Prism

A/N: First things first: I don't own them, and I'm not making any money off this. That being said, sorry it's taken me so long to work on this chapter - scientific/technical/background explanations are not my favorite part of writing. Hope you enjoy!

Racing back down the stairs into the Power Chamber, Billy Cranston looked like a child on Christmas morning. Seizing on one explanation that he could at last use to justify the strange situation, he barely gave a convoluted, technical response in explanation for his strange mania to Alpha and Zordon before immediately setting to work. Both the robot and the interdimensional being were considering Billy's words when Kim and Jason entered the room.

"What has happened?" Zordon inquired, deciding not to bother trying to figure out Billy's explanation and to rely on the others to provide him with the necessary details. Both Kimberly and Jason looked slightly dazed. They exchanged glances before beginning. It was hard enough believing it with their eyes, and to verbalize it was for a moment beyond them. Finally Jason spoke.

"There's no color." The statement was simple and rang through the chamber, which was quiet except for Billy's incomprehensible soft mutterings and his fiddling with the consoles. Zordon considered in silence.

Jason stood waiting respectfully for Zordon to speak. For once, his mentor seemed at a momentary loss, and that, as much as the strange landscape and the terrible knowledge that Earth was no longer sovereign, bothered Jason slightly. Zordon had always been so knowledgeable, so capable and resolute no matter how bad the situation was that to witness even this small display of weakness felt dismaying and disorienting to Jason. However, at last Zordon broke the silence. "Before, I have always been able to guide you and give you information based on past occurrences and general knowledge of the enemy we faced. I will be honest, I have only heard of - and that an ancient legend - such a situation as this once."

"What is the legend or story?" inquired Kimberly, gazing intently at her mentor.

Zordon sighed. "The legend speaks of a woman, a great military strategist and enchantress who had conquered many planets and systems, but at last encountered significant resistance on one small planet utilizing a color-based power system. Finding a rift in the space-time continuum, she found a way to maneuver the planet into the rift. As a result of the changes that occurred when the planet moved into another dimension, there were several noteworthy ones: the manipulation of time became possible for her, as did the manipulation of color on the planet."

Jason held up a hand suddenly. "Then why do we have color in here?" he asked. "I mean, providing that this is the same sort of a phenomenon, which we don't know for sure yet, but wouldn't screwing up the colors include here?"

"Not necessarily," answered Zordon. "The elimination of color is more of an illusion than anything else. For example, when you look at a prism in a diffused light, it has no color; it only seems clear or maybe a little whitish. However, when you shine a direct light on it, the nature of the object makes it refract the light and you see rainbows. It's all a matter of the type of light and how you look at it whether or not you see color. To eliminate the color, whoever it is - assuming the same principle of the space-time rift of course - used some sort of illusory tactic. This means that whoever could only use it on lands and buildings that are known. We are standing in an oversight and therefore, unknown. In other words," he said, noting the blank stares on both Kimberly and Jason's faces, "they are seeing the proverbial prism in the diffused light, and we are seeing the refracted beams. They see only the clear glass; we see the colors produced within it. We are standing in 'direct' light and outside, it's all diffused."

Kimberly wasn't entirely sure that she was satisfied, but deciding that she had the basic concept, was about to ask Zordon about the fate of the planet in the legend, but was cut off before she could open her mouth by Billy.

"Then why won't the colors work?" he said, a puzzled expression gracing his features. "If it's an illusory tactic, then colors still exist, they just can't be seen. What's stopping us from simply appearing grey to those who can't see the colors in our suits? Couldn't we morph in here where there is color?"

Zordon had a ready answer. "For some reason, the powers are automatically included in the illusion. When the bearer invokes them, the powers immediately try to tie to color. However, because of the illusion, the powers are "blind" to the color - similarly to the people out there who don't recognize it right now - and since they can't…I am not sure how to verbalize this…sense it, I suppose would be the closest approximation, they don't fuse with it. And since all of our powers are color-based, when the power can't fuse with the color, they are nullified. As for your question about morphing in here, the color of the powers aren't linked to the Power Chamber in that sense, but rather to the colors of the earth at large. "

"Oh." Said Billy, carefully digesting the information.

