Partly in anticipation of the Cyber V crossover, partly to improve my motivation to keep writing this . . . it's actually the third version of this concept, and ideally the last and best one. Criticism is always appreciated.
Power Rangers: Shattered Hourglass
Finishing the last high-five, Zanna stumbled into the shelter of the bleachers. She started teasing the rubber band out of her now-tangled black hair. Most of the other girls wandered off, probably heading for the showers.
Zanna plunked down on a bench beside the water cooler. Nobody was paying attention, so she squirted a little water into one cupped hand, and rolled down her sock. Wincing, she dribbled it on an ugly red abrasion running down her shin.
“How’s the leg?” One of the other girls asked, sitting beside her. Zanna jumped. “Oh, ouch. Hang on; I think I’ve got band-aids in my bag.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
Her teammate pulled a battered, oversized band-aid out of her gym bag. “Knew it. Give me your leg.”
Zanna flinched as the girl touched her ankle, turning her sideways and lifting her leg. The tip of the blonde’s tongue poked out of her mouth as she maneuvered the band-aid into the right spot. Zanna tried to remember her name. Morgan? Macy?
“. . . There! Perfect!” She let go of Zanna’s leg.
“Thanks,” Zanna said, not making eye contact.
“Some of us are going out for ice cream after we’re done here. Want to come?” Looking away, Zanna mumbled something about Dad and homework. “Oh. Too bad. Next time?”
“Maybe,” Zanna said, meeting the girl’s eye and smiling a little. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Take care of that leg.” Her teammate ran off.
Zanna dropped her head into her hands. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she groaned, shaking her head. “This is why you don’t have any friends! All you had to do was say yes!”
That was when Zanna noticed the field had gone quiet. She sat up, confused, and listened. All around her, the crowd had gone still and silent. A wind picked up, rocking the palm trees on the far side of the field. The air rippled.
A beam of white light shot down into the middle of the field, fading to reveal a female Power Ranger. Her uniform was white, with black accents on her gloves and boots, along with black chest armor. The eyes of her unicorn head-shaped helmet gleamed, and her knee-length cape rippled around her.
“Don’t panic,” she said, revealing the voice of a young woman. “I’m not going to hurt you. Much.”
Someone shoved Garfield, and he fell against the wall, sliding to the floor. He wasn’t even that tired—well, all right, his head buzzed, he was hot and cold all over, and his eyes throbbed—just fed up with these pushy strangers. Ever since they’d knocked over the military truck, it had been nothing but dragging, shoving, yelling and hitting.
More footsteps pattered around him as others—soldiers from his unit or strangers, they hadn’t had a chance to talk—were herded down the hallway. From the end of the hall came a sound like a generator, and occasionally a scream.
His latest guard—a woman, by her voice—seized Garfield’s arm. Jerking him to his feet, she shoved him further down the line. His legs folded, and he fell flat, catching himself on the cold floor.
“Leave me alone, I’m protesting,” Garfield muttered. The fever made his Estuary accent even more slurred.
The woman responded with a boot to the ribs. She was wearing heels, too. Garfield grunted, but didn’t get up. When the woman went to kick him again, he caught her ankle. With a yank, he flipped his guard off her feet. She hit the ground with an oof, and Garfield cackled.
“You—” the woman snarled.
“Tiffany!” A male voice called from down the hall. “I need you!”
The woman hesitated. “I’ll deal with you later,” she said at last, springing to her feet and running away.
“Later, darling!” Garfield called. The cold floor soothed his face a little, even through the bandage around his eyes. He could feel each of the gashes burning individually: one slicing through his right eye, one slanting from left eyebrow to right cheekbone, and the last running down the side of his nose. He shut his eyes. Maybe if he could get a little rest now, he’d be able to run when they came back for him. He knew he didn’t have a chance, but no reason to go gently into that good night.
Garfield heard a shuffling noise from behind him—and then startled exclamations from the other men. An alarm began to blare. Lifting his head, he heard a woman’s voice.
“This way if you want to live.”
There was a pop-bang, and a burst of wind. Immediately, the prisoners ran, some bumping or tripping over Garfield as they went. Someone crouched beside him, touching his shoulder. The stranger grasped him by the upper arms, sat him against the wall, and undid the dirty bandage around his eyes.
“I’m not going to hurt you. Can you see?”
