Scorched Earth
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, just the right to put them through hell for my own amusement. Saban owns everything Power Rangers related. Anything you don't recognize is mine.
Plot Summary: When a nameless evil invades Earth, killing everything in its path, the first eleven Power Rangers must face an enemy beyond anything they've ever encountered; and this time, they'll be pushed farther than some of them are willing to go.
Timeline: Very AU from the moment Zeo started; slightly AU from the moment Jason, Zack and Trini left. Takes place midway through Zeo, only Zeo didn't happen. Jason, Trini and Zack are still attending the Peace Conference in Geneva, Kim is still in Florida training for the Pan Globals, and Aisha is still in Africa. When they left, however, their powers weren't transferred – they still have them, and five new powers were created for their replacements. Also, that whole letter thing didn't happen, either. The current team, led by Tommy, is Billy, Rocky, Adam, Kat and Tanya.
Pairings: Jason/Trini, Tommy/Kim, Rocky/Aisha; others may come later.
A/N: This story assumes that the Rangers were juniors in high school when they got their original powers, meaning they are currently in their second year of college, putting their ages at approximately 20-21.
Warning: Rated M for graphic violence, language, crude humor and disturbing content, including major character death. (Nothing too explicit as far as sexual content, I'll keep that PG-13.) Essentially, this is what I imagine an R-rated Power Rangers movie would've looked like. If only, right?
Chapter 10: "A Whisper and A Clamor"
"Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it."
-George R. R. Martin
"For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."
-Carl Sagan
Command Center
Medical Bay
Somewhere Outside Angel Grove, CA
August 28, 2012
8:00 PM PDT
As the teleportation sparks around them began to dissipate, Jason heard his father groan and swear under his breath. The instant the Med Bay came into focus, he leaped toward where his father had appeared and was just in time to catch him from falling on his face. His knees had given way and his face was turning a sickly shade of green.
"You kids do that all the time?" Mr. Scott asked incredulously as his son helped him over to one of the medical beds. "God, I feel like I'm gonna puke up my entire GI tract."
"That's what everybody says the first time, Dad," Jason grunted as he lifted his father onto the end of the table and glanced up at the equipment. "Teleportation's an acquired taste; kinda like beer. Or Japanese porn."
"OK, I'm only letting that one go because it didn't make any goddamn sense," Mr. Scott grumbled, wiping absently at his face. Jason smiled and tapped a few keys on a small keypad that folded out from the machinery on the bed.
"Seriously, though, this really is the only way to travel; once you get used to teleporting, the idea of spending nine hours on a plane and sleeping in an airport just doesn't seem worth the trouble anymore." Jason paused and turned to look at Tommy, who was already starting for the door. "You gonna go check in? I might be a minute in here, I have to figure out how to make this thing work on someone who isn't plugged in to the Grid."
Mr. Scott raised an eyebrow. "Who are you, Morpheus? What the hell are you talking about?"
Jason held up a hand. "Dad, they could fill a college course with the amount of shit I still have to explain to you. Just roll with it for now, OK?" His father gave him a skeptical look, but he nodded and leaned back onto the table. Jason turned back to Tommy, who had stopped just in front of the door.
"You'll figure something out, Jase," he said, not turning around to meet Jason's eye. "I'll go see if anything else has happened. Be back as soon as I know anything."
"All right, thanks," Jason said to his friend's back as Tommy moved forward, letting the doors slide open and shut behind him. He turned back to his father and shook his head with amusement.
Mr. Scott pointed at the door as it closed behind Tommy. "Why do I get the feeling he wasn't being completely forthcoming with you?"
"Cause he wasn't," Jason said casually, folding the keypad back against the monitor and offering his father a sad smile. "He's handling me, Dad. I heard him tell Alpha to have Kat meet him here; he's probably out there right now trying to figure out who to tell what happened, who gets to know what and when, how everyone should approach me for the next little while, if at all; maybe a backup plan for if I have a breakdown and they need someone else to drive my Zord." His father looked ready to ask another question and Jason held up a hand. "Seriously, Dad, entire fucking semester's worth of shit to talk about. One step at a time."
Mr. Scott studied his son's face intently, trying to figure out when he'd developed this completely unreadable expression. Finally he settled for asking, "And you're OK with this?"
Jason shrugged and turned to open a drawer in a nearby counter. "I guess I'm gonna have to be. I've done it to enough people myself; in a way it's almost poetic." He pulled out a box of antiseptic wipes and tossed them to his father. "Wipe the blood off your face with those if you want. You can try to clean the wound but it might sting." Mr. Scott nodded and set to opening the box as Jason continued. "Besides, Tommy's way too smart to think I don't know exactly what he's doing. In his early days I gave him this treatment so many times it almost became a routine, and believe me, he hated it as much as I've ever seen anyone hate anything; he knows me well enough to anticipate me objecting to this. He's probably already figuring out a dozen different ways to tell me he isn't gonna put up with my shit if I try to give him a hard time." Jason folded his arms and watched his father clean the blood off his face.
"How are you so sure that that's what he's doing?" Mr. Scott gently brushed a wipe across the wound in his forehead. When he didn't wince in pain and started wiping harder, Jason figured it didn't sting. The Red Ranger let the faintest trace of a smirk flicker across his face and looked down at his folded arms.
"Because it's exactly what I would be doing."
Ignoring another confused look from his father, Jason let his eyes roam over the medical equipment again. Suddenly his eyes widened a little and he smiled in earnest. "Oh my god, I'm such an idiot," he muttered with a gentle laugh. He moved back to stand beside his father again and pulled his morpher back out from behind his back, popping the coin out from the center. "Hold this," he said, laying the coin in his father's hand. Jason replaced the now empty morpher and gripped his father's wrist, maneuvering his arm until his hand lay flat, palm up, with the coin in the middle. Finally, he glanced up to meet Mr. Scott's eye. "Dad, do you trust me?"
Mr. Scott opened and closed his mouth twice before he answered. "Honestly…I'm not sure I know you anymore."
Something very dark floated over Jason's features for a moment. "And when we're done here, you can take it up with my boss," he muttered bitterly. "But you have to believe me when I tell you I'm still the same guy you said goodbye to at the Geneva airport on my last birthday. I'm still your son. And right now, I need for you to trust me." He stared intently at his father. "What do you say?"
Mr. Scott could only offer a nod. Jason returned it, shifted his weight, and raised his other hand. "OK. Now this is probably gonna feel a little weird," he said slowly. If it doesn't blow us both to hell. "But you have to do everything in your power to not let go of my hand. You ready?" His father nodded again and Jason braced his foot against the leg of the table, let out a long, slow breath and grabbed Mr. Scott's outstretched hand, pressing the coin between their palms.
Rick Scott had never felt anything like this. It was as though his entire body was vibrating, a wave of intense heat slowly radiating from his hand, down his arm, across his body and down into his legs. He thought he saw small bolts of red lightning flickering in the air along his arm. After a moment, he realized his vision had suddenly become clearer; his breathing was less erratic, his heart rate was slowing down…if he didn't know any better, he could have sworn his feelings of fear and confusion were being softened. "What the hell is that?"
Jason grinned. "That, Dad, is the Morphin Grid."
He shook his head. "That doesn't explain anything. How are you doing this?"
"Frankly, I don't actually understand very much about how it works," Jason replied, smiling again as the machines began to whir to life and started tending to his father's wounds. "But I know I'm connected directly to it through this coin, and your DNA is close enough to mine that if we maintain this contact we can connect you to it, too. Indirectly, of course, but enough to get these babies to do their thing. The rest was just a lucky guess."
"How can you be around something this…this bizarre and be so calm about it?"
Jason tightened his grip a little and leaned in toward his father's face. "I think now you have a little perspective on the last four years of my life, Dad." He smiled grimly. "Believe me: you get used to it."
