Chapter 35—Iridescent

Beth

"Tonyxyn and Amy are in trouble," Lyzabeta said to me, her tank form zooming across the fields we were training in.

"I heard her say something, but Aaron said it was fine, and I don't see any…"I fell short of completing my sentence and glanced at the radar, now showing 4 contacts all converging on the blip that represented Amy and Tonyxyn.

"You were saying?" Lyzabeta asked as she floored her main thrusters.

I felt the ground rush underneath us as we accelerated at an unparalleled rate. When we reached the top of a large hill, I could see the clearing in which Tonyxyn and Amy were fighting off the DigiMech belonging to Sanders and the Pink Ranger—the DigiMech Liger and the DigiMech Harpy. Both DigiMech had already transformed to their fighter forms, and were ruthlessly attacking Tonyxyn's pink armored hull.

"We need to help them!" Lyzabeta commanded me. "Tonyxyn is a brave soldier, but he can't take on all of the DigiMech. Not to mention, there are still 3 missing."

"Then let's BURST Execute and kick some ass!" I shouted as we rolled forward. "Fire main cannons!"

Several rounds of raw earth energy exploded from the barrel, colliding with the DigiMech Harpy and flinging her out of the sky.

"I never thought I'd be so glad to see you," Amy joked as Tonyxyn moved closer to us and prepared to take on the DigiMech Centaur and the DigiMech Hippogriff. They were both still in their animal forms.

"Lyz, can you keep up the cover fire and keep these DigiMech scum off me before the other 3 show up?" Tonyxyn urged.

"Let's do this!" I ordered, inputting the sequence in my main console. "BURST Execute!"

There was a horrible shuddering sound from the hull, a scraping of metal, and a few consoles beginning to blare alarms.

"What's going on?" I screamed over the sounds.

"The…BURST…execute…something went wrong!" she grunted back to me painfully.

There was a cataclysmic burst of energy that sent me into literal shock, my mind feeling painfully engorged by the excess biorhythmic power. I cried out in pain, slamming my hands all over the main console to try to cancel the process.

"Alpha Red, what are you doing?" Amy hollered. "I could really use some help right about now?"

I heard her grunt as Tonyxyn was tossed into the face of a cliff. I could hear gunfire and laser beams flying around me, but the one thing I couldn't hear…was Lyzabeta.

—35—

I saw Grace and Amantanine come flying into the battle as they hurtled off the cliff top and landed right on top of the DigiMech Hydra, controlled by Kevin. Amantanine revved her engines, and her steel-plated wheels ground on the Hydra's exposed neck before shooting forward to whip around and face her opponents.

"Delta White said you could use some help," Grace said to Amy, "so I brought some help."

I looked up to see Sofyetta's sleek helicopter form descend from the clouds, followed by Zeta and…Omega?

"Since when could Delta White fly?" I asked, hoping Lyzabeta would respond to me.

"Omega has three forms, like Zeta; it's because they were Seraphs," explained Frankilos, who had just skidded onto the scene in a flurry of black and yellow. I felt like I could hear music blaring over the comm system, but I shrugged it off. Surely Jay wasn't that stupid.

"Everyone, initiate BURST Execute!" Aaron ordered.

I heard the sounds, I felt the energy, I saw the process…but nothing happened with me. I still couldn't hear Lyzabeta. It was as if she just…wasn't there.

"Alpha Red, why aren't you ready for battle?" Grace demanded. I felt the tension in her voice

"I'm trying!" I yelled back angrily. I wasn't sure if it was the hostility I felt toward Grace in particular, or if it was the frustration and embarrassment I was currently feeling at not being able to BURST Execute.

"What's wrong with Lyz?" Tonyxyn asked angrily as he flew over to us. He put his hand on the hull of Lyzabeta and closed his eyes. "What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything!" I fired back. "I…I just tried to BURST Execute!"

"Yeah, you jumped right into it without even thinking!"

"That's not what I did!"

"Then why don't you know what happened?"

I was shocked. He was right.

Tonyxyn rubbed his hand across her hull once more, and I felt his emotions bristle with pain. Were these two Zordians…together?

"Cyber Squad, protect Alpha Red!"

"Alpha Red is fine," Tonyxyn growled, "it's Lyz you should be protecting!"

"Fine," Aaron snapped, "cover Lyzabeta."

Frankilos sped away from me in his super advanced robot form that resembled a man and a beast all at the same time. He lunged forward and speared Gabriel's DigiMech away savagely. I watched as Sofyetta dropped from the sky and mercilessly began combating the DigiMech Hydra who had recovered from Grace and Amantanine's attack. I felt so helpless and ashamed. I couldn't believe I'd lost Lyzabeta after only just meeting her. Something began to happen with my console as the internal systems rebooted, and I felt my brain begin to ache again from the pressure of the botched BURST Execute. I screamed out in pain as the entire cockpit began to glow with a burning radiance…and then everything went dark.

