The Source

[Lord Zedd]

Kimberly Ann Hart sat at the edge of one of the beds in a Carrefore inn. Her eyes remained glued to the small television screen before her, and oblivious to much else in the room. Some local news channel was explaining the day to day happenings of the desert land she had found herself in. She was doing her best to absorb the knowledge spewing from the TV set, but it was awfully hard to focus. Beside her, Zack Taylor paced impatiently as he watched the news broadcast as well, and and neither of them could see whatever techno-wizardry Billy Cranston was performing behind the television. They just knew he was back there fiddling with some wire or another. At least something never changed.

Most things had changed, however. The Pink Ranger had thought her adventuring days were long behind her. Indeed, all six of the original Power Rangers were enjoying various degrees of retirement from the superhero thing they’d done as teenagers, and adjusted quite well to normal lives. In their mid-late twenties, battling aliens and piloting giant robots was a distant memory. Until they ended up here.

Somehow, someway, all six of them had arrived in the endless white expanse known as the Nexus, and had quickly got to work figuring out just what had brought them there. Fortunately, there were no internal speed bumps with the team, as they were all in close contact, still. Something about being a united team of superheroes during their formative years left them very good friends even as they grew older.

Regardless, their quick investigations taught them the nature of the land, as well as the differences between primes and secondaries. The chilling fact was that none of them had seen the mysterious Omni. That meant they were secondaries, and that a prime had introduced them right into the Nexus, and likely slipped off in the confusion. The burning question now, of course, was who and why?

The TV jumped with static, and the channel changed to some Spanish mariachi band, preventing them from learning anything from that source.

“What happened?” Billy asked from his work-space.

“It’s worse now,” Zack answered.

“Hold on, I can get it working,” Billy said, with the TV’s picture beginning to fade as he fiddled with the wires.

“Billy, local news is enough,” Kimberly pleaded. “Just leave it. We don’t need everything there is to see.”

“Local news isn’t a wide enough spread,” Billy remarked. “We need to get multiple sources if we’re going to understand this place, and it’s just a little extra work for a greater reward.”

“Yea, but…” Kimberly trailed off, feeling that the festive music was making her point well enough. It didn’t help that the Black Ranger, bored to death, had begun to lightly dance along with the beat.

Thankfully, the door to the apartment opened and in came the remaining three Rangers. Jason Lee Scott, Trini Kwan, and Tommy Oliver entered, carrying plenty of supplies, yet they closed the door behind them just as quickly as they entered.

“Nice use of your time,” Tommy jokingly commented as he looked to the TV. Kimberly just rolled her eyes.

“What’s the word?” Zack asked as he looked over to the new arrivals, and the bags they were dumping on the beds. He brushed right past Tommy’s remark too.

“Well,” Jason said, pausing for just a moment to pull out two separate newspapers. “This is a really... different one.”

Billy walked around from behind the TV and took the first paper Jason held out. Zack and Kimberly walked to either side of him and looked over his shoulder, unable to believe what they were seeing. Lord Zedd himself was on the front page, standing beside some blue woman.

“Imperial primes defeat Vorticon menace,” Billy read the headline aloud, then skimmed the contents of the article. The premise was simple: Lord Zedd, acting as an agent of the Empire had possibly saved the mega-verse of Coruscant.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Zack said, walking to a window while throwing his hands up in frustration. “Zedd’s here in the Omniverse too? And he’s a prime? And he’s befriended the biggest bunch of thugs in the place?”

“We’ve heard a lot of conflicting things about the Empire,” Trini reminded her fellow Rangers. “Some of it bad, but some of it good.”

“I think it’s still safe to assume Zedd is going to keep being Zedd,” Tommy remarked as he took a seat at one of the chairs around the small table in the room. “Regardless of what the Empire as a whole represents.”

“The Empire, by the way,” Kimberly chimed in sarcastically. “Really catchy. Nice of them to be up front about what they’re like.”

