Pretty Poison by cynthia_harrell [Power Rangers, night]
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters presented here and am not making any profit off of this whatsoever.
Title: Pretty Poison
Words: 3,341 (total so far: 6,522)
Theme: night
Fandom: Power Rangers
Warnings: Power Ranger level of violence.
“Repairing all of this is going to take days.” Billy stared at the mess that the Green Ranger had made of all of the computers. It could even take longer. Who knew where spare parts for some of this could be found? Alpha might, but Alpha wasn’t available at the moment. Repairing him would be the first course of action, since he would know, presumably, how to put the rest of it all back together.
Jason was more than willing to leave all of that to Trini and Billy, however. The two of them were the ones who knew technical matters like that. “You two see what you can do to get started. If you can find anything that can give us a hint as to who the Green Ranger is and how Rita found him, let us know.”
Both Trini and Billy nodded, and Jason could almost see the rest of them fading out of their awareness as they started to check Alpha over more intently. He himself looked at Kim and Zack. There wasn’t a lot that they could do, besides try to clean up some of the mess.
“Guess we’d better get started, then,” Zack said, almost appearing to have read Jason’s mind. The Command Center was larger than it seemed from the command console, spreading out into nearly a hive of rooms that Jason himself had never had the occasion to look into, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t get in each other’s way if they didn’t keep busy somehow.
Brooms were located, from a small supply closet that had been revealed a couple of weeks earlier when a minor victory celebration had resulted in some broken glasses, and sweeping began. With three of them working on it, it didn’t take very long before everything that they could clean up, that didn’t look as if it might be needed for repairs.
Jason glanced down at his watch and winced a little. “I need to get home for dinner.” His parents were getting used to him showing up a bit late now and then, and he’d always been able to put most of their questions off with a few vague mentions of karate practice or bike riding. But he didn’t want them to really start asking questions. That might get into something that he didn’t think he could answer.
“Teleportation is still online,” Trini said, looking up from Alpha. “We can put you right in your backyard if you want.”
He shook his head some; that was close, but too close. If his mom or dad happened to be looking, that would not be a good idea. “The park should be all right. It’s not too far, I can walk the rest of the way.”
Trini nodded some, pushing a sweaty strand of black hair out of her eyes, and went over to the teleportation unit. Why it was one of the few spots unharmed, they’d probably never know. But at the moment it was going to get him home without being too late, so he wasn’t going to ask about it, either.
“Be careful.” Kim touched his arm a little, concern in her brown eyes. “Rita’s Ranger could be out there somewhere.”
“I’ll keep an eye out.” Truth to be told, Jason was more worried about Kim or Billy running into the Green Ranger than he himself. The two were learning more about fighting, but they weren’t on the level of the rest of them when they weren’t morphed. That made everything a lot more dangerous for them.
The familiar brief moment of red flashed across his vision, and he was in the park. He knew Zack’s family ate later than his, and Kim would probably grab something later, if her mom was too busy to cook, the way she tended to be. So they’d probably go home later without a problem. Trini and Billy…once they got into something, they probably wouldn’t bother to eat at all. Kim was likely enough sticking around to make sure they did at some point. She was like that.
He checked around; it was just late enough so that no one was around to see him appear out of thin air. Trini probably wouldn’t have put him anywhere near where he could’ve been seen anyway. He got his bearings, figured out where his house was from there, and started walking.
There was another reason for wanting that brief walk: it gave him a chance to at least try to put things into perspective. In the course of an afternoon, everything had somehow shifted a bit to one side, and he wanted to think about it all. Rita had a Power Ranger of her own. One who was good in a fight. Was it because of the Power? It was hard to be certain, since the skills the Power gave were all but identical to ones that you could learn by yourself.
Perhaps because he was thinking about fighting, or because he was used to being attacked while alone after the last couple of months, but a chill ran down Jason’s spine suddenly. Someone was out there. Someone was watching him.
He tried to remain calm. If it was Rita’s Ranger, then the others could teleport in if he needed the help. If it was just some one else, then he didn’t have anything to worry about. There weren’t too many people in Angel Grove that he didn’t think he could take in a fair fight.
