Sitting in a corner of the tumultuous Legionnaire quarters, Craig Hopwood watched his enemies' minions circulate amongst themselves and build up one another's excitement over the events they believed would soon take place. They would talk one on one about their disgusting ideals, or sometimes gather in small or large groups to share their faith and pray their demented little prayers. All of them were duped, blind to truth and free will, and none of them could care less. The door to his quarters was constantly opening to admit more people or allow another train of them to leave for another compartment. A few other members of the twisted religious cult sat alone, like Craig was, their eyes closed in silent prayer or meditation. He was thankful for those particular members, because it gave him a safe cover; if everyone else had proclaimed their "faith" out loud, and he were forced to follow suit, it would not have been very long at all before his disguise was compromised. Occasionally, the entire spaceship would shake softly, roar loudly, or shake violently. The stronger vibrations came from space travel itself and Craig, to a small extent, could withstand them because of his experience on Gemini Destiny, but the other men and women were quick to throw up or stumble around dizzy during those periods. The noises and lesser shaking came when instantaneous bursts of cheering or chanting broke out in one part of the ship and spread to every other part. When those waves hit, four out of five Legionnaires in his quarters would jump, wave, and cheer as if they were at a high school basketball game and their team were twenty points ahead. It was absolute madness.
"Praise Lord Tracer, the Rising is here."
Craig looked up from his solemn stare and saw the young woman who had spoken looking back at him. She was wearing all black with one diagonal stripe of purple to signify how long ago she had joined. No orange stripes meant no battle experience. Her hair was pure black, and gave the impression of being dyed, and it was stylized short and straight. By his judgment, she was probably four or five years older than him, but the disguise he was in made him look the same age as she probably was. Taking the pillow off of a nearby cot, she set it on the cold floor and sat down on top of it.
"The Rising is here," replied Craig, wishing she would leave him alone. "I must meditate more on this glori..."
"We can meditate together," the woman told him in an almost scolding voice. "The Trinity of Darkness is based on working together. I mean, look how fast we build Trinity Rising!"
Inside, Craig frowned while outside, he smiled. "Yeah," he muttered. "Fast."
In the back of his mind, Arcanza chirped, "She is new. She is pretty. I want her. Let us take her. We can have her. We can take her."
The woman reached out in an attempt to put a hand on Craig's shoulder, but he scooted to the side just in time to avoid her touch. She smiled, but with those empty, blank white eyes that all Legionnaires infused with pseudoine possessed, it was hard telling why. Although, she did not make another attempt. "You're new too," she remarked, because of the one purple stripe on Craig's stolen uniform.
"Leave me alone," he growled back to her comment. "I have to prey." Prey on Michael, and kill him, he finished in his head. Arcanza laughed, a blend of disbelief and disappointment.
"Alright," she sighed, standing up. "But if you want to celebrate with someone before we see the Nexus, I'll be around."
When the woman was gone, Craig felt an overwhelming sense of relief, and got to his feet to stretch for a while. A short while later he found himself walking down one of the ship's corridors during another strong tremor. The onboard lights flickered a little, this time. As he acted to regain his footing, Craig noticed something a short way down this corridor he had not noticed before now. The outline of a door, but no handle or any other method of opening it. "What are you doing here?" a rough voice demanded.
Craig turned and suddenly he was face to face with Corout. The former Omnian scientist and Rapture Hold commander, and Michael's current immediate subaltern, seemed as on edge and uncertain as Craig himself. "The Rising is here," he answered coldly, "I was looking for a place to celebrate."
"Down there," Corout snarled, pointing back toward the quarters Craig had come from. "Now hurry and go. I cannot keep Lord Tracer waiting."
"Thank you," Craig acquiesced and walked briskly in that direction. A couple nervous seconds later, he turned back around, just in time to see the hidden door close itself and Corout nowhere in sight. "Thank you for telling me right where Michael is, you piece of monkey shit," he whispered with a grin.
Back inside his quarters, the celebration had come to a complete stop. Everyone was sitting cross-legged in a big circle with their hands joined, some singing a soft hymn in native New Omnian, which Craig only knew because it was a part of Arcanza's memories that he had access to. The woman who had approached him before spotted him and beckoned him to join in right next to her. Unwilling to give up his masquerade after so much effort had been put into it already, he did as she wished and sat down gently. On one side, he took her hand, and the other he took the hand of a heavyset, graying, middle-aged woman with deep creases in her face.
As he sat there, in silence, listening to the women on both side of him humming along with the hymns, he realized this was a perfect opportunity. He closed his eyes and braced himself for his self-imposed private hell.
It rose up from his heart and radiated outward to consume his entire body, and after that it pierced into his mind and cleaved into his soul. The Black Hole power felt like concentrated filth, but with a sweet, nirvana-like sensation blended within it. A sensation that could destroy anyone foolish enough to try controlling it. Seizing Black Hole, he fought the urge to go insane and used his powers to summon a vision to his mind.
A large chamber. There was stained glass here, and a extensive amount of technology, and an elevator that was locked in the open position. The entire place seethed with darkness, rage, expectation, and corruption. Corout stood near the open elevator. His pointed nose was cast downward, staring at a reflection of himself in the mirrored floor. Standing opposite him was Michael Tracer, the closest thing to the devil itself, wearing a leather jacket. The Betrayer was smiling despite the intense aura of depression. "How probable is your intel?" Michael's voice demanded.
