Disclaimer: Buena Vista's handling things at the moment. Duh. This
Astronema story is mostly set within the time she was contemplating who she
really was after discovering Andros had a locket identical to her own.
I came to understand Jaqui Beres used the same song, "When Will My Reflection Show" in a Karone story, also. This story is completely different, and she is aware of the fact I also used the same song for different purposes. She, however, used the longer song from the credits of "Mulan"...I am using the shorter version. However, this isn't really a songfic. Okay. Enough babble. Enjoy.
The Shadowy Mirror
By ZeoViolet Teaser: Will learning of her origins be enough to compel Astronema to change?
*He's my....brother?* Astronema could still not believe it. It could not be true, it just could not be!
Still, his words haunted her. *You're Karone, my sister.* How could it possibly be true? She was Astronema, Princess of Evil, and she knew nothing about this fantastic claim, that she came from KO-35, she was as human as Andros. She was evil, raised that way. It was all she knew, all she recalled.
And yet...what had stopped her? What had stopped her from letting that Quantron destroy the children Andrew and Karen? Screams had resounded in her ears for a split second, and for that second, terror had siezed her. It had held her in it's grip only for an instant, but it was long enough for her to grab her spear and destroy the quantron before he killed those children. She had had only one thought.
*I cannot let it happen again*.
A moment later, she had lowered her spear to find the Red Ranger staring at her, and she felt a wave of confusion. What had prompted her to do this? It was as if some long-forgotten shadow from her past had made itself clear to her, for that one instant....and she had become somebody she no longer recognized.
She dug the broken chain out of her pocket, the one that normally suspended the locket she always wore. Her last link. Her last link to her long- forgotten past, a past she did not recall, except for a few images shrouded in the mists of time and no longer clear to her. A past that had not been hers since she was six years old.
*Andros lied. My parents were killed by the Power Rangers! He probably helped kill them, for all I know! Ecliptor raised me, loved me, made me who I was....*
And yet, when she impulsively opened the locket and stared at the pictures within, a wave of truth came over her, a truth she fought to deny and found it exceedingly difficult to ignore.
She knew the little girl in the picture was her, it was obvious. But the little boy in red, not even a full year older than she was, suddenly struck her as resembling Andros so strongly, she felt a cold chill of recognition.
Why had she not seen it before...bother to compare photographs? To really search her memory for images she had successfully attempted to forget?
Was it all true, then? Was her whole life based upon lies? Was she....was she really the sister of her own enemy?
"Computer, log on to a musical band and play it," she ordered flatly, desperate for some distraction.
"What station is required of Astronema?" asked the computer innocently.
"Oh, bother," she muttered. "I don't know, just pick one."
She sighed as she let her locket drop to her vanity table with a *clink*. As the song, chosen completely at random, came on, she fought to remember anything at all from the shadows of her past.
*Oh, Gods, who am I?*
Who is that girl I see,
Staring straight back at me,
Why is my reflection someone I
Don't know?
Astronema jumped, and glared at the computer screen, but at the last second, held her tongue that had been about to order the music to cease.
*Gods, it's true. I don't know who I am anymore!* She thought as the music continued to play. Her mind was now nothing more than a swirling chaos of confusion.
Where had Andros said he was from? KO-35? Until now, she had never made any connection.
Suddenly, she straightened. She would go. She would go to where she was supposedly born. If it was truly home, then surely she would remember more....more than just the vague image of screams....her own screams for someone named Andros.
****
It had to be true. Astronema walked around the abandoned courtyard of a place that she had not seen in years, her hazel eyes wide as she looked up, seeing buildings and trees overgrown with brush.
The instant she had materialized in this place, she had been hit with such a wave of homesickness it shocked her. She did not even notice she was trembling as a barrier, put up long ago around her childhood memories, suddenly broke, and she was overwhelmed by images of the past....images very different than what Ecliptor had told her was her past.
Images that, in her heart, she knew to be true, though she wanted to deny it.
Images of playing with her brother, of helping her mother make dinner, of her father swinging her up and down until she nearly got sick.....
"Aw, Karone, surely Mom will let us stay outside for five more minutes!"
"Karone, go tell your brother it's time for dinner."
"Daddy, can you show me how to beat Andros at telekenesis ball? He says I stink at it!"
These whispers of memory, and more, images of a long-forgotten time danced in front of her eyes as she continued to walk along in her solitude.
A cold wave of fear washed over her as she recalled a certain day in the park, a day she had buried in her memory for years because it was so painful. A memory that she knew, without a doubt, had flashed just long enough to save those two children from the Quantron.
She and her brother, Andros. A telekenesis ball. They had been playing with it as they practiced the telekenetic powers they were developing. For once, he was really helping her and not teasing her about her skills, as all brothers were apt to do to sisters sometimes.
A mental shove she had made had sent the ball skittering through the air and away. Andros running off after it, and she had crouched, watching him go, thinking nothing was wrong.
Then a sound of swiftly running feet had came up from behind her, and she was turning, letting out a shriek....
"Andros! Andros, help me!"
Wicked laughter had resounded in her ears, and as she was being spirited away, she barely heard her brother's cry.
"Karone? *Karone*!"
The face! She could not see the face of her captor! Astronema bit her lip as her eyes squezed shut, trying desperately to remember the face of the evil person who had taken her.
Ugly spikes, foul breath, hideous laughter, beady eyes....
*Darkonda!*
Darkonda! It had been Darkonda, the evil bounty hunter who was forever trying to get in her favor! He....he had done this! He had turned her life upside down and deposited her on Eclipor's doorstep!
