The Rangers assembled back at the museum following the battle. Having ensured that Hunter wasn't going to be back, they were finally ready to take stock of everything that had occurred over the last couple of days. Between the arrival of Singe, and the Zotac Rings almost bringing them completely to their knees, there wasn't much time to take stock of what they had gained into the bargain. The Aqua Energem had finally been found, bringing with it a brand new Ranger!
As they sat around, listening to him relay his tale, it was difficult to remember that until only two days ago, the man sitting before them was spoken of only in whispers and wild tales. Dr Neil, now apparently going under the name James Navarro, had been a legendary figure in palaeontology, as renowned for his knowledge and his finds as he was his wild theories. He had disappeared for ten long years, leading to most believing he was dead, with most questioning his sanity given his wild theories about aliens and space ships and his belief that the final fate of the dinosaurs was no mere accidental asteroid shower.
Looking at the man before them as he told them his story of what he had seen, as close to the centre of the Earth as any living human had ever been, it was difficult to believe this was the same man that inspired a generation in his field.
"...and then, just as the earth started to rumble, I dipped Tyler's Energem into the lava, and boom. All fixed." James concluded his story. Ivan and Koda in particular seemed enthralled by his stories. In their day, long before computers or television were invented, even before the written word was common knowledge, oral storytelling was the way most of their tales were passed. Ivan was the first to approach him.
"Please, Dr Navarro, you must tell us more." Ivan implored him, eager to hear more. "Tell us, what did it look like down there?"
"Well, I'm glad you asked that." James said with a smile, pulling out his Dino Comm. "They say a picture is worth a thousand words."
"Is that lava?" Ivan asked, seeing the picture James had taken while he was waiting on the Energem repairing itself within the Earth's mantle.
"It most certainly is." James replied cheerfully. Shelby just looked to the picture and gasped.
"You took a selfie?" She asked, rolling her eyes, before looking to her boyfriend. "Now I know where you get it from."
"I just don't know how you could survive the heat!" Riley responded.
"Well, I have Dr..."
"Ms." Kendall corrected him. "It's um...Ms Morgan."
"You don't have a doctorate?" He asked her, looking a little surprised.
"I'm working on it." She groaned, just as Keeper arrived.
"Your victory was impressive today Rangers, and it brings us ever closer to our goal." Keeper announced as he looked around the room. "Though our task is nearing completion, it is not complete yet."
"No, we still have the Silver Energem to find." Phillipe reminded them. "Once we have that, we can end Heckyl for good."
"Yes, but for now, today is an important victory that must be marked." Keeper told them. "Kendall, if you wouldn't mind taking the others upstairs. I am certain that your preparations for the museum re-opening are almost complete."
"I've ordered in a new delivery of stock." Kendall sighed. "Until then, there's a whole lot of food that's just going to end up in the trash, so...I guess the party's on us."
"Phillipe, James, if you wouldn't mind, I would like to have a word with you both." He said as they were about to go. James and Phillipe just looked to each other.
"Keeper, with all due respect...I was going to go back to Margaret..."
"There will be plenty of time for that, I promise you." Keeper assured him. James looked to Tyler and put a hand on his shoulder.
"I'll be right up champ." He told his son, who looked anxious to be separated from him for even a moment longer now that he had finally returned. He reluctantly left with the others, leaving Keeper, Phillipe and James to their discussion.
"So what's on your mind Keeper?" Phillipe asked. Keeper beckoned them both to sit.
"Before I must ask a great favour of you, I believe that I owe you a great deal before I ask you to undertake this last stage of our search." He told them. "Dr Navarro, your theories, the ones that saw you so ostracised by your peers and divided your community, they were not unfounded."
"Well, we know that Sledge brought his ship to Earth 65 million years ago, that much is hardly news." Phillipe responded.
"No, but there is a part of the story that I have not even told the others, it is my greatest shame and deepest regret." Keeper told them with a look of sadness that they had not seen in him before. "When Sledge came to Earth to look for me, I had crashed my ship. The energy crystal that acted as my ship's fuel source had been ruptured and was imminently about to explode. With Fury on my trail, I took the Energems from their casing, and I secreted them within the wreckage. Then...I replaced them with the fuel cell from my ship."
"You booby-trapped Sledge." Phillipe said with an impressed smile. "I always wondered how he came to drift for all those years."
"I had hoped that the fuel cell would destroy him. Clearly I underestimated him and his technology." Keeper continued his tale. "Unfortunately, in my haste to set my trap, I did not think my plan through as thoroughly as I should have. Sledge had been gathering asteroids for sale on the intergalactic market. He had secured them in an electronet being towed by his ship. When the blast disabled his systems..."
