Disclaimer: Power Rangers belongs to Disney and the like, which I am not affliated with.
Some language this time around.
When Conner came to, he ached all over. More than ached--his entire body was screaming in pain. Dust and smoke blurred his vision, and he blinked furiously to clear it.
"Ethan, he's waking up!" he heard a voice saying. Soft, strong hands helped pull him to a seated position. "Conner, can you hear me?"
"I can hear you," he said. There was a hazy figure of a person in his line of sight, a cloud of gold surrounding them. "Holy shit, am I dead?"
"Conner. Conner, no, you're not dead. Stay with me, would you?" He heard a snapping sound, and suddenly everything came into focus. The haloed figure in front of him wasn't an angel--well, not exactly. It was Kira, her dirty blond hair illuminated from behind by flickering lights. She was kneeling at his side, Ethan hovering behind her.
Then Conner saw the damage.
The Rangers' headquarters was completely trashed. Completely and utterly. Sparks flew from loose wires and cords that spilled from the remains of Dr. O.'s six-screen computer console, as though it had been gutted. They were providing a portion of the spasmodic light, as only one bulb in the whole of the room had been left in tact. Tables were toppled, debris of all shapes and sizes and forms was littering the floor. Conner couldn't even begin to imagine what everything was.
"How do you feel?" Ethan asked, peering at Conner with concern.
"Like I've been hit by a Mack truck," he groaned.
"Conner, this is important," Kira said, her tone deadly serious. "Do you feel any pain?"
"Tons. All over."
She looked relieved. "That's good. Means you're not paralyzed. One of the Cycles fell on you, we had to pull it off. I'm pretty sure nothing's broken, though."
"How long have I been out?" Conner asked.
"You put in the call to us half an hour ago," Ethan said.
Kira sighed. "It was Trent, wasn't it." It was not a question.
"I'm sorry, Kira. This is all my fault," Conner babbled. "I tried to warn...I didn't mean for...I never thought he was capable of..."
"Whoa, dude, complete sentences, would you?" Ethan said. "Tell us from the beginning."
And so he did. He told them everything, everything he'd tried to tell Dr. O. before being interrupted. He wasn't sure what sort of reaction he could expect, but his friends sat in silence, amidst the rubble, listening to his tale with Trent long gone. When he was done (the part where Trent knocked him out and apparently destroyed Dr. O.'s basement), Kira sat back on her heels and Ethan needed to find a clear space on the ground to sit.
"Why didn't you tell us this?" Ethan asked.
"Because I'm an idiot?" Conner offered.
"No arguments here," Ethan said.
"More importantly than that, why did you ever agree to go?" Kira said.
Conner looked away, opting to survey the wreckage rather than having to meet Kira's penetrating stare. The thing he'd neglected to leave out of his story was his love for Kira, and Trent's knowledge of that. "He was threatening you," Conner said simply. "I was worried he might try something, so I thought I'd cut him off before he could."
"We're a team, Conner, we make group decisions because we work best when we work together," she said, and she sounded ticked.
"You sound like Dr. O.," he grumbled, knowing she was right. Then it hit him: "Where's Dr. O.?"
"He's okay," Ethan volunteered. "He woke up a few minutes before you. He went out to see if the outside entrance is damaged or not. He kept muttering about his insurance premiums."
"This is all my fault," Conner groaned, thinking about how Hayley was going to kill him.
"Yeah, it kinda is," Kira snapped, and he looked at her sharply, wondering what the hell had happened to her patient tone. "The place is destroyed, Conner. Nothing is working. The Cycles are broken, he stole the Raptor Riders, it's only a sheer stroke of luck that he didn't gain access to the few Zords we have left. The only thing operable right now are our morphers, not that it makes much difference, as you're practically out of commission."
"I'm not out of commission!" Conner said hotly, though he found standing up to be far more difficult than he remembered. "Would you calm the hell down, Kira? I was doing it for you!"
"You were doing it for me?" she echoed. "You must have gotten a lot more head damage than I thought, if you think that I need protecting."
Conner stared at the dust that had settled onto his jeans. There was both a fresh sprinkling of it, and some dust and dirt already caked in. Screwing up all of his concentration, he managed to get himself to a standing position, with only moderate assistance from the stacked debris around him. "He was threatening you," Conner grumbled. He knew he was repeating himself, and that made him wonder whether or not he had received any brain damage.
"So what? Let him talk."
Easy for her to say. She hadn't been there, she hadn't seen the way Trent had drooled over her, how he'd spoken of her with such a disgusting, possessive tone. "I'm not about to lose you to that idiot," he yelled. He wondered if Dr. O. was mad--probably, although Conner had tried to explain himself.
"Lose me?" Kira said, and she wasn't yelling. "What are you talking about?"
Conner turned around to find the both of them staring at him. Kira with confusion and apprehension, and Ethan with what looked like a sudden bout of understanding.
Had he said it aloud? Was he that idiotic? Conner had done stupid things in his time, the stupidest ones all pulled off today, but even he didn't think he was capable of a mistake this big. No winning smile and McKnight charm was going to talk him out of what he'd gotten himself into now.