Power Rangers Jungle Strike "REMIX"

[ZeoFury]

Previously

on

Power Rangers: Jungle Strike



The three of them sat in the classroom silently after school. Jeff sighed and leaned back in his chair, his head resting against the wall. The teacher had left, most likely out running some errands. They had to sit and wait for the next hour or so. Jeff turned and looked at them. The other boy who she’d called ‘Mr. Smith’ hadn’t spoken a word. Jeff grunted and pointed at him for a moment before lowering his hand. “Nick, right?”



Suddenly, Jeff heard footsteps charging down the hallway. Suddenly, alert, he looked up and saw En run into the room. “Guys, you need to come with me! You’re never going to BELIEVE this!”



“Well Morador,” Venena said looking at the man who seemed to be made of stone. “I haven’t been able to obtain the Power Diamonds yet, but it’s been rumored that they are right under our feet.” She turned to the scaly creature that resembled her. “Reptilla… you need to make sure that these Diamonds don’t fall into the— RIGHT hands. Haha.”




For a while there was silence and then En sighed. He threw his hands up as if admitting defeat and looked at Jeff. “I suppose we have no other choice. It’s either get those stupid diamond things or become their slaves. What do you suppose we should do?”

Jeff looked at the both of them and smirked. “We’re breaking into that school tonight.”



Rising out of the sand were creatures that resembled humans, except much too muscular and pale to be humans. All of them looked deformed. Like bodybuilders that had been dead for five years and then came back. All of them had long jet black hair and sadistic smiles. They smelled like rotting meat and they all wore street clothes. Blue jeans and sleeveless black shirts. The creatures all rose up from the sand. There were about a dozen of them. Morador smirked. “Shadowtrons… ATTACK!”



“Hah, we laid these sucks out, En,” Jeff said as Ariel helped him to his feet. The twelve Shadowtrons were lying motionless in the sand. All of them then began to glow an eerie color of green that much resembled the blood they carried. And without much more action, they vanished into the thin air. Jeff tried to catch his breath.

“Where did those two things go?” Ariel asked, looking up at the middle of the staircase where Reptilla and Morador had recently stood.

“I dunno, and I don’t care to find out,” Jeff responded. “Let’s get out of here. We have nothing left to prove.” And without argument, as he ran up the stairs, Ariel and En followed.




There were giant tubes surrounding the lab, many computers and large screens hanging from the walls. It looked like something straight out of a mystery movie. “What is this place?” Jeff was dumbfounded.

“Welcome to the Power Chamber!”

Jeff backed away a bit. “What the heck are you?” He eyed the robot.

“I am Alpha 5,” it said as it walked quickly towards a keyboard of some sort, typing things into it. Jeff walked up behind Alpha 5 and looked at what he was typing. Almost all of the keys were in an unknown language. At least unknown to Jeff.




Alpha made a whirring sound what Jeff could only assume was a sigh. “We can’t really put much of your powers to use until Zordon’s energy is restored.”

“Hold on a second there,” Jeff said in alarm. “Powers? What powers? And who is Zordon?”




En turned to the Alpha hologram. “Open the portal. Jeff, you bust the tank. I’ll find Ariel.” With that, En unplugged the tank and the image of Zordon faded. En ran out of the cave. Jeff sighed and threw his arms on top of the tank and bending his knees, jumping onto the top, pulling himself onto it. Jeff looked at the stone that En had dropped and quickly scooped it up.



“Ariel, come on, we got like, half a minute!” En cried, now half carrying-half dragging a bloody Ariel. “What happened to you?”

Ariel sighed, some blood falling down on En’s shoulder as she did so. “Putty…Patrol…” She gasped in pain. En then saw the Portal in view.




Zordon was silent for a moment. “You three… are the Power Rangers.”





The putties ran at her. Ariel managed to use her shoulder to knock one to the ground and kicked the other one in the stomach. But the one she’d shouldered grabbed her bag. Ariel struggled to keep it, but the Putty behind her hit her in the back of the head and Ariel gasped and hit the ground, clutching her head. The Putty opened the bag and looked around inside. He pulled out the sketchbook that Ariel had drawn in often. He dropped the bag to the ground and held the sketchbook. The other putty rejoined him and the two that Ariel had hit with the tree branch earlier vanished. The putties that had her sketchbook also disappeared.

“Ow…” Ariel muttered as she pushed herself up to her feet. “What was that about?”




Venena walked, pacing back and forth in the fortress. A white glow began emitting from pure air. She turned and watched as two putties formed from the glow. They walked over to her and one of them held out Ariel’s sketchbook. Venena smiled. “Perfect. You two have done well. Heh, you’re even more reliable than Morador over here.” As she said this Morador grunted.

Zen stood up and walked over to her. “So this is the sketchbook?”

“Obviously,” Venena said dully.

“Great,” Zen said as she handed it to him. He flipped through the notebook pages. There were over 60 of them filled. “So descriptive. So… perfect.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, admire it later,” Venena said hastily. “Now make me a monster, Zen. Make me a monster that can take out the Jungle Rangers."




Each of them took keys out of their Morphers and slid them into holes in the dashboard of the Zords. The Zords began to reassemble. Jeff’s Pantherzord broke into two pieces so it was into perfect halfs and in the center a hand emerged and on the other hand was the Panther’s head as a shield/hand. The Mega Junglezord also had the torso of Gorillazord. The legs of the Gorillazord and Lionzord combined and each turned into legs of the Mega Junglezord, before the head of the Lionzord was placed onto the Mega Junglezord, sprouting the Lionzord’s tale. The Mega Junglezord stood tall with a J symbol in its chest. Silver armor appeared across the shoulders down to around its chest.




“That was only the beginning,” Ariel said blankly as she stared up at the monitors.

“What?” Jeff looked at her curiously.

“The beginning of it,” Ariel said. “I created more, much more powerful creatures than Korpse and Blue Knight. Those were just the beginning. We won’t be so lucky all the time, damnit.” She turned around and looked at Jeff and Nick, tears swelling in her eyes. “Look, some of the things I drew are beastly, incredibly destructive. And sometimes the good guys don’t win. Sometimes things go wrong. And if we don’t act now, we can be putting ourselves at risk. So I think this time around, we take them out… before they do the same. To us.”




“AAAAAAAAHH!” Nick began to shake. Ninja Putty, for self-fear backed away from Nick. Nick’s skin began to turn into fur, the brown fur of a lion and a rust-colored mane sprouted around his neck. His nose and mouth elongated into a snout and his ears rose to the top of his head. He heard his spine crack and crunch as it became horizontal, restricting the lion to all-fours. His hands became paws as sharp white claws sprouted from the ends and a brown tail sprouted out from his spine. His human eyes finally made the transformation into the eyes of the lion and Nick let out a mighty roar. He was the king of the jungle.




Nick let out one final roar and then burst through the door, running down the street at full speed.

“Nick!” Jeff called.

He had ran down the street at an amazing speed. Jeff had no idea where Nick could have been. He turned to Ariel. Ariel had begun to bite her nails. “He wasn’t ready for the morph…”





Winston sat in Stephanie’s basement, sitting on her couch and removed the lens from his camcorder. He focused it around the basement. The picture came in clearly. Everything seemed to be in perfect focus. He moved the lens a bit to his left and Stephanie came into view. Winston lowered the camera. Stephanie held two glasses of soda. She handed one to Winston and sat down next to him on the couch. “So the Power Rangers are the ones with those tight colored suits right?”

“Yeah, you could say that,” Winston said before taking a swig of the soda. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand and sat the glass down on the table beside him. “All I have to do is wait for the word that something’s happened to San Diego. A monster attack, something. Then when I get the word, I’m going to search high and low for the Jungle Rangers.”

“That’s dangerous,” Stephanie said quietly.

Winston shook his head. “Come on. Knowing the Rangers and what goody-goodies they are, they’re not going to even going to risk letting anything happen to me if I’m a bystander. And once they think I’m out of harms way, they’ll power down or whatever, and I’ll get to find out who—or WHAT they are.”

“Why is it so important to you?” Stephanie asked. “I mean, they have a secret identity for a reason, don’t you think that you should respect that?”




Reptilla held out her staff and delivered a sickening blast to the door of the command center.

Zordon looked down at Alpha. “Alpha, set monitors to the outside of the premises.”

“Right away, Zordon! Aye, aye, aye.” Alpha typed in the proper coordinates. Reptilla was shown at the door of the center, sending blast after blast towards the door. “Zordon, I’m afraid those doors aren’t that sturdy! I never expected the Fortress to attack from close range.”




“Reptilla, what are you doing in here?” Zordon demanded.

“Destroying you,” Reptilla replied, as if it were your everyday question. “Please, you really need to step up your security. That ‘no one enters without a Power Coin’ thing had to be disabled when the coins were destroyed, I’d assume.” She turned towards the floating head with a smile. “But you never bothered to re-enable your magic policy, did you?” Her expression became sour. “YOU… you’re going to cost me my LIFE! So the only way to make sure that doesn’t happen is to dispose of you now.”





Ariel and Jeff had now demorphed. Nick was still right next to them. They looked ahead at the door. The door to the Command Center had been left open. Jeff looked at Ariel worriedly, but she shared the same glance. They all ran inside the Command Center.

From the bushes, Winston ran out of the path. He saw Jeff and Ariel with the lion. And his heart skipped a beat.

“What are they doing with that lion?” Winston was confused. He couldn’t put anything together. And then it all started to match. It all started to fit.

Was it possible that Ariel and Jeff were indeed the Power Rangers? He lowered his camera and looked inside the Command Center. He stood up, turned away from the door and ran as fast as he could. He was at the ever-so popular... loss for words.





"I can't believe this," Ariel said. "We almost got destroyed by my own creations, Winston is probably onto us, the command center is trashed, Nick's stuck as a lion, and. wait. Where's Zordon? And Alpha?"

Jeff stood up and looked around. He walked towards the back of the Command Center. The sound increased and then Jeff saw sparks flying onto the floor in a sort of rhythm. He peeked around the corner and saw Alpha twitching, repeatedly. "Alert, alert, alert, alert, alert, alert, alert, alert, alert." Jeff quickly ran to Alpha and sank to his knees, looking at the wires that were crossed in his now exposed back.

"Alpha!" Jeff cried in shock. "Who did this to you?"





"Anything for you my Queen," Lavacide said, lowering herself to one knee and bowing. "Give us the word, and it is done."

"I want you to go to the Shadow Cave in the Lost Mountains, south of Los Angeles," Venena said. "Go to the cave, and find the buried Golden Gem. It has been welded together in ancient times, so it is now half gem, and half pure gold."

"Pure gold?" Bosik asked. "And how can it be half?"

Venena turned away from the crystal ball. "Pure gold is much too soft to be stable and used for anything of true value. To keep it in a solid form, it has been put together with a large gem stone. The gem is very delicate. So you will need to get down to the bottom of the mountains unharmed in order to get to the Invisi-Portal and bring it back to me."




As the tape rolled on, Winston gave a sort of summary, Stephanie looking on interested. As the lion carried Black Ranger out of the building, Stephanie became intrigued as if it were a movie. The scene skipped to Winston filming Jeff, Ariel and the same lion walking up towards the Command Center. As the tape stopped, the screen went blue and Winston ejected the tape. He turned to Stephanie.

"So you think Jeff and Ariel are the Rangers?" she asked.

Winston nodded. "I do. yeah. And if that rhino dude and the lava woman are still out there, I know Jeff is out there fighting." He stood up. "There was a news broadcast about the guy they call 'Bosik'. I'm going to keep on his trail. And I know I'll run into them. And I'll get all the answers I need. Seeya, Steph."

"Fine," she muttered. "He can ignore my warnings all he wants. He wants to find Jeff? I'll find him first." Stephanie hated that she was left out of so much. If she found out the truth before Winston, maybe she'd get some respect, finally. He wouldn't leave her out of anything. She didn't enjoy being the outcast, but it was just what she was.




A golden light rose up out of the flames and Bosik held it. “Aha! And now we retreat. Let’s get back to the Invisi-Portal.” They ran towards the exit, but Winston stood in their way.

“Not this time,” Winston muttered.

“What?” Lavacide laughed. “Move, before you get hurt.”





“No way,” Winston muttered.

“Not… possible,” Stephanie said quietly, looking at her suit.

Stephanie, the Gem Ranger... Winston, the Gold Ranger. They hadn't chosen the Gem. The Gem had indeed chosen them.




“But what happened to them?!” Jeff hissed. “They could be dead up there and we could have helped them! If you had given me five seconds I could have grabbed them. They’d be okay.”

“We didn’t have five seconds, Jeff,” Ariel said, soothingly, seeing the anger in Jeff’s eyes. “It was either guarantee our safety and get out while we could, or let all four of us get destroyed. No point.”





Toxx rose a laser up that was attached to his wrist. Stephanie and Winston instantly backed up until their spines were pressed against the wall. Toxx smirked, pleased with his effect on the two teens. “You friends didn’t care about you. They don’t love you. They couldn’t have cared less if you two were lost during the cave-in. You must have saw how quickly they ran for the hills, only worrying about themselves.”

Winston and Stephanie exchanged glances. Winston closed his eyes and shook his head. “No, you’re wrong about that. My cousin wouldn’t do that. Ariel wouldn’t do that.”





“You used up too much energy,” Alpha said. “Your bodies couldn’t handle it. You injured yourselves when you formed the Megazord, which also uses some Ranger energy. It decreased rapidly as you morphed.”

“So what are we supposed to do?” Jeff asked. “Just not morph and let ourselves get destroyed?”

Nick shook his head. “Alpha has my morpher. He’s finding an alternate source for me to morph, since the grid wouldn’t sustain my life force. I could morph to a solid human form in my suit for a regular time period, when Alpha is finished. It should give us enough time to fix the grid and bring Zordon back.” They all glanced at the dark, empty energy tube that once contained the big floating head they only knew as Zordon.






“Remember,” Toxx grunted. “YOU are the one bringing justice to this planet.. not Jeff, not Ariel and not their little lion friend. You are a saint, a man among men. And it is your duty as a Power Ranger to make sure that Earth is safe. Not letting people like the Jungle Rangers take control. Who knows what havoc they could wreak upon our foundation.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Winston said, quietly. “So when do I attack?”




“Recruit?” Ariel asked. “I thought we were the only Rangers left?”

“No,” Alpha said. “There are a few other teams out there, not many however. The most active is the War Ranger team, currently positioned and Acirema.”

“Where is Acirema?” Ariel asked.




Stephanie ran to Reptilla. “About time you showed up.”

“Shut up and morph,” Reptilla said. “We have a job to do.” She nodded.

“Right,” Stephanie said, raising her morpher up. “Shadow Jungle, Gem!” She felt the suit tighten around her body and then the helmet appeared around her head. She ran towards the school and Reptilla walked slowly behind.




Gem Ranger aimed her Hawk Blaster at Ariel and fired two shots of purple energy at her. Ariel jumped against the lockers and pushed herself off with enough force to come towards Gem Ranger with a punch, but instead, her arm was grabbed. Gem Ranger flipped Ariel through the air, sending her into the lockers, leaving a dent in at least six of them. Ariel’s jaw dropped and her eyes darted open in pain as she was seemingly suspended in air for a few seconds before landing on her side on the cold floor.

Reptilla walked up to Gem Ranger and Gold Ranger, putting one hand on each of their shoulders. “Well, well, Jungle Rangers. It seems you’ve met your match.” She smirked. “Look at the new forces of good. The Gem Ranger and the Gold Ranger.”

“Good?!” Jeff yelled as he pulled himself to his feet. “If you guys are good, then why are you attacking us?! Are you that blind to not see that the real evil is right behind you?”

“Enough!” Gem Ranger cried, firing more beams from the Hawk Blaster at Jeff. Jeff ducked down and the beams hit the wall, leaving a hole the size of a tennis ball in it.





“So you want me to just sit here and watch them destroy fellow Rangers? Sit here and watch them destroy my two best friends? No, screw that, man. One way or another, I’m going to help. Open the doors, Alpha.”

“Are you sure?” Alpha asked.

“Yes, I am,” Nick replied. “Open the doors, please.” He turned his head towards the doors. Alpha hesitated but then opened the mechanical doors. Nick charged out, roaring as he ran towards the school.




“They got away,” Winston muttered, demorphing. “We let them get away! We hesitated and LOOK what happened! We could have had them. We could have stopped them from hurting anybody. Now we may never get another chance.”

“Oh, we’ll get another chance,” Stephanie whispered, reassuring him. She held her morpher out, forming a circle with her arm, opening an Invisi-Portal. She and Winston leapt through it as cops stormed into the school.



Jeff groaned in pain and tried to move out of the way a bit, but Winston ran towards him and put the Viper Staff against his neck. “You’re done! Cousin or not, I’m THROUGH with this!”

“Then end it,” Jeff gasped as less air got past his throat. “End it now. Don’t prolong the inevitable. It has to be one of us.”

“And it’s not gonna be me!” Winston yelled. He rose up the staff, preparing to bring it down on Jeff’s head, but the staff was shot from his hands by red beams of light. Winston looked up in shock. “WHAT?!”

Three Rangers walked towards Jeff and Winston. One in red, one in yellow, and one in blue. Each of them held a laser gun at Winston. Winston looked down at Jeff.




“Thanks,” Jeff said, unable to think of anything else to say. “I guess I owe you one… or three.” He looked around. “I suppose you guys are the War Rangers Alpha was talking about?”






The Red Ranger nodded. “I’m Dan. The one in Blue is Orlando and the Yellow Ranger is Brian. Looks like you guys are in need of assistance.”





Venena took Stephanie back down towards the Chamber. The Hawkzord remained on its platform surrounded by lava. Suddenly however, the lava seemed to rise. A black head in the shape of a dragon emerged followed by an enormous body. It rose to the top of the chamber and let out a thunderous roar.

“Nice…” Stephanie gasped in awe.

“Rise, Serpenterra,” Venena said, a broad grin spreading over her lips. “Rise, once again!”




Jeff heard a cry from behind him. Before he could turn, he felt a great impact in his back. He gasped out in pain and fell face-first into the ground, pain surging through his body. Jodi looked down at him in shock, but was grabbed out of nowhere as big black hands wrapped themselves around her, one around her stomach and one around her mouth. She kicked and squealed, but it was all to no avail. Jeff rose his head a bit. He saw Morador, holding Jodi.

“Reality check delivered,” he said followed by a laugh as he jumped into an Invisi-Portal, leaving with Jodi.



Kidnapping the girl was not part of the plan,” Winston said as he walked towards Toxx who sat on his throne, admiring his own weapon collection.

“Kidnapping?” Toxx repeated. “I didn’t kidnap any girl. That’s no way to talk to your commander.”

“Commander?” Winston asked. “You don’t command nothin. I thought we were on the same level here. Bring down the Rangers and bring peace back to Earth.”

“Yes, yes,” Toxx said. “But that will only happen when the Rangers are destroyed, correct? So go do something.”




Toxx crept through Venena’s lair. He walked down the corridor, glancing over his shoulder, making sure that Venena and Reptilla weren’t behind him. He then made it to the door, leading down to the chamber that held Serpenterra and Hawkzord. Toxx rubbed his hands together, greedily and placed his hands on the door, pushing it open. The boiling lava was enough to make him sweat as soon as the door was open, but it was worth it. He could see Serpenterra already. He walked down the stairs that lead to Serpenterra.

“There you are, Serpy. Hah, this was too easy,” he muttered. He closed his eyes and rose his hands, remembering the chant he’d read in Venena’s spell book. “Esir. Lik, reg nar, niaga, esir. Natas, nograd, esir. Niaga, ESIR!.” He felt the ground begin to shake.

Serpenterra’s head rose up from the lava, its glowing red eyes intimidating. Its whole body coiled around the Hawkzord, dwarfing it in comparison. Serpenterra roared, awakening.





Nick began to shake. He rose up into the air, howling in obvious pain. He glowed red, turning into a human figure, a Ranger helmet, a suit… he felt so much power. He fell back to the ground on one hand and one knee. The Red Ranger was back. He looked at Alpha. “Send the Zords.”





“Space War, missile blaze, fire!” Dan cried. Both of them shot the missiles into the air. They all raced down towards Serpenterra’s head. They connected, sparks flying from all around Serpenterra.

Winston cried out as the cockpit began to spark. He felt his seat explode, forcing him through the window, one of the eyes of Serpenterra. Winston tumbled through the air and landed on the roof of a mini-van. The roof crumpled under the impact, leaving an imprint of Winston’s body. Several people on the bus screamed. Winston rolled onto the hood and landed in front of the bus, motionless.




Jeff was slashed across the chest as Toxx swung his sword at him, connecting and sending Jeff into the wall. Jeff groaned in pain and fell to the floor. He then saw something gleaming across the room. A white button which very conveniently read “Power Field” on it. Jeff moved his head before Toxx could slam the sword down into it. The sword was stuck in the floor. Toxx tried to pull it out but Jeff jumped up and kicked him in the chest. “Hiyah!” Toxx fell to the ground. Jeff turned and ran towards the button on the wall.

“NO!” Toxx cried, pulling his sword out of the ground.

Jeff pushed the button and the force field vanished. Jodi looked around and smiled.

“Run!” Jeff ordered.

Jodi turned around. Toxx glared at her. Jodi backed away and turned to Jeff. “No! I… I don’t know what to do.” She ran behind Jeff and clutched onto his arm, standing behind him, holding his arm for dear life.





Five… four… three…two…”

Brian leapt out of the hole of Serpenterra, falling towards the ground. He yelled out as the ground came closer and closer, falling well over five hundreds feet towards the asfault as Serpenterra was sucked into the wormhole behind him. Brian screamed as he flipped through the air, at incredibly dangerous speed.






Hawkzord suddenly swept over Brian before he could hit the ground and with its metallic talons, wrapped around Brian’s shoulders. It flew gently towards the ground and released Brian. Brian landed safely on his feet. The Rangers all demorphed and looked up at the sky. The empty sky as the wormhole vanished.




“I can’t believe this!” Winston cried. “This whole time—you were trying to—AAAHH!” He ran at Venena in anger and tried to punch her in the face, but she blocked it easily with her hand. She lifted him up with incredible ease and threw him backwards. Winston fell to the ground and his chin thudded off of the cement.





“Don’t get cocky!” Ragplat warned as he grabbed the staff. He used it to swing Winston into the side of the truck one more time, denting the truck this time. Winston groaned in pain. Ragplat looked him up and down and then shook his head. “I’ve got more important business to attend to.” He reached into the truck and pulled out what looked like a syringe. He walked over towards Stephanie first, who had apparently hit her head on the ground, knocking her out. Ragplat stooped down. “This won’t hurt… much.” He jammed the syringe into her arm. Stephanie twitched as he began to suck the blood—

No, it wasn’t blood. A small bit of white energy was being pulled out of Stephanie’s body. Using the same syringe he jammed it into Winston’s arm as well, Winston also twitching violently. He drained a small amount of energy from his body. Ragplat stood up, satisfied with what he’d obtained. He slid comfortably into the driver’s seat and turned towards Winston and Stephanie. He almost felt disgust building up in his heart. “And they called you a threat. Pitiful.” He slammed the door shut and drove out of the lawn and into the street.





Nick swiped Morador with the KJ Blade. Winston flipped over Nick’s shoulder and kicked Morador in the chest, knocking him backwards into the wall. “Eat this, stone-boy!” Winston held the staff at Morador and prepared to blast him, but Nick pushed Winston out of the way.

“This isn’t your battle!” Nick snapped. He ran past Winston and tried to slash the sword into his head, but Morador swiftly moved out of the way and Nick ran into the wall. Winston grabbed the Viper Staff and swung it at Morador like a baseball bat, but Morador jumped out of the way once more. Winston’s staff hit Nick in the back, sending sparks flying and Nick hit the ground in pain.

“Oooh, snap,” Winston muttered.

Nick turned towards Winston. “WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM?!”

“It was an accident!” Winston insisted. He turned towards Morador once again—but Morador had vanished. His last trace was an Invisi-Portal as it sealed shut, Morador already stepping within. Winston lowered his head in shame.






There was a ring of fire surrounding Toxx and Venena, but Stephanie could see them clearly. “I knew I would find you two here!” She scowled as she looked at them.

“I was almost done the ritual!” Venena hissed, turning to Stephanie. She threw her spell book to the ground. “How DARE you!”

“You don’t need to do the ritual anymore,” Toxx said. “We have the pure blood right here in front of us.” He gestured towards Stephanie with his gun hand, a laser brandished in front of her. Stephanie defensively took a step back.

“You’re right,” Venena said. “We’ll destroy her here and the Golden Gem fragments will be ours.”





“Tri Striker!” The Jungle Rangers cried, sending a white beam of energy towards Venena. Winston also fired the Viper Staff, and Stephanie shot a beam from the Hawk Blaster. Venena’s eyes rolled into the back of her head and she was thrown through the fire, clear out of view. There was a powerful explosion. The fire swarmed around the Rangers.

“Aaaah!” Winston cried out. There was a second explosion, engulfing the Rangers. Each of them flew through the air, only to land back on the ground. The rocks pierced their suits and each of them demorphed. Winston spit out blood and rolled over onto his back, looking up at the blazing sun. He sat up and wiped dirt off of his forehead.

Nick smiled. “We did it! We destroyed Venena! It’s over!”




Toxx crossed his arms and looked up. “Oh, she’s almost fixed. You’re lucky I like to intrude. Without me, she’d be dead. Not to brag or anything, of course.” Reptilla scowled and looked on anxiously.

Suddenly, Venena sat up with a jolt. She looked down at herself. She now sported a robotic arm. She rose her flesh hand to her face and felt it. She could feel metal and wire right next to her eye. Her eye… it wasn’t her eye. It was robotic. It moved around freely. Venena pushed the Mechaclones out of the way and ran quickly towards a mirror. She looked at her partly robotic face and her bald head. Her mouth dropped open, and with a final gasp she turned around.

Her shriek echoed throughout the entire fortress.






“He just blew up the car,” Lance said, with a tear trickling down his cheek. “He rose his arms and this blue beam shot down on the engine and the car exploded. It was a setup. I went flying through the windshield. I thought I was going to die, Jeff. I thought I was DEAD! I wish I had, because the pain was excruciating!”

“WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME?!” Jeff snapped.

“Because YOU’RE the Black Ranger!” Lance yelled, coming closer towards Jeff.






Lance kneeled down and opened up the bag, pulling out a black wallet and a tiny black box of some sort. He walked towards Jeff again and opened the wallet, revealing a diamond encrusted gold badge.

“I don’t follow you,” Jeff said.

“Then let me make it clear,” Lance said, as he pushed the badge closer to Jeff. “I’m with S.P.D. I’m from the year 2032. I came back here to help you guys. Top of C Squad. The name is Lance Delgado.” He pointed to the black box, which Jeff now saw was a Morpher. “Space Patrol Delta…”






“We can do both,” Lance said.

“Both? What the hell, man?!” Jeff snapped, irritated.

Lance looked up at him. “Both… save the Rangers and the SWAT Megazord.” He saw the confused look on Jeff’s face and then began to explain. “Look. In the year 2032, humans and aliens live in harmony. That may be one thing that’s weird to you guys here in 2006. Another thing is, a select few of us have genetic powers.”





All of the heaps of filler had been moved away. Somebody had placed a Megazord in a hole, attempting to hide it with some fake grass and clumps of dirt. Jeff knew that it had to be the SWAT Megazord, Lance brought from the future. Jeff tilted his head to the side. He could clearly see a part of its head.

Suddenly, the horrible truth hit Jeff like a bullet. He knew that if Venena got their hands on the SWAT Megazord, they’d have more than enough power to destroy the Jungle Zords with ease. A Megazord from the future was not what the Rangers needed at the moment. It was a horrid thought.






“I’ll do to you what should have been done a while ago,” Winston said as he and Reptilla circled each other.

“Many people have tried and failed,” Reptilla replied with a smirk. “HAH!” She swung the staff at Winston’s feet. Winston jumped into the air and kicked at Reptilla, but with a quick movement, she snapped the staff at his legs and knocked him out of the air. Winston flipped however and landed on his feet. He held the Viper Staff like a spear and went right towards Venena’s neck with it, but Venena knocked the staff away with her own and spun around, kicking him in the back. Winston tumbled to the ground.





Lance turned his head sharply towards Jeff. “Go! Get that bomb! Do it, Jeff! I trust you. I know you can defuse it.”

Jeff wanted to protest, but he couldn’t. He needed to save the energy. Jeff forced himself to his feet with a groan and trudged along towards the Command Center. Lance turned and glared at Tubtonks.

“He won’t be able to defuse it,” Tubtonks informed Lance. “The code is something that even he won’t be able to figure out. Even the great intelligent Black Ranger has met his match.”

“Maybe not,” Lance said, reaching into his pocket. “But even if he doesn’t make it, I will. And I will make sure that you’re destroyed. It’s my mission for coming here, and the mission will be completed when I go back home.”

“Back home? Kid, isn’t it past your bedtime?” Tubtonks chuckled.

“Bedtime, eh? Well, sleep on this,” Lance whispered. He pulled his Morpher from his back pocket. “SPD, EMERGENCY!”

Tubtonks took a step back. “Another Power Ranger?”

“A Ranger from the future,” Lance corrected.






“Do it now!” Stephanie commanded.

Ariel heaved the bomb into the vortex. The Invisi-Portal absorbed the bomb. Everybody turned to the SWAT Megazord. An Invisi-Portal opened directly above its head and the bomb dropped down, exploding, causing a huge explosion. The explosion was so powerful, debris washed down over the Rangers, throwing them against the wall. Nick, Stephanie and Ariel demorphed as they were thrown hard into the side of the Command Center.






need that,” the man rasped in an eerie voice. “I’ll pay you as much as you want for it. I’ll give you thousands. Hundreds of thousands. I’ll give you millions!”

“No way!” Winston snapped. “This isn’t for sale.”

“Everyone has their price,” the man said, removing his sunglasses and placing them on his shirt. “My name is William.” He took a step closer to Winston once more. “I need that transformer, young man. You do not know how valuable it is to me. I’ll give you anything you want for it. A car, I can have a star named after you, anything you want. I just really want that transformer, more than you can imagine.” He made a grab for it, but Winston pulled out of the way.





“I am Metaring!” the monster bellowed.

William gave Winston a smirk and ran out of dodge quickly. Winston looked up at Metaring and shook his head. “Well, it looks like this is it.” He grabbed his Morpher. “Shadow Jungle, Gold Ranger Power, hah!”

Jodi poked her head out of the window. “Your fries ar--.” Jodi gasped as she saw a flash of gold light engulf Winston.




Toxx shoved Morador and Reptilla out of the way and got in Venena’s face, glaring into her one human eye, and her one robotic eye. “Without me, you wouldn’t be alive. I saved you from the Power Rangers. Show me the respect I deserve, or face the consequences. I’ve put up with you long enough. I don’t HAVE your back, because you sure as Hell do not have mine. So you better learn to keep better control of your minions.”

“Or what?” Venena challenged.

“Trust me… you don’t want to find out,” Toxx said with a scowl. With that, he turned and walked out of the lair.




Lance jumped off of the wall and rebounded with a spin kick to the chest of a footman. Lance was punched in the chest by one. He was then hit sharply in the spine with a cane. Lance cried out and stumbled forward. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the cane. He jumped high into the air, flipping over the man’s shoulder. The man with the cane hit his partner in the face. He fell to the ground. Startled, he turned around. Lance punched him in the gut and then finished him off, tossing him hard against the wall by the arm. The henchman tumbled to the ground. Another man grabbed Lance by the helmet and attempted to slam Lance into the wall by the head. Lance however, tossed him easily over his head. The man landed on top of another henchman and both of them writhed on the ground in agony.

A man hit Winston in his shield. He cried out as a surge of energy traveled up his arm and around his torso. He twitched in pain and fell back. Winston took his down with an elbow thrust to the gut. He turned around and kicked a henchman in the chest. Two of them grabbed Winston by either arm. The henchman Winston had kicked angrily got up and kicked Winston in the stomach. Winston let out an “OOF!” of pain as he was thrown off of his feet into the air. The henchmen held him firmly by his arms. Winston was kicked again. Having enough, Winston with a battle cry pulled the two guys who had his arms towards each other. They knocked heads and both stood groggily in front of Winston. Winston used his leg to take their legs out from under them and send them tumbling to the ground. He jumped above them and threw himself onto the man who’d been kicking him. Winston rolled through and stood over the motionless man.






“Oh my God… it’s the Red Blood Striker Orb,” Winston said with his eyes wide.

“You’re in the Dark Dimension,” the girl explained, handing the Red Orb to Nick. “This Orb will be able to give you power to alter your Lionzord, and even your mind and body when the time is right…” She turned to Winston and Lance. “As for you two… you were lured here by an evil force, weren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Lance said. “Morador.”




“Hey, need some help!” Nick asked. He jumped into the Megazord, taking his place in the center of the cockpit.

“Nick, glad to see you back!” Ariel exclaimed. She looked as Nick placed an Orb in a slot in the cockpit. “What’s that? Oh my God… is that the Red Striker Orb?”

“Yes,” Nick replied. “Now let’s see what this baby can do.” The Zords reassembled. The Zords each became separate again. Nick pulled a lever above the Orb. “Lion Striker Megazord… combine!”

The Lionzord suddenly became tall, a humanoid figure. It became headless as its head turned a black color and went down to its chest. The Pantherzord became the legs of he Lion Striker Megazord. The Pantherzord’s tail connected to the back of the Megazord, acting as a tail for it. The Gorillazord became the arms of the Megazord. Its torso combined with the torso of the Lionzord. The Hawkzord attacked to the back of the Megazord and its head rose up off of its body, becoming a helmet for the Lion Striker Megazord. Its metallic wings flapped wildly and the LS Megazord stood triumphantly in front of Pyrobot.






“Let’s finish him off,” Nick said. “Lion Strike!”

Nick drove the tips of the sword swords into the ground. A yellow beam shot from the ground and formed the body of a lion. The lion surged straight through Pyrobot. Pyrobot was left with a big gaping hole in its body. Sparks flew from the burnt wires and the yellow eyes dimmed, turning black.

“Must… destroy… Poowerrrr Raaaaa………” Pyrobot fell forward and exploded, sending nuts, bolts, pieces of metal and wire raining down on the LS Megazord. The Rangers celebrated in the cockpit.






Toxx led Morador and Reptilla to the pits of his dungeon. He waved his hand and light filled the room. Reptilla and Morador looked up at the large robot that Toxx gestured to in awe.

“It’s huge,” Morador muttered.

“It’s amazing,” Reptilla agreed.

“It’s the Battle Fury Megazord,” Toxx said with a smirk, followed by a hoarse, evil laugh.






Winston, with a burst of energy leapt over Jeff and kicked a few of the Mechaclones away from him, but he was outnumbered and outmatched. He was grabbed by his legs and his arms. He kicked and tried to squirm out of it, but the four Mechaclones launched him into the air. One of them shot an eye laser, directed at his lower back. He felt the beam tear into him and he let out a cry of pain. He slammed hard onto the tree again and rolled off, landing next to Jeff. He saw two of the Mechaclones close in, one on him and one on Jeff. He knew it was over… they were coming in for the kill…

But much to his surprise, they didn’t. Winston felt his shoes slide off of his feet. He looked up, surprised. The other Mechaclone took Jeff’s shoes as well. And with nods to each other, the Mechaclones vanished in a flash of blue light.

“Hey, are you guys okay?!” Lance’s voice rang in through the woods. He ran towards Jeff and Winston, helping them both into a seated position. “Sorry, we couldn’t get a hold of the others. I came as soon as I heard. Looks like I was too late. Did you manage to fend them off?”

“No, it was really weird,” Winston replied. “They wanted our shoes. They took our shoes and left.”







“We don’t know anything about the guy,” Winston said. “Honestly, when do we ever see him outside of the Power Chamber unless its on the battlefield? WHY was he so upset when I followed him through the vortex to rescue you from the Dark Dimension? WHAT was the point of him being so eager to stay behind and sacrifice himself? Why’s he so secretive about his past?”

“Technically, it’s his future,” Ariel pointed out.

Nick and Winston both angrily turned towards her, snarling at her. Ariel defensively took a step back.

“So you guys don’t trust me?”

Nick and Winston groaned as they saw Lance step out of the shadows. Lance walked up to both of them.

“It’s not us,” Nick said, nodding to Lance. He turned to Winston and placed a finger on his chest and pushed him back a few steps. “It’s just him. He doesn’t trust anybody these days.”

“See, I don’t need this,” Lance said with a scowl. “It people like you that… that… ow… aaahh….”

Lance placed a hand on his forehead. Everything seemed to get blurry. The whole room became a blur of colors. Whirling, blurry, sticky colors that all blended together. Lance fell to his knees and pressed his hands to his temples. He knew this feeling too well. He was having a vision.








“You had a vision,” Jeff said. “I know you did. What was it?”

Lance shoved his hands into his pockets and lowered his head. “I can’t really explain it. It was me attacking the Mechaclones in this… this sort of new suit. I was holding this machine. I saw the Red Blood Striker Orb in it, Nick.”

“The Orb?” Nick repeated. “Well, what kind of box was it? It might be something in the Power Chamber that we can use to defeat the Mechaclones and turn them visible again.”

Lance shook his head. “No. The box had S.P.D. written on it. It must have come from Space Patrol Delta somehow.”








“Who left this door open?” It was the voice of Boom, Kat’s assistant. Boom closed the door and Lance heard the sound of a lock clicking into place. He shook his head, realizing that he was locked in the room until Boom decided to leave. Lance knew very well that he only had around twelve minutes to get back to the wormhole. Getting to it was a sixty-second journey in itself, so he had approximately eleven minutes to get the HS machine and get out of the lab. He had no time to waste.

Lance reached into his pocket, searching for something---- anything to distract Boom. Boom was whistling a tune as he looked through some files on the desk. Lance figured they were most likely files on wanted criminals in the galaxy, for Boom often scanned them at this time in the day. As Lance’s fingers touched something hard in his pocket, his heart leapt. He pulled it out, realizing it was a quarter. With no time to think, he pulled it out of his pocket and threw it as hard as he could past Boom and into the door.

As the sound of the coin connecting with the door and then the floor shot through the silent room like a gunshot, Boom jumped up in shock. “What was that?” Boom, obviously thinking it came from outside of the door walked out of the room and looked around.

“Now,” Lance whispered to himself silently. It was his time to grab the HS Machine and run out the opposite door. Lance rolled out from under the table and made his way slowly towards the HS Machine.








“Force field initiating,” Alpha reported. Ariel backed away and the entire store was instantly surrounded by a nearly transparent white light that looked like fog. Ariel then screeched as she was slashed in the back by a Mechaclone and thrown to the ground. She slid on her knees and slid chest-first into a fire hydrant. She was blasted while on the ground and flew back into the fire hydrant again, causing it to implode and sent water spraying everywhere.

“Ariel!” Jeff cried. Using his strong panther legs, he reached her in seconds. He jumped wildly in the air, but was hit again by the Mechaclone in hyper-speed.

“They’re too fast,” Nick said after being thrown to the ground as well. “Lance has to get back with that HS Machine! Time is running out!”









Lance held the HS Machine under his arm and ran full speed down the corridor. He had two minutes to get to the rooftop of the Delta Command Base or he and the other Rangers would be toast. Lance saw the window he’d left open and the swirling blue-green vortex of the Wormhole was disintegrating. Lance ran out and jumped through the window, onto the roof. Instantly, a blue blast landed in front of him, triggering an explosion and sending Lance flying back. He clutched onto the HS Machine, however.

“Where do you think you’re going?” an Orangehead asked, standing in front of the Wormhole.

“I don’t have time for this,” Lance said. “You’re standing between me and the Jungle Rangers. So if you have to come back to 2006 with me… so be it. HIYAH!” Lance ran and towards the Wormhole. The Orangehead tried to stop him by wrapping his arm around him, but he was dragged down as well. Both of them went into the Wormhole.

The two were emptied out of the Wormhole and landed in the Power Chamber. William and Alpha turned and saw the Orangehead. Their eyes grew wide with fear.

“Teleport them out of here, quick!” Alpha cried.

“Teleporting,” William said, typing in some coordinates. The Orangehead and Lance both vanished in a flash of green light.










Nick held up his hand. A streak of what seemed to be red lightning struck Nick’s hand and the Red Blood Striker Orb appeared. Lance opened the box, revealing a hole. Nick placed the Red Orb inside of it. Lance closed the box again.

“How do you make it go?!” Nick demanded, slapping the box.

“I think I know,” Lance said. He pulled the Morpher out of his pocket and placed it into a slot that he’d never seen before in the box. Instantly, the box glowed white and shook violently. Lance felt himself become encased in an energy.

Suddenly, Lance cried out as he stumbled backwards. There was a spontaneous explosion and Lance was surrounded by fire.

“Oh no, Lance!” Ariel cried. She started to run towards him, however she saw a shadowy figure rise from the fire. It was definitely Lance, however something was off.

“Impossible!” Orangehead cried as he used his sword to push himself to his feet. “He possesses the Scorpion Powers!”







“Okay… Super Lion Strike!” Nick cried. Nick drove the swords of the LS Megazord into the ground. The ground trembled and a hole opened up out of nowhere. A red beam of energy shot from it, taking on the shape of a lion. It roared and surged straight through Orangehead.

Orangehead dropped its sword and groaned in pain. “Today, Power Rangers, you were the better warriors. Ugh…” It held its chest and fell to its knees before falling face-first to the ground and exploding.






“Hey, there’s Winston,” Nick said. He spotted Winston looking at some wheels in a skating equipment store called “Freestyles.” The three of them walked into the store. Nick put a hand on Winston’s shoulder.

Winston turned around suddenly, slamming his arm into the side of Nick’s head and sending him sliding across the floor.

“Hey, what the…” Lance helped Nick to his feet.

“Don’t touch me!” Winston’s voice came out much different than normal. It was raspy---- it was a voice that didn’t belong to him. Winston’s eyes glowed red and he bared his teeth.

“Wh---- I so didn’t see that coming,” Stephanie said with a gasp.

The three Rangers looked at Winston in fear. Winston jumped into an Invisi-Portal and disappeared without a trace.

“You have gotta be kidding me,” Nick said. He groaned and rose to his feet.

“Winston’s gone off the deep end,” Lance muttered. “And I don’t think it was by choice.” He turned to Nick and Stephanie. “How much are you willing to bet that Toxx and Venena had something to do with this?”

“Too much,” Nick said. “Way too much.”










Chapters


*Chapter 1- Strike School Part One
*Chapter 2- Strike School Part Two
*Chapter 3- The Truth
*Chapter 4- It's Morphin Time!
*Chapter 5- Theft
*Chapter 6- An Innocent Date
*Chapter 7- King of the Jungle
*Chapter 8- A Loss For Words
*Chapter 9- Realization
*Chapter 10- The Golden Gem Part One
*Chapter 11- The Golden Gem Part Two
*Chapter 12- The Golden Gem Part Three
*Chapter 13- The Golden Gem Part Four
*Chapter 14- The Golden Gem Part Five
*Chapter 15- Distrust
*Chapter 16- A Blaze
*Chapter 17- The Brunt of the Attack
*Chapter 18- Legacy of the Orbs
*Chapter 19- Race Against Time
*Chapter 20- Destroy the Power Rangers
*Chapter 21- Kiss and Make Up
*Chapter 22- Follow the Leader
*Chapter 23- Oozing Out
*Chapter 24- It Must Be the Shoes
*Chapter 25- All the King's Horses...
*Chapter 26- Fauxhawk
*Chapter 27- The Merge Part 1
*Chapter 28- The Merge Part 2
*Chapter 29- The Merge Part 3
*Chapter 30- Short Circuit
*Chapter 31- The Wrong Ranger
*Chapter 32- Taking Back the Jungle
*Chapter 33- Card-Core
*Chapter 34- The Power Struggle
*Chapter 35- Digital Underground Part 1
*Chapter 36- Digital Underground Part 2
*Chapter 37- Miracle Child Part 1
*Chapter 38- Miracle Child Part 2
*Chapter 39- The Three Amigos
*Chapter 40- American Psycho
*Chapter 41- Psyche Out Part 1
*Chapter 42- Psyche Out Part 2
*Chapter 43- Psyche Out Part 3
*Chapter 44- Imploding Destiny
*Chapter 45- Quest for the Wildzords
*Chapter 46- The Toxx Factor
*Chapter 47- The Many Faces of Stephanie
*Chapter 48- Clash of the Super Powers
*Chapter 49- Obscuring Jungle
*Chapter 50- Mother Dearest
*Chapter 51- We Can't All Be Saints
*Chapter 52- (Season Finale) TO BE ANNOUNCED
*Chapter 53- (Season Finale) TO BE ANNOUNCED




http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/KaliWolfChilde/ZF.jpg

The Rangers


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v168/Dimmy/6126684_l.jpg
Name: Nicholas Smith
Nickname: Nick
Age: 16
Nationality: Caucasion
Role: The Red Ranger
Weapon: KJ Blade
Weapon Description: A 2 foot long white sword with a red Jungle Strike design aligned down the center. Also has the ability to release powerful energy from tip of sword.
Physical Description: About 5'11 with a fairly muscular build. Dyed red hair and dresses mainly in red and black. 150 lbs and an earring on his left ear. Nick has green eyes.
Representation: Lion
http://www.hrphotocontest.com/data/media/120/Lion%20King.jpg


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Name: Jeffrey Dixon
Nickname: Jeff
Age: 15
Nationality: African-American / Italian
Role: The Black Ranger
Weapon: Panther Blasters
Weapon Description: Black hand lasers that resemble Tec 9's and the target receives a powerful blast of energy from the lasers.
Physical Description: Jeff is 5'9 and weighs around 135 lbs. Not the strongest ranger or the biggest, but makes up for it with speed and intensity, Jeff has a similar muscular build to En's. He has wavy black hair, tan skin and hazel eyes. He dresses in cargo pants and black shirts regularly.
Representation: Panther
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v168/Dimmy/Florida-Panther.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v168/Dimmy/Katie.bmp
Name: Ariel Candace
Age: 16
Nationality: Caucasion
Role: The Yellow Ranger
Weapon Description: Two yellow daggers. The blades are roughly seven inches long and by cutting a design into the air, the Yellow Ranger can blast enemies with a charge of electricity.
Physical Description: Ariel is 5'8 and has long blonde/brown hair and blue eyes. Jeff and En wouldn't lie and telling you that Ariel is eye candy-- but she's not just a pretty face. She can probably take any guy and her choice of "girly" clothing will throw anyone off.
Representation: Silverback Gorilla
http://www.internetartfair.com/hinchliff/Silverback.jpg


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Name: Winston Edwards
Age: 16
Nationality: African-American / British
Role: The Gold Ranger
Weapon: Viper Staff
Weapon Description: The Viper Staff is a staff which is nearly four feet long. It has a blade at the bottom and a viper head at the top which is similar to White Ranger Tommy's Saba sabre. It can modify itself into a dagger for a limited time during battles. The Viper Staff shoots venom and energy beams at a lock-on target.
Physical Description: Although not a ranger the tall, skinny Florida native is not going to run away from a fight. Standing at about 6'1, Winston's choice in clothing varies. He may not have a sword or a gun but he will give you a size 12 to the face-- or the "Farmhand" and tell you how it is without words.
http://www.vampyra.com/children/c-images/viper.gif

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Name: Stephanie Sloan
Age: 15
Nationality: Cuban
Role: The Gem Ranger
Weapon: Hawk Blaster
Weapon Description: The Hawk Blaster is a blaster that wraps around Stephanie's wrist and is shaped like a hawk. Several types of blasts can be shot from the beak of the "hawk" at an opponent at close or far range.
Physical Description: Standing at 5'5 Stephanie is the smallest one of her friends. She usually ties her long brown hair into a ponytail. She is short and rather skinny with deep brown eyes. Although often described by Winston as "booty-full" she seems to have low self-esteem which has led to several problems in the past.
http://aged.ces.uga.edu/2004cds/cd1/Hot_Potatoes/Bird_Identification/Red-%20tailed%20hawk%20small.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v168/Dimmy/561293145_l.jpg
Name: Lance Delgado
Age: 17
Nationality: Caucasion / Hispanic
Role: The Green Ranger
Weapon: Delta Scythe
Weapon Description: A sharp scythe that Lance can wield on a short staff or Lance can wrap it around his wrist like a blade. In staff-mode, Lance can use the reverse side to shoot energy beams from it. By slicing through the air, it can shoot energy beams at the enemy.
Physical Description: Lance is about 6 feet tall. He has curly brown hair and is very muscular for his work in SPD. He's from the future, so he relies more on "special weapons and tactics" rather than karate and street fighting like the other Rangers.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v168/Dimmy/Giant-Desert-Hairy-Scorpion.gif



ARSENAL


KJ Blade- Red Ranger's weapon. It is a sword with the ability to shoot several energy blasts.

Panther Blasters- Black Ranger's weapon. Two hand-held, Tec-9-like lasers which shoot rapid blasts at the enemy with no need to reload.

Silver Daggers- Two 6-inch daggers which can double as a boomerang.

Tri Striker- The Black, Yellow, and Red Ranger's weapons combined. The KJ Blade is the top and middle, while the Silver Daggers are joined together on the bottoms, lying beneath the sword and the Panther Blasters attached to either side of the sword.

Viper Staff- Gold Ranger's weapon. It is a 4 foot staff which shoots venom and energy beams at the target. It can also turn into an actual viper. It serves Gold Ranger as Saba served the White Morphin Ranger.

Hawk Blaster- A Blaster that goes around Gem Ranger's wrist, much like the Delta Blasters on that SPD have at their disposal. It is shaped like a hawk however. It shoots many rappid beams from the beak at the target.

Jungle Morphers / Wrist Communicators- Seemingly digital watches, which can also be used as a morpher and a communication device.



ALLIES

Jodi James- Jeff's girlfriend. She does whatever she can to make sure that she gets her way. Can come off as a spoiled rich girl, but a good person at heart.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v168/Dimmy/jodi.jpg

Alpha 5- After newer versions being destroyed by Venena, Alpha 5 had his circuits re-pieced over time.
http://rangercentral.com/images/mmpr-al-alpha.jpg

William- William is Alpha 5's assistant. He tried to create Transformers (Morphers) in the 90's but he was laughed at and mocked. He was basically secluded from society. He then attempted to destroy the Rangers once finding out their technology, but realized the error of his ways.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v168/Dimmy/will.jpg

Zordon- Zordon was there to guide the Rangers through their first few battles, preparing them for the war ahead.
http://rangercentral.com/images/mmpr-al-zordon.jpg

War Rangers- The War Rangers helped the Jungle Strikers when they were busy with the then-evil Gold & Gem Rangers.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v168/Dimmy/Power%20Rangers/warrangers.jpg




Villains



Name: Venena

Role: Leader of the Dark Fortress

Power: Venena is a witch... literally. She masters in evil spells and also telekenesis.

Weapondry: Relies on dark magic.

Summary: Venena is a powerful witch and is over 700 years old. Hailing from the distant planet of Urnan, she came to Earth along with 16 other witches and warlocks whose intentions while coming to Earth, were to help the planet. However, she had other plans. She was hungry for power and destroyed 13 of those other witches and warlocks. Her sister joined her, but was tured into a reptile-like creature when falling into toxic chemicals that were uncovered while moving ground to place the Fortress. Venena saved her and her sister took the name Reptilla. Debuted in "Strike School Part 1" (Chapter 1)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v168/Dimmy/Monsters/40643.jpg

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Name: Morador

Role: Second in command

Power: Morador is a creature where 85% of his outer body is made of stone. His strength is about 6 times more powerful than the average human.

Weapondry: Owns a sword entirely made out of jagged stone that can also shoot a powerful blast of electricity.

Summary: When joining over a hundred other humans for research on the distant planet of Ekitere, he was left seriously ill and began losing limbs due to the thick atmosphere that he couldn't handle. He was taken in by the inhabitants of the planet and healed by having his limbs replaced by stone. The only parts of his body that remain fully human are his neck and lower legs. Debuted in "Strike School Part 1" (Chapter 1)

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Name: Reptilla

Role: Hand-To-Hand Combat Battles, Third in command

Power: Reptilla was chemically mutated upon coming to Earth, but with the help of her sister Venena, was able to learn the psychic power of telekenesis and use her reptile-like skin as defense.

