Disclaimer: Power Rangers isn't mine, but I made up the Karovan rangers, Cosmos, and Lyra.
TrueRomantic: Most of Andros's issues are pretty huge, and he's going to need Ashley's help getting through them. BB won't be around for very much longer, I hope.
Ashley Hammond/Astro Yellow: I seem to have become very inspired about this story, so updates should be pretty regular... Andros doesn't need to know what Zhane and Karone do. He and Ashley can experiment on their own. :P
DV2: Here ya go.
Jessica01: He's a lot easier to understand in your stories, actually. :P I like writing mysterious Andros, though.
flowerweasly16: Now that he's had a human conversation with Ashley, let's have him have another human conversation...
C.C.C: For the most part, this won't be an action-heavy story, but there's a fight in this chapter. Most of the action will come at the end of Part 1 and in Parts 2 and 3.
hmmart: I'll update this story pretty often, I seem to have become very inspired with it.
Chapter 7
"Hey."
Andros sighed heavily, realizing that he was never going to finish his breakfast in peace. Ashley had finally gone, but now the pink and black rangers entered the hangar bay, tossing him a greeting without breaking their conversation.
"Hi," he offered, glaring down at his food.
"What's up?"
It took Andros a moment to realize that Cassie was addressing him. Having dealt with enough questions for one morning, his temper flared for a moment, and he caught himself just in time.
"Nothing."
She shrugged, apparently accepting that he wasn't in the mood to talk and turned her attention back to Carlos.
"Are you sure you don't want to go?"
"Sure I don't want to go the mall with you?" Carlos very nearly winced. "It's a miracle you got TJ to go."
Cassie shrugged with a grin. "Karone asked me what I did for fun."
"Girls." Carlos made a face at her. "You know Ash will kill you when she finds out you went shopping without her."
Cassie shrugged once again, but her grin was now gone. "She's probably out with Ben..."
Andros looked up. "She's with her family."
"Her family?" Carlos repeated. "You sure?"
Andros shrugged. "When she came in for breakfast, she said she was going to visit her family."
Cassie sighed, and it seemed to Andros to be a sigh of relief. "At least she's not out with Ben."
Carlos nodded his agreement, his dark eyes troubled. "It'd be better if she was," he said. "He'll lay on the guilt for her not being with him today."
"I know." Cassie sighed. "And she'll let him."
Andros hesitated in the silence that fell, fairly certain that it wasn't his place to add anything to this conversation, but as they felt comfortable discussing the subject with him feet away, he asked, "You do not like Ben?"
Both rangers looked startled that he had been listening, but neither seemed more upset than they had been previously.
"No," Cassie said bluntly. "Ashley's like my sister, and she deserves someone so much better than Ben. Someone who cares about her, for a start."
"He doesn't care for her?"
With a shake of his head, Carlos told him, "He couldn't care less about Ashley. Once he gets what he wants from her, he'll just forget about her."
"What does he want from her?"
Carlos gave him a surprised look. "He wants her."
"Oh."
The look on his face must have revealed more than it should have, for a moment later, Cassie was asking, "Is that a pretty big deal where you come from? Sex before marriage?"
"No." Andros shook his head. "But it was considered wrong to sleep with someone you didn't love."
"Why?"
He sighed, briefly wondering how so many questions could be thrown at him in the space of half an hour. "Most Karovans share a telepathic link with one another," he explained. "Some share empathic links as well. When two people become lovers, those bonds grew stronger, no matter if they loved each other or not."
"Oh, I get it," Cassie exclaimed softly. "So if you slept with someone just to have sex, you'd just be bonding yourself to someone you didn't love."
Andros nodded. "Yes."
He was saved from Cassie's next question when the alarm shrilled, startling the three of them.
"What is it, Deca?" Andros demanded, gripping the edge of the table to keep from jumping up.
"Lyra is attacking Angel Grove with several Quantrons," came the calm reply. "TJ, Zhane, and Karone are now awake, and Alpha has contacted Ashley."
