Chapter XII—The Severed and New Links
Skylar's head felt like it was about to explode and her body seemed to be physically splitting in two. An annoying humming noise continuously rang in her eardrums and there was an odd light that kept blinding her every time she tried to open her eyes.
So this is what death feels like, she wondered to herself. Yet, seconds after the thought had registered, she could see no more and everything went black…
When she opened her eyes she had no idea where she was. There was a faint shimmer and an odd looking man standing at the far corner of the box-like room she was now in. Odd wouldn't be a justifiable word; the man was handsome, no doubt that, but the diamond in the center of his head, the shaggy, forehead-length blond hair, and piercing blue eyes gave her a mystical impression.
"Who are you?" she asked calmly, eerily almost.
"Who are you?" he asked wisely, his voice a bit gruff and fitting for his youthful appearance.
"My name is Skylar Oliver; SPD Nova Ranger," she replied a little defensively, "Where are we?"
"No place you haven't been before, Skylar," he responded with a small grin.
She cocked an eyebrow, "Okay…well what happened to that Orange Ranger chick? And the Fury Rangers?"
"Ah, yes…the fury rangers. If by the Fury Rangers you mean the other Fury Rangers, I suppose they're fine."
"Other?" Skylar asked, standing from her sitting position on the pristine white floor.
The man opened his hand, signaling that she should do the same, at which point she did so. Sure enough, in her palm was a small stone, radiating with a pink brilliance; the sensation around her hand was unmistakably unique and she wondered why she hadn't noticed it before.
"You mean…me? A Fury Ranger?"
He nodded.
"No, this isn't supposed to happen, I have a future I have to get back to!" she explained, outraged, "This is not what I came here for!"
She tossed the stone on the ground angrily, causing the man to cock his head to the side with a look of curiosity.
"But you came looking for help, didn't you?" he asked sincerely.
"Yeah, but not in the form of myself!" she shouted.
"Tell me Skylar; what is supposed to happen? You seem to have such a knowledgeable clutch on the future, so please, enlighten me," he requested.
She gave him a look of annoyance, "I don't have time for your games. How the hell do I get out of here?"
Now the man did not look too pleased; "You would let your own ambitions get in the way of the entire universe in all its dimensional planes?"
She scoffed, "They're not my ambitions! There're people in the future dying because I'm here playing 20 questions with some Star Wars-looking-Backstreet Boy reject! I hardly call that my ambition; you are the one keeping me here and allowing people to die."
He smirked, "Obviously, you have no clue of how important your Fury Ranger role is."
She marched up to him, swinging a firm open palm to him, but he caught her arm effortlessly.
"You'll need to learn to control your emotions; your stone feeds off it," he instructed, his gaze meeting her fear-stricken eyes.
"What do you want with me?" she asked lethally.
"I want you to be a Fury Ranger, and I want you to deliver a message for me," he told her calmly.
"A message?"
"Yes, all of you need to come to Infernus; it's a planet on the inner rim of the Kerovan galaxy. Zhane should be able to get you there easily," he said, letting her go.
"Why Infernus?" she asked.
He gave her no reply, then, his cloak flew up over his head and he responded; "Destiny."
With that, in a shimmer of green, he was gone…
-XII-
Bridge paced back and forth outside the door to the basement. True it was barely dawn, but none of the rangers had been able to sleep since Skylar's encounter with the mysterious Orange Ranger, who also lay unconscious in behind the door.
"What do you think could be going on?" Bridge asked, his question directed to no one in particular.
Sky shrugged, "Not sure."
Ryan fidgeted a little as he thought, his fingers tapping the stair rail; "Maybe they're recalibrating the stones?"
Everyone looked a little shocked by the suggestion, but it seemed the most logical. Andrea and Nike had been in there for quite a while, and neither of them had emerged since.
"Well, whatever they're doing, we have to trust they'll get it done soon; something tells me Zeus isn't going to be too happy about losing his ranger puppet," Hunter said ominously.
