A\N: I can't really explain much without spoilers, but this will involve a lot of torture, so be warned.

Location: Reefside High, Reefside
Date: August 28, 2003

Conner, Ethan, and Kira skidded up to each other, identical looks of panic in their eyes. "No." They all said at the same time.

That confirmed it. Tommy was missing.

All of them were terrified. They'd skipped class that morning, unable to handle so many people after the...thing that had happened the night before. They'd fully expected Tommy to show up, breathing fire.

He hadn't.

The rest of the day had been a balance on knifepoint between avoiding Randall, not getting called in as truant, and finding Tommy. But they couldn't. Tommy wasn't there.

"Did we check his office?" Conner grasped at the last straw.

The three turned, thinking the same thing. Of course. Tommy had to be there. Had to.

Conner jiggled the doorknob.

"...It's..." He started, planning on saying jammed.

"Locked," Principal Randall finished for him, sweeping up. "As it will stay." She smiled coldly at the three horrified expressions. "Dr. Oliver has found it necessary to take a...temporary leave of absence. I've had Mr. Bronson covering his classes in his place. If you three have a science question, I suggest you direct it to him." Her eyes narrowed. "And if there are any other questions, I'm sure I can help. Personally."

Kira and Ethan were already backing up a step, but never let it be said Conner McKnight looked before he leaped. He stepped up, glaring. "Okay. Where's Dr. O?"

Principal Randall's eyes narrowed dangerously.

To his credit, Conner gulped, but stood his ground.

"Dr. Oliver has not seen fit to inform me of that detail." Randall snapped. "Rest assured, when I do find out his employment will be terminated with extreme prejudice, even if I found out he'd been lying in a ditch with two tons of a wrecked car over him, am I clear?"

"Yes ma'am." ...Damnit. That was going to be intelligent.

Randall fixed all of them with a glare. "Now, if that's all...get back to class!" She turned and swept off.

The three teenagers glanced at each other, then darted for the doors.

*PR*PR*PR*

Location: Mesegog's Laboratory, Unknown Waters
Date: August 28, 2003

...The attacks stopped.

Tommy didn't try to move. It wasn't so much that he was strapped down as that he'd been having seizures for the past...how long? A day? A week? He had no idea. Just memories of shattered, brilliant fragments of time, bits of awareness turning on and off like light switches as his muscles spasmed and his mouth spewed strings of gibberish.

Of somewhere in those fragments, gaining just enough awareness to realize that Elsa had broken into his mind.

Ordinary psychics fought, but whether they were an untrained Earth psychic or a Tallian sorcerer they always followed the same rule: Battles were never initiated within one opponent's mind. There was a word for what happened when that rule was broken. It translated roughly to mind-rape, but Tommy didn't know the actual word.

If it was a normal being on the other end, they would have nothing more than an intense headache. If it were another psychic, though, then they would have such a strong reaction that they literally tore the brain tissue apart.

And then the brain would run every imaginable test, trying to diagnose the problem and save itself, before the seizurelike 'tests' broke enough of the lining of the nose and various skins in the mouth, not to mention punctured a few lungs with broken ribs, to drown the victim in their own blood.

Every time he woke, he clung to it, trying to force the seizure away. Every time he passed out, it was with a sharp terror that he would never wake up again.

But somehow he'd survived.

It was hard to explain how he knew the attacks were over. It just was. Tommy didn't bother questioning it, instead simply laying still in the leather straps he'd yanked so hard against he'd caused what felt like a broken wrist.

At least it wasn't a rib. He'd seen that, once, when two apprentices had tried to battle without knowing the rules and with too much innate stubbornness to listen to their instincts. He...wondered if he'd actually managed to save the boy.

Footsteps.

Tommy turned his head, but there was a light shining in his eyes. He'd gotten used to looking at the edges, but he couldn't see anything. The footsteps were clawed, though, so he could make an educated guess. Not that he'd say it aloud. At his last check, he sounded like a drunken idiot, and he'd prefer to sound like he had some measure of control in front of Mesegog.

"Dr. Thhomassss Oliverrr. Hhow...niiicce of you to join ussss."

Tommy stayed silent.

The light vanished. In the sudden pitch-black, Tommy blinked, trying to will his vision to readjust more quickly.

Something bumped his foot.

Tommy gasped in agony. His foot was broken. Great. Well, as long as the bones hadn't moved too much, they'd probably heal fairly straight. It wasn't the first time the Power had healed his injuries.

...What was that? Tommy frowned. The pain he could push aside; there was something dark on the edge of his awareness. He blinked into the gloom. Dark and...and...

