Tangled Triangles Events: Zedd and Scorpina give in to temptation and make love when they are alone in the palace. Suddenly, Goldar is then killed, Zedd captured by Dregon, and Scorpina has to flee. Rita and Dregon’s full plot becomes apparent to Zedd and his own plan - to use Rita to beget his heir - is thrown into disarray (or has it begun to become apparent that Rita cannot have children? Vile planned to use his daughter to beget Zedd‘s heir, then use this child in his game to usurp the Nimian empire). Scorpina comes to Zedd’s rescue and Dregon is killed (Or badly injured?).

Rita pleas to Zedd to forgive her, telling him that she hadn’t wanted to go along with Dregon’s plan for some time now and he had forced it all upon her. Zedd is weak and uncertain. The validity of his marriage is also in question, seeing as Finster performed the ceremony and has now been unveiled as a traitor. The staunchest members of Zedd’s Empire still refuse to except it, anyway.

Rita looked wearily ahead whilst two candles burned on her desk, dully illuminating her chamber. Fresh tears ran slowly down her cheeks, her face now having been sodden by her misery and guilt for some time. Suddenly, she heard the door behind her creak open. Turning, hands clasped nervously on the arms of her chair, she looked up and set her eyes upon the form of he who was both her husband and Emperor.

The two stared at each other, a cold silence hanging between them. Rita swallowed, feeling one of her tears fall from her face onto he hand.

After a drawn out moment, Zedd finally made a move - he opened his arms to Rita.

The sorceress almost fainted with relief and she exhaled in joy.

“Come here,” Zedd said quietly, watching Rita stumble weakly toward him before he embraced her.

“I thank you, my Lord,” she cried, clutching him tightly about his waist, “I thank you!”

Zedd stared over her head at the wall as he gently rubbed her back, “You were always a loyal servant before all this,” he said, “A trusting and devoted servant.”

“And I’ll now be a loyal wife, I promise,” she whimpered, tears running down her cheeks and onto his chest, “I love you, Zedd, and I’ll be a good wife to you.”

Zedd lowered his head to the side of hers, running his hand over her back; “I’m sorry, Rita,” he whispered candidly, “It’s too late.”

Rita’s eyes widened in horror, “What?” she spluttered.

She saw Zedd make a slight gesture with his hand and two of his Nimian soldiers came up behind him, flanking him either side. They both stared at her with their snakelike eyes, looking like things from the netherworld in the dull light.

“No, my Lord!” she yelled in terror, gripped by panic as the two soldiers took a hold of her by each arm and dragged her from out of his grasp, “No, please!”

She dropped to her knees and clutched vainly at his feet, “Please, Zedd! I’m sorry! Please don’t do this! Please! I‘m sorry, you know I am! Don‘t send me away again!”

The Emperor didn’t even look at her; “You are exiled from service in my Empire forever,” he decreed, “And if you ever make an attempt toward toppling me or any of my dominions again, you are under warrant to be killed. Return to your home world where you may be allowed to live alone and isolated, out of my sight, and where I may never have the misfortune of seeing you again.”

He turned as his soldiers dragged her away, screaming; “No, Zedd!” she shrieked after him, “Please NOOOOOO!!!”

“I have spoken,” he muttered as Rita’s screams echoed back to him down the corridors, getting further and further away, but no less painful.

It was done.

* * * *

“No, my lord! No!”

Scorpina cringed as she heard her Queen carted away, her agonising cries resonating about the walls of the palace. Never before had she felt so torn; Rita Repulsa, the woman she had counted as one of her greatest friends, had betrayed their Emperor by conspiring against him with one of his worst enemies - yet she, Scorpina, in turn had betrayed Rita by bedding her husband, even if he was only her husband through her own machinations, and this ‘husband’ had been caught in the middle of it all, fully aware of the actions of both parties, but failing in his mission to turn Rita’s ambitions against her, and almost slaughtered in the process because of his own miscalculations.

The entire situation was a complex, almost farcical mess.

Now, Zedd had the Earth, but he was himself weak. Once he had recovered from this fatigue though, through another hastened rejuvenation, he’d have to rectify things in his Empire and sort out his own life again. Rita Repulsa was pretty much out of the picture, whether or not she did as she was told… she should at least count herself lucky for not winding up in a dumpster for the third time. The Emperor had much more reason to imprison her now than ever before, yet he had found some compassion within himself not to…

Scorpina shook her head - Zedd was a fool when he chose to be.

But what now? Who was left of their original ‘band’? Her and Zedd, if you didn’t include Squatt and Baboo, two lowlifes who seemed to have absconded with Rito Revolto, who himself was injured deeply by his ‘brother-in-law’s’ [murder] of his father, Master Vile, and the exile of his sister, Rita.

“The Emperor and the Scorpion once again,” she sighed.

“Indeed,” Zedd returned from behind her, making her jump.

