Disclaimer: This is the latest fic in my Missing Medley Series. However, it is not related to either Missing Blue, Missing Pink, or Missing White. Totally unrelated, and an extremely different concept. I'm ashamed to say that it was inspired by the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It is a WONDERFUL story, and if you are taking a high school or college Lit course, there's a good chance this story is in your thirty-pound textbook. Look it up and read it. It's fascinating. But, this isn't a repeat of that. This was just inspired by "The Yellow Wallpaper." Anyhow, I've gotten off track, so I'd like to thank Mrs. Gilman for writing such a wonderful short story, and Mr. Saban for providing me with these Power Rangers and their related concepts that I am using without permission. This is set way back, before the Green Ranger even joined the team. There is room for a sequel, yet this is also a complete fic in and of itself. If you'd like to a sequel, then let me know, and I may consider it.
By Jeremy Ray Logsdon
"Billy, look at this," Trini sighed, pulling the thin painting from the box it was contained in.
"It's… different," he commented, looking at the painting. It seemed to border both abstract and landscape. The background was a beautiful mountain range. A gorgeous lake was before the mountain, holding a reflection of the mountain and the trees around it. There were two trees in the foreground that were to the very right and very left, essentially framing the scene. However, at that point, the scenery ended and the abstract began. There was a man, wearing overalls and a white t-shirt, standing beside the lake. Near him were nine gray forms. They looked like silhouettes and were absolutely featureless.
"They look like putties," Trini whispered, touching one of them.
"Hey, look at this," Billy commented. "There are two different signatures here. This one in the tree, K. Anderson, and another, beneath that guy by the lake, M. R."
"I guess two people painted it," Billy mused.
The old woman who was running the Flea Market booth walked up to them. "Do you know what a round robin is?" she asked.
Trini shook her head no, and the woman continued, "It is when a project is undertaken with many contributors. Each person is allowed to add something to the project, and the person following them has to work around what the person before them added. This was actually painted by eight different people. See, there is a name here in the clouds, L. Z., and many more than are almost discernible unless you know where to look."
"Why wasn't it finished?" Billy asked.
"Montgomery Roberts, the man who painted the only human in the scene, disappeared. The address of where the painting was to be sent next was never found, and the painting ended up in my attic. It has rested there for the past thirty years."
"Do you know Mr. Roberts?" Trini asked.
"Yes, I do," the woman smiled, a bit sadly. "He was my father."
"You're selling this?" Billy asked.
"Yes sir," she answered. "I'd rather not have it in my home any longer."
"How much?" Trini asked, opening her purse to remove her billfold.
"Twenty dollars, and it's your's."
"Done," Trini said with a smile.
"I think it's fascinating," Trini said to herself, stepping back to examine it.
"I think it's creepy," her little sister, Ashley, commented. "Just too weird."
"I'm inclined to agree," Billy murmured, more to himself than Trini.
"What do you mean?" Trini asked. "You don't like it?"
"It would be okay if it weren't for those gray things," Billy said. "It's just not right."
"Maybe I'll fill them in," Trini mused. "You know what, I think I will. Paint some people in here… C'mon, Billy. Let's go get some paints."
Trini didn't get started painting until the next morning. She woke up with the sun, determined to finish the picture. "Oil paints," she said, "paintbrushes, thinner… I've got everything." She touched one of the gray figures, and a bizarre sensation filled her.
"I wonder if it would be arrogant to put myself in this painting," she mused. She briefly considered just filling in the gray humanoids with the landscape so as to hide them. However, she now had an urge to put people in them.
There was one figure in particular that seemed to be speaking to her. It was just a gray silhouette wading at the edge of the lake, but there were some details that were distinguished. The figure she was looking at was fairly tall and slender with a small waist. Long hair, currently gray, blew out behind the humanoid. "That could be me so easily," she said softly. "Well, it's not like I'm painting this for anyone but myself." She quickly mixed paint in a shade fairly close to her own skin tone, and began to paint.
Beep beep beepbeep beep beep. Trini paused in her painting. Her figure was nearly finished, but there were a few things still missing. With a heavy sigh, she raised her yellow communicator to her mouth. "What?" she grumped.
"Uh, Trini, we need you at the Command Center," Alpha said, somewhat startled at her rude tone.
"For what?" she asked.
"Goldar and the Putties are in the park!"
"Are the others there?" she asked, contempt coloring her voice.
"Well, yes, but-"
"Then don't call me again unless you need to make the MegaZord," Trini huffed. She took off her communicator and tossed it onto her dresser. "I'm busy," she sighed to herself.
A few minutes later, she was finished. "I didn't even know I could paint," she commented, standing back to look at the picture as a whole. "It's like a photograph."
Even though there were eight gray silhouettes left, she still wanted to sign the photo. She dipped her thinnest brush in dark blue paint, and painted a T in the waters of the lake. It was barely discernible, and only noticeable if you knew what to look for. Since the other signatures were faint, she felt that her's should be too. She dipped the brush back in the blue, and touched the brush to the canvas again.
"We need Trini!" Zack cried, unleashing a spray of liquid nitrogen from Mastodon's trunk.
"We can't form the MegaZord without her!" Kimberly agreed.
"I'll go get her!" Billy volunteered. "Backing out!" He quickly returned Triceratops to her hiding place and disappeared from the cockpit in a column of royal blue light.
He rematerialized in Trini's empty bedroom. "Trini?" he asked quietly. Her paint supplies were left out. None of her brushes had been cleaned, and the paint drying on them was rapidly making them worthless. He stepped around her easel, and saw that she had painted herself into the portrait. A near-photo-quality image of Trini Kwan was standing at the edge of the lake. She had her head cocked and was standing in calf-deep water. "Trini?" he asked again. Then, he saw it.
Her yellow Power Morpher lay before the easel.
The Kwans' filed a missing person's report twenty-four hours later. Angela Watson, Zack's love interest, was enlisted to take Trini's place on the team. While the entire team took her bizarre disappearance hard, Billy took it the hardest.
A week passed before a thought occurred to Billy. He had been so caught up in his grief that he didn't make a remarkably simple connection. The woman at the flea market had told him her father disappeared after painting himself into the painting.
"It's not really possible, is it?" Billy asked himself. Using his communicator, he teleported into her bedroom. The door was locked, ensuring Billy his privacy provided he was quick. Little had been changed. The painting was placed in a cardboard box, along with all of her paints and supplies. Picking up the box, he teleported away.
He rematerialized in his lab. "I wonder if I have the equipment here to scan the painting?" he asked himself as he removed it from the box. However, as soon as he touched it, a different thought occurred to him. He propped the painting up against the counter, and rummaged through the box. He quickly found Trini's palette, as well as an unused paint brush. He quickly mixed up a shade of brown, using the skin of his forearm as a guide.
"I'll just paint myself in," he said softly. "There surely isn't any harm in that…"