Revised update schedule: My sincere apologies, but I've found my original update schedule impossible to maintain. From now on I will try to update every three weeks, but I'm afraid I can make no promises. Again, I'm sorry and I hope you enjoy this chapter!
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"Planetary sensors were able to verify that there had been an extremely brief teleportation, but it appeared to terminate in empty space outside of the planet's atmosphere. There must have been a cloaked ship there, just as the attacker himself was cloaked. There was no trail to follow, so I came at once to personally report to you," Darkonda finished smoothly.
Beyond the transparent pane of the Dark Fortress' command room window, the Grand Emperor of Evil seemed to be deep in thought. Minutes passed before at last he spoke.
"Yet his mission was accomplished before the abduction?"
"The reunification of the Royal House of Gadgetry is complete! Prince Gasket is even now returning to Horath to gather and lead his fleet in support of the UAE."
What might have been a smile passed over Dark Specter's craggy, black-rock visage.
"Good. The remaining Psycho Rangers will be more than a match for what's left of the Light Rangers. Still, I shall not allow the Galactic League hold a Psycho Ranger in captivity! Your new task, Darkonda, is to use your skills as a spy and infiltrator to locate the Blue Psycho Ranger. If you can free him yourself, do so! If not, report his location and its defenses to me."
"Yes, my lord. I will scour every asteroid in the galaxy if need be to find him!" Darkonda swore, dropping to one knee in a show of fealty.
Though it proved an exceedingly difficult task, the treacherous mercenary somehow managed to keep from laughing until he was safely back aboard his ship.
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For a time Delphine and Cassie sat together without speaking, the only sound that of the nearby waves crashing down upon the rocky shore far below. To Delpine it was a soothing, familiar sound, a welcome reminder of how close at hand water was, the lifeblood of all Aquitans.
To Cassie, an electronic android, the sound was much less comforting. Thus it was perhaps not surprising that she spoke first, giving voice to her anxiety.
"What if the others can't find Dulcea?" she asked. "What if . . . what if she's died since Billy came here?"
Aurico was the team's tactician, but the White Aquitan Ranger was the overall leader of the Light Rangers. She would be the one to set the course on the larger matters.
"Billy told us about the monolith. If Dulcea cannot aid us," Delphine paused for breath, her head tilted to the side as was so common with the Aquitans. "Then we will journey toward it nonetheless."
"We can do nothing else," the White Aquitan Ranger admitted, directly and forthrightly, and eventually Cassie nodded in agreement.
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Justin was bouncing around, hopping from one large rock to the next as they scouted the area. Being cooped up in that ship for so long had obviously been a trial for him and T.J. was relieved to see at least a trace of his fellow Ranger's high spirits returning, although such movements looked odd indeed for an apparent adult of Justin's size.
Besides, it wasn't like Justin was neglecting their task; in spite of his rather erratic motion the way his helmet craned back and forth constantly suggested his focus remained on searching for any sign of this planet's Master Warrior. Once they'd found her they could begin the real journey to claim the Great Power, a trial which he was very eager to undertake.
Unlike undoubtedly the vast majority of the previous challengers who had come to this planet, T.J. held no fear whatsoever for his own continued existence. This lack was neither because he was a robot nor because of his saved memories and personality in the machine back on Aquitar; rather it was because any such fear of mortality was crowded out by a much more terrifying fear.
The fear of failure.
T.J. knew that the human T.J. had failed. He had failed to stop the Psycho Rangers from killing his friends, he had failed to turn back the United Alliance of Evil's horde from Earth, and he had failed to save Zordon.
He didn't hate his human self for that, because he knew that in the original T.J.'s place he would have done exactly the same things. How could he not have? They were basically the same person.
He would have failed too.
T.J. didn't know if his fellow androids felt same weight of guilt and responsibility as he did; he hoped not, but it was something the Robot Rangers had never once talked about. All he knew was that he felt driven to make up for the mistakes he would have made in T.J.'s place, to set things to right again in the galaxy. And he would fight to his last volt of power to do just that.
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"Where is she?" Tideus asked in aggravated frustration.
So far he and Aurico had been walking for what seemed like forever and they had yet to detect even the slightest sign of their quarry's presence.
Well, "quarry" wasn't exactly the right word; it wasn't like they were hunting her down to kill her. They just had to talk with her and have her do that animal spirit thing.
