Gaby, Gunn, Kane, Klezmi, and Silva are mine.
Rated PG-13 : sexuality; harsh language, strong violence.
"You give up?" Dazed, Eric remembered to pick up his blaster and cover Conwing.
"Yes. I surrender to your superior fighting skills." Conwing's voice was mildly sarcastic and completely calm.
Wes and Jen climbed to their feet and stepped away from Klezmi and Silva. They moved closer to Eric.
"Are they dead?" Wes asked, his voice a little unsteady.
"Klezmi is dead, but the woman is only unconscious."
"Why?" Eric demanded.
"Why? You gave me those clips. You know what was on them." He glanced down at his former allies with a sneer. "Klezmi was a traitor to his own kind, and Silva allowed herself to be misled. They turned on our people, for power, for personal gain. Klezmi deserved much worse than death."
"Why are you surrendering? You could have killed us, and gotten away."
Conwing's face took on a blank, controlled look. "This is the second time I've unknowingly worked against my people by trying to destroy or control Time Force. Perhaps the original reality is best for us, after all. I can't take the chance of interfering with history by destroying you." With a frosty smile he added, "Much as I'd like to." He went on, "I've made serious mistakes, and I'm prepared to face the consequences."
"You could have made Klezmi face the consequences too. Why didn't you help us capture him, instead of killing him?" Jen asked.
"Klezmi is very dangerous. You don't know much about him. You didn't even know he was a mutant until I told you."
"What made him so dangerous?"
"He had two abilities. He could make people believe him, believe in him. He attracted a fanatical loyalty from his followers. You saw that in his woman." He nodded at Silva. "She was once loyal to the mutant cause, until Klezmi got to her. I was only able to turn against him because I've been here for weeks, away from his influence."
"He tried to persuade me that he was here to help us," Wes muttered. "For a minute I almost believed him."
"Given more time, he might have convinced you. That was one of his talents."
"And the other?" Eric asked.
"He was sensitive to alternate realities. He could remember every reality he has existed in, and he could sense how to manipulate history to get the results he wanted. He knew just what to do, to manufacture the world he wanted to live in, and he was able to get others to help him. Time Force would have been too weak to execute him, and he would only have tried again."
"So -- he knew exactly what changes to make in our time, to put himself in power in the future," Wes said slowly.
"That explains a lot." They all jumped at the sound of another voice, and turned to see four people approaching them. Four Power Rangers; Blue, Green, Yellow, and Black. They raised their morphers, tapped them, and demorphed in four flashes of light.
"I see we're a little late to help, except to clean up the mess," Alex said, with a glance at the two figures on the floor.
"Alex!" Jen said softly. "Trip... Lucas, Katie..." She left Wes and ran to them, hugging each one. "You're hurt!" she added with dismay in her voice. They all showed signs of injury; burns, scratches, and bruises marking their faces. They were all smiling as they embraced her, Katie and Trip with tears in their eyes. There was a second round of hugs as Wes joined them.
"We're fine," Lucas said. "We thought you'd be here, but it's still a shock to see you."
"What do you mean?"
"It's a long story," Katie said. "Alex will tell you."
"We're all just glad you're all right," Trip added.
Eric raised his own morpher and gave the command to demorph. "Do you think we could put off the reunion long enough to take care of business?" he asked. "Do you guys have any of those containment things handy? We've got three prisoners to worry about. And I left Mr. Collins holding a blaster on Steelix. Someone should make sure he's all right."
"Dad! You found him? Is he okay? Where is he?"
Eric smiled. "He's fine. He's in the sauna room, with the real William Kane. Steelix was about to kill them. I knocked him out and left him with them, unconscious."
"The sauna room. Right." Wes headed for the door, turning back long enough to say, "Thanks, Eric," with a smile.
"I'll go with him," Trip said, following.
"Conwing? Are you ready?" Alex asked, walking up to him.
"Go ahead." Conwing stood, impassively, as Alex took out and expanded one of the small round containers which would keep him in miniaturized cryogenic containment until he could be revived in prison.
"Wait," he said suddenly. He turned to face Eric. "Goodbye, Quantum Ranger. Eric. I expect we won't meet again. You've been an interesting opponent. One of the few humans I could respect."
