Chapter 37

Tommy was right, I should at least try to forgive Katherine. On one hand she had no control over herself or her actions, to Lord Zedd she was merely a puppet and he was pulling the strings. Creepy image yes, but that's the way it is. On the other hand he might see how I'm treating and acting toward Katherine and use that to further antagonize me. Which could mean me turning against her and doing something that I might regret later but secretly being happy about it. So after a good yelling at from Zordon and Tommy, I swallowed my pride and began to treat Katherine with respect and courtesy. But that was far as I could go, I had other things on my mind. He killed my parents as a first punishment, and he took Kimberly away from me as a second punishment. And all because I betrayed him. I had to admit that it kind of peeved me off that Katherine wasn't being punished like I was, but then her betrayal must have seen like small potatoes compared to mine. But... and I hate myself for asking this but...Where's the justice in that? For betraying my former master my parents get killed, my sister is stripped of her powers and takes off to live a normal life, I get captured, and tortured. Katherine, on the other hand, gets captured and thrown into the dungeons where I am. But he didn't lay a single hand on her, I didn't see any bruises on her when she was thrown in the cage, did you? Amy, you're obsessing, calm down. Okay, okay, I'm calm, I'm calm. Let's think about the punishments. Okay number one was the murder of your parents, the second was of taking away your best friend and sister. So, the question is, is there going to be third punishment? My gut says yes, but when is this third punishment going to take place is all up in the air. I have to be ready, he could be going after my friends or the rest of my family, I have to be ready to fight at a moment's notice. Dex, after hearing about the third punishment said that he will also be ready to fight by my side. I thanked him mightily.

Tommy had been disappointed when other than bringing back Ninjor and the Coins, we failed to bring back the Falcon Zord, which thanks to a spell that was cast by Zedd had changed into a real falcon when it was taken by Katherine. I wasn't sure how to break the news to him since from what Kim had told me, Tommy had been very fond of his Falcon Zord. Rocky had once stolen a ride on it and treated it like one of those machine gun airplanes, pretending to fire bullets at the Command Center while the rest of us were on the floor laughing while Zordon and Tommy were both yelling at him. I had sat Tommy down at the park and told him what I had seen while in Zedd's throne room. He seemed to rock back, a shocked look on his face.
"Blood and feathers?" He whispered. I nodded.

"Tommy, I'm really sorry, Kim told me that you were fond of your Zord." He got up and had turned his back on me.
"Are you sure those feathers were my Falcon Zord's?" He finally said. I blinked then thought back. My only objective was to get the Coins and Ninjor and myself out of the palace, in a corner of the room I had seen a cage. It appeared empty except for the blood and the feathers that were littered on the floor of the cage. I had thought, when I saw the cage that Goldar or Rito had killed the falcon.
"I'm sure Tommy, t--the feathers were white." Tommy sighed. Then he turned toward me, it took a while but then he shrugged his shoulders.
"Zords come and go Amy, that's what happens when you're a Power Ranger." I had blinked and stared at him but decided not to say anything. Maybe they were used to Zords being taken away and replaced with all new ones. I wondered how many Zords the Power Ranger team has had, but I thought that now wasn't a best time to ask. Kim had sent me several e-mails, and it felt good talking to her and sharing news. I still missed her and kept thinking that any minute now she was going to come bursting into my room and jump on my bed, and the end result would be that I would fall off and yell at her while she ran away from me laughing. I knew for a fact that Katherine and I would never be as close as Kimberly and me. I was visiting Mom and my step-dad again, and I felt much better now that I've mourned for her, considering the fact that I had mourned for her while in chains. I told them all bout my feelings toward Katherine, what had happened to Kim, getting new Zords, which I had to admit were pretty awesome, even though I had a bit of trouble controlling my Zord.
"And I thought my Bear Zord had a lot of buttons." I joked. Alpha had taught me how to steer, fire its weapons and join it with the others to make the Shogun Mega Zord until I had gotten the hang of it, and a few hours had passed and my friends and I began to play "Red Rover, Red Rover" with the Shoguns. By the time I was limping home, it was dark yet I felt really good talking to mom and my step-dad again. As I unlocked the door to the house and entered ready for a good night's sleep. But then I was afraid of closing my eyes. I still had nightmares about my time in Zedd's palace, the nightmares consisted of being tortured until I had been driven insane, being turned back into that monster and attacking Katherine but after I had killed her, I had realized to my horror that I had actually killed Kimberly. I may have healed the bruises on my body but there is pain that not even my powers can heal. I stopped outside of my bed room not really wanting to go to sleep, not yet anyway. So turning, I limped to Katherine's room and poked my head in. She was sitting on the bed and writing on a piece of paper. I took a deep breath and called out a greeting. She looked up and she smiled.
"Hey." She said. I smiled back at her and entered, limping over to her bed I sat down and stared at my hands for a while not sure what to say.
"Listen Katherine...uh...about what I said at the cafeteria..." I paused not sure if I wanted to go on. "I--I'm sorry, I know that you're trying your hardest to...ya know...make it up to me and all but..."
"Amy, I know that you'll never forgive for handing you over to Lord Zedd and doing all that stuff to you...heck even I wouldn't forgive me. It's just that I..."
"I know believe me I've been there myself. The spells are very tough to escape from and from what I've heard you're the first person to fight it." Katherine had a small smile on her face.
"Have you tried to fight the spell that you were placed under?"
"I wasn't actually "placed underneath a spell" per say. I was free most of the time, the thing was that the spell would take over whenever my master called for me to do...certain things for him." She nodded, we were both silent.
"I--I finally became really free a--after I performed a certain deed for him." I looked away. Katherine took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh.
"He told me that whenever you failed, he would hurt you, is that why you have those scars on your back?" I looked at her.

