Disclaimer: Power Rangers and everything related is property of Saban. I only own plot and things you don't recognize from the show.
A/N: Hey guys, been a while. Sorry about the wait - Real Life reared its ugly head, as it tends to do. Updates may be a bit sporadic for a while, but trust me, I'm having way too much fun with this story and my other one to stop either anytime soon. Thank you all for reading - you guys are awesome.
Oliver Residence
Angel Grove, CA
July 10, 2012
5:00 PM
"I'm starting to regret asking for your brutal honesty."
The long, awkward silence that had filled the Oliver living room for the last two hours was shattered by an insistent pounding on the front door, which had been precariously set back in place after Jason had staggered through it, prisoner in tow. Tommy lifted his head slowly from where he'd let it lean against Kat's, gazing listlessly at the floor.
"We have got to stop meeting up like this," he muttered, gently lifting Kat's dozing form off his shoulder and peeling himself off the couch. He stretched a little to alleviate some of the stiffness that had begun to set in; he heard Kat groan softly as she came awake, digging the fingers of one hand into her eyes as she sat up and leaned forward.
"Speak for yourself," Billy replied, folding his arms behind his head. He sat in the recliner across the room, one leg folded over the other. "I wasn't here the last time this happened. This is a whole new experience for me."
"Wanna go back in time and trade?" Kat remarked sarcastically, hugging herself and rubbing her upper arms as Tommy moved toward the door. Billy smiled and shook his head.
Tommy had barely pulled the dangling door toward him before Zack basically shoved him aside and forced his way into the room. Tommy jumped in front of him and held a hand out to stop him.
"Where is he?" Zack demanded, shoving Tommy's hand away and pushing past him again. "Where the fuck is Jason?" Tanya, Adam and Trini filed in behind him, casting inquisitive glances around the room. Their looks turned much more serious when they noticed the state of the room and the three dead men who lay sprawled on the floor.
"He's back there, sleeping," Kim said from the hallway, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. "We were attacked and he passed out from…something. As you can probably tell, these guys didn't mess around."
"No shit," Adam said quietly, gazing down at the man who'd shot off a large portion of his face.
Zack let out an angry sigh and sank onto the couch. "Great. More people trying to kill us. Have I mentioned I was done with this a long time ago? Because I moved to fucking Switzerland once to get away from this bullshit and I do not appreciate having it back in my life again."
"Being Rangers was never something we could just walk away from," Trini said absently, examining one of the bodies with her hands on her hips. "I always kinda thought it would just be a matter of time before it came back to bite us on the ass."
"That would be putting it mildly." The assembled former Rangers jerked their eyes toward the hallway to see Jason, wearing nothing but a pair of borrowed green athletic shorts and a wife beater, leaning against the corner. He made a sweeping gesture around the room. "These guys were pros; they knew exactly what they were looking for, they knew exactly where to find it and they certainly seemed more than willing to kill us if they had to." He scanned the room again and frowned. "Where's the guy I came in with?"
Billy, Tommy and Kat shared a nervous glance before Billy spoke up. "He, uh…" he stammered a little, trying to find words. "We took him down to the basement and tied him to a cot, but he died about half an hour ago from, uh…" He trailed off and looked up at Jason, offering a helpless shrug.
"Let me guess – head trauma," Jason said, leaning his head against the wall. Billy sighed and nodded. "Shit."
"You said before they knew exactly what they wanted," Tanya noted, suddenly seeming to realize the others had been talking. "What would that be?"
"This." Billy held up the chip for all of them to see. He turned back to Jason. "I took it out of your pocket when you came back. I assume you…"
"Yeah," Jason finished curtly, closing his eyes. Tommy put his hands in his pockets and gestured toward the evidence box he'd replaced on the counter.
"That guy didn't waste any time. He went right for the box and then right for the chip."
"I was about to ask why you guys hadn't called the cops yet," Adam said. "But I think it's pretty obvious now. The only way they could've known to come here is if they knew from an inside source."
"Well this day just keeps getting better and better," Jason muttered, running a hand over his face.
"Wait a second," Trini spoke up. "How long ago did all this happen?"
"Couple hours," Kim replied. At Trini's incredulous glare, she added, "We would've called you guys sooner but by the time we'd made sure Jason was OK, tied the fourth guy to the cot downstairs and tried to get some kind of information out of him, over an hour had passed. And even then, the four of us who were here took a while to come to an agreement on whether or not to call anyone. We pretty much came to the same conclusion you did."
