Chapter 34—Biographies

Amy

I couldn't turn on a radio without hearing about Grace and Patrick's mixed-music group, Adam & Eden, and to say the rest of the team was less than pleased would be a gross understatement. It wasn't so much that we were angry with them for being recruited by SPD, but more so that they'd been given all the credit for holding Mesomorph and the Mecha Squad at bay. We'd all put forth a tremendous amount of effort to fight off the psychotic Aleph Beyt cult, but Doc Ol was adamant that we keep our identities secret.

SPD was withholding our identities from the public, but that didn't stop the paparazzi from digging into every detail of Patrick and Grace's lives. I'd been interviewed at least fifty times about my relationship with Patrick—down to the details of sex—and I was beginning to resent him for being so arrogant in his stardom.

"Hey, Ames," said someone from behind me.

I turned around and smiled at Matt, who had just entered the basement with a bag of fast food.

"What are you doing here? I thought you were still in good ol' South Carolina?" he asked as he chewed a few French fries.

I stole one and replied, "My Spring Break starts earlier than your guys' and I figured I'd come home early. I get gawked at like a celebrity down there. I came in to check up on the Zordians, I was thinking of going to visit them and get to know them."

"Yeah, we've been lucky enough to not have to use them in battle just yet, but all the combat training on the weekends is killing me."

"Speaking of, aren't we scheduled for a session in a few hours?"

He groaned an affirmative and I swiveled in my chair while pondering my activities for the day.

"Where's Jaybird?" Matt asked me, disrupting my thoughts once again. He had a habit of doing that.

"He won't be in til later; he said he's got 'stuff' to do in Michigan still," I answered slowly as I stood. "I'm gonna go hang out with the Zordians, though; I'll catch you at training."

I ascended the stairs just in time to hear Doc Ol yelling at someone.

"I see you on the television in almost less than nothing, singing about being 'sleazy!'"

"Dad, it's a song! I've never even had sex!"

I raised an eyebrow at that. I knew Grace was an ice queen in high school, but I figured she'd have gotten laid by now. Especially with all her fame. Poor Matt was grilled the worst about Grace. It seemed our old classmates told everything to the press about Matt's feelings for her. Then again, I couldn't say he got a shitty deal out of it; plenty of magazines had approached him to do modeling, because, let's face it; Matt's pretty cute. I never really understood why Grace never gave him the time of day…

"Well…still…you need to cover up."

"No."

The finality in her tone was so powerful it almost knocked me off my feet.

"For my entire life, I was controlled and manipulated into doing what people told me; being the perfect little bookworm, dancing in perfect ballet style, and all of this shit, and I'm sick of it. I'm being me, now stop trying to change me." She stopped for a breath and added, "But I mean…if you can't support me either, then I guess what's one less parent?"

Doc Ol was completely and totally silent. I heard Grace's footsteps leave the kitchen and I took this as my opportunity to sneak out. When I stepped outside, I noticed Grace on the front porch, desperately trying to light up a cigarette.

I used my powers to force a telekinetic wave on the flames, making them jump up a little higher and light her cigarette. She looked at me with a thankful glance, and then fixed her sight on the horizon. I felt it necessary to ask her if she was okay. Grace and I used to be so close, but then we began to realize that it was Patrick who had brought us together. He was like our glue, and with him always gone, we all sort of fell apart.

"You okay?"

She took a drag from her cigarette and shook her head, and then she exhaled the smoke and fixed me with her eyes. "I'm tired."

I pulled out one of my own cigarettes and grinned. "I can only imagine."

She chuckled and said, "No, really. I…I love what I'm doing right now, but I'm so tired of the strain it's putting on everyone else. It's like…they can't handle the little tastes of my life they get…imagine how I feel."

I had never really thought of what a sacrificial role she and Patrick had taken on. They were sacrificing what little normality they had in their lives to make the Power Rangers look better. They were getting us countless government contracts and funding, and helping us keep people safe in the middle of battles.