Command Center
Medical Bay Corridor
8:05 PM PDT
By the time Kat came through the door from the Main Chamber into the hallway that led to the Med Bay, Tommy had already trudged out of the room, jabbing one hand into his pocket and using the other to wipe a clean streak into the grime that coated his forehead. Kat hadn't been a Ranger for nearly as long as the Originals – if her math was right, she was coming up on one year, while the first five were approaching their fourth; Tommy was only a month or two behind them – but she'd been through more than enough battles to know what that body language meant.
Something very bad had just happened.
Kat couldn't say she was really surprised; after all, Tommy had sounded pretty shaken up when they'd last spoken. Still, the way the White Ranger was walking, the way he clenched and unclenched his fingers on his free hand, the way he was breathing, the way he couldn't seem to stop rapidly blinking; Kat suddenly found herself wondering if she was prepared for what he was about to dump on her.
That's not really fair, she thought as she watched him, trying not to betray her anxiety. You just had the bad luck of being the nearest person to him. If only she'd heard the rest of what he'd said to Alpha; maybe at least then she would've had an idea of what she was in for.
Finally deciding it was high time she made her presence felt – and sick of watching Tommy pace in a small circle just outside the Med Bay door – Kat turned back to the still-open doorway behind her, shouted a few last-minute instructions to Alpha to make sure he'd monitor communications for her, and stepped forward into the brightly lit corridor, feeling the soft whoosh of air as the door slid shut behind her.
Tommy didn't say a word, nor did he look up to acknowledge her. Instead, he turned and walked straight toward her, his gaze fixed on the floor in front of him. Kat moved to meet him halfway, their footfalls echoing in the pregnant silence. Finally, she licked her lips and took the plunge, the words suddenly tumbling out faster than she could stop them. "Tommy, what happened? Are you all right? What were you talking about before, you said something about how Tanya and I missed someone and then you just cut me off. You really gave me a –" she trailed off as the realization hit her. "Wait. Where's Jason?"
Tommy sighed deeply and finally lifted his head to look at her. The typical mask of stoic, determined calm was back in place, marred only slightly by the small, glistening wet spots beneath his eyes. "Jason's in there," he said, gesturing to the Med Bay door. His voice was steady, if raspy and a little strained. "With his father."
Kat's brow furrowed in bewilderment. "His father? You found his father? But everyone was at the park, what about the rest of his –" Oh god.
"Everyone? You're sure?"
"Yeah, I think so. Why? What's wrong?"
"Not everyone."
Kat clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes going wide. Tommy closed his and let a long, shaky breath out through his nose, and in that moment Kat felt something inside of her break off and crumble away. She swallowed hard, her throat already starting to close up. Her hand dropped from her face and joined its partner in wrapping her arms around her chest. "Oh my god," she choked out. "You found them, didn't you?"
If Kat had sought compassion in Tommy's face, she wouldn't find it. He was all business now, the soldier pushing the boy aside and rising firmly to the surface. When he spoke, it was not with malice or anger, but there was no warmth to be found in it, either; it was a tone that befitted the leader of a team of child warriors. "Jason and his father found them." Kat felt the tears break free in earnest now, her eyes stinging as she fought to regain her composure as seamlessly as Tommy had. "His mom, his brothers…" he sighed again and made eye contact with her. "None of them ever made it out of their house."
At this point it was all Kat could do not to collapse to the floor sobbing. She managed a nod and looked over Tommy's shoulder at the Med Bay door. "How's he handling it?"
The corner of Tommy's mouth curled into the faintest hint of a smile. "Like Jason. On first glance you'd think he was doing better than both of us right now." Kat chuckled humorlessly at that before her Ranger instinct kicked in.
"So how do we do this?" There was no quaver in her voice anymore.
Tommy smiled for real this time. "Well, first of all, c'mere." She stepped toward him and he wrapped her in a gentle hug, resting his chin on her shoulder. "Second of all," he murmured into her ear, "I'm sorry about what I said before. I was a little freaked and it came out all wrong; none of this is in any way your fault. OK?"
She stepped back and he let his arms fall back to his sides. "I just can't believe I didn't realize that we hadn't seen a single person from Jason's family at the park. How can I call myself his friend if I missed something like that?"
"Kat, it was an honest mistake. Besides, even if you had said something, it wouldn't have made any difference." She cocked her head at him quizzically and he grimaced. "From what I saw, Jason's mom looked like she'd been dead for a while already. If his dad didn't have to leave for work so early in the morning he'd probably be dead, too."
"Still, though," Kat said, brushing past that lovely mental image for the moment. "What's Jason going to think when he finds out I completely forgot about him?"
"Let me ask you something. Do you care about him?"
Kat didn't hesitate for a second. "I'd die for him. I'd die for any of you, you know that."
He grinned. "Then I won't tell if you don't. Oh, and, uh…let's hope it doesn't come to that." He held out a hand. "Deal?"
She managed a small smile and took his hand in hers. "Deal." As he released her hand, she glanced over his shoulder again. "Can I see him?"
Tommy shook his head. "Sorry, Miss Hillard. Operation: Visiting Hours starts now, and you and I are on screening duty." He glanced down as though in deep thought. "Alpha said Billy was in the lab. He still there?"
"Last I checked. I sent Tanya in there, too. She managed to get Zack's coin and one of the aliens' weapons and bring them back with her."
Tommy whistled softly. "Go Tanya. Remind me to buy her a drink later."
"Tommy, she's 20. She won't be able to drink until November."
"Never stopped us before," he said with a wink.
"Except in here," she retorted, making a sweeping gesture that encompassed the entire Command Center. "Where the technology is five centuries ahead of the rest of the world but you ask for a beer and it's bloody Prohibition."
"OK, Capone," he said with a chuckle. "I had nothing to do with that and it's also not the time. Now, uh…where was I?"
"You were making plans to get an underage girl drunk, o paragon of virtue."
"Wow, you made the jump from congratulatory drink to potential date rapist awfully quick; I'm not sure if I should laugh or be insulted."
"Why don't we table that moral dilemma and get back to the task at hand. What do you want me to do about Billy and Tanya?"
"Right." Tommy cleared his throat and Kat actually saw the humor fade out of his eyes. As far as Kat knew, Jason was at the point where he could slip into and out of leader mode so smoothly that nobody would notice until it had already happened; something that probably came from never having been on the other side of things. With Tommy, who'd been taking orders for a long time before he ever started giving them, it was different. She didn't know about the others, but she could see when it happened for him, the way his eyes darkened slightly or his jaw set harder or his hands somehow either found their way into his pockets or folded themselves at the small of his back. It was subtle, but it was there, and she hadn't decided yet if she was more awed or disturbed by it.
"Billy can't know anything about this. What he's doing is too important, we can't have him distracted. He's probably on edge as it is." He held up a finger as though struck by inspiration. "We may have lucked out with Tanya being in there more than we thought. Tell her to make sure Billy doesn't leave the lab. She can wait in there with him or outside at the door, I don't care, but Billy does not leave. Clear?"
"I'm just not sure why Billy shouldn't be told anything. He's been Jason's friend even longer than you have; doesn't he deserve to know?"
"Kat, Billy is probably elbow-deep in Zack's chest cavity right now. Do you think he's in the most emotionally stable place at the moment? Cause I sure as hell don't."
She nodded, fighting back the urge to gag. "What do I tell Tanya?"
He rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous tick he'd picked up from hanging around Jason too much. "As little as you can," he said softly. "The fewer people getting upset about this the better."
"OK," she said. "What are you gonna do?"
"I'm gonna be here," he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the Med Bay door. "I'm not leaving that door unattended while you're gone."
She raised an eyebrow. "Gone where?"
"I need you to get two people and two people only to come back here with you. Don't tell them anything, don't let them bring others. Do not pass Go. Just tell them it's an emergency and send them in here. I'll fill them in on the rest."
She nodded slowly. "OK," she said, as though not quite sure she understood. "Which two people?"
