Chapter Eighty-five

Sowing the Seas of Evil

"Ready?" Billy whispered. He and Trent were hiding in between the rear wall of a dumpster and the restaurant.

"I just say 'Mastodon,' right?" Trent asked nervously.

Billy nodded. "Hold it like this." He demonstrated, and Trent copied him uncertainly. "Okay. It's Morphin Time!" Billy declared.

Trent waited, but Billy didn't do anything else. Finally Billy gave him a pointed look and Trent realized he was supposed to go first. Trent swallowed and cleared his throat. This was the most terrified he'd ever felt about morphing. This wasn't like saying "White Ranger, Dino Power" and running into battle. This was masquerading as another Ranger to rescue Conner from the cops via an insane improvisational story.

"Uh—Mastodon!" Trent exclaimed, trying to sound tough, commanding, heroic—anything to mask the panic.

"Ninja Ranger Power!" Billy called, his arms sweeping about in circular motions as best he could while cramped behind the dumpster, but Trent wasn't paying much attention anymore. Trent was morphing.

He wondered idly if this was how it felt to Dr. O whenever Dr. O had switched colors. Even as the glorious strength engulfed his body, as the energy swelled within him, as he became awake and alert and enveloped in incredible power, something inside him rebelled. Indignation and rejection battled against the contentment that came with the transformation—because this was wrong. This power was Black. Trent was White. White, white, white!

He glanced down at the uniform, dimly noting the suit's design and the unfamiliar weapons at his belt. Odd phrases that meant nothing to his memory and meant everything to his newfound power flitted through his mind. "Power Axe." "Power Blaster." "Dinozord Power." "Mastodon Lion Thunderzord Power." Images came to him of control panels for unknown zords and vehicles. He felt a strange, sudden kinship towards Billy—not just Billy anymore, teammate, Blue…

"You okay?" Billy whispered sympathetically; Trent recalled that Billy had done this the other day himself. Trent turned to look at him, surprised to see the billowing blue fabric that surrounded Billy now; he'd expected to see a suit similar to his own.

"I'm fine," Trent replied, even as his entire consciousness screamed "WHITE!"

"Give me to the count of a hundred to remove the chimp and get out of there. Then go in."

"Are you sure that's enough time?"

"Affirmative. It's been a while—but there's nothing like a ninja streak."

Trent was about to ask what that meant, when Billy suddenly vanished in a blue blur. Trent blinked behind Zack's helmet.

"Well," Trent said shakily, "here goes nothing."

Cassidy and Devin raced down hallway after hallway, hopelessly lost, scared witless, the sound of pursuing Triptoids close behind them. Three times they'd looked back, the first to see empty hallway, the last two to see the bizarrely-colored monsters with their weird little staffs bopping down the hallway in neat little rows as if practicing for some strange dance competition.

They came to a T-shaped intersection. "Left!" Devin shouted.

"No, right!"

"Right's back towards the storage bays!"

"Oh! Left! Left!"

They hit the intersection, turned left, and kept running, but Devin slammed into an open door and lost his balance. Devin hit the ground, hard, his morning star flying out of his hand and making a harsh metallic screech as it skidded across the floor. "No! Devin, get up!" Cassidy shrieked.

She began rushing back towards him, but just then the Triptoids bounced around the corner. Cassidy screamed and hefted her sword in front of her like a baseball bat, squinting her eyes shut on instinct. Devin, realizing they were caught, flung his arms over his head and curled up into a ball.

They waited, waited for the killing blows, for the attacks to start, for the Triptoids to beat them to death. They waited. And waited. And waited some more.
Slowly, cautiously, Devin lifted one hand from his face. Cassidy cracked an eye open.

The hallway was empty.

"Where'd they go?" Devin wondered.

"I… I don't…" Cassidy floundered for an explanation—could Triptoids teleport?—while Devin slowly sat up, wincing as a couple of bruises made their presence known. He glanced down the hall.

"Huh," Devin said blankly.

"What?" Cassidy turned. The Triptoids were about two hundred feet down the corridor. They'd apparently bounced right past, ignoring the cowering humans entirely. As she and Devin watched, they just kept going, disappearing around another corner and wandering away.

"Whew," Devin breathed, climbing to his feet. "They must have to be programmed to attack. Ordered, or something. Or maybe they are following orders—patrolling the perimeter of the complex, or something."