I did know that this new claim to fame had taken its toll on more than just Grace. Patrick and Aaron's relationship was rocky at best. After Adam & Eden re-did Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" song, I thought they would be golden. It couldn't have been any cheesier, but it showed that the Adam portion of Adam & Eden could hold his own vocally as well; after all, it was sometimes difficult to compete with Grace's vocal ability. Even though she picked songs with relatively easy vocals, she took them and magnified them to an extent that made her sound so…bad ass.

"I'm really not trying to sound selfish," she added thoughtfully, "it just sucks: being resented for something you're doing for other people just because you enjoy it."

"I never thought of it that way," I admitted, ashing my cigarette compulsively. "Have you tried to tell your dad this?"

"Like he'd listen," she scoffed. "My dad may be a great ranger, but he's terrible with taking suggestions. He's very hardheaded, and since I'm his daughter, he's extremely overprotective. You don't see him getting pissed at Patrick for walking around half-naked in his videos."

I rolled my eyes at that. I had gotten a little irritated with that. Patrick had become some kind of sexual idol, and though he completely ignored it in person, his famous alter ego reveled in it. I could only imagine how Aaron felt about that, but given his bashful state every time he heard "Teenage Dream," or one of the other campy covers, I assumed he was jealous but easily flattered.

"Talk to him," I said, squeezing her arm. "He might understand if you tell him like you told me."

"He won't even listen to Jason," Grace said suddenly, almost ignoring me. "He and Jason have been friends for years, and then they had this massive falling out that keeps them from talking to each other. I've tried to get Jason to talk to my dad so many times."

"You need to talk to him," I said rationally. "You can't expect it to fix itself if you're getting other people to talk to him for you."

"Ugh," she sighed. "You're right."

I smiled at her and patted her shoulder. "Of course."

"Hey, where're you headed?" she asked as I'd started to walk away.

"To chill with the Zordians," I said back, "wanna come?"

She looked around a little and scratched her forehead. Then she grabbed her jacket and said, "Yeah…yeah I would, actually."

—34—

If I thought it was difficult for me to go out in public, it was nearly impossible for Grace. She usually resorted in using her Shadow Powers to cloak herself, but that got extremely taxing on her body; especially with her more than hectic work life. Ha, work life. It's funny how entertaining for the world while also saving it can fall under the category of work—but at the same time, it was almost overwhelmingly true.

We made an effort to avoid main roads while driving, even though I had insisted we take the teleporters or fly; Grace objected and said something about missing being normal.

She was fiddling with the radio when she accidentally passed a song Patrick had just released under Adam & Eden called "Fading." I knew it was a cover of an older song, but ignored it for the most part until I realized it was mostly Patrick singing.

"Are things okay between Aaron and Patrick?" I asked Grace, trying to fill the silence in my little car.

"Well, if by 'okay' you mean it's okay that Aaron goes partying just about every night while Patrick works his ass off and tries his best to salvage their relationship, then yeah; everything's cool."

"It's that bad?" I wondered incredulously. "How'd things get like this?"

"Well…" Grace sighed, opening her pack of cigarettes and handing me one. "Aaron, as you know, is not out. To anyone. The only people who know anything are rangers and whatnot, so it's kept very hush-hush."

I nodded, "Yeah, but I thought Patrick was cool with that?"

"Yeah," Grace fired back, "to an extent. Aaron still acts like he's single. And I don't just mean he doesn't tell people he's taken, I mean he actively flirts with other people."

"Guys?" I asked, bewildered.

"Girls!"

"What the fuck?"

"Right! I mean, it's one thing for him to not tell people he's dating someone, because then they might get suspicious about why he never talks about his significant other; BUT, the whole actively pursuing girls thing is ridiculously fucked up."

I had to agree. I had never really thought Aaron the kind of guy to do that. Not to Patrick, at least. They had their share of fights, of course, but we all just assumed they were in it for…well…forever. Things were so serious with them that we didn't think there'd come a time when they'd break up.

"Do you think Aaron's actually cheating?" I questioned.

