Title: Emotional Damage
Main Characters: Kat, Tommy, Rita Repulsa||Romance: Kat x Tommy
Word Count: 4,829/32,000||Chapter Count: 1/8
Genre: Romance, Drama||Rated: G
Challenge: Diversity Writing, J24, fic set during canon; Small Multichap Competition; Chapter Set Boot Camp, #8, 8 chapters; Novella Masterclass, #1, Canon Goodness.
Notes: This takes place after Good As Gold and before anything Turbo related.
Summary: Rita Repulsa decides it's long past time to get revenge on the two people who used to serve her then turned on her. And what better way to ruin Kat and Tommy than by shattering their happiness with their own regrets?
Rita Repulsa hated everything, no exceptions. She hated her husband, no matter that she'd grown used to his grill. She hated her brother, for a long list of reasons that started with being stupider than a grain of sand and ended with his lack of comprehension of the uses of deodorant. She did admit he gave mostly decent gifts, if only by dumb luck.
Zedd and Rito were only the start of her hate list, which encompassed the entire known universe and then some. Rita hated anything she didn't know existed on general principles and also hated several things that didn't exist, for the sake of being complete.
At the top of the list, reserved for most hated beings in all the universe, stood Tommy Oliver and Kat Hillard. She, of course, hated all Power Rangers, past, present, and future, but those two held the top spots by virtue of once having worked for her. She'd tried being philosophical about it, and most days she didn't waste her time with anything more than a generalized hatred of them.
Today was different. Today she stared at Earth through her RepulsaScope and imagined them both submitted to the most horrific tortures she knew of. Thumbscrews. Boiling oil. Frozen forever in the heart of the hottest star she knew of, burning endlessly. Seeing Earth ground under her heels. Spending all day every day locked up in the Winnebago with Rito.
That was a good one. She'd have to remember it.
"What are you looking at, my dear?" Zedd shouldn't have been able to come up behind her without her realizing it, but he did anyway. She reminded herself to pay better attention, even if fantasizing about torturing her two former minions occupied her so much.
She waved one hand toward the sky where Earth floated so annoyingly unconquered. "Did you know Kat and Tommy are dating?"
After the last couple of years of being married to him and seeing all of his expressions up close, Rita knew how to read them to some degree. From the look she could see now, he not only didn't know, but hadn't cared.
"I suppose they would. It's a human sort of thing to do," he said after a moment of silence. Rita glared before she turned back to the scope, almost not listening to his next words. "What does it matter? Is it anything we can use?"
"I don't know." It probably didn't really matter that much. It wasn't as if it should. But the sight of them strolling side by side, hand in hand, those stupid goofy smiles on their pretty pure faces, doing it because they liked each other and not to gain a bit of power or prestige…that was what set her rage aflame. "But if there is, I'll find it!"
"I'm sure you will." Zedd patted her shoulder, obviously not caring one bit if her former slaves fell in love, fell in hate, or fell off the edge of a cliff. Well, she guessed he might care about that last, if only because they were Rangers and that could be interesting to watch. "Though I thought Tommy only had eyes for Kimberly."
Rita shrugged; she hadn't caught up on all of the Earth gossip she'd missed yet. Other matters, such as getting rid of the Machine Empire, took precedence. "I guess they broke up or something." Though, now that she thought about it, it was curious. She knew quite well that Kim and Tommy had been drawn to each other since Tommy's first day in Angel Grove. She'd had to make certain that didn't interfere with her plans for him, and had taken pains to suppress his attraction to the then-Pink Ranger. But from the moment that those two became a couple, neither of them had so much as looked at anyone else.
I need to know what happened, she decided suddenly. She didn't know if it would be useful, whatever it was, but she wouldn't know if she didn't know what it was. "Finster!"
Rita didn't like having Zedd pop up behind her without warning, but she fully expected Finster to emerge from thin air, or whatever the moon had, the moment she called for him. That was part of his job. True to form, he shuffled up within seconds.
