HARTLAND
By: KSuzie
Chapter One: Prolog: Just a Little Bit Of History Repeating
Author's Update: In answer to a few questions I've had, no, chapter 1 of Hartland is not particularly necessary to the story until the very end. You can easily skip it and begin the Wild West Ranger adventure with chapter 2, then , if you get confused, go back and read chapter one. Also, I completely understand the frustration with assigning classic PR characters weird powers, so let me just say that my giving Kimberly power over time portals actually stemmed from the original Wild West episode. When looking for possible ramifications to her Muirantian experience later on, I wanted the pit to simply emphasize innate or latent talents they already had, not new powers out of the blue. Weird side effects of the morphers and morphanological energy are part of the real PR canon, so I drew on that aspect. No one knew where the portal came from, so I drew a long stretch and assumed that the talent to open that portal was something she was only just beginning to discover at that time. How those powers would be utilized as she grew to adulthood however, is purely out of my imagination and covered more fully in the Coins.
Hope that helps!
K.
Author's Note:
The story of Hartland will begin to move forward with Chapter Two: The Return of Calamity Kim.
All things Power Rangers belong to Saban or Disney, Carri to KJ, and everything else belongs to me.
1:05 AM Two days after Thanksgiving 2007
Tommy was dreaming. He knew he was dreaming because if he squeezed his left hand hard enough, he could just barely feel his wedding ring on his finger. The scene before him hadn't happened, but it had haunted him in his sleep every night since he'd swallowed his pride and begged the supposedly reformed Rita for the information on how to save Kimberly from certain death. But the dream was still very, very real and the panic and the grief all consuming to his unconscious mind.
Kim was dead. He had refused to search out Rita to save his ex-girlfriend from the effects of Kemora's force field. She had died without him ever telling her how much he still loved her. It was a nightmare he experienced over and over again. As he watched Jason tear himself apart in grief, he just stood there, refusing to look at her lifeless form and unable to fathom what had just happened.
He knew he would wake soon, that she would be there and everything would be fine, but caught up in the throes of the dream, he just wasn't sure and a sense of pure panic enveloped him. He could change it, he had to change it, she couldn't be dead, it wasn't happening. He knew he could fix it; he could change time itself….he tried to force himself out of the panic, but this time he couldn't. It was black and cold and all enveloping. His heart pounded in his chest until it nearly exploded….and then it was gone; dissolved into a million colors.
Waking instantly, he gasped for air and quickly threw his arm out to assure himself that Kim was next to him. He'd unfairly wake her, he knew that, but he desperately needed to feel her there. However, unlike the other nightmares he'd woken from, this time his arm met with an empty space. Still under the effects of the dream, he panicked and jumped up, tearing the sheets off and searching the room for her. There was no one there.
The room was dark and quiet except for the sound of his heart pounding in his chest. He wiped his hand over his face, only to discover that he was sweating profusely. Swallowing hard, he took a deep breath and walked to the tiny master closet. He opened it cautiously, terrified by what he might not find, and immediately collapsed in relief against the door at the sight of her clothes. It was alright. She was there and they had really gotten married yesterday. At that thought, he looked down at his left hand and spied his wedding ring, which further confirmed he had been sound asleep and dreaming. But that left the question as to where is wife was now. A quick search of the house and yard proved she was definitely missing, but where would she go in the middle of the night without telling him?
Quickly, he returned to the bedroom and dressed, immediately transporting to the Command Center. Wherever Kim had gone, he'd be able to trace her communicator signal from there.
1:11 AM
Since leaving Muirantias, Kim's ability to manipulate time portals had grown exponentially, but she knew she was pushing things on this particular night. Although she could open a travel portal and return no more than a few minutes later, the process drained her of energy. Opening more than one portal and "timing it," as she called it, more than once in any given twenty-four hour period; left her exhausted and weak. She knew she'd pushed herself too far this particular night as the sick jetlag feeling swirled around nauseously in her stomach; indicating her Circadian rhythm was out of whack.
