A/N: Kuro here! And here we are at chap 7, part one. These are gonna be the really angsty chapters, so be prepared. Part two should be up by tomorrow night at the latest.
Also, while I may have a firm image of 'Tirthor' in my mind, I want to know what all my readers think he's like. So, to all the artists in the audience, here's a little challenge; draw what you think Tirthor looks like, in either his Beginnings outfit or what you think he looked like in The Life and Times. Winner gets a preview of the third story in the series, "Memoirs of a Supervillain." Contest ends when the story ends. Have fun!
Chapter 7.1
Well, as far as 'evil' plots go, I'm about par for the course.
Objective one; convert Thomas to 'evil'; check.
Objective two; deal with the fallout of an angry teena…*ahem* Dragon; not check. I'd almost gotten burned that time. Note to self, add a heat shield spell to my glamour.
Objective three; reveal Thomas as my Heir to the Rangers; check, though I would really like to know where he got the name 'Tirthor' from. It's not bad, considering.
Objective four; deal with the fallout of an angsty teenager; wait…what?
Yes, that had been one thing I was not expecting; the emotional fallout of a child forced to give up what I would later find out was the only true friend he had ever had. Not an exactly easy life Thomas has had.
Allow me to set the stage; Thomas had all but disappeared after his début as Lord Tirthor, and the old coot had called his rangers back to the Command Center. With nothing to do on earth, I had teleported back to the Lunar Palace to find Goldar flat out unconscious on the Throne Room floor, fur singed and his green blood leaking out of his nose. Ouch. There was also the slight smell of burnt ozone in the air; lightning magic. Not good. Thomas was the only other person in the Palace who could use true magic.
I followed the burnt ozone scent all the way back to the living area of the Palace, all the way to Thomas's door. I tried the handle, but it was locked. I was tempted to just open it anyway, but when I heard the quiet sobs from behind the black wood, and felt the emotional turmoil, I backed off. He was going through a difficult time; he would need time to sort himself out.
I want back to he Throne Room to find the bumbling ape just coming to consciousness. Thomas knocked him good, didn't he? Fool deserves to be taken down a peg or two in my opinion.
Goldar sat up and growled in my direction. Oh, suck it up, he only punched you. With a magically charged fist. Details, details.
"Master, something must be done about that brat!" Brat, what brat? You'd better not be talking about my Heir, lamebrain! "I merely complimented him on such a successful instilling of fear, and he punched me!" Well, duh. He never wanted this in the first place! Oh, wait, Goldilocks (as annoying as he is, Jason does have a talent for nicknames) doesn't know that. "That little punk needs to learn his place!" Okay, time to put a stop to this.
"That punk is my chosen son and Heir!" As much as I hate my glamour, it's gravely voice is perfect for threatening people. "You would do well to remember that, Goldar! You WILL answer to him and should I hear of any dissension, I will allow him to deal with you as he sees fit!" You've never seen humor until you've seen seven feet of gold-encased monkey quivering in fear. "DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME!?"
"Y-yes Master."
"Good. Now get out of my sight." As he hurried away, I felt a twinge of regret. Thomas didn't ask for this, but lashing out unexpectedly wasn't something I expected. His cold burning anger wasn't the type for random displays of violence. He was already changing.
But speaking of changes, I still don't understand how he was able to so completely cut himself off from his emotions, only to come unhinged at the slightest provocation from Goldar.
Sigh, another problem for me to work out. After I sleep. Which is another problem.
I'm going to have to go into my once a century restorative sleep very soon. I can stave it off for another few months, but that's cutting it very close. But I can't let Thomas take over the reigns too quickly. He needs time, and with Rita coming back soon, he's going to be doing a lot of adjusting in a very short period of time. I hope this doesn't break the poor boy, but something tells me he's made of sterner stuff than even Zordon thought.
Later. I need sleep.