"By the way, where are Rocky and Aisha?" Jason piped up.
"They're at home sleeping. Rocky hasn't slept in over a week and Aisha finally got him out. I decided not to wake them when I left," Adam answered. Jason acknowledged this with a nod and Adam turned to Tommy.
"Now what?"
Instead of answering, Tommy looked at Billy, who slipped the chip back into his pocket. "To be brutally honest, I am entirely uncertain as far as how to proceed. This recent turn of events for the violent is quite perplexing –"
"Before we need a thesaurus to keep up with Billy, can I make a suggestion?" Jason broke in. When nobody spoke, Jason straightened, strode across the room, and tugged the knife Kat had been attacked with out of the coffee table. He hefted the blade and knelt beside the body of the man who lay nearby, grimacing at his destroyed face. "I was trying to figure out where these guys came from and I noticed that." Jason pointed with the knife blade toward the strangely shaped weapon that lay next to the body. "Look familiar?"
Kim stepped up beside him and nudged the odd gun with her foot. "Yeah, it looks like the thing you and Tommy found in the trunk of that car."
"What car?" Zack asked, glancing impatiently between Kim, Jason and Tommy.
"The one they found crashed three blocks from the park today," Tommy answered.
"The one the dead guy they found at the park today was driving," Kim added.
"The dead guy at the park who had two perfectly round, perfectly cauterized holes in his chest," Jason finished, his eyes suddenly widening. "Kim, Tommy…" he reached out and poked at the gun with the knife. "I think we just found our murder weapon."
"Wait a minute," Kat interjected, stepping toward Tommy. "You guys have seen this thing used on other people?"
"Sixteen, actually," Jason replied calmly, gently rolling the body toward him. "Half of which had chips just like the one Billy's holding embedded in their foreheads. I think…" he brandished the knife and leaned in toward the dead man's ruined face. "What we need to do…" Jason made a small incision in an undamaged part of the man's forehead, near the left temple, ignoring the disgusted gasps Tanya and Trini couldn't hold back as he slid two fingers into the man's skin and dug around for a moment before slowly extracting something and holding it out in his palm. It was another chip, identical to the one Billy held, lying in a small pool of blood in Jason's hand. "…is check the rest of these guys for chips like this one." Jason glanced around at his assembled friends, his face growing grim. "This may be way bigger than we thought."
Oliver Residence
Angel Grove, CA
July 10, 2012
5:30 PM
The stairs that led down to Tommy's basement from the living room were bare, uncovered wood, an indication of the as-yet-unfinished space that lay at the bottom. Billy's footsteps created a hollow thunk with each step as he descended, letting one hand drag absently along the wall. Soon, the smooth sheetrock gave way to the jagged stucco of the basement ceiling, and Billy pulled his hand back as his fingers brushed against the sharp edge. The room he was entering was dark; the only thing to penetrate it was the rapidly fading evening sunlight that filtered in through the small, grimy window near the ceiling in the far corner. Billy paused at the bottom of the stairs and let his eyes adjust for a moment.
"Jase?" His entreaty echoed off the uncovered walls and concrete floor, ringing in his ears as he stood on the threshold of the bare space. The former Blue Ranger squinted through his glasses at the spot in the room where he could just barely make out the shape of the thin cot that had been pushed against the wall. Atop the cot was the hazy, blurry shape of an unmoving human form; Billy shuddered slightly at the sight of the arm that dangled over one side of the cot, limp fingers splayed out on the cold floor. Another figure sat next to it, hunched over in the small wooden chair Tommy had placed beside the cot. When the second figure didn't move in response to Billy's call, he reached over and fumbled for the light switch, scraping his hand across the uncovered support beams and 2x4's until he found the small metal box…where the switch was already in the on position. Billy frowned and flipped the switch up and down a few times, a soft click the only result of his efforts.
"Damn thing doesn't work," said a deep, smooth voice from across the room. "Tommy must've forgotten to pay his electric bill again."
"Jason?" Billy took a tentative step toward the cot, still struggling to see.
The sitting figure's head swung up to an angle where Billy could believe it was looking at him. "Hey man. You guys all done upstairs?"
