DISCLAIMER:The usual disclaimer, the Power Rangers and all associated characters are property of Saban. The only thing I eventually own is the OC and the plot idea.
Chapter 2 - Confrontations
Jason was taken aback when the corridors melted with the sky in front of his eyes as the teleportation beam took him away. The dirty meld of colors was then replaced with uniform darkness. The darkness finally cleared and he landed on his back in a medium sized octagonal room, his throat aching from the dry air of the place and his muscles protesting movement the moment he got up. He shifted around uneasily from where he stood, looking around himself as he tried to bury down the fear that was starting to rise within him. The mist that covered the floor like a blanket was reaching halfway to his knees and the walls were gray, with an octagonal window of a sort on each wall, crossed thickly with massive bars and giving insight into nothing but darkness dotted with faint specks of white. Caution soon replaced fear, and Jason looked around, feeling his way along the walls in hope of maybe finding a hidden switch that would open a passage out of the room. He was not sure in what kind of prison he was put, or how, but he noticed his morpher was missing when he perused his pockets and had a suspicion that he'll soon find out where he was.
In the Moon Palace, Rita Repulsa was watching the events on Earth and was furious. How could her Ranger be so careless as to let himself be discovered by another, yet powerless, human being? Tugging at the hem of her robes absentmindedly and pressing her fingers against her temple, she drew out a long sigh. Nothing ever went properly right. Her robes rustled faintly when she moved away from the balcony and into the spacious throne room, her shoes causing echoes on the obsidian floors.
She sent a mental summons to her Green Ranger, and then shrieked: "Goldar!"
The gold armor-clad alien stepped through the door archway of the Palace soon after the witch's voice stopped resonating among the cold stone, with the Green Ranger appearing next to him and kneeling down in front of Rita. " Your command, my Empress?", Tommy addressed her, kneeling and eyes averted to the ground in revered respect. Goldar just gave a noncommittal grunt at this whelp thinking himself his better by addressing the witch first.
Rita swung her staff in an arc and forward, causing a small impact energy wave that knocked the Green Ranger down and slid him backwards into the room, then glared at the downed boy. " I could not believe you have let yourself be discovered by a normal human! What were you thinking?! ", she yelled at Tommy, while making Goldar wince at the sound of her voice. To the gold-clad alien warrior, it was a pleasant change that he wasn't at the end of the lecture for once.
Tommy slowly rose on his feet, looking at the floor, his fists clenching at the humiliation. " I did not know that he was standing anywhere in the corridor. He was not anywhere in my sight when I kidnapped the Red Ranger, I..."
"Enough! I do not want to hear any more excuses!", Rita cut him off abruptly, letting out a deep exasperated sigh. " Your negligence in this matter has cost you your identity. You will remedy that. Morph. Kill him. That should not be a problem.", she commanded, the last sentence delivered with a smirk. Her spell had brought out the worse things in the teen, and his overconfidence had finally caused a set-back. She should have taken matters in her own hands more closely, but she had enough problems just keeping him under her thumb. He pulled out his gold-rimmed morpher, called on its power and disappeared in a streak of green and black.
" What about me, my Empress?", Goldar questioned, his eyes still averted from the angry witch, but he kept his left hand on the pommel of his sword, ready at a command to spring into action.
" You will go to the Dark Dimension and give the Red Ranger a proper welcome.", she stated, walking over to the unoccupied throne and sitting down slowly. She watched the black-maned alien just nod.
Goldar smiled faintly as he vanished in a streak of black light, leaving the witch alone again. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment as the onslaught of a migraine caught her again: the upkeep of the spell on the Green Ranger was no longer so great, the bulk of it transferred onto the Sword of Darkness, but it still created a connection to the enslaved teen, and there were moments when the youth's rebellious will tried to throw off the spell. The attempts were futile, of course, but she endeavored to smother it anyways for such moments brought about hesitation, and with it risk of failure.
The Rangers were in the Command Center: Zack was leaning casually against a console with a frown on his face, worry creasing his face; Kimberly was nervously pacing in the center of the room with her hands crossed across her chest while Trini and Billy were helping Alpha with the repairs of the computer terminals.
