Worlds, Times and Distances Apart
A Power Rangers Fanfiction
by Lauraac2110
Chapter 8: The Waiting Game
Outside Corinth City, Brachiozord Command Centre, Infirmary, mid-afternoon
Tommy sat quietly at Kimberly's bedside. There were still no signs of either Kimberly or Billy arousing from their unconsciousness and this worried Tommy a little. On a more positive note, he was glad to be able to finally get some rest as he waited at Kimberly's bedside because of the fact that today had taxed his strength considerably.
IRMA, to his surprise, was typing up notes at the computer terminal as he looked over to her. She was also simultaneously familiarising herself with the medical records for the Power Rangers, and their associated non-Rangers, who were currently residing in the Brachiozord. As Tommy sighed, she looked up from her work at him.
"Tommy, are you all right?" she asked with concern laced in her voice. Tommy smiled sadly back at her.
"No, I'm not," he replied truthfully. "IRMA, do you think that they will recover from this?"
IRMA smiled. "I know that Billy will live but, as for Kimberly, I..." Her expression altered to one of sadness as her smile vanished. Tommy knew exactly what she didn't want to say to him; Kimberly was an entirely different matter. Whether she was going to survive or not was still unclear to them both.
Tommy, though, tried to be optimistic about Kimberly's survival chances. "I won't give up on her. I've still got to believe that Kimberly will wake up soon, IRMA."
IRMA's smile returned again because of Tommy's strong optimism. "Yes, Tommy, all we can do is hope that she'll make it," she agreed.
Outside Corinth City, Brachiozord Command Centre, Ninjazord hangar, mid-afternoon
The essential repairs on the Falconzord continued down in the Ninjazord hangar. Most of the external and internal damage to the wings had now been repaired but the work on the intricate, and burnt to a crisp in most places, circuitry inside the Zord was just about to begin as Dr K. ran a diagnostics check to assess how the repairs were going.
"Repairs have fixed 60% of the damage to the Falconzord," Dr K. informed them as Gem and Gemma took off an exterior panel so that they could reach the main section of the damaged circuitry. On the other side of the Falconzord, Anton and Tenaya 15 took off the other panel and all of them began to examine the circuitry. As the extent of the damage became clear to them, they grimaced as it didn't look good at all. Most of the wires were broken in half and several of the main circuit boards had been burnt beyond repair. The worst one affected, the most complicated and most important of all the circuit boards, was the Zord controls circuit and they knew that their only option was to replace it because of how badly damaged the majority of it was.
"Dr K., it's going to take a great deal of work to repair the damage to the circuitry by the looks of things," Tenaya 15 said critically as she examined the damage. "Most of the circuits will have to be ripped out and replaced because they're just too badly damaged to repair. Then, once we've replaced them, we'll have to test all of the systems one by one to make sure that they're working correctly."
"It looks likely that it's going to be a rather difficult task which could take us until the end of the day to complete," Anton added.
"How long it takes us to repair the damage is irrelevant. If it takes us until the end of the day to finish the repairs then we won't stop working on the Falconzord until the repairs are complete. We've got to repair the damage done to the Falconzord as quickly as we possibly can so that it's fully functional and available for use because evil could, if it wanted to, strike at any moment now. After repairing this Zord, we can get back to the work on the Triceratops Dinozord," Dr K. snapped.
"K.!" Gemma said disapprovingly.
"Be nice," Gem added.
There was silence for a few seconds before Tenaya 15, with a sigh, left to collect the materials which she had calculated they would require to fix the Falconzord's circuitry. After she was gone, Gem and Gemma began to grow uncomfortable with the silence in the room as they started to help Anton remove the burnt circuitry. In an attempt to start an interesting conversation, Gemma decided to say the first thing that came into her head out loud.
"Will Tommy be ok? He seemed sad when he told us about Kimberly," Gemma asked as she removed one of the fried circuit boards.
"Yeah he did, didn't he?" Gem agreed after he took a short moment to think about her words before he spoke as he managed to remove the Zord Controls circuit.
"He'll be fine," Anton assured them both. Gem and Gemma both nodded in reply which suggested to him that they believed his assurances. To be honest, though, Anton wasn't sure if he believed himself any more because he wasn't sure if he knew anything about Tommy Oliver at all. He had known Tommy for many years but, up until today whilst they were in the Ninjazord hangar together, Anton had never seen him act the way that he did towards Kimberly before.
