POWER RANGERS :- Demon Wars
Secrets and Lies Part II:- Dydtrax
Chapter One

Tretrax did not look forward to reporting recent events to The Warlord and Dydtrax knew it. Her half-brother prided himself on his string of victories, single handily defeating whole armies. These three women were his first real challenge and he wasn't doing that well.

It was almost enough to make her laugh out loud.

The loss of Rockthorn was a blow, even though the witches had trouble defeating him it still meant that one of The Warlord's most vicious warriors was dead. When their master heard that it was Tretrax's interference that had lead to their defeat her dear brother's reputation would be in tatters. In that respect Rockthorn was a pawn, for now it was only a matter of time before Dydtrax supplanted her brother and this world had presented the key to doing just that. All she had to do is succeed where he failed and she knew just how to do that.

As her half-brother paced restlessly the Demoness leaned against the cave wall, grinning with her mouth full of fangs. While he was about ready to climb the walls she was still relaxed, knowing she had all the cards. 'Don't worry about it, I'll deal with them.' She chuckled, unable to hide her glee anymore.

'How?' Tretrax barked as he turned on her. 'These multicoloured menaces have survived everything I can throw at them. Even Rockthorn.'

'Obviously you haven't the right kind of approach.' She stroked the side of his face before slapping him, hard. 'Something like this takes a woman's touch. Don't worry, brother dear, I said I'll deal with them and I will. Saving you're precious image.'

Tretrax snarled back at her, as powerful as she was he was still stronger and didn't like her pitying him. But both of them knew that he wasn't going to do anything about it. She had manoeuvred him into a no win scenario and best of all he didn't know it yet. He still thought she was helping him and he needed that help too much at the moment.

Stalking out of the cave mouth the demoness left her half brother fuming and began to trace the jewels on the back of her gauntlets. Everything was in place and these witches were just what she needed.

Cassie threw herself back in her chair and switched on the news. The anchor woman was talking into the camera. 'Yesterday saw the miracle of the Blue Ranger saving a young girls life. There is still no expiation how she healed the girls injuries but we're very lucky to have the doctor originally at the scene to talk to. Doctor Mark Sloan, thank you for joint us.'

Cassie's tutor nodded as the camera pulled back to show him sitting at the desk with a obvious green screen behind him. 'Now you're a respected medical Doctor with a history of helping the police with several high level cases.' The Anchor told the audience

'I retired from practice a couple of years ago,' Dr Sloan pointed out with a easy smile. 'I now teach at Amethyst College.'

'You were there when the incident took place and the only medical practitioner that has an eye witness account. Could you explain to our viewers what happened?' The anchor asked as they showed the battle behind them.

'I'm not sure what help I can be, it's very lucky you have footage for some of it. As the Rangers were battling the creature in their machines another battle took place on the roof top. There was an explosion that damaged the building and some debris fell amongst the crowd. Amongst the injured was young Janet, who was on her way home from school.'

'I see,' The anchor nodded. 'And what happened next?'

'Well I have to admit there wasn't much hope. As they helped the wounded the Blue Ranger made a quick assessment, one that agreed with my own. He looked gravely at the reporter. 'Janet was badly injured, we couldn't dare move her and without immediate medical treatment she would have died.'

'And that was when The Blue Ranger performed the miracle.' The Anchor prodded as the footage behind them changed to a helicopter view of the battle.

Dr Sloan lent back, as if he was gathering his thoughts. 'I don't know if miracle is the right word, it was certainly extraordinary though. As you pointed out I practised medicine for more than forty years, in that time I learnt that the human body is capable of some astounding things. Against all odds I've seen patients make a full recovery when my colleagues and myself have felt that was impossible. Whatever and however that young woman was able to help heal that child is a mystery, not a miracle.'

'But Dr Sloan, no medical official that has seen this footage can explain how it was done.' Again it switched to a shot of Cassie, in costume, kneeing over Janet. A golden glow coming from her hand. 'Most agree that it should be absolutely impossible.'

'Agreed, but what you have to remember is that these Rangers have over the years shown time and time again that they have abilities that no one yet understands.'

'So you believe it's some sort of magic trick.'

'Hardly a trick, and I don't believe in magic…' Cassie changed the channel, at least someone was on her side. The news had been trying to paint her as this faith healer. That she could heal anything just by touching someone. Thanks to them small army of the sick and crippled were suddenly drifting into the city. Hoping she could help them.

