The three of them walked into the main training room as the doors closed behind them. The room itself was covered with grids along the wall, making it difficult to determine exactly how big the room was.

Lucas headed over to a small panel up against one of the walls, inputting a series of numbers. "Welcome to the training room you two. Although the monsters you mutants you will see here will only be holographic, I want you to take each of them seriously. There will come a time when it's the real deal, and both of you need to be prepared," he explained.

"Yes sir," Lt. Emery said.

Just then, four creatures materialized in front of them. Each of them resembled the Vorhsoth they encountered earlier, but there were some minor differences. These creatures seemed to be much taller, and their skin was much darker.

"I've set the simulation of level three. Good luck," Lucas said.

Two of the creatures went after Nadira, but she was able to avoid their attack. The third one grabbed her from behind, but Lt. Emery got a running start and jumped on it's shoulders, then spun around, snapping it's neck. As it fell to the ground, Nadira charged after one of the creatures. She went for a sweep, but the creature avoided it, and then picked Nadira up by the throat. Nadira kicked the creature in the face, forcing it to let go, and then did a back flip, catching the last creature with a spiral kick.

Nadira and Lt. Emery stood back to back with one another. "You ready?" he asked.

She nodded. "Oh yeah," she sighed. "But can we say something like 'its morphing time' or 'gold ranger power' or something? Call me picky, but 'time for time force' just seems to take too long," she brought up.

He rolled his eyes. "Fine, whatever," he mumbled.

'ITS MORPHING TIME,' they called out as their ranger uniforms replaced their clothes.

The silver ranger called for his Chrono Saber, slicing one of the creatures in half. As its body hit the ground, the remaining two creatures attacked him from behind. The gold ranger called for her saber, jumping on one of the creature's back and slit its throat, taking its head off in the process. As the body fell to the ground, the last creature turned around, only to get a spin kick to the face. That knocked it up against the wall, and both the rangers pulled out their disrupters, blasting the creature at point blank ranger.

"Not bad you two, but lets see how you do on level four," Lucas said.

Before they could say a word, they found themselves surrounded by over a dozen creatures, each of them with swords in hand and body armor.

"Oh shit," the silver ranger mumbled.

(*)

"So how long were you going to keep us in the dark about what was going on?" Trip asked him as the four of them patrolled the area.

"It was never my intention to deceive you, but I had my orders. Admiral Summers ordered me not to reveal anything about this mission until the time was right, and whether or not I agreed with those orders was besides the point," Alex told him.

"So now that it's all out in the open, what more can you tell us about what's happening?" Jen inquired.

'With Admiral Summers gone, I don't see why I can't tell them everything now,' Alex thought to himself. 'Besides, who knows how the time line has been effected now that they know,'

"About three months ago, Admiral Summers began sending me encrypted sub-space communications from the future, warning me of impending danger. She told me the whole story, how Tommy would receive the black morpher after he was released from cryogenic containment, how Dez would assemble monsters and mutants from every corner of time and space, and how this would be a critical moment for the future development of Time Force," he explained.

"You're telling me that destiny played a part in all of this? That Tommy was meant to be cryogenically frozen 1000 years ago just to come here and help us stop Dez? I find that a little hard to believe," Jen mentioned.

"As unusual as it sounds, its true. Sometimes destiny has a sick sense of humor, but everything works out the way it was intended. The only problem with the Admiral's plan was that when Tommy was released, the time line was shifting so rapidly that we couldn't keep up with the changes. Ransorg screwed up the space/time continuum, and as a result, Tommy ended up with the red Chrono morpher,"

"Which is why you had to recruit Adam," Trip brought up.

"Yes. I know that if I approached Adam on his deathbed and tried to explain all of this to him, he probably wouldn't believe me. So instead, I sent Tommy to do it. In the meantime, we prepared Lucas for the black ranger powers," he told them.

"But you had to know that Lucas wouldn't be able to sustain the powers with his DNA being altered," Trip said.

"I know, that's why we altered his DNA,"

"What?"

"Just enough to make him compatible with the black morpher, but it wasn't enough. His body rejected the powers, and it will take him a while before he can control any other morpher as well. His body needs time to readjust itself," he said.

"What else can you tell us about Dez?" Jen asked, switching gears.

"Nothing really. I do know that even though he appears human, he's not. He's something much more. Apparently, Admiral Summers had been keeping an eye on him through the years, but something went wrong and Dez was able to get his hands on the slipstream technology. Once he did, he began traveling to different points in time in alternate realities, recruiting the most vile creatures in the universe to work for him," he told them.

