Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Find the power source, take down the beam, find the power source, take down the beam - “

Riley is the first into the ship, and he’s focused, always focused, not going to let the team down. Snide’s got that weapon aimed right at the school, and there isn’t any time to waste here. They’ve already seen what the energy beam can do: there’s a scorched empty space where the juice bar used to be, and they’d barely got everyone out of there in time.

Left turn, then left again. All these ship corridors look the same. The smell of overheated metal gets stronger the deeper he goes inside. Whatever’s powering this laser is dangerously close to blowing up, by the way it reeks. Riley needs to find it soon, or it’s not just the school that’s going to get destroyed. He’s going to explode right along with it, and Sledge‘s ship into the bargain. The repetitive blaring of the ship’s alert system is starting to grate on his nerves.

“Riley, wait up.”

It’s Chase, hard on his heels, suited up like Riley and ready for the endgame. He catches up quickly and they move along together. “And what’s with this stink?” the Black Ranger complains. The smoke is obvious now, and the stench of electrical overload is becoming more and more acrid.

“Whatever Snide’s cooked up this time,” Riley replies, testing the biggest door on the right, “it’s overdone.“ There’s smoke leaking out from under the seal, and the metal of the door is actually hot to the touch. “And it’s in here.”

The door doesn’t open easy. It’s got an electronic combination lock, and it’s probably inches thick. But it’s already under strain from within: and between Riley’s assault on the lock and the increasing heat, it gives after only five minutes. Five minutes that to Riley nevertheless feel like an eternity.

The two Rangers head into the room with caution. They can’t see much, because the smoke is a great deal thicker within, belching out into the corridor in great gouts as the door creaks aside. And they’re glad of their masks with the poisonous atmosphere - it smells like everything in the room is burning with a bitter, alien scent.

“You’re sure it’s here?”

“It has to be,” Riley says. It really does.

Once the smoke has had a chance to filter out of the room, the Rangers can see a little more of what they’re dealing with. It’s a small room, and what space there is seems pretty much packed with machinery - wires, tubes, panels. There are warning lights flaring red everywhere, and the alarm that’s been sounding continuously is even louder in here. Chase catches Riley’s elbow and points.

There’s a big metal cabinet built into the wall at the back of the room, and it’s this that all the wires and tubes are leading into. And the biggest warning light - the one that’s not only red but actually reads “WARNING” in big letters - is right above that cabinet.

“Okay, then I guess we’re opening it,” Riley says, and Chase nods.

Compared to the exterior door with its electric lock, the cabinet is very low-tech. It’s held closed with big metal slide-locks and (of all things) actual chains, huge, heavy links pulled tight and bolted to the floor. Chase takes out the bolts and the chains rattle slackly against the cabinet’s sides, while Riley leans on the levers to release the locks. The metal locks are almost too hot to touch, and they slide back with a very final set of thunks.

Neither of them are prepared for what they find.

There’s a man inside the cabinet, alive and twitching in his restraints. He’s strapped in tightly, with more of the massive chains, and those chains are glowing up so hot they must be burning him. His eyes are hidden behind a blindfold, his face contorted in an expression of unbearable pain. There’s a thick gag forced between his teeth, keeping him silent even though he‘s obviously suffering horribly. His hands are encased in more metal, huge shapeless gauntlets up to the wrist that are connected at their base to the wires. Blue-white energy courses outward and downward. When it hits Riley what this means, he feels almost sick.

This is Snide’s power source. This is what’s fuelling the weapon. Not something chemical or magical or anything simple like that. A living man in a box, drained for his energy.

“Jeez,” says Chase from right beside him, almost making Riley jump. He‘d been so caught up in staring at the captive that he hadn‘t noticed Chase moving in. “It’s Heckyl.”

And he’s right, although Riley had been so caught up in the ugliness of the whole situation he hadn’t noticed at first. It is Heckyl. That explains the siphoned power even more: Heckyl always had his own internal lightning that he’d used more than once against them. A glance at the captive man’s head, and the blue stripe in the hair confirms it. It’s definitely him. But that’s impossible, and Riley says so. 

“But how can he be here, and Snide out there? They’re the same person, we saw him change - “

Before Chase can offer any kind of theory or comment, Riley’s communicator beeps at him.

“Riley,” says Kendall‘s voice. “I’m sorry. We need you to be faster. Tyler and the others can’t stall Snide much longer, he’s too strong.”

“Snide’s definitely still out there?”

“Yeah, he’s out here,” Kendall says, sounding confused. “Did you find the power source?”

“We did,” Riley says, glancing at the cabinet and its agonised occupant. Heckyl is writhing against the chains, teeth gnashing helplessly at the gag. “And you’re not gonna believe it, it‘s -”

“I don’t have to believe it, just shut it down. Now, Riley!”

“I can‘t.  It‘s -”

“It’ll be at the school in less than a minute, it has to be now. Do it. Cut the power!”

“Ms Morgan,” Riley interrupts. “I can’t. I don’t know how to without killing him. That’s what I‘ve been trying to tell you. It’s Heckyl. Him and Snide have been separated somehow, and now he’s plugged into the weapon, Snide must’ve chained him into this machine. In order to stop the weapon I have to stop him too and I can’t - I can’t just kill a person like this. Not even if it‘s Heckyl.”

There is silence for a moment from Kendall. Then:

“You say he’s plugged in?” she says. “Then unplug him. Cut the wires. Get him out of there. Get him far enough away that Snide can’t use him anymore. No Heckyl, no power, no problem.”

Riley pauses. There are just so many wires. He could kill them all, including Heckyl,  by cutting the wrong one.

“But do it now! We’re almost out of time!”

It’s Chase who saves them, cutting through Riley‘s prevarication: he just reaches down and snaps away all the wires at once, then batters at the chain stays until they bend enough to pull loose all the links. Nothing explodes: but there is a whining hum as the power running through Heckyl and into the machine abruptly cuts out. Heckyl himself lies there limp and puts up no resistance as Chase lifts him out of the cabinet, the heavy gauntlets still locked around his wrists. Chase slings the alien over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry.

Then - they run.

“Riley,” Kendall’s voice cuts in, “You did it. The weapon just powered down. Snide’s leaving. Get clear of the ship, he’ll be going back there.”

“We’re clear,” Riley replies, jogging along the track into the forest. He can hear that Chase is not far behind, slowed a little by the burden he carries. “We’re coming back.” A thought strikes him. “Ms Morgan - what do you want us to do with Heckyl?”

“Bring him back here,” Kendall says. “I’ve got some questions for him.”

Chase lays Heckyl out on the examination table they usually reserve for Kendall’s science equipment, and the man doesn’t move. He’s breathing and isn’t a completely dead weight, so it’s clear that he’s alive. The blindfold had proved fortunate: they can be sure that Heckyl, if he’s even conscious, has no way of knowing where they’ve brought him. Kendall comes over immediately, all business, and checks him over. Her lips purse in horrified disapproval at the state Heckyl is in. He reeks of burning, both burnt metal and burnt flesh. When she carefully removes the gag, his mouth is rubbed raw at the sides and there are bruises lining his cheekbones. And regardless of how uncomfortable he must be, he audibly sighs in relief as Kendall gingerly slides the straps away, and he flexes his jaw. It’s the first real sign of awareness he’s shown since Riley opened the cabinet. She makes no effort, however, to even try and remove the gauntlets that encase his hands.

“Heckyl,” says Kendall, keeping her voice low but clear. “Before I take the blindfold off, I want to make sure we understand each other. Okay? Do you understand?”

When he doesn’t reply immediately, she begins to repeat herself, louder, but he raises one gauntlet, shakily, and makes a negative gesture: evidently he heard her. The follow-up gesture is less clear, being hindered very much by the lumps of metal weighing his arms down, but Chase gets it after a couple of tries, and rapidly shoulders Riley aside to get through to his bag, coming back with a sports bottle.

Water. Of course. No wonder Heckyl doesn’t have any voice left, given the situation they’d found him in. He doesn’t even have the strength to keep his head up, and Chase helps him until he’s taken a few big gulps from the bottle.

“Yes,” he manages, once he’s finished, and Chase has let him settle down again. His voice is unrecognizable, raw and ruined. “I understand.” 