"Yes, my queen? What can I do for you today?"
Rita shot one more look at Earth, then turned to her most loyal servant. Loyal, useful, and actually competent, in fact. Sure, none of his monsters had ever given the Rangers more than two days worth of trouble, if that, but at least he tried and wasn't the sort of bumbling idiot that other people on her payroll were.
"Finster, we were out of touch with the Ranger gossip for months. I want to know what they've been doing. Especially Kat, Tommy, and Kimberly." It didn't matter that Kim wasn't a Ranger anymore. She was still tied enough into them for Rita to want to know. "Oh, and I don't want them finding out that you're finding out about this."
Finster bowed low at once. "Of course. Perhaps a truth potion would be useful? Drop it into a Ranger's glass and they'll tell anything that they know."
"No!" Rita smacked him upside one furry ear. "Idiot! I said I don't want them knowing about it!" She considered revising her opinion about how competent Finster could be. "Don't you have any better ideas?" She'd take one from anyone right now, as long as it worked.
"Hey, sis!" Well, almost anyone. "Whatcha talking about, hm?"
"Go away, Rito." Zedd growled, which earned him a glare from Rita. No one insulted Rito but her! "This is evil leadership work. We want to know why Tommy isn't all hung up over his pretty pink Kimberly anymore."
Rito rubbed his skull and shrugged. "I think she sent him a breakup letter. I think what's his name, Skull, was going on about it when it happened. Something about how whoever it was better treat her right and stuff. I got bored."
That failed to surprise Rita, who knew full well that her brother's attention span was inversely proportional to his stench. Unless it came to fighting, of course. But what he said caught her interest all the same.
"Goldar!" She did want more confirmation on this before accepting it as the truth, though. It did come from Rito. As soon as the golden gorilla lumbered up, she put the question to him. "Did Kimberly break up with Tommy in a letter?"
"Sure she did. Bulk and Skull …well, Skull…he was all torn up about it." Goldar shrugged. "What does it matter?"
"Maybe a little. Maybe a lot." Rita turned away from all of them, gears in her head turning rapidly. The more she thought about it, the more certain she was that she could use this to her advantage somehow. She hadn't yet figured out the fine details, but the seed was planted and she had plenty of evil fertilizer to make sure it grew a fruit of delightful wickedness.
Angel Grove Park was a good place for a young couple to take a walk in. It was big enough that even after all of his years in Angel Grove, Tommy still found new paths and sections he'd never known existed before.
He and Kat strolled down one of those new paths now. They weren't holding hands, but puffs of a warm breeze brought the scent of her perfume to her, and he had only to turn his head to catch a glimpse of wisps of her blonde hair. He probably looked more than strictly necessary, but he didn't think anyone would call him out on it.
"It's a beautiful day," Kat murmured and he smiled.
"Yeah. Hey, you want a drink? I think we're almost at the center." Not the Youth Center, but the center of the park itself, where stands offering cool drinks, snacks, and the occasional toy stood scattered here and there. They weren't quite as good as Ernie's smoothies, but they helped to beat the heat.
"Sure." He liked that small, almost shy smile on her lips. "That sounds great."
Just as he'd thought, the path led out to the center in less than a minute. He headed over to the nearest fruit juice stand, returning with two juices in a matter of moments.
"That was quick." Kat sipped hers slowly, savoring the flavor, blue eyes flicking over to him as she did so. "I just hope nothing happens to spoil the rest of the day."
"You and me both." Tommy shuddered; today hadn't yet shown a single trace of any sort of evil. Ever since that whole mess with Jason and Trey ended, there'd been a kind of uneasy silence hovering over Angel Grove. Tommy didn't yet want to call it 'peace', since he knew Rita and Zedd still lived up on the moon. They'd do something, sooner or later. Or someone would. Evil just didn't give up and go home. Very few people knew that better than he did.