Outside Corinth City, Brachiozord Command Centre, Dino Thunder base, mid-afternoon
They had returned to "Power Rangers: The Journeys" almost as soon as they had returned to the Brachiozord because all of them had found nothing better to do with themselves.
Ziggy, Kira and Trent had unanimously agreed to continue playing on from the point where the game had been shut down by the system. Now, several minutes later, they were enjoying themselves quite a great deal as they started to get back into the game. Kira and Trent were playing better than they had the last time, as they had now become used to the controls, but Ziggy was still dominating the game with the highest score and the best moves out of the three of them.
"Take that putties!" Ziggy exclaimed as he took out another group of putties that had surrounded Zack in the game during another battle with evil.
From where she sat, Summer was extremely curious about the game as she watched the three of them playing it. Normally, she wouldn't be at all interested in computer games but this game was an entirely different matter. It was an exact history of the Power Rangers, from the Original Power Rangers to the RPM Power Rangers, without anything added to, or taken away from, what had actually happened to each group of the Power Rangers. Summer, like most of the Power Rangers who weren't part of the Original team, wanted to know the entire story. She wanted to know about their entire legacy, from beginning to end, and she wanted to be able to understand what it truly meant to be a Power Ranger. Of course, defeating evil and saving innocents were part of this meaning but they weren't the only parts to being a Power Ranger because there was, in reality, so much more to the job but Summer still couldn't quite understand what other things there were.
Kira and Trent were slightly annoyed at Ziggy as he celebrated the fact that he was winning by doing a strange little victory dance despite the fact everyone was staring at him. Summer, however, just smiled at this as it had been a long time since Summer had really seen Ziggy enjoying himself, because, after all, Ziggy had been on the run for double-crossing Fresno Bob for most of his active service, and his happiness lifted her spirits just for a moment. She forgot everything that was happening now because being there to Summer, as she watched them play, felt like she was just a normal person spending some time with friends. However, the full weight of the burden of being a Power Ranger soon returned which caused her warm smile to vanish again.
Outside Corinth City, Brachiozord Command Centre, Training Gym, mid-afternoon
Scott and Flynn continued to work through the basic stances of a Pai Zhua cub by following RJ's examples of the techniques and had already begun to master the basics. They had been training for several hours without any rest but neither of them were complaining about the exhaustion that they were beginning to feel to RJ. This fact quite impressed him as Cubs at their level usually did do a great deal of complaining and didn't usually show the high level of discipline that they were both showing to him during this lesson until much further into their training to become Pai Zhua Masters.
"Very good, gentlemen," RJ said with a smile as he decided to make things more difficult. He showed them a slightly more difficult move, an aerial spin dodge which happened to also be Trent's morphing sequence, and challenged them to give it a try. Neither Scott nor Flynn could manage it and Dillon, who had just entered the Training Gym as they made their attempts, couldn't help but chuckle at their attempts. RJ turned sharply to him.
"Forgive me, master, for my intrusion," Dillon said as he bowed his head in a gesture of respect towards RJ before he approached them. "May I?"
"Go ahead," RJ replied with a gesture to him to make an attempt. Dillon nodded.
He made sure that he had enough space to execute the move before he pulled it off flawlessly and landed in the correct position without injuring himself.
Scott and Flynn stood staring at Dillon in shock and were unable to say anything because they hadn't expected Dillon to pull it off. RJ, however, just smiled as he had learned quite quickly as a Pai Zhua Master to never judge a book by its cover.
"Will you honour me, Dillon, by allowing me to test your skills?" he asked formally. Dillon nodded.
"I won't go easy on you," Dillon warned as he got into a battle stance. Scott and Flynn quickly got out of the way, by moving to stand by the door, to allow RJ and Dillon room to fight each other and to make sure that they didn't get hurt during the battle between them both.
Both RJ and Dillon circled each other until, eventually, Dillon struck first to start their fight. Blows were dodged, and landed, by both sides but, after a while, RJ decided to resort to the same trick that he had employed when he had fought against Scott and Flynn because he has realised that this battle could go on forever as they were so equally matched. He leapt back out of Dillon's reach before Dillon could realise what he was about to do and prepared to unleash his animal spirit against Dillon to see how he would handle it.
