Disclaimer: I own Garthon, that’s it. PR belongs to some completely different person or group of people and if I were him/them it would be a very different show.
When It Rains…
Chapter 1 - Confrontation
“No one ever said this was gonna be easy,” Jeff muttered as
he pulled himself up over the side of
just the latest in a long series of rocks.
He was in the Andes,
climbing this blasted mountain for what felt like the third time. Although technically, it was. A long series of wishes had caused him to
have to do this again: scale a mountain, save a village, get super powers. It was getting old really. But Jeff knew that if everything had been
reset again, then the village was in danger again and someone had to save
it. Plus, he wasn’t sure he liked not
having the power. The Infinity powers,
as their name implied, were forever.
There was no passing them on, not until you died that is, and Jeff
wasn’t dead yet.
Jeff thought back on everything that had led him here. A long series of wishes made to an alien genie had effectively changed the course of history – twice. First his sister had been kidnapped by some alien bounty hunter and he had sought out the Infinity power in an attempt to find her, and then after he made a wish someone else ended up being kidnapped. It appeared that no matter what anyone did, on one lazy afternoon, on the fifth day of Aquitar’s thirtieth S’let cycle, a young child would be kidnapped by the being known as Darkonda.
Jeff sighed as he pulled himself onto level ground once
more. There was a village here; he remembered children playing, adults
working, the occasional llama meandering past.
None of that was here now. The
houses were still there, but an eerie wind blew through the air, emphasizing
the missing life. It seemed that in
this, the apparently original version of reality no one had managed to defeat
Garthon.
‘Life just sucks
everywhere, doesn’t it?’ Jeff thought.
Jeff gathered up
his gear and made his way through the village.
He didn’t know what he expected to find. When he had come to this village before there had always been
people. It was the eve of Garthon’s return
then and he had managed to tap into the ancient power that had defeated him
centuries before. It was now several
months after Garthon’s scheduled return and return he obviously had. What he had done with the village however,
remained a mystery.
Jeff approached
the tomb at the village’s center. It
wasn’t much, just a stone box made to keep the ancient evil in. Still, it gave Jeff the creeps as he walked
inside.
“Ah,” a deep,
booming voice said as Jeff came into the darkness, “a new slave. I was getting so bored with the old ones.”
“Hello Garthon,”
Jeff muttered as he walked around the room.
Garthon had worked his magic it seemed, to make the room bigger on the
inside than it was on the outside. Jeff
seriously thought he could fit the entire population of Angel Grove Community
College in that room and still have space for a couple of big rigs.
“My reputation
precedes me,” Garthon said, pride making his voice even more disturbing.
“Actually no,”
Jeff said, fingering a spear that hung on the wall. “In an alternate version of reality I already beat you, actually
that happened in two alternate versions of reality. So now I’m gonna have to ask you to bring the villagers back and
leave this dimension.”
Garthon looked at
the boy before him for a moment. He was
young, strong, obviously had the attention of more than one woman, but all in
all he was still a boy. And even if he
were a man, Garthon had defeated men much stronger than this one could ever
be. Honestly, the boy was wearing the
most ridiculous outfit and had no weapons with him at all.
The evil lord
laughed. “You are a most amusing
human. For that I will not send you to
the Sweltering Heat and Painful Light Dimension; instead I will keep you here
to amuse me.”
“No,” Jeff said
nonchalantly as he stepped before the evil overlord, “I think I’m gonna beat
you.”
“And how-?”
“Infinity Power!”
Jeff yelled.
There was a minute
of silence. “What was that supposed to
do?” Garthon asked.
“Um,” Jeff had
never thought that this would be a problem.
In both realities before this he had managed to get the Infinity Powers,
but now-
“Okay,” Jeff said,
“I’ll beat you without super powers.
It’s not like I’m completely incapable.”
ooo
“I’m completely
incapable,” Jeff muttered. He was
chained to the floor in that same room with Garthon seated high above him,
blathering on and on about how great he was.
“And then I
swallowed his pet bird whole,” Garthon said.
“That’s when he got really mad and charged at me. He ended up getting impaled on the back of
his spear, quite sad really.”
Jeff sighed,
wondering what had gone wrong. Garthon
was supposed to be nothing more than a giant ball of goo that had centuries ago
figured out how to change his shape.
Beating him should have been easy!
After having to deal with a little sister who had been turned evil, then
the same little sister never being evil but being love slave to an evil prince,
defeating a giant metamorphic ball of goo should have been easy, especially
since he’d done it twice before!
‘Maybe he’s gotten
more power in the extra months of freedom,’ Jeff thought, ‘or maybe I’m really
nothing without the Infinity Powers.
‘No!’ Jeff’s inner
voice cried. ‘I can’t give up! Those villagers are counting on me! The world (theoretically) is counting on
me! I must defeat him, even if I have
to die doing it! Because like Yoda
said, “There is no try, there is only do.”’
Jeff stood,
heedless of his chains to face his enemy.
The beast was now in the form of a man, what he preferred Jeff had
found, and if there was one thing Jeff Hammond understood, it was men. ‘Thank God he didn’t turn into a woman,’
Jeff thought, stepping forward.
It was then that
Garthon noticed his slave’s movements and stopped his stirring tale of evil
triumphing over good. Jeff, despite his
lack of a plan or any clear train of thought for that matter, managed to hurl
himself at Garthon with impressive speed and strength. The evil being got ready to chuckle,
remembering the chain that held the boy firmly to the floor.
