Chapter Five

"Trials"

Trini perched herself on her sits bones, cradling herself in a tight ball. Her eyes chronically frozen open, unable to stay closed. Each time she shut her eyes, Jason's naked form slithered into her mind's eye—ever present like a star shining on an oscillating planet. Shuddering, she wrenched open her eyes, darting them everywhere else. Possessed by terror, she refused to move, frozen in cowardice. Her dignity shredded, she clutched her form, rocking back and forth—never looking behind her. Jason's astral scent hung in the air, sprouting goose bumps up her thighes.

Richie found her like this at 3:20pm. She ignored his compassion, and protested to his coaxing. Realizing his futile attempts, he shuffled her laundry and left for the kitchen, assuring her that she just needed to yell for him and he'd come.

Unimpressed, she did not nod.

Instead she stared into her heart, asking for truth to a question she had asked many years ago. "Why didn't you kill me, Jason?"

Zack awoke to the flickering of light dancing upon his face. Taking in a deep breath, the damp air surprised him into full alertness. Opening his eyes he blinked several times, shielding his eyes from a noon sun's beams gleaming through the swaying canopy a hundred feet above him. He was lying on his back in the middle of a vast rain forest, populated by various trees, mosses, flowers, and bushes that Zack had never seen before. A lumpy and large tree root dug into his left hamstring. The moist air clung to Zack's skin as he rolled to his feet, shifting away from the root.

Standing, he spun around.

Where am I? he wondered. This isn't like any rainforest I've seen on National Geographic before.

Taking a couple of steps, he stumbled thru some bushes onto a path. Looking in all directions, Zack saw nothing familiar to him. At first he thought he was in Africa or South America but none of the plant life looked like anything from those places. Around him, the sounds and calls of various animals fueled his confusion.

"Okay, so I'm definitely not on Earth," Zack asked under his breath. "Am I on Phadoes?" Taking a guess, he turned right on the path, marching forward through layers of fallen dried leaves.

Meanwhile, Goldar and Scorpina materialized twelve feet behind Sean. Taking a quarter of a second to aim, they each fired concentrated orange fire streams from their swords at Sean. Yet just as the fire barrages were millimeters from Sean, he launched himself into the air with a back twist flip over the beams, landing in the same spot, facing the two warriors.

"Good afternoon," Sean said, staring at Scorpina and Goldar.

Behind him, Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa materialized with a white lightning bolt and a spiraling mass of fireballs.

"And you will not get a chance to—!" Sean deflected the white lighting bolt aimed from behind with a slap of his left arm. "Apparently, you forgot what I am capable of, Zedd," Sean added, staring at his addressee, "Even while exhausted."

"On the contrary, I didn't," replied Zedd, crossing his staff with Rita's. Thick, dark blue lightning shot out from the intersection of their staffs as Goldar and Scorpina crossed their swords and shot a thick yellow beam outlined with a spiral of magenta lightning from them.

On reflex, Sean extended both arms out, holding the energy attacks back with his hands, while expressing neither emotion nor desire. Just like I expected, he thought, fully aware of his limitations today; an advantage over the previous day. Exhausted or not, he could and would fend off the quartet's assaults.

"Why can't you be a good little ranger and die!" Rita shouted, pouring more energy into her staff.

For an answer, Sean cupped his hands and slapped them together above his head, swirling the attacking energy upward around his body into a funnel. After a second, he snapped his arms sideways, sending an exploding shockwave towards the four villains.

It smashed into them, knocking them to the ground with explosions bursting all over their bodies.

Almost surprisingly, Zedd got back to his feet nearly instantly, ignoring the slight groaning from his allies. "I'm not going anywhere until Zack is a corpse!" he snarled.

"That is something I cannot allow," Sean replied, moving into the kung fu mantis stance in front of Zack.

"I'm not giving you a choice," Zedd retorted, charging up his staff with red flames and white lighting. Beside him, Rita stammered to her feet. Visually targeting Sean's heart without moving his staff, Lord Zedd fired three short bursts of energy at him.

Sean flicked his front palm up. Absorbing the energy through his hand and, continuing the flowing of energy, pointed with his other hand, and fired it back at Zedd.

Zedd deflected it with his staff. Without pausing, Zedd tilted his staff toward Zack, firing two lightning blasts at him.

Sean knew instantly that he had no time to catch the bolts. With perfect hand eye coordination, he brought his cupped hands together in front of him, and with a reverse "J" gesture, remotely pushed the lightning bolts upward to the sky when they were less than two feet from Zack. A slight grunt of effort escaped Sean's lips as he did this.

"Impressive," Zedd chuckled. "I underestimated you, Sean."

"Not a good idea on your part," Sean replied, maintaining an iron stare at Zedd as he sucked in more air into his lungs.

"Don't be cocky with me, boy!" Zedd said. "You may be able to handle the four of us, but how about a whole legion of tengas and putties!"

