Interloper

Lord Zedd

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Failure was a concept Lord Zedd had become depressingly familiar with in recent years. He had watched his mighty empire crumble before an unstoppable, never resting machine collective that threatened to dominate all of known space. Yet the mechanical hivemind was only the prelude to a dimension hopping terror that lurked in the shadows. Zedd wondered now if he’d fallen victim to the latter terror in this new realm. All he knew was that his attempted conquest of Earth and Zordon’s hidden Ranger powers had proven just as unsuccessful as all his previous attempts to save his fallen empire.

Indeed, the smallest sliver of a win he seemed to have experienced was the defeat of what the locals referred to as an Arbiter. Zedd found himself still in pursuit of the fleeing mech, despite all the warnings bestowed upon him before he left the confines of Markov. Everyone spoke of constant dangers and threats in the barren, desolate wilderness of Cevanti. They spoke of it being a savage, forgotten land with horrific secrets that were nearly impossible to uncover due to the lethality of it’s inhabitants. Lord Zedd did understand the fears of the commoners as he stepped over the mangled corpses of the bandits who had just tried to rob him. It was a dangerous land for the weak.

He continued his trek up a mountainside, finally reaching a small cliff. Below the edge was a sight he did not expect to see. Machines of all sizes lay scattered across the landscape as far as he could see. They were all in poor shape, usually mangled and in pieces, though some were struggling to move. The dark lord had seen broken and destroyed zoids across the landscape, but never in such a great concentration like this.

“Stranger,” a voice greeted him, emerging from around a rock face to meet Lord Zedd. “Welcome.”

Zedd jerked his head towards the sound of the voice, clenching his fists as he did. Before him stood an older man, covered in robes and a hood. He seemed frail, but no one would survive this far out without some sort of extraordinary ability.

“I hope those weren’t your friends I butchered back there,” Zedd snarled. “It would be exhausting to kill you as well.”

“No one has friends this far beyond the edge,” the old man replied, waving a dismissive hand. “But what brings you so far out this way?”

“I seek the Arbiter, a monstrosity that escaped me,” Zedd answered, gazing back to the junkyard below. “Did it come here?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the old man said after a moment of pause. It led Zedd to believe he wasn’t being entirely truthful. “But if you’re looking for a wounded machine, you’ve come to the right place.”

“Tell me what this place is,” Zedd ordered, not looking back to his greeter.

“This is the Graveyard. It’s known as a place where Zoids and other robotic creations come to die,” the old man replied. “Though not all of them are permanently offline, and other monsters lurk in the scrap. It’s extremely dangerous, even by this world’s standards. I would advise against venturing into it.”

“Monsters and machines do not scare me,” Zedd retorted with a scoff. “Those two things have defined much of my existence.”

“Then perhaps the spirit that lurks in the Graveyard will,” the old man countered.

Zedd turned back to the man. His mask left him devoid of facial expressions, yet his relaxed posture showed no fear.

“Spirits?” Zedd asked. “What can the incorporeal do to me?”

“One spirit,” the nomad corrected him. “They call it the Interloper, and it has ended many lives in this area.”

“You fail to scare me,” Zedd remarked, unimpressed.

“I don’t care,” the old man shrugged. “I only want warn you. Be well, stranger.”

Zedd watched as the old vagabond departed down the hill, likely to scavenge the trail of corpses left in his wake. Forgetting the man as soon as he was gone, Zedd looked back to the Graveyard. It seemed like a good place to search, even if his prey wasn’t here. After all, there was likely plenty to scavenge in this dump, and something he could use to his advantage.

If some ghost dared to cross him he would end it like everything else that had tried.
 
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Within the graveyard, and among the hulks of scrap metal and barely functioning machinery...something stirred.

A faint glimmer of blue, from within a jumbled heap of wreckage.

Life form detected. Analyzing...

Identified: Entity 'Lord Zedd'.

Status: Tentative ally

Likelihood of Assistance: Low

Estimate of Better Options: Minimal


"This does not bode well...but other options thus far amount to zero." Softly, a voice spoke up from within a mound of wreckage.

A light pressurized hissing noise was accompanied by a small jet of mist as a cocoon-like object within the wreckage slowly cracked open. No larger than a small child curled up into a ball, looking almost like some kind of bizarre egg...or some absurdly tiny safety pod. From within the mist-shrouded interior a series of indicator lights flashed and blinked several times in quick succession before winking out one by one, to be replaced by a dim glow of pale blue, around a humanoid silhouette.

"Emergency backup activation...successful," the same voice murmured, and a quick jerk separated the tiny figure from the confines of the pod. "Scanning..." Her head slowly turned this way and that, as if intently peering about the area. "...located."

