See my first fanfic – 'Welcome to the Saga' – for disclaimer.

Divided We Fall
Chapter Five
By Peter J. Smith

Outside of Caloundra, in an out-of-the-way place, the ground began to shake, and soon, the Earth had split apart. First to rise from the ground was the mighty Tyrannozord, and with a roar, it took several earth-shattering steps and began the trek inland. Immediately after that, the Mastodon and the Triceratops both rose to the surface side-by-side, and right behind them emerged the Sabre Toothed Tiger and the Pterodactyl.

"Let's do it!" cried Jason, and he leapt into the air and teleported into his fast approaching zord. "Tyrannozord, online!"

The other four rangers followed his lead, immediately teleporting into their respective zords and initiating the Megazord sequence. Trini's and Billy's zords instantly drew side by side and connected with the Tyrannozord. Then, the Tyrannozord's head dropped down behind it's chestplate, revealing the Megazord's head. Simultaneously, the Pterodactyl and Mastodon morphed and were drawn towards the Tyrannozord. Finally, as each of the Rangers was teleported into the Megazord's control room, the Triceratops and Sabre Toothed Tiger rolled to a stop, and the Megazord was launched vertical.

"Megazord, power up!" cried the rangers, and with eyes flashing, the Megazord stood tall over the surrounding buildings, ready for battle.

"Time for dragonzord," said Tommy down below, and raising the dragon-dagger to his lips, he played the tune that he knew would summon the giant metal beast from the sea. Sure enough, within seconds, the Dragonzord had risen from the waves and had begun to thunder towards the battleground. Finally, it reached the Megazord, and with a savage roar, it turned and faced Ultramarine.

Ultramarine laughed, a dry hoarse laugh, not realising just how powerful his two opponents were.

"Oh please," he grunted, raising his wrist blades in preparation for the fight, "haven't you learnt yet? I am invincible."

"We'll see about that," replied Jason acidly inside the Megazord. "You attack our town, terrorise a fellow ranger and destroy his zord. It's payback time, buddy. Let's do it guys. Charge!" And with fists raised, and several prayers muttered from those sitting within, the Megazord charged towards Ultramarine, the stage set for a colossal battle.

The town shook as the Megazord raced towards its opponent, but Ultramarine was ready, immediately slashing at the Megazord's head with his right wrist blade. The Megazord ducked under the blade, but Ultramarine swung his left – the Megazord blocked the attack and batted away the blade with a metallic clang, before sending Ultramarine stumbling with three rapid strikes to his chest armour. Ultramarine recovered quickly and with an angry growl, retracted his wrist blades and charged the Megazord, striking it with a flurry of left and right hooks. The Megazord stood firm, and it caught Ultramarine's fist in midair, knocked it away and sent him crashing back through an accounting firm with a kick to the stomach. Ultramarine quickly got back to his feet, and his shoulder cannon roared to life, laser blasts smashing into the front of the Megazord, sending it back in an explosion of sparks and smoke.

"Not so easy, is it?" boomed Ultramarine.

"Whoa," said Billy, as showers of sparks rained down on the five rangers struggling to maintain control of the zord, "that did some damage."

"Yeah, this guy is tough," said Zac.

"Tommy," called Jason into the radio, "we took a hit and we need time to reboot."

"Dragonzord's got you covered," replied the Green Ranger.

The mighty Dragonzord stepped forward, and raising its hands, the zord immediately fired a barrage of missiles at its opponent. The missiles all found their target, smashing into Ultramarine's chest and stomach armour, but Ultramarine shrugged off the attack and charged forward, immediately landing several blows on Dragonzord's chestplate. He stepped back, extended his right wrist blade, and swung it at the zord's stomach, but Dragonzord quickly jumped back, dodging the attack. Ultramarine leapt forward and raised his left arm, but Dragonzord swatted away his fist before smashing him back.

