In a brilliant flash, Buzz reappeared in the center of the Star Command Resistance Residential Area. It had grown since he had last looked at it, which was five years into the resistance, he didn't pay attention to it's growth over the years that passed before being taken away, just the resistance missions. The familiar playground that looked abandoned, the tennis ball court, the basketball court, the board with paper stapled on to it, and forms of transportation lingering near the nearest homes. He turned around then made a slow walk under the night sky heading for the resistance base as his suit glowed in the dark. He paused in his tracks observing fireflies blinking in and off against the darkness around him, something that summoned a smile from him, standing there, enjoying the view. It felt nice to see these insects flying around him. Buzz laughed to himself, fondly, bemused at the insects.
Buzz resumed his travel on humming to himself the familiar theme to Star Command, the official theme, something that he hadn't done so in many years. He halted in his tracks once seeing the glowing yellow windows, clenching the walking stick, ceasing his humming. He remained there, fixated, staring at the entrance way, frightened of what he could discover. That the resistance had been found, that they had lost the fight, that they had given up and abandoned it, leaving him to do a errands run for the sake of marking history regarding a missing Space Ranger. His shoulders raised as he took a step forward then another in determination shoving the fear aside of what could be behind those doors. He swung the door open then took a step in then another, opened another door, and entered the lobby. No one was there. Not even a Space Ranger.
Where was his office again? Ty had it made as it were part of the ever funny joke of Buzz Lightyear being the senior officer and still acting like he weren't, the ex-Space Ranger remembered the laughter from his old friend, how bitter it were from his end seeing him laugh. Buzz walked through the hallway taking twist and turns, going down a series of stairs, observing doors open, empty rooms with only meager furniture, waiting rooms, and a empty cafeteria, a medical wing that he walked on through that showed signs of age and wear and tear. Disused. He looked up searching for the cameras that they had installed years ago-still there. He lowered his head then kept on going with one step at a time as the tapping from his cane echoed through the corridor one step at a time. Buzz could tell that the security cameras were deactivated. Nobody was manning the security room, there wasn't the familiar red lights. He paused in his track, turning toward his left staring on, into Ty's empty office full of cobwebs. He looked on toward the desk where a good ranger had once sat.
"What are you doing, Ty?"
"Paperwork."
"Why are you doing paperwork when there's junior rangers missing?"
"They're not missing, they're playing discover and cover with one of the cadets."
"Ty. . . There isn't a cadet playing a game with them."
"There is a cadet with them, saw them a hour ago, chill, they'll fine."
"If it turns out they have died of hypothermia because you didn't look for them. . . I don't know if their parents would forgive you."
"Their parents are dead, Buzz. And these kids are smart, if they're really lost they would have started the fire already, keeping themselves warm, and have some faith in them." Ty looked up as he realized what he had said. "Oh, it wasn't supposed to sound that way."
"I'll let that slide."
Buzz turned away then walked on with a heavy sigh. Was Ty still around? Still alive? Fighting the good fight? He had some hope for the promising Sergeant's career without him looming distantly as a bitter, hurt, and angry shadow. Buzz halted in his tracks alongside a door frame that was more of an arch. It was his office, left untouched, he peered in toward the brown desk, the padds left untouched, and the many spider webs. Buzz switched his wrist laser to a lower grade and rid of the spider webs. He walked into the chamber then slid the chair back, lifted up the computer, logged in, then typed in his resignation letter, his fingers beating against the keyboard with a loud clatter echoing on into the dark room as his eyes focused on the text like a man on a mission. A purely professional letter regarding how it all started, his failures, his victories, his abduction, his subsequent recovery, and his return.
It was more of a very long research paper being turned in very late. He left out how much that he liked that world while keeping in everything how he was the worst interim commander that the Space Corps had seen and how it were his fault that the Galactic Alliance fell. With a single click of a button, it was completed. Buzz sent the file to numerous sites that were part of the underground resistance across what was known.
