The sound of sharp metal cutting across the bumpy stone wall was worse than nails on a chalkboard to Squatt and Baboo, but the two could do nothing to stop the noise. The three Putties who accompanied them kept scraping three large rakes across the craggy surface of the Moon Palace's dungeon. Both of Rita's henchmen were chained to the wall, unable to do anything but moan and scream as the rakes cut across every little pebble lodged in the wall.
"Come on, you claybrains, stop!" Squatt pleaded, his usually saliva-ridden jowls devoid of moisture. "I don't get any dinner with this same old stupid tune?"
"Don't yell at them, you dolt!" Baboo snapped, scrunching his eyes as the Putty Patrollers continued the punishment, moving even faster now. "This only makes it worse…"
"Yes, it does."
Everyone focused on Eye Guy, who walked in through the open entryway. His body was partially visible in the darkness thanks to the one torch that burned in the dungeon, each pupil taking in everything. The bulbous counselor took his heavy hand and whapped Squatt and Baboo on the back of their heads, adding even more pain to their tired, bruised forms. Meanwhile, Rita's foot soldiers raked the walls harder and faster, but Eye Guy wrenched one of the tools away from a Putty.
"That's what you get for subverting our queen," he said in a low voice, turning the rake in his bumpy, blinking hands. "And for creating a completely worthless monster. If you remember correctly, Squatt, this belonged to one of your earlier projects."
"Hey, Finster was the one that brought Gnarly Gnome to life!" the blue warthog retorted over the torture. "And that was thousands of years ago!"
Eye Guy closed his huge main eye and growled. He then stretched out his hand and lets four of his eyeballs fly. They burned with sickly energy, slicing through the two prisoners' chains and dropping them to the ground.
"Get out of here. Go now!" he ordered, pushing the Putties out of the way and shoving Squatt toward the doorway with his foot. The four retreated, Baboo quickly behind them, but Rita's top advisor pulled him by the fur on his neck.
"Hey, what gives?" the man-bat groaned, flailing his four arms. "No more!"
"You're lucky Rita told me to let you go. Otherwise, there'd be no escape from where I would send you," Eye Guy threatened, resisting the urge to make good on his words. "But you may prove to be useful."
Baboo's eyes widened with fright, as wide as the counselor's, many of which watched the flames of the torch dance in the din of the dungeon. He would do anything just to get out of the prison he had been locked up in for weeks since Monarch's demise.
"With Rita's permission," Eye Guy continued, slime dripping from his central cornea and plopping near his and Baboo's feet. "I have commissioned Finster to create another monster for the next phase of our plan to take Earth."
"Gee, with you, Goldar, Scorpina, Dredwing, and his army, I thought we'd be unstoppable. I guess not," Baboo said. This made Eye Guy pull him closer and ball up his fist, making Rita's scientist's red lips quiver.
"Squatt's idiocy is rubbing off on you. I have every confidence Dredwing will finish his plan and end the Rangers' silly resistance. But I have no doubt that the Dinozords will pose a problem even with Zordon's children out of commission."
Baboo, who had been quaking in his captor's grasp, started to calm down a little, though his head was still a bit fuzzy.
"But with our overwhelming numbers, shouldn't we be able to destroy all six of them as well?"
Eye Guy started to chuckle. "Six… Perhaps they should have fed you more in here," he quipped. "Your brain would retain such simple information. There is one more prehistoric pest we haven't seen yet. And you are going to be key in helping us make sure it is never seen again."
Misty shivered once more as she looked at the gray sky above her, Doctor April Collings' words still swimming in her mind, or rather her words concerning Dredwing's words.
"You'll draw yellow to me, and me to gold…" she repeated, having said the phrase a few times while the two walked through Riko. "Why that monster would say that to those he bit is just bizarre."
Collings raised a shoulder, scratching her head. "Well, it kind of makes sense. He just recently attacked the Yellow Power Ranger, according to the little boy of the family that was attacked last night. Maybe he's just trying to pick them off one by one."
