Wes, as he was thrown out the doors of the saloon, crashed down to the ground with a groan before getting back up. "Ow," he muttered, backing away while Nadira and several a large group of the cowboys from inside came out and surrounded him.

"I'd reckon it's the end of the trail, 'pardner'," the woman said in taunt, smirking as the cowboys spun and revealed themselves as Reavers. Wes narrowed his eyes as he tried to find a way out, only to see there was none; he completely trapped.

"I have had enough of this!" Matt screamed as he fought both dark saber wielders at the same time, his own lightsaber blurring as his hands moved in a dance to keep himself safe. Eric was busy holding off the storm troopers with his rifle, and since he didn't have a saber of his own at the moment, Matt was the only one who could take on the two Sith.

"Matt, we're running out of breathing room here!" Eric called as he noticed that his rifle was not only over heating, but running out of power as well. "We need to get this problem finished now!"

"I'm working on it!" the boy replied, twisting fluidly to dodge a slash from the first of the two evil saber wielders, then deflecting a strike from the other as he aerial flipped backwards. "Son of a bitch! We gott'a find that damn clap-board fast, I don't know how much longer I can hold these tweakers off!"

Eric, almost out of ammo in his rifle, shot a trooper and grabbed his gun as it flew through the air, then started letting loose with the smaller rifle. "We find that crazy alien, we find the clapboard! Trouble is finding him!"

Without much chance to reply, Matt merely grunted agreement and started using a high level of acrobatics to dodge the double teaming Sith. "Right now, I'm more concerned about kicking these guys' asses and showing them my Dark Side!"

"By all means, have at them!"

In the Spotlight
Part 2

"When I say stay down, you stay down!"

With a vicious spin kick, Yuuri sent yet another thug slamming to the ground. In a flash, she twisted around to snapkick one of the thugs behind and quickly dropped down just as a third tried to hit her with a wood plank.

The woman smiled, bended back to bring her foot cracking into the thug's face, then came back to her feet only to be grabbed from behind. Her eyes went wide as she felt where she had been grabbed, Yuuri letting out a scream of anger and kicking back and up into the man behind her. "No one gropes me!" came her scream. "No one, and I mean no one, touches me like that!"

"Feisty girl," Cinix remarked from his hidden vantage point. Truth be told, he was getting impressed with Yuuri's skills, but the amount of "improv" she was using was getting on his nerves. "Eh, I need to get moving! You, keep things here going. To the Samurai Flick!"

Domon quickly up slashed a ninja before smacking another with the end of his sheath. "Booyah, hotfoot! Let's see you guys try to outdo Ripper Kashuu!"

"Keep focused, Domon!" Lucas replied, beheading a third ninja with his own katana. It wasn't long before the two of them had finally eliminated all their enemies, both sheathing their katanas.

"All in a day's work, ass kicking and Reaver slaughter."

"You alright?" Lucas asked of the girl they had saved.

"Hai."

Wes, still trapped by the Reavers and Nadira, narrowed his eyes. He most likely didn't have any time to attempt morph before at least one of the Reavers shot him, but if Cinix had full control of this umbra, it probably wouldn't matter if he could move fast enough. "Just bloody great."

"Gang way!"

Wes turned at the sound of the voice to see a horse and rider racing toward him with the glare of the sun providing a slight cover. "Syon?!"

"Wes, get on!"

With a cry of joy, Wes took the shock and distraction Syon had provided and climbed on the horse just before Syon urged the creature on again. "Whoo! See ya, suckers!"

"No!" Nadira screamed, throwing down her hat in frustration. "No, no! This wasn't supposed to be in the script! Aaaahhh!"

"Nadira, calm down!" Cinix urged, only to get the woman's hat slammed in his face. "Wait!"

"I quit!"

Syon smiled as he brought the horse to a halt and turned to look at the chaosed "filming crew". "Looks like we still have some leeway after all!"

"Syon, haul ass, they got their own riders coming!"

The alien's eyes went wide just before he spur the horse on, racing through the town while several Reavers tore after them on their own horses. "Circuit said that Cinix's clapboard is what he uses as a focuser for control over his Umbras! If we destroy it, we can break the umbra and get out!"