“You’re Jason, right?” The voice was quiet, and only vaguely familiar, and he did something of a double take as he realized he was practically staring right at someone. How in the world had she shown up and he hadn’t noticed? It wasn’t that dark was it?
Then he realized just who he was looking at, and relaxed some. “Oh, hey. Yeah. Tommi, right?” It was weird; if he hadn’t known better, he might have thought she’d teleported in herself. But she was dressed in kind of dark colors anyway so it wasn’t that surprising, now that he thought about it.
She nodded a little, and he noticed she was leaning against a fairly dark tree trunk, which had helped her blend in even more. “It’s a little late to be out, isn’t it?”
“Not really. I was just taking care of some things with the guys.” That was about as vague as he could get. He did kind of miss the days when he could talk about anything to anyone, but it was a small price to pay, all things considered. “Hey, do you live around here?”
Tommi gestured across to where a few houses were vaguely visible through the trees. They weren’t quite as close as they appeared, with at least two roads in between the park and there, but someone reasonably athletic could probably have crossed between the two areas without much effort. “We just moved in last weekend.”
“You’ll love it.” Jason nodded, wanting to support the city he’d been born in. “Angel Grove’s a pretty great place to live.”
She glanced back over one shoulder, a little smile on her lips. Jason tried not to notice them very much. It wasn’t easy. “Even with being invaded by aliens?”
“Even with that!” Jason replied without even thinking about it. “The Power Rangers keep most of the problems down.”
Her gaze moved past him to some point over his shoulder. “You wouldn’t happen to know where one of those might be right now, would you? Because I think we’ve got one of those problems.”
Jason turned, falling into a battle-ready stance with the ease of long practice. Skittering towards them, making those odd noises that weren’t precisely speech and weren’t aimless mumbling either, were a good dozen Putty Patrollers. “Tommi! Get back and try to keep out of their way!” He didn’t know if she knew anything about fighting, but he knew that he did, and they were after him, anyway.
Then the Putties were on him, and he didn’t have a chance to keep much of an eye on her. He thought some of them got by him to attack her, but with the seven or eight he could see around himself, it was a little hard to be certain. “Don’t you guys have a bedtime or something?” he grunted, slamming his fist into one of them. This would be so much easier if they blew up or something when you hit them. Instead, all he could do was pound on them, get pounded on, and hope that he could knock them back or out enough so they’d get bored and leave.
He backed up a little, still ready to take on any of them, and the ones he was fighting fell back a bit as well. They didn’t really have anything that could be called tactics, most of the time, but being swarmed tended to work for just about anything, even Putties. With a brief moment to catch his breath, Jason looked over to see what Tommi was doing…and ducked, just in time to avoid a Putty being thrown towards him.
“Hey, watch where you’re throwing those!” he called out without thinking. A Putty to the head would definitely put a damper on his evening. Then he actually saw what was going on and stared in surprise.
Tommi had just seized another Putty by one wrist and whirled it around, slamming it into two more, then released the one she’d had, sending all three of them flying into a thick clump of bushes. There had been four of them on her, he guessed, since the rest were attacking, or had been attacking him. All four were out of it right now, and she turned towards the remaining ones.
That was all the breath he had the chance to get, too, since those remaining ones tackled him. He shoved back as hard as he could, wanting more room to maneuver, and still tried to watch for Tommi, wanting to know what she was capable of.
The style she was using wasn’t one he was personally familiar with, but it was amazingly effective anyway. Without having to talk about it, they split the remaining eight putties between them. Jason punched and kicked and threw as hard as he could, slamming his opponents into each other, and spared any moments he had to watch Tommi. There weren’t many moments that he could spare, but the impression he got was that she knew exactly what she was doing from one moment to the next.
She’s incredible. The thought wandered briefly through his mind, and only the fact he was in the middle of a fight kept him from thinking about it too much.
Finally, it was over with. Jason was streaked in sweat and wanted a shower. And something to eat. He hoped that his mom had made something good tonight; he fully intended to clean his plate and beg for more if he had to. Fighting took a lot of energy out of him.
“You’re really good,” he said, looking over at Tommi. Her hair had come out of the ponytail during the fight, and now hung around her face, framing it neatly. “I’ve never seen that style before, what is it?”
“Aikido. I’ve been training with it since I was about seven or eight,” Tommi replied, looking around for a moment before she picked up something which turned out to be her hair band. “You’re not bad yourself.”