At once twenty tengas and Z putties materialized out of thin air in a haze of silver and dark purple flashes around Sean.

Sean spun his head around, taking in all of the adversaries. At a glance, there were more tengas than putties, but the presence of the clay brains did strike Sean as slightly curious. Chuckling on the inside, Sean gave Zedd some credit. He was slowly transforming back into the strategist he used to be before he had married Rita.

Putties were easy, even though they were Zedd's, but the tengas would be more of a problem as long as he remained in his civilian form. With his life energy still tied to Trini and Zack, too much excursion of his ranger power would deplete his reserves. Having already been in a battle that day, morphing now would be devastating to Sean and perhaps lethal.

"Well, Green Ranger," Zedd mused, "What are you going to do now? You're friends are trapped and Trini is inactive."

"Meaning you're all alone!" Rita cackled.

Goldar and Scorpina snickered from behind..

Sean grinned. "I thought you had learned not to underestimate me, Zedd," Sean said, prowling through his ESP, sensing everyone around him. After seeing the whole picture, he made his decision. Taking a three point turn to his left, Sean simultaneously slammed his fist, knife-hand struck, and front kicked three separate putties. Falling to the ground, they disassembled.

"Destroy him!" Zedd ordered.

Immediately, Goldar shot a barrage of eye blasts while Scorpina fired flames from her armored hand.

Sean dived out of the way just in time, side kicking a putty in the chest before landing. Sean continued taking out the putties, avoiding the tengas as long he could. Cannon fodder, he grimaced.

"Tengas! Are you going to squawk all day or fight!" Rita screamed, while taking aim with her wand. Three ruby colored flames slithered from the crystal of her wand toward Sean's feet. She missed him by inches.

Meanwhile, Zack must have been walking on the same path for at least an hour but was getting nowhere. The path slithered up and down a solitary path but at least he was not was not alone.

Around him, he heard chirping, screeching, and a light buzzing. Zack tossed his head from side to side, trying to catch a peep of the lurkers but to no avail. Judging from the varying sounds, insects, birds, and other animals surrounded him, hiding among the trees. Although he couldn't understand what they were saying, something within Zack told him that the animals (if they were animals) were compelling him forward, even through not seeing them made anxiety run through his veins.

As he trekked forward, he noticed a hint of light shining through the branches ahead. After a while he came out of the forest into a clearing and halted in awe. Before him was a colossal figure of stone, stretching almost a full mile into the sky. Dumbstruck, Zack neither moved nor wrenched his sight away.

"You feel it, don't you?" asked a female voice from behind.

Zack whirled around. An athletic, slim woman in her thirties stood there, draped in a thick green and brown cloak with her hood pulled back, exposing curly dark blond hair that came down to her shoulders. She held a wooden fighting staff in her right hand.

"Are you Dulcea?" Zack asked, recalling the story that Tommy, Adam, Kimberly, Billy, Aisha, and Rocky had told him earlier.

Dulcea nodded. "I am also a friend of Sean," she replied. "He told me you would be coming here soon."

"Excuse me?"

"There are many ways to communicate in the universe," Dulcea continued. "This is a vision quest, Silver Ranger."

"So I'm not quite here?"

"Yes you are. A part of your essence is."

Zack regarded her, inquisitiveness stirring in him.

"Since the guardian Gargoyles were destroyed," Dulcea continued, sure of his confusion, "there are no guardians for you to face."

"So what do I do?" he asked, turning back to the monolith.

"Climb the Monolith," Dulcea said.

Zack blinked. Then he started laughing. "You're joking… right?" he asked, his face alit with excitement.

"No," she said, stepping to the side while gesturing with her staff at the Monolith. "Go on."

Zack glanced at the Monolith and at her. "Without climbing gear?" he asked.

"Mm-hmm," she answered, cracking a sincere smile.

Blowing a mouthful of air out, Zack trekked over to the Monolith's side, to the left of the pyramid. Ignoring the vines, he clasped a sturdy stone protruding from the side and pushed up.

Back in Angel Grove, Tommy slammed the back of his fist into a Super Z Putty sneaking up on him and kicked another one grabbing hold of his leg. Both of them flew backward a few feet. "Man, what's in these guys?" he wondered. "Billy, have you fought these things before?"

"Unfortunately, no," Billy answered from yards away, parrying a putty's hand blade with his Lance. Swinging the other end into the side of its head, Billy flicked his lance around and stabbed the putty straight in the face.

In an explosion of sparks, the putty staggered backward, shaking its head and rubbing it with its hands. Billy held his guard, wary of another attack from either that putty or his comrades. Sure enough, within seconds, the putty straightened up and advanced, swinging it's blade at Billy.

"These guys—don't know when—to quit!" Billy reported, blocking the onslaughts of more putties as his previous attacker advanced also.

