His daydreamin's takin' him too far
He's a little boy lost
Little boy blue
Making a wish
His dream comes true
But he doesn't know
How much it costs
To become a man
He's a little boy lost
****
THE END
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Disclaimer: Saban owns the Power Rangers. "Little Boy Lost" is by Daron Norwood from Keith Whitley, A Tribute Album.
Author's Note: Where to start? Okay, welcome to "Countdown To Her", the sequel to the series, "Forgotten, But Not Gone". Some portions of this series were plotted long ago during late night chats between Starhawk and myself. She will most likely disavow all knowledge of this, as to not be connected with the evil in any way. Oh well. I can take the blame. *grin* But still I owe her thanks for proofing this. *grin* And now I'd like to state something. In my fics I am usually a *very* canon writer, but I am choosing to ignore Saban on three points now and forever more. And they are as follows: 1)Andros, his sister, and Zhane are all orphans. Their parents aren't someplace else; they're dead. 2)Power Rangers: Lost Galaxy did *not* take place five years after "Countdown to Destruction". It takes place whenever I wish it to, which in this case is right after CtD. 3)That was *not* PHANTOM's homeworld that Astronema saw in CtD. She was *grossly* misinformed. (she needs better lackeys. *grin*) Okay, that's all. I'm done. *grin*
6 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 7 hours, 35 minutes...
That was what the little LED screen read as he moved over the Rocky Mountains. It was his countdown, his countdown to her. It told the length of time since the war had ended, the time he had been working toward the day they would be together again. Staring at the numbers, he mentally added up how long it had been since he had last seen her.
9 months, 3 weeks, 6 days... that last day on Hercuron was forever burned in his memory. How he wished he could have remained there until she had returned. But the fact that he had even spoken to her had endangered her life. And he would never let anyone harm her.
His superiors had made it more than obvious that they were willing to dispose of her to keep him obedient. While they were essentially a group on the side of good, they believed that the end truly justified the means. And even though she was a Pink Ranger, in their eyes she was nothing but a girl from some little backwater planet whom their 'pet warrior' had made the unfortunate mistake of falling in love with. They had raised him, programmed him from birth to follow their orders. But his unexpected love for her had undone all their work. They were not above killing her if it had been necessary. But just the simple threat of any harm coming to her had been enough to keep him in line.
His learning to care and love was both a blessing and a curse. It had finally allowed him to see that there was a life beyond the blind devotion to duty. But he could not act on it without her life being forfeit. To gain a life of his own, she would have lost hers. But he did not want a life if she could not be in it, and he loved her more than he wanted his freedom.
But now, now he felt he had a real chance of succeeding in his escape attempt. He had felt a duty to help the side of good, to find Zordon. But his quest to locate Zordon had ended with the great being's death saving the universe. And with evil supposedly gone, he no longer felt any commitment to his duty. His only commitment was to her. And opportunity, her message and the interstellar war in which he had faked his death, had finally presented him with a method of escape.
It had been his duty, the search for Zordon, and fear for her safety that had prevented him from rebelling earlier. But now they should believe he was dead. Only other Rangers could track Power signatures, so he was safe in that respect. That had always irritated them, that they could not track him, so they had tracked his ship instead. But since he had jettisoned the flight recorder and locator beacon, they could no longer track his ship. If he had ever tried this before, they would have found him immediately. For where else would he have gone but to her?
And if he could not find her now, he felt sure they could not find her either. As long as they believed he was dead, there was no reason for them to even attempt to look for either of them. And he had covered every detail. There should be no reason for them to doubt his demise.
But that did not stop the overwhelming sense of paranoia he was experiencing. The fear that they would find him haunted his thoughts, not for what they would do to him, but what they would do to her for his insolence. He should never have dared this, some part of him said. He was endangering her life just by looking for her. No, he had to, he told himself. She had wanted him to come to her. Things were different now than they had been before. The circumstances were right this time. He could make it work. He was dead. They would not look for him. She would be safe. He tried to calm himself as he altered his course, looking for a place to land.
The mountains grew larger it seemed as he drew nearer the ground. He had no idea where to start looking, but thought that one spot was as good as any other. His starfighter was small and agile enough that he needed little room for takeoffs or landings. So skillfully he maneuvered it below the treeline into a forest that filled a valley nestled amongst the many mountains in the range. Even the valley itself was at an exceedingly high elevation, partway up a mountain.
He moved his starfighter into smaller and smaller places, till it was barely fitting between the trees. He wanted to land it in a very out-of-the-way place so it would be less likely to be found by humans. Even his superiors would never look for it there. Someone would have to be crazy to attempt to pilot a starfighter into the places he was. And maybe he was crazy, but he didn't care. He would do what he had to do to see her again.
He found a spot he liked and set his starfighter down among the trees. Both he and the starfighter were invisible, not that he expected anyone to be in such an isolated area. He popped the canopy and climbed out of the top instead of the starfighter's underside hatch, carrying with him his small hand-held scanner. Whatever was preventing him from picking up the AstroRangers' Power signatures from the air might not stop him from detecting them from the ground.