"All we can do then is stay alive and hope to god one of the others can nuke it then, because we're not in any position to!"

Blades repeatedly clashed as Matt continued the fight with his evil foes, Eric almost out of ammo again as he fought to keep the foot troops at bay. "Matt, this place is starting to stink up from these guys!"

"I can smell that, Eric!" the boy sarcastically replied, dropping to avoid a swing from one of the two saber wielders. He rose back up, brought his own saber flashing to the side, and disembowled the second of the two Sith. "Alright. Now, we play by my rules!"

The remaining Sith frowned as he was now the one with the odds against him. "You cannot fight the power I hold!"

"Well, I gott'a admit, you are better than me like this."

"Then why are you smiling?"

"Because, I know something you don't." Matt quickly summoned the inactive saber of the dead Sith to his left hand, ignited the blade, then twirled both sabers as if he had no handicap at all with either hand. "Fear the ambidextrous one, pus-bucket!"

Eric gave a chuckle as he shot down another group of troopers. "If only I could join that fun!"

"Try morphing!" Matt exclaimed. "If it works, we know that Psycho Spielberg doesn't have total control!"

"Worth a shot," Okibi muttered as he raised the V-Fire to his mouth. "TimeFire!"

For a moment, nothing happened. Suddenly, crimson lightning exploded out from the changer and crackled over Eric's body violently to transform him into the TimeFire. "Oh hell yeah!" he exclaimed, drawing the V-Defender and firing at the grunts. "This is more frigging like it!"

"And you, Darth Dick," Matt stated with a grin as he pushed his enemy away, "are screwed." He shut down his sabers, hooked his own back own his belt, and held out his right hand just as a swarm of silver light pooled in his palm. "Let's Rocket!"

The sphere of light erupted out to engulf Matt, coursing his body and energizing into the armor of Astro Silver. Helmet digitized into form while the light finally solidified completely into his armor. He held out his arm just as energy pulsed out and transformed into the Super Silverizer, Matt taking stance as the Silver Ranger once more.

"Astro Silver!" he called, weapon ready in blade mode. Eric finished up with the storm troopers, then switched the V-Defender to blade mode and ran to Matt's side. "Nice of you to join me."

"Hey, I want a piece of this guy too."

Cinix gasped just as he arrived in the Umbra, finding the storm trooper extras all dead and one of his main antagonists severed in half. "God, I leave for ten minutes, and everything goes to...holy shit! They can transform in my umbra?! That's not in the script!"

Matt smiled behind his helmet and he glanced over toward Cinix. "Eric, nail that clapboard, I'll handle our friendly Sith."

"Sure about that?"

"Trust me," he continued. "I got a long history of acting like a badass Dark Jedi."

With a chuckle, Eric nodded, backing away slightly. "You're the Power Ranger, he's all yours!" He turned and ran into the fray of storm troopers that had just now arrived, figuring out the perfect way to get at the clapboard.

"Now," Matt muttered, stepping toward his foe. "I was about to rip you a new asshole, ne?"

"Just try it," the Sith snapped, racing at Matt with his double staff saber. The Silver Ranger moved in a blur as he deflected a strike, then swung hard with blade energized and cutting through the cloaked villain. A scream of pain was cut off by the explosive burst of light that signaled his death, Matt laughing as he now had Cinix's full attention.

"Now, it's your turn."

"None of this is in the script!" Cinix screamed. "Reavers, keep him away from-"

"V-Defender, FireBlaze mode!"

Cinix turned in shock just before Eric brought a glowing red V-Defender crashing down on the clapboard. "No!"

Yuuri spun through the air with a snap kick that sent a pair of thugs to the floor. She landed, twisted around, then suddenly saw everything go white. "What the..."

Domon pulled off his helmet while Lucas kept watch. He turned to the girl and smiled. "Well, any chance you can tell us where you live so we can..."

He jumped up as everything except Lucas brightened out into white, his vision blurring out.

"Syon, they're almost on us!"

"I'm going as fast as this horse can go!" the Xybrian replied, then blinked his eyes as his vision went white. "Wes, I think they--"

"--did it!"

