Norman, Silver, Purple, Gaby, and any others you don't recognize are mine.
Rated PG-13 : Harsh language; violence; strong sexual references.
Reviews are appreciated, please take a moment to leave one.
"Bastard!" Wes ran to the attack, knowing he was no match for Eric when he was morphed, and not particularly caring. He threw a punch, then a side-kick when it was blocked. The kick landed harmlessly. Wes backed off, furious, but realizing he was getting nowhere.
"Coward! Demorph and fight me, man to man!"
"Wes, what the hell is wrong with you?" He hardly even noticed that Eric's voice was more concerned than angry.
"I'm finally standing up to you! I'm not going to let you take anything more away from me! Especially not Jen!"
"What are you talking about? And where the hell is Jen, anyway?"
"Don't you even say her name!"
"Wes…"
Eric retreated as Wes charged forward again, swinging at his head. He blocked the blows, strangely enough not hitting back. When he came up against the corridor wall he twisted away, dodging, and backed off again.
"Demorph, damn you! Fight me!"
"Wes, stop it… We haven't got time for this…"
"You're a coward!" He stooped to pick up a rock, not even wondering how it had gotten there, in a Bio-Lab hallway, and threw it at Eric, seeing him flinch slightly as it bounced off his shoulder. "I'm never letting you get near her again!"
"Calm down! Stop shouting, they'll hear us!"
"I don't care who hears!" He bent to grab another rock and heaved it at Eric.
"Wes, whatever's happened to you, you've got to snap out of it! We have to find Jen!"
Wes stalked toward him, rigid with fury. "I told you to stay away from her," he snarled. "You're not good enough to even look at her!"
"Stop it, Wes, you don't know what you're saying..."
"I know. For the first time, I know exactly what I'm saying." Wes smiled savagely. "You're a real piece of shit, you know that?" His anger was becoming something alive, taking him over, almost speaking for itself, pouring out of some repressed, resentful part of him with a sensation almost of relief. "You've done nothing but use me, and my father, and Jen, ever since you got to Silver Hills. You don't care about anything but yourself, you never have, you never will!"
He pointed. "You stole that morpher! No one wanted you to be a Ranger! All of us knew we couldn't trust you!" Eric stiffened slightly and took a step back. "And at Bio-Lab... You don't deserve to be in the same room with me or my father! You really think he'd ever let you take over? A nobody like you, with no class and no education, an asshole no one can stand to work with?"
"Wes, please…" Eric's voice was strange, no trace of the arrogance or cruelty of only minutes ago, nothing but shock and pain in it now.
"And Jen -- just the thought of you touching her with your filthy hands -- you're nothing but trash, your mother was a whore, your father was a cheap crook, and you -- you're sewer scum, and you always will be, just like them!"
"Shut up!" Eric raised a fist, his body tensing. He moved forward, a little, but then he stopped, his arm dropping again.
"Shut up? Make me." Wes stepped up to him, face to face, smiling bitterly.
Eric pushed him back. "Get out of my way. I'm going to find Jen."
"No! You'll never touch her again!" As Eric started away, Wes raised his arm, not knowing or caring how his morpher had gotten back on his left wrist. He pressed the button, feeling the sudden surge of power and energy as a sparkle of light washed over him, power to fight, power to stop his enemy…
"Don't even try to walk away," he said, with enough menace to make Eric stop and turn around. He summoned his blaster and aimed it.
"Wes, what are you doing?" Eric's voice was level, but there was an undercurrent of alarm in it.
"What I should have done a long time ago. Getting rid of you, for good."
"Wes…" Eric hesitated, then reached out a hand. "Something's done this to you. Made you act this way. Please, try to fight it."
"The only thing I want to fight is you!"
"You want to fight? Fine!" He was shouting now, as loudly as Wes. Then he took a breath and continued softly. "But if we're fighting, who's going to help Jen? If you really care about her, you'll stop this." He was moving closer, reaching out toward Wes, ignoring the blaster.