No. Please, God. No.

"Yesssss."

Tommy shut his eyes and ducked back behind the natural psychic shielding he had. He'd forgotten just how dangerous it was to expose his thoughts near another psychic.

Mesegog chuckled, reaching out, but his hand was transforming into flesh. "I can still hear you." Anton Mercer's voice sing-songed.

Tommy flinched.

"Did you think I'd forget, Tommy?" Anton's voice asked sharply. "How you left me to die?" A hand grabbed his chin and turned it to face him.

He could see Anton's face now. There was no triumph or eagerness or sadism or any of the emotions Tommy had once associated with his old mentor. Only pain and bitterness.

I did that. Oh, god. I did that to him.

"Why did you leave?" Anton whispered. "Tommy..." He glanced over his shoulder, checking for Elsa. She had a tendency to break up any conversation that Anton and Tommy had without Mesegog's influence. "Why didn't you save me?"

Tommy couldn't reply.

Anton's face jerked. Tommy couldn't look away; Anton's grip was too strong, supernaturally so as his muscles spasmed. At least it was less than Tommy's seizures. Just a transformation, just fingers to claws, skin to scales.

The claws drew blood from his chin before the Power healed it.

"Didyou...missss him, Thomassss?" Mesegog hissed, licking the blood from his claws in his odd, jerky way of moving. "Misss...yourold frieend?"

Mesegog's head shot out, snakelike, stopping so close to Tommy's face that Tommy could smell the thing's breath. "He'sssss mine now."

"What do you want." ...Wow, Tommy. That was pathetic.

Mesegog chuckled and turned to Tommy's feet again, to the small metal table that had bumped it. There was a clear stone on it, but distorted. In the center, Tommy could make out something small and dark, some sort of impurity...

Or another stone. A Dino Gem. Like the three others you pulled out of identical casings.

Y'know. Just maybe.

"Youknow what...thisss isss. Breakit...out for me." Mesegog tapped the clear stone.

"No."

The difference between Mesegog and the other monsters Tommy had faced, Tommy thought in the part of his mind not screaming in agony, was that Mesegog enjoyed things like blood and gore. He enjoyed getting his hands dirty. Literally, too; Mesegog's reptilian DNA was carnivorous, which made his eating habits interesting. Tommy had a sneaking suspicion about what had happened to a few interns.

Mesegog drew his clawed hand out of Tommy's stomach and glanced at the wound. "Your Powerrrr will...hhhheall thisss." He hissed. "Butnot without...sssscarrrsssss." Mesegog reached up and set his claw on Tommy's cheek. "I wonder hhhow many it will take...for you to give me thissss ssssstone."

Mesegog pulled.

Tommy laughed.

Mesegog reared back, blinking, and Tommy slowly stopped laughing. "That?" He demanded. "That's your plan? Pain? Oh my god, are you retarded? Even Anton wasn't that stupid." Yes. Anton was bad. Remember this, remember it now, before he throws Anton at you again and you forget all the things that he did to crush your soul.

"No. Not...quite." Mesegog's smile was sadistic. "Thisss...isss just the beginning."

He struck.

*PR*PR*PR*

Location: 1992 Valencia Rd, Reefside
Date: August 28, 2003

Conner gently pushed the door open.

They'd been living with Tommy for three years, in motel rooms, tents, the constant big white van that Conner had named Eric and they'd had to sell one day, cueing many fake tears from Ethan and Conner until Tommy groaned and distracted them with a water-gun fight. They'd never been inside of Dr. Oliver's house before.

So they walked in carefully.

It was...different from a motel room. Nicer. A lot of wood, some tasteful decorations. A few papers were scattered on the coffee table. Conner glanced around, as awed as his Gem-siblings.

"Maybe he's sick." Kira whispered.

"We'dve felt it!" Ethan hissed back, outraged. "We always feel that!" And they usually got sick in turn, given that they used to live together, but never mind that.

"Up here." Conner called.

Tommy's bedroom was empty, neat, and contained more green and black than they'd ever seen. It wasn't garish or bad, or even really that obvious, just...Green. And Black.

Conner grinned and reached up to the katana hanging over his bed. "Ooh, look! Samurai!" He grabbed the sword, swishing it playfully and wildly.

"Put that back, you idiot, you're going to hurt someone." Kira snapped, pulling the weapon from his hands and putting it away. "He's not here."

The mood dropped.

"Don't look at me like that! Someone had to say it!"

"All right." Conner sighed, nodding. "Let's find them, then."

