Tommy looked again at the letter, both to check the phone number one last time and to try again to make some sense of it. It was a simple piece of white stationary, with the confusing message written in a clear and flowing hand.

Tommy Oliver

You do not really know me, but I need to talk to you. I have things to say that cannot be said in a letter or over the telephone. If you are willing to meet with me, please telephone me at 555-2942 with a time and place that would be convenient for you. I assure you, this is not a joke, and I mean you no harm.

He sighed with the realization that he would not be able to figure it out on his own, and dialed the number. A gentle female voice answered him.

"Hello?"

"Hello," he responded. "Um, this is Tommy Oliver, you sent me a letter."

"Oh, hello Tommy," she said, her voice taking on a tone of nervousness. "I didn't recognize your voice. So, do you want to talk?"

"Sure," he ventured. "Would..." he checked his calendar "Tuesday at four o'clock be good for you? In Angel Grove Park?" She mumbled something to herself; he could only catch the word 'appropriate'.

"That would be just fine," she replied. "Thank you." He was about to hang up, then thought of something.

"I don't mean to be rude, but... who are you?" he asked. "I'm not too fond of surprises."

She hesitated. "My--my name is Rita." Tommy shivered involuntarily, and then hit himself. The fact that one person he hated was named Rita was no reason for him to go around distrusting everyone by that name.

"All right, ...Rita," he concluded. "I'll see you on Tuesday."

"Yes," she agreed simply. "Goodbye."

"You're here," she commented nervously. "It's only," she checked her watch, "four o'clock." She gingerly sat down on the opposite end of the bench.

"You expected me to be late?" he asked her, amused. "You definitely know something about me, but you're a little out of date. I kicked that habit a couple of months ago."

"Yes," she hedged. Looking around, she picked up a fallen leaf from the ground, and methodically started to shred it. "I guess you're wondering what I wanted to talk about," she said into her lap.

"Well, yeah," he agreed. "I don't get too many letters telling me a stranger needs to talk to me."

"That's the problem," she sighed. "I'm not--I wasn't a stranger. Up until a month ago today, I was somebody you knew all too well." She was hit by a sudden inspiration. "Do you remember what happened a month ago?" Tommy searched his memory, trying to come up with an exact date.

"Let's see, today is the fourteenth, and last month..." He was assailed by a sudden memory.

"Run! Run, Charla!" he yelled at his pregnant neighbor, while trying single-handedly to hold off the horde of Tengas that were attacking his apartment building. He didn't know how long he could hold them, without any powers, but he had to try. A whiff of smoke from behind him let him know that it was a lost cause, and he switched from defending his home to trying to take as many of his enemies with him as he could. Maybe he could buy enough time for the rest of the people to escape to safety. If there was anywhere safe left. The invasion had caught him by surprise, and he had no choice but to rely on the Power Rangers to save the day. Not that he didn't trust them, but... he had been on the front lines too long to rely completely on anybody other than himself and his own teammates.

Tommy stumbled. He hadn't practiced his Karate in too long, and he made a stupid mistake that gave the birds the drop on him. The entire flock pounced, and he knew he was done for. All he could think was Thank God that some of them escaped. He closed his eyes and waited for the end.

The combined gasps of the Tengas startled him into opening them again. As he watched, a golden wave swept through them, turning them all into dust. The wave crossed him, and he felt the most wonderful sensation of his life. Every sense was filled with purer joy than he had ever imagined could exist. But at the same time, a part of him was wailing and dying.

"The invasion," he answered. "The golden wave."

"The golden wave," she agreed. "Did you hear the press conference the Power Rangers gave? The one two days after, right before they disappeared again?"

"No," he admitted. "My apartment was toast, and the TV in my motel room didn't work."

"And they haven't gotten in touch with you?"

"No," he countered. "Why would the Power Rangers talk to me?" She waved the question off.

"So you don't know what the golden wave was, or what it did." She had reduced the leaf to bits so small that she couldn't do any more, and her hands started fidgeting with her jacket.

"Not a clue," he answered, trying to figure out where this was going.

"Well," she stumbled. "The gist of their talk was that the wave destroyed all evil in the universe."

He whistled. "That was one powerful wave."

