Can't Let Go
Disclaimer: I do not own the Power Rangers.
JasonLeeScottFan: Go with that feeling you can't go wrong. Lol! And don't worry about Cassie, for the most part I don't. But she'll be fine.
sunflowerlily: Thank you! It would have been funny, but I figured Zhane's brain can't handle that much. Lol! I am currently writing two other stories: 'No Man's Land' and 'Out of this World.' I'm trying to finish at least 5 chapters before I start to put them up. PS: I like your stories they're good.
Chapter 6: Secrets Revealed
It had been nearly three weeks since Darkliptor had attacked and almost a week since anyone had attacked at all, and Andros was getting antsy. He knew they had to be planning something big, but he didn't know what it was. And to top it off, Zhane and Ashley had been acting really strange lately. Ashley told him that nothing was going on between her and Zhane, but he couldn't shake the feeling that they were hiding something from him. And he didn't want to believe that Ashley would lie to him.
"Hey, Andros."
Andros rolled his eyes before putting on a fake smile and facing his girlfriend. "Hey, Cassie." Over the last few weeks she had become increasingly annoying to him. It wasn't any fault of her own. She just couldn't be who he wanted her to be.
"I was wondering if you wanted to go get lunch with me in Angel Grove." She asked happily.
He mentally sighed, knowing that she couldn't since his frustration. Even before Ashley's telepathy kicked in, she could always tell how he was feeling. And it only annoyed him more that Cassie couldn't. "I'm kind of tired. I just finished training in the simudeck and I was just going to shower and crash for a little while."
"Well we can eat here after you finish showering and crash together." She suggested, not deterred for an instant.
She just couldn't take a hint, or she didn't want to. "That's fine." He gave in.
They walked through the corridor until they heard voices in the engine room. Andros moved away from Cassie and quietly stepped into the room. Ashley and Zhane were there. They obviously didn't notice him. For a moment Andros couldn't feel anything.
"Relax and try again." Zhane told Ashley. One arm was wrapped around her waist and the other held Ashley's arm up towards various objects placed on a table in front of them.
Ashley took a deep breath and focused on the wrench at the left end of the table. She exhaled when the wrench moved about an inch. "I didn't think it would be this hard."
"You're actually doing really well." Zhane commented. He leaned his head forward and spoke directly into her ear. "Now treat this like your telepathy. Let your mind surround the object you want to move and concentrate only on moving that object."
Ashley laughed a little. "It's hard to concentrate when you're this close to me." She laid her head back on his shoulder.
Zhane put his hand under her chin and brought her face to his. "Too bad. Because I like distracting you." He pressed his lips to hers. Passion rose in them as their kiss deepened.
The passion was suddenly cut off by a wave of anger that had them stumbling forward. Ashley yelped and Zhane pulled her back as the table in front of them went crashing into the wall. They turned and were shocked by the scene in the doorway.
Cassie was on the ground with her back against the door jam staring at her boyfriend in shock and fear. The force of Andros's emotions had literally knocked her off of her feet.
Andros loomed just inside the room. His body was rigid and the anger coming from him was so dense in the room that it was hard to breath.
As quickly as Andros's emotions had filled Zhane's and Ashley's mind, they were gone.
Ashley slowly pulled away from Zhane and hesitantly moved towards her ex boyfriend. If she hadn't been focusing so hard on using telekinesis, she would have felt him coming. "Andros?" She reached out a hand to him but before she could touch him she cringed and both hands dug into her hair as a sharp pain started in her head and went through her whole body.
Zhane was at Ashley's side in a heartbeat. "Are you okay?"
When the pain subsided she stared at Andros in disbelief. Tears burned in her eyes, but before the first tear could fall, Andros had left the room.
Cassie stood and watched him stalk through the corridor, before turning her attention to Ashley. "Did he hurt you?"
Ashley shook her head slowly. "I can't feel him." She whispered.
Before anyone could respond, DECA's alarms went off. "Rangers, Astronema and Ecliptor are on KO-35."
"What are they doing there?" Zhane wondered out loud. He addressed Ashley. "You okay to fight?"
Ashley nodded. "Let's go."
KO-35
Astronema walked through the abandoned streets of KO-35 with Ecliptor close beside her. He was nervous about something but she couldn't figure out what it was.
"What do you seek here, princess?" He asked with feigned patience. "This planet has been abandoned for over two years."
"I know that." She snapped, but then caught herself. "There's just something so familiar about this place, but I don't know what it is."
"One planet is no different from another."
Astronema stopped and stared at him. "What are you hiding Ecliptor? You've been acting strangely since Darkonda showed up."
"I don't trust him."
"That's obvious." She was getting frustrated.
"Astronema!"
The red ranger's voice filled the air before Astronema could comment further. "Rangers, what are you doing here?"
"Funny," Zhane answered. "We were wondering the same thing about you and Ecliptor."
"That's for us to know. But we are not here for you. So you can leave now." Astronema answered.
"I don't think so." Andros went for Ecliptor.
"Quantrons attack!" Astronema yelled.
The other ranger's were quickly surrounded by the mechanical monsters.
TJ and Carlos held their own against the quantrons, while Cassie and Ashley had more difficulty.
Cassie couldn't stop thinking about Andros. She had never seen him like that before. And it only irritated her because she knew it was because of Ashley. She missed a block and was sent backwards, bumping into Ashley. They nonverbally agreed to fight back to back.
Ashley was missing things that she shouldn't have. It was like she couldn't find her balance. And she knew why. She couldn't feel Andros at all. He had managed to withdraw himself from her completely.
Zhane was fighting Astronema. He was separated from the group and ended up fighting her alone. And she was good. But he couldn't help feeling that he knew her some how.