Wes blinked, hard, as the world reeled around him again, blurring into a dizzying double image, then snapped back into focus, the dim Bio-Lab hallway even darker and stranger than before.
"Think about it, Wes. We have to work together, to help Jen." Eric eased forward another step, his hand outstretched. Reaching -- and then moving, lightning fast, grabbing for the blaster.
Wes yanked it away, just fast enough, and fired instinctively. The shot hit, driving Eric away. He stumbled and fell, landing on his back. Wes aimed more carefully and fired again, but the Quantum Defender was in Eric's hand, and he was firing back. A jolt of electrifying pain struck Wes, sending him staggering against the wall, his head spinning, that double reality returning for a disorienting second. He brought up his weapon, aiming, Eric's blaster staring straight back at him. The world seemed to freeze for a moment, both of them motionless.
A flare, catching them both by surprise, another bolt of pain, then the shocking sensation as he demorphed, collapsing onto his hands and knees and slowly sinking to the ground, just enough strength to turn his head and find the source of that shot. Eric had turned too, the Defender braced in both hands, as he staggered to his feet and moved to shield Wes from the two forms barely visible in the dim hallway, the hallway that was again warping into something else, tunnels, rock walls, a string of light bulbs overhead. Changing, and this time not changing back.
Steve heard it, echoing down the tunnel. Voices, shouting. Angry. He drew his Guardian blaster and began to run, moving as quietly as he could, urgency spurring him on as he got close enough to recognize the voices. Before he could reach them another sound send a chill through him. The distinctive sizzle of blaster beams.
His training took over, flattening him against the wall. He crept forward, easing up to the corner around which he sensed they were, then dropped to one knee, twisting to peer out. What he saw stopped his breath for a moment.
Wes and Eric were there, morphed, Eric on the tunnel floor, Wes leaning against a wall, both with blasters aimed at each other, so still they might have been statues, except for the heaving of their chests. The moment seemed to stretch into eternity. Then it ended abruptly.
There was the flash and snap of another blaster shot, coming from a different side tunnel. It struck Wes, igniting another flare as his suit sparked and warped, leaving him demorphed and collapsing. Eric got up and ran to cover him from their attackers. Steve ran forward far enough to see them standing where the tunnels intersected, two of them, two humanoid creatures with metallic surfaces that gleamed silver and purple even in the dim lights.
Norman's new robots. Eric was weakened, Wes was helpless. Steve started forward again. "Hold it!" he shouted, seeing all four heads turn to look at him. "Drop your weapon! Back off!"
With relief he saw that only one of the robots was holding a blaster. They actually had a chance, as long as Eric was able to fight. On the other hand, he had seen how tough these robots were, back at Eric's house, against two armed Rangers…
The silver and purple robots stood unmoving. Steve tensed as their heads turned; they glanced at each other, seeming to communicate silently. A flicker of motion, a glimmer of reflected light, and they were gone, melting into the shadows of that dark tunnel.
"Steve… see if Wes is okay." Eric passed him and started after them.
"Yes, sir." Steve crossed the space between himself and Wes and knelt next to him, seeing his normally handsome and smiling face drawn with pain and stress. "Are you all right, sir?" he asked.
Wes struggled onto one elbow, Steve helping him to sit up. "I don't know... I think so," he mumbled, rubbing his face. "What -- what's going on… where am I?"
"In the mine tunnels. Don't you remember?"
"Tunnels... Is this the silver mine?"
"Yes. Of course."
"I was in Bio-Lab… I'm all confused…"
"No sign of them. But they may be back." Eric had returned, standing over them. "How is he?"
"Eric, what happened?" Wes asked.
Eric took a moment to answer. "I don't know," he said. "You tell me."
"I might be able to explain some of it," Steve said. They both looked at him, silently questioning. "I got a call just before I came down here, from Jimmy. Mitchell and Daniels showed up. They were wandering in the woods, hiding, all this time. Just walked up to the searchers a few hours ago and asked for help."
