Imaginary Friends

by Esse

Zhane is Andros' first, only, and best friend. He also claims he's imaginary. It's not what anyone thinks... A fairy tale, creation myth, ace relationship and 218 k words focused on Zhane wrapped around a verbose, flowery PRiS rewrite. Like a burrito. And Andros is tired of trying to convince Zhane he's not imaginary.

Disclaimer: Power Rangers in Space belongs to... You know, I have no idea. So we shall consult with the all-mighty Wiki. And Wiki informs us that owners past and present are... drumroll please! Toei Company – 1993-present (costumes, props and footage), Saban Entertainment – 1993-2001, The Walt Disney Company – 2001-2010, Saban Brands – 2010-2018, Hasbro – 2018-present. For the love of little green apples, that's ridiculous. And explains a lot.

Summary: You know, I need to paraphrase (or snowclone) The Simpsons episode "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show" to create an accurate summary. "Whenever Zhane's not on screen, all the other characters should be asking, 'Where's Zhane?'" Yeah, I think that covers it. Over 200k words of either Zhane or, 'Where's Zhane?' My life is now complete. Otherwise, this is a rewrite of PRiS.

Alternate Titles: This started off as Puff, and Other Imaginary Friends. Then became, in the twisted confines of my brain: The Epic Tale of Two Oblivious Codependent Aces and the Wicked Witch That Made It Happen. See also: Ugh, I'm Never Going to Finish This, and: Sorry, Can't Run the Dungeon with You, Gotta Write. Yes, Fanfic. No, You Get a Life!

Notes: Story is based off of a dream I had. So – it doesn't make sense. It's a fairy tale, without being a fairy tale. A folk tale. A creation myth. An AU that's actually closer to an alternate reality. A love story that likely doesn't meet any of the definitions of a love story. Details of the dream are in the end notes.

Science and I do not get along. So imagine Esse is walking the shoreline of a lake, and science is on the far side. We see each other, and wave – and both of us continue walking counterclockwise so we never meet. But every lap we come to that clearing where we can see each other again, only this time instead of waving we give each other the middle finger... That sums up our relationship pretty well.

This story takes place in a bubble where previous seasons of Power Rangers kinda sorta maybe happened... and there are no seasons that follow. Because a wave of energy that takes out all Evil? Here, it does exactly that. All Evil. Poof, gone. That also means no secondary sources of information. No comics, movies, interviews, speculation, fan panels... nope. What you see in PRiS is all you get here. ...And most of PRiS didn't make it in, either.

Also, going directly against established canon, everything takes place in the Milky Way galaxy because my brain is small, the universe is too large, and there has to be an upper limit to FTL travel. Except for Zhane, and that's because Zhane is exceptional. The Milky Way is plenty big enough for all the action to take place in with room to spare. Also, changes have been made to the bridge layout of the Megaship and to which bays are contained on which deck.

Kerova is the original planet/sector. Kerovan; belongs to Kerova. Kerovian; of Kerova, usually used to denote the native population of Kerova and its outposts and colonies.
Eltar, Eltaran, Eltarian. Earth, Earthan, Earthian.
And I probably wasn't consistent.

Really, this story is self-indulgent. And a love song to the '90s. I wrote it for myself, and I'm posting it so that, when I reincarnate into something that can also access the internet, the person I'll be can read it and enjoy themselves. Story also stomps badly on grammar. I never thought I'd write anything ever again; word association has become problematic for me. Yet here this is... So please, if you choose to read, think on Esse kindly. Pointing out typos is appreciated, concrit is not.

Relationships: Andros/Zhane in an intimate, non-sexual relationship; both are panromantic asexuals. Due to both their culture and the time period on Earth, they do not have terms to adequately describe their relationship. One-sided Astronema/Zhane that's possessive, literally. It's further hindered by Astronema's hatred of males. Astronema/Andros sibling flirtation with a side of homicidal intentions. Ashley/cookies.

Warnings: Characters may be OOC, just not to me. OCs to fill the cast. Bullying. Child neglect by school staff. Kidnapping and brainwashing of a minor. Zhane doesn't break the 4th wall; he'd never agreed to walls to begin with. Codependency. Kerovan clothing is non-gendered. Implied non-con. Violence. Language. Character death. "It's all circling the drain, the whole universe. Right? Had to end sometime." Misunderstandings. Injuries both treated and untreated. Mental illness inexpertly addressed and left untreated. Prejudice against other space-faring societies. Crying is the epitome of Kerovian manliness. Dreamwalking. Background torture and murder. Thoughts of self-harm and suicidal ideation. Food issues. Magical healing; just snap fingers. Morally gray Rangers; Rangers not abiding by accepted Ranger standards. Irredeemable characters are not redeemed, they're killed. Ashley stages interventions. The fall of empires. Carlos watches anime. Xenocide. Monsters have feelings too. All sorts of quotes. Seriously; the three main characters quote. Constantly. Abuse. Bad parenting that's not abusive but is neglectful. Unsupervised children shouldn't be allowed into space unescorted. Consensual magical body modification that has non-consensual side-effects. I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff. Let's face it; there's probably a warning that would apply to every single person reading this... Which would be a single person. Me, as my reincarnated self.

Written: June 10th, 2023 to September 6th, 2023
Spellcheck & formatting: 9-6 to 9-8
First edit: 9-9 to 9-17
Second edit: 9-22 to 10-14
Notes completed: 10-15 to 10-16
Word count: 218,834

.oO0Oo.

Imaginary Friends

.oO0Oo.

"In the beginning, there was light."

At the edge of his vision he can see his sister crinkle her nose as they both gaze up into the faded blue sky. Underneath them the ground gives an impression of dampness; a green, growing smell and coolness against their skins as a vagrant breeze brushes blades of grass against warm skin.

"And what was before the light?" Karone asks, plucking a flowered stem and nibbling at the clear sap that flowed from the torn end.

Turning his head to fully face his sister, Andros grins. "There was nothing before the light. That's why it was the beginning."

The crinkled nose gives way to a full-lipped pout. "Was too," his younger sister insists, teeth stained green and pollen sparkling bright in her pale blonde hair. "There's always something before a beginning. We finish dinner, then we begin getting ready for bed."

Andros wriggles against weeds and flowers, turning to his side as bare feet dig into rich, dark soil. "That's for us. But it's not the way the story goes. In the beginning, there was light."

"So... what was there with the light?"

"With the light?" The young boy's grin fades, though the hand he reaches out to brush pollen from his sister's forehead is gentle. "I don't think there was anything else. Just light. That's the point."

Karone's frown is a match to his own, the twilight blue sky above them momentarily forgotten, the final rays of sunset sinking below the horizon unwatched.

"That's stupid. Someone told the story wrong."

.oO0Oo.

In the beginning, there was light. And while the beginning was new...
...the light was not.

.oO0Oo.

Karone finds her brother in their spot, the flower-filled hollow on the hillock behind their home, between field and forest, between reality and imagination. His blond-streaked brown hair is tangled, hiding reddened eyes and scabbed over scratches. Light, though, catches on a falling tear, glimmering as it rolls to his temple and no amount of hair can muffle his tiny, gasping sob.

"Andros..." she whispers, settling into the hollow and snuggling close to her brother's side. "You need to tell Mama. She'll make them stop." With small, clumsy hands she pushes back the hair covering her brother's face, her palms wiping away wetness and dust. "She'll know what to do."

He stares up at her, revealed brown eyes dark and shadowed with a bruise blossoming along a high cheekbone. "They're..." he takes a hiccuping breath, catching her hand beneath his own, "they're just bullies. Mama doesn't need to know."

She feels the tremble in his jaw from clenched teeth, and the coldness of his hand against the warmth of the afternoon. "Nothing brave 'bout getting beat up," she tells him doubtfully, pulling her hand out from beneath his. "Nothing to prove, Andros." She flops to her back and peers through dust-streaked fingers to the burning blue sky above. "And Mama has eyes. My illusions aren't that good yet."

His fingertips ghost across both bruise and scratches, and he swallows against grief. "I – don't–" His hand finds hers once more, palm to palm and fingers interlacing. "Why don't they like me?" he asks her softly, resting his head against her shoulder. "Why... why is it so hard to find a friend?"

She sighs and fixes her sight on a brilliantly white cloud overhead. "You told them you were gonna be a Ranger again, didn't you?"

Her brother blinks, slowly, as his breathing evens out. "Rangers are the best. I'm gonna be Red. They'll see. Reds... are the best."

Karone doesn't point out to Andros how his dream might be taken for bragging. She doesn't yet have the words, though the understanding is there. The planet of KO-35 doesn't have a Ranger team, but she shares certain certainties with her brother. He's meant to be a Ranger. He's meant to be Red.

And he's not meant to be alone.

"You're going to have the very best best friend ever, Andros," she tells him instead, raising their linked hands to trace the outline of the perfect cloud. "He'll always be with you. And he'll protect you when I'm not there..." A thought nags at the back of her consciousness, but she's quite young and the thought is large and dark and hurting. "I mean... if I'm not there..." Tiny, even teeth gnaw at her bottom lip drawing a bead of blood, but the flash of pain is lost in the looming darkness as both withdraw before the brightness of the sky above. "He'll be there for you. Forever."

"A very best best friend, huh?" Her brother had noticed her hesitation, she's sure he'd noticed... but such pauses aren't uncommon during times of Let's Pretend. "And how will I know it's him?"

"Well, he won't be pushing you off swings," she tells him, purring softly as the fingers wrapped around her own squeeze softly. She can't see her brother's face, but she knows his sorrow is lifting by the tiny, grudging chuckle he hides against her neck

"Not a very high bar." He releases her hand, but his arm remains outstretched, following hers as they point from cloud to cloud. "What's he look like, my best friend?" Another chuckle, this one released without care. "Bet he's a canid, and Mama'll have fits."

"No..." There's something in the air, Karone thinks. A tingle of possibility. A smell like spun sugar. And the faintest spark of lilac dances across her fingers and deep within her heart.

"Fair as a star, when only one is shining in the sky."

"Karone?" Andros leans up on one elbow, faint amusement giving way to faint worry as his eyes lock with her own, blocking her view of the sky. "What was that?"

"I – don't know." She doesn't, and yet... Something is now in motion. Something dances in limitless joy. "Only..."

"Only?"

"He's like us," she decides, tapping her brother's nose swiftly. "And... like a cloud."

"A cloud?" He moves back as she reaches once more for his nose. "So... my best friend's mist and wind?"

"Silly!" She giggles, and shoves him back. Shoves, and pushes, until they're both breathless with laughter, pastel flower petals speckling wrinkled clothes and knotted hair. "Like a cloud. Dull and gray until the rain passes, but... so bright in the light." She nods, decisively, the image of her brother's best friend beginning to form from wisps of vapor and daydream. "That's how you'll know."

"Know what?"

She smiles and reaches into the pocket of her romper, pulling out a handful of boiled sweets. "That you're happy." She hands a piece of candy to her brother, slightly sticky but still deliciously tart.

"Silly," he echos her, popping the sweet into his mouth. "You're my best friend, Karone."

"I'm your sister."

"Yeah."

.oO0Oo.

"So, there was light." Karone watches the stars; watches them twinkle against the backdrop of their galaxy. "I betcha, before there was light, there was dark."

"There wasn't a before." Andros watches both the stars, and his sister. He doesn't know how to properly explain to her this story that he'd heard, somewhere... somewhere... Grown-ups say a lot of things, when they don't realize he's around.

Most grown-ups – don't realize he's around.

"Besides," he adds, pieces falling into place, "for there to be darkness, there needs to be something to cast a shadow. And there was nothing to cast a shadow–"

"–because there was only light. I know. You've said." Karone yawns, and stars dance far beyond her reach.

"Exactly! So, there was light, and it was really, really bright. And really, really hot. So bright, and so hot, the light couldn't move."

"Couldn't move?" Stars dance, and an incoming trader's ship streaks across the sky... and she tries to understand. Mostly, she just feels pity. "They must have been so bored."

"They?" Andros asks, watching both his sister, and the stars.

"The light. All light wants, is to move."

He wants to argue, wants to deny. But in his heart, he agrees. He imagines being light, unable to move. It's unthinkable.

"We should head home," he tells his sister, suddenly uneasy. He pulls her up and they race across the fields, grass whipping against their legs urging them to hurry, hurry, hurry.

And Andros dreams that night of a dark voice that can exist without need of light to cast a shadow. He dreams, twisted in blankets that grasp like tendrils, of a garbled voice sneering.

Run little light. Better hurry, hurry, hurry.

.oO0Oo.

It was bright. It was hot.
The light's been here before.
It will be here again.
The Forces aren't. Yet.
The light's never been much impressed by them.

.oO0Oo.

Another day. Another fight. Another shame-filled run up the hillock behind his home, short legs tiring before collapsing in a hollow meant for two.

Another tear.

Another bruise.

Another excuse he needs to think of to present to his Mama, to explain torn clothes and muddied knees and a voice hoarse to raspiness.

Andros glares at the overcast sky. Glares harder as the sky grumbles back, a crashing of boulders, a wailing of gale. He then relaxes, boneless, as his sister joins him with a small, soothing croon. Shoulder to shoulder, foot to foot, in a hollow meant for two. They watch the sky, boiling gray and lowering, as darting birds shriek warning of the coming storm and the wildflowers close delicate petals in self-preservation.

"He needs to be a Ranger," he tells her, so quietly it's almost lost in the distant clash of thunder.

"Who does?" she whispers back, tucking her hands into the warmth of his thick shirt.

"My friend. He needs to be a Ranger... since I'll be a Ranger..." He runs his tongue gently over his split lip but makes no attempt to wipe away his tears. Soon, it will rain. Rain will hide the tears. And from Karone he's never been able to hide his tears. "I'll be Red, and he'll be... he'll be..."

"Silver." The word slips from her without thought. It's as though a window has opened within her mind, within her heart. A window aglow with lilac, and on the other side... "He's Silver, and you're Red."

Andros briefly flicks his eyes towards his sister, her pronouncement suddenly more interesting than the flash of lightning along the ominously dark horizon. "Silver? But Silvers are – weird." Silver, he thinks. Silver. Always on the outside, always one step out of synch. "Are you sure?"

She nods, and shivers against his side as the temperature dips. "He's not like other Silvers, Andros. He's a cloud, remember?" Another blinding flash from the sky that provokes another shiver... but not of fear. "He's a cloud, and his life is lightning, and he's brightest in the light."

"He's impossible," he says, somewhat disappointed. "And power over lightning is common. KO-35... needs more. We need the best Rangers. The strongest. We need–"

"–You need him, Andros." Karone so rarely disagrees with him that her words are more of a shock than the icy droplets of rain suddenly pelting them both. "His power isn't lightning. He is. You're such a, a boy!"

"And you're a little sister!" It's dark. And cold. And the wind forces the falling rain straight through their clothes to sting chilled skin while lightning reaches crackling arms ever closer to their hollow. "We've gotta go! Mama'll worry!"

He pulls her up and together they dash, down the hillock to the welcoming cottage with its glowing windows below.

And yet... and yet... for a moment they both sense that there's another window. A window limned in lilac. A window now open and beckoning. Outside of it, something dances with limitless joy.

"Andros! Karone! Get inside this second!" a woman calls from the doorway. "You're soaked! You both know better than to be out in thunderstorms!"

"Coming, Mama!" he shouts to be heard over the rain.

"Coming, Mama!" his sister echoes, not as loudly but just as clearly.

'Coming! Coming! Why'd ya have to be so far away?'

No one hears it over the deafening roar of thunder.

.oO0Oo.

"So, what changed?" she asks her brother on another night as they brush their teeth together, huddled over the tiny sink. "If it was bright, and hot, and the light couldn't move... What changed?"

"...The rules. I think." Foamy toothpaste that tastes overpoweringly of mint dribbles from the corner of his mouth, and he swipes it away with the back of his toothbrush. "The rules of the universe changed. Then the light could move."

"Good," she says, while flecks of foam splatter against the mirror from her vigorous, open-mouthed brushing. Her pajamas are pale yellow, with lavender felids playing with multi-hued balls of yarn silk-screened large across the front of the smock. She likes them, though the clothes are a size too large. Their Mama had said she'd grow into them. Karone... isn't as sure. "Then what?"

"Then?" Andros spits out his mouthful of toothpaste, baring his teeth at his reflection in the speckled mirror. "Then, every single light picked out a friend. A friend forever. And once every light had a friend – they flew away. And they made the universe. –I think. And no matter how far away a light gets from its friend – they're still..."

"Joined?" she asks, swallowing her toothpaste before he can stop her.

"Karone!" He shakes his head ruefully, glancing through the open doorway to check that their Mama hadn't noticed. Seeing the woman's attention fixed on something else, he gives a brief sigh of relief. "Yeah, joined. Across light years, across eons. Isn't that amazing?"

"Hmm." She rinses off her toothbrush, then holds it out to her older brother for him to inspect. Smiles at him, to show off tiny, white teeth. "I still think there's something wrong with the story."

He places their toothbrushes back in the holder, then hunches over so that their eyes are level, amber brown meeting blue, and piercing blue meeting brown. "It's just a story, Karone. I think it's nice, like, everyone has someone out there, just for them."

"Across light years, across eons?" There's a shadow at the edge of her vision. Its name is future and she hugs her brother tightly to hide from its sight. Nothing, nothing feels sure any more. "That's really, really sad, Andros, when all they want to be is together."

.oO0Oo.

The Forces come into being.
But the light is old, and Forces come and go.
Then, the rush.
Out out out.
Except for a few. The brightest. The oldest.
The new physics hold no interest.
Old physics... are a different matter.
They're made of different matter.

.oO0Oo.

"Andros!"

"Karone!"

He screams her name, and runs.

And runs.

And runs.

And he hears her screaming his name–

–for years.

And years.

And years to come.

For want of a toy, a sister is lost.

.oO0Oo.

The other children no longer bother him. He can rage, and he can hiss with threat, and he can strike with all the strength in his too thin, too young arms; hit and shove and shriek his fury to an uncaring sky above... and they walk away. Andros can sense it, as the other children sense it. He is taboo, the boy that lost his sister to a monster that left no trace behind. He is unlucky, unable to hold on to what he loves most. He is alone when other parents come to the school to escort their squirming spawn home.

It's not safe to walk home alone.

So Andros does. Walk home. Alone. Except for when the day has stretched on too long and he's too tired, and it hurts too much to take another step. Then, he sits on the swing others used to push him off of. He sits, as still as possible, and waits for existence to forget him. If adults can overlook him... surely the universe can as well.

"Hi!"

The cheerful voice cannot be addressing him. He's still, and quiet... and certain that he's not quite real anymore. Nothing's been real since his sister was taken. But the chirped greeting belongs to a kid with charcoal gray hair and charcoal gray eyes, and the boy is looking at Andros as if he can actually see him...

No one's seen Andros, not for weeks. Not for months.

"Whatcha doing?"

The other boy must be as unreal as himself, Andros thinks. No real child would be in the park, not with monsters wandering the world stealing little sisters the moment their brothers' backs were turned. And to prove it to himself, Andros decides to dispel the illusion; a single touch to banish the phantom. He reaches out, swift and strong as he wasn't, he wasn't the day his sister was lost...

There is an audible smack as his flailing hand slaps the wide-eyed face in front of him.

"'M sorry!" Andros gasps, standing from the swing in shock. "I didn't mean – I didn't – I, no one's supposed to be here!"

Stunned charcoal eyes watch him while a pale hand raises to cradle a reddening cheek. The other boy shuffles bare feet in the grimy playground sand, the tattered hems of worn gray pants flapping around bony ankles while wind ruffles the drooping lace of an oversized, off-white blouse. Then... "No, I s'pose no one should be, should they?" he says as a knowing grin stretches his lips, a smile so much brighter than his shadowed eyes. "Everyone's hiding. Everyone's scared. But – not you."

The other boy's hand reaches forward and Andros flinches, expecting to be slapped in return. It's almost worse when the boy instead tenderly smooths back a lock of hair that had escaped from Andros' ponytail, blond-streaked brown hair catching on a torn fingernail. "No, not you," the other continues, taking one step forward to Andros' single step back. "You hit hard," he giggles, and the shuffling of his feet in the skittering sand is almost a dance. "And that's not bad! But maybe," he leans forward, all wide wild eyes and wide manic grin, "you should save it for the bad guys."

Another step back, and the seat of the swing catches Andros by surprise. He's sitting before he can steady himself, sitting in front of a boy that he doesn't know. Not from school. Not from town. A boy dressed in rags and what he's fairly certain is a blouse stolen from the scarecrow that protects the school's project garden.

If this was the universe's idea of a fair exchange, this stranger for his sister, Andros thinks... 'Someone istelling the story wrong.'

'Two stories.' The boy's voice – is in his head. Soft and sweetly lilting. Insidious. Except – not. 'Maybe more. So many stories, I can't keep track of them anymore.' The boy drops to his knees before Andros, head tilted to the side, smiling, smiling, smiling. "Except," he adds aloud, crossing his arms as he leans against Andros' legs, pushing him back in the swing, "I think this story might have a good ending. Of course it has a good ending, I'm in it!"

"What–" are you Andros begins, then stops, realizing his first question is rude. Though possibly, probably, accurate. There's truth to this first, impulsive question he's held back – and truth might undo entirely two misplaced, unreal children. Clenching his hands around the chains of the swing, letting the pitted metal bite harshly into his palms, Andros hunches his shoulders and does his best to ignore the warmth of the boy pressed against his legs. "Who are you?"

Another giggle as the boy bashfully ducks his head, his hands running through charcoal hair, spiking it lopsidedly. "I'm Zhane," he introduces himself, peering shyly upwards through thick, dark lashes. "Your friend."

Andros shudders. Without intent, his legs straighten, kicking the other boy back and toppling him in an untidy sprawl to the sandy ground. "I don't have any friends," he snarls – and prepares to run.

Sand caught in torn lace, falling from the uneven spikes of his hair, caking the palms of his raised hands – Zhane's smile turns beatifically, brutally honest.

'Your imaginary friend.'

.oO0Oo.

Andros sees him on the playground each day at school. Sees Zhane, sitting cross-legged on the pavement, quietly watching. The other children ignore him, the same as they ignore Andros. And Andros ignores him, because the tiny, hopeful smile Zhane sends his way each time their eyes meet is unwanted. It is. He ignores the happy wave he's greeted with each morning as he enters the school yard.

Ignores the gray cable-knit sweater Zhane's wearing one afternoon, layered over the dusty, lace blouse. The weather's turning colder, and the teacher complaining about the theft of his pullover is so very, very careful not to peer out of the classroom's window – where Zhane is peering in.

Ignores the blur of movement through the cafeteria line and a dirt-streaked hand reaching over the counter to snag two pieces of fruit. It's not Andros' concern. It's not his problem.

Apparently it's no one's problem, as teachers and janitorial staff stand stiffly out on the playground circled inwards in discussion. "What's he still doing here?" one asks. Another kicks the asphalt as she complains, "Hasn't anyone notified protective services?" And a third, "With so many attacks recently? They don't have the resources for one idiot runaway." Nods all around. "Neither do we."

None of them notice Andros listening in; they don't notice he's around, so busy are they ignoring Zhane who's playing on the bars.

Andros can follow their example. He can. He ignores Zhane when the gray-haired boy sits next to him during recess, a battered collection of toy Zords in front of them. Taking his time, he transforms the red Zord to its battle form; the red one is his favorite. The red one is his, as the yellow one is hers. But blue... he has no special feelings towards blue.

"Gotta be careful," Andros says under his breath as he nudges the blue Zord towards Zhane with a nearly imperceptible telekinetic push. "The left leg hangs up when it transforms."

"Hmm..." Without reaching for the toy, Zhane transforms it into an admittedly cute, rounded robot with a perpetually surprised expression on its face; within seconds it's standing next to the equally changed pink and black Zords. "You're right. It's a little tricky. What happened to it?"

Shrugging, Andros places red and yellow with the rest of their team as his eyes slide to a group of boys roughhousing by the classroom door.

"Right." Zhane's smiling – Zhane's always smiling – but there's a hint of wickedness tucked away in the dimple of his left cheek. "Well, I can handle transforming them into the Megazord, but you'll need to do the voices. You're the best at voices." He leans forward, brushing Andros' shoulder with his arm in the process, and places the seeded core of the fruit he'd stolen at lunch in front of the toys. "There's our villain. Lord Dark Boopsie."

And Andros does the voices while Zhane handles the movement of battles spread over a week's worth of recesses, and it's – okay. He's still ignoring Zhane. He is. He's not talking to Zhane, he's voicing Lord Dark Boopsie. And when Boopsie becomes too withered and brown to play with, he's replaced by soup can Duchess No'odles. Hair Tie Stabby-Stuff. Henchman Stickman. The brave Rangers invisible inside their Zords always win, and little sisters are returned home safe and sound and it's not fair, not fair! and the trashy villains wind up in the garbage. He's ignoring Zhane just fine.

Zhane is not his friend.

And Andros can ignore his smiles, and his waves; can ignore the time spent playing with dented, well-loved Zords. Ignores the thefts of food and clothes. Ignores Zhane's dorky, spiky hair and his wide, seeing eyes. Ignores him until, one afternoon, the other boys, the larger boys, the boys that like to shove and punch and hurt corner Andros behind the ball-court...

"Lookit the crybaby!" the tallest sneers, a rough hand clenched in the collar of Andros' shirt, tearing the red fabric. "Lost his sister! And we're supposed to play nice with him?" A harsh, cruel push has Andros stumbling back – but he doesn't fall. Warm, welcoming arms catch him, supporting him from behind. "Freaks!" the bully shouts, but there's fresh wariness in squinted eyes. "You're both freaks!"

Zhane's giggling, ever so quietly, in his ear. 'Together?' he asks, his bare feet tinged blue and his fisted hands white.

'Together.'

Later, the principal ignores them, instead lecturing the five miscreants crammed into the nurse's station. There's bruises, and bloody noses; scraped knuckles and skinned knees. The nurse clucks her tongue, turning from one to another, to yet another...

...while Andros and Zhane watch on. Ignored. Forgotten. Unreal.

It's raining, a freezing torrent beating against the drenched earth, the evening Andros walks up to Zhane there on the playground. Zhane's in the swing, lazily drifting back and forth, while water runs in thick rivulets down his face and in steady streams from his soaked sweater. With a shaking, unsteady hand Andros reaches out to push sodden hair away from the other boy's eyes. And it must be a trick of the twilight, because Andros could swear both hair and eyes before him are now a soft, pewter gray.

"What am I gonna do with you?" Andros whispers, shifting to hold his vibrantly red umbrella over them both.

Andros is used to not being noticed. Being forgotten. Swept aside. He's comfortable being overlooked, away from concern, away from nagging. It's an unfathomable mystery, though, how anyone could ignore Zhane.

Zhane shivers, letting go of the swing's chains to wrap cold arms around Andros' waist, to rest his head over Andros' heart. 'I want to go home,' is his plaintive answer...

...as the warmth of shed tears marks a sharp contrast with the rain-heavy shirt across Andros' chest.

"Can we please go home?"

.oO0Oo.

"So the light flew away, and created the universe," Andros finishes, mud splattering their legs as they step through a puddle.

"Uh-huh." Zhane, still shivering, stumbles against him, and the umbrella is nearly dropped. "That easy?"

"...Yes?"

"You should know," Zhane tells him through chattering teeth, "it wasn't the universe, not yet. No signposts. All that light, rushing off without a thought? Silly newbies got lost."

"But..." Andros has his arm securely around Zhane's waist, and he's afraid his arm is the only thing keeping the other boy up. "Every photon has a partner." A choked-off laugh, then Zhane's slipping out of his grasp into the churned mud of the road. His smile is a brilliant, dangerous thing as he points accusingly at Andros.

"Newbie got lost!"

.oO0Oo.

The light is old. And the light is patient.
But the light has never before been alone.

.oO0Oo.

She's pulling the roast out of the oven when she hears a clattering at the front door. She's told Andros, time and again, to be home before dark. To stay out of storms. To stay with the group because she cannot bear to lose another child. She's told him, and he's listened to her with a calm, frozen face and wetly gleaming eyes. Yet still he comes home – ever so late.

As long as he comes home, she tells herself, setting the roasting pan on a trivet.

"Andros, you better not be tracking mud in the house," she calls out, pulling her hands out of the fingertip potholders while turning to face the kitchen door. "You know..." she trails off, watching not one but two boys look towards her sheepishly. Two. Boys. With mud sloughing off their clothes to spatter against her hardwood floor.

"Mama," Andros starts, then trails off, the rapid blinking of his eyes betraying his nervousness. "This – this is Zhane. Can..." her son takes a deep breath, then several quick, shallow ones. "Can he stay with us?"

She considers them, two shivering, muddy children. It feels – like too much. But her son is asking... which is more than he's done since... then... "For the night?"

Her son, now, now her only child, stares down at the puddle forming between their feet. "He doesn't have anywhere else to go."

She's about to question further, about to say no, about to call on all too familiar authorities to handle this... this... when the other boy captures her with pewter gray eyes too large in a face too thin, and a smile that encompasses eternity. "I'm Zhane," he says from behind chattering teeth and blue-tinged, quivering lips. "I'm Andros' imaginary friend."

She recalls the memory of lilac, and windows, and light.

"Is that so?" she asks, as numbness overtakes her. "Andros, fetch the towels from the hallway cupboard. And a change of clothes for you both!" As her son takes off, leaving a trail of muddy shoe prints to mark his passage, she takes a hesitant step forward. Then, chiding herself for her cold, leaden fear, she steps forward again. "His imaginary friend?" She grips the boy's shoulder, too bony, too slight, and lets herself be scalded by the warmth of his smile. "–I had an imaginary friend, once."

Once, when the spark of lilac-tinged magic was easy to summon. Once, when all she need do – was open a window. Before growing up, and marriage, and motherhood, and widowhood... Once, when she'd been young...

"I know," the boy, the friend, Zhane says somberly, in perfect understanding. "She misses you."

"I outgrew her."

Shaking his head, flinging droplets of water in a fine spray to ruin more of her woodwork, the boy takes her hand in too thin, too bruised fingers. "That's the thing with imaginary friends," he confides in her. "You outgrow us, but we can never outgrow you."

.oO0Oo.

His Mama makes them change out of their wet clothes, and Andros watches as Zhane peels off muddy layer after layer, dropping the dripping material into the tub where each piece lands with a unique squelching sound. His own smirched outfit joins the other garments, not quite as dirty but still needing to be rinsed off before an attempt is made to wash it.

They leave streaks against the towels as they dry off; mud, and leaves, and less pleasant things. Jaw dropping in disbelief Andros reaches out to pull an earthworm from Zhane's neck, dangling it between the two of them in shock. "How?" he asks, shaking the worm gently. "How do you even...?"

Zhane shrugs uneasily, scratching at the back of his head. "Dunno." He's dressing in one of Andros' spare jumpers, dark red with large pockets at both the front and the sides. He looks lost in the depths of the fabric, somehow less real than when he'd shown up at the school yard. Zhane shrugs again as he leans back on his heels and curls his toes away from the tiled floor, but that Andros can fix.

"Put on your socks already. It's too cold to go barefoot." Andros tosses him a pair of thickly woven socks, gray as fog with embroidered lighthouses running their length. Then, when Zhane merely stares at them in puzzlement, he forces the other boy to sit by a firm hand on his shoulder. They collapse together in a tangle of limbs on the shaggy, absorbent rug, and Andros tugs one bony foot into his lap. "Like this," he demonstrates, pulling the sock over toes and ankle, up midway over Zhane's calf.

"Oh!" Zhane stares at his foot in astonishment, wriggling his toes with growing delight inside their cloth covering. "It's soft!"

"It'll be warm, too. Eventually." Lips pursed in concentration, Andros manages to pull the other sock on despite the other boy's fidgeting. "There. If I'd let you back out barefoot, Mama would'a complained." Quickly, he slips on his own socks, fuzzy and red with thin black stripes. "C'mon. It's dinner time, but we'll need to mop up before we can eat. Can't leave the mess for Mama."

They clean up after themselves, drying the puddles left at the front door and chasing down muddy shoe prints and smeared footprints, while the older woman finishes setting the table. Zhane keeps darting quick, furtive looks her way, sniffing curiously as he slowly wipes away lingering traces of grime from the hardwood floor with a damp, stained rag. Andros wants to chide him, to tell him to focus on the task at hand – but dinner does smell good, and lunch was hours and hours ago. Finally his Mama relents, and tells them that they can come eat. She places plates full of roast, steamed greens and fried tubers in front of them, and Andros picks up his fork...

...only to halt in astonishment, first bite of food still inches from his mouth, as he watches Zhane eat with his fingers.

And Zhane eats with a focused determination that's a little scary, greens first for the simple reason that the vegetables are closest to him on the plate. Greens, then tubers, and his Mama's clearing her throat helplessly, trying to draw the gray-haired boy's attention.

"Zhane? Sweetie?" she calls weakly, knocking her knuckles against the table as he pauses before tackling the roast. "There's silverware to your right."

"Silverware?" he says around the fingers he's licking clean. Andros lifts his own cutlery higher in display, his forgotten chunk of roast still resting on the tines of his fork. "Oh..." Zhane blushes, burning scarlet spreading across his cheeks like the outspread wings of a firebird. "I never stayed in the cafeteria to see," he mumbles, groping for the fork. He holds it inexpertly, fingers stiff around the metal handle, and instead of spearing his next bite he does his best to scoop it from the plate.

"Missed lunch today?" she asks, and Andros hurriedly shoves his fork into his mouth so he won't have to answer should his Mama turn her next question towards him. "You have – quite the appetite."

Zhane pauses in his quest to get food on to the fork, peering up through lowered lashes. "Ladies in the cafeteria were watching too closely; couldn't snag nothing." Huffing, and ducking his head back down, he surreptitiously uses the fingers of his left hand to scoot food onto the fork held in the right. Andros knows, though, that his Mama notices. "But it's not bad. Mostly, I forget. And when I forget, I'm not hungry."

There's a lost, haunted look in her eyes, as she reaches across the table to carefully fold Zhane's left hand around a linen napkin. "–What do you forget, sweetie?"

"That I'm mostly here, now." Zhane glances between napkin and fork, confusion palpable. "Mostly matter. Bodies are hard," he complains as his forkful of roast falls off the tines when he attempts to raise it to his mouth. "They're all – fiddley."

Andros rolls his eyes; he knows he shouldn't, that his Mama doesn't approve of disrespectful behaviors, but Zhane's continued insistence is silly. "You're not imaginary!" he snaps at the other boy. Glares, and prepares to continue only to be cut off by a quiet, forlorn question.

"Then am I not your friend, either?"

"...What?" Feeling – tricked, somehow, Andros grabs a roll from the breadbasket and proceeds to tear it into increasingly small pieces. "I didn't say that. One's not, not..."

"Contingent upon the other," his Mama finishes for him, her face frozen with some dreadful emotion nearly a match for the afternoon that Karone... that Karone...

"Yeah. That. Co'teegent." Andros focuses on his dinner plate, and the bits of bread scattered amidst chunks of roast and vegetables. Focuses on his plate, because the expression on his Mama's face hurts to see, and the expression on Zhane's... it does something worse than hurt, deep in his chest next to the unending agony that is missing Karone. He dares a swift peek as silence spreads, and Zhane. Isn't. Smiling. The world jolts, stopped in its rotation, as a fundamental rule of the universe – breaks.

Zhane isn't smiling. "You say I'm not imaginary. But you've never said I'm your friend."

"Boys," the older woman cuts in, clumsy in her attempt to distract them. "Not... not over dinner." Mechanically she eats, and they follow her example. "I suppose I'll need to go to the school tomorrow. Get Zhane properly enrolled." She exhales slowly, reaching for her water glass. "Clothes. Stars above, the paperwork..."

"Mama..." Andros squirms, wanting to be dismissed. His appetite is gone, and Zhane's still not smiling, and the bedrock of his beliefs feels shattered, the edges too sharp to find his balance on. The entire world is breathless as time circles in upon itself. "...Zhane's been staying at school. On the playground." He gulps, heart hammering for no reason at all. "Everyone – ignores him." He'd ignored him, and he doesn't know how when the loss of Zhane's smile is the collapse of stars. "No one cares."

"He has nowhere to go," she murmurs, her breath ruffling the surface of the water in her glass. "Okay. Okay. Tomorrow, I'm pulling you out of school, Andros," she says with imperfectly enforced calm. "Tomorrow, I'll enroll you – somewhere else. There must be another school within distance." She takes a small, precise, sip of water, then places the glass down. "You... and Zhane." Another exhale, and she rubs wearily at her eyes. "Go shower, boys, I can still see mud. Then to bed; it's late."

"Yes, Mama." Freed at last, Andros stands. Stands, then tugs at the sleeve of the other boy's jumper to get Zhane to follow.

Zhane follows obediently – but not joyfully. He's not smiling, not with his lips, not with eyes that have darkened back to charcoal. He follows Andros to the bathroom...

And Andros doesn't know how to fix the universe he'd so carelessly broken.

.oO0Oo.

"I don't think light can get lost." Andros watches the spinning forms of planets and stars, cast by his nightlight, sailing in silent progression across his bedroom's ceiling and walls. Lying with his back towards him, Zhane curls tighter beneath the heavy quilt – and doesn't respond. There's a foot of cold, empty space between them in the bed. A foot, and an uncrossable chasm. "Maybe, just diverted."

Andros isn't really sure how Zhane ended up in his bed. His Mama had shown the gray-haired boy into Karone's room, leaving him standing in bewilderment amongst yellow comforter and curtains and carpet. Had left him with his own nightlight while she tucked Andros into bed with a distracted kiss to his forehead and a soft good night. And Andros had watched the planets, blurry through blinked-back tears, until his bedroom door had cracked open and Zhane crept in on stockinged feet.

"C-can't sleep in there," he'd stammered, sinking down on the red-tasseled rug at the foot of Andros' bed. "It's hers. S'not right."

So Andros had sat up, quickly wiping away the moisture lingering under his eyes – and hauled Zhane into his bed. Where Zhane had curled up, so small, at the furthest edge of the mattress, remote as a quasar. Zhane – was nothing like Karone, who would hiss and scratch when angry, a tiny tempest easily soothed. Zhane was nothing like anyone he had ever known. With no idea how to cross the void between them, Andros tried instead to fill it with words.

"But light has all the time there ever was. Right? So, eventually, it'll get to where it needs to be. With its bonded photon."

Zhane turns over onto his stomach... and finally looks at him, his hair and eyes practically black in the shadows deepened by the nightlight. "And if the light's not welcomed when it gets there?"

"I..." he reaches out blindly beneath the quilt until he finds Zhane's arm; follows it down until he can latch on to tightly clenched fingers. "I'm really glad you're here." His feelings have to be strong enough to bridge the divide between them, if only they can find anchorage on the other side. "–I'm sorry you didn't know that." One last admission, a desperately tossed lifeline. "You are my friend."

Beneath his hand, fingers unclench; the hand flattens against the negligible weight of Andros' palm.

"Light can get lost." Zhane's whole body seizes for a single second before relaxing against the plush mattress. "But it'll always, always keep looking." Fingers twine between Andros' own, completing the clasp. "I found you, didn't I?"

.oO0Oo.

The universe grows, from pinpoint to infinity.
It grows at the speed of light.
But the Forces are new. More like guidelines.
And the speed of light's not yet constant.
The oldest light, the brightest light, wishes differently.
If light were constant – it would narrow the search.

.oO0Oo.

"Shoes over socks." There's wonderment in Zhane's voice as they walk side by side behind the house and up the hillock. He skips as he walks, and the silver of his shoelaces glitters brightly in the sun. Flash-step, flash-step, and a stream of chatter as consistent as bird song. "I never knew! No one took off their shoes on the playground. No one left shoes around, at all." He bounces on the balls of his feet, watching in glee as his shoes sink into loamy, wet earth. "This is great! Little prisons for the feet!"

Andros bursts into laughter. "More like protection for your feet." His laughter is rusty, hiding hiccups. It's been so long since he's laughed. "Mr. Bruises are just decoration." The air is cold but the sun is bright, and the world feels fresh after yesterday's rain. "Make sure not to lose them. Mama spent a lot today."

"A lot of what?"

Laughing again, Andros starts running, his long hair lifting from his neck from the activity, streaming behind him as he dashes ahead. There's so much his friend doesn't know, so many odd questions he asks. And Andros doesn't know where to begin, when to explain, how to let go. Or if he should even try. But the laughter loosens something knotted and aching deep in his chest, and the agony of missing his sister lessens for one. brief. moment. before his traitorous feet come to a stumbling halt before a hollow. Their hollow, filled with wildflowers despite the onset of winter.

"No."

Panting, Zhane catches up to him. Catches up, and leans into his side. "Oh..."

"–I don't want to be here," Andros says, turning his head away. Away from the hollow, away from his friend.

"No..." An unintended echo as Zhane steps back. "This is your place. Yours, and hers." He scratches the hair at the nape of his neck, eye colorless as mist narrowed in contemplation. "You don't want me here."

The strength leaving his legs, Andros slumps to the ground unmindful of the moisture wicking up through his pants. "This is our place. Ours." The pitch of his voice is just short of despairing. From laughter to tears in the space of a breath. "We were safe here!" Small fists pound at the ground, mud oozing out from the edges of the strikes. "She was supposed to be safe!" Hidden pebbles gouge his knuckles; larger rocks bite into his knees, but the pain in his body is nothing compared to the pain in his heart. "–I want my sister back."

"I know." Zhane sits down, plastering himself against Andros' back. "I know you do."

Releasing his handfuls of gunk and grass, Andros lets himself shelter within the warmth of Zhane's hug. "You didn't even know Karone." His words are not bitter, merely wistful. "What's she to you?" he asks, as anger slips back into numb acceptance. He feels Zhane resting his chin upon his shoulder and tries his best to match him breath for breath. "Why... why do you care, that this is her place?"

"Because I'm not here to take her place. Andros," he sighs, using the sleeves of his gray hoodie to wipe the mud from Andros' hands. "You said it yourself; light can't get lost, just diverted."

"But you don't believe that."

"It only matters that you do."

.oO0Oo.

She sits at the dining room table, papers strewn in front of her and the memory of her meeting with the prospective school's councilor preventing her from reading any of them. And on top of the papers lie two jewelry boxes, also the trigger of memories much better left buried. At her elbow rests a plush felid, its velveteen fur worn thin and its head tilted crookedly – a third minefield of memories she doesn't know how to address.

Her son had been easy enough to transfer; unbeknownst to her there had been records going back for over a year of bullying and denial and cover-up. Records she'd never been meant to see, reports saved from the shredder due to a new-hire's filing error. Her own shock had been nothing compared to her son's former principal, who – if he was wise, oh so much wiser than he'd been – would be spending his evening regretting past choices. He would be spending the rest of his life regretting the choices he'd made. She'd made sure of it.

Zhane, though... Zhane, with no documentation, no history, no existence as far as the computerized systems of the Kerova sector were concerned, had been presented with placement tests. Standardized, sanitized tests to gauge knowledge, skills, general aptitudes... The boy had grinned when presented with the pad; had sat, and diligently gone through the tests while occasionally fidgeting on the hard metal seat, his newly acquired shoes swinging freely to an unknown rhythm.

"It makes no sense," the councilor had admitted to her, there in her neutral-toned office while the two boys were given a tour of the school's grounds. "He tested out of math entirely. Not a single error until you take into account the word problems. Those... I can't... Take this one," she brought up the problem on her screen, tilted so both women could see it clearly. "'Maeve has twelve nuts, and Pyer has eight. If they share equally with their three friends, how many nuts will they each have?' And his answer is 'Who gave nuts to Maeve? She's allergic! Pyer needs to stop worrying about his stomach and find her injector.'

"His language skills are appropriate for his age, but his reading comprehension..." The councilor shook her head, more from worry than dismay. "I evaluate testing while it's in progress. When he couldn't summarize simple stories..." Her index finger tapped at her console, a nervous reflex that unnaturally stretched the brief pause. "Is Kerovish his first language?"

"...Unlikely." She was at a loss on how to explain Zhane without actually explaining – Zhane. "I don't really know much about him. He's a – recent – addition to our family. According to my son, Andros, the boy's been homeless for the past month or more."

"Ah. Another refugee that's slipped through the cracks." The councilor's face had softened in compassionate understanding. "That – might explain a lot, actually, if severe trauma is involved. When Zhane failed reading comprehension, I added in basic story sequencing worksheets." Another pause filled with the quiet tapping of a finger betraying misgiving. "He..."

"He?"

The councilor flinched minutely. "He wasn't able to put a single storyboard into logical order. Children as young as three can figure out a beginning, middle, and end, but Zhane – can't. Or rather, every possible combination made sense to him. It's almost as if, as if everything is happening at once, for him. Consequences before actions, thought and deed one in the same. I've never seen anything like it."

"Will this prevent him from being able to enroll? Here?"

"No." The answer was firm, though the councilor's nervous finger sounded doubt in a steady staccato. "The principal saw his math scores and granted him admission immediately. He'll require additional help, though; I'll have our special needs director coordinate with you over possible lesson plans, both here – and at home. I see no reason, though, why he couldn't attend the same classes as your son. Having a familiar face, it may prove beneficial for them both. Andros' records–"

A knock at the door put a halt to their conference as the boys were returned from their tour. And Andros had held her hand quietly as they walked back home, Zhane by turns trailing behind and rushing ahead as his attention wandered from one mundane curiosity to another.

Home, and she'd sent them out to play while she'd slowly put away the day's purchases; sturdy clothes from the second-hand shop, a monochromatic gradient barely touched by color. A few toys, as worn as the ones she'd set them next to. Two brand-new knapsacks provided courtesy of the school, and how the boys had grimaced while accepting them...

She sits at the table, paperwork forgotten, as she gently strokes the plush felid's head. Such dear, beloved memories to take up so little room amongst the clutter. She sits, her chin cupped in the palm of her other hand, as she thinks about memories of months ago; memories of years ago. When she'd been young with an equally implausible friend.

The front door opens with a muffled bang, youthful voices arguing over who had slammed it. "Boys," she warns them as she straightens the papers before looking up. "You..." She blinks, disbelief warring with a mother's sure knowledge. "Two days in a row! Two days in a row you come in covered in mud!"

"Mama," her son begins to explain – but she cuts him off short. It's that or burst out laughing at the absurd sight the two make, huddling together on the welcome mat.

"No. Andros, shower, now," she demands, pointing towards the bathroom. "Zhane, sit," she redirects her finger to the chair beside her at the table, raising her eyebrow when neither boy steps into the room. "Is there a problem?"

"No, Mama, but it's not Zhane's fault! He–"

"Is going to sit, here, now, while you clean up. And when you're done – it'll be his turn." Her voice is stern, but nothing can disguise the humor lurking in the tone. "Am I understood?"

"Yes, Mama," Andros mutters, kicking off his shoes and scurrying to the bathroom. "But–"

"Get!"

Zhane is slower to follow her directives, his fingertips hidden within muddy sleeves as he struggles to unknot the laces of his shoes. Standing, she walks to him then kneels, carefully pushing his hands aside while she tackles the tangled mess. She'd tied the laces herself, newly bought to replace the broken ones on the pair of shoes found in the donation bin. She'd tied them, but she in no way recognizes the snarl they've become. "Gracious," she says, reluctantly admitting defeat. "Foot up," she tells the boy, slipping the shoe off his heel when he complies, then the other. "There. Now, come in." She steers him to the table with a gentle hand to the back. "I – have a few questions."

The gray-haired boy sits, his elbows planted on the table and his expression suddenly guarded. "Okay..."

"It's nothing bad." She hopes, at least. The velveteen felid has made its way back into her hands; she fondles the fuzzy ears as she gathers her thoughts. "The school's councilor was impressed by your math skills."

"That's because math is easy; it's the language of the universe."

"Hmm. I suppose it could be." The fabric of the plushie warms her hands. "My friend, my imaginary friend... We were of one mind, you could say. What I knew – she knew." Biting her lip, she looks over to the boy her son's brought into both their lives. "But you, you don't know what Andros knows, do you?"

He blushes hotly before hiding his face behind muddied sleeves. "No."

"Andros didn't Call you."

"...he helped." Zhane trembles, perched on the edge of the chair. A gray-sleeved arm lowers, exposing a large, sincere eye. "I'm meant for him. I am! But – he's not the one that opened the window."

"Karone did."

He exhales loudly, letting both arms fall to the table. The flush staining his cheeks is giving way to a worrying pallor. "Yeah," he confirms warily, still trembling, still ready to flee at the first wrong word. "Karone wanted Andros happy. Together they imagined a friend. And she opened a window wide – and I heard. You have no idea! I'd waited, so long..." A tear falls, leaving a silver trail down a quivering cheek before dripping to the table. "I'd looked, so long! And when I finally, finally heard – they were so far away. I came as fast as I could. I came faster than I could..." He buries his head in his crossed arms, hiding any further tears.

"What happened?"

His words are muffled, but his anguish is clear. "I was so close, so close. Then – I couldn't hear her anymore."

She gasps, not in surprise but in abiding, shared pain. "The day she was taken. Zhane." Ever so carefully she reaches out, lifting the boy's head away from his arms, unmindful of the dirt, the tears. "Sweetie. It's okay. I know, I know you're not, not finished. I had a friend, once. A friend – kind of like you, I think. And that's why – that's why I know, I know! that Karone is alive." She wipes the wetness from his cheeks with her thumbs before leaning forward to place a tender kiss on the crown of his head. "I know she's alive, because you're here."

He sniffles while pressing his face into the palms of her cupping hands. "You didn't know?"

"We're merely Kerovians," she says, catching another tear on a fingertip. Her own tears fall unchecked. "We didn't know. You've given us such a gift." She releases him, leaving the plush felid behind in his arms. "But you can't hear her now? You don't know where she's at?"

Shaking his head, Zhane cradles his new gift to his chest. "No. Karone – is hidden, some how. I can feel Andros' link to her, blocked... but unbroken."

Her own breath catches, and her attention turns to the two small jewelry boxes. "I had these made," she whispers, picking up the nearest box much like the boy next to her cradles the well-loved toy. "Made for them both." With utmost care she opens the box, displaying the golden, oval locket nestled within. "When I thought... thought that Karone would be found in days. A few days at most. But days went to weeks, went to the search being called off by the safety officer in charge..." She lifts out the locket and opens the latch. "They were meant to be a gift. Welcome home, everything's okay now, I love you both so much..." Biting her lip hard enough to draw blood, she snaps the locket closed.

"The locket's important?" Sitting straighter, Zhane wipes his face with the sleeve of his hoodie, streaking mud across the bridge of his nose. He stares at her, his pale gray eyes intent. "It feels – important."

"I'll give Andros his this evening," she says, reluctantly placing the piece of jewelry back into its box. "And – I'll save Karone's for when she's back with us."

"No..." Zhane is still staring, staring at her, staring through her. "It's too important. I... I can try to get it to her tonight. I think – it has to be tonight."

The box falls from her grasp so great is her shock. "But you don't know where she is!"

"I'll follow Andros' link. It can't tell me where she is. She's too well hidden for that. But I think, if I'm careful... I think I can get the locket to her."

She dares to feel hope for the first time in months. "Over a blocked, spontaneous psychic bond formed when my children were both infants?"

He shrugs, offering her a small, shy grin. "It's just a bit of matter. Matter's – never impressed me much."

.oO0Oo.

They call her Astronema, the monsters that surround her. They howl, and screech, and chirp Astronema as she hesitantly trails after her guardian through the dim halls of the Dark Fortress. Astronema they scream, doomed bids to gain her attention. Astronema... she hears, throughout the hours of the day and echoing in her dreams at night. They've named her – but she has yet to learn to respond. It doesn't feel like it's hers. Not her name. Not her self.

"My Princess," Ecliptor says, the gravelly grate of his voice disguising the care he may or may not be capable of feeling. "It's time for bed." To her guardian, she's the princess; to the masses, she's Astronema. To the figure of horror and destruction that is her first clear memory... she's the weapon.

None of the names – feel like her. And she doesn't like sleeping, because when she sleeps, she dreams. And when she dreams... somebody is shouting her name in heart-stopping terror, but she can't hear them. Can't see them. They know her true name, but the knowledge is blocked from her. Everything from before Dark Specter is gone.

But dream she must, as she loses the battle against sleep after fighting against it into the early hours of the morning. Dream she does, of a darkened meadow hazy and indistinct with a sky overhead that's as featureless and dull as the corridors of the Fortress. Dream, as it remains night after night, echoes within echoes... until a speck of color catches her eyes. There's a flower in the drab, colorless grass. A tiny, pastel yellow bloom bobbing gently in a breeze she cannot feel.

"That's new," she whispers, leaning down to look closer.

"Not really," a boy's voice contradicts, startlingly loud in this place of muted senses. "The flowers have always been here. The gloom? Now that's new."

She jerks away from the flower and spins around, finally spotting the boy standing a few paces behind her. A boy as gray as a mousling; as gray as the surrounding dream – yet somehow, impossibly brighter. There's a smile on his face, a tiny, hidden thing; she knows it's there only because her own smiles have, by necessity, become tiny, hidden things. He's standing where she'd been but moments before, before the flower had caught her attention, and now...

And now...

The meadow bursts with color; the greens and golds of grasses, the brown of soil, the pink and yellow of flowers; the perfect azure of the sky overhead, and the blinding white of the clouds drifting across its surface.

"What did you do?" she asks him, this boy in her dream with his secret smile and bright, bright eyes.

"Living twice at once, you learn you're safe from the pain in the dream domain."

"But I haven't been." She runs her hands across the tips of broad, ticklish grasses. Sniffs a scent of ozone and lilac. "My dreams have not been safe at all."

"'M sorry about that." The boy sits, legs thrust out in front of him. A butterfly of refracted light flutters in front of his face; brushes against the tip of his upturned nose before bursting into a dizzying dance of color. "Evil left a tendril behind. I redirected it as I came in; let it trouble the dreams of a beetle as it burrows." His lips curve upwards and his smile beams with as much warmth as the sun overhead. "You won't have to worry about that particular nightmare again."

"Hmm." It's a dream, and she will not argue against the dream logic of a dream boy. Instead, she sits across from him, marveling at this miracle of nature that's blossomed within her mind. "I feel... like I know you." Bending forward at the waist, she reaches out to trace the contours of his face: forehead, nose, cheekbones, lips. Lips that quirk beneath her feather-light touch. "I know this face. I, I imagined this face..." Straightening in astonishment, she pokes his gray-shirted chest with the tip of her finger. "Ecliptor says I'm a sorceress. –Did I make you? Are you mine?"

The boy's smile turns regretful as he carefully takes hold of her accusing finger. "You opened a window – but you meant me for another."

"Who?" she demands. Demands as her guardian has begun to instruct her, with all the arrogance of her future station. "Who took you from me? Who – took me from you?"

His hands are wrapped around her own; the sudden coolness of metal pressing against her palm is unwelcome, and she tries to draw back. Tries, but is trapped by the sincerity in his voice.

"I'm meant for your brother." He releases her, leaving behind a golden, oval locket resting in her cupped hand. "Your older brother–" his lips move, move with intent...

...but she can't hear.

He sighs, and his brightness dims. "I have limits here, after all." He tilts his head and taps a fingernail imploringly against the golden charm. "It opens. So that you might always have your brother."

"My guardian says Rangers killed my family." She's able to open the locket on the second try; opens the locket – and stares. Stares – and begins to cry. "He says they killed my brother. I hate them! I hate them so much! They took everything from me, and all that I'm left with is a name that isn't me."

His lips move soundlessly once more. Vexed, he tries again, and again, before giving a frustrated huff. "And your name? Can you tell me this name that isn't you?"

Angrily wiping at her face, she places the necklace over her head, letting the locket rest against her heart. "–let me also wear such deliberate disguises–no! That's not..." Trembling, she leans forward again, resting her head against the boy's chest. His hug is like something from a memory. A memory stolen away, as all her memories have been taken. Her memories, her joy, her childhood. "I want to tell you. I need to tell you. But... I can't. I can't!"

"Shh." He continues to hug her as she weeps. "You're safe here, now. Don't be afraid any longer. Here, it will always be summer. Sister to faith, little shepherdess of stars." He pulls back, and for a moment the meadow flickers, the sun obscured by a passing cloud. "Your brother will never stop looking for you."

"My brother is dead." And this time she's glad when his protests are swallowed by silence. "If he searches, it's from the other side." The meadow is vibrant and the sun breaks free from the cloud, but the boy at her side is lesser, his brightness fleeing before her conviction. "You need to go," she warns him. Warns him as she tries to pull him closer. Tries to keep him, this boy she'd made and so foolishly given away. This boy that is hers when nothing else remains. "Please. Before I change my mind."

She feels the phantom touch of a final hug as she opens her eyes to her dim, grim room. Feels the wetness of tears streaking her face. And upon her chest, feels the unimaginable weight of an impossible locket, rising and falling with each hiccuping breath.

"My Princess?"

"Just a dream, Ecliptor." She quickly draws the blanket up, on the off chance her guardian decides to come in. "Just – another dream."

.oO0Oo.

Andros wakes, blinking up into the bright morning light falling in through his bedroom window. He's slept in, on this last free day before starting at the new school. He stretches, toes pointed beneath the heavy quilt and arms flung wide enough to smack the blanket-enshrouded form next to him. It's morning, and the air is filled with the golden aroma of toasting bread and the sweet hint of jam. "C'mon, Zhane," he nudges his friend as he slides from the bed. "Breakfast is ready. Best not keep Mama waiting."

He dresses, sending increasingly annoyed glances at the lump remaining on his bed. "You can't sleep all day; that's just lazy." There's no sign that Zhane hears him. Not a twitch; not the slightest shift in the quilt pulled up over his head. "Honestly," Andros grumbles, walking around the bed and shaking what he assumes is probably a leg underneath the layers of blankets. "You sleep like there's a prize involved." Raising his voice, he gives a harder shake. "Wake up already, Zhane!"

Stubbornly, the other boy remains sleeping. But Andros is just as stubborn; stubborn, and hungry, and suspicious that his friend is playing a joke at his expense – because who could actually sleep through breakfast? "Last chance," he threatens, using both hands to grab on to the quilt. "One, two... three!" With strength borne of righteousness he pulls the covers back to the foot of the bed, exposing the boy underneath. Exposing mussed hair black as a starless night and skin gray-tinged and disturbingly cool beneath his frantically reaching fingers.

"Mama!" he screams as he shakes his friend again, purposefully ignoring how limp the body beneath him is; how horribly, wrongly still. "Mama! Zhane won't wake up!"

The woman rushes into the room, her son's panic a siren-song. She sees them both; takes in the tableau in a frozen moment then bounds across the room, her own eyes widening in dismay. "Stop, Andros," she tells him as she pries his small hands away from the pajamaed shoulders he'd been squeezing. "I need to see, I need to..." Her fingers race, from Zhane's neck to his wrists, then back up, coming to a stop above his upper lip. "...He's breathing. Barely. Honey, can you check his pulse for me? My hands are shaking too much; I can't–" She bites back the rest of the sentence; shoves aside rising negativity. "Please?"

It's hard to find the pulse-point; harder yet to find a pulse, but it's there, weak and tremulous beneath Andros' fingertips. "Got it," he whispers, his own heart wanting to match the fluttering rhythm. "What do we do now?"

Her eyes narrow as she smoothes back dark, dark hair. With the thumb of her other hand, she gently lifts one of Zhane's eyelids exposing an equally dark eye. "Check the bed for a locket," she eventually says, her voice bitter and cracked.

"A locket?"

"A pendant, for a necklace. Oval. Gold. Check the bed. And the blankets." She joins her son in the search, tearing through sheets and pulling off blankets; shakes the quilt until loose lint dances in the shafts of light falling from the window. Andros looks under the bed in case it had fallen to the floor during the night, while his Mama gently reaches beneath Zhane on the off chance the other boy had rolled over on it in his sleep.

"I don't think it's here." Andros looks at his Mama before sneezing from the stirred-up dust. "–Should there be a locket here?" He crawls over to her where she's sitting on the rumpled bedding discarded on the floor.

"Brave, stupid child," she murmurs as she pulls her son up into her lap. "Andros, your friend is a self-sacrificing idiot. Yes, there should be a locket here. But it's not." She sighs, the movement rocking them both. "It's not. Zhane's traveled too far, and lost the way home. I need to you take his hand, and Call him back. Can you do that, honey?"

"I think so?" Although he's not sure how that's any different from what he's already been doing, begging Zhane to wake. Standing, he takes Zhane's hand, gray and cool and unnervingly still. Takes it between his own, hoping to impart some spark of warmth. "Zhane?"

"No." His Mama lightly pats his hip in admonishment. "He's far too far away for your voice to reach. You need to Call him. Mind to mind, heart to heart. He's wandered too far, and he's just a single light against the darkness. Luckily, the thing about windows is that light can travel both ways through them. Open the window, Andros, and Call."

Nervously licking his lips, he tries not to doubt her. His Mama, usually sensible, talking of minds and hearts and light. As she once had, before Papa had been caught in the mine collapse. His Mama, clear-eyed and present as she hasn't been for years.

'Zhane?' He closes his eyes to better focus on the hand he's holding; closes them tightly to block out distractions. 'Zhane?' he tries again as he gets an impression, a momentary fancy that the fingers held within his own are but the smallest part of something else. Hand, arm, boy the very smallest part of something else stretched impossibly far and impossibly thin, lost and scared and searching for him.

'Zhane!'

'...Andros?' he hears, a faint echo bouncing across unimaginable distance. '...Andros?! What are you doing here?'

'Looking for you!' He doesn't know if thought can convey the glare he wants to give; he doesn't care – he'll glare hard enough that Zhane won't be able to miss it. 'What are you doing there?' he questions in return. And... he knows he's in his bedroom. Knows he's by his bed, Zhane's hand pulled tightly to his chest. Knows his Mama is by his side, her arm an anchor around his waist, and yet... And yet, he's in a field of stars, stars that burn unwavering against the backdrop of cold, uncaring void. He's in space, and in the distance too far to see but not too far to feel – is Zhane. 'What am I gonna do with you?' he complains, struggling to reach out in this place lacking form and substance. 'How in the world does someone get lost in their sleep?'

'...It's a talent,' Zhane admits with a hint of chagrin. 'I got here fine. Just... felt kinda tired on the way back.'

'Tired,' he parrots back, sarcasm thick. 'Not lost.'

'...Maybe a little lost.'

Mind to mind. Heart to heart. And all that is Zhane is suddenly next to him, huddling close, a single dancing spark against the backdrop of solemn stars. A second or an eternity later, the nearly foreign sensation of Zhane's fingers spasming against his own reminds him that they both have bodies. And he remembers that they're not in space but in his bedroom... Choking on an unexpected lungful of air, Andros opens his eyes, disoriented by the brightness of late morning and the realness of the room around him. "Zhane!" he gasps, and collapses on top of his friend in equal parts relief and dizzying vertigo.

"Andros?" he murmurs, struggling to open his eyes. Eyes, once cracked open, the color of pewter, so much better than their former blank blackness. Swallowing roughly he blinks, and weakly returns the clasp around his hand. "Why are you crying."

"There are three things we cry for in life: Things that are lost, things that are found..."

"And the third?" Zhane asks, a tiny, bemused smile brightening his face, chasing away the lingering shadows.

"Not important." He returns his friend's smile; laughs outright as Zhane crinkles his nose in discontent. And it surprises him when his Mama reenters the room; he hadn't heard her leave. He hadn't noticed much of anything, he admits to himself, besides Zhane underneath him awake and breathing and brightening by the moment. "He's back, Mama! He was really, really far away, but I Called like you told me to. And I brought him home."

"That you did," she tells him as she bends and places a careful kiss atop each of their heads. "I'm so proud of you, Andros. Now," she straightens, her features tightening and her voice turning sharp as she switches her attention to Zhane. "I want you to promise me you'll never do that again."

Zhane returns her glower with absolute, feigned innocence. "It was important."

His Mama flinches before his honesty. "Not as important as you. Andros can't lose you both. Promise me, Zhane."

"I promise," he says grudgingly, then adds, "unless it's necessary."

She frowns, disapproval in every tense line of her body. "I see." Gathering up the disordered bedding, she drops the sheets and blankets to the foot of the bed before tapping her son on his ankle. "Come along, Andros. Help me finish up breakfast while Zhane gets dressed. And makes the bed," she adds sternly as she walks to the bedroom door. "Since he's the reason it's in such a state to begin with."

Shrugging, Andros offers his friend a commiserating grin. "See you at breakfast, then," he says as he struggles up from his awkward sprawl. With one lingering, unsure glance back, he follows his Mama out the door – a little surprised when she closes it behind them.

The click of the door is louder than his Mama's whisper against his ear. "I've a present for you." With swift movements she drops a chain over his head, her hand lingering on the locket that's now resting against his heart. "I meant to give it to you – some time ago. Open it, honey."

He obeys, fingers fumbling briefly against the latch. "Oh." Inside the locket are two pictures; himself, and his sister. Smiling and carefree... and he can blame the wetness streaking his face on the tears he'd cried minutes earlier. "It's Karone," he says softly, staring raptly down at the priceless gift. "You... you found the locket after all?"

"Not – exactly." Pulling a handkerchief from her apron pocket, his Mama dries his face even as a new tear begins to fall. "Your sister has the other locket."

He doesn't understand. Doesn't know why his Mama had had him searching the bed for the locket, if it's been with Karone the entire time. He looks up at her and knows he'll get no explanation. For his Mama's eyes are clouded with secrets, and her lips are pressed firm against their spilling out. And she releases her hair from its messy bun, letting blonde locks fall where they will.

"You'll find her one day, Andros," she solemnly bids, her voice tingling down his backbone. Cupping his cheek, she stares down at him searchingly, and he feels the newly laid geis tangle tightly about his heart. "I know you will. She's out there – and she has the matching locket. You'll find her. But you must promise me first; never ask Zhane to look for her. Not alone. Not with you. Not at all. Because Zhane wouldn't promise me, you must."

"Mama?" Her words make no sense, and her grip on his cheek is starting to hurt.

"Zhane will do whatever you ask of him. No matter the cost. Friends like him, they don't actually have a choice. And..." Bowing her head and breaking eye contact, she lets her arm fall back to her side. "Next time – you might not be able to pull him back. Please, promise me Andros."

"I promise." He's not sure what, exactly, he's promised, but his Mama seems satisfied as she turns away and heads back to the kitchen. He watches her depart, the strings of her apron swinging and tendrils of her long, bronze-streaked blonde hair tangling with each sure step. He's made a promise, and it sits uneasily in his mind. He'll find Karone, he knows now that he will – but he also knows with just as much certainty that Zhane will never leave his side. When he's old enough to go looking – Zhane will be by his side. There will be no need to ask.

'Andros?'

'Yeah?'

The door to his bedroom opens, and from behind it Zhane smiles, the light from the window beyond haloing his hair in silver.

'Thanks for bringing me home.'

.oO0Oo.

The teacher is droning on, endless monotone sentences covering the Kerova sector's diplomatic policies. A soupy spewing of words regarding colonies classified as imperiled, threatened... lost. And KO-35, one of originally forty-six Kerovan outposts, now one of seven as its sister-worlds fall dark, fall silent. Kerova Prime itself is little more than a memory; a chapter in their history lessons, a warning of what was waiting for sentients beyond the shining beacon of civilization.

Andros takes notes because it's expected, and because the other children in the classroom are diligently taking notes. Andros takes notes to blend in; to hide himself from the sharp gazes of his new classmates. Zhane, assigned seating across the length of the room, forced into the first row of tables – is not taking notes. He hasn't even turned on his pad, Andros notices before hurriedly returning his gaze to his own tablet. Zhane is fidgeting; the swinging of his feet forcing flecks of brilliance to skitter across the classroom's walls as light reflects off of his silver shoelaces.

'This is boring,' Zhane whines, jabbing at his pad with his stylus yet still not managing to turn it on. 'It didn't look nearly this boring when I watched through the windows.'

'This is school.' He didn't mean to answer. Hadn't meant to reward Zhane's bad behavior with attention. But his friend is right, this is boring, and it's all he can do to fight back a yawn. He'd not slept well the night before, too afraid to sleep, too afraid to wake and find Zhane still and cold and gone. 'If it's not boring, the teacher isn't doing their job right.'

Frustrated, Zhane tries activating his pad again but instead loses his grip on his stylus. It falls to the ground, and he reaches down to pick it up – only for it to jump beyond his reach. Andros notices he's not the only one watching; another boy in a crisp yellow dress shirt and ironed trousers is smirking, his gaze rapt and predatory. And when Zhane crouches down further to reach after his stylus, Andros isn't able to send warning before a telekinetic push sends his friend crashing to the floor.

The classroom fills with laughter as the teacher turns towards the commotion. "Zhane?" he asks in mild astonishment, blinking behind thick prescription lenses. "Is there a problem?"

"No problem." An embarrassed blush covers Zhane's cheeks, the spreading pink creeping down his neck to hide beneath the collar of his white jacket. "Just someone playing a prank," he says, grabbing his stylus before looking up with a hard, sharp-toothed grin. "But that's okay. I like pranks." He picks up his tablet as he stands; stands and smiles and walks unhurriedly to the back of the classroom, and Andros' side. "Budge over."

Andros scoots further along the bench without question, allowing his friend to join him at his table. More curiously, their teacher makes no comment, though he'd been quite firm in explaining the seating assignments when they'd first arrived in his class that morning. Then again, surely the teacher can sense, the way Andros can sense, the telekinetic wave spreading across the room powerful as an incoming tide and attaching stickily to each student. The other children, however, laugh on. Unaware.

"Zhane?" the teacher tries again, nervousness raising the register of his voice.

Zhane's dimpled smile hides both hurt and outrage. "I like pranks," he repeats as first one child, then another, begins to panic as they realize they can't move. It's an impossible feat of telekinesis. No Kerovian has the talent or the control needed to manipulate an entire room. Destroy a room, yes... if motivated by enough fear. And the entire class is terrified, their own minds reaching out to grasp hold of anything that might free them.

And yet not a single, solitary object moves.

'You're bad,' Andros tells his friend, hiding his own delighted grin as he nudges Zhane's wrist with his own.

'I'm good,' Zhane corrects him as he leans against his side and pointedly yawns.

"...Zhane..." Removing his glasses to wipe at the lenses with the sleeve of his jacket, the teacher looks helplessly around the classroom. "I understand pranks might be fun... but school's not the place for them. You're – new, so I can overlook it, this once..." He nearly drops his glasses while putting them back on; blinks owlishly at his students unable to so much as twitch in their seats or give voice to terrified whimpers. "If – you could release them?"

"After your lecture." Yawning again, Zhane's head is soon resting heavily on Andros' shoulder. "Andros says the point of school is to be bored–"

'Zhane!'

"–so I'll let you get to it." There's an odd, muted rumbling as the other children attempt to protest past frozen vocal cords. "But I don't see the point. The last Kerovan colony falls soon. Math survives. Music survives. Occasionally ideals. This?" he mutters, nearly asleep. "This is the domain of ethnoarchaeologists centuries from now. It's the end of the world as we know it."

Zhane's quiet snores fill the rest of the period and when the lunch bell rings the children, suddenly freed from their paralysis, just as quietly flee from the room.

.oO0Oo.

"Did you mean it?" Andros asks as they walk home together from their first day of school. Winter's arrived and the clouds overhead are fat-bellied with snow. The brisk wind nips at exposed skin, and he's temporarily blinded when caught in a swirl of sunset-orange leaves.

"Hmm?" Zhane stumbles against him as he playfully bats away flying debris. "'Bout what? I mean lots of things."

Andros bites his lips; the cold, dry air has chapped them and the careless gesture draws blood. "–Is the world ending?"

"Ah." Strangely diffident, Zhane reaches out and carefully untangles a fragile, dead leaf from blond-streaked brown hair. "You felt it. This world ended months ago. It just hasn't realized it yet."

"Karone." His friend is right; his world had ended months ago. And yet... he's still here. Here, looking out towards a new world. A different world; one with Zhane at his side. And it's a little scary. Almost as frightening as the school's letter in his knapsack, waiting for his mother's signature. A notice that should be meaningless against the ending of worlds. "But we're still here."

"Yeah." Eyes wide, Zhane watches as the first flake of snow drifts down. He reaches out to catch it, then pouts as it melts against his fingertips. "In the beginning, there was light. Have you ever wondered why?"

"Because that's the way the story goes." The snow's falling harder, thick damp clumps as large as his palm. Snowflakes cling to their clothes and carpet the street, and Zhane's hair shines like silver beneath the icy veil his short gray locks are accumulating. "Every story starts somewhere."

"There was light in the beginning, because energy can't be destroyed." Lifting his arms, he spins in the falling snow, laughing with delight. "It can be changed, but it can't be destroyed. And light might get lost, but it'll eventually be found. Worlds end. Universes end." His feet slip in the slush, and he begins to fall.

Andros catches him inches from colliding with the sidewalk. "And us?"

"We go on. There's always light in the beginning. And every beginning follows an end filled with light."

.oO0Oo.

The light searches, and time passes.
Time passes for those that are aware.
Time is a hazy, nebulous concept to the light.
Too much bother.
The light searches, and no time passes at all.

.oO0Oo.

"Oh! Look, Andros!"

They're supposed to be on their way to school. They should have been there a quarter-hour ago. Summer, though, is a heavy weight slowing their steps, its insidious heat sapping motivation. Andros wipes perspiration from his face as he struggles to adjust his usual ponytail into a messy bun. Today he'd won the coin toss to wear the single skirt they share between them, but it's not much cooler than his lightest pair of pants. "We're late, Zhane."

"So it won't matter if we're later." The other boy is in the middle of a growth spurt, ankles and wrists flashing from too-short pants' legs and sleeves. He's standing in front of a store's display window, palms pressed against tempered glass forming damp prints underneath them. "Just – look!" He drums his fingers impatiently, pointing out the mannequins inside.

The mannequins get air conditioning, Andros thinks uncharitably, while boys without money for transit fare are left to roast in the unforgiving heat. "It's just a clothing store." He does, however, step closer, more for the shade provided by the awning than any interest in his friend's latest fascination.

"But Andros..." Sweat has spiked Zhane's cloud gray hair and splotched his worn, threadbare hoodie. His fingers curl longingly against the store's smudged window. "They have a silver shirt. It's silver," he gives a purring sigh, pale eyes slitted dreamily. "I could live in it. Can you imagine; every day, silver like water against my skin..." He sighs again, pressing his overheated cheek against the negligible coolness of the glass. "I bet it wouldn't itch like gray."

Andros sighs as well, although his is one of weary forbearance, and joins his friend to peer at the clothing displayed inside the shaded interior of the store. There's nothing he can say, well aware that his own wardrobe is dominated by red. It's nothing he's willing to tease Zhane over. "This place is expensive," he says instead, catching sight of the tags hanging from the nearest ensemble. "For the price of that shirt, Mama could get you several outfits. And you need them."

"From the thrift store, and second-hand shops." Scuffing his frayed shoe against the ground, Zhane wrenches his yearning gaze away from the window. "And I'm grateful! I really am, Andros. But they never, ever have anything silver."

"Hey." The hand he rests on his friend's shoulder is meant to be consoling, but mostly it's just another aggravating source of heat. "It's not like you're a Ranger. You don't have to dress in silver."

Tilting his head, Zhane stares at him quizzically from the corner of his eye. "I'm as much a Ranger as you are."

Andros drops his hand, stung by the other boy's comment. It hurts, even years after, remembering his dream of being Red. He'd been so sure when he'd been younger; he'd known who he was, and what he was meant for. Now, he knows such silly notions are for children of families better off. Children that might some day leave KO-35, which has no Rangers of its own. ...Children who'd managed to keep their little sisters safe. "Don't need to rub it in," he mutters, turning sharply and walking away.

"What are you talking about?" Perplexed, Zhane jogs a few steps to catch up. "No, seriously," he reaches out, grabbing Andros' hand and pulling him to a stop. "I think we're having different conversations."

"I know I'm not a Ranger," Andros manages; his jaw aches from how hard he's clenching his teeth, but it's either that or scream at the unfairness of it. "Okay?" He tugs at his red T-shirt and glares down at his red sneakers so he doesn't have to see the pity on his best friend's face.

"Andros–" Zhane's voice quivers, but whatever else he says is drowned out by the shrill siren of the city's emergency alert system.

"Four short bursts; that's imminent attack." This time it's Andros that pulls at Zhane's hand, leading him quickly back up the street to the nearby transit entrance. The surge of the crowd rushing to the designated shelter threatens to separate them as people begin to realize that the alert is not a drill. Shoved hard from behind, Andros slips on something spilled across the steps leading down and only Zhane's frantic hold around his wrist keeps him from being trampled. They're pushed to the side, up against an unforgiving cement wall, unable to compete against the sheer mass of the adults swamping them.

"Damn fools," a gruff voice snarls from above, and there's an unknown pair of hands around Andros' waist, large and rough and lifting him high to set him on burly shoulders.

"Zhane!" he shrieks as he loses hold of his friend. 'Zhane!'

'Here.' There's a sense of shock to the other boy's reply, a smallness he's never before associated with Zhane. 'I – I'm here.'

With relief Andros catches sight of him, owl-eyed and pale, held steady on another man's shoulder a few lengths away. The mob at their feet is still surging, down down down the stairs to the station below, and Andros flings his arms around his rescuer's neck as the man falters momentarily before regaining his balance. 'This is bad. This is really bad. Are you okay?'

'Are you?' He can see Zhane shaking hard enough to nearly dislodge himself from his make-shift perch. 'I thought I'd lost you. They – they were going to step on you! I thought – I thought–'

'I'm okay.' Searing pressure as his leg is caught between his rescuer and a hoarsely screaming woman makes him rethink his answer. '–Might have broken my foot. But I'm okay. Really.' He tries to draw his leg up – and can't help the bubble of hysterical laughter that escapes as Zhane projects the image of a fuzzy, baby primate clinging to the back of its parent.

"You okay, boy?" the man holding him asks in a croon meant to reassure, adjusting the hard grip across his thighs.

"Yeah," he shouts to be heard over the din as he tugs his skirt back down over his knees. "Just relieved to see my friend's okay, too."

He feels the man's deep bass chuckle rattle through his bones. "Odd sorta parrot. Haven't seen that much gray since I visited my granny at the retreat." The shrill bleats of an incoming message over the EAS lulls the crowd for a few seconds, and the man takes advantage of the brief respite to move them closer to Zhane and his friend's own hulking savior. "I swear, if this turns out to be another false alarm..."

But. It's not. The voice over the loudspeaker is not the usual public AI declaring the alert over. Instead it's the governor, her voice strained and hard to hear over the muted clamor of the frantic bureaucrats besieging her office. Hard to hear – but her message is clear. KO-35 has lost one of its southern agricultural districts in an unprovoked attack carried out by unknown hostiles.

It's a staggering loss. But worse are the scattered reports of abductions trickling in. Children taken from schools. From playgrounds. From the very farms set to blaze around them. Children, and adults. But mostly children.

"Just watch," the man carrying Zhane growls, his craggy features twisted in rage. "Her Ladyship's gonna appeal to Eltar. Again. And those sons of–"

"Language," Andros' rescuer chides as he carefully hip checks the other man. The motion brings Andros close enough to seize his friend's arm. He'd feel bad about leaving bruises, but Zhane is returning his clasp, glomming on to him with just as much desperation. "Got delicate ears, here."

"–Those Eltarian sons of biscuit eaters are gonna send their condolences and squat else. How many times have we begged for a Ranger team? But no... the Kerovan systems are low priority. There's a shortage of Rangers and morphers. Freaking cupcakes, by the time those paste lickers get their heads out of their salad bowls and admit there's an invasion – there's going to be nothing left of Kerova to save."

"Look, we've survived worse," the man holding Andros says, a false note of cheer threading his voice. "We always come back. We're Kerovian; we continue on."

Zhane's fingers, fever-warm and thin and digging into his bicep, says otherwise. His own hand, clutching Zhane's worn, gray sleeve hard enough to tear the aged fabric – says otherwise.

'Is this how it ends?'

There's still a hint of wildness in Zhane's eyes, perhaps a trick of the emergency lighting. Perhaps not. But the death-hold he has on Andros' arm is loosening as he considers the question.

'No,' he admits, shaking his head sadly. 'This is just how the end begins.'

.oO0Oo.

His Mama fusses over them both that evening.

There had been confusion once the EAS had announced the all-clear. Their school had reported them missing, while the safety officers on-scene at the transit station had missed them, more concerned with triage – and the removal of nearly unrecognizable victims of trampling. The men that had saved Andros and Zhane, that had carried them through and out of the transit station, had left them at a small café nearby that was passing out bottles of water to the dazed, heat-struck survivors.

That's where his Mama had found them, as she'd ran their normal path to school while crying out their names. It's where she'd fallen to her knees, hugging them to her with a fierceness that hurt as much as it soothed. She'd screamed at them while she'd peppered their faces with kisses, scolded them while she'd wetted their hair with tears.

Now that they're back home she fusses as she wraps Andros' foot, clicking her tongue at the colorful swelling. "It could be broken," she says, her own eyelids fluttering with sympathy at each of his pained winces. "Wouldn't surprise me. But the hospitals are full. The clinics are busy with the overflow. It'll be days before I can get you in..." She takes a deep breath; releases it in an irked hiss. "What were you boys thinking? Why weren't you at school?"

Zhane, curled up tightly at the end of the couch, flinches. "S'my fault," he says, his voice muffled behind his knees. And Andros aches just looking at him; no one should be able to fold themselves so small. "I made us late. Goofing off."

"Window shopping," Andros corrects him, nudging his friend's thigh with his uninjured foot. "And it was a really awesome shirt."

The woman secures the end of the bandage then runs a finger beneath it to double check the tightness. "A shirt," she repeats incredulously. "You almost died for a shirt." Zhane's sudden, stifled sob startles her, and her harsh frown softens with dawning awareness. "You both almost died."

"'M sorry."

Andros hates the fear he feels from Zhane. And he scowls at his Mama; she wasn't supposed to make the day worse. She was supposed to make things better. He hates – and he knows he shouldn't, but he does. His foot hurts. And his heart hurts. And Zhane – hurts.

"Sweetie, look at me," she requests, gently tugging a short strand of gray hair. "Please?"

Reluctantly lifting his head, Zhane blinks, his eyes gleaming wetly. Still wide. Still wild. An untamed creature pushed past all ability to cope. "'M sorry!"

"Me too," she whispers as she gathers him up in her arms. "Shh. I'm not mad. I just wanted to know." She rocks him, staring over his bent head at Andros.

I'm sorry, she mouths at him... and Andros lets himself relax, appeased. She's finally making things better.

There's a certain sense of inevitability when he catches her sneaking the gleaming silver shirt into the house a week later.

.oO0Oo.

A young girl fingers the trailing edge of the pink scarf holding back her hair as she watches the two boys slowly cross the school yard. One on crutches and the other carrying both their knapsacks; she watches them with an intensity that her friends find unlike her. Today, Zhane is wearing a simple, black skirt. The day before it had been Andros, and she briefly wonders what it would be like to belong to a family so poor as to be forced into sharing clothes with her siblings. A single skirt between them – she shudders delicately at the thought.

"They should have been expelled," the boy to her left says, his arms crossed over his pale yellow button-down shirt. "It's not fair, what they get away with. Had to look for them for hours and they weren't even here. Should've at least gotten suspended for ditching class. Instead," he sneers, silently cheering when crutches catch on a crack in the pavement, "they're back like nothing happened. Always like nothing happened."

"Hmm." The girl to her right absently smooths creases from her sleek blue slacks as she joins in on the watching. "Still angry about that little TK prank? That was years ago."

"I couldn't move for an hour," he spits out venomously. "Do you know what that's like?"

The girl sitting against her legs, her sundress an inky swirl covering both their feet and the butterfly barrette clipped to her hair glittering dark as obsidian, giggles at the memory. "We all know what it was like. We were there, remember?" She laughs again, a careless, carefree burst of sound. "Daddy's on the school board. They never did figure out how Zhane did it. Couldn't even prove he did. Zhane's kinda amazing that way."

"Kinda amazing that way," the boy mockingly mimics. "You need your head examined. He attacked us."

She makes a small moue with pink-glossed lips. Lips as pink as her nails, as pink as the ends of the scarf she absently twirls round and round her fingers. "You shoved him first. We all know it was you."

"Couldn't prove it."

"No." She continues watching until the objects of her interest turn a corner, disappearing behind the red brick of the auditorium. "It's odd, though. Since that day – everyone's left them alone. You got off lightly," she tells the boy in yellow. "My cousin went to school with Andros, before they showed up here."

The tails of the scarf twirl, pink upon pink upon pink.

"Zhane sent him to urgent care; him, or Andros. My cousin was never certain which. But it was my cousin that got suspended. Him and his friends. Makes you think, doesn't it?"

The girl in black sways in dreamy wonder. "I like them."

.oO0Oo.

Over the years Andros' bedroom has changed. First came the second bed, when his Mama had finally given up hope of ever getting Zhane to use the other bedroom. Karone's room remains as it was, cheerfully yellow behind a closed door; a moment trapped beyond time that they all respect, and avoid.

Originally there had been a nightstand between the two beds. But more mornings than not, Andros would wake with Zhane sprawled at his side. Or Andros would wake somehow tucked up against Zhane's side... and his Mama had eventually thrown up her hands in defeat and helped them move the beds together.

Small touches of silver appeared where once there had been only red. A silver lamp stand to replace the red ceramic lamp accidentally broken during an impromptu game of telekinetic Keep Away. A silver trash bin that gathered dust faster than any other surface in the cottage. Silver stars stuck to the ceiling that glowed invitingly enough that the nightlight was eventually stored away at the back of a cupboard.

Then the beds were once again moved apart. "We're not little kids anymore," he'd told Zhane waspishly, shoving his friend out of the way. "It's weird." And that had been the last morning, the very, very last that he'd ever woken up with his friend sheltered safely beside him underneath his bright red quilt. And Andros refuses to admit, not even to himself, most especially not to himself, that he hasn't slept as well since. Which might explain why the number of mornings he wakes to find himself back in Zhane's bed are increasing. Dramatically. But since he's able to creep back to his own cold, uncomfortable mattress before Zhane wakes... it doesn't matter. He'll adjust. Eventually. Sleep walking can't last forever.

"Zhane, have you seen my slippers?" he calls out as he hears the other boy enter their shared space. He's searched the closet, and under his bed; the weather's turning and he knows it won't be long before he's glad of their extra warmth. His foot hasn't handled the cold or the wet well, not since he broke it.

"'M wearing them," Zhane mumbles as he shuffles into the room. Eyes closed, he makes his way to his bed, collapsing upon the white bedspread. "Too bright in here. Turn off the sun, Andros," he demands as he pulls his pillow over his face.

"Still got that headache?" he asks as he crosses the room to close the curtains. "It's been days. Analgesics not working? –And try now; should be dark enough. If you press down on that pillow any harder, you'll suffocate."

"Good." Moaning, Zhane shifts the pillow enough to expose pain-slitted eyes. "An' no. Nothing's working. Time is all – twisted up. Warped. Like..." he swallows against nausea, shifting the pillow back down an inch. "Like something outside of it is trying to punch through. And they're talking, but it's all garbled. Ugh. I hate time, Andros."

"I know you do. You also say we've got it all wrong."

"You'll see."

His Mama checks in on them throughout the afternoon, bringing ice packs to lay under Zhane's neck and cool compresses to lay across his eyes. Dinner is a silent affair without the gray-haired boy's cheer to drive conversation. Zhane refuses to come out to eat, and with the way he gulps at even the mention of food – Andros doesn't blame him.

Night falls and he kisses his mother's cheek good night. He can't convince his friend to leave his bed; not to brush his teeth, or even to change into pajamas. Zhane's miserable, and Andros sits beside him, running his fingers across the patterns stitched into the bedspread in quiet contemplation.

"Want me here tonight?" he whispers. "Just... just in case?"

"...Yeah." Zhane's hand creeps out from underneath the blankets, searching fretfully until Andros wraps his own around it. "Think I need you. Need you t' find the way back. Gonna tell this guy to shut up already..." Lying down slowly, Andros rests his head on Zhane's pillow, taking care not to jar the other boy. "Gonna poke holes in time, do it where you've already done it, not... not..."

Zhane's grumbling trails off into uneasy sleep. Continuous pain has wrinkled his brow, and Andros tries to smooth the line away with gentle strokes of his fingertip. His Mama had said no normal headache should have lasted this long. And while Zhane's tirade against time is odd... Zhane has always been odd, about time. As he's odd about so many mundane things.

Andros falls asleep thinking about time, and a voice in the distance booming in his ear, close then far, far then close. He falls asleep still holding Zhane's hand with his other palm resting against pale gray strands of hair that glimmer like moonlight beneath the glowing decorative stars above. He sleeps, and dreams of a rushing starfield, close. Then far. Then...

The booming voice becomes clear.

"This is unexpected."

Andros is standing elsewhere, a room filled with tiny blinking lights and strangely archaic consoles. A room with a radiant white globe at one end... and an enormous blue head suspended within a glowing tube at the other. He blinks and tries to rub the sight from his eyes, but his hand is still holding on to Zhane's. Zhane is with him in the room of lights and globe and floating head. Zhane's glaring, his hair and eyes washed electric blue in the chamber's dim lighting. And Zhane is giving the hovering head attitude.

"Zordon? What do you think you're doing? Do you have any idea the noise you've been making? Time's not a trinket." He takes a step forward; Andros has no choice but to take the step with him. "You know what? Never mind that. How did you get outside of time to begin with?"

The floating head... Zordon? Andros knows the name of Zordon, hero of eld, protector of the Power. Zordon of Eltar, mentor to Rangers for millennia beyond reckoning. Zordon – big disembodied head – isn't as familiar. But dreams are strange, and dreams shared with Zhane have always been a bit much. 'Incoming message from the Big Giant Head,' he can't keep from sharing as the being in the energy tube opens his mouth to speak. Zhane's incredulous stare is worth the irreverence. If this is Zordon of Eltar...

"Rita banished me," Zordon booms, and Andros sympathizes deeply with his friend. His own head aches from the distorted echoes. "But I sensed a great Evil approaching civilized space. I've been attempting to assess the situation, but it's been – difficult. As you've had the misfortune to discover."

"Can, can you use your inside voice?" Andros pleads, unable to cover his ears as long as Zhane keeps hold of his hand.

Zordon looks startled, then contrite. "My apologies," he says, not quietly but within tolerable limits. "It has been a long time since I've last had company other than Alpha 5." He tilts his head, and Andros shivers because the motion is wrong without a neck. "I am surprised, however; last we spoke, Zhane, you were on the other side of the universe from where I've been currently searching. Had I known you were near the Kerovan systems–"

"You would've shouted louder."

"–I would have gone about my investigation differently." The man pauses as the light around him pulses; a new thought rests uncomfortably on his broad face. "You've brought a friend dreamwalking. I hope you've considered possible consequences."

Zhane grins brightly, joy and warning in equal measure. "It was me and you since way back when, but you can't make old friends."

"...I see." The smile that stretches across Zordon's full lips is full of wonderment, the look in his eyes eerily doting. "That – would draw you in." Another tilt of his head, and the smile now includes Andros. "Forgive my rudeness. I am Zordon, currently of Earth. And you?"

Zhane's reassuring squeeze is a comfort in a dream that's making increasingly less sense. "Andros, of KO-35." He dips his head in an uncertain gesture of respect and his hair, free for the night from its usual ponytail, falls forward to block his vision. "Umm. Sir." He can feel the blush flooding his cheeks as Zhane quickly helps him tuck the stray locks back behind his ears. "You – you said you could sense Evil? Because Kerova's in trouble." His friend's steady presence at his side gives him the confidence to continue. "The attacks are getting worse. We've lost two more colonies in the last year. And – everyone says we don't stand a chance without Rangers, but Eltar says every team is already deployed and that our military should be enough. And, and they're trying, they're fighting so hard!"

"We're losing," Zhane adds, his voice low. "Evil took Andros' sister. And Andros is Red, but Eltar refuses to send the morphers."

'Zhane!' Mortified, he covers his face with his free hand, not wanting to see the patronizing smirk he knows is being sent his way. He's seen it too often, whenever an adult learns of his discarded, childish ambition. And if he sees it again, here in his dream where his fading, diminished hope should be safest... he might shatter.

"...I see," Zordon repeats himself without a trace of mockery. Andros dares to lower his hand, and there's only apologetic understanding being sent his way. "They've withheld information from me." Within the blue column of light the man sighs, closing his eyes as if in pain. "Very well then." Reopening them, Zordon nods decisively once, then again. "Andros will be the Red Ranger. I'll have the morphers sent immediately."

"I – I will?" He knows it's a dream. Knows the disappointment when he wakes in the morning will be all the worse for the happiness he feels now. It doesn't stop him from grabbing his best friend in an ecstatic hug, burying his face in Zhane's shoulder. "I'm gonna be a Ranger!"

"You've always been a Ranger," is the whispered reply.

Tilting his head up, Andros allows himself to get lost in the future he sees in Zhane's liquid silver eyes. "We're getting morphers, and we'll vow to fight together. Forever!"

"Forever." Zhane's smile is as bright as his eyes. As his hair. All that is gray has been driven away, except... he can feel an icy, feathery touch run down his spine, there and gone. And Andros knows, as he knows so much in this strange dream, that Zhane's promise – is not the same as his own.

Zhane's promised him something different.

"Andros is Red." Zordon's voice is an intrusion, pulling him away from the nagging train of thought. "Who will get the other morphers, I cannot say. Except none of them are meant for Zhane."

"...What?" His outrage is sudden, flaring into burning life. Releasing his friend, he steps closer to the Eltarian, closer, until the sharp edges of the console digging into his hips blocks further passage. "What do you mean? Zhane has to be a Ranger."

Zhane is tugging gently at his pajama top, drawing his ire away from the man before them. "It's okay, Andros," he promises as gray creeps down his hair, flowing from roots to tips. His eyes, a brief moment ago nothing but light, are now shadowed, and Andros smacks his chest in protest because it's not. It's not okay.

It's not fair.

Nothing in his entire life has been fair.

"The morphers I can send are Blue. Black. Yellow. Pink," Zordon says, sorrow touching every word. "I have known Zhane for longer than you would believe. Tell me honestly, Andros of KO-35; could Zhane wear any of those colors?

Hands fisted at his sides, Andros considers. Tries to be reasonable, but his heart knows the truth. "Zhane can do anything," he declares, lifting his chin in defiance.

Chuckling, his friend drapes his arms over his shoulders, pressing their foreheads together. "I can," he admits easily. "I can do anything I want. But what I want – isn't much. What I want, I already have." His smile turns shy as he glances to the side. "I have more now than I've ever had before. But Zordon's right; none of those colors are me."

"You're all colors."

"That's true of any light when it's forced through a prism. Andros."

'Zhane.'

'Would you wear Blue? Or Pink? Or Green? Please, don't ask this of me. If it's truly what you want – I will. You know I will.' His smile slips into pensiveness, his gaze focused on the distance. 'I'll always do what you want most. But please, not this.'

"Not this." Lips trembling, Andros stumbles away from the console and the man, the head floating behind it. "I don't like this dream anymore," he says, shaking his hair back over his face. "I want to go home."

Zhane shares a long look with Zordon, who raises an eyebrow in return. "Home sounds good," he agrees, reaching out his hand, palm up and beckoning. "Together."

"Together," Andros confirms, returning the clasp and feeling the chamber spin away into nothing. Nothing but the brilliant spark that is Zhane next to him, and the stars surrounding them, and the river of light that leads home.

He wakes to tears on his face and his foot throbbing from the early morning chill that pervades the room. Wakes to Zhane curled up in his arms, his breath warm and damp against the hollow of his throat. Eyelashes flutter, a tickle beneath his chin, and Andros sighs as he tucks away the few remaining, sharp shards of a dream broken beyond repair.

"Headache better?" he murmurs, watching a beam of light sneak around the drawn curtain to work its way up the wall.

"Yeah." The sigh pressed against his neck contains the answers to questions that will never be asked. "Time's where it's supposed to be."

"That's good. Help me push the beds back together. And give me back my slippers."

.oO0Oo.

Andros isn't in the mood for his bimonthly meeting with the school's councilor. He's outgrown the need for what is, quite frankly, her babying. It's a wasted two hours after class spent in her office with nothing to do but listen to her babble on about goals and milestones. Two hours fending off her probing questions on dreams and desires, and what vocations he might want to pursue. Two hours he spends shifting uncomfortably on an over-stuffed chair, eyes fixated on the clock glacially ticking overhead, an anachronism purposefully placed amidst the school's tech-heavy environment to drive beleaguered students to distraction.

"Do think over the career choices we've discussed," she tells him merrily as the appointment ends and he bolts for the door. "It's never too early to start planning!"

Considering his mother's absolute lack of savings and connections, Andros thinks crossly, he'd be better off planning a lifetime in janitorial services. He knows the councilor means well; that she had made use of her own connections in getting Zhane and himself initially enrolled at the academy – but it's been years and he's tired of the constant, belittling reminders of his circumstances.

At least he's better off than Zhane, who still has to meet with her every three weeks to struggle through worksheets that make as little sense to his friend now as they did the first time they were presented to him to complete.

'Finally escaped,' he lets Zhane know as he stretches out stiff muscles. 'Where are you at?'

Zhane's response is slow in coming. '...Behind the conservatory?' He sounds uncertain, his usually crisp thoughts wavering, nearly fading out before strengthening. 'Might... need some help.'

'Zhane?' Andros begins running, long legs carrying him through the school's halls and out the doors to the sports' fields beyond. There is no reason the other boy should be by the greenhouse; they'd planned to meet out front of the school before picking up the groceries his mother needed for the evening's meal. And Zhane had never shown an interest in horticulture. 'What happened?'

'Not sure...?' His answer is more question than statement; the underlying bewilderment instantly infuriating as Andros rounds the corner of the conservatory – and finds him. 'Kinda woke up here. I guess?'

"Damn it!" He manages to stop himself before he steps on Zhane. Zhane, naked and beaten and propped against the glass wall of the building behind him, giving the impression of a broken doll displayed on a shelf. "Zhane!"

'Not so loud,' he whimpers before attempting a shaky grin that bares bloodstained teeth. 'Can't – can't get at the knots.'

"Who did this?" Andros hisses as he falls to his knees, reaching desperately for the ropes binding his friend's hands and feet behind his back, the paracord secured tightly around the exposed pipes of an irrigation spigot. The shortness of the ropes, and the way they've been tied, have forced Zhane's back into an unnatural bow that makes his own spine ache in empathy. Sheer calculated cruelty has insured it's a struggle just to reach the knots, they're so well concealed within the tangle of Zhane's strained limbs and the thorny vines of weeds. "Feels like they melted the nylon."

'Would 'splain why I couldn't untie them with TK...' Zhane blinks up at him, eyes dazed and defenseless within their purpling mask of bruises. 'How'd y'r meeting go?'

Andros takes a deep, steadying breath before he can snap. "I'm going to have to cut through them," he says, standing and scowling at the blindingly bright glass wall that makes up the back of the conservatory. A whip lash of will and a section of it shatters; rounded pebbles of glass fall creepingly slow to the trodden path under foot. Stepping inside, Andros spots what he needs; hand pruners carelessly left behind on a workbench. "I need you to hold still, okay?" he pleads as he returns, squatting next to Zhane – who's just begun to shiver. "–There's not a lot of room."

'...'Kay.'

He's about to take the first snip when an unexpected voice behind them nearly causes him to gouge his friend's ankle. "What in the world was that noise? Andros? What are you... Zhane?!" The school's councilor gasps in dawning horror – but he doesn't have time to deal with her. With a twist of his wrist, he's able to work the bladed jaw of the pruner into the first knot, and clip it. The rope loosens, and the extra space gives better access to the remaining knots.

He catches Zhane as he slumps, wincing in sympathy as mangled wrists scrape against the ground. "Gotcha," he mumbles against muddied gray hair. Blood has pooled beneath his friend, far more than be accounted for by the wounds encircling Zhane's hands, arms and ankles

"Stars preserve us," the councilor prays as she joins them, kneeling beside them in a graceful flow of skirts. Her staff ident, worn casually around her neck, is blinking a steady red, its emergency transponder activated. "Zhane, can you tell me what happened?"

Within the safe shelter of his arms, Zhane quivers. 'Jumped me from b'hind. I think. Head hurts.'

"He didn't see them," Andros snarls, missing the look of surprise that flashes across the woman's face. Running careful fingers through the other boy's hair he finds a lump, hot and bleeding. "Head wound. Zhane thinks they attacked from behind." In a single motion he pulls his shirt off over his head and drapes it around his friend's hips, his snarl deepening at the sight of more reddening bruises that look entirely too much like handprints.

The sound of sirens moving closer fails to reassure as Andros holds Zhane closely and rocks.

"They can't have hidden from the security cameras." The councilor stands and moves to direct arriving paramedics. "We should have the assailants in custody by tonight."

Andros – isn't reassured. As Zhane's silent tears slowly wet his shoulder – he isn't reassured at all.

.oO0Oo.

"The doctor says you get to come home tomorrow." Andros hopes it's tomorrow. It's been impossible to sleep at night with Zhane's side of their bed empty and cold.

"She said that yesterday." Zhane pouts as best he's able with his lip split and his jaw swollen, and his gray eyes are sulky in a way they seldom are. "There's nothing to do here."

"That's because you're supposed to be resting." Lowering the rail that runs the length of the bed, he sits next to his friend and lets his hand wrap around his leg above his ankle. It's one of the few places he knows Zhane isn't bruised or cut or burnt, and the thought alone has him growling low in his throat. "You took a really bad hit to the head; the doctor's just being cautious."

And originally Zhane had been assigned a male physician, but during those first, frantic hours of his admittance, between MRIs and physical exams, a female doctor had taken over his case introducing herself with a soft smile and gentle suggestions. She'd taken Andros' mother aside when Zhane had been sent for yet another scan – and she's been the attending physician since. Andros likes her, as much as he hadn't liked the original doctor. She's nice, and she's sat with Zhane each time the safety officers have come by to pelt them both with questions that have grown more accusing with each passing day.

The school's cameras had been disabled. Each and every one of them. The single strand of hair that had been discovered melted into the nylon of the paracord – not gray, not Zhane's – had disappeared from evidence. And Zhane's clothes had yet to be found despite the school being put on lock-down the moment the paramedics had arrived.

Andros no longer bothers being polite when the officers come. Zhane's stopped talking to them completely; he can't report on what he wasn't conscious for. And his mother had hissed in uncouth threat when one officer had suggested that there was a reason Andros had been the first to find his friend.

"Do you want to die?" the man's partner had whispered hoarsely as he'd pulled him back. Followed by a stream of apologies, of, "I'm sorry, ma'am," and, "Please excuse him, ma'am," and, "He's a recent transfer, he doesn't know, ma'am." There hadn't been an apology aimed towards Andros. No apology for Zhane, who'd started trembling the longer the man had carried on. He'd wrung his hands together, twisting and pulling until Andros could catch them between his own, careful as he could be of both the burns and rope burns hidden beneath pristine bandages.

Zhane frowns at him, not satisfied with his excuse. "I'm bored, Andros. And they won't give me pie. Every day I check the box for pie on the menu, and they bring me pudding. It's a travesty." He shifts uncomfortably, the first signs of pain beginning to show, and Andros knows it must be past time for his next dose of medication. Zhane pushes how long he can hold off, and Andros wishes he wouldn't. Seeing Zhane in pain only makes Andros angrier, and he's already dangerously angry.

He'd hissed at a teacher when they'd refused to give him his friend's assignments. The Principal, at least, had been more understanding. As well as more aware of exactly how much trouble the school is in.

"Let me go see what's in the cafeteria. If there's pie, I'll bring you back a slice."

He goes to stand, but Zhane's fingers are on his arm cold and shaking, holding him in place. "No! No, I'm okay. I can live without pie for one more day." His voice is light but his eyes are shadowed, as they've been shadowed since the attack. "Would rather have your company."

"...Zhane?"

Biting at a lower lip that can't handle any more abuse, Zhane shrugs uneasily. "It's the nurses," he says, lowering his eyes to the bleached sheet covering him "They – stare. I can't hear most of what they're saying, but they stare through the doorway. I don't like it."

They stare. They do. Andros has caught them at it, along with fragments of their gossip. "That poor boy," and, "Who could have done such a thing?" and a darkly mocking, "Well, he's pretty enough and it's not like he's actually Kerovian." The nurses assigned to the floor rotate but the stares stay the same, and Andros doesn't mind staying. He doesn't mind at all.

He'll stay tonight, hospital policy be damned, and by tomorrow Zhane will be home.

"Okay." He covers Zhane's fingers with his hand, and tries to warm them. Andros is tired, and angry enough that he doesn't trust himself. "...Think there's room for us both on the bed?"

And Zhane smiles widely enough to reopen his split lip, and squirms to the side mindless of the tangle he's making of the IV line. And they do both fit, although it's tight, and Andros thinks he might finally be able to sleep. Running his fingers through dove gray hair, careful of the wound hidden beneath the strands, Andros longs for sleep. But he's angry, and even from here he can hear the whispers.

"Aww, how cute!" and a judgmental, "After what he's been through?" and a chiding, "Hush, they're brothers, you shrew." Eventually the whispers fade into noisy silence and the steady beeping of machines. Zhane's asleep, and Andros is nearly there. He's so tired. Of everything. He wants to be home. He wants the last week to have never have happened. He wants the safety officers to catch the monster that had dared hurt his friend...

From the fringes of a dream's beginning he thinks he hears an echo. "How cute." The voice is cruel, and close, and clear. A click followed by a stifled snigger. "Shame I couldn't finish." By the time Andros manages to crack open his eyes the hospital room's doorway is empty.

.oO0Oo.

She loathes the woods. They're dark, and menacing. Trees loom overhead and scraggly sharp-pointed twigs catch at the yarn of her pink sweater, attempt to snatch the fluttering ends of her pink scarf, and tear at the pastel rose silk of her skirt. Warped things call the woods home now days, foul creatures left behind by invading forces. Oh, not nearby she'd been assured, when given a basket to fill with mushrooms. The capitol is still safe, as are the surrounding suburbs. Everyone said so. A root trips her, and the rough bark of a rotting tree tears at her hands as she catches herself.

She loathes the woods. Ahead, she can see sunlight penetrating the canopy. There's a clearing there. And the faint rise and fall of voices, bright and laughing and wanted. Need hurries her steps; behind her, bloody handprints mark the path back.

"Come on, Zhane! You have to stop eating the berries." She can see Andros standing in the small meadow, his face relaxed and his smile carefree as it never is at school anymore. "Mama is expecting us to bring back full baskets. We'll never finish at the rate you're going."

"It's proven scientific fact that berrying can never be finished," Zhane counters, his lips and fingertips stained a brilliant mulberry, sharp contrast to the yellowing bruises marring his face and wrists. "Besides, it's easy enough to find more." Pulling a plump, overripe berry from the bush in front of him, he eyes it critically before popping it into his mouth. "No point bringing back berries that'll be mush by the end of the day."

"I suppose not."

The clearing is flooded with sun, warm and welcoming, and she staggers into it mindless of the thorns scratching her calves. The two boys watch her approach warily, Andros setting down his basket while Zhane steps protectively in front of him. It forces a strained giggle from her throat, the idea that either boy would need protection from her. Yet the thought refuses to be dismissed entirely as she recalls certain harsh words some of her friends have said about them. To their faces, and behind their backs. The insults have become more virulent during the boys' extended absence from school. Perhaps Zhane is right, to step in front of Andros. Or perhaps Andros should be the one stepping in front of Zhane, considering...

"Are you okay?" Andros asks, peering over his friend's shoulder.

Is she? Her hands hurt and she holds them out, bruised and bloodied. "I, I... I was supposed to be mushrooming. My Dad says we all have to start helping out. And I, I'm to gather mushrooms. But, I fell." She watches in dazed fascination as blood drips from her hands to splash the berry bush below. "It's dark in the woods," she adds mournfully, silently counting each crimson drop. "I'd much rather work in the sun."

Zhane makes an odd, clicking noise with his tongue as he strides forward, steadying her hands with a firm grip around her wrists. "You've torn them up good," he tells her with another chiding tsk. "Andros, you still got water in your canteen?"

"Yeah." Between one blink and the next, the boy with blond-streaked hair and sincere brown eyes is at her side inspecting the damage. "Zhane's right. We need to clean the wounds, and wrap them. Mushrooms will have to wait." He pours pure, clear water over her hands, washing away the welling blood along with tiny bits of fibery bark. The coolness of the water is soothing, whereas the unobstructed sight of the abrasions on her palms is not. "Don't know if we have anything to cover them with, though."

The gray-haired boy's regard is gentle, lacking the harsh, leering assessment she's grown used to from other boys her age. "–I hate to ask," he finally says self-consciously, "but would it be okay if we used your scarf? I mean, I wouldn't mind using my shirt. Really. But clothing's getting harder to come by."

"And more expensive," Andros mumbles as pink tinges his cheeks. "Mama's already having trouble."

She sniffs as pressure builds behind her eyes. "It's okay." It's not, but it's the duty of every Kerovian to pretend otherwise. "I've plenty of others." Releasing her wrists, Zhane reaches for the scarf tied around her head, then stops. Stops, and waits, looking to her for permission. "It's okay," she repeats, nodding her head and closing her eyes as gentle fingers work loose the knot, so very careful not to pull at the hair caught up in it.

"You should probably head home," Zhane says before he catches the delicate fabric of her scarf between sharp teeth, tearing it in half with the help of a fierce tug. He hands one of the pieces to Andros and together their heads bend over her outstretched palms, where strands of blond and brown and gray so light as to seem silver mingle freely. They wrap her hands in pink against the sluggish welling of red, and she's glad they can't see the tear that escapes despite her efforts to hold it back. "It'll be getting dark soon. And it's not mushroom season. Weather's been too dry for it."

"Figures," she says as they step back, allowing her to inspect their attempt at first aid. Her pink scarf repurposed for bandages, and she sniffs again somewhat wistfully. Her scarf has never looked better. "So what can be gathered this time of year?"

"Berries!" Zhane's exuberant grin is extraordinarily white against lips stained purple. "And I bet we can fill all three baskets and be back home before the sun sets."

Andros picks up his half-filled basket and nods with agreement. "Zhane has a knack for finding bushes the birds and mouslings have missed."

They pick berries into the evening as Andros goes over possible questions that might be on her next civics quiz and which Zhane interrupts with witty asides, and she listens to them natter in quiet contentment. They escort her through the not quite as frightening woods back to the road that leads into the city, and it's twilight as she gets home, her mushroom basket full of berries and her face stained with sweetly tart juice.

Her Dad takes one look at her – and the berries are forgotten and her protests are ignored as he rushes her to the hospital to have her wounds treated.

Afterwards, while her father berates a nurse and she has a moment to finally breathe the sterile, disinfected air of the small room she's been treated in, she pulls the two halves of her scarf out of the trash bin where they'd been discarded. Thoughtfully, she folds them into a small square and hides them in the pocket of her sweater. Later, she'll pull them out – and wonder.

.oO0Oo.

"Andros?"

He looks up from his tablet to his teacher, taking care to tilt the screen away from Zhane who's been trying to copy his answers since the test began.

'You got us caught.'

'Nuh-uh,' Zhane denies, scribbling looping circles on his own pad. 'Besides, I don't need to see your answers.' He nibbles at the end of his stylus before adding a series of lines. 'Answers are easy. Showing the work, that's what I don't get.' A quick glance shows that Zhane's drawn a picture of a pouncing felid where a geometric proof should be. 'Anyway, you got number twelve wrong. And twenty-three.'

'Twenty-three, too? –Never mind,' he sighs as the teacher beckons him forward. "Sir?"

"Principal's office." His teacher is nervous; a small tick at the corner of his eye gives lie to his calm tone. "You've a visitor." Visitors at school are not unheard of... but Andros doesn't know anyone. Unless it's yet another safety officer taking up the cold case of his sister, or Zhane's case that grows colder with each day that passes without leads. And those particular visitors he's tired of; eager new-hires hoping to claim fame by being the one to solve one of two infamous crimes. Shrugging in unease, he turns to leave the classroom when his teacher's yelp jerks him to a stop. "Zhane! Sit back down this instant!"

"Nah," Zhane drawls, strolling casually across the room and hooking his elbow around his own. "I'm not missing this." Pulling Andros out into the hallway, they leave their spluttering teacher behind. "Been waiting for years! Not a chance I'm letting you leave me behind."

"Years?" Andros lets himself be pulled along, bemused. "Something you want to share?"

Zhane shakes his head, his laughter echoing ahead of them. "What makes you think I haven't?"

They turn a corner, and the principal's office is at the end of the corridor. She's standing outside it, along with the school's councilor who gives them a friendly wave as they near. "I warned you both," the councilor snorts, her eyes knowing behind the lenses of her glasses. "You don't get Andros without Zhane."

"So it would appear." The principal does not seem surprised to see them together, but neither is she happy. "I suppose he'll learn the importance of following direction soon enough. Gentlemen," she greets them, her posture stiff and forbearing. "Commander Kinwon's waiting. Take my advice, and try not to be yourselves for once."

.oO0Oo.

It's a heavy weight in his hand, larger than his palm, with sharp angles and sleek curves. It's metal, silver one moment then gold the next depending on which way the light strikes it. It's red buttons and lights; red as his shirt, red as his imagination once upon a time. It's a silent hum below his hearing, a sense of Power restrained. It fits over his wrist and rests against his left forearm perfectly, as if made for him. Or as if they were made for each other.

It's his morpher and the shock of receiving it hasn't abated, leaving him trembling in the padded office chair long after the commander had departed.

"Gonna try it out?" Zhane chirps, perched on the arm of his chair. "'Cause I gotta admit, it's kinda boring watching you gape at it. Not a flattering look for you."

Spluttering, Andros pushes his friend off the chair. "You knew!" he accuses, as Zhane giggles from the sprawl he's landed in. "How did you know?"

"How did you not?" Sitting up, Zhane graces him with a look that he's unable to place. "You knew you were Red, Andros. I told you, you're a Ranger. Even Zordon confirmed that you're Red." His voice softens as he leans forward against his legs, folding his arms across Andros' lap. "Everyone that matters knew. So why wouldn't you let yourself believe?"

"What? Believe in that crazy dream?"

"Hmm. When I dragged you outside of time to meet Zordon; that dream? The one you refused to talk about, after? The dream you never actually told me?"

"–You're right." Grabbing a lock of pale hair he gives the strands a sharp tug, eliciting a quickly covered wince from his friend. "I didn't tell you..." He stares, from Zhane to his morpher, not sure which of them confuses him more. "None of this makes sense. Not Eltar suddenly deciding to send morphers. Certainly not the decision to give me one of them. And you!" The next tug he gives the hair wrapped around his fingers is gentler; Zhane tilts his head with the pressure, chin still resting upon his arms. "You don't make any sense. At all."

"But you still love me?" It's a question, hushed and wavering, instead of the bold statement it usually is.

"Yeah." Andros flexes his fingers, releasing the other boy's hair. "Too late to stop now," he jokes – but something shadowed darkens Zhane's eyes, making Andros regret the words as soon as he speaks them. "Face it," he tries again, tapping the tip of his friend's nose, "you're as stuck with me as I am with you. We're binary stars, you and I."

"You think?" Zhane's smile is syrupy slow, reinforced with a contented hum. "Stars burn out. Do you really think I'm letting you get away that easily?" Shifting positions, he folds his knees under him until he's kneeling comfortably on the floor. "I'm too lazy to go looking for you again."

Andros feigns a pout. "You're saying you wouldn't?"

Eyes bright as zirconium, Zhane shakes his head in denial. "'M not saying I wouldn't look. I'm saying I'll do anything necessary to make sure I never lose you again."

"That sounds like a threat." It's hard to maintain the pout against the flood of mirth that wants to bubble out. "And creepy. And pretty stalker-ish." A chuckle breaks free, encouraged by his friend's smirk. "This is why we don't have friends."

"No..." Zhane's giggles blend in with his own laughter. "'This is why we don't have friends' is the reason why we don't have friends." Nimbly he stands, leaning back against the principal's desk for support as he tries to reign in his amusement. "Soon, though, you're going to have all the friends. Come on, Andros. Enough suspense. Time to go all Red Ranger."

The request reminds him of why they're here, alone in the office. It had been – nice – to forget about the new weight on his arm for a few brief minutes. It had felt good to laugh together. "Eltar didn't send much in the way of instructions along with the morphers. Kinwon doesn't even know the activation phrase; without that, the keypad won't accept inputs."

"Kinwon doesn't know the phrase because you haven't used it yet." A small hop, and the gray-haired boy is sitting on the desk, his feet swinging in tandem. "No one's used these morphers before because the Astro power was always meant for you. The Astro morphers are yours. Stop overthinking; you decided the activation phrase years ago. It hasn't changed."

"So, what?" Andros gives the morpher on his wrist a scathing look, triggering the cover's latch to expose the keypad underneath. "I just shout out something stupid like 'Let's Rocket' and ev-e-ry–" He falters in disbelief as the keypad begins to illuminate, the buttons themselves unbelievable temptation. With no further hesitation, he punches in a three-digit code, enter, and – transforms.

"'Let's Rocket.' Catchy." Zhane's clapping madly, applauding him, and even through the polarized visor of the helmet his friend is glowing bright enough to blind. "The public is going to love you and your team."

"I did it. I am the Red Ranger." Everything – feels different. More immediate. There's a need to move; to run and jump and be that jitters under his skin and pounds within his chest. "I'm a Ranger." The euphoria fades quickly, leaving a sick sense of vertigo behind. "Zhane? How am I supposed to do this?" He needs – air. He needs out, and his fingers struggle against the helmet's latches. "Zhane?!" Latches unlocked, he lifts the helmet from his head and flings it away, unmindful of where it lands or what it damages along the way. "Kinwon said he's choosing the other Rangers. I – I have no say." He can't breathe, can't think as he grabs onto the other boy's arms with white gloved hands. "How am I supposed to do this without you?"

"Hey. It's okay. Breathe with me," Zhane demands, placing his hands over the line of colored squares decorating the chest of his Ranger uniform. "With me, Andros." He takes a deep breath, holds it, then releases, and Andros does his best to match him breath for breath. "Good." The small quirk of his lips isn't close to a smile, but there are signs of relief as tense biceps relax beneath Andros' hands. "Had me worried there. Thought I might get to slap you."

"Not funny."

"Nope, dead serious."

Andros focuses on breathing, in – and out. As anxiety tries to spike once more, he matches his friend's inhalations. In. And out. "Did I hurt you?" he asks hesitantly as his own knuckles pop in succession as he releases gray-clad arms.

"A few bruises at most." His hands remain covering Andros' heart, their pressure a reassuring anchor. "Want to tell me what that was about?"

"Kinwon is assigning the other morphers. You – you're not getting a morpher, or Kinwon would have given it to you already. You won't be a Ranger." The realization strikes against the bedrock of his beliefs and only calm, gray eyes level with his own keep him from hyperventilating anew. "–I don't want to do this without you."

"We just went over this." Zhane's entirely too calm as his hands reach up to cradle Andros' face. "I'm not letting you go. Ever."

"You won't have a choice. You heard Kinwon; there's a ship. And the new team's mandate covers this entire sector." His hold on the morph slips, a withdrawing of Power gritty like sand seeping through a clenched fist. "What do you plan to do? Sneak on board? You don't even know how to fight." A shuddery gasp escapes him as he imagines the damage a monster could do to someone without the protection of the Power. It takes nearly no imagination at all; the news bombards them daily with footage of the destruction occurring in outlying regions on other colony planets. "–Why didn't Kinwon give you a morpher? He has to know; everyone knows..."

"We're binary stars?"

He twines his fingers through the ones cupping his face, pulling them deliberately away. "Exactly. So tell me; how do I do this? Some things you can never leave behind. They don't belong to the past. They belong to you." Palm to palm, he tightens his grip. "So tell me. How do I keep you and keep you safe?"

"You know I can't take any of the other morphers." Zhane matches his strength, but no more. "I'm not Blue. Not Black. Not Pink or Yellow. I'm me. And I'm still," he challenges in a hissing whisper, "as much a Ranger as you are."

"Zhane." He wants to cry. Wants to rage. "Reality isn't what you make of it."

"Andros." Clouded eyes peer at him through dove gray lashes. "Let yourself be happy. Enjoy this. And don't worry about me. Please?" The sudden lack of pushback against his hands causes Andros to stumble forward; the momentum knocks them both flat across the desk. Beneath his cheek Zhane's chest rattles with purring laughter. "Besides, you might be stuck with this reality, but I never signed on. I don't have to play by these rules."

.oO0Oo.

They're gathered on the Astro Megaship, her and her friends. Blue, Yellow, Black. On her own wrist is the pink Astro morpher, large and gaudy. Ungainly. So unlike the sleek, new lines of the ship. They explore the battleship guided by the ship's AI: bridge on megadeck 1, crew quarters on 2, then back to the work bay on 1 with its jump tubes and tables and a scowling Andros waiting impatiently next to Commander Kinwon.

"I still don't get why he's Red," the blond boy next to her complains under his breath, his lips hidden behind the high collar of his yellow coat. "At least we're only stuck with one of the freaks."

Trailing behind them, the girl dressed in an ink black double skirt and purple halter top snaps her fingers admonishingly. "I like Zhane," she simpers, slapping the back of the boy's head as she catches up.

"Doesn't matter." The girl in the blue denim jumper is examining her corresponding jump tube. "We don't have to get along, we just need to be able to work together." She peers down at the boy, taking advantage of the added height from the raised platform leading to the tubes. "That being said, we are officially doomed."

She wants to toy with the trailing ends of the paisley scarf holding back her hair. Instead, she lets her fingers run across the blood-stained fabric safely concealed within the pocket of her pink hoodie – and she remembers. Remembers, and accepts. "Andros will be a good leader." She smiles hopefully at the boy in red; smiles wider as his fingers twitch in involuntary greeting.

"Good, good, you're all here," the commander says, forcing Andros to step forward by means of a hand planted in the small of his back. "Welcome to the Astro Megaship, your new home."

New home? She quickly glances at her friends in surprise, seeing a lack of comprehension reflected back at her threefold. "Sir? What do you mean?"

"Why, Ranger teams are families, of course." The commander is smiling a fixed politician's smile that reveals nothing. "You will be working together, learning together, living together. Here. You'll be under the supervision of the ship's AI, DECA, and it will, of course, report back to her Ladyship's council and myself. Come now, why the long faces? This is the opportunity of your lifetimes."

She watches as Andros stiffens, his face devoid of color. "I never agreed to that," he says, his voice unnaturally deep. "I – we," he corrects himself, "have families. Homes. You said nothing about this when you gave me the morpher!"

The commander's smile is a frozen rictus. "Children. You are a Ranger team now. And it is the council's order; there is simply no arguing against this. You must learn to work together as a cohesive unit as soon as possible, and living together was deemed the quickest way to achieve this."

Andros' arms are crossed defensively, as if protecting himself from an incoming blow. "But that's not what you believe."

"The council," Kinwon stresses, "decided. If you wish to remain Rangers you must abide by their rules; there's no getting around them."

She's angry, angry on all their behalves. They've been lied to. "My Dad's on the council. He never would have approved this."

"Your father wants you safe." The commander's smile is gone but his face is still frozen, unfeeling. It is the mask of a general forced into an untenable position from which he can only attack. "And that meant granting you a mopher – and getting you off-planet. A luxury few of our citizens can afford."

Within the safety of her pouch pocket, blood-stained fabric tears beneath her fingers. Her father would do that. He absolutely would. Her friends, shifting uneasily, refuse to look her way. Their cowardice stings because she knows – their parents have done the same. Taken advantage of wealth and station to buy morphers for their children. All of them... except Andros, whose remaining parent has neither status nor riches, only rumors of witchery and a reputation for curses.

Andros, who stands furious and defiant in front of the commander. "The council didn't assign my mopher; Zordon did. And I did not agree to this!"

There is a crack in Kinwon's façade, a sliver of compassion horrified by its duty. "No, Andros. You are correct. The council did not choose you. So. Will you defy the wishes of your people? Strike out on your own, abandoning your teammates? You could always return the morpher, as well. Let it go to someone else, perhaps someone not as dedicated, not as good. No matter; someone will accept the duty." The man's face is flushed, his pointed finger accusing. "Or do you grow up, and accept that we are at war? War doesn't care about your wants, or needs. So go, Andros. Go home to your mother and cling to your friend and play with your little tin toys. Or accept the burden laid upon every Kerovian and stay, and fight."

They watch Andros, his teeth bared in a snarl and his eyes smouldering pits, as he spins and leaps into a jump tube. Watch as the commander's shoulders fall, his face aging years in seconds. Watch each other in stunned dismay.

She doesn't know if he's coming back. Hopes, prays he does. Because she knows that, without him, they haven't a chance of living up to that speech.

Without Andros – they haven't a chance.

.oO0Oo.

"How could they!" Whirling, he grabs the lamp off the nightstand and throws it at the wall. Made of sturdy metal and plastoid, the lamp fails to break. The wall itself is made of less durable materials and sloughs off plaster and flaked paint to flour the wooden floor below. "How dare they!" His chest heaving, he gropes blindly for something else to fling. His hand lands on his tablet.

"Andros, no."

There's another hand on the tablet, preventing him from picking it up, and he yowls long and loud in outrage. "They have no right!"

"I'm sure they don't." There's arms around him, holding him back, holding him in... and they feel like the only thing preventing him from shaking apart. "But we're not going to have any furnishings left if you keep this up. Sit," the arms lead him to his bed, where his quilt has been torn off and the mattress itself knocked askew. "I thought today was just a meet and greet with your new team. A chance to check out the Megaship. What happened?"

Slumping against Zhane, Andros quivers with restrained tension. "It's a trap," he says bitterly into a silver-clad shoulder. "We have to live on the Megaship. I have to live there or give up being a Ranger. Live with people whose parents bought their morphers." His hair had pulled free from its tie during his tantrum; streaks of brown and blond block his vision. Brown, blond and silver blurred to a shapeless smudge behind the welling of tears. "It's wrong."

"It's certainly not how Ranger teams are meant to form," Zhane agrees while brushing back his hair and tucking it behind his ears.

"What's the point in fighting, when the government's this corrupt?"

"To save what we can." Gray eyes thoughtful, Zhane looks around the room, cataloging the devastation. "To mourn what we can't. To remember what was. And then do it all over again the next day. And the next." He sighs, and reaches for the box of tissues lying haphazardly on the floor. "The other Rangers – will be a problem."

Andros accepts the offered box; dries his face with a tissue as he tries to regain equilibrium. "Maybe I should hand over my morpher. One of the new Rangers is more likely to stab me in the back than protect it."

"Don't be silly. I'll be watching your back."

"Zhane..." Rolling his eyes, he irritably shoves the dampened tissue back into his friend's hand. "Enough. I already don't know how I'll be able to handle not having you there. It feels like ripping my soul in half. Just – stop with the pretending. I have to learn to deal with this somehow."

Groaning, Zhane stands and backs away from the bed with his hands open and outspread, letting the used tissue fall to the ground. "Really?" he questions, rolling his eyes in return. "You're going to make me go through with this? It's like you don't know me at all." Bouncing on the balls of his feet, broken pieces of plaster crunch underneath his frayed sneakers. "Right then. Let's Rocket," he calls out...

...and there's a morpher in his hands.

He has a morpher, different from the Astro morphers. There's no handy cheat-sheet of codes, no glowing red lights, no straps to secure it above the wrist. Yet he handles it expertly, punching in a four button code – and morphing in a blaze of eye-wateringly bright light. Morphing into a Silver Astro Ranger, his uniform a match for Andros' own – only more. Gold accents instead of white, and the squares across his chest a green grid overlaying glossy black instead of the expected rainbow. Zhane's a Ranger, and Andros' own fledgling bond to the Power is roused, searching, seeking...

Latching on and reverberating mine mine mine.

Still bouncing, the gray-haired boy takes off his helmet and holds it against his side. "See?" he smirks, his other hand gesturing to his – everything – with a spirited flourish. "Tada!" The light from the window reflects off silver, glitters against gold, gleams along black. "Now, any other reasons I can't go with you?"

Andros gawks, open-mouthed, slack-jawed, at a complete loss for words. Tries to speak, then clears his throat to try again. "Mega?" he manages to question as a smirk begins to form at the very corner of his mouth. "Your morphing code is actually mega?"

"Hey." Jutting out his lower lip, Zhane flops back onto the bed next to Andros. "Don't look at me; you thought it was awesome when you were little."

"Uh-huh." The smirk breaks free in sly lines and heavy-lidded eyes. "Blame me for all your you-ness."

Crossing his arms over his stomach, Zhane tilts his neck back to grin up at him. "Every second of every day. Face it; you made me to be impossible."

"Sure." Reclining, he lies next to his friend, watching the inexorable march of sunlight across his bedroom ceiling. "Keep telling yourself that. I'm the bad influence." Reaching out, he finds a smooth-gloved hand; his fingers trap the covered wrist within a nearly perfect circle, "How are you a Ranger, Zhane? And why hide it all this time?"

"Couldn't morph until you did." The Ranger uniform dissolves in motes of silver, leaving them matching in ragged, well-worn clothes. "Was up to you to set the template. Otherwise who knows which team's armor would've shown up. As to why I'm a Ranger–"

Without the glove his hold on the other boy's wrist is loose. Without meaning to he tightens his grip, taking reassurance in the slide of thin skin over bone. "You're going to say something stupid. Like, you're a Ranger because I need you to be one. Like it's that simple. Like I've ever just gotten what I wanted."

Zhane shifts his hand but doesn't try to break his grasp. "You tell me, Red Ranger." They watch the steady progression of light blend into the shadow of evening. "You need to tell me, because you never actually believe the things I tell you." The softness of his voice soothes away the brief sting brought on by the truthfulness of his statement. "But, you're Red. That makes you leader. I guess from here on out, you'll be telling me lots of things."

Andros huffs, propping himself up on one elbow. "They're called commands."

"Hmm. Yes, suggestions," his friend says, as if in perfect agreement. "Better get used to your other teammates viewing them as just that." He sits upright as well, the silver of his shirt rippling like water at the motion. "Gonna introduce me to them?"

"Yeah." Andros surveys the room in all its disordered glory, estimating the work required to set it to rights. "Tomorrow. We'll head to the Megaship tomorrow to start training. Although I don't think I'll need to worry about Yellow stabbing me in the back. –He'll be too busy taking aim at yours."

"Funny," he says drolly. "For that, you can clean all this up yourself." Ducking a flung pillow he stands, and Andros is forced to release his wrist. "I'll let mom know what's going on. Oh, and Andros?"

The pillow, sent flying back at him with a perfectly timed telekinetic push, smacks him squarely in the face. "What?" he splutters, letting the pillow drop into his lap, unwilling to return fire against a superior opponent.

"Between you and them? That's exactly where I'm supposed to be."

.oO0Oo.

"This is crap!" Dressed in a beige shirt and dark yellow cargo pants, the boy is pacing in front of their leader, and his friend, both newly arrived on the ship. "We're a Ranger team. I don't care about whatever freaky codependent thing you've got going on with him, he's not staying here! He's not a Ranger. He has no place."

Andros is frowning – and she shivers. She knows, inexplicably, that they'll all be subjected to that frown far more often than is comfortable. There's little in the way of anger in it, only a vast sea of impersonal disappointment aimed with laser-like precision. She feels goosebumps rise beneath the pink knit sleeves of her cardigan and she's selfishly glad that, for now, that frown isn't turned towards her.

The black-smocked girl's avowal that she likes Zhane is expected. The protestation of her friend currently wearing a blue blouse and paisley skirt – is not. "He's right. This isn't summer camp, or a day trip. The military is overseeing us. You can't just drag civilians aboard, Andros. Kinwon made it clear; Rangers only. We've accepted we have to sacrifice our friends and families; duty comes first. Even for our leader. Even for you, Andros, the rules apply. Send him back, and I'll make sure DECA doesn't mention this in her daily report."

She watches Andros and Zhane as they glance at one another, something gleeful lurking behind bland unconcern. She raises her pink-nailed hand, drawing the entire group's attention. "I think," she says, choosing her words with care, "we're missing the point. Focusing on rules and regulations..." Zhane's beaming at her, as if they share a secret. She feels his approval like sunlight breaking through a dark forest canopy, warming her from the inside out. "...I think we should have asked him, first. Are you a Ranger, Zhane?"

"Don't be ridiculous!" the boy in yellow snaps in offended outrage. "There's five morphers. Five! I can't believe you!"

Black ruffles swirling about her knees much like her black hair swirls about her shoulders, the girl to her left leans forward, her interest piqued. "Hmm. Is Zhane a Ranger, though? She has a point. We haven't asked."

"We haven't asked because it's impossible!" the blond boy scoffs. "Five. Morphers. Five Rangers."

Blue geometric charms that dangle from a bracelet chime against each other as the girl to her right taps her fingers thoughtfully against her lips. "True. But Zhane's always insisted rules don't apply to him. Maybe we should ask." Felid-like, she tilts her head in growing curiosity. "Is Zhane a Ranger?"

"Yes!" Andros hisses, his mild frown touched with impatience. "That's what I said from the beginning."

"He did," Zhane confirms, leaning easily against the stair's railing behind him. "He said, 'Guys, a Ranger team with only five Rangers is a disaster waiting to happen, so Zhane's joining us, because Zhane is made of awesome. And possibly edible glitter.' Which, yum." There's pure satisfaction in his posture, secure with his place in the world.

"That's not the way I recall it," Andros disputes, his own expression lightening with fond exasperation.

"Your memory is boring. Mine's better. And more accurate."

"Edible glitter?"

"Possibly edible glitter. Could be spun sugar," he offers, his hand tilting back and forth in indecision. "Actually, I kinda like that. Andros," he asks, forcing his eyes ridiculously wide and pleading, "I don't want to be the Silver Ranger any more. Can I be the Spun Sugar Ranger instead?"

"...No." She can see Andros hiding his laugh behind a cough. She smothers her own giggle beneath the sleeve of her cardigan. "You'd draw ants."

"I don't believe this!" The blond steps forward aggressively, fisting his hand in the collar of Zhane's gray sweatshirt. "You're full of shit," he snarls, his hold on the shorter boy forcing him to his toes. "You bleed as easily as the rest of us. Easier," he adds in a dark whisper she doesn't think the rest of them were meant to overhear. "What kind of Ranger would you make when you couldn't block a single punch last time, huh? You couldn't even defend yourself. What are you going to do in an actual battle? Bleed on enemies, same as you did me? Although you do bleed. so. prettily. Perhaps the monsters will find you just as distracting..."

"That was you?"

She'd thought she'd seen Andros angry before. When teased in the lunch line for their government-sponsored meals. When the boys had been mocked for their mended, thrift store clothes. When a TK-boosted ball had left Andros with a black eye during recess – she'd thought she'd seen the scope of his temper. She'd been wrong. This, this nearly physical wall of coldness pushing her back, this was something to flee from.

"Andros. Hey, no, Andros," Zhane says, still awkwardly balanced on the toes of his shoes, the seams of his shirt beginning to tear from the pressure against his neck. "It's okay. It was ages ago–" He gasps as he's dropped, the capped end of the stair's railing catching his hip.

"Strange." Andros' voice is oddly hushed, thick and clogged – and not his own. It's a voice she's heard in the depths of nightmares. That whispers to her from dark corners. That lurked in the shadows of the forest, taunting her as she ran. "Seems to me it was just a few months back. No one could tell us who did it. The evidence went missing. It would have taken powerful connections for so little headway to be made."

Scrambling back, away from his attacker, Zhane catches hold of his friend's arm. "Don't. Please, don't. Being a Ranger is your dream, Andros. Trust me, it'll be better for us if we let this go. We know why the investigation didn't go anywhere; his family's too highly placed. If we make an issue of it now that we're Rangers, it'll turn political. And we'll never win against her Ladyship's cronies."

Andros breathes in fury and exhales ice. "Kinwon expects us to work as a team," he says, his tone conversational and still not his own. Reasonable, for a voice laced with madness. "And if we're going to function as a group there's only one. single. thing. I need them to understand."

The other girls are edging back, away from the building showdown. She wants to join them; wants to hide in her cabin and pretend this confrontation isn't taking place. But even more, she wants to know. What is it that Andros needs from them?

Their leader has taken the gray-haired boy's arm in turn, elbows and wrists touching in easy familiarity before the motion ends in hands pressed together in a doubled clasp. "You and I are a team. Nothing is more important than our friendship."

