Gaby is mine.
Rated T: mild language, some violence and sexual references.
A/N: This is a sequel to 'Crossroads' and part of my 'Year of Time' series. It can, however, stand alone, with most of the background from the series being mentioned along the way.
Reviews are always appreciated.
"Are we lost? Or could this be our world?" Wes asked. He turned to Jen.
"I don't know," she said tightly, eyes down as she pointed her sensor device at the mutant-like creatures. "Hard to see how something like this could have happened in our world in only a few hours. I'll have to try contacting Time Force."
Eric was only half listening, his eyes on the battle being played out in front of them. The three creatures attacking the lone Ranger were just as ugly on second glance as on first. One was tall and skeletally thin with startling blue skin; one was short, soft-looking, and almost as round as a balloon, its skin yellow; the third was grotesquely muscular and colored red. All three were equipped with nasty-looking blasters, and the muscular one was also holding a larger, bazooka-like weapon. There was another exchange of energy bolts. The Ranger had taken cover behind a car, but she was obviously outgunned.
Speaking of the Ranger - she was clearly a woman, but other than that unidentifiable inside the suit. The suit that was so like his own. Still another version of himself? Eric swallowed, somehow queasy at the thought of seeing himself again in female form, and even more at seeing that self apparently fighting for her life...
"Are we going to help her?" he burst out.
"We don't know what's going on here..."
There was another burst of blaster shots, a rapid volley of them, coming from the other side of the shed they were standing next to. A quick flash of navy blue appeared. "Silver Guardians!" Wes muttered.
The Guardians were attacking the creatures, but it wasn't going to be enough, Eric could see that at a glance. As he watched, hesitating, there was a flare of return fire, and a scream of pain from one of the blue-uniformed men. The mystery Ranger whirled, shouted, "Get back! Get back!" and turned again to her enemy. But the moment of distraction had done its damage; the creatures ran closer, beams of light from all three converging on her. She went down with a cry as they raised their weapons again and took aim.
"That does it!" Eric yelled. "Quantum Power!"
He ran, putting himself between the other Ranger and her opponents, pulling the Quantum Defender as he went and sending three shots to catch each mutant squarely. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to hurt them much, and now they were all aiming at him... But two more forms, red and pink, appeared at his side, blasters ready. There was movement behind him as the other Ranger climbed back to her feet, a little unsteady but aiming her blaster. For a few tense moments they faced off, frozen. Then the tall, thin being lowered his weapon.
"I don't know how you've regained your powers, but it won't do you any good. We took them before, and we'll do it again!" he shouted. Before any of them could ask what he meant, he touched a device on his belt and vanished in a flare of colored light, along with his companions.
"What was that all about?" Wes asked.
"No idea," Jen said. "But I'd like to find out."
They turned, to see the Ranger they had rescued starting to sway. She took an unsteady step forward and stretched a hand out to them. "Eric... Eric, you came back..." she gasped.
"What...?" The voice was familiar, dreadfully so. Eric could only stare in shock as there was a bright burst of rainbow light, and a brown-haired woman stood demorphed before them. Before they could react, her eyes rolled up and her knees buckled. She collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
It was Wes who said it. "Gaby?"
"Shit!"
"Eric, would you cut it out? Cursing won't help."
"God damn shit."
"Eric..."
"What the hell was she thinking? And how did she get the morpher? She could have been killed!"
"Eric..."
"Damn it to hell!"
"Eric, stop it!"
"Gaby's half dead because she was playing at being a Ranger! Don't tell me not to curse!"
There had been nothing but confusion after the creatures had disappeared. As the Guardians scrambled to care for their wounded, Eric had demorphed and carried Gaby inside the main building, to the infirmary. A doctor had checked her over briefly and Wes and Jen had joined him after making sure the injured men were also being taken care of.
Jen sighed impatiently. "The doctor said she only fainted. And she's not our Gaby."
"That's right," Wes said quietly. "From what I've heard the guys say, we're all back from - somewhere, and Gaby's been a Ranger for about a month now."
"Are you sure we're not in our own reality? Maybe we landed in the future? We shifted in time before, as well as jumping between dimensions."
"Well..." The glance Wes and Jen exchanged was answer enough. "We'll have to find out more," Jen said finally.
"Eric... Wes? Jen?" The voice behind them brought Eric around to face a short, dark-haired man in a Silver Guardian uniform.
