Notes: I guess a minor warning again for this chapter? Not that there's anything graphic, but again (without trying to spoil) there's one particular moment I could see upsetting some people. But this is it- the last real chapter. Only the epilogue to go after this! If you've made it this far, I can only hope you've enjoyed my (quite weird) little epic! And special shoutout to Dash Master 48 for your reviews- really enjoyed them as I read along, and it probably inspired me to finish editing and posting this even faster today, hah!
Tommy, Rocky and Adam had been the last three to return back to the Power Chamber, and they found quite the scene when they arrived. Katherine and Tanya, now normal sized and back in their normal, non-muscular human bodies, were kneeling on the Chamber's cold ground with their heads pointed down. Both girls still had their hands cuffed behind their backs, thanks to the handcuffs that had been magically reinforced by the Gold Ranger. Standing in front of them was an unmorphed Trey of Triforia, holding up the glowing Gold Power Staff and pointing it down toward their heads. Kimberly, Billy, Alpha and Zordon all just watched on silently.
"How long has this been going on?" Tommy whispered to Billy. He and the other two Zeo Rangers were now demorphed as well.
"Just the last few minutes." he whispered back. "The girls were really, strangely calm when they got here- I don't know if Trey put them under some kind of spell to make them that way when he shrunk them or what. But they've barely moved a muscle since."
Trey had his eyes closed in deep concentration as he felt his way through both of their minds. He was searching for the evil magical influence of the Dark Suggestion. He shuddered as he experienced some of the incredibly dark deeds these two former allies had done- now that he was in their minds, it was like he could see it all through their eyes, and the part where he got to Katherine crushing the Alien Rangers to death was particularly disturbing for him. I know it's here somewhere. he thought to himself, trying to ignore the horrible memories and, especially, their feelings of sadistic glee at the time. He kept feeling his way around both their minds, ignoring their older memories from before they first grew. I'm surprised I can still feel their old selves too. These minds of theirs are just a mess. Wait a second, maybe there! He shuddered even harder this time as he felt a violent darkness that was almost screaming out constantly- it felt like touching pure, unadulterated evil. That has to be it! Be gone, Dark Suggestion! His wand glowed with even more Gold energy.
"That's it!" Trey said, opening his eyes slowly as sweat dripped down from his brow from the exertion. "I got it!"
"The Dark Suggestion? Really?!" said Rocky in amazement.
"Yes." Trey replied. "I've cleared the dark influence from both of the girls' minds."
The others all turned back to Katherine and Tanya, who were slowly opening their eyes. Their facial expressions were difficult to read, but both looked a little confused and tentative, and like they were having trouble focusing their eyes.
"So they're...back to normal?" Kimberly said, in a tone implying she didn't quite believe it. It's really that easy? she thought.
"They should no longer feel the constant urge to grow and dominate, at least." Trey confirmed. "And their monstrous instincts telling them to destroy all should be long gone as well, since I already transformed them back into normal humans."
"Should we release them from the handcuffs?" Billy wondered.
"Not yet." Tommy replied. We still don't really know how they're going to react to all this, even with the Dark Suggestion gone. "Kat! Tanya! Can you hear us?" he called out to them.
Both girls looked up at him.
"Yeah, why wouldn't we be able to hear you?" replied Kat curtly. "We were evil, not deaf."
"Everything's still really weird." said a weary-sounding Tanya. "I feel like my head weighs a thousand pounds."
"It used to weigh way more than that." Adam muttered.
Tommy watched them cautiously, his guard slowly lowering a bit. This is still going to be a long road. he quickly reminded himself. They were never under a mind control spell, so who knows how they feel about everything that happened even with all the evil influences gone. And just because they're not both titanic monsters anymore doesn't mean it's changed how they feel about each other, either. Kat and I might still be done. But I guess we'll have to cross that bridge later. He blushed, feeling more than a little embarrassed for thinking about his and Kat's relationship status again with everything that had happened. But it was an open question- did Katherine still care about him after all that? And even if she did, how would Tanya feel about it now?