Cassidy sagged as the relief coursed through her. She dropped the sword with a clang and flung her arms around Devin's neck, startling him and making him cringe as her arms hit places the floor had already smacked around. "Thank god," she mumbled.

"Yeah," Devin said. He exhaled sharply. "Well, I guess we'd better get back to working on getting out of here."

"Definitely," Cassidy agreed. She reclaimed her sword and glowered down the hallway to the Triptoids' last known location. "I swear. Mesogog was a prick."

"Look on the bright side, Cassidy," Devin said weakly. "This'll make one heck of a good story."

Cassidy grinned. "You're right about that. Although we're going to have to edit out some of the best stuff… but, that's okay." Her eyes narrowed. "I've got lots of unedited things to tell Dr. Mercer instead."

"Whoa," Jarel breathed, staring through the windshield of the cruiser at the hotel patio. "And here I though the day couldn't get any worse."

"Never think that. The universe will always prove you wrong," Steven told him sternly, putting down the radio. They'd just been informed that animal control was en route. Steven popped the door handle and climbed out; Jarel followed reluctantly.

It was nearly impossible to work their way through the crowd; few people could bother tearing their eyes away from the action to listen to their polite requests to let them pass. They were halfway through when Steven muttered, "I don't believe it."

"What now?" Jarel complained.

"That's Kim Hart, from my high school. And… I think that's Trini Kwan. Or… well, I guess it'd be Trini Scott now. Jason said he'd married her yesterday."

"That Jason guy was getting married yesterday?" Jarel tried to see who Steven was talking about, but he wasn't as tall as Steven and couldn't see through the crowd as well.

"No, no—yesterday, he told me he married Trini. I think." Steven continued pushing through the onlookers, scanning the crowd for more familiar faces. "I think that's Zack Taylor, too… and Tommy Oliver… and… oh, my god." He groaned. "Those guys in the pool. It's Bulk and Skull!"

"Who?"

"The biggest whack jobs on the face of the planet. They could find chaos in a monastery."

"Oh, great. So they're just the sort of people we need in our lives right now." Sighing, Jarel finally managed to break through the crowd, only to find a woman blocking his path.

"Hi," she said calmly. "Can I ask what you're doing here?"

Jarel frowned up at her, startled. "Well, ma'am, I'm here about the monkey—"

"First of all, that isn't a monkey. It's a chimpanzee. Can I ask why the police were called? These gentlemen haven't broken any laws."

Jarel cleared his throat. "Actually—"

"This should be a job for hotel security."

"Right, but, well—"

"I must say, I'm very disappointed in the level of service at this hotel. I think you should leave."

Jarel stared at her indignantly. "Now wait just a minute—"

"Calling in the police simply because the hotel doesn't want chimpanzees in its pool! This is discrimination at its worst!"

"Ma'am, we have reason to suspect that the chimpanzee is stolen," Jarel said firmly.

"Really? So you're going to frighten the poor thing half to death by yanking it away from its handlers because this hotel discriminates against animals? I can't wait until my friends at PETA hear about this." She glowered down at him in a most intimidating manner.

Jarel swallowed, at a loss. "Um… Steven?" he called desperately.

Steven, meanwhile, had managed to make it out of the crowd only to have Kimberly appear at his side and practically jump at him for a hug, which he returned, startled. "Steven, hi!" she gushed. "Wow, it's been forever. What are you doing here?"

"I'm dealing with that," Steven told her, gesturing towards the pool.

"Oh, that?" she said. "Funny, isn't it. I mean, I don't see what the big deal is. So they've got a monkey and they're taking it for a swim. No big deal. This hotel allows pets and everything."

Steven stared at her. Not only was that line of thinking completely illogical, but from what he remembered of Kimberly she was the type to be disgusted by thoughts of a monkey in her pool water, or at the very least the type to think it was cute. Not the type to say it wasn't a big deal.

She's stalling me, he realized, but before he could do anything about it, an angry bellow washed over him, so loud and furious that he reached for his gun on instinct.

"CONNER!"

Steven whipped his head towards the source of the noise. Tommy Oliver stood at the edge of the pool, glaring blackly down into the water. The unknown kid that had been scrubbing down the chimpanzee had abandoned Bulk and was cowering at the opposite end of the pool from Tommy.

"Kim, I really have to—" Steven began, but Kimberly cut him off.