" I cannot believe he just vanished like that! Rita is surely behind this!" Kim said exasperated, stopping just for a moment to straighten out her pink shirt. When Jason did not show up, they had frantically checked over every place where Jason was known to stop by, but meeting no success. When Alpha-5 had called them from the Command Center, saying he found fluctuations in the connection to the red coin and no sign of Jason in the Angel Grove area, the group knew it was Rita at work. The worst case scenario played out in front of them.
Zack put a hand on Kimberly's shoulder." Kim, you should stop worrying. He'll turn up.", he said with a sympathetic smile. " You know Jase, he wouldn't go down without a fight."
Kimberly just looked at the floor, clenching her fists helplessly. "I should have arrived earlier, gone in to see if Tommy has actually met Jason, or..."
" Kim, ", Trini cut her out and moved to her, "don't blame yourself. You didn't know it would turn out like this. We're doing all we can to get this place running and start looking for his signature."
" But I should have known! ", Kimberly countered in helpless frustration. " Rita's been trying to pick us off one by one ever since the Green Ranger appeared. "
Trini tried to give a reassuring smile to her teammate, at the same time acknowledging her fears: the Green Ranger has been repeatedly trying to strike at them separately and, while the alien forces seemed to draw the line at attacking them while in a crowd, the group had agreed that they'd try to at least travel in pairs.
"Trini, can you come over here and assist me in the repairs for a moment?", Billy asked the Vietnamese girl, while he was bent over the computer console, trying to untangle some scorched wires and put a few other boards in their place. The consoles had been fried, but the mainframe of the Command Center had been well protected deeper underground, and it was only a matter of part replacement to get back the interface with it. Billy was meticulously working on it, with a crate of parts next to him and a soldering kit close at hand. Trini moved over to help him while Alpha moved to Kimberly, his saucer-like head almost wobbling while he walked.
" Ay ay ay, Kimberly, do not worry. We will find Jason.", the little robot quipped in, in an attempt to soothe the fears of the Pink Ranger. The little red and gold automaton had spent the day in maintenance mode to help speed the virus purge that Billy had initiated. He did not dare to interface with the mainframe directly until he was very sure there was no risk of infection.
" The computer is operational." Billy announced with a tired sigh after a few minutes and everyone else turned around to face the fixed terminal, while Alpha proceeded to stand near Billy and help him start the search for Jason. The room was finally brightened by the green light cast by the holo-projectors as the terminal started up, the lightning symbol of the Rangers rotating in mid-air while the system booted.
Zack fervently hoped they weren't too late as Billy started the search, the screens lighting up green, tracing diagrams and maps flanked by wave diagrams representing the search patterns of Jason's Power and his vital signs.
Kevin was working on an advanced kata in the forest outskirts with his backpack laying near a rock, when he caught an emerald green flash in the corner of his eye. He quickly spun around, meeting eyes with the Green Ranger standing in front of him, brandishing the Sword of Darkness in one hand and the Dragon Dagger in the other. The golden chest armor was ominously shining in the sun as the Ranger slowly advanced on him.
" This is not a good place to be alone. Accidents might happen. ", the Green Ranger smirked, moving to swing the Sword of Darkness at Kevin. Kevin stepped behind out of the swords' reach, just to meet a green ball of energy flying towards him from the Dragon Dagger. He sidestepped, ending up with a small part of his sleeveless shirt burning and his shoulder badly scorched, his body out of balance for a split second from the impact of the blow. He held up a yelp of pain in his throat at the spreading heat on his skin just as he saw the Green Ranger confidently charging at him. Regaining his balance quickly as the Green Ranger closed distance between them, Kevin steadied himself for the fight that ensured.
The two moved intertwined in a flurry of blows, the Green Ranger intent at slashing his opponent to pieces, while Kevin sidestepping, ducking and overall evading the blades, while returning a few counterattacks of his own. While the Green Ranger had the benefit of his powers and of his reinforced suit, Kevin vaguely knew the younger teen was only a tie match for his brother and focused on sports combat. He, on the other hand, had vastly more experience and training in the styles of karate and ninjutsu, neither of the arts taught to him in the confines of sports competition rules but for the crucible of real combat. With his shoulder burning and bleeding, he bounded and leapt around, and then moved fast to attack in a perfect execution of hit-and-run attacks. Where the Green Ranger was confidently aggressive, Kevin's moves were economically cautious and precise. At one point there was a resounding crunch as the Green Ranger's armored gauntlet hit its mark with amplified force, almost flattening Kevin's nose and causing the teen to bound backwards, buying himself time to clear the spots dancing in front of his eyes.
