Rocky was confused. They had been fighting, and suddenly, the monsters just left. Not seconds later, Zordon had teleported the three of them back to the Command Center. That was where they were now, having just taken their helmets off.
They hadn't even gotten a chance to ask Zordon what was going on before flashes of pink and yellow appeared on the opposite side of the room. Moments later, Kat and Tanya materialized in their places.
"They've got him!" Tanya exclaimed the moment they were solid again. She tugged her helmet off as she spoke, and rushed forwards towards Zordon.
At those three words, Rocky felt his heart leap into his throat. Something was wrong. Something was definitely wrong. They had one of them, and he may not have been the brightest bulb in the box, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that a color was missing from their group.
"Kat, where's Adam?" he demanded. He closed the distance between himself and the girls in three short steps, coming to tower over them.
A look crossed both their faces, on that looked like a mix between desperation and…was that guilt? "They've got him," Kat said softly. There were tears in her eyes, but right about then, Rocky couldn't have cared less. Not after he heard the three words that came next, the three words that sealed his horror. "They've got Adam."
The first thing that hit him through his shock was the weight of the words. They knocked the air out of his lungs and nearly took the strength from his legs. Vaguely, he realized that Kat and Tanya were still talking, explaining what happened. Explaining how they'd been ambushed and how Adam had sent them up the stairs. Explaining how they'd teleported away and left Adam trapped in the basement with those monsters.
That brought along the next feeling – anger. Fury so hot and burning that he felt tears well in his eyes. "You left him?" he screamed suddenly, throwing his helmet to the ground beside him. "He was screaming – screaming – and you left him there?" Before he knew what he was doing, he was reaching for them. What he was going to do, he didn't know. Strangle them, maybe. Maybe he'd hit them. He didn't hit his friends, but they'd left the love of his life – their "friend" – behind for God only knew what to happen to him, so maybe they weren't his friends after all.
He'd hardly even raised his hands, though, before he felt two pairs of arms grabbed him from behind, wrestling him back. "Let me go!" he shouted, trying to wrench his shoulder free. Jason and Tommy each had a side, pulling him back away from the two girls. When he realized he couldn't get loose, he lashed out the only way he could. "He protected you! He's your friend, for God's sake! How could you leave him?"
He was well aware there were furious tears streaming down his face. Adam had been screaming, and they'd left him behind.
"He told us to, Rocky! We didn't want to leave him, but there was nothing we could do," Tanya said.
But Rocky wasn't convinced. "I don't care what he said; you don't leave your friend behind so long as you've got breath in your body and strength enough to stand. You don't leave Adam behind with a bunch of monsters!"
"Rocky, man, calm down," Tommy told him. "It's not their fault."
He knew that. Honestly, he really knew that, in his head. But the head and the heart were two entirely different entities, and it wasn't his head that was pounding a mile a minute. And finally, the last of the emotions hit him.
Grief.
The machines had Adam. That alone would've been bad enough, but they'd been hurting him. Adam was one of the toughest guys Rocky knew; it would've taken a lot to make him scream. And now, he was at those monsters' mercy.
As if sensing the change in his friend, Jason rested a firm and reassuring hand on his chest. "We'll get him back, Rocky." He himself knew a little of what Rocky was going through; when Prince Gasket had taken Tommy, he'd thought he would go mad. Granted, as far as he'd known, Tommy hadn't been getting pummeled by a bunch of monsters before he went missing, but he could at least sympathize with the whole "missing boyfriend" thing.
Wordlessly, Rocky nodded. Of course they'd get him back. They had to get him back. Rocky would get him back, if he had to go to the moon and take on the whole Machine Empire by himself.
Tommy and Jason finally let him go, and as Kat and Tanya watched him with sympathetic frowns, he did his best not to glare at them. That said, he still wasn't going to apologize. They'd still left his boyfriend, his best friend, his Adam behind to get captured by those machines. Even if they hadn't meant to, even if they hadn't had a choice, he couldn't help holding the grudge. He promised himself he'd let it go when he had Adam in his arms again.
"Rangers," Zordon started, effectively catching the attention of all five of the teens present, "I understand that this is a very trying situation, but you cannot afford to be hostile to one another."
Rocky got the feeling that comment was directed to him, and if it had been any other situation, he would've probably had the grace to blush. As it was, he couldn't really care less what Zordon had to say, unless it had something to do with getting Adam back.
So, on that note, "What are we going to do?" he asked.