“We’re not going to hurt you,” Kendall says, staying slow and calm. “I need you to believe me on that.” And she reaches around behind his head, unfastens the ties of the blindfold, and pulls it away. Heckyl immediately winces as the light hits his face, eyes watering instantly. He‘s obviously been bound up in the dark for a while. “Riley, turn the lights down,” Kendall adds, quickly, and once Riley has done so and the base is in dimness, Heckyl takes his first good look at his rescuers.

And he freaks out. His extreme exhaustion is in their favour, as his immediate attempt to get off the table and flee is a failure, but he nearly makes his situation worse by almost pitching headfirst to the floor. Chase, who is still closest after bringing the water, saves things by just putting himself in as a buffer and preventing the fall.

“Don’t -” Kendall says, trying not to sound as frustrated as she feels. “You said you understood. Please, just listen. You’re not in danger here. Not right now.”

“We’re the ones pulled you out of there, mate,” says Chase, giving Heckyl a none-too-gentle push so he falls back solidly onto the table with a yelp. “Don’t pretend to understand what happened to have you end up in that torture box, but I know it didn’t look like you were enjoying it. I broke the chains. And the wires. And then I carried you all the way back here. I think that means that I don’t want to hurt you. If I’d wanted to hurt you, I’d’ve left you there. Okay?”

Heckyl, his eyes still watery, blinks at Chase.

“Okay,” he rasps, after a moment.

“So you’re good?” Chase pursues. “Not gonna try and run out on us again?”

Heckyl manages to snort a humourless laugh.

“I don’t think I have much of a choice,” he says, and sits up slowly on the edge of the table, legs hanging over the side. Chase nods approvingly, sets the bottle of water down next to him, and steps back to allow his team leader to take over. Kendall reaches forward: and in a deliberate invitation to trust, starts working on one of the gauntlets. Heckyl watches her, owlish and suspicious.

“I need you to tell me what happened,” Kendall says. “You and Snide.”

“That’s the thing of course, isn’t it,” says Heckyl, wearily. “Me, and Snide. Not just me. Or not just Snide. Not anymore.”

“You’ve been separated.”

The gauntlet springs open with an ugly click. Heckyl lifts his liberated hand, flexes the fingers: then he rubs at the side of his neck, briefly, and he nods.

“And Snide doesn’t like you very much at all, does he?”

“He doesn’t like anyone,” says Heckyl, bitterly. “But he thought I was useful. It’s the only reason he didn‘t kill me the moment I was no longer half of him. But not useful for my brain, oh no.” His tone turns acid. “For this.” He snaps his fingers and a few pure blue sparks flicker into existence, for brief moments. Heckyl sighs as they dissipate. “Almost drained dry, and for what?” he murmurs.

Chapter Text

Nobody is comfortable with this situation - not the Rangers, not Heckyl. Heckyl seems uncharacteristically withdrawn. Kendall makes a point of observing him closely: so she sees him testing his power when he thinks they’re not looking. He’s evidently very unhappy with the results, which are, even to her eyes, quite clear.

He can’t use that internal energy at all. Not even slightly. He keeps trying. A surreptitious snap of the fingers, a clutching motion of his hand, but it never results in anything more than a very slight luminescence, a couple of motes of light - and most often not even that. And it’s also obvious what a strain it is for him even to try.

But he just won’t stop. Again and again she watches him push it, sees the frown lines on his face deepen with every failure, his complexion turn ashen as he concentrates. He is ridiculously stubborn, and Kendall thinks this probably says a lot about why he didn’t just give up and die in the machine. And also why he is such a royal pain in their collective ass.

She wonders how long it will be before he’s willing to talk to them properly about what’s happened. After his initial responses, he’d shut down almost completely, and Kendall hadn’t pushed it, mindful of the raw wounds on his mouth. Tyler had been all for locking him in somewhere until, as he frankly put it, they could be sure he wasn’t going to try and kill them all. But Kendall had vetoed that. Instinct was a powerful thing, and all her instincts were telling her that Heckyl wasn’t the danger right now. Besides, he could barely move, muscles evidently suffering from his time in the cabinet, and his powers were useless.

“Hey, Heckyl.”

Chase’s voice. Kendall pretends she’s busy at her workbench again. Chase has surprised her with his attentiveness to their unwilling guest. Of all of them, he’s been the least uncomfortable around Heckyl, or at least the best at hiding it. “Got you some Gatorade,” Chase says, holding out the bottle. “Cool Blue. Thought you’d prefer that colour.”

He doesn’t set the bottle down, keeping it instead in his hand like a patient dog trainer who’s trying to coax an edgy animal to take food from his fingers. Heckyl regards him and the bottle blankly for a moment, then he reaches out rapidly (not quite snatching, but it’s close) and takes it. Unscrews the cap, drinks, pulls a face and shoots Chase a betrayed look. “Yeah, sorry,” Chase adds. “Sugar free is all they had.”

“Are you - are you hungry?”

Kendall cuts in, feeling her own sudden stab of responsibility. Heckyl’s been here for several hours and aside from giving him water (and now Chase’s Gatorade) they haven’t fed him. It’s clear that he’s been tortured, that he’s weak, and equally clear that he has no immediate desire (or indeed ability) to do anything traditionally villainous to them. They should at least have offered him something. They’re supposed to be the good guys, after all.

Heckyl takes another swig of Gatorade, watching her carefully, obviously weighing the situation and coming up empty on good options.

“Starving,” he says eventually, and he sounds it.

And apparently he’s not exaggerating. Kendall sends Chase back to the cafe to get food, and Chase seemingly wildly overcompensates, arriving back with five burgers, three orders of fries and an extra large Jurassic Juice soda (“Promise, it’s got real sugar in it this time”). But she’s quickly forced to reassess Chase’s decision, as after an initial suspicious sniff at the greasy bag and an equally suspicious bite at a fry, Heckyl goes at the food with wolfish abandon. He tears into the burgers as if he’s on a timeclock and they’ll be taken away if he doesn’t eat them within thirty seconds flat.

Kendall and Chase exchange a somewhat horrified glance at this carnage: and Chase says, aloud:

“Slow down, mate, you’re going to hurt yourself -”

However, it seems Heckyl neither wants nor heeds their advice. Literal minutes, and he’s destroyed the lot, discarded wrappers and crumbs everywhere. He sits there with his bruised hands clamped possessively on the soda cup, and scowling at them balefully with lips wrapped around the straw. Kendall half wants to laugh at the sheer unlikely spectacle - Heckyl looks like a sulky child who’s under threat of having his favourite toys confiscated - but she’s also saddened by the obvious evidence of his abuse. Enemy or not, it just isn’t right.

“Dude,” says Chase, solemnly, “you’re gonna have such a stomach-ache.”

But Kendall, who is catching on faster to the plain fact that no matter how human Heckyl looks, he really isn’t, asks gently: “Heckyl? Are you still hungry?”

And his glare fades, is replaced by what might (just might) be the beginnings of gratitude. He nods at her, just once, and continues to drink his soda with a serious expression.

“Chase -” Kendall murmurs, not taking her eyes off him.

“No worries. I’ll go.” Chase grins at her. “I’m still hungry too. Two of those burgers were supposed to be for me!”

It’s somewhat scary just how much Heckyl manages to eat before he finally stops. Chase outdoes himself, coming back with not only a large veggie pizza but a bag of brownies and some blueberry pie he’s scrounged from Riley. Heckyl is more restrained this time, the edge obviously having been taken off his hunger, but he still eats like a unstoppable machine. Kendall, once she feels confident that Heckyl’s peculiar alien metabolism evidently knows what it’s doing and he’s not going to be violently ill on them, is almost amused. And vaguely envious. How is he so skinny if this is how he eats? If she ate this way she’d be the size of a bus in weeks.

Then she remembers that Heckyl’s current weight and voracity is most likely a nasty reflection of the way he’s been treated lately, and she sobers.

Chase, sharing the pizza, grins as he notes that Heckyl isn’t reaching for another slice.

“Better, right?” he says cheerfully. “Don’t blame you, being hungry makes me antsy too.” He takes a brownie and bites into it. “Plus I guess there wasn’t any pizza delivery to that box, was there?”

Kendall is about to shoot him a reproving look, sure that Heckyl is going to shut down into unresponsiveness again at the blatant reminder, but to her surprise, Heckyl chuckles.

“No,” he says. “There really wasn’t.”

Chase chews thoughtfully for a moment.

“How long’s he had you in there? Snide, I mean. It was him, right?”

Kendall takes a silent moment to appreciate Chase’s uniquely informal interrogation style, and she nibbles on a brownie to cover her interest.