Weapondry: Reptilla has the Shadow Staff which is a Staff with many different abilities, mainly as a source for Reptilla to control her telekenetic powers, but its full ability is unknown. Reptilla also has five sharp claws sprouting horizontally from each knuckle. Reptilla has the power to shoot venom from her mouth, and control reptiles that she comes in contact with. She also has the Reptile Dagger which doubles as a flute used to revive monsters and make them grow.

Summary: Reptilla was transformed to half reptile and half witch when she came to Earth, but was able to heal herself after the accident with help from her sister, Venena. Now her ultimate quest is to destroy the Power Rangers and use the power from the Power Diamonds to conquer Earth and make the humans who laughed at her appearance in the past, pay. Since, she has joined Toxx alongside her friend Morador. Debuted in "Strike School Part 1" (Chapter 1)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v168/Dimmy/Power%20Rangers/Reptilla.jpg

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Name: Zen

Role: The Fortress Monster-Maker

Power: Although considered a genius, Zen has no super-human powers.

Weapondry: In the event of combat, Venena presented Zen with a pen that could transform into both a small handgun, as well as a sword.

Summary: Zen, born and raised in San Diego, California was never accepted by his peers because of his passion for drawing. He desired power and when he stumbled upon Venena casting a spell, he asked what she was doing. She threatened to destroy him if he told anybody the truth about her, but instead of running, Zen offered to join her and help her conquer the world. Debuted in "Theft"" (Chapter 5)

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Name: Toxx

Role: Venena's competition.

Power: All that is known about Toxx, physically is that he is a powerful warlock.

Weapondry: Many human weapons that can be found used by the military.

Summary: A clearly evil man who took Reptilla and Morador from Venena and relying on dark magic to build himself up. He injects himself with syringes from remnants of the late Ivan Ooze. Not much else is known about him. There are no clues as to why he wants to destroy the Jungle Rangers. Debuted in "An Innocent Date" (Chapter 6)
http://www.cybertronical.com/allsites/starwars/main/characters/darth_sidious/ds.jpg
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Footmen

Putty Patrol- Putties are the expendable warriors made of clay who are sent down to Earth to wear down the Rangers before a monster fight, as well as for sabotage and special missions. Venena found the spellbook of Rita Repulsa and used it to make her own army of Putties. Debuted in "Strike School Part 2" (Chapter 2)
http://rangercentral.com/images/mmpr-vi-putties.jpg

Mechaclones- Not much is known about the Mechaclones, but Tox brought them to Earth with him. Debuted in "The Golden Gem Part Five" (Chapter 14)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v168/Dimmy/Monsters/bioman2020L.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v168/Dimmy/Monsters/bio-vi-mechaclone.jpg
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[sector_force_ranger]

wow that's big

[ZeoFury]

It was about 25 chapters...

[Angelfox]

was wonderin when you would get back to this...suprised you didnt mention the Blue Striker Orb though

[ZeoFury]

Chapter 25: All the King’s Horses…



Jeff smiled faintly as he carried his little sister on his lap, holding a book open in front of her. It contained several fairytales that Jeff had loved as a kid. He was tired, for it was almost midnight… He’d been left in charge of babysitting Deyanna, his sister while his mother was yet again away on a business trip.

Jeff was thankful as he heard the knock at the door. He knew instantly that it was Ariel. “Hey, keep reading, Deyanna. See if you can read this page by yourself.”

“Okay,” Deyanna said. She was bored with most of the fairytales. Humpty Dumpty was the only one that she seemed to have any trouble reading. At only two years old, she was making great progress. Jeff gently lifted her off of his lap and onto the couch. He made his way down the hall and towards the door of the apartment, pulling it open, flashing a warm smile as Ariel popped into vision.

“Hey,” she said, stepping into the house, dropping a yellow bag off of her shoulder and letting it fall to the floor. “My parents are gone too. I figured that it would be pretty irresponsible of me to leave YOU of all people to watch a two year old for a week, hmmm?”

“Funny,” Jeff muttered, sticking his tongue out. “Well, thanks for coming. I know nothing about kids. I guess I’ve gotten to spend a lot more time with my sister since…” He trailed off. A tinge of guilt struck his heart as he remembered Winston. Although it had been two months since his sudden disappearance, Jeff still felt a bit sick every time he thought about it.

Winston’s funeral had taken place just three days earlier when he was considered dead by the police who found no trace of his body at all. They assumed he’d been abducted from the mall and, although crude, murdered far away from home. However, Jeff still had hope. He knew all too well that Toxx and Venena had to be behind this somehow. They seemed to disappear just as quickly as Winston had.

Almost as if reading his mind, Ariel walked into Jeff’s bedroom, making sure Deyanna didn’t overhear them. “You think it’s weird how for the past couple of months, everything’s been quiet? It just all seems too sudden.”

Jeff shrugged. “Maybe they got smart and decided to back off since Lance got his new power. Scorpion Mode is pretty hardcore. Plus, the technology is about twenty-five years before its time. I would be pretty intimidated too, if I were up against something like that.”

“Heard from Nick lately?” Ariel asked as she flopped down on Jeff’s bed, scooping a music-themed magazine off of the bedside table as she did this. “It seems like he’s been really quiet for the past week. He hasn’t come over like he usually has.”

“I know,” Jeff replied. “I know that with his Dad coming back from Iraq and his mom getting diagnosed with cancer, he’s probably had his hands full.” Jeff sat on the edge of the bed. He reached into his drawer, pulling out the watch Morpher that he’d used so many times in the past. Another smile crept across his face, slowly but surely. “I never thought I’d say this, but I sort of miss being a Ranger, ya know? As sick and twisted as it sounds, I enjoyed rising up from the rubble every time we got blasted down… I enjoyed getting back up and taking out the bad guys.” He turned to Ariel. “Being a superhero was my dream as a little kid. We got to live it.”

Ariel gazed at Jeff for a while and then slowly nodded. “The fight’s not over, Jeff. We know Toxx too well. He’s not just going to give up, as much as sometimes… I just wish he would.” She sat up on his bed as well, playing with the bottom of her shorts subconsciously. “I know you’re still upset about Winston, and you don’t wanna--.”

“--I don’t wanna talk about it,” Jeff interrupted.

“But we have to talk about it, eventually,” Ariel said, sitting next to Jeff now. “You know as well as I do that he’s still out there somewhere. Remember what Stephanie told us? He walked into an Invisi-Portal in the middle of the mall. No one saw it happen besides them. Who makes Invisi-Portals? Three people. Stephanie didn’t do it… so it had to be Venena or Toxx. He’s got him. They’re planning something. The fight is not over.”

Jeff avoided eye contact. “…Yeah.”

Ariel put an arm around Jeff’s shoulders, giving him a smile. “You’re my little buddy. I can’t stand to see you upset. You’re usually the one trying to cheer me up, right?” Ariel pulled Jeff into a half hug. “How about tomorrow we head to the Power Chamber and visit Alpha and William?”

“Sounds good,” Jeff said, quietly. “Haven’t seen them in a while.”

“Great,” Ariel whispered, keeping it down since she could hear Deyanna moving around. She then heard a door close. She looked at Jeff. “Your little sister must have went to bed. Maybe you should go tuck her in.”

Jeff nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be right back.”




Venena sat in her throne, her eyes closed, a black hood pulled over her head. She’d spent the past hour in deep thought. “Time after time I’ve failed to defeat the Jungle Rangers. Time after time, I’ve planted a seed… a seed of my dream only to have it dried out in the sunlight. Time after time, I’ve ran with my tail between my legs… and accepted defeat. Time. After. Time. I’ve let Toxx walk all over me. I’ve put my dream… my NIGHTMARE aside and what has it earned me? Has it paid off? No!”

She opened her eyes, shooting an optic blast of energy at the wall, leaving a large black mark in it.

“So when you want things done right, you have to do it yourself.” Venena rose from her throne, not wasting any time. She narrowed her eyes and instantly, in a spectrum of an assortment of colors, a legion of Mechaclones surrounded her. Venena’s staff materialized in her hand and she smirked, her face hidden in the shadow of her hood. “This time, I swear I won’t fail. It’s all or nothing. Get big… or die.”




Jeff smiled as Deyanna fell asleep, the nursery-rhyme book still open next to her on the “Humpty Dumpty” page. He pulled the covers over his little sister’s body and made his way down the hall, into his own room, where Ariel had pulled a pillow under her head and was watching a program on the Disney Channel, presumably because not much else was on at this time of night that caught her interest.

“I take it you claim my bed tonight… again,” Jeff said as he threw a pillow at Ariel.

Ariel laughed as the pillow hit her and threw it back. “Duh. It’s comfortable. You should see the rags and springs that I sleep on. Meanie.”

Jeff shrugged, yawning. “Whatever, whatever. We have work tomorrow, so get some sleep.” Jeff still had a hint of sadness from his face from the earlier conversation about Winston.

Ariel smiled faintly and sat up, as if reading his mind. “Sorry, Jeff. I shouldn’t have brought it up.” She sighed and pulled him into another loose hug. She felt so bad for him. She angled her head slightly and kissed his cheek. She would have said something else, but she felt that keeping him in a hug was the best she could do at the moment.

“Goodnight,” Jeff said. He walked towards the chair by the window, but instantly froze as he saw a large explosion come from the ground. His heart sank and his jaw dropped. The explosion was multi-colored… blue, green, and purple. It was not any ordinary explosion. That sort of power could only come from one place. Jeff turned towards Ariel, however she was already pulling her shoes on, not saying a word. Jeff smiled a bit. “Finally some action.”




“Unbelievable,” William said, suddenly jumping to his feet as the alarm in the Power Chamber went off. He, however, wasn’t as excited for combat as Jeff and Ariel were. He ran towards the monitors, watching as Mechaclones--- more than usual, probably about thirty of them--- attacked the downtown district of Angel Grove. He groaned and switched on the WC alarms. “Jeff, Ariel---.”

“---Already on it,” Ariel’s voice rang in. “We should approach the area in about thirty seconds.”

“Be careful,” William said. “I’ll contact Nick and Stephanie.”

William shut off the communications and turned towards Alpha 5, who waddled out of a back room, his visor lighting up a bit. “That energy reading suggests that it’s Venena. She’s launched an attack?”

“I guess after two and a half months of sitting around and waiting, she figured now would be a good time to strike,” Alpha said. He tilted his head to the side, looking at William. “Do you think the Rangers are ready for this? They have been secluded from Venena’s forces for some time now. Perhaps they forgot what they are up against?”

“Not my Rangers,” William muttered as he contacted Nick and Stephanie.




Ariel and Jeff slid to a stop in the mud-gilded street when they saw Venena’s back turned to them, watching as three Mechaclones terrorized a taxi driver. The back of the cap was blasted. Jeff cleared his throat rather loudly.

Venena arched an eyebrow in interest and turned over her shoulder, looking at the two. “I shouldn’t be surprised to see you two here, although, quite frankly I am.” Her staff gleamed in the collaboration of fire and moonlight. “So the Jungle Rangers reunite?”

“Reunite?” Jeff repeated. “We never went anywhere. Let’s just get this over with.” He smirked. “This shouldn’t take long.”

Venena pointed her staff at Ariel and Jeff. “Attack!” On cue, the Mechaclones charged at Jeff and Ariel.

Ariel ducked under a bladed punch from a Mechaclone, grabbing its arm before it could cause any sort of damage. With a defiant “hiyah!” she delivered a sharp kick to its midsection and tossed it into a fellow grunt. Not to her surprise, this resulted in one of her assailants lifting up a bladed hand, shooting a plasma blast in Ariel’s direction. Ariel gasped and ran out of the way, rolling across the asphalt on her shoulder. She hopped to her feet and kneed a Mechaclone in the chest, driving her forearm into the back of its neck. As she restrained another one before it could attack, twisting its metallic arm behind its back she flashed Jeff a smile. “We haven’t missed a beat.”

“Got that right,” Jeff agreed, enjoying this battle a bit more than he should have been. His smile faded when a blade slashed through his shirt and cut through some of the flesh in his back, instantly causing a stinging sensation to travel through his spine. He fell to his knees and groaned in pain, however still remaining alert, he ducked his head as a plasma blast was shot his way. He jumped to his feet and kicked a Mechaclone in the chest, knocking him against the wall of a building. Jeff grabbed its legs and dropped it into his spine.

Venena folded her arms. “Oh… this is intriguing…” She still kept her staff ready in her clenched fist, looking for an opening. She was not taking any chances with the Rangers. None whatsoever.

Jeff kicked a Mechaclone’s arm away before it could fire a plasma blast in Ariel’s direction. The misfire caused it to shoot a blast into one of its own partners. In a mix of smoke and sparks, it was hurled through the air and into a row of trash cans. Jeff held the Mechaclone in place while Ariel jumped through the air and kicked it in the head. Its robotic head snapped violently to the side, causing its body to twitch, sparks shooting from his neck. It finally lost all power and fell motionless to the ground.

“You think you can take all of them?!” Venena demanded as she watched Jeff and Ariel fall to the ground, suffering a blast from two Mechaclones. “You’re outnumbered, Rangers. You should have quit while you had the chance. I thought you would have gotten the message. Now it’s too late for you to run. You couldn’t accept destiny… Now I choose your fate for you.”

Ariel closed her eyes and Jeff watched in a mix of horror and frustration as Venena walked towards them, energy seeming to drip from the blade of her staff. She rose it over her head, looking from Jeff to Ariel, deciding who to destroy first.

Suddenly, a powerful “HAAAAAH!” followed by a kick to Venena’s blade broke through the silence. Venena was forced to recoil her hand in pain as two shadows dropped from the air. Once again, although she shouldn’t have been, she was surprised to see Nick and Stephanie standing in front of her, separating the armed Venena from their friends. Nick was carrying a dagger of his own. He now sported a longer hair-do, black hair falling over his eyes. He breathed heavily as he stared at Venena.

“I should have known,” Venena muttered, venom running through her voice. She wriggled her fingers a bit in intervals, trying to get the pain out of her wrist and hand.

“Yeah, you should have,” Nick said. He threw a kick at Venena, but it was blocked by her staff. She swung the blade at his head. Nick raised his dagger. He used it with such swiftness and precision, it easily blocked the staff blade. Nick kicked Venena in the stomach and knocked her backwards. Venena grunted and kicked Nick’s legs out from under him. She drove the blade towards his skull once more, but Nick moved his head a few inches to the left and kicked up ahead of him. The sole of his sneaker caught Venena’s arm. Venena was thrown a few inches into the air and slid backwards, landing on her knees. Nick hopped up to his feet and ran at Venena, driving his knee into her jaw. Venena’s head snapped backwards and she fell on the ground, but was quick about shooting a blast from the tip of her blade and hitting Nick in the chest. Nick cried out and fell backwards. He turned towards the others. “You guys get the Mechaclones! I’ll handle Venena.”

“Got it,” Ariel said with a nod.

Jeff turned to Stephanie. “You’ll have no idea how glad we are to see you again. This could have ended… a number of ways.”

“Psh. You’d be lost without me,” Stephanie said, sarcastically, rolling her eyes. She then ran ahead of them towards a group of Mechaclones. “I haven’t done this in a while, so let’s see how it goes.” Stephanie held up her hand and it instantly began to glow a bright purple color, making her veins more pronounced. She formed a circle with her hand, creating an Invisi-Portal. The three Mechaclones than were charging at her ran straight into the portal. Stephanie turned her head to the left, her eyes taking a violet color at this point. The three Mechaclones that had vanished into the portal fell at least sixty feet through the air from another portal, landing roughly on the ground, perishing in an explosion.

Ariel ran towards a wall, performing an impressive back-flip over the heads of two Mechaclones. She grabbed both of them by the necks, driving them into the ground as well. Ariel elbowed another Mechaclone in the solar plexus before it could reach her and Snapmared it, twisting its robotic head. Ariel caught her balance and took a few steps backwards. She was exhausted, but she couldn’t show that. The last Mechaclone in range held its blade up and charged at Ariel, shooting plasma blasts in her direction. Ariel covered her head as she ran through the explosions which sent rubble flying onto her. She jumped into the air and delivered a sharp kick to the Mechaclone’s hand, knocking the blade through the air. The Mechaclone looked at Ariel in shock. She twisted and kicked it in the stomach, forcing it to hunch over. Ariel rolled over the Mechaclone’s back and kicked another one in its head before turning to the previous Mechaclone and arching her foot to kick it in the back, knocking it to the ground.

“These guys really get old after a while!” Jeff cried hoarsely as he was kicked in the stomach. Two Mechaclones grabbed each of his arms, however Jeff pulled them towards each other, stepping backwards as they knocked heads. Jeff flipped both of them onto their backs, using the momentum that propelled him forward to launch himself through the air, off of the shoulders of another Mechaclone and flipping onto the shoulders of yet another. He used his legs as scissors to flip his body backwards, also flipping the Mechaclone by the neck and knocking him into the grunt that Jeff had used to jump off of. Both of them tumbled to the ground in a shower of sparks. Jeff turned to the final Mechaclone.

“…For old times sake?” Ariel suggested to Jeff.

Jeff smirked. “You read my mind.”

Ariel lowered herself onto one knee and cupped her hands. Jeff ran towards Ariel and placed her foot in his hands. Ariel rose to her feet, throwing her hands over her head. Jeff twisted through the air and landed on top of the Mechaclone at a rapid speed, knocking the Mechaclone to the ground, inevitably disabling it. Jeff rose to his feet and smiled.

“Like I said,” Ariel said, putting an arm around Jeff’s and Stephanie’s shoulders. “Hah. The trio back in action, hmm? We haven’t missed a beat.” Her eyes then widened as she suddenly remembered, “Nick!”

Nick was forced against the wall of a building, blood visible on his forehead. His knife fell from his hands as Venena drove a knee into his gut. Venena pressed the tip of her blade to Nick’s throat, not shy about pulling out the classic cliché. “Any last words?”

“Yeah,” Nick replied. “Never leave your torso unprotected.”

Nick stepped on the butt of his blade and kicked it straight up. The blade entered Venena’s abdomen. Venena lowered her staff and staggered back in pain. She pulled Nick’s dagger out of her body and slammed it to the ground. She pressed a hand over her wound and snarled. She looked as if she wanted to say something, but didn’t. Venena simply vanished in a flash of light.

“YEAH!” the others cheered as they ran over to Nick. Stephanie embraced Nick in a hug as Ariel quickly took a cloth of some sort from her pocket and dabbed it over the cut on Nick’s forehead cut.

“Are you alright, man?” Jeff asked, although smiling. He was happy that they’d managed to defeat the Mechaclones and Venena, although a bit worried that Nick may have been hurt.

“I’m fine,” Nick responded. He bit his lip as he heard sirens approaching the area. He gently pushed Ariel’s cloth away and began to move away from the lights. “But I hear the cops comin’ so we should go… Like now.”

“Oh no, not them crazy po-po!” Jeff shrieked.




The rest of the day seemed to run smoothly. Jeff had sent Deyanna to the daycare while he and Ariel went to work. Nick took his usual spot at one of the tables, conversing with them between breaks. No one else was in Penny’s Pizza Parlor other than the three of them, and Jodi who knew their history as the Jungle Rangers, so they were free to talk.

“So does Venena still have the Blue Striker Orb?” Jodi asked as she wiped a counter down with a wet rag. “I haven’t heard much about her using it…” She frowned. She needed to get that orb back, no matter what.

“We can only assume so,” Jeff said as he hopped onto the counter.

Jodi playfully threw a rag at him. “Ho. I just cleaned that!”

“That sucks,” Jeff said as he leaned down towards Jodi.

Nick and Ariel, disgusted, turned their heads, not in the mood to see Jeff and Jodi’s romance. Nick leaned towards Ariel, whispering something. “Those two are so gross sometimes.”

”Agreed,” Ariel muttered. She groaned as Jeff and Jodi’s lips met once again and then her expression turned serious as she turned her attention to Nick. “So where did you learn those moves from this morning? We haven’t seen you around in a while. You completely took out Venena.”

Nick shrugged and took a sip of Pepsi. “Just something I picked up.”

Ariel frowned at the Pepsi that Nick was drinking. “Did you even pay for that?”

Nick ignored her last question. “My half-brother was in Japan for a few years, learning to fight there. I’ve spent the last two months training with him at home. That’s why I haven’t had much free time lately.” He stirred the straw in his soda, subconsciously. “My family’s always had high expectations, I guess. My mom was a fashion designer, my father’s a war veteran, one of my brothers is touring in a band, and the other has his own brand of toast out, which is incredibly popular in New Zealand.”

“How do you have your own brand of toast?” Ariel asked.

“...I don’t know.” Nick blinked. “Anyway, what have you and Jeff been up to?”

Ariel gestured around the restaurant. “A whole bunch of nothing, really. Oscar, our boss is on a six-week vacation to Spain, so he left Aaron in charge.”

“Aaron, the gay guy?” Nick asked.

Ariel just rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but we are really going to have to think hard about this whole Ranger thing. We’ve all been out of action for a while, Ranger-wise. Toxx and Venena could have been out getting as strong as ever for all we know. We can’t afford to underestimate them. Especially now that they have the Gold Ranger with them, that’s a major loss of power on our part. Who knows what they could be doing to Winston?” While uttering these last few sentences, she made sure that her voice was kept down, as to not upset Jeff anymore than he could have been.

“Let’s not dwell on that,” Nick said, rubbing his eyes a bit. “Out of all the times to fight, they had to pick 1:00 in the morning.” He yawned and leaned back in his chair. He then let his eyes drift across the table and towards Ariel. “You know… since V&T stopped attacking, have you tried using your powers?”

Ariel narrowed her eyes. “No. Have you?”

Nick, once again, did not reply to Ariel. Instead, he shifted in his chair, resting his arms lazily on the top of it. He sighed. “Yeah, we have a lot of things to cover.”




“What are we going to do with the boy?” Reptilla asked Toxx with interest. “He’s been sitting around here like a zombie for months and you haven’t even attempted to destroy him. Remember last time you used him to ‘destroy’ the Jungle Rangers? He failed. You have one of them right now. He’s arguably the strongest one on their team. Why can’t we just strike him dead now?!”

“You will calm down,” Toxx said, angrily to Reptilla. He turned his attention to Winston who was staring at them emotionlessly, trapped in a cage made of some sort of energy. He looked at Reptilla out of the corner of his eyes. “He can’t hear you. He is living in an alternate reality right now. However, indeed I do have plans for him. He WILL destroy the Rangers. And once he does, I will take the Golden Gem powers for myself. Reptilla, I think there’s something that you fail to understand.”

“Oh, what is there to understand?” Reptilla demanded. “You’re taking your precious time once again and this is how the Power Rangers always manage to slip out of our grasp. We continue to fail to destroy them because we get cocky when we have them at our fingertips. You saw Venena and the Red Ranger earlier. She had him right where she wanted him, but she decided to trash talk a little bit more and it resulted in her getting stabbed. Nearly gutted, that is. Now you have the most valuable Ranger on their team right here and you’re having second thoughts about destroying him? I don’t see the logic! I don’t see it, Toxx!”

“First of all, I don’t have second thoughts about destroying him right here and now because I never had FIRST ones!” Toxx hissed. “You wonder why we haven’t attacked lately. I’ve been slowly giving him my energy. Slowly, but surely, I’ve been making him stronger.”

“You could have fooled me,” Reptilla said, folding her arms. “He’s as lifeless as ever.”

“I already explained that to you,” Toxx said. He cleared his throat. “Once the Gold Ranger has become at least three times as powerful as he was before, he will take down the Jungle Strikers one by one. They will fall. One. By. One. Once they’re gone, I will fulfill my plan of using his power to find the Striker Orbs that are scattered across the Earth and I will eliminate him from the equation.”

“For so long you’ve been giving him energy,” Reptilla pointed out. “Yet, you don’t think it’s time for him to attack?”

“No,” Toxx replied, simply. “I’m not taking any chances.” He sat down in his chair. “Undoubtedly, Venena will send a monster down to Earth to destroy the Rangers. Once that inevitably fails, then the ball will be in our court. The Battle Fury Megazord is near completion and we’re not going to let a thing stand in our way. This is going to be perfect. We’ll let the Rangers get confident and think they won. That’s when they’ll be at their weakest. We’ll attack them from the inside with the Gold Ranger. The first to fall will be the Yellow and Black Rangers since they were the ones he was closest to.”

“So what are we going to do for now?” Reptilla asked.

Toxx remained silent for a moment. “We’re going to watch your sister get thrown about like a rag doll.”




“Are you sure you don’t need some help, my queen?” Zen asked as he examined the wound on Venena once again.

“Get away from me, I’m positive,” Venena said, raising her knee as a threat to kick Zen. “Now I want you to make me a monster, Zen. I need it immediately. I’ll destroy those Rangers if it’s the last thing I do. I don’t even care about the circumstances anymore. I want them dead!’

Zen raised an eyebrow. “Did you have any monster particular in mind?”

“Brute force,” Venena said. “Something that will plow them down on contact… And I want it to go straight to their Command Center to collect the Golden Gem fragments.”

”The Command Center?” Zen repeated. “That may not be the wisest decision. They’re a bit--.”

“—-JUST DO IT!” Venena snapped.




Stephanie was in the Hawkzord, although in civilian form. She looked over the mountaintops, a pleasant smile on her face as she saw the view. It was beautiful, but she was not here to enjoy the scenery. She radioed Alpha from the Zord microphone once again. “Alpha, what am I looking for again?”

“A 7.4 energy reading, exactly,” Alpha said. “We’ve been lead to believe that the White Beast Striker Orb may be in the Turtle Cove area.”

“Okay, I’ll do my best,” Stephanie said. She switched off the radio and swooped down a bit towards one of the more luxuriant mountains. Stephanie perked an eyebrow in interest as the energy reading arched a bit. It widely surpassed the 7.4 reading that she’d been told to keep an eye on.