Now recovered, the Megazord charged forward to take up the attack, striking Ultramarine with a roundhouse punch. Ultramarine staggered back, shook his head to clear the ringing in his ears, before slashing at the zord with his right blade. But the zord moved fast and easily dodged the blade. Ultramarine paused for a second, before racing forward and knocking the Megazord back with a high kick. He then spun around to face Dragonzord, but he wasn't prepared for an attack, and the zord blasted Ultramarine back. The blue warrior recovered and charged forward, but Dragonzord stood its ground, and spinning around on the spot, its drill weapon smashed into Ultramarine's helmet, knocking him to the ground.

"Nice one Dragonzord," murmured Zac.

With a cry of rage, Ultramarine leapt to his feet and with both blades suddenly extended, rapidly slashed at Dragonzord. The zord leapt back, but not in time, and the tips of the blades cleaved right through the zord's chest armour. Amazingly, the zord remained standing, but the Megazord charged to its defense, smashing Ultramarine away. Ultramarine stumbled back but recovered fast, and ducking under a right roundhouse punch, he plowed both fists into the Megazord's stomach. The Megazord bashed away Ultramarine's hands, before a powerful right backhand knocked him off his feet and sent him crashing to the ground.

"Whoa," exclaimed Kim, as Dragonzord walked over to the Megazord, "we must be getting to him."

Billy nodded. "Yep. He's definitely getting weaker."

"Well let's not stop now," said Jason, and both zords charged forward to continue the assault.

~*~

We figured Goldar would've taken Aaron as far away from the looming fight as he could. We also had a desire to be somewhere else very quickly, so we ran as fast as we could down the deserted road, past the city library and towards Sunland. A row of now-abandoned shops and apartment buildings lined the road – these were the group of buildings that we'd seen Goldar disappear into.

"I don't see them," said Teresa worriedly, scanning the buildings as we all ran towards them with arms pumping and legs pounding the pavement.

"Well they've got to be here somewhere," replied Sarah.

I held up my hand, signaling for everyone to stop. "We have to find him
fast," I said, "so we'll need to split up. Everyone pick a building and check it out. If you find them, let the rest of us know," and I tapped my wrist communicator. "And if Goldar corners you, just scream like hell."

"Gotcha," nodded Teresa, "let's do it!" And with that, the five of us turned and split up. We had to get to Aaron, we had to get to him now, and time was not on our side.

~*~

Goldar threw Aaron to the ground, and he landed with a painful crash in the corner of the small, dingy little room.

"All right ranger," he began menacingly, standing over Aaron with a fierce expression, as Aaron slowly crawled to his feet, "you've got one last chance to save your worthless hide," and he held up Aaron's power coin. "Tell me where your Command Centre is!" he demanded.

Aaron cleared his head and glared venomously at the golden warrior. "I don't think so," he answered coldly, "because with that coin you'll be able to teleport straight in there."

Goldar growled angrily. "I'm running out of patience human. I admire your courage but it makes you a fool. Tell me now and save yourself!"

Aaron set his jaw, and bravely took a step forward, clearly not afraid of Goldar but knowing exactly what the consequences of his actions would be. "Go to hell Goldar," he spat at him.

This was all Goldar would take. "Well then," Goldar said, barely controlling the rage that was building up inside him, "I have no use for you. None at all." And with that, he raised his sword above his head, and Aaron shut his eyes, preparing for the blow that would strike off his head. "'This is it dude,' he heard a voice inside his head say, "'live like a hero, die like one.'

All of a sudden, there came a tremendous crash from behind the wall to the left of Aaron, and the whole wall exploded inwards, bricks and chunks of stone flying into the room and forcing both Aaron and Goldar to duck for cover. Finally, when the rain of debris had ended, they both turned to try and work out what had just happened, only to see a tall, orange-costumed figure standing silhouetted in the light from the gaping hole.

"Back off Goldar," I said, and leaping into the room with my Power Sword raised, I dropped down in between Goldar and Aaron, shielding Aaron from any possible attacks from Goldar, who by now had quite considerably backed off.

"Hey," I said, turning around to my friend, "you all right?"

"Been better," came Aaron's reply. "But I think I'll survive."

I turned back to Goldar, raised my sword defensively and angrily spoke. "Forget it Goldar – it's all over. Ultramarine is about to bite the bullet big time and the others are all on their way. There's no way you can win." I took a menacing step forward. "It's over," I repeated.