Over the course of the next few weeks, I continued to train Thomas and teach him more complex magics than evocation, the quick and dirty magic he had mastered while under Rita's control. We grew closer as the days went by, but he still refused to tell me how he was able to completely seal himself off whenever I sent him to Earth. Something was going to give very soon, and I only hoped he'd be able to cope until then.
A little mental breakdown is good for the soul every once in awhile. I just didn't expect it to be so soon, or to happen in such a dramatic fashion.
Thomas was slowly but surely demolishing a contingent of at least four dozen putties in the training room as easily as you please while Finster watched, collecting data, but something seemed off. His arms were a little stiffer than they should have been, and more than once, when he blocked a strike, his face would contort in pain and then quickly return to a neutral mask. Putties hit hard, sure, but not that hard. Something wasn't right.
As the last of the putties turned back into useless clay, I approached him from behind.
"I'm sure one of the creatures would be more than happy to spar with you should your require more of a challenge." He whipped around, eyes wide, before settling back into his usual neutral expression.
"My Lord," he acknowledged, tilting his head. This was purely for Finster's benefit, as he was collecting the data on the devices that had been stored inside the defeated putties, "Finster merely asked for aid in upgrading the Z-Putties. Goldar is my normal sparring partner." He glanced over to the little white alien, who didn't look like he was leaving anytime soon. This was his area of the Palace, though, so I guess it's to be expected.
"Very well. Come; we have much to discuss." With that, I span on my heel and strode out the door, Thomas close behind. Once we reached my private chambers, his neutral mask dropped.
"You couldn't have come sooner? I like helping Finster and all, but he's totally nuts about his monsters!" The exasperated look on his face was enough to send me to laughter; it had taken me nearly two Earth months to get him to trust me even this much, and it was truly refreshing. But once I remembered why I had brought him here, I sobered. I dispelled my glamour and looked him in the eye.
"Thomas, is everything okay, or, at least, everything as it should be?" I corrected quickly. 'Are you okay' was a banned question. It would set him off faster than anything Goldar did or said. He wasn't 'okay', he probably never would be.
His eyes shuttered quickly, and I knew this was gonna be like pulling teeth. "Yes, why do you ask?" he asked evenly.
"The putties." I said simply. "They don't hit that hard, but every time you blocked, you winced. Were you injured in the last battle?" I asked, referring to his last go round with the Rangers.
His eyes widened and he tried to back away, but my hand snapped out too quickly for him to react. As I clamped down on his forearm, his face winced with pain. He was injured, and he hadn't told me!
With two quick movements, I jerked off both his bracers, looking at the skin beneath. When I saw what was there, I couldn't hold back my gasp of horror.
Thomas's wrists and forearms were a patchwork of old scars crisscrossed with new ones, some still red and a few that looked less than a day old. At first, I though that this must have started just after I recruited him, but then I did a quick check of all of them, and realized a horrifying truth; only a few of the scars were young enough to be from his time with me. The rest were far older. I estimated the oldest of them to be at least six years old.
"Thomas," I said, not meeting his eyes, "what is this?" He flinched and tried to pull away from my grasp, but I held him firm. When I finally looked in him in the eye, they were wide with pain and fear, tears ready to fall from them, but overlapping all of it was sorrow.
"Thomas," I repeated slowly, "what is this?" I asked in a growl that came close to my glamour form. Before I could shake him and demand him to answer, he ripped his arm free of my grasp, and used a simple transportation spell I had taught him just last week.
As soon as he disappeared, the shock of what I had just seen filtered through. I sat heavily on the bed, trying to regain my bearings.
Thomas was hurting. He was doing this to himself. I had seen it before, on my own planet, but I thought him too strong to resort to such a destructive method of making his pain go away. Goddess, what had sent such a strong, self-confident boy into such self-damaging behavior? Other than the obvious, of course.
One thing was for certain; I need to find him before he did something monumentally stupid, like commit suicide.
I hoped I found him in time. I would never forgive myself if he died by his own hand while under my watch.