As the sword jabbed towards him, Kevin moved aside, finally seeing an opening. He hit his opponent's sword arm with full force between the armor reinforcement and on the arm nerve points, causing the Green Ranger to drop the sword. Grabbing him by that same arm, he twisted it, but ended up having the Dragon Dagger slash at his left cheek, the blade penetrating pretty deep into the skin. The Green Ranger got his arm free and quickly stepped back, but noticed that the Sword was behind his opponent and that he'll have to do with the Dagger. He executed a feint slash while projecting a kick to Kevin's abdomen area. The kick connected, but Kevin just bent slightly while exhaling, maintaining balance and preventing the evil Ranger from knocking the wind out of him. Evading a couple more slash attempts to his chest, he pulled back in leaps in time to pick up the Sword of Darkness and use it to parry the incoming attack with the dagger. The two engaged in a blade fight, with Kevin shortly having the upper hand due to the superior distance of the sword. He moved like a wind-whirl with the blade, the fast and methodical strikes managing to land on the Ranger's arms and side, to finish with a devastating blow to the Green Rangers' shield, which sent him rolling down from impact, the dagger flying out of his hand. The Green Ranger looked up, just to see the tip of the sword pointed to his visor.
" I should kill you here and now.", Kevin muttered through his teeth, his eyes shining with anger, as blood trickled onto the Green Ranger's uniform from his wounds, smudging the top of the shield with blotches of red. He stood above the Ranger by sheer willpower as his body throbbed painfully.
"You won't dare.", the Green Ranger replied tiredly, yet managing to sound as if he were mocking the other teen. In a cold, threatening motion, Kevin raised the sword above his head, as if he were preparing for the final strike, but in a flash of green, both the sword and the Ranger were gone. Finally, Kevin's shoulders sagged, the rush of adrenaline abandoning him, leaving only tiredness and pain behind. He stumbled to his backpack, picked it up and slowly made his way back into the suburbs, clutching his burning and bleeding shoulder, while his ribs were pulsating faintly in pain and his left cheek was bleeding from the slash. His nose throbbed, the stream of blood that flowed from it barely stemmed by the teen finding a towel haphazardly crumpled in his backpack with which to press against it. Other minor bleeding wounds and bruises marred his form, and at this point, he gave his best not to collapse while heading towards home. As he stepped into the street, people looked at him with worry. Several had heard the sounds of battle that came out from the park or saw the brief flashes of green and had run over to see what was going on. With every step taken, Kevin tried not to stumble as adrenaline gave way to exhaustion, and a few people offered to call an ambulance, to which he barely coherently declined. His vision was getting slightly misty, and he grasped at street lights and fences in an effort to steady himself. Seeing someone coming his way with an officer in tow, Kevin made a detour, elbowing his way through the surprised pedestrians, not wishing to deal with any kind of authorities right now. Trouble seemed to pile up one after another, and he did not have the coherence to deal with it.
Jason was unaware in what danger his brother placed himself in, much to his luck. He paced around the Dark Dimension, his nostrils filled of stagnant air and mist that permeated the place. He had tried leaning on the bars that criss-crossed the walls in hopes of uncovering some kind of secret passage out of the room, but the more the time passed, he started to have less and less hope that he would get out of this predicament on his own. When Goldar finally materialized in the center of the room, Jason got up from where he had been sitting on the floor and put up a wary guard. This could be over very fast.
"Well if it isn't the Red Ranger. ", Goldar smirked, giving the teen a critical one-over with a glance. "Were you looking for this?" , taunted as he opened his left hand to reveal the Red Ranger morpher and coin and showed it to Jason, the golden reflection of the light from the metal almost teasing him with its gleam. The Camian clipped the morpher onto his belt, exposed.
