Chapter Three

The Rangers were working on some repairs with Karone guiding them when Alpha called out from Command that they were approaching Earth. This of course drew some excitement from the former Earth Rangers. All except for Carlos ran off immediately to get ready. Carlos slunk around.

Normally, Karone would storm off, but she allowed this just once. She had to at least try to give him the benefit of the doubt, and maybe, one of these times, he would get the clue that she wasn't interested.

"So, Karone, you ever been to Earth?" he smiled.

"No, never, I have never had the need; in fact, very few Kerovians ever have the need to go to Earth," Karone responded. At least he wasn't getting as close as he had threatened the last few days and he wasn't referring to her in endearments.

"What? You have never been on Earth? Oh, come on, you're going to love it, then." He smiled and ran out, eager to join the others in getting ready. Well, as ready as they could get with their only Earth clothes in rags.

Karone stood there and thought, "Somehow, I believe I'm not so sure on that front, if all the boys are like you and TJ. If my people were home on KO-35, you would have a rude of awakening there."

A few hours later, after going down to Earth and changing into their respective colors of Earth clothes, they were walking into the Surf Spot. Ashley had taken Karone with her to get some clothes from her house, so Karone was now wearing a white shirt and a long denim skirt.

"Why are we here?" Karone asked, looking around. "I thought we were going to get supplies."

"Well, we are, but we need to eat," TJ said, going over to a table and taking a seat.

Everyone joined him except for Karone, who walked around and looked at the things on the walls. All was fine until she examined the surfboard that hung on the wall. She tapped it, trying to see what it was, but it ended up falling off the wall.

A woman ran up and put it back up on the wall. "Oh, we had a runner," she laughed.

"Excuse me, but what is it?" Karone asked.

"Are you telling me that you don't know what a surfboard is?" The woman looked at her. "What planet are you from?"

"Huh? Oh, I am from KO-35. Did you ever hear of it? I was told no one on Earth knew it existed." Karone smiled.

"Oh, a smart alec," the woman laughed as she walked off.

"What's a smart alec? My name is certainly not Alec." Karone went up and sat next to Ashley, partially because it was the only seat left at the table and partially because it was the seat the farthest from Carlos.

Later that day, they were walking out of a store. They had talked to NASADA anonymously, and they had taken the list of what they needed, but there was some stuff they were getting from regular stores.

All of a sudden, Karone stopped and listened. This caused Ashley to turn and look at her. "Karone is something wrong?"

"We're being followed," Karone whispered as she looked around.

"Are you sure, Karone?" Cassie looked around as well. "I don't see anything."

"You won't. The foot soldiers Ciarán uses aren't yet among us but they are trailing us. There is a certain tingle in the air that you will learn to notice just before they attack." Just as she said that something fired at them. "We need to morph!"

"Not here, too many people will see us," Carlos said, looking around for a safe spot. "Over there, no one will see."

Ciarán was watching. "Drat those Rangers, I can't seem to surprise them." He paused for a minute. "I have to think smarter, not harder." He then turned to Ecliptor. "Ecliptor, I want you to do me a favor: go down and see these new Rangers' abilities. I want to know what they are capable of, although do them a favor and hold back, make them think it's all you are capable of. Fight only hard enough so you could beat them if you tried but don't slaughter them, not this time. This time I want to see what they can do."

"Of course, sire, I will do my best to serve you." Ecliptor took his sword out and knelt before Ciarán.

"Yes, Ecliptor, you will. You have been a good trainer to me; I would hate to see you lose your life in an accident." He said this in a way that would make anyone with a right mind shudder.

Meanwhile, the Rangers were successfully fighting off the Quantrons when something hit them causing them to fly backwards. "Karone, what was that?" Carlos yelled as he was hit.

"I'm not certain, but I have a feeling we are going to have to work as a team to finish whatever it is," Karone yelled back. She stood up cradling her arm briefly.

"Shame, shame, White Ranger, not knowing who I am, we have only met on the battlefield several times," Ecliptor said, materializing.

"Ecliptor! But I thought you had resigned to only teaching your ways to other members of the UAE… And we have never faced each other in person; the White Ranger you fought was my mother," Karone yelled.

"Oh, really? Oh, yes, that's right; you got the morpher thrown at you the day your planet fell because your mother didn't think she could handle another long battle as the one we gave your planet that wonderful day of your fourteenth birthday." Ecliptor sneered.

"So did you come to just harass us or are you here to fight?" Ashley yelled back.

"Oh, I came to fight; be prepared to die."

"Not today, Ecliptor, that is not on our list of things to do." Carlos stepped forward and summoned his lunar lance for the first time in real battle, and everyone else followed him.

"I don't care about your rookies. You're mine, White Ranger! I will see to it that you eventually fall the same way as your former teammates. Do you remember them crying out in pain after they were captured during the battle? Now, I understand it was a young untested rookie that was fighting to save the people of KO-35," Ecliptor taunted her.

Karone hesitated for a minute, before charging through her new teammates. "Ecliptor, what do you want? I will never be scared of you. I may have been untested that day and yes, it probably was a bad move, but if it had been my mother, she would have fallen right into your trap," Karone yelled. She hit him with her moon mallet repeatedly, but was slaughtered equally in return.

All of a sudden, there was another blast.

"Ecliptor, enough! I said you were there to learn how each of them fought, not single out the white one."

