10Here we go, the timeline is a little wonky, but that's because time in other dimensions moves differently, and I'm still in the process of editing the previous chapters.
On a side note, I was worried about the Power Rangers Movie, would they make it too 'dark and edgy'? Would they completely ruin the characters? So I went to see it to get the experience over with, and was pleasantly surprised- other than a bit of annoying camera work in the beginning where they put the camera on a stand and had someone spin it so many times that it made me motion sick (I hate it when they do something like that in the name of impressive camera work- shaky camera work that makes the viewer ill is not impressive, it's offputting), and a moment where they dragged out the suspense just a little too long (maybe newcomers to the movie and franchise wouldn't mind it, but experienced ranger and sentai fans knew what was coming, and them drawing it out grated a bit), it was fairly enjoyable as both a nod to the original and as its own story with everyone getting their character arcs and chances to shine, and boy did they up the villain level on Rita. And once again, Billy is my favorite character (Seriously, if nothing else, go see it for Billy).
The Cracks Widen
Gabe woke up to Tam's frantic voice on the communicator, but couldn't raise her when he tried to get her to repeat her statement.
That was the problem with being asleep when someone yelled at you, you didn't get all the words. The only thing he was sure of was that she called him and the last word was 'rangers'. He didn't have a shift in the morning, so he gave up on sleep and dressed, getting ready to head out and find her, just in case she needed help.
"Black Ranger, over here!" was a call that greeted him as he left his apartment. He was quite bemused to see Shellock attempting hid his bulk behind a scraggly bush. "Quickly!"
"What's going on?" Gabe humored the other by hiding behind the bush as well.
"I've been sent to get you, Tartra already got the Violet Ranger, we've got trouble getting the key to another dimension!" Shellock explained, his hand gestures shaking the bush he was trying to hide behind.
"… Alright." Gabe didn't like the idea of draining another dimension, but he needed to play along until he could save Tam. (Except half his conscience was screaming at him that trying to save one person was not worth sacrificing other dimensions, leaving his more chivalric half scrambling trying to justify that Tam was a good person in a bad situation.)
Shellock grabbed his arm and pulled him into another dimension, landing on the roof of a factory. As far as Gabe could tell, the dimension was made of factories and smokestacks as far as the eyes could see. If one could see through the smog, that is. It wasn't all the same type of factories either, some were older, practically antique, while others we're newer, white paint just starting to turn off-white. Gabe had a coughing fit from the smog in the air, and it took a moment to say the morphing call through his coughs.
"Dimension, uh," he coughed, "Ranger Bla-hack!" Once his helmet was on, he could breathe again. "Where are the others?" He asked, but Shellock was gone.
That's not good, I think. Gabe picked a direction and started to move, making a quick call to Tam as he did.
"Violet, I'm in the dimension, where are you?" There was silence, and Gabe couldn't ignore the sirens in his head, shrieking that something was wrong. "Violet, locate my signature and tell me how to get to you."
"Black, just keep moving, you'll run into me." Tam's voice was flat, and while he wanted to think it was just how it sounded over the communicator, it struck him as sounding dull and lifeless. He caught up to her and the other two just as the Red, White, Blue and Yellow Rangers arrived.
A short time before, Alpha had been startled from his attempts to extract Jason from the Dark Dimension when the white Ranger burst in, heading for the main communicating system. "Amber! What are you doing here?" he asked as she passed him.
"That Witch took my sister! Right from her room!" Amber shouted, only pausing to remember the right buttons to push to alert the others.
"Oh no!" Alpha cried out. He had never met Amber's sister, but he knew that the others liked her as a friend, and it would devastate them if something happened to her. "Why did Jason have to get captured now! Ai yi yi!"
"Mr. Scott's been captured?!" Amber finished sending the alarm, but felt terrified. Mr. Scott was supposed to tell them what to do, Amber didn't know what to do other than call for help.
"The dimension he went into locked behind him, and sensors indicate that one of Yin's lieutenants is in there as well!" Alpha explained. It was an anxious few minutes before the others came in, Mr. Gene looking around for Mr. Scott before his eyes settled on the two standing close together and looking terrified.
It was a riddle for the ages how Alpha, despite not having facial expressions, could look like someone about to jump out of their skin in terror.
