A Multitude of Sins

by Illyria13

You never understood what it meant to be free until you weren't any more. You were lost and condemned, and the only thing you knew were the sins you had committed.

A Multitude of Sins

By Illyria13

Disclaimer: I do not own Power Rangers, the characters, or anything you might recognize.

Timeline: Dino Thunder; not really a set point but before Trent breaks the 'evil' encoding of the Dino Gem.

Authors Note: Some violence but not too graphic; few, if any, curses.

This is another Trent story wherein I tried to 'fix' the way he became good. I did it differently from my other PR Trent fic (Decaying White) and this one has nothing to do with that one. I hope it isn't too confusing, but I warn you that it is in second person p.o.v so I apologize for any confusion that may give upon reading it. I hope you like it!

Summary: You never understood what it meant to be free until you weren't any more. You were damned and condemned, drowning in blood, and the only thing you knew were the sins you had committed.

/

"White covers a multitude of sins." - Jonathan Milne

/

You used to look at the world with an artists' eye, admiring the brush strokes of creation against the intrinsic beauty of it all. Until one day you woke up and realized that now, all you could see were the jagged cracks in the surface of the canvas.

/

Being special had never been at the top of your list of things you'd wanted to be in life.

It isn't that you didn't want it, more like you didn't understand the appeal. You preferred being talented because it was far less of a burden. Special, to you, always seemed heavy, full of things like 'destiny' and 'chosen'. You've never been chosen, and you don't want to be. As for destiny, well, she's a bitch. As fickle as fate and as sanctimonious as Lady Luck, destiny had never really come down on your good side. You'd lost your parents young, been taken in by a man as capable of being a father as you were of suddenly becoming female, and graced with the talent of artistry, something your guardian did not consider a worthy career choice. So it really shouldn't surprise you that the one thing you'd never really thought about would happen: you were chosen.

You hadn't thought it would hurt so much.

And hurt it did; a fiery embrace that took you in until you couldn't see anything but the flames and had no hope of escaping. It burned through you, and you scream, because the part of your brain that understands survival knows that yours is coming to an end. And when the fire stops, turning into cold, unforgiving ice around your soul, you realize what you have become. You look down at the morpher upon your wrist, a silver bracelet with a shining white gem, and smile.

Being special had never been what you wanted in life.

But most people aren't special because they ask for it.

/

You used to fight.

You used to scream and cry and claw and beg, trying to shred yourself as much as you did others. You used to scream every time you morphed, every time your fist hit flesh that wasn't your own, and every time you left them lying on pavement as cracked as their skin. Then came the crying accompanied by begging, as you pleaded with yourself in an attempt to stop the destruction that fell around you. It was fear you felt, fear that drove you and fear that froze you from the inside out. And it was you that was doing this, you who had fallen so far, and it killed something inside of you because you couldn't stop. It never stopped. No matter how sweetly you cried or the depth to which you begged, it never stopped. You sat there in your head and watched as everything around you turned and spun in a tangle of never-ending violence. You sat there and watched as your world burned.

Anger came next, white-hot in its ire, a color so like the one that destroyed you. Only this time, you welcomed it. You welcomed the white, the color of innocence and purity, a color that spoke of everything that you no longer were. When you'd first felt death, it had come to you in shades of white, a white so bright it could be nothing other than pure. But what you hadn't known is that the white that had overtaken you was the white that you would ultimately become. You hadn't known what you were at this point in time. All you'd known is that white was the color of deception.

It infuriated you, mocked you, drove you mad with its lies. As a child, you'd learned that white was a good color, a safe color; the color of peaceful flags and angels in Heaven and snow on a cold day. What you hadn't realized is that those flags could be torn down and burned, angels could fall out of the sky and snow could melt away. You know it now. And it hurt, losing that naivety, but everybody grows up some time. This just happened to be yours. You still didn't completely understand what you were, but it didn't matter. You knew what you could become, and it angered you.

Your anger gave you power. Not power enough to take back your body or to control this monster that had taken you over, but enough for you to fight back. And you fought, long and hard and bloody, kicking and clawing like a deranged cat at the barriers that contained you. You were trapped in a cage inside your own head and you didn't like it. So you hurled every piece of anger you had like weapons against the bars and you demanded to be free. During your saner moments, you scratched and bit and dug bloody furrows into your skin, trying to match your outsides to how you were on the inside. They were few and far between, but you had them, and it was enough for you to feel victorious at the damage you did to your body. In your eyes, it was a win. After all, freedom always comes with a price.