He closed the computer, and sighed. The ex-Space Ranger rubbed his forehead. He rubbed his lips thinking about in the beginning, he would have never imagined giving up and leaving for a far better world, but now, in an ideal world. . . He didn't know the environment as he did before, he was disabled; he needed a cane to walk properly. He couldn't be a Space Ranger with that in mind. His glory days had long ended and acknowledging that in the resignation felt nice. Forgiving himself for his hand in Zurg winning, it felt made his heart feel better.
He pressed the button on his chassis. One moment, he were sitting, the next he was aimlessly flying, there was nothingness, static, screeching, his ears ringing, it was nothing how he had returned, then the intensity of the power ended with a loud boom that rippled though the floor, the ground beneath the building. Buzz reappeared in the chair then got up, to his feet, departed the office and stood in the center of the hallway then pressed the button again. The brightness returned, warming up the corridor, the same energy, surrounded by a bright white ball that dissipated with the ex-Space Ranger on his knees. He got back up to his feet then made a fast paced rush to the lobby then out of the doorway. He sped, fast, with urgency, with speed, with determination, then slapped the device on the chassis.
The screeching was immense, blinded, electricity surging through him, knelt over in the vastness of nothingness. Buzz pressed the button, the screeching ended, and color returned to his vision. Buzz crashed down to the ground, landing to his side, clasping a handful of tall grass, gazing on, trapped where he didn't belong. He lifted himself up, his shoulders sulking, clinging to the cane, while considering his next moves all alone.
"Big phone! Big phone! Big phone!"
"I'm up, I'm up, bring it over."
"Big phone!"
"Hey, Warp, it's Raptor Chill!"
"Raptor! It's good to see you, how's it holding up on Trade World?"
"Far better than being among the Space Rangers, anyway, there's news circulating on the net."
"Is it about Zurg hunting down someone claiming that they have him as part of a joke and wanting to make sure that Buzz Lightyear cannot try to take down his empire."
"It's far better news than that." Raptor Chill said.
"Tell me, I'm dying." Darkmatter cupped the side of his face.
"Lightyear has resigned." Raptor Chill held up the newspaper. "Look at the newspaper!"
"It says, Buzz Lightyear QUITS!" Darkmatter read then laughed and grinned. "That's a good joke!"
"Still not sure it is a joke." Raptor Chill gazed at the newspaper as Darkmatter's brow rose in alarm and then his jaw dropped in alarm for a moment.
"Lightyear has left the Space Ranger Corps?" Darkmatter squinted back at the triangle screen, skeptical, surprised, in disbelief.
"He has given you and Zurg all the cre-"
"That isn't him."
"It is him."
"Lightyear never quits, it's part of what makes him so irritating, rule stickler, and all! That isn't him!"
"It is him, otherwise, why would the press put it in the newspaper?"
"Zurg did it." Darkmatter largely assumed as the name tag alongside the large phone flickered with 'upcoming call' in green text. "Hold on, I'm getting a call." he pressed a button then the screen flickered. "Darkmatter here."
"Darkmatter, WHY DID YOU PLANT THAT STORY!" Zurg roared.
"I didn't plant it, your evilness." Darkmatter said as his brows furrowed, leaning forward, setting his hands on his knees. "If you didn't . . then . . . who did?"
Zurg tapped his grill, his yellow pupils widening, almost quite freaked out.
"No, it can't be, Buzz Lightyear is too insufferable, he would never quit! Never, ever, not in a million years!" Then he regained his composure. "Forget about the headline." Zurg waved his claw. "Zurg out."
"So, about Zurg?" Raptor Chill asked. "What is the evidence that points toward him."
"It turns out that Lightyear never really left." Darkmatter said then grinned. "Pulling a prank on the shell of the Galactic Alliance," Darkmatter chuckled at all. "classic Cadet Lightyear move." he bore a fond smile for his academy days looking aside then back toward the phone. "Darkmatter out."
The screen went dead with that line.
