Whose Sister is She?
A week after she had come to stay on the Megaship, the Rangers were all in the mess hall and Aaron decided it was the best time to ask. "Hey, guys, do you think that we should have some sort of plan on how we will confront Zhane when he returns? I mean, I'm not going to just sit there and surprise him out right. It should be something special. I mean… I have been missing for fifteen years."
"Aaron's right, we need to do something special," Carlos said with his mouth partially full.
"So, do you have any ideas about what I can do, Carlos?" Aaron stared at Carlos.
"No, I was just agreeing with you that you need to do something special," Carlos said, a little nervous.
"I got an idea," Cassie said. "How about we set up the mess hall for a party and keep him out of the room? Better yet, we get him off the ship. Ashley and I will take him down to the Surf Spot to get something to eat or go to the mall while you set up the room and we have a surprise party."
"I like that idea, Cassie. It sounds like it just might work on Zhane, he won't even see through the plan," Andros said, smiling.
(The next day)
Aaron was on the bridge when DECA alerted them that Zhane was approaching the ship on his galaxy glider. Aaron panicked because she knew they were not planning on him to arrive back here till next week. "What is he doing back today? He is not supposed to be back."
Andros didn't panic. He only told DECA to inform the others to get ready in their places, then he turned to Aaron and told her to go to her room and stay there until he told her to come out.
Zhane came onboard in the launch bay and looked around to see that no one was there to greet him. Checking his watch, he saw that it was lunchtime and decided that the Rangers probably were in the mess hall having lunch and hadn't heard him approaching. He headed up there to find Ashley and Cassie standing at the door, blocking it.
"Ashley, can I please go in? I'm hungry and would like to get something to eat," Zhane said, trying to push his way through.
"Zhane, you can't go in there. The synthatron is on the fritz and TJ, Carlos, and Andros are trying to get it fixed. It's really messy in there, you really don't want to go in there," Cassie and Ashley informed him. "How about we go down to the Surf Spot and get some lunch down there?"
"I don't know… only if you promise no shop-till-I-drop sprees," Zhane said, looking at the two of them
"We can't promise anything. It depends on how much time we have after we finish with our lunch," Ashley said, grinning.
"Alright," Zhane groaned. "Just let me go change into some other clothes that are appropriate for this."
They headed down to Earth, where they went to the Surf Spot and had lunch. As Zhane was finishing up about a half hour later, Ashley excused herself to the bathroom. There she contacted Andros to see if they were ready for them to return.
"Andros is everything all set? Because Zhane is almost finished with his lunch, and I don't think Cassie and I can get him to go to the mall with us."
"We're almost done," Andros assured her. "Give us maybe fifteen minutes to finish off the last touches, but if you can get him to go take him so we won't have to rush."
"Alright, Andros, but I'm not promising anything. You know how much Zhane hates what we do there and I know you do, too." Ashley said, finishing up because she heard someone else enter the bathroom.
"Okay, Zhane," she said when she returned to the table. "Andros said that he had the problem almost taken care of, but to give him at least fifteen minutes."
"You mean no shop-till-I-drop spree after all?" Zhane said, trying them.
"You want to go because Andros said that they have the problem solved but there's still a mess up there," Ashley said with a smile on her face.
Zhane looked at the two girls and decided. "I'd rather clean up any mess than go to the mall with you two any day."
Fifteen minutes later they left for the ship. When they got there they lead Zhane directly to the mess hall. I was only joking about cleaning up the mess, I don't really want to!"
But when they got there, he was totally shocked to find that there was no mess to clean up but there was something else.
"Surprise!" everyone screamed.
TJ came over to Zhane. "Now do you know why we couldn't let you in here? We were making a surprise party for you."
"But why? What did I do to deserve this?" Zhane still looked stunned.
Carlos came over. "We only want to do it because you're our friend. Can't we do something nice once in a while? Now, hurry up and open your gift, Zhane," he said, pointing to the corner where there was a wall of green and silver paper.
Zhane looked at them questioningly, but when they only gave him gestures to go on, he went over and pulled down the paper. He just stared in astonishment at what was behind.
After a minute of staring, Aaron spoke up. "You'd think after fifteen years of not seeing someone, you'd get more of a reaction," she said in sarcastic voice.
"A-aar-ron…" He stared for a second more, then ran at her. "My gosh, Aaron, is that you?!" He grabbed her in a huge hug.
"Ow! Zhane, you're hurting me. It's a little too tight, could you please loosen your grip?" Aaron was having a hard time catching her breath, but managed to gasp out, "Yes, it is me."
Zhane let go and Aaron nearly fell to the floor as she caught her breath. "How long have you been here?" he demanded to know. "And where did you come from?"
It took Aaron a minute but she was finally able to answer. "I've been here a week, and I've been living in Vermont."
Ashley butted in and added, "You know that letter I read from my stepsister on your birthday? Well it turned out that my stepmother is really some evil person named Abna. Heard of her? She had Aaron and was playing her 'loving' mother."
"Oh… Aaron, is that true?"
"Yes, Zhane it is," Aaron said. "Why don't you and I go down to the park and talk more about this in private?"
They went to the park and had a long, heartfelt conversation about what had happened to each of them. Some things Aaron was finding out for the first time because the other Rangers felt that it was something that Zhane needed to tell her. Towards the end when Zhane told her about his relationship with Astronama, Aaron broke out in a laughing fit.
"You… Zhane, you actually fell for our mortal enemy?"
"Hey, she wasn't that bad when you got to know her. She was actually kind of sweet towards me," Zhane replied. By then it was starting to get dark and too cold for them to be sitting outside, with it being early January.
Once on the ship they parted ways for a little bit. "Hey, Aaron, do you mind if I go and speak to Andros for a bit?"
"No, Zhane, go on ahead. I will go to see what is going on in the mess hall. I will call for you when dinner is ready."
Zhane found Andros in his room writing something down. Knocking on the door, Zhane asked if he could come in. "Oh, hey Zhane. Yes, of course you can come in. I was just writing in my log that I am keeping for when this is all over. People will know what we have done to help them. What did you want?"
"I just wanted to know how exactly you found her. It couldn't have been just by chance. I have heard Aaron's story but she can't possibly know the full story, can she?"
"She knows most of it, but how I found out was that day that Ashley got the letter and you stormed out of the room. Ashley begged it out of me. When she informed me of all the details of how Aaron came to be her stepsister, and all the details matched too perfectly. I decided that I had to meet this Aaron and when I did, I had no doubt that she was your sister," Andros said, looking at his best friend.
"I have another question," Zhane said. "Why was she on Earth? Up until about six years ago Earth was nothing more than a backwater planet that sat on the edge of Eltarian Space?" He looked confused.
"My guess, Zhane, is that is what Dark Specter wanted. He didn't have any firm plan, he just wanted a member of our team out of the way. Even though only four Rangers had children to pass their morphers on to, we were supposedly said to be the strongest team and he wanted her just out of the way. What better way to get someone out of the way then to put her on a backwater planet?
"However I suspect that Dark Specter didn't tell her what planet to settle on, because if he had it most likely wouldn't have been Earth. Any idiot that did their homework would have known that Zordon still lived on Earth."
Zhane and Andros started laughing and they almost didn't hear when Aaron stood outside the door and called to them that Ashley had ordered Chinese for dinner. They replied that they would be right up and at the sound of Aaron's footsteps retreating, Zhane said, "You know, we only need to find Karone and the Kerovian four will be back together."
They exited the room to find that Aaron had stopped and was waiting for them near a lift so that they could continue back to the mess hall together.