Part 2
The six Rangers stood in the Power Chamber prepared to face who or whatever Bryan brought back with him.
When Bryan and his guest materialized in the center of the room a few moments later Jarrold and Taras mouths dropped. They quickly broke the circle that they were standing in and ran over to their friend. Tara jumped up and gave him a hug and Jarrold smiled then focused in with more serious look.
It took Leslie a few minutes to realize why the 2 had become so excited but she soon walked over and gave Jason a hug.
Aron, Mark and Jason were the only ones that didn't realize what was going on. Mark stepped up first. "Excuse me, but who is this?" he asked.
The others remembered that not all of them knew who Jason was. Tara made the introduction. "Power Rangers, this is Jason. He's a friend of mine and Jarrolds and also the person that gave us our coins."
Mark walked over to the new friend and held out his hand. "Pleased to meet you. I am Mark Storm."
Aron waited for Mark to finish shaking hands and then extended his own. "I am Aron."
Jason recognized a fellow Red Ranger when he saw one an gave the young man a firm handshake. "Nice to meet you. I'm sure that you make an excellent Red Ranger." His look then turned to last remaining person in the room.
He slowly walked over to his namesake and reached out for his hand. "Hi Jason. Been a long time. You've gotten big."
The younger Jason gave his elder a confused look for a moment then but the light of realization hit him fast. "Uncle Jase. Is that you?" he gasped as he finally figured out that he was talking to the man that he was named after. A man that he thought was dead for all these years.
"In the flesh." was the response.
Jason took his would be uncles hand and began to shake it feverishly but soon found himself pulled in for a firm hug.
Bryan cleared his throat to get everyones attention. When they finally all looked at him he spoke "Okay I'm sorry to break up the reunion but where in the hell is Ashlyn?" he asked.
Ashlyn woke to find herself in a cell. After taking a quick inventory of her surroundings she realized that she was still in the same dark area that she had been in before she was knocked out. She was glad that Scorpina had decided not to kill her but couldn't help but wonder why she was left alive.
After taking a few more minutes to clear her head she walked closer to the bars and tried to get a better view of what was beyond them. Though her view was narrow she could see that the room beyond seemed to be made of black marble and a constant dark fog wafted through.
From the looks of it there didn't seem to be a way to escape. The only choice that she had was to wait for the others to find her. "Damn." she said out loud. "If I had my morpher I would be out off here in a heartbeat."
"But you don't have your morpher do you Ashlyn." Scorpina said, as she stepped out of a shadow. "It seems that I have it right here." she continued while holding the yellow detailed Power Morpher up for her captive to see. "And I hope you don't think that you multi-colored team mates are going to find you." she finished.
"Don't worry Scorpina. They'll find me and when they do you're going to be sorry." Ashlyn retorted.
"Why so much hostility little Ashlyn? Could it be becuase of Trevor?" The warrior returned. "Well I'll tell you something. He was no good for you anyway. You could have done better." Scorpina smiled at Ashlyn and turned her back to walk away. Then with a quick look over her head she said "But I'm sure that he's be happy to know that you're still alive. And don't fear you'll be seeing him again very soon."
"What do you mean disappeared?" Jarrold said as he walked over to the control panel. The Green Ranger began to punch buttons on the console.
Tara walked over to her older brother and put a hand on his shoulder as he frantically pushed buttons. "Jarrold we're doing everything we can to find her." she said confidently.
Without saying anything Jarrold brushed her hand away and went back to looking at the display. The elder Jason stood back and observed how this newest team of Power Rangers reacted. In the old days he had Zordon or at least Alpha to offer guidance in these kinds of situations but these kids had no one to help them along.
Jarrold approached Aron "What was she doing when she disappeared?" he asked the Red Ranger.
Aron looked down, trying to keep his eyes away from Jarrolds gaze. "I picked up a strange reading so I sent her to investigate." Aron had been feeling horrible almost from the beginning and the look that the team leader was giving him didn't make it go away.
"So you sent her off into an unknown situation without backup?" Jarrold chastised.
Arons shoulders slumped and he lowered his head even more. "She told me that she could handle it." he responded. "I know that I should have called you but I didn't think it was anything."
"You're damn right you should have called me." Jarrold was now to the point of boiling and he stepped even closer to Aron. "Now Aron how do you suppose we find our missing Yellow Ranger."
The other rangers stood there not knowing what to do. None of the wanted to make Jarrold mad but the elder Jason stepped up and said what everyone else wanted to. "Back off Jarrold. He couldn't have known what was going to happen." he said thinking back to a time when Tommy had disappeared and he was all but helpless to do anything about it. The bad think is that not only did it happen once but twice.