Misty snorted, breathing deep as more pangs of venomous pain shot from her wrist and to her head and toes.
"Is he alright?" she asked? "What I'm feeling can't be worse than what he's going through."
Doctor Collings smiled and squeezed Misty's hand. "He'll be alright," she assured her. "We've moved Jack to protective custody with the police since his parents are infected."
The two then turned down another dirt country road, complete with white painted fences standing in front of wide farmland on each side; the whinnying of horses and mooing of cows could be heard far off.
"I'll do what I can to help," Misty said, hitching up her backpack and her jeans. "I know I'm alone, but I'm not afraid."
"Hey, you've got five friends and a giant robot tiger to call on. You'll be fine no matter what that freak says," Collings said, taking a look out in the distance as a dog barked out to the west; he could be seen leading fluffy white sheep up a tall green hill. Misty's mouth gaped open as the doctor spoke.
"What? I've been treating people lashing out like you did for the last week or so. And you're still up for vampire hunting. Either you've got superpowers or you're certifiably crazy for coming out here in your state."
Misty shrugged one shoulder, smiling slightly.
"And don't worry," Collings continued. "I won't tell. Doctor-patient confidentiality."
"Doctor-Ranger is more like it," Misty remarked.
A few minutes later, the young women came upon a big brick building near the edge of a fork in the road; a few cars sat . Though it seemed larger in width, the structure supported a tall, white, needlelike steeple that reached to the sky. Misty immediately started heading toward it.
"I don't think the monster would be in here, Misty," Collings said as they walked up the steps.
"That's exactly why I'm going in," the Cerulean City native responded, clenching her teeth and crouching as Dredwing's poison coursed through her veins.
"Go ahead… Step inside and feel the burn."
Once again, Misty whipped her head upward and pushed the doctor back when she tried to help her up. She then barged through the double doors of the church, right into a crowd of people lining the aisles. Two of them looked at Misty as she strained to gather herself, but turned back to the babble of talk helping fill the main room.
Collings followed behind as the young lady squeezed through the throng of people and past rows of stained glass windows, finally gaining a grip on her after some resistance. However, everyone in the church was too preoccupied to notice them. Folks cradled sharp wooden poles close to them and yelling at each other, others sat in the pews and quietly prayed, and all were tense. The two came face to face with an older gentleman with a white beard and matching close-cropped hair shouting at a man a foot taller than him.
"You're lucky I'm letting people in here with those stakes! There's no way we're letting you bring a gun inside!"
"Now see here!" the burly man, poking the smaller one in the chest with a thick finger. "I have to protect my family, and here is the only place where that bloodsucker can't come in. I'm gonna stand my ground here and blast his guts out whether you like it or not!"
"Come on, Willy," a thin lady with long blonde hair said, trying to grab his hand in comfort. "You're welcome to stay here with your family. But we have to keep it peaceful in here."
"You stay out of this, Miss Karen!" Willy snapped, pulling back hard, prompting someone next to him to say, "You tell her!" However, this also raised Misty's ire.
"You heard her, cool it!" she nearly screamed, getting in the man's face. Willy stood there with wide eyes for a moment, but then huffed, straightened his denim jacket, and turned to move into the crowd.
Misty let out a subdued snarl, which caused Karen and the man next to her to stare.
"I don't know why he's so insistent," she spoke, pushing some fronds of red hair back behind her ears. "I thought the people, not the building, were the church."
Karen giggled and looked at the older man, who was wiping flecks of spittle off of his blue dress shirt.
"True, but this is a safe place, and everyone who needs to be here should be here," the woman answered, taking time to inspect Misty, especially noting her pale complexion and bloodshot eyes. "Are you alright?"
"Later, I will," Misty replied, nodding and grinning as she noticed someone twirling a razor-sharp wooden stake like a baton. As she looked on and around her, the beating pain began to change, feeling more like a stinging sensation.
"Pastor Stephen," April Collings started, turning to the head of the church with her nose wrinkled; now that she and Misty had a chance to just stand, she could smell the potent stench of garlic that several Riko townsfolk brought in pervading the room. "You can't fit the whole town in here."