"Call to the spirit within, unleash the Wolf!" RJ called as he unleashed his Wolf spirit.
"Look out, Dillon!" Scott exclaimed. Flynn turned away as he was unable to watch as the Wolf leapt towards Dillon. At that moment, it seemed like the battle was over.
"That's going to hurt," Flynn grimaced. Dillon, however, was unafraid. He quickly erected an invincibility shield to protect himself and the Wolf spirit bounced harmlessly off the invincibility shield as it attacked him. RJ couldn't help but smile about Dillon's ingenious response to his attack and he could see that Dillon was much more like the wolf than he realised.
"Enough," RJ said to end the battle. "I've seen enough of your skills, Dillon, and I must say that I'm impressed. Both Scott and Flynn would do well to take lessons from you because you're proof that having the skills and being prepared for the unexpected will change the odds in battle towards your favour."
"Thank you, RJ," Dillon replied. "If it's all right with you, I wish to join your lesson today so that I can improve my technique a little further."
"You're welcome to, Dillon. Maybe I should have started with something slightly easier as it seems that I made things too difficult for both Scott and Flynn. We'll go through the Wolf stances first and deal with the more complex stances later," RJ assured politely. "Just follow my lead as usual."
He then quickly entered the stances of the Wolf and, after watching him for a moment, Dillon, Flynn and Scott quickly followed his lead. These were the easiest stances for RJ because he was a Wolf Master so he found his rhythm quickly and his students soon managed to do the same. As he continued through the stances, RJ thought of his former students, and Dominic, and vowed to himself that he would find them no matter where they were in the world at that moment. His guilt about leaving them behind, because his Wolf spirit had forced him to survive, was great but he vowed also that he would make it up to them and that he would never let his Wolf spirit force him to flee from their side in times of great need again.
Outside Corinth City, Brachiozord Command Centre, Ninjazord hangar, mid-afternoon
"Repairs have now fixed 75% of the damage to the Falconzord. We've got to keep going," Dr K. said as she ran the diagnostic checks again after they had just replaced some of the fried circuitry and had removed all of the burnt boards.
"Dr K., can you come over here to help me with the Zord Controls circuit? I don't know where I should be linking this wire up to," Anton asked as he looked up over the Falconzord to her from where he was working to connect up the Zord Controls circuit to the rest of the main circuits. He had a look of utter confusion on his face. She nodded in reply.
"Yes, what seems to be the problem?" she asked as she went over to help him with a smile on her face.
Outside Corinth City, Brachiozord Command Centre, mid-afternoon
Cestria was at the console using the technology of the Brachiozord to search for any former Power Rangers as Alpha entered the Command Centre with two men following him close behind. They were looking around in awe and Zordon, who turned his head to see what the commotion was, shook his head as he recognised them both almost instantaneously.
"Well, well, well... Bulk and Skull. I never expected to see both of you again," Zordon said. "Fate has been kind to both of you indeed."
"I'm sorry, Zordon, but I had to bring them in here after I heard their tale for myself. The contents of their tale concerned me so much that I felt that you had to hear about what has happened to them over the last day or two," Alpha replied.
"You know of us both?" Bulk asked in surprise.
"Who can forget both of you? I, like my Power Rangers, used to often find your antics amusing," Zordon smiled as he gestured to them. "Please, I wish to hear your tale."
Both Bulk and Skull quickly told Zordon everything about how they arrived in Corinth. At the very end, Zordon was rather grim as he stood up to go to Cestria's side.
"Fetch Tommy, Cestria. He must be told of this news at once," Zordon commanded.
"He's definitely here?" Bulk and Skull said in unison. Cestria nodded.
"At once, Zordon," she replied instantly before she quickly hurried away to the Infirmary to fetch him.
Outside Corinth City, Brachiozord Command Centre, Infirmary, mid-afternoon
As Billy began to stir, Tommy quickly scrambled out of the chair to go to his bedside and IRMA followed close behind him. Tommy hoped that he hadn't imagined it when he had seen Billy turn his head ever so slightly as he sat there otherwise he would be bitterly disappointed with himself for getting his own hopes up.
