Jen took a seat at the head of the table, which, until this point, had always been Captain Logan's chair. The others took their spots around the table as Jen gestured to Trip, motioning him to begin.
"After reviewing the personnel logs, we discovered that Captain Logan – the real Captain Logan – was killed years ago in this time line. We also….."
"Wait a second Trip, what do you mean this time line? It's the same one. We're all here," Alex brought up.
"It is, but then again it isn't. You see, when the saboteur went back in time and made changes, the future was affected as well. There are several critical differences in the time line now, changing it for us into an alternate reality, but reality to everyone else," he explained.
"But things don't seem different to me, this is how it's always been."
"When Logan changed things, you didn't exist anymore. But, when we repaired the time line, you were brought back. The major change now is that you never had a Chrono morpher, which changed every event after that, arriving to this moment. Since you never had a morpher, you're unaware of the changes that have been made because your memories of events changed along with the reality," Trip told him.
"There should really be a branch of Time Force that deals with this kinda thing," he mentioned.
"There is. Rather, there was. Temporal Investigations usually dealt with…." Jen cleared her throat, reminding Trip to get back on track. "Oh, right. Once we determined that the real Logan was gone, were we able to determine that the Logan who'd been here giving us our orders had to be from an alternate time line. Once she figured that one, I was able to determine what his plan was," he said.
"Which is?"
"He was never trying to eliminate the power rangers at all. He goal was to weaken the barriers between parallel realities so that eventually, the realities would merge," he said.
"But the barriers would have to be severely damaged," Lucas said.
"It is. Think about it; Logan would travel back in time and change something, followed by us who would travel to that same time and repair things. The temporal vortex' are rifts in the space/time continuum, and with that much concentrated stress on the continuum, it weakened the barriers," he said.
"It would still take a massive explosion to completely collapse the barriers," Jen brought up.
"Like the one that's about to happen in Angel Grove at the nuclear power plant. If that implosion device goes off and the nuclear plant goes up, everything from that moment on will change. With that significant a change, there's no telling what kind of damage it would do," Trip told them.
"So we have to go back and stop the plant from exploding," Alex said.
"Yes, but that's only a temporary solution. The barriers are still weak, so to repair the damage once and for all, we have to find out where and when the fake Logan got here and when he originally began to make the changes in time," he said.
"We should ask him," Tommy suggested.
Jen reached for her communicator. "Katie, this is Jen. Do you read me?" she asked.
'I read you Jen,'
"Do you have Captain Logan in custody?" she asked.
'Yup. Got him locked up in containment room four,'
"Good. I'm sending Lucas and Trip to interrogate Logan, maybe they can get something out of him," she said.
'We'll be ready,'
Without a word, Trip and Lucas stood up, making their way out the room.
"We have to continue with our mission to the nuclear power plant. Alex, you'll come with Tommy and I to the year 1998 to stop the explosion," Jen instructed.
"But how? Captain Logan destroyed the time ship when he thought you were on it," he mentioned.
"I know, but there's a prototype on level 13 in the hanger bay that we can take," she said.
"Prototype? You mean is in 'never been tested' prototype?"
"Its our best shot if we're going to stop that explosion. Let's get to work," Jen ordered.
(*)
Captain Logan had been tied to a chair with his hands behind his back as Lucas and Trip stood across from him. The only light in the room was the spotlight that shined down onto Logan as Lucas began to walk around him in a circle.
"We already know about you, about where you're from," he said.
"You know nothing. If you didn't, you wouldn't be in here like some bad 21st century cop show," the captain said.
"We know you're from another reality, so why don't you just….."
"Is that all you've got Lucas? 'We know you're from another reality'" he mocked. "Jesus, no wonder you died in your first assignment on my world," he said.
"Just tell us….."
"I'm not telling you anything. The damage has been done, theres nothing you can do but sit back and watch the show," he told him.
"Lucas, this isn't working. He isn't going to tell us anything," Trip mentioned.
"You should listen to the Xybrian, he's got more sense than I gave him credit for. I guess that jewel is his forehead does work," he said.
Just then, Trip knocked the chair over, pulling his disrupter off his hip and aiming it at the captain's forehead. "Maybe this will persuade you to be a little more cooperative," he said.
"Trip, don't do…."
"Shut up Lucas. If he isn't going to tell us anything, then we have no use for him anyway," he said.
"You don't have the guts to….." the captain was cut short as Trip raised the setting on his disrupter.
"Level one is enough to render a man unconscious from over 100 feet away, I wonder what level six would do at point blank range," Trip said.
"Trip, we don't have….."
Trip aimed the disrupter at Lucas. "Stay out of it pretty boy, I can handle him," he turned his attention back to Captain Logan. "Last chance," he mentioned.
"Or else what?"
Trip raised the setting again. "Or else we'll see what level nine can do,"
The captain saw the serious, unwavering look in Trip's eyes, the look of confidence on his face. "I was sent here, none of this was my idea," he said.
"Sent by who?"
"Ransorg."
"Who?"
"Ransorg is our leader, controller of all mutants."
"What are your orders?"
"To weaken the barriers between realities so that my Time Force can take over."
"Your Time Force?"
"On my world, Time Force lost the battle against the mutants, and mutants took over Time Force. The human resistance forces were captured, killed, but some were given missions to carry out. I was one of them. They injected me with mutant DNA and told me if I was successful in my mission, they would reverse the process and my life would be spared," he explained.
"If mutants already control the world in your reality, why come here?"
"The war was too much for them. There were heavy causalities on both sides. Attempts at mutant/human breeding failed because of the high levels of radiation on my world. They're plan was to….."
"….. to capture the humans on this world for breeding and free the captured mutants. With that much power, mutants could rule the universe," Lucas said.
"But what they don't know is that if our realities merge, it will destroy both. The imbalance of the space/time continuum would cause not just our two realities, but all realities to merge. The strain would be too much and the continuum would collapse, destroying everything in the process. The past, the present, the future… all of it would be gone," Trip brought up.
"Then you might as well kill me now. I have nothing to go back to, nothing to live for," Captain Logan told him.
Trip stood up, putting his disrupter away and set the chair up straight. "It isn't our place to tamper with other realities, so there's nothing I can do for your world, but if you help us save ours, I can promise you that you'll be allowed to stay here," he said.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Tell me when and where the first incursion took place. If we can stop it from happening, the barriers will never be weakened and our realities will stay separate," he said.
"The instability began in the year 2002 when the Time Force rangers and the Wild Force rangers joined forces to stop the mutorgs. The mutorgs were charging an energy beam when Ransik stopped them. The blast eliminated not only their mutant halves, turning them into orgs, but Ransik's mutant half as well," he explained.
"We were there, we remember it happening."
"What you didn't know was that the blast had a nuclear/chemical reaction to the reactor at the power plant you were fighting in. Even after the reactor had been shut down, the blast was enough to open a rift in the space/time continuum. The three mutant halves and Ransik's mutant half were sucked through the rift and traveled into my reality, where because of a random flux in the continuum, they merged to become the ultimate mutant, Ransorg. It was under Ransorg's command that the mutants of my time were able to rise against the humans, and with no human side of his own, he slaughtered millions without mercy," he told them.
"But if that's true, why target former rangers in the past?" Trip asked him.
"Ransorg's hope was that by attacking the former rangers when their energy levels were at their highest, it was speed up the deterioration of the barriers."
"Of course, the radiation from the morphers combined with the implosion devices would weaken the barriers even more," he said.
"So the damage done to your world is…. Is our fault," Lucas sighed.
"I have a plan that could put an end to all of this once and for all," Trip said.