"Mitchell and Daniels," Wes said, his voice a little stronger. "I remember. Are they okay?"
"Yeah, they seem to be fine, now."
"What happened to them?"
"Well, that's the interesting part. Norman and his robots stopped their truck. Norman had some kind of gas gun, they think. They remember it smelled sweet, like flowers."
"Flowers." Wes's mouth tightened. "Go on," he said after a moment.
"Then, they suddenly thought they were somewhere else. In another world, sort of, with their memories changed, like that was the way things were supposed to be. They both had detailed fantasies, Mitchell thought he was a prisoner of war -- he was in the Marines a few years ago -- Daniels thought he had lost his job and his family and was living on the street. They're at the hospital, being checked out, but it's obvious they were drugged."
"Some kind of hallucinogen. Made me see things… think things… I think it was wearing off... Getting shot and demorphed must have shocked me out of it." Wes moved, struggling to his feet. Eric stepped back as Steve helped him up. "Eric, did I really say…"
"Yeah." The word was curt and cool.
"I'm sorry. You were right, I didn't know what I was saying."
"We have more important things to worry about. Like finding Jen."
"Jen… Oh, my God, they did the same thing to her! She's trapped in some fantasy too, probably just as bad as mine. We've got to help her!"
Eric looked around them. "I can find her morpher with mine. You two stay here."
"Hell, no. I'm coming with you."
"So am I," Steve added. "And don't bother to order me back to the surface."
"Okay." There was just a hint of warmth in Eric's voice. "Let's go."
She could hear them, faintly, voices coming from outside her cell. Voices, one of them familiar -- but not -- Wes, or was it? She lay there, listening, trying to clear her mind. So hard to think, so hard to tell what was real, when everything seemed insubstantial, fading in and out. The jail, the other prisoners... that wasn't right. Or was it?
The trial, her teammates. They seemed like a dream one moment, like solid reality the next. She groped for something to hang on to. The voices spoke on, the tones, the words troubling her, something inside telling her this was wrong, all wrong. She moaned softly, a sleeper struggling to wake up, not quite sure she was dreaming.
The voices claimed her attention, helping her concentrate. The one that was almost Wes's, angry and intense. "What the hell happened? Why didn't you kill him, like I told you to?"
"Wes was with him, Master. He recovered from the drug."
"And the Silver Guardians were there, too. Logically, we would have been defeated."
"Defeated. I suppose you would have been. Useless!"
"They're coming, Master. We can't stop them."
"We don't have enough of the drug left to use on all of them... And Wes will have warned the others." There was a brief silence. "We have to get out of here. Damn! All this work, and we have to leave it behind!"
"We have the other location, Master."
"Yes, they don't know about that. We'll destroy this place, hope the Rangers go with it. And there's Jen..." Another pause. "Just keep your mouths shut, and follow my lead."
Jen blinked as shapes moved to her cell door. She pushed herself up, sitting, her head briefly spinning before settling down. A man stepped up to the bars, smiling at her.
"Jen, sweetheart, it's Wes. I'm here to save you. We're getting out, escaping." He glanced behind him. "Trip and Katie are with me. They want to help."
She gasped as Trip and Katie stepped into view, their faces blank. They stood and stared at her impassively. She got to her feet, suddenly afraid, suddenly sure all of this was a mistake in some way she couldn't identify. Confused, she focused on what she knew was wrong. "No!" she exclaimed. "Trip, Katie, you can't do this! You're Time Force officers -- you'll be disgraced, criminals, like me..."
"They don't care," Wes said, his voice hard.
"But I care! I can't let you do this!"
"It's done, Jen. Come on." He pulled the door open, the lock somehow not working. Stepping inside, he grabbed her wrist.
"Wes, no, I mean it, I don't want to escape!"
"You have no choice."