"Same here!" Tommy answered, slashing three putties with Saba's white lighting, hoping to disintegrate them. Miraculously, the first putty Tommy had slashed, charged up behind him, and slashed Tommy with its hand blade just as Tommy spun around to see if his strategy had worked. The other two putties shot at him with gunshots from their middle fingers.

In a flurry of sparks, Tommy crashed into the ground, luckily rolling away from them. Instinctively knowing he didn't have time to rest even though that triple attack had knocked some of the air out of him, he swept his feet around, tripping the nearest putty, and then hammering his ankle into its gut with an excellent ax kick. Jumping to his feet, he crept backward from the nearest putties. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw five more putties on either side creeping toward him.

"Jason, you're doing better than Zedd ever did," Tommy said.

"I'm glad you enjoy it," Jason said from off to the side, leaning on a tree.

Surprised, Tommy spun around, swinging Saba overhead into a high guard. Unfortunately, Jason slid forward into a side kick, hitting Tommy in the solar plexus before his sword was in place. Tommy flew backward twenty feet, tumbling onto the ground.

"Tommy, you alright?" Adam called out, having seen his friend zoom past. "What the—Jason!" he turned around, noticing the Monarch of Evil.

"You!" Tommy gasped in a half whisper, glaring at Jason. Catching his breath, he stumbled to his feet.

"Decided to show your face in the sun?" Rocky snapped.

"I thought I'd keep things interesting," Jason responded coolly, strolling forward. "Care to fight me now?" he asked, raising his katana to mid level and pointing it at Tommy.

"What if I said 'no'?" Tommy asked. With a si-ai-yah yell, he leapt into the air coming at Jason with an overhead sword strike.

Anticipating this, Jason stepped back, grounding himself while raising his blade into an overhead guard. Absorbing Tommy's force, Jason directed Saba away from him.

"Coward, Jason?" Tommy asked.

"Not at all." Advancing, he cut forward, pushing him further away from his friends.

"Take care of the putties!" Tommy yelled to his comrades. "They have to have a weakness."

Taking the order, Rocky summoned his Power Sword and cut the closest putty into clumps of clay. Glee and satisfaction radiated through him. Unfortunately, almost immediately, the lumps assembled and reconstituted into two new putties. "Shit! Guys, don't try to hack'em in half. It only makes more of them."

"Oh, man; I forgot about that!" Kimberly groaned.

Immediately, Adam parried and batted away a few putties from him with the dull side of his ax. "We're running out of options, then," he reported. "These guys aren't getting tired quick enough."

Meanwhile, Jason parried Tommy's attacks one handed while still pushing him away from the fight.

"What's this about, Jason?" Tommy asked. "Sending Putties to do what you won't?"

"Worry only about your head!" Jason said, stabbing within an inch of Tommy's neck. Tommy side stepped out of the way and slashed at Jason's left upper arm. Surprisingly, Jason stepped back and blocked with his forearm, while arching his katana into an overhead stab aiming for Tommy's upper chest. Tommy backed up, swatting Jason's katana aside. However, Jason stepped forward and reposted, aiming for Tommy's abdomen. Just as Tommy lowered his arms to intersect the katana, Jason flicked his blade 90 degrees away from them, seized Tommy's throat, picked him up, and slammed him into the ground before Tommy could react. Releasing Tommy, Jason backed up, not lowering his weapon.

Tommy sucked in mouthfuls of air, replenishing the amount already expelled. He rolled to his feet.

"You're the message," Jason said.

"Wha—?" Tommy began, still catching his breath.

"Attack him again," Jason ordered, evaporating into flame.

"What are you up to, Jason?" Tommy grunted, pushing himself up again.

Five miles away, inevitability tapped repeatedly on Trini's senses. Despite Trini's depression, unstable emotions, and sheer will-power, echoes of Tommy's bafflement ringed clear in her psychic ears impervious to dissuation Trini squeezed her hands around the sides of her cranium, trying to physically block out the foreign emotions.

Why can't I just grieve and shut down!? She wailed within her thoughts. An answer whispered within her, soft and strong, barely heard above the armies raging in her mind. Yet the essence of truth glimmered from them, as if vibrato had been given form instead of sound.

Tightening her hands around her shoulders, she buried her faced in her arms, further pleading to be left alone from this conflict. Yet neither fate nor her sacred animal would abate. She was bound to these events through blood, pain, tears, heart, and the ring around her finger.

My ring!

Pausing in her shuddering, she gazed at it again. Still dull, it screamed what her intuition had been imploring since Jason had disappeared eight days ago. Whether Jason had lied to her or not (she still could not recall) Trini had promised to stand by his side just like when he was on the run from Dark Specter. Escape was impossible, even through death because she would not live.

Regret dripping down her throat, she swatted her protests away and heard the following words spoken through her conscious: You were shut down for too long already.

Resigned, she stood, ignoring the protests in her muscles as they stretched.