"It also disabled the electronet." James concluded, looking completely blown away. His theories, which he had formed from observations of where asteroids had landed and materials found in the vicinity, alloys that would not be forged on Earth for millions of years, he had long touted the theory that the asteroid shower was not a natural event, and there was outside interference from intelligent life forms. "You're...you're saying..."
"I disabled Sledge's ship, and in doing so I secured the Energems from him for all these years." Keeper told them. "But in doing so, I created the single largest extinction level event this planet has ever seen. It destroyed everything, even the brave creatures to whom I entrusted the Energems. Yes, James, you were correct; there was an outside influence on the asteroid shower that wiped out almost every living thing on Earth all those years ago. That influence was me."
"You caused the destruction of the dinosaurs?" James asked him. "You almost caused the complete destruction of Earth?"
"Believe me, there is nothing you could say that could weigh more heavily on my soul than the sadness of knowing what I did to your world." Keeper told them as he concluded his story. "That is why I must ask the two of you to help me find the remaining Energem so that I can unite them once more and end the danger they pose to this world."
"You already know we'll do anything we can." Phillipe responded as he thought about what Keeper had told him. He knew something of responsibility, knowing that the decisions he made at the Embassy impacted a lot of his own citizens and their interests in the wider world. The day would come when he would ascend to lead his whole nation, and literally everything he did would greatly affect the well-being of everyone in Zandar. However, he couldn't imagine making a decision that had the devastating consequences Keeper's had. "The whole team will."
"But the two of you are uniquely placed to assist in ways the others can't." Keeper told them. "James, there is perhaps no one alive that knows more about the true nature of dinosaurs and their habits than you. You alone understand the Titanosaurus, the mighty creature that bore the Silver Energem in ways no other ever could."
"I do." James agreed. "Herds of Titanosaurus roamed all over the continent of Pangea."
"Pangea?" Phillipe asked.
"Earth was originally a single continent named Pangea." James told the Prince. "But following the asteroid shower, a few earthquakes, several other terra forming events, it split up into the continents we have now. The remains of Titanosaurus have been found on literally every continent. It wasn't unusual for them to travel in herds for thousands of miles."
"But then...they can be anywhere." Phillipe gasped. "Which means we literally have narrowed down the search for the Silver Energem to somewhere on Earth!"
"James, your knowledge will be invaluable on this search." Keeper told him. "You are also uniquely placed..."
"You mean I don't have any connections, I have no life holding me back." James spat angrily. "I wonder whose fault that was!"
"So why am I here?" Phillipe asked him.
"You are uniquely placed in a position to assist James in a manner that none of us can." Keeper told him. "I know you have your science institute back home searching, but with James' help, their teams can narrow their search. While as an ambassador, you can use your political position to aid James and his movements as he searches with your teams."
"So...you want me to use my Government position to rubber-stamp James' travels?" Phillipe asked him.
"Not to mention, I've only just gotten my son back!" James snapped at Keeper. "Now you want me to leave again?"
"Dr Navarro, I would never dare to ask this of you if it was not the only path." Keeper assured him. "I cannot make you do this, if you wish to remain I will understand, but know that Sledge and Heckyl will not be the only ones that are after the Energems. Their power was legendary across the universe. The longer they are here, the longer everyone is in danger. This is about more than you and your son."
James couldn't even look at Keeper as he finished his speech. James had lost a lot as a result of the Energem. He had lost ten years with his family that he could never get back. He had lost his wife, who after all those years had given up hope of him returning, and made a new life without him. He had missed out on his son growing up into the capable young man he was now. He always worried how Tyler would grow up with no one to guide him, to help him learn how to deal with all the dangers and terrors and pain that life could bring.
Seeing Tyler in action, he knew that he had figured it out, that now...he didn't need him to protect him. He didn't know if that hurt more than the thought of Tyler being vulnerable without him growing up, knowing that in the end, Tyler hadn't needed him.
However, he also knew that Keeper had a point. James had never faced Sledge, but hearing that he had chased Keeper all the way across the universe not once, but twice, across more than 65 million years let him know how desperate some were to get their hands on the Energems. Hecky had almost decimated the Rangers a couple of times since he had taken up Sledge's place after his destruction. James had personally been hounded by Fury for a decade, all for the Energems. He knew Keeper was right, as long as the Energems were on Earth, they would never be safe. There would always be someone looking for them. James grabbed Keeper's robe and yanked him in close, glaring at him hatefully.
"I'll do your dirty work, on one condition." He growled. "I have your word that once we have the Energems, and we've taken out Heckyl...you take them and you leave. You leave Earth, and you never come back."
"Dr Navarro..."
"A reasonable request." Keeper interrupted Phillipe, who was trying to intervene between the two. "You have no idea..."
