Chapter 12.
Alex, Trip, Lucas and Katie were walking down the Time Force headquarters corridors, going towards Alex's office, to discuss the missing children case. Meanwhile, they talked about Jen.
"So, is she coming back?" Katie asked Trip and Alex when they finished telling them about their encounter with Jen.
"We don't know," they admitted.
"What do we do now?" Lucas asked.
"I think Alex made very good progress with her in there," Trip said. "The best we can do for now is wait."
"Ok," the others agreed.
They got to Alex's office and sat around the meeting table. "So, what about those children?" Trip asked.
"If the crime was committed by the same mutants from the kindergarten, then they are dead already. We have to check both crime scenes again, and see if we can find anything else," Alex explained.
"Lucas discovered something about the bodies yesterday," Katie said.
"What was it?"
"The skeletons were posed after they were eaten," Lucas informed.
"Posed?" Alex asked.
"Yes, they were positioned after they were killed."
"Positioned to look like what?" Alex asked.
"We don't know yet," Lucas answered. "But we'll find out," he assured.
"Make it quick," Alex instructed. "Trip, you come with me, maybe your powers aren't as strong as Jen's, but you and Circuit can help me spot things in the evidence." Trip nodded.
With their mission in hand, they all walked out to work, forgetting about Jen for a couple of hours.
*******
The Mistress walked into Jen's room silently. She smiled and walked towards her. Jen kept on sleeping.
The Mistress caressed Jen's forehead. "Good, she's deeply asleep," she said out loud.
"Want me to do it now, ma'am?" a voice asked.
"Yes," she instructed. There was a soft laugh and then The Mistress left the room. Jen was in good hands, the best genetically engineered invisible hands in the world. The mutant touched Jen's forehead, and got into her mind.
*******
Jen was walking alone. She had decided to leave Alex and the designer in the home working on the baby's room and had gone to take a walk. The baby had been born already, and she had also left her with Alex. Inside of her mind, time was under her control too, everything was. She had been pregnant a shorter time than normal, but she could have skipped the pregnancy completely if she had wanted.
She walked around the beach, thinking. The beach was the same beach where she and her friends had landed in the year 2001. She climbed a small cliff. Was it possible the Alex from the outside loved her as much as the one in her mind did? Was it worth leaving everything she had for the uncertain reality?
She just sat there, looking at the ocean, until she felt a presence inside her mind. But it wasn't Trip; it was someone else, more powerful than Trip. She got down from the cliff, but she was feeling it was too late to stop that someone from whatever it was he was doing.
**********
The mutant attacked the house. He was amazed at the reality of it. Most human psychics only maintained the illusion where they were interacting, but this woman had a 360-degree world.
Inside there were three people; the husband, a man he didn't know and a baby. He had entered and took the baby. The man tried to stop him, so he had shot him and killed him. He had gotten out, and blown the house up. He stood there, looking at the flames, with the crying baby in his arm.
"NO!!!" he heard the woman yell behind him. "Who are you? How could you change my fantasy?" she asked angrily.
"I'm a mutant, created with the specific mission of destroying your dream world, and destroying you," he said. Jen looked at him angrily. "I'm here to destroy your dream world in a way that you can never restore it," he informed her, and he shot her with his laser. She escaped the shot, and not seeing her daughter was in the hands of the mutant summoned a blaster and fired. The mutant used the newborn as a shield and it killed her.
"NO!" Jen screamed again, crying. The mutant laughed and threw the baby's dead body to the floor, and then he ran. Jen walked towards her baby and picked her up. The mutant was right, she couldn't bring her back, she couldn't put her house back together, she couldn't bring Alex back. She let the baby's body fall to the floor and ran after the mutant, feeling the cold weight of the recently summoned morpher on her wrist. She was going to get him.
And she did. The mutant stopped moving. He couldn't move she had trapped him. "Who are you?" she asked angrily.
"That's for me to know, and for you to find out," he said. Suddenly, against everything she had thought, he shot her again. This time she couldn't react and avoid the blast. She stood up, hurt, and tried to heal herself. She could. She could still control herself, but not her environment, as if she was in somebody else's mind.
The mutant shot her again, and she cartwheeled to avoid the blast. She ran to him and kicked the blaster out of his hand. "Now it's just you and me," she said. The mutant threw a kick at her but she stopped it.
The mutant wasn't too strong. He looked like one of those aliens she had seen in the 21st century sci-fi movies, tall, thin and really white, with three long fingers on each hand. His head was shaped like an egg, with the thinner side down, as if he had a big brain. He wasn't wearing a robe or a cape like in the movies, but pants and a jacket. The jacket had a logo, it looked somewhat like the Time Force logo, only it was red and black instead of black and silver, and the little symbols around it were different.