“Not a thing—who are you? Where did you come from?”
“My name isn’t important—and we don’t have much time. You’re the only one here who’s tried to fight the Akra. Would you do it again?”
Garfield shrugged. “They’re going to kill me if I don’t.”
“Take these.” The stranger pressed a couple of objects—a gyroscope on a chain, what felt like a penlight—into his hands. “This is a Gyro morpher. It’ll allow you to become an Hourglass Power Ranger.”
“A what that’ll do what now?”
“Hold this up,” she put his hand over the gyroscope, “Spin the hourglass, say ‘Sands of Time, Rise Up,’ and you’ll find out.”
“Stop!” Tiffany was coming back.
Garfield’s rescuer pulled him to his feet. “Say ‘Sands of Time, Conceal’ to keep from being discovered,” she added. Grabbing his hand, she held up his arm and the penlight, and pressed a button under his finger. The device recoiled with another pop-bang.
Without further ado, the stranger shoved Garfield forward. He stumbled, but instead of a wall, he stepped into something that felt like jelly. Remembering how he’d gotten into this building, he guessed “portal” before he was whisked away.
Zanna sat in a corner of the park, fingering her purple Lightspeed jacket. She wondered if they’d have to turn these in, too, now that they were done being Rangers.
“Mind if I join you?” Carter asked.
Zanna looked up, and beamed at him. “Not at all.” The former Red Ranger sat down beside her. “I noticed everyone’s breaking the rules today.”
“Hey, we’re retired, we can fraternize all we want,” Carter replied. He took her hand. “Got a problem with that?”
“What about Dana?”
“I think she’ll be okay,” Carter replied, glancing towards Zanna’s older sister. She and Chad had wandered out of Captain Mitchell’s sight. “Besides, it’s not up to her who I date.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“You sound disappointed,” Carter said. “Are you?”
In answer, Zanna just smiled, and leaned in to kiss him—just as a fire engine drove past, wailing. Only now did the team notice black smoke rising from the city. The smiles faded, and Carter’s shoulders slumped.
“We’ll make up for it later,” Zanna said, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. She pecked him on the cheek.
Rising, Carter ran after the disappearing engine. In ones and twos, the other Rangers followed, Joel groaning.
“Hey! You forgot these!” Captain Mitchell shouted, holding up the morphers.
“I’ve got it, Dad,” Zanna said, gathering them in her arms.
He grinned in relief. “What would I do without you?”
“Let’s hope we never have to find out.” Zanna took off after the others.
However, before she caught up with the runners, a blurry figure slammed into her, knocking her down. Rescue Morphers clattered to the pavement. Moving on instinct, Zanna rolled, pinning the runner beneath her, only to be punched in the chin. Her head snapped back.
“Zanna!” She heard her Dad shout.
The guy beneath her—Chad!?—pulled a small gyroscope out from under his shirt. “Sands of Time, rise up!”
The burst of green energy blinded Zanna, throwing her across the street. When her vision cleared, she stared. An unfamiliar Power Ranger stood before her. His uniform was bright green, his opaque, diamond-shaped visor the bottom half of an hourglass. Brassy buttons ran up the sides of his white chest panel and the cuffs of his gloves. Drawing a flintlock from his hip, he cocked it and took aim at her.
Snapping out of her shock, Zanna rolled away as he fired. A cloud of gas burst from each of his shots—the last one hit her in the leg, hard. Standing unsteadily, Zanna struck a fighting stance. Her Rescue Morpher lay with the others, agonizingly out of reach. Although she tried to shield her face, she already tasted eerily sweet gas coating her mouth and throat.
“Who are you?” Zanna demanded, swaying. She wanted to scream for the others, or her Dad, but her mouth was going numb. Captain Mitchell, who’d been standing stock-still, broke into a run.
“A friend.” The Ranger’s voice sounded as though he was gargling.
Zanna’s legs buckled. Catching her, the Ranger laid her facedown on the grass. She convulsed, and his hand clamped down on the back of her neck. He pulled off her Rescue jacket, tossed it aside, and sliced open the back of her shirt. Zanna wanted to scream, but all that came out was a croak. Something slimy moved on her skin, burning like jellyfish venom. Zanna could see a little of her shoulder: yellowy, gleaming tendrils appeared on her skin. Her stomach tightened into a knot.
