The meteor fragment was exactly where Hayley had said it would be.

Unfortunately, it already had visitors.

“Trent?” Kira asked from beside him, sounding confused. Trent, Cassidy and Devin all looked up in surprise.

“What are you guys doing here?” said Trent, getting to his feet. Despite addressing his question to all of them, his eyes never left Conner.

“I was about to ask you the same thing,” snapped Conner, looking back. Trent looked rough. Not just tired, but like he needed a shower and clean clothes, and a break from lugging around the pack on his back. Conner stamped down any feelings of care. Trent was evil.

Trent just looked at him, face blank. That irritated Conner more than anything, who knew he had about as much chance of hiding his feelings as Ethan had of becoming cool.

“We haven’t seen you around in a while,” Conner sneered, satisfied when Trent looked taken aback.

“Yeah, we really need to catch up,” said Ethan, sounding just as angry as Conner felt.

Trent backed up a few paces, past Devin and Cassidy, who both looked confused. Conner went to follow him, only to be stopped by Kira’s arm across his stomach. “Not now, guys,” she hissed.

Conner didn’t know why he’d started to follow Trent anyway. It wasn’t like he wanted to talk to him. “Kira’s right,” he said. “Let’s check this thing out.”

“Pardon me, but I don’t think I’m supposed to let you do that,” said a voice, and Conner spun in surprise. A polite monster? That was new. Unfortunately, the tyrannodrones surrounding him looked all too familiar. And Cassidy and Devin were watching. Not to mention the complication of Trent . . .

“Quick! Run!” cried Cassidy, and Conner watched in relief as they both disappeared.

Tyrannodrones were now appearing on all sides, ducking out from behind trees and bushes. They were surrounded.

Bad. And if Trent decided to morph, that would be worse. “Who’s side you on today, Trent?”

Now Trent was starting to look mad. “You want my help or not?” he said, sliding off his pack.

“If it’s all the same,” the monster announced. “I’ll just watch from over here.”

Fine with Conner, though he couldn’t imagine that was part of Mesogog’s plan. And then the tyrannodrones were running at him, and he had to forget about Trent and everything in the familiar pattern of block-hit-kick.

Flashes of color showed the others fighting. Conner tried to back flip away, get some room, only for two tyrannodrones to grab his legs and drag him forwards. Great. Another top for the wash. He kicked the tyrannodrones away, and moved on for another victim.

Over the noise of the fight he heard Kira’s communicator bleep, and her talking to Hayley. Whatever it was, Kira didn’t call over what Hayley had said. Not important, then, or not anything they could do something about.

Without realizing, he’d let himself be backed towards the watching monster and meteor fragment. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw them both glowing. Then the monster roared, “Hey, I want a piece of the action!”

That was all the warning he got before something slammed into his lower back. He managed to convert the fall into a roll, but damn that hurt! Kira and Ethan ran over, ready to defend him if he’d been hurt too badly to fight.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” asked Ethan, as Kira helped Conner up.

They morphed together, all ignoring Trent who was fighting off to one side. He knew anyway, but it still felt weird, morphing in front of someone other than Dr. O and Hayley.

The fight started to go better, the tyrannodrones becoming little more than annoying. If Conner had noticed the meteor glowing again, he’d have done something, but he didn’t. Purple light shot out, hitting first Trent, then the three of them. Conner felt a moment of dizziness, his eyes blurring, before everything went back to normal.

Well. That had been unusual, and seemingly pointless—but he knew he should still be wary until they’d investigated what effects the meteor could have on people.

The monster singled him out, but after a brief fight retreated. Conner gave the order to power down. “Well, that was a challenging altercation.”

“I was just getting started. I wanted to annihilate that goon!” said Ethan, eyes burning with adrenaline.

Kira examined one hand. “Eew. I got dirt under my nails. That’s like, totally disgusting.”

Conner didn’t pay very much attention to her. He was distracted by something else—or someone else. “Hey, where’s Trent?” He couldn’t deny that he felt worried, though his former anger hadn’t dissipated entirely. It would probably take some time for that to occur.

Their communicators bleeped. “Guys, head back to the lab,” said Hayley. “I’ve got some news about the space rock.”

Conner frowned in confusion. “Space rock?” they chorused together.

--

“It’s actually a meteor fragment.”

“Fascinating,” said Conner, folding his arms. Who knew what sort of powers an object like that might hold? “It must have broken off in some sort of intergalactic collision.” The other possibility was that it had been sent, in which case they would need to find out who and why. Hayley had been right in saying it could pose hazardous.

He turned back to face the other three, who all stared at him in confusion. He felt a moment of irritation. Hadn’t he been speaking clearly enough? “What?”

“I’m just afraid coming in such close proximity to it, might have some strange side affects,” said Hayley.

That would be interesting to study. Of course, there would be no way of setting up any kind of valid experiment to collect empirical data. It would be highly unethical.

Hayley looked worried. “Do you guys feel okay?”

“Well, I for one, am going home,” said Kira. “If I don’t soak my cuticles in an aloe bath, my nails will never grow out.”

“I gotta hit the gym,” said Ethan, poking his chest. “I need to work on my pecs.”

If they were leaving, Conner didn’t see why he should remain with Hayley. And there had been that program he’d noticed in the television guide . . . he frowned as he thought of it. He couldn’t remember why, but there was some reason he wasn’t supposed to mention it. Perhaps one of the others had wanted to see it but were too busy, and might have felt jealous?

Neither of them seemed busy. “I want to get home to watch that documentary on the Great Pyramids,” he said. “It looks fascinating.”

As they turned to leave, he thought he heard Hayley mutter, “Uh-oh.”

--

Conner curled up on the sofa, rubbing his hand. That was the main flaw in heavy books. They did hurt to hold.