She kicked the mutant in the ribs and he fell to the ground. Moving quickly, she took his arm and twisted it behind his back. It was so thin and fragile, she heard it break. "What's that logo from?" she asked. The mutant wailed in pain, but didn't answer. "Who are you?" she asked more angrily, twisting his arm harder. The mutant wailed again.
But, suddenly, he changed. He healed his arm, grew muscles and threw her off his back. Jen fell on her back and saw the mutant, now looking like a gladiator, walking towards her, with a brand new sword. "It's that how you're going to play?" she asked.
"There are no rules for me here!" he said.
"For me either," she informed him. She got up quickly and yelled "Time for Time Force!" She was now morphed into the pink power ranger. She summoned her chrono saber and jumped. "Time strike!" she called and hit the mutant again.
It fell back against a wall, smashing it with his weight. He got up and walked right back at her, apparently not hurt. He kicked her in the ribs, and then, using his telekinesis, picked her up by the neck and lifted her a few feet from the ground. Then he let her fall. "You are going to be destroyed," he growled, as he made pieces of the wall he had smashed fall over her.
Jen was trapped for a second. Then she used her telekinesis to send the pieces back at the mutant, and trapped him. "Are we using our powers in the battle?" she asked. "Well, let's."
The mutant was on his back, his face uncovered. She stared into his eyes, and he suddenly felt a delicious nothingness, he felt like a puppet in her hands. "Show me your true self," she ordered. The mutant's muscles disappeared. He looked again like the weak alien from the sci-fi film. Jen raised him from the ground.
"Power down," she called, and the pink ranger armor left her. "Who are you?" she asked. He wouldn't answer. "Tell me!" she ordered. The mutant, under her control now, started to speak.
"My name is Catgat," he said in a toneless voice. Jen wondered why; she had never seen anything that looked less like a cat. "I am a psychic mutant and I work for The Mistress. My mission is to go inside the Pink Ranger's mind and destroy her. Then, I am to return to the lab, and be destroyed myself."
"Who's The Mistress?"
"I don't know, I have never known her real name."
"Show me her image!" she ordered.
"I can't. I have never seen her."
"How did you enter the hospital?"
"The Mistress brought me in."
"Then you have seen her."
"I haven't. In the real world I'm invisible, and blind. Nobody sees me, and I see nobody," he explained.
"Why me?"
"I was ordered to."
"Yes, but why me?"
"The Mistress' ways are complicated, and her reasons are a mystery to us."
"US?" Jen repeated, disbelieving. "Who is 'us'?"
"The mutants who are happy to work for The Great Lady," Catgat said with a sick smile.
"Were you all created in the lab?"
"Yes."
"Where is it, the lab?"
"I don't know."
"Is the Mistress a mutant?" she asked, she had the feeling the answer was no.
"I don't know," Catgat said. Jen sighed annoyed.
"Is she human? Is she the one who created you?"
"I don't know if she's human," Catgat said. "She creates us, with her aides."
Jen felt there was nothing else that mutant could tell her. "Get out of my mind," she ordered.
"You get out of mine," the mutant said.
Jen smiled at that. It had all happened in his mind, not hers, so her dream life was still there. She went back to her own mind eagerly, but she found everything destroyed. Filled with anger, she got back into Catgat's mind with extreme facility.
"What--?" the mutant asked looking down, he was suddenly rising above the ground again. The pink ranger's Chrono saber suddenly thrust into his abdomen.
"How did you do it?" The pink ranger asked.
"Do what?" the mutant asked, blood running down his chin.
"Destroying my dreams!"
"The same way you are hurting me now," he said. "The same way you got all those answers from me."
"How?"
"I kidnapped you and all your creations into my mind, and destroyed them. Since the changes didn't occur in your mind and under your control, you can't change them back."
So, she hadn't gone to his mind, he had brought him in hers. "I didn't feel it, when you made me leave my mind," she said.
"There were no changes, you couldn't have noticed."
"Thanks for the information," she said. The chrono saber slipped out of his abdomen and stayed there, floating in front of his chest. "I should kill you right here, so you could never go back to your Mistress," she said angrily.
"I beg you to do so," he pleaded.
"No," she said. "You and me, we are both going back to reality. You are going back to your Mistress, and tell her that you failed," she ordered letting him go. "As for what I'm going to do, it's none of your business, but I think it's time for Alex to know who Brynn really is," she said, leaving his mind.
They both got back to reality, the mutant first; he woke up and left quickly, when he heard the footsteps and voices coming towards the room. Jen woke up later, just in time to see her friends come inside her room.
"Jen!" Alex called, hurrying over to her and holding her. "You woke up!"
"I was attacked inside of my mind, by one of The Mistress's mutants."
"Who's The Mistress?" Alex asked.
"Ask Brynn," she answered.