Kat glanced up to where the pale crescent of the moon could be seen in the afternoon sky. "What do you think they're up to up there? Zordon and Alpha said they detected some kind of explosions, and the Machine Empire's been quiet since then."
"I know, and that worries me." Tommy didn't fidget, but he gave a look to the sky as well. "Whatever it is, we're going to have to all be on our guards."
Kat took another sip of her juice, gaze distant for a few moments. "Did you ever wonder what it might have been like if we'd been left alone?" She kept her voice low as well, not wanting anyone to overhear her. "If Rita picked other people?"
Tommy blinked once or twice. "I hadn't really thought about it." He wasn't sure if he should have. It had happened and thus he had to deal with it. "Why?"
"Just something that crossed my mind." Kat gave him a small, sweet smile. "We're kind of here now because of that. So if it weren't for what happened…"
He could see what she meant. If he'd never been the evil Green Ranger, he wasn't at all sure of who he'd be right now. If that hadn't happened, he couldn't be sure he would've really made friends with any of the others. The secret would've kept them apart. They would've tried? He was sure of that much. Jason would've still wanted to spar and Kim…Kim would've still liked him.
Tommy decided dwelling on that wasn't something he was ready for just yet. They would've tried, but tried didn't mean succeeding, not in this case.
"So I guess a lot of good did come from that." He smiled back at her, on steadier ground now. "I bet she didn't think about that."
Kat laughed and shook her head. "I doubt it. I bet she'd hate the thought."
Guided by some inner instinct, both tensed and kept an eye out around them. Rita and Zedd, as well as the Machine Empire, watched them all the time. Quiet there might have been for now, but it would break at any moment, and times like this were tailor-made for some ridiculous Rita reaction.
When nothing happened, both of them eased up a fraction, light, silly grins breaking across their lips. "Guess we're still a little sensitive?" Kat offered and Tommy agreed. "It really has been quiet. I have to wonder what's going on up there."
That was all it took. An explosion of feathers, Rito, and Goldar sent a few of the other park-goers sprawling and most of the rest fled in fear for their lives. Angel Grove citizens were very used to this kind of thing. Most of them never gave it a second glance anymore, just taking the chance to flee as fast as possible.
Kat and Tommy stood in battle stances before the last feathers of the Tengas hit the ground. They couldn't morph in public, but he thought they wouldn't need to.
"What you guys doing here?" Tommy snapped, his attention firmly on their adversaries. "I didn't think walks in the park were really your style, Goldar."
Goldar's only answer was a swing of his heavy-bladed sword toward Tommy, who ducked out of the way with the ease that came from having done so far too many times to count. Kat dodged a few of the Tengas as they surged toward her, Rito going to back up Goldar. Kat sort of wished she could sit this fight out and watch Tommy handle the two idiots, but that wasn't in the cards today.
"Get her! Get her!" Kat wasn't too worried about what the Tengas babbled; it was the same standard Tenga comments she'd heard many times before. They were smarter than the Putties she knew Rita and Zedd had once used, but that wasn't saying much. She was reasonably certain her laundry basket was smarter than a Putty. At any rate, she kept herself busy moving out of the way when she could, blocking them when she couldn't, and hitting back when not doing either of those. She knew she wasn't the martial artist that Tommy, Jason, Rocky, or Adam were, but they all kept in shape for times like this.
Tommy, for his part, thoroughly enjoyed this impromptu workout. It was too easy to dodge, roll, leap, and kick in a way that tended to have them hit each other more times than it didn't. For two against one, it was the best chance he had to even the match up.
"Hey!" At the clear shout, everyone looked up to see Adam, Rocky, and Tanya hurrying toward them, all three looking more than ready to take any available Tengas, plus Rito and Goldar.
"We'll finish this another day!" Goldar declared, golden fire wrapping around him. "Count on it!" He, Rito, and the Tengas all vanished a heartbeat later.