"Billy," Tommy said softly. "Come on, Billy, wake up."
At that moment, Billy shot up into a sitting position as he opened his eyes and groaned.
"What happened?" he asked Tommy after he had taken a few moments to adjust to the unfamiliar surroundings.
"You were knocked out during the travel between dimensions, Billy. Rito fought against me on the wings of the Falconzord but he managed to escape before I could stop him. We wouldn't be here right now if Anton hadn't used my morpher, and the Tigerzord, to rescue us because Rito seriously damaged the Falconzord which led to it almost crashing into a building. Scorpina appeared whilst we were in the dark dimension and Anton destroyed her but, apart from these things, you haven't missed much," Tommy replied before he added as an afterthought. "Oh, and this is IRMA, our resident cyborg and medical expert, if you were wondering where she came from."
Billy nodded.
"And Kimberly?" he asked with concern. Tommy moved aside to reveal that she was still lying on the bed unconscious behind him.
"She's still in a really bad way but I still hope that she'll make it," Tommy replied quietly.
Billy frowned before he quickly looked away from her again as he couldn't bear the sight of his old friend in such a bad state.
"At least she's still alive," Billy said finally.
He powered down at that moment just as Cestria rushed in to tell Tommy that Zordon wanted him. When she saw that Billy was awake, she embraced her husband fondly and kissed him on the cheek.
"My husband, I'm glad to see that you're awake," she smiled before she turned to Tommy. "I've got urgent news, Tommy. Zordon wants you to come to the Command Centre immediately."
"What has happened?" Tommy asked.
"I'm not supposed to tell you, Tommy. You've got to go up to the main Command Centre immediately to find out for yourself. It might be best that Billy goes with you as well," Cestria replied evasively. "Don't worry, I'll stay with Kimberly until you return."
As Billy got off of his bed, Tommy sighed. "We had better go see why Zordon wants me. It must be something important, which he doesn't want the others to know about, if he sent you to fetch me and didn't just use the inbuilt communications system instead."
They both left at that moment but, before he vanished down the corridor, Tommy stopped to take one last look at Kimberly's peaceful face in case it was the last time he ever saw it.
"He really cares for her, doesn't he?" IRMA asked as soon as he as he vanished. Cestria nodded.
"Yes, I think that Tommy really does care for Kimberly too. My husband often told me that he had never seen anyone else who were as close as they were. Billy could never understand why they split up in the first place because it was clear to everyone around them that they were made for each other," Cestria replied quietly. "Tommy's feelings for her are starting to emerge again but we won't know if their feelings for each other are mutual or not until Kimberly wakes up."
Outside Corinth City, Brachiozord Command Centre, late afternoon
As soon as Tommy entered the Command Centre, his expression lit up and he smiled as he saw Bulk and Skull waiting for him. Billy, however, groaned as the distant memory of their persecution of him during his high school years came back to the forefront of his mind.
"Tommy," Bulk greeted. Tommy embraced the pair of them fondly.
"Bulk, Skull, it's really nice to see you guys again," he replied. "After everything that had happened over the past two years, I never expected to see both of you ever again."
"The feeling is mutual, Tommy. The word across the labour camps was that you were dead," Bulk replied.
"Yeah," Skull added in agreement before both of them turned their attention to Billy.
"We never expected to find out that you were a Power Ranger, Billy, but it's nice to see you too," Bulk smiled.
"Yeah," Skull agreed. "It's nice to see you, Billy."
"Wait, I never told you guys about Billy," Tommy interrupted. He was puzzled by the fact that they knew that Billy was a Power Ranger as well.
"It's a long story," Bulk assured. "You see we were prisoners of those robotic... What do you call them?"
"Grinders," Billy supplied.
"Grinders for the best part of the past two years. We were in the same labour camp as your friends, Kira, Trent and Anton..." Bulk continued.
"Wait, how do you know about them being my friends?" Tommy interrupted.
"He's getting to that bit," Skull assured.
"Anyway," Bulk continued again, "We were in that camp when that monster... What was his name?"
"Zeltrax," Billy supplied.
