Disclaimer: Don't own the Power Rangers. Anybody you never heard of before
is probably mine, but it doesn't matter because there's no money involved
anyway.
Note: this is completely AU. Zordon never died. Everybody's in their early to mid-twenties. You'll recognize the other stuff I changed. The first scene is for Carrie, to answer a question I had pretty much ignored.
Legacy, part 15
While Aji took Tommy to the armory to get outfitted, Deorth helped the other three equip a runabout, filling it with supplies, water, and ammunition.
"Deorth," said Taia tentatively. He looked at her. "Who hurt Aji? She would not tell me."
He shook his head. "Bubo, Beni and Hezia." At Jason's thunderous frown, he went on. "Understand, when your father was taken and Frid Resgro's treachery exposed, there was chaos here for a time. Frid had disappeared; Aji was missing as well and many believed she had gone with him." Deorth shrugged. "I know Aji better than most. I knew she had gone after him, but it was difficult to convince more than a few. And then she came back, and they attacked her before they realized she had rescued Paladin. And Aji… would not fight back. She still had her armor on, fortunately, or they would have done real damage. It was clear what they intended."
There was an audible growl from Jason, quickly bitten off. "These three – where can I find them?"
"Yes," chimed in a stone-faced Billy. "I think we'd all like to talk to them."
"I'll take you to them now if you like." Deorth led them from the docking bay. "You should know I already confronted each of them last night and demonstrated clearly that what they did was unwise."
The surroundings were becoming familiar. "Deorth," said Billy slowly. "This is the way to the med bay."
A smug smile crept over the blond soldier's face. "Yes, it is."
****************
The runabout hummed to a stop behind a ridge of mustard-yellow rock. "The coordinates where I found Paladin are southwest of here. We will leave the runabout hidden here; it is easy to detect, and while unlikely, it is not impossible that the base is still inhabited." Aji shouldered her weapon and jammed her helmet on her head, leading the way. The others each grabbed a weapon and a pack of supplies and followed.
"How far?" Tommy asked, wiping his visor free of dirt.
"About an hour's walk," Aji said shortly.
Tommy caught up with her, matching her gait. "You don't have to be like this, Aji. Nobody here blames you for –"
"Untrue. I am here."
He thought about that. "You mean you blame yourself. Honestly, you Xeryans speak so cryptically I sometimes have a hard time following you."
She glanced at him, her expression unreadable behind her visor. "I shall endeavor to accommodate your needs by copying your speech patterns." There was a brief pause. "I'll try to talk the way you do."
He grinned inside his helmet. "Thanks."
******************
In a hidden place, not far distant, It watched the party as they trudged across the hard desert floor. "These I choose," It whispered hoarsely, in a voice last used millennia ago. "Bring them." Its robed companion, still for so long, opened mismatched eyes, nodded once, and began to chant in a language long dead.
******************
The desert landscape was stark, forbidding, an eerie beauty in its bleakness. The dirt and rocks were all of a similar color, the horizon broken by a craggy mountain range. The ground was baked hard, not sandy, and deeply scarred by gouges and cracks big enough to walk in. Dust filled the air, creeping into helmets, clogging their noses, covering them until their skin and hair and clothing matched the landscape.
They were about halfway to their goal when a few fat raindrops splatted onto the ground in front of them, sending up little puffs of dust. They looked up to see a black cloud forming overhead, the vapors moving fast and gathering in volume.
"Uh oh," said Tommy.
"Shelter," Taia's voice was urgent. "There." Some distance ahead loomed a rocky outcropping above the rest of the ground. She began to jog toward it, the rest of the party following close behind.
CR-RACK! Lightning arced across the lowering sky, followed immediately by thunder loud enough to shake the ground. A distant roar moved closer, faster than they could outrun it, though they were running flat out now. They looked behind them to see a gray wall of rain and wind closing on them. "Hurry!" urged Jason.
A second roar, deeper than the first, rumbled nearer. The gouge nearest them shook and groaned as a torrent of white water thundered by, sweeping dirt and debris before it, tearing at the walls of the channel it was forming.
"Flash flood," yelled Billy above the howl of the wind. "We need to get to higher ground!"
Water was rushing past the base of the outcropping; they helped each other up, slipping and sliding in the teeming rain. They sat, huddled, on the top of the rocky bank, watching the wild water roar past, heaving and hurling in abandon.