Curiously, Stephanie kept a steady descent until the neodymium talons of the Hawkzord touched the ground. She slipped off the secure belts that were strapped around her and hopped out of the cockpit, landing on the grass. She reached into her back pocket, pulling out the portable EAR (Energy Activity Reader) that William had created. Stephanie wiped sweat off of her forehead with the back of her forehead and looked at the reading again, switching her position to make sure that nothing was wrong. No… It was accurate.

Stephanie put her Wrist Communicator to her lips and talked to Alpha. “Hey, Alpha, this reading is at about a 9.5. Are you sure that there’s nothing wrong with the EAR?”

”It’s been being tested for a while. The chances of it being off are about a 0.2% at most.”

Stephanie nodded, biting her lip. “Okay. I’m going to investigate. This reading is by far the biggest I’ve ever seen.”

“Very well, Stephanie,” Alpha replied. “Be careful. Something of that magnitude can be either really good or really bad.”

“I’ll be careful.” Stephanie lowered her arm and looked at the EAR again. She followed the trace of energy. It seemed to go straight down the mountain and into the lake. Stephanie tilted her head to the side, admiring the lake for a moment before walking towards it, although cautiously.




“Holy crap,” Ariel said with a laugh as she walked into the Power Chamber. She looked around at how much it had changed. It no longer looked like much of a Command Center, but more like a hotel lobby. Hardwood floors greeted them as they stepped inside and couches were lined up in the center of the room. Although the section with the machinery and computers remained secluded and as “dull” as ever, William seemed pleasant with the change.

“What-—when—-how did you guys do this?!” Jeff asked, clapping his hands together as he flopped down on one of the leather couches. “This is amazing. I didn’t even know you had this in you.”

“We felt it was time for a little change,” William said as he gestured towards a large plasma TV. “Since we’re here all day, why don’t we have a little luxury, hmm? I personally got bored of looking around at the colored tubes and the computers all day, with the single couch that stuck out like a sore thumb.”

Nick crossed his arms, a bit unimpressed. “Yeah, this is all very nice, but don’t you guys think that you should separate luxury from work? This could cause a bit of a distraction now that Venena is back.”

“Lighten up, Nick,” Ariel said as she joined Jeff on the couch. “We can enjoy all of this. Venena’s not attacking right NOW is she?”

An explosion slightly shook the chamber. Jeff and Ariel exchanged worried glasses.

Nick just raised an eyebrow and shot them an “I-told-you-so” look before running towards the stairs.




Another explosion, more of an optic blast shot towards the three Rangers as they ran outside. Jeff and Ariel cried out as they flew through the air and their backs connected with the wall of the Command Center before they fell to the ground; however Nick braced himself for the attack, shielding his head and lowering to one knee before charging forward at the attacker. He slid to a stop once he saw the attacker, who resembled a feline, holding a sword at his chest.



“Not so fast… hmmm,” she purred as she quickly put her sword to her side. “You three are the great Jungle Strike Rangers that my queen has been warning me about? Ha. You’re simply children.” She nodded her head to the side. “Move out of my way. I have a simple mission. There’s no need for anyone to be hurt here.”
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“Oh, I think there’s a great need,” Jeff said as he rose to his feet. “And we’re not just kids. We’ve taken everything that Venena has thrown at us and we’ve knocked it out of the park. I don’t see why you should be any different.”

“My name is Bruta,” the monster said, bowing slightly. “I fight with honor… I fight with brute force… I do have compassion for other warriors. I will not take it easy on you just because you’re kids, if that’s what you are anticipating.”

“We don’t expect you to,” Ariel said, climbing to her feet as well. “It’s you who should worry about us taking it easy on you.” She looked from side to side at her friends. “…We’re a little rusty.”

“But we still got it,” Nick finished. He rose his Morpher up, and with a bit of a smiled, shouted, “READY?!”

“Ready!” Jeff and Ariel cried in unison.

Nick inserted the key into the Morpher and twisted. “Jungle Strike…”

“…Power Up!”

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Bruta wasted no time, debuting a battle cry and running at the three Rangers, swiping each of them with her sword. Ariel was taken down first, followed by Nick. She thrust the tip of the sword towards Jeff’s chest. Jeff was quick to cartwheel out of the way and run up the wall of the Command Center. At about four feet in the air, he twisted and delivered a kick towards Bruta’s head but she knocked his leg away with the slash of her sword. Jeff spun to the ground, landing roughly on his feet. He swung a punch at Bruta, but it was sidestepped and he took a slash to the stomach. As Jeff hit the ground, Nick jumped over him and grabbed Bruta by the shoulders. He tucked his legs under her arms and rolled backwards, flipping her over his head and towards Ariel, who was waiting with her arms at her sides.

“Silverback Daggers!” Ariel summoned. Her two daggers appeared in her hands in a flash of brilliant yellow light. She jumped into the air, slashing at Bruta halfway, but Bruta managed to block the daggers with her sword. She hit the ground at the same time as Ariel and twisted around. Bruta shot a blast from the tip of her sword, hitting Ariel in the chest. Ariel fell to the ground.

“Panther Blasters!” Jeff called.

“KJ Blade!” Nick cried, following suit.

Jeff held his two lasers at his side as Nick brandished his long sword. They stood on either side of Bruta. Bruta just turned to the two of them, having no apparent fear in her eyes. Jeff fired two silver laser blasts from the barrels of the Panther Blasters, but they were blocked swiftly by Bruta’s sword and sent back at him. Although the shots landed a few inches in front of Jeff, the impact was enough to cause him to lose his footing and fall onto his back, less than gracefully.

Nick slammed the tip of his sword into the ground, shooting a red fireball in Bruta’s direction. Bruta was hit by the fireball, hard in her midsection, but it barely seemed to faze her. She charged at Nick and leapt through the air. She seemed to hover a bit as she swirled around, shooting red optic blasts onto the ground. One of the beams hit Nick’s sword. Nick grunted as he was forced back from the impact. He jumped into the air and swung his sword at Bruta, but yet again, she was able to block his shot with her own sword. She kicked Nick in the sternum. Nick let out an “OOF!” of pain as he was elbowed in the neck and fell through the air, landing on the ground, roughly although on his feet.

“You really are pests,” Bruta said with a frown. “Oh well. I guess I should keep you busy, hmm? It would be rude to leave you unattended.”

Bruta tossed what seemed like a wad of clay through the air. It landed a few feet from Jeff’s face. Jeff opened his visor to get a better look at what it was. Instantly, the clay began to expand and grow into nine large shapes.

“Putties,” Jeff and Ariel groaned in unison.

Bruta knocked Nick to the ground with another optic blast before running towards the Power Chamber.




Stephanie pulled her hair into a ponytail as she walked into a dark cave. She pulled the top of her shirt up to wipe some sweat off of her face once again. It was scorching in Turtle Cove. The chances were that it was around a hundred degrees. She hoped that it would be a bit cooler in the cave, which the EAR lead her to. Stephanie glanced outside for a bit. She seemed a bit confused when she saw that the cave seemed to descent underground and travel along under the surface of the lake.

“…Let’s get this over with,” Stephanie whispered to herself before walking further into the cave, never taking her eyes off of the EAR. She trudged along the dirt path that leads further into darkness, which she should have expected since there were obviously no lights in the cave. Subconsciously running her free hand along her ponytail, smoothing her hair out, she continued to look at the EAR. A large red dot blinking in front of the path that she was following indicated that she was not far from her target.

The sound of fluttering wings in the calm silence of the cave startled Stephanie. She nearly dropped the device as she scrambled behind a rock. However when a couple of bats fluttered overhead, flying towards the opening of the cave since the sun had begun to set, Stephanie scolded herself for allowing herself to be scared. She shook her head and continued her trek.




“Panther Blasters, Machine Mode,” Jeff muttered as he quickly combined the Panther Blasters to form a slightly larger, but much more powerful laser in the form of a machine gun. He used this to block a punch from a Putty and deliver a high kick to its head, knocking it to the ground. Jeff ran towards another one, firing blast after blast at it, eventually pinning it to the wall of the Command Center before it crumbled to the ground.

Ariel grunted as she drove her two Silverback Daggers into the heart of one of the Putties and tossed it over her shoulders. She was frustrated by the constant interference by the foot soldiers. She twisted around and was promptly kicked in the back by one of the Putties. She was surprised to see Jeff get taken down as well by a stiff punch to his chest. Jeff crashed into Ariel and the two bounced away from each other, falling to the ground.

Nick watched as he friends were knocked down and tried his best to get two them. He was able to decapitate one of the Putties with a powerful swing of his powered-up sword to its neck. The Putty’s limp body fell to the ground, but four others grabbed each of Nick’s limbs. Nick cried out with a surprised “WOAH!” as he was heaved towards his friends, launched through the air. His body bounced off of the cement and he rolled onto his back, dazed.

“We need a better plan,” Nick said, using his sword to prop himself up onto one elbow.

“No kidding, Captain Obvious.” Ariel was a bit apologetic for saying this, since she was only frustrated; however she was not in the mood for an attack by Putties.

Meanwhile, Bruta was slashing furiously at the doors of the Power Chamber. Inside, Alpha was in panic. He turned to William. “You remembered to put the Power Diamond security system back on after we checked for bugs, correct?”

William sighed. “Um… it was definitely on my to-do list.”

“AAAH!” Alpha squealed.

Bruta pried open the door just enough to slip into with a mix of optic blasts and shots from her sword. Alpha had already ran into a safe-room of sorts and locked the door behind him in panic. William looked around for something to possibly fight with or maybe a hiding place as well.

“You… stay back!” William said, picking his pen up and waving it threateningly.

Bruta simply laughed, shrugging her shoulders a bit. “I came here to retrieve the fragments of the Golden Gem. My queen wishes to piece them back together. You’re a human… You have no clue what to do with such power.” She swung her sword, tearing into the arm of one of the couches. She then flicked a chunk of flaming cotton towards William. William moved out of the way as the flaming cotton balls eventually fizzled into smoke and black, charred lumps on the ground.

“H-h-haven’t you heart that t-the p-pen is m-m-mightier than the s-sword?” William stammered. He was trying to reach deep down and be brave, but he found it do at this particular moment.

“Is that a challenge?” Bruta demanded. She hissed and jumped into the air, landing just a foot from William. She raised her sword above her head, preparing to bring it down on William, however the sword was grabbed from behind. Bruta looked over her shoulder in curiosity.

Lance was holding the sword in his hands and smirking. “Hope I’m not late.” He pushed Bruta to the side and grabbed his Morpher. “SPD Emergency!”

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“Venena’s monster seems to be doing quite well for itself,” Morador announced as he walked into the lair which Reptilla and Toxx were sitting in. They were watching the battle between the Rangers and the Putties on a monitor. Morador politely bowed before Toxx before sitting next to Reptilla. Morador was casually polishing his sword, but he stole a quick glance at Winston who was still lying motionlessly in the cage. He turned to Toxx. “Does he have enough energy to attack yet?”

“Not quite yet,” Toxx said, never taking his eyes off of the monitor. “However, he will have enough energy soon. Hmm. It looks like you’re right, Morador. Bruta is holding her own against the Rangers, but like I said: she will inevitably fail just like every other mediocre warrior that Venena has and will thrown out there.”

“How can you be sure?” Morador asked, now turning his attention to the monitor as well.

“She doesn’t put enough thought into her plan of attack,” Toxx said. “I take the time to think of plans to make my ideas work. I put energy and time into my creations. Venena just hopes for the best and curses others when her plans fail. That is not the way. She’s been stalling to catch the Rangers off-guard. I hate to admit it, but the Rangers will not let their guard down, despite my earlier protests.” Toxx sighed a bit and seemed to look thoughtful. “I have not been stalling. I’ve spent every single waking moment of my life working and I will not fail like she has.”

Reptilla turned to Toxx. “What if the Rangers destroy Venena during all of this?”

Toxx shrugged. “Venena is a pawn. I’m a king. You’d be wise to remember that much.”

Reptilla turned back to the monitor and lowered her head. What Toxx said was true, but she wasn’t exactly excited about watching the destruction of her sister, no matter how much they disagreed. Reptilla stifled a sigh and substituted it for a fake yawn.

“The Gem Ranger is near the---,” Morador started.

Toxx cut him off. “I know she is. Go stop her immediately! We cannot allow her to find them. We’ve hidden them in Turtle Cove for a reason.”

“Very well,” Morador said. He rose to his feet and once again exited the lair.




“Here it is!” Stephanie whispered to herself excitedly as the EAR lead her to a large dirt pit. She reached into a pocket of her cargo pants for a flashlight, shining it upon the interior of the pit. A series of footholds lead her down towards the ground which was about a fifteen foot drop. Stephanie held the flashlight between her teeth, not happy at all about the dirt that she would soon find on her hands. Stephanie lowered her feet into one of the holes of the pit and began a descent.

Stephanie had made it about five feet into the cave with the footholds before she began to lose her balance. Stephanie gasped as she slid down a bit, but steadily dug her fingers into another one of the holds. She groaned as mud splashed onto her arms and her pants. Shaking her head again, she finally climbed the rest of the way down, landing on the surprisingly solid ground. Taking the flashlight out of the ground, she shined it around the walls of the cave.

Another few bats flew away as the light hit them and out of view and earshot. Stephanie bit her lip as she saw a silver box at the far end of the tunnel. She looked at the EAR and back at the box. Yes, this was definitely it. Stephanie placed the EAR in a pocket of her pants, along with her flashlight and cautiously made her way to the box.

“STOP RIGHT THERE!”

Stephanie gasped and turned around as a black streak stopped in front of her. There was enough light coming from the overhead tunnels to see that it was Morador. Morador shot a few blasts at the cave, creating some flames overhead. This was mainly so he could see around the cave himself.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Stephanie demanded as she took a step back.

“Making sure you don’t get your hands on that briefcase,” Morador said, venomously. “Now I’ll give you a chance to run away.”

“I don’t think so,” Stephanie said. She pulled her Morpher towards her. “Jungle Strike---.”

Morador swung the sword at Stephanie’s wrist. She gasped as the Morpher was knocked from her wrist and through the air. It landed in one of the footholds of the cave wall. Stephanie held her wrist in pain and then looked at Morador.

“Morador… is taken from the German word ‘Mordor’,” Morador said as he walked closer to Stephanie, backing her closer towards the briefcase. “It is the word that the Americans know as ‘murderer’. Interesting fun fact, is it not?”

Stephanie didn’t reply. She glanced out of the corner of her eye towards the briefcase and then back at Morador. “What’s inside of it?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Morador taunted. He swung the sword at Stephanie’s head with a battle cry. Stephanie ducked under the sword and made a dash towards the briefcase, but Morador grabbed her by the back of her shirt and threw her through the air. Stephanie hit the wall and the back of her head thudded against it. She fell to her knees and groaned in pain. Her vision blurred for a moment, but she was stable enough to see another sword shot come towards her face.

With a shriek, Stephanie was able to scramble out of the way and the sword hit the wall with enough power to slightly shake the cave. A few pebbles rained down on Stephanie and Morador before Stephanie saw that Morador was the only thing standing between her and the briefcase. Her Morpher was too far away to grab at this point as well. Morador was not about to let her get to it anytime soon.

“I hate you so much,” Stephanie said as she clenched her hands into fists.

“I know,” Morador replied. “HAH!” He shot a silver blast from the palm of his hand at Stephanie. Stephanie was hit in the stomach. The blast wasn’t lethal, but it was enough to force her onto her back. Stephanie coughed up a wad of saliva. Hot tears burned in her eyes as she tried to pull herself onto her feet. She gazed ahead at Morador. Morador was making his way towards the briefcase.

“No!” Stephanie cried. She hopped to her feet and half-ran, half-limped towards Morador. She jumped onto his back and began choking him with everything she had. Morador grunted and choked. He spun around until Stephanie’s hold loosened and reached over his head with one hand, grabbing her by the hair. He swung over his head and onto her back in front of him. Stephanie arched her spine and cried out in agony. Morador then proceeded to deliver an unremorseful and unforgiving punt to her ribs. Stephanie screamed out in a mix of pain and pure hatred towards her assailant, Morador.




“Alright, I’m really sick of these guys,” Nick said as he kicked a Putty away from him. “I say it’s Tri Striker Time.”

“Good idea,” Jeff agreed.

The three of them put their weapons together. Ariel’s daggers faced each other while Jeff’s panther blasters sat atop the rear of the Silverback Daggers. Nick laid his sword on top and each of them held onto him, anticipating the recoil of the blast. The five remaining Putties seemed to dance around, unsurely. With a unanimous decision, they then charged the Rangers.

“FIRE!” Ariel cried.

The swirling color blast flew through the air and wrapped around the Putties like a rope. The three Rangers wisely turned around to avoid the bright explosion that ensued, sending chunks of clay all over them. Pulling their weapons apart, Nick turned to Jeff and Ariel. “Now let’s go stop Bruta before crap gets out of hand…”

The three Rangers charged around the Command Center and each gasped when they saw the open door of the Power Chamber. Nick nodded to the others and they ran inside.

“Hey… it’s Lance,” Jeff said excitedly as he saw Lance toss Bruta through the air and onto the ground in front of them.

Lance smirked and nodded to the others. “Hope I didn’t miss too much, eh?” Lance reached into his holster pulling out the Delta Scythe. He swung it at Bruta while she was still on her knees, knocking her backwards. Bruta got to her feet but another slash from the scythe knocked her staggering back and clear out of the Power Chamber.

“Now take that fight outside where it belongs,” William muttered, closing the doors once everyone exited. He sighed. “…I really need to get that security system back on.” Before doing so, he shrieked, seeing the condition of one of the couches. He ran over, attempting to salvage it.




Bruta rolled down the hill that lead up to the Power Chamber. She looked up at the four Rangers and shook her head. “You’re all fools if you think that this is the end.” Bruta swung her sword through the air, shooting a red plasma blast at them. An explosion destroyed a chunk of the hill and sent them flying through the air and onto the ground.

“Psh. It never ends,” Ariel said with a groan. “It’s time to try something new. Silverback Daggers, double-edged blade mode!” She put the two rears of her daggers together, quickly pulling them apart again, only to have a silver pole holding the two daggers together at this point. She charged at Bruta with her blade and swung at her. Bruta hissed and extended claws from her hand, swiping the blade away. She then kicked Ariel in the chest, knocking her backwards. Ariel jumped through the air and twisted, catching Bruta in the abdomen with a tip of her blade. Bruta cried out in pain again.

“Are you ready to give up now?” Nick demanded as he placed the sword on his shoulder, casually.

“Not now… Not ever,” Bruta responded. She held her sword above her head before pointing at the Rangers again. A green flame shot from the ground and surrounded the Rangers, closing in on them and causing combustion. With another powerful explosion, the Rangers were scattered about, smoke rising from their suits. Bruta began another ascent up the hill. “I’m on a mission and I vowed to NOT let you kids stand in my way!”




Stephanie tasted blood on her lip. Her scrunchie had been knocked through her hair during the struggle with Morador and her hair was now tangled around her face. Stephanie got to her elbows and knees and watched as Morador made his way towards the silver briefcase which sat ominously at the end of the cave tunnel. He smirked a bit and stood about a foot away from it.

“You’re not going to get away with this,” Stephanie said, lowering her head. Inside, she’d lost all hope. She knew that there was no possible way that she could defeat Morador unmorphed.

Morador looked at Stephanie, almost apologetically, as strange as that seemed. “The sad thing is; you know very well that I am. I always get away with it. I’m Morador. Without your powers, you have no hope. You’re not going to get this briefcase back. You’re not going to get your friend, Winston back. Darkness will rein supreme and all good will fall. It’s almost a sorry sight. You’re crawling, scratching, and scraping to live an already-dead dream. You’re fighting to live something that’s been dead for some time now. I think that I should do the nice thing and end your fight here.”

Morador walked away from the briefcase in a moment of over-confidence and raised his sword above his head to bring it down over Stephanie. Stephanie however thrust herself forward, between Morador’s legs, and behind him. Morador whipped around in shock. Stephanie snatched Morador’s sword out of his hands. With all of her might she swung it at him. The sword connected with Morador’s chest. Morador wailed out in pain as sparks flew from his stone body and he fell to one knee. With another grunt of defiance, Stephanie twisted and slammed Morador’s sword into the side of his head.

Morador’s neck snapped to the side and he fell to the ground, comatose for the time being. Stephanie wasted no time throwing the sword aside and running to the briefcase. She grabbed it from its spot on the ground and ran back to the footholds. She climbed up the cave, quickly, grabbing her Morpher as she did so, sliding it around her wrist, running from the cave.

Morador opened one eye. Everything slowly came into focus. A cry escaped his lips when he realized that Stephanie had escaped with the briefcase. “NOOOOOO!”

By the time Morador had leapt over the wall of footholds and ran out of the twisting and winding cave, all he saw was the fading figure of the Hawkzord as it glided by overhead, flying towards Angel Grove.

Morador kicked the ground in frustration before vanishing in an explosion of sparks, teleporting himself back to Toxx’s lair.




Lance turned to Nick. “If we want to defeat Bruta, we’re going to need a little bit of extra power if you get what I mean.”

“Right,” Nick agreed. “I summon the Red Blood Striker Orb!” He held his hand in the air. Energy swarmed from the sky and into his palm before shortly, the Red Blood Striker Orb materialized.

Lance grabbed it. “SPD, Scorpion Mode!”

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“You think that scares me?!” Bruta demanded. She charged at Lance with her sword drawn once again and delivered a slash to his chest. Although Lance twitched in obvious pain from the blow, he gripped his scythe and slashed Bruta as well. Both Bruta and Lance let out grunts of pain, but Lance pointed the scythe at Bruta, releasing a green static charge from the blade and into Bruta’s abdomen. Bruta took the brunt of the attack and leapt through the air. She threw her sword at Lance. It hit Lance’s stomach and despite the extra power, he placed a hand to the spot he was hit and dropped to one knee.

“Nothing’s gonna get accomplished by sitting around here,” Jeff said to Ariel. The two of them were resting on the sidelines while Nick and Lance were fighting Bruta. Jeff rose to his feet, pulling out his Panther Blasters. “We’re gonna need to work together if we’re going to beat Bruta.”

Ariel opened her mouth to protest, but Jeff charged ahead of her. With a sigh, Ariel grabbed her daggers and followed. Bruta had just taken Nick off of his feet, placing a leg behind both of his and shoving him to the ground with her sword. Jeff swung a kick at the back of her head, but Bruta sensed this and hissed as she ducked under Jeff’s leg. She drew claws from her free hand and slashed at Jeff, however a defiant Jeff blocked her claws with both of his Panther Blasters. He kicked Bruta’s stomach and knocked her backwards. Bruta, with a powerful battle cry shot a green flame from her sword, into Ariel. The Yellow Ranger fell to the ground, defenseless as her daggers slipped out of her grasp.

“Got enough left in you for another Tri Striker?” Nick suggested as he helped pull Ariel to her feet.

“Sounds good,” Ariel said through gasps. She picked up her Silverback Daggers and nodded to Jeff.

Jeff, Ariel, and Nick put their weapons together. Ariel’s daggers faced each other while Jeff’s panther blasters sat atop the rear of the Silverback Daggers. Nick laid his sword on top and each of them held onto him, once again, preparing for the recoil that would surely ensue because of the blast.

“We’ve got to get her to hold still,” Jeff pointed out. Bruta was back on her feet and battling Lance. However, the Tri Striker was already charging. Jeff snapped his head towards Lance. “Lance, get out of there!”

“Don’t worry about me!” Lance yelled. He suffered a knee to the abdomen by Bruta. “I’ll keep her down.”

“If I go down, he goes with me!” Bruta hissed. She drove her claws into Lance’s chest, repeatedly. Lance felt every blow as if they were rusted nails piercing his skin. He felt his muscles tense as Bruta slashed at his neck. Lance however, bear-hugged one of Bruta’s arms to her torso and tried to hold her in place. Bruta hissed once again. “FOOL!”

“Lance, you need to move!” Jeff repeated.

“Just do it, NOW!” Lance grunted. He was struggling to keep Bruta grounded.

“We have no choice,” Nick muttered. “Fire.” He said the word “fire” with absolutely no enthusiasm in his voice. The swirling colors shot from the Tri Striker once again and hit Bruta and Lance. Lance was wise to move as far away as he could once the beam hit, but he still suffered some of the damage as he too was engulfed in the explosion. Lance flew through the air and his back slammed into the outer wall of the Command Center. He groaned and demorphed in a shower of green sparks.

Ariel and Jeff ran to check on Lance while Nick sill held onto the Tri Striker, sighing.




“Some things never change,” Venena murmured under her breath. She extended her staff and opened an Invisi-Portal. She hoisted the crystal ball up in the air before swinging her staff at it like a baseball bat. It entered the Invisi-Portal.




The crystal ball flew out of another portal above the subdued Bruta and released a purple energy onto her. It ran through Bruta’s body. Nick watched as their opponent slowly began to grow until she reached a height of what he could only estimate to be around 300 feet. Bruta stared down at the Rangers and just growled. She rose up her foot, attempting to stomp on Nick; however, Nick was able to roll out of the way.

“You guys form the Megazord,” Nick said to Jeff and Ariel. “I’ll get Lance inside.”

“Okay.” Jeff was in no mood to argue. He contacted Alpha on the WC. “We need Junglezord power, now.”

In seconds, the Pantherzord, Lionzord, and Gorillazord popped into view. Jeff leapt into the Pantherzord while Ariel jumped into the Gorillazord.

Each of them took keys out of their Morphers and slid them into holes in the dashboard of the Zords. The Zords began to reassemble. Jeff’s Pantherzord broke into two pieces so it was into perfect halves and in the center a hand emerged and on the other hand was the Panther’s head as a shield/hand. The Mega Junglezord also had the torso of Gorillazord. The legs of the Gorillazord and Lionzord combined and each turned into legs of the Mega Junglezord, before the head of the Lionzord was placed onto the Mega Junglezord, sprouting the Lionzord’s tale. The Mega Junglezord stood tall with a J symbol in its chest. Silver armor appeared across the shoulders down to around its chest.