"Right, Zeltrax was his name. Anyway, he appeared out of nowhere yesterday, right in the middle of the labour camp, and quickly started trashing it for fun. Then, he spotted someone he recognised, a woman, Hayley was her name, and abducted her because of the fact that she was also one of your friends, or so Zeltrax said anyway, and he knew that taking her would mean that you would go after him as soon as you found out. Then, he vanished into thin air and left the camp in general anarchy," Bulk continued. "As for us, we fled the camp and ended up hiding underneath a prisoner van which you, Billy, stole from the Grinders. Once you were done with it, we borrowed it so that we could make our way towards Corinth using a map we found. And, that is really all you need to know about our story."
Tommy grew distant, angry and troubled after they had finished their tale. He quickly turned away from them in an attempt to hide his feelings from Zordon. Both Bulk and Skull were slightly surprised by Tommy's disturbing behaviour as they had never seen him act this way before. Zordon, however, saw right through Tommy's attempt to mask his dangerous emotions.
"Tommy, thoughts of anger and vengeance must be put aside regardless of how evil Zeltrax may be," Zordon warned.
"I know," Tommy replied as he took a deep breath to try to calm himself down. "I don't want to fight Zeltrax, regardless of how angry he makes me sometimes, but I know that I won't have any other choice because he still seeks revenge against me. And I know that he'll be merciless to all who stand in his way whilst he pursues me. Hayley's in a great deal of danger in his hands, Zordon, just because he's so ruthless so I'll have to get her back from him as quickly as possible before he hides her away somewhere where I can't find her. It just doesn't help that Goldenrod is out there searching for his father as well because there will be nowhere that I can hide to escape from their wrath if the two of them get together again."
He paused for a long moment. "The only thing which I just haven't worked out is how I'm going to rescue her, yet. Hayley hasn't got a lot of time but I won't be leaving until Kimberly wakes up."
Alpha shrugged. "We can work out the details later on, Tommy. By the way, the diagnostic checks found some slight structural damage to the Brachiozord but I repaired the damage as soon as the diagnostic checks brought it to my attention."
"Thanks, Alpha," Tommy said. "Bulk, Skull, I promise you that I'll find some sort of reward for both of you for your information. Without you guys risking your lives to warn me, I wouldn't know about Zeltrax capturing Hayley right now. Billy, would you please show them to a room somewhere so that they can get cleaned up? I need to get back to Kimberly."
Billy nodded. "I will, Tommy. Bulk, Skull, come with me as I know just the place for both of you."
"I'll see you later, guys," Tommy assured as he left to return to the infirmary. Bulk, Skull and Billy left soon after and headed in a different direction from Tommy.
Outside Corinth City, Brachiozord Command Centre, Dino Thunder base, late afternoon, at that moment
At that moment, they had reached the part of the story where Tommy showed up in Angel Grove. He wasn't the evil Green Ranger yet and they were now at the part where he defended Kimberly from Bulk and Skull, the bullies of Angel Grove, by threatening them with his martial arts moves. Both Kira and Trent couldn't help but giggle when they saw Tommy's previous hairstyle as they thought that it looked rather stupid. Summer was the only one who an attempt to defend his choice of hairstyle because even Ziggy was sniggering slightly about it.
"... He may look different to the Tommy Oliver he is now but he's still the same person. He's still as honourable as he was back then," Summer was saying. "He may look a little silly but I can assure both of you that his hairstyle back then was likely to have been fashionable in those days. Many people would have worn that exact look."
Kira and Trent, however, couldn't stop giggling about it.
"I'm sorry, Summer, but you still can't deny that he looks really silly with that haircut," Kira replied.
"So?" Ziggy replied as he shrugged. "The events of the past shape us into the people we are today. His silly haircut back then will have taught him never to have his hair cut in that style again. Hence, he must have had his hair cut short at some point to the way it is now."
Everyone looked to Ziggy as they were stunned because he had never shown a high level of wisdom before. The fact that he was actually capable of being rather sensible was something that none of them could actually believe. They just stared at him whilst unable to say anything because they were that stunned. After a few moments, Ziggy quickly grew uncomfortable under their glares.
"I'm not always the idiot, you know," he said trying to justify his words. "I can be sensible too."
