Title: Old Friends

Series: Black Past

Author: Dingo

Disclaimer: I don't own the Power Rangers, Saban and some guys whose names I can't spell do. I do own Ty, and anything you don't recognise from Power Rangers canon.

Story Summary: Adam is drawn into a messy web of evil, deceit, and his past. But when his past comes back to fight against him, will he stay on the same side?

Chapter Summary: The seeds have been planted. Will two Rangers concede defeat against one they can't fight against?

Note: Just a quick recap on Kerovian words used so far…

_Dashal_ or _dashal_ bonded is a Kerovian version of soulmates, with three or four people bonded until death. Andros, Zhane, Adairach and a girl named Taryan are _dashal_ bonded. A drawback is the fact that you feel some remnant of the other bonded's pain. In Zhane case, he feels Adairach's pain, Andros only feels if it leaves a physical trace. Usually the _dashal_ are telepathic with one or two of the others.

Kao = Kerovian word for sh*t. Normal swearword.

Miel = Kerovian word for f*ck. Normal swearword.

Saelisth ey faer, mishali ey tora, _dashal_ mian = Adairach's message for Andros. Translation=Good to evil, green to black, _dashal_ mian.

Misha = farewell



"Nice to see you again, Red Ranger," Astronema greeted him, walking in front of the recently conscious Ranger. Since Andros was chained to the wall by handcuffs around his ankles and wrists, he stayed in the same position while Astronema was talking. Adam had disappeared seconds after they appeared on the Dark Fortress, which had been almost an hour ago.

"Wish I could say the same," Andros replied, gazing around desperately, looking for a way out.

Astronema smirked. "You can just stay there until you grow some manners, Red Ranger." She turned gracefully and walked out the door. At the threshold of the room, she stopped and said without turning, "Enjoy yourself. You're going to be in here for a long time." He watched her now red/orange hair bounce out of the room.

Andros pulled at the handcuffs, trying to see if there was a crack of some kind in the metal.

"Don't bother," a tired voice said from somewhere beside and below him.

Andros would have whirled around if he could, but since the cuffs allowed little to no movement, the only thing he could do was turn his head. "Who's there? Who are you?" he questioned warily.

"Myself," the person answered. The voice was annoyingly familiar, but Andros's mind was fogged up by his period of unconsciousness. "Can you lean away from me for a second?" the voice asked unexpectedly.

Andros did so, closing his eyes as he did. Whatever this guy was planning was almost guaranteed to hurt, and he was preparing himself for some kind of burning pain. Whatever he was expecting didn't happen though, so he cautiously opened one eye.

What he saw was astounding. Actually, the fact that he saw _at all_ was astounding, due to the fact that no light whatsoever got into those dungeons.

He saw the walls. He saw an assortment of other chains, most holding bodies in various degrees of rotting. Andros turned his eyes away from that quickly. He looked over to his left, where the voice had come from, and saw a body, hanging upside down, black hair almost brushing the floor. The arms of the person were tied over his chest, but the rope had enough give so that the person could bring his hands partially apart. There was a ball of flame suspended just below Andros's chest, which gave off enough light to see, but not enough to see the other captive's face. There was another ball just above the other captive's feet, but that did nothing for Andros to identify him, since he had no shoes on. All Andros could see as far as the light illuminated was black, presumably black pants.

"How the heck did you do that?" Andros asked.

The person laughed, turning his head away, as if getting lost again in his own personal hell. "I'm part mage. The Powers That Be seem to enjoy giving me things I hate while at the same time can hardly live without."

They both sat…actually, more like Andros leaned suspended against the wall while the other prisoner dangled lifelessly…in silence.

"What's your story?" Andros asked after quite a interval of quiet.

The man snorted, not even twitching after the interruption of the silence. Fairly long dark curls swayed as he replied. "My story? I'm won't tell you my story. I'll tell you the story of a friend of mine, but get comfortable, panther. It's a long one."