Smiling evilly, Goldar held up the golden Parasaurolophus power coin, and it sparkled in the light from the hole in the wall.

"Not yet," he said. "Not by a longshot."

~*~

Dragonzord lashed out again and again with its fists, each slash causing Ultramarine more damage to his blue armour. He tried to keep up with his adversary, but it seemed as if the zord was getting faster, while he himself was slowing down. Trying a different approach, he ducked back for a second, before leaping forward and smashing his fist into Dragonzord's head. With a roar, the zord staggered back, but it instantly recovered and charged Ultramarine, blocking his attacks and then slamming him back. Ultramarine stumbled backwards, and he tripped over a row of apartments and crashed to the ground. Even as Ultramarine staggered back to his feet, the Green Ranger's zord continued the attack, raising its hands and firing several rounds of missiles at the warrior – the dozens of projectiles smashed into Ultramarine, and where before he had merely shrugged them off, the force of the blast now lifted him off his feet and sent him flying.

"Wow," mumbled Trini, as their opponent slowly staggered to his feet. "Ten minutes ago that attack didn't do anything at all to him."

"Well I say we finish him off once and for all," said Tommy into his communicator, down below.

"Couldn't agree more," nodded Jason, and raising his arm to the sky, he cried, "I call upon the power of Titanus!"

As Ultramarine slowly regained his bearings, he felt the ground begin to shake, and he realised that he was in trouble. With a savage primeval roar, the mighty silver carrier zord known as Titanus burst onto the scene, punching right through several low hills in the distance and powering towards the other zords. As the mammoth brachiosaur-shaped zord approached, its tail immediately split apart and formed Titanus's two huge shoulder cannons.

"I'm not afraid of that big tin can," smirked Ultramarine, in an effort to mask his fear.

"Really?" asked Jason with an innocent smile. "You should be. Titanus, fire!"

Titanus immediately obeyed the command, and its shoulder cannons fired two massive blasts of energy. The blasts slammed straight into Ultramarine, and in an explosion of sparks and fire, the warrior was lifted off his feet and sent flying through the air, right over houses, apartment buildings and finally the beach, before coming down with a splash in Pumicestone Passage, sending huge foamy waves surging up the beach and onto the road. Slowly, painfully, Ultramarine got to his feet – huge chunks of his chest armour had been ripped away by that one singular shot, but his mind refused to believe that he was in danger – he was an unstoppable force of nature, how could he be in mortal danger?

"No," he cried, staggering towards the shore, kicking up huge waves with each footstep, "this is not possible. I am invincible!"

"Let's take this egomaniac down," smiled Zac nastily. "Ultrazord, power up!"

The Megazord turned to face Dragonzord and found that the zord had already split, each half swinging out horizontally. The Megazord's crown and shoulders quickly repositioned themselves, and the two halves of the Dragonzord lowered themselves down onto the Megazord amid flashes of lightning from a suddenly cloudy sky. Finally, this combined mass of zords turned to the approaching Titanus, and leaping up, it dropped down into the back of the mighty carrier zord. The Ultrazord had formed.

"Ultramarine," began Jason coolly, watching as his enemy backed away from the Ultrazord, "this is for every single one of your victims, something that should have happened a very, very long time ago. Lock on, and fire!"

The targeting systems within the colossal zord locked onto the retreating figure of Ultramarine, and the dozens of laser cannons that equipped the zord all simultaneously roared to life – a massive energy blast exploded from the front of the zord, and the barrage of laser blasts and fireballs crossed the battleground and slammed fairly and squarely into Ultramarine, the sheer force of the blast instantly lifting him off his feet and throwing him through the air.

"NO!" he screamed, but it was too late – an immense fireball enveloped the blue warrior, and Ultramarine was torn apart in a cataclysmic explosion that lit up the beach and reverberated throughout the city, cracking windows and shaking buildings all across Caloundra.

"All right!" exclaimed Jason, as Titanus roared victoriously, turning and giving Billy and Zac high fives. "Now that he's been taken care of, let's go find the others, and just hope that we're not too late."