Bruta quickly flipped through the air and pounced onto the Jungle Megazord, however Megazord grabbed Bruta’s tail, much to her dismay and swung her through the air. Bruta landed on the top of the hill leading up to the Command center before rolling down, across the flat plains below. Megazord jumped off of the hill and delivered a thunderous punch to Bruta’s stomach.

Bruta jumped to her feet and shot a powerful optic blast at the Megazord. As energy surged through the Zord, the cockpit controls seemed to jam. Ariel and Jeff groaned as they were thrown around the cockpit and showered in sparks.




“Is he gonna be alright?” Nick asked as he watched William help Lance onto one of the beds. Nick had his helmet tucked under his arm and was shaking a bit. He was afraid to use the Tri Striker with Lance there in the first place. He felt guilty about him being in the line of fire. Lance was still conscious, but he seemed to be really dazed and unable to stand up straight.

“I’ll be fine, Nick,” Lance said as he lied down on the bed. “Just go fry that furball for me, will ya?”

William smiled. “He’s going to be okay, Nick. He’s not hurt… Lance is just a little out of it.” He nodded towards the exit. “Now your friends need you out there. Go.”

Nick nodded and placed his helmet back on his head. He ran back to the stairs.




“Minor setback,” Nick said as he sat down in the cockpit. “You guys are okay, right?”

“No, not at all,” Jeff admitted. “We need the KJ Blade, now.”

“Right,” Nick agreed. “Alpha, send us the Super KJ Blade!”

Descending from the sky was the Super KJ Blade. The Megazord grabbed it in its hand and took a step towards Bruta. Bruta slashed the Megazord with her sword, but the KJ Blade came into play, blocking it, sparks erupting as the two swords connected. Megazord took a step forward and kneed Bruta in the stomach. The feline was knocked backwards and rolled across the ground. She hopped to her feet and in a flash of blue light, she vanished.

“Where’d she go?” Ariel demanded. She knew it was a stupid question, for there was no possible way for Nick and Jeff to know this either, but her question was quickly answered as Bruta reappeared on the top of the Jungle Megazord. She drove her claws into the head of the Megazord. Ariel looked up, seeing one of the claws pierce the steel of the Megazord, digging into it, slashing through the circuits and wires.

“This doesn’t look good!” Jeff cried. “Uhh… I got it!”

Jeff reached both hands of the Megazord up towards Bruta. Although Jeff had no intention of pulling her off, for he knew that it wouldn’t work: simple as that. However, he grabbed Bruta’s tail and purposely knocked the Megazord, backwards and off of its feet. The weight of the Megazord came crashing down on Bruta’s tail. Bruta roared and howled. She tried to pull herself out from under the Megazord. Proving unsuccessful, she tried to deliver another optic blast to the machine. The Megazord twitched, involuntarily from the impact of the beam.

“Nick, we need the Lion Striker Megazord, right now,” Ariel said to Nick.

“I can’t yet,” Nick groaned. “Since Lance was depowered in the battle, it’s going to take a few minutes for the Red Orb to recharge itself.” Nick braced himself as Bruta made her way to her feet and shot another blast at the Megazord.

Bruta lifted the Megazord to its feet, grabbing it by the arm. She tossed the Megazord through the air with ease and quickly jumped up after it. Jeff was pinned against his seat and could only watch in terror as Bruta jumped through the air as well, claws bared. She drove all ten of her claws into the chest of the Megazord. She then flipped forward, using her tail to wrap around the Megazord’s head. In an instant, she unraveled her tail and the Megazord fell to the ground, causing a slight tremor. The Super KJ Blade slipped from its grasp and landed on the ground.

“Finish them,” Venena hissed, speaking telepathically to Bruta. “Finish them now. Don’t waste any time!”

“As you wish, my queen,” Bruta said. She picked up both her sword and the Super KJ Blade. She rubbed them against each other, excitement in her eyes as she saw the power that she held in her hands.

“Well… We had a good run, ya?” Ariel closed her eyes and turned her head.

“I can’t believe it’s going to end this way,” Nick muttered.

Bruta drove both swords towards the head of the Megazord, but paused. She looked up.

In the shadow of the full moon was the Hawkzord, swooping down, cawing as it descended.

Jeff looked up and a grin spread across his face, although hidden behind the helmet. “Stephanie!”

“Hey guys,” Stephanie greeted. “I would have been here sooner, but I got a little… held up. Now this cat’s goin’ down.” Stephanie pulled a lever in the cockpit of the Hawkzord and fired two missiles from the metallic wings. They sailed through the air and crashed into Bruta. Bruta attempted to use the swords to deflect the missiles, but this proved unsuccessful as well. The Super KJ Blade flew from her hands and her own sword broke in two pieces.

“MY SWORD!” Bruta cried.

The Hawkzord descended onto the Megazord, lowering into its back, giving it wings. The head of the Hawkzord acted as a helmet to the Megazord as its tail wrapped around its wrist, creating the Hawk Blade. The Jungle Megazord rose to its feet, looking at Bruta. Nick gripped the levers of the cockpit with a look of determination in his eye and the proverbial venom running out of his mouth with every word.

“You hurt my friends, you tried to attack our Power Chamber, and you stand for everything that we’re trying to bring to an end. Give us one good reason why we shouldn’t destroy you,” Nick challenged.

“…Because I fight with honor, and I will only DIE with honor!” Bruta croaked out. “I thought you were supposed to be the good guys.”

Nick gave one single small laugh. “Good guys, hmm? We’re not the good guys. We’re just the guys that step in when the REAL good guys don’t have what it takes to bring you down.”

The Megazord picked up the Super KJ Blade and formed a flaming circle in the air, rotating the sword.

“And this is a message to Venena,” Jeff chimed in. “The Rangers are back and we’re better than ever. Bye-bye, now.”

The Megazord slashed the sword through the air. The fire shot in a straight line, forming a rope around Bruta. The Hawk Blade then shot off of the wrist of the Megazord and impaled Bruta. The fire rope exploded and Bruta twitched violently, sparks shooting from her body. The Megazord lowered the Super KJ Blade. The Hawk Blade re-attached itself to its leg and Bruta was destroyed in a multi-colored explosion which gave the ground another tremor before she even hit the ground.

Chunks of fur and blood showered the Megazord after the inevitable destruction of Venena’s warrior, Bruta.




“Surprise, surprise,” Toxx muttered. He smiled faintly and turned to Winston. “The time for you to strike is nearing, Gold Ranger. Are you ready? Of course you are.” Toxx laughed, maniacally.




“They… they destroyed another one.” Venena was in shock. She breathed heavily. “What am I doing wrong?” She glared and turned to Zen. “No, it’s nothing I’m doing. What are YOU doing wrong?!”

Zen took a step back, defensively. “Me? What did I do? I don’t choose the monsters. I just do what you tell me to do.”

“So you’re saying it’s my fault?” Venena demanded.

“I didn’t say that,” Zen insisted. “I’m sorry!”

“You implied it,” Venena said, delivering a hard slap to Zen’s jaw. “If it’s not my fault and it’s not your fault, then whose fault is it?!” When Zen didn’t reply, Venena delivered another hard slap to his face. Zen fell to the ground. Venena kneeled down beside him. “You’re going to pay, Zen. And we’ll see how sorry you really are.”




Stephanie lied the briefcase down on the table counter and looked at it long and hard for a moment before turning her attention to the others. “Well, I went to the cave in Turtle Cove because I had a high power reading on the EAR. I ran into Morador and we got into a fight, but I managed to get the briefcase and get out of there.”

“Just in time, too,” Nick said. He folded his arms. “We would have been toast without you. Bruta was pretty tough.”

“Or maybe she’s not…” Ariel said. She was sitting on the couch, next to Jeff once again. She laid her head on his shoulder, yawning a bit. “Maybe we just need to step up our game. We haven’t fought as a team in two and a half months. I think we’ve really got some work to do.”

Jeff nodded. “So what’s inside the briefcase?”

Stephanie shrugged and turned to Alpha, who at the time was running a device over it, most likely an X-Ray. Alpha then made a whirring sound which suggested he was sighing and he lowered the device. “I don’t know. The briefcase is locked and it acts as a safe at the moment. We’d need to figure out a way to decode the lock before we can open it.”

“I say we just blow it open,” Nick suggested.

“No!” Alpha and William snapped in unison.

Nick frowned. “Well, why not?”

“Whatever is in here is much too precious and valuable to risk damaging,” Alpha explained. “The energy reading is huge and it can be very important to us.” Alpha moved the briefcase towards a large machine. “When we get any information on it, we’ll contact you. For now, I think it’s best for you all to get some sleep.”

“Right,” Jeff said. “Deyanna’s with Jodi right now. I guess I should go pick her up.”

“Yeah, my parents are going to be so mad… I broke curfew,” Stephanie sighed, glancing at her watch. She’d indeed broken her 10:00 curfew by a few minutes at this point. With a ghost of a smile, she rose to her feet and made her way to the door. “I’ll see you all tomorrow. Goodnight.”




Ariel spent yet another night in Jeff’s apartment. She was exhausted and already asleep on his bed. Jeff murmured something about her laziness under his breath before walking towards Deyanna’s room. Jeff kneeled down next to his little sister and looked at her. “Goodnight, Deyanna.” He rubbed her arm and got to his feet, about to turn off the lights before Deyanna interrupted.

“Jeff…”

Jeff, with his hand on the light switch turned and looked at her. “Yes?”

“Can you read me the Humpty Dumpty poem now?” she asked, pulling the book out from under the sheets.

“But I thought you didn’t like that one,” Jeff said, making his way back to his sister’s bed.

“I want to read it.” She opened the book, fumbling until she found the right page.

Jeff looked tired, but he smiled again. “Yeah...” He walked towards Deyanna and sat down on the edge of the bed. He opened the book and looked at the page. “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall…”

And that’s when it hit him. Reading the story brought something to Jeff. He finally knew what Venena was up to. How could he be so oblivious to it before?

When Jeff paused and stared off into space, Deyanna shot him a worried glance. “Jeff?”

Venena was trying to get the Golden Gem fragments for herself. She knew that if they were pieced back together, something would happen to the Gold and Gem Rangers.

All the queen’s horses and all the queen’s men…

“Jeff?” Deyanna repeated, shaking her big brother’s arm.

…Couldn’t get the orbs together again. Bruta’s mission! Bruta’s mission was to get the Golden Gem fragments. Venena knew something about Winston that Jeff didn’t know. Perhaps she didn’t, but she still knew something about his powers.

“Jeff?” Deyanna whined, shaking his arm once again.

And if Venena were to get the fragments and orbs together, she would have a great power. She already had one of the orbs. That was already too much.

“JEFF!” Deyanna shrieked. Jeff blinked. He then turned to Deyanna. His hands were shaking. He looked into her eyes. Her innocent eyes… and continued the poem.

[Angelfox]

Holy Shit...welcome back

[ZeoFury]

I just remembered how much I love writing this. I actually have two more chapters written. I'll probably have Chapter 26 up by tomorrow and I may wait until I have the complete Jungle Strike/Wild Force mini-series finished before I post "The Merge".

[GreyRanger]

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANKYOU!!!! this fic was the reason i joined! Awesome stuff, glad to be following Nick, Ariel, Jeff, Steph and Winston's story again!

[ZeoFury]

Chapter 26 should be up like... now.

[ZeoFury]

Chapter 26: Fauxhawk



It felt so free to fly over the treetops in hawk form. Stephanie felt relaxed up here. She spread her wings and swooped down over the trees, the leaves rusting a bit under her wings. She joined a flock of hawks ahead of her. She understood everything she said. She loved it. Birds stayed together. Birds didn’t attack each other and leave each other like humans did. They were one. They were a single unit. And that, to Stephanie was comforting.

As she broke away from the rest of the flock, realizing she’d flown quite a distance from her house, she felt a small tinge of sadness as she broke away from them, watching them fly off into the distance. However, she turned around and flew back to her house in Angel Grove, still enjoying the “bird’s eye” view.




Ariel relaxed in her swimsuit in one of the beach chair’s at Stephanie’s house. Stephanie walked outside, in a similar, yet ironic purple-colored swimsuit. She had two glasses of lemonade and handed one to Ariel. “It’s so nice to actually be able to have a nice day without an attack from Toxx or Ven--.”

“—SSSHHH!” Jeff hissed from across the pool. Stephanie and Ariel turned to him. Jeff was in a long white shirt and black swim trunks, also reclining in a chair. He was typing furiously at his laptop and shot the two girls a dirty look. “Don’t jinx it.”

Ariel rolled her eyes and took a sip of the lemonade. She slipped her sunglasses on over her eyes. “So, Steph, where were you this morning? I called and your mom just said you went out somewhere.”

“Mind your own business, Ariel,” Jeff said, jokingly from the other side of the pool. “Dang, you the nosiest chick I’ve ever met.”

Ariel chucked a cube of ice at Jeff, sticking her tongue out. Jeff moved his head to the side and the ice cube hit the back of his chair, shattering into a few pieces.

Stephanie laughed. “I haven’t been in hawk form in a while, so I decided to go out and fly for a bit. I guess I just forgot how much I really missed it up in the sky.” She started to drink some of the lemonade from her glass, but lowered it again and turned to Ariel. “Hey, did Alpha ever contact you guys about whatever was in that silver briefcase? It’s been two days.”

“No,” Ariel said, simply. She crossed one leg over the other and shifted her head, slightly to get hair out of her face. “That must mean that he’s having some trouble getting it open. However, I have to agree with Nick. I think it would be a lot easier if I went gorilla mode and tore the thing apart.”

“You heard Alpha,” Stephanie interrupted. “We can’t afford to damage it. If Morador went through such great lengths to protect it, that he would have destroyed me on sight, then we know that it’s something important.” She sighed. “I’m a bit surprised that with all the equipment in the Power Chamber that they can’t just find some random device to open the briefcase with.”

Suddenly, completely out of the blue, an Invisi-Portal opened in front of Ariel and Stephanie. Ariel gasped, however Stephanie didn’t flinch when she saw Morador drop down in front of them, sword drawn, seemingly ready for combat. Jeff was oblivious to all this. He had his headphones slipped on, listening to a playlist on the laptop while surfing through a website of his. He whistled the tune along.

“Where is it?” Morador demanded.

“Where is what?” Stephanie asked, in a smart-aleck fashion, flashing a smile.

“Don’t play dumb,” Morador rasped as he swung the sword at Stephanie’s head.

Stephanie ducked under the sword and groaned. “This is SO not fair. I’m in a bikini, you ho.”

Morador grunted. Rising out of the ground, were Mechaclones. Six of them danced around Morador, waiting for instructions. Morador pointed his sword at the girls and his eyes widened a bit. He clenched his teeth and hissed, “Get them.”

The Mechaclones charged at Stephanie and Ariel. Stephanie jumped over the beach chair and kicked a Mechaclone in the chest. It swung a blade at her head, but Stephanie grabbed its arm and kneed it twice in its midsection. Stephanie however was yanked backwards by the string of her bikini top and hurled through the air by another Mechaclone. Her head thudded off of the cement of the ground and she sat on her side in pain.

“Stephanie!” Ariel cried. Jeff was still oblivious to the entire fight on the other side of the pool. Hearing the girls scream, he assumed they were just playing around in the pool so he simply turned the volume on the laptop up, pumping loud rap music. Ariel muttered something, but two Mechaclones grabbed her arms. They threw her towards the picture window of Stephanie’s house. Ariel flew through the air and her back connected with the glass. She groaned and fell to the ground, but pushed herself up again. Ariel hopped to her feet and charged at one of the Mechaclones, taking it down with a shoulder to the gut. “Jeff, we could use a little help here!”

Jeff obviously didn’t hear her. He nodded his head along with the beat of the music, his headphones still firmly in his ears.

Stephanie anticipated a plasma blast from one of the Mechaclones when its blade began to glow a pale silver color. She jumped out of the way and punted the Mechaclone’s arm. The blast simply was fired into the pool. Stephanie then grabbed the Mechaclone’s arm and kneed it in the back before flipping it roughly into the pool. The Mechaclone’s head bounced off of the edge of the pool before it sank down under the water.

Ariel slammed her fist into another Mechaclone’s back and knocked it through the air and towards Stephanie. Stephanie flipped one of the beach chairs with her foot and kicked it into the Mechaclone. The robot twitched, sparks flying from its limbs and head before it fell to the ground, motionless. Ariel attempted to catch her breath as she looked at the other three Mechaclones. Morador continued to watch.

“I want the briefcase,” Morador said. “If you hand it over I will call the Mechaclones off.”

“We know what you want,” Stephanie said. She kicked another Mechaclone in the knee. It bent over. Ariel then gave it a stiff uppercut, knocking it backwards into the water as well. Stephanie glared at Morador. “And you’re not getting it.”

“Then it looks like I’ll have to take it from you,” Morador said. “One way or another, I will get it back.”

Ariel and Stephanie both took their glasses of lemonade and smashed them over the two remaining Mechaclone’s heads. The unfamiliar liquid already seemed to disable the Mechaclones when it seeped into their circuits. They were finished off when they were thrown into the pool, disappearing with an explosion, sending water flying all over the place.

“No splashing!” Jeff yelled, never taking his eyes off of the laptop’s screen. “This thing was almost two-thousand dollars, ya know.”

“You may as well celebrate your meaningless victory while you can,” Morador said as he turned, walking back to the Invisi-Portal. “However, I assure you, soon enough, I will get the briefcase back. Try not to get killed until then. I want the pleasure of peeling it from your lifeless fingers myself.” Morador vanished in a flash of purple light, along with the Mechaclones.

Stephanie and Ariel fell onto one of the beach chairs, exhausted. Once Jeff’s playlist had ended, he pulled his headphones from his ears and closed his laptop. He looked over at the girls and frowned a bit when he saw the damage on the other side of the pool.

“I missed something, didn’t I?” Jeff scratched his head.

In an instant, Ariel was on the other side of the pool, choking Jeff with both hands. Jeff gagged and tried to pry Ariel’s hands off of his throat.




“No luck?” Nick asked as he walked into the Power Chamber. William pressed his ear to the lock on the briefcase as he scrolled through the numbers, listening for a click, but no matter how slow he turned the lock and how quiet it was in the Power Chamber, he couldn’t seem to get it open.

William sighed and pulled away from the briefcase. “No luck, Nick. I really wish I could find out what was in there. This thing is so protected that even our most powerful X-Rays can’t seem to find out what’s inside of it. All we know is that it holds a lot of power.”

“I stand by my comment yesterday,” Nick muttered. “We power the thing open.”

“Are you crazy?!” William exclaimed. “For all we know, this could be one of the Orbs. You know first-hand how fragile they are.” He shook his head and went back to trying to open the lock. “Nope, we’re going to have to figure this out the old fashioned way.”

“Well, I have an idea,” Nick said.

“No,” William protested, immediately. “We’re not blowing it open.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “No, it’s nothing like that.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “You said that Stephanie found this briefcase in a cave down in Turtle Cove, right?”

William slowly nodded. “Yes. She followed a reading into a cave in Turtle Cove, but I don’t follow.”

Nick paced around the room a bit. “Why don’t you send Lance and me down there to check the area out for a while? Maybe if we hang out by that cave for long enough, someone that’s somehow connected to whatever is inside that briefcase will show up. We can interrogate them and find out what we need to know. I’m personally really eager to see what’s in that thing.”

“…That actually sounds like a pretty good idea,” William admitted. “I’ll bring the Lioncycle and Scorpiocycle out of the back. You guys sure you’re up for this?”

Nick rose his WC up and explained the plan to Lance.

“I’m in,” Lance said.

Nick nodded to William with a smirk. “We’re gonna open this briefcase.”




Toxx just stared at Morador for a while. Toxx was taking deep breaths, as if trying to stop himself from lashing out and yelling at his servant. He moved a hand up to his eyes and rubbed them. He cleared his throat.

“Tell me, Morador. How is it that you managed to fail not once, but twice to defeat a couple of spoiled rich girls? You are supposed to be a great warrior. You are supposed to be the best of the best. Now that I don’t have as much energy as I once had, I’m depending on you to add some muscle to the team. Do I need to replace you?”

“No, my king,” Morador said, lowering himself to one knee, placing a hand over his heart and bowing to Toxx. “I promise you that I will get it back immediately. From what I’ve seen, two of the Rangers are heading back to the cave in Turtle Cove. If they meet the Lionheart before I arrive, they will almost undoubtedly be given the combination to the lock.”

“Then CUT THEM OFF!” Toxx roared, jumping to his feet. His outburst caused Reptilla to raise an eyebrow.

“You know, Toxx, if Morador can’t take on the Yellow and Gem Rangers, what makes you think that he can hold himself against the Red and Green ones?” Reptilla smiled evilly at Morador, who answered her smile with a glare. “Maybe you should let me go with him.”

“Very well,” Toxx said, dismissively. “The two of you go. Work as a team. It’s the only way you’ll defeat the Rangers. And it’s not an option… You will defeat them, or else.”




“This is the place,” Nick announced when he and Lance pulled up to the half-underwater cave in Turtle Cove on the Lioncycle and the Scorpiocycle. The two of them parked their bikes outside of the cave and they sat outside.

“Now we wait?” Lance asked as he joined Nick, his back pressed to the exterior of the cave.

“Yup,” Nick said. He cleared his throat a bit and pulled at the collar of his shirt. “Man, it’s hot around here.”

Lance nodded in agreement. “Well, things could be worse than the heat. Morador and Reptilla could show up. Now THAT would be pretty bad, yeah?” He stretched out a bit on the ground.

At that same moment, Morador and Reptilla dropped down from an Invisi-Portal. Nick winced and turned to Lance. “Oh, I hate you right now.”




Zen rubbed the back of his neck which was sore from a severe lashing by Venena the day before. He ran his hands over the cuts along his skin and mumbled something, but he ceased when Venena entered the room. He avoided eye contact her, although he politely bowed. He didn’t like her too much at that particular moment, although showing any resentment towards her would only result in more punishment.

“Zen, I have taken the liberty of finding a monster for myself,” Venena said. “I’d like you to meet Faux. He comes from the planet Crateoria, sixty-seven light-years away. You are off-duty until further notice.”

“Hello,” Faux greeted, looking at Zen.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v168/Dimmy/Monsters/dynaman1320L.jpg
Zen gave a “humph” when Faux approached him. He simply walked past him and towards Venena who was pouring ingredients into a cauldron, working on a potion… the same potion that she’d been working on for the past few months. Zen was afraid to ask what it was, but he had to move onto more important matters. “Venena, how could you pick this total unknown over my creations? I had the perfect monster picked out to destroy the Rangers---.”

“---Hold it right there,” Venena interrupted. “Your monsters have failed me one too many times. I’m doing YOU a favor by giving you time off.” She turned to the Crateorian. “Faux, show him what you can do.”

“As you wish, my queen,” Faux complied. He backed away from them a bit. In an instant, his body began to shift until he became an exact copy of Zen. Faux-Zen smirked and then turned towards Venena. “What is my mission, my queen?”

“I want you to kidnap the Gem Ranger and bring her to me,” Venena ordered. “Once she’d here, you will impersonate her and you will go into the Power Chamber, steal the Golden Gem fragments, along with anything else of value… then when that is accomplished, you will destroy the Rangers from the inside. Do you understand?”

“Understood,” Faux-Zen said. He stood straight and transformed back to his regular self before disappearing into an Invisi-Portal.




Jeff trudged along behind Stephanie and Ariel in the mall, one of their purses in each hand. “Tell me again why I’m with you guys? Come on, I’m supposed to meet Jodi in the RadioShack in twenty minutes.”

“Because we need you to hold our purses,” Stephanie muttered.

“Uh… duh,” she and Ariel chimed in unison.

Jeff blinked and shrugged. “Ya know what… Why did I even ask?” He shook his head and turned. A broad grin formed on his face when Jodi popped into view. “Hey, Jo!” Jeff called over to his girlfriend. Jodi smiled and half-walked, half-ran over to Jeff. She threw her arms around his neck and pulled Jeff into a tight hug. Jeff pretended to cry. “They’re making me hold their purses. This is slave labor I tell you.”

“Poor baby,” Jodi joked. She waved at Ariel and Stephanie. “Mind if I steal him for a bit?”

“Not at all,” Ariel said with a laugh as she and Stephanie retrieved their purses from Jeff. “I guess we’ll see you guys at the pizza parlor?”

“Definitely,” Jodi said. She placed Jeff’s hand gently in hers and pulled him towards the door and out of the department store entirely. She did this rather quickly.

Stephanie and Ariel looked at each other and shrugged.

Jodi pulled Jeff outside of the mall and into an alley. She crossed her arms and leaned against one of the walls. “Jeff, I need you to take me to the Power Chamber as soon as possible.”

Jeff looked at Jodi curiously. “Why?” Jodi had been in the Chamber two or three times before, but it was obvious that she didn’t belong there. At the time she possessed the Blue Reflection Orb and she was a part of important studies, but since Venena took the orb from her possession, it hadn’t really crossed Jeff’s mind to invite her back.

“Because I need to talk to Alpha about getting the orb back… And I just wanted to help with the Golden Gem fragments. Maybe somehow the Golden Gem was connected to the Blue Reflection Orb,” Jodi said.

Jeff just stared at Jodi for a while. “Jodi, you know Venena has the orb. I could take you to the Power Chamber if you want, but I really don’t see how that would help. I don’t even think Alpha and William would let you in, considering how tight they’ve been with security ever since Bruta broke into the Command Center.”

“That’s understandable,” Jodi said, emotionlessly. “So what did you want to do?”

“I thought you were planning on buying an iPod,” Jeff replied. “Did you forget?” He noticed that something definitely seemed different about Jodi. She didn’t speak with the same “pep” as she had before and she seemed to forget the smallest details.

“No, of course I didn’t forget,” Jodi said. “Let’s go… get the iPod then, Jeffery.”

“You are SO not Jodi,” Jeff realized. Immediately as she uttered his full name, the truth hit him. He tried to run. He had to tell Ariel and Stephanie, but in an instant, Faux-Jo delivered a kick to Jeff’s chest. Jeff hit the wall of the alley and found a sneaker in the side of his head. Everything seemed to fade to black as Jeff smelled the blood begin to come from his nose and his world turned sideways once his head hit the ground.

