Disclaimer: I don't own power rangers. shock, horror.

Chapter the 7th : My lady victory

Zach found himself in a most unusual situation: he was sitting in his living room watching the latest power ranger on the T.V. He watched in horror as the four rangers took a pretty severe beating, something wasn't right. They fought better than this; he knew they fought better than this, even out of uniform. They weren't even working together, and it looked to Zach that they weren't even trying, that they didn't want to win. It had to be the monster; she had to have some kind of special skill, some way of distracting them. It was terrible to watch as his friends took hit after hit and were clearly losing. After a while he began to wonder why they hadn't drawn back, he'd fallen back from less serious situations than this. Another blow to the yellow ranger, right across the chest: she fell back and didn't get up. He felt himself jump as his family looked at him, surprised by the strength of his reaction: as far as they were concerned the power rangers always won. It was as easy as that.

'She's just knocked out,' he began repeating to himself as he fought the urge to run into the kitchen, reclaim his communicator and teleport out, 'she's just knocked out.' He would have gone too, with no regard to his secret had it not been for the red ranger. The yellow ranger's collapse seemed to snap him out of whatever he'd been suffering from. Zach saw his friend jolt and perform a superb attack on the monster forcing her away from the yellow rangers unconscious body.

"Fall back" the black ranger found himself whispering, "Fall back. You know better than to attack in anger, fall back."

His parents glanced at him curiously as he slid closer and closer to the T.V continuing with his mutterings, "come on, fall back. Don't get yourself killed.'

The red ranger was clearly torn, throwing glances between the monster and his fallen friend. The blue and the green still seemed to be continuing in their strange dance with the monster and the red ranger almost looked reluctant to leave it. Eventually he made some kind of call and the others glanced at him suspiciously and continued with their fight. He called again and they ignored him.

Zach was enthralled, he barely even noticed as his communicator began to beep loudly from the kitchen.

Making his decision the red ranger grabbed the yellow and disappeared, leaving the blue and green 'fighting' the monster.

Trini woke up with a splitting headache and groaned, "what happened?"

"You were injured in battle," replied Zordon, "and have just regained consciousness."

"Are you alright?" asked the red ranger at the same time.

"Battle?" she asked confused, "there was a battle?"

"Are you alright?" repeated Jason.

"I'm fine," she responded quickly and without thought, "though my chest does hurt a lot and so does my head."

"Its nothing serious is it Zordon?" asked Jason.

"No," replied the trans-dimensional being, "at least no where near as serious as the situation in Angel Grove Park."

"That lady?" asked Trini straining her memory, "in the blue armour?"

"Lady Victory," agreed Zordon, " Rita's latest creation: we don't really know much about her. Though she does seem to have some sort of hold over Billy and Tommy," he paused, "and you two as well, at least until you got injured."

"What happened?" asked the yellow ranger, "after I got hit I mean."

"Jason seemed to come to his senses," commented their mentor, "he called for the others to fall back but they ignored him and then he brought you back here."

"I only just got you back before you woke up," he added anticipating her next question.

"So what came over you out there?" asked Zordon.

The red ranger looked thoughtful for a moment before declaring decisively, "I'm not sure: she was just so hard to fight."

"It was just so difficult to believe she was evil," said Trini, "I mean I knew I had to fight her so I did, but every time I went into to attack I was just swamped by feelings of happiness and innocence, like that maybe if I just went easy on her she'd stop fighting and we'd be friends and everything would be ok."

Jason nodded in agreement, "her eyes, when you looked into them it was like being bombarded by images of Christmas and Easter and your family all rolled into one and thoughts like 'hurting her would be like kicking a puppy,' kept popping into my head.

"And then," continued Trini lost in the memory, "after a while the fighting began to feel right, like it was all you ever born to do: go round and round together for ever like a game…"

"Or a dance, it was…"

"Hypnotic. You can't think, you can't stop: all you can do is continue for ever lost in the peace the dance brings."

"Knocking you out must have freed you from it," said Zordon

"Or simply being away from it," suggested Trini, "but what about Jason?"

"I…" he began nervously, " I um… wouldn't leave a member of my team like that!"

Zordon eyed him curiously as he continued, "we need to find a way to beat her."

"Yes," agreed Zordon, " but I don't want to send you back out there while you can't fight her."

"Can you just teleport the others here?" asked Trini, "see if it snaps them out of it. We'll do better with more views on the experience, maybe figure out a way around the trance."

"They've run away!" declared the Witch triumphantly, "and that yellow brat was hurt badly!"

"Yes mistress," agreed Finster.

"You've finally done something right! Now tell me how does it work?"

"She was designed to be able to radiate innocence and innate goodness, so no one would want to hurt her. The rangers know they want to stop her and yet every time they approach they are overpowered by her innocence and can't attack fully, meaning they go round in circles until she kills them."

"So why hasn't she killed them already?" demanded the witch.

"Well," explained the minion, "whenever she does something that they would consider very evil the illusion of innocence is weakened, that was why the red ranger regained his senses when the yellow ranger was injured, but the longer they are held in her spell the stronger it becomes and the more difficult to break out of: when they are completely entranced she will kill them all."

The witch nodded approvingly: "so all we need to do is wait."