Thanks for that review, white time ranger, you've given me that special 'oomp' to hurry up with the next chapter. 'gracias!'
Note to self, never ever write such revealing summaries again. Now everyone knows what I'm gonna write about! darn! ;-)
Oh yeah, scenes from the show are not nessicarily exact. Very poor memory... Also, some lines may not be original, I've seen a couple of shows of siblings rivalry and I just had to add those sentences in this story.
anyhoo...
Chapter 2: Bright Side? No School Today.
I sank down onto my bed, tired out from Ren's ongoing rant about combined operations.
That's one thing about her, even if it's something she doesn't like, she still does it thoroughly.
Right now, with my mind free of her voice, the question came back, 'How did mum and dad meet?' I wanted to find out more than anything in the world right now.
I said out loud,"I wish I knew how you guys met!"
Little do I know, that very wish will be coming true...
I was jolted awake by my alarm clock. I groaned loudly under the covers and started groping about for the alarm clock button to silence it.
Come on, come on...
Found it! Silence...
I could have dropped back of to sleep if it hadn't been for mum knocking on my door,"Get up, sweetie. School time!"
She sounded tired, probably a rough night. For her sake, I crawled out of my bed and out the door to take a shower.
Mum was standing outside, still in work clothes. She peeked into my room and said,"I want that bed made up, young man,"
I muttered sleepily,"K..."
Mum smiled at me and patted my back before heading downstairs.
After a quick shower, and a change of clothes, I headed down to the kitchen. Dad was there sipping coffee, looking not quite as tired as mum but had sleepy eyes all the same.
He was still wearing his 'forensics' labled windbreaker.
Ren came in, holding her backpack. I went over to the cupboard and pulled out a box of cereals and two bowls. Ren went over to the fridge and pulled out a carton of milk, tossing it over to me.
This seriesof actions come naturally to us every morning. Mum says that is a way of showing each other that we love each other. Ren and I immediately puked all over that statement.
Dad finished the rest of his coffee and said,"Ren, hope you don't mind walking with your brother to school, I have to head back to the lab immediately,"
Ren replied,"Sure dad, as long as you tie up his neck with a longer leash and tell him to stop lifting his leg up everytime we pass a fire hydrant!" as she poured in her share of cereals.
I retorted,"Excuse me? I'm the one walking the dog!" Ren's eyes narrowed dangerously, just like mum's when you know you're in for it.
Dad shook his head wearily and muttered,"Be nice..." before stopping to kiss mum goodbye and walking out of the door. That reminded me again about wanting to find out about how they met.
Mum turned to us,"K, I have to go straight to a location in Henderson, so remember to lock up," she said, hugging us in turn.
After finishing our, cereals, we washed up and went out the front door, locking up behind us and argueing all the way.
It is really hot and sunny outdoors, not unusual in Vegas.
Ren was walking so fast I had trouble keeping up. I have a feeling she does that so people won't assume we are related.
She's all 'high and mighty' school goody-two-shoes and will die if anyone found out she's related to the eighth-grade science geek.
Sure enough, we started walking past a few friends of hers. Ren waved at them and they waved, and giggled back. Girls...
Soon, we turned into one street while the two lovely gooses, um, I mean girls, disappeared into a nearby shop.
The street Ren and I are on now is deserted. Well, it is right out at the outskirts of the desert. It is a special shortcut to school that I came up with a few years back.
I could feel my T-shirt sticking to my back, my jacket will probably do the smae thing in the next five minutes.
Ren glared at me and said,"Why do you always have to follow me? It was embarassing back there with Angeline and Britney! Did you see what they did when they saw you with me?"
'Only smile and giggle, waving back at you, Miss. Paranoia...' I thought.
Instead, I replied,"I was using your big head to block out the sun!"
Ren snapped back,"Honestly, you are the most irritating brother I had the misfortune to have!", British accent full swing, dad does that too.
I replied,"Sheesh, you'd think I wanted you or something..."
Ren shook her head,"You know, mum used to say that one day we will need each other, you know what? That day will never come!"
I was about to think up a cutting remark when out of a sudden, something hard hit me on the head. "Yeow!" I yelled in pain.
Ren looked at me in surprise, "What the?" then her eyes landed on the thing that hit me.
I rubbed my head carefully then stared at the device too. It looked like a remote control, only with one button. It was silver and had a tiny antanae on it as well.
Ren asked,"What is that?"
I shrugged and picked it up. Our argument had been forgottened.
Ren looked around, frowning, "Where did it come from? There's no person in sight. No open windows... nothing! It can't have fallen from the sky..."
