After the defeat of Dischordia, the Power Rangers enjoyed an unusually long stretch of peacetime as Master Vile struggled to conjure up a new plan to conquer Earth despite his son-in-law Lord Zedd's prior warnings about the tenacity of the planet's champions. The Summer Break was rapidly approaching, and the Rangers would be entering their final year of high school once it had ended. After that, the world would see them as grown men and women, no longer at the edge of adolescence. To that end, Zordon allowed the Rangers a much-needed respite to enjoy the waning days of their teenage years.
Adam Park, the Black Ranger, requested that Zordon send him to the planet Phaedos where Ninjor was recuperating from his unfortunate run of bad luck in the past battles with Master Vile. He wished to further hone the Ninja power that had enhanced the Rangers' abilities in response to the new threats they had encountered, and wanted to be prepared when Vile, Zedd and Rita made their next move. Although Zordon sensed ulterior motives in Adam's request, he relented and gave Adam's communicator the enhancements needed to make the journey across the cosmos.
Within minutes, Adam found himself on the Earth-like terrain of Phaedos with a modestly packed bag of clothes and simple amenities to make his training excursion as reasonable as a teen from Earth could ask for. Two hours later, he arrived at the training ground he had in mind when he made this request, and the keeper of that training ground approached him with a grin on her face. "The prince returns to the castle that reared him...how goes the battle on Earth?"
The "ulterior motives" Zordon suspected and chose to overlook took the shapely form of Ninjor's apprentice in the art of coinsmithing, now his protector as he slumbered in his rejuvenating jar: Dulcea, the Master Warrior of Phaedos. This was not the first time Adam had ventured to Phaedos after acquiring the spirit of the frog, even going so far as to channel energy into his communicator to return to the planet without the knowledge of his teammates or Zordon. His reason for returning to the otherwise-abandoned planet was that he enjoyed the company of this woman he encountered one day wandering the planet during a mission where he and his teammates split up looking for a Morphin Grid component needed to revitalize the fallen carrier zord Titanus.
Dulcea helped Adam come to grips with the new power Ninjor had granted him. Frogs were something that Adam used to catch in his backyard as a child, and were amphibians that he once saw as small and harmless. Rather than apply these unfortunate traits in negative ways, Adam listened to Dulcea when she told him about the tales of valor that the frog was tied to in the ways of ninja, even on his home planet of Earth. Although when Dulcea described these tales, it wasn't so much telling him as much as it was whispering to him. As a teenager still coming to grips with the evolution of his human emotions, it was certainly unnerving with Dulcea hummed in his ear before kissing him, "If you kiss a frog, he may turn into a handsome prince."
This was Adam's sixth visit, and once they retreated to their usual sparring grounds, Adam let his technique express the gratitude and happiness he felt being around her. His upbringing prevented him from asking how old Dulcea was, physically she seemed negligibly older than he was, but over time he decided a question like that was trivial at this point. He had confided in his Yellow teammate Aisha that Dulcea was real and thoughts of her permeated his psyche whenever he activated his Ninja Ranger powers to fight the Tengas, but he wouldn't confess those feelings to Dulcea until "the time was right." Adam stated that by this time next year, he would return to Phaedos once more and tell Dulcea that he loved her. If graduating high school was when the world would see him as a man, that would be when he could confront Dulcea and tell her how he felt, as a man to a woman.
And there were certainly many times during this particular training excursion when the two of them were deadlocked into their sparring, where Adam noticed how the sweat gleamed from her decidedly scandalous "jungle girl" clothing aesthetic, that he became aware how much of a woman Dulcea was. Usually moments like that were met with a staff to the jaw and a painful release from his teenage hormones, but Dulcea would only smile as she scolded him about keeping his eyes where they'd be helpful in battle. She knew exactly where Adam's mind went during those exchanges, and it empowered her. Adam told himself hopefully that it meant when the day came he would confess his love, she would accept it and reciprocate it openly.