"Gag me," the yellow-clad boy sneers, raising his fists. "We settle this now. Then they'll all see you aren't worthy of being Red."

Zhane shakes his head ruefully. "Together, then?" he asks.

"Together."

.oO0Oo.

She needs but a single glance at the two boys entering the house to piece together a vague picture of what's happened. "Sit," she tells them, pointing at the dining room table. Her son tries to protest, getting out a single But Mama before her glare silences him.

"Don't you 'but Mama' me, young man!" she warns, taking in the split lips and torn knuckles; the bruise darkening Zhane's temple and the trickle of blood escaping Andros' swollen nose. "You were on the Megaship! Who in all creation could you possibly find up there to fight?"

"Yellow." Zhane braces his ribs cautiously as he sits, his breath catching as he lowers himself to the wooden seat of the chair. "Cheater morphed."

"For all the good it did him," Andros adds darkly. "We still won. Without the Power."

Tutting, she grabs her son's chin, tilting it to better inspect the damage. "You got in a fight with your teammate? Well, I certainly hope it was worth losing your morpher over." Stalking over to the hallway, she takes the first aid kit out of the closet then returns to the table. "The military isn't going to ignore its Ranger team setting such a poor example."

Andros regards her stonily as she approaches, his expression hauntingly adult on his bloodied face. "He's the one that attacked Zhane. He waited until he knew I was busy meeting with the councilor. He tracked our schedules. He's proud of it, Mama."

"...Is he?" Opening an antiseptic wipe she runs it along his face, over his swelling lip and dripping nose, cleaning out a cut bisecting his eyebrow. Her hand trembles in its task, the only outward indication of the storm brewing within. Zhane believed he'd been beaten. Only beaten. And she'd purposefully kept Andros unaware of the extent of his friend's injuries. But she knew. She knew... and it's too much. That both her son and her otherling son are now teammates with the monster responsible – it's too much. And she pushes the knowledge back. Away. Her boys are Rangers now. And that has to be enough... "Was he also the one that disabled the school's security cameras beforehand?"

"...Yeah," Zhane admits, resting his elbows on the table. "He's never forgiven me for sticking 'em all to their chairs back when we first started school." Regret weighs his words and slouches his shoulders. "And his grandmother's Minister of Public Safety. I can't report him, even though he admitted it and Deca's saved the recording."

She moves over to her otherling son, a fresh wipe in her hand. "Sweetie," she urges him to lift his head, then quietly surveys the broken capillaries reddening his right eye. "He threatened you again?"

He shrugs, and carefully doesn't meet either of their eyes. "Might have? I honestly wasn't paying much attention."

"He's held a grudge all these years over a harmless prank?" Except it's not a grudge. It's so much more than a grudge. But neither of her sons know, and she'll do all in her power to keep it that way. She doesn't want to know... and it's within her power to make it so.

Andros growls as he sniffs back blood. "I can promise I'll be holding mine longer."

She can't reprimand him, not and remain true to herself. Putting away the first aid supplies, she sits once more between son and otherling son. "So... do I need to expect an MP at our door? And do I greet them with a snack, or the business end of my broom?"

Zhane strangles on a pained, heaving chuckle. The following coughing fit leaves him grimacing and holding tighter to his ribs. "Don't need to worry," he manages breathlessly, a harsh rasp warping his words. "Deca likes us. She's no tattletale. Betcha she's already got the recording encrypted and buried. Yellow thinks he knows all about sabotage; let's see how he likes mysteriously missing footage. Or better yet, edited footage Deca will certify as unaltered."

"Deca?" she asks, rubbing small circles against her third child's back in an attempt to soothe the small, barking coughs he was failing to suppress.

"DECA, the ship's AI." Walking to the kitchen, Andros fills a glass with water from the tap and brings it back, placing it in front of his friend and staring until Zhane picks it up to take a cautious sip. "I introduced her to Zhane this morning as soon as we teleported to the ship." He returns to his chair, sitting with a touch more ease than he had when he'd first arrived. "She'll cover for us. Although, considering what he admitted, she's covering for Yellow more. But there really isn't anything I can do; Zhane's right about that. His whole family is too highly placed."

"Honey..." She curls a finger around one of her son's wayward blond streaks of hair, looping it behind a reddened, scuffed ear. "I don't like the sound of that. He gets away with attacking Zhane, hurting you both, and what happens the next time? Or the time after that? People like him don't stop." They never stop. But her son and her otherling son are now Rangers, and that must afford them some protection. The monster in the guise of a boy wouldn't dare, he wouldn't now that they're all Rangers.

Finished drinking his water, Zhane sets the glass down and peers with dismay at the bloody lip prints he's left behind on the rim. "Actually..." His voice has improved, no longer the grate of sandpaper against stone. "He'll have no choice but to stop. The attacks against Kerovan settlements are increasing." His gray-eyed gaze is hazy, focused on an indeterminate tomorrow. "I think," he blinks, becoming more aware, returning to them from the strange elsewhen his mind had wandered off to, "the Evil that drives the incursions somehow knows a Ranger team has formed. He – knows."

It's too soon. Her sons need her now more than ever, but she needs to leave more. "When?" she asks curtly, her spine stiffening as her shoulders draw back.

Mama her son protests, but her otherling son merely tilts his head, considering. "Two days. Three at the most. Not here; not KO-35... but close."

"So soon..." She hides her horror behind her hands, which also blocks out Andros' frustrated exasperation. Her son has never truly understood his friend. Never questioned, and she can't fault him for it. Her daughter had always had a wonderfully offbeat sense of humor. "I suppose I should share my own news, then," she tells them, lowering her hands and offering a weak smile. She's a coward. They need her, but she needs away. "With both of you leaving, I thought I might – travel."

Andros is quiet, his eyes shifting as he considers her announcement. "Not to the outer settlements, not with the recent attacks. And we've lost the southern hemisphere here completely."

"No." She loves them, both her darling boys, and she's so very, very proud. But she's never been a selfless person – and she cannot stay and watch the coming war take them away from her. She cannot stay and let them be Rangers on the same team as a monster. She cannot stay... and let Andros have his dream. So she will go. "I'm leaving KO-35," she says, shaking her head as Andros starts to interrupt. "It's not a decision I came to lightly, honey. I know I haven't been a good mother to you–"

"Don't say that, Mama!"

"–Andros." Reaching across the corner of the table, she cups his chin in the palm of her hand, forcing him to see her; to hear the truth of her words. "Look at you. Battered and bruised. Yet how many times, when you were so young, did you come home from school in the same condition and I never noticed? Those, those bullies went after you, day after day – and I never knew. What mother purposefully overlooks her child's pain?"

"Mama," he whispers before twisting his head out of her grasp. "It wasn't your fault. Papa... The mine collapsed. And... Karone helped me hide the worst."

"And that's when you started growing out your hair," she says sadly. "I was not a good mother."

"Not a bad one, either." The legs of Zhane's chair squeak across her hardwood floor as he shoves his chair up against her own and leans heavily against her side. "I remember when I first arrived on this planet. I remember adults." Resting her cheek atop his gray-haired head, she sighs, letting herself remember as well. "I wasn't prepared. No one saw me, except Andros. Then you. And you opened your door, and let me in."

Snaking her arm carefully around his waist mindful of his damaged ribs, she hugs him to her and places a soft kiss to the crown of his head. Across the table, she captures her son's hand, and brings it to her lips to grace each scraped knuckle with butterfly kisses. "I love you both."

"Do you have to leave, Mama?" Andros asks plaintively. "I'm a Ranger, now. I can keep you safe. –And Zhane can't really see the future, no matter how much you both like to pretend."

"Honey..." She moistens lips gone suddenly dry. "I know this is hard for you to understand. I wasn't a good mother – and it didn't start with your father's accident. A long, long time ago – I drove the very best parts of myself away. I thought I had to. I wanted to be a grown-up, and not a silly little girl any longer."

Murmured into the folds of her blouse, she has to strain to hear Zhane's mournful recital. "A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys."

"Exactly. That's exactly right. I thought it was time to put away childish things. Oh, Andros," she tells him, squeezing his hand, praying he'll take her advice to heart. "Never listen to them, honey. Those that would tell you to grow up, to act your age, to face reality. At the end, when all is said and done, it isn't worth it. There never has to be a trade-off."

She can tell Andros doesn't understand. Perhaps he can't. Zhane is, after all, unfinished. Then again, there was no underestimating her son's sheer stubbornness.

"You're going after her?" the boy under her arm asks solemnly.

"Karone?" The sudden spark of hope in her son's eyes is as beautiful to see as it is painful.

"Andros..." Taking her arm from around Zhane, she places her now freed hand upon her first-born's neck beneath the heavy fall of his hair – and pulls him close. "You will find your sister. It can only be you. Your heart will know her. Your love will save her." She allows herself this, the selfless, boundless love of her son – and knows she is a terrible mother for forcing this burden upon him. He's always been too young, but she's always been too broken. And she will not stay to watch either of her sons get hurt. Not again. She cannot bear going through it again.

"I have to get off this planet," she says, her voice cracking as Andros leaps from his chair to snuggle close to her side, the strength of his hug nearly a Ranger's.

"It's the team's last night with their families." Zhane's tone is thoughtful as his hand links with Andros' behind her back. She's returning the hug, hugging them both, son and otherling son that embodies the very last gift from her daughter. But she listens. And allows hope to unfurl tender new leaves. "We'll use the Megaship. Gotta pack quick; we need to get you off planet, then be back before morning."

.oO0Oo.

"Stars above, he's fast." Black's been shoved into her, and they crash together against the Simudeck's wall. A second later they're joined by Blue; they manage to catch the girl but her momentum carries all three to the floor. "How is he doing it? We're all starting from the same place, right?"

The first time she'd morphed, pink flashing before her and wrapping around her like an old friend, she'd gained lifetimes of memories. Of fighting. Of piloting. Of Zords. A Ranger's duty is to protect; the Power provides the knowledge and skills, the person the will. And she'd thought training would be a formality, although she'd not gone so far as her friends as to joke about it.

There's nothing funny about Silver at all. He's mercury, flowing between the smallest gaps in their defense. He's titanium, unbending to their strongest blows. He's zirconium, unflagging strength hitting them, staggering them, sending them flailing like toys tossed in a childish tantrum. She can't connect Silver to Zhane; Zhane with his easy smile and lazy ways. Kind, gentle Zhane who'd wrapped her hands and filled her basket full of berries.

Silver can't be Zhane. It's some sort of trick. Red and Silver had been waiting for them on the Simudeck, already morphed before the day's training began. There's no question Red is Andros; his voice gives him away as he orders them into formation. But Silver has yet to speak...

...and it can't be Zhane. A person could no more keep Zhane from talking than force a brook to run back uphill.

Then Yellow, seeing Red's and Silver's attention focused on the trio of girls – makes a disastrous choice. "Star Slinger!" he shouts, summoning his weapon and firing it between one breath and the next. Firing it straight at Red's exposed back.

Impossibly, Silver is there before the strike can find its mark, catching the energy along crossed wrists and grounding it. Behind him, Red is turning, unlatching his helmet and stars below that is Andros' disappointed face. His hand is on Silver's shoulder while sparks of disrupted energy are still falling, but his glare is fixated on Yellow.

"What part of hand-to-hand only did you fail to understand?" he asks bitingly. "I specifically said no weapons during training today."

"Gotta start sometime," Yellow taunts, raising his Star Slinger in preparation of firing again.

"Pretty sure that counts as escalation; Super Silverizer!" And it's Zhane's cheerful voice calling upon a laser sword. Zhane is Silver...

"...I thought science debunked the myth of true laser swords," Blue mumbles numbly. "Sweet baby physics is weeping right now."

Black is doubled over in laughter, clutching her sides before bumping against her for support. "Look, I know I say it too much, but I really, really, really like Zhane. Think Andros would mind if I stole him?"

Sheepishly she looks over to their leader, who's watching the on-going melee with an expression that's hard to interpret as anything other than satisfaction. As if sensing her regard, his eyes slide to her...

...and he winks. Languidly, as if he hasn't a care in the world while Silver picks up Yellow by his ankle, swings him around and sends him flying straight into the far wall. Which should be cushioned, as all the walls are cushioned for training today – but isn't during the moment of Yellow's impact.

"Glitch, DECA?" Andros asks as Yellow shakes his head dazedly, attempting to stand but only making it to his hands and knees before collapsing back to the floor.

"Yes, Andros. I'll run a diagnostic immediately," the AI replies, the red lens of her camera fixed towards an empty corner of the Simudeck.

"Huh."

She powers down in another dazzling flash of pink, and dares to wink back. "I'm hungry. Anyone else hungry? I brought a pie with me this morning."

And there's no doubt at all that Silver is Zhane as the boy is demorphed and out the door before she can finish asking.

.oO0Oo.

"Rangers," the incoming message begs. "This is Avera. We are under attack. Our forces are overwhelmed. Please. Please respond. Enemy troops have breached city defenses–" The message repeats, an endless loop they listen to helplessly while KO-35's military leaders discuss options.

"KO-4 is the oldest colony left," the girl uniformed in gray and blue says. "They have to send us. Its cultural importance–"

"Bah! Musty old museums and monuments to nobodies that've been dust for ages." The boy spins away from his station on the bridge, his yellow and orange patterned shirt a glaring blight. "It isn't our job to protect them."

"We're Rangers." Her shirt the black of starless void, as black as the butterfly clip in her hair, the girl monitoring systems glares at him with palpable disdain. "Protecting people is what we do. Moron."

She runs her hands nervously down her new uniform; the gray sleeves of the jacket, the pale pink of the long-sleeved crew neck shirt, the matching soft grayness of pants tucked into glossy black boots. "I think we should go," she says quietly as she checks over the ship's log. "Her Ladyship may think we serve her, but we are Rangers. We serve our people. All our people."

Andros nods in approval, looking somehow complete in his new uniform. "Kinwon's response to our request is..." He trails off, his features vaguely disgruntled.

"Political double-speak." Striding on to the bridge, Zhane stops at systems, his uniform a bizarre negative image of the girl stationed there; black where she is gray, silver-shirted instead of black, with hair as light as hers is dark. "Twinsies," he jokes, gently knocking his shoulder against hers.

"Dibs on being the evil one," she replies, her teeth flashing bright against her black lipstick.

"Shucks." Shrugging, he moves on, casually leaning against navigation's console. "So, we're all in agreement?"

"Course set for Avera," DECA confirms, the lens of her camera flashing. "Estimated time of arrival, one hour thirteen minutes."

"No no no," the blond boy protests, flinging up one hand. "I did not agree! We're staying here until her Ladyship says otherwise."

"Did you hear something?" her friend asks breezily, her blue shirt closer to navy as she moves to take her place next to command. "I thought I heard something..."

"Sounded to me like 'Yes, please!'" Pink-painted nails trailing across her own station, she closes ship's logs and brings up sensors in their place. "Andros?"

Their leader smiles proud and defiant. "I guess we're going. Hyper-rush 4."

.oO0Oo.

Days, they've been fighting. Days, and nights, blurring together in a steady stream of slashing blades and burning flames and screams unending. They'd split into pairs not long after landing, too many evacuation points overran, too many distress beacons clamoring for aid for them to stay together as a group. First in pairs, then singly as the situation on-planet deteriorated, they do their best to drive the swarming invaders back.

Quantrons, fleeing civilians name them as Andros leaps between them and their relentless pursuers. Quantrons, their communications so much electronic gibberish, maddening in its ceaseless flow. Quantrons in velocifighters, raining death from above and all around until his visor is filled with nothing but the sear of lasers and the glint of blades.

He has memories of helping Pink, battling back to back as they strive to protect the entrance to a crowded shelter... Bombed behind them, a crater instead of a refuge. He remembers glimpsing Blue and Black, side by side as they secure the escape of evacuees... Shot down a thousand feet above the city, bodies spilling forth before the explosion blocks his view. Yellow guarding the mouth of an alleyway, a group of young children huddled behind him, cursing and firing and never noticing when the walls behind him give way, coming down, falling, crushing, ending.

He's desperately thirsty. The Power alone keeps him on his feet as he fights. And fights. The Power keeps him going, pushing him forward, but his tears have drained the last drop of moisture from his body and he's. so. thirsty. It's been days without sleep, without rest, without mercy. And on a rubble strewn street he stumbles, too slow to block the Q-blade swinging down.

It's caught instead by glowing blue, melting from the laser's searing heat, and Silver's jumping over him, finishing the quantron in a flurry of shots. Andros – wants to say something. Anything. But days ago he'd screamed himself hoarse. Days ago their comms had fallen silent, one by one. He wants to demorph, but without the support of the Power he knows he won't be getting back up.

Instead, he crawls to the negligible shelter provided by a collapsed building, bracing himself against a twisted, slagged beam. "Zhane," he croaks, fumbling to remove his helmet. The smoke-filled air burns his eyes and clogs in his lungs, and he'd weep for want of water if only he had the moisture to spare.

A canteen is placed in his hands, and he guzzles the stale, warm water greedily, unthinkingly, until he drains it dry. Then remorse hits, as he tilts his head back against shattered masonry and regards his friend through sticky lashes.

"S'okay," Zhane says roughly, pulling off his own helmet. "Was able to refill it..." Pale, chapped lips purse in thought before he shrugs and drops next to him. "Dunno." Together, they warily watch the street for any signs of movement. "Was with Black. Lost the hospital."

Just breathing – is exhausting. "I haven't seen an organized planetary defense, not since we landed."

"Rumor is, military fled." Hair the same sullen gray as lead is plastered to his sweat-streaked face. "Orders came to retreat last night." With a strained grunt, Zhane fits himself against his side, filthy and stinking of weapons' fire. "Think you mighta turned off your comms."

"Did I?" Vacantly, Andros pulls his friend closer, close enough that Zhane's heartbeat drowns out the shrieks echoing in his mind.

"On the sidewalk of the city are my screams just a whisper?" Bowing his head, Zhane returns the embrace, shuddering as a missile explodes far overhead. "Had me worried," he admits softly as a cloud of embers and ash drifts over them. "You stopped answering me. So I got the others back to the ship – and came for you." Another explosion, closer, and the throbbing bass of troop transports landing. "Ready to go?"

He tightens his grip, anger and grief clashing to leave only hollowness in their wake. "Did we manage to save anyone?" Andros asks bleakly, stubbornly keeping his ear against Zhane's chest, unwilling to lose the sound of his heartbeat after losing so much else.

A gloved hand runs through his hair, smoothing down snarls, brushing away bits of debris. "Dunno." Zhane's disbelieving laugh sounds as empty as he feels. "'M not even sure we saved ourselves. Whoever's leaving this place – aren't the same ones who answered the call."

.oO0Oo.

Astronema seldom has time for sleep, let alone dreams. Yet on occasion tiredness overtakes her after prolonged weeks of directing troops and planning battles, months spent discussing strategy with Ecliptor and threatening Darkonda. She finds herself yawning in between giving orders, and with a negligent wave of her hand she dismisses them before heading towards her quarters.

She seldom sleeps, and more rarely dreams, but when she does she usually finds herself in a green, growing meadow redolent with wildflowers, their perfume sweetened by the sun overhead. She's a different person in her meadow of dancing grasses. She's more herself than she ever is in the waking world, in her dreamland of sky above and soil below and light abounding powerful enough to drive back the most persistent of shadows.

However, on this night her dream of summer sunshine is marred. There's a boy nestled in the wide-bladed grasses of her hollow, a dark blot speckled with the pastel petals of flowers. Grime covers both clothing and skin; cakes his hair so thickly its original color is lost. He's darkness in her sanctuary, and yet...

"Sleeping within a dream," she purrs, sitting beside her ragged intruder. "This is new. I like new things." Daringly, she pokes the sharp line of a hip bone where it peeks from the waistband of his pants. Beneath her finger soot retreats, leaving behind pale, unblemished skin. "Although I prefer them cleaner."

Graphite eyes crack open, peering up at her through charcoal lashes. "Rude," the boy slurs, his muscles flexing under her hand as he shifts position. "First sleep I've had in a week." He yawns, tongue a startling pink contrast to his ash streaked face, before he curs inwards, his head coming to rest in her lap. And staring down into her lap, she watches amazed as his hair gradually lightens, losing its ebon depths. He mumbles something else, his lips moving without sound... and it stirs a memory.

"You're one of mine." She feels the delighted grin stretching her lips as she tenderly brushes her hand across his upturned cheek, leaving behind an expanse of purity that only encourages her efforts. "I – know you." Her ministrations leave the boy cleaner. Lighter. Though far from the pale glory she can barely recall. "Whoever took you from me has not treated you well, mousling. You should have returned sooner."

Soundless protests, and oh she remembers this. She's older now, and so much wiser. She feels the insubstantial shackles that bind her and all that exists within her dream domain.

Tucking his hands beneath his arms, he looks up at her with wide, unshuttered eyes. "I'd made a promise," he says, his voice husky with exhaustion. "I wouldn't seek you unless I had to." She teases petals from his hair as he struggles to find words. "I didn't come here; you must have brought me."

"Oh, I doubt that," she says easily, wrapping her hand loosely around the throat bared in her lap, thrilling at the steady pulse beneath her fingertips. "I didn't even remember you. I'd forgotten there was ever more than my self, here."

"Hmm. Well, I'm far too tired to have dreamwalked." Another yawn, and complete unconcern as she momentarily tightens her grip. "Which – might explain things." She's trapped in his gaze, utterly open and trusting. "You must be close."

His words send a frisson of dread shooting down her spine and she draws back her hand as the sudden knowledge assails her that, oh, she could do so much harm. "You're in the Kerova sector. You're part of the Kerovan systems..." With strength honed by years of sparring with her guardian, she heaves him from her lap then tackles him where he's fallen. "You're on KO-4," she accuses, pinning him in place at the bottom of the hollow. "You absolute fool. The order's already been given to glass it. Where are you, damn it?!"

He tries to buck her off, but Astronema is used to fighting much larger opponents than her little gray mousling, and this is her dream. Locking his legs between her own and pinning his arms overhead, she leans in and demands, "Tell me where you are."

His lips are trembling a mere inch below her own, and she can feel in the way his muscles twitch before going reluctantly pliant how very tired he is. Sentences blocked by someone else's spell, he's rendered voiceless until a single word manages to break through. "Off-planet," he gasps, his rapid breathing rocking her own body. "We made it off the planet."

Sagging with relief, she's tempted to release him – but she has so little that is truly hers. And here, now... he is beyond all doubt hers. "Shh," she croons, patting his face with her palm as within her other hand the fragile bones of his wrists twist, seeking escape. "I'm glad. –You're Kerovian." She tuts as he tries futilely to answer. "You must be..."

Astronema knows what is planned for the remnants of the Kerovan systems. Overhead, the azure sky dims to slate; the sun sets with no rising moon to replace it. She knows of the surgical strikes against agriculture and manufacturing; the slow starvation of the remaining colonies; the sowing of despair. The obliteration of KO-4 is only the beginning. And this boy, this creature somehow impossibly formed of her magic, dreams and love is entangled in it.

"Their blind eyes see not your tears flow. Nor honor. It is easy to be dead. Say only this, "They are dead." My poor creation," she whispers into his ear, his panicked breaths stirring the fine hairs along her temple. "Death has marked your people. He comes, unstoppable. If my master is successful there will be none left to mourn. Shh..." She's scaring him, and it hurts her as much as it hurts him – but she needs him safe more. "The blood-dimmed tide is loosed. Warn them. Evacuate your people. Scatter to the stars so they can't be trampled under foot."

It's raining in her dream of summer, cold and slimy, striking then slithering down the pale face below her own. "Won't stop 'til it's over. Won't stop to surrender." His gaze pierces her heart, begging her for something that's not within her power to give. "It's not too late," he pleads, violently shaking his head. "You're wearing the locket."

"Listen to me." She reinforces her command with a bruising slap. "You will run. Warn your people if you can – but you. will. run. Because if I find out that you've stayed, if I learn that I've lost you – I will tear this universe asunder."

"You won't even remember me once you wake!" he wails – then is gone.

The sudden drop to the ground jolts through her locked joints; her teeth click together just missing her tongue and freezing mud oozes between her clawed fingers. "I remember all that is mine!" Astronema snarls at the lightning-streaked sky before slumping, resting her forehead against wet, matted grasses. "How many times must I let you go?" Thunder crashes, rippling the very fabric of the dream before it shreds apart, a waterfall of colors sliding from the walls leaving her behind in her cold, drab room. Alone, as always.

"Please, run."

The Dark Fortress soaks up her words and offers only silence in return.

.oO0Oo.

"I've read your preliminary report." On the viewscreen of the Megaship, Commander Kinwon appears not so much worn, as faded. Deep lines bracket his mouth and his eyes burn with grief. "The council is discussing your actions, but they will not vote to censure you. The loss of Avera – is devastating. None of our intelligence even hinted at a force large enough to take an entire planet. We expected small raiding parties, scattered air support, not–"

"An army." Andros rubs at eyes gritty from lack of sleep. "An army sent against artists. Entertainers. Historians." His muscles burn as he lifts a cup of electrolyte solution to his lips, sipping at it slowly as he hopes that this time it stays down. "Were they even offered the choice of surrender?"

"Surveillance shows no attempts were made to communicate." Kinwon's reading something out of range of the camera; reads it, then blanches. Pushing himself away from his desk the commander disappears from sight, the only evidence that he's still within his office the choked retching picked up by the microphone.

"Kinwon?" Andros attempts to stand; spasming muscles keep him confined to the chair. At the back of his mind he feels Zhane waking. From a nightmare, if the other boy's overwhelming terror is any indication. "Commander?"

"My apologies, Andros." The man stumbles back into view of the camera, hastily wiping at his lips with the sleeve of his heavily embroidered coat. "I... I've just received a recording... I can't." With unsteady hands he presses a sequence into the console in front of him. "Do not – do not forward this. Do not share this–"

Andros hears the lift open behind him, and the rhythmic thuds of someone running barefoot on to the bridge.

"It's gone!" Zhane moans, crumpling next to him at comms, his eyes glazed and his cheek reddening with the beginning of a bruise. "Said they glassed it. What does that even mean?" His friend is reaching out with both hands and he meets him, twining their fingers together. They've always been stronger, together. "All those people. Why?"

The electrolyte solution sits cold in the pit of his stomach. As cold as Zhane's fingers are, cradled by his own. "DECA, play the recording." On the viewscreen, the form of KO-35's commander is replaced by that of a planet as seen from space. A planet sparkling with the tiny orange lights of a million fires raging unchecked, forests consumed and crops turned to ash. It is not unfamiliar; it had been their last view of Avera as they'd fled.

"Metadata indicates this is the final footage sent by satellite AXOM-218 before communications were lost," DECA informs them, her synthesized voice flat.

A fleet of velocifighters and transports surround the besieged planet, a swarm of biting midges nipping a titan. But as they watch, dreadnoughts appear in the planet's orbit, their cannons trained on the unsuspecting sphere below. Ionic interference turns the video staticky – but not enough to obscure the moment a thousand cannons fire as one. Light floods the planet. And the oceans boil. And the land melts. And where moments before a gently glowing blue orb had spun in lazy orbit there's now a seething mass of hellish orange. A shock wave of vaporized earth races away from the planet engulfing the circling dreadnoughts, and the last frame sent by AXOM-218 is of Avera cracking.

"No..." He's out of his seat and clutching Zhane, or Zhane is clutching him. He doesn't know. The viewscreen is frozen on that terrible image; a planet slain. "No one's that insane. Even evil works towards a purpose..." He swallows back nausea. "What purpose could this possibly serve?"

"We can't presume sanity," Kinwon says faintly as the recording begins to repeat.

"Deca, stop!"

"Recording paused."

The gray-haired boy scowls directly up at the AI's camera. "I know you've just lost friends. But we are burying this." His tone brooks no argument. "Andros?"

"...Yeah," he agrees, hobbling back to his chair, his hold on Zhane's hands forcing his friend to follow. "No one should have to see that..." His stomach squirms and he gulps rapidly. "DECA, lock that behind the strongest firewalls we have. No one opens that file, not without both our authorizations." Reluctantly, he frees one hand to confirm his order, his console flashing red as the input's accepted. On the viewscreen, the image of Kinwon returns.

KO-35's ranking military officer is facing them, but Andros doubts that he sees them. They're sharing a single seat, Zhane practically pulled into his lap, but there's not a flicker of judgment on the man's face, just an abiding, intensifying horror over what they've all just witnessed. "–A wise decision," he grates. "The last thing we need is this leaking to the public."

"They'll find out," Andros says bleakly. "Somehow. We need a plan in place before they do."

The man nods absently while he types in orders. "The council should reach a decision soon; we'll have the broad outline of a counter-offensive drawn up shortly and–"

"No!" He jumps at Zhane's outburst; flinches as the other boy slams his fist down on the console. "No. You really want to know what purpose that served?" he dares them, his eyes dark and haunted and ancient. "All those lives, gone. Their own damned fleet annihilated? They don't care about the cost as long as their goal is achieved. That is our warning."

The older man grimaces but doesn't bother offering a denial. "I'm summoned by the council. I'll contact you again once I have more information." His retreating image slowly bleeds to black on the viewscreen.

"So what do we do?" Andros asks, hooking his chin over his friend's pajama-clad shoulder. "What should we do, against an enemy determined to exterminate us?"

"We have one warning." Against his side, Zhane shivers – and Andros realizes that the terror that had awoken his friend to impending ruin had never left. "We run. As fast and as far as we can."

"A complete evacuation?" Logistically, it could be done. Realistically... "People will contest it. Without that recording, Kerovians will insist on staying, and fighting. If we release it – they'll lose all hope. We won't be able to organize past the panic."

"We save what we can." Turning his head to the side, Zhane's bruised cheek comes to rest against Andros' own. "We mourn what we can't."

"You've said that before." Shuddering, he gently pushes his friend to the side as he stands, using the console for support as his muscles scream in protest. "There has to be something we're missing." Forcing his legs to bear his weight, he turns to leave the bridge.

"Andros?"

"I'm going to be sick."

.oO0Oo.

"So..." Smoothing her hands down the loose pleats of her pink sundress, the girl seats herself next to the gray-haired boy at the table. "What then? The light traveled the universe for the rest of eternity, searching?" She sets her plate between them, of sliced fruits and cubed cheese, offering to share. "That's a terrible way to end a story."

Picking up a wedge of fruit, he bites into it; it crunches between his teeth and she ducks her head to hide a giggle because there should be no way in all creation to make citrus snap like that.

"But eternity's not over yet, is it?" Cocking his eyebrow, he reaches for another piece.

"By definition, we'll never reach the end of eternity." Choosing a cube of pale yellow cheese, she pops it into her mouth and chews thoughtfully.

"Eternity is a flawed concept." She's not sure if he's agreeing with her or refuting her claim; with Zhane it can be hard to tell. "Is it bound to this universe, or the ones that have come before – or the ones yet to come?"

"The idea of eternity is flawed because sentients are imperfect." Pushing a piece of cheese past his parted lips forestalls his forming protest. "And speaking of imperfect; how long does Andros plan on staying angry?"

"Hmm?" Swallowing, the boy tilts his head in bemusement. "What makes you think he's angry?"

"Angry, upset, unhappy, take your pick," she tells him, reaching up to tug a strand of his lead gray hair. "I've never seen you this dark, this long. If it's your job to cheer him up," she says archly, "you're taking your sweet time."

"You know," he coos at her, batting dark lashes coquettishly. "All these years, you're the first person to make the connection! Or, well, to say anything about it." There's a smirk hiding in the dimple at the corner of his lips, but it's been weeks since Zhane's actually smiled. Weeks since KO-4, and the stark delineation between then and now. She yearns to see his smile. If Zhane would only smile – she could believe in tomorrow.

"Kinda hard not to notice." This time it's a plump, golden berry she presses to his mouth. "You glow when he's happy. The number of times of which I can count on one hand, with most of my fingers to spare. Usually, you're different shades of gray. This last week?" She leaves her pink-nailed finger resting against his berry-stained bottom lip, gaining time to gather her thoughts. "I ordered Andros on suicide watch. Better it came from me than Yellow. I think DECA's revoked all of Yellow's privileges."

He recoils from her touch, protestation radiating from every line of his body. "He wouldn't do that." Eyes dark as graphite watch her warily from across the shared plate. "It's not in him, to try escaping that way." Pursing his lips, he leans forward once more, just within touching distance – but she holds back. "There's a geis laid upon him," he tries to explain, nudging a crumbling piece of cheese towards another with deft flicks of telekinesis. "One of several, actually. But the one that has bearing... he must find his sister. He'll find her, and save her."

Geis, she rolls the portentous word along her tongue cautiously. It tastes of tremendous burdens, of coercion and fate. It is, she decides, a distasteful word. "...And the others?"

"Well," Zhane says wryly, tapping a finger below his right eye, "he hasn't managed unconditional happiness yet. It's – a work in progress."

"Is that your geis?" she asks, joining him in stacking cubes of cheese in a growing pyramid. "Or just the duty of a best friend?"

It's not a smile that quirks the boy's lips, but given time it could become one. "Did you want to hear the rest of the story?" he challenges in return, sending fruit dancing in an intricate circle around the plate's rim.

"About the light, and its search across faux eternity?"

There! There it is, the small, shy smile that's been her goal since he'd saved her on Avera. Fragile but fierce, hope blooms in her chest.

"Time meant nothing to the light. Time is only a matter of perspective, after all. But there came a moment during its search where all of time came crashing in – and it hesitated. Because it had come to an awful, inescapable realization.

"What if it had been searching in the wrong direction all along?"

.oO0Oo.

The light can't move.
Not forward. Not back.
No single direction calls to it, and it wonders...
Is it still light, if it's not moving?
And if it's no longer light...
Why is it searching?
Time holds no meaning...
Until it does.

.oO0Oo.

They're sent to KO-16 to expedite the evacuation. Four colonies left of Kerova's original forty-six; four outposts grown into thriving civilizations of their own. Four worlds of an empire that had once rivaled Eltar for size. For culture. Four small, embattled planets at the edge of known space, fighting not for survival but a fool's gamble at fleeing.

They've been on the ground for months escorting people to transports. Urging them to go. Go go go, as quantrons harry their flanks and velocifighters fire on departing shuttles. Here, for now, the planet's defense forces stay, doing their best to guard what they can – but it isn't enough.

The Rangers have learned, since Avera. They've learned, but it isn't enough.

Evening darkens towards dusk, the sunset bloody through the constant haze of smoke. Zhane forces Andros into an abandoned apartment, and Andros – doesn't argue. Fatigue weighs his limbs and fogs his mind. They all need rest... but a tense, throbbing foreboding fills the air every moment of every day, constantly urging go. Go. Go.

"Looks like our choices tonight are bullion, bullion, or tin can of mystery." Holding out a can missing its label, Zhane waggles it in front of him optimistically.

Shrugging, Andros motions for his friend to open it. They've all lost weight since being stationed here. They grab what they can from the synthetron aboard the Megaship, but opportunities to return to their base dwindle as the evacuation cascades. And the food that they do carry often ends up in the hands of those they escort, starveling waifs with the blank, fixed gazes of those that have seen the abyss – and have yet to turn away.

Power protects them from the worst of deprivation, but Andros feels stretched thin and tight. "It makes no sense," he complains, sitting in the incongruously cheerful breakfast nook lit by scavenged candles. "Taking all these people to KO-41. It's the next closest colony. Do they really think Dark Specter's going to stop here? Honestly, at the rate the attacks are escalating we might lose KO-41 before 16."

Zhane offers a strained imitation of a grin, the lid of the can he's prying open popping with a sharp tink. "Huh." Nibbling on his bottom lip, he sets the can down on the table and activates his Digimorpher. "Deca? Is canned canid food safe for Kerovians to eat?"

"While the practice is discouraged, canid diets are processed in the same facilities and utilize the same grade foodstuffs as sentient comestibles."

"Thanks, Deca." Closing his morpher, he hooks it back on his belt before eyeing the can doubtfully. "I really, really hate to say this," Zhane murmurs, sitting next to him at the breakfast nook under a stained glass light fixture, its shade reflecting candlelight in a flickering kaleidoscope of colors, "but it kinda smells good."

"Canid food." He presses his leg against his friend's, relishing the faint warmth gathering from thigh to knee. Warmth, lately, has been as hard to come by as rations. "There's still the bullion."

Sighing, Zhane pulls the can closer. "By next week, it'll be whatever mouslings we manage to catch."

"I don't know how I'm going to live with myself..." Pulling his hair out of its customary elastic tie, Andros shakes his head and massages his scalp... but his eyes keep straying towards the opened can. "Is there silverware?"

"And deprive ourselves of the experience of slurping it out of pet bowls?" Zhane's hand joins his own, and his fingers are better at finding pressure points. The headache that's been plaguing him for days recedes, and he basks in the simple comfort of touch. "I suppose you want it heated up as well?"

Andros stares forlornly at the can, and would swear the can is laughing back at him. "...I'm hungry," he admits, blushing in shame.

"I think they left a few spoons behind."

They don't look at each other as they eat, and that night, despite the dubious comfort of food in his stomach and Zhane's back pressed protectively to his own – he finds it hard to sleep.

A few hours later his mortification is forgotten as Zhane jerks upright, his eyes wide and blindly staring up at the apartment's ceiling. "Dreadnoughts." The horror of the word has them both out of the makeshift bed in seconds. "We have to go. Now!"

Go go go.

.oO0Oo.

They're scattered about the work bay, her and her friends taking advantage of the short window of free time available while they travel to their next destination. KO-23 awaits them, while behind them KO-16 and KO-41 perish. The other two girls sit at the table, idly pushing overcooked vegetables across their plates, while the yellow-shirted boy leans against his locker, arms crossed and face set in a glower that bodes to become permanent.

On the cushioned bench, she crochets with yarn kindly provided by DECA. Red flowers and blue, with bright yellow stamen against a pink background bordered in black, each square joined in silver. She works on it as she finds time, and it's nearly finished. Though her fingers ache from the precision required by the work, she continues, each stitch feeling a bit like victory.

The swish of the lift door opening is easily ignored; the weight of Zhane joining her on the bench – not so much. "Hold this," she tells him, filling his lap with the forming afghan. He nods in easy acquiescence, crossing his legs at the ankles and leaning back to let his head rest against the wall. She crochets as if it is a mission, and she hurriedly wipes away a rogue tear before the others can notice. She's tired of failing missions. "Any news?"

"Nothing we don't already know." He's a dark contrast against the gray of their own uniforms, a negative reflection; standing out where they blend in. "It's getting worse. Surviving defense ships were able to save some of the transports still en route to KO-41."

At the table, the girl designated Blue by the insignia on her jacket trembles. "Please tell me we're not meeting up with them on 23?"

"This time they're sending them out-sector. –Idiots," Zhane adds under his breath, quietly enough that she thinks she's the only one that catches his pained accusation.

"Like it matters." Slamming his locker shut, the boy in yellow tromps to the table to grab a handful of vegetables from the nearest plate. "They're herding us, like vermin, towards a cliff. What do we do then, huh? When we're backed against the edge with nowhere left to go? If the choice is jumping, or being pushed..." he flings the vegetables towards the wall, watching with demented satisfaction as they hit and splatter. "I'm jumping, and taking as many of those bastards down with me as I can."

Zhane's watching the other boy, and she watches Zhane, the way he flinches minutely before squaring his shoulders. "And if there was a third option?" he asks slowly, his nervously twisting hands hidden within the folds of her afghan. "If death is the only other choice – would you trust me?"

"Fuck no." His grin edged with madness, the other boy stalks forward, coming closer, uncomfortably close before leaning ominously over the bench. "If I'm going down, I'm making damned sure you're going down first." Lifting his clenched hand, he makes an odd, come-hither gesture with his smallest finger. "Pinky promise."

Laughing uproariously he strides from the work bay, leaving stunned silence in his wake.

"That," the black-shirted girl mutters, pushing her now empty plate away, "requires more than a suicide watch. How do we even report that?"

"–We can't." Slip stitches fall easily from her hook; she's nearly done. "...It's too late. The chain of command is in shambles. Just – stay out of his way. No one partners with him." Nudging the gray-haired boy's ankle with her slippered foot, she offers a strained smile as her fingers work ceaselessly against soft yarn. "Promise me?"

He stares at her with dark, fathomless eyes, then directs his attention to the other two girls. "Bluebelle? Evil Twin?" he questions, his voice breaking. "Would you trust me?"

The charms on her bracelet chiming as she stands, the first girl glances their way uneasily before taking the plates back to the synthetron. "You worry too much, Zhane. We're Rangers. This war isn't going to be the end of us. No matter what tall, blond and psychotic believes." She nods decisively, as if convincing herself. "We're going to be fine. Catch you planet-side," she says, giving a parting wave before walking out the door.

"Twinsie. Big brother" Her black-painted lips curved in a heart-stoppingly sweet smile, the second girl glides towards them. Gracefully sinking to the floor, she drapes herself across their blanketed knees, the obsidian wings of her butterfly clips fluttering wildly with the movement. "I trust you enough to let me go." Reaching up, she catches Zhane's chin with her knuckle, gently lifting his head until he meets her eyes. "I'm not made of star-stuff like you. I lost my child before I ever found her. I've stayed for the novelty, and because Daddy needed a child, any child at all..." she trails off, her gaze distant. "But we're not meant to be alone. Not wandering stars; most certainly not butterfly scales drifting in the wind. I think – I'd like to rest now."

Light as feathers, he wraps his fingers around her outstretched hand. "Are you sure?" he asks, each word a hymn to sorrow. "Another window might open. And the Grid is not benevolent to our kind."

"I like you, Zhane." A final smile as she frees her hand and stands, giving a flowing curtsy. "Perhaps we'll meet again. Another time. Another place. Another life."

One last knot – and the afghan is finished. Sighing with relief, she slides across the bench to cuddle against Zhane's side. "I'd wondered," she says as she lifts his arm, snuggling underneath. "It makes so much sense."

Zhane holds her close, and she's warm as she hasn't been in months.

"Do you trust me, Rosethorn?"

"I trust you to look after Andros." Yawning, she pulls the blanket up higher, tucking it around them both. "Don't – don't look at me like that," she admonishes him, placing a chaste kiss along his clenched jaw. "My father is banished from the council for daring to speak against her Ladyship. My family's gone, my people scattered. Kerova is already a fading memory. I felt it, the moment I picked up my morpher. We're but placeholders in another's story. I may be Pink, but not yours. Never Andros'."

"You've given in to despair."

"No. I've accepted. I will die, so others might live. And you will live, so others won't die. It's – reassuring." Resting her head against his chest, she pretends not to feel his tears wetting her hair. "Tell me a story, Zhane. One with a happy ending.

"Tell me about the light."

.oO0Oo.

He walks amongst the burnt timbers and ashes of his house. So little remains of what once was. A few scorched tiles from the bathroom. A warped picture frame, its glass crazed and the photo itself blackened beyond recognition. A few feet away, Zhane picks up a warped bar of metal, all that is left of his silver-toned lamp. Rain has fallen since the fire, but the smell of smoke lingers and muddy ash clings to his shoes and works up his trousers.

"I'm sorry," Zhane whispers, returning to his side. "I... I wouldn't have suggested returning..."

"I agreed." It's his home and it has burned as so many others have. "You have no idea how glad I am right now, that Mama left. I was angry at the time, but seeing this? The house that Papa built..." He drops the picture frame and watches as the glass finally shatters. "I don't even know why I'm upset. Dark Specter's on the way. A few more days and everything will be gone."

"With luck we'll be able to get the last of the hold-outs in the capitol evacuated tomorrow." Instead of dropping the slagged bar of metal, the other boy places it reverently back on the ground. "We could have had the planet cleared weeks ago if her Ladyship wasn't involved in some twisted power play against Kinwon."

"A shame she won't be facing the judgment of the dreadnoughts." It's an opinion unworthy of a Ranger, but KO-35's hereditary monarch now has the blood of thousands on her hands; billions if it turns out she was the one behind the worst of the military's decisions. Of course, Dark Specter held ultimate blame... but someone had decided to send the refugees of KO-16 to the quarantine on KO-41. Someone had doomed an entire world behind the guise of hope.

Zhane is rooted in the skeletal remains of their home, as gray as the ash that's gradually coating them both. "She's not making it off-planet," he says quietly, with no trace of satisfaction. "She will be here sharing in KO-35's fate. But the judgment isn't what you think..."

Andros' long-suffering exhalation ends in a cough as his lungs try to purge themselves of soot. "No one knows the future," he reminds his friend as he gently takes him by the elbow, drawing him from the ruins. "Come on." Leading him up what remains of the path that once ran behind their house, he does his best to ignore the scorched grasses and bare, blackened trees. "–I want to say good-bye. Before it's gone for good, I'd like to see it one last time."

The hill's not as easy to climb as it was when he was a child. The ground underfoot is treacherous, giving way at the slightest misstep. Twilight's succumbed to ruby-lit night by the time they reach the top of the hillock, and the knees of his trousers are torn by a particularly unfortunate stumble. Zhane's firm grip on his hand keeps him from sliding back, but it's close, and he knows it's the height of folly to risk himself on this fruitless task when tomorrow looms ever nearer...

"How?" The wind carries embers, poor replacements for the stars concealed by smoke, and the land in all directions is charred to dismal grayness, but the hollow, their hollow – his sister's hollow – is filled to the brim with pastel wildflowers and green grasses, their heads heavy with seed. "How is this even possible?" Dragging Zhane behind him as he moves forward from a world ravaged by war into a pocket of everlasting summer, he does his best to accept the impossibility before him. "How is this still here?"

A lilac-tinged moth dances in the swirling air currents, alighting on the tip of Zhane's nose. A puff of air lifts it, and it circles once before settling on his shoulder, its antennae twitching in reprimand. "What she loves is not so easily destroyed." He sits uneasily amidst the flowers, fallen petals showering him in a confetti of color. "I shouldn't be here..."

"Zhane." Sitting next to him, Andros pulls him into a comforting hug. "I didn't mean it, what I said as a kid. I never should have kept you out. Karone and I used to come here every day after school. And I thought – I thought that if I shared that with you, it would lessen the memories I had of her..." The moth shifts, and he feels the phantom touch of its wing against his cheek. "Instead, by staying away, I hurt you. I hurt myself. And my memories..." He inhales appreciatively; the scent of rich, damp soil and golden grain and the subtle perfume of wildflowers without the slightest trace of smoke. "My memories are poor, washed-out reproductions. Why did I ever deny myself this?"

He pulls back and smiles at Zhane but can tell his friend is struggling to return the smile.

"I'm – glad," Zhane says, his dark eyes following the dipping path of the moth as it takes flight. "I am. But I shouldn't be here."

"Why?" The rustling of grass is peaceful, and he can find no cause for the other boy's unrest. "What are you afraid of? By tomorrow evening the evacuation will be finished. We'll all be back aboard the Megaship, days and light years away by the time the full fleet arrives. It'll be okay. As long as we're together – we can start over."

Zhane's chuckle is tinged with self-loathing. "I'm afraid of being noticed." Tilting back his head, exposing the long column of his throat, he focuses his gaze on the billowing clouds of smoke overhead, their undersides reflecting the sullen red of ever-burning fires. A tear tracks down his cheek, leaving a pale streak in the layer of ash powdering his face. "They're so much closer than you think, Andros. By tomorrow evening the other Rangers will be gone. Tomorrow, all that is Kerovan dies."

"Don't say that!" Tangling his fingers in Zhane's short hair, Andros forces his head down, forces him to meet his eyes. "Don't ever say that! No one knows the future. And I'm telling you, as long as we're together, we're invincible."

"Andros," Zhane groans, the name wrenched from his lips. "Do you think I want this to happen? I offered them a way out. I gave them a choice! They all refused!" Grabbing Andros' shoulders, he shakes him, seeming unmindful that the motion tears at his own hair. "...Do you trust me, Andros?" he asks, his expression as lost as his tone is defeated.

"Always." There's nothing he's more sure of.

"Then run," his friend whispers harshly, prying his hand away from his head. "When I tell you to run... go. Don't look back. Don't try to return. Unless you run, it will have all been for nothing." Zhane is pressing something into his hand, something small and hard and sharp. "I'm trusting my self to you."

"It's a rock." A pebble, gray as clouds in spring and veined in silver sits dwarfed in the palm of his hand.

"It's symbolic."

"It's a rock."

"All that I am, or will ever be." Releasing his hand, Zhane slumps, his forehead falling to his knees. "Please, promise me," he begs, stretching out his arms in supplication. "Run. If you die... I'll die with you. Live... and we both survive."

Pulling him into his lap, Andros rocks him. "What am I gonna do with you?" he murmurs into the shell of his ear.

"Promise me."

"...I promise. If you tell me to, I'll run."

The sudden release of tension in the body cradled in his arms is alarming until he feels tentative hands at the small of his back, returning his tight squeeze. "I'm holding you to that," Zhane mumbles against his ash-caked shirt. "The moon is gone and the night is still so dark, I'm a little bit afraid of tomorrow."

"I promise you." He doesn't know how long they stay in the hollow on top of the hillock behind his demolished home. In the distance fires burn unchecked. In the distance – he thinks he hears the sounds of weapons firing. But within the hollow all is calm, a timeless bubble of his childhood's summer. "But you'll see; all this drama, for nothing. Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength."

Zhane's sigh shudders through them both. "We'd best go, then. Tomorrow is here." He sighs again before standing, offering Andros a hand up. "It's going to be a long day."

.oO0Oo.

Blue is the first to fall. Surrounded on all sides by flashing blades she screeches pure challenge as she guards the toddler hiding at her feet. Her blaster brings death to the quantrons crowding her but more flood forward to take the place of those fallen, and Andros' last glimpse is of her huddled form still desperately trying to protect the child below her.

"No!" Pink cries, doing her best to push against the inexorable tide.

"Blue Astro morpher successfully recovered." DECA's calm statement is inexplicable; Andros shakes his head, finding no meaning behind her bland words.

"What?" But in that brief moment of distraction Pink has whirled into action. She is incandescent, a heartrendingly beautiful second dawn in the middle of the darkened day. Andros is blinded despite the protection of his visor. When his vision clears – she's gone. As is a vast swathe of quantrons, opening a cleared path to the spaceport. Palace guards rush to fill the void, securing the city's last means of escape.

Behind him, Silver blocks a blade that would have severed his spine. 'Andros,' his friend warns him, unable to speak for sobbing. 'Yellow comes.'

Yellow is coming. Chortling in berserk fury, the Yellow Ranger is firing upon friend and foe alike, a mindless beast glorying in the horror of war. "I'm coming, Silver," he sings out loud, crushing writhing quantrons beneath his merciless boots. "Let's play another little game, you and I. You do so like pranks, after all."

Andros is able to deflect the shots fired by the other's Star Slinger with his Spiral Saber, but he's unable to avoid the following tornado kick that smashes against his ribs. Grunting against the radiating pain, he rebalances himself, easing his weight to his far side. "What is wrong with you?"

"Don't take it personally," Yellow shouts gleefully. "I've always liked smashing other people's toys." Nonchalantly pulling off his helmet, the boy tosses it into the seething crowd behind him – and leers. "And I admit, Silver's one hell of a toy. But if I want to break him this time around, I hafta get you out of the way first. No hard feelings, I hope."

There's not a trace of sanity in Yellow's tainted green eyes, and Andros raises his saber, resolute. But Zhane's gloved hand is on his shoulder, holding him in place.

"You said you'd take me down first." Silver steps in front of Andros, his blade pointed towards the ground. "Way I see it, though, you still have a choice." Ignoring the snarling hunger distorting Yellow's face, he points to something in the distance. "Her Ladyship's taken the field. Trying to get to the spaceport, I guess. So," he asks, the epitome of reasonableness, "do you waste precious minutes here fighting me and Andros, or do you save her?"

Yellow hesitates, overcome by a blankness all the more terrible for the innocence behind it. "She's here?" Following the path of Silver's finger, his eyes widen in dismay. "She'll never make it."

"Not without your help." Taking another step forward, Zhane deliberately reaches out, taking Yellow by the elbow and carefully turning him around. "There's the cliff you've been driven against. What is your choice?"

"I jump." A flare of light, and his helmet reforms about his head. "And bring them down with me." His teleport is a nauseating mix of bile yellow and the brown of rot; it places him at the head of the struggling phalanx of palace guards. And they watch as he leaps high into the air, one moment a Ranger and the next a maelstrom, a whirlwind sucking in all around it and spitting out unidentifiable bits and pieces. Surly ocher ignites and the resulting explosion decimates everything within a five hundred yard radius.

Absently turning aside a blade intent on beheading him, Andros whips around to once more cover his friend's back. "He took out her ship," he notes hazily, the shifting swarms of quantrons blurring before him.

"She'll share KO-35's judgment."

Black's laughter over their comms is breathless. "Couldn't happen to a more deserving person," she says between gasps. "I've got the last group of civilians. Palace staff. Stars above, the bitch still had the daycare running." Andros catches sight of her, a lithe shadow dancing around a small group of scurrying figures burdened with irreplaceable cargo. "Please tell me the moron left us a transport ship."

"There's one left on the far runway." They fight, Red and Silver back to back, slowly inching closer to the spaceport. "DECA's told them to stand by. And she's threatened to fire on them if they take off without you."

A merry giggle cut off by a choked wheeze.

"–Twinsie?" Zhane falters, and Andros leaps over his friend's suddenly kneeling form, driving back an opportunistic monster with a flurry of punches while he recovers. "Little sister? Need some help over there?"

Her laughter is a benediction. "No... I think not. I'll see them to the 'port. They are not my child, but I'll save them nonetheless." A cloud is rising above the final group of evacuees, a swirling storm of fluttering wings tipped with obsidian. "Zhane..." she croons, her voice fading into the drumming of a million beating wings. "Farewell, my brother."

Black butterflies descend – and quantrons scream as wings sharp as glass slice them apart. Underneath the protectively hovering swarm people run with the last of their strength, past the spaceport's gates and up the ramp of the remaining ship. As the transport launches the butterflies gradually dissolve, raining down in a burst of glimmering obsidian scales.

"Black Astro morpher successfully recovered," DECA tells him, something close to sympathy distorting her synthesized voice. "All morphers are accounted for. All remaining ships have been ordered to retreat."

"There's still people down here," he pants, dodging under the monster's jagged blade. "Most of the military is still on site."

"Andros..." An AI shouldn't be capable of such compassion. "It's time for you and Zhane to return."

"DECA–" His inattention – has consequences. His enemy's sword catches him across the chest, burning past the protection provided by his Ranger uniform. The edge cuts deep, dropping him to his knees. And time slows as he watches the sword rise triumphantly over his head.

'I'm sorry,' he apologizes, his grief not for himself but the friend he is leaving behind. The friend – that is headbutting the gloating monster, driving it back. 'Zhane?'

"Run, Andros!" he barks, managing to block one sword thrust only to take the full brunt of the backswing. Clutching his chest, he staggers, and red pours out over silver. "Run!" Grappling with the monster, he sends them both tumbling to the ground...

...and Andros can do nothing as the monster explodes, greedy flames consuming friend and enemy alike.

"Zhane!"

'Run, Andros. You promised.' He can still hear Zhane. He feels him, an ocean of welcoming silver at the back of his mind. Struggling to his feet, he moves forward, forward to the spot he'd last seen the other boy. 'Damn it, Andros! If ever you loved me, run!'

Howling in anguish he turns, and runs. Through billowing streamers of black butterfly scales – he runs. Through sparking parts and oozing remnants – he runs. Specks of glittering pink brush against his uniform as he flees from the carnage behind him. He races down once-familiar streets and passes collapsed buildings where he'd shopped for years, following a road he's traveled countless times before. He runs until he collapses, shattered pavement biting into knees and palms as his morph collapses around him.

"Don't go." Tears strike his exposed hands and burn in shallow cuts. "Don't go where I can't follow!"

'Think that should be my line,' Zhane tells him fondly. The memory of Zhane... He shakes his head in furious denial.

"Silver Ranger successfully teleported aboard the Megaship." DECA's voice is distant, tinny coming from the small speaker built into his morpher. "Andros?"

He has no attention to spare her as a gigantic figure is projected onto the sinister clouds of smoke overhead. It is a being of green grid lines and darkness, stern of continence and radiating disdain. "People of KO-35," it intones, its voice the scrape of boulders clashing in a cresting stream. "By order of my Princess your planet shall be a memorial." Breaking free from the obscuring overcast, brilliant orbs of light drift lazily down. A hundred. A thousand. A beautiful shower of sparks hypnotizing in their slow approach.

"Those... aren't ion cannons," Andros murmurs, bewitched.

'No. Oh no...' Zhane's panic surges against Andros' unnatural calm. 'She feltme die... Andros, you have to leave. Now. You can't be here when those land.'

"Why?" Reaching out a begrimed hand, the orbs look close enough to touch.

'Tell Deca to teleport you. Now. Andros!'

The overwhelming fear in Zhane's voice moves him to action where his own disinterest could not. "DECA, teleport now." The trampled meadow, the smoke, the falling, dazzling motes disappear in a wash of crimson quickly replaced by the familiar confines of the bridge. On the viewscreen orbs continue to descend, their light obscuring the planet below. They touch the surface like raindrops falling on a placid lake... and violet light pours forth, insubstantial as mist.

"All communications originating on KO035 have ceased." There's stunned incredulity in her announcement, and a ship-wide bass rumble as she double checks her findings. "Sensors detect no remaining life signs."

His position remains the same as when he was teleported; kneeling on the ground, hand reaching desperately for succor. "Everything's dead?" he asks at last, eyes fixed upon his poor, abandoned planet now glowing a serene, opaque blue.

"Correction; no sentient life signs remain."

.oO0Oo.

DECA takes them into hyper-rush as he sits on the floor of the bridge – and bleeds. It's a distant pain, hardly noticeable against the all-encompassing agony that was once his mind. His planet now a trophy for an Evil despot, his people annihilated, his team dead; he dry heaves, gouged fingers digging uselessly into the smooth, cold floor. And Zhane... Zhane, the other half of him, sacrificed, and for what?

'I'm right here, you know.'

Gagging against bile, Andros' head wobbles in dazed denial. He still hears Zhane–

'Of course you do! I trusted you with my self.' His friend's voice is exasperated – and ever so slightly amused. 'Although, if something's not done with my body soon, it'll actually befully dead. That would complicate matters...'

"What?" Wiping clumsily at his lips, Andros sits back on his heels. "Zhane?" His view of the bridge is obscured by tears; the empty bridge; the blank viewscreen. Wrapping a hand around the hair caught up in his lower ponytail, he pulls at it viciously. "I'm hearing things."

"Andros." DECA's camera whirs as it targets him. "I have teleported Zhane to the medical bay. However, his condition is critical. Barring cryogenic intervention I estimate permanent brain death in two minutes twelve seconds. Remaining life functions will cease shortly after. As his only family member present, what is your directive?"

"–Zhane's alive?" Pulling himself up from the floor by the back of command's chair, it's all he can do to stay on his feet. "No. No, he can't be. The explosion..."

'No one's saying I'm pretty at the moment. Andros, I kinda need you to focus. Tell Deca to teleport me directly into the hypersleep tube in the healing chamber.' Regret, like sour citrus candies, spreads across his tongue. Confused, Andros spits against the acridness. 'Once I'm there, go to medical, okay? You need to get that sword cut tended before you faint.'

"The Silver Ranger sustained terminal injuries on KO-35. Despite this, he has survived initial teleportation. Which is illogical but very much like him," DECA reports testily. "Brain death predicted in one minute twenty-seven seconds. Andros, what are your orders?"

"Prep the healing chamber, now. Get him into hypersleep immediately." The hallway door wavers in front of him. His walk towards it comes in brief disorienting flashes breaking through the grayness eating away at the edges of his vision; a step here, a stumble there up against a console. He pauses, considering the lift that would take him to deck 6 and the small chamber hidden within the engine room.

'No. No nope and no. Trust me, you do not want to see me right now.' Andros is sure he can feel his friend rolling his eyes. 'You're going to medical. Get Deca to teleport you there, actually. Otherwise you really will bleed out along the way.'

"Bossy," he mutters from his uncomfortable sprawl atop the console. "DECA, Zhane says I need to go to medical. Even though he's the one that's dead." The bridge dissolves around him in a wash of scarlet; the antiseptic smell of the medical bay assaults his nostrils as reality reforms around him. "I'm Red," he argues; to Zhane. To no one. Perhaps to himself. "I give the orders."

"Yes, Andros," Deca blandishes in near monotone. "You give very good orders. Now, this will sting."

He yelps as DECA, controlling various automated medical instruments, forces him to sit on a nearby exam bed and begins cleaning his chest wound. "I don't – don't think you're taking me seriously. Zhane's dead and he's still telling me what to do!"

'Not dead,' rings through his mind and assails his ears from the room's speaker. He grimaces from the double assault.

"You were exploded," he says, wincing as a particularly sharp jerk makes itself known past the cold numbness that's enveloped the sword slash. "–Everyone died. Just like you said they would. And you made me live!" he screams, pounding clenched fists against the bed's raised railing while he's slowly stitched back together. "Why? Why am I alive?"

'You're alive so that I might live.' Phantom hands cradle his face, pressure without warmth. 'If you had died – the universe would have fallen. Andros... what's the point in fighting?'

He mewls, losing the battle against tears. "To save what we can. To mourn..." A sharp sting in the crook of his arm and the entire room rolls. "A Ranger's purpose is to mourn..." he mumbles as sleep sweeps in and pulls him under.

.oO0Oo.

The healing chamber is dim, its walls reverberating with the thrum of the Megaship's experimental engines. It's cold, both in temperature and lighting, a chill that works its way through his jacket in minutes. Deep into his bones not long after. His heart has been frozen from the moment his friend fell. He sits, stiff and sore, next to the 'sleep tube. Sarcophagus, he thinks mockingly as the warmth of his hand upon the glass lid drives back encroaching crystals of ice, exposing the form within.

'I wish you wouldn't,' Zhane says from the corner of Andros' mind he's claimed as his own. 'It'll be months before my morph repairs itself enough to cover–' a sense of squeamish dismay '–well, everything. I mean, are we even sure Deca got all my pieces?'

Upon the glass, his hand spasms. Below the glass lies burnt, red ruin held together by scraps of a silver Ranger uniform. "I'm still not sure I'm not having a psychotic break." Reaching into a pocket, he removes a dull gray, unassuming pebble. The silver veining catches blue fire in the chamber's dim lighting. "Symbolic, huh?" he asks quietly, rolling it gently over the hypersleep tube's lid. "So it wouldn't matter if I chucked it out the cargo bay's door?"

The taste of brine, and a sense of growing alarm. '...Mostly symbolic? It's just easier having a physical focus close to you, no matter how small. Andros...'

The stone clinks on glass, tink tink tink, as he sits. And considers.

'I will go, if that's what you truly want.' Zhane's presence draws back, a guttering spark offering itself to be extinguished. 'I never wanted to cause you pain. If you need me to go – I will. I always will.'

"No!" Rage blinds him, but he has no need to see as he wraps his mind tightly around Zhane, bolstering the spark's feeble light with his own strength. "No." His laugh is manic as he snatches up the pebble and returns it to his pocket. "You put this into motion; you're not leaving me alone to deal with it. No one can see the future," he mocks himself, lurching to his feet and kicking the stool aside. "Well, am I following your script?"

'You know how I feel about time.' Zhane sounds tiny. And frightened. And it only angers Andros more.

"All that extra homework, trying to get you to understand. The story sequencing worksheets you failed. Over and over." Pacing across the small room, he pivots and glares at the 'tube. "Because – there is no past, or present, or future for you, is there? You told me, but I never listened. Time is a single point. Well, I think for someone with your advantage you've done a piss-poor job, Zhane!" Again he senses his friend trying to withdraw – and he pulls. "Oh no; you did this, you deal with it!"

'I did the best I could!' Andros smells panic as melted soldering wires and chemical cleansers; it turns his stomach, forcing him to lurch from the chamber to dry heave into an empty bin left discarded by the engines. 'I never could see everything. Andros–'

"Shut up! Just shut up!" he shouts, covering his ears against meaningless excuses.

And there's – silence. The engines thrum, and DECA's closest camera whirs as it tracks him... but it's quiet. "Great," he tells himself as he straightens and makes his way to the lift. "Lose my team. Lose my mind. Just – fantastic. DECA, have we found any trace of the Kerovian transports? The refugees had to have gone somewhere."

"All evacuees were ordered to maintain comm silence after the fall of KO-41. Only the council has records of each convoy's destination."

"And what remained of the council was with her Ladyship." He takes the lift to deck 2 – and strains to hear anything before warily entering the hallway leading to crew quarters. He trails his hand along the wall as he passes by doors. The first is decorated with a sticker of a blue caterpillar wearing glasses and reading a book. The one across from it sports a collection of paper-mache butterflies dangling from threads glued to the door frame. As he continues on there's the delicate scent of roses. An angry zigzag of neon yellow paint.

Silver cursive proclaiming to anyone passing by A shooting star is not a star. It's not a star at all. He pauses outside this particular door, tracing the mocking phrase with his fingertip. "Zhane?" he calls softly, flinching back as the empty hall swallows his voice and returns nothing.

His own door is bare, decorations having been removed as soon as they'd appear. He wishes, now, that he hadn't. He leans his forehead against its hard, cool surface – and swallows back regret. "Wake me if you receive any transmissions," he orders, taking the click of a camera shifting positions as compliance.

He lies in his bunk fully dressed and his mind completely quiet. 'Zhane?' he tries again, then sighs, turning to his side. It's quiet, and dark, and he falls asleep counting his own exhalations and wakes to complete, smothering silence and tears wetting his face.

He moves through the following days by habit. Systems checks and status reports. For hours at a time he'll hover over sensors, eagerly searching the screen for any trace of Kerovian activity but finding only disappointment. He does his best to ignore the nights entirely, scrubbing the ship deck by deck. Cleaning out lockers. Removing access codes. Stripping down rooms, one by one, returning them to aching sameness.

"Andros, you need to rest," DECA warns him, producing a meal in the synthetron that he blithely ignores. Food holds no appeal, sleep even less. He waves off her concern, scrubbing at a table already immaculate. Scrubs until blood beads on its metal surface – then scrubs harder.

Each day he watches the stars through the viewscreen, distant companions in a universe that seems to have forgotten him. He finishes with Pink's room, and steps into Yellow's. Steps in, sees the pictures covering the walls – and steps out shuddering and unable to breathe with hours lost to horror in the meantime. It takes two days to seal the doorway to Yellow's cabin with metal paneling. When he's finished the seams are invisible, and he has no recollection of missing time.

He watches the stars when his eyes burn with weariness and his body aches from unending toil. He watches the stars...

...and keys in his code to open the door decorated in silver script. The room beyond glows with luminescent stars. Unable to control his shaking, he sinks down on the bunk covered in an oversized afghan, red and blue flowers against a pink background, bordered in black, joined in silver.

'Please, Zhane,' he prays, pulling the blanket up around his shoulders. 'Please, speak to me.'

'...Andros?'

He weeps in relief, face buried against soft yarn. 'Zhane! Why wouldn't you answer? Why?!'

There's an unfolding in his mind, so very weak and diffident it hardly feels like Zhane at all. 'You didn't want me to.'

"What are you talking about?" He can't control the shaking. Can't get warm. Can hardly catch his breath between sobs. "Every day. Every single day I've called. All I've wanted is to hear you!"

'I know.' His tears taste like burnt sugar against his lips and he presses damp hands to his mouth, eagerly licking at the sweet knowledge that his friend is with him. 'I've heard you, Andros. But you wanted me to stay quiet more. Until now.'

"I-I'm sorry," he hiccups, crawling under the blankets and curling himself tightly within sheets that still carry the faintest scent of starfire. His own bedding had stopped smelling like Zhane weeks ago, overcome by the stale rankness of grief. "So sorry."

'I am, too.'

"Don't leave me again," he pleads as his body relaxes against his will and sleep creeps ever closer. "It's too much. I can't do this alone."

'I won't,' Zhane's reassurance follows him down into slumber, the first wisps of a new-spun dream drowning out the whispered, 'until that's what you want the most.'

.oO0Oo.

They travel between sectors in an ever-expanding search. There are no clues as to where the Kerovians have gone, but of Evil they find plenty. Planets transmit despondent requests for help into the void of space – and they respond. When they can, they respond. Minor warlords. Natural disasters. Unnatural plagues. They help where they can, the Red Astro Ranger... and his ghost.

But increasingly the threat looming over desperate worlds reeks of Dark Specter, and they're a single ship. A single Ranger.

Andros laughs grimly, his saber cutting into a monster threatening the water supply of a minuscule, dusty moon. "Think the mayor would be as grateful if he knew he'd been saved by a Ranger and his imaginary friend?"

'I think the mayor would be just as grateful if he'd been saved by a sentient cactus and its pet simioid.' Zhane accesses Andros' own telekinetic ability, and a feeling just short of pleasure arcs through him as the monster's whipping tentacles are caught mid-strike, allowing him to slam his saber directly through the fiend's throbbing, exposed heart.

He's laughing, wiping maroon goo off his visor, when the taste of bitter, over-steeped tea floods across his tongue. "What is it?" he asks, spinning to face the new threat.

'Dreadnoughts.'

"Close?"

'...a few weeks out.' He can feel Zhane's fumbling as a clash of colors against his retinas, his friend's frustration mint that tingles in his sinuses. 'Not sure if they're headed here. But the moons are mineral-rich.'

"And Dark Specter has a fleet to replenish."

He warns the moonlet's mayor, and the residents that had gathered in the town square to celebrate his victory. He tells them doom is coming – and the mayor spouts drivel about diplomacy and appeasement. Ranger though Andros is, no one takes him seriously. A single Ranger often seen talking to himself... no one ever listens when he tells them to run.

"Why do we even bother any more?" he complains, teleporting back to the Megaship after having failed to convince a single being to evacuate. "I'm tired of them looking at me like I'm the lunatic. Ungrateful, all of them."

'You can't know for sure. A few might choose to leave. ...Later.'

Andros sniffs, powering down and settling restlessly in his chair in front of command. "You know as well as I do, by the time the fleet arrives it's too late. We can keep skipping ahead of them thanks to the Mega Accelerator; other ships aren't fast enough to escape." Leaning over to the next console, he brings up comms and briefly scans the logs. "And not a peep out of Eltar. You'd think losing all contact with the Kerovan systems might, I don't know, alarm them." Drumming his fingers against the side of the console, he fixes DECA's camera with a mutinous glare. "Guess they don't think one crazy, rogue Ranger that's lost his team is worth responding to."

"Irregular spikes in your theta waves during routine activities while you're concurrently in contact with Zhane would indicate that you're not, in fact, crazy," DECA offers matter-of-factly.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, DECA." Ducking his head to hide his pleased smile, he keys in possible destinations based on their best guesses of the fleet's route. "Nice to know that at least my ship believes in me."

'Hey! I know you're not crazy,' Zhane says, sounding insulted. It feels like glue drying on his fingertips. 'If anything, your mind is entirely too organized. I'm pretty sure this is where intuition goes off to sulk. It's like – government archives in here.'

"Forgive me for doubting my imaginary best friend's opinion on my sanity." His grin stretching, he easily ignores Zhane's outraged huff. "Besides, the dead don't get a vote. So, one for and one against me being crazy. Any suggestions for a tie-breaker?"

Colors streak across his vision and stick to his skin as Zhane gives his question serious consideration. 'Look. You're the sensible one, you're not allowed to go off the deep end. But... I've got a really, really bad feeling about Eltar's silence. I mean, they've never had a problem in the past insulting Kerova in the politest way possible. You'd think they would at least want to gloat...'

"That they were proven right, and KO-35 couldn't sustain a Ranger team?" Every course he enters for Eltar runs dangerously close to known allies of Dark Specter, or are blocked outright by the spreading wings of his fleet. "I guess it is strange that they haven't taken the opportunity to demand the Megaship back, regardless of the fact that it was specifically gifted to us by Zordon. Kinwon had mentioned they seemed – eager – to get their hands on our engines."

'Let them get their own Infinite Improbability Drive,' Zhane snarks, and Andros doesn't know why but the dry statement startles him into uncontrollable laughter. 'No, seriously;The Mega Accelerator can be unplugged by pulling a cable. That's not how stardrives work.' His ribs ache from laughter as his friend's vexation grows. 'Really. I dare you to ask Deca what fuels our engines.'

Wiping tears of mirth from the corners of his eyes, Andros struggles to catch his breath. And he ponders. Because that is a good question considering they've never once had to refuel. He'd assumed they were powered by a fusion reactor, but the shielding around the engine room, now that he's truly thinking about it, is entirely inadequate. The engines had been Blue's province, and he'd gladly left her to it.

He knows he shouldn't ask. Knows that Zhane is setting him up, but... "DECA, what fuels the Megaship?"

The familiar hum of the AI's camera focusing lasts longer than he's expecting. "There are restrictions in my programming, Andros," she finally replies, her tone laden with gravitas, "that prevents me from naming eldritch horrors on the off chance it might summon them."

Zhane is cackling, syrupy as honey, and it coaxes his own laughter into returning.

"Yeah, I walked into that one," he admits. His cheeks hurt, no longer familiar with happiness, but not enough to keep him from smiling. "Speculation on our engines is off-limits." His laughter trails off, though, as the final route to Eltar is flagged unnavigable due to gravitational irregularities."...Zhane? You were always better at astronavigation. Tell me I'm interpreting this wrong. Please."

'I don't think you are.' He smells vinegar, intense and astringent. 'How did we miss this? Eltar's completely blockaded. That bad feeling I have? It just got worse.'

"No kidding." He double checks the calculations, but there's no mistake. They have no way of reaching Eltar without crossing enemy-held territory. "I'm open to suggestions. It's one thing, answering random distress calls while searching for evacuees and awaiting orders. This... Eltar must have some plan in place. We could help, if we could contact them."

'And the only way of doing that, is through Zordon,' Zhane says, the dregs of his good mood vanishing. 'This is going to be so much harder than last time.'

.oO0Oo.

To dreamwalk, Zhane had explained, they needed to be sleeping at the same time as the intended recipient. As a near-immortal mystical being of unknown talents and even less known physicality, catching Zordon asleep was proving difficult. Adding to the problem, Zhane had reluctantly admitted he'd been having trouble dreaming as well.

'I don't think I'm actually asleep,' he says sheepishly as Andros tosses in his friend's bunk, pulling the soft afghan further up around his neck. 'I haven't a heartbeat yet, let alone brain activity last you checked.'

"Which is why we're in your room, tonight." Sighing, Andros pushes the blanket down to his waist and goes back to counting luminescent decorative stars. "So what do you do while I'm sleeping?" Iridescent bubbles float across his field of vision, bursting into bittersweet melancholy when he blinks. "Peak in?"

'Not uninvited.' He's offended Zhane, and the night's barely begun. 'Mostly... I try to hold myself together. Hold myself in, so I'm not as much of a burden. It – takes a lot of energy. And I won't take that energy from you.'

"Which might explain why you're healing so slowly." Stars blur together, and he yawns. 'I want you back,' he demands fussily, letting his eyelids droop. 'Any way I can have you. I'd give anything to be able to see you in my dreams...'

The stars burn brighter, diamonds against the black velvet of space, and he's standing on a river of light. A pinprick of brilliance floats in front of him, and Andros raises his hand to let it alight on his finger. "Oh," he breathes in awed wonder, lifting the mote higher.

'Probably not what you were expecting.' Zhane flickers, tumbling down his finger and coming to rest in his palm. 'I can't reshape your dreams, and you don't have the skill to reshape me.' He hovers in his palm, his brightness dimming as his mood darkens, and it's all Andros can do not to cup his hands together, to cage his friend and keep him safe held closely to his heart. 'I know you were hoping–'

"To see you again. And here you are." He offers a watery smile, trying to still the quivering of his lips. "Trust me. This is an improvement."

'I really wish you'd stay out of the healing chamber.' With the slightest wobble, the spark lifts and drifts before him in the stellar breeze.

"You know what they say about wishes." He's reaching out before he can stop himself, closing his fist around the dancing mote and bringing it to his chest.

'This isn't dignified,' Zhane pouts, escaping his grasp to trace beguiling patterns along the dips and rises of his knuckles. 'I can't lead the way if you keep trying to catch me like a firefly.'

"I suppose not." Flattening his hand, he flicks his wrist gently, allowing the impossibly small spark to return to drifting. "So... how do we find Zordon?"

'Before, I backtracked along the holes he was punching through time. I thought, since he's trapped outside of it, there'd be some sign...' Groaning, Zhane lands on his shoulder, a weightless warmth that feels like home. 'But there isn't. I suppose all that's left is to visit everyone that's dreaming.'

"Everyone?"

'Well, everyone we both know. That's actually dreaming.'

Andros wishes he could say that they're lucky; that it is an incredibly short list of people they both know that are still alive. But it's not luck so much as tragic misfortune. He wishes there were more than a handful of colorful threads to follow – out of the hundreds of broken, unraveling connections that cling to him like cobweb. One of the few intact threads leads to Kinwon, so fragile that the force of his regard is enough to snap the man to wakefulness. Another takes him to his Mama, whose dream is billowy soft and golden. He yearns to enter, longs to be by her side – but Zhane's strength is waning and he knows they're growing short on time.

They find Zordon in a realm of mist that gradually resolves into the chamber they'd visited before – yet not. There are subtle differences, not least of which is the man himself who's standing before the glowing white orb, puzzlement creasing his face.

"Andros," the man booms in surprise as he steps towards them. "I did not expect to see you again. At least, not in this manner. And – Zhane?" He tilts his head, and the motion isn't nearly as disconcerting now that there's a neck and body below it. "What has happened, my friend?" he asks, his eyes narrowing.

Zhane flits between them, a microscopic star caught in a solitary dance. He then retreats, tucking himself forlornly in the hollow where Andros' clavicle and sternum join. 'He can't hear me.' He dims at the realization. 'It's no problem of mine, but it's a problem I find, livin' a life that I can't leave behind.'

Hiding his friend protectively beneath his hand, Andros meets the older man's inquiring gaze. "He's dead," he says bluntly, then tsks as salty brine splashes across his tongue. "Okay, okay; mostly dead."

'Only my body!'

"Yes, bodies usually are the things that die!" he hisses in annoyance. "Seeing as your decision-making skills led to you getting exploded I hope you understand why I'll no longer be relying on your judgment." Heat stings his finger and he yelps, pulling his hand back. "You bit me," he complains, examining the already fading burn. "I can't believe you bit me."

There's a twinkle in Zordon's eyes that's clear indication that he, at least, has no problem believing in his friend's misbehavior. His expression, though, is somber; the flat lines of his lips positively grim. "I am sorry to hear of Zhane's injury. There must have been extraordinary circumstances involved if he thought it necessary to entrust you with his self."

"The Kerovan systems – are gone." He wants to pace, but there's little floor space between the circling consoles. Instead, Andros settles for tapping the toes of one foot against the heel of the other. "Not conquered. Gone. Dark Specter has a weapon; Zhane calls it glassing. It's carried aboard the dreadnoughts. It – melts planets." He shivers as the image of Avera cracking flashes across his vision. "KO-35 was the only colony left. My team died securing the retreat of the last of the evacuees." He presses the palms of his hands over his eyes, hoping to suppress the flashback trying to surface. "Zhane died to save me." He lets his hands drop because closing his eyes is only bringing the memories closer. "He died so I could mourn."

Zordon – looks old. And terribly tired as the man lays a comforting hand on his shoulder. "I am sorry. Kerova has always been a staunch ally to Eltar. Your planet, it was also glassed?"

"...No," Andros whispers, unconsciously reaching for his friend's bright spark still huddled against the hollow of his throat. "They did something different to KO-35. It was, it was beautiful and I couldn't look away. Zhane screamed at me until I told DECA to teleport me back to the ship... and I still couldn't look away. There was so much light, everywhere, the entire planet was covered in violet light. And when it faded – nothing sentient remained."

The dream chamber is cold and the only warmth left in his world is the lambent star held between his hands. "The last of my people died, not in battle defending their homes but on their knees worshiping the instrument of their destruction."

"I am so sorry." His strength failing him, Zordon carefully lowers himself to the tiled floor. "I had heard rumors, but no more. And news on Eltar has grown sparse." Sighing, the man wraps long arms around his bent knees. "I was fortunate to be released from my prison outside of time and returned to my home. Or so I had thought. I have fought Evil over generations; trained others to fulfill my duties after I became trapped. Millennia I have worked to hold back darkness, only for darkness to follow me home."

"Eltar is under siege," Andros guesses, joining the man on the smooth, chilled floor. "Not just blockaded."

"Eltar will soon fall," Zordon confirms, his voice a weak imitation of its usual boom. "Our Rangers too are slain, defending those seeking refuge in the countryside. Our cities have become death traps, mined from above and undermined from below. I have informed our elders that they cannot risk my being taken alive. If Dark Specter gains control of my Power..."

'This galaxy will be lost, and the universe will follow.'

Swallowing roughly, Andros agrees with Zhane's assessment. "They have refused."

"They say I am too important. Too beloved. My wisdom needed, while they ignore it."

"What can we do?" Andros asks, mimicking Zordon's position. "It's just me. And Zhane. And DECA, I suppose. Although DECA is tied to the ship, and Zhane's – tied to me. We want to help, however we can."

Zordon's sigh contains a wealth of failed expectations. "I appreciate your offer, young Rangers. As you will have already deduced, Eltar is unreachable. To attempt doing so would be no more than a suicide mission. Eltar will fall, in weeks if not sooner. And when it does I will be taken to Dark Specter.

"You must find me, Andros. Find me, and carry out that final act of kindness that my kinsmen have denied me." Leaning back, the man smiles bleakly. "Although, if you might check in on Earth occasionally during your search, it would ease many of my remaining misgivings. I've grown rather attached to that planet and her people. The communications blackout has prevented me from contacting them. It is one of the few regrets remaining to me."

Andros stares at the man sitting in front of him, unblinking. 'He wants me to kill him.'

'He was a Ranger, once. He's asking you to save what you can,' Zhane replies softly, his sorrow sweet as spun sugar.

'And if he's one of the things I can save?' Blowing a gentle breath of air down across his lips, he encourages the tiny spark to return to his fingertip. 'Is this a future that you've seen? –Can he be saved?'

Zhane's light flickers, rapid as his own fluttering pulse. 'I don't know. I don't know any more. Your mind is all straight lines and logic; it's so hard to think here. To fight your perception of time.' A pleading note winds through his words. 'I'm tired of fighting. I'm just – tired, Andros.'

Dismayed, Andros stands cautiously, not wanting to shake the glimmering mote from its perch. "I promise to protect your Earth," he tells Zordon, inclining his head.

"And my other request?" the man asks cynically, despair settling across his face as a shroud.

"If there's no other choice. If all else has failed – yes." He blinks back tears as the older man slumps in overwhelmed relief. "I understand you have to be taken from Eltar, first. There's not a chance of reaching you otherwise. But I promise I'll search for you, Zordon. Whatever it takes, Evil will not triumph. Not this time."

"Thank you, my friends. I look forward to the day that I can greet you in person." Around them the chamber twists, feigned forms returning to wisps of mist. "You should go now, before I wake. And Andros?" Stars break through the haze of mist and space floods in to surround them; a boy, a spark, and the uncertain shadow of a man parting paths with slumber. "Take good care of Zhane. He's more fragile than he realizes."

'Matter doesn't matter,' his friend fusses as Andros runs back along the path of light leading them home. ''M not fragile.'

"Exploded," he reminds him drolly, racing past swirling constellations.

'Just wait until I get my body back. I'll show you who's fragile.'

"There's so much wrong with that statement, I don't know where to begin." There are tears soaked into his laughter, and his eyes are stung by starlight. "Zhane? Do you think you could sleep if you stayed with me in my dreams?"

'I'm willing to try.' Hope brightens the spark clinging to his finger. '–It's okay? You don't mind if I share your dreams?'

"Better than facing them alone," he tells the luminescent stars hanging above him as he stretches languidly underneath the comforting weight of the afghan. Rolling to his side to check the time, he groans. "If I can fall back asleep. Not quite ready for tomorrow, yet."

.oO0Oo.

News of Eltar's fall reaches them as they're docked at a space station located squarely in neutral territory. Panic spreads like plague through the dockside market and rumors abound of where Dark Specter might strike next. Andros, in the middle of choosing fresh produce, watches the crowd warily as it shows the first signs of surging.

"How badly do you want this pie?" he asks, sidestepping an aspiring pickpocket.

'Not enough to risk getting you trapped in another rout.' Andros doesn't know if it's Zhane's fear or his own souring his mouth. 'If you start moving now, I think I can keep the worst of the throng away from our path back. Should be easier without other telekinetics pushing against me.'

"Should be," he murmurs, slipping past arguing groups and ducking underneath a large being shuffling her hooves in agitation as the crush of people begins to press against her. "We're Rangers. Shouldn't we be trying to calm the situation instead of running from it?"

'A single Ranger in neutral territory is nothing but a target for every bounty hunter and low-life criminal hoping to make a name for itself with the Alliance.' Subtly Zhane turns people away from the corridor they need down; a pull on a sleeve, a nudge to a turned back, a tug against a lock of hair all helps clear the way. 'Besides, your foot's hurting, isn't it?'

"That's cheating," he says lowly, dashing through the created opening to reach the passageway leading back to the Megaship. "You know it's psychosomatic."

'Doesn't mean it's not hurting.'

They withdraw from the space station mid-riot, DECA dealing with the irate stationmaster demanding penalties on top of their docking fees in retaliation for their untimely departure. Transmissions briefly overwhelm their communications system; Andros attempts to sort them by priority as DECA switches from calm negotiation to a steely declaration that further attempts at extortion would be handled directly by Lord Zedd's solicitors.

It's to Zhane's delighted giggling that Andros activates hyper-rush, leaving the escalating situation behind them. Leaning back in his chair, he stares up at a camera that refuses to face him. "Did I hear that right?" he asks slowly, folding his arms across his chest. "Did you really just threaten them with Alliance lawyers?"

"Yes," she replies sullenly, keeping the camera turned away. "Threatening him with Ranger lawyers would not have led to the desired outcome."

"That being?"

"Him too terrified to send station security after us. Really, Andros," she huffs as she makes small corrections to the make-shift course he'd laid in. "It's like you're a planetary Ranger fumbling about on your first trip into space. You know the slightest sign of weakness can be deadly."

Zhane's laughter follows him throughout the day, keeping him from dwelling on the AI's stark warning. And when he finds sleep that night Zhane is with him, a silently slumbering spark he tucks into his locket for safe keeping before letting himself be swept into dreams. It's become routine, as days and nights blend into each other. As they search for clues as to where Zordon was taken, and search for leads on where the Kerovian convoys may have hidden, and search for any slight trace of Karone, and search, and search...

Planets still cry out for aid, and they offer what help they can. Yet rumors often reach the planets before they can arrive, of a solitary Red gone mad in his grief. A Red that fights for vengeance alone and who has no time to deal with the living, too consumed with talking to the dead. Once, the gossip of those he'd come to save had hurt. Once, it had drawn tears. Now, he pays it no heed...

...and if he clutches the plush Silver Ranger doll – gifted to him by a gap-toothed child no higher than his knee on a wandering asteroid whose name he's never bothered to learn – a little too tightly, it doesn't matter. If tears fall under the concealment of his helmet, no one can see... Or judge.

It doesn't matter.

His dreams each night start with a peacefully sleeping spark nestled in the palm of his hand, and his days begin under the weight of an afghan stitched of memories and love – and he doesn't think he's crazy. As Zhane bids him good morning and telekinetically programs a breakfast into the synthetron he'd not planned on having, he convinces himself once more of its normality.

As beings glance at him from the corners of their eyes as he squabbles with his friend over the best way of defeating the third salacious tentacle monster they've faced that week...

...what even is his life?

It doesn't matter. He's helping people. He's living his childhood dream. He's Red. He has his best friend at his side in his mind and his ship that disagrees with nearly every decision he makes and he's not happy but that's nothing new.

He searches, and saves, and sleeps, and wakes to DECA's camera whirling in agitation.

"Andros, my sensors have detected a heartbeat in the healing chamber."

Doors open automatically for him, and the lift takes him to deck 6 without his input. The floor is freezing below his bare feet, and he stubs his toes as he enters the small, concealed room...

...but it doesn't matter. As the heat of his hands melts the ice hazing the glass lid of the hypersleep tube to reveal the figure resting inside, silver Ranger uniform whole and intact and mere inches away from his fingers, none of it matters at all.

'Oh.' The sound of a single, slow heartbeat fills the room from the monitor attached to the 'tube. 'So that's what I've been feeling.' Laughter shines like sunlight sparkling off a river. 'Good morning, Andros.'

Collapsing across his friend's body, his finally living body, Andros begins to sob. "Good morning, Zhane," he replies, grinning wide and wet and free. "I think they might be right. They might be. I might be just a little bit crazy."

'All the best people are crazy. All the best people are.'

"You're not supposed to agree with me."

Minutes pass, and the monitor relays the soothing lub-dub of another heartbeat.

.oO0Oo.

He finishes the monster with a final slash from his saber, but the motion pulls at the gash in his own side. Blood wells between the fingers of his glove as he struggles to hold the edges of the cut together. There's nothing on hand to staunch the bleeding, nothing but Zhane's telekinetic talent forcing blood back into severed veins and pressing in hard enough to make him scream.

"Stop it," he pants, struggling to catch his breath. "This isn't going to work."

'It'll work long enough for you to get back to the Megaship,' Zhane vows, increasing the pressure against the wound as Andros' heart, contrary organ, does its best to pump blood out.

"Gotta, gotta cauterize it. With my blaster."

'Yeah. No. That's more likely to vaporize than cauterize with the way your armor's compromised.' His friend's anger tastes strange against the copper tang of blood already filling his mouth. 'Stop being stubborn and teleport already, Andros!'

"Fine. Let me just let go so I can punch the stupid code into my morpher." He rolls his eyes, and knows Zhane knows he's rolling eyes despite the helmet concealing his face. "Wait, that would be bad, right?"

'For the love of–! Yes, fine,' Zhane snarls back, and his sheer affront is enough to tease a fond smile from Andros. 'If I trigger some defense mechanism while tampering with your morpher buttons that fries us both, I'm blaming you.'

"You do that," he says as the chartreuse sky above him is lost in a stream of crimson light. "Always were the best at pushing my buttons." The medical bay bed is both familiar and unwelcome against his back, and he rolls his eyes again at his friend's incoherent muttering. "I'm here already, shut–" he bites his complaint off, shuddering at how close he'd come to finishing the order. "Zhane?"

'I'm here. It's okay.' His quiet reassurance smells like ozone after a summer storm. 'You need to tell Deca she'll have to work around your Ranger uniform. I'm drawing on your connection to the Power to keep you held together.'

"Dangerous," he slurs, blinking up into the camera overhead. "DECA, Zhane says I can't demorph. Think he's afraid I might spill out if I do..." He laughs giddily, and it hurts in a distant, abstract way. Zhane curses him, and presses; neither prevents him from laughing harder.

"Understood." Her answer is brisk, and the robotic arms under her control descend. "I can partially numb the area, but I can't put you under, Andros. I need you to relay which injuries Zhane's buffering; those are the most serious, but my scans are not reliable when he's bolstering against the worst of the damage."

Zhane's voice is a ribbon of silver that floats in strange, sinuous circles around the med bay. "He says... left renal artery. Left kidney. Transverse colon and small intestine..." Andros laughs, high and shrill as sharp-clawed arms reach inside, tugging and pulling and scraping and suturing. He thinks he should be horrified, but sparkling silver gleams above him and there's hardly any pain at all. "This... this should hurt. Shouldn't this be hurting?" he asks between sharp gasps and the awful sounds of snipping.

'More than a paper cut, less than being exploded.' His friend is more than a presence at the back of his mind. Zhane is like water, soothing his nerves, running cool and clear through his limbs and pooling in his belly. Zhane is everywhere and Andros basks in contentment as scalpels cut and metal grips stitch. 'You can't keep doing this, Andros.'

"Hmm?" The IV within its cuff plunged into the crook of his arm is an annoyance, preventing him from reaching for the alluring silver ribbon twisting above him. "What do you mean."

'–This really does hurt.' There's something wrong with Zhane's sending, something vacillating and gray where there should be only light. 'There's only so much I can do. Andros. You have to stop taking these foolish risks.'

"Someone had to save those people!" he pouts, wrinkling his nose at the growing smell of antibiotic packing and surgical glue filling the room. "What should I have done? Told them sorry and walked away?" Silver fades back into the metal of the medical bay's bare walls as his head begins to clear, and the final line of staples are placed precisely in his side before the mechanical arms pull back to their starting positions. "You know I'm not going to do that."

'You could have requested backup. There are still a few Rangers left patrolling.'

"Right," Andros sneers as he attempts to sit upright. Things shift inside him unpleasantly; inside his abdomen, and at the back of his mind, but neither sensation hurts. "Like they came to the aid of Kerova. We can't depend on them, Zhane. It's just us out here." Prodding at his inflamed, stapled side, he nibbles worriedly at his lip because the skin isn't numb – but it doesn't hurt at all. "Look. No one died today. I'm going to count that as a win."

His friend's answer, when it comes, is quiet and without accompaniment. Neither burst of flavor nor splash of color to indicate emotion, just the faint drone of the Megaship's engines and the dried sweat itching on his palms as he releases his morph. 'Ask Deca,' Zhane says distantly, weariness reducing his voice to less than a whisper.

Adjusting the pillow behind his back, Andros bites his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. "DECA?" he calls out, not bothering to look towards her camera. "Zhane says... I should ask."

"Ask? The surgery was successful, although two meters of small intestine had to be removed. You will be limited to a liquid diet for the next week while your incisions heal. Bed rest will last longer, although your recovery will be accelerated due to a Ranger's natural healing ability." The AI gives her report in a flat monotone, but beneath the surface, Andros can tell she is seething. "Is there anything else you'd like to ask?"

"–I think there is." He dares a peek and is snared by the swirl caused by the repeated focusing of her camera. "What should I have asked about?"

The very thrum of the engines falter as DECA considers her answer. "Approximately one minute thirty-eight seconds after traumatic injury to your abdominal cavity and the organs within due to a tearing puncture received in battle, all life signs within the healing chamber ceased. A heartbeat was detected precisely two minutes and five point four seconds ago. Awaiting further data to evaluate potential electrical abnormalities in cardiac function."

He can't breathe. The red of DECA's lens is all he can see as the rest of the room spins sickeningly around him. Shaking his head in violent denial, Andros leans over the railing of the medical bed and heaves, bile and blood splattering the floor below. The retching pulls at muscles freshly sutured and it doesn't hurt at all. And his lungs ache with the need for air, but he can't draw a single breath against the all-consuming guilt.

'You died!'

'Again,' Zhane admits tiredly. 'Andros, you're going to need to breathe or you're going to undo all of our hard work at keeping you alive.'

He gasps and chokes as air burns in his lungs. And the coughing that follows should hurt. It should hurt. It should hurt so much but it doesn't. "I killed you! How, how could you save me when I'd just killed you?!"

'Technically, the monster killed you. You would have died, Andros, if I hadn't intervened.' His friend pauses, as if gathering strength. 'You already know I will do whatever it takes... when it comes to you. And, I suppose it's a little selfish, too. You have to live, for the both of us. If you die, we both die. If I die... well...' A trace of embarrassment like sea salt cuts through the coppery acridness coating Andros' tongue. 'I spend a bit more time in the flash freezer. Not a bad trade-off.'

"You died for me." Unmindful of the tubing still running into his vein, Andros pushes himself back against the pillow, his fists clenching around the bed's rails. "You've died for me twice. It's not fair." A tear falls unheeded as he tilts his head back, resting it on the wall behind him. "I would die for you, Zhane. But I'm never going to be given that choice, am I?" Another tear follows the first, unstoppable. "Even now, you're taking my pain. Not, not blocking it. You're feeling my pain!"

'...You need to heal.'

"I need you! What happens to a binary star when its partner dies?"

Honest confusion colors the room in shades a fuchsia. 'Umm, an accretion disc forms around the surviving star eventually spawning a new solar system?'

"Seriously?" Absolute disbelief shocks Andros from his grief. "A star burning as brightly as you? You could only be a supernova, Zhane. Think about that. How many binaries survive the other half of themselves going supernova?" He snorts in the ensuing silence. "Exactly. DECA? Can you route audio of Zhane's monitor into the med bay?"

The AI's answer is a discordant hum; the engines as heard from five decks below. Then, after several long minutes of white noise – a single uneven heartbeat echoes through the room.

'Is this necessary?'

Baring teeth still flecked with blood, Andros grins sharply. "Absolutely. Give me back my pain. Now." He wants his pain as he has rarely allowed himself to want anything. Lets his longing for it fill him, hot and throbbing. He needs this pain and Zhane will always, always do that which Andros wants most of all.

Agony strikes him, and he laughs as he curls tight against its assault. "Thank you," he says, his smile softening as another heartbeat sounds, then another. Lub-dub, lub-dub, marking the passing minutes. "Thank you."

'Yellow was right; we've taken codependency places that would drive a psychoanalyst into a career of pothole repair.' Zhane is warmth wrapped around his soul and the beginnings of a dancing spark as sleep blurs the edges of his awareness. '...Please. Please be more careful, Andros. It took everything I had to save you today. Please. No more foolish risks.'

"No," he agrees, lulled into slumber by the sound of his friend's heartbeat. "Not risking you again."

.oO0Oo.

'We need a vacation.'

Andros finishes his stretch, scar tissue tight along his left flank but more pliable than in weeks passed. "Mhm." Pointing his toes, he moves into a straddle split, letting his forehead rest against the gym's padded floor mat. "You've mentioned that."

'You're cheating. Toes towards the ceiling.'

He tries angling his feet upwards, but the strain on his hamstrings halts the motion. "Not happening today. Be happy I'm here at all. There's a hot spring program for the Simudeck that's been calling my name."

'We're not going to the Simudeck for our vacation.'

"I would hope not," he says mildly, swinging his legs back and lifting them in preparation for a bow pose. The position is uncomfortable, the motion putting pressure against the new strictures left behind by his wound. Wetting his lips, the taste of overripe fruit takes him by surprise. "You're serious about this. You want to go on vacation."

'Well, yeah.' Zhane's voice holds both longing and shame. 'I know we need to find Zordon. Whole fate-of-the-universe and everything. But every lead we've followed is either a dead end or a trap. And that Eltarian guerrilla cell we stumbled across would've preferred to shoot us down than share information. I just...' A gusty sigh that's gritty beneath his fingers. 'We never traveled as kids. The money wasn't there. Then we were Rangers – and we've been fighting this war ever since. Sure, we get to go to all sorts of places. Deserts. And wastelands. Barren moonscapes... did I mention the deserts?'

"Once or twice." Relaxing, he pulls his knees underneath him into an extended child's pose, groaning as his spine realigns. "Have something against sand?"

'You know how I feel about sand.'

"It's coarse and rough and irritating andit gets everywhere?" Smirking into the padded mat, Andros feels a sense of accomplishment at rendering his friend speechless. "So, a vacation someplace that would never require a Ranger's presence? Like a spa planet out of one of Rosie's romance novels?"

'Well... I suppose that's something else we've never done.'

Laughter rolls him to his side, muscles warm and loose and languid. "I am not walking up and asking how much for me and my imaginary friend!"

'Guess that rules out mythical spa planets, then.' Zhane's flustered blush is his own, hot upon his cheeks. 'There are other places. There must be a planet somewhere outside the Alliance's influence. Someplace calm, and beautiful, where...'

"Where...?" he prods his friend, getting to his feet and making his way towards the door.

'Where no one's trying to shoot you. Or stab you. No poisonings or beatings or attempts at blackmail.' Zhane's wistfulness pops like soap bubbles against his skin as he directs the lift to the bridge. 'Don't you think it would be nice, to be able to lie down in the grass and watch the clouds like we used to? –I miss that. Whenever I try to remember those days, all I see is the smoke from worlds burning.'

He wishes he could hug his friend. Zhane tended to grow morose without proper hugging. "I remember clouds," he whispers, sitting down in front of command and pausing the currently running search. "Karone and I would spend hours watching them..." A memory surfaces, just enough to tease before vanishing back into the nebulous jumble of his life before. "I suppose a vacation wouldn't hurt. DECA won't actually let me do anything for another week–"

"Two weeks," the AI reminds him smugly.

"A week!" he insists as possible resort destinations scroll across the viewscreen. "Some place not too sunny. I swear, every single planet we've been on lately is brighter than any Kerovan outpost ever was. The light spectrum can't possibly be healthy."

'I dunno. Ultraviolet kinda tingles.'

"You are still banned from decision-making. Which reminds me; DECA, we're going to need a lot of sunscreen once Zhane's out of hypersleep. It'll take time to build back up the melanin in his skin." Jabbing his finger at his console, Andros freezes the scrolling list on an advertisement less flashy than others but more intriguing. "How do you feel about sea caves?"

'There's sand.'

"There's bioluminescent algae."

'Oh.' He chuckles as Zhane eagerly views the listing through his eyes, the psychic doubled vision no longer disconcerting. 'It really does glow!'

"DECA?"

"Your reservation was just confirmed and we're already on our way."

.oO0Oo.

Aqua light runs in rivulets down Andros' arms as he hoists himself out of the water onto a rocky shelf, his splashing feet sending swirls of brilliance through the tepid ocean water. There's a balmy breeze running through the sea cave hinting at unseen passages and openings, and the air smells of salt and tropical fruits. Turning onto his back, he watches the swaying seaweed overhead. Long tendrils dip down into the ocean, sipping the glowing water and setting the aquatic plants aflame in ethereal fire. The entire cavern gleams like a jewel, including the puddle forming beneath him.

"I don't care how much you want it, I don't think I can stomach another piece of pie." The tickling suction of a tiny fish sampling his dangling toes triggers a spate of laughter. "Next time I morph, I'm going to have a pot belly sticking out. Sorry, but not the image I want to present. Your dessert rampage ends today."

'Spoilsport,' Zhane mutters, not disappointed but willing to pretend.

They'd been on planet for the past three days, wandering the beaches by the light of the distant sun and swimming in the ocean each night. Zhane found the bioluminescent algae endlessly fascinating, and Andros was more than willing to indulge his friend. Zhane had been right; they'd never been on vacation. They could scarcely grasp the idea of leisure time.

The resort laid out a lavish spread, a veritable feast for breakfast, lunch and dinner. A rotation of dishes showcasing the ocean's bounty; seafood and sea vegetables and briny yet amazingly sweet sea fruits available no matter the time of day. Yet despite the variety, Zhane was drawn to the desserts and would inevitably talk Andros into choosing a wedge of pie. Always a different flavor, but still pie, and Andros' sweet tooth had fled by the second day.

Lazily kicking his feet, Andros splashes water in a dazzling arc across the cavern and feels his friend's appreciation at the display as a teasing pressure running down his sides. "Maybe DECA can convince the resort's managing AI to share some of their recipes. I'm sure the synthetron could duplicate a few of them."

'Replicated pie... I'd like to think I'm too good of a friend to subject you to that, Andros.'

The algae in the water gives it an odd, slippery texture that might have been unpleasant had it not also had a mildly euphoric effect. Resort staff had assured Andros that it was in no way dangerous; DECA had confirmed that the algae – and their effects upon Kerovians – were benign and of extremely short duration. Already the pleasant sensation of floating is fading as water slowly evaporates from his body leaving behind a residue smooth as powdered talc.

"What else do you feel like doing today, since I'm vetoing pie?" he asks, folding his arms behind his head as his feet swing lazily in the water lapping at the edge of the rock shelf he's resting on. "We've hiked the nearby trails. Snorkeled. Even tried surfing. I guess we could – Zhane?" His friend's attention has swung suddenly outwards, away from the cave and the wonders within. "What is it?"

'A dreadnought's just entered orbit. It's cloaked, but those ships do things to gravity that's unnatural.'

"We landed the Megaship on planet." Sitting up, Andros opens his morpher and establishes contact with DECA. "–Do we even have time to launch?"

'We've never seen a dreadnought fire while cloaked. And we've never seen one by itself. Something else is going on here.' Andros' head pulses with a sharp, spiking pain as Zhane struggles with the limitations of a brain too firmly entrenched in the current flow of time. 'I think we're about to become victims of Rangers' Luck. Andros, you've got to hide. Now.'

"Where?" Raising his arms, he waves his hands before his eyes. "You might not have noticed, but I'm still glowing."

'Back in the water,' Zhane decides, trepidation turning the cavern's aqua glow to amber. 'I think there's a nook further back underneath this shelf. Hurry.'

Pushing off from the ledge, Andros slips into the slick water with nary a splash. There is a hollow beneath the shelf; water laps scant inches below the rock overhang. It's enough to keep his nose above water, if only barely, as he clings to the smooth, glistening stone. Then aqua-turned-amber light bleeds to rust as something teleports into the sea cave, and the balmy air sours with the scent of decay.

'Rangers' Luck for sure.' He cannot see the intruding figure from his position, but the stench roiling off it tells Andros all he needs to know. 'Alliance. Likely high ranking. What in all the worlds is it doing here?'

'Dunno. But he's not alone,' Zhane warns, directing his attention to the far wall of the cavern where a submerged tunnel links it to the open ocean beyond. A creature is breaking the glowing surface of the water, bulging eyes bilious and unblinking as it swims towards the rock shelf – and them. 'Hold still. I don't know how sensitive it might be to a change in current.'

'You don't recognize it?' Holding his breath, Andros refuses to flinch as the haft of a trident brushes his leg as the creature passes him before clambering up on the rock above. 'Pirahnatron. One of Divatox's goons. They should all be on Earth.'

"What took you so long?" the first arrival barks, its voice the rot of things long dead. Its demand is met with warbles and grunts and the waving of webbed gauntlets. "And I don't care! Your pirate wench demanded this meeting; you're lucky Dark Specter didn't destroy the lot of you for her insolence."

The pirahnatron burbles and hisses, striking the surface of the rock shelf with the butt of its trident. Below, Andros takes the opportunity to gulp a new lungful of fouled air before submerging until only his eyes are above the water. 'Any exceptionally bad feelings?' he asks, muscles tense as he struggles to remain in place, unseen.

'I have all the bad feelings.'

"And I'm telling you!" the first arrival growls, the metallic hiss of a sword being drawn punctuating its words. "The boss doesn't care if she managed to destroy one piddling team of dirt-bound Rangers. She can wait with the rest of the second-stringers until Dark Specter's announcement on the Cimmerian planet." Further garbled speech ending with the clang of a weapon striking armor covers Andros' silent pants as the incoming tide forces his upturned face closer to the stone above him. "What do I care who she brings with her? Let her prove her incompetence by surrounding herself with a swarm of useless minions. She'll be no different than all the rest."

Another flare of rust as the envoy of Dark Specter teleports out followed a large splash as the pirahnatron leaps into the water, swiftly swimming to the entrance of the submerged tunnel. Andros continues to wait under the ledge, his lips pressed against slick, bright-stained rock and his ears straining to catch the sound of either blackguards' return. 'Think they're actually gone?'

'The air smells like seaweed and drying algae and it's still fresher than when they were in here.' Zhane's relief covers the slightly bitter tang of the algae smearing across Andros' lips with a hint of spice and sugar. 'Should be safe enough to get out of the water. Might need to wait before returning to the Megaship, though. There's a chance that the dreadnought can detect teleports.'

"Good idea," Andros whispers, pushing out from underneath the ledge and pulling himself back on top of the rock. Glowing aqua water once again streams down his long, loose hair and quivering arms to the worn stone of the shelf, but the sight is no longer beautiful, tainted by the lingering corruption of Evil. "As long as we're out of here before the tide drowns us. That – was closer than I'd like. Wish you could teach me your trick of sensing dreadnoughts."

'It's like a singularity showing up on your doorstep with a flaming bag of–'

"Zhane!"

'Well, it is,' Zhane says petulantly. 'Gravity has always been weird, but what they're doing to it is just wrong. Space splinters around the ships, and the shards scratch furrows into time. Used to give me migraines when they'd appear over the colonies. Who knows, maybe now that my body is showing signs of brain activity they still do – I'm just not around to feel them.'

"That's not a silver-lining." Idly turning over to sit, Andros taps at his morpher, reestablishing the link to DECA. "Were you able to catch the conversation?" he inquires, reaching up to wring water from his hair. "I have a suspicion that's the break we've been waiting for."

"I'm running a search for any references to a Cimmerian planet now, Andros," she responds eagerly, her tone jovial. "It doesn't appear in any standard database, but several intercepted Alliance transmissions mention it. All within the last two weeks."

"A lead." Grinning broadly, Andros tilts his head back and whoops, the echoes nearly deafening within the cave. "A lead!"

'A lead,' his friend repeats, his excitement constrained. 'Also, Divatox is claiming she's killed Rangers. Those could only be the Rangers of Earth, Andros.'

"...I know. As soon as we've checked out this supposed Alliance meeting of Dark Specter's, we'll head that way. Plenty of villains have announced the destruction of Earth's teams in the past, and every time the Rangers return, usually with new connections to the Power. I'm not too worried."

'Those other teams had Zordon. The current one didn't.'

Zhane's concern – is valid, as much as Andros hates to admit it. "I'm sure they're fine," he says, and winces at the uncertain quaver in his voice.

'Uh-huh.' Zhane is unconvinced. '–Gravity is back to being its normal, annoying self. Anything we need from our room at the resort before we return to the Megaship?'

Sighing, Andros stands and chooses a destination. "Since our vacation's being cut short... let's get you a few slices of pie to take with us." The shift in Zhane's mood from pessimism to heady elation is more potent than the side-effects of the algae-infused sea water and leaves Andros giggling in its wake. "But I'm saving them until after."

'Victory pie.'

"Yeah," he agrees as he teleports out of the cavern. "Victory pie."

.oO0Oo.

The star map DECA displays on the Megaship's viewscreen is disturbing. The so-called Cimmerian planet is no more than a moonlet amongst many that circle a brooding orb of viscous gasses deep within Alliance controlled space. There is no safe route to it, not for the Megaship. In fact there are no alternate routes at all, only a single, meandering course that snakes its way through the asteroid fields left by destroyed worlds.

"Ideas?" Andros hopes they have insight he's lacking, because the star map is sapping his resolve with its very existence.

"It may be possible to stow away in the ship of one of the Alliance leaders attending the meeting," DECA offers thoughtfully. "Although chances of being discovered are high, and that's ignoring the difficulty of getting on board to begin with. Since we have little knowledge of who has been invited, or which mode of transportation each faction will be using, it limits our possible choices."

'Let's save that for plan B.' His friend has been unusually quiet, only the faintest sensation of feathers brushing delicately across his skin letting Andros know Zhane's been paying attention. 'Bluebelle... She'd been working on a pet project in her spare time. Pull up Galaxy Gliders from her personal files.'

"She had spare time?" he grouses as he pulls up the file and unlocks it with the Megaship's master pass-code. Schematics pour across the screens of his console, intricate and fascinating in their complexity. The Gliders were personal vehicles designed for each Ranger, boards capable of functioning in the void of space as easily as they would in atmosphere. "She wasn't able to solve the Power paradox," he murmurs, disappointed as he spots the ominous flaw in an otherwise miraculous feat of engineering.

'About that... May I?' Zhane asks, a request Andros grants without qualm. He watches as an unseen touch inputs commands into the console, making changes to certain formulae. Tweaking specific alloy ratios and realigning Power-bearing cables until the blueprint glows green and the paradox is solved. Sheepishly, Zhane retreats back to his usual corner in Andros' mind. 'I've had a lot of time to think about it. I know any Blue would've found a better solution, but this should work.'

It would work. The Glider was small enough to remain undetected, maneuverable enough to make it through the asteroid fields guarding the dark moonlet and stealthy enough that enemy sensors shouldn't detect its connection to the Power. It would work.

"DECA, do we have the materials needed to fabricate this on ship?"

"Affirmative. Estimated time until completion is thirty-six hours." To Andros' ears, the ship's AI sounds positively giddy. "Should I also start production on Zhane's Glider?"

"You have a Glider?"

Embarrassment tastes like stale gumdrops, and he scrapes his tongue along the edges of his teeth in protest. 'Look under Silver Cycle in Black's files. My twinsie based it off of the Gliders as a joke...'

Andros opens the file – and bursts into laughter. "So. This is a thing." He grins in direct opposition to Zhane's chagrin, flipping back and forth between the schematics for the two modes. "Oh, we are definitely making this, DECA. Silver gets all the best goodies."

'I didn't design it!'

"But you want it, don't you?" Smile in no danger of fading, Andros stands and strolls to the lift, directing it to deck 6. "Now, to figure out how to reprogram the summoning command. Seriously, what does 'hang ten' even mean?"

.oO0Oo.

Astronema prowls through the motley assortment of villains posturing and posing around her. She despises them, as she despises most things. Useless, bragging bags of air and spite; she turns on a heel, crushing the clawed toes of a tenga that had dared bump into her. Revolting, sorry excuses of evil-doers, proven failures and the few that had never even tried, only present due to family connections. She imagines them dead as she smirks at putties scattering clumsily out of her path.

Dead, vacant-eyed corpses dissolving back into the miasma from which they'd been borne... She catches a bolt of energy carelessly flung by the lunar witch; catches it and converts it into violet sparkles as damaging as stardust.

"What are you staring at?" the cut-rate pirate wench snaps at a brown-cloaked figure and Astronema – pauses. Pauses, and takes a single step forward. Something is familiar about the draped form, something that calls to her as nothing has before, not since color bled from her dreams leaving behind a monotone of drabness that mocks her night after night. Beyond her control her fingers twitch with want; to latch on and dig in and claim whatever is hidden within the lengths of rough-spun cloth.

Beckoning to her guardian, she leans against the synthetic being's side and murmurs, "Who is that?"

Ecliptor's voice is muted, the usual grind of boulders reduced to the susurration of sand. "I do not know, my Princess. He came in behind the remnants of Vile's forces."

"Interesting." She continues to track the being as it works its way through the crowd, the cloaked form always watching but never engaging. As the summoned villains gradually make their way to the banquet table, she follows, managing to claim a seat close to the subject of her fascination.

She already knows Dark Specter's spiel. His dramatics stopped impressing her long ago. And while the capture of Zordon is certainly a telling blow against the aligned forces of goodness as much as it is a moral boost for darkness, she gives the self-proclaimed monarch of Evil little credit for the achievement. It had taken the entirety of their forces to subdue Eltar in what amounted to a war of attrition, and her squadrons had suffered needless losses from which they were still recovering.

Remove his ability to glass planets and Dark Specter floundered.

Yet she raises her glass along with the others to toast her earliest and worst nightmare, her upper lip curling with derision as the burning liqueur sears its way down to her stomach. He thought to claim Zordon's Power as his own. She knows that in this game of wits and will she'll triumph. She must, because she refuses to contemplate a future where she remains docilely under the tyrant's thumb. Astronema is no one's toy soldier.

"What, are you too good to drink with us?" It's the wench's shrill voice once again cutting through aimless chatter, denouncing the cloaked being seated at the very end of the table. The calculating eyes of dozens of foul creatures turn their way and Astronema, too, observes. Makes note of the black-gloved finger idly running a circle around the rim of the glass and the relaxed line of shrouded shoulders.

Shrugging her own shoulders beneath the weight of her pauldrons, she smirks as the haughty machine queen demands the being's identity. "He's a spy," Astronema accuses gleefully, standing and turning towards the table's end. A spy in the heart of Alliance territory, at a secret meeting and surrounded by the leadership of every foul faction blighting the galaxy... She rolls her eyes at the complete gullibility of the fools attending the feast. She can hardly believe she's responsible for the claim – but the party is boring and this... This should prove entertaining. As well as provide her some small clue as to the true identity of the being now raising its head to return their hostile regard.

Metal squeals and the horrific crunch of alloy plates crumpling fill the artificial pocket of atmosphere as Queen Machina's body is crushed by invisible forces. Those seated around her stumble from their chairs in panic, leaving behind a small, golden ball of corrupted ore to fall upon the table, bouncing once before rolling to a stop against an empty wine glass.

"I'm merely a sentient that enjoys their privacy," the cloaked being says, their voice hushed, clotted and guttural as though maggots clog their throat and Astronema is entranced. The respect she'd command with a voice like that... Legs trembling in want she sits back down – and plots. This being, this man whose presence tastes nearly identical to her own surging magic, she will know who he is.

Zedd is laughing hysterically, grabbing up the golden ball and kicking it out of the circle of monoliths. "Rebuild from that, you lousy pile of bolts!" All the villains are laughing; the witch, the wench, Dark Specter himself, his gloating chortle shaking the very core of the moon and causing its crust to crack.

Astronema pays them no heed. In the end, they're all useless and beneath her notice. Instead, she reaches across the edge of the table and places her hand lightly upon the sleeve of the brown-cloaked man; she squeezes gently and lets a violet spark fall into the coarse weave of the cloth. "Is the wine, then, not to your liking?"

"It is a poor vintage." The man doesn't so much shrug off her grip as slip out from underneath it. "Much as this is a poor plan. Do these sods truly not understand what it would mean if Dark Specter manages to acquire the Power? Defeat Good once and for all – what use, after that, keeping the rest of us around?" Another flick of a gloved finger to the wine glass produces a clear, pure chime. "Evil's nothing more than mindless hunger. Pen them up together, and they will devour each other without a second thought."

"You do not include yourself in our ranks?" she asks, her spiked vambrace casually pushing aside the minion seated between her and her quarry.

"Astronema." She shivers convulsively at the promise in his raspy voice. "I think you're wise enough to know where we both stand."

Yes, with hidden daggers poised to stab into unprotected backs, she knows exactly where she'll be on that last day as the universe weeps and her revenge is complete.

He waves one arm negligently as he leaves the gathering. This time the seething mobs part before him, prostrating themselves in fear. And she watches as she lifts his glass to her lips and drinks. Later, she will follow him. Later, she'll uncover his identity and lure him to her side. Or he will perish with all the rest.

.oO0Oo.

"I need a bath," Andros whines, his Glider firm beneath his feet and stars streaking by in shades of red and blue. "I can't believe you convinced me to flirt with her. Why were we flirting?"

'Because she was the most dangerous person there.' Distraction raises the fine hairs along his neck. Zhane's been distracted since they'd first landed on Cimmer, and it had only gotten worse once they'd joined the teeming throng. 'There's something familiar about her, Andros. Without the diversion, I think you would have been fighting your way out of there.'

"Zordon was right there. Maybe we should have stayed, and fought."

'A single Ranger against the entire Alliance?'

Andros stares ahead at the smeared stars, considering his friend's brusque question. "A Red Ranger."

'Then by all means, we should've gone in saber swinging and saved the day,' Zhane mocks, his sarcasm sticky as toffee. 'I'm sure we could've fit Zordon's energy tube on the back of the Glider.'

Laughing ruefully under his breath, Andros is willing to admit it's a silly notion. "I promised you no more foolish risks. I'm not going to break that by dragging us into an unwinnable last stand. Although, with the way you crushed Queen Machina... You almost convinced me we were villains."

'Out of all of them there, she's the only one that could have recovered from that much damage. I mean, she probably won't after rolling down one of those crevasses that opened up.' Disbelief and levity in equal measure, coloring space pale green. 'I wouldn't have had to do it, if you'd only drank the wine.'

"It smelled bad," he complains, shifting his stance on the Glider.

'Everything there smelled bad; it was a gathering of the most corrupt beings in existence!'

"At least we learned Dark Specter's plan." Andros knows sulking over the circumstances is beneath him; it doesn't stop him from jutting out his lower lip. "Such as it is. You're right; we can't rescue Zordon from there. But he won't be kept there long, not with so many Alliance members aware of the location. Which means we're going to be playing a game of hide-and-seek spanning the galaxy."

'A three-way game,' Zhane remarks, calming the closer they get to the Megaship. 'Astronema planted a tracking spell on you.'

"The purple spark was a bit of a give-away."

'Why keep the cloak?'

Leaning forward, Andros increases the speed of the Glider, taking simple pleasure in skimming the edges of a passing stream of dust, scintillating star-stuff trailing behind them. "Do you really think Astronema's capable of betraying Dark Specter?" he asks instead of answering.

'...I think she'll try.'

"Yeah. That's the impression I got, too. So. She knows she'll find no allies among the Alliance. You said it yourself; she's too smart. She will be looking for those she deems gullible enough to use and discard."

'...Andros. I didn't say she was smart. I said she was dangerous.'

"Same difference." Unease creeps icy paths down his back, and oh, his friend didn't like that line of reasoning at all. "Zhane? What's really the matter? You've been, I don't know, off since the moment we saw her."

'...I don't know. I honestly don't know. Maybe if I was back in my own body, I could figure this out. Just...' It's rare for Zhane to sound so lost. 'That first time she looked our way? I'd swear she knew I was with you. There's rumors she's a sorceress. Not a hedge-witch like Rita but a full sorceress... She looked at us, and I felt her trying to grab me.'

"So you had me flirt with her instead?" He can barely hear the beep from his morpher signaling an incoming transmission over his friend's heated denials. "DECA?"

"I've taken on board a damaged shuttle hailing from Earth. There are currently four humans and an uncommunicative Alpha unit prowling my decks. Andros, please advise. Rescuees are not behaving appropriately. They are pushing buttons, Andros. I have had to lock down all consoles along with decks 3 through 5."

'Wanna bet we've just been invaded by Earth's missing Rangers?' Zhane chirps, his mood brightening in a burst of peppermint.

"On our way, DECA. We're just a few minutes out." Shaking his head, he increases speed again, the board beneath his feet vibrating from the strain. "Why couldn't they have waited until tomorrow? All I wanted was to get home, shower, and sleep."

'No rest for the pretend wicked.' His friend's enthusiasm is contagious, and Andros finds himself smiling at the first stirrings of hopeful expectation shared between them. 'Hey, Andros?' A mental snicker that bubbles across his gums like carbonated water. 'It was great, you usingLord Dark Boopsie's voice back there. Dare you to greet the Earth Rangers with it.'

.oO0Oo.

Planetary Rangers, Andros thinks to himself, are worse than mischievous felids left to run amok unsupervised. He finds one in the engine room and crooks his finger in a demand the green-shirted boy is wise enough not to ignore. Taking the lift to deck 2, he corrals a girl wearing yellow and black who'd been attempting to enter crew quarters; her torrent of questions are an unwelcome distraction as he herds them back along the corridor to the lift. Along the way he runs into the bumbling Alpha unit, its speech circuits apparently compromised as it babbles incessantly in either complete nonsense or ancient Edenoise. He finds the last two trespassers standing on the bridge; a boy in red and gray and a girl in pink, both entranced by the Megaship's viewscreen.

Planetary Rangers are the worst. Zhane giggles in patronizing agreement as Andros waves them away from delicate instrumentation and back towards the work bay, standing in stony silence until they seat themselves nervously around the table.

'You're still wearing the cloak,' Zhane reminds him, tartly sweet with mirth. 'Totally rocking the evil overlord vibes.'

Rolling his eyes, Andros lowers his hood and glares at the intruders. "Do guests usually ransack homes they've been invited in to?" he asks acerbically while peeling off the tight, black gloves. "Because as far as I'm aware, rendering aid doesn't include an invite to snoop around my ship."

"Look," the boy striped in red stands, attempting a friendly smile. "We were just trying to figure out what had happened. We were on our way to Eltar when your ship scooped us up."

"Your shuttle was sending a distress signal–" The Alpha unit gives a shrill warble, and Andros narrows his eyes in realization. "...No. Your Alpha unit was sending a distress signal. DECA?" he calls, watching the children through lowered lashes. "Is there anything actually wrong with their shuttle?"

"Preliminary scans show faults in both structural integrity and navigation. Likelihood of them reaching Eltar unaided stood at less than three point seven six percent. Collectives report that repairs should be completed in approximately sixteen hours barring discovery of further instabilities."

The teens at the table look around in obvious surprise as they try to place the source of the AI's voice.

'Planetary Rangers, huh? They're so cute!'

Andros snorts but manages to keep his expression stern. "You were headed towards an Alliance-held planet in a shuttle that wouldn't survive the journey. Tell me; exactly how has Earth's Ranger team managed to survive this long?" Shrugging out of his cloak, he turns to place it in his locker – although later he might ask DECA to burn it. He doubts the reek from the feast on Cimmer will ever wash out. Looking over his shoulder, he raises an eyebrow at their overblown expressions of shock. "Well?"

"You're human," the girl in yellow states, tapping her chin thoughtfully.

"A Kerovian from KO-35, actually." Closing his locker, he leans back against it and points towards the girl as she too begins to stand. "As you're Earthian, or however you phrase it where you're from, and he's," a jab towards the Alpha unit, "Edenoian. Or Eltarian. It's impossible to keep track of where all the Alpha units were manufactured." He pauses in his building tirade to lick a hint of spice from his lips. He's too exhausted to deal with naïve children, and Zhane's gentle mocking isn't making it any easier. "Sit back down. Please. Before you feel the need to start pushing buttons again and DECA decides to space you."

The girl pouts as she settles back down on the stool while the boy in red and gray – the Red, there's another Red on his ship and Andros is ready to leave – begins introductions. "I'm TJ," he says, his smile fixed in place. "And that's Ashley," his hand sweeps out to indicate the girl in yellow, "Cassie," the quieter girl in pink, "and Carlos." His hand comes to rest on a green-clad shoulder and they all look up at him expectantly.

"...I'm called Andros." He doesn't add that he's not pleased at all to meet them; they're Rangers, they should sense his disappointment. He'd dared to let himself hope that he might have found colleagues, an experienced Ranger team capable of providing support in his efforts to rescue Zordon. Instead, he got–

"Andros, we are being hailed by the Dark Fortress." There's misgiving behind DECA's announcement as the background thrum of the Megaship's engines change pitch. "Should I prepare for evasive maneuvers?"

'That was quick.'

It is quick. He'd thought they'd have days before Astronema bothered tracking them. They'd both misjudged her curiosity. "Not yet," he tells the AI, making his way towards the bridge. Behind him the baby Rangers scurry from their seats – and follow, like goslings waddling after the mother anatidae. Glancing behind him, Andros gives them a severe look that used to cow Black at her worst. "Shoo," he tries, flapping his hands at them... and still they follow, straight on to the bridge.

"Great," he moans, flopping into his seat in front of command and rubbing briefly at his eyes. It's a struggle to open them once they've closed, but he manages. "I guess we're actually doing this." Spinning in his chair, he waggles a finger at the four other Rangers and the Alpha unit just now straggling in. "I'm about to enter negotiations with quite possibly the most dangerous woman in this galaxy. There's a good chance she'll fire on the Megaship. Do not act rashly. Do not panic. Just stand there, and do your best to look..."

"Professional?" Cassie suggests as she pulls Ashley away from the console the girl was about to sit on.

"–Housebroken." Ignoring both the spluttering behind him and the heady smell of mint filling his sinuses, Andros activates comms. "Okay, DECA. Let's hear what the Princess of Evil has to say."

Astronema appears on the viewscreen in all her purple-hued glory, from the tips of her tresses to the tips of her clawed fingers – and it is easy to see why she's so often underestimated. Her lips purse while cunning, muddied blue eyes rake over the interior of the bridge, alighting on each Ranger in turn before fixing on Andros. "Not what I was expecting." Tilting her head to the side, she smirks playfully as she twirls a long strand of lavender hair around her finger. "Tell me," she lilts while fluttering her lashes, "pretty little Kerovian Ranger, why I shouldn't blast you into particles!" Her final words are a snarl; threat and rage made all the more sinister against the backdrop of her innocent smile.

He bares his teeth in turn, matching her intensity. "I was there as the colonies were glassed. Do you think there's anyone that wants Dark Specter dead more than I do?" Leaning back in his chair, he meets her eyes and lowers his voice to a confidential hiss. "Besides yourself, that is."

"Ah, you have me all figured out, don't you Ranger?" she simpers, light gleaming across a leather-clad hip as she shifts her weight from one booted foot to the other. "Then again, who doesn't want the tyrant dead? I'll be honest, I thought the rumors of the Red Astro Ranger's survival just that – rumors. Had I known you'd escaped... oh, I would have ran you down ages ago." Licking pale lips with a pointed tongue, her smile widens. "It's not too late to correct that mistake. I'll kill you now and worry about Dark Specter later."

"Lady's prerogative," Andros tells her, turning his chair to the side and propping his feet up on command's console in feigned nonchalance. "You may have also heard that sanity and I parted ways a while back; doesn't much matter to me who I'm taking out, really. Stand between me and Dark Specter – I don't think you'd be happy with the results. –How are your squadrons after Eltar?"

"Hmm." Her walk a sinuous stride of glossy leather and metallic edges, Astronema moves closer to the camera. "You are a bold one. Tell me, pretty Ranger; do you like to play?"

"As much as Silver."

'Are you kidding, Andros? I don't want to play with the poisonous asp!'

"Ooh." Tossing her hair back over her shoulder, Astronema purrs. "If that's true, it would be a worthy game. And I suppose I could always gut you after tossing you at Dark Specter as a distraction, if you somehow managed to survive the encounter." Slanted eyes dancing with mockery, she paces in front of the camera deep in thought. "It has a certain flair, me using Rangers to bring him down. Yes, the possibilities are promising."

"Happy to entertain you," Andros says, pointedly yawning.

"And I'm happy to be entertained." She leans back along the console behind her, crossing her legs and stretching her arms overhead. "Introduce me, Red, to the kiddies hiding in your shadow. They look like such tasty little snacks."

Hearing one of them clear their throat, Andros snaps his fingers behind his back in warning. "I don't recall putting them in to play."

"No? How forgetful of me; Astro Red works alone, don't you? Poor thing." She clucks her tongue in sympathy, then winks. "Luckily their emissions trail speaks for itself. And it seems to lead directly to Earth. See this face?" Astronema asks, running her sharp-nailed fingertip down her cheek and under her chin. "This is my amazed face. Please, please tell me these children are the Rangers the pirate wench was bragging about destroying."

"We're not children!" Carlos snaps – and Andros grimaces. He'd given them one order. One. Simple. Order.

"Indeed." Astronema leers, her eyes devouring the boy that had interrupted her banter. "And that's why most Ranger teams keep their Greens leashed, is it not? Here's the deal, Red." Straightening from her elegant slouch, it's clear that her mood has changed. "I'm going to attack Earth. A monster here, a disaster there; you know the drill. Prove you're worth my time. Impress me and you'll live long enough to see Dark Specter wiped from existence.

"See you soon, Rangers." Blowing a kiss she ends the transmission, and the Megaship's viewscreen darkens to matte black.

Returning his feet to the floor, Andros slumps over command's console and buries his head under his arms. "Why?" he moans as four pairs of shoes and one set of robotic peds shuffle closer.

"Is she really going to attack Earth?" Ashley asks somberly. "Divatox destroyed our Turbo powers..."

Andros lifts his head from the shelter of his arms as a hollow pit forms beneath his breastbone. "You're saying you're not Rangers?"

"We were Power Rangers," TJ says sheepishly, tugging at the hem of his wrinkled shirt. "And even without the Power we can't just let her destroy our planet. We have to do something, guys."

'Four morphers without Rangers. Four Rangers without morphers.' There's not a trace of levity in Zhane's voice; the air smells stale and Andros' mouth tastes of ash. 'Zordon would claim it's fate. You can't go back and you can't stand still, if the thunder don't get you then the lightning will.'

"No. I'm not doing it again." Ignoring the odd looks being sent his way, Andros stands and heads for the lift. "We don't need anyone else."

'Andros, we made a bad call. Astronema is no minor despot or flawed monster; she's set her terms. Whatever she sends to Earth... it'll take a full team. Because she thinks you've been on your own since KO-35 – and she wants to be entertained.'

"I'm too tired for this. DECA, I'm getting some sleep." Stepping into the lift, he turns – and takes vicious satisfaction as the lift door closes in front of the Earth Rangers' faces. "Find someplace to put them for the night. –Away from me. I'll deal with everything tomorrow."

'No you won't.'

Half-asleep, he drags himself into Zhane's quarters and curls up beneath the afghan. He would argue with his friend, but sleep catches him beneath the glowing ceramic stars before his lips can form the protest.

.oO0Oo.

"Astro Rangers." TJ turns his left wrist inwards, admiring the morpher snugged around it. "I can't believe Andros just had these lying around."

"The Astro morphers were kept in a secured location adjacent to the secondary cargo bay. They were hardly 'lying around' as you put it," DECA retorts, the very implication insulting her.

"Hey, I'm not complaining!" Truthfully, he's still too stunned to complain. They'd been gathered around the table in the work bay attempting to obtain an edible breakfast from the synthetron when Andros had stomped in glowering blearily. Blond-streaked hair tangled in long snarls hiding most of his expression, he'd leaned forward and dumped the morphers on the table. He'd then flung himself on a nearby bench and spent the next five minutes glaring at them. Daringly.

TJ's not entirely sure about being Blue. Justin was Blue. But Carlos had grabbed Black before he could exchange morphers, and Ashley had smacked his arm away when he'd made a move towards Yellow. Smiling saucily, Cassie had drawn her hand back giving him easy access to Pink... but no. Just – no. No matter how many loads of white laundry he'd ruined with hidden red socks...

He's Blue, and his red-striped shirt is suddenly scratchy against his skin.

DECA directs them down a hallway lined with color-coded doors. Crew quarters, she informs them. Their quarters, now. He stops outside a door marked with a thin line of blue above the keypad and opens it, peering inside. A bunk bed. A desk and dresser. A chair. And more floor space than he'd been expecting.

"Are we supposed to double up?" Carlos asks, poking his head out of the room designated for Black.

"We've yet to find such measures necessary," DECA says, her camera somehow judgmental as it turns away from them.

"That's good. I suppose." Ashley walks purposefully down the hallway, her fingers trailing across each colored stripe before she turns and stands on the tips of her toes to put herself back in line of sight of the ship's AI. "But I'm not seeing a room for Yellow. Where's my room?"

"We do not talk about Yellow's room." The camera swings around to focus on Andros, who's only now entered the hallway, his expression a dead-ringer for a particularly grumpy cat that had once belonged to TJ's next-door neighbor. "In fact, I advise not to ask about Yellow at all. Any unmarked room is available, Ashley."

Cassie grins, closing her own room and moving towards her friends. "Oh, secrets. Nice to know there'll be mysteries to solve in between monster attacks. So, red must be Andros which leaves..." She joins TJ in front of a door lacking an identifying line – but not unmarked. The keypad does not respond to her request for access; curious, she places her palm below the two lines of silver script scrawled across the door. "Whose room is this then, DECA?"

"–That is also Andros' room," the AI responds after a moment's hesitation.

"Really?" Cassie looks up through raven-dark hair at TJ doubtfully, and he shrugs in return. It's Andros' ship, he figures. If Andros wanted two rooms, no reason for him not to have two rooms. "I wouldn't have expected an alien... I mean, someone not from Earth, to be a fan of They Might Be Giants. Or children's songs in general."

"What are giants?" Andros asks as he approaches, his look of perpetual grumpiness giving way to one of curiosity.

"The lyrics." She taps her fingers underneath the silvery words, drawing Andros' attention to them. "Song lyrics," she clarifies as his expression of curiosity switches to one of confusion. "These are from a children's song by They Might Be Giants."

"Song lyrics? Really?" It's unsettling, TJ decides as he warily steps away from the door, the way Andros' brown eyes brighten in unexpected humor and his lips curl upwards in a mischievous smirk. "No wonder I could never find a source. Children's song lyrics. –No, I'm on to you now, get used to being embarrassed!" The Red Ranger's eyes might be delighted, but they're also unfocused; TJ gently tugs Cassie back as Andros keys open the door and ducks inside. He glimpses little more than an indistinct glow before the door swishes shut.

"Anyone else notice how much Andros talks to himself?" Carlos' question shatters the silence that had descended, prodding them into nervous looks and uncertain giggles.

"Notice?" Her arms wrapped tightly around her middle, Ashley looks ready to flee before choosing a room of her own. "He basically told the crazy evil chick yesterday that he was insane – and she didn't disagree! Sure, he gave us morphers; we'll be able to defend Earth, but something really strange is going on here. Yellow's room is missing, the AI is purposefully evading direct answers... I don't know. Is this just the way aliens act – or are we in trouble here?"

The whir of a camera lens spinning startles them all. "There is a chance," DECA says slowly, "that the yellow Astro morpher is haunted. More so than the others."