Faux-Jo straightened her shirt and made her way back into the mall. So the minor plan didn’t go well, and Faux didn’t expect it to. It was worth a shot anyway.




Lance jumped through the air with a twisting kick to Reptilla’s arm. Reptilla stumbled backwards and snapped her fingers. Several blades of grass shot from the ground and towards Lance at rapid speed, seeming to crystallize before they hit him. Lance rolled out of the way and the crystallized blades shattered against the exterior wall of the cave. Lance dropped to one knee and twisted once again, knocking Reptilla’s legs out from under her. She fell to the ground.

Nick jumped backwards at every slash that Morador threw at him with his sword. When Nick was running out of room to move, the back of his sneakers hit the water. He arched himself forward as much as he could as the sword came towards his torso. A long cut was forced into the front of his shirt. Nick jumped into the air and kicked Morador’s shoulder. A pain shot through Morador’s arm and he almost dropped the Stone Saber, but didn’t quite do so. As Nick landed behind Morador, he positioned himself on his palms and drove both of his feet into Morador’s back, falling onto the ground after doing so.

Reptilla grunted and twisted around, delivering a hard punch to Lance’s jaw, however this was blocked by Lance’s hands. Not matching the power of this witch, Lance slid backwards a few feet. He kicked Reptilla hard in the ribcage, but Reptilla seemed to be barely fazed. Reptilla drove a knee into Lance’s solar plexus. Lance gasped for air. He was then tossed to the side and landed on his stomach, his chin thudding off the ground.

“You can’t run forever, Power Rangers!” Morador bellowed before holding his sword in front of him. “Stone Strike!”

Stones seemed to run from the sky like raindrops and fall around Nick, going off like mini-bombs. Nick cried out in pain as an amazing explosion behind him singed his back and lifted him through the air. He tried to land on his feet, but a sharp pain ran through his leg. Nick flipped onto his back, feeling the burns forming on his back already.

“Nick,” Lance choked.

“Yeah, Lance?” Nick answered as he tried his best to pull himself to his feet.

“Why don’t we turn up the power a little bit, eh?”

“You read my mind.” Nick raised his Morpher up, causing the approaching Morador to stop in his tracks. Nick held his key in front of him. “Ready?”

“Ready!” Lance replied, pulling his Morpher from his back pocket.

“Jungle Strike, Red!”

“SPD, Emergency!”

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v168/Dimmy/Power%20Rangers/redgreen.jpg
Reptilla charged at Lance and kicked at his legs, in an attempt to ground him early on, however Lance back-flipped over her leg and performed yet another back-flip when Reptilla charged at him again. Lance ducked under a punch and back-fisted Reptilla in the abdomen. He jumped into the air and kicked at her head, but his feet were blocked by furious swipes by Reptilla. Lance hit the ground and in an instant, Reptilla had pulled her Reptile Dagger from a strap on her leg and swung it at Lance’s chest. Lance cried out in pain, sparks erupting from his suit with each hit. After three clean swipes, Lance was thrown through the air and into the water.

Nick fought against Morador’s Stone Saber, which pinned him against a tree. Morador pressed the saber as close to Nick’s throat, but Nick was using as much strength as he could muster to keep the blade from piercing his flesh. He brought up a knee and brought it towards him to kick Morador in the chest, but it proved useless. Morador bellowed a powerful battle cry and his sword began to glow an eerie white color. He took a step backwards and slashed Nick with all the power he had. Nick was forced through the tree with a powerful explosion developing because of the shot. He rolled across the grass and the broken tree fell to the side.

“I won’t make the same mistake I made with the Gem Ranger,” Morador said. He ran towards Nick and slashed furiously at his neck and torso with the saber, sickening thuds echoing throughout the area as his saber met its target each time.

“That’s it,” Reptilla said once fishing Lance out of the water and stomping on his throat. “Destroy him, Morador. Mutilate him. Show him no mercy!”

Nick and Lance didn’t even have the energy to fight back. They just ungratefully accepted their fates. The ruthlessness of Morador and Reptilla was surprising to say the least.

Before Morador could lift his saber again to strike Nick, a loud roar pierced through the somber silence like a gunshot. Morador looked up. Almost as if a sign from above, a brown blur shot from between the tree branches, the roar bouncing around like an echo. The brown blur had vanished almost as quickly as it appeared, but Morador heard it again behind him. Morador shot Reptilla a look. “Do you hear that?”

“…I do,” Reptilla replied. She had a snarl on her face and whipped her head to the side as she once again saw the brown blur. “What is this?”

“Listen!” Morador hissed. He held a hand to his ear, walking away from Nick, yet still clenching his saber in his sword-hand. He slowly began to laugh. “It is him. It is the Lionheart.”

Morador looked in front of him. A lion stood in front of Morador, its lips curled and teeth bared. A powerful roar escaped its mouth once again before the wind began to blow softly. Whistling… Taunting… Morador breathed heavily.

Reptilla watched nervously as birds flew overhead and darkened the sky. Snakes slithered from the grass. Wolves howled and coyotes screamed. However, the single lion continued to stare at Morador. Morador looked at the lion almost pleadingly.

“COME OUT, LIONHEART! I know… I know you’re around here somewhere.” Morador’s eyes showed no fear as he looked around. He knew that his “career” hung in the balance. He would destroy Lionheart if needed, but he was an essential part of the plan.

However, no one “came out”. Instead, the lion roared once again. Coyotes and wolves jumped past Nick and towards Morador. Morador turned around in time to see the animals run at him. He was taken to the ground as two coyotes jumped through the air and bit each of his arms. His saber fell to his side and he staggered backwards. The birds swooped down from the sky, ripping their talons into every exposed inch of Morador’s flesh, even gouging his eyes, pecking at his body. Morador shrieked in agony as pieces of his flesh were actually landing around him in bloody chunks.

Reptilla could only watch in a blend of shock, horror, and interest as her colleague was literally about to be dismembered before her eyes. A wolf tackled Morador to the ground and was about to sink its jaws into Morador’s throat, but Reptilla wisely drove her dagger into the ground. A green electric-like energy surged through the ground, separating the wolf and coyotes from Morador with an explosion. The animals were harmlessly thrown backwards. Reptilla was at a loss for words. She and Morador were sucked into Invisi-Portals and disappeared.

Nick demorphed and climbed into a seated position. Lance did the same. Both of them were coughing and fighting back tears of agony, but were stable enough to rise to their feet.

“What… was that?” Lance demanded as he limped towards Nick, cautious of the wolves that gave him bloodthirsty looks.

Nick shook the pain out of his arm. “I don’t even know. They said something about the Lionheart. Now I’m pretty sure Zordon had said something about a Lionheart before we lost his transmission entirely. His name was something like… like… tip of the tongue, Lance, help me.”

Lance shrugged. “Don’t ask me.”

“…His name was… I can remember it… it was umm…”

“…Cole Evans.”

Nick turned to his left. A man was kneeling down in a branch above them. He was dressed in a black, sleeveless T-shirt and jeans. He had shoulder-length black hair and a red bandana tied around his head. Nick and Lance exchanged looks.




“Hey guys,” Jodi greeted as she approached Ariel and Stephanie in the mall. She was wearing an entirely different outfit that she’d been wearing earlier that day when she saw them the first time.

“Oh, hey Jodi,” Ariel said. She had just stepped out of the dressing room and was wearing a black-and-yellow tank top. She spun around. “How does this top look on me?”

“Great,” Jodi replied. “Have you two seen Jeff anywhere? He was supposed to meet me about fifteen minutes ago in the RadioShack but I haven’t even heard from him.”

Stephanie, who was at a rack, looking through several different skirts turned and shot Jodi a look. “Isn’t he with you? Remember? You came here earlier and asked if you could ‘steal’ him for a bit.”

Jodi looked confused. “No… I haven’t seen him since last night. Are you sure it was me?”

“Positive,” Ariel muttered. She glanced nervously at Ariel. Ariel’s face them seemed to be drained of all color. Her jaw dropped and she dropped the clothes hanger as well. “Oh my God…” She turned to Stephanie. “Stephanie, we’ll be right back.”

“Alright,” Stephanie said, trying to hide worry from her voice. She wanted to say something else, but really didn’t know what else to say at the moment. What was there to say? Jeff had been kidnapped by an impersonator and there was no doubt whatsoever that Venena was behind it. Stephanie watched as Ariel and Jodi ran out of the mall in search of Jeff… after Ariel changed her top of course.

Stephanie stepped back into the dressing room. She looked in the mirror, holding a shirt in front of her. However, a gasp escaped her lips and nearly evolved into a scream, however a hand was cupped over her mouth. Faux held one hand around Stephanie’s torso, pinning her arms to her side and clenched her lips shut with his other hand.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Gem Ranger,” Faux rasped.




“JEFF!” Ariel and Jodi screamed as they spotted Jeff’s limp body lying in the alley, under a pile of cardboard. Ariel kneeled next to him and pushed him onto his back. Jodi put her hands over her mouth in shock as she looked at her boyfriend’s bloodied face. She sank down to her knees. She shook him gently. “Jeff… Jeff, can you hear me?”

Jeff groaned something in response. He opened his eyes, slowly, but not all the way. He had a throbbing pain in his head. Jodi gasped again and leaned down, propping up against her. She leaned down and kissed his cheek softly before turning to Ariel.

“I have no idea what could have happened to him,” Ariel said, throwing her hands into the air, bringing them back down on her head, running her fingers through her hair. “We saw him leave with you and…” She trailed off. Why lie to herself and Jodi? She knew what had happened. Venena had sent an impersonator to Earth and it attacked Jeff.

“Jeff,” Jodi repeated. “Can you hear me?”

Jeff winced and seemed to have trouble swallowing his own saliva but slowly nodded. “Yes.”

With a cry of happiness, Jodi kissed Jeff’s cheek again and hugged him, gently. “What happened?”

“Stephanie,” was all Jeff could croak out. “Save… Stephanie.” He lurched a bit and placed a hand on his stomach. The taste and the smell of his own blood were almost enough to make him gag.

“I’ll take him home,” Jodi said. “You do what you do, hmm?” She rose to her feet, pulling Jeff with her. She made her way to her car, using an arm to support Jeff’s weight.

Ariel charged back towards the mall.




Two Mechaclones dragged a bruised and reluctant Stephanie towards Venena. Venena was filing her nails, casually. A smirk crept across her lips as she saw Stephanie being brought to her. The Mechaclones held her in place. Stephanie tried to squirm free, but it was no use.

“How nice to see you again, Stephanie,” Venena said.

“Yeah, I was really hoping that we could meet again and do each other’s nails,” Stephanie spat, sarcastically. “What am I doing here?!”

Venena climbed out of her throne. “We can’t have you down there on Earth ruining our plans now can we? How would your Ranger friends react to two Stephanies? Not well, I’d assume.”

Stephanie once again tried to squirm free, but the Mechaclones held her firmly in place. Venena pointed a finger at Stephanie. A silver stream of energy shot from her freshly filed nail and wrapped around Stephanie. Stephanie was frozen in place and the Mechaclones let go of her. She yelled some rather unflattering things to Venena before Venena turned Stephanie around, forcing her to gaze ahead at the crystal ball.

“Now you will watch the destruction of your friends, the Jungle Rangers,” Venena said. “Mechaclones…” She turned to the two Mechaclones and then pointed towards a large black machine that sat in the shadows of the Fortress. “Begin the energy drain.”




“You’re Cole Evans?” Nick asked as he hugged his knees to his chest, sitting on the ground, his toes in the water of the lake. “Red Wild Force Power Ranger, Cole Evans?”

“Former Red Ranger, that is,” Cole replied. “You heard of me? I’m… flattered.”

“We’ve heard a lot about you,” Nick said with a nod. “About the Wildzords, the Animarium, Princess Shayla, the Orgs… we’ve heard about everything.” Nick realized that the sun was setting and as he turned to his right, he saw that Lance had fallen asleep by a fire that Cole made not too long ago. Nick turned to Cole again. “How did you know that we needed you?”

Cole reached into a red bag of his and pulled out two bottles of water. He handed one to Nick before replying with a simple, “I didn’t.”

Nick graciously accepted the water bottle, but looked confused. “You didn’t know we needed help? Then… how…”

“The animals knew,” Cole said, taking a sip of water. “They told me.”

“So you can understand what animals are saying when they talk to you?” Nick tried his best to understand what Cole was saying.

“Something like that.” Cole gave Nick a half smile and pressed the bottle of water to his lips once again, however, Nick didn’t return the smile. Nick stared across the water as the orange glow of the sunset reflected off of it.




“Stephanie, you’re okay, right?” Ariel asked as she ran up to her friend. Stephanie had her back turned to her. Ariel didn’t wait for a reply, but she placed a hand on Stephanie’s shoulder.

Faux-Stephanie’s eyes widened and she twisted around, grabbing Ariel’s wrist. She shoved Ariel against the wall. Ariel groaned in pain. Faux-Stephanie then realized that it was the Gem Ranger’s friend… Ariel. She smirked and gently released her. “Oh, I’m sorry, Yellow Ranger.”

“Keep it down,” Ariel said, cupping a hand over Stephanie’s mouth. She looked around to make sure no one had heard the Ranger comment. She then turned back to Stephanie--- or who she thought was Stephanie--- and frowned. She shook her wrist, gently. “That hurt, you know. What was that about? You could have broken my wrist or something.”

“Like I said, sorry,” Faux-Stephanie said, before adding, “Ariel.” She shoved her hands into her pockets. “I’m just a little jumpy. You see, when I was in the dressing room, I was attacked by one of Venena’s monsters. He disguised himself as you.”

Ariel’s eyes widened. “Jeff was right, then. Stephanie, we have to get back to the Power Chamber ASAP. Anybody here could be that Faux guy.”

“Agreed,” Faux-Stephanie muttered. “I hate to admit it, but I’m a little creeped out now.”

Ariel nodded and the two of them left the mall.




“Alpha, where are you?” Ariel asked as she and Stephanie entered the Power Chamber. Once inside, Faux-Stephanie smirked a bit as she looked around. So this was the famous Power Chamber that Venena had told her about. As Faux-Stephanie looked ahead, she could easily see Zordon’s tube. The bottom of it was filled with the Golden Gem fragments. Alpha was working around the tube as he usually was. Once hearing Ariel’s voice, he turned.

“I’m over here, Ariel. Why, what’s wrong?” Alpha sensed the worry in her voice.

“Jeff and Stephanie were both attacked by one of Venena’s monsters,” Ariel said. “And it isn’t one of my creations, either. I never made a shape shifting monster… so it must be truly powerful.” She sighed and looked at Stephanie. “Did you see its true form?”

Faux-Stephanie shook her head. “No, I didn’t. It took the form of Ariel when I was in the dressing room and tried to drag me into an Invisi-Portal, but one of the employees heard it and … the monster just left.” Faux-Stephanie shivered a bit, pretending to be terrified.

“Yeah, and if it even scared Stephanie, it must be pretty tough,” Ariel muttered. “I’ve never seen Stephanie afraid of any monster before.”

“Aye, aye, aye, then this is worst than I thought!” Alpha shrieked. Suddenly, the alarm went off. Alpha waddled towards one of the monitors and his visor lit up in panic. “Aye, aye, aye! One of Venena’s monsters has attacked the downtown district and set a grocery warehouse on fire. There are still civilians in there. You guys need to get down there, immediately. Take the Hawkcycle.”

Ariel nodded. “Alright, we’re on it. Come on, Steph.”

Faux-Stephanie stole another glance at the Golden Gem fragments that lied at the bottom of Zordon’s tube. “But—,” Stephanie sighed. There was no point in arguing, so she allowed Ariel to drag her towards the center of the chamber.

“Jungle Strike, Yellow!” Ariel called.

Faux-Stephanie blinked. She hoped she would get this right. “Jungle Strike, Gem…?”

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Jeff allowed Jodi to drape a blanket over him as he sat on the couch and put a glass of water on the table in front of him. However, he was not happy about sitting around while the others could be in danger. He sighed. “Thanks, Jodi, but really, I’m used to this kind of stuff happening. I think Stephanie and Ariel could really use some help.”

“Jeff, please,” Jodi stopped Jeff before he could get up. “You didn’t even know where you were for half an hour. You collapsed when you got out of the car. I’ve seen people with hangovers better off than you are right now. You’re not going anywhere.”

Deep down, Jeff knew she was right, but how would it look if he missed a big battle because his girlfriend was playing nurse? He was in no position to argue, so he sighed and closed his eyes, mainly because the room was spinning at this point.

“Please… if something happens to Stephanie and Ariel, I’ll feel terrible,” Jeff muttered. “I’m going to have to go help them, eventually.”

“No, what you’re going to do is sit here and watch Big Bad Beetleborgs,” Jodi said.

Jeff raised an eyebrow.




Faux-Stephanie and Ariel hopped off of the Hawkcycle and ran into the burning warehouse. Apparently, the Mechaclones had suppressed all of the firefighters, which wasn’t surprising in the least. Stephanie and Ariel charged into the fire. The grocery warehouse was huge, so the flames seemed to be endless. Stacks of dog food piled up in the corner of the warehouse were exploding randomly, sending chunks of food flying through the air.

“The civilians are in a group over there,” Ariel said, pressing a hand to the side of her helmet. “Alpha just told me on the communicator. Okay, let’s split up. You make sure that there are no Mechaclones around here and no other people, got it?”

“…Yeah, got it,” Faux-Stephanie replied, emotionlessly.

Ariel looked at her for a moment and then ran through the aisles, avoiding the flames at all costs. Ariel could spot the shadows of the civilians against the wall a few aisles down. She made her way to them when she saw a little boy clutching onto a stuffed animal, but screamed and jumped backwards as a huge flaming light bulb fell to the ground and shattered in front of her. A small line of fire developed. Ariel leapt over it before an explosion ensued. Clenching her teeth when the flames tore into her back, she scrambled to her feet and made her way to the civilians once again.

Faux-Stephanie meanwhile walked with her arms folded. She looked around to make sure that nobody could see her. She laughed a bit. “Now it’s time for me to have a little fun.”

Faux-Stephanie transformed back to Faux, the spandex on her suit slowly transforming to his Crateorian figure. Faux clenched his fists and then made his way through the flames and towards Ariel.

“Are you okay?” Ariel asked a teenage girl who was shaking, despite the flames. The girl didn’t reply. Instead, she raised a trembling hand and pointed behind Ariel. Ariel didn’t catch on easily. “What’s wrong?”

Faux grabbed Ariel by the back of the neck. Ariel squeaked out in more surprise rather than pain. She was then thrown roughly to the ground, sliding into a shelf. Several cans of what she could only estimate were beans crashed on top of her and rolled across the floor. Ariel hopped to her feet. She threw a kick at Faux, but her kick was caught. Ariel cried out again as she was flipped through the air. She landed on the glass of a tub that contained frozen meats. The glass shattered and Ariel fell to her knees.

“Having fun, Yellow Ranger?” Faux demanded as he took a few menacing steps towards Ariel. “I sure am.” Faux knew that he couldn’t destroy Ariel right now, for it would mess up Venena’s plans, but why not hurt her a bit?

“Stephanie, I could really use your help right now,” Ariel said through the WC. Ariel climbed to her feet. “I need the Silverback Daggers!” As Ariel held her hands up, the two daggers materialized in her hands. She ran towards Faux.

“The Gem Ranger can’t help you now!” Faux exclaimed as he grabbed Ariel’s wrists, stopping her from stabbing at her with the daggers. He lifted her up in an awkward angle and threw her through the air. Ariel landed on top of a shopping cart. It tumbled over, spilling some more groceries on top of Ariel. Ariel’s daggers flew from her hand and into the wall. However, she continued to try to push herself to her feet. Faux held his palm towards Ariel and released a white blast of energy at Ariel. The blast hit Ariel hard in the chest, causing a tremendous explosion. Ariel cried out in pain and slowly fell to the ground once again.




“ARIEL, NO!” Stephanie screamed, still frozen in place in Venena’s Fortress. Venena delivered a fist to Stephanie’s stomach to keep her quiet. Stephanie hunched over in pain. She glared at Venena through clenched teeth. “You’re not gonna get away with this, you witch. You can’t hold me here forever. Eventually, I will get out.”

Venena just shrugged. “My plans are always ruined by you Rangers. I don’t plan on keeping you here long. Only until my plans are complete.” She crossed her arms and watched as Faux picked Ariel apart on the crystal ball.

“What, and then you’re just gonna let me go?” Stephanie demanded.

“I could,” Venena reasoned. “It’s either that or kill you. I usually tend to go with the latter, however.”

“Why are you doing this to Ariel?” Stephanie asked, anger seeming to fade from her voice, and be masked by sadness. “She’s done nothing to deserve this. Why don’t you just destroy me and let her go?”

Venena looked at Stephanie. “Willing to sacrifice yourself for your friend, hmm? You’re a spoiled brat, Stephanie. You never put others before yourself in your life. Why now? You’re not an asset to the Rangers. You realize that you screw up time after time. When they need you, you’re not there. You’re always doing your own thing. It’s always ‘Stephanie’. How many times have you shown up to a battle because you were somewhere doing something that benefits yourself?”

Stephanie closed her eyes. “That’s not true.”

“It’s true… It’s true.” Venena turned back to the crystal ball.




“So what’s inside the briefcase?” Nick asked Cole. Nick was subconsciously running a finger over his Jungle Morpher. “One of our friends got a huge energy reading from it and brought it back to Angel Grove.”

Cole, who had been smiling for a while as he watched two rabbits play by the fire, slowly let his smile fade. “Oh no…” He turned to Nick. “…So there is definitely something in there?”

“Unless the briefcase itself is what possesses the energy, which we doubt, yes,” Nick replied. “Why is it a bad thing?”

“Then the world needs the Wildzords again,” Cole said, softly.

Nick opened his mouth to respond to this, but held it open for a while as he tried to put together the right words. “What do you mean when the world needs the Wildzords again? I thought the Orgs were destroyed three years ago. I thought they all perished along with Master Org and Mandilock.”

Cole nodded. “They did, however Princess Shayla put the Animarium back in the sky after Master Org was defeated.” He sighed and leaned back on his palms. “She said that when the world needed them again, the Growl Phones and the Wildzords would be brought back to take on this new evil.”

“The Growl Phones… are what’s in the box?” Nick asked.

Cole bit his lip for a moment, nervously and then turned to Nick. “There’s only one way to find out. I’ve been guarding this cave for a while now to keep evil from it. I know that whatever is in the briefcase is brought to Earth by Princess Shayla. There is an evil brewing that is so great, she trusted the one who was strong enough to open it… To take control of whatever is inside and defeat this evil.”

“Why didn’t you just take it for yourself and open it?” Nick demanded.

“Because I don’t have the Power to open it,” Cole said.

“What power does it take to put in a combination and open a lock?” Nick asked. “You don’t know the combination?”

“The one who possesses the Power will know the combination,” Cole said. “I simply don’t possess that Power anymore. I am its protector.”

“Then who has the power?” Nick asked.

“The Dualion has the power,” Cole replied. “The second Lionheart…”

“Then who’s that?” Nick was becoming impatient.

Cole just looked at Nick. “Hmm…”

Nick blinked. “Me?”




Ariel was thrown into the air once again. Her back hit the wall and she was pinned to the brick with another blast from Faux. Ariel tumbled to the ground once again. She didn’t have the power to fight anymore. She felt all life seemed to escape from her body. Ariel demorphed. She was grabbed by her arm and swung through the air. She flew over what looked like a pit of fire and slid across the ground once again. She rolled onto her back, dazed.

All the sounds and smells blended together. Ariel couldn’t take it anymore. She blacked out.




“Ariel, can you hear me? Ariel, wake up.”

Ariel opened her eyes. She was lying on the floor in the Power Chamber. William and Stephanie were standing over her. Ariel had a throbbing pain in her head. She sat up, but she did so a bit too quickly. The room started spinning again. She lied back down.

“What happened?” Ariel asked, placing a hand over her eyes. The overhead lights of the Power Chamber were almost too much for her to handle. “Where are the people from the warehouse?”

“Stephanie got them out,” William replied. He placed a wet rag to Ariel’s forehead.

Faux-Stephanie kneeled by Ariel, putting on her best act. “You were ambushed by Faux and got knocked out. I didn’t know where you were. I didn’t know you contacted me for help until I got all of the civilians out of the warehouse. I guess somehow my WC was temporarily deactivated from all of the fire. You’re okay though, right Ariel?”

“Yeah, I just have a headache,” Ariel groaned.

“You’re very lucky that Stephanie was able to see you,” William said. “The ceiling collapsed where you were about ten seconds after she got you out of there.”

Ariel smiled, although her eyes were still closed. “Thanks, Steph.”

Faux-Stephanie stifled a gagging sound, although she was tempted to throw up right then and there. It was that fuzzy warm feeling that most goodie-goodie Rangers enjoyed, so instead she just muttered a, “Don’t worry about it. You would do the same for me, I’m sure.”

The all-too familiar alarm went off in the Power Chamber once more. Alpha called to them from the other side of the Chamber, once again tracing energy readings from Zordon’s energy tube.

“Lizardarch, one of Venena’s monsters is attacking the downtown district again,” Alpha said. “Apparently, it has the power to manipulate magnetic airwaves. That could include air currents, so the Hawkzord is going to be very valuable in this situation. Ariel, Stephanie, I trust you two to form the Jungle Megazord and take him down. I’ll see if Jeff can join you soon.”

“Okay,” Faux-Stephanie said. This was it--- the Hawkzord in her possession. She knew that William was still trying to fix the security system, so she could destroy Ariel in the Megazord after Lizardarch was out of their way and there would be no one to stop her when she came back to the Power Chamber to steal the Golden Gem fragments. This plan was all too perfect.

“Are you sure you’re ready to fight, Ariel?” William asked as Ariel got to her feet.

“I’m ready,” Ariel said. “Jungle Strike, Yellow!”

Faux-Stephanie smirked. “Jungle Strike, Gem!”

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The two climbed into their respective Zords. The Pantherzord and Lionzord followed behind automatically.




“Jodi, I need to go now,” Jeff said. “If I watch one more second of this Beetleborgs crap, I think I’m going to strangle you.”

Jodi frowned. “I happen to like this show.”

