Rated PG-13: language, sexual references in the last section, including slash elements.
My thanks to Rach aka The Fink for the idea that started all this, and for a valuable plot element. Also thanks to Shirley Chong for the final explanation.
The main Wes and Eric here are from my 'Year of Time' series of stories, in which at this point Jen is living in our time, she and Wes are married, and Eric is living with his girlfriend Gaby. It also includes an appearance of my 'Red Fire' slash series, in which Wes and Eric are a couple.
This grew out of a sort of challenge: to do a really bizarre Time Force crossover - for which I got the suggestion of Time Force/King Arthur. Somehow it morphed into the crossover from hell. Expect to see three versions of Time Force ('Year of Time', canon, and 'Red Fire'), Dino Thunder, King Arthur (sort of), and MMPR (sort of). All I can promise you is a wild ride.
This chapter's short, but it's only the introduction.
Reviews are always appreciated.
"What the hell just happened?"
Eric's voice was almost calm, but Wes knew him well enough to hear the near-panic underneath the surface. He pushed himself up to a sitting position, looking around. They were on the beach northwest of Silver Hills, the same area where Jen's timeship had crash-landed almost four years ago. Both of them were still in one piece, apparently unhurt, but slightly dazed and very confused. It was early evening, a nice day, clouds lining the horizon and just starting to show the dusky pinks and purples of sunset over a blue-gray ocean. Wes climbed stiffly to his feet, raised his arm and touched his morpher, feeling a light breeze ruffling his hair after his Ranger suit disappeared in a glimmer of light, leaving him in his Silver Guardian uniform. But it was all wrong. He shivered slightly, not just from the cool fall air on his wet skin.
"I don't know... Where's Jen?" he asked.
"How the hell should I know?" With a quick command to his morpher Eric also transformed back to his navy-blue uniform. "Where's the truck? Where's the thunderstorm?"
"Maybe we should be asking where we are..."
"Morpher!" Eric raised his wrist again. "Where are we?" After a moment his eyes found Wes's. "It says we're on the beach northwest of the city. Big fat help."
"Ask it where Jen is!"
Another question and another silent mental communication from the morpher later, Eric pointed in the direction of a structure they could barely see in the distance, set back from the beach, just outside the line where forest ended and beach began. "It says she's there, in the lifeguards' cabin."
"Huh? Summer's over, the lifeguards are gone... What would she be doing in an empty cabin? How'd she get there so fast?"
"Let's go ask her."
A moment later they were trudging over the sand side by side. Wes stole a glance at Eric's face, finding it set and harsh. He'd never show it, but he was scared - probably getting more so if he felt the same odd sensation of - strangeness - that Wes felt. And yet, Eric's head turned, and he smiled, a little, and reached a hand to pat Wes's shoulder. "I'm sure Jen's fine," he said.
Wes shook his head, his mind returning to that first question - what had happened? What? It had started as a routine investigation, a report of an abandoned truck someone had seen from the highway along the shoreline. It had been close to the end of a slow day. Jen had been there, waiting for him to go off duty; Eric's girlfriend was working late and he had been bored and wanted to tag along - so the three of them had driven out here...
"I guess that's it," Jen said, nodding out the car window in the direction of the shore. "A truck. Looks like someone ran it off the road."
Wes had been driving slowly as they scanned the beach. Now he pulled off the side of the road and parked, taking a quick look up at the sky. It didn't look promising: gray, dark, laden with heavy clouds. As he switched off the ignition, a few raindrops hit the windshield.
"Oh, great," he muttered. "Rain." There was a flash of light, followed quickly by a crack of thunder loud enough to make him jump. "And lightning. Wonderful."
"The forecast didn't say rain," Jen said with an uneasy glance at the sky. "This storm blew up awfully fast."
"You know what they say about the weather." Wes grinned at her. "Maybe we should just stay here while Eric checks it out."
"Can't take it, rich boy?" a sarcastic voice asked from the back seat.
"I can just think of better ways to spend my time." Wes slid an arm around Jen's shoulders, pulling his wife close and nuzzling her ear. Wife. It had been several months, but it still amazed him that they were finally married.
"Oh Christ... If you're going to start getting mushy, I'm getting out of here."
Jen laughed, probably at both of them. "Come on, we'll all go. We're a team, rain or snow or dark of night, right?"
"I think that's the post office." Moments later they were picking their way down a slope, slippery in the increasing rain, towards the truck which was at the edge of the beach, wedged into a clump of bushes and weeds. Wes could feel their mood changing; they might find the driver inside, sick, injured, even dead.