She sighed heavily, as she entered the room and her two friends trudged in wearily after her. Leaving the small bundle she was carrying on the only table in the secure room, she waved her hand over a hidden consol. It sprang to life and, with a quick glance at what time it was on the outside world, she keyed a sequence. It beeped and produced a small crystal which, after a moment of concentration, disappeared in a flash of light from her palm.
"You send that to Tom?" Jason asked and she nodded.
"Netau's getting suspicious." She said absently. "Better he use a time crystal to come here rather than me try and travel back to the 18th Century so soon after closing out another blue world."
"Jesus Christ." He swore irritably. What she was doing made him uncomfortable at best; if she were ever caught…"That's all we need Kim." He fumed. "God damnit, did we have to bring another one back?"
"She made me swear I'd take care of him." Kim said absently, although she knew it was a lame excuse at best. "What should I have done? Left him there to die?" She asked and he gave her a look that very clearly stated she should have.
But Jason didn't know half of what she was doing with her rescued infants; he didn't need to know. Blue worlds were dead worlds. They were found in dimensions doomed to be dominated by evil; where humanity was usually eliminated. It couldn't be helped; it maintained the balance of power between good and evil. Where a one world lived, another died. That was the whole focus of their work with the Dimension Guardians; preserving the balance of power in the universe.
"And just how many times are we gonna do this?" He asked in an irritated manner.
"As many as it takes." She commented. "History records Tom and his wife had nine children, all of which survived. This one makes four."
"But we've brought back more than that." Her friend Carri said, frowning. Jason gave her a surprised look, but she ignored him.
"It's not safe to place them all in one family." Kim said absently, opening a small drawer and pulling out several items which looked suspiciously like colonial style, period clothing.
"Damnit Kim," Jason said loudly, slapping one hand firmly down on the counter. "If you're caught…" He started, but he couldn't finish, the loud bang had woken the infant and it wailed indignantly.
"Come on Jase.." Kim groaned, frustration catching up with her too. It had been a long day and she still had the baby to settle with Tom and then sneak home before her own Tommy woke up. She pushed him aside and scooped up the wailing bundle, cradling the newborn against her shoulder.
She was just as tired as they were. She didn't like these assignments either, but they had to be done. Blue worlds had to be cleaned of anything the Evil Empire might use against them dimensionally; which included any traces of Zordon's interdimensional experiments. She didn't need to explain any extra circular activities to them. The presence of these kids in the past of their world and in other dimensions was stabilizing the present. She didn't know why, it just was. So far no one else had successfully managed to stabilize it except for herself and Thomas; an alternate of Tommy from another dimension who had become part mentor and part supervisor to her. She would continue as long as she had to.
It had started simply enough. On one of her first assignments to a alternate blue lined world with Thomas, the dying Kimberly had begged her to take her son with her and keep him safe. Thomas had coldly turned his back on the woman and ordered her home before the last of humanity was completely destroyed on that planet. Kim had obeyed but, using her own fledgling Muirantian powers to open another portal, returned almost as soon as she left. She quickly took the screaming toddler from his grateful mother; swearing she'd do her best to protect him. She never forgot that alternate Kimberly, but what to do with the toddler was harder to solve than she thought. The Dimensional Guardians had very strict rules, the child would die instantly if it was discovered what she'd done and so, probably, would she.
Fortunately, a solution presented itself almost immediately. Through a strange quirk of fate, she'd been re-united with Tommy's clone, who resided in her world's colonial past. Tom wasn't supposed to exist either. He had been cloned by the Green Wizard to destroy Tommy, but instead of being destroyed himself, as he had in most dimensions, he had turned to the good. In return, Zordon had allowed him to travel to and live his life in Angel Grove's earliest settlement days.