"Let us see how tough you are without this. If you manage to take it from me, you're out of here. Now show me what you've got!". Goldar stated with a fanged grin, then eased himself into an attack stance with his sword drawn, just moments before he lunged after the teen.
Jason didn't have the time to answer as he was forced to duck and evade the sword blow, which hit the metal bar next to him, causing sparks to fly into the air. Getting back to the opposite wall, Jason watched as Goldar charged at him again, but this time he was ready. He sidestepped the next sword blow and delivered a roundabout kick to Goldar's back, under the wings where the armor opened to allow for the alien to take flight. Goldar stumbled forward almost head-first into the wall, averted by twisting around and presenting his shoulder first. The alien stood upright and turned to face Jason, his eyes lit by a delighted glint: the Red Ranger had always been a challenge in battle and the Camian was glad he would not disappoint despite not having his powers. He swung a feint vertical slash with the sword and instead kicked Jason in the ribs as he sidestepped out of the blade's way. Jason heard his ribs crack faintly as he bent over in pain, and knew he was not going to get to his morpher easily. A moment later he was backhanded by Goldar, falling to the floor. Jason decided he'd play a waiting game, hiding in the thick floor mist and try to get to his morpher.
His thoughts briefly went to his team: they must've been mad with worry when he did not show up for his meeting with Kimberly. The thought crossed his mind quickly despite his currently deadly predicament, and managed to drag out a smile from him. It was so very typical of him, thinking about the rest of the group while he was on the verge of being turned into so much minced meat.
Goldar frowned, seeing that the Red Ranger was not getting up. He was pretty sure he did not harm the human that much. His eyes flew over the area of the room, but the fog covering the floor was unwavering.
"Getting scared, Red Ranger? Well, you will not be able to hide like this forever.", he taunted then proceeded to thrust the sword downward, stabbing at the floor in a random pattern.
Jason shuffled along the floor carefully, trying to evade the sword falling on him. Several times, the sword came down very close to his head, its tip giving a loud clang as it hit the stone floor, and he started to think he might not make it at all. He could not keep moving indefinitely and Goldar was bound to hit some part of him sooner or later. He sprung up behind Goldar, knowing where the leonine alien would have his back turned and executed a round kick to Goldar's sword hand. The surprised alien dropped his sword as his arm swung outward from the force of the kick. Jason used that slight second of surprise to dive after the morpher on the alien's belt, grasping the small device in desperation. As he braced himself for the inevitable savage counterattack of his alien opponent, Goldar looked slightly up with surprise and urgency showing on his face, and then vanished in a black flash.
The Green Ranger materialized in the Moon Palace, clutching his side with his almost numb arms. Even given all his advantages, he felt like he just wrestled a bear unmorphed. The Sword of Darkness materialized on the ground next to him, and he picked up the weapon, only to dismiss it. He raised his head to see Rita looming over him, visibly furious. The gem in her staff was giving out a sinister light as she marched to the throne and slumped down on it.
"Is it possible you cannot do a single thing right today?", she sighed in exasperation, massaging her temples. She had barely pulled the Green Ranger out: the recent battles took a toll on her that the Green Ranger's mistake kept compounding. The boy in front of her was cowed and shaken, helmet under his arm and eyes averted down. Only by the steel in his gaze she knew he simmered at the defeat.
"My Empress, I...", Tommy started, just to be cut short by a wave of her hand. She was tired. Not only of excuses.
" Make yourself useful. Either convince the Red Ranger to join us, or kill him.", she ordered, turning around and mentally issuing a command to Goldar to come back to the palace. She felt the Green Ranger's will give another tug at rebelling and she pushed it back through the mental link. A small smile crept on her face: maybe, if the current Green Ranger proved a failure, she could trade the Red Ranger for someone more useful. The Green Ranger's mistake was not a total failure, and she liked what she had seen.
" Yes, my Queen.", Tommy bowed profusely and disappeared in a streak of green.
