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CHANGING THE STARS
By Etcetera Kit
Chapter Four: Out of Time IV
He didn't like it—not one bit. He and Tori had gone to some sort of cybercafé to pick up Ethan. Internet cafes were not unheard of in his time, but he had been momentarily startled at the archaic computers and equipment. But he had kept that thought to himself, screwed a false smile on his face and explained to Ethan what he knew. And that wasn't much. He had met Ethan briefly when Broodwing transported the Dino Rangers to 2025. Not that the Blue Dino Ranger believed him. Then again, who would believe this mess?
Sky let out a long breath, trailing behind Ethan and Tori as they walked towards one of the dorms at Reefside Tech. He knew of this university—had considered applying. That was before he joined SPD, before he realized that SPD would become his life. When he had been younger, he had actually wanted to be a lawyer, a public defendant. He inwardly snorted. That dream had been right up there with president, an astronaut and, for whatever strange reason, a truck driver.
"We can't talk about this in the lounge," Tori was saying as he pulled himself from his reverie. "Someone will overhear."
"Someone could overhear right now," Ethan responded.
"I'd just feel better in someone's room."
"What?" It wasn't the brightest question and his own voice sounded scratchy and unused to his ears. Tori and Ethan stopped just outside the dorm and turned towards him.
"Girls aren't allowed upstairs in the boys' dorms," Tori explained.
"And visa versa," Ethan added.
"That's ridiculous," Sky said without thinking. Even at SPD, cadets of the opposite gender were allowed in one another's living quarters. There was the rule about being in someone's quarters by invitation, but that meant one had to knock. He adjusted his backpack on his shoulders, trying to relieve the strap that had been digging uncomfortably into his skin.
"Tell me about it," Tori said.
"Can't you just sneak up there?" Cadets ignored some of the lesser rules at SPD all the time. Sky knew for a fact that there was a rule that said cadets of one gender could not spend the night in quarters belonging to someone of the opposite gender. The C-Squad cadets, especially, seemed to think that particular rule didn't apply to them—and he hadn't had the energy to get Jack to do something about it.
"We could…" Tori replied slowly.
Ethan checked his watch. "The RAs don't do rounds for another hour. If we went up the stairs and not the elevator, chances are slim we'd run into someone."
"Besides, the other girls on my floor won't care," Tori added. "Let's go."
Thus began his unease. He didn't really mind breaking a ridiculous rule, but he wasn't sure of the consequences if they were caught. The truth was, he didn't know much of anything about college campuses, mostly because he had chosen SPD. After a certain number of years at SPD, one had the equivalent of an associate's degree. Besides, his father had worked at SPD until his death. Why couldn't he?
With a painful jolt, he realized that he might not be able to get back to SPD. He might be stuck in this time… he had failed to factor in a method to get back. The time police could show up at any moment and take him into custody. He was twenty years in the past, where he had nothing and no one. Drawing in a deep breath, he tried to steady himself as the three of them trooped up a back staircase. Instead of panicking about his situation, he concentrated on what was—or, getting up to Tori's dorm room without a RA catching them. He threw force fields over the doors they passed—temporary ones that would fade with enough distance from him. Doing that made him feel better, soothing his shot nerves.
"What are you doing?"
Sky glanced up at Ethan. He was leaning over a banister, staring at the most recent force field. "Um…" he trailed off, amazed at his inability to articulate anything.
Ethan jumped down the steps onto the landing and poked at the glowing blue shield. It rippled with his touch, but held. He pulled his finger back, shaking the digit as if he had jammed it on the force field. "That is a force field," Ethan said unnecessarily.
"Yeah…"
"You can create force fields?" Tori asked.
"Yeah," he repeated, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck.
"From your ranger powers?"
"Genetic mutation," he corrected. For a moment, he thought about launching into the story of the experiments at SPD, how both his parents had been involved and how those experiments altered their DNA, resulting in genetic mutations in him, but he decided against it. There was time for that story—he hoped. Unless they were already too late, like he had felt since that second dream. It was 2005… the experiments had happened in 2001… perhaps there was some sort of news coverage or… something.