Ashley yelps and begins tugging at the morpher wrapped around her arm, unmindful of the scratches that are forming along her wrist in her panic. Curling his hands around her own, TJ stills her frantic clawing. "I'm sure that was a joke," he tells her, soothing his fingers over warm, red welts. "Right, DECA?"

"A – joke? I find your optimism refreshing, TJ."

"Okay..." Giving the redly glinting camera wide berth, TJ leads Ashley to rooms that are neither color-coded nor locked, their other teammates close on their heels. "That leaves two rooms left to choose from. Which would you like?"

"My bedroom back on Earth."

"Once we kick your crazy evil chick back out into space." He tries smiling, but he can offer no further reassurance. Ashley is right. There's something strange about the Astro Megaship – and TJ fears they all might be in over their heads.

.oO0Oo.

"You're telling me they're all in the engine room?" Finished braiding his hair, Andros pulls on his jacket and frowns down at a fraying cuff. "You couldn't keep them confined to the upper decks?"

"Your decision to distribute the morphers automatically made them crew members, Andros," DECA replies waspishly. "You've given no orders contrary to established Ranger permissions. Had you done so I may have been able to keep them away from the engines. Instead, when asked where they might attempt to repair their Alpha unit, I directed them to the tool crib adjacent to the main cargo bay."

'That puts them close to the healing chamber.' Unease like a frigid winter's wind raises goosebumps along Andros' arms despite the warmth of both room and jacket. 'I'm sure they're really great people... but I kinda don't like the thought of them stumbling in. That machinery is finicky; it wouldn't take much to reset the circuits. Like – pushing a button. Any of the buttons.'

"I don't like it either. You should have woken us, DECA." Chilled, he pulls the afghan from Zhane's bed and settles it around his shoulders before leaving the room. "Even if their intentions are good, they're planetary Rangers. The damage they could cause from sheer ignorance..." Andros strides towards the lift, crocheted red and blue flowers trailing behind him. "Remember the canid pup Pink brought on board from KO-16?"

The red of emergency lighting flares once before DECA can regain control of her systems. "That menace chewed through the main Power couplings running between decks 4 and 5. You're telling me these new Rangers are capable of that level of destruction?"

'Canids don't have opposable thumbs.'

"Exactly. Canids can also be trained." The lift lets him out on deck 6 in full view of the huddled Earth Rangers. Their attention, however, is fixed on the Alpha unit they're gathered around. Carlos' hand is pulling a damaged circuit board from the robot's illuminated inner workings, his expression disheartened, and Andros feels a twinge of pity for them so far away from all they'd known. "How's it going?"

"Not so well," Carlos admits, holding the board out for inspection. "I've been able to repair most of the damage caused by the attack on the Command Center, but even with DECA guiding me I don't know how to fix this. Our Turbo Blue was the one that handled this kind of stuff... I'm sorry, Alpha; I'm afraid you won't be getting your voice back any time soon."

It's definitely pity that he's feeling and Andros doesn't like it. Even more, though, he wants to help and he likes that even less. "Let me see what I can do," he offers, carefully placing his blanket on a nearby shelf as he leads the Alpha unit over to a diagnostic bench.

The circuit board Carlos hands him is damaged. Normal tools would be useless for repairs; even his micro soldering kit struggles to rejoin the broken connections and Andros doubts any of the nanite collectives aboard the Megaship would agree to the job. "Eltarians and their insistence on planned obsolescence," he complains, adjusting the lighted magnifier DECA offers from the nearby wall. Physically he's limited on what repairs he can make. Telekinetically, though... "Zhane?"

'Not even if you paid me.' Sour citrus floods Andros' mouth and it's all he can do not to spit it out. 'We'd be better off crushing that voice circuit. If you repair it back to its original settings, I swear I'm going to mutiny.'

"How?" Blinking down at the scorched board, he wonders what exactly has his friend spooked.

'I'd find a way.' Citrus gives way to mere tanginess as Zhane inspects the rest of the layered circuits. 'It looks like this was originally designed with multiple voice options, all of them linked to different personality cores.' With exacting skill Andros has never been able to duplicate, his friend establishes wired connections between circuits originally left separated – then deliberately flattens every remaining section that offends him. 'Try that.'

'Feel better?' he asks, slotting the board back into place and closing the Alpha unit's access panel.

'You have no idea. I have just saved the universe from a horror the elder gods of old would flinch from.'

"Hyperbolic much? Okay Alpha, try speaking now," Andros says as he tightens the last bolts.

"Aye yi yi, I can talk again!" the Alpha unit shrills, its arms waving wildly as it turns to the other Rangers. "I'm so excited!"

'You consider this an improvement?' Andros wants to cover his ears but can think of no polite way of doing so. 'This is going to follow me into my nightmares.'

'No. Idea. Trust me, Andros; this is the lesser of two evils.'

'Any evil would be lesser if you're pitting it against something that would freak out elder gods.' Grinning crookedly, he stores his soldering kit and folds the magnifier back into the wall. "Sorry I couldn't restore your original voice."

'Not sorry!'

"No worries, I like this voice much better!" As the other four Rangers nod their heads in emphatic agreement, Andros wonders if Zhane hadn't overstated their peril after all. "I'm Alpha 6! I'm so pleased to finally be able to greet you!"

"Glad to meet you as well," he welcomes, placing a hand on Alpha's shoulder. Robots – are easy to deal with. Lost Earthians wandering naïvely through space – not so much so. The other Rangers surround him, offering congratulations and thanks and they're too close and too loud and too much; he nearly sways in relief when DECA informs them Astronema has deployed a monster to Angel Grove. ...Not that he's grateful for a monster attack...

He morphs to the sound of Zhane's sniggering.

.oO0Oo.

Quantrons, Ashley decides, suck. Each is armed with a serrated double-sided blade that TJ jokingly calls a bat'leth; she will go to her grave before admitting that not only does she understand his reference, but that she has a full-sized reproduction back home stored safely in the attic.

They fight differently from pirahnatrons, fluid in a way she finds disturbing in a mechanical construct. There's unity in their movements; order wrought from battle's chaos that she's not used to seeing in their enemies. They fall to her blaster fire only to rise and engage again. Quantrons are a pain and the Rangers' situation would be alarming – if Andros wasn't single-handedly tearing a multi-limbed insectoid monster to pieces.

She ducks under a flung section of carapace and gapes as the Red Ranger lifts the overgrown bug by what remains of its shell and slams it head first into a concrete drinking fountain. His attacks are a blend of economy and brutality that twists her stomach, made all the more chilling by the sheer calm he radiates. Every hit, every kick, every slice of his saber is calculated she realizes as she dodges laser fire from the charging quantrons. As Andros stabs the monster through its thorax, pulling his saber out at an angle to cause further injury...

...he meant to do that, she thinks numbly, tumbling to avoid a succession of striking blades.

The monster is down yet the quantrons continue their attack. Her friends are faring little better against the horde of constructs, their usual strategies insufficient against the increasing number of combatants. Re-holstering her blaster, Ashley calls upon her main weapon for the first time.

"Star Slinger!"

The slingshot is in her hand, but she can do nothing with the agonizing pressure of the tip of Andros' Spiral Saber digging in to her neck, forcing her chin towards the sky. She hears her friends' cries, their panic as they try to get past the swarming quantrons, but all she can see is the sun overhead and all she can feel is the Red Ranger's shuddering as he struggles to finish the strike. "Andros?" she asks weakly, the razor-sharp tip slowly penetrating the Power-enhanced material of her Ranger uniform. "Andros?!"

"Let me go!" he snarls, shaking in his rage.

And she would, oh she would if there had been anyone holding him. Letting her weapon drop to the ground, she wraps her gloved hands around the saber and tries to shove it away. "Please, Andros," she begs, blinking back sun-dazzled tears.

Around her the air fills with the deafening racket of metal being crushed. Twisted and torn apart, it squeals and shrieks before settling into more moderate pings and pops. The pressure against her neck is gone, her grasping hands are empty, and she staggers back from her attacker. Andros is on his hands and knees, demorphed. Surrounding them is a ring of carnage, quantrons smashed to the asphalt like so many aluminum candy wrappers discarded by careless children. One, twitching feebly, lifts its fingers in supplication only for the digits to fold in on themselves before being flattened grotesquely against the ground.

"Ashley!" Carlos' arms are around her; she leans into their support as the world briefly tilts to the side. "Are you okay?"

She doesn't know. Swallowing against the fear threatening to choke her – she doesn't know.

"...What happened?" Andros asks groggily as he attempts – and fails – to stand.

"That's what I'd like to know!" TJ is in the other boy's face, his gloved hands fisted in the collar of the gray jacket. "What the hell did you think you were doing, Andros?"

Andros' eyes are wide and staring as he turns his head, taking in the decimated quantrons – but he doesn't seem to see them at all. "Oh," he says quietly, apropos of nothing, latching on to the Blue Ranger's arms to leverage himself back to his feet. "How would I have known?" Twisting out of TJ's grip, he wraps his hand around his braided hair, and pulls.

"Ashley." He sees her, his eyes gleaming wetly and immeasurably sad. "I'm sorry. My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are gray faces that peer over my shoulder." He sighs, bowing his head, his grip on his braid tight enough that she wonders if he's attempting to pull it out by the roots. "When you called your slinger – I thought you were Yellow... I'm so sorry..."

He disappears in a beam of sparkling red and they follow, activating their own teleports to the Megaship's bridge.

"He's sorry?" Cassie hisses as her Ranger uniform fades from view. "He tries to murder you, and he's sorry? I vote we head back to our shuttle and leave. We have the morphers; we don't need the Megaship to defend Earth, and it's not like he's provided us with Zords."

Her friends agree, and Ashley wants to join them in their righteous outrage – but the memory of the pain welling in Andros' brown eyes prevents her.

"DECA..." Her voice is rough, and she rubs at her throat to convince herself that no damage had been done. "Do you know what Andros meant, when he said he thought I was Yellow? I am Yellow; it makes no sense..." She needs a reason for his actions; she needs to understand despite her friends' protests to the contrary. "...There isn't even a room for Yellow."

The AI regards them, her attention unwavering. "We do not talk about Yellow," she says haltingly, as if choosing her words, "for very good reasons. The Yellow Astro Ranger attacked his teammates on numerous occasions. Several of the incidents were ambushes. However, the Kerovan systems were at war and Yellow's family was highly placed; despite multiple attempts being made, he could not be removed from the team. Reviewing footage of today's battle, it appears your summoning of the Star Slinger triggered a flashback for Andros. There is a high probability that he was literally seeing Yellow in your place."

"That's terrible," Ashley whispers, lowering herself to the chair in front of comms.

"It's still inexcusable." TJ sits next to her, his face thunderous in his anger. "What happens next time? Or the time after that?"

"Now that we're aware of the possibility, we can safeguard against further flashbacks," DECA informs them.

"Because you're certified in both the medical and psychological fields?" Cassie asks from her spot in front of sensors. "I'm sorry, but it's not that simple. You can't just hand-wave serious psychological trauma away. If Andros was caught in a flashback it will happen again."

"I did not say we would stop the flashbacks; I said we would safeguard against them. We can prevent Andros from acting should another occur. As we were able to do, today."

Let me go, Ashley mouths silently; Andros' single demand while he held her life on the point of his saber suddenly gains new meaning. She scrubs her hands through her hair, trying to force normalcy back into her world. "DECA, you keep using we. Like, you and Andros? Or, or is it the royal 'we'? I can deal with the royal 'we'." The AI's silence speaks volumes. "DECA?"

"I am not programmed to lie." The camera turns away, focusing on the viewscreen and the planet slowly spinning beyond. "However, your question is outside my authority to answer."

"Meaning, ask Andros." Shaking his head, Carlos looks skeptical. "I – don't like this. But he did give us the morphers, and fixed Alpha. I just don't know."

"Guys, it's late." Standing, Ashley moves towards Cassie and pulls the other girl to her feet. "We don't need to make a decision this second. Let's get some sleep, okay? DECA, where is Andros right now? It's probably best we don't run into him."

"Andros is in his room," the AI responds quietly.

"Which one?"

Ashley can't stop the shiver that races down her spine when DECA merely repeats, "Andros is in his room."

.oO0Oo.

'The light was frozen; for a moment or for an eternity, how was it to know? It is the nature of light to move and it could not. Indecision paralyzed it. It had to find its partner, yet how could it find its partner in a continuously expanding universe?'

Carelessly wiping away tears with the backs of his hands, Andros leans against the chilled side of the hypersleep tube. Glass colder than ice soothes his headache but does nothing for the pain tearing at his heart. "I could climb in with you," he says wistfully as a salty tear clings to his chin, freezing before it can fall. "I'm tired of moving forward. Not moving at all sounds like the best idea in all the worlds right now."

'To live is to move.'

"I nearly killed her, Zhane." Though dim, the cerulean lighting of the healing chamber burns his eyes and threatens to set his brain on fire. "And in stopping me I nearly killed you. Again. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein. Here I am," he says as he rubs his cheek against frost and sorrow, "a monster nonetheless, despite how hard I've tried. All that I touch – I doom. Please, Zhane; let me come in."

'Andros... light must move or it's no longer light. I'm okay. Ashley's okay. And come tomorrow, you'll see; it will be okay. I promise you.'

"You've made a lot of promises." Tears scald cheeks otherwise grown numb with cold. "Tomorrow, they'll leave. They'll have to. There's too much at stake for them to put their faith in a deranged Red. They'll never trust me now. My team never trusts me."

'I've always trusted you, Andros.'

"Yet another reason why you're not allowed to make decisions." His body aches relentlessly, muscles torn and tendons strained from his struggle against Zhane's telekinetic hold during the battle. He welcomes the pain, blesses its presence for it means Ashley lives despite his determination to end Yellow. "So, how do I move on from this? There's no path forward; none that I can see. Not–"

'–for you?' A whisper of sensation wraps around Andros. The ghost of a hug, lacking warmth but not comfort. 'The light thought much the same. No path forward, no path back. The light nearly wasn't until a passing electron bumped into it, changing its course forever. Now, common photons don't survive collision with electrons; energy cannot be destroyed, but it can be changed beyond recognition. Yet this light had always been different. It was from a different time, a different iteration of the universe. It got bumped and was once again on its way having learned an important lesson.'

"None of that is part of the story." Pressing his mouth against cold, smooth glass he huffs a breath and feels the moisture crystallize and cut against his lips, a minor sting amidst the rest of his hurts. "In the beginning, light spread and created the universe. The end. Light doesn't think; light doesn't care. It just is."

'Hmm. I'll grant you that; most of the newbies are terribly dull.' Sweet vanilla and the tickle of velvet; calm pastel green and the scent of a spring storm. 'I have a good feeling about this team. They were Called to be Rangers. That makes all the difference. You won't need to find a path, Andros. They'll make one for you. They may not know it yet, but they need you just as much as you need them.'

"...I don't want to need them."

'I know.'

Andros sighs and tilts his head away from the glass side of the 'tube, leaving behind the smudged, bloody imprint of his lips. "Your optimism is annoying." Rolling to his feet he slowly stands, leaning over the hypersleep tube and peering down at the silver-uniformed form nestled within. "And your story-telling is rubbish. –What did the light do, once it was moving again?"

'It came to a second realization.' Fondness like sugar cookies covers the traces of copper lingering on his tongue. 'Go to bed, Andros. I'm not letting you sleep in here. Go be morbid in your own room.'

"It's still your room," he gripes, taking one last, lingering look at his friend's body before turning away. "Every place on this ship holds memories of you."

'Love you, too.'

He snorts, wiping away the last of his tears as he reenters the engine room. "The second realization?"

'As long as the light was moving, there was a chance it might never find its entangled partner. But if it stopped moving it would no longer be light, and there'd be no chance of meeting at all.'

.oO0Oo.

The light feels lesser as it travels.
Bits of itself scatter in its wake.
Yet where the light's been, awareness remains...
And it's that awareness that finds the first window.
Hears the first Call.
It is not Calling for the light...
But it gives the light hope.

.oO0Oo.

It is the second night Ashley's spent on the thinly padded bench in the work bay. Her friends are in the rooms they'd claimed; blue and pink and black. There is no corresponding yellow and she feels cast aside despite there being rooms to spare if only she dared choose one. She'd tried. Opened the door and peered into a cabin tidy and plain and quiet and not hers. Instead, she'd wandered the Megaship, her footfalls echoing down endless corridors, her only companion an afghan she'd found partially hanging from a shelf in the engine room.

She's curled up underneath it now, the bench hard below her and the blanket soft above her and the very air itself filled with a sub-audible hum that teases her towards slumber. It's from the edges of sleep that she watches as the lift door opens allowing Andros to exit. Long strands of hair have escaped from his braid, and the tracks of countless tears have dried sticky upon his cheeks. She stares through lowered lashes as he glances across the work bay – and freezes. His eyes, wide and wounded, are fixed upon her, and she holds her breath as she waits for him to leave.

He doesn't.

So she exhales shakily and leans forward on her elbow, letting him know that she's awake. "Andros?"

"You found my blanket." His whisper is a mewl fraught with meaning and his gaze is one of heartbreak. "...I hadn't meant to leave it on the shelf."

Ashley sits upright and does her best to avoid his eyes, uncomfortable with so much bared emotion. "I found it," she acknowledges, regretfully pulling it down from around her shoulders. "The Megaship is a little cold during the night cycle. –It's a really well-made afghan." Stroking the silky-soft yarn one last time, she holds the blanket out to Andros and immediately misses its warmth when he takes it.

"It smells like your perfume." And, oh, that is not a compliment.

She watches as his eyes well with fresh tears, the blanket clutched to his chest with pale, trembling fingers. "Whoever made that for you must have cared a lot," she says softly as the chill of the tiled floor creeps through her socks.

"It wasn't made for me." Like a marionette whose strings have been cut, Andros falls onto a stool left pulled out from the work bay's table. "But she cared. Pink cared so much." He hunches over the blanket, his frazzled braid falling over his shoulder to rest on top of the soft folds. "I wish..."

Inhaling, Ashley gathers up her fear, her anger, her unease that lingers from the day's battle and releases it in a drawn-out sigh. "...What happened to her? What happened to your team, Andros?"

"They died." His fingers clench spasmodically as his face smooths into blankness. "Blue first. She was killed trying to protect a toddler. She was trampled underfoot." He blinks as though to rid himself of an unpleasant association. "Pink, Yellow, Black... they killed themselves. Ruptured the limiters their morphers placed on the Power; they died so that others might live. Even Yellow, at the end. ...I do not think he meant to kill the one he was trying to save. As Fallen as he was, as Evil, he still wanted to protect her Ladyship. Not that any of it mattered once the orbs dropped."

Ashley wants to question further, needs to know, but Andros is shivering beneath his burden of blanket, his face a mask offset by eyes darkened by horror. "I'm sorry for your loss."

Andros gasps as he doubles over, burying his head against the afghan. "Would you believe," he chokes out, his voice clogged with tears, "that's the first time anyone's offered condolences?"

Her heart aches for him, and she lets it lead her. Away from the bench and to his side, she carefully slides her hand beneath his braid to rest it gently upon his shoulder. "What about family? Friends? Surely you haven't been alone all this time. Please tell me you haven't been alone."

"I've never been alone." Lifting his head, Andros attempts a wobbly smile. "There's DECA. And my best friend, he's always here," he says, freeing a hand from the folds of the afghan to tap a pale fingertip against his temple.

"That's good." Placing her own hands against her breastbone, one atop the other, she matches his smile. "On Earth we say we keep them in our hearts."

"You do?" His mood is mercurial, switching from sorrow to curiosity in the space of a breath. "Are they comfortable there?" His head tilts as his eyes narrow, a kitten presented with a puzzle. "Never mind. There must be a fundamental difference between Kerovians and Earthians." He blinks lazily, impossibly long lashes shuttering his piercing stare. "And speaking of differences; what are you doing out here, Ashley? Speaking from experience, that bench is no substitute for a proper bed."

"Oh." She blushes, caught by surprise that he's bothering to ask. "The rooms that are left, they're too..." She waggles her fingers, struggling for an explanation.

"Empty."

"Yes!" Shrugging, her thigh brushes Andros' arm as she leans against the table. "That's it! They're empty. I thought maybe I could stay with Cassie, but I didn't want to disturb her, you know? It's been a really long day."

"It has." He stands, draping the afghan over his shoulders. He should look ridiculous covered in crochet flowers, but instead he almost seems happy, Ashley thinks. And he wears happiness well. "I – haven't actually been using my room," he tells her shyly, his foot scuffing against the tiled floor. "You're welcome to stay there while you're on the Megaship."

"Really?"

Andros' eyes crinkle and he leads her into the lift; then, once they reach deck 2, down the hall towards crew quarters. "Really. It's nothing fancy, but you might be more comfortable..." Keying open the door, he steps aside to allow her entry. "I still keep some clothes here, but I won't come in uninvited." Unexpectedly, he rolls his eyes, his mouth stretching into a broad, fond grin. "And if you play with the toys, try to put them up afterwards. Sleep well, Ashley."

"You too," she says as the door slides shut between them. "Toys?" Turning, she looks around the room as she walks to the center in bemusement. There's a scarlet quilt on the bottom bunk partially covering dove gray sheets. A red ceramic mug sits forlornly on the desk, a spoon resting against its rim testament to some forgotten meal. And there's a shelf covered in toys hanging above the dresser. Zords, cartoonish and cheerful; their bright colors chipped but their expressions painstakingly repainted. Five smiling, waving Zords surrounding a dented tin can, its label long-since lost. A hair tie, its elastic snapped and its color faded. A bundle of twigs held together by multi-colored rubber bands. All displayed proudly, and she can't help but smile back at the collection.

On top of the dresser there are three picture frames. The first photo is unmistakably Andros with his distinctive blond and brown hair but so much younger. He's grinning up at the camera, and in his lap is an even younger girl, her blonde hair offset by slender strands of bronze. In the second frame, Andros is older with one foot in a cast – and he's fast asleep, sprawled across a gray-haired boy who's also dozing. The picture is blurry, as if whoever had taken it had been laughing too hard to hold the camera steady.

The third is a middle-aged woman, another bronze-streaked blonde. Her hair is caught in an untidy bun and her eyes are distant; melancholy has left its mark as permanent lines marring an otherwise pretty face. Overall, the picture is a composition of sorrow unremitting... except for the small, plush cat cradled in the woman's hands.

Ashley's gaze doesn't leave the photos as she shuffles backwards, climbing into the lower bunk and pulling the quilt over herself. She falls asleep to the haunted introspection of a mournful stranger and dreams of toys once beloved and then discarded as she'd grown older yet somehow less wiser.

.oO0Oo.

The transmission comes in as they familiarize themselves with the various stations on the bridge. Command, communications and sensors. Navigation and auxiliary armaments, for as DECA had sarcastically asked, did any of them think they could aim with more accuracy than her? Life support and systems control, and all could be brought up on any console and any screen at any time.

It makes no sense, and it takes Cassie several minutes to actually bring comms back up to accept the message.

Andros watches it thoughtfully, his lips pressed together behind a crooked finger.

Cassie still isn't sure about Andros. Her friends had grudgingly agreed to give him another chance, a decision she hopes they won't come to regret. Ashley herself had pleaded his case and Ashley, as the injured party, had greater say than most. Although Ashley was sleeping in Andros' room while Andros slept elsewhere. Supposedly. It makes no sense, and Cassie's head throbs each time she tries to examine the situation through the lens of logic.

"They're having problems with the native wildlife?" TJ asks as the transmission ends, his expression one of doubt. "And they want Rangers to, what, come do pest control?"

"You may not have been able to tell scale from the video – but they're not a large people."

"But they are purple?" Ashley giggles, freezing the transmission at a point where the full body of the alien was visible.

Andros glances warily her way, as if deciding whether or not to take the bait. "Some are. It depends on how they're currently feeling."

"Ooh, like mood rings!" Ashley says excitedly. "You know, with the stone changing color depending on if you're happy or sad or stressed... I loved those things when I was a kid."

Perhaps it's only because she watches him so closely, but Cassie thinks she's the only one to notice the way Andros pales at Ashley's description, his hands clenching against the edge of his console. "I guess," he says lightly, but there's nothing casual about the tightness of his shoulders or the tick in his jaw. "I didn't pay much attention when I was there before. Their asteroid is mostly uninhabitable, and occasionally an animal will wander in from the wastes. I didn't mind helping them. It made a nice change from the usual monsters and quantron attacks."

"Can we leave Earth unprotected for however long it will take to get there and back?" Carlos raises a valid point, and Cassie attempts to pull up navigation to see how far away their proposed destination actually is.

"It's only a thousand light years away or so. Still in the same spiral arm as Earth. It will take longer to double check the route than it will for us to actually arrive." Andros gradually relaxes as he speaks, explaining the necessity of carefully planning their course; when he switches navigation to the viewscreen they can all see the glaring red blotches of Alliance-controlled sectors. "Best if we sneak in and out; rogue bands of cogs have been reported in neighboring systems. They're easy enough to shoot down, but I'd rather avoid them entirely."

So they leave Earth behind for a tiny, mauve asteroid circling a shattered planet in a varying elliptical orbit. The villagers are ebullient at the Rangers' appearance, cheering and singing and the tallest of the pastel beings comes to mid-thigh on Cassie, its double set of arms wrapping around her calf in welcome.

"Feeling a little like Gulliver," TJ whispers as he sits – carefully – to accept eager handshakes. "Only the Lilliputians here are friendly."

"I've found them so." Finished speaking to one of the beings, a fairly important looking personage wearing a crown of iridescent feathers, Andros straightens. "It's just the one beast attempting to establish a den at the edges of their farmlands. They'd like us to relocate it back to the wastes. It shouldn't take more than one or two of us. If any of you would like to stay here, the chieftain says there are other tasks fit for tall folk that they've been postponing."

Cassie doesn't mind staying in the village as children tug at her pants demanding stories. Carlos allows another group to lead him off to set a ridge beam for a two-story building under construction; he winks at her as he passes. TJ stands to accompany Andros while Ashley takes his place in the middle of the village square, her lap filling with pastel-colored kids.

"Anything we should know?" Cassie asks as the Red Ranger prepares to depart. "Taboos we shouldn't break?"

"Just be careful not to marry any of them," Andros warns them with a smirk. "It's easy to do."

"And how do we–" Cassie cuts off her question as red and blue teleportation beams interrupt her pending tirade. "–Fantastic." Shaking her head, she settles next to Ashley, catching an incredibly small toddler as it leaps her way. "So, what's this about wanting stories?"

The children clap excitedly, an absolute cacophony considering their extra set of arms. She considers telling them of her battles as a Turbo Ranger; of pirahnatrons and Divatox – but that is a story without a happy ending. And these little ones, their faces upturned like flowers seeking the sun, she wants to tell a happy tale to. A story that crosses cultural and species lines...

She tells them of Winnie the Pooh.

Ashley fills in details she's long forgotten, and while their wording may not be exact, the gentle wisdom of Pooh remains. Cassie talks until her voice is hoarse, not wanting to disappoint the expectant little faces fixed upon her own. By now each child is a pale, powder blue, drowsy and yawning. They're snuggled together in a soft-furred heap shared across both female Rangers' laps. And Cassie thinks she might be a little in love.

"I wish I'd thought to bring my guitar," she tells Ashley quietly. "I'm better at songs than stories."

A tiny child, not much higher than her knee had she been standing, toddles up to the group, its gap-toothed grin bright in its aquamarine face. "Hello, hello," it burbles, pressing close to Cassie's side. "So many Rangers came. So many! And Red smiled! How did you get him to smile? I tried, I tried last time he was here, but he must not have liked my gift. He cried." The child wriggles underneath her arm to prompt a hug. "I like his smile better."

"You've met Andros before?" Ashley whispers, not wanting to disturb the other children. "I – I can't imagine him turning down a gift. Not – really."

"Mhm! He took the dollie, and hugged it like this," the child snuggles into Cassie's waist, its arms not even reaching a quarter of the way around. "And he cried, and told me thank you."

"That – doesn't make any sense," Ashley murmurs, her voice dropping further as an adult being begins walking their way. "He does have toys in his room, but they're all Zords. If there's a doll it's somewhere else. But I really don't think he'd just throw a gift away–"

"Sorry, sorry," the adult bows, all four hands fluttering in agitation. "I could not help but overhear." It gently pries the aquamarine child from Cassie's side, peppering the small face with quick kisses. "Red Ranger would never get rid of the doll, no no! My offspring made him Silver. Silver to soothe his loss."

"Silver?" Absently, Cassie pats the children in her lap as they begin to stir, waking from their impromptu nap. More parents are nearing, a collection of waving arms and fluttering eyes and colors darkening from pastels to rich jewel tones. "Does silver mean anything special?"

Aquamarine fingers curl around Cassie's sleeve cuff in entreaty. "Other sentients are mean, so mean! They mock Red for speaking to the dead. So I made him Silver to pretend-talk to. But he cried, instead. Inside, he cried, but we felt it. So it was maybe not a good gift after all."

Nodding in agreement the parents lead their children off, leaving the two girls sitting alone in a rapidly emptying miniature town square.

"He talks to the dead?" Cassie repeats, frowning across at her friend. "Ashley, did any of that make sense to you?"

The other girl shakes her head, the yellow ribbons tied around high pigtails swaying at the motion. "Not really? I mean, sure, we've all noticed how much Andros talks to himself..." She bites at her lower lip, glancing around the deserted square. "I think it's just because he's been alone for so long. If I only had DECA to talk to, I'd probably sound kind of loopy too, wouldn't you think?"

Cassie is saved from disagreeing with her friend as the village square brightens with the light of two incoming teleportation beams. As if teleporting in themselves, the friendly little beings reappear to greet the returning Rangers, warbling with joy when Andros tells them the beast has been safely relocated to the far side of the asteroid. Quick as thought, a party begins to take shape around them; streamers and banners and platters of food. Music begins to play, and Carlos ambles towards them, his cheeks flushed a bright, embarrassed red that only spreads when he quietly asks how to annul the marriage he's unknowingly blundered in to.

She sighs, and welcomes the return of a lapful of joyous children. He talks to the dead, she thinks, and – yes. And she wonders how she'll be able to discover exactly how good DECA's psychological qualifications are. Because Andros needs help and apparently the entire galaxy both knows – and has ignored his need in favor of taking advantage of an unstable Ranger without a team to support him.

Cassie might be unsure about Andros, but she's growing far more unsure about the beings the Astro morphers were created to protect.

.oO0Oo.

'We might have been able to rescue Zordon, had Phantom contacted us before he made planetfall.'

Andros shares Zhane's bitterness, a sourness at the back of his throat untouched by the sweetness of the custard pie half-eaten on a plate before him. 'He was right there. We've spent months trying to find him in between Astronema's attacks... We really could have saved him, this time.'

'Instead, we've got another ship that isn't suitable as a ship, and a Zord that functions by remote control.' There's a sense of utter disbelief behind his friend's complaints, as if the sheer absurdity of the situation offends him. 'A ship that we've technically stolen from an Eltaran clandestine cell. The DeltaMegaship,' Zhane seethes. 'And why do they feel the need to tack mega on to everything? Megaships, megalasers, megadecks! Just calling something mega doesn't make it better!–And not a word about my morphing code, that was all you.'

"Don't think I haven't noticed the way you've been chipping away at all of the ship's placards," Andros says placidly, lifting another forkful of pie to his lips and purposefully ignoring the surreptitious look sent his way by TJ from his position in front of the synthetron. 'Could you maybe not deface our home?'

'Tell me that you mind, and mean it, and I'll quit.' Zhane is pouting, an itch beneath his skin just shy of bothersome. 'As soon as you stop turning our home into a Mega Zord and using it to fight overgrown monsters on a near daily basis.'

'...What is this really about?' Drumming his fingers against the table top, Andros considers taking another bite of pie, but the idea of it is suddenly nauseating.

The work bay fades into sepia tones, beiges and browns that remind him of dust. 'This is our home. It's all we have left, Andros. As far as we know this is all that remains that's Kerovan. And Zordon designed it to combine with some second-rate Earth shuttle to form a Zord. I don't care if the Megaship was once Eltaran – we made it our own. And at the rate Astronema is escalating her attacks...'

"You're afraid we're going to lose her," Andros murmurs, but not quite quietly enough.

"Hey, Andros," Ashley greets him as she sits at the table, followed by TJ carrying a tray bearing a steaming bowl of soup. "Who are you talking to?" she asks cheerfully with a smile on the wrong side of fake.

"Zhane," he sighs, pushing the wedge of pie away. "I'm talking to Zhane."

Crumbling crackers into his bowl, TJ glances quickly at Ashley as if to confirm something before returning his gaze to his task. "I think I've heard you mention a ZHANE before." He stirs his soup slowly, lifting up a spoonful and blowing across its surface before continuing. "What is it? An AI we haven't been introduced to yet?"

'An AI?!'

Zhane's screech whites out his vision, leaving behind sparkles of silver as the work bay gradually comes back into focus. Too clear of focus as he makes out the concern of the other two Rangers. Concern directed at him, and he coughs to loosen the tightness threatening to close his throat, because... what?

"We've noticed you talk to ZHANE a lot," Ashley tells him, resting her hand over his wrist and giving it an encouraging squeeze. "None of us would mind having another AI around to help. We're sure DECA must be terribly busy, especially with four extra people on board."

No... what? He blinks at them sluggishly, willing them to make sense. "Zhane is not an AI," Andros says, his words deliberate and bitingly precise. "He's my best and only friend. I told you about him, Ashley. That night... I told you."

"Zhane's – your friend." TJ's spoon clatters back down into the bowl, splattering soup down the front of his red shirt and gray uniform jacket.

"Yes, my friend," he grits out, growing angry at their blatant disbelief. "Since childhood."

'...Maybe Earthians have something against imaginary friends?'

"I know we joke about it, but you're not actually imaginary!" Andros snarls. He then grimaces as the other two Rangers scoot back in their seats, something close to fear marring their expressions. "He's not," he tells them as he pushes his own stool away from the table and stands.

"Zhane died on the final day of the assault on KO-35," DECA says softly as she tries to defuse the situation, and Andros knows the AI's finding the other Rangers' reaction as baffling as he is. "He is very much a real person, imaginary or not."

"He's getting better." TJ and Ashley fail to look reassured, but Andros is done with this conversation. Grabbing up the remains of his pie, he throws it back into the synthetron, slamming the door closed with an uncontrolled telekinetic burst. "I'll be taking inventory down in the cargo bay," he tosses behind his back as he enters the lift, waiting for some objection, some outburst... But only silence follows him as the door closes.

"I can't believe them!" he fumes, pounding the wall with his fist. "I told her you're my best friend! What... what were they even trying to do?"

'I don't know.' Weariness laces Zhane's tone and settles into Andros' bones. 'Do we actually need to do inventory? I feel – off. I've been mad all week for no reason, even if you do send our home into battle.' An attempt at humor that's appreciated but ultimately falls flat. 'I'm cranky. I don't do cranky. Not even the pie tasted good.'

"It was kind of disgusting," Andros agrees, reaching out to change the lift's destination. "Want to nap instead?"

'Sure. Maybe we'll wake up in a better mood.'

"Maybe. And maybe we'll wake up back in a universe that makes sense."

'Still can't believe they called me an AI.'

.oO0Oo.

It seems like every other day they're called back to Earth to deal with yet another of Astronema's rampaging monsters. There's a rhythm to the battles that rarely changes. Five Rangers defeat a horde of quantrons to get to the monster du jour. They summon their primary weapons in order to combine them into yet a larger weapon to defeat the often monologizing foe. Beams from the Dark Fortress enlarge said foe to truly titanic proportions forcing them to summon the Megazords. After a few miscalculations – and whose sick and twisted mind came up with the idea of a monster that could encase their Zords in gelatin sculptures tall as the surrounding skyscrapers? – they land a super-charged attack and the monster explodes in a cloud of burning sparks.

Rinse and repeat, and Ashley is ready to teleport aboard the Dark Fortress and throttle the so-called Princess of Evil. Princess of Overblown Dramatics is more like it.

In a way the constant fighting is beneficial; they've been forced to learn to work as a team. And they are good together. Good enough that Astronema had contacted them for the sole purpose of throwing a tantrum that ended with a shrill, "You're boring me!"

"Is she for real?" Carlos had asked as the screen returned to its default starry view...

And Ashley isn't sure. As the days and weeks run together, very little seems real. They fight: on Earth, on alien worlds, in space. They fight, and they win – but is it actually winning when there's another fight, always another fight waiting? In battle they've come to depend upon Andros. Not so much as the leader of their team but as a veritable powerhouse that literally crushes the quantrons around them. And he hasn't suffered another flashback, not that they know of, which is – good. Excellent. It's good, but when he laughs mid-swing at a monster more fishbowl than fish, or gets in a one-sided fight with Zhane when it's time to call their Megazords...

She finds herself asking: Is this real? Is this really her life?

Goodness knows, Cassie has tried addressing the issue. Issues. So many issues. But when even the ship's AI refuses to acknowledge that there's a problem, there's little she can do to help. That any of them can do. They try talking to Andros, try to gently point out that it's not normal to constantly talk with dead best friends. All that results is Andros storming off and DECA giving them the proverbial cold shoulder.

Ashley feels like they're speaking two separate languages. There are nuances she's not understanding. And it's made all the worse because – she likes Andros. At least, she thinks she does. She thought she'd liked his smile – until she realized how many of them were for Zhane. She admired his confidence – although she has a hunch that could be attributed to Zhane as well. Even his vulnerability...

And yet... and yet.

"His sister was kidnapped," Carlos tells them as they gather clandestinely in the Simudeck. "When they were both children. He's been searching for her ever since. He's lost his family, his planet, his first team... Can we even help him? I don't think there's a psychiatrist on Earth that's qualified to deal with that much trauma. Let alone understand it."

"Maybe he doesn't need understanding, just... someone willing to listen." A faint whir distracts Ashley from her chain of thought. Twisting her head, she spies the camera spying on them in turn. "And not a word of this to Andros, DECA!"

"It is kind of you to want to help Andros." A lens glints redly as it changes position. "But your continued efforts only serve to annoy them both. You are correct that Andros would benefit from friends he could talk to; however, it defeats the purpose when you all fail to listen to – or believe – him."

It goes without saying that DECA's take on the situation is wrong. And Ashley admits that it worries her that the AI that controls the ship they live on – is faulty. To what extent, none of them know. Multiple diagnostic tests turn up completely clean. The systems created to monitor DECA insist she is performing optimally. Optimally, except for her belief that a dead person is not only communicating with the Red Ranger but is also making decisions that affect the entire team.

Another day. Another monster. And it's all Ashley can do to hold back a scream when Andros ducks under a flailing tentacle with a wild laugh while telling them, "Zhane says we should target the large fuchsia spots at the joints." And sure, it works. The monster perishes before Astronema has a chance to enlarge it. But there's no opportunity to celebrate their victory as Andros teleports away, arguing with his imaginary friend on whether this makes the sixth or the eighth tentacle monster they've defeated.

If things don't change, soon, Ashley doesn't know if she's going to sneak aboard the Dark Fortress to strangle Astronema with the woman's own vividly colored hair – or join her, if only to knock sense into Andros. Each option holds a certain appeal.

.oO0Oo.

"Are you sure it's Onyx you saw?"

'I'm sure; It was Onyx. Whether it's now or in the future, that I can't tell you. Only – it feels like now. We're supposed to be here, but that's all I remember.'

"You're a lousy clairvoyant." Andros pulls the sheer black face mask over his head, followed by the hood of the velvety garnet cloak his friend had chosen for this mission. The planet's too warm for so many layers of clothing, but the milling crowds of Alliance forces are a convincing argument for the need for a flawless disguise.

'You try accurately recalling one memory out of forty billion years' worth,' Zhane gripes as he reaches across the dusty street to trip a passing tenga. 'And glove over the morpher. Sloppiness will get you killed here.'

"Yessir," Andros mutters, tugging at the glove until the last gleam of metal is covered beneath dark, heavy cloth. "It was easier pleasing Kinwon."

'Because it would have best pleased Kinwon if you'd died and he could have given your morpher to someone else. Not that Kinwon wanted you dead but the council?' Andros doesn't know if the sudden smell of rotting meat is Zhane's foul mood or the garbage bin he's sharing the alley with. '–I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped.' Rot gives way to the slightly more pleasant scent of fermenting fruit. 'Wish I knew what's wrong with me lately.'

"Still feeling off?" Double-checking that there's not an inch of exposed skin peeking out from his disguise, Andros leaves the alley and begins walking purposefully towards a bar.

'Yeah. Not all the time, but–' Shock, and Zhane's awareness spreads in all directions, out and up. '–but it's enough that I missed that. There's a dreadnought in orbit. Cloaked.'

Andros curses, allowing himself one brief glimpse towards the sky before entering the fetid bar. 'Our friend from vacation, you think?'

'Dunno.' Zhane's blaming himself, and the weight of Andros' cloak is no longer enough against the chill attempting to lock his muscles. 'There's so much Evil here; every time I reach out it's like sticking my hand into a swarm of carrion wasps. I can tell you, though,' vinegar and alcohol and the usual reek of corruption that lingers around any being associated with the Alliance, 'if it's the same dreadnought, then it was Darkonda that led us to Cimmer.'

It is Darkonda, relaxing at a table and playing cards against a motley collection of bounty hunters and foot soldiers. Darkonda, Dark Specter's hidden blade, assassin and saboteur and schemer rolled into one particularly nasty package. Darkonda, currently assigned to Astronema; he should have been on the Dark Fortress, and Andros claims the last free seat at the table because this, this is the reason they'd come to Onyx.

They're playing for crystals and the small stash Zhane deftly lifts from a drunken bipedal creature pieced together from other, less lucky monsters soon grows to a sizable pile. Andros knows this game, and his grin is predatory beneath the concealment of his completely featureless balaclava. As late morning moves into afternoon, he takes care to win more than he loses but not so much as to raise suspicions. Darkonda is pleasant, greeting various villains by name as they enter the bar. The villain plays with the casualness of a master – and Andros matches him, dealing cards with studied nonchalance.

'You need to win this round.'

'Got it.' As Black had taught them, Andros shuffles the deck in a fancy double arch of cards that disguises Zhane's minuscule telekinetic redirects. They've been playing long enough that he's had the chance to mark every card he needs; the hand he deals himself is worthless – had it been any other day of the week. 'Safeties?'

'On. This isn't the first time we've done this.'

No. It's not. Not even close, and Andros nearly purrs as his raise is called with key cards. Eltaran key cards stolen the same time as Zordon was taken during the fall of Eltar.

'Great. More Zords,' Zhane complains petulantly. 'Five keys... five Zords. Wanna make a bet they combine to form yet another Mega eyesore?'

Andros is laughing under his breath as he stretches out his hand and collects the pot. The accusation of cheating is expected, and this time he laughs out loud as he easily grabs the safety-locked gun away from the sore loser. They've drawn a crowd, angry and beginning to spit threats, and Andros delights in tugging stray cards from the soldier's gauntlet to fall to the ale-soaked floor. "You're the one that was cheating," he quips, letting the outraged patrons fall upon the luckless gambler.

'One point deduction for lack of flouncing,' Zhane says as Andros strolls up to the littered bar. 'Otherwise, I guess it's time to choose your supervillain name.' Caramel and vanilla rich enough to cover the fetid atmosphere of the establishment; Andros licks the taste from his lips as he sits – and waits. 'Coming up on your five o'clock.'

"That was a lucky hand," Darkonda congratulates him, snagging his cloak by the shoulder with sharp-clawed fingers. "Let me buy you a drink; I've a business proposition."

"Let me guess," Andros sneers, shrugging off the offensive grip. "You want the key cards."

"Say, rather, my employer would be interested in their acquisition. I could pay you handsomely for them." Darkonda signals the barkeep for drinks. "What do you say?"

"Do I look the sort that would scrabble in the muck for a few crystals?" Sliding off the barstool, Andros backs his unwelcome companion into a nearby corner. "Rumor around this sector is you're an information broker. Perhaps we each have something the other wants. Tell me, is there anything of value on KO-35?"

"I know many things about KO-35." Darkonda's blackened teeth snap in cruel amusement. "Is it a deal, then? Information for the key cards?"

'No. We have to trust the information. –I don't like it, Andros, but we can't do this the easy way.'

Oh. Ooh. Andros lets his friend take hold of the villain; lift him, and slam him hard against the wall. "No. I think I'd rather trade information for your life." Zhane presses and grimy golden armor begins to crumple inwards. "Is it a deal?"

"You! You're the man from the feast, the one that destroyed Queen Machina!" Darkonda gasps as metal splits and digs into flesh. "Yes, yes, it's a deal," he agrees, writhing as the pressure increases. "I kidnapped a little girl from KO-35. Stole her away from her brother as they were playing. It was so easy!" Bone snaps and Darkonda howls.

"And this would interest me, why? I asked for something of value!" Andros knows his sister lives; the geis placed upon him by his mother would have broken otherwise. What he needs is a location.

"She's the most valuable prisoner held by the Alliance," Darkonda wails as metal buckles and blood begins to drip from ruptured seams.

"Ah. That does interest me then. I enjoy the idea of stealing away something he might value... Tell me," he leans in, his voice a blasphemous hiss, "where I might find this girl."

"I can't!" There is true panic in Darkonda's voice, and the monster begins quivering from more than pain. "By everything that is Evil I swear to you, I can't. All who are aware of her prison are bound by a spell; it can only be told to those that already know."

Andros wants to kill him. Smear him against the wall and trample him underfoot. He wants.

'Please,' Zhane pleads, sharp citrus laced with mold, and Andros takes a step back as he realizes his friend is just as afraid as the fiend now pinned literally to the wall by his own armor. 'I know he'll come back. I know he won't stay dead. But this is different than the machine queen. If it's what you really want... I'll do it. But this isn't a battle, and I...'

'You're Silver.' Blinking back sudden tears, Andros takes another step away.

'I'm Silver. And you're Red.'

Reaching up, Andros pats Darkonda's shoulder as though they're old friends recently reunited. "Seeing as I'm going to let you crawl out of here alive, I would say you still owe me information."

The monster slumps as much as his condition allows. "Of course. Unless I manage to kill you, first." His grin is manic, blackened teeth snapping with each panted word. "Might I have your name, dead man?"

"Lord Dark." Swiftly turning, Andros shoves the bar's patrons back with his own meager telekinetic talent. "Does anyone else have information they'd like to share?" he snarls at them, striding forward threateningly. Stepping over prostrating lackeys and fawning Alliance minions, he flings open the batwing doors and departs.

'I think... I think I shouldn't be making decisions, either.' Stealthily returning to the alley he'd started the morning in, Andros barely has time to rip the balaclava off over his head before he's vomiting into the nearby trash barrel. Which is definitely filled with rotting meat. 'Zhane? Are you – are you all right? –Did I hurt you?'

'...No.' And Andros doesn't believe him at all, as timid and bland as the denial is. 'I'm, I'm fine.' Blandness gives way to the first traces of sweet spice. '–Did you really just give your supervillain name as Lord Dark Boopsie?'

"Too much?" he asks, wiping bile from his lips.

'No.' This time, the denial is firmer. 'I think Boopsie is just the fate the Alliance deserves.'

.oO0Oo.

Darkonda is on a rampage, taking out his rage and humiliation on the Rangers guarding Earth. The Astro Delta Megazord is down and they barely manage to separate it into individual Megazords in time to save either.

'You are not leaving our home to face that goon alone!' Zhane yells at him – but what can Andros do? They're losing.

Of course the five key cards lead them to five Zords. Mega V1 through Mega V5. That combine to form the Mega Voyager. That uses the Mega kick. And in the end Darkonda loses another life and Earth is saved so that Astronema can be entertained another day...

Andros stares glumly down at his plate, his stomach churning. There's not enough pie in the galaxy to appease Zhane, who hasn't stopped ranting since they returned to the Megaship.

Wherever he's being held, Andros is pretty sure Zordon's laughing.

.oO0Oo.

Andros isn't sure why they're taking samples from the dusty desert planet. He remembers Cassie asking, and Ashley smiling, and Carlos filling his arms with supplies before TJ pushed him out the cargo bay door. They're here digging and pulling and labeling – but he has no idea why.

"These are nearly identical to the joshua trees back on Earth," Cassie explains when she notices his dazed expression. "The climate here is dryer and hotter, though. By learning about the trees here, we might be able to help save the ones back home as their habitat dwindles."

He nods and lets her shove another sample into his pack. His entire team is happily absorbed in their task, and he doesn't have the heart to tell them that nothing on the planet is viable due to the dark magic that's soaked into the soil for millennia. Any world previously cultivated by Baboo – is lost to the light. The samples, though, might provide insight on how to treat less-infected planets, so he holds his tongue as his pack gradually fills.

'You know this is a bad idea.'

"Hush, you're going to jinx us."

'Too late.' Laughter sweet as nectar as Andros spins towards TJ's shouted warning. 'You've managed to anger the gardeners.'

The brown-cloaked natives are persistent, Andros gives them that. For every one taken out by blaster fire three more come running in from over the sandstone rocks. They're everywhere, and the creatures' punches hurt despite the protection of their Ranger uniforms. Andros isn't sure if his team is strategically retreating towards the Megaship so much as they're being driven back; the difference is academic as they scurry up the cargo ramp, managing to slam the outer door down before any of the natives gain entry.

"I suggest we lift off," DECA announces calmly while they demorph; loud clangs and ominous thunks echoing through the cargo bay underscore her words. "As improbable as it seems, the natives are managing to pry open triple-secured access hatches on the hull. Damage to critical systems confirmed."

"How much damage?" Carlos asks over TJ's, "How critical?" and Andros himself is rooted in place, gaze fixed on DECA's closest camera, mouthing, "How?" because – seriously? How are mutated gardeners armed with nothing more than – well, arms – managing to open locked panel doors?

Andros waits for a glib response from his friend, but Zhane is strangely silent, projecting only a confused mix of sea salt and cinnamon.

As Ashley commands the ship's AI to take them from the planet's surface, apparently the answers to the male Rangers' questions in order are: a lot, very critical, and specifics unknown. Samples have spilled out from their packs to roll across the cargo bay's floor; trusting the Megaship's piloting to DECA, Andros hurries after a pod that's heading towards the engine room – and the healing chamber's concealed entrance. Zhane had been right; the entire trip had been a bad idea. Andros expects to hear a fond told ya so, but even the strong taste of cinnamon is fading...

The entire ship tilts as aft thrusters sputter before reengaging, throwing Andros to the floor and on top of the pod he was chasing. It cracks underneath him, and noxious goo begins seeping through his shirt to burn the skin underneath. Rolling to his side, he hurriedly pulls off his jacket before tearing away his ruined shirt, using the undamaged fabric of the back to wipe blister-inducing slime from his abdomen.

"Is that – a monster?" Cassie asks, moving towards him on hands and knees as the Megaship over-corrects. And – yes, dragging itself from the ruptured pod is a monster rapidly growing by the second, clicking mandibles reminiscent of pincers and snapping claws together threateningly.

Andros eyes the other samples scattered around them, pulsing ominously and showing the first faint shadowing of forming cracks. "Only Baboo," he groans as he pulls himself to his feet, offering his hand to Cassie once he's sure of his own footing. "DECA, we're going to need to land back on the planet; the cargo bay's compromised and we can't risk these things damaging the engines."

"Your decision is fortuitous since an emergency landing was already imminent."

He signals his team to morph and they engage the bug-like monster as the Megaship shudders around them. Being thrown to his knees when the ship jolts to a skidding halt isn't quite as painful with the protection of the Power to soften the fall, but it's a distraction the monster quickly takes advantage of. It manages to open the cargo bay door, which, again – how? Andros will have words with Baboo if he ever has the misfortune of meeting the heinous alchemist. And with the door open, more opportunistic gardeners flood into the cargo bay.

"DECA, seal all doors!" he commands. Too late, as cloaked forms rush past the Rangers standing in their path, out of the cargo bay and into the engine room beyond. Andros' last glimpse of them before the door slides shut and locks is of them pulling out the power cables connecting the engines to the rest of the ship. "No!"

The Eltarian engineers that designed the Megaship's engines go on the list Andros is mentally forming, right under Baboo. There will be entire lectures, he promises himself. Because Zhane has been right on so many counts; a stardrive wasn't meant to be unplugged like a dirty blender. Someone needed to be held accountable.

The monster places itself between the Rangers and the sealed engine room, and chortles. They dare not use their blasters for fear of damaging the ship; the same reasoning eliminates both of the female Rangers' main weapons. With axe and lance and saber they attack it while Ashley and Cassie attempt to override the emergency lock now denying them access to the Megaship's heart.

'Hang on,' he urges Zhane, using his saber to block a lunging bite, 'I'll have them out of there be-fore–'

Andros' mind rings with emptiness. A side-kick connecting with his torso sends him crashing into the wall behind him, but he doesn't feel it, his focus drawn inwards. Where Zhane should be there's only silence, drab grayness where silver once sparkled. He smells only the staleness of the air recycled by his helmet. Tastes only the lingering traces of toothpaste on his tongue. The colors of the cargo bay are dull and lifeless, and the terrified shouts of his teammates calling his name are meaningless compared to a loss too large to comprehend.

"Zhane?" Claws rake his side as the monster attempts to grab him, and only Carlos' timely intervention prevents worse injury. "Zhane?!"

He's vaguely aware that they're fighting a monster, tick-faced and tricksy. A monster that's smarter than it should be, mocking and cruel as it forces them further away from the engine room door. Andros observes the battle as through a muddling fog, sounds muffled and actions strobing across his vision in stop-motion. A punch. A thrust of the Lunar Lance. His own saber striking in a downwards slice... they're all movements without meaning. Instinct without conscious thought. For the first time in over two years...

...he's completely alone in his mind.

'Zhane?' Once. Twice. A dozen desperate pleas. 'Zhane?!'

'...Not so loud.' The request is weak, echoing oddly as though it has traveled an unimaginable distance, but it's Zhane and Andros' breath catches on a sob. It's Zhane, but Andros' mind is still empty; in desperation he wraps his self around his friend's wavering thought – and clings. 'Andros? What's going on?'

'Monster in the cargo bay. And... I lost you. I lost you!' Ashley is thrown his way and he goes down under her weight. Folding his arms around her waist, he rolls them out of the way of the bug's stomping foot, continuing until they're next to the dubious protection of a storage crate. 'What happened?'

'–Guess I know why I've been feeling off.'

TJ covers them as they stagger to their feet, his axe twirling a complicated pattern in lieu of a shield.

'...And?' Andros prompts as he dodges a wad of flung cargo netting. Zhane – is back, but the world is still wrong around him, stale and tasteless and drab. ...If Zhane's back, why does his body ache with emptiness?

'Oh. I remember these guys. The gardeners.'

The door between the engine room and the cargo bay slides open, and brown-cloaked creatures are flung through it. Some hit walls, and some strike the monster. Regardless of where they land, they're soon lifted once more, rag dolls being shaken by an invisible fist. And a voice, so dearly loved and so dearly missed, asks mildly, "Deca? Mind getting the 'bay door? Someone forgot to take out the trash."

"Certainly!" the AI chimes brightly as the cargo bay door slides up. Flapping brown cloaks and flailing bodies fly through the opening to the sandstone boulders below. A few shake their heads before stumbling off, but far more of the natives lie unmoving on the scorched desert sand. Pulsating pods follow, squelching as they smack against unforgiving rock. And in the doorway between the engines and the cargo bay, one gloved hand resting against the jam for support and the other holding a physically impossible blade...

"...Silver." The forgotten cargo net, once more in the hands of the monster, tangles around his legs and yanks him off his feet – but Andros doesn't care. He's smiling as he goes down, giddy with joy, and yes, and finally. "You're late."

"Red." And oh, by the tilt of Zhane's helmet alone Andros knows his friend is laughing at him. "I leave you alone for a couple of minutes and look at the trouble you get into." The monster, now aware of a new adversary behind it, snarls and turns – directly into the contained laser of the silverizer. "Forget to set the bug traps?"

Cutting himself free of the netting, Andros powers down and runs towards his friend, catching Zhane as he starts to fall amidst the sparkling silver of his own unintentional demorph. "Zhane!" he bleats, tucking his head against the other boy's shoulder and hugging him tightly. "You're awake."

"Mhm." Sagging into the hold, Zhane returns the embrace, his hands balling together in the small of Andros' back. "Took a while to figure it out. Bodies are weird. Finicky things."

Feeling thighs trembling against his own, Andros lowers them both to the floor before his friend collapses. "They are," he agrees, pulling back only far enough to drink in the other boy's face. Around them, he hears the shuffling footsteps of the other Rangers nearing. Adjusting positions to spare whatever modesty his friend might lay claim to, Andros looks up at them – and waits.

"So, umm..." Ashley fiddles with the barrette holding back her bangs, staring at them from beneath lowered lashes. "Where did the naked guy come from?"

"Naked?" Blinking in puzzlement, Zhane looks down at the singed scraps of fabric hanging from his body, all that remains of the clothing he was wearing during his final day on KO-35. His blush is beautiful to see, irrefutable proof of life. "Huh."

"That's what happens when you get yourself exploded," Andros teases him, smirking as the flush spreads downwards. "Don't worry. I lost my shirt. Maybe it'll start a new trend; naked Rangering." It surprises a high-pitched giggle from the boy sheltering in his arms and Andros shifts again, angling them further away from Ashley's frank gaze.

"That explains the lack of clothing," TJ says slowly, very much not looking down at them. "But not who he is, or where he came from."

"What?" Only the absurdity of the question is enough to pull his attention away from his friend. "What do you mean, who is he? It's Zhane."

Looking up at the hovering teens, Zhane grins and flutters his lashes. "Hi. Glad to finally meet you all in person. Andros' new team..." A dimple appears as his smile widens. "And I know Andros told you about me; I'm his imaginary friend."

"What?" is TJ's flummoxed response, followed by Carlos', "The dead kid?" and Cassie's shocked, "But where did you come from?"

None of it matters as Andros rests his chin against Zhane's silver-streaked blond hair. "Not imaginary," he whispers as he pulls the other boy closer, because the back of Andros' mind is empty even with his friend practically seated in his lap.

'Maybe a little,' Zhane taunts, and Andros shivers as the simple sending lights up the shadowed places in his mind for one brief moment before the world melts back into mundanity.

"Wait..." Bending down, Ashley gives the blond boy's bicep a curious prod. "...Zhane's real?"

.oO0Oo.

They're gathered in the work bay, the four Rangers from Earth seated unevenly around the table, all of them facing the bench where Andros and Zhane had settled. Zhane's in a dove gray sweater woven through with silver strands and soft white pants, his bare feet tucked under a flowered afghan. Andros had merely replaced his ruined red shirt with a new one, although the color looks deeper without the usual contrast of its matching gray jacket.

Zhane's head is resting in Andros' lap, and Andros is running his fingers through the short blond locks searchingly, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. Watching them, Ashley is willing to bet neither of them notices their audience. She's grateful for the fact, as it gives her time to try ordering her thoughts. Namely: What? And, again, what? She feels like her brain has blue-screened, much like her computer had the first time she'd restarted it after upgrading to Windows 98.

"You're blond," Andros mutters, sounding offended. "Every single strand is either blond, or silver. And there's brown flecks in your eyes!" he complains, leaning down until he's nearly nose to nose with his friend. "Brown! You practically look Kerovian."

"Yeah." Placing a fingertip against Andros' forehead, Zhane gently pushes his friend away. "It's Tarnish."

"Tarnish." The corners of his lips turning down in disbelief, Andros resumes his examination.

"Yes, Tarnish. What do you think happens to silver when you shove it into a drawer and let it sit unused for years?"

Andros rolls his eyes and instead grabs the other boy's raised hand, carefully bending the joint of each finger under close inspection. "–Got all your toes?" he asks with forced calm.

"Far as I know. Deca did a good job scraping me up." The blond grins, but there's anguish lurking behind it.

...And Ashley shivers, rubbing absently at the goosebumps rising on her arms. Because – Andros had mentioned an explosion. An explosion bad enough that none of Zhane's clothes had survived although somehow, impossibly, Zhane had.

"So," she asks, shivering again as both sets of eyes swivel towards her. "Zhane's not from KO-35?"

"We're both from KO-35," Andros answers distractedly. "He's just not Kerovian."

"That's interesting," Cassie says, her sandwich untouched on the plate before her. "Where is he from originally, then?"

"Second star to the right, and straight on 'til morning."

"As good of place as any, I guess." Zhane smiles at them, clear-eyed and guileless. "This cosmic spectacle of radiance was formed fifteen billion years ago when the universe was born."

Carlos whines softly in the back of his throat. "They both do the quoting thing," he says into his hands, raised to cover his face. "Both of them. –Do you think other Ranger teams have to put up with this?"

Andros' mouth purses, precursor to a no-doubt scathing comment, but he can't get the words out from around Zhane's index finger pressed firmly to his lips. In retaliation, Andros gently nips the finger, drawing both a gasp and a giggle from his sprawled friend.

"That's cheating," the blond says without heat, using his dampened finger to flick the tip of Andros' nose. "I was just reminding you to be nice to your friends. It's a valid question; you haven't been teaching your gaggle of planetary Rangers much about the galactic community, Andros. And to answer the question," Zhane tilts his head back to the side, regarding the four at the table with an expression of fond indulgence, "I doubt any other team has to 'put up' with our quoting. Honored by it, on the other hand..."

Ashley hides her smirk behind her bangs. Even as she watches, the attention of the two boys resting on the bench is focusing back upon one another, excluding all else currently in the area – including the four teenagers bubbling over with questions they feel they deserve answers to. Ashley – has her own questions. And while she'd prefer to ask them privately and save herself possible humiliation, the inherent humor of the situation compels her to give the first one voice.

"So, Andros." She smiles, swinging her slippered feet back and forth along the smooth, cold floor. "How long have you and Zhane been together?"

Raising one eyebrow, Andros turns towards her, perplexed. "Since childhood. Which I've told you before. Do the people of Earth have a predisposition towards memory lapses?"

TJ snorts, more from the awkwardness clouding the room than from humor.

"No..." Ashley drags out the refutal as she crumples her napkin into a ball, tossing it Andros' way – where it hovers in mid-air before it can hit, then floats lazily to the ground. "I mean, how long have you been boyfriends?"

Zhane's laughing almost before she can finish the question. Clutching his stomach and rolling off the bench to the hard alloy floor, he cackles with wild abandon. "Oh, I like this Yellow," he says, leaning against his friend's legs and winking at Ashley roguishly. "Boyfriends. So much nicer than codependent freaks." Still chuckling, he pulls himself to his feet using Andros' knees for support.

Andros isn't laughing; instead, he appears to be utterly confounded. "Zhane's not my boyfriend," he tells them quietly as he tugs at the dove gray sleeve beside him, urging the blond to sit. "He's my–"

"Imaginary friend," Zhane sings, flopping back onto the bench, his arm coming to rest over Andros' shoulders.

"–Binary," Andros corrects while nudging him in the side. "We're like binary stars. Or entangled photons." He shrugs, then leans back into the partial embrace. "Our school's councilor said there was something broken in each of us, and only together did we make a whole person."

"She said that?" Cassie asks, aghast.

"Mhm." Zhane smiles, slow and sweet as he crosses his legs at the ankles in a long stretch. "But she kept us together instead of trying to force us apart like a lot of the other staff wanted. Said why create two new problems when we were for the most part functional when together. She–" a yawn cuts him off, and it's a moment before he's able to continue. "She died during the second bombardment. Velocifighters got through the planet's defense forces in charge of guarding the capitol while we were finishing up evacuations in the northern districts." Another yawn nearly large enough to mask the bewildered loss gleaming from brown-flecked eyes. "Don't know why I'm so tired. You'd think two years of sleeping would be enough for anyone."

"Two years of hitchhiking on the back of my dreams, you mean. Come on," Andros says as he wraps his arm around the other boy's waist, helping him up from the bench. "It's been a long day."

"Long two years," Zhane says around yet another yawn, his bare feet dragging as he's escorted towards the lift.

"Two years." Andros nods at the other Rangers as he passes, looking as content and settled as Ashley's ever seen him. "We're headed to bed. Good night, everyone."

Ashley murmurs good night alongside her friends, then jumps. "Andros, your blanket!" she calls after them, darting to the bench to retrieve it. The grateful smiles she receives from both teens as she hands over the afghan calms misgivings she hadn't been aware of until then. "Sleep tight."

"Don't let the bedbug monsters bite," TJ finishes the saying under his breath, his attention fixed on the sandwich he'd successfully filched from Cassie's plate. "–They're going to the same cabin, aren't they?"

"Yeah. They are." Returning to her chair, Ashley snakes the sandwich away from TJ and takes a large bite. "Makes sense. I'm using Andros' room. He must have been staying in Zhane's."

"DECA did say they were both Andros' rooms," Carlos adds, picking at the salad he'd chosen, the edges of the greens beginning to wilt.

"–None of this makes sense." Frowning, TJ tries to take the half-eaten sandwich back; Ashley slaps at his wrist for his trouble. "Andros and DECA both said Zhane died on KO-35. And, even if he didn't, how has Andros been talking to him the entire time he's been in hypersleep?"

"We've all seen that Andros is telekinetic." Shaking her head, Cassie goes to the synthetron and orders another plate of sandwiches. "Maybe he's telepathic as well."

"I don't know," Ashley says, finishing her sandwich and grabbing another half when Cassie brings the refilled plate back to the table. "I kinda like Andros' explanation. Binary stars... Imagine how much better life would be, if we all had someone like that in our lives?"

Grunting with amusement, TJ swallows a mouthful of rye bread and pastrami. "I think that's the literal definition of an imaginary friend."

.oO0Oo.

'You're thinking too hard.' Drowsiness fuzzes the edges of Zhane's thoughts, soft and warm as the afghan Andros has pulled over them. 'Go to sleep.'

"Can't," Andros admits as he brushes his fingertip down the bridge of his friend's nose, tracing the line of a smile as it slowly forms and ending alongside an emerging dimple. "Every time I try, I think: What if this is a dream? What if I wake up tomorrow and you're still stuck in that 'tube? I close my eyes... and there's no spark to share my dreams with.

"All those months, and the other Rangers trying to convince me you're not real, and now that I have you back... It's like they've cursed me. The second I take my eyes off you, it feels like you'll disappear."

"'M not gonna disappear," Zhane murmurs, golden lashes bright against pale skin as he cracks one eye open. "'M here as long as you'll have me."

"You've been here the entire time, but it wasn't the same." Sighing, Andros runs his fingers up into silver-streaked hair, burying his hand in unfamiliar blond locks. "Tarnish. Only you..."

"Mmm. Light is meant to move, and silver's created to serve. I couldn't do much of either. 'M surprised the Tarnish isn't worse." Twisting to his side, Zhane curls up tightly against Andros, his hands falling naturally in the small space left between them. 'I'm really tired.'

"Then sleep," he whispers into the blond hair now tickling across his lips. "I'll be up for a while." Pressing his palm to the other boy's heart, Andros counts the steady heartbeats – and lets them mark off each minute 'til morning.

.oO0Oo.

Astronema is rarely tired. Fatigue is for lesser fools; she thrives on conflict and lives off magic. When she does sleep it's usually dreamless; she closes her eyes one minute, then opens them hours later feeling as if no time at all has passed. The older she gets the less she sleeps, and she supposes this is the way of all things evil and unrelenting. Sleep is a time for healing; there is much too much left that she needs to destroy, first.

She will keep her promise. A universe forfeit in exchange for a single pointless death.

She's so rarely tired, but the entire day exhaustion has dragged at her heels. Inexplicable and aggravating, she doesn't even have the Red Ranger to blame; he'd taken off on one menial errand or another, do-gooder that he strives to be. She no longer bothers tracking the Megaship's whereabouts. When the Rangers' attention's not fixated on her – they're boring. Astronema knows, should she send her forces down to Earth – a handful of quantrons, a hastily summoned monster – they'd return. They'd return... and she could play.

But today she's tired. Time passes in a daze, and it's too much bother to call to mind a monster dangerous enough to lure her pretty little playmate back. She smiles wickedly as she lies in her bed, anticipating the day when she'll eat Red's heart in front of him. Somewhat messy – but with magic, so much is possible. She lies, still and silent with a poisoned dagger resting in one hand, and waits for either sleep or the morning to claim her.

It's sleep that finds her first, and the dream of her meadow drowning in gloom. Dark shadows blot out the sky overhead; sodden, gray grasses rot beneath her bare feet. She's numb to the sight as she patrols her dead demesne. She remembers the night color had bled out from her dreams. Remembers the day her magic had wailed with loss and despair as a bond she'd never known existed in her waking hours – perished.

Oh, in her dreams she knows what she has lost. And the knowledge follows her into waking; her promised refuge turned wasteland haunting her thoughts no matter how she tries to forget. That day... that day... She marches on, mud squishing between her toes and drizzle cold enough to cut soaking into her gauzy off-white dress. Around her fields of gray are dotted by endless mounds of dirt. Graves, she knows. The graves of those whose lives she's reaped. Endless. Countless. Meaningless. A drop in the bucket compared to what she plans.

Always she strides forward, and always she ends up where she started; a sad little hollow filled with decayed wildflowers atop a hillock overlooking the necropolis of solar systems. Always, she sits kneeling and waits for the salvation of waking. Always, and yet...

There's a flower, pastel pink as dawn, partially trodden by her foot. With trembling fingers she tries to straighten its petals; encouraged by her touch, they lift hopefully towards the sunless sky. And yet...

She feels sunlight warm and brash upon the crown of her head. A breeze strikes her cheek redolent with the green-gold scent of growth. And around her a wash of color seeps inwards, and yet...

"Where is he?" she snarls, lunging to her feet. She is Astronema, and joy and rage are one in the same. She plunges through thick, thriving tufts of grass and splashes through crystalline puddles of water. She runs to end up where she'd started, a hollow filled with fragrant wildflowers. And curled up on his side at the bottom, partially hidden by pastel blooms, a boy whose golden hair is streaked with silver.

Her boy. Her magic croons a lullaby as she creeps closer to the sleeper. Hers. After all that she has lost, after all that's been taken from her – a piece has been returned. One of her most precious pieces, safe and secret next to the picture of her brother kept hidden away in a locket she never removes from around her neck. Hers, and she will keep him no matter the cost.

She'd begged him to run the last time they'd met. This time – she'd like to see him try.

"Poor thing." She settles over him, her tongue tsking behind her teeth. "You're all Tarnished," she whispers into his ear as she carefully threads her fingers through silver-kissed hair. "Don't worry," she promises as she tightens her grip, the sharp pain jerking him into consciousness. Panicked eyes slide towards her, her hold on his head too firm to allow any other movement, and she smiles winsomely into their speckled depths. "I'll take good care of you."

"I only wanted to sleep," he tells her as he stealthily flexes various muscles, testing her hold. "I didn't mean to come here. –You must be close."

"Mustn't I?" She laughs in delight as he tries to throw her off, tightening her thighs around his hips and locking his legs between her own. "I felt you die," she says, pulling back on his head until tendons stand in sharp relief, quivering from the strain.

"I saw you kill KO-35."

"I wasn't going to let you leave life unescorted." She pins his wrists before he can elbow her, crushing them against the mossy ground. "You shouldn't struggle so," she warns him, leaning her weight forward. "This is my dream. And I control all that is mine."

Beneath her, she feels him relaxing infinitesimally. "But I'm not yours."

"Not mine?" Pushing her nose against the tender flesh behind his ear, she sniffs deliberately. "You smell like my magic." Trailing her lips down from his ear to the junction between shoulder and neck, she opens her mouth wide and bites. "You taste like my magic. Poor, poor deluded creation; I made you. There's no hiding it."

"You shaped me. You Called me. But you're billions of years too young to have made me."

Rearing back, she pouts with dripping red lips at his certainty. "But you are mine," she protests. "And I will keep you."

He watches her warily from the corner of his eye as a rivulet of blood runs down his neck to spatter the petals of the flowers blanketing the ground. "Not if you snap my neck, you won't."

"Oh." She'd label the twinge that arcs through her body guilt, but she is Astronema and guilt is for lesser beings. Unclenching her fingers, she gently cradles his head, moving it to a more comfortable position. "But I will keep you. I'll keep you safe. Safe from harm. Safe from Tarnish."

"How long?" he asks her earnestly, his gaze fixed forward on pastel flowers. "How long would you keep me prisoned here? A day? A week? A lifetime? How long before I've forgotten my purpose? And how long before I let go of hope?"

"–When light stops moving, it's no longer light." Finding herself suddenly shaking, she crawls off him, but he makes no attempt to escape her. "I'm not what I once was. Here, here I can tell. I have stopped moving. I am no longer light but a blight upon the galaxy. And oh, poor lost creation, I would do the same to you. That I might not be alone – I would keep you until the last of your light gutters and dies as long as it meant you'd be by my side."

He blinks at her, dreadfully still amidst the rustling grasses. "You still wear the locket," he says between measured breaths. "You wear the locket – and you are close. Close enough to pull me in. You haven't stopped moving. You haven't stopped hoping."

"Hoping? Hoping for what?" Angrily, she swipes away a wayward tear with a trembling hand. "My brother is dead."

"If he's dead – then what am I doing here?"

Around her the meadow stops, pastel petals caught mid-sway and grasses held askew. The breeze itself is frozen in place; swinging her head is like moving through cobweb. Oh. And, oh – how subtle the spell that chains her is. "You told me once," she whispers, running her fingers across the bruises blooming red and purple upon his wrists in unspoken apology, "that you were meant for someone else. I shaped you – for someone else."

"You did."

"You know who I am."

He closes his eyes as if pained; reopens them slowly, the brown more pronounced. "I know who you were. If I knew who you are now, it would be so much easier to find you."

"So here I sit with you in my hand,the pebble which rocked my world. And you would tell me I must toss you back, back into the world that has already killed you. And for what? Some future, intangible hope? Can I not be happy here?"

"You're close." Feebly, the blond boy uncurls from the submissive position she'd forced him in to. "Closer than you've ever been, to have this much power over me." Shuddering, he rolls to his back; sunshine glitters golden in his hair and while beautiful, she knows it's merely Tarnish. "I'm tired. I just wanted to sleep now that I'm back in my own head. If I sleep," he asks plaintively, throwing an arm across his eyes, "will you let me go when it's time to wake?"

"I can let you go now." She can. She will. She may be Astronema, but here, here she can also be more. Closer to what she once was.

"As long as you're dreaming, I'll be pulled in again."

"Ah." Scooting back, she wraps her arms around her knees and prepares to do as she always does, here in the meadow of her dream demesne; sit and wait to waken. "Then sleep. I won't..." She swallows and shakes her head, letting her own bronze-streaked blonde hair fall across her face. "I won't."

"Thank you."

The boy sleeps and she watches over him. He sleeps, and she dares to reach out, once. Feather-light, she runs her finger along a section of his hair; beneath her touch it brightens to pale gray, and she pulls back before she can go further. She longs to, but she's taken enough liberties this night.

She watches until the searing blue sky above her is replaced by the metal that runs rampant throughout the Dark Fortress. Astronema is rarely tired, and sleeps even less, and hardly ever dreams – but she is beyond tired now. "How long will I be prisoned here?" she whispers into the shadows lurking around the edges of her room. "How long before I let go of hope?"

.oO0Oo.

Andros has drowsed on and off throughout the night, his dreams fragmented and indistinct. Each time he wakes, he convulsively clutches the thin white fabric of Zhane's shirt as he searches for the heartbeat underneath. Finding it, he relaxes – and the cycle starts again. Until he wakens with his friend's pulse thundering beneath his palm, fast and unsteady. Beneath blue-veined lids his eyes dart aimlessly in the characteristic movements of dreaming, but the crease forming between his brows and the sweat dotting his forehead betray the presence of a nightmare instead.

"Zhane?" Running his hand up the blond's chest to wrap around his shoulder, Andros gently shakes him. "Wake up. You're having a bad dream."

But Zhane doesn't wake. Not to his shaking, or to his repeated entreaties. Instead, Andros can only watch, horrified, as a perfectly shaped bite forms low on his neck, bruised and bloody. Using his own pajama sleeve, Andros applies pressure to the wound, cursing softly as a bead of blood soaks through to fall upon the afghan, gleaming like a morbid dew drop on the petals of a blue yarn rose.

"DECA!" Andros calls out, pulling his shirt over his head to have more material to work with. "What's going on?" Although the ship's AI refrained from actively monitoring their rooms, she did have cameras and sensors present and the ability to review recorded footage when requested. "I can't wake Zhane, and he's being attacked. Are there still intruders on the Megaship? Did we miss any from earlier?"

"Nothing abnormal is registering on my sensors. Thermal scans are negative and there are no unaccounted for life signs in your room." The usual whir of DECA's camera changes pitch as she switches between lenses and filters. "However, in addition to the injury on his neck, Zhane has bruising on his hips, legs, and wrists. Suspected hairline fracture of the left distal radius, but further imaging will be needed to confirm. Continue applying pressure to the neck wound; bleeding has nearly stopped but the suspected bite is closer to the jugular than I'm comfortable with."

"On it," he says as he folds a clean section of his shirt over – and presses. "And what about not being able to wake him?"

"There are no indications of head trauma. Although..." DECA pauses, as though to verify the accuracy of her own scans. "While I'm picking up the expected mix of theta and alpha waves that match those previously observed during Zhane's REM cycles, there's also an abnormally high amount of gamma activity that is usually only seen during periods of intense concentration. My data banks offer no insight on this phenomena."

Grunting in acknowledgment, Andros lifts his shirt to check on the bleeding, then offers a low prayer of gratitude upon finding it stopped. "Stars... DECA, what about the night we dreamwalked to find Zordon? Is there any correlation between... well, my brain waves then, and Zhane's now?"

"Checking." The very vibration of the Megaship's engines changes timbre as she pulls extra power for her search. "I can confirm similarities although the frequency of tonight's gamma waves are oscillating higher, peaking above one hundred and twenty hertz. –There is one other recorded episode matching this pattern."

Tossing his ruined shirt over his shoulder to the floor, not caring that it lands on top of yesterday's discarded clothing, Andros doesn't bother looking towards DECA's camera to glare. "And?" he prompts her as he carefully lifts one of his friend's hands, scowling at the mottled wrist hot and swelling beneath his touch.

"Zhane had been asleep when Avera was destroyed. Brain waves are identical to that time."

"Avera," Andros whispers, blinking furiously. "He – he came running on to the bridge. Before I opened the file... I can't, I can't remember. DECA, did he say anything?"

Zhane's muted voice plays from the AI's speaker. "It's gone! Said they glassed it. What does that even mean?"

"He knew..." Lowering the blond's arm back to the mattress, Andros bunches up the afghan to provide extra support to his damaged wrist. "Who told you," he asks, cupping the boy's face in his palm and running his thumb tenderly across his cheek bone. "Where did your dreams take you that night?"

"Gamma waves are decreasing proportionate to increased delta wave generation. It appears that Zhane's transitioning to a state of deep sleep."

"Which he's hard to wake from normally, never mind what's happening to him tonight." He leans forward to rest his forehead against the other boy's, his thumb keeping up its soothing motion. "C'mon, Zhane," Andros pleads softly. "Don't you think you've slept long enough?"

Minutes crawl by as he waits, ship's night creeping towards ship's morning. He waits, trying to match his breaths to his friend's. When that fails, he settles for not hyperventilating. Andros has never been good at waiting; long practice has only made him less tolerant of circumstances outside of his control. He waits–

–And when Zhane wakes, it's with a strangled gasp and rolling eyes and clawed fingers desperately grasping at air.

"Zhane! It's okay. It's okay!" Catching the other boy's flailing hands, Andros meshes their fingers together and tries to still the frantic flexing. "You need to calm down," he tells him, trying to attract his attention. "Your wrist might be broken. Shh."

"A-Andros?" Zhane asks, his breath hitching. "I made it back?"

"Yeah. We're on the Astro Megaship. It's almost morning, and as soon as you're able we need to get you to the med bay, okay? DECA's worried about your wrist. And the bite on your neck." Below him Zhane shudders, and the fingers woven between his own twist and try to scratch at him. "Zhane!"

"Sorry." Swallowing hard, Zhane turns his head towards the wall, cracking one of the fragile scabs on his neck. "Still, still scared." Fresh blood wells, and Andros frees one hand to press his fingers against the wound, halting the flow. The position betrays the rapid fluttering of his friend's pulse. "I didn't think she'd let me go."

"She?" Andros snaps, staring demandingly down into brown-flecked irises and pupils blown wide with fright. "She, who? Who found a way to hurt you in your sleep?" He places fingers now sticky with drying blood along the other boy's jaw. "I will find her. And I will end her."

Zhane's laugh borders on manic. "You can't," he wheezes between strained giggles. "You really, really can't. She–" His lips move soundlessly as his larynx clicks before freezing. Another wheeze as lungs heave desperately in instinctual protest. "She–" Another click that Andros can actually feel where his palm rests against the blond's throat.

"What did she do to you?"

Frustrated, Zhane tries to shake his head but Andros halts the motion, leery of the neck wound reopening yet again. His lips move, but their motions fail to form words that Andros might decipher. Scowling, Zhane clenches his fist and punches the wall bordering the bed with its outer edge. If his wrist hadn't been broken before – it likely is now, and Andros catches the other boy's hand before he can lash out again.

"–Darkonda," the blond manages to growl, his voice distorted by a larynx not yet recovered from whatever force had locked it.

"Darkonda did this to you?"

"No. Listen. Listen." Breathing deeply through his nose, all fight seems to drain out of his friend leaving him limp and unresisting amidst the tousled sheets. "Darkonda. Said."

"He said a lot of things," Andros mutters as he gingerly slides his hands beneath the other boy's shoulders and lifts until Zhane is half-seated, half-slumped against him. "But this would be about a woman... Not Queen Machina; there hasn't even been a rumor of her since Zedd kicked her into the crevasse. And my sister..." He stops; reexamines the thought that runs like ice water down his spine. "Darkonda said there's a spell. A spell that binds my sister and all that know of her prison. They can't tell..." Zhane's shuddering breath rocks them both, and Andros wants to howl. "You found my sister."

Zhane sags further, adrenaline-fueled tension retreating before spoken truth. "She was your sister. Once. What she is now..." He shivers convulsively, tucking his head beneath Andros' chin. "I only wanted to sleep. After two years – I needed to sleep. But she pulled me into her dream, instead. Her magic, it's hooked through me, Andros. She thinks she made me. And she wants everything that she considers hers."

"Karone attacked you..."

"Restrained. And – not Karone. Not now." A tear, scalding hot, rolls down Andros' chest. "I don't know where she's at. Or who she is. But she's close. Close enough that I don't dare fall asleep again."

Andros – wants to demand. So many years spent in futile search of his sister; to be so close to answers now, to finding her... It's on the tip of his tongue to tell Zhane to take him with him when next he dreams. He can taste the steely resolve backing the command wanting to burst forth; to say to Zhane in no uncertain terms that he would lead them on a dreamwalk, and they would find Karone, and he would... he would...

The words refuse to leave his mouth, a forgotten geis sealing his lips in prohibition. And Andros remembers. His mother, her hair untidy out of its bun and her apron covered in flour. His mother, asking for his promise. A promise easily made and not thought on since. A promise that he'd never ask Zhane to look for Karone. Not alone. Not together. Not ever.

"She knew," Andros whispers forlornly, his tears following where Zhane's had already fallen. "Mama knew. –Do you think... Would it work if I let you sleep in my dreams, again? Could she find you there?"

"I – don't think she could? You have the advantage within your own dreams. And if you keep me in your locket..." A sharply drawn breath and Zhane straightens in his arms, brown-flecked eyes suddenly lighter. Grayer. "The locket! Andros, she wears the matching locket!"

"There's another locket?" Unbidden, renewed hope unfurls and Andros first scrubs hurriedly at the tears running down his face, then more gently dries the tears upon Zhane's. "That means, we find the person wearing the other locket..."

"...and we find Karone."

.oO0Oo.

Zhane – is easy, Ashley thinks as she enters the bridge, watching as he tells a story to Alpha. The theatrical spread of his hands as he shares a revelation is pure glee. His long legs rest atop sensor's console, so close to being identical to the way that Andros' had the day they'd met that Ashley needs to blink away the doubled image. And yet – Zhane is easy in a way Andros has never been. The blond's grin is wide and welcoming, his voice taunting while still inherently kind, and his wink as he spots her hesitating by the lift door is incorrigible.

"And that's why I let her be the evil twin," he finishes his tale as he waves Ashley in enthusiastically, the movement somewhat hampered by the brace wrapped around his right wrist. "Hey, Buttercup," he greets her, his eyes crinkling in laughter as she huffs and enters, taking a seat next to him at command.

"Buttercup?" she asks, eyeing him discreetly while pretending to check on the ship's current course. Zhane's wearing a variation of the crew's uniform; black to their gray, with a shirt that could be mistaken for gray until the bridge's lights hit it at just the right angle, transforming gray to a lustrous silver. It fits him somehow; a color combination that should be severe – yet isn't. Like so much else she's noticing about Zhane, he wears the uniform easily.

"Buttercups are yellow," he grins saucily, absently scratching at his braced wrist. "And if I scream out Yellow in battle, well," his grin turns sheepish, "there's no knowing what Andros might do. Best not to risk it to begin with."

Ashley turns her chair to face him directly, giving in to curiosity. "Are you worried? Andros hasn't had another flashback, not that we know of. DECA said they were handled."

"Were handled." Zhane hums, the toe of one of his black boots tapping at the air to an unheard beat. "Not sure if I'll be quick enough, now. So – best get used to your new nickname."

He smiles with his whole body, she decides, reclining back in her chair and letting her own toes match the blond's rhythm. "I suppose you could have chosen something worse," she grants him, pausing her tapping long enough to lightly kick the bottom of his seat. "Mind if I ask another question?"

"Ask away."

"How do you end up becoming someone's imaginary friend?" Ashley's fingers establish a counter-rhythm upon the console, the percussion soothing despite the occasional mistap. "Is it, like, a Kerovian thing? Were there huge meet and greets, or an agency you signed up with? I mean, I'm assuming imaginary friend is some kind of title, or a job description, or–"

"Ashley!" Shaking his head, Zhane swings his legs off the console and turns, leaning towards her. "Are you sure you actually want to know? Most people don't." An expression flickers across his face, there and gone before she can identify it. "And no one actually ever believes."

"That must be frustrating," she commiserates; this time, her gentle kick nudges his booted ankle.

"Very much so." Crossing his legs, he relaxes back into the cushioned chair. "Okay... I suppose I should start by saying that there's all kinds of imaginary friends, and most are imaginary. Guests at a child's tea party, company on the walk to school, the friend that always wants their own plate at the table and extra dessert; all figments of imagination, characters formed from a child's psyche to help them understand the world around them."

"Yep. Mine was named Gretchen." Ashley sticks out her tongue as the boy next to her chuckles. "Don't knock her; Gretchen rocked."

"I'm sure she did." His smile wry, Zhane tilts his head back, and the startling whiteness of a bandage peeks from underneath the neck of his silvery shirt. "Anyway, those are what come to mind when most people think of imaginary friends."

"And then there's you?" she teases when his gaze returns to her own.

"Hmm. Me, and those like me. Although none," he spreads his hands and mimes running them down his body without an ounce of embarrassment, "are quite like me."

Ashley hides her smirk behind a curled finger, pretending instead to scratch her nose. "One of a kind?"

"Now I am," he says wistfully, folding his arms back across his lap. "The thing to understand is, it takes an incredible amount of magic to Call a friend. A magician or a sorceress, a warlock or a witch, an enchanter or a mage; someone with more power than experience, someone young enough to not have learned what isn't possible – will wish for a friend. For themselves, or for someone else; they'll have in mind the image of who that friend will be. And once that vision is fixed – it opens a window out into the physical universe."

"A window?"

"A window to let in the light," he says quietly, his attention turning once more to the ceiling.

"As easy as that?" Toying with her barrette, Ashley tries not to frown. "Anything can crawl through an open window."

"Exactly so." He shrugs, his fingers once again fiddling with the brace. "Those that are honorable, those that have spent their entire existence searching for the other half of themselves – they'll accept the conditions placed on the window." Looking back at her, eyes utterly serious, Zhane sighs. "We conform. But the ones that are like me, they're usually not the first to find the opened window."

"What happens then?"

"Then?" His crooked attempt at a smile is betrayed by the grief lurking at the back of his eyes. "Then we get this charming fairy tale to explain where Evil comes from."

"Hey." Placing her hand on his knee, Ashley squeezes once, offering support. Kerovan folklore, she decides, is depressing. And whatever had befallen Zhane in his past to reforge his very sense of self to fit the unrealistic ideals of a friend as portrayed by the story he'd shared with her must have been tragic. Whatever had happened to cause both Andros and Zhane to cling to each other... could have only been the end of their world.

"Hey," he repeats, his smile evening; sure and accepting and easy. "See? You don't believe a word of it."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that." Ashley removes her hand as the lift door opens; Alpha, leaving for an errand rather than anyone else coming to the bridge. "I'm just wondering; who were you, before you were Andros' friend? Who were you, before you were Zhane?"

"I've always been Zhane," he answers, standing from his chair to follow Alpha. "And Andros has always been my friend. Since the moment this universe began – he's been my friend. It just took longer than I'd expected to find him."

.oO0Oo.

It's all Andros can do not to interrupt the conversation between Ashley and Zhane. He twitches with the need to enter the bridge. To stop Ashley's probing questions and to stop Zhane's inane answers. He would pace the corridor if the tread of his boots against the floor wouldn't give him away.

It's made worse by the fact that Zhane knows he's standing outside, just out of sight. Knows he's there yet continues.

'Not imaginary,' he tells his friend grumpily, leaning against the wall as he waits for them to finish.

'But always your friend.'

He's had enough and he turns the corner, entering the bridge in time to snag Zhane by the elbow and steer him away from the lift. "I don't suppose you've managed to get any work done?" he asks archly, staring intently at Ashley until she makes a small meep and moves guiltily to the chair in front of communications. "If I recall correctly, there were still a lot of repairs needed from yesterday's–"

"Fiasco," Zhane finishes for him, sitting back at sensors and spinning once in the chair, impudent and unrepentant. "Told you it was a mistake landing there." Propping his feet on top of the console, he holds one hand out level, then moves it in a back-and-forth motion. "Repairs – are mostly done. Nanites did what they could, and I repaired the circuits the collectives were dithering over. All except the ones only accessible from the outer hull."

"Feet on the floor," Andros snaps, ignoring his friend's sudden shock over his surliness. He also ignores Ashley's raised eyebrows and the way she bites back on a question. He ignores the fact that it was usually him resting his feet on command's console, because it occurs to him as he sits there, agitated and out of sorts with both of his feet planted firmly on the floor, that it hadn't been him at all. "Now, Zhane."

With a slowness that would be mocking if it wasn't so uncertain, Zhane returns his feet to the ground, his head tilting in confusion. "Sure thing, Andros." And, 'Andros?' with a plaintiveness that somehow both soothes and encourages his anger.

Zhane had awakened from hypersleep less than a day ago, and Andros is ready to scream. His mind is a labyrinth of shadow and misgiving except for those times, so few and far between now, when Zhane speaks to him. Then, for those brief seconds, the world rights itself. Andros had ordered pie from the synthetron for breakfast. Pie.

Andros wishes his friend had stayed in the medical bay where DECA could monitor him as she'd faithfully done for the past two years. He wishes Zhane had stayed by his side this morning instead of leaving to finish repairs. He wishes Zhane hadn't talked to Ashley nearly as much as he wishes Ashley had never talked to Zhane. He wishes, and wants, and fights not to writhe against conflicting desires.

Colors are drab and food is tasteless; he wants Zhane back, back and safe within his own mind. He wants the world to make sense.

He wishes that Zhane had never woken up – and cringes as the boy beside him flinches, staring at him with wide, shattered eyes.

"Zhane!" he cries as the blond lunges from his chair and dashes towards the lift. Andros runs after him, sliding past the closing door to slam hard against the wall beyond. "I didn't mean it. I swear I didn't mean it!"

"You did." His voice as cold and cracked as the ice that had kept him stretched across the brink of death, Zhane sits across from him in the lift, drawing his knees up to his chest and hiding his face behind them. "At that moment you did, more than anything else." He lifts his head a meager inch and fixes Andros with a look both accusing and devastated. "I don't know what to do, Andros. –I didn't even know you were upset with me."

Andros slides down the wall to join his friend on the floor, running his hands through his hair and pulling as he tries to clear his thoughts. "I'm not," he says faintly.

"You're angry."

I'm not, he wants to claim. He's not. Except he is irrationally furious, as much as he's wracked by grief, and neither emotion makes sense. Nothing makes sense. "I had pie for breakfast."

Zhane's lips tremble, the closest he can come to a smile. "And for that I have to go?"

"I had pie for breakfast. And I wanted to flop my feet across the console when I joined you on the bridge. When I dressed this morning – I put on one of your shirts by mistake." Andros pulls, and pulls, until Zhane reaches over and carefully untangles his fingers from his hair.

'I don't know where you end and I begin any more.'

'Andros...'

"And it used to not matter. It didn't matter, because you were with me. You were with me, Zhane. And now – you're not. I can feel your hands in my hair, but I don't know if you're sad, or angry, or exasperated. I can't taste your happiness, or smell when you're upset. I just hurt you – but the walls around us remain gray..." He wraps his fingers around his friend's raised hands and holds on tightly enough that the few strands of hair caught between them pull free. "I am so sorry. I don't even know where the thought came from.

"I didn't mean it."

"...Come here," Zhane urges him, tugging at his hands until Andros falls forward; falls and catches himself across black-trousered knees. "Turn around; your hair's a mess." Pulling a spool of fine, silvery soldering wire from the pocket of his jacket, he stares pointedly at Andros until he turns – then gathers up the strands of his long, blond-streaked hair and begins braiding.

As filaments of silver are woven into his hair, Andros begins to relax, leaning back against the bent legs behind him. "You can't ever leave me," he murmurs dreamily, a long night with little sleep catching up to him. There's silver threading his hair, and he can pretend that he can catch the sparkle of it from the corners of his eyes. "You promised forever."

"I did." Sighing, Zhane pinches the wire off and tucks the loose end under the final wrap, finishing the braid. "Better now?"

Silver grounds him, the wire's negligible weight an anchor to reality. "You shouldn't have done that; you've aggravated your wrist."

"I suppose you can feel that?" Zhane asks with feigned nonchalance as he wriggles fingers aching from the exacting movements necessary for such fine wirework.

"...I can." Reaching over his shoulders, he pats his new braid – and smiles. "It hurt you."

Zhane muffles his sniggers into the back of Andros' jacket. "Best not let any of the other Rangers hear you gloating. They'll think you're a sadist."

Andros blinks, and begins laughing as well. "Ashley noticed the bandage over your bite."

"Ashley notices too much but doesn't understand enough." Stretching out his legs along either side of Andros, Zhane catches him in a brief, fierce hug. "Okay, Deca. We've worked things out; you can reactivate the lift."

When the lift door opens, exposing the concerned faces of Cassie and Carlos, Andros only laughs harder and waves them inside.

.oO0Oo.

Another battle in the park, with quantrons dropping from trees and rising from the lake and civilians grown complacent from repeated exposure stopping to take pictures instead of running towards safety. Another battle with another monster part machine, part aphid as far as Cassie can tell, its wings translucent and its body as green as budding leaves or Ecliptor's wire-frame accents.

Her Satellite Stunner does little more than knock the current batch of quantrons back. They burble electronically as they rise and reengage, holding saw-toothed blades menacingly before them. Each battle – there's more. Always more, and Cassie wonders if Astronema's ultimate plan is to literally bury them beneath a pile of clanking parts.

"Silver, help Pink," Andros says – and Zhane's before her firing rapidly. And each quantron that the energy bolts from his silverizer hits, stays down.

"You come in handy," she tells him, boosting her stunner by combining it with her blaster.

"So I've been told," he quips as he takes aim at, well, Cassie's still pretty sure it's an aphid if the way it's cavorting around a rose bush is any indication. He aims – and demorphs, leaving him weaponless and wearing his black and silver ship's uniform. He blinks at his now empty hands, then pulls out his morpher to tap on buttons that squeal – but do little else.

"Zhane?" Cassie asks, kicking away a quantron seeking to take advantage of the changed situation.

"Working on it," he mutters, going so far as to smack the side of his Digimorpher against his thigh. He absent-mindedly ducks beneath the swinging blades of two quantrons, his attention solely on his malfunctioning device.

Andros bursts between them and the encircling minions, his boosted saber more effective than even Cassie's boosted stunner, and she's glad for his help as they guard their compromised sixth teammate. "A little early for Silver's patented victory demorph don't you think?" Andros questions, catching laser fire along the edge of his saber and redirecting it towards...

...Cassie decides it's MechaAphid since it hasn't had the common courtesy to introduce itself.

"Armor is heavy, yet it is a proud burden, and a man standeth straight in it," Andros continues, beginning to pant as every quantron in the area starts converging on the trio, lured by the temptation of weakened prey. "So, if you could morph and do your job it would be appreciated."

That – that disparagement has Zhane looking up from his malfunctioning morpher to glare daggers at their leader's back. "My job is to be your friend and stand by your side," he says shortly, clipping his Digimorpher to his belt before dragging Cassie into position between Andros and himself. "And I've never needed a morpher for that."

Cassie is about to protest because Zhane's action has left him open to more than a dozen enemies. She's ready to twirl around him to regain her place and resume protecting him – when his arm stops her. His arm, and sheer terror as every quantron in sight starts to crumple, crushed to the grass by some unimaginable force. Instead, Cassie is left to gape at the carnage around her, twisted metal and splurting viscous fluids and even the blasé citizens of Angel Grove are taking this as a sign to flee.

"There," Zhane grouses, kicking a sparking servo out of his way as he marches to a nearby park bench, and sits. "Taken care of. Unless you want me to deal with the monster as well?"

Andros is cursing, and beneath her helmet Cassie blushes, because – wow, while the threats aren't physically possible, even seeing someone attempting to carry them out would be interesting. Ashley is giggling, and TJ stands off to the side as if he's not with them, and Carlos says, "Zhane's not on comms, you know that, right?" at which point Andros switches comms to his helmet's outer speaker and continues on his rant.

"Promises, promises." Zhane yawns, a move calculated to infuriate Andros further. "Seriously, are you going to continue standing there lecturing me, or are you going to do something about–"

"MechaAphid," Cassie chimes in helpfully.

He grins at her, giving her a casual two-fingered salute. "MechaAphid it is."

Cassie has never seen Andros enraged to the point of being speechless. Angry, yes. Irritable – nearly every second of every day. But not furious to the point that he's jerking off his helmet and tossing it to the side as he stalks towards the person he's claimed is his best friend – and hissing directly in his face. There are no words to his diatribe that she can make out, only... hissing.

Ashley is still cackling, plopping down on the chest of a crushed quantron as she clutches her sides, hiccups joining her peals of laughter. TJ – still doesn't know them if the way he's looking off into the distance is any indication. And Carlos is watching MechaAphid menace a border of tulips, his lance dangling laxly in his grip.

"Done?" Zhane asks mildly when Andros pauses for breath, tapping him daintily on his nose.

Andros goes cross-eyed as he stares down at the finger assaulting him, still wordless but no longer quite as angry if the minuscule curling of his lips serves as any indication. "Sitting because you wanted to, or because you needed to?" he manages, his helmet reappearing in his hand with a gesture Cassie would love to learn.

"A little of both?" Zhane shrugs, scratching bashfully at the back of his head. "Go take care of MechaAphid. We'll figure out what's going on with my morpher later."

Cassie can get behind that plan. Urging Ashley to stand, she signals her friends to form the Quadroblaster, a slower process than normal since Carlos has to fetch TJ from where he's wandered closer to the baseball fields. Then Quadroblaster in hand, they aim–

–and watch as an elderly woman, her faded red house dress wrinkled and her house slippers muddied, pulls a can of bug spray out from her beach tote and unloads the noxious contents directly into the monster's facsimile of a face. Cassie isn't sure who is more surprised when the attack works; herself, Andros, or MechaAphid who explodes in a cloud of fiery sparks. The elderly woman is unphased, replacing her can of bug spray with a small fire extinguisher, stooping to put out the spot fire smouldering amongst the mulch around the tulips.

"Thanks, Gabija!" Zhane shouts, waving to the old woman as she stomps out the last of the embers.

The woman squints up from her task, and leers. "Dearie, had no idea you were in the neighborhood." Satisfied with her work, she nods and straightens, returning the extinguisher to her tote. With a wink she waves coquettishly back, and with a cheery, "Ta!" continues on her way down the park path.

"Wait!" Carlos tries to catch up to her, but for an elderly woman she's fast, disappearing from sight behind an overgrown hedge. "What, what was that? I mean, bug spray? She defeated it with bug spray?"

"Better yet, how did Zhane know her?" TJ demands as he disassembles the Quadroblaster. "He's only been around for a couple of days." His expression is impossible to know, hidden as it is by his helmet, but Cassie is willing to bet it runs along the lines of done with this crap and I missed lunch for this? "Unless he's snuck down to Earth to–"

"Befriend little old ladies that can take out one of Astronema's monsters with a can of Raid?" Ashley isn't giggling again, not yet, but the hitching in her voice is a clear prelude to laughter.

Zhane watches them all, grinning smugly. "Most imaginary friends recognize each other," he tells them as he accepts Andros' help in standing. "What?" he complains as his friend lightly smacks the side of his head. "It's true!"

"You mean to tell me," Ashley says – and there's the giggle Cassie's been expecting, "that a kid wished for a grandma with terrible fashion sense and a grudge against bugs? And it was answered?"

The blond's dazzling grin fades into somber contemplation. "A child's wish was answered," he concedes, and there's no concealing how much he's depending on Andros' support to keep him standing. "But what happens to their friend once the child is no more?"

A look is shared between Andros and Zhane, long and penetrating. "Come on, let's get you to the med bay, find out what's going on," Andros tells him quietly before teleporting them both back to the Megaship in a stream of silver-shot crimson.

And it had been another day but not just another battle, Cassie thinks as she triggers her own teleport. Perhaps it was a prank she wasn't getting. Or maybe it was cultural differences – they were from another planet. But possibly it was neither, she considers, as she arrives in the work bay. Going by the stoic resignation that had briefly flashed across Zhane's face before he'd managed to plaster his customary smile into place, chances were good – it was neither.

.oO0Oo.

Ashley nibbles at a chocolate-chip cookie as she watches Zhane fidget on the bench across from her. From tugging at the long sleeves partially covering his hands, to pulling at the high neck of the off-white shirt, to scratching at the thick fabric of his black pants, his distress is enough to make her uncomfortable.

"Zhane," she chides him from around a mouthful of cookie. "Go put on something silver already. You're about to give me hives."

"Can't," he says miserably, twisting to go after an itch just beyond his reach between his shoulder blades. "Only have my sweater that has silver in it, and I haven't been able to wash the blood out of it." Too busy clawing at his shirt, he misses the judgmental look Ashley sends his way. "Usually it's not a problem; I'm fine in my ship's uniform, but TJ said I had to wear something less conspicuous to this, this Surf Spot place you're all planning on going to."

"You mean to tell me you don't have any other silver clothes?" Cramming the rest of the cookie into her mouth, she chews and activates her communicator. "Cassie? I need you in the work bay ASAP."

His blond hair sticking up in haphazard tufts, Zhane presents an oddly childish picture as he lifts up his legs and taps the tips of his shoes together. "Used to have silver shoelaces, but they wore out years ago. And I was wearing the silver shirt mom got me when I was exploded." He mentions it so casually that it takes a few seconds for Ashley to realize what he's said. And when she does she can't control an instinctive flinch. "Silver wasn't a popular color on KO-35. And what there was, we couldn't really afford. Besides, it was never this bad..."

Before he can continue further and make Ashley do something she'll regret... like give him her last cookie or buy him a kitten, anything to wipe the melancholy from his face, Cassie runs into the room with a half-finished braid dangling by her ear. "What's the emergency?" she asks, out of breath.

Ashley points dramatically at Zhane who's once again scratching, his shirt riding up as he chases an itch along his side. "This doomed soul has a closet bereft of silver. We must make as fairy godmothers, Cassie." Watching as the imperiled shirt creeps higher, Ashley shakes her head incredulously and begins to finish her friend's braid. "Zhane, you planning on losing the shirt like Andros has taken up doing?"

"That's an option?" Hopeful, he blinks up at them through golden lashes.

"No!" they tell him together, and Ashley snickers as she ties off the braid with one of her own yellow hair elastics. "No, Zhane. Adelle is very much a no shoes, no shirt, no service type of lady. Even if her business is on the beach."

He pouts at her, honest to goodness pouts with woobie eyes and trembling lips, and Ashley is standing over him shoving a cookie into his mouth before she knows it.

Smirking, Cassie opens her locker and removes a cardigan. "Clothes shopping?"

"Clothes shopping," Ashley agrees as she taps her communicator again. "Teej? Cassie and me are taking Zhane to the mall to pick him up a few outfits." She can picture the face the Blue Ranger is making – and she reminds herself to ask DECA to show it to her later. "We'll meet up with you at the Surf Spot after."

When TJ responds it's with a wariness that's as delightful as it is hilarious. "You don't need me to come, right?"

"No, you're off the hook," Cassie answers for her, swinging her purse over her shoulder. "This time."

"Then – go easy on him. Andros likes the guy for some reason; I don't want to know what he'd do if you bring his best friend back traumatized."

"Sure thing, TJ." Grabbing one of Zhane's over-long sleeves, she hauls him off the bench, clicking her tongue as she does. "This shirt is going to be the first thing to go."

"Really?" Running his fingers through his hair in an attempt to tame it, Zhane pauses to actually gnaw the material of his sleeve to alleviate the itch underneath. "I didn't think it was that bad. Someone left it behind during the evacuation of KO-16. It's how we got most of our clothes, there at the end."

Snatching the blond's earlobe, Ashley pulls his head down until she can stare him directly in the eyes. "You – are tragic. And a Disney Princess. We will get you all the therapy once we rescue Zordon, defeat Dark Specter and save the universe. Until then; yes, the shirt is that bad."

Their first stop is Hot Topic once they're able to pry an amazed Zhane away from the food court. Food deprivation, Ashley adds to her continuously growing list of things that need fixed. It joins unreasonable fear of large crowds and makes poor life choices when he drags the stretched neckline of his hideous shirt further down in pursuit of an itch that reveals a disturbingly human bite mark, deep and bruised where he'd been sporting a bandage the day before.

She is going to have words with Andros once they get back to the Megaship. Ashley's not sure what exactly they'll be, but as she catches Cassie's eye as they steer Zhane away from the goodie-stuffed display case in front of Mrs Fields', she knows that if she can't find a way to call their leader out – Cassie most certainly will.

"Here we go," Cassie says softly as they enter the store, directing the blond boy's attention to the left. "Looks like they have some silver over in that section."

"–There's so much," Zhane whispers reverently, his fingers ghosting over the gleaming threads of what could be mistaken as a respectable dress shirt if it wasn't shiny and stretchy and silver. "How am I going to choose?"

"Go wild," Ashley tells him as she pulls the shirt he's pawing off the rack, draping it over her arm. "I don't think it'll hurt to splurge a little."

Between Hot Topic and Spencer's they acquire shirts and pants, shorts and vests, and more sweaters and hoodies than Ashley is comfortable with. Frozen in a box for two years and knows it goes on to her list, as well as startled by loud noises and confused by the concept of choice. Zhane is bemused by the notion of dressing rooms but happily tries on anything they pass to him. In the end, he's dressed in a simple Henley that practically shimmers with the sheen of silver and black jeans that are unremarkable except for their silver stitching and rivets.

It's as they head back towards the food court and the exit beyond that Ashley's heart finally breaks when Zhane freezes in front of Wet Seal, his eyes blinking rapidly as he presses his hands against the thick glass of the display window. "It's beautiful," he murmurs as he tilts his head to the side. "Like a waterfall."

"Zhane?" Pressing close to his side, Cassie catches sight of what, exactly, has ensnared the blond's attention. "That's a dress."

It is quite the dress, Ashley silently agrees. And it's just as apparent that Zhane loves it.

"On Earth," she tries, standing on his other side, "dresses are usually worn by women."

"Your clothing's – gendered?" There's honest confusion on his face, followed by piercing disappointment. "–I thought the reason you didn't have me try on any skirts was because they're impractical for battle."

Cassie's reflection in the sheet glass mouths do it – and Ashley can find no reason not to. For an alien boy whose list of assorted traumas now spans several pages... there's no real reason not to.

The look on TJ's face when they enter the Surf Spot is just a bonus. Zhane's pride in his new dress is apparent; the sequined, fringed, beaded silver halter dress flares around his knees as he spins in front of Andros joyfully. "Look, look what Ashley got me!" he tells his friend as he literally sparkles like a disco ball under the restaurant's lighting.

...And perhaps Ashley won't need to have so many words with Andros later, she decides, as the red-shirted boy grins back at his friend, a mirror to his joy.

"It's fantastic! You look great," Andros says, taking Zhane's hand and twirling the beaming blond again. "Did you happen to notice if they had one in red?"

.oO0Oo.

Astronema watches the footage of the last battle against the Rangers, her brows furrowing with her growing agitation and her fingers clenching tightly around the shaft of her Wrath Staff. She watches and demands, "Again!" There, in front of her on the screen, are six Rangers. Six. Pretty little Red, pretending to be a warrior. Clumsy Yellow. Blue and Black marginally competent – for boys. Pink, about to be overcome. And... Silver.

Silver.

"Again!" she shouts, and again, and again.

Ecliptor watches at her side, silent and calculating. Astronema knows he's plotting future strategies with this new, troubling variable in mind. She knows her guardian, and knows that he's watching her as much as the footage by now. She knows he will not like the order she's about to give – but he is, in the end, hers to command and not the other way around.

"You told me," she says, cold and distant as befits a Princess addressing a lackey, "that the Silver Astro Ranger was killed during the final assault on KO-35."

"Hundreds witnessed his death, Astronema. The Red Ranger fled the battle rather than cope with the horror of the Silver Ranger's slaughter." Ecliptor regards her, not calmly but with the ease of long association. "Rather than assume a miraculous resurrection, it is more likely that the Red Ranger found another Earthling to pass the morpher on to."

"An Earthian?" she scoffs, freezing the playback at the moment Silver demorphs revealing a boy with silver-streaked blond hair and gray eyes flecked with brown. "Does he look like an Earthian to you?" Her fingers around the shaft of her staff ache but she can't bring herself to unclench them. "Does that," she advances the footage, second by second, until dozens of quantrons are demolished and left in flattened, sparking heaps across the neatly trimmed lawn of the park, "look like something an Earthian could do?"

"We have observed the Red Ranger using that attack in the past."

"Have we, though?" she muses, stepping forward until the blond's face is all that fills her vision. "Have we really? Kerovians are telekinetic, it's true – but to that extent? This isn't a parlor trick, lifting a paperweight or pushing open a door, Ecliptor. This is something... different."

"And yet we've seen the Red Ranger do exactly this."

"I wonder..." There is something familiar about the boy. Something – comforting. And that alone has her striking the butt of her staff against the floor in fury. "Are you sure that's not the original Silver?"

"The Kerovian Silver Ranger is documented as having gray hair. Not blond." Oh yes, Ecliptor's attention is fixed solely upon her now, and she hates it. "In fact, it was rumored that he wasn't Kerovian at all. Him, and the first Astro Black."

"It's Tarnish," she snarls, then, doubting her own words, "...It's tarnish?" She shakes her head, the metal ornaments caught up in black and blonde strands of hair chiming a soft counterpoint to her confusion. Her guardian is staring at her openly, but oh so silently. Judging. Well, she'll give him something to judge. With a snap she summons a monster; another insect, but oh how she loves the way insects click and skitter.

"I want you to destroy the Rangers," she tells it, her voice sweet as an arsenic-laced confection. "Under no circumstances, however, are you to engage Silver. –I must further consider the best way of dealing with him."

"Whew!" the mutated insect screeches, its multi-faceted red eyes glittering as it avidly watches the footage Astronema has restarted. Again, and again. "An entire team of Rangers is a piece of cake, but no one in the Alliance would want to take on a Silver by themselves. Let alone..." It tilts its head, antennae quivering with anxiety. "...Is that Astro Silver? I thought he was dead!"

Astronema paces, once again pausing at the moment of Silver's demorph. "It's under debate," she says, raising one eyebrow pointedly, daring Ecliptor to contradict her. "For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow die not, poor Death. What? I..." Her hands tremble upon the shaft of her staff – but not from the strength of her grip. "...What did I just say?"

"I am sure it was nothing," Ecliptor tells her, carefully turning her away from from the screen. "My Princess, perhaps you'd like to rest before we commence the attack?"

Rest, she scoffs, tossing her hair over her shoulder. Evil doesn't rest. Although Astronema finds herself desperately yearning for sleep. She wants – to dream. Biting her lower lip in indecision, she licks away the drop of blood she's drawn then prods the small wound with her tongue, chasing after the flavor.

It tastes like my magic, she thinks, then doubts. Glaring over her shoulder to the screen and the blond boy so casually destroying her quantrons; she doubts. Ecliptor. The situation. Herself.

"What do you think magic tastes like?" she asks suddenly, taking her two followers by surprise.

"Pain," the insect chortles, razor-sharp pincers clicking with excitement.

"Despair," her guardian adds slowly, having given considerable thought to his answer.

"Hmm." Her mouth is filled with the sourness of copper, but for the briefest of moments Astronema would swear she'd tasted starlight.

.oO0Oo.

"We think we've tracked down the relay node sending the ghost signals," Cassie tells him as they walk slowly towards the bridge. Andros listens to her absently, not particularly worried; DECA had quarantined the malfunctioning node hours ago and had only delayed repairs due to his orders. A faulty node in a tertiary system made for a good test of his team's burgeoning skills. Planetary Rangers slowly transforming into space Rangers, like gossamer butterflies escaping their cocoons to take wing in the void; he quirks the smallest of smiles at the idea as Cassie continues her report.

It's as they're passing the medical bay that Andros hears Alpha 6 and Zhane talking. 'Finally figure out what's triggering the loss of Power?' he asks his friend as he pulls Cassie away from the doorway. Eavesdropping is one thing, but Andros finds he doesn't care for the thought of the girl by his side watching if Zhane ends up needing to remove any more layers of clothes.

'About to,' Zhane answers cheerfully. 'Not coming in?'

'Cassie's with me.' Andros' grin widens at the other boy's mental burst of laughter. 'Hey, someone has to protect your modesty.'

'They've all seen me naked. I don't think I have any modesty left after that.'

Andros is about to retort when Alpha's aye yi yi of dismay cuts him off. "According to my calculations, you don't have very much time!" the robot laments, clearly unhappy with its findings.

Cassie's dark eyes are wide in shock. Shrinking further back into the corridor, she shakes her head in denial. "This is terrible!" she whispers to Andros from behind a trembling hand. "I – I better let the others know."

He watches her dash down the corridor towards the bridge, his grin gaining an edge as he casually enters the med bay, raising an arm in greeting when Alpha chirps a hurried hello. "Well," he drawls as he sits next to Zhane on the diagnostics bed, "Cassie's off to tell the rest of the team you're dying."

"What?" Tilting his head obligingly as Andros inspects the slowly healing bite wound on his neck, the blond frowns quizzically. "Where would she get that idea?"

"I don't know. Maybe she's noticed that the Power isn't healing you like it should. Maybe it's the random demorphing. Or maybe she came to the wrong conclusion when Alpha basically said you were running out of time." Andros hates the bite on the other boy's neck; even knowing that it will heal faster exposed to the air he wants it covered. For now, he can hide it behind his palm as he checks Zhane's pulse, strong and quickening beneath his fingertips. "Take your pick."

"Oh," Alpha dithers, picking up a tablet and tapping at it in consternation. "That isn't what I said at all! The energy levels of Zhane's Digimorpher are critically low; without a way to recharge it, he won't be able to hold a morph for more than a couple of minutes."

"But otherwise he's fine?" Andros asks, already certain of the answer.

Before Alpha can reply, Zhane slides out from under Andros' touch. "I'm still covered in bruises." Shrugging as he stands, he moves into a shoulder stretch, the joint popping as his arm reaches full extension. "Otherwise...? Yeah. Perfectly fine." Accepting the shirt Andros hands him, Zhane slips it over his head before eyeing him with suspicion. "Although I have the feeling the rest of your team is going to be treating me like I'm terminal. Why is that, Andros?"

"Our team," he corrects his friend, his grin positively fiendish. "Which needs to learn a lesson about jumping to conclusions."

"Your team, when you're setting them up against me." The blond's wry smile takes the sting out of his words. 'A prank?'

'You like pranks,' Andros assures him as he helps Zhane into his black jacket, straightening the seams with practiced ease. "Ready?"

"To play the clueless invalid?" Fiddling with his cuffs, Zhane takes longer than expected to answer. "I suppose. You know, though, that I'm going to have to start sitting some of the battles out; until I can get my morpher properly charged there's just as much chance I'll be a liability than any help."

"Zhane..." Meeting his friend wrist to wrist, arm to arm, hand over hand over hand, Andros leans forward until his forehead touches Zhane's. "We'll fight together, forever, remember? You'll never be a liability."

"You say that now," the blond says as they leave the med bay, "but I bet you'll feel differently once the others figure out they've been had and start looking for someone to blame. One thing I can tell you – I'm not going to be cleaning the Megaship alone!"

.oO0Oo.

Carlos isn't sure how they've ended up in this position, struggling against an overgrown praying mantis. Struggling, and losing until Zhane shows up – against Andros' direct order.

"Tell me again why he's the one that gets the awesome motorcycle?" TJ complains, only to be smacked on the shoulder reprovingly by Cassie.

"Because Zhane gets all the pretty things," Ashley tells him before stomping on the Blue Ranger's foot. Carlos' own foot aches in sympathy as he watches his friend stumble and fall from the unexpected attack. "How can you be so selfish, Teej?"

Carlos figures there's more that Ashley would say, but talking about a guy's impending death when said guy is patched through on the same comms' channel and listening in to every word is probably... tacky. Or cruel. Or something of the kind. Carlos is sure, at least, that his abuela wouldn't approve. He's not sure he approves, although the Silver Cycle is awesome. Just – a tad too silver for his tastes. Industrial aluminum isn't a style he favors.

"Looked like you needed a hand," Zhane says as he flips from his Cycle, landing with ease next to Andros. "Hope you don't mind."

"You shouldn't be here," Cassie scolds him, and, "You're supposed to be resting!" Ashley admonishes, and, "I don't see why DECA can't add a bike transformation to my Galaxy Glider, too," from TJ, who's leaning up against a tree and rubbing gingerly at his booted foot.

It's the praying mantis, though, that has Carlos' undivided attention. It's bug-eyed – even for a bug. And it's twiddling its pincers against each other nervously. And – it's backing away, muttering, "Uh-oh. Even if I didn't have orders, Silver's way above my pay grade." Which is more than Carlos ever wanted to know, as he starts to wonder how much the Princess of Outrageous Wigs pays her monsters, and what kind of health coverage she could possibly offer when every encounter the Rangers have with one of her flunkies leads to the monster's – admittedly satisfying – explosion-y death?

"He's, uh, getting away, guys," Carlos tries to inform them, but the girls are hanging on to Zhane's arms, and TJ is sulking. Only Andros notices both Carlos' warning and the monster's departure, and before their leader can call them to order, or call them out on their behavior...

Zhane demorphs. And blushes. And eeps as he's squished between the Powered hugs of the Yellow and Pink Rangers, which, judging by Zhane's pained expression, wasn't worth it.

Carlos returns to the Megaship with the rest of his team, if only to continue watching the unfolding dramady. It's cut short when Zhane makes a break for his room, locking the door behind him and refusing to open it for anyone. Including Andros. Who's holding a wedge of apple pie in one hand, a spool of soldering wire in the other, and wearing a smirk at odds with the supposed knowledge of his best friend's impending demise.

He's seen smirks like that before. Carlos has cousins. And cousins of cousins. And he knows when people are being played. He's had to learn, to survive the family gatherings during Easter. So he tells the girls that they should probably give Zhane space to breathe and time to process, and leaves them plotting in the work bay as he makes his way to the bridge because the mantis will eventually be back. If its paycheck depends on it killing the Rangers, it will be back.

When DECA finally sounds the alert several hours later, Carlos is ready. And he watches as Andros orders Zhane to stay back for the second time that day. It is an interesting dynamic; the blond clearly frustrated while the blond-streaked brunet swings between earnest concern and rather ham-handed comments aimed towards Silver's health, or lack thereof. There are two issues in play, Carlos figures – and one, the only one they know of, is a red herring. Why is another question entirely, but Carlos remembers Andros' first visit to the Surf Spot, and Bulk and his shake and a bottle of hot sauce. Why might not be hard to answer after all.

His last view of Zhane as they leave the bridge is of him flinging himself into command's chair, lower lip jutting out and hand flung to the side in a gesture that holds no meaning on Earth.

Of course, their second battle against the bug of the day goes just as well as their first. It has to be a record how many times the Rangers have managed to strike each other instead of the gloating insect. But for all that they're out of synch, jumping when they should be ducking or lunging right when they should have gone left, it could be worse. There are no quantrons and considering the way Astronema preferred to toss them out like party favors – it's worrying.

"I think I'm going to have to call in Silver," Andros says after they regroup after a particularly brutal attack.

"You can't, Andros," Ashley says as she holds her arm tight against her side, and Cassie follows with, "I know we can defeat it without Zhane's help as long as we focus," as she swipes at the black carbon scoring marring the chest of her pink and white uniform, ending with TJ's partly sarcastic but mostly serious, "Can't you just summon his bike to mow Stick Bug down for us?" as he hobbles into position next to Carlos.

"Stick Bug? Stick Bug?! Do I look like a Stick Bug to you?" the praying mantis shrieks, pulling out a staff to direct a barrage of green, swirling lights towards them that hit like bullets and burn like electricity. Or it could be the reverse; the impact of the green swirls hurts to much to tell.

Carlos is tired of meeting the ground this way. "It's not like you introduced yourself," he mutters as he struggles to his knees. "Guys, I think Andros is right; we need Zhane. Or that old lady with the can of Raid. We can't go on like this much longer."

"That's my cue," comes over their comms at the same moment Zhane drives past them on his Cycle, ramming the vehicle into the monster before the mantis can fire again. And TJ might have a point, Carlos concedes, because it's effective, literally running over their enemies. "Just call my name, I'll be there."

And while Carlos could do without the cheesy lyrics, the battle is easy now that the Silver Ranger's joined them. Mostly because the mantis yelps in terror the second it gets back to its feet and begins to run away as fast as it can scurry, screaming at the top of its lungs – or whatever passes for lungs in an alien praying mantis monster from outer space.

"Seriously?" Zhane grumbles as he quickly takes aim with his silverizer and shoots the monster in the back.

"We can do that?" TJ asks in a stage whisper as he offers him a hand up, and Carlos doesn't know. It doesn't seem sporting somehow, but on the other hand – alien praying mantis monster from outer space. That alone covers a lot of social faux pas.

Finally accepting the fact that it isn't going to be allowed to escape, the mantis turns – and fights. And it's so much easier with Zhane who's able to work seamlessly with Andros in distracting the monster while the rest of them assemble the Quadroblaster. Between that, Andros' saber, and Zhane's silverizer the monster is down, out, and if it's following the usual script about to be enlarged by conveniently fired satellasers courtesy of the Dark Fortress lurking somewhere far overhead.

Only the satellasers aren't fired, and the monster's defeated and gone in a billow of exploding sparks, which will never not be satisfying. And – it's been a strange day all around as Carlos watches Andros pat Zhane on the shoulder, then prod the same spot with his finger.

"Still morphed," Andros comments, sounding confused but not overly concerned.

"Turns out it was an easier fix than Alpha first thought." Then, as if only just noticing the way Cassie and Ashley are about to pounce on him, Zhane teleports away leaving the rest of the team standing idly in the middle of a grove of trees wondering what to do next.

"Cassie," TJ calls out to her thoughtfully as he powers down. "Are you sure you heard Alpha right? Because someone actually dying isn't a quick fix unless they were never dying in the first place."

"He said Zhane didn't have much time," Cassie says, crossing her arms stubbornly. "I know what I heard."

"Oh, that sneak!" Ashley exclaims, lifting her arms in overdone outrage. "He knew! He knew that we knew, or, he knew what we thought we knew... Whatever! The point is, he let us think he was dying." She pouts as she lowers her hands to her hips, and plots. "Our course of action is clear; we must take revenge."

Carlos has nothing to add as he watches Andros' lips quirk. It isn't a smirk. It isn't even the start of a smile. But it is proof enough for Carlos. An interesting dynamic, indeed.

They're all sitting around the table in the work bay, having finalized their plans for glorious retribution, when Zhane walks in. And Carlos admits, the girls are good. Their worry is plausible, their care believable as they escort the blond to the table and press a glass of juice into his hand. And Zhane falls for it hook, line and sinker as he raises the glass of swampy green liquid to his lips, except for the way he stares at Andros over the brim. Stares through lowered lashes as he shudders once, then drains the glass in one prolonged guzzle.

"That – is vile," he says as he sets the glass down, his eyes never once leaving Andros. "I guess you're on to me, then?" he asks as he stands, slowly backing towards the corridor.

As his friends crowd around Zhane, Carlos hangs back. Not by much, just enough to take in the profile of Andros' face. The crinkle at the corner of his visible eye is enough; Carlos isn't sure if it's telepathy or some other sense Kerovians possess that people from Earth don't, but Andros is talking to Zhane. Somehow. Carlos is sure of it. Zhane is harder to read, but all the answer Carlos needs is twinkling in Andros' eye.

He takes that final step forward to join the rest of the group, the other Rangers decimating each feeble excuse the blond manages to stammer. "So you're not sick at all, right?" he questions, making sure to keep any hint of accusation out of his voice.

"No, I've never felt better."

And that – that is the first lie Carlos has heard Zhane say that day. Or possibly ever. Granted, he hasn't known the other teen long, but there's an honesty about him that's hard to pinpoint. Something raw, and unapologetic. And as the others pile cleaning supplies into the blond's arms, ending with a lavender apron Cassie gleefully forces over his head, Carlos decides it's time to step in. There's no better way to end a prank, in his experience, than in turning it back on the instigator.

"Actually, guys," he says quietly, his attention split between the two from KO-35. "Did any of us even talk with Zhane today?"

"What do you mean?" Ashley turns towards him, confusion temporarily overtaking her ire. "We spent the whole day talking to Zhane."

"Talking at him, I think you mean." Carlos smiles down at her, tugging playfully at the yellow ribbon tied around her hair. He then turns slightly to include Cassie. "You said you overheard Alpha. And that Andros was with you at the time. But he wasn't with you when you told us what you'd heard?"

"No..." Narrowing her eyes, Cassie pivots abruptly, now facing their nominal leader whose mostly hidden expression of smug victory is slowly giving way to shock. "He wasn't. Which means he stayed behind and would have heard the full conversation. Which means–"

"He knew Zhane wasn't dying." TJ grins as if it's his birthday and Christmas combined. "When he was helping us think of ways to make Zhane more comfortable, he knew!"

"None of you thought it was odd that Andros' only suggestion was to make sure Zhane had plenty of pie? Andros, who stuffed his best friend in a box and froze him for two years because he couldn't accept losing him?" Carlos shakes his head, amusement getting the better of him. "My cousins would eat you alive."

"Okay, I think you've made your point," Cassie says as she pulls the feather duster from the blond's hand. "Punishment goes to Andros?"

"Hey, Zhane was still in on it," TJ argues although Carlos guesses it's less a genuine objection and more lingering envy that the Silver Ranger got a motorcycle while he had to make do with a surfboard that flew. In space. Carlos isn't always sure where TJ's priorities are, but his friend is still recovering from severe head trauma – and his heart is always in the right place. That counts for a lot. "He could've told us at any time, and he didn't."

"I'm – not sure that's the case," Ashley murmurs to herself. Carlos doesn't think he was meant to overhear, and he doesn't acknowledge her quiet statement, but it parallels his own gut instinct. Interesting dynamic but not exactly healthy. "I agree with Cassie, Andros can clean the Megaship."

Andros isn't happy as cleaning supplies are swapped, but he accepts them politely enough until Cassie attempts to remove the lavender apron from around his friend's neck. "I – don't need that," Andros whispers, and it has to be telepathy, it's the only explanation that fits as Zhane finally begins to smile, bashfully bowing his head to hide the blush spreading across his cheeks. "My mother used to wear one like it."

Oh. More puzzle pieces to work with and Carlos plans on pulling Ashley aside soon to compare notes. He watches as the two long-time friends leave together and he knows, should he bother looking later, he'll find them still together. Cleaning. Until then...

"DECA?" he asks, picking up the tablet he'd left on the table and heading towards the bridge. "What kind of health coverage does the Alliance offer its members? And do they have death benefits? Because we have to be eating away at that fund, if it exists..."

.oO0Oo.

TJ stares down at the partially disassembled Digimorpher and rubs at his eyes in disbelief. Looks again, and snarls. "Is this a joke?"

Zhane's forced demorphs had been caused by low power levels in his morpher; TJ had listened to the explanation, and worried. Because what affected one morpher might affect them all, even though Zhane's device was different. How different, TJ didn't know – but he wanted to find out. So he'd asked Zhane if he might examine the Digimorpher, and to his surprise the blond had readily agreed.

"You know I'll need to take it apart," he'd warned as Zhane had passed his morpher over.

"No problem." Sitting across from him the other boy had grinned crookedly. "There's not much you could do to it."

So he'd carefully opened it up and unscrewed the back panel to expose the inner workings. At which point he began to doubt his sanity.

There are no inner workings. No electronics. No gears. No wires. Just a hollow rectangular space exposed by the removed panel. TJ picks it up and turns it over; the front has a screen with dual shields that fold out, another foldable shield that covers a numeric pad that can also spell out mega but very little else, and an antenna that he can pull out an inch but no further. Turning it over again, he can only gape at the completely empty interior. "No, seriously," he tries again, drawing Cassie's attention where she's sitting on the bench reading. "When did you have time to create a gag morpher? How did you even know I was going to ask to see yours?"

"What's up?" Cassie asks as she joins them at the table. "I haven't seen you this freaked out over electronics since your GameBoy broke."

"Really?" Pushing the morpher towards her with one finger, TJ glowers at Zhane who's avidly watching them both, resting his chin in the palm of his hand with his elbow planted firmly on the table. "This, this is not freaked out. This is disgusted. It's important that we figure out why and how Zhane's morpher lost power, and he pulls this!"

"It's empty," she says, picking it up and turning it from back to front before dropping it in alarm as she accidentally pushes one of the numbers on the keypad causing the device to loudly wail G. "What?"

Zhane's chuckle is good-natured as he reaches across the table and reclaims his morpher. "Do you really think a couple of young kids would know what morphers look like? Let alone know how they work? This," he waggles the gutted device in front of them, "is what they thought looked neat. Let's Rocket!" he calls, tapping in his usual mega, and he morphs.

"You..." The Silver Ranger is sitting across from them, intact Digimorpher in hand. Zhane then powers down and tosses the morpher back to TJ, who only barely manages to catch it. "That isn't possible. Cassie," TJ complains to the girl next to him, "tell him that isn't possible!"

"This isn't something you can apply logic to," Zhane says placidly as he returns to his original position, tracing random patterns with the tip of his finger across the metallic surface of the table. "That," he points, "is the imaginary morpher of an imaginary friend. It can't be lost, and it can't be destroyed because I have to be a Ranger. And a Ranger needs a morpher."

TJ stares at the device with as much wariness as he would give a coiled rattlesnake. "Say I believe you. Which, for the record..." He wants to continue but can't, because it's hard to argue when Zhane had actually transformed into a Ranger using a ridiculous shell of a morpher. "Okay," he tries again once he's gathered his thoughts. "I believe you. How did it lose power, then? There's no actual power source!"

"–Hold that thought." Wincing, the blond straightens and turns expectantly towards the corridor leading to the bridge. "Umm, better yet, tell Andros you never saw me," he says as he lurches off of his stool and begins running for the jump tubes.

"Zhane!" The shout is demand and accusation at once, pitched loud enough that TJ's tempted to cover his ears. Cassie, he notices, already has. "Don't you dare!" Andros growls as he stalks into the work bay, his silver-wrapped braid twitching with every hard step like the tail of an irate cat. "Sit back down. Now. And explain why you felt the need to electrocute yourself."

"I knew you'd be like this," Zhane mumbles, avoiding his friend's burning gaze as he returns to the stool he'd so hastily left.

"What. was. that?" Andros punctuates each word with a sharp jab of his finger against the other boy's chest. "I just finished watching you scale a cliff. During a thunderstorm. Then you encouraged lightning to strike you. Twice!"

"Deca's a tattletale."

TJ would rather be anywhere else. Well, maybe not Divatox's Subcraft. Or Astronema's Dark Fortress. Or Rita's Moon Palace. In fact, the evil lair of any villainess probably tops TJ's list of places not to be. But here, in the work bay of the Megaship with Andros looming over Zhane and looking moments away from tearing the blond apart – easily makes the top ten.

He'd really, really like to be some place else, but he's afraid any movement will catch Andros' attention so TJ sits as still as possible – and holds his breath.

Cassie's braver than he, as she leans into TJ's side and presses her lips against his ear, her voice a mere suggestion of sound. "His hair."

And at first he thinks she means Andros because it's been odd the way he's changed his hairstyle from single and double ponytails to braids threaded and wrapped in silver wire. But as Cassie's fingernails dig into his thigh, it occurs to TJ that she means Zhane, and...

Oh. This can't be good, he mouths as short strands of blond dim and darken, gold giving way to lead while narrow silver streaks deepen to pewter. Rapidly blinking lashes the color of charcoal flutter across shadowed eyes that no longer reflect the lights of the work bay, and – there is no way this is good. TJ watches, unable to look away, wrapping his arm around Cassie's waist as she trembles at his side.

It's impossible. As impossible as the Digimorpher. As impossible as Zhane himself, miraculously awoken from a cryogenic crypt kept secret, kept hidden next to the Megaship's heart after two long years. Yet more than impossible, it's heartrending as moisture gleams in Zhane's dark eyes and Andros' face twists as his fist clenches in the fabric of Zhane's jacket.

"Why?" Andros shakes the gray-haired boy hard enough to temporarily lift him from the stool. "Why would you do something so stupid? I told you, you're not allowed to make decisions, not when every decision you make is self-sacrificing!" And Zhane doesn't answer, not that TJ can hear, but Andros releases his grip as if stung and stumbles back, barely catching himself on the edge of the table. "...No. It wasn't like that." Andros whips his head from side to side in horrified denial. "It was so long ago... You weren't even there!"

"Every day is like survival." Sitting with hunched shoulders and his gaze cast down, Zhane is a perfect picture of dejection. "Why do you keep expecting me to be something other than what you wanted me to be?" he asks as he grabs his morpher from TJ and clips it to his belt while standing. "You set impossible conditions, and I agreed to them. I wouldn't be here if I hadn't agreed! Yet every single time I have to actually abide by them, you pull this!"

Andros is frozen in place, an arm outstretched in entreaty. "I... It was Karone–"

Zhane laughs bitterly, his eyes never leaving the floor. "Look at me," he says, running his fingers through his dark gray hair. "There's no hiding any more exactly how happy you are that I'm around, is there? Don't." Wrapping his hand around Andros' wrist, he forces the other boy's arm down. "I'm a cloud meant to reflect you. As a friend, I'm a failure." Twisting away as Andros reaches for him again, Zhane hurries towards the lift. TJ can hear the door opening long before the gray-haired boy even reaches it.

"Zhane!" Rushing after him, Andros slams his hip into the vacated stool but pays it no heed as he continues to run forward. "DECA, hold the lift!"

"Silver currently has priority," the AI informs him coldly. "If your need to change decks is urgent, I suggest you climb."

Andros is struck dumb by DECA's denial, his eyes wide and his lips parted in silent protest. Then, vehemently spitting out words in a language TJ doesn't recognize, he changes direction, popping open a hatch along the corridor's wall and jumping inside, closing the panel behind him.

"That – happened." TJ realizes he still has his arm around Cassie; letting her go would be awkward if she wasn't grinning ruefully up at him. Drumming his fingers on the table, he considers what they'd just witnessed. "Ashley's right, isn't she? We need to have a team meeting."

"After seeing that?" Getting up, Cassie returns to the bench and the book she'd been reading.