I flipped the device over, there was something stenciled on the back, a logo of some kind... it was triangular and had three lines pointing to the middle, where a red circle lay. Under the logo, it read,"Time Force" I said out loud.
Ren tilted her head to one side,"Time Force," she repeated.
I muttered,"Sounds official..."
Ren replied,"Never heard of it..."
I turned back to the button in front and debated whether to press it or not. Caution told me not to, but natural curiousity overuled the caution, no harm intrying, what's the worst that could happen?
I moved my finger to press the button. Ren saw me and immediately yelled,"DON'T QUENT! Who knowswha?"
But I never really found out who knows what, I pressed the button and suddenly, I felt my entire body being pulled out of the earth.
I shut my eys and yelled out loud,"AHHYIIIIII!" Do I really scream like that!
I heard a female scream telling me that I'm not alone in this. If I'm gonna die, Ren's coming along with me.
I opened my eyes slowly and found myself in a long never ending portal-like thing. I was floating, and moving as well, at a really fast pace.
Ren soon appeared on my left, scowling at me with pure anger. Her resemblance to mum is uncanny!
All around us was glittering a series of colors, mostly shades of red and green. It was scary!
As I was just getting used to the dizzying motion, another sudded lurch, and I felt myself fall onto solid ground. Oww...
I heared a 'flump' sound that told me that Ren just had a hard landing as well.
I reopened my eyes, (I don't remember closing them, though...) and saw a vast blue cloudless sky. I slowly got up and looked around.
Ren and I were in the middle of a huge lawn, its grass clipped to perfection. Four feet high perfectly trimmed hedges created a path way out of the road.
In front of us was an even more huge mansion, wait a minute, this is grampa's home! In Silver Hills! What are we doing here!
Ren said,"Now you've done it! We are at gramp's place for God's sake! Thanks to you!"
I did not have the strength to argue, I was staring at the front door, two figures had just came out, I ran over and hid behind the hedge, staring at them, one was a guy and the other a girl.
Ren raced after me,"Hey! Wait!"
I silenced her,"Shh!"
Now I had a clearer view of the two people. Ren fell silent and bent down beside me.
The guy with dirty-blond hair was shutting the door, he was wearing khakis, a long sleeved blue buttoned up shirt under a dark grey vest. When he turned around, I noticed he was wearing a red tie as well.
I couldn't see his face, but he looked vaguely familiar. Both of them looked quite young, 18 or 19 maybe...
The girl was dressed really weirdly, some whole suit in white. What material? Looks like PVC! She even had a holster strapped around her waist, holding a weird looking gun, very unlike mum and dad's police issued Glocks.
She had dark brown hair tied in a strict poneytail. She looked familiar as well but we were too far off to see their faces.
They were holding hands, though it looks like the guy was dragging the girl with him.
Ren, all curious now, muttered to me,"They looked really familiar! Unlikely gramp's clients, you think?"
I nodded,"C'mon, let's have a closer look," while walking straight out. Ren was about to follow when she suddenly said,"Look OUT!"
Too late...
A man cmae out, I recognized him, Phillips, gramp's butler. Hmmm, he looks young. I was trying to think of a good excuse to tell him why Ren and I are out here in Silver Hills instead of in school at Las Vegas.
He surely will see me, I'm right out there in front of him! Strange enough, Phillips didn't so much as look at me. Phillips peered around from left to right then pulled out a cloth and started wiping the tiny table out on the porch.
I decided to call out to him,"Phil, hey Phil!"
Ren hissed from behind,"Hey! What are you doing? How are we supposed to explain how we got here?" I ignored her.
Well, Phillips is doing the same thing to me. I ran up the steps to him. "Phillips, hey! It's me! Quent!" He still ignored me.
I reached out to touch his shoulder, YIKES! My arm went right through him! I yanked my arm back in shock.
Ren saw the whole thing and stared at me with her mouth slightly open. I shot her a helpless look.
Ren looked hesitantly at the pillar beside her. She reached out her own hand and cautiously tried touching it. Sure enough, her hand went right through the pillar.
I muttered,"What's going on?"
Ren muttered, "I dunno..." softly. "Let's go see the other two we saw just now,"
I nodded and followed her. The two had just arrived at the side of the house where a blue motorbike was parked.
The guy let go of the girl's hand and patted her shoulder, saying,"Thanks. Now we're even"
and headed for his bike.
Ren walked over and waved,"Hello?" No response, instead, the girl said,"Wait a sec! I need to talk to you!"
Ren hopped right in front of the girl, right between the couple. The girl was taller than her by an inch or two.
Ren was about to wave when she suddeny froze, and gaped instead.
I asked,"What?"
Ren put a hand to her mouth as she muttered,"Ohmigod!"
