Going to speed things up a bit

Chapter 11

"So that was Darkonda." said Andros. I glanced up at him, nodded and looked down at the computer screen.

"He's the one that I saw hiding in the bushes on that jungle planet."

"And he's the one that had those two Braillian bugs?" asked Carlos.

"Yes." Andros muttered under his breath. TJ spoke up.

"What did you find out about him Amy? I...mean when you scanned him in the last battle?" I glanced at the data that was on my screen.

"He's actually an agent and a bounty hunter for Dark Specter." I cocked my head a bit frowning slightly. Then continued.

"He can travel at high speeds and warp so that he renders himself nearly invisible." I cast a worried look around at my team mates, then straighten my shoulders I went on.

"His known weapon is, of course, his sword, which can lengthen. How, the computer doesn't actually say, but I have a theory that it's able to do that by force of will, kind of like when my own sword powers up." I looked up at all of them, Andros was looking at my computer in fascination.

"And you got all of this when you scanned him?" asked Carlos. I nodded and struggled a bit not to yell at Carlos for asking such an obvious question. I shut my computer and pocketed it.

"So he's a part of Dark Specter's army?" said Andros. The others turned and gave him looks of surprise. I raised an eyebrow.

"Andros, you've must have met Darkonda before, you've been fighting Dark Specter and Astronema a lot longer than we have."

"Although I've heard of Darkonda, this is the first time that I've met him." Andros looked a bit uncomfortable under the others disbelieving looks.

"I totally know where you're coming from Andros. I got a pretty big shock myself when I found out that I had two enemies after me." Andros smiled when everyone's attention was diverted to me. He nodded his thanks.

"Two enemies?" echoed Cassie. I nodded.

"Yes. On one side I had Lord Zedd, who hated me because I had turned traitor and joined up with the Power Rangers. On the other side was Count Dregon, who basically hated me because I was the off spring of an Eltarian and a human."

"Count Dregon and his minions would sometimes call me a 'filthy half ling'".

"How awful." said Cassie. I raised my other eyebrow, mildly surprised that she shown shock that Dregon called me a half ling when she herself had called me a traitor.

"It's alright Cassie, believe me, I've been called worse." She looked a bit uncomfortable.

"Okay, so how powerful is he?" asked Carlos. I turned toward him.

"Well, from the bruises that he gave Andros, he's tough. As for how powerful he is.....the next time we have a one on one battle with him, then we'll know for sure." I paused for a minute. From what my computer has told me, this guy reminds me a bit of Goldar, only without the psychotic pigeon army.

"In the mean time, we should keep on high alert if this guy shows up anywhere during our search for dad." The others nodded. I spun and limped out of the room and down the corridor, silently congratulating myself that I had kept my temper in check. Over the last couple of days, I was liable to snap at every little annoying thing that my team mates would do, I was impatient to resume looking for my father, desperate for any kind of sign that he, though it was impossible, might have left behind, a clue of some sort, sometimes I would try to meditate, in an effort to try to telepathically link myself to him by using my Eltarian powers. But damn it to hell!!!!! I couldn't! Freaking amnesia. I snarled silently, as my fist connected with a portion of the wall. Maybe if I could remember my past from Eltar, this search would be over in a snap. I continued down the hall, not really caring where I was going, only wanting something to do. All we've bieng doing nowadays is fight off monsters, Ecliptor, Quantrons and Darkonda, and frankly....I'M GETTING FREAKING TIRED OF IT. I punched the wall again in frustration. Why doesn't he at least try to contact me? Why doesn't he try to send a message through Dex or King Lexian, or mom or Aisha? Why does the universe have to be so damn big? I sighed and shook my head. A freash wave of anger and frustration bubbled inside of me. If we run into any of those snot nosed losers from Astronema's and Dark Specter's army, do not hold back, unleash all of your anger on them so that you won't end up yelling at your team mates and causing a rift in the team. I focused my thoughts on Goldar. Where is he now? Does he know that I'm on the brink of insanity that I've got no clues, no leads whatsoever to find my father? Does he know that I'm getting closer and closer to exploding with all of my rage, and frustration and that, I might, end up doing something really stupid, that I'll regret for the rest of my life? Is he laughing at me right now? Yeah, I'm pretty sure that wherever he is, he and the Tengu Warriors are laughing at me and having a good time watching me as I grope around in this darkness that they've shoved me in. My hands balled into fists and hatred rose within me. I was actually looking forward to facing Goldar in battle, and began to hope and pray that he would show up. Soon. I thought to myself as I turned a corner. I hope it's soon.

A few days later my team mates decided to take a bit of a breather from searching for my dad, even though I was absolutely against this and tried to convince them that we still needed to continue the search.