At just the moment
when the chain should have gone taut and pulled Jeff back to the ground with
striking effectiveness, something amazing happened. A great light filled the room, the sound of a chain shattering
could be heard, and before Garthon could figure out what was going on a fist
went through his head, shattering the back of his throne.
“How?” the
gurgling voice of Garthon’s true form asked as he slithered away from this new
and familiar threat.
“I do not really
know,” Jeff said, “but you are going to fix things!”
“Of- of course,”
the goo slithered over to the wall where it reached up to touch a strange stone
set there. The stone glowed and three
figures appeared in the room, just as the sounds of people began to flow in
from outside.
The room shrank
back to its original size as the three new men gazed upon the figure before
them. This was the warrior of old, the
legendary savior of the village. His
thick armor seemed to give off a light of its own and while there was a sword
at his side, he had not yet had need to draw it.
“What are you
going to do now?” the figure asked the pile of goo before them, much as an
angry mother would ask a naughty child.
“Leave this
dimension,” the goo said sheepishly. It
reached up to the crystal once more but before it disappeared it called out, “I
will return Ranger! And when I do I
will have my revenge on you and you alone!”
“Blah, blah,
blah,” the Ranger muttered as his armor faded.
“Hi,” he said, noticing the men for the first time. He recognized them from his previous
adventures as the village elder and the village’s two strongest warriors.
ooo
Ashley Hammond was
happy for what was perhaps the first time in thirty years, despite the fact
that she was only seventeen years old.
She had survived three lifetimes and found that her heart always rested
in the same place: with Andros, the Red Ranger of KO-35. Said Ranger was sitting across the table
from her and making a rather valiant effort to eat his breakfast while ignoring
her constant stare. He was not being
rude, he was simply trying to preserve himself. He knew, from experience, that if he looked up at her she would
capture him in those eyes of hers and he would never finish his meal.
Unfortunately for
Andros, DECA suddenly broke the silence of the Jump Bay, surprising him into
looking up.
"What is it
DECA?" Ashley asked, snapping Andros out of his sudden stupor.
"There is an
urgent transmission for Ashley from Tanya Sloan."
"Put it
through," Andros said.
"Audio
only."
Tanya's voice came
over the speaker.
"Ashley?"
"Yeah, I'm
here. What's wrong?"
"Your parents
have been freaking out. A couple days
ago your brother just walked out of one of his classes. When your parents got home that night there
was a note saying that he was fine and he'd be back by the end of the
month. They found out that
he-"
"He went to
Peru, didn't he?" Ashley sighed.
"Yeah, how
did you know?" Tanya asked, the confussion evident in her voice.
"Have you
talked to Justin lately?"
"No, but I
heard something weird happened to him right around the time Jeff went
AWOL."
"Yeah,"
Ashley said guiltily, "we should probably explain to everyone."
"We've
already compiled a list of all the people we need to explain things to,"
Carlos said, walking into the Bay and over to the synthetron. "We'll be contacting everyone in the
next couple of days."
"Ooookay,"
Tanya said, obviously still confused.
"So, you can handle the Jeff thing?"
"Yeah, we can
handle it," Ashley sighed.
"Good. Now, I gotta go."
"See ya
Tanya."
"So..."
Carlos offered after a moment of silence.
Ashley
grimaced. "DECA? Can you scan the Andes for any unusual
activity?"
"Of
course. Scanning.... There is evidence to suggest that very
recently a rather large amount of dark energy coalesced in the mountain
range. That energy has since
disappeared to be replaced by a faint power signature."
"Are there
people around the holder of the power?"
"No, he
appears to be climbing down a rather large mountain."
"Teleport him
here please."
"Of
course."
There was a flash
of silvery black light and a man in many layers of clothing and climbing gear
fell onto the floor next to the table.
"Hey
Jeff," Ashley said, her face lit with a brilliant smile.
"Ashley!"
Jeff cried, jumping up and giving his sister a snowy hug. "It's great to see you again! I've been worried, a lot."
"I know, but
everything's fine now." Ashley
showed her brother to a chair and ordered him a plate of all his breakfast
favorites. When she turned to give it
to him she stopped dead. Carlos too,
had frozen where he was, a look of worry and fear, for who Ashley wasn't sure,
on his face.
Andros and Jeff
were having some sort of staring contest.
After what seemed
to Ashley to be an eternity, Jeff spoke.
"Ashley is my little sister."
"I
know," Andros said. He said
nothing more so Jeff decided to speak again, but was cut off. "I know how it feels to be an older
brother. I know the responsibility and
the fear. And I know how it feels to
have a younger sibling fighting in a battle.
I also know how it feels to have a little sister who thinks she's fallen
in love. But I promise you, I will do
everything in my power to make Ashley happy, even if that means letting her go
to someone else. And I will keep her
safe, no matter what."
Jeff was silent
for a very long time. "Okay,"
he finally said smiling. "Now
don't tell me you Space Rangers just teleport people off the sides of
mountains, then refuse to feed them!"
"Of course
not," Ashley laughed. As she sat
down next to her brother she gave Andros a shy smile.
"I'll just be
calling – everyone,” Carlos said, sidling out of the room.
ooo
“This is so unfair,”
Garthon muttered. The evil overlord was
floating in a rather swirly dimension.
“I was so close to being free.
Just a few more slaves and I would have had enough energy to leave the
mountain. And then that boy had to come
along in all his cockiness. I should
have crushed him when he started talking about alternate realities and-“ Garthon brightened, his gelatinous body took
on a bluish-green hue and if he had had a mouth at that moment, he would have
smiled wickedly. “There is only one
being in the universe capable of doing something like that- Rissai.” The giant goo-thing headed across the
expanse to his ultimate destiny.