pretty poison: by cynthia_harrell [power rangers: romance]
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters presented here and am not making any profit off of this whatsoever.
Title: Pretty Poison
Words: 3,413 (total so far: 13,042)
Theme: romance
Fandom: Power Rangers
Warnings: Power Ranger level of violence.
Scorpina was a very adaptable warrior. She was as used to fighting in bed as she was in battlefield. There were those who called her an assassin, and she had no objections to being called one. She’d killed more than one person who thought she was the answer to all of their emotional needs.
Well, she cheerfully admitted to herself, they didn’t have any more emotional problems, or problems of any other kind, after she was through with them. Unless one counted their disposition in whatever afterlife existed, which was out of her hands regardless.
This particular job was certainly one of the more interesting that she had ever received from Rita Repulsa. To distract a Power Ranger, and to have the use of a love potion if she wanted it.
Which she did not. Scorpina was quite proud of the fact she didn’t need such a help in acquiring someone’s affections if she wanted them. From what Rita had told her of the Blue Ranger, he was likely enough to be easily swayed by a pretty face and a little attention to his scientific experiments.
Which were, really, somewhat fascinating. He could have made an excellent minion of evil. Perhaps even still would. He was young, there was time to corrupt him properly. She licked her lips briefly at the thought. It would have to be considered carefully. To corrupt a Power Ranger, especially one of Zordon’s Power Rangers, would be an incredible coup.
One step at a time. She wouldn’t want to jump ahead and lose the chance. And she would have to get to know him better. There were some who were incorruptible. From what she had heard, and what she had managed to observe in the three days since she had come to Earth to join Rita’s campaign, the Red Ranger was one of those. He might be distracted by the love potion, but there would be no corruption going on there.
Attending this school in the guise of a human not only gave her the first homework she’d had to do in over ten thousand years, but it also gave her an idea for something that she could do to play with her target’s mind and hormones a little.
She waited for him after class; he would be on his way out to go to the Command Center and work more on fixing the damage that the Green Ranger had caused. She hadn’t quite yet been able to distract him as fully as she’d wanted to, since she had no intentions of screwing this assignment up. But now she was ready to take that first step.
It happened more or less as she had planned it. She stood near the classroom door, having slipped out unnoticed, and stood carefully before a specific poster. This particular route was the quickest way out of school from that room, so there was no chance that Billy was going to miss her.
“I think if we work at it, we should have everything done by tonight,” Billy spoke that to Trini, the Yellow Ranger. Scorpina’s eyes narrowed briefly, but she replaced that with a bland smile, and at just the right moment, she stepped back to bump into him.
“Oh, excuse me!” She turned on her brightest smile now. “I’m so terribly sorry, I didn’t meant to do that!” She’d made certain to bump all of his books out of his hands and reached down to start helping him with them. “I’m so, so sorry!”
“It’s quite all right!” Billy shook his head even as he started to get his books together. “It was an accident, it could happen to anyone.” As they stood back up, she turned her attention towards the poster.
“I was just looking at this, and wishing I could go.” It wasn’t the most subtle, but she didn’t think he would notice if she were subtle. It was hard to be certain. She didn’t use love potions, but there was an extra quality to her perfume that did tend to have an interesting effect on men.
She paid little attention to Trini as she shifted, her gaze flickering briefly over to Billy as she did. Just as she’d presumed, he was staring intently at the poster before he took another look at her. “I fail to see why you would be able to attend. There are several young men who would be glad to take someone as attractive as you are.”
Perfect. She concealed a smile, especially as Trini started to glare at her a little. “I haven’t really met that many people. I don’t suppose…” That little hesitation would be key.
“I…” Billy hesitated, the conflict plain in his eyes. It was part of being a Power Ranger and having a secret identity, combined with the current terror of the Green Ranger. Scorpina kept her smile to herself. They hadn’t met her on the battlefield yet. She looked forward to when they did.
“Well, I have to be going. I’ll see you around!” She waved brightly and started away. Small steps would get her what she wanted. Rita could argue about it all she wanted, but it would work out best in the end, and Scorpina was certain of that. She did know what she was doing.
She was also quite certain that she saw Billy watching her, until Trini tugged at his shirt a little and got him moving again. I wonder if I should try to get rid of her first? That could make things happen a touch quicker, and be satisfying at the same time. Scorpina had an especial distaste for Yellow Rangers.
