Sparks flew into Jason's visor. He quickly rubbed the smudge off before returning his hand to the rattling control stick. Beyond the window, it stood there, throwing its arms at the Megazord, each strike from the arm causing the window to crack and Jason's control cage to rattle.
Last chance. He brought the Megazord arm up to swing one last blow at the creature with it's sword. He thrusted his right stick forward, and made it swing the shimmering silver blade at the creature's right shoulder.
As the blade hit it the shoulder, the creature exploded into thousands of pieces of sharp silver, but this was not the typical explosion that followed a strike from the sword. The shards of silver flew and broke through the cage window.
His hands swatted away at the swarm of silver bees surrounding him. Tommy's yelled through the communicator: "Get out! Get out, now!"
But, it couldn't be over so easily, could it? This thing took out the megazord in less than thirty minutes. There was no way it was over. But, it was hard to argue against that fact when Jason had to keep constantly wiping the buzzing bees off his face and ears. The Megazord was a goner. He tapped the emergency teleport button on his communicator just as he felt the Megazord drop.
He felt an icy cold touch on his right eye. It fluttered open to see a dark blue sky through a crack in his visor. Jason sat up. Beyond his vision was nothing but swirling whiteness. All that could be heard was the howling of the wind.
His hand reflexively tightened at the shock of it all. In his grip, snow fell through his fingers. He stood up and beyond him, in every direction, was a cold wasteland.
Where am I?
A Week Earlier. . .
A clatter from down stairs woke him up. Either mom and dad are back home early, or i'm gonna have some business to take care of, Jason thought. Deep down, he knew them being back a whole week early from their anniversary was not an option. He rubbed his eyes, grabbed his hockey stick, and hoped that Smokey the street cat just found a way into the kitchen.
He crept his way down the stairs. Once at the bottom, he held the hockey stick up with both of his hands, tightening his grip. Taking a breath, he peeked around the corner. A man in leather jacket rummaged through the cabinets above the kitchen sink.
He ran at the intruder and swung the hockey stick right at the back of his head. The man slid to avoid the strike, only to slip and crash land on the kitchen floor. Jason raised the back of the hockey stick over the man's chest.
"Stop!" the man screamed with his hands in the air. The man's face was exposed under the kitchen lamp light. His voice was very familiar. It reminded him of a person he once knew a long time ago. No way.
"Rocky?", Jason asked, lowering the stick.
"Hey Jay," Rocky said.
Jason's brow furrowed in disbelief. It was looking at a ghost, but not the transparent kind of ghost from T.V. This a was a solid, real, one. The one that shouldn't be there, but was.
"Where have you been? And why are you in my house?" Jason asked.
Rocky leaned his back against a cabinet, and winced in pain as he turned his left leg over. Through his jeans, Jason saw a large bloody gash on Rocky's leg.
Jason trotted through the snow, pressing his hand against a cut on his right arm. The icy wind blew into his exposed eye and lips from the cracks in the helmet. His legs strained to carry the weight of lifting his metal boots out of the snow.
"Power at eighty-five percent," the computer in his helmet said.
"Why did I never ask to Zordon to shut that off?" Jason said. How much power the suit had was the least of his problems right now. Figuring out where he was and how to call the others was paramount. There wasn't even a guarantee that he was even on Earth anymore. But if the suit burns out, he thought, then how am I going to stay warm? I'm gonna to need to find—
What was that?
He turned his head toward the shuffling of snow. He peeled his eyes, but nothing was there but the whirling blue fog. Wait. Out of the fog, a shadow became more and more clear to him, the shadow of a four legged creature with pointy ears.
It growled.
He tapped his belt, and the suit manifested the power blaster into his hand. Firing a red blast into the snow, it became clear to him. In the brief flash of red light, he saw the one eyed, blue skinned wolf-thing run away, all four of it's gigantic tails behind it.
"Power at eighty-four percent," the computer said.
Wherever he was heading to, he had to get there now.