"The powers are unable to find the color they need to fuse with?" inquired Jason, making certain that he'd interpreted the explanation correctly.

"That is what I said. To the best of my knowledge, unless the effect can be undone, they are useless."

Jason nodded. "How would we go about reversing this?"

"Hang on," said Kim, a determined frown creasing her pretty face, "I want to know in detail the struggle of this planet. What happened to it?"

Zordon looked away briefly. "It was destroyed," he said softly.

Hearing Kimberly's words about the details of the struggle suddenly gave Jason's mind a kick-start. As he opened his mouth, Billy, not seeing Jason about to speak, cut him off inadvertently. "Are there any written legends of this? Data? Anything?"

Jason nodded, backing his friend. "Exactly. If we're going up against anything that's similar, we've got to find out all we can about this 'Prism Effect' and how to reverse it."

Zordon, in that instant, felt a surge of pride come over him. In his many thousands of years, he had rarely found a group this committed and determined to succeed or die trying. All from my first-chosen in this millennia he thought warmly. "If you are looking for such information, I would advise you to look in the Archives, deep under this chamber for references to the planet Orotron. Alpha will lead you. At the door to the Archives, you will find a small shelf. On it will be several small devices. These are for translating any of the languages in the books to English instantly. Good luck, Kimberly, Jason, Billy." He lingered on each name slowly, thinking about each young man or woman in turn. How they had grown! From a terrified, introverted boy, a seemingly shallow, vapid girl, and a young man with all the potential for great leadership but none of the opportunity, he now saw the trio of warriors that came forged out of the fires of all the trials throughout their years. I took away their innocence, he thought regretfully, I took so much of them. But instead of mourning their losses, they've risen into the greatest and most determined warriors Earth has ever seen. Yet though he knew he'd done what he must, it pained him deeply to know that he would soon send them out, probably to their deaths. Even the warrior spirit within him that thought only of ends, not means ached at that knowledge.

~*~

"Ay-yi-yi," exclaimed Alpha, leading the three down a small, dusty, obviously rarely used passage. The robot gave a metallic approximation of a sneeze, and Billy and Kim exchanged looks of amusement at the noise.

"Bless you," said Jason, catching the eye of the other two, all three barely containing laughter.

"Thank you," said Alpha. "Ah, here it is!" He stopped in front of a metal door, pressed a few buttons, and the door slid open. Inside an enormous stone vault with a high decorative ceiling, laid quite literally thousands of volumes. The lighting in the vault had an odd, yellowish cast. The mosaics that decorated the ceiling were missing tiles here and there, and everything was covered in a thick layer of cobweb and dust. Nonetheless, it was obvious that the vault had once been a magnificent and pleasant library.

"Wow," breathed Billy softly. "I've always known this was down here, but I've never gone in. Impressive."

Jason nodded, too awed to say anything. Alpha shuffled around, handing each of them one of the translators that Zordon had told them about. "Place the scope over the part of the page you wish to read and the translation will appear in the viewer, here." He pointed to a small screen on each of the small devices. "Good luck," he said and began the long walk back up to the main chamber.

Kim let out an audible groan. "There are hundreds of books in here," she sighed. "How are we ever going to find the right ones?"

Billy, observant and curious as ever, was poking around. "Look!" he exclaimed, pulling out a dusty drawer from what appeared to be a wall. "I think it's a card catalogue." The drawer contained pieces of yellowed paper organized in a neat row.