That sort of thought kept her well occupied until she was out of the school and hidden from all prying eyes. The Command Center still wasn’t in any condition to detect her. Green Ranger would likely enough pay another visit to it shortly, once she’d succeeded in distracting Billy to such an extent that he couldn’t repair it properly. Once two of the Rangers were out of the way, it would be simplicity itself to dispose of the rest of them, and the planet would belong to Empress Rita.
In a swirl of golden light she teleported back up to the moon. Perhaps she would send that little Yellow Ranger a gift…something only she could provide. Yes. That would do quite nicely. And in its own way, would distract Billy even more once it struck. And there was no time like the present to take care of it, either.
Scorpina loved being evil.
Trini turned the corner and checked quickly to make sure that no one, especially Sabrina, was in sight. Something about her simply didn’t sit right in Trini’s mind, and she wasn’t sure of why. The other girl was perfectly polite and while she obviously liked Billy, she wasn’t really doing anything about it. Sure, just now there had been that kind of obvious attempt to get him to ask her to the dance, but there was nothing wrong with that.
“I think we’re clear.” She hit the right button on her communicator and everything around her dissolved into yellow brilliance. She was quite certain that she couldn’t actually yawn while teleporting, but if she could have, she would have. Three days of working all but non-stop, save for school and necessary visits home to eat and sleep and do homework, was taking its toll.
Those visits were what was keeping the repairs from being done as quickly as they could be. They just couldn’t fit everything into the scant hours they had available to them, and all of this was far too complicated to just wave a vaguely familiar tool at and hope that it would fix itself.
“I meant what I said before,” Billy said as they reformed in the usual spot in the Command Center. “If we work at it, we should have everything for Alpha-5 finished by tonight.”
“I hope so.” She wasn’t quite as confident as he was, but they had made the most progress with the robot, and once he was back online, he might be able to give them a hand with all of the rest of it.
Billy nodded; if he were still thinking about Sabrina, he gave no sign of it as he went over to where Alpha stood, still motionless as he had been since before they’d arrived there on that day, and started to get to work on him. She came over with one of the scanning tools she’d found that was meant to judge just what his state of operations was. There were just enough tools for to form the belief that Alpha was supposed to keep virtually everything running, which was why everything was bent towards keeping him running.
Her thoughts kept drifting back towards Sabrina. She hadn’t done anything at all that should be giving Trini this bad feeling, but it was there all the same. She had never thought about being even remotely psychic, nor was she even certain if such things existed. Magic did, or so she’d come to admit since taking on her morpher, but was it something that humans could do? Again, something else she wasn’t sure about.
“Trini, could you hand me that?” She jumped slightly, a bit ashamed of having been caught daydreaming, then handed over the screwdriver that Billy wanted. “Are you all right?” Her friend looked at her, concern in his light eyes. “You seem somewhat distracted over something.”
“It’s nothing,” she shook her head and brought her mind to focus on the subject at hand. She didn’t even want to ask him if there was someone he did want to take to that dance. There were more important matters to deal with.
Billy kept on working, his eyes serious and intent and focused. Perhaps half an hour had passed before he finally closed the last panel and stood up. “I think that should do it.”
“Are you sure?” Trini wouldn’t have asked, if this scenario hadn’t happened twice already. Billy’s eagerness to know had always far outstripped what he did know about all of Zordon’s technology.
Zordon. I hope he’s all right. Billy had reassured all of them that since Zordon wasn’t physically connected to this universe, then there was nothing that Rita or the Green Ranger could actually do to hurt him. He would just be cut off from them until they could get everything repaired correctly.
“Affirmative.” Billy nodded, then both of them stepped back as Alpha’s lights began to circulate once more. The small robot straightened up after a moment or two, and a slightly emotionless voice came from his voice box.
“Alpha-Five unit, rebooting.” There was another few minutes of silence, that neither of them could bear to break, until Alpha began to speak again. “Billy! Trini!” This time, he sounded far more like the Alpha that they knew and liked so well. “What has been happening?”
“You were damaged by Rita’s Green Ranger,” Trini told him. “She did a lot of damage to the Command Center as well. We haven’t been able to get in touch with Zordon either.”
Alpha turned his head all around, taking in everything. “I’ll see what I can do to get everything back together. Billy, will you help me?”