"Waz going on?" Rick asked through his yawn, having shoved on a pair of jeans over the boxers he normally slept in and not aware that the red polo shirt he'd grabbed was on backwards. Mina was just in her pink pajama bottoms with a pink and white tank top, Jon just had sleep pants and Jack was wearing his blue jeans backwards. Corey was the only one who arrived still fully dressed from earlier.
"We've got trouble!" Alpha and Amber quickly explained their situations, during which the others became fully alert.
"Oh man, what else could go wrong?" Corey asked, and, as if on cue, the alarm signaling Yin was attacking another dimension went off. "OW!" He yelped as Mina elbowed him in the stomach.
"You had to ask, man, you just had to ask." Jon groaned as Mr. Gene looked at the scanners.
"He's going after two dimensions at once." Mr. Gene brought up the images. "Looks like he's got two lieutenants and the two rangers in this factory dimension, and just one lietenant in this mountain dimension."
"What about Mr. Scott and Tam?" Rick asked.
"Jason's in the Dark Dimension, one of Rita's created dimensions. During the invasion, it ended up getting transferred to Jason, but there's still a lot of Rita and Goldar's old energies still there, enough for Dredwing to manipulate." Alpha explained. "He'll be able to take it back, once he remembers that the dimension belongs to him."
"As for Tam … the scanner only detects dimensional energy and ranger signatures, it will take a bit to set up a search for her bio signature." Mr. Gene explained, and Amber visibly deflated, looking ready to give into the tears she'd been holding back.
"Amber, I know you want to find your sister, but we've got two dimensions counting on us." Rick started, while Jack and Mina quickly put Amber in a hug between them.
"I know, I'll do my best." Amber felt sick at the idea of leaving Tam to the monsters, but with no idea where to look, she didn't have a choice.
"Not to mention, that witch is in the factory dimension, I bet you could ask her." Corey pointed out.
"Right."
"Which brings us to the problem of the two dimensions." Jack pointed out, looking at the split screen. "We'll need four to form a megazord."
"And I'm not comfortable sending just one after one of the lieutenants." Mr. Gene added, looking at Rick, and noticing that they had all turned to look at their Red ranger as well. Rick looked away from the screen and noticed their looks, swallowing visibly once before starting to speak.
"Right, Mina and Jon, you're going to the mountain dimension. Avoid a fight, just go for the key and get out of there. Everyone else, with me, we'll have to take down those four first before we try to go for that key, and there's no telling if they'll use Tam as a hostage. Amber take Tartra, I'll take Pyrote, Jack you have the Black ranger, see if you'll have better luck talking him down than Jon. Corey, Violet fights more like a boxer, you might have better luck pinning her than I did."
They all nodded, moving to stand behind him. Rick let out a breath, stealing himself for the battle ahead. "Let's morph! Dimension Ranger Red!" The others quickly followed suit.
With a battle cry, they split up, and the landing of Rick's group in the factory dimension was only put off by the smog obscuring the ground when they landed.
"Rangers, here to play?" Pyrote sneered, and unleashed several of the darklings, before the evil quartet scattered, forcing the rangers to split up.
"Everyone, be careful!" The order was probably unnecessary, but Rick felt compelled to give it anyway.
"Right!" The others acknowledged, and the fight for the factory dimension was on.
Mina and Jon encountered considerably less difficulty in the mountain dimension. They had landed a strip of flat ground, a caution sign warning of falling rocks just a few feet away from a rock wall that went straight up over a hundred feet and a sheer drop down that was blocked by a guardrail. Their landing was easy, though they landed too close to the lieutenant, and their opponent, despite his appearance, was definitely less … intelligent.
"Oh, the pink and green rangers! Hi, I'm Shellock! It's nice to meet you!" Shellock waved at them.
"Hi." Mina waved back while Jon stared. "Find the key yet?"
"Oh, I haven't found anything yet, where did you drop it?" Shellock started looking at the ground for a key that he thought Mina dropped.
"Uh …" Mina blanked, next to her Jon shook his head.
"Dude, she means the dimensional key, we're supposed to fight over it?" Jon asked, before Mina elbowed him in the side.