“…Anyway,” Jeff continued. “There’s a monster attack going on. Stephanie and Ariel are going to need me to assist them.” Jeff rose to his feet. He pushed the blanket aside, despite Jodi’s protests. “Look… I don’t even know if both Ariel and Stephanie are who they say they are. You remember what happened with you? One of them could be Venena’s monster. I have to get there before it’s too late.”

With a sigh, Jodi got to her feet as well. “Jeff! You are INJURED! You should be in an emergency room right now.”

“I’m not being a good Ranger if I stay on the sidelines and watch my friends get destroyed when I know that I can do something,” Jeff argued.

Jodi tilted her head to the side. “No. You’re not being a good Ranger if you don’t know when sometimes, sitting on the sidelines is the best thing you can do, because if you go out there and get destroyed right along with them, there’s no one left and that monster is going to tear Angel Grove apart. You’re our last hope.”

Jeff took a moment to let this sink in. One part of him said that he had to ignore Jodi because what did she know about being a Power Ranger anyway? Another part of him had to admit that she had a point. If Ariel and Stephanie were going to be destroyed and he sat on the sidelines, he’d be Angel Grove’s last hope. He was indeed injured and there wasn’t much he could do fight-wise, but… His pride got the best of him in this situation.

“Sorry, Jo, but I have to go.” Jeff lowered his head and limped towards the door.

Jodi put a hand on his arm. “Then I’m going with you.”

Jeff sighed and turned around. “Jodi, it’s too---.”

“---Dangerous? Yeah, I know. But I dare you to try and stop me.” Jodi gave him a stern look.

Jeff looked at Jodi and then looked at the door. He lowered his head once more.




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The Megazord stomped through the city. Ariel controlled it by herself while Stephanie flew overhead. Ariel pulled a lever forcing the Megazord to deliver a punch to the spine of Lizardarch, who at the time was eating wires from a destroyed radio tower. Lizardarch turned around and roared. Electricity streamed from his mouth and hit the Megazord. Sparks flew from the Megazord and Ariel groaned in pain. However, the Megazord was able to deliver a hard kick to Lizardarch’s chin and force his head to the side.

“Okay, Panther Punch!” Ariel commanded, pushing a button inside the cockpit.

The Pantherzord fist on the Megazord glowed a silver color and delivered a punch towards Lizardarch’s head. Lizardarch stumbled backwards. Its eyes began to glow a silver color as well. The wind began to pick up. Static electricity actually became visible as a large force of wind slammed into the Megazord. The Megazord flew through the air and landed on top of a building which was under construction. Luckily, the cement was sturdy enough to support the Megazord’s weight and not crumble.

Faux-Stephanie sighed. She realized that it would look suspicious if she didn’t help Ariel at least a little. Although there was no concern or emotion in her voice, Faux-Stephanie muttered, “Hold on Ariel, I’m comin.”

Faux-Stephanie dug the neodymium talons of the Hawkzord into Lizardarch’s skin. Lizardarch roared in pain and was forced to the ground. Hawkzord flipped through the air and swooped back to the grounded Lizardarch. With a squawk, a violet plasma blast was fired from the steel beak of Hawkzord and hit Lizardarch’s chest. Lizardarch roared in pain.

“Thanks,” Ariel said. “We need the Super KJ Blade.”

As the Megazord stabled itself the Super KJ Blade shot down from the clouds and into the hand of the Jungle Megazord. Night fell among them once again. The Megazord held the sword in its right hand and charged at Lizardarch as it returned to its feet. Megazord swung the sword violently at Lizardarch. Before the blade could hit it, Lizardarch roared. Electricity shot through the windows of every building in sight and formed what could best be described as a rope around the Super KJ Blade, stopping it about a foot from Lizardarch. Lizardarch spun around on its foot and drove its tail into the head of the Megazord. Sparks showered the cockpit once again. Ariel placed her hands over her helmet.

“This is going nowhere,” Faux-Stephanie said with a yawn as she flew overhead once again. She didn’t say this over the radio, she said it to herself rather. She was just waiting for Ariel to finish Lizardarch off so her plan would finally go into effect.

Once the sword was released from the electricity, the Megazord stumbled backwards. Ariel was not used to controlling the Jungle Megazord by herself, so this was all new to her for the most part. She positioned the Megazord directly in front of Lizardarch. Lizardarch punched the Megazord in the chest. The Megazord twitched a bit, but it wasn’t hurt as much as Ariel had anticipated.

Lizardarch roared, but instead of sending electric pulses from its mouth, black figures shot onto the Megazord. It only took Ariel a moment to realize that they were leeches. Not ordinary leeches, however. They slowly began to drain the energy from the Megazord.

“They’re draining our power!” Ariel reported.

“That’s not good,” Faux-Stephanie said, still no emotion in her voice.

Ariel frowned under her helmet. There was something different about Stephanie. Whatever it was, she was sure she didn’t like it. “No, it’s NOT good.”

The Hawkzord swooped by and drove its beak into Lizardarch’s back. Lizardarch roared in pain once again, inadvertently shooting a jolt of electricity into the air. The leeches were still draining the power from the Megazord. This became obvious when the Super KJ Blade fell to the ground and the Megazord struggled to stand up. Hawkzord drove its beak into Lizardarch’s spine once again. Lizardarch fell forward, crushing a few parked cars in the process. Hawkzord then hovered in front of the Megazord.

Faux-Stephanie sighed. “What do I do?”

“Use the water jets to get them off,” Ariel instructed.

“That’s not going to remove the leeches,” Faux-Stephanie said.

“Just do it!” Ariel didn’t mean to come off angrily, but the Megazord had lost 50% of its power already. Stephanie was being very calm about this. Ariel didn’t understand how she couldn’t be panicked. If the Megazord lost its power, then the Rangers would be destroyed.

Faux-Stephanie mumbled something about Ariel as she searched the cockpit of the Hawkzord, looking for anything that could indicate liquid. She then found a white button with the picture of a blue raindrop on it and pressed it. The Hawkzord’s wings extended forward and shot blasts of water onto the Megazord. The blast was so powerful that the Megazord slid backwards. The leeches seemed to voluntarily drop off of the Megazord since the water was boiling hot.

Ariel made it a point to use the Megazord to stomp on all of the leeches before picking up the Super KJ Blade once again. Lizardarch was on its feet once again, its body surrounded by yellow and blue electricity.

“Lion Strike!” Ariel exclaimed. Taking the voice command, the Super KJ Blade glowed white and formed a circle in the air in front of itself. A flame emitted from the tip of the blade. The Megazord then slashed the Super KJ Blade forward. The flame shot in a red fireball towards Lizardarch.

The monster fell backwards and promptly perished in a blinding explosion. Ariel jumped up in the cockpit of the Megazord and cheered. “WOOOOOOOOO!”

Faux-Stephanie smiled as well, however it was an evil smile. “Goodbye, Yellow Ranger.”

Ariel frowned. “What was that?” Faux-Stephanie forced a lever forward. Missiles shot from the Hawkzord and into the back of the Megazord. Ariel cried out as the missiles connected. She flew into the side of the cockpit and fumbled for the radio button. “Stephanie, what do you think you’re doing?”

Faux-Stephanie didn’t reply. Instead, she fired another four missiles at the Megazord. This caused a much greater explosion and the Megazord fell to the ground. Ariel fell from the Megazord and rolled across the ground.

“Ouch…” Ariel groaned in pain. She looked up at the Hawkzord. Another missile sailed through the air, landing just yards in front of Ariel. The ground below her literally seemed to separate into two halves. Ariel was launched into the air, sparks flying from her suit. She flipped onto her back on the ground. Her helmet cracked against the cement. Ariel let out one long sigh and demorphed.




“Come with me,” Venena said with a smile as she created an Invisi-Portal. She released the energy that was keeping Stephanie in place. Once the energy was released, Stephanie felt incredibly tired. She fell to her knees. Her energy had been drained somehow. “I have a better idea.”

“What are you… doing?” Stephanie demanded.

Obviously, Venena didn’t reply. She pulled Stephanie through the Invisi-Portal.




Faux-Stephanie now demorphed smiled triumphantly as she walked towards the unconscious Yellow Ranger. She kicked Ariel in the ribs to make sure she was out. Ariel didn’t even budge. Faux-Stephanie laughed. “Oh, this is just too gr---.”

“Oh no, Ariel!” Jeff limped towards Ariel. Jodi followed behind with a worried look on her face. Jeff kneeled down beside Ariel and then gazed up at Faux-Stephanie. He narrowed his eyes. “You’re not Stephanie.”

“Ugh, I forgot, you’re the smart one,” Faux-Stephanie muttered, rolling her eyes.

“Yeah, I’m smart enough to finish you right here and now,” Jeff said, slowly ascending to his feet. He held his Morpher up. “Jungle Strike, Black!” However, a spark simply shot from his Morpher. Jeff pulled his hand back in pain and looked down. The Morpher had somehow been damaged during the struggle with Faux in the alley earlier.

Faux-Stephanie smirked evilly. “I guess it’s not morphing time.” She took a step towards Jeff. Jeff stood his ground and clenched his fists.

An Invisi-Portal opened between Faux-Stephanie and Jeff. Venena and the real Stephanie stood between them. Venena smiled and had Stephanie by the arm in an uncomfortable position. Jodi put her hands over her mouth in shock.

“What did you do to her?” Jodi demanded.

Venena didn’t respond. She pulled Stephanie away from Faux-Stephanie and Jeff. Venena smirked. “Now, Stephanie, I want you to watch closely. This is what happens when your friends stick their noses where they don’t belong.” Venena nodded to Faux. “Destroy him.”

Faux-Stephanie took another step towards Jeff, but the real Stephanie snarled. “That’s NOT gonna happen!” Stephanie had enough strength left to break out of Venena’s grasp and tackle Faux. Faux-Stephanie shrieked as she hit the ground. Stephanie punched her hard in the nose, but Faux-Stephanie rolled over and began to choke her with one hand. Stephanie and Faux-Stephanie rolled back and forth over the ground.

“I was afraid of this,” Jeff muttered. “Now which one’s real?”

Jodi walked by Jeff’s side and put a hand on his shoulder. She didn’t know what to say right now.

Finally, the Stephanies separated. Both of them got to their feet. They turned to Jeff. One of the Stephanies pointed to the other. “Jeff, you’ve got to destroy her before it’s too late.”

The other Stephanie gasped and turned to Jeff. “Jeff, please! Don’t believe her.”

Jeff looked from one to the other, breathing heavily. “I… I…”

One of the Stephanies spoke again. “Jeff, come on. You know me. We’ve known each other for like, a year, how can you not know me from that--- that imposter. Besides, we’ve known each other before we became friends.”

The other Stephanie sighed. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Jeff. Please…”

Jeff reached into his back pocket and pulled out something… a laser that he’d taken from the Power Chamber. Jeff slid the laser onto his wrist. Venena crossed her arms with a pleasant smile on her face and Jodi continued to watch in fear as Jeff walked slowly towards the two Stephanies.

“Jeff, it’s me!” both Stephanies exclaimed in unison.

“…I know who the imposter is,” Jeff said, quietly. He held the laser at one Stephanie and then at the other. He then turned back to the first Stephanie. “It’s…” Jeff turned the laser towards Jodi. “…You!”

Jodi gasped and took a step backwards. “ME?!” The laser began to glow a red color. Jodi covered her eyes. “I had a good run.”

“Jeff, stop it!” One of the Stephanies jumped in front of Jodi, a tear visible in her eye.

The teardrop hit the ground.

Jeff twisted around and fired his laser at the Stephanie who didn’t jump in front of Jodi. The red laser blast hit that Stephanie in the abdomen. The Stephanie fell to the ground and rolled, slowly transforming into Faux with every second that passed. In seconds, the real Faux was lying on the ground. It climbed slowly to its feet, its wings extending behind its back.

“How did he know?” Venena asked.

“One of Venena’s monsters could never show that kind of emotion,” Jeff said. “A tear fell from the real Stephanie’s eyes. She was willing to take a ‘bullet’ for Jodi. She has a heart. The real Stephanie has a heart. You’re just an imposter.” Jeff fired another blast at Faux. Faux fell to the ground again.

Venena groaned. “YOU RUIN EVERY PLAN! I HATE YOU!”

“Touchy, touchy,” Jeff said, shaking his head. He looked down at his laser. “It should be about ten seconds before my laser recharges. I suggest you get out of here before you’re next.”

Venena cursed under her breath. She vanished into an Invisi-Portal. Jeff turned to Faux--- or where Faux was just a second ago. Faux had vanished in a cloud of smoke.

“We haven’t seen the last of him,” Stephanie said, quietly.

“Let’s get back to the Power Chamber,” Jeff muttered. He walked towards Ariel and lifted her into his arms.




“She gonna be okay?” Jeff asked Alpha in the Power Chamber.

“She’ll be just fine,” Alpha said, reassuringly. “I guess all of the exhaustion proved to be too much. She just got the wind knocked out of her, that’s all. She hasn’t suffered any serious injuries.”

Jeff smiled and nodded. He turned to Jodi. “I owe you a thank-you.”

“Thank me for what?” Jodi asked, confused.

“For not stopping me,” Jeff said as he pulled her into a hug. “But… for also helping me realize something.” He pulled away from her and shoved his hands into his pockets. “That in order to be a team player, sometimes I have to let the others do their own thing. I can’t be a part of every battle, no matter how much I want to. I just have to support them through whatever they do. I mean, if I didn’t…”

“…Then both you and Ariel would be dead,” Stephanie said, bluntly. “And maybe even me. Thanks guys.”

The roar of engines drowned out the emotional moment. The Lioncycle and the Scorpiocycle sped into the Power Chamber. On the back of Nick’s bike was another man whom the rest of the Rangers were sure they’d never seen before.

“Nick, who is…” Alpha trailed off. “…Cole Evans?”

Cole smiled and nodded. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Alpha 5. And it’s a pleasure to meet the rest of you.”

“We don’t have time for introductions,” Nick said, quietly. He walked towards the briefcase in the Power Chamber. He sat down on his knees and placed his hand over the lock.

“Nick, what are you doing?” Stephanie demanded. “You know we can’t---.”

“---Let him do it,” Lance said. “I think he knows what he’s doing.”

Cole crossed his arms. “That he does.”

Nick closed his eyes as his fingers pushed the numbers on the lock, slowly. Small clicks were heard as he stopped each number on the lock. The rest of the Rangers watched with confused looks on their faces, but still had their fingers crossed.

And finally, Nick heard the last click as the last number which happened to be “5” stopped and the briefcase popped open just a bit. Nick turned to the others and nodded. They all took steps forward to see what was inside the briefcase, with the exception of Ariel who was still unconscious on the bed.

Nick opened the briefcase. Inside were five golden phones and a single silver one. Nick smiled.

Cole unfolded his arms and walked towards the briefcase. “This is worse than I thought.”

“How is it bad?” Jeff demanded. “These are the Growl phones. This means the Wild Force Rangers are back in action and you guys can help us take out Venena and Toxx… right?”

Cole didn’t respond to this directly. “Princess Shayla brought the Growl Phones back down to Earth from the Animarium. This means that an incredible evil has risen, far worse than your ‘Venena’ or ‘Toxx’.”

“Who’s more powerful than Venena and Toxx?” Lance asked.




“Winston,” Toxx said with a laugh. He kneeled down in front of the energy cage and smirked at the Gold Ranger, who looked at him emotionlessly. “The time has come. You are my most powerful warrior. You will take out the Power Rangers. You are ready!”

Toxx rose to his feet and turned towards Reptilla and Morador. “I’ll give you two a chance for redemption.”

“Yes, master,” the two replied, eagerly.

“I want you to find the ones that they call… Toxica and Jindrax. Bring them to me. Do not fail me.”

Morador and Reptilla nodded once again and exited the lair.

[Angelfox]

its on like donkey kong now....love the drama too
cant wait to see if merrick is back in action, or are you gettin new WF rangers?

[GreyRanger]

wow nice never been too fond of the WF ranger but hey, maybe you can make them bearable :)

[ZeoFury]

I probably can't make them bearable, for I intend to stick to their personalities on the show, even if that means having to endure a few "Never Give Up!"s, admittedly.

[ZeoFury]

A new chapter (Wild Force teamup) will be up tonight.

[ZeoFury]

Chapter 27: The Merge Part 1



Alyssa Enrilé sat in the daycare on Saturday morning with a smile on her face. Although she was a Kindergarten teacher, it was always nice to hang around the kids for a while on weekends when they were left at daycare. She took over for her cousin, Alice, who was spending some time in Ontario. Alyssa watched as most of the kids sleep. A few however, tugged on her pants leg.
Alyssa laughed a bit and looked down at the boys, who couldn’t have been much older than three years old. “Yes?”

“Can you tell us the story about the Wild Force Rangers?” one of the boys asked.

Alyssa flashed a smile. She studied the boy’s face for a moment, trying to remember what his name was. “Paul, I just told you that story. Now it’s your naptime.”

“Yeah, but we want to hear it again,” the other boy, Enrique, said. “Please.” The two boys then began to chant in unison, pleading with Alyssa. “Please, please, please, please, please…”

“Okay, okay,” Alyssa gave in with another laugh. “But only if you promise to be really quiet and not wake up the others.” She slid her glasses up onto her nose and in front of her eyes. She cleared her throat and was preparing to tell the story, when suddenly there was a knock at the door. Alyssa gave the two boys an apologetic look. “One second, okay? I wonder who that could be…” She rose up off of the chair and walked to the door of the daycare.
Max Cooper, now sporting a shorter haircut, as opposed to the afro he wore in his Ranger days, and Danny Delgado, who looked the same as Alyssa last remembered him greeted the former White Ranger with smiles. “Heyyy!”

”Oh my gosh, you guys,” Alyssa threw her arms around Max’s neck with a quick hug and then hugged Danny. She smoothed her hair back with her hands and took a step backwards. “What are you doing here? I thought you were in London.”

“We just got back today,” Max said. “We haven’t seen you in about a year. How have you been doing, Alyssa?”

“I’m taking over for my cousin at the daycare today,” Alyssa said, gesturing at the sleeping kids inside. She giggled a bit when she saw that the Paul and Enrique had already fallen asleep. Alyssa pulled the door shut behind her, softly and held up her hand, showing a sparking ring. “I’ll be getting married in the fall to my boyfriend, Jake.”

Danny admired the ring. “Congratulations, Alyssa!” He gave her his trademark thumbs-up. “Have you heard from Cole or Taylor lately?”

“Not lately, no,” Alyssa said, shaking her head.




Taylor Earhardt flew her plane close to the ground and landed it on the runway, although the landing was a bit bumpy. The plane slowed to a stop and Taylor pulled the helmet off of her head. She was a bit disappointed with the landing, but the overall flight was amazing. Besides, she would never pass up the opportunity to see Yellow Eagle or the Animarium.

Taylor exited the plane and was instantly rushed by a worker. “Miss Earhardt, you have a telephone call.”

Once inside, Taylor raised the phone to her ear. She was a bit confused, and the expression on her face made it a lot more obvious than her voice did, however she spoke into the phone. She groaned a bit when she felt that the receiver was sticky. Obviously the person who had used the phone before her was wearing makeup. Taylor never understood why people who worked around here wore makeup. Most of the guys that worked were either sweaty old men, or they were already married.

“Hello?” Taylor asked, shakily. She didn’t mean for her voice to come off shaky, but she was still getting over the long plane journey.

“Hey, Taylor, it’s Cole,” the person on the other line said.

“Cole?” Taylor repeated. A smile slowly formed on her face, which was rare. This wasn’t necessarily because she wasn’t happy… She just didn’t smile a lot. “Wow, it’s been a while. How are you?”

“I’d love to say I’m doing well,” Cole replied. “But there’s something I have to tell you. This is a secure line, right?”

“Very secure,” Taylor answered. “Why, what’s up?”

Cole sighed. “The Growl Phones have been unlocked. Princess Shayla said that the Morphers and the Wildzords would only return when needed. You know that means.”

Taylor nodded, although that seemed pointless since Cole couldn’t see it. “Yeah, I do…”




“Toxica, how exactly are we supposed to find this Necromance woman?” Jindrax asked, almost angrily as he walked along the road beside his long-time friend, Toxica. “And why are we looking for her anyway? We don’t know anyone dead!”

“Silly,” Toxica said, rolling her eyes. She stopped in her tracks. “If we find Necromance, we can use her to bring back Scrappy.”

Jindrax rubbed a hand on his chin for a moment. “Scrappy? Your puppy, Scrappy… The one who was hit by a car last month?”

“Of course,” Toxica replied. She sniffed a bit. “He was so young.”

“I hate to bust your bubble, Tox, but I don’t think that Necromance wants to be awakened from a 40 year sleep because of the mangy mutt… She’d probably--- ya know--- vaporize you or something. She’d turn you into a lawn gnome. Come to think of it, those things are pretty cool. I saw a Snoop Doggy Dogg gnome at this carnival the other day. I mean, they can do anything these days… Toxica, are you listening to me?” Jindrax realized that Toxica had started walking again.

Toxica looked around. “Something isn’t right.”

Jindrax nodded. “You’re telling me. I don’t think these are my underwear. You noticed too?”

Toxica ignored him. “…Something…”

“Oh my God, these really AREN’T my underwear!” Jindrax cried. “Stupid Laundromat… They say if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” He noticed the seriousness on Toxica’s face. “Toxica, what’s wro--.” Jindrax was hit from behind. He fell to the ground and turned. “Uh, hello there.”

Morador and Reptilla looked at the two with evil smiles on their faces. Reptilla then blinked and turned to Morador. “These two are the powerful Jindrax and Toxica that Toxx warned us about? They look like a couple of clowns to me.”

“Hey, I don’t appreciate that word,” Jindrax protested.

“Who are you?” Toxica demanded, helping Jindrax to his feet.

“Not important right now,” Morador said. “You two are coming with us.” Before Toxica or Jindrax could do anything else, they were surrounded by at least a dozen Mechaclones. Jindrax and Toxica exchanged glances.




A red car pulled up to the front of the daycare shortly after all of the children had been picked up. Max, Danny, and Alyssa were sitting outside of the daycare on a bench. Alyssa looked curiously as the red car pulled into the lot. The driver’s door opened and out stepped Taylor Earhardt. Taylor gave the three a smile.

“Taylor!” Danny, Max, and Alyssa exclaimed in unison.

“Hey, guys,” Taylor said as she walked over to them. Danny and Max nearly tackled her with a group hug. Taylor, although surprised simply laughed. “Danny, Max, I missed you guys. You’ve been staying out of trouble, right?”

“Of course,” Max replied.

“Except for that one night…” Danny muttered. “Remember, Max, in Peru when we were at the dance club, and you drank that---.”

“---Not important,” Max interrupted.

“Did you guys get a call from Cole?” Taylor questioned, worriedly. She looked to the three of them. When none of them replied, but simply gave her a strange look, Taylor sighed. “Okay, I guess not. There’s a lot I have to fill you guys in on. We need to move fast.”

“What are you talking about?” Alyssa asked. “…We need to move fast, where?”

Taylor smiled faintly. “It’s time we get the old team back together.”




Reptilla dragged Toxica while Morador dragged Jindrax into Toxx’s lair. They were thrown to the ground. Toxx turned around as the duo was brought in, a smirk on his face. “Toxica and Jindrax…”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s us,” Jindrax muttered as he rose to his feet. He reached for his sword, but in an instant, Morador squeezed his elbow and shook his head. Jindrax groaned.

“What do you want with us?” Toxica demanded. “If you’re trying to get us to join your---.”

“---Fruity little club here,” Jindrax continued, gesturing to the lair.

“Then that’s not going to happen,” Toxica finished. “Not in a million years…”

“…We can wait,” Reptilla said.

“We didn’t bring you here to recruit you,” Toxx assured them. “However, we hear you know where the great Necromance Org is. I hear it has the power to talk to the dead and bring people back from the afterlife…” Toxx brandished one of his guns and took a step towards the two Orgs. “…I want you to trace her down and bring her to me immediately.”

“We’d never bring her to you,” Toxica said.

“Yeah, we know what you’re trying to do,” Jindrax added. “We’re not going to be responsible for the resurrection of Master Org.”

“Oh, really, Toxica… I’m shocked.” Toxx grabbed her by the horn and pulled her to her feet. Toxica had no choice but to obey. If she tried to forcefully resist, it could result in her horn being destroyed. He turned to Jindrax. “You will tell me where Necromance is or you will watch me tear Toxica’s horn apart centimeter by centimeter… and she will die at your feet. It will be on your conscience forever, Jindrax.”

“Don’t tell him!” Toxica pleaded.

“Let her go, you ugly---!” Jindrax ran towards Toxica and Toxx, but Reptilla delivered a knee to his stomach. Jindrax hunched over in pain. Morador slashed the Stone Saber down across Jindrax’s back. Jindrax hit the ground and groaned in pain.

“Willing to talk now?” Toxx asked with a smirk.

Jindrax coughed in pain. “…I’ll talk. Don’t hurt Toxica.”

“Great,” Toxx said. He pointed towards the energy cage which Winston had sat in for the past three months with nothing more than bread, pork, and water. He snapped his fingers and the energy field slowly vanished. “Now Gold Ranger, you will go to Earth, and you will destroy the Rangers. My plan will go into effect… and you are the first step.”

Winston opened his eyes. “Yes… master…”




“Hey, I’m getting something on one of the monitors,” William told Alpha in the Power Chamber. Once Alpha joined him in front of the monitor, William locked all coordinates on the target that was attempting to get a hold of them. William’s jaw nearly dropped past his heart when he saw who was on the screen. “Alpha, it’s the Gold Ranger. It’s Winston!”

“It can’t be,” Alpha said, looking up at the monitor. “Aye, aye, aye, this is terrible! Contact the Rangers! Contact the Rangers! Aye, aye, aye.”

“Why is it bad?” William asked. “Winston is back. He must have escaped from Toxx.”

“You think Winston would escape from the most powerful warlock in the galaxy that easily?” Alpha demanded. “No, no, no, William. This can only mean one thing.”

“Send me the Power Rangers,” Winston demanded. “Alpha, I know you can hear me. Send them to me… immediately.”