"Yeah..." Idly examining the Astro morpher strapped to his wrist, TJ lets his thoughts wander. Without his direction, they immediately turn back to the memory of blond hair dimming to gray. "DECA?" he asks, noticing that her camera is still turned towards the corridor. "Did Zhane really get struck by lightning? On purpose?"

"Twice," she confirms. "We were not sure if a single bolt would provide enough power to recharge his morpher, and Zhane did not want to wait for another storm should once prove insufficient." The camera turns towards him with a deliberateness that's unsettling. "There is no need for concern; your own morphers are of Eltarian design and make. They're far too sensible to require such nonsensical recharge requirements."

"–Thanks, DECA. But our morphers are the last thing I'm worrying about right now."

.oO0Oo.

His life is lightning.

It's what Zhane had told him, his sending a near perfect imitation of Karone. And until that moment, Andros hadn't realized he'd forgotten what his sister had sounded like. The timbre of her voice, high and sweet as they'd lain in their hollow on the hillock to watch the passing clouds. Karone, who'd woven tiny illusions to cover his bruises and scrapes. Karone...

...who'd daydreamed with him over the qualities needed in a best friend.

He's a cloud, and his life is lightning, and he's brightest in the light.

Andros had forgotten. After losing his sister the memories had hurt – and so he'd buried them. Even now, sliding more than climbing down the ladder to deck 2, Andros can feel the memories slipping from his grasp. Stars and storms, wildflowers and wind; the harder he tries to grasp them the further away they dance.

Opening the hatch at the first landing, Andros ducks through it to the hallway beyond. Crew quarters and his door – Zhane's door – near the end; he taps his pass-code into the keypad only for it to flash red in contempt. He tries again, and again, refusing to believe that it's been locked against him.

'Go away, Andros.'

"Let me in, Zhane!" Giving up on the keypad, he punches the door staying obstinately closed between him and his friend. Pain races up from his knuckles to his elbow from the blow – but the door remains locked.

Karone was gone, lost, taken months before Zhane had appeared on the playground that long ago day. Entered his life, a boy with hair the color of charcoal and a smile bright enough to drive back shadows. Zhane – should not know what Karone had said that evening in the hollow as the clouds had billowed dark and threatening along the horizon, lightning licking down to kiss the ground. There's so much Zhane shouldn't know... but he always has.

'Did you just break a knuckle trying to beat down my door?'

"No?" Andros tries before placing the knuckle in question in his mouth, fresh blood sour against his tongue.

"You did," Zhane says as the door slides open and Andros suddenly feels exposed. Zhane, his hair the same shade as the first time they'd met, but there's no smile to provide balance. No smile as he pulls Andros' hand away from his mouth, the knuckle already swelling, throbbing with each fluttering beat of his heart. "And you got what you wanted because of it." Black lashes sweep across grim eyes as he sighs in defeat and leads Andros inside. "I shouldn't be an enabler."

Andros sits on their – Zhane's – bed, while the other boy searches for something in the drawers of his desk. Above, the glow of the ceramic stars are barely visible, drowned by the golden light of the desk lamp. "I'd forgotten... what my sister had said." The taste of copper is fading but the sourness remains. "–No one's life is lightning, Zhane. Imaginary friends aren't real. But you... you are. You're more real than anything else."

Noticeable even beneath his uniform jacket, Zhane's back muscles are tense; the trembling of folds in the black fabric give him away. "You need to believe that, don't you?" he asks, his voice a rasp against the quiet of the room. He turns back to the bed, a jar held in one hand. "I need your help here, Andros." Unscrewing the jar, he dips a finger in to scoop out a dab of ointment. It's cold as Zhane kneels beside the bed and slathers it over his knuckle. The entire room is cold. "You're not happy when I'm with you. You're not happy when I try to give you space. You don't trust me around your teammates, and you don't trust the choices I make."

"I don't trust them around you!"

Zhane shifts, his legs folding beneath him as he sits on the floor next to his bed. "You don't trust me," he repeats softly as he slowly closes back up the jar. "And you're not happy. And I don't see how I can change either of those things. I meant it, Andros. I've failed as a friend. And I need you to decide what you're going to do about it."

Clenching his fingers in the soft folds of the flowered afghan, Andros welcomes the renewed bite of pain as the broken bone shifts. "I need to decide?"

"Apparently so." Reaching behind him to place the jar back on the desk without looking away, Zhane's face is remarkably blank. "Since I'm not allowed to make decisions any more."

"You know that's a joke!"

"Not the last time, it wasn't."

And as much as Andros wants to disagree, he can't. As much as he needs to tell Zhane he's wrong – he can't. Because he'd watched his friend scramble over rocks and nearly fall, and reach out to the wrathful heavens... and be struck. And Andros doesn't know how to deal with that. Not at all.

"I only want you safe," he says as he frees his hands from the afghan. Frees them and reaches out to smooth down the dark, dark strands of the other boy's hair. "I need you safe."

"Ah." And Zhane finally smiles up at him, an empty smile bleak and lacking hope. "Shall I find a place for myself on the shelf in your bedroom then, with the other toys? Beloved, and safe, and out of the way?"

The words sear, and Andros jerks his hands away. "That's not fair," he whispers. And... if only, if only keeping his friend safe could be that easy.

'If only,' Zhane mocks him, standing and placing a chaste kiss on the crown of his head. "Luckily, you can't actually lock me away. Decide what you truly need from me, Andros. You know I'll do that which you want most."

Andros watches as he leaves the room. Stands to follow, then sits back on the bed. His hand throbs and his chest aches and his eyes burn with dryness. No one, no one should have that much say over another person. No one.

And, a moment before the memory fades, darting back to the murky depths of his subconscious, Andros wonders...

What had his sister done?

.oO0Oo.

The days drag on, dull and uninspired. They're called upon less often to defend Earth as Astronema scales back her attacks. A monster here, a handful of quantrons there; Andros had been grateful for the reprieve until he'd heard Carlos ask why.

Until Zhane had answered, "Isn't it obvious? She doesn't want me involved. She won't escalate the battles to the point you'll need me down there."

And Andros seethes as he sits at command checking for any trace of Zordon's whereabouts. Ecliptor had destroyed KO-35, and she commanded Ecliptor. He doesn't know what game she's playing. He doesn't care. Ecliptor is responsible for Zhane's death. Astronema is responsible for Zhane's death. He won't give them a second chance.

He feels Zhane staring at the back of his head, but his friend says nothing; not out loud, not in his mind. Zhane's silence speaks for itself.

Ashley had caught him entering one of the spare cabins a few nights back; her hand on his elbow had prevented Andros from escaping into its dark interior. "We're concerned," she'd told him, radiating sincerity. "We know you've been with Zhane a long time. We know you've both gone through stuff we can't even begin to imagine. But you have to see your relationship isn't healthy. This role-play between you, it's gone to far."

He'd laughed, loud and hard and hysterical until he'd realized he was crying on Ashley's shoulder, her arms around him the only thing keeping him from the floor. "You're right, you can't imagine," he giggles between sobs. "How many times have I told you? He's not my boyfriend."

"This fight won't last forever," she'd said, her hand a comforting warmth between his shoulder blades. "You'll be back together again. But it needs to be as equals."

Equals. He glares at the information scrolling across the console's screen, sector after sector now Alliance-controlled, not a single one showing a trace of the energy unique to Zordon's energy tube. 'What's wrong with being equals?' he demands of the gray-haired boy working behind him.

'Nothing.' The reply is too quiet. 'But is it equality when you have the deciding vote?' Exhaustion threads gray tendrils through Zhane's words.

Andros finds himself yawning in sympathy. Yawning, then spinning in his chair to glare at his friend so studiously working at ship's systems. Zhane hasn't been in his dreams. Since the day Andros had lost his temper and said what he's been desperately trying to take back; since that day when Andros had ruined everything – Zhane hasn't been in his dreams. No welcoming friend sharing in whimsical adventures, no dancing spark to keep safe in his locket...

'You haven't slept!' Andros says as his stomach clenches in dismay. And he's ready to stand; to march over to the other boy and grab him by the arm and force him back to the empty, sterile cabin Andros has claimed as his own. He's ready – but Zhane is glaring at him, daring Andros to do just that. And against that look, against the knowledge that his best friend expects Andros to live down to the worst of his expectations – Andros is helpless.

Fortunately, no one else on the bridge seems to have noticed their stand-off. Carlos is frowning down at his display, his scowl deepening as he flicks through notifications. "Guys," he eventually calls out, never lifting his eyes from his screen, "have any of you picked up chatter on a new Alliance faction? For the past couple of weeks there were rumors of defections from Divatox's rank and file. Some of Zedd's foot troops. Even a few of the lower ranking freelancers. But an entire mercenary troop just declared themselves for someone going by the name 'Lord Dark'."

What?

Zhane's irritation gives way at the absurd announcement; he bursts out laughing, doubling over and practically hugging the console. "Boopsie has a following!" he crows. "I don't believe it!"

"Boopsie?" Cassie asks as she tries to pull up whatever feed Carlos is looking at.

Andros isn't sure he wants to know. But he copies Carlos' current work station and sends it to the viewscreen – where he sees himself in all his garnet-cloaked glory literally crushing Darkonda against a wall in a seedy bar on Onyx. "Stars below," he whispers, appalled. "What is wrong with the Alliance?"

Because Carlos is right. Some being had recorded his one-sided encounter with Darkonda; recorded and released it. And what had started out as a trickle of support from the lowliest Alliance troops is turning into a flood. There are monsters declaring their loyalty. And requests for a manifesto. There's even footage from the Cimmeran feast of him crumpling Queen Machina; some enterprising evil-doer has added a soundtrackto the clip, and a cheering multitude when Zedd kicks what remains of her into the luridly-glowing crevasse.

"Well, in-fighting inside the Alliance can only help us, right?" Ashley sounds doubtful as she reads through the steadily growing list of supporters being added by Carlos as the teen continues to sweep through transmissions.

"Are we watching the same recordings?" TJ asks as he stares at the viewscreen, troubled and fascinated by turns. "Ash, this guy is brutal. Sure, there's always been back-stabbing between villains, but this? This is on a whole new level. He murdered Machina right in front of Dark Specter and every other Alliance leader responded as if it were nothing!"

"She would have been fine if Zedd hadn't kicked her," Andros mutters, not sure why he feels the need to defend the action, only that he does.

Carlos' strangled exhalation cuts through their scattered conversations. "Finster just declared for Lord Dark." And that puts the matter in an entirely new perspective because Finster was Rita's, through and through. And Andros wonders gloomily what the motley collection of troops and minions and minor villains will do when they realize the leader they're rallying behind doesn't actually exist. There will be mayhem, and he can only hope it's the Alliance that bears the brunt of the fallout.

"Wow. Finster triggered an avalanche," Cassie reports, her dark eyes wide as alerts ping over transmissions coming in from across the galaxy. "We've got putties switching sides. Some cogs. A squadron of tengas... And," she hesitates, her head tilting to the side and her braid pooling in a pink-ribboned pile on the console she's leaned over, "a Duchess No'odles?"

"Zhane!" Andros snaps, pressing the palms of his hands against his eyes as he feels the first twinges of a forming migraine. "Really?" His friend hasn't stopped laughing the entire time. The rest of Andros' team is focused on the emerging threat; Zhane, on the other hand... Lowering his arms, Andros turns his chair to confront the other boy.

"It's Boopsie!" Zhane's lips twitch with the first real smile Andros has seen from him in days, small and fragile but there, brightening his face. And as Andros watches, lead gray hair lightens to pewter, glacially slow and almost unnoticeable. But Andros notices. More than he can see the change, he can feel it, a stirring of happiness over a truly ridiculous situation. "Of course No'odles is going to support him! What kind of a friend would she be, otherwise?"

Andros returns the smile as he stands. He needs to lie down before the headache strikes. He needs the darkness of his room, and the soporific effect of the medication DECA's decided grants the most benefit. He needs sleep – and so does Zhane. They both need sleep, and so Andros mentally rehearses the request several times before walking over to his friend.

'–Come to bed?' he asks, without pressure, without expectations.

And Zhane blinks up at him, his chuckles fading into an intense scrutiny that nearly has Andros fleeing. 'You're actually asking,' he says, the tone so close to awe that, for a moment, Andros is overcome by shame. 'Don't tell me you're tired.'

'Headache,' he admits as he bites at his lower lip and offers his hand. 'It's going to hit soon.'

'Hmm.' Zhane's hand in his own is like coming home, and Andros takes the opportunity to entwine their fingers together. 'Then we'd best hurry.'

We. And Andros pays no attention to the gossiping whispers behind them as they enter the lift. Together. 'Ashley told me our relationship is unhealthy.' Resting his head against his friend's shoulder, Andros sighs and closes his eyes against light that sparks and sways across his vision.

'Yours and mine? Or Red's and Silver's? Or Boopsie's and No'odles?' The fingers of Zhane's other hand are in his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp beneath the heavy braid, and Andros mewls as tension drains from muscles that hadn't relaxed for days. 'They're all unhealthy from an Earthian's point of view.'

"And yours?" Andros murmurs as he leans in closer to the other boy's warmth.

"…You're no good. Baby, you're no good."

"That's mean." Managing to crack open one eye, he looks up and tries to focus on the pale blur that might be Zhane's face. "Really?"

"...Best thing I ever had, in a world gone mad..." Zhane steers him down the corridor, and he paws blindly at the keypad of the unmarked door until it opens, letting them inside. "We're both too tired for this conversation, Andros. Where's your medication?"

'Dresser.' Flopping down on his bed, Andros cringes in revulsion because the sheets are wrong. Not silver. Not red. Just – wrong, whatever color they are. He accepts the pill from his friend, letting it dissolve on his tongue, mint and bitterness not masked by artificial sweetness. 'Cold,' he whimpers, reaching out and grabbing and tugging until warmth is beside him under the wrong blanket. He snuggles into it, vaguely relieved although he's not entirely certain why.

'When did the migraines start?'

Andros pouts and pats at his chatty pillow, urging it to be quiet. He thinks he might answer weeks. Or since you left or since you woke, but sleep is pulling him under and a dream is unfolding. Stars above, and stars below, and a dancing mote like a firefly caught in his hand...

He smiles down at it, nestled in his palm. Smiles and places it carefully in his locket for safekeeping. His and safe and mine mine mine; Andros runs towards beckoning stars that twinkle nearly as brightly as his hidden, precious spark.

.oO0Oo.

Cassie finishes singing the last verse and smiles as her friends join in heartily on the chorus. The simulated flames of the campfire crackle and crickets chirp from the darkness that surrounds them as the final chords of the outro fade and her guitar strings fall into stillness beneath her fingers.

"I don't know why you guys don't use the Simudeck more often," Ashley says, splitting her attention between Andros and Zhane. "This place is awesome!"

The two young men from KO-35 stare at each other from across the fire, and Cassie huffs a small breath in frustration. When they'd left the bridge hand in hand a few days back, everyone had thought they'd made up. Had talked things over, repaired – whatever – it is between them, that Andros repeatedly claims isn't a relationship and that Ashley is sure is simply embarrassed denial. Cassie honestly doesn't care except it's plain neither of them are happy being apart. And it's starting to affect the rest of them as a team. She would hate to have to go into battle against a monster as the situation stands. Luckily, they haven't had to. Astronema, for reasons of her own, is holding back.

Cassie thinks about the swelling number of followers behind Lord Dark. Thinks of the Alliance in chaos. And considering the first two factors, she thinks Astronema may have good reason not to have launched any new attacks recently. Only, Astronema had started pulling back before the emergence of the new villain. It raises questions Cassie isn't sure she wants to look into too deeply. Only; had Astronema known about Lord Dark before he'd made his move within the Alliance's ranks?

It makes more sense than that she's afraid of drawing the Silver Ranger's attention.

Andros peers dubiously down at his toasted marshmallow, although Cassie can catch each tiny flicker when his eyes dart across the fire back towards Zhane. "There really wasn't much point," he says as he pulls a caramelized edge off of the marshmallow and lifts it towards his mouth. "Before we came to Earth most all of the Simudeck's recreational files were of Kerovan outposts. Neither one of us felt a need to revisit those." Tasting the marshmallow, he looks as if he isn't sure if he should swallow, or spit it out. "That's really sweet."

TJ, on the other hand, is eating s'mores as quickly as he can make them. "But why wouldn't you?" he asks as he licks a smear of chocolate from his lips. "Aren't you guys homesick? I mean, you've been wandering around space for years. If I were in your shoes, I'd jump at the chance of seeing my home, even if it was just a re-creation."

Andros is now looking directly at Zhane, the flames of the campfire jumping high between them, and Cassie's gut churns in foreboding. "Hey, no," she says hastily, trying to divert his attention. "TJ's just being nosy. Look at me; I left home to start my singing career and I'm in no hurry to return." But Andros is nodding, a sharp decisive tilt of his chin as Zhane reaches across the fire to take the marshmallow from his hand.

"Home." Zhane says the word reverently as he accepts a graham cracker from Carlos. "Deca, show us our home a year Before." And Cassie can hear the capitalization that marks the difference between before, and Before. Before what would be the usual question, but there aren't enough s'mores in the world to bribe Cassie into asking it.

Around them the Simudeck shimmers, the cool autumn night on Earth giving way to a warm summer day on KO-35. They're in a field full of wildflowers in front of a small, quaint cottage. Behind the house are rounded, lazy hills and a spreading forest. Above them the sky is a blue so bright that it brings tears to Cassie's eyes; she brushes them away hoping none of her friends had time to notice.

"It's so pretty," Ashley murmurs, entranced as she watches pearlescent clouds drift by.

"You think so?" His face an expressionless mask, Andros looks at the simulated world around them passively. "No matter where I turn, all I see is ash. DECA, display your record of our last visit home."

Again the room ripples, and... oh. Oh. Cassie covers her gasp with both hands, then raises them to shield her eyes and nose as wind-borne ash is whipped across her face hard enough to scratch. The house is a smouldering ruin in front of her. The field that they sit in is blackened, the breeze alone enough to disintegrate crisped tufts of grass. The forest is nothing more than dark, clawed fingers reaching desperately towards a brown, boiling sky reflecting the sullen orange of countless fires burning across the planet below.

"KO-23," Andros commands, and...

Buildings, toppled. Bodies line the broken street. Bodies on top of bodies mingled with the twisted remains of quantrons, and Cassie gags against the stench. Everywhere she looks, fires burn. Even the sky burns.

"KO-16," he continues, relentless and still so expressionless that she can't contain the whine that's rising at the back of her throat...

Sirens wailing and the thunderous boom of explosions growing closer. A skyscraper shatters as a velocifighter rams into it, and Cassie can hear the thudding of transports landing, depositing their cargo of relentless, programmed foot soldiers. Terrified crowds of people rush past them carrying luggage, carrying children, clutching on to one another as they all turn their heads towards the sky where brilliant streams of searing light break free of the enshrouding smoke and merge–

"Avera–"

"No!" Zhane shouts, glaring up at the beams of light frozen above the decimated city. "It takes both of our authorizations to unlock that file, Deca. Don't."

"Silver's objection overrides most recent request," DECA acknowledges, her voice nearly robotic. "Returning to Earth: Campfire simulation."

Cassie shakes with shock, her fingers curling in grass that's not real. Grass, fire, forest, star-filled sky; not real, please not real. Smoke clogs her throat and ash coats her skin; she tries to scrape the suffocating grime away with her nails, but they only rake across clean skin leaving welts in their wake. Not real. The chirping of crickets isn't the shelling of artillery, and the campfire... She pushes herself away from it and into Zhane's lap in the process.

"As I said," Andros pokes at the fire with the stick he'd been given to toast marshmallows with, raising a cloud of embers that swirl far too realistically up into the night sky, "the Simudeck lost most of its appeal, After."

"Man, what is wrong with you?!" Finding himself still holding a half-eaten s'mores, TJ tosses it away as hard as he can without aid of the Power. "Why would you do that?"

Setting down the stick, Andros wraps his arms around his legs and rests his chin on his knees. "Because you wanted to know," he tells TJ mildly, firelight gleaming from his gold earrings and the silver wrapped into his braid. "All of you, you always want to know. Why I am the way I am... My choices. My decisions. You never stop pushing."

"No. We don't." Carlos is comforting Ashley as they lean together for mutual support. "You showed us your final memory of your home. Why not your final memory of KO-35?"

"Carlos!" Cassie hisses, pulling away from Zhane's chest where she hadn't been crying. She hadn't, although the wet splotch darkening the teen's silver shirt seeks to betray her.

Emotion finally breaks past Andros' mask exposing a depth of grief it hurts her to witness. "Because there's some things even I can't bear to remember, okay? I can't watch my entire team die again. I can't..." he looks towards Zhane, and the gray-haired boy's arms tighten around her waist as she feels his breath catch. "Some memories you lock away. You hide them behind walls so perfect you'd never know what's lurking behind them. And you forget just so you can move on and continue fighting."

The fire pops, and crickets chirp. Patting Zhane's shoulder in thanks, Cassie allows herself one sniffle before she climbs out of his lap, back to her original spot around the campfire. Picking up her guitar, she strums a soft chord because the crackling of the campfire is no longer a comfort.

"What – what were those lights in the sky?" Ashley stammers, the bag in her hand rustling as she tries to pull out another marshmallow. "At the end? Everybody around us looked up..."

"Dreadnoughts." Easing himself down until he's lying on his back, Zhane directs his answer towards the stars shining brightly above. "They're dreadnoughts," he sighs, his hands twisting in a strange repeating pattern above his head. "And they are the end. They followed us from planet to planet until all that was Kerovan was gone. And then from moon to moon, until no one dared remember that Kerovians had traded with them; that once there were treaties and bonds of friendship. And when planets and moons were gone, and the space stations empty husks and the asteroids abandoned, the fleet began feasting on gravity itself, a canker on the singularity that holds this galaxy together–"

Reaching across, Andros takes hold of one of Zhane's booted feet and gives it a gentle shake. "You're too far ahead," he says softly, continuing the motion until the gray-haired teen's attention leaves the stars and returns to the group gathered around the campfire. "That hasn't happened yet."

"Oh." Struggling back into a seated position, Zhane blushes bright enough to be seen despite the ruddy light of the fire. "–Forget that last part, then." Holding out his hand palm up towards Ashley, he wriggles his fingers in a childish appeal. "'Nother marshmallow?"

TJ is pale underneath his naturally dark complexion. "These – dreadnoughts. They're able to destroy entire planets? And Dark Specter controls them?"

"Yeah." Accepting a marshmallow, Zhane spears it through with his stick and begins toasting it. "Although destroy isn't quite the right word. Something can be destroyed and still be rebuilt. Umm, Andros...?" He raises a gray eyebrow, and says something that sounds more like a series of musical tones punctuated by staccato clicks than any language Cassie is familiar with.

"–Planet killers," Andros replies after a few moment's deliberation. "The closest is planet killers."

"That." Grabbing another graham cracker from Carlos, Zhane unwraps a square of chocolate and quickly makes a s'mores, passing the finished product to his friend. "Except dead planet doesn't accurately convey the meaning, either. A dead planet can be a desert world. Or one without life at all. So many possible interpretations. But a planet fallen to dreadnoughts? It's not even a planet any more."

"Still too sweet," Andros grimaces after taking a small bite of the treat. "Only – worse. How are you managing to eat these?" he criticizes as he hands it back over.

"Wait wait wait." TJ looks ill, and Cassie sympathizes; her own stomach is twisting at the casually delivered explanation and she regrets the chocolate she'd indulged in at the beginning of their get-together. "If Dark Specter has these weapons, how do we protect Earth from them?"

"Protect?" Andros asks in startled dismay. "The Kerovan systems had the full militaries of three planets and a Ranger team, and we couldn't even slow them down. The only reason we had time to evacuate between campaigns is because the dreadnoughts destroy themselves when they take out a planet. Even the Alliance doesn't have a limitless supply of them; it takes a few months for new ones to be built."

"Look," TJ tries again. "I'm not saying your people didn't do their best, but there has to be a way to defeat them. There has to be, because we can't evacuate Earth."

Cassie watches as the two from KO-35 stare intently at one another; a tic of a cheek muscle, a clenched jaw, lids closing tightly over dark gray eyes as if to block out a reality grown too harsh to comprehend while brown eyes soften with compassion. "I didn't want to do this," Zhane whispers, his eyes still closed. "But Andros is right – you push. Please; if you don't need to know, don't look. Please. Deca? Unlock Avera. Authorization Silver."

The AI's camera dips then turns, the red lens whirring. "Andros?"

"Authorization Red. Unlock Avera."

Before the walls can shimmer into a new configuration, Cassie curls into a tight ball, pressing her face against the soft fabric of her uniform's pants. There is no sound to the new simulation although there is light. It finds its way past the protection of her legs and turns her vision white behind her closed eyelids. There is no sound except Ashley's panicked breaths, no sound except TJ's aborted scream of warning and his footsteps as he lunges to his feet and stumbles from the Simudeck. No sound except the steady cascade of Ashley's denials, an endless repetition of, "No no no no no."

"DECA, is it over?" Andros asks unsteadily, and Cassie realizes that even he had looked away. Andros, battle-hardened and blasé even when confronted by the worst of the Alliance's depravities, hadn't dared watch.

"Resuming Earth: Campfire simulation."

Ashley is weeping as a statue might weep, perfectly still as tears well from her eyes and fall unimpeded down her face. Her lips continue to tremble upon a litany of nos and her fists have crushed the bag of marshmallows she holds between them. Carlos is cradling her, and his rocking moves them both in a motion meant to comfort.

"Why did you look?" Wiping tears from Ashley's face with the cuff of his jacket, Carlos buries his face in her hair – and continues to rock. "We were told not to look."

"How many?" Her words oddly stilted, Ashley turns her head sluggishly as tears continue to fall without end. "How many worlds have they done that to?"

"...We don't know," Zhane admits. His hand is a warm, centering pressure against Cassie's back, rubbing small circles between her shoulder blades, each rotation just long enough for her to breathe in... and the next to breathe out. So she measures her breathing by the press of his fingers. Breathe in – and breathe out. "We've witnessed nine ourselves. Came across the remains of systems that were likely victims plenty of times more. But dozens of sectors have gone dark – and we never noticed. Eltar was tasked with monitoring and maintaining the communication links; for some reason, they didn't. I don't know. Kerova was originally lost to corruption. Perhaps the same fate befalls all empires."

"Then what do we do?" Cassie hates how small her voice is, wavering and faint. "If there's no stopping the dreadnoughts, why are we even fighting?"

"To save what we can," Zhane tells her, his voice as warm as his hand on her back.

"To mourn what we can't," Andros continues somberly with all the anguish of one who has had to survive by that creed. "And while we can't defeat the dreadnoughts, we can destroy Dark Specter. He's only a single being. Powerful, yes, long-lived, yes, but still mortal. He has weaknesses."

Cassie is surprised to hear Zhane chuckling quietly. "His arrogance. His dependence on underlings. And most of all, his reluctance to share the secret behind the dreadnought's cannons."

"...You mean..." Lifting his head from where it rests against Ashley's hair ribbon, Carlos stops his rocking motion although his arms stay firmly wrapped around her. "If we can manage to, to kill Dark Specter, we won't have to worry about the dreadnoughts?"

The hand on her back freezes, and Cassie holds her breath until the soothing touch resumes.

Andros pulls his braid over his shoulder and runs his fingers along the gleaming strands of silver woven within. "Whatever is left of the Alliance by then won't be able to build new ones. And the current fleet is far from Earth. If they're foolish enough to end another planet, the last of the dreadnoughts will be destroyed by the action."

"For now," Zhane reluctantly adds.

Clicking his tongue, Andros throws the empty graham cracker box at his friend, hitting him squarely between his eyes. "And how far into the future were you remembering?"

Zhane blinks, owl-eyed, and Cassie misses the reassurance of his hand as he begins to rapidly count on his fingers. "I – dunno? Maybe five billion years, give or take?"

"And when will Andromeda collide with this galaxy?"

Jutting out his lower lip, Zhane replies, "Four and a half. Still doesn't mean I have to be happy with the way the dreadnoughts mangle gravity."

Standing with a gracefulness that should be impossible after sitting cross-legged for so long, Andros stretches and signals DECA to halt the simulation. "Gravity on its own annoys you," he says, grasping the gray-haired boy by his forearm and helping him to his feet.

"Time annoys me. Gravity is just weird. And possessive. You know that."

Nodding as if Zhane's grievances are somehow valid and not utter nonsense, Andros escorts his friend to the door. "And you didn't agree to either," he commiserates as his hand slides down the other boy's arm, wrists brushing as their pinky fingers hook together.

"Of course I didn't!"

Strained as it is, Ashley's choked laugh eases what's left of the tension in the room. She rubs at her cheeks, then checks that the yellow ribbon holding back her hair is secure. "–Was he actually concerned about something he thinks will happen five billion years from now?"

Gathering up what's left of their s'mores supplies, Cassie gives her friend's question the serious thought it deserves. "You know what? I think he was."

Ashley and Carlos begin helping her, and soon the mess is contained to two canvas totes. "So, slumber party?" Ashley asks...

...and Cassie thinks that is the best idea she's heard in weeks. As they leave the Simudeck, and she takes one last look behind her at the now darkened room, she thinks no one should have to spend this particular night alone.

.oO0Oo.

Astronema paces beside the building she's chosen for cover, watching as the Rangers fight her most recently summoned monster. Her escort of quantrons pace behind her, back and forth, and with every pivot she glares to the side at the steadily escalating battle. She hates being on planet, as a breeze filled with millions of nasty contaminants brushes past her face inciting a sneeze. A sneeze! Wiping at her upper lip with the back of an ungloved hand, she snarls. And paces. And pivots. And glares.

Darkonda, sniveling coward that he is, had dared imply that she was shirking her duty. Her! Astronema, Princess of all things Fell and Dark; her hands upon her staff clench and a quantron out of step with the rest falls to the punishing violet lash of her magic. Darkonda, who reports to Dark Specter but serves only himself, had the gall to insinuate that she was afraid.

Darkonda, who is currently a running joke amongst the Alliance as footage of his encounter with Lord Dark spreads, and spreads, like a deadly contagion no quarantine will hold. And that is enough to bring her pacing to an end as Astronema laughs brightly at the irony. Darkonda, who thought himself a master of deceit and took inordinate pride in his double-dealing, had been duped by a simple Ranger.

She works for an Alliance of morons and fools and soon, soon, they will bow before her; to grovel at her feet or be crushed beneath them.

At her laugh, though, the Red Ranger glances her way. It's only a single second in the middle of a chaotic fight – but he sees her. She knows he does; pretty Red lets so little slip by him. And her being down on Earth would be justification enough for Red to call upon Silver. And while she knows she would win that battle easily, there are other foes more worthy of her time and energy.

Such as Darkonda, the twit with too many lives.

However, the sound of a revving motor assaults her ears and she twirls, staff held at the ready. She had not wanted to fight Silver, but she will – and she'll enjoy it. Side-stepping the oncoming bike, she can only watch in pained disbelief as it sends half her escort tumbling. Seeing Silver stepping daintily over their rolling forms as he dismounts from his Cycle only makes the situation more surreal.

"Astronema." His hail is practically polite and she grins sharply in appreciation.

"Silver Ranger. Decided to come out and play, little boy?"

"Depends." Crossing his arms, he jerks his helmeted head to his left where her monster is merrily chasing the other Rangers as if it were engaged in some demented game of tag. "Planning on joining in?"

"Ooh, the teams are already uneven; if I joined in, where would be the fun?" she asks rhetorically, pointedly licking at her lips. "You, on the other hand..." Her leer is practiced, and she giggles as he takes a single step away from her. "Not as pretty as Red, but you'll writhe beneath me all the same as I gut you."

As he summons his weapon she considers which monster to call upon. So many to choose from, so few with any appreciation for the artistic side of war. Raising her hand to snap, she has one last innuendo to deliver in an attempt to throw Silver off balance...

"Take an eel, make a loop, use him as a Hula Hoop!"

There's an eel in her hand, looping itself sinuously around her raised arm. An eel, its scales slick as melted butter against fingers that had been prepared to snap. An eel – and she doesn't know how it got there. She'd said... She'd said... something. Something unlike her. Astronema shakes her head, sending the baubles tied into her hair swinging.

She'd recited poetry.

The eel slithers across her shoulders, its blunt-snouted head nuzzling lovingly below her chin, and Silver is laughing. At her. Laughing, the gleaming material of his uniform reflecting spangles of light that snare her eyes. Laughing, and pointing, and asking, "Did you mean to do that?"

Astronema is ready for this nightmare to end. Raising her staff to destroy the impudent Ranger herself, she hesitates. Because – it's not like a nightmare at all. Not really. No, she realizes, letting the tip of her staff drop. It's like a dream. Her dreams that are filled with poetry. Her few, cherished dreams of her meadow; of wildflowers and butterflies and a boy gray as clouds and a voice... His voice...

"Leave us!" she commands, turning upon her escort. "Now!" The quantrons obey as they're programmed to obey; teleporting back to the Fortress the moment the order leaves her lips. Nodding in satisfaction, she looks over her shoulder and allows herself a sharp-toothed leer as the eel looks with her. "And you..." she purrs, her attention fixating on the Ranger. Spinning on the heels of her boots, she levels her staff at him in imminent threat.

"Hey, I'm not the one that brought the wet snake to the party."

"Aren't you? I think I have to disagree." Lowering her voice, she lets magic thread its violet tendrils through her words. "Hush, quiet now, no need to contact your little playmates. Shh shh, my dear mousling; go on, show yourself to me." And – he shakes as he manages to stop himself, hands mere inches below the clasps of his helmet. "Oh, that won't do at all," she chastises kindly, each swaying step bringing her closer to him. "I want you," she coos, laying one hand upon his shoulder to dig her sharply-filed nails into rigid muscles while letting the tip of her staff come to rest over his armored heart, "to power down!"

And – he does. The Ranger uniform dissolves into a white tank and gray cargo shorts as Silver's morph fails. Trembling beneath her hand, the pupils of his dark gray eyes blown wide in panic, is the boy from her dreams. Hair the color of pewter struck through with lighter strands like frost, and next to her hand, close enough to touch – are the scars of her bite. "You're real," she breathes in awe, pressing her nose to the mark she'd left on him. "You smell," she inhales, intoxicated by the scent, "like my magic. You smell like you're mine."

"No." His protest barely has the strength to leave his lips and she lifts her fingers to trace over them, delighting at the way they quiver beneath her touch. "It can't be you."

"Hmm?" Catching his scarred skin between two teeth, she nips until she can taste blood. And while he smells like her magic, he tastes like starlight. "Who can't I be? I am Astronema, and I can be anyone I want." He shudders as she presses her tongue against the small wound and her magic responds, bidding him calm. Bidding him still.

He fights against her hold, muscles spasming as he tries to move away, and fails. "...How can I tell him this?"

"Him?" Drawing back, she runs her fingers through his hair, marveling as locks lighten at her touch, darkening as she lifts them away. And it occurs to her it's the Silver Ranger that she's holding. The Silver Ranger of KO-35. And – he knows her. Not Astronema. He knows her. Tightening her grip, she pulls his head down, meeting him eye to eye. "You know who I am," she murmurs, admiring her reflection in midnight black pupils.

"I know who you were." He doesn't flinch as the wickedly pointed nail of her thumb comes to rest against the tender flesh at the corner of his eye, but only because the bindings of her magic hold him too closely for any large voluntary movement at all.

"Tell me," she implores, placing a kiss light as cobweb along his cheek where she knows a dimple lurks. "Tell me who I was." She can feel his lips move, cool and dry against her face – but silent, the only noise between them an odd, distressed clicking from his larynx. "Tell me!"

"–Can't," he manages, swallowing convulsively. "Won't let me."

"A compulsion stronger than the hold I have over one of my own creations?" She thoughtfully taps the tip of her thumbnail where it rests so close to his eye, frowning as charcoal lashes flutter wildly at each minute impact. "Be still!" she commands, forcing additional power into the magical bonds she's chained him with. "You're blocking my view." As his eyelids halt their rapid movement she smiles, preening as her doubled reflection is restored. "Good boy."

"Not yours," he whispers, and she can sense the glare lurking behind the beautiful emptiness of his eyes. "Never meant for you."

"Who, then? Red? Do you honestly believe I gave you away like an unwanted trinket to that twiggy Kerovian do-gooder..." She takes a calming breath as she notices a brilliant bead of scarlet seeping out from underneath her thumbnail. "You do. You actually do. Shh, apologies mousling; I know it's not your fault he stole you from me. Hmm. What to do, what to do..."

The clamor from the nearby battle is growing louder and she knows her monster will soon be defeated. They're always defeated; good help is so hard to blackmail now days. And she needs a plan before that happens; before Red has a chance to wonder why his Silver hasn't joined him at his side, faithful as any other well-trained canid. And Astronema snarls because Silver is hers.

Hers, and Red can't have him. She'll fight him over it. She'll... oh. Oh yes, she will fight him. Astronema smirks as she brings her thumb to her mouth. It's not starlight, she decides; no, magic tastes of starfire. Now dampened, she uses the digit to wipe away the smear of blood marring her creation's face.

"You will bring that sneak-thief Red to me tonight," she tells him as she cards her fingers through his hair. "Right into an ambush. Although I've heard Kerovians have a way of sniffing out Alliance... Ah. The botanical gardens; their corpse flower is blooming. Perfect."

He's still fighting her, his breath uneven and the delicate skin beneath her fingertips shivering as if trying to crawl away from her touch. Astronema smirks, pleased with his spirit. She doesn't recall making him. Doesn't recall most of her childhood, really. But she knows, she knows that nothing she's created since has come remotely close to the remarkable creature in front of her. That she made a Ranger delights her to no end. "Something to say, pet?"

Despite her control, his eyes manage to flicker down. "You don't smell as bad as most."

She arches an eyebrow, amused. "What a lovely compliment," she says, giving his ear a sharp pinch in rebuke. "Why, I think it's deserving of a reward. Now what would make a fitting gift," she ponders, tapping her finger lightly against his lips as she thinks. "Ah, of course! Re-gifting is all the rage on Earth." Sniggering as revulsion raises fine bumps across his skin, she lifts the eel from her shoulders and drapes it gently over his. "A pet for my pet," she coos before slapping him across the face, the lash of her magic burrowing the eel into his skin as a palm-sized tattoo that squirms before settling fitfully over his collarbone. She admires her work. Both her works. "Like it?"

"What did you do?"

"A gift," she insists winsomely while beneath her own breastbone something twists and thrashes, struggling to break free. It's a feeling she's grown used to over her years of service to Dark Specter, and she ignores it with the ease of long habit. "And insurance. Remember now, tonight by the corpse flower. And don't spoil the surprise for Red."

Letting him go – is hard. Calling back her magic until the chains that bind him are nothing more than a glimmer of violet only visible with mage-sight – is worse. But worth it, Astronema promises herself. Whatever nefarious hold Red has over the boy from her dreams, the Ranger's death will surely break it.

"Shoo now, mousling. We don't want Red to worry, do we?"

.oO0Oo.

Ashley's clapping loudly by the time Cassie finishes her song, the rhythm catchy and the refrain hilarious. Carlos has been clapping in counterpoint since the song began and TJ, having already known the lyrics, had sung along, his voice blending harmoniously even if it was occasionally off-key.

"Thank you, thank you," Cassie grins, giving a mock bow over her guitar. "The request lines are open!"

Ashley smiles as TJ tosses out various song titles, most of which she's sure he's making up on the spot. Her smile drops, however, as she turns her attention to her companion on the bench. Zhane had been curled up beneath the afghan when they'd entered the work bay, and he'd not responded to Ashley's first request to join him. Or her second. It had taken her hand upon his shoulder to pull him back from wherever his thoughts had led him; no place pleasant if the way he'd recoiled from her touch was any indication.

"Hey, Zhane," she whispers under Carlos' teasing demand for the theme song from the Saturday morning Power Rangers animated series. "Aren't you hot under all those layers?"

He shrugs as he pulls the blanket up higher, completely covering his black uniform jacket. "Doesn't feel like I'll ever be warm again," he says listlessly, his fingers in constant, restless motion beneath their concealing layer of yarn. "-'M sorry if I'm distracting you from your free time. Was waiting for Andros; didn't think he'd take this long finishing the mission report."

"No worries," Ashley reassures him, "you're the best kind of distraction. Besides, you can't help it if you're coming down with something." Broadcasting her intention with exaggerated motions, she places the back of her hand against his forehead and purposefully ignores the way he'd blanched at her approach. "You're clammy," she comments, lowering her voice as Cassie begins the next song – which isn't, she notes gratefully, Power Rangers. "And cold. Any chills?"

Although he's shivering beneath her touch, he gives a small jerk of his head in denial. "C-clammy like the soup?" His attempt at a grin is feeble, and Ashley would scold him if he didn't already look miserable.

"Oh, so you've already had a run in with the synthetron's version of chowder." Ashley nods wisely as she lowers her arm, returning it to the bench's padded armrest. "Word of warning; stay away from it when you're sick. It's enough to turn your stomach when you're healthy; no point risking it when you're already nauseated." Pretending to switch her attention back to Cassie, she observes him from the corner of her eye. "Must not have been fun tangling with Astronema when you're not feeling well."

Zhane – stops. The constant wringing pull-tug of his hands is frozen; his chest neither rises nor falls, his breath caught in locked lungs. Then, a tiny sound of hurt nearly covered by a boisterous chord. "No," he blinks slowly, his expression dazed. "It wasn't fun."

Ashley wants to comfort him; wants to tuck him safely against her side and wants to drive the shadows from his eyes. Mostly, she wants to know what the hell had happened during his fight against the Princess of Metal Brassieres. She wants to help him. She wants to help them both; Zhane and Andros, who between them had enough issues to pay off the student loans of an entire graduating class of psychiatrists, psychologists, and behavioral health specialists.

Want to talk about it? is on the tip of her tongue, but TJ is excitedly asking if Cassie knows Puff – the dragon, he clarifies when Carlos begins laughing, not the rapper. With a sly smirk Cassie replies that she knows both but will happily start with the dragon then move on from there. Beside her, Zhane pales further, his lips nearly bloodless. And Ashley is about to ask if he's okay... except Cassie is singing a song about an imaginary friend that dies when his chosen child stops visiting him. For a young man that truly believes he's an imaginary friend...

No, he's definitely not okay, Ashley decides as Cassie finishes singing the second verse.

Andros enters the work bay at the beginning of the third verse and Ashley waves him over, because if there's anyone on the Megaship capable of cheering Zhane up, it's his best friend. Of course, if there's anyone aboard the Megaship capable of annoying the gray-haired boy in ten words or less, that's also Andros. But Zhane had said he'd been waiting for their duty-delayed leader, and Ashley is more than willing to give up her seat on the bench if Andros would move his tush and fix this.

Andros, though, is listening to Cassie sing, his brows lowering dangerously as she's about to start the next verse, and he doesn't notice Ashley's frantic gesturing at all. "Wait," he calls out, walking towards the table. "I – I know that line. That dragons live forever." His eyes travel slowly across the room and Ashley catches herself before she can lean over and check if Zhane's still breathing, because noone living should be that still. "My mother..." His attention snaps back to Cassie, laser-like in its intensity. "What's the song about?"

Silencing the strings of her guitar beneath her palm, Cassie shares an uneasy look with the rest of the team before answering. "It's a children's song," she says, bewilderment coloring her tone, "about how kids grow up and set aside the whimsical ideas of childhood. Like Puff, his imaginary friend."

"But, the boy..." Andros struggles, fighting against the question he wants to ask. "He stops visiting, for what? Something shinier that caught his attention? And the dragon just – lets him leave? It gives up?"

"There is no let." Zhane's voice is rough, its casualness faked. He sits up, his afghan pulled close around him, and Ashley thinks she's the only one in the room aware of how badly he's trembling for none of it shows on his face. "Puff was Jackie's friend, and what Jackie wanted most when he grew up was for Puff to disappear. There's nothing a friend can do against that kind of certainty."

"He could fight for their friendship!" Andros hisses as he strides towards the bench.

Zhane offers a sickly smile up at his seething friend. "What else did Puff have to offer that he hadn't already given to Jackie?" With a stifled groan so quiet that Ashley's not certain if she heard it, or felt it, the gray-haired boy gets to his feet. "Done with work? I – we need to talk, Andros."

Clearly angry, Andros nonetheless offers his hand and together they walk out of the work bay.

"Do they have any other setting than intense?" TJ asks in the silence that fills the room in their absence, and Ashley hopes so. She really, really does, because Andros needs to fix all the things. Each and every one. Because she has just enough money to cover another shopping trip, not the student loans of dozens of psychiatrists.

.oO0Oo.

"The dragon should have fought." Andros knows he sounds sullen, but the song had disturbed him on a visceral level. He runs his thumb across the knuckles of the hand held within his own in apology. "My room, or yours?"

"Ashley's using your room." Zhane's pulled the flowered afghan up over his head; tufts of gray hair poke through gaps in the crocheted yarn, and Andros wants to blame the corridor's lighting for their dull, dark appearance but he fears there's more at play. He'd thought – he'd been doing better. He's been trying so hard to be happy. Happier. Some semblance of happy.

"Well, someone locked me out of my other room. So..."

"Come in." Keying open his door, his friend steps aside so Andros can enter first. The room looks the same, a little tidier, a little cleaner, but the feel of it has changed. It doesn't feel like his any more. "Sit – wherever."

Settling himself into the desk chair because the bed is made and proper and no longer his, Andros crosses one leg over the other and rests his hands on his bent knee. "I – I haven't heard from you since the battle earlier," he starts, not trying to hide how the other boy's silence has bothered him. "If you wanted to talk, we could have earlier...?"

"Yeah, no." Zhane's smile is brittle as he drops one of his spare tablets on to Andros' lap. "We're going to play a little game, okay? Kinda like charades, and kinda like twenty questions. Oh, and two thirds storytelling which is going to be amazing since you know how good I am at telling a story in sequence. Right? Right..." He's wringing his hands together, a twisting, pulling motion ceaseless as tides, and...

Andros is officially worried.

"Okay. A game." Reaching out, he teases Zhane's hands apart before the constant friction causes more than an inflamed redness. "How does it start?"

Tension bleeds from the other boy, a startling transformation. "Hey, Andros?" he asks, his smile wide and inviting. "Wanna go with me to the botanical gardens tonight?"

"Umm... sure?" The segue in conversation is unnerving. "I guess?"

"Great! Fantastic! I know you're going to love it," Zhane babbles without pause as he pulls his hands from Andros' grasp. "I should change; like TJ says, there's nothing inconspicuous about the Megaship uniforms." Tossing the afghan to the foot of the bunk, he shrugs out of his black jacket then quickly pulls his silver-gray shirt up over his head, letting it fall to his feet in an untidy heap, forgotten.

"Zhane...?" Andros can only watch in growing disbelief as his friend strips out of his undershirt as well, his hands moving towards the buckle of his belt with unsubtle intent. "What are you doing?" Because while they might joke, and sometimes laugh, over the times the other boy's found himself naked in unusual places – he does have modesty. More so than Andros at any rate.

"Hmm? Getting ready, what does it look like?" Zhane's voice catches part way through as his hand spasms hard enough that it jerks away from the buckle he was trying to undo. "Want to look nice, you know," he continues, giving up on the belt to begin working on his boots.

"You always look nice," Andros tells him as he tries to make sense of the rushing flow of words. "Are these gardens formal? Should I change as well?"

"Oh, you should absolutely change for the gardens–" He hisses past clenched teeth as he clutches at his right thigh. "Sorry, sorry; leg cramp." Instead of massaging the twitching muscle though, Zhane merely breathes deeply through pinched nostrils and continues removing his boots, tossing first one then the other to the far corner of the cabin. "Formal! Yes! We should probably wear jewelry; pick something out for me, Andros? You're the one with fashion sense; if it were up to me, I'd wear nothing but silver lamé."

"That's because silver suits you..." Eyeing his friend anxiously, Andros places the tablet on the desk and steps gingerly around Zhane to reach the carved wooden jewelry box sitting on the dresser. Opening it, he considers the small collection of rings, bracelets and necklaces, ignoring the pair of gold earrings he'd forgotten he'd stored there after an overlong successful mission. "Any preferences?"

"Nope." Yanking off his socks, Zhane stumbles, catching himself on the chair Andros had just vacated before lowering himself to the curved seat. "–Kinda short on time; really, pick anything."

"Anything?" Choosing a battered, metallic-beaded necklace that he knows is one of the other boy's favorites – made for him by Black out of slagged scraps found in the ruins of a former department store where they'd taken shelter for an evening long ago on KO-16 – he holds it out for inspection, then snorts as Zhane leans his head to one side in invitation. "Lazy," he says as he bends over his friend, the clasp open and ready to secure. Before he can fasten it, however, his attention is caught by a fresh bruise overlaying the still livid scars of the bite mark marring Zhane's neck. "What in all the–" Brushing his fingers across purpling skin he can feel the roughness of two small scabs.

Numb fingers drop the necklace, scattering beads across the floor. Someone had bitten Zhane again. "Who?" he demands in a harsh croak as he gently pushes the other boy's chin up to better inspect the damage. The wound isn't as bad as the original, but someone had bitten him again, and even without Zhane's familiar presence at the back of his mind, red is bleeding into Andros' vision. "That wasn't there this morning. And I know you haven't napped today."

Zhane – isn't smiling. Not his usual crooked grin and not the mad, manic smile he'd started this supposed game with; his expression is blank and his eyes utterly empty as he sits passively in the chair. Like a doll placed on a shelf, and Andros wants to be sick.

Now that he's looking, Andros can see other marks. The faint lines of scratches that run from his temple up into his hairline. A series of smaller bruises along his jaw that Andros knows would match the spread of a person's fingers. A sliver of a cut, part puncture, terrifyingly close to his eye. With each new discovery Andros' field of vision narrows. So many malicious, purposeful injuries – each hidden beneath a thin veneer of illusion he's only able to see past due to his own experiences with his sister's childish attempts to help him disguise the reminders left behind on his skin by bullies in the school yard. "...You fought Astronema."

"No." The answer is soft, spoken without emphasis or inflection.

"Are you actually telling me you didn't fight her, when you have bruises..." He stops as a possibility occurs to him; spitting out a curse he slams his fist down on the desk, then curses again when Zhane doesn't react to the violence. Not a flinch, not a blink; the other boy sits, and exists, and little more. "A game," Andros gags on the word and his suspicions multiply. "Twenty questions. Okay. –Okay, we can do this. This was Astronema?"

Silence, and the slightest flicker of gray lashes.

Muttering under his breath, Andros searches the desk's drawers until he finds the jar of salve. "Gotcha... can't confirm. But you can give a negative, which makes anything you can't answer a probable yes." Dabbing ointment on the bite wound, Andros wracks his brain to find a starting point to his questions. "...None of these could have gotten through your Ranger uniform. Astronema has a weapon that forced you to demorph?"

"...No?" This time there's the slightest hesitation to Zhane's answer, as if he wasn't entirely sure himself.

"But you did power down?" Andros moves on to the scratches, unsurprised by the lack of denial. "Magic?" He takes extra care treating the puncture by the other boy's eye, holding his finger steady as dark lashes sweep once against its side. Andros hates magic – and he hates Astronema more. "It's not that you didn't fight her; you couldn't." There's more bruising running along Zhane's torso, but it's strange; hot and oddly yielding as Andros spreads ointment over each discoloration. "I think," he says, weighing his words carefully, "that we should go to the med bay instead of those gardens tonight."

"NO!" There's pain in Zhane's voice and his hands, previously resting limply in his lap, clench hard enough that his nails leave oozing crescents cut into his palms. Andros had been expecting the protest but not the glimpse of something dark and serpentine cresting the waistband of his friend's slacks before ducking back out of sight. "...No," Zhane pants, sweat forming on his brow and manic, meaningless smile plastering itself back across his face. "The c-corpse flower will have wilted by tomorrow. It has to be tonight. A-and these pants are so plain. Don't you think I should wear the jeans Ashley got me instead?"

Gritting his teeth, Andros wraps his arm around the other boy's waist and hauls him to his feet. "Yes," he snarls, scrabbling at the recalcitrant belt buckle until it yields. "Jeans. Yes." Kneeling, he hooks his fingers beneath the waistband and yankshard enough to pop off the buttons, exposing pale legs and novelty underwear and a tattoo on the inside of Zhane's left thigh; a bile-yellow eel curled tightly around itself with its long mouth gaping wide. "Stars below." He's never seen anything like it.

The eel, noticing his attention, strikes with a flash of needle-fine teeth. Blood blooms beneath Zhane's skin as capillaries burst, and the gray-haired boy moans a high-pitched keen as the eel twists and darts upwards towards the concealment of his boxers.

"DECA! What are we dealing with?" Andros reaches to remove the last article of clothing but is stopped by a hard grip around his wrist. Looking up, he's taken aback by the horrifying contrast of pleading eyes and vacant smile. "Zhane?"

Perspiration rolls down Zhane's face and his fingers clutch harder, forming their own bruises along Andros' wrist. "It – will find a place to hide," he gasps, his spine arching in pain. "Jeans?"

"DECA? Can you tell us anything at all?" Pulling the requested pants from a dresser drawer, he helps his friend redress, catching him as he swoons as the last button is secured. Zhane's unexpected weight is almost enough to drag them both to the floor, but Andros is able to redirect the motion and they end up sprawling across the bed instead. "Hey," Andros says as he rolls over, his heart hammering rapidly against his rib cage. "Can't take you to the gardens if you faint, right? Zhane?"

"Right." Zhane shudders once, his grin brilliant while his gray eyes brim with misery. "Do you mind choosing a shirt? I – need a minute."

"I've finished reviewing footage of the past half-hour," DECA says crisply, falling back on the professionalism she only resorts to when truly disturbed. "Symptoms indicate the foreign entity's bite is venomous although scans show no trace of the venom itself. Given the nature of the suspected attacker, I would conclude that both the entity, and the venom, are magical in nature."

Taking a dark long-sleeved dress shirt shot through with threads of silver from the recessed closet, Andros closes his eyes and tries to rein in his rage. "How toxic is the venom?" he asks, voice distant and cold as the void of space.

"Indications are that it is meant to be debilitating, not lethal, although the build-up of acids and stress hormones at this point are becoming a danger in their own right." Having delivered the results of her findings, DECA's impartiality fails. "Zhane won't be able to answer many more questions, and I will need him in the medical bay when you return."

"Can we agree that Astronema plans to ambush us at the gardens?"

"No," Zhane whispers tonelessly as he accepts the shirt.

"It is more likely that her target is you, Andros." The AI pans her camera to the desk, then back towards the center of the room. "Might I suggest that Zhane handed you the tablet when you first started this – game – for a reason?"

Busy helping his friend put on the shirt he'd chosen, Andros dips his head in simple acknowledgment. "Can you handle any more questions?" Easing Zhane's arm through a shirt sleeve, he buttons the cuff before gazing back up. "We can end this now. I can take the other Rangers, and we can turn this ambush back against Astronema. There can't possibly be anything left to tell me that's worth causing yourself more pain. You're in too much pain as it is."

"...No." Leaning forward with half his shirt's buttons left undone, Zhane wearily rests his head against Andros' shoulder. And Andros can feel both the press of smiling lips against his skin and the dampness of held-back tears – and Andros is going to end Astronema. Tonight. "Isn't she pretty?" Zhane chirps, his hands twitching before resuming their odd dance of twisting and pulling against each other. "So gorgeous. Have you seen her lately?"

"Astronema." Andros' telekinetic talent is a candle compared to his friend's blazing sun, but it's enough to lift the tablet from the desk and bring it to his hand. "DECA, do we have any recent images of her?" he asks as he flicks the device on, one hand running soothingly along Zhane's side while the other brings up the Megaship's database of known Alliance leadership.

"Sorting most recent image captures to the top."

Andros opens the first picture – and looks. Astronema, black-streaked blonde hair larger than life, lifted and teased and captured in gaudy baubles. Metallic breastplate and pauldrons and gauntlets bearing wickedly sharp blades over a skin-tight, gleaming black body suit. Eyes lined in bold strokes of color and mouth twisted in scorn. Astronema. And he. will. end. her.

"We have different definitions of gorgeous," he tells his friend as his hand works higher, alternating kneading the corded muscles of Zhane's neck with combing his fingers through short, thick tufts of hair.

Zhane's breath hitches, and he cranes his neck just enough that he can see the screen of the tablet while keeping his head pressed against Andros' shoulder. "Look close enough?"

"Whatever it is you want me to find, it isn't worth it, I swear it isn't, Zhane." Enlarging the image, Andros begins examining the woman as he would a map of a battlefield, overlaying a grid and going from square to square, searching for landmines. Hair. Eyes. Smirk. Necklace. Breastplate.

...Necklace.

"No."

"S'my line," Zhane tells him, catching him in a loose hug.

"No. This, it's a trick. That's my locket!"

"Is it?"

His heart thuds in denial. In disbelief. In agony. Andros throws the tablet against the wall, smiling bitterly when he hears the screen shatter. "You mean to tell me," he says, his voice cracking, "that my sister tortured you today? The sister I've spent most of my life searching for – the sister I'm geis-bound to find – is Astronema?"

Zhane sags against him in relief as one spell unravels even as the more recent one sinks in deeper. "Astronema was Karone," he whispers, and Andros returns his embrace numbly because what should have been one of the happiest days in his life is wrong. All wrong. "I don't know who she is now."

Astronema is his sister. His sister. And as he finishes buttoning up his friend's silver-threaded shirt, Andros finds it hard to care.

He still wants to end her.

.oO0Oo.

It's not a good plan, but it's the best they can come up with on such short notice. And Andros berates himself for taking so long writing up the day's mission summary; for wasting so much time on the bridge when he'd known Zhane's prolonged silence was out of the ordinary. Usually Zhane would pester him with quips and inane observations whenever Andros fixated on paperwork, ending with the gray-haired boy showing up and dragging Andros away – often to a meal, followed by rest. Today, though, Andros had given his friend's continued quiet no further thought and Zhane had suffered from his negligence.

They have a plan, the most basic outline of a plan, and Zhane had assured him the first step would work. Should work. "You're her closest blood relative," the other boy had told him, choosing his words with painstaking care because while he could talk in a limited fashion about Karone, the slightest mention of Astronema would be enough to send him to his knees in renewed torment. "I don't think anyone else could do it."

"But I don't have magic," Andros had felt the need to point out, again.

"You're her brother. You're tied by blood and more importantly, you've grown-up with the tradition. She hasn't. She may have greater knowledge of spellwork, but that pales in comparison to geasa. Besides," Zhane had smiled, soft and trusting, "why would you need magic when you have me?"

There's a plan, and Andros doesn't like any part of it. He wishes he could have followed up on his original idea, to have the other Rangers waiting in the easy cover provided by the gardens' foliage. He wishes he could have left Zhane in the medical bay under DECA's watchful surveillance. Wishing does no good, however, against the fact that Zhane's condition is declining as evening wends towards night; unless his friend delivers him to Astronema soon...

Andros is afraid, terrified, of what the consequences may be should Zhane fail any of the conditions of the spells chaining him.

The plan begins with Zhane waiting, alone, on a bench near the corpse flower. Crowds had swarmed the exhibit during the day, but now that night had fallen and the gardens had closed, the clearing is calm and only the hum of distant traffic disturbs the silence. And, Andros admits angrily, the use of the corpse flower is a stroke of genius because he can smell nothing but the rotting stench of the gigantic bloom. Darkonda himself could be sneaking up behind him and Andros would never know – that is, if Darkonda could manage not to give himself away with premature chortling.

Zhane waits, alone, on a wood-slat bench while Andros waits perched on the lower limb of some smooth-barked tree, and he hates it. He hates waiting, and he hates having Zhane serve as bait... and he hates her as she casually strolls up the path, her staff held easily by her side and the baubles in her hair chiming as she shakes her head in admonishment.

"Pet," she croons as she nears Zhane, her hand lashing out to tangle in short gray strands of hair. "You look scrumptious. But where is your darling friend? Don't tell me Red turned down your invite; I would have thought you properly motivated. Or is Red so cruel as to deny you such a simple pleasure as a walk together in a garden?"

"He came." Zhane grimaces as she wrenches his head back, the bobbing of his Adam's apple visible from Andros' hidden perch as the gray-haired boy swallows back a yelp. "You didn't leave me a lot to talk about. Can't blame me that he got tired of the stench and my stammering."

"But I was watching, mousling." Placing a booted foot on the bench, the woman leans forward to crouch over Zhane, the tip of her staff lifting back the edge of his black vest to trace wandering circles across the silver-threaded fabric covering his chest. "I saw you enter the gardens. I saw you come here, and sit, and wait. Oh, and I do like creatures that can follow simple orders," she breathes playfully across his lips, her pointed tongue licking a broad stripe up his cheek. "What I did not see was Red. Now don't you think that defeats the purpose of our little tête-à-tête?"

Blinking gray eyes gleaming oddly bright in the light cast by the solar lamps lining the pathway, Zhane smiles innocently. "You mean you didn't see him teleport in?"

"What?!"

And that is Andros' cue. Leaping from the tree he'd been sheltering in, he charges forward, managing to worm his hand through Astronema's mane of hair to grasp her neck, skin on skin, before she has a chance to turn around and attack. "You cannot harm us," he decrees, his voice reverberating the way his mother's had whenever she'd bestow a geis. "Neither by any action, nor by inaction." Andros was born male with only a fraction of the magical talent possessed by the female members of his family, but what he lacks in power he makes up for in learning. He knows the cadences and the harmonics; he knows how to weave the injunction – and he knows how to make it stick. Blood of his blood beneath his hand; Astronema might be capable of shrugging off his amateur attempt, but Karone has no choice but to accept the burden of the geis. "You will listen to me." Then, lowering his voice to hiss into the delicate shell of her ear, "And I promise, if you touch Zhane again without my permission you will suffer. Remember, death is less bitter punishment than death's delay."

She quivers in fury before gasping in pain as the tip of her staff gouges a shallow furrow across Zhane's heart. "What did you do?" she demands imperiously as she pushes away from the bench to confront Andros head on. And Zhane shies away from her words as he had not done for any of her other actions, his eyes darkening in memory. And Andros could end it here. He could. He wants to.

"Less than you deserve," he tells her, pushing aside the staff she's leveling at him as if it were no more than a child's toy wand. "Understand me; what you've done to Zhane is unforgivable. And the only reason you're breathing right now is because I don't know if your death would remove the spells you've trapped him in. I will tell you once. Take them off."

Astronema snarls, glossy lips curling away from bared teeth. "Let my pet slip his leash so you can kill me after, then? I think not, Ranger." She raises her arm to strike, or to slap, or to slash, but the geis prevents her from finishing the motion. "I will find what you've done to me, Red, and then we'll see who suffers."

"Look, not that you're not both impressive with the threats, and the speeches, and I shouldn't forget the threats – really good threats," Zhane says as he shifts uncomfortably on the bench, "but right now I think I'm the only one suffering and I'd really rather not be." He wipes at his forehead, smearing clammy sweat, and Andros pushes Astronema aside to get to him. "–Can't say I've enjoyed your gift. You can take it back any time now."

"How much worse is it?" Andros asks quietly as he sits next to his friend. Even with a hand's-breadth between them, Zhane radiates warmth while shivering with chill. "I didn't think it would bite without provocation."

"I don't think I'm the one that provoked it." Laughing breathlessly, the other boy slumps until his head rests on the highest slat of the bench's back. "It – it hasn't bit, but it's not happy."

"Neither am I." Glaring at the woman before them, Andros snaps, "The spells?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Astronema tells them airily, twirling a strand of her hair between two fingers. "You've... done something to me that prevents me from ripping out your spine, Red. For now. But I wouldn't do a thing to hurt sweet Silver. What you're complaining about are the bonds of affection between us. Surely despite your reputation you're not so cold-hearted as to demand we forfeit such a close connection?"

One. Chance. Andros had been willing to give her one chance – and she was using it to torment Zhane further. Andros is ready to summon his morpher when the boy at his side sighs heavily, tugging at his sleeve. "Of course she doesn't know," Zhane says, using the tips of his shoes to push himself further up the bench. "Had a feeling it would come to this. Andros?" Taking a deep breath, Zhane holds it, then releases it in a rush. "She's preventing me from speaking to you."

For one long, drawn-out moment, nothing happens. Then, the air is filled with dual screams.

Zhane convulses as Astronema falls to her knees with a prolonged shriek. It's a seizure, Andros realizes as he reaches for thrashing limbs. A seizure, and he has no experience with them. "Zhane?" Only the whites of the other boy's eyes are visible; giving up on restraining his arms Andros instead supports the back of his head, cushioning it from hitting the top slat of the bench. "Come on, Zhane, don't do this to me..."

"...What is this?" Astronema moans, clutching her middle as she sinks further to the ground. "S-stop it!"

"Remove the spells!" Fearing that the convulsions might throw Zhane from the bench entirely, Andros quickly lowers his friend to the ground. "Your damn eel is venomous!" Struggling out of his hoodie, he balls it up and places it between the pebbled pathway and sweat-soaked gray hair. Cradling Zhane's face between his hands, Andros brushes his thumbs across blotchy cheeks and Calls the only way he knows how. 'Come back to me,' he pleads, his mind reaching out for any sign of awareness. 'Come back.'

"Venomous? I didn't–" Retching interrupts her protest and her fists slam against the ground as she dry heaves. "I didn't!" Too weak to stand, Astronema is forced to crawl towards them, her staff left forgotten behind her. "Show me. I can't do anything until I can see what's happening. None of my spells should have done this."

"Don't you dare blame Zhane for what you've done," he warns her as he reluctantly pulls up the hem of Zhane's silver-threaded shirt. "Your game is killing him. And if he dies–"

"I know, I know; I'm next. Sing a different song, Ranger, you're bor-ing–" Shock stops her in her tracks as she catches sight of Zhane's bared midriff splotched in large, angry patches of red and purple and sickly green. The eel, caught by surprise, hisses before it strikes again. It bites, then quickly squirms around Zhane's side to hide behind his back. "No..." Doubling over, Astronema turns to the side to vomit. "...Impossible."

Breath no longer caresses Andros' fingers, and he howls. "Astronema!"

Purple swirls around the sorceress, powerful as a cyclone, as she swipes at her mouth and angles herself back towards them. "I have to touch him to remove the spells."

"Do it!"

Her hand glows malevolently, violet and sinister as it swings down to deliver a brutal blow to Zhane's sternum. Purple flows outwards, the foul miasma sinking into his friend. And as the magic fades from view, from underneath the gray-haired boy a blunt-snouted head pokes, needle-fine teeth flashing in threat. The eel, tattoo no longer, stretches itself out longer than Andros' arm span, and he smacks it aside as it lunges towards them.

Magic catches the beast as it prepares to strike again. Tendrils of violet wrap around it, holding it mid-air in crackling bands of energy. They then compress, and the eel falls to the ground in smoking, oozing pieces.

"...How is he alive?" Astronema murmurs, her hand now disturbingly gentle as it pulls shimmering strands of purple away from Zhane's body. Out of Zhane's body, sparkling streamers that spool around the sorceress' wrist, a brilliant manacle that Andros can only catch glimpses of from the corners of his eyes. "This venom; I do not recognize it, yet somehow it is mine. It's of my magic, only..."

Andros has no attention to spare for her words. Zhane is breathing again, slow steady respirations as his body gradually relaxes, twitching muscles becoming lax, almost sickeningly pliant as Andros moves his arms to more comfortable positions and transfers his friend's head from his bundled hoodie to his lap.

'Zhane?' he asks, fingers of one hand resting lightly upon the pulse point at his neck while Andros' other hand pulls down and smooths the silken material of his shirt before coming to a stop over his steadily beating heart. 'Is the spell gone? Can you hear me? –Are you there?'

Blue-veined eyelids flutter open and eyes the color of mist at dawn slowly focus upon his own. 'I'm here,' Zhane says, his scattered thoughts drifting like specks of dust caught in a sunbeam. 'Mostly here.' He struggles to lift his arm, uncoordinated, but his smile as he manages to place his hand across Andros' own is pure victory.

'Welcome back.' Andros returns his smile and moves his hand just enough to weave his fingers through his friend's. 'We can go, now. Back to the Megaship. We should go back; DECA is going to lecture us.'

'...Not yet.' His smile retreating as quickly as it had come, Zhane's eyes flit away – searching. "You," he slurs, pointing the tip of one shoe at the sorceress sitting entirely too close, her hands a beacon of searing violet light, "are not a fun date."

.oO0Oo.

Astronema watches the two boys warily. Pretty little Red, do-gooder exterior hiding a vindictive, calculating mind. Lord Dark indeed, and she could turn him. She's sure she could. No one could hold so much hatred so close to their soul and not want to destroy the universe – or some small portion of it. And lovely Silver, her Silver, watching her as carefully as she's watching them. The boy that had given her back her dreams.

The boy she'd nearly killed.

And she doesn't know how. It's a spell she's used before; practically a parlor trick. Part spy, part babysitter, a magical construct given simulated life as a moving image. A tattoo meant to discourage certain behaviors. A deterrent. A discomfort. Not a rampaging beast punishing every contrary thought, venom in its bite and death its ultimate goal.

She favors bugs. Insects that skitter, that flutter and fly. Silly mechanicals based off of the Earthians strange electronics; machines that beep, and screens that display distorted fantasies and audio of music both enchanting and off-putting. She'd created the eel – but it had been no spell of hers. Poetry. And oh, she regrets it now. She knows better than to use those things that come unexpectedly, so conveniently to hand. Dark Specter had taught her that lesson, when the first staff he'd given her had splintered in her hands when she'd attempted to turn it against him.

She still bears the scars underneath the illusions she maintains. If only she'd remembered...

If only she'd treated her boy better.

But the pale gray eyes that watch her hold no trust. No liking. And she runs her tongue across dry lips because it would be so easy to change that. Her creation, spun through with her magic; the tiniest suggestion and he would once more be hers. She need only get him away from Red. Her error, her mistake was in trying to do too much at once. Her greedy ambition, that she could take back her mousling and destroy the Ranger both. Her arrogance, and now both possibilities have slipped away.

She can't bring herself to harm the Kerovian boy. She wants to. She wants to rake her nails down his face. Wants to watch him bleed as she licks her claws clean. Wants to wrestle him to the ground and throttle him until he admits that she's better. That she's won. But every time she prepares to attack, this new burden in her mind – some dense mass of obligation that weighs against her very thoughts – gives her pause. Whispers wait. Hints at consequences so much worse than anything she can imagine.

And she'd thought her imagination had no limits.

She needs to rethink her plans. She needs to find a loophole against this prohibition. A counterspell. Anything. She needs to know what Red's done to her... and she needs to know how to use it against him. A frisson of pleasure runs through her at the prospect; Lord Dark at her bidding and Dark Specter laid low before their combined might. Then, then, only then will she take Red's heart. She'll take it, and...

She's not actually sure why his heart is so important, only that she both wants and needs it. Astronema has had odder cravings.

Dragging her staff to her, she uses it for support as she grimly pulls herself to her feet. Red and Silver, watching her. Judging her. They will both be hers. Red her slave and Silver her pet; she sees it now. She must take them together, or not at all. She sways and only strength of will keeps her on her feet. Even now, she aches from the echoes of venom.

Tossing back the heavy fall of her hair, she leers at the boys now below her. Beneath her, where they belong. "Oh mousling," she purrs, giving Silver a languorous wink. "You have no idea how much fun I can be. But you look done in, poor thing – and I think you'll find I can be a kind mistress. Go back to that antiquated relic you call a ship and rest."

"We're not done," Red says, his voice rich with the promise of violence.

She blows him a kiss. "Oh, trust me honey, we are so done."

And the boy that plays at being Lord Dark shrinks back, his brown eyes wide in startlement, and the gray-haired boy chuffs a tired laugh.

"How did I not see it?" her pet asks with a wobbly grin that is equally as beautiful to witness as it is infuriating, because it's given to Red and not her. Jealousy bubbles, but she has better control over her emotions than her rivals claim. A plan; first she needs a new plan... and then she'll have them both. Her heart and her soul; and she shakes her head to dislodge it of that thought, because... what?

"I'm here seeing it, and I don't see it," Red counters, his expression tense while his hands, as he loops them under Silver's arms, are incredibly gentle. He helps the gray-haired boy slide into a seated position, settling him against his side and capturing him in a one-armed hug before he returns his scrutiny to Astronema. "To think," he says, his voice hard and unyielding, "after all these years, it's you. If it weren't for Zhane, I wouldn't bother. Even forced to listen, I'll doubt you'll hear a word that I say."

"I'm all yours, spiteful little Red. Is it more threats? Going to tell me how I'll be punished?" She leans over them, knowing full well the picture she paints in her gleaming body suit and molded armor. "Really, hasn't anyone taught you to save the pillow-talk for the bedroom?" She laughs at his look of utter disgust. "Oh, I'm listening, Ranger. Trust me, I'm listening."

However, Red doesn't speak. Instead, he lifts a chain over his head, holding it out before him. Golden chain dangling a golden locket, glittering in the feeble glow cast by the solar path-lights. A golden locket match to her own.

"–No," she denies, snatching the locket away from him and prying it open. A golden locket, and inside two pictures – also match to her own. Herself, and her brother. Both so young. Both so innocent. Both lost; him to death, and her to darkness.

"No!" she screams as she powers her staff. "You! You're the Ranger that killed my brother?!" She needs to attack, needs to destroy this abomination hiding behind a pretty, earnest face. She needs to end him but she can't. Whatever he's done to her – she can't and tears of frustration burn her eyes but do not fall, because she is Astronema and she hasn't cried since the day she'd lost everything that had ever mattered.

"What? No!" Red beckons with his fingers – and the locket leaps from her hand back into his. "What are you even talking about? The Kerova sector didn't have Rangers when my sister was kidnapped. When you," he says, his voice the menacing rustle of Lord Dark, "were kidnapped."

"Rangers killed my brother," she growls as she begins to pace, since the actions she most desires to carry out she cannot commit. "My brother, and my mother; I lost my family that day!"

"Uh, as far as I know Mom's still traveling around the galaxy looking for her friend," Silver tells her, ducking his head as she spins sharply to hiss at his presumption. "Really! Look, she gave me the locket to give to you. A little girl stolen from her brother while they were playing in the woods. A little girl trapped by a spell; only those that already knew where she was imprisoned could be told." He sits straighter, his smile blossoming with joy. "Which means, somewhere in your heart, you know. You've asked me before who you were. And I can tell you; you were once Karone."

The name resonates within her. Karone. The sweetness of a meadow full of wildflowers. The ozone tang of a summer storm. A night sky full of stars and an azure sky full of clouds. A mother with distant eyes always searching for a treasure misplaced. A brother scratched and bruised holding her hand; them against the world.

She squats and reaches out, wrapping her fingers around Red's silver-woven braid. Blond streaks running the length of brown hair. Amber brown eyes, angry and hurt and worried and determined. Stars help her, they match. Red, and the precious picture kept safe all these years in her locket; they match.

"In the beginning," she whispers, the words acrid as they pass her tongue, "there was light."

"And it was bright. And it was hot," Red whispers back, an ocean of pain disguised as a voice. "So bright, and so hot, that the light couldn't move."

Astronema does not cry, but Karone, it seems, still could.

"Someone's told the story wrong."

.oO0Oo.

TJ had been playing volleyball in the Simudeck. Against craterites, which may have been his first mistake. Or his second, if he accepts the fact that he'd considered using the likenesses of Angel Grove High's female volleyball team his first. Actually, telling Cassie about his plan to use the likenesses of the championship-winning team was his first mistake. Had he not told Cassie, well, a craterite wouldn't have been present to send him careening into one of the posts holding up the net. And his wrist wouldn't be sprained. Or possible broken.

It is a night for mistakes. He's not aware that there are already people in the med bay, not until he walks in on Zhane lying on the examine bed in nothing more than his boxers with Andros hovering over him looking like, well... TJ would turn around and leave, and maybe get a bag of ice from the synthetron, but the other two teens have already spotted him, which – awkward.

And Zhane's torso is a mass of bruises, lurid under the medical bay's bright lights. The bruises extend over his shoulders. They stain his thighs and cover his calves, and TJ shudders in empathy over so many injuries placed so closely together that in some areas he can't tell where one bruise begins and another ends.

TJ might wear blue now, but he will always be Red, no matter the morpher, no matter the team. And one of his teammates is injured, and he hadn't known. He's Red at his core – and he should have known. "Astronema do that to you today?" he asks, because if she did he needs to reassess all of their strategies and tactics. Andros had informed them when Zhane had first awoken that Silver was considered to be one of the strongest Ranger colors in the galaxy. If Astronema had done that to Zhane...

His team is in for a world of hurt.

Zhane blushes, pink spreading from his cheeks and down his neck until the flush merges with the bruising. "Umm..."

Andros rolls his eyes, pulling a sheet from a drawer underneath the bed and spreading it across his friend. "This," he says snidely, "is what happens when you get chummy with the Princess of Evil. I can't believe," he tells the gray-haired youth, "you criticized her dating technique."

Quirking his brow, Zhane smirks. "Just doing the rest of the universe a favor; I should print her a survey to hand out to her next obsession. Five points for effort, one for shared interests, and check the box for 'will never date again'. Does her entry in our Alliance database come with a warning? I feel like she should come with a warning. That sparkles purple. And maybe has a klaxon."

"You, you didn't actually go out on a date with Astronema, did you?" The idea alone is enough to give TJ hives. "Villainess Extraordinaire, hair like a unicorn puked after a bender, likes sending giant bugs and anthropomorphic calculators to kill us every other day? Because, man – we need to talk if you did."

"She asked me to meet her at the botanical gardens tonight. How could I say no?" There's something sly about Zhane's smile, a secret that lurks under the surface, but Andros is nodding in agreement and TJ... TJ's walked Cassie's dog. He knows there are some steaming piles a person really shouldn't stick their foot into.

"–Right." TJ would like to believe he's the victim of a practical joke. Would give anything to believe that. But Zhane's covered in bruises – and neither Zhane nor Andros would have known that he'd been playing volleyball tonight. Or that he would have sprained his wrist when he'd been blocked by a craterite. Or that he would have been coming to the med bay to check that his wrist wasn't actually broken. "But are you okay? Those bruises look bad."

"I have suggested," DECA says tersely, "that he return to the healing chamber. The Power isn't properly compensating for the – nature – of the bruising. Hypersleep would be the most expedient method of recuperating and would address other issues as well."

"No." Andros' tone brooks no argument. "Not unless there's no other option."

"Could always ask Astronema if she could kiss 'em to make them better. Oww!" Rubbing at the side of his head where Andros had just swatted him, Zhane draws up his knees beneath the sheet and wraps his arms around them. "Then what about you–" Another warning thwack stops him mid-sentence. "Got it; no joking about our crazy, vinyl-loving nemesis."

"No, no joking," Andros says. "She's never getting you alone again." Then, leaning over the exam bed, he places a feather-light kiss against his friend's bruised shoulder. "Better?"

"Yeah." Smiling dopily, Zhane snuggles deeper beneath the sheet. "Lots."

And – TJ is going to grab a bag of ice from the synthetron and take it to his room, and if his wrist is still bothering him in the morning, then – and only then – is he going to ask DECA if the med bay's free. "Why is Ashley always right?" he complains, shaking his head at Andros' questioning look and Zhane's sudden confusion. "Poor life choices. Right here, right now; nothing but poor life choices," he mutters as he waves a hasty good-bye and retreats.

Instead of ice, maybe he needs ice cream more. And Tylenol, because it's definitely time for another team meeting.

Aliens are weird. Even if they're human-ish aliens. Still, an intervention should work regardless. Dating Astronema. Yick.

.oO0Oo.

"The light traveled as fast as it could, and sometimes it traveled faster than it could, because the light was old and had no use for the rules of the current universe."

"Faster than light, light. Interesting." Ashley looks up from her Glider, a smudge of grease running along the side of her nose. "Did it ever manage to find its partner? The universe is a pretty big place and it's always expanding. Be a shame if the story doesn't have a happy ending, though."

"Hmm." Tossing his wrench into the air to hover with his other tools, Zhane leans forward to wipe away the grime with the pad of his thumb. "You're supposed to grease the bearings, not yourself," he tells Ashley haughtily as he wipes his hand clean with a nearby rag.

"Everything related to the Power has self-repair functions, so why are we always doing maintenance? On the Megaship, on our morphers, on our Gliders..." She feigns a pout as she begins screwing a plate back into place. "Aren't Rangers supposed to focus on the fate of the galaxy? Not – tune-ups. Or are there galactic mechanics and Andros is too cheap to use them?"

Zhane laughs and nudges her shoulder before he slides back underneath her Glider. "The ship's nanites don't catch everything. And some of the stuff they do find, they can't repair themselves. As for mechanics; would you trust your equipment to anyone that wasn't a Ranger? And with Eltar fallen..."

She catches a glimpse of his gray eyes, oddly light even when narrowed in contemplation, as he peers out at her from the shadows. "Yeah. I guess you have a point." Securing the last screw, she scoots back against the cold hanger floor, dragging her tool box with her. "There aren't many Ranger teams left, are there?"

Grunting, Zhane hammers something back into place in the undercarriage. "Not as many planets left. Not like there used to be. Rangers draw their power from the Grid, but the Grid is ultimately powered by the people Rangers are created to protect. No planet, no Rangers." Humming, he twists, his hands digging into a bundle of glowing cables. "Technically, the Astro morphers should have become nothing more than fancy pieces of junk when KO-35 was lost. A few surviving Kerovian convoys aren't enough to Power a team. There's a lot Zordon and I have disagreed on, but he's thorough, I'll grant him that. He had the foresight to tie your morphers to space itself. Every settlement, every station, each moon and asteroid and ship – is yours to protect."

"That's depressing." Staring down at her pad, she runs another check. "Looks like that took care of it, Zhane. So," placing each tool back into its slot within the box, she pauses to scowl at the gunk caked underneath her manicured nails. "You know Zordon? Did you meet him the same time as Andros?"

"Not quite." Another bang followed by a click, then the gray-haired boy is rolling out from underneath the yellow Glider, coming to a stop with his head resting indolently against her ankle. "We're old friends, me and Zordon. And if the meddling busy-body hadn't spent millennia stashing Powers and equipment across the galaxy like the universe's greatest hoarder... well..."

With a grin she reaches forward to run a finger down his cheek, leaving behind a trail of glistening black. As his nose wrinkles with affront, she giggles and christens the upturned tip with smelly goo. "How did he know, though? That we'd need new Zords? Upgraded weapons, and upgraded Powers; is it because of the time warp?"

Giving a mock growl, Zhane lunges forward, hands smirched with grease teasing defilement. "All you beings of matter, fixated on the flow of time." He tackles her and takes fiendish delight in running his hands through her light brown hair leaving behind dark, sticky streaks.

"Zhane!" Her complaint would carry more weight if she wasn't still giggling.

"Ashley!" Waggling his eyebrows, he moves off her, lying by her side on the cold, hard floor. "Time is a single point. And from that point everything, everywhere happens at once, and it happens every way it can. Zordon has had that viewpoint. The trick is in actually being able to sort out forty eons of events."

Pouting, she returns the favor by tangling her fingers in soft gray strands, her nails lightly scratching at his scalp. Instead of retreating, he purrs and pushes up into her touch. "You," she scolds, continuing her scritching. "Kerovians aren't actually human, are they? You're big, giant cats in disguise."

"Not Kerovian," Zhane denies with the ease of long practice, slitting his eyes as he stretches against the floor. "Keep that up and I'm going to fall asleep."

"Andros would be on the warpath if I let you sleep here. You're on medical leave."

"Hmm..." He yawns, teeth sharp and white beneath the hanger's glaring lights. "What were we talking about, again?"

She tilts her head, thinking back. "Did the light find its partner? You never answered."

"Oh." He sighs and flattens himself further against the ground, and Ashley wonders if the freezing floor feels good against his healing bruises. "Time passed, as time does for those stuck in its flow. And windows opened, and windows closed, but none were the right window. None Called to the light. But the light kept moving because to stop would mean giving up hope. To stop being light.

"Then, one day, a new window appeared. And you wouldn't believe the conditions attached to it." Pale gray eyes blink up at her, hazy and happy and warm. "But it was meant for the light, and so it went through."

"And they lived happily ever after?"

He grins crookedly before another yawn breaks free. "We should get cleaned up. Or I really will fall asleep here, and I'm not supposed to nap without Andros. Just in case."

Ashley scoffs but offers him a hand up – a hand slick and blackened by grease, but she figures it's the gesture that counts. "And their happily ever after?"

"–Ask me again later."

.oO0Oo.

The light does what light is wont to do.
It travels, seeking windows.
Time is an abstract concept, and yet...
The light knows that time has passed.
Until a window opens far behind it, along the edges where the light had first begun to scatter.
To go through the window means leaving most of itself behind.
It's a sacrifice the light makes without thought.
It arrives, no longer the brightest.
No matter; it's still the oldest.
When the ending circles 'round again, it will reclaim what it has lost.
What's important is, the light is no longer alone.
And yet, and yet, and yet...

.oO0Oo.

It's – another bug. A ladybug, to be precise, with a Brooklyn accent. Puffing away at the stub of a stogey, it, he? keeps demanding to know when lunch is. Carlos has dealt with countless monsters, defeated enemies that had left him with nightmares and an increasing number of phobias – but this? This bug wearing a hardhat and swinging a crowbar is too much in an entirely different way. "Astronema is really scraping the bottom of the barrel," he says as they begin assembling the Quadroblaster.

"Did you know ladybugs aren't true bugs?" TJ asks as he adds his axe to the collection.

"Well, I'm not calling him Ladybird," Cassie says as her stunner slips into place.

"No, he's not really giving off Ladybird vibes, is he?" Ashley's slinger completes the Quadroblaster after a brief delay, because her weapon should have been the first to attach to Carlos' lance, and it takes a bit of jiggling before it slots in properly. "Can we call him Tony? He feels like a Tony to me."

Carlos knows Andros is rolling his eyes behind the concealment of his helmet. He'd roll his eyes as well, but he needs to aim the 'blaster at – Tony – and finish the battle so he can go back to binging bootleg episodes of Gundam Wing with Zhane. And how Zhane had acquired expertly subtitled bootleg copies Carlos is sure he doesn't want to know, but he figures DECA is involved somehow and the less said about that, the better. He's worried enough about the AI's enthusiasm over Evangelion. Or really, any of the mecha-based anime.

He fires and the energy blast merges with the spiraling shot from Andros' saber; together, they strike – Tony, and just, why? why did Ashley have to go there? – and the insect goes down in a flurry of sparks. Which – still satisfying. Carlos pumps his fist in victory and is ready to teleport back to the Megaship...

...but it appears that Astronema is up to her old tricks as lasers rain from the sky, striking the remains of, yeah, Carlos isn't going to call a hundred and twenty foot rampaging ladybug monster Tony. Because that is totally uncool to Tonies and Anthonies and Antonios around the world. Maybe he can convince Ashley the monster looks more like a Vincent instead, since Carlos has always found Vincent Price a little creepy. Plus, the actor would have probably been honored having an actual real-life monster named after him.

"Looks like it's time for the Astro Megazord!" TJ shouts, cutting off Carlos' train of thought. And it's a good idea considering the way Vincent is kicking down abandoned warehouses over by the harbor. Carlos is ready to jump into the shuttle and get down to some serious monster whooping as soon as the Megaship transforms when a burst of static over their comms distracts him.

"No." It's Zhane – and he doesn't sound happy. Of course, he hadn't been happy being left behind while they'd gone down to Earth to fight, but he's still recovering from injuries that Andros had stated were classified and TJ had claimed were from a date gone terribly wrong. Not that Carlos is going to judge that sort of thing... It's yet another item he's sure he doesn't need to know about. "You have two other Megazords. Use them."

And Andros places a gloved hand over his polarized visor, and sighs. "Silver, we're not supposed to escalate a battle."

"Red, you want to see a fight escalated, I dare you to use our home as a giant punching bag!"

Throwing up his hands, Andros caves. "Wow. He just folded. Like a towel. A wet, moldy towel," Ashley giggles, and Carlos finds himself agreeing. That was an epic fold. And he wonders, is this what their leader had been dealing with back when they'd all thought Zhane dead and Andros just – kinda crazy? If so, Carlos has a lot more respect for him. Or, a different kind of respect. Just, respect all around because Carlos likes Zhane, but the guy is a whole 'nother level of insane.

DECA said Silvers were renowned for it.

So they form the Mega Voyager instead, which sets Zhane off further as he fills their comms with, "Cramming mega in front of a word doesn't make it better!" And Vincent is a tough bug to crack; seriously, who knew ladybugs had such killer left hooks? Vincent is too dignified a name, as the monster lands a blow that would be illegal in any sanctioned boxing match. Carlos debates the pros and cons while he does his best to block a hit that manages to disable the servos in the Voyager's right arm.

Biff. The monster is a Biff beyond doubt.

Andros calls in the Delta Megazord and Carlos wonders if there's any way to mute the Silver Ranger. He settles for removing his helmet and flinging it across the cockpit. Cassie grins knowingly at him as she does the same. Andros – just whimpers, and grimly continues to pilot Delta remotely.

Mad props; all the respect.

Even with two Zords – and Carlos isn't going to use the word mega anywhere Zhane has a chance of hearing – they're not able to bring Biff down. And Carlos is too used to his helmet blocking his rambling from the others, because Ashley is giggling again while TJ lays a reassuring hand on his shoulder, and pats.

"We no longer have a choice!" Andros argues, slapping the console for emphasis. "DECA, we need the Astro Megazord now."

"Really?" Zhane is suddenly sharing their viewscreen with Biff, and Carlos doesn't know which one looks more threatening. On one side, a multi-story high monster currently using Delta as a trampoline. On the other, a gray-haired teen – scowling. Carlos is putting the money he doesn't earn as a Ranger on Zhane. "Deca, patch me through to the Dark Fortress."

Now, now the viewscreen is split three ways: bug, youth, and Astronema's top general in all his green-grid glory.

"Rangers," Ecliptor greets them, his gravelly voice edged with traces of confusion. "Have you contacted us to offer your surrender? I must warn you, only your deaths will be acceptable to Dark Specter."

"We are absolutely talking about surrender."Carlos isn't sure what DECA has done to the lights on the Megaship's bridge to lighten Zhane's hair to near platinum; the effect is impressive if a trifle overdone. "Your boss keeps trying to wreck my home! Every single time; send a monster down, enlarge it, and let it duke it out with the ship. I've had enough. Withdraw your monster or I'm coming up to the Fortress. And let me tell you, you don't want me on the Fortress."

Ecliptor hesitates. "It's your decision to bring the Astro Megazord into battle," he rationalizes.

Zhane growls, low and deep in his throat. "Don't make me go over there."

Aboard the Dark Fortress, Carlos can see a minion stumble into view of the camera, sheets of flimsy fluttering in its clawed hands. "We have confirmation; that is the original Kerovian Silver!" It then turns several eyestalks towards them, realizing that it's within view of the Rangers, all of the Rangers – and squeaks. "O-orders, General?"

"Hypothetically," Ecliptor asks, slow and deliberate, "what would happen should you 'come over'?"

Andros is hunched across his console, helmet off and his head buried under his arms. Carlos feels bad for him, he does, except Zhane's his best friend and shouldn't Andros be used to these kinds of situations by now? Carlos is growing used to them. Kind of.

The old lady with the can of Raid... maybe he can give Andros the benefit of the doubt. Some situations are just too weird.

Case in point, Zhane is grinning, and looks like he's glowing; it's hard to tell, there's so much silver light distorting his image. "Hypothetically, wanna find out?"

The transmission from the Dark Fortress drops, followed by the link to the Megaship. The viewscreen of the Mega Voyager shows only Biff scratching his back up against a teetering office building. It then shows Biff being vaporized by lasers originating from high Earth orbit, or beyond. It then shows the harbor district, a little worse for wear – and nothing more.

"Did that actually happen?" Cassie questions as she rubs at her eyes. "Did Zhane just bluff Ecliptor into destroying his own monster?"

The soft, steady thunking sound filling the cockpit is Andros repeatedly hitting his head against his console. "Bluff. Right," he says, sounding hysterical. As he begins laughing, loud and shrill, Carlos is going to label it hysterical.

.oO0Oo.

Astronema has little use for sleep – but she's trying. She lies in bed for hours each night. Naps at random intervals during the day. She sleeps, and she dreams, but she's not able to catch him. Silver, Zhane, is avoiding her somehow. She's disappointed but not surprised.

If she could somehow avoid herself, she would.

The Red Ranger is her brother. Pretty, vicious Red. And perhaps she needs to stop thinking of him in terms of 'pretty' since he's her brother but pretty he is. Which only makes sense since she is gorgeous. More than ever, she needs Lord Dark. Andros. She needs his rancor supporting her and fully turned against Dark Specter.

Andros and Zhane; if she had them at her side the galaxy would fall at her feet, ripe for the taking.

She sits and she strategizes in the depths of her mind, the safest place for thoughts of treason – but not inviolate. Even her mind isn't entirely safe from her master's depravations, though she's gnawed at the tendrils of his regard. Frayed them to frazzles as the opportunities arose. She will overthrow him, it is inevitable. So many plans coalescing, like a chain of diamonds brilliantly faceted as she examines them one by one. Her best ploy, however, so close to fruition – she must rethink.

There is no Silver in her group. There would never have been a Silver and now she knows why. Silver is reserved for her mousling, and her mousling alone. Evil as she is, Astronema has always held a fondness for the color silver. There is, though, a Red. A particularly virulent Red; a being filled with malice and little else. She'd celebrated as its training progressed, rejoiced as it beat its rivals down and took its rightful place as leader. And oh, she'd been looking forward to the time when her Red confronted Astro Red.

Astro Red – her brother, and it's inconvenient. She should, she supposes, contact Andros when the opportunity arises. Even when he's not donning the role of Lord Dark he's seeking ways of destroying their mutual enemy. Perhaps he'd see the benefits of her plan... Perhaps he'd even relish the chance to hone his skills against an opponent created to be his equal. His better, but she'd best not tell him that.

Twirling her finger against the desk top, she lets the shimmering streamers of violet magic soothe her, and it leads her into a light meditation.

Lord Dark has accrued quite the following. Not an army by any means; it's a collection of misfits. Foot soldiers always late to battle and out of step. Minions that failed in tiny, easily dismissed ways. Monsters too shy, or too smart to send against Rangers. They are, Astronema realizes with astonishment, the dark's version of conscientious protesters. It startles a laugh from her, and the gleam of her magic fades along with her concentration.

"Astronema," Ecliptor hails her and she wonders how long he's been standing in the doorway. It could be minutes; it could be hours. Ecliptor has had practice in watching her. She waves him in although he does not sit. He never does; too on guard to ever relax around her. "I have the Silver Ranger's transmission for your review."

She watches it even though she's seen it already. Had seen it play out in real time, while the monster she'd sent to sow chaos had tossed about the Rangers' Zords as if they were little more than toys. It's as entertaining now as it had been the day before. Dear Zhane, bright as a nova, delivering an absolutely absurd threat and the bridge crew of her Fortress practically wetting themselves as a result. She can't help but smirk.

"And why did you decide to accede to his demand?" she questions casually. She would have done the same, but she's curious as to her guardian's reasons.

"He is Astro Silver," Ecliptor concedes, his voice the thoughtful slide of pebbles washed by the surf. "Did you not personally destroy KO-35 in revenge for his death? Or am I mistaken?"

Narrowing her eyes, Astronema taps the tabletop with sharply pointed nails. "That – is pure speculation, my General. Correct as the case may be; still, it's unlike you. Do you believe I'd turn on my own forces should something befall Silver now?"

Red eyes regard her warily. "Your orders not to engage Silver stand, my Princess. Do I think you would turn on us? No. Not only us. This galaxy would perish under the scourge of your wrath, that is what I believe." He places his hand on her desk next to her own. "Am I wrong?"

She sighs and lets her fingertips brush across his as her tapping comes to a stop. "You rarely are." She graces him with an impish grin. "The shadowy tempest that sweeps through space...Yes, this disappointment of a universe would face my fury, and lose. So great would be my loss, my only remaining desire would be to share it." She traces the lines of his fingers, runs her thumb up to his wrist; hard and synthetic, so different from her own organic skin yet not so different from her state of mind. "And since I would actually like an empire to rule – let's keep my precocious Silver safe for now, hmm?"

"As you command," he acknowledges with a small dip of his head. "It will not be a difficult order to enforce. Our squadrons have an irrational fear of him."

"But not you?"

"My fear is completely rational." Ecliptor's fingers flex beneath her palm and she tightens her grip in rebuke. "I have faced him before, on KO-23. It is plainly evident that we both survived, but I cannot say I am eager for a rematch. I do not know who would have been the victor had the Red Ranger not called him from the battle. My pride would claim that I am the worthier warrior, but logic deprives me of certainty. I have killed many Rangers in my time, and even Silvers have fallen to my sword, but Astro Silver..."

She nods because there's no need for him to give voice to that which they both know; her mousling is special. "I will find a way to bring him to heel," she tells him coolly, trailing her hand up to Ecliptor's elbow. "Him, and Red. It seems only proper that I have my brother by my side when I conquer this quaint planet he's been fretting over." Beneath her hold her guardian tenses, and Astronema allows a cruel sneer to steal across her face. "Ah ah! None of that now. Can you imagine my surprise when I discovered that my dear, dead brother wasn't as safely in his grave as I'd been led to believe?"

"Astronema–"

"You and I, Ecliptor, were made for Evil. Constructed or forged, we are firm on our path." She stands, summoning her staff and pointing it towards his neck where she knows his armor is thinner and his power conduits run perilously close to the surface. "Why, then, lie to me? Why tell me my family was murdered by Rangers?"

Ecliptor does not have the ability to blink. Neither can he cry, nor physically express sorrow, but there's pain in his voice when he answers. "There is one whose orders I must follow above all else, even yours. And I was ordered, my Princess. Although I knew it would cause you grief – I was ordered."

"Dark Specter." Releasing her General, Astronema's sneer turns mocking. "Story of my life. Go," she motions him as she sits back down. "Find something to entertain the Rangers with. Something ludicrous – but not deadly. I do not think I need tell you what the consequences will be should Red or Silver be harmed? Go, go; make sure I'm not disturbed. My plans... need revision."

He turns to leave, and then turns back. Ecliptor cannot blink, and he cannot cry, but some sadistic technomancer had programmed him with emotions nonetheless. "My Princess, I am sorry."

Her sneer softens with understanding. "Soon," she promises him, and nothing else as her finger returns to tracing obscure designs against the metal surface of her desk.

.oO0Oo.

Cassie doesn't understand the algorithms of the search currently running. Most of the operations controlled from sensors are monitored by DECA; of the few that need a crew member's verification, Cassie is familiar with a handful. She knows how to check for debris, meteors, dust, enemy ships. Those are easy and come with ear-piercing alerts and flashing red indicators. But when it comes to signals – she's lost. She can no more tell a solar flare from an alien power plant, except the flares were usually larger. With more static. Except when they're not. Especially if the alien power plant is in the middle of a meltdown.

Andros had set the parameters for the search and Zhane is standing behind her as he attempts to explain what, exactly, the various wavelengths represent. Which isn't as helpful as he seems to think it is, as he tells her that finding pinholes in time is all about what they're not able to pick up on sensors. Cassie is sure there must be easier ways to locate the particular time warp signature associated with Zordon...

"Oh, there usually is," the gray-haired teen tells her as he leans over her shoulder to join her in staring at the screen, and Cassie hadn't realized she'd said that out loud – although knowing Zhane he could just as well have guessed her current thoughts. Zhane is scarily good at reading his fellow Rangers. Zhane is also good, however, at getting people to mutter under their breath in exasperation as their patience wanes; he's tricksy that way. "Finding Zordon used to be easy; I'd just triangulate the worst source of my headaches."

That makes no sense. Which also seems to be a universal truth regarding the boy now reaching around her to input new commands into her console. She gapes as the screen begins scrolling backwards, and pinches the bridge of her nose as her own head begins to ache. "How does that even work?" she complains, slapping his hand away from her station.

He grins, unoffended. "Zordon had a habit of punching holes through time to snoop. You Earthians have a great saying; death by a thousand paper cuts. It's a perfect metaphor for his actions."

"You could feel when Zordon established a connection to the time stream?" Cassie asks doubtfully as she tries to figure out what Zhane did to her console. It's not only scrolling backwards; as far as she can tell, it's also using a base-twelve number system. "Does this have anything to do with the way you rant over time in general?"

"I do not rant. I make pointed observations."

"Uh-huh. Which is Zhane-speak for rant." Unable to restore normal function to her console, Cassie discreetly signals DECA to reset her display. Stifling a sigh of relief as the screen flickers back to its normal configuration, she does her best to ignore the wounded pout being aimed her way. It's – difficult. She can see why Andros tends to shove slices of pie at his friend whenever they have a disagreement. Zhane's puppy-eyes are lethal. "–If I were to believe that you can somehow perceive Zordon's disruptions, which I'm not saying I do, but if you could, why can't you now?"

"Dark Specter." His answer is stark and without his usual humor. "The energy tube Zordon's now trapped in, it's – wrong. Infected. The frequencies are all over the place, and the doppler corrections I've been running are inconsistent. It's almost like we're no longer dealing with time, but–"

Cassie waits for him to continue, tucking a long strand of dark hair behind her ear as numbers and graphs continue to stream past. "Don't leave me in suspense," she teases, pausing the feed. "If we're not dealing with time," she asks as she turns her head towards him, "then what... Zhane?"

He's still leaning over her shoulder, but there is no trace of a pout left on his face. Or any other emotion that Cassie can discern. At most there is a faint crease between his brows; it's not enough to be puzzlement. Not enough to be anything. "Zhane?" she tries again as she prods his side with her elbow, hoping the nudge will be enough to gain his attention. When his only reaction is a rapid fluttering of his eyelashes, she worries.

"DECA?" she calls uneasily. "Is Zhane – okay?"

"Andros will be here momentarily," the AI responds as several cameras turn to face them. "Please see if you can maneuver Zhane to the floor; his brain activity closely resembles a progressing absence seizure. Likelihood of it transitioning to a tonic-clonic seizure is extremely slim, however he may be disoriented as he recovers."

"A seizure?" Wrapping her arms around his waist, she stands before carefully lowering them both to the bridge's polished floor. It's not as difficult as she'd been expecting; Zhane is pliant in her grasp, his joints unlocking at her first movement. "How many seconds in?"

"Approximately thirty-five. I am detecting activity atypical for absence seizures along with the expected electrical abnormalities. Considering his other ongoing medical conditions, I'm tempted to teleport him to the med bay."

"Not yet," Andros orders curtly as he strides out of the lift and on to the bridge. "He's upset about something but it's garbled. Hey," he whispers as he crouches next to them, his braid partially undone and locks of blond and brown hair tumbling unheeded over his shoulders. "I'm here. Try again."

The fluttering of gray-lashed eyelids slow to languid blinks, and Cassie can see awareness return to vacant eyes. "Mmm," Zhane murmurs, his muscles flexing gently beneath her hands as he shifts position. He's still leaning against her, but she's no longer his sole means of support. "Gravity."

Which means nothing to Cassie. Andros, on the other hand, stiffens and rises, his gaze zeroing in on the nearest camera. "DECA, scan for gravitational anomalies. The ones Zhane dislikes more than his general loathing for singularities." Which – also means nothing to Cassie. Zhane's antipathy towards the universal Forces is nearly comical in its irrationality, but Andros' reaction...

It's not humoring his friend while Zhane recovers. Andros is anxious. Almost panicked.

DECA's voice, when she reports, is mournful. "One such instance found at furthest sensor range." The bridge's viewscreen switches from the scenic sight of their current location to a star map that Cassie finds vaguely familiar. "Estimated time of arrival one hour thirty-three minutes."

"No..." Andros breathes out as he collapses into his chair at command.

Against her Zhane stirs, his head craning up to study the map. "We can get there before it," he says as he absently pats her arm, the motion not entirely coordinated. "It would be tight but we could."

"And then?" Andros asks as he finishes unraveling his braid, threads of silver filament gathered in his palm. "There wouldn't be time to begin evacuations. We'd arrive only to watch the dreadnought fire. –I don't know how many times I can bear witness to the death of a world. I'm tired of surviving, of fleeing while friends die."

"That's a dreadnought?" Cassie glares balefully at the single red dot moving steadily if slowly across the projected map. And the map is familiar now that she can pay it greater attention. A shattered planet in the system of a dwarf star orbited by an asteroid just large enough to have compressed into a lopsided orb; Cassie remembers a rainbow of children, small and furry and precious as they snuggled into her lap to listen to stories. "What are its defenses like? How long would its shields hold out against the Megaship's ion cannons?"

"It's not cloaked so we shouldn't be dealing with Darkonda." Using the back of Andros' chair for support, Zhane hauls himself to his feet. Cassie rises next to him, an arm pressed against the gray-haired teen's back as a precaution she hopes is unnecessary. "Kinwon sent squadrons against the dreadnoughts as they neared KO-41; as far as I know not a single one of our counter-offensives was successful."

Catching Zhane against her arm as he sways back, Cassie helps him into her chair at sensors, frowning down at his bashful grin. "Kinwon? Was that another Ranger?"

"Kinwon was head of the combined Kerovan militaries, or what remained of them by the end." Andros' own frown is intimidating as he passes his handful of supple wires to his friend. "I think he made it off KO-35, but we haven't been able to verify. He should have been aboard one of the final transports – but Yellow took out all but one of the ships remaining in the spaceport."

"Yellow?" Cassie's attention is divided between the viewscreen and the two teens seated in front of her. Zhane gestures for Andros to turn. When his friend complies, Zhane gathers up the other's blond-streaked hair and begins to braid, his fingers deft as they weave silver between the strands except for when they are inexplicably clumsy. She wonders if DECA had been right; wonders if Zhane should be in the medical bay under observation as he bites his lower lip in concentration, his fingers fumbling in their task yet again. "–Your Yellow Ranger destroyed ships during an evacuation?"

"Yellow was a menace." Tying the braid off, Zhane leans back in the chair to consider the constantly updating star map. "I think the only thing that kept him from siding with the Alliance was his loyalty to her Ladyship. I know it was the only thing that saved us from having to neutralize him." He sucks at a small cut on his finger where the end of a wire had scraped across his skin as his eyes continue to track the ominous red dot on the viewscreen. "The Megaship's laser turrets would be useless, and I don't think our ion cannons could break through its shielding before it fired on the asteroid."

Andros turns his chair so that it's once more facing forward, his braid too heavy with the added weight of metal to swing at the motion. "But you still want to go."

"I'm very angry," Zhane admits, his words clashing with the cheerful smile creeping across his face. "And very scared. I think I know of a way to take down a dreadnought. Right now, I think I could."

"You think." Andros is still frowning but its grown calculating, its edges sharper. "And if you have another seizure when we arrive?"

"The Megaship is fast enough to escape. It's the only ship that can." Propping his feet on top of the console, Zhane crosses his arms as if settling in for a long debate. And Cassie slips into the chair at communications to prepare because she can't recall when Andros last actually won an argument against Zhane. Silence fills the bridge, tense and uncomfortable, then, "You don't think I can?"

"I know you can, because I want to save them too." Huffing with annoyance, Andros begins keying commands into his console. "DECA, call the others to the bridge please. We should at least vote on this. In the meantime – set a course that gets us there before the dreadnought. There's absolutely nothing we can do if we get there after."

.oO0Oo.

'I don't like this,' he tells Zhane as they near their destination. They'll be intercepting the dreadnought soon and no matter how many times Andros asks, his friend refuses to tell him how, exactly, he plans on dealing with the enemy vessel. 'Not even your telekinesis can crush a ship that large. And at the range we'll have to maintain to stay safe, can you even reach it?'

The other Rangers had agreed, with various levels of enthusiasm, to attempt to save the threatened asteroid. They'd taken to their stations around the bridge, calm and professional but each and every one of them carrying a kernel of doubt. They'd seen the recording of Avera. They'd guessed at the fates of the remaining Kerovan outposts. They are willing to try, but Andros can tell by the tightness of their shoulders and the shortness of their replies that they're preparing for the worst.

'Don't need to reach it.' Of them all, only Zhane seems confident in the outcome of the upcoming confrontation. 'I'm very, very angry.' His oldest friend, best friend, first friend smiles at him, wild and daring. His hair, a gray so pale that it's shading into silver, is a match for his eyes; both seem to spark under the bridge's harsh lighting. And Andros doesn't feel that happy. He's found his sister only to discover that she's Astronema and Zordon remains missing, being drained of his Power by Dark Specter. Andros has yet to find the Kerovian convoys, and Zhane himself...

When DECA had informed him that Zhane was seizing again, Andros had felt his own heart miss a beat. When his desperate inquiries to his friend resulted in nothing more than a chaotic splash of color and a sense of vertigo, he'd dropped what he was doing to run to the bridge. And when Zhane had finally recovered enough to mutter 'gravity' – Andros had cursed. As he triple-checks calculations, glancing far too often at the boy seated next to him, Andros doesn't feel happy.

Zhane's hair begs to differ, and Andros smothers a macabre laugh because – no matter how grim the mission or dire the consequences – his life is, at its core, a combination of ridiculous and tragic. Catching Zhane's knowing smirk he allows his next laugh to break free. 'You're going to destroy the dreadnought with righteous anger?'

'Hmm. Not quite.' Crossing his ankles, Zhane stretches and settles deeper into his seat. 'I'm angry enough to call in a very old favor. It would never work against the full fleet. Even two dreadnoughts would be too much. A single one, though, caught by surprise?' His hand spasms and he covers it by scratching casually at his neck, but Andros knows the motion for what it is. He knows, and marks the time and duration in the file he'd started once they'd entered hyper-rush. Twelve occurrences that he's caught, plus whatever DECA might add once he's able to compare notes with her. Twelve, and Zhane insisting that he's fine.

No, Andros doesn't feel happy. Stressed, tired, irate and worried in turns burying the fragile flickering of hope that they'll be able to save the extroverted population of the asteroid; he can't possibly be happy. Although he now has a team that he trusts and a planet that he's been able to successfully defend. He's found his sister – no matter how appalling it had been to learn that she was Astronema, who'd been trying to kill him for the past several months. He has friends besides Zhane for the first time in his life... And he has Zhane.

Maybe... maybe he's actually happy after all.

Zhane snorts, pretending to be engrossed with recalibrating sensors.

"Nearing destination," DECA informs them crisply, the hum of the engines changing pitch as the Megaship bleeds velocity. "Any preferences on where to intercept the enemy craft?"

"Outer Oort cloud would be best. If this works, it's going to leave a navigation hazard." Zhane straightens in his chair, his grin gradually giving way to somber determination. "Okay guys, if this fails... you'll know fast. Get away from this system before the dreadnought can fire. Andros..." Reaching out his hand, Zhane offers it to Andros palm up. 'Wanna take a walk?'

'This is your plan? We're going tonap on the bridge?'

'Need you as an anchor to pull me back.' Zhane wiggles his fingers impatiently. '–There's a reason gravity annoys me.'

"Great." Andros glares at his friend and thinks about slapping his hand away. Glares, then relents. "Nap time it is. DECA, I need an audible countdown 'til contact." Taking one last glance around the bridge, hoping he's portraying confidence and not gut-wrenching dismay to the rest of his team, he clasps Zhane's hand, and...

...the starfield is not unexpected. Neither is Zhane, a dancing mote burning silver against the backdrop of void one moment, a boy just as bright the next. He shifts between forms before settling, a blazing silhouette of himself, neither spark nor youth but something in between.

"Where do we need to go?" Andros asks as ghostly fingers twine about his own. Zhane's touch tingles, not unpleasantly, just unexpected. "You didn't leave us much time to find whoever it is that owes you this favor."

"That's the thing about gravity," Zhane tells him as he steps closer, his silver gaze focused outwards towards the infinite horizon. "It's everywhere. Where light goes – gravity follows, no matter how often you tell it to scram." The phantom weight of Zhane's head rests against his shoulder, and Andros squints his eyes against the glare. "...Isn't that right?"

From the depths of the surrounding void a chuckle resounds, thick and thundering. It vibrates Andros' bones, so much worse than the tingle of Zhane's clasp. So, so much worse for the fact that sound shouldn't be able to travel through void. And from ever so far away, he thinks he can hear DECA state, "Five."

"Zhane." If Zordon's voice boomed, this one implodes, a subtle sucking across Andros' skin and pressure against his eardrums before they pop. Space ripples around them and the pull becomes a push becomes a pull. "A pleasure. Come to visit? Come to stay?"

Visit visit visit stay stay stay echoes endlessly, over and over, and Andros clutches his friend's insubstantial hand tighter. He is the anchor. He is their way back home. And Andros isn't letting go any time soon.

"I'm not a newbie to fall for your tricks." Zhane bares his teeth and there's nothing friendly in his expression.

"Oh no, not new, not new at all..." Darkness swallows the stars around them and the only light comes from Zhane himself, a defiant blaze of silver. "Still, when it's time, you'll come. To make sure there's a new beginning, you'll come to me, Oldest."

"Even though it means your ending?"

The chuckling grows somehow louder, crashing like waves against them. Like waves, pushing and pulling and pushing. Like waves – and Andros knows what it is Zhane's caught the attention of. The enormity of the impossibility has him trembling even as he moves to stand in front of his friend, useless protection against a universal Force.

"Four."

"I will begin again, dearest light. You will make sure of it." Gravity pulses, its pleasure a sick, teasing drag along Andros' senses. "You cannot be anything but what you are: Zhane."

Zhane pouts, he actually pouts as he gently tugs Andros back to his side. "But you could have been something other than what you are. You owe me a favor."

The entire cosmos rings with wonder. "Do I?"

"Three."

Andros gasps as the sensation of being watched, of being coveted, intensifies. Zhane's hand against his own is the warmth of a spring day while the sweat gathering in his palm is frigid. And how, how does gravity owe Zhane a favor? It seems even gravity is stumped by the insinuation.

"I could have protested your formation." Zhane shakes his head, sending spangles of starlight to burst and scatter against the encroaching darkness. "I could have sought a different beginning. I could have. I am made of different matter. You owe me. For this beginning, or the next."

The crush of laughter forces the air out of Andros' lungs. "But matter doesn't matter, or so you like to claim. Zhane, Zhane, Zhane; I see what you've done to yourself. I feel you dance along my nerves, dearest Zhane. The beat of your heart vibrates the strings of the universe. You've trapped yourself in matter. And in doing so you've bound yourself to me. What need have I to return a favor owed? I have you."

"Two."

"I suppose you do." Spark and youth and silhouette, Zhane illuminates the darkness lapping at their feet, and where his light reaches stars resurface from the murk. "But bodies are weird. And squishy. And they eventually die."

Gravity considers, and Andros gulps in a desperate inhalation as he's once more able to breathe. "You are made of different matter," it grumbles, a rumble that compresses the galaxy.

"This body will die, but I'll always be Zhane. And I am very, very angry," he confides in a confidential whisper. "I am angry enough to deal with you. ...And I can hold a grudge. There is a ship close to my physical location. It's usurping your authority. I'd be grateful if you'd take it back."

"Is there? A ship..." Gravity pulsates, and silver light swirls exempt from the pull. "Oh, there is." Sucking, derisive laughter. "Evil thinks it's being clever. Which fool is this, sneaking into my demesne?"

"Dark Specter."

"And who was he?"

Zhane tilts his head, the silver-shot shadow of his lips pursing. "Does it matter? Evil will take advantage of any unwatched window it finds."

"One."

"I suppose not. No, I do not need to know. All will join me in the end. Even you, Zhane." Darkness withdraws but not the stifling regard.

"Every beginning rises from an ending. Even if the end is long in coming."

"Hmm." There are stars above and stars below, and Zhane is a boy silver of hair and eyes holding tightly to Andros' hand. And gravity is real and present and horrifying in its amusement. "I will grant your favor, Oldest, if you will gift me in return. Sing for me, Zhane. I am never around when you sing back the beginning."

"I would have thought you'd prefer an equation." Humor hides an abiding wariness as Zhane smiles sharply into the void of space. "Set me free, leave me be. I don't want to fall another moment into your gravity," he trills as he swings Andros' hand, a carefree gesture meant to distract while he screams, 'Now, Andros! Get us back, now!'

And Andros races down the path of twinkling light underfoot that leads the way home, Zhane a shining spark hidden within his clenched fist while the dark behind them chortles in overwhelming glee. Home, on the Megaship. The bridge, with his team, his friends waiting for their return. Back, back, back...

Gravity shudders and slides away with a quiet moan. "Such a tiny piece of the song, is it enough? It might be enough. It might..."

"Contact."

Andros opens his eyes to the sight of the dreadnought before them, its bulk taking up most of the viewscreen. The Megaship's alarms blare while Carlos raises their shields to full and TJ fumbles with weapons' control although nothing they're armed with is capable of penetrating the dreadnought's hull in time. Andros has never been so close to one of the Alliance's planet killers. He's only ever fled.

"Gotcha," Zhane wheezes, his hand slipping from Andros' grasp. Sweat streaks his face and dampens his uniform, but his satisfaction is evident. "Was worth it."

And on the viewscreen the dreadnought – ripples. Like a mirage it shimmers, there one instant then gone the next.

"Singularity detected! Initiating course correction to avoid event horizon," DECA says as the Megaship jolts and rolls, the inertial dampeners not able to fully compensate for the maneuver. "Collision avoided."

"What, what just happened?" Ashley asks, her voice shaking from excess adrenaline. "Was that a black hole? Did a black hole just eat the dreadnought?"

"It wasn't a black hole. Not to begin with." Zhane's voice also shakes, but so do his arms, and legs, and Andros jumps to his side because it is past time he got his friend to the med bay. "That – was a graviton with an inferiority complex."

Later, when they're down on the asteroid and children clamor for stories with fur nearly white and arms stretched wide to wrap Zhane 'round with welcoming hugs, Andros wonders if it was worth it. As a tiny child burbles, "Silver, Silver, you're here! You're okay!" and Zhane affectionately picks it up, letting it cuddle close into his neck – Andros wonders. Noticing that his friend's hair has gained dark strands and that his eyes have dimmed from molten silver back to light gray, Andros thinks it might not have been.

The dreadnought had been destroyed, and the asteroid saved, and Andros is happy, he knows without doubt he is... But Zhane's hair begs to differ.

And that night as Andros enters their, Zhane's, his room only to find his friend sitting on the bunk, his gaze distant and his hands twisting together, a wringing/pulling gesture repeating endlessly, Andros can't help but be selfish. As he gently grabs the other boy's hands, forcing them apart and sighing at the redness of fresh friction burns, Andros knows – it wasn't worth it. An entire civilization saved...

...but Andros feels like being selfish tonight. And it does not matter how many are saved if he ends up losing Zhane in the process.

.oO0Oo.

Astronema stares down at the instrument panel of the velocifighter she's flying, undecided. It's not too late for her to return to the Dark Fortress, to sneak back in and abandon this plan for saner pursuits. It's not too late to pretend she'd never left; Ecliptor won't notice her absence for hours yet and no other lackey is privy to her schedule. She could return, but she won't. Astronema is curious, and nothing has ever successfully deterred her from satisfying her curiosity once it has been provoked.

Firming her resolve she activates comms and keys in a sequence she's committed to memory. The Astro Megaship, and her transmission bypasses the AI to be answered directly by the Yellow Ranger. Unusual; then again, the current Astro team still seems to flounder when it comes to modern technology. Astronema giggles at Yellow's look of dismay. No, her brother's tag-alongs are clueless and obviously don't know to scan a transmission's origin metadata before accepting an incoming call.

"Astronema," Yellow tries to hiss, but the girl doesn't seem to realize that current Earthian genetics are simply inadequate for proper threat displays. "What do you want?"

She smirks, twirling aqua hair between her fingers as she feigns confusion. "Want? Oh, I want so many things, not that it's any of your concern. For now be a good little toddler and get me Red. The adults have matters to discuss."

Yellow is infuriated and Astronema's smirk deepens with satisfaction. It's so easy; if she'd actually been trying to conquer Earth it would have been hers in a matter of days. Well... perhaps not with Red so fervently protecting it. Her brother, at least, is competent. And anal, she reminds herself as she hears him ordering the other Rangers from the Megaship's bridge. He has issues Astronema can't begin to comprehend.

"Andros," she greets him as her view of the ship's bridge zooms out and widens. "Ooh, and Zhane! I should have known you wouldn't leave my brother to deal with me alone." Seeing them together, Red sitting and Silver standing behind him, fills Astronema with euphoric glee. Hers, so attentive as they wait for her to continue speaking. Hers, as they always should have been. "Which suits my purpose just as well. How have you been?"

"Is this a social call?" Zhane asks, his head tilting to the side as his eyes narrow. "I feel like we're breaking some secret taboo, accepting social calls from our Alliance-assigned villain. Is there a handbook to consult?"

"Astronema," her brother says, and she steels herself against the flinch that wants to wrack her body. She might know that she's Astronema body, mind and soul – but her heart aches that he hadn't called her Karone. "Did you send the dreadnought?"

The what? She stares at the two boys, accepting their withering glares in turn. "The fleet is still mopping up in the Hercan sector. There shouldn't be a dreadnought within ten thousand light years of Earth." Her brother raises a single eyebrow before jabbing at his console; her instrument panel beeps as it receives the incoming data and she automatically redirects it to the cockpit's small screen. Her own eyebrow rises in response as she watches the provided footage. "That should not have been there." It is an unpleasant surprise learning that an underling has gone behind her back in such a manner. "I can't rule what no longer exists."

It's easier to meet her mousling's pale eyes than her brother's dark amber glower. "Darkonda has a dreadnought, though," he says as his hand comes to rest on her brother's tense shoulder. "Cloaked but there. Hiding behind the shields of the Dark Fortress when he's not causing mayhem elsewhere. You meant there's no dreadnought near Earth except that one?"

"I meant what I said," she seethes. Darkonda. One day that traitor would run out of lives – and that would be the day she would finally have a use for him. "My thanks," she manages to say past gritted teeth. "I will have an answer from my scan techs or I will have a corpse to space."

Her brother relaxes just enough to cover Zhane's hand with his own; a united front. "Then this isn't a social call. You're taking a risk contacting us like this, Karone."

She wants to melt as he says her name, but Astronema is made of sterner stuff than the sentimental child kidnapped so long ago. "Lord Dark's most loyal followers have gathered and are awaiting their chosen sovereign. If he does not show soon to claim them..." She sighs in mock pity. "There will be no mercy from the other Alliance leaders; should any of them discover the deluded fools' location there will be a bloodbath. And here they thought that by aligning themselves with Lord Dark they would somehow escape tyranny."

"You know where they are." It's not a question her brother asks but a stated certainty.

"I know where they are." False sympathy slips from her face, replaced by caustic resignation. "The Alliance has no use for these weaklings. Do you?"

"Do you know why they've chosen Lord Dark?" And that is a question from her mousling. "He took out Machina, and tortured Darkonda. Why would they see him as a better option?"

"You've first hand experience with the carnage Darkonda considers entertainment. Can you truly blame them for taking their chances with a being that punished their tormentor? And even amongst Evil there are ties of friendship. Where one goes, another might follow. Friends, and families... and this war has raged unchecked for millennia. What was once driving purpose on both sides has eroded into numb habit. –They are tired, Andros."

"They're still aligned with Evil."

But Zhane is thoughtful as he shifts his balance, his hip pushing against the back of her brother's chair enough to nudge it to the left. "How many are there? We've tried keeping track, but I doubt our counts are accurate."

"They number in the thousands," she tells them. "Thousands caught in a game of your own devising, Red. You accuse me of being frivolous with life, but their deaths? Those will be the direct result of your own inaction. My hands are clean in this."

Andros hisses at her and she hisses back, and neither backs down until Zhane swats the side of her brother's head.

"She's right," the pale-haired boy says as Andros looks up at him with hurt, offended eyes. "We never intended Lord Dark to be more than a temporary disguise – but these beings believe in him. They may be evil, but they have faith enough that they're trying to change. That has to be worth taking a chance. And every individual that swears to Lord Dark is one less Dark Specter has to call on."

"Their deaths would have the same result," Andros mutters as he rubs at his temple.

"They really wouldn't." Zhane's voice is quiet, barely audible on her speakers, but it cuts through any other protest her brother might have offered. They look at each other, Andros unyielding against Zhane's inherent stubbornness, and Astronema finds herself counting the seconds as silence stretches. Her brother's expression shifts to one of misgiving that only grows more perplexed when her mousling whispers, "Please?"

"Fine," Andros huffs, but the hints of a smile lurk at the corners or his lips. "Send me the coordinates," he tells her, his fingers dancing across his console. "I'll go check them out. And walk into an ambush, I'm sure. All because you," he waggles an accusing finger at his friend, "said please."

"If it's an ambush, you won't be walking into it alone." She bares her teeth at him in friendly challenge. "Lord Dark's authority will be cemented with the deserters if you show them you have the support of the Princess of Evil."

She can see the denial forming; watches as her brother opens his mouth to tell her no. She's prepared to counter his protest–

"I'm coming, too." Zhane glances briefly her way, but the bulk of his attention is fixed on Andros. "It takes both of us to pull off Lord Dark." And that, that she finds interesting indeed. Astronema hums, pleased as she continues to listen in to her delightfully spiteful brother and her oh-so-clever mousling. "Unless you want to respond to any threats by morphing. I'm sure that would send a message."

"Yes," she agrees, playfully batting her lashes at them. "And that message would be one Red Ranger ready for the dinner table. Listen to your Silver, brother-mine. He knows what it's like to present too tempting a morsel." Licking at the backs of her teeth, she can almost taste Andros' disgust as the pale-haired boy shudders at her insinuation. "Such a shame he's off the menu."

If looks could kill her brother would have a higher death toll than hers, Astronema is sure. And she wonders if he practices it in a mirror, late at night, as she does her own.

"Lord Dark and the Princess of Evil will already be there. Who will you disguise yourself as? Do you think it'll be as easy as slapping on some unlucky quantron's armor and passing..." Andros trails off, his eyes widening as his friend looks down at him, unimpressed. "No," he says, partly in disbelief, partly in dawning horror. "Absolutely not." A moment as his eyes widen further, his brown irises completely bordered by white. "I don't care what kind of following you've built up, darkness doesn't respect popularity contests!"

Zhane shrugs, unconcerned. "I'll be expected to show eventually; may as well be by your side." He turns her way and Astronema catches her breath at the look on his face; prey facing down its predator. "Could you cast an illusion on me? I have an identity already established, but I can't exactly toss on a cloak and call it good like Boopsie, here."

"As long as Red grants me permission to touch," she leers, and – Boopsie? Oh, this is going to be fun. "Meet me here tomorrow," she says as she sends them coordinates. "I'll have transportation waiting for us, unless you plan on meeting your followers on your Gliders."

"I'm Red," Andros complains to her mousling in frustration. "I'm leader of the team. You're supposed to follow my commands. I say no – your duty is to let it drop."

"Mhm," Zhane murmurs absent-mindedly, patting her fuming brother on his knee. "I heard your suggestion, and we moved on."

"Zhane!"

Astronema ends her transmission, and laughs. No matter tomorrow's outcome, she's going to enjoy herself.

.oO0Oo.

Andros isn't looking forward to meeting Lord Dark's fan-base. As if any swarm of foul creatures, constructs and monsters could be anything less than a threat in need of a Ranger's cleansing. Yet here he is standing behind Zhane on his Cycle – in Glider configuration – as they make their way towards their rendezvous with his sister... and Andros is regretting every choice that's led him to this point in his life.

He'd rather be on his own Glider, but Zhane had pointed out that one craft was easier to hide than two, and that his Cycle was more versatile. Not having any other comeback than a sulky 'So?' Andros is resigned to clutching his friend around his waist as they travel through space, and if he squeezes a bit tighter than necessary out of frustration... So?

He wishes he'd been able to convince Zhane not to come. The other boy's bruises are long faded, and the Power is slowly healing the neurological damage caused by the eel's venom, but Zhane hasn't recovered. Lying next to him at night, waiting for his friend to drift off to sleep and instead ending up slowly counting down the hours until exhaustion takes them both, Andros can tell. Zhane hasn't recovered, not really. And last night, last night knowing he'd once more be within Astronema's reach – Zhane hadn't slept at all.

Neither of them had.

So he clutches the boy in front of him, and frets. They meet Astronema on a moonlet all but forgotten by both sides; a chunk of rock boasting a thin atmosphere and nothing else. They meet her and Zhane can make light of the situation as much as he wants, but there's no hiding the tremor that rocks through his frame, not with Andros plastered tightly against his back.

She quirks an odd, intimate smile their way and watches with disturbing enthusiasm as Andros dons his disguise. Black bodysuit and altered, solid balaclava, boots and garnet cloak and long, gleaming gloves; with each added piece Lord Dark coalesces in his mind. Patient, until action serves his purpose better. Kind, unless cruelty proves more expedient. Forgiving, until personally betrayed.

'Gloves over your morpher,' Zhane reminds him, and Andros blushes hotly at needing to be reminded. Again.

"Where are we going?" he asks in the soft, poisonous tones of Lord Dark. "I would rather get there early on the off chance news of my visit's been leaked." That there could only be one source for a leak is a given, but Evil has its own motivations and there's no need to state simple fact.

"Oh..." Astronema moans, her lashes fluttering as she leans against the side of her transport. "That voice is a sin. I would steal it, and keep it in my locket so that it might threaten me to slumber each night."

This time, it's Andros' turn to shiver. She might be his sister, but Astronema is disturbing on a visceral level. "Our destination?" he tries again, hoping to bring her focus back to their mission.

"Soon enough," she waves him off, turning her attention to the boy beside him. "Don't tell me you're planning on taking dear Silver dressed like that," she says, her eyes raking across Zhane and rendering judgment. "Oh, that's right!" she snaps her fingers as if suddenly remembering. "I do believe I was asked for an illusion. Andros," she croons, swaying seductively as she steps towards them. "Brother dearest, may I have your permission to touch my pet?"

He shoves her, hard enough to send her careening back against the transport's sun-warmed metal side – and she laughs, low and throaty while she straightens, and winks.

'We need her,' Zhane reminds him...

...and how he wishes they didn't. "Once," Andros snarls at his sister, using his own meager talent to keep her at bay. "Once to cast the illusion, and once to remove it. Touch him for any other reason, at any other time, and I'll–"

"Kill me? Oh, how I'd love to see you try." Andros knows she means it; she would honestly love to see him at his absolute worst, caught in the throes of a killing rage. The horror of her desire leaves him reeling and she takes advantage of his distraction as she stalks forward, her hand settling possessively over the bite scar she'd left on Zhane's neck. "Sweet Silver, though; it's not a battle I'd get from you, is it? Her face was rapt and angel-sweet; she touched his hair of gray... But he, sob-shaken, at her feet, could only pray and pray."

"Karone!" he snaps, although he can see no trace of the sister he'd loved in the hardened, volatile woman leering at his best friend.

"You're no fun at all," she grumbles as her thumb slowly strokes across a quivering pulse point, nail pressing lightly against the artery for no other reason than that she could. "No matter; we've wasted enough time. Mousling," she warns as violet begins to swirl around her fingers, "I'll need you to hold still. And think about the form you wish to take. Include as much detail as you can, and focus on the image. Ready?"

'Zhane?' he asks, unable to contain his worry. The other boy shouldn't be here, not after what Astronema had already subjected him to. Neither of them should.

'I'm okay,' comes the reassurance, but the unsteadiness of the sending proves that his friend is anything but. 'Let's just get this over with.' Then, as violet mist engulfs his friend shrouding his form beneath a mantle of magic, 'It smells like plums and swamp water. It feels like plums and swamp water. How in the universe can something feel plum?'

"Oh." Astronema sounds nonplussed. Blinking back dazzling afterimages as the fog of magic dissipates, Andros can't blame her. Oh, indeed. Where before her hand had wrapped around Zhane's throat, it now fondles his breast and she looks up, and up to meet pale, amused eyes. Pursing her lips, she gives her ample handful a deliberate jiggle. "Well, I'd say you're well-endowed, but mostly you're just tall.

Zhane laughs, and coming from a nearly seven foot tall woman clad in a gleaming silver plackart and chain mail skirt, padded with iridescent taffeta and sporting muscles that would be the envy of professional bodybuilders, it's – something. Andros isn't sure what that something is, but it's enough to have his sister stepping back, her arms crossing defensively as she rethinks her behavior.

"I like the tiara; nice touch," Andros tells Zhane, and while he also needs to crane his head to meet his friend's eyes, he doesn't mind – not nearly as much as his sister seems to.

Touching the diamond and opal tiara, Zhane grins bashfully. "Can't be the Duchess without it," she says. Then, her smile turning haughty, she shimmies her hips; the motion sends the multitude of ribbons adorning her outfit dancing. "Yeah... this should do it. Can't quite manage her voice, but it's not like anyone in the Alliance will know the difference. Ready to address the peons, Boopsie?"

"Wait..." Astronema says slackly, her hand frozen mid-twirl in her long, aqua hair. "Duchess? You're No'odles?"

"Mhm." Dropping into a regal curtsy, Zhane inclines her neck – but her eyes remain level and vigilant. "No'odles, noble consort of Boopsie, at your service. Although, technically, Boopsie was defeated by the Super Great Rangers and sent to the great Composter in the sky before No'odles gained power. Again, nothing the Alliance would actually know about." Straightening, she patronizingly pats Astronema's head. "Now, now; buck up. Mustn't keep our adoring fans waiting."

"But–" Andros' sister tries to bat the pale-haired girl's hand away, but a seven-foot tall warrior woman can apparently pat whoever she wants; Zhane's hand doesn't budge under the blow. "The defections of the lower ranks were containable until No'odles began organizing the insurgence. Between your propaganda and Finster's administration, the Alliance lost some of our most qualified specialists!"

"They deserved the choice." Biting plump lips, Zhane plants her fists on her chain mail-draped hips. "Anyone who dares to dream of better has my support. Besides, I've been stuck on the Megaship while the rest of the team gets to roughhouse with your monsters. I was bored."

Andros can't help himself; he laughs, and offers the Duchess his arm. "M'lady?" he asks, his voice a twisting snarl of gallantry and impending threat. And as Zhane winds her hand around his elbow with as much grace as their height difference allows, Andros shares a conspiratorial grin with his friend. Boopsie and No'odles are as comfortable around each other as he and Zhane have ever been; both life-long friendships born on a Kerovan playground years in the past. And Zhane is Zhane, no matter the form. Zhane is, as ever, the constant in Andros' variable universe. "Bored? Perish the thought."

"Ugh. You're cute together." Astronema feigns gagging even as she keys open the entry to the transport. "Save me from do-gooders and their notions of chivalry." Shoving herself into the pilot's seat in the cockpit, she begins preparations for take-off.

Andros eyes the remaining seats; while he could sit comfortably, Zhane is another matter entirely. "Why don't you get situated first," he tells the pale-haired girl quietly, hoping his sister is too involved with flight checks to overhear. "And I'll sit in your lap."

"That should work," Zhane whispers back, settling herself carefully across two chairs that creak in protest at the sudden weight. "Come here." Gently lifting him by his hips, she carefully deposits him on one bent knee. "Watch out for the metal," she warns, her hands sliding to his waist to steady him as a jolt rocks the transport shuttle as it launches. "It's – real."

There's an odd, quivering tone to his friend's voice that Andros doesn't like. At all. 'Zhane?'

She pulls him back into a cuddle that seeks reassurance. 'It's real. The metal. The dress. Me. It's not an illusion; she changed my form. Right now, I am No'odles.'

'What?!' Sister or not, he's going to kill Astronema – after she changes Zhane back. 'How dare she.'

'I don't think she realizes. If she actually knew what she'd done – I think she would have been been gloating more than she already was.' Zhane's heartbeat thunders against his back and Andros laces his black-gloved fingers between hers, the only comfort he can offer as his sister turns in her chair, one aqua eyebrow arching as she takes in their seating arrangements. 'I'm tired of being nothing more than an amusement for her. Ecliptor should have taught her to keep her lousy hands to herself.'

And Andros wholeheartedly agrees as he does his best to shield Zhane from his sister's too-interested leer. 'We meet with Boopsie's faction, put Finster in charge, force Astronema to change you back – and then we dump her into the nearest red giant.'

It startles a strained laugh from Zhane that she muffles against the hood of Andros' cloak. 'She's your sister.'

'She's a menace.' He bares his teeth in an unseen challenge to Astronema's continuing scrutiny. In turn, she licks her lips in a parody of seduction before blowing them a kiss and returning her attention to the cockpit. 'And – I don't actually think the gravity well of a star could slow her down.'