A dull, droning noise rose up around the tiny figure as the nearby air rippled and distorted. With a light flex of her legs, she hopped upward off of her wreckage-shrouded perch...and took flight. Once airborne, the incessant and somewhat obnoxious noise died down to a barely perceptible background hum. "Flight systems normal. Time to move out."

A quick dive down, and through a tangled mess of wires and splintered machinery, she twisted her way out into the open air and gave a quick shake to dislodge a layer of grime, dust and flakes of rust. Righting herself, she slowly peered around the area again while carefully hovering forward.

What an eerie place... The destroyed or dying carcasses of machines stretching out in every direction as far as her visual sensors could detect. Many of them were even outright torn to pieces, though every now and then one still struggling to move caught her notice. Like the aftermath of some massive slaughtering or intentional act of destruction, or...some kind of bizarre machine graveyard, if such a thing could exist. Certainly the term could be applied here; there were, after all, 'graveyards' for things such as retired airplanes recorded in history, and for other similar branches of machinery. Retired and out of service, but simply put in a specific location on the off chance they were ever needed again...usually for parts, but sometimes simply for study or research.

The likelihood of this being any place like that, though... Well. Perhaps some of the internal components might still be worth something, even on the most heavily damaged of these machines. She hovered in place before the cracked and flickering eye of a large wolf-like zoid, staring at it intently. A low rumbling noise came from within it, and it jerked feebly with a sputtering crackle of electricity and straining mechanisms from within before going still once more.

"A shame to see such a thing," she muttered to herself, before simply turning away. With a sharp angling of her wings, the air around her visibly rippled again and with whine of building electricity she shot off like a rocket. Zipping deftly and carefully around and through the unsettling mess that was this graveyard.

Until at last, she rose over a mound of wreckage to finally lay eyes (so to speak) on the one who had triggered her awakening in the first place. Lord Zedd. Why, exactly, he had the title of 'Lord' was a mystery; that fact had not been in the memory records she had access to. It wasn't really her place to question, or care, though. What was curious to her, however, was the fact that the strange...man? seemed to be almost a machine himself. All of the metal adorning his body didn't seem to be...something that was worn, like any other living being might do. It seemed, bizarrely, to be part of him, as if fused with his flesh. Some kind of cyborg, perhaps?

No matter.

She leaned forward and fell into another dive down the pile, only righting herself once nearing the ground and slowly her pace to something more resembling a sedate jogging speed rather than a runaway vehicle. She stopped short of approaching the warlord directly, remembering from the inherited memories of Ashe that he was not exactly...pleasant to deal with. She opted instead to circle widely around and slow herself yet further as she approached so as to not appear threatening.

"You are not as adept at stealth as you think you are, insect," Zedd's voice growled out. Though he did not so much as break his pace or turn to look at her directly, there was no one else that he could have been speaking to.

"Stealth was not my intention." She spoke up softly again, taking a moment to carefully calibrate her speech volume before continuing, in something more resembling a normal speaking voice. " I merely sought to avoid appearing aggressive when approaching." She put on a burst of extra speed, zipping in close but wisely remaining out of arms' reach of the disgruntled traveler. "You are Lord Zedd. A participant in the recent siege of Markov, and the battle against the corrupted Arbiter." It wasn't exactly a question, but a probing statement all the same.

"And you are a profound nuisance," Zedd barked, finally halting and turning to face the diminutive robot. "Are you the spirit that old fool spoke of? This...Interloper? I am thoroughly unimpressed."

"I am no spirit of any kind. And I am only an Interloper in the sense of not entirely belonging to this world." The small robotic fairy simply shrugged. "My designation is the Fully Autonomous Integrated Support Entity, otherwise known as FAISE, of combat unit AFR12S4-56H1-EX-000. I believe you may recognize the entity in question as..." She paused for a moment, her lips pursing in momentary disapproval. "...Ashe-0."

"Ah. Yes. The machine woman who destroyed herself to try and destroy the Arbiter." Zedd scoffed. "A wasted effort. It served only to wound the beast and cause it to retreat."

"She was not entirely destroyed." Faise lightly tapped at the air before her with one finger, bringing up a tiny holographic display. "But a failsafe has halted her automatic reconstruction protocols, in the aftermath of the blast." Her fingers delicately tapped over the display. "Scans indicate that she is now ready for reactivation and reconstruction, with proper external commands."

"Fascinating." Zedd's tone was hollow, and even in spite of his visor-covered face, there was the almost palpable feeling of rolling his eyes. "Perhaps you may find someone else that cares. Why have you bothered me with such meaningless information?"

"In addition to the core, black box components necessary for reconstruction of its entire frame, a combat unit is set to jettison and eject the cocoon for its support unit upon destruction, as well." A light flick of her hand to one side dismissed the screen. "So that they may track down said core components and initialize proper reconstruction. I am, however...unsuited to the task of scavenging this world's hostile environs to locate her remains."