"He was your normal, average kid. A mum, a dad, three friends. Actually, the weirdest thing about him was that one of his friends was a girl. He was picked on a bit, but not much. When he was fourteen his mum and dad suddenly say, 'Hey, pack your bags, we're moving, don't want to hear any complaints'. Then he got two more friends. Again, the weirdest thing about that was one of them was a girl. They were really close like his friends before, better than his family, actually. Then he did something to make a lot of people want to kill him. He became a Power Ranger." The man must have heard Andros's intake of breath, because he stopped and laughed. "Yeah. He couldn't believe it either. Him, the Black Power Ranger? The person before him was a little nuts, in his opinion. Anyway, all went well for a while. He went through a couple of different powers, always coming out with green or black. Until about a month into his second Green power, his fourth overall. The person he was fighting against came up with a spell to make him do her will. Needless to say, the spell succeeded, turning him against his friends. Then he couldn't do any more fighting against his friends in particular, since it was possible that he could break the spell. For a while he was out of fighting, until there was word that he was needed to fight a different group of Rangers. He was ordered to kill them all, but something stopped him. One of them was one of his oldest friends in the world. Small universe, huh?" He stopped for a moment, regaining a breath. "Then, lo and behold, another old friend showed up. He was sent to bring one of them here, and suddenly I break out of the spell again. Abracadabra, I'm tortured, and placed in the same place as the person I've captured. You can tell me the rest of the story."

Andros's mind whirled, coming up with an answer that sounded astonishing to his own ears.

So he asked. "Are you Adairach?"

The man laughed again, swinging the chain that held him above the ground. "That's a name I haven't heard in a long time. But yes, panther, my name was Adairach a good four years ago. Most recently, though, my name has been Adam Park, second modern Earth Black Ranger, first and only Black Frog Ninjetti, first and only Green Zeo Ranger, first out of three Green Desert Thunder Turbo Rangers."

"You were Carlos's soccer coach," Andros said softly.

From what Andros could see, the man nodded. "Carlos was my ideal choice for a replacement, but unfortunately Divatox got in the way of that. Ty was my next choice, and the obvious one for all others to make."

They sat in silence for a while more. "How is Taryan?" Adam questioned softly.

"She evacuated. I have no idea where she is, or Karone." Andros suddenly wished he had one hand free, just so he could wipe away the single tear that had run down his cheek.

"Andros, could you do me a favour?"

"Name it."

"Lean forward as much as you can," Adam said.

Andros frowned in confusion but did so, pulling the chains taut. Adam's breathing grew deeper for a moment, before he pushed his hands as far away from his body as possible. From his hands, a small ball of white-hot flame flew forwards, stopping only in time to not hit the wall. Slowly it came backwards and sideways, heading for Andros's right hand. He turned his head as much as he could to watch it, ever so slowly melting the chains that held his hand up. After a few minutes he judged it to be brittle enough and pushed his hand forward, effectively snapping the chain. The fire then moved to his other hand, repeating the process. Soon enough he had both hands free, and he bent to try to pry the metal away from his ankles. Adam had been silent during this, but a wet cough reminded Andros of his cellmate.

"Just hang on, Adairach," Andros said, finally freeing himself of the metal cuffs.

Quickly he jumped over to his friend, untying the rope that held his hands together. He was suddenly aware of the two permanent fires in the room dimming, and he hurried with his work. The two hands flopped against the floor, and he quickly untied the rope that held his friends' feet up, lowering him gently to the floor. Adam softly coughed again, while Andros stared, shocked, really _looking_ for the first time at his old friend.

Adam's face, once perfectly clear of all but one scar ("It's only small," Andros remembered Zhane protesting after his kick had connected a little too hard) above his left eye, was now crisscrossed with scars. The main and longest one reached from below his left cheek and ran upwards to disappear under his hair above his right eyebrow. He slowly checked over the rest of his friend, wincing as Adam coughed again. Andros counted one broken/cracked rib, at least one broken finger, and there was a deep and serious slash to just below his ribs. What was left of his black shirt was in tatters, still covering his front but hanging on by only a few stitches, and showing the red welts and marks on his back. The amount of bruises was uncountable, seemingly connecting to make him look as if his skin was colored a sick green/yellow/black.

"You've got to…" Adam started, but was interrupted by a bout of coughing. "Get out of here."

"What about you?" Andros asked, helping Adam sit up.

Adam smiled at him the best he could, seeing that a faint line of blood was running down his face. "I'll survive. But Andros…" He blindly grabbed Andros's hand. "Andros, promise me…promise me…if you see me hurt anyone innocent…" His words were interrupted by him choking slightly. "Innocent…please…don't let me do anything more."