But, to his relief, they didn't. The driver's compartment of the truck was empty, the doors unlocked. The back too; they opened the loading doors to find only a few stray bits of packing materials and a couple of empty boxes.
"Someone must have abandoned it here," Eric said. "Any reports lately of stolen vehicles that could match this?" He looked at Jen.
"Not that I remember." Jen's job as a police detective didn't usually involve stolen trucks, but she might have heard something. "I can call it in, have it towed and traced."
"Good." Wes looked up at the sky again, as there was another flash of lightning, almost directly overhead, accompanied by a crack of thunder. "I don't like this. Let's get out of here."
"You know, this is about the same place as where our ship crashed," Jen said, stopping to look down the beach.
"I know. And where I came looking for you, after Trip came to see me to explain why you had been so rude to me."
"I - well, I guess I was rude, after you'd just helped us." Jen's face turned down.
"Sorry." Wes draped an arm around her again, mentally kicking himself. She didn't need the reminder of those days, when she and her teammates had been stranded in a strange time, on a seemingly impossible mission, with their ship destroyed, no place to go, no money, no friends. Even more, she didn't need to be reminded of how she must have felt then, when she thought Alex was dead... He hugged her close.
"Come on already; let's get out of here before there's a tornado or something!" Eric called.
Wes looked up again. With amazing speed the sky had filled with thick black clouds; the wind had begun to howl. He shivered. There was something strange about this storm...
But those thoughts were ripped from his mind as there was a burst of light around them, almost blinding in its brilliance, and a crash that left his ears ringing. He staggered, and twisted to look back the way they had come.
The truck they had just left behind - smoke was beginning to rise, scorch marks, the red of flame appearing, livid in the unnatural darkness of the storm.
"Lightning!" Eric shouted. "It's been hit!"
Wes hesitated, and then started back towards it. "It's starting to burn! Gotta get it away from the trees, could start a bigger fire!"
Jen caught his arm. "No, too dangerous! It could explode!"
"One good shove should do it. And the suit'll protect me. You stay back." Without waiting, Wes turned again, and ran towards the truck, raising his arm, ready to be transformed into the Red Ranger. He caught a glimpse of Eric beside him, of Jen hesitating, as he pressed the button on his morpher, hearing Eric's voice at the same moment, shouting his power-up command...
There was another crash of thunder, another flash of unnatural light. Wes and Eric both instinctively hit the ground. When he looked up again, Wes had a confused impression of seeing the storm through a layer of fog and mist, shrouding them in an unnatural darkness, then of watching it fade into wisps and dissipate as if it had never been, leaving them - here. Wherever that was.
"The thunderstorm. That must have been it. Maybe we were hit by another bolt of lightning," Wes said.
"I don't remember being hit by anything. And that doesn't explain why the storm's suddenly gone. And why Jen's suddenly somewhere else."
"Here we are... It says she's inside?" They had reached the cabin where the lifeguards assigned to this section of the beach could spend their spare time during the summer, a rundown-looking place - but with a closer look he could see the signs of repairs. Recent ones, as if someone had fixed it up in the last few weeks or months. His trained eye picked out footprints in the sand, leading in and out. Some bigger, some smaller. More than one person.
"Someone's living here," Eric murmured.
"Looks that way. Come on." Impatient, Wes started for the door.
Eric tapped his arm, and drew his blaster when Wes looked back. Increasingly uneasy, Wes pulled his out too, and edged up to the door, which was slightly ajar. As he got closer, the faint sound of voices reached his ears. There was something familiar - he strained to hear, trying to pick out Jen's voice - and there it was, unmistakable...
With a quick movement he was in the doorway, blaster ready. The people inside, sitting on a collection of aging beach furniture and crates, all turned their heads to stare with identical expressions of shocked surprise on their faces. But they couldn't be any more shocked than Wes himself.
"What - what..." he stammered. A quick glance to his side showed Eric, also gaping blankly.
"Wes?" Trip asked, a hesitant smile appearing on his face.
"Hey, what's with the guns?" Lucas said, his voice sharp.
"And what are those uniforms?" Katie asked.
"What are you doing here?" Jen demanded harshly. "Who's that with you?"
"Jen?" was all Wes could manage to say.
"Didn't I tell you we don't need you any more when I took the morpher back? Now - just go home, and take your friend with you."
TBC...