Out of sheer surprise, Eric answered, "You've been an -- interesting opponent, yourself."
"Conwing, you're under arrest." Alex held the container up and triggered it, playing a pale beam over the mutant, who rapidly shrank, then disappeared.
"And I sure hope I never see you again," Eric muttered.
"Dad!" They hugged fiercely, Wes feeling a crushing weight dropping away from him, one he had gotten so accustomed to that now he felt like he was floating. They grinned at each other, not needing words for the moment.
"Steelix, you're under arrest." Trip's voice came from further inside the small room. Wes looked over to see Steelix, still unconscious, vanish in the shrinking beam from the container Trip held.
"What about Conwing?" Collins asked.
"Got him," Wes said. "Actually, he gave up. And the ones behind this whole thing are... taken care of."
"Then it's over?"
Wes smiled. "Yeah. I guess so."
"Great. I can't wait to go home." His hands tightened on Wes's shoulders. "Michael Zaskin -- Conwing hit him, when he kidnapped me..."
"He's fine, Dad. Got out of the hospital days ago."
"Thank God." He looked at the other occupant of the room. "Wes, I'd like you to meet William Kane. The real one. William, this is my son."
"Glad to meet you," Wes said, holding out a hand. "What happened to the two of you? What did they do to you?" He took a closer look at his father, seeing signs of stress and exhaustion, but not of physical damage.
"They grabbed me on the way to Bio-Lab, for my first day at work," Kane said. "Conwing just jumped in front of my car. I crashed. Next thing I knew, I was here, locked up in the men's locker room."
"Then you've been here for weeks?"
"Yes. Feels like years."
"Dad? Did they hurt you?"
"No, they treated us well enough. But we knew... we weren't going to get out of here alive. And we heard enough to know they wanted to get rid of you and Eric..." He smiled again, with a hint of those days of fear and worry. "I'm so glad to see you, and Eric. Not just for our sake."
"Well -- everything's okay now. Come on, let's get back to the others."
They were all gathered in the old exercise room, Jen, Wes, his father, Eric, Kane, the other Rangers, and a squad of Silver Guardians led by Steve Miller had arrived a few minutes ago. Jen sat on the edge of a treadmill, Wes next to her. Her eyes fell on the spot where Klezmi and Silva had lain. They had been removed into containment vessels, to be taken back to 2202, including Klezmi's body. Better to leave no trace of their time behind.
With the stimulation of danger and fear gone, she sagged with an exhaustion she hadn't fully felt before. Wes's hand gripped her shoulder.
"It's over, Jen. We're safe now. You look tired; we can head home soon if you want."
She sighed. "Home. Yes, I'll have to go home..."
His face fell. "Jen..." They looked at each other. There was nothing to say.
"Jen, we have to talk." Alex was standing in front of them, Lucas, Katie, and Trip behind him.
She looked up. His face was serious, even grim. "All right," she said faintly.
Alex squatted, the others sat on the floor. As they began to talk, Eric, Collins, Kane, and the Guardians gradually fell silent. For a time the only sound was Alex's voice, with occasional interruptions from Jen and Wes.
"First of all, let me thank you for a job well done. You defeated Klezmi and his followers, and reversed a major alteration of history."
"Yeah, well," Wes muttered. "Basically we got our butts kicked, until the bad guy bailed us out."
"Whatever you did, it worked." Alex smiled briefly. "Jen, we have to explain what happened in our time, and what we think happened to you." He took a breath before going on.
"After we returned from this time several weeks ago, we began to notice changes in the timestream. Minor ones, and we couldn't seem to get an analysis of them that made any sense. You and I became suspicious."
"I know," Jen said. "I remember most of it, even though I'm not from that reality."
"Interesting. Then you know that Klezmi was behind it. He sabotaged our computer systems, so we wouldn't know what was going on until it was too late."
"But we found out, just in time."
Alex looked down. "Yes. Just in time. We had to leave immediately. We took our usual timeship. You were in the weapons seat, in the back."
"I remember..." Jen straightened, suddenly afraid of what she was going to hear.
"We found out later Silva had gotten into the ship, posing as a maintenance worker. She planted a bomb. It went off when Lucas started the thrusters. You were closest, you took more of the impact than the rest of us." He paused again. "We were injured, but we pulled through. You died before help got to us."