"The others and I agree on a forty-nine percent chance," answered Corout in a sad and defeated voice. "That will most likely change as we get closer to the Nexus, Lord Tracer."
"So," Michael mused, scratching the side of his cheek, "Meridian-Omega may still be intact..."
That shocking revelation sent a chill through Craig's spine, and anything Michael had added to that sentence was inaudible because Arcanza began screaming and fussing and blathering like Cecil used to do when Craig beat him on the Mortal Kombat arcade. It was an ambiguous tirade; it could have been gloating, warning, or just raw offended anger. By the time Craig had suppressed the mad Omnian's voice, Corout was speaking again. "No, if the Central Star is still there, it is very much burnt out. The explosion propelled an enormous amount of energy out into the universe, and whatever energy was left was eliminated by the subsequent implosion. I would expect to find nothing but a rock, providing the theory is proven true."
Michael nodded his agreement and folded his arms across his chest. "Even so, that rock has been collecting the stray energy of the universe for the last twenty-five years, which is very significant to our efforts."
"According to our scripture, the Nexus is where the three beings of the Trinity of Darkness will come together. If we reach the center of the Nexus and nothing is there, the entire Legion will rebel against us, Lord Tracer," Corout warned.
Laughing, Michael replied, "Don't be an ass. I could kill every man, woman, and child on this spaceship faster than you could count them. Yourself included." His face tightened, and his dark eyes focused on something unseen far away. "Our plan continues as is. We will use your device to create a breathable atmosphere inside the Nexus. The entire Twilight Legion will unload at its center, at the point where time and space converges. There, the Pseudo Morpher, which still contains a mimic of Devus's gateway-opening power, will open a time/space portal to the instant Arcanza was killed and save him by pulling him back through the portal before Starlight destroys him."
"Liar!" Arcanza's voice screamed in Craig's head, and even with the voice repressed down he heard it loud and clear.
Through the hazy vision, a voice whispered, "Would you get up?"
The sensation was like emerging from water after swimming in an ocean for a thousand years, with air burning his lungs and stinging his eyes. Everything left a blue-green-orange afterimage in his eyes, but Craig slowly recalled where he was. He was still cross-legged on the floor, and the Legionnaire woman he had met was crouching directly in front of him, and every other person was standing around watching him curiously. So much for not drawing attention to himself. "Sorry," Craig muttered as he stood up, shaking on weak knees. Black Hole still filled his soul, and Arcanza was still either crying or laughing in his mind, so everything around him seemed like a dream-like blur. "I'll be okay."
He trudged across the quarters, and every Legionman and woman's eyes either touched him briefly or locked on him intently. What had obviously happened was their demented mass prayer had ended, but he had stayed on the floor with his eyes closed and unaware because he was spying on Michael and Corout. With a flop, he laid down on the small cots provided for each member and stared forlornly at the ceiling.
It all made sense now. Devus had the power to open gateways, and Michael used the Pseudo Morpher to mimic that power and so he could open gateways now, too. By going to Meridian-Omega, the intersection of time and space, and by using the power it contained there, he could open a portal through time to rescue Arcanza.
"But then," the evil Omnian snarled, "my soul would not be trapped in here with yours, now, would it?"
Craig stood in front of the window at the tip of Digireign Spire, overlooking the crumbling Neo Twilight City below, by now its three cores destroyed by Annihilation Surge and his friends ready to obliterate the city in entirety. Behind him, Seraide was sobbing over the empty space that was once where Professor Abner Donaldson stood. Soleron's arms wrapped around her tightly, and Oriquin wore a look of combined grief and relief. The teenager kneeled down to examine the golden seal resting on top of a pile of royal-fashioned black and violet silk clothing. It depicted three hands on the bottom reaching for the same rainbow-colored source of light at the top, and undoubtedly it was some religious symbol for the Trinity of Darkness. Craig picked up the stomach-turning Trinity Seal, grunting under the unexpected weight of it, and with all of his strength he flung it back down toward the ground. The seal burst into a thousand fragments, the force sending them in all directions. A cold sensation washed over Craig's entire body. "The Destroyer is now destroyed," he said fiercely. "Our crusade is over."
But the crusade was not over. Before Oriquin's Starlight power incinerated Arcanza, the evil Omnian transferred his soul into the Trinity Seal. When Craig destroyed that seal, however, Arcanza's soul had no place to go and instead sought the nearest vessel to co-inhabit, which happened to be Craig's body. That was why he knew Michael and Corout were destined to fail in their plan; if they were going to succeed, Arcanza would not be part of Craig now.
His parents were laying face-down, dead, in the entrance to the only home he had ever known. In each of their backs, moonlight was reflecting off the blades of long knives directly behind their hearts. Blood leaked down, pooling underneath them, and was splatter all over a pair of shoes. His shoes. The devil's shoes. Michael Tracer was brandishing a third knife, clean and deadly, and quite obviously intended for Craig's own heart. His thoughts were jumbled and disjointed, and his muscles would not respond to his frantic attempts to move them. Lifting the weapon and grinning, Michael thrust it forward for the kill. A voice roared in Craig's head, "Use it!" Without comprehending was he was doing, Craig reached out with one hand, and the blade should have sliced it down the middle. Instead, though, the Black Hole power created a miniature void that sucked the knife it and disarmed Michael, both physically and mentally. "This isn't over," promised Michael.