Tommy turned to Kat as soon as he was certain they'd left. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah, but what was all of that about?" Kat glanced from one of them to the other, worry written all over her face. "They didn't seem like they really wanted anything, did they?"
Rocky shook his head, as worried as she was. "They're up to something. We just don't know what yet."
"We'll probably found out soon enough. They generally don't wait all that long." Adam looked around as well. "We should probably stick together for now, at least until we figure out the problems going to be."
Tommy nodded, biting back a mental sigh. It looked like the quiet was over with.
Rita paced back and forth, difficult as that was in her heavy skirt. She hated wearing it, but the witches of her tradition hadn't changed the style in eons. Not that she cared what those old hags thought, but she hated being out of fashion even worse.
"What's taking so long? How hard could this be?" Then again, the mission was mostly in Rito and Goldar's paws. Those two would screw up boiling water.
"Yo, sis!" No sooner had she thought that then Rito appeared before her. "Praise me and worship me! We did it!"
She whirled, a demonic grin of glee stretching her lips. "Really? You didn't foul it up?"
"Oh, come on! How often do I mess things up?"
"Would you like the list in alphabetical order or from birth onwards?" Rita muttered, though it didn't have quite the venom it might have if it turned out they really had screwed up what she wanted.
"My dear sister!" Rito sounded silly enough as it was, but when he tried to sound important, he was even worse. At her impatient gesture, he flicked one bony wrist to reveal two empty plastic cups. "Here you go! Two former Power Ranger cups. Or I guess they're current Ranger cups. At any rate, cups they used."
Rita refused to snatch at them, for all of three seconds. They weren't ideal foci for what she had in mind, but they would do. Ideal would be clothes they wore or hairs from their head. And if we hadn't had to leave the palace so fast, I'd have them. Something else to hate those machines for. As if she didn't already have a long enough list.
But these would do. She frowned, glaring around her. "Finster!? Why isn't he back yet? He had the easy job!" If she had to wait too long, the traces on the cups would fade away and she'd have to try something else. Not to mention that the longer she had to wait, the likelier it was that Zordon would figure out what she had in mind. Then all of her fun would be ruined!
"Here I am!" Finster popped up and held out his hands palm up. "And here's what you sent me for!"
Several strands of dark brown hair lay across his hands and Rita snatched those up as well. This she needed even more than the cups. "Great! Now all of you get out of here. I need absolute quiet to do this!"
She really didn't, but she wanted it anyway, and she thought better without all of them cluttered up around her. It was good to have them there to praise her, but right now, she wanted less praise and more success.
Once she was alone, Rita stalked inside the Winnebago and to the ritual room she'd set up there. It wasn't as expansive as the one in the palace, but it served her purposes. She draped the hairs across her worktable and pointed her wand at them. This was the foundation of what she wanted to know. Hearing anything from Rito and Goldar, especially something they'd heard while without their memories, meant double and triple checking. She didn't think they were bright enough to lie, but they were too dumb to get things right. Besides, she liked getting her news straight from the Rangers' mouths, so to speak.
Dark blue light poured from the tip of her wand to envelop the hairs as Rita chanted in a language so old that even Zordon might not have recognized it. As she did, images filled her mind. First, the confused ones of any young child, so she kept on chanting, forcing the spell to show her other things, images of the life of Kimberly Ann Hart. A simple human life it had been, until the day Rita arrived.
More images spun through Rita's mind, faster and faster, and Rita paused on one of them, surprised to herself, in a sense. Kimberly, wearing a gown almost identical to her own. A shift in the chant told her more, and she reminded herself to clout Zedd over the head. Wanting that little nitwit as his queen? The nerve!
She returned to scanning the memories, skipping most of them until after Kim retired as a Ranger and left Angel Grove. Now Rita took her time, slowly reviewing it all, extracting all that she could of the last six months. She saw the young man who'd won Kim's heart, saw her choice to break up with Tommy, and her fear that she couldn't do it in person.
