Chapter Thirty Five: Brave New World

"What just happened?"

Liz looked around at her surroundings and tried to see the monster…that should have been in front of her. Instead, she saw nothing, save the wooden plank fence that separated their school from the back alley. Her Crystal Morpher was still around her wrist and the Ivory Tiger Coin shimmered with light, but something seemed…off. Emma was still next to her and the Asian girl seemed slightly disoriented but otherwise fine. She stepped out into the sunshine and looked around, gazing up at the buildings to try to see where the creature had gone. Shaking her head, she dismissed her Crystal Morpher and nodded once to Emma.

"What happened, Liz? You saw the monster jump out of the bushes, right?"

The Ivory Ranger nodded and stretched out with her senses as Weihan had taught her to do. Besides the faint traces of astonishment and indignation coming from a nearby paddy wagon, there were no energy trails that led to the monster. In fact, there were no energy trails anywhere – something that unnerved her greatly. Weihan had always stated that the energy of the Morphin Grid permeated everywhere, even in dimensions where there was only one team of Rangers in the Universe. It had always been at the back of her mind, a comforting and warm presence that always reassured her of her decisions. To have it taken away from her was jarring, to say the least, and made her extremely uncomfortable. Seeing the nervous look on her face, Emma leant in close and dropped her tone.

"What did it do? It shot out energy and I felt it wrap around me. More to the point…where is it?"

Liz shook her head and tried to slow her breathing. The energy had wrapped around her body as well and she had experienced a feeling of falling. It seemed like nothing had changed but she couldn't feel the Morphin Grid or even the powerful hum of the Ultra Grid anywhere. She looked down at her now bare wrist and shivered in fear. If the monster had transported them to a place where she was cut off from the Grid, she would have to conserve her energy and weapon use. Smoothing down her skirt and trying not to look as freaked out as she felt, she made her way to the entrance of the building. No matter what, she needed to know where the creature had trapped them.

"Hey! Liz!"

Turning at the voice, she smiled nervously as the familiar form of Weihan jogged towards her. However, as he came closer, the Ivory Ranger took note of the little things that were missing from the boy in front of her. Firstly, he seemed to be slightly less confident in himself and had a slightly fraying black backpack slung over his shoulders. His ever-present silver and orange communicator was absent from his wrist and there was a half-empty bottle of Coke in his right pocket. Looking behind him, she could see Bree walking towards them at a slower pace. Exchanging another uneasy glance at Emma, she forced a smile to her face as the Asian boy caught up to them. He opened his mouth and closed it, looking closely at them.

"Whoa, what happened to you two? You seem…weirded out by something. It's not my story, right?"

Before she could ask the question forming in her mind, Weihan unzipped his backpack to pull out a book with a brown cover. Various drawings and scribbles covered the front and as she took it out of his hands, an icy chill ran down her spine as she saw the title: 'The Ultra Crystals'. Opening the book with a slight degree of trepidation, she flicked through the pages and skimmed through pages and pages of short notes. Familiar words like 'Ultrazords', 'Crystal Powers' and 'Xonix' sprang out at her but there was nothing to show of his journeys with the ponies…almost as if that particular 'branch' hadn't crossed his mind yet. There was also a heavily crossed out section with an arrow pointing to the words 'Rethink battle strategy'. Squinting at the words, she could just make out a line that said 'falls into a trap and is', but the rest of the words were too heavily obscured in thick black ink to be read. She looked up just in time to see Bree embrace the Asian from behind and lean in for a short kiss. Her fingers fell slack as Weihan took the book back from her and continued on, seemingly oblivious to the shock on the two girls.

"It's only a rough outline. I still need to add a few more things here and there, like plot and detail and all the connecting bits…"

His voice trailed off as the expressions of the two girls finally registered in his mind. He didn't understand why they were so surprised and stunned at their relationship. After all, Liz had been the one to finally push them together after the rather uneventful night at her party. They had even found his like of the Power Rangers to be somewhat strange, but not bothersome at all…which was a marked contrast to the high levels of hostility that he had received in High School. Mentally shuddering at the thoughts of those days, he forced his mind out of the past and raised an eyebrow at both Liz and Emma.

"What? You two look like you've seen a ghost. Or maybe you saw a monster come out of a mirror."

Emma blinked once and tried to wrap her mind around the bizarre situation in front of her. As far as she knew, from the information Bec and Jorja had told her, Weihan had just come out of a relationship with the Silver Ultra Ranger and only viewed Bree as someone strictly off-limits. On the other hand, she had just seen a monster jump out of a bush and weave some sort of crazy spell…so, anything was possible. Seeing Liz was too stunned to speak, she opened her mouth and gave it a shot.

"You and Bree, together? Since when?"