"Yes it was," she agreed wholeheartedly. "But... the wave... it didn't wipe out all evil beings in the universe. Some of them survived, but as very different people. You must understand; it destroyed the evil in them, and left them free, many for the first time in their lives."

"I can accept that," Tommy agreed, thinking back to his first days as a Ranger on the right side. "But how do you know about them surviving? I don't think that's the kind of thing the Power Rangers would mention to the general public. I remember all the uproar when they didn't kill the Green Ranger."

"No, they didn't tell the public. I know, because... up until one month ago, until the golden wave, I was Rita Repulsa."

Tommy fell off the bench.

Hearing that some of the villains he had fought were still alive was one thing. Realizing that he had just been talking civilly with the one person who still haunted his nights the most was quite another. She sighed.

"I knew that you would have a hard time with this, but I had to talk to you." Tommy eyed her, not quite able to keep a tinge of suspicion out of his expression.

"Why did you have to talk to me?"

"To apologize." She let the words hang there. "You have more reason to hate me than anyone on the planet, but you also have enough in common with me that I thought... I hoped... that you might be able to forgive me." Tommy considered this.

"If you really mean that--" He started again. "If you're not just trying to get something from me--I think I might... but it will take time. I'm nowhere near as good a person as Jase was... is... and hating you is something I've gotten pretty used to."

"I understand," she said quietly. "Thank you." Her hands dropped away from her jacket, and she seemed to be at peace, for the first time since she had come.

"So, if you know what the wave did, do you know what it was?" he asked. His curiosity had been driving him crazy ever since it had happened, and more than that, something deep inside was telling him that he needed to know.

"Yes, but..." she stalled. "I don't think you want to know. But..." she considered again. "You need to know. You had a bond with him... I don't think you could handle not knowing."

"Know what? A bond with who?" Tommy asked, growing more impatient with her cryptic asides.

"Zordon," she answered simply, ignoring the tears welling up in her eyes. "He sacrificed himself. The golden wave was his soul, saving the universe before he went on to his final rest."

"Zordon?" Tommy was flabbergasted. "He-he's dead?" His voice cracked, for the first time in years, but he didn't care. The tears started to pour down his face. "How?"

"He sacrificed himself. He got the Red Ranger to break his tube, and in the moment of his death, he sent himself out to every being in the universe, and gave them the choice. As he passed me, I saw my life, and understood for the first time how meaningless it was. How shallow and pointless and wrong it was. And through it all, I felt his love. He loved me. He loved everything, and he wanted everything to be free. He gave me the chance to become the person I should have been."

"That sounds like him," Tommy agreed woodenly. "He never did give up on people, no matter how much they deserved it."

"No, Tommy," she insisted, seeing the not-so-hidden message in his statement. "Zordon loved you. He was so proud of you--as much as if you'd been his own son. That's part of what he gave me. He showed me that even when I was trying to take over the world, I still managed to do things that in the end were good. If it hadn't been for me, he might never have met you, and he thanked me for that. He thanked me. I'm sure he would have wanted you to know that." Tommy couldn't take it anymore. He dropped his head down into his arms and cried in fierce, racking sobs. Rita looked on sympathetically. Though the tears were pouring down her cheeks too, she had had a month to deal with the grief, and it had become less violent with time.

She wished there were something she could do, something to ease his anguish. Unfortunately, she knew all too well that he didn't trust her, and if she tried to comfort him, then he would just hole up inside himself again. Sometimes, caring really sucks, she thought, apologizing to Zordon even as she did so.

Hours later, Tommy looked up again, to see her still sitting there.

"Why are you still here?" he asked harshly. "Do you really like seeing me in pain?" She flinched, and he felt an immediate twinge of regret.

"No," she spoke, almost too quiet for him to hear. "I didn't want to leave you here like this. Nobody should have to grieve alone." He found himself agreeing with her, and stomped on the reflex that told him that she was only trying to corrupt him.

"You're right," he rasped. "Thank you. Shouldn't you be getting home now?"

"Are you going home?" she inquired.

"No. Why?"

"I don't want to leave you out here alone. I'm not sure you won't do something stupid. And... I don't really have anything important to do. If you're staying out, then I might as well stay with you-it's better than going home to an empty apartment."

"Empty? What about Zedd?" Tommy questioned. "Did he--not make it?" He couldn't imagine why, but he hoped that Zedd was still around.