He nearly got nailed when Astronema swung her staff at his head. But this brought him back to the fight.
"Super Silverizer!" He deflected Astronema's blow with the blade of his weapon. He swung at her and barely missed, but his strike was close enough to snag something away from around her neck and send it flying away from them.
"No!"
Astronema's cry startled him. She kicked him in his stomach making him fall to his knees. He braced for her to strike again, but nothing happened. When he looked up he saw her and didn't think he could be more shocked than he was now.
"What the…" Zhane stood to his feet and watched a purely panicked Astronema.
Where is it? She thought desperately. Her hand was placed on her chest where her locket should have been. Tears burned her eyes, which made it harder for her to find what she was looking for.
Ecliptor somehow got away from Andros and was at Astronema's side in an instance. "We must go my princess." He urged and grabbed her arm.
She struggled to get away from him. "No I can't leave without it!"
Zhane swore that she was crying.
"We have to." Ecliptor pulled her close and swung his sword around in front of him. He and Astronema vanished in a flash of light. Once they left, the quantrons followed.
"What was that about?" Carlos asked as he and the other's made their way to Zhane.
"That was weird." Cassie commented.
"You let them get away!" Everyone turned to Andros. They could tell could that he was glaring at Zhane behind his visor.
"How was he supposed to stop them? I don't even think they were here for us." TJ responded.
"Let's just get back to the ship." Andros stated. "DECA, teleport six."
Ashley's room - Later that day
Ashley sat in her room on her bed with her knees drawn up to her chest, her back against the wall. She couldn't shake the feeling of being lost. She just didn't feel whole anymore, and she knew why. She couldn't feel Andros. I shouldn't have lied to him. She thought to herself. Now I've lost him as a friend too. She could deal with her and Andros not being a couple as long as they were still friends and she could still feel him. Now she didn't know what to do.
The pain she felt wavered when she heard her door slide open. She knew it was Zhane without looking up. And she was grateful she had him, now more than ever.
"Are you okay?" Zhane asked as he sat on her bed.
"Better now that you're here." She looked up at him and smiled.
He leaned in and kissed her softly. He knew she was hurting over Andros and wanted to take her mind off of it. "You wanna go back to KO-35 with me?"
"Why? What's wrong?" She asked with a frown.
"When Astronema and I were fighting, I knocked something off of her neck and she went frantic looking for it. But Ecliptor took her away before she could find it. I thought maybe we could look for it." He couldn't get the image of Astronema crying out of his head. For some reason, he didn't like seeing her hurt.
"Alright. Let's go."
KO-35
"I think we were fighting over there." Zhane pointed to a place that looked like it used to be some kind of merchant area, but with the rubble around the place you couldn't really tell. They moved to the area Zhane indicated and started looking for anything that might not belong there.
After a few minutes of looking, Ashley spotted something shinning a few feet away from her. She held out her hand and focused on bringing the object to her. She was surprised when the object floated to her hand. Maybe it is easier for me to concentrate without Zhane around. She laughed softly at the thought. She looked at the locket in her hand and knew she had seen it before. It was just like the one Andros wore around his neck.
"Zhane I think you need to see this." Ashley called. This couldn't be what Astronema had dropped.
"What is it?" Zhane asked once he was beside Ashley. She held the locket so he could see it. "This can't be what she dropped."
"That's exactly what I was thinking." Ashley opened the locket and confirmed what both she and Zhane were thinking. Inside were two pictures; one was a stripy haired little boy that was Andros and the other was his sister, Karone.
"Why would Astronema have this?"
"I think we both know why, Zhane."
"That's mine!" Astronema ran over and stood directly in front of them. Ashley instinctively closed her hand around the locket. When Astronema saw this, her tone softened, it was almost sad. "Please give it back."
Ashley saw something in Astronema's eyes, something that wasn't evil. She knew Zhane saw it too. "Where did you get this?"
"I've had it since before I can remember." She looked at the hand Ashley held the locket in. "It's all I have left of him."
"Of who?" Zhane asked.
"Of my brother!" She snapped. "Your red ranger killed him and my parents!"
"That's not true!" Zhane insisted.
"Yes it is!" Astronema shouted.
"No, the red ranger didn't kill your parents or your brother!" Ashley stated. Her voice softened. "The red ranger is your brother." She held the open locket out to Astronema who slowly took it into her hands. "You're Karone."
Familiarity flashed in Astronema's eyes at the name. "Karone." She whispered. She had heard that name before. She closed her eyes as images came back to her. She was playing in the park with her brother. They lost their telekinesis ball and he went to retrieve it. Some thing grabbed her, she tried to get away. Her brother was looking for her. He was calling her name. Karone. She managed to move the monster's hand away. She screamed for her brother. "Andros!" The sound of her voice brought her back to the present; her eyes came open in a flash.
"You remember?" Zhane asked. He knew because he saw it play out in her head. He could fill her in his mind, which unnerved him a little.
Astronema shook her head slowly, shaking off the memories. "No. This is some kind of trick."
"We can't make you see something that didn't happen." Ashley insisted.
"You've been lied to." Zhane added.
"Ecliptor wouldn't lie to me." She backed away from them, her staff held protectively in front of her. "But the two of you have, and you will pay dearly for it." She disappeared before they could try to stop her.
Astronema's presence in Zhane's mind dimmed but it didn't go away. He looked at Ashley. "What are we going to do about this? We need to tell Andros."
"Tell Andros that Astronema is Karone?" She paused. "I'll leave that to you, he already hates me enough."
"I'll tell him when we get back to the ship." Zhane stated. There was no way to know how Andros would respond. And that in itself wasn't good.
(A/N: How will Andros respond? Stay tuned for next week's update. Hope you liked it. Please read and review.)