Sagittarius: Farewell 1999

Farewell 1000 is the second episode of the Sagittarius arc, and the twenty-ninth overall of Power Rangers: Neo Zeo.

Synopsis
Sagittarius teams up with Aquarius to trap the Rangers between the old year and the new one.

Plot
David fell into deep water with a deafening splash. He sank for only a few seconds before recovering. Kicking off his shoes, he stroked his way back to the surface, where he looked around in bewilderment. A faint radiance rose from the water, making the room around him just about visible. All around him in a ring sat glass bowls, each with a little spout in the bottom that dripped water into the pool he floated in. Their sides were marked with symbols he didn't recognize. The noise was somewhere between a gentle rain and wind chimes.

Kicking off his shoes, David struck out for the edge of the pool. He was a good swimmer, and soon reached the edge, where he seized one of the smaller glass bowls. It was slick with water, and he almost slipped, but his foot found an unexpected hold; below the surface, an indentation had been cut into the glassy blue wall. Looking up, he saw more of the same markings rising above the bowl he clung to.

"Water clocks," he said aloud.

Looking up, he braced himself and pushed, swinging himself up over the lip of the smaller bowl. With a splash he slipped into it, quickly scrambling to his feet. The water here only came up to his waist. His soaked socks made it slippery, so he peeled them off, then began to climb.

The blue-green light from beneath the water wasn't strong enough to light his way this high, and David was forced to go by feel. He moved slowly and cautiously, slipping every once in a while but always catching himself. His breathing echoed around the chamber.

Finally his hand bumped another glass bowl, and he found himself looking at another row of water clocks, these half the size of the previous ones. Seizing the rim of the nearest one he boosted himself up and over the edge.

From this height, David could barely see a thing. However, his hearing was fine, so when the water in the pool below him began to bubble, he noticed the noise and looked down. Dark blue-black, smoky swirls coursed through the roiling water. Out of it rose a dark figure, robes drifting around it. A golden staff gleamed in its hand, topped with a glass orb. Inside it, golden numbers floated in a ring, casting bright flickers around the room. The figure's head tilted up towards David, and he saw bright cyan eyes glowing in the depths of its hood.

"Where do you think you're going, Red Ranger?" Its voice was feminine.

"Who wants to know?"

The monster laughed. "My name is Nevernight. I control every aspect of this dimension."

"Right," David said, adjusting his grip. "Figured we'd had too much time off. It's Morphin' Time!"

The morphers failed to materialize. Nevernight cocked her head to one side, watching the Red Ranger in silence.

"Fine," he said, "I don't need them to fight you."

With that he dove back into the main pool with a splash. The water was murky now, and when he surfaced, Nevernight was nowhere to be seen. He looked around, wary for an attack which wasn't long in coming.

The black, inky stuff began to wind around David's limbs. Instead of smoke it felt oily and almost solid. He began to have trouble moving. David tried to shake and claw them off, but they only clung to his fingers. Looking down, he glimpsed Nevernight's eyes glowing beneath him, and heard a faint, bubbly noise that was probably her laughter. He kicked at her, but suddenly she wasn't there anymore. Instead his bonds jerked him back and down, pulling him under.

oZo

Lidian was standing in the middle of a dark, misty room, alone. All around him echoed ticking noises—little regular ticks, harsher clicka-clicka-clickas and sedate grandfather clock tocking. It took his eyes a minute to adjust, but when he did, he saw the source of the noise. Clocks of all shapes and sizes were embedded in the walls, some distorted as if they'd melted into their settings. Every single one showed that it was 12:00.

"David?" Lidian called, turning around. He raised his communicator watch. "Alpha? Anybody?"

The wall seemed to curve around with him, then away and down a narrow hall. Without much choice, Lidian began to follow it. He wondered if the noise was getting louder, or he was just having trouble blocking it out. He could barely hear his own footsteps. Still, every clock he passed read 12:00.

"Happy New Year," he muttered to himself, under his breath.

"The same to you," an unfamiliar female voice rang out, and the noise quieted to a manageable level. Lidian wheeled and saw Nevernight standing behind him. Her robes puddled around her on the floor. "I do hope you enjoy it; you'll be trapped in it for the rest of your life."