He always remembered Rocky as being a bit distant, but now it really seemed like he sitting across from a empty shell in a booth at Ernie's. Rocky just slumped in his chair, refusing to make eye contact, just looking down at his own reflection in his coffee.
Jason met Rocky in his algebra class during freshman year. Neither of them were really good at it, and that was what they had in common. Jason always offered Rocky some help, but Rocky would always turn it down with a laugh, saying:"Sorry Jay, that ain't gonna work for me." He seemed fine, if unmotivated, but at the beginning of sophomore year all the laughing stopped. Rocky just seemed angry all the time, and then he was gone.
"So…." Jason said
"So, what?" Rocky said, without looking up.
"What do you mean, 'So, what'? I want to know what you've been up to for the past couple of years?! You don't just disappear and expect no one to notice."
"Odd jobs," Rocky replied.
"Do these jobs usually end with you bleeding out in a stranger's house?"
Rocky scratched his eyebrow. "I messed around with the wrong people, and well… yeah."
"That's not much of an answer."
Rocky rubbed his forehead. "Listen man, thanks for the coffee, and the patch job on my leg, but I got to go." He dropped a tip and lept away.
Thoughts swirled through Jason's mind. Maybe it just wasn't meant to be. If he doesn't want your help, there's nothing you can do about. Just let it go. But could he? Could he really? Something wasn't right with his former classmate; he needed help. It's my job, isn't it?
Richie could have used that help.
Instantly, he ran for the door. He ran out onto the street and cornered Rocky. "Look, I don't know who did that to your leg, but I know how you can stop that from happening again," Jason said, out of breath.
Rocky tilted his head to the side. "I'm listening."
The endless wasteland finally lead to a formation of mountains that reached up high into the sky. He trotted over to the opening of a cave mouth at the base of the mountain.
He approached the opening, rubbing the edge. Connor, Twitch, Richie, if only I knew. Sure, they all lived to see the next day, but it was never the same, and Jason couldn't bring himself to camp ever again. It was like what Mr. Applegate told him, "Doesn't matter what happens, you're the troop leader. It's never about you, but it is always your fault."
The light from outside exposed some boulders lying around in the cave. Jason stepped in and felt around for the biggest one. Flipping the mode switch on his blaster, he aimed it at the rock. A beam of red light drilled into the boulder until it glowed red hot. Steam poured out of it. Jason stopped and rubbed his hands over the heat.
"Power at seventy-seven percent."
I guess I could just wait here until they can pick my signal, if they can pick up my signal, he thought. The communicator just gave out static. There was no chance the others were gonna be able to trace his location. He looked around the cave as if it were going to help him find out where he was.
His heart jumped at the sight of it.
A blackened, frail corpse laid against the cave wall, illuminated by the red light. He stepped toward it carefully, examining it's weird form. It had a bulbous head, and four eye sockets. Inside it's withered hand was a chunk of white rock.
On the wall above it, there were some kind of chalk drawings. On the right, there was a wavy formation that looked like a mountain. The outline of the mountain swooped off into a straight line on the left side. He stepped over the corpse to see where the line went.
It ended next to a group of squares with round tops. A village? he hoped. At the edge of the village, stood a tall shape too detailed to be just a mountain, maybe a castle.
It was a long shot to be sure, but if there was a village then he may have a way out of there. He walked deeper into the cave to find an exit on the opposite side. His foot stepped outside of the cave, when something his eye.
Another cave drawing, this one of a bunch of round stick figures gathered around another stick figure in a circle, a man. The figure they were surrounding had sharp edges and seemed to have been almost scratched out, probably nothing. Jason stepped out of the cave.
He wandered through the snow for several feet, his power draining to seventy percent. The snow on the ground became less and less to trudge through.
Crack!
Jason looked down to see ice crackle beneath his feet. Ahead of him stood a long sheet of ice on the ground. His foot cautiously took another step forward. The ice held together. inching his way along the ice for a few feet, he guessed the edge wasn't too far away. He took another step.
Something jumped onto his back, flipping him over before jumping back off of him. He tried to get up, but stopped when he heard the ice crack again. He stared at the attacker, the blue skinned wolf with four tentacle-tails that were five feet above the creature's head.