Billy moved further into the basement, his soles scraping on the floor. Jason's silhouette was becoming clearer every second, and Billy could tell now that his friend still held the knife he'd used upstairs. Another step forward revealed the freshly made cut across the corpse's left temple, the tiny trickle of blood that ran down one leg of the cot to pool on the floor. Billy stopped about halfway between Jason and the stairway.
"Yes, we've discovered identical chips in each of the other men who attacked us earlier. I came to see whether you needed any help down here."
Jason chuckled bitterly. "Billy, the amount of ways I need help right now is frightening even by Ranger standards."
"Well, at least no one could ever accuse you of half-assing anything," Billy replied with a sardonic smile. "Once a Ranger, always a Ranger, right?"
Jason chuckled again, this time with a heartening dose of sincerity. The curved, deadly blade of the knife he clasped in his fist glinted faintly in the dim light as the former Red Ranger lowered his eyes to the face of the man who lay motionless on the cot before him. After a long moment of silence, Billy spoke up again.
"Jason. Are you OK? You've been sitting down here in the dark staring at a dead man for the past twenty minutes."
Jason sighed loudly. Billy could make out his shoulders slumping against the back of his chair. When Jason spoke, his voice was so soft Billy had to strain to hear him.
"He didn't have a chip," Jason whispered. "I must've stuck my fingers into his forehead up to my palm and I didn't find a goddamn thing." He turned his head slightly toward Billy. "They would've killed us to get away with the chip we found, but…I did kill him for the exact same reason. I'm no fucking better than they are." Jason let out a frustrated grunt and tossed the knife away. It clattered loudly across the floor, eventually skidding to a stop a few feet to Billy's right. The bespectacled young man started to respond, but Jason cut him off.
"Have I ever told you that in the four years I've worked for the FBI I've never even had to pull my gun on someone? Four years, Billy, and the most violent thing I've ever had to do is shove somebody against a wall or put on a show in the interrogation room." He lifted his head now and finally looked Billy right in the eye. "And now, in the span of less than a day, I've killed one person and tried to kill another."
"You weren't yourself, Jason…"
"Yeah, everybody keeps telling me that." Jason rose to his feet and started pacing nervously. "Though I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It's the same canned spiel we used to give anyone who'd just had an evil spell thrown their way and did some shit they felt bad for later. Hell, I've done it myself more times than I can count. But do you remember what I told you guys earlier? This is different, Billy. This is…" Jason gestured vaguely with his hands as he searched for words. Finally, he stopped and let his hands fall to his sides. His head drooped a little. "At its most basic level, at the very core of my whole situation, is the fact that every last bit of power it has comes directly from me. My anger, my hatred, my resentments, everything inside of me that I've had to work my entire life to hide. This isn't something that's being forced on me; it's not some kind of magical manipulation like what happened to Tommy or Kat. This is just letting another side of me out into the daylight. And it's dangerous."
"Jase, it's not the bad parts of you that make you who you are. It's the fact that you've kept them down for so long and that now that they've been dragged out, you own up to them. That's the important thing."
"Yeah, that's what Kim said," Jason replied, a smile in his voice. "And believe me, it means a lot coming from both of you. But that doesn't make it any less dangerous. I have no way of knowing when I'm gonna lose control next; and that puts every single one of you in danger." Jason moved toward Billy now, and in the changing light, Billy could see the tired lines that crossed his old friend's face, the way his jaw seemed too tightly set, the dull glint in his eyes. "You said something a couple of hours ago about me being the one who was turning evil this time, and I seem to remember us being interrupted before you could elaborate. Care to share?" Billy started to talk immediately, but Jason interjected again. "Wait. Before you go on, I have a favor to ask. Don't try to spare my feelings." At Billy's confused look, he went on. "The reason I'm asking you this while we're alone is because out of everyone in our little family, the only one who's never been afraid to lay out the cold hard reality of a situation has been you. Trini, Tanya and Aisha always try to make us focus on something else; Rocky makes a joke out of everything, Kat and Adam are too level-headed to really get worked up over anything, and Kim, Tommy and Zack try to sugarcoat things to the point that they actually risk giving people diabetes. But you, Billy," Jason clapped a hand on Billy's shoulder. "Even when things looked their shittiest, you've never held anything back. You give a new meaning to the phrase 'brutal honesty.' Some people have found that off-putting, but I always valued that, especially as a leader, and I'm sure Tommy did too. You always made sure nobody had unrealistic expectations or underestimated an opponent; we got out of a lot of bad situations because you were there to play devil's advocate. I know I'm putting you a little behind the eight ball here, man, but I need that from you right now. Maybe more than ever. So go ahead, and don't hold back. Trust me," he grinned. "I can take it."