Tommy sighed sadly, and just for an instant Kat thought she saw the soldier falter and the boy slip out, just long enough for a single wince of frustrated sorrow and a lone tear to escape the eyelids. Then, as fast as it had vanished, the soldier was back, cool, calm, poised, ready to get the job done. "The only two people who can really do anything for him right now." He looked her in the eye, his hazel irises staring out at her past his grime-streaked face. "Trini and Kimberly."
Command Center
Trini Kwan's Private Quarters
7:40 PM PDT
The insistent knocking at her bedroom door jarred Trini out of a deep meditation; she had been floating, lazily drifting along in a blissful, silent darkness, when the sharp retorts on the metal plating yanked her back into awareness. The Yellow Ranger groaned and let her head fall backward, her closed eyes staring up into the ceiling. "It's open." At the sound of the handle turning she added, "And this had better be damn good."
Adam and Rocky stopped in the doorway and looked at each other for reassurance. Exchanging a wordless nod, they stepped forward and softly let the door swing shut. Rocky opened his mouth to speak but froze when he noticed the music Trini was listening to – he recognized the rhythm, the deep bassline, the guitars made to sound like bagpipes. Instead of the more professional opening he'd had all planned out in the hallway, he glanced sidelong at Adam and asked, "Isn't this the song from The Departed?"
Adam was still staring at Trini. "You meditate to Dropkick Murphys?"
Trini finally let her eyes open and fixed the two men in an exasperated glare. "It's no weirder than you choreographing a kata to the Titanic soundtrack. Or Rocky's all-Katy Perry workout playlist."
Rocky shrugged sheepishly. "Hey, we weren't judging. No need to start flinging around crazy accusations like that."
"Though he did follow her on Twitter for a while," Adam said with a chuckle. "And all I was gonna say was that you aren't nearly Irish enough to be able to relax to this stuff."
Trini smirked at him. "I'm trying to decide whether that was racist or not."
"I generally default to yes," Rocky offered, raising a hand. "A little righteous indignation goes a long way."
"Oh, please, Rock," Adam groaned, rolling his eyes. "You suck so bad at faking anger there have been times you were actually mad at me and I didn't buy it. And even when I did, I've known you way too long to be afraid of you."
"So you've known him longer than three hours. Big deal." Trini giggled at the glare Rocky gave her before unfolding her legs and stretching. "Now what the hell do you two want?"
Adam cleared his throat. "Right. Sorry. We think we may have found something."
"We? What's this 'we' shit? This whole thing was my idea," Rocky interrupted, jabbing at his own chest to prove his point. Adam raised his eyebrows at him.
"Do you want to explain it to Trini?" Rocky's face paled a shade. "Right, so anyway, we had a bit of an epiphany a few minutes ago. Can I borrow your monitor?"
Trini raised an eyebrow and gestured toward her wall-mounted screen in a way that said, be my guest. Adam nodded his thanks and moved to turn it on. "You may need to log in," Trini said. "I think Jason was the last person to use it and he always locks it before he leaves."
"Right, because so many people use these besides us," Rocky muttered. Adam switched the monitor on and waited for the system to prompt him for his identification.
"Access to Command Center archives restricted; please provide name and Ranger designation." The voice that came out of the speakers had always sounded to Adam like a mixture of Kat without her accent and whoever had done the voice of Cortana in the Halo games. He cleared his throat and spoke as clearly as he could.
"Adam Park, designation Green-7." There was only a brief moment of silence before the computerized voice spoke again.
"Access granted. Welcome, Mr. Park."
"You know I always wondered why you got 7 and I got 8," Rocky said from behind him. "Why do you get to be first?"
"Cause the Originals had already had a green power, so they put that designation before any of the new ones. And Tommy and Jason like me better," Adam added with a smirk.
Before Rocky could retort, Trini put a hand on his chest. "You two are gonna be designations 'bruised' and 'bloody' in a minute if you don't get to the goddamn point."
"OK, OK, Jesus," Rocky said, stepping away from Trini and crossing his arms. "Easy there, Xena. Adam, show her what we talked about." Adam turned back to the monitor that was now attuned specifically to his voice.
"Computer, display footage and scanner readouts from the ruins of the Moon Palace."
"Accessing…" After a moment there was a chiming sound and two windows appeared on the monitor – on one side of the screen was what appeared to be drone footage from what remained of Rita and Zedd's palace; on the other was a long and wordy block of text in the font of all the other computer readouts. Adam stepped back and glanced briefly at Rocky, but the other man seemed to have become immensely interested in something on Trini's floor. Rolling his eyes, Adam stifled a groan and turned to Trini.
"This all started when Rocky asked me how I thought these things had managed to get to Earth and launch their attack before we even knew they were coming. At first I thought it had to have been some shortcoming of our scanners, like that they'd never experienced these things before or had mistaken their energy signature for something benign. But I double-checked every reading we took – four times – and every single scheduled hourly scan came back completely legit. All the frequencies were right, the parameters hadn't been changed and there's no sign that any of the hardware is malfunctioning. So I figured it had to be something external."
"Wait," Trini said, moving to stand beside him. "Scheduled scans? Since when do we just do a scan every hour?"
Rocky chose that moment to contribute. "After that thing with Zedd and the ShogunZords Tommy damn near had a nervous breakdown; he spent three hours on the phone with Jason that night and the next morning he made hourly scans of the moon and the surrounding space the new protocol. Conventional wisdom is that it was Jason's idea for the sake of Tommy's peace of mind." He looked to Adam. "I wonder if Tommy even remembers giving that order."
"We're lucky if Tommy can remember to zip his fly after he takes a leak," Trini grumbled good-naturedly. She turned back to the monitor. "So you were thinking there was something out there blocking our scans from detecting these guys? It would make sense; nothing else they've done so far has lined up with the villains we're used to seeing."
"That's just it, though," Adam said. "We've had monsters block our scanners before." He clicked a button on the remote control and another readout appeared on the screen. "Look. That little distortion there, at the bottom? 99 times out of a hundred that means the scans are being blocked by something. There's no way of knowing what, but in every other instance where the scanners were blocked we could at least tell they were blocked. Here…" he switched back to the most recent data. "Here it just reads like there should be nothing there at all, nothing but dead space. I was going to ask Billy about it but he's a little…preoccupied."
"Is that why you guys came to me?" Trini asked.
"You are the third-in-command around here, Tri," Rocky reminded her. "Jase and Tommy aren't back yet and Billy's busy…you're the highest-ranking person available short of going straight to Big Z himself." For all the good it would do, he wanted to add, but managed to restrain himself.
"Which we aren't going to do until we get a senior Ranger's go ahead," Adam finished for him, citing another Ranger team protocol that Trini was much more familiar with. "And you, Miss Kwan, are our lucky vict- I mean, sounding board," he added with a grin. Trini glared at him playfully.
"Thank you two for taking initiative, but Adam, you ever call me Miss Kwan again they'll be calling you Miss Park by the time I'm done with you." Rocky burst out laughing so hard he started choking. Adam just nodded and returned his attention to the monitor.
"You can try to castrate me later, Tri. There's more." Rocky snorted with laughter again at that, his sides shaking as he fought to get himself under control. Adam clicked the remote again and the most recent scan data filled the entire monitor. "This is where shit starts to get weird." He pointed at the display. "These are the last scans taken of the Moon Palace. Notice anything?"
Trini frowned. "Yeah, I noticed there's no sign of anyone who should be there." She paused. "Just like I noticed it four hours ago when I first saw these. We already know they're dead. What's your point?"
"My point is that a complete lack of a reading doesn't actually indicate that they're dead." Adam brought up yet another scan readout. "This is a scan I took of the area surrounding the Youth Center. You see all those little almost-hits?"
Trini nodded. He was right, it was like the scan had registered some kind of result but wasn't sure whether to classify it as a life sign or not. "It's the scanner picking up on leftover biological material, like…" she trailed off and Rocky finished for her.