Everyone suddenly appeared in a studio lot, back in their normal clothes except for Matt and Eric, who were still in morph. "Booyah!" Matt exclaimed as he high-fived TimeFire. "Snooch to the mother fucking hootch!"

"Never piss off a Power Ranger!" Eric replied, shifting the V-Defender back to gun mode and holstering it. "Now to figure out where we are."

A group of engines caught their attention as four cars pulled up. Matt gave a confused looked at the design of them and the attire of the Reavers inside. "What the hell?! Did someone raid Road Warrior?!"

"The movie's not over yet!" came the one voice from the lead car as Ransik rose up. "Prepare for part two; Enter Ransik!"

"Shit," Wes muttered in fear. "Run!"

Just as the Reavers took off after them, the seven Rangers ran as fast as they could down the streets. Matt and Eric fired back at the rovers while Reavers shot rounds from their gunblades, neither side making a hit.

"What the hell is going on, Ransik's not acting anything like he should be!" the Silver Ranger exclaimed after having made an attempt to scan the mutant's mind. "I can't even read his mind, no one can block me out like this, and I mean no one! I'd get some kind of surface thoughts from even the best shielder!"

"Cinix must be using his umbra control to a focus on Ransik!" Yuuri replied. "It's the only explanation for them all acting so weird!"

"When the fleg did we get to New York?!"

Sure enough, the seven had run right onto Time Square, complete with giant megascreen. The only things missing were the masses of people and cars that should have been swarming the streets.

"Circuit said that he used his clapboard as a focus," Matt reasoned. "That means without his focuser, he's unable to keep the different umbras he made separated. We're not completely out of the Umbra, we're on the outskirts where it and Reality meet! If we beat Cinix, we break the Umbra and get out!"

"Easier said than done!"

Shots fired past them as the seven continued to run, racing down the streets and through alleyways. Matt looked back while he returned fire, then glanced ahead. "Everyone split up!" he ordered, pausing in his run for a moment. "Keep a trace lock on each other, we'll regroup once we're in the clear." He bent down and shot up into the air, flying high as he aimed down at the Reavers and fired repeatedly.

"You heard him!" Eric remarked before running down a smaller alleyway. "Divide and conquer!"

True to orders, the remaining group split up and went different ways, each finding themselves in a different area of what looked like a studio lot. Yuuri paused a moment as she glanced around, noting the lack of Reavers in the area. For a moment, she thought that she had taken a right turn to lose her pursuers.

A group of Reavers suddenly came around a bend, Yuuri growling as she was forced back into the fight. "For once!" she screamed as she jumped up and started kicking at a pair of the robots. "I'd like to have a little break from you machines!"

Meanwhile, Lucas was having Reaver trouble of his own, swarmed by the machines as he tried to escape. "For want of that katana," he grumbled while avoiding the weapons of the machines. Granted, he was doing alright, but having a weapon would have made thing a lot easier.

With a quick dip to avoid a slice from one of the Reavers, Lucas leaned back, brought his feet flying up to kick into the machine hard, then made a full flip to land back on his feet. He then started running while dodging shots from the attacking Reavers, barely avoiding several near misses.

Domon, in the mean time, was back to his usual tactic of ripping the Reavers apart without mercy. "Come on!" he shouted, grabbing a Reaver and tearing its head off. "I need some fun!" He picked up a large size pipe when he had a chance, squeezed it hard to form a grip handle, then swung in time to send a pair of the robots flying back through the air.

"Oh yeah, it's outt'a here!"

It wasn't long before the six Time Rangers regrouped. Eric finally demorphed as he joined the others, but someone was missing.

"Where's Matt?" Syon asked, looking around for any sign of the Silver Ranger. Hard as they looked, Matt was nowhere to be found. "You don't think that..."

"Matt's too good to be caught by those bucket heads," Eric stated. "He'll catch up, we gott'a keep moving."

The six bolted toward a studio building and burst through the entrance door, only to find themselves suddenly in the middle of a desert. "What the hell?"

"We'll roast out here!" Syon exclaimed.

"Ready for the desert chase scene!"

The six Rangers turned to see Cinix sitting with his camera crew, making it all to obvious that this was the work of his umbra. Instantly, six hovercycles appeared before them, Yuuri narrowing her eyes. If that wasn't enough, Ransik and a pair of Reaver manned dune buggies were racing toward them.