“Well, I don’t know precisely,” says Heckyl sarcastically, picking up a napkin and scrubbing at his fingers. “They didn’t think to put a clock in there for me. And yes,” he adds, not looking up. “It was Snide. As soon as he’d ripped himself out of me, he locked me up and sent a few of his heavy-handed friends to pay me a visit. I’m afraid my memory is rather fuzzy on the details. I was doing rather too much screaming to pay attention to the little things like when I was being turned into a living weapon!”

His tone has risen dangerously, as has his temper, but Chase doesn’t flinch. He nods, mildly.

“That sounds rough,” is all he says, popping the last chunk of brownie into his mouth. Heckyl stares at him as if trying to work out whether or not he’s being baited. He seems to decide that he isn’t, and that somewhat derails his ire. Kendall, trying not to hold her breath, inwardly blesses Chase for his guileless demeanour.

“Really? Do you think so? How insightful. It’s like you were there,” Heckyl sneers, taking refuge in defensive mockery, and aggressively savages the last slice of pizza at them both as if making a point. Chase just smiles back, nods companionably, and just like that the conversation is over.

“You’ve been good to him. Thank you.”

Chase, packing up a sweater into his bag, looks up at Kendall’s words.

“Who, Heckyl?” he says. “Nah. I didn’t do anything special.”

“But you did,” Kendall pursues. “He certainly wasn’t going to talk to me. He doesn’t trust us at all. But he opened up for you and you were just -” She falters. “You just treated him like he was your friend and I think he appreciated it.”

Chase shrugs.

“He’s just sore,” he says. “I knew kids like that back home. Spoilt kids, who didn’t get told no. Then they suddenly get yelled at and pushed around when they get out there in the real world. It hurts.They’re not bad kids. Just sore at the world.”

“I’m sorry I have to ask, but...but can you try and keep doing what you’re doing? Try and be a friend for him? It’s just that we need to know everything we can and Heckyl is the absolute best source of information about Snide’s plans that we have. If we can persuade him to stay and help us, or at least not actively work against us, I really think we have a chance.”

Chase looks at her, bemused, and shrugs again. “Why would you be sorry to ask that?” he says, and shoulders his bag. “See you later. I’ll drop back and check on him.”

Chapter Text

Kendall is aware of Heckyl watching her.

Since Chase left, the alien has been sat precisely where they put him - on the examination table - and has not budged more than a few inches. He has, somewhat to her surprise, tidied up the fallout from his meal, piling wrappers and cups and the pie box at the far end. And now he’s just unnervingly silent, watching her as she pores over her files.

It’s horribly distracting. Kendall almost wants to plug into her headphones, but she’s also aware that they have what is basically a potential spy in the house (until proven otherwise) and she can’t let up her vigilance regardless of Heckyl’s apparent co-operation.

When he eventually speaks up after about an hour, it’s all she can do not to startle.

“I could help you with that.”

Kendall pushes her glasses up onto the bridge of her nose and smiles at him, warily.

“You don’t even know what I’m working on.”

“No,” says Heckyl, unabashed. “But I’m good at pretty much everything.”

That makes Kendall laugh despite herself.

“Heckyl, I don’t know if that’s breathtaking arrogance or whether you’re just trying to be friendly.”

He grins, then winces as the expression stretches the abrasions on his face.

“Is both out of the question? Anyway, it isn’t really arrogance if you just are that good. Surely you must have suspected, considering how many problems I’ve caused you. I bet Sledge never gave you half as much of a runaround.”

“Are you - are you actually looking for praise for being annoying?”

Heckyl considers this for a moment.

“Well,” he says, eventually. “Yeah. You have to admit I’m creative.”

Kendall, still amused, shakes her head.

“I’m still not going to share my work with you.”

“Oh.”

He falls silent again, lacing his fingers together and looking down at them in his lap.

Kendall weighs up her options. Out of the corner of her eye she continues to check on him, sees him once again start to push at his power, noting that since he’s eaten the poor show of sparks seems a little brighter, maybe lasting a little longer. But the look on his face throughout his efforts is still unmistakably glum, and she’s moved by that at least enough to take pity on him. She’s about to get up, go and scour the bookshelves to see if maybe there’s a magazine or something she can give him, when the door opens and Chase is back.

She wonders if she’s imagining the way Heckyl seems to brighten at this - although it’s most likely that any option of additional entertainment would inspire that response right now.

Chase smiles at her as he enters, slips past, drops his bag on the table next to Heckyl.

“Figured you’d be bored,” he says, and now Kendall’s sure she’s not imagining Heckyl’s relieved look. “So I brought some stuff from home. You know how to play Risk?”

Kendall looks away quickly to hide her reaction. If there’s anything in this world that she doesn’t want to contemplate, it’s Heckyl unleashed on a game of Risk. The potential for aggravation is unprecedented.

“I’ve never played it,” Heckyl says, eyeing both Chase and the bag with interest, “but I’m quite certain I’ll win.”

“Confident,” says Chase. “I like it. You’re on. And if I win, I get to name a favour from you.” He fishes in the bag, produces not only the promised game but also a big carton of sweet and salt popcorn, which he pushes across the table to Heckyl. “Also figured you wouldn’t say no to some of this.”

Heckyl possessively lays the flat of one hand on the carton, but his attention is elsewhere: “What kind of favour?”

He was right about one thing, Kendall thinks. He’s not stupid, no matter how silly he can appear.

“Oh, I dunno,” says Chase, as if this is the least important thing in the universe. “Just something. We’ll figure it out. Same terms if you win, right?”

He opens the game box and Heckyl instantly fixes on it, his overwhelming desire to win at things immediately overriding his caution over terms of victory. Kendall watches them set up the board, again immeasurably grateful for Chase as she sees him gesturing, explaining the rules, as if this is in no way any more weird for him than having an unexpected cousin over to entertain for the summer.

Heckyl nods, indicating that he gets it. They play. And after a particularly intense two hours, during which Kendall tries really hard not to be distracted from her work by the various campaigns, fortification discussions and arguments, Chase wins.

Kendall is fascinated by Heckyl’s reaction. He’s furious, for a start. It couldn’t be plainer. He hates, hates, hates to lose and everything about his body language telegraphs this loudly. He is stiff with indignation, poorly controlled, his expression livid. But despite this, despite the fact that every fibre of his body is quivering with evidence of his outrage and humiliation, he isn’t taking it out on Chase. Kendall had more than half expected a tantrum, a flipped table, a fight. She’d even started planning what to do, how to take Heckyl down, when it happened. But it doesn’t happen. As Chase calmly packs the game away, Heckyl just stands there on the spot, shaking with rage, but saying and doing not a single thing about it.

It’s downright peculiar.

Chase nods to him, as if the palpable aura of anger surrounding Heckyl is utterly invisible to him, and says: “That was fun. You’re good at this.” And he holds out a hand, the universal human gesture for good sportsmanship. Heckyl just stares at that hand furiously.

Kendall tenses, certain that this will be the final straw. “Oh, sorry,” says Chase. “I forgot. Your fingers must hurt.” Instead, he pats Heckyl gently on the upper arm, just once. “Well played, mate.”

“I...owe you...a favour,” says Heckyl, very darkly, as if he can’t believe he’s in this situation. But Chase chuckles.

“Ah, don’t worry about that. We can sort it out later. Whenever. Here.” And he digs in a pocket, extracts a chocolate bar, hands it over like a runner-up prize. “Keep your strength up, you wanna beat me next time.”

“Oh, I will,” says Heckyl, his tone still far too nasty and serious for the current topic of conversation. But he takes the chocolate anyway, locks eyes with Chase deliberately and defiantly. Chase holds his ground, stares back.

“I believe you,” he says, after a moment, and for some reason that simple phrase completely knocks Heckyl for six. Kendall sees it happen - as if all the anger just gives way under him and he no longer knows what to do with himself. And Chase notices too, so he deliberately repeats himself, a little quieter and with perhaps broader emphasis than he’d previously implied: “I believe you.”

Kendall is almost tempted to underline the point, to speak up and add that she’s also quite willing to place at least a little trust and belief into their old enemy, given the current circumstances, but something stops her. The situation is fragile and volatile, exactly like  Heckyl’s mood, and she doesn’t want to break whatever spell Chase is managing to work by pushing too much, too soon.

Heckyl himself breaks it up, with a much-more-normal arrogant toss of his head and a scoff - “Then you’re a fool, Black Ranger.” - before turning away and pretending to be very interested in unwrapping his chocolate bar.

