Title: Beyond the Looking Glass
Author: Sarafu
Rating: PG
Fandom: PRSPD
Genre: Gen
Disclaimer: PRSPD isn't mine fortunately.
Summary: Syd is more than she seems.
Date Published: July 10, 2005
Timeline: circa-"Perspective"
Word Count: 997
Challenge: "I Never Thought My Life Would Turn Out Like This" for SPD Rangers

Five years ago, I was on a totally different track. I was the youngest Miss Teen World ever, I was a rising fencing star, and designers were begging me to model their clothes in Milan, Paris, and New York. To this day, I still get requests to participate in print ads and to appear on magazine covers. But no one ever expected anything different of Frank and Madison Drew's daughter. Any child born of their attractive genes had to be incredibly special (though no one knew quite how special I would turn out to be). Certain things came easy to me: being beautiful, dressing perfectly, posing for photographers, interacting with the people my parents deemed acceptable. In fact until I was sixteen, fencing was the only thing I'd ever had to work hard at (and that was mostly about making my movements appear effortless instead of practiced).

With my peers, I was shallow, self-centered, and blind to anything that didn't involve me. I was popular because I had cultivated an attitude of not caring about their opinions. If I ever let them see that I cared about their opinions, I would have been eaten alive. All the same, it didn't stop me from wanting to make friends with the ones who hovered on the outside, the ones who couldn't hide their feelings and their hurt, the ones who wanted something more than our exclusive little world. But I could never be friendly like I wanted to be; image is everything to them, and I was the Drews' golden child, the girl who would one day be someone important. And if I knew nothing else, I knew that I couldn't disappoint the world that watched me.

I probably would have gone on to do something important. My mother wanted me to be some politician's perfect wife, to lord over some table full of foreign ambassadors and host charity teas while my perfect children learned the skills she considered necessary to success. My father would have loved to see me express the same sort of business genius that he had. But while I wouldn't have minded the fashionable clothes or the wealth of either option, neither choice was mine. So even though I knew what I didn't want to be, I wasn't any closer to finding my place in the world.

Maybe I would have continued to be lost if my friends hadn't decided to attend a hot new club opening in one of the worst parts of Newtech City. But the location didn't outweigh the chance to be seen. It should have been like any other night except Carolina was already intoxicated by the time we reached the club. Unlike my friends, I couldn't just leave her so she was looking for the bathroom when I followed her out into the dark alley. Even though I tried to urge her back inside, it was too late. There were a couple of hoodlums spying, probably trying to figure out the best way to steal from the rich kids inside. I'm sure we looked like two helpless girls, which made it easy for them to decide to come after us. Carolina screamed as I grabbed a nearby iron pipe and muttered, "It's just a couple of thugs. I'm the one with the iron pipe." I don't think my words had any effect on her, but my hand glowed around the pipe before it hardened into iron.

"Freak!" the smaller thug spat at me before they turned to run away. Whatever my hand was doing had scared them just as much as it scared me. The threat gone, I dropped the pipe and stared at my hand. It was still iron.

"Is everyone okay?" A familiar figure came around the corner.

"Sky?" The Tates had always been friends with my parents. At the time, I didn't know how my dad had come to be acquainted with the SPD Red Ranger, but Sky and I had known each other forever. "When did you join SPD?"

"Sydney," he said stiffly. He ordered his companions to search the area. "This isn't a safe place, Syd." Before I could say anything, he saw my clenched fist and reached out to lightly touch the metal. "What happened?"

"I don't know. I picked up the pipe, and suddenly my hand was made of iron." I couldn't explain it any better, but from the look on his face, I didn't need to.

His blue eyes stared into mine with an intensity that I didn't understand. "You need to come with me."

"What?"

"There's someone at the Academy that needs to see your hand." And I knew it wasn't a request.

I didn't put up much of a fight. Sky was just as stubborn as I was, and when I met Dr. Manx, I understood why he brought me to her. I didn't see much of Sky over the next few days as I was tested over and over again, but Dr. Manx and Commander Cruger were both impressed by my power. They talked of duty and helping others, the chance to make a difference, but I don't think anyone could have convinced me until I saw the cadet uniform. It was fashionably cute and slimming if too colorless. Black was so 2010.

But as I look around the recreation area now, I know there isn't any other place I'd rather be. I have to work hard and prove myself as I make a difference and help others. I'm even saving the world daily. More importantly, I get to be myself here. I don't have to live up to an image of who I'm not. I can care about my friends, I can wear sweats and no makeup, I can be anonymous, I can even fall in love with someone from the wrong side of the tracks. For the first time in my life, I'm free to be whomever I want. And that's somewhere I never thought I'd be.