For the most part, Tom was happy with his life. The only sadness that seemed to hover over him was that he didn't seem to be able to give his wife children. Although the clone was the biological twin of Tommy, just how Tom was cloned remained unknown. He couldn't bear to see his wife unhappy and had called on Kimberly for help. When she arrived on their doorstep, toddler in tow, it was seen as a miracle to them both. Kimberly was never quite sure how it happened, but it worked and she really hadn't questioned why.
When Thomas had found out he'd been beyond furious. Kim had never encountered the kind of anger he showed her and she was honestly afraid for her own life for a while; until he gave her a chance to explain. History revealed that Tom and his wife had nine children and all lived to adulthood and prospered. How, Kim argued, could he have produced nine children if he was a sterile clone? All of those children had lived and their descendents had played major roles in the development of her world's history. The children had come from somewhere and Zordon's own records indicated each and every one of them was genetically related to him. Besides, even though she'd interfered, the timeline hadn't budged; obviously she'd been meant to do it.
In the last five years of working interdimensionally, she'd rescued seven children from dying worlds. Not all of them were the children of alternate Kimberlys; she'd rescued one of Adam's and a few were Kat's; including the newborn in front of her. So far, she'd been lucky. Wherever she'd placed a child, the timeline remained stable, but she knew the odds were not in her favor and it was only a matter of time before she screwed up.
As the baby quieted, she made her way back across the room to the others, but on the way back Jason suddenly swung his leg out, stopping her. "The ring." He said pointedly, indicating the newly banned finger she'd shown up with at the start of their mission. In response, she sighed heavily and tossed him a patient look.
"Tommy and I eloped yesterday morning." She said simply. Simultaneously, the other two swore in a loud, exasperated tones and the baby erupted in protest again.
"I cannot believe you let him control you like this." Jason yelled and Kimberly rolled her eyes.
She and Tommy hadn't been together again all that long. He had saved her from the demon Kemora and in turn realized he still loved her. For her part, she'd never really stopped loving him, but he was overwhelming her with his exuberance since returning. He wanted them to be partners in everything, yet his natural tendency to take charge had ended up dominating her. It was difficult thing to balance. She'd been given a second chance with him and didn't want to screw it up before it even began, but she chaffed at being dominated; even if she knew it was unintentional. She agreed with Jason that Tommy had moved them both too fast into marriage, but it had been her decision and her friend needed to stay out of it.
"He's not controlling me." Kim argued, turning to the small synthetron and ordering a bottle for the baby.
"Oh for god's sake." Jason groaned, rubbing his eyes and leaning against the wall. "Kimberly, does it even occur to you that he's totally taken charge over you? I love you sweetheart, and I understand you're torn and how easy it is for you to let him manipulate you, but you have got to stand up to him, now more than ever. Sweetheart, I get it, you love him, you don't want to blow it again. I know he doesn't mean it maliciously, but can't you see that's what he does? I love the man like a brother, but he swoops in and takes charge, damn the consequences, and never looks back. You've got to stand up to him and demand he respect you."
"This isn't a matter of who's the big bad red leading the team Jase, I do stand up to him." Kim said firmly and Jason rolled his eyes in frustration. "He's just really good at backing off and wiggling up to me another way until he gets what he wants." She admitted." Look, whatever you feel, this was my decision. Besides… it was a good idea to go ahead and get married. It's over with and now we don't have to worry."
"Why?" Jason asked, eyes narrowing. Something about the way she'd said it didn't sit well with him. She winced slightly and raised the baby up to her shoulder, burping it. After a long silence she just looked at him and shrugged.
"What's going on Kim?" He asked warily. She took a deep breath and then looked him directly in the eyes.
"The Dimensional Guardians have ruled that since Tommy interfered and saved my life, I need to catch up with the other Kimberlys of my age group who have grown up and married their Tommys. They've ordered me to produce children as quickly as possible or they'll interfere."