Jason was just a little too worn out after everything to think too much about anything beyond how glad he was that Tommi was a good fighter. That was a useful skill to have in Angel Grove. “If you want to spar or something, let me know. I haven’t had a really good workout in a long time.” At least not against someone who wasn’t trying to kill him. Sparring against Tommi would be a refreshing change.
There were only a couple of lights here and there in the park, but they gave off enough light so that he could see her smile just a bit. “I think I’d like that. I’ll let you know when I’m free.” She glanced down at her own watch, then back up to him. “But I have to go now. I’ll see you around?”
Jason winced suddenly when he checked the time himself. His mom was going to want to interrogate him for certain. “Yeah, I need to go too. Mom’s going to kill me if I’m much later. I’ll see you at school!”
He turned and headed off, taking a quick look back before he got too far out of sight. It was too dark, even with those few lights, now to see her, though he thought he saw something human-shaped moving against the shadows. It was hard to be certain, but it still was enough for him. But he didn’t have time to sit and wonder about it.
“Jason Lee Scott!” His mother stared at him once he walked through the front door. “What have you been doing?”
Jason looked down at himself; he’d taken more damage in that fight than he’d thought. His clothes were a bit ripped, and he still needed that shower. “Just a little sparring. There’s this new girl at school who’s really good.” He didn’t really like lying to his parents, but stretching the truth was something he’d become so very good at.
“Is that what they’re calling it these days?” His dad asked, looking at him from the other side of the room. Jason looked away quickly; he didn’t want them to be saying things like that!
“Well, whatever.” His mom patted him on the shoulder. “Go get cleaned up, you’re just in time for dinner.”
Jason didn’t argue; a shower had been on his mind for ages. He paused by his room long enough to grab some clothes to wear afterwards, noting as he did that his schoolbooks were there. Trini or Billy must have thought to teleport them, since he’d left them behind earlier. He was going to have to be more careful than that.
I need to see if they found out anything. They wouldn’t have been able to tell him while he’d been with Tommi, and now wasn’t a good time either. And he needed to tell them about the attack anyway. It wasn’t unusual for the Putties to jump them, if they were alone, but it wasn’t too often they did it when there was just one civilian near by. It had been known to happen, though, and that person tended to get involved with whatever Rita’s latest scheme was.
The thought of Tommi, even as skilled as she obviously was, being held prisoner or worse by the Green Ranger made him slightly sick to his stomach. Their brief encounter had more than convinced him that Green Ranger was capable of just about anything, up to and including murder.
He had just dressed when his communicator beeped again. He snatched it up quickly before his parents had a chance to hear it. “What is it?”
“Everything all right? We got enough of the warning system back up to be able to tell there were some Putties near you, but we couldn’t tell what was going on other than that.” It was Trini’s voice, full of warm concern.
“Yeah, everything’s fine. I ran into Tommi again and we both got jumped by the clayheads.” Jason closed his door as he spoke very low. “She’s good in a fight. I’m going to see if we can get some sparring in soon.”
“All right. I don’t know how much more we can get done tonight, so we’ll see you in school tomorrow. Keep an eye out.”
“You too, Trini.” Jason put his communicator down and headed back out to dinner. He’d already used up enough time, and he didn’t think his mother would appreciate the food being held back much longer, even if he was trying to talk about the impending destruction of the world.
Maybe we should send mom to deal with Rita. No, he decided. The evil space witch wasn’t that nasty.
Now, the Green Ranger…
“Well done, Green Ranger.” Rita all but preened as she looked at her newest servant. The one fight that had been battled against the Rangers had most certainly ended in their favor, and the dark sorceress savored the victory. Not to mention that Green Ranger had clearly put Zordon out of commission.
Of course, that annoying Blue Ranger was going to repair all of the damage as soon as he could, there was no doubt about that. But Rita had a plan for that in mind anyway. She would just have to wait for the proper moment to put it into effect.
In the meantime, there was quite a bit that could be done with her Green Ranger. Saving the Green Coin until now had been a stroke of genius on her part. Not just anyone could control it, after all. It had to be someone with a strong streak of darkness in them. Someone like this Tommi Oliver. It had been amazing that someone like that had arrived in Angel Grove, along with a full set of martial arts skills all of her own. The Power enhanced what was already there, which made the Green Ranger a death-trap that could walk, as far as Rita was concerned.
