CHAPTER FOURTEEN: RESURRECTION
For the first in over a month, Adam Park opened his eyes. He blinked, temporarily shutting out the brightness that burned and blinded him. It took a bit, but his eyes finally adjusted.
Where am I? Adam thought as he took stock of his surroundings. Where is Kaeru? The last he remembered, Adam had been communing with his animal spirit, in the gardens of the Temple of Power. How did he get back to SPD?
Come. That had been Kaeru's final word, his edict. But go where? Adam had no idea what Kaeru meant. All he did know was that he and his friends were doomed to fail. His spirit had told him that there was a way to stop Zedd, a way to prevent him from ruling this Earth and those that run parallel to it. But Kaeru was also cryptic; he would say no more on the subject, other than that it would require great sacrifice. He seemed to enjoy the thought of it. Adam sighed. Of all the animal spirits in creation, why did he have to get the sadistic one?
Suddenly, Adam felt himself accosted by a great weight. It bore down on him with such strength that it left him breathless.
"Adam!" A voice yelled in pure delight. Adam smiled. He knew that voice.
"Kim," he said hoarsely. "Can't…breathe!"
Kim immediately let him go. Adam sat up and caught his breath. He looked over at Kim, noticing her tear-stained eyes. He stood and returned her embrace with as much force, if not more, than her own.
"I'm glad you're back," she whispered against him.
"Me, too."
The news spread throughout the Base like wildfire: the Black Ranger was back, alive and well! The Black Ranger had fought Zedd's forces before and won. He had defeated Thrax, a scion of Zedd's bloodline. He was their leader, the standard around which they would all rally. The Black Ranger was back: It gave them all hope, a quality which was greatly needed…and had been sorely missed.
But none of that mattered to Schuyler Tate at the moment. What mattered was that he was standing less than three feet away from his dead father, apparently raised from the dead, and the fact that he felt nothing but cold indifference from the man. He stood at attention with the rest of the Time Force Rangers, men and women Sky had heard stories about from the cradle. His posture was strictly military: back straight, feet together, hands clasped behind his back. His face was expressionless. If anything, it seemed as if he and his team were awaiting orders. His entire demeanor screamed "soldier." Except his hair, which was longer than regulations allowed. It was gelled, slicked back in a way that was eerily familiar to Sky… something from the stories his father used to tell him when he was young, about a man who had looked exactly like him.
"Dad?" Sky tried again. No reaction, save perhaps for a distinct furrowing of the brows, undetectable by anyone but Sky, who had been close enough to his father to be able to discern his facial expressions, and the emotions they conveyed. At the moment, the man was confused.
Sky tried again. "Alex?" Again, the same, indistinct furrowing of the brows. This lead Bridge to perform a reading on the newly arrived group. He briefly passed his hand over them, stared at the auras his gift revealed.
"It's not him, Sky," he whispered in his friend's ear. Or Alex. His aura is different from both of theirs."
Sky nodded, digesting the information. "And the others?"
"I can't really say," Bridge supplied. "I never met the Time Force Rangers, so I never got a chance to examine them. But if one of them is different…"
"Then so are the others," Sky said. Bridge nodded. The SPD commander turned his attention back to the man who so resembled his father.
"What is your name, Ranger?"
The man saluted. "Sir! I am Commander Wesley Collins, Red Time Force Ranger, sir!"
Sky had half expected the answer, but it still both surprised and hurt him, though his face showed nothing of it.
"It seems we have much to talk about, Commander."
Anger seemed to flash in Wes's eyes. "Yes, we do."
Adam sat next to Kim as Sky interrogated the newly arrived Time Force. Adam, who knew now exactly how Wes had died, had been just as shocked as Sky had been when suddenly confronted with his old friends' face. He still had a hard time thinking of this Wes as Wes, when the Wes he knew was no more.
Then again, he wasn't really paying much attention to the conversation; he was more focused on the woman who, at the moment, was leaning against him with her arm linked through his, and grasping his hand with hers. Her head rested comfortably on his shoulder. Whenever Adam moved, even by the slightest inch, Kimberly moved with him, and tightened her grip, as though she were afraid to let him go. He didn't know what prompted her behavior, but he wasn't complaining: Adam liked being close to Kim, it felt right.
At the moment, Kim was struggling to stay awake, and Adam wished she would just go to sleep. From what Kira had told him when he'd been released from the infirmary earlier, Kim had been to see him everyday, and stayed well beyond visiting hours. She was also having trouble sleeping; she kept having nightmares.
He looked down at her face, watching as exhaustion finally won out and she closed her eyes, snuggling closer to him.