"Like a corpse. Yeah. The scanner is sensitive enough to know that there's tissue or something there, but since there are no vital signs it doesn't know whether to classify the result as an actual hit or not. We're so used to already knowing where the dead bodies are that we've never thought of actually scanning some to see what the results would look like. Which brings me to my stroke of brilliance. Adam?"
Adam handed the newly emboldened Rocky the remote control. "Just don't break it, dude. Definitely won't help our case."
"Hey! I won't break it, I'm good with electronics."
"I know of three iPods and a phone that would beg to differ." Rocky growled at him and gripped the remote tighter.
"Accident, accident, younger sibling doing laundry, and the phone was your fault, you left it in your swimsuit in Australia. Now, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted…" he clicked a couple of buttons on the remote. "I remembered that Zordon never said anyone had actually seen the remains of anyone in the Moon Palace, just that there were no signs of them anywhere. So, just out of curiosity, I compared previous scans of them to scans of people to try and find the closest matches."
"Let me guess," Trini said. "Rita and Scorpina?"
"Yes, but in the opposite order, if you can believe that. Zedd was a very close third; I guess he really did used to be human once. Anyway, I took readings from those three and overlaid them with normal humans and found this." He pointed at the monitor with the same hand that held the remote. "The parts of human biology that show up most often in our dead body scans show up in both the readings for a live human and the readings for our three top matches. Which means…"
It finally hit Trini what he was talking about. "Which means that if one of those three was really dead under all that rubble, we would've picked up on something, not just read nothing at all as though it was empty space. OK, you guys are right – something's damn weird on the moon."
"But wait, there's more!" Rocky was practically giddy with excitement now. Adam grabbed the remote back from him and stepped back next to Trini.
"And since this next part was almost entirely my idea, I'll be the one to discuss it, if you don't mind." The second Green Ranger clicked one final button and the camera feed from the moon reappeared and filled the entire screen. "I figured that if the scanners weren't going to pick up on the bodies or lack thereof, we'd need to do some recon before we just start charging out there half-cocked. So I appropriated one of the Command Center's scout droids and sent it up to the moon to see what it could find." He turned to the monitor and raised his voice a little. "Computer, rewind to saved timestamp." After a moment, the footage cut to a different feed, the display indicating that the new view was several hours old.
"What am I looking for?" Trini asked.
"This is the same feed Adam, Tanya and Kat saw on the Viewing Globe when they first got here," Rocky piped up. "Only they were so in shock at the time that they took one look at the smoking ruins and checked the fuck out. Not that I blame them," he added quickly at Adam's glare. "It's still a lot to take in." Adam turned back to the screen.
"But when I had a chance to take a second look at it I noticed something." As Trini watched, the feed panned over the remnants of what had once been the source of all of their nightmares, nothing but jagged, broken pieces of stone and steel and the occasional putty part left to indicate that it had ever been there at all. She whistled softly.
"Gotta say, as scary as this must have been to see the first time, this footage could be almost therapeutic to some people."
"We'll make copies for Jason and Tommy later," Rocky said with a smile. "First, though, you need to see this."
"What's there to see? It's just a bunch of wreckage and a big pile of…wait." Trini stepped closer to the screen, narrowing her eyes and raising a hand to point. "Is there something wrong with the feed or does it look like the rubble is a different color here?"
"Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner!" Rocky's cheesy game show host impression got both Adam and Trini to snicker despite themselves. He stepped around Adam and grinned at Trini, folding his arms over his chest. "I saw it, too. Adam was sure it was some kind of problem with the feed so I told him to prove it. He had the camera move in closer…and this happened." Rocky pointed to the screen as the perspective moved smoothly and slowly forward and upwards, along the mound of debris that marked the site of the Moon Palace, before suddenly jerking forward and careening straight into the rocks.
"What the hell was that?" Trini exclaimed, leaning back a little in surprise.
"That was Rocky getting impatient and bumping my joystick arm with his knee," Adam said with a glare at his best friend. Trini groaned and rolled her eyes.
"Hey, it worked out, didn't it?" Rocky protested. "Look!"
Trini glared at Rocky skeptically but returned her gaze to the screen. The camera had come to a stop so close to the rocks that the entire screen was taken up by a blur of dull gray. As the perspective started to shift, something in the feed seemed to flicker; for the space of a fleeting instant, Trini was certain the rocks in front of the camera had vanished to reveal something behind them. "Did you see that?"
Adam just smiled and gestured to the screen. "O ye of little faith. Just watch." The camera had frozen, as if whoever was operating it was torn about what to do. Finally, after a long, tense moment, it moved forward again, slowly, tentatively, until it seemed like it was about to bump into the rocks.
A few things happened in very quick succession. The rocks in front of the camera seemed to suddenly become transparent; the view continued to move forward far beyond where the rocks should have been. There was time for the three Rangers to catch a glimpse of what appeared to be a large, flat, open expanse with something carved out of the floor; then the feed abruptly jerked to the left and cut to static. Trini frowned.
"Did Rocky hit the controls again?"
"No, believe it or not, that last one happened all on its own," Adam replied, tucking his free hand into a pocket. "I couldn't restore the feed after that so this is all we have, but there are all of about five frames…" he started repeatedly tapping a button on the remote and backed the footage up to just before the camera met the rocks. "Computer, pause footage and proceed frame by frame at ten-second interval." He looked over at Trini. "Rocky and I haven't even looked at these yet, we thought we should tell someone before we went any further."
The footage played out before them in what were basically still photographs. As the camera moved through the rocks like they weren't even there, the three of them suddenly had a perfectly clear view of what lay beyond.
"Computer, freeze playback!" Adam nearly shouted. The footage halted on that one frame, the one single frame they had of the real situation on the moon. None of them said anything for a long moment; what they were seeing defied immediate reaction.
Rita and Zedd's palace had been completely destroyed; that much their earlier surveys of the site had gotten right. What they'd missed had been what was hidden behind the area where the massive fortress of evil had once stood. A massive, perfectly flat expanse, roughly the size of about four football fields, spread out behind the Palace ruins in an enormous circle. In the ground inside the circle a symbol had been carved, taking up almost the circle's entire surface area. Adam thought it looked like two sigma symbols flipped back-to-back on either side of a thick vertical line; four dots filled in the open angles left on either side and a circle had been drawn inside the diamond that had formed in the middle. Several dozen of the blue creatures they had already seen were milling around in the flattened area – with a noticeable lack of spacesuits or breathing equipment – though from their vantage point it was hard to tell what they were doing.
Trini was the first one to find her voice. "Have either of you ever seen that symbol before?" Adam shook his head, but Rocky stepped forward and pointed at something near the top of the image.
"I'm a little more concerned about whatever the fuck this is," he said, glancing back at his two teammates. Adam and Trini followed Rocky's finger and frowned in unison. Near the far edge of the circle was the beginnings of some kind of structure, gleaming pieces of metal and chunks of rock from the wreckage alternating with foreign parts that more closely resembled the obsidian black of the invading armada.
"They're building something," Adam muttered to himself. "What would they need to build on the moon?"
"All the more reason to go ahead with our idea from before," Rocky said. Adam nodded. Trini raised an eyebrow.
"Idea?"
Adam cleared his throat. "Rocky and I think we should send a team to check this out in person. Preferably the more people the better, considering the numbers situation. I haven't thought through every contingency yet, but I know we have ten Rangers and five Zords that can fly. We can have one team on the ground and another providing air support. We get in, we do some recon, we blow that," he motioned at the structure, "to hell if the need arises, and we get back here with as much information as we can get." He glanced from one of his teammates to the other. "I don't know about you two but I'm really fucking tired of being in the dark. We've already lost enough, I think it's high time we take something back."
Rocky smiled. "You know Adam, I think Jason might be rubbing off on you."
"I'm onboard," Trini said. "But I don't know what Tommy or Jason or Zordon may know that we don't yet. You guys take this to one of them. If it comes to it, I'll back you up."
Adam raised an eyebrow. "Even if it's Jason?"