He’d borrowed it from his parent’s room. For some reason, his room contained very few books, all of them about either soccer or school. Conner didn’t understand. He liked reading, didn’t he? So why didn’t he own more books?

And why did he own so many soccer balls? Of course, he realized that he enjoyed the game, but it was only a game. He had counted four soccer balls in his room. One was signed by several famous players, and the other three were all of differing sizes and materials, but it still seemed rather pointless.

The documentary had been fascinating, so much so that he’d recorded it to view again in the future. Perhaps Dr. O would be interested—if they ever managed to free him. Conner had a few ideas, but he’d discuss them with Hayley before trying anything. Better safe than sorry.

Of course, thinking of Dr. O being fossilized led straight to Trent. Conner let his head fall with a sigh. His feelings for the other boy were confusing, but hardly inexplicable. If he had been examining his own behavior in someone else, he would never have hesitated to say they were attracted to Trent. The physical responses were all there—sweaty palms, blushing, an increase heart rate—not to mention the psychological affects. The fact that he spent so much time thinking about Trent was a clear indicator.

He was attracted to Trent. He had no doubts it was only a crush. It couldn’t be anything more serious. Deeper feelings took time and commitment to develop. At his age, he hardly thought either of them had the emotional maturity to form a lasting bond.

His current strategy was probably the most effective. Although being actively hostile probably hurt

Trent, Conner’s feelings of anger made it difficult to be civil. When they faded, treating Trent as a distant acquaintance would probably be best—not denying that they knew each other, but not allowing any feelings to complicate the issue.

Besides, it wasn’t as if he needed to sit next to Trent in math anymore. He’d actually found his homework quite enjoyable. Perhaps he’d ask for extra in his next class.

--

Conner didn’t think he could face going home yet. His parents were probably preparing to send him to a mental hospital, what with all the personality changes he’d been through. Conner the super-geek. He’d be happy forgetting all that forever.

Though it had been kind of nice to be the smart one.

“How are you?”

Conner looked up in surprise as Dr. O put a gloved hand on his shoulder. “Should I be asking that? You’re the one who’s stuck in morph.”

Dr. O shrugged, sitting down beside Conner. “You look kind of down.”

“Again, shouldn’t that be you?” Hopefully it wouldn’t take Dr. O too long to take the hint. Conner did not feel like talking.

“Is it about Trent?”

Conner didn’t reply, apart from a grimace that he was that obvious. Dr. O still didn’t take the hint, keeping his hand on Conner’s shoulder and clearly preparing himself to talk.

“Did I ever tell you how I became a ranger?”

Despite himself, Conner looked up. He loved hearing about Dr. O’s past as a ranger, and all the stories he had about the things and people he’d fought with. “No.”

“I was evil too.” His voice sounded casual, just Dr. O explaining something, and Conner wished he could see Dr. O’s face. “I’d only just moved to Angel Grove, and I became friends with some of the power rangers, without knowing who they were.”

“So? How’d you go evil?”

“A witch named Rita put a spell on me, and gave me the green power coin. She turned me against my new friends, and sent me to fight them. I tried to kill them.”

Now his voice sounded slightly less casual, and Conner felt a moment of relief he couldn’t see Dr. O’s face. Some things were easier without eye contact. “How did you join them, then?” He remembered some scenes of the green ranger fighting from Dr. O’s record, but he couldn’t recall what had happened.

“They broke the spell, and asked me to join them.”

“They asked you?” Conner could see where this was going, but . . . “Trent’s different.”

“Why?”

He couldn’t tell Dr. O. “He just is.”

Dr. O laced his fingers together, looking down and obviously thinking. “I owe them everything, you know. Even while I was evil, they still had faith in me. Remember I told you I was friends with some of them?”

Conner nodded.

“One of them was Kimberly, the pink ranger. She was . . . well, I liked her straight away. One of the things that meant most to me, afterwards, was the belief she always had that I was good. I was horrible to her—I tried to hurt her, more than the others. With her, it was personal.

“But she forgave me. After everything, she just forgave me. She never stopped trying to get through to me, even while I was evil. I think that, more than any of the others, she knew it was the spell, that it wasn’t really me. That the last thing I would do was hurt any of them, especially her.”

Conner gave up wondering how much Dr. O knew. It didn’t matter that much, anyway. “What happened to her?”

“We dated. Loved each other. Broke up in the end, but we’re friends again.”

“Oh.” Conner paused, fiddling with a rip in his jeans. “She sounds a bit like Kira.”

Dr. O laughed. “No. She wasn’t very like Kira. I don’t think Kira and Trent are interested in each other that way. Do you?”

No. “Trent’s not under a spell,” he said instead.

“Spell, brainwashing, evil dino gem . . . not much difference.” Dr. O sounded like he’d dealt with them all. “Forget what he does while evil. That’s not him. The real Trent is the one you knew before—and one day, he’ll come back.”

“How do you know?”

“Good always wins,” he said, in a way that made Conner feel it must be true. “And because we’ll bring him back, and Trent will be Trent again.”

Conner’s throat felt strangely swollen. “You really think?”

“I know. And when we do . . . you have to be there for him, Conner. Imagine what this is like for him. Forced to fight and hurt the people he loves. Having no control over his body, having to fight alongside evil. Having people hate him. Promise me you’ll support him, because he’ll need you.”

For some reason, thinking of Trent didn’t feel quite as painful as before. Dr. O’s faith that the Trent he’d been getting to know wasn’t the same as the white ranger made it easy for Conner to believe. “I promise.” Feeling like he needed to say something else, he whispered, “I want him back. We need to help him.”

Dr. O’s hand rubbed his back, slow and soothing. “I know. And we’ll get him back.”

--