-XII-
A thick, bright bolt of lightning flew through the corridor, striking the marble wall and shattering it into hundreds of pieces.
"I knew this was a bad idea!" Zeus screamed.
Hera cowered in fear, for she knew she would blamed for suggesting Natasha in the first place; "Darling, no matter how many of them there are, we're Gods; they'll never win."
Zeus' electric eyes shot towards her, and then he jutted his palm out, causing a powerful force to knock Hera into the wall and hold her there firmly.
"Well neither will we."
Her eyes were wide with fear; Zeus had been angry before, but he'd never been this angry.
"Sir, I just picked up a transmission Aphrodite; things are ready on Infernus," Eos said, bowing.
Zeus let Hera fall; "Excellent."
Rubbing her neck spitefully, Hera glared at him as she stood up to regain her composure.
"Are you alright my liege?" Eos whispered as Zeus began exiting the room.
She nodded as she began to stand.
"Eos!" Zeus called, his back facing Eos as he peered out over Mount Imperious.
"Yes sir?"
"Gather up the Gods; we're taking a little field trip to Infernus."
Eos nodded and left the demolished corridor.
"What're you up too, old fool?" Zeus wondered quietly to himself, looking even deeper into the greenish colored pre-dawn sky.
-XII-
"Why did they need that demigoddess girl too?" Bridge kept up his questions.
"Probably to see if there were any side-effects on Skylar from the stone," Ryan offered.
"But Andrea already said that one of the fragments was making her a fury ranger."
"Yeah, but it's raw energy, Bridge; Skylar's only human," Leo reminded him gently.
Bridge wasn't stupid, he knew that. He just couldn't figure out why they needed the Orange Ranger, after everything she'd already done.
"Isn't there some way we can help? Maybe put her in one of the same tubes we were put in?" Carter suggested.
"No; Skylar's case is different. She's already been in contact with the stone for nearly an hour, whereas we'd never even touched the stone. She's probably already got too much Cronus energy in her—" Sky was cut off by a rather emotional Bridge.
"She has not! Nike and Andrea can take the energy from her, they just need to transfer it all into something that can hold it."
Everyone was slightly taken aback by Bridge's outburst.
"Bridge…you're talking about whipping up a Morpher with enough capacity to hold the Titan of Chaos's power. Not to mention, they've got to do it within the next two hours…otherwise…" Sky let his sentence hang.
But Bridge had no intention of hearing the rest of it anyway. In a tirade of frustration, he shot up the stairs, slamming the basement door behind him.
"Maybe someone should go after him?" Dustin asked, scratching his head absently.
Sky sent him an annoyed glare; "Ya think?"
"Well, I'm just sayin', dude, he's not exactly the happiest person right now. He's totally crushin' on Skylar."
A look of sickness hit Sky, but he regained his composure quickly and began to run up the stairs; "Save your love-advice for Teen People."
"What's his deal?" Hunter asked his ninja friend.
"No clue."
-XII-
Light began to filter into her blurry vision. This was definitely NOT Mount Imperious; something was wrong. She looked down at her hands and noticed they'd been shackled, which was rather stupid as she had strength like no other. She looked over to her right and saw the same girl that had broken her stone. She appeared to be either in a deep sleep or dead; Natasha couldn't tell. All she knew was that she couldn't have been more thankful to the girl. She had unknowingly severed Zeus' mental link to Natasha and freed her from Zeus suffocating grip; Skylar had liberated Natasha.
"Hey, look…she's awake," Natasha heard the shorter, redhead say.
"Well, well," the brunette one came towards her, "Care to submit to a little Q&A?"
"I will submit."
The female stopped smirking and gave her green-clad comrade a confused look.
"Seriously?"
"Yes. It is quite possible my information can assist you in your conquest," Natasha said earnestly but emotionlessly. She didn't have the slightest clue of the word 'skepticism.' She was going to have a lot to learn about Earth.
"Don't play coy with us," Andrea warned. "Are you really going to answer?"
