Reefside: The "AAR" Chronicles – Part 7
Balance of Power
By Justin Jack
There was a long pause.
Both sets of parents looked at the young genius with anticipation.
"Well, don't keep us in suspense. What do you have in mind?" Tommy asked him.
"I was thinking about how Mom said that her two abilities are fighting with each other, maybe I can get them to sign a peace treaty," Will answered.
"How can you do that?" Kim asked.
"Simple, she just needs a power source to balance the two powers out. Maybe if we're lucky, she'll wake up too."
Will walked over to one of the Dino Thunder symbols in the wall and pressed his palm to it. A red beam ran down the symbol and scanned his hand prompting a combination keypad to appear beside the symbol. Will typed in the combination.
111893
With a slight rumble and the sound of locks clicking, the symbol rose revealing a metal safe underneath. Will turned the lock on the safe and the door popped open releasing pressurized vapor and a metal tray slid forward holding a small box with the DT logo on it. He took the box and turned toward his parents. It finally hit them.
"Your Dino Gems, of course," Billy slapped his forehead for not even thinking about it.
"If Beth has both of your abilities Dr. and Mrs. O, then your gems should balance them out to the point that she can control them individually."
Kim turned to Billy and Hayley.
"Do you think it'll work?" she asked.
"It is possible Kim, but--"
Hayley cut in.
"We don't know if it will make her worse or save her life. Are you willing to take that chance?"
Tommy put his hands on Kim's shoulders, who placed her hand on top of his.
"If there's a chance of Beth coming out of this alive, we're willing to take it."
They all nodded and looked at Will still holding the box. Kim walked over to the young man and placed her hand on his shoulder.
"You do it Will, we believe in you."
Will cracked a small smile and looked at his parents and Dr. O for approval. They nodded in agreement. He walked over to Beth's bedside and placed the box on the bedside table. He looked down at her and smiled.
"Hey B, I'm gonna get you out of this I promise. We're all here waiting for you to come back."
He sighed as he turned both her palms upright.
"Get ready for the ride of your life B."
He opened the box revealing the two glowing pink and black dino gems. Will took one in each hand and placed them over Beth's hands.
"Here goes nothing."
He places the gems in her hands and closes her fingers around them and backs away. Suddenly Beth starts to convulse and crackle with black and pink energy. The life support machines start going berserk.
"Billy, what's happening?!" Kim screamed as the sound of the machines let out a series of high pitch beeps.
"I don't know!" He quickly picked up a scanner and held it toward Beth. The readings were so high the machine shorted out in his hand. Billy dropped the scanner and grabbed his hand in pain. Hayley ran to her husband's side and saw the burn that the device had left on his skin. She grabbed a bunch of napkins and wrapped his hand in them as a makeshift bandage.
"Dr. O, is it supposed to be like this?"
"I don't know Will, your Mom said no one has ever held two gem powers at the same time. She just has to ride it out!"
"Tommy we have to stop this, it might be killing her!" Kim screamed.
She ran toward Beth intent on removing the gems from her hands and end her suffering only to be stopped by Will.
"Listen to him Mrs. O, let her ride this out! She'll be fine...trust me!"
Kim looked into Will's eyes and saw the truth in them.
"I do trust you!" She looked over at Beth who had stopped convulsing, but was still glowing with energy.
She closed her eyes and said a silent prayer.
"Please let this happen. Beth, come back to us."
We cut to an overhead view of Beth's face, her body still crackling with black and pink energy.
Cut to black.
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Beth opens her eyes and looks around to find herself in a dark forest in the pitch black of night. The only light source is the moon shining brightly overhead.
"Hello?"
No answer.
"Anybody?"
Still nothing.
"Am I being Punk'd?" she snickered a little at the fact that she had watched an episode last week on the Retro Channel.
An owl hoots.
Beth started walking and talking to herself along the way.
"Great, why do I feel like I'm trapped in a damn horror movie?"
Suddenly a gust of wind picked up followed by a portal opening in front of her dropping about a dozen T-drones in her path.
"Ask a stupid question."
The T-drones approached her ready for a fight. She turned and started to run, but then she stopped in her tracks and turned to face them. Without thinking about it, she dropped into a battle stance and gave them the 'come get some' motion with her hand.
The drones lunged at her but she answered their attack with punches and kicks that take out three of them at once. One drone goes for a sweep but Beth jumps and sees herself levitating over her attackers and landing behind them. They dash toward her for another attack. She just smiles.
"Hey check this out...now you see me, now you don't."
She goes invisible. The T-drones look around puzzled, but are suddenly thrown left and right by invisible kicks and punches. One by one, they all go down.
She goes visible again looking down at the fallen T-drones.
"Did I mention I studied martial arts?"
She looks up and sees a dozen more T-drones advancing toward her.
"Oh, shit!"
Beth backs up and prepares for another onslaught. Just as they're about to pounce a ring of fire surrounds them causing Beth to put up her hands to block the sudden heat blast. A deep voice calls from the distance.
"Leave her alone!"
The T-drones looked around in fear as a portal opened above them and they retreated. With the drones gone, the ring of fire dissipated. Beth looked past the clearing up a little hill and could just make out the shape of a man hidden by the darkness. She ran a little bit to see if she could get a better look at him. The shape started to back away into the fog.
"Wait, who are you? Can you help me get out of here?!" she called out after him.
