Sabertooth Sacrifice

"Where are they?" Zack asked Kat as they approached the outside of the credit union. "I told them we'd be here to meet them in ten minutes. Trini promised she'd make it back."

"Zack," Kat whispered staring into the blackened hole of a door in front of them. "That building is on fire."

"What?" he asked, turning around and staring inside. "Holy..."

"Come on, sweetie," Trini told the little boy, holding out her hand. "Let's get you out of here."

"Trini," Kim called from the entrance to the bank vault. "The lobby is burning."

The little boy screamed as a tiny explosion rocked the building to its foundation. Tiny coughs pierced the droning of the dying building.

"Trini, get the hell out of there!" Kimberly screamed. "The building is coming down!"

Trini looked back her way and shook her head. "I won't leave him." The Asian woman grabbed the little boy's hand and promised not to let go. Unable to lift him, she knew her only option would be to calm him down.

"My sister!" he called, pointing further back, toward the stacks of money that had fallen over.

"Go with Kimberly," Trini told him. "I'll get her."

"Trini, she's dead, don't go back there." Kimberly tried to stop her friend any way she knew how.

"I have to," she said with steely resolve, unfazed by Kimberly's attempts.

Kimberly stared back at her with a tear rising in her eye. "Please don't make me leave you."

Trini turned and ran. "I'll be right behind you."

Kimberly took the boy's hand and burst through the lobby past the fire and into Kat's outstretched arms.

"Get her out of there, Zack," she choked, feeling her lungs burning. "Trini's in the vault."

Trini turned toward the limp body of the little girl. "No, please wake up," she cried, feeling no pulse. A second explosion rocked the bank and the back vault door slammed shut with a terrifying howl that went straight through her. The vault was sepulchrally quiet.

Zack jumped through the flames and found the vault door. "Trini!" he screamed, searching for a way to blast the door open.

"Zack?" she asked in panic. The concrete megalith moaned like a monster growling in pain. It shivered like a cold shriveled body pulled too thin. The melted metal trapped her in its cruel embrace blocking her only chance of escape.

Zack jumped back as the metal scalded his palm.

Jason emerged outside with Carter and a tiny hose. The two of them set up outside the bank, ready to douse the fire.

"Gas fire," Tommy warned.

Carter nodded as Zack exited the building sputtering and choking back tears. "My God, please..."

Carter moved forward into the burning building and began to hack on the door with Jason at his side. "Hold on honey, we're coming," Jason called to her.

"Jason?" she called, weakening as the fire around them absorbed what little oxygen she had to breathe. "Jason, I can't breathe."

Carter struggled against the flame heated door. "It's titanium enforced, we're not going to hack through this. We need a cutting torch."

"What about one of our blasters?" Jason asked, realizing he was still holding on to his weapon.

Carter nodded. "That will just have to do."

"Trini?" Zack called, still standing beside the door, feeling helpless.

There was no response.

"Zack, get out of here," Jason ordered. "You have kids, please get out of here."

Zack looked back at Jason. He nodded quietly and stood up, paving a way through the debris with a fire extinguisher he'd ripped from the wall, further scalding his hands.

Dana rushed to his side immediately and began to wrap his palms.

"She's dead, isn't she?" he muttered, holding his breath, trying not to breathe because it was too hard.

Billy ran over and took Zack's shoulder, he'd just arrived from helping out elsewhere. His gaze traveled the length of his friend's hunched-over form. "What happened?"

"Trini's trapped in the bank vault," Tommy told him quietly. "Carter and Jason are trying to get her out."

Billy froze up, like he'd just turned off the switch to his brain.

Kimberly wrapped her arms around him and helped him sit down. "I tried to stop her, Billy, I tried..." she started to sob.

Carter finished prizing the door open, the jumbled mass of melted metal. "We've got a pulse," he told Jason quietly, picking up Trini's body. "It's faint."

They began the perilous journey back outside.

The ground rocked beneath them. "Run," Jason ordered, helping Carter keep his footing.

Just as they made the lobby the bank vault shook with an explosion that continued up the hall. Carter and Jason leapt across the threshold and landed hard outside the bank in a heap on the concrete. Carter rolled to prevent landing on Trini.

Dana took over immediately. "We have to get he to a hospital, now. She's flat lining." She started CPR immediately, never looking up from her work.

It took twenty minutes to get her to the hospital, or rather, the ruins of the hospital. Only one of the four wings had survived the attack. Hundreds flocked outside demanding to know what happened. The police ordered a perimeter set up outside, and only allowed the worst injured inside. The news reporters from nearby Stone Canyon had already set up a block away and were filming the destruction.

"Reports say that a massive explosion occurred in the Angel Grove town center this morning. At this time, the cause is unknown, but as you can see, the damage to the city is immense.

Crying children searched desperately for parents lost in the fray. People tramped angrily down the streets demanding an answer. Angel Grove was on its knees.