“Nah,” says Chase, grinning at his back. “I don’t think so. I know my limits, is all. See you later, Heckyl, Ms Morgan.”

And Kendall finds herself wondering, not for the first time today as she watches the man sit himself back down on the table with an annoyed (and evidently exhausted) exhalation, whether Heckyl knows his limits anymore.

Chapter Text

When Chase returns the next time, Heckyl is asleep, or pretending to be. He doesn’t even sleep like a normal person: he’s curled up in an inhumanly tight bundle on the examining table, back to the door, head tucked in and cradled on his bandaged forearms. No pillow. No blanket. Hasn’t even taken his boots off. Chase didn’t do great in biology class, but he’s pretty sure that all the diagrams he ever saw of human skeletons would never allow that level of flexibility. Something about the spine, he’s sure of it. Heckyl’s body must be something else. Probably great for skateboarding, Chase thinks, then pushes the thought from his mind. The likelihood of him ever taking Heckyl out to frontside air is remote in the extreme. Although quite a cool idea.

It’s also very likely, although Chase doesn’t dwell on this either right now, that the extended time in the box without being able to curl up because of the confined space and restraints has been deeply uncomfortable for Heckyl.

Kendall doesn’t have a great deal to say about this development. “I tried,” she says, as Chase shoots her a questioning look. “I offered him the couch. I said I’d go get him something to sleep under. He didn’t want it. He didn’t want anything.”

Chase sits down on a stool, folding his arms.

“At least he talked to you?”

“Well,” says Kendall, taking off her glasses and rubbing the bridge of her nose. “I guess there’s that. I really don’t think he’s ever going to properly come round for me. Do you think - “ She shakes her head. “Stupid.”

Chase just continues to look mildly enquiring.

“I was the first one of us he spoke to. When he nearly got hold of my Energem. Do you think maybe he resents something about me from that - the fact that I didn’t just hand it to him that day?”

“I don’t think so. At all.”

Chase doesn’t know how anyone couldn’t talk to Kendall. He’s always been able to talk to her about anything.

“Anyway,” Kendall continues with a sigh, replacing her glasses. “I’ve been trying to work on this.” She pushes her screen round so that Chase can look. Chase does, narrowing his eyes at the number of windows she has open. It doesn’t make a whit of sense to him, which doesn’t come as a surprise. Kendall’s stuff often doesn’t. However, even given Kendall’s usual standards of complexity, the information on the laptop looks incredibly peculiar. Screeds of text in unfamiliar characters. Tables of figures - are they though? - that seem to flex and move and recalculate as Chase stares at them. It almost makes him queasy just looking at it.

“What is it?”

“Tyler and Ivan found Hunter and Wrench still sneaking around the school after Snide was gone,” Kendall says. “They went back to check everything was okay. Wrench dropped this while he was running away.” She taps what looks like a twisted, battered sort of flash drive, hooked up to her laptop with a bundle of cables. “It’s got all kinds of things on it, but I can’t read them. I can’t even make sense of the file structure….if they even are files…oh.”

She pulls the computer away abruptly, snaps the lip closed, hugging it to herself in exasperation.  “Snide’s planning something, I just know it. But I can’t get this to work. And some of it’s encrypted, or whatever the equivalent of encryption is on that thing. I can’t get it to open. It’s so frustrating. I know there are answers on here. But I’m just not smart enough to get at them or understand them.”

“It’s not about being smart,” says Chase. “Look, some of that isn’t even in English. I’m not even sure that’s a language. Ms Morgan, you’re the smartest person I know. But this stuff -” and he gestures at the laptop in her grasp - “there’s no way you’d just know all that. No way.”

Kendall smiles at him ruefully. “Thanks. But it doesn’t make the situation any better, does it?”

“Like I said, pretty lady.”

Heckyl’s voice makes them both jump. The alien is sat up on the table, looking remarkably poised and alert considering his situation - and the fact that he‘d seemed so very much asleep. As Kendall and Chase turn quickly to look at him, he grins, showing his teeth. In that moment’s expression he looks every inch the foe they’ve been fighting for months - sharp, nasty, and entirely untrustworthy. He jerks his chin up, indicating the laptop that Kendall now holds more protectively.

“I could help you with that.”

Kendall doesn’t want to do it. She really doesn’t. The team, when they reconvene, are split almost completely down the middle by opinion. Tyler and Shelby are with her: they feel that Heckyl getting access to the recovered flash drive is just asking for him to delete something or destroy something. Riley, Ivan and Chase, however, are inclined to let him.

“But it’s what you wanted, right?” Chase says. “Him helping us? Against Snide?”

And Kendall has to admit he’s right. They’re discussing things in the café’s stockroom, having left Heckyl in the base and (due to almost everyone’s insistence) tied up. Heckyl had not resisted this at all: but he’d gone very quiet and still as Ivan had fastened the ties on his wrists and ankles. Chase had glanced back as they’d all been leaving, had seen Heckyl sat hunched and unable to move on his table with his injured, bound hands clutched to his chest, and had felt bad about it. This felt like something Snide would do. 

“If that thing belongs to Snide, Heckyl must be able to read it,” Riley says. “They’re the same person. Surely that’s worth the risk.”

“How can we trust anything he tells us?” Tyler objects. “He could make up anything he wanted - tell us whatever will make sure we fall right into Snide‘s next trap.”

“But why would he want to do anything to help Snide now?” Ivan counters. “He has clearly been treated abominably at the monster’s hands. Such treatment rarely inspires loyalty.”

They go back and forth for a while, but the inevitability of it grows on Kendall as every minute ticks past. They can’t risk it. Snide’s too dangerous and they just don‘t have the months or years it may take her to crack the information. She’s going to have to give Heckyl the laptop and hope that he’s going to feel friendly enough towards them that he’ll give genuine help.

With this in mind, even as Tyler and Riley are still debating, she turns to Chase, smiles tightly, and hands over her computer, the alien drive still attached.

“Here,” she says. “It’s probably best coming from you.”

Chase takes it, and immediately heads off back to the base.

He’s not perhaps as focused as he should be on his coming task of managing their prisoner through assisting them: he just wants to get those damn ties off Heckyl’s hands.

Chapter Text

When Chase returns to the base he finds everything he’d half dreaded: Heckyl sitting there silently and unhappily in the dark, because the lights were on a timer to save energy and had switched off after they’d gone. Shackled as he was, he’d been unable to move and turn them back on. Chase feels even worse about the whole situation now. Actually, he feels like a complete bastard.

“Ah, sorry. Sorry.”

He flicks on the lights, and Heckyl glares at him angrily in the sudden brilliance. Putting down the laptop out of reach, Chase reaches quickly for Heckyl’s wrists, keen to release him - and Heckyl flinches away from that rapid motion, drawing his hands closer into his body protectively. That was…new, and not encouraging. He hadn’t fought them at all when they’d tied him up, although Ivan had certainly expected him to. And yet he wasn’t going to let Chase free him. Weird. And worryingly familiar.

There’s this old dude who comes to the café sometimes. Always orders the same thing: a cheeseburger with no pickles, and a chocolate shake. Always sits in the same booth. He tends to come in either very early or very late when the place is pretty empty, so Chase has had a few good chats with him, because his mom and dad brought him up to be polite and respectful to elders. Dude also has a veteran’s card in his wallet, and has told Chase a couple of fairly rambling war stories, but the real story’s in the way he startles at every tiny sound. Chase dropped a plate once and the guy had almost hit the roof. To that dude, the world was perpetually dangerous, with every unexpected event a burgeoning threat.

Chase suspects that whether he likes it or not, Heckyl’s sharing that old army dude’s view of the world, and for the work they have ahead of them, Chase needs trust - a lot of it. So he attempts to reassure.

“It’s just me, mate. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Hurt me,” Heckyl spits, the vitriolic aggression in his voice belied by his body language, which keeps him cringing away from the ranger. “As if you could.”

“Well yeah, even if I could,” Chase says, keeping his voice friendly, “I wouldn’t. I don’t hurt helpless people.”

“Helpless?!”

More prickly than an echidna with toothache, Chase thinks, and resists the urge to sigh. “Look, just give me your hands, all right?”

