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Disclaimer: Power Rangers and all its related logos are property of Disney Entertainment and/or Saban Entertainment. I am using them without permission, but I do not expect to make a profit. If I do, I promise to split it 50/50 with the Disney people. I swear, I do. All original characters are mine, and I do have permission to use them.

A/N: This chapter is heavily based on "Future Imperfect". While there is a summary of what happened, you may want to check the fic itself for reference.

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Rocky and Jason - Angel Grove, California 2008 AD

Jason and Rocky stood across from one another, each with a monotone expression on their faces, neither of them flinching. It was another hot night in Angel Grove, but they weren't letting the heat get to them. Both of them were covered in sweat, and were probably more exhausted than they were willing to let on, but judging by the looks on their faces, both of them were more than ready.

"Are either of them going to do anything?" Emily asked as she walked into the backyard, sitting down at the table across from Aisha.

Aisha leaned back in her chair, putting her arms behind her head. "They won't admit it, but they're resting," she paused. 'They've been going at it for almost an hour now, but this gives them time to rest," she pointed out.

Her statement was enough to break Rocky's concentration. "Hey, I'm not…"

He was cut short as Jason charged in with a sabat kick, taking him down. Rocky tried for a sweep, but Jason did a back flip, avoiding it. Rocky made it back to his feet, rushing in with a series of punches and chops, but Jason was able to counter each one. Rocky did a back flip, landing on the table the girls were sitting at. Jason grabbed Rocky's ankles; trying to trip him, but Rocky did another flip, kicking Jason across the chin as he flipped, this time landing on the opposite end of the table. Emily and Aisha did their best to move out the way, but as Rocky rushed around to make another run at Jason, Jason caught him with a roundhouse. It was enough to knock him backwards and to the ground. Jason swung downwards to finish him off, but Rocky caught his fist, got his footing and flipped Jason over. Now, both of them were on the ground, but neither was moving.

"You've gotten better," Jason admitting, breathing heavily. "But you still get distracted too easily."

"You're not so bad yourself, for an old guy."

"Old? I'm only…"

"Admit it Jase, you're not as young as you use to be," Emily chimed in.

Though he would never admit it out loud, Jason knew she was right. It had been years since he was an active ranger, and while he did his best to stay in shape, it was nothing like fighting the puddies on a daily basis. Even after helping Andros and the others on the moon a few years back, he was sore for days. It bothered him that he couldn't fight on the level that he use to, not that he had to at this point. His life was different, things had changed. He was a married man now; happily married for years. He and Rocky had been working at the Red Dragon dojo together, working with children in the area and teaching them martial arts, but it didn't compare to his battles with the Machine Empire, or even against Rita.

Though he missed that part of his life, he was glad it was over. No more putting his life on the line, no more trying to keep his secret from Emily. It was the reason the two of them couldn't be together while he was red ranger, and after he went to the peace conference, he was sure he'd lost her forever. Once the conference was over and he returned to Angel Grove, he was glad to see there was no one serious in her life, but again, being the gold ranger got in the way of the two of them being together. Once it was over, and he knew that his life as a ranger was behind him, he was able to tell her the truth.

After he told her, things between them couldn't have been better. He was sure that, in a way, she always knew. All the times he had to go rushing off without an explanation, all the times he backed out of dates at the last minute, it should have been obvious. 'The way I wore the same colors all the time, I'm surprised no one ever figured it out,' he chuckled inwardly.

He had to admit it though, time was slowly catching up with him. In his prime, he was arguably one of the greatest rangers of all times, but on the same hand, that was over fifteen years ago. Part of him envied Tommy for continuing the ranger legacy. He was a year younger than Tommy, so it bothered him to see that Tommy was still on top of his game, but in retrospect, he wouldn't trade the life he had for anything in the world.

"I may be old, but I can still kick Rocky's ass," he joked.

"Hey!" Rocky protested as the two of them finally got up, dusting themselves off.

They sat across from one another at the table, pouring a glass of lemonade Aisha brought out earlier. Glancing down at his watch, Rocky was amazed that the two of them had gone at it for so long. But, in their case, it wasn't a record. The two of them had squared off for hours at a time, silently competing with one another. His entire ranger career, he lived in the shadow of the great Jason Lee Scott. First, when he replaced him as red ranger, there were certain expectations that went with the morpher. Jason had been the leader of the group, responsible for leading them into battle countless times. When Jason passed his morpher to him, he knew they were big shoes to fill, but he did his best. When they switched to the Zeo powers, though he wasn't technically a demotion, he felt as though it was. Going from red to blue bothered him, but knew that Tommy was better suited to lead the team as red ranger. Finally, they had new powers, and he was out of the shadow of Jason once and for all.

