A\N: HOLY COW LIRON-ARIA LET ME PLAY WITH HER CHARACTERS!

Ahem.

Last Halloween, liron-aria and I both did fics where Tommy went nuts. Mine was supposed to have multiple chapters and didn't. liron-aria's fic Facade, though, had an amazing backstory, and let me write said backstory out. So now you get this.

The reason I'm explaining this is because, if you actually read said fic, you need a warning. I am not liron-aria. I seriously have no idea what my brain did, and I promise I'm not this insane in real life, but after this first chapter this fic earns the 'horror' tag. If you can stick around through that, though, I hope you like!

"Hey."

Tommy felt Jason catch his wrist and turned, his eyes glancing at the wrist instead of the other boy. "Yeah?"

"You can talk to me." Jason promised. "I know you're freaking out right now. But it's over, and I'm here now."

Tommy nodded.

"Anytime." Jason repeated, squeezing his wrist and smiling reassuringly. "I mean it."

"Thanks." Tommy whispered. Jason let go, and Tommy turned into his house, heading up the stairs.

When he got to his bedroom, he shut the door and started to laugh.

He wasn't sure where it came from. It was a long, slow, deep laugh; the laugh of someone so devoted to Darkness their entire being radiated it, and slowly but surely Tommy felt his energies changing.

He wondered if the Rangers had really thought they'd won.

Changing your Allegiance didn't happen overnight, and certainly not by destroying a mere sword. The spell was permanent. Adoption spells tended to be. But for the Son and Heir of Rita, well, faking a change wasn't that hard. Certainly not for the few hours it had taken to reassure the Rangers and Zordon, and especially not when his mother (how he smiled at that, at mother, at all the implications of home and belonging and power and triumph,) had planned fully for this event.

They were doomed.

Tommy shut his eyes, muttering the spell of teleportation. A flare of green light sent him to his mother's throne room, and he saw her at her balcony with the telescope. The others stared as he strode to her side and knelt. Let them stare, he thought dismissively. He was more powerful than they could have imagined.

He knelt at Rita's side for a long, silent moment.

"Welcome home, my son." She whispered in the language she had just begun to teach him, a language of magic and power, power she corrupted so beautifully.

"I am glad to be home," Tommy replied in a mangled sentence. Rita smiled and stood, walking away.

Tommy let her think, waiting, kneeling. It was nothing to wait for his mother and Empress. The monsters and henchmen disagreed, save for Scorpina. She was smarter than the rest, he realized. He'd have to keep an eye on her.

"So." Rita finally said. "They destroyed the Sword."

"Uh...sorry, my Empress." Tommy said sheepishly.

Rita rolled her eyes. "It's a sword, Tommy. I'll live. But more interestingly, we now know many things about these child-Rangers." Her eyes narrowed. "Such as how skilled they truly are."

No one responded. When Rita was planning, it was best not to.

"We cannot take Earth." She said decisively. "Not in the time frame Dark Spectre wants, at least. But we can do other things." She glanced at Tommy and smirked. "Tommy, my child. How would you like to be the King of Earth?"

Tommy raised his head, his eyes flashing with green flame. "I would like that very much, my Empress."

"Excellent." Rita all but purred. "Excellent."