"Thanks, Deca," he said softly. "You'd better go," he added, now addressing Cassie and Carlos.
"Let's rocket!" they shouted in unison, vanishing from the Megaship even as their suits solidified around them. Andros watched them go with a heavy heart.
"Deca, teleport me to the bridge," he ordered softly. Before the words were even fully out of his mouth, his vision was obscured by red light.
---
I should be down there, Andros thought bitterly, his fingernails digging small, crescent-shaped grooves into the padded arms of his seat. They need me.
He wasn't entirely sure of the truth of the last statement, but as he watched the fight, it was clear that they needed some help. He grit his teeth as Lyra threw Cassie back several feet as though she were a rag doll, every instinct in his body screaming at him to aid them.
The instant Cassie hit the ground, Ashley was at her side, pulling her to her feet and guarding her as she recovered. Andros watched the two of them with an aching heart, for a few moments seeing Zyanya and Zeah in their places. The two of them had been sisters, and it had only been that morning that Cassie had told him that Ashley was as good as her sister.
"Red ranger," Lyra taunted the air. "Come fight me."
Andros was halfway out of his seat before he caught himself. She would have known he'd watch the fight, and he didn't doubt she knew how completely helpless he felt at this moment. Half-standing, he froze, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood. With a choked sigh, Andros slowly sank back down into his seat, watching Zhane fly at their enemy with a rage his friend rarely displayed.
Though Andros would have expected Lyra to remember the fierce protectiveness the Karovan rangers had displayed towards one another, she seemed unprepared as Karone attacked from her other side, the air whistling loudly as her staff flew threw the air. Seconds later, TJ and Carlos had joined in the fray, slowly forcing Lyra back.
Lyra's surprise left Ashley and Cassie free to finish off the remaining Quantrons, which they managed in a matter of minutes. Andros's mind drifted back to the night before, and he was forced to admit, if only to himself, that the two of them were certainly holding their own much better than he had against the simulated monsters.
There's two of them, his pride protested. And less Quantrons.
Andros sighed. "Deca, can you get a clear target on Lyra with the Megalasers?"
"Affirmative," she replied a moment later. Andros opened his mouth to give the order to fire, but Deca was speaking again. "But firing the Megalasers would risk serious damage to the other rangers, as well as any civilians that may be in the area."
"Never mind, then," he muttered. "I just thought..."
"You just thought you could help them," Deca said, completing the statement for him. "It is understandable for someone in your position to feel helpless or - "
"Deca," he cut in. "Be quiet."
He didn't care what it was 'understandable' for him to feel. He didn't care what he should be feeling or why, and he wondered when Deca had taken in upon herself to become the Megaship's resident psychiatrist.
The flash of light on the viewing screen distracted his thoughts, and he turned his attention back to the battle. Though he felt some measure of satisfaction as Lyra vanished amid a volley of laser fire and golden sparkles, he felt cheated somehow, as though the victory, no matter how small, should have been his.
The rangers vanished from his sight just as voices reached his ears, drifting through the halls from somewhere behind him. Letting out a long breath, he quickly forced his expression as blank as he could make it.
"Whoo!" Carlos yelled as they swarmed onto the bridge, laughing and chattering, as though they had come from a party, not a life-or-death battle. "Another one for us!"
Ashley laughed at his exuberance. "Nice job, you guys, but I'd better get back... Deca, can you teleport me out of here?"
The noise didn't diminish with the departure of the yellow ranger, if anything, it seemed to swell. Andros stood back, hovering near the edge of the circle the rangers had formed, his head spinning as he tried to follow their many conversations, tempted just to slip away. Someone finally took notice of him then, just as he was moving away, intending to vanish down the hall.
"Hey," TJ said, clapping his back lightly. "You all right, man?"
"I'm fine," Andros said quietly, finding it a great test of will to force his body not to recoil. TJ watched him skeptically, but shrugged. As the blue ranger turned his attention back to his friends, Andros managed to escape, leaving without a backward glance. As he moved down the corridor, the cheery noise and laughter of the bridge was slowly replaced by a lonely silence.