But that wasn't working either. The scanner had a limited range, but within the many mile radius that it could scan, it found nothing. The only Power it could read was his own.
He stood there for several minutes, considering his options, of which he had few. It appeared that none of the interstellar technology at his disposal would be of any use to him on his search. Either she no longer held the Pink Astro Powers, or she was effectively masking them somehow. Either way it left him back at square one: with no clue as to her whereabouts and with an enormous mountain range to search. He had to chuckle when he thought of it that way, for he was actually better off now than he had been three months ago. At least now his search was centered in one area, and not the entire galaxy.
But what an area it was, he thought, as he gazed at his surroundings. Hundreds of miles of potentially treacherous wilderness and she was who-knows-where in it all. Not that he hadn't faced more dangerous situations, but this time the mission had obstacles he had never been forced to deal with before.
And if he was going to find her, it appeared that he would be doing his looking on foot. Sighing, he reached back into his ship and began taking out the things he would want to take with him. Other than meeting his superiors to receive his orders, he had practically lived out of his starfighter for years. So he had some of what he thought he would need to begin his ground search, slow and painstaking as that search would be.
From behind the seat he pulled a battered old knapsack that he had picked up years ago on a planet he couldn't quite remember. Into the knapsack he put all the rations he had. It wasn't enough, he knew, for he would have picked up more when he met his superiors. But that was the meeting he had skipped when he had faked his death. He looked again at his little hand-held scanner and threw it in the knapsack as well. It was of no use in tracking her, but he might find some use for it on his journey. Lastly he put in his mementos of her; the picture of her with her dog, her audio tape, and her message beacon.
Staring into the knapsack he couldn't help but notice that the sum total of the possessions he had gathered in his eighteen years of existence were three memories of her and a ratted-out bag. Refusing to dwell in self-pity, he angrily shut the knapsack and closed the canopy of his starfighter. He knew he was rushing off in his search without a plan or even an idea of where he was going, but he wasn't getting anything accomplished standing there.
He had been about to turn around when he heard a strange sound behind him, a snuffling? Something touched his leg and he froze. He took a deep breath, reassuring himself that he was safe. He was invisible; whoever was there couldn't see him and would never know he was there. But whatever was sniffing his armor concerned him, as did the low growling he heard a short distance away.
He turned slowly, looking down to discover a dog sniffing him diligently, as if it intended to find something there. Could dogs see him? He looked up from the dog at his side when he heard movement nearby. There by a tree was the source of the growling; another dog, wearing some sort of harness that was being held by a human male. Incredibly the man was smiling and looking at him.
"Hi there. How you doing?" the man said conversationally. Phantom could only stare, disbelieving. Did he just speak to me? Phantom glanced down, as if somehow doubting that he was still invisible. But he knew he was, and did not know how this man was seeing him.
When Phantom didn't answer, the man continued. "You're a mite far off the beaten path, you know that, don't you?" The man continued smiling and started walking forward, the dog in the harness leading the way. It was then that Phantom noticed the unfocused look in the man's eyes and how he never looked at where he was going, but still found his way expertly through the brush. This man was blind? And he was here in this remote part of the woods by himself?
By that time the man was standing in front of him, and Phantom was faced with the 'obstacles' that he had feared. The man's hand was outstretched in greeting and he was offering his name. But Phantom continued his silence. He just stared at the man's hand, for he knew what taking it would mean.
He had always avoided people, and animals, as per his orders. He had been raised to obey his superiors' orders unquestioningly. He had fulfilled his missions, revealing himself only when he was allowed to, when he had been ordered to. His superiors had often given him orders to show himself only to help build the legend of the vaunted and much feared 'mystery Ranger'. The only time he had ever disobeyed those orders was when he had first revealed himself to Earth's Turbo Rangers, to her. He smiled, remembering that she had made him break many rules that he had never even questioned before he had met her. But his smile faded when he remembered also what had stopped him from breaking those same rules ever again: the threats against her life. Because of them he had shunned personal contact, and the one time he had wanted it, with her, they had been able to prevent that too.
His entire existence had been one of avoidance, secrecy, and solitude. And yet here he was, suddenly forced into a confrontation with a human. Not confrontation, he reminded himself, a conversation. His life as a warrior was behind him, if it could even have been called a life. But as lonely and as miserable as his so-called life of servitude had been, it was all he knew. And now he had to learn a new way of living, to somehow learn to interact with humans. For since none of his technology could help him, the only way he might be able to find her was from talking to others, looking for clues as to where she might have gone, what towns she might have passed through. To find her, he had to give up everything he knew, change the way he had always been taught to react. And it scared him.
But no matter the cost, he would pay it for a chance at a life with her. He dropped his invisibility cloak and demorphed. And with a deep breath he tentatively reached out his hand in duplication of the man's gesture, and grasped the man's hand in his.
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