Disclaimer: Not mine, please don't sue me, I have no money anyway.
Ashley Hammond/Astro Yellow: Hmm . . . I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. You'll just have to wait. Am I evil, or am I evil?
Jenny: Andros liking Ashley? I don't know what you're talking about. . . Wow, sarcasm is really hard to write. Yeah, he likes her. How could I not let them get together? They're soulmates.
Juzblue: Hey, thanks.
Chapter 4: Seeing Silver
The red alert sirens began flashing halfway through breakfast the next morning. Andros, who had been about to try pancakes at Ashley and Aria's urging, was delighted by the diversion, if not by the monster. He was by far not the only one.
"Ugh," Aria groaned. "It's too early for this."
"Let's go," Andros said, heading for the jump tubes. The others followed silently and sluggishly.
"Ready? Let's rocket!"
Five streaks of light made their way down to Earth.
"Didn't we kill you already?" Gabriel asked the creature that faced them. "I could've sworn we did."
Darkonda laughed. "I am one those favored by Dark Specter. I am invincible!"
Just then, a flaming shower of lava rained down on him, and Darkonda was vaporized.
"What the hell?" Justin burst out laughing.
"Maybe Dark Specter doesn't like his favored having egos," Aria suggested. "Oh, well, let's go home."
"Not so fast," came another voice, one they were more familiar with.
Ecliptor was another of those favored by Dark Specter, but he had the brains not to brag about it. Behind him stood a small army of Quantrons.
"Oh, goody," Justin heard Aria mutter. "The bestest puncing bags in the world."
"Ready, guys?" Andros asked, glancing at Aria and Ashley on either side of him.
Four helmeted heads nodded in response, and the two sides met.
Gabriel and Justin fought well together. Gabriel's Lunar Lance was good for long-range hits, while Justin's Astro Ax was perfect for the up-close-and-personal style attacks, like Justin himself. Together, the brothers cut down a good portion of the Quantrons.
Andros and Ashley fought back-to-back. Ashley's Star Slinger left her open for attacks from behind, so Andros was always by her side. He tackled several just in time to stop them from injuring her.
"Look out!" Aria shouted.
Andros turned just in time to see Ashley catch a Quantron full in the face with her foot. Its blade had been inched away from his head.
"Thanks," he muttered, embarrassed he had left himself so open to an attack.
Ashley nodded to him. "Call it even?"
"Sure," he grunted, nearly missing a block.
Aria fought with whomever she wanted, although she normally opted to fight alone, but close enough to someone that if either one of them was in trouble, help was never far away. Not that Aria ever needed help, Andros thought wryly. She'd saved him more times than he'd care to admit, especially since Ashley had saved him several times more.
A Quantron managed to plant a foot hard into Ashley's stomach, and she stumbled, unable to breathe. Andros caught her, realizing that he had a bit of a problem. Ashley wasn't hurt, she just needed to catch her breath, but he was going to have a hard time sheilding her while she did so.
Especially with a Quantron coming at him from each side, and head-on.
Dropping Ashley as gently as he could to the ground, Andros lunged at the Quantron coming directly toward him, hoping the other two would be too slow to realize that he had moved and crash into each other. No such luck.
Andros sighed and hit the ground, sweeping his leg around in a circle, tripping the Quantrons.
"You okay?" he asked Ashley, pulling her to her feet.
She nodded. "I'm fine."
"Aria, no!" he heard Justin shout, and he and Ashley whirled just in time to see Aria dodge several shots of what could only be described as Ecliptor's personal brand of lightning.
"You'll have to do better than that," Aria taunted, miracuously landing a few shots with her Astroblaster.
"What the hell is she doing?"
Justin and Gabriel could only watch as their sister fought Ecliptor single-handedly; they were surrounded by Quantrons. Andros and Ashley wasted no time sprinting to her side.
"Red ranger!" Ecliptor laughed maliciously. "I see your friends are still alive. Have your skills improved, or do they just not care for you?"
Andros froze. His Spiral Saber was powered up and aimed at Ecliptor, but at his words, Andros was stunned into immobility. Ecliptor took advantage of his opportunity to send several shots his way. Ashley and Aria managed to intercept and deflect several of them, but they missed one and it hit Andros hard, bowling him over, and leaving him wincing in pain. His suit brightened and sparkled before vanishing.
Ecliptor laughed.
"They must not care for you. If anything, your skills have worsened."
Then he vanished in a column of green smoke. Andros glared at the spot where he had been with such bitter hatred that Ashley couldn't stand to look at his face.
"Power down!" she muttered, kneeling by his side.
"Andros?" she asked gently. "Andros, can you get up?"
Andros shrugged her hand off his shoulder.
"I'm fine," he said through gritted teeth, but when he tried to stand up, he was forced to lean on her for support.
"Let's go," Aria said.