“Of course!” Billy’s tone indicated that the question was beyond ridiculous. There was absolutely no question that he would not help. “Trini, you look like you need a little more rest. You should go home.”
Trini wanted to protest. There had to be something that she could do to help. But the need to sleep had been tugging at her for just a little too long, and perhaps if she did, she wouldn’t be thinking those strange thoughts about Sabrina.
“If you need me for anything, let me know.” She said, compromising slightly. “And you should get some rest too.”
She didn’t wait around for anything else; Billy would agree if he wanted to, and she would still not be surprised to come back there in four or five hours and find he was still trying to put circuits together and weld panels back into place.
Again the light took her, and she found herself at her favored spot of return when teleporting home. She waited only just long enough to be sure that no one was going to be around, then headed on towards her home. Her parents wouldn’t be back from work yet, so she had some time to settle in and look as if she’d been there the whole time.
One of the small chores she had to do on the days when she got home before them was to take in and sort out the mail. That wasn’t so difficult, especially not on days like today when there wasn’t much. A couple of bills which she set aside for her parents to look at, a letter for her from Uncle Howard, and a small box of some kind. She looked at that and blinked. Her uncle had sent her something? Well, it wasn’t the first time. He’d forgotten her last birthday, so maybe this was something to make up for it?
She opened the box and blinked. He had certainly made an interesting choice if that was what this was for. A brooch, shaped like a gleaming scorpion, gleamed up at her. She wasn’t sure where she’d wear it, but she’d have to remember to thank him for it. She carried the box and the letter back to her room; she wanted to try to get in a nap before having to do her homework and dinner.
In the box, the scorpion brooch gleamed once again, and the small emerald eyes glowed for a moment.
Tommi considered just what Empress Rita had told her about her plan to distract and incapacitate the Red Ranger. It made sense, and there was a great deal to recommend it. But there were still misgivings stirring around in her thoughts.
He’s the enemy, she decided. That was what was bothering her about it. She wasn’t supposed to kiss him, even in deceit, even with his will being bound to hers by the love potion. She was supposed to destroy him, and that was what she wanted to do.
Perhaps if she hadn’t been her queen’s warrior, she might have let herself consider it. It wasn’t as if Jason were hideous or nasty. On the contrary, he was quite attractive and very much a gentleman in many ways. The kind of guy she might have liked, if her queen hadn’t chosen her.
But, being that she had been, it wasn’t to be thought of. Any dating that happened now was because Rita demanded it of her, and as always, Tommi would do as she was commanded.
She ran her hand lightly down the Sword of Darkness, liking how it felt in her hand. It was beautiful, really. Rita had given it to her the day before, after she’d defeated a small army of Putties, and even one of Finster’s monsters. She wanted to attack the Rangers again, and unleash her powerful DragonZord on them. Just the thought of it made her eager.
Soon. Soon. Though to be honest, the thought of attacking with DragonZord and Tyrannosaurus DinoZord side by side was a fascinating and enticing one. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to have the Red Ranger working with her.
She slipped the sword back into the dimensional pocket where she kept it when not in battle, then slid something else out of there. It was a long, slender vial full of a liquid that glowed a faint pink. Finster had given it to her just after she’d gotten out of class for the day and had went up to the moon palace to see if her queen had any orders for her. She’d known it was coming, but to hold it in her hands…
Now she had to find a way to get it into something Jason would drink. There was one way, and it would likely enough work. She turned her steps towards the Youth Center, hiding the vial back in the dimensional pocket. It would be much, much safer there.
Jason was there when she arrived, working out with Zack. She would do some of that herself when she got a chance. She preferred to spar against the Putties. They weren’t as good as she was, of course, but she could go full force against them, which was a little difficult when dealing with normal humans. Her queen had granted her enhanced strength that affected her when she was unmorphed, to give her a bit of an extra edge against the Rangers.
She already knew what drink he liked best; that sort of detail came easily when one had been watching the leader of the enemy as close as she had. I’d better get one for Zack, too, or someone might suspect something. She ordered the three drinks, making sure to ask one of the teenage employees and not Ernie himself. Something about him made her a little nervous, as if he saw more than he was supposed to.
Once she had them, she carried the three glasses to the nearest empty table to watch for just the right moment to occur.