~*~

"All right Goldar," I said, trying to remain calm, "just give us back the power coin."

"Why?" he retorted, edging closer and closer to the hole in the wall, realising that I could never prevent him from leaving, grab the coin and protect Aaron all at the same time.

"Because if you do," I said slowly, stalling for time, "then you might just make it out of here alive."

"Who's going to stop me? You?" he asked, contemptuously. Without warning, the shockwave from Ultramarine's destruction hit the building, and it began to shudder slightly, the vibrations throwing up clouds of dust.

"No, us," came a voice, and suddenly, Sarah, Teresa, Brendan and Scott were standing in the doorway, each armed with their Power Weapons.

"You hear that, Goldar?" continued Brendan. "That was Ultramarine. Dying a very messy death. Now, unless you want the same fate, I'd suggest you play nicely."

Now outnumbered and outgunned, Goldar backed up and found himself in a very literal corner. He was in trouble, and although he found it hard to believe that Ultramarine had been destroyed, something told him that we were telling the truth. But suddenly, an idea occurred to him, and despite being confronted on all sides, in one last defiant evil act he grinned evilly, held up the power coin in his right palm and closed his fingers around it.

"No!" cried Aaron behind me, and I leapt forward, but I was too late. In a second, Goldar had completely crushed Aaron's Parasaurolophus Power Coin in his palm, reducing the coin to powder. And as he opened his hand and the golden specks fell to the ground, thunder rumbled and lightning struck down from the heavens, signifying the tremendous shift of power within the morphing grid. Then, with one final evil laugh, Goldar teleported away.

~*~

There was a somber mood in the Command Centre later that day. Of course, we were quite happy and proud of our efforts in defeating Ultramarine, and the complete and utter obliteration of Rita's army of putties, in which Aaron had played a key role, was certainly cause for celebration. But somehow, the negatives overwhelmed the positives – Aaron had lost his zord in battle, his power coin had been destroyed and therefore, he could no longer be a Power Ranger.

"The aqua power itself remains trapped within the morphin' grid," explained Zordon to the twelve of us, "but as both Aaron's power coin and zord were destroyed, there is no way for him to reach that power and use it." Zordon paused sadly, and looked down directly at Aaron. "I'm truly sorry Aaron," he said softly. "If I'd known how things were going to turn out…"

"Hey, don't worry," interrupted Aaron with a sad but reassuring smile. "It wasn't your fault Zordon. You couldn't have known how things would turn out."

"Yeah, well we should've got back from the Dark Dimension sooner," said Brendan.

"Don't blame yourself," said Aaron, spinning around to him. "Things like this just happen. It was no-one's fault. And it was good while it lasted, but all good things have to come to an end, right?"

There was an uncomfortable silence then, but oddly enough, the one who seemed most at ease was Aaron. I didn't have to use any mental powers to figure out that everyone felt pretty badly. He was our friend, and a pretty close one at
that – heck, we'd fought evil interplanetary demons alongside him and travelled to other solar systems with him. And then, all these terrible things happened to him that we'd been powerless to prevent, and we wanted nothing more that to give him a hug and tell him how much we appreciated him, but we couldn't. We didn't know what to say, and just didn't know how to comfort him.

The silence was broken as Aaron walked forward, unclipped his wrist communicator and placed it on the bench.

"Alpha," he said, turning to the robot, "can you please teleport me out of here? For the last time."

Alpha nodded, and silently turned to the control panel. As for us, we were in a state of shock. Speechless and unmoving. Even the senior rangers, who'd had to deal with this kind of situation before, were stunned, never believing that to win a battle one of their own had had to lose so much.

Jason regained his senses, and stepped forward. "Aaron," he began with a smile, extending a hand which Aaron promptly shook, "what can I say? You've been an absolute champion."

"You too. I couldn't imagine ever working under a better leader."

Jason stepped aside, and I walked forward. "Aaron, I always thought you were the greatest, and as a Power Ranger, you proved it." I paused, and looked into his eyes. "Bad things must just happen to good people."