"So what have you been up to since high school?" she asked, smiling up at him flirtatiously. "I mean, obviously, you're a cop now, but what else have you been doing? Are you still seeing… oh, what was her name…?"

"Amy," Steven supplied automatically. "And no, she left me for some guy that saved her life when that Astronema woman held the city hostage… but I really can't talk right now…"

"I can explain!" the kid in the pool wailed.

"Explain, Conner? Explain?" Tommy roared. "You can explain standing in a pool with almost-total strangers and a stolen chimpanzee? You can explain a decimated zoo? You can explain why you decided to leave the mall and join a monkey smuggling ring? GO AHEAD AND TRY!"

"Wow, looks like that Tommy guy became a total whack job after high school," Kimberly commented idly to Steven. She grinned up at him again. "Am I glad that didn't work out."

Steven stared at her, confused. She was definitely flirting with him, though he couldn't figure out why. Was she really no longer involved with Tommy? Was she trying to stall him so that Tommy could get the Conner kid out of sight? If so, Tommy was doing a pitiful job of it. Maybe she was trying to earn sympathy for Tommy—if so, that was working. Tommy was a good guy; Steven had always been cool with him.

"By the way, I love what you've done with your hair," Kimberly said, and there was a desperate tone in her voice, as if she was fighting to come up with things to say.

"I really can't talk right now," Steven repeated, struggling to figure out just how badly it would screw over his old buddy from the football team if he took the Conner kid in for stealing a monkey. Of course, at this point, there were also a few other charges. He wondered how Tommy and the Conner kid were related; he didn't think Tommy had a kid brother, but obviously Tommy was responsible for the guy. Steven knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Tommy didn't have any connection to Bulk and Skull whatsoever; Jason's group had never managed to get along too well with Bulk and Skull, from what Steven remembered.

"Do you have any idea what your parents are going to do to me if I have to tell themyou're in jail for monkey theft?" Tommy demanded.

"I didn't steal it! I… I'm helping it!"

Steven started to step around Kimberly and head over to the pool to break it up when he caught sight of Jarel. Trini was blocking his view of the pool and talking animatedly; Steven couldn't hear much of what they were saying, but it was obvious from what he could get that Jarel was losing the argument. Steven clearly remembered that Trini was a difficult person to win an argument against… but what was she doing? Why argue with Jarel?

He glanced around, half-expecting to see Jason and Billy… but even though he didn't, it struck him as strange that the rest of their crowd was here—Trini, Kimberly, Zack and Tommy. His eyes sought out Zack in the crowd, and found him chatting up the female hotel worker who'd been previously pitching a hissy fit; he was startled to see that she was now smiling shyly up at Zack, giggling at his jokes as he grinned charmingly down at her. Scanning the rest of the patio, he spotted a boy and a girl crouched near the Conner kid, their posture tense, as if they werewaiting for something. Tommy was still shouting, Conner was still cowering… which was drawing most of the attention away from Bulk, who'd passed the chimp to Skull and was currently climbing out of the pool.

Good god, they're PLANNING something, Steven realized, even as Kimberly quickly sidled in between him and the pool and smiled up at him again. But what?

Before Steven could find the answer to his question, Skull suddenly let out a shriek and tumbled head-first into the pool—without the chimpanzee. "Skull!" Bulk roared in concern, diving back into the pool to pull Skull up by the coveralls. Skull spluttered incoherently. "What happened? Where's Farky?"

"Blue!" Skull choked out. "There was blue… and then Farky… I don't…"

Steven looked around wildly. The chimpanzee had vanished.

"Look!" Kimberly exclaimed. "It's the Black Ranger!"

Steven looked. The Black Ranger was running in from the parking lot. When he reached the iron fence he leaped, soaring through the air—and landing in the pool. He misjudged the distance, Steven thought blankly as he waited for the Black Ranger to resurface from the deep end.

"Heh, you can tell he hasn't made a flying leap in a while," Kimberly commented.

"Why wouldn't he?" Steven wondered aloud. She didn't answer; the Black Ranger's helmet had popped up above the water and he waved sheepishly to the crowd.

"It's okay, folks!" he called, his voice a little muffled and sounding nothing like Steven remembered it. He smiled and waved as people cheered and called out to him.

"Whoa," Jarel said, appearing at Steven's side; he'd apparently extricated himself from Trini sometime after the Black Ranger's arrival. "Sothat's what a Power Ranger looks like."

