#grid secrets

It wasn’t a question. Or up for debate.

So, while Drakkon settled the outrageous bill, including the trio’s without bothering to ask, and Tommy gathered their heavy coats from the attendant, they waited together in the grand foyer in awkward silence. Jason and Red sat side by side on one of the cushioned velvet benches and Matthew found himself still looking from one to the other like this was a parlor trick.

“So…ummm…what happens now?” he murmured to Billy and Eugene. “Do we dial Promethea’s direct line and wait for the calvary? Or signal Zordon and the others?”

The idea of not ratting out the two supposedly former villains was one he was prepared to give voice to. After all, the Green Ranger had no personal history with Drakkon or Red. His partners, however, had an extensive and painful one.

Billy looked at Eugene, lips pursed in thought.

“You’ve been acquainted with them longer and more intimately than we have. Especially Red,” he murmured. “We’ve seen the masks before… Do you think there’s an underlying plan? Are Tommy and Jason under a spell? Drakkon learned magic from Rita’s books…”

Skull glanced over to where his ‘old pal’ now perched with the younger version of the person he once was. It wasn’t easy to look at him, sitting next to Jase and reminding the hardened former Sentry captain of the days before that looney fuck’s ascension, times spent bickering at the Youth Center or needling the teen in the school hallway.

He cleared his throat, swallowing back the acrid sting of tears.

“Ol’ Fuck Face? I think pigs will fly before that hateful dick turns over a new leaf.”

His expression softened slightly when it came to the tyrant’s pet.

“Red could be manipulative when he wanted to be, even with ‘his lordship’… But it wasn’t necessarily malicious, especially when he was on his own. Drakkon brought out the demons in him, or whatever psychiatric rabies he infected him with.”

Matt nodded decisively, hands settling on his hips.

“Alright then. We need to talk to Red without Drakkon’s presence influencing him.”

Billy started to shake his head, remembering the last time he’d interacted with the fractured man.

“Eugene and I interacted with him in the containment cage after he was incidentally captured. He cycled through several different characters and tactics to goad us…or inflict emotional distress. If Red had wanted help, all he had to do was ask…”

The Green Ranger interrupted, raising a finger.

“But you heard him. He knows the truth now. You told me that he refused to even entertain the idea that he was anyone other than himself. Red thought YOU were trying to deceive HIM. Tonight, he said that he knew he was supposed to be Jason Scott.”

Skull pinched the bridge of his nose. It was true that he’d witnessed the pet’s wildness…and his wrath. The person sitting across from him at the table had admitted some hard truths. And in his heart, Eugene couldn’t shake the idea he’d always held that beneath Red’s aggression was someone who didn’t relish being mean but did what his master commanded…a gentle, intelligent man who really wanted to be free to paint and read and have a farm. A traumatized prisoner who had no choice but to play the game so he could survive.

“I think I have an idea,” Billy advised, cutting through Skull’s reverie. “And part of it will help me investigate them a little deeper. I’m not making any promises however that we won’t notify the proper authorities.”

**************************************************************************

Jason’s eyes widened and he looked over his shoulder to where Red still hunkered, fingers fidgeting with the zipper of his coat, then back to Billy.

“You want to what?”

“I want to scan them,” the Blue Ranger repeated calmly. “I can procure the required equipment from Promethea and perform the assessment at our lodging. If what they are saying is accurate, then doing this for our peace of mind shouldn’t be an issue, correct?”

The Omega’s mouth opened and closed. He wasn’t sure how the request was going to be received by Drakkon, who took offense at almost every damn thing on a good day. Red was mostly mute by now, likely overwhelmed with shame, embarrassment, and existential dread. Sudden movements were making him twitchy as if he were waiting for Grace Sterling to kick the door in with her calvary of Promethea lackies.

‘God, what if one of them flips shit and has an episode?’

This was the worst possible time for a mental health crisis. Red was most likely to unexpectedly explode. When he became triggered, he might become catatonic…until he wasn’t. And that was when the party really started.

“What are you scanning for? Are you doing some super fine-tuned polygraph or something?” Tommy muttered, finally ceasing to gnaw fruitlessly at the lining of his cheek. “What do you think they’re just waiting around to do after all this time here? Besides Drakkon drinking carbonated beverages, watching dumb scripted reality shows, and driving a stolen car without a license to plant cocaine on some asshole and to go get Red’s dick pierced?”