"You have yet to say why this should be any concern of mine." Zedd looked away in disinterest. "And my patience is rapidly wearing thin. I have a quarry to return to hunting."

"Then I will cut to the chase: I wish to accompany you, for my own protection, on this wild hunt of yours. I will remain unobtrusive, and render whatever assistance I can. In time, I suspect...there will be every opportunity to track down what we both seek."

"You? Assist me?" Zedd's tone grew incredulous. "How incredibly presumptuous! What could you possibly—"

"I am capable of flight, and possess advanced long-range scanning systems," Faise interjected. "And though currently offline due to my emergency activation...I possess a suite of advanced systems and components for repair and healing of both machine and flesh."

"....hmph. Very well." He lifted an arm to point at the small machine, jabbing a finger in her direction. "So long as you do not interfere with my objective, and prove yourself useful....I will permit you to remain in my presence."

"Your generosity is noted and appreciated."

"Your sarcasm is not." With a jerk of his head, Zedd turned away fully.
 

Lord Zedd

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Lord Zedd had to admit he was surprised. His short adventure into the Graveyard had rewarded him with an unlikely ally off the bat instead of more danger and fighting. His patience was still thin for this robotic assistant, but he did begrudgingly remember it’s master’s prowess in combat. Just the same, he wondered if the machine had changed it’s hostility in the absence of a greater threat than him at the moment. Some beings were only loyal to the highest bidder.

“What else has come through here?” Zedd demanded as he walked, trailed by the small machine.

“Mostly scavenger animals, a few smaller machines,” Faise acknowledged. “Although I have been reserving power for the appropriate moment, something smaller may have passed by.”

Zedd groaned at the thought. Was this a dead end? And if it was, where could he possibly go next? These wastes were expansive and unforgiving, and without a real lead he could find himself marauding for vengeance over a ridiculous amount of time.

Yet, as he lamented his misfortune, he suddenly heard a booming laugh echo through the area. A cackle from those that underestimated him was nothing unusual, but he was immediately interested when he recognized the voice had been his own. Lord Zedd had seen the tricks of many now extinct species, though, so even that didn’t stall him for more than a second.

“Faise,” Lord Zedd demanded a response.

“Acknowledge,” the robot replied, ready to co-operate. It lacked the knowledge and capacity to appreciate the rare moment Zedd would actually speak someone’s true name. There was something about this situation...

“Did you hear that laugh just now?” Zedd asked as he scanned the immediate area.

“I did not, Zedd,” Faise replied, but immediately set to work scanning the area at the mention of a new arrival.

“Lord Zedd,” the deposed warlord scoffed as he marched forward.

“Updating stored files,” Faise immediately acknowledged. It lacked the respect Zedd demanded from those that surrounded him, but he would take any sort of victory at this point.

“I didn’t think a machine would hear the cackling of a departed failure,” Zedd suddenly shouted amongst the Graveyard. He had a good idea what foe he was dealing with. “Tell me, Interloper, do you hear all at this junkyard?”

“I have heard far beyond it.”

“Entity acknowledged,” Faise replied with zero delay. “Location unknown.”

“Where are you, Interloper!?” Zedd demanded, his voice rising. “I am a conqueror of worlds! Your pitiful scrap heap is meaningless to me!”

“I am concerned with far more than this mere world, infidel. But you could prove interesting.”

Zedd stopped in place at the taunt. How dare this spirit disrespect him in such a way? He was not to be toyed with.

“Show yourself!” Zedd ordered after a slight delay as he collected himself.

“Not yet.”

There was a rush of air, as if something had left the area. Yet nothing seemed to really change. Still Zedd immediately knew that he was alone once more. Well, alone with this floating pixie robot. He growled as he set off through the terrain once more. He would not be mocked or challenged by anyone.
 

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For several minutes, the unlikely duo moved forward through the overwhelmingly unfriendly terrain. The surprise 'encounter' in the graveyard had left an unsettling atmosphere hanging over everything — admittedly, unsettling to one half of them; Zedd, no doubt, simply found it infuriating, given his demeanor.

Though from her brief observations, Faise noted, he likely found most things some level of infuriating.

"Pursuit of this unknown entity is ill-advised," the tiny support robot finally spoke up, after what she judged had been a socially-appropriate amount of time.

"I did not ask for your opinion, machine," Zedd growled.

"That was not my opinion," she countered, quite bluntly. "It was a logically-calculated statement of fact."

"I did not ask for your factual input either!" the would-be conqueror barked.

