Chapter Six

Despite our defeat of Ultramarine, the mood in the Command Centre later that day was anything but victorious. We'd lost, and we'd lost spectacularly. Even if the Parazord could be repaired - and its charred remains were lying in a holding bay deep beneath us in the mountain - Aaron's Power Coin had been destroyed. One-by-one, all in a state of hollow, empty shock, everybody was steadily realising the simple, inescapable truth - Aaron could no longer be a Ranger.

"The aqua power is still contained within the grid," explained Zordon, "but without a Power Coin, we have no way of using it. The Power's link to this world was severed, and there is simply no way of repairing it." Zordon paused, and looked down to Aaron. "I'm truly sorry Aaron," he said, and for the first time I could remember, his voice was soft, almost a whisper. "If I'd known how things were going to turn out..."

"Hey, don't worry," said Aaron with an oddly reassuring smile. "It wasn't your fault."

"Yeah," Sarah nodded. "It was ours."

Aaron immediately turned to her. "Don't say that," he said. "It's not true."

"But if we'd gotten back from the Dark Dimension sooner..."

"Then Ultramarine might've destroyed your zords as well," said Aaron. "Look, we fight the badguys on a daily basis, maybe we just have to lose occasionally. You know, to keep the law of averages on our side."

"But we beat him," said Tommy weakly. "We were supposed to win." He looked away, and without a word Kimberly reached across and took his hand in hers.

I glanced around the room and up to Jason, the Red Ranger nodding and resting his hand on my shoulder. Tommy was right, we'd won. So why did we still lose?

Standing in the centre of the room, seemingly the least affected out of anybody in the room, Aaron glanced around to each of us. "Guys, it's okay. We beat the badguy, right? A badguy that nobody thought we'd beat, a badguy nobody has ever beaten. I mean, yay," he said with a slight smile, then paused. "Look, all good things have to end sometime. So it was a short superhero career - that's a lot more than anybody else gets." He looked away, and there was a moment of silence, broken as Aaron stepped forward, unclipped his wrist communicator and placed it on the bench.

"Alpha," he said, turning to the robot, "can you teleport me out of here?"

Alpha nodded, and silently turned to the control panel as Jason stepped forward. "Aaron," he began, extending a hand which Aaron shook, "all I've got is that it shouldn't have ended this way. You were an awesome Ranger, and the team won't be the same without you."

"Thanks," Aaron said. "I couldn't imagine a better leader for the team."

Jason stepped back, and I turned to him. "Aaron, I always thought you were the greatest. You didn't have to prove it, but you did." I paused, and looked into his eyes. "Bad things just happen to good people, I guess."

His eyes twinkled and he laughed. "Don't I know it," he said. Then, he reached down into his back pocket, pulled out a creased sheet of paper and gave it to me. "I wanted to tell you all about this sooner, but I never got around to it and I guess now it doesn't matter," he said, then smiled a soft smile. "Funny how these things work out, isn't it?"

I took the paper from him, and he stepped back and looked up to Zordon.

"Thanks for everything Zordon," he said. "Stay cool."

Then, he turned back to us, and with a final wave, Aaron disappeared in a flash of aqua light, and teleported back to Caloundra.

"We'll miss you," I murmured to no-one in particular, before unfolding the sheet of paper and beginning to read what was on it.

"Aaron's loss is indeed devastating," said Zordon. "We're one Ranger down, and Rita knows it. Brendan, from now on you will have to take Aaron's place on the team. We will modify the Dilophozord so that it will be able to combine with the other zords to form the Megazord."

"I'm up for it, I guess," replied Brendan.

Zordon nodded. "Take heart Rangers. I know it might seem far away, but you will heal, and the team will grow strong again. Aaron was very much right - Rita expected the teams to fall without one other, and not only did you prove her wrong, you soundly defeated Ultramarine, something nobody has ever done. You should be proud, all of you."

"Whoa," I said, still reading, and everyone turned to me.

"What is it?" asked Trini.

I looked up, blushing when I realised I'd said that aloud. "It's a letter," I replied, "from Aaron's uncle up north. According to this, Aaron's uncle has to move overseas so he's passing the family business on to Aaron's mother. Which means that Aaron has to move back up north in, like, a week."

There was a stunned silence. Scott gave a low whistle.

"Why didn't he tell us?" asked Teresa.