Assuming it was really necessary. They could probably pass this trial without it. They weren't just fighting for themselves, after all, or even for the galaxy: they were fighting to avenge Corcus and Cestro!
His longtime friends and teammates, gone like that! And it had happened so fast, at least for Corcus. Cestro had gone slower, in terrible pain as he clung desperately to his life . . .
No! He wouldn't think about that anymore! He had to concentrate not on mourning his friends, but on avenging them! Once they had the Great Power, the Psycho Rangers were finally going to die! And they wouldn't get to go quickly, as Corcus had!
'Tideus' he heard in his mind as Aurico laid a hand on his right shoulder. 'I know the pain you feel. We all feel it! The loss of Cestro and Corcus is a wound from which we will never fully heal. Yet you must not let their deaths lead you down the path of vengeance; neither of them would have wanted that. We will destroy the Psycho Rangers not for what they have done to us, but because they are a threat to all who live, and we the defenders of life.'
Aurico was making sense, yet part of Tideus didn't want to hear it. He jerked away from his teammate's physical touch and then broke their mental connection.
"I know, all right?" he asked belligerently. "I just want to find this Dulcea so we can get the Great Power and get out of here!"
"Almost all of those who have come here seeking the Great Power have died," a voice called from behind them in the English language.
Whirling around Tideus and Aurico beheld a black-clad figure less than six feet away, the open hood of its robe concealing the face within-and holding a spear in his right hand. How had he managed to get this close without either of them hearing him, Tideus wondered as he unsheathed his sword only a second and a half behind Aurico's blindingly fast draw.
"But the first part of your wish has been granted," the figure continued, seeming completely unruffled by the sudden pulling of weapons from her audience.
"You seek Dulcea? You have found her."
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A fierce wave of excitement swept through the teenage Gold Psycho Ranger when he received the message to report to the main hangar bay.
Back in the resistance similar orders had almost always preceded a call to action, and the same was probably true here. Fred wanted action, wanted to show again what he could do and take out the simmering anger within him on someone.
And unless the GLL had been stupid enough to launch a ground assault on the Alliance, action meant that Justin had completed his mission and returned! That was even better news than the prospect of being able to slaughter a legion or two of the enemy!
Fred had always been able to endure downtime before, but a big part of his ability to endure had been founded on spending such time with his friends. Here he had no friends except Justin, and he had missed the brown-haired boy more than he would willingly admit.
The thought of being together again with his buddy, the two of them killing ass and not bothering to take any names, nearly led the Gold Psycho Ranger to go at blur mode down the hall. Wisely he refrained from doing so, thus sparing countless Quantrons and undoubtedly a fellow Psycho Ranger or two.
At least sparing them for now. As he strode briskly down the hallway the teenager sneered under his helmet, happily anticipating the day when he would gut Tommy and at the very least beat hell out of the others-except for Justin, of course.
The massive hangar was filled to capacity with ships, Quantrons, and a motley collection of monsters and mercenaries. Everyone capable of it was standing at attention. Fred walked up to where the Pink, Green and Yellow Psycho Rangers stood at the head of the column, near the closed bay doors and took his place, though with a slight and conscious distance from the back-stabbers.
Facing this gathering of the UAE's military might was Astronema, the Princess of Darkness.
Another Ranger made his way to the front, and to Fred's disappointment it was Tommy.
Where was Justin? The Gold Psycho Ranger wondered impatiently. Was he going to come in with Gasket?
Astronmea raised her arms and shouted, "Victory for the United Alliance of Evil is at hand! Today we begin the final campaign to institute our rule across the galaxy! The prodigal son of the Machine Empire, Prince Gasket, has returned to his father! With his fleet now at our disposal the Galactic Alliance of Light ships are outnumbered and outgunned! You will all be present among our invasion forces, but it is the Pyscho Rangers who will spearhead the planetary offensives. Obey their orders and prove your worth as soldiers! If you do, then by this time next year the not a single world will still claim allegiance to the League! Forward, to the United Alliance of Evil's glorious future!" she shouted, and a rousing cheer greeted her words. Even the Quantrons made some kind of oscillating noise which Fred assumed was their version of cheering.
With her hangar-wide address finished Astronema drew close to the Pyscho Rangers, while numerous officer Quantrons circulated amongst everyone else, handing out assignments.