"Correct. You did not." The support robot accelerate her pace slightly, to assume a position just in front of and to the right of the warlord, as she floated backward to face him, keeping pace with his rigorous march. Like a parent scolding an unruly child, she planted her hands on her hips as she went on. "If I had waited until you did request for such input and assistance, then by my most generous estimates, I would remain silent until sometime approximating the inevitable heat death of the known universe."

The tyrant made a noise somewhere between a snort of mock-amusement and a growling noise of irritation as he angrily swatted at the pixie machine with one clenched fist. "Are you this insufferable by sadistic choice of your designers, or is this a personal choice in whatever 'artificial intelligence' you operate on?"

The tiny robot simply fluttered up and out of the tyrant's reach, with a faint smirk playing at her lips. "I was designed with more freedom and a higher baseline level of social complexity, to facilitate easier interaction and communication with living entities." It was a very matter-of-fact explanation, as if rehearsed hundreds of times over. "Though it is also a personal choice."

"Thrilling." Zedd's voice was flat and utterly deadpan as he responded. "Truly." He heaved a sigh, as he turned his eyeless visor back toward his chosen direction of 'forward'. "Very well, then. f it will silence you again, please enlighten me as to why this is such a poor decision."

"There are many reasons," Faise said simply. "There are two which stand out most importantly, however." She held up one hand, two fingers raised. "The true identity of this strange 'Interloper' entity remains unknown. The location it went when it departed the graveyard similarly remains unknown."

"And your point behind such stunning observations?"

"To put it as shortly and simply as possible: we cannot give true pursuit to a quarry which has fled in an unknown direction, nor can we prepare for what may be laying in wait should we by some miracle stumble upon it. There are other factors in play, but I won't bore you with a full rundown. I suspect you would ignore most of it, regardless." She made an overly-exaggerated shrugging motion, before continuing. "Even you must see the folly of such a blind charge into so many unknowns, however, yes?"

Zedd fumed silently for several tense seconds as he marched stubbornly, resolutely onward. "The odds being stacked so highly has never stopped me before," he finally grunted. "Unless you have some remarkable insight as to how to fix this lack of knowledge we find ourselves faced with, then be silent."

"....hmph. Very well, then." Faise crossed her arms over her chest, with a shake of her head. "Resuming silent mode. I will be observing the environment for any immediate threats." And she flitted away out of sight, to rest at some point above and behind Lord Zedd, the Mightily Grumpy and Geographically-Challenged.
 

Lord Zedd

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“Lord Zedd,” Faise spoke up after mere seconds of silence.

“What is it now?” Zedd demanded as he walked without slowing his pace. “I thought you promised me silence!”

“I promised you a constant observation for any threats,” Faise replied quickly. “I have detected danger in our immediate vicinity.”

Zedd stopped in his tracks, and slowly scanned the area. The machine graveyard was quiet and still, yet he knew an ambush could come from anywhere. He simply did not fear it like many would. Still, this world had proven to be unpredictable and his powers were not where he wanted them to be anymore, so he was forced to take such a threat seriously, something he hadn’t done in eons.

“Your analysis?” Zedd asked as he continued to observe his environment.

“Threat level: minimal,” Faise answered.

Before Zedd could so much as scoff, he was suddenly surrounded. Five bandits emerged from the wreckage they were trekking through, all in various states of dishevelment, yet they seemed to find humor in the situation all the same. They laughed, and in turn Zedd let out one of his own. The ambushers and their prey all cackled hysterically, with the assailants trailing off to silence in sheer confusion that their prey was finding just as much mirth in this situation as them.

“You must have been hit upside the head!” one of the bandits shouted, to no end of laughter from their target.

“What can we take from him?” another asked. “He doesn’t even have skin.”

“He’ll have to figure out something to make this worth our while,” a third scavenger decided. “Wouldn’t want us angry with him.”

Faise was continuing to analyze the situation within her programming. “I detect…”

“I have detected enough, myself!” Lord Zedd bellowed, finally ceasing his own laughter. “I’ve needed this very much, and I relish every lowlife I get the pleasure of wiping from existence.”

“Acknowledged, Lord,” Faise responded.

Zedd paused for a minute. He was used to correcting people addressing him without his title, but he wasn’t as used to getting the title without a name. It was better, but still felt wrong to him.

“It is Lord Zedd,” he quickly reminded his robotic companion.

“My internal files acknowledge you with a given name of ‘Lord’ and a surname of ‘Zedd,’ is this inaccurate?” Faise replied.

Zedd let out a heavy sigh. He would just have to address this later.

“Hey!” the lead bandit standing before Zedd shouted, tired of being ignored and disrespected. “Who do you think you’re dealing with here? Do you know who we are?”

“I hope to never need to find out,” Zedd sneered at his opponent. “Your purpose is to be nothing more than an outlet for my frustrations.”