Heckyl is by now in a high, offended temper and refuses to co-operate. He shuffles away so his back is turned, shoulders stiffly up in anger. But Chase ignores this, reaching (slowly this time, making sure Heckyl knows he’s approaching) into his personal space. He takes hold of him gently but firmly, and undoes the ties. It’s hard to ignore the way Heckyl flinches again with a Ranger‘s hands on him, how he is so tense his arms are quivering in Chase’s grip. It’s easier to understand now why he is reluctant to be touched. The restraints have obviously hurt him, and it’s hurting more as the bindings are pulled free. Even once he‘s able to move again, he still returns to that huddled, defensive position. Still looking daggers at his liberator in occasional, rebuking glances over his shoulder.

It’s horribly awkward for both of them.

So to distract him, Chase waits for the next sulky glance, then waves the laptop with the best encouraging smile he can muster given how uncomfortable he feels - and Heckyl immediately seems to return to some semblance of his normal self. He grins in exaggerated smugness, and swings round again, holding out both battered hands like a kid in expectation of a birthday gift.

“Seeing as you’re so smart,” Chase says, trying to choose his words carefully, “I’m sure you’ll be able to help us out.”

Heckyl gazes at him shrewdly, then lowers his hands.

“Flattery,” he says, “will get you nowh - oh, who am I kidding, it’ll get you absolutely everywhere with me - but I can’t help feeling a little suspicious at your sudden change of heart.”

Not for the first time, Chase finds himself wishing he was as quick as Kendall, or as flowery with words as Ivan. Why had she given him this job? He wasn’t any good at outsmarting folk, especially people like Heckyl. Heckyl was going to see through any attempts at coercion like they were made of tissue paper.

But then he remembers: it wasn’t about being smart. It was about being human. Being a good friend. Chase could do that.

“I get that,” he says, and without asking he hikes himself up onto the table so he’s sitting next to Heckyl, close enough to brush arms, the laptop clasped loosely in his grip. Heckyl stares at him as if he’s completely lost his mind. But he doesn‘t move away, something that Chase sees as an encouraging sign. “I’d be suspicious too. Hey, I’m suspicious of you. Why wouldn’t I be?  You’ve been trying to steal our energems for years. You tricked us into being your friend once, who’s to say you won’t do it again? Who‘s to say you’re not doing it right now?”

Heckyl makes an ugly noise between a growl and a snort.

“Even for me,” he says, curling his injured hands into a more comfortable position across his lap, “this would seem excessive as a ploy.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it would.” Chase looks down at Heckyl’s hands, the bandages spotted in places with the alien’s blood. “I’m sorry, you know?” he says. “That Snide did this to you.”

“Why would you care,” Heckyl says, but there’s no real anger in his tone - his  retort seems tired, automatic.

“Because it’s wrong,” Chase replies, with complete honesty. “I don’t care if it was Riley, my old math tutor, you, or anyone in that machine - it was evil. It was wrong. And yeah, I’m suspicious of you, but that doesn’t change what evil is. Or that I’m sad because evil happens.”

Heckyl is silent for an uncharacteristically long moment. His expression gives nothing away, and this too is unusual: he is habitually more overt in his emotional reactions.

“I don’t like you,” he says, eventually. “I don’t like any of you.”

“I know,” says Chase. “It’s okay.”

“But I loathe Snide a great deal more than I dislike you. I only mildly dislike you.”

“Aww,” says Chase, grinning, and he takes a huge chance by giving Heckyl a short, careful nudge, shoulder to shoulder. “Thanks, I love you too, buddy.”

“Ugh. Give me the computer before I change my mind.”

“Oh, sure. Like you didn’t want the computer in the first place.”

“Shut up.”

Chase hands over the laptop: Heckyl takes it, flips it open, runs quickly caressing fingertips over the ugly alien drive plugged into the side. His eyes flick rapidly over the multiple items Kendall has left active, his fingers shifting to the keyboard, swapping from window to window.

“Oooh,” he purrs after a moment, nasty laughter practically oozing from his tone. “Snide will be throwing the hissiest of hissy fits when he finds out he’s lost this.”

Chapter Text

One by one, the rest of the team filter back into the base at slow intervals. Chase feels he has Kendall to thank for this: a united show of Ranger force right now would probably undo all his good work and put Heckyl right back on the defensive. Although - and Chase casts a quick sidelong glance at the alien - it’s also entirely possible that Heckyl wouldn’t notice any of them were there. Since he got his hands on the laptop, he’s been wholly absorbed in it, almost to the exclusion of everything else. This evidently counts as a win in his playbook. He’s still sat on the tabletop, having drawn his legs up and crossed them, cradling the computer in his lap and hammering at the keys as if they‘ve personally offended him.

Kendall, who’s the first to return, gives Chase a quick, grateful smile once she takes in the scene. Heckyl has his head down, intent, the glare of the screen reflected in his pale eyes.

“Finding it interesting?” Kendall asks. She has to repeat herself before Heckyl seems to notice, and then he looks up with a familiar smirk, bandaged fingers pausing in their work. 

“I knew you’d come around,” he purrs, eyeing her triumphantly, and Kendall has to work not to be upset by this realisation of her worries. This is it. He’s going to hack into their systems and somehow access the ‘zords, and they’ll have doomed themselves (and the Earth) by making a rookie mistake like trusting a fallen enemy.

But nothing awful happens for the count of one, two, three seconds - Heckyl’s sharp blue eyes flick back to the screen he has cradled across his knees, and his fingers start to move again, swapping from window to window.

“Oh, it‘s very interesting,” he says, bitterness now edging his tone. “Interesting how much of a colossal idiot Snide is. I knew, of course. But I didn’t have the evidence to back it up before, and now I do. I’m actually amazed he can type with those huge clumsy mitts of his.”

Chase’s eyebrows hike. Talk about interesting. He sees similar interest reflecting in Kendall’s expression, because this is information they’d never had before. Although Heckyl and Snide had been (to all intents and purposes) one person, they’d evidently not shared their minds - or at least, not shared everything. Heckyl was learning things about his alter ego’s plans by reading the files, and by the sound of it, he didn’t like what he was learning at all. The rot in that relationship had evidently been running deep for some time, and Chase found himself imagining what it must have been like, really like, living that way. Was it like amnesia? Or more like the aftermath of being really, really drunk? Like you’d lost hours or days of your time, waking up back in control of your own body with only a few elusive memories, the scattered physical evidence of the lost time and the horrible sinking feeling that you’d done something hugely regrettable while you weren’t able to stop yourself. Feeling off-kilter and powerless and having to handle the consequences of someone else’s actions. Fix the problems they’d caused, twice as fast as they‘d caused them because you were smarter and knew you had to out-think them. Think on your feet, all the time, be prepared to switch tracks at any moment, and always be on guard for the possibility that at the least convenient time possible, you’ll lose control again. Imagine that. Imagine living like that. For however long Heckyl’s been alive, which is probably a very long time. 

Chase thinks it’s a miracle that Heckyl isn’t even more of a complete sodding basket case than he already is.

Wisely, Kendall doesn’t push that particular point. “You can read that?” she asks, coming closer and looking over Heckyl’s shoulder. He makes no move to prevent her, focused on what he’s doing.

“You can’t? Humans,” Heckyl sneers, and brings one of the windows to the front, jabbing a finger at a particularly dense screed of incomprehensible symbols. “Look. Look at this. He actually thinks using targeted magnetic pulse beams will cause sufficient disruption to allow him to - oh, forget it. Why am I wasting my time on this…this idiocy.”

He snaps the laptop closed and runs his hands through his hair, exasperation telegraphed plainly in every small motion.

“Heckyl,” Kendall says, very carefully, “please. I can see how frustrating this is for you. But we do need your help. If you can just -”

“Just what,” Heckyl snarls, and of course this is the moment that Riley and Ivan enter, in time to see the anger, the aggression, and not the co-operation that they’d been bargaining on. Riley’s mouth is open: Ivan is frowning. “Just be your last-resort translation service? And once I’ve finished, what then? When you’re done with me? Why does everybody just want to tie me up and use me until I’m done?”

“That’s not it,” Chase blurts out, interrupting because he can’t handle this, and he ignores the reproving look growing rapidly on Ivan’s face.  “You seriously think we’re like him? Like Snide? You said he can’t think his way out of a paper bag. All he does is…is hit stuff! You said it yourself. He didn’t even think to use you for your brains, and you’re smart, anyone can see that. But no, all he wanted was that zappy thing you’ve got going on. He’s a dumbass. A big, dumb bully. And we’re not like him at all. Just like you‘re not like him.”