—35—

Lyzabeta had been a lot like me in her past life. Her family had been hard on her after she was dismissed from the ELF—Eltarian Land Forces—and she ran away to find a different calling. As far as I knew, she met her end on Zordia around the same time as Tonyxyn, as she was flying in the same fleet as he was. Somehow, I guess he'd recruited her. She had told me she died peacefully—as peaceful as possible during wartime—and that when she awoke, she joined Zeta, Tonyxyn, and Omega in their battle on Zordia. That was all I'd known before that fateful battle with the DigiMech in the clearing.

Now, as I looked out at the beautiful Eltarian scenery, I couldn't believe my eyes at how marvelously complex it was. There were beautiful trees with leaves every color imaginable and rocks with shapes I never even thought of. Away from me, there was a small stream that had the clearest of water I'd ever seen, and on either side of it were flowers I couldn't even begin to name. It was unfathomable. Why would Aaron ever want to leave?

I jumped at the massive explosion behind me and turned around to see a horde of creatures draped in flowing cloaks and arms that hung down to their ankles. In front of them was a tall, slender, brunette female who had been knocked down by the explosion. She glared up at her attackers rebelliously and defiantly as she rolled and pulled a blaster from her waistband. She fired once, twice, three times, and each of her attackers fell before they knew what hit them.

"Hey, are you okay?" I asked her as I jogged over to her.

She ignored me as she patted off her pants and looked around. There were more attackers on the way and she sprinted to the oddly shaped rocks I'd seen earlier to take cover.

"Hey!"I shouted at her. "You know, I see you're in the middle of a battle, but can't you at least answer me?"

Still nothing.

"Fine, be that way, bitch," I said as I began to walk the other way. I squatted down by the stream to glance at my reflection and to think about where I was. How the hell did I even get on Eltar? How did I know I was on Eltar? When I looked at the stream, I couldn't see anything. Not so much as a single red hair on my head. But the reflections of a group of those cloaked gorilla-armed things showed clearly in the pristine water, and I spun around to shout at the girl I'd seen.

"LOOK OUT!" I screamed.

But it was too late. They descended upon her like flies and I watched helplessly as she tried to fight them off. There were at least twenty of them, swinging their large arms wildly and screeching with pleasure each time they hit her. She flipped away and fired a few rounds, but the big apes swung their arms and deflected the beams away. Then I noticed something. They were mechanical.

I sprinted forward and thrust my hand out to command the boulders around us, but nothing happened. The rocks were silent. I knew Doc Ol said the name "Earth" for my element was just a name used to describe the materials I controlled—that the name "stone" was much more universal and covered any material with the molecular structure of rocks. So why the hell couldn't I move them?

I tried again, in vain, and screamed in frustration when nothing happen. Then the rocks exploded like fireworks and rained upon the assailants in an avalanche of shiny, Eltarian stones.

"Whoa, that's new," I remarked.

"Looks like you could use some help, ma'am," said a male who seemed to appear from the sky. I saw a ship fly overhead and realized he had exploded the rocks. And here I thought I'd learned something new.

"I'm fine," the woman snapped at him. "I had everything under control, flyboy."

"Ma'am, I just saved your life from a group of particularly pissed off DigiMech. The common Eltarian way of expressing gratitude is usually, 'thank you.'"

She dusted herself off and flipped her dual pistols in the holsters on her belt. "Thanks."

"Sorry, ma'am, but I can't let you stay here," the male spoke again, cutting off her path to the now destroyed village.

"Let me? You're not my Admiral, so I suggest you step aside."

Ah, so that's why he was dressed in such a spiffy outfit that sported numerous armaments that seemed to make Earthly military soldiers look underdressed.

"As an Admiral in the Eff, I have right to place you under arrest to keep you from danger. And I'd hate to do that to such a lovely young lady like yourself, ma'am."

"Okay, see, you just fucked up your flattery by calling me ma'am. Get out of my way, flyboy. I don't have time for this."

He smiled all out now, as if he was enjoying her company. "Ma'am, you're crazy."

She attempted to move past him, but he stepped in her way yet again. I saw her eyebrow twitch threateningly in annoyance. "You don't know the meaning. I'm not going with you."

"Ma'am, I don't have to ask."

"Um, you bet your ass you have to ask a lady!" she screamed as she brushed past him.