"Oh, that one." Shellock bounced as he nodded in understanding. "I haven't found it yet, and I can't summon the darklings cause my lord's out of energy after fixing the Violet Ranger."
"What do you mean, he fixed her?" Mina stepped forward, feeling a little ill at all the possibilities.
"Oh, she tried to hide the White Ranger's identity, he wasn't too happy about that, so he made sure she wouldn't do that again."
"You mean … she didn't want to tell him?" Mina and Jon looked at each other. This went against the hypothesis made by Mr. Scott that the Violet Ranger didn't care about hurting others, because it meant that the Violet Ranger had just sacrificed herself to help them.
"That's what I said!" Shellock bobbed/nodded again, "Oh, wait, now I remember what I was supposed to do if you came!" Shellock cheered, and spikes shot out of his shell, exploding and throwing them off their feet.
"Okay, I've got this." Jon held up his crossbow and looked at Mina. "Hurry and find the key!"
"Right! Wolf Cycle!" Mina hopped on it as it came through the portal, and blinked at the scanner, and then at Jon and Shellock … more importantly, the caution sign that was sitting innocently just off to the side of them. "Forward attack!" She charged her cycle forward, grabbing the sign and freezing the dimension to frustrated cry of Shellock.
After the loss of the previous dimension, the fact they arrived on the command deck with the key and the dimension now locked safely was almost disorienting. There wasn't time to think on it, however, as Mr. Gene took the key and they immediately went to join the others in the factory dimension.
In the dark dimension, Jason and Dredwing circled each other, both showing signs of wear from previous clashes.
"You should just give up, there's no way you can escape this dimension without hurting yourself." Dredwing sneered.
"You should know by now, if you're really Goldar, that I've never given up a fight."
"Oh, I know, I know how you had the green ranger powers within your reach, and you walked away." Dredwing jeered, lips twitching into a snarl. "You gave up then."
"I had to save his life, and even then, you never got the full set of powers." Jason corrected. He had come to accept that, had matured and realized that he had done all he could, even though it had not been enough, and when the situation had repeated itself, he had been successful. "I'm not a teenager anymore, I know and accept myself."
"And yet you chose children to fight this new battle, instead of calling on your friends. Or could it be you are no longer friends? When was the last time you saw them?"
"If your fighting is the same as your taunts, I'm going to wipe the floor with you." Jason kicked out, and then gave a startled cry as Dredwing countered, shoving him into one of the sets of bars.
The moment of the shock, Jason saw all three of the zords he once piloted. The Rex was roaring as the dragon flew around the golden pyramid, but behind it was something dark, burning and threatening, kept at bay by green lightning, the rumble of thunder and the lingering Gold zeo powers.
"If you're going to take up Zordon's mission, you'll need to know how to manipulate a dimension. He knew that. You might not like this, but when he sacrificed himself, he broke my connection and it connected to you."
The words had run together, but the reminder was all that he needed. He paid no attention to Dredwing's taunts, instead reaching out and purposefully gripping the bars.
"It's yours, you just have to claim it."
"Dredwing, you used my energy to lock this place, right?" Jason grinned despite his split lip and the sensation of pins and needles in his hand.
"What are you doing?" Dredwing stepped back as red lightning began jumping from the bars and the green walls began to pulse.
"You might have copied the key, but I still have the master set." Jason closed his eyes, and focused, calling his energy and straightening the parts that Dredwing had twisted, and just barely heard Dredwing's roar of frustration over the roar of the Rex and the thunder of the dragon. He needed to go and find his kids.
"Jason!" He blinked up at the sight of Eugene and Alpha looking down at him. "You're back!"
"Yeah." He agreed, and let them pull him to his feet. "What did I miss?"
"Yin attacked two dimensions, we've saved one, but there have been two developments you're not going to like." Eugene started. "One, Tam was kidnapped from their home, Amber wasn't able to stop it."
"Man, what's the other one?" Jason asked, aware that he wasn't going to like any of it.
"The Violet Ranger didn't reveal Amber's identity willingly." Eugene said, and Jason froze, looking at him. "I had the lines open, Yin used most of the power he got from the other dimension to 'fix' the Violet Ranger once he discovered that she had hidden Amber's identity."
