Wes didn’t make it. As he neared the clock tower that had been his home for almost a year, he found the street filled with dozens of cyclobots, more than he had ever faced before. And now he was facing them alone. He turned back, only to find that they had trapped him, more were flooding into the street behind him from the buildings and alleys. So this is it, he thought grimly, remembering his pledge to his teammates to fight to the last breath. It looked like that was exactly what was going to happen.

Wes looked down at his wrists. He was now wearing the Quantum morpher on his right arm with his Chronomorpher still on the left. He quickly morphed, and found himself in his usual red and white suit, but with the Quantum Defender in its holster on his hip. As he drew the weapon it occurred to him that this was the same spot where he had first morphed, first fought Ransik alongside his friends. It seemed fitting somehow. With a defiant shout, and the Defender in his hand, he charged forward.

The Defender was a powerful weapon, and Wes found he could also summon his usual blaster. He destroyed more cyclobots than he could count. But they kept coming, like in the clock tower, wearing him down, hitting and blasting him repeatedly. He was already exhausted. Wes knew it was just a question of time.

He moved automatically, reacting without thought, his mind summoning the faces of the people he was fighting for. His father. Eric. Trip, Lucas, Katie. Jen. I should have told her I love her. Now she’ll never know. Images of the house he had grown up in. The picture of his mother he kept in his bedroom. He felt little fear of death, but a sharp regret that it was all over, he would never see any of them again.

The sound of a blast startled him, a different sound from the cyclobots’ blasters. Then he saw them. A sight he thought he would never see again. His team, the Pink, Blue, Green, and Yellow Rangers, jumping off their vectorcycles and running to join him. For a long moment he wondered if he was hallucinating, if he was simply so tired and hopeless that his mind was playing tricks. But they were real, the cyclobots were rushing to attack them. With renewed hope and courage, he returned to the struggle.

They cut through the cyclobots to his side, and after that the fight was short. The robots didn’t give up, but in what seemed like minutes they were all out of commission. Victorious, Wes turned to his friends.

They faced him, and demorphed. He tapped his morpher to do the same. They walked closer to each other, Jen and the others looking determined, Wes knowing there was a foolish grin on his own face.

“Guys, you came back. I can’t believe it,” he said.

Lucas smiled. “You didn’t think you could get rid of us that easily, did you?”

“I thought we agreed to stick together,” Katie added with a fearsome scowl.

“You’re not the only one who can choose his own destiny, remember? We all can,” Jen said quietly.

“And we choose to stay, and fight!” Trip finished.

“So what happened? Why did you come back? How did you get Alex to send you back?”

Jen sighed, and thought for a minute, trying to sort out what she could and could not tell him. Finally she started. “The ride back home was hard on us. The timestream was rough, considering we were going forward. We got there shaken up, but without damage. Alex was there to greet us…”

She remembered the lights, opening her eyes to see the lights in the recovery room shining down. They had seemed painfully bright. Jen had blinked at them for a few moments, wondering where she was, before reality set in and she remembered the ship arriving, and people helping them out, walking them through endless corridors and settling them into the couches they lay on now. She sat up slowly, her head whirling, and looked around to see her teammates, looking as confused as she felt.

The door opened with a quiet sound, and Alex walked in, smiling. “Welcome home, Rangers,” he said softly, coming to stand next to Jen and looking down at her. Jen stood up and pressed a hand to her head. Alex reached to grip her arms gently.

“We’re back,” Katie said flatly. The others exchanged unhappy looks.

Lucas stepped to the window to look out over the city he had lived and worked in for so many years. He turned away. “I thought I’d be happy to get back. But now I’m not so happy.”

“What happened in 2001?” Jen cried. “What happened to Wes?”

Alex frowned. “I’m sorry, Jen. All of you. Wes didn’t make it. But he’s remembered as a hero.”

“No!” Jen stepped back from him, her body stiffening with anguish and rage. “We should have been there to help him!” Her friends moved next to her, and she felt Lucas’s arm go around her.

“Jen. All of that happened a long time ago. Wes is a part of history now. You’ll have to forget him,” Alex told her.

“How can I forget? We were a team for a year. We couldn’t have done anything without him. And now he died… to save us. It isn’t fair!” Jen knew she was shouting and didn’t care. Impatiently she wiped tears from her face and glared at Alex. “How can you be so cold-blooded about it?”

“I would have taken his place, if you had let me. I tried. But Wes chose his own destiny, just as he said.”

Jen stiffened. “You knew about this all along.”

“Yes. I tried to change it. But it was Wes’s fate to die the way he did.”

“No! We have to go back and help him.”

“You can’t. Please, try to accept it. There’s nothing more you can do.”

Jen looked at her teammates. They all looked miserable. Lucas squeezed her shoulders. “It’ll be okay, Jen,” he said gently. She pulled angrily away and turned her back on them.

Alex gave them another hour to recover before marching them through Time Force headquarters. The building was familiar, yet different, and they recognized only a few faces. Alex ushered them into a small but comfortable office and closed the door. At his gesture, they took the chairs arranged in front of a utilitarian desk.

“Where’s Captain Logan?” Trip asked as they sat. “I thought he would be here.”

Alex looked puzzled for a moment before he answered. “I remember a Logan. He’s been dead for years. You may find a lot of the people you knew are gone.”

“What about our families?” Katie asked anxiously.

Alex hesitated. “I don’t know about yours or Trip’s. We don’t have records for your counterparts. Lucas, your parents are alive and well. Jen… we’re still trying to find out about your family. Tracing people can be difficult.” He sat and faced them across the desk as they exchanged dismayed glances.