The crusade was not over.
Standing on the main piloting stage, Pyrial refused to move an inch. His hands were frozen over the controls, ready to alter Meridian Hope's course or speed at any sign of threat or danger. Thankfully, the last few hours had passed without incident; in fact, the lack of even the slightest activity seemed awfully strange. Traditionally, the Firmament was known for its collection of various rouges, pirates, and assassins, and spaceships passing through this area of the universe were frequently hijacked or attacked.
"It is too quiet," Talyserys grumbled. He was standing near Pyrial, and his golden eyes were focused intently on the outlook window as well as the status monitors.
Laurasia and Seraide sat together near the navigation computer, both of them eagerly awaiting to announce they were close to escaping the Firmament. Next to them, Soleron was strapped into a seat, his head hanging down and forward as a result of the medication Seraide had administered to help him relax.
"I agree," sighed Laurasia, wrapping a blanket closer around herself, a nervous reaction that she had performed several times in the last couple minutes. If anyone were to see her now, it would be hard for them to imagine she was an outgoing, energetic, vigorous entertainer, as well as a former Pink Ranger.
Forcing himself to exhale, then inhaling sharply, Pyrial added in a shaky voice, "Everything ahead looks clear. I think there's a good chance we'll make it out in one piece."
"I have been thinking," announced Seraide, turning away from the monitor for a second to face Pyrial and the others. "Univerouge, the alien the kids fought back on Earth, was from the Firmament. While he was there he woke up Ego, who always devours the souls of the people that awaken it. Since it was a Firmament creature who woke Ego, it might have come here to do what it tried to do on Earth."
Talyserys made a painful face as he asked, "You think Ego devoured all the souls in the Firmament?"
"It would explain why we have not been attacked," Seraide replied.
Typing a series of commands into her console, Laurasia suggested, "Let's run a scan for biological life signs on the nearest inhabited planet and find out." The monitor in front of her sprang to life with numerical data and a chart of the area around their current location. Everything seemed normal for a few seconds, but suddenly a blinking red pixel appeared on-screen. "Is there a planet there?" she muttered to herself as she entered in another series of keys.
Leaning forward, Talyserys examined the screen himself and commented, "I have never seen a bio-scan where the target was blinking."
"There's no planet recorded there," confirmed Laurasia, "and the sensors are not detecting the presence of a spaceship, either. And a blinking target indicates it is only partially organic..."
"Ego!" Soleron gasped. His eyes popped open and he struggled violently to escape his constraints, all the while muttering, "Ego...Ego...Ego...Ego..."
Seraide grabbed Soleron and held him tightly, brushing his long black hair in a comforting and soothing gesture. She whispered, telling him to stay quiet.
"He's right!" Pyrial cried. Instantly, Meridian Hope tremored heavily as it changed from normal speed to warp speed at his command. The ship rocketed forward as fast as it could move in the hopes of getting away from the soul-stealing entity nearby.
Watching the monitor, Talyserys growled, "It is following us."
"How fast can we reach the Nexus?" demanded Seraide. She wiped saliva away from Soleron's lips with a small cloth. His bright blue eyes were glazed over with an icy, expectant look, and he had finally calmed down enough to stop speaking gibberish.
"The edge of the Nexus is twenty-seven minutes away," answered Laurasia. "I can't do exact calculations right now, but by my best guess at the rates we're traveling, we should be able to enter before him."
Talyserys growled nervously under his breath and asked Seraide, "Do you think Ego will still come after us if we make it to the Nexus? We are not Firmament natives, after all; it is possible he would not even attempt to take us."
"We will have to wait and see," replied Seraide. "I have a back-up plan, but hopefully we will not need it. Just get us to the Nexus, please, Pyrial. Until then we can only pray Ego does not catch up."
Things were going too smoothly. This was, undoubtedly, the calm before the storm, the few brief heartbeats of peacefulness before the world was turned upsidedown and shaken until it exploded. Everything was proceeding perfectly, and yet it was driving Cecil crazy.
Bane lounged in the farthest corner of the bridge, his hands itching to reach out and finger the controls for the weapon system to reassure himself one more time. Two crystal eyes darted from the crystiglass window to the monitors to Oriquin and back again, his reflexes wound up so tight they could spring to life in a split second. He had taken a few minutes to walk back to the mens' quarters and change into a dark blue velvet shirt tucked into a pair of black slacks. Around his neck was a single locket with a picture of Rachel Manus inside, a parting gift from the person always on the New Omnian's mind.
Standing on the piloting stage, Oriquin stood regally, his dark features fixed on only the window looking out over the vastness of outer space. Several projectors were transmitting images onto the window, showing the ship's vital statistics, but none of those had changed since the beginning of their journey. A map toward the upper right corner displayed their location in relation to Michael's own ship. The words below that map confirmed they were safely outside his scanning ability, but both men continued their edgy vigils regardless.
Amber and Rebecca were together in the women's quarters, both sleeping uncomfortably the last time Cecil had checked on them. Fairly soon into the trip, Amber had begun showing signs of fatigue. And although Becky had not, she joined her friend so neither of them would feel guilty about sleeping at a time like this.
Brittany was in the laboratory. The lab must have been Professor Donaldson's addition to Gemini Destiny, because it was laid out eerily similar to the lab that used to be inside Alpha Complex. She was experimenting with the anti-pseudoine serum; he had no clue what she was doing, but it was busy work to pass the time and he was thankful she had found something else to do besides mope around the bridge.