Grace shrugged. "Men are pigs, but Aaron's not that fucked up. He wouldn't do that to Patrick, and I don't even think Eltarians can. I asked Patrick about it, and he says he's not worried that Aaron will cheat, he's just worried that he'll find someone else."

"Oh," I said bluntly. I knew how that felt.

"Yeah…so Patrick's kind of miserable, but he's starting to get more independent of Aaron—they don't talk every day or anything and Patrick's so focused on his career that he's not paying any attention to anything else."

"Which career, though?" I asked.

"All of them," she said simply. "He's still taking online courses at DePaul, he's got the Adam & Eden thing going on, and then he's got SPD paying him out the ass for his publicity."

"And what about being a ranger? What about being him?"

Grace was silent at that. "I know what you mean," she said, "I do. But Patrick and I have accepted that we're changing and that nothing's permanent. We all change with time, and maybe this is who Patrick is now…"

I let the car idle for a few moments before I killed the ignition and sat in a field where the Zordians were hiding their ship.

"You really think Patrick would block us all out like that? Just because of what's happening with Aaron?"

"When has Patrick ever not been there in a battle?"

I didn't say anything. Because I knew the answer was never.

"Never," she answered for me. "Patrick puts us over everything, he just can't be everywhere at once. He's only human."

—34—

"I used to be a nobody Eltarian; I was just kind of a punk, got into a bunch of stuff, and then that was that. But then I started to grow up, and there was all this talk of war and riots and all this other stuff, and I freaked out. So I went and enlisted in the Eltarian Fighter Force."

"I'm sorry, the what?" Grace asked, sipping her drink and interrupting Tonyxyn's story for about the third time.

"It's like the air force!" I yelled at her. "You were saying?"

"I turned my life around. I met a lot of friends in the Eff, but I lost all of them in one of the early Eltarian wars. From then on out, I became the best fighter there was, until my death on the planet Zordia. Zeta found me and reconverted my essence into a Zordian, and I've been this way ever since."

"So…if you're a military fighter pilot, why aren't you more…you know…strict?" Grace wondered legitimately.

"He discovered Cyberbs," Zeta said with a chuckle, "which is not a topic to discuss with such young minds in the room."

"Um, I'm an adult," I snipped at him, "and if this guy's in my head, I want to know what kind of cyberbs he's on!"

"Hey, whoa," Tonyxyn butted in, "not cool. Cyberbs are completely legal, man."

"Why do I have a feeling Cyberbs is just a Zordian way of saying 'cyber herbs?'" Grace laughed.

I rolled my eyes at Tonyxyn. "You're a pink, pot-smoking, hippie Zordian?"

The room was silent until Zeta burst out laughing at the expression on Tonyxyn's metallic face.

"Well, I guess we know why you're such a laidback kinda Zordian," Amantanine said in jest.

"Amantanine, what's your story?" Grace asked as the laughter died down.

"I was just kind of dragged into the war; my father had always been active in the military, and my three brothers before me were all Eltarian Land Forces. I went in to serve in communications, but our bunker was sabotaged in one of the battles and I was forced to take arms. I haven't stopped fighting since."

"Did you win?" Grace asked. "In the bunker, that is?"

"In some ways, yes. I lost that battle, but I'm winning the war."

"Are we done with story time, now?" Frankilos asked irritably. "I'm so bored. I just wanna do something."

"That's what you get for picking a sports car as a vehicular form," Lyzabeta joked with him. "You just need to learn some patience."

I was about to speak when there was a rapping on the gangway.

Suddenly, Patrick, Jay, Matt, and Aaron walked in. Then I noticed Beth trailing.

"Hey everyone," I said, surprised. "Where was the party?"

"Not here," Beth said, "but the training session is."

Grace, the Zordians, and I all groaned.

"Already?" I whined.

"YES!" Cheered Frankilos. "Let's do stuff! Come on, come on, come on! Let's go!"

I stared at my boyfriend in shock. "I think your Zordian's on crack."

—34—

The one thing that scared me the most about flying with Tonyxyn was that he was so…spastic. He was reliable, of course, but he just had moments where you were just like…"what the fuck?"

