In seconds she was racing the halls of time force, feeling like a twenty year old again as she sought out the familiar office where she and Bronwyn had worked when they weren't training. The paperwork involved in the training for Time Force had been annoyingly hard, and then the research needed to bring Jen back to her time was hard and took many long hours, and in the end it was that strange girl that had finally brought the hammer down in their favor.
"I'll be home in about an hour."
Rachael grinned brightly as she heard her best friend's voice on the phone and snuck up behind the blonde, leaning against the doorframe as she spoke.
"I know sweetheart, but Mommy has a few more things to do and I'll come home and I'll be yours all weekend, ok? Alright baby, I love you too. Bye." She hung up the phone with a smile on her face and looked back at the papers in front of her.
"You won't finish." Rachael finally spoke and Bronwyn whirled around, vaulting out of her chair to embrace her best friend. "I missed you!" The held onto one another for a while, it had been too long, which was what was exactly on Bronwyn's mind.
"God I haven't seen you since you stole my sister!" Bronwyn hugged her again and the two sat down, Rachael dragging over a chair from another of the desks in the office.
"I know." Rachael smiled. "And I guess there's someone you didn't tell me about." She looked at the phone and back to her friend who smiled broadly.
"I didn't realize I was pregnant then." She shook her head, still smiling. "Lucas went over the moon when he found out, he loves being a father. He's at home with Ava right now."
"Ava? That's a sweet name." Rachael grinned. "So she's about two, right?"
"Yeah." Bronwyn smiled again, leaning back in her seat. "When are you having another?"
"Jake is a year and a half old thank you." Rachael grinned as her friend smiled. "Lauren loves to take care of him." Her face sobered. "Which is why I'm here."
"She's exhibiting signs of having a strange power?" Bronwyn seemed to wince at the words she was saying. Rachael sighed and leaned back, shaking her head at her friend who took that as an invitation to continue. She turned to her computer and brought up images and diagrams of cells and molecular structures. "There are many legends and stories about the powers that your children have because of that accident at SPD."
"Legends?"
"A thousand year difference Rach, your whole life is a legend to us." Bronwyn rolled her eyes and winced. "Except the powers are expected to make a fantastic comeback."
"Because you were there." Rachael nodded in understanding. "Ava has inherited whatever this is."
"Well, when you joined Time Force they took blood samples from you, and here is your DNA before the accident." She pointed to the left of the screen at a double helix that was spinning slowly color coded per each of the different alleles. "Now here," Bronwyn paused for a second before she pulled up a second double helix, this one with clear differences in the colors, they were brighter and one of the four colors seemed to have doubled in places, "Is your DNA now."
Rachael stared. "Are you kidding me? It changed my DNA?"
"Parts of it, Adriana Carson was working on the possibility of giving potential rangers powers to enhance their abilities to battle effectively. And well, you were there, the fumes reacted badly together causing a wave that permanently altered our DNA. However, we have already matured and reached adulthood, so the changes didn't affect us."
"But when I got pregnant, and Lauren was forming inside me from my DNA, the changes made her develop the powers that she has." Rachael made the assumption easily.
"Pretty much, except from what we've been able to tell from all of the children born with these powers is that the first born got a sort of power transfer from the ranger parent, giving them a very strong personal power base." Bronwyn tried to explain. "See, we all have power levels, even normal citizens." She pulled up a massive list onto the computer screen, green bars stretching out horizontally from them, but before Rachael could read the names Bronwyn had scrolled to the bottom. "We've developed a system for rating and classifying the personal power level of an individual, and if I might add it's a fail proof process."
"How does it work?" Rachael asked, intensely curious to what was going on.
"Well, we pretty much analyze the DNA and measure the amount of hemoglobin on the red blood cells, not entirely sure how that works, but it has something to do with it." Bronwyn shrugged. "Anyway, the average human being reads between a 0 and 50." She pointed to a few people who'd been input in the bottom of the list. Rachael's eye caught a familiar name with a number over 50.
"Courtney?" She looked at Bronwyn with a stunned look, frowning when the girl winced.
"Courtney falls under the second category of humans with supplemental abilities, which usually reads anywhere from a 51 to 150 on our scale."
"Usually?" Rachael asked.
"There are exceptions, but as far as the scale goes, the next level is rangers which can go from anywhere between 151 to 300."
"Doesn't seem too consistent as far as the scale."
"Some rangers are just that much more powerful than others." Bronwyn looked to her friend. "For example you and I were stronger than the rest of our team, but Eric beat both of us by a mile."
"Really?" Rachael was impressed; she knew the Quantum ranger was powerful, but not this powerful. Bronwyn nodded and continued explaining.
"Then 300 and over is pretty rare, but the highest number measured is a 946."
"Whoa, who got that?" Rachael's eyes widened in awe.