"He was probably worried," said Tommy. "About how we'd all react, I guess."

"No wonder he was so down this morning," said Sarah. "Imagine dealing with that on your own."

Jason turned to me. "I think you'd better go find him," he said.

I nodded, and looked over to Sarah. "Do you want to...?"

Sarah shook her head. "You go."

"Thanks," I replied. "Alpha, can you teleport me out of here?"


With a good idea where Aaron would be, I demorphed and had Alpha teleport me directly into the Youth Centre. Stepping out of the empty locker-room, I saw that I'd guessed right - Aaron was sitting in the far corner of the room, gazing unfocussed at the smoothie on the table in front of him. Walking over, I grabbed a chair from another table and sat down in front of him. He looked up, surprised, but smiled when he saw me.

"Hey," he said.

"We read the letter," I said. "It's okay, we understand. You know you didn't have to deal with that alone, you could've told us."

Aaron nodded. "I know, now," he said. "But thanks."

"Even without your powers, we still would've hung out with you," I said. "You don't have to move all the way to north Queensland."

Aaron laughed. "It's good to know," he said, and then looked away. "So much for a happy ending, right?"

"Hey," I said, "don't look so sad."

"Why shouldn't I?" he replied. "I blew it. I lost my powers. I let you all down and I let Zordon down. And I don't even want to think about how much it'll cost to fix a zord." He paused, sighing. "You know, we got those coins and I thought great, this was my chance to make a difference, save the world, help people and all the other stuff that heroes are supposed to do. To really be somebody, you know, not just a face in the crowd who needs rescuing. And I couldn't even keep my own coin from being destroyed. Some hero I turned out to be."

I smiled. "Hey," I said, and he turned back to me. "Maybe I'm missing something, but I thought you did all of those things."

"I did?"

"Sure you did," I said, and raising my hand, I began counting off my fingers. "You helped beat Monitar, I mean, that's why we were given the coins in the first place. You helped the team fight off an entire army to reach Torlus, somebody who needed our help. Never mind the fact that you helped hold off a freakin' mountain when Rita talked him into declaring war on the city."

In spite of himself, Aaron smiled. "Okay, I didn't do much then..."

"We couldn't have done it without you," I said. "And that's not even counting today, I mean, you wiped out an entire army of putties and gave up your powers to save thousands of people. Think about it - if you hadn't wiped the floor with Ultramarine the Seniors might not have been able to destroy him at all. Not to mention..."

But at that moment, Aaron reached across the table and put a hand over my mouth. "You run out of breath yet?" he said, sitting back with a smile.

I shook my head and grinned. "We both know I could talk a monster into self-destructing if I had to," I said. "Are you going to admit that I'm right?"

"You really think I'm a hero?" he asked softly.

"Yeah, and I'm not the only one," I said, then glanced over to the locker hallway where ten pairs of eyes were watching us. Following my gaze and seeing the others, Aaron couldn't help but smile. "Just, no matter what happens," I continued, "here or forever, promise me one thing?"

"What?"

"You'll never forget us?"

Aaron grinned. "Never, man. Not even if I tried."


For the twelve of us, the next week passed way too quickly. We all helped Aaron and his family pack up all their things, and we even helped the real estate agent show some people around their house one afternoon in the middle of the week. At school, the five of us spent as much time with Aaron as we could, but even then, before we realised it the week had passed and it was Friday afternoon. After promising to call and write as often as he could, Aaron gave everyone a bone-crushing bearhug, and bid us all a fond farewell.

But as he was leaving school, Aaron noticed Joshua walking a few steps ahead of him, and decided to follow him home.

"See, the thing is," Aaron said, "I know you guys all give Pete a hard time. Maybe it's just your way of being friendly, I don't know. But as you've probably heard, I'm heading north and I won't be able to look out for him anymore." Aaron paused, and smiled. "Now, I'll be coming back to the coast pretty regularly with my family, and if I ever hear that you've been too friendly, not only will those trips become more frequent, but I will personally be dropping around to say hello. Are we clear?"

It wasn't what Aaron had said but how he'd said it - holding Joshua upside down by the ankles and bouncing his head on the grass to punctuate every sentence - that ensured Joshua was remarkably clear about the subject indeed.

And as it turns out, I didn't hear a word from any of them for weeks.

The End.