“That was brilliant, my queen!” Goldar rumbled, a pleased smirk on his lips. “The Rangers will never suspect that she is the Green Ranger now.”
“I know.” Rita smirked smugly. That had been another well done plan by her, conceived once she’d seen Jason walking home alone. Perfect. She’d already had some ideas, and seeing the way he had looked at her Ranger…they were getting more and more interesting. “Green Ranger, return to Earth and act normal. Do your homework, go to bed, all of that. I’ll call you again when I need you. Finster, I have something to discuss with you.”
She pulled him to the side, away from the rest of the idiots. Tommi was not one of those, of course, but this involved the Green Ranger to an extent. Not to the extent that she needed to know about it beforehand, though, even if Rita hadn’t ordered her away.
“What is it, your greatness?” Finster asked, peering up at her through his spectacles. She hadn’t asked for much from him since getting this started, but that was about to change.
“I need the strongest love potion that you can get your hands on, Finster.” Rita smirked at the very thought. The thought of using something the Rangers prized so highly, love itself, against them was wonderfully delicious, and she couldn’t wait to get started. “And it has to be something that can’t be easily gotten rid of, even if they manage to get Zordon back.” She doubted ‘permanent’ was possible, but it didn’t need to be.
Finster folded his arms across his chest and stroked his chin thoughtfully. Rita had never asked him for something like that before. Normally it was Baboo who made potions for her, but this was probably a little out of his league. The most that amateur could have pulled off was a mild infatuation at best.
“I think I can manage that, my queen.” He thought he recalled one especially effective recipe. He would have to look it up and he wasn’t certain if he had all of the ingredients at the moment, but he would be able to get them. “What exactly do you have planned?”
Rita could not resist the chance to tell someone. This was too evil not to say something about, after all. “We’re going to give that potion to the Red Ranger, and have him fall in love with my Green Ranger. He’ll do anything that she wants him to do, even fight his own friends!” She threw her head back and laughed; finally, this war was going to end, her way!
To Be Continued
Title: Pretty Poison
Words: 3,341 (total so far: 6,522)
Theme: night
Fandom: Power Rangers
Warnings: Power Ranger level of violence.
“Repairing all of this is going to take days.” Billy stared at the mess that the Green Ranger had made of all of the computers. It could even take longer. Who knew where spare parts for some of this could be found? Alpha might, but Alpha wasn’t available at the moment. Repairing him would be the first course of action, since he would know, presumably, how to put the rest of it all back together.
Jason was more than willing to leave all of that to Trini and Billy, however. The two of them were the ones who knew technical matters like that. “You two see what you can do to get started. If you can find anything that can give us a hint as to who the Green Ranger is and how Rita found him, let us know.”
Both Trini and Billy nodded, and Jason could almost see the rest of them fading out of their awareness as they started to check Alpha over more intently. He himself looked at Kim and Zack. There wasn’t a lot that they could do, besides try to clean up some of the mess.
“Guess we’d better get started, then,” Zack said, almost appearing to have read Jason’s mind. The Command Center was larger than it seemed from the command console, spreading out into nearly a hive of rooms that Jason himself had never had the occasion to look into, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t get in each other’s way if they didn’t keep busy somehow.
Brooms were located, from a small supply closet that had been revealed a couple of weeks earlier when a minor victory celebration had resulted in some broken glasses, and sweeping began. With three of them working on it, it didn’t take very long before everything that they could clean up, that didn’t look as if it might be needed for repairs.
Jason glanced down at his watch and winced a little. “I need to get home for dinner.” His parents were getting used to him showing up a bit late now and then, and he’d always been able to put most of their questions off with a few vague mentions of karate practice or bike riding. But he didn’t want them to really start asking questions. That might get into something that he didn’t think he could answer.
“Teleportation is still online,” Trini said, looking up from Alpha. “We can put you right in your backyard if you want.”
He shook his head some; that was close, but too close. If his mom or dad happened to be looking, that would not be a good idea. “The park should be all right. It’s not too far, I can walk the rest of the way.”