Rita smirked. Humans were so weak. But she still watched. So much to learn, and never enough time.
"I'm telling you, I ordered a pizza for dinner, and it's going to get here soon! And you should pay for it, Ed!" Rita declared before he rubbed the back of his skull. "Because I don't have any money."
Zedd didn't have a throne to slouch in, but he made do with one of the lawn chairs that he'd never asked Finster where he'd found it at. As always, whenever Rito said something that rode high on his scale of stupidity, he contemplated creating a dog monster and testing it out on Rito. So many questions filled his mind, ranging from "Why did you order something you can't pay for?" to "Do you know how to think and just don't bother or are you really that stupid?"
He never would ask any of them, though. He didn't want to get any answers.
"What is Rita doing in there?" He shot an annoyed look at the Winnebago. Rita spent hours crafting a spell to build her workroom in there, and he presumed that was where she was now, but she hadn't uttered a single word about what she was doing now, or why. All she'd said was that it would bring down the Rangers. Zedd was more than a little in favor of that, but he still wanted to know what in the name of evil his wife was up to.
"Hey, did you guys order the pizza?" A teenager of some species that vaguely resembled a cross between an alligator and a warthog stood a short distance away on top of a motorcycle modified for space travel, one hand on a pizza box. "I gotta charge extra for delivery to this solar system, you know. Bad neighborhood."
Zedd turned toward the delivery boy. He didn't care about the pizza, but certain insults weren't to be taken lightly. "And what's wrong with this neighborhood?" Conquered or not, Earth was his! That made it the best neighborhood!
"It's Rita, Zedd, and the Machine Empire. They all bring it down. Anything the UAE's into just drops in property value." The kid shrugged. "So, who's paying for this?"
Zedd gripped his staff and rose to his full height, brain pulsing, eyes glowing. "I am Lord Zedd!"
Thirty seconds later, Rito groaned. "Aww, anchovies! I hate anchovies! Who ordered them anyway?"
"Who cares, it's free, isn't it?" Goldar threw away the ones on his slice and gnawed on the rest of it. Zedd paid no attention, being too busy rendering the motorcycle down to its component parts, just as he'd done for the delivery boy.
Bad neighborhood indeed.
"Zedd!" Almost at the exact moment he finished, Rita's screen echoed from the Winnebago. "Come here! I've got the best plan ever!"
"Is it better than re-establishing our reputation as the terrors of every galaxy?" It would have to be a very impressive plan if it was. He stepped inside to see what she had in mind.
He was impressed.
Kat relaxed; Ernie's chairs were always far more comfortable than any other chair she'd encountered that wasn't actually upholstered and cushioned. They were perfect for relaxing in after an encounter with Tengas or Cogs, which was what she was doing right now.
"They just showed up while we were talking and attacked. That's it." Tommy and the others were still dissecting the battle, such as it was. It worried her, too, though she couldn't say why. Something in her deepest gut told her this was more than a casual strike at them.
"I asked Zordon, but no one is doing anything anywhere. Nothing they could turn on us, anyway," Adam reported. "Whatever they're up to, they're keeping it quiet for now."
All that meant was that when it happened, it would be more of a surprise than usual. They'd handled surprises before. The question was just how big of a surprise it would be and how long it would take them to handle it.
Kat glanced at her watch, then the clock on the wall, just to double-check. "I've got to go! It's almost dark and I don't want to be late."
Tommy stood up just as soon as she did. "I'll walk you home." That was just like him, a true knight to the very end. She smiled.
"Thank you." With a quick good-bye to the others, even as they got ready to leave, the two of them headed out the door. Kat stopped to glance at Tommy's truck, parked just outside. "Are you going to leave it here?"