*But why?* Even as anger washed through her, at the sheer injustice of it all, she had to wonder why. Why her? Why a lone little girl in the middle of a park? Had he done it for the sheer fun of it?
He had taken her from her family, of a life that could have been hers but had instead been abruptly denied her, by this one act.
Even as she seethed with anger at the sudden revalation, she was brought up short by a new thought.
How her life would have been different if she had not been taken.
If she was on the side of good, what would she be doing now? Somehow, she sensed that she would be fighting at the side of the one person whom she thought she had detested the most.
She would have been a ranger alongside Andros.
*Andros!* Above all, if this were all true, then that meant...her brother, possibly her family, was alive after all.
A family who had loved her for who she was, and had not molded her to be anybody.
Her adoptive family had tried to make her evil.
*But I am evil!....aren't I?*
She had fought so hard to fit in, to become the Queen of Evil, to prove that she could survive. She had fought to hide her inner urges to do things that others around her thought immoral....to do the occasional act of kindness, to leave the innocents alone, to just be herself.
To change who she was inside.
*I don't think I succeeded.*
"Astronema." A voice made her jump, and she whirled, spear ready.
It was Andros, and he wore an expression on his face she had never before seen, had she?
"You remember, don't you?" she heard him say. "You're Karone. You remember that day in the park...."
"I don't know what you're talking about." The instinct to be evil and opposite of good was still strong, though suddenly, she did not really want to do this. But what would her superiors say? She *was* the princess of evil, nothing could change that...could it? She was so confused!
It was more her battling emotions than just evil that made her fire at him and cause the subsequent short confrontation before she left. It was just too much for her to handle.
Her heart ached, from both fighting her inner confusion and wondering desperately who she really was meant to be.
****
As she held Andros's morpher in her hand, and watched the Red Ranger being slowly crushed by the monster, all she felt for a moment was a violent wave of confusion...and fear. As much as she was trying to deny her past, seeing his suffering now brought the same shadowy flash back, the one that had made her save Karen and Andrew.
Again the flashes of that day came over her, her terror at being snatched up away from home, and her own cries for her brother echoed in her ears.
*Andros! Andros, help me! Andros!*
For just a moment, the two images, of her last glimpses of her brother trying to find her, and the sight of him in trouble now, spurrned her into action as long-forgotten childhood feelings, a personality she had fought forever to suppress, took over for just a moment.
"Andros," she whispered, and tossed his morpher across to him, so it lay within reach of his hand. The shocked look on his face as he understood what she had done speared straight past her inner defenses and square into her carefully-guarded heart.
That look twisted her into knots, and caused the chaos inside her to intensify. Good or evil? Which path should she choose?
Shame for letting her enemy have an easy way out mingled with shame for letting this happen to her own brother, and before she could force herself to rectify the situation, she did the only thing she could do.
She turned around and walked away.
****
Somehow, I cannot hide,
Who I am,
Though I've tried.
"Andros, meet me on KO-35. We have to talk."
*Am I doing the right thing?* she wondered as she finished the message and sent it to dispatch. She still did not know why she was doing this, she only knew that she had to obey her inner urge to know more....to know if what she had been contemplating was actually the right thing to do.
Her life was turning upside down faster than she could straighten it, and she was desperate for some sort of foothold. She felt she was doing the only thing at the moment that could quell her inner demons.
And she *did* know where Zordon was, after all. Maybe....if she could trust him....
It went against everything she clearly remembered being taught, but she had to know. Had to find out who she truly was, had to find out if she was truly evil....if she was meant to be this person she thought she knew, called Astronema...
And, of course, the one other person in the universe besides Andros who had given her life meaning, and she understood now that she could never hate....
Zhane.
****
Of course they would not trust her. After all, she had tried to kill them several times, so she could not rightly blame them for wanting her locked up while on the journey to find Zordon.
Only Andros seemed to have any faith in her, and her recent encounters with him had removed the last of the doubt from her mind. He was her brother. Her worst enemy had the closest blood ties possible to her, and he certainly was not dead.
She felt the chains around her wrists. She could wiggle out of them if she wanted, for she was an expert lockpick. But she did not, needing to keep up her guise. But if she wanted, she could get out and destroy them all before they had a chance...or even surrender all of them to Dark Spectre once they reached their destination.
But the very thought made fear hit the pit of her stomach. No, she could not do this to them...could she? She was finally beginning to understand.
*Though they tried, I am not who they tried to force me to be.*
And her curiosity grew by leaps and bounds when Andros came in and started talking to her. She felt a sudden urge to know who she truly was, and once the flow of questions started, they did not stop. He was cheerful, and very much like she remembered...and she saw the acute sadness in his eyes as he told her of how hard he had looked for her, and that he was glad to finally have found her.
It tore at her heart.
Just before she fell asleep, she dimly realized a final thought.
*I am not Astronema. Not anymore.*
****
When will my reflection show,
Who I am inside?
*I cannot let him get killed!*
She understood this now. She was no longer one of them. She was not evil; she had not been born that way.
It was simply not meant to be.
"Andros, are you all right? Come on." Even as she pulled her injured brother up off the forest floor, she understood the consequences of her actions would be dangerous to them all. She might have to leave the brother she had just found, his friends would almost certainly not accept her, even if she did switch sides.
"Ecliptor, don't!" she wailed to her father figure, her desperately pleading eyes begging him to understand as he stood before them, sword raised. If he truly had any love left for her, he would understand, she knew him that well. As much as he professed to be evil, she knew that not every single facet of him was...for he had shown her caring. He had raised her....and he had loved her.