Trini nodded some, pushing a sweaty strand of black hair out of her eyes, and went over to the teleportation unit. Why it was one of the few spots unharmed, they’d probably never know. But at the moment it was going to get him home without being too late, so he wasn’t going to ask about it, either.
“Be careful.” Kim touched his arm a little, concern in her brown eyes. “Rita’s Ranger could be out there somewhere.”
“I’ll keep an eye out.” Truth to be told, Jason was more worried about Kim or Billy running into the Green Ranger than he himself. The two were learning more about fighting, but they weren’t on the level of the rest of them when they weren’t morphed. That made everything a lot more dangerous for them.
The familiar brief moment of red flashed across his vision, and he was in the park. He knew Zack’s family ate later than his, and Kim would probably grab something later, if her mom was too busy to cook, the way she tended to be. So they’d probably go home later without a problem. Trini and Billy…once they got into something, they probably wouldn’t bother to eat at all. Kim was likely enough sticking around to make sure they did at some point. She was like that.
He checked around; it was just late enough so that no one was around to see him appear out of thin air. Trini probably wouldn’t have put him anywhere near where he could’ve been seen anyway. He got his bearings, figured out where his house was from there, and started walking.
There was another reason for wanting that brief walk: it gave him a chance to at least try to put things into perspective. In the course of an afternoon, everything had somehow shifted a bit to one side, and he wanted to think about it all. Rita had a Power Ranger of her own. One who was good in a fight. Was it because of the Power? It was hard to be certain, since the skills the Power gave were all but identical to ones that you could learn by yourself.
Perhaps because he was thinking about fighting, or because he was used to being attacked while alone after the last couple of months, but a chill ran down Jason’s spine suddenly. Someone was out there. Someone was watching him.
He tried to remain calm. If it was Rita’s Ranger, then the others could teleport in if he needed the help. If it was just some one else, then he didn’t have anything to worry about. There weren’t too many people in Angel Grove that he didn’t think he could take in a fair fight.
“You’re Jason, right?” The voice was quiet, and only vaguely familiar, and he did something of a double take as he realized he was practically staring right at someone. How in the world had she shown up and he hadn’t noticed? It wasn’t that dark was it?
Then he realized just who he was looking at, and relaxed some. “Oh, hey. Yeah. Tommi, right?” It was weird; if he hadn’t known better, he might have thought she’d teleported in herself. But she was dressed in kind of dark colors anyway so it wasn’t that surprising, now that he thought about it.
She nodded a little, and he noticed she was leaning against a fairly dark tree trunk, which had helped her blend in even more. “It’s a little late to be out, isn’t it?”
“Not really. I was just taking care of some things with the guys.” That was about as vague as he could get. He did kind of miss the days when he could talk about anything to anyone, but it was a small price to pay, all things considered. “Hey, do you live around here?”
Tommi gestured across to where a few houses were vaguely visible through the trees. They weren’t quite as close as they appeared, with at least two roads in between the park and there, but someone reasonably athletic could probably have crossed between the two areas without much effort. “We just moved in last weekend.”
“You’ll love it.” Jason nodded, wanting to support the city he’d been born in. “Angel Grove’s a pretty great place to live.”
She glanced back over one shoulder, a little smile on her lips. Jason tried not to notice them very much. It wasn’t easy. “Even with being invaded by aliens?”
“Even with that!” Jason replied without even thinking about it. “The Power Rangers keep most of the problems down.”
Her gaze moved past him to some point over his shoulder. “You wouldn’t happen to know where one of those might be right now, would you? Because I think we’ve got one of those problems.”
Jason turned, falling into a battle-ready stance with the ease of long practice. Skittering towards them, making those odd noises that weren’t precisely speech and weren’t aimless mumbling either, were a good dozen Putty Patrollers. “Tommi! Get back and try to keep out of their way!” He didn’t know if she knew anything about fighting, but he knew that he did, and they were after him, anyway.
Then the Putties were on him, and he didn’t have a chance to keep much of an eye on her. He thought some of them got by him to attack her, but with the seven or eight he could see around himself, it was a little hard to be certain. “Don’t you guys have a bedtime or something?” he grunted, slamming his fist into one of them. This would be so much easier if they blew up or something when you hit them. Instead, all he could do was pound on them, get pounded on, and hope that he could knock them back or out enough so they’d get bored and leave.