No one would fault her for trying to get some rest, Adam thought. Without stopping to think about it, Adam bent down and gently kissed her brow, bringing a small smile to Kim's face.
Just then Bridge and Kira enter Sky's office, which right now doubled as an interrogation room, carrying trays laden with mountains upon mountains of buttered toast. Adam rolled his eyes and Bridge smiled as he and Kira passed out the goodies to everyone in attendance: Sky, Dr. Manx, Xander and Tori all got one. (Xander and Tori were called in at Adam's request.) Even the Time Force Rangers got some toast.
Bridge comes to a stop in front of Adam. "Want one?" he asked, smiling widely.
"Sure…" Adam replied as he hesitantly picked up a piece. I wonder what's up with him…
As he thought this, Adam realized that Bridge was looking at Kim, and everything clicked into place… sort of.
Adam shot his friend a look that said, You know something don't you?
Bridge said nothing. Instead, he returned Adam's glare with one of his own, one that said solid, resounding Yep!
Remembering that telepathy is among Bridge's gifts, Adam changed tactics, and sent his next thought directly into Bridge's mind.
And you're not telling?
Nope! came the reply, with just a hint of mirth behind it.
You're enjoying this, Adam accused.
Just a bit. Bridge smiled again as his silent laugh echoed in Adam's mind. Bridge walks away, and he and Kira sit together, hand in hand. Adam raises an eyebrow. Still smiling, Bridge jerks his head toward Sky, indicating that they should start paying attention. Sighing, Adam decided to let the matter rest for now, and turned his attention to the business at hand, all the while making sure nothing he did roused Kimberly from her sleep.
"Don't tell me you actually believe them!" Xander shouted, exasperated. "Time Force pops up out of nowhere, your dad along with them, feed you a story about coming from a parallel universe, and you believe them?"
"Wes's aura is different," Bridge offered, trying to keep things civil. " It's not the one he had before, which can only mean that this isn't the Wes we knew, it's a new one."
"But how could they have gotten here in the first place?" Tori asked. "They weren't exactly clear on that point."
"They used the zeo crystals," Sky said softly.
"Come again?" Adam asked, both confused and intrigued, and keeping his voice low, so he wouldn't disturb Kim, who was sleeping on the other side of the door.
"It was something my dad had been working on," Sky replied. "He thought he could use the power of the zeo crystals to manipulate something he called the veil, or the fourth wall: the barrier between dimensions.
"He had had an entire team of techs working on the project. He'd hoped, if the project was successful, to create a repository of Ranger artifacts: weapons, morphers, our entire history, on a plane separate from this one. He wanted to create a Hall of Power, a monument to Rangers past."
"What happened?" Kira asked.
Sky said nothing, so Bridge answered, "The project failed. During one of the tests, where our scientists tried to harness the power of the zeo crystals, there power spiked, causing a massive explosion. Those who were in the immediate vicinity when it happened, the scientists who were working on the crystals, were changed, mutated by the Power.
"Those scientists were our parents," Bridge said softly. "The accident that changed them, their genetic make-up, changed us, too."
"After that, the project was scrapped," Dr. Manx said.
Sky spoke up again. "I noticed as they filed in that each of them wore Zeonizers, in addition to their Chrono Morphers."
"And that corroborates their story," Adam said, understanding.
"How?" Tori asked.
"Their Earth is parallel to ours," Adam told her. "If my friend Billy's theories are right, and they usually are, this Earth is the source of all its other incarnations: Earth Prime. When Wes's project failed, a new, parallel Earth was born, one where the project succeeded.
"Their Earth is fading, becoming non-existent. If their world is disappearing, then we should ask ourselves, 'what's going to happen to this world?'"
Everyone stared at Adam for a second, not sure what to say, until Xander decided to break the silence.
"Killjoy." That got a small smile out of everyone.
The orb-like eyes opened, for the first time in what felt like eons. Once a startling, fluid emerald, they were now swirling with colors: yellow, green, black, pink, red and blue swirled together in those mystic pools ever-present, and yet ever fading: the resonance of newfound power. He stood from the bed, which, for all intents and purposes, had served as his grave. Memories came flooding back, of things past and things yet to come. He knew what he had to do. But to do it, he would need Adam: the Black Ranger was the key.
Strong once more, the Sentinel Knight strode from the SPD infirmary and out into a world which would soon fall into chaos, decadence, and death. If the mystic knight felt anything in this moment, it was a surge of resolve, and satisfaction at the knowledge that he had bested his old enemy: despite Zedd's best efforts to the contrary, the Sentinel Knight was back, resurrected.
This time, the Knight thought as he traveled through the veil, This time, I will not be the one who dies.