The fortress of the League of Assassins was carved into a mountain that had never appeared on any map. Its halls were lit by blue flames that burned without fuel. Its courtyards were gardens of death, where flowers bloomed only in moonlight and trees drank from the same alchemical springs that fed the Lazarus Pits.
Jason was given a cell high in the eastern spire. It had a stone cot, a wooden table, and a single window that looked out over a valley of snow and shadow. He spent his first three days there doing push-ups until his arms screamed, sit-ups until his spine felt ready to snap, handstands on his fingertips until sweat pooled beneath him. His body was changing. The muscles that had been strong before were now denser, harder, as if the Lazarus waters had compressed years of training into days. His reflexes were sharper. His senses more acute. When he stood in the moonlight, his shadow sometimes flickered with a green outline that did not belong to any natural light.
On the fourth night, Lady Magdalene came to him.
She entered without knocking, her robes whispering, her staff clicking against the stone floor. In her hands she carried a small clay bowl filled with a paste that smelled of herbs and something else—something electric, like the air before a storm.
"You heal quickly," she observed, setting the bowl on the low table beside his cot. "Faster than any I have seen."
Jason did not look up from the knife he was sharpening. "What did you do to me?"
"I brought you back."
"You did something else." He set the knife down and met her eyes. His were still green. They had not faded. "I can feel it. There's something inside me. Something that wasn't there before."
Lady Magdalene smiled behind her veil. "The Lazarus Pit gives gifts to those who survive it. You have been given a great gift. Do not waste it questioning its source."
"I don't accept gifts from strangers."
"Then accept it as payment." She moved closer, her eyes catching the torchlight and holding it, reflecting it back at him in shades of amber and gold. "I ask nothing of you now. But one day, I will ask something. And you will repay me by being strong enough to do what must be done."
Jason stared at her for a long moment. Then he picked up the knife and resumed sharpening.
"What do you want me to be strong enough to do?"
"Vengeance." The word dropped from her lips like a stone into still water. "You were murdered, Jason Todd. Murdered by a monster who still breathes. The man who called himself your father has done nothing to avenge you. He has replaced you with another boy—a better boy, he thinks. More obedient. More controlled."
She reached into her robes and withdrew a small crystal. With a flick of her wrist, it projected an image into the air: Batman, cape spread against the Gotham skyline, and beside him a small figure in red and green, laughing as he swung across the rooftops.
Jason's hand stilled. The blade of the knife pressed against his thumb, not quite breaking the skin.
"His name is Tim Drake," Lady Magdalene said. "He found your body, you know. He found it before Batman did. And then he took your place."
The knife clattered to the floor. Jason's hand was shaking—not with fear, not with sorrow, but with something that burned hotter than both.
"Leave," he said.
She did. But she left the image hanging in the air, and Jason watched it until the crystal's light faded to nothing.
---
That night, Jason fell into a sleep he could not control.
He dreamed of the light-place again—the endless expanse of colour, the rivers of red and blue and violet flowing through a sky that had no stars. But this time the green was brighter than all the others. It pulsed like a heartbeat, like a summoning, like a voice calling his name.
And then the voice was not the light. The voice was something else, something that stepped out of the green and took form in front of him.
Lord Zedd stood in the heart of the Morphin Grid, his metal flesh reflecting the green energy like a wound in reality. His skull-face was split by a grin of silver teeth. His chest cables writhed like serpents. Behind him, frozen in the light, shapes that Jason did not recognize but somehow knew: a Tyrannosaurus, a Dragon, a Megazord, waiting for a master who had not yet come.
"You feel it, don't you? The power waiting inside you."
Jason tried to move, but his dream-body was rooted to the spot. He could only watch as the thing approached with the slow, deliberate pace of a predator who knew its prey had nowhere to run.
"Who are you?"
"I am what you will become, if you are strong enough. I am what the woman who resurrected you serves. I am Lord Zedd, and I have watched you die. Now I will watch you rise."
"I don't want anything from you."
"Liar." The word struck like a blow. Zedd's face twisted, the metal plates of his skull grinding against each other. "You want power. You want to look into the eyes of the man who killed you and see fear. You want to stand over the grave of the boy who replaced you and know that you were never forgotten. I can give you that power. All you have to do is take it."
A light bloomed in Jason's chest. He looked down and saw something materializing—a device, sleek and angular, green and gold, with a symbol on its face that he had never seen but somehow recognized.
Take it, whispered a voice that was not Zedd's. Take it and become what you were always meant to be.
His fingers closed around the device.
Energy exploded outward, green and white, wrapping around his body, covering him in plates of light that solidified into armor. He felt the helmet form over his face, the visor snapping into place, and for one perfect moment he felt invincible.
"Yes," Zedd hissed. "The Green Ranger. The one who was a weapon before he was a hero. The one who was made to destroy."
Jason looked at his hands. They were armored in green and gold, the fingers tipped with claws of white metal. In his right hand, a dagger materialized—a blade shaped like a dragon's fang, humming with power that made his teeth ache.
"Now wake," Zedd said. "And remember what you are."
---
Jason woke with the Morpher in his hand.
It was real. Solid. Cold against his palm, heavy with a weight that had nothing to do with physics. He stared at it for a long moment, turning it over, tracing the lines of the symbol with his thumb. Then he heard footsteps in the corridor and shoved it beneath his cot.
Lady Magdalene appeared in the doorway, her eyes immediately darting to the place where he had hidden the device. Her lips curved into a smile that did not reach her eyes.
"You dreamed of him," she said.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes, you do." She entered the room and closed the door behind her. "You dreamed of Lord Zedd. He showed you the Morpher. He showed you what you can become." She knelt beside the cot, her face suddenly serious, almost kind. "He is offering you a gift, Jason. The power to destroy your enemies. The power to make sure no one ever hurts you again."
"Why?" Jason's voice was hoarse. "Why would he help me?"
"Because he needs you." She reached out and placed a hand on his cheek. Her palm was cold. "The world is changing. New universes are being born, old ones are dying. In the chaos, Lord Zedd sees an opportunity to reclaim what was stolen from him. He needs a champion in this world. A warrior who can carry his power and use it to reshape reality."
"I don't want to reshape reality. I want to kill the Joker."
"Then that is where we will begin." Her eyes glittered. "Take the Morpher. Use it. The first time is always the hardest—the Grid will resist you, because you are not the one it chose. But Lord Zedd can force it to obey. All you have to do is let him in."
Jason looked at the cot where the Morpher was hidden. He looked at the wall where Lady Magdalene had projected the image of Tim Drake laughing with Batman. He looked at his own hands—young hands, strong hands, hands that had been dead a week ago and now burned with a fire that would not be denied.
"Show me," he said.