Summer couldn't help but laugh at this. Ziggy turned to say something to her in reply to her laughter but, before he could, he tripped over the corner of the bedpost and quickly landed flat on his face. Everyone else burst into fits of laughter about his misfortune at that moment and Ziggy just sighed. After all this time, he was used to being laughed at because of his stupid mistakes anyway and anything which stopped them from staring at him was definitely a good thing.
Outside Corinth City, Brachiozord Command Centre, Ninjazord hangar, late afternoon
"Repairs have now fixed 90% of the damage to the Falconzord. We have got to keep going as we are almost done," Dr K. urged as she finished yet another diagnostics check. Gem and Gemma, who were beginning to get bored, groaned at this news.
"Must we continue, K.?" Gem asked.
"We're getting rather tired," Gemma added in complaint.
"It's imperative that the Falconzord is fully operational as quickly as possible so the answer to your question is yes. We must keep going until the repairs are complete," she replied. They both groaned at her reply and vowed that they would never do this sort of thing again unless it was an absolute emergency before they started work on the final few repairs which needed to be done to the Falconzord so that it would be declared to be fully operational. After this, they both planned to take a nice long nap to recover from all the hard work they had done.
Outside Corinth City, Brachiozord Command Centre, Bulk and Skull's base, late afternoon
As Bulk and Skull entered, they instantly saw that Tommy had gotten the design of their room exactly right for their tastes. The walls were purple. The furniture was contemporary and a silvery colour. There was a black carpet and there were a number of arcade games sitting at one side of the room for them to use when they got bored. They had two bathrooms and a deluxe fridge which, to Bulk's disappointment, was unfortunately devoid of content. Skull threw open the wardrobe to find, to his great pleasure, clothing to his tastes which looked likely to fit him perfectly.
Billy stood by the door with a smile as he allowed them both to look around and settle in for a moment. When they turned to him, he could tell by the expressions on their faces that they really liked their room because they were grinning madly.
"I'm glad that you both like it, guys, but I can't stay here with you both. Both of you need to get cleaned up and I need to go to Kimberly's bedside. I'll come back for you at dinner to take you up to our dining and planning room," Billy said.
They shrugged. "It's all right, Billy, we understand that your close friends come first. If Kimberly wakes, say hi to her from us," Bulk assured.
"Yeah," Skull agreed. "And tell her that we'll come visit her soon."
Billy nodded. "I'll tell her, guys. Enjoy your room."
He left them then. This gave Bulk and Skull a chance to enjoy the delights of luxury which they had missed over the last two years so desperately. The first thing on their agenda, was the luxury that they had so desperately missed the most, a bath.
Outside Corinth City, Brachiozord Command Centre, Ninjazord hangar, late afternoon
"That's us finished now. Repairs have fixed all the damage done to the Falconzord," Dr K. announced as Anton fixed the last panel back into place on the side of the Falconzord. The golden eyes of the Falconzord were trying to convey its gratitude to all of its repair crew but only Tenaya 15 smiled at it in reply as she seemingly understood what it was trying to say to all of them.
Gem and Gemma celebrated the fact that they had finished their work and that they could now go away to do something more interesting with a few cheers. However, Dr K., who had instantly turned her attention back to reconstruction of the Triceratops Dinozord, was about to ruin their celebrations with her next announcement.
"We can leave the test flight to Tommy or another of the Power Rangers but, for now, we've got to get back to working upon the Triceratops Dinozord. With Gem and Gemma's assistance, we should be able to finish the outer shell of the Zord tonight," Dr K. continued.
Anton smiled as Gem and Gemma groaned once again at her words. Dr K. had roped them into helping her and they knew that there was no way that they would be able to find a way to get out of it. They were stuck doing a boring job for another long while and, as they followed Dr K., Tenaya 15 and Anton Mercer to the Zord Construction Bay, they reminded themselves that they would never do this sort of work again if they were ever asked to volunteer themselves for other projects in the future.
Outside Corinth City, Brachiozord Command Centre, Infirmary, early evening, at that moment
Tommy instantly looked up, from where he sat in a chair at Kimberly's bedside, as he heard a soft groan escape Kimberly's pale cracked lips.
"IRMA!" he called instantly in excitement. "I think that Kimberly's waking up!"
