Disclaimer: see first chapter. Basically, to recap, I own nothing. Cept for Annie.

*Quote is from the Magnificent Seven episode Witness.*

*Satan quote is from the Gathering, the first in this series/AU*

Meeting Satan

By Jenifer Davis

Are you Satan?

I'll never live those words down. Even now that we have begun what can only be a trip to hell and back. Now that we realize just who Satan is.

And I realize that Satan isn't male after all.

Instead Satan is a woman. An evil woman bent on total galactic domination. I sigh in amusement. Why is it that these evil chicks just can't ever come up with a new tune. First Rita, the Machina and Divatox, and Trakeena from what I hear. And now Loorna.

Like I said, Satan is a woman. A frighteningly beautiful woman, from what I saw today. No pointed bras or purple hair for her. No metallic voice or buggy attitude. Instead she almost looked normal, in a scary, evil monster sort of way.

And she craves power. With a craving that goes beyond Rita's domination of Earth or Trakeena's intent on destroying Terra Venture. She craves power in a different way. She isn't after mindless drones to fulfill her every need. She wants to control the universe itself and that's what's so damn scary.

Billy's looking at me funny again, so I try to pull myself back into the conversation with Kim and Tommy. To no avail. Nothing against either of my friends, but my mind just isn't in the mood for this right now. Hey, we just finished a battle with the newest baddie on the block, give me a break, okay?

Looking around I see Annie standing off to the side, looking out the window. This is the first time I've ever seen her looking lost. And she does. But I understand why. She doesn't know these people the way we do. Heck, I know these people and I still find it a bit overwhelming.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when I turned around. There was Jezerra, "You have gotta work on your entrance. You about made me the youngest candidate for a heart attack ever."

She just smiles that coy smile of hers and gives me a little wink. Just keepin' ya on your toes, girlie.

"Can't you find a better way to do that than scaring me out of my wits?"

Better me than Loorna.

Now that's a sobering thought. I never want to be surprised by Loorna. She has too many tricks up her sleeve as it is. And too many Amalga-whatever's to make it a reasonably fair fight. Which probably has something to do with the whole conversation Zordon his having with Jason and Andros over there. We aren't gonna be able to do this alone, I can tell you that much. Backup is going to be a commonly used word around us.

And that's not a bad thing either. I can tell already that we've all formed bonds here. This new team, it's not like any other teams before. It pretty much crosses all boundaries. I mean before we were kinda segregated. The was the Morphin team, and the Zeo team. And the first Turbo team, then the new class. Now the Astro team and the Galaxy team, the first time teams were totally separate. But this new Gem team, we have people from each of the teams here. Billy and Jason were two of the original morphin rangers. Jason had the gold power. Adam, Tanya and I all held the Zeo and the Turbo powers. Carlos is both a former Astro and Turbo ranger. And Kendrix, the first of us to be gathered, came from the last team the Galaxy rangers.

We've become the glue that holds all the teams together. We're all different ages, equally male and female. And we are all devoted to stopping this new devil.

Jezerra is ogling that tall kid now, God they are all kids to me, aren't they. The one who's the Magna Defender, umm, Mike, ghost that she is. Probably a good thing she is too, though it'd be interesting to see just how pink his ear would turn. They're already turning a pretty impressive shade as he keeps looking around him to see what's there. I suppose I should rescue him before she goes too far. I wonder if Kendrix has this problem with her predecessor?

She sticks her tongue out at me, but then I see Ely, so I know she won't cause too much trouble any more. Well, at least she'll give Mike a break. The two ghosts disappear to where ever ghosts go when they aren't tormenting, not that they ever tormented me, but she was definitely getting Mike.

Tanya smiles at me over Adam's shoulder. I know that this whole run in with Loorna has her spooked like me. How? She my friend. I know these things. I also know that we'll probably be having a long talk about it later. We've always tended to do that after a particularly nasty monster. I know that she's here for me just as I am here for her.

Satan or Loorna be damned.

What was it that man on that western Tommy used to watch said? Oh yeah, "I've met the devil. More than once. And he ain't beat me yet."

I've met the devil also. And she ain't beat me yet either.