"Does the Black ranger know?" Jason asked, looking at the fights that were raging on screen.
"Jack and Jon are breaking the news to him now. There's a bit of a problem with the communications inside the dimension, a small bug so it's making it difficult for them to contact each other, we're working on it right now."
"What?" Gabe stared at the two, the Blue ranger had been trying to talk him into leaving with them this time, and he'd been refusing, but the bombshell that Tam had refused to turn in the White ranger was startling. "How do you know this?"
"Your pal Shellock is quite chatty. Look, I know you want to save her, but you can't keep sacrificing dimensions to do so, especially if they're going to control you too."
"But then … why would she protect the white ranger? She said she didn't care." Gabe had a horrible, wrenching sensation in his gut.
"Look, I don't know, but they kidnapped the white ranger's sister, and Amber is-" The Blue ranger started, and Gabe felt his staff slip out of his fingers. "Huh?" Both rangers shifted forward before halting.
Gabe didn't hear it, not with the pounding in his own ears as the words sank in. "The white ranger, is Amber?" Tam hadn't told him, but then, they just said that her sister was kidnapped, and Tam was acting so odd now … what had Sigma done?
"Do you know her?" the two rangers were still in front of him, and Gabe did the only thing he could think of to try and disprove what he already knew was true. He removed his helmet.
"Gabe!" The blue ranger called his name, and removed his own helmet as he closed the distance between them.
"Jack." He managed, they'd been friends before Gabe had graduated this past year. "You have no idea just how bad the situation has just gotten."
"Yes, well," Jack coughed, and they both put their helmets back on quickly as the green ranger came over and picked up his staff. "We have to find Tam and save her."
"Guys, Tam is the Violet Ranger." Gabe felt a little hysterical at that, the dots falling into place with a sickening sensation. "That's why she didn't tell about Amber, that's why she was kidnapped when they realized she'd lied, and that's why they did something to 'fix' her."
"What? But that …"
"Guys, we've got to get to Amber, I'm getting static on the communicators that aren't yours." The green ranger said. "It's me, Jon, by the way." The Green ranger said as they took off to find one of the other rangers.
"Jon, sorry about before." Gabe apologized, realizing that he'd hurt someone he knew.
"It's cool, you never could turn down a damsel in distress." Jon teased, remembering Gabe's various rescues of girls from guys that couldn't take a hint (and earning a few beatings before he started taking akido) and helping change flat tires.
Mina found Rick battling Pyrote, dodging the flame throwers and firing back. She also noticed something the two combatants hadn't, and that was the fuel stores they were getting precariously close to.
"Red, look out!" Mina was small, but she made up for that in the burst of speed she put on to knock Rick into a corner as the fuel stores were hit and then began detonating in a chain reaction.
On a catwalk in one of the factories, Amber had her bow out as she moved down it, searching for Tartra who had disappeared during their fight. She felt the detonations of the fuel stores heading her way, and started running to the exit the catwalk lead to. It turned out the catwalk, and several others, extended to outside the factory, linking it to several others in a dangerous open air maze of catwalks, some without rails. "OSCHA would have a field day with this place!"
Tartra attacked her from out of nowhere as the explosion blew the factory, the combination throwing her forward and demorphing her at the same time. Tartra screeched as the catwalk she was standing on dropped out from under her, and used her whip to swing to another catwalk and try to find stable ground; but Amber didn't notice, too busy holding onto the catwalk as more explosions detonated around her and made the catwalk jump and sway.
After an eternity, they finally stopped, and Amber moved to stand, only for the catwalk to groan, and her section to drop slightly, the ones behind her having fallen during the explosions.
"Oh no …" Amber looked down, and the ground was way too far away for a safe landing.
When the blasts hit, Corey had been struggling to get the Violet Ranger pinned or knocked out, and lost track of her in the scramble to get to safety. He emerged into open air, and realized that the person several catwalks above him was in trouble, and wearing very familiar, if singed, clothes. "Amber!"
"Corey!" Amber looked down, but her movement made the section of catwalk sway and dip down slightly. "I can't pull myself up!"
"Hang on, I'll try to get underneath and catch you!" Corey started picking his way, very quickly deciding against jumping between catwalks when the first time he did so made everything shudder. "It's going to be okay!"
