Disclaimer: I don't own Power Rangers. Someone else does.

Hi :) I started writing this before I got into my current running series of Rangers meeting each other. But, then I forgot all about it. I'm hoping that if I post what I have, I'll be inspired to continue writing it. And thanks to Dagmar Buse who had beta'ed this thing several years ago. This is my first non-comedy and addresses the plot hole about Dimitria having a sister. Oh, and I stink at titles.

Please let me know if I make any errors. I have no problems with constructive criticism.

This is set after "Transmission Impossible."

Ok, I resubmitted this with some very minor repairs. No changes in the story itself.

I Have a Sister?

by

Eileen (Psycho Tangerine)

Chapter One: Dimitria's Dream

As her image faded from the Rangers' view, Dimitria turned away from the concaved glass window that composed the front of her "tube." Tossing off her mouth veil, she walked to the back of her tiny, but well furnished, apartment. Although Zordon had needed the tube to keep in contact with the Rangers, Dimitria did not share this need. Back on Inquirus, where she had been given instructions about the Rangers she was to mentor in Zordon's stead, she had been led to believe that they would prefer to follow the advice of someone who did not seem to be as "human-like" as them. But, now that she had seen how advanced they really were, Dimitria was seriously considering getting rid of the tube.

Settling down on a beige velour sofa, she began to brood over the shocking news she had just received from Visceron. "I have a sister?" she asked herself. "How can that be possible? Why don't I remember ever having a sister?" As she brooded, she felt a tug on the edge of her memories. But, try as she might, she was unable to grasp whatever it was.

Sighing, she got up and glided over to the computer monitoring system to assure herself that everything in Angel Grove was quiet. She then went into a small kitchen in the back to make wailaith, her favorite hot drink, native to Inquirus, which tasted like a mix of ginger ale and coffee.

She sat back on her sofa and used her remote control to put on some quiet, relaxing music. Although she had tried and sometimes even enjoyed the various artists the Rangers had recommended to her, it was Mozart who almost always relaxed her. Closing her eyes as the music wafted over her, she fell asleep and, perhaps because of Visceron's jogging of her unconscious memories, began to dream.

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The cold sprinkling of water onto her face woke the little girl. Blinking sleepily, the little girl snuggled deeper into the soft gray and yellow blanket wrapped around her as she watched her mother struggle with her squirming sister.

"Divinia, stop kicking," Kelinia gently chided the other little girl who was splattering water all over the room.

"Cold, Mamma," Divinia whined. "Bath all done, want out."

"All right, sweetie." The young mother lifted the two-year old child out of the washtub, dried her off, and dressed her in a soft nightshirt that matched her sister's. She then wrapped her in a soft blanket and laid her next to her sister.

To little Dimitria's amusement, but not surprise, Divinia jumped up, tossed off her blanket, and ran towards the hut door. Before she could get outside, however, Mother had gently grabbed her and re-wrapped her in the blanket. "Nap time, sweetie," she whispered as she brought Divinia into the cabin and placed her back on the cot.

Divinia jumped off the cot again and took a defiant stance. "No nap! I wanna play!"

The woman sighed as she picked up the struggling little girl and began to rock her and hum lullabies. "Why can't you go to sleep, Divinia? Mommy's tired and she still has to wash the clothes. Oh, and look," she continued when she noticed Dimitria's open eyes, "you've wakened your sister." She picked up Dimitria and hummed and rocked with both of them in her arms.

As she continued to hum, someone tapped on the door. With a frightened yelp, Kelinia jumped up with both girls still in her arms and began to head for the window.

"Do you not yet recognize my knock?" asked the familiar voice on the other side of the door. "Marala," Kelinia said with a grateful sigh, "let yourself in, please. My hands are kind of full."

"Are not your arms full as well, Kelinia?" Marala asked as she watched the struggling Divinia and the now-sleeping Dimitria. "Do you not think I should give you a little break?" She held out her arms towards Divinia.

With a combination of relief and reluctance, Kelinia handed the child to the older woman and then gently placed Dimitria back on the cot. It had only taken her a few days to get accustomed to the Inquirian's way of speaking. And she had found the woman to be a blessing when it came to taking care of the twins, especially Divinia. While Dimitria was usually quiet and well-behaved, Divinia was a curious and active little girl who resented having to take any kind of break in her activities.

