Part Eight
Chapter Eight
With her heartbeat drowning out every other sound, Teresa climbed to her feet. She was so unsteady that she had to grasp one of the columns to stay upright. She couldn't begin to process everything she'd just seen and heard, and had barely come to her senses when she heard footsteps. She looked up to see the midnight queen herself striding into the ruined chamber. Gazing around in disbelief, Luna's eyes fell onto the White Ranger, and her jaw dropped.
"You?" she asked, her voice a mix of rage and bewilderment. "How are you here? What did you do? This was for my beloved. What did you do?"
Holding onto the column to keep from collapsing, Teresa took a few more seconds to recover. "I saw him," Teresa said softly. "Your beloved king? I know his name."
"You will not speak of him!" Luna shouted.
"I saw more than that," Teresa continued. "It was you, wasn't it? You've been working against us for months. Your boss is chained up in that desert, isn't he? So you brought the crown of shadows into the city. The king can't come to us, so you were going to take us to him. But Zedd's monster found the crown and ruined your plan, so you had to come after us directly."
Luna stepped forward, too shell-shocked to do anything other than reply. "One wasn't enough," she murmured. "From what I saw, from what those bastard sons felt, one would never have been enough! But with the power of all twelve, he would've been free to bring ruin to your world!"
"And the pendant in Springfield? That was you too, wasn't it?"
"I needed someone who desired power," Luna said. "You'd be surprised how easy that was to find. But, how? How could you do this? When I left you, you were broken! Consumed by darkness!"
"For about a minute there, I think I was," Teresa said. "But I realised something on the way over. The thing about darkness, Luna? As all-consuming and forever as it is, you can defeat it with a single flickering candle. So maybe it's not as powerful as you think it is."
"No," Luna said. "No! Get away from me!"
"And you know what else?" Teresa continued, as if Luna hadn't spoken. "Maybe you're right. Maybe a single person isn't enough to make a difference. Maybe it is hopeless, and the world really is broken beyond repair." She paused to take a breath. When Teresa spoke next, the steel in her voice made Luna stumble backwards as if she'd been slapped. "But I will be damned if I'm going to let someone like you talk me out of trying. How dare you? You came after my family. You hurt my friends!" The White Ranger summoned her Power Whip with a thought. Luna raised her sceptre, but with a flick of her wrist, Teresa sliced the weapon in two. Luna stood there dumbly as the broken sceptre clattered to the ground.
"Trust me," Teresa said, her voice barely above a whisper. "This is going to end badly for you."
Luna roared and held her sceptre high. Standing her ground, Teresa aimed the whip for Luna's hand. The midnight queen yelped and clutched at her wrist as the weapon flew across the room. Keeping Luna blinded and disoriented, Teresa cracked the whip for Luna's face and eyes. The weapon moved so quickly it sounded like a machine gun, and Luna was driven backwards by the force of the assault. With her opponent off-balance, Teresa wrapped the whip around a torch stand and flung it at Luna, launching the midnight queen sideways, before she aimed the whip for the chandelier above them. Luna dived to safety as the chandelier crashed down behind her. Before Luna could recover, Teresa wrapped the whip around the closest stone column, dragging it off its base and bringing it down on Luna's head. The column collapsed in a cloud of rubble and dust.
Before the smoke cloud had cleared, Luna erupted out of the pile of debris, purple with rage. "You would assault your rightful queen?!" she screamed. "You ungrateful wretch!"
The witch queen exploded across the temple for her enemy. Teresa threw her whip away and spun out of danger as Luna slashed for her helmet, carving deep gouges in the stone with her clawed fingers. She spun after Teresa but the White Ranger was faster, blocking her arm, batting it away before slamming Luna into the wall with a powerful palm strike. Luna recovered and retaliated, kicking high, but Teresa stepped around the move, knocking Luna back with a blow to the shoulder before spinning around and slamming her boot into the back of the midnight queen's head. Feeling fear for the first time in a thousand years, Luna punched the air with her fists. Blue fireballs whistled across the temple, but Teresa took to the air. The barrage passed underneath, and hanging suspended for a second, Teresa slammed her boots into the midnight queen. The blow launched Luna into the air where she crashed into the wall behind her and crumpled to the ground.
Teresa closed in on the broken queen.
"You can't beat me," Luna mumbled, making no move to climb to her feet. "Not on your own. You just can't."
"Then it's a good thing we're here," came a voice.
They turned to see the other eleven Rangers charging into the temple, Jason and Sarah in the lead. The junior team all had their weapons, while Jason was carrying the Megablaster and holding it high, wary of danger. Reaching our missing team-mate, the eleven of us formed a line beside her, our attention fixed on our opponent.
"You okay?" Sarah continued.
"Getting there," Teresa replied, and looked back to Luna. "What you will never understand, Luna? There is always less of you, and more of us. And that's why you're going to lose."
Luna glanced around helplessly, lost and alone. "My love, forgive me," she said softly. "I have failed you." On the wall behind her, Luna's shadow from the fires in the temple did not match the shape of the midnight queen, showing a frightening figure with too many limbs. But as the senior team stood behind Jason and braced his shoulders, Teresa turned to the Red Ranger.
"We're done here," she said.
"You got it," Jason nodded. "Fire!"
The blast from the Megablaster roared across the temple and smashed into Luna. The deadly midnight queen was ripped apart in a massive explosion that shook the temple and rained debris over the tiled floor. With the threat over, we lowered our weapons and looked around, but the temple stubbornly refused to dematerialise.
"Uh," Kim began. "Shouldn't the Youth Centre be back to normal?"
Teresa looked over to Luna's broken sceptre, lying on the floor. "No," she said. Walking over, she saw the fourth and final gem that had adorned the crown of shadows, embedded in the end of the sceptre. "All this didn't come from Luna directly."
Sarah held out her Power Mace. "Want me to do the honours?"
"It's okay," Teresa said, and reached for her blade blaster. "This one's mine," and she aimed for the gem and fired. The gem instantly shattered. There was a crack of thunder and the foul stench of black magic unravelling, and the temple melted away like smoke. Before long, the twelve of us were standing inside the Youth Centre, the building safely restored. Ernie stumbled out of the office.
"Rangers?" he asked, as if he didn't believe his eyes. "Is that you?"
"Ernie," Trini called, and the twelve of us raced up to greet him, Tommy lending Ernie his shoulder.
"I stayed on late to get some invoicing done," Ernie began. "I must've fallen asleep. I don't remember," and he paused. "I had the most terrible dreams."
"You'll be all right," Billy said kindly.
"Yeah, it's okay," Teresa added. "Let's get you home."
To be continued.