"What do you mean?" Lidian demanded.

"So long as you are within my dimension, Green Ranger, you exist outside of time. Caught in the precious, brief space between the old year and the new. I will hold you thus until the Zodiac Emperors have regained their strength and can conquer it effortlessly."

"Not if I can do anything about it," Lidian retorted, and charged the monster.

Nevernight raised her staff towards Lidian. "And stop."

The numbers flashed and froze in place, as did Lidian, halfway into a jump. The monster took two steps to the left, and gestured again with her staff. With no target left, Lidian crashed into the floor. The bewildered look on his face made Nevernight burst out laughing.

"Awww. You're really not that bright, are you, Green Ranger?"

Lidian responded with another attack. Once again Nevernight waved her staff, and once again Lidian found himself stumbling awkwardly on a now-empty patch of floor. The monster let out a high-pitched giggle.

"Come on! You're not even trying!"

Lidian turned back towards her; his forehead gem glinted slightly in the light. He advanced slowly on Nevernight, coming right up to her. As soon as he hauled back for an uppercut, Nevernight froze him again and stepped around behind him. His momentum made him stumble, and with a sweep of her staff, Nevernight sent him sprawling.

"I'm wasting my time," she said, as Lidian sprang back to his feet. "Might as well leave you to the room."

With that, she vanished, melting into a cloud of smoke. Lidian tried to kick that, only dissipating it in the air. Panting, he looked around. The clocks, which had quieted for the conversation, started to get louder again. With a shake of his head, Lidian started down the passage again.

The noise kept growing. Soon it was loud enough to start to hurt. Wincing, Lidian covered his ears. That didn't help. He was starting to feel disoriented, ears ringing, head pounding. He broke into a run, racing down the passage of now-deafening clocks. All of them still showed that it was exactly 12:00.

oZo

"Ah, hello again, Sagittarius."

Aquarius, half-melted into her chair, looked up at the centaur. Half-melted literally; her body had collapsed into a shapeless puddle in the seat of the chair. "How's your special project going?"

"You tell me," Sagittarius replied. "You created the dimension."

"Well, I consider it more a matter of finding them, slipping through the cracks in the walls of reality, but that's a moot point. What is it you want to know?" Aquarius asked, twirling a strand of hair around one finger. The two blended into each other.

"Are any of the Rangers dead yet?"

Aquarius paused and held up her hand. A glassy, smooth circle formed out of her palm, like a handheld mirror, showing a blurry image of David struggling underwater. "Not quite. They're rather hardy, these Rangers, have you noticed?"

Sagittarius ignored the snark. "Thank you. Inform me when they are destroyed."

Turning, he left the room, letting the door swing shut behind him. As it did, Aquarius straightened with a whoosh of moving water, making her "mirror" disappear.

"Hmm . . . I bet you still haven't told the other Emperors that you asked me for help, dearie. I hope not; if your monster fails I don't want any part of the blame, when I haven't even had my turn yet." A new thought seemed to strike her, and her brow furrowed. "Unless this isn't about monsters . . ."

oZo

Sabrina ducked and somersaulted, only just avoiding a massive pendulum as it swung towards her. The razor-sharp metal whistled in the air, its passing breeze catching the Pink Ranger's hair. She scrambled to her feet, looking around for the next attack. The entire room was full of pendulums and gears of various shapes and sizes, all in motion. As evidenced by the red, bleeding gash across her right forearm, they were sharp and dangerous.

"Ezra? David?" She called, barely audible over the clacking, whistling and deafening tick-tock going on all around her. "Is anyone here?"

Faintly, she thought she heard a noise, and ran towards it. Once she had to throw herself flat; a huge gong-shaped pendulum swung over her back. Just above her was a wall, and near its top a window, with light shining through. Marine-crawling on, she began to climb the gears, moving quickly as they turned into each other. Her shoe got caught, and she slipped out of it, not pausing to see it get mangled in the clockwork.