"Hurry!" Amber called back down, and Corey froze, seeing someone moving on the same catwalk that Amber hung from. Below, the others arrived, all demorphed and scorched, and quickly noticing the predicament one of their friends was in.
"Amber!"
"Guys, shut up so we can concentrate!" Corey snapped, not noticing the extra person with them, and far more concerned with getting underneath Amber before the Violet ranger shoved her off. "Damn!" the closest he could get to underneath her was still too far away to catch her, the catwalk that had been underneath had collapsed in the explosions and their aftershocks.
Amber saw it too, and then looked up at the Violet ranger who stared down at her for a moment, before kneeling and reaching out to her.
"Take my hand." The other ranger said, in an emotionless pitch that was disturbing.
Amber had seen more than enough movies where a good guy was offered a hand from a villain only for the villain to trick them. At the same time, she was scared of falling and there was no one else nearby. "How do I know you won't drop me?"
The Violet ranger retracted her hand, and removed her helmet, setting it behind her as the catwalk creaked and groaned. "Amber, take my hand." Amber stared in horror as she saw her sister wearing the violet ranger suit. "Amber, you're going to fall, take my hand." Tam's voice was almost monotone, but there was something in her eyes …
"Amber! The Violet Ranger was always Tam, you have to take her hand!" Someone shouted from below.
"Tam, why?" Amber started, only for her section of the catwalk to dip with the horrible sound of metal tearing, and Tam lunged forward, grabbing Amber's wrist with one hand and latching onto the more stable railing of her section with the other. Amber's section of the catwalk fell with a horrible sound of metal snapping, leaving her dangling, and reflexively she grabbed onto Tam with both hands, only for the section Tam was on to start groaning and creaking as well (or perhaps it had been while her own section had just been louder, as from Amber's new position she had an unhindered view of the lack of support for the catwalk, and how warped by the heat the remaining supports were).
"Amber, look at me, don't look at anything else!" Amber looked up, because that sounded more like the Tam she knew. There was barely concealed panic in her eyes and voice, but Tam was there and Amber would listen. "I need you to trust me, I'm going to start swinging you, and I need you to let go when I say so, alright?"
"But if I let go," Amber started, but Tam squeezed her wrist tighter.
"Trust me, sis, I won't let you fall." Tam promised, and Amber nodded.
"Okay. I'm ready." Amber helped Tam start swinging her weight, and panicked when she realized that the section her sister was on was starting to slip. "Tammy!"
"It's going to be okay, eyes on me!" Tam ignored the sounds, her own eyes on Amber, so Amber swallowed and kept her eyes on Tam. "On the count of three, let go!" Tam ordered, "One!" Amber felt the catwalk start to sway with the swing, "Two! Three!" Amber let go, felt Tam's hand leave her wrist, and then had arms wrap around her as Corey caught her, their catwalk shuddering but staying put.
The same was not true of Tam's section of the upper catwalk as a new explosion from an attack hit it, causing it to become partially ripped dangling at a perpendicular angle to the remaining section, Tam's helmet hitting the ground, before vanishing as the attack also caused her to de-morph.
"You traitor!" Pyrote shrieked, aiming again for Tam who was now in a similar position to her sister, but without the benefit of someone to help her gain momentum for a swing. "I'll kill you!"
"Tam!" Amber screamed, Corey the only reason she didn't launch herself over the rail to her sister's aid. "No!" The section broke under another attack from Pyrote, but a blur launched from another section and caught Tam, landing with a skid, the now unconscious girl in her arms Tartra looked up in annoyance.
"Don't worry, we'll get her the medical attention she needs. Dredwing's done his job by now." Tartra disappeared through a portal that appeared underneath her, taking Tam with her.
"No! I want the key!" Pyrote shrieked again, and launched himself at the spot Tam's helmet had fallen. He was just a few seconds behind Gabe, who grabbed the key (a literal ring of keys) and used his momentum to roll into the rest of the rangers, letting Jon and Jack pull him to his feet as they quickly vacated the dimension.
"Everyone alright?" The question was more about physical status, by no one paid attention to Mr. Gene, all focused on their new addition.
"Gabe, you're the black ranger." Rick stared at the older guy that he'd only known as an annoying flirty senior and drama geek.