Gratitude filled her when she saw him tremble for a moment, then lower his arm. "I--I can't," he whispered. She knew what this was costing him, but his caring for her outweighted his hatred for the red ranger.
"Ecliptor, I...don't know what to say...I..." Astronema felt a jumble of words begin and fail. She loved this person as much as she had once loved the human man she had called father. Ecliptor had lied to her, raised her in his image....but he had loved her, treated her well, and had tried his best.
"Just go," he said shortly, waving her on. He turned his head so she could not see the tears burning in his eyes, for he knew that she was lost to him now. And as much as he wanted to wrangle the red ranger's neck for taking her from him, his love for her assured him that her happiness must come first, even if losing her tore at the heart he never showed to anyone else.
"Be careful, my princess," Astronema vaguely heard him whisper as she pulled Andros out of sight. Only she, out of anyone else in existence, could read the vague edge on his tone that told her that he was probably closer to tears than anybody would ever know him to be.
Astronema almost bit her lip as she pulled Andros along. She wondered if she would ever see Ecliptor again. It had hardly occured to her that she would be forever cut off from him if she joined Andros on the side of light, and it burned in her heart.
*But I can no longer be who I am truly not!*
****
Horror sprang through her a short while later as she realized suddenly she had been tricked by Dark Spectre. He had been testing her, pretending to be Zordon!
As everyone gathered around her, and she saw the Rangers had been captured, she knew that this was it. She had to make a decision, and now.
It could be her last chance to save face, and pretend it had been a trap for the rangers, and to go back with Ecliptor....
...or she could fight on their side to free them, knowing she could never return to the life she had always known.
She laughed evilly, making sure the rangers understood that she was going to be evil Astronema....at least for the moment. Especially with that damned Darkonda watching her every move.
Darkonda was one person she would never forgive for ruining her life.
"Destroy them," she said with finality as she smiled wickedly, turning her back.
"With pleasure," sneered Darkonda as he rasied his weapon to destroy the rangers.
However, it was Astronema who felt momentary pleasure as she whirled around and, before anybody could react, shot Darkonda in the back several times with her spear, knocking him awry.
Just as quickly, she drew her boomerang and flung it, disabling the nearest quantrons holding the rangers captive, making it quickly obvious what her choice had been.
"So you *are* on our side after all," said TJ as she ran over to free Andros's friends. Her smile and wink at him was genuine. Even if they never accepted her, because of what she had done, she had accepted her own fate...a fate she was now taking charge of.
As they prepared to flee, there was only one problem....Ecliptor!
"Get out of my way, you tin monkeys!" She heard him growl as he pushed his way through the crowd, stumbling towards them to help.
"Ecliptor!" she shrieked as she was overcome once more, bolting in his direction, and heedless of her own safety.
He was badly injured, she could tell. She could not leave him, she loved him like a father! He *had* raised her, after all. None of this was his fault.
"You must go!" he panted as she ran up to him.
"What? I can't leave you like this." She was shocked. Even though he professed to be evil, she had always doubted it was all he was, nothing more. He had let Andros live...for her sake. He could feel love just like her. Again the thoughts swirled in her mind--he had raised her with love and a fatherly devotion despite the evil that he was.
"I'll survive. Get her out of here!" Ecliptor barked at the rangers. Andros tugged on her and pulled her away from the persuing crowds of quantrons and pirhanatrons.
"Ecliptor!" she shrieked a final time as she was pulled away....once again being spirited away from someone she loved.
But he would survive, she knew. It was her only consolation as she turned and fled with the rangers who, if not accepting of her, at least would protect her until they could escape this madness.
She sealed in their own minds her alliegance with them when she turned and fired several shots from her spear at the crowd in an attempt to stall them. TJ grabbed her and pulled her inside, the doors slammed shut, and the Astro Megaship lifted to safety.
****
A short while later, she wondered something. Andros seemed enthusiastically happy that she had chosen his side, and she had no doubt that it had been the right decision. Oh, she had been tempted to deny this, all right, down on Utopia....but only for an instant.
Although accepting this fate had the consequences of incredible guilt for her past actions, she knew that she would somehow make up for them. Now that she understood how wrong it had all been, she was determined to make it right.
But would the others accept her? She still had her doubts. The might even vote to toss her into the nearest black hole, for all she knew....most of those she had known before would have been so unforgiving to pull such a stunt.
She was shocked when TJ apoligized for not trusting her eariler, and declared that she now had five friends, though she felt she did not deserve even one. It made her realize on just how much she had missed out, and how easy it was for the good side to forgive mistakes others might make.
Yes, this was who she truly was, and this was where she truly belonged.
****
The tiny part of her psyche that remained intact after Darkonda had forced his cybernetic implants on her desperately wanted to rebel at this injustice, and this cruelty. By doing this to her, this tiny part knew that he had made her his hopeless slave, for there was no way for this tiny bit of conscience to reach the surface.
This small shred of Karone watched in helpless horror as the major part of her, the cold, calculating Astronema she had tried to deny, had resurfaced and remained fixed in place by the cybernetic implants. It made her wonder if this person, this person who seemed cruel even to *her*, was even aware of this final scrap of decency that had remained deeply buried within the heart that had turned, almost literally, to ice.
And as the days wore on, this buried side of Karone almost felt as if she was fighting a hopeless battle to take her body back from those who had snatched it from her. But no matter how hard she tried, she could not break through the web of implanted evil.
So, in the deepest recesses of Astronema's psyche, a shadowy image of Karone sat and sobbed as she watched her new Ranger friends suffer from the Psycho Rangers....and Zhane! When he was there, he fought loyally by Andros's side to free her, and Karone felt grateful when she heard him say that he still had an interest in her...still loved her.
