A/N: I know I left the last chapter on a cliffhanger (sorry not sorry), so here's what happened right after. Warning, though, there's another cliffhanger ahead! (I love cliffhangers!)
Chapter 7: Rescue and Cover-Up
Suddenly, the other Rangers ran down the stairs, donned in their costumes.
Tayla, taking the lead, said, "Let her go, Rita!"
"Ah, the Power Rangers!" Rita said, keeping the magic in her wand ready for attack. "I wondered if you would come looking for your friend!" She raised her wand up and called down Goldar to keep them busy, but Trina sidestepped the lion and went straight to Terra.
Serena waved her hand in front of her and said, "Ah, ah, ah! My daughter and I have something that we must discuss, Pink Ranger, and you aren't going to stop me!"
Suddenly, Zordon teleported in and said, "But I can!"
Trina took the opportunity and quickly ran to Terra while everyone else was busy fighting in the cramped basement. She tried to get Terra out, but Terra only said, "These are enchanted bonds! Only magic can loosen them!"
Trina made sure that Serena was distracted enough, and said, "Your mother isn't watching. Quickly, do you know how to get out?"
"Yeah. Wish me luck. I've never done this before…"
Terra focused her power and tried to call to her the Power Sword. She succeeded and used the sword to cut through the bonds. She let the sword back into the Morphing Grid and quickly escaped the room.
"Hey, I'm not finished with you yet!" Serena called after Terra, casting a spell in the girl's direction.
It hit Terra, and she was knocked onto the staircase, cuts and bruises forming all over her body. She got up again, but winced in pain. She quickly tried to escape the basement so she could morph and help her friends, but a voice distracted her enough to get her to look back, and she was hit again, and the cuts and bruises got so bad that she was bleeding in places that she had no idea could bleed. The blood loss was becoming critical, and she spoke into the communicator, still on from earlier, "Alpha! I'm coming to the Command Center! I'm not sure if I can risk healing myself here!"
Alpha replied, "I'll get the medical ward ready! Hurry!"
Terra crawled up the stairs and teleported to the Command Center and passed out from blood loss.
In the meantime, back at her house, Rita noticed that Terra was gone and screamed in anger. "Oh, you let her get away, Siren!"
"How was I supposed to know about that?!" Serena yelled back.
The Power Rangers noticed that the two were distracted enough for them to attempt a getaway, and Goldar followed them outside. They continued to fight Goldar, but without Terra, the battle was pretty one-sided. They quickly teleported to the Command Center with Zordon, and ran to where Alpha was treating Terra.
"Ay-yi-yi-yi-yi!" he exclaimed, clearly distressed. "Terra's losing too much blood! We can't treat her here, Zordon!"
"Then we must get her to the hospital," Zordon stated while the Rangers demorphed. "Rangers, take Terra to the hospital. She will need immediate medical care. She's beyond my power to heal."
They all nodded, and Tayla, Dorian, and Dan all grabbed a different part of Terra and kept her steady while the whole group teleported to the street by the hospital and hurried over to the emergency room. The clerk only needed to see Terra's state to call in a team to get her stabilized. The Rangers were forced to stay in a waiting room right outside her room until the doctors said that they could enter. Once they were given permission, Terra was still sleeping under the sedative. Apparently, she had tried to attack the doctors when a scalpel was used to get some shrapnel out of her skin. She didn't morph (everyone took a sigh of relief when they saw this), but simply slept.
One of the doctors went into the room that the five were in and asked, "So what's the story with her? You were the ones who brought her in, right?"
The others nodded. Tayla was the one to speak for the others. "We were visiting her at home, you know, spontaneous thing to invite her to the youth center, when we saw her mother hurting her. We saw how bad she was hurt and quickly did what we could to get her mother off of her. We didn't call police – we felt that we had to get her to a hospital immediately, before anything else could be done. We brought her straight here, and in the rush we forgot to call the police about the incident."
The doctor nodded and said, "Don't worry, the police were called during surgery. She had kept screaming "no" to her mother before we sedated her. They're on their way here right now. Do you know where she lives?"
"She lives in 1865 South Claver," Tayla immediately said, knowing the basic address due to the fact that she lived right across the street from Terra.
"Can you tell me the patient's name?" the doctor asked.
"Her name is Terra Viridi," Tayla replied, and the doctor made a note in his paperwork.
"Has she lived here in Angel Grove for very long?"
"No, only a few weeks. We met her only yesterday."
"And yet you felt a need to protect her when you saw her being hurt by her mother."
"Even if she was a stranger, we would have protected her. It's the right thing to do."
"I see."
The doctor led everyone into the room, including a police officer and a detective who had just arrived on the scene. Terra began to stir, and everyone, including the new visitors, turned their attention to her as she slipped out of the anesthesia. Terra opened her eyes suddenly and screamed, "NO!" as she sat up suddenly in the bed. She winced and muttered, "Ugh!" as a couple wounds were nearly reopened, and it took everyone to put her back down on the bed. The doctor adjusted the bed so that Terra was in a sitting position, and she finally settled down as she took in her surroundings and realized that the battle was over.
"Guys… what happened?" she asked.
"That was just what I was going to ask," the detective said. "I'm Detective Randy Rivers, AGPD. I was called in on a possible case of child abuse. Looking at the injuries that you have sustained, it seems that our worries weren't unfounded."
"You mean that you don't remember what happened?" Trina asked Terra.
"Yeah… wait," Terra replied, putting a hand on her head. "I remember… being tied up… and I remember, pain all over while I tried to run away… ugh…"
The doctor put a hand on Terra's head and said, "Calm down, Terra, you need to recover."
Terra nodded, feeling the pain subside for a moment. "I remember my mother… she's the one who did this… guys… did you…?"
"Yeah, we brought you here as soon as possible," David explained. "We saw you trying to run away, and we got you just as you were becoming unconscious." He gave her a slightly pointed look, and Terra understood what he was getting at. No one was to know of the Power Rangers or Rita's presence there that evening.
The doctor said, "Well, your injuries should be healing up within the day, but take it easy. You lost a lot of blood, and we had to do a blood transfusion. I'm just glad you're okay."
The doctor left, and her friends and the police stayed behind. After the police asked a few more questions, the detective said, "Well, you're going to have to find somewhere to stay while we do a full search of the house. You can go back when you are released from the hospital and pack some things to keep with you, but afterwards, no one is allowed on the premises. Understood?"
"Understood, Detective," Terra nodded.
The detective left with the other police officer, and the Rangers asked Terra, "So what was that your mother did to you?" "Did Rita do anything to you?" "Why was she there in the first place?"
"Woah, woah, woah, one question at a time," Terra said, putting her hands out in front of her. "First off, I don't even remember exactly everything that happened. That wasn't pretending for the police to hide my identity. That was real. Second off, Rita didn't get to do anything. You guys arrived before she could. Third, she wanted me to reveal to my mother that I'm the Red Ranger. She's already told her, but she wants me to lose the protection of the Power. To do that, I have to tell my mother myself. I think Rita wants my power. For what reason, I don't know."
Just then, their communicators beeped. Tayla pressed a button on hers and said, "We read you, Zordon."
"Power Rangers, Rita's sent a monster to Angel Grove Park called the Terrorizer. You need to be down there immediately," Zordon's voice came over the communicator.
"Terra's still recovering," Tayla protested. "If we go now, we have to leave her behind."
"I'll be fine," Terra said. "Go. Stop the Terrorizer. I'll come as soon as I'm released from the hospital."
The other Rangers nodded, then pressed another button on their communicators and teleported out of there. Terra groaned and went back to sleep.