"I don't have the civilian powers from my ranger powers anymore," Ethan mock-groused. "Of course, the gems lost their power and then—"
Ethan was off on a tangent that included his ranger team, comic books and where he thought the dino-gems drew their power from. Sky stared at him, until, abruptly, Ethan ended the diatribe and continued up the stairs. Tori shook her head, a bemused smile on her face. "You get used to that," she said in an undertone.
"Did you have… civilian powers?" he asked.
She shook her head. "I had—have—elemental powers from being a ninja."
"Oh."
He trailed behind them, shielding the doors as he went. If Tori was a ninja already, then perhaps she knew who they needed to get to? Dreams, alone, were not substantial enough for anyone associated with rangers on Earth, in this time.
"And then, this bear came into the clearing, but it looked weird, like, it had brown fur, but there was also some blue there and—"
"Oh my God, Ethan, get to the point!" Tori groaned.
Ethan stopped and narrowed his eyes at her. Since when could she claim that she didn't belabor points, when he knew that was exactly what their writing professor took points off for on their last analysis? Oh well, he had already told Tori the basics of the dream and she was on IM with Cam, relating the major points, while the samurai looked up pertinent information in the Wind Ninja Academy library.
Tori's room was by far the nicest dorm room—between hers and his—to have any sort of unofficial council. The place was crowded, but cozy and homey, unlike the disaster area that he liked to call a dorm room. Doubles-as-singles came on a first come, first served basis. He had been lucky enough to get one based on an all-nighter he pulled before registering. Tori's roommate had moved out within the first few days of school and residential life hadn't bothered to give her a new roommate.
Sky was sitting in one of her folding chairs, looking a little shell-shocked. He had already related his dreams and the epic adventure of how he ended up in their time. Tori was at her desk, fingers flying over her keyboard. Ethan was hovering over her, "supervising" the computer work.
"Bear, disembodied female voice, earth, green," Ethan snapped at her, irritated that he couldn't revel in the details of his dream. "And I saw Sky at the end." Sky snorted at the mention of himself. "What? I did!"
The Wind Ranger quickly typed the abbreviated version of their dreams and sent it to Cam. Replies began to come quickly. Ethan could almost imagine the samurai looking things up on a database (because Cam wouldn't be going through scrolls—he'd have everything catalogued on a computer).
"He says the ninjas can trace the color changes back a thousand years, when the last of the fire ninjas went rouge," Tori announced. "He also says that the ninjas used to study the Faerie, but no one was trained to sing to the moonlight."
"Moonlight?"
"The fifth element of the Faerie," Tori added quickly. "We were always told they were folktales or legends…" She trailed off as more messages appeared on the screen. "Cam also says that one of the Faerie legends talks about all five elements coming together to heal the earth, when the balance goes off." She paused. "He'll pull a copy and we can read the thing in its entirety when we get there tomorrow."
"Since when are we going to go there tomorrow?" Ethan asked, wanting to know when this decision had been made. "Did she say we were going somewhere?" he appealed to Sky, wanting the other male in the room to side with him.
"Where are we going?" Sky asked mildly, seemingly disregarding both Tori's statement and Ethan's questions, but artfully hinting at both of them. He was good.
"Wind Ninja Academy," Tori answered, her eyes remaining fixed on the screen as she sifted through Cam's thoughts and findings.
"That's where they train all the ninjas, huh?" Sky responded, nodding slightly. "Sometimes the instructors come out to the SPD Academy and do demos, hold workshops and things like that."
"Really?" Ethan asked, mildly impressed.
"We don't do demos," Tori said absently.
"Twenty years from now, you do." Sky paused for a moment, looking thoughtful. "You might have come out to do the demo, even." He shrugged. "I don't remember. It was in my first year there."
"Cam says we should try to have a collective dream tonight."
That effectively silenced that subject. Ethan stared at Tori. "Collective dream? I thought those didn't exist in real life."
"Ninja," she replied, tapping her temple.
"Oh yeah."
"I'm not a ninja," Sky said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the universe.
