Disclaimer: In part 0.
Author's note: Thanks again to Nalanzu for beta reading.
Another time and placeby Smittysgirl
The fire was raging out of control. Through the natural proclivity of flames to spread, and small brushfires kicked up from their continuing skirmish, the Rangers and Zeltrax now found themselves closed in on all sides by immense flames. Ethan could feel sweat running down his face, and tried in vain to wipe a brow his glove couldn't reach.
This wasn't getting them anywhere. Whatever had gotten into Zeltrax to shift his attention away from Dr. Smitty, it had made him a better technical fighter than they'd ever seen. It was only by sheer luck Ethan had managed to land any blows at all, and Conner ... Conner, easily the most ferocious fighter Ethan had ever known, even before his current condition, was pretty much useless against the cyborg.
Zeltrax flung the sword heavily towards Conner's intersection, and Ethan winced.
A quick parry with his Thundermax was the only thing which spared Conner from being disembowled. The Red Ranger scooped up the general's blade and lunged forward with both weapons brought to bear.
Zeltrax laughed.
With a poise Ethan had never seen outside of a dancer, Zeltrax fell to his knees, diving beneath the boy's lunge. He spun as Conner completed the arc, gesturing with his hands and kicking up a dust storm which obscured the Red Ranger.
"CONNER!" Ethan yelled.
But as the dust cleared, neither could be seen. On the plus side, the dust had nearly extinguashed the conflaguration.
The whine of a motorcycle nearby alerted him to Kira's arrival. The girl dashed through the inferno sprightly, landing beside him with a soft "oof."
"What's the sitch?" the Yellow Ranger asked.
"Conner's gone!" Ethan explained. "Devin, you got a track on anybody?"
"Well, not really," their sixth Ranger admitted sheepishly over the comm. Ethan could imagine Devin frantically punching keys over at Ops, trying his best to be Hayley. Except for the hair. And the... girl-parts.
"It looks like we work out from here," Kira said. Ethan nodded, grateful to have somebody else here to take some of the burden off him. The sooner they found everyone the better it would be for all of them.
"ARGH!" Conner screamed as Zeltrax's axe sank into his shoulder.
Zeltrax seemed to nod in satisfaction. "Now I have you where I want you."
Conner scoffed through his pain. "Now that's a cliche if I ever met one."
The cyborg didn't dignify him with a response, instead pulling the blade out from his shoulder with a sickening scraping sound. Conner could feel his extremities going numb, and he knew it was a matter of minutes, if that, before another transformation began. A corona of red was already starting to form around him as his reptile body began to reject the morph energies.
Zeltrax studied him. "Now you see what your... association with Dr. Smith has wrought," the cyborg said. "Nothing but pain... and destruction of the man you once were."
"Why are you DOING THIS?" Conner screamed, trying desperately to hold his mind together. "I thought Dr. T was the one you wanted. What have I done to you?"
"What HAVEN'T you done?" the cyborg shot back. "All you ever wanted was control, dominion over the lives and wills of others. But it wasn't enough, was it? You had to become a Power Ranger, you had to sell your soul to Smith. And for what? The powers? Was it worth becoming this ... thing, Conner?"
"I didn't choose to become what I am!" Conner cried. "It's all Mesogog's fault." So much Mesogog had done... so much evil he had wrought. Conner suddenly knew that he wasn't the only victim here - Dr. Smitty, Trent, the others... all of them nearly destroyed by their powers and the efforts to fight evil... and he and Trent, though he hated to admit sympathy for the other teen, had both been cursed by Mesogog. He knew what he'd gone through - what had it been like for Trent, forcefully brought to Mesogog's lab for the Gem to bond with him?
Mesogog had to die. And Zeltrax and Elsa and the Tyrannodrones. To pay for his sins.
"LIES!" Zeltrax returned. "All you have ever wanted is power. I see you when you sleep, the restlessness. How does it feel, Conner? Does it inflame your every synapse? Are you stuck to your sheets with sweat and arousal?"
Conner arose, the corona around him flaring wildly. He would have only a few seconds, if that. It would have to be enough. Zeltrax would not survive this day.
Zeltrax appraised him with a suddenly steely gaze. He demolecularized his weapon and nodded solemnly. "I have but one request of you before we end this, Red Ranger. I hope you will extend me at least this one honor."
Conner raised both eybrows. "Go ahead." He sweated, trying to hold the transformation long enough to hear Zeltrax out and kill the monster.
"I want you to look me in the eye before you face me."
Conner tried not to do a double-take. This didn't make any sense except as a stalling tactic, except..... Zeltrax didn't seem to have any reason to be stalling....
Zeltrax unfastened the snaps fastening his helmet to the armor's shoulders - had those been there before? - and pulled it loose.