At this revelation, Matthew nearly choked on his own spit.

“Wait…what?”

Eugene rolled his eyes and huffed.

“That’s not the most important thing right now, sweetie…”

He wasn’t at all shocked at the tyrant’s lack of respect for laws nor by Red getting genital jewelry. Skull was, however, surprised that the pet didn’t have one way before now…along with several others and a few tattoo pieces. As for Matt, he was a sucker for he termed ‘body’ bling and, apparently, the Green Grid energy exacerbated one’s sexual drive.

‘Matt’s going to be thinking about that all night now,’ he sighed inwardly. There was no jealousy in the observation, just annoyance that it threatened to overshadow Dictator Dick wandering freely about the Prime Universe.

“Sorry…just didn’t expect him to throw that out there,” the jock muttered sheepishly, averting his eyes from Jason to glance at Red’s groin for a half a second. He just couldn’t help himself at times.

Billy loudly cleared his throat.

“I also have doubts regarding your judgement,” he continued, “as you’ve hidden one of the most dangerous threats we’ve ever faced from us. A Ranger that has killed thousands, warped reality, and shattered the Grid itself. Therefore, you’ll also understand that we need assurance you’ll comply with our request.”

Jason’s expression tightened, a muscle in his cheek twitching. Nothing that Billy just said was wrong, but it still stung that his friend didn’t trust them. Hiding Eugene was nowhere close to the same sin that he and Tommy had committed. It was apples and oranges.

“What kind of assurance?”

Matt hooked his thumb towards where Red waited on the bench, pale as a sheet.

“He’s riding back with us…”

**************************************************************************

Drakkon glowered at the trio from where he, Red, Jason, and Tommy conferred by the large glass door.

“They’re taking him hostage!” he hissed. “That’s what this is! They know where you live! It’s not like we’re difficult to track down. Especially with the blue one’s brains. He’d create a tracking method that didn’t need my coin’s energy signature!”

Tommy roughly shoved his elbow against the asshole.

“Zip it, dude! They’ll hear you!”

“I don’t give a FUCK!” the tyrant snapped, his voice rising on the vaunted expletive.

Several heads turned in their direction, and the White Ranger physically dragged his counterpart outside into the snow before Eugene became triggered and the whole thing went to hell. Jason rubbed at his face in frustration.

‘I know they won’t hurt him… It’s that Red is going to be spooked. I don’t know how much he even remembers of his Matthew Cook. And he and Eugene were in a spat the last time they saw each other…’

This was a clusterfuck. And it was their wedding day. They were supposed to enjoy dinner at an exclusive restaurant, watch the New Year’s ball drop, and fuck each stupid until the sun went down the next day. Clearly, that was not their destiny.

“How’s your stomach?” he whispered gently near Red’s ear, hoping that his doppelganger would respond.

For a moment, there was no response. Then slowly, the former pet’s hand moved, gesturing vaguely at his abdomen. Historically, he could no longer tolerate sweets and should have known better than to indulge…even if it was a special occasion.

“Rolling…” he stammered, brow furrowed as his mind struggled to pluck the correct words. But he was feeling too inebriated, too nauseated by the chocolate cake, too ashamed of hearing about his delusional and often crude behavior.

“Cake…” Red croaked, pulling a face.

The Omega put an arm around him, rubbing his shoulder.

“It’s ok. Don’t worry about finding the right word right now. I understand.”

He could see Drakkon and Tommy arguing on the opposite side of the door, their breaths clouding in front of their mouths. Jason wasn’t an expert at lip reading but he could clearly make out the tyrant’s lips forming ‘bonehead’, ‘little shit’, ‘fuck’, and a few other colorful idioms.

Jason rested his forehead against Red’s.

“If he doesn’t settle down, they won’t bother with scans. They’re already skittish.”

“Yes…we’re…bad…guys…”

Matt’s hand settled on Jason’s back and made him jump, jostling Red so that he nearly toppled from the bench.

“Sorry, sorry!” the Green Ranger soothed, recoiling. “Look, emotions are running high right now. But we’ve known each other for a long time, Jase. You can see where we’re coming from, right? And you know he’ll be safe and sound when you get there.”