Jarrold turned his head and moved away. "I'm sorry." he said after a moment. "I know it's not you're fault."
Everyone let out an audible sigh of relief. No one had seen Jarrold become so upset before and they all found it slightly disturbing. The elder Jason put his hand on Jarrolds shoulder and guided him away from the others while Tara, Bryan and Aron began to go over the data that they had gathered from their readings.
"Jarrold can I talk to you for a few minutes?" Jason asked.
"Not right now. We have to find Ashlyn." Jarrold informed him.
"There's not much that you can do until they finish going over the data."
Jarrold thought about it for a second and then conceded the point with a nod. " So what's up?" he asked.
"I noticed that you handle that situation to well." Jason told him. "I just wanted to let you know that I understand the burden of leadership and if you need someone to talk to I'll be there for you."
"Thanks I really appreciate that." Jarrold said. "So why didn't you tell us that you were a Power Ranger?"
"That was a long time ago." Jason said with a smile.
"So tell me about it. What color were you?" Jarrold asked.
"Red." Jason answered quickly "Well at first anyway. Then I became the Gold Ranger then Black and finally Red again."
"Whoa, man you're going to have to tell me about it sometime. I want to know everything."
Jason was about to open speak when Leslie approached them. "Guys I hate to interrupt but we have some news." she informed the two men.
Jarrolds face visibly brightened up and he moved over to the others "What do you have?" he asked
Tara moved towards her older brother and looked up at him "Well I'm sure that it was a teleportation signal that we picked up."
"I didn't know that anyone else had teleportation technology." the younger Jason said.
"Well no one else on Earth does. But there are certain magical individuals that can teleport. The monsters that we used to fight for instance." Jason told them.
Tara cleared her throat and the others looked over at her. "As I was saying. I was able to get an energy signature and use it to get a composite of the person." After punching in a few commands Tara pointed everyone towards the Viewing Globe. The figure of a women dressed in gold armor with a scorpian motif came into view.
"SCORPINA!!!" the elder Jason and Leslie both scowled simulatenously.
Everyone looked over at them. Bryan had never seen Scorpina but he had certainly had heard of her while in the academy. The younger Jason had heard of her from his parents, both of whom had had serious problems with Scorpina in the past. Aron on the other hand had never seen nor heard of Scorpina but from the look of her he know that the Yellow Ranger was in serious trouble if she had been taking by this girl.
The elder Jason stepped closer to the Viewing Globe. After looking into it for a moment he opened his mouth. "The Dark Dimension." he growled angrily.
"What was that?" Jarrold said as he turned to look at the former Power Ranger.
"Back when I was a Ranger if we were caught they would take us to a place called the Dark Dimension." Jase answered.
Tara looked in with great interest. "What is the Dark Dimension?" she asked.
Jason began to pace back and forth. "The best the we could tell and from the way Zordon explained it to use, the Dark Dimension was a small pocket dimension. Powerful evil magic users and wizards could create these pocket dimensions to either hold prisoners or to research powerful spells." Jason began to pace back and forth even more. He remembered and still felt the guilt over his first time encountering a Dark Dimension. I burned him to think of how he had failed Tommy and becuase he couldn't hack it his best friend had lost his powers.
Leslie stepped behind him and put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. "Are you okay?" she asked.
Jason jumped slightly but quickly turned to the Pink Ranger "I'm okay. These things almost make me nervous."
The younger Jason had a feeling that he knew what was bugging his "uncle". His father had told him the entire story and the young man couldn't understand why the man that he was named after still felt guilty. All of the Rangers knew that Tommy Oliver didn't blame Jason and was in fact grateful that his friend was willing to sacrifice himself to save his powers. "It's okay it wasn't your fault Uncle Jase." the young man said.
The former Red/Gold/Black Ranger looked at his White Ranger "nephew" and nodded a thank you. "We have to get her out of there. There's no telling what's happening in there."
Ashlyn had been pacing around her room for what seemed like hours and felt as though she were going to die from either boredom or anticipation. She knew that whatever Scorpina had in store for her wasn't good and since she had mentioned Trevor they were only going to get worse. The Yellow Ranger yearned for revenge against the man that she had given her heart to only to have him betray her trust and destroy all of her friends. The worst part of the entire thing is that he had gotten away with it and since he made it to the other resistance cell first there was nothing that she could do about it.
Ashlyn had tried to fall asleep but being here in captivity only led her to have the same reaccuring nightmare that haunted her everytime she was in trouble. It started with a large squadron of Vandairre soldiers attacking her unit and utterly wiping them out. During the battle she had cornered the leader of the Vandairre raiding party Scorpina and had fired a shot that disabled the warrior. As she was going in for the finishing blow Trevor appeared. He caused a momentary distraction which enabled Scorpina to trip Ashlyn up and get the upper hand. When the girl dropped she called out for the help of the man that she had loved only to have him level his weapon on her.
