A scream in the darkness.

Young Tommy opened his eyes and looked at the clock - the two hands were pointing to twelve. He strained his ears, listening out for something amiss - he could feel that something wrong.

“Mom?” he called, clutching his blanket up to his neck as his spine tingled.

Throwing his duvet off himself, he slid out of his bed and traversed the floor with his tiny feet, before he opened his bedroom door a fraction and peered into the hallway; “Mom?” he muttered again.

The hall was silent and still. There was nothing there.

The toddler’s brow furrowed - he knew he’d heard a scream, he was certain of it. Sliding out of his room, he padded into the hallway and watched the shadows on the wall, hearing the wind outside as it whistled against the window panes.

“Mom?” he called a little louder. There was still no reply.

The young boy walked on down the hall, approaching his mother’s bedroom; he leant against the white, closed door as he reached it, listening for anything beyond the threshold.

“Mum, are you okay?” he squeaked.

Silence.

Tommy stepped back a little, gaping; he felt sick deep down in his stomach. He knew that something had happened.

Reaching up for the handle, he pulled down on it and pushed the door open. The room was empty. The windows were wide open and the wind was rushing around the room, howling like a crazed werewolf, toppling everything in its path. A bedside lamp had been left astray, its bulb smashed on the floor, and the duvet on his mother’s bed was thrown over the other side of the room, coiled up like a sleeping serpent.

“Mom!” Tommy cried, rushing into the room, his small eyes studying every nook and cranny of the chamber, “Where are you? Where are you?!!”

“Where are you…?” Tommy murmured as he opened his eyes after another restless night’s sleep. He stared at the ceiling, heaving a great sigh - he had never seen his mother since. She had disappeared that night when he was but five years old and no one had ever found any trace of her.

He swallowed, rubbing his eyes and glancing at his alarm clock - it was five-thirty am. He shook his head and got up anyway, walking to the window and staring out at the world, still cloaked in a thin veil of darkness.

He had sat on his mother’s bed for the rest of the night after she’d gone, staring at the open window. Then his life had been thrown into chaos - with no known living relatives, he’d been passed into care, journeying from foster parent to foster parent, whilst the police searched for his missing mother, but came back with nothing. He would not accept that she had simply run away - she wouldn’t have, he was confident. Someone had taken her, or worse… but he had no idea why. He knew so little about his mother, and his memories were sketchy, seeing as he had been so young when she’d gone. He would never rest until he knew what had happened, and who was responsible for it…

* * * *

Ah, the joys of wedded life - the bliss, the happiness, the elation… Or rather the despair, the grief, the agony.

Zedd felt like bashing his head against a wall - he’d had an ongoing headache for the last week which was really starting to irritate him. And he thought that it was Rita who was meant to be prone to headaches.

Taking in a deep breath, he tried to refocus himself; he had been meditating - or at least trying to - every time he strove to do this lately, though, he seemed to simply lose focus and fall into reveries of the past. This wasn’t at all helpful.

The room was silent. These were his private quarters, which only he knew existed, buried deep within the cold, lowest barracks of his fortress. He sat cross-legged on a plain mat on the floor, the rest of the room around him being simply bare and dark. The thump of his heart was loudly audible in the void, as was the gushing of his blood round his outer conduits, and the rasping of his venomous breaths against the vents of his metallic cranium.

He took another deep breath as he slowly rose to his feet - his reputation was dwindling; he was the man at the centre of much controversy, and all this controversy converged upon one woman - Rita Repulsa.

He glanced at the ring on his finger and grinned deviously with his hidden lips. Everyone had been taken in by his charade. It had come with an immense cost to his reputation, and required some seriously heavy acting on his part, but, should things go accordingly, he would get what he wanted in the end. It should turn out to his advantage… It was all awfully degrading, but no one said it would ever be easy to get what you want in life.

Foolish Rita; did she really think that a puny potion made by that weakling Clayobian monster-maker, Finster, could put him, the mighty Lord Zedd, under her influence? He chuckled; he almost felt sorry for the gullible, naïve witch! She had waltzed right into his grasp, had trapped herself in his clutches; none of her meagre powers or feeble abilities would be able to break the invisible chains in which he held her. She was his to toy with, his to use for his own desires. She was blinded to the reality of her situation, now a mere puppet in Zedd’s despotic hands. She’d just failed to see the strings. The moment she had said ‘yes’ to wed him was the moment she’d sold him her soul. What would be a convenient saying here? ‘If you play with fire, you’re going to get burned’?

He gradually began to stretch his body out, little by little, warming up his muscles and increasing his heart rate for his routine drills. This was a daily practise for him - he had to remain constantly fit, in peak condition, so that he was ready for whatever challenges lay ahead.

He began to perform some somersaults, effortlessly flipping backwards and landing smoothly on his tri-dactyl feet, before he began to work his way through several intense martial-art combos, punching, kicking and slicing the air’s invisible flesh around him.

His mind drifted onto other things - in contrast to the frankness with which the universe had taken his marriage, he’d once said something that no one in his presence, not even himself, had really taken much need of. Even now, he wasn’t sure from whence the motivation had come to suggest such.

The words had just rolled off his tongue naturally at the time, without him even thinking about them. That chance, of course, had now passed, since he had reclaimed his Green Dragon Power Coin, and the Green Ranger had become the White, but still…

The words he had said echoed around his chrome skull, haunting him as he practised. What could possibly have possessed him to say that? Why would he want a human (even if he had once been Rita‘s ally) as his next of kin?

Why had destiny made Rita select Tommy to be the Green Ranger? He had not been the only person on Earth who’d possessed the expertise and the qualities necessary to use the Green Power Coin and take on Zordon’s Power Rangers…

Why had fate made Tommy so good at being so evil under the spells of Rita Repulsa? Zedd was adamant that it took more than just the influence of spells to bring out such evil as that which Tommy displayed as the Green Ranger. Darkness that fervent came from the heart; it was instinct, it came naturally.

Why had destiny made him, Lord Zedd, concentrate so hard on penetrating Tommy’s link with the Power team? Was there a reason he had wanted to convert Tommy to his side? Where had that urge come from? Humanity was below him; why would he want a specimen of their pathetic, worthless race on his team? Why?

He belted the air with an impressive tornado kick, fuelled by a cocktail of frustration, anger and irritation as he quizzed himself, searching his mind for answers. He followed this with several back-flips before he landed gracefully on his hands and feet, crouched low like a feral cat ready to pounce.

“Indeed,” he hissed, “Why…?”