Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers

Generations: A Novella

Welcome once again to the world of Chip and Dale and the Rescue Rangers. This is the third installment of the Continuing Adventures of the Rescue Rangers, and a sequel to the previous works 'Meeting with Destiny' and 'A Christmas to Remember'. A baby is on the way at Ranger Headquarters, and Norton Nimnul plots the destruction of history itself. Meanwhile, the Rescue Rangers must greet a traveler from an uncertain future, and discover the full range of their ultimate destiny. Note: This tale was not influenced by Dr. Indy's excellent story "The Times of Their Lives", which also involves Ranger time travel.

Prologue: The Final Battle

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. September, 2010.

Norton Nimnul laughed maniacally. He'd finally done it. Not only did he hold the fate of humanity in his hands, but he'd created a way to rewrite his own life. All of the humiliations, all of the embarrassments, and also, all of the occasions that he'd been caused trouble by a certain band of do-gooders. He knew they'd be along soon. His laboratory scanners had picked up their craft several minutes ago. Their undoing was nigh at hand.

"Come on everybody! This must be Nimnul's new hideout!"
Chip Maplewood stood on the wing of his wife's latest creation, the Rangerwing IV. The plane had less of the tinker toy look of it's ancestor, and had taken on a sleek, hawk-like appearance. Still, one could definitely identify it as a Gadget H. Maplewood original. The twin props could now rotate all the way around the wing, locking into any one of four positions.

Basil Maplewood, son of the intrepid leader, looked around skeptically as he climbed out of the plane.

"I dunno Dad, it looks a little science fictionish even for Professor Nimnul."

"Well with Nimnul, haven't we learned by now to expect the unexpected?" his sister Mariel asked, climbing out behind him. Mariel was a pale furred, golden-haired mouse that could have passed for a young Gadget Hackwrench. Exactly the opposite, Basil was a handsome chipmunk that was the spitting image of his father.

"Unexpected and unusually bad for our health," came the sour reply from the other side of the plane.

"Oh come off it, Sprocket," Mariel teased her other brother. "You know you enjoy these little raids as much as we do."

"Too roight," Monterey Jack rumbled. "You're a rough an' tumble little dodger, just like your 'ol Uncle Monty, you are."

"A fact that I've tried to train him out of," Gadget said from the cockpit as she jumped down. Time had been very kind to the Rangers' head technician. At forty-two, she still cut an impressive figure, as shapely and beautiful as ever. The only evidence of her age was a slight limp, the result of an on-case accident years earlier.

"Aw, Mom," Sprocket complained, "I'm not that bad. Besides, I'll bet I'm the only bruiser around who can spend an hour breaking bones on the bad side of town, and come home and build a new Rangerplane."

Gadget ruffled the teenager's hair affectionately.

"Well, you do have those endearing qualities."

"Shhh! Quiet everyone," Chip said, looking down through a skylight. "Nimnul's hard at work on something, I can tell. What was that you said you'd picked up, Gadget?"
"Temporal incursion waves," she replied softly. "If Nimnul's up to what I think he is, then we're in major trouble."

"Trouble or not, if he's creating something to threaten society with again, then it's our job to stop him now, before it goes too far. Come on."
Chip unclipped a small device from his belt, and clicked it on. A finely tuned laser beam shot from the end, and he ran it around in a circle, making a Ranger-sized opening in the glass.

"Gotta love technology," he said with a grin, hooking a trusty grapple onto the edge of the hole.

One by one, the Rescue Rangers of two generations dropped through the opening and down the line, landing softly inside the mad professor's laboratory. Chip took a quick look around, and started to give instructions.

"All right, gang, here's the plan. We've got to sneak down to the main lab before we're going to see anything, we already know that much from the past. Be careful, boobytraps could be anywhere!"

"Like that laser tripwire next to your foot?" Basil asked casually.

Chip jumped, and looked down.

"Thanks, son. Your old man's getting a little rusty, it looks like."

"Cheese it, everybody! It's Nimnul!" Mariel whispered.