He nodded toward the door.

“I think the sooner we get those two somewhere more private, the better. Before someone calls the cops for a disturbance…at a minimum.”

The Omega looked at the Green Ranger, sadness in his eyes.

“I know you guys wouldn’t do anything to hurt him. It’s not that…” he admitted quietly. “He’s anxious and he’d already thrown up before we ran into you guys.”

Matt smiled kindly.

“Red’s been through enough. I agree…”

“Red’s sitting right here,” the man in question muttered irritably. “I still talk.”

Jason sucked in a breath, immediately contrite.

“Shit… We shouldn’t have…”

The former pet waved his hand, sweat shining at his temples, and looked around the foyer that had seemed to shrink in size. Drakkon and Tommy were still popping off in the snow a few steps from the entrance, Eugene was staring owlishly at the tyrant through the glass, getting more agitated by Drakkon’s face contorted in anger, and Billy waited with hands in his pockets and a much put upon look on his countenance. Jason and Matthew were entirely too close and looking at him like he was some exotic zoo animal.

Red couldn’t stand the overstimulation for another minute.

“I’ll go with…them. It can’t be any…worse than…here…”

**************************************************************************

Drakkon had a reputation for being an underhanded, scheming asshole with delusions of grandeur, however, despite his distorted self-perception, he was not stupid. Given the totality of everything he’d done, the tyrant understood that his word was as good as dog shit when it came to convincing Billy, Matthew, and Skull that he was a changed man and not pulling some long con. Recognizing this fact did not mean that the former dictator didn’t bitch and moan the entire ride to the trio’s hotel room.

“This is insulting,” Drakkon muttered for something like the hundredth time, scowling petulantly as he dropped into one the kitchen chairs so heavily that the frame made a crack of warning. “All of you know damn good and well that I could have easily killed everyone at that table on sight! And this is what I get for not doing so!”

He eyed Billy warily as the Blue Ranger approached him, blinking device in hand.

“The ‘old me’ would not have bothered with conversation. Red and Eugene will agree with that!”

Jason tried to pacify the indignant man, leaning down to whisper reassurances in his ear and earning expressions of horror and confusion from their hosts.

“Goddammit, I don’t even have my coin anymore!” Drakkon snapped, interrupting whatever the Omega had been saying. “I mean I could just manually snap a few necks like I used to, but that’s a lot of work on my wedding night!”

“Now’s not the time to be a smart ass,” Tommy hissed, smacking his doppelganger up the back of his head and garnering more stunned looks from the trio. “Now’s not the time to fuck around with the past. They’re jumpy enough without you flipping shit over nothing!”

“I’m just saying that I figured if I disposed of these inconvenient witnesses, you’d get all pissy and hit me, White Ranger. But you still got handsy! Aren’t you supposed to be the non-violent one?”

Red was silent, his eyes darting about the room as he listened to his partners bickering amongst themselves. He wasn’t worried that Drakkon might go homicidal and paint the room with his victims’ blood. With four active Rangers surrounding him and Skull out for vengeance, the tyrant would get his ass handed to him…. eventually. It was the fear of the unknown, the wine flooding his system, and his stomach threatening further rebellion.

Drakkon raised a brow when Billy lifted the scanner and approached, Eugene hovering close behind him. 

“So, what are you looking for, Blue Boy? What’s that gizmo going to tell you?”

The blonde adjusted his glasses, a nervous habit he was trying to break.

“I’m going to perform a neuro dimensional scan. It will document any structural changes to your brain, residual or current Grid energy, and other abnormalities from the imaging Grace recorded during your…uh…previous apprehension.”

Rolling his eyes, the older man huffed.

“Of course, you’d bring that shit up…”

Resolutely, the Blue Ranger lifted the device and held it near Drakkon’s temple.

“To be clear, it's difficult to believe that you altered your worldview and core personality merely by crossing dimensional lines. You’d done so several times before without any noticeable changes to your disposition or temperament.”

The tyrant glared, eyes locked on the gadget with its blinking lights as Billy began to sweep it along his profile.

“Like I told those two boneheads, it had to be something with the pulses from the unstable arch. Or maybe it was a combination of that with my magic and the Black Dragon coin that I used to teleport us… That’s the best I can figure!”