"With every moment that we waste, dad could be moving farther and farther away." I wailed. TJ grabbed me by the shoulders.

"Amy listen to me. We all know that you're desperate to find and save your dad, but we've been searching for months with very little leads to go on." I looked at him, mildly surprised that so much time had slipped by.

"We need a bit of a break from all the searching that we have been doing, so we can clear our minds for a bit, try to think of some new places that we haven'tlooked, think up some new questions that we haven't asked, and then we'll resume the search." I looked up at him then after a moment I nodded. We all need vacations every now and then. Irritation and frustration filled me, I leaned against one of the windows of the bridge and sighed. Maybe it's for the best that we take a break from all of our searching. I turned my head slightly to look at my team mates and a prickle of anger went through as I saw the looks of relief on their faces as the prospect of taking a break. I turned my gaze back to space. Even though I would search day and night for dad, turn over each and every stone, never stopping, always searching, ignore trivial things like eating and resting. The others couldn't. They're only human. We landed on a planet that looked like a dessert, nothing but trees, bushes, shrubs and rocks and sand. I arched an eyebrow as I stood with the others in the opening of the hatch.

"We're just going to a bit of exploring, see what's around. Wanna come with?" asked Andros. I shook my head, already slipping into one of my moods.

"Come on." Cassie said, I glared at her. She ignored it.

"You haven't been out of the Mega Ship in a long time Amy, a bit of fresh air will do you wonders." I was about to say no but I relented. I was tired and I was in no mood to fight with Cassie or any of the others. So I just shrugged my shoulders and limped after them. Cassie had a sack in one hand and was swinging it back and forth.

"What's with the sack?" I asked Carlos.

"Oh, that's in case we find anything that looks or seems interesting, we could take it back to the ship and study it. Harmless really." he said with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Hmm." Was all I said, all the while looking at the landscape. Pretty desolate. Wonder how anything can actually grow here. The landscape also seemed to be a tad barren. I sincerely doubt that we're going to find something worth taking back to the ship. This is a break for them? I thought as I watched my team mates step between a couple of boulders and down an incline. Deciding to take a short break from walking and from my team mates, I sat down on a near by flat stone and took out my computer, opening it I began to type in the whereabouts of Goldar. All of this chasing Astromena and Dark Specter is a complete waste of time, it's Goldar that we should really be tracking down and question. He's the one that's behind all of this. I let out a sigh of frustration as my computer came up with a blank of Goldar's whereabouts. Slamming it shut, I tossed it onto the ground and glared at it. Goldar.....Goldar....most of what has been done to me has been his doing. My torture into near madness,, Kimberly's kidnaping, Kat turning against me, Justin's own kidnap and torture, and now....dad. I should have known, why didn't I see? I should have questioned Justin on what he could have possibly told Goldar I should have known that he would have gone after the only living relative that I have. I should have contacted Tentomon, King Lexian, dad himself and warned him. I let out a moan and began to shake my head back and forth. Why didn't I? All of this could have been prevented. I began to think of want could have happened if I had alerted my father of the attack. And that added more to my despair and sorrow.I lifted up my head and looked up at the sky, blinking back tears. Dammit! All this power that I have! All of the friends and allies that I have...and I couldn't....again......damn you!