It was one of her strongest reasons to not give up the struggle, to not let this small shred of identity fade away into oblivion.
****
*I am here, Andros! I truly hear you!* The shadowy image of Karone mentally shouted from the recesses of Cyborg Astronema's mind. *Please believe me!*
Karone gave one last, desperate struggle to be heard, to find some way to tell Andros that she truly was there. Astronema was fighting Andros while he pleaded with her to end all of this, while Zordon in the background was urging Andros to smash his timewarp tube.
Summoning all her strength, this shadowy image of Karone flung herself against the web of evil technology imprisoning her. For the first time-- probably because of all the stress Astronema was under--she felt the web give away, and Astronema winced with pain.
Andros was lucky to be happening to look into Astronema's eyes, because for just an instant, the iciness faded just enough to see the deeper emotions, just enough to read the hidden message and understand that, after all, under all that mass of technology his sister still existed somewhere.
And then it was gone. The web ensnaring Karone flung her back deeply into the recesses, and as she stumbled backwards, she was glad that, for just one instant, she had made contact.
*But if he can reach me no other way, I hope he kills Astronema. I won't go back ever again, even if it means my life.*
And a short while later, when Andros struck the final blow, darkness swirled in on her. She could hear him sobbing as he did so, and she understood why.
*Trust me, Andros, you did the right thing by killing Astronema,* was her last conscious thought.
****
The next thing she was aware of was a blinding light searing her body, bringing her soul back just before it would have departed for other places. Vaguely, she was aware of her true self regaining control, and the web of evil falling away.
Her next sensation was of a change coming over her, a sort of molecular shifting as the physical side of the technology, the implants, disappeared from her brain, and at last she could stretch and fully be herself again.
How and why, she was not certain. *Wasn't I supposed to be dead?*
Her eyes blinked open as she saw her brother kneeling above her prone form, tears streaking his face and a joyous smile lighting his features to see her alive.
"Andros?" she asked as she sat up and looked around her, not knowing how she had come to be outside the Dark Fortress with everyone in Angel Grove watching her. "How did I...get here?"
His voice was a half-sob as he choked, "It's a long story."
She heard happy exclamations from his friends as they rushed over to her, and she felt a smile begin on her face. *She was free.*
****
Zhane, though, hung shyly in the background after they were left alone, and she was acutely aware of him. She suddenly realized that they had never resolved their differences after the disaster date, and forward girl she was, she felt that now was as good a time as any.
He was staring out of the viewscreen bridge as they headed towards KO-35, and he barely started as she slipped in beside him. Neither spoke for a minute as the hyperrush stars streaked past, making the two lone occupants of the room feel infintely small.
Finally, she heard him clear his throat nervously, and she took pity on him.
"I've one thing to say to you, Zhane," she said seriously.
"Wh-what's that?" he tried not to stumble on the words, but she knew he wondered if she was still furious at him.
"I say...you still owe me a date. And this time," she smirked at his startled grin, "be punctual."
"Then--ah....you're not...*mad* at me?" he stumbled as his fingers sought hers.
She welcomed his grasping hands. "I should never have been. I'm sorry, Zhane."
"So am I," he said. "I *tried* to be on time, honest."
"I know now that you did," she said as their lips inched closer together. "And I consider the matter closed."
He barely had time to chuckle before their lips met in a fusing first kiss, paving the way in Karone's mind for feeling true acceptance.
****
There was one other matter Karone had to get over, and that was losing Ecliptor. Damn, but it was so unjust! Why had the wave spared her, Zedd, Rita, even Divatox....and not Ecliptor! Was it because the same type of evil technology that they had used on her and him...had irreversibly changed him so that nothing could save him? It was so unfair!
She wandered back to the remains of the Dark Fortress upon their return to Earth, and she found the crumbling pile of dust that had once been him, still laying there intact.
Bitter tears rolled down her face as she tried to face the fact...her adoptive father was gone. As evil as he had been, even when he had changed, he had still loved her in a way, she knew it! It was so unfair that she lived, evil as she had been, and he did not!
What she was unaware of was that Zordon's legacy was still very strong within the walls of the dark fortress, and his spirit was lurking nearby.
The kindly spirit of the ancient sage, now in the invisible form of a young man again, crept closer as he saw Karone kneel over the pile of dust, sobbing her heart out as she released her pent-up grief and anger over the injustice.
*Poor child* he thought to himself. *You are right in assuming he did not survive the first purge because of how elaborate the evil technology had buried his good side. It is much easier to swipe away spells and evil upbringing, like I managed to do for Zedd and Rita. Not cold, hard technology. But....this was unjust, and maybe I can do a final act for you.*
As Andros's tears had a hand in restoring Karone to her true form, now they managed to do so again as one lone tear fell from the tip of Karonne's nose and hit the pile of dust. She gasped as a blinding flash of light filled the room, and she backed away from the source in pure terror, wondering what had been unleashed.
When the light faded, though, her terror turned to shock, for Ecliptor was standing there, his old pre-cyborg Ecliptor self, looking dazedly confused.
"My princess?" he asked, seeing her there on the floor looking at him in shock, her face tearstreaked and her obviously not in Astronema costume. "What...has happened?"
"Ecliptor!" she cried joyfully, stumbling fowards into his arms. He automatically dropped the sword he was carrying and held her against him as memory flooded his mind and heart....a heart now lacking the evil that had predominated his entire life.
The spirit of Zordon smiled as he watched the reunion, and knew that he had done the right thing. He would always watch over his rangers, in life or death, no matter what.