No one else was looking in her direction, and Zack and Jason didn’t even seem to have noticed she was there. Perfect. She sipped her own drink, then shifted carefully, letting her free hand pass over the other drink, as if shooing away a fly. With a light twitch, the vial was in her hand, and she flicked the top off, letting the potion within drain into the drink as quickly as possible. Sending the vial back, she leaned back more comfortably and waited for them to be done.
That didn’t take long at all; she had judged pretty well how close they were to being finished. “Hey, Jason! Zack!” She waved over at them. “I’ve got a couple of drinks here if you guys want them.”
“Hey, thanks!” Zack grinned and took the one that she held out to him. “Tommi, right?”
She nodded, watching as Jason wiped off the sweat and took the drink once she held it out to him. She fought to remain as calm as possible; not by so much as a hair must she betray what she was doing. Once the liquid slid down his throat, she shifted a bit and looked directly at him. Finster had been quite clear on the instructions. Jason would fall in love with the first female that he saw after he took the potion. She could not let someone else take that.
“I hope I got the right flavor for you,” she said, pitching her voice just a little lower when she spoke. Jason glanced towards her, and stopped, his eyes widening some as if he was just now seeing her for the first time. “Did you like it?”
“Uh…yeah. It was really great.” Jason didn’t take his eyes off of her and started to sit down. “Hey, you haven’t had any more trouble from those Putties, have you?”
She shook her head briefly. “I haven’t seen any more of them since that night. What about you?” She knew that a few Putties had cropped up now and then, but nothing very serious. Would he tell her that?
“A little. It kind of happens around here.” Jason just shrugged a little, and she smiled briefly. He grinned back at her, a little more goofily than she had seen him smile before. The potion was indeed working on him.
She sipped at her drink a little more and decided to test it briefly. “I need to get a little practice myself. Could you watch my drink, please?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah! No problem!” Jason shifted around to where he could watch both her and the drink as she headed towards the changing room to get into her training gi. She couldn’t see or hear them, but she had an idea of what their conversation was going to be like, especially once she got back.
She changed quickly and emerged onto the practice floor. She poised herself where she could see them without it being obvious and was not at all surprised that they were indeed watching. Jason looked more or less stunned. She smiled to herself. This was only the beginning.
To Be Continued
Title: Pretty Poison
Words: 3,413 (total so far: 13,042)
Theme: romance
Fandom: Power Rangers
Warnings: Power Ranger level of violence.
Scorpina was a very adaptable warrior. She was as used to fighting in bed as she was in battlefield. There were those who called her an assassin, and she had no objections to being called one. She’d killed more than one person who thought she was the answer to all of their emotional needs.
Well, she cheerfully admitted to herself, they didn’t have any more emotional problems, or problems of any other kind, after she was through with them. Unless one counted their disposition in whatever afterlife existed, which was out of her hands regardless.
This particular job was certainly one of the more interesting that she had ever received from Rita Repulsa. To distract a Power Ranger, and to have the use of a love potion if she wanted it.
Which she did not. Scorpina was quite proud of the fact she didn’t need such a help in acquiring someone’s affections if she wanted them. From what Rita had told her of the Blue Ranger, he was likely enough to be easily swayed by a pretty face and a little attention to his scientific experiments.
Which were, really, somewhat fascinating. He could have made an excellent minion of evil. Perhaps even still would. He was young, there was time to corrupt him properly. She licked her lips briefly at the thought. It would have to be considered carefully. To corrupt a Power Ranger, especially one of Zordon’s Power Rangers, would be an incredible coup.
One step at a time. She wouldn’t want to jump ahead and lose the chance. And she would have to get to know him better. There were some who were incorruptible. From what she had heard, and what she had managed to observe in the three days since she had come to Earth to join Rita’s campaign, the Red Ranger was one of those. He might be distracted by the love potion, but there would be no corruption going on there.
Attending this school in the guise of a human not only gave her the first homework she’d had to do in over ten thousand years, but it also gave her an idea for something that she could do to play with her target’s mind and hormones a little.
She waited for him after class; he would be on his way out to go to the Command Center and work more on fixing the damage that the Green Ranger had caused. She hadn’t quite yet been able to distract him as fully as she’d wanted to, since she had no intentions of screwing this assignment up. But now she was ready to take that first step.