"Let's do this our way," she stated. "Time Ranger..."

"Chrono Morph!"

"TimeFire!"

In a cascade of light and energy, the six transformed and mounted the cycles to tear off down the desert road. Lucas quickly tapped the firing control to let off a spray of shots while Eric drew the V-Defender and fired off his own assault.

"If we ever needed Matt," Eric remarked as he managed to blow out a tire on one of the dune buggies. "Now is it!"

A volley from the Reavers sent Domon and Syon crashing to the ground, a second barrage bringing down Lucas and Wes. Yuuri managed to hold on and stay on the road while Eric's cycle was hit across the side. "You alright?!"

"Holding in there!" Eric replied, returning fire with the V-Defender. "I think I'm getting the hang of this thing!"

Yuuri cocked her head slightly as a strange sound began to grow louder, almost like it was coming toward them. "What's that noise?"

"Yeehaw!" came the cry as a silvery blur shot by, revealed to be none other than Matt on his Galaxy Glider! "You mess with the Silver Ranger, you mess with my toys as well!" He raised his Silverizer and fired rapidly, taking out the damaged buggy and angling to chase after Ransik. In an instant, the Glider transfigured into cycle mode, letting Matt tear down the road and pop a wheelie.

With a laugh, Ransik merely accelerated toward Matt, his eyes filled with a mad gleam. "Nowhere to run now, brat!"

"Would have thought we'd be Beyond the Thunderdome by now!" the boy quipped, them keyed in his cycle's jump jets just moments before Ransik's buggy hit. "Booyah!"

Watching as the cycle soared over him, Ransik looked ahead again just in time to realized he was on a collision course with the other rover! "Oh fleg!" he screamed just before they collided and exploded. Matt came down with a bump and a skid before he stopped, turning to see that Ransik had survived the explosion and was sitting in the debris.

"Looks like someone's doing their last scene," he remarked as the others rejoined him. "Come on, we gott'a get this over with!"

Cinix looked up as the seven Rangers raced over to face him, and he raised a brow when he noticed the Silverizer on Matt's arm and the blade mode V-Defender in Eric's hand. "Ready for the big finale then?! Very well!"

"We've had enough of your directing!" Matt snapped angrily. "This movie's been cancelled and your budget's cut!"

Cinix, laughed as he pulled out his script, merely shook his head. "Oh no, no leaving just yet! As I said, it's time for the big finale! Final battle, and of course, I win!"

"Fat chance!" Eric snapped, firing at Cinix and causing a burst of energy to crackle over the alien. Unfortunately, Cinix suddenly burst into monster size, his deep laugh echoing everywhere. "Oh shit!"

"How are we going to fight that?!"

Matt, as he depowered his Silverizer, merely gave a laugh. "We're on the edge of reality," he stated while glancing up at the sky. "If I'm right, that means we can pull some our Mecha into this umbra! Eric, call out the V-Rex, I'll get my little friends out! Ready?!"

"Let's rock and roll!" Eric quipped. "V-Rex, engage systems!"

"Mega Voyager, Mega Winger, engage! "

Reality ripped open as the V-Rex raced into the umbra, followed by the five mecha of the Mega Voyager and the Mega Winger! Matt shot up into the sky to man the Mega Winger while the Time Rangers manned the Mega V vehicles.

"Lock it up!" Matt ordered, bypassing the controls of the Mega Vs to activate gestalt formation while Eric transformed the V-Rex to warrior mode. It wasn't long before the Mega Winger transformed to humanoid mode as well, three fully ready machines standing before Cinix.

"Oh, playing tough, are we?" Cinix taunted just before he gave a scream into his megaphone and caused a mass eruption of fire around the three battle machines. "Oh, explosive ending, massive drama...did I mention huge amounts of gore as the crown pleaser?!"

"This is nuts!" Lucas growled, still trying to get used to the controls in the Mega Voyager. "How do we fight this guy, he has total control of this umbra!"

Matt narrowed his eyes behind his visor, trying to get a reading on Cinix. "Every thing that happens here has to go with his script, except when there's factors he puts in that aren't in it. I was one of them, and the fact that the TimeFire powers are magitech are another. Unless he's factored in Zords that were built centuries before he was born, we have a way to fight him!"