She didn't know if she could or even if she should. Could she cure diseases, help crippled people walk again? Was there a limit to her powers and what if there wasn't? She was asking herself these questions, it didn't help that just about every one was trying to turn her into the the second coming.

Still there was one thing worse and Cassie had just found it while she was channel surfing. '…And if you pledge fifty dollars, just fifty dollars, my congregation and I will travel to Amethyst City. That's right, we'll travel there and exorcise this poor child. This child touched by the devil.' A television preacher waved a black covered bible from behind an expensive pulpit.

Cassie felt her hand tighten around the remote and knuckles whiten. 'Make no mistake, these brides of Satan himself have cursed our children.' The preacher began to shout. 'In their minds and in their hearts, cursed. There can be no doubt, these lustful women flaunt their figures and corrupt the minds of our young.' He lent forward leaning on the pulpit, as if letting the audience in on a vast secret. 'Why else do they have horns on their heads?'

'Because their powers come from ancient Dinosaurs you moron' Cassie half shouted and TV exploded. 'Urm, oops.'

Dawn looked up from her work, 'You know, if it worries you so much don't watch.'

'Don't you mind?' Cassie asked. 'I mean we save the world from demons and they want us to be the bad guys?'

Pushing her chair back Dawn gave her a sad smile. 'I don't mind. People are scared by things they don't know or understand, why should I let idiots worry me?'

'Dawn, did you hear what that… that…' Cassie was lost for words to describe him.

'Could be worse.' The Green Ranger shrugged. 'Back in the fifteenth century a vampire crusade invaded a town, I think they were French or something.'

Cassie blinked, she had no idea what point Dawn was trying to make. 'What happened?'

Dawn sat back and sighed. 'Well the town was home for the Slayer of the time. She saved the village and stopped the crusade in it's tracks single handed.'

'That sounds great!' Cassie exclaimed. 'She took out a whole vampire army on her own.' She frowned there was a sad catch in Dawn's voice. 'That's not the whole story is it?'

Dawn almost smirked; 'No it's not. The people of the town didn't know what to make of the girl that saved them. They thought she was a witch and a lynch mob caught her in the street a couple of days later. Burnt her at the stake. The next night the surviving vampires attacked again and burnt the town to the ground.'

Cassie felt sick. 'You can't be serious?'

'People are dumb, panicky creatures Cassie. They see something they don't understand and just lash out.' Cassie felt a stab of pain. Her mother, Janet Frasier, had told her the same thing when she wanted to tell her friends where she came from. 'Every slayer knows the story of that French town. That's why they keep themselves a secret and why we have to as well. It sucks but…'

'…That's life.' Cassie finished. 'Damn, it's one thing not being able to tell anyone what we do. It's another being blamed for helping people.'

'Welcome to our world Cassie.' Dawn said bitterly.

Faith sat down on the park bench and watched the work crews running around, tidying up after their last fight with Tretrax, his sister and that walking landslide of theirs. After a while she opened up her newspaper and scanned the headlines.

Normally she couldn't care less about the papers. They were just a waste of time, never reporting on anything interesting. Only now she was curious, the Rangers were headline news and it was interesting to see what people thought of them.

Most of the paper was about Cassie's powers and what she had done. There were a couple of stories on other Rangers and the powers they'd shown, a few on the response of noted doctors and some religious, so-called, experts. Then there was something called an editorial that made some mention about the mess and panic it had caused. It suggested that given what the different Ranger teams had done over the years they should cut the new team some slack. Faith would have felt happy about that, if it wasn't for the rest of the newspaper stirring up the trouble in the firstplace.

Cassie's powers, wherever they really came from, might be helpful. If she didn't push too much. Faith had heard what happened to Willow, the klutzy nerd becoming a bad ass super-wicaan that tried to destroy the world. She might have to keep an eye on the reluctant Ranger. Even if she didn't go evil it looked like it had taken a lot out of her just healing the girl. If she had to do the same thing again someone, or something, might take advantage of that.

Reading past page after page of Cassie's little miracle she got to the next interesting bit. It turned out that the mayor had ordered a full curfew and some sort of "Monster Alarm" to be installed across the city like a old air raid siren. As soon as the demons attacked it was supposed go off, warning people to get undercover.

