The next day, the Rangers gathered together for another Saturday morning in the school's Detention Hall. While Billy sat sketching a drawing with his colored pencils, Jason sat nearby having some idle conversation with Zack. The door opened again and Jason stopped when he caught sight of Kimberly enter the room. He raised a hand in greeting and tried to give a friendly smile, "Hey Kim…"
She sighed and shook her head before walking right by. He blinked and slowly finished his cut-off sentence, "What's… up?"
Jason watched in dismay as she walked to the other end of the room and sat down. She tossed her bookbag and leather jacket on a desk and began to talk quietly with Trini. Zack watched the scene unfold before giving the Red Ranger a little poke in the shoulder. "Dude… what was that all about?"
"You think I know?" Jason muttered darkly, "She was in kind of a rotten mood yesterday afternoon too."
"Maybe it's that time of the month again?" Billy idly chimed in as he continued working on his picture.
His two other friends stared at him for a moment before Zack shook his head and dismissed the comment, "Hold up Jay. You saw her yesterday afternoon? You didn't actually take me seriously and float the idea of Homecoming by Kimberly… did you?"
The Red Ranger shifted uncomfortably, "Well…"
Thankfully Jason was spared from answering as the door opened and their Detention Hall monitor walked in. "All right, quiet down everyone. Take your seats. I know you don't want to be here today either so let's take attendance and get this over with already."
Jason slumped back down into his seat taking one more look toward Kimberly and Trini and then toward the clock on the wall. He had a feeling this was going to be one long morning.
Several quiet days passed and despite the bright sunlight outside, the late autumn chill still hung in the air as Kimberly Hart made her way outside of the local Starbucks café with a cup of pumpkin spice latte. After being around the high school all week, she just needed to get away from there and find a place to breathe. She had beaten a hasty retreat from the school and took a drive into town by herself. She had hoped a hot cup of coffee and a little fresh air would cheer her up, but it wasn't helping.
She strolled down the streets of the town toward Angel Grove's central park, trying to admire the pumpkins and harvest decorations already being set up along with some Homecoming trappings in the windows of local stores. She gave a grumble at the sight of them and averted her eyes. Despite her best efforts to get away from it, it seemed the specter of Homecoming was still following her and mocking her, especially because it was only a couple days away now. Upon reaching the park, Kimberly found a seat by herself on a park bench and glumly took a long sip of her drink. As she watched a group of children play together, she kept replaying in her mind the encounter she had with Amanda Clark recently.
"Do us all a favor and don't show up to the Homecoming events next weekend Kimberly," Amanda had said while crossing her arms. She tilted her nose upwards with that trademark uppity smirk of hers. Even when they were "friends" that smirk had always pissed Kimberly off. "You've already embarrassed yourself and the rest of the cheer squad enough. If you think you'll prove some point by going, you won't. No one trusts you or forgives you for what you did, even if they don't say it out loud. And you know what? Neither do I."
That was when Kimberly slammed her locker door and walked off, only to run into Jason. At first she had been glad to see him, but he only seemed to make the problem worse by asking her out and she didn't know what to do about it. If she was really honest with herself, there was still that old part of her that wanted to go to the school festival and parties this coming weekend. She still wanted to be part of that in-crowd and missed that feeling of attention and validation. She knew it was stupid to think that way, but she couldn't help it either. The feeling of suddenly being ripped away from all that and having an anchor of guilt being hung around her neck was still painful.
Jason had been right in a previous conversation that just because Kimberly had screwed up didn't necessarily make her an irredeemably bad person, but it didn't excuse the fact that she had committed a terrible shameful act and she was still paying for it. She had hoped that becoming a Ranger would make her stronger as a person and it did, but it didn't quite erase the feelings of shame or the lingering fear of not being able to forgive herself or others.
Kimberly didn't want to deal with that drama anymore, but saying she would move on and actually doing it were two completely different things. For now, it seemed best to just avoid the whole social mess and put a self imposed ban on herself from getting involved with Homecoming. It was her hope that it would be an indirect way of doing penance.
Still, it pissed her off that now a friend and a genuinely good guy like Jason was being indirectly hurt by it too. It didn't help that she wasn't quite sure what to feel about the Red Ranger either. Maybe a part of her hoped that coming here alone today would give her a chance to sort out some of those confused swirling thoughts too. Did she like him as a friend? As more than a friend? If so, would she be able to trust him? Or would she even be able to trust herself and not hurt him, especially given all her personal life drama of late?
