Disclaimer: I don't own the Power Rangers.

Chapter 14

He didn't know what tricks Cosmos was playing on them this time, but Deca adamantly insisted that there was absolutely nothing wrong with her sensors and he knew that there was absolutely nothing wrong with his eyes. Andros stared at the viewing screen almost open-mouthed in shock for as long as he could afford to, Ashley standing pale and quiet at his side.

"I'm fine," she murmured when he looked at her in concern. "Really. I am."

He didn't believe her. He wasn't sure that he was much better, though, and so he didn't say anything for a full minute afterward. "It can't be her."

"My sensors--"

"I don't care what they say!" Andros snapped at Deca. "Lyra's dead. Wesaw her die!"

"Yeah, and that's not exactly a temporary thing," TJ said. "But we've got to get down there."

There didn't seem to be any way around that. Andros closed his eyes in an effort to steady himself. Ashley nodded slowly when he looked towards her, and he inclined his head in return. He didn't need to worry about her. Too much, anyway; he trusted her judgement not to put the team at risk by insisting that she could take care of herself in battle if she couldn't.

"Ready?" he asked. "Then--let's rocket!"

Deca, for once in her life, didn't need to be asked. He felt the dizzying rush of teleportation as he was swept up, his eyes opening only when his feet touched the ground again.

"Hey!" Ashley was shouting as he opened his eyes. "Who are you?"

"You don't recognize me, Yellow Ranger" The voice was the same, and so was the smile. "I'm hurt."

Ashley stiffened, and Andros clenched his saber tightly. "Lyra is dead," he said coldly. "I don't know who you are, but you're--"

"Going to pay for it, I suppose," she said. "Well, then. Let's see what you can do, Andros."

The way she said his name unnerved him. Andros forced his uneasiness to the side. "You guys ready?"

"Oh yeah," Carlos said.

"Can we just do this?" Ashley's voice was edgy, and he couldn't blame her for that. He rather wanted this done with himself.

"Right." Andros apologized to her silently, and gripped his blaster. "Fire!"

Lyra--not Lyra, he told himself sternly--deflected each blast with her staff, almost dancing as she dodged them. "You can do better than that!" she shouted, and he wondered if maybe...

Then she was gone, and he was left staring at the spot where she had been standing a moment before in shock. He wasn't quite sure that he had any idea what had just happened, and everyone was looking at him like he had an answer for them.

"Um." Cassie was the first to speak. "What just happened?"

"That wasn't her!" Carlos insisted, and Andros felt a rush of relief that he wasn't the only one. "That's not possible!"

"No," TJ agreed. "But who was it? I don't know who she was, but that was a damn good impression."

Andros silently agreed, but reached for Ashley as he raised his morpher. "Deca, get us out of here."

It wasn't that this would make any kind of sense once they were back on the Megaship. But he didn't have to stand around morphed, waiting for her to come back when he wasn't looking.

"I'm fine," Ashley insisted again, though she held tightly to his hand. "I--I don't know."

"You think it was her?" he questioned her quietly.

"I don't know," she said again. "I don't want it to be, but... I--I just don't know."

She didn't want to be a murderer. Andros squeezed her hand and tried not to think of how he understood. "Deca, is there any way to--"

"My sensors tell me that this is Lyra," Deca said, her voice patient but somehow sharper than usual. "Like you, I have no explanation at the current time. Lyra was still human, and humans do not spontaneously revert back to life days after death. There are several possibilities that I am willing to consider, but--"

"So, Deca doesn't get it, either," Zhane cut her off. "Anyone else?"

"Um, you guys?" Cassie stood at TJ's console, staring at it worriedly. "I think we've got an even bigger problem now. According to these reports, Rita and Zedd are attacking the Vica galaxy." She looked to Karone for confirmation. "The Vica have no defenses."

The Rangers slowly exchanged uneasy glances. Lyra coming back from the dead was suddenly an afterthought.

"They won't know what hit 'em!" TJ protested. "They'll be crushed."

"Exactly." Karone bit her lip from her own station. "Divatox is attacking, too, and Mondo..."

"They're attacking the universe," Carlos said. His voice rose in alarm. "What now?"

"We fight," Andros said simply. What else was there to do?

"Over a thousand velocifighters," Carlos reported grimly.

That registered as important enough to catch his attention. "Heading where?" he demanded.

"Heading for--" Carlos stopped. "Deca."

The viewing screen flickered once, and he heard Ashley gasp softly as the screen showed them the space in front of them. The darkness was littered with velocifighters, all of them advancing closer and closer to Earth's atmosphere.

They stood in stunned silence for a moment before Zhane found his voice. "We've got to get down there."

That was enough to snap him out of it. "Right." Andros let out a deep breath. This was what he had been waiting for for two years, ever since KO-35 had fallen. There would be no coming back from this battle to do it again. He swallowed hard and looked first to Deca's closest eye, and then at Cassie. "Raise the shields."

She didn't know how it had happened. Well, she did. But she didn't really, and that wasn't even important right now, because with her staff in her hand and quantrons at her command, she was alive, and nothing else mattered.

The ground rocked beneath her as the velocifighters swooped low and fired. The people all around her screamed and shouted and ran, and she stood there and laughed, because she was alive and this was what she was meant to do. There was nothing that could give her this pleasure but power, and she would take every bit of it now.

Cheers went up from the crowd, and she raised her head in annoyance. They were never far behind, were they? No, it seemed not.

Lyra smiled. The Rangers came flying in side by side on their gliders, standing proud and strong the way that they always did when they were winning. But this was one battle that they wouldn't win. She would see to that.