His eyes twinkled and he laughed. "Don't I know it." Then, he reached down into his shirt pocket, pulled out a folded sheet of paper and handed it to me. "I was going to tell you about this sooner, but I never got around to it and now it seems like a moot point."

I took the paper from him, and he stepped back and looked up at Zordon.

"Thanks for everything, Zordon," he said, and Zordon smiled. "Now stay cool."

Then, he turned back to us, and with a warm smile and a final wave, he disappeared in a bright aqua blur, and teleported back to Caloundra.

"You'll be sorely missed bud," I murmured to no-one in particular, before unfolding the sheet of paper and beginning to skim read through it.

"Aaron's loss is indeed devastating," began Zordon, as everyone tried to come to terms with everything that had just happened. "We're one ranger down, and Rita knows it. Brendan, from now on, you will have to take Aaron's place in the team. We will modify the Dilophozord so that it will be able to combine with the other zords to form the Megazord."

"I think I'm up for it," replied Brendan with a nod.

"Whoa," I stuttered, still reading the paper, and everyone turned towards me.

"What is it?" asked Trini.

"It's a letter," I replied, "from Aaron's uncle up north. According to this, his uncle has to move overseas, so he's passing the family business over to Aaron's mother. Which means that Aaron has to move back up north."

There was a stunned silence. Scott gave a low whistle.

"Why didn't he tell us?" wondered Teresa.

"Well you better go find him," said Jason.

I nodded. "You're right. Alpha, can you teleport me out of here?"

~*~

I had a feeling that I knew where Aaron would be, so I had Alpha teleport me unmorphed directly into the Youth Centre. Walking out of the deserted locker-room, I saw that I'd been right – there was Aaron, sitting in the corner and drowning his sorrows in a can of coke. I walked over, grabbed a chair and sat down at his table. Surprised, he looked up, but seeing me, he smiled.

"Hey," he said.

"We read the letter," I said simply. "We all understand."

"Thanks," he replied sincerely, and then paused, his mood changing. "Well, so much for a happy ending, right?"

"Hey," I said, "don't look too sad."

"Why not?" he asked. "I lost my powers. I let you guys down. I let the seniors down and I let Zordon down." He paused with a long, sad sigh. "And I guess that I even let myself down. I always thought that I'd be a ranger forever, and that I'd save the world and defeat the bad guys. You know, all that kind of stuff. Well, there goes that dream."

I smiled, and motioned for him to look at me, which he did. And as I spoke, I stared right at Aaron, and to him at least, it was like I was staring right through him, into his soul.

"Aaron," I said. "Don't you see? You accomplished all those things."

"I did?"

"Sure you did. When you were fighting Ultramarine, you knew that you were the only one who could stop him. We were trapped in the dark dimension, and the others were busy battling Goldar and the putties. You knew that. And then you reached that point in time where you knew that if you kept going, you'd lose your zord. Either that, or retreat and recover while Ultramarine destroyed the town. And you chose rightly. You did the bravest thing that any of us could hope to do. You gave up your powers in order to save hundreds, and if not thousands, of people. Now I don't call that a failure, I call that an incredible effort. You should be proud of yourself."

As I finished speaking, he turned away, and when he turned back, I may have been wrong but I'm sure that I saw a single tear in one eye.

"I guess you're right," he said slowly.

"Of course I'm right," I smiled.

"And my battle with Ultramarine weakened him so that the others could kill him."

"Exactly," I replied. "Now Aaron, whether you're living in Ingham, Istanbul or in Iceland, you'll always be a Power Ranger in spirit. You could never be anything else. And promise me just one thing?"

"What?"

"Never, ever, forget us?"

Aaron smiled warmly. "Never. Not even if I tried."

~*~

We lost track of Aaron after that. Oh sure, we all saw him at school, and I hear that a couple of the others had talked to him once or twice. He wasn't bitter, angry or even sad. Just the same old person that we all knew and loved. About two weeks later though, he didn't come to school, and we knew the reason why. He'd gone home. Back up north. And you know, I'd like to bet that he'll miss us. But you know what? We're gonna miss him too. And as a team, we will always be proud to have known him and had him as a friend, as our friend – Aaron, the original aqua Power Ranger.

The End

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