Jason exploded, he couldn't help it; storming around and firing off a tirade that made both girls blanch and the newborn began to wail again. Kim stood up with an icy look and began to walk with it, patting it's back and crooning until it settled down.
"We agreed we'd never spread the Muirantian genes to another generation." He growled. This was something he wouldn't compromise on. Maligore's pit had altered their human DNA. It had given them both incredible powers that both had been able to use the way Zordon had taught them, but those powers were imbedded in their cells. They had no way of knowing or controlling how the genes they passed on to their offspring would be used. They could unwittingly produce another Maligore or, worse, another Dark Specter.
"It was decided for me Jase." She snarled, surprising him with the bitterness in her eyes. "You know as well as I do that I have to cooperate or they'll take things into their own hands. Better to have the child on my own and have a huge influence in its upbringing rather than let some creep like Netau raise it." She spat venomously. "You know I'm right."
"If you have to have a kid, why don't you just keep that one?" Carri said, rubbing her eyes and trying desperately to stay awake. Kim getting married was hard enough to digest, Kim with kids was seriously going to take a while fathom.
"For one thing," Kim said patiently, trying to shake off her anger, "He's Kat's…well, her alternate's anyway, that would just be weird; considering. For another, it would be pretty hard to explain how I just happened to show up with a newborn when I haven't been pregnant."
"Why can't you just go back in time nine or ten months and give yourself warning."
"I can't do that." Kim snapped.
"Why not?"
"Because it would…the continuum, it would be directly altering my own history…you can't do that."
"Bringing those things back across dimensions isn't altering things?" Jason asked, the heavy fatigue showing through in his voice.
"So far it seems to help." Kim said lamely, but it was obvious she really didn't know how to answer. If her research into the genealogy of Tom's kids was right, they were the ancestors of more than one modern Ranger. She was pretty sure Thomas had come to the same conclusion and that was why he'd allowed her to continue. At this point, she was terrified to continue and terrified to stop.
"Alright fine." Jason said resignedly, "I'm done arguing with you Kim. You just go and do what you want; you're gonna do it anyway. I'm outta here." He walked over to Kim and kissed the top of her head loudly. "Christ," He swore, moving the blanket aside to stare at the baby's head, "He looks just like Tommy."
"Which is why he's going to Tom in Angel Grove's past." She said blandly.
Jason regarded her blandly for a few seconds. "I worry about you sweetheart." He said seriously. He gave her a look that told her, despite what he'd just said, that they'd definitely continue their conversation about her hasty marriage to Tommy later, then turned and left room.
"That went well." Carri said sarcastically and Kim snorted, still walking with the baby.
Tommy was a little frustrated. According to her communicator, Kim was out in the middle of the old Power Chamber ruins… a good seventy five feet down. Then, as quickly as her signal appeared, it disappeared, but she was still there; just not. It didn't make sense. It was like there was some kind of time-space distortion muting the signal.
Frowning, he racked his brain trying to think what could have been out there that would draw her attention at one in the morning. As he stared at the readouts, a light flashed and the system picked up Jason's muted communicator signal. In another flash, Jason was gone and the signal showed him bright and clear in his condo. Something was definitely up for them to be out there together and it had to be on the sly because he hadn't been invited to the party.
He wasn't jealous. The two regarded themselves firmly as siblings; especially after their experience on Muirantias. They did, however, volunteer their talents to more forces than just the Rangers and he simply assumed they were out playing around interdimensionally. But what they were after in the old ruins baffled him. He racked his brain to think what could still be down there that they would be interested in; besides a bunch of caved in storage rooms. Then an idea hit him. Grinning, he transported himself to the site.