"Yeah, sorry." Gabe held out the key ring. "I thought I could save Tam on my own."
"You did what you thought was right." Jason took the key ring. "However misguided it turned out to be." Gabe nodded, accepting the censure.
"What are they going to do to her, we have to rescue her!" Amber burst out, looking at Gabe. "Can you get me there?"
"… No, I can't. My morpher … I could never use it to open a portal to that dimension, I had to tag along with Tam or one of the others." Gabe explained, looking down at his wrist.
"That fits," Jason interupted before the others could speak, "The morphers were made to oppose Yin, they would protect their wearer from entering the dimension."
"What about Tam? What about my sister?" Amber reminded them, scared at the lack of information she had, and the uncertainty of what was happening to her sibling.
"Sigma was draining her emotional energy, every time we left that dimension, or dealing with them, she was always tired, drained. Only thing that would get a reaction out of her was mentioning Amber." Gabe grimaced. "She wanted to push you away, so you wouldn't care if you found out she was fighting for Sigma. If he 'fixed' that, then he's probably draining her without her feeling even those emotions."
"Sigma?" Jon asked quietly, "I thought we were fighting a guy called Yin?"
"I think Yin decided to use an alias." Jack murmured back. "Focus."
"Well, the person I fought had absolutely no emotions." Corey spoke up. "I tried to get her angry, I insulted her, threatened her, I even tried to get her to laugh. She tried to throw me off the catwalk and didn't care whether I fell or not."
"But she was scarred when she was saving me, I could tell, she wanted to save me." Amber objected.
"Next time she shows up, Amber, you might want to try talking her down." Jason sighed. "But don't risk your life if she's too far under the spell." Suddenly the command deck rocked, as if they were caught in an earthquake.
"What's going on now?" Jack demanded, and Jon looked over at Eugene as he scrambled back to the scanner.
"We've got a dimensional quake, something's odd about the readings, though."
"Ai yi yi!" Alpha made his way over to look at the readout. "We've been cut off from our Dimension!"
"What?" Jason demanded as he got up.
"Look at the energy buildup! It's blocking our main dimension off." Alpha pointed, leaving most of the teens baffled. "We won't be able to get back!"
"What do you mean, won't be able to get back? We're connected to our home dimension, aren't we?!" Near the end, Corey's voice had raised in slight panic.
"Yes, but the quake has built up a lot of dimensional energy. We could go through, but that would make a worse quake." Jason sighed. "The quakes aren't noticeable unless you're in a small dimension, like the Command Deck, but a big enough quake would rupture a larger dimension."
"So, right now we've got two dimensional versions of tectonic plates rubbing against each other, and their friction is giving off energy that we can't safely go through." Jack summed up, and looked at the clock monitoring the time. "How long until we go through?"
"Time is relative once you're outside a large dimension, especially one with a universe attached, but the simple explanation is that right now, time has stopped in our home dimension, even as it seemingly goes on normally in this one." Eugene explained, taping the console with his fingers as he looked over the others. "I don't get what caused this, though, it can't be the loss of the other dimension."
"Tartra said that Dredwing was doing something, could Yin cause the quake?"
"Not easily …" Jason trailed off, and looked at the readouts. "We'll look into it. We do have places to sleep, it's been a long day for all of you."
"We know." Mina sighed, tugging on Amber's arm. "We all left emergency bags here just in case something happened."
"What?" Jason looked at them in surprise.
"It seemed like a good idea at the time." Rick explained, shrugging. "Especially when Mina decided to stock up the bathroom. We all claimed bunks and some of the stuff we got from the mall dimension were stored in the rooms."
"… I'm impressed."
"Don't be, I was planning on crashing here if the fight with Tam got worse." Amber admitted, and just saying it now that she knew the truth stung.
"It's closer than walking back home when I want a nap." Corey added, and Jason chuckled.
That's it for this chapter.
Some might find the resolution for Jason and Gabe's plots quick, except for the fact the resolution isn't actually resolution, and will come back into play much later.
We're not going to see Tam's PoV for a while, but she'll come back into play after a couple chapters have passed, and the other characters are going to have to come to terms with what happened to her, so she will be mentioned quite a bit.
