Chapter 50: A Secret Revealed:/All Hail Prince Vekar

Orion let his bike fall to the yard as he sprinted up the steps into the house and threw the door open, skidding into the kitchen. "What's happening?" he asked breathlessly. He looked at Troy and Carter, who were sitting in the kitchen. Both were silent. "Guys?" he tried again. When neither Grayson spoke, he put a hand on Carter's shoulder. "Dad?" he said sharply, and finally, both men looked up. "Sorry," Orion apologized, "but you guys are creeping me out with the silent treatment!"

Carter managed a small smile. "Don't apologize," he replied as he realized what Orion had just said. "You can call me that anytime." He turned around and stood up, enveloping Orion in a hug. "Sorry for scaring you," he apologized, then turned to Troy. "Both of you," he amended. "It's just…something you said, Troy…." He sighed. "I'll wait until everyone gets here, then explain. It'll be easier that way."

Orion sat down next to Troy at the table. "Is this about the Prince?" he asked him. Troy shook his head.

"What Prince?" Carter asked.

"I'll explain later, too," Troy replied.

A car door slammed and Dana let herself into the house, tossing her keys on the counter. "Dad just called, he and Ryan are about ten minutes out," she said. "I imagine his Lightspeed status is going to get them out of more than one speeding ticket."

"Where's Kels?" Carter asked.

"Climbing," Dana replied. "Ryan said he'd fill her in later, assuming this's something he can comprehend." She looked at her three boys. "Someone going to fill me in?"

"It has to wait for Angela," Carter said. "Too complicated to explain it more than once."

Dana nodded. "I'm going to throw some coffee on," she said. "I get the feeling it's going to be a long night."


Forty-five minutes later, the Graysons were joined by Bill and Ryan Mitchell and Joel and Angela Rawlings. Chad had called saying he was in the middle of lessons and couldn't make it, but that he wanted someone to fill him in as soon as possible. Once everyone had moved to the living room, all eyes turned expectantly to Carter. "Floor's yours, son," Bill told him.

Carter looked down at Troy, seated on the floor at his grandfather's feet. "Troy, if you would, can you tell everyone here what happened with your dream?"

Troy ran a hand through his hair and let out a breath. "The dream's been getting more intense," he began. "I'm starting to see more. Before, it was just flashes. Different Ranger teams. The sounds of combat, but I couldn't see what we were fighting. But since we got back from Corinth…it's been getting…worse. More vivid. Like, last night, I saw X-Borgs. Thousands. T-They started shooting at everyone." He looked at his father. "You got hit."

Bill put a hand on Troy's shoulder as Dana's grip tightened in Carter's hand. "Anyway, I told Dad that….it's not like a dream anymore. It's too real. It's like…like a vision or a premonition or something."

There was a moment as everyone took that in. Then, Carter spoke.

"Angela…do you remember when the Mobile Armored Vehicle was in testing phase?"

She nodded. "The malfunctions. The first few test runs didn't go well."

"I remember that," Joel added. "You asked me for flying tips. And I couldn't get you up in a plane."

"I don't blame you," Angela told Carter quickly. "Anyway, go on?"

Carter hesitated, glancing around the room. "I never told anybody about that day. But…the final time in the simulator…I had this….vision, I guess."

All the air left the room and everyone was completely silent. "I didn't say anything because I didn't know what to make of it," he said. "I saw you guys-the team," he told Dana. "Olympius…he killed you all with the Rescue Bird. And I couldn't get there because the MAV wasn't working."

"You freaked out," Joel remembered. "I remember that, clear as day. You kept saying, 'you're alive'!"

"Because you'd died in my…whatever it was," Carter informed him. "And then the day of the actual flight test…it all happened. Exactly like it did in the vision during the sim test."

"That's why you didn't want us to use the Rescue Bird," Dana realized.

"Or why you kept yelling at me to call the team back," Angela put in.

"Whoa," Ryan breathed, summing it all up. "I mean, it can't be a coincidence, can it?" he asked the scientific minds in the room. "Carter's vision, Troy's dream?"

Angela and Bill were quiet. Orion kicked Troy's foot with a reassuring nod. "So…the dream…me being a ranger…it's not by chance," he said. He looked at his parents. "It was like, fate." He shook his head. "Why me?"

"It's unusual," Angela said, looking at Bill for confirmation. "A father and a son both becoming rangers? I can only think of one other time that happened, in Briarwood."

"That's correct," Bill agreed with her. "There was also a set of siblings on that team." He looked at Carter. "Lots of coincidences with Lightspeed."

"Yeah, but wasn't there magic involved with Mystic Force?" Ryan asked. "Dad, you created Lightspeed from the ground up."