The evil genius walked silently by, seemingly absorbed in some calculations he was preparing on a notepad. In a single line, the Rangers followed him down a darkened stairwell, staying well behind him to stay out of sight. They gazed around themselves in wonder at the conduits, wiring and controls that seemed to protrude from every available inch of wall space.

"He's certainly prepared for every contingency, isn't he?" Gadget said quietly.

Nimnul continued walking, until he reached a large, open area, which the Rangers realized must be underground. They followed as stealthily as possible, until he stopped, and flipped a switch on a large console.

The entire auditorium-like room was flooded with bright light, causing the group of heroes to blink in surprise. Nimnul cackled insanely.

"I know you're here, vermin! You might as well come out and face me now!"

"How'd he know we were coming?" Chip wondered, grinding his teeth in frustration. Nimnul turned toward the sound of the tiny voice.

"Simple, my friend. My scanners have been calibrated to pick up your little planes for months now."
The leader of the Rangers snapped upright.

"You can understand us?" he called.

"Of course I can! After our incident with the modemizer, I never lost that ability! I've poked around every place where animals gather, listened in on their conversations, even perused some of your tiny publications, looking for any tidbit of information…on the Rescue Rangers."

Hearing Nimnul speak the name of their organization was chilling, to say the least.

"'E knows everything, mates," Monty said.

"Thank you for that, Monterey Jack," Nimnul replied. "Oh yes, I know every one of you by name. The Maplewood family, strong leaders and mechanical geniuses. Monterey Jack, the cheese addict and mouse strongman. And even goofy Dale, daydreaming Tammy, and lab-rodent Sparky, all of whom I assume are back at your headquarters. I've learned quite a bit with this talent I gained all those years ago."

Gadget spoke loudly to make her voice heard in the enormous space.

"So you've researched us down to a science. All right, Professor. What do you intend to do with your information?"
"It's very simple, my dear," Nimnul responded gleefully. "I intend to eliminate you."

A collective gulp went through the Rangers' ranks.

"And just how do you intend to do that?" Chip asked.

"Once again, very simple. With this device, that I have spent the past fifteen years of my career perfecting!"

The mad scientist whipped a sheet off of his latest creation. A small, sinister looking vehicle sat before them, lights blinking as if ready for operation. Nimnul climbed aboard, adjusting controls and setting coordinates.

"You see, once I travel to a point where I met with you before, I can work with my counterpart there to destroy you, therefore removing these past decades of humiliation and defeat. Victory will be mine!"

"You're insane, Nimnul!" Mariel shouted.

"So they say, little miss," he replied with a sneer, "so they say. Goodbye, Rescue Rodents! Forever!"

As the device engaged, it lifted from the floor, creating a downdraft that felt like a tornado. The Rangers had to give all that they had, just to stay on their feet. Chip clung to Gadget for dear life.

"Is there any way to stop him!" he yelled above the wind.

Gadget shook her head tearfully.
"I'm out of ideas, Chip! The only hope we'd have is the experimental device Sprocket and I installed in the Rangerwing, but it hasn't been tested!"

With a grinding sound and a bright electric flash, Nimnul's vehicle vanished into thin air. Everyone glanced around them, unsure of what to expect.

"What happened?" Basil asked.

"I don't know," Mariel said, more than a bit frightened. "The only thing I can think of is—look out!"

"Mariel? What is it?" Chip called.

"Look!"

In the center of the room, a cloud of bright blue energy was coalescing. Tendrils snaked out of it's core, seeming to seek the Rangers out.

"Run for it, mates!" Monty bellowed. He grabbed Mariel, who was seemingly transfixed at the sight, by the collar, and took off at a gallop. Chip and Gadget were directly behind, with Basil and Sprocket bringing up the rear. The blue energy streaked across the room, swirling at their heels. Basil screamed as one of the tentacles of light wrapped around him, and he began to literally fade transparent.