But anger is like fire, burning its brightest at its hottest and waning down until it's nothing more than cold ash, blowing away in the lightest of breezes. And despite all your efforts, eventually your anger faded, along with yourself, and it became too hard to keep up the struggle. You didn't give in, but neither did you continue, and in your apathy, you lost. But you think that you'd lost a long time ago and all you'd been doing was delaying the inevitable.

So you sit back and let it all happen, the fighting and the destruction, and are deaf to the pleas of the Rangers around you. They tell you this is wrong, they tell you to stop, but it isn't you in charge anymore and you no longer care. You have fallen from a grace you never had to begin with and don't ever think about gaining. You are now the smallest voice in your head and in your darker moments, you wonder what will happen when even that is gone.

You used to fight. You don't anymore.

/

You weren't aware, at first. All you knew was that there'd be moments of excruciating pain followed by blackness; then blankness upon coming to awareness. You'd be in strange places in strange conditions; sometimes cut, sometimes bleeding, but always, always lost. There'd be nothing in your head, only a feeling of numbing hollowness in your heart, and when you'd get coherent enough to think upon it, it took all you had not to begin screaming in blind panic. Because even as you feared learning the truth, you feared not knowing it more.

Deep down, you knew it wasn't good. You knew you weren't going to like it. But another deep, more visceral sense of defiance and potent rage demanded that you find out what those moments of blackness meant. So you did. You hunted and you searched and refused to give until finally, you'd succeeded. But when the cloud settled and the dawn broke, the sense of horror you'd felt had nearly undone you.

And you wonder if this part of yourself, the one that pushed you for the truth, was the same part of you that had reveled in the pain of your enemies. Was this the part that had dreamed of red rain falling onto your skin in a downpour of coppery sweetness even as it flowed down your throat like divine nectar? But in the end, it truly didn't matter. Because that part was a part of you and you couldn't get rid of it, not after how much of it had sunk its claws into your mind. It didn't matter what it had began as, it ended in you, and it had slowly become such an integral part of yourself that you couldn't tell where you and it separated. Because you weren't separate. You were it and it was you and you were too tired to fight it anymore.

You were a Power Ranger, a warrior, a fighter with the strength to defend the world. You were a wielder of Power so ancient and so rich that planets had fallen in an attempt to claim even a small fragment of it. And yet for all that you held you were damned twice as much. Damned to a hell not of your making, but of circumstance, and nothing or no one would ever let you out. You had learned the truth and the truth had set you free. Free to fall to the demon inside your head.

And you did.

You feel so hard and so fast that it was almost like flying. Only it was a flight that crashed, that fell out of the sky into the ocean below and now you were trapped in the murky depths.

You never used to be afraid of drowning. You are now. Because you know what it feels like; you know its welcoming darkness and how it beckons like a long-lost friend. But you aren't afraid of the death that accompanies it; you fear the temptation it offers you. It offers freedom and relief, love and despair, beginning and end, and you are tempted. Like a siren, it speaks safe and free and you cannot decide whether it is the apple or the snake. What you do know is that you are damned either way.

You hadn't realized that damnation was freedom in itself.

/

In a way, you've grown to love what you've become. You're a nightmare, a shadow; a darkened figure that hunts without conscience or remorse. You kill as a demon and stand as a god, because the power you hold feels like you can destroy worlds. And you think that you'd like to start with this one.

The Rangers are no match for you. You fight them over and over, bruising and breaking their skin into beautiful shades of red and brown. The day will come when you will kill them, and you cannot wait, because only when they are dead will you have won. You cannot be King until there are no usurpers to stand against you.

You're a monster and you feel no revulsion at the thought. You wait for the scream inside of your head from the tiny voice that you are, and smile as a silent void answers back. It is empty and quiet, and you realize that the silence is golden. It is a sign, a mark of how powerful you now are, and an echo of laughter rings through your body.

Another battle, another victory, another trophy to put on your wall, and it's almost too easy. You enjoy the violence, the heat of the fight and the smell of blood in the air, but it's no fun when there is no challenge in it. A hand is thrown out, an arc of light racing towards a group of people scrambling to get away from you, the demon in their view, and their screams are abruptly cut off. Your eyes close, relishing in the sudden silence, and for a moment, you are at peace. And then it is gone, the peace broken, and you jump back into the fray as power sings through your veins. But the power is a distraction, one that nearly costs you.