I frowned, is this a joke? I saw Ren look back at the guy who said, "You don't have to thank me again. Actually, it was kinda fun!" rather smugly. I immediatle recognized a very familiar distinct British accent.
Ren's eyes grew even wider as she kept looking back and forth at the couple.
The girl with dark brown hair exactly like Ren's suddenly yanked out the guy's motorcycle keys, her arm ran right through Ren's stomach. Ren let out a scream.
I ran up to Ren, (no pun intended) and turned to face the girl and felt my head practicaly pop open with shock.
MUM!
Our own mother is the girl in PVC! But she looked different, her hair was shorter and her face was much younger. SHe had a few freckles splattered across her nose.
I slowly turned around to look at the guy who was protesting,"Hey! Gimme those!"
Dad...
He looked younger too. He wasn't wearing glasses and his hair was a little lighter and longer. I felt faint. What is going on here!
"Not until you listen to me. Look, I didn't come here to thank you. I need your help." said mum.
Dad crossed his arms over his helmet, licked his lips and asks with a smile,"Help? Well, what kind of help?" Woah... attitute check, dad...
Mum chose to ignore him. She held out a small oval-like device and tried pressing it onto dad's wrist. "I need you to put on this morpher and activate it,"
Ren pulled me back a little and mutterd,"Morpher?" I shrugged.
Dad immediately pulled away, certainly suspicious about this thing,"Woah-woah-woah, hold on! Now, what's a morpher?"
I was about to ask the same thing...
Mum looked at him and said,"If I told you, you wouldn't believe me,"
Dad smirked, and urged,"Yeah? Try me," looking exeedingly arrogant. I've never seen him like that before.
Mum took a deep steadying breath and said,"My friends and I are from the year 3000. We're trying to recapture a gang of mutants that escaped THROUGH time, and take them back with us. We think you may be the ONLY one who can unlock these Morphers so we can defeat them."
Mutants? Morphers? Year 3000? My jaw dropped open. This has got to be some big joke. MUM?
Dad answered somewhat calmly,"I believe you,"
Ren yelled,"You what!"
Mum smiled, that's when dad held out his palms,"Whoa, whoa, I believe you're nuts! Now give me back my keys..."
Mum looked at him in disbelief. As she threw dad back his keys, she said,"I knew you'll never help us! You're nothing like him!"
Him who?
Mum turned on her heel and struted off.
"Mum can't be from the future! She's not cool enough!" said Ren. I had to agree.
Suddenly, mum stopped, she was looking at the wrist bacd on her own wrist. I t was just like the one she tried forcing onto dad.
A strange glow appeared, followed by a 3D hologram of some green-haired guy from waist up,"Ransik is attacking the city! We NEED you!"
Mum nodded,"I'm on my way," as she rushed off.
I glanced back at dad, he looked every bit as surprised as me.
"Well, that's cool..." I commented dryly.
Dad just stared into space for a few minutes, then he turned on his bike's engine and revved off.
I turned to Ren,"We need to find out what's going o,"
Ren nodded and said,"I think we went back in time... when you pressed that button..." holding up the little device I foolishly fiddled with just now.
I said,"Back to the past? Bright side? No school today..."
"Quent! This is so much more important than school! We could be stuck here forever! Without food! We can't be seen by anyone remember? We can't touch anything either! We'll starve!"
I asked,"So we're ghosts?"
Ren shrugged,"I dunno... more like 'preghosts', we can't be ghosts if we were't born yet... we don't exist in this time..."
"So no one can see us..." I muttered.
Ren nodded. I sighed,"Don't forget that little fact about mum..."
Ren shrugged,"You said you always wanted to know how they met... guess you're wish came true."
I groaned,"That's another thing, they weren't exactly 'lovey-dovey' and all, eh?"
Ren said,"Maybe..."
I was panicking now,"What if they never loved each other? What if dad forced her or somehting?"
Ren frowned at that thought,"No way... there's got to be more to the story,"
I was not convinced,"What about that 'him' guy mum mentioned? Who's that?"
Ren muttered,"Calm down..."
She was staring at the device. "What?" I asked.
Ren said,"Maybe pressing this button again will take us back into our own time,"
I nodded, then,"Don't you wnt to hang around and see how they married? They lied to us for goodness sake! Met at work, my a-"
Ren cut in,"They never wanteds us to know anyway! I say we don't mention it once we get back,"
"If we get back..." I moaned.
Ren rolled her eyes and said,"Pessimist," and pressed the button.
I immediately felt thatsame pull and the multicoloured portal was back.
"Please let this be the ride home!" I prayed.
I wish.
TBC
RR!
