The three of them stood in the cemetery with somber looks on their faces, neither of them sure what to say to the other. Both Kimberly and Trinity had been effected by Jen's death, but Wes seemed to be taking it the hardest.

'Would things have been any different if she hadn't given her life?' he wondered, wondering if he and Kimberly would have found another way out of the building…

"Trinity, Alex, now would be a good time for a miracle," Jen said.

'We've got a lock, but you have to get as far away from the generator as you can. There's seems to be an ionic flux coming from inside the room,' Alex told her.

"Ionic flux? From where?"

'Unknown,' he said.

"Its over rangers. We're all going to die in here," Frax screamed.

"Wes, Kim, get to the opposite end of the room now," Jen ordered. Without saying a word, the two of them headed to the farther end of the room, holding one another. Jen reached for her Morpher again. "Guys, do you still have that lock on my Morpher?" she asked.

'Yes, and the radiation levels seem lower where ever you're standing,' Alex said.

'Captain, this is Trinity. The teleportation system won't be able to get all three of you. Maybe two, but that's all I can promise,' she said.

"Understood. Begin teleportation sequence," she ordered.

'Beginning transport… now,' she said.

Jen quickly took off her Morpher, throwing it to Kim. On instinct alone, Kim caught up. "Goodbye Wes," Jen sighed.

"Jen no!" he yelled, but he and Kim disappeared into a stream of light.

He hated it, knowing that saving his life cost Jen hers. He remembered a time when Jen and the other rangers came back for him, risking their lives to save him, but this was much different. This time, though she saved his life, he would never be able to thank her. Part of him thought that seeing Jen again would complicate his relationship with Kim; that seeing Jen would remind him of what he couldn't have, but it wasn't any further from the truth. In fact, seeing Jen one last time reminded him of how lucky he was to have Kim, to have their family.

With a tear in his eye and clutching Kim's hand, he headed towards the tombstone. "Thank you Jennifer, for everything," he sighed, placing a pink flower on her grave.

"Are you going to be okay honey?" Kim inquired, wrapping her arm around him gently.

"Yeah," he paused. "Could you give me a minute alone?"

"Sure," she said, taking a step back, making her way towards Trinity. She and Trinity simply headed for the car, allowing Wes to say his goodbyes in private.

"I thought losing you when you went back to the year 3000 was as bad as it could get. I always thought that one day, I'd see you again. This time you're gone and you're not coming back, and I hate that I couldn't do anything to help you. I'm sorry I couldn't save you the way you've saved me so many times before. I love you Jen, and I always will," he cried.

~

"You think hes going to be okay?" Trinity asked, watching him from the car.

"I don't know, Jen really meant a lot to him. I don't know how hes going to deal with this," Kimberly mentioned.

She remembered having to deal with Tommy's condition, going to see him while he was cryogenically frozen in Bio-Lab. The thought of never being able to be with him again made her heart ache, but being with Wes seemed to ease the pain for her. She found it ironic that even now, Tommy's body was still in a restricted area of Bio-Lab under guard, yet he was able to travel back in time from the year 3000 to help them. 'I hate time travel,' she thought to herself, recalling her own personal experience with time travel gone wrong.

She knew that right now, more than ever, Wes was going to need her. 'I only hope I can be there for him the way he was for me,' she sighed inwardly.

(*)

Eric stood in the mirror, admiring the Quantum Morpher on his wrist. There was a short time when he believed that he'd ever have it again. When it was damaged during a battle with the Machine Empire, he was convinced that no one in Bio-Lab would be able to repair it. When Heather Zaskin and Tanya Sloan, the two foremost scientists in Bio-Lab, told him there was nothing they could do, he found himself prepared to give up his life as the Quantum ranger.

Somehow, Mr. Luthor had been able to repair it, giving it a new power source. He found it strange that Luthor knew enough about the Morpher to repair it, and even stranger that he just happened to have a power source strong enough to energize the Morpher. 'That guy is bad news, I can feel it,' he thought. He wanted to express his concerns at the meeting the other day, but knew that the boardroom wasn't his strong suit.

Besides, Wes would have said he was paranoid and dismissed it.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you're more attracted to that Morpher than you are to me," Gaby said as she walked up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist.

"Well, the Morpher is nice looking," he pointed out.

"Ha ha," she paused. "You're going to your new assignment tonight, aren't you?" she asked him.

"Yeah, they've got me posted at one of the Luthor Corp buildings on the south side of town. I'm tellin' ya Gaby, theres something about that bald headed bastard I don't like," he told her.

"He seems nice enough to me. A little secretive, but other than that he seems okay," she brought up.

"That guy is up to something, he has to be. Doesn't it seem strange to you that a billionaire would go through so much trouble to hire the Silver Guardians?" he inquired.

"I'd never given it any thought," she paused. "The guardians have built a solid reputation for themselves over the years, and if Luthor has something he wants to protect, its probably in his best interest to get the best security money can buy," she said.

"I guess,"

"Ya know honey, not everyone has a conspiracy against you," she mentioned.

He turned around. "What is that suppose to mean?"

"It means you always think someone is out to get you," she paused. "I know you've had a rough life, but…"

"You don't know anything about my life," he snapped.

"Oh come on Eric, don't turn this into a feel sorry for me because I had a messed up childhood speech. I don't pretend to know what you life was like back then, but I do know what its like now. You're a Power Ranger; you're in command on one of the most respected security forces in the world, not to mention married to the most beautiful woman on God's green Earth. What more could you ask for?" she asked him.

"I could think of a few things," he said, pulling her closer to him and wrapping her arms around her waist.

"So could I," she backed away, putting his red beret on his head. "But you've got work to do. Now go ahead and uncover a conspiracy for world domination and defend the city from the threat of the evil Lex Luthor," she told him.