A rush of heat races towards you and you duck, just barely avoiding the blast, and you look up to see that the Rangers have returned. A snarl rips from your throat at the sight, their colors gleaming in the sunlight and mocking you with their purity. They are everything that you are not, and it aches in some deep part of your soul, because you could have been them, you want to be them. But it's far too late for things to change and regret has no place in this world anymore. You raise yourself to your full height but don't move, watching them silently as they come closer. They stop a few feet away, lined up side-by-side in a Technicolor wall, and your lips curl in anger at the message they are sending.

A wall is a near-impenetrable defense; united, strong, and firmly standing. Knock out one support column and the rest will keep it upright. Take out a second and still it remains; perhaps weakened, a little damaged, but otherwise relatively stable. Only when all fall down does the wall crumble into dust. You clench your fist, dimly aware of the pounding of blood in your ears, and feel some of your tension and anger slip away. They are challenging you to defeat them, to send their precious and united group tumbling to the ground, and you are more than happy to oblige.

You've always loved a challenge.

You leap at them silently in a blur of black and white, the heat of battle rising in your chest and choking your breath. Punches are thrown, kicks are landed and you want to laugh as they fall around you under the onslaught. So you do; a resounding, twisted mix of delight and gleeful pride at the euphoria that fills you. You slash across the chest, criss-crossing with the blade, and laugh as you do it because really, x marks the spot. And it's almost poetic, like you're cutting out their hearts, and you can all be alike now because your heart has been missing for ages. Adrenaline races through your system in a glorious rush of power, and you feel invincible. You stop laughing abruptly when a punch snaps your head back and you glare in murderous rage at the impudent child that dared to strike you. With a vicious backhand, you retaliate, and the Red Ranger falls to the ground beside his fellows; a twisted parody of them kneeling at your feet. You are no longer laughing, your anger bringing you out of your amusement and back to the battle at hand. Though it isn't much of a fight, considering you have beat them before and are doing so now, you know enough of fighting to understand that one missed step, one well-placed blow, can make the tides change. You've come too far to fall because of your arrogance.

It is this hidden fear of losing that brings you to attack again, not giving your enemies a chance to recover or gain their breath. Old lessons and intuitive reasons are racing through your mind as you lash out, a deadly dance of skill and force.

Put them on the defensive…never allow them to breathe…

Now make them come to you…save your strength…

Never attack in the same way twice…keep them guessing…

Take out the biggest threat first…leave the weak for an easy victory…

If you lose your ground, you will lose it all…

Your mind is a tangled mess of feeling, thought, action, and a part of you is becoming lost under the tide. It is a distracting glow of anger and power, twisted and tainted with pounding blood and surging joy. You struggle not to drown in it, attempting to maintain enough rational thought to win this fight even as you know it's hopeless. With a primal scream, you unleash your fury, no longer caring about reason and simply wanting to relieve the tension under your skin. Raising your weapons, you move forward, only to stop abruptly at what you see in front of you, confusion and growing dread racing through your body. Your enemies are standing, side-by-side in a macabre stillness, so similar to the beginning of this battle, and the sight whispers at you in warning. A chill ghosts through you and over your skin in a tingling breath, and with sudden insight that you didn't know you had, you know that you are about to lose this war.

You're frozen, unable to move as the situation unfolds because you cannot believe this is happening. You watch as they raise their arms in unison, the morphers on their wrists gleaming in the sunlight, and are hit with an irrational desire to escape. You move as if to attack, only to find that you literally cannot move; your body remains as still as stone even as your mind screams in desperation and denial. The air feels heavy, oppressive and suffocating, and you can almost see the strands of power streaking between you and the others. A rising scream begins to reverberate through them, the very air shaking under the ferocity, and you watch as colors begin to spin around in a cyclone of Power that is breathtakingly beautiful.

And then it is released like a tidal wave, rushing towards your trapped form with unnerving speed. It collides with your body, moving over and on and through you, and you try to draw breath, only to choke on the very taste of foreign Power in your throat. You collapse to your knees, struggling to breathe with futile results. It washes over you, eating at your own Power, and you watch as the armor fades away, baring your skin to the cooling air. You look up at your enemies, beseeching and hating, desperate and hurting, feeling their Power gnawing at your own like acid; but they do nothing, looking back with a myriad of expressions splashed across their faces. It angers you, and you imagine blood splashed across them to soothe your fury, but as quickly as the thought comes, it's gone.