He grabbed her arm, but she spun around and moved to knee him in the groin. She found out the hard way that Eltarians apparently wore cups stronger than their body armor.

"Sorry, ma'am."

As she hopped around a few moments in pain, the man moved to inspect her knee.

"Seriously," she said as she sat down on a pile of rocks, "will you please just leave me alone? I have no desire to go to any command post of any sort, especially with you and your pink beret."

"Ma'am, this entire area is under attack by the DigiMech, and the few Zordian allies we have are being decimated at the front line near the capitol. I have to get you to safety."

"What about the people in that village?" she finally asked, her question bitter and angry. "Did you think about saving them?"

The man's face hardened at that, and he grabbed her arm forcefully and placed a pair of bracelets on her that automatically magnetized and handcuffed her.

"That's all I think about…ma'am."

With that, he pressed a few buttons on his own bracelet and the two began to teleport into the ship that was circling above.

I'm not sure why, but I ran forward to jump into the teleportation beam. I wasn't sure why they couldn't see me, or if they chose not to, but these were the only people around other than those DigiMech buried under tons of rock. I was sure in hell not staying with them, even if they couldn't see me. They gave me the creeps.

When I arrived on the ship, it was like everything happened in fast-forward. The man was briefing the woman on her rights, and then got her information. It was then that everything slowed down.

"What is your name, ma'am?" the admiral was asking.

She sighed haughtily as she blew some strands of hair from her sun-kissed face. "Lyzabeta Lunabell."

What? This was Lyzabeta? Was I dreaming? Was I in one of her memories? I was so confused.

"Admiral Tonyxyn, sir, there's a message from Eff Command waiting for you," interrupted another soldier on the ship.

Tonyxyn, too? So their pasts were linked in more ways than being Zordians. They had actually known each other on Eltar, which was new to me. I, for some reason, thought the age gaps between the Zordians were so vast that they all had to be years apart. Apparently, I was wrong.

Things began to move in fast-forward again. In fact, things happened so quickly that reality actually blurred around me. When things settled, I could tell a few years had passed. Tonyxyn looked worn, but happy, and Lyzabeta was now wearing the uniform of an Eff pilot, complete with a little red headband that was worn by all Lieutenants in the Eff. How the hell did I even know that? It was like information was just pouring into my head. Maybe that's why it hurt so badly.

But as my head began to hurt, I started remembering another world, another event…another time that I was supposed to be at; something I needed to do. But as quickly as the feeling came, it vanished.

"Lyz, this is the biggest DigiMech stronghold we've seen on Zordia. This could very well be their base of operations," Tonyxyn said.

"Then do we really need to think about it anymore?" she asked caringly. I could tell things had changed between them. Then I glanced at the hand she put on his and noticed the mark on her hand—the Eltarian symbol for marriage was just barely visible on the back of it. Again…how did I know these things?

"It's a suicide mission," he said solemnly.

"That's what we always say," she said with a small smile. But Tonyxyn did not return it, and she looked somewhat worried. "If this is really their base, then if we blow it sky high, we could end the war on Eltar and work on freeing Zordia next. This could be the moment we've been waiting for. We could cripple the United Alliance of Evil's Zordians and tip the balance in our favor!"

He thought it over for a few moments, and then kissed her softly. "Ma'am…you're crazy."

Time sped up again, and I noticed I was on the ground of Zordia—before it was completely destroyed, that is. It was fantastic. Everything about the planet was in harmony—the technology, the plant life, the air, the water—everything! But then I turned around and noticed the plume of smoke wafting from a few crashed space fighters.

Lyz clambered out of one, her right shoulder bleeding profusely, and her face riddled with scrapes. There was a burn on her neck that seemed to make its way down past her collarbone, but she appeared to be ignoring the pain. Either that or she really didn't feel it. She was too focused on her copilot, Tonyxyn.

"This is why you should have let me fly," she whispered, the tears evident in her voice but missing from her face.

"Guess I came in a little too hot," he responded weakly with a cough.

"You never think anything through, do you?"

"I must've been sick the day we learned how to do that."

She laughed bitterly as she wiped at her face and cradled his head in her hands. "I've already radioed for help, but…our entire squadron went down."

"Of course," he groaned. "So we failed?"

"There's a first time for everything, flyboy."

"Not today," he managed to say through the pain evident in his face. "You…you have to take the Terratank and take the bomb to their base."

She was already shaking her head before he was halfway through his sentence. "I haven't driven a Terratank since boot camp, Tonyxyn. I'll never make it."

"You think too much, ma'am."

"Stop, Tonyxyn," she cried freely now. "I'm not leaving you."