But, Kelinia reflected, her husband, Tamius had actually loved Divinia's wild ways and worried more about Dimitria. "That child's just too quiet for my taste," he had whispered to her one day. "No child should be so well behaved. I'd love to see her get into mischief the way Divinia does."

After a while, Marala had managed to soothe Divinia into a light sleep. After gently laying the child back on the cot next to her already sleeping sister, Marala and Kelinia stepped outside the hut's door so they could do laundry and talk without waking either child.

Picking up a little honey-brown dress, Kelinia began to scrub violently. The tenseness in her face and the harshness with which her knuckles rubbed against the washing stone revealed her stress. While never considered a beauty, not too long ago Kelinia could at least have been described as a pleasant looking young woman. But, her constant fears for her daughters' lives over the past two years had made her seem to age considerably.

Marala gently placed her hands on top of Kelinia's to stop her in her furious scrubbing. "Child, I know you are concerned about Divinia and Dimitria's safety, but how is injuring yourself going to help them?"

Kelinia sighed. "I'm ok. It's just that I constantly feel that General Borala's men are going to jump out of these woods and take them from me. And the feeling is worse, now that Tamius is gone." Kelinia held back tears for her husband who had recently been killed by an angry boar while hunting. "He's the one who found us this hiding place here in the middle of the Bassos Forest. And he's the one who took the risk of leaving the solitude of our hiding spot to get food and supplies for us. I don't know what to do now."

Hiding in the Bassos Forest had been Tamius' idea. Kelinia had heard more than one rumor about it being haunted with ghost bandits and enchanted trees and had been a bit fearful of the forest. But, she was even more fearful of General Boralas and his men finding them. It turned out to be an effective hiding place for the only ones who even attempted to go in were the youths who occassionally challenged each others' bravery, and even they never went in far enough to find the clearing where the family was hiding. This had allowed them to remain in hiding for such a long time.

"Have you not been sneaking into the nearest village for food while I minded the twins for you? Did you not capture that wild hen only last week? Is not your missing of Tamius due more to love than to your needing him to survive?"

Kelinia began to swish the dress in a tub of clear water to rinse it. "Yes, you are right of course, Marala. But what if I am recognized in the village? I'm certain my likeness has been passed around the local villages by now."

Marala nodded in grim agreement. Multiple births, even those of twins, were extremely rare on Saras. They had once been forbidden due to ancient beliefs that such children brought only death and sorrow to those around them. But these beliefs had gradually fallen to the wayside over the centuries with such children becoming oddities to tolerate rather than evil to punish.

However, this reprieve had ended almost 14 years ago, soon after General Boralas had the kind, but elderly King Dohamus assassinated. With the help of his army, the iren-fisted military dictator had no problem seizing rule of Dohas, the capital country of Saras. Soon after, he had also conquered the neighboring countries of Panasa, Kormus, and Resana. General Boralas was a cruel man whom the populace soon learned to obey out of fear.

The only persons who could be a challenge to Boralas' rule were King Dohamus' twin grandsons, his only living male heirs. Although at six years of age they were too young to effect an overthrow, the General realized that there would be a lot of support behind them when they were old enough.

Soon after Boralas' military coup, a volcanic eruption destroyed a village in the northern part of Dohas. Then two major hurricanes thrashed the south, leaving hundreds dead. Finally, a severe earthquake hit on the western coast, leaving even more death and destruction. This had been the worst series of natural disasters Dohas had experienced for centuries. People had become fearful and General Boralas decided to capitalize on that fear in order to maintain his control over them. In his powerful, but charismatic, speeches, he managed to convince them that it had been their fault these disasters had occurred. They had openly defied the ancient belief that multiple births were wicked and had to eradicated. He immediately reinstated the prescribed punishments: public execution of the parents along with the separation and exile of the children so that they starved to death. The King's grandsons were the first victims of this twisted sense of justice.

Kelinia was only a six-year-old, just like the two princes when she witnessed the mock "trial." She watched as their mother, who had been widowed during the attack on King Dohamas pleaded for her sons' lives before the noose pulled tight around her neck, forever ending her cries. She watched as the two boys, having just witnessed their mother's death were pulled apart from each other, and driven off to unchartered regions of Saras in order to die. She watched in complete disbelief as her parents and other villagers just stood by, doing nothing to save them. As she grew, she became more and more resentful of the unfair laws enforced on them by General Boralas.