A streak of red lightning flashed through the air and hit the back of Andros's glider. The Red Ranger tumbled through the air, landing on his feet through some quick acrobatics. Lyra laughed. Cosmos. It had to be. The green shots that were fired next could only be Ecliptor, and one by one, the Rangers were thrown down into the fight on the ground all around her.

She wasn't even disappointed when Andros didn't rush for her. He battled Ecliptor instead, his saber raised but never really blocking. The quantrons seemed to hinder both of them, crowding the two of them until they had no room to battle.

"You!"

This should be interesting. Lyra was already smiling as she turned to stare down the Ranger rushing towards her. "Hello, Yellow Ranger!" she called. "It's nice to see that you've missed me!"

"It really is you!" She sounded stunned, but beneath it, Lyra would swear that she heard relief of some sort. Relief that she wasn't a murderer, perhaps--though it had been nice to see that Andros had some company... Hmm.

Lyra only smiled at her. "Supposed to be," she agreed cheerfully. "I've you to thank for that, don't I, Yellow Ranger?"

Ashley didn't budge, her blaster held steady in her hand. Lyra shrugged. "Well, then, we'll just get down to it, then, won't we?"

She attacked without another word, and threw herself into the fight. This time, she wouldn't lose. She wouldn't go there again.

"Ashley, look out!" Andros leaned over the edge of the rooftop, shouting down to her. He saw Ecliptor rush towards him again and ducked, his heart thudding furiously as the sword swung and missed his head only by inches.

He saw her turn towards the sound of his voice. She screamed his name in warning and he turned too late and too slowly, the world exploding behind him. The blast knocked him from the rooftop. The battlizer armor kept him from falling, but his heart nearly stopped for the second time in as many minutes, and he shouted at himself sternly to pay attention. He wouldn't lost another planet. He wouldn't lose the universe.

"ANDROS!"

Karone this time, and he felt the impact as she screamed. Someone laughed--Cosmos, Darkonda; he wasn't sure--and then the armor vanished as he flew forward through the air, smashing into an abandoned car.

He rolled off of the hood, gasping for breath as quantrons swarmed him. A kick landed to his ribs and he groaned. It took more strength than he would have wanted it to for him to force his way back to his feet, but he managed, and struck the nearest quantron across the chest.

"Andros!" Ashley fought her way to his side, dragging one quantron away from him and kicking another. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," he gasped out.

As the words left his mouth, he heard another laugh. Cosmos and Ecliptor stood side by side, and he saw twin flashes of light just as Ashley was knocked off of her feet into him. He was thrown forward onto his stomach, seeing stars as his suit vanished.

"Help them!" he heard Karone shout from somewhere as the Power faded and every ache intensified tenfold.

He thought she was yelling at Zhane; he'd seen the Silver Ranger somewhere around there, but he wasn't sure, and then the quantrons swarmed him again and it didn't matter who was where. No one was with him but Ashley, and they were on their own for this fight.

"Hang on!" Zhane blasted the quantrons just enough to afford them an escape route. Andros caught Ashley's hand as they ran through the quantrons, chased by Cosmos and Ecliptor but not looking back.

The ground shook as they fled, Zhane and Karone falling into place beside them. "Keep going!" his sister shouted over the sound of explosions. "We're surrounded."

The word tasted bitter in his mouth, but there was no other choice. He wouldn't have them lose their lives for his pride. "Retreat!"

"We're getting our butts kicked out there," Carlos moaned. He sank down onto a fallen beam beside her, and Ashley touched his hand in commiseration. "What do we do now?"

"I don't know yet." Andros's voice was quiet. He touched her hand, and Ashley looked at him. "Was that really her?"

"Yes." She swallowed. "It was her."

"Since when can he bring people back from the dead?" Karone demanded. "You'd think he would have done it before now."

"Must be new," TJ said grimly. "Who knows what he'll do next?"

"That's it," Andros said suddenly. "We have to go to the Dark Fortress. We have to go after him there."

Zhane protested before she could. "How many times have we--no,you--done just exactly that before? And did it work?"

"We have to take the chance," Andros insisted. "We have to dosomething!"

"You're not going to get up and run off to the Dark Fortress!" Zhane shook his head. "Not alone."

"No," Andros protested. "You're not coming with me."

"No, but I am."

Ashley watched his head spin towards his sister. "Karone--"

"I go or you don't," she said firmly. "We do it together or not at all."

Ashley caught her eye when Andros sighed loudly, flashing her a thumbs-up. Karone smiled faintly, and Ashley almost wanted to laugh. If it hadn't started raining flaming rock, she might have.

Their morphers beeped. TJ raised his first. "Go ahead."

"Rangers," Deca's voice came to them as clearly as ever. "Dark Spectre has been destroyed."

"No way," Cassie muttered. "This is unreal."

"But by who?" Ashley demanded. "Cosmos and Lyra?"

"That I do not know," Deca admitted. "The Megaship has taken some damage."

"But if Dark Spectre's gone, who's in charge?" TJ asked no one in particular. "Who are we fighting now?"

"I don't know," Andros said quietly. "But we're going to find out."

----

Author's Notes: I'm DONE! I think it'll come out to two more chapters once I edit it and smooth it out a bit (which, for some reason, I've chosen to do at a quarter to four in the morning, which might explain why I'm wondering why my spellchecker doesn't recognize "battlizer" as a legitimate word of the English language. ::laughs::) Anyway, I hope I'll have both chapters up within a week. My love to anyone who's hung around with me for the last two years to see how this story ends and anyone who's showed up along the way. Almost there!