Trini grinned. "Jason thinks it's hot when I argue with him. Sometimes I just do it for shits and giggles because I know he gets a kick out of it."
Rocky fanned himself with one hand. "Whew! With you two around, who needs porn?"
Trini snorted. "Aisha's right, you are disgusting. Can you not go five minutes without turning our lives into your own personal Penthouse forum?"
"Hey, now that you mention it…"
"Rocky, I swear to god, if you finish that sentence I will not even try to stop what Trini's gonna want to do to you." Adam chuckled and tossed the remote from one hand to the other. He stepped away from the others and set it back on Trini's counter where he'd found it. "Computer, bookmark these readouts and log out."
"Goodbye, Mr. Park."
"Good morning, Dave," Rocky said, imitating the computer. Adam bit back a laugh; even Trini broke into a smile.
That was when another knock sounded on the door. "Trini? You in there?"
"Kat?" Trini crossed the room to the door and swung it open, revealing the slender Australian standing in the hallway, arms wrapped around herself, eyes bloodshot; her demeanor, though, was calm, if a little somber. "Is something wrong?"
"Tommy needs to see you in the Med Bay," she replied. "It's important."
"Tommy and Jason are back?" Kat jumped a little at the sound of Rocky's voice as he and Adam approached from behind Trini. "We'll come too, we have something to talk to him about."
"Sorry, guys, Tommy only asked for Trini. He was very specific," Kat said softly. She made eye contact with Trini and gave her a very significant look. The Asian girl understood immediately; she leaned forward and spoke so quietly that only Kat could hear.
"Is it about Jason?" Kat gave her an almost imperceptible nod. Trini felt her blood run cold. "Is he hurt again?"
"I don't think so," Kat said. "But I'm not supposed to say anything else. Tommy will fill you in when you get there."
Trini nodded and turned to the guys. "I'll see if I can send Tommy to see you when we're done. Where are you gonna be?"
"Probably my place," Adam said, holding up a hand. "Thanks, Tri."
She nodded again. "Shouldn't be long. See you guys later."
With that, the four of them filed out of Trini's room. Adam and Rocky disappeared around a corner, already bickering again as they headed for Adam's room. Kat pulled Trini down the hallway in the other direction.
"Um, Kat?" Trini jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "Med Bay's that way."
"I know," Kat said without an ounce of humor. "We have one more person to get first."
Command Center
Kimberly Hart's Private Quarters
7:45 PM PDT
"Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Robert Downey, Jr."
"Hmm. Nineties DiCaprio or modern DiCaprio?"
"Titanic DiCaprio."
"Fuck Robert, marry Leo, kill Matt. Come on, Sha, you're making this too easy."
Aisha glanced up at Kim from where she lay sprawled on the latter's pink bedspread. "OK then, Little Miss Can't Be Wrong," she said with exaggerated cheerfulness. "Why don't you show me how it's done?"
"Fine," Kim said smugly. She thought for just a brief moment and broke into a grin. "The male cast of Friends, as of 1998."
Aisha sucked in a breath. "Damn it, you actually gave me a hard one."
"You doubted me?"
"You don't want me to answer that question," Aisha retorted, her eyes twinkling. "Now let me think." She paused, staring intently into the comforter she lay on top of; after a minute she looked back up at Kim. "Wait – actors or characters?"
"Actors, duh," Kim said, rolling her eyes. "Didn't we agree no fictional characters?"
"So that all-Harry Potter one you gave me ten minutes ago doesn't count?"
"I maintain that that never happened," Kim said, holding up a finger. Aisha narrowed her eyes at her.
"You can't just say it never happened and have it be true."
"My room, my rules," Kim said with a smile, gesturing to herself. "Now answer the question."
Aisha sighed. "God, you can be such a bitch," she grumbled good-naturedly. Kim snickered and she thought for another few seconds. "OK, fuck LeBlanc, marry Schwimmer, kill Perry."
Kim raised an eyebrow at her. "Really? I get LeBlanc, but you'd take Schwimmer over Perry? Schwimmer's such a goober. Besides, I thought he was gay."
"Perry's definitely hotter, but the drug thing's a dealbreaker," Aisha replied. "And Schwimmer's not gay, he's married and he has a daughter."
"He got someone to marry him? Like, voluntarily?"
"Damn, when you decide you don't like someone you don't half-ass it, do you?"
Kim chuckled. "Next time you have a moment with Billy or Jason, ask them about what I did to Trini's first boyfriend after he cheated on her. I think it's popped up on a couple urban legend websites." The two of them shared a laugh at that, the first time Aisha had seen Kim so much as smile all day. As the moment passed, though, Aisha saw her friend's happy façade falter; a shadow passed over her face, a bitter emptiness appearing in her eyes.
"Kimmy, what's going on with you?" Aisha asked softly, propping herself up on her elbows. Kim frowned at her.
"Way to ruin the moment, Sha," she groaned, leaning her forehead onto her crossed arms. "The whole reason I asked you in here was to have a little girl talk, hang out, relax, just…" she lifted her head and Aisha saw that her eyes had suddenly filled with tears. "Just be normal for a little while. One last time." Kim's voice was bitter, despondent, fragile; it was a tone Aisha wasn't used to hearing from her.
"Kimmy…"
"And don't give me that 'Kimmy' bullshit like I'm five years old," Kim snapped at her. "I don't even let Jason call me that anymore, what the fuck makes you so special?"
"Girl, you act like a five year old you shouldn't be surprised when people talk to you like one." Aisha sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, leveling her gaze at Kim while she tried to find something to do with her hands. "And speaking of Jason, I think he'd hate the way you're acting right now."
Kim snorted and glared at her. "Please. You barely know him."
"But I know you," Aisha said, pointing at Kim to illustrate her point. "And I know that you don't talk to your friends like this no matter how fucked up the situation is. I know you don't shut yourself up in your room and sulk while the boys are making battle plans. And I definitely know I've never seen you look at Tommy as though he just shot your puppy. So something has to be going on with you. And I am not leaving this room until you cowgirl up and fucking talk to me."
"You really think now is the best time to try your hand at psychotherapy, Sha?" Kim asked ruefully, letting her head fall back against the cool steel wall. "Don't you think we have more important things to worry about?"
"This is the perfect time," Aisha retorted. "You're not the only one who's seen what's happening, Kim. Rocky told me all about what happened at the Youth Center; things have gotten full-on Old Testament out there."
"Right, and you're sitting in here wasting your time trying to get into my brain," Kim interrupted, jabbing a finger into her own temple. Aisha glared at her, clearly upset about being cut off.
"I think the bigger waste of my time is telling myself not to just come over there and kick you in the head," Aisha growled. "I don't know what the hell's gotten into you, Kim, but you're not doing anybody any good by throwing a tantrum like a fucking toddler. Whatever the hell is making you act like this cannot possibly be as important as protecting the planet." She let that hang for a second before adding, "I'm not asking you to smooth everything over by yourself. I just want you to talk to me; you can tell me anything, remember?"
Kim started to retort again, but after a moment she just sighed and let her head flop back again. "Were you there when I got here? Everything happened so fast I don't remember."
Aisha shook her head. "I was the last one back. By the time I got here you and Flyboy had already left to check on Team World Peace in there," she jerked a thumb over her shoulder. Kim cracked a small smile at the nickname. "And everything kinda started exploding after that; we never really had a chance to talk that wasn't screaming or crying or one of your one-liners."
"Hey, you said I was good at those!" Kim protested, wiping her eyes. Aisha was relieved to see the tears appeared to have stopped.
"I never said I was complaining," Aisha said, her eyes twinkling. "In fact I kinda missed that out in the Heart of Darkness. But they still aren't the same as a decent conversation." She stood and took a tentative step toward Kim, as though she was worried about scaring her away. "So why don't you tell me why you've been so on edge since I got here?"
"Aren't we all a little on edge right now?"