"But..." She resisted, fighting to keep her thoughts together, her mind functioning, to figure out what she was supposed to do. "Where can we go? I can't go back to 2001. You can't stay here..."
"Don't worry about it."
"Wes... Wes, stop, I don't understand..."
His face took on an unfamiliarly cunning expression. "If they catch me, they'll kill me. Either come along, or watch me die."
"No... They wouldn't..."
"They will. Come on!"
She followed, letting him drag her along, her mind spinning again, sure she was somehow in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing, but too afraid, too uncertain, to protest. They ran, down corridors that quickly became strange, twisting and turning in ways she didn't remember, adding to her confusion. Shouts sounded behind them. Voices she knew.
"Wes -- who is that?"
He turned to glare at her, his anger making her pull back in alarm. "It's Alex and Eric. They're after us. If they catch us, we're dead. Now run!"
"All right..." She followed, dashing over increasingly strange ground, desperate to get away, to have this nightmare over. Endless corridors, dark, the floor inexplicably uneven, no longer in the Time Force prison somehow, running through dim hallways, only thinking about escape...
They fled into a larger space, a room, strange-looking equipment on benches around the walls. Wes, Katie, and Trip stopped. "Hold them off!" Wes shouted. Trip and Katie ran back to the doorway. Wes grabbed Jen's hand and pulled her toward the far wall, lined with machinery, cables snaking over it like ivy.
An exchange of blaster fire made her look back at the doorway. Trip and Katie were on either side of it, firing out at an unseen enemy. The fire intensified, they fell back, and a form leaped through. The Quantum Ranger. Eric. Without any conscious decision, she took a step towards him, something inside looking to him for help.
"Jen!" he called.
Someone else ran in, dodging blaster beams. She blinked. "Wes?" she cried.
Wes, the one beside her, pulled her back. "That's Alex! Alex!" he hissed.
She stopped. It had looked like... but it was Alex, not Wes. The uniform was Time Force, not Silver Guardians. Or was it? He looked at her across the room, the expression on his face, of pain and desperation, somehow tearing at her heart. "Jen! Jen!" he shouted, as Wes caught her arm again. Another person appeared in the doorway, Jen recognizing him with vague surprise as Steve Miller.
Trip and Katie were falling back, getting closer, firing at Eric and Alex, missing most of their shots somehow, not like them at all, but everything going on was wrong, wrong... Eric glanced behind him, cursed, and turned back to shove Alex and Steve out of the room, shielding them from the blaster fire. Alex cried out again, calling Jen's name in Wes's voice.
"Come on! Come on!" Wes shouted, his voice strange, his face warping, Wes-but-not-Wes, something strange about Katie and Trip too, the way their skin gleamed in the light, like metal. There was too much confusion to think; it was happening so fast, so fast she couldn't quite follow, everything starting to fall apart, everything changing as she gasped in terror...
Suddenly it was Norman pulling her along, Silver and Purple coming after them and firing back at Eric and Wes. She screamed, tried to pull away, but he was too strong. They ran past another cluster of machinery, Norman reaching to throw a switch. There was a low hum, building in volume.
Silver turned towards Eric and Wes, shouting, "Get back! This place is going to blow up!" He and Purple retreated as they fired a volley that held the Rangers on the other side of the doorway. Then they both ran, covering the rest of the distance across the large room toward Jen and Norman. Eric started in after them. Wes ran in, still demorphed, heading for them at full speed. Eric caught him, held him back. Norman yanked at her arm, pulling her towards the wall covered with machines, Silver and Purple right behind them, running as if their lives depended on it.
And then -- then a roar, deafening, a cloud of smoke rolling over them, rocks starting to shower down. She saw Eric duck, and dive for the doorway, taking Wes with him. She screamed again. A chunk of stone dropped directly at her. Hands grabbed her, pulling her out of the way. She fell, arms wrapped around her head, another explosion, the floor shaking, breaking apart. Pain, a whirlwind of motion, a violent impact. And then nothing.
TBC...