Zanna lay helplessly as the Ranger peeled the yellow thing off. The stinging worsened. Captain Mitchell stopped, looking confused. Wildly, Zanna wondered why her Dad wasn’t helping her.
Wait—her Dad? Zanna’s father was named Kyle, he sold used cars. No, that made no sense, Captain Mitchell was her father and Ryan and Dana were her half-siblings. She remembered two childhoods and sets of parents, and they both felt equally real. Her head swam. Another convulsion jerked her limbs as the unfamiliar Ranger kept pulling tendrils.
Screeching, the yellow thing let go of Zanna’s back with a sucking sound. It latched onto the Green Ranger, clinging to his helmet and arms. Startled, he yelled and struggled, falling flat on his back. Spurts of yellow lightning shot through his body, and he screamed.
Everything was going grey. Zanna tried to fight it, get up, but with the monster gone, the numbness quickly overwhelmed her. Writhing in agony, the Ranger crumpled. The last thing Zanna heard was Captain Mitchell’s distorted, echoing voice.
With a whoosh and a gust of wind, Garfield found himself on solid ground again. Stumbling, he flailed for something to grab on to. Just as he found a doorpost, someone walked into him, and they both fell down. As Garfield hit the floor, he realized several things. One, even though he still couldn’t see and felt sick as a dog, the scars on his face were gone. Two, he was in new clothes, including a leather jacket and something hanging around his neck on a cord. Three, whoever he’d bumped into had spilled their duffel bag all over the floor.
Scooting forward, Garfield began feeling around. He knelt on a floor, bare and smooth. His hand bumped a spilling water bottle, and he righted it just in time for a slender hand to snatch it away. People murmured around them, and the stranger, probably a girl, was out of breath. His head buzzed, and he had to stop until the dizziness passed.
“Sorry,” he said, and paused. That was not his voice, nor his native accent. Why was he Scottish all of a sudden? Ohhh, right, disguise. He hadn’t expected the voice, though. Actually, now that he was paying attention, his entire body felt different, even his teeth—the gyroscope thing was thorough.
“No, no, it’s my f—” A girl replied, trailing off. Garfield could smell violets now, very strongly—his mother had worked in a perfume shop, and he could distinguish more scents at one sniff than most of the women he knew. At least now that he couldn’t see, he could chalk it up to scary blind man senses. That had been the first thing Rory said after the medic explained Garfield’s eyes were totaled. Garfield had been high on enough medication to think it was funny.
A warm feeling flowed through Garfield, and the fever dissipated. The pain that had burned steadily behind his eyes for days faded to a faint throb. He sensed that the woman in front of him was the most beautiful creature he’d ever met. The rest of his mind shrugged in bewilderment.
“You’re the Blue Ranger!” The girl exclaimed.
The same warm, fuzzy feeling was made him grin, and told him exactly what to say next. Too tired and confused to argue, he went along with it.
“You’ve got me. Flynn McAllistair, RPM Operator Series Blue,” he said, holding out his hand. The girl shook it. “Knock people down here often?”
“Alicia Wilson, and yes, but usually on the sparring court,” she replied.
“Do you, now?” Garfield grinned, helped her stand, and passed her the duffel bag. He felt more coordinated and normal than he had since before Venjix’s attack. Stupid dialogue or not, this wasn’t half-bad.
“Come back here tomorrow if you want me to prove it to you,” Alicia said.
“Why not now?”
“I think those two heading for us are your friends.” Garfield turned around, hearing footsteps, and a hand came down on his shoulder. He stood up, and felt the Gyro Morpher bump against his chest.
“Flynn,” another woman, probably around Alicia’s age, said, “Doctor K wants us back at the Garage. New weapon or something.”
“On my way, Summer. Same time?” He asked Alicia. This drew a rather odd-sounding “oooh” from Summer.
“You’ve got it. If you’re supposed to be protecting the city from Venjix, you’ll need all the help you can get,” Alicia said. Garfield froze as Alicia slipped past him. Venjix? Was this Corinth City? They’d been heading here before the Akra attack—at least, eh thought so. He thought Rory had mentioned it a couple of times, but he’d been either high on medication or raving with fever, so his memory was foggy.
“Flynn!” A man snapped, and punched Garfield in the arm.