"You'll be stationed on the Envenomed Blade," she told them, "and you'll be leading every invasion. If the Light Rangers dare to show their helmets, make sure they don't escape again!" she commanded.
"They won't," Tommy hissed. As Astronema turned to go Fred could restrain himself no longer.
"When will Justin be back with us?" he questioned again. Facing him Astronema seemed confused by the question. She was number two in charge in the entire freaking Alliance, shouldn't she know Justin's na-
Oh.
"I mean, when will the Blue Psycho Ranger be back?" he corrected himself.
"He was abducted by an invisible attacker at King Mondo's palace. We don't know where he's been taken, but Darkonda will find out."
WHAT?! Justin gone, just like that? How was that even possible?
"I can help Darkonda find him," Fred offered almost before the Princess had finished speaking.
Now her expression had become one of disdain. "You are the most powerful of the Psycho Rangers," she told him curtly. "You need to be on the front lines, attacking the points of greatest resistance. You're not a spy or a detective, you're a weapon. Don't try to be anything more."
She turned and walked away from him, unaware of how close she came to having the back of her head caved in by Fred's staff. Fortunately for her he'd had a lot of practice controlling his temper lately, so he was once again able to resist the urge he felt to kill.
They shouldn't have one person looking for Justin, Fred fumed to himself; they should have thousands! It was only because of Justin that the UAE was able to get Prince Gasket on its side in the first place! He had taken the impossible assignment Dark Specter had given him and he had completed it! Finding and rescuing him should be the Alliance's top priority!
Caught up in his rage and indignation on his only friend's behalf, it took Fred a moment to realize that the other Pyscho Rangers had already walked away. They hadn't expressed any concern for Justin at all!
That was it. Tommy wouldn't be the only Psycho Ranger to die after Justin returned.
And he would return. Fred had to believe that. Whoever had abducted him had wanted him alive, otherwise they would have killed him on the spot. The GLL was the most likely suspect, but not the only one. The kidnapping could have been done by any one of the UAE's luminaries. He simply had no way of knowing.
Whoever was responsible, Fred would eventually find them, no matter how long it took or how much effort. He would find them, free Justin, and destroy the Blue Psycho Ranger's captors.
That was a promise.
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Aurico radioed the others and let them know that he and Tideus had found Dulcea-or rather, that Dulcea had found them.
Once they'd made it back to the ruins they had to wait only a few moments more for Justin and T.J. to arrive. The surviving Light Rangers stood in a group before Dulcea. As a sign of respect, Delphine removed her helmet prior to speaking to the Master Warrior of Phaedos.
In response she cast off her all-concealing hooded cloak, revealing what appeared to be a young human woman in her early twenties, with long, curly brown hair. She wore a circlet of leather and had on a leather codpiece, boots, and brassiere, leaving little of her taut, tanned body to the imagination.
She was exactly as Billy had described her. There was no question that this was indeed Dulcea.
"Dulcea, we are the Light Rangers, the last group of Rangers still fighting against the United Alliance of Evil. Billy sent us here to seek the Great Power, in order that we may safeguard what remains of the free galaxy," Delphine stated forthrightly.
"Billy sent you? Are you not under the command of Zordon, as Billy himself was when he came here?" Dulcea asked pointedly.
Delphine bowed her head. "I am sorry to be the bearer of sad tidings. Zordon . . . Zordon is dead, murdered at the claw of Dark Specter."
"Zordon, dead? Are you certain?" Dulcea demanded, her beautiful face now a picture of shocked grief. She looked at the Light Rangers one by one, almost pleadingly, but none of them stepped forth to contradict their leader's assertion.
"We are sure," Delphine assured her. "He fell two years ago. It was his death which enabled Billy to unite the free planets into the Galactic League of Light, the only opposition to Dark Specter's alliance."
Dulcea turned away from the White Aquitan Ranger, looking out to the ocean, her shoulders shaking slightly. Delphine had a good idea as to why and neither she nor the other Light Rangers intruded on Dulcea's mourning.
When Dulcea eventually turned back toward them her face was dry, but there was a new anguish visible in her eyes.
"So Billy believes you can complete the quest for the Great Power?"
Delphine nodded. "He does. That we do so is the galaxy's only remaining hope. Otherwise we cannot stand against the Psycho Rangers."