“You guys know it’s a trap,” Lance said, walking backwards as Jeff, Stephanie, and Ariel continued to walk forward, towards the downtown district, where Alpha had told them Winston was seen. “Winston wants to fight us four-on-one? There’s got to be a catch. Can’t we just think about this for a minute?”

“No, you don’t know Winston like we do, so don’t tell us what to do,” Jeff said, shoving Lance out of his way. “I know he was alive. Toxx is gonna pay if this whole thing is what I think it is… and if it’s what I think it is, it’s very, very bad.”

“Guys, be reasonable,” Lance pleaded. “Three months in exile? He could be more powerful than ever. It’s inevitable--- he’s not going to go down so easily. We need a plan!”

They were almost in the district that Alpha had told them Winston was. Stephanie, Jeff, and Ariel had completely ignored Lance at this point. His pleas became nothing more than a slight yammering in the background. Lance sighed and threw his hands in the air when they approached Winston. Stephanie, Ariel, and Jeff stopped a few yards away from the Gold Ranger.
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“Winston…” Jeff said, quietly. “I take it you’re not here for a reunion.”

Winston had his staff behind him on his shoulders. “Little cousin, whatever gives you that idea?”

Jeff shakes his head. “It’s never that easy.”

“You’re smart.” Winston nodded his head towards the four Rangers. “Yet, you really can’t be that intelligent if you actually accepted this fight, now can you? Sometimes, I pity you.” Out of the ground, rose several Mechaclones. The Rangers didn’t even cringe. They were used to fighting these guys. It wasn’t them that they were worried about--- it was Winston. Winston pointed his staff at the Rangers, uttering the word that would inevitably escape his lips as a command to the Mechaclones, which was, “Attack.”

The Mechaclones ran at the Rangers, their bladed hands raised high in the air.

Stephanie kicked a Mechaclone in the stomach, knocking it backwards. She twisted through the air and delivered a sharp snap kick to its head before rebounding off of its body and tackling another Mechaclone to the ground. Stephanie ducked under the blade of one of the other Mechaclones and grabbed its arm, flipping it onto its back, satisfied when she saw sparks shooting from its body, indicating that it was defeated. She then ran at another Mechaclone and drove her knee into its chest, forcing it into two of its own kind. Stephanie swiped their legs out from under them with a twisting kick to the back of their knees, watching them all fall roughly to the ground.

Ariel jumped over a trash can and kicked it behind her, catching a Mechaclone hard in its abdomen. She grabbed the trash can’s lid off of the ground and used it as a shield as a Mechaclone’s blade came towards her head. The blade merely dented the tin lid. Ariel kicked the Mechaclone’s arm away from her. The sheer force of the kick forced the Mechaclone to spin itself around. Ariel kicked it in the back with a “Hiyah!” and then smashed the trash can lid over another Mechaclone’s head. She punched it in the stomach, knocking it to the ground, twitching as wires stuck out of its head and torso. Ariel then ran to the wall, pushing herself off of it, barely dodging a plasma blast from a Mechaclone. Ariel landed on her feet and threw the trash can lid at the Mechaclone like a Frisbee. The Mechaclone swayed, threatening to fall over. For good measure, Ariel flourished with a handstand, using her legs to twist the Mechaclone’s head off of its body, destroying it instantly.

“Hiyah!” Lance cried as he jumped through the air, moving his legs before two Mechaclones could slash them. He landed on their shoulders and dropped down behind him. Lance bashed their heads into one another’s. The Mechaclones sparked a bit and slumped to the ground. Lance was kicked hard in the back by another Mechaclone, forced against the wall of a building. He ducked down before one of their blades could connect with his skull. He then took the opportunity to attack their exposed torso, driving both fists into its sternum. The Mechaclone went for another strike to Lance’s head, but Lance grabbed its arm and cart wheeled. The Mechaclone involuntarily flipped along with him and fell motionless to the ground.

Jeff ran at Winston and jumped through the air, aiming a roundhouse kick to his helmet, but Winston ducked under Jeff’s leg with ease and kicked him in the chest while Jeff was still in mid-air. Jeff cried out as he flew through the air and rolled across the ground. He grabbed the nearest object to him, which happened to be a lead pipe, most likely misplaced from the nearby construction site. Jeff hopped to his feet and swung the lead pipe at Winston’s shoulder, but Winston blocked the pipe with is Viper Staff. Jeff delivered a kick to his cousin’s chest. Winston stumbled back and then swung his staff at Jeff’s chest. Jeff fell to the ground again, the wind knocked out of him as soon as the staff hit him. The other Rangers rushed to Jeff’s side. Stephanie and Ariel helped him to his feet.

“You okay, Jeff?” Stephanie asked, not taking her eyes off of Winston.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Jeff replied. “But Winston’s definitely a lot more powerful than we thought he was. Guy took me out with one hit…” Jeff lowered his head. “Jungle Strike, Black!”

The others followed suit.

“Jungle Strike, Yellow!” Ariel cried out.

“Jungle Strike, Gem!”

“SPD, Emergency!”

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“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this,” Winston said, walking slowly towards the Rangers, tapping his Viper Staff on the ground slowly as he made his way to them. “The mighty Power Rangers.” He held his staff behind his shoulders again and chuckled. “But I can’t miss lunch, now can I? Let’s make this quick.”

“Winston, it doesn’t have to be this way,” Ariel said as she took a step forward. “Remember, me, Winston? We used to be… something.” Ariel opened her visor so he could see her eyes. “Why do you want to hurt us? You know that Toxx is just using you to destroy us. This is the same exact plan he had when he brainwashed you and Stephanie before with Serpenterra. He’s just using you to eliminate us and then once he gets your power, he’ll destroy you too.”

“Toxx is my master and I am his greatest warrior,” Winston said. “And I remember you just well, Ariel. You and me… we were nothing. You’re nothing to me. We had nothing and soon you and the rest of the Jungle Rangers will be NOTHING.” Winston swung his staff at Ariel. Ariel screamed out in pain and flew through the air, the staff connecting with her ribs, which were still hurting from the attack from Faux just a couple of days earlier.

“Cousin or not, we’re gonna take this guy down,” Jeff said with pure anger in his voice. While Lance helped Ariel to her feet, Jeff balled his hands into fists. “Winston… we’re gonna get you back. We’re going to help you through this. We’re going to fix this.”

“I don’t WANNA fix this!” Winston bellowed. “I have such power now. Greater than Alpha would have ever allowed me, that is. You want to ‘fix’ me because you feel threatened. It’s always been about you, Jeff. You’re an aspiring author. Oh, look at Jeff. He’s so smart, he’s so talented. What about Winston? I was always pushed to the side. This isn’t Toxx. This is ME! I’m sick of being the muscle guy of the group. I have talent too. I’m worth something. I’m not just the dumb comedic relief that sits in the back and waits for the guy in red to tell me what to do. I CALL THE SHOTS NOW!”

Winston fired a golden blast from the mouth of the Viper Staff. Jeff flew backwards and hit the wall of the building. He hopped to his feet however and summoned the Panther Blasters. He fired shots at Winston, but Winston seemed to simply walk through them with ease, twisting his staff around, knocking some of the blasts away.

“Hawk Blaster!” Stephanie summoned. The purple hawk-shaped laser materialized around her wrist. Stephanie joined Jeff in the attack and fired purple blasts of energy at Winston. Winston seemed to walk through these without a scratch as well. Stephanie turned towards Jeff. “We don’t have enough power to beat him like this, Jeff. We need to call in Nick. I think if you guys can form the Tri Striker, we may have a chance.”

“Right,” Jeff agreed.




Cole and Nick walked up to Taylor, Alyssa, Max, and Danny, who were now in the park in Angel Grove. Although tempted to greet Cole with open arms like they’d done for everyone else, when they saw the solemn expression on Cole’s face, all of the former Wild Force Rangers silenced themselves.

“Nice to see you guys again, although I wish it weren’t under these terms,” Cole said, holding a silver briefcase by his side. He put a hand on Nick’s shoulder. “Guys, this is Nick. He’s the Red Jungle Strike Ranger. Nick, this is Danny… Alyssa… Max…” Cole then nodded towards Taylor. “And this is Taylor.”

“Hi, it’s a pleasure to meet all of you,” Nick said after shaking their hands.

“You too,” Alyssa replied with a warm smile. She turned towards Cole. “Taylor told us all about it, Cole. The Growl Phones are back on Earth. I just… I wish I knew what was going on.”

“We all do,” Taylor agreed.

As if on cue, Nick’s WC beeped. Nick raised it to his lips. “This is Nick.” Nick cringed a bit as he heard an explosion, fired by grunts and gasps.

“Nick, it’s Jeff,” Jeff gasped over the other side of the WC. “We need your help right now. Winston’s attacking. He has the…” Jeff’s next words were drowned out by another explosion. “…Help… we need…” Another explosion washed over Jeff’s words. “…Now!” Jeff then ended the conversation.

“My friends are in trouble,” Nick said to Cole. “I need to go now.” He turned and began to run towards the street, but Cole but a hand on Nick’s shoulder.

“We’re coming with you,” Cole said.

Nick turned around. Not only was Cole standing, but so were the other four. They were all battle ready. Nick smiled. “Alright…”




Toxx still had his hand clenched around Toxica’s horn, forcing her to take timid steps as they made their way to a graveyard. Toxx had no idea where they were. It definitely wasn’t Turtle Cove or Angel Grove and quite frankly, Toxx did not care where they were. It didn’t matter at this point. He knew that he was close to getting his hands on the Necromance Org. Morador and Reptilla walked behind Jindrax. Morador had his Stone Saber pressed to Jindrax’s back and Reptilla’s Reptile Dagger was glowing a bright green color, ready to blast Jindrax if he tried anything.

Suddenly, Toxica and Jindrax came to a mutual stop.

“Is this the place?” Toxx asked. His eyes drifted along the many tombstones. They’d stopped reading English a while and were now in a writing which Toxx could only assume was Japanese.

Toxica sighed. “Yes, this is the place. But don’t expect her to respond to you. You’re not an Org.”

Jindrax looked confused. “Wait, why does he have to be an Org? Necromance responds to any---.”

“---Shut up!” Toxica hissed. But she rolled her eyes, knowing it was too late, already. Toxx released Toxica and walked to a single gravestone which had a green, glowing symbolic writing across it.

Toxx closed his eyes and lowered his head. His hood fell over his head once again, shadowing his face as Toxx began to chant, silently under his breath.




Lance, Stephanie, Ariel, and Jeff lied at Winston’s feet. Winston smiled under his helmet and pressed his staff to the back of Jeff’s neck. However, before he could do anything, a red blast knocked Winston back. Although it did not necessarily hurt, it was enough to make Winston lose his train of thought. Winston groaned as Nick ran towards the scene, his KJ Blade drawn.

“Oh, so you think you’re going to stop me?” Winston asked, crossing his arms and laughing. “Yeah, good luck with that one.”

“I don’t think I’m going to stop you,” Nick replied, quietly. “WE’RE going to stop you, bro…”

Winston laughed again. “You and the Jungle Rangers are gonna stop me? In case you haven’t realized, they’re feeling a bit down right now.” He pushed a motionless Stephanie onto her back with his foot. “You’re welcome to try though. Here, I’ll even give you a free shot.” Winston held his arms out to his side, giving Nick the opportunity to strike him right then and there.

“That’s funny.” Nick shook his head. “No, I don’t think me and the Jungle Strike Rangers are going to be able to stop you. However, do you know who is?”

“…Who?” Winston had a slight hint of concern in his voice.

“NOBLE TIGER!”
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“IRON BISON!”
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“SURFING SHARK!”
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“SOARING EAGLE!”
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“BLAZING LION!”
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“…Power Rangers… Wild Force!”

Winston turned around in shock as the five Wild Force Rangers stood atop a building, looking down at him. Winston took a step back in surprise; however he was slashed in the back by the KJ Blade. Winston arched his back in pain.

Taylor was the first to leap from the roof of the building, the wings sprouting from the back of her suit. She swooped down from the sky with her Crystal Dagger in hand and slashed Winston across the chest. Winston cried out in pain. Danny and Max jumped from the roof next, each of them delivering a kick to Winston’s sternum. Winston flew backwards through the air and landed hard on the ground. He used his staff to pull himself to his feet in time to see Alyssa flip from the roof, claws from her gloves bared. She clung onto Winston and slashed furiously at his stomach, neck, and chest area, sparks showering from his suit. Finally, Cole jumped from the roof with the Lion Clubs in hand and drove them into each of Winston’s shoulders. Winston flew through the air and slammed into a street lamp. He fell to his knees.

“What is this?” Winston demanded, panting.

“This is the part where you realize you’re outnumbered and go back to wherever you came from,” Cole said, pointing a finger at Winston.

“You wish,” Winston said. “Viper Staff, Viper Strike!” Winston held the staff towards the Wild Force Rangers and shot a golden energy at them. The energy took the form of a viper and landed in front of them, causing an explosion. Winston took a step back and smiled, satisfied. “No way anyone could survive that--- what?”

Cole charged through the flames and aimed a kick at Winston’s head, but Winston ducked under his leg and grabbed his other leg with his staff, pushing it upward and knocking Cole onto his back. Winston then cut off Alyssa before she could get to him and took her to the ground with his staff. Winston leapt clear over her and kicked Max in the shoulder. Max fell to one knee and held his arm in pain. Winston thrust his staff forward, catching Max in the chest with it. Sparks flew from Max’s suit and Max flew backwards, landing roughly on his neck. Danny came towards Winston with a punch, but Winston caught his fist in his palm easily. He twisted Danny’s arm behind his back and kicked his arm, pleased when he heard a snap that indicated that he’d popped his shoulder out of place. Even if it wasn’t broken, it was good enough to keep Danny down.

“You’re going to have to do a lot better than that to keep us down,” Taylor said. She ran at Winston and swiped at his legs with her crystal dagger but Winston jumped over her head at the moment he saw her wrist twitch and kicked her in the back. He twisted around, blocking a kick from Taylor with his staff. Winston then went for a kick to her stomach, but Taylor knocked his foot away with her elbow and went to kick Winston again. Winston stumbled backwards a bit but smirked.

“I’ve never been one to turn down a challenge,” Winston growled. He threw the staff at Taylor. In mid-air, the staff transformed into a real viper and latched onto Taylor. It wrapped around her arms, pinning them to her torso, constricting her. Taylor’s crystal dagger fell from her hands. Winston picked the dagger up and slashed Taylor across the chest with it, not once, not twice, but thee times. Taylor fell to her knees and then onto her side, twitching in pain. The viper jumped back into Winston’s hand, once again transforming into the staff. Winston smirked and turned back to Nick, saying nothing more than, “Owned.”

Nick breathed heavily. He ran towards Winston and wanted to hit him so bad, but Winston vanished in an explosion of golden sparks. When the smoke cleared, he was nowhere to be found. Nick looked around. Everybody was down and out, except for Alyssa. Alyssa pushed herself to her knees, a hand over her heart. She was breathing heavily. Nick ran to her side and helped her to her feet.

“I’m so sorry about this,” Nick said. “I didn’t mean to drag you guys into this. I really didn’t…”

“…It’s not your fault,” Alyssa said, putting a hand on Nick’s shoulder. “We made a team decision to come into battle. We knew what could happen and we took that risk. Trust me, it’s only because we haven’t worked together in a while. It’s been a few years. We’ll get back on track.”

“Let me take you guys back to the Power Chamber,” Nick suggested once Danny, Max, and Cole joined them. “We can get you guys bandaged up and…” Nick sighed. He didn’t want to drag the Wild Force Rangers into battle again. They were obviously hurt.

“Don’t worry about it,” Cole said. “You should help your friends, first. We actually have somewhere that we need to get to first.” Cole helped Taylor to her feet and gave Nick a nod. “Thanks for everything, Nick. We’ll see you again really soon.”

“Yeah, it was nice to meet you,” Danny agreed. “We hope your friends are okay.”

“But---,” Nick started. He wanted them to stay so he could help them. He felt terrible about them getting hurt, even if it was only their first time back in action after three years. He watched Alyssa, Taylor, Max, Danny, and Cole eventually walk out of sight, still in Ranger form. Nick turned back to the Jungle Rangers who were lying motionless, maybe unconscious on the ground. He sighed.




Ariel was the last one to wake up. All of them were on separate couches in the newly furnished Power Chamber. Stephanie and Jeff were sitting on a couch, watching some sitcom re-runs on the WB network while Lance was getting an arm bandaged up. He winced and gasped a bit as William sprayed a disinfectant on one of the cuts he suffered. Ariel rubbed her head in pain.

“Someone, please tell me that was a dream,” Ariel murmured.

“I wish,” Jeff replied, hearing her and glancing over at her. “Winston totally wiped us out, man. Nick, what happened?”

Nick had been watching the TV as well, although not paying attention to it. He was deep in thought about the whole thing. He felt guilty about the Wild Force Rangers and his own friends getting hurt, because of his own poor decision-making skills. However, once he heard his name he snapped out of it. “I heard my name.”

“What happened with Winston?” Jeff repeated. “I sort of blacked out after the fourth blast. The guy straight-up took us to school…”

“…Oh, we just had help from some old friends,” Nick replied, keeping his head down. He scratched his leg. “It doesn’t matter, though. Winston hurt them, too. He got away.”

“The Wild Force Rangers, right?” Stephanie asked.

Nick lifted his head just enough to look into her eyes. “How’d you know?”

“I guess I was the only one who wasn’t completely out of it, then,” Stephanie said, quietly. “I couldn’t really move and I can’t remember a whole lot, but I do remember them ‘introducing’ themselves before I passed out.”

Nick nodded. “Yeah, they helped. They shouldn’t have, though. They could have gotten hurt out there. Really hurt.” He leaned back on the couch. “Winston is way too powerful. I have no idea what Toxx did to him, but by the way things are looking, things can only get a lot worse, guys. We’re going to need to be ready to give it everything we’ve got from now on.”

“I hear that,” Jeff said. He joined Ariel on the couch. Ariel closed her eyes and rested her throbbing head on Jeff’s chest. He glanced up at Nick again. “But… Nick, you don’t plan on destroying him, do you?”

Nick shook his head. “Definitely not… Winston and I never got along, but I would never think about doing that to the guy. There’s got to be another way, right Alpha?”

“I don’t know,” Alpha replied, honestly. “We’re looking for any power source on him that represents negative energy. We traced his suit and body when he was fighting you guys, but we have no proof that there’s anything besides his own free will that possessed him to do such acts. Actually, we don’t any have any proof that Winston was ACTUALLY in the suit during all this. For all we know, Winston could have been in an alternate dimension this entire time and the symbiote was taking a physical form.”

“Sort of like Carnage from Spider-Man?” Jeff asked.

“Sure, something like that,” Alpha said. “All I can ask of you is to be careful, Power Rangers. I hate to say it, but… The power the Gold Ranger displayed today was nothing close to what he’s truly capable of.”

“Wait, what are you saying?” Stephanie demanded. “We were fighting him but he wasn’t even trying?”

“He pulled a Goku on us,” Jeff muttered.

Alpha nodded, although not knowing exactly what Jeff meant. “I’m afraid so. Winston only used about half of his true potential.”

“…And he still managed to take all of us out,” Ariel said with a sigh, her head still resting on Jeff’s chest.

Jeff realized Ariel was shaking. He didn’t say anything, but Ariel seemed to be really worried about Winston. Jeff knew that Ariel and Winston were close, but he didn’t know exactly how close they really were. Jeff held Ariel’s hand in his. He wanted to tell her Winston would be okay, but he also wanted to tell himself that. He knew that this was real life, not the movies. However, he quickly scolded himself for saying this. Winston would be okay. Not because he wished for it to happen, but because he was going to make it happen, even if he had to do it single-handedly.




“PRINCESS SHAYLA!” the Wild Force Rangers exclaimed as they saw the familiar figure of their beautiful once-princess standing by the Viewing Well. She twisted around with a huge smile on her face when the five of them ran towards her, a bit surprised by the group hug, but enjoying it nonetheless.

“Oh, it is so nice to see you all again,” Princess Shayla said. She was trying to play off her emotions as a laugh, but tears of joy rolled down her cheeks. She looked at them all with a smile, but she bit her lip, afraid to let it turn into a frown. “However, by the five of you coming here, that must mean that---.”

“---Yeah, we know all about it,” Taylor cut her off. “We haven’t worked as a team for a while, but we think we’re ready to give it another shot. The Jungle Rangers need our help, and until this evil is destroyed, we’re going to need to be there for him.”

“We wanted to know if we could come back to the Animarium for a while,” Cole said, boldly.

Princess Shayla smiled. “Of course you can. It’s always a pleasure to have the five of you with me.” She walked away from them slowly and then back to the small body of water, looking into it, down at the Earth below. “I’m sure the Wildzords will be happy to see you again. However, as much as I would like to rejoice, you know that the only reason that all of us would be re-united…”

“…Is to fight evil once again,” Alyssa finished. “We know.”

“We wish it could be different,” Max said.

“We all do,” Danny added.

“But we made an agreement,” Cole said. “When I joined you, we said that we’d always fight with our hearts and once Wild Force Rangers… Always Wild Force Rangers. When Earth needs us, we’re going to be there to protect it.” Cole put his hand in between the other four Rangers. Max smiled and put his hand on top of Cole’s. Danny put his hand on top of Max’s. Alyssa put her hand on top of Danny’s.

“You guys do think we’re still ready for this, though, right?” Taylor asked. “Ten on one and we still couldn’t defeat the guy…”

“Don’t give up on us now, Taylor,” Cole said, quietly.

Taylor rolled her eyes, although a smile on her face. “I wouldn’t think of it. I’m just trying to be the one that makes some sense, as always. I guess some things never change.” Taylor put her hand in the circle.

“Wild Force!” they all cried in unison.




The tomb that Toxx had been chanting in front of for the past hour slowly began to break apart, green lights shooting from it.

Jindrax and Toxica were lying on the ground, snoring. “Wake up you fools!” Morador kicked both Jindrax and Toxica. The two of them groaned and woke up, reluctantly. Their groans of tiredness then turned into screams of fright when they saw the shadows that swarmed out of the shattering tombstone. Toxica’s jaw dropped.

“Who dares awaken me?” the disembodied shadow bellowed as it slowly began to take a physical form. “Who DARES awaken me from my sleep?”

“It is I,” Toxx said with a smirk as he walked forward, his gun still pointed up. “I summoned you, the great Necromancer. I summoned you to revive the single most heartless, rancid and destructive person to over walk this Earth. I came to you to awaken Master Org.”

Necromance chuckled a bit. A body shot from the shadows and the shadows vanished. Necromancer took the form of a scarred, pale, seemingly colorless teenage girl in a black dress. Black hair fell around her shoulders and her eyes were blood red. Black wings were attached to her back and she licked blood off of her sharp teeth when she saw Toxx.

“Master Org?” Necromance repeated with slight interest in now her voice. “The vilest creature to walk this Earth, indeed. Tell me. What makes you think that he would obey you if I were to awaken him? You must me quite the Org to be able to wake me from my 40 year sleep.”

“I am not an Org,” Toxx said with a smirk. “I’m a warlock. I am Toxx, the most powerful warlock in the galaxy.”

Necromance perked an eyebrow. “Oh, even more impressive… If I were to awaken Master Org, what do I get in return?”

“The Power Rangers,” Toxx replied. “They’re sitting ducks right now. All of them are injured from a battle with my most prized warrior, the Gold Ranger. You can destroy them and consume their souls. From what I understand, you are in need of a body full-time. You’ve been spending your last days as nothing more than a shadow, forcing you to only take your true form when the sun is hidden. Am I correct?”

“That you are,” Necromance said, not shy at all. She smiled, black venom falling past her lips and onto the grass. The once lush grass slowly died and turned as black as a midnight sky once the venom splashed into it. “However, if only one of your warriors can defeat the Rangers, they really can’t be that powerful, now can they?”

“Trust me, the Rangers have gotten into our hair time after time and they’ve been nothing but a pain,” Toxx uttered. “My warrior is much more powerful than any simple monster-of-the-day that Venena---.”

“---Venena!” Necromance hissed.

Toxx looked pleased. “You heard of her?”

“Heard of her?” Necromance repeated. “It’s that witch’s fault that I’m stuck like this. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be stuck as a shadow, forced to live like some sort of vampire!”

Toxx smiled. “Then I can bring her to you as well.”

“Excellent,” Necromance hissed.




“Hey, Alpha, there were only five Rangers today,” Nick said, handing the briefcase to their robotic mentor. “I thought you said that there were six Wild Force Rangers…”

“That there are, Red Ranger,” Alpha said, nodding to Nick. “There is still one left, of course.” Alpha opened the briefcase. “I’m not surprised at all, Rangers. The only Growl Phone left is the one that belongs to… Merrick…”

The Rangers all looked up at Alpha.




As a man walked through the woods, the wind howled. The wind whistled and called his name. The man stopped in his tracks and a small smile crawled across his face before he turned around, looking over his shoulder as he had so many times before.

“Duty calls…”

Merrick picked the bag he’d been accustomed to carrying around with him for the past few years up and tied his now-long hair belong his shoulders in a ponytail.

Zen-Aku walked behind Merrick and nodded. “This doesn’t seem like a fight that you can handle by yourself, old friend.”

Merrick looked at Zen-Aku out of the corner of his eye. “Then I suppose I can’t stop you from following me than can I?”

“You wouldn’t dare tell me such a thing,” Zen-Aku replied.

Merrick smirked and began his trek back towards Turtle Cove. Zen-Aku picked his sword off of the ground and followed Merrick.

[GreyRanger]

yeah that be what i talking about!

Keep it going ZeoFury!

[Silver Thunder]

Not bad. Not bad at all. Very good

[ZeoFury]

Thanks for the comments.

The Merge Part 2 will be up Friday. It's near completion, but this is a very intense chapter so I want to make sure it's perfect.

[Angelfox]

Its on now....ZenAku is back in action hee hee hee

[ZeoFury]

Sorry for lack of updates. The Merge Part 2 is still being written, but it's coming along nicely.

[ZeoFury]

New chapter will be up tonight.

[GreyRanger]

cool something to look forward to for tomorrow