“I’m fine, let’s go,” he said, feeling his ears get hot and probably pink. From Summer’s giggle, she interpreted the change a little differently, and Garfield shook his head. This was going to be a strange job.
Zanna felt like she’d gotten a backrub with sandpaper. She opened her eyes, and blinked a few time to get rid of the blur. She lay facedown on a white bed, flatter than she was used to. Cranking her head around, Zanna saw a wall covered in unfamiliar little machines.
For a second, she wondered what she was doing here. Then it all came back in a rush—getting attacked by that White Ranger, the laboratory, that squishy yellow thing attaching to her back, and then getting her life rewritten. A wave of nausea rushed over her, and she shut her eyes. Now she could remember: she was no Power Ranger. That year with Lightspeed (had it been that long?) felt like a dream.
Now that she was paying attention, she could hear muffled, quiet voices. Zanna sat up, a little unsteady, and listened.
“. . . Erasing the timeline,” a woman was saying. “Seems like it was a pretty normal Akra.”
“Then how’d it kill him? Urisus was a good fighter and a telepath,” a man asked. Wait, killed? Zanna stood. The Green Ranger was dead?
“Kamikaze attack,” the woman replied. “Used up all of its life energy in one big burst. It must have been pretty desperate.”
It had: they’d made a lot of progress with Carter. Thankfully, they hadn’t gone beyond kissing—but with a shudder, Zanna realized that was only because the Akra hadn’t been able to push him that far yet. Worse, she remembered where that idea had come from. As soon as it had attached to her back, the Akra had dug into her memories, particularly her fantasies.
“Perfect,” it had said. “Let’s get Carter.”
It was her fault—and she’d gotten the Ranger trying to save her killed for it. Zanna slumped against the wall. Her forearm hit a panel, and a silvery door slid open beside her, making her jump. Through it she could see what looked like the bridge of a ship, manned by a woman and two men in white uniforms. Time Force? A row of bizarre little objects lay on the center console. She recognized the gyroscope: the Ranger had used it to morph. Her memories were fuzzy, but she thought the Akra had briefed her about those other things—the silver one shaped like a laser pointer, and what looked like one of those magnetic necklaces made of a lot of little bars. They were definitely for fighting Akra, at least.
Then Zanna realized. She couldn’t bring the Ranger back, but she could carry on his work. There were plenty of other Akra prisoners who needed rescuing. Zanna’s bare feet thunked on the metal floor as she ran into the room and snatched up the tools.
“Hey!” A man shouted. Whirling, Zanna saw the three strangers spring to their feet.
“Please,” she said, looking each one in the eye. “I know what the Akra are like, and I’ve got a year of experience as a Ranger—even if it was under mind control. Let me do this.”
“No way,” the woman replied. “You have no idea what you’re getting into. The Akra have already beaten the original Hourglass Rangers. The building you got possessed inside? That used to be their base.”
“The Akra took you over once, they could do it again,” one of the men added.
“You don’t have to make up for anything. It wasn’t your fault,” the last officer, a tall Asian man, said. He walked around the console, stopping in front of Zanna. “We can take you home.”
Zanna shook her head. “What’s the point of the Green—”
“Harlequin,” the woman corrected.
“—Ranger dying to save me if I just go home? Besides, if it’s that bad, you need all the help you can get.”
Nobody said anything for a long minute. The only sound came from the thrumming engines. Zanna’s palms sweated, but her feet got very cold. She started to think about putting the stuff down; these three were the experienced ones, and they didn’t think she had a chance.
Unbidden, a memory of Zanna’s capture sprang into her mind: the girl who’d bandaged her leg getting dragged away by the White Ranger, screaming for help, and then later being sedated in the laboratory because she was struggling too much. Zanna’s hands clenched on the weapons.
“Fine,” the Asian man said. He smiled, just a little.
“But—” the other man began, stopping as the other glared at him.
Zanna nodded once, mouth dry, and looped the gyroscope chain around her neck. “Thanks.” She looked down at the other tools, and giggled nervously. “Um, can you guys show me how these work?”
Zanna's Akra-created backstory is based (with permission) on LightspeedRescue1's favorite recurring OC, Jane Mitchell, and the two are actually parallel reality versions of each other in-universe.