"Sure, a little, but nobody as much as you." Aisha closed the distance between her and Kim and lowered herself beside her friend so they both sat with their backs against the wall. "Jason and Tommy had probably switched into soldier mode before I ever even got here. Trini and Adam have always been the stoic types, Rocky's doing his 21-going-on-14 thing like he always does; Billy's neck-deep in his work, as usual; Kat's trying to put up a strong front and Tanya I think is still too new at this to really know what to think about it. I remember how that felt." She smiled at Kim and got a soft laugh in return. "And I, of course, am still the same kick-ass Mama Bear warrior bitch I've always been." Kim giggled a little harder at that one. "Which just leaves you."
Kim eyed her warily. "Why do I get the feeling I'm not gonna like what you're about to say?"
"Cause the truth hurts, sister," Aisha said with a grin, poking Kim's knee to punctuate each word. "You've been withdrawn, jumpy, broodier than a YA vampire, and you've been making an active effort to avoid your boyfriend every chance you get. And on top of all that, I've never seen you have less fun morphing than you did at your house today. Usually once you pinky up you're like an ADHD kid on a sugar high; I used to joke with Billy that your spirit animal was Rocky." Kim made a face of mock indignation. Aisha shook her head and continued. "But this time you were all business; even your little quips seemed like you were trying too hard. Honestly, that scared me more than the thought of not having my coin. So please, tell me, what's going on with you?"
Kim threw her friend one more look of protest, but at Aisha's firm, determined gaze, the Pink Ranger felt the last of her stubbornness start to crumble. She sighed and turned back to the room, staring off into space as her fingers curled around her knees. "Do you remember the first person you couldn't save?"
Aisha didn't respond right away; she could tell she was making some kind of progress, but for the life of her she couldn't figure out where Kim was going with this. After a moment, though, she squeezed her hands together and dredged up an unpleasant memory. "You know me better than to ask me that," she said softly, trying not to glance over at Kim. "I had nightmares about it for weeks afterwards."
She saw Kim nod out of the corner of her eye. "That attack at the carnival, right? The kid on the Ferris wheel?"
Aisha shuddered. "Adam had told me there were people stuck on it; when the monster showed up the first thing it attacked was the closest electrical hub." She paused and swallowed hard. "By the time we had to call the Zords I guess I assumed that someone had gotten there and gotten them out. I was still so new to everything, it was all so exciting, and I hadn't gotten to use my Zord yet so I was pumped like you wouldn't believe. By the time I got into the cockpit I had totally forgotten about anything to do with the situation on the ground; it wasn't long after that that I got cocky. I charged the monster all by myself and tried to attack it but I took a hit and ended up crashing into the Ferris wheel." Her voice quavered and she clenched a fist to steel herself. She'd already told this story a dozen times and if staying calm through one more repetition would get Kim out of her funk she figured it would all come out in the wash.
"I was so shaken up from seeing the wheel fall over that I almost missed the call to form the MegaZord," Aisha said with a sad chuckle. "I don't even remember anything about what actually happened after we did; it was the first time I'd ever been a part of something like that and I had been so fucking thrilled to finally do it, and yet I spent my entire first time thinking about nothing but whether the people on the Ferris wheel had made it off in time." If Aisha had looked up, she would've seen Kim turn and offer her a reassuring smile. As it was, though, her focus had shifted to her restless hands.
"It was more than three hours before I could finally get back there. I think I pissed Rocky off a little when I wouldn't tell him why I was in such a hurry during our debrief." She fought to keep her eyes open – she knew if she closed them the memory of that day would project itself onto her eyelids like a bad drive-in movie.
"I found out later that they had actually started taking people off. They'd had to bring in cherry pickers to get to the people in some of the higher cars, but one of them was hit by a stray shot from the monster and never made it there. Anyway, from what I could see when I got there this kid had been the last one left onboard for whatever reason. When my Zord had knocked the wheel over he had tried to jump out, but…" she drew in a long, shaky breath. "It looked like he had landed safely, but the wheel landed on top of him." She finally forced herself to look up at Kim.
"When I found him his eyes were still open. There was blood on his face, and the part of the wheel that had fallen on him covered most of his body, but I could tell he was wearing a Power Rangers T-shirt. On the ground a few feet away there was a Red Ranger plushy toy; I don't know if it was his but I thought he would have wanted it, so I laid it on what was…left…of his chest and ran all the way home. I don't think I slept for a week after that." Kim reached out and gently rubbed her back. "That was my fourth day as a Ranger."
Kim nodded. "Yeah, you got the short shrift as far as honeymoon periods. It took Trini almost a month before she had an incident like that."
"Oh, don't give me that crap," Aisha grumbled playfully. "I know for a fact that there were people whose happy fun times were a hell of a lot shorter than mine."
"Not people, person," Kim corrected. "Jason still has the record – he had powers for all of about half an hour before he had to watch someone die. Tommy would have him beat but he refuses to count anything that happened while he didn't care." Kim stopped and wrinkled her nose a little. "And I'm suddenly aware of how creepy it is that we keep track."
Aisha glanced sidelong at her. "And I'm suddenly aware of the bait-and-switch you just pulled on me. You ain't getting off that easy, hon." She smiled as Kim shrugged sheepishly. "Care to tell me why you just made me relive that?"
Kim stared at the floor for a moment before she spoke. "I ever tell you about my first time?" Aisha frowned but didn't turn to face her.
"You mean the woman at the movie theater? The one you'd seen at your mom's book club meetings?" Kim didn't say anything, just grunted in acknowledgement. "Yes, I've heard the story, and quite frankly I'd really rather not hear it again." Aisha nudged Kim's shoulder with her own to get her friend to lift her head up. "What the hell does this have to do with whatever's bothering you today?"
Kim pushed herself up off the wall and started pacing the floor. "When the shit first hit the fan I was in the middle of a day of practice. I was on the beam, I was working through my routine…it was the same thing I'd done a thousand times." The longer Kim spoke, the more rushed her words became, as though she were trying to purge her story from her brain all at once but her mouth couldn't keep up. "Then all of a sudden this giant, glowing orange ball came crashing through the ceiling and before I could even get down off the beam half the gym was on fire. I tried to get as many people out as I could, but there was this purple thing in front of the door, and the fire, and…" Kim choked back a sob and Aisha rose to her feet but stayed near the wall.
"Why didn't you call for a ride home?"
"I would have," Kim said, coming to a stop and turning to face her. "Yesterday my communicator was digging into my wrist while I was practicing my floor routine so today when I came in to practice I took it off and left it in my locker. That's where we were going when we…" she licked her lips, opened and closed her mouth a few times, and finally swung a finger around to gesture at Aisha. "Did you see the, uh…the green shit? Like a, uh…energy field or something?"
Aisha nodded, a humorless chuckle forcing its way out of her throat. "Bluish-green wall of death, pulls the whole War of the Worlds thing? We've met. Showed up on my flight home, made an absolute mess out of coach."
"Yeah, well…after that thing showed up it was down to just me and two other people. Their names were…are…Hannah and Blake. Blake is deaf and I remember actually feeling happy for a minute because I could finally use my sign language again. Hannah had been helping me with my vault for weeks, she was better on the vault than anyone I'd ever seen." She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head a few times, as if to force herself back on track.
"Anyway, we got into the locker room and the first thing I noticed was that the entire ceiling had been blown off, I thought it was like something out of Twister. And I got to my locker, and I had it, I had my communicator in my fucking hand, and then I just heard this pop." Kim held her hand out to Aisha, clenched in a desperate fist, to emphasize her point. "I didn't see anything, I still have no idea where it came from, but something in here…" she reached behind her and rapped her knuckles lightly on the morpher clipped to her waistband. "Told me to get out of the way. Long story short, when Tommy finally got a hold of me I was on my back on the floor under the bench in front of the lockers. When I got back out Hannah and Blake were just standing there frozen in place, and they had this weird silvery stuff all over them; it was glowing and everything, and when I touched them they felt weird, like…spongey, or something. But I know they were alive, I felt them breathing and everything." Kim's expression turned dark.