Then Jason returned as the gold ranger.

Suddenly, Rocky wasn't even second in command of the group, or third. He was once again looking for ways to outdo Jason, trying to shake the feeling that he was simply a replacement. Though they settled it between the two of them, and he no longer felt as though he was in the shadow of Jason, part of him still felt the need to compete with Jason once in a while. When Jason went off on his last mission to the moon to help the other red ranger, he could have easily gone and proven himself to the others, but as he got older, Rocky began to understand what was more important. He put his ego aside, allowing Jason, who had more experience in martial arts than he did, to take the active red morpher and assist the others. He wish he'd gone; if for nothing else, to interact with the other rangers. After he "retired", he did his best to keep in touch with the others. But, as time went on, most of them grew apart.

Once Jason got married, he moved back to Angel Grove, and the two of them went to work at the Red Dragon Dojo together. He was still quite close with Aisha, and from time to time Adam and Tanya stopped by to see them. Once a year, like clockwork, all of them got together to visit Trini's gravesite and pay their respects to their fallen friend, but other than that, he had no contact with the others.

"I'll never understand men and their need to one-up each other, you never see Aisha and I do that," Emily brought up.

"I know, that's because we both know I'm prettier," she mentioned.

Emily rolled her eyes. "Oh really?"

"Oh yeah. I mean, just look…" she was interrupted when they heard a crash coming from inside the house.

"What was that?"

Jason and Rocky were immediately on their feet. "You girls stay here, we'll check this out," Jason said.

The two of them made their way towards the door, but before they could walk inside, they were attacked by a group of robots. They hit a double roundhouse kick on one of them, but three more attacked them. Aisha was on her feet next, lunging at one of the robots with a heel kick, knocking it away from Jason. Jason was able to break free, picking up a chair and breaking it over the robot's head.

"Emily get out of here now!" he screamed.

Following instructions, Emily tried to run inside, but was caught by two more robots.

"Jase, help!" she screamed.

One of the robots swung a blade at him, but Jason sidestepped, hit an elbow from behind and managed to snatch the blade out of his hand. Before the robot could turn around to make a move, Jason sliced through the robot. With a smile on his face, Jason did a back flip, giving another robot a sweep with the blade in hand, slicing off its feet, sending it to the ground.

Aisha landed a sabat kick to one of the robots, but two more grabbed her, restraining her. Jason and Rocky tried to make their way over to the girls, but they disappeared into a stream of gold light.

"Damn it!" Jason snapped.

"What the hell is going on? What were those?"

"I don't know, but they took my wife. I intend to find out what they were, who sent them, and get Emily back," Jason said with determination in his voice.

Just then, a beam of light shot out of the chest of some of the fallen robots. A holographic image appeared to them, but whoever it was wore a hood and cloak, making it impossible to see who it was. "Rangers, I trust that my Quantrons were no match for the mighty red rangers, but I'm sure my point was made. I have your loved ones, and if you want to see them alive again, you'll come to KO-35 to get them. You have twelve hours," the image said, and then disappeared.

"Oh God, Emily," he sighed.

"We're going to need some help," he paused. "I'll call Tommy," Rocky said, running into the house.

He quickly picked up the phone, dialing the number and waited for a response.

"Hello?"

"Thank God you're here. Tommy, we need your help."

"Rocky, what is it man? What's wrong?"

"Its Emily, something happened. Someone… took her."

"Took her? Where?"

"I don't know, there was an attack, a big one. She's gone man, she's gone!"

"Did you call the police?"

"They're not going to be able to help me Tommy, I need your help."

"My help? What can I do?"

"They left a message. It says that if I ever want to see Aisha again, I have to go to K0-35 and get her. Tommy, if we don't go, they're going to kill her!"

"I can get in touch with Andros for you, he'll be able to…"

"That's fine, but I need you to come with me. Jason's going too, they kidnapped Emily. We have to ranger up and…"

"No, I can't. I won't. I promised Kat I wouldn't…"

"I know you did, but if we don't do something, it could cost Aisha and Emily their lives."