And Karone, had she been able to look into a mirror at that moment, would have understood that her reflection was finally clear.
When will my reflection show,
Who I am inside?
I came to understand Jaqui Beres used the same song, "When Will My Reflection Show" in a Karone story, also. This story is completely different, and she is aware of the fact I also used the same song for different purposes. She, however, used the longer song from the credits of "Mulan"...I am using the shorter version. However, this isn't really a songfic. Okay. Enough babble. Enjoy.
The Shadowy Mirror
By ZeoViolet Teaser: Will learning of her origins be enough to compel Astronema to change?
*He's my....brother?* Astronema could still not believe it. It could not be true, it just could not be!
Still, his words haunted her. *You're Karone, my sister.* How could it possibly be true? She was Astronema, Princess of Evil, and she knew nothing about this fantastic claim, that she came from KO-35, she was as human as Andros. She was evil, raised that way. It was all she knew, all she recalled.
And yet...what had stopped her? What had stopped her from letting that Quantron destroy the children Andrew and Karen? Screams had resounded in her ears for a split second, and for that second, terror had siezed her. It had held her in it's grip only for an instant, but it was long enough for her to grab her spear and destroy the quantron before he killed those children. She had had only one thought.
*I cannot let it happen again*.
A moment later, she had lowered her spear to find the Red Ranger staring at her, and she felt a wave of confusion. What had prompted her to do this? It was as if some long-forgotten shadow from her past had made itself clear to her, for that one instant....and she had become somebody she no longer recognized.
She dug the broken chain out of her pocket, the one that normally suspended the locket she always wore. Her last link. Her last link to her long- forgotten past, a past she did not recall, except for a few images shrouded in the mists of time and no longer clear to her. A past that had not been hers since she was six years old.
*Andros lied. My parents were killed by the Power Rangers! He probably helped kill them, for all I know! Ecliptor raised me, loved me, made me who I was....*
And yet, when she impulsively opened the locket and stared at the pictures within, a wave of truth came over her, a truth she fought to deny and found it exceedingly difficult to ignore.
She knew the little girl in the picture was her, it was obvious. But the little boy in red, not even a full year older than she was, suddenly struck her as resembling Andros so strongly, she felt a cold chill of recognition.
Why had she not seen it before...bother to compare photographs? To really search her memory for images she had successfully attempted to forget?
Was it all true, then? Was her whole life based upon lies? Was she....was she really the sister of her own enemy?
"Computer, log on to a musical band and play it," she ordered flatly, desperate for some distraction.
"What station is required of Astronema?" asked the computer innocently.
"Oh, bother," she muttered. "I don't know, just pick one."
She sighed as she let her locket drop to her vanity table with a *clink*. As the song, chosen completely at random, came on, she fought to remember anything at all from the shadows of her past.
*Oh, Gods, who am I?*
Who is that girl I see,
Staring straight back at me,
Why is my reflection someone I
Don't know?
Astronema jumped, and glared at the computer screen, but at the last second, held her tongue that had been about to order the music to cease.
*Gods, it's true. I don't know who I am anymore!* She thought as the music continued to play. Her mind was now nothing more than a swirling chaos of confusion.
Where had Andros said he was from? KO-35? Until now, she had never made any connection.
Suddenly, she straightened. She would go. She would go to where she was supposedly born. If it was truly home, then surely she would remember more....more than just the vague image of screams....her own screams for someone named Andros.
****
It had to be true. Astronema walked around the abandoned courtyard of a place that she had not seen in years, her hazel eyes wide as she looked up, seeing buildings and trees overgrown with brush.
The instant she had materialized in this place, she had been hit with such a wave of homesickness it shocked her. She did not even notice she was trembling as a barrier, put up long ago around her childhood memories, suddenly broke, and she was overwhelmed by images of the past....images very different than what Ecliptor had told her was her past.
Images that, in her heart, she knew to be true, though she wanted to deny it.
Images of playing with her brother, of helping her mother make dinner, of her father swinging her up and down until she nearly got sick.....
"Aw, Karone, surely Mom will let us stay outside for five more minutes!"
"Karone, go tell your brother it's time for dinner."
"Daddy, can you show me how to beat Andros at telekenesis ball? He says I stink at it!"
These whispers of memory, and more, images of a long-forgotten time danced in front of her eyes as she continued to walk along in her solitude.
A cold wave of fear washed over her as she recalled a certain day in the park, a day she had buried in her memory for years because it was so painful. A memory that she knew, without a doubt, had flashed just long enough to save those two children from the Quantron.
She and her brother, Andros. A telekenesis ball. They had been playing with it as they practiced the telekenetic powers they were developing. For once, he was really helping her and not teasing her about her skills, as all brothers were apt to do to sisters sometimes.
A mental shove she had made had sent the ball skittering through the air and away. Andros running off after it, and she had crouched, watching him go, thinking nothing was wrong.
Then a sound of swiftly running feet had came up from behind her, and she was turning, letting out a shriek....
"Andros! Andros, help me!"
Wicked laughter had resounded in her ears, and as she was being spirited away, she barely heard her brother's cry.
"Karone? *Karone*!"
The face! She could not see the face of her captor! Astronema bit her lip as her eyes squezed shut, trying desperately to remember the face of the evil person who had taken her.
Ugly spikes, foul breath, hideous laughter, beady eyes....
*Darkonda!*
Darkonda! It had been Darkonda, the evil bounty hunter who was forever trying to get in her favor! He....he had done this! He had turned her life upside down and deposited her on Eclipor's doorstep!
*But why?* Even as anger washed through her, at the sheer injustice of it all, she had to wonder why. Why her? Why a lone little girl in the middle of a park? Had he done it for the sheer fun of it?
