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Post by J. T./Jessica on Jul 6, 2007 20:04:59 GMT -5
"You've got one major problem, Oliver, I've been to the future, I already know I've won," J.T. looked around at the other Rangers in the room, "You guys agree?"
"He's right, Dr. O." Trent shrugged.
Tommy leveled a Teacher Glare at the gather Literati and Dino Rangers before storming out.
"They weren't together when we were pulled into the future," Kira said, looking at J.T. strangely.
"And since we're still alive, the future you visited isn't what we'll get anyway, Magnus," Daniel added.
J.T. put a finger on the bridge of his glasses and slid them down, "YOU all know that, I know that... HE doesn't know that."
Trent shook his head, "Man, you're more evil than I started as."
"Thanks."
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Post by BloodAngel on Jul 10, 2007 9:13:42 GMT -5
A little snipet inspired by a dream. Not meant to be PRL cannon, but could be.
_____________________
Tommy nervously glanced around, as though expecting some sort of… ambush, he guessed. He wasn’t sure if Daniel had Amanda do… something to the entrance of his apartment before knocking on the door.
There were the sounds of someone rising, walking to the door and of locks being undone.
“I swear to God, if this is a blasted salesman, I’ll…” The speaker opened the door and stood in the doorframe in shock.
*Aw, shit,* Tommy grumbled mentally as he realized this person was decidedly *not* Daniel.
Recovering from her shock, Amanda smiled brightly. “Hey, Uncle Tommy!”
“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t call me that?” Tommy groaned, knowing it was far too late to make a run for it now.
Amanda put a finger to her chin as if thinking. “I don’t remember that conversation,” she said seriously, then cocked her head to the side. “Did you need something, Uncle Tommy?”
“Um… Daniel gave me a call, said he needed to talk to me.” A thought occurred to him then as Amanda blinked slowly at him. “This *is* Daniel’s apartment, right?”
Amanda shook her head; apparently she had decided to go for blonde hair with black streaks today. “No, this is mine and Yolanda’s.” A distinctly cat-like grin ambled across her face. “Of course, he *does* sleep here more than he does in his own, so his confusion is understandable. Well,” Amanda clapped her hands together before opening the door wider. “Come on in and wait for him. He’s got a shift at Highway 2 right now and won’t be home for a couple more hours.” With that, she turned on her heel and walked back inside, leaving Tommy on the steps.
His first thought was she had a heavy step for someone so tiny. His second thought was it was the first he knew of Rangers not living together as a group or with their families. His third thought was he did remember the conversation they had about her nickname for him. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like it stuck with her. His fourth thought was… he was still on the front stoop and Amanda had come back, blinking at him again.
“Ya know,” she started, “I didn’t charm the door or anything like that. Well, except against my parents and a few choice villains, and as far as I know, you’re not a vampire, as wonderful looking a one as you’d be. And even if you were a vampire, I invited you in, so that’s out the window. There a problem I don’t know about?”
“No, of course not.” To prove it, he walked in, ignoring Amanda’s barely-surpassed snort.
“*Right,*” she muttered. Turning her back to him, she led him into the house. “Kitchen’s to the right, help yourself to anything in the fridge, but if I catch you with a can of Coke in your hand, I’ll kill you.” She turned to him. “Look, Uncle Tommy, I’m not going to be a very good hostess today, okay? Between college, work, Ranger duties and wedding prep, I *really* don’t have all that much time, which I hope you understand, having spent so much time in the Lycra. So, I have to grab time where I can get it. I’m sorry, I really am, but you’re going to have to entertain yourself until I finish, okay?”
Tommy almost didn’t want to know what she had to finish, but her clothing, lack of jewelry, and sparse makeup, said it was exercising. The few times that Tommy had seen her out of uniform, he almost would have mistaken her for a Pink. She was always wearing her engagement ring and a necklace she said Daniel gave her and one of her many pentagrams, and he didn’t think he’d ever seen her in a tank top and sweatpants. He shrugged. “Sure.”