Jason whipped out his blaster, but one of the tails slapped it away. He ran after it, the ice breaking apart behind him. Grabbing it, he fired at the ice. The creature fell into the water, only to crawl back out.
Three more of them emerged from the fog, surrounding him. The first wolf, the biggest of them, approached him, gnarling its teeth at him.
"Power at Sixty-Nine percent."
Jason took a breath, flipped the blaster into it's blade mode and looked straight into the big one's eye. "Let's go."
Jason lunged at it.
"Come on, hit it!" Jason yelled.
Rocky spun around to try and kick the punching bag, only to hit the floor on his face and eat the matt. Rocky banged his fists onto the matt. Nervously, Jason shifted his eyes over to Tommy, who was smiling at Rocky's failure.
"That's it. I'm done," Rocky said as he walked toward his bag.
"What a big surprise, the creep is giving up," Tommy whispered into Jason's ear.
He shushed Tommy. Could you at least wait until he's gone? Jason thought. Rocky headed for the door. "Stop!" Jason tried to block the door. "Oh come on, man. You were so close this time. Just give it a couple more days."
"Yeah right, we've been at this for days. Listen Jay, it's been fun, but this is just distracting me from what I need to do," Rocky said.
"Yeah, and what's that?"
"See ya Later." Rocky went through the door.
Jason stood there for a moment. Alright pal, we'll have to play this one the hard way. "I'll see you later," he said, opening the door. "I've got some business to take care of. Call me if you need me."
"Jase, he's a bad egg!" Tommy called out. "You're only gonna hurt yourself!"
Jason followed Rocky close behind, following him through every turn and street corner imaginable. Rocky ended his tour of the city with a visit to The MatchboxClub. He followed him in, surfing through waves of people to get to the other side of the building.
Jason came out of the backdoor, but Rocky was nowhere to be seen. Something rattled and he hid behind a trash can.
Peeking over the trash, he saw a guy in a red ski-mask violently bashing another guy over the back with a plasma rifle. Running into the action, Jason snatched the rifle away from the masked man. The other guy ran into the night.
"Do you have any idea what you just did?" the masked man asked.
Please tell me this isn't who I think it is, Jason thought as he pulled the mask off.
"Let me go, Jay! Let me go!"
"Forward!" Jason commanded as the wolves guided him through the snow on the other side of the lake. They sniffed the ground as they pulled Jason along with their tails wrapped around his arm.
He could've shot the leader of the pack after their little wrestling match on the lake, but he couldn't bring himself to do it, and they just kept on doing everything he said after that. They guided him along the whirling blue fog looking for any sign of life.
All four of them stopped and unraveled their tails around his arm. Jason walked toward them and bent on his knee. A couple run down huts laid before them.
"Good Smokey," Jason said, scratching the leader's head.
He lead them forward, and more and more little huts made of stone appeared, each one missing some pieces, some a roof, others an entire wall. He sighed. My only hope is now up in smoke. He had only sixty percent power left, and he knew the suit was going to automatically demorph soon.
The fog dissipated, exposing the huge structure that was somewhere between a medieval castle and a pyramid, not too different from the one from the pocket dimension.
He pushed onto the huge stone doors, which opened with relative ease. His pack flooded into the grand endless halls of the castle. The ceilings were ridiculously high, and patter of the wolves claws echoed throughout the castle.
"Welcome to my humble abode, dear Red Ranger," a voice echoed throughout the hall. Finally, he might be able to get some answers.
"Hello? Can you help me?" Jason call out into the hall.
"Of course, but the real question is: Can you help me?" the voice came from a shadow gliding down the hallway. The voice sounded strangely familiar to Jason, but something was off about it. The voice of the shadow was accompanied by the sound of rolling wheels and clattering chains.
"It is your job after all, to save people," the shadow said as it entered the light from the doorway. Jason's eyes widened. Withered, frail, and sitting in some kind of electric wheelchair was whatever remained of Lord Zedd.