IRMA instantly scrambled away from her work to come over to her bedside as Kimberly opened her eyes.
"Tommy," she smiled weakly. Tommy instantly embraced her. He was reduced to tears and, forgetting himself, he kissed her on the cheek.
"Kimberly, we were really worried about you," he said. "We didn't know if you would ever wake up again or not."
Kimberly blushed at his kiss. "Tommy, you're hurting me," she warned as she winced.
Instantly, he let go of her and regained his composure as he realised that he had made several mistakes.
"I'm sorry, Kimberly," he apologised. "I should have thought about my actions first."
"Where are we?" she asked as she looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings. She had decided to change the subject to something else because she was starting to feel rather uncomfortable about their current topic.
As Billy entered and noticed that Kimberly was awake, Tommy smiled. "It's a long story but I'll explain everything to you right now. You see..."
Outside Corinth City, Brachiozord Command Centre, in the corridor outside the Infirmary, early evening, at that very moment
Zordon watched the touching scene in the infirmary with a warm smile on his face. Although he had promised not to intervene, Zordon couldn't help himself as he didn't want Kimberly's life to be left to fate. He was paying for it now because it had absolutely exhausted him but that didn't matter too much to Zordon at all. He knew that he couldn't completely drain his energy as he wasn't stuck in an energy tube any more but he was determined to do whatever he could to help Tommy and the other Power Rangers regardless of the risks to his health. Both Alpha and Cestria had tried to talk him out of healing Kimberly only a few moments beforehand but Zordon had overruled them and, now, as he watched Tommy and Billy tell Kimberly everything with warm smiles on their faces, he was glad that he had ignored their warnings because any small happiness during this long war was to be treasured. He knew that there would be a great deal of misery and misfortune to come later on for everyone so anything that he could do to put a smile on their faces was well worth the consequences.
After watching them for another minute, Zordon turned to make his way straight back up to the Command Centre so that they did not catch him in the act of healing Kimberly. If Tommy or Billy ever found out that he had healed Kimberly, he knew that he would worry them and Zordon didn't want to burden them with unnecessary worries any more than he had to during this war. Only IRMA saw the white robe he was wearing as he walked away from the Infirmary and she couldn't help but sigh about his intervention.
Sometimes, Zordon was like a god as he had the power to choose who lived and who died during crucial moments. As he walked away, IRMA wondered about how awful it must be to be burdened with that sort of gift. Little did she realise at that moment that someone else who had a similar gift to Zordon's was right under her nose.
Outside Corinth City, Brachiozord Command Centre, Ranger Planning Room, mid-evening, some time later
Sitting there as she ate her soup, Kira looked around the room to the other Power Rangers. It was only then that she noticed that several people who were supposed to be there were missing as both Tommy and Billy's chairs were empty and Zordon was nowhere to be seen. The other Power Ranger didn't seem to have registered this fact yet so she decided to make them aware of it.
"Guys, did you notice that Tommy, Billy and Zordon aren't here?" she asked. Everyone else shrugged.
"I didn't. I wonder where they are," Summer replied as Alpha entered. He was helping Cestria to carry the trays with more bowls of soup upon them. As Alpha helped Cestria hand them out, he decided to tell them where those missing from dinner were to stop them from worrying about Tommy, Billy and Zordon.
"Zordon is resting, Power Rangers. Cestria and I prevailed upon him to get some sleep after we noticed that he could barely stay awake when he returned to the Command Centre after going to fetch something for me from the Storage Bay. I shouldn't have let him do it, Rangers, but he wouldn't be swayed from helping me," Alpha lied. In reality, they both knew that Zordon had gone to heal Kimberly but Alpha 5 had to lie to them so that Tommy didn't find out the truth from their lips. "As for the others, Billy brought Bulk and Skull up here and gave Anton his Wolf Power Coin before he left to be with Tommy. They are both with Kimberly right now and they're sorry that they couldn't make it up here to have dinner with you all."
"Thanks for letting us know, Alpha," Kira smiled as she suddenly glanced to Bulk and Skull over beside Tenaya 15. They were both eating their fill and had already polished off several bowls of Cestria's nutritious soup. Tenaya 15 ignored them as she was absolutely disgusted by their greediness. Instead, she was talking to Dr K. and Anton about progress that they had made during the reconstruction of the Triceratops Dinozord.