"But apparently that wasn't enough for Tommy. I told him over and over that they were alive and they needed help, but he said he couldn't detect their life signs so there was no way he could teleport them out of there. So no matter how much I pleaded with him, he teleported me out of there against my will and left both of them just standing there in the middle of the goddamn apocalypse. And then, to make matters worse, when I do eventually get back here he has the fucking nerve to try and tell me that we can't risk teleporting anything in here without a life sign or a Power Coin because it's too risky, when we all know damn well that's never been the case before." She paused and met Aisha's eye. "He just left them there, and then when I tried to ask him why he just brushed it off like he didn't care, like it was no big deal."
Aisha crossed her arms over her chest and waited for Kim to potentially say more; when she didn't, Aisha calmly asked her the question she'd thought of several minutes ago. "We've had to leave people behind before, Kim. More times than we'd like to admit; occupational hazard, I guess. Sorry, but there's no way that's what this is about. So tell me – what is it about this that has you so worked up?"
Kim stormed over to the bed and plopped down on it. "OK, yeah. It wasn't just that he did it; it was what it showed me about him."
"Which was?"
Kim sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "When it comes down to it, at the end of the day, Tommy would put protecting me in front of everything else. Even the lives of other people. And more importantly, even when I don't need protecting. If I had been allowed to stay down there, to try and figure out what happened, there's at least a chance I could've done something to help them. But he made that choice for me, because clearly he doesn't think I'm capable of taking care of myself or anyone else. All I am to him is a fucking liability."
Aisha winced. "I'm sorry, Kim. That must've hurt."
"And the worst part is that it made me relive all those feelings I had the first time I couldn't save someone. I've tried to make it a point to avoid those feelings ever since that day, and what he did a few hours ago brought all of that rushing back."
"Have you told him that?" Aisha asked softly, moving toward the bed. Kim shook her head and stared at her feet. "Because after everything he's done for you, I think the least you can do is give the guy the benefit of the doubt. His reasoning behind it could be something totally different from what you think, but you'll never know unless you give him a chance to tell his side."
"I don't know if I can even look at him right now, Sha." Kim's voice was almost a whisper. "Much less carry on a rational conversation."
"I do, and you can," Aisha replied. "If not for you two, then for the team. For the planet. As melodramatic as it may sound, the fate of humanity itself may rest on you two figuring this out." Kim grimaced.
"That's a scary thought."
The two of them laughed at that, the two battle-hardened young women letting their softer sides shine through for just a brief moment before a quiet knock on the door brought them right back to harsh reality.
"Kim? You in there?"
"Kat? Yeah, it's open." The door swung inward to reveal Kat and Trini, the former looking a little haggard while the latter just looked slightly bewildered. The slender Australian stepped gingerly around the door and stopped just shy of the threshold, her hands thrust into her pockets.
"Tommy sent me to get you. He needs to see you and Trini in the Med Bay. He says it's urgent."
"What for?" Aisha asked as Kim rose from the bed and moved to stand beside her. "Is somebody hurt?"
"I'm sorry, Sha, but I'm not supposed to say anything else," Kat replied. "And he only asked for Kim and Trini. Adam and Rocky are in Adam's room, Trini says they've found something you might think is interesting."
"O…K," Aisha said, her voice laced with skepticism. She looked at Kim, who nodded reassuringly. Sighing and rolling her eyes in annoyance, the Purple Ranger made her way past the two women in the doorway and headed toward Adam's room, muttering under her breath as she went. Kim could've sworn she heard something along the lines of "Brangelina bullshit" as Aisha turned the corner, but she didn't say anything. Instead, she glanced over Kat's shoulder at Trini, who was fidgeting nervously in the hallway.
"OK, Tri, spill. Did she say anything else to you?" Trini wrapped her arms around herself and met Kim's eye.
"Whatever Tommy wants sounds important, Kim." Trini motioned with her head toward Kat. "She says it's about Jason."
Command Center
Medical Bay Corridor
8:15 PM PDT
Tommy met the girls as they came through the Main Chamber. Zordon had offered to assume the responsibility of breaking Jason's news to Kimberly and Trini, but Tommy had insisted on doing it himself; he didn't want to distract Zordon from monitoring their families, anyway. The White Ranger sent Kat back to the lab to relieve Tanya before ushering the other two into the Med Bay Corridor and letting the door close behind them.
"Tommy, what's going on?" Trini asked softly after Tommy didn't speak for a moment. "Kat said this had something to do with Jason." Tommy sighed and rubbed his eyes with his fingers, leaving streaks of grime on the surrounding flesh.
"She wasn't supposed to say anything," he muttered, staring past them into the floor. Kim crossed her arms over her chest.
"What, like you weren't going to tell us that when we got here, anyway?"
"Are you gonna argue with me about this, too, Kim?" He raised his head and finally met her eye. "Because I'm really not in the mood to deal with that right now."
Kim rolled her eyes. "Oh, believe me, talking to you is the last thing I want to be doing." Tommy glared at her. Trini just groaned. "I'm only here because Trini was already coming and Jason was involved." She stopped suddenly and blinked a couple of times as though struck by an epiphany. "And Kat seemed really shaken up…" she exchanged nervous glances with Trini before turning back to Tommy. "OK, Tommy, what the hell's going on here? You're scaring me."
"That makes two of us," Trini said. She gestured around them. "And why did you have us meet you here? Kat said she didn't think Jason was hurt but we're standing outside the Med Bay and you're acting like you're on guard duty. Why would he be in there if he wasn't hurt?"
Tommy held up a hand to stop the flow of questions. "OK, all right, Tri, I need you to try and calm down, OK? I'm not gonna lay this out for you if you're gonna fly off the handle on me." She pursed her lips and put her hands on her hips.
"I'll be fine, Flyboy. Pinkie-swear. Now please, tell us what happened."
He nodded. "OK, but you both have to promise me you'll hear me out before you say anything or go anywhere. This situation is very delicate and I don't want anyone going off half-cocked."
"Yes, because as I recall you are the prevailing authority on going off half-cocked," Kim interrupted, once again looking everywhere in the room except at Tommy. He started to retort, but Trini cut him off with a loud, exasperated sigh.
"Oh god would you two just fuck already? Christ, I don't know how much more of your shit I can tolerate." Tommy and Kimberly gaped at her, too shocked to respond. "Now Tommy, please tell us everything. And I do mean everything. And Kim, if you interrupt him one time I swear on all that is holy I will put you on your ass. OK?"
Kim grumbled something under her breath but didn't say anything else. Tommy cleared his throat, swallowed, cleared it again, and started his story, glancing warily at Trini. "Yes, Jason's in there," he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the door. "But not for him. He's in…" he took a deep breath to steady himself. "He's in there with his father."
"OK, you're gonna need to back way up on that one, buddy," Kim broke in, completely ignoring Trini's warning from earlier. The girl in yellow turned to her again.
"Kim, I'm not kidding, one more word and you're eating your goddamn teeth," she practically growled. She glanced back at Tommy. "Though she does have a point. How the hell did you two find Jason's father?"
"I would've gotten to that if Kim hadn't jumped down my throat," Tommy retorted, glaring at the girl in pink before going on. "Anyway, remember when Kat sent out that call that she and Tanya had seen our families in the prison camp or whatever it is at the park?" He received twin nods in return. "Well…there were a few they didn't see." He glanced from one of them to the other, trying to steel himself before he continued. "And by 'a few,' I mean Jason's entire family. His father's in there, with him; when I left, they were trying to get one of the beds to work for him. But the rest of his family, his mom, Sean, Nathan…" his voice trailed off, his mouth moving mutely around the shapes of words too painful to say again. Kimberly and Trini had gone several shades paler; both of them were putting forth a noticeable effort to maintain their composure. As Original Rangers, they'd had a great deal of practice.