"Rocky, I…"

In the distance, he heard a crash. "Tommy? You there? Is everything okay?" he asked, but there was no response.

Realizing that there was probably an attack at Tommy's house as well, Rocky dropped the phone and ran back into the backyard. "Someone is attacking Tommy, too. We have to go help him!" Rocky said.

"Do you still have your morpher?"

"Yeah."

"Good, we're going to need it," Jason said with a void expression on his face.

Wes and Carter - Marnier Bay, California 2008 AD

Wesley Collins led a complicated life. He had been raised by his father for as long as he could remember, and his father always hoped that he would follow in his footsteps and eventually assume control of their company, Bio-Lab. Wesley had other things in mind. In all honesty, he didn't have a plan, no long-term agenda for what he wanted to do with his life, but he knew that he wanted to make his own destiny, not follow the path laid out by his father.

When he met Jen and the other rangers, his life changed forever. Suddenly, he had a purpose, his life had meaning. They were fighting to save the future, to protect not only the city, but the world. It was a lot of responsibility, but it was his responsibility. He'd found his destiny, to be the red ranger. Though his father didn't approve at first, he eventually came to realize that it was what was best for Wes. After the mutants were captured and Jen returned to her own time period, Wes joined the Silver Guardians. He and Eric, his partner and long time best friend, led the group. He knew Eric was more suited for the job; after all, Eric had a military background, and was an excellent leader for the team. Things were finally getting back to normal for him, as normal as things could get all things considered, but things got even more complicated for him.

He discovered that his mother hadn't passed away when he was child; she was in fact a member of Time Force. Her mission was to protect his father from a mutant attack, but she fell in love with him and wanted to stay. Knowing that Time Force would eventually force her to return to her own time, she faked her own death to ensure she could stay in the past and watch her son grow up. She remained out of sight for years, silently watching Wes through the years. It wasn't until Alan Collins was presumed dead that she came out of hiding, and Wes discovered the truth. There was another mutant attack, again targeted at key members of Bio-Lab and the Silver Guardians. The idea was to eliminate these targets and prevent the eventual inception of Time Force itself, but Wes and the others were able to stop the mutant. Wes' mother and father were reunited for the first time in almost 20 years, but for the sake of the history logs, who already presumed his mother as dead and his father murdered, the two of them were told to disappear and stay out of histories way. With his father gone, Wes assumed control of Bio-Lab, and was charged with the responsibility of raising his sister, Leslie Collins.

All his life had been an only child, but when his mother reappeared, revealing to him she was pregnant when she left him as a child, his life was turned upside down. Here was a young lady who, in his opinion, was the spitting image of their mother. There was something in the eyes that was familiar to him as well. If attempting to run a multi-million dollar company wasn't enough, he had to raise a sister he didn't know he had, and still try to find time to fulfill his duties as a ranger. Though he wasn't called on much to be a ranger anymore, it still came up from time to time. Eric would need help, and he would go charging out of board meetings to help his partner.

It had been four years now since he took control of the company, and things were looking for Bio-Lab. They'd successfully merged with Operation: Lightspeed, and were in talks with Space Patrol Delta about the possibility of combining their resources. He was going to be needed to oversee that all the negotiations with their respective new partners went smoothly, which meant that he wouldn't be able to fulfill his obligations as a ranger anymore. Leslie had attempted to convince him several times to allow her to take over as red ranger, but he was firmly against the idea. Though she had been the pink ranger for a short time, he wanted to keep his sister out of harm's way. After all, she'd been off at college for a few years now, she had a life of her own. The last thing he wanted to do was put her life in danger, or force her into a life that he knew would be difficult to get out of.

During his run as red ranger, he'd gone on dozens of missions even after Ransik and the other mutants were captured. He knew there was no escaping your life as ranger, and he didn't want that for her. While he knew it was time for him to do other things with his life, he knew there would eventually be a need for a red ranger, but there was a problem; the morpher was designed to work only for his genetic code, meaning that unless he used it, the chrono morpher was nothing more than an oversized wrist watch. Hoping for a solution, he went to the only person he knew of with experience with morphers.

"So what can you tell me?" he asked.

Mrs. Fairweather-Rawlings was considered the best in her field. She'd successfully created the lightspeed morphers from scratch, build zords from the ground up and was highly regarded as being "years ahead of her time". He knew that if anyone could help him with his problem, it was her.