Billy's mouth worked soundlessly for several stunned seconds before he let out a small laugh and ran a hand through his hair. He took a few deep breaths and finally found his voice. "Thank you, Jason," he said. "I…that is quite effusive praise. I only hope my performance in addressing our current situation can adequately reflect your tremendous opinion of me." Jason's grin widened and he gave Billy's shoulder a reassuring squeeze. Billy nodded and continued. "The scan revealed that there is indeed a malevolent alien presence taking up residence in your cerebral cortex. When certain synapses fire or certain hormone levels reach a particular point, the foreign entity is able to assert power over your motor control and conscious thoughts. The scanner also showed that this presence is steadily growing stronger, requiring greater and greater effort to hold back or especially to break free of its control; in fact, the readings I saw indicated that any normal human would've begun to experience near-fatal brain hemorrhages by this point. Have you experienced anything like…?" Billy trailed off as he noticed Jason turn suddenly from where he'd been staring out into space, letting Billy's words sink in. "I'll interpret that as an affirmative."
"Why did you guys think I passed out before?"
"Exhaustion, possibly mental strain from resisting the alien power…"
"I wish," Jason snorted. "Right before I brought that guy into the house, my entire body suddenly felt like it was on fire. It was so intense I could hardly move, I could barely even breathe…by the time it was almost over I thought my heart was about to stop."
Billy sighed. "Shit," he muttered. Jason blanched a little; Billy felt a chill go through him as he slowly met the other man's eye. "It's worse than I thought. This thing should've killed you a long time ago. If we don't do something immediately…" The young scientist ran a hand over his face.
"Jason, you asked me not to hold back, and I respect you too much not to grant you that, so listen to me. This thing will kill you. It's not a question of if at this point, it's a question of when. At some point in the very near future, you will lose any ability to fight this thing's power over you. It will turn your anger into what I can only describe as roid rage from hell; you'll spend some indefinite amount of time as a raging, violent maniac with no way of stopping your own rampage. It'll make you watch while you destroy everything you ever cared about and then it will literally tear you apart from the inside out."
Jason needed a minute for that to sink in. After a tense silence that seemed to last hours, he spoke with an undeniable undertone of fury in his voice. "So how soon do we need to do something?"
Billy hesitated for a moment. "Yesterday."
Jason let out another bitter chuckle. "I'm starting to regret asking for your brutal honesty."
"So am I. But there is good news."
Jason raised an eyebrow in the fading light. "Would it have been too much trouble for you to drop that little gem before you gave me a terminal prognosis?"
"I like to save the best for last. Anyway, the good news is that I think I can get the people I work for to help you. They deal with alien technology and science on a daily basis; all the toys I brought back from Aquitar are there, too."
"All right, then. Sounds like a plan."
"There is a catch."
Jason groaned. "Of course there is."
"If I take you in there, you can't ask any questions and I can't tell you anything except what you need to know. I know the investigator in you is going to hate that –"
"No shit."
"But it's the only way they'll let an outsider in. You're just going to have to trust me."
"You and some shady government research division."
"All you need to know is that I will always have your best interests at heart. You do believe that, don't you?"
"Come on, Billy. You know I do." Billy nodded and Jason offered a hand, which Billy clasped with his own. Jason clapped him on the shoulder again and glanced at the stairs. "We should probably head back up now. The others will want to hear about this."
"Right." Billy let Jason's hand drop and turned on his heel, breaking into a slow jog as he approached the stairs. Jason followed, a little less enthusiastically. He watched as Billy climbed the stairs two at a time, wondering if the other man felt his eyes drilling into his blue-clad back.
He's more than willing to tell me the truth, even if I won't like it – yet he closes off completely when anything about that place he works for comes up, Jason thought as he gripped the railing and climbed the first couple of steps. A small knot of suspicion had begun to grow in the pit of his stomach.
So much for brutal honesty.