It was only through quick thinking and shear dumb luck that she survived. Her fight with Scorpina had taken her close to a cliff. At the bottom of the cliff was a small river bed. When she realized that her fiancee intended to shot her dead she rolled of the cliff. Trevor fired several shots and hit her a couple of times. Luckily the blasts only grazed her shoulder and leg.
When she woke up a few days later she found a little girl staring at her and she was in a comfortable bed with food on a table next to her. Ashlyn tried to stand but found that her leg was broken and half of her body was bandaged.
In yet another stroke of luck it turned out the the girls mother turned out to be a long time friend of Ashlyns that she hadn't seen in years. Ashlyn stayed for a few weeks and her friend helped nurse her back to health. The little girl and her mother tried to convince Ashlyn to stay with them and give up on the resistance.
Ashlyn had developed a strong sense of duty and knew that she had to report what happened to her team. With a sad goodbye Ashlyn Starr left her friends and went to report to the nearest resistance.
After a week of almost none stop walking Ashlyn finally caught up to her cells sister cell and entered the camp prepared to make a report and join them. As she was talking to the commander she heard someone enter the room. An uneasy feeling settled into her stomach and when she turned around she saw Trevor standing behind her. Without thinking she jumped at him and reached for his throat. After taking a stun blast she dropped. When she woke up again she was in a cell.
After spending a day in the cell she was put on trial. During the trial Trevor twisted things and convinced everyone that she had collaborated with the Vandairre to cause the deaths of her resistance cell. The jury found her guilty and ordered her locked up indefinately.
One of the guards felt the he owed her becuase she had risked her life to save his family during a Vandairre raid. The guard felt that he owed her a great deal and arranged Ashlyns escape. He cut her handcuffs so that when she had the chance Ashlyn simple twisted her arms and the cuff snapped. Ashlyn ran away through a hail of blaster fire. Her sole intent on reaching another cell and warning them of Trevors treachery. She had heard news the the commander of a cell had died and was now being commanded by an newly promoted Captain Rebecca Sawyer. She began to follow their trail and had come close to catching them when she saw Scorpina transporting a newly captured prisoner. Ashlyn saw this as her opportunity to take out one of the Vandairres top officers and moved into to attack. That is when she met Jarrold, Tara, Jason and Leslie.
Scorpina walked into the room and Ashlyn snapped out of her half daydream to look at her. "So Ashlyn how are you faring?" the warrior asked.
Ashlyn simply stared at her.
"Come on Ashlyn. This will be over soon. We are preparing to attack the city. When the Rangers come to the rescue we will send out our newest Alpha. Without you the your friends will not be able to form the MegaZord and we will destroy them. I will let you watch the entire thing and then come back to finish you off."
"It doesn't matter if I'm there or not Scorpina. You can't beat the Power Rangers!" Ashlyn screamed. "And when I get out of here I'm going to rip out your voice box and then feed it to you just so it'll be there when you want to scream in pain."
"And how do you prepose to do without this?" Scorpina said holding up Ashlyns Power Morpher and Cheetah Coin."
Ashlyn let out an audible sigh and sunk back down to her cot. 'Damn.' she thought to herself. 'I have to get that Morpher back.'
The lights dimmed and the alarm went off in the Power Chamber. Jase instinctively jumped and ran to the viewing globe. "What's going on?" he asked.
Tara activated the device and headed tuned it in. "Looks like big trouble." she said.
The Rangers all turned to the Viewing Globe as the Purple Ranger brought it to life. Everyone let out a gasp scene that was being displayed cleared up to reveal a large group of Vandairre soldiers converging on Angel Grove.
"So that's what they've been up to." Jarrold said.
"There's hundreds of them." Aron added.
"How are we gonna take that many of them?" Bryan wondered aloud.
"Man this is gonna be tough." said Mark.
"We're going to need the MegaZord for this." Leslie said with a more than worried expression.
"Well without Ashlyn we can't form it. But we can't let that stop us." Jason said as he walked towards the door.
"You guys go defend the city." Jase told them. "Tara you stay with me. I'm going to need your help if we're going to get Ashlyn back here in time." Jason Scott felt something drop into the pit of his stomach. He remembered back to all those years ago. People were counting on him and he would not fail.
Jarrold looked over his team and gave a quick nodd. "Okay I guess there's only one thing to say."
Everyone reached behind their backs.
Jase smiled as he thought of what Zordon would say if he were here. "Good luck Rangers and May The Power Protect You."
"It's Morphin Time!!!" Jarrold called out to his team.