JASON

Lunch over, I'm following the others back upstairs. Zedd's going to do a magical scan of Tommy and I have to say, I'm a little nervous about it. What if there's been something wrong all these years? Something that could have been fixed? And if there is something there, why didn't Zordon and Alpha's scans find it before now? Does Rita even remember what spell she put on him?

We all pause outside the bedroom door, except Zedd, who turns to go up to his office to get his staff. He had said that he didn't want to expend any unnecessary energy summoning it if he didn't have to. Before he walks away, I can't help but ask, "Do you think we should try and call Rita or Zordon and ask them if they might know or remember or suspect anything? Anything at all could help us."

Zedd answers as he heads up the next flight of stairs. "I've already seen more of that witch than I care to, thank you very much. And, for her sake, I would hope that if she did know or suspect anything that she'd have mentioned it before now."

Pina sighs. "Except he hasn't had a migraine before now for them to know about."

Dar frowns. "Which means that if they did know something, it might not have occurred to them to tell us."

"Stop defending them!" The yell coming from the next floor up, Zedd is apparently having none of his friends' logic where my past mentor and Rita are concerned.

Andros says, "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. There might not be anything there." Yeah, right. With Tommy's luck, whatever she did probably altered him permanently. That might be why he's so forgetful.

Zedd returns shortly and we all file in quietly. Zedd looks at me and I take a deep breath, unsure if I'm prepared for this myself. "Bro? You awake?"

Apparently, as softly as I was talking, it still wasn't soft enough as he groans in pain. "Yeah, Jase."

"Listen, I know you're still hurting and I know the last thing you want right now is to have to deal with anything else, but since the medical scan didn't turn anything up that would show us what's causing your migraines, we thought that maybe a magical scan might."

"Okay. How?"

I take another breath. "Zedd can do it. He's going to have to change into his other form first and then he can."

"What other form?"

"The one you remember from when you were a Ranger, Thomas." Looking concerned as he shifts uneasily next to me, Zedd I will admit, takes me by surprise with how worried he does seem to be about this upsetting Tommy. When Tommy doesn't respond right away, most likely due to his migraine rather than any actual worry over the matter as I believe Zedd perceives it to be, he continues quickly. "However it's just how I'll look that will change and only for as long as it will take me to do the scan. I won't be evil or any different towards you than I am right now."

"Will it hurt?"

"No, Thomas" Zedd answers him. "But if there is something there and I can do something about it, maybe I can take your pain away."

Seeming satisfied with this, Tommy agrees much faster than I think the others believed he would. "Okay. What do you need me to do?"

"Just be still like you do for Pina, okay?" I state helping to get him situated so Zedd can quickly and easily scan all of him without having to get him to move.

"Mm hmm."

"And try to keep your eyes covered until I'm done all right" Zedd adds, giving me a shrug when I fix him with a curious look at his request.

"It's fine Zedd, know you won't hurt me. But okay."

"I still don't like doing this." Zedd takes a breath and triggers his transformation. Once complete, I tense for a minute, completely reflexively and by his step back from me I know he noticed.

"Sorry, just…old habit" I explain in way of apology.

"It's fine, but now do you see why I don't want him seeing me like this?" Sadly I do, as if I can't even stop my instincts from flaring up to fight him the moment I see him like this again, I know Tommy would very likely not stand a chance.

He raises his staff and a light moves over my best friend, starting at his feet and gradually moving upward. He pauses briefly a few places - stomach and ribcage - before he moves to Tommy's head.

Several minutes later, Zedd curses. At least, I'm pretty sure that's what he did. It wasn't in English, but I learned at the Peace Conference that swearing sounds remarkably similar in any and every language. Tommy gasps under the pillow and jerks in what I'm assuming is pain.

Pina looks nervous. "Maybe we should have waited for him to be back at baseline for the scan."

Dar murmurs, "It's just a scan. That shouldn't make any difference."

Suddenly, the light from the staff disappears and Zedd lowers it. Before anyone can speak, Tommy tosses the pillow off his face and scrambles off the bed, as far away from us as he can get. Well on the plus side he seems to be in far less pain than he was just a moment ago. On the other hand… Quietly, I ask, "Tommy? Are you okay, bro?"

I'm floored at what he says next. "What's the matter, Red Ranger?" he hisses. "Couldn't beat me with your other flunkies so you got some new ones?" His eyes flash green - something I haven't seen in more than a decade now. He turns his gaze on Zedd. "My lord, if it would please you, I'd be more than happy to destroy Zordon's sheep for you."

"No, Thomas, not now. A situation has arisen that requires us to ally ourselves with the Rangers and these others for now."

Tommy protests, "But Lord Zedd-"

Before I can react Zedd growls at him in a tone and manner that I had yet to hear from him. "I said no! I don't take disobedience lightly, Thomas. Go to your quarters for now and stay there until I send for you."