"Isn't it amazing?" Kimberly asked. "You're in the presence of asuperhero."

"Yeah," Jarel said, looking slightly awestruck.

"What did Trini say to you?" Steven asked him.

"Who?" Jarel asked distractedly.

"Trini. That woman who was arguing with you…?"

"Oh, darn, look at the time," Kimberly said. "I have to go. Good seeing you, Steven!"

"Who was that?" Jarel asked.

"That was…" Steven trailed off. The boy and girl who'd been crouching beside the pool were attempting to drag Conner out of it; his shoe was caught in a drain on the side of the pool's wall. "So that was why she was distracting me!" Steven breathed, looking up to find where Kimberly had gone—only to see her grab Tommy's arm and haul him through the glass doors leading back into the hotel. "Ha! 'Glad that's over,' my ass! She's trying to help the Conner kid escape!"

"What?" Jarel asked, confused.

"So sorry for the disturbance!" the Black Ranger called. He was doggie-paddling towards the shallow end of the enormous pool. "You see, folks, that chimpanzee… was… part of an evil scheme by… a… treacherous villain!"

"Oh, no," Steven groaned, forgetting Kimberly and the Conner kid at the Black Ranger's words.

"What?" Jarel demanded.

"Things just got worse," Steven muttered.

"How?"

"If the Power Rangers are involved in this monkey thing… there's going to be a lot of paperwork."

"You see, folks, an evil villain named… uh… Kuh… Zee… Argh… Kaziargh… he, um, he brainwashed those two—" the Black Ranger pointed at Bulk and Skull, who promptly looked startled— "into stealing that chimpanzee from the Angel Grove Zoo and covering it in a mystical orange paint that would… would… eventually turn the chimpanzee… into… uh… a member of its evil, evil army! If that kid—" he pointed at Conner, who had finally made it out of the pool, leaving the shoe behind— "hadn't recognized the signs of an evil spell at work and tricked these two hapless individuals—" he pointed at Bulk and Skull, who still looked utterly bewildered— "into cleansing the contaminating orange paint from its fur, they all would have been doomed!" The crowd gasped. "Not to worry, though! The Blue Ninja Ranger has taken the poor chimpanzee back to the zoo, and all three of them have been released from his evil spell, and… uh… the rest of the Power Rangers are… back at the… secret hideout… of… the evil villain… um… he's been destroyed, and they sent me to… well, explain things, and… to make sure that… no harm befalls these heroic individuals!" The Black Ranger had finally reached the shallow end and now stood up. "So… ah… I just wanted to let you know… and, um, make sure that you drain the pool… but don't worry, the paint only affects primates… so… yeah. I'll just be going now!" With that, the Black Ranger leaped up and out of the pool, showering water over half the people on the patio as he flew over their heads and landed somewhere out in the parking lot. Most of the crowd rushed to the gate, attempting to see where he'd gone.

"This has got to be the weirdest day of my life," Jarel said, staring blankly after the Black Ranger.

"It's not mine," Steven muttered, and turned back to Bulk and Skull. They were both still standing in the pool, chattering excitedly about seeing a Power Ranger. Steven's eyes sought out the Conner kid next… only to see him limping along on one shoe with the boy and girl who'd helped him out of the water.

"Hey, you!" Steven shouted, and began running around the pool towards them, determined to stop them before they could escape into the hotel.

"Go!" the girl shrieked, pushing the soggy, one-shoed Conner and the other boy through the door, then turning back to face Steven with a look of terrified anticipation on her face.

"Come back here!" Steven shouted, rushing towards her—and then his shoes slipped out from under him and he was flying backward into the orange-streaked chlorinated water.

"Steven!" Jarel yelped as the water closed over Steven's head.

Strong arms grabbed Steven's shirt and hauled him upward; he found himself almost nose-to-nose with Bulk. "You alright, buddy?" Bulk asked.

"Jarel, get her!" Steven shouted, pointing wildly. "She helped him escape!"

"Her who?" Jarel demanded. Steven looked. The blond girl was gone.

"Hey," Bulk said, tilting his head to the side and regarding Steven thoughtfully. "Didn't we go to high school together?"

End Notes: Sorry, running low on chapter titles. Almost done with the monkey bit. Then we have chainsaws. And maybe eventually we'll even have Power Rangers Day, you never know…