POWER RANGERS: BREAKDOWN - Part 4: Affairs
Written by DTM666

Disclaimer: The author would like to clarify that Power Rangers and its characters is owned by BVS Entertainment and not the author.

Note to Ace Venom: Neither Gollum nor Smeagol (sic) had anything to do with either this story or my apparently depressing mood. Thanks for the review.
Note to everyone else: Any more reviews would be greatly appreciated.

---

The timing for Lord Zedd's arrival couldn't have been better. The palace was still in one piece and well preserved despite the inactivity of the past year. Materializing in his hibernation chamber, Zedd marched towards the vault, which was three rooms away. He entered the combination code via keypad and the door slowly opened inward, revealing a plain room with two glowing energy tubes in the center. Zedd stepped somewhat closer to the closest tube and wiped off the layer of ice to reveal an empty tube glowing blue. He then walked over to the other tube and saw that it was empty, glowing red, and giving off heat. A smile crept up his concealed face as he walked out of the chamber, the vault door slowly closing off the small room.

After a short while, Zedd made it to the throne room. Surveying the place for a moment, he approached his throne and sat into it, content that other than the complete emptiness of the palace, not much has changed since his hiatus. Then again, he had been living here. But for some reason, he never came back to this room.

Looking outside the balcony, Zedd used his telescopic vision to check on the Dark Fortress, the space station that served as the home base of Astronema and her crew. He couldn't bare looking at the thing, which was composed of half-solid and half-green grids, because it was always such an eye sore even to him, who could afford to look at anything unpleasant and not be repulsed by it.

"My dear, stupid Astronema," Zedd teased, "you have no idea what you're getting yourself into coming here. Whether it'll those Junior Ranger wannabes defeating your minions or the Masked Rider prince of Edenoi currently in subterfuge. Heck, I even hear those putrid Ninja Turtles in New York have come out of retirement. I have found it amazing that this small, worthless blue planet would attract all the freaks of the universe." He almost chuckled at that last comment. "But that is none of my affair. I have my own work to do."

Almost as Zedd turned, he noticed five strange rock creatures materialize before him. Upon closer inspection, he had recognized these creatures as rock-skinned Putty Patrol. Having used these creatures to safeguard his palace, he knows that they were reliable foot soldiers despite their lack of mobility.

"Welcome home, my lord." the lead putty said, "we await your orders."

---

After six weeks of endless searching close quarters and coming up with nothing, Jason Lee Scott called the search for his two missing friends off. There wasn't anything else he could do at the moment. Adam had suggested using one of the transmitters he managed to bring with him before he retired to get a signal to the Space Rangers, but so far there was no progress on finding them.

In his small apartment room, Jason laid on his bed staring into the ceiling, which had been well-preserved given the condition of the building itself. It had been staring at it for the past hour, contemplating the old days when it was this one big happy Power Ranger family. The group that couldn't fall apart even if you dropped a nuke on them... or at least, that's what he's always wanted to believe. But Switzerland changed all that.

Shrugging his thoughts, Jason got off his bed and approached the brown box of props. He pulled out various alien and mythical objects; old Ranger helmets, communicators, a Zeo Blaster (which he never even remotely had during his brief stint as Gold Ranger), and other oddities closely filled up, most looking to be in pristine condition, with very few scratches on them at worst. Then, close to the bottom of the box, Jason's eyes were affixed on a familiar object. He pulled the object from the bottom.

It was a morpher; the original morpher, charred with rust and noticeable burn marks. He remembered Rocky giving it back to him the day after graduation, ribbing that no collection of alien artifacts would be complete without a damaged morpher in hand. Jason studied the old gadget and quickly reflected on older times... on happier times. In retrospect, he had almost regretted leaving, because he had sometimes blamed himself for things falling apart as much as they did. On the other hand, he knew he couldn't stick around forever and quickly got over it.

Unlike his longtime friend who's always had a knack for blaming himself...

---

In the past weeks since his secret arrival, the clone has had a very difficult time locating his original. Even with the various scanning techniques that his shuttle was capable of, there was no sign of him anywhere. The clone, having exausted all available options, dropped the search for his original and concentrated on his other plan. He pulled out several sheets of paper stapled together from his pocket. The clone flipped through the pages of the document, which contained various handwritten notes and formulaic designs, before tossing it aside and facing the monitor screen before him.

"Computer," he paused before he heard a faint bleep, "bring me the Bounty Hunter database."

The monitor filled with a list of names that filled the screen. The clone scanned through page after page of names, none of which peeked his interest or seemed somewhat impressed by their skills. After a moment of searching through the database, his eyes peered to one name deep down the list in particular and the skills complementing the name was more than enough to get what he needed done. An evil smirk crept up his face, his plan now falling into place.