To be continued.
Alex, Trip, Lucas and Katie were walking down the Time Force headquarters corridors, going towards Alex's office, to discuss the missing children case. Meanwhile, they talked about Jen.
"So, is she coming back?" Katie asked Trip and Alex when they finished telling them about their encounter with Jen.
"We don't know," they admitted.
"What do we do now?" Lucas asked.
"I think Alex made very good progress with her in there," Trip said. "The best we can do for now is wait."
"Ok," the others agreed.
They got to Alex's office and sat around the meeting table. "So, what about those children?" Trip asked.
"If the crime was committed by the same mutants from the kindergarten, then they are dead already. We have to check both crime scenes again, and see if we can find anything else," Alex explained.
"Lucas discovered something about the bodies yesterday," Katie said.
"What was it?"
"The skeletons were posed after they were eaten," Lucas informed.
"Posed?" Alex asked.
"Yes, they were positioned after they were killed."
"Positioned to look like what?" Alex asked.
"We don't know yet," Lucas answered. "But we'll find out," he assured.
"Make it quick," Alex instructed. "Trip, you come with me, maybe your powers aren't as strong as Jen's, but you and Circuit can help me spot things in the evidence." Trip nodded.
With their mission in hand, they all walked out to work, forgetting about Jen for a couple of hours.
*******
The Mistress walked into Jen's room silently. She smiled and walked towards her. Jen kept on sleeping.
The Mistress caressed Jen's forehead. "Good, she's deeply asleep," she said out loud.
"Want me to do it now, ma'am?" a voice asked.
"Yes," she instructed. There was a soft laugh and then The Mistress left the room. Jen was in good hands, the best genetically engineered invisible hands in the world. The mutant touched Jen's forehead, and got into her mind.
*******
Jen was walking alone. She had decided to leave Alex and the designer in the home working on the baby's room and had gone to take a walk. The baby had been born already, and she had also left her with Alex. Inside of her mind, time was under her control too, everything was. She had been pregnant a shorter time than normal, but she could have skipped the pregnancy completely if she had wanted.
She walked around the beach, thinking. The beach was the same beach where she and her friends had landed in the year 2001. She climbed a small cliff. Was it possible the Alex from the outside loved her as much as the one in her mind did? Was it worth leaving everything she had for the uncertain reality?
She just sat there, looking at the ocean, until she felt a presence inside her mind. But it wasn't Trip; it was someone else, more powerful than Trip. She got down from the cliff, but she was feeling it was too late to stop that someone from whatever it was he was doing.
**********
The mutant attacked the house. He was amazed at the reality of it. Most human psychics only maintained the illusion where they were interacting, but this woman had a 360-degree world.
Inside there were three people; the husband, a man he didn't know and a baby. He had entered and took the baby. The man tried to stop him, so he had shot him and killed him. He had gotten out, and blown the house up. He stood there, looking at the flames, with the crying baby in his arm.
"NO!!!" he heard the woman yell behind him. "Who are you? How could you change my fantasy?" she asked angrily.
"I'm a mutant, created with the specific mission of destroying your dream world, and destroying you," he said. Jen looked at him angrily. "I'm here to destroy your dream world in a way that you can never restore it," he informed her, and he shot her with his laser. She escaped the shot, and not seeing her daughter was in the hands of the mutant summoned a blaster and fired. The mutant used the newborn as a shield and it killed her.
"NO!" Jen screamed again, crying. The mutant laughed and threw the baby's dead body to the floor, and then he ran. Jen walked towards her baby and picked her up. The mutant was right, she couldn't bring her back, she couldn't put her house back together, she couldn't bring Alex back. She let the baby's body fall to the floor and ran after the mutant, feeling the cold weight of the recently summoned morpher on her wrist. She was going to get him.
And she did. The mutant stopped moving. He couldn't move she had trapped him. "Who are you?" she asked angrily.
"That's for me to know, and for you to find out," he said. Suddenly, against everything she had thought, he shot her again. This time she couldn't react and avoid the blast. She stood up, hurt, and tried to heal herself. She could. She could still control herself, but not her environment, as if she was in somebody else's mind.
The mutant shot her again, and she cartwheeled to avoid the blast. She ran to him and kicked the blaster out of his hand. "Now it's just you and me," she said. The mutant threw a kick at her but she stopped it.
The mutant wasn't too strong. He looked like one of those aliens she had seen in the 21st century sci-fi movies, tall, thin and really white, with three long fingers on each hand. His head was shaped like an egg, with the thinner side down, as if he had a big brain. He wasn't wearing a robe or a cape like in the movies, but pants and a jacket. The jacket had a logo, it looked somewhat like the Time Force logo, only it was red and black instead of black and silver, and the little symbols around it were different.