Turning around three hundred and sixty degrees, he got his bearings and searched through the rubble until he found a remnant of Zordon's old Power Tube. After a few more seconds of searching, he found an old door, half covered by debris. To even the most scrutinizing observer, out looking for what he was looking for, the door looked like nothing but a piece of twisted scrap metal, but Tommy knew better. Using the techniques Zordon had shown him over a decade ago, he activated the door of light and was quickly inside. Behind him, the door shut quickly, carefully locking against intruders. No alarms went off, which meant Kim hadn't recalibrated the systems, but he still moved cautiously and silently. The passageway was dark, but there was light coming through the grate from the chamber below. It was then that he heard the voices: Kim, talking to her friend Carri, who also worked with her occasionally on side.
"So what are you going to do?" Carri asked. Her voice sounded tired. Tommy couldn't see much of either of them, Kim was holding something, walking back and forth below the grate.
"Not much I can do is there?" She said a little testily.
"You gonna tell Tommy?" Carri asked and then shifted, giving Tommy a better view of them.
"I haven't decided." She said softly. This caught his interest and angered him a bit. He'd gone out of his way to include her in almost everything he was doing as head of the Rangers on Earth; now she was going to exclude him again in her work?
"I've been ordered not to…and besides I'm not sure how he'd react." Kim answered and his attention was again drawn to her pacing. "I mean, what would you do?"
"Me?" Carri asked, a little taken back. "Not likely their gonna order me to breed sweetheart." She said drolly. "Netau even said to my face that he's glad I don't exist in every dimension." The two girls giggled a little and Tommy sat back on his haunches; stunned.
"Come on, Kim…this is Tommy we're talking about. He's already told you he wants kids…and he's gonna find out, he always finds out…he's supposedly the greatest Ranger ever, remember? Better to tell him hon, even if it gets you in trouble. He needs to know what he's getting into."
"Yes, but how's he going to react when I tell him I've been ordered to do it…immediately. My god Carri, the very wording of it…You are hereby commanded to breed and produce living offspring within the course of one established and delineated standard time period….what am I, a god damn cow?" She asked, temper rising again, and Carri chuckled.
Tommy suppressed a grin, so that's what had been bothering her. The previous night, before they'd finally gone to sleep, she'd started to tell him about something, then had dismissed it as nothing important and told him to go to sleep.
He knelt forward a little and watched the two as he considered what she'd just said. Truth was, it didn't bother him much at all. All his life he'd wondered where he'd come from and felt the distinct lack of any blood relatives. He was definitely human, but he was also different and could do things normal people on his planet couldn't; except for the Rangers. He wanted to be around a family that understood those differences; that could tell him where they came from. His adopted family had been wonderful and he had been thrilled to find his twin brother had some of the same abilities he had, but try as he might, he and David just weren't as close as he would have liked.
His brother competed with him, however brotherly, and never seemed satisfied unless he was the twin doing better. He didn't exactly gloat that he had abilities Tommy didn't; he just seemed overly pleased. It was the same with his brother's son Aaron. David had produced the first son of the next generation while Tommy remained an unattached bachelor. Tommy wasn't jealous exactly, but holding Aaron as a baby and watching him grow into a strong little boy made him realize just how badly he wanted his own kids…his own blood family. Now that Kim was back in his life, he'd been wondering how to win her over to the idea, but it appeared he didn't even have to try.
He actually thought it was kind of funny, but he knew better than to let her know that. He jumped as he heard someone begin keying the sequences to enter. Using the residual effects of his Dino gem, which had bonded to his DNA, he blended invisibly with the passageway. He was half expecting Jason to return, but was stunned to see his double pass through the light barrier and land safely along the passageway as he had.
The man paused a moment to smooth down his bound long hair, straighten his vest, and dust off his long white sleeves. With a shock of recognition, Tommy realized he was staring at his clone.
Tommy waited only a few seconds after the clone ended his visit and had passed by him again on the way out before making his way down to the door which would allow him access to the chamber below. Kim froze as he entered, a frown deepening in her brow.
"I haven't been gone ten minutes of real time." She finally said in a disgusted tone. "It's been twelve at the most since I slipped out. I timed everything. There was no way you could've woken up naturally and figured out where I was. Did you follow me?" She asked, seating herself in one of two chairs.