"Steve!"
"Nice of you to come back." Steve Miller, their next in command, shot him a confusingly hostile glance before gripping Wes's arms. "Wes! Man, I don't know how you did it, but this is great! You too, Jen! Are you okay?"
"Uh... sure, Steve," Wes said. "Look, I know this is going to sound crazy, but where have we been?"
"Where...?" Steve stepped back. "Don't you remember?"
"I think we're not who you think we are," Jen said.
The following round of confused stares was interrupted as a faint groan from the bed Eric was standing over attracted everyone's attention. Gaby blinked up at them, her gaze quickly focusing on Eric's face. Her expression swiftly turned from dazed to the beginnings of a happy smile, to anger, to surprise as her eyes found Wes and Jen.
"Are you okay?" Eric asked.
Propping herself on her elbows, she gave him a distinctly unfriendly stare. "What's the matter, forgot to pack something?" she demanded.
"Huh?"
"How'd you get a morpher again? Don't tell me, you probably stole it."
"What are you talking about?"
Ignoring him, she swung her legs over the edge and sat up, a smile breaking over her face. "Wes! Jen! Boy, is it good to see you. And thanks for helping me back there."
"Hey, I helped too!" Eric protested.
"Hmm." Gaby gave him only a cool glance. "I guess. Thanks loads."
"Now wait a damn minute..."
"Before anyone starts arguing, I think we need to all calm down and have a nice little talk," Jen said. "Steve, Gaby, we need to find out what's been going on here. And we need to tell you our own story."
"So it's really true." Gaby had opened the door quietly and led them inside. Steve had left a few minutes ago to check on his injured men, still shaking his head in disbelief at the story Jen, Wes, and Eric had told. Gaby had brought them here. Now Eric, Wes, Jen, and Gaby stood in silence, staring at the five people lying in five hospital beds neatly lined up along one wall of this room tucked away in a corner of the Silver Guardians infirmary wing.
"I can't believe this..." Jen seemed dazed, as she moved slowly from one to the next. First Trip, his green hair bright against the white pillow, his fingers digging into the covers over his chest despite his state of unconsciousness. Then Katie, her face as serene as if she was only sleeping. Lucas, his brows slightly furrowed. And the last two...
Eric glanced up at the Jen standing over the bed, and then again at the Jen lying there, eyes shut but lids twitching slightly. A strange and disturbing sight. Must be even stranger for her. And then Wes, staring down at the Wes in the fifth bed with a shocked expression. Quietly, without even looking at each other, Wes and Jen reached out and took each other's hands, moving closer together.
"How long?" Eric asked softly.
"It's been a month now," Gaby said, her voice lowered as if to avoid disturbing the sleepers.
"How did it happen?"
"It was the morphants. They attacked in the city."
"Morphants?" Wes asked.
"The creatures you saved me from."
"I don't understand. And - and why are Lucas, Trip, and Katie still here?" Jen asked.
Gaby gave her a glance. "They came back when the morphants showed up."
"You're going to have to explain," Jen said. "In our dimension, we captured Ransik and Nadira in 2001, and Frax was destroyed. All the mutants were taken back to my time. There have been a few more who came to this time period, but none like those three, and none called morphants."
"Okay." Gaby sighed. "According to what Trip, Lucas, and Katie told us, the morphants are a new type of mutant that was developed in the future specifically to fight the Power Rangers. They're called changed mutants. Morphed mutants, or morphants. They're even stronger and tougher than normal mutants; even stronger than a Ranger. The three who came here are named Mesocon, Endocon, and Ectocon."
"What are they doing here?"
"From what I was told, a new mutant criminal leader took over after Ransik reformed, in the future. He sent them here to attack Silver Hills, and especially Bio-Lab. Something about altering the timeline, and preventing Time Force from being created."
"That makes sense. The Silver Guardians eventually grew into Time Force."
"I guess. Lucas, Trip, and Katie were sent to help you three. The versions of you who exist here. Anyway, like I said, there was a fight in the city. A big one. I happened to be downtown, shopping, and I saw it. I saw Eric being attacked, and tried to get to him."
Her eyes were distant now. "The morphants had brought robots with them, like the cyclobots... a big group of them were fighting the others while Eric was fighting Mesocon, Endocon, and Ectocon. They ganged up on him, and blasted him... I saw him demorph. Wes, Jen, and the others saw too, and headed off the morphants before they could kill him.