Jason looked at the massive bank that he suddenly realized contained many, many drawers and allowed himself one inner grumble of protest. "Okay, guys," he said aloud, slipping into leader mode, "If this is organized anything like a real card catalogue, Kim, start looking for a drawer about Orotron. Billy, why don't you look for references to color-related spells and time rifts. I'll start looking up military references. If you find anything, pull out the card and then we'll all come down in a little while and compare notes." Bravely, Jason started for the drawer nearest him. Wiping the grime off the inscription that indicated contents, Jason began searching.

It took hours. Finding promising drawers alone was difficult, and once they had finished searching the drawers that were at their height, all were obliged to climb up on ladders they found whose use appeared to be for looking at the upper drawers. By the time each had accumulated a few precious cards, they were completely filthy from the dust, tired, Kimberly had accidentally caught her thumb in a drawer and cut it badly, Billy had taken a tumble off an unsteady ladder, and Jason had managed to crack his head on an upper drawer that had been inadvertently left open. Nursing their wounds, they sat down at a large wooden table to view their progress. Billy set five cards on the table. "Here's what I have," he sighed. "I'm not sure even how relevant to our situation they are, but it took me long enough to find them."

Kim set out three. "I found a couple of others with very small references," she said, "but I fastened a couple of pieces of cloth on the drawers, so if we need them, they'll be easy to find." Her pink shirt missed several pieces of fabric around the sleeves. "These were the best, though."

Jason added six more cards to the stack. "Some of these won't do us much good," he admitted. "At least, I don't think so. But it's something, so they're worth checking."

All of them stared at the fourteen decrepit pieces of paper that represented the last five hours' work. "If I ever get back here," vowed Billy, "I'm going to figure out a way to catalogue all these volumes on one of the computers. That way, they're more accessible."

"Amen," groaned Jason. Glancing around at his two cohorts, he sighed. "Let's find those books."

Finding the books proved not to be nearly as difficult as they had anticipated. The shelves were surprisingly well organized and easily identified. After only an hour, fourteen books lay on the table. Munching on some food that Alpha had brought, the three were busily embroiled in scanning the books for references to the legend as quickly as possible. Jason began to become conscious of the fact that he was beginning to grow tired, and wondered how Billy and Kimberly were holding up. His fears that they would begin fading were quickly realized as he studied their streaky, dirty faces. Forcing his eyes down the page, Jason continued reading until something interesting caught his eye, banishing his fatigue. "Billy! Kim! Look at this."

~*~

"Where are they?" snapped a voice full of impatience. "I thought you said that you'd run scans to locate them."

"I did, m'lady. They have not been found."

"So. You have merely missed three major threats to us. Are you certain that the one is not still on Aquitar?"

"Yes m'lady. Data indicates that he left the planet."

"Call Goldar to me. Meddling little toady, but perhaps he'll do better than you."

"Yes, m'lady." A pause resulted while the soldier did so. Then, the silken swish of a blade cutting the air and metal ringing sounded. Through the door came a woman, of medium height but an imposing countenance.

"Clean that up," she hissed at the guard by the door. "I want nothing to do with it."

~*~

Adam groaned softly. Never so glad as now that his shift was over, he exhaustedly dragged himself back towards his bed. That his secret hiding place for his forbidden item would be discovered had nagged in the back of his mind the entire time, making him even more eager to go back and make sure that all was well. Entering the barracks, he hurried towards his bunk. Reaching it, he surreptitiously examined the wall visually. Something seemed slightly amiss…not the way he'd left it. Only then did he become aware of a long-haired youth standing behind him. Turning, Adam faced the young man, staring fiercely. He knew if it came down to a confrontation, any show of weakness would be fatal to his cause, and while his insides quaked, his gaze was steady.

Not giving away anything since he didn't know if this was the one who had discovered the hollow in the wall or just someone looking for a fight, Adam took a deep breath and waited for the other to state his business. At last, the young man spoke, his voice very low. "I know about what you're hiding."

Adam felt his heart leap into his throat, but kept his face impassive. "And?" he tossed back with a nonchalance he didn't feel.

"I want to help you."

To Be Continued…