Kat and Tanya slowly and tentatively stood back up to their feet. Kat looked down at their bare feet on the Power Chamber floor, and more specifically Tanya's, and realized with a slight smirk that her little lesbian foot fetish she developed during all this seemed to still be intact. I actually wondered if that was part of the...eh, I guess not. she thought to herself. She then looked back up at the collected heroes.
"I don't know what to say." Katherine began with a heavy sigh.
"Kat..." Kimberly said tenderly. Going from a 550+ foot tall titan to just a normal sized human again in an instant had made her sympathize with her successor a lot more than she had expected it to. And actually, at least YOU'RE still tall! Kim thought to herself a little bitterly as she briefly eyed her own 5'2 frame. "It's gonna be weird for a while. I think we all know that." she added.
Kat looked over at Tanya, then looked back at everyone in front of her.
"That's not what I meant." she quickly clarified. The others, except Tanya, looked at her confused. "What I meant to say was...I don't know how to tell you all what massive fools you are!"
Suddenly, Kat and Tanya began glowing with red-and-white energy. Both girls smirked evilly as their bodies began growing, with the magically-reinforced handcuffs snapping right off as they grew larger. They were growing both in height and muscularity, quickly regaining their buff monster forms and reaching a little over 8 feet tall before it stopped. Everyone else, of course, reacted in complete shock.
"What?" Rocky screamed.
"How is this possible!" Adam yelled. "What is happening?! I thought Trey returned you back to normal!"
Everyone backed away as the two amazons cackled evilly.
"You are such, such idiots." Tanya laughed. "I can't believe you fell for that little Hollywood act we put on."
"After everything that happened, you really thought it was as simple as slapping a pair of giant magic handcuffs on us?" Katherine snickered. "Newsflash, morons: we could have gotten those silly things off of us anytime we wanted!"
"We LET you bring us here!" added Tanya. She was drinking all of this in- their shocked expressions at realizing they had been played, their rapidly rising panic. It was all so, so delicious.
"Alpha, activate the Power Chamber's defensive mechanisms!" Zordon instructed, more than a hint of panic audible in even HIS voice. The much more panicked robot quickly moved over to one of the control consoles. A white force field immediately appeared around each of the Amazonian girls, but they just cackled in response.
"How are you STILL not getting this?!" Tanya said in genuine disbelief. She really couldn't believe how little they seemed to grasp of their current situation. Were they ALWAYS this dumb?!
She and Kat simply waved their hands in the air and the force fields disappeared immediately.
"We're the strongest beings in the history of this galaxy, maybe even the entire universe." Katherine said with an evil grin. "There's literally nothing you can do to us."
"Everything you thought you accomplished in the last few hours was just an illusion, all planned out meticulously by the two of us." Tanya added, cruelly wanting to rub it into the faces of the shocked and panicked team in front of her. "Unlike what WE just did, YOU never actually broke OUR force field! We just put on a little show that made it look like you did, and then let you through it."
"We heard you coming up with your whole stupid plan in our heads." Katherine smirked. "Yeah, that's right, we could eavesdrop on you through the force field the entire time you dummies. We've always been about twenty or so steps ahead of you, this whole damn time. The really funny thing to us is that you kept thinking you were actually doing something. We realized we could control our own sizes and the way our bodies looked quite a while ago. Trey's little shrinking spell did nothing to us until we decided to shrink ourselves and let him THINK he had turned us back into humans."
That explains why it felt like it was doing nothing, right up until it seemed like it suddenly did something. Trey thought to himself, amazed. They really are as powerful as they say they are. I'm afraid this planet, if not the entire universe, may actually be doomed.
"But we watched you all that time from the Power Chamber and you never talked about all this..." Rocky said in disbelief.
"Unless...you've been able to communicate telepathically with each other this whole time, haven't you?" Billy realized in horror.
"Wow, the brain finally got something right!" Tanya congratulated him mockingly.
"But I felt the Gold Power Staff heal you of the Dark Suggestion!" Trey pointed out. THAT sure felt real! Was it really just another trick?! he thought to himself.
"Oh, you're half right." Katherine responded with a grin. "That was the one thing we actually did let you do. Kind of."