Inside the training stage, toward the back of the ship near the infirmary, Cecil was intensely working out, but his thoughts kept drifting elsewhere. Mostly to his friends, sometimes to Alex, sometimes to Michael. Even the former Rangers crept into his mind, but they were far removed from the situation, safe and sound rebuilding New Omnis and waiting for Soleron's memory to return. A hologram of a faceless assailant appeared in front of him, and instantly his leg extending straight and high, performing a flawless kick that send the hologram flying backward into the wall with a fizzled beep accompanying its evaporation.
On the wall opposite the entrance, all twenty monitors were lit up, displaying everyone else onboard the ship, as well as the stats, the map, and the view outside the ship that the people on the bridge could also see. There was no camera on the training stage, so he was positive no one was watching him back.
"So, you have Black Hole now, huh?" Cecil asked. But he received no answer, because nobody else was present. "Black Hole, Starlight, Pseudo Morpher, Twilight Legion..." Another hologram materialized somewhere off to the side, and his reflexes carried him as he leapt into the air, twisted around, and landed face to face with the target. His entire strength was put into one single punch, and he stumbled forward as the recipient of that punch vanished without warning. Cecil fell to the ground, but did not remain there long, pushing himself up on his hands and executing an OmniTech-assisted backflip to regain his footing. "I hate it all!" he screamed. "I hate it all!"
Walking over to the controls, he changed the difficulty from "Easy" to "Difficult" and braced himself for another challenge. He continued training until his supply of energy was completely exhausted, then drew more strength from his Omni Morpher and kept training more. There was a battle waiting for them ahead.
"This?" Seraide whispered, shocked. "This is the Nexus?"
Fast approaching them was what she assumed was the entrance to the Nexus, the center of the universe, the empty void where Meridian-Omega once shone and the planet Omnis once thrived. Only, it was not an entrance at all. It was a plasma-like black wall.
"I think," Pyrial replied, breathlessly from his panicked attempt to move the ship at top speed to stay far ahead of Ego. "I think...that the Nexus...is on the other side."
The wall oozed and squirmed like jelly, so it stood out in stark contrast to the stillness of the space around it. There was no end to how far left or right, up or down it extended. Meridian Hope was approaching rapidly, and as it did the wall seemed to swallow up everything else in their line of sight.
From her seat, where she was squirming uncomfortably, Laurasia sighed, "Either that, or we'll slam into the wall, essentially committing suicide, and Ego will still eat our souls before they become part of the Lineage. We'll die twice over."
Talyserys had one fist clenched into a fist and one wrapped around his inactivated Lifeblade, and growled, "So what do we do?"
There was a silence that lasted only a few seconds in reality, but it stretched on for minutes on end within Seraide's mind. So many thoughts rushed through all at once, it was difficult to come to a decision before something else would occur to her and she would change her mind once more.
A bright light suddenly enveloped the entire ship, and instant Seraide noticed that Talyserys stopped growling, Laurasia was sitting still, Pyrial was no longer breathing heavily, and Soleron had stopped staring in befuddlement at all of them. In fact, nothing moved at all, and it seemed as though time itself had stopped. "What is going on?" she gasped. And then, as if in response to her question, the light pulsed, and just like that she knew what it was. "Mother?"
Seraide went to stand up and run into the light, but she was frozen in place as much as the other former Rangers. "It is you, mother. I know." The light surrounding the ship entered to the inside and wrapped itself around her, acting as if it were trying to embrace her, and if Seraide could have she would have embraced it back.
In an instant the light condensed itself into a single orb, and then into a single ray of light that shot through the ship's window, traveled a short distance, and pierced the Nexus wall. "Pierced" was not the right word, as the black jelly shifted to avoid the ray of light as it entered. The light could penetrate the entrance to the Nexus, and as soon as she realized this Seraide knew what she had to do.
Time resumed. As feeling returned to her legs, Seraide stood up and pointed toward the barrier in front of Meridian Hope. "Forward," she ordered.
"You are positive?" Talyserys sought confirmation.
"Janoa," sighed Soleron, smiling. Seraide could not remember the last time she had seen Soleron smile, but that single word only made her resolution stronger.
"Yes," she answered.
The blackness opened up, and Meridian Hope entered into the Nexus. It traveled at hyper speed, as fast as it could go without crumbling apart instantaneously. All at once the former Omni Rangers cheered and gave relieved sighs, but their celebration was short-lived, because their trial was not over yet.
The relief gave way to shock. There, in the heart of the universe, where only cold and emptiness was supposed to have been for the last twenty-five years, was something. Nothing was supposed to exist in here, not even them, theoretically, but they were inside. And they were not the only something. Directly ahead of them, positioned at the very center of the Nexus, was a burnt out megastar.
"Meridian-Omega?" Talyserys exclaimed under his breath. "It can't be!" But his voice could not be heard, as Seraide screamed out loud.
The blackness opened up, and Ego entered the Nexus. It still sensed those meals nearby, but now it sensed something else as well. A new resting place. Straight ahead, there was a resting place and, best of all, it could feel no lifeforces anywhere on it. That meant eternal rest! Finally, a place with no lifeforces to wake it up, completely devoid of interruptions. Excitedly it shifted its course, moving away from those unfulfilling meals and toward its new home. A permanent home!