"You sure, dude?" Ethan asked, rubbing an old, hidden burn scar on his wrist. "I mean, last time..."

"It won't hurt this time." Conner smiled as best he could at his little brother. It wasn't well. "Promise."

Ethan raised an eyebrow.

Conner gave up on faked compassion. "What, you chicken?"

Ethan snorted and turned for the door, telling Conner to do something not entirely compatible with the laws of physics.

It took a few minutes, but Conner finally got bored and started playing with the tyrannosaurus statue on the coffee table. They gleefully headed down the stairs, while singing the Batman song at the top of their lungs.

Then they saw the Dino Gems.

It was like a...call, almost. It drew them in. Ethan was the first to shiver and turn away, but Kira and Conner followed as soon as Conner muttered some excuse about 'hey, look, computers'.

"Do we really want to do this?" Ethan asked. His hand reflexively covered his wrist.

"No." Kira snarked.

"We don't have a choice." Conner reminded them. "Tommy's in trouble."

They looked at each other, then nodded.

"Okay. So, what do we do?" Ethan asked Conner.

"Uhhh..."

Kira sighed and walked over to the Dino Gems. "Relax, Tommy told me a few months back. We've already finished Phase One Bonding. We just have to pick them up." She frowned. "Actually, last time that was all we had to do too, there's just some magic words or something you say, but whatever."

Ethan raised a wrist.

"That's why we're going to save Tommy."

Conner walked over to the pedestal, followed by Ethan. "On three." They all nodded. "One...two...three."

*PR*PR*PR*

Location: Mesegog's Laboratory, Unknown Waters
Date: August 28, 2003

The pain hadn't been the plan. But it hadn't helped.

Tommy still didn't know what Mesegog's plan was, actually. The thing was a sadist. But whatever it was, it apparently involved him being too high on pain to think straight.

Mindwarp, then. He's going to attack your emotions and...and...what was I thinking? Damn. I feel high as a kite. Hehe. Kite. I'm flying.

There was a noise.

Tommy frowned. ...Was that a puppy? He twisted, but he couldn't see where the sound was coming from. It was a strange, small noise...

Someone was crying.

"Shut up," Elsa growled, and then there was a scream. Elsa came into view dragging Anton behind her, Anton stumbling against her as she chained him to a wall.

Elsa turned to Tommy.

"Since you've decided not to cooperate," Elsa spat, "My master decided to give you a little...incentive."

No. Not him. Please.

Elsa struck Anton in the face. His head snapped to one side. Tommy's stomach churned. Elsa smirked-she must have been almost as much of a sadist as Mesegog, Tommy decided-and pulled out a sticklike thing. A cattle prod? She touched it to Anton's side, and he screamed. She backhanded him to shut him up.

Tommy wrenched against the straps holding him down.

"Stop struggling, you idiot." Elsa snapped at him. "Those won't break. You only have two options here." She grinned. "And I like one of them."

Tommy didn't want to say anything. He still whispered. "Anton..."

Anton raised his head.

He looked like hell. It felt like someone had punched Tommy in the stomach. At that point, he felt like he would have deserved it-he'd left Anton at the mercy of things like Elsa, and with Mesegog inside of him-but what was worse was that Tommy didn't know what to do.

He'd never known what to do. Not when it came to the real world. He could remember his confidence, as Zeo Red, as White Ninjetti, even as Green Rangari, but that was just bravado. Anton had been there. Anton had always been there. Been angry, yes, but now Tommy barely remembered that.

He couldn't beg. Couldn't reveal his own weakness. All he could do was pray Anton would understand.

Anton's eyes were as cold and hard as diamonds.

"Tommy." He whispered. "Help them. Please."

Elsa snickered. "Awww, you're taking away all my fun." She reached out to grab Anton's chin, and he flinched, looking so terrified, so much like a kicked puppy, Tommy was nearly sick. "I can have so much more fun with him..."

Tommy couldn't do it. He couldn't do anything. He felt helpless. How could he betray the Power?

But how could he just watch while Anton was tortured?

"Tommy...please..." There was a sickening sound as Elsa hit Anton again, then picked up the cattle prod. "Please-" The begging turned into a scream of agony.

Tommy opened his mouth.

*PR*PR*PR*

The Power is a mysterious entity.

Most who follow it claim it has some sort of sentience. While this obviously is untrue-there is no body to house an intelligence-to the untrained eye, it would be hard to understand this distinction.

The Power has, after all, a very apt sense of timing.

Conner, Ethan, and Kira raised morphers into the air.

"DINO THUNDER, POWER UP!"