"Shocked? Surprised? I'm afraid our last encounter left me a bit . . . tired, and this is where I go when to rest, or use to go to anyway." Zedd spoke in a voice more mechanical and filtered than ever. His large exposed muscles were now just as shriveled as the corpse Jason found in the cave.
"What happened here? What happened to this whole planet?'
"Time. Everything breaks down eventually," Zedd said, struggling to keep back a cough. "Let me give you the grand tour." He turned his wheelchair around. Metal cords connected to the ceiling rattled all the way down to his back.
Jason walked behind Lord Zedd as he spoke. It was weird. He saw him in a state that he never imagined Lord Zedd ever being in, vulnerable. The filters on his voice now seemed to only mask the creaking voice of an old man.
"Centuries ago, my people came to this planet and discovered it's indigenous population, the Ka'zar. They must have been very ancient, since they had technology far more advanced than anything that we could have imagined," Zedd said.
"Advanced enough to build a pocket dimension on earth?" Jason asked.
"Indeed."
"Why were you looking for it?" Jason asked.
"My ancestors promised it to me. I was entitled to it." Zedd coughed.
"Entitled to what?"
"Here, the Ka'zar developed a technology to prolong life beyond what was ever thought possible, but it was destroyed in the war against Zordon. I hoped so badly that I could find another machine that could do that same thing." Zedd coughed until black sludge leaked out of his brain. "I am the last of my people, Red Ranger, and I barely have enough power to keep myself alive.
They stopped in front of a station with a raised platform and a couple of consoles. The screens were cracked, and a metal sphere wired to the ceiling laid on the smashed platform.
"Here is the last teleporter. All the others,and the escape pods, were destroyed in battles long ago," Zedd said, "I'm too weak to repair it myself, but perhaps you could repair it?"
"And why would I want to do that?" Jason asked.
Zedd slumped forward in his chair, revealing how the cords punctured deep into the flesh of his back. "Do I appear to be a threat to you?"
Jason just stared at him, speechless.
"I don't know what you and Zordon have planned for me when we get back, but whatever it is, it has to better than rotting here, and wouldn't you like to go home as well?" Zedd stuck out his trembling hand. "Do we have a deal?"
It was crazy to be sure, but Zedd had a point. Time to end this ongoing battle with Zedd, and in what better way than to do something Zedd would never do if the roles were reversed, show mercy. Jason grabbed Zedd's hand.
"Deal."
"Alright Rocky, no more fooling around. What is going on?" Jason asked.
Rocky stared off into space.
"Tell me!"
Rocky sighed, "The guy was part of the Red Dragons. They've been operating in Angel Grove ever since the Power Rangers showed up. They've been laundering money out of business like The Matchbox Club for years now."
"And why are you involved with them?" Jason asked.
"Sometimes people make you an offer you can't refuse."
"That's why you dropped out of school?" Jason asked.
"Yeah. Their leader, Zane, is nuts. Things got too weird for me, so I sold them out to the police, but they got out."
"When?" Jason asked.
"Last month," Rocky said, "when the comet knocked the power out. I hear Zane just walked out of the prison, like it was nothing. Since then, I see him talking to this old guy, and he's helped him on the way to looneyville. The dude has been stalking me. He did this to me." Pulling down his shirt, Rocky exposed the scars on his neck.
"I'm gonna end him, and you best stay out of my way," Rocky tried to walk away.
"Wait," Jason said, "where did you get the blaster?"
Rocky turned his head to the side. "They trade them around like playing cards.I think they pick them up on the corner of 33rd and Colt, behind The Giving Tree Homeless Shelter. I don't know who supplies them."
"Look," Jason said, "your not gonna take out an entire gang of loons with alien weapons by yourself. I'll help you take the gang down once and for all, but have to promise to let the law take care of Zane. Deal?" He reached his hand out.
Rocky just stared at Jason's hand.
Billy had given Jason and the others a quick education on how the teleporter worked, so Jason was familiar enough with what he was working with. He replaced a couple of wires with some spares that Zedd had lying around. Reconnected some loose parts, and lifted the matrix sphere back in place.