"Had a nightmare." He said plainly, trying to organize his thoughts. "You want to tell me what's going on or do you want me to start speculating?"
"Depends…" she answered. "How long have you been eavesdropping?"
"I came in when Jason left." He said and she swore, her shoulders slumping a little.
"And you didn't think it would have been appropriate to let yourself be seen?" She asked waspishly; but he only shrugged unrepentantly.
"Depends on why you didn't tell me you were coming out here or why you didn't tell me you'd re-vamped this place."
"I didn't know you knew about it."
"The white Ranger was created in this room." He said simply. "I didn't know Zordon had told anyone else it existed."
"I searched it out as a way to have a quiet place where Netau and his cronies couldn't watch my every move." She explained. "So what do you want to know?" she asked absently, indicating he take the only other chair in the room.
"For starters, what you're doing out here at one in the morning instead of asleep with me in our bed."
"Thomas called me for a mission." She answered. "Sometimes it's necessary to travel to a blue line world and remove certain objects that shouldn't fall into the wrong hands."
"And for that you needed Jason and Carri?" He asked and she nodded in response.
"I needed Jason's power combined with mine to remove a remnant of Zordon's old warp core. We were also in a situation where we were dealing with an alternate Katherine as the resident Tommy's wife…sometimes when that happens I'm not the best person to lead things; Carri's better at dealing with her."
"And the baby?" He asked, giving her an odd look. She raised her head and looked directly at him; neither surprised nor embarrassed.
"Is best forgotten about." She said firmly. "I keep no written records; it's too dangerous. Transplantation from one dimension to another is older than the DG itself. I do what I have to do to keep the timelines stable."
"Giving it away to the clone, my genetic twin, had nothing to do with the fact that it was Kat's?"
"Partly." She admitted.
"Was it mine too?" He asked bitterly. "I have a serious problem with you giving my kids away Kimberly."
"It was an alternate Tommy's." She said firmly, meeting his eyes. "If you're going to work cross dimensionally with me, you need to understand that there's a difference. They all develop differently, no one is identical. Events like traumas and joys, the external influence of others, the lack of influence of others, they all change the personality; the development of the internal character. Better to think of them as close relatives rather than one and the same."
"That sounds like something Thomas would say. " He muttered. He didn't like his alternate; didn't like the way he callously interfered with the lives of others then simply walked away and let people die all in the name of stabilizing a timeline.
"That's what Zordon told me." She said firmly. "Anymore questions? I'm tired and I want to go home. This can't be spoken of anywhere but here."
"How long have you been working with the clone?"
"Time is relative." She answered tiredly and at the hard look in his eyes she added quickly, "I'm not trying to be evasive. Time isn't linear. According to my calendar I was re-introduced to him four years ago, but that doesn't include the time I've spent in the past with him and his wife. It's not just him sweetie, I also work with his descendents."
"And you're conversation with Carri before Tom walked in?" He asked, tilting his head slightly. "Have you decided you can confide that in me?" He didn't mean it to be snide, but even to his own ears it sounded that way. He was a bit angry about that. Not at the order itself, but the fact that she wasn't sure she wanted to tell him; it all went back to learning to trust each other again.
"It's not a matter of confiding it, I haven't come to terms with it myself yet." She said slowly. "I've got issues with the way the DG operates, you already know that. I don't like being told ahead of time to do something life changing immediately or they're going to interfere and make me do it anyway."
"I can understand that." He said, "What I don't understand is why you'd hesitate to confide in me."
"It's not that." She said, sighing deeply and meeting his eyes with a pleading look. "There's a lot you're not supposed to know about Tommy. This is a minor issue in the scheme of things, but it's majorly important to you and me because we're directly involved. I confided in Carri because she and Jason both have the same issues with being controlled by the Guardians that I do."
"So why the order?" He asked, unwilling for the moment to give up his anger. She hesitated, looking away and then meeting his eyes. "I wasn't supposed to live." She said softly.