Jen closed her eyes. She had suspected this, but refused to believe it. Now there was no way to deny it. "You mean I'm dead."
Wes arm was tight around her shoulders. "That's stupid. You're alive, now, obviously."
Alex went on. "After the explosion, there was no time to send anyone else back to stop Klezmi. They had also sabotaged our only working shielded timeship, the only one that could have survived traveling through the timestream after it became seriously disrupted. We were helpless."
His face showed the strain of that memory. "Reality began to shift. We tried to protect ourselves from it -- but our shields can't resist a complete alteration. The world changed around us -- and then...
"Then the reality you're from came into being, Jen. We don't remember it now, of course, since the timestream has reverted to the original. But we found enough traces to know what it was like, and what Klezmi did to bring it about.
"He sent Conwing and Steelix here to assassinate you, Wes, and your father and Eric. Without you and your father to run Bio-Lab, Conwing -- disguised as William Kane -- pushed through a merger with a company called Geneco. Geneco has ties with TransGenics. Their management took over. Ironically, Kane was pushed out, and Conwing was found a few months later, dead. I guess Klezmi decided he couldn't trust him.
"The new management took Bio-Lab in a new direction, leading the world in a campaign against mutants over the next decades, a campaign for genetic purity. Eric wasn't there to resist -- Steve Miller also was found dead about a year from now -- and the Guardians went along with this policy. In a hundred years, Time Force was born, but a version of Time Force dedicated to suppressing mutants, and to taking power by using the fears of the human population."
"But -- none of that's going to happen now, is it?" Wes asked.
"No, it won't." He looked back at Jen. "In the alternate reality, Jen hadn't died in that explosion. Something happened to make you suspicious, didn't it?"
"Yes," she said. "I started to have dreams. All of us did, all of us who were on the mission here a couple of months ago. And all of us, the same dream, about being here, and about the original reality." She looked up at Alex. "Why? How was that possible?"
He shrugged. "We've all been involved in changing history twice before -- once very recently. Maybe that caused it."
"Trip thought it was the timestream itself, trying to set things right."
"Maybe. It's an interesting idea. Anyway, you came back here."
"Yes... We were arrested, for conspiring to change history..." She took a breath, remembering the terror of those hours. "Alex, you helped us escape. After you had turned us in." She smiled at his look of dismay. "All of you were killed. I barely got away, and came here."
"Just in time to save me and Eric," Wes added.
"Conwing and Steelix tried again, but we stopped them."
"You saved me from Steelix. And the information you gave us saved Eric from Conwing. The dataclips you brought got Conwing to turn against Klezmi."
"Your presence here changed history back to the original version," Alex said. "Reality reverted. It didn't take us long to track Klezmi down and find out about Silva's involvement. They stole a timeship and ran, back to this time, either intending to hide or to make the changes they wanted themselves."
"And meanwhile Conwing had decided to eliminate Klezmi," Jen said quietly.
"Yes. Thanks to Conwing, Klezmi's time of ruling the world is over."
"I'm almost grateful to him."
"Strange man. A sadistic murderer, yet he has a sense of honor, and he's loyal to his cause."
"Well," Wes said. "What now?"
Alex smiled. "Now, I suggest we all get some rest. In the morning we're going to have to contact Time Force command and discuss Jen's -- situation."
"Situation? What do you mean?"
"He means I'm dead in the original reality, Wes. They have to decide what to do with me."
"What to do with you? That's ridiculous. You're as alive as any of us."
"Of course she's alive," Alex said firmly. "But -- there are complications." He smiled again. "We'll talk about it in the morning. Command should have confirmed its research by then. You may find -- it's not what you expect." He held up his hand to stop Wes's protest. "Sorry, but it'll have to wait until tomorrow."
"Okay." Wes got up. "Come on, we can all stay at my house again. Right, Dad?"
"Of course."
"Cool. I like your house," Trip put in.
"Yeah, and we can spend some time together," Katie added.
"It'll be a relief to sleep in my own bed again."
Eric came over, putting his cell phone away, Miller behind him. "If no one needs me, I'm going to get going," he said.
"I guess you want to get home, too."
"Something like that." He headed for the door, and turned back after a step. "And I don't want anyone calling me before morning, unless it's the friggin' end of the world."