All the Rangers stopped what they were doing to find a most unwelcome sight behind them. It wasn't certain which of the Rangers murmured his name in partial astonishment to meet their foe up close, but at least two of the former Earth Rangers said, "Ciarán Bevan."

Ciarán was wearing his armor. However, he was wearing it without sleeves as it was mildly warm and he knew he would overheat if his sleeves were on. In place of his armor sleeves, he had chain mail sleeves that reached from wrist to elbow. This revealed to the Rangers two well developed and highly muscled arms. And on his left arm was this large tattoo.

The tattoo covered a good portion of his arm. The design was of a dark background with a dark red center that had a vague resemblance to Dark Specter, and scattered around it there were symbols that represented the UAE and Dark Specter.

"Welcome to my war, Earth Rangers! I was originally feeling generous today, in only letting Ecliptor taste your skills, but now I think I am going to make Ecliptor grow." He grinned evilly, before calling back to have someone fire the sati-lasers on Ecliptor. As Ecliptor grew and Ciarán started to disappear, he said, "Good luck, Rangers! May you lose and forever be my slaves."

Calling on the Astro Megazord, they easily won this round. However, they knew they weren't always going to be so lucky in ousting Ecliptor that easily. Going back to the ship, they all sat around the bridge talking about what had happened.

Carlos looked at Karone. "What did he mean by past team? Did you have another team before us?" he asked, sort of angrily.

"No, not I. However, my mother and father did. My mother had made the decision, as the war broke out that morning, that my training was complete and that I should take her place on the battlefield. She wanted to run with my father, who had given his morpher up a few months prior to my older brother. Well, during the war, Ecliptor and a few others set a trap that my parents team fell into. They were expecting the White Ranger as well, but they had no idea that the morpher had been passed on. My mother would have surely fallen for the trap wanting to save her teammates. Well, I watched as they executed everyone from my mother's team. They tried to get me later, but my brother saved me and then we went our own different ways to keep the planet safe," she explained. She held back from them as she told the story, deciding they were not ready to hear the full tale.

"Do you see your brother?" Cassie asked looking at her.

"Well, yes and no. He doesn't see me but I see him. We made the decision that we would fight separately… I guess we haven't mutually talked in two years, but I think of him often and I hope that one day, he will come here and help us out if we need the help." Karone sighed.

That night after they fell asleep, she would go see him but she didn't want them to know just yet: TJ and Carlos were only just starting to trust and respect her space; how would they handle the fact that she had almost killed her big brother?

Later that night, as she planned, after seeing that all four for them were sound asleep, she stole off the living decks, wrapping her sweat suit around her as she pressed the panels in the engine room. As she pressed the right one and it started to open, she felt the temperature drop.

She walked into the room and laid her hands on the glass box that was inside it. Looking at the Ranger costume underneath, she felt a tear fall down her cheek. She wanted the others to know, but if they knew it would cause her to lose the one place she had onboard where she could be alone with her thoughts. This, for the last two years, had been her brother's room, and she hoped that someday he would wake up on his own. She sat down and looked up at the container again before bowing her head in tears.

The battle was just about over, and they were losing. The rest of their team was gone. Andros had just recently realized that the White Ranger fighting was his little sister.

Just as she heard him yell, she looked up to see a monster ready to blow her to smithereens. She tried to duck, but before she could, she saw a shadow fly in front of hers. Her brother had taken the hit that was intended to kill her. The monster ran and she rolled him over to find that it had missed the killing zone on his chest. He was alive, but she didn't know how much so.

Staying in her morphed form, seeing as it was the only way she could carry her brother, she knew what she must do to save him. Picking his larger form up, she carried him awkwardly through the streets towards where the Megaship sat.

Laying him on the bed part of the cryo unit, she demorphed and, with tears rolling down her cheeks, she lifted his helmet enough so she could see his face. She stroked his face and whispered in his ear, "Andros, it's going to get really cold in here in a little bit, but brother, don't be scared. It will help you. Just let the cold take over you, it's a good cold." She kissed his cheek and could have sworn his eyes cracked open slightly in pain as she put his helmet back in place. She knew she wasn't imagining it, though, when his fingers moved slightly as she moved to put the lid down.

"I'm sorry, Andros," she cried.

Karone looked up and touched the sides, letting her fingers draw designs in the condensation as she thought the same thoughts she thought every time. "You were partially awake when I locked you in there, weren't you, Andros? You must hate me for what I have done."

It was then she smiled and thought a different thought. "If one of our new teammates saw you like this, I know how he would respond, Andros. He has a queer since of humor. He would look and laugh saying, "look, it's a Ranger under glass"… He would say it, not knowing how fierce of a warrior you have the potential of being. If only, Andros, you were conscious and could tell me your thoughts, big brother… I have missed having you to talk to and I am, at least, glad now we have teammates so I can tell my thoughts to others even if they don't understand my heart like you do."

Realizing the time, she stood up and wiped her tears. If one of the others had gotten up for something and crossed paths with her, how would she explain the tears? Then she thought forcefully, so that her thoughts might be picked up by her brother; every time she tried it thinking cryo-stasis might have the same principle as someone in a coma and they could hear, but she had never gotten any sign back from him no matter how hard she tried. "Andros, I will come back soon, you just keep trying to get better. I am not going to tell the others about you just yet but I can't tell for how long I can keep you a secret."

Removing her hand from the stasis unit, she backed away.