Zack was glancing around the Command Center, watching the faces of his teammates. The rest of the team had been shaken from the fight they had witnessed over the Viewing Globe between Kevin and the Green Ranger. The Viewing Globe lit up with so much interference as the system picked up the Green Ranger's presence that it took the group a couple of minutes before the picture cleared. The fight that unfolded before their eyes had been fast and deadly, rooting the group to where they'd been standing in mute shock. By the time they overcame the initial shock of surprise, it was already over, the Green Ranger gone and Kevin barely standing upright.
"Why would Rita attack a civilian like that?", Zack wondered aloud, his fingers drumming on the top of the console.
Kimberly leaned against a console, shaking. She could barely believe what she saw. "And why exactly Kevin? He's not involved."
"Perhaps Rita knows that Kevin is Jason's brother and wants to use that to her advantage?", Trini offered tentatively, but the suggestion sounded so silly to her as it must have to the others: this clearly hadn't been an attempt to capture him. It had been too destructive for that.
"The only plausible possibility is that Kevin uncovered something pertaining to the Green Ranger.", Billy concluded, his attention now back to the computer screens, watching for any sign of Jason, while Alpha was trying to recover the inter-dimensional link to Zordon.
" We need to talk to him. If you're right, Billy, we need to know whatever he found out. We can't leave him to deal with this by himself.", Kim stated as she got up and brought up her morpher from where it materialized behind her back. In the aftermath of Jason's disappearance, she felt some kind of responsibility towards his brother, who was now doing his best to drag himself towards home. Seeing the police officer that had made a beeline for her friend on the Viewing Globe, she sighed. " We have to be fast though, seems like he'll be in trouble again."
"I'll come with you. There's nothing else we can do until we find Jason anyways.", Zack said standing up and bringing up his own morpher. He did not like this turn of events, but things have been moving too fast for their liking lately. "IT'S MORPHIN' TIME!"
" MASTODON!"
" PTERODACTYL!"
The two calls echoed in the Command Center and in a flash of black and pink, Kimberly and Zack were gone, leaving Billy. Trini and Alpha alone in the main chamber as silence descended on them like an uneasy blanket.
Jason had just gotten up and got some respite from his fight with Goldar when he saw a flash of green appear, revealing the Green Ranger standing in front of him. He clipped the morpher to the back of his belt: his attempt at using it in this dimension had failed miserably, with the Red power forming his armor and then just sizzling away. This change of the combatants did not bode well for him, and he tried his best to appear calm and composed as he took a battle stance, all the while his body tried to use whatever Power reserves it had to compensate for his injuries.
"Ah, the famous Red Ranger. How does it feel to be at the mercy of your enemy?", the Green Ranger taunted him, carelessly circling whom he perceived as his prey.
Jason ignored the jab, instead asking: "Why are you working for Rita?"
"My Empress gave me power you cannot imagine.", the Green Ranger sneered back as the two circled each other. " All she requires in return is your destruction."
" If you think I'm going to roll over and die, you're mistaken.", Jason growled, eyes narrowing. He had to try his best not to let the suspense unnerve him.
" I don't expect anything less from Zordon's lackey.", the Green Ranger answered, swinging the Sword of Darkness loosely. " My Empress ordered me to extend you the offer to join us."
" She can shove it.", Jason stated firmly, tightening his fists in anticipation of the attack his answer is going to provoke. " I'd rather die than surrender to evil."
" You have no idea how I've been itching to hear you say that.", the other Ranger retorted with a laugh. The savagery with which the Green Ranger launched himself at Jason surprised the teen, and he barely evaded the first sword slash that would have ripped apart one of his arms. As he rolled out of the way, his hand brushed against the morpher that stood clipped at his belt, and silently hoped that his friends would find him before he lost his life.
Billy saw the computer screen flash with its newest readout and he quickly let out a cry of happiness. "We found him!", the sandy-haired teen shouted with elation as he brought the information to the forefront of the screen. He pushed up the glasses on his nose, squinting at the information displayed.
Trini was working on one of the other system when Billy's exclamation startled her. She quickly came to stand over his shoulder as she watched him working the computer commands, trying to lock onto Jason's unique signature long enough to get him and his morpher out of whatever place he was in right now. And it proved no easy task with the signature periodically vanishing from the spectrum, then to return with force.