"So what's his plan? World domination? You've think by now super villains would get over the world domination thing and just settle for a small city or something," Trip said.

"Dez has set his sights on our city. I'm not sure why he stole our containment modules, but if those mutants are released, the world as we know it will be over," he sighed.

"Can't we just fire up the slipstream and get rangers from other worlds to help us out?" Jen asked him.

Trip shook his head. "The slipstream requires a hell of a lot of energy to function. While Time Force is on secondary backup, there isn't enough power for the slipstream to do anything. We're on our own," he said.

Jen glanced over at Katie as they walked, who hadn't said a word the entire time. "You okay Katie?" she asked.

"I'm fine,"

"You sure?" Trip asked.

"I'm just worried about Ransik, that's all," she sighed.

"He's in the best capable hands, he'll pull through," Alex told her.

Just then, Trip stopped dead in his tracks. "Wait, do you hear that?" he asked.

The rest of them stopped.

"Hear what?"

"Nothing," he said.

"Come on Trip, you can tell us,"

"No, I mean nothing. Literally. No sounds of cars going by, no crickets, no people, nothing," he pointed out.

"I hate to be the one who officially poops on the party, but this is how it always starts," Katie said.

"What do you mean?"

"Someone says 'its quiet', then someone else says 'yeah, too quiet,'. Before you know it, you're under attack by some mutated freak and a hundred million of his friends. It's a classic, I've seen it a million times," she explained.

At that moment, a hoard of ceatures surrounded them, forcing them to back up. They were humanoid, but their faces were distorted somehow and had a "Z" in the middle of their chest.

"Oh geez, puddies?" Alex asked.

"Is that the best they could do, throw puddies at us," Jen mentioned.

"Sorry to disappoint you rangers, maybe I can help," they heard a voice say.

The puddies moved aside as he approached them.

"Trecheron?" Alex asked in amazement.

"I can't be. The Magna Defender defeated him years ago," Jen added.

"You are sadly mistaken ranger. And now, the only ones getting defeated around here are you and your worthless friends," Trecheron snapped.

"Alright guys, it's on," Katie said.

'TIME FOR, TIME FORCE,' they called out in unison, replacing their regular clothes with their ranger uniforms.

"Alright Alex, just stay behind us," Jen said.

He chuckled. "Morpher or not, I taught you everything you know. I can handle this clown," he said with a confident tone in his voice.

The yellow and green rangers went after the puddies while the pink ranger and Alex ganged up on Trecheron. Alex went for a spin kick, but Trecheron caught his foot. Before he could follow up, Jen called for her disrupter, blasting Trecheron in the chest. It was enough to make him let go of Alex and stumble back, but Trecheron pulled out a sword, slicing Alex in the chest. As he fell to his knees, Jen called for her Chrono saber and went after Trecheron. He was able to block every swing until finally he kicked her in the chest, knocking up against a building.

As Trecheron made his way towards Jen, Alex picked up her Chrono saber, stabbing Trecheron in the back with it. Trecheron fell to his knees, and Jen blasted him in the face with her disrupter, taking his head off in the process. As what was left of his lifeless body fell to the ground, Alex helped Jen up.

"You okay?"

"Nothing about 12 hours of sleep can't fix," she noticed the open wound on his chest. "You're hurt, we should get you back to headquarters," she said.

"I'm fine,"

The yellow and green ranger walked over to them, powering down.

"I can't believe the rangers use to have such a hard time with the puddies. I know eight year old girls who punch harder than they do," Katie said.

"And they make it so easy. They might as well wear a sign that says 'Hey, kick me in the Z'," Trip added.

"I'm just glad everyone is in one piece, more or less," Alex groaned, holding his chest.

"You can stop with the brave act, we need to get you back to headquarters," she said.

"Its okay Katie, really. The cut isn't as bad as it…" he sentence trailed off as his eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he collapsed.

"Katie, take Alex back to headquarters. Trip and I will patrol a little longer and meet you there in two hours," Jen said.

"You got it Captain," Katie said as she picked him up without effort, heading back to headquarters.

(*)

Tommy and Adam found themselves on board a ship of some sort. They quickly turned on their cloaks so they wouldn't be detected, then silently made their way down the hallway. There were doors on each side of the hall, about at least a dozen doors.