With that remark the five bandits immediately brandished a variety of makeshift weapons, pieced together from the debris littering the machine graveyard around them. As they slid into different, ill trained combat stances, Zedd stood perfectly still in the middle of them. He slowly raised his right hand into the air, and lightning began to crackle around it. The ambushers watched in awe as the lightning shaped into metal, and Lord Zedd’s famous Z-Staff spawned into his hand. He drove the spike into the ground decisively, daring any of them to approach him.

The bandits were committed at this point, so they rushed forward at once. Zedd was quick to step forward and impale the leader, then spin around and swing his staff at the others as they approached. Two were struck back, but the others were able to avoid the blow. Zedd was quick to jab one of them with the Z end of his staff, knocking him again, but the other was allowed the time to move in enough to stab at him with a sword made from a rusted pole. Zedd swatted the attack aside with his staff before delivering a superpowered jab to the man’s trachea, sending him to the ground as he gasped his final breaths.

Zedd approached a recovering bandit, taking the time to impale one on the ground with the spike of his staff. The outlaw swung at Zedd with a wooden bat, which immediately splintered to pieces on contact with the deposed dark lord. Zedd grabbed the man and hurled him across the junkyard, his laughter filling the area as he did.

Yet when Zedd turned to continue his assault he found himself suddenly silenced. He stared in awe at the machine he’d thrown the bandit into, and slowly paced towards it. The surviving two muggers saw that Zedd was distracted, and immediately climbed to their feet and fled into the wastes. Zedd thought he head Faise moving. Was she pursuing them? It didn’t matter, he was focused on the sight before him.

Here, on this desolate world far away from the reality he had been taken from, and within this graveyard of machines, was the Megazord of the Power Rangers. The multicolored machine had been an absolute menace to him over eons, only recently piloted by the Earth based Rangers and before that by an ancient team of warriors. Now it sat forgotten in the ruins of Cevanti’s outskirts. How had it gotten here, and where were the Rangers? They had to be on this world somewhere. For them to meet their end didn’t seem as likely, as they always managed to claw their way back from the brink.

Lord Zedd surveyed the forlorn machine that had caused him so much trouble. It was useless here, rusting and rotting with the rest of Cevanti’s forgotten trash. Yet it was a stern reminder that he had more important things to do than mutilate the local riff-raff.

With several uneasy steps, Zedd left his archenemies' former weapon behind.
 

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As the two surviving bandits scrambled up and fled from the distracted tyrant, Faise watched them go for a moment. She spared a quick glance back at Zedd before returning her focus to their unexpected guess and bolted forward in pursuit of them. A mostly-silent flight, quickly flitting around the assorted debris and junk and catching up to them.

"Your bravado seems to have crumbled as quickly as your friends' lives," she noted as she zipped past one of them.

The surprised bandit let out a sputtering noise and jerked aside with a stumbling step. "What in the god damn?!" He swatted futilely at the tiny robot, who simply did an almost lazy twirling circle around the offending limb. "Should've stayed back there with that psycho, you little bug freak!"

He snatched up a jagged chunk of metal from a nearby pile of debris, and gave a sharp whistle to the other would-be scavenger, by now several paces ahead. The other one skidded to a halt and whirled around. "Ignore the fuckin' pixie, and let's go already! Before that other freak snaps out of whatever seizure stopped him!"

"Just help me finish this thing off already, or it'll tell him which way we went!" With his new 'weapon' in both hands, the wasteland thug set to swinging wildly at Faise as she simply floated back, zipping and buzzing to and fro to avoid the clumsy, desperate strikes.

"By my analysis, you have only a seventeen percent chance of actually managing to hit me before you exhaust yourself too much to continue swinging," she noted. "Perhaps you should find an alternate means of aggression?" She darted back the equivalent of several paces. "Or perhaps I should retaliate."

"Retaliate? You?" That drew a snort of amusement from the tiny robot's attacker. "I'm fuckin terrified. What're you gonna do, sting me?" And he immediately scowled. "Just fuckin' buzz off alrea—ghk!"

The brute's threat was brought to a swift halt with a sudden crack as Faise quickly shot in, diving down and then shooting back up into an upward, flipping kick with both feet that impacted the man's chin. His head jerked up, and he let out a strangled gurgling noise of pain and shock. "Do not underestimate me simply based on my size. I am still a machine, and my strength is no less than that of a normal human."

The attacked man stumbled back and fell over onto his back, dropping his makeshift weapon in favor of clutching at his face, and alternately gasping and gurgling around a mouthful of blood and at least one broken tooth. He looked around wildly in a panic, for his accomplice...only to see the faint signs of dust from their frantic retreat, heedless to the downed one's plight. He threw out a hand toward their retreating form, with a mangled "W-wait, hep!" just as the tiny pixie robot quite literally landed on his face.