Kimberly sat on the bench so lost in her own thoughts that she didn't notice as someone else approached from behind and tapped her on the shoulder, "Well… look at that. Kimberly's all alone. Just the way it should be."
The Pink Ranger scowled at the sound of the familiar voice and turned around slowly, "Amanda… what the hell are you doing here?"
Kimberly's former friend gave her trademark sneer and took a moment to admire her new gold bracelet in the sunlight, "I thought I'd go out and take a walk. I was even hoping I'd run into you."
Kimberly gave a derisive snort, "Why? Did you forget to say something else mean to me? Because I'm not in the mood to listen to it."
"Oh, I'm not here to talk," Amanda said as she gripped the bench and began to tug. To Kimberly's horror, the heavy bench began to give way from its grounded base, "You see... actions speak much louder than words."
With a tug of superhuman strength, Amanda pulled the bench from its concrete foundation and tossed it aside just as Kimberly fell over and rolled clear on the ground. The Pink Ranger eyed the girl with wide eyes, "Amanda… what's happening? What do you want from me?"
The Pink Ranger's classmate gave a bitter laugh as the golden bracelet began to change and manifest into something more malevolent. Kimberly watched as the jewelry expanded and formed a monstrous suit of liquid golden armor around the girl. While Amanda was enveloped by the evil enchanted substance, Kimberly recognized that goo was the same stuff that had been used by Rita to form the monster Goldar. Whatever it was and however it survived, it didn't matter. It had taken over her classmate, but it still left Kimberly in a difficult position. Part of her knew that she should probably try to save Amanda, but there was also a darker more vindictive side of her that wanted to lash out and hurt Amanda back too.
The Goldar symbiote continued to advance. It could sense the powerful primal feelings of anger and hate radiating off of Amanda toward this Kimberly girl in front of her, and it was wonderful. In return for giving her inhuman strength and protection, Rita's gold had taken over the girl's mind and body feeding hungrily off of those negative feelings of its host. It had learned of this Amanda girl's feelings of hatred and vengeance toward her classmate Kimberly and the gold wanted to push things ever further to get its fix.
Upon witnessing the appearance of another supernatural monster, the other civilians in the park took off running in a fearful panic leaving Kimberly to confront the Goldar symbiote alone. The Pink Ranger sucked in a breath and tensed up, steeling herself for a coming fight.
"This is your last chance Amanda. I'm warning you…"
The symbiote morphed one of its arms into a golden spiked mace and glared at her menacingly.
"All right, you asked for it. It's moprhin' time!" Kimberly answered with angry defiance as she pulled her pink power coin from her pocket.
To her surprise, the familiar cloud of pink energy swirled around her for a moment and began to form her Ranger suit before it flickered several times and gave out. Kimberly froze and stared at her coin in alarm as her suit and greater powers failed to materialize, "What? What is going on?"
She didn't have time to wonder as the Goldar symbiote brought its fearsome weapon arm around to try and land a crushing blow on the vulnerable Ranger. Before the mace could smash her, Kimberly sensed a swift rush of air and felt herself be carried to relative safety nearby. When she opened her eyes, she saw the familiar sight of the Red Ranger's helmet look down on her in concern, "Kimberly… are you okay?"
She blinked and shook her head in confusion as she watched the other morphed Power Rangers leap into battle and begin gang-rushing the monster. "Jason? I… I don't know. That thing… Amanda Clark is inside… at least, I think she is."
"Okay, just sit tight. We'll handle this," Jason said as he let go of Kimberly and turned to face the Goldar symbiote.
The Ranger extended his arm and called forth a device around his wrist which ignited into a glowing blue energy blade. Jason charged forward making Billy tumble clear while Zack and Trini wrestled to restrain the gold protean monster. The Goldar symbiote gave a furious snarl and shoved the Black and Yellow Rangers aside turning just in time to meet Jason's charge. The monster raised its golden mace arm just as Jason brought his pulsing energy sword around in a powerful swing. The force of the Red Ranger's slash shattered the weapon and threw back the symbiote in a cloud of searing heat. Small gobs and flecks of gold sprayed everywhere and burned away as the injured monster regained its footing and made a hasty retreat down an open manhole cover in the street.
"Whoah! What was that?" Trini exclaimed as she caught her breath, "Is that Goldar thing really back again?"
"Who cares? We should go after it! It's getting away," Zack protested but Jason halted him and waved him off.