Cinix merely gave a laugh as he gave another yell into his megaphone and caused a blast to slam through the three Zords. What he didn't expect was the Mega Winger pulling off its wing piece and using it in cannon mode to blast him back! "What?! That's not in the script?! No improvising!"

"Eric, have at him!"

V-Rex raced at Cinix and rammed its missile arm into his gut just before unleashing the warheads at point-blank range. "Suck on nuke, you hack writer!"

"What?! This is not in the script! Reavers, show me the last page!" Cinix ordered, then gasped when he was shown that the last page of the script was gone! "What happened to the last page?!"

"That's it!"

Everyone in the Mega Voyager turned to look at Syon. "What did you do?"

"Remember when I wanted to get Jackie's autograph?" Syon continued excitedly. "I didn't have anything for him to write on, so I ripped the last page out of the director's script! I have the last page!"

"And with it," Domon concluded, "Cinix's power over the umbra! Nice going, Syon!"

"No!" Cinix yelled in disappointment. "I don't have my ending! How am I supposed to have a blockbuster without an ending?!"

With a smirk, Matt let loose with a barrage from his wing cannons. "Sounds like most blockbusters to me, they don't have any real ending at all! Yuuri, what say we give this guy his bang up ending?"

"Sounds good to me!" TimePink replied, getting a tight grip on her controls while her in-armor computer linked into that of the Mega Voyager. "Eric, give us time to get the weapons online!"

"You got it!" Eric replied, keying in a command on his control board in the V-Rex. "Fire Thunder Fist!"

V-Rex raised its arm to shoot off its left fist at Cinix, causing the alien to fly back from impact. Matt followed up with a third round from the Mega Winger's wing cannons, Cinix yelling as he was assaulted with so much firepower.

"Weapons ready!" Yuuri called. "Mega V3 Missile mode! Fire!"

Energy pulsed through the Mega Voyager and into the V3 missile, giving it a massive energy field as it fired from the missile shaft and tore right into Cinix, causing a massive explosion that ripped through the entire umbra. The sky itself cracked and shattered with the alien's death as the umbra collapsed, sending the Rangers and everyone else in the pocket dimension back into the universe proper.

Back in the clock tower, the last of the movies from earlier that day finally finished as Eric hit stop on the remote and sighed. "That was the most fun I've had in a good long time."

"No kidding," Yuuri quipped with a smile. "Getting to live out one of my ancestor's movies was a dream come true. The outfit wasn't too bad either."

Domon slapped Lucas a high five in memory of their umbra experience. "Gott'a love being a badass samurai saving the damsel princess in distress. Wish he had let us keep the katanas."

"What about you two?" Lucas commented as he glanced over at Wes and Syon. "Didn't you guys enjoy the old west?"

With a wince, Wes gave a faint smile. "Well, some of it was fun...but it was mostly a real pain. I've still got the bruises from that bar fight, ow."

Matt smiled as he tossed Wes an ice pack. "Hey, you didn't have to fight Darth Dipshit and his sidekick Count Cock Knocker. At least I got to have some fun with the ol' Mega Winger again though. Thing has been sitting in storage ever since we rebuilt it three years ago." He got up and walked over to where his bag sat, getting a few looks from everyone.

"Where are you going?" Wes asked in confusion.

With a sigh, Matt glanced up at the Time Ranger. "Alpha sent me a message that there's some trouble in Mariner Bay again that I need to look into. Figured I best get going as soon as possible. I'll be around for a few more days though, I need to restock supplies before I go. Besides, I got a bruise covering my entire leg, I need to let that bitch recover."

"Events are deviating from their plotted course. What is the cause of this?"

"The introduction of the Silver Ranger is one not factored into the plan. That coupled with TimeFire is forcing a massive shift in the timeline, Collins is not following the future we know as his."

"What steps are you taking to restore our order to the timeline?"

"A catalyst that will force Wesley Collins to return to his plotted fate. Once we've forced him back into his fate, the timeline should be returned to its normal state despite the extra influences of TimeFire and the Silver Ranger."

To Be Continued...