"You are—you just haven't been trained." There was no getting around Tori this evening. "Cam thinks we should all sleep in the same room, since none of us have attempted a collective dream before."
"Wait a second—you've never done this before?" Ethan squawked.
"How hard can it be?" Tori retorted.
"Calm down!" Sky interrupted both of them and the forthcoming argument. Ethan let out a long breath. He and Tori could argue about anything. "If this Cam person thinks a collective dream will help, then let's do it. I don't know about you guys, but the longer we wait, the less time we'll have to figure out what's going on!"
"Do you guys feel like it's already too late?" Ethan asked tentatively. That had been the part of his waking that frightened him. The dreams, in and of themselves, hadn't bothered him. But, upon waking, the feeling that it was already too late… that made every instinct he had learned as a ranger kick into overdrive.
"Yes," Tori whispered, then shook her head. "I think the dreams will make more sense if we're all there together."
"We do that tonight," Sky said, his tone brooking no argument.
Tori straightened the blankets Sky had haphazardly pulled over himself. Ethan's room was in no condition for anyone to spend the night there and, if they kept quiet, her RA wouldn't come in asking questions. She had both her beds made-up and, out of courtesy for the person who had been sleeping on park benches or the beach, she and Ethan had decided to let Sky use the spare bed. He had passed out pretty much after laying down, so it was up to her and Ethan to decipher Cam's instructions for the collective dream.
Ethan tossed her a pillow. She caught it easily and attempted to get it under Sky's head. All her pillows were on the bed she normally used, so Sky had fallen asleep without one. Sky stirred, shifting just enough to accept the pillow.
"Cam said we should all be close, preferably touching," Tori said softly, although she doubted that an earthquake could wake Sky up right now.
Ethan nodded, a serious look on his face. This had gone straight past most of his levels of desensitization. "Can you sleep in a chair?" he asked.
A half-smile floated over her face at the implications. She had two folding chairs that they could drag next to Sky. Then, they would be close enough to him for the dream, could even touch him if that would work better. "Wouldn't be the first time," she commented.
"Fall asleep over a Shakespeare paper?"
"Now that you mention it…" She trailed off and they exchanged a grin.
"I know that feeling."
"Ethan, you've never fallen asleep over homework—just video games. You always have your papers done weeks in advance."
The former Dino Ranger held up his hands in surrender as he used his shins to push the chairs near the other bed. "I like to get stuff done, unlike you, Miss Procrastinator."
"Shut-up," Tori retorted, positioning her chair near Sky's shoulder. "This isn't going to help with getting this collective dream thing to happen."
"What do we need to do?" Ethan asked, settling himself in his chair, to the point that he could grab Sky's ankle if need be.
"Cam made it sound like I needed to be in a ninja meditative trance." She paused and met Ethan's gaze. "And I can bring you into the trance, and, since Sky's already asleep, we can both bring him into the landscape once we're there."
Ethan nodded. "Let's do this."
Tori glanced around her room, making sure that her door was locked and the curtains shut. The only light came from her desk lamp, but she figured they needed some light if they had to leave the dream quickly. She sat sideways in the chair, one hand on Sky's wrist. Her free hand she entwined with Ethan's, watching as he rested his other hand on Sky's calf. Ethan gave her one last glance before he closed his eyes, obviously ready for this.
The Wind Ranger took a deep breath and closed her own eyes, concentrating only on her breathing. The steady in and out rhythm… Her heart rate began to stabilize and become slower, steady, steeling her body for the trance. She had done this before… Once her body was calm, she concentrated on feeling Ethan and Sky near her, since she needed them in the dream as well. Sky's breathing and heart rate was already steady and rhythmic. Slowly, Ethan's calmed as she sent out her energy towards him. Since Ethan was awake, she also felt the barriers around his mind relax, so she could bring him to the dream.