"While they were all fighting I ran to Eric, to try and drag him away someplace safe. He was alive, but knocked out. There were explosions all around... yelling, cyclobots running... I was so scared..." She took a shaky breath. "Anyway, I was pulling on Eric, the rest of them were all fighting. I saw the Rangers all get demorphed. Then I heard one of the morphants shout something like, 'You have no defense against our greatest weapon! We'll make you powerless!' Something like that. There was a humming sound, and when I looked they had a bazooka-like thing aimed at Wes, Jen, Trip, Lucas, and Katie. They fired it. I saw the beam hit the Rangers and then the weapon sort of exploded in sparks.
"There was a light, all different colors, like we were in the middle of a rainbow. Then a big burst of light from all five of the Rangers, pink from Jen, red from Wes, and so on. The colors seemed to spread all around, and I had to shut my eyes. Then I heard Eric moaning, and I looked, and the colors all seemed to be sort of draining into his morpher. Hard to describe. It was glowing. He was half-awake, and it seemed to be hurting him; he was shaking and I heard him say, 'Get it off!' So I did. I pulled the morpher off his wrist. It was hot, and it gave me sort of an electrical shock, but I held on.
"The morphants started yelling at me, 'No! It was supposed to be ours! Give it to us!' Like that. They were running right at me, waving their blasters. I just froze. And then..." She lifted her arm, the duplicate of Eric's Quantum Morpher strapped on her wrist. "It talked to me. The morpher. I could 'hear' it in my head, saying to put it on and activate it. I did, and I said 'Quantum Power,' and next thing I knew... Well, you saw. I became the Rainbow Ranger. Luckily, the morphants were surprised enough to run away, because I sure didn't know what to do then."
"The weapon they used somehow made the Quantum Morpher work for you?" Eric asked.
"Not just that. It somehow absorbed the energy from the other five Rangers. I have more than the Quantum powers; I can call on the chrono-sabers and chrono-blasters as well as the Defender and TF Eagle. I seem to be about as strong as two of you combined, as strong as one of the morphants or maybe a little more. And I need it."
"What do you mean?"
Gaby glanced again at the five silent occupants of the beds. "They've all been like this ever since. In a coma. I'm the only Ranger left to fight the morphants."
"What about me? The version of me in this world?"
"We tried releasing the voice lock, but the morpher won't work for him anymore. Only me. We think it must have bonded with my DNA, like the chronomorphers." She didn't look at him. "We tried working together for a while. The morphants attacked a couple more times, and then they disappeared. We tried to contact Time Force too, but got nothing. Maybe the morphants succeeded, and there's no more Time Force to help us. We thought they had left, and gone back where they came from. Obviously they didn't."
"So - where is he? Is he here?" Wes asked after a moment.
"Gone." She finally looked up at Eric's face, her expression both bitter and filled with hurt. "He couldn't take it. He ran out on me - on all of us, and left town."
He must have had a good reason. I wouldn't let Gaby down like that. Eric paced across the small room restlessly, and stared at the door. Maybe he should find Gaby. Talk to her, find out what had really happened.
"Eric, come on. We're ready." It was Wes's voice, from one of the two narrow beds.
Steve and Gaby had arranged for a place for them to have some privacy; two of the private bedrooms in the Silver Guardians housing, in case they needed to spend the night. While hopefully they would be going home soon, they couldn't be sure. And - Eric found himself hoping they'd have to stay long enough to do something about the situation here. Gaby couldn't handle those three morphants by herself, no matter how much power she had. When she had left them she had looked so sad... and there were the alternate Wes and Jen, and the others, lying in that hospital room. And his duplicate in this world, wherever he was. They couldn't just leave things like this.
He joined the others, pulling up a chair to face them as they perched on the side of the bed. Jen glanced up, and then back down at the small box-like device that served both as sensor and as communicator.
"Okay. I've finally got a signal." She pressed a tiny button, and called, "Hello! Calling Time Force, Jen Scotts reporting. Is anyone there?"
After a faint burst of static, an even fainter voice answered. Jen adjusted something and tried again. This time the voice came in clearly enough to be recognizable. "... here. Where are you?"
"Trip?" Jen asked. She smiled as Wes grinned. "Trip, please repeat."
"Jen! We've been worried. We haven't been able to detect you until now. What happened? Where are you?"