Eugene loomed closer, his posture tense like he was waiting for Drakkon to bite. He was not a fan of his love being so close to this monster. If it came to it, he’d tackle the fucker himself, power coin or no power coin.

“Whatever happened, it was powerful enough for you to do a 180?” he argued, pointing an accusing finger. “You were so set in your ways, confident that you knew better…You killed people, tortured them…”

He jutted his chin over to where Red had finally hunkered down on a corner of the couch, watching solemnly as everything unfolded, fingers twisted the hem of his dress shirt. The wedding band glittering on his left hand only further incensed Eugene, an exchange of one collar for another.

“You destroyed their identities, their minds…Coerced them to do unspeakable, vile acts…Made them feel like they were going mad!”

The tyrant’s face was stoney when the lambasting started, however, by the time it was finished, he had more emotion (other than pure fury) than Skull had ever seen on his face, even when he was still gangly, dick-ish Tommy Oliver.

“I can’t undo what’s been done,” Drakkon muttered, averting his eyes from Eugene’s. “Yes, there was a time I was powerful enough to overwrite reality and I DID…but if I could do so again, I can’t say that I would…”

Matt’s eyes widened and even Billy looked taken aback, scanner near the older man’s crown. Skull wasn’t shocked at all. He chuckled derisively.

“Because of him,” he clarified, gesturing at Red. “He wouldn’t exist if you hadn’t gone all homicidal.”

Drakkon said nothing; the scanner continued to beep obnoxiously in the tense silence.

“What a fucking cache-22…” Eugene sighed.

Billy clicked the device, finalizing the image collection.

“Next…”

**************************************************************************

The Blue Ranger spent the next morning studying side by side comparisons of the data sets obtained by Promethea, the ones of Red in the containment cage, and the most recent images he’d taken the night before. His brow scrunched in confusion, and he idly tapped a finger on the tabletop. When Matt settled a bowl of soup and a sleeve of crackers near his elbow, Billy seemed to come out of a trance.

“Huh?”

“Move over, I brought lunch. No, don't even argue, I know you forget to eat when you work on a paper.”

The Green Ranger pulled a chair out and settled beside his lover.

“And this is considerably more complicated…”

“Affirmative.” Billy smiled, nodding at the soup. “Thank you, love.”

Matt peered at the technical printouts, brain images, and graphs with various colors and configurations.

“You finally got results?”

Billy sighed, shaking his head. He pulled the soup closer before laying out a series of papers.

“I had results last night. It’s what they mean that is currently unclear.”

He scooped a spoonful into his mouth, his stomach rumbling at the delicious aroma. Matt was no scholar and utterly unfamiliar with the intricacies of the Grid but perhaps thinking out loud would be beneficial.

“This set is Drakkon’s readings. I’ve added a copy of our Green Ranger Tommy Oliver’s, however, as a baseline, it’s not going to be a reliable starting point. Something led to the marked difference in decision that caused our timelines to diverge. But there are some interesting findings.”

The Green Ranger raised a brow.

“Like?”

“I expected there to be some obvious discrepancies, of course. Yet they are more alike than I’d anticipated. Its…unsettling.”

He placed Tommy’s data sets alongside the ones Grace collected while Lord Drakkon graced her holding cell. There was a wealth of similarities.

“So, the line between Oliver and his darker self is thinner than we realized,” Matt muttered. “What about Tommy now? Being the White Ranger and all?”

Billy shook his head.

“That’s a whole problem for a different time. What I can say for certain now is that there are structural and biochemical changes from Drakkon’s first assessment and the one I did last night. The areas of the brain responsible for emotional regulation, for example, have been altered.”

Matt had no understanding of neurobiology or anything close to it but the areas his partner pointed to were different from one image to the next.

“I found the residual Grid energy as expected…Green Dragon and the White Tiger...Black Dragon. None are fresh and there is no current connection between Drakkon and the Grid,” Billy continued.

That was a relief. The asshole been telling the truth when he claimed he had no power coin. And considering how obsessed with it the tyrant was, it must have been destroyed for him to be without it.

“Ok so the mighty morphin Thanos is now a mortal man…Great. What about Red?”

