" COUNTDOWN TO FOREVER "
02. CHAPTER TWO
If only she could summon her zord, she'd be able to do something about the swarms of Velocifighters firing at the buildings and people below. Katherine had tried, but had failed. Either the zords had been destroyed when the Power Chamber had been attacked - she remembered reading about that in an e-mail she received from Cassie - or she was too far away for them to hear her call. A zord would be useful about now, even without the ability to form a megazord due to the absence of the other Zeo Rangers.
She ran behind the Australian refugees, punching, kicking, and blasting Quantrons along the way. While unable to do anything about the Velocifighters, she was doing what she could to fend off the Quantrons so that the people could get to safety. It was the only thing she could do right now.
These people had done nothing to deserve this, they were all innocent in this crazed invasion. In her mind, the only humans this Astronema had the so-called right to attack were those who were Power Rangers. These people were not Rangers, she was. No one should have to put their life on the line and become one, but as long as the forces of evil threatened Earth, the Power Rangers would be here to stop them.
She froze as she saw her aunt standing atop a bunch, frantically screaming her name. Within the helmet that shielded her face from the world, she frowned.
Oh, Aunt Lori, she thought, I'm right here.
"Kathy! Katherine!" Loretta cried.
Eternally grateful that her helmet disguised her voice, as well as hid her face, she ran up to her screaming aunt, putting a gloved hand on one of the arms Loretta was waving about in the air. "Miss please, this way."
Loretta shook her head and tried to wrench her arm out of the Pink Ranger's grasp. "No! I have to find my niece! I have to find Katherine!"
Katherine held tight to her aunt's arm. "Katherine? Katherine Hillard?"
Her aunt's face lit up and she stopped struggling, grasping the Ranger's pink-clad shoulder. "You've seen my Kathy?"
Releasing Loretta's arm, Katherine gave a nod of her helmeted head. "Yes, she went ahead with another group of survivors. You must be the aunt she spoke of. Your niece was worried you'd gotten hurt when she noticed you weren't in the group she was leading to safety."
Loretta put a hand to her heart and breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank God."
"You'll probably see her again, once you get to safety," Katherine urged.
The elder woman nodded, put a gentle hand on the Pink Ranger's arm and smiled her thanks, then turned and ran to rejoin the crowd. She froze, however, upon hearing an anguished cry sound from behind her.
In a shower of sparks and energy, the Pink Ranger fell limply to the ground, a Quantron standing above her, weapon raised above it's head, ready to strike once more...
Loretta watched as seemingly out of nowhere, yet another Ranger appeared and leaped into action, blasting the Quantron's weapon out of it's hands before it could hurt the fallen Pink Ranger another time.
The Ranger looked directly at her. "Get these people out of here!"
Nodding, Loretta turned to the crowd and ushered them forward, looking back momentarily to see the other Ranger lift the Pink Ranger off the ground and take off in the opposite direction.
How he wished he knew more phrases in Korean beyond the basic "hello" and the rather useless in this situation, "thanks for the birthday present, Grandpa." Adam Park needed to get these people to safety, but it was hard to do when they didn't understand a word he said.
If only his helmet had some sort of Star Trek-esque universal translator device within it.
"Yeoboseyo!" He shouted at the people, gaining a few curious and annoyed looks every now and then, but the people seemed to be more interested in running around in circles, flailing their arms about, then listening to the green-suited Ranger standing amongst them.
"Excuse me, but would it help you if I were to translate?"
Adam turned to face the middle-aged woman who'd stepped out of the crowd blankly for a moment, before he realized that he'd understood what she was saying. She was speaking English! Within the helmet, he grinned.
"That would be of much assistance to me, ma'am," he told the woman. "I need these people to follow me, so I can lead them away from the fighting."
She nodded and turned towards the crowd, shouting with a surprising volume. i Must be a teacher/i Adam thought. Word quickly passed through the crowd and Adam waved a gloved-hand in the air that signalled for them to follow and began to lead the way.
As always when he was in Korea, he'd come to see his grandfather. He'd only been off the plane for a little over an hour when the attacks started. At first he'd thought it was something to do with the struggle between North and South Korea, but the moment he spotted a Quantron, he knew he was wrong.
It was a blessing that he'd had his zeonizers with him. He hadn't intended to bring them, and in fact, they'd been packed by accident. The suitcase he'd brought with him had been serving as their hiding spot - something he'd forgotten until airport security had found them (he dismissed them as toys for a non-existent nephew) - and had had ended up coming with him to Korea.
He ran as before the crowd, glancing over his shoulder every so often to make sure that the woman who spoke English was still within reach incase he needed to get another message out. They needed to get out of the area as soon as possible, for he wasn't sure how long his morph was going to last. His brief stint as the Black Ranger had failed quickly when he'd fought beside Carlos a few months back, and he was afraid the Green Ranger would fade away just as quickly.