I pounded my fist on my knee. I could have saved him. I lifted up my head and stared off into the distance. I could have saved a lot of people. I was jerked out of my brooding when I heard the others yelling, I jumped to my feet, bent down, scooped up my computer, shoved it into my pocket and ran to the boulders where I saw my team mates disappear, I paused for a second I was about to leap down the incline when I saw them running up the incline toward me. I leaped back as they all charged past me.
"Hey! What the....? What are you guys....?" They didn't answer me, they only kept on running. I turned my head in the direction where they had come from and saw a dozen or so cloaked beings racing at me. I stared at them as they approached then I looked back at the retreting backs of my team mates. Oh for Pete's sake! I started to leap down but then thought that maybe I could talk to them, tell them that we come in peace and all that, I took another look at my team mates pursuers. Nah, something tells me that they would attack anything that moves, or anything that sets foot on their planet. I leaped down the incline and limped as fast as I could toward them, preforming a baseball slid, I sent one tripping, the other creatures converged on me, I had already leaped to my feet and was spin kicking, high kicking, and tornado kicking the creatures away from me. I fired low powered Power Blasts at them, I also used my powers to fling a couple in the air and away. Enough of this. I began to spin rapidly with my arms folded against my body, I became a blur as I began to make the dust began to lift up and swirled over the creatures obscuring their view, they threw up their arms as I continued to spin lifting up my arms over my head, making the dust swirl around us faster and faster so that the creatures were completely blinded. I quickly slowed down my spinning, morphed the shot off. dodging the stumbling creatures as they bumped into each other or fell, tripping over their own feet as they tried to find a way out of the dust cyclone. I made it out to the fresh air, shot through the two boulders and saw my team mates rushing toward the battle, fully morphed. I demorphed and limped as fast I could toward them.
"Amy! Where are they? Are they after you?" asked Andros as I reached them. I shook my head.
"No, I sent up a dust cyclone to confuse them, come on we should get off this planet, this is a useless fight."
"Useless?" shouted Cassie who bristled. I had given the others shoves toward the Mega Ship. I turned back to her.
"Look we have to get off this planet and leave before that dust cyclone clears and they find us. So shut up Cassie and get on the ship all of you! NOW!" I was already limping toward the Mega Ship and shouting at DECA and A-6 to start the engines. The others ran after me, we all leaped onto the hatch. The engines rumbled, the hatch closed, I turned and was already limping rapidly toward the bridge. I reached it and slid into a chair.
"DECA on screen!" I shouted, without hesitation the screen cleared and showed the outside, I saw the creatures had already cleared the boulders and were heading our way!
"DECA take off!" I ordered. The ship began to slowly rise into the air and for a split second I thought that we were safe but then everything began to shake and tremble, and the ship began to lurch to one side ever so slightly. Great. They caught up with us. I got off of the chair and charged back down the hall and toward the hatch where my teammates were and were battling the creatures, a couple of them had even managed to climb onto the ship and were trying to get in! That's the last time that I go easy on anybody. I thought as I charged and kicked one off of Carlos, I yanked Cassie back from the edge and threw bodily threw her further into the ship, the bag that she had brought with her banged into my leg.
"Cassie get rid of that bag." I snapped as I fired a Power Blast at one that was hanging onto the edge of the hatch. It didn't let out a sound as it flew off. The ship lurched again, we all cried out as the ship slid into a slight nose dive, I grabbed onto the others as they nearly followed the creature that I had sent flying.
"DECA, please tell me that they are not weighing the ship down."
"They are not weighing the ship down." DECA said simply though I thought I caught a hint of sarcasm. I yanked my friends back as far as I could.
"Get to the bridge and stay there."
"What are you going to do?" asked TJ. Isn't it obvious?
"I'm going to save our butts. After I go, I want you to close the hatch so that none of those other things get in." I turned and limped out of the hatch and leaped off it!
"Amy!" shouted my team mates. They struggled not to go sliding after me, turning, they began to fight the gravity that threatened to pull them down into the open hatch way and into space. They made it to the bridge and Andros immediately brought up the screen to show me flying around and blasting off the creatures that were on the ship and were tearing it apart. I flew here and there, firing, kicking, punching, levitating and flinging. they saw that some of the creatures would be foolish enough to leap off the ship and fly at me, I would either dodge them or give them a good hard punch to the gut or face and then send them reeling back to their planet. Finally the ship was creature- free and no longer weighed down. The hatch was opened and I stepped onto the ship again, they were all waiting for me at the bridge, they all crowded around me. I waved off thier gratitude.
"Hey, no prob guys." I turned to Cassie and grinned at her. I felt a bit better after that fight.
"You were right Cassie, going outside the ship was the best thing for me, thanks." I patted her shoulder.
"You're welcome. I think." She said with some confusion. Andros was asking DECA about the amount of damage that those creatures made to the ship. She quickly ran a list. Electric malfunctions on MegaDecks 4, 6, 2, stabilizers were offline and the accelerators were overheating. He nodded.

"Thanks DECA." I volunteered to fix the malfunctions on the MegaDecks, TJ and Carlos were going to get the accelerators cooled down As I was leaving I heard Andros say something about "a sample." I also Cassie saying that she'll go get it and I vaguely wondered what they had gotten. Forty minutes later, I put my hands on my hips and surveyed my repair job. Everything is fixed here. I limped out of room and continued down the hall, now maybe we can finally get back to the search. As I returned to the bridge wondering if the others had managed to fully repair what had been damaged, I received a surprise when I saw that everyone was crowded around Andros.

"What's going on?" I asked looking around at all of them. They turned toward me, Cassie took a step toward me and explained what had happen only a few minutes ago. She had been attacked by a monster that had damaged the engines hull that had come from a pod that Cassie had found on the planet that we had just left.

"The pod was open and the monster just flew at me. I managed to get the cargo bay doors open and sent that thing out into space." She paused and looked at me.