---

Despite professing his love to Cestria on Aquitar little over a year ago, William Cranston opted to return to Earth when Tommy needed his help in dealing with Gasket last year. Since then, he had stayed on Earth and proceeded to take part-time college courses while helping out a local fireman with some important R&D. In retrospect, Billy had been really busy that he hadn't gotten the chance to contact most of his friends, although his family and some Zeo Rangers seems to be the only immediate people to know.

Then he received the call: that they were retiring and passing their jobs to four new candidates. While he had voiced his approval, he couldn't help but be concerned. He was never too happy in seeing a twelve-year-old boy take on the position, despite being an advanced intellect. However, a brief meeting with Justin during Tommy's karate expo had soften his feelings for the kid, seeing a bit of himself even.

Then he received another call: Kat's house blew up and both she & Tommy have suddenly gone missing. For the most part, he had been kept up to date on search progresses, even managing to devise his own methods of a world-wide scan. Unfortunately, nothing he did could produce either one of his missing friends.

Then the communicator beeped... the familiar chime of the old wrist communicator interrupted Billy's train of thought and he immediately dragged his chair to his dresser and picked up the 'watch'. He could only guess who was using this old thing at this time.

"Billy here."

"Billy," it was Kim's voice, "The search has been called off."

Billy sighed. His mouth moved, but no words came out.

Kim, not waiting for an answer, continued, "Jason's burnt out and decided to leave everything to chance and hope Tommy miraculously shows up. Right now, we're trying to reach the newbie Rangers so they can search other worlds for him or Kat, but we can't get a signal."

Billy, having found his voice, replied, "How will you be able to contact them? Our old communicators don't have much range these days."

"Adam kept one of the old transmitters before he retired from Rangerdom." Kim revealed, "It keeps in contact with most Earth Rangers, but he's having a hard time getting the kinks to work." She paused for a moment. "Then there's the stupid war in space."

Billy sighed again. "Kim, I think it is time to begin Project Prodigy."

There was no response. Billy started getting worried.

"Kimberly? You still there?"

"Yeah, I'm still here." Kim said, sounding less than enthusiastic, "But Project Prodigy... I don't know. Are you it's the right time? What with Zordon being a P.O.W. and everything that's been going on?"

Billy almost knew she would say that. "It's the best time to go for it, Kim."

"Timing isn't an issue here, Billy." Kim elaborated, "The whole process depends more only sheer luck than anything. Even if you manage to get in the necessary programming today, it could take anywhere from a few days to a few months before the whole system starts up. Once that's done, you'd still have to wait a couple years before Project Prodigy eventually terminates in order to see any semblance of a final result. Of course, that all depends on how much of the equipment is still intact and powered up to begin with. And I shouldn't have to tell you that Prodigy would be completely defenseless and that even the tiniest interruption could be the cause of universal Armageddon."

Billy, almost quite literally, went bug-eyed hearing this many details from Kimberly of all people, who, as intelligent as she was, was the absolute last person he would expect to be this informed over an experiment that wasn't much more than a mere mention or afterthought.

"Since when did you become the expert on this stuff?" he asked, sounding rightfully shocked, "Did you steal my mind-reader and switch brains with Ninjor or something?"

"Up your shaft" was Kim's subtle response. Billy sighed and quickly got over the shock.

"Look, Kim." he said, "I know there's a huge chance that this won't work to our favor. But it's worth the risk, if it could help us find our friends and deal with any threat that may pass our way."

Another long pause, this one a little more uncomfortable than the other two.

Finally, Kim sighed heavily. "Alright, Billy." she answered dejectedly, "Do what you have to. I'll let the others know you're 'busy' for a while."

"Thanks. Later." Billy replied before signing off.

He wrapped the communicator around his wrist and searched his closet for a decent set of clothes. Not wanting to waste time in deciding a fashion statement, he opted for a plain white shirt and black jeans. Running from his bedroom to the garage, he pulled out a beaten-up blue spiral notebook from a pile of sheets and briefly looked inside. Finally, he checked all the doors and windows to make sure they were all shut and made his way to the backyard, where his personal Aquitian compact fighter was parked.

One of the funny things about this town: the neighbors never complained nor inquired to either the Cranstons about the alien spacecraft that was (literally) parked in their backyard. Since they knew Billy to have been in space for quite some time, they almost found it intriguing.

Billy climbed into the cockpit and went through the usual start-up procedures, which including checking if all systems were functioning acceptably. When that was done, Billy controlled the ship off the ground and started to fly off to the dusk sky.

---

It took a day to transmit a message onto the Bounty Hunter Database, but sure enough, the clone got his message through. Around the late hours of the night, he waited outside his parked shuttle for the bounty hunter he was hiring to show up. From the distance, he saw a beam of golden light shoot down to the ground and from it emerged a young Asian woman decked in gold spiked armor. The clone, recognizing the woman, came to greet her.

"Word is you have a job for me," the armored woman said, "and that you're willing to pay handsomely for my services."

The clone smiled. "You're right, Scorpina. I do have a job for you..."

To be continued...