They sit in companionable silence, the only sound in the transport's cabin the occasional tap as Astronema adjusts their course. "Just got confirmation from the planet," his sister tells them as she toggles a switch. "They know we're coming now. Surprised them." Her black bodysuit glistens as she stretches, reflecting the glow of the shuttle's instrument panel. "You should find out who put a tenga in charge of communications and execute them. No true leader would stand for that sort of incompetence."

"I care not for competence." It's Lord Dark that answers her, Andros letting the alter ego nestle about him as tightly as his garnet cloak. As the transport makes a rough landing on the dusty, desert planet, he hops off Zhane's lap before offering his arm once more. "It is privacy with m'lady I seek. What they do on their own time is none of my concern."

"M'lord." Zhane is able to take his arm before she even stands. "Your wisdom knows no bounds."

"Gag. Me." Pushing past them, Astronema opens the transport's access hatch. Her booted foot taps impatiently while they wait for the ramp to extend, but it's the cheering of the crowds surrounding the small ship that has her growling in displeasure. "Idiots," she mutters as she summons her staff. "You could just as easily have come to slay them all. Dark take them; you're a Ranger. You wanted them all dead; still, they cheer."

"Astronema, dear," Zhane chides, pulling out a silver-splattered fan that she opens with a snap, then waves high enough to conceal most her face. Andros blinks as the generated breeze ruffles the tattered edges of his hood; Zhane hadn't had a fan and there's no place in her armor to have hidden one. Yet it's definitely a fan she's holding in her ring-adorned hand. "Do hush before you give away the game." Then, as they step in tandem onto the ramp, 'What in all the worlds did she do to my silverizer?!'

Andros chokes, grateful that the featureless face-covering hides his reaction from the joyous horde spread around them. 'Were you going to shoot my sister?'

'For saying that where they could possibly overhear?' The Duchess strides forward and Andros finds he needs to take two steps to her every one. 'Yeah. I was going to shoot her, kick her down the ramp, and get us out of herewhile your groupies were distracted.'

Before Andros can respond he finds Finster in front of them, the ancient sculptor bowing in welcome. "My Lord, greetings," he says as he spreads his hands and bows again. "We are honored by your presence!"

"Are you?" Andros looks over the old artist's head, a casual survey of his potential followers. "Should you not be honored by your own deeds, Finster? What need have I for sycophants?" He'd frown, but the effect would be lost behind the barrier of his altered balaclava. "I had thought I'd be meeting with beings ready to stand on their own... If it's a new master you seek, best petition the Princess. She might find some use for you."

Astronema strolls by him, her staff a glittering threat as it swings at her side. "Truly, Lord Dark? A handsome gift," she purrs as she runs her fingers along Finster's wrinkled skull. "I assure you," she croons, loud enough for the entire gathering to hear, "that you will always be honored by my presence. You wouldn't like the consequences, otherwise."

Monsters mutter and various beings begin shuffling backwards in dismay, away from the Princess of Evil. Her, Andros reflects, they had not been expecting, nor did they want her anywhere nearby. She was Dark Specter's, as far as they knew. That Astronema harbored hopes of one day overthrowing the tyrant and placing herself on his throne – that knowledge would panic them beyond reason.

"Tut tut." Snapping her fan closed, Zhane uses its tip to shoo his sister away from the elderly monster-maker. "None of that now, my dear. M'lord understands ducklings are inclined to follow; it is a leader's duty to teach them to forge their own paths. Come now," she urges as she bounces on the balls of her kitten-heeled armored boots, and the sight of that much metal and cloth and flesh jingling and rustling and jiggling is – impressive. Out-right inspirational if Andros is to judge by the various hoots and whistles coming from the horde. "Present yourselves with pride! This is the lord you have chosen!"

"Beloved," Andros tells her in a stage whisper that carries to the very edges of the crowd, "I appreciate your enthusiasm, but should any lout be so bold as to breathe upon you, I'll be forced to crush the miserable oaf into yet another diamond to adorn your crown. And while I begrudge you no jewel, perhaps you could offer less incentive?"

Pale gray eyes sparkle down at him while Zhane's merriment echoes gaily in his mind. "Of course, my Lord," she demurs with a besotted smile, her dimple enough to devastate in her current form. She performs another curtsy that clears the area immediately surrounding them, no being wanting to chance accidental contact with her flowing ribbons after the threat Andros had so casually delivered. "I live to serve."

Astronema hacks out an indecipherable comment, and Andros can practically hear her eyes rolling.

"Yes. You do." Graciously helping Zhane up from the deep curtsy, he turns his attention back to Finster. "My Lady argues on your behalf, and I am loathe to disappoint her. I know your name, Finster. I know your deeds. You have served Rita Repulsa faithfully for millennia. Tell me, why do you turn from her now? What is it that you want?"

Flexing fingers bent and calloused from untold years of physical labor, Finster dips his head in thought. "I want an end I will never see, Lord Dark," he says slowly, each word measured against the vast depths of his sorrow. "This war chews through us. It matters not that we serve the Deceiver; our worlds fall victim to his planet killers the same as any dedicated to light." A tear falls from a faded, weathered eye, magnified by glasses worn low on the being's nose. "I know," he sniffles sadly, "there are none left powerful enough to defeat him. We only hope that we might hide and live out what few years remain to us in peace."

Andros is horrified. 'Is he actually saying Dark Specter's massacring his own people?'

Zhane's fan is open and fluttering, covering her own stunned expression. 'The silent sectors,' she tells him numbly. 'We discovered dozens on our scans for Zordon. How did we miss this? By the stars; Dark Specter's keeping the balance. For every light-aligned world he ends, he's taking out one of his own!'

He grits his teeth and swallows back bile. Glancing to his side, he sees the same look of sickness on his sister's face. She hadn't known. Chosen heir of the grand monarch of Evil – and she hadn't known.

"Fairly spoken," he forces himself to say, while inside he wails for all that's been lost. "Then I must ask: Why me? Why place yourself under the authority of yet another lord?"

A monster hobbles forward, its limbs healed crooked from old breaks. In places bone still pokes from wounds left forever unhealed. "We seen the recordings, Lord Dark," it babbles hoarsely, the teeth from its misaligned jaw cutting into its lips with each word it utters. "We seen you have no troops. No minions. You fight no battles, but you sit with the other lords and ladies – and they fear you. They fear you, my Lord. You crush them... and all they can do is look the other way in terror. We all seen you, and saw a lord we could serve." It ducks its head, displaying old scars encircling its hairless crown. "You fight no battles," it repeats, its awful ruin of a voice wistful. "You, you we would follow."

He blinks burning eyes and hopes the dampness of tears won't show through the black cloth covering his face. "Then I would ask you not to fight for me," he tells the monster, placing his black-gloved hand carefully, so carefully upon being's bowed head. "None of you need fight for me," he shouts loudly enough for all to hear. "I demand, rather, you live."

The monster shivers beneath his touch, in pain despite the lightness of his hand. "You are trembling. More afraid of peace than war?" he asks sadly. They're all in pain, Andros realizes; each and every one of them. Zhane had been right, and his heart aches in sympathy. They deserved the right to choose, and having chosen, they deserved the right to have the decision respected.

Nodding once, he pulls a wafer-thin disk from a hidden pocket of his cloak. He takes a moment to examine it in the harsh, red light of the desert planet's sun before presenting it to the ancient artist. "Here you will find the coordinates of a planet. You will lead my people there, Finster. And in my name you will have them rebuild the ruins. Shelter for yourselves, agriculture, industry. I order you to thrive," he hisses, addressing the entire shuffling gathering. "Invite who you will, but know that spies will seek to infiltrate and saboteurs will come to destroy. I leave it to you to police yourselves. And if you have need of me..." He pauses, a quiet stretch long enough to let them determine on their own that they'd best not have any need of him, "You may contact Duchess No'odles. My beloved will pass on your messages."

'I will?' Zhane asks weakly.

'Your fake identity, your forged comm ident, your newsletter. Yes, you're handling this mess.'

"It will be done, my Lord." Finster bows, and bows, and bows, but there's such honest joy in his face that Andros can't find the heart to berate him. Monsters roar and constructs clank, and mercenaries now turned merchants begin gossiping with their neighbors. It's a gathering of fell, dark creatures, but as Andros watches – it's struck through with light.

"We should go," Astronema whispers through unmoving lips as she slinks to his side, close enough that strands of her aqua hair catch along the edges of his hood. "They're happy now, but eventually one of them will find brains enough to question my presence here, and the last thing we need is to spend hours trying to find an explanation they'll believe."

It's sound advice, so with a dismissive wave of his gloved hand Andros directs his group of three back to the transport. Astronema saunters up the ramp with all the grace of a hunting felid, while Zhane accepts small gifts from monsters daring enough to get within arm's reach of their new lord. By the time the hatch closes, the Duchess' hands are filled with glittering trinkets, and haphazard bouquets of wilted, ragged wildflowers lay scattered upon the floor.

Andros is ready to leave the dry, desolate planet. Dealing with the Alliance's deserters had drained him. Growing up, he'd learned that Good was good and Evil was evil, and the battles he'd fought as a Ranger had only cemented his beliefs. Yet today he'd met with evil that was as tired as he was; villains that wanted nothing more than to move on with their lives. He's more than ready to leave; he wants to go home.

But Astronema is making no move towards the tiny cockpit of the shuttle. She stands, her chest heaving beneath her breastplate, in the center of the transport in front of the short row of interlocking chairs. She stands, her fists clenched whitely around her staff while her shoulders tremble and violet motes of magic swirl about her in a quickening dance.

'Can you get us into orbit?'

Zhane nods brusquely, dumping her handful of baubles onto one of the chairs before ducking through the doorway to the cockpit. She's too large for the pilot's seat; her knees jam against the instrument panel while the spikes of her tiara come perilously close to important toggle switches overhead, but it doesn't prevent her from running a quick preflight check. Within a matter of minutes Zhane has them launched and in an elliptical orbit around the brick-red planet.

Taking a deep breath now that they're beyond the immediate reach of Lord Dark's followers, Andros dares approach his sister. "Astronema?" Magic blocks him as he tries to get closer, a wall of sparking purple barring his path. "Are you – okay?"

"Okay?" She turns her head stiffly, and through the aqua fall of her curly hair Andros can see that tears have streaked the bold colors lining her eyes. Navy, teal and silver run down her cheeks, a subdued rainbow of grief. "My people... He's been killing my people! Andros!" Her staff falls clattering to the floor as she staggers towards him, collapsing into his arms with a heart-broken keen. "How could he? How could he just kill them all?!"

"Karone..." Andros is at a loss for words as his sister sobs against his chest, her tears warm where they soak through the velvet of his cloak. He knows hers to be a selfish grief; her people, her future empire. She mourns them as others would mourn the destruction of favored possessions. And yet it's Astronema, and she is regretting the loss of life. The loss of innocents. Astronema, for whom regret was rumored to be a foreign concept; the Princess of Evil had for perhaps the very first time truly seen the depravity of the tyrant she served, and in seeing, she took the first wavering steps towards redemption. "I don't know why he's maintaining the balance; it makes no sense. But I'm a Ranger; it's my duty to stop him."

She only cries harder at his attempt at consolation. "He'll destroy you! He'll destroy us all in his insatiable appetite for annihilation. Finster is right; none can stand against him now. Once he finishes absorbing Zordon's Power he'll be unstoppable. Monarch of an empty galaxy."

Astronema's despair is insidious. As he holds his sister close, his hands tracing random patterns across her bared back, Andros finds himself questioning his firmest beliefs. He's been fighting for years. Years without a single true victory. No planet has been actually saved; the most he can do is postpone their grim fates for a few decades. Perhaps a few centuries. In the end, they're all nothing more than fodder for Dark Specter.

'Can we win?' Zhane looks up at him from the instrument panel, a trace of confusion darkening her pale gray eyes. 'Can you see a future without Dark Specter? Or is she right? Are we doomed to wander this galaxy fleeing before him until there's nothing left but us, and him? We're mortal. He doesn't even need to defeat us in battle; time alone will accomplish that goal.'

The long strings of jewels dangling from her tiara chime as his friend stands. "We still have time to find Zordon," Zhane says as she walks towards them, her chain mail bright as starlight in the dim interior of the transport. "And we'll defeat Dark Specter. Astronema is already nurturing the seeds of his destruction. Were we not working together, the outcome might be – uncertain. It will take all of us–"

"All of us?" Lifting her head, Astronema attempts a sneer. Attempts, and fails as she wipes the tears from her cheeks, smearing color past her temples and up into her hair. "I work alone. To do otherwise is to invite betrayal."

"Evil betrays," Andros tells her as he lifts a lock of her aqua hair, carefully hooking it behind her ear. "I don't. If Zhane says we'll succeed, we will."

"You trust him that much?"

"We trust each other," Zhane answers in his stead. There is an odd, haunted look on her face, gaze turning distant as her attention focuses elsewhen. "–It always comes down to trust." She stops close enough to him that Andros imagines he can feel the fever-heat of her body. She stops, and stares, one long, silver-ringed finger curling around her chin as she studies them. "Our first team didn't. And they fell, one by one. If they'd trusted me..." She sighs, and shakes her head. "But they didn't. –Do you, Karone? Could you trust me? Would you?"

Andros can feel his sister's breath catch. "Mousling," she whispers as she shrugs out of Andros' embrace. "The only person I trust is myself. Myself, and my magic." Clutching her upper arms, she shivers in the balmy warmth of the shuttle. "And you are a creation of my magic. Dark help me, I do trust you."

Zhane's grin is bleak, a curling of her plump lips that's hard to look at. "Then," she holds out her hand, palm up, "would you trust me with your self?"

"My self?" Astronema glowers at the proffered hand; glares at Andros, then returns her irritated gaze to the empty palm confronting her. Then – she laughs, a bitter, mocking chuckle that echoes from the metal walls enclosing them. "Why not? Should Dark Specter learn of my treachery before my weapons are ready, it would be nice to think some part of myself would continue on. You, who gave me back my dreams; I would trust you, even with my self." With a wicked smile she reaches out to return the clasp, then hesitates. Hesitates, then smiles wider. "That's right. Brother, Andros, my pretty little Red; may I touch?"

And as quickly as that, Andros wants to throttle her again. "Once," he warns as his lips try to lift in threat. "One touch to accomplish – whatever it is you're talking about, and you can change Zhane back at the same time." He lifts a single gloved finger to reinforce the order. "Once."

"Once," she agrees even as she completes the handhold. "You are such a killjoy, brother." Magic swirls around her, violet coronas around motes of pure lilac. It then surges forward, engulfing Zhane, and Andros squints his eyes against the cascade of light. Astronema lifts her palm away as her magic ebbs, revealing a tiny, amethyst-veined black pebble resting innocuously in Zhane's hand.

Zhane's ring-bedecked, female hand.

"Oh." Her mouth a perfect o of astonishment, Astronema rakes her eyes along Zhane's form, from tiara-crowned head to narrow, armored waist, the flare of chain mail over widening hips and down to the shine of metal-reinforced boots. "Oh!" Abruptly, she snickers. Grasping Andros' shoulder, she laughs into the soft folds of his cloak as she struggles to remain standing against the hilarity consuming her. "Ooh! How did this even happen? Mousling," she giggles, "you've actually changed shape!"

"Yes. I'd noticed." Zhane closes her fist around the purple-veined pebble; when she opens her fingers, it's gone. "Surprised it took you so long to figure it out."

Andros isn't amused. Prying his sister off of his sleeve, he pushes her into one of the hard, molded transport chairs. "Change him back!" he snarls as he pulls back his hood and removes the featureless face covering. "Every time! Every single time I think I see something remotely decent in you, you... you..."

"Brother," his sister simpers as she stretches out black-clad legs, crossing them in a mockery of modesty. "I would think it obvious by now; my magic is unpredictable where Zhane is concerned. My spell was one of illusion. Nothing less, and certainly nothing more. And I have reversed it." Her expression is taunting, overlaid by a thin veneer of sincerity. "Perhaps, if you'd grant me permission to touch again, I could figure out what's gone wrong. Or right, as the case may be. My pet makes a stunning woman."

Long, bare arms wrapping around his waist prevents Andros from tackling Astronema. "If you think there's any way I'm letting you touch Zhane again..." he growls, baring his teeth as his sister begins to hiss back in annoyance. "You said the spell is reversed. So how long until everything's restored to normal?" How far away he needs to get Zhane from the sorceress goes unasked. Andros considers it a given that proximity will only prolong the effects.

"...A few days." Tapping at her pursed lips with a long, sharpened nail, Astronema shrugs carelessly. "It wasn't that powerful a spell. Really, brother, I was expecting more in the way of gratitude from you."

"Gratitude?"

"Why, for spicing up your love life!"

He. Can't. Even.

Ever.

"No," Andros says flatly, missing the warmth of Zhane's arm as his friend jerks away from him. "Not, not that I'm discussing this with you. I am never discussing this with you. But for the sake of clarity; Zhane is not my boyfriend."

Astronema stands indolently, her smirk lascivious. "Of course not. It's plain to see that she's your girlfriend now, isn't it?" she teases as she brushes past him on her way to the cockpit. "I'd best get you lovebirds back to your nest then, hmm? Not a moment to waste; no telling when my mousling will change back, then all you'll have left is regret for a missed opportunity. Unless you feel like getting started here," she says as she tosses a leer over her shoulder. "You've already proven the chairs can handle your combined weight!"

'...Andros?'

He. Can't. Even. Slumping to the floor, he lets his head fall back against the hard rim of the chair behind him. The ceiling, dull and metallic above, is about all he can handle. 'We can never, ever let my sister and Ashley talk,' he manages finally, tucking his cloak around himself tighter as a sudden chill races down his spine.

'Ashley still trying to sign us up for couples therapy?'

With a groan, Andros closes his eyes and counts the seconds remaining before the transport lands. 'DECA says she's planning on staging another intervention.' Using his teeth to pull off a glove, he blindly reaches out until fingers meet his own; their shape is unfamiliar but the comfort they offer is not. 'What is this fixation they all have?'

'You explained it to her, right? You let Ashley know we're binary stars?'

Cracking open one eye, Andros stares at the large, pale blur of his friend. 'What do you think convinced her of the need for a second intervention?'

.oO0Oo.

Ashley is helping TJ work on his college admission essay. Or, to be more accurate, she's attempting to help him outline what he plans to write for his essay. So far very little writing has been accomplished, but they're on their third plate of white chocolate macadamia nut cookies and Ashley feels neither accomplished, nor particularly motivated. Still – helping! Even if it's only with the brushing up of crumbs.

She can hear Andros before she can see him; there's a terseness to his voice that practically screams that he's not having a good day. Andros seldom has what Ashley – or anybody sane, really – would consider good days, but the sharpness punctuating his words now have her ready to bolt from her stool to the safety of her cabin if it proves necessary. TJ raises an eyebrow in silent inquiry, and she waggles a cookie at him in lieu of an explanation.

TJ's tough. He'd survive Andros should Ashley need to use him as a distraction while she makes her getaway. –Maybe. He'd at least buy her time. And Ashley promises herself that she'll no longer include DECA in any of her schemes because the AI tattles...

...and Andros sounds peeved.

"I don't like that I sent them to resettle KO-8, but the outpost was abandoned instead of destroyed. It at least has intact infrastructure, or it should. What I don't get was their lack of smell!"

"You mean besides the overwhelming body odor?" a woman's throaty contralto responds, followed by a laugh that has Ashley whipping her head towards the corridor that leads towards the bridge and the lift. That – was not Cassie. And seeing as she and Cassie are the only female Astro Rangers, Ashley can only conclude that Andros has brought a stranger to the Megaship. "They might have been Alliance, but they weren't corrupt. Isn't that the entire point?"

"And Astronema?" Andros asks as he enters the work bay, a velvet cloak red as garnets flaring around his knees with each long stride he takes.

And, Astronema what? Ashley wants to demand – and since when did Andros wear cloaks? – but the woman that follows behind their leader, regal and armored and Amazonian in size with the bearing of a warrior and the jewelry of a diva freezes the words in Ashley's throat. The woman looms as she enters the room, tall and intimidating and – tall. Really, really tall; Ashley kicks at TJ's ankle under the table, because his attention is fixed on the single line he's managed to write for his essay when it should be on the giantess scratching sheepishly at her short, pale hair.

"Hey, Ashley," the woman greets her, and...

"My. God." Ashley turns her gaze to the cookie she's currently crushing between her fingers and wonders if DECA had added anything special to the recipe, because she'd swear the woman, now blushing an entirely too becoming a pink is... "Zhane? Is that you?"

"Yeah. I guess." Dragging a stool out from underneath the table, the woman, Zhane, sits with a clatter. "For at least a few days at least."

"It had better be just a few days." Andros removes his deep red cloak; underneath it, he's wearing a full-body black leotard and Ashley feels just as poleaxed as TJ looks. "I don't care what you say," Andros complains as he hangs the cloak up in his locker, "Astronema knew exactly what she was doing."

"Wait. Wait wait wait..." TJ's blinking rapidly, as if he expects reality to reassert itself any minute. Ashley isn't holding her breath. "Zhane..." He looks up, and up, then down, then up when he realizes his gaze keeps landing on the woman's impressive chest. "Zhane..." he tries again as his brain struggles to correlate the Silver Ranger with the glamazon masquerading as a LARP enthusiast who's currently snatching his forgotten cookie directly from his hand. "You... Astronema changed you into a woman? Just – why? Don't tell me it was another date. We talked about this, man. You don't date the crazy, evil sorceress out to kill us all and enslave the Earth."

Zhane nibbles on the cookie, her expression just short of contrite. "It's not like I could have expected – this," she says, gesturing towards her entire body with one long sweep of her silver-bedecked hand. "I honestly thought it would go better this time around with Andros there."

TJ chokes, and Ashley hurries around the table to thwack him on the back. Macadamia nuts, tasty but deadly. "Andros – went with you?" he wheezes.

"Since Zhane insisted on going and I couldn't talk him out of it, I chaperoned." Andros joins them at the table, pulling the plate of cookies closer to himself. "That's what it's called on Earth, isn't it? When you accompany someone to protect them?"

Absently licking crumbs from her fingers, Ashley shrugs one shoulder. "Umm, yeah. If you were there to ward off unwanted advances..." Andros' enthusiastic nod is disconcerting, and she momentarily loses the thread of conversation. "Really? Zhane actually needed you to chaperon him?"

"Astronema has no respect for personal boundaries," Zhane mopes, absently chewing the cookie she'd stolen. "And she likes to choke me."

This time, it's TJ that has to thump Ashley's back as a crumb lodges in her throat. "What?!" she manages to gasp in between coughs.

TJ's more articulate. "And that's why you don't date your murderous arch-nemesis! It's not that hard; if they've tried to kill you it's a solid indication you're not compatible. We've discussed this, Zhane. I used to be Red, I know what I'm talking about. Listen to me this time."

"I am Red," Andros says morosely, "and Zhane still doesn't listen to me."

"I listen," Zhane chides, standing from the stool and making her way to the synthetron. "Then I do what needs to be done anyway. Deca, is my new ship's uniform almost finished? If I can't get out of all this suffocating metal soon, I'm going to dedicate myself to a life of nudity. There's been nude Rangers in the past, haven't there?"

"Fifteen hundred years ago," the AI informs her, DECA's voice non-judgmental except she was totally judging as far as Ashley can tell. "They were defeated by melanoma. If you leave now, your altered uniforms will be waiting for you in your cabin."

"Fantastic!" Taking an over-full plate from the synthetron, Zhane turns and beckons Andros with one long, elegant finger. "I've got enough food for both of us, and I'm going to need your help figuring out how I'm getting out of this skirt." She shimmies, sending spangles of reflected light dancing across the work bay's walls. "It's not getting past these hips, and there's not a chance I'm going to be able to pull it up over the breasts. Leave it to Astronema to trap me in a metal girdle."

This time it falls to Andros to pound both her and TJ across their backs; Ashley is never eating macadamia cookies around the two from KO-35 again. Once he's sure they're both breathing – if not comfortably – Andros joins his friend, grabbing a piece of fruit from the tray as they begin to head towards deck 2 and the room they share.

"Before you go," TJ calls after them, "do you know why Astronema transformed Zhane? Is this something we need to worry about – as a team." Yes, a team; Ashley rolls her eyes at her friend knowing exactly what he was trying to ask. "And is there any way to stop her if she tries?"

Zhane pauses in the corridor, glancing over her shoulder to meet their eyes. "She seemed inordinately concerned over our sex lives."

"She was planning on watching," Andros adds as he continues towards the lift.

"Watch? This is Astronema we're talking about. She would have joined in."

The sound of their bickering fades, leaving Ashley alone to keep TJ from choking to death on cookie crumbs. "So, about that intervention?" she asks innocently, dodging the swat sent her way.

.oO0Oo.

Zhane tromps around the Megaship, and usually she remembers to duck through doorways, but sometimes she forgets and the rest of the team has become adept at vanishing as the gray-eyed woman swears and threatens to tear the Megaship apart. By hand. Carlos, though, has taken to trailing behind her whenever he has the time to spare, a bag stuffed with chemical cold-packs hanging from his shoulder and a sympathetic ear on offer should either be needed.

Because it's hilarious. Zhane as a woman is beautiful, but Zhane as a woman nearly seven feet tall, possessing muscles that could bend titanium and the fashion sense of a bikini model with the spatial awareness of a charging rhinoceros... Added all together, Zhane equals free entertainment.

Of course Astronema, uncaring of the chaos resulting from her spell, sends a monster down to Earth which Cassie automatically dubs Nightcrawler but that Carlos is calling Earthworm Jim. And also, of course, Andros tells Zhane she's to stay on the Megaship – but at least he has sense enough not to claim it's for her own protection. As if a seven-foot tall moody weapon of mass destruction would need protection from anything.

"I can still fight." And Carlos thinks she needs to; ever since Zhane had discovered that the chairs on the bridge were too uncomfortable to sit in for any length of time, she's been bored. And a bored Zhane is one that convinces the collective that maintains the synthetron to dispense nothing but lumpy tapioca pudding. Carlos is tired of tapioca pudding... but not enough to risk Zhane's ire by demanding that she fix it. TJ had made that mistake, and DECA has been complaining about the pudding gunking up the circuitry of the jump tubes ever since.

"Then morph," Andros dares his friend, his arms crossed and an eyebrow raised in challenge. "And summon your silverizer."

Silver sparkles fill the bridge – and then the Silver Ranger fills the bridge. Still nearly seven feet tall, her Ranger uniform now has a skirt. And ribbons. And stiletto-heeled boots, which are – something to behold. And her silverizer is a fan of all things, and Carlos collapses against the armaments' console in uncontrollable laughter.

"Bishojo Senshi Sailor Silver!" Carlos sniggers as his eyes begin watering with mirth. "I knew we should have stuck with mecha anime! But no, you wanted to branch out."

Unlatching her helmet, Zhane pouts at him briefly before returning her attention to Andros. "Look, I don't need my silverizer to defeat one of Astronema's goons."

"No..." Cassie teases, "you could just sit on him instead," while Ashley offers, "We could get you a whip," and TJ gripes good-naturedly, "I don't know any of you," as he strolls out of the bridge on his way to the jump tubes.

Andros only shakes his head, his metal-tied braid lashing with the movement. "And you don't think a giant, female Silver Ranger would raise questions? If you go out there like that, your cover is blown."

"I thought Astronema already knew Zhane was the Silver Ranger," Cassie whispers to Ashley as both girls pass by Carlos on their way out. "Why would him being female surprise her? She's the one that did it to him."

"Hey, I don't mind staying behind." Carlos reaches up and stands on his tiptoes to pat Zhane's silver-clad shoulder. "It's just a worm; it won't be a fight so much as a stomping. We can go to the Simudeck, use some craterites for target practice."

A rueful smile stretches across Andros' face. "That's a good idea. I'll call if we need a hand, but you're right. It's a worm. No appendages. It's not even wearing a baseball cap."

"The paisley bandanna tied around its neck is cute," Carlos says to Andros' departing back. "At least, I think it's its neck? Is a worm anything but neck?"

There are still traces of a pout lurking on Zhane's lips. "Target practice," she scoffs, unfolding her fan with a crisp snick. "You're trying to jolly me on. Well, I don't feel like being managed," she warns, gesturing at him with the fan in a motion that feels more threatening than it should. "Craterites?"

"Yep. Let's Rocket!" Morphed, Carlos leads the way to deck 5. "I mean, I'd be happy to go hand-to-hand with you in the gym. Pretty sure you'd crush me in seconds, though. Besides... Astronema created that fan, right?"

Zhane breezily waves the object in question; the silver spattered across its surface gleams in subtle menace. "I don't think it was me. I like the silverizer; what's better than a laser sword that turns into a blaster? I can shoot and stab at the same time. I usually need to shoot and stab at the same time."

Carlos grins cheerfully as they enter the Simudeck. "You just want to feel special. The rest of us settle for shooting with one hand and stabbing with the other. Unless we split our blasters into two; then we can shoot with both hands. Hey, now I feel special."

Returning his smile, Zhane shoves her helmet back over her head. "So," she asks as craterites appear before them, "I've noticed you haven't been freaking out over my change in gender. Not that it hasn't been a blast watching TJ flounder. Still..." She spins, holding her fan at max extension – and a craterite falls, cut in two. "Huh. Wasn't expecting that."

Dodging a kick, Carlos nudges the fallen simulated monster with the toe of his boot before it disappears from the floor. "Doesn't look sharp," he agrees, trading punches with another craterite until it retreats. "What else can it do? –And," he takes a breath as he ducks backwards, "you remind me of a cousin. Enough that I'm feeling homesick."

"Do I?" Zhane's voice is fond, and her fan catches a bolt of energy meant to disable and flings it back multiplied. The remaining craterites spark, and vanish. "Okay, that was neat. Reflective shield and slasher combined..." She stumbles, and the fan drops from her gloved fingers. "–Oh. This is bad timing."

"Zhane?" He hurries to her side, and can't help but worry as she powers down. Violet sparks along her form, growing brighter by the second. "You okay? Because that doesn't look okay."

She yelps as the light becomes blinding and he pants as the light retreats, fading motes of lilac clinging to his fingertips. Zhane rubs at his eyes, the sleeve of his now too-large ship's uniform engulfing his hand. "I've been better," he groans, flopping over to his side. "Feels like I've been hit with the magical equivalent of a hang-over."

"Nausea, headache, general hatred of the world?" Carlos offers the gray-haired boy a hand up. "Might as well get you to medical. You know both Andros and DECA are going to demand it."

"Yes," the AI concurs, unashamed to be disclosing her eavesdropping. Then again, is it technically eavesdropping when DECA is programmed to constantly monitor the entirety of the Megaship? Carlos would ask, but he's not that interested in knowing the answer. "Preliminary scans already show a worsening electrolyte imbalance."

"Andros and Deca demand a lot of things." Zhane sways as he stands, and his expression turns petulant. "Didn't have a balance problem when Astronema first changed me. I wonder..." With a flick of his wrist, the silverizer appears on his forearm despite the fact that he is no longer morphed. Zhane examines it with a critical eye as it changes from sword to blaster. "Hmm..."

"Is it back to normal?" The specialized weapon looks normal to Carlos, but he's never actually paid it much attention. Mostly, he knows it's shiny as a blaster and even shinier as a sword, and the sight of it is enough to send TJ into rants over Star Wars and the differences between true laser swords versus those made from plasma. Sometimes, Carlos thinks TJ is letting his Blue-ness get to him. He'd been calmer as a Red – but not nearly as much fun to tease. It's a trade-off Carlos is slowly acclimating to. He knows he feels different having gone from Green to Black.

"Define normal?" Zhane is still staring at the silverizer as if he's expecting it to bite. Knowing Astronema, the possibility is there. "My balance is off... but so is the silverizer's. It's like..." He wiggles his fingers and his weapon flows in a flood of silver-tinged blue over his hand, reforming into the familiar shape of the folded fan. "It's like it was hiding a third transformation."

Carlos thinks about poking the fan to see if it's real, but recalling the way it sliced through the craterite he manages to rein in his curiosity. And he pokes Zhane in his side instead. "So; awesome, or abomination?"

"Can I get back to you on that?" Dismissing the weapon, he begins the arduous task of rolling up his cuffs. "Having a shield would be nice, but it's not like I can use it right now."

"Why not?"

Starting in on his pants' legs, Zhane sighs. "Get Andros drunk," he recommends, "then ask him about Boopsie and No'odles."

.oO0Oo.

"I told you, Andros. I feel fine. Better than fine. I'd be great if you'd stop fussing!"

"She tampered with the silverizer." Andros can feel the headache building behind his eyes, a pressure that threatens to overwhelm. "Excuse me if I'm worried that she might have done the same to you. She's a sorceress; I don't know how effective my geis is against her innate magic."

Zhane stares at him as if he's the one being unreasonable. "I'd think I'd know if she'd done something to me," he states softly, quiet as he only gets when exceptionally angry. And it's not fair, Andros thinks. Astronema is the one to blame, his sister at fault for all their recent mishaps, yet it's him his friend is mad at. "Deca cleared me more than an hour ago. I want to get something to eat, then I'm going to my room and sleeping, Andros. That's all."

"But how can I be sure?" he demands, grasping Zhane's arms to hold him in place as he begins to hop down from the diagnostic bed. "You could barely tell me what happened when she got to you the first time. It nearly killed you trying to tell me! So how can I know for sure that you're okay now? If – if she can control what you do, and what you say, and even what you look like... How can I know?"

"You can start by trusting me!"

"You know I trust you! I don't trust–" A spike of pain shoots down the side of his head, and he moans. "Please, just let DECA monitor you overnight. I can't... I can't..." He can't think against the pounding in his temple.

Sighing, Zhane twists his arms out of his hold. "No, you can't. You can't have your way with everything when you want so many different things. Let Deca run a scan to make sure you're alright like she's been wanting to, then take your meds Andros, and go to bed. I'm going to join the team for dinner."

He can't see past the dazzling lights of the med bay, but he can feel the warmth of his friend as he stands up from the bed. "Then where?" And he hopes against hope that Zhane doesn't notice the pleading tone threading through his words.

"Tomorrow may rain so I'll follow the sun." There's a hand, cool and gentle against the back of his neck, and Andros leans into it. "You want too many things," Zhane tells him as he coaxes him out of the medical bay. "So many contradictory desires. You know I can only do that which you want most."

"I can't lose you." And his stomach churns, because he can never make Zhane understand that simple fact. He can't. He won't lose him. "I'll never let my sister near you again. Every time she gets close, she hurts you."

Another sigh that feels like good-bye brushes against his cheek. "Exactly," Zhane says. "Exactly that."

.oO0Oo.

Andros stabs at the congealing porridge with his spoon, grimacing as it clings to the sides of his utensil. A lumpy, slimy mess that he's expected to eat, but he has no appetite for breakfast this morning. He hasn't had much of an appetite at all since Zhane had started ignoring him.

He knows he's being unfair. Zhane's talking to him. Politely. And it's not like his friend is leaving the room whenever Andros enters. And Zhane is still sharing his dreams, the spark a steady presence in his locket while he goes about the frantic, nonsensical business common while dreaming. But within his mind, Zhane is quiet. So quiet that he can't help but be reminded of that terrible span of time after KO-35 had fallen, when Andros had wandered the decks of the Megaship alone, the silence his only companion because he'd foolishly demanded that Zhane shut up.

He's never, ever wanted that much quiet again. Never voiced the desire, never thought it. Zhane's free to tell him whatever he wants, whenever he wants... It's just, right now... Zhane's communicating the bare basics, and...

...it hurts. The gray-haired boy is sitting across from him busy with his own breakfast of toast with some kind of nut spread, but for all that Andros could reach across and touch him, the distance seems insurmountable. And as if hearing Andros' wistful thought, Zhane glances up at him coolly. Takes a bite of his toast, and chews. It's not fair that he's bearing the brunt of Zhane's anger.

Andros only wants him safe. That... that can't be wrong. He wants his entire team safe. Although he hasn't forbidden any of them from joining in on battles. Andros is aware there's a double-standard in play. He's aware, but he can see no way around it. The others can take care of themselves. Zhane – can take care of himself. Unless Astronema shows up, then all bets are off. Andros can feel the hooks his sister's embedded in his friend, feel the pull and tug of a puppeteer toying with a marionette.

The geis can only constrain her behavior so far. And he needs Zhane safe. For Andros' own sanity, he needs... He scowls down at the porridge; cold slop unfit for consumption. It still bothers him, Zhane's accusation that he wants to set his friend on a shelf, safe and out of reach. It bothers him more that the idea – is starting to sound good. If he could find some place out of Astronema's reach...

DECA's been harping on him over his hormone levels, worried over his broken sleep cycles and fluctuating moods. She's blaming his migraines on them, and has been threatening to teleport him into the medical bay and keep him there until she can discover the root cause. But he doesn't have time. Astronema is sending monsters down to Earth on a daily basis now. And while she's stopped enlarging them, the monsters themselves are vicious. Dangerous enough that he's thought of calling upon Zhane for backup. For help.

He wants Zhane's help, but his sister would take advantage. He knows she would. If she had Zhane, Andros knows he would stop at nothing to get the other boy back. She's his sister, and he doesn't know the woman she's become – but he knows her. He knows.

Pushing the bowl of porridge away, he rubs at his temples. "Toast any good?" he asks, needing to break the uncomfortable silence.

"Good enough." With the tip of his finger, Zhane nudges his plate across the table. "Help yourself," he says amiably but without warmth. "I'm done here."

And isn't that the problem? Andros keeps trying to reach out, but Zhane's done. And Andros has no idea how to cross that distance now. He could apologize, but he's not sorry. He'll never be sorry for wanting to protect his friend. And he can't apologize for being himself.

"Andros?" Cassie hails him over his morpher. "Could you come to the bridge? Sensors have picked up something. I'm just not sure what."

"On my way," he tells her as he looks towards Zhane, wondering if his friend will follow. Wondering if Zhane cares at all, anymore.

"Any guesses?" Leaving the bowl of porridge and the plate of toast behind uneaten on the table, Andros heads towards the bridge, Zhane falling into place behind him. And Zhane cares, but the other boy is behind him and not at Andros' side, and the wrongness numbs his skin and weights his steps. "Last time, Cassie mistook a gamma burst for a distress signal."

"Gamma bursts are distressing." There's humor his friend's response, but Andros can't catch his eyes, can't glimpse his face with Zhane staying stubbornly a step behind him. He can't know what Zhane's actually thinking and it's enough to curl his hands into fists that want to lash out. "Got a feeling this will be more distressing."

His muscles are tense enough that shaking his head is actually painful. 'A feeling, or something you're remembering ahead?' Without waiting for an answer, without expecting an answer, he enters the bridge and takes his place in front of command. "Okay," he tells Cassie, "show me what you picked up."

The signal that she redirects to the viewscreen is odd. It fluctuates without pattern, the frequencies reminiscent of time distortion but subtly wrong. It almost looks like the footprint of Zordon's energy tube, except for when it doesn't resemble anything even close to it. It looks, Andros decides, like bait.

"TJ suggested a new algorithm," Cassie says as she triangulates the source of the signal. "And I thought it was a bust until this showed up. Think it could be Zordon? We know Dark Specter is shielding him. Any chance that could account for all the... weirdness?"

Centaur B in the Equuleus sector; another dust ball of a planet better left to scavengers and what few miners were desperate enough to try their luck on a mineral-poor world. It's just close enough to Alliance-held space to give legitimacy to the unusual signal. It could be Zordon, but if it was, the ancient Eltarian was in trouble. "DECA, can you get us there without attracting attention?"

"As long as you stay off long-distance comms," she replies succinctly, already changing their course. "Alerting the other Rangers of our new destination."

"You should know," Zhane says from behind him, still behind him, out of sight, "it's not Zordon."

"How can you tell?" Cassie sounds honestly interested, the dark-haired girl turning in her seat so she can address Zhane directly. And Andros clenches his jaw, that she can so easily do that. If he turns around now, there's too great a chance that he'll grab Zhane by his black jacket and shake him until the awful aloofness vanishes; until Zhane has no choice but to deal with him. Best if Andros keeps his attention on his console. Best if Andros keeps his hands to himself. Best for whom is a question he refuses to address.

"Zordon's tidy, even when he's making a mess." There are hands on the back of Andros' chair and he takes a shuddering breath as he leans forward, pretending interest in a status report sent by the nanite collective in charge of the secondary cargo bay. "That signal isn't time. It's gravity distorting time."

"Gravity? That doesn't look like gravity," TJ observes as he enters the bridge, his attention immediately focusing on the viewscreen. "It doesn't match any readings in DECA's database."

"You changed the algorithm." And finally Zhane is sitting next to him, his feet coming up to rest on top of comms' console. "Of course DECA wouldn't have information on phenomena she wasn't previously able to detect." A smile as dark as his friend's pewter-colored hair is aimed towards the viewscreen. "But that," he points, "is gravity. Wounded, shrieking gravity bleeding into space-time."

"Darkonda," Andros snarls as adrenaline floods his system.

"Darkonda's dreadnought," Zhane corrects him, his fingers tapping an uneven cadence on his knee. "And its cloak. Although..." Narrowing his eyes, he swings his feet back to the floor and quickly types in a sequence that clones sensors to his console. "There's something different coming from the surface of Centaur B. Someone else is trying to hide there. And the type of equipment needed for that kind of distortion isn't going to be standard on a down on their luck mining operation."

"DECA, can you separate the signals?" Andros wants to know as much as he can about the situation they're about to enter. It would be wiser to resume their previous course – but it's Darkonda. Away from the Dark Fortress, and vulnerable. And being away from the Dark Fortress, he can have Zhane at his side when he confronts the depraved monster that had taken his sister and given her to darkness.

"Don't worry, Deca; I've got it." His fingers practically flying across the console, Zhane inputs equations with enviable ease; his friend had always had a knack for mathematics.

On the viewscreen the signal splits in two. On the right is the tangle of Darkonda's personal dreadnought, a sickening snarl of gravity tormented and strained. On the left, so weak as to be undetectable if not boosted by the unstable effects of gravity eating itself, is a signal so familiar that Andros is standing without thought. Standing, and staring in a disbelief so deep it feels as if his heart has stopped.

"That's Kerovan," he whispers, awestruck. "Zhane? Tell me I'm not seeing things. Please. That's... that's the convoy, isn't it?"

"At least one of the ships." Zhane is at his side, his fingers weaving between Andros' own, and he's not sure whose hand is trembling, but he thinks it might be both. As his eyes burn and he blinks back tears, Andros thinks they might both be trembling in shock. "It's a miracle the signal made it off planet. And Darkonda's down there."

"He dies this time," Andros tells him without passion or anger, just a statement of his intention. "I don't care that he'll come back. One day he'll run out of lives – and today, I will push him one step closer."

Behind them a throat clears, and TJ says, "We're Rangers. We don't kill."

"No?" Glancing behind him, Andros takes in TJ's dismay. The harrowed look on Cassie's face as her fingers play with a loose, pink-ribboned braid. Ashley and Carlos huddled together by the door, their eyes large and their steps uncertain as they slowly make their way on to the bridge. "What do you think happens to each monster we defeat? Are you so naïve as to believe they're teleported back off world, living to attack us another day? We kill them, TJ. We wound them, mutilate them, and yes – we kill them. Before they kill us. In this, Rangers do not hold the moral high ground. We've been at war for thousands of years. For thousands of years we've slaughtered each other."

"...Then shouldn't we try to be better?" Ashley quavers as she wraps her arms about herself for comfort.

"There is a possibility that the few remaining remnants of a civilization older than Eltar are hiding on that planet – with Darkonda." He glares at them, planetary Rangers still so frustratingly innocent and patronizing with their values, daring them to speak out again. "So no. Today, I'm not going to try to be better. I'm going to kill Darkonda and if he's idiot enough to reform within reach, I'll kill him again."

Zhane squeezes his hand, his support as palpable as the smirk gracing his lips. And it allows Andros to breathe past his ire; if Zhane's with him, the other Rangers' opinions are wrong. "Earth actually coined a term for that recently. They call it corpse camping."

And Andros laughs, high and biting, as the Megaship nears Centaur B. "Do they?" He can hear the others shuffling in the background, and he wonders if any of them will try to continue the argument when segments of their own culture have come to embrace the idea enough to name it. "I like it. Corpse camping. Couldn't happen to a more deserving being."

.oO0Oo.

Centaur B is a world of sand. Sand underfoot, and sand in the air, and sand working its way past TJ's mask to coat his lips and irritate his eyes. There's sand underneath his protective coat and environmental suit, rubbing his skin raw wherever fabric draws tight. The howling gale-force winds are more sand than air, and he can't help but wonder how anything could survive on the planet's surface.

"I hate sand," he gripes, a sentiment that's met with laughter by Andros.

"Don't get Zhane started," their leader advises. "He can rant for hours about sand."

They are surrounded by nothing but sand except for those brief moments when the wind slackens before renewing its assault, exposing worn rocks and coral. Coral on a desert world that lacks the slightest trace of oceans – or any body of water at all. Centaur B is less hospitable than Dune is TJ's opinion, and the coral is an anomaly that's as ominous as it is out of place.

"We're close to the signal you identified as Kerovan in origin," Cassie tells them, and TJ wonders how the tablet in her hands is even operational. The visor of his mask is already etched to fogginess by the blasting sand; the screen of the tablet should be scoured to opacity. "I think there are caverns up ahead. At least I'm reading a large hollow."

"Makes sense." Trudging forward, Ashley literally runs into a rock wall, the crumbling cliff face several stories tall. "Nothing could live on the surface for long exposed to this kind of weather." A huff of air as she steps to the side, her searching hands pushing into void. "Think I've got an entrance here."

After the shriek of the storm, the silence of the tunnel is deafening. "So..." Taking off his mask, TJ takes a deep breath of the musty air. It stings the linings of his nostrils and burns the weeping abrasions sand had created when it had gotten trapped between his skin and the mask's sealing edge. Carlos is standing in front of him the next moment, dabbing at the wounds with an antiseptic towelette. "Any clue where we should go from here? Looks like the tunnel forks. We could split up, but between the storm and all this rock, comms are spotty."

"Better if we stick together." Zhane's taken off his own mask, his nose wrinkling in disgust as he sniffs at the air. And the air isn't fresh by any means, but it's not so foul as to account for the sheer revulsion crossing the gray-haired teen's face. "Besides, I have a feeling Darkonda's going to lead us exactly where we need to go."

Andros is actually gagging. "This is worse than Onyx," he complains as he hides his nose behind his gloves. "And that planet is nothing but Alliance. Ugh. I can taste it on my tongue."

"Everything we eat is going to taste like it for days," comes Zhane's glum agreement.

And TJ has no idea what they're talking about. "Guys? The air's a little stale, but I've smelled worse. You're acting like you've just stepped into a walk-in freezer after the power's been out a week."

"I'd rather be in the freezer; that's at least honest rot." Coughing into the sleeve of his coat, Zhane begins moving towards the left fork of the tunnel, leaving the rest of them with no choice but to follow or be left behind.

"The Alliance is corrupt," Andros says through his fingers, his eyes wide and tawny above the blackness of his gloves. "Kerovians can smell that. Or... at least, they should be able to..." Lowering his hands, he tugs at the back of his friend's hood. "Zhane, if anyone from the convoy is here..."

"How are they tolerating Darkonda?" Zhane finishes, his own features pinched. "Stars below, I don't like this. Her Ladyship and her entire cabinet were corrupt, but even constant exposure to the government shouldn't have inured the refugees to this miasma. I mean, I could almost understand it if they were former palace staff, but that group never made it past the spaceport's wall. Astronema–" he stops himself, his eyes shifting towards Andros with something close to guilt darkening their hue.

There is silence punctuated by the team's breathing, the rustling of coats and the scrape of sand upon stone under their boots. Then, "I thought it might be her," Andros says into the hush, hunching his shoulders against a blow that never finishes landing. "The orbs had to be magic. And Ecliptor is hers. I think I've known for a while that she's the one responsible."

TJ watches as Zhane turns and presses his forehead lightly against Andros', watches as they both mourn something he doesn't understand. Because Astronema is a villain, a warlord, and it should come as no surprise that she's destroyed worlds. As much as he's come to know the two Kerovians and think of them as prickly but authentic friends, TJ believes in some ways they'll always remain alien, a step removed from the humanity of Earth.

The moment ends between the two teens, and Zhane shrugs in discomfort. "There's going to be a reason any survivors can't smell Darkonda. And we're not going to like it."

"Could they be prisoners?" Cassie hooks her arm around his own, and TJ is grateful for the support. He could really use some optimism about now. "That would make sense, wouldn't it?" Although being optimistic that refugees fleeing Dark Specter are prisoners of Darkonda on a world inhospitable to life and entirely too close to the war's current border feels – wrong. Like hearing nails on a chalkboard, or seeing Bulk picking up trash in the park.

"I think I would have preferred prisoners," Andros says faintly as the tunnel widens out into a chamber. A chamber filled with people lying deathly still upon the floor, their eyes blindly staring upwards and their bodies consumed by coral.

"God." Tearing off her gloves, Ashley bends and checks each body, her fingers pushing against pulse points where they're not covered by coral. Her expression grows more desperate the further she checks, until by the end she's weeping over the last victim, carefully brushing their eyelids closed over staring, sunken eyes. "They're all dead. I don't – I don't know for how long. The coral, it's eating them alive."

TJ wants to be sick as they walk through another chamber, and another, all piled high with coral-riddled corpses. Andros is keening, a high-pitched whine at the very edge of TJ's hearing, and Ashley hasn't stopped crying, each sob muffled but distinct. Carlos has his arm around her shoulders, and TJ keeps Cassie close to his side. Ahead of them all, Zhane leads them unerringly, his hair nearly black in the dim light of the caverns.

"These ones are still alive," Zhane whispers as they enter the next room, this one showing signs of chiseling along the walls. It's been enlarged, expanded for use as an infirmary instead of a make-shift morgue, and it's filled with people. Some are silent, and some are quietly moaning. A few writhe on thin pallets and even more babble, a constant stream of nonsense while coral spreads glacially slow across their bodies, devouring as it advances. "Andros... the final reports we were getting out of KO-41, before..." He bites his lower lip, and TJ wonders what memories he's struggling to push back. "Didn't they mention monsters that sprayed their victims with planulae? Larval corals?"

Andros steps carefully around the strewn bodies, his expression a mix of grief and fury. "I remember. That's when the local military ordered a halt to the evacuation and declared a quarantine. We lost more people to the coral outbreaks than to the velocifighter bombings." Nearby groaning has Andros bending towards a skeletal woman whose hands are grasping at thin air. Noticing her dry, cracked lips and hacking coughs, he offers her water that she guzzles greedily. And with each swallow coral spreads in colorful tendrils. Dropping his canteen in horror, Andros stumbles back as coral bursts like a blossoming tropical flower from her open mouth.

TJ pulls Cassie to his chest, blocking her view even as he closes his own eyes. It doesn't stop him from hearing as coral snaps bones, or the woman's final, gurgling wail. And he prays. He prays as he hasn't for years. Divatox, the destruction of the Command Center, losing Dimitria and Zordon; none of that compares to the despair he feels as he opens his eyes and sees Andros clutching desperately to Zhane, both teens pale to whiteness as spilt water spreads across the floor triggering more fatal reactions.

"Oh God." Hiding her head against Carlos' shoulder, Ashley's pleading gains volume in a futile attempt to drown out the growing cacophony of agonized cries. "They could do this to Earth. They, they could do this! How would we fight it?" She swings her head around, her gaze latching on to Andros. "Tell me there's a way to fight this! Are, are we already exposed? Andros, are we – are we..."

"–Scientists thought the organism might be a hive mind. Take out the parent and the larvae should die." Although Zhane's words offer hope, his expression is bleak. "Defense trapped on-planet by the quarantine managed to kill one of the monsters. Our last intel before the world was glassed was that some of those infected survived. Those recently exposed... We... We never heard anything about water..."

TJ wants to be sick. He would be sick, except there's no safe place to vomit and that only makes the nausea worse. Covering his mouth with both hands, he swallows, and swallows again. "Should we morph? Would that help?"

Carlos has his morpher out and activated before Andros can say anything. "We know there's at least one coral monster, if not more," Carlos explains while the cavern lights up with a rainbow of colors as TJ and the rest of his team morphs. "And Darkonda hiding behind a lot of victims. We're going to have to take them out before any monsters nearby can escalate the battle; there's too much risk, otherwise."

TJ couldn't agree more. And he has a sudden understanding of Andros' need to 'corpse camp' Darkonda. Any being capable of atrocities like the one they're witnessing doesn't deserve a chance to come back and somehow do worse. For the safety of others, Darkonda needs to die.

Cassie had grabbed back hold of his arm as soon as they'd finished morphing, but now she's letting go, her attention on the one member of their team still wearing the brown coat and hood combo over the environmental suit that now seems laughably insufficient against the true dangers of the planet. "Zhane? Aren't you going to morph?"

Zhane shakes his head, a motion not so much of denial than of turmoil. "Darkonda's a shape-shifter. He'll be hiding among whatever refugees are still mobile. One of us needs to be able to sniff him out."

"You could morph, then take your helmet off." By the tilt of his head TJ knows that Andros is watching his friend, but the dark visor makes it impossible to guess at his expression. And while comms remain quiet, he knows the two teens are talking, somehow, because Andros' next words are, "I didn't agree to you being a distraction."

"The smell's strong enough that Darkonda has to be in the next room. I'll go first, identify him, then move to the right before drawing his attention. You'll need to go left when it's safe and find positions with clear line of sight. We have one chance to take Darkonda out before he can retaliate, but we can't rush it. He needs to call in the monster for backup or we'll waste too much time tracking it down later. They don't..." He lets his gaze drift across the cavern, never resting on a single individual. "They don't have time."

It's a solid plan and TJ has no objection to following Zhane down the winding tunnel. No objection other than their sixth member's vulnerability, going up against one of Dark Specter's most feared henchmen without armor or weaponry. That, TJ has issues with. But if anything can make Darkonda overconfident – more so than the villain already is – it's a Ranger unmorphed and acting irrationally.

"It could be worse," Carlos says over comms. "He's not actually unarmed. Zhane doesn't need to be morphed to summon the silverizer."

And that catches TJ off-guard. "What?" It doesn't make any sense. Every Astro Ranger could call on their blasters unmorphed, but their primary weapons? Those needed the backing of the Power – and that required being morphed. "How do you know?"

Andros raises a hand, putting an end to his questioning. "Zhane says Darkonda's the one with dark hair and the ugly mustache giving off the crazy dictator vibes while ordering the execution of anyone infected."

"Could have just said it's the fugly dude wanting to kill everyone," Ashley mutters as they crouch in the shadows of the tunnel, watching as Zhane slowly makes his way around the perimeter of the room. "There's only one of those."

"Shh," Andros orders, only to get a, "You shush," back from Ashley, although she says nothing else as Zhane straightens and tosses off his coat.

"Executions. Really?" The small crowd of people, most of them bearing the first signs of coral infestation along hands and faces turn as one towards Zhane, their expressions just short of frenzied. "And here I thought those had come to an end the same time as her Ladyship." His grin is a baring of teeth, taunting and furious. "Such a shame. What has me really curious, though, is when did Kerovians start following the orders of someone not even Kerovan?"

It serves as an effective distraction as he stealthily follows Andros to the left. TJ has a clear shot of the human-disguised villain; further ahead of him he sees the other Rangers take position, blasters trained on a ranting Darkonda. Now they just need the villain to call out his monster and they can end him.

"A spy!" Darkonda shouts, pointing with an accusing finger at the gray-haired youth. "A spy among us! He's the one that brought the sickness!"

Zhane tsks, tilting his head just enough that the illumination of strung lanterns catch on the lighter streaks in his hair. "You're not Kerovian," he singsongs, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "I don't think you're in a position to tell anyone what to do."

The crowd is agitated, the muttering changing to angry, guttural snarls. TJ catches snatches of conversation: "Who is he, then?" and, "He spoke of her Ladyship, he has be from KO-35," and, "He must have brought the sickness," followed with, "But he's Kerovian, where did he come from? Where? Where?!" There's an outpouring of cries over missing convoys, missing family, missing friends. Then, from an elderly man, his hair whitened by age and his nail beds covered in coral, "Zhane. Stars preserve us, you're here. I was told you were killed in defense of the spaceport – but you're here."

His grin softening into something more honest, Zhane gives the old man a brief nod. "Kinwon. You know how Andros is. He had me scraped up and glued back together in no time. Look, even have all my fingers," he boasts gleefully as he raises his hand and waves. And that, that has TJ wanting to puke all over again. "But as glad as I am to see you made it off-planet in time; why are you taking orders from a being unclaimed by Kerova? Can't you smell him?"

"Be quiet, spy!" the disguised Darkonda attempts to hiss as he looms over the gray-haired teen, and TJ can tell the difference. The villain's hiss sounds nothing like the ones Andros gives on a regular basis, or even the milder hisses that come from Zhane on rarer occasions. And the crowd – notices. And they start hissing as well, a rising wall of threatening sound.

"Zhane is not spy," Kinwon says, his voice confident. "He's the Silver Ranger. All of us here owe him our lives."

"Then I'll be sure to thank him for this opportunity to take your lives myself!" Darkonda screeches, his guise shredding as his natural form rips through the thin veneer of humanity. "You'll all be dead before the sun sets on this day. One monster to wipe out the pitiful remnants of an empire best forgotten! But you," he chatters his teeth inches from Zhane's nose, "I'll take care of personally. There will be no second miraculous resurrection."

From the corner of his eye TJ catches the colorful clash of corals as a monster enters from another tunnel opposite from where they're hiding, and he orders, "Now." Five blaster shots hit Darkonda's back, staggering the fiend – directly into the blade of Zhane's silverizer.

"Pity I can't say the same for you." Zhane's eyes are hard as he watches Darkonda fall to his knees and explode in a flurry of burning embers. Then silver flares and when the afterimages fade the Silver Ranger's at TJ's side, and the rest of his team surround him, weapons ready and aimed towards the monster charging forward.

"Quadroblaster!" Carlos orders, and in moments it's formed and ready.

Faced with it, and the long length of the saber and the glowing blade of the silverizer, the monster stumbles to a stop, its beady eyes beginning to show the first traces of doubt. "Umm..." it hedges as it shifts from side to side, and TJ does not like the interest it's showing in the people slowly closing in around it. "Can't we talk this over? I've done nothing wrong; any sentient species has a right to propagate, doesn't it?"

And TJ orders Carlos to fire. Because the monster spoke a truth that's too hard to hear. Because the morality he's been raised with claimed all life was precious, but watching coral ruthlessly devour people has convinced him that some kinds of life are worth more than others. Because Andros is right; they are at war, and they've been slaughtering each other for thousands upon thousands of years... and that isn't going to end today. Because if he lets the monster go, it will be back. They'll always come back if given the chance.

The Quadroblaster strikes in tandem with the saber and the silverizer, and the monster perishes. Around them people gasp as colonizing patches of coral darken and shrivel, flaking from their skin and leaving behind oozing wounds.

And the man Zhane had called Kinwon, the tips of his fingers gone leaving behind bleeding stumps, is smiling at them. Smiling – and TJ yanks off his helmet, turns towards the wall, and vomits until there's nothing left in his stomach.

.oO0Oo.

"Kinwon..." Andros paces while the commander's fingers are bandaged, seven short paces from one wall to another; it's not enough room to escape his roiling thoughts. "How many were lost?"

"I believe it would be easier to count the ones that survived." The older man sighs, lines of grief and pain pulling down the corners of his mouth. "There's one hundred and twenty-two of us now. One hundred and twenty-four counting you and Zhane."

"From this convoy?" he demands, stopping in front of the low desk, his knee brushing against Zhane's back as his friend finishes securing the already-darkening bandages he's wrapped around Kinwon's fingers. "One hundred and twenty-two from this convoy, but there were others."

"There were," Kinwon admits, his head bowing. "There aren't any longer. We were ambushed at our first fall-back point. Ambushed again en route to the Lacunae sector – we hadn't known it had already fallen to the Alliance. No two convoys were sent to the same location, but the results were the same. We lost them, one by one. We are all that remains, Andros. We are now Kerova."

"Are you?" Zhane asks quietly as he stands, moving to a basin set against the wall to wash his hands. "Are you really? How could you not smell Darkonda, Kinwon? His stench reached the surface, it was that foul." Wiping his hands on a scrap of rag, he returns to Andros' side. "You may claim to be Kerovian, but I'm no longer sure that Kerova claims you."

The old man blinks rapidly and lamplight gleams from the moisture gathering in his eyes. "I had wondered," he says faintly, the remains of his fingers twitching beneath the bandages. "When the coral started appearing on our scouts. When the children started dying... I wondered. For all our searching, we couldn't identify the culprit. We discovered quickly that water fueled the corals' growth so I moved our people here, to Centaur B. And we survived, for a while. But the infection kept spreading... and we couldn't find the cause. I knew there had to be a monster; I still have all the reports from KO-41, but we couldn't find it.

"The people blamed our ill-luck on a lack of proper leadership. Had her Ladyship survived, they said, Kerova would not have abandoned us."

Andros runs his fingers across the metal binding his braid. Lets the silver beneath his fingertips calm him. "And you let loyalists convince you. Her Ladyship was lost to corruption long before the Alliance began the final sieges. Kerova itself has never supported those fallen to corruption... or those that blindly follow. And in turn, Kerova has withdrawn its protections from you all."

He covers his face with his hands and focuses on breathing. 'We're the last.' It's a thought beyond comprehension. The Kerovan empire, tied with bonds of love and loyalty to long-lost Kerova itself, now embodied in two boys not even considered adults in their home sector. 'How can we be the last?'

Zhane offers him a wan grin as he catches Andros in a one-armed embrace. 'Not Kerovian,' he says with the ease of long practice.

'Maybe not Kerovian,' Andros concedes, pulling his friend's arm tighter around his waist. 'But Kerovan?'

'I was meant for you, wasn't I?' The fading grin presses into Andros' neck while a shuddering sigh cools the sensitive skin dampened by Zhane's breath. 'No one is more Kerovan than you.'

Kinwon watches them placidly from behind the desk, used to their displays despite not having seen them for years. And Andros isn't sure if he should be grateful that he's been given the time to regain his composure, or outraged that Kinwon thinks he still has a say over them.

"Where will you go now?" He doesn't care; these people are no longer his people. Kerova is lost and he doesn't care. He doesn't. And if he repeats it enough times, he might start to believe. "I doubt that was Darkonda's last life. He'll return."

"We'll be gone by then." The palm of Kinwon's hand pulls a star map across the desk; the stained linen of his bandage leaves a rusty blotch against the corner of the flimsy. "I discovered a moonlet once, back in my youth. Its system appears in no database, not that I could ever discover. It will be rough establishing shelter there, but it can be done. We may not be Kerovian any longer, but our people look to me for guidance. Perhaps, perhaps we can settle this moonlet and with hard work prove ourselves worthy of Kerova once more."

"Hmm." Releasing his grip, Zhane bends to look at the map.

And Andros flinches. Because there's a world the Alliance cannot find. A world uncharted, undocumented; a world that no one but Kinwon knows the location of. A world out of reach of his sister. And Zhane is peering up at him from over his shoulder, his eyes dark and sad and – he knows. Zhane knows what Andros is thinking. And Andros chokes as his throat tightens because Zhane had known for weeks.

"No." His denial is a weak, voiceless mewl.

"They'll be safer with a Ranger escorting them." There's no smile on the other boy's face. No bubbling joy, no eager excitement. Just the certain knowledge that the balance of Andros' heart had tipped.

"No..." It's a protest against his own wretched, betraying mind. "I want you to stay."

"I know." There is no smile, no reassurance, only his friend's leaden hair absorbing the room's feeble light as he turns his attention back to the map. "But you want me to leave more."

"Don't do this!" Grabbing the other boy's shoulders, Andros forcefully turns him around. "Don't do this to me," he begs, his hands coming up to cradle Zhane's face, meeting him eye to eye. "You promised."

Zhane's breathless laugh echoes with emptiness. "Do you really think this is my decision? I'll guard the refugees. I'll stay with them until you want me back more than you want me safe." His hands rest atop Andros' own, curling around them and pulling them away, pushing them down until they're back at Andros' sides. But he doesn't let them go. Not yet. "It's okay. I'm not angry with you, Andros. I've had a lot longer than most imaginary friends. I'm grateful for that."

Andros wants to protest that he's not imaginary, the familiar words on his tongue waiting to fall, but Zhane's staring at him with shattered, charcoal eyes and they're lost amidst the jumble of his thoughts. "If anything happens to you," he tells Zhane, his voice a rumble of warning, "it's not my sister the universe will need to worry about."

The balance of Andros' heart has tipped, and the balance of his mind – is teetering.

.oO0Oo.

"We'll miss you," Ashley tells Zhane as she catches him in a brief hug. She runs her hand through his hair, quickly twisting her frown at the darkness of the strands into a quirky smile. "Are you sure this is what you want to do? We could always escort the refugees in the Megaship; there's no need for you to do it alone."

"It's not that I want to, Buttercup. I have to. I'd tell you to ask Andros about it, but..." His eyes stray to the side, where Andros isn't so much talking to Kinwon as berating the older man. "...Look after him for me?" he asks quietly, his concern a match for her own. Andros hasn't been right since the two teens had exited their meeting with the Kerovian commander. There's a wildness to his eyes, a jerking twitch to his movements that Ashley doesn't like. And neither, it appears, does Zhane.

"You know I will," she reassures him. "Perhaps not up to your standards, but I'll try."

"That's all I can ask for." He studies her searchingly, the hand he's left curled around her bicep a comfort. "Deca's been wanting him in medical for a while now," he says lowly, his words not meant to carry. "He's used Red's authority to prevent her from performing more than cursory surface scans. Yellow can override Red when it comes to the team's health, the same as Blue takes priority in tactics and Pink over pure stupidity. Don't be afraid to invoke Yellow's privilege, okay?"

She blinks, and studies his face in turn. "You think it will come to that?"

Zhane winces as Andros' shouted objection reaches them, and Ashley wonders why their leader is fighting with an old, injured man that rightfully should be resting in bed, not organizing an evacuation. "Yeah." Zhane purposefully turns his back on the scene, his dark eyes now shuttered behind darker lashes. "I think it will. Soon. I've never felt him this unbalanced, not even after his sister was taken."

That worries her. It had been something of a running joke among the Rangers from Earth, that Andros was – odd. Of course, most of that opinion had been formed when they'd believed Zhane dead, and Andros delusional. Still, it's common knowledge that the blond-streaked teen is high-strung, but DECA had consistently vouched for him and Zhane, once he'd awakened, had fallen in with his friend's foibles, leading them to believe that perhaps Andros wasn't so much odd as misunderstood. But now Zhane is claiming that Andros is unbalanced – and Ashley isn't sure what to do with that.

There's so much she isn't sure of since they've stepped foot on Centaur B.

Throwing his hands into the air, Andros stomps a booted foot and pivots, angrily heading in their direction. And Ashley would run, but Zhane's hand is still resting on her arm, large and warm and protective.

"You're not staying with them," Andros informs the other boy, his tone firm and his jaw jutting forward. "Kinwon can't be trusted to wipe his own–"

"Andros!" Ashley's heard far worse things in the girls' locker room but not from Andros, and certainly not directed towards a person in a position of authority. Given the nature of Kinwon's injuries, the insult borders on crassness. "You're their Ranger. These people don't need to hear you mocking their leadership."

His lips lift away from his teeth and she takes a step back, away from him and away from Zhane when she realizes that Andros is growling. "They're not Kerovian," he dismisses the people hurriedly loading their ships with brutal casualness. "And I doubt they'll ever be again. You," he points at his gray-haired friend, his finger pushing against the other boy's chest hard enough that Zhane has to move one of his feet back and to the side to keep his balance, "are not staying."

"You decided, huh?" Although Zhane's smiling, Ashley can see the hollowness behind it. "Funny... Once I grabbed a few things from my room, I couldn't get back down here fast enough. Are you sure I'm not staying? I mean, I'd think I'd know if you'd changed your mind."

"No!" Andros' hand is clenched in the rough fabric of Zhane's coat, his brown eyes nearly golden in fury. "You're. Not. Staying!"

Zhane merely tilts his head, his smile gone as if it had never been. "You shouldn't let rage try to dictate what you want," he says sadly. "It rarely works, and when it does you're left with nothing but regrets. You're only hurting yourself right now; you haven't managed to change anything."

Andros' glare slips into anguish. "You – you're not staying. Why aren't you staying? You're supposed to stay with me." With a lurch he catches his friend in a fierce embrace, one hand a steady pressure against Zhane's back while the other remains tangled in the folds of his coat. "It's not fair," he whispers roughly. "Through school, through the sieges, as exiles going where the Power directed us – you've been my only light. Without you, I dwell in darkness."

She feels like she's intruding, and Ashley begins turning to leave when she catches Zhane's wink over the other teen's shoulder. "There's more to the quote," he murmurs, his dimple making a startling appearance as a sly grin breaks free. "A reprise of sorts. Ashley?" he calls to her, beckoning with one hand, the other trapped at his side by Andros' tight hug. "Promise me you'll make him watch Willow."

Willow? His request is unexpected, nonsensical, until Ashley's able to recall the full quote – and then she bursts into giggles loud enough to have Andros loosening his death grip on his friend to turn a disapproving, imperious glower her way. "Tonight," she has no problem promising. "Unless Astronema attacks; then, tomorrow for sure. TJ loves that movie." Seeing her chance, she pushes Andros far enough to the side that she can place a soft kiss against Zhane's cheek. "Take care of yourself?"

"I'm going to be stuck in the doldrums," he says, lifting her hand and kissing the back of it in return. "Do you have any idea how boring it's going to be without you all?" He attempts a smirk that fails to convince her that his complaint is nothing more than a joke. "Don't have too much fun while I'm gone, huh?"

"Fun, right." Ashley has a feeling life aboard the Megaship will be anything but fun while he's gone. "Come on, Andros. The others are waiting for us, and it looks like the Kerovians are ready to leave."

"Not Kerovian," Andros mutters, reluctantly releasing the other boy's coat. "Not even close." Slowly blinking his eyes, he rubs at the bridge of his nose as if trying to soothe a building pain. "Anything," he says suddenly, snapping his gaze back towards Zhane. "If anything happens, or you need anything... Anything, you contact me."

"I will." Their hands join in a high clasp, one atop another until all four are tangled together. "And Andros? We're not the last. Mom's still out there, and who knows how many others. The long-haul traders and scientific expeditions; Kerova would not have abandoned all of her children."

Shock runs through Andros' body like an electrical current. He mouths something Ashley's not quite able to make out, but his clenched hands spasm once before releasing the other teen's. "They wouldn't be running under standard Kerovan codes," he says softly, as if to himself. "The traders stopped using them centuries ago, and Science assigned its own encryptions when her Ladyship started selling off their technology. Zhane!"

"Yeah." He reaches out and taps Andros between his brows. "We were so focused on the convoys we forgot about whomever else might be wandering. But they're out there, I'm sure of it."

With Andros' attention diverted, Ashley is able to tease him away with subtle tugs on his sleeve. The last she sees of Zhane as the teleport takes hold is him waving, an easy smile on his lips and heartbreak in his eyes. Then they're on the Megaship... and Andros' attention isn't as divided as she'd hoped.

"What? I wasn't done yet, Ashley. DECA–"

"Don't," she countermands him as she stares up into the nearest camera. "They're already taking off, Andros. We can't keep them here just because you don't know how to say good-bye to Zhane. It's too dangerous, for everyone. Besides, we should be getting back to Earth; Astronema keeps track of us and I don't trust her not to launch an attack while we're gone."

"But–"

"Andros." Certain that DECA has gotten the hint and is notifying the others on the bridge that they're ready to depart, Ashley takes a deep breath – and brushes a kiss across his cheek, lighter and faster than the one she'd given to Zhane. "You need to respect his decision."

"It wasn't his," he tells her bleakly, but his hand creeps up to rest against the spot her lips had touched. "It was mine. And I don't know why. He'll never forgive me for this."

"This is Zhane we're talking about; he'll forgive you anything." And he would, Ashley is sure – although what he needs to forgive Andros for remains a mystery. Because from where she'd been standing, the last thing Andros had wanted was his friend staying behind with the pitifully reduced remnants of the Kerovian refugees.

Andros remains quiet while they return to Earth. He doesn't sit in front of command; instead, he wanders the bridge from station to station, from chair to chair, aimless. They'd only been in hyper-rush a few moments when he'd given a strangled cry, his hands flying to his braid and crushing the silver wire woven through it in his frenzied grip. Since then – silence, and the steady footfalls of his pacing; back and forth, forward and back, ceaseless, until Earth glows blue and brown in the viewscreen, a fragile gem they need to defend from the Alliance at all cost.

It's not hard to convince TJ to join them for an impromptu movie night. Cassie coaxes the synthetron into providing popcorn, and Carlos sweet-talks DECA into teleporting another bench into the work bay. Ashley brings blankets and pillows, and chocolate that she's stashed away for emergencies because tonight is a chocolate night if ever there was one. And forcing Andros to sit, cuddled between her and Cassie and smothered beneath several blankets, they watch Willowtogether as a team.

Surreptitiously glancing at Andros from the corner of her eye, Ashley is vaguely surprised that he seems to be following the plot with little problem. Far better than the political drama Cassie had talked him into watching, or the rom-com that Carlos had taken the team to for bonding purposes. And possibly out of revenge for an imagined slight that Ashley takes no responsibility for. She thinks Andros might even be enjoying the film. It's either enjoyment or exhaustion as his head droops down against her shoulder. She dares to hope it's enjoyment, until the male and female leads are on horseback, talking.

On screen, the destined lovers quarrel and Andros stiffens beneath his cocoon of blankets. "This is what he wanted me to see?" he asks venomously as he struggles off the bench. The bowl of popcorn falls to the ground and kernels spill across the floor, but it's Andros that has everyone's attention. The fine hairs along Ashley's arms stand on end and while she can't hear it, his sub-audible snarl buzzes in her bones. "He thinks it's going to go away?"

There's a question burning in Carlos' eyes, but Ashley has no time for explanations as Andros takes off for the lift. The door closes in her face as she tries to follow, and by the time the lift returns to their deck Cassie at by her side, her pink-painted nails drumming nervously on her hip. "DECA, where did he go?" Ashley asks as the lift opens for them; she holds the door as TJ and Carlos belatedly catch up, leaving the movie to continue playing behind them unwatched.

"He went to the quarters he shares with Zhane." There's an urgency to the AI's usually placid voice that fills Ashley with dread. "I'd be – grateful – if you could restrain him. He's not taking the change in pass-code well."

Her eyes meet with Cassie's, and they both flinch. No, Andros wouldn't take well to being locked out. Not out of a cabin that he considered his own. Arriving at deck 2, the lift's door opens onto a scene Ashley will spend long hours trying to forget. Down the corridor, past her friends' rooms, Andros is clawing at the door to Zhane's cabin. Clawing, and pounding, and shrieking at a pitch high enough that her ears ache from the piercing sound.

There's blood on the door, and dripping from Andros' hands. And blood stains the sleeves of TJ's jacket as he grabs Andros from behind in an attempt to restrain him. And there's blood across Carlos' face as one of Andros' flailing fists catches him along the jaw on its way back to the door.

"He changed it!" Andros yells as Carlos manages to catch his wrists. "He changed it!"

And Ashley is about to reassure him that, given time, they'll find a way to bypass the new pass-code, but Cassie is shaking her head, her dark eyes distressed as she runs a finger alongside a scratch marring the neat, silver cursive decorating the surface of the door. "He changed it," she echoes, her expression haunted. "–I don't think we should have let Zhane leave. This, it's not like him..."

Ashley pulls her attention away from Andros long enough to examine the door. At the blood smeared across it, and at the silvery words partially obscured by splatterings of crimson and scratches deep enough to peel away the thinly applied layer of paint. A shooting star's a meteor that's heading for a fall.

There's nothing she can do for Zhane. Not at the moment. Not while he's away guarding the few survivors left from an entire galactic civilization lost to war. Andros needs to be her priority – and she'd promised Zhane. As Andros bucks within TJ's hold nearly throwing the taller teen off, and Carlos' grip slips in the blood flowing down bony wrists, Ashley makes her decision. Andros might never forgive her, but she'd promised.

"DECA, transport Andros to the medical bay and sedate him. Now."

"Teleporting." There's relief in the AI's voice, and that frightens Ashley nearly as much as Andros' berserk fury. "If you could please make your way to medical, I need Yellow's authorization for the records."

"On my way." She's Yellow, and she's only now coming to understand what that means. She's Yellow, and she'd promised. But Zhane is out of reach for the time being, and Andros is currently lost to madness... And she'd really, really like to know what had occurred when the two life-long friends – binary stars, Andros had teased her a while back – had met with Kinwon behind closed doors.

.oO0Oo.

"Andros, I know you're awake." There's asperity in DECA's tone, enough that it covers the worry. "I need to ascertain your mental state. How are you feeling?"

He feels empty. Scooped clean and hollow, he's a shell left to wither. Turning to his side, he draws his knees up to his chest and pulls the blanket over his eyes. The action hurts... he thinks it hurts, but the pain of his hands is distant while the pain in his mind is all-encompassing. "Leave me alone," he rasps into the soft folds of the blanket. He's alone and he doesn't know why she refuses to respect that.

"I've managed to return your hormone levels to something approximating normal," she continues, blithely ignoring his request. "I'd had my suspicions, but your blood chemistry was worse than I'd feared. I assume your sudden separation from Zhane yesterday provoked the thyroid storm you were entering when I teleported you to the med bay. Andros," her voice lowers, more concerned now than chiding, "You shared your mind with Zhane for years. The brain is not designed for multiple consciousnesses. I believe, while he was with you, he was minimizing the damage, but once he woke you should have let me help you recover. Instead, you blocked me from taking any action. Your brain waves are disordered, and all areas are showing unusual, prolonged hyperactivity. Your limbic system alone–"

"DECA, what part of leave me alone do you not understand?" Throwing the blanket off his face, Andros struggles to sit. With the way the room swims around him, he doubts he'll be able to walk out of medical any time soon. "So what if my hormones are out of whack? It doesn't matter; I drove Zhane away." He presses the palms of his hands against his eyelids as he tries to force back the tuneless ringing echoing through his head. "He's gone. I thought, I thought the silence when he stopped talking to me after KO-35 was it. I thought he was actually dead, then. But this? It's like he never even existed."

"There's never been more than a planet's distance between you." DECA is not programmed to sigh, but she does a fair imitation. "He'll come back, and I'm sure your connection will reestablish itself. –And don't you think you owe it to him to be healthy when he returns? Andros, please, how are you feeling? I cannot tailor your treatment further without your input."

"–How do I feel?" There's a rift in his soul. Without the gravitational pull of his binary he's adrift, spinning helplessly out into the void. There's quiet where there should be laughter, ice where there should be warmth. Utter, complete emptiness where there should be love. "I feel like I've been beaten to the ground of the schoolyard, and there's no one to lift me up."

"That's depression," she says after a moment, her camera whirring as lenses are exchanged. "It's treatable."

"Treatable." The ravening nothing tearing away at him – is treatable. He laughs, and considers the fingers he's pressed against his forehead. Considers if the broken nails are strong enough to reach through bone to dig out those hideous, yammering parts of himself that forced Zhane to leave. If he could reach them, and tear them to shreds... Zhane would come back. Wouldn't he?

Tiredness weighs his limbs, and he aims a blurry glare towards the camera watching him intently. "You're sedating me again," he accuses as he falls back against the medical bed. He can no longer keep his arms up or his hands against his face; they flop to the sides, and he giggles at his uselessness. "All the psychiatric knowledge of a thousand worlds, and the best you can do is drug me."

"All the psychiatric knowledge in this galaxy, and none of it mentions the physical effects of involuntary separation from a person's imaginary friend. The few recorded cases only detail those people that demanded their friend leave." Hesitation, then sympathy that threatens his very sense of self. "Your mother was the most recent, although the majority of her symptoms were blamed on postpartum depression. Eltar had documentation on imaginary friends; Kerova did not."

"I am revoking all of your certifications, DECA."

"You should see improvement in the frequency and severity of your migraines, although I can establish no timetable at this time for the stabilization of your–"

"DECA, it's like you're not listening." He's exhausted, and he can feel sleep trying to pull him down into dreams just as empty and meaningless as his waking hours. "Get this IV out of my arm, and let me go."

"Can you guarantee you will not damage yourself further if released?" The sympathy is gone from her voice and all that remains is patronizing protectiveness. "Until then, rest – and keep the IV in. Ashley has authorized me to do what is necessary to ensure your recovery. If that means keeping you sedated until I'm happy with your progress, so be it."

He wants to laugh. He wants to scream. But he can no longer keep his eyes open or the threads of the conversation straight. "Betrayed by Yellow again," he mumbles as he drifts. And, he'll find a way. Crack open his skull and remove all the rotten bits. The bits that so stupidly think it's best to keep Zhane away. The bits that feel like lines of acid connecting to the nothingness that was once his other half. Scrape out all the useless, wasteful dross – and Zhane would come back.

And he dreams of years passed and his mother's own desolate, hollow eyes. And he remembers that she, too, had scooped herself empty. His shell of a mother, all that was left after she'd abandoned her friend. His mother, who hadn't come alive again until the day he'd brought Zhane home.

"Mama..."

From a distance, so very far away, he hears, "How is he?"

"I cannot say."

"I thought I was authorized to know his condition?"

"I did not say I could not tell you; I said I cannot say." His mother, so hopeful when she'd left, left to find her friend. His mother, searching for years. Years. He cannot be parted from Zhane for years. All the bad bits need to go, and he'll be better for Zhane. He'll be better than his mother ever was... "This is not a matter of medicine, Ashley."

"Then what is it?"

"Were I organic, I would say it's a matter of faith."

.oO0Oo.

"You called for me, my Princess?"

Astronema looks up from the projection hovering above the table, absently correcting the position of a wing of quantrons she'd sent to scout ahead. "Ah, Ecliptor. Yes." The Alliance is winning according to the table, sector after sector flipping from blue to purple, and blue to red for the color Dark Specter prefers for all of his possessions. Those loyal to her, and to her alone, are few and far between – but she's gaining. While the tyrant's attention is turned towards the scattered remnants of Eltar, she secures her hold on all that she considers hers.

Darkonda has returned to the Fortress. Him, she marks with neither purple nor red. Darkonda is black; the traitor is a faction of one but cannot be underestimated. It infuriates her to have him on board; a cancer at the core of her burgeoning empire. A parasite. An infection.

A virus, and the reason she's called upon her guardian.

"I did." Layers upon layers of blue and purple and red; the galaxy neatly divided into hexagons. But war is not neat, and as much as Astronema wishes otherwise, purple has ties to both blue, and red. "There is much for us to discuss, but I can't risk this conversation on your main processors, and it cannot be saved to your usual storage. What we say – must be processed externally. Can you do this for me, Ecliptor? Would you?"

"Astronema..." Ecliptor regards her with his glowing red eyes; eyes she's known since childhood. Eyes others have called emotionless, but to her – they speak. There is love, and devotion, and right now – wariness, as he considers her request. He does not bother with verbal affirmation. Instead, he raises his palm and upon it a cube forms. Black boxes limned in green that glows. "Switching to auxiliary processor – now."

"Thank you, my friend." Walking around the table, she views the projection from the other side, wondering what her guardian sees from his perspective. "I'm sure you must have noticed I've been working at cross-purposes from Dark Specter. It has been less than pleasant pretending that it's incompetence that's kept me from conquering Earth. Oh, not mine, but his lackeys."

"You need hardly pretend; their incompetence is real and boundless. And the phantom female with the canister of toxic fog has taken a toll upon our forces as well."

She smirks, patting his grid-marked arm fondly. "Too true. Still, that great lump that fancies himself our lord is growing impatient. Many of my plans, both long-term and short, have been disrupted by the small matter of the Red Ranger being my brother..." She tuts, and taps a hexagon thrice, changing it to the yellow of disputed territory. "No matter. What I could not adjust, I've destroyed. Except..."

"The Psychos?"

"Hmm." Her fingers dance playfully across the table's surface, and previously red sectors turn white. White for Lord Dark, and the irony is delicious. His white outnumbers her purple, but what is his – is hers. It can be no other way. "A problem of my own making, but they're too useful to dismiss out of hand. I'll figure something out," she says arrogantly, cocking her head to the side as she plays with a curl of emerald hair. "No... what troubles me is where you stand, my dear General. Should Dark Specter question my loyalties, is it your sword I should fear at my neck?"

Ecliptor studies the projection, and the cube in his hand pulses with light. "He named you his heir," he says, slow and deliberate. "A nigh immortal being – declared an heir. The only logical conclusion is that he not only expects but welcomes your ascension as Queen of Evil. And the only path to your throne is over his corpse. Who am I to stand in the way of his greatest desire? You, Astronema, are my Princess. That is as true today as the day you were first entrusted to my care."

"You say the sweetest things." This time, she leans against his arm after patting it. "Andros may be my brother, but you are my family. You are mine, and that which is mine, I will fight for."

He cannot smile, but his eyes, those gleaming ruby eyes that others swear are expressionless, glow with joy. "And you are mine. Why, though, the need for an external backup? I assure you, my firewalls are exceptional. There is no hacker in this galaxy that could force their way past them."

"No hacker, no," she tells him, hooking her elbow around his arm. "Darkonda has weaseled his way back onto my Fortress. And he is a virus, make no mistake. Should he learn of my plans we would both suffer. And he's gained control of your systems before."

Her guardian makes a sound like rocks splitting. "There is no word in any language that encompasses that monster's foulness. It's as if one of Dark Specter's defecations came to life and learned to pilot a dreadnought."

"That is an image to scrub from my mind," she laughs, resting her head against his broad shoulder. "I want you to turn that auxiliary processor into a true backup. Should Darkonda get past your defenses again, I need a way to restore you to yourself. You are mine, and I will not lose you."

"Then it is my duty to make sure you do not." The cube turns a blinding green and chimes in a series of repeating tones. "I admit, I had not thought of that vulnerability, but you are correct. In the time it took me to cast him out of myself, he could have learned any number of things were he not otherwise engaged in battle against the Rangers... When we are done with this conversation, remove the cube from my hand. If circumstances should arise that I need – reset, merely return the cube to this position. I have programmed it to self-install."

"Indeed." Licking her lips in satisfaction, she releases him and returns to her perusal of the projection. "Overall, I am liking our odds," she says, bringing her sharp-nailed finger to her cheek. "I will need to contact my brother soon; there are rumors Zordon's been moved yet again. Once I can verify them I can send him and his little playmates off to retrieve the meddler. The last thing we need is Dark Specter actually gaining control over his Power."

"Let me know when, and I will make sure Darkonda is in another arm of this galaxy entirely." With one blunt finger of his unoccupied hand, Ecliptor taps a distant sector from red to white, and Astronema beams at him in approval.

"You are a master of the game, my General."

"You are too kind, my Princess." Then, a thoughtful tilt of his head, the merest dip to the right. "Though, might I make a request?" At her nod, his red, red eyes take on a speculative gleam. "See if you can arrange a dual between me, and Silver. I find I am spending inordinate amounts of time speculating on the outcome should we meet face to face again. I think such a contest of our skills would be – enjoyable."

"Really?" Arching her brow, she places her hand upon the now dim cube. "You do know I'd be cross should any harm befall him."

Ecliptor gives an electronic warble; a secret laugh understood only by the two of them. "Although my pride insists differently, I believe the Silver Ranger would hold the advantage. It is merely a test of prowess that I seek."

"Hmm." With a winsome smile, she twists the cube and lifts it from his hand. "We'll see, my friend. We'll see."

"...A-astronem-ma?" Ecliptor stutters as his systems adjust, and he eyes the projection above the table uncertainly. "You called for me?"

.oO0Oo.

The moonlet is just as untamed as Kinwon remembers. Bare, jagged mountains lift their peaks above the spare atmosphere while jungles infest the valleys between ranges. It had been necessary to burn a clearing large enough to land all their ships. It was a clearing larger than he would have liked, but the ships were piloted by skeleton crews; worse than that, the ships were flown by people with no piloting experience whatsoever. Kinwon regrets the waste; resources that could have been used for building shelters are now less than ash – and the Kerovians have had enough of ash. Kinwon has had enough of ash to last lifetimes.

He takes in the Silver Ranger's dark, brooding expression as the boy flicks an impertinent flying insect away from his cheek and fears that, while necessary, he may have made an err in judgment that will cost them all in the end.

"Zhane," he greets the youth as he approaches. The jungle, deathly silent when they'd disembarked, is now coming back to life. There is bird song and the hooting calls he speculates might be primate in origin. And there's a terrifying snarl, and the death cry of prey as it's killed... The jungle, too, will extract a price. Kinwon just hopes the cost is not so high that it eventually destroys them. "You cannot know how much we appreciate your help. But you've been working non-stop since before we landed. Why don't you get some sleep? We've other hands available to off-load."

"Hey, I've got nothing to do today but smile." The lopsided grin that the boy gives him, however, is anything but reassuring. "And most everyone else is injured. Right now I'm the only truly mobile asset you have, Kinwon. I'm here," he bows, his smile brittle and his dark eyes bruised. "Best make what use of me that you can."

"You are so much more than an asset." Kinwon wishes he could place his hand on the boy's shoulder, wishes he had some comfort to offer, but he himself finds no solace in the bandaged ruin of his hands, and he cannot see how anyone else will ever view them as anything other than a horror from which to escape. "But I am a defeated commander without a planet, and you were never one to be ordered. I view your presence here as a gift undeserved, nothing more."

Where had the joyful, luminous Silver Ranger of his memories gone? The somber, sarcastic youth before him radiates misery, and the people carrying supplies from the landed ships cast troubled glances their way. One, it pains Kinwon to see, twists their hand into a gesture popular amongst her Ladyship's followers for warding off bad luck.

Zhane sees it as well, and his grin turns bitter before he can hide it. "A gift," he scoffs, turning his gaze towards the looming green wall of the jungle. "Once, I thought I could be. But it turns out I'm only a burden." Ash from the controlled burn coats them all, flakes sticking to skin perpetually moist from the high humidity of the valley floor. His people scratch, and scrape, and try to wipe the sludge away, but Zhane doesn't seem to notice it. Zhane, having survived the final days of four planets that burned, might not be aware of the ash at all.

It saddens Kinwon immeasurably. Their brilliant impossibility of a Silver Ranger, now gray and dull as a spent ember. "You should rest," he encourages the boy, tucking the remains of his hands beneath his arm pits. "There will be enough for all to do once everything's unloaded."

A chuckle as leaden as the smoke-filled sky overhead falls between them. "I think I've lost the knack of sleeping alone." There's loathing in his quiet confession directed solely towards himself. "I think I'll patrol the perimeter of the jungle. We smell too much of blood and sickness; it's sure to attract predators."

"As you think best." He watches the boy morph, the silver and gold of his uniform the only brightness amongst the drab attire of the laboring Kerovians. "Try not to take any unnecessary risks," he urges as he presses an arm down hard against one of his concealed hands. It's bleeding again, but it will do morale little good should someone notice. All of the survivors carry the marks of coral, and each handles the agony of open wounds differently. Some work through the pain, ever hopeful. Some glare from the sidelines, ever sullen. All, all stare at the Silver Ranger with jealous envy – and Kinwon doesn't have the strength to address the growing resentment.

"Who, me?" What should have been a flippant denial is instead a melancholic question. "Don't worry, Kinwon. I'll be back before anyone wants me to be."

All Kinwon does lately is worry. There is a growing rift between the refugees, between those that dare to dream of a better tomorrow and those that adhere beyond reason to the past. And rumor has reached him that a foolhardy group, a collection of loyalists, plan to commandeer a ship and return to KO-35. He would try to convince them otherwise had he the strength. Or even the motivation. But he knows there is only one authority they respect – and it is not him. Arrogant hedge politicians, business moguls, minor nobility; all evacuated before the siege of KO-35 had become entrenched. None of them had spent untold weeks inhaling smoke and ash. None of them had seen the orbs descend in absolute judgment.

He will let them sneak away to better the odds for those that remain to survive. The loyalists will go to KO-35, and they will land... and they will die, the same as the few brave, unfortunate souls he'd sent years before to survey the damage. As long as his planet glows baleful blue, anything sentient that breaks the atmosphere will perish. Life thrives on the surface of his home world, but Kerovians are less than dust carried by the steady breeze.

Zhane is a pale flicker at the border between jungle and burn – and then he is gone, swallowed by the green depths. And Kinwon worries. When the loyalists depart their numbers will be halved. Sixty settlers on a moonlet that might, at best, provide sustenance for twenty. But they have stores meant for thousands, and such supplies will last them years – if the loyalists do not steal them along with the ship they've earmarked. He needs to assign additional guards on the vessels that remain.

He needs rest as much Zhane, he fears. But his hands pain him and he can't bring himself to look away from the noisy, baleful jungle.

He watches for uncounted hours until the youth finally returns. The sun has long since set below a horizon too close to be comfortable, but starlight clings to silver making Zhane easy to spot as he slowly trudges out of the jungle and back to Kinwon's side.

"They'll be safe, for tonight at least," the boy reports as he removes his helmet, exhaustion and poorly concealed pain dragging at his features. "But the jungle... the predators sense new opportunities. They're larger than I'd expected." He rubs his gloved hand over his face, spreading soot in dark streaks that cover the pale lines cut through the caked-on ash by a day's worth of sweat. "No one should go near the outskirts alone. I'm not even sure a group would be safe."

Although his hand is mangled, the bandages covering it filthy with ash and dried blood, Kinwon places it on the young Ranger's shoulder. There is no comfort left in him to give but of commiseration he has plenty. And together they watch a ship lift-off, its thrusters stirring fresh clouds of ash.

"Her Ladyship will be served well in whatever hell she now resides in." Gallow's humor, from a boy that had once been the embodiment of hope. But Kinwon doesn't disagree.

Her Ladyship had doomed a handful of worlds. Even now her memory winnows what little remains of Kerova. Sixty survivors left of what had once been ten billion. The moonlet could sustain twenty in the short-term. In a year, Kinwon knows – they'll be gone. Unless a miracle finds them, what little remains that's Kerovan will slowly decay on the surface of the planet-sized cemetery that is now KO-35.

Kinwon will not seek that miracle. Instead, he'll aim towards a smaller one. With his hand still on the shoulder of the boy whose face is streaked in soot and ash and tears, he promises himself he can manage one tiny, last victory. He'll get Zhane back to Andros if it's the last thing he does.

–And it will be. The pain in his hands and the ache running up his arms and the stiffness settling into his joints tell him so. They have all been touched by coral, except Zhane. And he won't allow the Silver Ranger to stay on this moonlet to dig their graves.

.oO0Oo.

"Where does she keep finding these monsters?" Carlos complains as they regroup, their uniforms carbon-scored from repeated strikes and their blasters next to useless.

It's a rhetorical question, but TJ can't keep from wondering. Does the Alliance have the equivalent of classified ads? Does Astronema pay for listings; help wanted, competitive salaries, generous death benefits? They've fought bugs. They've fought electronics. They've fought weird amalgams of both. Now it seems the Princess of Disposal Henchmen has turned to lizards and cephalopods. A gecko with tentacles flailing from its back is trashing them, and it's agile enough to dodge the Quadroblaster's fire.

"It's too fast," Cassie pants as she aims her stunner, shoots, and misses. "I don't think the four of us are going to be enough to defeat it."

TJ also has his doubts. They've been fighting big, yellow and slippery for close to an hour now. An hour, and Cassie hasn't tried to name it; that tells him how much trouble they're in. And while he'd like to believe that teamwork will win out over sucker-lined tentacles any day of the week, the suction bruises he can feel forming beneath his blue uniform hint at a different ending to their confrontation. The gecko is wearing them down, and he doesn't know how much longer they can keep fighting before one of them makes a mistake they won't be able to recover from.

He hates to ask, he really does, but, "Ashley? We could use Andros' help. Do you think he'd be able to come down?"

Ashley slows the constant barrage coming from her slinger. "–I don't know. DECA hasn't cleared him yet, and he's refusing to speak to either of us. But maybe a fight is what he needs. He's always been able to set aside personal problems to concentrate on Ranger duties–" She ducks a tentacle hurtling her way and opens communications with the Megaship. "DECA, is Andros stable enough to lend us a hand against this monster?"

The slowness of DECA's response gives lie to her answer. "Physically, his hands have healed without complications. I will ask him if he's capableof joining you, since you have requested it."

"His hands are the least of his problems," Carlos protests and TJ knows it's a valid point, but Carlos is holding a bit of a grudge after getting decked during the altercation outside Zhane's door. "Can we trust that he'll go after Night of the Iguana here and not us?"

"Do we have a choice?" TJ is rocked back by another blow that leaves him breathless, his ribs aching with each inhalation. Ranger healing is insanely fast – but broken ribs are never pleasant. "If I take another hit, I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose my morph."

The crimson glow of the Red Ranger's incoming teleportation forestalls further discussion.

"Hey, Andros," Ashley calls out eagerly. "Really glad you could make it. This guy's resistant to our blasters, and he's fast. We sorta ran out of ideas on how to deal with him."

"Did you?" There's a vagueness to Andros' voice that TJ doesn't like; a disconnect that becomes more apparent as he stands idly by as Cassie's caught by a tentacle and flung up into the foliage of a nearby tree. "The Quadroblaster didn't work?"

"He's able to avoid it. That's why we need you behind him; hold his attention long enough that we can get another shot in." Carlos is impatient. He has every right to be impatient, but the dread pooling in TJ's gut only grows as Andros fails to respond to the proposed plan. Andros does nothing as Carlos is sent flying into the same tree Cassie is working her way out of. "Ugh, why did you even bother coming if you're not going to do anything?"

Andros tilts his head to the side sluggishly as he scrutinizes the gecko-based monster. "None of you have managed to land a hit?" he finally asks as his saber materializes in his hand.

And TJ doesn't want to answer that because there's a looseness to Andros' stance, and a carelessness to his tone, that's sending goosebumps racing down his arms. But Carlos is snarling, "Not for lack of trying!" and that's all it takes for Andros to stroll, stroll up to the lizard, his saber swinging in a lazy arc that misses both monster and tentacles.

The saber misses, but the monster does not.

"Andros!" Ashley cries, her slinger a blur but her aim purposefully off, for the lizard's tentacles have wrapped tightly about the Red Ranger and it's gleefully using him as a shield. "Let him go!"

"Oh, I think not," the gecko chortles as it gracefully dodges a swing from TJ's axe. "Naughty naughty!" it chides as its tentacles flex, and TJ flinches at the stifled groan that carries over their comms. "To think I'll be the one to kill Astro Red! I'll get a promotion for sure, this time!" Its eyes roll in separate directions, keeping track of their movements even while gloating...

...and TJ doesn't know what to do. They should have fled the battle instead of asking for Andros to join. He'd known that; he knows the various faces depression wears, knows how deceptive those faces can be. But Ashley had seemed confident... Or if not confident, than at least optimistic that the fight might help in the Kerovian's recovery. She'd been wrong, and TJ is out of his depth.

"So..." the monster taunts as its tentacles squeeze and Andros falls out of morph. His blond-streaked hair falling haphazardly around his shoulders, the teen's expression is dazed, his eyes hazy, and... God, TJ realizes with horror, he's still sedated. How DECA could have ever let him leave the Megaship is beyond him. It's no wonder he couldn't fight; it's a question of how he was even standing. "Should I start by pulling off an arm, or a leg?"

"Neither." The voice is coldly furious, and Astronema is there behind her monster, her staff pointed at the base of its skull. "I believe my orders were to keep the Rangers busy," she seethes, her chartreuse-painted lips peeling back from sharp, white teeth. "And you were performing admirably until you hurt Red. What have I told you all about my pretty little Ranger?"

The gecko's eyes roll frantically, but neither can move far enough to spot the woman standing directly behind it. Being a monster, and not an actual gecko, has its drawbacks. "That he's yours, Princess. But Dark Specter will reward me handsomely when I bring him the Ranger's head!"

"Oh, aren't you the ambitious one," Astronema coos as violet bolts of electricity crackle around her. "But not very bright." Her staff discharges, wreathing the lizard in a corona of barbed purple tendrils that instantly begin contracting, cutting down through scales, past muscle and into bone. The monster barely has time to do more than gurgle before it collapses, its head rolling down the gentle slope before coming to a stop against TJ's boot tips. "Good help is so terribly hard to find now days," she pouts as she drops her staff to the ground.

TJ's not going to be sick. He's not. He's... not sure his stomach agrees with him, but Astronema is kneeling over Andros, her hair an emerald curtain concealing the movement of her hands, and TJ doesn't have time to be sick. "Astronema," he warns her, lifting his axe and stepping over the head that hasn't exploded, why is the body still here, he's not going to be sick but black blood slicks the grass and why hasn't the dead monster exploded?!

"Blue," she sings back at him, tossing her hair over her shoulder and aiming a sharp smile his way. One of her hands rests against Andros' throat and the other cradles his face, and both are threats with their wickedly pointed nails. "I do so adore Blues; smart cookies the lot of you. Do tell me; why is my darling Red drugged?"

"Oh, gosh," Ashley begins to babble, and TJ wants her to stop. Needs her to stop, because one twist of the woman's hands is all it would take to snap Andros' neck. "I think, I think it's my fault. Andros wouldn't go to the med bay, and he... well, he..." She stumbles forward, accidentally kicking the monster's seeping head further downhill in her haste. "So I had to pull rank as Yellow to get him there. Which gave me final authority over his treatment. But we really needed his help, so I asked DECA and DECA asked Andros... and Andros teleported down before she could administer a counter-agent to the sedative."

TJ needs Ashley to stop right now because purple is sparkling around Astronema's fingers and TJ would never be able to reach Andros in time should the green-haired woman act upon the threat twisting her features into a ferocious scowl. "DECA," he asks quietly because he has no idea how good the villainess' hearing is, "can you teleport Andros back to the Megaship?"

"Negative; there is a field of suspected magical interference covering the entire park."

"You sedated your beloved leader. How positively back-stabbing of you! I'm sure Silver would never stand for it." She sneers at them as her hands caress Andros' slack face. "Or is that why sweet Silver isn't here? My boys have been betrayed by a teammate before, it wouldn't surprise me if it's happened again."

"What? No!" Ashley denies as she powers down. "It wasn't like that!"

"Then might I suggest you get Silver here, now?"

"We can't," TJ grudgingly admits. He's gained ground, an inch at a time, but he's still too far away. "Zhane's off on a mission. Andros–" The truth wants to worm its way out of his mouth, but it's Astronema in front of him. Astronema, with her cruel, calculating eyes that are suddenly widening in some type of realization.

"Oh," she croons, fury melting into saccharine sympathy that is somehow even more threatening. "That explains so much! Honey," she simpers as she works one black-clad arm beneath Andros' back, lifting his upper body away from the blood-splattered grass, "whatever am I going to do with you?" Her grin is sly and full of secrets. "I do hope you haven't anything urgent planned for later, Earthians. Red and I, we have some catching up to do."

And in a flash of violet light both Astronema and Andros – are gone.

"DECA," TJ shouts, loudly enough that the comm system crackles with feedback. "Are you able to track him?"

"I am not. The magical interference appears to be adaptive when observed."

Cassie and Carlos have managed to make it down from the tree, and Ashley is slipping in black blood as she hurries to the spot where Andros and his captor had disappeared. But the monster gecko's shredded body remains, dark and wet and foul upon the park's grass. And TJ may have been Red, once. Red, and now Blue – but he's so far out of his depth.

The most likely place for Astronema to have taken Andros is the Dark Fortress, but TJ doesn't know if any of them actually have the skills, or the luck, to successfully sneak aboard to mount a rescue. He has faith in his friends, but it's Astronema...

...and she scares him.

"–Do we have any way of reaching Zhane?" TJ hopes so. The teen's dated Astronema. They need him, if not to deal with the Princess of Evil's special brand of crazy, then to at least explain it.

.oO0Oo.

There are fingers running through his hair, sharp nails raking gently across his skull. And his head hurts; his brain hurts as badly as it had the second he'd left Zhane behind, but the physical contact is comforting. No one has touched him kindly since Zhane... Since Zhane... No. They've grabbed him, restrained him – drugged him. There is a vague, nearly forgotten memory of blankets and a soft shoulder... but no. They'd turned on him. Kept him imprisoned in the med bay, until...

Light is seeping in from behind his closed eyelids, and it burns. He... He'd wanted out of medical. Wanted away from them all. And DECA had asked him; could he help? Could he assist the Rangers down on Earth? And so he'd morphed and teleported in one quick action before the AI could change her mind...

Whatever had happened after is completely absent from his memory. But there are fingers in his hair, weaving and tugging. And it's not Zhane, but whoever it is, they're weaving something cool and soothing into his hair a twist at a time and Andros can feel his spinning thoughts begin to calm.

"Brother-mine," a voice purrs. Feminine. Not Earthian; it has the depth and proper reverberations of a Kerovian. And... Andros was someone's brother once. So long ago. He hasn't worked with a telekinesis ball since. He's used his talent so rarely a five-year-old child could outdo him in any telekinetic contest, but it doesn't bother him. Much. Zhane moves the toys and Andros provides the voices, and Karone...

He struggles to open his eyes against light that's too much, searing against his retinas and sending spikes of pain clear through his head. Yet open them he does because he needs to see who's hovering over him.

"There you are." Astronema smiles down at him, and it's her hands in his hair now tying off another braid. "Never thought I'd see the day when a Ranger would nap peacefully in my lap. Then again, I never thought I'd have to destroy one of my own minions to save a Ranger's life. Hmm... unless it was Silver's. Had I personally led the assault on KO-35's last day, how different all our lives might have been."

"Karone," he croaks, his mouth cottony and his throat painful in its dryness. "–What happened?"

"That's what I'd like to know." Another braid is started and Andros sighs in relief because it's silver she's threading through the strands of his hair. He can't see it, but he can feel it easing the ragged edges of his soul. "Your psyche is hemorrhaging, my heart. Your Blue told me Zhane's away on a mission, but that's not the truth, is it? If I can handle being separated from Silver, then you should be capable of it as well."

"Not with your sanity intact," he tells her waspishly, only to be answered by her mocking giggle.

"Honey, you don't know the half of it," she assures him, her hands growing rougher as they finish their current braid and move on to the next. "Now tell me what happened, because I'm not letting you return to your ridiculous excuse for a ship until I'm able to shore up your mind. And to do that, I need to know what's gone wrong."

Wherever they are, it's bright, but the light is now filtered through emerald hair, and as the weight of silver anchors him Andros is able to open his eyes wider. "I made him leave, to keep him away from you." The hands in his hair still, then jerk hard enough to tear a few strands loose. It hurts. He thinks it might hurt, but his brain has been in agony for so long that it's hard to separate out the tinier aches. "Your magic, the spell you cast, it warped his morph. You changed him. Not, not the shape-shifting that should have been an illusion... You changed him."

"How so?" Her voice is nothing but polite inquiry, but her hands, her hands that pull and pull and twist betray her upset.

"His silverizer now has a third transformation." He looks up at his sister, at her muddied blue eyes surrounded in bold strokes of black and metallic green and silver... Astronema has shaded her eyes in silver since the first time they'd met, and he wonders. Wonders if the color anchors her, as it anchors him. Wonders if they both rely on Zhane for what little sanity remains to them. "Why a fan?"

Fingers stroke his temples in silent apology. "I do not know," she admits quietly. "It wasn't my intent. You've bound me, brother. I cannot hurt him. I have never wanted to hurt him, but I'm afraid the few ways I know of showing affection are – tainted. I was raised to inspire both fear and devotion in my followers; my tortured childhood blights even the most innocent of my actions. Even now," she lowers her head, watching him intently through dark green lashes, "I want so badly to scratch my name into your flesh. Mine, mine, so all who see you would know to whom you belong."

He shivers beneath her regard. "I'd prefer you didn't."

"Hmm. I could guess by the way your restriction burns in my bones. I would thank you, actually, for granting me this boundary, but I am a thankless creature." Her hands return to their task, tiny braids more silver than blond or brown. Dozens of braids that hang heavy upon his head but so light upon his soul. "I would further restrain myself around your other half, Andros. This separation is harming you. I will give you my word, no more tricks; just call him back to your side."

"You don't think I've tried?" Not all the silver in all the systems in the galaxy can actually take the place of his friend. "I never wanted him to go! But some, some wretched part of me wants him safe – and it won. Could..." It's a terrible idea. He should forget it. She's his sister, but she's Astronema and it's such a terrible idea... "Can you find where that thought's located? Find it, and change it? It, it would just take the slightest suggestion; make me want him back more than I want him safe."

"You have no idea how much you tempt me. Just enter your mind – and make it mine. You've invited me in, brother. I'd have you, and I'd have Zhane by default." Smiling sadly, she leans down to place a butterfly kiss against the tip of his nose. "How could I be happy, though, winning by what amounts to forfeit?"

"I need him back."

"You and I both. I had wondered, you know," she says as she straightens, returning once more to her task of braiding. "Poetry has left me. It makes sense, if my mousling's as far away as you've implied."

He can feel the frown pulling down the corners of his mouth. "I can't tell when I'm quoting something," he admits petulantly. His head is heavy, ever so heavy, but his thoughts no longer roil. They flow sedately in swirling eddies, and the sheer agony that is missing Zhane retreats behind a dam of his sister's best intentions. "You're in my mind now." It's not an accusation. As tired as he is, he's only grateful for the respite. And he can't help thinking that belonging to Astronema wouldn't be so bad. He won't. He can't. But at peace, safe with his head in her lap, he can pretend.

"I am." She finishes the final braid. "You did invite me, after all. You've torn your self to shreds attempting to reach out to Silver. I've pulled back as much of you as I can. Stay behind my wall, brother. Our dear Zhane is too far away for either of us to contact; accept that. And when he returns to you..."

"Will your wall keep him out, then?"

"No. My wall is keyed to him. When he returns and touches the braids the barrier will fall. Oh, and I'll receive notification as well," she adds with a heavy-lashed wink. "Really, all this fuss to keep me away from him. Where is your sense of adventure, brother? Don't you find our little contest invigorating? The drama? Who will win in the end?" she purrs into the multitude of his braids.

"As long as it's not Dark Specter, I think we both win." His mind is quiet, and Andros stretches in the luxury of blessed silence. This, he can bear. Until Zhane returns, Andros can endure. Reaching up his hand, he cups his sister's cheek. "You will rule the dark-aligned worlds, and I will guard the light."

"As long as you pay me lip-service," she teases, but he can tell by the faint blush spreading over her face that she's pleased. "I've done what I can for you today, and I've been gone from my Fortress longer than is wise. Darkonda is haunting my halls with his loathsome presence; I would hate to rouse his suspicions over us." She rests her hand over his own, and her smile is purely Karone's. "I will be in contact with you again soon, pretty Red tied-up in silver. I should hear back shortly from my spies. When I do – we will retrieve Zordon. Together."

It's an effort to sit, but the motion causes silver to cascade across his face, and all he can do is breathe in the scent of metal and luxuriate in the tranquility it brings. "Together?"

"As if I'd trust those kindergartners masquerading as Rangers with your safety." Her words are cruel but her eyes sparkle with mischief, their blue clearer and less muddied. "Yes, together. I need to protect my interests. And you, brother dearest, are the epitome of interesting."

"Thanks. I think." He taps his communicator, but there is no responding signal. "Let me guess; you kidnapped me."

"Kidnapped, Ranger-napped, semantics for academics. I did not need their interference while I purged the sedative from your system, or pieced your self back together. And I certainly didn't want them following us here."

"Then they're probably on the Dark Fortress by now, looking for me."

"Ah, they would be had I not ordered a full-scale training exercise before coming to your rescue." Standing with a gracefulness that Andros envies, she calls her staff to her hand. "With a mission objective of keeping me out of my Fortress; no, I do not think the Rangers would have been able to sneak in. I'd best get back to my office, though. It will be so much more satisfying yelling at those morons from there. The shock on those ugly faces!" She laughs and pats the braided crown of his head. "Be good, Andros. I'll see you soon."

"Soon," he promises, allowing the petting. "And Karone? Thanks."

A shy, blue eye peers from behind emerald locks. "For you? Anything."

.oO0Oo.

The nanites that maintain the gym on deck 4 are staging a protest over working conditions, and Carlos is baffled. They're robots. Teeny, tiny robots whose job is to repair and maintain their assigned section of the Megaship. One brain scattered across trillions of microscopic robots, and Carlos has tried reasoning with them. Tried figuring out what, exactly, their complaint is. He's tried... and he's frustrated as status queries are repeatedly bounced back to his station. He's done with trying; the next time he gets sent an update filled with nothing but insults he's heading down to deck 4 with a blowtorch.

He wishes Zhane was around to deal with them. The collectives like the other boy. Like him far more than they do Carlos; Zhane merely has to ask, to have the collectives pouring from the access panels eager to help.

He wishes Zhane was here. Carlos is angry, and he's been angry ever since Andros had teleported back onto the Megaship, his hair hidden beneath an obscene amount of silver filament and his eyes clear for the first time in nearly a week. Andros had appeared and had then proceeded to ignore every one of their questions.

Where had he been? What had Astronema done to him? Why had she taken him captive in the first place? And why had she killed her own monster in defense of him? At each question, the Kerovian's eyebrows had raised, higher and higher, until he'd lifted his hand, halting the impromptu interrogation.

"She's keeping to the agreement," Andros had said, elaborating reluctantly when they'd failed to understand. "I entertain her, and I live long enough to see Dark Specter defeated."

TJ had choked while Ashley had turned a color entirely too green to be healthy, and Cassie had snapped, "What is wrong with you? No!" she'd commanded when it looked like Andros actually had a response to her rhetorical question. "We know what's wrong with Astronema. She's Astronema! You're a Ranger! You don't need to play along with her games!"

"You don't understand–" Andros had tried to explain.

Tried, but Carlos had cut him off. "I don't want to understand." Carlos has been angry since the day Zhane had left. Much like the nanites – he likes Zhane. And he'd only gotten angrier when he'd been sucker-punched by their leader. Oh, he knows Andros hadn't meant it; the other teen, caught up in his outburst, hadn't even known he was there. Still, Carlos is angry.

He's used to his anger; a flash of rage easily provoked and just as swiftly extinguished. This anger that lives with him night and day, a never-ending cycle that keeps him on edge – is different. A blow torch, he decides as a new message from the gym collective pings across his screen, is exactly what he needs to settle this dispute.

"Your mitochondrial donor ambulates disreputable thoroughfares for material gains."

It's a Yo Mama joke, is what it is – and the nanites are going to burn.

"Incoming live transmission," DECA's voice cuts through his daydream of crisp-fried microbots. "Do you want it displayed on the main viewscreen?"

"Sure." The Megaship receives several transmissions each day and even more automated updates from various sectors, but live calls are rare. The last, he recalls, was from Astronema – and his anger flares anew. If she's calling, he's going to give her a piece of his mind. And a list of things not to do on a date, including beating your partner black and blue or magically changing their gender or turning their primary weapon into a primitive air-circulating device – even if the fan is kind of awesome with the way it can reflect energy beams and slice through metal.

Also, maybe Carlos will tell her how uncool it is to flirt with Andros while she's pursuing Zhane. Getting between best friends like that, it's not evil – it's just cheap. And maybe a little evil.

It's not Astronema that appears on the viewscreen, thankfully, but an older blonde woman with thin streaks of bronze running through her hair. By her side is another woman, furred in lilac striped with amethyst, cat-eared and, as Carlos catches the flickering of a slender appendage behind them, cat-tailed. Neither are familiar, and the transmission carries no identification codes.

"Umm, hello?" he greets them, a little unsure as to the protocol when contacted by beings going through such elaborate lengths to remain anonymous. "This is the Astro Megaship. Can I... help you?"

"I do hope so," the blonde says, pushing her wire-frame glasses further up the bridge of her nose. "You're Black, but not the Black I remember. Then again, it's been a while." Her eyes, magnified behind thin glass lenses, crinkle when she smiles. "Is Andros still Red?"

"He, uh, yeah," Carlos stammers, because the woman is beaming and her companion's grin displays inch-long canines. And... are the eyeteeth even called canines when they're in the mouth of a cat? "I'll get him for you..." Muting the bridge's mics, he waves at DECA's closest camera. "Please tell me Andros is on his way, because my weird-ometer is maxed right now."

"Andros is on his way," DECA says blandly, and...

"Is he really on his way, or are you just telling me that because I told you to?"

The camera swings to the side, and whirs. "Do you want me to give you step-by-step updates as he makes his way to the bridge?"

DECA is a sarcastic know-it-all and Carlos kind of loves that about her. Reactivating the mic pick-ups, Carlos tries to look professional, and... Ranger-ish. That he's wearing a black T-shirt with a face-planted green dinosaur that says T-Rex Hates Push-ups instead of his ship's uniform probably isn't helping his image any.

"He's on his way," he lets the two women know, absently deleting another rude message from the gym nanites. Andros has Astronema for his arch-villain; Carlos – gets uppity fly specks. He's not sure which is worse. "Can, can I ask who you are?"

The blonde purses her lips, about to speak when Carlos hears the lift door open behind him. Footsteps, at first unhurried before coming to an abrupt halt, followed by a startled gasp that has Carlos reevaluating the two on the viewscreen. The lilac-furred woman begins trilling, the bass rumble vibrating the bridge's speakers. And the blonde – has started to beam. "Honey!" she shrills in joy.

"Mama?!" Andros staggers to his chair in front of command, and Carlos bites the inside of his cheek before he can say something he's sure Andros would later make him regret.

"So..." he types to the gym collective. "Looks like the boss-man's mother is coming to visit. Feel like collaborating on the Yo Mama jokes?"

The reply, to human eyes, is instantaneous.

"Your proposal is acceptable, organic Carlos. A truce while we formulate suitable insults."

.oO0Oo.

Kinwon is unable to help them dig. He yearns to join the faltering group with their red-rimmed eyes and mud-splashed clothes, but his hands are incapable of holding so much a stylus, let alone a shovel. The loyalists had, somehow, taken the bulk of the refugees' heavy machinery along with food supplies and water purification equipment. How they'd managed to transfer so much between ships without anyone noticing, he's looking in to. Conspirators amongst those he'd personally vouched for, he has no doubt. And it doesn't surprise him. Rot had gained a foothold in Kerovan society long before Dark Specter had set his sights on the diminished empire.

He's old, and he knows he can measure his remaining days in months. He hopes for months, but as blackened lines creep up his wrists forcing him to bandage his hands ever higher to hide the incriminating brands, he's not sure. So he re-prioritizes his lists of vital infrastructure that needs built, of supplies that must be replenished...

...and of graves that need to be dug.

The reports from KO-41 had seemed promising. The defeat of a coral creature had freed those infested with its spawn. The colony's minister of health had rejoiced that the infected could be saved. But the planet had been destroyed before the long-term effects of exposure could be discovered. Had KO-41 not suffered obliteration by the dreadnoughts, would its citizens have found themselves in this very predicament? Would they, too, have had to stand by helplessly while family and friends, the very people they had fought so hard to save, decayed regardless?

Others watch to the side with Kinwon. Those too weak to help. Those too damaged. Those whose putrefaction would be horrifying on a corpse, let alone a being that still stubbornly stands. Still fights to live on. In the dark, humid hours of the night as he listens to the screams of jungle predators and the death shrieks of their unlucky prey, Kinwon cannot help but believe that Andros was right. These people that he's shepherded, led, loved; they're no longer Kerovian.

But they're his. Stars help him, they're his. And he has led them to this moonlet to die with what little dignity remains to them.

They'd tried, at first, for individual graves. Graves, when for millennia the Kerovan way had been cremation. Cremation – would be easier. But for these few that remain, the meager remnants of an exodus that spanned five worlds, fire is no welcome ending. After the burning of all they'd ever held dear, no, fire has become an insult. A nightmare that never truly fades. So they'd tried for orderly holes. Tried for some semblance of civility.

They tried, but more people are sickening by the day. More are joining him in merely observing. And though Kinwon had promised himself Zhane would be gone before it came to this, the boy lifts endless shovelfuls of mud and matted roots. First digging single holes to be filled by single bodies; now, he digs trenches in preparation. And the number of people helping him dwindles.

There's resentment, that the Silver Ranger is healthy. Anger, that it had taken the Rangers so long to find them. Hatred, that Zhane will live – and they will not. And none of them, not a single one, recognize Zhane for what he is. None of them can recognize hope any more.

No... not a single, true Kerovian remains in these derelict fragments that surround him. And Kinwon includes himself in his assessment for had he not, ultimately, followed her Ladyship's dictates? Had he not turned his eyes away from corruption while telling himself it was for the greater good?

"Break time," he tells the ones at the bottom of the trench, his voice discordant with false cheer. And he cannot help them out from the muddy trench. He dares not offer them a hand for fear the gangrenous stumps of his fingers will rip free from the pressure. He can't help them, but Zhane does, lifting each one in turn until he's all that remains. He remains, and with a weary sigh he reaches for his shovel. "That means you too, Ranger."

Zhane stares up at him with storm cloud eyes. "I can still work," he says softly as his gaze wanders to those slowly shuffling away. "I need to. I don't think they'll be back this time."

"Humor an old man," Kinwon beseeches. "Join me for a meal. Carrying a tray has become... somewhat problematic for me."

Those eyes, so gray, so turbulent, return to him. Examine him. Perhaps, perhaps, even forgive him. "You know if I sit with you they'll include you in their glaring. I mean, it wasn't so bad at first," the boy shrugs before jumping from the elongated pit leaving his shovel stuck in the muck coating the bottom. "I've seen people turn their heads and quickly look away. Being a Ranger, you get used to it, you know? But now... they aren't trying to hide their resentment. They want someone to blame and a cast-off Ranger is a safe target. You don't want to be associated with me, Kinwon."

"Don't I?" He can no longer beckon with his fingers so he makes a broad gesture with his arm, instead. "Come. Food will do us both good. And if they glare, so be it. There is no pleasing them. A lesson I should have learned long ago."

Reconstituted rations make up all their meals. Rations considered nutritionally complete back on KO-35, but here on this desolate moonlet the spectrum of the system's star is subtly off. And oh, how Kinwon wishes he had noticed the discrepancy before he'd ordered his people to land. He wishes for so many things, like any other grandparent sitting out on a porch, rocking in the sun and remembering how much better life once was back in the halcyon days of childhood.

Zhane seems not to care as he wolfs down his portion. There is very little Zhane seems to care about at all, any longer. He exists, separate from the refugees. He works where he's assigned, and works at those tasks left abandoned by others. He works, and works, and refuses to rest, and only seems to eat whenever Kinwon can guilt the boy into joining him.

"You need to go home," he tells the gray-haired youth gently, afraid of spooking him directly back to the pit. "This is no place for you. Your light is wasted here."

"What light?" Shaking his head only emphasizes the darkness of his locks. There are a few scattered streaks of pewter amidst the charcoal but they grow scarcer by the day. "And what home? Home is made for comin' from, for dreams of goin' to..." He rests his chin in his hand and taps his spoon restlessly against the rim of his soup mug. "Andros doesn't want me back."

"Yet."

"Hmm." The spoon clatters against the bottom of the cup. "For now, he still wants me here. Where it's safe." The smile the boy gives to his empty mug is ghastly in its grim humor. "If Andros knew what was actually happening... No doubt he'd want me back. Back, to send elsewhere. But we can't risk a transmission for fear of Alliance picking it up. In fact," he drums his fingers against the rough wood surface, "I think we'd be lynched by the others if we were caught trying to contact anyone at this point. So, Andros has no idea about our situation, and as long as he remains in the dark – I remain here."

"Zhane..." Kinwon can raise his bowl to his lips using the palms of his hands, but the warmth burns like coals through his bandages to the damaged flesh beneath. He tries, he always tries, but it's with a grateful nod of acceptance that he watches his bowl rise of its own accord to hover before his mouth, and tip. The soup tastes of salt, and little else. And on KO-35 it would have been enough to sustain them.

Dreams of going to, indeed. How he dreams of KO-35. How he wishes his last days could be spent on the porch of his old home. Rocking. And complaining of imagined slights and the awful decisions made by the useless government that were no concern of his.

"Kinwon..." Zhane returns in the same tired, prickly tone. But his head is lowered, and the ghost of what once would have been a grin hints at the dimple hidden beneath a layer of mud and ash caking his cheek.

"What will you do, then, when the last of us have passed on and you alone remain? You'd stay here? All because it's where Andros wants you? What of your own wants?" The bowl tilts again, silencing Kinwon with another mouthful of briny liquid.

"My own?" There's a curious detachment to the boy's voice, as if he's never before considered the question. "I've never wanted much, as far as I know. Before this universe formed, I don't think I even knew what it was, to want. Honestly, I don't care for the perspective dealing with time or matter brings."

"Before this universe?" His bowl is empty and his stomach growls in protest at the lack of anything solid to digest, but Kinwon himself is too busy gaping to pay heed to the demands of his failing body. "How old are you, Zhane? And... what were you, before you chose to be Andros' friend?"

Ruefulness lurks in the youth's frank gaze. "Gravity names me Oldest. Zordon thought I might have been brightest, once; then again, Zordon would have said anything that would relieve him of the responsibility... But I misplaced most of myself while I searched. Got scattered along the way, I suppose. Had to leave even more of myself behind to get to Andros when the Call came and the window opened. It's hard to remember; bodies don't keep track of things the way they should."

The growling in his stomach changes to a queasy gurgle, and Kinwon feels a faintness that has nothing to do with his progressing illness. "Why," he asks weakly, "would you ever consent to being someone's friend? You are no simple concept looking for a way back in."

An embarrassed flush flares across the boy's cheeks, and around the commissary condiments and dishes rattle against the surface of tables and carts. "I wasn't paying attention," Zhane says sheepishly. "The Forces that formed were disappointing, and I had decided I was going to ignore this iteration. Sit it out like I sometimes do. Then, bam! Expansion... and I was entangled with another light."

Dirty, grumbling people slurping at their own meals stare balefully in their direction before turning their attention elsewhere. Kinwon longs for a fraction of their blasé attitude. He'd never expected an answer such as this to his hastily asked question. He'd met friends before. A handful, here and gone as their children eventually, inevitably wished them away. He'd recognized the young girl he'd chosen for the black Astro morpher; knew her for what she was and knew what she had lost. He'd thought he'd recognized Zhane. He'd assumed the boy to be a manifestation of hope. And Kinwon had welcomed his unexpected presence on the newly-formed Ranger team because all that was Kerovan had needed hope, desperately.

"Andros?" he whispers, dreading the answer.

"Now he is." Zhane stands, his eyes inscrutable through lowered lashes. "You know, I'd never before been lonely? I wasn't made to be lonely. Not until I was partnered, and they wandered off before I even realized what had happened. For the very first time I understood what it was, to be alone." He scratches at the back of his neck with grimy fingers, his expression thoughtful. "I don't like it."

Kinwon tries to get to his feet, but his strength has fled. "I have to get you back to Andros."

"Good luck with that." Sighing, Zhane stretches, his joints cracking at the motion. "I'd best get back to digging. We don't want the predators attacking the living because they've been drawn into camp by the dead."

He watches him leave, the bedraggled youth trudging through muck and ash. Kinwon watches as his mind works to discard the reality he'd been presented. The boy – isn't hope. No, not in the way Kinwon had foolishly believed. His mind dredges up Kerovan legend he'd learned as a child; In the beginning, there was light. Oldest. Brightest. Now nearly spent, and digging graves.

He has to get Zhane to leave the moonlet. Leave them behind. Somehow, he needs to get the boy back to Andros... no matter the cost. What matters the fate of a single galaxy when the entire universe is in danger?

.oO0Oo.

"Oh honey, just look at you! You've grown so tall!"

His mother is small in Andros' embrace, her hair a golden tangle beneath his chin as he hugs her. She's small when once, so many years ago, she'd seemed a giantess, tall in his memories as she'd stand in their kitchen preparing breakfast. She's fragile as she trembles in his arms, but her smile is sunlight and there's strength in the hands that she cups around his face. Love in the kiss she stands on tiptoes to place on his forehead.

He'd forgotten the smell of her; the hint of lavender, the pleasant sharpness of herbs. He'd forgotten the feel of her, restrained power that plucks at the chords of his geasa; has he followed them faithfully? Has he done enough? He'd forgotten the bright cunning of her eyes long before she'd ever left on her quest, but here, now, they shine as they'd done in holopics he'd seen of his mother as a girl. A girl with a woman always at her side, lilac-furred and so clearly loved by the child his mother had once been. A woman who's now on the Megaship standing guard at his mother's back, her fanged grin amused as she witnesses the reunion.

"Just tall enough," he mumbles as she tilts his head from side to side in motherly inspection. "Do we have to do this in front of the rest of my team?"

"Andros, I'd think you were ashamed of me." Sly, cunning eyes beneath the gleam of her glasses, daring him to protest. And this is not something he'd forgotten about his mother. This is behavior he's never seen from her before. "Have you any idea how long I've been looking for you? And with Alliance lurking about in sectors they've no business being in. If not for Dawan's knowledge of old routes we never would have been able to reach you."

The woman behind his mother winks, the slit pupils of her eyes wide with excitement and her whiskers twitching with nervous energy. "Even so, our path was difficult," she says as her tail lashes. "There are few places left to refuel in this arm. Even less offering suitable supplies." Her muzzle wrinkles as if she's caught scent of something foul. "Have you any idea how awful Alliance monsters taste?"

Behind him Andros can hear TJ gag, and he can't help but wonder how someone with such a sensitive stomach ever made it past their first days as a Ranger. Then again, he remembers a night filled with smoke and the booming roar of bombs exploding in the distance. Remembers a can of cold canid food – and he finds that he does have sympathy to spare for TJ's fastidiousness.

"I can imagine," he tells her as his mother releases his face and steps back. "Welcome to the Megaship," he greets them as he had not had the chance to do when first they'd entered through the airlock on deck 6. "My team," he turns and gestures at the teens awkwardly eavesdropping from the scanty shelter of the doorway leading towards the lift. "TJ, Ashley, Carlos and Cassie. Guys, my Mama and her friend. Umm..."

"Dawan," the furred woman purrs, her tongue curling up to lick her black nose. "I was once known as Dawan, and the name has sufficed since."

"I found her, Andros," his mother says as she wraps her hand around the sharply clawed fingers of her friend. "I finally found her. My hubris had nearly driven her out of the galaxy, but she felt my change of heart. She caught up to me in the Aludra sector."

"I'm glad, Mama. I'm happy for you." She's back in his arms – and still so small. And Dawan is hugging them both, her embrace warm as a furnace and her purr loud enough to rattle the air in his lungs. "For you both. Are you hungry? You must be hungry."

Dawan's purr takes on a predatory edge. "I'm always hungry."

But his mother is looking at him, and her free hand runs through his multitude of silver-threaded braids with a consideration that's unnerving. "I could eat," she says slowly, her voice pitched low enough that he doubts it reaches their audience at the door, hampered as his teammates are by their Earthian hearing. "This is a new look for you, dear. Any particular reason why you feel the need for this much silver? And," she tugs a plait just hard enough to get her point across, "where is my sweetie? I thought he'd be the first one here to greet us."

"Mama..." He wants to mewl, and the hand twined in his hair will not let him flee. "You have to understand. Please. It was to keep him safe!"

She knows what he's done. She knows. His mother knows exactly what he's done. "Oh, honey," she croons, her fingers now achingly gentle as they card through the braids keeping his sanity intact. "You didn't. You saw what it did to me. You know the hollow shell I became. What could you possibly be trying to save him from that's worth this?"

He collapses against her and allows himself a single sob. "I found her, Mama. I found Karone," he whispers into her ear. "I found her, and she's Astronema. The Princess of Evil. And she's convinced that Zhane belongs to her." He feels when his mother's breathing stops, and when she gasps for her next breath. "–What could I do?"

"Astronema." The single word is prayer and curse at once. His mother is so very, very small, but she supports his weight with ease. Her eyes, determined and burningly blue behind glass lenses, slide past his shoulder to assess the rest of the Rangers now shuffling uneasily, unable to make out their quiet conversation. "They do not know."

"I've tried to tell them. I don't think they want to hear." His mother's hand is a benediction against the back of his neck. "They're from Earth. Sometimes, it feels like we're speaking separate languages."

"Of course you are," she tells him, and Dawan pats his back hard enough to stagger him. "We've both traveled this galaxy long enough to know; everyone speaks a different language, even when it's the same one. Now," she releases him only to grab his hand tightly. "You mentioned food? Let's eat, and try to unravel this mess that you've made."

.oO0Oo.

Ashley had not known the synthetron could produce raw meats. Truthfully, she's given little thought to the device since first discovering it during the her and her friends' initial exploration of the Megaship. It provided food: some meals good, some tasteless, some absolutely horrid – and cookies delicious enough to make up for all the other shortcomings. She contemplates the snickerdoodle in her hand and tries her best to ignore the sound of teeth gnashing through a steak both warm and bloody. It would be easier, Ashley thinks as she sets her cookie aside, if Dawan would quit purring through her meal.

Andros' mother had chosen a meat-based dish as well. Luckily hers was cooked although somewhat unappetizing considering the protein itself was a vibrant teal color. Ashley has no idea what could cause the bizarre coloration although TJ is muttering under his breath about Vulcan blood – which is totally fictional, but Ashley is willing to play along. She flashes the Vulcan salute towards her blue-shirted friend covertly and is rewarded by a shy, startled smile. Closet Trekkies unite!

"Teej," she teases, and does her best not to stare at Andros' mother stealing dripping tidbits from the other woman's plate, "you know the blood would be green. That's teal. Can't be copper."

"Copper and cobalt?" Carlos guesses, inviting himself unasked into their speculation. "They can form alloys. Don't know about blood. In a stew meant for human consumption, I'd think levels high enough to achieve that saturation of color would be toxic."

Cassie, huddled over a bowl of sugary cold cereal, merely looks amused. And a little nauseated.

"The roast is marinated in the pulp of a fruit originally native to KO-23. The stew is a traditional Kerovan recipe served to celebrate the reunion of family," Andros tells them tartly. And Ashley would feel bad about her and her friends' gentle mocking, but she can't help but notice that Andros had not chosen to have a bowl of stew himself. In fact, Andros is clutching on to his piece of unbuttered toast rather tightly – and there's not a single bite taken out of it.

"Not a fan?" Ashley guesses. She doesn't blame him. The meat is teal. Teal is a color for peacock feathers. Maybe an adventurously-flavored piece of salt-water taffy. Meat? No thank you and pass the breadsticks.

"It's an acquired taste," the blonde woman admits, stirring the contents of her bowl slowly. "One I seem to have lost. That's okay; Dawan doesn't mind sharing."

"Says you," the furred woman growls playfully, swiping at the hand heading back towards her plate. "Hunt your own kill, cub."

Ashley stifles her giggle behind a quick bite of cookie. "Punching a code into the synthetron isn't much of a hunt," she says once her mouth is clear. "Although getting it to produce what you actually want can be a challenge. It took us weeks of trial and error before it created a decent burger."

"Can't beat Adelle's," Carlos mutters around his mouthful of double bacon cheeseburger.

"And yet it doesn't stop you from ordering it." Soggy cereal falls from Cassie's spoon back into her milk-filled bowl forgotten as she watches Carlos stuff the rest of his burger into his mouth at once. "How do you not choke?"

"Practice," he says around the mass of bread and meat he's chewing.

"I see the foundlings you've adopted haven't been housebroken, honey," Andros' mother remarks casually as she snags another piece of raw meat from her companion's plate and pops it into her mouth, swallowing it whole. And Ashley takes offense at that remark – she has manners! Although glancing at TJ with ketchup smeared at the corners of his lips and Carlos with half a pickle slice dangling from his chin and Cassie with milk splattered on her jacket... she feels the first stirrings of mortification. As unobtrusively as she can, Ashley wipes off the cookie crumbs that have fallen to her lap. "I suppose you've been too busy to teach the niceties."

"What makes you think I ever bothered with them?" There's a caustic undertone to Andros' bland words that surprises Ashley, and she pauses in her clean up to look in his direction. "Perhaps my mother didn't stick around long enough to make sure I'd properly learned the basics."

"...That's not fair." The blonde woman crosses her arms protectively across her waist, no longer interested in her game of stealing morsels from a plate not her own. "You know why I left. You know why I had to."

