*-* Silver Hills, California * 2015 AD *-*

"Batman?" he asked in amazement.

The two of them stared at one another for a moment, neither making a move. Eric had gotten back to his feet, and just in case, had his hand on the Quantum Defender it his holster. Likewise, Batman had a hand on his utility belt.

"You're an awful long way from Gotham City," he mentioned, finally taking his hand away from his weapon.

Batman moved his hand as well, taking a step closer. "Just keeping tabs on someone," he said in a deep, mysterious voice.

"Luthor?"

"I have a feeling he's up to something," he brought up.

"I knew it. I knew there was something about that bald headed bastard," the two of them ducked down as Luthor walked pass the window. "What do you know?" he asked.

"I appreciate your concern, but I prefer to work alone," Batman told him.

"I can respect that, but as long as that creep is in my town causing trouble, looks like you're stuck with me," he told him. "Now tell me what you know,"

The expression on Batman's voice was unwavering. "Luthor has been spending millions of dollars acquiring small businesses over the last two weeks, all of them in the California area. He's looking for something,"

"What?"

"Probably your ranger technology. No doubt he plans to use him for military applications," he said.

"Who's your friend? You know, the one who was tracking him before you?" Eric inquired.

"Superman," he moaned.

"You mean like leap tall buildings in a single bound Superman? You've got to be kidding me. I thought that guy was a myth," he said.

"I could say the same thing for the multicolored spandex superheroes," he brought up.

"Its not spandex. Its cutting edge, state of the art, top of the line…" he paused. "You wouldn't understand,"

"I bet,"

"So are we going to lurk in the shadows or are we going to go in there and kick some bald headed Luthor ass?" he asked him.

"Patience. First I need to find out what he's up to. Then, we make our move," he said.

~

"Has our guest had anything constructive to say today?" Luthor asked as he turned his attention away from the window.

Alexis shook her head. "I injected her with the truth serum, but she still won't divulge any information. She keeps telling me her rank and serial number," she told him.

"You simply need to learn to be a bit more persuasive. I'll show you how to find out what we need to know," he said.

The two of them walked out the room and down a hallway. At the end of the hall were two guards standing in front of a door, but they quickly moved out the way as Mr. Luthor stepped inside the room.

With the exception of a light that shined down in the middle of the room, there was nothing discernable about the room itself. There were no windows, only one exit, and there was a foul, damp smell.

The light shined down on her, tied to a chair with her arms behind her back. Her hair had covered her face as she slumped over, no doubt from exhaustion and fatigue.

"Good evening Jennifer," he said, rubbing her head slightly. "From the looks of it you haven't been sleeping well," he turned to one of the guards. "Guard, would you be so kind as to remove this young ladies restraints?" he ordered.

Alexis watched on in confusion as, without question, the guard untied Jen's arms from behind her back. Jen rubbed her wrists slightly, trying to get the circulation in her arms going again.

"See, isn't that better?" he asked.

"I still won't tell you anything you need to know Luthor," she mumbled. Her voice was dry and cracked, yet the anger in her voice was still noticeable.

"I like that, loyalty. You can't buy loyalty like that anymore. But you misunderstand me Jennifer, I'm not here to get information from you. I'm here to release you. You're free to go," he told her.

Jen pushed her hair away from her face, revealing her bloodshot red eyes as she stood up. "What's the catch?"

"No catch. You've insisted that you won't tell us anything we want to know, so you're of no further use to us. We'll simply have to extract the information from your friends," he said.

"My friends?"

"Yes, Wesley Collins and his lovely wife Kimberly, who I believe are both former rangers no less. Since you're unwilling to tell me what I want to know, I'll simply have to persuade them to tell me," he told her.

"How?"

"This no longer concerns you, you can go," he said.

She sat back down. "If you promise to let them go, I'll tell you what you want to know," Jen told him.

"Excellent," Luthor sighed with a grin on his face.

(*)

"No. Absolutely not!" Kim snapped.

"Aw come on Kim, why not?" he inquired.

"Don't you aw come on Kim me. No child of mine is going to be a ranger. She's only 16 years old Wes," she mentioned.

"You were 15 when you got your morpher," he pointed out.

"That was different. Those were different times,"

"How different could they have been? Evil forces threatened the world; you and your friends stopped them. Its no different from what happens now, except that the world isn't in any immediate danger," he said.

"I don't want Trinity out there risking her life to save the world. I don't know what I would do if something were to happen to her," she said.

"Nothing will happen to her. Trinity is one of the most resourceful people I know, and I have no doubt that she'd make a hell of a ranger," he said.

"She put you up to this, didn't she?"

He paused. "She came to me and asked if she could keep the Morpher, yes. I told her I'd talk to you first," he confessed.

"See, this is why I never told my parents I was a ranger. I kept it a secret, that way they wouldn't have to worry about me all the day. If they had known I was out saving the world they would have grounded me," she said.

"Trinity deserves to make her own destiny Kim. We have to give her the freedom to decide what she wants," Wes said.

She punched him in the arm. "I hate it when you make sense," she sighed. "I guess she could…" she was cut short as Trinity rushed into the room.

"Wes, its for you," she said, handing him the Chrono Morpher.

'Wes, are you there?' a voice asked.

"Trip, is that you?"

'The one and only. Listen, we need your help,' he said.

"Anything I can do, just name it,"

'Our sensors indicate that the radiation from the cobolt device and the radiation from the generator in Frax' warehouse was enough to open a rift in the space continuum. We believe that after you and Kimberly teleported out, Jen was sucked through that rift,' he said.

"You mean shes still alive?"

'We believe so. Because of the rift, we're unable to travel back to your time to find out. Coming back would open the rift further, doing serious damage to the continuum. We need you to close the rift,'

"But how?"