"That's an order, ma'am," he said, his trademark smile still plastered on his face. "Now, go."

I felt a whirlwind of emotions well up in me, and even as I felt reality pulling at me and threatening to fast-forward again, I struggled to keep hold. Poor Lyz! Poor Tonyxyn! Did they know they'd meet again? Did Lyz succeed?

—34—

"Yes."

I shook my head as I came to, the cockpit of Lyzabeta's Terratank-form still covered in a harsh red light.

"Wha…?"

"I succeeded in destroying the DigiMech Stronghold," she said silently, "but I lost Tonyxyn. I lost myself. The next thing I knew, Zeta had revived me as a Zordian in commemoration of my sacrifice to destroy the DigiMech. I was inconsolable without, Flyboy, though." She laughed briefly and continued, "So, Zeta reformatted him as well, and we joined the cause."

"Why are you telling me all this?"

"Do you know why we bonded, Beth?"

"Because we have similar names?"

"Because you are a lot like Tonyxyn."

"So wouldn't I have bonded with him?" I wondered confusedly.

"We Zordians bond with those who can benefit from our personalities—so that they can learn our traits and we can learn theirs. A true symbiotic relationship can only be created from two different sides."

"So how do you explain Jay and Frankilos?"

She laughed genuinely. "They are so similar that their differences are magnified. Not to mention, it allows them to see themselves from each other's eyes, if that makes sense."

"Yeah, I get it now," I nodded. Suddenly, I felt more enlightened.

"I showed you my memories because I wasn't ready to BURST Execute. I held back the deepest part of me—my relationship with Tonyxyn—and that was why our energies were out of sync. I lied. And I'm sorry."

"There's nothing to apologize for," I said sincerely, "I understand what it's like to have to hide your feelings for fear of being judged. You and Tonyxyn were in the military together, I'm sure it must've been difficult to hide your relationship."

A rumbling explosion interrupted our conversation as all her systems whirred back to life.

"Time to get to work," Lyzabeta said as I heard and felt her engines begin to rev once more. "Ready to BURST Execute?"

"I'm ready if you are, ma'am."

"Don't go there," she said seriously, though I caught the hint of laughter in her voice.

"Initiate BURST Execute!"

—35—

Gabriel's raw Cronus power spilled out uninhibitedly. It covered everything and eradicated any surface it touched, until finally, he locked his crystal blue eyes on me and screamed a scream so loud that I felt my insides split.

I awoke with a start, throwing my covers off as I did so. My alarm was blaring, not unlike Gabriel's voice had been, and the sun was burning right past my thin curtains.

Relieved, I sighed as I rolled out of bed and stalked into my bathroom. I looked like hell, I noticed, my wavy hair a tangled mess and my eyes still puffy from sleep.

After a much needed shower and reflection time, I headed downstairs to the kitchen where my mom was just brewing a pot of coffee.

"You're up early," she noticed with a smile, inhaling from her electronic and minty-smelling cigarette.

"Didn't really sleep well," I mumbled as I took the little bit of coffee that had just been made and replaced the pot on the coffeemaker.

"What's wrong, sweetie?" she asked as she looked up from her magazine.

Her work papers were scattered all over the table, making it impossible to find a clear space to set my coffee mug down. She slid me an old magazine and I set my cup haphazardly on it.

"So…remember that boy Gabriel Xavier that I went to school with?" I wondered cautiously.

She nodded, "The son of Kira Ford? Of course."

I should have known my mom was updated on pop culture. She read enough of those trashy tabloids to know every celebrity's dirty little secret. She had a collection of magazines of which Grace and Patrick were on the cover.

"Yeah, him," I answered. "Well, I kind of used to have a thing with him."

"Oh!"

"Yeah…while I was dating Aaron."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Well that's no good."

"Well, it's over now. It's been over since the middle of senior year."

"Okay…?"

"Well…what if I still have feelings for him?" I asked, uncertain of her reaction.

"Why don't you talk to him? Maybe he feels the same way?" she stated wisely.

"I doubt that," I said, "he's…he's hanging out with a pretty bad crowd nowadays."

"That's a shame, he seems like he'd be a good kid. Quite the looker, too, huh? He must get that from Brad Xavier."

"Gabriel's adopted, mom."

"Oh, yeah," she laughed, "sorry." She made her way back to the table with a cup of coffee and sat down, looking at me with that expectant look she always got when she wanted me to tell the rest of a story. She knew me so well.

"Anyway…I can't help feeling like I can't talk to anyone about these feelings I have for him. Because I really did care about him. But now I'm not so sure if it's the right thing."

"Since when did caring about someone become right or wrong? Affection is usually uncontrollable."