She walked over to him, showing him a blueprint of the morpher. "I've been able to isolate the security protocols in the morpher that prevent anyone without a specific DNA code to use it, but I haven't found a way to deactivate it yet without deactivating the morpher itself," she said.

"I don't want the power to be destroyed, I just…"

"That's a common misconception. Like any other energy in the universe, cannot be destroyed, it can only be transferred. If the morpher was somehow damaged, the power would still be there, but you wouldn't be able to harness it. Think of the morpher as a light switch. The switch itself has no power, but you need it to control the power," she explained.

"Is there a way to let someone else use the switch?" he asked, using her metaphor.

"This is years beyond anything I ever did with the lightspeed morphers, but I have a friend at SPD who might be able to help. I know they're currently working on establishing a link to the morphing grid as well, so…"

"The morphing what?"

"The morphing grid. It's the source of all ranger energy in the universe. My initial reports on Zordon, the original rangers and the grid itself are in the system if you want to take a look at it. The only morphers in history, as far as I know, to not use the power of the morphing grid were the lightspeed morphers, which is why it cost us billions of dollars to power them. We had to come up with an alternate power source for them. Think of the grid as the electrical outlet for all morphers in the universe. Eventually all morphers plug into it for their power," she said.

"And your friend at SPD has access to the grid?"

"Yes. Dr. Manx has worked directly with Andros and the Aquistian rangers on the morphing grid, attempting to access its power."

"If this grid is so powerful, why hasn't anyone gone after it before?"

"Its not that simple. Again, it's like the light switch. Even if you possessed the power itself, you'd need a switch to turn it on. The grid itself is useless without a morpher, which is why protocols like this have been installed into the morphers, to prevent just anyone from using its power," she told him.

"How soon can you talk to Dr. Manx?"

"I can do this afternoon, if you want. Before I do, do you have a candidate in mind for the morpher? Based on my initial testing, the protocols can't be removed, but we can trick it into resetting, allowing someone else to use it," she said.

"Yes, Lt. Tate, one of the Silver Guardians. He's been with the company since the Silver Guardians were assembled and I think he's the perfect choice for the morpher," he said.

"I'll need him to come in so we can get a sample of his DNA, then try to encode it to the morpher itself. With any luck, we can have it operational by…" she was interrupted as an alarm inside the base went off. She hurried over to the control panel. "There's an attack on the base!"

"But the base is underwater, how…"

"I don't know, but from the looks of it, intruders are coming through several access points. If they aren't stopped…"

Wes picked up his morpher, putting it back on. "They will be."

Just then, the doors slid open and Carter rushed into the room. "Wes, you're still here. We could use your help. Robots are attacking the base," he said.

"Lets do it!"

The two of them rushed out the room and down the hall, but as they passed an access point, the doors flew open, allowing water to flood into the base. The water was enough to knock both of them back and up against a wall as the robots stormed in. Carter made it back to his feet, landing a kick to one of the robots as he tried to make his way over the override controls for the door.

Two robots grabbed Wes, and a third one tried to attack him, but Wes kicked the blade out of the robots hand, and did a back flip, breaking free of the robot's grip. A sweep took down one of them, and Wes picked up the blade, ready to take out the second one.

"Stop!" Carter yelled. "They're robots, if you destroy them, the circuitry will come in contact with the water and electrocute both of us."

Wes nodded, dropping the blade and hitting a windmill kick to the two robots, taking them down. Carter managed to seal the doors, preventing the water from flooding in, but it was already up to their knees.

"What's going on here?" Wes asked.

"I'm not sure. I'll try to contact the others," he reached for his morpher. "Dana, this is Carter, come in," he said.

There was no response.

"What about the others?"

"Dana is the only one who still has her morpher, the other Lightspeed Rangers retired years ago. Dana is here, on the base, so I…" he was interrupted as Carter's morpher began to static. There was some distortion, but someone was trying to say something. "Dana, is that you?"

"I'm afraid Dana can't answer you call at the moment. Is there a message?" a sinister voice responded.

"Who is this? Where is Dana?"

"Dana is with me. If you want to see her again in one piece, come find me!"

"Who is this?" he repeated, but there was no response. "Damn it. This was just a diversion so whoever it is could kidnap Dana."

"Just relax, we'll find her," Wes said. "I'll contact Eric, he'll be able to help us."

next time on Forever Red II: Eric and Cole are called into action, Conner is attacked, and Andros makes a decision that could destroy them all