"Alpha and Billy are already working on triangulating Adam's position," Zordon said. Huh, Rocky hadn't even noticed them there, but sure enough, the genius and Alpha were both poring over the controls.
Tommy walked up to the backs of the controls, looking over them at what Billy and Alpha were doing. "Have you found anything?"
"We're working as fast as we can," Billy assured him. "It shouldn't be long, though. I don't think they've returned to their base on the moon."
"You mean they're still in Angel Grove?" Rocky asked. A flicker of hope lit up in his chest at that. If he was still here, then they could just go and get him. They'd get him if he was on the moon, but this would be easier and (hopefully) much faster.
Billy nodded. "Affirmative," he said.
"Aiyiyiyiyi!" Alpha exclaimed suddenly.
Jason turned to him. "What is it, Alpha?" They'd all been Rangers long enough to know that noise didn't mean good things.
The robot was holding his discus-shaped head, shaking it back and forth. "They're moving too much for me to lock onto their position! We will need to recalibrate the frequency modulators to enhance triangulation."
It seemed like a safe bet to say that Billy was probably the only human being that knew precisely what Alpha meant by that. Rocky knew it meant that there was a hang-up, though, and hang-ups meant delays. "How long?" he asked. "Until you can get it up and running, I mean."
Billy pursed his lips and punched a few more things into the keyboard. "We can't be sure, but it could be hours."
And with that, the weak flicker of hope was effectively doused by another wave of misery. Hours. It could be hours before they were able to even start trying to find Adam, and meanwhile, his boyfriend was suffering alone. He knew, logically, that others had been missing longer; Tommy, for instance, had been gone longer when he'd been kidnapped. But he hadn't been hurt, as far as they knew. He hadn't been beaten down by a bunch of monsters.
"He'll be okay, Rocky," Tanya said. It was the first time she'd spoken since he'd chewed her out, and she still wasn't making any friends. He appreciated the effort and all, but he wouldn't be satisfied that Adam was okay until he had him back safe.
Meanwhile, Jason had turned back to Zordon. "Is there something we can do in the meantime?" he asked, adjusting the helmet he'd tucked under his arm.
"Return home, Rangers, but keep yourselves available for contact. We will call on you as soon as Billy and Alpha find something."
That wasn't what Rocky wanted to hear. Arguing wasn't going to get anything done, though, and he allowed himself to be teleported back into his bedroom.
But that wasn't where he stayed. Powering down, he snatched his duffel bag up off the ground and started to pack it. He threw some flashlights in, and a first aid kit just in case. He changed clothes, too – his basketball shorts and t-shirt were replaced with some jeans and a blue thermal – and then he was off. Pausing only to grab his keys, sneakers, and a jacket, he ran out the door and sped out of the driveway in his red pickup truck.
After all, Zordon had told them to come home. That meant he probably shouldn't morph, but it didn't mean he couldn't contribute to the search the old fashioned way.
He only made it halfway down his street before a familiar red Suzuki Sidekick pulled up beside him. As Jason stepped out of the driver's seat and came up to his door, he put the car in park and rolled the window down.
"We were just coming to offer you a ride," Jason told him, jabbing his thumb back towards the car where Tommy waited in the passenger seat. It did confirm his suspicions that they'd been spending the night together, not that it was particularly important right about then.
"Thanks, but I've got my truck," Rocky told him.
Jason nodded, but wasn't about to let it go that easily. "Yeah, you do, but your truck seats three. The Sidekick seats five and then some, and the more hands you can get on your impromptu search party, the better."
He had a point. Actually, Rocky felt a little silly, now. It wasn't that he didn't trust Billy and Alpha to do what they needed to do; he just couldn't sit on his hands and do nothing while they did it.
At least he wasn't the only one, though.
"C'mon, man," Jason pressed. The Gold Ranger was worried about his friend. Rocky had calmed down a lot since he first found out about what happened to Adam, but he was still wound tight enough to snap. He could see it in the white-knuckled grip Rocky had on the steering wheel, and the way his knee bounced by the dash. It seemed to Jason he was just one frayed nerve away from exploding, and he for one did not want Rocky to have that explosion behind the wheel of a relatively large vehicle. "Just pull your car back into your driveway and hop in with us."
Rocky was as hesitant as Jason thought he would be, but to both his and Tommy's relief, he finally nodded and backed his truck back into the driveway of his house. Grabbing the roll beam in the back of Tommy's car, he hefted himself into the back seat. As soon as Rocky was buckled in, Jason pulled out into the street again. What they would accomplish, they didn't know. But at least they were doing something.