Chapter Text
It was cold, far too cold. A small shell of ice had formed on Rita's skin during her drift through space, but she was more than aware of her surroundings. When her body made impact with the moon's surface, when the shell broke, she refused to take a moment's rest. There was a fire roaring inside of her. She wouldn't be cold for long. Her fingers curled around her staff, and she looked to the Earth with contempt.
"You haven't won. There won't be a single day of peace for you, Rangers. I will destroy you, and everything you love," she seethed, while green mystical energy crackled around her, warming her body and sewing up her wounds.
With her vow made, Rita turned her back on the blue planet and looked out into the distance. All the tools she needed for her revenge were on the moon, and the rangers didn't even know it. She just had to find the crater, and the prison's entrance. Staff in hand, she began walking. The Rangers wouldn't know what hit them until it was too late.
•••
"Trini! Stay with Kim and Zack! I'm going after Billy!" Jason shouted out orders as he ran, splitting off and peeling away from his team. Dodging heavy laser fire and striking what few enemies he could, he prayed that he wasn't too late. The sky was black, but the night's stars were obscured by the gigantic spaceship that was hanging up above. Robotic foot soldiers were pumped out in wave after wave, and Billy was alone at the Krispy Kreme, surrounded on all sides.
Trini raised an armored arm, blocking one of the robot's blows, and punched a hole in it's chest with her free hand. With a sputter and spark, the machine fell, lifeless, only for several more to take it's place. Just a few feet away, Zack and Kim were fighting back to back. Heaps of destroyed invaders lay at their feet, but they knew they couldn't keep it up much longer.
"You pieces of shit!" Zack cried out, kicking a robot into three of it's allies and toppling them over. "First you destroy our zords, then our town?!"
"Calm down, Zack!" Trini ordered while ripping off a robot's leg. She swung the stolen limb at another enemy's head, connecting the blow perfectly and following it up with a snap kick. "We gotta keep clear heads!"
"Trini's right!" Kim shouted her agreement, flipping over a robot and letting Zack elbow it in the face. As she came down, she brought her foot down on another machine's shoulder, crumpling the metal and deactivating one more foe.
As his team struggled with wave after wave of foot soldiers, Jason spotted Billy in the distance. He had barricaded himself inside of the Krispy Kreme, but a few robots had found their way in through a shattered window. Extending his arm blade, Jason carved a path through the wall of machines that surrounded the store, and dove in through the window, joining his friend.
"You okay, Billy?" The Red Ranger asked, stabbing a machine through the chest as it clambered in through the window after him.
"I dunno if I can do this Jason," Billy admitted, kneeling down next to a damaged but active robot. It's chest was torn open, revealing the high tech engine that drove it. The Blue Ranger was tinkering with it in ways Jason couldn't come close to comprehending.
"You have to, Billy. You're our only hope right now, okay?" Jason told him, holding off the machines while his friend worked. "If anyone can do this, it's you!"
"Right. Right, I gotta do it," Billy muttered to himself, psyching himself up as he tampered with the robot. "I know machines better than the rest of you, maybe even better than Alpha." He pulled another one closer, and ripped it's head off of it's shoulders. "And Alpha's a robot, so he knows machines. But I've never seen these kinds of machines, so this is all just guessing. For all I know this is gonna blow up in our faces." He popped it's head open and pulled out a computer chip, then brought that over to the engine of the first robot. "But maybe it'll work, y'know? I really hope this works," he said, attaching wires to the CPU, and connecting it to the engine. Finally, he opened a plate on his right arm and pulled a small device out of it, then plugged that into the engine as well.
Jason looked at Billy, his helmet hiding his desperation. Over the armor's comms, he could hear Trini, Kimberly and Zack struggling, and he knew they didn't have much left in them. He silently pleaded with his best friend to hurry, to pull this off. He couldn't fail, not here.
There was a flash of blue light. Billy cried out and laughed, looking at Jason as time seemed to slow to a crawl. The robots around the building began falling to the ground, lifeless. Somehow, Billy had done it. Jason didn't know if it was a virus or an EMP or what, but Billy had done it. He brought the machines down. Each and every one. Including the spaceship that was hanging above their town. Jason closed his eyes and smiled as it came crashing down on top of them, grateful that it was over.
"Mission accomplished, Rangers," Zordon said proudly. The wreckage around them vanished in a blink of light, and they found themselves in his spaceship once again. "Some day, in the distant future, your power coins would be found again, and the Zeo Crystal would have defenders once more."
"Yeah, that's really great," Trini snarked. "Maybe next time though, we don't get crushed at the end of the simulation?"
"Yeah, I gotta be honest, Zordon, I'm not a fan of the dying part." Billy stood up, his armor disappearing back into his body. His teammates followed suit as they regrouped in the center of the training suite.
"It is vital that you understand how to protect the Zeo Crystal from every possible enemy, even if it means giving your lives. Just as my team gave our lives, you must be prepared to do the same. Now that Alpha 5 has fully repaired the ship's holographic capabilities, we can train in scenarios where death is the only option."
"Correction," Jason spoke up, raising a finger. "We can train in these scenarios. You just watch."
Zordon was silent for a moment, admitting in his own way that Jason had a point. "You performed admirably, all of you," he noted, finally. "Take tomorrow off, you've earned it."