Power Rangers: Shattered Hourglass
Chapter 1: Hourglass Facility, July 3rd, 2010
Kohala High School, Hawaii, June 15th, 2010
Finishing the last high-five, Zanna stumbled into the shelter of the bleachers. She started teasing the rubber band out of her now-tangled black hair. Most of the other girls wandered off, probably heading for the showers.
Zanna plunked down on a bench beside the water cooler. Nobody was paying attention, so she squirted a little water into one cupped hand, and rolled down her sock. Wincing, she dribbled it on an ugly red abrasion running down her shin.
“How’s the leg?” One of the other girls asked, sitting beside her. Zanna jumped. “Oh, ouch. Hang on; I think I’ve got band-aids in my bag.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
Her teammate pulled a battered, oversized band-aid out of her gym bag. “Knew it. Give me your leg.”
Zanna flinched as the girl touched her ankle, turning her sideways and lifting her leg. The tip of the blonde’s tongue poked out of her mouth as she maneuvered the band-aid into the right spot. Zanna tried to remember her name. Morgan? Macy?
“. . . There! Perfect!” She let go of Zanna’s leg.
“Thanks,” Zanna said, not making eye contact.
“Some of us are going out for ice cream after we’re done here. Want to come?” Looking away, Zanna mumbled something about Dad and homework. “Oh. Too bad. Next time?”
“Maybe,” Zanna said, meeting the girl’s eye and smiling a little. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Take care of that leg.” Her teammate ran off.
Zanna dropped her head into her hands. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she groaned, shaking her head. “This is why you don’t have any friends! All you had to do was say yes!”
That was when Zanna noticed the field had gone quiet. She sat up, confused, and listened. All around her, the crowd had gone still and silent. A wind picked up, rocking the palm trees on the far side of the field. The air rippled.
A beam of white light shot down into the middle of the field, fading to reveal a female Power Ranger. Her uniform was white, with black accents on her gloves and boots, along with black chest armor. The eyes of her unicorn head-shaped helmet gleamed, and her knee-length cape rippled around her.
“Don’t panic,” she said, revealing the voice of a young woman. “I’m not going to hurt you. Much.”
Hourglass Facility, July 3rd, 2010
Someone shoved Garfield, and he fell against the wall, sliding to the floor. He wasn’t even that tired—well, all right, his head buzzed, he was hot and cold all over, and his eyes throbbed—just fed up with these pushy strangers. Ever since they’d knocked over the military truck, it had been nothing but dragging, shoving, yelling and hitting.
More footsteps pattered around him as others—soldiers from his unit or strangers, they hadn’t had a chance to talk—were herded down the hallway. From the end of the hall came a sound like a generator, and occasionally a scream.
His latest guard—a woman, by her voice—seized Garfield’s arm. Jerking him to his feet, she shoved him further down the line. His legs folded, and he fell flat, catching himself on the cold floor.
“Leave me alone, I’m protesting,” Garfield muttered. The fever made his Estuary accent even more slurred.
The woman responded with a boot to the ribs. She was wearing heels, too. Garfield grunted, but didn’t get up. When the woman went to kick him again, he caught her ankle. With a yank, he flipped his guard off her feet. She hit the ground with an oof, and Garfield cackled.
“You—” the woman snarled.
“Tiffany!” A male voice called from down the hall. “I need you!”
The woman hesitated. “I’ll deal with you later,” she said at last, springing to her feet and running away.
“Later, darling!” Garfield called. The cold floor soothed his face a little, even through the bandage around his eyes. He could feel each of the gashes burning individually: one slicing through his right eye, one slanting from left eyebrow to right cheekbone, and the last running down the side of his nose. He shut his eyes. Maybe if he could get a little rest now, he’d be able to run when they came back for him. He knew he didn’t have a chance, but no reason to go gently into that good night.
Garfield heard a shuffling noise from behind him—and then startled exclamations from the other men. An alarm began to blare. Lifting his head, he heard a woman’s voice.
“This way if you want to live.”
There was a pop-bang, and a burst of wind. Immediately, the prisoners ran, some bumping or tripping over Garfield as they went. Someone crouched beside him, touching his shoulder. The stranger grasped him by the upper arms, sat him against the wall, and undid the dirty bandage around his eyes.
“I’m not going to hurt you. Can you see?”
“Not a thing—who are you? Where did you come from?”