Billy looked up at the sky, squinting into the rain, the swirling drops somehow hypnotic. His blue eyes suddenly grew wide with horror and he looked over to two of his companions where they sat near the edge of the outcropping. "Oh – God –NO! Tommy – Aji – get away from there—"
But his warning came too late as the area where Tommy sat disintegrated beneath him. Aji dove forward, grasping his wrist, and then that part of the bank eroded suddenly, dropping them both into the wild maelstrom of the flood.
"NOOOOOO!" screamed Jason, his deep voice breaking. As one they summoned their powers; silver, bronze and gold leapt into the storm, buffeted by the harsh wind and streaming rain, racing through the air to chase the rapids.
Do you see them?
There – a hand – no – it's gone—
This can't be happening… oh, God, let them be all right…
Where are they? I can't –
What's that? Is that –
I saw it, in my mind – I knew it was going to – but there was no time…
The wind died, the rain slowed, and still the trio searched, following the whitewater as it carved its way through the desert floor, now turned to thick mud. Then, with a low, slow moan, the water formed a vortex and disappeared into the ground, the roof of the cave it made collapsing in the vacuum left behind it. They stared, disbelieving, at the crater of mud and rubble; Taia attacked it, digging furiously, heaving rocks away, trying to keep the mud from sliding in to take their place. Jason and Billy joined her, their breath coming quickly, the muscles in their arms and backs bunching from the strain as they dug frantically into the mire. At last Billy fell back, silently acknowledging the futility of the task, wiping angry tears on his arm. Taia simply went to the ground where she was, wracked with frustration and grief. And Jason collapsed to his knees, hands fisted and face to the sky as he roared out his anguish.
*******************
Silence. Nothing but a heartbeat, steady and slow; and then consciousness followed, black to gray to white, and other senses began to register. Water pushed gently at his lower body; earth, fertile and rich, cushioned his cheek. Tommy coughed, spewing dirty yellow-brown water. He choked, he vomited; at last he groaned and pulled himself further up on the riverbank, looking around slowly.
A flash of russet caught his attention; he dragged himself to the unconscious girl's side, feeling for a pulse.
Thank God, it was there. Faint, but unmistakable. "Come on, Aji," he muttered, gently slapping her cheek. "Come on. Wake up." Her eyelids fluttered.
"I'm – ugh!" she rolled over and retched, ridding herself of the flood waters, then returned to her back with a groan. "Are you all right? What about the others?"
"I don't know," he said truthfully. "I'm not even sure where we are. It sure as shit isn't a desert."
Aji sat up painfully, looking around her. Huge trees arched above them, heavily hung with vines, their tops too high to see. A faint steam rose from the ground; the air was hot, humid, smelling of earth and growing things. A thick carpet of moss covered the ground, small pools of water gathered in the natural wells of dark gray rocks. Shrubbery grew in between the trees, their leaves huge and dotted with moisture. Behind Aji and Tommy was a river, clean and clear, springing from the ground. Rock walls rose beyond the river's mouth and continued until obscured by the verdant jungle. She squinted overhead; the light was faint, diffuse, streaked with unmoving gray. Her eyes widened as she looked at her companion.
"I know," he said. "We're not in Kansas anymore."
She thought about that for a while. "Evidently not." A quick inventory revealed that they had lost their helmets and weapons, though each still had a utility knife strapped to one leg. Tommy's pack was also gone. The black uniforms they wore were in rags, choked with silt and yellow mud. They both had been banged about, discovering several new bruises and scrapes, but Tommy had a real problem: a several inch long gash on one calf. "Can you move your foot?" Aji asked, probing it with gentle fingers. He grimaced, but moved it. "Not broken, then. Here." She cut the black fabric of his pants leg free and rinsed the piece thoroughly in the river, tying it securely around the wound.
"Thanks," he smiled at her. "We should look for the others." They got to their feet and walked along the riverbank, Tommy leaning heavily on Aji, limping.
"You should get off that leg," Aji said, but he shook his head.
"Not until we're sure about Jase and the others."
They staggered a while longer. "I think we're alone," Aji said quietly. "With their powers they would have been more easily able to escape the flood anyway."
Tommy sighed, sitting heavily on a stone, stretching his injured leg in front of him. "You're probably right. Hey – what's that?" A dark shape bobbed in the water, caught on a branch that hung over the river.
Aji smiled, for the first time in their acquaintance. "That's your pack. Wait here," and she waded into the water, bringing back the pack with a grin. "This should make things a whole lot easier."