Heckyl seems just as surprised by this outburst as Riley and Ivan are - his eyes are wide and his mouth opens and closes once or twice, as if he’s rapidly considering and rejecting suitable rejoinders. Eventually he says, very quietly and in quite a different tone to before:

“I see. You’re just going to kill me, then.”

“No!” Chase is nearly shouting, almost at the same time that Kendall says “Oh my god, no” and Ivan’s baritone cuts in with “That would be the height of dishonour.”

It’s quite plain that Heckyl doesn’t understand (or indeed believe) this at all. However, somewhat against usual character, he just shuts up, blinking rapidly, and opens the laptop again. He stares intently at the screen in silence as if he can no longer bear to look at them.

“Anything you can tell us,” Chase says, softly now. “Anything could be useful. Even if you think it’s stupid. Especially if you think it’s stupid. Just…just think about how much Snide would hate this.”

And that, finally, seems to strike the right tone: Heckyl gives him a glittering, nasty, totally empty smile, and hits a few keys with unnecessary flourish.

“Let’s start at the beginning,” he says. “Come here. And take notes, I’m not repeating myself.”

Chapter Text

“Could we…I mean, could you maybe teach one of us the language? It would speed things up a bit?”

The look Heckyl gives her is absolutely withering. “I’m a quick study,” Shelby says, a little offended. “And I’m just trying to help.”

“I’m sure,” drawls Heckyl, in a tone that makes it quite clear how low his opinion of her intellect is. Tyler gives Shelby a reassuring pat on the shoulder, letting her know that at least one person in the room appreciates her offer. “I mean, it’s only a dead language from a dead planet thousands of light-years away and millions of years in the past. How hard could it possibly be?”

“Well, you can speak English,” Tyler retorts, beginning to lose patience.

“Yes, it’s funny really,” Heckyl snarls. “It’s almost like I’ve been to hundreds of different planets that badly needed subjugating and shared cells with countless aliens who don’t speak my language but were still hell-bent on murdering me without rapid negotiation. I can’t imagine why I’m multi-lingual, can you? Oh, wait. You’re not intelligent enough as a species to have developed your imaginations.”

Kendall and Chase exchange a weary glance. It’s already taken over fourteen hours, and it couldn’t be more obvious that both Heckyl and the Rangers are starting to tire of the task in front of them. They’d got off to a good start - Heckyl had been quite co-operative, reading through a selection of Snide’s notations on one of Fury’s reports which had given them a whole lot more information about the way Snide’s mind worked than they were exactly comfortable with. But they’d soon hit issues. Heckyl became angry quite easily, either directly because of things he’d read, or indirectly by being asked questions about the things he’d read. Heckyl’s anger had in its turn been met with rising frustration from the others, particularly Tyler and Shelby, and the growing ill feeling had finally reached its peak. Kendall had diplomatically cleared the room at that point, sending everyone out for lunch, and (mindful of his previous appetite) provided Heckyl with a sandwich and a glass of water. Which he’d glanced at once, then ignored completely.

It’s now almost three in the morning, and Kendall is only still awake because the events of the past two days have been eating at her. The things Heckyl has told them, the plans in place, the murmur of a greater, darker power behind it all…

She can’t shake the feeling that they’re in very grave danger: that Snide has his eye on all of them, all the time, and (insane though it is) she is even more worried now that she knows that Heckyl is no longer leashed inside him. As if Heckyl were capable of being any kind of moderating influence in any way.

This is actually, she thinks, turning over in bed and knotting the sheets between her hands, very prejudiced of her. Snide doesn’t look remotely human. He’s vast, alien, robotic, something outside of her experience. But Heckyl - he looks so human it’s almost painful to remember he’s not. The body, the mannerisms, the speech: all human enough to pass, more than pass, to convince. Is she more worried about Snide now because he’s lost that one element of pseudo-humanity that could make him relatable? Make him possible to reason with?

Is Heckyl relatable?

She supposes he is. He’d aced that job interview, after all.

Or maybe she’d just been so overwrought by everything and surprised to see her road rescue hero again that she’d wanted to be convinced. No, more than that. To be charmed.

And aren’t psychopaths supposed to be charming?

Kendall huffs in an entirely exasperated fashion, then sits up and flicks on the light, settling her glasses back onto her nose. Sleep is evidently a lost option for her tonight. She may as well go back to the base and keep Chase company.

Chase is on Heckyl-sitting duty: they’d all agreed that they’d need to take it in turns to keep an eye on their “guest” around the clock, and Chase had volunteered for the first overnight. He had a notebook with him should he need to write anything down that Heckyl felt like sharing.

He didn’t see what the big deal was, really. Heckyl was being helpful, as requested. And actually the guy was kind of fun to be around once you looked past the attitude.

Maybe that was the problem. Like Kendall, Chase was arriving at the same realisation that it could be too easy to underestimate Heckyl because he looks like a regular steampunk geek. Like you’d find at any ren-faire or D&D campaign night. Except that regular nerds couldn’t fry you with real lightning if they got mad at you.

He glances over at Heckyl. Heckyl hasn’t moved for hours. He is hunched up on the couch around the laptop, in what for a human at least would be a crazy uncomfortable position, and has been scrolling and tapping and reading without pause.

Thinking about it, Heckyl’s been at this solidly for a very long time. He hasn’t eaten today. There’s that untouched pastrami sandwich slowly desiccating on a plate next to him, a full glass of water on the table, and the Gatorade bottle is wedged, one-quarter full, between the couch cushions. Odd. He’d been fine with shoving huge amounts of food down his face yesterday. He doesn’t strike Chase as the sort to skip meals. Or snacks. To be honest, having witnessed the burger carnage of the previous day, Chase wouldn’t put it past Heckyl to be the kind of guy who couldn’t walk past a sample booth without scoffing the lot.

He hasn’t slept either. Now Chase is feeling pretty tired at nearly half three in the morning, but Heckyl looks just as focused on his screen as he had when it was first given to him. He is frowning slightly, but only in the manner of a man faced with some kind of knotty math problem rather than in the manner of someone about to commit murder due to lack of sleep.

“Heckyl,” Chase says, and repeats himself twice, louder, until Heckyl finally looks up. “You should get some sleep.”

Heckyl’s frown deepens, suspicious.

“Why?”

This is a baffling response to Chase, who likes sleep and finds it hard to function without his eight hours. He does his best with it anyway.

“It’s the middle of the night. You’ve been up for hours. Aren’t you tired?”

Heckyl stares at him with uncannily insightful eyes: nobody has the right to look that sharp at this time of night, Chase thinks. Then the alien blinks, and the expression is gone, replaced by his more usual contempt.

“No. Not tired. Did you have any other brilliant questions for me or shall I get on with trying to ‘save the world’ for you?” Heckyl inserts the airquotes around his putative good deed with jauntily hooked fingertips. If he’s really not tired, then he’s at least getting more crabby as time ticks on. Chase isn’t giving up quite yet, though. He’s responsible for Heckyl. Being responsible for kids means feeding them, making sure they don’t hurt themselves, and making sure they go to bed on time. This is pretty much the same thing as far as he can tell. He compromises. 

“I can get you some chocolate. There’s a machine upstairs - ”

“No.”

Heckyl returns to his tap-tap-tapping apparently dismissing Chase as a source of distraction. Chase, feeling rebuked but determined not to be defeated, continues:

“You’ll just get slower. If you get too tired, I mean. I don’t do my best stuff when I’m tired.”

He may be imagining it, but it seems that Heckyl flinches at “useful” - his typing speed slows to a falter, and his expression slips from irritated into almost alarmed. Then he gives himself a shake, and continues hammering the keys.

“You don’t know anything about how my body works. Or my brain. If you’re tired, Black Ranger, by all means, go and take a nap. Don’t worry. I promise not to lace the city water supply with mind-melting juice while you’re gone.”

Chase jolts upright at that, startled, only to find that Heckyl is grinning savagely at him.

“Oh, don’t be such a stick-in-the-mud. I was kidding.”

What a sense of humour.

“I’d rather you didn’t kid about that.”

“Really? Would you? Well, I’d rather be back on -”

Heckyl abruptly stops mid-sentence, his jaw working as if he’s managed to surprise himself. Then he clenches his teeth and pushes on. “ - well I’d rather be anywhere other than here. But we can’t always have what we want, evidently. The sooner I get this done, the sooner this charming little interlude will be over.”