Natasha furrowed her thin eyebrows, "Did I not make my intentions of stopping Zeus clear?" She paused, "I believe I want to stop him more than any living being."
"Wait…two hours ago you were just destroying Angel Grove and threatening to blow up the rest of Solar System; now you're some rebel goddess that wants to be a heroine? I don't believe that for a second."
"Andrea, wait," Nike asked calmly; "What's your name?"
"Natasha Simmons; I'm the daughter of Zeus and a mortal called Aisha Campbell. And you two are the Eltarian females, correct?"
"We are. I'm Nike and this is my sister Andrea" Nike answered, sounding very much like a mother. "Natasha…you said Aisha is your mother? Meaning you are indeed a demigoddess?"
"Yes."
Nike nodded, jotting something down on paper before turning to Andrea. "Can you bring these up for me?"
"You always ask the impossible," Andrea said with a groan, walking over to the mainframe.
"In the meantime, Natasha…do you have any idea what happened with you and Skylar?"
Natasha assumed Nike meant the other girl in the room, "Well…I do know she's freed me from Zeus' control. Back there, with the Zords; I was being manipulated. Zeus had a mental influence over me through the stone fragment I held—I could not fight him. But when she shattered the stone, it split my powers evenly; now, Skylar has immortal blood running through her and Cronus energy."
Andrea spun around; "So you're only a quarter-goddess?"
"Not exactly. When I had the stone, it boosted my demigoddess powers to that of a full-fledged Goddess, which is why I was able to take on all 11 of you at once. When Skylar split the stone in two, half of the Goddess in me went to her, and so-forth."
Nike rubbed her forehead, "Strange. Anyway…what my sister here is in the process of doing is she is creating very experimental morphers, so to speak. They will hold the stone but will not be able to hold its energy; it's only so that no one can grab the stone from you without taking the morpher off, which will be physically impossible."
Natasha let on her smallest smile imaginable and then she stopped to think; "Why are you doing this? After everything I've done…why are you helping me?"
"Because you're going to help us. I know it," Nike said with a kind smile.
—XII—
Andrea and Nike immediately rushed Skylar with news. She was now a ranger. She would also have an experimental morpher to hold her half of the stone to keep people from stealing it. She was going to be a ranger. That was the main thing that stood out to her. Ranger. The weird guy was right.
"Guys, I need to tell you something," she broke in, finally ending their newsflash.
"What's wrong?" Andrea asked immediately.
Skylar retold her story to Andrea and Nike; they seemed a little skeptical at first, and afterwards, they needed to grab some paper and a pen to jot down notes. So, she retold it several times, holding her questions about the now fully conscious and present Orange Ranger. She'd been getting tired of telling it time and time again, but the sisters insisted on it. Each time, they drew new conclusions or built on to an old one. She never even got her chance to tell the others she was fine.
"So, you basically had a vision of a guy telling us to come to Infernus?" Nike summed up, scribbling on her notepad again.
"Yes," Skylar answered slowly, "He said he was a friend and that Zhane would know how to get to Infernus."
"That makes sense; Zhane is from KO-35, a planet of the Kerovan Galaxy. But Infernus? It's the closest planet to the Kerovan suns," Andrea questioned.
"That's what the man said; I think we should do it," Skylar said, "He seemed dead-set on it."
"Fine; tell the others to pack their bags," Nike said after a few moments of thought.
"But who will protect Earth against the Chrominites?" Andrea asked.
Almost as if on cue, the super computer began whirring, signifying a change in the Earth's Geography.
"I don't believe it," Nike muttered. "The Chrominites are leaving."
"What?" Natasha demanded.
"Computer, track trajectory of Mount Imperious," Nike ordered.
On screen, an image of a mountain uprooting from Earth began to fly into the atmosphere.
"Exact trajectory unknown," the male computerized voice informed her.
"Approximate," Skylar ordered quickly.
The computer was quiet for a few moments, then; "Approximate destination; Solaris Prime, point-six-four westward vectors to current position."