He backed up a little, still ready to take on any of them, and the ones he was fighting fell back a bit as well. They didn’t really have anything that could be called tactics, most of the time, but being swarmed tended to work for just about anything, even Putties. With a brief moment to catch his breath, Jason looked over to see what Tommi was doing…and ducked, just in time to avoid a Putty being thrown towards him.
“Hey, watch where you’re throwing those!” he called out without thinking. A Putty to the head would definitely put a damper on his evening. Then he actually saw what was going on and stared in surprise.
Tommi had just seized another Putty by one wrist and whirled it around, slamming it into two more, then released the one she’d had, sending all three of them flying into a thick clump of bushes. There had been four of them on her, he guessed, since the rest were attacking, or had been attacking him. All four were out of it right now, and she turned towards the remaining ones.
That was all the breath he had the chance to get, too, since those remaining ones tackled him. He shoved back as hard as he could, wanting more room to maneuver, and still tried to watch for Tommi, wanting to know what she was capable of.
The style she was using wasn’t one he was personally familiar with, but it was amazingly effective anyway. Without having to talk about it, they split the remaining eight putties between them. Jason punched and kicked and threw as hard as he could, slamming his opponents into each other, and spared any moments he had to watch Tommi. There weren’t many moments that he could spare, but the impression he got was that she knew exactly what she was doing from one moment to the next.
She’s incredible. The thought wandered briefly through his mind, and only the fact he was in the middle of a fight kept him from thinking about it too much.
Finally, it was over with. Jason was streaked in sweat and wanted a shower. And something to eat. He hoped that his mom had made something good tonight; he fully intended to clean his plate and beg for more if he had to. Fighting took a lot of energy out of him.
“You’re really good,” he said, looking over at Tommi. Her hair had come out of the ponytail during the fight, and now hung around her face, framing it neatly. “I’ve never seen that style before, what is it?”
“Aikido. I’ve been training with it since I was about seven or eight,” Tommi replied, looking around for a moment before she picked up something which turned out to be her hair band. “You’re not bad yourself.”
Jason was just a little too worn out after everything to think too much about anything beyond how glad he was that Tommi was a good fighter. That was a useful skill to have in Angel Grove. “If you want to spar or something, let me know. I haven’t had a really good workout in a long time.” At least not against someone who wasn’t trying to kill him. Sparring against Tommi would be a refreshing change.
There were only a couple of lights here and there in the park, but they gave off enough light so that he could see her smile just a bit. “I think I’d like that. I’ll let you know when I’m free.” She glanced down at her own watch, then back up to him. “But I have to go now. I’ll see you around?”
Jason winced suddenly when he checked the time himself. His mom was going to want to interrogate him for certain. “Yeah, I need to go too. Mom’s going to kill me if I’m much later. I’ll see you at school!”
He turned and headed off, taking a quick look back before he got too far out of sight. It was too dark, even with those few lights, now to see her, though he thought he saw something human-shaped moving against the shadows. It was hard to be certain, but it still was enough for him. But he didn’t have time to sit and wonder about it.
“Jason Lee Scott!” His mother stared at him once he walked through the front door. “What have you been doing?”
Jason looked down at himself; he’d taken more damage in that fight than he’d thought. His clothes were a bit ripped, and he still needed that shower. “Just a little sparring. There’s this new girl at school who’s really good.” He didn’t really like lying to his parents, but stretching the truth was something he’d become so very good at.
“Is that what they’re calling it these days?” His dad asked, looking at him from the other side of the room. Jason looked away quickly; he didn’t want them to be saying things like that!
“Well, whatever.” His mom patted him on the shoulder. “Go get cleaned up, you’re just in time for dinner.”
Jason didn’t argue; a shower had been on his mind for ages. He paused by his room long enough to grab some clothes to wear afterwards, noting as he did that his schoolbooks were there. Trini or Billy must have thought to teleport them, since he’d left them behind earlier. He was going to have to be more careful than that.
I need to see if they found out anything. They wouldn’t have been able to tell him while he’d been with Tommi, and now wasn’t a good time either. And he needed to tell them about the attack anyway. It wasn’t unusual for the Putties to jump them, if they were alone, but it wasn’t too often they did it when there was just one civilian near by. It had been known to happen, though, and that person tended to get involved with whatever Rita’s latest scheme was.