She looked relieved. “Thank you so much, Uncle Tommy! I should be done in an hour, tops!” She hugged him quickly and dashed into another room that Tommy assumed was what passed for a living room in the small apartment. As he rummaged in the mini-fridge for a drink, wondering if he could sneak out a Coke without Amanda noticing, he heard murmurs and scuffling noises that sounded nothing like exercise. He withdrew his hand, which had found a can of Dr. Pepper, and was about to poke his head around the corner when he heard Amanda’s voice.
“A syeychas podnimis'
Spryach' podal'shye bol' i strakh
Pobyedit tot, kto prav
Znay, chto vsyo v tvoikh rukakh…”
Tommy raised an eyebrow, now becoming very confused. What in Zordon’s name was that girl doing? Cracking open his soda, Tommy relied on all his powers of stealth -- but since Tommy is… well, Tommy, he forgot he could turn invisible -- he crept into the living room. There, he found Amanda sitting on a blue and yellow mat, legs crossed. She had her eyes closed and was holding a rainbow colored stone in her hands. She was also singing.
“Save your tears
for the day
when your pain is far behind
on your feet
come with me
we are soldiers stand or die.
“Save your fears
take your place
save them for the judgment day
fast and free
follow me
time to make the sacrifice
we rise or fall.”
Without missing a beat, the corner of her mouth kicked up. “Hello, Uncle Tommy. I see you got a can of the Doctor.”
“……I’m sorry?”
“I heard the can open. Daniel drinks Dr. Pepper almost as much as I drink Coke. I’ve gotten good at figuring out different brands of soda.” A small chuckle escaped. “And now, you’re wondering what in the name of Zordon I’m doing, right?”
“Um… yeah.” This team was almost worse than the Dino Rangers in throwing him for a loop. First, the leader was Black. A *Black*, for God’s sake! What team wasn’t lead by a Red that didn’t have Tommy in it? Even in the Dino team, Conner was more leader than he was! Their Red broke every Red stereotype in existence by staying to the background and being almost little more than support. Their Green was a female. A *female*! That had never happened before! Hell, there had never been both Black and Green on the same team since the early days of the Morphin’ team! And the Pink! She was almost more outgoing, fighting wise, than most Yellows! As for the Yellow and Blue… while the Blue was more traditional, his mouth was far too smart. Almost like a Red that had received a demotion to Blue, kind of like Rocky. And he’d never seen a Blue just utterly loose it as this one did when his beloved was in danger. Speaking of the Yellow… well, she was just creepy. The witch thing wasn’t so bad, Zordon had been a great wizard before Andros had been forced to kill him. It was the temper that went along with the witchcraft. Temperamental people, by and large, were *not* known for their control. Add in the incredibly unsettling insight she had, and this Yellow was more frightening than all Yellows that had come before her combined.
Amanda, still with her eyes closed, laughed out loud, further unsettling Tommy. “Ah, Uncle Tommy. So stuck in his dusty dino bones that he completely missed the New Age movement. I’m meditating, of course. How else do you think I manage to stay as sane as I do without resorting to bloodshed and curses?”
“I thought you took out your anger on J.T. and the monsters.”
Amanda sighed. “It does help, I’ll admit. But you should have seen me when I first got looped into this insanity of being a Ranger. I had much more time on my hands then, so I ended up meditating for hours on end, just trying to come to terms with the whole deal. Did you know I didn’t own a stitch of yellow before this? I wore more blues, greens, and purples than anything else. Thankfully, I can still wear my blues, but green…” she sighed again, this time it was dripping with sorrow. “I can’t even touch green anymore. And the purples, my absolute favorite color that I spent so many years defending, I now fight. My poor bank account…” she sighed yet again and started to sing.
“There are no flowers, no not this time,
There'll be no angels gracing the lines,
Just these stark words, I find.
I'd show a smile, but I'm too weak,
I'd share with you could I only speak,
Just how much this, hurts me.” She inhaled, then exhaled. “You know better than almost anyone how hard this is.”
“What were you doing there? And what was that language you were singing in earlier?”
“I sing when I meditate. It helps focus my thoughts. Most people would disagree with my method, but it’s too hard for me to make my mind go completely blank. I get so many random thoughts popping in there, it’s impossible for it to do any good. As for the language, it was Russian… we think. It roughly translates to ‘But now get up/Hide the pain and fear far/The one who's right will win/Know that everything is in your hands’. It’s from the theme of *Ghost in the Shell S.A.C. 2nd Gig*. And, before you ask, this in my hands is an opal. It’s one of my favorite stones. The unique thing about opals is they’re like blank hard drive, since they have all the colors of the rainbow in them, they can be programmed like a computer to do almost anything. This one is programmed for meditative use.”