"Easier is good." He winced as she found a small bottle of antiseptic and treated his leg.
"Give it a moment; that's also an analgesic. When you feel up to it we'll try to find a place to camp."
She was right. After a couple of minutes the throbbing faded to a dull ache, and Tommy stood. "Let's go, before this stuff wears off."
They wandered inland, Aji scouting ahead and returning to Tommy with directions. He found a large branch to use as a makeshift crutch and was able to make slow but steady progress, though it wore him out after a few hours.
"I'm not sure how much farther I can go," he panted, leaning on a tree.
She nodded. "It's fine; we know as little about one place as another. Let me look around a bit. You rest here." He nodded and she set off; a short time later she was back, her green eyes wide. "I have something to show you." Aji slipped under Tommy's arm and helped him forward. As they cleared a particularly dense shrubbery, the duo stopped dead.
"Holy crap, would you look at that?" said Tommy, mouth agape in awe.
Before them rose a huge structure that could only be called a temple. Massive stone pillars climbed upward to disappear into the mists above; they were as thickly hung with vines as the trees surrounding them, and deeply incised with unfamiliar glyphs. The floor was smooth and round, inlaid with color to form a symmetrical design. Beyond this area was an archway, also deeply incised with delicate, interlocking designs, and beyond that, darkness. In the center of the round floor was a small depression, and inlaid into it a pair of stones, one dark, one light, both opalescent and beautiful. They were carved to interlock with one another in perfect balance, something like the Chinese symbol of Yin and Yang, Tommy thought, and said as much.
"Balance… yes, I see," said Aji thoughtfully.
"Is any of this familiar to you?" Tommy limped slowly to one of the pillars, touching the glyphs gingerly. "This writing, do you know it?"
Aji examined the symbols. "No. I've never seen anything like this before. I've never even heard of anything like this… except…" She paused, her brow furrowing. "It has been said that in the old days, the early days of So'Vran's domination, there were places where the spirits of Paladin and Sentinel and Guardian could speak to their chosen. So'Vran is said to have destroyed them all, but perhaps this is one he missed?"
Tommy nodded. "It's as likely as anything else." He walked haltingly around part of the perimeter of the floor. "And it's dry. Do you want to camp here?"
"Why not?" Aji nodded. "It's not as though there's anyone still here."
Note: this is completely AU. Zordon never died. Everybody's in their early to mid-twenties. You'll recognize the other stuff I changed. The first scene is for Carrie, to answer a question I had pretty much ignored.
Legacy, part 15
While Aji took Tommy to the armory to get outfitted, Deorth helped the other three equip a runabout, filling it with supplies, water, and ammunition.
"Deorth," said Taia tentatively. He looked at her. "Who hurt Aji? She would not tell me."
He shook his head. "Bubo, Beni and Hezia." At Jason's thunderous frown, he went on. "Understand, when your father was taken and Frid Resgro's treachery exposed, there was chaos here for a time. Frid had disappeared; Aji was missing as well and many believed she had gone with him." Deorth shrugged. "I know Aji better than most. I knew she had gone after him, but it was difficult to convince more than a few. And then she came back, and they attacked her before they realized she had rescued Paladin. And Aji… would not fight back. She still had her armor on, fortunately, or they would have done real damage. It was clear what they intended."
There was an audible growl from Jason, quickly bitten off. "These three – where can I find them?"
"Yes," chimed in a stone-faced Billy. "I think we'd all like to talk to them."
"I'll take you to them now if you like." Deorth led them from the docking bay. "You should know I already confronted each of them last night and demonstrated clearly that what they did was unwise."
The surroundings were becoming familiar. "Deorth," said Billy slowly. "This is the way to the med bay."
A smug smile crept over the blond soldier's face. "Yes, it is."
****************
The runabout hummed to a stop behind a ridge of mustard-yellow rock. "The coordinates where I found Paladin are southwest of here. We will leave the runabout hidden here; it is easy to detect, and while unlikely, it is not impossible that the base is still inhabited." Aji shouldered her weapon and jammed her helmet on her head, leading the way. The others each grabbed a weapon and a pack of supplies and followed.
"How far?" Tommy asked, wiping his visor free of dirt.
"About an hour's walk," Aji said shortly.
Tommy caught up with her, matching her gait. "You don't have to be like this, Aji. Nobody here blames you for –"
"Untrue. I am here."
He thought about that. "You mean you blame yourself. Honestly, you Xeryans speak so cryptically I sometimes have a hard time following you."