Chase gives up. He folds his arms and sits back down on the hardest chair he can find, the better to keep himself awake, which is where Kendall finds him when she enters just before four. 

She takes in the little scene, notes the somewhat tense atmosphere, and gives Chase a supportive smile.

“How’s he been?”

“Stubborn,” replies Chase, accurately. 

Chapter Text

As it turns out, “stubborn” is a running theme over the next forty-eight hours. Kendall replaces Chase, Riley replaces Kendall, and Heckyl goes precisely nowhere. He remains sat with the laptop clasped to him, scrolling, reading, typing, and is almost alarmingly silent. For hour after hour. The clock on the wall makes more noise than he does, save for the tapping of the keys and the occasional huff of exasperated breath.

Which is why Riley nearly has a heart attack in the late afternoon when Heckyl abruptly gives an almost animal scream of complete rage and hurls the laptop across the room. It passes so close to Riley’s head that he can feel the movement of air in its wake. Reflexes in overdrive, Riley ducks, dropping into a crouch, and winces as the computer hits the ground and slides under the desk. The Green Ranger scrabbles after it, knocking over his can of soda in the process (Kendall is later going to wonder why the floor is sticky for days). If it’s beyond use, Heckyl’s temper tantrum is going to have done way more damage than one laptop.

Mercifully, Kendall’s computer is as sturdy as a brick (and about as heavy) and is seemingly unscathed. The ugly little hard drive plugged into it is also intact. Riley puffs out his cheeks in huge relief, and is just about to get to his feet when Heckyl stamps up behind him and grabs the laptop back.

“Hey!” Riley snaps, and immediately regrets the depth of alarm and annoyance in his tone, because Heckyl is glaring at him with a expression that could have melted steel. “What happened? Why’d you do that? You could’ve broken it.”

“It might as well be broken,” Heckyl growls, starting to pace back and forth in a tense silence with the laptop tucked under one arm. His pacing space is surprisingly small: he could have circled the whole room had he wanted to, but instead he stays inside a close few metres squared, turning and fretting sharply as if at invisible boundaries. His entire body language is stiff with fury.

It takes the baffled and irritated Riley a while of watching, but he gets it. Of course, Heckyl’s accustomed to being a prisoner. On Sledge’s ship, as just another monster under Sledge’s rule, his cell was likely quite restrictive. Under stress, he’s fallen back into his old habits. How long must he have spent walking that same few dark metres, with nobody and nothing to distract him?

Riley encounters an uncomfortable, unfamiliar feeling of sympathy for Heckyl, and tries to squash it down. It’s not going to help anything right now.

“Look,” he says, after both the angry silence and the sight of Heckyl shuttling up and down his imaginary prison like a mindless automaton start to bother him, “I know you’re probably not going to want to hear this, but it’s either us or Snide and I don’t think Snide’s on your Christmas card list right now. I know you don’t like it. WE don’t like it. But can we at least talk about why you threw the laptop at me?”

“I didn’t throw it at you,” Heckyl mutters, sullenly. “If I’d thrown it at you I’d have hit you.”

“Nice,” says Riley, shaking his head. “Nice. What are you, like, five? Okay. So why the general throwing.”

Heckyl stops in his tracks and exhales through his teeth in a hiss, his back to Riley. He says something, inaudibly.

“What?”

“I said, I can’t do it.”

Heckyl’s tone remains snappish and low, dangerous, but not actively aggressive. “There’s a keystone file I’ve been working on and I can’t do it. He’s written it in something I don’t recognise at all.”

A suspicion dawns on Riley. Heckyl’s laptop abuse becomes slightly more understandable. Still not forgivable, but understandable.

“How long have you been trying to crack it?”

Heckyl shrugs insolently, remaining silent.

“Uh-huh. I’m guessing since last night at least. Probably longer. Why didn’t you ask someone to help if it was giving you that much trouble?”

Heckyl turns his head slightly so the mocking, sharp edge of his profile is visible to Riley, and makes a deliberate scoffing sound.

“Okay, fine,” says Riley, beginning to get properly annoyed and trying very hard to keep a lid on it for all their sakes. “Tell you what. I’m going to call someone, then I’m going to get something to eat, then we’ll all try and figure this one out. Try not to break anything while I’m gone.”

The look on Heckyl’s face is unreadable. As he closes the door, Riley hears distinct sounds of destruction coming from the lab behind him, and sighs. “If he breaks anything of Ms Morgan’s, he’s gonna be sorry,” he murmurs, and starts going through his pockets for his phone and some change to buy chips.

As it turns out, the amount of damage Heckyl has done is minimal. A lot of unimportant paperwork has bitten the dust. There’s torn paper scraps all over the floor when Chase walks in, and he brushes them aside with his foot. A couple of chairs seems to have been upended, but aren’t actually broken. All in all, Chase thinks, there’s a lot of effort been put in to create the look of a trashed room, but very little genuine trashing. Huh. Interesting.

It takes him a while to spot the culprit, and he frowns when he does, because it’s been over twelve hours now since he last saw Heckyl, and Heckyl does not look well. He’s huddled down behind one of the upturned chairs, the laptop back in its habitual cradle of his crossed legs, his battered hands picking at the keys. Every so often - and Chase is fairly sure he doesn’t even realise he’s doing it - he shivers, a whole-body shudder from head to foot. His face looks excessively pale in the glow from the screen, his eyes shadowed. Chase finds himself hoping it’s a trick of the light. He has to remember that it is only a relatively short time since Heckyl was chained up in a box. The man is not in good shape, either physically or mentally and is unlikely to be firing on all cylinders, as Chase’s old auto shop teacher would have put it. He needs to make allowances.

“Ah, you redecorated,” is all Chase says, loudly. “Cool. I like it.”

“Why you?” Heckyl says, not looking up. “He could at least have sent me the scientist. Or that “quick learner”.” Now he raises his head, and eyes Chase. “But no. I get you.”

“You get me because nobody else wants to put up with you, mate.” Chase is done with platitudes: he hunkers down on his haunches next to the chair. “You all right? You look a little - “

“Fine,” Heckyl snaps, and Chase isn’t sure if this is meant as an answer to his half-finished question or just an exasperated lash-out. He gets the laptop thrust in front of his face. “Tell me what that means.”

Chase looks at the screen, and it’s gibberish. It’s in a language he does not know, with an alphabet utterly alien to his human brain. He almost says that aloud, wanting to confirm to Heckyl his uselessness in this situation, but then he stops.

It is alien, but nevertheless, there’s something - familiar…

“Do you know what the error message says?” he asks. Heckyl looks at him as if he’s grown two heads, eyes wide.

“How do you know,” he says, slowly, “that there’s an error message?”

Chase points. “It’s that bit, right?”

The block of alien text is pulsing slightly, and has a very faint outline of pale green.

“This computer,” says Heckyl, “is ridiculous. I’ve barely managed to make it display the information in a way that its ludicrously primitive silicon brain can cope with. It took me over an hour just to make it stop crashing every time I opened something. And another hour to decode how it was choosing colours and numbers. And yet you - you can take one look and tell me that you can see how it’s configured the error messages -”

Chase is astounded. “You didn’t know that it was an -”

“Of course I knew!” Heckyl shouts. “But how did you?”

Chase shrugs. He doesn’t feel inclined to try and explain that it just looked like one. Chase has seen a lot of error messages on computers in his life. He’s not the best with them.  “I beat you at Risk, didn’t I? So do you know what it - ”

Alarmed, he stops, puts out a hand: because Heckyl’s expression has suddenly turned glassy and distant, the last colour draining from his face, for all the world like he’s about to faint. And he’s shuddering again, hard.

“Jesus, dude. Heckyl. Come on. Put it down for a bit, we’ll go for a walk or something -”

Chase makes to take the laptop, and Heckyl actually hisses at him, like a furious wildcat, grabbing it to his chest like it’s the only thing keeping him from drowning. “No.” Very briefly, white-blue lightning crackles around his hands, little shock bolts darting warningly in the ranger’s direction.

Chase holds up his own hands, palms flat, placating. Something is obviously very wrong here, but his getting fried is going to help nobody.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

He spies the still unfinished bottle of Gatorade on the floor and scoots it closer to Heckyl with the toe of his sneaker. “Maybe drink the rest of this, though?”

But Heckyl, already immersed back in the screen, does not.