"What?"
"I wasn't supposed to live. Netau, a very powerful guardian, had decided the instability of our timeline has to do with my surviving Maligore's Pit instead of dying there with Jason ten years ago. He's been manipulating things against me for years and finally arranged for my death. He felt it was the only way to turn our dimension from an unstable line, where it's been since the Zordon Wave, to a green or blue; which would stabilize going toward a world dedicated to good or evil respectively." She paused and gave him a look that begged him to understand. "It's nothing personal to me, supposedly, it's a matter of maintaining the balance of power. He had permission from the moderators to terminate me, and everything proceeded as planned, but then you interfered by changing timeline he'd choreographed. You actively sought out your old enemy for help and that changed the way things played out."
"And that means…what? What's the status of our dimension now?" he asked, not sure he understood what she was trying to tell him.
"We green lined. That's something no one expected." She said honestly. "We're now proceeding solidly toward a dimension dedicated toward the good."
"This Netau didn't see that you're survival instead of your demise would do that?"
"No. We weren't heading in that direction. Our dimension's different; which is how I can get away with transplanting the children. No other Kimberlys survived Muirantias…well, none that I know of anyway. Just the demon Kemora and I; we balance each other so to speak. I'm sure there are more we haven't encountered yet, but no one knows for sure…the higher powers that be won't talk to us about it. My survival seriously changed things on our world and that change reverberates across the dimension; altering it because Muirantias itself is altered."
"So you lived and we green lined and that translates into you having kids?"
"Sort of. I lived and we came together again. That's a huge repercussion…we weren't showing any signs of coming together again; we couldn't manage to forgive each other for over ten years. In order to change things, you had to choose to save me, to forgive not only me, but Rita; which nobody thought you would. Netau was extremely angry. It made him look bad and proved to the moderators that he was wrong about me; that I'm not a destabilizing anomaly. In the end it was decided to keep things as they are, with you and me together."
"But…" He prodded.
"But in the other green lined worlds where the Kimberly and Tommy remain together, they have their children at a far younger age than we are now. The debate now is what's going to happen a generation from now if we don't have children relatively the same age…will things destabilize again? Can it be afforded to allow me, with my altered genetics to have offspring like me? Should they interfere and transplant genetic material from an un-altered Kimberly? They couldn't come to a decision. In the end, they gave me a few months to see what happens naturally and if I don't get pregnant on my own, then obviously they need to interfere and get it done for me." She stopped took a deep breath, letting it out slowly; the frustration and defeat clear in her face.
"Well," he said, leaning forward in his seat and looking at her wryly, "Maybe that explains why I've been having the same nightmare every night."
"What do you mean?" She asked, frowning.
"The nightmare. It's always the same and I've had it every night since we went back to Muirantias to save you. I didn't seek out Rita's help and you died. Maybe what I'm supposed to get out of it is that the timeline changed."
"Maybe." She said, considering his words. She hoped so. She wanted nothing more than for it all to be over with and to live quietly with Tommy, but somehow, she just didn't think Netau was going to give up so easily.
Why the old guardian wanted her dead so badly, she didn't know. He was arrogant and proud and had no love for Zordon or any of Zordon's Rangers. By living, she had somehow shamed him; made him look bad. He had been wrong about her more than once and fewer and fewer of his peers were now listening to his adamant demands that she be terminated. Now that she had been ordered to reproduce, his rational for terminating her based on her altered genetic code had been discredited.
His obsession with her had brought him nothing but a loss of prestige and respect. He felt she had dishonored him, but she argued his vehement hatred of her had dishonored himself. He was supposedly an agent for the forces of good, yet he had made it his mission to destroy her based on nothing more than anger, resentment, and prejudice.
One thing was certain, having a Dimensional Guardian as powerful as Netau for an enemy wasn't a good thing. It wasn't a good thing at all.