Andros stared into bloodshot eyes, still with the irises darker than midnight. "Adairach, no. I'm going to get you out of here. Come on!"

Zhane stared grimly at the screen, willing it to come up with something. He had just recovered from a good hour's worth of pain, so bad that Cassie had been forced to administer him a sedative. Even now, remains of pain still lingered. Ashley had even said that on her watch, blood had even started dripping from him onto the bed where he had been placed after falling under the medically induced sleep.

"I've found the Dark Fortress," TJ announced. All the others gathered around him. "There's the smallest hole in their shields, but it isn't big enough for a person."

Carlos experimentally tapped a few of the buttons on the console. "Teej, what's the coordinates?" he asked, quickly getting back to his own scanner.

TJ sent Carlos a puzzled glance before replying with the mix of letters and numbers. "What're you doing?" he asked the Black Ranger curiously. Carlos sent him a grin.

"Justin never gave you hackers' lessons." Everyone gave Ashley, who was closest to him, a mystified glance, but she just shrugged, a little confusion on her face as well.

Andros silently crept down the hallway, wincing as he watched Adam follow him with a hand on his ribs. Fortunately, he had been trained in _faalal isht_. A detailed translation to normal Earth speech would be ninja training and pain decisions. Plain English? He could become a shadow, and partially ignore his pain. The Red Ranger signaled for Adam to duck; three Quantrons were passing. Adam snuck up to him, swallowing the coppery taste of blood in his mouth. "Uh, 'Dros? Do you have a plan, of some kind?"

Andros shot him a look. "Hey, I got you out of there. You should have a plan."

"I was the one who burnt through your chains."

"I was the one who saved your butt from Taryan after that little _accident_ involving several unwanted cockroaches."

"I was the one who kicked your butt every day!"

"Fine. No I don't have a plan," Andros said, exasperated already. When Adairach and Zhane got together again…he shuddered at the thought. He frowned as Adairach winced, holding his injured ribs. "We need to get you something for those ribs," he thought out loud.

"That'd be…good," Adairach said, breathing through another burst of pain. "This is going to be too much for me soon."

Andros slung Adairach's arm around his shoulder, supporting a lot of his friend's weight. "Come on. There's got to be something around here."

Carlos whooped, startling the others. Ashley dropped the readouts she was holding, TJ pressed the wrong button, Cassie jumped and Zhane almost fell out of his chair. "That had better be good news Los," TJ said menacingly, retyping into his part of the computer.

"Very," Carlos said with a grin. "There's a hole big enough for all of us to get into the Dark Fortress."

Ashley exchanged a glance with Cassie. "I want hacker's lessons from Justin!" the Yellow Ranger whiningly joked.

"Who's Justin?" Zhane asked.

Quantrons bustled, going about their pre-programmed business. That was about the only good point of being under Astronema's control; knowing the exact routes of the machines, and the places where the routine glances were. Adam sat silent, watching the Quantrons, hoping Andros got back quickly. Barrels higher than his head, a good two metres or more in height, almost entirely surrounded the small space where he stayed. Even if he stood, he wouldn't be seen over the top of the red barrels. His breathing was shallow and ragged, and he knew he was on the verge of passing out. He coughed again, bringing up more blood. _Great,_ he thought. _Bye bye lung, been nice having you whole._ His eyes closed, but before he could drift off into comforting blackness…the familiar hiss of teleporting.

Ashley glanced around. "Tell me again why we didn't morph?" she asked quietly.

"Because they'd sense that," Zhane said softly. "You guys wait here. I'm going to scout ahead."

"Be careful, man," Carlos said briefly, clapping the Silver Ranger on the shoulder. Zhane nodded before running half bent over to the end of the small corridor and turning the corner.

Cassie sighed. "So what do we do?" she asked softly.

"We do what we always do-save the day," Carlos said with a shrug.

TJ chuckled. "How true."

Ashley grinned, before she stumbled over something sticking out from between two barrels. She frowned. "What's this?" she asked softly, drawing the other Rangers' attentions.

She followed it, which looked like a leg, into a small alcove, surrounded on three sides by the large red tubs. Her right hand instinctively covered her mouth, and she slowly backed up, keeping her eyes on the person.