Dark Lady
Epilogue
by Cheryl Roberts

“It worked!  I --she-- did it!” The Dark Lady gasped, momentarily fumbling over the pronouns as she watched her younger self walk back towards the Oliver house with David.

“If it worked, then why are you still here?” Rita demanded smugly.

“It’s the turn of the 22nd century; that happened back at the turn of the 21st.  It’s going to take some time for the effect to catch up to us.”

“And maybe nothing really changed in the past afterall.  Maybe it’s your destiny to be the Dark Lady!”

However, instead of invoking despair, the witch’s words brought a sense of calm to the fair-haired sorceress.

“Maybe you’re right,” the Dark Lady said at last, smiling as if she knew some secret the other woman did not.  “Although, considering how much you’ve wanted me to change the past and not become the Dark Lady, I’m beginning to believe otherwise.  However, even if I didn’t change the past, I know I changed the present.”

“Huh?”

“Katherine throwing off your hold in the past showed me that I don’t have to be your slave… that I’m stronger than you are.  I don’t have to be the Dark Lady any longer.”

The words were uttered with conviction, and the enchantress felt the tumult within that her statement had created, but for a change, she was not at the eye of the chaos.

“Stupid twit!  As long as you hold my powers, you’ll be the Dark Lady!”

But she knew better.  She could feel it... with each passing moment, Katherine’s hold grew stronger over the fragmented personalities.  However, Rita did have a point.  As long as she existed in her mind, there was always a chance that she would regain control.

“Then perhaps it’s time I let them go,” she answered, and she winced as laughter erupted in her head.

“Without my magic, you’ll die.”

“I should have died a long time ago,” the sorceress/Kat asserted.  “I’m not afraid of dying, Rita. I  know my friends are waiting for me.”

“You can’t let go of my powers!” the would-be empress of evil gasped,  desperation settling in.  She could feel her hold over her host slipping like sand through her fingers.  “If you let them go, they’ll destroy everything!  Do you want to blow up your precious Earth?”

“As long as the magic is dormant, nothing will happen.  I’ve had lot’s of time to read up on this.  All I need to do is will them back to the cosmos from whence they came.”

“You wouldn’t... you can’t... you’re too much of a wimp to.....”

The former Dark Lady crossed the ancient chamber to stand on the balcony.  Finding a  large slab of fallen debris to sit on, she faced her home planet.  Closing her eyes and looking inward, she examined the arcane energies permeating her being.  Most of the powers at her command were simply stored within, waiting to be called up, but some of it was tied directly to her life energy.

“Dak-tor....”

“What are you doing?” Rita shrieked.

The one-time sorceress smiled.

“Ami-ah....”

“You can’t...!”

“Vo-neh... hai!”

The words were uttered, and Kat could feel the magic flowing form her like water draining from a bathtub.  She could see it washing out to rejoin the fabric of the universe where it belonged.

“What have you done?” Rita raged, but her voice and presence were much fainter than before.

“I’ve released the powers.  It will take them a long time to fully leave me, but I’ll be long gone by the time the process is finished.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want nothing from you.  Not even my life.”

In her mind’s eye, Kat tore through thread after dark thread that ensnared and supported her life energy.

“I’ve wiped out all your spells....”

Already she felt the press of the centuries weighing down on her.  She watched as her body seemed to shrivel up, her skin shrunken, wrinkled and darkened with immense age.  She saw her fingers constrict into gnarled knots.  She felt the weight of her hair... until it became brittle, the strands snapping.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

“Good-bye, Rita.”

Yet, for all the changes, there was no pain.  The blue orb before her blurred as her vision dimmed.  She closed her eyes, a sense of serenity sweeping her along.  She wasn’t afraid of the darkness.  She wasn’t afraid of the cold which seemed to have settled deep within her bones.  She wasn’t afraid of anything.  There was something familiar about the state in which she was suspended... like she’d experienced this before.  She was waiting for something....

Then came the light.

She reached out to it and found herself a part of it --a multi-hued web of energy strands.  Red. Yellow. Blue. Black.  Pink. Green. White.  The Morphin’ Grid.  She herself shimmered pink, and though she knew she had no body, she yet seemed to have physical form --that of the young woman she had been the day Rita had abducted her.  Overjoyed, she cast about, searching....  She felt their presences before she saw them.

“Welcome home, Kat!”

Tanya.

“About time!”

Rocky.

“It’s good to see you again.”

Adam.

“I’ve missed you all so much,” Kat gushed as she felt herself surrounded by all those that she loved.  Greetings poured in from all sides:  Billy, Aisha, Jason, Justin, and Rangers she had never known.

“I’m sorry we had to send you away when you were here before,” Tommy apologized, and Kat felt how much that refusal had cost him.

“I know; I had a job to do,” she assured him with a smile.

“Thank you for what you did for Tyler... for all of us,” Kimberly added, giving her old friend a warm hug.

“You’d have done the same for me,” Kat said, knowing it to be the truth.  She looked around at all her friends... her family.  “Is Tyler here?”

“Junior’s around here somewhere,” someone snorted, and everyone burst into peals of merriment.

Surrounded by laughter, friendship and love, Katherine Hilliard knew she was home at last.