After hearing Warp's mournful words, Zarah was about to sob something similar back, but an explosion cut her following sentence short. Zurg, who was in front of them, winced. Next the Emperor was disgruntled aware that ranger Munchapper had just flattened a couple of hornets to pancakes by jumping down from the stairs. The Jo-Adian was followed by Buzz, Mira and XR.
"Lightyear! Why did you have to interfere with my best revenge scheme yet?" Zurg shook his fist. "Hornets, get them!"
As the robots were stupid, they all reached to obey the command, even those holding Warp and Zarah. When Zurg was back against them, they sneaked out from the door that was just beside the back wall.
"XR and Booster, take the left side, ranger Nova, you're with me!" Buzz quickly gave orders how to split up and start to blast the nauseous metal pests out of way. A heated battle began, which was done in several buildings of the abandoned industry halls. It was merely a cat-dog race, where the parts turned upside down every half a minute. Zurg chased Buzz, Mira chased hornets, Warp hid Buzz, XR chased Zurg, Booster chased Warp, a pack of hornets chased Mira, Buzz was again after Zurg... there seemed to be no end in sight until Team Lightyear had crashed so many droids of the Emperor that he thought it better to slowly retreat. He sneaked out with shelter aid of some smoke that came from broken mechas and soon was far away from Trade World. Cursing, hissing and boiling he had once again to admit that he was left without his vengeance. However, he would have it, which was for sure, so long that the brown eyes under his disguising helmet kept having some life.
"Two targets, two different plans. You, Lightyear, will be turned to serve me; sooner or later... as it should have been from the beginning on... after your pathetic father was history... and you, Darkmatter, you will be cinder in the wind as soon as I shall meet you again..."
His ship swept towards the Dark Empire from where it had as silently appeared.
The fight was not yet over in the in the industry halls. Zurg had left all his hornets to harrow both Team Lightyear and the fleeing lovers. The Emperor namely had the light hope that one of his useful assistants might blow the traitor to the skies, as even the weapon arm of Warp was functionless. So, Warp had still two dangers to escape. Behind boxes and scaffolds he ran low and protected his fragile woman from the missiles of the robots.
He and Zarah soon got into open space when they were in search of a door, out to the city. But out of the blue there was a massive hornet harassing them.
"Look out, Zarah!" Warp interjected and jostled her to the floor from the front of the droid. The plasma doze it had shot, zipped by and smashed to the wall, making it smoulder. The robot was soon blasted to smithereens backwards. For the same time Warp was helping her up.
"You leave that woman alone!" a fierce shout came upon Darkmatter. He let go of her when the alien saw Buzz aiming him with his laser arm, ready to shoot. Sweat began to trickle along his neck. One danger had been avoided and now there were more warriors to snuff him out? He paced towards the wall that was behind him. It was being between two obstacles, now.
"Finally I get you in my target, traitor!" Buzz hissed from the middle of his teeth. "This time you won't get away with this!"
Warp answered nothing, only bit his lips.
Buzz was constantly ready to shoot. How could he have been aware that Warp's blaster arm was not a blaster arm any longer? He was deadly sure that the alien might turn it in a microsecond to a plasma riffle or relevant and give him the touch of the grim reaper. Buzz sensed subconsciously that there was something peculiar in Warp, but did not pay more attention to it, not in a situation like this.
"Where were you taking that woman? To Zurg? Answer me!" Buzz' eyes flamed.
Now Warp spat something with a furious expression. "Ya think so? Guess I'm never allowed to live any private life without Mr. Nice Guy and even ya astro-whatever-rescue-rangers after me."
"I know your privacy! Nothing but more crimes! Now you tell me WHAT Zurg wanted from this woman?"
"To kill her, just like he'd slaughter me!" Warp muttered and accidentally raised his right arm so that Buzz thought him being ready to fire. The ranger was to push his laser button.
Then, yelling from the shadows, Zarah jumped right in front of Warp for the last moment. "You won't kill him!" she roared fiercely, tears glimmering in her eyes.
Buzz startled and gave a curse: "Get away, woman! Can't you understand what's going on here?"
"I understand very well! You won't shoot him!"
"Get out of my way! Are you insane, can't you understand who are you protecting? He's a dangerous criminal! Didn't he just kidnap you?" he sprawled his spit flying in the air.
But Zarah kept her position and only gave back more loudly: "I know who he is, Warp Darkmatter! He didn't kidnap me, I willingly went with him!"
"What? How can you...?"
"This man saved me from Zurg! I'm only alive because of him, so if you fire at him, you have to finish me off first!"
Buzz' jaw drooped open and he attached totally his regard at this little woman. "WHAT?" he interjected.
"That's right! Don't you remember then, half a year ago, when everything was destroyed in Deneveria? You came with your team to rescue me from Yrmh. Do you still believe I could have fled Zurg alone? Darn it, I was in coma for days after Zurg had tortured me..." she took a long, teary inhale to get more kick out of her. "You think I fled in COMA? No, it was WARP who betrayed Zurg for to save me! Without him I'd never be here!"
Buzz' expression had gone even more thunderstruck and he slowly put down his laser arm, gaping at her.