Pain races over you in a sickening wave of heat and you collapse onto your back, staring up at the sky even as convulsions wrack your body. The sky has darkened, lightning and thunder illuminating the ground around you, and rain begins to fall, slow and hard and cold and hot. Rumbling fills the air as the ground shakes, water collecting in small crevices that have opened in the concrete; the wind picks up, a howling wail of pain and agony. Mother Nature has awoken at the tangible shift in Power, and She is not pleased at the disruption.

You shudder, and the world shudders with you.

/

The darkness closes around you even as light burns through, filling your mind and your body and your soul with its glowing purity. You want to struggle but you can't, helplessly caught in the burning onslaught. Vibrant colors dance around you, multi-colored strands that twist and blend, creating and breaking in a cycle as old as time. And then they split; separating into distinct colors that shimmer in the surrounding black, still and silent and waiting. They wait, these sentient things that defy all logic, and then they attack.

Yellow hits first, bright as the sun and blinding you with its power. The musician of the group, a talent in guitar and vocals, she is headstrong and independent, fierce and loyal; always flying above the crowd just like the pterodactyl she represents. She is beautifully intense, inside and out, and the girl you think you could have loved. But you aren't that person anymore, you never will be, and you cannot love her the way you once could. And it's just one more thing that you have lost, one more thing that has been taken from you, and you let loose a scream as piercing as the one she favors in battle.

Blue was next, calm and soothing, yet able to change at the drop of a dime. It is still water that turns into a flowing brook or frothy waterfall, and just as powerful in any of its forms. But that is the inherent magic it holds, just like the person that commands it; an intelligent young computer geek that hides many secrets under the surface. Blue is full of quiet strength, loyalty to those who have earned it and a greater understanding of misjudged appearances than any one else you know. He is a good friend and someone you would have liked to call brother, if only things had gone the way they could have. The way they should have. But you are not someone that could be called brother, not anymore, and you pound the walls around you with strength so like the one he fights with.

Black follows, less a strand of color and more a shimmering ribbon detaching from the inky darkness around you. It is the color most misunderstood; not evil or bad or wrong, but different. No other colors are in it, and yet it is just as important as the others. And he is perfect for it; someone who knows what it is to be chained and forced to do bad things against your will, who understands the desire to be free. He is deceptively silent, the commander who leads by following, and the teacher who wants you to search for the answers and not be given them on a platter. He is the father that you lost, the only man who gained your respect, and a better guardian than the one you have. But he is not yours; he is what you could have found, if you'd only been given the chance to look for it. And briefly you fade into the dark that is around you, invisible if only for a moment, just like the secret he uses to his advantage on the battlefield.

Red was last; leader, commander and sovereign. Like the Tyrannosaurus he commands, he is loud and obnoxious and young; strong on the battlefield but less so in the pack. He makes up for it in his unwavering protection and fierce arrogance, watching over those under his rule without hesitation. Passionate, willful, and stubborn to a fault and yet for all that he does, all that he fights, he still has his misgivings. He doesn't trust you and doesn't hesitate to show it and while it stings, you understand that he is simply protecting what is his. You cannot fault him for that. He has found friends, followers, brothers and a sister, and once, you had wanted to be one of them. But that, too, has slipped away from you, and now all you can do is run with a speed that matches the one he displays while fighting.

You reach out desperately, trying to hold onto the dark, and fearing what will happen if you can't grab hold. You'll be alone and lost, broken and shattered; falling with no hope of being caught. Except you've always been falling, always been shattered, and the only one who has ever cared about putting you back together is you. You are frightened by the lights that tear at the darkness, afraid of what they represent, and unwilling to become entranced by what is out of your reach. You want everything they have to offer (love, friendship, brotherhood) but it is not yours to have, and looking at what you cannot gain is far worse than staying in the darkness. But they have other plans, these colors that represent the Power that once destroyed you, and they pound at the barrier of darkness until it gives under the sheer force. As light shines in a blinding blast, you know with utter certainty that everything is about to change.

And you scream as the darkness slips away.

/

It's quiet now, calm and serene both inside your head and out. The air seems less dense, the atmosphere less heavy, and you feel as if you're floating on a feather; weightless and lifeless and empty, flying through the air without purpose or direction. Like the dead, you think, except the dead are free and you, well, you are not. Even now, you're still locked in time and frozen in space and there's no way to tell when the lock will break and the ice will melt and the world will finally come to a stop.

You are not free. You will never be free.