"You saw those?" She nodded, I sighed.
"I--I can understand him not laying a hand on you...you...uh...succeeded in stealing a Power Coin, two actually." She flinched.
"Sorry about that."
"Its okay. " We were both silent, then I heave myself off the bed. Turning I said.
"It was nice talking to you." She smiled me and nodded, then I went to my room and closed the door.

After that night I began to feel more comfortable around her as the days passed even going so far as playfully arguing with her over who would wash the dishes. The others were glad that I was treating Katherine like a friend and a teammate, even Dex was glad for the change in attitude. Katherine had asked questions about the man that had saved us from Zedd's palace, and despite my trying to show her that I trusted her, I had only told her that the Masked Rider was only a friend that would help us out from time to time. Her eyes had widen when she heard that there was another superhero besides the Power Rangers. She seemed equally surprised to find out that I had a boyfriend, both of them had met when I called Dex up, wanting to talk with him and spend some time alone with him. There were still some questions that were still burning in my mind like Why me? How did he know that I had powers in the first place? Did somebody tell him? I bounced off this questions to Dex, we came up with several theories as to how Lord Zedd had chosen me and knew about my powers but none of them stuck. And I was beginning to think that we may never know the answer or the full story. Then as if I needed any reminding of what was to come, Goldar paid me a visit.

We had just beat that smelly Garbage Can monster, who turned out to be a lot more stronger and tougher then we imagined. One of his powers was burying us underneath large amounts of garbage. I must have washed myself 20 times and while I was washing my hair for the fifteenth time I wondered if I was overdoing it a little. The monster's attacks weren't that bad, we defeated him with a combined Power Blast from the Shogun Mega Zord. What was bad was Lord Zedd touching me and running his fingers through my hair, I still got goose bumps whenever I thought about it. I had soaked myself in hot water despite the pain it brought to my back and washed my hair with a mixture of vinegar and shampoo, until I could no longer feel his fingers on my scalp.

I shivered as I slipped into clean underwear and pulled a loose t-shirt over my head, then I pulled some shorts on. I was about to crawl into bed when I heard something behind me, before I could turn something slammed into my back and shoved me against the wall, I cried out as I began to struggle, I heard the voice of Goldar rasp into my ear.

"Thought you needed a bit of a reminder about what's coming up for you." He grabbed me by the back of my neck and flung me across the room, I landed on the floor on my side, I struggled to my feet but Goldar kicked me, I fell on my back. He picked me up by the front of my shirt and punched me hard in the stomach and clamped a hand over my mouth and pulling out his sword with the other he inserted it into my ankle, my scream was muffled. Outside in the hall Katherine heard something from my room, stepping out into the hall she knocked on my closed door and called to me.

"Amy? Everything alright?" She heard the sounds of thumping and punching. She grabbed the door knob and tried to opened it, it wouldn't open! She began to pound on it yelling my name. She turned and ran into her room, got her communicator and called on Tommy. He came then the both of them ran to my door and began to pound on it and tried to break it down but no matter what they tried nothing worked. They heard screams and yelps of pain. They heard a sickening thump that made the door shake. Katherine shrieked and Tommy leapt back as the tip of Goldar's sword went through the door, the tip was covered in blood. It retracted then all was silent.

"Amy?" called Tommy softly. Katherine tried the knob, the door opened at her touch. Both of them looked into my room, I had been flung to the other side of the room. I was lying on my side, staring at them. Both of them ran toward me they saw the bruises and the marks that Goldar left blood was oozing from my side and onto the carpet. Tommy dropped to his knees, picked me up and lay me gently on the bed. Katherine was shaking all over. I looked at the both of them.

"Please make it stop." I whispered as tears streamed down my face.

Tommy stayed awake the rest of the night and guarded us from further attacks, but none came.