"Given that my current traveling companion deemed you as a collective entity that was worthy of an armed, lethal response," she started, one boot planted on each of the man's cheeks. "It seems only fitting that I do the same, especially after your own hostile actions." She drew back one arm, clenched into a fist, and even as the man's eyes went wide and frantic, she threw herself forward into a swift haymaker.

There was a sharp, sudden splorching noise as her fist plowed through the downed scavenger's eyeball and further beyond, burying her arm up to the shoulder within his head. He convulsed and seized, his un-punctured eye rolling back into his head and swiftly went still.

The support robot slowly pulled herself free and resumed flight, looking down at herself with a frown. "Organic bodily fluids are such a revolting mess..." she muttered, futilely wiping at the mess of blood and other assorted viscera now decorating much of her front side. Normally, it would only take a short rest in her appropriate dock to take care of such a mess, but she didn't have such a luxury now. Just something she'd have to deal with.

She shrugged it off, flicking away most of the mess covering her hand, and launched herself higher up. A quick rotation in place, as she surveyed the area, and she located the once more moving form of Lord Zedd. Catching up to the deposed tyrant took only a matter of moments, before she settled in at a more sedate flying pace alongside him.

"One of the two that attempted to flee managed to get away," she informed him.

"I do not care," Zedd snapped. "Dead or running away, they are no longer a nuisance to me."

"Of course." There was little point in arguing such a thing, so Faise was quite content to let it drop. "Something you saw within the graveyard seemed to perturb you greatly."

"Merely something I...recognized." The conqueror's tone was uncharacteristically cold and uneasy. "It is of no concern, do not dwell on it."

"As you wish, Lord Zedd."
 

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As the two traveled through the scrap, a sudden chill ran down Zedd’s back. Naturally, he was angered by this phenomenon, as he preferred to give that feeling rather than receive it. It was clear as day what it meant, at least. The Interloper had returned. Perhaps it never truly left, but regardless, it felt the need to make itself known again. Faise did not react to the change in energy around them immediately. Zedd couldn’t be certain if was because she was a mere machine, or if he had been singled out.

“Enough games,” Zedd demanded as he came to a stop, violently slamming his staff downward. “Reveal yourself!”

While Faise fluttered past him, clearly looking for whatever Zedd sensed, the vagabond tyrant stared straight ahead. He would no longer entertain the whims of some unseen specter. His demand appeared to be met with some degree of seriousness, as a blue vortex of energy formed before him. Lightning crackled from it and a dark energy burst in every direction, but Zedd did not so much as flinch at the grand display. The energy began to contain itself, it formed a ghostly image of… himself. Lord Zedd was facing a spectral Lord Zedd. He sighed in disappointment. More games after all.

“I sense you don’t take me as seriously as you should,” Lord Zedd scoffed. “I will make you regret this.”

The Interloper merely laughed in response. It had Zedd’s voice, his movements, his mannerisms, every little detail. It was impressive, but mostly insulting.

“You cannot possibly pretend to be me forever,” Zedd began to step towards this ghost, dedicated to find a way to rip it’s remaining spirit from it.

“Insolent fool, you are me,” the Interloper suddenly stopped it’s cackling.

“What did you say?” Zedd stopped in place, pondering those words. “Tell me what you are, immediately.”

“I was once Lord Zedd, ruler of a mighty empire across the mortal realm,” the Interloper revealed, waving its ghostly hands. “And after the collapse of my kingdom at the hands of the Machine Empire, I became a traveler in a universe far away, and unlike anything I had ever seen. There I was an enforcer, a leader, and lastly: a champion.”

“Impossible,” Zedd retorted, slowly beginning to circle his foe. The Interloper matched the mannerisms as they moved sideways. “You would dare claim to be an alternate version of me?”

“As I said, you are my alternate destiny,” the Interloper reminded him.

“Yes, while I am alive and you are dead,” Zedd mocked his ghostly double. “Clearly, you are the superior.”

“You couldn’t comprehend,” the Interloper snarled. “After slaughtering my way through a universe of miscreants, all for a chance to seize ultimate power from the ruler of the Abyss, my unrivaled greatness caused the collapse of an entire reality. The host of the competition fled the reality with all of his servants and fans, but I drifted in the void of the fallen land for far too long.”

Zedd did not immediately respond. He was content to listen to the boasting that was well within reason of how he expected such a trip to a foreign reality to end.

“There I claimed the powers of it’s fallen god, and I used it to view countless realities just like he had before me,” the lost spirit continued.

“And what is it you saw?” Zedd asked of the spirit, begrudgingly curious about this story.