"Well, I had a little help," Bill corrected his son gently with a nod at Angela, "but we connected the morphers to the already-existing Morphing Grid," Bill replied. "No one knows for sure how the Morphing Grid works. Lightspeed was one of the few times morphers were created specifically by science. Many other rangers became rangers by chance. Some by destiny."

"So what you're saying is….I'm having visions because the Morphing Grid works in strange and mysterious ways?" Troy said bitterly. "That's not a great reason."

"No, it's not," Angela agreed sympathetically. "And your grandfather makes a good point. Some rangers become rangers by chance, although I argue in your case, it's not chance. In your case…it's in the DNA. You've got two parents who were rangers. Your uncle was a ranger. Your grandfather and I figured out a way to tap the Morphing Grid. You've got a few more things in your past that make you more…susceptible, to becoming a Ranger."

"Don't forget the part where the uncle was raised by demons," Ryan put in sarcastically. "We should've apologized for your screwed up family tree a long time ago, Troy."

"That doesn't explain me though," Carter told her. "My mom and dad were a teacher and a firefighter," he said. "My brother's not a Ranger. I get that the Grid looks for certain qualities, and those qualities were ones you looked for when you picked me, Bill, but, it doesn't explain the vision? I don't remember anything like that happening before I became a Ranger, though," Carter said thoughtfully. He looked at Angela, then to Bill. "Maybe the Morphing Grid…I dunno…did something to me?"

"Did it ever happen again?" Angela asked. "After the MAV incident?"

"There was one other time," Carter said quietly, and Dana looked up at him in confusion. "When we lost our memories."

"God that was awful," Dana recalled. "But what do you mean? You got them back."

"Yeah, but there was one…memory…I guess, that hadn't happened. Or at least, hadn't happened yet." Carter sighed, running a hand through his hair in an exact copy of his son. "It was you and I," he told Dana. "We were at a baseball game."

"I hit you in the face with my ice cream cone," Dana remembered. She frowned. "But that happened. I was there."

"You're right, it did…two years later," Carter said. "We all went to the Mariner Bay Dolphins game for your dad's birthday."

Dana'a face went white. "Are you saying…you saw that before it happened?"

He nodded.

"Dude, you're psychic!" Joel announced. Everyone in the room laughed, but it was an uneasy laugh.

Angela was thinking. For once, the scientist didn't have an answer. "Short of an MRI or something…I don't know what to tell you. I could make a few phone calls to some other...experts...if you want, but otherwise...I don't know if I have an answer for you."

"This sucks," Troy said. "I don't want this…these visions of death and destruction. What if the next death I see is Mom's? Or Orion's? Or Uncle Ryan's?" He hit the floor with his fist. "What if it comes true?"

"Mine didn't, at least, not the one of the Lightspeed team," Carter told him. "It was just a possible outcome, I guess. The same could be said for yours."

"What if that's it, though?" Orion wondered. "He's had this dream a lot, right, Troy?" Troy nodded, and Orion continued. "Maybe it's showing you a future you can change, not one that's going to happen."

"Besides, it's gonna take a lot more than those tin can heads to take me out," Joel kidded, trying to lighten the mood.

"But things are getting worse," Troy pointed out. "The Armada is desperate. They turned a general into a suicide bomber. They tried to stick us in another dimension. And now their Prince has shown up to get revenge for his brother."

"You're not defeated yet, Troy," Bill said.

"But maybe we're destined to be," Troy countered. He got up. "I'm going to bed," he told everyone shortly. He left the room without another word.

Orion looked up the stairs. "What do we do?" he asked. "If Troy thinks we're destined to be defeated…he'll go into every battle thinking we're going to lose." He rested his chin on his knees. "And we'll be defeated before we even set foot on the battlefield."

Carter glanced at the clock. "Then we need someone to change his way of thinking," he said. "Dana, could you grab me the phone? It's late but I have a feeling he'll still be up."


Author's Note: "The Morphing Grid works in mysterious ways." Oh, it really does, though. Magic, mysticism, enhanced genetic powers...there's really no telling what the Grid is thinking when you give someone a morpher. The scene Carter describes with the ice cream is in the episode "The Last Ranger." There's a memory flash in there of him and Dana at some kind of sporting event and she gets her ice cream in his nose. It never happened on the show, so I thought it'd be a fun one to play with. As to whether or not Carter is really psychic, as Joel puts it...I'll leave that up to you! :)

Author's Note II: When I started this, I never in a thousand years imagined I'd be upwards of 300 reviews. 108 favorites, 109 follows and as I write this 302 reviews. You guys are amazing. I can only hope you like the rest of this series as much as the first 50 chapters. Excuse me while I go cry in a corner.