The blackness opened up, and Trinity Rising entered the Nexus. Corout stood at Tracer's side, his arms folded across his chest, his gaze locked tightly on the emptiness stretching in every direction beyond the three glass walls. The spaceship was moving uncommonly smoothly; no noise, no shaking. It felt like an Omnian graveyard.
"What the hell is that?" Tracer snarled.
"That is Meridian-Omeg..." Corout began, then trailed off as he realized where Tracer's finger was pointing to. A short distance from the burnt out star, orbiting around it at a next-to-still speed, was another ship, sparking familiarity in Corout's head. "Meridian Eye VIII? Why is it here?"
Tracer pushed Corout aside and advanced to the main control panel as he ordered, "Ignore it. We must carry out the profile as soon as possible." Wrapping his hand around a golden handle, he pulled it back completely. Forty containers, each tauntingly bearing the logo of the fictitious Genetopia, located all around Trinity Rising instantly broke free of their attachments and began being drawn toward Meridian-Omega. Slowly but surely, those containers began circling the spherical star in every direction. Without its gaseous layers, the star was composed only of solid matter, and remained the size of the planet Mercury located in the same solar system as Earth. Because of that, the forty discharge containers permeated its atmosphere and blew apart all at once.
Corout walked over to a nearby screen and punched in some coordinates and commanded to bring up the status of their procedure. "Hydrogen and nitrogen levels have already reached minimum required concentration. Oxygen levels are rising steadily. In about three minutes, breathable air will be created over the entire surface and atmosphere."
"Then land," commanded Tracer. "We disembark in one hundred eighty-one seconds. And we might as well destroy that anomaly ship while we're waiting." He laughed from the back of his throat.
The blackness opened up, and Gemini Destiny entered the Nexus.
Oriquin stood on the piloting stage, his hand holding the rail that encircled the upraised stage. A full, warm sensation pulsed throughout him in sync with the beat of his heart as Starlight energized him above and beyond the limits of normal perception. He was aware of everyone and everything.
Cecil sat at the front console, with Rebecca and Amber immediately to one side of him and Brittany and Bane to the other. All of them were dressed in their Omni Ranger uniforms; the solid color shirt that signified their individual color, tucked into either a part of black pants or black skirt, and completed with a deep black jacket emblazoned with the five-colored-diamond Ranger symbol. Alpha-S2 was in the tactical operations section of the ship trying to repair the communication system.
"This is Gemini Destiny," Oriquin repeated into his microphone. "Come in, Meridian Eye."
"It must be abandoned," suggested Cecil.
"It is an Omnian ship, a solar research vessel," replied Oriquin. His Starlight-enhanced vision made it crystal clear to him, and his intuition told him there were people onboard. "If there are other Omnian survivors on that ship, it is my responsibility to do everything in my power to protect them from Michael."
Amber nodded, agreeing with him, and heightened hearing revealed a small sigh of acquiescence from Cecil as well.
"...come in, Gemini Destiny..." a signal suddenly came through. "This is Meridian Hope." The voice was distorted and cut off, but even with that complication Oriquin recognized it and his heart almost leapt into his throat. Without thinking, he reached down, deep into the depths of Starlight, and teleported them all at once onto Gemini Destiny.
"High energy output from Michael's ship!" Bane suddenly exclaimed.
"He's attacking us?" Rebecca cried in a panic.
"No," answered Cecil, pointing toward the unexpected spaceship. Meridian Hope instantaneous exploded into miniscule fragments, diffusing into every direction, until the space it occupied seconds ago was as empty and void as the rest of the Nexus around them.
Blinking back tears, suddenly utterly confused, Seraide asked, "What is going on?"
Cecil reached over, across Amber's lap, and slammed his hand onto the weapons release panel. "Bane, lock onto Michael's ship now."
"Not possible," Bane responded. "That ship is too big to destroy completely. I will lock onto their own weapons systems, then they'll be unable to attack us like they did them."
Pyrial wore a dumfounded expression as the words, "Who attacked us?" tumbled out of his mouth.
"Fire!" Cecil and Oriquin ordered at the same time.
The line to disembark the ship was moving quickly overall, one Legionnaire after another, intermittently slowing or accelerating. Corout stood with his fists clenched at his sides, barking orders at various high-ranking Legion members and making sure the line continued moving. Eventually a single line became two adjoining lines, with men and women pushing up against each other in a struggle to step on the holy ground first.
Corout spared a minute to study that holy ground, still amazed that the psychotic boy had actually made this happen. He was a strange mixture of freak and fanatic, Tracer was, but ultimate his intelligence and perception was laughable. The surface of Meridian-Omega was hard and smooth, barren of any life including plants and insects, a sterile grayish-silver color that looked white from one corner of the eye and black from the other corner. Directly above the surface, however, a layer of shimmering bright sapphire-colored flowed in every direction, spreading over the entire starscape. It must have been condensed energy, condensed so much it became almost as liquefied as water, that was still being gathered here from the universe beyond. Corout noticed that the Legionnaires were cognizant of the energy, but they walked through it effortlessly, so it must not have all the properties of water, only its look.
"Now is the time to rise!" he screamed at them. "Twilight Legion, the universe finally belongs to us! Prepare for the Betrayer's transfiguration! Today a god is born!" Of course, that god would be Corout, not some genetically-created kid Arcanza had used and discarded like an Omnian magicandle. And they would find out soon enough.