Tommy kept his mouth shut, since that was the next question in his mind.
“Wanna join me? It’s easy.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m really only here to talk to Daniel.”
Amanda shrugged. “So you can stop when he gets here, there’s no time limit. Sit down, I’ll get you a stone. Solidite, I think, would be best for you.” With that, she stood up and made her way to a high shelf in the corner.
Tommy sighed, knowing that when a Yellow got on a tear, it was best to just ride it out and stay alive at the same time. He sat down on the mat. Amanda quickly returned, lightly kissing a dark blue stone with white veins before pressing it into his hands. “This is solidite. It’s a stone that promotes peace of spirit, something I suspect you could use in spades. Now, have you done any chakra work?” she asked as she sat back down.
“Some. Trent tried to teach me after my coma.”
Amanda nodded. “Good. That’ll make this much easier. Now, close your eyes. Breathe in, and breathe out. Open your chakras. Clear your mind of extraneous thought. How are you at blanking your mind?”
“Not intentionally.”
“Fair enough. Okay, I’m going to sing. If you know the song, sing it with me. If you don’t, focus on it. How are you at energy control?”
“Decent.”
“Wonderful! What I want you to do, is make a circuit with your energy. Start in your right arm, since that’s your power arm. Gather your energy into that arm. Knowing you, your energy will have dark spots in it, provided it’s not black. I don’t really know how it works with you guys who have changed colors like you. I want you to send that energy into the stone in your hands, where it will be cleansed. The dark spots will be polished off and the cleansed energy will go back into your body thought your other arm. That arm is your receptive arm. When that energy returns to you, feel it circulate through your veins. The peace the energy picked up through the stone will replace the negative energy, which is carried back through your power arm and back into the stone all over again. Understand?”
Not a bit. “Sure.”
Amanda smiled. She knew liars a mile away, being an accomplished one herself, even before the Ranger mess. “Of course. Open your eyes, and just do as I do, okay?” Tommy did so, and met Amanda’s eyes for the first time since he heard her sing. Her eyes were glowing bright yellow. “Like I said, watch. My power arm is my right, just so you know.”
He saw the yellow in her eyes dim slightly, and was picked up by her right arm. He saw her arm glow brighter and noticed small black spots in the light. “This is my energy. Before I became a Ranger, it was a vivid purple, but now…” The black spots increased. “Well, you see how I feel about that.” The energy was then sucked into the opal. “Here, my negative energy is being cleansed. It swirls inside the stone, picking up the patience and calm that I programmed into it and leaves the neg behind. Then, it exits the stone and goes into my left, receptive arm.” The energy, a brighter yellow this time, gathered around her left arm. Suddenly, it winked out. “Now, it’s inside me, depositing the patience and calm and picking up more negativity.” Amanda closed her eyes.
Tommy still didn’t wholly understand her, but he figured he could fake it. “All right.”
Amanda grinned and settled in. She hummed a moment, then began to sing.
“To un-explain the unforgivable,
Drain all the blood and give the kids a show.
By streetlight this dark night,
A séance down below
There’s things that I have done,
You never should ever know!”
Amazingly enough, Tommy actually knew this song, so he began to sing along.
“And without you is how I disappear,
And live my life alone forever now.
And without you is how I disappear,
And live my life alone forever now.
Who walks among the famous living dead,
Drowns all the boys and girls inside your bed.
And if you could talk to me,
Tell me if it’s so,
That all the good girls go to heaven.
Well, heaven knows…” Oddly, this made the whole energy circuit thing much easier.
“And without you is how I disappear,
And live my life alone forever now.
And without you is how I disappear,
And live my life alone forever now.
Can you hear me cry out to you?
Words I thought I’d choke on figure out.
I’m really not so with you anymore.
I’m just a ghost,
So I can’t hurt you anymore,
So I can’t hurt you anymore.”
Amanda stopped there. “Know the song, do you?”
Tommy shrugged. “Kira likes My Chemical Romance. She used to sing this a lot.”