The noise grew louder, enough to recognize as another human voice. Reaching the window, Sabrina boosted herself up for a better look. Her view was distorted by curving glass, but she thought she saw Casey, morphed and struggling in what looked like a very large hourglass.

Sabrina began to pound on the window. It shuddered at the blow but didn't break. Scrambling up the still-turning gear, Sabrina tried a couple of elbow strikes, clanging on the glass. It hurt but she kept up the barrage, moving up a step or two every few seconds to keep her height. Finally, as her elbows began to visibly bruise, a crack appeared in the window.

With a loud yell, Sabrina slammed her fist into the glass, the force of her entire body behind it. It shattered inwards, and carried by her momentum, Sabrina fell. She landed in a heap of sand with a thud, glass tinkling down around her. Breathless, she choked on a mouthful of sand.

"Sabrina?"

Casey helped her up and even dusted her off as she coughed. "Got sucked in here by a clock too?"

"Yes," Sabrina said. "Wherever 'here' is."

"Probably another dimension," Casey said, with surprising cheerfulness. "The bad guys like doing that to us."

"I noticed. But how do we get back? And how are you morphed? I tried and couldn't," Sabrina said, looking her teammate up and down.

"I was morphed before I got here—just making sure I could!" She added hastily, at Sabrina's glare. "I wasn't planning on fighting or anything, promise."

"Whatever." Sabrina looked up at the top of the hourglass. Glittering sand poured down towards them, already more than a foot deep and still growing. "Can't go back the way I came, that's even worse."

"I don't know if anywhere is really safe to go. If this a monster dimension or something there's probably no way to bust out, unless we face the monster," Casey said.

"You're assuming the dimension's existence depends on that of the monster. That is not always the case," Sabrina replied. "There may be some kind of portal or dimensional wall we could break through."

"I guess so. But be careful, though; we might just end up breaking into whatever goes between dimensions."

Sabrina ignored her. Instead she waded through the sand, moving around the edge of the hourglass to peer through its sides. A pair of blue-green glowing eyes opened on the other side of the glass, inches from her face. Startled, she recoiled.

With a laugh, Nevernight passed right through the glass and faced the pair. Sabrina struck a fighting stance, eyes narrowed. Without wasting time to ask questions, she launched an axe kick at the creature's head. Nevernight froze her just in time, and darted around her.

"Wait, so you can freeze time? Cool!" Casey exclaimed, as Sabrina snapped back into motion. With nothing to catch her strike, she landed with one leg half-buried in the sand. She spun on her heel and attacked again, but Nevernight froze her again and zipped to the far side of the hourglass.

"You're awfully quiet, Yellow Ranger," she commented.

"I'm just watching right now," Casey said. "I'm not supposed to fight. How did you get us here? I saw smoke, but that's all."

"I have access to every timepiece on your planet at certain times," Nevernight replied airily. "11:11's one. However, the gap in time when the clock was striking twelve, right between the old year and the new, has given me the chance to steal you right out of time."

Casey moved as if to scratch her head, but found her helmet in the way. "But there isn't a gap."

"What?" Nevernight paused. Her robes began to smoke rather more than they had before.

"I mean, time doesn't freeze for those twelve ding-dongs. How would that even work with time zones and stuff? It's just an arbitrary thing."

"Casey, stop babbling nonsense and make yourself useful!" Sabrina yelled. She charged back towards Nevernight. This time the monster almost didn't freeze the Pink Ranger in time. Not taking her eyes off Casey, she began to creep backwards.

"She's right, shut up, you're only wasting your breath."

"No, but seriously, how does this make any sense? I know you guys are kinda fantasy-ish anyway, but come on. What if a clock is slow? Or it doesn't play chimes on the hour? My digital clock didn't do that, so how did you even catch me? And Lidian told me he and David were going to watch the fireworks from out of town, they couldn't have heard any chimes," Casey pressed on.

"Shut up!" Nevernight screeched, now smoking like a wildfire. Sabrina looked from one to the other, baffled.

"So basically you didn't grab us 'between the old year and the new,' you just picked what was probably early in the New Year and called it 'between.' So really how did you even catch us? Maybe you should have tried that 11:11 thing, that actually kinda makes sense."