Without warning, a shockwave hit the entire spacecraft, and somewhere in the distance Corout heard a mighty explosion. He turned around and began hurrying back to the command room to investigate, but realized the line had stopped moving and people were starting to shout.
He returned to the departure ramp and saw a Legionman standing rigidly still, staring down at the liquefied surface, apparently afraid of stepping out onto the strange ground even though he clearly saw others before him doing it. Cautiously he stuck a leg forward, placed one foot directly above the energies. Nothing at all happened next, but still the strange Legionnaire jumped back with a sharp cry and pushed the cluster of others surrounding him back.
"What is going on?" demanded Corout.
The dark-haired man looked up with his blank stare. He must have realized he was being watched and then, abruptly, vanished.
Corout began pushing his way through the Legionnaire crowds to investigate what was going on, but a middle-aged Legionman from further down the corridor exclaimed, "Master Corout! Lord Tracer requests your presence. Trinity Rising's weapons and surveillance systems have been attacked."
That vanishing youth still bothered him, but Corout needed to report to Tracer before the kid began questioning his subordinate's loyalty. "Forget what you just saw," Corout ordered all of the disembarkers, "and continue exiting the ship. Lord Tracer will be with you all shortly."
Reality melted back into place. One second, everything seemed dark and distorted, caught in an everlasting web of non-existence, and the next, he was standing on a familiar white slab inside an empty room. He collapsed onto the ground as his legs lost all strength, especially his right leg, which was still shooting intense and debilitating pain up his nerves directly to his mind. If pseudoine poisoning felt like a knife in his leg, this felt like twenty knives, twenty daggers, twenty swords, twenty machetes, and twenty lumberjack axes piercing his leg while it went through blender after blender.
He waited out the sensation, and passed time by listening to Arcanza chatter in the back of his head. Apparently, even he felt that. "Resonance," the tormenter gasped. "Incredible resonance. Meridian-Omega wants to repel Black Hole. Probably Starlight, too, because both are tainted. We should be dead. It is long past time for us to die, boy. I felt safer fighting against you than fighting inside you."
When he regained control of his pain, and was able to suppress Arcanza down to a tiny buzz, Craig stood up and walked out of the teleportation stage. He turned right, walked down a short corridor, then turned right again and walked down another. Through the windows in this hall he could see Meridian-Omega getting closer, its energy-covered surface taunting him from afar. Another right turn took him down a third passage, passing by the door leading to the vacant captain's chambers, then turned left into a wide antechamber with two doors, one off to either side, and a large double door entrance straight ahead. With a final deep breath, he approached that entry and walked through with his head held high.
The doors clicked as they opened completely. The sight he was greeted with was instant surprise. Five friends in their non-morphed uniforms leapt to their feet, falling into natural offensive fighting stances. Pyrial reached into his belt and slipped on two crystiglass-laced gloves, Laurasia performed a dance-like move that allowed her to slip a warp blade from her boot, and Talyserys drew and activated his green Lifeblade with fearsome haste. Seraide pulled Soleron farther back, all the while coddling a wrapped package. The only person who did not move right away was Oriquin. He turned around slowly, lowering his hands to his sides, and casting a neutral look in Craig's direction.
"Only one?" asked Cecil. "Michael must really be insane if he thinks one stupid Legionnaire is going to take us down."
A smile appeared on Amber's face, as she began to understand, but made no attempt to stop Cecil's asinine comment.
"The showers and lockers are right next door to the teleportation stage," said Oriquin, "and even if you did not want to change, you could have taken out those damn colored contacts so you would not have scared the living daylights out of all your friends."
Craig smiled and felt his face go warm.
"Craig?" Cecil exclaimed, dashing forward to check out the situation, but Seraide was there a split second before him. She wrapped her arms around him tightly—tight enough that, if he were a small animal, he would have been crushed—and did nothing to hide the small tears trickling down her cheeks.
When she let him go, Craig stepped back to take in the view of everyone once again and waved gently. "I'm back. And I'll tell you everything I've learned from my espionage expedition."
"Everything, huh?" wondered Brittany, a hint of disbelief in her voice.
Amber asked at the same time, "Did you learn how we can save Alex?"
"I'll tell you everything," he repeated a second time. "We're going to save Alexander, kill Michael, and bring down Twilight Legion all at the same time. I promise."
Minutes later, everyone was gathered on the Tactical Stage, the communication and operations room adjacent to the bridge of Gemini Destiny, and only two channels were active on the monitors: an audio link to Alpha-S2 who remained on the bridge monitoring the entire ship's status and a visual of Trinity Rising where it had landed on Meridian-Omega's flowing surface far below them. Craig Hopwood had taken one of the two seats in the center of the circle they formed around the perimeter of the stage, and Seraide had taken the other. One of the Omnian woman's arms was still wrapped around a package, and her free hand gripped her biological son's hand tightly with nervous strength. Her silver eyes shifted back and forth from him to Amber Donaldson so many times it was a surprise when she stopped to look at something else.
Standing on either side of the entrance, Talyserys and Bane looked ready to jump into battle at the first sign of its need. The older of the two, in truth not that much older despite the way he looked, held the handle of an inactive Lifeblade in his right hand. Brittany Elliott, Rebecca Spencer, and Laurasia were sitting against the back wall, quiet as they listened to the debriefing. Pyrial, Amber, and a virtually brain-dead Soleron sat along the front wall.