"Who are these Psycho Rangers?"
"They appear to be evil Rangers who serve the United Alliance of Evil. What they truly are none of us know, but they have already killed four of us," Delphine confessed.
Dulcea nodded. "You must go. I will aid you all I can. First, give me your morphers."
"Why?" Delphine asked, head cocked to one side.
"You cannot seek the Great Power through using the Power," Dulcea explained impatiently. "You have to relinquish all connection to the Morphin Grid before beginning your ordeal. You must rely on your own strength of mind and body, not on the enhancements offered to Rangers."
Slowly Delphine demorphed and surrendered her morpher to the Master Warrior. The others did likewise and Dulcea's pained eyes widened.
"Aquitans and humans, merged in one team?" she asked curiously.
"Actually we're androids with copies of human minds and personalities," the now much shorter Justin put in.
Dulcea started violently, staring at the Robot Rangers.
"What's wrong?" T.J. wanted to know, not liking that reaction one bit.
Slowly Dulcea shook her head. "In all my centuries here, only living beings have come to seek the Great Power. I do not know if machines are even capable of receiving it."
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Billy had a space cleared out in his private lab well before the Phantom Ranger arrived with his cargo.
His decision to pull the Phantom Ranger out and send him to capture the Blue Psycho Ranger had been far from an easy one. Many times the information that Phantom had been able to overhear while cloaked in the Dark Fortress had been of vital importance. To cite only one example, if not for his efforts the Light Rangers would have had to face the Psycho Zords in battle rather than detecting and blowing them up while they were still under construction.
Now, with the Galactic League at such a disadvantage, good intelligence was more valuable than ever. Nevertheless Billy had chosen to throw the dice, to gamble what he had in the hopes of gaining yet more.
In one respect it had worked. The Blue Psycho Ranger was safely trapped in "Cestro". He had hoped against hope that being deprived of the dark Ranger power would actually kill the being, but according to Phantom's report he was still alive.
Billy had long puzzled over what exactly the Psycho Rangers were. Were they Finster-created monsters? Advanced androids produced by the Machine Empire? Interstellar mercenaries such as Darkonda? For the entire span of the war with the UAE their true nature had remained frustratingly enigmatic.
In all of his time on the Dark Fortress Phantom had never once observed any of the Psycho Rangers in a demorphed state. Perhaps he would of if he had dared try to infiltrate their living quarters, but his orders had strictly forbidden him to pursue such a course of action. The Psycho Ranger rooms were too small, the chances of being detected far too great. His cloaking power hid him from the normal visual spectrum, but it didn't render him intangible. He could still be bumped into and found out that way. For that matter, the scanners operating the automatic doors in the Dark Fortress were still able to detect him. If the UAE ever realized he was in their sanctum sanctorum they could very easily make it impossible for him to remain there.
The sight of something invisible grappling with the Blue Pyscho Ranger might well have blown that secret, yet it would have been worth it if the evil Ranger had been abducted in time to prevent him from engineering a rapprochement between the Machine Empire's monarch and his estranged son.
Catastrophically, that appeared not to be the case. Long range sensors showed that almost Prince Gasket's entire fleet was moving toward the border zone between the United Alliance of Evil and the Galactic League of Light. Admiral Telan and the rest of the fleet were in for the fight of their lives, and a fight for the lives of everyone within the GLL.
There was nothing he could do about that now, but the Blue Psycho Ranger was another matter altogether. He would study the creature, determine its true nature and, one way or another, separate the prisoner from its morpher. With a Psycho Ranger morpher to disassemble and test, who knew what he might be able to accomplish against them?
The airlock on the roof irised open and nothing seemed to emerge from it. The whoosh of air as the Phantom Ranger's invisible ship landed in the Rangers' private bay, however, betrayed its arrival.
As the vessel became visible the Phantom Ranger emerged from a hatch at the front. He jumped down and began speaking before the Rangers' mentor could.
"Billy, I'm so sorry," he apologized. "When I reached Horath they were already gone. I headed straight for the Machine Empire capital, but by the time I got there it was too late."
"It's not your fault," the young genius reassured the Ranger. "You did everything you could. In fact you did something no one else has ever done before: You captured a Psycho Ranger!"
His words seemed relieve the Phantom Ranger, who stood slightly straighter. "I did, but he's not at all what I expected."