He had taken her from her family, of a life that could have been hers but had instead been abruptly denied her, by this one act.
Even as she seethed with anger at the sudden revalation, she was brought up short by a new thought.
How her life would have been different if she had not been taken.
If she was on the side of good, what would she be doing now? Somehow, she sensed that she would be fighting at the side of the one person whom she thought she had detested the most.
She would have been a ranger alongside Andros.
*Andros!* Above all, if this were all true, then that meant...her brother, possibly her family, was alive after all.
A family who had loved her for who she was, and had not molded her to be anybody.
Her adoptive family had tried to make her evil.
*But I am evil!....aren't I?*
She had fought so hard to fit in, to become the Queen of Evil, to prove that she could survive. She had fought to hide her inner urges to do things that others around her thought immoral....to do the occasional act of kindness, to leave the innocents alone, to just be herself.
To change who she was inside.
*I don't think I succeeded.*
"Astronema." A voice made her jump, and she whirled, spear ready.
It was Andros, and he wore an expression on his face she had never before seen, had she?
"You remember, don't you?" she heard him say. "You're Karone. You remember that day in the park...."
"I don't know what you're talking about." The instinct to be evil and opposite of good was still strong, though suddenly, she did not really want to do this. But what would her superiors say? She *was* the princess of evil, nothing could change that...could it? She was so confused!
It was more her battling emotions than just evil that made her fire at him and cause the subsequent short confrontation before she left. It was just too much for her to handle.
Her heart ached, from both fighting her inner confusion and wondering desperately who she really was meant to be.
****
As she held Andros's morpher in her hand, and watched the Red Ranger being slowly crushed by the monster, all she felt for a moment was a violent wave of confusion...and fear. As much as she was trying to deny her past, seeing his suffering now brought the same shadowy flash back, the one that had made her save Karen and Andrew.
Again the flashes of that day came over her, her terror at being snatched up away from home, and her own cries for her brother echoed in her ears.
*Andros! Andros, help me! Andros!*
For just a moment, the two images, of her last glimpses of her brother trying to find her, and the sight of him in trouble now, spurrned her into action as long-forgotten childhood feelings, a personality she had fought forever to suppress, took over for just a moment.
"Andros," she whispered, and tossed his morpher across to him, so it lay within reach of his hand. The shocked look on his face as he understood what she had done speared straight past her inner defenses and square into her carefully-guarded heart.
That look twisted her into knots, and caused the chaos inside her to intensify. Good or evil? Which path should she choose?
Shame for letting her enemy have an easy way out mingled with shame for letting this happen to her own brother, and before she could force herself to rectify the situation, she did the only thing she could do.
She turned around and walked away.
****
Somehow, I cannot hide,
Who I am,
Though I've tried.
"Andros, meet me on KO-35. We have to talk."
*Am I doing the right thing?* she wondered as she finished the message and sent it to dispatch. She still did not know why she was doing this, she only knew that she had to obey her inner urge to know more....to know if what she had been contemplating was actually the right thing to do.
Her life was turning upside down faster than she could straighten it, and she was desperate for some sort of foothold. She felt she was doing the only thing at the moment that could quell her inner demons.
And she *did* know where Zordon was, after all. Maybe....if she could trust him....
It went against everything she clearly remembered being taught, but she had to know. Had to find out who she truly was, had to find out if she was truly evil....if she was meant to be this person she thought she knew, called Astronema...
And, of course, the one other person in the universe besides Andros who had given her life meaning, and she understood now that she could never hate....
Zhane.
****
Of course they would not trust her. After all, she had tried to kill them several times, so she could not rightly blame them for wanting her locked up while on the journey to find Zordon.
Only Andros seemed to have any faith in her, and her recent encounters with him had removed the last of the doubt from her mind. He was her brother. Her worst enemy had the closest blood ties possible to her, and he certainly was not dead.
She felt the chains around her wrists. She could wiggle out of them if she wanted, for she was an expert lockpick. But she did not, needing to keep up her guise. But if she wanted, she could get out and destroy them all before they had a chance...or even surrender all of them to Dark Spectre once they reached their destination.
But the very thought made fear hit the pit of her stomach. No, she could not do this to them...could she? She was finally beginning to understand.
*Though they tried, I am not who they tried to force me to be.*
And her curiosity grew by leaps and bounds when Andros came in and started talking to her. She felt a sudden urge to know who she truly was, and once the flow of questions started, they did not stop. He was cheerful, and very much like she remembered...and she saw the acute sadness in his eyes as he told her of how hard he had looked for her, and that he was glad to finally have found her.
It tore at her heart.
Just before she fell asleep, she dimly realized a final thought.
*I am not Astronema. Not anymore.*
****
When will my reflection show,
Who I am inside?
*I cannot let him get killed!*
She understood this now. She was no longer one of them. She was not evil; she had not been born that way.
It was simply not meant to be.
"Andros, are you all right? Come on." Even as she pulled her injured brother up off the forest floor, she understood the consequences of her actions would be dangerous to them all. She might have to leave the brother she had just found, his friends would almost certainly not accept her, even if she did switch sides.
"Ecliptor, don't!" she wailed to her father figure, her desperately pleading eyes begging him to understand as he stood before them, sword raised. If he truly had any love left for her, he would understand, she knew him that well. As much as he professed to be evil, she knew that not every single facet of him was...for he had shown her caring. He had raised her....and he had loved her.
Gratitude filled her when she saw him tremble for a moment, then lower his arm. "I--I can't," he whispered. She knew what this was costing him, but his caring for her outweighted his hatred for the red ranger.