"Is it ready yet?" Zedd asked.
"Almost, we just need a power source," Jason said. It wasstunning how casual the conversations have been between the two. He almost forgot that his talking to an intergalactic dictator.
"Unfortunately, we are in short supply of that," Zedd said, winded.
Jason looked at the battery compartment under the console and unclicked his power coin from his morpher. They used this trick on their teleporter whenever the Command Center was offline. Though depleted, the red power coin could give the batteries one last charge to take him and Zedd home.
"Don't worry, I think I can take care of that." Jason hovered the power coin over the battery. The power coin glew as it shot electricity into the device.
Something squealed in the distance.
"Smokey?" Jason said. He hadn't seen the wolves for hours.
The squealing started again. It had to be Smokey. He quickly put the power coin back in morpher and followed the squeals.
"Where are you going?!" Zedd yelled as Jason ran past him.
Jason walked down several hallways, taking many lefts and rights until the noise led him to a doorway that was cracked open, orange light shined through it. Jason opened the door and entered.
Oh, my…
Smokey and the others were strung upside by the same metal cords connected to Zedd. Jason slowly approached Smokey. The wolves were wasting away as electricity flowed up the metal cords.
They weren't the only ones. Beyond them, thousands of people, looking exactly like the corpse in the cave, were strung up on man-sized shelves that seemed to stretch on and on into infinity.
"You should've destroyed those hounds when you had chance, Red Ranger. They were going to destroy you, one way or the other," Zedd said, rolling up behind Jason.
"How?" Jason asked.
"I told you, Red Ranger. They knew how to prolong life, this is how."
"You're a monster."
"Please," Zedd said, "these people were the remnants of a dying culture when we found them. They begged for us to lead them, for me to lead them. You see, they all volunteered for this, because they couldn't stand the idea that their Vlem-Sur-Tor, their Great Leader could die. They gave their lives to me, all one million of them."
"No," Jason said, "They all couldn't have agreed to that.
"But they did, because they understood that victory requires sacrifice. Don't you see Red Ranger? It doesn't matter how many battles you rangers fight. If you were to destroy me, it wouldn't matter. Because, you'll never be able to destroy the real monsters the world." Zedd waved his hand over the crowd of people.
Electricity flowed from the cords and into Zedd's back. His muscles enlarged. The cords dropped down from the ceiling, bent over onto the floor, and lifted Zedd's chair up in the air like legs.
"Thank you Red Ranger for fixing the teleporter, by the way," Zedd said, "Hacking your transport beam must have put a lot of pressure on the ancient thing, but now I'm free to pry the power coin from your dead body, and use it to get back to earth."
Jason ran, Zedd's chair crawling after him.
While laying on the roof of The Giving Tree, Jason handed Rocky the binoculars. They saw the Dragons pulling boxes off of the back of a truck. "Alright, we'll get some pictures and turn them in," Jason said.
"Not before I use this," Rocky said pulling out a hand-blaster
"No, don't," Jason said.
"Yes, please don't," a voice said. They looked around and saw a man a huge blaster pointed at them. He grabbed them, but Jason wasn't worried. This was all part of his real plan.
They were dropped on their knees not far from the delivery truck. A guy wearing a huge pair of sunglasses strolled up to them. He combed his fingers through the blonde stripes in his dark hair, and sat down on a wooden crate. "Disappointed in you Rock," he said, "very disappointed."
"Sorry, In-Zane," Rocky said.
Zane pushed himself off the crate. "Clever, Rock. Very clever. But at the end of the day. . ." One of the Dragon's handed him a Katana. He unsheathed it, gazing into its shimmering blade. "Sharp knives cut deeper than sharp words."
Rocky groaned.
Zane's face twitched. He grabbed a spray can from one of the Dragons and tagged the crate. He drew a red eye onto it. "It's a shame that you couldn't just see the things in the way I do. I have a vision, a vision that requires me to pick up the world's slack. It's time to purify this world with fire!"
Zane licked the Katana and raised over their heads.