The thought of Tommi, even as skilled as she obviously was, being held prisoner or worse by the Green Ranger made him slightly sick to his stomach. Their brief encounter had more than convinced him that Green Ranger was capable of just about anything, up to and including murder.
He had just dressed when his communicator beeped again. He snatched it up quickly before his parents had a chance to hear it. “What is it?”
“Everything all right? We got enough of the warning system back up to be able to tell there were some Putties near you, but we couldn’t tell what was going on other than that.” It was Trini’s voice, full of warm concern.
“Yeah, everything’s fine. I ran into Tommi again and we both got jumped by the clayheads.” Jason closed his door as he spoke very low. “She’s good in a fight. I’m going to see if we can get some sparring in soon.”
“All right. I don’t know how much more we can get done tonight, so we’ll see you in school tomorrow. Keep an eye out.”
“You too, Trini.” Jason put his communicator down and headed back out to dinner. He’d already used up enough time, and he didn’t think his mother would appreciate the food being held back much longer, even if he was trying to talk about the impending destruction of the world.
Maybe we should send mom to deal with Rita. No, he decided. The evil space witch wasn’t that nasty.
Now, the Green Ranger…
“Well done, Green Ranger.” Rita all but preened as she looked at her newest servant. The one fight that had been battled against the Rangers had most certainly ended in their favor, and the dark sorceress savored the victory. Not to mention that Green Ranger had clearly put Zordon out of commission.
Of course, that annoying Blue Ranger was going to repair all of the damage as soon as he could, there was no doubt about that. But Rita had a plan for that in mind anyway. She would just have to wait for the proper moment to put it into effect.
In the meantime, there was quite a bit that could be done with her Green Ranger. Saving the Green Coin until now had been a stroke of genius on her part. Not just anyone could control it, after all. It had to be someone with a strong streak of darkness in them. Someone like this Tommi Oliver. It had been amazing that someone like that had arrived in Angel Grove, along with a full set of martial arts skills all of her own. The Power enhanced what was already there, which made the Green Ranger a death-trap that could walk, as far as Rita was concerned.
“That was brilliant, my queen!” Goldar rumbled, a pleased smirk on his lips. “The Rangers will never suspect that she is the Green Ranger now.”
“I know.” Rita smirked smugly. That had been another well done plan by her, conceived once she’d seen Jason walking home alone. Perfect. She’d already had some ideas, and seeing the way he had looked at her Ranger…they were getting more and more interesting. “Green Ranger, return to Earth and act normal. Do your homework, go to bed, all of that. I’ll call you again when I need you. Finster, I have something to discuss with you.”
She pulled him to the side, away from the rest of the idiots. Tommi was not one of those, of course, but this involved the Green Ranger to an extent. Not to the extent that she needed to know about it beforehand, though, even if Rita hadn’t ordered her away.
“What is it, your greatness?” Finster asked, peering up at her through his spectacles. She hadn’t asked for much from him since getting this started, but that was about to change.
“I need the strongest love potion that you can get your hands on, Finster.” Rita smirked at the very thought. The thought of using something the Rangers prized so highly, love itself, against them was wonderfully delicious, and she couldn’t wait to get started. “And it has to be something that can’t be easily gotten rid of, even if they manage to get Zordon back.” She doubted ‘permanent’ was possible, but it didn’t need to be.
Finster folded his arms across his chest and stroked his chin thoughtfully. Rita had never asked him for something like that before. Normally it was Baboo who made potions for her, but this was probably a little out of his league. The most that amateur could have pulled off was a mild infatuation at best.
“I think I can manage that, my queen.” He thought he recalled one especially effective recipe. He would have to look it up and he wasn’t certain if he had all of the ingredients at the moment, but he would be able to get them. “What exactly do you have planned?”
Rita could not resist the chance to tell someone. This was too evil not to say something about, after all. “We’re going to give that potion to the Red Ranger, and have him fall in love with my Green Ranger. He’ll do anything that she wants him to do, even fight his own friends!” She threw her head back and laughed; finally, this war was going to end, her way!
To Be Continued