As long as he got these people out of here, he would be content. He just wished he could do more.
He'd come to Australia to study abroad for a semester, never expecting anything of this sort to happen. When he'd left Angel Grove, he thought all things of this nature had been left far behind. Especially on a continent that was separated from California by a grand ocean. Australia was farther from home than Wisconsin would ever be, and he didn't mind admitting that the distance didn't bug him in the least.
Once safely inside a building that had been long abandoned and making sure than none of whoever's forces these were had seen him, he'd moved to sit on the ground and settled the limp body of the Pink Ranger into his lap. That Quantron had struck her hard on the back of the head, and that blow to the back hadn't helped matters any.
It was times like this he wished they still had the Power Chamber to transport back to when someone got hurt.
He went to work on getting her helmet off. He needed to make sure she didn't have a concussion of any kind - if only for his own reassurance - before he set her aside and went back into the fighting. Setting the pink helmet aside, he put a few gloved fingers to the exposed part of her neck to check her pulse, then bent down to inspect more closely for signs of a concussion.
Katherine stirred, eyes fluttering open to stare up, wide, at something that was very close to her face. Thinking she was still in the midst of battle, she moved to push him away and grab her blasters, but she quickly recognized just what it was.
A Power Ranger.
And, who.
"Tommy?"
The Red Ranger drew back, reaching up and removing his helmet, revealing the face of Tommy Oliver.
She smiled up at him for a moment, brows knitting together in confusion. "What are you doing in Australia?"
"School," he answered, helping her extract herself from where she rested in his lap.
Katherine curled her legs underneath her and sat across from the boy - no, man - who donned the powers of the Red Zeo Ranger. Someone she hadn't seen since the day they'd passed their powers onto Cassie, TJ, and the others. She pointed a finger at him in an accusing manner, suddenly noticing the change in his appearance.
"Your hair! What did you do to it?"
Tommy reached up and ran a hand through his short, spikey hair and gave a small shrug. "Kept getting in the way during field work."
"...field work?"
He was about to answer her, when a Quantron leaped at them, causing the two Rangers to jump to their feet. Quickly, he reached for his helmet, noting that she went for hers as well. "You feel up to fighting?"
She raised her helmet above her head and nodded. "I'm always up for fighting."
He grinned and moved to her side, mimicking her actions with the helmet.
"Back to action!"
It was simply marvellous to feel power like this once more. Kimberly's morph was holding up and she felt fully charged as she fought off the Quantrons that had made their way into downtown Miami. When she'd fought alongside the Turbo Rangers on Muranthias, she'd felt a bit awkward and highly out of practice. It had been different for Jason, who was a martial artist who practiced regularly, but she hadn't done anything remotely close to karate since surrendering her power coin to Katherine.
Now, however, she felt easily back in her element with the suit of the Pink Ranger clinging to her skin, old habits easily fluttering back to her. The immense amount of training she had in gymnastics was proving to be useful as well, as she found herself gracefully flipping off of railings and benches, falling into the splits to avoid direct hits, and swinging up into to trees for surprise attacks.
Oh, how fabulous it was to be a Power Ranger again.
As quite and non-death threatening life had been without the burden of a colored suit on her back, Kimberly had truly missed this. She wasn't being sarcastic when she'd told Jason she wished she could've morphed. Billy was right, morphing was something you took for granted until you couldn't do it anymore.
"How are they able to do it?" Astronmena demanded of Zordon, pointing her diamond-tipped staff at the great glass tube that housed him.
"Able to do what, Astronema?"
"Morph!" She shouted. "Your ex-power twerps are getting in the way of my plans for global domination. I was under the impression that they had lost their powers and were unable to morph anymore. They are drawing their powers from somewhere, and I assure you Zordon, I will find out where."
The dark princess whirled around throwing a commanding hand towards Elgar, who sat nearby, tinkering with some sort of gadget.
"You--"
"Me?" Elgar pointed at himself.
"Yes, you!" Astronema shouted.
Her tone made Elgar drop the gadget and jump to his feet.
"Go to Earth," she commanded. "Find out where the former Rangers are drawing their powers from."
"Uhh...right now?"
"Yes, now!" She brandished her staff. "Unless you would rather have your fate be the same as theirs."
He held his hands up in defense of himself. "No, no, thanks! I'll go and uh, find out what it is!" With a salute to his princess, he vanished.
Astronema groaned.
Her first command as Empress of the Galaxy once this was over with?
Find more intelligent minions.
TO BE CONTINUED...
"Power Rangers" is © Saban, Toei, MMPR Productions, Disney, etc.
06.14.2003, edited/revised 06.15.2007