"Solaris Prime…that must be the Kerovan sun in cycle with Infernus!" Nike summed up.
"Well, guess that means we're taking a vacation to Infernus," Skylar said as she began to open the door.
"They'll want that. How do you know this guy wasn't Zeus in your dreams?" Natasha interrogated her.
"How could Zeus have been in my dreams?"
"Zeus had mind control over me, and when you broke the stone, it severed my link, but I don't know if he now has one for you."
Skylar locked eyes with Natasha. "We'll just have to pray."
—XII—
Ryan needed to recap the past few weeks because he still couldn't believe he was on the Astro Megaship Mach II with rangers from different places, times, and even mortalities. (1) Kissing Carter by accident (2) Finding the lost children of Zordon (3) An Orange Ranger and now a Pink one (4) and now heading to Infernus because of some bogus vision?
He sighed aloud as he rolled over in his on-board bunk. The flight to Infernus would take the rest of the day, but he'd be fine with that; the worst part of it all had to be bearing the awkwardness between himself and Carter. But…that was another story; he didn't even want to think about the complications it could cause on the battlefield or among the other rangers.
"Knock, knock," came Wes' voice from the doorway.
"Hey."
"You seem down, dude, what's up?"
"Not much, just…thinking; everything's so surreal lately," Ryan said, then added, "even for a ranger."
"Yeah, I guess so. And what about Carter?"
Ryan looked alarmed. "What about him?"
Wes smirked. "Ryan…he's been talking about what happened for awhile now."
"Great."
"Well what's up with it? I mean…are you…you know…into him?" Wes asked slowly.
"I…I don't know. Ever since I joined Lightspeed I've been confused as to how you draw a line between friendships and relationships; I'd never had friends or a relationship before I joined, so I never knew…and Carter's been my best friend for so long that I guess I just felt…I dunno."
"I see."
"I dunno, I'll figure it out."
"Well if you need someone to talk to, I'm—" he was cut off as the ship rocked with an explosive force.
"All rangers report to the bridge, all rangers report to the bridge," Deca.'s voice came from over the intercom.
—XII—
Infernus was a hot, reddish, rainforest-like planet with massive deserts surrounding its lush vegetative areas. Its position along the inner rim of the Kerova Galaxy set it so that it received constant daylight from at least one of Kerova's trinity of suns: Solaris Prime, Solaris Duo, and Solaris Trice. Its sinister atmosphere was just an omen of what lied underneath the surface…
"Things are going just as planned," Aphrodite giggled, fixing her red bob hairstyle and batting her turquoise eyes.
"Not everything goes according to plan," her prisoner spat.
"Oh shut up," she dismissed idly, "my father will take care of you before the rangers even know you're alive."
The man smirked, his icy blue eyes seeming to look through her façade of confidence.
"Your father couldn't keep up with me if he stole Ares' body."
Aphrodite spun around on her heel, grabbing her staff. "Let's not get hasty, okay?"
"Right."
She set her staff down carefully, picking up her transmitter. "D, how much longer until you get here?"
A woman's sigh was heard from the transmitter; "Well, it depends; is the old poof there yet?"
"Oh, he is, but he's not old at all…" Aphrodite smiled at him seductively, "He's actually quite cute."
"D" laughed shrilly. "Yeah right; I'll believe that when I see it."
The man hid a grin that was overcoming his face; if only Aphrodite knew…
"Do you have the others with you?" Aphrodite questioned.
"Yep, we just got little Miss Princess who wants to change her mind every 2 seconds," the woman groaned.
"As long as you're all here; father will need them to bring back the brothers," Aphrodite spoke as she ended the transmission.
"If only you had a clue of what was in store for you," Aphrodite mocked him, tracing a finger along his chiseled, gruff face.
He tore away from her. "Oh no, Aphrodite; if only you knew."
She slapped him suddenly, fixing him with a stern glare. "Look here, Zordon; don't think I won't torture you before father gets what he wants from you."