“My name isn’t important—and we don’t have much time. You’re the only one here who’s tried to fight the Akra. Would you do it again?”
Garfield shrugged. “They’re going to kill me if I don’t.”
“Take these.” The stranger pressed a couple of objects—a gyroscope on a chain, what felt like a penlight—into his hands. “This is a Gyro morpher. It’ll allow you to become an Hourglass Power Ranger.”
“A what that’ll do what now?”
“Hold this up,” she put his hand over the gyroscope, “Spin the hourglass, say ‘Sands of Time, Rise Up,’ and you’ll find out.”
“Stop!” Tiffany was coming back.
Garfield’s rescuer pulled him to his feet. “Say ‘Sands of Time, Conceal’ to keep from being discovered,” she added. Grabbing his hand, she held up his arm and the penlight, and pressed a button under his finger. The device recoiled with another pop-bang.
Without further ado, the stranger shoved Garfield forward. He stumbled, but instead of a wall, he stepped into something that felt like jelly. Remembering how he’d gotten into this building, he guessed “portal” before he was whisked away.
Mariner Bay, September 10th, 2000
Zanna sat in a corner of the park, fingering her purple Lightspeed jacket. She wondered if they’d have to turn these in, too, now that they were done being Rangers.
“Mind if I join you?” Carter asked.
Zanna looked up, and beamed at him. “Not at all.” The former Red Ranger sat down beside her. “I noticed everyone’s breaking the rules today.”
“Hey, we’re retired, we can fraternize all we want,” Carter replied. He took her hand. “Got a problem with that?”
“What about Dana?”
“I think she’ll be okay,” Carter replied, glancing towards Zanna’s older sister. She and Chad had wandered out of Captain Mitchell’s sight. “Besides, it’s not up to her who I date.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“You sound disappointed,” Carter said. “Are you?”
In answer, Zanna just smiled, and leaned in to kiss him—just as a fire engine drove past, wailing. Only now did the team notice black smoke rising from the city. The smiles faded, and Carter’s shoulders slumped.
“We’ll make up for it later,” Zanna said, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. She pecked him on the cheek.
Rising, Carter ran after the disappearing engine. In ones and twos, the other Rangers followed, Joel groaning.
“Hey! You forgot these!” Captain Mitchell shouted, holding up the morphers.
“I’ve got it, Dad,” Zanna said, gathering them in her arms.
He grinned in relief. “What would I do without you?”
“Let’s hope we never have to find out.” Zanna took off after the others.
However, before she caught up with the runners, a blurry figure slammed into her, knocking her down. Rescue Morphers clattered to the pavement. Moving on instinct, Zanna rolled, pinning the runner beneath her, only to be punched in the chin. Her head snapped back.
“Zanna!” She heard her Dad shout.
The guy beneath her—Chad!?—pulled a small gyroscope out from under his shirt. “Sands of Time, rise up!”
The burst of green energy blinded Zanna, throwing her across the street. When her vision cleared, she stared. An unfamiliar Power Ranger stood before her. His uniform was bright green, his opaque, diamond-shaped visor the bottom half of an hourglass. Brassy buttons ran up the sides of his white chest panel and the cuffs of his gloves. Drawing a flintlock from his hip, he cocked it and took aim at her.
Snapping out of her shock, Zanna rolled away as he fired. A cloud of gas burst from each of his shots—the last one hit her in the leg, hard. Standing unsteadily, Zanna struck a fighting stance. Her Rescue Morpher lay with the others, agonizingly out of reach. Although she tried to shield her face, she already tasted eerily sweet gas coating her mouth and throat.
“Who are you?” Zanna demanded, swaying. She wanted to scream for the others, or her Dad, but her mouth was going numb. Captain Mitchell, who’d been standing stock-still, broke into a run.
“A friend.” The Ranger’s voice sounded as though he was gargling.
Zanna’s legs buckled. Catching her, the Ranger laid her facedown on the grass. She convulsed, and his hand clamped down on the back of her neck. He pulled off her Rescue jacket, tossed it aside, and sliced open the back of her shirt. Zanna wanted to scream, but all that came out was a croak. Something slimy moved on her skin, burning like jellyfish venom. Zanna could see a little of her shoulder: yellowy, gleaming tendrils appeared on her skin. Her stomach tightened into a knot.