Buzz arrived at the orchard then got an arm full of apples, rubbed them, then sat down on a boulder and began to eat. Doing great things came with eating before doing the actions. Approaching the LGM world and asking for their help was a feat that took a full stomach, all the courage in him, showing up after all these years, all the while maintaining a low profile. He looked around remembering the apple orchard being planted back in the day, investment, for the future as were the lavish gardens grown outside of the homes with vegetables and fruit grown there. Were those plants still there or were they long dead replaced by the plant life that had been taken out almost twenty years ago? He sat there eating apples at a time beside him paying no attention to the distant specter of a Star Cruiser landing in the distance behind him.
He set the apples beside him on a circular slope, once an improvised basket, he largely assumed. He saw the small hand prints with decorative Star Cruisers carved around the bowl. He wondered, were the children who made this long dead Space Rangers or were they still out there playing a role in the resistance that mattered dearly? He took out an apple looking away from the symbols in shame then sighed, his incompetence made a number of them lose their parents, their home world, their preferred life style. Childhoods that he had stolen from them with a simple mistake.
He didn't deserve this world and the world didn't deserve him, either. This thought alone made his resolve to go back home far stronger and made him far more determined at any cost. Once a long time ago, saying his name brought him with pride, now it just left left him feeling disappointed. He fit the suit like the glove, but Buzz Lightyear, it didn't fit anymore. Maybe because of the close association to the Space Ranger Corps, in the pages of history, how it deeply impacted every soul in the universe. He ate another apple then chucked the core over his shoulder. He needed to eat a lot of apples.
"Buzz?"
Buzz looked toward the source of the voice then smiled.
"Ty Parsec." Buzz said, warmly, tossing the apple up and down. "Time has treated you well."
Ty had aged wonderfully against the backdrop of time in the pitfalls of hell, a silver fox, stepping forward, half uncertain, as the sun rose in the distance providing light, half weary. His spacesuit was different. Instead of the familiar canopy, there was only a gray cylinder tube lacking buttons on the side, his space suit was more simpler that meant lacking the shoulder pads, the plague, it was jarring being back and seeing a drastic slide back in quality. Instead of a small blue insingia, there was a big golden insignia that took up most of the chest. Buzz's warmth faded with the reminder of why everything was different then looked back toward the apple and took another bite.
"Is . . . that really you?" Ty asked.
Buzz sighed then lifted himself up and used the cane to approach him.
"Sure as I'll ever be." Buzz said then halted in front of him. "Five years, and you're still around, remarkable."
"Negative." Ty said, coldly. "Seven years."
"Seven years?" Buzz's grayed brows lifted up in alarm as did his head then turned away and walked on. "But. . ."
"Where did you go?" Ty asked. "And don't give me those moonrocks about being in an alternate universe! You couldn't take the heat, the pressure, the stress-you had to run from it all! I can't admit that I blame you because we had it bad during those days!"
Buzz had paled as he looked around, being rendered down to cold sweats, lifting his head up, did the machine glitch? Seven years. What if when he got back, a war might be brewing, and Warp was gone? And his ideal world was on its way to becoming this?
"I. . went. . . forward. . in time. . . by two years." Buzz lifted his gaze up toward the sky, scared.
"You expect me to believe that!"
"Affirmative."
"I don't! Admit it, it's not cowardly to say that!"
"Sweet Venus!" Buzz clenched his hands in irritation then turned toward Ty. "Ty, I-I didn't have a choice!"
"Leaving us like that? Got a better lifestyle waiting for you in the alpha quadrant lined up?" it was a hurtful accusation coming hearing it worded that way from Ty. "A sweet luxurious lifestyle that Zurg can shatter and then what? Run, again?" Ty was so angry at him, frightening so. "What the Venus happened to you? You always faced your fear! Never backed down! You fought it when Rangers were scared!" Ty's venting echoed in the cold air. "Never moved! Never gave up!"