I shrugged, "That's true. But I feel like my friends will make me feel like shit if I tell them."

"Well, what about Grace?"

I shuddered involuntarily at the mention of her.

"Oh no, things haven't gone sour between you two again, have they?" my mom asked, as if she knew from the brief look of irritation that had flashed across my face.

"You could say that…"

"Did you break her heart?"

I was baffled into silence.

"What?" I finally managed to bark out.

"Well, you two kind of had this…thing going on, didn't you?"

"H-h-how did you know?"

"Oh, please," she chuckled, "you're my daughter! I know a lot more about you than you think, little lady."

"Little lady?"

"Just because you're the red ranger doesn't mean I can't call you little lady," she whispered with an all-knowing grin.

My eyes bugged out as I stared at her in disbelief.

"Don't look so surprised!" she encouraged. "I only figured it out because of all the names you keep mentioning and how much time you spend at 'Grace's.' You're roommates as it is, do you really need to be at 'her' house all the time?"

"Well…I…we…we all hang out at Grace's."

"And why exactly would you be hanging out with Aaron and Grace again unless you were part of this little ranger operation?"

I was silent.

"God, you are something else, woman."

She smiled affectionately and said, "I know."

—35—

"You don't understand what it's like!" I shouted at him angrily, sweat shining on my forehead and dripping into my eyes. "You have no idea how much this hurts!"

"I have no idea? You don't know what it's like to live your whole life as a human being and then discover you have this whole fucked up destiny ahead of you! You don't know what that's like!" Gabriel screamed back at me as he panted for breath.

I had been on my way to Doc Ol's to meet up with the team and discuss a battle strategy before we all went our separate ways back to college, when Gabriel came out of nowhere. He just appeared on a back road, right in front of my car. Lucky for him, I had just gotten my breaks fixed.

"Then why don't you come back?" I asked simply, letting my defenses down a little. "Why do you have to be The Angel? You make your own destiny, Gabe."

He laughed sourly. "I make my own destiny? This is coming from the girl who couldn't make her own lunch, let alone make her own destiny?"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Other than the fact that you can't cook? Well, it means you definitely can't make your own destiny. Everything you've done has been plotted out for you. Even your rangerhood wouldn't have existed if it weren't for me," he said arrogantly.

Those words stung more than I wanted them to, but I still couldn't wrap my head around what he was trying to get at.

"Still lost, baby?" he questioned in a mock lovey-dovey voice. "Let me give you a hint: the Alpha Morpher only chose you because part of me is inside you. Your Battleizer? That something 'extra' wasn't the Earth—that was my Angel power inside of you. My soul. And I want it back."

I was beyond taken aback. I was fucking blown. Away. Everything he said made sense. By normal means, the Alpha Morpher should have chosen Patrick, but I just happened to be in the basement when they reacted. I just happened to have had sex with Gabriel, and just happened to have retained his essence—his DNA. The morphers were just confused. I was a backup. A nobody. It was like high school all over again, only Grace was replaced by Gabriel and I really was his flunky.

But then there was everything I had accomplished on my own. I may have received the morphers because of Gabriel, but I led on my own—I became a ranger on my own.

"Morphers don't make the ranger, Gabriel," I said haughtily. "I make my own destiny; you were just part of it."

He glared back at me silently.

"You could be part of it again."

"No!" he screamed. "This is all your fault in the first place. If I had my soul from you, I would have ascended long ago—I could have wiped out you piss-ant rangers and brought back Cronus by now. But then you and your fucking affection! You ruined everything! You were the only mortal I let myself care about, and I will always hate you for that."

He lunged forward and spun around like a footballer, a spiral of solar energy flaring up from around him and lashing out at me. I quickly slammed my forearms together in front of my body, rock pillars shooting up from the ground and protecting me.

Gabriel smashed through them easily and jumped for me again, but I commanded the earth to throw me into the air, where I flipped over him and landed perfectly. I turned to face him and we locked eyes once more.

"Please, Gabriel," I pleaded, "I still love you."

I noticed his hard and angry expression soften somewhat, and I saw his eyes—his real eyes—look back at me like his soul was being torn apart.

The next thing I knew, I was 20-feet away, lying in a heap of rocks and disoriented beyond belief.

"I can't have you spinning your temptress lies on my white ranger, now can I?" Mesomorph hissed at me, the smoke from his energy blast still billowing around him and Gabriel.

"CYBER DIGITIZE—ENERGIZE!" I called out, morphing in a flash and bringing out my Alpha Gun-Saber immediately.

"Don't waste your time," Mesomorph said condescendingly, "we were just leaving."

In a flash, they were gone.