The deep voice called back. "I'm a friend. You can call your parents, they will lead you out."
His voice faded as he disappeared in the distance.
"Call my parents? How the hell do I do that when I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere?"
She looked around surrounded by darkness. She closed her eyes and screamed.
"Mom...Dad, get me out of here!"
A burst of light comes out of nowhere in front of her. She covers her eyes to block the white light. Beth sees the outlines of two people coming through the light.
"Elizabeth."
The voice sounds familiar.
"Daddy?"
"Yes Princess, it's us."
"We've come to bring you home."
"Mom?"
Her eyes adjusted to the light and saw her parents standing before her in their Ranger armor.
"You have made us proud Elizabeth, the power of our Dino gems resides in you now. You have control over them, and now it's time for you to come home with us," her father stated.
Beth looked down to see her hand glowing. She opened her palm to see that both her parents' dino gems had combined into one. Outlined in black and pink in the middle.
"I'm ready to come home now."
She walked with her parents into the light, hopefully on the other side home would be waiting for her.
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Beth's eyes start to flutter.
"Beth, can you hear us?" Kim asked as her daughter slowly opened her eyes.
"I can hear you fine Mom."
"Oh, thank God!" Tommy cried as he and Kim embraced her in a tight hug.
"Uh, kinda need to breathe here!"
They both release her and everyone in the Cave breathes a sigh of relief.
"You had us worried there for a while B, what happened?" Will asked as he gave he a little hug.
"It's weird, I was walking along a dark forest and got attacked by Tyrano-drones. I held them off with your abilities, but more showed up and I was outnumbered. Then, from out of nowhere this man helped me by doing a Human Torch on them and that scared them away. Then a white light appeared and you guys showed up in your Ranger gear and said I could control the power now. I looked in my hand and I had...this."
She opens her palm revealing to everyone the combined gem.
"Let me look at it," Tommy asked and Beth handed it over.
"We'll need to run some tests on it to see what kind of power we're dealing with here."
Just as he was about to hand the gem to Billy and Hayley, the emergency alarm went off. Hayley rushed to the console and pulled up the security camera by the front door of the house.
"Who's that?" she asked.
Beth looked at the monitor and recognized the face on the screen.
"Bryce?"
"Who?" Tommy and Kim asked in unison.
"That's her new boyfriend," Will joked as a pillow hit him in the back of the head.
"He's not my boyfriend Will. I better go see what he wants."
"Are you sure you're up to it?" Kim asked.
"I'm fine Mom."
Tommy made a quick decision.
"Okay, Beth...go talk to him, see what he wants. Kim and Will, help me clean up. Billy and Hayley, it's pretty late now. We can analyze the gem some other time. Put it in the safe and help us clean this place up, then let's all try to get some sleep."
Beth got out of the bed and headed up through the trap door. Climbing out, she moved the T-Rex statue and the door closed behind her. She ran for the front door, passing a mirror along the way. She backed up and looked at herself.
"God, I look like crap."
She started fixing her hair to look presentable to Bryce and straightened out her shirt. She reached for the front door, sighed, put on a smile and opened the door. Bryce was standing with his back to her and he quickly spun around hiding his hands around his back.
"Uh, Beth...hi. I was hoping I had the right address."
"Bryce, what are you doing here? More importantly, how did you know where I lived?"
"Ah, both interesting questions. One, I came to return your MP3 player to you because you dropped it and Two, because you had your address written on it, hence the "if found, please return to" sticker on it."
He removed one hand from behind his back and handed her the player.
"Thank you, but you could've just given it to me at school tomorrow."
"Well, I didn't know if you were gonna be there. The sub in science class said you came home sick with your Dad, which is why I also got you this," he pulls his other hand from behind his back revealing a pink rose wrapped in black paper with a little index card that said "Get Well Soon" on it.
Beth smiled and blushed as she accepted the rose.
"Thank you Bryce, that's very sweet of you. I'm feeling better now, so I'll be in school tomorrow."
"Great, I'll see you then. We'll have lunch together...uh, we can sit together...oh, you know what I mean."
"Yeah, I do. Thanks again for the beautiful flower."
"No problem, I'll see you tomorrow."
Bryce starts to walk away. Beth calls after him.
"Hey!"
He spins around.
"Yeah?"
"Um, would you like to hang out at my Aunt Hayley's Cyberspace sometime?"
That sounds like fun, but I'm still kind of new here and don't know where it is."
"Okay, hold on."
She runs and grabs an old refrigerator magnet off the fridge with Hayley's Cyberspace phone number and address written on it.
"Here, this will help."
"Thanks. I'll see you tomorrow?"
"It's a date."
"That was gonna be tomorrow night's question."
Beth smiles and blushes even more.
We'll see how the Cyberspace turns out first."
"Fair enough. Good night Trin."
Beth is caught off guard with the knick name.
"What?"
"Trini is your middle name right? You don't mind if I call you that do you?"
"Oh...uh, no. Not at all."
"Good. Well, tomorrow is another day, and on that day I shall see you...or something like that."
Beth chuckled.
"Okay, good night Bryce."
"Good night."
Bryce turned to walk down the porch steps and went on his way. Beth closed the door, leaned with her back up against it and grinned the biggest smile. She smelled her flower and walked back to the trap door and returned to the Cave to help everyone out.
End of Part 7
TBC