She wheeled about to face him, a hand to her chest, “Why do you do that?” she said.

He shrugged, a combined weariness and solemnity about his self.

She exhaled slowly and walked over to him, taking his arm in her grasp and leaning onto him, “We are all that’s left…” she whispered, “What’s happened here?”

“Life,” he replied.

There was a brief pause before Scorpina continued; “Why didn’t you imprison Rita?” she asked.

He looked down, “You’d have me do that?”

“No,” she hastily returned, “I’m just curious.”

He shook his head, “I couldn’t… I know she loved me, and I just couldn’t…”

“You’re going soft in your old age.”

He scoffed coldly, shaking his head once more, “Am I?”

Placing her hand on the side of his face, she tilted it about to face her, frowning all the time as she picked up on an irregularity in his tone; “My Lord…what’s wrong?”

He placed his hand over hers and drew it away, “I don’t know. I feel uneasy.”

“You’re bound to, so much has happened lately.”

“And you? What are you feeling?”

Scorpina looked down - it was strange for someone to ask her what she felt. People rarely did.

“I feel empty,” she murmured, “Dark and empty, filled with a great hollow. I also feel confused and a little weary.”

He nodded rigidly, seeming to relate, “You’ve hit the nail on the head, so to speak.”

He rose his left hand before him and pulled his ring off his finger before tossing it over the balcony. Scorpina watched him with a little surprise, seeing the sparkle of the ring as it tumbled out and down toward the moon’s surface.

She looked back at him, brow furrowed.

“The story of my life,” he murmured with another shrug.

“So what now?” she whispered, “What do you want now?”

“An end.”

“What to?”

“This never-ending struggle, this… ‘war‘. It’s not over - far from it - all we’ve managed to do is give ourselves a breather whilst the Power Rangers hurtle through time, and Rita and her company hide in the shadows…” He shook his head, “I feel like I haven’t slept for years, and I won’t feel at rest until I am either the victor of these damned conflicts, or dead.”

“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that… it’s depressing.”

“It’s the gods-damned truth.”

The scorpion warrior made another sigh, “You’re like Goldar in that respect - grimly realistic.”

“May the Dragon help me if I’m similar to him.”

She threw him a glare, “There’s nothing wrong with being like him.”

He gave her his blank stare; “No... maybe not,” he shrugged, “Just please tell me you’re not going to be like Rita...”

Scorpina took her helmet from off of her head and shook her long, black tresses out behind her, “No,” she said, “I don’t think so.”

He nodded rigidly, “Why are we acting like this? Like we’re simply Emperor and subordinate again?” He stepped right up to her, leaving little short of half a metre between them. Scorpina stepped back a little, eyeing him carefully.

“Did we not make love the other night? Was that for no reason?”

She looked down, smiling, “We’re tired, Zedd… we all need a rest.”

“ ‘We all’?” he scoffed, “And who constitutes this ‘all’? There’s only me and you left.”

She smiled again, “Yes…” she sighed with a nod, “My mistake.”

He stared at her for a while, following the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she breathed and the flutter of her eyelashes as she blinked; “Scorpina,” he said, a strange mildness edging his deep and rough tone.

She looked up to him once more, “Yes?” she muttered.

He ran his hand up her arm and rested it by her neck, ”I love you.”

Her stomach seemed to flip at his words and she stared at him, half gaping, for a long time; he’d never said those simple words to her, much less anyone else, before, and they hit her like a bolt from the blue. Zedd was, in general, a sarcastic and cynical man, often both mocking and sardonic, and, therefore, as you’d expect, he was rarely clear and straight to the point. When he was, however, you knew it, and the sheer rarity of it all bolstered its meaning tenfold.

She stroked his hand slowly, “I love you, too.”

She was sure he smiled beneath his metallic exterior, though it was a simple guess that he did; she felt his thumb rub her skin and he stepped as close as he could get to her, holding her into him, “Give me an heir, Scorpina…” he murmured, “Your love and an heir.”

She listened to his heart pound as she lay her head against his breast, placing her hands about his waist and holding him in return, “Yes, my lord,” she whispered.

“I’d prefer ‘yes, my husband‘,” he said.

She drew back sharply.

“You will marry me?” he asked her.

“Marry you?”

“Yes.”

She swallowed, trying to comprehend the sheer magnitude of wedding a warlord like Zedd; it’d please her father, no doubt, but she, a subordinate? A nobody in the eyes of the aristocracy?

“I can bring your family nothing…” she said meekly, “I am nothing.”

“You’re the woman I love and that’s all that I care about. I’m fed up of the rules of marriage in this universe’s nobility - the only rules I play by are my own.” He looked down on her earnestly, “Please tell me you’ll be my wife. Come back to my homeworld with me once I am fully rejuvenated, become my empress in the eyes of my people in a true and proper ceremony. Be my queen, my partner, and mother to my children… providing I can still have any.”