"It was very reckless of me going on that mission and very unhinged." Buzz started, calmly. "But don't deny it for a second that you were getting tired of it, too, back then, under my leadership, we LOST! We didn't have big successful missions!" Came Buzz's equally as bitter and hurtful reminder then he squinted at Ty. "And you did not ask Darkmatter for help as requested."
"We took that advice." Ty squinted back at Buzz. "You skimped on us!" Ty poked at the ex-Space Ranger's chassis as Buzz stepped back and Ty walked forward. "Left us to the whims of Zurg, left us fending on our own, without you backing us up, we had dark days! The base was attacked so we left, but not without losing Nelani Fisher during the evacuation! He found us! Zurg found us! He attacked us, laughing, his hornets destroying buildings, should have heard the screaming, seen the smoke, the sounds of blasts, Rangers running out and beginning the evacuation! And we lost civilians-"
"Did the kids get out?"
"They did!"
"Phew."
"But they lost family friends!"
". . Ty . . . " Buzz was apologetic.
"Don't Ty me! And we HAD TO BURY THEM! And I had to take over! ME! The next senior officer in line! What snapped? Was it being on the losing end?"
Buzz halted in his tracks over the rage of his old academy buddy then turned away.
"It was a suicide mission, Ty." Buzz revealed, his voice now lower, his shoulders slumped and Ty's jaw fell as his head bobbed up with a gasp. "Trying to help the resistance, reliving my glory days, fighting, and winning this time, a start to make things right, a big gamble, and instead, it . . ." he shook his head. "Didn't go my way."
The silence hung between them.
"We searched for you. Everywhere. And then we stopped looking after the base was found, instead, we looked for a new place, couldn't take the old equipment with us, but we had help getting new equipment."
"I. . ." Buzz let the word lay there. "Never anticipated failing."
"You were so focused about reaching for infinity and succeeding that you forget about reaching for infinity and failing!" Ty approached him as he stretched his arms out. "About falling out of the sky!" he pointed toward the morning sky. "About crashing hard!" he came to a halt in front of the ex-Space Ranger. "About being lost in the dust!" He closed his left hand holding it in front of himself. "About getting up and walking out of sight!"
Ty turned away then walked back to the stone figure then picked up an apple and bounced it up and down as Buzz dropped his apple to the ground.
"That's the problem with you, Buzz, you don't think things through when your mind is clouded."
Buzz lifted his head up.
"You're right, Ty." Buzz agreed, soundly, then turned toward him. "That's why I quit."
Ty was in the middle of his bite then turned toward the ex-Space Ranger.
"I'm not that poster boy for Star Command. Stopped being him nearly twenty years ago. He died during the attack, the day the invasion happened, the day that the Space Corps became homeless, on the run, hiding, underground. . . It is time to give up the ghost."
"So, you have been staying with someone that Zurg knows and just got out."
Buzz pinched the bridge of his nose, lowering his head up, sighing, exasperated.
"What gives you that impression?"
Buzz lowered his hand gazing up.
"The emblem on your chest." Ty twirled his finger for effect then folded his arms. "Pretty much."
In comparison, Ranger Ty Parsec the Wirewolf was having it easier, experiencing a wonderful blast, in the world that was kind.
"Let's get this over with and turn in my suit." Buzz said.
Ty glared back at him with his lips pressed firmly together.
"It looks like it's part of the suit." Ty said.
Buzz looked down toward the emblem.
" . . . Negative." Buzz replied as he looked back up. "Part of me until I go home, that's all."
Ty looked toward the emblem then back up toward the ex-Space Ranger.
"Can't risk taking you to the new Star Command resistance base where Zurg can track us down and destroy seven years of hard work, but. . . There is a place where you can turn in the suit." he turned away from Buzz then began walking on. "It's a place where Zurg knows but we have higher enough technology that we can swamp his dreadnought's sensors when leaving the area."
Buzz looked up toward the distant specter of the Star Cruiser then lowered his gaze fixating on his old friend and followed him.