As the helmet came off, Conner gasped. He knew that face like he knew his own - because it was.
"ERIC?"
His twin grinned wolfishly. "And now you know my secret, brother." His axe returned to his armored hand. "Prepare to face your death!"
Conner was so startled, he lost control of his transformation.
He sank to the ground, body racked by the transformation to reptilian form. Zeltrax stood over him imposingly, his helmet still uselessly cast aside.
"This is not unexpected," his brother - no, it couldn't be - drawled.
Conner barely felt it as the boot connected with his head.
"Dad?" Trent instinctively called after his scream had reverberated along the walls. It was the natural cry of a son for his father, expanded due to the extreme circumstances of their current relationship. He could feel his Gem pulsing briughtly, and concentrated on bringing it under control again.
He didn't know if he was doing the Gem, or his body, irreparable harm by taking it up to these levels. At this point he didn't care. He had to find his dad and get him out of here. He couldn't live with the thought something may have happened to his father, even if stopped Mesogog.
"Trent!" Dr. T cried, tearing the degnergized restraints from around his torso. He examined the teen's wrist carefully. "Trent, what did you do?"
"I... don't know, Dr. T," Trent said. He struggled to get up, feeling like someone had spun him around a few too many times in a chair.
"Your Dinogem," the older man continued. "It's fluctuating. My God, Trent - you tried to overload it, didn't you? You were trying to kill yourself. What were you..."
"Trent!" came a rasping voice from behind the palentologist.
"Dad!" Trent gasped. "Dr. T, we've got to help Dad!"
A greatly disheveled Anton Mercer appeared from the smoking wreckage, bracing himself against the examination table. His body seized, and his left eye retained some of its reptilian properties.
"No! Terrance, you have to get my boy out of here. I'm a liability like this. Mesogog, he's... he's too strong now. You'd never get me back to your base like this, and I can't... Mesogog can't be made aware of its location."
"DAD!"
"Terrance, GO! Get my boy out of here!"
"Where's Hayley?" Dr. Smitty asked, clearly torn between his obligation to his friend and his desire to see Mesogog defeated.
"Elsa has her," Anton said, taking a deep breath. "Go. Save her. Save yourselves. And get Trent out of here."
"Dr. T!" Trent called, struggling against the Black Ranger's grip. "DAD!"
Dr. Smitty swallowed. "Anton, I promise, promise I'll find a way to release you. I'm not giving up hope."
"It's too late," Anton said. "Just... destroy me. And take care of Trent when I'm gone, you hear me?" He slumped.
"DAD!" Trent screamed, his Gem pulsing even more brightly.
Terrance pulled with all his might, dragging Trent out of the chamber and sealing it shut behind him before smashing the control console.
"That should hold Mesogog for the moment," the Black Ranger said uneasily. "Come on, we have to get Hayley."
Trent nodded shakily, his mind seeming to refocus on the task at hand. "I think I can find out where Elsa's hiding Hayley." He went over to a panel, easily playing with it to display the needed information, something left over from his time under the Gem's spell.
Once he'd pinned down the proper junction on the display, the two tore off down an access tunnel.
Time had lost all meaning for Cassidy. It could have been moments since Kira had departed to help the other Rangers, or it could have been hours. Nothing made sense anymore. The nervousness when she was in the smaller girl's presence, the strength she seemed to draw in spite- or perhaps because of - that nervousness, and the certainty she felt that she wanted to help this person above all others.
Cassidy liked the person she was when she was with Kira, and that was something she only could have said about Ethan and Devin before now.
She shuffled aimlessly around Kira's room. How had she become so... good of a person? How could she have changed so much? Maybe it was becoming support for the Rangers. Maybe she was becoming older and wiser.
Maybe it was Ethan. Cass smiled, thinking of the first time they'd met after months of cyber-courtship. It had been a shock for all concerned, and she couldn't believe the hardships they'd endured making their relationship work through it all.
She also didn't want to imagine what they would have done for a Triassic Ranger without her and Devin in on the secret.
Sometimes she wondered how the four of them had survived at all, with so much against the team of fledgling superheroes.
Why had Kira agreed to become part of this? She sometimes wondered if you had to be insane in order to be bonded to a Dinogem.
But... no, she realized as she sat down, Kira was not insane. Kira was cool and wonderful and....
Cassie sighed as she leaned against the bed. "Oh, Kira, where are you?"
She could smell her friend on the pillow. The soft scent made Cassidy's heart flutter. Nothing had felt like the last night. She'd never felt so safe, so assured of her own innate decency, never more in lo...
Cassidy sat up. "I'm... in love?"
That wasn't possible, was it? She loved Ethan. She knew it with an absolute certainty. He made her feel strong and sure and feminine. He made her feel like something other than a stupid bully who got what she wanted through force of will, and not natural talent. He was everything she wanted.