She glanced at him, her expression unreadable behind her visor. "I shall endeavor to accommodate your needs by copying your speech patterns." There was a brief pause. "I'll try to talk the way you do."
He grinned inside his helmet. "Thanks."
******************
In a hidden place, not far distant, It watched the party as they trudged across the hard desert floor. "These I choose," It whispered hoarsely, in a voice last used millennia ago. "Bring them." Its robed companion, still for so long, opened mismatched eyes, nodded once, and began to chant in a language long dead.
******************
The desert landscape was stark, forbidding, an eerie beauty in its bleakness. The dirt and rocks were all of a similar color, the horizon broken by a craggy mountain range. The ground was baked hard, not sandy, and deeply scarred by gouges and cracks big enough to walk in. Dust filled the air, creeping into helmets, clogging their noses, covering them until their skin and hair and clothing matched the landscape.
They were about halfway to their goal when a few fat raindrops splatted onto the ground in front of them, sending up little puffs of dust. They looked up to see a black cloud forming overhead, the vapors moving fast and gathering in volume.
"Uh oh," said Tommy.
"Shelter," Taia's voice was urgent. "There." Some distance ahead loomed a rocky outcropping above the rest of the ground. She began to jog toward it, the rest of the party following close behind.
CR-RACK! Lightning arced across the lowering sky, followed immediately by thunder loud enough to shake the ground. A distant roar moved closer, faster than they could outrun it, though they were running flat out now. They looked behind them to see a gray wall of rain and wind closing on them. "Hurry!" urged Jason.
A second roar, deeper than the first, rumbled nearer. The gouge nearest them shook and groaned as a torrent of white water thundered by, sweeping dirt and debris before it, tearing at the walls of the channel it was forming.
"Flash flood," yelled Billy above the howl of the wind. "We need to get to higher ground!"
Water was rushing past the base of the outcropping; they helped each other up, slipping and sliding in the teeming rain. They sat, huddled, on the top of the rocky bank, watching the wild water roar past, heaving and hurling in abandon.
Billy looked up at the sky, squinting into the rain, the swirling drops somehow hypnotic. His blue eyes suddenly grew wide with horror and he looked over to two of his companions where they sat near the edge of the outcropping. "Oh – God –NO! Tommy – Aji – get away from there—"
But his warning came too late as the area where Tommy sat disintegrated beneath him. Aji dove forward, grasping his wrist, and then that part of the bank eroded suddenly, dropping them both into the wild maelstrom of the flood.
"NOOOOOO!" screamed Jason, his deep voice breaking. As one they summoned their powers; silver, bronze and gold leapt into the storm, buffeted by the harsh wind and streaming rain, racing through the air to chase the rapids.
Do you see them?
There – a hand – no – it's gone—
This can't be happening… oh, God, let them be all right…
Where are they? I can't –
What's that? Is that –
I saw it, in my mind – I knew it was going to – but there was no time…
The wind died, the rain slowed, and still the trio searched, following the whitewater as it carved its way through the desert floor, now turned to thick mud. Then, with a low, slow moan, the water formed a vortex and disappeared into the ground, the roof of the cave it made collapsing in the vacuum left behind it. They stared, disbelieving, at the crater of mud and rubble; Taia attacked it, digging furiously, heaving rocks away, trying to keep the mud from sliding in to take their place. Jason and Billy joined her, their breath coming quickly, the muscles in their arms and backs bunching from the strain as they dug frantically into the mire. At last Billy fell back, silently acknowledging the futility of the task, wiping angry tears on his arm. Taia simply went to the ground where she was, wracked with frustration and grief. And Jason collapsed to his knees, hands fisted and face to the sky as he roared out his anguish.
*******************
Silence. Nothing but a heartbeat, steady and slow; and then consciousness followed, black to gray to white, and other senses began to register. Water pushed gently at his lower body; earth, fertile and rich, cushioned his cheek. Tommy coughed, spewing dirty yellow-brown water. He choked, he vomited; at last he groaned and pulled himself further up on the riverbank, looking around slowly.
A flash of russet caught his attention; he dragged himself to the unconscious girl's side, feeling for a pulse.
Thank God, it was there. Faint, but unmistakable. "Come on, Aji," he muttered, gently slapping her cheek. "Come on. Wake up." Her eyelids fluttered.
"I'm – ugh!" she rolled over and retched, ridding herself of the flood waters, then returned to her back with a groan. "Are you all right? What about the others?"