'About a year ago we had to close a rift similar to this one, we used an inverse ion change to seal the rift. I can't send you any equipment, but I'm downloading the information you need to your Morpher now. You should be able to find all the components you need to build the ion charge. Once you do, contact me and we'll be able to travel to your time again,'

"But what about Jen?"

'That's another problem. Her exposure to the radiation makes it impossible for us to bring her back without altering her DNA on a bio-cellular level. Coming through another vortex would kill her, and that's assuming she's still alive,' he said.

"I'll get to work on that ion charge as soon as I have all the information," Wes told him.

'Thanks Wes. I'll be in touch,'

"Kim, get Gabrielle on the phone and see what time Eric's new assignment is over. I'm going to head to Bio-Lab to round up the parts we need to build this ion charge," he said.

"Don't you mean we?" Trinity asked.

"No, I meant me,"

"Face it Wes, you wouldn't know an ion charge if it jumped up and bit you on the…" she paused, noticing the evil glaze in her mother's eyes. "… um, nose. You're going to need me and Theo for this one," she said.

"I'm sure Dr. Zaskins and Ms. Sloan will be able to deal with it," he paused. "But you never know when I might need an extra hand out there. Trinity, you come with me," he said.

"I thought you'd never ask,"

"I'll have Eric contact you as soon as I know something," Kim said.

"Thanks beautiful," he said as he leaned down, kissing her warmly on the lips, then headed out the front door.

~

"A plasma manifold? An EM broadband calibrator? Most of the stuff on your list is about fifty years ahead of my time Wes. I doubt even Zordon would know what some of this stuff is," Ms. Sloan told him as she reviewed the list of items.

"Come on Tanya, isn't there something you can do?" he asked.

"I'd love to help, but this is years beyond me,"

"Can you think of anyone who might be able to help me with this?" he inquired.

"I've been reviewing some of the files we got from Luthor Corp, and they're stuff is far ahead of our research, but still not even close to the level of technology you're looking for,"

"What about Wayne?" Trinity asked.

"What about him?"

"You said he was at the meeting the other day, so he must be interested in whats going on. You should contact him, see if he has anything we can use," she suggested.

He glanced at Tanya.

"She may be on to something there. Wayne Enterprises is on the cutting edge these days, he might be able to help you," she said.

"But I don't want to run the risk of telling him too much and altering the time stream," he said.

"If we don't do something soon, that rift is going to get bigger. We have to stop it now before its too late," Trinity said.

"Tanya, see if you can contact Bruce Wayne," he said.

"I'm on it,"

(*)

The two of them stood outside the building as the sun went down, waiting to make their move. There were four armed guards at the entrance, two on both sides, and all of them with huge weapons in hand.

Eric had the Quantum Defender in hand and was ready to storm in, but Batman grabbed his arm, holding him back.

Without a word, Batman tossed a small sphere towards the door. When the guards turned their attention to it, it exploded and smoke blinded them. Once the smoke cleared, all four guards were unconscious.

"You're good," Eric admitted.

"Come on," he said, heading for the entrance.

The two of them headed inside; going down the first hallway they came to. At the end of the hall was an intersection. "You go left, I'll take right," he said.

Batman nodded, and they went in their separate directions. Eric cautiously walked down the long, dark hall, but was cut off by a guard. Before he had a chance to make a move, Eric swung a right hand. The guard caught it, but Eric spun around, hitting a sweep. As the guard hit the ground, Eric kicked his weapon away, aiming the Quantum Defender at him.

"You won't do it. You don't have the…" he was cut short as Eric fired, connecting in the chest.

"You don't know me very well, do you?" he mentioned, continuing on his way. The hall itself had doors on either side, but one door seemed to have a green glow coming through the cracks. He made his way towards the door, kicking it in and storming in.

The entire room was glowing green, and he was in the middle of the room tied to a chair. "Superman?" Eric mumbled, putting the Quantum Defender back in its holster and rushing over to Superman.

Before he could untie him, a group of guards charged it, all of them with weapons in hand. "Stay where you are Quantum Ranger," one of them said.

With nowhere to go, Eric put his hands up over his head. As the guards walked towards him, he jumped up, grabbing a pipe on the ceiling, using it to pull himself up and wrap his legs around the guard's head. Another guard aimed his weapon at Eric, but he kicked it out his hand, and then did a back flip, landing on his feet. Two more guards grabbed him from behind, but he kicked back, and then fired the Quantum Defender, knocking one of them up against the wall.

"Quickly, the lights," Superman mumbled.

Eric glanced up only to discover that the lights weren't lights at all, but long strips of glowing green rocks, lined up all around the room. He aimed the Quantum Defender at the rocks, blasting them. After a few shots, most of the rocks were destroyed and the room was completely dark.

He couldn't see a thing, but could hear someone coming. He aimed the Defender towards the door as he helped Superman back to his feet, putting his arm over his shoulder. Just then, smoke filled the room.

"Come on," a voice said.

They glanced up as a window broke, and a grappling hook latched onto the edge. Through the smoke he was able to see Batman climb through the window, and following suit, he put Superman over his shoulder and climbed up the grappling hook as well.

As soon as he got outside, Batman took Superman off Eric's shoulders. "I need to get him back to the Batcave to treat him. Thanks again for your help," he told him, disappearing into the shadows.

'Eric. This is Wes, come in,' a voice said.

Eric reached for his Morpher. "I hear ya Wes. What's up?"

'Jen is alive. When the reactor exploded, it opened a rift in time and sucked her through. Trip contacted me and told me how to close the rift, but we have to get in touch with Bruce Wayne to get some of the equipment we need before he can do anything. I need you to come to Gotham with me,' he said.

"It just so happens I know someone in Gotham," he said with a smirk on his face.