He shook his head. "I'll come back for it after I get you home." She lived in walking distance of Ernie's; he didn't. She nodded and turned her steps toward home. It was a little darker than she'd thought it would be; evening's velvet blue cloak already spread over the city. "It's beautiful here, too." She thought of their earlier walk and how much she'd enjoyed time in the park. "Angel Grove must have a monopoly on beautiful scenery."
Tommy grinned, the glow from a streetlight they passed reflecting in his eyes for a moment. "I don't know, I think Australia has some good views too."
She could feel her cheeks burning at that and stared straight ahead. "When have you ever been to Australia?" She half-expected a comment about how the compliment had just come to him. What he did say surprised her.
"About three months before you came here. We all went there for a school trip." He made a brief annoyed face. "That was when Rita came back and she and Zedd got married. That was not a fun vacation for a while, I can tell you."
She tilted her head, thrilled to find out Tommy and the others hit up her home turf. "So, tell me about it. Where did you go? What did you see there?" She wished she could've met them there. It would've been fantastic to show them all the little nooks and crannies that visitors frequently missed by being caught up in all the huge impressive sights. From the list of what they'd seen, she could've shown them so much more.
"Maybe we can all go together one of these days." Tommy suggested once he'd finished. "I'd love to see it without Rita and Zedd getting in the way."
"Aww, Tommy! So sorry that you feel that way!" Rita's cackle split through the night air and both Rangers readied for a fight, looking around for her. What came instead was a glistening sphere of light, rising around them in a half-shell arc.
"What is this?" Kat reached out to touch it with her fingertips and jumped back as it sparked at her. "Whoa!"
Rita laughed again as she stepped out of the shadows in front of them. "You won't be getting out of that any time soon, kitty cat!" She sneered at both of them, triumph gleaming in the back of her cruel eyes. "And this is just the beginning of what I've got in store for you two traitors!"
"I don't think it counts as treachery when we were both under your spells in the first place, Rita." Tommy snapped, fists clenched at his sides. "Now what are you planning?"
Her laugh didn't get any better with repetition. "Now, what would be the fun of just telling you? You'll find out soon enough! But for right now, we're going on a little trip. It's boring, so I think you should just take a nap!"
"No way am I sleeping with you around!" Kat declared, twisting her wrist to summon her Zeonizer. Maybe she couldn't get out of here unmorphed, but there wasn't much that could hold a fully charged Power Ranger. Tommy echoed her action a heartbeat later.
"It's morph-"
Rita stamped her staff on the ground with a solid crack. "That wasn't actually a suggestion." Dark orange smoke boiled up from within the sphere, setting them both to coughing too hard to focus on morphing. Kat tried to get to Tommy, but she'd barely managed three steps before her legs gave out from under her and she pitched forward into the darkness. The last sound she heard was Rita's triumphant cackle.
Rita smirked down at the two unconscious Rangers, pleased as punch. Phase one of her master plan was now complete! Phase two wouldn't take any time at all, since it involved a quick spell to conceal the fact she'd even been there. Zordon wasn't going to interfere this time!
Once she took care of that, she split the sphere holding her captives in half and slipped them through the dimensions to one of her favorites: the Plains of Regret.
"Stay here a while, kitty. Say, forever?" Rita dumped Kat out; the smoke would wear off in another hour or so, but there was no way the blonde would find her way out of there. And now, for the second half of phase three!
A simple Dark Dimension did for that, full of smoke and glistening beams of pale green light. These beams would give Tommy quite the surprise should he touch one. She dropped him there and vanished. Neither of them would need guards, not with the spells of confusion and misdirection she'd wrapped around both of their prisons. By the time the sun came up, she would be surprised if either of them would ever be able to fight again.
"Now to get back up there." She glowered briefly in the moon's general direction. "They'd better not have eaten all the pizza."
To Be Continued
Notes: I've had this on my back burner for ages and I decided at long last it was time to finish and post it. So, here it is. Updates will be on Sundays and Wednesdays.