Chapter Twenty Eight

Tommy watched the Mystics head through to his world. A large part of him wanted to go with them and just forget all about this crazy situation. But he'd help deal with the prince first.

The instant the last of the Mystics stepped through the portal, something hit Tommy in the back of the head.

He went to the floor, momentarily stunned. In that moment something was gripping his right wrist. He tried to see what, but there was no sign of anything. Through the confused haze he recognised as severe concussion, thoughts were trying to get his attention about invisibility.

He struck out at the air above his left arm and made contact with something, but not before his bracelet was pulled from his wrist. Tommy saw the Gem take on a slight glow as it recognised it was being held by one who owned it.

Even with the throbbing in his head and the muddled chaos of his mind, he could work out what that meant.

Something hit him in the head again.

Tommy turned invisible as an instinctive defence. That caused a very strange effect. Standing over him was another version of himself, transparent to the point where he was barely more than an impression in the air. Clearly, from the fact the prince was still looking at his face, this worked the other way around too. It seemed the invisible could see the invisible.

"Give that back," Tommy said, getting somewhat unsteadily to his feet. Very severe concussion.

"Are you crazy?" the prince mocked. "This Gem has some interesting benefits, don't you think?"

"You can't have two Powers at the same time," Tommy said, desperately hoping he was right. He'd never heard of anyone having two Powers, but then again, Rangers in his world lost their abilities so often it could almost be considered carelessness. No one had ever had the opportunity to have more than one of a type.

"I can have all the powers I want. You won't be able to stop me now." The prince put the bracelet on his own wrist.

"Don't!"

"Dino Thunder! Power up! Ha!"

And there died any hopes Tommy might have had that the Gem wouldn't work while the prince was still the Green Ranger. He stood facing the Black Dino Ranger.

"I can see why you like this thing," the prince said. Then he jumped into the fight with a tornado kick.

The earlier blow to the head wasn't doing Tommy's fighting skills any favours and he doubted he'd have stood much chance against his morphed form at the best of times. He tried as best he could to block the prince's attacks, but as a Ranger, he was too strong and too fast. The prince lifted Tommy off the ground and flung him through the air, to crash into the wall by the door.

"Don't do this," Tommy said, scrambling to his feet again, "You can't want this. I know the real Tommy Oliver doesn't want to be evil."

"People change."

"The part of you that still loves Jason, that's the real you. That person wouldn't want you to do this."

"Jason is gone."

"Don't you even miss him?"

That got a reaction. It wasn't much of one, but the prince hesitated slightly. Then he came at Tommy again, lifting him up by the shoulders and slamming him against the wall. He sounded more angry than ever.

"It doesn't matter!"

"If you ever really loved him," Tommy continued, "you can't do this. You have to fight the evil."

"It's too late for that," the prince said, "I've done all I can for Jason."

"You can't want this life."

"You're right. I don't want this life."

With that, the prince flung Tommy through the doorway and out into the hall. His head struck the wall again and for several moments, he didn't even have the wits to try and stand. When he did, it was to see new figures coming round the corner. Tommy stared at the Red Astro Ranger, who was aiming a gun directly at him.

Oh sh...

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Jason watched the newly formed Rangers head back to their world and saw the portal shut down. He stood a few moments longer, thinking about Tommy and hoping that he was still alright on the other side. Then he decided he probably ought to go and find out what had happened to his other self.

Then he heard the machine hum into life again.

He was back down the stairs in an instant and started grinning as he saw Tommy come through. He gave himself a moment to be glad that his friend was OK, and to check that he was wearing this world's morpher. Then he got mad.

"What the hell were you thinking?" he began, "I know you must have a brain or you wouldn't have all those letters after your name, but does it even occur to you to use it when your life is in danger? That was probably the stupidest thing you've ever done! And I can give you quite a long list of stupid things. What was going through your mind when you decided to go to another universe where most of the population want to kill you? And what would happen to this world if you got stuck there? Did you even think about how your students would manage if you weren't around any more? And it didn't even occur to you to mention to your friends that you were about to do something so utterly reckless. How the hell have you managed not to get killed yet?"

"Are you done?" Tommy asked when Jason had to pause for breath.

"Not even close," Jason replied, then he started grinning again, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah. And Andros has captured the prince. I don't think we'll be needing this again." Tommy nodded towards the machine.

"What about the other Jason? Doesn't he still want to go home?"

"I think I can persuade him to stay. He's not got much to go back for now, and the people there aren't exactly friendly towards him."

"So this thing's over?"

Tommy smiled, "It's over. We won't be needing anything more to do with the other world."