She kicked the mutant in the ribs and he fell to the ground. Moving quickly, she took his arm and twisted it behind his back. It was so thin and fragile, she heard it break. "What's that logo from?" she asked. The mutant wailed in pain, but didn't answer. "Who are you?" she asked more angrily, twisting his arm harder. The mutant wailed again.
But, suddenly, he changed. He healed his arm, grew muscles and threw her off his back. Jen fell on her back and saw the mutant, now looking like a gladiator, walking towards her, with a brand new sword. "It's that how you're going to play?" she asked.
"There are no rules for me here!" he said.
"For me either," she informed him. She got up quickly and yelled "Time for Time Force!" She was now morphed into the pink power ranger. She summoned her chrono saber and jumped. "Time strike!" she called and hit the mutant again.
It fell back against a wall, smashing it with his weight. He got up and walked right back at her, apparently not hurt. He kicked her in the ribs, and then, using his telekinesis, picked her up by the neck and lifted her a few feet from the ground. Then he let her fall. "You are going to be destroyed," he growled, as he made pieces of the wall he had smashed fall over her.
Jen was trapped for a second. Then she used her telekinesis to send the pieces back at the mutant, and trapped him. "Are we using our powers in the battle?" she asked. "Well, let's."
The mutant was on his back, his face uncovered. She stared into his eyes, and he suddenly felt a delicious nothingness, he felt like a puppet in her hands. "Show me your true self," she ordered. The mutant's muscles disappeared. He looked again like the weak alien from the sci-fi film. Jen raised him from the ground.
"Power down," she called, and the pink ranger armor left her. "Who are you?" she asked. He wouldn't answer. "Tell me!" she ordered. The mutant, under her control now, started to speak.
"My name is Catgat," he said in a toneless voice. Jen wondered why; she had never seen anything that looked less like a cat. "I am a psychic mutant and I work for The Mistress. My mission is to go inside the Pink Ranger's mind and destroy her. Then, I am to return to the lab, and be destroyed myself."
"Who's The Mistress?"
"I don't know, I have never known her real name."
"Show me her image!" she ordered.
"I can't. I have never seen her."
"How did you enter the hospital?"
"The Mistress brought me in."
"Then you have seen her."
"I haven't. In the real world I'm invisible, and blind. Nobody sees me, and I see nobody," he explained.
"Why me?"
"I was ordered to."
"Yes, but why me?"
"The Mistress' ways are complicated, and her reasons are a mystery to us."
"US?" Jen repeated, disbelieving. "Who is 'us'?"
"The mutants who are happy to work for The Great Lady," Catgat said with a sick smile.
"Were you all created in the lab?"
"Yes."
"Where is it, the lab?"
"I don't know."
"Is the Mistress a mutant?" she asked, she had the feeling the answer was no.
"I don't know," Catgat said. Jen sighed annoyed.
"Is she human? Is she the one who created you?"
"I don't know if she's human," Catgat said. "She creates us, with her aides."
Jen felt there was nothing else that mutant could tell her. "Get out of my mind," she ordered.
"You get out of mine," the mutant said.
Jen smiled at that. It had all happened in his mind, not hers, so her dream life was still there. She went back to her own mind eagerly, but she found everything destroyed. Filled with anger, she got back into Catgat's mind with extreme facility.
"What--?" the mutant asked looking down, he was suddenly rising above the ground again. The pink ranger's Chrono saber suddenly thrust into his abdomen.
"How did you do it?" The pink ranger asked.
"Do what?" the mutant asked, blood running down his chin.
"Destroying my dreams!"
"The same way you are hurting me now," he said. "The same way you got all those answers from me."
"How?"
"I kidnapped you and all your creations into my mind, and destroyed them. Since the changes didn't occur in your mind and under your control, you can't change them back."
So, she hadn't gone to his mind, he had brought him in hers. "I didn't feel it, when you made me leave my mind," she said.
"There were no changes, you couldn't have noticed."
"Thanks for the information," she said. The chrono saber slipped out of his abdomen and stayed there, floating in front of his chest. "I should kill you right here, so you could never go back to your Mistress," she said angrily.
"I beg you to do so," he pleaded.
"No," she said. "You and me, we are both going back to reality. You are going back to your Mistress, and tell her that you failed," she ordered letting him go. "As for what I'm going to do, it's none of your business, but I think it's time for Alex to know who Brynn really is," she said, leaving his mind.
They both got back to reality, the mutant first; he woke up and left quickly, when he heard the footsteps and voices coming towards the room. Jen woke up later, just in time to see her friends come inside her room.
"Jen!" Alex called, hurrying over to her and holding her. "You woke up!"
"I was attacked inside of my mind, by one of The Mistress's mutants."
"Who's The Mistress?" Alex asked.
"Ask Brynn," she answered.
To be continued.