The others disagree. They flock around you like birds, cawing and squawking and demanding attention like the children they are, and you think about throwing them into the wall and ripping out their feathers and breaking their necks because they infuriate you. They don't trust you or like you and yet, they expect you to feel grateful that they have brought you back. They have freed you, they say, and you should thank them, but what they don't seem to understand is that they haven't freed you at all. They have destroyed you, because you are all that is left. Except you haven't been just you in a very long time, and now you have no clue as to what to do.

How do you live with everything you've done? How do you continue on as if you hadn't done everything in your power to make sure the world would not? How do you look at the others and not see the pain you have caused them, the blood you have taken from their bodies, and the terror you reaped from their souls? How do you smile and wave and laugh with the people that surround you, and not remember what you wanted to put them through?

How do you forgive a multitude of sins?

The simple answer is that you don't. You can't. Because to forgive is to forget, and to forget is to silence, and to silence the screams that echo in your head is to silence everything that you have become. You are damned, just like before, only now the thing that has damned you is your own guilty conscience.

Rationally, you know you aren't the only Ranger who's gone through this. But you don't care about them. Their pain is old, muted; buried under layers and locked away by years, or somehow, miraculously, healed. Their pain is nothing to you. Your pain is what matters. It's selfish, you know that, but you feel like you're owed a little selfishness. And why should you care about the others or their pain? They hadn't cared enough about you to save you from yours. Not until you'd lost every part of yourself in the depths of the power that held you. And you aren't sure you could ever forgive them for that. Because they hadn't tried to save you until it was far too late for you to save yourself.

It makes you want to hate them. Sometimes you do. And then you find yourself pushing it down, pushing it away; shoving it into a hole so deep you nearly choke on the bitter taste it leaves in the back of your throat. Because they did save you, even after everything you did to them and everything you tried to do. They saved you, and you feel guilty for it, because their noble natures had afforded them no other choice. You wonder what they'd do if they found out everything you'd wanted to do to them. Would they regret saving you? You would if you were in their shoes. But then again, you already regret being saved.

And really, how different are you from them? They're just as broken as you, just as torn apart by their powers, and perhaps you're better off than them. At least you can admit your flaws. They probably don't even see theirs. Or, rather, they can't. They're far too good for that.

And therein lays the difference. You are not them, they are not you, and that will not change.

You have sinned, and done so in every way imaginable. But there is no greater sin than knowing that you are corrupted only because you allowed it to happen.

/

He tries to talk to you, but you don't care what he has to say. So what if he was once evil too? So what if he thought he could relate to your experience? He wasn't. He couldn't. Tommy Oliver was as similar to you as you were to a tree. He didn't know how you felt. He didn't know what you were thinking. And he had no right to assume he did. So you try to ignore him. But Dr. Oliver, in all his infinite wisdom, refuses to leave you alone. He talks over and above and through you, and it takes all of your willpower not to scream. You clench your fists and struggle with a rising anger, a depth to which you never thought you could feel, and fight your murderous thoughts. Every time he says your name, every time a hand touches your shoulder, and every time he looks at you with pity, red washes over your vision in a frightening blank haze. And when coherency returns, you have to fight not to show the relief that floods you when you realize that the man is still alive. And it frightens you, this hatred and rage that overtakes you, because it is far too like the one you felt when morphed and fighting these Rangers that you are now allied with. You can't go back to what you'd been. You can't go there. You can't.

So you run; not to get away, but for solace, for a refuge in which you can escape the screams ringing in your ears. In all the time you'd been fighting the White Ranger powers, in all the battles you'd been in, you had never been as afraid as you are now. Nothing could compare to the sickening fear that fills you, drives you to run until your feet give out, pushes until your calves' burn, and shoves until you've fallen to your knees in the dirt. Your fear is all-encompassing, overriding every coherent thought, and it isn't until you've realized that you're no longer moving that sanity returns. You look around you and begin to laugh, a hysterical, broken sound that shatters the stillness of the cemetery you've found yourself in.

It's fitting, you suppose, that you would seek shelter amongst your victims because they are the only ones who can understand you. They are dead, buried under your feet in the cold, unforgiving ground, and you are the one who has put them there. You have taken them from their families and friends and banished them into the chilling arms of loneliness, and a part of you wonders if you envy them. Do you envy their release from this mortal coil? Do you envy the silence that now surrounds them? Or is it that you would simply rather switch places with them?

