarters, humming quietly. She didn't notice the open door nearby, or the person standing inside, in the shadows, watching. Reaching her own door she opened it up and headed inside, past the aquarium tank, the bookshelves and the window, right up to the bed. With a glance around the room, she sat down and reached underneath it, pulling out a wooden case closed with a combination lock. She plunked it and herself onto the bed and opened the lock. As she lifted the lid, a beam of golden light washed over her face, illuminating the room. Inside the box sat a glowing yellow cube, pulsing faintly.

"I knew it."

Zanna jumped up and slammed the box lid shut, shoving it behind herself. A brunette woman was standing in the doorway, her hand on the controls.

"Doctor Fairweather? Could—couldn't you have knocked?" She stammered.

"I could, but then you would have just hidden the box again, wouldn't you?" Fairweather said, entering the room. "I've been wanting to talk to you about that."

"You're not supposed to—"

"Supposed to know about it? Why not?" Doctor Fairweather asked. "What is it?"

"It's—I need it," Zanna said nervously.

"Why?" Doctor Fairweather's tone was gentle. "What is it for?"

"It's—I—wa—"

"You don't remember, do you? Don't panic, that's normal."

"The only time people say 'don't panic' is when there's definitely something to panic about," Zanna retorted. The yellow tendrils were starting to glow again, pulsing faster than before.

"Everyone's been having problems with their memories," Dr. Fairweather said. "Most of them center around you in one way or another. How you joined the team without having to meet all the requirements everyone else did, the way people start acting differently when you're around—"

"So this is my fault?" Zanna interrupted, her voice shriller than before. "What does that make me, a mole or something? This is crazy! What did I do to make you not trust me, Doc?"

"Nothing, it's not like that," Dr. Fairwather started to say, but Zanna wasn't finished.

"I've put my life on the line for you guys over and over, but now I don't belong just because other people have bad memories? Have you even bothered running this by my Dad, or do you already know he's going to drop it because there's no reason to treat me like a threat?"

"Okay, okay!" Dr. Fairweather put up both hands, finally silencing Zanna. The teenager was pink with rage. "One question, just one, and I'll leave you alone."

"...What?"

"What's your mother's name? Captain Mitchell's wife, what is her name?"

Zanna opened her mouth, and stopped. Her face changed, paling as she struggled for an answer to a question that should have been easy.

"Your memories of them were implanted, just like everyone else's memories of you, but the people responsible didn't know everything."

"I...I don't...augh!" She clutched suddenly at the back of her head, letting out a yell of pain. The tendrils blazed yellow. Dr. Fairweather dashed over to her, pulling what looked like a necklace out of the front of her shirt.

"Sands of Time, Rise Up!" She yelled, and was enveloped in a flash of bright green light. Zanna had fallen against the bed, still clutching her head, but she looked up sharply as she felt hands on her shoulders. She glimpsed her own reflection in the gleaming visor above her. A Power Ranger was holding her. She wore bright green, though the boots and gloves were white to match the front panel. Bronze accented the uniform, and glinted in the gun holster on her right hip.

"Hourglass," she breathed, and immediately looked confused.

"Just stay with me, Zanna," the Ranger said. She didn't sound like Dr. Fairweather anymore; her voice was huskier. "I'll get this thing off of you."

Zanna's gaze was fixed on her. Abruptly, gold energy shot through the tendrils. She arched her back and shoved the Green Ranger away, hard enough to knock her to the floor and break her grip. She sprang upright and smashed the box open with one fist, clamping her hand over the cube.

"An Hourglass Ranger is here!" She screamed, even though from the look on her face she had no idea what was happening to her. The Green Ranger picked herself up and raised a hand.

"Neural Net!" A green net materialized in her fist, the ends clattering on the floor. She raised, spun and swung it at Zanna as the girl wheeled on her, throwing up a hand. A yellow energy pulse exploded from her fingertips, blackening the far wall. The Green Ranger hurled herself just in time to avoid the blast. The weight of the net knocked her backwards onto the bed. As she struggled to free herself, she just had time to glimpse little silver and brass beacons blinking amid the fibers of the net before they all went off with a whoosh. Her entire body jolted and she went limp, the light going out of her body tendrils.

The Green Ranger dashed to the bed and checked Zanna's pulse. Apparently satisfied, she rolled her over onto her stomach and drew the gun from her belt. It looked like an old-fashioned flintlock revolver, but with a few gestures, the Green Ranger transformed it into a syringe. She flicked it like a nurse checking to see that the contents flowed clearly, then brushing aside the hair on the back of Zanna's neck, injected the yellow tendrils clustered there. Zanna flinched and groaned.

"It's okay, this will all be over soon," the Green Ranger said soothingly, withdrawing the needle.

"Damn straight it will," an unfamiliar male voice said from behind her. The Green Ranger just had time to look up before something struck her in the head, knocking her into the aquarium with a crash. A man in white stood over her. Red tendrils glowed through the skin of his hands and face, casting a bloody aura around him.

The Green Ranger scrambled to her feet, but there was a visible crack in her helmet, and she was unsteady on her feet. The newcomer advanced on her, raising his right fist. The tendrils spread, covering and breaking out of his skin to form a metallic gauntlet over his hand. It extended further to form a two-handed broadsword. He let the tip scrape across the floor, leaving a whitish scrape in the metal.

"Have you just been hiding here in Mariner Bay the whole time?" He asked. "Wow, that's pretty pathetic. At least the others caught a couple of Akra before going down. This is barely worth my time."

"Well, you can always leave if you want," the Green Ranger suggested, circling as he did.

The man looked like he was thinking about it, but then he shrugged. "Nah, Mom would be mad if I let you go."

He moved with inhuman speed, hauling back and striking down and across with his sword as the Green Ranger tried to duck. He hit the far wall, spun and charged back, striking faster than the human eye could follow. If the Green Ranger had any other weapons, she didn't have time to use them.

Zanna's eyes slid open as the Green Ranger collapsed to the floor, a few feet away from the bed. Blearily, she blinked and focused on the woman as her Ranger suit vanished. Without her suit or her disguise, she was a black-haired, fair-skinned woman in her forties or so, now battered and scorched from the fight. She looked up, meeting Zanna's gaze.

"Yup, barely worth my time," the man said, walking between the two. "Too bad. If you'd been more interesting maybe we could have recruited you, but I guess not all bad guys deserve redemption."

Zanna's eyes widened as he raised his sword. A dramatic swing overhead, and he brought it down with a crack like thunder. She flinched back at the blow, eyes squeezing shut. Blood mingled with the aquarium water puddling on the floor. The red light faded from his skin, and he turned around, sword and gauntlet vanishing back beneath his skin with an unnerving shlhhhh. Zanna kept her eyes closed as he looked down at her.

"Sorry for the interruption, but don't worry, we'll get you back here again in no time—literally!"