"Where do you want to start?" Tommy asked.

"Hold on, I'll be right back," Adam said as he switched on his phase emitter, walking through the wall.

On the other side of the door seemed to be a storage room of some kind, nothing too important. The next room resembled the science lab in some ways, including a slipstream up against the far wall. Adam quickly headed back into the hall.

"Tommy," he whispered.

"Still here bro,"

"In the second room on the right is one of the slipstream things. Maybe we should see about shutting it down," he said.

"We're here to find out as much as we can. We'll need to call in some serious backup before we try to do any damage," he said.

"We should split up, see what we can find out and meet back here in fifteen minutes," Adam suggested.

"Alright man, good luck,"

~

Tommy walked into a room that looked to be a medical bay. There were machines along the walls, and monsters lying on examining tables hooked up to equipment. Before he could investigate any further, the door opened and someone walked in.

'Finster?' he thought to himself

Finster walked over to one of the monsters, monitoring it's progress. Moments later, the door opened again and Deviot walked in.

"Dez wants an update on your progress," he said.

"Its still difficult to tell. These monsters were severely damaged because of instability in the temporal vortex they arrived in. It is highly unlikely any of them will be of any use to him," he said.

"I often wonder what use our master has for you," he snapped.

Finster turned to him. "I provide an invaluable service here, unlike most of the hired help around here. Tell the master these monsters are useless and I will have to dispose of them at once," he said.

"Very well," Deviot said, nodding slightly, then heading for the door.

Tommy followed him out the door and down the hall. Eventually, they came to the end of the hall, going into the last room on the right. Once inside, Tommy was able to get a good look at the place.

It was chamber of some kind, with dozens of long, glass tubes along the wall. 'That kinda looks like Zordon's tube,' he thought to himself. The majority of them had a monster inside, except for the tube in the middle of the room. It was much bigger than the others, and seemed to be filling up very slowly with a red-ish fluid.

Dez walked into the room, standing next to Deviot.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" he inquired.

"Yes sire,"

"Soon, we'll have enough to accomplish our goal, and no one in the universe will be safe. We will finally accomplish what we set out to do over 10,000 years ago," he said with a smirk.

"Yes sire,"

"What did Finster have to say?"

"He reports that the monsters were damaged during their transport and are no use to us sire. I told him he was worthless for not serving you better, but…" he was cut short.

"I guess I'll just have to find somewhere else to siphon power from," Dez said, pushing Deviot into one of the empty tubes and slamming it shut. Deviot screamed as he pounded on the glass, but soon, a red smoke filled the tube and Deviot was unconscious. "I swear, its hard to find good help these days, don't you think Tommy?" Dez asked.

Tommy paused, glancing around the room. 'My cloak is active. He can't see me,' he thought to himself.

"You can stop hiding behind that primitive deflector now Tommy, my censors locked onto you the moment you teleported onto my ship," he said.

Finally, Tommy reached for his Morpher, disengaging the cloak. "What are you up to Dez?" he snapped.

"I'm simply restoring the natural order of things. You see, I was robbed years ago, and I'm here now to take back what is rightfully mine," he told him.

"Whatever your evil plan is, the other rangers will stop you," Tommy said.

"After 1000 years Tommy, I would think that your concept of good and evil would be a bit more open-minded. There is no good, no evil, no right or wrong, it's simply a matter of power. What gives Time Force the right to tamper with the time line? Who are they to judge which time line is better? Or worse for that matter. The only reason they change history to their liking it because they can. It's as simple as that. When Chryo-Tech developed the means to travel back in time, suddenly Time Force declared a state of emergency. They couldn't have another organization exist with the level of technology they had, so they destroyed them," he explained.

"That isn't true,"

"You don't believe me? After all we've been through together, you can't take my word? Fine. Go back to your precious Time Force headquarters and look for yourself. Review the history logs, it's all there. Time Force are the tyrants on the universe, inflicting their will on every difference race they come in contact with. Now, they inflict their will on different worlds as well. What I'm doing here is restoring history, fixing an error that was made 1000 years ago," he told him.

Tommy paused. "Who are you?" he asked.

Dez walked over to him, leaning over and whispering in his ear. Tommy's facial expression was blank as Dez took a step back, smiling slightly. "Now go back to your headquarters, and when you discover what I've told you is true, you'll know where to find me," he sighed.

With a void look in his eyes, Tommy took a step back as he reached for his Morpher, disappearing into a stream of light.