"We were hoping you could tell us that. We transferred from the first dimension, but we didn't get home. This is another reality, a different one."
"Yeah..." The sound faded, and then strengthened. "... transfer didn't complete properly. According to our readings, the number of life signals is wrong. Didn't affect the transfer out of our dimension, but retrieval has to be more precisely calibrated. Did you try to take anyone with you when you tried it? Even an animal or something?"
Wes leaned in when Jen seemed to be hesitating. "What do you mean?"
"We detected a fourth life-force. It's strange though, almost like you've got another person with you, but the signal's very faint. Just barely enough to throw us off. It must have made you land in another parallel world instead of coming all the way home. You didn't try to take anything living with you? Anything at all?"
"No," Wes said as he traded a glance with Eric and Jen looked down at the box in her hands.
"Any idea what caused it? We kind of need to know, to fix the problem."
"No-" Wes started.
"Yes," Jen said. As they both looked at her in surprise, she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "I'm pregnant, Trip."
"Pregnant?" The startled voice faded into a murmur of exclamations on the other side of the link. After a few seconds, it returned. "That's great, Jen. Wish you had told us, but... Uh, congratulations. We have to work on recalibration. May take a little while."
"Understood. We'll contact you later." Jen pressed another button and closed the box, her eyes downcast.
"Pregnant? Jen..." Wes's face went through a series of emotions, very much like Gaby's had when she woke up. Astonishment, shock, happiness, dismay, anxiety. "When did you find out?" he finally said.
"Almost two weeks ago," she said, her voice flat and resigned.
"Two weeks? Why didn't you tell me?"
She didn't look up. "And then what? You would have tried to stop me from coming on this mission, wouldn't you? I would have done it anyway. What would have been the point in arguing about it?"
"So you lied to me?"
"I didn't tell you. That's not lying."
"But if you'd said something, we wouldn't be stuck here now," Eric put in.
"I'm sorry," she said with a trace of irritation, "but I had no way of knowing it would cause anything like this."
"He's right," Wes said. "Look what's happened. This has turned out to be more dangerous than we thought. Damn right I wouldn't have let you come if I knew."
Now she looked up, eyes narrowed. "You wouldn't let me? I'm not a child, Wes. I don't need your permission."
"That's not just your baby in there, it's mine too. I think I should have some say about what happens to it. And to you, for that matter!"
"I know perfectly well it's your baby too. But I'm the one who's pregnant, and I get to decide what I'm going to do!"
"Maybe if you were deciding for just yourself, but this is different. I can't believe you did this without even telling me!"
"Now I'm glad I didn't! Just look at the way you're taking it!" Jen jumped to her feet. "You're not even happy, are you? You said you wanted kids!"
"That has nothing to do with this! You spring it on me, in the middle of a situation like this, and I'm supposed to be overjoyed?"
"I'm sorry my pregnancy doesn't have better timing for you!"
"It's just that... Didn't you think about your own baby's safety? How could you be so irresponsible?"
"Irresponsible!" Jen gave him a glare that could boil water, and marched to the door. "You're a fine one to be calling me names! I'm not the irresponsible one around here!"
"Jen! Where are you going?"
"To the other room. Alone! Good night!"
The sound of the door slamming echoed for a few seconds. Wes was on his feet too now. He swore, fists clenched.
"Aren't you going after her?" Eric asked.
"No! Let her think about it for a while. Dammit, how could she do this to me?"
Eric snorted. "I don't think she did anything to you. More the other way around, or she wouldn't be pregnant in the first place."
Wes turned on him, a finger pointing. "You keep out of this! What do you know about it, anyway?"
"Oh, right. You're the expert on women and marriage here, rich boy. And you're doing so well at it, too."
"And that's another thing, damn it! I hate it when you call me that!"
"Call you what?"
"Rich boy! You just never can stop rubbing it in, can you?" His voice became a mocking imitation of Eric's. "I pulled myself out of the gutter to get where I am! You're just a spoiled brat who happens to be the boss's son!"
"You know damn well I never said anything like that! At least not lately!"
"No, but that's what you're always thinking!"
"Oh, now you read minds?"
"Forget it! Just forget it!" Wes stomped to the door and yanked it open. "I'll find another room to sleep in!"
"Fine!"
"Good night!"
Eric blinked as there was another slam. The door vibrated but managed to stay in one piece. "Ah, alone at last," he muttered into the sudden quiet.
TBC...