"He did survive," she assured him, "but we're... separated. It's not that we don't care about each other--I really do love him, more than I ever imagined I could--but he... I... we mutually decided that we need to understand who we are before we make any decisions about us." Again, the note of pain in her voice showed that this was a subject she wasn't really comfortable discussing, and Tommy, for once, didn't really want to hurt her.

"So," he searched for another topic. "What are you doing here? I'm sure you don't come from Earth."

"No, I don't," she agreed. "But I didn't have anywhere else to go. I don't even know where I was born. I spent most of my childhood roaming the M-51 galaxy with my father, and once I was grown, I only stayed on any one planet long enough to destroy it," her voice trembled. "Strange as it seems, Angel Grove is as much of a home as I've ever had."

"Except for the dumpster," he commented, surprised at how little venom he had put into it. She giggled, a surprisingly girlish sound.

"Except for the dumpster. And I can't think of anybody who would want to live in there. Here on Earth, I have a job, I have plans for the future, and I think I might even have a happy life. If I can get past the nightmares." Tommy winced in sympathy. He knew exactly how much nightmares could hurt.

"Yeah, you just have to learn to deal with the nightmares. But how did you get a job?"

"Well, I had to fake a resume. Karone did that for me--she can make a computer sit up and beg. But I didn't claim any skills that I don't have, and anyway, this job is just so I can pay my way through school."

"Karone? School?"

"Where should I start," she asked rhetorically. "Karone is the current Red Ranger's sister. She was Astronema... it's a long story. And I'm studying to become a psychologist. I want to do something to make up for all the pain I've caused. Helping other people to deal with pain was the best thing I could come up with."

"So there's you, and Zedd, and Astronema... who else survived?" he wondered.

"Let me think, who would you know? Finster survived, and he's on Eltar, teaching the art of clay creation. He's the only one left who knows it, so he feels he needs to pass it on. And," she winced, "he doesn't want to be in the same quadrant as me. He hates me with a passion, and I know that I deserve it. I was the one who wiped out his planet."

"It wasn't you," Tommy corrected her. "It was Rita Repulsa, not you. You are Rita--" he broke off, trying to remember if she had given him a last name.

"Rita Lord. Yes, I know that you're right, but I can't really believe it." She wiped at her eyes, and proceeded with forced cheerfulness. "Goldar and Scorpina were both killed, and I don't know what happened to Babboo and Squatt. Either they were killed, or they ran away. My brother... He survived the wave, but he committed suicide not long after. The Machine Empire was completely wiped out. Divatox is still alive, and living in Angel Grove. She calls herself Deborah, and she works in a bar. Last I heard, she was writing a book about her hundreds of failed relationships through fourteen galaxies--she says she's going to market it as humor. Nobody would believe her if she claimed it was true, and she thinks having people laugh at the men who hurt her will be good therapy. Her crew is all gone, and the general consensus is 'good riddance'. I think that's it."

Tommy just sat and took this all in. Divatox... writing a book? Rito... committed suicide? He had only ever known them as enemies, people to hate with everything he had, to fight against as the thing he never wanted to become again. It was... hard to change around to seeing them as people.

She looked at him with knowing eyes. "They all want to apologize, to you and to your friends, but we agreed that I would go first, since I'm the one you've been hating the longest. Truthfully, I think they were relieved that I would be testing the waters. You intimidate them, you know."

"Me?" He laughed. "Why?"

She smiled again. "Don't sell yourself short. You overcame evil yourself. I know Jason destroyed the Sword of Darkness, but even so, it took incredible willpower and inner goodness to break through the spell. It was one of my most powerful, and more people than you can imagine have been utterly destroyed by it over the years. You overcame all that you had been forced into and became one of the most effective leaders of the Power Rangers since... well, ever. We, on the other hand, didn't have spells cast on us, we were just raised that way. It took the sacrifice of one of the greatest people the universe has ever known to snap us out of the lives we had been living. And even now that we are free, we're pretty average people. Probably the most good we can do for the universe is by recycling. We know that we don't have a chance of living up to you. Can you think of anything more intimidating than that?"

Tommy's breath came out in a long 'whoosh'. "You really feel that way?" he asked, stunned.