You listen to the gravestones, at the echoing silence of the dead, and realize that yes, you do envy them. But you envy them not just because of the silence, but because they cannot feel the crushing guilt you are burdened with. You deserve it, you know this, but knowing the guilt is everything you deserve, hurts. You tell yourself that you've brought it down upon your head, that you have no right to ask to be forgiven or for a reprieve, but it's a hard truth to accept. Not when you wake screaming in the night, not when you see yourself in the mirror, and not when you are forced to morph as penance for your sins.

Because the other side to the truth is that you are just a child, a child forced to grow up far too soon and enter the adult world of guilt and morality and temptation. Your innocence is gone, not by choice but by force, and you are compelled to carry a burden far too heavy for your shoulders. You have killed, and you cannot ever make that okay; no matter how hard you pray or how desperately you scrub your skin or how viciously you fight, you and the dead are forever intertwined. In the game of chance, you are obsolete; in the cycle of life, you are outside. Not dead, but not of the living.

Somehow, you drag yourself to your feet and begin to walk among the graves, reaching out to some and avoiding others, and while you don't know these names, you know that some of them are etched in stone, forever immortalized, because of you. You don't know which ones belong to you but you don't particularly care. You think that you can claim them all. After all, you are Death, and here in this place, everything belongs to you. In this kingdom of bones and decaying flesh, you are the one who rules over all. Only you have dominion over the dead.

You belong here, amongst the murdered and the forgotten, and a part of you takes comfort in belonging because there is no one else who can match you. You are jaded and marked and stained; too tarnished to belong among the other Rangers and too different to belong with the whole of humanity. You are a victim, yes, but you are also the perpetrator, and being both is too hard for this world to understand. You are barely able to handle it yourself. You chuckle silently at the thought, because standing in a graveyard is hardly indicative of good mental health. But you've never been right, and the only choice left to you is to become more wrong.

You tip your head back and look up at the slowly darkening sky, feeling the cold dance over your skin as night approaches; like fingers in the wind, they grab at your clothes and reach into your soul and try to bring you into their fold. You close your eyes, letting the cold nip at your skin, and know that you're standing on the edge of a precarious cliff with a choice to make in front of you. You can fall into the beckoning warmth of nothing and become a part of it, drifting and fading until there's no part of you left. Or you can pull yourself back, into the cold despair of life, and the pain that awaits you there.

Except you already know your choice, you've made it, and now the only thing you can do is live with it. You step back from the edge; using all your strength to pull away from the thing you want most of all. But that is the easy way and not the one that you deserve. The others would never forgive you for that, and while you could care less about their forgiveness, you do care about the debt that you owe to the dead. So you lower yourself on bended knee to the ground in front of the closest grave, one arm resting on the raised leg, the other digging into the soft dirt. Your head is lowered in submission, eyes closed against the sight in front of you, and you can hear your breathing in the harsh silence around you.

You kneel there like a subject before his king, like a servant to his master, and begin to whisper silently. You are supplicated and abased, and you place yourself at the feet of the dead as you make your solemn vow. It is one of promise and vengeance, of blood and pain, and you swear with all the death left in your soul that you will find a way to make the one responsible pay. You will make Mesogog pay for all the pain, for all the death; for everything he's done and everything that he made you do, and you will not stop until he's been destroyed.

And even when it's over, you will continue the fight. There are still monsters in this world to fight, demons that you can send to hell, and you will not rest until you have brought as many as you can down. In this graveyard lies the broken; the lost and the taken, the trapped and the gone, but they will remember the promise you have made them. And they will not rest until you are able to as well.

You turn and leave, a slight sheen of white on the graves the only sign you were ever there. A faint cry from the DragoZord echoes through your mind and you mentally bow to your faithful companion in acknowledgment as you head back the way you came.

You have work to do.

/

You used to look at the world with an artists' eye, seeing the vibrant colors and the intensity of life in everything around you. Only now you've realized that your eye is clouded by the sins you've committed, and the taint of your past has leeched across the scene. The canvas is cracked and tarnished, color peeling away until only the white beneath is visible, and you realize that this is how you will forever view your world. But you're okay with that.

It's easier to watch out for the monsters when you're staring right at them.

/

"The first of all single colors is white ... We shall set down white for the representative of light, without which no color can be seen; yellow for the earth; green for water; blue for air; red for fire; and black for total darkness." - Leonardo Da Vinci

/ End fic.

Authors Note: I respectfully ask that you review and let me know your opinions, as I am unsure as to how well this will be received. Thank you!