"I don't know," he said truthfully. "I'm not even sure where we are. It sure as shit isn't a desert."
Aji sat up painfully, looking around her. Huge trees arched above them, heavily hung with vines, their tops too high to see. A faint steam rose from the ground; the air was hot, humid, smelling of earth and growing things. A thick carpet of moss covered the ground, small pools of water gathered in the natural wells of dark gray rocks. Shrubbery grew in between the trees, their leaves huge and dotted with moisture. Behind Aji and Tommy was a river, clean and clear, springing from the ground. Rock walls rose beyond the river's mouth and continued until obscured by the verdant jungle. She squinted overhead; the light was faint, diffuse, streaked with unmoving gray. Her eyes widened as she looked at her companion.
"I know," he said. "We're not in Kansas anymore."
She thought about that for a while. "Evidently not." A quick inventory revealed that they had lost their helmets and weapons, though each still had a utility knife strapped to one leg. Tommy's pack was also gone. The black uniforms they wore were in rags, choked with silt and yellow mud. They both had been banged about, discovering several new bruises and scrapes, but Tommy had a real problem: a several inch long gash on one calf. "Can you move your foot?" Aji asked, probing it with gentle fingers. He grimaced, but moved it. "Not broken, then. Here." She cut the black fabric of his pants leg free and rinsed the piece thoroughly in the river, tying it securely around the wound.
"Thanks," he smiled at her. "We should look for the others." They got to their feet and walked along the riverbank, Tommy leaning heavily on Aji, limping.
"You should get off that leg," Aji said, but he shook his head.
"Not until we're sure about Jase and the others."
They staggered a while longer. "I think we're alone," Aji said quietly. "With their powers they would have been more easily able to escape the flood anyway."
Tommy sighed, sitting heavily on a stone, stretching his injured leg in front of him. "You're probably right. Hey – what's that?" A dark shape bobbed in the water, caught on a branch that hung over the river.
Aji smiled, for the first time in their acquaintance. "That's your pack. Wait here," and she waded into the water, bringing back the pack with a grin. "This should make things a whole lot easier."
"Easier is good." He winced as she found a small bottle of antiseptic and treated his leg.
"Give it a moment; that's also an analgesic. When you feel up to it we'll try to find a place to camp."
She was right. After a couple of minutes the throbbing faded to a dull ache, and Tommy stood. "Let's go, before this stuff wears off."
They wandered inland, Aji scouting ahead and returning to Tommy with directions. He found a large branch to use as a makeshift crutch and was able to make slow but steady progress, though it wore him out after a few hours.
"I'm not sure how much farther I can go," he panted, leaning on a tree.
She nodded. "It's fine; we know as little about one place as another. Let me look around a bit. You rest here." He nodded and she set off; a short time later she was back, her green eyes wide. "I have something to show you." Aji slipped under Tommy's arm and helped him forward. As they cleared a particularly dense shrubbery, the duo stopped dead.
"Holy crap, would you look at that?" said Tommy, mouth agape in awe.
Before them rose a huge structure that could only be called a temple. Massive stone pillars climbed upward to disappear into the mists above; they were as thickly hung with vines as the trees surrounding them, and deeply incised with unfamiliar glyphs. The floor was smooth and round, inlaid with color to form a symmetrical design. Beyond this area was an archway, also deeply incised with delicate, interlocking designs, and beyond that, darkness. In the center of the round floor was a small depression, and inlaid into it a pair of stones, one dark, one light, both opalescent and beautiful. They were carved to interlock with one another in perfect balance, something like the Chinese symbol of Yin and Yang, Tommy thought, and said as much.
"Balance… yes, I see," said Aji thoughtfully.
"Is any of this familiar to you?" Tommy limped slowly to one of the pillars, touching the glyphs gingerly. "This writing, do you know it?"
Aji examined the symbols. "No. I've never seen anything like this before. I've never even heard of anything like this… except…" She paused, her brow furrowing. "It has been said that in the old days, the early days of So'Vran's domination, there were places where the spirits of Paladin and Sentinel and Guardian could speak to their chosen. So'Vran is said to have destroyed them all, but perhaps this is one he missed?"
Tommy nodded. "It's as likely as anything else." He walked haltingly around part of the perimeter of the floor. "And it's dry. Do you want to camp here?"
"Why not?" Aji nodded. "It's not as though there's anyone still here."