Zanna lay helplessly as the Ranger peeled the yellow thing off. The stinging worsened. Captain Mitchell stopped, looking confused. Wildly, Zanna wondered why her Dad wasn’t helping her.
Wait—her Dad? Zanna’s father was named Kyle, he sold used cars. No, that made no sense, Captain Mitchell was her father and Ryan and Dana were her half-siblings. She remembered two childhoods and sets of parents, and they both felt equally real. Her head swam. Another convulsion jerked her limbs as the unfamiliar Ranger kept pulling tendrils.
Screeching, the yellow thing let go of Zanna’s back with a sucking sound. It latched onto the Green Ranger, clinging to his helmet and arms. Startled, he yelled and struggled, falling flat on his back. Spurts of yellow lightning shot through his body, and he screamed.
Everything was going grey. Zanna tried to fight it, get up, but with the monster gone, the numbness quickly overwhelmed her. Writhing in agony, the Ranger crumpled. The last thing Zanna heard was Captain Mitchell’s distorted, echoing voice.
Corinth City, May 6th, 2000’s
With a whoosh and a gust of wind, Garfield found himself on solid ground again. Stumbling, he flailed for something to grab on to. Just as he found a doorpost, someone walked into him, and they both fell down. As Garfield hit the floor, he realized several things. One, even though he still couldn’t see and felt sick as a dog, the scars on his face were gone. Two, he was in new clothes, including a leather jacket and something hanging around his neck on a cord. Three, whoever he’d bumped into had spilled their duffel bag all over the floor.
Scooting forward, Garfield began feeling around. He knelt on a floor, bare and smooth. His hand bumped a spilling water bottle, and he righted it just in time for a slender hand to snatch it away. People murmured around them, and the stranger, probably a girl, was out of breath. His head buzzed, and he had to stop until the dizziness passed.
“Sorry,” he said, and paused. That was not his voice, nor his native accent. Why was he Scottish all of a sudden? Ohhh, right, disguise. He hadn’t expected the voice, though. Actually, now that he was paying attention, his entire body felt different, even his teeth—the gyroscope thing was thorough.
“No, no, it’s my f—” A girl replied, trailing off. Garfield could smell violets now, very strongly—his mother had worked in a perfume shop, and he could distinguish more scents at one sniff than most of the women he knew. At least now that he couldn’t see, he could chalk it up to scary blind man senses. That had been the first thing Rory said after the medic explained Garfield’s eyes were totaled. Garfield had been high on enough medication to think it was funny.
A warm feeling flowed through Garfield, and the fever dissipated. The pain that had burned steadily behind his eyes for days faded to a faint throb. He sensed that the woman in front of him was the most beautiful creature he’d ever met. The rest of his mind shrugged in bewilderment.
“You’re the Blue Ranger!” The girl exclaimed.
The same warm, fuzzy feeling was made him grin, and told him exactly what to say next. Too tired and confused to argue, he went along with it.
“You’ve got me. Flynn McAllistair, RPM Operator Series Blue,” he said, holding out his hand. The girl shook it. “Knock people down here often?”
“Alicia Wilson, and yes, but usually on the sparring court,” she replied.
“Do you, now?” Garfield grinned, helped her stand, and passed her the duffel bag. He felt more coordinated and normal than he had since before Venjix’s attack. Stupid dialogue or not, this wasn’t half-bad.
“Come back here tomorrow if you want me to prove it to you,” Alicia said.
“Why not now?”
“I think those two heading for us are your friends.” Garfield turned around, hearing footsteps, and a hand came down on his shoulder. He stood up, and felt the Gyro Morpher bump against his chest.
“Flynn,” another woman, probably around Alicia’s age, said, “Doctor K wants us back at the Garage. New weapon or something.”
“On my way, Summer. Same time?” He asked Alicia. This drew a rather odd-sounding “oooh” from Summer.
“You’ve got it. If you’re supposed to be protecting the city from Venjix, you’ll need all the help you can get,” Alicia said. Garfield froze as Alicia slipped past him. Venjix? Was this Corinth City? They’d been heading here before the Akra attack—at least, eh thought so. He thought Rory had mentioned it a couple of times, but he’d been either high on medication or raving with fever, so his memory was foggy.
“Flynn!” A man snapped, and punched Garfield in the arm.