"It's fair," Dawan counters her, the woman's sharp smile grown gruesome with bits of gristle wedged between her fangs. "You could have decided you wanted me back later. Or sooner. Much sooner would have been good. Instead you dallied. Only followed after me once your boys were slated for war, you silly cub."

"Dawan!" the blonde protests... but Andros is listening to every word, and seated next to him, Ashley can feel the tension running through his body.

"It's true! Go, you told me, so you could be a mother. You no longer had time for hunting with Dawan. One cub of your own and another on the way and a husband that did not approve of me or what I represented. What could I do but leave? I am a proper friend. But what is this I hear when you finally seek me out? You had both husband and cubs, but all your thoughts were filled with longing for Dawan." A raspy cough of a laugh, and the lilac-furred woman pounds the table with a fist in her amusement. "And when you finally find me all I hear from you is woe, oh woe! Where is your honey? How is your sweetie? What has become of little sugar?"

The two women stare at each other, the blonde's eyes wet with angry tears and the purple-tressed woman's fangy grin a taunting dare. They stare for long, precarious seconds, and Ashley realizes they're talking to each other. Like Andros and Zhane, the two women are communicating and it casts their awkward silence in a new light.

"Huh," Dawan chuffs, breaking the stalemate. "I led you here, did I not? I wanted to meet your honey. I wanted to thank your sweetie." She yawns, her tongue curling pinkly from her muzzle.

Andros' muscles are clenched tightly enough that Ashley's own rib cage aches in sympathy. And she doesn't understand why he's upset, although the conversation has been enlightening. And confusing. Mostly confusing, if she's being honest. If Andros' mother had left KO-35 when her son had been... drafted? Recruited? He would have been old enough to take care of himself. Wouldn't he have been? Even as a teen Ranger, Ashley felt herself an adult; she'd left her parents with a hasty explanation and a handful of tears and hugs to search for Zordon, after all. And while she misses her family, she's never felt anywhere near the desolation she sees lurking at the back of Andros' dark amber eyes.

"...How old were you, Andros? When she left?" she asks, her need to figure out the puzzle greater than her usual tact. And considering her tact had had her poking Zhane upon their first meeting... Well, her question shouldn't surprise their silver-braided leader at this late of a date.

The work bay is quiet as those seated around the extended table wait expectantly for the answer. Instead, Andros barks a harsh laugh of disbelief. "You don't know," he tells his mom. Not a question. Not even an accusation, but the blonde makes no attempt to deny it. "You left us to track down your imaginary friend, left us knowing the raids were increasing in frequency, knowing what Yellow had done... and you had no idea if we were even old enough to be left on our own. Finding Dawan was more important than us. She was always more important."

"Yes," the blonde says, a single syllable that has Ashley automatically reaching for Andros' knee in an attempt to provide comfort. "I love you, never doubt that, but Dawan is the other half of my self. I love you more now that I finally have her back with me." A fine eyebrow raises in a perfect arch. "Can you tell me any differently? How much do you love me? How much do you love your friends here, with Zhane gone? Or have you been left with only the memory of what it once felt like, to love?"

Usually warm brown eyes gone golden in rage, Andros pushes himself off his stool – and leaves. And while his steps are nearly silent, the silver threads adorning his braids chime softly with every footfall until the musical notes are lost to distance.

"So..." Carlos picks at the fries left on his plate, but at least the pickle has been wiped from his chin. "This imaginary friend thing, it's something your family does? I mean, I guess I've heard of stranger traditions. Maybe." He shakes his head and stuffs a fry into his mouth. Under the table, Ashley can feel his foot hook around her ankle; a warning to stay, a plea not to follow. She wants to follow Andros, but perhaps Carlos is right. Andros is getting better, but he's not exactly safe to be around lately. "I don't know. It seems a little demeaning."

It's a jarring attempt at redirecting the conversation, but Ashley is grateful for it. If she's learned anything during her time aboard the Megaship, it's that Andros cares too much. He cares, and cares, but is clueless when it comes to acceptable ways of showing it.

"Zhane told me," Ashley says as she places her finger under her chin, "that it takes an incredible amount of magic to Call a friend. And naïveté." And grave misfortune, she's come to believe. A tragedy great enough to erase a child's sense of self. A catastrophe of such immense proportions as to cause another child to latch on, to cling, to claim a friend that could never be taken away from them. Ashley doesn't know what hardship had occurred to bind together the two women sitting across from her at the table, but she's gained an inkling of what Andros' calamity may have been. His parents' strained marriage. A father killed in an accident. A sister kidnapped. A mom...

She doesn't think she likes Andros' mother very much.

"You are amusing cubs," Dawan croons. Picking up her plate, she licks it clean of blood with broad swipes of her barbed tongue. "It would take a tremendous amount of power to attract Zhane." There's a rumble to the woman's purr that's relaxing, and Ashley fights against it reflexively. She's angry and in no mood to be soothed. "Or not, if it was the right one Calling. I was so looking forward to meeting them," she huffs.

And, Them? Cassie mouths in confusion.

TJ's more blunt. "Zhane might have been female for a while, but he's always identified as a guy. At least, as far as we know."

Dawan blinks her large, slanted eyes as if they're the ones that have confused her. "What does gender matter? Zhane is Zhane. Zhane has always been Zhane, even when they accepted the conditions of the window to become Andros' friend." She pauses with the plate held before her muzzle, and her ears twitch in agitated consternation.

The blonde carefully removes the plate from clawed, flexing hands and places it on the table. "They do not understand imaginary friends," she tells the woman seated beside her as she leans against a lilac-furred shoulder. "As far as I know, Earthians have little in the way of magic. It would be rare for one of them to open a window. And without windows there'd be no history of friends on their planet."

"Ah." The purple-tressed woman nods knowingly. "A primitive world. So I will explain, and the cubs will learn." Her large eyes are sincere, but her smile is that of a predator toying with its next meal. "I am Dawan, but I was not always Dawan. I am the huntress, and the companion to the huntress. Into battle I go with my chosen and her enemies fall to my claws, their necks snapped by my jaws. I am a simple spirit, and many windows have opened for me to return time and again. Zhane – is not simple."

"No, he's not," the blonde says wistfully.

Dawan gives her coughing laugh as she wraps her arm around the blonde's waist in a buoyant hug. "Zhane must always be Zhane; the equation that restarts the universe."

"Or the song that resets it."

"That too." The lilac-furred woman grins at them as if sharing a joke, but none of them find her words amusing. Ashley's fuming; she's witnessed first-hand how much trouble Andros has had adapting to being around people, how Zhane's struggled to express himself in terms of folklore and fairy tales. Both boys adrift, and the cause sits in front of her. They think it's funny. "The oldest at every end, and the first at every beginning. I am very sorry to have missed them."

"We can come back."

"We can! Unless Dark Specter wins... that might make visiting them harder."

Ashley's had enough. Her cookie is less than crumbs, crushed to an oily smear against the metal surface of the table. Without excusing herself, she leaves. And while her temper doesn't cool, it does settle to something bearable as her friends join her on the lift.

.oO0Oo.

"Hiding in the dark?"

Her son sits in an alcove set off the engine room, a nook both shrouded in shadow and illuminated by a cerulean glow. The contrast is unsettling, but no more so than the hypersleep tube resting diagonally, off-center, in the small chamber. Andros is seated on the floor, and she worries. There's a coldness to the room that has nothing to do with its current temperature. Sorrow has left its mark here. Despair lurks in deepening drifts in the corners. And yet there's joy hidden far beneath. She wipes at her lips, hoping that the clashing aftertastes will fade.

"He died, you know," Andros says, his voice another shadow amongst the rest. "On KO-35. Saving me. I carried him in my mind for two years. Two years before his body was healed enough to return to." He doesn't look at her. He doesn't need to for her to see the blue-lit tracks of tears gleaming on his cheeks. "I think it damaged us both. I know it damaged me. I'm not the child you left behind, Mama. You've no right to be cruel."

"–I'm sorry." She sits across from him on the freezing floor that's lukewarm to her curious touch. "I just... I never thought you'd fall into this trap, not after the poor example I set. To finally find you only to discover that Zhane was forced to leave... You're right, though. I had no right."

"You didn't." He wipes at his cheeks and she wishes she could ease his grief, but she has never been a good mother and the impulse is easily ignored. "You haven't encountered Astronema. She's dangerous, Mama. I was able to lay a geis on her, to stop her from hurting Zhane but I'm not..." He shudders and tangles his fingers through his silver-encased braids.

"You don't know how strong the geis is, or how long it will last," she hazards a guess. Hers – have always been too strong, and Andros a far better son than she's ever deserved. "You've found your sister, my brave boy. You needn't look for her any longer."

He gasps and folds in on himself as the binding of the geis is released. Years of built up power rebounds on her, burning as it floods nearly-forgotten channels, but she accepts it. There are other geasa, and she draws them back one by one until her bones feel molten and she's forced to stop before her task is completed. Forced to stop before she burns to nothing.

Her son watches her numbly through the silver fall of his hair. "Why did you return?"

"I've missed you." Her son, and her otherling son, how she's missed them both. She'd never known how much she'd missed them until she'd reunited with Dawan and discovered that a child's needs could never be the same as a mother's. There are still gaping wounds in her soul, and stars have mercy, she'd given them to herself. "I wanted to see how you were doing...

"I saw KO-35, instead."

"That was Karone." Andros places a shaking hand against the glass of the 'tube, and the light from within reflects off his tears. "Somehow, she felt it when Zhane died. She knew – and she punished us. She punishes us still. I found her Mama, but there is no saving her. No bringing her back. She is Astronema. The dark has chosen her for its own."

They're sitting in a mausoleum, she realizes. This, right here, is where her son had placed his friend's body. This is where he had mourned. This is where her otherling son had rested, frozen, for years while she traveled the universe consumed by her own petty concerns.

She wonders if her own tears glitter as eerily as her son's.

"–Andros–"

"She calls herself the Princess of Evil." He takes his hand off of the clear, glowing glass to push back the heavy weight of his braids. "She thinks she's earned the title. She doesn't know the difference between being Evil, and being dark. She doesn't see. She thinks they're one in the same."

"Oh." It's a revelation she doesn't want. Stretching out her leg, the tip of her shoe brushes the sole of her son's boot. It's a connection, strained and uncertain, but a connection nonetheless. "And you? You have seen the difference?"

"I have stood in front of Dark Specter, and I have stood in front of gravity." Blue light washes across his face as he lifts his head. The face of an adult; a face worn by war. "Gravity was far more frightening. I know the difference, Mama." Then he lowers his face and it's once again familiar, the face of the boy she'd left behind on KO-35.

"So you do." She knows why this room is so cold. She knows why her son is a stranger. Fault for both could be laid at her feet. "Ask Zhane back, Andros. He needs you just as much as you need him. If darkness has entered the battle, it will take both of you to keep it in balance. Darkness would have chosen Karone for a reason."

"...I'm damaged. We've damaged each other. I've tried, Mama. The Megaship's AI says there are areas of my brain that have become – inaccessible. DECA's stabilized my hormone levels, and my emotions are leveling out... but that section of my brain that wants Zhane safe no matter the consequences..." He covers his eyes behind trembling hands as he tries to control his panicked breathing. "I think it's hiding where Zhane once was. Until new connections, new pathways are formed..."

"May I look?"

His voice, when he eventually answers, is that of a little boy sneaking into the house, his hair a tangle over his face to hide the bruises left behind by bullies. "Yes."

Rather than standing, she crawls over to him and places her hand against his damp cheek. And oh, the snarl of his thoughts is dismaying. "The wall; your sister's work?"

"I kept reaching for him," he murmurs into the sensitive skin of her wrist. "It's there to keep me in. –She's not Evil. It would be so much easier if she were."

She closes her eyes as the truth of that statement washes over her. "It has never been your nature to accept that which is easy."

"I don't see where I was ever given the choice."

The fault there, also hers. So much grief. So much guilt, and her son's mind practically a kaleidoscope, the shattered pieces beautiful and brilliant – but still shattered. Cool silver where Zhane had once sheltered, and liquid silver holding together a collage of shards; a stained glass mind instead of an orderly painting. And in a far corner where silver doesn't reach, shards have been reduced to powdered dust and there's a void, a sucking nothingness that wants and wants and mindlessly wants.

"Your sister Called Zhane for you," she whispers against the pervading chill of the abandoned sepulcher. "She Called and was taken before her Call could be finished. All this time, all these years pulling the two of you closer and closer; this is not the bond between a friend and their child. You are, quite literally, one. I cannot undo what's been done. I can, however, build a path to where your Es has laired. It has gone ungoverned long enough; it's time for its desires to be constrained by logic. Will you permit me this? It will," she warns him as she opens her eyes, "hurt. A lot."

"It always hurts." This close, she can see how pain has marked him. The furrow between his eyes. The lightest crinkle in his brow. "But it was worse before Karone placed the wall. If you can help me..." He quivers beneath her touch. "Anything," he breathes. "Anything to bring him back."

Her daughter's Call is strong. But the magic itself is familiar, and she gathers her own glittering, lilac strands of will to weave a net to catch streams of silver. And she uses that silver to cement the broken sands of self until a bridge stretches to the very edge of the pulsating knot of want – and pierces it.

She realizes she'd closed her eyes again only upon blinking them open. She's sprawled upon the freezing, lukewarm floor, and her son is on top of her slack with unconsciousness. Above her the gray ceiling is indistinct even through her glasses, a blend of shadows and glowing blue that's dizzying.

"Nnn." Fingers curl into the fabric of her dress as Andros begins to stir. And, "Oh." He's a heavy weight, but not as heavy as he should be as she runs her hand down the knobs of his spine and back up to rest against his neck beneath the shine of silver threads. "That – explains a lot," he says as he rolls to the side, a moan escaping him from the sudden movement. "How stupid; we can't be safe and dead at the same time. That doesn't make any sense at all."

"Das Es knows no reason, only wants. Not even needs. It is utterly selfish." She's exhausted, but as her son curls into her side she believes she might be happy. "Do you think, now, you'll be able to find your way to wanting Zhane back?"

"I never stopped wanting him back. I just couldn't see what was preventing me from wanting that most of all." With monumental effort he manages to sit, leaning against the wall for support. "I never imagined so many contrasting wants could exist in one place. How did we never notice, Mama?"

"You've always been good at ignoring what you wanted, honey," she tells him, her arm now lying across his knee and the ceiling still swirling lazily overhead. "And I expect Zhane's had little experience with wants at all. In fact, I suspect there's only been one thing he's ever truly wanted in all his long existence."

Andros' grimace can't disguise the relief he feels at finally being able to know his own mind. "That's incredibly sappy."

She smiles at his feigned distaste. "Anyone who's ever seen the two of you together will have figured it out, my dearest. You've never made the slightest attempt to hide it. You are each other's world. Now..." The strength it takes to merely sit upright is surreal. She'll pay for this healing. She'll pay dearly, but she knows she owes debts that can never be fully repaid, and she owes her sons most of all. "I fear I've not made myself welcome with the rest of your team."

"You think?" he asks drolly, and she swats the side of his arm at the impertinence. The blow has no strength behind it. She has no strength, but her son's eyes are filled with the light of laughter and that is worth the price. Any price, although her Dawan wouldn't understand. Dawan herself has always been a selfish creature, a mirror to her own desires.

Karone had been a far wiser child than she, in choosing the qualities that made up a good friend.

"We'll go, today," she decides, although she's not yet able to stand, let alone leave. "You will need space and quiet in which to sort your thoughts. And I will pay our lostling princess a visit, check how the geis upon her is holding." The room no longer swims around her, and soon she'll return to her ship. Soon. The sooner she departs, the quicker her son will recover. "Although I do not know how you managed to lay it on her."

"Being male?"

"And lacking the gift of magic."

Her son's hand resting gently on top of hers is forgiveness she'd never thought to seek. "Why would I need magic when I have Zhane? Together, we're invincible."

.oO0Oo.

With Andros' mother and her boisterous companion's departure from the Megaship, life returns to normal. Or as normal as life can ever get for Rangers based in space, Cassie reflects as she jots down lyrics for a song that had come to her while picking her way through a wilted salad. The synthetron had been acting up ever since TJ had come across Dawan repeatedly ordering plates of raw short ribs from it. The table had been piled high in bloody meat-bound bones, but the furred woman had kept joyfully programming more. And more. And Carlos had eventually ordered DECA to teleport the moist, oozing mass to the women's small ship, and how they dealt with it once they left Cassie doesn't ever want to know.

Since then, everything the synthetron has produced has been of poor quality, as if the machine is tired and only going through the motions. Cassie has sympathy. They're all exhausted after the women's visit, and the longer it is before their eventual return the happier all the Rangers will be. And while Cassie will never tell Ashley so, her friend probably has a point; if possible, Andros should never be in the same system at the same time as his mother. Ever. Cassie knows unhealthy family dynamics. Whatever is occurring between their leader and his estranged family could never be labeled anything as benign as merely unhealthy. It's toxic. And if Andros is incapable of defending himself, well... that's what a team is for.

The lyrics come to her easily, but the melody remains elusive. She's debating returning to her cabin for her guitar when Andros enters the work bay, tossing a careless wave in her direction as he heads towards his locker. He digs through it, pulling out jackets and coats and more cloaks than any one person should ever have use for. If the scowl that emerges on his face is any indication, he's having trouble finding whatever it is he's looking for. She knows the feeling. Her own closet keeps coming up short on camisoles – and Ashley's wardrobe has mysteriously gained a plethora of the pink shirts.

If the thefts keep up, Cassie's going to switch their morphers. Let Ashley deal with Pink's fan mail for once.

"Hey Andros," she calls out when it looks like he's ready to slam his locker door shut in baffled disappointment. "Mind taking a look at the synthetron? I don't know how many more meals of pig slop I can handle." As he blinks owlishly at her, she tilts her plate of wilted greens in his direction. "Umm, an Earth mammal notorious for eating garbage."

"I thought Ashley told me those were called raccoons," Andros says mildly as he approaches the synthetron.

"Oh, those will eat garbage, too. And bears..." Dropping the edge of her plate back down on the table, she regards the remains of the salad with a distrust she usually reserves for Astronema's most recent monster to terrorize the warehouse district. "You know, Earth has a lot of animals that thrive on our trash. I'm not sure if that says something about our planet, or just the humans living on it." She catches Andros watching her from the corner of his eyes, and she balls up a napkin and tosses it at his head. "No judgment from you, Mr Perfect Eco-Friendly Space Alien. Just fix the synthetron before we're forced to resort to cooking our own meals."

"Astronema would throw a tantrum if we took ourselves out with food poisoning."

"Yes, exactly! We're Rangers. We even care about the mental well-being of the villain trying to destroy us." Humming, she writes down another verse then nibbles at the end of her pencil. The melodic line just isn't coming together. Even if she changed the tempo... A shadow falling across her sheet of paper distracts her, and she looks up to find Andros peering over her shoulder. "Umm, yeah?" she asks distractedly, doodling a quick sketch of Astronema diving into a dumpster. Well, a stick figure with a curly wig dumpster diving. She writes a hasty Astronema over its head so there's no confusion. "Done with the synthetron already?"

"DECA's discussing it with the collective," he tells her, which doesn't tell her much. She avoids dealing with the collectives as best as she's able. She'll gladly mop every deck of the Megaship if it means Carlos is the one assigned nanite-wrangling duty. "Cassie..." He walks around the table and sits, tucking narrow, silver-threaded braids behind his ear, his elbow barely missing her discarded salad. "That song you sang before, about the dragon? And the boy? –I think I interrupted you before you reached the end. I was wondering; could you sing it again?"

"Puff?" It's a curious request. And Andros had gotten, oh, she hesitates to term it upset but she doesn't know what else to call the unique mix of outrage and disquiet he'd displayed when she'd tried explaining the meaning behind the lyrics. But his eyes now are calm as they regard her from across the table, his attention absolute. "Yeah, sure. I mean, it sounds better with the guitar–"

"It's okay. I just," he rests his head against his hand and sighs. "I need to hear the words to it. I think they might be important."

"It's just a children's song." And though it is a children's song, Andros has asked and so Cassie sings it. Without accompaniment, and with no one joining in on the chorus. She sings it, and Andros listens with a focus that is nearly frightening in its intensity. She sings it and fidgets as Andros continues to stare at her, his eyes partially hidden behind half closed lids. And she's never before been so close to him while he's been so still, that she can see that even his eyelashes are streaked with blond.

"He lived in Honah Lee. Lived." He runs his fingers along a slim length of braid, the twisting filaments of silver gleaming fitfully in the lights of the work bay. "When the boy stopped visiting, the dragon died? He went into the cave – and died?"

"Supposedly a fifth verse had been considered, where Puff would find a new friend to play with. It's just a rumor, though. So I guess he did die, if that's the way you want to look at it. Really, the song's just an allegory on childhood. It's not like dragons are real."

"Negotiations with the synthetron collective have concluded and a compromise has been reached," DECA announces, startling them both. "Normal food preparation will commence as long as they're not disturbed while Animaniacs is being broadcast."

Cassie snickers and raises an eyebrow to invite Andros to join in on the humor of the situation, but the red-shirted teen is lost in thought.

"You okay?" she asks as she scribbles out a word and replaces it with one that works better with the cadence she's trying to achieve.

"–I want Zhane back," he says quietly, lowering both his arm and his head to the table, his hand knocking against the edge of her forgotten plate. Dozens of braids coil next to him against the metal surface, and his brown eyes gleam as brightly as the silver threads binding his braids together. "I don't know where he is, and I have no way of contacting him. I want him back." He blinks up at her, his expression that of someone facing unbearable loss. "I didn't mean to send him off to die."

"Of course not!" The idea is absurd, and why Andros is even considering the possibility is beyond her. "He's helping the Kerovians resettle. He's not off fighting the war, Andros. Nothing's going to harm him."

His hushed laugh is the scrape of broken glass. "Imagine how Jackie Paper felt," he says morosely, to her or to the table's surface Cassie isn't sure. "When he finally got his priorities straight, only to discover he'd killed the best friend he'd ever have."

"Not all stories are meant to have happy endings."

"Then they're being told wrong."

.oO0Oo.

Kinwon stares down into the pit, partially filled. Shaking with fever, he wipes cold sweat from his brow with the crook of his elbow. Zhane is not digging. The boy hadn't been in the commissary, nor in the tent he'd been assigned. No one still mobile claimed to have seen him; not this morning, and not in the past day. But then, the Kerovians have been carefully overlooking Zhane as of late, as if his very being is a heat mirage to be dismissed. A delusion to overlook. A hallucination to rail at, and drive away...

He's always worked against time. There was never enough. The movement of troops, the training of soldiers, the mourning of those lost in Dark Specter's continuous onslaught, all took time Kerova could never spare him. But only now can Kinwon feel the loss of each minute as it's snatched from his grasp. Time, an enemy he could once work around but never defeat. Time looms before him and laughs at the ruination of his plans, mocks his doomed dreams. Time... is singing?

He swipes at his forehead again, pulling his scattered thoughts to order. Time may not sing, but the Silver Ranger does, so he follows the haunting thread of melody past transports mired in mud and ships cannibalized for materials. At the border of ash and jungle Zhane sits upon a crate, his gaze tilted towards the sullen sky and his lips moving in a song Kinwon struggles to understand. It's only as he nears that the words become clear.

"...it's foolhardy, maybe, but who knows? Anyway, here I am, walkin' down toward where the cold dark water flows.All it takes is–"

Kinwon clears his throat, startling the youth out of his melancholic dirge. "When was the last time you washed?" he chides, knowing the hypocrisy that underscores the chastisement. There is no way of keeping clean on the moonlet, camped as they are in muck and ash. Humidity rarely gives way to rain yet everything remains wet, unable to completely dry. Their supply of fresh water is stretched thin, reserved for drinking and the cleansing of festering wounds. Bad luck has plagued them as vital life support on the remaining intact ships breaks down for no other reason than spite, Kinwon reasons.

Spite, or the final judgment of Kerova against those who'd abandoned it.

"Are you saying I stink?" Zhane asks, looking at him from the corner of one eye, the faintest suggestion of humor in the quick upwards tic of his lips.

"Could anyone honestly tell against the stench of this place?" Gingerly he sits next to the boy on a crate that creaks under their combined weight but holds. It holds, for now. Like Kinwon himself, it holds for now. Eventually both will collapse to the rot that hollows them out. "I only asked because I don't think you've noticed. Your hair is lighter. Beneath the grime. It's lighter."

"Is it?" He's managed to surprise the Ranger as Zhane tugs at a lock of his hair, struggling to bring it into view. The touch alone, a broken nail scraping along short strands, is enough to display the color underneath. Gray as rain clouds after a long winter, the wellspring of flowers and the promise of new growth. Kinwon's dreams, lately, have been filled with identical clouds, and memories of playing with friends in such showers while his mother tried to lure him back inside with promises of baked goods and his favorite show about to air. Kinwon lives more in his dreams, now days, than he does on this harsh, tiny moonlet. He lives in his dreams while he dies in the waking world.

"It is." Before them, the breeze rustles through the jungle, and vegetation moves as if it is some giant beast breathing as it watches, and waits. Waits impatiently for all their deaths the beast that is the jungle promises him, and icy sweat soaks through the sleeve of Kinwon's shirt as he wipes uselessly at his face. He freezes and burns by turns, and the two opposites should balance each other out – but they don't. He freezes. And burns. "Have you ever wondered," he asks abruptly, nodding towards a patch on the youth's uniform, "what that stands for? KO-35 is not a ringed planet. It's not orbited by a single moon. Were you curious? Did you ever ask anyone about it?"

He would point to the patch in question, but what had remained of his fingers is now gone. Gone beneath the dirt that partially fills the pit. Zhane had quietly shoveled over them, as he'd had to shovel over so much else. Single graves become trench become charnel pit that consumes them one by one, piece by piece, bit by bit. The jungle breathes, and so does he. He yet lives. He lives. He does.

"No," Zhane says slowly, his attention now fixed on Kinwon alone. "Figured it was military. You know I never payed much attention to that sort of thing. And the military never made sense to me. Not really."

Kinwon would laugh. He agrees with the youth and he would laugh, but he's forgotten how. There's a trick to laughing in the face of defeat, but he's forgotten it behind fever and chills and the gnawing away of his hands. He thinks he might have forgotten the trick that first time he'd watched the dreadnoughts at their gruesome work.

"Kerova once had two moons," he says, watching the jungle the way the jungle watches him in turn. "Kerova prime. Our original home. Beloved, lost Kerova. It did not have rings but two glorious moons bright as diamonds against the velvet night. Then, his Lordship of the time fell in love. A love so grand that he decided only one ring and one ring alone was fit to present to his consort as proof of his devotion. And he ordered the destruction of one of the two moons."

"Unwise," Zhane says softly, his gray eyes flickering with thoughts unvoiced.

"Indeed. But the Kerovians were arrogant – it seems to be a consistent failing. They had an empire that spanned an entire sector. Did not Eltar itself send his Lordship tribute? Masters of science and technology, the destruction of a moon was nothing to their learning. And so Kerova became a ringed planet and for thousands of years after, the military of all the outposts remembered that achievement in honors. And patches."

Oh! So that's what laughter sounds like; rusty and hacking and terribly sad.

"Kinwon." There's a hand against his face that cools his fever and warms his flesh, and he blinks back wetness that has gathered in his eyes. "Are you here?"

"Still here," he hiccups as a calloused thumb wipes away his tears. "For now, I'm still here. The moon had been bright as a diamond, and the material that had made up the moon was crystalline in nature. No chunks of rock came raining down on Kerova, oh no – the scientists had made sure that the destruction of the moon was too complete for such a calamity to befall. The change in the tides was accommodated for, and vast machines kept the oceans sedate. But no ring is meant to last forever, and the moondust eventually made its way into the upper atmosphere of the planet."

"Crystalline dust?"

"I see you quickly grasp what not a single one of the great minds of Kerova from that time could. Yes. Crystalline, reflective dust. Kerova froze in a matter of years, and the first great exodus of our people began. Before, there had only been a handful of outposts located in nearby systems so that we might lay claim to larger regions of space. After – the Lordships and Ladyships that followed tried to colonize every habitable system they could. To spread was to prosper. And when the last Kerovian left the surface of our iced-over world, all knowledge of its location was lost to us. We turned our backs on Kerova, and so Kerova turned away from us as well. Oh, the coordinates would still have been in our databases – but we could no longer recognize them. To this day, we cannot recognize them."

"Do you really think Kerova abandoned you, Kinwon?" And he doesn't think it's Kerova that Zhane's asking about. Not with the songs he'd taken to singing of late. But the boy had not noticed the change to his hair. He's had no time to notice, so busily he's been digging. Burying. Kinwon, though, still plans. Wracked with pain and sickness, it's hope that tortures him most. He can save one. He plans to. He can.

"What does an old man know? It's a tale I uncovered in a musty history book hidden away in her Ladyship's archives. A book, can you even imagine? Zhane..." The moonlet exists in shades of green and gray, jungle and overcast and ash that they'd brought upon themselves. So much ash, far more than could be accounted for by the original burn. Somewhere else on the moon a fire must rage, unchecked. He swears he can smell smoke every time he tries to rest. "–We'd planned to build Zords for the Kerovian Rangers. The project was scrapped when Avera was lost, the funds pulled to support the planetary defenses instead. But work had already started on the first – and nanites have never demanded a salary. They will continue with a task until it's finished."

The smile he's met with is a slash of muted pink in an ash-grayed face. "I always knew you were a sneak. Andros would never believe me when I'd tell him you weren't as rigid as you appeared."

"I don't think there's any way I can take that as a compliment." He begins to stand from the crate, but the jungle chooses that moment to pounce in a rush of green that floods his vision. Only an arm about his waist keeps him from falling. An arm that pulls him to his feet and holds him in place until the jungle retreats and he once again sees Zhane, his features pale and pinched in concern. "I need you to go and retrieve the Zord. I – I order you to go and take command of your Zord, Silver Ranger."

The arm stays around him as it leads him back into the camp, each step slow and slogged down by the encompassing mire. "Do you?" They watch, they all watch, Kerovians and jungle and ash-filled sky as Zhane escorts him back to the tent that serves as both command and temporary shelter for him. "Are you commander once more? Then I'll go..." the youth carefully lowers him to his cot, his lips pursing each time Kinwon can no longer hold back a moan or pained mewl as he settles fitfully against damp blankets. Zhane bites at his lip until it's more red than pink. "And return here?"

"I think not. No..." He can see the jungle through the opaque canvas of the tent's walls. Its breath billows the waxed fabric in, and out. But it will not take him; Kinwon is no beast's prey. "This place has demanded enough of our flesh. We've voted. There are few enough of us left; a single transport will suffice. We have voted, and we are returning to KO-35."

Zhane is silent as he pulls the blankets over Kinwon. Ever so silent as he lights the lamp and sets it on the makeshift stand next to the cot. Heartbreakingly silent as he pulls a spoon from a forgotten teacup and holds it at an angle to catch his reflection in its silvered surface. "How did you know," he whispers, "that Andros' mind is changing? I did not feel it. There's been no pull to rejoin him."

"It will come. Your hair has always been the key when it comes to knowing the mood of the Red Ranger. Your hair gives both of you away." The weight of the blanket is intolerable against the stumps of his hands, but Zhane is already there shifting it aside. "Go, Zhane. Go to your Zord. I've left the location on my tablet, and I've added you to its permissions. Go. The nanites will have surely finished with it by now, and I made certain its construction was far from any known Kerovan possession. A ship's been made ready for you. Go – and do us proud."

His gray head bent, the youth walks reluctantly up to the table and picks up the pad. "Thought of everything, have you?" There's no bitterness in his tone. Or if there is, it's covered by anguish. "KO-35 will kill you all."

"We know. –I am old before my years, Zhane. All of us are. We want to die at home. I want to die in sunlight."

The boy taps repeatedly at the tablet, then nods. "It's your choice. If it's between dying here or at home, I know where I'd want to be..." He carries the tablet back with him to Kinwon's cot. Gazes at it speculatively before adjusting its stand so that it rests upright when he places it on Kinwon's chest. "Commander," he says at last, his eyes glimmering in the lamp's feeble light. "Travel safely. Kerova hasn't forgotten her children. There's a home for you to return to."

The jungle is out there, past the walls of his tent, ever watchful, ever hungry. And Kinwon's hope travels with Zhane as he hears the smallest of their surviving craft depart. And when he manages to clear his throat and utter a hoarse, "Tablet, on," he weeps, because upon the cracked screen are coordinates he doesn't recognize. He doesn't recognize them, but he knows them in his heart. He sees them upon the star map as they've never appeared before.

Home. Zhane has gifted them with home. Kerova has forgiven the last of its children. Kinwon's hope had followed behind the Silver Ranger, but Zhane had left them with an entirely new hope in return.

Kinwon calls for his aides with all the strength left in his lungs. They must leave. They must leave now so that every last Kerovian, every faithful follower, will know the blessing of dying at home. It doesn't take long for everyone to board the transport. Time flashes by in frozen images; the gray sky overhead, people walking up the ship's long ramp, the bright lights of the overfull medical bay. And behind them the jungle snarls at losing its prey. And ahead of them, Kinwon sees it. Behind his closed lids, he sees it.

Kerova welcomes its lost children home.

.oO0Oo.

Astronema stares rapturously at the planet filling the viewscreen of her shuttle. A swirl of spun sugar clouds sweeps across its surface, but otherwise it's featureless. And blue; a glowing, baleful blue. There's no sign of continents, no hint of landmasses or islands or atolls – but the blue is not ocean. The blue is no physical thing at all but a morass of magic. Her magic, ever present, ever working towards her sole desire from the moment the spell was cast.

She'd been awake when she'd felt the boy from her dreams, the boy that gave her back her dreams, die. And she had screamed, a wail of power that had torn apart all unlucky enough to have been standing nearby. And she had exacted her revenge. It had mattered not to her who died, ally or foe. If it had sentience – no matter the degree – and had stood upon the final outpost of Kerova, it had perished to her orbs.

Even the quantrons. Even them – and Andros couldn't possibly know the terrible secret her foot troops harbor. He must never know. For her brother may not ever quite forgive her, but he accepts her. He accepts that Karone is Astronema, but were he to discover what was used to create her seemingly robotic soldiers, what raw materials she had worked with... No, he mustn't ever find out.

Her mother had known the moment she'd stepped foot on the Dark Fortress. Envoy of Lord Dark indeed, the sheer brazenness of her deception had won Astronema's admiration. Her mother, and her mother's companion, who had dragged the monster that had sought to bar their way to the metal grating of the floor. By the time Astronema had arrived to deal with the commotion the feral woman had been busily eating it. Alive. Astronema had been forced to end the unfortunate being's wretched existence just to have enough quiet to talk. Or demand, rather. Demand to know the identities of the two women that had entered her base on false pretenses...

Or not so false, as it had turned out. Not sent by Lord Dark, no. But come directly from him? The gall of her mother and the simple brilliance of her deception. She wonders how Andros had dealt with the woman. Astronema herself had not appreciated power that matched her own reaching out, exploring, mapping the hidden depths of her.

"Leave it!" she'd snarled, pushing forward with a hiss not of warning but of imminent attack. "It's the only protection they have! Leave it!"

She had not known, then, that the woman was her mother. Had not cared. Astronema treasures the binding laid upon her by her brother. Cherishes it. Nurtures it as best she can considering her nature. She loves her boys, the selfish, greedy, consuming love that is all that darkness is capable of – but it is still love. She loves them, and the prohibition is all that keeps them safe from the worst of her whims. Astronema will gut anyone that disturbs the sole curb on her more outrageous behaviors.

Her mother had laughed and released the restrictions changed. Loosened. The last nearly broken. Her mother... Astronema shakes her head, fanning the fall of her magenta-streaked black hair behind her. Her mother, and her mother's friend. An ill-favored match if ever she'd seen one, but a match regardless. She'd had no memories of her mother – or so she'd thought. But as she'd watched the two women from under lowered lashes as she'd led them to her office, bits of broken memories had resurfaced. It was from the blonde she'd hidden her brother's bruises. From the blonde she'd accepted an unfrosted cupcake. The blonde handing her a yellow romper with a distant, hollow smile...

It had only been once they'd reached her sanctum and she'd secured the door, checking for any new listening devices planted by Darkonda, that she'd turned and whispered, "Mama?"

Below her KO-35 spins in its ceaseless orbit, a beautiful, deadly lure for any foolish enough to think of looting her mousling's memorial. And Zhane may no longer be dead, but the monument she'd created for him remains, eternal. She isn't even sure she would survive long enough to step foot on her home world's surface, so caustic is the wrath of her magic. It's hypnotizing in its majesty and entertaining in its way, as she reads reports from the satellites she'd left behind. Swift corsairs favored by pirates, the heavy bulk of mining craft, and the latest a large, damaged transport; all had come to plunder the riches of the ghost world of KO-35, and all had met their well-earned fates.

She laughs at them, the gluttonous fools. The galaxy is better off without them. Best, though, if she recalls her satellites. No need for her brother to fret over the useless lives lost. He'd take it personally, as if he had a responsibility for the actions of the scum that scavenge the fringes of space. And she retrieves the satellites just in time as a streak of red flashes across her viewscreen against the backdrop of the blue, blue planet.

Lowering her legs from where they were resting atop the instrument panel, she unseals the shuttle's outer hatch. It's a laughable excuse for an airlock, but it serves its purpose. Andros will fit inside, if not the length of his Glider. No matter, his flimsy vehicle can wait outside; she has no intention of blasting it to pieces. Unless her brother irks her unnecessarily...

She dimples at her pretty, crafty Red as he powers down once he makes it through the inner hatch. And her smile grows as she strides towards him to run her fingers through his silver-wrapped braids. "I see my wall is holding," she tells him as she catches her brother in a fierce, crushing embrace. He grunts as her breastplate digs into his skin, but it does not deter her. A little discomfort is a fair price to pay for a proper welcome. "Andros. I'm so glad you could make it. I felt the need to thank you personally for setting our mother on my path. Tell me, why didn't Dark Specter take her if he wanted an heir so badly?"

"He's depraved, not suicidal." He raises a brow in puzzlement as she releases him, his own lips twitching upwards. "Which doesn't explain why he chose you, either." He looks around her to the cockpit, where KO-35 gleams on the viewscreen in all its seductive glory. "Never thought I'd return here," he says quietly as his arms come to rest folded across his chest. "The first orb had almost reached the ground when I teleported off... From so far above, you can't see what happened. You'd never know..." The grief in his voice is distant. Her brother must dwell upon it often, she thinks, to have worn all its sharp edges smooth. "Why did you choose here of all places to meet?"

"The location of my greatest display of power? My warning to the galaxy never to cross me? Oh, brother-mine, none in the Alliance dares come near this system for fear of drawing my attention. Where else could be more perfect for us to conspire? The time approaches where we must either stand against Dark Specter together, or fall to him apart."

"You've found Zordon?"

She snorts inelegantly. "For every location I rule out, two more hiding places are rumored. No, I haven't found him. What I do have is a missive from Dark Specter to trick you into believing that the old meddler is being held on Utopa. Oh, he doesn't command me to trick you; it's a test of my loyalty as well. And his trap is well thought out. With the interference from the force field that covers the planet, the fragmented signal that escapes looks like it could be from Zordon's energy tube. I would almost believe him there myself had I not tracked him in the opposite direction before losing the trail once more."

He glances at her from between gently swinging braids of silver, his posture still leaning towards defensive. "And what? You want us to pretend to fall for the trap?"

"As entertaining as that would be, no. Although delivering your baby Rangers bound and gagged has – appeal. So much appeal," she licks her lips, practically salivating at the thought of captured do-gooders helpless before her. "But of little practical use. No; Utopa is trap and subterfuge both. Whether he destroys you Rangers is a moot point. He wants you away from Earth."

When Andros shakes his head his braids chime, and she croons quietly in delight at their silvery tinkling. "He's planning on attacking directly? That's not like him. For as much as he brags of his power, he hides behind underlings. And," he juts his chin towards her in acknowledgment, "his betters."

"Oh, it will be a direct attack, make no mistake, but not led by him. You're right about that. Dark Specter is a showman, a salesman hiding behind smoke and mirrors." She passes her brother as she returns to the cockpit, running her hand in a lingering caress across his jacketed shoulder as she walks by. It's a matter of seconds to bring up the feed she's piggy-backed from the Fortress' sensors. "Close range scanners picked up this," she tells him, highlighting a region of the Sol system's Oort cloud. "There should have been no activity in the region, so I sent a scout. Its report disturbed me enough to contact you ahead of schedule to arrange this meeting."

Her brother understands immediately what he's looking at. He understands, and hisses at the display. "He's boosted an asteroid from beyond the Kuiper Belt. Even at a fraction of C it would devastate Earth."

"Yes. And it's going slightly faster than that," she drawls, bringing up her calculations. "He set this into motion a while ago, the buffoon. Why can't he comprehend the simple fact that no one can rule planets that no longer exist?" She can tell her attitude annoys her brother, her dear brother who does things because they are right and not because they further his purpose. But she is Astronema and all that she does is for herself. She may annoy her brother, but he amuses her. Ever so much. "Luckily, we've caught it in time to change its course. The most minute deviation at this point will veer it away from Earth. I'll leave it to you to decide the best correction; things like this do tend to come 'round again."

She can't help but purr as he reaches over and around her to input a set of equations into the panel's control interface, rubbing her cheek affectionately along the sleeve of his jacket. Although it's not his intention, it feels like a hug, and even the poor imitation of affection is enough to send drowsy warmth through her body. For all that Ecliptor cares, he is a cold creation. All that has ever surrounded her has been cold, but her brother is warmth personified.

His warmth, though, is an illusion as he tenses, glaring at the viewscreen and the trajectory of an asteroid that refuses to change. "We don't have the firepower," he grits through clenched teeth. "DECA's better at math than me, but she doesn't have access to your information. I can't find a way to successfully deflect it."

"Hmm." Tapping at her lips thoughtfully, she reviews her brother's calculations, and he's right. The Megaship is woefully underpowered for the undertaking. "That's the full output of your ion cannons? Andros, that is appalling. Zordon might as well have mounted water cannons to your little toy ship for all the good they'll do."

"They work well enough against your velocifighters."

She can't help herself, she truly can't, and laughs directly in his face. "Oh, you're too much! Brother-mine, your teeny-tiny blasters are enough to bring down a velocifighter. I scatter them in battle to aggravate you, like a handful of tacks on the ground there to prick your feet with every step. They've never been meant to be seen as a threat."

"Tacks?" He's withdrawn to the doorway of the cockpit in one swift movement, his expression frozen, his vision locked on memory. "You compare them to tacks? Be under one of their bombing runs, Astronema – and laugh then. Laugh as buildings fall around you and you're forced to pull the dead out into the streets so you might have a place to shelter from their next strafing run. An aggravation? Is that what you feel after watching them destroy a hospital? Do you laugh when it takes you an hour to reach a NICU ward only to be too late? Always too late..."

His face is pale in his rage, and his fists tremble at his sides, and... no. No, she doesn't think she would laugh. She had not been in command in the Kerovan systems until the very end. Early on in the sieges, Darkonda had carried out the bulk of the attacks before Ecliptor had relieved him. Too many of their own forces had been carelessly squandered, and poorly executed attacks had lacked – finesse. But, infants... She swallows hard and switches the viewscreen back to the eerily blue planet they're orbiting.

"We, we gave them time to evacuate."

"You shot down the ships trying to evacuate. You ambushed them en route. Your dreadnoughts fired on KO-41 as soon as the last of the evacuees from KO-16 had arrived! There wasn't even a warning. We hadn't realized the fleet was in the system until the dreadnoughts showed up."

"Not mine." She knows her excuse is weak. She knows she'd been wrong to laugh at him. Her brother is nothing more than a collection of cracks, and she never knows what careless word or action might shatter him anew. "Not me. Andros, you know why I seek to overthrow Dark Specter. I do not want dead worlds."

He shudders as he leans against the wall, his head tilted back and his eyes squeezed tightly closed. "I know," he says thickly. "I know. Karone..." He heaves a ragged breath and pounds both fists against the metal of the inner hull. "Every battle that has ever mattered, you've won. And every battle that has ever mattered... I've lost."

"You've defeated my monsters plenty of times."

"And did those battles matter?"

At first she'd toyed with the Red Ranger because he'd intrigued her, alleviating her boredom when she'd grown tired of the Alliance's endless petty squabbles. Then, once she found out that feisty Red was her brother, she'd felt a need to keep him on his toes. But no, the battles had not mattered. Neither had their outcomes. She'd allow no harm to come to Andros, and she'd cared little beyond that.

"I suppose they didn't," she admits softly, taking his clenched hands and examining the freshly forming bruises. She cannot heal them, but she can hide them well enough behind illusion that even pain is disguised as a not-unpleasant numbness. "This, though; this matters. I hadn't realized you didn't have the firepower to deal with the asteroid. What do you need me to do, to help?"

"DECA could find a way. I'm sure she could." The hands she holds in her own slowly uncurl until they rest in hers, palm to palm. "This shuttle has access to the Dark Fortress' scanners." Slim fingers wrap around her wrists, too loose to be mistaken for restraint, too firm not to be deliberate. "Come dock with the Megaship and give DECA access to the shuttle's systems. If anyone can find a way to successfully divert the asteroid, it will be her."

"Dock, with the Megaship?" She'd think her brother joking, but his amber eyes are earnest as they peer at her from behind the protection of silver-clad braids. "And when your Rangers fire on me for invading?"

"They won't shoot you."

"They will!"

"Well, they won't hurt you. You're Astronema. How much threat could our teeny-tiny blasters pose to the Princess of Evil?" Oh, her brother has sass! And she grins at the challenge he's tossed her way. "Besides," he adds as an afterthought, although the wickedness of his leer hints at a deeper significance. "They all think you're dating Zhane."

And... what? She blinks at him, at his smirk, at his patronizing wink as he releases her wrists to sprawl into one of the hard, molded chairs of the hold. She blinks, and continues blinking as her thoughts scatter to the stellar winds. "...What?"

"Ashley's already arranged couples counseling for you and Zhane. And me and Zhane, now that I think on it. Ashley has really odd ideas about our relationships. They all do. Carlos even made a list of what you shouldn't do on dates. It's an interesting read. Please don't set your copy on fire when he hands it to you; he's proud he was able to find a sparkly purple binder to put it in."

Astronema has a really bad feeling about her brother's request to join him on the Megaship, and it has nothing to do with the asteroid headed towards Earth.

.oO0Oo.

"–What is she doing here?!" Only Ashley's hand curled around his bicep keeps TJ from lunging forward. Because Astronema is on the bridge. Of the Megaship. Smirking at them as she slinks forward, her arm wrapping possessively around Andros' waist. "I would never have let that shuttle dock if I'd known she was on board."

"Which is why I didn't tell you." Andros' reasonableness as he leads the black-haired woman further inside is infuriating. "She's here to help. Well, her shuttle is here to help, and it's not like I could've left her station-side somewhere to wreak havoc unsupervised."

"Honey, I'm banned from more stations than you'll ever visit, but it's sweet that you think you have what it takes to leave me anywhere," she says as she steps forward, the lights of the bridge highlighting the magenta streaks in her hair. "DECA, is it?" she raises her voice to attract the AI's attention. "Be a dear and interface with my shuttle."

"I'm not that kind of artificial intelligence," DECA replies primly.

"It's okay, DECA. Authorization Red. I need you to bring up everything the shuttle has from the Dark Fortress' sensor array. Main viewscreen. And we need a solution fast."

The camera whirs as DECA considers the short list of commands. And TJ considers them as well, although his attention never wavers from the villainess casually pacing the confines of the bridge. Astronema. On the Megaship. And his fingers itch for the weight of his blaster, but when he'd become a Ranger he'd sworn to never escalate a fight. And the woman running a lazy, mocking finger along the top of the console currently hosting armaments doesn't appear to be in the mood to even start a fight. She's too self-assured; too pleased with herself.

TJ may not be able to shoot her, no matter how much he wants to, but if she tries to sashay past him he's sticking his foot out to trip her.

"...Oh dear." The dismay in DECA's tone is enough to distract him from Astronema, however. Reluctantly he turns to the viewscreen. He turns, and tries to make sense of the display. It's – math. And trajectories. And a growing column of ominously red lines announcing Simulation Failed. "Andros, what is your confidence in the accuracy of these scans?"

"Astronema's assured me she can't rule a planet that doesn't exist. They're accurate, DECA."

"What is this?" Ashley asks softly as she settles in front of sensors. "I recognize our solar system, but whatever's being tracked is coming from outside of it."

"Ooh, you clever little primate," Astronema coos, the heels of her boots ringing against the floor of the bridge with each step she takes. "But not quite clever enough. It originated in your very own Oort cloud, but Dark Specter's made sure it hasn't stayed there. It's an asteroid, Yellow, addressed to Earth; postage due and no option to return to sender."

"What?" TJ's thinking it, but it's Carlos that gasps the question. "What do you mean, it's heading for Earth?"

"I mean that Dark Specter doesn't find you Rangers nearly as entertaining as I do, and he decided the perfect solution would be to destroy you and your planet at the same time." Twirling a lock of hair between her fingers, she saunters back to the rear of the bridge. "Honestly, I'm surprised he didn't redirect the fleet. Guess you lucked out there." Draping herself across Andros' shoulders, she winks at them – then pouts as Andros straightens, dislodging her. "Really?" she whines.

"–Why didn't he send the fleet?" Andros muses. And while TJ has no idea what the fleet is, by the looks their leader and their villain are exchanging, it's something unbelievably bad. Worse than a civilization-ending meteor strike. "The asteroid we have a chance of dealing with. There's nothing we could have done against the full might of the dreadnoughts."

"That – is an excellent question." Astronema bites at her red, red lips, and if TJ didn't know better he'd say that the woman looks worried. But he does know better. He would like to think that he knows better, but Astronema is chewing at the inside of her cheek now, and it had taken Zhane impossibly creating a micro black hole to deal with a single dreadnought... TJ shivers at the thought of an entire fleet of them possibly bearing down on Earth. "I think there's more to this trap than we'd considered, brother-mine."

And – brother? Brother?! TJ glances around to see if any of his friends had caught the insinuation. The claim. The... the... He pinches the bridge of his nose and prays the woman is lying because if not... If not...

"...You're Karone?" If TJ was closer he'd smack the back of Carlos' head, because no. Just no. There was absolutely no way Astronema, Princess of Shiny Black Vinyl Catsuits, was Andros' long-lost sister. No way, no how, no sir. Nyet. Nein. Nope to the 'nth power.

And TJ may have lost a minute or three, because when he's once again able to focus on the bridge Astronema is merrily laughing and Andros looks mortified.

"Oh," the magenta-streaked woman says, her hips swaying as she walks up to Carlos. "Make no mistake, my mousling's mine, and so is Red. But I always have time to pamper another pretty boy. Offering, Black? There's plenty of room for another pet to train to obedience aboard my Fortress."

"What did I miss?" TJ whispers to Ashley, who only stares back at him in horrified disbelief.

"You don't want to know," Ashley informs him, her eyes practically bulging. "Trust me, you really, really don't want to know." Cassie is nodding in emphatic agreement, and Carlos is practically green. Maybe TJ doesn't want to know. Although he should, having once been Red, and now Blue. He should know of possible threats against his teammates... but even Andros is warning him with a desperately waving hand, and Astronema herself is now leering at him as if daring him to ask.

"I–"

DECA cuts him off, and he can't help but be grateful for her intervention. "I have run every possible permutation, but the outcome is undeniable. The Megaship's weaponry alone cannot deflect the asteroid. And while sufficient force is theoretically capable of altering its trajectory, I calculate we are a Zord short of the thrust needed to affect such change."

"You're saying there's nothing we can do to stop the asteroid from hitting Earth?" Cassie drops into the chair in front of comms, her face blank with shock. "Nothing at all?"

"Not nothing." All traces of laughter are gone from Astronema's voice. The woman stands in the middle of their bridge, her gaze fixed upon their viewscreen and the single red line at the bottom that declares there's a zero percent chance of success. "Your AI was quite clear that your dinky ship doesn't have the firepower; Andros double-checked those calculations hours ago so it doesn't come as any surprise. However, between your ion cannons and the satellasers of the Dark Fortress..."

"Karone," Andros protests as he moves to her side. "If you do that, Dark Specter will know you've helped us."

"Will he? I do not recall him notifying me of this absolutely juvenile plan to send a boosted asteroid hurtling towards Earth. I'd only be protecting our interests. I am, you know, a most dutiful servant." She hooks her elbow around Andros' arm and leans into his side. "You worry far too much. DECA, would it work?"

"It would." The viewscreen changes as different equations begin to scroll across, ending with a green pronouncement of Probability of Success 87 percent. "While the chance of failure remains, the only other scenario with higher odds of diverting the asteroid requires the presence of a fourth Zord."

"Which you don't have." Astronema is entirely too pleased and TJ doesn't like it. At. All. "Really, brother, you already have three. Three Megazords! Most Ranger teams settle for one. The more ambitious teams manage to get their grubby little mitts on two. You have three; it's overkill. And that's me telling you that." A pout forms on her bright red lips, and they leave an equally vibrant mark against Andros' cheek when she inclines her head to kiss him. "It's like you don't want to give me a sporting chance when we play."

Andros stares at her incredulously. "And a hundred and thirty foot Ecliptor is sporting?"

"No, that's just eye candy."

TJ isn't the only one that chokes. Although he might be the only one to lose another minute as he tries to figure out how that would even work. Carlos doesn't have that problem as he coughs, "Mecha fetish," under his breath. And... TJ is back to reciting a litany of noes. He's tempted to forget the asteroid, crawl back into his bunk and call the day a wash. One more epiphany, one more unexpected reveal, and he's turning in his morpher, returning to Earth and getting a job bussing tables at the Surf Spot until all life is incinerated via meteor impact. It's not a bad plan, and it comes with the perk of getting him away from having to deal with Astronema. Andros' sister.

And TJ hates that it actually explains so much. The insanity is obviously hereditary.

"When should we time the joint strike?" Cassie asks, pure professionalism that TJ envies because his own brain is stuck on a mecha fetish loop. "DECA's calculations show the window closing in a few days; if we don't get the asteroid's trajectory changed by then – we're going to have to find a Zord to borrow from somewhere. The window to brute force it off course is about a week longer. After that, there really is nothing we can do."

"Stars above, Andros," Astronema says as she giggles into her brother's gray-clad shoulder. "You have a Pink handling strategy and a Yellow trying to pick up the slack at science; how have you lasted this long? Never mind, it seems to work for you." She pats Andros' back hard enough to stagger him, then lets him go so she can resume her pacing of the bridge. "The sooner we foil Dark Specter's plan, the better. Then, we can get on with our afternoon meet-ups, yes? Fun, games, and the destruction of gentrified former-warehouse districts. Everyone wins! Now fork over a comm so I can keep in touch with you and I'll be on my way."

They leave the bridge together, Andros and Astronema, bickering over the aesthetics of comms. And as glad as TJ is to see the villainess go, he's more concerned that they're letting her go instead of, say, throwing her in the brig. Which the Megaship lacks, but TJ is sure some seldom used utility closet could be repurposed. But no, the fate of the Earth trumps capturing the second-highest ranking Alliance member, which, yes – he knows that. He does. He likes Earth, and he likes living there. Still...

"...If the Megaship's cannons and the satellasers on the Dark Fortress are enough to push the asteroid off course, why do we need the Dark Fortress at all?" he asks, glaring at the equations on the viewscreen that make as much sense to him as a bowl of alphabet soup. "We have the Megalasers. Shouldn't those work just as well?"

Cassie gives him a look of pity. Ashley gives him a look of pity. Even Carlos, yep – pity, and a wicked grin that promises that TJ's going to be hearing about this for weeks to come.

"Our lasers are lasers," Cassie explains patiently as she clears the viewscreen, returning it to its usual, peaceful starfield. "There's no force behind them. They'd do as much good as shining flashlights at the asteroid. They're just light. The satellasers are different."

"...Because they're not lasers? Even though they're called satellasers?"

"Exactly!" Ashley chirps as she changes sensors over to systems. "They're magic. A whole lot more force behind them. Even if our planetary science can't explain where the force comes from. Or describe it. Or visualize it."

"Magic," Carlos nods knowingly. "Wanna bet it ends up being tied to the Higgs boson?"

TJ leans against armaments and cradles his head between his hands in a futile effort to keep his brain from wandering off. "–You just made that up."

Cassie's look of pity only grows. "They'll find it one day. CERN just broke ground for the Large Hadron Collider; if it doesn't suck the Earth into a man-made singularity the first time they run it, just imagine all the cool things we'll learn about the universe."

DECA makes an odd, chiding noise, the computer-generated equivalent of a tongue clicking. Mostly, it sounds like static. "Earth could simply ask. My data banks contain a wealth of information on both bosons and fermions. Samples could be provided upon request."

"Of the information?" Ashley questions absently as she frowns down at her console's screen. "And why am I suddenly being flooded by your fan mail, Cassie?"

DECA's camera swings to the side and shines a blinding red. "Wouldn't the actual subatomic particles be of more use?"

Carlos notices him stealthily heading for the lift. "TJ? Where are you going?"

"Back to bed." He is done with this day. "Wake me up when it's actually time to shoot things. Or if Astronema sneaks back on board. I'm willing to postpone my nap if it means I get to shoot her, too." Even if it is with his Nerf gun.

Brother. He shivers as the lift closes behind him. Yeah... he's still nope-ing out on that.

.oO0Oo.

It's quieter than it should be on the Dark Fortress. There are less quantrons on patrol than what the standard rotations call for, and there are no wandering monsters at all. It doesn't worry her. She is Astronema and there is nothing aboard her base of operations that worries her. Instead, she's angry. Someone has changed routines she's put in place. Someone has countermanded both her orders and her authority. And she's willing to bet that someone is Darkonda, the filthy, self-serving traitor.

She will find him, and she will turn him inside-out until he begs for the mercy of death. And oh, she'll grant it. Again and again and again.

"Karone?" her brother's voice whispers into her ear from the incredibly ugly comm he'd pressed into her hand before she'd left the Megaship. "We're keeping pace ten minutes out from the asteroid. How long to position the Fortress for optimal bombardment?"

"I'm afraid, Red, that there's going to be a slight delay on my end. I suspect I have a pest lurking in my halls. A rat I need to skin."

"Understood."

She smiles to herself as she accesses the Fortress' interior sensors from an auxiliary panel. Andros does understand. Her brother despises Darkonda nearly as much as she does. Astronema wonders, since the corridors are currently free from their regular patrols, if she should invite him on board and allow him to join in the hunt. Together they would annihilate the backstabbing wretch. But no; she needs to find this particular thorn in her side quickly. Today, there's no time to play. Tomorrow... tomorrow, once the asteroid is dealt with, she'll invite Red over and let him watch as she reduces Darkonda to so much cooling, splattered viscera.

He's outside her office. Three entrances into the antechamber, all easily defended. And a fourth route into it no one in the Alliance would think to look for, let alone block; a service tunnel running perpendicular to the wall. The Alliance is made of nothing but hulking brutes, males possessing muscles but so very little in the way of brains. None of them would ever fit into a service tunnel, and so they'd never bother to guard one. Astronema though, lithe and light and intelligent enough to have mapped the service system years ago, glides down the tunnel with ease.

Darkness needs to choose itself better champions if it ever hopes to win. Astronema is doing her best, but she's a single woman. A little decent help conquering the galaxy wouldn't go amiss.

Darkonda is standing directly in front of the grate, and she watches him disdainfully from her vantage point. Listens to him gloat over his superior intellect. Frowns as he chortles in fiendish glee over some rival he's gotten the best of. Flexes her fingers as he talks to himself about taking down Dark Specter and crowning himself grand monarch of Evil. And she strikes while his back is turned, catching him in the electric tendrils of her magic.

"Astronema!" he screams as he spins and falls to the ground; her cue for an entrance befitting a true monarch of Evil. She kicks the grate aside and summons her staff as she leaps down, its point cleanly piercing her prey's abdomen and slicing his spine in two.

"Darkonda," she croons as she roughly twists her staff. Violet ropes of magic tighten, cutting and cauterizing as they shrink. "I couldn't help but notice a certain lack of minions patrolling my halls. Your doing? Your ambitions have exceeded your capabilities, maggot."

A maggot he is, writhing pathetically upon the point of her staff, but a maggot that smiles at her through bloodied, jagged teeth. He is dying, he has no choice but to die nearly cut in half as he is – but he laughs at her. He laughs long and loud and madly. "Have they, Princess?" he garbles through blood. "Have they really?"

He dies in a flurry of sparks, but there are heavy arms grabbing Astronema from behind, wrenching her staff from her hands. Arms of black and gridded in green. Arms that have been mutilated and hastily repaired with the iron-gray of lesser components.

"Ecliptor, let me go!" she commands with the chilling, aristocratic disdain she's learned from years of attending Alliance councils. "Immediately!" she adds as the arms about her clench, forcing the breath from her lungs. "Ecliptor!"

"Karone? Status?"

She's forcefully turned around and recaptured before she has a chance to do more than take a gulping breath – but now she can see the full extent of the damage done to her friend. "Oh, my General," she mourns, her eyes trailing down the line of foreign iron components that snakes across the length of her guardian's cranium. The damage runs deep, no doubt straight into the depths of his central processor. "What has he done to you?"

"Only what Dark Specter has ordered." There is no fond my Princess, no familiar Astronema; the synthetic creation standing before her is not her friend, not any longer. "Loyalty need not be earned when it can be programmed."

That... that is fairly ominous, she must admit. And as Ecliptor's fist rises above her head, she only has time for a quick, "Sorry Red," before her world goes black.

.oO0Oo.

Transmission lost. Andros starts the audio recording from the beginning, listening to his sister discovering signs of Darkonda's latest treachery. Her crawl through the tunnel. Her execution of one of the galaxy's most loathed beings, no matter that he'd be back. Darkonda always came back...

Her capture.

"Sorry, Red."

Transmission lost.

"Did you sleep at all last night?" Carlos asks as he enters the bridge, setting a mug of tea in front of Andros on the console.

"Couldn't," he replies curtly, although he'd meant his response to be kinder. He's grateful for the drink, the first sweet, berry-flavored sip easing the dryness that had crept unnoticed down his throat while he'd been working. "Aquitar finally responded – with apologies. The Aquitian Rangers are currently off-world dealing with another threat."

"Is their threat going to destroy a planet?"

He chuffs a soft laugh before blowing a gentle stream of air across the surface of the sweetened tea. "At this point in time, every threat is world-ending." Another sip, and he closes his eyes. Briefly. He doesn't want to fall asleep on the bridge. He doesn't have time to sleep. "Do you know if any previous Zords remain functional on Earth?"

"There's Storm Blaster and Lightning Cruiser, although they're not exactly Zords, are they?" The mug Carlos holds is pink and covered in glitter, and is likely Cassie's; Andros hopes he's not around for the explosion when she discovers yet another teammate stealing her belongings. "Good chance Dragonzord is still at the bottom of the bay, but I don't think it can fly, let alone get into space. Otherwise...?" He shrugs and pretends, as they've all been pretending, that the lack of extra Zords is of no particular concern. In a few short hours, it won't be. A few more hours and their need for one extra Zord to divert the asteroid will turn into the need for three. Then six. "I don't really know. Zordon would be the one to ask, I guess."

"Yeah." Another laugh tinged with bitterness, because Zordon would know. "I guess he would be."

The chair next to him creaks as Carlos sits beside him. "Is this how it was, when you lost KO-35? Sitting around knowing the end was coming, but there was nothing you could do about it?"

Honey and the tang of berries turn cloying on his tongue. "Not really. We'd been fighting for years by that point. I don't think we gave much thought to how the end would come. It would be by dreadnought, but there was never any time to dwell. We fought, and fought; never could drive them back. It was all we could do to keep evacuation routes to the 'ports clear. Saved what people we could before orders would come to flee to the next planet to try again. This asteroid..." He sets his mug aside as his stomach churns, acid rising to burn the back of his throat. "It will be quick, at least."

"NASADA's been notified, but they can't spot it." Carlos lifts his eyes to the viewscreen and the calculations DECA's never stopped running. "Would it be an abuse of Ranger status if we used the Megaship to get our families off Earth? I mean, I know it's selfish, but..." he trails off and takes a long swallow from his mug. "We can't even try to evacuate; the few shuttles we have can achieve low Earth orbit at best. And that group of traders you were able to make contact with said they'd accept what refugees they could, but that's a few hundred saved at most."

"And even telling Earth about the offer would trigger riots and the fall of governments." He keys the recording to play from the beginning. His sister returning to the Dark Fortress. Her delight over a chance to slaughter Darkonda. Her fear when she realizes Ecliptor's been turned against her...

Transmission lost.

"Astronema really was Karone?"

"Is. She is Karone," Andros insists, tired of this question that's been hurled at him repeatedly by his other teammates over the past week. "And I don't care what the rest of you say; something happened to her. It's not a trick; she wouldn't abandon me at this point in time. She's not capable of it. I'm hers, and she doesn't let anything that's hers out of her grasp. She's lost too much to have learned how to let anything go."

"Your family," Carlos sighs, finishing his drink. "Is it a Kerovian thing? Because I don't understand you at all. If I found out one of my family members had turned into a mass-murdering sadist, I wouldn't try to mend fences, you know? And your mother, and that woman she drags around with her, and you and Zhane... I guess it's because of how you were raised, but it's not right. The whole imaginary friend thing is demeaning. Maybe it was cute when you were kids, but there's something wrong about a society that promotes that kind of thinking."

The accusation – hurts. Andros has been working non-stop for days trying to find some way to save Carlos' planet. Days of pleading, and begging; contacting every sector that claims to stand with the light, every government and station and ship that owes him a favor, only to be told no. They're sorry. They can't help.

Not to forget the one Eltaran resistance cell that had haughtily demanded the immediate return of the Delta Megaship, or else.

And now Carlos thinks to lecture him, over what? Understanding that his sister's been claimed by darkness? For daring to love her regardless? For accepting his mother's flaws, and loving her as well? And Andros honestly has no idea what Carlos' problem is with him, and with Zhane. None of the Earthians ever listen to him, so busy are they judging what they have no way of comprehending. How many times have they heard him claim that Zhane isn't imaginary? And still, still they judge. Only the weight of silver in his hair keeps him seated in his chair instead of lunging towards the other boy, to knock him to the ground and force him to take back his condescending words.

"I hope you're listening carefully," he warns the other boy as he struggles to keep his composure. Snarling would only cement Carlos' beliefs. Arrogant, righteous, planetary Ranger with no clue as to the richness of the other cultures inhabiting the galaxy. "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do. There is nothing in this universe I will ever cherish more than Zhane, and the time we've spent together. My family comes second, and the rest of the galaxy is a distant third. There is nothing more right than that."

There is anger in Carlos' dark eyes, and it's anger that pinches his nostrils. A scathing reply is awaiting delivery upon his scowling lips – and then he stops. Stops, and stares down into his empty mug before returning his stunned gaze back to Andros. "Was that a quote? Did you just quote at me?"

"What?" Ready for a confrontation, the question leaves him off-balance. "I..." He doesn't know. He can never tell when he's been quoting something. "DECA, replay the last minute of conversation on the bridge." She does so without acknowledging the request – and he hears it. He hears himself as others hear him, the change in intonation and the queer lack of reverberation that occurs when he repeats a quote he's never learned.

He feels as if the air's been punched out of him, but Carlos is still sitting a seat away – and the teen is no longer angry enough at him to want to. "Zhane. It has to be Zhane! DECA," he orders, pulling sensors over to command. "Begin scanning for any approaching craft, and bring Delta in on it. Zhane has to be out there."

He has to be. Minutes stretch like hours as the two ships' sensors reach out into the void that surrounds them. Minutes where hope rises and ebbs, an ever-quickening cycle that sets his heart racing in both longing and dread. And while Zhane might have some idea of where they could pick up another Zord, or from whom they might be able to borrow one in the few hours that remain before Earth's doom is assured, Andros finds his concern over the asteroid waning. What matters more is Zhane. Threading his fingers through his silver-woven braids, he tugs at them just hard enough to sting.

'Zhane? Are you out there? Zhane?!'

But it's DECA that he hears from, first. "Incoming transmission from unknown ship," she reports, and opens the channel without seeking further authorization.

It's the Silver Ranger that appears on the viewscreen, seated behind a console that proudly proclaims the ship to be the Mega Winger – and Zhane must hate that, Andros muses as he helplessly grins up at his friend. The boy sitting next to him must think the same, because he snorts before outright laughing.

"Mega Winger?" Carlos teases as he places his empty mug underneath sensors' console.

"Wing," Silver denies as he makes an aborted motion to try covering the offensive label behind a gloved hand. "Just call it Wing."

"Pretty sure that's already taken. And copyrighted. I think you're stuck piloting another Mega." The black-haired teen's grin gives nothing away, but his glee at baiting their returning sixth sparkles in his dark eyes. "Picked a really good time to show back up, though."

And Andros has done nothing but scream within the confines of his mind since his friend first appeared on the viewscreen. 'Zhane? Zhane? –Zhane?!' but only silence answers. Silence mocks him. As far as Andros' senses can tell, the Silver Ranger is nothing more than an image. An illusion. He can't feel Zhane at all. Then, then, as panic begins to blacken the edges of his vision he remembers the wall his sister had built around his mind, and his hands tangle once more in his hair, pulling it taut.

The braids need to come out. The spell needs undone, but the silver filaments woven through and around his hair are made of magic and there's only one touch they'll yield to. Zhane's the only one that can bring down the wall, Karone had said. And staring up at the Silver Ranger – Andros can't even tell if he's real.

"Heard you were looking for a Zord," Silver says, and now that Andros has beaten back the anxiety that had threatened to consume him, he can hear how tired his friend is. There's a raspiness to his voice that Andros has only heard a few times before. Avera, as they shared a canteen of stale, tepid water. The hospital in the capitol, as Zhane tried answering the spate of questions thrown at him by the interviewing safety officers after he'd been attacked. When, together, they'd dug through the burnt rubble of their home during the final days of KO-35... "Didn't get the details, though."

The Megaship has no trouble connecting to the Mega Winger's systems, and Andros sends over all the information they've accumulated on the asteroid. Wing, he reminds himself. For Zhane, he's willing to call it whatever his friend wants, up to and including Lord Dark's second cousin. And as Wing in turn sends over its combat capabilities, schematics and specifications that add up to a strange hybrid of ship and Zord and manufactory, the Silver Ranger quickly reviews their plan for diverting the massive chunk of rock that's on a collusion course with Earth.

Carlos' grin has never faded; Carlos isn't plagued by deafening silence. "So, how much thrust does your knock-off Gundam have?"

Is Zhane smiling behind his dark visor? Frowning? Are his eyebrows waggling in preparation of a crass joke centered around humanoid-shaped Zords and the various definitions of thrust? Andros can't tell from the non-committal tilt of his helmet. Andros can't tell at all, but Silver's posture is off, his shoulders slumped and his gestures small, furtive motions barely enough to pilot his ship. Andros doubts he's smiling. And though he knows it's futile, he can't help but to continue crying out, 'Zhane Zhane Zhane.'

"Enough," comes the short, concise answer, and light gleams off polarized glass as the helmet turns to face Andros directly. "Looks like I'll be arriving just in time. Better have the other Zords there and waiting; we'll be close enough to the cut-off as is. Be a shame if all life on Earth's eradicated because we fumbled with positioning at the last minute."

"My positioning is immaculate," DECA protests automatically. "Although I assume you'll be handling final calculations for your craft."

"Might as well. Deca, mind initiating the countdown for minutes 'til intercept?"

"Nineteen minutes twenty-three seconds as of – now," the AI complies, and Andros summons the rest of the Rangers to the bridge with the press of a single command. There's not much time to form the Mega Voyager, considering that the rest of his team are likely still asleep in their cabins. They'll be jubilant, though, when he tells them the reason for the early morning alarm. "Synchronization across all Zords complete. Welcome home, Silver Ranger."

"Thanks, Deca." There's nothing but weariness in the polite response, and Andros realizes that Silver's about to end the transmission. And Andros hasn't said a word although his mind is one continuous prayer of Zhane. No greeting, no welcome, and he'd lost his smile the moment silence had met his fervent calls. "–See you there."

"Zhane!" he manages to squeak seconds before his friend shuts down communications. There's so much more he wants to say. Needs to say. But his throat is tight with pent up emotion, and his hands are trembling too much to pick up his mug of cooling tea.

The visor again turns his way, and for all his desperate reaching all Andros can sense is the cool net of silver magic trapping his thoughts within its multitude of knots. "...Andros." And with the press of a gloved thumb the transmission ends and the viewscreen returns to stand-by before flickering back to a representation of their current position pacing the asteroid.

"...Hey. You okay?" Carlos asks as he lifts Andros' mug from the console before he can knock it to the floor in his clumsy attempts at picking it up. "You know this is good news, right? Because someone forgot to tell your face."

"Adrenaline," he clumsily tries to explain as he stands, and quivers. Which might account for his shaking hands but not for the shock he's sure must be clear to anyone bothering to look. ...Andros. His name spoken as if it were a burden, an obligation to get through and nothing more. "Should have tried to sleep last night instead of working through it. Good thing DECA has our maneuvering covered."

"Yeah, got the jitters myself now that we're actually going to be able to shift the asteroid! Morphing should take care of the worst of it. Guys!" he calls out as the rest of his friends make their way onto the bridge, yawning behind hands and blinking up at the viewscreen showing them the optimal positioning for four Zords in fifteen minutes thirty-seven seconds. "You'll never guess who showed up!"

"Phantom?" Cassie hazards, only to be jeered good-naturedly by Ashley, whose own guess of Santa is met with the hooting laughter of TJ trailing in behind her.

Andros can't join in on their celebratory mood as Carlos fills them in. As they briefly cheer, and morph, and teleport to their Mega Vs, Andros' mind isn't on Earth, or the asteroid.

...Andros.

It would hurt so much less had Zhane yelled at him. Cursed him. Anything, anything other than that simple, cold acknowledgment. ...Andros. Honestly, he'd prefer Zhane hitting him when next they meet face to face. That, he figures, would at least feel personal.

.oO0Oo.

With four Zords, altering the trajectory of the asteroid is almost insultingly easy. Less than two minutes at full thrust, boosters maxed, and Andros can easily admit that Wing's output is insane. The ship is built for speed, its alternate form nearly as swift, and Wing effortlessly falls into formation behind the Astro Megaship and the Delta Megaship as scanners confirm that not only will the asteroid bypass Earth, its velocity is great enough that it will eventually escape the Sol system completely.

They wait for Zhane in front of the jump tubes, and Ashley passes out flutes of sparkling apple juice. "To celebrate!" she tells them, clinking her glass against the rim of TJ's in demonstration. "We saved Earth. Again! Yay for us!" Her mood is infectious as his teammates begin talking amongst themselves, recounting past battles and the increasingly ridiculous monsters they've defeated.

Andros doesn't join in. He can't, as he waits and wonders what he can possibly say that might convince Zhane to forgive him. To – stay.

"You know," Cassie says as she meanders to his side, her flute held at an angle and her dark eyes inquisitive. "I've always wondered why there isn't a silver jump tube. Sure, in a pinch we can use each others' – but it's odd."

He glances down at her, at the narrow braids striped with pink tinsel and pinned in a circle about the crown of her head, and manages a small smile. "There were only ever meant to be five Astro Rangers. Zordon had said he had no morpher for Zhane, and when the Megaship was delivered there were just the five jump tubes. The builders had no idea we'd have a sixth. But that's the thing about sixths, isn't it? You can never really plan for them."

"How did he get his morpher, then? Don't tell me TJ's right and it's actually a toy."

Zhane's arrival spares him from having to answer that, yes, it probably is a toy, close in design to the morpher that had been included in his boxed set of Zord action figures, the last gift he'd received from his father before the accident that had claimed his life. Zhane comes in via Black's 'tube, and he tries to shrug off the prickling pain of disappointment that it's not Red's that's activated. Always before, Silver had shared with Red – but things are different now, he reminds himself.

Things... are different, as the Silver Ranger greets the others, accepting their congratulations and their welcoming touches. Things... are wrong, as the Silver Ranger stays in uniform, morphed, and tense as he's led to the table in the work bay. And – he's not planning on staying, Andros realizes as his friend turns down the offer of a glass of fizzing apple juice. Zhane's come all this way, he's come back, but he's not planning on staying.

And Andros can't accept that. Won't. He won't let Zhane leave, not before they've had a chance to talk. Not before he can apologize. He has so much to apologize for. A few quick steps brings him to the other boy's side, and a hand laid carefully on a silver-clad shoulder catches his full attention, although the helmet remains facing forward. "You'd be more comfortable powered down," he says softly, knowing the uniform's mics will pick up his suggestion.

"Can't." Zhane's voice, even through the distortion of the helmet, is ragged with exhaustion. "I'm filthy. Cassie would throw me out an airlock if I demorphed here and dirtied the floors."

Ashley catches their conversation even though she's sitting several feet away. Ashley, he thinks, has a terrible habit of eavesdropping then misconstruing everything she overhears. "Oh! You should go then, get cleaned up. Don't let us keep you. The party will still be going when you get back!"

"...Yeah. Yeah, I'll do that." Zhane stumbles as he turns, and Andros catches him, supporting him as he regains his balance. The helmet, as always, is expressionless, but the gloved hand pressed to Andros' chest is rigid, as if seconds away from shoving him back. It doesn't, though, as time passes and the others begin to take notice of the silence that stretches between them.

"Let me help you." It's meant as an offer not a demand, but Andros doesn't know if Zhane sees it that way as his shoulders dip under an immeasurable weight.

"...Yeah."

Andros follows him into the lift, seizing Zhane by the elbow as the sudden acceleration threatens to topple him once more. And he follows him down the corridor to crew quarters, his worry growing as the other boy's steps begin to drag. And when Zhane stops outside the door to his cabin and hesitates, probably taking in the nail marks clawing through silver paint and the lingering traces of dried, rusty blood, Andros bites at his lower lip and allows silver-wrapped braids to fall forward to hide his expression.

"Look, you can use my shower," he offers as he tries gently tugging his friend away from his examination. "Then get some sleep, and we can talk later?"

"Talk?" There's a wealth of hurt in Zhane's voice. "What is there to talk about? I'll get cleaned up, and then I'll leave, okay? Just, just give me a few minutes and I'll be gone."

"What?" The absolute misery in the announcement stuns him. "What do you mean? You... you have to stay."

"Stay? Andros, you don't want me here!" A deep, shuddering breath that catches on a sob. "You don't want me. Did you think I wouldn't be able to tell? You don't feel anything for me." Another sob muffled by the helmet, and a whispered, "You won't even answer me. ...I can't do this. –I can't do this."

His stomach drops and Andros fears he's going to be sick. "DECA, can you override the lock? We need in, now." And miracle of miracles, she opens the door for them, and he pulls Zhane into his room, past the desk and dresser and bunk, under the hanging stars and into the washroom where he pushes the other boy down onto the shower stool.

"Listen to me. Listen," he demands as he grabs either side of Zhane's helmet, forcing his head up and hoping that, behind the polarized glass, gray eyes are meeting his own. "I lost my mind. When you left, my self – shattered. Karone literally pulled me back together and locked me behind wards. These braids are a wall, and I can't reach past them. Zhane, I've been crying out for you non-stop. There is nothing, nothing I want more than you back here, with me. But you're the only one that can cancel the spell and get all this stars'-damned magic out of my hair. So power down, please. Please. Touch the braids so I can finally believe that you're actually in front of me."

It takes an eternity masquerading as a handful of seconds before Zhane crosses his arms and demorphs. Another eternity passes in dismay as Andros takes in the sight of his friend; the mud, the ash, the grime coating him, layer upon layer with lighter streaks where sweat has cut trails on its downward path. His ship's uniform is ruined, nearly rags upon his thin frame, and the hand that's slowly reaching for his hair is blackened with filth, the nails cracked and broken and torn.

In contrast, Zhane's timid touch upon a single braid is light itself, and silver dissolves beneath a trembling fingertip. So much silver it hazes Andros' vision, but he doesn't care. His hair is free for the first time in far too long. His mind is free, and it reaches. It reaches and soars and settles in its accustomed place; a familiar perch, a comfortable nest. Home, and he'll defy anyone that tries to separate them.

'Zhane?' He fills the name with all the hope in his heart, the fondness, the love. 'Can you hear me?'

'Andros?!' Then his arms are filled as Zhane crumples against him. His head, the hair nearly black beneath its veil of muck, presses against his stomach. And Zhane cries, frighteningly quiet, frighteningly still. Andros only knows he weeps by the damp warmth soaking into the front of his shirt. And he runs his fingers through stiff, sooty locks of hair in an attempt to comfort; mud flakes off and falls to the tiled floor with each stroke. So much dirt it coats his hands and covers his jacket, but Andros doesn't care. It's Zhane.

For as far back as he can remember, Zhane's been the only thing that's ever truly mattered.

'...Andros...' Zhane's presence is fragile, a flickering candle amidst the swell of emotion around them. But it's there and Andros wraps protectively around it, shelters it as best he's able 'Andros...'

"What did Kinwon do to you?" he whispers, his fingers never still as they tease out improbable tangles in short, clumpy hair. "This isn't what safe looks like. This is anything but safe." Zhane whimpers into his stomach as Andros' fingers clench spasmodically, but he doesn't pull away. And Andros takes a deep breath. Tries to calm himself; relaxes his fingers and continues his slow, soothing combing. "I'm going to kill that old man," he promises – not quite as serenely as he wants, "for what he's put you through."

Beneath his hands, pressed up against the front of him, Zhane shakes. "Too late," he rasps out, his voice clogged with tears. "Already dead. They're all dead."

Andros' fingers continue their ministration but his mind stops. "...What?" Dead? How? Had Darkonda somehow followed them? Kinwon had assured him the moonlet was safe. Uninhabited. Impossible to find... How, how could they all be dead? What accident could have befallen? –What mistake had been made? Mindful of the support he's providing, he takes a step back and lifts Zhane's head. Tears smear beneath his thumbs as he wipes them away, a mix of water and salts, ash and mud that cover skin wan and chilled. "Zhane? What happened?"

His friend's eyes are as dark as his hair. Dull. Lifeless, their only light that which tears yet unshed manage to reflect. "Hast Du etwas Zeit fuer mich? Dann singe ick ein Lied fuer Dich." Lashes flutter, and muscles twitch beneath Andros' palms while tears continue to fall, pooling above his thumbs where they're pressed to cheekbones gone sharp to gauntness.

"I will always have time for you," he tells him softly as tears overflow the barrier to begin running in rivulets down his wrists. "–But you're going to make yourself sick if you keep this up."

A wracking cough of a laugh that does nothing to stop the tears and completely fails to reassure Andros of his friend's well-being. "A little late," he manages to say before pressing his face back against Andros' shirt, and Andros isn't sure what or who Zhane's trying to hide from. "Kinwon's moon... It... It wasn't survivable. There were things in the jungle... not that it mattered. The coral – the coral's fatal, Andros. The refugees, they rotted. Rot, and mold, and..." The shudder that rocks the other boy's body is nearly enough to unbalance them both. "We dug graves. I dug, I dug..." Silence, and broken nails digging into Andros' hips through the fabric of his slacks. "Had to bury them in the pit, bits and pieces at a time. Too wet for anything to burn, but ash never stopped falling."

Guilt chokes Andros, but he pushes it aside. Pushes it back as he works his hands underneath the other's nearly slimy jacket. "Shh, let's get you cleaned up." Zhane was supposed to have been safe. Off, he flings the jacket to the corner of the shower stall and turns his attention to what was once a silver shirt. Now it's shades of dull, bleak brown and clawed through in several places, and there's no need to lift it over his friend's head because it rips like tissue paper as he grips it. The undershirt is just as easily disposed of, and the skin underneath is ashen where it's not discolored by bruises or reddened by infected wounds and spreading rash.

Another deep breath, but calmness is beyond his reach. "DECA?" he murmurs, reining in his temper; it has no place here.

"The lacerations are deep but partially healed. You'll need to scrub them out well before disinfecting. I'm teleporting a broad spectrum antibiotic to his desk along with an antifungal. On the counter next to you is a numbing agent to apply topically before you begin debridement, as well as a narcotic and antiemetic mixture that he'll need to take orally." The AI, too, is quieter than normal, all too aware of the minute flinches when she mentions the necessity of cleaning out the wounds. "Further treatment will be decided upon reevaluation in an hour's time."

"Okay. DECA's given us our orders." Andros tries to sound cheerful as he reaches towards the counter and picks up the small cup partially filled with a berry-red syrup. "Drink up, then we'll get you out of those pants and underneath the spray."

'...I've heard better pick-up lines.' Zhane doesn't try to take the cup, so Andros tilts it against his mouth and lets him slowly sip the contents.

"I'll have to work on them." The pile of moldering garments grows, boots and belt and pants joining the collection, all rank from fungal growth. Most flecked with blood. Underwear must have been lost somewhere else, and now completely exposed, Zhane shivers upon the low stool despite DECA increasing the ambient temperature of the washroom. "When was the last time you were able to properly bathe?" Andros asks as he pulls down the showerhead, checking to make sure DECA had adjusted the flow to something less punishing than its normal pounding pressure.

"Bathe?" It must have been a powerful pain reliever the AI had prescribed because Zhane seems bewildered by the question. "In... In the beginning? There was water when we landed. But the loyalists sabotaged the remaining purification systems before they left. And, I had to dig. It made the others upset if I wasted water when I was just going to be covered in mud again, after. Everything I did upset them. They loathed me."

There's too much there for Andros to address, so many wrongs he can't seek vengeance for, not with all the refugees dead. Instead, he quickly strips out of his own uniform and begins the task of washing away the accumulated layers of grime from the other boy. And, "Loyalists?" he ventures as water stained a brown so dark as to be nearly black swirls down the drain.

"Over half of the ones still alive at that point." Zhane's head is bent, his forehead once more pressed against Andros' stomach, and his hair grows incrementally lighter with each pass of the showerhead. "Took the only transport with fully-functioning systems. Took most of the food, too. And medicine." A huff of breath that could either be a sigh or a subdued laugh briefly tingles across Andros' skin. "Went to join her Ladyship on KO-35."

"–Good," he manages as he sets the showerhead to the side. "It's a better end than they deserved." Filling his hands with soap, he begins lathering Zhane's hair, counting the scant seconds it takes for white bubbles to turn dingy. Then, urging the other boy to close his eyes, Andros moves on to his face. Neck, shoulders, arms and hands. Torso, hips, legs and feet. Once, twice, and only upon the third pass does the lather stay white and the water run clear.

Andros fingers hair the color of pewter touched with frost and wishes he could stop here. Dry Zhane off and get him tucked safely into bed, but the claw marks that run across his side and mar the soft skin of his abdomen seep, and Andros knows he's barely begun. "I'm so sorry," he apologizes as he pulls the ointment from the counter into his waiting hand. And he's not sure if he's apologizing for the pain he's about to inflict, or the damage he's already caused.

They loathed me, Zhane had said, but surely no more than Andros currently loathes himself.

"Mmm?" Water-spiked lashes flutter as Zhane struggles to open his eyes. "F'r what? Oh, s'cold," he mumbles in complaint as Andros applies the numbing agent in a thick coat over most of his chest.

"Sorry. I'm sorry. ...This is going to hurt."

DECA has teleported in the needed supplies and Andros settles into the task grimly. Zhane doesn't protest as lacerations are opened and scrubbed, although his breathing quickens before catching as the deepest wounds are irrigated. And he smiles. Tiny, a mere ghost of a smile that lifts one corner of his lips, but it's a smile aimed at Andros and it cuts him to the quick.

"S'not as bad as when the monster gutted you," he slurs, his eyes closing as he slumps back against the tiled wall.

"–I wouldn't know." Andros fights to hold his own tears back before giving in, although it's harder to work with his vision blurred. "You kept the pain away. I wish I could do the same for you..." He rinses the entire area again and watches mutely as water, now tinged pink and yellow, runs towards the drain. And he rests his fingers near the deepest of the wounds, appalled by the heat it radiates when the rest of Zhane's skin remains chilled despite the steady warmth of the water falling overhead. "What found you in the jungle? Why weren't you morphed?" No answer is forthcoming, and his heart lurches as he jerks his head up. "Zhane?"

"He's fallen asleep," DECA tells him, her voice lowered. "–Andros, scans of the matter removed from the lacerations show evidence of Power-enhanced fibers. He was morphed during the confrontation. Either the beast that attacked him managed to slice through his uniform, or the strength of his morph was fluctuating. I find both options disturbing."

"So do I." Zhane's sleeping, soaking wet and sprawled upon the shower stool. Sleeping while Andros dries him in towels that, no matter how lightly he pats, still aggravate skin blistered in rash. "Do you want him in the med bay? I think most of these need stitches."

"Best to leave the wounds open to drain for now." There isn't a standard camera in the washroom, only a single, steady red light mounted upon the ceiling, but Andros knows DECA's been watching, continuously evaluating from the moment he called for her. "–I can't even recommend the healing chamber. He needs it, but his condition is precarious. If you can run an IV line and remain with him for the first twenty-four hours, his recovery should progress faster if he's allowed to stay in his cabin."

"Let the others know we'll be unavailable?" he asks as he lifts Zhane in his arms, overly aware of his wounds. His bruises. It's too easy, picking him up and carrying him back out to the room. Zhane's taller than him, and more heavily built, but Andros is fixated on how light he is as he carefully situates him on the bunk.

"Already done. Don't forget the medications on the desk." Here, in the cabin's main room, the camera swivels and DECA supervises as Andros inserts a cannula into a vein. He draws several vials of blood upon her request before readying two bags – fluids and a parenteral solution with electrolytes – and connecting the infusion lines. "I'll have the results from the bloodwork soon, but I suspect we'll need to add an antiparasitic to the regimen. I'll be placing you on it as well as a precaution."

Andros sweats in the dry warmth of the room, but it's an abstract discomfort. The medications are easily given now that the IV catheter is in place. He covers wounds with sterile pads, treats bruises with creams and the rash with ointment. He's lost all track of time but eats when DECA teleports a tray of finger foods onto the dresser. Drinks when the AI reminds him. And when his eyes burn with fatigue and he can find no further chore in need of immediate attention, he adjusts the infusion lines and crawls into the bed next to Zhane, letting the thin silver sheet and the flowered afghan settle over them both.

"Hmm?" A sliver of gray appears as Zhane cracks open one eye as Andros pulls him close. "'dros?"

"Don't worry," Andros whispers into hair gray as clouds beneath the glow of ceramic stars. "I've got you. Sleep."

"'Kay." Zhane shifts beneath his arm as the other boy curls towards him. "This's a nice dream. Wanna stay here... I'm just too far from where you are. I wanna come home, Andros."

"You're home," he promises, his voice cracking. "I love you – I am at rest with you. I swear to you, never again."

"Mhm." A soft exhalation and Zhane drifts back to sleep, but it's hours and an another endless eternity before Andros is able to join him in dreams.

.oO0Oo.

He wakes to a room he knows better than his own. Either of his own. He wakes to the silvery glow of ceramic stars and the scent of soap, and a finger running down the bridge of his nose while plastic tubing lies cool and slick across his throat and shoulder.

"Good morning," Zhane murmurs as Andros slides his gaze over, blinking back the grit of too little sleep that's gathered in the corners of his eyes. "Or afternoon? Good night?" A rueful chuckle as Zhane draws his hand back, and Andros instantly misses his touch. "I have no idea. I don't even remember getting here. There was... an asteroid? Or did I dream that as well?"

"There was an asteroid." He reaches out and pulls the hand back towards him, entwining their fingers. "Cassie said you're owed a commemorative plaque. Silver Ranger, Hero of Earth, Savior of the Planet. Carlos is going to have it made by the same shop that does all of Angel Grove's soccer trophies."

"Too many titles." His gray hair deceptively silver in the faint illumination provided by the ornamental stars, Zhane yawns and stretches beneath the thin, silky sheet. "The IV itches. Can I take it out?"

"It itches? And not the rash? Or your cuts? At least I'm pretty sure it shouldn't be mud, although I'm happy to check, make sure I didn't miss any."

Zhane blushes nearly scarlet. "Kinda hoped I'd dreamt that, as well."

"Really?" Andros arches an eyebrow and watches as the other boy squirms in growing embarrassment. "You dream about us showering together?"

"Andros!" Zhane pouts, and he's missed this. He's missed teasing his friend. The lazy mornings. The casual comfort of touch and the warmth of waking up next to the other half of himself. "I would have tried to clean up on Wing, but the collectives had been so concentrated on improving performance they never bothered with supplies. Now, can I get the IV out? All these tubes are primitive. I like the system in the med bay better."

"Infusion's built into the cuffs of the beds in medical; not like DECA could teleport all that equipment in here," he chides as his thumb rubs across the prominent knuckles of the hand he's holding. "And no. The IV stays in until you're cleared."

The pout wobbles as a grin tries to break through. "You're mean," Zhane whines even as he snuggles closer. "Astro Red's defining trait: He's mean. And scary. And really, really mean." The smile wins, and Zhane's dimple appears. "That's why everyone likes Silver more. Silver's scary but easily distracted by shiny things."

"Yes. That's the very first thing the Alliance thinks of whenever Astro Silver is mentioned." And it's not just an illusion cast by the dim illumination of the novelty stars overhead, or his imagination playing tricks; Zhane's hair is lighter. Brighter. If only Andros knew for certain that Karone was alright, he thinks Zhane would be glowing. Andros is that glad to have his friend back. No matter his wounds, his thinness, his ill-health; Zhane's back and Andros is giddy with relief, his mind restored to equilibrium. "If only they knew you could be overcome with a handful of sequins."

Zhane sniffs disdainfully. "A handful? Please. It would take a full bag, and a replacement pair of glittery shoelaces." He tries to turn away but gasps instead as the mattress puts pressure against the worst of the lacerations running along his side. "–I miss the shoelaces," he claims in a transparent attempt to distract Andros, who's tossing back the afghan and sheet to inspect the squares of gauze protecting the myriad wounds. "Everyone was jealous of the shoelaces."

"We'll head down to the mall the next time we're on Earth. I'll get you another pair, just so I know you won't be lured off mid-battle," Andros tells him as he lifts up a corner of one blood-splotched pad. "These are looking better, but you're not healing as fast as you should be. DECA?"

The AI, now that she's been given permission to actively observe the room once more, makes her own quick inspection. "The infection is clearing, but the full course of antibiotics should be administered. I've included the antiparasitic in this morning's dose."

"Ugh." Zhane wrinkles his nose in revulsion. "Really? Do I even want to know?"

"Not being telepathic, I cannot answer your question with any degree of reliability," DECA answers cheekily. "However, my guess would be no, you do not want to know. –And neither does Andros."

Andros blinks and glances up at the red lens of the camera. "...Thanks? And may I add, eww?" Crawling out of the bed takes far more effort than getting into it had. "I'll change the dressings, handle the medications, and get us something to eat. Anything you'd prefer?"

"Deca probably has opinions on that, as well." Zhane looks down at his chest ambivalently, fingers hovering over fresh scabs and inflamed fresh. "I... I don't remember these being so bad..."

Ducking his head, Andros gathers fresh supplies from the desk and returns to the bunk. "Did you bother examining them after you were wounded?" he wonders out loud as he lays an absorbent pad next to the other boy's side. "Because the cuts didn't look like you even made an attempt at treating them." He places the palm of his left hand flat against Zhane's stomach, between a bruise shifting from blue to green and the deep series of slices that had nearly pierced the abdominal wall – and presses down gently in warning. "I'm going to need you to hold still. I'll numb the area like I did yesterday, but it's still going to hurt when I clean them again."

"Astro Red: mean, and likes to play rough." Zhane fixes his gaze on the bunk overhead, and Andros sets to work. Spreading the numbing gel is easy; painless for them both, and the other boy relaxes beneath his touch. Irrigating the wounds – is worse. So much worse than earlier with Zhane now awake and aware, but he does his best to lay still with only the occasional, uncontrollable flinch betraying his discomfort. "Andros? Could we have Deca bring us food instead?"

Andros had planned on fetching their meal from the synthetron and bringing it back. It would have taken a handful of minutes at most. But beneath his hand he can feel Zhane's pulse speeding, each beat pushing up into his palm, and he thinks he understands. "Sure," he says slowly as he finishes, gathering up soiled gauze and the now wet pad, disposing of them in the waste bin as he passes it on the way to the lavatory. "Think you can handle putting on the ointment while I wash up?"

Zhane's grouchy yes brings a tight smile to his lips that Andros catches in the mirror over the sink. Then he looks closer, at the blond streaks running through his brown hair. It's a wild tangle that falls past his shoulders, and he can't remember the last time he'd seen it loose and not bound behind silver wires or threads. And perhaps he wasn't as ready to make a run to the synthetron as he'd thought, taking in his bare chest and worn sleep shorts. Had the other Rangers caught him in such disarray, there would have been teasing. Good-natured but unwelcomed regardless.

"You never answered," he calls out as he rinses soap suds from his hands. "Did you ever treat those cuts? And how did you get them? DECA said you were morphed."

There's a hint of frustration in Zhane's voice when he answers. "I looked at them when I made it back to camp, but there wasn't much I could do other than use my spare shirt to sop up the bleeding."

"You didn't stop by medical to have them checked?" he asks as he reenters and spots the tray DECA's left for them on the dresser. "You know basic self-care. It's standard procedure after any of us are hurt in battle."

He can feel his friend's glare on his back; he has no need to turn around and face it as he divvies up their portions. "You don't get to say that, Andros. You really don't. And no, I didn't go to medical. I'd already been informed by the remaining nurse that, as a Ranger, I could damn well heal myself and stop being a burden on their resources." Caught up in the memory, Zhane doesn't notice as Andros approaches the bed and he startles when the tray is placed beside him on the afghan. The other boy's surprised hiss is endearing, and it's all Andros can do not to croon in return. He's not his sister, after all. He can control his baser instincts.

Then Zhane blushes in confused embarrassment – and Andros automatically croons. And he can feel his own blush heating his face.

"You didn't tell Kinwon," he guesses as he hands over a sandwich wedge, the filling an unidentifiable paste but the smell of it is pleasing enough to assure him of its palatability. "The commander was always the first to insist we be seen by a doctor whenever we could make it back in from active combat zones. Even if it was only DECA that could examine us, he wouldn't issue new orders until we were cleared."

"Yeah, which sometimes kept us in combat longer, knowing that we'd be benched if we returned to the Megaship." Zhane nibbles at the crust of his sandwich, his expression wary. "Kinwon... He had enough to worry about, dealing with the camp's supply and morale issues. And he kept trying to work, even though..." With a sigh, he tries to return the sandwich to Andros. "I'm not going to be able to keep that down," he says quietly, his voice ladened with undeserved guilt.

"...Juice?" Andros offers, picking up a foil pouch and exchanging it for the sandwich. "So," he makes quick work of the finger food while he contemplates what remains on the tray. "The loyalists met their end on KO-35, and good riddance. But what happened to the rest of the refugees?" He tries to keep his tone light. Casual. But they'd hurt Zhane with their attitude, and with their neglect – and he can't help but hope they'd suffered. Andros knows he's not as good of a Ranger as he ought to be. Knows years of constant war have worn away at his morality, but the Power hasn't abandoned him. Not yet. Until it does he'll continue fighting and ignore how close he wanders to the line that continuously tempts him to cross.

Zhane jabs at the pouch with a straw, then slowly sips at the contents. "–There weren't many left. I think... I think Kinwon pushed through the vote rather than risk me being the last one alive on the moonlet. He knew I would have stayed there, alone. Stayed until I knew for sure that you wanted me to return..." The other boy pretends interest in the pouch clenched in his hand, no matter how much Andros wills him to look up. "They decided they'd also prefer to die on KO-35. I, I couldn't let Kinwon do that. He cared, Andros. So much. He sent me to retrieve Wing – and I sent them to Kerova."

"...Kerova was lost." Seeing that the juice pouch is empty, he gently pries it away from his friend's hand and replaces it with a cube of melon. "Try," he urges when Zhane glowers doubtfully at the piece of fruit. "The sooner you're able to keep down something solid, the sooner I can remove the IV."

Accepting the challenge, Zhane pops the piece of melon into his mouth and chews vengefully, swallowing before he can think better of it. "Mean, and bossy," he mutters, wiping his sticky fingers against the soft fabric of Andros' shorts just to be spiteful. And Andros pretends not to notice how broken nails catch on the material, and Zhane pretends he's not grateful when Andros clasps his fingers and carefully cleans them with a damp towelette.

"Kerova was never lost. Just – misplaced," he mumbles as Andros moves to his other hand where traces of embedded dirt linger in the cuticles. "It took a while to remember where it was, but Kinwon deserved to see his ancestral home. KO-35... isn't a good way to die. It may look pretty, and people who realize what's actually happening on the surface might think it'll be fast, but it's not. Astronema wouldn't consider it a punishment if it was fast."

And it's on the tip of his tongue to tell Zhane about his sister. To seek his advice; to ask for his help. To have him listen to the recording for any clue as to what might have happened when Ecliptor had captured her. Andros can ask for help, now. His mother had lifted that particular geis, along with so many others. He could ask. He wants to. But Zhane's yawn surprises them both, and Andros focuses on the hand he's gently cleaning. Thinner than it once was. More calloused. Covered in small nicks and crisscrossed with the fine white lines of healing scars.

"Tired?"

"I'm tired of being tired." Rubbing at his eyes petulantly with his free hand, Zhane scowls at him. "I ate. Take the IV out. And I don't have parasites!" he declares indignantly as he points at DECA's camera in resentment.

"I beg to differ," she says, her tone just shy of being condescending. "As do your test results. The IV line stays for at least another twenty-four hours."

Andros is above his baser instincts. As he settles Zhane back down in his bed, pillows adjusted and sheet pulled up, afghan spread across them both and tray forgotten on the floor, he hums placidly as Zhane quietly grumps. He's not Karone, who'll coo at anything cute. He's not Astronema, who's honed every Kerovian peculiarity into a weapon.

He's Andros. And he lifts plastic tubing until the lines are safe from any restless tossing, and he wriggles until Zhane's head is resting heavily on his shoulder, his friend's ongoing complaints muted as they're muttered into locks of his hair. He's Andros, and it's his choice to croon as mutters turn to murmurs turn to the deep exhalations of exhausted sleep.

"How is he really?" he whispers to the room at large, his fingers scratching lightly through strands of hair more silver than gray.

"Recovering. You're correct, though. He's not healing as quickly as a Ranger should. Then again, he never has." She pauses, and Andros wonders idly what else might be occurring on the Megaship to have drawn her attention away, however briefly. "It will be several weeks before I clear him for active duty."

"I'm fine with that as long as he can blame you for the decision." He sighs and closes his eyes the better to listen to the nearly imperceptible purr vibrating Zhane's throat. His friend might not be Kerovian, has always claimed he's not Kerovian, but in all the small ways that matter – he is.

To Andros' senses, Zhane's always been Kerovian. Or perhaps, he thinks as he slips across the surface of sleep, he's always been closer to whatever Zhane actually is. It might explain the differences the other school kids had always picked up on. Had bullied him over. It might explain...

Zhane meets him in the starfield of their shared dream. Smiles, and beckons him forward.

.oO0Oo.

It's been well over a day since anyone's seen Andros. Or Zhane. And DECA's assured them that the two teens are well; at first patiently, then somewhat impatiently until TJ's last demand for an update was met with a surly, "They're fine!" from the AI – who's been ignoring them ever since.

Ashley believes DECA. She does. The ship's AI doesn't lie; not by request, and not by order. DECA might obscure the truth at times – such as spinning a tale about haunted morphers instead of giving a grim recounting of KO-35's final day – but she'll never outright lie as far as Ashley's aware. Yet Ashley can't help but worry as the day passes without an appearance by either boy. So she makes her way to crew quarters and stands outside of a door decorated in silver cursive. And she considers her options.

She settles for knocking, since she has doubts that DECA would be willing to announce her. "Guys?" she asks, just loudly enough to be heard through the metal that makes up the structure of the door. "It's me. Umm, Ashley. I, uh, was wondering how you were doing? Everything okay?"

The door opens for her. She blinks at the dim interior, letting her eyes adjust before entering. Stars hang from the ceiling, glowing faintly. There's the same minimalist desk, dresser, and chair that she knows furnishes every cabin on the Megaship. There's the same silly set of bunks, the larger, bottom mattress covered in a silver sheet while the upper bed's been relegated to the storage of what appears to be stuffed animals and assorted plushies. She even spots a crudely made Silver Ranger, and she can't help smiling fondly up at it as she remembers fuzzy children in all the colors of the rainbow.

And on the floor, taking up the limited space between bunk and dresser, two young men sit upon a foam pad and under the flower-themed afghan. Andros is bent over one of Zhane's hands, his long, streaked hair one giant snarl that obscures whatever task he's busy with. With his other hand, Zhane waves at her, rippling the length of the IV line attached to his arm.

"Hey Ashley," he greets her, nudging Andros with his knee until the other boy lets out a grunt in lieu of a welcome. "I'd get up, but..." His grin is bashful as he swings the plastic tubing for emphasis. "Kinda tied up at the moment."

"Stop squirming," Andros commands as he absently pushes his hair away from his face. Some of it comes to rest behind his ear, but the rest falls forward until it's once again blocking his vision.

Zhane merely smiles at him before glancing back up at Ashley through thick, pale lashes. "Would you mind pulling his hair back? He's being stubborn. His hair ties are on the dresser, but he won't get up to get one."

"Your nails are more important than my hair," he snarls, and it's an emery board Ashley realizes as she carefully steps past them. Andros is filing Zhane's fingernails in the most exasperated manicure she's ever had the misfortune of witnessing. She nabs the first hair elastic she spots and moves around the foam pad until she's behind Andros – who still seems not entirely aware of her presence. She has his hair bundled in her hands and trapped in a messy ponytail before he can object to the manhandling – and he freezes, amber eyes wide and perplexed as he's suddenly able to see. "–Ashley?" he asks, bewildered, and she giggles at his confusion.

"Hi, Andros." She pats his head and walks back around, lowering herself to the cushioning foam when Zhane gestures for her to sit. "Just thought I'd check in on you. Want some help with..." she waggles her fingers, not sure how to describe what she'd walked in on. "I know a thing or three about nail care."

Both boys are shirtless, but she tries not to stare. Not at Andros' lean muscles or the bandages covering Zhane's chest. She tries not to stare but bruises keep drawing her attention, and she's sure she could count the ribs on both of them if given proper lighting or the chance to touch. Their condition dismays her. She'd known Andros had lost weight while his friend had been gone; DECA had kept her apprised of the Kerovian's condition, but the numbers Ashley had been given hadn't translated into anything meaningful. Nothing like the sight now before her.

She thinks Andros knows she's trying not to stare, and failing, because he shoves another emery board her way with a smirk that dares her to comment. "They don't need to look good," he tells her, ignoring the epic pout Zhane sends his way. "I just need them to stop tearing me to shreds when he has a nightmare."

Ashley reaches for the pale-haired boy's other hand, but he stops her with a quiet, "Wait. Deca, is it safe for me to be around others right now?" And Ashley has no idea why he's asking because Andros is sitting close enough to Zhane to practically be in his lap. Or for Zhane to be in his. It's hard to tell with the afghan covering them both from the waist down. Zhane must see the question she wants to ask, because he flushes – and Ashley had never known how far down his blushes extended. And now that she's seen, she's not sure she'll ever be able to forget. "I brought back some uninvited guests from the jungle," he mumbles as he hides his free hand in folds of crocheted yarn. "Andros is already being treated, just in case. But I couldn't forgive myself if I got you sick as well."

"Your concern is valid but unnecessary," DECA tells him, her tone serene as it has not been with the rest of the team that day. "Latest labs show you're no longer infective, and I started Andros on the preventative in time. I see no reason to avoid contact with others."

"...Okay." Ashley's been listening, but she feels that the ship's AI has talked around Zhane's concern. But not infective is good. She's pretty sure that's good, so she picks up the emery board and taps the tip of it against Zhane's nose. "One manicure coming up. Hand please," she says, impatiently wiggling her fingers in demand until Zhane sighs and places his palm atop her own. And she frowns as she inspects the damage.

"Don't ask," Andros tells her curtly before she can open her mouth. "As Red, I've made the executive decision that it didn't happen."

"Andros–" Zhane begins, only to be cut short by the other boy's ferocious scowl.

"Did. Not. Happen. You didn't spend the last month digging."

"Uh-huh. And I've got blister scars that would disagree with you." Zhane's tone is amused, but Ashley can feel the smoothness of new tender skin as she carefully files away the rough edges of torn fingernails. "So what was I doing, if it wasn't disposing of bodies?"

Ashley focuses on filing as she bites down on her lower lip. She's not going to ask; she doesn't want to know. The damage she's dealing with is extensive, and excessive digging is as good an explanation for it as any. Bodies, though... She doesn't know if Zhane's joking. She really doesn't want to know. But his hand trembles nearly imperceptibly within her own, and the sound of Andros' filing ceases to be replaced by an oddly soothing hum.

She doesn't want to disturb the fragile peace, but one of Zhane's nails is torn nearly to the quick. "You wouldn't happen to have nail glue?" Without looking at her or moving his hands, Andros passes her a bottle of glue, tiny clippers, and the fibrous paper needed for a patch. And she returns to work, repairing what she can and trimming what she can't. It's nearly meditative, the repeated motions; filing, buffing and trimming to Andros' steady hum. "I'm so glad you're back," she whispers, giving calloused fingers a light squeeze. "Missed you."

"Missed you, too." Zhane's leaning against Andros, his eyes nearly shut, but he returns her clasp just as gently. "What were you all up to while I was gone? Astronema send any particularly ridiculous monsters?"

And she doesn't know how to answer. Glancing over to Andros gives her no clues; he's closed his eyes as well, his cheek resting against Zhane's head, his features obscured by hair both fluffy and pale, and tangled and dual-toned. "Astronema's the one that warned us about the asteroid," she says slowly as she runs the pad of her thumb across buffed nails checking for any snags she's missed. "Originally the Megaship and the Dark Fortress were going to work together to divert it, but... something happened. From what we could hear, Astronema killed Darkonda but Ecliptor restrained her. Somehow. And we haven't heard from her since."

Both young men give every indication of having fallen asleep, but Andros' breath catches every time she mentions Astronema, and a sliver of gray glimmers from beneath Zhane's lashes. "How long?" Zhane asks lowly, his lips barely moving. Then, before Ashley can reply, he sighs and says, "A week's too long. We're going to have to infiltrate the Fortress."

"You're out on medical for the foreseeable future. I'll handle the Fortress," Andros tells his friend, his tone decisive. And, "No, I don't need a cloak to sneak in; I can be unnoticeable when I want."

Ashley stifles a giggle because she can't imagine anyone more noticeable than Andros, unless it's Zhane. And the two of them together practically draw crowds whenever they're down on Earth. She really can't picture either of them successfully infiltrating anything except a rave. Out in the Mojave. At night.

Mentally she adds the activity to the list of things she plans to introduce Zhane to. Between Disneyland and the Gilroy garlic festival, and right below the Santa Monica pier. She has quite a few lists now pertaining to the two young men in front of her. Zhane's is longer, but she's already bought a brilliantly red dress that's the match for the one she'd gotten Zhane, and she's only waiting for the perfect opportunity to gift it to Andros. And with that thought she moves rave several spots up on her list.

"In what universe is bright red unnoticeable?"

This time Ashley can't muffle her laughter. "You do stand out," she informs Andros kindly as she absently massages the hand held between her own. Zhane's fingers flex as she applies pressure to tight muscles; their motion reminds her of a cat kneading a blanket. Then again, most everything the two boys do subconsciously reminds her of cats. "...Did you know that Astronema is Andros' sister? I mean, before you left with the refugees; I'm sure you know now. But did you know when you started dating her?"

"I knew." Pulling his other hand away from Andros, Zhane presents it to her with an air of expectation, and she takes it with a smirk partially fueled by Andros' outraged huff. "But I never dated her. Ugh. She'd have me collared if she'd had her way..." He yawns as his eyelids droop further until even the sliver of gray disappears from view. "...Karone will never consider a man her equal. She hates them too much. With reason, but there will never be anything as innocent as dating for her. She either controls males, or destroys them; there can be no in between."

Andros snorts as he wraps an arm around Zhane's waist, pulling him closer. "She doesn't control me."

"Hmm. You're her brother; she doesn't even consider you separate from herself. You're hers. Like I am. Like..." Zhane trails off, and Ashley realizes as his hand goes lax that he's fallen asleep mid-sentence.

"You know," she says into the lull, "that we won't let you try rescuing her alone."

"TJ's made it clear that he doesn't believe she needs rescued." Andros' voice is a low rumble, and he slits his eyes open to glare towards the cabin's door. To TJ's room beyond, possibly. Or to Earth itself. It's hard to tell in the dim light of glowing stars. "Thanks, by the way," he then says as his expression softens. "For helping. He's... he's ashamed at not being able to take care of everything himself. Thank you for making this – normal."

Carefully tucking Zhane's hands beneath the afghan, she finds Andros' knee and gives it the lightest of pats. "We're friends. Friends help each other." She can see why they're both fond of the beautifully crafted blanket. It's soft, and warm, and smells like the crisp winds of autumn. "–Is he okay? I had no idea he was hurt when he showed up yesterday. I kinda knew something was off, but I never imagined..." She eyes bruises and bandages and prominent ribs and shivers in sympathy. "No one should be that good at hiding injuries."

"No." She doesn't know if Andros is agreeing with her or disputing her claim. His no is simply tired, and she pats his knee again in understanding. "He'll be okay. He has to be... He'll do his best to be okay, because I need him to be. Do you know how terrible that is?"

"We'll just have to make sure, then, that our shooting star never falls, won't we?" Andros' smile, brief as it is, warms Ashley more than the afghan. "Is there anything else I can help with?"

He considers her before shaking his head in denial. "I need to take a better look at his feet. I don't think you'll want to stay around for that."

Feet. She sighs, then squares her shoulders and breaks out her most cheerful grin. "Pedicures happen to be my specialty. Unless you think it'll wake him up?"

Andros lowers Zhane from his slumped position to the foam pad with the ease of someone used to putting a recalcitrant child to bed. "He's so far down, he's not even dreaming," he tells her bemusedly. "–Are you sure about this? I really don't mind if you decide to leave. This doesn't exactly fall within a Ranger's duties."

"It's okay." And it is. They're her friends, and she doesn't mind at all. And she'd much rather be here, in the room of stuffed animals and stars, than on the bridge with TJ complaining about the respect the Megaship's resident AI repeatedly fails to grant him.

.oO0Oo.

Andros watches as Zhane picks at his meal. More of it is pushed to the side than eaten, and he doesn't want to nag... but Zhane needs to eat. DECA won't let him remove the IV until the other boy's eating on his own, and as much as Zhane's begged him to take the cannula out, he can't. Zhane needs nutrition, and if he refuses to get it from food it will have to be by needle.

"I can't," Zhane whines petulantly, his pale gray eyes narrowed at his tray in loathing. And – Andros can tell the protest isn't meant to be taken seriously. Is meant to be humorous, and easily dismissed. But there's a tremor to his friend's voice and a tremble in the fingers holding his fork that says far more clearly than words that he's serious. For whatever reason, Zhane can't eat. And Andros needs to find out why.

It's not medical. DECA's surreptitious scans have ruled out that possibility. So with a sigh Andros signals the AI to remove the plate of food mashed beyond recognition, and it's replaced with a different selection; pasta instead of the rejected roasted tubers.

Zhane recoils from the dish as if he's been presented with a live thermal mine.

"Give me a reason," Andros says, his voice bordering the thin line between concerned friend and the command of a Red to a Ranger under their authority. "Why? Why can't you eat?" As Zhane's hands begin to twist together in a wringing motion that fills him with dread, Andros grabs him by the wrists and firmly orders, "No! ...No," he repeats softly, because he's scared Zhane.

He's scared him, and Zhane's hands are deathly still beneath his grip.

"Talk to me," he pleads as he lets go of bony wrists, wincing at the red blotches he knows will be bruises by morning. "You helped me after KO-16. We can work through this, but you need to tell me why."

"Why?" As his hands begin to uncontrollably shake, Zhane forces them up instead of together, where his fingers tangle in the short strands of his hair. "–I hear them. Every time I lift up a spoon, every time I try to take a bite. Every time I begin to swallow, I hear them. Whispering. What a waste. Such greed. Useless, gluttonous Ranger eating while they're left to starve. Of course Silver is digging their graves; Silver is putting them in them, murderous bastard–"

Andros sees nothing but red and growls, drowning out the poisonous slurs. "I would have shown them what a murderous bastard's capable of!" Zhane's huddled in on himself, his knuckles white from how tightly he's gripping his hair, and Andros can't control his snarling. If the refugees weren't already dead – he'd kill them. He'd kill them all.

'Were they wrong?' There's desperation in the question, and enough doubt to drown in. 'They're dead and I'm alive. I. I'm alive. How could they all be wrong?'

'None of them could smell Darkonda. None of them. That's how they could all be wrong.' Red still films his vision, but Andros can see well enough to stand. And he's never needed his vision to find Zhane. Wrapping both arms around his friend, chest to quaking back, he holds him suffocatingly tight and demands, "Breathe with me."

In. And out. Each deep breath forces the red back. Each deep breath smells like the mint of Zhane's hair. In. And out. Until they're breathing in tandem, and Andros feels enough in control to be reasonable.

"When I met you, you were starving," he tells the boy in his arms. "I didn't know it then. I was too young. You stole food from the cafeteria, and you never cared about the opinion of others. You never cared. Why do you care now? We bled for those ingrates. Our team died so they could escape. We owe them nothing. You owe them nothing. They're the ones that could watch a child starve; complain about how uncomfortable it made them feel."

Slowly, slowly, Zhane's hands unclench and lower until they come to rest atop Andros' own. "We've both known hunger, haven't we?" he asks, subdued.

"There have been times we've been forced to live off Power and pills." It's a bitter truth, and he takes another deliberate breath to help push back memories he'll never be ready to deal with. "Zhane... The refugees died because the universe is unfair, and because Evil exists and seeks to destroy us all. And you live... you live because you love this galaxy, and it needs you."

"...The galaxy?"

"Sounds less selfish than I need you. And love you."

"Mmm." Zhane sighs and relaxes against him, his head tilting back until Andros can see his eyes bright as stars. "It might be selfish – but I like that reason more. But I can still hear them. I don't know how to make the whispers stop. I could almost believe they're haunting me, but I've checked. The only ghosts to wander these halls are the ones that call the Megaship home."

"That's ominous."

It's the barest suggestion of a grin, but it's enough to reassure. "That's Rangers' Luck."

"Hmm. If it weren't for Rangers' Luck, we'd have no luck at all." It's with reluctance that he ends the embrace, but he doesn't step back. Instead, Andros allows his hands to drift upwards until they rest on shoulders tight with tension. He kneads at them thoughtfully as he looks down into eyes like mirrors. "–You still hear them?"

Lowering his head to stare dolefully at the plate of cold pasta, Zhane hisses, "Yes."

In response, Andros purrs. Loudly. Obnoxiously. He rests his head upon the other boy's shoulder – and purrs. "...And now?" he asks hopefully, huskily, gesturing to DECA to once again change out plates.

Lifting a fresh forkful of buttered noodles to his mouth, Zhane cautiously tastes them. Chews. And swallows. 'No.' And the relief his friend feels is almost enough to drop Andros to his knees. Almost, but he clings to broad shoulders, and kneads, and purrs. Not, not as if his life depends on it, but Zhane's? For Zhane, he'll purr.

.oO0Oo.

The Dark Fortress is a fortress Carlos concludes as he scrolls through architectural blueprints made up more from conjecture than fact. Being in space, it's not protected by anything so mundane as a moat, no; a dimensional warp keeps half of it inaccessible from realspace at any one time, and the available entrances rotate. If they can sneak past the randomized patrols of velocifighters, bypass the force fields that block every hanger door and service hatch, and somehow find their way through the maze of corridors that also shift position in a complex pattern that even DECA's having trouble discerning, they're still left with the task of finding Astronema. Somewhere on the Dark Fortress. Unless she's been moved elsewhere; they have no guarantee she's still on board her flagship.

"This is a waste of time," TJ fumes, jabbing at his own tablet. "By my way of thinking, Ecliptor's done us a favor. There hasn't been a single new attack since that last transmission came through. I say we don't provoke them; we could really use the break. Catch up on maintenance. Maybe even enjoy a little down time."

Ashley's shaking her head in silent denial, but Cassie looks as if she's leaning towards agreement and Carlos – he doesn't know. Andros is gripping the edge of the table, his expression furious, but he doesn't speak. Not in favor of a rescue attempt and not against, because when he'd opened the meeting he'd declared that he was recusing himself and leaving the decision up to them. Since, he'd gritted lowly from between clenched teeth, his opinion on the matter was biased.

And Carlos hasn't a clue as to what Zhane thinks of the whole situation, because the pale-haired boy had trailed in after Andros, sat by his side on the remaining stool, leaned against his friend with a jaw-cracking yawn, and promptly fallen asleep. Ashley had shaken her head then, too, Carlos recalls, when he'd raised a finger to prod Zhane awake. Shaken her head, placed her hand on his knee, and squeezed an ambiguous warning.

Both Kerovians look like hell, Carlos thinks as he peers at them in between checking possible alternative entrances into the Fortress. Andros' hair is loose upon his shoulders instead of being braided, or caught up in a ponytail. He's seen it that way before not long after they'd met, before Andros had begun wrapping his hair in silver. But Carlos has never seen his hair unbrushed, snarled and tangled and... poofy. It's bedhead of epic proportions and Carlos would tease their leader over it, but he has a feeling Andros would either miss the point entirely, or snap.

A poofy-haired, wild-eyed, feral Andros isn't a sight Carlos is looking forward to. But if TJ keeps pushing, keeps making small, biting comments about Astronema, it might come to that. And Zhane won't be a buffer between Red and former Red because Zhane's snoring. Quietly, cutely in a way that Carlos would have thought impossible, but snoring nonetheless. ...And if Andros' hair is poofy, Zhane's hair, nearly white under the bright lights of the work bay, is fluffy.

Bringing up DECA's live camera feed of them sitting around the table in a new window on his tablet, Carlos crops and saves the image before sending it to the gym collective. His truce with the nanites has held. Had improved once he'd realized that the gym collective rarely got the chance to interact with the rest of the ship. He sends them random pictures, anime recommendations, and the occasional bit of gossip concerning the synthetron collective, and in turn they'd upgraded his status from organic Carlos to preferred organic Carlos. They'd gifted him a coffee mug proclaiming him as such after Cassie had threatened him with castration should she catch him using her cup without permission again.

Cassie could use a mission, if anyone were to ask him. Let her take out her excess, exceedingly violent energy annihilating the thousands of quantrons manning the Dark Fortress. If Carlos had to bet on the outcome of such an encounter, it wouldn't be against the Pink Ranger. Not with the way Cassie's been twitching, as if moments away from summoning her blaster and shooting the next person to borrow another of her belongings.

...TJ might have a point, that they're in need of some down time. Or decaff. Switching to decaff for the foreseeable future might be a good idea. Or he could ask his cousins if any of them had weed to spare, since the fate of the world kinda did depend on the current Ranger team not going off the rails.

"I think we should go after her," Ashley tells TJ as she sips from a metallic yellow thermos of cocoa. "We know Astronema; I'd much rather deal with her than anyone else Dark Specter might send against Earth. I mean, have any of you ever read the mission reports from other planets' Ranger teams? For as awful as it's been for Earth, we've gotten off easy."

TJ sneers, and Carlos can't believe he did that. He can't. Ashley is going to pulverize him. When he least expects it. And there will be shopping involved. "You're calling Divatox easy? She destroyed the Command Center!"

"So?" Today Ashley's put her hair up in pigtails decorated with chunky yellow yarn bows. Their cheerfulness clashes oddly with the daggers she's glaring at TJ. "The Command Center's been trashed before. Zords were lost. Powers destroyed. But Earth is still here! There's a lot of sentients in this galaxy who have lost everything. The Alliance has no problem weaponizing plagues. Or using the dreadnoughts. They've stripped away the atmosphere of inhabited planets and collapsed a system's primary star to take out resistance. Compared to that? Yes, we've had it easy. And I vote we keep it that way and get Astronema back."

"...If she needs rescuing, we're not going to get her back as our villain though, are we?" Cassie asks thoughtfully. "We'll still have to deal with whoever or whatever Dark Specter sends to take command in Astronema's place. Not to mention Darkonda's likely already back and looking for revenge. For all we know, he's the one currently in charge of the Dark Fortress. Which doesn't explain why there have been no monster attacks lately." She folds her arms on top of the table, covering the screen of her pad beneath the gray fabric of her uniform's jacket. "What we need is more information."

Carlos feels sorry for Andros, forced into the position of silent observer while they debate the fate of his sister. His sister that he'd spent most of his life trying to find. And once found, he'd lost her again. Astronema may be Evil – Carlos has no problem believing her to be evil – but Ashley has a valid point. Astronema sent them bugs. Quirky electronics. And on one memorable occasion the Spelling Bee in a polka-dotted dress and sun bonnet wielding a dictionary, who had buzzed, and quizzed, and awarded Andros a certificate of achievement before peacefully returning to whatever bizarre planet monsters like the Spelling Bee called home.

"I think," Carlos says slowly as the glaring match between Ashley and TJ intensifies, "that Karone came to us in good faith. Sure, she wants to conquer Earth – but we can work with that. And if Cassie's right, and she's a prisoner, then isn't it our duty to try rescuing her?"

"No," TJ disagrees while Ashley says, "Yes!" and Cassie groans, "But we don't have any idea where she actually is!" and Carlos doesn't think they're going to decide on any course of action this meeting. The same as they hadn't come to a firm conclusion the previous two times Andros had brought up Astronema's possible plight, although today they no longer have the imminent threat of the asteroid to blame for their hesitancy.

"...I could check on her." It's said quietly enough that Carlos isn't sure if either TJ or Ashley hears the suggestion. But Zhane's awake, one eye cracked open and cautiously watching – and Andros stiffens, his ire rapidly being replaced by dismay... and guilt. "Then we'd know for sure if she's on the Fortress, and if she needs rescuing."

"Hey, the offer's appreciated," TJ tells him as he pushes a glass of water towards the pale-haired boy with a smile friendlier than Carlos has seen from him in days. "But you're stuck on medical leave. Never mind the fact that Andros would have our heads if we even thought about sending you in. I'm afraid you're going to be cooling your heels on the Megaship for a while longer."

"'M not an invalid," Zhane pouts – but Carlos has doubts. This is the first time Zhane's been out of his room since his return, the first time they've seen him unmorphed in over a month, and looking like hell might be a monumental understatement. Whatever had happened to him during his time with the refugees had left its mark; in the dark circles surrounding his eyes, and the thinness of his face, and the looseness of his uniform – and Ashley's hand is back on Carlos' knee, warning warning warning against any thoughtless comment. And he wonders if she's kicking TJ's leg underneath the table. "And I don't need to leave the Megaship. If she's anywhere nearby she'll pull me in the first time we're both asleep."

And Carlos doesn't understand whatever it is that Zhane's suggesting. Then again, Carlos doesn't need to because Andros has turned as pale as his friend, his eyes large and frightened as he shakes his head violently enough that Zhane's forced to sit upright.

Zhane's attention is now fixed solely on Andros, his light gray eyes both calculating and puzzled at their leader's continuing silence. "You're not going to tell me to find her?" he eventually asks, tilting his head to the side as Andros looks away. "You could, you know," he says as he picks up the glass of water, examining it briefly before giving it a tiny grimace and setting it back down on the table. "I can tell the geis is gone. You could ask."

Finally Andros peers back at him, his expression lost. "I could," he whispers. "But I won't."

"Ah." Zhane's smile is radiant, his happiness almost physically painful to witness, and Carlos feels as though he's intruding on something meant to be private. His abuela had worn such a smile when the family had presented her with a restored photo album she'd thought long since lost to a flood. "Since you won't ask, I suppose I'll volunteer then."

"Zhane..."

"Nuh-uh," the pale-haired youth tells their leader who's close to panicking, his breathing unsteady and rapid enough that Carlos wonders if he's about to hyperventilate. "Can't take it back. You gave me a choice, Andros." His smile grows wider, unbearably joyful, and Carlos pretends to be occupied by his tablet because some interactions aren't meant to be witnessed. And Ashley must believe the same because TJ is wincing and bending to rub at his newly assaulted leg, and Cassie is walking towards the synthetron, her back turned to them all.

Andros has never sounded more unsure of himself. "...I'm trying."

"She has to fall asleep sometime." There's laughter in Zhane's voice. "Stars know I'm sleeping enough; we'll catch her the moment she starts dreaming." The Dark Fortress is displayed on Carlos' pad, and it's easy enough to feign interest in its schematics. Carlos might have the ethics not to watch this moment between old friends, but there's nothing he can do to not listen. To overhear the fondness when Zhane stands and asks, "Anchor me?"

"Always."

They leave together, and Carlos glances up as Cassie drops a plate down on the table with a clatter.

"Cookie?"

And they snack on pecan shortbread, TJ ruefully rubbing his shin while Cassie goes back for glasses of milk, and Ashley grins from ear to ear.

"Did any of you understand that?" TJ eventually asks as he wipes crumbs from his mouth with the back of his hand. "Because I didn't. What does sleeping have to do with finding Astronema? And what did Zhane mean, she could pull him in?"

Carlos doesn't know. He doesn't need to know. He owes Andros an apology. He might not understand Kerovian traditions, might disagree with them, might not like them, but he does need to respect them. Whatever it is that Andros and Zhane have, it works for them. However awkward it might be for those watching from the sidelines.

And Carlos knows he was wrong to have said what he had about Karone. He has excuses for his behavior. He'd been tired. And upset. And there had been an asteroid on a collusion course with Earth. And Astronema may very well be a mass-murderer... but she's still Andros' sister. Life's not as black and white as he'd once thought, when first he'd become a Ranger.

To think he'd one day have to weigh the options of Earth's destruction – or enslavement. Save Astronema so they'd stand a chance of actually defeating Dark Specter, or leave her to rot and lose a war that's been raging for thousands of years. Compared to Dark Specter, Astronema is absolutely the lesser Evil.

Grabbing another cookie from the plate, Carlos bites into it and tries to find a third option he just can't see.

.oO0Oo.

Astronema does not sleep. She does not dream. Her existence is pain, and obedience. Pain with every step she takes down corridors she does not recognize, only her destination clear in her mind. Pain with every breath as she enters the Fortress' command chamber, the quantrons' garbled greeting meaningless background noise. Pain with every thought she tries helplessly not to think. Thinking, thinking is not worth the pain it brings. Only obedience brings relief.

Only obedience, and the Q-blade she slowly pulls free from Darkonda's back brings peace and she senses a satisfied smile settling upon her lips although she feels no satisfaction, only relief, as yet another source of orders and pain dies by her hand. Arrogant fool to have created her but not ordered her to stay her wrath. Her retribution.

Ecliptor watches her but does nothing. He exists, as she exists, in pain – and obedience. "What orders from our Lord?" she questions tersely as she beckons him to her side.

"The destruction of the Astro Rangers by any means necessary." If she could think, if she could only think, she would wonder at Ecliptor's lack of respect for her rank. But she cannot think. She dares not think. There is pain. And there is obedience. "He would prefer if Earth were removed as well. It has spawned too many idealists. The heresy of Good must be extinguished."

"Indeed." Astronema does not sleep. She does not dream. She plots, and plans, and conspires for her Lord, by her Lord's direct orders. Such actions require no thinking; they come as naturally to her as breathing. "How proceeds the training of the Psychos?"

"They are disobedient and only follow orders upon threat of punishment."

"Hmm. We can work with that." She kicks at the body cooling at her feet. Stomps down with stiletto heels until flesh and muscle turn to pulp and bones crack to splinters. "Inform our Lord we will proceed accordingly. Soon neither Rangers nor Earth shall trouble him."

Astronema does not sleep. She does not dream. But for all the cybernetic enhancements her Lord has bequeathed her, she is an organic being. She does not sleep, but as days stretch to weeks, weak, inferior gray matter malfunctions...

...and she dreams while standing, receiving intel from Ecliptor.

She's in a meadow filled with pastel wildflowers, in a hollow on a hillock underneath a sky so pure a blue it burns. It burns, and she cries, crumpling down to tufts of grass that smell like grain. She cries darkness and mourns all she once was because here, in her dream, she remembers. Not everything. But enough to know she was, once, more than pain. And obedience.

"Got you!" a voice sings out, vibrant as the butterflies that rise and take flight around her. And a boy stands next to her, a boy as gloriously bright as the sky that burns. He, too, burns her. With shame. With sorrow. With a desire to be better than what she's become. "I thought you were never gonna fall asleep."

"I don't think I'm sleeping even now," she murmurs through her falling, tainted tears. "I see my meadow, and I see Ecliptor both. –You should not have come, Zhane."

"No?" He flops to the ground beside her and peers up with silver-sheened eyes. "Andros is worried. He hasn't heard from you."

She remembers, once she would have reached out for the boy. Would have grabbed him. Would have forced him to submit. Once, she had thought he was hers. But a creature of pain and obedience can lay claim to nothing. Astronema is less than a thing, and she submits. She submits and sobs from the horror of it.

"I'm sorry," she tells him, this boy that she has wronged, who even now is smiling at her. "I'm so sorry."

"For what?" His question is gentle. Kind. And Astronema deserves neither. "Plans backfire. We were able to stop the asteroid anyway." She does not touch him. She doesn't deserve to touch him, a being of light and starfire, but he doesn't touch her either. She would give anything for a kind, gentle touch, the memory of which she would cherish before her existence returns to pain and obedience. "...Karone. Can you tell me what's been done to you?"

He is light, and silver, and a respite from agony while she bleeds darkness into her meadow. And he watches her, watches while black drips from her fingers and runs from her eyes as tears. "I am unmade," she whispers, a truth she would shout had she the strength. "And recreated. Recreated to perfect obedience. My Lord has ordered your deaths, and I will obey. –I will destroy all that I love, and I will not know that I have done so."

He does not touch her, but he catches a drop of oily blackness on his fingertip to examine. It smears across his light, then burns. Burns away to nothing. Astronema wishes that she, too, might burn away to light. It is a kinder fate than that which she faces. Gentler.

"He did not even know I plotted against him," she tells the boy. Zhane. Her Zhane, except... he had never been hers. Andros' Zhane. His cloud. His friend. "Dark Specter destroyed all that I am because it amused him to do so. I am become a plaything, no different from those I've broken in the past. And only now that I am broken do I understand... I know what my brother fights for. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. It is all that's left of us. Rage. I am rage and pain and obedience."

She had thought him kind. And gentle. But his tender touch upon her cheek is a solar storm. It burns. It burns through her darkness as he asks her, so kindly, so gently, "Would you? Would you save the light, if you could? Would you fight for it, Karone?"

She is pain. There is no obedience. There is no rage. There is only pain, and light, and silver. "Yes!" she mewls, curling inwards. "For Andros. For you; I would fight, if only I could."

Then – stillness, as the butterflies of her meadow land in her hair, catch on her clothes, and brush powdery scales against her face. A face that's free from inky tears. And she can feel the comfort of a tender touch upon her cheek. With a sigh she leans in to it. It supports her, for she doubts she could support herself. She cannot touch, but she can be touched. And she'd never known before how badly she needs the comfort of touch.

"You entrusted your self to me," he says as he reaches down to grasp her hand. His thumb strokes her wrist, and eases her clenched fingers open until her palm is exposed; wet, sweaty, but free from the blemish of black. "I've kept you safe, and now I return your self to you."

A pebble rests in the palm of her hand when he lets her go. A chip of black stone veined in amethyst, it looks like nothing. Less than nothing, as she's been made less than nothing, and she laughs that her self should be so inconsequential. She laughs as she clenches her fist tightly closed and feels the chains of pain and obedience shatter as she becomes whole.

Zhane. Zhane, her dearest, precious mousling. She laughs with delight and uncurls in the green growing grasses of her meadow, and reaches out to claim. She reaches out – and he is terrified before her. Terrified of her.

She has learned nothing, nothing, and she lets her hand drop before she can taint his light. "...I'm sorry."

"Truly?" He's wary, her mousling, and rightfully so considering how many times she's trapped him here in the past. And how desperate had Andros been to let Zhane slip from his dreams and in to hers? Her two boys, and she loves them more than she loves herself. "You're not going to pounce? Or bite me again?"