Weihan looked at the two girls once more and narrowed his eyes slightly. They had seemed normal earlier in class and Liz had even given him a few tips on how the flow of the earlier chapters could possibly work. He was sceptical of a few things, namely her ideas for the chaotic situation the main character would be thrown in to but, after a few more hours of thought, he had decided it was the correct way. After all, there wasn't really much riding on the creation of the team until that even happened. Bree had been a help in stringing some of the plot threads together but he had a strange feeling the chapter length would go past 150 chapters. What the 'filler' material would be, he had no idea about but he was sure something would pop up…no pun intended. Bree smiled quizzically at them and spoke for her boyfriend, her southern accent flowing musically through the air.

"Officially, about a week. Unofficially, for a month or so. We weren't terribly subtle about it either."

Liz swallowed hard to regain her composure and ran through a mental checklist of everything that had happened since she had come to class. The strange memories in her mind informed her that nothing major had happened and Emma had brought her to the back to show her something. However, her real memories stated that they had sat down to talk about the Rangers and what the world would have been like without them. Emma had made a wish for something like that and a monster had popped out of the bushes. It had spun out some crazy stuff and the ground had fallen out from under her…but she was still in one piece and still sitting down; even though she knew she had sprang to her feet when the monster had appeared. Now, she was in the same place but the monster was nowhere to be seen, Weihan and Bree were together and, if she had heard correctly, Power Rangers was just a work of fiction. On the plus side, she still had access to her Crystal Coin, her Morpher and whatever weapons were inside the Coin. There wasn't really a Grid she could draw from, but she would do her best to defend the public from the monster…whenever it chose to make another appearance.

"What do the words Power Ranger mean to you?"

Weihan looked to Emma, who had spoken in a low tone. He shook his head and rolled his eyes slightly as he knew they knew what the Power Rangers were. He hoped Disney didn't fuck up the franchise too much, though the word on the Internet was that Ninja Storm was a show that really didn't take itself seriously. He sometimes hated still being on dial-up, but he guessed it was better than nothing. He only hoped the Rangers didn't get something akin to a giant pink pony for a Zord or he would be swearing off the show for good. Of course, if pink ponies started showing up regularly on TV, most of the fans would swear off the show anyway. Or a that show would gain a cult following.

"The show? Well, yeah, I based that outline on my own team of Rangers that I created in my head, but everything is based off the Power Rangers. Plus, I doubt this will ever be published so it's well within the rights of fan work…I think."

"Power Rangers is just a show?"

He blinked in surprise as a strange thought wormed its way into his mind. Maybe aliens and space villains did exist and they had enslaved the minds of the two girls in front of him. With a mental shrug, he guessed that they were doomed to stay in their semi-amnesiac state for good as the only Power Rangers around were played by actors across the pond. Slowly nodding, he tried to assess if they had hit their heads recently. Sharing a confused look with Bree, he glanced around him to see where the others were. While they didn't really share his passion for the Rangers, Bec, Jorja and Phoebe in particular had been great in identifying spots where he could place some amount of emotion into the story. They had even brought up an idea that he would like…if he wasn't living it: that two Rangers could be flung into an alternate world or dimension where there were no such thing as Power Rangers. It was all delightfully Meta and, if he used twisted the joining order slightly, it would mean one of them would have a chance to see what a worse place the world would be. The only question was which Ranger it would be and how they would react on a personal level.

"Uh, yeah. We went over this at the beginning…remember?"

Liz shook her head in disbelief. Wherever the monster had sent them was completely and utterly devoid of Power Rangers and Ranger-related objects. Pulling out her phone, she quickly scrolled through the sent messages until she found the one that she had sent Weihan to tell him that the spell had worked a little too well. Much to her relief, it was still there…which also made her more confused than before. Everything seemed to make no sense and she was actually hoping the monster would make another appearance…just so she could take her mind off the oddness of the world around her.

"So, there are no giant monsters roaming the streets and no giant robots traipsing through the streets?"

Watching the boy that should have been the Orange Ranger shake his head slowly, Emma's breath hitched in her throat as her phone vibrated in her pocket. Reaching for it, she pulled it out and felt tears spring to her eyes as she recognised the number. It was one that she hadn't seen for the past two years as the phone in question had been sitting on her desk that morning; still caked in ash, mud and other unidentified substances. It was a constant reminder of what she had lost on that day. The message was short, telling her that they would be out for dinner and there was food in the fridge that she could heat up…but there was no denying the fact.

Her parents were alive.

She almost didn't hear Weihan's reply as the shock filtered through her body slowly.

"Not unless you count the ones on TV or in my head. And, before you ask, there are no monsters roaming around the streets in broad daylight."

"Guess again, Ranger!"

TBC…

AN: Yes, I am aware this chapter is highly Meta in itself.