"When we got to the Scotts' house, there…there was nothing left," Tommy continued. "Everything was gone, it was nothing but a pile of rubble. Jason got to it first and I guess he was looking for his coin because he started digging through stuff and he found…" Tommy sighed and spoke to the floor. "He found his mom's body." He raised his head to face them, knowing the next part would be the hardest. "She'd had a 2x4 driven through her chest." This time neither of the girls could hold in the gasps of shock; Trini put a hand over her mouth. Kim's eyes were glistening already.
"Jason doesn't know that last part; I still haven't figured out whether to tell him or not."
"How did you find his father?" Trini asked quietly, her voice still steady but thick with emotion. Tommy ignored the fact that she'd asked a question despite his previous request.
"Actually, he found us," Tommy said. "He just came walking up to us while I was trying to calm Jason down – finding his mom like that, he…he took it pretty hard. Anyway, apparently Mr. Scott had been around for a while – he'd already found Jason's coin by the time we got there. Which, as you've probably already figured out, means he knows about the Ranger thing."
"What about his brothers?" Kim asked, her voice almost too low to hear. Tommy hesitated; at the look on his face, she added, "Or do we even want to know?"
"Doesn't matter if you want to," Tommy answered gently, trying his best to ease the blow. "Jason knows, and if you want to help him you're gonna have to know too." He swallowed, curled and uncurled his fists and licked his lips. "Mr. Scott said he'd found them in another part of the house. We couldn't get him to say anything else – though not for lack of trying. All he said was that apparently it was so bad that he didn't want Jason to see what was…" he sighed sadly. "What was left."
Kim let out a choked sob; Trini sighed sadly and bowed her head. "Shit," she whispered, running a hand through her hair. She looked up at Tommy, fighting back tears. "I need to see him. He's probably going through hell right now."
Tommy nodded. "That's why I asked for you two. Out of everyone here, you're the best equipped for getting him through this right now. I'd be in there myself, but I just…"
"What?" Kim asked with a frown, seeming genuinely concerned this time. "Tommy, you're his best friend. You'd be just as much help to him as we would be."
Tommy turned back to her, running a hand over his face. "You weren't there, Kim. I've never seen him…break down like that before. I mean, I know he gets depressed sometimes, hell I've even seen him get choked up once or twice, but he was…he was sobbing. He was crying so hard his father and I could talk about him and he was right there and didn't hear us. I didn't think that was even possible for him. I have no idea how to help him when he's like that." He glanced from one of the girls to the other. "Have you ever seen him that bad before?"
Kim and Trini exchanged looks. "Yeah, once," Trini finally said. "But it was a long time ago, before you ever moved to town." She licked her lips, casting nervous glances at the closed Med Bay door. "Did Jason ever tell you about his sister?"
Tommy's brow furrowed in confusion. "He has a sister?"
"I guess that's a no," Kim put in. "Don't be offended or anything, he doesn't talk about it much." Trini nodded and Kim went on. "Her name was Kristen. Jason was thirteen when she was born, I remember because his mom started having contractions at his birthday party. She was born about a month early, but that usually isn't that big of a deal so nobody really thought too much of it." She blew a breath out of one corner of her mouth. "Three weeks after they brought her home Jason went to check on her and found her dead in her crib." Tommy winced. "The doctors called it SIDS – you know, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome? Which was basically a really fancy way of saying they had no fucking idea what had happened."
"Which is completely legitimate," Trini interjected. "Babies die sometimes without any discernible reason. Doesn't make it any less sad, but it's not like anyone could've seen it coming."
Kim waited a moment to speak again. "That was the worst I've ever seen Jason. There were a couple of weeks there when I wasn't sure he'd ever be the same again. It took almost two months for him to be back to normal, and even then he won't even say her name anymore." She leveled her gaze at Tommy. "That's the extent of my experience here. But that was almost a decade ago, Tommy, and we've had our entire Ranger careers happen since then. Jason isn't the same person he was when he was thirteen, none of us are. What makes you think Trini and I are gonna be able to do anything here that you can't do yourself?"
Tommy wasn't sure how to answer that, but Trini read it all over his face. "Because he doesn't think Jason would want him to." Kim whirled around and stared at her best friend.
"What? Why not?"
"Because there are only two people in the world Jason trusts to be in charge of this team at a time like this," Trini replied, never looking away from Tommy. "Himself. And you."
Tommy nodded, relieved he hadn't had to say it himself. "Jason would never forgive me if I put his well-being before the mission. Hell, he wouldn't want us worrying about taking care of him at all. So if I'm going to do exactly that, I can at least make some attempt to cover it up." He looked from one of his original teammates to the other. "That's where you two come in. We need him out of there and ready to go if we want to stand a chance. I need you two to help him get there so that I can hold down the fort in the meantime." He sighed again, running a hand through his hair. "Look, you two know him better than anyone. Even me. He'll open up to you, especially you, Tri. And Kim, he's known you as long as he's been alive, I can't imagine him holding anything back from you. I have a job to do, he would want me to buck up and do it. That's how I'm helping."
"Wow, you've really thought this through, haven't you?" Kim asked, searching his face with the first real display of compassion Trini had seen her make toward Tommy all day.
He laughed humorlessly. "Needed something else to focus on or I ran the risk of going crazy."
"Yeah, like you weren't halfway there already," Trini teased, cracking a small smile. Tommy grinned back, feeling some of the tension finally drain out of the room. "Oh, by the way," Trini added abruptly. "Speaking of your job, Rocky and Adam have something you need to hear. I think they might actually be on to something."
Tommy clapped his hands together. "Fantastic. I'll go talk to them – Adam's room?" Trini nodded. "Thought so. You two take as long as you need. Oh, and try to go easy on his dad, I think Jase is trying not to overwhelm him with Ranger stuff right off the bat." He made a move toward the door to the Main Chamber but stopped and turned back to them just as the door slid open, his mouth starting to move as though he had something else to say; Kim beat him to it.
"We'll take care of him, Flyboy." She smiled, her eyes starting to moisten again. "Get outta here. World ain't gonna save itself." He smiled his thanks and trotted out the door, which slid shut behind him, leaving Kim and Trini alone in the corridor. The two looked at each other, the reality of what they were walking into finally starting to sink in.
"He'll be OK, Tri," Kim said softly, wrapping an arm around Trini's slender shoulders. "He's the strongest person I've ever met. He's gonna be fine."
"That's just it though, Kim," Trini said. "He shouldn't have to just 'be OK.' This is something a normal person would need days, weeks, maybe even months to deal with, but for him – for all of us – we don't have that kind of time. People in our line of work don't get the luxury of an extended grieving process." She sighed and cast a sad glance at the closed Med Bay door. "The only thing we're gonna be able to do for him right now is make it easier for him to push this down, smooth it over and get back to work as though nothing was wrong."
"Things are too chaotic for us to be thinking long-term, Tri. I don't like it any more than you do but sometimes a Band-Aid solution is all you've got."
"Jason's been using Band-Aid solutions his entire life, Kim. At some point it's gonna get to be too much and none of us are gonna be able to talk him off the ledge." Trini started toward the door but seemed to think better of it and jerked to a stop, narrowing her eyes at Kim. "At this point I don't think it's a question of 'if,' it's a question of 'when.' And considering this is Jason we're talking about, I can only see two ways it could possibly happen. Either he completely loses control and he goes on some kind of berserker rampage or he just shuts down and turns into some kind of sociopath. What are we gonna do then?"
Kim closed the distance between them and laid a hand on Trini's arm. "That's not gonna happen, Tri. We won't let it. Zordon won't let it. It may get rough for a while but eventually we're all gonna be OK."
Trini flashed her a bemused smile and shook her head. "How can you be so sure?"
"Well it's either that or the thing you said. Which one makes you feel less like shit?"
"You have such a way with words, Kim," Trini said with a soft laugh, wiping her eyes. "Come on, we should get in there. He shouldn't be alone right now."
She steeled herself and swung the door open before she could change her mind.