"Yeah, it wasn't the Dark Suggestion you were turning off for us, it was that really strong evil monster aggression we got after Zedd zapped us the second time." Tanya noted. "We like being bad and all, but that was a little bit much."
"Right. I'm gonna step on plenty of stuff still, but it will be because I wanna do it, not because of that annoying constant monster voice in my head." Katherine smirked. "That was the one thing we couldn't figure out how to turn off on our own, I guess because both it and our powers are evil. We needed someone with the power of good to help us. And we knew you morons were working on your little plan to drag us back here. It was a perfect opportunity to take care of it."
"Thanks for all your help with that, by the way!" laughed Tanya sarcastically. "Couldn't have done it without all of you playing your little roles in our big show!"
"The truth is the Dark Suggestion, the rest of our evil monster instincts and our quote-unquote 'real' personalities all merged together a long time ago." Kat said simply. "We are who we are now. We're so powerful it almost doesn't matter anymore. Obviously, we're going to rule this world at minimum, if not the entire universe."
"Evil will never rule this world as long as I'm around!" a defiant Zordon replied.
Kat raised an eyebrow toward his tube, barely holding back a dismissive laugh.
"Who said you're gonna be around, head?" she replied with a smirk, before raising one finger and zapping his tube with evil energy! Zordon screamed out in pain before disappearing in a flash instantly.
"KAT, WHAT DID YOU DO?!" Tommy screamed, as the whole team panicked at the sight of seeing their mentor vanish.
"Oh, I don't know. Killed him probably. Or sent him to another dimension maybe. Who cares really?" she replied in a completely bored-sounding tone.
"Alpha, start scanning the dimensional vortex for any traces of Zordon immediately!" Billy instructed as he went to the computer.
"Or don't." Tanya said with a smirk, raising a finger of her own and zapping Alpha-5.
Just as Alpha had been saying "Aiyiyiyi! Right aw-" he was interrupted mid sentence, as the robot shook with evil energy. He then responded "Negative, dude! I only serve the rightful rulers of the Power Chamber, the dudettes Katherine and Tanya!"
Kat shot Tanya a "what the hell?" look, as Tanya just shrugged.
"Did they just...reprogram Alpha?!" Adam said in disbelief.
Billy looked over at the two smirking, enormous amazons and then back at Alpha, who just stared at him with his robotic visage, not moving a single inch to follow his instructions about searching for Zordon.
"It would appear there isn't much they CAN'T do." said Billy, as it all sadly clicked into place for him. "They're so powerful now they're basically gods."
"Finally someone gets it!" said a beaming Tanya.
"Really, it's all of your faults isn't it?" Kat thought to herself as she mockingly raised one of her fingers up to her chin. "I mean, think of all the things you did to set these series of events into motion. Trey growing us to fight King Mondo, planting the love of being giants in our heads that Zedd & Rita took advantage of with the Dark Suggestion before growing us again. All of you shrinking us down from our original sizes and humiliating us, steeling our resolve to go bad. Firing those stupid lasers at us after we grew even bigger so Tanya would call Zedd for help and turn us into monsters, not realizing the combination of his powers, our existing connections to the Morphing Grid and our massive sizes would create the strongest monsters who ever existed."
"I guess sitting around lazily on a beach until Zedd got so frustrated he zapped us a second time, not realizing he was turning us into full-fledged gods in the process...that was all us." Tanya admitted. "That one isn't on you guys, hahaha!"
"Still, I'm giving you all high marks in the 'doomed the Earth' category. You all make the grade as far as I'm concerned!" taunted Kat with an impish grin. She then looked over at Kimberly. "Except you, I guess. You didn't do much except grow and point Trey in our faces so we could do our little play acting routine. So you shouldn't really feel bad, Kim- you were just a pawn in their plan, just like we were pawns in all this originally before we broke free. And hey Kim, if you ever decide that you liked being big after all, you know where to find us." she added with a wink. Kimberly only gave her a strange look in return.
"Ok, enough of that." a more than a little jealous Tanya said. "Let's get the last thing we came for and blow this lemonade stand."
"Oh yeah, the last thing." nodded Katherine.