Faith frowned, it seemed like a good idea, but there was something wrong about it. Then it came to her. Instead of just one little part of the city panicking everyone was going to go crazy. So much for following the screams.

Folding up the newspaper the dark Slayer sighed and looked around as her stomach rumbled. She'd been living out of the backseat of her car for months now. Drifting into a town, slaying vampires and demons before moving on. Now though that had to change. With demons trying to make this place the new party town Faith had to stick around. That meant finding somewhere more permeant to stay and she was getting real tired of living out of her suitcase. She'd found a motel quite quickly, but that had lead to it's own problems.

That was paying for it. Sure the Watcher's Council gave her a bit of cash, but it wasn't anywhere enough to stretch out to more than a motel room and fast food. New clothes, like yesterday's shopping trip, had pretty much wiped out her bank balance. Tucking the newspaper under her arm she checked her pocket. She had enough left for a coffee today and given how she felt now was better than later.

Stretching a kink out of her back Faith headed to the same coffee shop she'd found with Dawn. As she opened the door she noticed something.

There was a notice in the window.

Tommy found Alpha Eight in the Zord hanger. The vast cavern hidden in the hills near the Command Centre. The small robot was over seeing the automatic repair systems as they got to work on the Mastodon and Triceratops Zords.

'How bad is it?' He asked

The little robot shuffled to another console. 'Not too bad. Just the normal wear and tear.'

Tommy watched large mechanical arms swoop overhead and replace armour plates before walking further into the hidden hanger. Deeper inside he looked over the skeletal remains of previous Zords. Beyond the empty shells of the Turbo cars, dormant Zeo Zords and shattered Ninja Zords sat the remains of four Thunder Zords. All that was left of the original Dio-Zords.

Most of their components had been cannibalised to rebuild the Mastodon and Triceratops. There was enough to tell something about each, but what was left wasn't enough to be any use. When Zordon first built the Thunder Zords he used up most of the parts. When they were totalled they had transferred what they could to here and that was that. Parts of giant animas, made from alien alloys, in a jumble. 'We're going to need more firepower.' He said to himself looking at the once forgotten weapons.

'Ay ay ay Tommy, you know better than most, we can't pilot a Zord by remote. Not with only three Rangers and no Zordon.' Alpha said as he followed.

Tommy nodded. The Replica Command Centre didn't have half the equipment they'd need and without Zordon it never would. There was still so much about the technology they didn't know or understand. Between them Tommy and Alpha Eight had enough knowledge to keep things running, but he had to admit to himself it was mostly luck.

Tommy found himself wishing for his old mentor once again, there were so many questions at the moment he didn't even know how to ask; Just how had Dawn recharged the green powers? Where had Cassie got her abilities from, he didn't entirely buy the idea that a virus mutated her somehow. Zordon might not have all the answers but he would at least know where to look. Worst of all Tommy just didn't know what to do.

This new team were so unstable, he could see there were a lot of issues in their past they still had to come to terms with. Problems with themselves and each other they weren't willing to recognise let alone face. They were all so fragile sometimes he felt as if they were made from glass. No amount of training or team building would change that, he could only hope they wouldn't shatter at the worst time and someone would be left to pick up the pieces.

Shaking the troubling thoughts from his head he looked back at Alpha 'We need to find a way. I'm sure, now more than ever, this is still only the beginning.' Tommy said gravely. 'I'll see what I can do about the other coins, later. First we need to call them in.'

Dawn put down her pen and cracked her neck. She had to catch up on three months of lessons as well as training and fighting demonic legions. For the first time she was beginning to understand what her sister had gone through when they moved to Sunnydale.

Not that she was going to apologise for being kind of bratty, but she did sympathise. 'Any luck with the TV?' She asked.

'I'm a doctor Dawn, not a mechanic.' Cassie said. The Blue Ranger had changed the fuse, but that was the extent of either of their technical skills.

'Well you broke it.' She pointed out.

'You want me to continue with you?' Cassie snapped back. 'That I might be able to fix.'

The two looked at each other before they burst out laughing, all tension vanishing. 'God Dawn, what do I do?' Cassie asked when they had caught their breath.

She shook her head. 'I don't know Cassie, this… This media Circus is just going to get worse.'

'But there are people coming from all over, they think I can help them and I can't' Cassie said on the verge of tears. "What can I do?'

Dawn looked back helplessly. She couldn't think of anything. Fortunately their watches beeped, ending the conversation.

End Chapter One