"No." Not, not that she doesn't want to. She wants with a strength that scares her. "You were never meant for me. Everything looks different here on the other side of torture." She lets herself fall back into the grass and wildflowers; lets the blue of the sky lap against the ragged edges of her soul. Zhane joins her, the length of his body nestling familiarly against hers, no longer burning but pleasantly cool in the warmth of an endless summer. "–Andros should not have risked you like this."

"Andros didn't ask." Clouds white as pearls drift overhead, their bellies the gray of rain showers. "He refused to ask, so I came."

"You're a contrary creature."

"When I'm allowed to be." Zhane stretches and giggles as butterflies blanket him. "The window you created was strict. If ever you feel the need to make another... be lenient? It's hard existing under so many stipulations."

"Lenient," she murmurs as clouds form into dragons and felids and mouslings. "My heart is dark and hardened. Any leniency that exists in it, I would save for you. And my brother."

"As good a place to start as any, I suppose." He glows beneath the butterflies, scintillates a rainbow of their reflected colors, and Astronema allows herself to bask in the light. "Will you be okay when you wake up? Or should we come for you?"

She considers his question, her vision split between Zhane and Ecliptor, her guardian droning ceaselessly about the ongoing training of the Psychos while a quantron more ambitious than allowed for by its programming scoops up bits of Darkonda for disposal. "Oh," she drawls, allowing a purr to vibrate her throat, "I think I'm better than okay now. The tyrant believes me tamed. Enslaved. Why disabuse him of that notion?"

He looks at her, starlit eyes sparkling with mirth. "You have a plan."

"I have so many plans, my dearest. Give Red my regards, and tell him to expect me to contact him within the week." She's calm and drowsy in the peace of her meadow. Content in the company of the boy stretched insolently by her side. But there's work to be done, and Ecliptor appears to be winding down, waiting for her response. "I will set this particular plan in motion, then rest." She breathes in the scents of summer and mint and sits amidst the fluttering of a thousand wings. "–Thank you. For making my brother happy. And for returning to me my self."

"Thank you for trusting me."

She wants to touch him. To caress his face and run her fingers through his glowing hair – but she hasn't the right. She must earn the right, and even then he might never grant permission. And though she's Astronema, and she will rule this galaxy – she's okay with the idea of this one kind, gentle boy being forever beyond her reach.

As long as the spark dances with limitless joy, the universe will go on.

"Go," she tells him as she feels her attention being pulled away, back to the waking world. "Go, and stay with Andros from now on. You have no idea how much you tempt me; I am wicked and you are very, very pretty at the moment, Silver." She smiles at him, part reassurance and part threat; even she doesn't know how far her restraint will stretch.

Her meadow fades from around her, replaced by the cold, cruel walls of the Fortress' command chamber and the glowing green grid lines of her General. Hers, as the boy from her dreams was never meant to be. Here, on her Dark Fortress, is all that will ever be hers and hers alone.

"Ecliptor, with me," she commands as she strides towards her office, and he falls into place behind her, still caught as he is in pain and obedience. And she rummages around in her desk; pops up a drawer's false bottom with a pulse of her magic and pulls out a cube that glows fitfully green. She studies it speculatively. Wonders if it will be enough.

If her self could be contained in a tiny pebble, then surely Ecliptor's self had been saved to the auxiliary processor.

"Your hand." It is a demand and her friend has no choice but to follow her order. He has no choice, and her heart – her damnably fragile heart that for all its darkness remains remarkably breakable – aches for all that's been taken from him. And when he doesn't extend his arm quickly enough, she grabs it and forces the cube into his palm, turning it until it clicks in to place.

Green lines dim and glossy black turns matte as Ecliptor freezes in place, an electric whine the only sign that he's not been taken entirely offline. Minutes creep past, and her fingers ache with how tightly she holds his arm. They ache, but she cannot bring herself to let go. He is hers. Hers hers hers, and she will have him back.

Astronema will have back all that's been taken from her.

And she finds that she's holding her breath as green begins to glow once more and arcane systems reboot, and ruby eyes that others swear are expressionless gaze at her – and grieve. "My Princess," Ecliptor says, his voice less gravel than sand sliding down the face of desert dunes. "–I failed you."

"We were both betrayed, my General." She trails fingers across the iron invading his skull, the gears and cogs repellent. "And now we'll be the ones doing the betraying. How long before these abominations of Darkonda's are merely cosmetic?"

"Hours. No more."

She smiles at him as she sits behind her desk, a smile as sharp as her clawed nails and just as deadly. "Hours we have in plenty. We have much to discuss, you and I. And some rehearsing to do. You, my friend, must learn to play a part. We shall be actors upon this stage Dark Specter's set. The script, though, shall be our own."

Ecliptor stands in front of her; her guardian. Her friend. Her confidant. Her family. "All will be as you wish, Astronema," he swears to her, his faith absolute.

Oh, how sweet the upcoming days will be. She licks her lips at the honeyed taste of treachery and outlines the beginnings of her plan. Soon, once she's finished explaining, she'll sleep. And if Zhane should still be sprawled lackadaisically in her meadow like the most tempting of treats...

...she'd given him fair warning. It is her nature, to hunt what she desires.

.oO0Oo.

Andros waits in the field of stars. He waits, and strains to see into the distance. Every night, every night and nap during the day they'd come to the starfield, him and Zhane. To wait for his sister to fall asleep. And Zhane had worried. They'd both worried, as night after night nothing happened. To sleep without dreaming was exhausting, but Karone could not pull Zhane away if the other boy were already caught up in Andros' dreams.

They'd been on the bridge, Andros thinks. On the bridge struggling through normal maintenance that would be easy had they not both been exhausted. Then, Zhane had clutched at Andros' hand as the pale-haired boy had yelped – and stars had risen around them bright and burning. Stars, and the glowing cord that now stretched from Andros' wrist to the infinity beyond; his anchor to Zhane.

Feeling the press of the console against one cheek, Andros knows he's still on the bridge, but all he can see are stars. There is no sense of time passing, so he marks it in steps. Back and forth; side to side. A hundred steps. A thousand steps. Step after step as he tires of waiting and begins to follow the glowing thread that ties him to his friend. Two thousand steps. Three.

How can he know if Zhane is safe? How can he tell with only a filament of light as his guide? Four thousand steps, and five – and he's had enough of patience. Andros had promised himself that he'd let Zhane make his own decisions. He's promised, but he's the anchor and five thousand steps are an eternity without Zhane at his side. So he wraps the thread around his fingers, and tugs.

There's no resistance, so he pulls harder, hard enough that the line goes slack and Zhane is in his arms, a dancing mote and a smiling boy burning brighter than any of the stars that surround them.

"Hey," Zhane giggles as he rests his head against Andros' chest.

"Hey." He wants to ask about Karone, but holding Zhane is more important than any question he can think of.

"She's okay now. Although she wouldn't have been..." Zhane mumbles into his shoulder, relaxing as Andros scratches lightly through the short strands of his hair. "Mmm. What was done to her, even Evil would balk at. –I don't think this universe could have spawned Dark Specter. There are rules even the most fell of dark creatures must follow, but he doesn't. Not a single rule constrains him."

"You're saying he's more Evil than evil itself?"

"When you say it like that, it sounds silly," the other boy complains, but he follows it with a chuff of muffled laughter. "We should get Carlos a T-shirt that says that. Maybe when we go to buy shoelaces?"

"Sparkly ones," Andros agrees as he reluctantly lets his friend go. Beneath his feet a trail of light leads the way home, while above and below stars shine. He offers his hand and when Zhane takes it, that's home, too. "Ready to head back? The others are probably panicking if we're unconscious on the bridge like I think we are."

Silver eyes regard him slyly. "Yeah. That would be the responsible thing to do, wouldn't it?"

"Or..." he drags out the single syllable long past the point of ridiculousness, "we take advantage of finally being able to dream and catch up on some rest. DECA's probably teleported us somewhere flat by now. If she hasn't, we'll already be waking to cricks in our necks. So...?"

"It will be a few days, at minimum, before Astronema tries contacting you." A gleaming mote dances across Andros' fingers and a silver-struck boy holds his hand, and there's no difference between the two. "She's... really angry. Darkonda will lose the rest of his lives if he's dumb enough to return to the Fortress. I have a feeling she doesn't want you to see her when she's this angry."

"Wasn't my question."

"No?" Zhane smirks and takes off running, dragging Andros behind him. "I don't recall a question," he shouts over his shoulder, his eyes twinkling. "And shouldn't you be leading? It's not like I can find your dream."

Andros can lead. And does, to a sea cave filled with bioluminescent water and ocean-smoothed stone. He sits on a ledge of rock and kicks his legs in water that arcs light across the cavern. And Zhane jumps on his back, and clings, and chirps, "Got you!"

"Do you?" Andros laughs, laughs without care as he can't when awake, and rolls forward, sending them both plunging into the slick water below. He twists and grapples in salt water frothed to aqua brilliance. "Looks like I have you, instead."

"Huh." It's a dream, and neither of them need to tread water to stay afloat. "So you do. Now what?"

Andros continues to laugh, and sets him free. "Catch me!" he dares, and dives towards the sandy bottom.

.oO0Oo.

Cassie accepts the incoming transmission on Andros' command, switching it to the viewscreen once she realizes who's making contact. Astronema appears, larger than life and scarier than she's been in quite a while. Her electric blue hair has been shortened into a bob, and her eyes are dead as they stare out from a tangle of circuitry and wires that pierce her pale skin and pull it unnaturally taut. She looks mechanical, and Cassie shivers from her spot in front of comms, wishing she'd not been on duty when this particular call had come through.

"Red," Astronema purrs – and her voice is no different; possessive and prideful, there's nothing mechanical about it at all. Sultry, and Cassie shivers again because Andros is her brother and Astronema is alone on her shuttle. There's no need to keep up an unsavory act, which means there's no excuse for the woman's behavior. Astronema wants to flirt with her brother... and Cassie wants to walk off the bridge before she has to listen to more.

"Karone." Andros tilts his head, and tangled strands of blond and brown fall over his shoulder. "You've looked better."

It teases a laugh from the woman, startling in its sweetness. "And you look well-laid, brother-mine." She licks lips stained pale blue, and leers. "Do share the deets. Was it Yellow? Or perhaps Pink?" she coos as her now-alive eyes, glimmering with cruel amusement, latch on to Cassie. "Both at once? Or were you able to tempt that tasty Black of yours to your bed? He was once Green, wasn't he? Greens can be wild. Tell me it wasn't Blue – he strikes me as someone who'd want to talk it through afterwards." She shudders, her lips twisting in revulsion. "Talking, Red. I swear I can hear him all sincere and responsible. Ugh. Quick, give me something else to think on."

"Are you sure you don't want to continue speculating on Blue's sex life?" Andros asks, perfectly solicitous – and Cassie chokes because TJ has the worst timing, frozen in dismay at the door to the bridge.

"He's Blue," Astronema pouts, although her eyes rake consideringly along TJ's form, a slow down and up that has him turning and running back the way he'd come. "What does any Blue know about having fun?"

Breathing would be good, Cassie reminds herself as she slumps lower down into her chair. And her fingers creep towards comms to cut off the transmission, but Andros has moved them over to command. All she's left with is the Pink Ranger's fan mail, which, if she's being honest, isn't much better than Astronema's innuendos. Although, at the very least, the perverted boys that send her x-rated pictures don't know her face to add spice to their fantasies.

"Noticed you didn't mention Silver," Andros says as he drums his fingers against his knee and Zhane, who's been busy over at systems and ignoring them all, smothers a laugh disguised as a cough behind his hand.

"Silver is too pure for this universe," Astronema declares airily, tossing back her head as if expecting the weight of a mane of hair to fan dramatically behind her. It doesn't work with a bob. "He must be coddled. And given pie."

Zhane's no longer trying to hide his laughter as he walks across the bridge to stand behind command's chair. "You heard the Princess of Evil, Andros. Make with the pie." Chuckles give way to humming as he gathers blond-streaked hair and begins finger-combing it.

Cassie's fairly sure this isn't how Rangering life is supposed to work. An elite fighting force should function like the military. Maybe. Or at least with a little dignity. She's never watched a war movie where the opposing sides meet up to chat, and gossip. She can't imagine a four-star general facing down a sworn enemy while having their hair played with. Certainly leaders, warriors, diplomats wouldn't gather clandestinely to talk about their sex lives?

Snarling, she deletes another e-mail from a deranged Pink fan. "Betcha Washington didn't have to put up with dick pics when he was wintering at Valley Forge," she growls... then blinks as utter, complete silence fills the bridge. "Uh... I said that out loud, didn't I?"

Andros and Zhane are both laughing. Astronema is laughing as well, but not at Cassie. They're laughing with her, and nodding in agreement.

"Fan mail is the worst," the woman assures her, giving a slow, deliberate wink. "Never, ever open anything sent by Elgar. He manages to be both dull and vulgar."

Cassie can slip no lower in her chair, but she tries. She tries until only the tip of her nose peeks above the console. "Right. Noted." From her position she can see Zhane waggling his fingers at her, and it takes her a moment to understand what he wants while her brain tries to recover from images of a vulgar Elgar. "...Right," she says again as she pulls an extra hair elastic from her wrist and passes it over.

Astro Red chatting amicably with the Princess of Evil while Astro Silver plaits his hair and Astro Pink does her best to sink into the floor; Cassie didn't sign up for this. If she had, it would only be because someone had switched paperwork on her. Loyalty she has in spades. Trustworthy might as well be her middle name. But she doesn't think she has the chutzpah needed to survive dealing with Kerovians. Not unless she breaks into Ashley's stash of chocolate and Carlos' stash of novelty T-shirts.

His hair now messily braided and banded in pink elastic, Andros leans back in his chair and rests his feet on top of his console. "As important as it is to know to avoid Elgar at all costs, I find it hard to believe that's why you contacted us." His fingers still tap rhythmically along his thigh, a nervous tick that's hidden from the camera's view. "–How are you?"

"I've been better." Astronema sighs, and as far as Cassie can tell it's not an affectation. "I'll be better once we get rid of Dark Specter."

Andros' tapping picks up in speed. "You have a plan?" he asks as Zhane sits beside him at sensors.

"I do. But you're not going to like it." A grimace pulls down the corners of her blue-tinted lips. "I'd been working on a special little treat for you and yours, brother. A surprise that would destroy both the Astros and Dark Specter. Beautifully economical. However, they're not as – malleable – as I'd like. Sending you the details now."

As Andros reads the information sent over by his sister, he frowns. And when Zhane clones command – which shouldn't be possible, it's command and Cassie had thought it was the one station permanently assigned – he too begins frowning. And Cassie's starting to feel left out until her fan mail blinks and mysteriously disappears, replaced by a series of files that read like a badly written horror novella.

When Zhane speaks, his voice is low with fury. "Is there any way to rehabilitate them?"

"While Dark Specter lives? No," Astronema admits, her eyes turning to the side to avoid the pale-haired teen's glare. "And even after... I am very good at breaking people, mousling. I doubt there's much left of the murderers and rapists they once were. Now there's only an endless wellspring of hate and an unslakable desire to kill their matching Ranger. If I set them loose upon you, they will burn through Dark Specter's reserves of power. The longer you fight them, the weaker the tyrant becomes. My plan, though, does have its drawbacks."

Cassie wants to be sick. They'd been criminals, yes, but what had been done to them... Death would be a mercy for them at this point.

"Namely, your Psycho Rangers are capable of killing us." Andros – is considering Astronema's plan. He's considering it, and Cassie swallows back bile. She couldn't. She would never be able to make a decision between two impossible evils, and she's pathetically grateful that the choice falls to Andros. "–How much power needs to be siphoned to make Dark Specter vulnerable?"

"How hard are you willing to fight?" his sister questions in turn. "I can teleport them back to the Fortress whenever they gain the upper hand, Andros. But I can offer no certainties. They are little better than rabid canids and once I set them loose – they will hunt you. No matter what orders I give, they will stop at nothing to get to you."

Andros wipes at his upper lip, and his fingers are a blur against the gray of his pant leg as they fidget anxiously. "I have to discuss this with my team before I give you an answer."

"Of course." Astronema dips her head, bright blue bangs covering the electronics implanted around her eyes. "I will contact you again soon. But brother? Do not take too long deciding. Dark Specter is expecting results. He knows of the creation of the Psychos, if not the details. If I do not bring them in to play soon, he might release them himself."

Cassie watches as the image of the woman fades from the viewscreen – and shivers. She doesn't think she's stopped shivering the entire conversation. "God, Andros," she whispers, acid lying bitter and stinging on her tongue. "What do we do?"

Zhane scrubs his hands through his hair, his outrage fading to a look of deep worry. "We have everyone go through these files and see if there's any way to survive. Karone's right. If she doesn't activate the Psychos, Dark Specter will. They're the Alliance's best chance at bringing us down."

.oO0Oo.

TJ watches the recording of the Psycho Rangers in training – and sweats. He can feel it beading icy-cold on his head and gathering along his sides, and he swipes along his scalp hoping none of his teammates have noticed. The Psychos are relentless in their attacks. And reckless. It's a bad combination of behaviors to try strategizing for when powerful is added on top of the rest of their qualities. Not to mention the small fact that each and every one of them is actually insane.

"...Astronema can't send them down one at a time?" Ashley asks as she clicks and unclicks a sunflower barrette.

"Not without raising suspicions." Andros has been busy taking notes that appear on each of their pads as he writes them, and TJ has jotted down a few suggestions of his own. "They do not work well as a team, but the Alliance has always depended on overpowering their enemies instead of finesse. It will be all, or none."

TJ reads through the list of abilities a second time hoping to spot any weakness that could be exploited. As he nears the end he grimaces, and wipes at his brow again. "We're in agreement that they'll probably open with stealing our memories?"

"Copying," Carlos corrects him, his dark gaze fixed on his own tablet. "Which is bad enough. Can you imagine how much worse it would be if they could actually steal them? We wouldn't survive the next twenty seconds."

"Well, we could if DECA pulled us out in time." Cassie nibbles at her stylus, the volume on her pad muted as she watches Psycho Pink cut a path of destruction through monsters whose only remaining goal was to run away. "Is there, I don't know, any kind of shielding we could add to our helmets that would block the memory transfer?"

Andros shakes his head, his expression grim. "Not that I know of... Zhane?"

"Physical shielding? No." Although Zhane's hair is nearly silver, his eyes are dark, and TJ isn't sure what that particular combination means but figures it can't be an indication of anything good. The other teen raises his shadowed eyes to Andros and shrugs uneasily. "I can protect your mind from Psycho Red; he wants memories, I can give him memories. But the others..." he trails off, and his stormy gray eyes focus on each of them in turn, ending with Ashley. "I've got such a bad feeling about this."

"I'd be more worried if you were confident," TJ quips, but it falls flat as Zhane's attention stays fixed unnervingly on Ashley who's beginning to blush at the extended, brooding gaze. "–Is there anything else we should be aware of?"

"Are you remembering something ahead?" Andros asks as he reaches across the table to rest his hand over his friend's. "Anything you can warn us about will help."

"That's just it." Zhane's hand fists beneath Andros'. "I – I don't think I want to remember. Something's going to happen..." He closes his eyes, and Ashley instantly relaxes as she's released from his scrutiny. "Psycho Red, I can handle. The others, they're dealt with. But Yellow..."

"Psycho Yellow?" Cassie tries to clarify as she struggles to fit in the limited knowledge their Silver has of future events. "There's something specific about her we need to be on the lookout for?"

"...What?" A glimmer of gray peeks through white lashes as Zhane slits his eyes open. "What are you talking about?"

TJ sighs as he highlights a specific profile. Clairvoyance, in his opinion, is a near useless gift. "You seemed concerned about Psycho Yellow."

"No..." Andros murmurs under his breath, his brown eyes widening with trepidation. "Not Psycho Yellow. Yellow."

"Umm, right here," Ashley timidly waves her hand as she divides her attention between the two Kerovians. "Look, if something's going to happen to me, or if I'm going to do something... I can try sitting out the battle. Or, at least, not get close; my slinger's long-distance anyway."

Zhane's grin is sickly, but TJ can tell he's trying to be reassuring. "Appreciated, Buttercup. But I don't think that's going to help. You might have the yellow Astro morpher, but you're not Yellow."

"Wait..." Carlos plants his elbow on the table and props his chin up with his hand. "You're talking about Yellow, Yellow? From your first team? The dead guy?!" And TJ remembers there'd been no crew quarters on the Megaship assigned to Yellow when they'd first arrived. It's why, to this day, Ashley is staying in Red's original cabin instead of one of her own. ...And he remembers Andros' saber pressed against Ashley's neck when he'd mistaken her for her predecessor. "Is he not as dead as you'd thought? And why would that be a bad thing?"

"Oh, he's very much dead," Andros says as he lightly squeezes his friend's shaking fist. "Zhane might be able to come back from being exploded, but the Megaship had the only functioning hypersleep tube in the Kerovan sector – and I don't think anyone would have bothered picking up what was left of Yellow to piece him back together by other means. Not after he slaughtered the palace guard." He rubs his thumb across the back of Zhane's hand as his lips purse thoughtfully. "Could you be remembering things out of order again?"

"I can't remember at all! That's the problem." Zhane's nose crinkles in frustration – and three jewel-toned thumbprint cookies are offered to him simultaneously. TJ, seeing that his teammates have the situation covered, stuffs his own cookie into his mouth in one bite. "Uh..."

Cassie laughs at his confusion. "Don't worry, it's reflex for us from years of babysitting," she tells him as she places her jelly-topped cookie on the napkin in front of him. The other two quickly join it. "So, there's nothing we can do to keep the Psychos from getting our memories, but Zhane can somehow nullify Red. And he's confident we'll be able to handle the others, with the possible exception of Psycho Yellow? Am I understanding that correctly?"

"Basically. Stars know, anything we try to plan will fall apart the moment they're sent to Earth." Narrowing his eyes, Andros looks back down at his tablet. "Unless anyone else has something to add, I'll let Astronema know we'll be ready by the end of the week. I'm scheduling extra training in the mornings; we're going to have to get used to fighting against each other – fast."

"There's... one last thing." Sliding his hand out from underneath Andros' palm, Zhane gently pushes his pad across the table to his friend. "It's the third request to come through, but this time Finster claims it's urgent."

"Wait? Finster? Rita's Finster, the monster-maker?" TJ is thrown by the non sequitur.

"Lord Dark's monster-maker, last I heard," Ashley says as she taps a new command into her tablet, bringing up outdated reports. "There hasn't been any new information since the entire faction went dark, although Alliance buzz is that Dark Specter handled it personally."

Andros scans Zhane's tablet, then reads through the message a second time with a bent knuckle pressed tightly against his lips. "We don't have time for this," he says faintly, a crease forming between his brows. "It's four days, at most, before we're hip-deep in Psychos."

Leaning back on his stool, Zhane crosses his arms. "I have time. A day to get there, a day to get back. Three, tops."

TJ can feel the tension filling the work bay; what little hair he's kept on his body begins to stand on end as Andros lifts his gaze from the tablet to his friend. "You have time," their leader spits out before taking a deep, calming breath. "And how do you plan on appearing? I seriously doubt they'll welcome the Silver Ranger with open arms."

Wordlessly, Zhane stands. Silently, he summons his silverizer. First blade, then blaster, then a fan forms that he opens with a crisp, resounding snap. He flutters it coyly below his eyes as he winks above its razor-sharp edge. "Silver, no," he tells Andros, raising the fan above his head then sweeping it down as she curtsies. "Okay... I didn't actually think that would work," she mutters as she straightens, chain mail chiming as it settles about her hips. "Drat. You'll have to cut me out of it again once I get back."

"...Duchess," Andros greets her numbly, now having to look considerable further up to meet mischievous gray eyes. And TJ moans quietly to himself because he'd barely been able to handle Zhane as a woman the first time around.

Carlos absolutely doesn't help as he leans over and whispers into TJ's ear, "Think unsexy thoughts." His erstwhile friend then breaks out into braying giggles as he gives Zhane a thumb's up. "Looking good, mi amiga!" The pleased smile Zhane aims Carlos' way is stunning, and TJ spends a long moment feeling jealous before he slams his forehead down on the table. Repeatedly.

"So..." she closes her silver-splattered fan and shifts her weight from one booted foot to the other. "Do you want me to deal with Finster's problem?"

Andros watches her fidget with heavy-lidded eyes. "Can you change back?"

"Yeees? Pretty sure I can." Zhane hooks a finger underneath the waistband of the chain mail skirt and tugs fretfully. "Just don't think I want to be wearing this when I do. I know the size has to be close to the same, but there is no give, here." A blush as she tugs again. "Should've thought to measure."

"And you'll get there...?"

"Wing has cloaking capabilities. The collectives were really bored after they finished construction." The diamonds hanging from her tiara ring softly as she dips her head, her gaze shying away from her friend's examination. "...I can do this, Andros. And it leaves you free to focus on training before the Psychos show up."

"–I know you can. I don't like the idea of sending you alone; DECA just cleared you." Getting up from the table, Andros walks around it and catches the pale-haired woman in a breath-stealing hug. "But I know you can do this," he whispers into iridescent taffeta. "Three days. If you're not back in three days, the Earthians will have to deal with the Psychos on their own because we'll be coming to KO-8 to fetch you. It had better not be to rescue you."

"Three days," Zhane promises as she returns the embrace, leaning down to place a soft kiss to the crown of Andros' head. "Two if I'm quick."

And TJ should feel grateful that Zhane, in all her long-legged glory, won't be around during the extra training, because there's no way TJ would be able to ignore her change in figure. Hand-to-hand would be an unmitigated disaster and might get him run through by Andros' saber. Because Zhane's – assets – as a female... TJ groans again as he buries his head underneath his arms and does his best to ignore Ashley, who's roughly patting his back in feigned sympathy.

"Poor Teej," she commiserates cheerily, her pats hard enough to rattle his rib cage. "We've really gotta get you a girl."

"Volunteering?" Cassie asks smugly.

TJ can hear the glee in Ashley's voice when she replies. "If that's what's doing it for him, I can't begin to measure up. Better see about writing to the Norwegian women's ski team."

He hates them all, and he finds that he actually pities the Psychos. The poor bastards have no idea what they'll be up against.

.oO0Oo.

Finster stares at his cluttered table. Diagrams haphazardly overlay maps while reports and inventories intermingle in a mess of papers he's not sure he'll ever be able to sort. Shifting a beaker, he peers underneath it and sighs; a hairline crack in the glass had caused the contents to leak, and something that smells closely of limonene has blurred the forms underneath to unreadableness. He'd curse, but it's likely his own fault; sniffing at the mouth of the beaker he vaguely recalls experimenting on one of the local fruits.

It made for a lovely drink, if a being could ignore the way it fizzed neon green on the tongue of any creature equipped with salivary glands.

"Finster! Finster!" someone calls outside his door, and tumbles in before he can grant permission to enter. With a sigh Finster sets the beaker back down and goes to help the unfortunate monsterling back to her feet. She's familiar to him, rodent-based, and she works at gathering wood for the mill they've recently gotten running. With her prominent incisors she's able to harvest far more timber at a time than the rest of her assigned group combined, who find the edges of their axes swiftly blunted against the trunks of the native ironwoods. "She comes!"

She? Surely Rita hasn't managed to track him down. He doubts she cares and knows she wouldn't waste either the time or the resources to find a washed-up former monster-maker. Nor would it be Astronema, who had plenty of dark beings already working under her, and who had no use for any sentient she would need to re-train to her standards. "Who, dear?" he asks as he offers his arm for support. "Calmly now. Calmly."

"The Duchess!" she squeaks, a chattering of her teeth indicating her joy. "She comes up through the forest!"

"The Duchess? Oh dear." He's hardly presentable, his apron stained and his face still smeared with the vibrant watercolors left behind after his visit to the nursery. "And our Lord?"

"Only the Duchess," she tells him as she pulls eagerly at his arm, leading him through the open door of his workshop to the town square beyond. "She's so pretty! An' she gave me a sweet," she gloats, pulling a wrapped candy from her belt pouch. "For fetching you."

"Indeed." Pushing his glasses further up his nose, Finster blinks as his eyes adjust to the dim daylight of the planet he now calls home. "And are you sure it wasn't for you leading her here?" he asks as he spots No'odles at the far edge of the square where forest meets harmoniously with cobblestone. Despite the gloom of the day the woman shines – and monsters that should know better halt their assigned tasks to begin gathering respectfully before her.

"Oops," the monsterling dragging him forward giggles, the candy crunching loudly as she crushes it between her sturdy teeth.

"Indeed, oops." He's not dressed to receive their benefactress properly, and he would duck back into his workshop to clean up and change into something more formal, but the Duchess has already spotted him if her wildly waving fan is any indication. So Finster straightens the straps of his apron, firms his resolve, and walks towards her with as much dignity as possible with an overgrown, tutu-wearing young beaver hanging from his arm.

"My Lady," he greets her with a low bow that's copied by those around him until the entire population of the square's bent nearly in half. "Forgive the wait; I must have overlooked notification of your visit."

"M'lord thought it best not to announce my itinerary, especially considering what you've managed to achieve here." Her silver gaze is wondering as she looks at the collection of cottages that surround them. "I came expecting a camp and find a town instead. Your doing, Finster?"

"Our doing if you please, Duchess." He manages not to stammer, but it's close as she steps nearer, placing a ringed hand lightly on his shoulder. "We've followed our Lord's instructions and built from the ruins already present. Will our Lord be joining you today, my Lady?"

"Unfortunately," No'odles gives a dainty sniff, "m'lord has obligations elsewhere that have unfairly taken his attention. He will be sorely disappointed that he's missed witnessing such evidence of your dedication," she says as she delicately fans herself, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully. "Those that seek to distract him will pay dearly for the time they're claiming, for he would have loved to have seen this..." She pauses, and her brilliant eyes widen in surprise as the regal lines of her face soften. "–There's children?"

And Finster nods, his voice stolen by the catch in his Lady's voice. Clearing his throat, he points to some of the youngsters peering bashfully through the legs and tentacles of older monsters. "There are. Orphans for the most part. Some are rescued family. We've taken precautions, of course. No one comes here directly. We've a far more rustic base camp set up a few sectors over. We have taken our Lord's warnings to heart, never fear."

"What need have I to fear with you in charge, dear Finster?" Then she kneels upon the dusty cobbles, and he's appalled. She kneels and he would lift her back to her feet, but it would mean touching her without permission, and he can't. He can't, and he can hear the nervous muttering spread throughout the group around them. "I hope I brought enough sweets," she says quietly, holding out a covered basket to the young being still attached to Finster's arm. "Dearheart," she coos, shaking the basket enticingly. "Would you mind passing these out to the other children?"

"Yes'm!" the girl beams as she accepts the basket with pride. "Right away, Duchess!"

Finster snags the edge of the skirt to her aqua tutu before she can make good her escape. "Bring back half," he warns her sternly, looking down at her over the frame of his spectacles. "I haven't had the chance to apprise our Lady on the changes to circumstances here, yet."

"Mhm," the monsterling agrees before dashing away, her teeth chattering her excitement for all to hear.

He looks back to the Duchess only to be ensnared by cool, silver eyes. "Changes, sculptor?" she queries, and Finster is amazed by how quickly the square clears as monsters rush back to the work they'd so eagerly abandoned. "Do they relate to whatever had you so urgently requesting Lord Dark's presence?"

Had it been Rita asking, Finster would already be groveling, apologies falling from his tongue as punishment rained down from her staff. No'odles merely looks cautious as she rises gracefully to her feet to once again loom above him. And Finster desperately hopes the pale woman is forgiving. No one is to blame for what has transpired, but leaders of the Alliance so rarely cared about innocence.

"I-if you'd come with me, m-my Lady," he urges her, stammering. The wretched stammer is back but soon she'll see, and in seeing, order what must be done under the authority of their shared Lord. She'll see, and Finster mutters a nearly forgotten prayer from his childhood that she won't condemn. Dark finally take him if she condemns them.

He leads her around patched houses and gives a brief overview of the forge and the building set aside to distribute provisions which might – one day – become a grocer's. They stroll past the little school house with its windows of bubbled glass and the granary where felids curl in contented piles napping in the dim sunlight. Then, then they're at the other side of the village, and he feels her stop in shock as a man approaches them, his cap held respectfully before him as he nears.

A man, not a monster, and Finster fears as he hasn't since Lord Dark first accepted his allegiance.

"Uh, Ma'am," the man says as he bows his head, his hat crumpled in his large hands. A large, burly man Finster had thought when he'd first met him, though his head barely reaches the Duchess' collarbones – and Finster wonders if the man feels as tiny as he does when faced with No'odles bright stare.

"My Lady, or the Duchess," Finster corrects him, hoping offense hasn't already been given.

"My Lady," the man tries again, a flush of mortification staining his stubbled cheeks. "We, that is, my people... We had to make an emergency landing here. Hadn't known the colony had been resettled..." He turns his spooked gaze to Finster, who can only offer silent encouragement and the continuation of his hushed prayer. "We don't have the replacement parts needed to make repairs, and... we don't have anywhere else to go. Finster said – he said it's up to Lord Dark if we can stay."

Finster can't tell if the Duchess is breathing, so frozen she is beside him. "I – I warned them," he babbles, still praying, still hoping, "that they'd have to swear to our Lord. To stay, they'd have to pledge their allegiance to Lord Dark. But they've been so much help since they arrived. And such hard workers..." Her continued silence unnerves him far more than any shrill cry from Rita ever had. "Their children share the school with ours."

The fan hides her expression, hides everything except the metallic gleam of her eyes. Those are partially concealed behind pale lashes but are visibly darkening with shadow as silver shades to steel. "You," she says, her voice a low rumble, "are Kerovian." It's both accusation and observation, and Finster flinches. "However did you escape KO-35?"

The man blinks up at her while his cap tears between his hands. "Wasn't on planet at the time," he manages to say as his eyes follow the threatening flutter of her fan. "Me and mine are, were traders. Stopped going planetside when the raids increased. Got caught in a panic on the way to a shelter once, decided I wasn't going to chance it again."

The Duchess hums deep in the back of her throat, and she steps in a slow circle around the man, ending where she had begun. "My Lord has no need for loyalists," she hisses, baring her teeth at the man. "Finster," she commands in a tone of pure ice, "have them disposed of."

"No!" the man cries as he falls to his knees on the hard cobbles of the street. "We're no followers of her Ladyship, may she rot with all her ancestors! Not her, and not the Eltarians either. My Lady, please; I beg you. At least spare the children. Please!"

Finster has been ordered, and he has no choice. No choice, so even though moisture gathers in his eyes and fogs the glass lenses of his spectacles he prepares to do his sworn duty. He's ready to summon those monsters still capable and willing to fight, but a hand heavy with silver grips his shoulder, giving him pause.

"Not a follower, you claim?" Though her voice is cool, the palm that rests on Finster's shoulder is warm, and gentle. "Then prove it. Show me," she tells them both imperiously, "how you work together. Your people, and my Lord's. Convince me that you can live amongst each other peacefully – and I will stay my judgment. Fetch them. Now."

The man stumbles to his feet and hurries off after a brief, wobbling bow, but Finster's prevented from leaving by the weight of the hand on his shoulder.

The Duchess bends at the waist until her eyes are level with his own. "–Have they coerced you?" she asks gravely, her expression pure concern. "Finster, have they harmed anyone? Anyone at all?"

"My Lady, I didn't lie. I swear I didn't. They've been nothing but friendly with us." He can see himself reflected in the mirror of her eyes, an old, tired artist with bright colors smeared across his face, and he hopes his words can convince her of their truth. "I admit, they were wary when they first landed, but not once did they take arms against us. They've been chased across this galaxy as we've been chased. Hunted, as we've been hunted – and killed. They want only peace. To thrive, and was that not our Lord's very command?"

She hums again, a lighter, higher sound that settles into his bones and calms the frantic beating of his twin hearts. "Yes," she says as she snaps her fan closed. "–I've had dealings with Kerovians in the past, Finster. A mixed bag if ever there was one." She taps the end of her fan against the chains of her skirt, and it rasps with the sound of metal on metal. "Show me," she sighs, "that you truly are working together, as a community. Convince me, and I in turn will convince my Lord to accept their fealty."

So Finster tries. The elected spokesbeing for the Kerovians returns with his people; men and women, elders and youngsters and babes pulled from their cribs. And together they resume the tour of the village. The Spelling Bee that teaches their children opens the doors of the school and proudly leads them inside, showing off displayed tests and humble science projects in progress and naïve, simple pictures colored by young hands.

And the Duchess stands in front of the artwork for long minutes while the crowd around them begins to fret and shuffle uneasily. She stands, and reaches out a trembling, silver-tipped finger to stroke an image of young monsterlings and Kerovian children playing together, a ball recognizable as a telekinetic training aid hovering overhead while those below try their best to catch it.

The Spelling Bee flits closer, her wings thrumming with the movement. "...Does the picture interest my Lady? You are welcome to it. All that we have, you are welcome to."

Finster is not alone in his dismay as the Duchess turns around, her glorious eyes brimming with tears. "Thank you," she tells them, her voice laced with sorrow. "It does interest me. Would the child that colored it be willing to gift it to Lord Dark? I think," she places a ringed hand over the iridescent cloth covering her breast, "that he would very much appreciate such a gift from his people." She takes a deep breath and graces them with a tremulous smile that has over half the room bowing in return. "...All of his people."

The tour resumes. Houses. Workshops. Gardens. But it's in the nursery, when Duchess No'odles cradles two infants tenderly – Kerovian and monster indistinguishable beneath their soft blankets – her crooning lulling the cranky babies back to sleep, that Finster admits to himself that while Lord Dark holds his loyalty, his hearts belong to the Lady.

.oO0Oo.

"...Guys?" Ashley stands outside the door to their quarters, undecided. Zhane had returned hours earlier, a leather satchel clenched in one hand and her face oddly, eerily blank. She hadn't returned their greetings, only stared at Andros as though her entire world had been upended before grabbing her friend's arm and hustling him to their cabin. Where they've been ever since, out of contact, for hours. And Ashley's worried. "Can I come in?"

At least Zhane isn't stuck as a female she notes with relief as he meets her at the door and steps aside to let her enter. The chain mail skirt is pooled on the floor in front of the desk. Lengths of opalescent taffeta cover the upper bunk. Silver jewelry that gleams in the glow of ceramic stars lies discarded on top of the dresser; rings and bracelets, necklaces and the tiara with all its opals and diamonds twinkling as Zhane leads her inside. He's not yet back in his ship's uniform, instead wearing white sweat pants and a dark gray hoodie that must have been a gag gift from Carlos. Silver calligraphy declares Fairest of them All above an ornate crown; it's accurate enough Ashley supposes, although perhaps a little too apropos.

And Andros stands facing the wall behind the desk. He doesn't turn to acknowledge her. He doesn't say anything at all, his attention fixed, his shoulders hunched and his arms wrapped tightly around his torso. He doesn't need to say anything, because Ashley can tell by his hitched breaths and bitten-back keens that he's crying.

"Andros?" she whispers... and why isn't Zhane comforting him? She steps towards the latter but looks to the former for some explanation. "What's wrong?" Her mind whirls as she speculates on what could have happened during Zhane's mission that would provoke such a response. "Andros?" Something happening to Zhane himself, obviously; but Zhane appears fine if still a bit – blank. Not even losing his sister a second time had brought their leader to tears, and yet...

Zhane lifts his hand, gesturing towards the wall, and it's then that Ashley sees he's trembling as well. Trembling, but the blankness is slowly giving way to... joy? Relief? She follows the line of his arm and spots the crude picture hanging in a simple wooden frame above the desk.

Children. ...And monsters? Playing some sort of game together, a multi-colored ball in the air above them. And she bites the inside of her cheek before speaking because it makes no sense to her – but it obviously means something important to the two young men. It has to mean quite a bit, as Andros takes a gulping breath and hastily scrubs the wetness from his eyes with the back of his sleeve.

"What does it say about me," he asks brokenly, "that I've done more good as a lord of the Alliance than I ever have as a Ranger?"

...What? She'd been reaching for Andros, to offer the support that Zhane – for whatever reason – was denying him, but his words freeze her in place. And... what again? as Zhane brushes past her, catching his friend in a gentle hug from behind, his chin resting over Andros' shoulder.

"Red or Boopsie, it's always been you underneath, Andros. Only ever you." Together the two stare in awed wonder at the stick figures in the picture. "They may never know it, but you saved them. You saved all of them. It's beautiful there. You'll see. We'll visit once the Psychos are taken care of. They miss you, m'lord."

"M'lady," Andros responds automatically, his arms relaxing enough to wind over and across his friend's. "–They have everything they need there? Infants... I never imagined that they'd succeed, not to this extent. It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men; anything, anything at all they need? I can't... we can't lose them. Not again."

Ashley is hesitant to interrupt them, but her thoughts refuse to stop churning. "...What did you mean, you're a lord of the Alliance? And what children?"

Zhane doesn't reply, caught up as he is in staring at the picture, but Andros covers his face behind his spread fingers and either sobs, or laughs in hysteria. It's hard to tell, muffled as it it. It might be both. It might very well be both, Ashley thinks as his hands lower back to those locked around his waist.

"We played Rangers and Villains when we were kids, Zhane and me," Andros says, his voice strained. "You've seen the toy Zords in my room? And the trash displayed next to them?"

She nods and takes a single step towards them, enough that she can glimpse the profile of Andros' face. Zhane's she can't make out at all, hidden as it is behind a blond-streaked ponytail. "You mean the broken hair tie? And the little bundle of sticks?"

Zhane snickers, and a blush highlights Andros' cheekbones before he reluctantly replies. "Stabby-Stuff, and Henchman Stickman. The can... the can was originally a soup can. Duchess No'odles. And before them all there was the core of a piece of fruit Zhane had stolen from the cafeteria... Lord Dark Boopsie. The Duchess took care of Boopsie as he slowly rotted away, and then she led the villains in his stead. Zhane was in charge of moving both sides of the battles, and I did the voices..."

"We didn't plan it," Zhane tells her as he lets go of Andros and moves closer to the picture, the finger that he runs across its surface reverent. "We crashed the party on Cimmer to try to find out Dark Specter's plans for Zordon. And Andros used Boopsie's voice and an old cloak we'd wear when visiting neutral-aligned stations because, you know, it was a gathering of the galaxy's worst evil-doers and all. We wanted to blend in."

"We weren't expecting a minion attending the feast to record it," Andros continues, turning his head the bare minimum to catch her eyes with his own, the brown of his irises turbulent and troubled. "Or our later encounter with Darkonda. And I don't think anyone could have predicted that Lord Dark would gather a following after two minor appearances. But it happened. A new faction formed..."

"A faction that only wanted peace; an escape from the war." Turning, Zhane hops to sit on top of the desk, his slippered feet swinging in small circles. "Astronema decided to help us because any monster or foot soldier we were able to gain the loyalty of was one less available to Dark Specter. We settled them on a long-abandoned Kerovan colony world... and Finster contacted the Duchess because he was panicking; Kerovian traders had landed seeking repairs. Then, when the repairs proved unfeasible – they requested refuge."

"There are children. There are children, Ashley." Andros' smile, so tiny and frail and hopeful, breaks her heart. "Kerovian and monsterling; they go to school together. They play together. This entire galaxy is at war, but on one small, solitary world there's peace."

"Together..." The picture is hardly more than brightly colored lines; children, just children, playing. Together. And now, now that she understands, Ashley can't bring herself to take her eyes off it. There are neither monsters nor Kerovians represented in the art work; only children. And she quickly wipes away a renegade tear of her own. "The refugees... the other Kerovian refugees... they didn't make it, did they?"

Zhane's feet still as he folds in upon himself and Andros is there before she can blink, catching his friend before he can topple from the desk. "–No," Zhane whispers into the folds of the other boy's jacket. "The ones the coral didn't kill, or the jungle... they killed themselves." He shudders, and Ashley regrets asking even before Andros sends a baleful look her way. "They wanted to go home and saw suicide as the only option. Not that it mattered. They were dying anyway. Nothing I did – mattered."

"Matter doesn't matter," Andros murmurs into pale hair, so softly Ashley almost misses the odd phrase.

"Been stuck in it long enough, it feels like it does." Zhane peeks at her from behind the gray fabric of Andros' uniform. "–And now you know the secret origins of Lord Dark and his loyal Duchess." He pulls away from the other boy although his hands continue to worry at the edges of Andros' jacket. "Do you think if Dark Specter found out the shock alone would kill him?"

"To know that the greatest rivals to his power are a soup can and something like an apple core?" She pretends to think, tapping her index finger against her chin. "Yeah. It's possible under those circumstances outrage would be enough to do him in. Death by apoplexy from the sheer indignation of being out-staged by Rangers playacting villains. But we already have a plan in motion involving the Psychos... Don't want to spread ourselves too thin, so let's stick with that for now."

"Let's." Bending, Andros hooks his finger inside the quilted lining of one of Zhane's slippers and tugs it off. "Go get your shoes on," he tells him gently, "we have shoelaces to buy."

With a dawning grin, Zhane shakes the other slipper off himself. "Then you'd better change. TJ says no uniforms on Earth." Hopping off the desk, he pulls open one of the drawers under his bunk to rummage for socks. "Wanna come with, Buttercup?" he asks as he pulls out a pair of white socks adorned with silver-horned unicorns and pompoms that sparkle with silver thread, and Ashley doesn't bat a lash as he plops down on the bed to pull the socks on. Instead she walks over to inspect the opened drawer, which is filled with novelty socks.

"Carlos?" she asks as she sits by his side on top of the crocheted afghan.

"Mhm!" He wriggles his toes happily, and Ashley giggles at his obvious delight. Fairest of them All indeed. "Aren't they great? Although Cassie gave me some of the others. And a lot of the black ones are from TJ telling DECA I needed socks that matched my uniform..." His lips twitch, as if unsure whether to pout or keep on grinning. "They're so boring, though."

And Ashley thinks boring might be the worst insult Zhane knows. "They really are," she agrees, if only to spite TJ and his budding love for regulation uniforms. "So, shoelaces? I'd love to go with; just give me a few minutes to change into civvies. Can't let Teej down."

"Here," Andros tells her as he shoves something pale yellow and fuzzy at her – and she's been so caught up in admiring Zhane's sock collection that she hadn't realized the other teen had stripped. Down to his underclothes. In front of her, and it takes Zhane's elbow to her side to shake her from her stupor. "Not sure where we picked it up... but it should fit."

It being a knit cardigan; a furry knit cardigan, yellow as fresh butter and silky between her hands. And also apparently meant for a being six feet tall, but it's soft and incredibly warm, and she slips out of her jacket to try it on while doing her best not to watch Andros squirm into a pair of skinny jeans that look as many sizes too small as her new cardigan is too large.

"It was one of Rosethorn's projects," Zhane says wistfully as he shoves a foot into a canvas shoe. "I'd found the yarn, and she purposefully oversized it so Yellow wouldn't snatch it."

"She's the one that made the afghan?"

"Yeah..." Standing, the pale-haired boy twirls for inspection. "Good to go?"

Zhane in his Fairest of them All hoodie and unicorn-themed socks is only slightly less outrageous than Andros in his candy-apple red skinny jeans and black baby doll tee displaying a teddy bear holding a sequined red heart. Ashley can barely breathe from laughter as she looks helplessly from one to the other.

"As if anyone could doubt aliens walk among us," she cackles, standing and feeling the cardigan fall past her knees to tickle against her ankles. "Guys, where do you even find your clothes?" Andros has the nerve to look offended, and she laughs louder as she hooks her arms around theirs. "I can only blame Carlos for so much."

"We asked before we took them," Andros says stiffly. "The man nearby said it was a donation bin. For people in need."

"And we needed clothes," Zhane adds, and Ashley's sorry to see her amusement has chased away his grin. "–Is something wrong with them? TJ said we needed to blend in when we're on Earth, and we thought the best way to do that would be to wear actual Earthian clothes. I mean, I love the ones you got me, but they're so nice I'm kinda afraid of ruining them, and Andros wore out most of his after we lost KO-35–"

"There's nothing wrong with them," she rushes to assure them, pulling them closer in a three-way hug. "I promise, you're adorable. If any of my old cheer squad's at the mall, they're going to be so jealous." And if any of the football team happened to be around and feeling snarky, well, she's pretty sure taking care of them wouldn't be a problem, either.

If Zhane doesn't outright crush them. Honestly, Ashley doesn't see much difference between quantrons and jocks. Although the quantrons are probably smarter, having a woman around to give them orders. And they had the good taste to go about in silver, which she's become increasingly fond of lately.

.oO0Oo.

The Surf Spot is unusually busy even for late afternoon on a weekday, but Cassie waves them over to a table they'd managed to save and Andros is glad for the chance to get off his feet. Shopping with Ashley was brutal in a way defending the outposts had never been, and he wonders what TJ would think if he asked for Blue's professional opinion of going morphed the next time they went out for clothes. With the way TJ's eyes are currently bulging, Andros suspects his professional opinion would be that there wouldn't be a next time.

Andros' plan had been to collect aluminum cans until they'd scrounged enough change to afford a pair of shoelaces. Ashley had listened to him, intently, politely, and had then caught his face between the palms of her hands, kissed the tip of his nose with a resounding smooch, and declared, "My God, you really are tragic. You're both tragedies. I'll spring for a pair of shoelaces, guh. Don't wander off, I swear, Hallmark will kidnap you."

He isn't sure what Hallmark is, other than a store that sold dangling ornaments they'd passed on their way to choose shoelaces, but Andros has already lost his sister to kidnapping; there's no way he's going to let anyone take Zhane from him. When he'd informed Ashley of that, she'd shaken her head hard enough to set the yellow bows in her hair bouncing and proclaimed to whomever might be listening that it was her lot in life to chaperon Disney Princesses.

Andros is shaken from his memories of the afternoon as his friend jostles his side. "Look!" Zhane says excitedly, holding out his new shoelaces for the rest of the team to admire. "Can you believe how shiny they are? And Andros found some in red!" A really nice red that gleams bright as rubies against the scuffed black of his sneakers, and Andros lifts his leg above the table to show the others. "See? Ashley, you're the greatest!"

"She's really not," TJ manages to get out before Cassie smacks the back of his head. And Andros isn't sure what the other boy means, because he agrees with Zhane. Ashley is, quite possible, the best. Hard to understand, yes, and with motivations beyond even DECA's comprehension, but she'd gladly worn the over-sized cardigan through the mall, the sleeves flopping past her hands in a way even Andros is able to perceive as comical. And with her between them, chattering away and pointing out sights they were too overwhelmed to notice, it was easy to ignore the strange, probing stares sent their way by the crowds.

Carlos, at least, oohs and awws appropriately at their new accessories. "By the bags you brought in," he says, his dark eyes flashing, "I think Ashley talked you into getting more than shoelaces, though."

Zhane huffs a laugh that's enough to lift his bangs away from his forehead. But before he can answer a customer seated at another table is shouting at Adelle to turn up the volume on the television mounted behind the counter. And the entire restaurant goes quiet as they watch Rangers, the Astro Rangers, attacking a news crew.

Andros' stomach drops because the Psychos weren't supposed to be sent down until tomorrow. Which means they're in Angel Grove without Astronema's consent. Possibly without her knowledge. And his team is not ready. The revelations that Zhane had brought back from his visit with Finster, that Kerovians – true Kerovians – had survived, and pledged their loyalty to Lord Dark, had left him shaken. Unsure. And he hasn't fully recovered his composure in the hours since. His knees still threaten to buckle every time he thinks of children, infants under his protection.

Finster had insisted Lord Dark be given a holopic the old sculptor had taken of the Duchess cradling two babies – and Andros had shattered when he'd seen it. That picture he'd dared not display on the desk; instead, it's hidden beneath the long pillow he shares with Zhane.

"Do we fight?" Ashley whispers, although there's not much need with how angrily the people around them are muttering. Booing the Rangers on the television.

What can Andros say, but yes? They aren't prepared. They're so far from prepared he's afraid he's going to be sick, but he leads the team outside and around a corner where they can morph and teleport free from hostile eyes. And no mistake, the patrons of the Surf Spot are angry as they curse over the footage being broadcast live. They're worse than furious, they're righteous, and please, Andros thinks as the world disappears around him in a stream of crimson, let them realize that the Psychos are impostors.

Please.

They arrive at the warehouse morphed in time to cover the retreat of the news crew but not to prevent additional destruction as a wall is blown out to allow the Psychos to make their grand entrance. Seeing them in person, it's easy to tell they're not Astro Rangers, the squares across their chests solid black instead of a rainbow–

'Good thing Karone didn't make a Psycho Silver, or I'd be in trouble with one of them actually impersonating me,' Zhane tells him as he summons his silverizer, holding the blade of blue light out to his side. 'Think we should give them time to introduce themselves?' The mocking tone to his friend's question tells Andros all he needs to know about Zhane's opinion on the matter.

'I think this is going to hurt no matter what we decide.' The Psychos approach neatly lined, in step to an unnerving degree – and his sister had claimed they didn't like working together. "You know what," he says slowly over comms, "we're about to be fighting for our lives. If you think you've got a clear shot, take it now."

With a whoop closer to a war cry than any true indication of excitement, Silver opens fire immediately followed by Pink and Black, and Andros aims and squeezes the trigger of his blaster a second behind them as soon as he has line of sight on Psycho Red. Blue seems too stunned to even draw a weapon, but Yellow gives a screech that rivals Silver's and hefts a piece of broken concrete larger than herself to toss at the advancing Psychos. And Andros smiles behind his helmet as she laughs maniacally, celebrating with a quick jig as three of them fall to the ground under the weight of the slung rubble.

"What?" Psycho Blue screams as he pulls himself out from shattered concrete. "You – you cheaters!"

"Know you are, but what am I?" Cassie practically sings as she kicks the downed Psycho Black in the head as she jumps past, and... ouch. Carlos had told Andros that Cassie had been spoiling for a fight, but he wasn't expecting her to actually start jumping up and down on top of the slab of cement that was currently crushing Psycho Yellow.

Blue hasn't moved, and Andros takes a moment to wonder if his teammates' erratic behavior has caused TJ to experience what Ashley had once jokingly referred to as the blue screen of death. Andros doesn't know if it only applies to TJ, or if other people can be overcome by it, but he has little doubt that if there is a blue screen of death, Blue is suffering from it.

'Your doppleganger's heading inside,' Zhane lets him know at the same time Ashley says, "Looks like they're moving the party indoors."

And Andros would have preferred to stay out in the open where he can easily keep track of both teams, but Psycho Red has already fled into the warehouse's dim interior, followed by Psychos Pink and Blue. "We go after them," he decides, because Pink is already chasing her double and Blue is finally beginning to move. "Don't let them lure you off alone but maintain a safe distance from each other; we don't want to be caught in an area attack."

The Psychos hit hard, and despite his advice his teammates run after their evil images leaving Andros wanting to scream in frustration. Three days of training – and they are not ready. At least Silver has his back, maintaining an even ten feet of distance from him at all times, and together they're able to contain Psycho Red while getting the occasional shot off at the other Psychos.

'Really wish you could stick them to the ground,' he tells Silver while Pink goes sailing overhead, flung into a pile of empty wooden crates by her opponent.

'Would be nice.' Zhane's mental snicker is enough to trigger his own quiet laugh that he makes sure doesn't carry over comms. 'It would defeat the purpose, though. We have to fight them as long as possible to get them to drain Dark Spooky's power.'

He knows. He's able to block every four blows out of five, but the hits that are connecting are wearing him down. If it had been only him and Zhane, it would be so much easier. At least when it came to defending themselves. But the rest of the team isn't faring as well, and Red and Silver both are taking damage every time they have to lure a Psycho away from a downed Ranger.

"Status?" he demands as he catches Yellow in mid-air, lowering her to the ground in time to block the tines of Psycho Black's lance with the edge of his saber.

"Pissed," Black snarls as he rolls to a stop at Andros' feet.

Blue's panting shallowly as he joins them. "Couple of cracked ribs. If they break all the way I'm in trouble."

"I'm with Carlos," Pink gasps as Silver pulls her out of the way of her own reflected stunner shots. "She has a bow. A bow, Andros. Why don't I have a bow?"

Andros can feel Silver's amusement at the back of his mind. Below that, though – is fear. Fear strong enough to eat away at the edges of his concentration. 'Still have that bad feeling?'

'So much worse than a bad feeling. Whatever it is, it's going to happen soon.'

Andros has no idea how to prepare for anything as vague as a bad feeling. And for Zhane to be afraid... it's going to be so much worse than merely bad. He glares as the Psychos regroup and begin to transform behind a curtain of lightning; their base armored forms emerge from the light-storm twisted and sharp-edged enough that the lightest brush against them would result in punctures to their own Ranger uniforms.

"We're the Psycho Rangers!" Psycho Red begins to say only to stagger back when Pink shoots him directly in his pitch-black visor. Andros guesses "–What is wrong with you?!" wasn't what his double had been planning on following with, but it works for him as he signals the rest of his team to join in on the barrage. With all six of them firing they're able to hold the Psychos back.

That is, until Psycho Pink disappears only to emerge behind Cassie to grab at Pink's helmet. And Pink abruptly screams.

"They've started," Andros warns them, but the yell that continues to echo through the warehouse has shaken the others' confidence and Blue is already down, swiftly followed by Black as their memories are ruthlessly copied. "Silver...?" he manages to ask before Psycho Red is on him, his black glove blocking Andros' vision and his psychic ability stabbing liquid fire into Andros' brain.

'Got you,' Zhane tells him as silver floods coolly across his mind, racing up the invading tendrils of blood-red and turning them bright and colorless as starlight. 'You wanna make a memory? You wanna steal a piece of time? I have all the time in all the universes that ever were to share. Andros. Keep his hand on your helmet; he's falling but not out yet. Just... just need a, a little...'

And Psycho Red is on the floor, silently writhing with his armor flickering in and out of existence. But at the very edge of his field of vision within his helmet Andros can see that Silver is on his knees as well, slowly toppling forward to land heavily on his outspread hands.

'Zhane?' There's no answer from his friend and Andros pries the hand, the bare hand from off of his helmet as Psycho Red loses his morph completely, nothing more than an unconscious boy roughly their own age sprawled upon the hard concrete in front of him. 'Zhane?!'

'Here. Mostly.' Zhane sounds dazed, and there's a sense of motion sickness that Andros does his best to blink back. 'I think. Did we get him?'

Andros is about to laugh in relief. Or collapse beside his friend, but another scream shivers through the air pitched high enough to shatter the glass out of the warehouse's windows high overhead. And it's not coming from any of the Astros.

Psycho Yellow gives ever indication of being in mortal agony, her shrieks increasing in volume until even the speakers in Andros' helmet are having trouble compensating. Ashley is trying to pull the black glove away from her visor, and Psycho Yellow is trying to push her away – but they're stuck together. Psychos Blue, Black and Pink let their respective Rangers go and retreat several steps back, their strangely spiked helmets twisting as if they're uncertain and confused as to their location.

And still Psycho Yellow screams, louder and louder as her form bubbles and stretches; taller, wider, until the distorted feminine voice gives way to cruel, masculine sniggering. "Too easy," the Psycho chortles, closing and opening his gloved hand as if bemused. "Destroy a person's personality and it's so incredibly easy to take over."

The voice is horribly familiar, and Andros scrambles back to where Zhane remains kneeling. He knows there are three remaining Psychos to his right, knows the demorphed boy lying forgotten on the floor could wake up at any second to once again pose a threat... but Andros knows that voice. Knows its cadences, and its smug superiority. That laugh has haunted his nightmares for years.

He knows that face, as Psycho Yellow removes his helmet to reveal a head of tousled blond hair and acid green eyes. Somehow, impossibly, it's Yellow sneering at him, his bared teeth less threat than the glee building behind his malevolent smile.

"Miss me, Red?" Yellow sneers, low and full of malice as he slinks forward, kicking Ashley aside before she has a chance to move out of his way. And Andros can hear her ribs snap before her morph fails, but he doesn't dare leave Zhane's side, not with Yellow coming for them. "We didn't get to finish our last conversation, did we?" he asks with deceptive friendliness. "Silver tricked me. Tricked me good, that prankster. Distracted me with her Ladyship's plight. Tsk tsk."

'Zhane? I really, really need you up,' Andros pleads as he levels his saber protectively in front of them.

'Hmm?' His friend's thoughts are still scattered between the eternities of time he'd shoved at Psycho Red. ''M up. Aren't I?'

Silver's lack of awareness of the escalating situation only feeds Andros' growing concern; Black's back on his feet and Blue is coming around, but the remaining three Psychos are now watching intently... and Yellow is getting closer, step by deliberate step. Andros has no choice but to get Zhane out before Yellow reaches them. "DECA, teleport Silver back to the Megaship, now."

"Unable to get an accurate fix on your location due to signal interference."

Andros would curse, but he doesn't have the breath to spare as Yellow's upon them in a flurry of kicks and punches. Blue joins in, his axe carving out a moment's respite, and Black is trying to get Silver to his feet while Pink checks on Ashley, but Andros can't keep track of them all no matter how hard he tries. It's panic, useless panic narrowing his vision – but it's Yellow, and Andros knows he isn't going to be given a single spare moment to get a handle on his fear. He jumps over a moaning boy that had been Psycho Red and spares a glance towards the other three Psychos who have yet to move, but the second of distraction costs him as a boot drives hard into the side of his knee as soon as Andros lands.

It hurts, but his Ranger uniform adapts, stiffening the fabric of his armor to hold the damaged joint in place. It hurts as he lunges forward, the point of his saber driving Yellow back, but the pain is worth it for the look of surprise that twists the blond's face. Worth it, that is, until Yellow laughs, harsh and loud and ugly as his consternation turns to demented delight.

A dull double thud echoes through the warehouse at the same time Carlos gasps over comms, and Andros spins towards the noise where a crate full of metallic parts had slammed into Black and Silver sending both Rangers flying into bulky industrial machinery. And silver retreats from his mind until Zhane's little more than a fading sparkle of light against a dark abyss.

'Zhane!' he cries, and, "DECA?!"

"Unconscious. Unable to determine the extent of his head injury due to continuing interference. Red, I advise you to moveSilveraway from the warehouse. I may be able to get a fix on his location once you're outside."

And Andros would love to get his friend outside and away from Yellow, who's lowering his demonic visage of a helmet back over his head – and still laughing. "Red, Red, Red," he taunts through electronic distortion while shaking one finger reprovingly. "You didn't really expect me to give Silver time to recover and pin me down, did you? I learned that lesson," he says, and there's insanity in his continuing laughter, "that day in school. It taught me so much, you wouldn't believe," he croons, easily blocking Blue's axe and ducking the energy rings from Pink's stunner.

It would be so much easier to think if Yellow would just shut up, but Andros' mind is shadowed without Zhane's presence and his thoughts are sluggish; he's too disoriented to avoid another devastating kick to his knee. The strength of the attack knocks him to the cement floor while crippling pain forces his saber from his hand, and a monstrous, malformed version of Yellow's slinger fills his vision.

"Like I said before," Yellow tells him as he grabs Andros by the throat and lifts, "no hard feelings. I can understand not wanting to share your toys." Fingers clench, and Andros' vision swims and his ears ring as veins in his neck are pinched. "Always so selfish, keeping Silver to yourself after I had so much fun playing with him. No matter; my time away has allowed me to dream of new games to play."

A pink blur passes by Andros' face, and Yellow's forced to let him go when the rogue Ranger's punched hard enough to knock his helmet to the side. Andros drops and tries to will back the grayness trying to swamp him because it's not Pink attacking Yellow. Pink is by Ashley's side, supporting her where she sits struggling to breathe through the pain of broken ribs. It's Psycho Pink driving Yellow away, and she's joined by her remaining two teammates...

...and had Psycho Blue and Psycho Black always been female? Andros doesn't remember them being female...

"No!" Yellow yowls as he takes a hit to his stomach and another to his back. "Filthy traitors," he hisses as he dives towards the ground, rolling forward before standing with the barely aware teen that had once been Psycho Red clutched to his chest as an unwilling shield. "You tried to keep me from returning. You tried, and failed! I'm not going to let you stop me now."

"We came back to help," Psycho Pink says, her voice calm. Familiar, familiar as Andros drags himself up on his intact leg, and he swears he can smell berries beneath the rankness of his own fear permeating his helmet. "Of course we tried to keep you away."

Psycho Blue twirls her axe but forestalls her attack for fear of hitting Yellow's hostage. "It doesn't have to be this way. You've held on to this grudge long enough. Zhane was a child, and it was pretty funny, looking back."

"Funny?" There's a cracked, crazed note to Yellow's voice that has Andros staggering towards the wall of machinery where Silver and Black lay unmoving in a tangled heap. They don't know rattles through his head, repeating to the frantic pounding of his pulse. They don't know, they don't know... "Oh. Oh!" Laughter, slimy and curdled. "They never told you? Red..." Yellow's attention snaps towards him, dangerous as a viper's. "Were you keeping secrets from the girls? Protecting Silver?" His laughter is the hiss of a striking snake. "I have no grudge, oh no. I settled my grievance with Silver out behind the conservatory. Didn't I, Red?"

The words hit with a physical weight and Andros stumbles beneath them, once again falling – but he keeps going. Forced to crawl, but he keeps going.

"...What are you talking about?" Psycho Black asks, her lance coming up as Yellow attempts to intercept Andros. "–What did you do to Zhane?"

Yellow bats aside the shaft of the lance contemptuously and laughs, and laughs, and laughs. "So much less than I could have," he jeers as he raises his arm and pushes them aside without ever making contact. "I was just starting out, you could say. Although none of the toys after were nearly as satisfying; I'd have barely gotten started before they broke."

Andros is almost to Zhane, can almost grasp hold of the silver covering his nearest leg. Almost. But Zhane is sliding out of his reach towards Yellow, and though Andros tries to pull him back with his own telekinetic talent it's not enough. He'd never bothered training, not since the day Karone was stolen. He'd never bothered since Zhane was good enough for them both – and it's going to cost Andros everything.

"Ah ah, Red!" Yellow scolds, crouching down to plant his gloved hand against the Silver Ranger's chest. "I'm here on borrowed time and borrowed power; I'm not going to let you waste either. I made a promise to Silver, and I plan to keep it this time around." More laughter that booms like thunder as the air around the rogue Ranger thickens and warps. "After we play..."

They're gone. Zhane, Yellow, and Psycho Red; gone. Teleported away in a shimmer reminiscent of a heat mirage. Andros can barely hear Cassie asking DECA if she can trace the teleport. And he doesn't hear the AI's denial. He doesn't need to. The interference blocking the Megaship's sensors is Yellow. And Andros pays no attention as TJ demands to know who the remaining Psychos are, because Zhane is gone, little more than a lone, feeble spark at the back of his mind.

Zhane will wake up. Zhane has to wake up, and when he does... nothing will stop Andros from finding him.

Carlos is mumbling as he claws his way back to consciousness, and Ashley moans as Cassie carefully helps her to her feet, and TJ wants answers as only a Red-turned-Blue Ranger can demand. "Look, we know you're Astronema's, so stop it with the 'We're friends' nonsense and tell us where he took Zhane!"

"We're not Astronema's," Psycho Black sighs, dismissing her lance with an elegant wave of her arm. "We saw an opportunity to help, and we took it. Stars below, this is a mess. We didn't know Yellow was nearby."

"And we are friends. At least, once we were friends," Psycho Blue says, her tone diffident as she walks towards Andros to offer him a hand up. "I'd like to think we were friends, although we were never particularly good teammates." Andros accepts her help; he has no choice but to accept her help because his knee refuses to hold his weight. His knee is nothing more than a throbbing mass of fire that's also antagonized the old break in his foot, and if the girl at his side steps away, he'll fall.

He'll fall, and keep on falling. 'Zhane? Zhane? Please...'

Psycho Pink is removing her helmet and staring up at TJ earnestly. The curling ends of the pink scarf holding back her hair flutter in the breeze wafting in through the warehouse's broken windows. "You're going to need our help," she tells Blue, stepping around him as others would step around a puddle of mud. "These bodies are so much stronger than the Astro powers..."

Andros gapes, and wishes he were falling. "Rosie?"

"Why is it Zhane's nicknames for us that stuck?" she asks wryly as she stops in front of him, her armored glove hovering above his shoulder with a warmth he barely feels. "Andros." Standing on tiptoes to press her forehead to the glass of his helmet she sighs, her young, too-young face lined with regret. "This is our fault. We'll get him back."

And he loses hold of his morph and faints because he's falling after all.

.oO0Oo.

Carlos aches. His muscles ache. His bones. His head. And he's pretty sure he has a concussion because the Psycho Rangers are girls. Pretty girls. Pretty hot girls, as he stares blankly at Psycho Black who notices his attention and winks. Winks long, luscious lashes and strolls his way, the wings of the black butterfly clips in her hair fluttering with every step she takes.

"So you're my replacement." There's no question in her statement; no hostility in her voice. And her black hair falls like a curtain around them as she leans over to pat his cheek. "Rough day, Carlitos?"

"–Do I know you?" He feels like he knows her. A cousin. Or a cousin's cousin. Looking into her black eyes that hold no reflections, he'd swear she must be family.

She smiles dreamily as her bone-thin fingers stroke along his cheek. "You might. You had a little sister, once."

"I did. She–" Died is at the tip of his tongue. Taken away in her sleep, death had crept into their house and stolen the three-week old from her crib as a silent thief striking in the night, and Carlos knows the woman in front of him. "Itzpapalotl."

Black-glossed lips curl in mirth. "Perhaps once," she admits as she wraps her arm around his chest and heaves him to his feet. "People have called me by that name in the past." She steadies him when his balance threatens to fail him, and she's small beneath his arm now that he's upright. "I'd been hoping to earn a brighter name. Maybe next time, hmm?"

He blinks down at her and wipes at his tearing eyes. His head hurts, and he hopes it's a concussion and not an active bleed in his brain – because that would suck. "You, you were a Black Ranger?"

"That's my morpher strapped around your wrist," she teases, her hand a burning brand against the small of his back. "When the Psychos tried accessing your memories, the morphers shunted the attack straight into the Grid – and they got us, instead. Your evil duplicates didn't have long to be surprised over their mistake. There was so little of them left, our personalities overwrote theirs almost immediately. Lucky for us they were shape-changers. Do you have any idea how miserable this would be if I were stuck with the body of a monster? I've been there; it's not fun."

"...Uh, really miserable?" Carlos guesses, his gaze wandering from the Psychos to the rest of his team injured and disoriented with Andros lying limply on the ground unresponsive, his head pillowed in the lap of a girl practically swallowed by the armor of Psycho Pink. "So, how does this work? The plan was for the Psychos to drain Dark Specter's power..."

"Oh, we're still tied in," the black-haired woman tells him as she lowers him to the ground next to Andros then sits by his side, her black skirt pooling like ink around both their legs. "I have a feeling it's going to take all the power we can possibly steal to rescue Zhane. We work within limits, but Yellow never has. –Blue!" she calls out, then corrects herself when TJ looks over. "No, my Blue," she laughs lightly, beckoning with one finger. "Bluebelle! Have you come up with a plan yet?"

The tall woman in fitted denim overalls ambles over, her expression blandly interested. "I have many plans, several of which I'll have to scrap if Red's proclivity for dramatic fainting continues," she snipes as she arranges herself on the floor across from them. "He's dealt with Silver since they were both kids; you wouldn't think a simple thing like the dead returning would surprise him by now..." Pursing her lips, she glances down at Andros' injured knee swollen hard within the material of the bright red jeans he's wearing. "Better cut him out of those, Pink; circulation to his foot is probably iffy by now."

"Yeah." Spiked armor disappears into sparkling mauve leaving behind a young woman in a floral dress and a white knit cardigan tied with pale pink ribbons. "I would, but I think I left my scissors behind in my last life." The sweetness of her rosebud smile removes any sting that may have been lurking behind her words. "Tell us your plan, 'Belle. And remember, Zhane's our priority at the moment."

"Our problem child," the black-skirted woman whispers into Carlos' ear, her voice fond. "He saved us dozens of times over, but we could never get him to understand that we cared for him just as much."

"Speak for yourself," the woman in blue – Bluebelle? 'Belle? – says archly, but her eyes are soft as she grabs the red denim of Andros' jeans and rips, tearing the fabric as easily as if it had been tissue paper. "...Huh. These bodies are dangerous, even unmorphed." Deftly probing Andros' swollen knee with agile, scarred fingers, she frowns and shakes her head. "This will take the Power days to heal, and that's if you can manage to keep him off it. Which I doubt will be possible while Yellow has Silver... Red never could control himself when it comes to Silver."

Quiet wheezing comes from above Carlos' head, and he looks up into Ashley's waxen yet resolute face. "I can keep him in the medical bay if I have to," she says, her arm pressed firmly against her fractured ribs. "Most of us are going to be spending the night there anyway. But if I can tell Andros that we're actively searching for Zhane, that would help and we could maybe skip the heavy sedation this time around." She pauses, though from pain or weariness or something else Carlos doesn't know. He'd rise and try to comfort her, but the room still occasionally spins around him when he turns his head too fast, and he thinks that if he tries to stand on his own he'll lose the chili fries he'd eaten earlier at the Surf Spot. "–How bad is it, exactly, that Yellow's taken him? What promise was that lunatic talking about?"

The girl in the flowered dress shakes her head sadly, the wispy ends of the scarf tied around her hair trailing across the dusty concrete floor. "Zhane... Before the end he offered us all a way to – not survive, I think we all knew we wouldn't survive – but to... continue on? Even being dead, it's hard to grasp all that Zhane is..."

"Speak for yourself." Gleaming black lips curve in a mischievous smile as the woman at Carlos' side winks at the girl in blue.

"As his duly appointed evil twin, you have an advantage in understanding him that the rest of us lack," 'Belle retorts as she casually rips the denim of the removed pant leg into long strips, carefully wrapping Andros' knee to stabilize it. "But to answer your question; it's unbelievably bad that Yellow has him. You spoke truer than you know; Yellow is insane, and I do not say that lightly. –You'll see. You'll fight him again, and you'll see."

The fries really want to come up, and Carlos swallows against nausea. "Then how was he even chosen to be a Ranger?" he manages to ask as he leans back, lightly bumping against Ashley's legs behind him.

The three women glance uneasily at each other, and Psycho Pink runs her blush-colored nails through Andros' hair several times before she sighs, and answers. "Andros was chosen to be a Ranger by Zordon, but her Ladyship of KO-35 handled the distribution of the rest of the morphers–"

"Except for Twinsie."

"–Yes, except for Zhane, who literally pulled his morpher out of thin air," the pink-scarfed girl corrects herself, rolling her eyes at the snickering of her friends. "And the morphers weren't assigned by merit but by the status and wealth of our parents, and how large the bribes given to her Ladyship were. We made awful Rangers, but Yellow..."

"Yellow promised Zhane he'd see him dead." The odd, wary tone of the black-haired girl's pronouncement has Carlos looking directly at her, hoping to see some sign of amusement, a hint that she's joking, but there's only grim conviction staring back at him from eyes dark as space. "There's history between all of us. Yellow–"

"Will tear Zhane apart if he can get past his morph," Andros mutters as he cracks open his eyes. "Literally," he groans, his fingers scraping against the cement floor as his hands spasm. "I have to find him. I have to–"

"Rest," Ashley tells him firmly. "You can't fight if you can't stand, Andros. None of us are well enough to fight right now, except maybe Cassie." There's a breathless quality to her voice and Carlos worries for her ribs. He's worried, he admits to himself, for all of them, living and dead Rangers alike. "How long can the Power keep Silver's morph active while Zhane's unconscious?"

"It will have to be long enough." The woman in overalls secures the make-shift bandage around Andros' knee, and stands. "Now that you're with us Red, you should know that we're going back to Astronema. The memories of the Psychos are fragmented, but I can infer that Silver is – special – to her. The Princess of Evil had a hand in forming these bodies; perhaps she'll know of a way to track Yellow and bring him down."

"She's going to throw a fit," Andros groans as he rolls to his side, his head falling off the lap it had been resting upon to thud against the concrete below. "She's... she's my sister. Karone. She'll blast you if you tell her Zhane's been kidnapped." Carlos can tell that Andros wants to curl in on himself, wants to hide, wants to escape. It's clear in the rapid blinking of his eyes and the trembling of his lips, but he stays and forces himself to focus on the women surrounding him. "...Rosie? I, I didn't imagine you?"

"You may have imagined me," she tells him softly as she helps him sit with gentle, undemanding hands, "but I'm here. Psycho Pink at your service."

"Later," the woman in blue says as she looks towards the open beam ceiling far above them. "We're running out of time. The Psychos came to Earth without permission. We need to get to Astronema before she reaches the point of destroying first and asking questions after. It helps knowing she's your sister, Red. Means there's a chance of reasoning with her."

"We'll be back soon," the girl in the dress promises, her hand lingering on Andros' shoulder. "I swear, we'll rescue Zhane. And take care of Yellow once and for all."

And against his ear, Carlos feels warm breath and the tickle of long, black hair no different than the beat of a butterfly's wings. "Take care of yourself, Carlitos," she murmurs as if sharing a secret. A secret between the two of them, and Carlos trembles at the impossibility she represents. If she truly is Itzpapalotl, and he knows she is, knows it down to the very fibers of his being, then Zhane...

The thought is too much and Carlos lets it slip away from him beneath worry and stress and the pulsing pain of headache.

The three women morph, the bestial metallic armor of the Psychos covering their forms and faces. And Psycho Black waves, incongruously cheery as they teleport out of the warehouse. And Carlos can hear her after she's gone, her voice the smooth rasp of butterfly scales, 'So wise, Carlitos. Best to forget. Most of us are better off forgotten.'

Then Cassie is there, helping him up while TJ lifts Andros in a modified carry meant to protect both Andros' knee and TJ's bruised ribs.

"Med bay?" Carlos asks as the room swims sickeningly around him, and he's never eating fries again. Or at least for the next month. He's not looking forward to DECA's brusque bedside manner – but lying down sounds heavenly. Pain meds, here he comes...

"I wish we could," TJ tells them, his expression bleak. "DECA says an intruder got on board the Megaship. Her sensors are no longer detecting them, but..."

Andros' eyes are wide enough that white surrounds his amber irises completely. "DECA?" he asks with a desperation that's close to denial.

"I'm sorry, Andros," the AI says, her voice almost staticky. "Yellow's room has been breached."

.oO0Oo.

Astronema would like to think she's reasonable. Patient, with those deserving patience – of which there are so very few. Her Psychos she has no patience for, impudent children disobeying her direct command. She glares at them while her fingers flex along the shaft of her staff, and she considers the merits of ending their pathetic existences before they've had a chance to fulfill their purpose. She does, after all, have other plans for dealing with Dark Specter should she need them. Astronema is never without plans.

"What did you think you were doing?" she hisses at them, three out of five of her merry little band of murderers. She had been irate when she'd discovered them missing from their quarters, furious when she could not find them through the Dark Fortress' sensors; now, she's beyond such weak, petty emotions. The ball of rage at her core is incandescent, violet and throbbing with pent-up potential.

"You'd need to ask Psycho Red," Psycho Pink tells her, and... oh. Oh. Astronema wants to fling back her hair, but it's short and straight and such a gesture would be less than pointless. She'd created the Psychos herself from malice and magic – and that isn't Pink's voice. Even through the electronic distortion of the helmet's speaker she'd know Pink's voice anywhere, and that isn't it.

"With me," she orders them, impostors on her Fortress and someone is going to pay in pain and strips of flesh. Darkonda has yet to show back up from his latest death, but she can't be too careful; Dark Specter has flooded her corridors with spies. There are monsters she doesn't know walking patrols and pirahnatrons of all cursed things lurking about in unused corners. Purple crackles at her fingertips and she fights the urge to simply purge her base of the three following behind her.

She can kill them after she interrogates them.

Striding through the command chamber, she beckons her guardian to join them and Ecliptor falls into place at her side as they enter her office. And with a wave of her hand she locks the door and slides the blast shutters closed over the lattice-work that usually makes up her walls. No one needs to hear the questioning. No one needs to see – until she's ready to make a point of what befalls all those that seek to betray her.

"Speak," she demands as purple crawls from her hands to blister the surface of her desk. "Speak while you're still able."

The impostors do not speak, though. Instead they unlatch their helmets and remove them. Remove them, and hold the jagged helms by their sides as they stare at her with unimpressed eyes and aloof faces and she's going to fry them, how dare they!

Kerovians. Dead Kerovian Rangers gazing vapidly at her as if she were less than nothing. Astronema knows their faces. She'd watched them perish in recordings taken by her forces during the final battle of KO-35 as her troops overran the spaceport. She'd rejoiced in their deaths while she'd grieved the loss of her gray-haired boy of dreams; had considered them failures playing at being Rangers that couldn't manage to protect one. single. boy. Of course, she hadn't known at the time that her precious, precocious mousling had been Silver, and her gut squirms each time she remembers the pleasure she'd taken in watching the Silver Ranger's death. Over and over, from multiple angles.

Astronema would hate herself, were she capable of it.

Blue, Psycho Blue, the woman that was once Astro Blue shrugs as if unconcerned. Perhaps she is; being dead would surely change a being's priorities. "Psycho Red wanted to impress you, Princess. Wanted to gift you with the Astros' heads, prove he was worthy of your time and attention. When they went after the Ranger's memories, however..."

Black laughs, low and biting. "They got us, instead. Finders, keepers as the Earthians say."

"I don't know what might be left of Psycho Red," Pink says, and she at least isn't mocking. No. Pink is properly scared, but Astronema doesn't think it's her Pink's frightened of. "Zhane didn't take kindly to him trying to get into Andros' head. Silver's a vicious bastard when provoked."

"Just one of the reasons why I like him," Black coos, the butterfly clips caught in her hair slowly fluttering their wings although there's no current of air to account for their movement.

Pink frowns at her companion as she twirls the end of one long, trailing scarf-end with a black-gloved finger. "Psycho Red isn't the problem. I don't think he's capable of being a problem right now. It's Yellow. He's back as well, and crazier than ever. –We all underestimated him. He was able to knock Zhane out before we realized what he was up to, and he took Silver and Psycho Red with him when he escaped."

"...Astro Yellow? The original Astro Yellow?" The squirming in Astronema's gut turns frozen and hard and her tapping fingers still on the shiny, bubbled surface of her desk. "The Yellow that started killing his own people to get to Red and Silver? The one that slaughtered the last of KO-35's organized defense in a mass murder-suicide that impressed even the worst of the Alliance? That Yellow?"

Ecliptor is shifting, the ruby glow of his eyes hiding deep unease. "My Princess," he says gravely, silty water over stone, "Darkonda kept surveillance specifically on Astro Yellow during the time the traitor was in charge of the Kerovan campaign. All recordings are saved. Darkonda took – pleasure – in watching them. Claimed Yellow made a better agent than any of the saboteurs we had in place."

"...Did he?" Ice and dread is all Astronema feels as she hacks into Darkonda's personal files; fragments of plots and mischief already executed that she's read through before. What was done to Ecliptor, and to herself, those files she's combed through carefully to ensure no surprises remain to ensnare them unexpectedly. But she'd never felt the need to view the footage stored within the directory designated fun times. Even a Princess of Evil has limits. And...

...Astronema may never sleep again, as she watches atrocity after atrocity committed by Yellow. "–You let him get away with this?" she whispers to the three women standing across the desk from her. "You..."

"We didn't know," Pink says, her head bowed and the ends of her scarf grayed from dust. "We mostly worked alone, all but Silver and Red. And they were war zones. There was no one left to look for missing persons. If any of Yellow's victims were found, they were likely attributed to your troops."

"Never mine!" Astronema grates, her teeth flashing in threat. "I would never! I–" She forces herself to calmness, although her hands tremble as she presses them flat against the console built into her desk. "Darkonda would order such defilements, but he's not Alliance. He was personally groomed by Dark Specter." File after file plays, and she'd had to mute the sound after the second had finished or risk being sick.

She can watch no longer; there is footage enough saved to the directory to last days. And each file is incrementally worse. Astronema breathes, evenly, slowly, until her cold, unwieldy fingers can delete Darkonda's entire foul database.

"...And he's taken Zhane?" She needs to contact her brother. She needs him. And together they'll save Silver. She can't think otherwise or the galaxy will burn from the strength of her wrath. They'll get Zhane back, and then and only then will she worry about Dark Specter. Who will also burn. Dark Specter. Darkonda. Yellow.

Her Alliance has no place for such brutality. Her Alliance will be one of darkness... but not such evil as she's just witnessed. Light is not alone in having ethics. Darkness, too, has its own standard of morality.

"He doesn't dare let Zhane regain consciousness," Pink tells her as she places her helmet back over her head. Once again faceless. Once again Psycho. "He's been terrified since childhood of Zhane's telekinetic talent. And he can't... he won't get what he wants with Zhane morphed." The squeal of metal on metal as Pink clenches her hands around her forearms. "And he won't kill Zhane until he gets what he wants. We have time to find them."

"Do we?" Astronema has doubts. Closing her eyes she can see the footage playing, over and over, and she hadn't needed the sound on to hear the screams. "Look for them," she orders the women, dismissing them with a wave of her arm that unlocks her office door and sends the shutters back into their recesses. "Find Silver. And I'll think on what to do with you after."

They leave, and Ecliptor's hand as it closes over her shoulder is more comfort than she deserves. "Astronema," he rumbles, "what do you need from me?"

"Find whatever hole Darkonda's crawled into, whatever crooked web he's weaving, and relieve the beast of another life. But not immediately. I need you to make a substitution, shall we say? An exchange before the wretch explodes. Then return to me, my friend. We have a Ranger in need of killing, and killing Rangers is one of your specialties."

Fist clenching over his chest where most organic sentients would safeguard their hearts, Ecliptor bows to her and departs. And Astronema stares blindly down at the now blank screen on her desk. She has no plans, not for this. Had never, ever thought to plan for the return of dead Rangers. Had never thought she'd regret creating the Psychos, what should have been her greatest triumph now threatening her with unimaginable heartbreak.

She stares, completely blind to the office around her. Stares into a possible future she'll do anything to prevent. "...invisible in your sleep, intently nocturnal, while I untangle my worries as if they were twisted nets," she murmurs, and it's enough to settle her. There is still poetry woven through her soul and that means Zhane is nearby, somewhere in the Sol system. Likely still on Earth, only hidden. Frustratingly hidden. She will find him. There is no other option.

Purple seethes beneath her skin, but she is calm. Calm. Karone needs to contact her brother. –He'll need her. And she needs him. She needs them both or all will burn and neither darkness nor light will win once all is reduced to ash.

.oO0Oo.

DECA had reported an intruder. Had said Yellow's room had been breached. Whatever that could have meant, because there'd been no cabin for Yellow aboard the Megaship. Ashley should know; she'd taken over Andros' old room precisely because there had been no quarters assigned to Yellow. But there is a jagged maw of a hole blasted through thick metal paneling on deck 2... and there's a room, lit by emergency lighting, beyond the melted slag and scorched alloy that now mars the hallway of crew quarters.

With Cassie's help, TJ had gently sat Andros down on the floor before the Blue Ranger had entered the newly exposed room – fully morphed. Because there had been an intruder on board, and though DECA says her sensors show no further life signs or hints of infiltration, none of them are willing to take the risk that the AI's been deceived. Yellow had been crew, once.

And Ashley crouches by Andros' side as best as she's able with her ribs just beginning to knit back together and each breath she's able to take a victory against the stabbing pain that threatens to overwhelm her. Andros – isn't doing well, and Ashley doubts it's his knee that's the problem. Having Zhane leave voluntarily had nearly destroyed their leader. Having Zhane taken... Ashley doesn't want to consider what the consequences may be.

Andros' eyes are terribly blank, fixated on the dim recesses of the room across from them. And his lips are moving soundlessly, repeating the same string of words that Ashley struggles to hear. So she moves closer, ducking her head until her temple is nearly pressed to his mouth.

"Close it," Andros whispers. Pleads. Begs. "Please, close it."

"Yellow was looking for something," she tells him as she pushes a blond-streaked strand of his hair back over his shoulder. "We need to know what, or if he managed to take anything."

And Andros whimpers, his gaze never leaving the room. "Please close it."

He needs to be in medical, and Ashley is close to ordering DECA to teleport them both there. Andros – needs help. But before Ashley can open her mouth to make the request, TJ is screaming at the ship's AI instead.

"What the hell, DECA?" TJ's accusation echoes, a shout so much louder than any Ashley's ever heard from him in the past. Not even when they'd lost their Zords. Or the Command Center. TJ just doesn't lose it like that. At least until now, and Ashley shivers at the implications. What, exactly, had he found lying in wait in the room that was once Yellow's? "How... How..." A loud, meaty thud from a fist meeting a wall, and Ashley pulls herself upright while Andros flinches below her.

"My programming only allows me passive scanning of personal quarters unless actively called upon," DECA replies, her tone subdued. "Heart rate, and breathing; I can only intervene if loss of life is imminent. Yellow never called for me in his cabin. I didn't know, TJ."

"Well, someone knew. They sealed the damned place!"

Ashley takes as deep a breath as her ribs allow and ducks through the blasted opening, the metal edges still molten hot in spots and capable of burning from an inch away. TJ's just beyond, ramrod straight but wracked by full-body tremors, and beyond him... Walls. Plastered with pictures. Traditional images with holopics scattered amongst them. Collages of pics with bits of clothing and other mementos displayed proudly below them, grouped by... She swallows, and covers her mouth with the back of her hand. Grouped by subject. By victim. Victims. So many victims, and Ashley falls weakly against TJ's uniformed back.

Yellow's room is the trophy case of a serial killer.

"What the–" Turning, TJ catches her around the shoulders before she can fall to her knees. "Ashley?! What are you doing here? You shouldn't..." He shakes, and she shakes with him as she presses her face against the blue of his uniform. "God. No one should be in here."

"There's a blank spot on the wall," she says disjointedly into the damp material covering his shoulder. Someone's crying. Who could possibly be crying? She'd seen... she'd seen the blank spot on the wall, tacks still in place where pictures had been hastily torn down. "TJ? TJ, there's a blank spot on the wall."

"I know, Ash," he tells her as he walks them both towards the opening. "I saw it. Carlos? Help me get her out of here. Don't! Don't look in. Whatever you do..." Ashley can feel his Adam's apple bobbing, his heart racing, and the keening of someone crying is beginning to hurt her ears.

Blue is replaced by the faded black of a worn cotton shirt and Ashley can feel herself being carried. Teleported. Lain on a surface firm but soft while a blanket is drawn up over her and a cuff wraps itself around her upper arm. Carlos, it's Carlos standing above her with his brows creased in worry, and it's the lights of the med bay overhead, dimmed but still blinding. And she turns her head to see Andros on the examination bed next to her, his eyes open but vacant.

So vacant, and Ashley wants that. She wants out of her mind.

"Carlos?" she pleads as a pleasant warmth works its way up her arm from the cuff and it's wrong, so very, very wrong. "There's a blank spot on the wall," she lets him know. He needs to understand. It's important. "Yellow. Yellow took the pictures. Who was it? Why did Yellow come back for those pictures?"

"It's Zhane." Andros' voice – is small. Hurt. Lost and far away and fading. And he turns his head slowly to meet Ashley's eyes... And has it been Andros crying this entire time? Someone's still sobbing... "He would have come back for his pictures of Zhane. Zhane, Zhane doesn't know. Zhane can't know..." A keen, a cry, and warmth that's now in her chest and Ashley wants to protest.

"DECA?" she can hear Carlos ask, but all she can see are Andros' empty eyes. "You're sedating them?"

"Please," Andros begs of her, and this secret now shared between them. "Please, close it. Please..."

Yes, she agrees as her lids fall heavy over her eyes. Please. Please close the door.

.oO0Oo.

His eyes are open long before he's aware of waking. The med bay; he hates medical and the cottony sensation sedation leaves in his mouth, and DECA. He hates DECA. He's pretty sure he does as he glares at the dimmed lights above him. Andros is talented; he's been told so by others. So talented that he can hate many things at once with ease.

Laughter like honey spreads across his tongue chasing away the cloying cotton, and Andros blinks at a room stained muddy green. And something inside him uncoils, relaxing as his senses adjust. This, this is the world as he wants it. This...

"Zhane?" he mumbles, his lips mostly numb and unwelcome warmth creeping up his veins to pull him back under the suffocating waters of sleep.

'Sorry. Sorry. Really didn't want to have to put you through this again.' His friend's contrition smells like moss, earthy and green in his nostrils, and Andros sneezes against it. '...DECA really doesn't want you waking up, does she? It's okay, I've got it...'

"Zhane?" he tries again as he blinks grit from his eyes. "...You're back?"

'Depends on your definition of back.' Sheepishness, and embarrassment, and the scalding bitterness of shame; all acrid flavors and Andros wants the sweetness of honey to return. 'Yellow keeps bashing me in the head each time I start to recover. Thought it would be better to hang out with you for a while.' Shame, sour as vinegar. So much shame, and Andros wants to spit it out. 'I don't know how many more hits I can take, even being morphed. I'm so sorry, Andros. –I don't know what my returning is going to do to you.'

"Don't you dare!" he hisses feebly as he plucks at the cuff encircling his arm. "Don't you dare be sorry." One bed over Ashley stirs and Andros hisses again before he can stop himself. Stupid DECA. Stupid drugs. And he wraps his awareness around the silver that's returned to the back of his mind while he'd slept, and welcomes it. "Zhane," he croons, kicking with one leg while the other remains unresponsive, to push himself upright on the bed.

"Andros?" Carlos croaks from across the room, and Andros feels his lips lift in a snarl because how many people had DECA managed to stuff into medical? And why? There are holes in his memory, empty spots raw and ragged. Yellow. Yellow had taken his friend and Rose... Rosie... It doesn't matter. His knee hurts, but it doesn't matter. Yellow had gotten aboard the Megaship and... and... it really doesn't matter. "What are you doing up?"

"Shh," he urges drunkenly as he swings his legs off the edge of the examination bed. And one of his legs is in a brace. A brace, and he scowls at it. Yellow will wet himself laughing if he sees Andros coming after him wearing a brace...

'Leave it. Yellow managed to mangle your knee. I can support it if needed, but... I'm kinda tired. Not at my best right now.'

"S'okay." Andros smiles to himself, content to leave the brace in place since Zhane seems to think it's important. "Where are you? Gonna rescue you."

Disappointment bursts like soap bubbles against his fingertips. ''M not really sure. Only managed to get my eyes open once. He's... he's been quicker to hit me, since. There's books, I think. Earth books, maybe. Hey, I'm close enough to have found you to jump my self over! So...'

"Means you're on Earth." The room contracts to a pinprick around him as his bad knee collapses and only arms locked around his waist keep him from tumbling to the tiled floor. "On Earth," he tells the faded black T-shirt that fills his field of vision. "Earth!" he insists, poking at the material that fails to yield way. "...Carlos?"

"You're going to wake Ashley." Andros is lifted and placed back down on the bed – and that's not right. He needs to get to Zhane. "Now what's all this about Earth?"

Duh, and Andros licks at the taste of spun sugar that coats his mouth. "Zhane's on Earth," he explains slowly, slowly so the planetary Ranger will understand.

"He was able to contact you?"

Andros pokes at the black shirt again, narrowing his eyes at the annoyed huff his action produces. "No. Zhane's with me. It's safer," he says with exaggerated care. "Otherwise Yellow might hit him too hard. Or too often. Ugh. We're all tangled together right now. Was easier when it was just DECA. DECA! Tell them. Him. Whoever."

'Might need Mom to untangle us properly this time around. Andros... I wouldn't have come back like this if I had any other choice.'

"There's books," he mutters to Carlos as a blanket is pulled over him, but the cuff is left off when he hisses and swipes at the offending bit of medical equipment. "Oh! Books in English. Zhane's going to try to stay with me so Yellow will stop hitting him. But he says my body's chemistry is going to be screwed again." He giggles as the room lightens to peach and Carlos' eyes, dark and concerned, have replaced the endless expanse of faded black cotton between one second and the next. Andros can't help himself, and he pokes the other boy between the eyes as he giggles once more. "This is so much better," he purrs, fisting his hands in the folds of the soft blanket. "Last time it was only me and Zhane and DECA, and I told Zhane to shut up... No! Zhane, I didn't mean–"

'It's okay. I'm here. Let's get some sleep while we can, huh? Then we'll see if there's anything left of me to rescue.'

"Hmm." Rolling over to his side, easily ignoring the pain of his knee, Andros releases his hold on the blanket and instead latches on to Carlos' shirt because it's warmer. "Gonna cut off Yellow's balls and force them down his throat 'til he chokes," he mumbles as a dancing spark greets him in a familiar field of stars. And he falls asleep to the taste of mint and honey.

.oO0Oo.

Cassie has Ashley on one side of her and Andros on the other as she escorts them down the hall to their quarters. TJ trails behind them as backup in case... Well, just in case. DECA had said both were healed enough to leave the med bay, although Cassie can't help but wonder. Carlos had shaken his head at the AI's decision, then pulled his blanket back up over his head. With the severity of his concussion it would be another day before he was given permission to leave, and it didn't look like he was going to argue over DECA's order.

Ashley is leaning against her for support, but Andros is stubbornly walking on his own although he's awkward with the gait the brace forces upon him. Ashley is subdued, and her eyes keep making quick, frantic jerks towards the right where the hole leading into Yellow's room has been hastily repaired, inexpertly welded over with spare panels pulled from the secondary cargo bay on deck 5.

And as they pass by it Ashley shudders, but Andros doesn't seem to notice it at all. And Cassie allows herself to look back, meeting TJ's dark eyes, and he nods in return. Their leader's reaction isn't right. After the night before... nothing about Andros' nonchalance is right.

Although it's too soon to press, Cassie can't prevent the probing question from sneaking past her lips. "What should we do about Yellow's room?" Not that anything needs to be done. DECA had taken down the, the evidence and stored it where no one could accidentally stumble upon it, and TJ would finish sealing off the cabin by the end of the day. But she's curious as to what Andros thinks. She's curious... and she needs to know the depths of the trauma they're dealing with.

Against her side Ashley shudders, but Andros limps along undisturbed. "Huh?" he finally says when he notices her stare, his own expression vaguely puzzled. "Yellow doesn't have a room. But Ashley can use mine; I don't mind."

That's enough to pull Ashley out of her own near-panic. "Andros... I've been using yours," she says, her voice tight. "Since our second night on the Megaship."

He blinks, long lashes briefly concealing pale amber eyes. "Right. –I knew that. And when Zhane's throwing a tantrum, I'm in the room next to yours." His mouth quirks before softening into a fond smile. "Don't even try to deny it; my tantrums are nothing compared to yours. Yeah? Tell that to the entire class you glued to their seats."

The palm of TJ's hand on her back is a spot of blazing heat against the chill Cassie feels down to her bones. She presses against it as Ashley huddles against her side, all of them seeking comfort. Whatever is wrong with Andros, they're not equipped to deal with it. Not trained, not capable. He needs help. And for all of DECA's assertions that she's certified for the psychological treatment of the ship's crew, how could an AI, an electronic brain with a mind of code, even begin to understand mental illness?

At least they've passed the crudely welded section of hallway, and Ashley reluctantly steps away from her when they reach the door with the keypad still bearing a red line above it. "This is my stop," she says with forced cheer. "Thanks for the help, Cassie, Teej." She attempts a smile that falls short but that's trying, and Cassie smiles back at her in encouragement. She hadn't personally seen the interior of Yellow's room, only heard about it second-hand – and she's grateful. At least one of them made it through yesterday relatively unscathed, and she'll gladly help the rest of her team recover. "Take care, huh Andros?"

"Hmm?" Distracted, Andros scratches absently at the teddy bear adorning his tee, and there's something about his eyes... Cassie remembers them being darker. Browner. "Oh. We're here? That was fast." TJ remains standing behind them, and he manages to catch Andros' arm as the other boy begins to wander back the way they'd come from. And Andros continues trying to walk for several seconds afterwards before he even notices the hand holding him back. Owlishly he blinks down at TJ's gray sleeve, then up at TJ himself as his expression flickers between confused and peeved. "What?"

"Room's that way," TJ informs him, gently turning him around with a guiding hand on his elbow. "Uh, all your rooms, actually. Which one do you want?"

"Room? I don't have time," he tells them as he frowns, shaking off the other boy's hold. "I need to find Zhane; he just woke up. Like a rubber band..." His frown turns into a grimace and he rubs the side of his head as he steadies himself against the corridor wall. "DECA, have you been able to pick up any trace of him? Any at all?"

"Besides the changes to your brainwaves when he's present? No, Andros. Is he able to give you any further clues as to his location?"

Cassie stares at her friends, because... what? From the beginning, when the shuttle was taken aboard the Megaship, it had always been as if DECA and Andros were speaking a language frustratingly close to English but not quite. And more than ever, Cassie fears that they've missed things. Carlos had claimed that the two from KO-35 could speak with each other telepathically, and Ashley had blathered on about photons and soulmates and binary stars, but altered brainwaves? That's a whole other level of alien and Cassie's not entirely sure if she's willing to stretch her belief that far.

Although with Zhane being able to crush entire troops of quantrons with his mind alone, she supposes anything and everything is possible. Maybe. Or maybe it's just Zhane.

Andros huffs in irritation. "Okay. Awake might be an exaggeration. Slightly aware? The Power healed him enough that he snapped back to his body." Pushing himself away from the wall, he tries again to head back towards the lift, but TJ's blocking his path and Andros must be out of it because he can't seem to figure out why he can't move forward. "He's trying to open his–"

And TJ is able to catch Andros as he collapses, his eyes rolling up in his head until only the whites show. And Cassie helps her friend lower him to the ground as he convulses, once, twice, then stills. And Ashley is on her knees beside them as she frantically checks his pulse.

"DECA?" Ashley asks as soon as she detects a heartbeat. "What just happened?"

The nearest camera whirs and several others along the hall turn to focus on them, red lenses alight with activity. Seconds stretch towards a full minute before the AI responds. "The most likely scenario from analysis of Andros' mental activity over the past half-hour is that Zhane was pulled back to his body as it regained consciousness. He then abruptly returned to Andros. Extrapolating from conversation overheard last night while Andros was recovering in medical, the most probably cause was additional head trauma perpetrated by Yellow against Silver."

"You mean..." Cassie would much rather believe in telepathy, or soulmates, or the tooth fairy than what she's about to verify. "Yellow's, what, hitting Zhane over the head every time he starts to come around?"

"To get past the innate protections of Silver's helmet, Yellow would be applying much more force than the word 'hitting' implies."

Cassie regrets eating breakfast.

A low groan escapes from Andros as TJ straightens his injured knee, and Ashley whispers encouragement to him as his fingers twitch and his lashes flutter, slowly lifting to expose dazed, cloudy eyes. Only, the irises aren't clouded, Cassie realizes. They're silvered. Amber has lightened to the gold of honey, and silver sheens across the surface as he fitfully tosses his head.

"Hey, welcome back," Ashley says softly as the fingers she'd used to check his pulse stroke along his jaw down to his chin to capture his straying attention. "You guys okay?"

And when Andros eventually answers, his tone of voice, cadence, inflection... Cassie would swear he sounds like Zhane. "Oh. This is so bad." Shaking hands rise to cover his face, the pads of his thumbs pressing into his temples hard enough that his nails leave crescent marks in their wake. "We can't handle many more of those... I have to stop Yellow.

"We're running out of time."

.oO0Oo.

Days. Days with no sighting of Yellow. Days Andros has spent clinging desperately to Zhane, but no matter how tightly he holds on to his friend, as long as the Silver Ranger stays morphed the Power keeps healing him. Not enough, not ever enough for Zhane to wake long enough to figure out where he is. Just enough, just barely enough to draw him back to his body, time and again, only for Yellow to send him straight back to Andros.

"Yellow's going to kill us both without even realizing it."

Andros lifts his head from command's console and tries to focus on the viewscreen. His sister is there, the short locks of her flame blue hair in disarray as if she'd had no time to brush the wild strands before escaping the Fortress to contact them. And her eyes, nearly as clear a blue as her hair, are filled with dismay.

"Brother," his sister says, and concern isn't Astronema's style but she sounds sincere. He thinks she sounds sincere, but there's a ringing in his ears that refuses to fade. "You can't go on like this."

Andros would like to know what the alternative is. There are cracks in his mind, spreading, widening; areas where memories sink below the surface of utter blackness. Areas that Zhane was once able to bridge in streams of silver, but Zhane can hardly hold himself together, never mind them both.

When Zhane had died on KO-35 it had been a single transfer. Orderly, despite how quickly it had been accomplished. What's happening now, over and again, is not neat. Not planned. And Zhane is beyond exhausted as he struggles not to return to Andros, while Andros fights just as vehemently to keep his friend with him.

Andros isn't sure whose tear it is rolling down his face; Zhane's, or his. Once, not so very long ago, Andros had complained that he wasn't sure where he ended, and Zhane began. And he laughs now. Laughs, and doesn't see the worry on his sister's face, or the concern of the Rangers that surround him on the bridge. He laughs because, stars above and below, what he wouldn't give to have such firm boundaries once more. Once, Zhane had occupied a metaphysical space at the back of his mind. Now?

Zhane comes to him in bits and pieces, scattered, settling where he lands. Like leaves, Andros imagines, blown by the wind. And Zhane grows quieter each time he returns. Andros thinks of his own mind as a lawn, and he the caretaker carefully raking leaves into a single pile. Raking, raking, until a gray-haired boy stands beside him; stands, and sits, and leans against his legs and trembles.

Astronema may be on the viewscreen. She may be talking; Andros doesn't know. He rakes, and sits by his friend's side on a lawn made of stars, and holds Zhane close.

"You need to stay with me this time," he begs, resting his cheek against pale hair. Pale, pale hair that's black at the roots. "We haven't dreamed in days. Stay. We need the rest."

"I'm killing you, Andros." The mote that rests in his cupped palm doesn't dance. Doesn't sparkle. 'You need to throw my self away. Crush the pebble and have Karone reset the wards around your mind. You have to, or neither of us will survive.'

He presses the mote to his heart, and cradles Zhane in his lap; no matter the form, Andros isn't letting go. "I have strength enough for us both. We'll get through this. You'll see."

The lawn may be made of stars, a field of stars, but they're distant and provide so very little light to see by. And Andros knows there's a trail going back, going home, but it too is faint. Everything in the universe is fading, and he thinks he can hear far off in the distance and within himself the dark gloating chuckle of gravity.

"...If you won't let me go, then I'm powering down. Next time, next time I'm yanked away, I'm demorphing."

Andros snarls and holds his friend tighter, tight enough that Zhane gasps in complaint. "You are not. If you demorph, Yellow will... Yellow will..."

"Kill me, yes. I know, Andros. It's okay. I've been dead before."

And Andros wants to howl, because Yellow wouldn't kill him. Not at first. And not for a long while after. But Zhane doesn't know. Zhane can never know, and Andros rocks them both as he hisses his distress. "You have to do what I want most, Zhane." He takes a breath through strands of hair the same colorless color as the dim starlight that surrounds them. "What do I want most?"

The defeat in Zhane's voice hurts Andros to hear. "You want me to stay. I've tried. I've tried. If I keep trying, you will die. I'm sorry, Andros." Hands clammy and cool weakly clasp Andros' own. "To keep you safe, I'll break that restriction."

Someone, someone's trying to gain Andros' attention, but their nagging is even further away than the stars. "Can you?" he asks harshly as a growl builds in the back of his throat. "Can you really?"

"...No."

A hand slaps across his face hard enough that his jaw aches from the force behind the blow, and Andros blinks at a starfield one moment and the bridge the next, TJ standing in front of him with his arm raised to strike again. "Andros! Psycho Pink says we might be able to lure Yellow out of hiding if we use you as bait. For the chance to get at you, he might... He might show up. If we did, would Zhane be able to do his, his thing," a waggle of fingers Andros is too tired to interpret, "and take him out?"

Opening and closing his mouth, Andros would rather return to his friend than try to answer pointless questions. "Take him out?" It makes no sense. And he glances up to his sister for some explanation, but she, too, looks hopeful. Expectant.

It's Ashley that tries to clarify. "Yellow won't let Silver wake because he's scared of Zhane's telekinesis. But Yellow doesn't know that Zhane's with you. We just need to trick him into a confrontation, and Zhane can–" she clenches her fist, a smile that's closer to a grimace lifting her lips. "Boom. End of Yellow."

He wants to laugh. He wants to weep. Zhane, listening in, does both. "Boom..." he echoes her, closing his eyes and trying to return to the comfort of the starry lawn. Gravity feels closer, and weighs down his limbs. "Boom. Neither of us can lift a tablet right now. I could maybe manage a stylus." He sighs and lets his head loll back against the top of his chair. "It takes so much energy to rake up leaves."

They don't understand, as they mutter and mumble around him. Leaves, scattering before the wind. So fragile. Crumbling at a touch.

'If they'd thought up this plan sooner, it might have worked.' Zhane's not so much silver in his mind as the memory of what light once was. '...Andros, please...'

'I'm not going to keep fighting with you over this.'

'But you're not listening, either.' Andros watches the stars until the bridge is gone from his sight. He watches them, and wills the mote in his hand brighter. Just a little brighter, and they'll both get through this. 'You haven't been able to find my location. My morph is going to fail regardlessas long as I keep taking damage. If I voluntarily release it, I can at least save you. And with luck, Karone can open a new window and bring me back.'

Zhane doesn't know. He can never, ever know, and Andros hums to the boy in his arms rather than risk the words that want to pour forth. Andros is more than willing to die to keep Zhane away from the nonexistent mercies of Yellow. His sister can deal with Dark Specter, and the light can find another champion. It always does. Light makes champions when old ones burn out. There's always new stars born from the corpses of old.

But words, endless words are clogging his throat until they spill in a torrent. "There's a reason," he says, grief as crushing as gravity could ever hope to be, "you were too afraid to remember now. I'm staying with you, and you're staying with me."

There are hands on his face. On his shoulders. Gripping his arms and pulling him up, and Andros snarls and snaps his teeth as the bridge comes back into focus. They won't leave him alone, and he needs all of his attention on Zhane. For Zhane.

"He bit me!" Carlos yelps, and later Andros might regret it. Not now, when Zhane needs him. Andros had made a promise; he'd promised himself he'd let Zhane make his own decisions. But not on this. Not this. How can Zhane make the correct decision when he doesn't know? And he can't. He can't. He can't ever know, and Andros whimpers as he's lifted, preventing him from fleeing back towards the stars.

"Look, we're just taking you back to the med bay," TJ tells him. "DECA's better able to monitor you there. If, when we think of another plan, we'll run it by you, okay?"

He doesn't want to go back to medical. It's too cold, and too sterile. There are no novelty stars shining overhead, and no afghan warm with memories to cuddle in. And he tells TJ that as the teen carries him out of the bridge and down the hall. He thinks he tells TJ exactly that, but the words that echo in his ears do not match the ones in his mind.

"I am going to shrink and shrink until I am a dry fall leaf..." But that's all right. If the rest of his team believes that DECA's keeping vigil then he's free to return to raking up the bits and pieces of Zhane drifting around. Each time Zhane returns he stays longer, and each time Zhane returns it's so much more difficult to gather him up. They balance each other out, and Andros giggles from the morbidity of the thought.

The stars do not twinkle against the devouring void. And Zhane leans against him as he leans against Zhane; they watch as the edge of infinity creeps closer. Stars are leaves, and gravity is the wind that pulls them in, and Andros... he doesn't mind dying here. It's peaceful, and Zhane's with him. And he's with Zhane.

"I heard myself quoting," he tells his friend, his voice both loud and muffled in the emptiness. "You have to be near. I'll find you..." Zhane looks at him, his crystalline eyes skeptical, and Andros hugs him closer. "Yeah. You're right. They'll find you while we stay right here. –Have any songs while we wait?"

'Don't really feel like singing.'

"Please?" He wants the mote to be brighter. And it's enough. For now, it's enough as Zhane sighs, the black roots of his hair lightening to charcoal.

The boy resting against him sighs again, but a glimmer of a smile lurks at the corners of his lips. "Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea."

It's sad but fitting, and who knew eternity could run short on time? Andros hums along to the haunting melody and gently catches leaves as they blow past. With each leaf caught, Zhane grows brighter. And far away, beyond the encroaching shore of infinity, he can hear the others. So worried. So scared.

"Astronema better come up with something. Did you see his eyes?"

"Maybe it's a Kerovian thing. Did you notice how blue Astronema's were today? And Zhane's are always changing."

"Zhane's not Kerovian."

He wishes he could comfort them. Let the teens know that they're okay. Everything will be all right. Zhane's singing. As long as he sings there will be a tomorrow. So Andros raises his voice and joins in on the chorus.

"Dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wind."

.oO0Oo.

"Zhane's now been with Andros uninterrupted for over twelve hours," DECA informs them when Carlos asks for a status update. The bite on his arm itches despite the cream the AI had prescribed, and Carlos scratches at it when no one else is looking. Ashley scolds when she catches him at it, but he can't stop himself. It itches, maddeningly so, and the Power is taking its sweet time in healing the minor wound. "Andros' condition remains stable."

Cassie's hands have kept busy as they braid and re-braid her hair while she monitors sensors. "DECA," her voice cracks, and a pink ribbon she'd been holding floats to the floor when she drops it. "Is there any chance that Zhane... that he's already been killed? Twelve hours is... it's a lot longer than any of the other spans."

Carlos glares down at his own console, copied from sensors, and the fruitless searches it's continuously running. It's either glare down, or glare across at Cassie. And if he starts glaring at Cassie he doesn't know if he'll be able to stop. She's only asked what he knows TJ is already thinking. What Carlos refuses to let himself think.

Zhane, morphed, with all the power inherent in Silver, should have woken by now. Woken and returned twice over. That he hasn't... Carlos isn't going to allow himself to dwell on possibilities. There are further searches to run.

DECA's voice is positively waspish when she answers. "If Zhane were dead, Andros' condition would be improved, not unchanged."

And isn't that a little ray of hope? Carlos prays his tiny, choked laugh goes as unnoticed as his scratching. And he wonders if being Kerovian is contagious, like lycanthropy. Which, on one hand, would be kind of cool; Andros is badass when he hisses. Well, when he's not flat-out adorable, like a kitten facing down a stray, unexpected sock. On the other hand, Carlos is convinced all Kerovians are legitimately crazy. Perhaps with good reason; still, crazy. He stops before he can start considering a third hand. Being in space and visiting different worlds has taught him that there need be no shortage of hands to weigh the pros and cons of insane situations.

The centipede people had left him with odd dreams for weeks after. Then Ashley had suggested he read James and the Giant Peach and his dreams had started including shoes. Shoes with tangled laces. Ashley was a woman of unseen depths, and no one could convince Carlos otherwise that some of those depths were plain evil.

It didn't stop him from passing the book on to TJ once he'd finished it. Share the wealth, and share the nightmares of centipede people wearing dozens of pairs of boots with knotted laces.

"Maybe we're going about this wrong," Ashley says, and Carlos drags his attention back, away from peaches and seagulls and sharks. "Andros said that Zhane wouldn't be able to–"

"Boom," Carlos cuts in, ever-helpful.

"–yeah, boom," Ashley grins at him, playfully shoving at his shoulder. "And sure, at this point we can't risk Andros trying to participate in any battle, no matter how trivial. That still leaves the four of us, three Psychos, and Astronema herself if she can avoid gaining Dark Specter's attention. That has to be enough to take out Yellow, right?"

"...And Psycho Red," TJ says slowly, but Carlos can see his eyes narrowing as he thinks the idea through.

"Psh. Astronema made him, she can take him out. What I'm getting at," Ashley stresses as she maneuvers around the console and begins to pace, her hands moving in time with her words, "is that Astronema had been on the right track. We know that Yellow wants Andros. Not as much as he wanted Zhane, but, yeah..." A hesitation as she brushes her queasiness aside. "If Yellow believes Andros is down on Earth, alone, I really think he'll take the opportunity to snatch him. And that's when we spring the trap."

"Except Andros is in no shape to send down to Earth," Cassie argues, her fingers flickering as they quickly braid, and re-braid her dark hair. "Unless you think Yellow will react worse than Carlos to getting bit."

Carlos takes exception to that. Anyone would be startled at getting bit. Anyone. Holding his arm out of sight below the console he scratches, and allows himself to glare at Cassie. It's a relief, glaring at someone who meets his eyes and sticks her tongue out in return.

"That's just it!" Ashley's beaming, she's so pleased with herself. "Why does Andros have to be there? DECA, can't we set something up, some gadget or doohickey that looks like Andros to sensors? I mean, the Alliance does it to us all the time. Nearly every single ping we've gotten on Zordon has been one of their tricks. Why don't we do the same?"

"...We don't know what Yellow might be scanning for." TJ might be playing devil's advocate, but his fingers are tapping against his leg and his eyes are widening as he sorts through ideas. "But we do have an ally that would know. DECA, can you contact Astronema? We need to run this by her. She's a master of illusions; for this to work..."

Ashley's grinning. Cassie's tying off her braid with the ribbon she's retrieved from the floor. And Carlos is ready to finish this. Ashley's right. Seven Rangers, three of them Psycho, and the Princess of Evil herself? Yellow wouldn't stand a chance, not if they set up their own teleport block. They'd choose the location. They'd lay the trap. And Andros could stay safe on the Megaship – while Zhane, with Yellow dealt with, could finally wake up.

It's a great plan and Carlos can't wait to get started. Sooner started, sooner finished, and the sooner he can find out if he'll be turning Kerovian at the next full moon.

.oO0Oo.

Med bay is less comfortable than it should be. The beds are both too firm and too soft, and the lights, no matter how dim, always blind. DECA had at least brought him their afghan when he'd asked. And while the ceramic stars are missing, the AI's taken the time to project constellations across the ceiling and down the walls. It's not enough but it's close enough to enough to keep him calm on those increasing rare occasions when he cracks one eye open, and complains.

He vaguely remembers TJ stopping by. Talking about... something. Decoys and traps, and soon Blue had promised him. Soon, soon, and Andros rolls to his other side as he struggles to recall what the soon might have pertained to. He rolls and pulls the afghan up past his nose, and he blinks.

Is this what DECA's been nattering on about? There's a boy in front of him, dark-haired and dark-eyed, scowling ferociously, and he looks familiar. Andros would ask Zhane, but Zhane's not... coherent. Hasn't been for a while. And Andros would ask, should ask, but the afghan is warm and the starfield beckons. If the boy's dangerous, surely DECA will let him know.

"I hate you," the boy tells him, his features twisting with rage. "So much. I was created to hate you." Andros likes the angry boy's shirt; such a bright, cheery red and he wonders if it would be soft beneath his touch. "But now all my memories are of loving you. Nothing living should have so many memories!"

Zhane sings in the fugue state that pretends to be sleep, snatches of songs and tuneless humming. Andros would ask Zhane, he would, but Zhane's stopped answering... a while back. Andros would ask DECA, but it's hard to hear the boy in the red shirt over her nagging so he signals the AI to – stop. Just stop. It's so hard to think.

"I remember the instant this universe was born. And others. How?" Dark eyes are liquid, and accusing. "How does he keep going? And why does he love you?" Hands are wrapped around Andros' neck; when he swallows he can feel their light pressure, but they do not tighten. They merely hold, a chain of bone-hard fingers holding Andros to the now and here. "He loves you so much. Why haven't you come for him yet?"

The red shirt is soft, and the dark-haired boy flinches at Andros' touch, but he doesn't let go of Andros' throat. "Can't find him," Andros tells him. Thinks he tells him. Time is slippery, dodging his grasp, and he understands Zhane's contempt of it so much better. Time does what it pleases, jumping and skipping and dragging its feet. Time is a menace they'd be better off without.

"His morph is beginning to fail. You'd better find him soon."

Red beneath his fingertips, smooth and soft and warm. Andros likes red, but silver has always made him feel better. There's no silver in medical, unless one were to count surgical equipment. Surgical tools. Scalpels are silver. And they reflect the light. Andros wonders if the world around him would begin to make sense if he had a scalpel in his hand instead of red cloth.

He blinks up at the angry boy, and cranes his head back the better to feel the pressure against his neck. "No more leaves are falling." It's important, and the other boy should know. There's nothing left to rake.

"I was re-made to hate you." There's an ocean of rage in the boy's voice backed by fear, but tamed by an endless eternity of borrowed fondness. "But he'll do anything to save you. I'm re-made again, and I want to save you as much as he does. What did you do, to deserve to be loved?"

"...I don't know." It occurs to Andros that he doesn't know the boy looming over him. It occurs to him, but the thought is fleeting. He might not know the boy, but the boy knows him. "Do you?"

Dark, gleaming, angry eyes glare at him like an animal wounded and backed into a corner with no way to escape. "He loves you, so I love you. And you love him – and it feels like it's me you love. You're both jerks, you know that? How can I kill you like I'm supposed to when I'm wedged into your epic lovefest? How can I kill anything when I remember the hope and joy of a universe being created?"

"Zhane finds getting angry helps."

A harsh bray of laughter, and hands are prying Andros' fingers away from red. "Yellow's a real piece of shit. But he fell for the bait. He took off the moment he sensed you. The idiot. Like I'm going to help him, after..." Fury fury fury beats down on Andros, and the hands around his wrists are leaving bruises. "Come on. I can get you past the force field."

The red of teleportation fills Andros' vision, shades of red that clash and merge. So many shades, but all of them long for the sheen of silver. And as they fade Andros looks around and sneezes. Books, and dust. Bookshelves, and dust. A tiled floor freezing cold through the thin layers of his pajamas, and dust. And a few feet away, in a corner watched over by books and bookshelves and dust, the Silver Ranger lies untidily like a discarded rag.

Zhane, and Andros cannot get to his feet, but he can crawl. Through dust and scattered books he can pull himself along until he's at his friend's side. "Zhane," he breathes as a silver uniform flickers. Flickers. Flickers like a candle carelessly misplaced in the direct path of a breeze. 'Zhane.'

Andros collapses on top of him and silver dissolves at his touch, leaving behind a mist-haired boy with features slack and pale and beloved. He wraps around his friend and clings, and the afghan that had made the trip with him covers them both, hiding them from books and shelves and dust.

"Ugh. You're nauseating. Great. You found him. Now get him the fuck out of here before your friends' plan fails and Yellow returns."

Yellow – used to mean something to Andros. It's a nasty, spiteful word. Not a color but a synonym for Evil. True Evil, not his sister's evil which is little more than darkness playing dress-up. Yellow means terror, means pain, means vengeance but Zhane is below him, cold-cold despite how close Andros holds him, and – Yellow can wait.

"Damn. You're out of it." Andros doesn't realize there's a hand in his hair until blond-streaked locks are pulled away from his eyes and dark irises glare down at him. "Shoo. Scram. Make like a tree and leave."

"But all the leaves are gone," he whispers. It's winter, cold and barren, and all the leaves have been swept past him by the gale that is gravity. Gravity is the end, and the beginning is light, and gravity chases light until everything ends again.

Light, the barest trace of light, and Zhane's soft breath against Andros' cheek.

"I. Hate. You." Releasing his hair the rough, hurting hand is pressing down on his bruised wrist, twisting his arm until his communicator fills Andros' vision. "Tell your pet AI to let me through. I snuck past once, but she changed Silver's access as soon as we left. I can get you both back to your ship, but you have to tell the digital bitch to lower her damn shields."

"DECA?" Andros knows she's listening. She likes to listen. And he suspects that she sometimes continues to listen past the time permissions are revoked. But it's been her, and him, and Zhane for so long, it's okay. Stars know it takes both of them to look after Zhane. "Can we come back?"

Her voice is crisp and politely annoyed. "You have fifteen seconds. Any longer risks giving Yellow a new backdoor in."

The teen in the soft red shirt glares, and scowls, and snarls and spits as he straddles both of them. It's wrong, a presence shoving its way between him and Zhane, and Andros tries to buck him off only to have his head slammed down against the dusty, tiled floor for his trouble.

"I'm helping you, moron."

Help, he calls it; Andros snaps his teeth in threat hoping there's something within reach to bite and drive back. Instead, there's red that's hot and searing. ...Teleportation. Red, and red, and silver that's little more than wisps, but it's there. Brighter. And the lights of the med bay are above him and cool, smooth floor is below him. And there's blood in his mouth as his teeth clench down harder, and he takes a punch to his temple that doesn't deter Andros in the slightest.

"You little shit." Despite the words there's laughter in the voice, and admiration. "Ship, you got 'em from here?"

"I will need to reconfigure the beds; I doubt I'll be able to separate them any time soon, but Zhane needs medical attention immediately." Andros will need to release his mouthful of flesh if he wants to spit out the blood; DECA's loud and he yearns to mute her. "...As do you. Andros, biting guests isn't polite."

No, he supposes it isn't. Reluctantly he unlocks his jaw, and gags. Blood, thick and coppery on his tongue; he turns his head and hacks. Coughs. And sneezes. There's dust on his clothes, in the blanket, covering Zhane. Zhane, and his mouth is now clear; Andros coos and curls closer to his friend, the weight of the boy on top of them nearly forgotten.

"I've had worse, so thanks but no thanks, ship." Then the weight is gone, and after a moment's disorientation Andros feels the too firm, too soft surface of a medical bed beneath him. It's not important because Zhane's still in his arms and between his legs and a single, lone spark at the back of his mind. "Suppose I should go see how yours are fairing against Yellow. Damn freak out-Psychos all of us put together."

"Your help has been incalculable," DECA says, no longer aloof. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it. Seriously, don't ever mention it." Feeling a presence coming closer, Andros struggles to open his eyes. A red shirt, and he remembers it being soft. "Catch you later, Red Ranger."

And... no. Andros is having none of that, thank you very much. That shirt is comfy, and his. He's pretty sure it's his... He wants it, so it must be. "Stay," he demands crankily as he snuggles against Zhane. That shirt is absolutely his and Andros has a weird, disjointed memory of the dark-haired boy wearing it saying he loves him so the boy, too, must be his. And Yellow's not getting another damned thing from him. No, and no, and no again.

"–Fuck." The dark-eyed boy leans back against the bed behind him, his arms crossed and his expression promising murder. "I hate you so much, you needy bastard. You've got your pretty Silver boy; you don't need me."

Andros matches him scowl for scowl. And... why is Psycho Red on the Megaship? Sighing, he closes his eyes and buries his face in pale gray hair to block out medical's jarring lights. "Yellow's not getting you back," he grumbles as stars spring up around him.

"Then your team better have offed him." A sniff, and the sound of a body settling on the bed next to them. "And I'm returning to Astronema the first chance I get."

That's... okay, and Andros smiles smugly. His sister will take good care of the dark-haired boy for him.

"Yeah. Don't do that. Your teeth are covered in my blood."

Andros can only grin wider as he slips into sleep.

.oO0Oo.

Yellow had taken the bait. Hook, line and sinker her father would say whenever they'd go camping. Her father had loved fishing, but he'd been terrible at it. She remembers small details like that, the longer she's returned. The body she's claimed, the brain she's inhabiting, is full of broken fragments that stab in to each other like glass, but she ignores the areas of worst damage and stores her returning memories with care.

Her father had been corrupt, as the entire wretched government of KO-35 had been corrupt – but he had loved her. She'd never doubted that he'd loved her, and she loves him in return. He'd died before that final battle, that last doomed stand outside the spaceport, but she loves him still.

She remembers what it had felt like to overdraw on the Power and burst. She feels much the same way now as a Psycho Ranger. Power fills her past bursting and still she draws on more, and more. Power unclean, tainted by Evil. Evil to fight evil, because Yellow isn't going down easy. Yellow had, once so long ago, been a friend of hers, but the boy had never been anything close to easy.

These Rangers that had taken their places. Taken her place... they're so young. Idealistic. She doesn't remember being so young, but she must have been at one point. Sitting with her friends in the school yard, watching Zhane and Andros walk by, Andros on crutches and Zhane hovering protectively at his friend's side... and the blond sitting next to her an unholy mix of hatred and envy and terror and – how had she not seen? Even back then, Yellow had wanted nothing so simple as revenge.

A tow-headed child she'd grown-up with. A boy spoiled. Entitled. Obsessive. A kid joyfully bullying those that were different until the day he'd shoved the wrong outcast. They'd all payed the price for the blond's transgression; an hour spent stuck in their seats unable to move, unable to talk. She'd learned from the experience.

Her old childhood friend, she's afraid, had learned the wrong lesson entirely.

Yellow fights like he's possessed and she supposes in a way, he is. Psycho Yellow is indeed possessed by a ghost far crueler than the criminal could have ever dreamt of being. Yellow had arrived at their chosen location, looked around – and immediately attacked. Attacked and screamed, "Where is he? Red, you coward!"

He'd then screamed again, louder, shriller, when he realized Astronema had blocked all teleportation in or out of the area. And he fights not to escape, or to wound, but to kill. And he rants degeneracy and filth, enough that she wants to shut off the mics built into her armor and bask in blessed silence as she fights for her life. Her second life. It's confusing. Death hadn't been as confusing as this rebirth has been.

The new Astros fight as a team. In synch. In harmony. But without Red to lead them they're lost against the sheer power of Yellow. She and her sister Psychos, they have power, stolen power to spare, but they've never worked well as a team. In a perfect world the two team's differences would balance out. Cover for each other's weaknesses. In reality, they're mostly getting in each other's way.

Over comms she can hear a girl say, "We've lost contact with DECA." She thinks it's her replacement, but she's not heard either girls' voice often enough to be able to tell them apart. "I don't like this. Has anyone seen Psycho Red?"

A series of nos and nopes and negatives follows, and in between dodging Yellow's kicks and blows and blaster fire she wracks her host's memories of the missing Psycho Ranger. Red of rage, Red of hatred; Psycho Red's entire being was focused on taking out his template. And she can't help but agree with the new Pink; she doesn't like this. If Psycho Red isn't here backing up Yellow, where is he?

"Die already!" Yellow shrieks. She wonders if he's frothing at the mouth underneath the dread helmet. It would fit the rabid animal that he is, has proven himself to be.

She remembers the small, blond boy she'd once known, and befriended. She remembers him and she mourns him because he can't be saved. There's nothing left of him to save, if ever there had been. She'd been so very young the day her father had told her she couldn't go outside to play. Because someone had killed all the pet canids that lived on their street the night before. Tortured, and killed, and left them grotesquely displayed on their owners' doorsteps. She'd been so young... but that had been the first sign, hadn't it?

The first sign, and it was covered up before the local media had gotten wind of it.

Yellow pulls power to him; drinks in Evil and unleashes wrath. She reaches for more power as well. Power enough to shield herself, and shield the baby Astros. Children. The galaxy fights its never-ending war with children and she hopes, when she manages to burn through the last of stolen power, that she doesn't return to the Grid. She has no plans of ever fighting again once this is done and over.

She'd never been chosen, and she resents that the Grid thought it had any right to her.

Yellow lands more blows than he takes, but there's seven of them to his one and he eventually starts to slow. Instead of surrendering, though – little good that would do him in the end, the Psychos had not been created to survive – he gathers from the vast reserves of dark power that they're siphoning, and prepares to grow.

Except Astronema is there, wrapping Yellow in chains of violet magic. Astronema, Andros' sister, and she shakes her head because that had been unexpected. Leave it to their fearless leader to have an archvillainess as a relative. Then again, considering what Andros' mother had been, she shouldn't have been surprised.

"Quadroblaster," Astro Black commands, and Yellow takes the attack full upon his chest. Unsporting perhaps, but this battle needs to end.

She joins her attack with her sister Rangers', and Yellow sags within his crackling chains...

...and laughs. Laughs, and transforms into Psycho Yellow's monster form. Stronger. Quicker. Faster. But not enough to break free from their trap. Not enough to win when it's now eight against one.

"Figures he'd be venomous," her Blue tells them on a private channel as she cradles her side where mandibles have punctured her armor. "Can't we catch a break already?"

They can't, but they don't need to. Eight against one and even had he all of Dark Specter's power at his beck and call Yellow can't keep up with them all. But it's closer than she'd like. Much too close before Yellow finally falls to his knees while his armor fails around him and he coughs up blood.

Yet still he laughs. Maniacally, as a leer twists his features. "You can't kill me," he boasts with something like pride; something like glee. "You need me to weaken Dark Specter. And I'm more than happy to help," he sneers, so sure of his immortality. His untouchability. He's lived his entire life knowing others would cover for him. His family sweeping his misdeeds out of sight, setting him free of consequences. His grandmother, encouraging the worst of his character flaws. Her Ladyship, flattered that a Ranger had sworn fealty to her...

Had her Ladyship known? She wonders, as they gather around fallen, bound Yellow. She wonders who all might have known. She hadn't. She'd never suspected, although looking back... Looking back, she has no idea how she'd missed it.

Yellow laughs, and grins with bared, blood-slicked teeth. "Princess," he chortles, "tell them. You need me."

Astronema appears to consider. Tilts her head to the side, the setting sun gleaming red from the circuitry piercing her skin. "You know, I really don't," she says as she stabs him through the heart. "You've already weakened the tyrant more than I'd dared hoped... and it's my brother that I need. And Zhane. So. much. more," she plants a stiletto-healed boot against Yellow's chest and kicks him off the point of her staff, "than you."

It's over. It's over and within the armor of Psycho Pink she shudders in reaction. Partly in shock from the injuries she'd accrued during the course of the hour-long battle. Partly in relief. Partly in fear for her friends; where does this leave them?

Where is Zhane? And Psycho Red?

Ashley's powered down, and she stares warily at the yellow Astro morpher snugged against her wrist. And her question, when she asks it, is unanswerable. "So... how do we keep him from coming back?"

"I had warned you of the possibility of your morpher being haunted." DECA's back and as sarcastic as she remembers. She'd spent many off-duty hours chatting with the AI, though less so as the war had progressed. "Would it be possible for all Rangers to return to the Megaship? There have been – developments."

.oO0Oo.

Medical looks different. Different but better, Ashley decides. Different, but the chairs DECA's provided manage to be uncannily uncomfortable, the AI's way of discouraging visitors. Which, tough, Ashley snorts as she reads through the data streaming on her pad. She's here until the boys wake. And so, too, is Astronema, who sits in the chair she had claimed as her own and hasn't fidgeted once.

Psycho Red glares at them from the bed he's sprawled in. Well, he glares at Ashley and she glares back in between reading paragraphs. The looks he sends Astronema's way are more difficult to decipher, although glaring still takes the top of the list. Above yearning. Far above being afraid. Psycho Red has taken glaring to an art form as he regards the white bandage wrapped around his arm, scratching at the wound underneath with contempt when Astronema tells him not to.

"He's gone completely feral," he tells them with a smirk filled with dark promise. "Don't know how much of him you're going to get back. Might as well make him your Psycho Red, boss-lady. You know, ranchers shoot the canids that start biting livestock." He raises an eyebrow, daring them. Just – daring, a challenge tossed out for no other reason than he can.

"Feral I can work with." Astronema has her legs crossed, the slick shine of her thigh-high boots making her legs seem impossibly long, and Ashley briefly wonders if she could pull off the look. "My brother, though, was meant for Red since birth." She stretches, cat-supple with her arms over her head and her legs uncrossing, and – no. Ashley would never be able to pull off those boots. She doubts she could even walk in them.

"Tell me something I don't know." Psycho Red scowls as well as he glares; his face isn't made for pleasant expressions. "But do you really think you can deal with," he jabs a finger at the two youths wrapped tightly around each other on the medical beds that had been pushed together, "that?"

Ashley blinks back the unwelcome burning in her eyes as she continues watching constantly updating vitals. That. She hopes, she prays Astronema has an answer because Ashley's out of her depth. She may be Yellow, but she's never had the training. All of her experience is second-hand, listening to her mother when the woman came home from a long day's shift.

Astronema stands and sighs as she walks up to the two sleeping boys. Sleeping, DECA's assured them, although all attempts to wake them have so far failed. "Our mother might stand a chance of sorting them out," she says as she uses the pad of one thumb to lift Andros' eyelid, exposing the crystal gray iris hidden behind it. "But even she would have difficulties. I had regretted not canceling the Call I'd used for Zhane, or even finishing it, but now? The Call is what keeps pulling Zhane back together. Without it... I don't think either of them would be with us."

She doesn't completely understand, but Ashley knows more than the rest of her Earth-born friends. Accepts – more. "But are they?" she asks quietly. "Are they with us? This..." she taps at her pad knowing the other woman is aware of the information it displays. "There's no reason Andros can't recover, but he won't. You know he won't if we lose Zhane."