"You're patronizing me, aren't you?"

"Who me? Never,"

(*)

Wes was sitting on the couch, going over the paper work he'd gotten from the meeting earlier today. Granted, most of the proposals Mr. Luthor planned for the company was in Bio-Lab's best interest, but that's what bothered him the most. 'According to this, Mr. Luthor doesn't have anything to gain from this merger,' he thought to himself. It seemed highly unlikely that a billionaire the caliber of Mr. Luthor would be willing to invest so much money into something without getting something out of it in return. 'What is this guy up to?' he wondered.

"Hey Wes, you gotta sec?" a voice asked.

He glanced over his shoulder as Trinity walked into the room. With a smile, he put his paperwork in the living room table and motioned for her to sit next to him. "For you, I've got all day," he sighed.

She walked around the couch, sitting down next to him. "You know mom doesn't like it when you bring your work home with you like that," she paused. "Yet doesn't bother her when I bring home a pile of homework from school. How double standard is that?" she mentioned.

Wes cracked a smile. "Something tells me you didn't come in here to talk about my paperwork. What's on your mind sweetie?" he inquired.

"Now that Bio-Lab is getting back on it's feet and the Machine Empire is gone, things can finally go back to normal around here, huh?" she replied.

"It'll be a while before the Silver Guardians are up and running again, but yeah, it's only a matter of time now," he said.

"I guess you'll be wanting this back," she sighed, removing her Morpher and handing it to him.

Up until that moment, the red Chrono Morpher hadn't even crossed his mind. He'd had his mind on so many other things that he'd almost forgotten about it. He recalled when Jen gave him the Morpher in the first place; she was convinced that he was a big kid, more interested in having fun than fighting the mutants. It took a while, but he convinced her otherwise, and Jen gave him the Morpher. His thoughts then shifted to Trinity, who, in his absence, had been an excellent red ranger. 'It's the first time a woman has ever been a red ranger,' he thought to himself, recalling his mission with the other red rangers.

"Sounds like you don't want to give it back," he brought up.

"I know mom would never let me be a ranger full time, but…" she was cut short.

"Did you know your mother was a ranger when she was fifteen years old?" he asked her.

"Really?"

"Yeah, her and your father were rangers. In fact, that's how they met," he paused. "Personally sweetie, I think you were one hell of a red ranger, and since I'm going to have my hands full with this merger, I'm not going to have time to do both. If it were up to me, I'd say you could keep it, but you know your mother is going to have something to say about it," he said.

"Why isn't up to you? Its your Morpher," she brought up.

He paused. "Because Trinity, I'm not your father," he sighed.

Though he'd been with her since she was born, and he'd been a father figure to her, it his heart he knew he could never truly be her father. It wasn't as though he didn't love her any less because of it, but he didn't want to overstep his boundaries by making such a major decision without talking to Kimberly.

"I know what this is about," she said.

"What?"

"You think that seeing my father the other day has changed things, don't you?" she asked.

He was convinced that seeing Tommy was going to shake his family up a little. After all, he'd been living in Tommy's shadow for years.

He paused. "Didn't it?"

"Why would it? Listen Wes, Tommy may be my father, but as far as I'm concerned, you've always been there for me. We're family Wes, we always have been," she told him.

"Thanks kid," he sighed, wrapping his arms around her. "I'll tell you what; hold on to this until I have a chance to talk to your mother,"

"Thanks Wes," she said, kissing him on the cheek, then walked away.

(*)

Luthor sat behind his desk, taking a deep breath. "Ah yes, the quaint little city of Silver Hills," he glanced out the window. "Home to Bio-Lab, one of the largest chemical and developmental companies in the entire world," he said with a smirk on his face.

"Don't forget that Silver Hills is also the stomping grounds for the infamous Power Rangers," a woman said as she walked in the room.

Without turning around, he recognized her voice. "Thank you Alexis, but I'm well aware. That's precisely the reason I picked this ass backwards little town. Theres more to Bio-Lab than meets the eye, more to the Power Rangers than that windbag Collins is telling me, and I intend to find out all his secrets," he told her.

"But how? The Silver Guardians are formidable to say the least. If theres something Collins doesn't want you to know, its going to be very hard for you to find out," she said.

"You under-estimate me Alexis," he turned around. "Lets just say I have an inside source, and they've already told me even more than I wanted to know. And if I'm right, its only a matter of time I have an entire group of rangers under my employ," he said.

"You know I love it when you talk like that," she said, walking around to the other side of the desk and sitting in his lap.

She wrapped her arms around him, leaning in to kiss him, but he paused.

"Did you hear something?" he asked.

She hesitated. "No. What?"

"I heard something outside," he said. She stood up as Lex headed over to the window, peeking out.

"There's nothing out there,"

~

He was out there, lurking in the shadows. He was far enough away that Luthor would never be able to see him, but close enough to get a good look at him. The trees nearby, along with the sun going down gave him the perfect cover; he watched Luthor through a pair of binoculars, simply waiting for the right time to make a move.

It had taken him a little longer than he cared to admit to track Luthor down, and even a little longer to position himself. For a little over a week now, Lex had been formulating something, and he intended to find out what it was.

Just then, he heard something behind him. Before he could turn around, he felt the barrel of a gun pressed against the back of his head.

"Don't move," a voice said.

Without a word, the mystery assailant hit a leg sweep, taking his attacker down. He finally turned around, getting a good look at his attacker. "The Quantum ranger," he mumbled. "I'm impressed,"

"You haven't seen anything yet," the ranger said, getting back to his feet and aiming a kick at the assailant's head. The assailant caught his foot, but Eric was ready, spinning around and connecting with the other foot, knocking the assailant into an open clearing.

As the assailant stood back up, Eric was able to get a good look at him. "Batman?" he asked in amazement.