Tears rolled now down her face as she continued her discourse: "He... he took the care of me while I was indolent, risked his life just to save me, darn it, he fed me, warmed me, kept me alive when I was weak, found me shelter, tended my injuries. Can't you understand, both my ankles were dislocated, could I had had walked alone in a condition like that? Because of him, a hundred men were saved from Zurg..." Her rave outburst began to assess her strength and voice. Her tone rose up to falsetto as she hyperventilating screamed the last words to Buzz: "So, you want to kill him? Fine, I die with him, just cut me into pieces with your light saw, I don't care any more!"
The attention of the Captain was drawn elsewhere and he was not aware of the remaining hornet that was behind him. Zarah's scream made him for the last second notice that it fired towards him. He quickly ducked, so did Zarah, but Warp did his action a bit too late. He roared in pain as an ion dose whizzed by his left arm, partly melted the sleeve stuck into his skin and put the muscles bleed. Next the robot seemed to take him as the target. When Warp ran to another room for to get away from the line of fire, what else did the hornet do but followed him. Buzz jumped in the air and lasered, but missed Zurg's machine. Before he had the time to get into the room, an explosive noise reached out of there. Then, some clack. Now Buzz entered the threshold and shot the large robot broken. It collapsed to the floor and let a sad view open. The floor was empty, only there was some rags of cloth and a huge puddle of blood.
"Oh, no..." Buzz put a hand on his forehead.
Zarah, who had got on her legs, peeked in and got her hackles in the air. "No, no, NO!" she stammered.
Lightyear stood in front of her his arms hanging powerlessly. Zarah could get nothing any more out of her mouth, she drooped back to her knees and cried madly.
"He's gone..." Buzz ascertained and gradually took steps to her.
She raised her regard to see the remains once more. With her both hands she gripped her hair and roared in emotional pain.
"He... I guess the hornet blasted him into... ions. The room is empty. There is no way he could have escaped," the Captain sighed.
Lightyear was silent and demure. Years he had been fighting, chasing his traitor ex-partner. Now he was to hear this kind of things. So... this why Zurg had been here. He was after Darkmatter. This was the reason Buzz had not heard about one of the most wanted villains of the galaxy in a long time. The memories beyond years let him descend into his own world: when Warp had been his best friend, his fellow ranger...
"Why... why didn't you tell me this...?" he sighed as he kneeled to Zarah.
"Tell you what? The thing that he saved me? He himself beseeched me then not to mention him with a single word. It was for his safety! That was the least I could do him for to compensate for my obligation!" she sobbed.
"This whole thing... it's like a shock for me... I should have known! I... well, think about it! This all, if he really did save you and helped even get the other workers out of Planet Z... I mean... it could have brought him an immediate amnesty of Galactic Alliance... then, six months ago!" Buzz extended his arms.
"I kept it secret because I wanted to protect him from Zurg, before all! Now it's too late to whine, he's gone, I've lost him again...!" she croaked and slumped to the floor.
Buzz went more earnest. He began to comprehend the situation, keepsakes from last year came slowly into his mind. Zarah had been a weak, crying wraith, then, when he for the first time had met her. The same she was now, the similarity of the occasion was salient. The moaning woman in front of him maybe had some feelings for Darkmatter... and perhaps he had been there to respond to them. But that was not the most important thing that racked Buzz' mind, it was the facing of the facts about Warp... that after all these years he would indicate the values he had as a young man, before joining the dark lord. In his heart he had ages hoped that some day he could meet again the friend that had been eager to defend the good.
Was it true that he could have been there again...? But what Warp lastly had been, when he had fought with him before the case of Miss G'Deneb, he had been cold and ruthless, totally indifferent towards any virtues. What had changed him? He had to find it out.
"Why... why did he save you?" the ranger quietly asked.
"He... said... he couldn't stand to see me getting killed..." was the weak answer.
"But... that has not mattered anything to him since he left Star Command. He has been destroying people without any kind of conscience... why this?" he inquired.
"I don't want to talk about it! He's gone! That knowledge warms no one any more!"
Lightyear was cut short from his thoughts as he heard XR's sarcastic tone coming at his ear.
"Alright, we did the dirty job again. Who's the lazy one here to sit on the floor when we others gotta wrestle with hornets?" But the robot grew uneasy as his electronic eyes attached to Zarah. "My sweetie! What did ya Buzz do to her 'cause she's weeping again?"
Rare it was, but now Buzz lost his temper totally. He gripped the robot from the ground and shook it so that the joints clattered. "YOU SHUT UP AT ONCE! I swear I'll blast you to pieces if you open your maw today any more!"
XR got very scared and slipped out to search for protection behind Booster.
"What happened? Where's Agent Z? Miss G'Deneb, are you all right?" Mira came to them.
"No! NO! I am not all right!" Zarah manically shed tears.
"Ranger Nova... Darkmatter is... dead. And... how can I say this... he was not a henchman of Zurg any more. He... she..." Buzz kept a pause on front of the thunderstruck rangers. Sorrow strangled his heart like an iron band. "Darkmatter was not evil any more. He was the one that saved this miss from Zurg then, when we were on job and got her away from Yrmh. But now... a hornet of Zurg blasted him away... or I guess that was so."
The rest of the rangers remained long silent. The only voice around was Zarah's gradually quietening sobbing.
...To be continued...