Dulcea called for Adam to take a break, and she stepped out of their clearing and into the woods to wash up at the nearby spring. Adam did his best to ignore how she emphasized how she was looking to "wash up at the spring" knowing she was trying to put even more thoughts in his head that would allow her an edge in the next round. Instead, he chose to meditate and ease his heart rate. However playful her words were, the actual attacks were every bit as painful as the desperate strikes of the "monsters of the week" Adam and his teammates had to contend with on Earth. He wondered what would have happened if she didn't hold back, given how many enemies she had defeated who tried to seek Ninjor's gifts without carrying good intentions. Maybe one day they could spar with everything they had and not worry about hurting each other. Maybe when that day came, he could promise her he'd never hurt her as-
"Focus, Adam! She's just trying to manipulate you."
"My...prince…"
At first he thought it was more "hormone-driven" thoughts creeping into his head, but a gentle gust into his ear sent a shiver down his spine as he realized it wasn't his mind playing tricks upon him. Adam quickly turned his head with his face beet-red, and Dulcea was leaning into him with a grin. "Stop it, Dulcea," he protested as he pushed the woman away. He was about to chastise her for taking her "mind games" too far when he noticed something sticking from her back as she spun away. His embarrassment turned to concern as he recognized what the "something" was.
It was an arrow with a pink head, stabbing Dulcea dangerously close to her lung. Someone had attacked her!
"Dulcea," Adam cried out as he lunged forward and held the woman close. She didn't appear to be in any sort of pain, but her pulse was rapid and her body temperature was hot. She smiled and hummed as her eyes fluttered, with a neon pink aura coming from her irises. Perhaps the arrow was poisoned, or at least drugged in a way where whoever was struck by it would enter whatever trance had taken Dulcea. Anger towards Dulcea's unknown attacker bubbled forth, but was immediately washed away by concern for the woman who playfully called him a prince. He needed to guarantee Dulcea's safety first and foremost, which meant pulling the arrow out safely.
"You're...so warm," Dulcea mumbled before looking into Adam's face and getting lost in his features. Adam attempted to look away, but Dulcea placed her hand on his cheek and waited until he inevitably locked in a gentle gaze with her. "You know I have some secret moves to teach you, Adam...but we need to undress for the occasion."
"Stop it, Ms. Dulcea...please," Adam carefully grabbed Dulcea's wrist as she tried to lift off the top of his black gi, though she relented to stroke his toned abs underneath. "You're...you're not well! I don't want to do it like this…"
"You care...you care, and I'm happy you care…"
Her words were starting to lose coherence, and Adam was running out of time...but her body felt so good against his. Everything he dreamed about could be granted if he just waited a little while longer...but if Dulcea was such an easy prize, it was unlikely Adam would have been as smitten with her as he was. As she moaned for Adam to answer her own desires, he held her close and whispered while tightening the grip on the arrow in her back.
"Just give me a little more time, Ms. Dulcea...I won't disappoint you…"
With a quick yank, the arrow was removed. Dulcea only made a quiet whimper before her eyes dilated and she returned Adam's embrace. "Such a noble prince, but...I shouldn't be surprised. If you were that easy, I wouldn't...lo...veugh…"
Hours later, Dulcea awoke next to a fire as dusk began to set into the landscape. She had been returned to the main temple at the outskirts of the forest of Phaedos, where Ninjor would typically start the fires necessary for smithing new power coins. Adam was nowhere in sight, but given that his duffel bag was used as a pillow during her slumber, she could assume he couldn't have gone far. She pieced together how she came to be there, and remembered going to bathe when being approached by...that metal woman.
"A shame he's so dull of a lover...though like you said, if he were such an easy catch it would take away some of the fun when you made him yours."
This time, Dulcea refused to be taken off-guard by the stranger. Readying her staff, she quickly turned around to the voice that mocked her, and didn't flinch when she realized the metal woman had the edge of her bow mere inches away from her neck. A simple jab to her throat and Dulcea's life would be snuffed out in an instant, but it was unlikely the stranger would have gone away undamaged.