The Rangers filed out of the room, but they weren't as unhappy as their words would have implied. As much as they all hated those kinds of scenarios, they understood Zordon's reasoning. They just wished that they could relish their victory sometimes. Rather than heading home, however, they went to the center of the ship, where they had first met Alpha 5. There, in the center of the room, a large couch was resting.
In the time since Rita's defeat, the teenagers had mostly begun focusing on repairing Zordon's ship. Most of it's various rooms and systems had fallen into disrepair, but with Alpha's direction, it wasn't hard to fix them. Aside from the training suite, which was used for more advanced training than the pit could provide, they had been setting up the ship's living quarters with their own furnishings. Jason and Trini lifted the couch from opposite ends and moved it into the living quarters, while Kim directed them on where to set it down.
Zack flopped down on the sofa once it had been moved into position, giggling as he got comfortable. "Oh man, I could live on this thing," he purred.
"Yeah, well, you're lucky my parents got a new one," Kimberly said as she looked around the room. An old television from Jason's house, a couch from her's, chairs that Zack and Trini had gotten from who knows where, and a rug from Billy's room had led to the room being made their own.
Jason slipped out of the room as his team gathered around and relaxed, and made his way to the command center, where Zordon was waiting. Jason leaned against the wall and looked at the face pressing it's way out of the wall. The now deceased Red Ranger watched his successor, waiting for Jason to speak his mind.
"We need to give the team something different next time. We're not taking a day off tomorrow, or the day after, but they need something to build themselves up," Jason told Zordon. "We're doing great, but these simulations... dying every time? That's not exactly building morale."
"You are right," Zordon admitted. "It is your team, and your call, Jason. With that said, you must understand the gravity of the situation. The threats that you face will not go easy on you. Every battle will be like the one you had with Rita, and the threats you'll face may be far more difficult to stop. The Machine Empire, the witch Bandora, Divatox and her space pirates, I... I merely want to prepare you all."
"And we will be. You can count on us," Jason said with a nod. With that, he turned and left the room. "See you tomorrow, Zordon."
"Jason, wait!" Zordon called out. "Before you go, I have one question. As leader of the Power Rangers, it would be for the best if you decided on a lieutenant. Someone who you can trust to be your second in command. Among your team, who would you trust with that position?"
Jason paused in the doorway, and scratched at his chin as he thought about it. "I'll get back to you on that, alright?"
The conversation over, Jason went back to the living quarters, where he found Trini holding Zack in a headlock.
"Okay, Billy, you see this? This is how you do a sleeper hold. Ya gotta be careful though, or you could do some serious damage."
"Trini, let Zack go," Jason said with a tired sigh.
"Fine," she groaned, dropping Zack and letting him fall to the floor. She folded her arms and sat down on the couch as Zack picked himself up. "But you better stick around while we watch Cutthroat Kitchen. We're gambling on who wins."
Jason cracked a smile at that and joined his team, tossing $20 into the pot, which was apparently just their power coins in a circle on the floor. He knew his team didn't have a thing to worry about. They handled Rita, they handled simulation after simulation, they could take anything the universe threw at them. And they could relax with headlocks and cooking competitions afterwards.
•••
Rita stepped up to the edge of the crater and purred. Burrowed away, underground and on the dark side of the moon, was a treasure trove for the Eltarian witch. Something that her team of Rangers had hidden away where nobody would look, never realizing that one of their own would someday use it to destroy the planet they so dearly cared for. A prison. One that contained each and every enemy who they had captured alive.
Rita slid her power coin along the ground, and where it touched, an opening appeared. With the crater split in half by a large fissure, exposing a winding staircase, Rita began making her way down into the depths of the prison. When she reached the bottom, she held out her staff and used it's green light as a torch. She walked between row upon row of alien criminals who had been encased in stone. It was her own magic that sealed them, a vital tool in the Power Rangers' battle to protect the Zeo Crystal. Now it would be her magic that released them.
"Where are you, my devious little friend?" She asked aloud, playfully drumming her fingers along the face of one prisoner. "I'll let you out if you promise to play nice. Tit... for tat..." Rita whispered, pressing her staff against the statue's back.
In a burst of green light, he was freed. It felt as though he had died and been reborn, with Rita's magic giving him new life, a new purpose. The short, white furred alien looked at his savior and stared in shock. The last time he had seen her, she was surrounded by her friends, and was encasing him in his prison. Now she stood alone, wearing a twisted, half complete version of her old armor. She didn't even look like an Eltarian. She looked almost human to him. She looked demented. She looked heavenly.
"Do you know why I freed you?" Rita asked, whispering in his ear.
"You want my monsters, don't you?" The alien replied, shaking with fear. He was never a fighter, only a builder. His creations had always done all the work.
"That's right. I want the Zeo Crystal, just like you did, once upon a time. You help me, I help you. No need to be afraid of me, Finnster, I won't bite. Much." Rita stepped back and smiled almost genuinely. She meant what she said. "What do you say?"
"M-My wish is y-your command, Green Ranger," Finnster stuttered, following after her as she walked up the staircase, back to the moon's surface.
"I'm no Ranger anymore, Finnster. Call me Lady Rita!" She demanded.
"Of course, Lady Rita!" He called after her.