"Spare me your speeches. You brought this mess here, smashed up everyone's lives, and now you want us to clean it up for you. Well, that's fine; I'll clean your mess. Just don't expect me to thank you for tearing me away from my son again!"
"If you wish to leave, I can explain..."
"No, that's alright. I'll clean this up for you too." James said bitterly. "At least this time, I'll get to say goodbye."
Upstairs, the team were making the best of the situation, between having the newly-refurbished restaurant all to themselves, and all the food and treats they could ever want. With the power being out for so long, thanks to Kendall blowing the local grid earlier, pretty much everything in the fridge and the freezer was now beyond saving, meaning they all had their choice over what they wanted to eat. As Chase put the finishing touches to a sundae that looked more like a battleship than anything a human being should reasonably be able to eat, he sat back down with Allison.
"Well, this place definitely looks incredible!" Chase commented. "Seriously, I don't think it's looked this good...well...since we got here. Leanne, feel free to wreck the place more often."
"I didn't wreck it, that was Heckyl!" She complained as the others laughed. "Maybe next time I'll just let him walk off with your Energems."
"I think what Chase is trying to say is, you are one heck of a decorator." Riley said as he sat with her, his arm across the back of the seat she was sitting in. She noticed Allison looking at her, giving her a knowing glare, and just tried to ignore it, shoving something in her mouth without looking. She started coughing and spat it out into a napkin.
"What is it?" Riley asked.
"Garlic mushroom." She told them. She could see the way they were all looking at her. "Oh come ON, it's not a vampire thing! I just don't like garlic alright?"
"Well, the good news is that the grand re-opening of the museum is looking to be quite an event." Kendall told them, putting her phone away. "I just got off the phone to Anton, and he just green-lit a major blow-out to celebrate the museum coming back after the gas explosion."
"Gas explosion?" Tyler asked, raising an eyebrow. Kendall just sighed.
"We had to tell people something!" She said, shaking her head. "It's going to be free admission, free food and drink, the whole nine yards. The press is going to be there and everything. We're coming back in style."
"Oh, I so have to invite Erin." Shelby said, looking around the team. Ivan just looked to her.
"Erin, the one that helped you move in with Ms Morgan?" He asked her. Shelby just nodded.
"Which is more than MOST of you did!" She answered, glaring at her team mates. "She's been my bestie since forever. I really want her to meet you all."
Just then, James and Phillipe arrived. James had already packed a backpack, which he held over one shoulder. Phillipe was distinctly silent, knowing what was going to happen.
"Hey dad, you will not believe what we're doing, we're going to have the most raging party to celebrate the museum re-opening! We've got this huge party planned! The press is going to be there and everything!" He looked around to Kendall. "Hey, Ms Morgan! How's that for a main attraction! The world-famous Dr Navarro back from the dead right here at the museum!"
"Tyler, that sounds great, and I really hope you have a great time, but...Keeper and I have been talking." James said, trying to bring himself to say what he knew Tyler would need to hear, and not what he wanted to say. He was still furious with Keeper and the destruction he had brought to the world, but he also knew that while he was gone, the Rangers would need him. Turning the Rangers against him would only weaken them. "We both feel that my skills should be put to better use."
"You're...you're leaving?" Tyler asked him, his heart sinking. His father had only just returned, and already he was going away again. It was like the bad days before he disappeared all over again. James could see the same look on Tyler's face he had when he was eight years old, and it killed him to see it again.
"The search for the Silver Energem is what we need to focus on now." James told him. "Phillipe's got teams searching the globe with means comparable to ours, but that don't have to stick around and fight Heckyl all the time. I'm going to join them on their search, lend them my expertise."
"But you just got back." Tyler protested. James just put a hand on his shoulder.
"This is about so much more than you or me. These threats, they're going to keep coming until we get the last Energem. The sooner we do that, the sooner this'll all be over." James reasoned with him. "The whole world needs us right now."
"Yeah, I know but...I need you." Tyler told him as a tear rolled down his face. James forced himself to remain strong, but inwardly cursing the fate that had led him to this point.
"I've seen you in action, and as much as I hate to admit it, you're not eight years old anymore." James continued. "Trust me; you've proven you can take care of yourself. Hell, you take care of the whole world."
With that, James hugged Tyler. The team around them didn't say a word as he held his son, bidding him farewell after a cruelly short reunion. As they parted, Tyler pulled out his phone.
"It may not be the centre of the Earth, but this one means more." Tyler said, as he positioned himself for a selfie. James put his arm around his son, and forced a smile as they took a picture for his son to remember him by. James could only hope that this time, his search would be short, and his son would be left with more than just a picture on his phone.
FIN