"We'd sure try, April, but I don't think it will get that bad," the pastor said, chuckling and looking over to some of his associate clergy, who were holding the shoulders of people with bowed heads, read certain verses to them, and talked and laughed with children to keep their minds off of the impending danger. "A lot of them are just seeking some extra prayer and for me to bless their weapons; they're determined to defend their homes."
Karen nodded as well, closing her eyes. "I would never have imagined actually praying over garlic to ward off vampires," she added. "But ever since the summer ended, I suppose we'd better be ready for anything. Anyway, how can we help you two?"
"Well, Miss Karen," Misty initiated. "I'm trying to help Doctor Collings here find any more patterns concerning the attacks in Riko. Everything is a little patchy, but seems to have worked downward through the Amalei Region."
"That's right," the doctor concurred. "But some of the earliest attacks occurred here, from what I remember."
Pastor Stephen took off his spectacles, cleaning them off with a white cloth in his shirt pocket. One of his associates tried to call him over, but he waved him off as if to say, "Later."
"It's all strange to me, just too strange," he said. "But I'll tell you like I told the police, that Karen and I found the first known victim just a ways from the church."
Misty and Collings kept straight faces when Pastor Stephen relayed the news, Misty tightening her jaw and Collings wiping her left eye with the sleeve of her leather jacket.
"It was Catherine Prince, one of our worship leaders," Karen added in a deadpan voice. "We found her a few hundred yards out early that morning. It looked like someone had beaten her, but when we saw the marks on her wrist, we thought she had been injected with something, not bitten. They didn't…" she took a moment to compose herself. "They didn't look like those horrible bites we see now. But why would that beast do that to her?"
Pastor Stephen pulled his wife into a tight hug, and Collings leaned into Misty's ear to whisper.
"I wasn't present when Catherine first came into our hospital. But after meeting you, she looks nearly like you, red hair and everything."
"So that means he was sent by Rita," Misty whispered back. "But why would Dredwing attack someone that looks like me in this town unless…he's hiding close by…"
Misty stepped away from the doctor. It took her only five seconds to piece it all together. A few miles past this area of farmland was a certain area she and her fellow Rangers knew all too well: the Life's End caverns.
As the pastor, his wife, and the physician talked, Misty moved her eyes to a tall white cistern standing on scarlet carpeting in front of the altar, filled to the brim with water. She gazed into the small pool, taking her right forefinger and slowly moving it downward. The stinging feeling that steadily needled her grew hotter as her digit got closer to the water, and she jerked back when she dipped it inside, almost tumbling into a couple of kids behind her. She clutched her finger and her wrist while Dredwing's laughter rang in her ears, and the horrific visions resumed.
"Places like these don't quench your thirst for more," the monster taunted, flashes of individuals being assailed by vampires in what looked to be a hospital bombarding her. "Allow me to sate the life you crave."
Misty saw blood flow from the victims in her mind, but she didn't let the panic or the incendiary effects of the monster show in the place of worship. April, Karen, and Pastor Stephen all looked at her standing stiff, eyes locked open and sweat once again running down from her head to her chin. The girl licked her lips at the sight of blood, its visage much like a desert oasis to her. She grinned again, looking at all of their necks and pressing her tongue to one of her teeth, which felt just a little sharper than before.
The three adults approached Misty slowly as to not draw unneeded attention. Doctor Collings quickly took the teenager's bag and drew out two large bottles, going back to the cistern after knowing exactly what to do. The pastor and his wife began speaking in hushed tones, Karen going to clasp Misty's hand, only to be wrenched close to her, Misty flashing a vicious, hungry look. Yet, her countenance started to fade when her hand brushed her pocket, bumping into the outline of her Power Coin. She then dipped her head after a few moments, allowing the two to continue speaking and lay comforting hands on her, but not without silently speaking herself.
"Hide and Seek is over, Dredwing. Now you can't hide from me anymore."