As we were running a basic aerial drill, I was talking with him more about the other Zordians, and he decided to bank left. Hard. My helmeted head crashed against the audio consoles on the chair, and I yelled out in shock.

"Dude! What the fuck?"

"Incoming missile: vector two-nine-zero-zero-eight!" His steely, echoing voice informed me. "Time to impact: 7.4 seconds!"

"Initiate field barrier! Priming retro-boosters!" I yelled back to him. "So much for a training session," I grumbled to myself as I furiously input commands.

"Sigma Pink, do you copy? This is SPD Air Control, please state your condition."

"I've got incoming missiles and nobody on radar; not so much as a blip!"

"Maybe you should tell him to lay off those Cyberbs," Grace chuckled in my comm-link.

"Psi Black, seriously; I've got incoming enemy fire," I screamed, "Requesting immediate backup!"

"Sigma Pink, this is Delta White, I've got a visual and confirm zero missiles; I repeat, zero missiles."

I frowned at Aaron's message. "Tonyxyn, what are you doing?"

"Amy, listen to me; there's a morphtronic extrapolator attached to that missile. If it hits you, it will strip you of your morphing energy and kill us both."

"Wait, kill? From one missile?"

"It's a morphtronic extrapolator!"

"What the fuck is that?"I screamed.

Tonyxyn banked again before performing a summersault and pushing every last bit of fuel he had to his primary thrusters. The missile, according to him, was just seconds from impact.

"It means it will strip your morpher of all its energy—including that which is biologically implemented into your life force. It will literally kill you, and your link to me will kill us both."

"Oh, great! NOW you tell me that this fucking thing attached to my arms can kill me just by being drained? AND, to make matters worse, I'm now sharing a life with a crazy, stoned, pink space fighter!"

"Amy, we've got to transform," he urged me.

"We haven't even learned basic fighting patterns! How the hell do you expect me to sync your reformatting with my biorhythmic morphing energy?"

"Sounds to me like you know what to do! Initiating Transformation Process! BURST Execute!"

"Tonyxyn, NO!"

I felt the spacecraft's body begin to dislodge and reshape itself, until I was sure that Tonyxyn was back to his large, aerial-capable robot body. Slowly, I felt my body return to my senses as looked outside via the view screen in front of me. It was then that I noticed my arms and legs and even my head and body were attached to Tonyxyn in an almost miming manner. On all my monitors were the words "BURST EXECUTE." The BURST Execution, or Biorhythmic Unity of Reformation and Synchronicity Transformation, was the ultimate Zordian technique. It was capable of combining the life forces of a Zordian and the Zordian's Link-Pilot and fusing them with the morpher energy shared between the two. Obviously, it was an extremely dangerous process that, if done incorrectly, could kill both the Link-Pilot and the Zordian or botch the fusion process of the two bodies. From the looks of it, something had gone wrong.

"What the hell?" I slowly asked. "Why am I all wired up to you? Oh God! Am I part machine? What the hell happened?"

"Amy, Amy, Amy! It's fine! Everything worked fine. Everything is okay. Now we just have to focus on the giant deathly missile hurtling toward us that no one else can see."

"Then everything is NOT OKAY!" I shouted.

As soon as I moved, though, Tonyxyn moved. It was like we were one.

"Stop freaking out, Amy, you need to force yourself to control your impulses and work with me!"

The missile got closer, and I began to see a little ring of energy before…

I swatted my hand out and flexed my fist, urging the lasers on Tonyxyn's forearm to fire. An explosion of energy rippled out with the sheer magnitude of several hurricanes, and Tonyxyn and I flew back into the forest—destroying a good portion of it.

"Good job, kid," Tonyxyn said as he coughed. "We made it."

"Not quite," I said, noticing the blips on the radar. "We've got four bogies comin in hot. I can guarantee you they're DigiMech."

"You're right. And it looks like it's just you and me, too."

"You ready for this, pinky?" I asked apprehensively, the still before battle stabbing at my nerves like electric anxiety.

"Let's rock it."