She was standing several feet back from them. She had demorphed as well, and there was an odd light shining in her hazel-green eyes.
"He got what he came for," she said, raising her left arm to the sky.
Without another word, she vanished in a pink streak. Justin and Gabriel followed, still morphed.
"Come on," Ashley said softly, raising her arm to the sky as well. They teleported back to the Megaship together, but as soon as they materialized, Andros limped away, heading for the engine room.
She stared after him sadly.
Gabriel sighed and fingered his black shirt absently. All his life, he had bonded to the color green, yet in the last few weeks, black had seemed to be his color of choice.
He couldn't decide what he was going to tell his mother if- when she finally woke up. She'd known that her children were Power Rangers. It was going to happen sooner or later. You can't escape your destiny, she'd always said. And her children were destined to be Power Rangers.
How she knew, he didn't know, but she had cried with relief the day that the first rangers arrived, almost as if it had been expected. It was the only time Gabriel had ever seen his mother cry, and they'd had their share of bad luck.
They hadn't even been of age that day when the first rangers appeared, but yet his mother had seemed to know that one day they'd be those heroes.
Gabriel sighed. There was something he should be doing, something he should have been doing since he'd seen his mother in a hospital bed two months ago.
"Deca, is it within your capabilities to scan for particular people who are not rangers?" he asked.
"Of course," Deca replied immediately.
Gabriel thought she sounded troubled, but he couldn't understand why.
"The person I'm searching for . . ." Gabriel hesitated. "I don't know who it is."
"I need some information to begin the search," Deca said. "I am not all-seeing."
This sounded like a concession, and Gabriel had to smile.
"It's okay, Deca," he said. "When I find something, I'll let you know."
Aria wandered through the Megaship, unable to shake the feeling that had haunted her since their last battle. Something in Ecliptor's words to Andros had stirred something in her subconcious mind, and it was crying to be let out.
She strolled into the enginge room and climbed up one of the access ladders, hiding herself in a corner. It was a good place to think. She leaned her head back against the wall, and closed her eyes, trying to remember.
Everything had seemed so familiar. The instant she had morphed, everything had come naturally to her. The feeling scared her. With the Turbo powers, at least she'd had to think a little. Not so with the Astromorphers. Ecliptor, Darkconda, Astronema, she felt like she should know them, or at least recognize them.
She opened her eyes, irritated. It didn't help that every damn time she closed her eyes she saw silver. It wasn't a problem with her eyes, she knew. On Earth, she had perfect vision. It was only on the Megaship . . . Silver.
She frowned, and cocked her head to the side, ready to bang her head on the ground out of frustration. Silver. She saw silver. Red and silver blurs, darting around a green blur. . .
Why couldn't she remember?
Groaning, she reached for her communicator.
"Hey, Ash," she said. "You there?"
"Yeah."
Ashley sounded depressed, but Aria wasn't in the mood to notice.
"Did I ever say anything to you about silver?"
"Huh?" Ashley said. "What are you talking about?"
Aria sighed. "I keep seeing flashes of red and silver. I'm trying to figure out what the hell it is. Thanks anyway."
She paused, the flipped open her communicator again.
"Hey, Jus," she said, using Justin's hated nickname. It guaranteed her that he would tell her exactly the opposite of what the truth was. "Did I ever say anything strange about silver?"
"No," Justin replied after a pause. "You say a lot of strange things, but none of them had anything to do with any kind of silver."
Aria grinned. It worked every time. "Okay, Justin, what did I say?"
"Dammit," Justin said, half-heartedly at best. "All right, I'll tell you. I wouldn't remember this except you woke up in the middle of the night screaming 'Silver is dead,' and started looking for knives."
"Wait," Aria said suddenly, the memories flooding back to her. "I remember now."
She closed her communicator and shivered as she remembered.
It had all been a dream she'd had almost two years ago, about a year before she'd first recieved her powers. There had only been two rangers, one red, and one silver. The red ranger had taken a hard hit and fallen, and the silver ranger had taken the death blow for him.
Her mother had convinced her that it had all been a nightmare, but Aria knew now that it wasn't. She hadn't seen the red ranger's suit because she had been seeing through his eyes, but she had seen the silver ranger's suit. It had only been two colors, but the similarities were there.
"Deca, where is the silver ranger?" Aria asked. "Did he die two years ago?"
"How do you know of the silver ranger?"
Deca sounded shocked.
"You're not answering me," Aria said. "What happened that day?"
"No," Deca said reluctantly. "He did not die. He has been in cryogenic sleep for the past two years."
"Where is he?" Aria demanded. "Where is-" she thought hard to remember the name.
"Where is Zhane?"
"He is in a healing chamber."
Aria accepted this answer, knowing that Deca would keep evading her questions.
Five feet away, the silver ranger slept.