Billy’s expression shifted to one of confusion as he replaced the assorted scans of Drakkon’s readings with those of Prime Jason and Red.

“This is where the data gets…interesting.”

He moved the Omega’s data next to the one he’d taken of the pet when he’d been held in the Coinless containment cage. Even someone as medically illiterate as Matthew could see that the two were nothing alike.

“Whoa… those look like two different people…I mean…people who aren’t the same across dimensions,” the Green Ranger tried to explain. “If Drakkon and Tommy were similar despite the obvious derailing, shouldn’t Jase and Red’s be closer?”

The blonde genius shook his head.

“According to several studies, brain imaging of those with DID…dissociate identity disorder...differ depending on the alter who is ‘fronting’. So, in a manner of speaking, these are two different individuals.”

Using one finger, Billy slid Red’s reading from the previous night over to the lineup. Just as Drakkon’s had differed from Coinless world to Prime, so did Red’s. Something HAD altered the two deadly predators. But did these findings correlate with changed behavior?

“Well…Drakkon supposedly hasn’t killed anyone since he got here. Would he have had that much self-restraint before?” Matt queried.

“Most definitely not.”

He pulled out the Grid readings next.

“I think most of Red’s changes are in some ways due to being an alternate personality, however, these energy signatures add more odd detail than they explain. Here are the Red Tyranno and White Tiger as we’d expect…Coinless Jason’s original coin and when he tried to take on the White Light but was interrupted by Drakkon.”

His brow creased.

“What I can’t account for are these,” the Blue Ranger muttered, pointing at the colors on the frequency and saturation graph. “There’s a diluted Black Mastodon here and there's Omega Fire, which shouldn’t be possible because he never progressed far enough to have those powers in his timeline. And this one is a faint reading of Drakkon’s Black Dragon…”

There was no way that the former dictator allowed his pet to wield his power. So how was the residual showing up on Red’s Grid readings?

“What are those?” Matt asked, pointing to two hues that were marked at a higher vibration and saturation than the others. “They don’t look any Ranger colors I’ve ever seen. And they have a different shape, like stars or something.”

The known colors had only two spires stretching to the top and bottom of the graph. Not so for these mysterious ones, which were a deep almost maroon and the warm yellow of honeycomb. Their projections were varied and extended out around the edges, just like starlight as Matthew had said.

Billy traced the lines projecting from the Red Tyranno.

“These indicate a connection with the Grid up here and a morpher down here. My hypothesis for the difference is that these two are no longer associated with the Grid and have no tether to a morpher. Essentially, pure Grid energy…aberrations. They’re also more saturated because they are current, not residuals.”

“Do you think they’re hiding something else? Something to do with these? Like Ranger powers?”

Billy shrugged. He didn’t even know what the two individual colors meant when in this odd configuration. Drakkon claimed to know a great deal about the Grid. He might recognize what these colors represented; it was whether or not the tyrant would try to bullshit them that was the problem.

“Well,” Matt offered, his tone practical, “we could just ask them. I mean…if these don’t have any morpher or coin or whatever, then Red came into contact with them somehow.”

**************************************************************************

When the trio arrived at the quad’s hotel room sans announcement, it was obvious that they’d been expecting Promethea or the other Ranger teams. Drakkon was on his knees, hands behind his head…offering a non-threatening appearance to avoid painful or lethal repercussions. Jason and Tommy stood between him and the door, already sputtering assurances of ‘change’ and ‘not dangerous.’

Red was nowhere in sight…which could be either a good thing or a bad thing.

Eugene snapped his gum merrily, feeling much better that ol’ Fuck Face had no more power than he did.

“’Sup, motherfucker!” he sang jubilantly as they made their way through the door.

The White Ranger and the Omega’s postures visibly relaxed while Drakkon muttered curses under his breath and hefted himself from the garish carpet.

Rather than wait for Billy to layout his presentation as he’d done for Matthew, and later for Eugene, Skull got right to the point. He wasn’t about to give them an inch.

Plucking Red’s packet from the Blue Ranger, the former Sentry captain hummed softly, smacking the sheaf of paper down on the coffee table.

“So, fellas, I explained the Black Mastodon blip, but we’re going to need you to tell us what the hell these are…”

He tapped the maroon and golden spirals.