Along the side wall with the embedded window looking out onto the vast emptiness of the Nexus, in all possibility the area where the planet Omnis had once orbited around the Center Star, Cecil Mercuric and Oriquin sat watching their best friend and namesake talk about everything he had seen while disguised as a Legionnaire. Both of them had troubled expressions, as if they knew Craig was leaving out one of the most important details of the story. In fact, he was leaving out several.
"There is a resonance of some kind on the surface," Craig informed them, but turned to speak directly to Oriquin. "When I stepped onto it, it was like my powers turned themselves against me."
"What powers?" wondered Amber. "I'm getting this feeling you're not telling us something. You keep mentioning them, but not where they came from. Is it residual OmniTech energy? Can you still use it without a Morpher?"
Cecil snorted, and suddenly Craig knew his friend knew. Swallowing the mouthful of saliva that instantly flooded his throat, he shook his head and resigned himself to confessing. "Arcanza's power was Black Hole, and it can only be transferred when its previous wielder is killed. When Arcanza died last year, I inherited his power." The collective gasp did not surprise him, but the tears building up in Seraide's eyes did break his heart from the inside out.
Suddenly, she thrust her package into his lap, then stood and rushed hurriedly out through the door and disappeared as it shut behind her. Bane made a movement that indicated he was going to follow her, but a sharp golden-eyed glare from an unmoving Talyserys made him reconsider. Warily, Craig looked down at the plain white cloth and unwrapped it slowly and carefully. His broken heart leapt directly into his saliva-filled throat.
Inside was a sheathed sword but, more frighteningly, was a small disc that looked almost exactly like the Trinity Seal that started all his troubles, but with several slight difference. This seal was completely silver with an engraving of human figures forming a circle around the center sharing the same prismatic aura. "The Spirit Seal!" Arcanza screamed excitedly in the back of Craig's mind. "Please! Put my soul at rest inside! You owe me!"
"I can't keep this," growled Craig. He wrapped only the seal inside the white cloth, stood up and moved briskly to Cecil, thrusting the item into his friend's empty hands.
"What the hell?!" exclaimed Cecil, staring at the wrapped seal like there was a flesh-eating bacteria inside instead of a few ounces of silver. "First your damn Morpher and now this god-forsaken thing? Craig, you cannot be..."
Ignoring him, Craig lifted the sheathed weapon to show the Omnians and asked them, "What's this?"
"Master Eztram wanted you to have it," explained Laurasia.
Oriquin added, "The Starborn himself designed and used the very first Lifeblade, then passed it down to his descendants. One of those descendants realized its adverse aging effect was hindering the battle against the Eternal Demon and sacrificed his entire life to make it permanently active. It became known as Cataclysm Vein. The battles with the Demon lasted thousands of years, though, and it was eventually lost. It was not found again until a hundred years ago, or thereabouts, and it is arguably the most powerful weapon Omnis ever produced. I did not know that Eztram had saved it from the world's destruction..."
Cecil gave Craig a look of warning, saying, "You have given me enough crosses to bear, 'Prince Hopwood.' Keep it to yourself this time."
Smiling sadly, Craig nodded, and returned to his seat. "The reason I can't keep the Spirit Seal is because, now that I've broken one, only I can break the other two and, if that happens, the Eternal Demon will be free to enter our universe again. They have other properties, too. You and I should talk later..."
A quick shuffle behind him caught his attention, and both he and Cecil looked across the stage to see Talyserys approaching Amber. The former Green Ranger extended his thick hand to her and said, "I gave this weapon to Alexander Revell to defend his people on Earth, then before our departure he gave it to me to defend my people on New Omnis. Now, I want it to be used in his rescue. Please accept it." Amber silently took the inactive Lifeblade from his hand and whispered, "I will."
"There is one last secret that must be resolved before we act," Pyrial snarled, his arms folded across his chest, staring uncomfortably through the window. "Ego is here."
"No!" Brittany and Rebecca gasped together. "Ego?" Craig repeated, shaken. Arcanza echoed his surprise within.
Pyrial nodded toward the window and explained, "It chased us here, into the Nexus, and then instead of devouring our souls, it went down to Meridian-Omega. If what we know about it is consistent, it's sleeping somewhere deep underneath the surface."
"Everything from our past keep coming back to haunt us," sighed Becky.
Craig began walking toward the exit, one hand holding the scabbard of Cataclysm Vein and the other clenched tightly in a fist. "But never again," he promised. "I'm getting changed, and then I'm going to find a way to overcome the resonance so I can kill Michael and end this."
"You are not thinking clearly," scolded Oriquin. "If you were, you would see that you send Michael, Corout, and the entire Legion to a fate worse than death without lifting a finger of your own."
His words fell empty on Craig's ears, but Cecil seemed to be intrigued, as he followed up the Omnian lord's proposition with, "What do you mean?"
"Ego is sleeping down there now," Oriquin explained. "If we can find it, wake it up, and escape the Nexus before it stops us, it can eat the souls of them all and end their threat permanently."
"Plausible," agreed Cecil.
Craig sneered. "Plausible, my ass. As soon as Ego realizes an Earthling woke it up, it will be back on Earth causing as much pain and suffering as it was before. More."