The 8-foot-tall muscular amazon raised her hand in a gripping motion. Instantly, the Gold Power Staff went flying out of Trey's hand and into hers, before immediately disappearing in a flash.
"No! My staff!" Trey yelled out in a mixture of shock and horror. Being forcibly separated from his Gold Power Staff shouldn't have even been theoretically possible while he was still alive- he could only even give it to someone else through an elaborate ceremony, as he once had with Jason- but apparently this was yet another rule these god-like teenage brats could break without even breaking a sweat. "What did you do with it?!"
"Oh, I sent it to the Moon." Kat said, barely stifling a yawn.
"You WHAT?" he said in disbelief.
"Yeah, you know, like as a present for Zedd & Rita." she continued, sounding completely bored. "They've always been after your stupid staff."
"It's a little gift for them for making us this way to begin with." Tanya smiled.
"Also kind of a consolation prize to help them get over the fact that we're gonna rule the Earth instead of them." Kat added. "I'm sure that will be a great disappointment to them."
"They'll get over it." shrugged Tanya. "If they know what's good for them, that is."
"So now what?" Adam asked them matter-of-factly. Both girls just looked at him in honest confusion, not sure what he even meant at this point. Like, does he mean how do we rule the Earth? Kat thought to herself. I dunno, I guess we start by getting the US President on the phone... "I mean, what are you gonna do with us?" he clarified as he saw their confused expressions. "Clearly we can't do anything to stop you, so are you just gonna like...execute us?" It was an amazing thing to say out loud, but Adam had long since lost all hope. The Power Rangers were finally beaten. It took two of their own, but it was over. There was nothing they could do to fight these two gods.
"Oh. I mean, if you really want to die we can obviously help with that." said Tanya equally matter-of-factly. "But we weren't planning on actually killing you otherwise, no."
"It's really much funnier to leave you all alive, knowing you can't do a single thing to ever stop us." Katherine grinned. "Plus, I've decided that I really want to make Tommy my personal slave anyway."
Tommy swallowed roughly at the sound of that. Tanya gave a look that implied she wasn't thrilled with that idea, but then shrugged. Let him be her slave. she thought to herself. I'm her girlfriend!
"You're gonna find out what all tyrants do eventually." said Billy. "Ruling the world is a lot tougher than it sounds, and nowhere near as much fun."
"We'll definitely have to delegate." Kat shrugged. "But if anyone gets out of line I'd just LOVE an excuse to do some more giant crushing."
"We could try Serpentera size next time." said Tanya dreamily, prompting enthusiastic nodding from Katherine. A thousand feet tall sounds good to me! she thought happily.
"Well, anyway. We've done enough evil gloating for one evening, I think." Kat said with a grin.
"I'm sure we'll be seeing you all around." Tanya laughed. "Alpha, make sure they don't get up to any mischief in here!"
"Roger that, dudette!" the robot replied enthusiastically.
"Really, what is with the dudette thing?" Kat asked Tanya again as the two girls teleported out.
A speechless group of heroes was left in their wake.
"Well, that's it I guess." Rocky finally said.
"They won." said Kimberly simply, as Adam nodded in agreement.
Tommy tried to think of anything they could possibly do. The Zords were probably not an option thanks to the reprogrammed Alpha, who could easily disable them from the Power Chamber if he wanted to. And even if they managed to get Alpha out of the way and get the Zords operational, they probably were useless against the two girls now anyway. Their Zeo powers still worked, but they hadn't been able to make a scratch on the giant Kat and Tanya with them even BEFORE Zedd turned them into monsters, and the two of them had made it incredibly obvious just how much more powerful they were now. Zordon was gone, Alpha now worked for the enemy, the Alien Rangers were dead, and Trey was completely powerless without his magical staff. Overthrowing the two soon-to-be new rulers of the world would probably be a very long-term project, if it was even theoretically possible. They could try to round up Jason, Zack, Trini and Aisha, the four remaining ex-Rangers. But they had no powers to give them, and no idea how to possibly defeat their god-like former allies no matter how many members of the team they ultimately had. Tommy was left with only one final conclusion.
"We're doomed."
Stay tuned for the Epilogue!