Purple

Homecoming Woes Part Two

"...The records show a weather anomaly at that location less than five minutes before Billy's arrival." Alpha said, messing with buttons on a viewing screen that popped up in the center of the room. It was a Doppler radar showing exactly what he pointed out. One moment it was clear, and the next, suddenly dark spots indicating strange weather patterns that would disappear just a moment later.

"So... what? J was just sucked up in a tornado?" Zack shrugged, looking back and forth between everyone as he kicked his legs back and forth below him as he sat on the edge of the stairs overlooking the central chamber of the command center. Billy and the girls gave him an odd, almost offended look. He just met them with a sheepish laugh.

"What, it could happen."

Kim just gave Zack a little grimace and placed her arm around Billy, who then squirmed a bit. She forgot, he had issues with even simple touches like that. So she just wiped her hands on her jeans and continued.

"So what were you going up there for anyway?" She asked. She had no ill intentions but it was a question that still seemed a little too invasive to Billy.

"Why?" He asked point blank. Kim just blinked and thought of her response. She could tell she may have ruffled some feathers.

"Oh it's not... I just didn't know if maybe the reason you were going up there might have... attracted attention? Like... Donut craving monster attention?" She made a valid point. If it were just another person, Jason wouldn't have gone down without a fight. He'd be standing triumphantly with his bouquet of flowers, just with his boot on some thugs head. No, this was something more.

"Ay-yi-yi..." Alpha said, peering at the screen that had updated within the last few seconds. A sudden glowing, swirling red cloud on the radar. Heading straight for...

"Donut craving monsters, you say?" Trini hopped down from her perch. " I think you know what time it is."

The other three exchanged glances as they moved to their individual podiums, and before long the thick alien fibers were swirling around their skin, enveloping them like a slick armor.

Not long afterward they materialized downtown. It was... oddly quiet. Billy supposed not too quiet. Downtown was still a wreck, cranes and construction equipment everywhere. The Krispy Kreme had been rebuilt but its location had shifted slightly since there was still a matter of a giant gaping hole in the ground that the city council was still trying to figure out how to cover. Honestly the 'Krispy Kreme is the location of the Zeo Crystal' storyline was more of an inside joke now than anything. But still, it was all about location. He was sure the shop was killing it in sales with the influx of construction workers to the area.

But he wasn't here to muse on donuts. They were here to look for his boyfriend . Heh. Boyfriend. That was a fun word in his vocabulary. It rolled off his tongue in the weirdest way, but he enjoyed it. With each passing day, the idea that they might be able to live openly as a couple got him legitimately more excited. Not that Billy wasn't excitable any other way, but he'd never really thought about the prospect of a relationship before. And yet, here it was.

Well, not here here. Here was an empty street and a fog that was enveloping the half-developed buildings with a quickness he just could not explain.

"Holy Mist monsters, Batman." Zack quipped as he tightened his glove, preparing himself for anything.

"Do... you guys hear that?" Trini said, looking around as the fog slowly enveloped the rangers as well. They could barely see each other now. Just shapes and vague colors. The sound Trini questioned was a wailing in the wind, an insidious call to whomever was caught in the eerie fog. It could almost be a beautiful song if it weren't so damn unsettling.

"Uh... do you see..." Kim started to say, just nodding toward the approaching figure. She seemed to float through the wind, tattered wet dress both floating and dragging behind her. Suddenly the air felt tighter around all of them, as if this womanly creature was striking fear into their hearts and squeezing the air from their lungs.

Zack did not appreciate that.

He held out his arm and blue energy started to materialize from his suit into the shape of a bulky axe. And without much warning he charged like a wild bull.

"No wait!" Kimberly called out after him. Zack was always the impulsive one.

But suddenly, her bluish-black hair moved on its own. Grabbed the axe before it could fall on her. Then it started slowly wrapping around his body.

"In my day, knights did not come in such pretty colors." An eerie voice resonated through all of their heads. The woman's mouth didn't even move, her eyes stayed dead and unblinking, but her voice remained the same.

"A knight should know not to challenge a queen to a duel. Queens always win." The hair tightened around him. Zack couldn't even make a sound. Horrific laughter filled the air, almost as if her voice traveled in the wind, making it seemed like thousands of crazed women had surrounded them.

The jewel in the center of her forehead began to glow. And then with a bright blue light, her hair went limp. Zack was gone.

"So. Who is the next to challenge Madame Woe?"