“Time Force would like to thank all of you for your services above and beyond the call of duty,” he said formally. “Now, I’ll tell you what’s going to happen in the next few days, before I let you get some more rest.” He turned to address Jen and Lucas. “Jen, as you know your counterpart is… gone. The same for you, Lucas. Both of them were members of Time Force, and you will simply assume their identities and ranks.”

Turning to Katie and Trip, he said with evident reluctance, “The two of you will have to be sent to an appropriate facility. Your permanent disposition will be decided in a few weeks.”

“What do you mean, an ‘appropriate facility’?” Katie demanded. Trip began to look fearful.

“You have both been classified as mutants. I’m sorry, and I’m sure your service on this mission will be taken into consideration. You’ll probably be able to choose which relocation center you’re sent to. But you must be removed from human society, for your own protection.”

“What!” Jen and Lucas said simultaneously, both of them on their feet. Trip and Katie looked horrified. Alex sighed.

“This is… unbelievable!” Lucas shouted. “What kind of a world is this?”

“I’m starting to think it’s not the kind of world I want to live in,” Jen said.

“Whether you like it or not, this is reality now. You’ll have to live in it, and make the best of it,” Alex said, his voice harsh. “Now -- I’ll take you to your quarters.”

He stood and opened the door. After a moment of hesitation, Jen nodded to the others. They got up and filed out. Silently Alex led them through a maze of corridors, finally stopping before a plain, numbered door. He opened it.

“These are your quarters for tonight. I thought you would want to stay together, so I assigned all of you here. There are four bedrooms, so you’ll have privacy.” He handed Jen a key. “Trip, I advise you not to leave these rooms alone. Many people don’t like anyone who looks different. It’s for your own good.”

Lucas and Katie stared at him angrily. Jen said quietly, “It’s not his fault. Let’s just go in.” She looked up at Alex as she passed him. His face was carefully blank.

There was very little conversation that evening. They ate a silent dinner together, and watched television until what they saw on the news became too depressing. Jen looked around at her teammates’ faces, seeing misery and despair.

“We can’t stay here,” she said softly as she got up to go to her bedroom. “At least I can’t.” They looked up, watching her bleakly until she closed the door.

Jen was up early in the morning and wandered into the living room. She stood at the window, looking out over the city. It was much the same, although she could see signs of destruction that had not happened in the world she remembered.

She thought about the mutants of this world. What were their lives like? The ones who survived were treated... like dangerous monsters. Guiltily she thought back on her own bitter thoughts and words about mutants. She had been prejudiced too, without even realizing it. But seeing her own friends being treated like that, and knowing they faced life in what amounted to prison... It wasn’t right. If this was the world Wes had given up his life for, it wasn’t worth the sacrifice. Tears prickled at her eyes again.

“I’m with you, Jen. We have to go back. This isn’t much better than the reality when Time Force never existed.” Lucas’s voice came from behind her. Jen turned to see all three of them.

“I don’t like it either. And I want to go back,” Katie said. “But at least a lot fewer people died in this world. Maybe we shouldn’t try to change it. We might make it worse.”

“No. We need to go back. I know it,” Trip said.

“I’m going, no matter what, if I can find a way to do it,” Jen said. “I won’t let Wes die for this.”

There was a knock. The door opened before they could respond and Alex stared at them for a long moment before saying, “The situation has changed.” He stepped aside. Three people, a man and two women, entered the room. All of them looked grim and… frightened. Alex paced to the window, looked out briefly, and then turned and faced them.

“It seems I made a mistake.” He nodded at the three strangers. “Our scientists tell me that the timestream is becoming disrupted again. Reality is starting to revert to its previous state. The one in which Time Force never existed. Apparently, this was caused by my removing you from 2001 before your final battle.” Jen and her friends looked at each other, startled. Alex nodded at the older of the two women.

She explained, “According to our analysis, without your presence in 2001, Ransik’s final attacks were successful enough to cripple Bio-Lab. Eric Myers died, and without him, the Silver Guardians did not survive. No Silver Guardians, no Time Force.”

Alex stepped closer to Jen and said softly, “When I found out about your existence in 2001, it seemed like a second chance. I did it because I didn’t want to lose you again. So I tried to change history, to save you. Now -- we may lose everything because of my weakness. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, Alex.” She looked at him closely. “When you came back to 2001 -- were you really going to take Wes’s place? And die instead of him?”

“Yes. I thought I could find a way to save all of us. And I would have been with you.”

Jen looked at him for another long moment. Then she asked, “What can we do now, to fix it?”

The scientist answered. “We have to send you back again. There’s still a chance you can change it. But you have to go now, before the timestream becomes impossible to travel through. We know we’re asking you to risk your lives again, but there’s no other way.”

Jen, Lucas, Trip, and Katie looked at each other. They all smiled. “We’re ready,” Jen said for all of them.

“Good,” Alex said, all business again. “We’re getting a new ship ready for you. It’s a fighter as well as a timeship. And we’re loading it with the best weaponry and medical equipment we can get together. It should give you a very good chance of getting through this.” He looked them over, took a breath and said, “Let’s go.”

Jen lowered her eyes, remembering Alex’s face when he had said goodbye. After he left the ship she had taken off her engagement ring. She hadn’t had the heart to give it back to him, and had slipped it into her pocket.

After a pause she finished her story. “Without us here, now, to fight this battle, reality started to shift again. Alex had to send us back. But he gave us a new ship, and new weapons and equipment. We have a real chance now. By forcing us to leave you may have saved us after all. And you may have saved yourself and Silver Hills too.”