“Conquest, glory, and power only to be followed by crushing failure,” the Interloper explained. “I’ve seen the end of our road again and again. Defeat, death, imprisonment, and worst of all: redemption.”

Zedd finally stopped his pacing, and his counterpart did the same. He continued to listen intently, still unsure what to make of this outlandish tale. But then, he had seen plenty of insanity in his long life.

“Once, long ago, in my reality, I was a Power Ranger. The original, first Red Ranger in the war against Rita and Vile. I fell in the end of the battle, and became the dark lord for the next ten thousand years,” the Interloper continued. “I was redeemed in that Void, and my original self escaped back to his own reality. Now all that was left was me, the remnants of the spirit of the once proud Lord Zedd.”

“Preposterous,” Zedd snapped, pointing his staff at the specter. “I was never on the side of my mortal enemies.”

“And that is why after seeing all these realities I have chosen you,” the Interloper explained. “I will merge with you. Once we become one, we will restore the glory of Lord Zedd.”

It was a hard idea to argue against. Zedd could only give a simple nod. If this spirit was any sort of a liar then he could rip its ghostly form from him and to pieces. He already knew that wouldn’t be necessary, though. There was something about it. Lord Zedd had never felt a kindred spirit with anything, but where better to start than with himself?

The Interloper had no more words to speak. Instead it raced forward, disappearing with a flash of light. As Lord Zedd caught the last look at his alternate destiny, the same blue energy swirled around him in a violent display. It raced into him with a violent explosion that sent him to a kneel in pain. It wasn’t just the physical pain that floored him, but the rush of memories. He saw countless worlds, fates, and realities. It was just as he had been told, they all ended with failure. A thousand lifetimes were viewed in an instant, ending just at the Interloper had promised: abandoned by Karl Jak in a broken realm. The one story’s end that he didn’t see was his own. His future still belonged to him. His would be different.

“Lord Zedd, are you okay?” Faise asked, having silently observed the entire exchange.

“I am far better than I have ever been,” Zedd announced as he stood up and surveyed the graveyard before him.

It all seemed so different after what he had experienced. He was wiser in an instant, but with the same purpose. With his newfound knowledge from the shared memories of his predecessor, Lord Zedd marched onward.
 

The Future Warrior

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"I suspect that foreign entity was the Interloper," Faise finally spoke up after what she judged an appropriate length of time. It had been upwards of ten minutes, and an arbitrary randomly-generated amount of time more, since the incident.

"That entity," Lord Zedd growled. "Was, and is now, me. Show some respect, machine."

"My apologies." The tiny machine's tone remained unchanged, in spite of her professed apology. "Such dimensional anomalies are not unheard of, in my home world. They often end in far more bloodshed and violence, and occasionally even spiraled into an Extinction-Class Doppelganger Paradox. Several planetary bodies had to be subjected to an atmospheric burn to completely manage the consequences, lest they spread to neighboring sectors."

The deposed warlord's mask hid his true features, but the glance he spared the small pixie robot was still radiating something between confusion and utter disinterest. "Fascinating, I am sure," he said flatly. "Are you programmed to provide such abundantly useless information without prompting?"

"I am programmed to do many things." She idly twirled in place, before simply giving a shrug. "As a safety precaution, I am not able to peruse the full library of my functions at will, however."

The only response from Zedd this time was a noise somewhere between an irritated huff and a dismissive snarl, as he hunched his shoulders and quickened his forward pace.

"A curious question, if I may," the support drone spoke up after several more minutes. Without even waiting for a response, she immediately continued, "As you have merged with this other version of yourself. Have you noticed any differences?"

"It is none of your business," the warlord snapped. "I have already said that I am far better than I was before, and that is all you need concern yourself with for the duration of our brief partnership."

"Levels of pride and arrogance remain constant. Your overall personality seems consistent." Faise noted, with a gesture as if making a note. Her tone had gained a playful, not quite mocking quality as she mimed scribbling on a clipboard, and theatrically made a point of putting a final period in her 'notes'. "Any changes will no doubt be much deeper. New knowledge, perhaps. Deeper potential for supernatural or physical development."

".....I despise your capacity for astute insight," Zedd snarled, and swung backhanded blow of his staff up at the infuriatingly evasive machine. "You will cease such unwanted analysis at once!"

Even as she darted back and upward out of the mad tyrant's reach, Faise halted sharply, going stock-still. Behind her visor, her eyes went wide, as notifications and alerts began popping up and flashing at an alarming level across her display. There it was...finally!

"Zedd." Her voice immediately regained its flat, serious edge. The sudden sharp change caught even the newly-changed warlord off guard, and he tilted his head curiously.

Before her, a small holographic display and keyboard appeared, projected from her visor. She quickly typed and worked on it in silence for several seconds before speaking again. "I have detected and isolated recovery signals from the remains of my paired unit."