"Wow, who knew that anyone could eat that much?" she whispered to Trent. He shrugged.
"I know," he replied. "I guess that they're just eating to make up for all the days that they haven't had access to good tasty food over the past two years. They'll stop being greedy in a few days I'm sure."
"Hey RJ, can I ask something?" Scott asked suddenly. RJ, who had been sitting contemplating the fate of his friends and his mistakes up until Scott had snapped him out of his thoughts, looked up from his uneaten bowl of soup.
"Yes, ask away," he replied calmly.
"We wondering about your time as a Power Ranger. Can you tell us about some of your adventures?" Scott said.
RJ shook his head before he stood. "I'm afraid, my friends, I don't want to talk about them," he replied. "I've suddenly found that I'm not at all hungry, Cestria, but I'm sure that your soup was delicious. If you can excuse me, I think that I need to go get some rest."
RJ then left and everyone watched him go. They were all puzzled by his reaction to Scott's simple request but only Alpha knew why RJ had reacted the way he did. Everyone else quickly shrugged it off as Scott directed the same question to Kira and Trent.
"Sure, why not?" Trent shrugged as he and Kira began to tell their tale.
Anton was sort of listening to their tale but he had already heard it many times before anyway. He did have a rather irritating problem which was distracting him at that moment. He was struggling to eat his soup and hold onto the Wolf Power Coin at the same time. Dr K. laughed helplessly about his struggle just to eat a simple bowl of soup as she watched him.
"Is it really necessary to hold onto that Coin whilst eating, Anton Mercer?" she asked.
Anton nodded. He was clearly rather annoyed but there wasn't anything which he could do about it as he shuddered to think of what the Brachiozord would do to him if it believed him to be Mesogog.
"Yes, I have to as the system might believe me to be a threat otherwise. If you want to know why then you can listen to the story that Kira and Trent are telling the other Rangers right now," Anton snapped.
Alpha, who had been listening in to this as he handed out the last bowl of soup to Tenaya 15, sighed. "I'm sorry that I haven't managed to get round to fixing that problem, Anton, but I'll get onto making a device that will identify you as Anton Mercer, and won't mistake you to be Mesogog, right away. I should be able to finish it for breakfast tomorrow, I promise," he assured.
"Thanks, Alpha," Anton said as he smiled again. He was going to try to make the best of the situation because the alternative, if he wasn't holding onto the Power Coin, was much worse.
Alpha then made his way to the head of the table to make an announcement. "Rangers," he called out.
Everyone turned to him. "I recommend that all of you get some rest after dinner as an attack could come at any time and I know that today must have been difficult. Scorpina was a formidable foe and she must have exhausted all of you. If Zordon was here with us, I'm sure that he would tell you that all of you tried your best and did well, despite the fact Scorpina bested all of you and that Anton had to intervene, considering the odds were against you. He would also say that you shouldn't take it badly that you couldn't beat her. Scorpina was once feared throughout the galaxy because she was so dangerous and difficult to defeat," he assured. "If Tommy and Billy were here, they would have told you about their experiences fighting against her and I'm sure that they would have said the very same thing Zordon would have said to you."
Everyone nodded as Alpha sighed. "Well, I must get back to my duties, Rangers, so, if you need me, I'll be up in the Command Centre."
Alpha left then as Kira smiled sadly. "Alpha is so devoted to Zordon's care. It amazes me that anyone can inspire that kind of loyalty," she said softly.
"Zordon is often amazed by Alpha's loyalty himself," Cestria said quietly. "He may only be a robot but Alpha 5 acts so much like a human being that sometimes you can't tell the difference between them. He has served Zordon faithfully since his first model, Alpha 1, and will continue to do so until the end of time. If Zordon was in danger, Alpha would risk himself to protect the old sage despite the danger of him being damaged beyond repair. That, Power Rangers, is how deep Alpha's loyalty to Zordon is."
She sighed. "I had better go help him with whatever he is doing now."
Cestria left without another word. This left the Power Rangers to consider her words. After a few minutes of silence, Kira and Trent resumed their story and the RPM Power Rangers quickly became wrapped up in their tale of their adventures.