"What do you mean?" Billy queried. Could the Psycho Rangers be some form of blob creature, perhaps a secret creation of the late, unlamented Ivan Ooze?
"I would have expected him to be pounding on the forcefield and screaming at me the whole way here. Instead he sat down cross-legged and he hasn't said a word since I captured him."
"Cross-legged? He's humanoid then?"
"Definitely," the Phantom Ranger confirmed. "Let me show him to you."
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Justin Stewart truly hadn't said a word since his capture. With the exception of Fred, any other Pyscho Ranger would indeed have spent the journey hammering fruitlessly at the force field, bellowing threats and curses.
Justin, with his considerably more stable neural net, had wasted no time in such useless theatrics. Instead he had sat down and thought.
Justin had been scared many times before. When his mother had died. When his father had left him in the Little Angel's shelter for months at a time. When he'd accepted the responsibility of being a Power Ranger. When he'd first seen those horrible monsters on the Ghost Galleon. When they'd fought Maligore. When they'd lost their powers and the Command Center had been destroyed around them.
This, however, was the first time in his life that Justin Stewart had ever been completely and absolutely terrified.
A line from one of his favorite books as a kid kept coming back to him, over and over again: "For he knew his deadly peril, and the thread upon which his doom now hung."
It had been written in regards to the Dark Lord Sauron at the end of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but it was just as true for Justin now.
Had he thought it would be better to die than to go back to being a mindlessly aggressive Psycho Ranger? Had he really? That would have been a fate far preferable to the one which likely awaited him now.
He was thankful beyond measure that he had been given a completely interior neural net, one which left no outward marks. That gave him at least the illusion of a chance. Because once they learned of his neural net . . .
They would neutralize it. They would think they were "saving" him, when in reality they would be damning him to the deepest pit of Hell, for the rest of his existence.
He reflected briefly on everyone he'd killed, everyone he had maimed, and then he tried to think of what it would be like to care about all of that, to once again be able to feel guilt and shame and regret.
He couldn't do it. It was too much. Even his vivid imagination couldn't conjure up the amount of mental torment and anguish he would be in if they took away his neural net.
He couldn't face going back to what he'd been, not now, not after everything he had done! Anything, ANYTHING, else would be better!
For much of the trip the seventeen year-old had therefore seriously contemplated suicide, just as Fred had when Justin had told him what was coming. He had thought of taking off and jamming his now-useless morpher down his own throat, ironically choking to death on the source of his power. The temptation to do it had been real.
In the end, however, he'd chosen another path. He sat here, alone, cut off from the Power, with no one on his side of the war knowing where he was. He was undoubtedly being delivered to the chief of the UAE's enemies and he had been stripped of virtually every weapon he possessed save his most dangerous one: his mind.
He wasn't a ravenous, slavering beast like the other original Turbos; he was a genius! He could be patient, observe his surroundings and captors, think logically, plan rationally, and be ready to seize any opportunity that came along or which he could create.
He was Justin Stewart, Blue Psycho Ranger and aspiring Emperor of Evil. He would not go down without a fight.
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Pushing from behind Phantom brought "Cestro" down the ramp. Normally it would be impossible for one person, even a Ranger, to move the machine, which was why Billy had constructed it with an anti-grav unit installed in its base.
Peering through the transparent forcefield Billy Cranston got his first look at a demorphed Psycho Ranger.
He wasn't just humanoid; as far as Billy could tell, he was a human! He sat cross-legged in the center of the platform, his head bowed. He was dressed in cerulean sneakers, blue jeans and a dark, form-fitting royal blue T-shirt. He was extremely well-built and Billy guessed taller than himself. His hair was a straight, light brown and hid his face from view.
"Look at me," Billy ordered sternly.
The head raised itself, bringing into view below those brown bangs a young, well-formed, handsome face which looked to be about eighteen.
There was something disturbingly familiar about him, Billy realized as he continued to stare at their captive. But what was it? He needed to figure it out; even the smallest addition to their base of knowledge could turn out to be of vital importance. This young man reminded him of someone, reminded him of . . .
Billy sucked in his breath with a gasp. He felt light-headed and might have fallen if the Phantom Ranger hadn't been there to steady him. He gaped at their prisoner and a single disbelieving word stuttered past his lips.
"J-Justin?!"
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