Leo ran through the jungle, surrounded by the sounds of combat. He gripped his Quasar Saber tightly as he ducked between two trees and looked for the glow stick that marked his path. They had been running since dawn, avoiding each other and the traps set by their allies by following the carefully marked paths. Leo could imagine Kai's reaction to finding his daytime path marked by the blue flowers that had plagued them ever since his courtship. There had been something in the way he'd said "Quasar Blue Locked" that had made Leo laugh even as he'd dodged another attack.
They'd been fighting for three months, although they hadn't realized it until the end, when the Witch had overplayed her hand. She'd taken Mike, thinking he was the Red Ranger, and shown herself when she got, not the Red Galaxy Ranger, but the Magna Defender.
"What manner of trickery is this?"
A woman with purple skin, aquamarine tentacle hair, dressed in strategically placed black leather straps appeared in their courtyard.
"Who the hell are you?" Kai demanded, pushing Wren behind him.
"Who is the Red Galaxy Ranger?" The woman shrieked.
"Who wants to know?" Leo asked as Damon and Maya herded the children into the house.
"You," the woman said, "how did you do this?" She held up a tiny figurine.
"What's that, I can't see it," Leo said, "and I'm not stupid enough to get closer."
The woman threw the figurine at Leo and he caught it. It was a four-inch Magna Defender.
"Huh," Leo said, "I didn't know we had a toy."
"You don't know anything," the woman hissed, "that is no toy. How did you fool my probes? How did you make him look like the Red Ranger?"
"Him, Mike?" Leo said, "This is, you turned Mike… who are you? Change him back!"
"Not until you explain how you fooled me," the woman said.
"I didn't do anything," Leo said, "change him back."
"Then why does he read as the Red Galaxy Ranger?" The woman shrieked, her tentacles beginning to wave around her.
"I don't know," Leo said.
"Wait," Kai said, gripping Leo's shoulder, "Mike pulled the Saber, remember? You activated it, but he pulled it first. Maybe whatever she used picked up on that."
"Maybe," Leo said. He glanced over as Kendrix gripped his other shoulder. He stepped forward, "You are going to change my brother back and then we're going to kick your ass off this planet."
"That's what you think, Red Ranger," the woman said, "I will have your power."
"No you won't," Leo said.
"I will," the woman replied, "you pulled the Quasar Sabers and I will get your power."
"Go Galactic!" Leo shouted, feeling Kendrix and Kai morph as well. "You don't know anything about us."
"I have captured hundreds of Rangers for the glory of the Empire," the woman declared, "you will be next."
"That's what you think," Leo said and leaped up to land on Maya's jet jammer. Kai landed beside him and Kendrix landed beside Damon. The two jet jammers shot towards the village.
"The kids?" Kai asked.
"Hannali took them to the bunker," Maya said. "They'll be there until it's safe."
Leo squeezed her shoulder tightly as he glanced at Kai. Even with the helmets blocking them, he knew his husband was thinking of the last time they thought their children were 'safe'.
As they landed in the village, Leo demorphed and held up the figurine, "How is this Mike?"
"Good question," Kai said.
"How do we get him back?" Damon asked.
"Another good question," Leo said. He glanced up, and then turned to Damon, "Can we get a ship out?"
"We've only got the pod, and that's experimental," Damon replied.
"The pod?" Kendrix said.
"It's a single person flyer, cloaked and such. A doomsday ship." Damon said. "It's here, we can send someone now."
"We can't go," Kendrix said, "we have to stop that witch."
"Can we?" Maya asked. When they all looked at her, Maya cleared her throat, "I don't think stopping this witch is something we can do because of the Power. Someone, somewhere, they have the power. I've been having strange dreams, dreams that I think were warnings."
"Why didn't you tell us?" Leo asked.
"It didn't make sense," Maya said, "not even by my standards." She rubbed her upper arms and shivered. "We were dead, but we weren't, we couldn't see the world but we affected it."
"What should we do?" Kendrix asked.
Leo took a deep breath as they all looked at him. "We send someone to KO-35 with Mike," he said, "then we try to stop the witch. If we can't, we'll at least weaken her here."
"We have to," Damon said.
An explosion behind him pulled Leo back to the present and he swerved around a tree, crossing between the two glow sticks. He stumbled through a bush he probably should have avoided and there was the rock, four swords already placed inside. He picked himself up and glanced around, but none of the others had had trouble returning the sabers, and he shouldn't either. He raced across the clearing and slammed the saber home.
"It doesn't matter," the Witch said behind him. "I still have you and your precious teammates."
Leo turned, meeting the woman squarely, "Maybe you do." There was an explosive roar and they both looked up to see the contrail of the pod as it arched into space on its journey to KO-35.
"But they'll know you're coming now, and they'll be ready for you."
"We'll see about that," the Witch hissed and threw an orb that glowed a sickly green at him.
Leo refused to close his eyes as it impacted his chest. "We have not yet begun to fight." He said before the light engulfed him and the world went dark.