Amanda nodded. “Kira’s a good kid. I like her. She makes me think of me. There’s a touch of Pink in her.” Tommy refrained from mentioning Kira was the same age as Amanda as she began to hum another song, this one he didn’t recognize.
“Don’t know what’s going on
Don’t know what went wrong
Feels like a hundred years
I still can’t believe you’re gone
So I’ll stay up all night
With these bloodshot eyes
While these walls surround me
With the story of our life
“I feel so much better
Now that you’re gone forever
I tell myself that
I don’t miss you at all
I’m not lying, denying that I feel so much better
Now that you’re gone forever.”
As Amanda sang, she sensed Tommy retreat into his mind, and she was picking up two distinct shades of Pink tingeing his energy. She’d never tell him, but his energy was green, despite having been five different Rangers in four different colors. With a mental sigh, she continued.
“Now things are coming clear
And I don’t need you here
And in this world around me
I’m glad you disappeared
So I’ll stay out all night
Get drunk and f*ck and fight
Until the morning comes
I’ll forget all about our life”
The man was more of a liar than he knew. So many years he had lied to himself, and with such skill he actually believed the lie.
“I feel so much better
Now that you’re gone forever
I tell myself that
I don’t miss you at all
I’m not lying, denying that I feel so much better
Now that you’re gone forever
“The first time you screamed at me, I should have made you leave
I should have known it could be so much better
I hope you’re missing me
I hope I’ve made you see that I’m gone forever
Now it’s coming clear
That I don’t need you here
And in this world around me
I’m glad you disappeared.”
He was such a fool! How could he be such an idiot?! To fall for the tricks, the evil that had been working against the both of them! He was a Ranger, the longest serving one in known history! How could he?! The fact that there were *two* shades of Pink in his energy was almost totally insulting! The bright Pink she didn’t mind, as it was the oldest, but the dark one! Why was it even there to begin with?!
“I feel so much better
Now that you’re gone forever
I tell myself that
I don’t miss you at all
I’m not lying, denying that I feel so much better
Now that you’re gone forever.”
With a calm that belied the fury she felt building in her system, she gently put down her stone, stood, and turned to Tommy as she closed her chakras. “Uncle Tommy? Shut down your chakras. Please.”
If Tommy was in his right mind at the time, he would have noticed the signs of a Yellow Tantrum. He had seen it enough in Trini, Aisha, Tanya, and especially Kira to recognize it in point oh oh seven seconds and formulate an escape plan. “Sure.” He did so, imagining his body was a large zipper and pulling it up to his head. As such, he was complexly unprepared for the vicious slap that lanced across his face. “What?!” He brought his hand up to his face, and discovered she had managed to break the skin with her bare hand.
“You unrepentant asshole!” Amanda roared, uncaring that she had just slapped one of the most powerful Rangers in existence. “How could you?! What in the name of Hel where you thinking?! You had a relationship that everyone dreams of and almost no one finds! And you do what?! She sends you a letter telling you it’s over, and you let her! You didn’t fight at all! What f*cking kind of Ranger are you?!”
“It was her decision!” Tommy yelled back, also rising to his feet, putting the stone down quickly. “I respected it!”
“It was a *wrong* decision, Tomas Sean Oliver! When your girlfriend makes such an obviously wrong decision, you fight it, you understand me?! What did you do when you got that letter?! You sat down and cried! Cried like a damned wussy Pink masquerading as a White! While understandable, you did *only* that! You were a f*cking Red by that point! The Red! Reds don’t give up! They fight! Hell, you fought every single moment of your early Ranger career! Did you give up when you lost the Green powers?! No! You kept going, nearly at the cost of your own life! And when you lost them permanently, you still fought! Zordon made you the first ever White Ranger! And after the loss of the Ninja powers, you fought and found the Zeo powers! And yet somehow, after all of that, *you gave up*! What the f*ck were you thinking?! You should have teleported your ass down to Florida and talked some sense into her and killed the shmuck she dumped you for, if in fact there was one! Daniel would never get away with that kind of shit with me!”
“I didn’t come here to be lectured, Yellow! I came here to talk to your Blue!”