It happened more or less as she had planned it. She stood near the classroom door, having slipped out unnoticed, and stood carefully before a specific poster. This particular route was the quickest way out of school from that room, so there was no chance that Billy was going to miss her.
“I think if we work at it, we should have everything done by tonight,” Billy spoke that to Trini, the Yellow Ranger. Scorpina’s eyes narrowed briefly, but she replaced that with a bland smile, and at just the right moment, she stepped back to bump into him.
“Oh, excuse me!” She turned on her brightest smile now. “I’m so terribly sorry, I didn’t meant to do that!” She’d made certain to bump all of his books out of his hands and reached down to start helping him with them. “I’m so, so sorry!”
“It’s quite all right!” Billy shook his head even as he started to get his books together. “It was an accident, it could happen to anyone.” As they stood back up, she turned her attention towards the poster.
“I was just looking at this, and wishing I could go.” It wasn’t the most subtle, but she didn’t think he would notice if she were subtle. It was hard to be certain. She didn’t use love potions, but there was an extra quality to her perfume that did tend to have an interesting effect on men.
She paid little attention to Trini as she shifted, her gaze flickering briefly over to Billy as she did. Just as she’d presumed, he was staring intently at the poster before he took another look at her. “I fail to see why you would be able to attend. There are several young men who would be glad to take someone as attractive as you are.”
Perfect. She concealed a smile, especially as Trini started to glare at her a little. “I haven’t really met that many people. I don’t suppose…” That little hesitation would be key.
“I…” Billy hesitated, the conflict plain in his eyes. It was part of being a Power Ranger and having a secret identity, combined with the current terror of the Green Ranger. Scorpina kept her smile to herself. They hadn’t met her on the battlefield yet. She looked forward to when they did.
“Well, I have to be going. I’ll see you around!” She waved brightly and started away. Small steps would get her what she wanted. Rita could argue about it all she wanted, but it would work out best in the end, and Scorpina was certain of that. She did know what she was doing.
She was also quite certain that she saw Billy watching her, until Trini tugged at his shirt a little and got him moving again. I wonder if I should try to get rid of her first? That could make things happen a touch quicker, and be satisfying at the same time. Scorpina had an especial distaste for Yellow Rangers.
That sort of thought kept her well occupied until she was out of the school and hidden from all prying eyes. The Command Center still wasn’t in any condition to detect her. Green Ranger would likely enough pay another visit to it shortly, once she’d succeeded in distracting Billy to such an extent that he couldn’t repair it properly. Once two of the Rangers were out of the way, it would be simplicity itself to dispose of the rest of them, and the planet would belong to Empress Rita.
In a swirl of golden light she teleported back up to the moon. Perhaps she would send that little Yellow Ranger a gift…something only she could provide. Yes. That would do quite nicely. And in its own way, would distract Billy even more once it struck. And there was no time like the present to take care of it, either.
Scorpina loved being evil.
Trini turned the corner and checked quickly to make sure that no one, especially Sabrina, was in sight. Something about her simply didn’t sit right in Trini’s mind, and she wasn’t sure of why. The other girl was perfectly polite and while she obviously liked Billy, she wasn’t really doing anything about it. Sure, just now there had been that kind of obvious attempt to get him to ask her to the dance, but there was nothing wrong with that.
“I think we’re clear.” She hit the right button on her communicator and everything around her dissolved into yellow brilliance. She was quite certain that she couldn’t actually yawn while teleporting, but if she could have, she would have. Three days of working all but non-stop, save for school and necessary visits home to eat and sleep and do homework, was taking its toll.
Those visits were what was keeping the repairs from being done as quickly as they could be. They just couldn’t fit everything into the scant hours they had available to them, and all of this was far too complicated to just wave a vaguely familiar tool at and hope that it would fix itself.
“I meant what I said before,” Billy said as they reformed in the usual spot in the Command Center. “If we work at it, we should have everything for Alpha-5 finished by tonight.”
“I hope so.” She wasn’t quite as confident as he was, but they had made the most progress with the robot, and once he was back online, he might be able to give them a hand with all of the rest of it.
Billy nodded; if he were still thinking about Sabrina, he gave no sign of it as he went over to where Alpha stood, still motionless as he had been since before they’d arrived there on that day, and started to get to work on him. She came over with one of the scanning tools she’d found that was meant to judge just what his state of operations was. There were just enough tools for to form the belief that Alpha was supposed to keep virtually everything running, which was why everything was bent towards keeping him running.