Then she met Tamius, a young man who belonged to a small underground faction of men and women who strongly disapproved of the General and his tactics. The small group had not yet enough strength to openly oppose the military dictator, but were gradually and very cautiously gathering followers. Tamius and she soon fell in love, married and became expectant parents. Because of the rarity of multiple births and because she showed no signs of carrying more than one child, the couple were shocked when Kelinia gave birth to the twin girls.

Luckily, the girls had been born in the old house, with only Tamius being there to help his wife. Before any well wishing neighbors could come and discover that there were two babies, Tamius had bundled up his exhausted wife and the babies, hid them in his old truck-like vehicle and sped through the back roads until they reached the forest. He then pushed his beloved vehicle into a nearby quicksand pit and hiked his family to the desolated spot in which they were now living. During the hike, Tamius was careful to cover and brush away their tracks.

For two years (which were the equivalent of three hundred Earth years), Kelinia and Tamius had only themselves and their babies for company. Whenever Tamius went hunting or foraging for food, Kelinia waited in near panic in fear that he would not come back and that she would be left alone to care for her little girls. Luckily for Kelinia, they had discovered Marala camping alone in the forest only a few months before Tamius' unfortunate accident. On an extended leave from her stressful, high-ranking position on Inquirus, she had recently crash-landed her mini-ship into the forest. Although she had not sustained any serious injuries, her ship had been less lucky and had become nonfunctional. However, Marala had been working on its repair. In fact, she had just finished and planned on taking a few passengers with her at sunrise.

At first, the young couple had been somewhat fearful of Marala. This fear didn't last too long as they experienced her kindness towards themselves and their daughters. Kelinia especially began to appreciate having someone to talk with about the pressures of motherhood, as Marala had three grown children herself. And Tamius felt better knowing there was someone to help watch over his family whenever he went out hunting or foraging for food.

She had managed to live on the food rations of her hidden mini-spacecraft, thereby avoiding having to go into the nearby village where her unusual way of speaking and strange dress would most likely alarm the superstitious Sarasian citizens. Marala's leisure outfits were made of a cloth that was smoother than silk and softer than cotton. Such material was unknown on Saras. It was her alien ways and dress that kept her from going to the village in Kelinia's stead. She was much more likely to be noticed, which in turn would bring people to the campsite.

Looking up from her work, Kelinia noticed that Marala had a thoughtful look on her sun-bronzed face. "Whatever are you thinking of Marala?"

"Would you mind if I went back into my ship for a few minutes? Would Dimi and Divi mind if I had something to surprise them with when they wake up?"

Kelinia sighed and smiled. "Oh, Marala, you don't need to. I mean, you just gave them that lovely cake only two days ago for a treat."

"Haven't I told you that I love treating those girls like my own grandchildren?" Marala called back as she headed towards her ship.

Kelinia smiled and shook her head. She decided to go check on the girls before she continued work. Looking in, she noticed that both girls were still asleep. They had both rolled to the middle of the large cot and were snuggled against each other for warmth. She leaned over and gently kissed each child. As she turned around to return to her work, she heard the unmistakable and terrifying sounds of squealing tires and then of General Borala's soldiers running towards her hut. With deep trepidation and regret she suspected that one of her village forays had not gone as unnoticed as she had hoped. She grabbed her children and backed into a corner as the men broke into the room.

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Marala looked lovingly at the soft twin baby dolls as she took them down from the storage closet on her ship. She had loved playing with them as a child and she knew Dimitria and Divinia would love them as well. Closing the latch on the closet, she ducked out of the ship into the afternoon sunshine.

The next thing she knew, she had to jump behind a large bush as a dusty old vehicle loaded with soldiers flew by. As she watched, another jeep went by as well. Looking at the back of it, she saw two soldiers holding rifles on a terrified Kelinia as she held her equally frightened daughters.

Mentally, Marala cursed herself for having decided to wait until sunrise to help them escape. Then she tried to reason with herself. "But, was there really any way for me to know that, after all this time, they were to be discovered today?" She pondered the situation for a few moments. Then she remembered something she had heard Kelinia say about how children were exiled. There were very few places that were acceptable for exile. And the only one she could remember was atop of Mount Arosios to the west. Quickly, she got back into her ship and, after a few necessary preparations, she took off with the ship and headed west into the high atmosphere where she wouldn't be seen by anyone on Saras. Fortunately, the underdeveloped planet had not yet achieved radar capabilities, so she had no fear of being electronically detected. With any luck, she would be able to save at least one child.

Tbc.