The next three hours go faster. Chase even gets to take some notes: Heckyl seems to recover from his mood and starts being forthcoming again. Locations. Timeframes. Even a few cheap shots at Snide, which makes Chase feel more at ease because it’s a return to normality. Neither of them mention the alien error message or the uncrackable keystone file. 

Really, it’s all going pretty well until Chase realises that the sound of typing has stopped, and Heckyl hasn’t said anything for over two minutes. He looks up from his game of Candy Crush.

“Hey, so, you were saying about the genetic splicing machine?”

Heckyl is sat exactly as he has been for hours, tucked up into the corner of the chair he’d overturned with the computer on his lap. But there’s something about his posture that sets off alarm bells in Chase’s head.

“Hey,” he repeats, and gets up, approaches. As soon as he gets that few steps closer, he knows his instinct was good. Heckyl is full-on shaking, his bandaged hands clenched spasmodically over the keys, and he’s white as paper. “Ah, crap. Okay. We’re getting up -”

“Was it always,” Heckyl whispers, “this small in here -” 

“ - and we’re getting out of here,” Chase concludes, keeping his voice calm. He takes the laptop and sets it aside carefully. The fact that Heckyl barely seems to notice its removal just confirms Chase’s opinion that he’s pretty out of it. Screw whatever Tyler may have had to say about the risk of discovery, he needs to get Heckyl out into the air. This isn’t right. “You’re fine, mate. You’re fine. Up you get.”

With Heckyl half-dragging at his side, Chase gets them both outside and determines to head for the park. Which would have been all fine and dandy, and might even have conceivably done the ailing Heckyl some good: except that they weren’t destined to make it more than five hundred yards.

“Well, well, well. It seems you might be good for something after all, Wrench.”

“I told you! I told you the Rangers had him, Master Snide! Oh boy, are they in for some trouble now!”

“Ohh, crap,” says Chase for the second time in ten minutes, and as the people around him start to scream and run from the monsters, he instinctively turns his body, putting himself between Heckyl and the advancing bulk of Snide.

Chapter Text

“Ohh, crap,” says Chase.

He’s in trouble. And not just him. They’re really in trouble. He can feel from Heckyl’s shuddering weight dragging on his arm that the alien is on the brink of collapse, and they’re about to be in a fight for their lives. Talk about timing, although when have the monsters ever had helpful timing? It just would have been nice if they could have found Heckyl while the rest of the team were here. The universe just isn’t fair sometimes.

He turns again, trying to keep both Snide and his gaggle of Vivix in view while keeping the defensive broad side of his body between the enemy and his ailing companion. He’d meant it, of course - he could no more let Snide take Heckyl back now than he could let Riley, or Tyler or Shelby be taken away. It was just not the right thing to do. The ugly memory of that torture box has wormed its way into Chase’s hindbrain and will not leave.

But yeah. He has to admit it’s really weird seeing Snide right there in front of him with the knowledge that Heckyl is right there beside him. The split hasn’t really seemed real to him until this moment, even though on a logical level he knows it must have been true. And the reality of it is advancing on them implacably, Snide’s dark armoured bulk almost seeming to smoke acridly in the bright air. Wrench is cringing and capering gleefully at his master’s side like the little toady he is. Chase figures that if he’s going down, he’s gonna make damn sure he gets Wrench before Snide takes them out.

“Okay. Heckyl,” Chase says, low and urgent. “You gotta hold it together. Just for a little longer, okay? Cos we’re gonna have to fight.”

He says this with no real confidence that Heckyl even knows where he is or can focus enough to understand what’s happening. He honestly rather hopes not, as it’s entirely likely that seeing Snide again would bring on some kind of post-traumatic panic attack. But Heckyl surprises him by making a sort of gasping, miserable sound that Chase has no option but to consider a affirmative. There’s just no time. If Heckyl isn’t up to it, he’ll know soon enough, because they’ll both be dead. Bracing for the worst case scenario, he lets go of the alien’s arm and stands straight, ready to morph. And to his huge relief (and slight shock), Heckyl doesn’t fall. He looks dizzy and awful, but he’s still on his feet.

“Cool. Good work,” Chase says to him, and gives him an encouraging flash of smile that doesn’t quite make it to his eyes before the black helm closes over his face.

His only real glimmer of hope is that he knows (although he’s still not a hundred percent clear on how - he’s sure somebody has explained it to him in the past) that now there’s monsters on earth the rest of the team will be alerted and on their way. All he has to do is hold out until they get here. This may be easier said than done as Snide is terribly strong, has a lot of backup, and Chase is only one Ranger.

Nevertheless, he braces - sets his feet solidly on the ground, preparing to match Snide’s rush. Seconds away now, and speeding up. The stink of overheated metal and the incarceration fug of the inside of the alien ship surrounds him, and immediately his mind is right back there, pulling the chains away from a helpless man in a box. If it’s doing this to him, and he’d only been in the place a few moments, he can’t imagine what Heckyl must be feeling about it.   

A hand taps the Ranger’s arm, and he spares a glance to see the alien, white-faced and quaking with effort, in a similar fighting stance just behind him. Chase, aware that his facial expression is hidden, nods at him gratefully. Not alone. Together then.

He’s surprised beyond all measure when it’s Heckyl who attacks first. A white-hot lance of lightning strikes out at Snide, staggering the monster and knocking him backward a few precious steps. The blast lasts mere moments of lethal brilliance before it starts to sputter and fade, and Heckyl cries out in hoarse fury, pushing hard to spend the last of his strength. Chase starts to reach out to him, tell him to stop, that if he burns himself out too soon he’ll be defenceless - but then he realises with a sick jolt to the stomach that this is exactly Heckyl’s intention.

Because of course Heckyl knows. He knows that he’s only got one good shot left. So he’s using it to take the edge off Snide, give Chase an advantage, and relying on Chase to protect him once he’s drained. Or - worse second option - he’s convinced that Chase will abandon him to his fate and he’s okay with it. Chase really hopes it isn’t that. He’s not sure he’s prepared to handle how he might feel about that.

And there is of course also the third option, which is for Heckyl to know and Chase to (happily) not consider at this time. 

Heckyl screams through gritted teeth as the last sparks of power leave him, flickering feebly over his fingers. He sways, his exhausted eyes latching onto Chase’s faceplate with an unreadable, empty expression - then he crumples up and drops like the dead.  

The sheer enormity of the investment this represents won’t hit Chase until much later. Right now he is determined not to waste the breathing space Heckyl’s sacrifice has bought him. He takes the offensive, pushes solidly off his back foot and launches himself at the dazed Snide in a flying kick. Then it’s all the usual flurry of one-on-one battle until there’s the roar of a zord behind them and then it’s suddenly three on one, plus a plesiosaur and a pterodactyl. It gives Chase great satisfaction to be able to leave Snide to his team-mates for a bit and give Wrench a well-deserved punch in the face.

The fight is surprisingly brief. Much to everyone’s bemusement, nobody calls for the magna beam. The Megazord is not combined. Instead, faced with three Rangers and two zords, Snide inexplicably retreats with a dazed Wrench in tow. The Vivix flail and somersault themselves into the distance until they are lost to view. The Gold Ranger, not to be outdone apparently, charges after them in hot pursuit. It’s puzzling at best and worrying at worst: Snide hadn’t even bothered to shout a few bits of choice rhetoric at them. Nothing about this is normal, and Kendall doesn’t like it.

The blank mask of the Purple Ranger turns to Chase where he stands, breathing hard. They won, though, and that’s a good thing, right? It has to be a good thing, doesn’t it? So why does Kendall still feel as if everything is going wrong?

“You okay?” she asks, and at Chase’s nod, she starts to turn away, trying to dismiss her sense of dread.

“But Heckyl isn’t,” Chase says, drawing her back.  He’s already bending to where their erstwhile enemy lies on the concrete, gloved hands carefully moving to cushion the lolling head.

Kendall’s body language radiates confusion and concern, even though the suit conceals her expression. In all the confusion she hadn’t registered that Chase hadn’t been facing the monsters alone. And if Heckyl is out here -

“What ha….Oh no. Did they get my laptop?“”

Chase’s shake of head allows her to relax a little. She looks up again. There are people starting to gather, to stare. They have phones out, calling, texting. Recording. This is exposure they definitely don’t need, particularly with the monsters gone and an unconscious person on the ground who looks to all intents and purposes like an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire.

“Come on,” she says, gathering the returning Ivan behind her with a jerk of her head. “Let’s get out of here. Then we can talk.”