The look on Tommy's face is nearly mutinous, but he bows deeply to the former (?) Lord of Evil, skirts the rest of us as well as he can and leaves the room, snatching some clothes from the floor as he goes. Once the sound of his footsteps fade away, the rest of us turn to Zedd.

He changes back to his (now) more familiar form and drops heavily into a chair. He runs one hand slowly down his face. Impatient, I'm about to speak when he beats me to it. "I'm going to beat the witch to death the next time I see her - goddess or not." He looks at me before he continues. "Jason, I'm sorry. I had no idea that this would happen."

Holding back on the urge to reach out and shake him by the neck I do my best to keep calm and remind myself that the rather miserable looking man before me was really only a very reluctant participant in this whole thing. "What happened exactly?"

"I couldn't stop it, I tried." This is going to be very bad.

Still struggling to remain calm I try and get something out of him other than an apology. "His eyes flashed green, Zedd. They haven't done that since he held the Green Ranger powers. What happened? Did you somehow trigger some remnant of those powers?"

"No, nothing like that." He returns to addressing the room at large. "He doesn't have the Green Ranger powers, but there was a remnant of magic still in him. She - gave herself a way to get in his head and turn him again at a future point." He says something else in the other language. Pina, Dar and Andros all react to whatever he says with various degrees of disgust.

"She did what now?" I ask. I don't like being left out like this, and the longer this is taking the more aggravated I'm becoming.

The other four exchange looks. Zedd frowns. "I'm not sure how to explain it in English any better."

Suddenly Dar says to me, "A backdoor. Like in the movies and they want a way to get into a program or something without having to deal with the security, they use a backdoor." This I understand all too well.

"Fuck." I lean against the wall. "And now we're back to him just wanting to kill me." A thought occurs to me. "Is it evil?"

"Not so much evil as an access point to the evil that most of you humans seem to have naturally" Zedd informs me.

Now I'm frowning. "But when Zordon's tube was destroyed-"

Pina shakes her head. "Since you and Tommy and the others aren't actually evil, it wouldn't have had an effect on it unless you were actively behaving that way. Plus, as Zedd says, you humans have it as part of your nature. That's not the kind of evil that was destroyed."

"You should already know that by spending time with Zedd," Andros jests with a slight smile toward the still rather depressed looking lord.

"I prefer to think of myself as misunderstood," Zedd states back rather calmly given the situation. "As for Thomas killing you, given the fact that he obeyed me when I sent him out of here, I believe I can keep him from attempting to harm you until we can get him back to normal."

Recalling Zedd's command to him, I look at Zedd expectantly. "You sent him to his quarters - where's that?"

Suddenly seeming uncomfortable again, he averts his gaze in a guilty manner, one that is mimicked by Scorpina and Goldar. "I had no choice with the mindset he's in," he says defensively.

"Where, Zedd?"

Reluctantly, he says, "His cell in the dungeons." Great. Noting my disgust I'm sure, he is quick to again defend his actions. "Would you rather I gave him time to grab one of my swords off the wall and skewer you? In case you didn't notice he started to protest when I told him not to harm you, something that given the situation is not normal. Him being evil and obeying me I can handle for a time, him being evil and rebelling against me is an entirely different matter that could result in all of us getting hurt."

"We need to deal with this and quickly. The very essence of the Ninjetti powers could be corrupted if he's left like this too long. I'm going to call Zordon and Rita and find out what they know." Andros heads for the door, pausing only briefly when Zedd protests. "Zedd, there really isn't a choice and you know it. I'll do what I can to keep them from coming back."

"Isn't there something you can do?" I question, wondering if Rita's magic caused this perhaps Zedd's can fix it.

As Andros swiftly leaves the room, Zedd runs his hand over his face again. "The fact is that my magic is still, in essence, evil - regardless of what I use it for. Once my magic touched it, it triggered. I tried to get it under control, but it grew too fast. If I try to mess with it again, especially at the moment when I've exhausted myself I'm worried about what might happen. Besides if I get too close to him again and he sees me falter or feels I'm currently weak enough for him to match the end results could be very bad for all of us. It's bad enough I'm now almost the same size as he is, if he gets it into his head I'm not a threat like this…"

"Then what's to stop him from ignoring your commands," Goldar finishes seriously.

Pina bites her lip. "We don't know what affect this will have on his behavior, aside from the obvious. He may or may not even remember you being the same person in this form, Zedd."

I speak up. "Then Zedd will just have to show him that he is the same. Let him see you in your evil form and then tell him that you need to be in this one for the time being. Then tell him that Pina and Dar have to do the same. That way he's still under the impression your other form is the real you, and thus still a real threat."

They all think this over before Pina nods slowly. "That might help."