“He was going to lecture you too, Dr. I-Can’t-Figure-Out-My-Color-and-Gave-in-Like-a-Pink-Masquerading-as-a-White! We were going to f*cking ambush you and beat some sense into you, Dr. Soon-to-be-First-Male-Pink! And by the way, you wanna know why you hooked up with Kat, such a *brilliant* idea as it was?! You looked at her and you saw *Pink*! That’s all you saw! She was Pink and in your stupid, idiotic, grief-filled mind, you saw Kimberly! YOU ARE STILL IN LOVE WITH HER, AND YOU F*CKED UP THE BEST THING YOU *EVER* HAD! NOW,” Amanda got up in his face and sank her nails into the cut. “YOU GET OUT OF MY HOME, AND DON’T YOU *DARE* COME BACK UNTIL YOU’VE GOTTEN BACK WITH KIMBERLY! AM I UNDERSTOOD?!” Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed the neck of his shirt and lifted him off the ground. Tommy, too shocked to fight back, was then unceremoniously thrown out the door. “*AM I UNDERSTOOD*?!” she shouted again.
“Y-yes?” Tommy said hesitantly.
“GOOD! AND JUST SO WE‘RE CLEAR, I AM *NOT* FALLING PREY TO THAT STARS-IN-MY-EYES-EVERYONE-SHOULD-HAVE-A-WONDERFUL-RELATIONSHIP-LIKE-I-DO-ROMANCE-IS-ALWAYS-IN-THE-AIR BULLSHIT!” With that , she slammed the door in his face.
Tommy sighed, stood, and dusted himself off. He should have seen it coming, was all he could think to himself. What else did he expect from a young woman who, in collusion with her best rival, had decided to hook him back up with his ex? And a Yellow at that. He shook his head and made a mental note to go to someone more sane to fix up his face… like Rita.
----
Back inside, Amanda was throwing around pillows in an attempt to bring her temper back under tenuous control. “That f*cking idiot,” she moaned, as she held the pillow Daniel used most tightly. “Stupid,” she muttered. With a shaky inhale, she began to cry and sing.
“On the ground I lay motionless, in pain
I can see my life flashing before my eyes
Did I fall asleep? Is this all a dream?
Wake me up. I’m living a nightmare
I will not die. I will survive
I will not die, I’ll wait here for you
I feel alive when you’re beside me
I will not die, I’ll wait here for you
In my time of dying.”
End.
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Post by J. T./Jessica on Jul 10, 2007 12:34:50 GMT -5
You heard my opinion earlier in the day, so you know that I think it's good...
But getting to sit down and read the whole thing, now you've made me start to wonder something that I never thought about before...
1. Were the Speed, Defense, Ptera Scream, phasing and invisiblity part of the DinoGems themselves and thus no Gems, no powers or were they genetic powers activated or granted by the DinoGems that the Dino Rangers retained even AFTER losing their powers? This was NEVER touched upon in PRDT...
2. In S.P.D. "History", Broodwing manages to re-energize the Red, Blue and Yellow Dino-Gems and Conner, Kira and Ethan used them in the future. Since they were from 2006, one year AFTER the Dino-Gems were de-powered, did they take the re-charged DinoGems back with them or leave them in the future? And what happened to the White and Black DinoGems between 2005 and 2025?
I don't know the answer to either set of questions, but you can bet that I'll now be thinking about them...
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Post by Enigma! on Jul 11, 2007 23:50:53 GMT -5
Daniel sat with his back to his old friend. "I'm sorry I can't bring her. You know how she gets about places like this..."
"The same you you used to get about places like this?" he replied.
"Yeah. You know, I'm really grateful for getting the Power. Now I have the strength - the ability to protect my friends."
"Especially Amanda."
"Yes. Especially her. And J.T., even though he rarely needs my help. Even though he's a major pain in my backside now and then, I don't want to lose him or anyone else I care about....
"... Not like I lost you."
"There was nothing you could do, Danny-boy. I was gone before even I was really aware of it."
"I still shoulda been there."
"You can't protect them from every thing."
The Blue DemonSpirit Ranger stood up, left the bouquet of flowers at his friend's feet and began to walk away. "You're right," Dan said as he left. "But I'll protect them from what I can."
With that, Daniel left the graveyard, and the ghost of his old friend returned to his resting place there.
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