“I don’t think we’re the ones that can comment on a lack of subtlety,” Billy shrugged as he tossed the paper onto one of the beds. Kimberly paused, then bit her lip. It was a good point.

Jason shook his head, and then held out the next one. Billy took it as well, noting that this was was opened and folded so he was looking at some deep interior page. He studied it for a moment, not seeing anything that jumped out in any of the pictures. It was just some local gossip section. Kimberly suddenly gasped and pointed at one of the pictures near the top corner. Billy looked a bit closer, and saw a woman in the background that she recognized instantly. Even if she hadn't remembered her face, the green almost-bikini outfit the woman wore was a dead giveaway. Not many wandered around looking like that.

“Who’s that?” Zack asked, looking at the picture, then back up to Jason. The Red Ranger shrugged.

“Dulcea,” Tommy answered. “She helped us once after you, Jason, and Trini left the team. She was a good fighter, and a friend of Zordon’s.”

“We haven’t seen or heard from her in... years,” Billy thought aloud. “But she’s here now?”

"That could explain why we never heard from her again," Tommy reasoned with a shrug of his own.

“I don’t know anything about her, but if you guys trust her then so do I,” Jason commented. "So we need to find her. She's someone that can answer our questions."

“Where is she, though?” Kimberly asked. “She could have come and gone from Carrefore already.”

“She has,” Jason acknowledged. “While Tommy finished getting our supplies, Trini and I asked around about her.”

“Turns out you can’t dress like that in the Endless Dunes without being noticed,” Trini picked up the explanation. “A couple people spotted her leaving town a few days back. A few other wanderers said they saw her heading toward an old temple, deep in the Dunes. And that there were some unsavory types after her.”

“Is she the prime that brought us here?” Zack asked.

“Don’t know,” Jason shook his head. “Don’t even know if she’s a prime. But between her and Zedd, she’s the one we want to find first.”

“Agreed on that,” Tommy said, then waved his hands at the various bags they’d brought in. “That ought to be all the food, water, and other gear we need to find this temple and survive. We can break it up into travel packs tonight.”

“And then head out first thing in the morning,” Jason finished. “We’ll find the temple, find Dulcea, and get some answers.”

“Like why we were brought here,” Zack remarked. “Although if I had to guess, it would be to fight Zedd again.”

“I don’t know,” Billy spoke up, looking at the newspaper that had covered the dark lord’s exploits again. “Lord Zedd, the terror of our world, seems to be a pretty small fish in this pond. This world is… bigger. Grander. Deeper.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Tommy agreed. “Sure, he can gather his strength back up, but it’ll take some time. We’re not the only ones having to watch our step. His powers are limited, for now.”

Jason reached behind his back and pulled out the Tyrannosaurus morpher that had been with him since he spawned in this strange realm. He looked it over carefully, noting that each little scratch and imperfection was still there, just like he remembered from so long ago. All six of them had quickly noted the return of their power morphers, yet hadn’t had the opportunity to test if they still worked..

“Ours might be, too,” Jason reminded them. “We could be a lot worse off than we realize.”

“The desert will provide us with ample opportunity to test them,” Billy observed. They’d all wanted to see where they really stood, but morphing in front of people wasn’t a good idea, and boy were there a lot of people here.

Jason nodded and put it away. “Alright, let’s get to work.”

The six adventurers got to work from there, dividing the supplies up into small backpacks. Everything was spread evenly amongst the group, so that if one was separated or worse, they wouldn’t lose all of the food, medical supplies, or the like. It was a grim scenario to have to face, but it was better to be prepared than not. Even with that in the back of their minds, the night was lively and filled with plenty of joking and playful banter. It was just like old times, even before their first morph in years.

Eventually the time came to rest for the night, so they split their own ways and went towards their respective rooms to try and sleep. Morning would come before they knew it, and the quest for the source of their arrival would begin.