Her thoughts kept drifting back towards Sabrina. She hadn’t done anything at all that should be giving Trini this bad feeling, but it was there all the same. She had never thought about being even remotely psychic, nor was she even certain if such things existed. Magic did, or so she’d come to admit since taking on her morpher, but was it something that humans could do? Again, something else she wasn’t sure about.
“Trini, could you hand me that?” She jumped slightly, a bit ashamed of having been caught daydreaming, then handed over the screwdriver that Billy wanted. “Are you all right?” Her friend looked at her, concern in his light eyes. “You seem somewhat distracted over something.”
“It’s nothing,” she shook her head and brought her mind to focus on the subject at hand. She didn’t even want to ask him if there was someone he did want to take to that dance. There were more important matters to deal with.
Billy kept on working, his eyes serious and intent and focused. Perhaps half an hour had passed before he finally closed the last panel and stood up. “I think that should do it.”
“Are you sure?” Trini wouldn’t have asked, if this scenario hadn’t happened twice already. Billy’s eagerness to know had always far outstripped what he did know about all of Zordon’s technology.
Zordon. I hope he’s all right. Billy had reassured all of them that since Zordon wasn’t physically connected to this universe, then there was nothing that Rita or the Green Ranger could actually do to hurt him. He would just be cut off from them until they could get everything repaired correctly.
“Affirmative.” Billy nodded, then both of them stepped back as Alpha’s lights began to circulate once more. The small robot straightened up after a moment or two, and a slightly emotionless voice came from his voice box.
“Alpha-Five unit, rebooting.” There was another few minutes of silence, that neither of them could bear to break, until Alpha began to speak again. “Billy! Trini!” This time, he sounded far more like the Alpha that they knew and liked so well. “What has been happening?”
“You were damaged by Rita’s Green Ranger,” Trini told him. “She did a lot of damage to the Command Center as well. We haven’t been able to get in touch with Zordon either.”
Alpha turned his head all around, taking in everything. “I’ll see what I can do to get everything back together. Billy, will you help me?”
“Of course!” Billy’s tone indicated that the question was beyond ridiculous. There was absolutely no question that he would not help. “Trini, you look like you need a little more rest. You should go home.”
Trini wanted to protest. There had to be something that she could do to help. But the need to sleep had been tugging at her for just a little too long, and perhaps if she did, she wouldn’t be thinking those strange thoughts about Sabrina.
“If you need me for anything, let me know.” She said, compromising slightly. “And you should get some rest too.”
She didn’t wait around for anything else; Billy would agree if he wanted to, and she would still not be surprised to come back there in four or five hours and find he was still trying to put circuits together and weld panels back into place.
Again the light took her, and she found herself at her favored spot of return when teleporting home. She waited only just long enough to be sure that no one was going to be around, then headed on towards her home. Her parents wouldn’t be back from work yet, so she had some time to settle in and look as if she’d been there the whole time.
One of the small chores she had to do on the days when she got home before them was to take in and sort out the mail. That wasn’t so difficult, especially not on days like today when there wasn’t much. A couple of bills which she set aside for her parents to look at, a letter for her from Uncle Howard, and a small box of some kind. She looked at that and blinked. Her uncle had sent her something? Well, it wasn’t the first time. He’d forgotten her last birthday, so maybe this was something to make up for it?
She opened the box and blinked. He had certainly made an interesting choice if that was what this was for. A brooch, shaped like a gleaming scorpion, gleamed up at her. She wasn’t sure where she’d wear it, but she’d have to remember to thank him for it. She carried the box and the letter back to her room; she wanted to try to get in a nap before having to do her homework and dinner.
In the box, the scorpion brooch gleamed once again, and the small emerald eyes glowed for a moment.
Tommi considered just what Empress Rita had told her about her plan to distract and incapacitate the Red Ranger. It made sense, and there was a great deal to recommend it. But there were still misgivings stirring around in her thoughts.
He’s the enemy, she decided. That was what was bothering her about it. She wasn’t supposed to kiss him, even in deceit, even with his will being bound to hers by the love potion. She was supposed to destroy him, and that was what she wanted to do.