"Ecliptor, I...don't know what to say...I..." Astronema felt a jumble of words begin and fail. She loved this person as much as she had once loved the human man she had called father. Ecliptor had lied to her, raised her in his image....but he had loved her, treated her well, and had tried his best.
"Just go," he said shortly, waving her on. He turned his head so she could not see the tears burning in his eyes, for he knew that she was lost to him now. And as much as he wanted to wrangle the red ranger's neck for taking her from him, his love for her assured him that her happiness must come first, even if losing her tore at the heart he never showed to anyone else.
"Be careful, my princess," Astronema vaguely heard him whisper as she pulled Andros out of sight. Only she, out of anyone else in existence, could read the vague edge on his tone that told her that he was probably closer to tears than anybody would ever know him to be.
Astronema almost bit her lip as she pulled Andros along. She wondered if she would ever see Ecliptor again. It had hardly occured to her that she would be forever cut off from him if she joined Andros on the side of light, and it burned in her heart.
*But I can no longer be who I am truly not!*
****
Horror sprang through her a short while later as she realized suddenly she had been tricked by Dark Spectre. He had been testing her, pretending to be Zordon!
As everyone gathered around her, and she saw the Rangers had been captured, she knew that this was it. She had to make a decision, and now.
It could be her last chance to save face, and pretend it had been a trap for the rangers, and to go back with Ecliptor....
...or she could fight on their side to free them, knowing she could never return to the life she had always known.
She laughed evilly, making sure the rangers understood that she was going to be evil Astronema....at least for the moment. Especially with that damned Darkonda watching her every move.
Darkonda was one person she would never forgive for ruining her life.
"Destroy them," she said with finality as she smiled wickedly, turning her back.
"With pleasure," sneered Darkonda as he rasied his weapon to destroy the rangers.
However, it was Astronema who felt momentary pleasure as she whirled around and, before anybody could react, shot Darkonda in the back several times with her spear, knocking him awry.
Just as quickly, she drew her boomerang and flung it, disabling the nearest quantrons holding the rangers captive, making it quickly obvious what her choice had been.
"So you *are* on our side after all," said TJ as she ran over to free Andros's friends. Her smile and wink at him was genuine. Even if they never accepted her, because of what she had done, she had accepted her own fate...a fate she was now taking charge of.
As they prepared to flee, there was only one problem....Ecliptor!
"Get out of my way, you tin monkeys!" She heard him growl as he pushed his way through the crowd, stumbling towards them to help.
"Ecliptor!" she shrieked as she was overcome once more, bolting in his direction, and heedless of her own safety.
He was badly injured, she could tell. She could not leave him, she loved him like a father! He *had* raised her, after all. None of this was his fault.
"You must go!" he panted as she ran up to him.
"What? I can't leave you like this." She was shocked. Even though he professed to be evil, she had always doubted it was all he was, nothing more. He had let Andros live...for her sake. He could feel love just like her. Again the thoughts swirled in her mind--he had raised her with love and a fatherly devotion despite the evil that he was.
"I'll survive. Get her out of here!" Ecliptor barked at the rangers. Andros tugged on her and pulled her away from the persuing crowds of quantrons and pirhanatrons.
"Ecliptor!" she shrieked a final time as she was pulled away....once again being spirited away from someone she loved.
But he would survive, she knew. It was her only consolation as she turned and fled with the rangers who, if not accepting of her, at least would protect her until they could escape this madness.
She sealed in their own minds her alliegance with them when she turned and fired several shots from her spear at the crowd in an attempt to stall them. TJ grabbed her and pulled her inside, the doors slammed shut, and the Astro Megaship lifted to safety.
****
A short while later, she wondered something. Andros seemed enthusiastically happy that she had chosen his side, and she had no doubt that it had been the right decision. Oh, she had been tempted to deny this, all right, down on Utopia....but only for an instant.
Although accepting this fate had the consequences of incredible guilt for her past actions, she knew that she would somehow make up for them. Now that she understood how wrong it had all been, she was determined to make it right.
But would the others accept her? She still had her doubts. The might even vote to toss her into the nearest black hole, for all she knew....most of those she had known before would have been so unforgiving to pull such a stunt.
She was shocked when TJ apoligized for not trusting her eariler, and declared that she now had five friends, though she felt she did not deserve even one. It made her realize on just how much she had missed out, and how easy it was for the good side to forgive mistakes others might make.
Yes, this was who she truly was, and this was where she truly belonged.
****
The tiny part of her psyche that remained intact after Darkonda had forced his cybernetic implants on her desperately wanted to rebel at this injustice, and this cruelty. By doing this to her, this tiny part knew that he had made her his hopeless slave, for there was no way for this tiny bit of conscience to reach the surface.
This small shred of Karone watched in helpless horror as the major part of her, the cold, calculating Astronema she had tried to deny, had resurfaced and remained fixed in place by the cybernetic implants. It made her wonder if this person, this person who seemed cruel even to *her*, was even aware of this final scrap of decency that had remained deeply buried within the heart that had turned, almost literally, to ice.
And as the days wore on, this buried side of Karone almost felt as if she was fighting a hopeless battle to take her body back from those who had snatched it from her. But no matter how hard she tried, she could not break through the web of implanted evil.
So, in the deepest recesses of Astronema's psyche, a shadowy image of Karone sat and sobbed as she watched her new Ranger friends suffer from the Psycho Rangers....and Zhane! When he was there, he fought loyally by Andros's side to free her, and Karone felt grateful when she heard him say that he still had an interest in her...still loved her.
It was one of her strongest reasons to not give up the struggle, to not let this small shred of identity fade away into oblivion.