"How could we not?" she asked rhetorically. "You're a much better person than you give yourself credit for. And that's mostly my fault. The credit, I mean. Would it help any if I told you that it wasn't your fault? Because it wasn't. Nothing you did while you were working for me was your fault. You don't have to feel guilty about it. I, on the other hand..." she trailed off, her face taking on a look that he had felt on his own far too many times.

"Now, don't you start," he said more harshly than he had intended. "You said you were raised with evil. If you didn't have the choice, then you can't blame yourself for it."

"Yes I can," she insisted. "The choice was always there. I just never took it. Even when Rito went up against Father, I stayed back and laughed at his downfall. I was too busy pleasing Father and studying magic so that one day I could take over planets as he did."

"What's this?" he inquired. Rito had fought Vile?

Her eyes went distant, remembering. "This was long ago, when I was the equivalent of seven years old," she related, lost in the memories of a long-distant time. "Rito was the equivalent of eighteen, and the most intelligent, handsomest, strongest child my father had. We always assumed it was because his mother had been a Power Ranger, before my father captured her and added her to his harem. Unfortunately for him, that wasn't all he got from her: he also inherited her ideals. Nobody knew it at the time, of course, but she had been training him in secret, hoping that he could overthrow my father someday. Until one day, when my father was feeling annoyed, since he had just been defeated by the Rangers of... Horat, I believe. To cheer himself up, he brought Rito's mother to his private chambers and tortured her to death. I suppose he thought it was fitting, taking revenge on one ex-Ranger for what a team of Rangers had done. It's the way he thought.

"Rito was devastated. He loved her... so much. I think it was the first time I had ever seen love. When he heard about her death, he went right up to my father and challenged him. Rito didn't have a chance, of course. When I look back, I think he knew he was about to die. But he didn't let it stop him. He stood there and waited for Father to respond to the challenge. Which he did--with a blast of power that knocked Rito out. He explained to us at length that such an 'act of treachery' deserved far worse than a quick death. Instead, he... took Rito to his labs. The next time any of us saw him, he was the thing you fought. Ugly, stupid, cowardly... Father even took pains to make him smell bad, as a final insult. It was... hideous. Even at the time, I felt a touch of revulsion, but all it did was make me even more determined not to displease Father.

"Over the years, it became very easy to forget that he had ever been anything else. He was--comic relief. The henchman you can never rely on to remember your orders. The one you keep away from anyone important, so as not to make a bad impression. Then the golden wave came. Zordon did what he could; he restored Rito's body, and took away the toadying personality Father had created, but the damage to his mind was irreparable. When I found him, after, I promised to look after him. I was his sister, and I had just realized what a bond that could be. And after the way I had treated him all those years... the way I had let this happen to him... I owed him a lot. I got an apartment, and he moved in with me, and I thought everything would be fine--until that night I woke up to screeching brakes and screams. I looked out the window and saw his body lying in the road. I thought it had been an accident--that he had wandered out into traffic by mistake--until I saw a letter on the table. It said... well, it said that he couldn't handle living as an embassy, but he meant imbecile. I hadn't thought of how he must feel. I was so caught up in being a 'good sister' that I hadn't noticed the pain he was in. So even after I resolved to be good, to do good, all I could do was hurt the people I had just learned to care about.

"I was this close to killing myself, too. I loved him, strange as it sounded, and I knew that I had failed him. If I had just been there for him, had understood what he was going through, then he wouldn't have had to kill himself. But they were all there for me: Edward, Debbie, Karone. They told me it wasn't my fault, and I believed them enough to keep on living. They--" She broke off and closed in on herself again.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought all this up. You don't want to know about my life. I'm sure you have your own problems, and much better things to be doing than listening to me yammer on like this, so I'll just leave and let you have some time to yourself, without me hanging around and annoying you..."

"You're babbling," he informed her. At her troubled expression, he smiled, warmly. "Don't worry. It helps to talk things out. I know, remember?"

"Of course," she murmured, shifting uncomfortably. "But I didn't mean to unload on you. After all I've done to you already, you have no need of my pain, too."

"It's not a problem," he assured her. A surprising impulse popped into his head, and after quick consideration, he decided to go for it. "Anything for a friend."

She looked up in shock, and saw nothing but a pair of chocolate eyes full of honesty and caring. "You know," she said hesitantly, but with a smile starting to appear, "I could really get used to hearing that."

A Beginning