Zedd's disgruntled aura returned in full force. "Lord Zedd," he again snapped, either ignorant or dismissive enough of the delay in his correction. "And if you have found it, then you should go and see to whatever no doubt fascinating and technologically neuron-rupturing task awaits your retrieval and reactivation of it. Why have you even bothered to inform me of this?"

"As I said upon our original encounter," Faise went on, her expression tightening into a frown. "I lack the necessary physical abilities to properly retrieve and activate the recovery and regenerative functions. I must ask you to—"

Zedd interrupted her to bark out a laugh. "To assist you?" he said, mockingly. "You would ask Lord Zedd to do something as menial as heavy lifting?"

"Your tone indicates you are amused rather than offended," Faise said quietly. "Am I to take this as an agreement you will oblige?"

"Absolutely not." The tyrant struck the ground with the base of his staff, with a sharp crack. "The fact you are clueless enough to even think of making such a request is simply ridiculous and audacious enough that I can only be too amazed and amused at your idiocy to bother destroying you here and now." He pointed up at her with the large Z end of his staff. "But my generosity for such things does not extend far. Choose your next words carefully."

The tiny robots hands stopped as if frozen in midair, hovering over the holographic keys of her scanning display. Her expression twisted, into a tiny grimace that radiated genuine distress. After a moment, she sagged slightly where she floated there, and lifted one hand to swipe the glimmering hologram away.

Slowly, she fluttered downward, until she rested at approximately chest-level with the warlord, though making sure to remain well out of his reach. A tiny platform of hard-light appeared beneath her bots, bright white where she touched it but fading out to circuit board-like patterns awash in hues of blue further away from her. For a long moment she simply stood there, looking up at this unbearable creature she had been forced to rely on...and then she sank forward, into a deep bow, of desperate supplication.

"Lord Zedd. Please. I have precious little to offer in return for your aid in this task, but I beg you even so." Her tone had shifted to something all too eerily...human. Somber and quiet, and with the inflection of someone struggling not to cry. A far cry from the barely-there synthesized emotional capacity of Ashe herself. "I have the exact coordinates of where her remains are located. They are not far from where we currently stand. I will not appeal to your mercy or good will....I mean no further insult."

If whatever she was up to was some kind of act, it was a startlingly convincing one.

She leaned forward further, placing her hands on the glimmering platform she had conjured for herself, and knelt down until her forehead nearly rested on it. "Please."
 

Lord Zedd

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In a mere instant, Lord Zedd had become privy to countless alternate destinies his life could have taken. He saw so many facets of himself he never imagined. Some were just different choices made in crucial moments, others were a drastically different life. There were moments he was forced to compromise, moments he betrayed his beliefs, and even moments he showed mercy. There were so many times he didn’t recognize the choices he made, for they were good and pure.

This was not one of those moments. Lord Zedd was quick to realize that no matter how far he traveled, this insufferable robotic fairy would be in hot pursuit. Just the same, he didn’t trust that she would be easy to swat like a fly, so the path of least resistance was to give in to her pleas.

“Very well, if it will get you away from me!” Zedd shouted as he barged past her, which she predictably effortlessly avoided the hulking warlord’s movements. Zedd took the movement in stride. “Tell me now what I must do to be rid of you!”

“I sense that what we seek is nearby,” Faise quickly explained.

“What you seek, machine,” Zedd was quick to remind her.

“Yes, of course,” Faise agreed without hesitation. “If you would just follow me, I would be glad to show you the location of our target.”

“If it will end this association, then yes, I will expedite the process,” Zedd snarled in pure anger.

Faise didn’t respond immediately, instead fluttering off into the distance. The dark lord contemplated a quick departure of his own, only in an opposite direction, but didn’t trust the exit to go too well. He begrudgingly followed after his companion, loathe as he was to use the phrase.

The robot scaled the obstacles far easier than Zedd was able too, and the deposed warlord found himself stumbling over broken robots and heaps of scrap metal. Anger built and threatened to burst from within him as he clumsily stumbled over machines he was better suited to slaughter than navigate. Just the same, he reached the top of the broken heap of robots, where fresh corpses and remains had been recently deposited. Faise fluttered nearby, looking as hopeful as a machine could towards an uncaring being such as Zedd.

“Our target is in there,” Faise explained as she gestured towards the top of the pile.

Zedd scoffed loudly. Near the top, but not directly at the top. He had expected to hurl creatures aside and fight bandits, not simply move scrap metal. It was no real trouble to him, though, as he began to cast piece after piece aside. He assumed Faise would stop him before he hurled the corpse of her quarry off the side of the pile, but he honestly wouldn’t be too troubled if she didn’t.
 
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