“Rangers. The attack is beginning at the north side of downtown.” Circuit made its announcement calmly enough. Wes, Jen, Lucas, Katie, and Trip, all in the main clock tower room, stood up and looked at each other for a moment.

Jen took a deep and only slightly shaky breath and said, “All right, guys. This is it.”

“Wait,” Wes said. “I have an idea. We can use the timeship against it.”

“How?”

“No time to explain. I’ll show you when we get there.”

“Okay,” Jen said with a nod at the others. “Let’s go.”

It took only minutes for them to ride back to the timeship on their vectorcycles. Wes parked, jumped off, and ran to the ship before the others could question him. Opening the door, he led the way inside. When his teammates entered the control room, he was already making the final adjustment to the autopilot.

“Wes?” Jen asked. “What are you doing?”

“How do you know how that works?” Katie said, coming to his side.

Lucas was suddenly suspicious. “Come on guys. Let’s go.”

“Lucas, hold on!” Wes called. He moved quickly across the room and pointed back to the control panel. “Just take a look.” As soon as he was between Lucas and the doorway, he shoved him back, into the others, and bolted out, closing the door before they could recover. A second later he could hear his friends pounding on the door, but he had set the autopilot to lock it as soon as it was closed.

Wes retreated from the ship, watching as it powered up. The autopilot was set to take it back to 2200, and there was nothing his teammates could do to stop it. He could see them now, as they gathered behind the porthole in the ship’s hull. Their expressions of betrayal and desperation tore at his heart. Slowly he raised his morpher as the others opened communications.

“Wes! What are you doing? Let us out!” Jen cried.

“You have to go back to your own time. I can’t let you die here.”

Katie’s voice answered. “But we’re a team! We want to stay!”

Trip’s voice came, asking simply, “Why?”

“Because this is my time, not yours.”

“But you could be killed,” Lucas said.

“Maybe. But I won’t stop fighting until I take my last breath.”

He heard Jen’s voice again. “Wes, please don’t do this. Let us stay and help you.”

“I can’t. Trust me. Everything you want is waiting for you in the future.”

“But it isn’t. What I want is right here. Wes…” Jen’s voice was cut off as the engines lifted the ship from the ground, the sudden lurch throwing its passengers off balance.

Wes watched, shielding his eyes from the wind created by the ship, as it cast a beam upward to open a timehole and swiftly flew into it. In a brief second they were gone. But Wes could only allow himself a moment for grief. The attack on the city was beginning, and he couldn’t let Eric fight it alone.

The Silver Guardians responded to the attack on the city to find a scene of destruction worse than anything they had experienced before. The Dragon flyer was methodically blasting buildings, filling the streets with burning rubble. There were swarms of Cyclobots, attacking the fleeing people, who were already in danger from falling debris. Smoke and the sound of explosions and screams filled the air. Gas fires had erupted in several buildings, and a few cars were on fire, adding to the chaos. Eric was briefly thankful it was a Sunday, and there were relatively few people downtown.

The Guardians moved quickly to do what they could. They unloaded their equipment and began to move on the cyclobots. Eric stopped to give orders to Miller, his second-in-command.

“Get these people to safety. Clear the streets of cyclobots. I’ll see what I can do about that flyer.” He raised his morpher and said, “Quantum Power!” Morphed, he summoned the Q-Rex and sent it against the Dragon.

The Q-Rex swooped in and attacked, drawing the Dragon’s fire and trying to lure it higher and away from the city. They circled in the sky, exchanging a stream of weapons fire. Eric kept an eye on the battle overhead, while also blasting cyclobots in the street with the Defender.

The Red Ranger arrived on his vectorcycle, driving through the battleground. It was even worse than Wes had imagined. He was sickened by the destruction, saddened to see buildings he had grown up with damaged or destroyed. He didn’t even want to think about how many people had been unable to escape.

Seeing that the Q-Rex was occupying the Dragon for the moment, he stopped in the street. After disposing of the cyclobots in the immediate area, he ran to join the Quantum Ranger, who was watching the flyers.

“Eric!” Wes grabbed Eric’s arm. “We’ve got to team up against this thing. Try to work out a strategy.”

Eric pulled his arm away. “You guys can take care of the cyclobots and help the victims. The Q-Rex can handle this, just like the last one.”

“This one’s stronger!” Wes hesitated, but he felt an obligation to warn Eric about what was coming. “Eric... listen. Alex told us according to his history it’ll destroy most of the city… and kill us.”

Eric turned to stare at him. “What? All of us?”

“I’m not sure.” Wes realized with a twinge of shame that none of them had thought to ask about Eric’s fate.

Eric looked at him for another moment, then turned back to look into the sky just as the Dragon broke away from the Q-Rex, flew downwards, and directed an energy blast at the street -- directly at them.

The blast struck them, Eric managing to leap away quickly enough to avoid the full impact. Wes was flattened to the ground, the blast stunning him. The energy ripped through him, the assault heavy enough to drain his morpher. He suffered a second jolt as his suit gave out, leaving him demorphed and powerless.

He sat up as Eric, apparently unaffected, ran back to him. “Looks like I’ll have to fight that thing alone after all. You’d better get to somewhere safe.”

“Eric, you can’t do it alone! Wait until I can help you.”

“You’re crazy if you think I’m going to sit here and let the city be destroyed. The Q-Rex is the only way to stop it. I’m going to do what I have to do.” Eric lifted his morpher and summoned the Eagle. With a last look, he threw a salute to Wes. “See ya,” he said, and leaped aboard.

Wes climbed to his feet as Eric flew away. “Yeah, see ya,” he said softly.

As Wes had said, the new Dragon was indeed tougher than the first one. Eric also concluded that it was considerably smarter. It evaded his repeated attempts to move the fight away from the city, and continued to fly low and attack the buildings, seeming to know that he would be reluctant to fire at it when he might add to the destruction. Seeing no other way, Eric flew closer in the Eagle, using its weapons and the Quantum Defender to attack with more precision than the Q-Rex had.

The strategy worked, by attacking on two fronts they did some visible damage to the Dragon, and forced it to concentrate on them. The Q-Rex descended, landed, and converted to its walker form, to fire steadily upward at the Dragon flyer, driving it up. Eric flew down to join it, leaping from the Eagle to the Q-Rex’s ‘head’. They both fired at the Dragon together, again doing damage. But the Q-Rex was damaged also, close up Eric could see two smoking holes in its hull.

The Dragon looped down, and fired an intense burst as Eric and the Q-Rex fired back. The space between them erupted in flame and surging energy, sending a fireball bursting over them. Eric and both machines were caught in it. The Q-Rex toppled, sending Eric flying, screaming as he fell into fiery destruction. He felt the energy pulses, the heat, and the impact when he hit the side of a building. After that came only blackness as he struck the ground.