Disclaimer: This may not be totally politically correct. I am certainly not politically correct meself. If you are offended by minor exploitation of popular folklore and stereotypes, then I don't know what to say. Also, I owe a little bit of a thanks to Erica Rottler for inspiring me to have the ZEO Rangers take a Christmas Break trip to Disneyland. Not that this fic is anything like Rottler's "Her Story," but I thought she should get some credit.

The Replacement
Part III: Fallen Fast in Love
by MegaSilver

An intricate array of colors illuminated the strange realm where the witch resided. Nothing here had physical form, accentuating her frustration at being unable to pound on anything.

Damn that piece of muscle-brained trailer trash!

Rita figured Zedd's interruption had set her concentration progress back a half-hour. No time to fume about that, though, or she might lose still more ground. She took a deep breath—or at least, the sensual equivalent of such, for there was no need to breathe in this dimension—raised her arms, threw her head back, and concentrated on the spectrum as it began to mix, organize, and form into an image of the real world.


Tommy threw his single duffel bag into the trunk of the Jeep. "That's everything!" he exclaimed, grateful they weren't going skiing. On a trip to a place such as Disneyland, only the girls packed heavily.

Billy shut the lid on the back of the RADBUG. "So, who's going in which car?"

"Adam and I'll go with you, Billy," answered Tanya. "Kat and Rocky, you two ought to come, too."

Katherine cringed a little inside. She knew it was a nice overture on Tanya's part, but something about the thought of Tommy and Heather alone together on the road didn't sit right with her. Come on, Kat, she told herself. Shake it off. You never counted on having him in the first place. There's no illusion to shatter. But the more she thought about it, the less it seemed like simple jealousy.

"No, come on, guys!" exclaimed Heather. "I don't want to be just a fifth—or seventh wheel this weekend. Someone ride with us!"

Billy nodded. "Adam and Tanya, why don't you two go with Tommy and Heather? I'm not sure how comfortable the RADBUG would be with five people for a few hours on end."

"But doesn't this thing get up to—" Before he could say "three thousand miles per hour," Rocky caught himself and clasped a hand over his mouth. It most certainly would not—not today, that is.

As Katherine settled into the front seat of the modified Volkswagen Beetle, she tried to tell herself to take it as a good sign that Heather would want to ride with more people than just Tommy. It's not like she's going to steal him from us. And yet…


Twenty miles down the road, Rocky lit up, reached into his bag, and grabbed a compact disc. "Hey guys—we have to hear this!"

"What is it?" Katherine reached back and took the CD.

"A single I forgot I've been saving it for the trip."

Oh, great. Rocky was occasionally a bit lacking in discretion, and the shrinkwrap indicated he had never listened to the contents of this CD. Who knew what it might contain? Katherine and Billy exchanged worried glances before Katherine said, "All right," and slid it into the console.

Immediately, horrible screeching and grinding noises rocked the interior of the RADBUG, and had she not been anticipating something obnoxious, Katherine might have wondered if the engine were coming loose.

Billy doubled over the steering wheel and gritted his teeth. "Can you turn that down?" he asked, practically shouting.

Rocky covered his ears. "Turn it off!" he pleaded. "Ugh! Man, I'm sorry, guys. What a ripoff! Why can't they ever remix a damn song? The original was good!"

Katherine wasn't sure how that could be so, but it wasn't important. "It's all right," she sighed, handing the CD back to her friend. "That was a corker of a song."

Billy eased back into the seat, still breathing heavily. "That's not music. That's noise."

Rocky narrowed his eyelids. "Oh, and since when did you become a fine connoisseur of everything tuneful, Wilhelm von Cranston?"

"Actually, it's von Krensitz."

"What?" Katherine and Rocky looked puzzled.

"Von Krensitz was my family's original name. They were German immigrants living in Ohio. They Anglicized the name—or, I guess, Scottified it—during World War I when anti-German sentiment was at its peak."

"Oh." Katherine nodded. "I have a similar story. My mother's family is Irish, but her parents converted to Protestantism and dropped the "O" from their name when they went to Australia."

Rocky smiled, resting his hands behind his head. "We've always been just plain old de Santos."

"Spanish?"

"Argentinean. Half-Spanish, half-Italian."

"I didn't know you were Latino," remarked Billy. "I guess your last name is kind of a giveaway, but I never really thought about it."

Rocky shrugged. "I just don't think to mention it. My parents moved here before I was born, and they've always tried to be discreet about it—they've kind of hinted Argentineans have a reputation for gang work and peddling here. I wouldn't know; we've never really been close to other Argentineans, even my parents' families."

Katherine had heard that herself from time to time, but it was difficult to say if there was anything to it. Of course, Australia had its own history of outlaws and gangsters: in large part, that was the history of Australia. Those days were long past, but if there was any truth to the hype, it seemed most every nation in the world continued to have at least a nominal mafia presence in her new country—specifically in Los Angeles. That the various gangs operated in a state of grudging peace at best and mutual war at worst made the scenario all the more amusing—or frightening, depending on where you lived.

It was interesting to contemplate the inter-ethnic and international tensions that led to so much of the world's troubles—and how rarely it was black and white. Katherine would have wondered too whether this grayness might be applied to the Power Team's own struggle against the Machine Empire, but her personal experience put any such thoughts to rest. Their enemies, apart from their territorial ambitions, had openly admitted to being evil and to hating anything associated with good, and under their tutelage, Katherine had professed the same doctrines.

Thinking back on the whole thing always made her feel sick. The other Rangers had not been told—though Katherine suspected Tommy may have been through the same thing after he had broken free of Rita's spell—but Zordon had given Katherine a bit of what might be considered cognitive psychotherapy so that she could return to her normal moral condition without falling into excessive and potentially fatal anxiety, post-traumatic stress or even schizophrenia. Of course, Zordon had explained, because simply fighting with the Rangers would be a huge help: indeed, Katherine found that working to destroy the thing that had possessed and controlled her was immensely therapeutic.

Still, it was not as though everything would be just the same as it had been before the spell.

The sudden seismic shift in moral outlook had also given her a keen sensitivity to evil—as it had to Tommy, although of a different sort. Whereas Tommy's instinct was more physical, an ability to draw lines and skillfully command all available resources against a villain, Katherine's was more intellectual. She could feel when something had been touched by diabolical forces.

And that was what forced her to consider now whether her apprehensions about Heather were born of mere jealousy or somehow justified. She had arranged their dinner the other week precisely to force herself to jettison any hint of the triumph or vengefulness that had once mixed with Rita's magic to make her so complicit in the theft of Kimberly's Power Coin—and now she began to wonder if she had overcompensated for her past evils. What she was feeling now was nothing like the bit of defeatist jealousy that she had felt when Tommy was still with Kimberly.

Sliding a little further down into her seat, she sighed and told herself to relax a bit. Just try to have fun on this trip and keep one eye open.

It wouldn't be easy.

TO BE CONTINUED…