"No… let it go for now. We've got to figure out what's going on here first."
Jason powered down his energy blade and turned to the Pink Ranger, "Kim, is everything okay? Why didn't you morph back there?"
She looked dumbly to her power coin and then back to her fellow Rangers as they gathered around in concern, "I couldn't… I couldn't morph."
"What? What do you mean you couldn't?" Jason asked in startled confusion.
"I said I couldn't! Okay?" she angrily shot back, "Something went wrong and I couldn't call my powers."
Jason frowned behind his visor and tilted his head, "Maybe we should go talk to Zordon."
"Maybe you guys should just leave me alone right now," Kimberly retorted as she pushed past them and began walking off. She had been feeling confused by her own personal issues along with the sudden violent confrontation with Amanda. Worst of all, she was even more ashamed of her sudden inability to morph just now. If she couldn't contribute to such an important fight alongside her teammates, she didn't really feel like facing up to them at the moment either... not like this anyway.
The Rangers powered down and stood in confusion before the others unconsciously turned toward Jason for direction. For a moment, he almost felt like a football quarterback again, calling plays from the huddle.
"What do you think Jason?" Trini prompted him with an expectant look.
He furrowed his brow and nodded to himself, "Trini, why don't you go try and talk to Kimberly... keep an eye on her. Zack, keep a lookout around town for any more traces of that Goldar thing. I'm going to go speak to Zordon. Billy, you're with me."
As the Rangers broke their improvised huddle, Jason could only hope that he was making the right call and that the team would have enough time to regroup against the monster. Right now, the ball was in his hands so it was his job to run with it.
Later that day, the Red and Blue Rangers returned to the stone quarry and made their way to the secret underground cave where Zordon's ship lay. After entering their base of operations, Alpha and Billy worked over the central viewing globe to gather data and images of the battle which had occurred earlier that day. They hoped it could give them more information about the return of Goldar or the strange condition affecting Kimberly. While they worked, Jason spoke to Zordon directly and related what he had observed from the battle.
"I don't understand any of this," the Red Ranger said to the face on the wall, "How could Goldar have survived that battle with Rita? She's been defeated for good... hasn't she?"
"Even if she is gone, you should not underestimate the reach of her sorcery," Zordon answered, "Goldar is a reflection of her hatred and malice, and that force had apparently sustained her life up until your last battle with her."
"Then why did Kimberly say she was unable to morph?" Jason asked, "I thought we had already unlocked our powers from that Morphing Grid when we became a team."
Zordon gave a pensive look and his image rippled, "Do you know of anything that may be affecting her? Perhaps on a deep personal level?"
Jason hesitated as he recalled his brief run-in with her a few days ago. He knew something was wrong, but he wasn't quite certain what that was exactly. He wasn't too sure about raising any teenage romance drama with the ancient alien head either so he decided to answer carefully, "I'm beginning to think so... but what does that have to do with anything?"
Zordon's image rippled again, "Unlocking the full potential of your coins is more than just being a team. To be a Ranger and use your powers wisely for the forces of good, you must be in the right mindset. You must have a virtuous motive. To carry it out with your powers, you must find balance in heart, body, and mind. If something is causing Kimberly to lose her will and balance at such a fundamental level, then she must overcome it before her powers will work to their fullest potential again."
Jason nodded gravely, "She claimed that Goldar was working with one of her enemies... a girl from school named Amanda. There might be something to that, unless it's just Rita's dark magic playing tricks again."
He turned and checked up on his friend's progress, "Have you found anything helpful in that magic eight ball there, Billy? You seem to be the only one who can make out anything within it."
"I can see some fuzzy images of Goldar forming," the Blue Ranger answered, "And it did take on a more female shape before it attacked. If the thing is sentient it could just be taunting Kimberly but it's hard to tell."
Jason crossed his arms, "All right then. Until we learn more, we'll keep an eye out for trouble and a closer eye on Amanda at school. If she's somehow being controlled by Goldar, then we have to figure out a way to stop her... especially if she's gunning for Kim."
As the two boys turned to leave the central command room of the ship, Alpha turned to Zordon and threw up his hands with a dismayed sigh, "Ai yai yai... Goldar's really done it this time. This whole situation has massive cat-fight written all over it."
A/N:
The movie was a little vague about the in-universe nature of what exactly allows a Ranger to morph, so I'm taking some creative liberties with it here. While the "teamwork" aspect was certainly important, I think something can also be said for having one's mind and heart being in balance too.