"Basil!" Gadget yelled, turning to go back. Chip caught her by the arm, forcing her to continue running. Another beam struck Mariel at the small of her back, seeming to bore through her and continue into Monterey. Both began to wink out, literally disappearing from existence in seconds as they ran. Mariel's cries tore at her mother's heart, and Gadget struggled against Chip's grip.
"Let me go! Our children are dying, Chip!"

"If I'm right, they were never born," he said grimly. He had no more than gotten the words out of his mouth, before the energy sought him out too. Gadget felt his hand slacken against her arm as her husband dissolved in a pool of blue light. She screamed in pure, instinctual rage, rounding to face the danger. She held her hands up, as if to ward off the roiling energy, and it grazed her chest, just as Sprocket made a flying leap to catch her in his arms. He ran as fast as he was able, his heart hammering in his chest, leaving the advancing energy pool behind.

On the roof, he knelt beside the Rangerwing, trying desperately to catch his breath. He set Gadget down gently, and began his preflight check.

"Sprocket."
"In a minute, Mom, we've got to get out of here!"
"Sprocket, look at me."

He turned his head, already knowing what he would see. Tears began to drip down his face, as he realized that as he looked at Gadget, he could see through her. She smiled, reaching up to wipe away one of his tears.

"Don't cry, baby," she said, softly. "I've given you everything you need. You're our only hope now. You're the only one it hasn't gotten yet."

"But what is it, Mom!"
"A temporal incursion wave," she said, her voice beginning to fade. "If it touches you, it incorporates you into it's changing timeline. It nearly has me already."

"No!" he said, desperately. "I won't let it happen!"
"You can't stop it here. Listen to me, son," she said, her words at a whisper. "Use our invention. Track Nimnul. Wherever…whenever he has gone to, you have to stop him. You'll be protected in the past."

As the energy cloud burst through the roof doors, he struggled with the decision.

"I can't lose you, Momma," he sniffled, barely in control.

"You already have. But you can save me if you go now. You have to save yourself, for our sake. Don't let the Rescue Rangers die, son! Don't let our legacy die…"

The words faded like a summer breeze as Gadget Maplewood faded from time. Staring at the advancing storm front of energy, Sprocket fired the Rangerwing's engines, and rocketed away from the rooftop. As he flew, he was already working the onboard computer controls for his mother's latest invention: the Rangerwing's temporal barrier sequencer.

"Multiply the quantum integer by the temporal regression coefficient," he rambled, performing lightning calculations out loud. Behind him, the storm front loomed closer. Gritting his teeth, he looked back, and then intensified his effort.

"Engage overdrive accelerator, divide the regression factor by the square root of twenty-seven…come on Hackwrench, think!"

Rambling off the last set of numbers necessary, he locked the plane's tiny computer into a search cycle for Nimnul's chronoton trail.

"Have to hit the overdrive at just the right second, or this won't work," he muttered. The temporal wave was lapping close to the 'Wing's tail fin, coming closer every second, closer…

"There!" Sprocket shouted, as the instruments aligned. He hit the controls, and held on for dear life as the Rangerwing elongated into a blazing arc…and disappeared.

Seconds later, although it seemed an eternity, he opened his eyes. The plane was traveling down a blazing corridor of swirling colors, at speeds so great that the edges of the wings seemed to blur and then refocus, only to blur again.

"The laws of physics must be different here," he said in awe, gazing at the sight. He was snapped out of his reverie by the blaring of alarms from the 'Wing's dashboard. Even though Gadget had made many improvements to it's design over the past twenty years, the stress had caused the undeniable. The overdrive was causing the engines to overheat, just as it had the first time his Aunt Tammy had used it. The craft was shaking violently, causing Sprocket to grit his teeth against the inertia.

"Come on baby, hold together…just a little longer…come on…"

A pinprick of bright blue light glowed in the distance. He glanced over at the starboard wing, frightened at how red the engine cowling was glowing. The dot of light grew into a swirling disc, and he fought the wheel to keep the Rangerwing on course for it.

"Just a few more seconds…"

The sensation of free-fall overcame him as his craft dove through the light, and the starboard engine exploded.