Light gleams from Astronema's armor, and her eyes reflect the constellations DECA's projecting. "I was young when I opened the window," she says as she runs her fingers through blond-streaked locks, and avoids the ones of soft gray. And there's gray strands scattered through the blond, pale as frost. They shouldn't be there, and yet they are. "Impossibly young you might say, to create an impossible window. My mousling left most of himself behind to make it through. But all that means is that there's more of his self available, to patch himself back together. If he can gather enough of himself up."

Ashley considers Astronema. Considers DECA's scans. Considers what is possible, and what's impossible, and what is simply not possible. "Are you actually saying Zhane can heal from this? With what? The help of the Power?"

Astronema sighs again, long and low as her fingers caress her brother's brow. "I was hoping you'd overlook that. –I'm sure you've noticed by now; Zhane's connection to the Power isn't the same as yours. Not even the same as other Silvers. Zhane is Silver. The power he utilizes isn't from the Grid."

"It's himself."

"Yes." Astronema sits on the edge of the medical bed, her expression pensive. "I was terribly foolish when I opened the window. I didn't know any better. Next time... next time will be different." She frets at the afghan, straightening it over the two slumbering boys. "Zhane will recover enough to see this through, but even should my mother appear this instant I don't think there's any way to untangle his mind from my brother's. Zhane's mostly with him, now. If we somehow managed to separate them, no; Zhane wouldn't wake up."

A bark of laughter comes from Psycho Red who watches them with liquid, hating eyes. "Then kill him, and bring him back boss-lady. Since you know better now. Ah, but with Silver squatting in Red's mind you can't, can you? Red would follow Silver down, but he hasn't an anchor." A crow of victory, but Ashley can see the despair behind the fury in the dark-haired boy's eyes. "Right now you could bring back Silver, but Red would be lost. Forever. –So don't you dare."

Astronema purrs and Ashley can hear the threat for what it is. "Little one, my mousling did a number on you, didn't he? All my hard work undone." Her smile is one of fangs. "Are you my brother's loyal canid, now? Ah, but we're so close to Earth; I suppose I should call you his guard dog. Shall I fetch your collar and change out the tag?"

Ashley doesn't know if Astronema is kidding. She hopes the woman is joking... but she has a feeling she's not. Astronema would collar her pet projects.

Psycho Red snarls but stays on his bed content to simply seethe. And Astronema laughs at him in a voice like bells. "Just so," she lilts. "Cower, little cur. But back on the Fortress." Standing once more she languidly strolls to the Psycho's side to pat his cheek. The gesture should come across as condescending, but there's a tenderness to it that can't be refuted. "You did well, my little one," Astronema whispers as her hand climbs to ruffle dark hair. "You saved my boys. Thank you."

And Psycho Red leans into her touch, the hatred in his eyes retreating as yearning overcomes it. "For you, Astronema, anything." He then teleports out in a stream of dark red, leaving the woman to take his place on the now empty bed.

"...What are you doing?" Ashley doesn't much care, only TJ had told her to watch their nemesis-turned-ally. And do what? Ashley would like to know. There is little a single Ranger could do about Astronema should the woman decide to cause trouble. Which Ashley knows she won't, not with her brother asleep in the same room.

"They're dreaming, and I'm going to crash the party," Astronema smirks, her hair a halo of electric blue spread out on the pillow she tucks beneath her head. "...See what we're actually dealing with. It's easier to observe certain things, in dreams." She closes her eyes and her smirk drops as her lips thin into a frown. "Maybe your AI's scans are wrong."

Wrong. Ashley hopes they're wrong. If they aren't...

...Andros would never accept it. Never.

.oO0Oo.

He remembers this red quilt. The gray sheets. The wooden headboard that always seemed a tad too tall. A nightstand with a silver lamp and posters on the rough, plastered wall. His room, in his house, before all was reduced to embers and ash. His room, and Zhane's, and his friend is curled into his side, asleep within the dream.

Sunlight enters from the window stained pink from the red curtains it passes through. Sunlight lazy and sluggish as a drop of honey falling from a spoon, and Andros wriggles his toes in the cool sheets. He's been here a while, falling asleep and waking back up while still asleep. It doesn't bother him. He has Zhane and there are worse places to dream of than home.

Zhane, his hair the gray of mist and his hand clutching Andros' shirt. Sunlight, creeping across the wood-plank floor. Red quilt. Gray sheets. And Andros closes his eyes, ready to sleep inside the dream again.

"I didn't remember this place," a woman says quietly, her footsteps nearly soundless except for when a floorboard creaks. "We... we lived here, didn't we? Me and you and Mama. Before I was taken, I lived here."

"Hmm." Slitting open an eye, Andros turns his head to spot his sister standing in the doorway to his room. She is too bright, too real and too much for his dream; fantasy ripples around her but doesn't tear. She's treading lightly, and the dream doesn't fray. "We did. Then it was me and Mama. Then Zhane came. Mama never could talk him into using your old room. He said it wasn't right."

"My room," she says wistfully as she enters and sits at the foot of their adjoined beds. "What was it like? Your dream starts in your doorway."

"Yellow. Papa painted it yellow right before he died. And it's the only room in the house that has carpet because you were just learning to walk and kept falling down. Mama wanted rugs, but Papa said rugs could trip you. So, carpet." The sunlight is warm where it falls across his quilt; warm enough to chase the chill from Zhane's skin as Andros runs his hand down his friend's side. "Well, it had carpet. And white plastered walls. Everything burned. The house and the forest, the hillock and the meadows... But not our hollow. There were still flowers in our hollow the last time I went. I suppose they're still there; it's not like we'll ever know."

"Hmm," she returns, patting his foot where it's hidden beneath quilt and sheet. "Some days I think of undoing my judgment against KO-35."

"Some days?"

"Yes. But the rest of the time, I remember how much I hate Kerovians."

Her attitude earns her a chuff of laughter. "You're Kerovian," he reminds her as he turns to his side; he'd much rather be looking at Zhane's peaceful face than his sister's visage, cunning and sly as any vulpin's. "–Not that it matters. I hate Kerovians, too. Except for the ones that I don't."

"You're a terrible Ranger," she teases, her bronze-streaked blonde hair gleaming pink in the sunlight filtering in through the drawn curtains. "Just terrible."

Zhane, his eyelids trembling as he dreams within the dream and his snoring just audible. Zhane, slowly warming beneath Andros' palm. His dearest, oldest, beloved friend; the only light Andros needs in his universe. "I think the few Rangers left alive right now are the terrible ones," he tells Karone, letting the truth slip in his distraction. "The ones that played fair, the ones that followed the rules, they've all been killed. Haven't they? Only the ones that skirt darkness, that acknowledge its place – have survived."

"And soon only the evil that's willing to bask in the light will remain. I've had enough of Evil, brother-mine." There's a gentleness to her smile he's never seen, and it's warmer against his skin than the spreading sunlight. "My empire may be dark, but I'm done with evil. Such Evil as Dark Specter, it has no place."

Beneath Andros' hand, Zhane stirs. "Didn't have a place," he murmurs groggily. "Not until it stole someone else's window."

"Good morning," Andros whispers into the small space that lies between them. "How are you feeling?"

Zhane dimples as a smile spreads over his lips, and he opens eyes colorless as cracked quartz crystal. "I feel like I could sleep forever," he admits as he wriggles closer, closing the smallest of gaps that had kept them apart. "–It's hard to think. Sleeping's easier."

"I'm sure it is." Karone's attention is no longer welcome, and Andros wishes she'd leave. There's no place for her here. Not now that Zhane's awake. Andros' time and attention is for Zhane, and Zhane alone. "But when have you ever chosen that which is was easy, mousling? I truly need to know how you're feeling, more than just sleepy. It's important."

Andros groans and holds Zhane, waiting for his sister's interest to wane. "We're fine," he tells her grumpily. "Completely fine."

"You're really not. You're both, in fact, hopeless fools. What happens when low mass binary stars move closer to each other?"

Within the safety of his arms Zhane stiffens, his crystal eyes snapping wide. "...They merge," he breathes, suddenly distraught, and Andros is furious with his sister. Zhane's supposed to be resting. Why can't she just let them both rest? Cracked quartz eyes stare into his own, and Andros wonders what it is his friend sees that has him on the verge of crying. "–How soon?"

Karone shakes her head sending her blonde hair flying. "That's what I'm trying to figure out. I admit I'm at a loss over what to do. All of our options range from bad to worse."

Andros wants her gone. Gone with enough force that the dream shimmers around them before resettling. The metal walls of Zhane's cabin. The yarn of the afghan not quite as warm as sunlight. The familiar glow of ceramic stars not enough to illuminate the far corners of the room. Still, Zhane is beside him. With him. Within him, and that's all that matters. Andros is never, ever letting go. Karone can go; she's been found, and she can go now.

"–Your dreamscape is unstable." Worry pinches her brow and Karone's no longer at the foot of their bed but seated in the chair by the desk. "You might be healing here. Might, and I use it guardedly. But you're merging faster. I need you to wake up. Both of you. Although I think it's too late for distance to have any bearing on the outcome."

"Karone," he whines, twisting his fingers into a rude gesture and sending it her way with a flick of his wrist before returning his arm to its familiar position around Zhane's waist. "Seriously. Go. Away. All we need is a little more sleep then we'll be back and ready to tackle Dark Specter."

"Andros, your eyes are gray. Your hair's not far behind. You're as far from okay as it's possible to get! Wake up already!"

He'd shove her out of the cabin and out of their dream, but the mattress beneath him is soft and Zhane's finally warm and nothing is going to take Andros from his side. "All I ever wanted, all I ever needed is here in my arms. Words are very unnecessary–"

"–They can only do harm." Zhane's shivering in his arms despite his warmth, and Andros can see himself in his friend's bright eyes. He can see himself, but he doesn't recognize himself. "Oh no. Andros, you're singing. Karone's right. We have to, we've got to–"

Andros presses a finger against the other boy's trembling lips to still them, because – no. They don't have to. "You gave up," he tells him quietly, only the rapid beating of their hearts disturbing the silence. "You were ready to die to save me. I'm willing to die to save you. Where does that leave us?"

"Boys," Karone sneers, crossing her arms across her chest as her hair darkens from blonde to blue. "It leaves you clueless, hopeless boys. Andros, the damage Zhane took from Yellow is – severe. How long do you honestly think you can share your brain with him?"

He doesn't need to think of the answer. It's simple. It's warm as sunshine. As soothing as silver. Vast as the universe and minuscule as the single point that makes up all of time.

"Forever."

His sister scoffs, but her blue eyes are soft and her smile is kinder than she probably knows.

"Boys," she repeats as she stands and walks out the door.

"–I didn't give up," Zhane protests, his voice hushed and his cheeks now wet. "Karone could have brought me back and we wouldn't be in this mess."

"This mess? No. We'd be in an entirely different mess." It's a moment's work to wipe the moisture from his friend's face. "Let's sleep a little longer, okay? I think it's not too much to ask, a single day to recuperate." It shouldn't be. Stars know, they're owed a little rest.

.oO0Oo.

TJ stares up at the viewscreen as he picks at something hardened and crusty that's dried on the knee of his uniform's pants. They're going to have to defeat Dark Specter soon, he thinks irreverently, because he needs an entire day for laundry alone. It's going on the third shift for this particular uniform, and the rest of his clothes are worse. One set he'd thrown away entirely because it had smelled of Yellow's blood. He'd been in his Ranger armor when they'd faced the rogue, but the outfit beneath had reeked of Yellow.

He knows, in all likelihood, that it probably hadn't. He knows it would have been impossible to have gotten drenched in blood beneath the protection his armor provides. Still, the second he'd powered down when they'd returned to the Megaship he'd smelt it. A rotten miasma that had coated the lining of his nose, and he couldn't have gotten out of his clothes fast enough.

Burned or vaporized or sent sailing out into space on a collusion course with the sun, TJ doesn't care. They're gone, and with them the overpowering scent of blood.

"Dark Specter is aware of the power drain," Astronema informs them, her voice as cool as her eyes. "My failure to find the culprits has annoyed him. So in order to take out the perpetrators himself, he's set his grand plan into motion." She curls the index fingers of both hands into quotation marks when she says 'grand plan' and TJ can hear Cassie giggling next to him. And TJ wonders if the villainess spends her free time watching daytime television from Earth. If so, TJ fears for the galaxy even if they're able to take down Dark Specter.

"And what is his grand plan?" Andros asks from where he's leaning against both life support's console and Zhane, most of his weight off of his braced leg. TJ had offered him his seat in front of command, but Andros had declined with a terse shake of his head. A head streaked with silver instead of blond, and far more silver than there had ever been blond. It's difficult for TJ to look at the two Kerovians. They're losing them. He knows they are although Ashley's put up a good front. She's tried, but he'd caught her weeping silently in the engine room, and TJ knows.

"The entire Alliance is going to stage a coordinated attack against the remaining bastions of light." A projection replaces Astronema on the viewscreen, hexagons of red nearly overflowing the grid with rare, solitary specks of blue. There are a few more hexagons of purple, and dozens that are merely white, but overall it's nothing but a flood of blood-red. "I am, as you've probably guessed, in charge of the campaign against Earth. My lord," she spits as though tasting something foul, "wants the planet gone. Luckily the fleet's too far out from this sector to make it in time for the assault."

"–Not a bad plan," Zhane says drolly as the projection fades and Astronema comes back into view. "Ends in the annihilation of all sentient species in the galaxy; the nightmare knows what he wants. And your plan?" Not our plan, TJ notes. He'd be happier if they had a plan of their own, but instead they're depending on Astronema. Astronema, and he tries not to let his nerves show although there's no disguising the sweat he can feel beading on his scalp.

The blue-haired woman coyly places a fingertip against her cheek and smiles winsomely. "My plan? Why, I'm attacking Earth as ordered. And when all of your backwards, worthless Earthians are crawling on the ground amidst the rubble of their vaunted civilizations mewling for their pathetic little lives, I'm notifying my lord of my success so that he might arrive in all due glory to land the killing blow against you himself. He will come. To wallow ecstatically at the destruction of the Astro Rangers? He will come no questions asked."

Her glee sickens him, and TJ's hands clench atop the console's surface. She's betraying them as he knew she would, and he reaches over to comms to cut off communication but Andros' voice, thoughtful instead of outraged, gives him pause.

"You're luring him here."

And Zhane, incongruously cheerful. "I thought I heard gravity screaming. He's back as well?"

"The problem with the Dark Fortress is that I can't seem to keep the roaches out. The traitor snuck aboard two days ago. I have to applaud his timing, if little else." Astronema licks her lips, savoring her words. "Elegant, don't you think? And mousling? My thanks for alerting me to that nasty trick he plays with gravity. It made spotting him a snap. The bigger issue has been keeping Ecliptor from ridding him of another life. My guardian has been cross as of late, having missed his chance to personally kill Yellow. He keeps a tally, you know."

Of Rangers killed. When Tommy had chosen him, him to carry the Red Turbo powers, TJ had felt pride. When he'd lost their Zords, the Command Center, the very Power he'd taken such pride in, he'd felt shame. When he'd had to accept the blue Astro morpher, he'd been embarrassed. Through it all, though, had ran determination; a conviction that Good would eventually triumph. Now? As the leader of his current team and the villain they'd fought against calmly discuss the impending invasion of Earth? TJ feels empty and he wonders, if he'd known it would come to this, if he would have accepted Tommy's offer.

He wonders how Tommy is doing. He wonders if he should call. And Justin... should he call Justin as well? Because TJ feels as if he's failed as both Red, and Blue. Earth is about to become a war zone – and how can that be anything but a complete failure?

Andros' eyes are gray, as Zhane's are gray, and TJ looks away quickly because he hadn't meant to stare. Hadn't even realized he'd turned his chair around, away from his console, to gawk. "What forces are you committing?" Andros asks Astronema as he takes an aborted step away from life support. Zhane catches him mid-stumble as Andros' bad knee gives way, and they sway as one before catching their balance. "And where?"

"All of them, brother-mine." Astronema struts across the viewscreen, all vinyl and metal implants and metallic blue hair. "My entire corps. It has to look as if Earth's fallen if we hope to draw the tyrant out. As to where? Major cities will take some damage, but my squadrons have recently been reprogrammed so it should mostly be cosmetic. And since Angel Grove has been a thorn in the side of nearly every high-ranking Alliance leader that's tried to conquer Earth, it will bear the brunt of the first incursion – for the Alliance's viewing pleasure."

TJ's a Ranger, and Rangers are supposed to protect. He's a Ranger, but he feels no pride. "People will die," he says, angry with Andros, furious with Astronema. "You can't have infrastructure damage without a death toll. Come up with a better plan because you can't use Earth for your trap."

The woman on the viewscreen is laughing at him. Not out loud, but TJ can see it in the crinkling of the brightly colored lids of her eyes and in the quivering tautness of her cheeks as she holds her expression still. She's laughing because that's what evil does.

"Do you know of a better target?" Andros' voice is calm. Politely inquisitive, and against his better judgment TJ looks back at him. At them, Andros and Zhane and too much gray. "Aquitar? Their Rangers aren't suited for extended battle on dry land and their cities are vulnerable to depth charges. The only other complete Ranger team is this one."

"And Dark Specter will stop at nothing to see every last Kerovian dead." The cheerfulness of Zhane's tone is off-putting, but TJ can see his eyes. Zhane's eyes give him away; colorless pools of sorrow the gray of grief. Gray as regret. "But the Kerovan systems are no more. He left nothing behind that might tempt him back to the Kerova sector. We could go defend a moon, or a station, but he wouldn't believe it. He's already ordered Earth's destruction, TJ. We can make the best of the situation, but we can't change it. As much as you'd like to. This war will end on Earth one way, or another."

He doesn't want to accept it. There's always, always another way. They're Rangers, and Rangers always win. Only... how can it be possible that only two full teams of Rangers remain in all the galaxy? Two?! Which means... Rangers have not always won. So many Rangers had went up against Dark Specter and lost. Were lost. And Andros' question to him; did he know of a better target?

"What about Eltar? Could we convince Dark Specter that we're trying to retake the planet?" There's always another way, another plan; TJ's grasping at straws. He knows it – but it can't come down to Earth. He's a Ranger... and so many people would die should the battle come down to Earth.

"Eltar?" Astronema feigns surprise poorly. "Why not Edenoi? Or Inquiris? Oh, that's right," she says, her sympathy grating, "the fleet reached Eltar last week. Hard to pretend to liberate a planet that no longer exists. Edenoi is an abandoned, toxic wasteland. The lunar witch and her swain are prepared to take Triforia and the wench, well, she'd happily destroy Inquiris even if she knew it was her home world. Blue, Blue, Blue; are you so willing to sacrifice others as long as your precious fellow Earthians stay safe?"

What? His fingers fumbling at his console, TJ brings back up the grid map Astronema had displayed. And this time he sees it for what it is. Red stretching to each corner with terrifyingly few specks of blue. "You, you weren't joking," he stutters, his attention pulled back to Zhane, to Andros, to the two teens leaning against each other for support. "He's actually going to destroy all life?"

"First the light, then he'll devour the dark until all that's left is himself. From there he'll spread to other galaxies. This war, it's never been two sides opposed. There's dark, and light, and him. Evil personified." There is nothing cheery about Zhane's voice, or even optimistic. It's quiet; reflective. "TJ, we know where you're coming from. If we could shelter Earth from this, we would. But it's the single largest target left. Dark Specter wants to be here. And if Astronema informs him that the Astro Rangers are defeated, captured, awaiting execution... he'll be nowhere else. To personally end the last of Kerova? He'll be here."

It's Cassie that asks what they all must be wondering. "Why is that important? Why do we actually need him here?"

"Because it's exceedingly rare for him to be anywhere." Astronema shrugs, her expression speculative. "Much like half of my Fortress exists in a separate dimension, so too does Dark Specter keep himself safe. Most of what you've seen of him are illusions. Projections and holograms meant to convey false impressions. No one's been able to successfully engage him, because they can't. They can't attack what isn't physically here."

"...But he will come, to see us die." Carlos manages to sound hopeful and TJ envies him for that.

"To personally kill Andros, the last Kerovian that he's aware of? Yes. And then me immediately after, I'd guess," Astronema says with a smile filled with mocking self-awareness. "To make a clean sweep. Dark Specter's transferring Zordon to the Fortress. He plans to make the old meddler watch before he finishes draining him of his Power."

Ashley's laugh is wounded. "All this time we've spent trying to track him, and Zordon's become a footnote. We can't rescue him unless we defeat Dark Specter, and if we defeat Dark Specter he'll no longer need to be rescued."

"–Brother, your Rangers are adorable." On the viewscreen, Astronema poses in shining black and gleaming metal, her staff held casually at her side and her smile a chilling promise. "Thinking they can take on the tyrant. No, little Ranger; you'll not be the ones to destroy Dark Specter. Even with his powers sapped you haven't the strength to defeat him. You'd be as gnats, your buzzing serving only to annoy. No," she raises an outspread hand with fingernails filed to sharp claws to forestall further questions. "My mousling knows what game is afoot. He's guessed."

Andros' lips are pursed in distaste. "–And if he goes after Earth instead of Dark Specter?"

"Roaches are predictable. But if he fails to live down to our expectations, Ecliptor's planted a self-destruct command in his dreadnought's systems. And we, my lovely, vicious Red, will likely die in our confrontation with the tyrant. Even weakened he can't be underestimated. And once we're dead the rest of the galaxy will swiftly follow."

"How long?" TJ needs to know. If they're all going to die in one last, reckless gamble, he wants to go out in a clean uniform. Surely there has to be time for a couple of loads of laundry. Laundry, he can focus on. The gridded map of red and ruin? It's too much. How, how had they managed to lose the galaxy when they'd been fighting with all that was in them? How?

"Days. A week at most. I'll let you know when I receive my finalized orders." She lowers her icy blue eyes and plants the haft of her staff on the floor next to her booted feet with a dull thunk. "–Your Power protect you, Rangers."

"Dark conceal you, Karone," Andros says, his tight smile a good-bye as much as his sister's sinister grin was a promise.

And Zhane's yawning as the viewscreen reverts to black. "Days. It will be days. Better rest while we can; it's going to get busy."

"Can we warn Earth, at least?" Cassie hovers over comms, ready the moment she receives permission. "If we can evacuate the cities it will minimize..." She swallows, and hides her face behind the falling strands of her long, dark hair.

Andros slowly shakes his head. "Earth's signals go directly out into space. None of its communications are actually secure. If they're given warning, Dark Specter will hear of it. ...I'm sorry. We can't risk him learning it's a trap."

TJ doesn't agree. Saving lives is worth the risk. But the map still displayed on command's screen taunts him. Behind his back, Evil had won. It's irrefutable. Earth stands alone in a sea of red. "So we let humanity die so that beings in other galaxies can live on in ignorance?"

It's only with Zhane's help that Andros is able to walk towards the lift. Unescorted, he'd fall. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." There's so much gray scattered through his hair that TJ would be hard-pressed to guess that there had ever been blond streaks at all. "And a Ranger's purpose is to mourn. But maybe... maybe this time we won't have to." He doesn't look back towards the bridge before he leaves.

Carlos is shaking his head as his fingers work with nervous energy to tug a thread free from the cuff of his jacket. "You should have cut him some slack, TJ," he says, ducking his head as the thread pulls loose. He studies it as he wraps it around his index finger, around and around, tighter with each pass. "If the attack comes in the next couple of days, he won't be ready. His knee, it's not healing. Not fast enough. If he morphs and tries to fight..."

Ashley is gnawing at her fingernails, her polish chipped and peeling. "He wasn't being logical, you know." When TJ raises an eyebrow in confusion, she clarifies. "Spock. The needs of the many. He would have died regardless. If he sacrificed himself or not, the outcome would have been the same for him. Both choices would have led to his death."

"My sister in Trek." TJ loves her at this moment. He'll love them all until the day he dies, which is looking likely to happen in the next few days, but he figures it's the thought that counts. "He did have a third choice. He could have ordered someone else to repair the dilithium matrix. Win for the crew, and for him. He was totally illogical."

"Yeah..." She comes to stand behind him and drapes her arms around his shoulders; together they study the map as if, somehow, it would change if only they stared hard enough. Believed strongly enough. "Andros will never agree to sit this one out. –It's nothing but bad choices. But if he's supposed to be the irresistible piece of bait to lure Dark Specter here, he's probably the safest of us all. Astronema won't let her quantrons attack him."

Probably. But TJ has a feeling that Andros has accepted that he's already dead. Gray-eyed and gray-haired, and one of Ashley's tears splashing hotly against his neck tells TJ all he needs to know. They have to stop Dark Specter here. Here... because there's no other place left. Here, and Evil still wins – but other galaxies will be saved.

It's a harsh reality to face, and TJ decides he's not going to. He's going to do laundry and let tomorrow come as it may.

.oO0Oo.

She spars with her sister Rangers on the moon of Earth. Monstrous in both form and size, they fight with reckless abandon utilizing stolen power that burns as acid in her veins and pours forth in vile waves with each attack. Psycho Red watches them, referees them, morphed but human inside his armor. He's changed, and no longer feeds off Dark Specter. She wishes the same held true for her, and her friends.

Evil burns, and burns. She is going to die her second death burning while still alive. But Earth is rising above the moon's horizon, and it's a planet she can save. They can save it as they'd failed to save KO-35.

She spars with her sisters, titans clashing in epic battle. And she has tentacles that she can use to grab, and squeeze, and crush. She tries not to think about it. Tentacles. Monsters have tentacles. She'd never before had to consider herself a monster.

Yellow had been a monster. But... had he ever considered himself one?

"Psychos," Astronema chirps at them over comms, and they stop as one. Stop, and listen. Even Red, who hasn't listened to anyone, not since he'd come back to the Dark Fortress changed. "Sensors indicate that your power draw has dropped significantly. I very much doubt Dark Specter has much left in reserve. Let's leave him with enough to get here, hmm?"

She's relieved. It's nearly a pleasure to shrink back to normal size and shed her monstrous guise. Nearly, because even pleasure is tainted by the constant influx of Evil. Pleasure oozes, sticky-sweet with bitter undertones. Pleasure that leaves her shuddering and humiliated; it's not pleasure at all. The rest of the team ignores her, caught as they are in their own webs of not-pleasure. Except Red, whose laughter she can hear through comms. Red is changed, but much about him remains the same.

"Do you want us back on the Fortress?" Black asks, always quicker to recover. Black is no stranger to pleasure that's ultimately not.

"...Soon." Astronema had created these bodies; the woman knows they're not made to last. When Dark Specter is gone, so to shall they be. And it can't come soon enough she thinks, as she rubs her black-gloved hands along the pink armor encasing her thighs. "I thought you might welcome the chance to bid farewell. I've notified the Megashipthat you'll be arriving there shortly."

Good-byes. Psycho Red doesn't accompany them. He has no need. He's changed and he laughs with cruel knowledge as he hugs them before waving them off.

Good-byes. They find Andros and Zhane stretching in the gym, and she has Andros in a tight embrace before he can see her face. Stars below, and she struggles to compose herself from the dismay Andros' condition has wrought. And she wonders who will be saying good-bye to whom.

"Hey, Rosie," he whispers into her ear as his hand runs awkwardly up and down her back. "What's wrong?"

What's wrong? Her laugh sounds watery in her ears, but it's a laugh and she's able to release him with her eyes dry and her mouth smiling and the trailing edges of her scarf curling over his shoulders. How can she explain what's wrong? Andros has become a creature of grays and it's wrong except... it's also right in the way that all things that are inevitable can be. Just as the acid-burn in her veins is both wrong, and right.

Black has tackled Zhane to the foam-padded ground and caught him in a lip-lock. Then again, Black has always liked Zhane. And Andros looks annoyed but not murderous, and Zhane's giggling as he pushes the dark-haired girl off, so she lets them be. Everyone has their own way of saying good-bye.

Good-byes, as Blue passes over a wafer-thin disc to Andros. "Improvements on the Galaxy Gliders," she explains, not looking up as she smooths out wrinkles from the folds of her indigo skirt. "A few other ideas for transports. A couple of goodies for the collectives. And... I'd set up an out-sector banking account before... Before. If it still exists, could you see that the funds are used to help children?" She's looking down, and they all pretend they cannot see the shaking of her shoulders. "I failed to save that kid," she says as she scrubs angrily at her eyes. "Beneath my feet..."

She remembers. She remembers trying to get to Blue. She remembers exploding into a flurry of sparkling pink that short-circuited the quantrons that stood between them, but it had been too late. Too late for Blue. Too late for the toddler her friend had died trying to protect.

Years spent confined in the Grid, and their failures are as fresh as the day they'd happened.

Good-byes, as Black leers with her black-painted lips at Zhane who pretends to shelter behind Andros. "Do you trust me? Would you trust me with your self?" she asks him dreamily, the butterflies adorning her hair fluttering up in a cloud before settling.

"After that kiss?" His voice is kind and there's forgiveness in it, and she muffles her gasp because, oh, her friend should not have kissed Zhane. Although he'd laughed off her offense – Black never should have kissed him. And she realizes the black-haired girl knows this, and had done it anyway. "Little sister, you wouldn't have the power to pull me back. Besides, I gave my self to Andros long ago."

The girl laughs in delight and twirls, her black dress flaring around her like wings. "Your double entendres slay me and you don't even realize you're making them. I like you, Zhane. So very much. But you would know; moths are drawn to light."

Good-byes, and she closes her eyes against Zhane's chest, blocking out the silver of his shirt as he hugs her. "Rosethorn," he implores as he gently straightens the scarf tied around her hair. "Be good?"

"No." Being good has gotten her nowhere. Being evil isn't a choice. Instead she grasps the hand not caught up in her scarf and holds it with all the strength possessed by her crafted body. "I trust you with my self," she hisses, a desperate whisper as he jerks in surprised pain, and she can feel the pebble that now cuts into both their palms. "Do not let me go back into the Grid. Swear to me, Zhane! I don't want to go back."

"You won't. I promise." The squeeze of his fingers is reassurance enough that she can release him, the pebble of her self out of sight, and she sighs. And Zhane holds his hand out before him, flexing his fingers and wincing good-naturedly. "Always knew you had thorns."

Zhane, and Andros; they had believed in her. Poor little rich girl lost in the woods. They'd filled her basket full of berries and shown her kindness had a place in the world. Even a world as uncaring and corrupt as KO-35. "We'll be down on Earth," she tells them, willing them to listen. To understand. "Another last stand. We'll do our best to protect the Earthians. Don't look for us. Not during. Not after. You've seen us fall once; you don't need to watch while it happens again."

She's had good-byes enough to last forever. Hugs and hand shakes, but this body that she inhabits was never meant for tears. It is meant to rend, and tear. Stomp and smash. Her body is made to destroy and to be destroyed in turn. Astronema raises a fine, blue eyebrow at her when they return to the Dark Fortress and motions her aside.

"Pink," she says, the warmth of her expression at odds with the coldness of her eyes. "I've one last task for you before I release you from my service."

She wants to twirl the ends of her scarf but a Psycho's armor is little more than spikes and cutting edges. A final mission she can handle. The Grid no longer waits for her after death. She's free. Free as she's never once been. Not in her first life, and not in her second. She can be the thorn instead of the delicate, cultured rose. Or she can be both. Beneath her bestial helmet, she smiles. And looks forward to the end.

Rosethorn Zhane had named her one long-ago day as he'd cleaned out the scrapes in her palms with water. He'd watered her with kindness and she had bloomed beneath his care. She can think of no safer person to have entrusted her self to. Her sister Rangers will have to live – and die – with their decisions. She does not. She's free. She'll never be called upon to hold another's place again.

.oO0Oo.

Andros has never liked waiting. He's good at it, patience drilled into him from an early age – but he's never liked it. And this waiting, knowing what will follow after, is maddening. Waiting, while he feels Zhane struggling to keep himself together. Waiting with his knee a constant ache and starsong growing ever louder in his ears. Waiting, though he's already caught glimpses of the outcome. Of the battle to come, or a battle eons hence, or a battle long lost to the past; he no longer knows.

Zhane's never known, and Andros is beginning to experience time as his friend does. All at once, and not at all, and never in the same order twice. It's dizzying and he gladly clutches the hand offered to him, Zhane sitting at sensors while he takes command, and Andros closes his eyes for a minute, just a minute, but he can't be sure if he's closed them at all.

'It's not as bad once you get used to it.'

He chuckles and twines his fingers through his friend's. "I helped you through all those workbooks and practice storyboards when we were kids. You'd think I'd be handling this better."

"Past, present, future; there's no difference between them. Except when there is." Zhane smiles at him, inviting him to share in the joke, and Andros accepts that his eyes have been open the entire time. "This is easy to remember. So many possibilities merging into one line. I remembered this from the moment matter began to matter."

'And do we survive?' Andros dares to ask, the other boy's palm barely warm against his own, his fingers cold, but his grin the blazing comfort of a system's star. 'Do we make it through?'

"You mean, do we live?" Zhane asks him in turn. Ashley, at comms, is listening in. Carlos is working behind them; he's listening as well. They eavesdrop with a desperation Andros wishes he could banish. His team, for all that they've gone through, haven't seen war. They're nervous and scared – but he has no reassurances for them. Nothing except that Zhane has seen this through, and Zhane is not afraid.

Tired, but not afraid.

"I know." Andros shakes his head in rueful amusement. "Matter doesn't matter."

"Being in a body... the definition of living changes. It's so strict. Particles are peculiar; I think you'd enjoy being a wave more." Zhane's smile is warm, his hand is cool, and his mind within Andros' own is the glimmering of endless silver stars. "Whether we're still in bodies by the end of this, I don't know. Maybe?"

Andros would like to take a vacation from his body. Away from his knee and the agony it brings and the lesser ache of the old break in his foot. Away from his bones that feel hollow; brittle as a bird's. Away from his mind, the carefully pieced together and mended stained glass once again shattered. It's a kaleidoscope that shifts into new configurations from second to second. Zhane tries to help, silver stabilizing shards of color. But the silver is mercury, rising, ebbing. The silver is light untamed, and it flows through them both.

"We, umm, we're getting a message?" Ashley questions more than states, perplexed. "DECA can't trace it; it's bouncing off too many relays, but... It's from Finster? He's requesting you personally, Andros."

When had he closed his eyes? And, no; Zhane has his eyes closed, and his are open, staring blankly up at the viewscreen and the never-changing always-changing stars of its base display. "Finster?" He doesn't know why the sculptor would be contacting the Megaship; it's a curiosity. It's Zhane's curiosity strong as peppermint and his own contrary nature that has him accepting the incoming transmission.

The elderly artist appears on the viewscreen, so much larger than life for a being short in stature. A smile forms on Finster's beak-ish muzzle, a minuscule pursing of thin lips that add wrinkles on top of wrinkles, and his eyes twinkle behind the lenses of his glasses. "My Lord," he says as he shuffles a handful of flimsy, "I'm glad I was able to catch you."

"My lord?" Carlos asks in what he might have meant to be a whisper but is instead a strangled yelp. And Ashley is hiding her smile behind her hand, but Ashley knows while Carlos doesn't.

It's no effort at all to fall into Boopsie's voice as Andros gapes at the spokesbeing of his faction. "Finster?! How–"

"Lord Dark," the old being sniffs, one pointed ear twitching. "If you wanted your identity to remain secret, you shouldn't have made such a display of your telekinesis. Besides, it's rather hard to hide my Lady's hair."

Zhane's blush is Andros' own as blood rises to his cheeks; identical displays of embarrassment. "And you still decided to follow me?"

"You've done more for us than any sentient before. You've been just, and given us a place." Finster uses a long, clawed finger to push his glasses up higher, magnifying the affection lurking in his pale eyes. "We've gotten word from recent defectors that the Alliance plans for one last push. I've gathered a list of those willing to serve should my Lord choose to call upon them. Earth will be hard pressed, but we will come if you ask. To defend you and the Lady, we'll come."

"Finster..." Zhane's hand spasms against his own and Andros thinks the pain in his chest might be his friend's. Everything tastes of vanilla and spice. "Every last being there has sworn off violence. You know we'd never ask this of you."

"Which is precisely why we'll come."

"No." The clotted, soft voice of Lord Dark is enough to hide the sorrow Andros feels gathering in his throat. He swallows back sweetness and the brine of tears. "Should we fail I need you to save them, Finster. By whatever means necessary – keep them safe. Keep all of my people safe. Monster and Kerovian, get them into hiding if we fail and Dark Specter survives. Get them out of this galaxy, this reality, if the tyrant triumphs."

'He wants to refuse,' Zhane tells him, thinks for him. 'Finster hasn't stood on his own long enough to be able to imagine a future without someone to guide him.'

'I could send the Duchess back to them.' It would keep Zhane safe and away from the battle. So many of Andros' choices have come down to keeping Zhane safe. But it's a passing fancy, for they're both aware that they can no longer survive separation. 'They'd welcome her with open arms.'

'They would.' The love Zhane feels fills his vision with silver-touched gold. 'They'd welcome us both. We should go, after the battle. You could see the school, Andros. And the nursery.' That they'd spend the last of their days there goes unsaid. It doesn't need to be said.

He'd like that. He'd like to see the little ones growing up together. He knows he'll never get the chance, but it's a pleasant daydream to take with him into the battle ahead.

"Are you sure?" Finster asks, and the trembling of the flimsy he holds before him is the only indication of his dismay. "Lord Dark, my Lady, we'd lay down our lives for you."

Zhane's smile is free from shadows while all Andros has is heartache. "Dear Finster, gladly we accept your lives. In return, follow m'lord's edict. Thrive. Each and every one of you is a victory against Evil."

The elderly being sighs, his ears drooping and his glasses giving in to the tug of gravity to slide back down his nose. "Duchess. As you command. My Lord, my Lady; light guide your steps."

"Dark conceal you," Andros murmurs as the transmission ends and stars return to the viewscreen. "Please." There are children on KO-8, the future of two once-great civilizations. Children that learn, and play, and know nothing of the war that's ravaged both sides of the conflict.

'They'll be okay,' Zhane assures him, and together they remember a planet long-settled. Kerovians and monsters. Two races but one people. Children become parents become grandparents. Generation after generation, the legacy of Lord Dark and his Duchess.

'This is the future?'

Pulling his hand free with a tinge of regret that smells of cider, Zhane rubs at his eyes and pillows his head upon sensors' console. "It's the future that wants to happen. It should happen."

Should isn't the same as will, but it has to be enough. For now, it's enough.

"Come on, seriously," Carlos is complaining, coming up behind them. "What is going on? You're Lord Dark?"

"Ashley?" he begs, and she begins to explain. She needs to explain because Andros can't remember how it happened; where it begins, or how it should end. He can't put the story into its proper sequence. He does his best not to let that bother him. And with Zhane next to him and sharing his mind, their hearts beating in synch and their thoughts entangled, it's easy to let the worry go. He's needed to let a lot of things – go.

He won't let Zhane go, and Zhane no longer asks. It's too late to let the other go and he doesn't want to anyway. So they wait, together. Together they watch space and the Earth as it spins through space, and together they drift off to the sound of Ashley's voice as she explains toys, and childhoods, and two boys that were created to be binary stars.

.oO0Oo.

Astronema turns her back on the balcony and the troops she's just addressed. A rousing speech, a cry to arms sure to satisfy Dark Specter's vile urges for spectacle. A speech carefully crafted by her and Ecliptor, peppered with code words and spiced with phrases meant to trigger alternate programming. Her quantrons she's rendered docile; they'll act the part, but when given the signal they'll switch from invaders to search and rescue. Do not kill and do not harm and render aid if they can do so without drawing undue attention. The pirahnatrons she's been saddled with have posed more of a problem. A problem Ecliptor has solved with an elegant brutality that both delights her and leaves her twisted, darkened morality shuddering in horror.

Collectives have been repurposed. Redistributed. Collectives infest the pirahnatrons, and when they receive her signal they will attack the hearts that they've swarmed around, disrupting the electrical impulses that govern the muscle and send each and every pirahnatron under her command into immediate cardiac arrest. There will be no time for them to realize what's happening. No time for them to try to save themselves. They will fall to the ground in a clatter of metal armor and those that tarry on their way to death will meet their ends on the tips of her quantrons' blades.

A medallion Astronema wears as a charm around her wrist grows warm and she nods to her guardian. It's time. She'd set Pink one final task: To follow Darkonda, making use of her talent of invisibility. Follow him wherever he may wander on her Fortress and to let her know when the traitor nears. Darkonda will spy on her; it is his nature. He will spy, and she will give him exactly what he's always wanted. The roach wants to rule the Alliance. And oh, she will give him that. The promise of power. The promise of true immortality.

"You're sure the Psychos have weakened him enough?" she demands of her guardian as soon as she catches the nauseating aroma of rot. And her brother is right; the Alliance is foul, repugnant, and she cannot fathom how she'd never smelled their corruption before. "We only have one chance at this."

"Astronema, there is no doubt. Dark Specter is finally vulnerable. When he appears you will have your revenge against him. His power and his life will be yours for the taking. His empire will be yours, my Queen of Evil."

Ugh. Queen of Darkness, perhaps. It has a certain ring to it. Of Evil? No. But they're staging this little melodrama for Darkonda's sake, so she plasters a smug smile across her lips and pretends to be pleased. "And my Fortress has the firepower to kill him?"

"A dreadnought would be quicker but the nearest is still weeks away. If we activate the satellasers simultaneously, though, it should be enough. However, it needs to be you that personally fires them. His power goes to the one that lands the killing blow. The ancient scroll was clear, as was Dimitria when I tortured her to death. It is amazing how much easier she was to understand with my blade pinning her to a wall."

"Just as I predicted. An oracle has no time for mystery when they're consumed by agony. Well done, Ecliptor." As if she even knows where the Inquirian woman has scurried, or cares. What matters is that it sounds plausible, and the stink of Darkonda wafts closer. It's all she can do not to wrinkle her nose in disgust. "My forces are ready and soon all of Earth will fall before me. And with the Rangers captured my triumph will be complete. I'll destroy Dark Specter and take my rightful place as Queen. All-powerful and eternal."

"All will hail you and know despair before your glory, my Queen." Her guardian salutes her with a fisted hand over his chest, and she smirks. Smirks, then sighs in relief as her charm warms once more. "None will be left to stand against your might."

"True, but my brother would whine. Incessantly." She allows her smirk to slide into a more honest grin as she wraps her hand around her old friend's arm. "He's taken the bait. Scurry, scurry little roach. Right to your doom." She laughs and doesn't mind the way metal implants pinch at the tender skin of her face. Soon enough she'll be rid of them. Rid of all that stands in her way, or dares threaten what is hers.

She hasn't quite worked out what to do with the rest of the Alliance. It's a problem with no easy solution. She can protect the Earth. For her brother, she'll safeguard the planet he's so fond of. She can save her brother, and her mousling. It means getting them both aboard the Dark Fortress and forcing them into hypersleep while she figures out how to undo their entanglement – but she'll find a way. Eventually. With her boys safely in stasis she'll have time to figure it out.

The Alliance... well, if nothing else works, the collectives' ability to multiply is infinite. If she needs to infect the entire galaxy... She's already a murderess a billion times over. Adding a few billion more to her tally is no bother. It's not like she'll need to take out every feeble monster, cowardly mercenary, or bumbling shock-trooper.

Psycho Red shimmers into view, the expression on his shadowed face nearly pleasant as he gives them a nerve-grating slow-clap. "Bravo," he sneers genially, a contradiction Astronema isn't sure she'd be capable of. "You even had me believing it. Hope you're not expecting me to call you Queen."

"Oh no, little one," she purrs as she stalks towards him, stroking her fingers through his hair as she'd pet a wary felid. "I've no expectations of you at all. Why, you're barely even a Psycho any longer. Hardly of any use. Although you're a pretty enough thing; I could keep you as a decoration, I suppose." She can hear the snarl rumbling in his throat and she presses her thumb against it the better to admire his rage. The native darkness of her Red makes the light her mousling has filled him with shine all the brighter; he's beautiful, and precious, and she will never let him know.

"I'm a Psycho!" he snaps at her, and she allows herself a moment to wish she'd created him out of a Kerovian. He'd be perfect were he once Kerovian. "Let me fight!"

"Mmm," she croons knowingly. His heartbeat pounds against the pad of her thumb, but he stays still. Waiting for her command though he hardly understands his own motivations. "Let me guess. I set you loose and you'll go running back to my brother. Faithful hound. Will you guard him, child? If I order you to, will you guard him for me?"

Psycho Red has always been a balancing of contradictions. He is hatred and yearning, obsession and aversion. Astronema had once thought him her greatest creation until she'd met the Silver Ranger face to face. But her mousling is not quite her creation, merely her Calling, and her Red holds a special place in her heart.

"...Yes." It's said with reluctance but he says it nonetheless, and she smiles her approval down at him. "I'll guard him."

"Then go. Down to Earth with you, and take the other Psychos with you. The girls are free to do as they please; they no longer interest me. You..." She runs her finger along his jaw, up his cheek and past his temple into his thick, dark hair. Twirling a strand around a clawed nail, she gives it a sharp jerk that wrenches his head to the side. "Protect Andros. And Zhane. Bring them to me when the time comes. Unharmed. And when both Darkonda and Dark Specter are dealt with, escort them into the Fortress. You may stay and watch as I settle them into hypersleep."

He continues snarling, past the point she releases him and he bolts for the exit. To think, he has the audacity to snarl at her! Her creation has grown into magnificence and it pleases her. A few more rough pushes and Psycho Red will begin thinking for himself.

"Come," she tells Ecliptor as she leaves in the opposite direction. "We have one last stop to make before we start our offensive." The sounds of her pointed heels striking the metal floor echo ahead of them down the corridor, announcing her presence long before she enters her destination.

The room is lighted by soft blue and sickening orange, both colors radiating from the energy tube Zordon's been recaptured in. The Eltarian himself is transparent, his Power nearly depleted. And Astronema knows she's running out of time. Should Dark Specter gain full control of the Power before Darkonda confronts him, all is lost. All. She has only a few minutes left to spare. The battle must start soon. Across the breadth of the galaxy it's already started.

"Meddler," she greets him, leaning casually against his 'tube. And she can't help but thrill at the look, so quickly hidden, of fear in his eyes. Astronema may have given up on evil but she can't help her nature. "My Lord's ordered a bird's-eye view of the fall of your adopted planet." A flick of her wrist and a viewscreen descends from the ceiling, its display set to the city of Angel Grove. "It should make for riveting entertainment. I've set it to follow your Rangers once they appear. Astro Rangers," she lilts, and yes... that's surprise that flashes across the Eltarian's face. Surprise, and trepidation. "You didn't know? Oh my," she croons as she pats the glass of the 'tube in sympathy. "You have been out of the loop."

"Astronema," he tries to boom, but his voice is only that of a man's, exhausted and nearly driven out of himself. "You don't need to do this."

"I believe I do, Zordon." She pities him. But here, Dark Specter has spies. Here, he can see and so she must maintain the charade. "Astro Red is special to you, is he not? And so I've devised an equally special execution for him. Pretty little Ranger so long alone." She rasps her nails together, smiling at the discordant sound. "I'll have his heart in my hand at last!"

"Astronema–"

"Shh," she warns him as she rubs her cheek against the heated glass. "You had to know it would come to this. All your thousands of years of shepherding Ranger teams, putting out the tiny fires while the conflagrations burnt out of control. But you... Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire. I bet you would have preferred ice, though. Hmm?"

Finally he gets it as the pupils of his eyes flare. And she plants a kiss against the glass, leaving behind the glaringly blue imprint of her lips.

"...Astronema. Evil will never win."

"You should know better than to deal in absolutes." She makes sure to set the speakers at maximum volume before she leaves. "Do enjoy the show you old fool," she tells him, waving her hand negligently as she exits the room and links her arm back through Ecliptor's. "Everything's in place, my General?"

"Yes." Yes, and yes. Darkonda is on his dreadnought. Dark Specter is watching. The Psychos are down on Earth and she's ready.

"Then what are we waiting for? Attack!"

.oO0Oo.

"Triforia has surrendered," Cassie mutters as she scans the dozens of transmissions coming through every minute. "Reports are conflicting as to whether Trey is captured, or killed. Aquitar is holding but two of their Rangers are missing. Argo, Noctua, and Solarium sectors have gone dark."

"The distress signal from Freeport Station Six has been cut-off," DECA adds as she includes Cassie's information to the running tally scrolling across all their screens.

"We... we've got velocifighters incoming," Carlos says, and the quavering tone of his voice has Andros looking up, away from the casualty list that's growing by leaps and bounds.

"How many?" TJ asks as he tries to pull sensors over to navigation. "And where are they all coming from?"

"Not like the Alliance has to leave anyone behind to defend their own systems," Zhane says flippantly as his fingers fly across his console, a hybrid of navigation, sensors, and armaments. Zhane can run calculations faster than DECA, and if he has an idea he's working towards Andros isn't going to interrupt.

Carlos is pale beneath his normally tan skin. "A thousand. Or over. All headed directly for Earth."

His sister had said she was going to deploy all of her forces, but seeing the velocifighters in perfect formation flying towards a planet that has no clue of the ruin heading its way is sobering. "...Then let's make sure each shot counts."

Each velocifighter they take out is one less that will make it into Earth's atmosphere – but there's no winning against the sheer numbers involved. And Andros knows they were never meant to win, not for Karone's plan to succeed, but he'd nurtured a tiny, secret hope that maybe they could. Maybe, just maybe...

'There's only ever been one way through this. Trust in her, Andros.'

"First wave has made it to Earth. Damage reports incoming," Ashley says, her voice calm though panic shows in the way her eyes dart to each of her friends, and it settles something Andros doesn't want to examine too closely that she also looks to him, and to Zhane. He has a team. After so many years, he has a team. "There's a lot of structural damage. Quantrons are gathering people into open areas. Pirahnatrons are killing indiscriminately."

They need to get down to Earth. But every enemy craft they destroy in space is dozens of enemy combatants that won't make it to Earth to begin with. Andros is torn.

Zhane isn't. 'Go,' he tells him as a field of equations unfurl like blossoming flowers across his console's screen. 'I can do more good up here once the Gliders are clear.' His friend smiles crookedly, and when Andros blinks he can see the lines of geometry, action and reaction, glowing against his closed eyelids – and he almost wants to stay on the Megaship to watch. Almost. But not when people are dying purposelessly on the planet below. 'I know exactly how many I can take out. When I'm done I'll come join you.'

'You'd better.' He copies Zhane's console configuration over to command and yields his seat to the other boy seamlessly. "A half-hour," he warns. "If you're not down there in a half-hour I'm coming back up to get you." His standing has drawn the rest of his team's attention, and he beckons them. "We have to get down to Earth. Focus on the pirahnatrons; they're currently the greatest threat. If you get surrounded by quantrons... surrender. Dark Specter will only show once we're all captured. But we can't make it apparent that we've given in easily. Assume he's watching from the moment we leave the Megaship."

They nod, and they trust him, but they do not trust the situation. Earth's atmosphere is filled with velocifighters as is space all around them and they're six against thousands. Thousands of foot soldiers and four Rangers sworn never to escalate a fight; there will be no summoning of Megazords to lend aid in the battle ahead because his sister will have other uses for her satellasers, and the Psychos are on their side.

'You're using the Mega Vs?' he asks because Zhane had purposefully mentioned the Rangers taking their Gliders. And while the Mega Vs would be useful, if Zhane has a plan – the rest of the team can make do without them.

'It's like you know me.' Satisfaction feels like velvet draped across his skin. 'The collectives have been busy. As soon as you scoot we're going to cloak.'

That's enough to temporarily freeze him in place mid-step, and he turns his head just enough to catch a glimpse of pale hair bent over command. "All of them?"

"Including your Gliders. You're welcome." Zhane has every reason to be satisfied, Andros thinks as he leaps into his jump tube and morphs. The Gliders now have cloaking capabilities, and it's easy to avoid enemy ships as they head to Earth. The Gliders have so many new abilities thanks to Zhane, and thanks to the parting gift from Blue. DECA has been busy making adjustments and upgrades. And TJ's shout of surprise as the Megaship disappears behind them is gratifying. That the shout carries over comms is a bonus. 'I know, I'm made of awesome. Tell Teej he can quit griping over my Cycle now.'

Andros can't see them, but he can sense their ships moving into place. The Mega Vs and Delta, the Astro Megaship and Wing. "Faster," he urges the others as he leans forward on his Glider. "This is about to become a debris field."

"What's Zhane going to do?" Cassie wants to know and Andros laughs because it's insane. Insane, impossible, and completely, one hundred percent Zhane.

"He's calculated debris trajectories." Millions of trajectories and exactly which velocifighters would need to be destroyed to start the chain reaction. It shouldn't be possible. Not all the computers and AIs on KO-35 working in tandem could have done it, but Zhane's as much math as he is music and his laughter joins Andros' with the tart sweetness of berries in late autumn. "Earth's going to have a clean-up problem afterwards. Kessler syndrome is about to become front page news as soon as people get bored of reading about the invasion."

'Karone can always send the Dark Fortress on a sweep afterwards. She'd have first salvage rights anyways.'

Andros is happy to let his sister deal with the fallout, but he knows Earth's politicians will complain. All of them, despite the fact that they'd have no way of recovering the scrap themselves. Politicians, and Andros has never seen the use of them.

"Don't look back," he warns them as he dodges fighters unaware of his presence. "It's about to get bright." Bright, and burning hot even through the environmental protections of his Glider and Ranger uniform. He closes his eyes as the thin atmosphere around him deflects the multitude of explosions. To the people on the ground already panicking from the world-wide attack, he hates to think what it might look like. The end of everything, he supposes. As he'd thought himself when he'd look to the sky on planet after planet. A burning sky, twin to a burning world.

But not here. Earth's not going to burn, not if he can help it.

'Okay?' Andros asks as Zhane's vertigo momentarily overcomes him.

'Some of the timings are tight.' And that's a barrel roll as Andros' stomach flips despite the steady progress of his Glider. The Megaship, a miracle of engineering harboring an impossibility of an accelerator, wasn't meant for that kind of maneuver, and he's sure that despite the inertial dampeners that crew quarters are now an absolute shambles of flung items and broken brick-a-brac. 'And Deca's having a fit.' Glee bracing as citrus fills Andros' mouth as the universe itself seems to tilt on its axis. 'Earth below us drifting, falling. Floating weightless, coming, coming home. How's it going with you guys?'

'Entering battle... now.' The streets are filled with rubble and abandoned cars. Earthians scream and run for cover, or run from troops with shouts of aliens! or sit dazedly on curbs huddled together in small groups that hide their heads beneath the scanty shelter of their arms and pray. Each sight is commonplace to Andros, forever ingrained into his memory. KO-16. Avera. KO-35. No different. No real difference at all.

Only the outcome will be different this time around. Please let the outcome be different, and Andros feels Zhane's fervent agreement.

He changes his Glider to Cycle as the first large group of pirahnatrons comes into view, and TJ's whoop of exhilaration as he follows suit is worth keeping the modification a secret.

"About time!" Blue crows as he cheerfully runs over a handful of soldiers that had once belonged to Divatox.

"Zhane's looks nicer," Carlos needles, his own black bike skidding to a stop as his lance spears through a pirahnatron menacing a fleeing couple. "Cassie, I can't take you seriously with that much pink on display."

"Bite me," she snaps back as she switches from motorcycle to Glider to clear a smouldering tractor-trailer then back to Cycle to scatter an approaching squad.

Ashley's cackling over comms, loud and raucous. "I think Andros called dibs on any and all biting."

And – that's not fair. Biting is uncivilized. Tacky, feral behavior. Andros would never bite while in his right mind. But Carlos is seconding Ashley, and Carlos had cornered him in the cargo bay wanting to know if he needed to take extra precautions during the next full moon, and what that had been about Andros doesn't know. Was too afraid to ask, confronted as he'd been with Carlos' smirk and gleaming, sly eyes.

Come to think of it, he'd bitten Psycho Red as well. Maybe Ashley's assessment is fair after all. And he wonders if he's bitten anyone else he's since forgotten about...

'Should get you and your sister teething rings.' Andros can't help but pout as he shoots a velocifighter out of the sky; his sister had bitten Zhane. The scar on the other boy's neck has never completely faded, and Andros' eyeteeth itch with sudden need, instinct flooding him with the desire to obscure Karone's claim with his own. 'Uh-uh,' Zhane admonishes him, but there's affection beneath his feigned affront. 'No. Bad Andros. Go take your aggression out on Alliance troops. And if you're still thinking about biting after... I'll bite you; it hurts you know.'

He hmphs low in his throat and tears through pirahnatrons and flaming wreckage. 'That works.' It's hard to think, but he doesn't need to. As long as his saber swings and enemies fall he can lose himself in the rhythm of battle and the steady, gnawing pain of his knee. 'Done up there yet?'

'Almost finished establishing orbits; Deca and Alpha are going to patrol for stragglers.' For a second both of their thoughts blank to silver, calm with a serenity that lasts for all eternity. Then, a doubled-vision of pirahnatrons running towards him and the streaking lights of an activated jump tube. '–Okay. Let's not do that again.' And for all that their communication is mental, Zhane sounds breathless. 'What... what was I doing?'

Andros can't remember what he was doing, let alone what the other boy had been up to. But his saber swings and enemies are vanquished without his conscious input, so he supposes Zhane's needs take priority. 'Coming down in Wing?' He knows that's what he wants Zhane to be doing. Silver should be at Red's side, and the flow of battle is off without him.

'Ah. Yeah, I'm heading towards you, but on my Glider. Wing's collectives got antsy; they're joining the Psychos. Seem to think they'll have more fun batting velocifighters out of the sky.' Zhane has never had a problem with escalating battles; it's hard to argue with his belief that the quicker a battle is won the better off everyone is.

"Sounds like fun to me," he mumbles, earning him turned heads from his teammates. The last of the pirahnatrons are cleared from the area and the Rangers are moving forward, splitting up – because finally, finally Silver is next to him, and Andros can think again. Breathe again – and when had he started holding his breath? "Is it just me, or are the quantrons actively avoiding us?"

"It's just you," TJ grumbles, the sound of his axe cleaving through metal audible even through his mic's filters. "They're all up in mine and Cassie's faces."

"Confirming. The quantrons just became a lot more active," Ashley informs them. Andros can catch brief glimpses of the yellow of her Cycle at the opposite ends of passing alleyways, and he smirks as she runs over a pirahnatron they'd missed. "–And what's that smell?"

"Smell?" Carlos asks in puzzlement. "All I can smell is myself and let me tell you; it's not pleasant. Right Guard has failed me. I want my money back."

But there is a smell, faint but foul working its way past his helmet's protection. Time creeps by as Andros fights; Red in tandem with Silver until quantrons begin to replace fallen pirahnatrons. A sea of quantrons stained red as blood in the light of a sunset filtered through smoke. And the smell is everywhere, gaggingly thick.

"Dark Specter's here," Zhane pants as he stumbles against Andros' back, pushed by the sheer mass of the quantrons surrounding them.

That would account for it; Andros yearns to remove his helmet so he can spit out the cloying rankness. Only Dark Specter would be so large as to smother an entire planet beneath his corruption. "Okay. This is it. Let the quantrons herd you; we should all be taken to the same location. –Be prepared for speeches. Bad speeches. The Alliance probably plans to broadcast our executions."

"If it means I get to rest, I'm okay with that," Cassie tells them, then grunts harshly before continuing. "It's okay. Guess we weren't moving fast enough."

"Bad speeches? And after Astronema worked so hard on them," a voice sneers, and there's a hand around the back of Andros' neck, tight but not yet crushing. Andros retaliates by swinging his elbow back, but it's blocked from its intended target as Zhane's shoved roughly against his side. "Ah ah," the voice sniggers, and Andros is shaken hard enough that his teeth rattle against each other, barely missing biting into his tongue. "Don't think your Silver boyo appreciated the blow to the gut."

"Don't really appreciate any of the Alliance's handiwork to be honest," Zhane says, winded. "Which is saying something. I'm pretty easy to please." An arm snakes its way around Andros' waist and he leans into it because the touch is Zhane's and welcome where others are most definitely not. "Psycho Red, here to escort us?"

"Pops." And Andros trips over his own feet because – no. Psycho Red must agree because he's snickering madly. "Yeah, that's terrible. But what to call the guy responsible for my rebirth, huh?" The Psycho's armored hand clenches around Andros' neck hard enough to choke before it loosens and leaves him coughing. Zhane's coughing as well, and Andros realizes too slowly, too late that Psycho Red has a hold on them both. "Have I thanked you for that yet?"

"You rescued me," Zhane says lightly. "Does that count?" And, 'Can you twist free if you need to?'

"I can hear you thinking," Psycho Red snarls as he shakes them again.

'Good for you.' This time his teeth have caught the edge of his tongue and Andros swallows blood. "What's it like, knowing we're talking about you but unable to actually understand what we're saying?"

"How the fuck does Silver put up with you?"

"Easy." The crisp mint of Zhane's amusement is enough to momentarily cover up the stench of Dark Specter. "He's worse than I am."

"He would be. Now listen," the boy behind them hisses as he clenches and unclenches his hands, his threat clear. "You're defeated. Beaten. You bitches need to look it. Right now his attention's divided, but once all you cookie-cutter Rangers are lined up for slaughter he'll notice if you're not following the script. He's almost fully materialized and Darkonda's off the Fortress. Got it?"

Andros understands. He understands completely, and it takes no effort at all to let his shoulders slump and his steps drag. Now that he's no longer fighting and his adrenaline's ebbing, his knee is a torment he can't escape and only the support of Zhane's arm keeps him standing. That, and the hand fisted into the material gathered at his neck. And Zhane matches him, trembling in exhaustion with his helmet bowed as if his head's become too heavy to hold upright.

"Copy that?" Andros dares to whisper through comms, and he gets soft affirmatives in return as they're led through a maze of fallen concrete and twisted rebar, broken glass crunching beneath their boots with each shuffling step. Blue and Pink join them with their own group of captors followed shortly by Yellow and Black, and all too soon they're through the jumble of collapsed buildings and practically dragged into the square in front of Angel Grove's City Hall.

'Out of our hands now,' he tells Zhane ruefully, tensing automatically before realizing that Psycho Red's going to allow them this communication. '...Think Darkonda's going to play along?'

'And miss his only chance at taking control of the Alliance?'

There's no one to see. No one but Psycho Red and the sea of quantrons surrounding them. No one but his sister, and far above the planet Dark Specter. Dark Specter, out of all of the Alliance, will be watching. Gloating over his ultimate, absolute victory over Good. So Andros powers down because it's out of their hands. He powers down and Zhane follows suit, and they lean against each other for support despite the gloved hands that now lay directly against the exposed skin of their necks. There's nothing more Andros can do and so he clasps Zhane's hand, and entwines their fingers, and waits for whatever comes next.

.oO0Oo.

Astronema teleports down to Earth in a sparkle of purple more lavender than violet, aware of the many eyes watching her. They do not matter; there's only one being's attention she needs to hold – and she has it. Dark Specter had not been happy with the catastrophic loss of velocifighters – and how her mousling had managed to pull off that feat she does not know, but she both admires and envies the sheer scale of the destruction – but he does not argue with results. The tyrant can see for himself that she's conquered the planet. And he's here, finally physically here to partake in the Rangers' demise.

Darkonda had better hurry up.

She walks languidly up to them, her boys practically dangling from Psycho Red's fists. And her heart misses a beat. There's not a trace of brown left in her brother's hair. Two heads of silver, two sets of eyes that glow like lanterns shining through cracked crystal. She's nearly out of time and she curses the roach under her breath.

Now, she pleads. To the darkness, to the light; in the end they're the same, two sides of one ancient coin. It needs to be done now.

"As you can see, my Lord," she announces as she struts past the row of captured Astros, "the Earth is yours. The Rangers that have defied you are brought low. None are left to oppose your rule. You are indeed the Grand Monarch of this galaxy." Flattery flows with the ease of long practice from her tongue; it tastes of poison, acrid and stinging. "Your command, Dark Specter?"

"You have done well, Astronema." Sound does not carry through a vacuum, yet all on Earth can hear the tyrant's voice. The very air compresses with each syllable he utters, and she knows the very young and the very old, the frail and the sick of Earth are suffocating beneath the pressure.

Now. Please now.

"I live to serve." She bows deeply with her staff held out to her side. With her eyes focused on the ground there's no way for the tyrant to see the hatred burning in her gaze.

"You do. I–" A scream that sends every being present to their knees, and then to the ground. Her ears; covering them does no good, the sound pierces through her and she doesn't know if it ends or if she's gone deaf until she hears a roar of, "Traitor!"

Darkonda has taken his sweet time, but no roach – no matter how highly it thinks of itself – will ignore bait for long. And Astronema had made sure the bait was irresistible. A single dreadnought is not enough to take out an entire planet, but a being the size of Dark Specter? With his reserves of power drained down to the dregs and at point-blank range, yes. Yes, a dreadnought would do the job.

Of course the dreadnought would be lost in the process, but what need had Darkonda to fear? He had two lives remaining, or so he had thought. Ecliptor had successfully made the exchange when she'd sent her General after the traitor. It had been simplicity itself to duplicate Darkonda's scroll, and for a monster that bragged of his cleverness and thought himself so far above others, the fool had never been able to keep track of his own lives. Pathetic.

Molten bits of what was once Dark Specter begin streaking across the sky. A meteor storm to light up the twilight, and meteorites that will cause more mass destruction than all her troops combined. She gives the order; search, rescue, rebuild or self-destruct as she drags herself to her brother's side. Andros, a trickle of blood running from his ear with Zhane crumpled next to him, across him, his pale hair glowing against the red of her brother's shirt. Neither are conscious, but her magic tells her that both are alive.

"Got 'em here," Psycho Red says hoarsely before hacking up a glob of bloody phlegm. He's demorphed. All of the Rangers have lost their morphs, but Astronema doesn't care about them. Her mousling. Her brother. Her charming little murderer; they're enough to keep track of. "The other Psychos went down the same time as Dark Specter."

Astronema smiles dark and pleased because only her dear, personal Red is awake to see her satisfaction. The destruction of the other Psychos is not unexpected, but she's glad that they're gone. They'd no longer been hers, and she has never had much use for those things that are not hers.

"Hmm." Crouching, she lightly strokes Red's face and observes Silver's, but they remain unresponsive. "Help me get them up," she orders her Red as she glares at the quantrons milling around them. "And you! Take the other Rangers and stash them somewhere close by where the Earthians won't stumble across them. May as well honor their wish not to reveal their identities. Darkness knows, dealing with Earthians is a hassle best avoided."

She lifts Zhane up taking care not to come into contact with unclothed skin because of course her hopeless, besotted Psycho chooses her brother to help. She'd coo at the sight if it wasn't sickening. Andros is her brother; the patched together remnant of the youth she'd created her Psycho Red from isn't anywhere near good enough for him. Never mind the fact that Andros has her mousling as his companion... and absolutely no one in the universe can compare to Zhane.

It's less than a second's thought to teleport them all to the Dark Fortress. A few minutes walk to get to the fortified chamber she's set up with hypersleep tubes. And Astronema tenderly lays down her burden on a surface more reminiscent of an alter than a bed, although she's taken pains to cushion it. "Sleep well, my dearest," she whispers, leaning down to mime a soft kiss above her mousling's forehead where pale skin meets with shining silver hair. She longs to touch him, but the prohibition holds despite her mother's meddling; she hasn't permission and she cannot touch no matter how much she needs to. "I promise you, I'll figure out a way to save you both."

His eyelids twitch and his nose crinkles, and Astronema is confronted by shattered, horrified eyes. "...No," he mumbles, clumsily reaching for her. "No. You can't."

And Andros is waking, tossing within the confines of his own 'tube and scratching to wound as Psycho Red tries to contain him. "Karone! Karone, you can't!"

"Oh, you'll find that I can, brother-mine." She needs to get the 'tubes sealed, and activated, because her darling boys' panic is upsetting.

Andros is hissing, his fingers clawed and his dazed eyes glaring. "You can't. The only reason Zhane survived hypersleep before is because he was with me. Light has to move, Karone! You know this. Remember the story! Light has to move, or it's no longer light! If we're both placed in hypersleep, we'll lose him!"

Astronema gazes down into lambent eyes of crystal, fearful and begging. And she curses because her light-be-damned brother is right. Put them both into hypersleep and her mousling will perish and with him, eventually, the universe itself. If only Zhane is put into stasis she'll lose her brother to the light that's continuously flooding into him. She's losing him now; there's so little time left. If she chooses Andros for hypersleep, Zhane will collapse.

There's no solution. She'd thought she could save them – but there's no solution... because light has to move.

She'd forgotten. Busy with her plans against Dark Specter, for the Alliance; she'd forgotten.

She would sob, but she's now a Queen, and even here in the hidden depths of her Fortress she's painfully aware of her position.

"What would you have me do, Andros?" she asks quietly, motioning her Psycho back; away. "What do you think I'll do, when I lose you both? Zhane? Have you any wisdom to see me through this?"

Zhane blinks slowly and struggles to sit upright. She would help him, but there's too much risk of accidental touch. "The rest of the Alliance is still on the attack. You, you can't order them to stand down. They won't, not while they're winning." From the corner of her eye she can see her brother slide carefully down from his 'tube, using it for support as he fights to remain standing against a knee that threatens to buckle. And he's furious, but that's an emotion she's used to witnessing on Andros' face. "...Zordon's here?"

"...He is." But she doesn't see why it should matter. Unless her brother has his heart set on rescuing the old meddler, in which case he's welcome to him. Let the Eltarian squat on the Megaship, a mentor whose time is long-passed. With Eltar itself gone; with so many planets gone and less than stellar dust, it will be ages before another Ranger team emerges. And Astronema will go to great lengths to make sure Zordon is not the one to greet them. Children are impressionable, and Zordon's made more than his fair share of mistakes.

"Maybe he'll have an idea." Her brother cannot walk on his own, but her Red is at his side ignoring that she's waved him back and despite the bloody scratches now marking his arms. Zhane can stand, and walk, but she delicately takes his clothed elbow to guide him. And still, and still the two pale-haired boys gravitate towards each other. Andros' tone is hopeful, but there's knowledge in his silvered eyes that he cannot hide. Andros knows they're declining. But he has the strength to smile at Zhane, who smiles back and offers his hand.

Her boys are breaking her heart.

Zordon is not all that far away, but the walk there is slow and grows slower as they near.

"Could you stop already?" Psycho Red complains, his lips pulled down in a grimace. "Be schmoopy on your own time." And he raises an irate eyebrow at her inquisitive stare. "They're talking to each other. I can't hear them, but they are. It itches like a wool sweater in summer."

Now that – would make a fine monster. Ludicrous, and she giggles to herself as she leads her boys into a chamber lit cerulean. A monster to shove pesky Rangers into wool sweaters. It's a pleasant idea to dwell on when all else is falling to ruin.

.oO0Oo.

'Do you actually think Zordon can help us?' Zhane's question is threaded with doubt and the sour taste of fermented vegetables.

Andros gently swings their joined hands as they shuffle down the corridor. Psycho Red supports him on his left, and his sister is on the far right, and Zhane is at his side. As he always should be. As he always will be. 'No. But we can finish the job we set out to accomplish. And Zordon might have some idea of what to do about the rest of the Alliance. Earth... is mostly intact. We might be able to talk Karone into declaring this a sanctuary system.'

'Except I took out the majority of her fleet. She has the Fortress, and her remaining ground troops. I doubt that's enough to deter the likes of Zedd or Divatox. And the Machine Empire will eventually rebuild. They always do.'

Zhane's concerns echo Andros' own fears. Hope, though, is stubborn. It dies hard and when it does, it fights to take root and grow once more. The seeds of hope sprout eternal. They're led to a room lit by the glow of the tube that imprisons Zordon, and Andros would like to sit. He yearns to sit but settles for leaning against Zhane. Much of his time of late has been spent leaning on Zhane, he muses. As Zhane leans on him. Only together are they whole. It takes both of them now days to make one person, and if there's a moral there Andros has missed it.

Zordon notices them – and he's speechless. The look on his face, so large, so blue is priceless and it startles a bright, bubbling laugh from Zhane. Andros joins him because why not? Why not laugh? It's funny.

"Andros? Zhane?" Zordon booms as he looks from one to the other, as if unsure which is which. And Andros concedes that the Eltarian's confusion is valid because Andros himself is losing track as to which... is which. "What has happened to you?"

Zhane is still giggling, his head resting against the side of Andros' own. "Life. Life has happened. It's been so much more than I could have ever imagined, before. Stories sown along the way. Tales of loss and fire and faith. Even so, I'll miss it. If given a chance, I'd come back... To Andros, for Andros, I'd come back."

And what can Andros possibly say with that declaration now lying raw and exposed between them? Zhane might come back for him, but Andros will follow him first. The ache in his bones tells him so. His hollowed bones and burning knee, and the silver that keeps washing over his mind in ever-rising waves; he'll follow Zhane, first.

"It should not have come to this." There's sadness in Zordon's large eyes but not yet acceptance. "This is not how your tale was meant to end."

And Andros can't help but smile because how else do fairy tales draw to a close? Happy endings? How naïve. And yet, with Zhane at his side and in his mind and woven through his soul – Andros is happy. Happier than he's ever been. "If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story. We can stop it here. We've defeated Dark Specter. We're victorious. This, this wouldn't be a bad place to stop."

"With the rest of the Alliance ready to arrive to finish us off?" Karone shakes her head and twists her fingers in a spreading mist of lavender that leaves her with bronze-streaked blonde hair and cool blue eyes, the implants that had pierced her skin down into her skull gone as if they'd never been. "If we could actually halt time, yes. This would not be a bad place to end the story. I could be happy trapped forever in this moment with you."

"What remains in this galaxy that's not Alliance?" Zordon asks pensively. "Is it only Earth?"

"Not only Earth. Triforia surrendered but remains, for now. Aquitar. Countless moons and asteroids. And..." Andros thinks of children. Children of all shapes and sizes and the memory of a future where their society flourishes. "The sectors sworn to Lord Dark are untouched. The Alliance hasn't yet realized they're no longer under Evil's sway."

"Lord Dark?" Zordon's chuckle is deep and vast as space itself. "That is a legacy that's worth saving. There is a way to preserve what's left of those that follow the light, and to spare those that truly serve darkness. The good energy stored inside my tube is enough to counteract Evil in this galaxy. Destroy the tube – and the Alliance will no longer be a worry."

"But won't destroying your tube destroy you?" Andros asks, already shaking his head in denial.

Zhane, though... Zhane is laughing. Loudly, and rolling his eyes in perfect imitation of Andros when he's at his most obnoxious and wanting to be obvious about it. "Good energy?" Disbelief, and increasing amusement. "Really? That's the lie you're going with?" Zhane, bright as a bolt of lightning, takes a single step towards Zordon and pokes an accusing finger at his tube. "It makes sense now. All those pinholes you were punching through time across the universe. Why you allowed yourself to be trapped outside of time to begin with. You cheat. You've been gathering the scattered pieces of yourself. Good energy, hah!"

Andros would like to know what's so hilarious that Zhane's mirth has tinted the entire room pink. 'Care to let the rest of us in on the joke?'

His friend's smile is manic and has Psycho Red creeping back towards the corridor beyond the doorway. Andros wobbles without the additional support, but he refuses to fall.

"Light – is energy. Dark is energy. Goodness is about morality. A chosen state of being, the same as Evil, but there's no energy involved except for that which each individual generates naturally." Zhane's smiling, with his mouth, and with his eyes, and in the hands that come to rest on Andros' shoulders. Zhane is a smile and Andros has always known that Zhane's smile means everything. "Do you remember? Gravity called me Oldest. But when this universe began again Zordon was the first new light. And he's spent all of timeless eternity collecting himself back up. Break his energy tube and the very first light of this existence will spread across the galaxy. Evil can withstand a lot of things, but concentrated light? No so much."

"An old friend," Andros whispers as he tries to comprehend what he's been told. "A very old friend."

"Mhm. Whose window opened long ago."

Zordon, someone's imaginary friend, and it's easy to join Zhane in hysterical laughter. Because Andros remembers the question once asked: What happens to a friend once their chosen child is gone? Not, not to those friends that are discarded but those who've lost their child through nothing more than the passage of time.

They continue on. And Zordon... has continued on. And on. Until now.

"But – he will die? Won't he? If the tube's broken?"

One of Zhane's hands remains on Andros' shoulder as he turns back to the Eltarian. "He will. But it's not quite the same as it is for those mired in time and bound in matter. You'd see it as death..." He tilts his head thoughtfully. "But it's only – different. And a little lonely. Being matter, even for a short time, has shown me how lonely it truly is..."

Andros steps forward when Zhane does until they're both directly in front of the glowing tube. '...Will you be lonely?' Andros is made of matter, not starstuff. And he doesn't know how he will bear the future looming before him if Zhane will be lonely once he's gone.

'We're entangled photons. Binary stars. No. We won't ever be lonely again.' Andros can taste the sweetness of honey, and smell the warmth of stalks of grain ripening in the sun, and see the field of stars that makes up their shared dreams. He licks at his lips and can remember what happens eons in the future, and eons in the past, but not what occurs in the next few months. It's a paradox, and it sounds like the wind rustling through the golden leaves of trees in autumn.

'I'm glad. I've had enough of being alone. I don't ever want to go back to it.'

Both of their hands are on Zordon's tube, palms flat against glass previously crazed from heat but now cool to the touch. And Zhane's expression is earnest though his lips still hint at a joyful grin. "Do you trust me?" he asks the Eltarian. "Would you trust me with your self?"

Zordon's smile is that of a being at peace. A being gifted hope. "I do, old friend. Haven't I always?" And Andros feels the bite of a pebble press against his palm. Zhane's palm, before the sensation fades. "Thank you. Now please, shatter the tube. Every minute we delay more lives are lost."

Andros doesn't know if he can, though. Destroying the tube, killing Zordon, carries a tremendous weight. It's an action with endless repercussions. Andros isn't even sure if he can morph to summon his saber. But he can't ask Zhane to do it. Although death means something different to his friend, he can't ask Zhane. Zhane, who was there the moment Zordon came into existence. No...

His sister takes the decision out of his hands. With a smirk she summons her staff and twirls it with flare befitting the new Queen of Darkness. "Gladly," Karone purrs, her eyes slanted in satisfaction. "I'd ask if you had any last words, but you've blathered on long enough. I'm sure my brother will think of something fitting for your eulogy."

And with a jab of the pointed tip of her staff the world turns golden. A sea of gold, but around Andros, and around Zhane, there is a calm, soothing blanket of silver that gold cannot reach. Zordon may have been First, and eventually Brightest...

...but Zhane will always be Oldest. Over and over, time and again.

.oO0Oo.

Ashley had woken up to the blinding glare of gold. Later, when she'd had the chance to ask her friends, they'd said the same. Gold, and the fleeting sensation of farewell that had left them with tears in their eyes with no understanding as to why. Good-bye, and the realization she was unmorphed and hidden away in the hollow left under several large pieces of broken concrete.

When she'd gathered her nerve and crawled out it was to the sight of quantrons cleaning up debris. She'd walked down broken streets where quantrons were directing pedestrians, and bearing signs pointing the way to the nearest field hospitals and emergency shelters. Quantrons running make-shift soup kitchens and Ashley had been mystified.

"DECA?" she'd tried her communicator. "Are you still – there?"

"Yes, Ashley," the AI had responded immediately, her calm voice reassuring. "I am currently maintaining the Megaship's orbit around Earth while mapping the debris field. It is extensive."

A quantron was placing a Spider-Man bandage on a little boy's knee and Ashley had needed to sit down. For just a minute. As she watched, and wondered. "The other Rangers?"

"Blue and Pink woke up shortly before you. They are lending aid in the park. Black is still unconscious but is showing signs of rousing. I can direct you to him if you want."

She had scratched at her dusty chin and continued observing. Another bandage, this time Cinderella, carefully wrapped around a young girl's pinky finger. And Ashley had choked down a giggle because neither Zhane nor Andros had understood gender-specific clothing but quantrons could tell the difference. Or perhaps the mechanical construct had gotten lucky in its guessing.

"What about Red and Silver?"

"They were transported to the Dark Fortress some time ago. However, Red has been in contact and expects to return to Earth soon." DECA, direct and to the point, and later Ashley would appreciate her for the quick, concise answers.

Ashley had gone to fetch Carlos, and together they'd joined up with Cassie and TJ. They might not have been morphed, but they could help. In the bizarre new reality that had taken shape, where quantrons offered succor and had begun the process of recovery – she could help.

A few hours later while she'd been stacking cases of water, Andros and Zhane had appeared. And though they'd been dressed in clothes that wouldn't have been out of place in any of her school classes, they'd stood out. They'd glowed in a night lit only by emergency lanterns and smouldering fires.

"Hi, guys," she'd greeted them with a hug that had pulled them both in. Around her other humans had looked away, unwilling to confront any additional strangeness. But she had held them close. Closed her eyes and offered a grateful prayer to whatever power had managed to keep them safe. Hugged them tighter so they couldn't see her tears.

Zordon, gone. Evil – gone, dispersed in a wave of gold. The Alliance now consisted of Astronema alone, who'd projected her image into the smoke-filled skies above Earth, declared the planet her protectorate, and promised to leave the primitives to their own devices once reconstruction was complete. Ashley had hated admitting it but the woman had style. The threat she'd ended her speech with, that she'd return if the Earthians couldn't keep peace amongst themselves, well...

Earth had had worse rulers. And none were any the wiser that it had been Astronema that had attacked them to begin with. Sure, they'd all witnessed the quantrons attacking, but they'd been easily explained away. With a partial truth, no less. Machines could, after all, be reprogrammed.

Ashley had woken to a world changed, and it's changing again as she stares up at the two boys from KO-35. Pale-haired and pale-eyed, dressed in clothes taken from a donation bin. She'd always been right; they're a tragedy. She just hadn't known how much of one. "You have to go?" She doesn't want them to go. They've won. Against impossible odds, they've won, and she's not ready for them to leave.

But they're glowing, faint and silvery in the darkness of Earth's night, two lost stars misplaced in the mud of Angel Grove Park.

"We promised ourselves a vacation." Zhane dimples at her as if they're actually going to go on vacation. They're glowing and exhaustion is writ large in every small motion they make. "There's a world where the oceans are full of bioluminescent algae. Andros got to go. I want to see how much pie I can eat there."

"You would." Andros' smile at his friend is indulgent. "And once you've stuffed yourself sick with pie, we'll go visit Finster. You said you'd show me the school."

"Show you off to the school kids. And let you dote upon the nursery."

"And the nursery." There's so much hope in Andros' shining eyes that Ashley has to swallow and look away. It doesn't stop him from reaching out and placing a finger under her chin, lifting her head so that their eyes meet once more. "We'd stay, if we could. To help with the clean-up. If we could..."

"We'd stay," Zhane repeats as he scratches sheepishly at the short hairs at the back of his neck. "You know that, right?"

She knows. She wishes she didn't. And she'd ask to go with them, but she knows. Where they're going, she can't follow. It's not her time. So she hugs them tight and fierce, and neither of them mention her tears.

They'd won, but Ashley isn't sure if she'll ever be able to stop crying.

Astronema finds her some time later. Hours, days; Ashley's not sure. Astronema, Karone, sits by her side on the park bench and they watch humans and quantrons working together, distributing supplies.

"They were people once," Karone murmurs as her fingers clench against the denim of her jeans. "People kidnapped from the Kerovan systems the same as I was. Only chance kept me from joining their ranks. Chance, and a parent renowned for her magical abilities. I – could never tell my brother, or Zhane. It would have crushed my mousling as nothing else could have, to know that the machines he disposed of so casually had once been Kerovians. Mostly Kerovian children."

It's knowledge too horrific to hold on to. Ashley blinks and lets it sink away, down to where it will trouble her in nightmares for years to come. She... she's taken out quantrons. Her nightmares will be vivid and she will never tell another soul the truth.

"Why are you here?" she finally asks once she has her voice under control.

"Andros asked me what he thought you'd need from the Megaship while they're away. I have your wardrobe; I know clothing is important when you can't instantly create your own. All of your personal belongings I have stored on the Fortress. My brother thought to have his AI teleport it down to your residences on Earth. I talked him out of it. I have a feeling not all of your family members know of your extracurricular activities."

"Cassie's father thinks she's in Europe studying music." She tugs at the braided ribbon bracelet she's wearing; red, with silver charms woven through. She hasn't felt much like wearing yellow. She doesn't know if she'll ever be able to wear yellow again. Yellow will be responsible for the deaths of two boys she's grown to love. Dead for years, and still Yellow will get his way. Which reminds her... "The yellow Astro morpher; can it be destroyed? I know he's waiting for a chance to come back. I think I can sense him, sometimes. I can't, I can't even wear the morpher any longer for fear he'll worm his way back."

"Destroyed? No... not without taking the rest of the Astro morphers out as well. The chances of him returning are slim, but..." The woman sighs as she leans back against the wooden bench and watches as bumbling pigeons peck for seeds in the trampled grass. "Impossible doesn't seem to mean much anymore, does it?"

Ashley is stuck with a morpher she doesn't trust on a planet that doesn't have a chance of standing against Yellow should he manage to claw his way back out of the Grid. "–Then take me with you. You're the only being I know powerful enough to take on Yellow and defeat him. Let me go with you. Please. Wherever you go. I don't mind. I just..."

"You're running away."

And if she is? She narrows her eyes at Astronema – and pouts. "So?"

"Well, at least I already have your wardrobe aboard. Do try to stay out of Ecliptor's way. He's been sulking ever since I told him there will be no more slaying of Rangers, in honorable duels to the death or otherwise."

.oO0Oo.

Pirates. Space pirates. Not Evil, merely evil. Or perhaps avaricious. Andros doesn't think they'd meant to harm them. Much. It hadn't been a well-planned ambush to begin with, and the Megaship had had the corsairs outclassed and outgunned. A single lucky shot through shields that had momentarily glitched had taken out the Megaship's long-range communications... and the next instant an emergent singularity had taken out – everything else. The Megaship had managed to slip free from gravity's pull. The corsairs, on the wrong side of the event horizon, had not.

Bulkheads are down all over the ship; what remains of the Megaship. They'd escaped the singularity, but they'd lost portions of the ship in the process. And there's no exiting the bridge. The corridors are exposed to hard vacuum. The hanger bay with their Gliders is gone. And Andros had been ready to morph, but Zhane had mournfully shaken his head and sat on the floor in front of command's console, quietly watching the stars and the blue, blue planet outside until the viewscreen had dimmed.

"It wouldn't keep us alive for all that much longer," he says, his voice hushed. "And, I wouldn't be able to feel you holding my hand." His silver eyes are brilliant and endlessly thankful as Andros sits next to him. "Gotta wonder what gravity was up to. Did it think it was helping? Or had it just seen an opportunity to catch us by surprise?"

Andros isn't going to spend what little time remains to them worrying over gravity's motives. He's cold, and he knows that it's going to get so much colder. Cold will likely kill them before they deplete the oxygen remaining on the bridge.

"We don't make it out of this, do we?" Andros whispers as he wraps himself around his friend. Zhane's had trouble maintaining body heat ever since Yellow had taken him. Zhane's been cold, but Andros will share what warmth he has, for as long as he's able. "It's why we couldn't remember these weeks."

"...I don't think we do. I managed to send out a distress buoy before Deca shut herself down, but the chances of anyone finding it here... For what it's worth, I never thought we'd go like this."

Before the viewscreen had darkened it had displayed KO-35 in all the cursed planet's terrible glory. An elderly Kerovian trader had died of nothing more dire than old age, and her last request had been for her ashes to be returned home. Andros had easily agreed. It would be a short trip; there and back in an hour. Instead... The only ships that enter KO-35's system are scavengers. Looters. And apparently pirates down on their luck.

"Finster will notice we're behind schedule. He'll send someone to find us." Andros refuses to abandon hope, but it's cold and Zhane's lips, and the tips of his fingers as he brushes them across Andros' cheek, are blue. Blue as KO-35, or Karone's eyes.

"He might." Zhane's laughter is a small puff of air against his neck. Too cool. Too small. And a contented sigh as he snuggles closer though there's scarcely any room between them to start with. "I thought we'd go out in a blaze. A nova when this failing body finally collapsed. But this, this isn't bad either." Icy fingers tangle with Andros' own. "...Do you trust me, Andros? Would you trust me with your self?"

"You even need to ask?" Andros wonders what color his pebble is as it forms between their joined hands. Likely red. Andros has always been Red. "But I'm not like you. I don't think I can be Called back."

"...Maybe. Maybe. But this way we won't be separated. It's large out there. Bodies aren't meant to grasp the scale." Andros can feel the grin form against his neck as Zhane smiles; lips cool and moist as they purse into a semblance of a kiss. "It took billions of years to find you once; consider this the same as holding hands." Fingers gently squeeze against his and the pebble's gone as if it had never been. "–I'm sorry, Andros."

"For what?" There is no light on the bridge except for that which they themselves emit. "You promised to always be with me. I don't think you're going to be breaking that promise now. Or ever." If Zhane can smile, so can he. Although it's growing difficult as his teeth begin to chatter beyond his ability to control.

"I won't leave you. But I never imagined we'd end like this. I – I don't think we'll end, like this. But for now, we'll end."

Andros shivers, and rocks in an attempt to generate heat. 'You're making less sense than usual.'

There's a breathy imitation of a giggle. 'Your brain is getting harder to use.'

Every feeling comes to Andros now syrupy-sweet, slow and lasting as layers build. He's tired. And cold. And he'd worry about who might find and claim his morpher, but he's too tired and too cold to worry for long. 'I wonder if Mama will care that we're gone. Karone will care. She'll be so mad. The rest of the Rangers... Did we tell them good-bye, Zhane? Before we left?'

'Hmm. Don't remember.' Sweetness and silver and love, and it doesn't feel as cold.

'Huh. Mama, Mama used to tell us a story. How did it go? How did it end?' Sugar coats his lips, or frost, and his voice is less than the suggestion of a whisper. "And so they lived, happily together for threehundred years. In the land of Tír na nÓg, land of eternal youth and beauty."

'They were shortchanged. Three hundred years is no time at all.'

Andros supposes they were swindled in a way. To a star, three hundred years must go by in a flash. To a being that's seen universes come and go, three hundred years has no meaning at all. Andros would have enjoyed three hundred years. And he wonders what it will be like to see death as Zhane has always seen it; merely a different state of being. A preferred state of being. 'The cold burns. We're going to burn after all.'

Purring fills his hollowed, frozen bones. Zhane purrs for him, and Andros purrs in return. 'Shh, we won't. We won't. There's no reason to stay here. Come dream with me tonight. I've always shared your dreams; now come share mine.'

They stand in a field of stars, two boys glimmering. They float in a field of stars, two motes dancing. Eternity's horizon stretches out to infinity and lies below their feet in a spreading pool of light.

'Oh!' Andros spins, a spin that encompasses galaxies. And he smiles, and he gladly takes hold of the hand Zhane extends to him. The universe is warm as starlight and it beckons in welcome. '...I think I'll like your dreams.'

.oO0Oo.

Astronema has not yet gotten used to another woman being aboard her Fortress, but Karone finds Ashley's company tolerable. Astronema isn't sure why Karone feels like a person separate from herself, nor does she know how long the division will last. Karone is weak where she is strong, soft where Astronema is hard, and yet... Sometimes Astronema will find herself thinking thoughts that are very Karone, and Karone will snap an order that's identical to one Astronema might give.

Perhaps they're not so different. Perhaps there is no separation at all.

Ashley insists that they have a meal together at the end of every shift. Dinner, she calls it. Ashley and Astronema, and Psycho Red when the brat's not grounded for outrageous behavior. Ecliptor is included as well, though her General does not eat and is thoroughly confounded by the idea of sitting around a table to watch while others do. Ashley is full of quirks and strange ideas. She is Earthian as can be, and Astronema indulges the girl simply because she can.

Every choice, every decision she makes is now Astronema's, and hers alone. She is Queen, and she'll never bow to another being again.

They are sharing a meal, this 'dinner' that's supposed to be the culmination of a day's work. And Ashley and her Red are fighting, as they usually are, with words whose cutting edges are blunted from repeated use. They constantly snipe at each other, and most times it's entertaining. Often Astronema will join in. But her head aches of a sudden, a sharp spike of pain that leaves her breathless. Defenseless against the agony that follows as the restrictions placed upon her by her brother shatter all at once.

It leaves her gasping, collapsed across the table narrowly missing her plate of picked-over morsels. It leaves her empty and she's snarling before awareness begins trickling back. Do not harm. Listen. Do not touch. Now each and every one of the simple rules is gone.

Andros is gone and the emptiness at her core where poetry should exist expands, as it had once before. Once, above KO-35. Once, when Zhane had been killed. Astronema shrieks her pain and denial, and her nails snap as she claws at the metal surface of the table.

They shouldn't be gone. She'd talked to them only days before. They'd had weeks left, perhaps months. The quiet serenity of Lord Dark's domain had done them both good as they'd spent their days amongst children and beings content to sit and listen to stories.

"Astronema?" Ashley is worried, her brown eyes large and frightened. Red, though... Red knows. Her Red filled to overflowing with silver, knows. And he growls in counterpoint to her snarling. "What's wrong?"

"Stay. Here," she commands Ecliptor and her Red. She commands and they have no choice but to obey as she drags Ashley to her shuttle. And she ignores the girl's increasingly frantic questions as she sends a message to Finster, willing the old crackpot to accept the transmission and face her.

"Astronema?" he yelps, blinking quickly behind the thick glass lenses obscuring his eyes. "What can I do for you, your Highness? Uh, Majesty. That is–"

"Where is my brother?" she hisses, baring her teeth as she glares over his dithering. "Your Lord, and your Duchess. Where are they?"

"I, I don't–"

"They just died," she howls, and she hears Ashley's disbelieving gasp behind her, then a thump as the girl falls gracelessly to the floor in stunned shock. "So you will tell me where they were headed when they were supposed to be safe with you, you and your happy little family of deserters! You will tell me so I can end whatever being dared."

"...Died?" As she watches, Finster ages. Dawning sorrow forms new wrinkles, and he shrinks as his shoulders hunch. And for a being already white, he's practically translucent. "...How?" He shakes himself as he tries to order his thoughts. "They were going to KO-35 to honor the last wishes of a woman that recently passed. She'd wanted her ashes returned–"

Astronema ends the transmission and kicks the console before her hard enough to dent the piece of paneling protecting the electronics hidden behind it. KO-35. The planet was blighted long before she'd sent down her orbs.

"K-Karone?" Ashley's voice is pleading, and Astronema's fingers twitch as lavender sparks around them. "That, that can't be true. They... They're not dead. They can't be dead. They were going to meet us next week..."

"They're gone." She doesn't need to be asleep to know her meadow's gone back to gray. She doesn't need to dream to know the hollow on the hillock is no more. The flowers would be wilted, and the butterflies little more than dust. "We need to recover them, and whoever is responsible will pay. Their screams will outlive them, I swear it."

The hours stretch unbearably and yet it's as if no time has passed at all before her sensors pick up debris. Debris, a diminishing singularity, and what remains of the Megaship. It drifts in a decaying orbit around the monument that Astronema has made of KO-35, the battleship dead to every scan she runs.

No functioning life support. No life signs at all to grant false hope. And Ashley's face is wet with tears as she looks over Astronema's shoulder at what remains. "Zhane must have been furious," she whispers. "The way he'd rant at Andros whenever we wanted to use the Astro Megazord in battle. He loves that ship; he considers it home."

"Morph." The girl obeys her without question, and Astronema covers them both in the lavender of her magic. Magic enough to protect them from the void of space. Magic enough to search the wreckage. To find her boys, and to find out what had happened in their final hours. Magic that will keep Ashley and herself safe, safe where others would perish. Had perished.

She teleports them to the bridge – and they do not need to search after all. Ashley's sobbing where she kneels at their side; two boys tangled together in one last embrace, their hair perfectly black and their expressions... calm. Astronema does not need to touch them to know that no pulse beats beneath their frozen skin. Yet touch them she does, because they had been hers, and she loves them still. So much.

Rising, she strides around the console to command, and with a burst of power she brings the system back to life. The AI is offline; had taken herself offline in a futile attempt to conserve energy. Luckily, Astronema doesn't need help to pull up the Megaship's most recent files.

Pirates. Astronema laughs because she dares not start crying; the tears would freeze in her eyes before falling. Pirates, and there's no one left for her to seek vengeance against unless she wishes to declare war on gravity itself. And it's tempting. She is Astronema, Queen of Darkness, and nothing is impossible. Not for her.

And there's a message from her mousling; a message for her, and Astronema activates it after a moment's hesitation.

Her mousling, his hair like starlight and his eyes beseeching. He smiles as if he could actually see her. "Karone. Guess you've found us, huh? 'M not sure how much longer this system is going to stay operational. So..." His smile wobbles, and Astronema finds herself yearning to reassure him. It's a low-quality recording with tinny audio, but Zhane's scared beneath his strained smile, and unsure. "Little shepherdess of stars. Do you remember? Can you remember what it was like? To make a window, and Call? Stars and clouds; a life that's lightning. I'll have Andros with me, I promise. But I'll need a window. One... one that doesn't change us too much. Please, Karone. I won't bring us through if it changes Andros–"

Static, and Astronema assumes that's when the Megaship's backup power had failed.

Does she remember? Nights spent staring up at twinkling stars. Afternoons filled with clouds and evenings made of thunderstorms. Her brother lying next to her, bruised and bloody and desperately needing a friend. Herself, loving her brother so much that she'd imagined him just that – a friend. A friend to cherish Andros as much as she did.

She could open a window. She's no longer young and naïve to the ways of the universe. But she is Astronema, and nothing is impossible for her. She could open a window and have them back. Her boys. Hers in a way they had not previously been... But no. The restriction laid upon her to do no harm is gone, but binding them in such a way would harm them irreparably, and she won't. She's dark but no longer Evil.

Ashley's steady weeping and the buzzing of static are the only noises on the bridge, and she doubts the girl had heard Zhane's final message. Ashley is undone, and Astronema taps her broken nails against command's console while she thinks. To Call without conditions... Zhane without conditions... How would he appear if given the choice? If free to choose...

Magic warms the air of the bridge and soaks into the metal it's made of. Magic refreshes oxygen and purges carbon dioxide. And magic retreats from Astronema's skin, its protection no longer needed. "You can power down," she tells the girl between the sharp clicking of her jagged nails. "It's safe enough for now."

To open a window that makes no demands. A window with only one prerequisite, that the beings that come through it are Zhane. And Andros. A window that welcomes, and urges them home. Come in come in come in. We miss you. We love you. Won't you come in?

Astronema senses – attention. A gentle regard she cannot place. Ashley doesn't notice it, but the girl is already of the light. She wouldn't notice. Astronema, though – is dark. And the attention of light is a benediction. She purrs to be its focus and smiles dreamily as she leans back in the chair that sits in front of command. Her fingers tap, and sparkle with lilac.

A tingle of possibility. A smell like spun sugar. And to the empty spot that had been spreading in her soul, poetry returns. "But spring shall come to my stars after winter's delay..." She imagines her brother and his friend as they were, and not as she would have them be. Andros and Zhane. Zhane and Andros. She wants nothing more of them than their company.

Come as you are, she thinks. Come as you want to be.

She hopes it's enough. It has to be enough...

...as she lifts up her hand...

...and opens a window wide while crying out a rapturous welcome...

...and lets in the light.

.oO0Oo.

In the beginning, there was light. And while the beginning was new...
...the lights were not.

.oO0Oo.

End Notes: I suppose I should start the end notes by explaining what all was in the original dream. The quoting, of course. Karone and poetry, Zhane and lyrics, and Andros getting everything else because Andros doesn't know the meaning of moderation. Karone Calling an imaginary friend for her brother through a magic window and getting Zhane – the very first light in all of existence made equally of math and music. Zhane being – gray, darkening and lightening depending on Andros' mood. KO-35 being a crummy place in general, and wiped out of existence because reasons. A person's self represented by a pebble. Many, many call-backs to Puff. The Megaship being haunted by a malign spirit. Astronema being a vamp and a half and glorifying in it. The Hula Eel, I kid you not. And the end with the Teddy Ruxpin lullaby, and Andros and Zhane dying together and being Called back by Karone.

All the imaginary friends:
Zhane: Oldest light, Brightest light. A mathematical concept or musical score that can restart the universe after it collapses in on itself. Which... I'm a collapse and expand girl, personally. No infinitely expanding universe for me. Zhane has been known to sit out entire iterations of the universe because he doesn't approve of the Forces that formed. And Zhane had never paid attention to actual life in the universe until this one, when – due to his inattention – he was suddenly entangled with a young upstart. So, while he may be Oldest, he has almost zero experience with life. It confuses him. Also: bodies are gross and stupid and impractical. Yuck. And time sucks.

Despite what several other characters think, Zhane dying a mortal death won't lead to the end of the universe. What would lead to the end is if Zhane got so incredibly depressed he decided – yeah, no. I'm not restarting it again. But since that would mean Zhane sitting around existing in a timeless void for a period of notime that makes eternity look like a zeptosecond, I don't think that's going to happen. Zhane gets bored pretty easily. Now this might seem like it contradicts the whole "light has to move" thing, but it doesn't since, in a collapsed universe, the Forces are gone awaiting the next iteration to form again.

Zordon: Brightest and First light in the current version of the universe. Very much a meddler; he found his window early and has been mucking about ever since in the war between Good and Evil. Also – he never quite understood that there isn't a war between light and dark. Spent all his free time outside of time poking pinholes into time to gather up his scattered bits. And yes, he heard Andros call him the Big Giant Head. We all know he laughed after the boys left.

Itzpapalotl: an Aztec death goddess that ruled over the paradise for victims of infant mortality. Her name means obsidian butterfly although the moth associated with her, Rothschildia orizaba, isn't black. Here, she lost her child before they could meet, and she chose to stay with the grieving family afterwards. Taking a break, as it were. And like any moth, she's attracted to light.

Gabija: Lithuanian spirit of fire. Depicted as a cat, stork, rooster, or a woman in a red dress. Protector of the home and family, and of the hearth. Here she's a protector of home and family, a friend that lost her child due to a house fire. Also – she happens to have a grudge against bugs and a magic can of bug spray because! That's it, just because. Ecliptor fears her greatly. She may have tried to set fire to his footsies.

Dawan: the lion or tiger that serves the goddess Durga. Protects Durga and helps her slay her enemies. Here Dawan is just, ugh. Too much. Dawan has come through windows too many times, for everyone that ever wished simply for a protector without being too picky about said protector's morals. Andros' mom wanted a companion and someone to get into trouble with and wound up with Dawan. I don't know who got the worse of that deal.

Kerova: A friend Called early on in this universe's iteration. Eventually became the soul of the planet Kerova after the death of her child. Currently sleeping but capable of bestowing gifts and taking them away. Living planet ahoy!

Dark Specter: Isn't an imaginary friend, but he did use the window meant for one. He is the personification of Evil. First came into being in the original Kerova system and has spent his entirely too long existence finding ways to destroy it all. Dark Specter doesn't have any use for anything and wants an empty universe. There's also some thought that he might represent entropy and stands in for the infinitely expanding universe. It's at this point my brain breaks down and demands candy.

End Notes Continue: A major theme that runs throughout the story is miscommunication. Most of it was fun to write. Because who would actually believe in a real imaginary friend?

I think one of the biggest changes from canon would be the fact that Kerovians aren't human. Out of the few lines I took directly from PRiS, I think the one I didn't use has the most importance: "What'd you expect? ...Earth isn't the only place where human's live." No, here Andros goes out of his way to claim he's Kerovian. And yes, behavioral-wise Kerovians happen to share a lot of traits with cats. When they hiss – it's totally a cat's hiss. The behavior is tolerated in children but is usually only seen in adults when stressed. Hissing, purring, crooning; it's all discouraged because the galactic community looks down on it. Andros and Karone? They're feral. And they absolutely rub against things going mine mine mine. If Astronema could get away with urinating on everything she wants, she probably would. Hers, nyah nyah.

Not being human, Kerovian voices are distinctive – to other Kerovians. In comparison, Earthian voices sound positively flat to them. And because of the depth of Kerovian voices, the Astro Megaship (and Deca) accept very simple authorization phrases because the uniqueness of each Kerovian's voice cannot be duplicated. Deca will eventually have to change her protocol now that there are Earthians on the crew.

Also, Kerovian eyesight is adapted to low-light conditions. Earth – is too bright for them. Most planets are. Every Kerovian outpost is notable for the specific spectrum of its primary, which is vital to their health. Kinwon forgot about this. When Carlos eventually realizes that his dorkiriffic teammates are sensitive to the Sun, he's getting both Kerovian youths the most outlandish, oversized novelty sunglasses he can find.

No ages are given in the story, and there are no definite time periods besides the 'around' two years Zhane was in hypersleep. However, although Andros and Zhane are both considered underage by Kerovan standards, they are quite a bit older than the Earth Rangers. So, yes, the Kerovian lifespan is considerably longer than an Earthian's. And while Earthians might see Andros and Zhane as teens or young men, Kerovians themselves would consistently think boy or youth. And it's probably somewhat insulting that I kept using 'boy', but my gosh... watching those old episodes of PRiS... Those puppies are so young! On the other hand, Astronema always gets to be a woman. Because she got dumped into a dimension with accelerated time to train by order of Dark Specter – she's just flat-out older.

I headcanon that it's not that the entire galaxy speaks English, but that Zordon, squatting on Earth for 10000 years, steered Earth languages to conform with the most prominent galactic languages. Hey, it works for me. So any alien culture Earth Rangers encounter? Are all, dude, they sure have a funny Kerovish accent.

The way Andros and Zhane communicate isn't telepathy. It's just Zhane living rent-free in Andros' head. Literally upon occasion. And because of this, Andros eventually picks up certain habits of Zhane's. Such as resting his feet on top of bridge consoles.

Kerova was once the capitol of an empire. The Kerovan empire, and there's deep, long-lasting resentment against Eltar. Even though the empire is long gone the prejudice towards other galactic civilizations remain. And the Kerovan governments are corrupt. As is a large percentage of the remaining population. People aren't going out of their way to help others, and would much rather look the other way than get themselves involved in a situation that might, gasp, take the slightest bit of time or resources to correct.

Andros grew up poor. Very poor. And it colors almost every interaction he has with others to some extent. On KO-35, being poor nearly was a crime. However, having a mother that could curse those that offended her... it helped some. Having Zhane helped more. Who needs money when you've got a Zhane?

I could not place all the supposed Kerovan outposts in one system. I just couldn't. So, there's the Kerova sector made up of many systems. The Kerovan systems. All in all, it's a large chunk of space, relatively speaking.

Andros' and Karone's mother was not a good mother. She really, really wasn't. She's selfish and self-centered, focusing on her losses instead of what she still had. She's also the Bean Feasa (wise woman) of KO-35; not so good at healing, plenty good at cursing and handing out geasa left, right and center. No one actually wants to annoy her. The fact that she chose to leave KO-35 immediately after being told Yellow is back in her sons' lives? Yeah, that's her going – nope, they're Rangers now, surely they'll be fine, I'm outtie!

Hmm, and since I brought up Yellow... Andros doesn't know everything that happened to Zhane until he enters Yellow's room aboard the Megaship. He then takes a break from reality for a while, and when he's back from his mental vacay the info is shoved so far down it would take a miracle for it to resurface. Or Yellow – resurfacing. Zhane, out cold during the entire incident, only knows someone beat the stuffing out of him. Andros' mom? Yeah... she knows the details of the assault. Which really makes her leaving so much worse when she was told, minutes before, oh, by the way. The guy that did that? He's on our Ranger team now.

No, I never wrote what happened to Zhane. That's up for the reader to decide. Zhane truly doesn't know the extent of the injuries he sustained, nor does he wonder much about them. He was on the good drugs afterwards.

Telekinesis: For Zhane, it's just another energy field to manipulate. He's good at it, but it leaves him exhausted. Andros stopped practicing after Karone was taken, so his skills with it are minimal. Karone's forgotten she ever had the ability, but she has magic which is way, way cooler. Most Kerovians have enough talent to lift small items.

Why doesn't anyone have a last name? Eh, I didn't feel like it. Same reason most of the OCs don't have names at all. And Yellow doesn't even get a nickname because he doesn't deserve one. Really, though, for some reason it just made sense to me, all these nameless characters. Was really hard to write, however.

Astronema. Hates. Men. Period. With the burning passion of a thousand fiery suns. Let's just say she's had entirely too many bad interactions with them, and leave it at that. ...Which is also why she tends to think of Andros as scrawny; we've all seen what amounts to men in the Alliance, right? Anyway, because of her upbringing Astronema has weaponized her sexuality. And, let's face it, by this point she qualifies as abusive. She's getting better by the end of the story, but not by much.

Also, she loves bugs. Because big burly men of the Alliance find a woman who loves bugs creepy and weird. And Power Ranger seasons after PRiS don't exist here, so Astronema gets to love all the bugs without stepping on any other bug-loving women's toes.

DECA vs Deca: Everyone except Zhane uses DECA when addressing or referring to the AI. Andros sees her as her own being but still artificial. Zhane sees her as a person no different than any other. To Zhane, life is life and there's no reason to differentiate between organic and mechanic. Which might also be why the collectives like Zhane best.

Synesthesia is the best term – although not an exact one – for what Andros experiences while Zhane's sharing his mind. Synesthesia is usually having colors associated with words and numbers, or seeing sounds as shapes, or colors... Andros feels Zhane's emotions with one or more of his senses. Thus, Zhane's amusement might taste like citrus in one instance, cotton candy the next, then smell like caramel the third. All five of Andros' senses are involved – and after two years of experiencing life in this fashion, Andros is absolutely thrown for a loop when it's gone.

The same for his hormone levels. His brain got used to dealing with two consciousnesses; having one removed suddenly had lasting repercussions. And when Zhane was forced to return to Andros' mind it was worse, because now Andros' brain was not only having to support two consciousnesses but two bodies as well. I don't think a single brain would actually be able to cope with the stress of that for long.

The Cimmerian planet: that's how the boys first hear it described. However, by fitting it into Kerovish grammar conventions it becomes Cimmer whenever they refer back to it. So, the planet is Cimmer, the feast held upon it would have been a Cimmeran event, and had it any natives they would be Cimmerians. The naming convention happens to be incorrect, but that's what they use – because that's the system they know.

Astronema flirting with Andros wants to remind me of Luke and Leia from Star Wars. Only... Andros is a bit more devious than Luke, and Leia would've had to have been raised by Sidious, and Zhane... Zhane just doesn't strike me as Han Solo. So maybe the situation isn't anything like Star Wars except for the siblings' flirting. That then got me to thinking about how Astronema is like Ophelia from Hamlet. Crazy... but not so much suicidal as murderous. So, she'd be more like Hamlet himself pretending to be crazy and absolutely murderous by the end of the play. Which would make Andros Ophelia, but also still a little murderous... And once again, where does that leave Zhane? Why, it leaves him laughing on the side-lines telling anyone who will listen that he's not Helen of Troy. He's not as sure about Carlos' claim that he's Sailor Moon, though... he needs to watch more episodes. And all of this has nothing to do with the story, except I spent a tremendous amount of time thinking about this while writing. So I thought I'd share the pain.

Yes, TJ and Ashley are both Trekkies, because why not? And Carlos and Zhane veg out to anime, Zhane stumps Cassie with song requests, and Andros spends a considerable amount of time plotting to troll people. Which he can usually bring Zhane in on. In this universe, Andros is probably the trollingist troll to have ever trolled. When he's not busy having mental health crises.

Which brings us to all the mental health issues that are flat-out ignored in the fic. KO-35 has almost no mental health services due to a cultural blind-spot regarding mental health issues. There's a lot of, "Suck it up, Buttercup," going on in the Kerovan systems. The councilor at the KO-35 school does her best, but even she focuses more on "fake it 'til you make it" than "let's actually get to the root of the problem." The Earth Rangers recognize that, yes, there are mental health crises occurring, but they're not yet adults. They're not trained – and there's far more trauma involved than they'd be equipped to handle. Ashley is not wrong in thinking that Andros and Zhane need professional help. So does Karone. Ehh... they all do by the end of the fic. Therapists for all!

Then again, some of the things the Earth Rangers view as mental health issues aren't, because 1.) Aliens. And 2.) Zhane.

This... kinda leads into Zhane's... passivity? He fights to protect Andros but not so much for himself. And I'm basing this interpretation on the ending of A Date With Danger. I mean, Astronema blasted him. Sure, the damage displayed afterwards was meant for comedic effect, but we're shown soot-stains and destroyed clothing. There would have been heat, and at least tearing force. Which would mean burns, and cuts. Compression injuries due to pressure maybe. But Zhane makes no attempt to defend himself, or to run. He just – stands there. And tries to talk it out. Which isn't... yeah. Not a good head space. When not viewed through the lens of comedy, the situation actually has pretty dark undertones. At least, that's the way I see it.

It probably doesn't help that this is Zhane's first time, ever, being corporeal. And the window he came through was created by a little girl who wanted someone who could defend her brother but wasn't as capable of defending themselves, because even at this young of an age Karone viewed boys as bad. Seeing as all the boys she'd had exposure to – except her brother – were bullies, it's easier to see where she's coming from.

There is a box shown on the table in Zhane's room – a table I turned into a dresser in the story. And that box is now a jewelry box. Canon shows that Andros wears earrings, Zhane wears necklaces... yes, the boys need a jewelry box. Why is this important enough to mention in notes? I'm not sure...

Andros is Captain of the Megaship, and as Captain! it's his prerogative to lose his shirt as often as possible. That's the rule, nothing I can do about it. However, breaking both space-campy rules and PRiS canon, the Astro uniforms are completely unisex. There are no longer shirts pretending to double as mini-skirts for the female members. The only skirt to be seen on a morphed Astro Ranger is Silver's when Zhane's female.

Why Astro Ranger instead of Space Ranger? Astro Megaship, Astro morpher... Astro Ranger.

I moved the medical bay up to deck 1 because it just makes more sense to me for it to be there. Deck 1 is the bridge, and the work bay with the jump tubes... if anyone's going to be coming up to the Megaship injured, it would be to deck 1, not deck 2 that's devoted to crew quarters. Layout of the bridge is drastically changed. Command is front center, facing towards the viewscreen comms is front right, sensors front left. Behind them, navigation is right, armaments left. There are no absolutely ridiculous lever-things to control thrust/speed/what-even-ever there. No. Just... no. So, this is not the bridge you know.

The Megaship is completely automated by Deca. She doesn't need anyone on the bridge. Ever. The Eltarians that built the Megaship have no idea such a thing is possible. There is the tiniest possibility of a chance that Deca herself is either a friend or an eldritch horror.

There was a Command Center but never a Power Chamber. So sayeth the Esse.

Where light goes, gravity follows. And in the universe of this story, eventually gravity wins, sucking everything including light back to a single point. From there Zhane restarts the universe, nullifying all the Forces, including gravity – and there's a break until new Forces come into being. So gravity is correct, that it never hears Zhane sing, because the very first note undoes it. Does every universe eventually wind up with gravity? You know, I don't think so. Maybe always something like gravity, but I have a feeling it changes from version to version.

And I guess this again shows my personal belief that the universe will collapse and not expand infinitely. I like the idea of a collapsing universe; there's balance to it.

Zhane and No'odles... As a pseudo-photon from a different version of the universe, I'm pretty sure Zhane doesn't have a gender. The window Zhane went through, though, had a prerequisite of a male friend. So, Zhane's male – or as male as he had the knowledge to be, which was... not much. Becoming No'odles doesn't bother Zhane at all; female doesn't mean much, either. Now, people thinking of Zhane as the gender Zhane currently is... I've probably managed to offend someone. Honestly, I have no idea how to address the situation other than when Zhane's male, he's a he, and when Zhane's female, she's a she. It wasn't being female that bothered Zhane, it was being stuck female that was upsetting.

M'lady and m'lord; apparently these versions are used by lower classes while the upper classes would go whole hog on the full versions my Lady and my Lord. Since the base of their interactions would have been set when Andros and Zhane were kids, it makes sense to me that they'd naturally use m'lord, and m'lady.

Kinwon was with the Kerovian refugees, so where was Tykwa? I'm sorry to say that the dying woman Andros offered water to? The one devoured by coral while they watched? Alas, poor, poor Tykwa. TJ would have no way of knowing if Andros or Zhane recognized her, and with as disfigured by coral as she already was before Andros offered her water – it's hard to say if they did or not.

Klaxon is a trademark. I had no idea it was a trademark. Klaxon... Still doesn't mean I was going to capitalize it, though. For me it's just a loud sound.

Interesting fact: Fugly was either coined in the 1960s, or 1980, or 1995. Etymology resources vary on where it was first used, but all agree it was before PRiS aired so, yes, Ashley is safe calling someone fugly.

Deets: First known use 1986. Just in case anyone wanted to argue, hey, deets wasn't in use then!

The Higgs boson was proposed in 1964 and the LHC managed to identify it in 2012. Work began on the LHC in 1998, just in time for PRiS. It probably isn't the 'God Particle'. Deca thinks they're cute but quirky. Zhane thinks they're uppity. TJ would worry more about them, but Angels & Demons by Dan Brown would still be a couple of years away from being published. Once he reads it, however – TJ is so worried. More so once he finds out the synthetron collective keeps a few as mascots.

The nanite collectives are my favorite OCs in the story. Probably because I have all these side-stories about them floating around in my head. The little fellers are hilarious. The collectives are a Kerovan invention, not Eltaran; they were added to the Megaship when KO-35 gained possession of it. And... there's an idea at the back of my mind that Wing is nothing but collectives; that there's not a single solid piece of construction to it. Now, Astronema did repurpose a collective and set it to self-replicate. Technically she created the most powerful WMD to exist in the galaxy. Now, the idea of self-replicating machines isn't new; von Neumann machines were, what, in the '60s? And science fiction has had a field day with them. The collectives, though – are a little bit more devious. They'll settle inside a sentient, bide their time – and when given the order kill the sentient by whatever means is simplest. Which also isn't a new idea, or unique to this fic.

However, since the collectives are sentient, none survive on KO-35... So, maintenance there has completely stopped. The planet really will fall into ruin one day from neglect.

While the collectives are my favorite OC, Dawan is definitely my least favorite. She's just – ugh. However, she sort of comes hand in hand with Andros' mother by that point, and I needed some Mama ex machina there. Plus that three seconds of closure Andros got...

Das Es. The It. translated into English as the id. But here, for Kerovians, it really is the It. The portion of their brains dedicated to instinctual desires according to Freud. Pleasure. Libido. And, also, the death drive. It's all about gratification. But what does Freud know, huh? Anyway, it's here that Andros' desire to keep Zhane safe at all costs came up against, "We kinda need each other to survive," and das Es is all – I can have it all! Despite the fact that, no, Andros really couldn't have both at once.

Why did it take so long for Andros to tell the rest of his team that Astronema was his sister? Like I've said, Andros is a troll. That, and he didn't see where it was the others' business. I mean, they probably deserved to know... but Andros was all, nah... they'll catch on eventually.

I realize I'm not kind to TJ. He kinda got the short end of the stick in this fic all the way around. From his sensitive stomach to his jumping to conclusions to his all – I don't know these people, I'm not with them, just give me back the Red morpher already, sheesh... It's Silver Cycle envy. Because don't we all, deep down, just want a shiny motorcycle to run over our alien enemies with? Yeah, I'd spend my time pouting too, if all I got was a space surfboard...

The spokesbeing for the Kerovian traders that ended up on KO-8 is, in fact, the man that saved Andros during the transit station panic. Which means that the guy that got Zhane out of the way – Mr "I curse those gumdrop sucking basket weavers, may they sit on salamanders" when little ears are around – made it as well. It was nice that at least a few Kerovians survived the purge. And... babies! I think when faced with the possible extinction of your entire species, instinct kicks in all, "Must. cherish. babies!"

Carlitos is the diminutive of Carlos. Although I've seen Carlito used as well. Carlito: manly. If it's wrong, please correct me. This is just the way my extended family uses it.

People probably aren't happy with the way I dealt with the Psycho Rangers. Honestly, I would have been glad to just leave the entire arc out, but it was planned for Yellow to return. And yes, I still could have left the entire arc out and have the possibility for Yellow's return just be left dangling... I went ahead and wrote it instead.

The war between Good and Evil has been raging for a long, long time. There is no war between light and dark; just a constant struggle to maintain balance. Dark energy accounts for 68 percent of the universe, dark matter 27 percent, and everything else is less than 5 percent. This story doesn't care about facts, only the idea that darkness makes up 95 percent of the universe. But most beings want to associate light with Good, and thus dark is bad.

Of course, if I were concerned about facts, so much dark energy and matter leads to an infinitely expanding universe. That's why I have my good buddy gravity lurking about with several tricks up its sleeves. The universe is going to collapse dagnabbit.

Did Zordon's energy really wipe out all Evil in the galaxy? Yes. The universe? No... my itty-bitty brain closes for lunch when trying to imagine universal scale. Did it turn Rita, Zedd and others back to – eh, not normal, but themselves? You know what? No. No it did not. As far as I could see they were all still pretty Evil at the end of PRiS, and Evil got the Dustbuster. Those that were no longer serving the goals of Evil and merely keeping the balance between light and dark? They all survived. Space pirates? Not really capitol E Evil. That's okay. Astronema is going to be spreading out her specialized collective and will eventually give a snap that'll out-Thanos Thanos. Really.

Zhane and Andros were never actually going to survive to the end of the story. Everyone knew that, right? Zhane just took too much damage over-all. He was exploded, poisoned by magical venom that left severe neurological damage, struck by lightning, twice! starved, clawed by deadly jungle predators that led to massive infection, and had his head bashed repeatedly by Yellow with enough force to cause loss of consciousness through his helmet each time. Yikes... Yeah, that adds up. And Andros really never had any intention of surviving without Zhane.

...I think that's everything I wanted to comment on. I hope you enjoyed the story, or at least didn't find it too boring. I left myself a few dangling plotlines in case I ever wanted to come back and write more. I won't – but I couldn't stop myself from leaving a few ins. It's what I do. Reviews would be cherished, but I have severe doubts that anyone read the story past the original disclaimer.

Bibliography

Fair as a star, when only one is shining in the sky
She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways – William Wordsworth
I love this poem. Most analyses I came across on the internet claim the single star is Venus – and very bright. My own personal interpretation is that a single star – no matter how bright – is brilliant when it's alone, but place it with ten thousand other stars and it becomes completely unnoticeable. Considering I did a paper on this poem thirty years ago I feel safe sticking with my conclusion.

Living twice at once, you learn you're safe from the pain in the dream domain
Silent Lucidity – Queensrÿche

let me also wear such deliberate disguises
The Hollow Men – T. S. Eliot

There are three things we cry for in life: things that are lost, things that are found, and things that are magnificent.
– Douglas Coupland
I had to leave this quote unfinished in the story because there was absolutely no way Andros was going to feed Zhane's ego by calling him magnificent lol!

It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the End of the World as We Know It – R.E.M.
Had to include this for reasons. And those reasons might include a nod to ID4.

Incoming message from the Big Giant Head
Harry – 3rd Rock from the Sun
I had had had to include this in Andros' first meeting with Zordon. Really. Because wouldn't everyone be thinking something like this?

It was me and you, since way back when but you can't make old friends
You Can't Make Old Friends – Kenny Rogers
Ain't that the truth?

Some things you can never leave behind. They don't belong to the past. They belong to you.
The 5th Wave – Rick Yancey

You and I are a team. Nothing is more important than our friendship.
Mike Wazowski – Monsters, Inc.
Hmm... this would make Andros Mike, and Zhane Sulley. I am oddly okay with this.

A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys
Puff the Magic Dragon – Peter, Paul and Mary
Puff is a central theme to the entire story. He was part of the original title, and the song was in my dream. Poor Puff; he really deserved to have that missing verse written.

On the sidewalk of the city are my screams just a whisper?
Your Rain – Akira Yamaoka
–And the start of lyric quotes from video games begins here. What can I say? I like video game music.

Their blind eyes see not your tears flow. Nor honour. It is easy to be dead. Say only this, "They are dead."
When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead – Charles Sorley

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed
The Second Coming – William Butler Yeats

I won't stop 'til it's over. Won't stop to surrender
Sweet Disposition – The Temper Trap

I don't know how I'm going to live with myself
Desmond Doss – Hacksaw Ridge
The actual quote is usually longer; I just needed this part of it.

The moon is gone and the night is still so dark, I'm a little bit afraid of tomorrow.
Maybe Tomorrow – Yuki Kajiura
Here my undying love for the Xenosaga trilogy rears its head. It doesn't stop here, either. The rest just couldn't finagle its way into the story.

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.
Jesus is Victor – Corrie ten Boom

Don't go where I can't follow!
Sam Gamgee: The Two Towers – J.R.R. Tolkien
There's quite a few good quotes from LotR, but Andros breaking loose with this one in what should have been a completely solemn moment made me laugh, so I included it.

A shooting star is not a star. It's not a star at all
A shooting star's a meteor that's heading for a fall
What Is a Shooting Star? – They Might Be Giants
This, this right here is the theme song for Imaginary Friends. And it's the only quote that breaks the rules I set for myself. The song is quoted more than once, and Cassie couldn't actually know it as it was sung by They Might Be Giants – and that would take place in... 2009? Although the lyrics were written and the very first unreleased recording was 1959, and the first released recording was in 2000. But I needed this song – and so the rules were bent.

The Infinite Improbability Drive comes from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. It's the FTL drive used by the starship Heart of Gold. Considering that the Megaship's engines are able to propel it to the upper limits of FTL – I'm betting the Mega Accelerator has a lot in common with the Infinite Improbability Drive. Also – the engines might be powered by Cthulhu or brethren. DECA's not telling.

It's no problem of mine, but it's a problem I find, livin' a life that I can't leave behind
Bizarre Love Triangle – New Order
You have no idea how many quotes I wanted to take from this song. This isn't even the one I like the most – and it's the one I used. Bah... Every time I see you falling I get down on my knees and pray... See? I should have used that.

The second meeting with Zordon, and Andros' "Okay, okay: mostly dead." I wanted a Princess Bride quote here. It needed a quote from Miracle Max. I just – couldn't quite get one to fit. I am still devastated that I couldn't pull it off, so please pretend there's a proper 'Mostly dead' quote there.

Also during the same meeting with Zordon: "Take good care of Zhane. He's more fragile than he realizes." Yes, this is a nod to The Fifth Element. Again, couldn't get a quote in there, mostly because Zordon don't do no quotes.

All the best people are crazy. All the best people are.
Mad Hatter – Melanie Martinez
It would have been easy enough to get this quote from the Alice movie – but the quote needed to be Zhane's, and thus a song lyric was found for it.

Another missed quote opportunity is when Andros gets hurt, after his surgery when he's trying to convince Zhane to return his pain. What I wanted to use was, "Relinquish your pain, unto me," said by KOS-MOS in Xenosaga: Episode I. But... there was no way Andros was going to say that for me, no matter how I stared at the page. And besides, it was already Andros' pain, so the quote didn't fit. But arg, how I wanted to use it.

It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.
Anakin Skywalker – Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones
Ah, the wisdom of Anakin. Thankfully it could be used tongue-in-cheek here.

Pen them up together, and they will devour each other without a second thought.
Jack Sparrow – Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Yeah... I needed to include a Jack Sparrow quote. For reasons.

You can't go back and you can't stand still, if the thunder don't get you then the lightning will.
The Wheel – Grateful Dead

My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are gray faces that peer over my shoulder.
– William Golding
I needed a creepy quote. This fit the requirement.

Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein.
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.
Jenseits von Gut und Böse – Friedrich Nietzsche
I went ahead and used the German although it disrupts the flow. Not feeling up to getting a translation to pop-up on hover-over, though. Translation is unwieldy and provided by the Oxford Reference.

Second star to the right, and straight on 'til morning.
The Adventures of Peter Pan – James M. Barrie

This cosmic spectacle of radiance was formed fifteen billion years ago when the universe was born
To the Quasar – Ayreon
I can see Zhane using this to describe himself, even if he wasn't the oldest, brightest light in existence. Plain Zhane also considers himself a cosmic spectacle of radiance and none of us are surprised. Since this is a fairly long song, this specific line is at around the 5 minute mark.

So here I sit with you in my hand, the pebble which rocked my world
Returning Home – Javier Falcon
Ooo, modern poetry. I don't use much of that, but this fit so well, so...

Armor is heavy, yet it is a proud burden, and a man standeth straight in it.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court – Mark Twain

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow die not, poor Death
Death, be not proud – John Donne

Just call my name, I'll be there
Just Call My Name (I'll Be There) – Blackmore's Night
I almost used the Sailor Moon lyrics here, Call My Name (And I'll Be There). And, yeah... since they're basically identical, they'd work, too. So... choose which song you'd like the most. Both get the soppy message across.

Every day is like survival
Karma Chameleon – Culture Club
I would have used the whole song here, really. Because 1) Cassie would've started laughing and not stopped. 2) TJ would have been mortified. 3) Andros would have been dumbfounded and all, wait – are we boyfriends? What what? 4) Zhane's kinda thinking about himself along the lines of:
I'm a man without conviction, I'm a man who doesn't know how to sell a contradiction... You come and go, you come and go.

…you're no good. Baby, you're no good
You're No Good – Linda Ronstadt
Originally had the whole thing, all three repeats of you're no good... And yes, Zhane would do that, but it made for awkward reading. If you want, consider Zhane sang it all.

Best thing I ever had, in a world gone mad
Yer So Bad – Tom Petty
I miss Tom Petty. That is all.

Take an eel, make a loop, use him as a Hula Hoop
Hula Eel – Shel Silverstein
The use of this poem was actually in my dream. It wasn't quite as grim in my dream as it ended up being here.

When Zhane and Astronema first meet face to face, I had this quote:
Just like a ghost you've been a-hauntin' my dreams, but now I know you're not what you seem
Spooky – Dusty Springfield
There are several versions of Spooky that have been recorded. This is the only one I know of that has this specific lyric. I removed it because the style was too disruptive to the narrative flow. This pains me.

Death is less bitter punishment than death's delay.
– Ovid

So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.
On Crime and Punishment – Kahlil Gibran
Originally had this when Andros confronts Astronema in the botanical gardens. After two read-throughs, I axed it. Yes, this is what Astronema legit thinks. No, it did not fit...

Carlos settling on the name of Biff comes entirely from the Back to the Future trilogy. Let's face it, all of our worst enemies have a bit of Biff in them.

The shadowy tempest that sweeps through space
The Hurricane – José María Heredia

Set me free, leave me be. I don't want to fall another moment into your gravity
Gravity – Sara Bareilles
This was the second try at a quote here. First was from Fake Plastic Trees by Radiohead – But gravity always wins and it wears him out. But it just didn't fit quite right in the story. Still not entirely happy with the quote I chose here, though.

Her face was rapt and angel-sweet; she touched his hair of gray... But he, sob-shaken, at her feet, could only pray and pray.
The Return – Robert Service
This quote was too-too perfect. Really.

You are trembling. More afraid of peace than war?
Ogami Itto – Shogun Assassin

Tomorrow may rain so I'll follow the sun
I'll follow the sun – The Beatles
If Andros had only known the full song, he would have saved everyone so much heartache. So... we'll blame Zhane leaving with the refugees on Cassie because she's in charge of teaching Andros all the good Earth songs.

When Zhane mentions the doldrums, he's not referencing a region in the Atlantic ocean. Or the dictionary definition. This is totally a head-nod to The Phantom Tollbooth.

Without you, I dwell in darkness.
Madmartigan – Willow
Because the full quote is just too apt, and the follow-up of It went away? Perfect.

Hey, I've got nothing to do today but smile
The Only Living Boy in New York – Simon & Garfunkel
There were so many possible quotes from their songs I could have used. I don't know why I chose this one... I really don't. Well, besides it seems to fit a depressed Zhane.

When Carlos says, "[...]my weird-ometer is maxed right now," it's a call-out to Men in Black. I would have gone for the actual quote – but Carlos is a good Ranger, and doesn't use vulgarities.

I've seen people turn their heads and quickly look away
Paint It, Black – The Rolling Stones
You want people to know you're feeling down? Yeah, break out Paint It, Black. That'll let 'em know.

Home is made for comin' from, for dreams of goin' to
Wand'rin' Star – Lee Marvin
How could I not include lyrics from this song? I mean... I was born under a wandrin' star... Although Zhane is all about coming back home, not about getting away from it.

it's foolhardy, maybe, but who knows? Anyway, here I am, walkin' down toward where the cold dark water flows. All it takes is
One Dyin' And A Buryin' – Roger Miller
There's a disturbing amount of music devoted to the idealization of suicide. To balance the scales, I chose this song to quote because Roger Miller also gave us You Can't Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd. You know everything is going to be okay when you've got But you can be happy if you've a mind to running on repeat through your head.

How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do.
– Penn Jillette
I can't believe this is an actual quote, and I am amazed and grateful that it is.

Hast Du etwas Zeit fuer mich? Dann singe ick ein Lied fuer Dich.
Do you have some time for me. Then I'll sing a song for you.
99 Luftballons – Nena
I like the German version so much better than the English version. Why is there even an English version? Why..? Do you have any idea how many cassettes I bought saying the collection had 99 Luftballons, only to start playing the song and finding out it was actually 99 Red Balloons? Yeah, it was a lot. A whole lot. And places didn't like giving refunds on opened cassettes back then. And if you happen to be wondering what a cassette is... ugh, I'm old. At least it was after 8-track, yeah?

I'm just too far from where you are. I wanna come home.
Home – Michael Bublé

I love you – I am at rest with you
Busman's Honeymoon – Dorothy L. Sayers
Another shortened quote, but this is all that I needed.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Do not go gentle into that good night – Dylan Thomas

Think unsexy thoughts
Homer Simpson – The Simpsons
For absolutely every occasion in life there is a Simpson's quote. Really.

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave – Frederick Douglass

You wanna make a memory? You wanna steal a piece of time?
(You Want To) Make a Memory – Bon Jovi

invisible in your sleep, intently nocturnal, while I untangle my worries as if they were twisted nets.
It's good to feel you are close to me – Pablo Neruda

I am going to shrink and shrink until I am a dry fall leaf
Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood – Julie Gregory
Seemed to fit the best considering Andros was imagining Zhane as leaves, and he'd be a leaf as well so he could join his friend.

Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea
Dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wind
Dust In The Wind – Kansas
Zhane probably sang the full song. And this is where them merging became unstoppable. Andros wasn't singing the chorus because he'd heard it before, but because he knew it.

All I ever wanted, all I ever needed is here in my arms
Words are very unnecessary, they can only do harm
Enjoy the Silence – Depeche Mode
A perfect fit for the situation. And then I got it stuck in my head for the next couple of weeks.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few
Spock – Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
So much Trek, so have a Trek quote.

Another vague nod to LotR when Astronema and Ecliptor are letting Darkonda spy on them. Astronema is no Galadriel; she would absolutely snatch up the Ring of Power and gloat, "All shall love me and despair!"

Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire.
Fire and Ice – Robert Frost
This poem has a lot of recognition now. I mean... seriously. So much. That I was hesitant to use it. But it's Astronema talking about war... so use it I did. Doesn't mean I'm happy with myself for the decision.

Earth below us drifting, falling. Floating weightless, coming, coming home
Major Tom (Coming Home) – Peter Schilling

Stories sown along the way. Tales of loss and fire and faith
Endwalker – Footfalls – Masayoshi Soken
I can't tell you how many times I've listened to this while crafting my relics in FFXIV as I wrote this story. It had to be included. I wanted to include all the music quotes I jotted down from FFXIV. I figured y'all didn't deserve the torture.

If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.
Orson Welles: Interviews – Orson Welles

And so they lived, happily together for three-hundred years. In the land of Tír na nÓg, of eternal youth and beauty.
Irish Mommy – Titanic

Come dream with me tonight
Come Dream with Me Tonight – Teddy Ruxpin
This was also in my dream. There was just something unbearably sweet about Zhane singing this to Andros; it's probably the single biggest deciding factor that got me to actually write this fic.

But spring shall come to my stars after winter's delay
Counting The Stars At Night – Dongju Yun
Since the first quote of the story was Karone's, and about a star, it only seemed fitting that the final quote also be hers, and about stars.

"What are you staring at?"

"What, are you too good to drink with us?"
"He's a spy."
"You're human."
"...I'm called Andros."
"You're the one that was cheating"
"[...]anything of value on KO-35?"

"According to my calculations, you don't have very much time!"
"So you're not sick at all, right?"
"No, I've never felt better."
"We're the Psycho Rangers!"
– Lines taken directly from Power Rangers in Space

Online resources used for editing purposes:

Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Thesaurus dot com