" Can I help you with anything, Billy?", Trini asked, concerned as she looked at the screen. Her portion of the holographic screen showed the rotating picture of the Tyrannosaurus coin, under it scrolling the power level emanating from it. The heavy fluctuation of the power levels showed that someone or something was trying its best to scramble the energy reading. Rita didn't want Jason to be found.
" No, I'm still trying to get the signal strength stable enough so we can have a clear lock-on onto Jason.", Billy replied, his fingers nimbly tracing their way across the keyboard.
As she watched the information stream shift before her eyes, Trini mouthed a silent prayer for her friend to come back to them safe. She feared that if they lost Jason to Rita, the group would fall apart completely.
" Got him!", a triumphant cry came from Billy a few minutes later as he activated the teleportation systems.
Jason got thrown back into the wall by a vicious kick to the chest, then slumped on the floor, breathing raggedly. His ribs, cracked earlier by Goldar and haphazardly healed with the Power, were again pulsating with almost unbearable pain. His arms were criss-crossed with bleeding cuts and it was a miracle he had found any strength left in him to move. At this point he knew he wasn't going to win this fight, not while being worn out by Goldar before. The Green Ranger smiled at the labored breath and haggard look of his opponent and moved to step on Jason's left wrist while pointing the Sword of Darkness at his chest.
" You should've chosen better.", he stated gravely. "One down, four to go."
With that he raised the sword above his head and then sent the blade crashing down towards Jason's chest. Jason felt the blade penetrate the skin and sink deeper inch by inch as it traveled from left shoulder to the center of his chest, each second an eternity. The sense of shock and imminent death was broken only by a tingling sensation that spread through his body. In a flash of red he and his morpher were gone and the Green Ranger's blade sliced down through air.
Kevin had pushed his way through the crowd to grumbles and surprised gasps to finally lean onto a street light pole when the police officer grabbed his shoulder and forcibly turned him around. Despite the height difference, the officer glared at the teen and surveyed the boy's injuries.
" When you are told to stop, you'd do well to do as you're told!", the officer bellowed at him, making him wince.
" Sorry, sir.", Kevin answered stiffly, trying with some success to straighten himself up and meet the officer's gaze. The crowd formed a circle around the two, and curious whispers started circulating among the onlookers. Several people tried to push their way to the front to get a better view of the commotion.
" Now what happened here?", the officer asked, his voice immediately changing to a calming bass. " You need to get to a hospital.", he pointed to the teen's open cuts and took notice how he swayed on his feet.
" Nothing, sir. I'll be fine.", Kevin shot back defensively, but his body betrayed that lie.
" As much as you'd want to be a tough guy, you need to go see a doctor. ", the policeman rebuked the teen lightly. " I have eyewitnesses saying something happened at the park, and you look like you've been in a pretty vicious scuffle."
Kevin shook his head lightly: he couldn't go to a doctor. " Sir, I..."
His response was interrupted by two colored streaks that landed outside of the circle of onlookers. The light revealed the Pink and Black Rangers who immediately pushed their way through the mass of people. The officer raised an eyebrow in unspoken question at the approaching superheroes.
" Sir, if we may...", the Pink Ranger said as the two Rangers flanked Kevin.
" He needs to come with us.", the Black Ranger stated as he took a hold of the injured teen around the arm to steady him.
" I presume this had something to do with you lot.", the officer mumbled. By now, some of the people who lived in the neighborhood returned with cameras and were furiously snapping pictures. In response, the Rangers seemed to do their best to close ranks around the injured teen.
" He took a strike that was meant for us.", the Pink Ranger explained, her voice distorted from the helmet. " We're going to take him with us to recover."
Kevin started to speak up, but the Black Ranger nudged him slightly in the ribs, biding him to be quiet. Obviously the Rangers had further business with him, and he realized if he did not leave with them, he'd have to answer to the police and his parents, which would undoubtedly open up a whole host of questions to which he did not have the answers. Besides, knowing how that his brother was one of the Rangers, Kevin wished to get to the bottom of the matter. He gratefully nodded, and the Ranger tightened the grip on his arm. The cop just nodded and saluted among the ripple of sound that passed among the assembled crowd, and the two Rangers and the teen vanished seconds later in streaks of light.
