Skull crouched inside the Zord's hatch, staring at the journal that shouldn't be there. He hadn't left it. No one got close enough to leave anything — not since the Fallout turned him into something with claws instead of hands. The leather was worn smooth, the kind of old that meant someone had carried it for years. He reached for it, then stopped. His talons hovered over the cover. If he could figure out who left this, maybe he could figure out how to reverse what had been done to him. Maybe they knew something. The journal just sat there, waiting. He flexed his claws, willing them to be careful. The journal opened. Inside, pressed between the first two pages, lay a single feather. It shimmered pink and purple under the cockpit lights — colors he recognized. Orange Ranger colors, back when orange meant something other than what he'd become. His throat tightened. Someone knew what he was. Someone knew what he'd been. The pages were covered in neat handwriting. Names he almost remembered. Dates from before the Fallout. Technical notes about Ranger suits and mutation vectors. Someone had been tracking this. Someone had been looking for a way to reverse it. The last entry was dated three days ago. "Left this where you'll find it. You're not the only one looking for answers. Check the northwest perimeter at dawn." Skull closed the journal and stood. The Zord's interior felt smaller now, like a cage instead of shelter. He looked down at his talons, then at the journal clutched between them. For the first time since the Fallout, someone had given him a direction that wasn't backward. He moved to the hatch controls and set an alarm for dawn. Whatever was waiting at the perimeter, it was more than he had yesterday.

Skull moved through the predawn wasteland, the journal tucked against his chest where his jacket used to protect things that mattered. The northwest perimeter wasn't far, but every step felt like walking toward something he couldn't take back. The apartment building rose from the rubble like a broken tooth. Peeling paint hung in strips. Windows gaped empty. In front of it, two skeletons in faded fatigues sat propped against the wall, positioned like they were keeping watch. Someone had arranged them that way. Someone had been here recently enough to care about sending a message. Skull's claws tightened on the journal. This wasn't random. He circled the building twice before he saw it. Scratched into the concrete beside the entrance, barely visible in the gray light: *K. HART*. The name hit him like a fist. Kimberly. The Pink Ranger. The one who'd told him the mutation could be controlled if he just trusted the process. The one whose data he'd believed over his own instincts. He'd seen the flaws in her research, questioned the timeline, felt the wrongness in his gut — and signed off anyway because she was a Ranger and he was just Skull. She'd promised him it was safe. He opened the journal with shaking talons and flipped to the technical notes. Her handwriting filled every page. Mutation vectors. Reversal theories. A morpher diagram sketched in the margins, the same iridescent shimmer he remembered from her belt. At the bottom of the last entry, eight words: *I was wrong. I'm sorry. I can fix this.* Skull closed the journal and looked at the skeletons, at the careful way they'd been positioned. She'd been waiting here. Maybe she still was. He didn't move toward the building. He turned around and started walking back the way he came. Some people didn't get to fix what they broke. Some trust, once spent, didn't come back just because someone finally admitted they'd been wrong. He'd come looking for answers, and he'd found one: he wouldn't let her judgment replace his own. Not again.