****
*I am here, Andros! I truly hear you!* The shadowy image of Karone mentally shouted from the recesses of Cyborg Astronema's mind. *Please believe me!*
Karone gave one last, desperate struggle to be heard, to find some way to tell Andros that she truly was there. Astronema was fighting Andros while he pleaded with her to end all of this, while Zordon in the background was urging Andros to smash his timewarp tube.
Summoning all her strength, this shadowy image of Karone flung herself against the web of evil technology imprisoning her. For the first time-- probably because of all the stress Astronema was under--she felt the web give away, and Astronema winced with pain.
Andros was lucky to be happening to look into Astronema's eyes, because for just an instant, the iciness faded just enough to see the deeper emotions, just enough to read the hidden message and understand that, after all, under all that mass of technology his sister still existed somewhere.
And then it was gone. The web ensnaring Karone flung her back deeply into the recesses, and as she stumbled backwards, she was glad that, for just one instant, she had made contact.
*But if he can reach me no other way, I hope he kills Astronema. I won't go back ever again, even if it means my life.*
And a short while later, when Andros struck the final blow, darkness swirled in on her. She could hear him sobbing as he did so, and she understood why.
*Trust me, Andros, you did the right thing by killing Astronema,* was her last conscious thought.
****
The next thing she was aware of was a blinding light searing her body, bringing her soul back just before it would have departed for other places. Vaguely, she was aware of her true self regaining control, and the web of evil falling away.
Her next sensation was of a change coming over her, a sort of molecular shifting as the physical side of the technology, the implants, disappeared from her brain, and at last she could stretch and fully be herself again.
How and why, she was not certain. *Wasn't I supposed to be dead?*
Her eyes blinked open as she saw her brother kneeling above her prone form, tears streaking his face and a joyous smile lighting his features to see her alive.
"Andros?" she asked as she sat up and looked around her, not knowing how she had come to be outside the Dark Fortress with everyone in Angel Grove watching her. "How did I...get here?"
His voice was a half-sob as he choked, "It's a long story."
She heard happy exclamations from his friends as they rushed over to her, and she felt a smile begin on her face. *She was free.*
****
Zhane, though, hung shyly in the background after they were left alone, and she was acutely aware of him. She suddenly realized that they had never resolved their differences after the disaster date, and forward girl she was, she felt that now was as good a time as any.
He was staring out of the viewscreen bridge as they headed towards KO-35, and he barely started as she slipped in beside him. Neither spoke for a minute as the hyperrush stars streaked past, making the two lone occupants of the room feel infintely small.
Finally, she heard him clear his throat nervously, and she took pity on him.
"I've one thing to say to you, Zhane," she said seriously.
"Wh-what's that?" he tried not to stumble on the words, but she knew he wondered if she was still furious at him.
"I say...you still owe me a date. And this time," she smirked at his startled grin, "be punctual."
"Then--ah....you're not...*mad* at me?" he stumbled as his fingers sought hers.
She welcomed his grasping hands. "I should never have been. I'm sorry, Zhane."
"So am I," he said. "I *tried* to be on time, honest."
"I know now that you did," she said as their lips inched closer together. "And I consider the matter closed."
He barely had time to chuckle before their lips met in a fusing first kiss, paving the way in Karone's mind for feeling true acceptance.
****
There was one other matter Karone had to get over, and that was losing Ecliptor. Damn, but it was so unjust! Why had the wave spared her, Zedd, Rita, even Divatox....and not Ecliptor! Was it because the same type of evil technology that they had used on her and him...had irreversibly changed him so that nothing could save him? It was so unfair!
She wandered back to the remains of the Dark Fortress upon their return to Earth, and she found the crumbling pile of dust that had once been him, still laying there intact.
Bitter tears rolled down her face as she tried to face the fact...her adoptive father was gone. As evil as he had been, even when he had changed, he had still loved her in a way, she knew it! It was so unfair that she lived, evil as she had been, and he did not!
What she was unaware of was that Zordon's legacy was still very strong within the walls of the dark fortress, and his spirit was lurking nearby.
The kindly spirit of the ancient sage, now in the invisible form of a young man again, crept closer as he saw Karone kneel over the pile of dust, sobbing her heart out as she released her pent-up grief and anger over the injustice.
*Poor child* he thought to himself. *You are right in assuming he did not survive the first purge because of how elaborate the evil technology had buried his good side. It is much easier to swipe away spells and evil upbringing, like I managed to do for Zedd and Rita. Not cold, hard technology. But....this was unjust, and maybe I can do a final act for you.*
As Andros's tears had a hand in restoring Karone to her true form, now they managed to do so again as one lone tear fell from the tip of Karonne's nose and hit the pile of dust. She gasped as a blinding flash of light filled the room, and she backed away from the source in pure terror, wondering what had been unleashed.
When the light faded, though, her terror turned to shock, for Ecliptor was standing there, his old pre-cyborg Ecliptor self, looking dazedly confused.
"My princess?" he asked, seeing her there on the floor looking at him in shock, her face tearstreaked and her obviously not in Astronema costume. "What...has happened?"
"Ecliptor!" she cried joyfully, stumbling fowards into his arms. He automatically dropped the sword he was carrying and held her against him as memory flooded his mind and heart....a heart now lacking the evil that had predominated his entire life.
The spirit of Zordon smiled as he watched the reunion, and knew that he had done the right thing. He would always watch over his rangers, in life or death, no matter what.
And Karone, had she been able to look into a mirror at that moment, would have understood that her reflection was finally clear.
When will my reflection show,
Who I am inside?