“I’m fine, let’s go,” he said, feeling his ears get hot and probably pink. From Summer’s giggle, she interpreted the change a little differently, and Garfield shook his head. This was going to be a strange job.
The Time Ship, Time Inapplicable
Zanna felt like she’d gotten a backrub with sandpaper. She opened her eyes, and blinked a few time to get rid of the blur. She lay facedown on a white bed, flatter than she was used to. Cranking her head around, Zanna saw a wall covered in unfamiliar little machines.
For a second, she wondered what she was doing here. Then it all came back in a rush—getting attacked by that White Ranger, the laboratory, that squishy yellow thing attaching to her back, and then getting her life rewritten. A wave of nausea rushed over her, and she shut her eyes. Now she could remember: she was no Power Ranger. That year with Lightspeed (had it been that long?) felt like a dream.
Now that she was paying attention, she could hear muffled, quiet voices. Zanna sat up, a little unsteady, and listened.
“. . . Erasing the timeline,” a woman was saying. “Seems like it was a pretty normal Akra.”
“Then how’d it kill him? Urisus was a good fighter and a telepath,” a man asked. Wait, killed? Zanna stood. The Green Ranger was dead?
“Kamikaze attack,” the woman replied. “Used up all of its life energy in one big burst. It must have been pretty desperate.”
It had: they’d made a lot of progress with Carter. Thankfully, they hadn’t gone beyond kissing—but with a shudder, Zanna realized that was only because the Akra hadn’t been able to push him that far yet. Worse, she remembered where that idea had come from. As soon as it had attached to her back, the Akra had dug into her memories, particularly her fantasies.
“Perfect,” it had said. “Let’s get Carter.”
It was her fault—and she’d gotten the Ranger trying to save her killed for it. Zanna slumped against the wall. Her forearm hit a panel, and a silvery door slid open beside her, making her jump. Through it she could see what looked like the bridge of a ship, manned by a woman and two men in white uniforms. Time Force? A row of bizarre little objects lay on the center console. She recognized the gyroscope: the Ranger had used it to morph. Her memories were fuzzy, but she thought the Akra had briefed her about those other things—the silver one shaped like a laser pointer, and what looked like one of those magnetic necklaces made of a lot of little bars. They were definitely for fighting Akra, at least.
Then Zanna realized. She couldn’t bring the Ranger back, but she could carry on his work. There were plenty of other Akra prisoners who needed rescuing. Zanna’s bare feet thunked on the metal floor as she ran into the room and snatched up the tools.
“Hey!” A man shouted. Whirling, Zanna saw the three strangers spring to their feet.
“Please,” she said, looking each one in the eye. “I know what the Akra are like, and I’ve got a year of experience as a Ranger—even if it was under mind control. Let me do this.”
“No way,” the woman replied. “You have no idea what you’re getting into. The Akra have already beaten the original Hourglass Rangers. The building you got possessed inside? That used to be their base.”
“The Akra took you over once, they could do it again,” one of the men added.
“You don’t have to make up for anything. It wasn’t your fault,” the last officer, a tall Asian man, said. He walked around the console, stopping in front of Zanna. “We can take you home.”
Zanna shook her head. “What’s the point of the Green—”
“Harlequin,” the woman corrected.
“—Ranger dying to save me if I just go home? Besides, if it’s that bad, you need all the help you can get.”
Nobody said anything for a long minute. The only sound came from the thrumming engines. Zanna’s palms sweated, but her feet got very cold. She started to think about putting the stuff down; these three were the experienced ones, and they didn’t think she had a chance.
Unbidden, a memory of Zanna’s capture sprang into her mind: the girl who’d bandaged her leg getting dragged away by the White Ranger, screaming for help, and then later being sedated in the laboratory because she was struggling too much. Zanna’s hands clenched on the weapons.
“Fine,” the Asian man said. He smiled, just a little.
“But—” the other man began, stopping as the other glared at him.
Zanna nodded once, mouth dry, and looped the gyroscope chain around her neck. “Thanks.” She looked down at the other tools, and giggled nervously. “Um, can you guys show me how these work?”
Trivia
Zanna's Akra-created backstory is based (with permission) on LightspeedRescue1's favorite recurring OC, Jane Mitchell, and the two are actually parallel reality versions of each other in-universe.
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