"Glad that you're alright." was all I said. She blinked then continued to explain that she had noticed a hidden door that had sprung open, she had came back, alerted the others and went inside the room to see a healing chamber, inside that chamber, in a cryogenic tube was a Silver Ranger. I raised an eyebrow as mild surprise went through me, I turned to Andros and eyed him curiously. He cleared his throat and began telling me that the Silver Ranger was his best friend Zhane, and that two years ago he and Zhane had been fighting to protect KO-35 from Dark Specter and his armies. They had been outnumbered and outmatched, Andros had nearly been killed by a monster but Zhane had leaped in front of him and taken the blow. I sucked in a breath, horror going through. To watch your best friend be killed right in front of you. I closed my eyes briefly as an image of Tommy lying on the grass that was stained with his blood flashed through my mind. I opened my eyes again and Andros continued.

"Zhane was barley alive when I brought him on the ship and placed him in the cryogenic tube to keep him alive. He's been in hyper sleep ever since." He paused for a bit then turned his face away from us while he blinked rapidly. Cassie went over to him and put her arms around him. The others and I looked at each other, not really knowing what to say. The ship began to rock and tremble suddenly, all of us cried out as we took a tumble and the ship began to go down. Oh, Lord what now? I struggled to my feet and managed to levitate my team mates a foot or so off the ground. Finally we came to a crashing halt and the bridge went pitch dark. I set my team mates on the ground and at the same time the lights flash on.

"Let me guess, we've just landed on the planet that we've barely escaped from."

"Yes." replied DECA. I scowled. Then I cracked my knuckles.

"Hostile aliens approaching." Without another word, other than to preform a full damage scan on the ship later, we morphed and took off. Down the hall, and out the hatch door.We saw a full army of the creatures that I had battled racing towards us.

"Hi!" I called to them, already powering up.

"Remember me?" I saw that some of them did remember and had frozen in their tracks only to be blasted into the air. I hadn't noticed the monster that was busily knocking the living daylights out of Cassie, after it had thrown her down it raced toward me. I so don't have time for this.

"You want a piece of me little man?" I raced at the monster and my fist connected with its gut, I dropped down and swept it's legs from underneath it. Leaping up I took out my sword and was prepared to finish it when I happened to look up. And saw that a couple of the creatures were running up the hatch and into the MegaShip, and I saw that more of them were tearing and ripping at the outside. I heard Andros order DECA to seal everything that was inside the Ship. While I had been distracted I found myself flat on my back facing the sky with a sharp pain coming from my mid section and my chin. The monster had attacked me, fled and gone to attack the others, I rolled onto my side and raised myself to my knees. Stupid! Never take your eyes off your enemy. One of the creatures was racing toward me I raised my left arm and blocked it's kicks, with my right hand I grabbed its other leg and pulled causing him to preform a backflip. Rising to my feet I sent it spinning in a wide circle that continued to become wider and wider knocking out the other creatures that were attacking my team mates. With a flick of my hand, I sent him careening into a boulder, it slid down and lay on its back unmoving. I looked around, we were still pretty much outnumbered. I'll take care of this. I began to spin, and in doing so I lifted up my arms over my head, my hands glowing with power.

I stopped in mid-spin and spreading out my arms. The blast spread out and the creatures were either knocked down or tumbled through the air. I straighten and stared at them at those left that were still standing.

"Now, do you really want to continue?" In answer the creatures turned tail and ran. I laughed to myself and turned to the others, only to have my smile completely wiped off of my mouth. The monster! It was still standing! It must have dodged the attack somehow. It started to charge when it stopped and stared at something near the ship. Turning we all let out gasps as we watched several of the creatures that had ran into the ship come flying out. Andros muttered.

"It can't be." It was the Silver Ranger that the others told me about, standing on the hatch doorway and looking at the scene before him.

"Andros?" He looked toward the rest of us.

"Who are these people?" Before we could answer, the monster had resumed it's charge. The Silver Ranger flipped over it, turned and began to, basically treat the monster like a punching back, the others and I stayed out of the fight. This Ranger was something all right, the way he moved, dodged, spun and ducked the monster's punches and kicks. It seemed as if he were enjoying the fight itself for he kept laughing sometimes. Spinning around several times so that he ended up a few feet away from the monster, the Ranger held out his right arm

"Super Silverizer!" He shouted and a blade appeared on his arm, holding it in front of him the Ranger charged at the monster and began to slash at him. With the way that the monster yelled, it was safe to assume that the Ranger...I mean Zhane was hitting it at all the right places. After a few more blows to the torso, the monster looked as if were done and fell backward, Zhane turned his back on it and it exploded. We all rushed toward him, and we were about to congratulate him and introduce ourselves when we heard a roar. I leaped over everyone else, pulling out my sword and powering it up, I slashed at the resurrected monster, combining the attack with a Ranger kick It exploded, and after a few moments of watching and making sure that the monster could no longer come back to life, I sheathed my sword and turned back to the others. There will be none of that thank you.