Nevernight vanished with a loud poofing noise. Her staff swayed and fell into the sand with a thump. Casey just stared at the spot she'd been for a moment.

"Where'd she go?"

Recovering from her confusion, Sabrina waded to Casey's side. "I think your questions scared her away."

"Really? Huh. I guess it wouldn't be the first time that's happened—but I don't think I've done it to a monster before."

Sabrina just shook her head. "Come on, we have teammates to save."

"We do?"

The glass above them began to crack, and some of the outside hourglasses to collapse with tinkling crashes. Outside the hourglasses, the wall itself started to split. Water oozed through the new gaps.

"I have a feeling we'll find the rest of our teammates elsewhere in this maze. Come, we should hurry."

They didn't have to; with a bang, water exploded into the hourglass chamber, shattering the glass. Sabrina scrambled up the pile of sand, hauling Casey after herself. Something reddish moved in the foaming, muddy flood, and Sabrina reached out. She caught an arm as it swept past, bracing herself. The sand moved beneath her feet, and she almost fell but for Casey. The Yellow Ranger seized her around the waist and pulled her back.

The girls pulled, and dragged the arm's owner free of the water. It was Lidian, bleeding from his nose and ears, his free arm wrapped around David's shoulder. Both were in bad shape, David bruised and barely swimming, Lidian ashen and bleeding from his ears and nose. With a cry, Casey scrambled forward and helped Sabrina pull them up onto the sand. Both began coughing and spitting up water. As she checked them over, Sabrina heard a rumbling boom, and looked up. The water had stopped flowing through the breach. Now it was starting to go the other way.

"The dimension is collapsing. We have to get out now," Sabrina said, crouching by her teammates.

David heard her; his head twitched towards her, and he pushed himself up on his elbows. He was very wobbly. For once, when Sabrina slid her shoulder beneath his and pulled him up, he didn't resist the help.

Lidian was only paying attention to Casey, but he saw her look up when Sabrina spoke. She followed the Pink Ranger's example. Realizing what she was doing, Lidian tried to cooperate, though his normally-dusky skin was ashen under the sand and blood, and he looked close to fainting.

"Where are we going?" Casey asked, as she and Lidian stumbled after Sabrina and David.

"Out," Sabrina replied.

"Which is . . . ?" David asked hoarsely.

Sabrina looked around rapidly. Half-buried in the sand lay Nevernight's staff, its top broken. The golden glyphs inside only flickered faintly. Pulling David along, Sabrina scrambled over and snatched it up. As Casey and Lidian caught up, she raised the staff.

"Now what?" Casey asked.

"The Zodiac Emperors must have created Nevernight and her powers. If I can just trigger its power . . ." Sabrina trailed off, looking suddenly hesitant.

"Do it," David said firmly.

"I'm not sure—"

"Then try. We don't have any other options."

Slowly, Sabrina nodded, and focused on the staff. The water was descending now, sucked back towards the hole. It drew the broken hourglasses along, flinging them into what was now only darkness. The glyphs flickered again, and Sabrina shut her eyes. Overhead, the top of the hourglass began to crumble, huge shards of glass falling towards them.

The symbols faded, and then lit up in a blaze of gold. The light enveloped the four, and they vanished as the glass hit the sand they'd been standing in.

They materialized again on a hill outside Angel Grove. Dropping the staff, Sabrina collapsed, taking David down with her. Casey barely kept her feet, clinging to Lidian. Overhead, fireworks lit up the sky as the New Year struck. Cheering rose from the brightly-lit town a short distance away.

Sabrina let out a shaky giggle. "I-I didn't know I could still do that."

"Then maybe we should figure out what you can and can't do," Casey said. "It might come in handy next time we're stuck without morphers."

David sat up, pulling away from Sabrina. He managed something like a smile. "Well, Happy New Year, I guess."

"Happy New Year! May it go a lot better than the last one," Casey said.

"Huh?" Lidian shouted, looking around in confusion. "Did someone say something?"

"You both need medical attention," Sabrina said, scrambling to her feet. "Come on."

Allies

 * Alpha 5

Villains

 * Nevernight