Perhaps if she hadn’t been her queen’s warrior, she might have let herself consider it. It wasn’t as if Jason were hideous or nasty. On the contrary, he was quite attractive and very much a gentleman in many ways. The kind of guy she might have liked, if her queen hadn’t chosen her.
But, being that she had been, it wasn’t to be thought of. Any dating that happened now was because Rita demanded it of her, and as always, Tommi would do as she was commanded.
She ran her hand lightly down the Sword of Darkness, liking how it felt in her hand. It was beautiful, really. Rita had given it to her the day before, after she’d defeated a small army of Putties, and even one of Finster’s monsters. She wanted to attack the Rangers again, and unleash her powerful DragonZord on them. Just the thought of it made her eager.
Soon. Soon. Though to be honest, the thought of attacking with DragonZord and Tyrannosaurus DinoZord side by side was a fascinating and enticing one. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to have the Red Ranger working with her.
She slipped the sword back into the dimensional pocket where she kept it when not in battle, then slid something else out of there. It was a long, slender vial full of a liquid that glowed a faint pink. Finster had given it to her just after she’d gotten out of class for the day and had went up to the moon palace to see if her queen had any orders for her. She’d known it was coming, but to hold it in her hands…
Now she had to find a way to get it into something Jason would drink. There was one way, and it would likely enough work. She turned her steps towards the Youth Center, hiding the vial back in the dimensional pocket. It would be much, much safer there.
Jason was there when she arrived, working out with Zack. She would do some of that herself when she got a chance. She preferred to spar against the Putties. They weren’t as good as she was, of course, but she could go full force against them, which was a little difficult when dealing with normal humans. Her queen had granted her enhanced strength that affected her when she was unmorphed, to give her a bit of an extra edge against the Rangers.
She already knew what drink he liked best; that sort of detail came easily when one had been watching the leader of the enemy as close as she had. I’d better get one for Zack, too, or someone might suspect something. She ordered the three drinks, making sure to ask one of the teenage employees and not Ernie himself. Something about him made her a little nervous, as if he saw more than he was supposed to.
Once she had them, she carried the three glasses to the nearest empty table to watch for just the right moment to occur.
No one else was looking in her direction, and Zack and Jason didn’t even seem to have noticed she was there. Perfect. She sipped her own drink, then shifted carefully, letting her free hand pass over the other drink, as if shooing away a fly. With a light twitch, the vial was in her hand, and she flicked the top off, letting the potion within drain into the drink as quickly as possible. Sending the vial back, she leaned back more comfortably and waited for them to be done.
That didn’t take long at all; she had judged pretty well how close they were to being finished. “Hey, Jason! Zack!” She waved over at them. “I’ve got a couple of drinks here if you guys want them.”
“Hey, thanks!” Zack grinned and took the one that she held out to him. “Tommi, right?”
She nodded, watching as Jason wiped off the sweat and took the drink once she held it out to him. She fought to remain as calm as possible; not by so much as a hair must she betray what she was doing. Once the liquid slid down his throat, she shifted a bit and looked directly at him. Finster had been quite clear on the instructions. Jason would fall in love with the first female that he saw after he took the potion. She could not let someone else take that.
“I hope I got the right flavor for you,” she said, pitching her voice just a little lower when she spoke. Jason glanced towards her, and stopped, his eyes widening some as if he was just now seeing her for the first time. “Did you like it?”
“Uh…yeah. It was really great.” Jason didn’t take his eyes off of her and started to sit down. “Hey, you haven’t had any more trouble from those Putties, have you?”
She shook her head briefly. “I haven’t seen any more of them since that night. What about you?” She knew that a few Putties had cropped up now and then, but nothing very serious. Would he tell her that?
“A little. It kind of happens around here.” Jason just shrugged a little, and she smiled briefly. He grinned back at her, a little more goofily than she had seen him smile before. The potion was indeed working on him.
She sipped at her drink a little more and decided to test it briefly. “I need to get a little practice myself. Could you watch my drink, please?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah! No problem!” Jason shifted around to where he could watch both her and the drink as she headed towards the changing room to get into her training gi. She couldn’t see or hear them, but she had an idea of what their conversation was going to be like, especially once she got back.
She changed quickly and emerged onto the practice floor. She poised herself where she could see them without it being obvious and was not at all surprised that they were indeed watching. Jason looked more or less stunned. She smiled to herself. This was only the beginning.
To Be Continued