She thought of the place that anchored her trances—the small lake and waterfall that concealed the portal to the Wind Ninja Academy. During her ranger days, she had gone there to think, since none of the others were quite as drawn to the water as she. Sometimes Cam joined her or she joined him, but he kept to Ninja Ops. Like a mist, the waterfall began to materialize. Holding tightly to Ethan and Sky, she made the final mental leap and opened her eyes…
The sun was bright, but still in that early morning stage where the globe seemed brighter than in actuality. Tori blinked, taking in the comforting sound of rushing water and the familiar sights. Turning, she saw Ethan coming out of the woods, wearing a student wind uniform—with green trim. She looked down, taking in her own uniform. Blue and green—water and earth… just like Sensei had said.
"Where's Sky?" Ethan asked.
Tori looked around. Sky was not forthcoming. Ethan had been easy to bring into the trance, since his mind had been open. Sky had been asleep, but she had been sure she brought him here as well. "He's got to be here. Where did he say his dreams took place?"
"In a bedroom."
"That could be one of the guest rooms in the building."
She motioned for Ethan to follow her as she stepped out onto the water. He followed suit. "Weird," he muttered, as he didn't sink, but followed her to the portal. Raising one hand, she accessed the portal and they stepped through, coming out on a bluff that overlooked the grounds of the school.
"You're a ninja here," Tori explained. "You can do what a ninja can do."
"Weird," Ethan said again.
The grounds of the school were devoid of life. Ordinarily, students would be practicing their katas and exercises on the field, while others gathered in small groups under trees. Cam's samurai students could always been seen with a scroll or two, sometimes hauling around building supplies in their most recent project of rebuilding Ninja Ops. For whatever reason, the samurai students wanted the teachers to have a lounge away from the students.
The building was as it should have been. The colored flags around the practice field fluttered in the light breeze. She and Ethan crossed the grounds in silence. Ethan had never been here before and was drinking in the sights. Tori smiled to herself. This would be a lot more impressive when they came tomorrow—and the students and teachers would be around. They crossed the practice field and she pulled open the door to the school building.
"Tori! Ethan!"
She glanced up to see Sky coming down the stairs. Her stomach unclenched, when she hadn't known it was tied in knots. So she had brought Sky. All three of them were here. Sky was wearing a red wind student uniform. They were here—fire, water and earth… She thought of their animal spirits, their protectors, the animals had said… wolf, bear and turtle… In a sense, it seemed appropriate.
"You've got to see this," Sky said, not giving them a chance to exchange greetings.
Without a word, they followed Sky upstairs and into one of the many guest bedrooms. Tori had never stayed in these rooms, but had to show people here all the time. Each was large and spacious with a private bathroom. She didn't question how Sensei had enough money to build and maintain all of this.
Sky motioned them through an open door. On the bed lay a woman Tori had never seen before in her life. She was wearing a white dress and appeared to be sleeping serenely.
"Who is that?" Tori asked, as they stepped towards the bed.
"I don't know," Sky said with a shrug.
"Princess Shayla."
She and Sky turned to face Ethan. "Doctor O kept archives of the previous ranger teams," he explained. "She was the princess of ancient Animaria and gave the Wild Force Rangers their powers and zords and… stuff."
"Animaria's a myth," Sky said. "We learned about it in a mythology class I took."
"The ninjas used to say that the Faerie was a myth," Tori responded. "But the turtle in my dream told me that two more were coming—one singing to the moonlight and that is the fifth element of the Faerie."
"Still, what does Princess Shayla have to do with this?" Ethan interrupted.
"Elements."
Now, Tori found herself and Ethan gaping at Sky. He had crossed his arms over his chest and was looking a little like he didn't want to be involved with the current discussion. He motioned towards the sleeping princess helplessly.
"Elements—if Animaria and Princess Shayla aren't myths…" Sky trailed off, shaking his head. "The warriors of Animaria were guardians of the Earth. Their zords and animal spirits were also guardians of the Earth. In the time of Animaria, people believed the earth of be made of the four elements—earth, air, water and fire. We're being called by elements and animal spirits." He shrugged. "It makes sense."
"It does," Ethan said slowly. "I can get in touch with Doctor O and find out what I need to know about Animaria and Princess Shayla."
"Sensei will know about the Faerie," Tori added.
"And, hopefully, this will start to come together." Sky sounded unsure.
Tori met his gaze. "I hope so."
To be continued...