"Classified." Bronwyn pointed to the top of the list at the extremely long line. "Even I don't know, heck we can't even know two, which is just a complete anomaly."
"How so?"
"Well, the second place has two people who are tied with the exact same power level." Bronwyn leaned back. "Power signatures are supposed to be like fingerprints, no two are alike, but this blew that completely out of the water."
"Are they identical twins or something?" Rachael asked.
"Nope, one male, one female, two totally different families, not related in the least."
"It doesn't sound so fail proof to me." Rachael frowned and Bronwyn shrugged looking over the list of names they could see.
"It works for what we needed it to, I guess." Bronwyn shrugged. "Anyway, the exceptions to this rule are your kids and the children of all those who were there that day and had their DNA altered. Before getting any type of ranger powers their personal power levels exceeded some rangers."
"How is that possible?" Rachael's eyes were wide with curious fear.
"When each of us are rangers, a part of the power stays with us long after we stop morphing." Bronwyn tried to explain. "The power never leaves most of us, but with the DNA alterations our power was cleanly channeled into our children."
"So you're telling me that Lauren inherited mine and Eric's remnant ranger powers?" Rachael asked in surprise. "And that somehow causes her to be able to heal things with her hands."
"Even a thousand years later we still have absolutely no idea how their powers became individualized into what they display." Bronwyn shook her head. "There's no rhyme or reason, even generations later powers appear and don't get passed on at all."
"That doesn't make sense." Rachael shook her head and rested it into her hands.
"No it doesn't." Bronwyn agreed. "But I can help you with what you need to do now." She reached around her computer monitor and grabbed a piece of paper from the printer and started writing down names and numbers. "Get in contact with the parents of the other kids and make sure you all return to SPD at least once to figure out how to be parents to these extraordinary children." Rachael nodded and hugged her friend one more time before saying her good-byes and sending well wishes to their other friends. She kept the biggest secret about Wes and Jen's pending wedding hidden for now, it wasn't her secret to tell, Jen and Bronwyn needed some way of behaving like sisters. As Rachael checked the time on her traveler as she programmed it to send her back to her own time she winced. It had been over an hour, and it was almost eleven o'clock at night when she'd left. Now past midnight, she snuck back into her now dark house quietly and made her way to the bedroom where she changed quickly and climbed between the sheets next to her husband who welcomed her back with a kiss.
"What'd you learn?" He asked, half asleep as he spoke.
"Way more than I could absorb." Rachael murmured in response, holding him close to her. "I'll explain in the morning, but everything's going to be fine."
Epilogue
Life rarely ends out the way you plan it to go. You take the good and work with the bad, and sometimes the bad turn out to be blessings in disguise. A person is only as good as the upbringing the start out with, no matter if it was a bad one that they never strayed from, or the person who rises above their poor beginnings. And then there are those who start out in a good light and finish their life in the same manner, upholding the ideals they were taught as a child, turning out as a model member of society, making their parents believe it all the stress was worth it.
"Mom, I'm leaving!" A female voice called through the house. The spitting image of her mother, Lauren Myers was hanging through the front door, calling inside to where her mother was standing. Rachael smiled and came to the door to wave her good bye.
"If you're going to be late, call." She'd repeated the warning a thousand times, and every time her beautiful daughter rolled her brilliant green eyes at her before nodding and running out of the house to the small red truck sitting in the driveway. The driver of the truck waved politely and smiled at Rachael who waved back at the young girl, her daughter's best friend who reminded her of Bronwyn more than she wanted to admit. But the girl looked familiar from the moment she met her, although to this day she couldn't place her even though she and Lauren had been friends for well over three years.
"She leave already?" Eric asked as Rachael reentered the house, rolling his eyes at the laugh he got in response. Even after the sixteen years of marriage he'd never lost his general physique although Rachael had experienced a few changes, but to him she was still the beautiful young girl he'd married.
"She doesn't like to sit still often." Rachael shrugged and slipped into her husband's arms. "Especially when she's stressed."
"Healing your cousin from leukemia will do that to you." Eric murmured, holding Rachael close. Miranda had been battling the blood disease for years before Lauren asked to try and heal her. The adults had been wary to accept her help, and rightfully so, as the increased focus and concentration had made Lauren lose consciousness after she'd finished, but once she woke up, both girls seemed fine.
"We have an amazing daughter." Rachael looked up at Eric and smiled brightly. Eric leaned in to kiss his wife gently.
"And our son is just as fun." They laughed at the thought of Jake who was probably sitting his room playing his video games until he was too hungry to continue. Rachael nestled into his arms as they stood in their small living room. This was life, and it was good.
(Yay!!! This is only the second one I've ever finished, but hey, I go there didn't I?" This hopefully set things up nicely for my next fiction that is a complete mystery!! Muahahaha!! I mean... you'll have to wait a while for it, but for now, things are peaceful in Silver Hills!)