Cass grabbed the pillow she'd laid on the night before and smooshed it against her face in a half-hearted gesture. This couldn't be happening. She loved Ethan. She KNEW it. There were no doubts in her mind this was what she'd always wanted in a man.
So why then was it Kira she was dreaming about? Why did it feel like Kira was unlocking something else, some sort of feeling she'd never felt before? Was that sisterly love? She didn't have a sister, how could she know?
So why was the beautiful shape of Kira's lips the only thing in her mind right now?
"I'm going nuts," she said out loud. "Do I...."
Terrors he'd tried to still for almost a year raced to the forefront of Conner's mind as he returned to consciousness. He was here. it was Mesogog's lair, and he was strapped to the examination table with that MACHINE above him...
"You're awake." his brother said pleasantly.
"No thanks to you," Conner tried to say.
His words were slow and slurred - he realized to his mild horror his mouth was fully reptilian - but he managed to convey his meaning.
Eric smiled faintly, pulling the lifeforce extractor down the rest of the way. Its siphon glinted with wicked intent. "I had hoped you'd be awake and... yourself, before it came to this. I wished we could have done this on better terms, brother. I spent my entire life in your shadow, and you savored every minute of it. Even my own advantage over you, my ninja training, was stalled by your becoming a Power Ranger. By what you let Smith do to you. Was it worth it, Conner? was anything worth that cost?"
"Anything's worth the cost to stop Mesofreak," Conner said. "And I thought Sensei Watanabe threw you out of Ninja training."
"I found out months ago, of course." Eric continued, paying no attention to Conner's words. "Your little episodes were hard to miss. I shadowed you to school, and I watched Ethan and that slut Cornell try and contain one of your episodes. Such fine company you're keeping. I followed you the rest of the day. I saw you morph.
The rest I could piece together. I spent weeks charting the teleportation patterns Mesogog's forces used, and I finally found a way to arrive here - a way to offer him my services in your destruction."
"If you've joined Mesogog, you're more unbalanced than anybody suspects," Conner spit out. "I bet he caught you instead of me once. Made you crazy as well. You just don't remember it."
"LIAR!" Eric cried, pressing the tip of the extractor to Conner's chest. Fire shot through his veins, and the Red Ranger winced in agony.
"Yes. This device is attuned to your human biorhythms. It will bleed everything you are out of you, and leave nothing behind but the beast Smith turned you into."
"Eric... bro," Conner wheezed. "I know about Marianne. She loves you. Loves you for you, and only gives a damn about me because I'm related to you. Bro, I was so proud of you..."
"I still have Marianne," Eric said. "And you... you're nothing more than this monster now."
He felt his peripheral vision fading. "No, Eric. I still ha - have my love for you."
He heard something crash behind him. A familiar, sweaty smell tinged the air as he writhed in agony.
"ZELTRAX!" Trent screamed, his eyes wide and bloodshot.
Conner looked at Trent. His arm, his wrist, was shining brightly with a light Conner had never seen before. All of a sudden, Trent's whole form shimmered into a very bright blur.
Explosion after explosion erupted across Zeltrax's armor as he used an emulation of the Red Gem's super speed, and Conner tried to scream in warning. He didn't know if Trent could see the unmasked face on Zeltrax's body, or if he was even capable of registering that Zeltrax had a face.
In the background he could see the main entrance to the lab open, and Dr. T stumbled in with Hayley on his arm.
"Dr. T! It's Eric!" Conner yelled.
The older man looked up in shock, his gaze moving from Conner's prone form to the general being violently attacked by Trent. He yelled in warning, but Trent had already cleared the room and appeared on the far side. The light from his Dinogem was almost blinding. Trent assumed his morphing stance.
"White Ranger! Dino Tunder!"
The light filled the room, and the others averted their gaze before their retinas were burnt to a cinder. When it cleared a bulky figure in white appeared. It bore a vague resemblance to Trent's Ranger armor, minus his power shield and covered with attachments evocative of the Dragozord.
"WHITE QUADROBATTLIZED RANGER!"
A loud scream emanated from somewhere inside the room.
Conner realized distantly that it was Trent screaming. The white accents all along his costume were shining, and the morpher on his wrist was crackling with energy. Whatever he'd done, it wasn't safe.
Trent lowered the double laser-blaster from his shoulders and leveled them at the cyborg. "No more games, Zeltrax!"
"You really think you can stop me, White Ranger?"
"Why, do you think I can't?"
Eric waved a hand across his face, and his helmet rematerelized. "I just hate to see a warrior such as yourself die in such an undignified manner."
"Trust me, I don't feel the same."
Hayley tried to pull herself out of Dr. T's arms. "Trent, PLEASE! This is Conner's brother! You can't..."
"FIRE!"
The room erupted.