"Perhaps not," Cecil thought out loud, staring curiously at his Omni Morpher, his dark eyes out of focus as if he saw something else in his mind. "These OmniTech Ability Bands draw their energy directly from Meridian-Omega, so you could say that their home is right here. If we woke up Ego while we were morphed..."
"But what about Alex?" Amber interrupted him. "I thought our primary goal here was to rescue him."
Nodded, Cecil affirmed, "It is. After Twilight Legion is out of the picture, we will have the Pseudo Morpher to ourselves, and if everything Craig learned onboard Trinity Rising is the truth, we can rescue him ourselves, without Michael's 'help.' I think Alex will appreciate this method more than the alternative."
Brittany sighed and slumped down into her seat carelessly. "I don't want to lay eyes on that creature ever again," she moaned in disappointment. And Becky added sternly, "Me neither."
Rising to his feet in a smooth, fluid motion, Oriquin waved his forefinger at Talyserys, Pyrial, Laurasia, and Soleron while saying, "I need a moment alone with the Earthlings." Talyserys lifted Soleron up and carried him out through the exit, with the other two at his back. In the midst of the confusion, Craig took the opportunity to grab a nearby slip of blank white paper and a black ball point pen and, while his friends' gazes were elsewhere, scribbled down a quick message. Bane began to sneak out as well, until Oriquin's, "You stay, too," froze him in place.
"Very well," answered Bane, and pressed the panel to shut the door to the Tactical Stage.
"Listen," the Lord of the Dead began, his words sharp but connected, and his mannerisms screaming with the royalty in his maternal bloodline. "Since neither Craig nor I can stand on Meridian-Omega, you Power Rangers will be fighting this final battle on your own. I know, since you all began, you have progressed and developed a seemingly invincible arsenal of weapons and abilities, but this is not Earth. There are no OmniZords or CrusaderZords to call on here if the need arises. Michael Tracer is just as dangerous as he was before, and do not underestimate Corout or the other Twilight Legionnaires who may still have monster-morphing potential. Do what you must do and then escape. Your lives, Alexander's life, and our lives all depend on you five."
Amber stepped forward, lifting her ShadowTech Ability Band, and promised, "I'll do my best. Count on it."
Brittany stood, still facing the floor unable to make eye contact with any of them, and added quietly, "This is my reason for living. I must go on."
Rebecca grabbed Brittany's hand and held it reassuringly as she herself rose to her feet. "Alex is counting on us," she affirmed, "and I don't let friends down."
Bane nodded with quiet strength. "It would be a shame for all the effort I have put forth to result in failure."
Finally, Cecil lifted his red OmniTech band, and the light shining around the room reflected off the otherworldly silver metal and subsequently created a dangerous glare in the depths of his dark eyes. "Where would you all be without my unparalleled genius, infallible strength, and debonair charm? Certainly not the center of the universe, about to awaken a soul-eating creature from the depths of hell."
"The time for talking and preparing is over," announced Craig. Very carefully, intentionally hiding his movements so nobody but his best friend would see the sheet of paper he slid into the same hand in which Cecil held the Spirit Seal. "Let's go!"
The magnetic pole was up ahead.
Michael had been walking for half an hour now. He had to teleport off Trinity Rising as soon as it had landed to get a head start on the rest of the Legion. It had been simple to use his Pseudo Morpher to change one of the Legionnaires into a duplicate of himself and fool Corout into thinking he was still on the ship. Thanks had to go to Salodis, Arcanza's son, for "teaching" him that ability, the same way Devus had "taught" him teleportation.
"The Pseudo Morpher works by establishing an equilibrium," Arcanza had told him several months ago, when the device had become his and his alone to use. "Anything that you consider a threat and has a measurable power level, it will respond to, and establish a power level exactly equal to that of the threat. If you condition yourself to believe a rock is dangerous to you, the Pseudo Ranger will be as strong as a rock. If you condition yourself to believe the moon is dangerous to you, the Pseudo Ranger will be as strong as the moon. That is why when Bane fought five Omni Rangers, he was as strong as five Rangers, and when he fought one he was as strong as one."
It was after Arcanza was dead and gone that Michael discovered a second secret of the Pseudo Morpher, even more dangerous than the first. He learned that the pseudoine in his cells could maintain any level of power indefinitely which meant that he could fight five Rangers at once with the power of five Rangers, then fight one Ranger still with the power of five Rangers.
Of course, his plans for this discovery played out to a much grander scale.
"The magnetic pole," Corout had told him as they approached Meridian-Omega, "is like the star's keystone, or at least it was twenty-five years ago. Any power that goes into or comes out will do so through that spot."
And so, after waiting for what truly seemed like forever, he was ready to begin. By perceiving Meridian-Omega as a threat, he could duplicate its power, then his genetic makeup would allow him to maintain that incredibly high energy. Then, with the star's ability to absorb stray energy duplicated, he would absorb all of the energy going into and coming out. The end result was too exciting to think about.
He had betrayed his friends and turned against them in their moment of greatest weakness, and now he was betraying his allies against in the midst of their greatest joy.
The Omni Rangers would be powerless, as their Morphers would be useless, and Michael Tracer would wield twice the power of Meridian-Omega. "And then," he said with a smile, "I'll be free of the bonds of heaven and hell. I will be beyond time and space. I will control life and death." The controller of life and death, and Craig Hopwood would be the first to know.
Original Publication Date: 28 January 2003