The White Power Ranger jumped down and shot his blade in half. The Blue and Yellow rangers wrestled the other Dragons to the ground. Zane ran away, Rocky chasing after him, Jason chasing after Rocky.
Jason cornered Rocky in the alleyway. "Rocky, it's over. Let the Power Rangers take care of it."
A loud buzzing went through the city. Jason looked over and saw a swarm of silver bees flying over. The bees swirled until they formed into the shape of a giant monstrosity. Gotta call on the Megazord and fast, Jason thought. When he turned back to Rocky, he was already almost out of sight.
"Sorry Jay," Rocky yelled, "that ain't gonna work for me."
Jason hid from behind the teleporter console, fumbling with the wires. Always your fault, always your fault, always your fault. It seemed like the last twenty-four hours had proved to be nothing but a big disappointment for him. All of his hopes were now completely shattered. He lost Rocky, and now he had just given Zedd the means to take over the earth.
The metal cord wrapped around his neck and pulled him up to Zedd's face. Two more plunged into his back. Jason felt being drained as Zedd's muscle mass returned.
Zedd connected one of the cords directly into the teleporter console, and he flipped it on. The teleported began to spark and crackle. The whole castle shaked.
"What is happening?!" Zedd said.
"I know how to fix a teleporter, and I know how to break it too, how to overload it," Jason said with a smile. Chunks of the ceiling fell to the ground.
"But, you'll destroy your only way back!" Zedd said.
"Victory requires sacrifice."
Zedd dropped Jason, and his chair lept away into the falling rubble. Jason headed to the front door.
Something fell on him. Everything fell on him.
Blackness, nothing but blackness. He was so cold. But then, there was light, a blindly bright light. Was he dead? A tight pressure wrapped around his wrist. He could actually feel his wrist again. He could actually feel again. He felt himself being dragged by his arm. His skin scraped against the cold snow. The pressure released from his wrist, and he was flopped on top of something.
His vision came back to him. Smokey and the others waited by his side. With a wince of pain, Jason turned himself over to see what he was laying on. It was a glass window. Behind it, a chair stationed at a console. A ship, an escape pod was half buried in the snow. Zedd doesn't know anything about anything. Jason looked into Smokey's eye.
"Good boy."
Rocky felt a little bad about leaving Jay behind last week, but he was only gonna get in his way. Just by himself, Rocky was able to get his hands on a bike and track down Zane to his home. Rocky readied his hand-blaster and knocked down the door.
Drinking his orange drink, Zane just sat in his chair, completely calm in the face of a breakin. He looked at Rocky straight in the eyes. "Would you like a glass?"
He fired at Zane. The red beam bounced off of Zane's forehead like a rubber ball and hit the nearby table.
Rocky's jaw was gaped. His hand trembled.
Casually, Zane got up from his chair and strolled toward him. "Surprised?" he said, grabbing Rocky's weapon. "What can I say Rock? Prison changes you." He snapped the alien gun in half with his bare hands.
Rocky ran for his bike. He must of zoomed down the road at forty miles per hour, but it didn't matter. Zane ran after him, laughing and with his tongue waving in the air. With only his two feet, he got within inches of Rocky.
Zane reached for him.
Tommy tapped his fingers on the console as he watched Billy and Aisha comb over the charred remains of their teleportation pad. "Anything?" he asked. "Have you guys found anything at all?"
"Sorry," Aisha said, "but whatever happened to Jason's beam overloaded the circuits. There is no way we are even gonna be able to trace him for another couple of weeks."
"Months, actually," Billy said. He must of realized he shouldn't have said that, because he immediately hid his face behind his clipboard. "Well, that is only the worse case scenario, not accounting for certain factors. . ."
Tommy rubbed his head. No, he thought, This isn't how things are suppose to happen. I already took care of this. Jason has out there somewhere.
"Do you know what this means, Tommy?" Zordon called from behind him.
He didn't answer. Please don't say it.
"According to Jason's wishes, if something were to happen to him," Zordon said, "Tommy, you are to become the active leader of the Power Rangers until his return."
Nope. . . Nope. . . Nope.
.