"Who are you?" Dulcea hissed as the two slowly paced around one another, waiting for an opening to break the deadlock. The dull yellow glow of the stranger's eyes invoked a primal sense of fear in the master warrior. It was as if she was staring death itself in the face...though it was hard for the stranger to be "death" if it was unlikely she was ever alive to begin with. After all, life was based on the pretense of drawing breath and having a heart to beat. "Why did you come here?"
"I came looking for something, but it seems it was already taken," the metal woman replied somewhat playfully. "My goal was to keep you distracted enough that I could go and explore, but I decided to stay a little while longer to see if you and your beloved would stop being so uninspiring. Despite the Machine Empire's reputation, some of us do enjoy being fascinated by the whims of the flesh. The two of you would have likely made for amusing entertainment I could pawn off to some lonely duke with my optic database files."
The Machine Empire was a name Dulcea had heard Ninjor mutter about when she would sneak into his chambers and hear him communicating with his allies across the galaxies during his deeper meditations. "Those villains destroy everything they touch! They have a vendetta against anyone organic and won't stop until the entire universe forsakes breath and blood in favor of oil and programming!" Dulcea decided it was her who would break the deadlock and completed her thrust for the metal woman's head, but the woman did not follow through on her own advantage. Instead she simply teleported behind Dulcea and swatted her face before she could respond.
"That was unkind," the metal woman hissed as Dulcea rubbed her cheek. "I do not have any particular disdain for you, other than disappointment. I simply wish to ask you before the Machine Empire rolls in to complete its conquest...why does that man not take you as he desires to? For us machines, if we feel that way about another unit, we simply act and defy those who forbid us. My life would be so unfulfilling if I listened to my father and didn't join hands with my gorgeous Prince Gasket."
"...he's still young. It would be unfair if I forced his hand and took advantage of his gentleness. I know...I know he cares for me too and he would never hurt me. He wouldn't say no if I told him how much I loved him…"
"Oh come now, Earthlings like him have lives that are a simple flicker in a flame compared to us. You're old enough to account for almost nine generations of him. All of his beauty may be gone if you wait for him." The metal woman brandished one of her arrows and gave it a kiss, or as close to a kiss as her metallic mouth could allow. "My talents allow me to expedite such pointless hesitation, in any sentient being steel or flesh. Your resistance is most disappointing, especially since you clearly want to make him yours...or more accurately, he is already yours and you're too foolish to capitalize more than being a tease."
The sound of footsteps combined with the encroaching aura of chakra prompted Dulcea to turn her head, noticing that Adam was returning. She turned back to the metal woman, but she had already disappeared with her voice scattering in the wind. "The Empire has begun its march, and Earth will be first to fall. Confess your love and finalize it, before it's too late. Considering my warning a gift…"
"Miss Dulcea…"
Dulcea turned to face the youth that stirred her so much, and felt her heart skip a beat when he approached her with a somewhat nervous glance. "I...I need to go. Zordon says he believes Master Vile will make his next move soon. Everyone needs to be ready and...I just want to say, in case I don't-"
"Don't speak, my prince," Dulcea cut off her sparring partner and forced herself to smile. "Use what you have to tell me as motivation to survive. I'll be here, waiting for what you have to say."
"...then it's a promise," Adam smiled back and raised fist to the sky before preparing his communicator to return him to his home planet across the galaxy. "I swear I will come see you again, Miss Dulcea...and then you can hear what I have to tell you!"
As Adam shifted into a mass of black energy that soared into the starry sky above, Dulcea felt a tear fall from her face. Next time, she would not tease him or use her feminine wiles to embarrass him. Next time, she would wholeheartedly accept what he undoubtedly felt for her, and allow him to enjoy the full extent of her company. Next time, she would be his.
Next time...