Twice a Ranger
By Adam Decker
Overview: Thorax is brought back and the retro rangers become a full fledged team of rangers again in order to defeat him.
Disclaimer: I do not own Power Rangers.
Author's Note: I felt that while the Once a Ranger team-up was great, we lost a great potential team of rangers. So this will start a new series which is separate from any other series that I've written. If you are interested in more of this, sign up for author alerts and not story alerts as I will not be updating the original story beyond this. (Keep in mind that I'm planning on doing other stories while working on this series.) Hopefully, I can do this well. This may get more teen rated down the line, although I'm not sure yet and it might not be that much or more than one story that way. Now on to the story!
After the defeat of Thorax, the retro rangers retired again, but got to keep the powers that they had previously lost. It was pretty interesting having powers again, but not needing to use them. It seemed almost strange. It was now 2027. It had been so long since Thorax threatened the world by uniting evil. But bad problems were about to happen again.
By now, Bridge was officially the red ranger of SPD. But there really wasn't much of a purpose to the team anymore. They hadn't really done much since defeating the invading aliens two years ago. In fact, it almost seemed pointless to be a ranger anymore. The team decided that they had done their last case and Bridge was all ready to officially retire. That's when something interesting happened.
A person who called himself the Sentinel Knight took Bridge to the year 2007 where he met and teamed up with other rangers. Afterwards, he was set back to his time and wondered if he could ever be part of a new team again. He didn't have to wait for long. He found Adam Park knocking on his door. To Bridge, Adam had aged considerably. They were both surprised by the age difference that they now had. Adam had aged 20 years and Bridge hadn't aged at all. That can be a problem that happens regarding time travel. Hopefully they could get used to being together now as they were about to be hanging out together long term again.
"What are you doing here?" asked Bridge. He had not expected to see Adam again.
"You remember me, right?" asked Adam. He wanted to be sure to avoid causing a paradox by making sure this was after Bridge had done the team-up with them. Occasional time travel could get to be quite confusing. He even had a memory wipe device in the form of a camera in the event that Bridge did not know of this event yet. What's interesting is that SPD itself developed this technology.
"You are Adam Park, right?" Bridge asked him.
"I am. You are Bridge, right?
"Yes."
There's was silence for a moment as they got used to the age difference. This could take some getting used to, should they be hanging out more often. Neither of them knew just how much things would change for them in the near future.
"Why are you here?" asked Bridge. "I haven't seen you since the retro ranger team-up. I don't really know when that was due to the time travel aspect."
"Well," started Adam, "that's why I'm here. This is around the time of our anniversary of the defeat of Thorax. Normally, I have gotten together for dinner with me, Kira, Tori, and Xander. Last year, they realized that you could join us so I found your name and address and thought that I would ask you. Would you join us?"
"That seems a bit stalker-like, hunting me down like that," said Bridge. "If you were an alien, I could arrest you."
"Are you being serious right now?"
"No." Bridge laughed off his joke, although Adam wasn't sure he understood the humor Bridge had. Bridge then continued speaking. "Thanks for finding me. I'll gladly join you and the gang for dinner. It would be nice to see everyone again. It has been two years, after all."
"Well, twenty years actually."
"Oh, right."
While this mostly awkward exchange was going down, something far more evil was going down elsewhere in town. There were few villains left in the modern day world, but those that were left insisted on keeping evil around. There was one villain in particular that people wanted to make sure that villains weren't just history. He was obsessed with history, this villain. He was so obsessed with it, he forgot his real name and practically became a being known as the historian. He had a small group of friends who liked doing research on the Power Rangers and the villains that sadly lost to all of them. Now there were not your typical villains. They looked like the average human would as they were, in fact, human beings. But they were on a mission to resurrect one of the only villains they thought they knew how to. They had his old staff and were ready to bring him back.
"Okay," said Historian, "it is time for the ceremony to begin. Thorax didn't last as long as the other villains so it is time to give him another shot at fighting them."
"I couldn't help but notice that there aren't any rangers for him to fight right now," said someone known as Maniac. Like nearly everyone in the group, he was known only by his nickname with his real name long since made irrelevant.
"Don't you think that no rangers would make his job easy then?" asked a woman named Deceptive. "No rangers means no interference and this means that the villain could run freely."
"Since there are no rangers right now," said Historian, "now is the perfect time to bring him back and he can control the world with our help."
"Hopefully, he won't dismiss us as inferior humans," said a man named Badass. "These monsters don't look too kindly on people like us."
"Surely he would be happy that we brought him back to life," said a woman named Queen. "One would hope that he'd be willing to work with us since we want the same thing."
"Soon, we will have total world domination," said Historian. "It is time to bring him back."
The five arranged to form a pentagram and starting chanting incantations. They had to make sure that their resurrection spell worked right. Soon enough, a beam of energy shot out of the ground. This had to be what the five were looking for.
"Bring to us Thorax!" shouted Historian.
Out of the beam came forth the very monster he wanted.
"Excellent," said Historian as Thorax stood before him.
"You must have summoned me," said Thorax, impressed. "I am no longer dead, but alive again. I assume that there is a new set of rangers for me to destroy."
"Actually," said Historian, "there are no rangers right now. That is why we thought that we would help you take over the world."
"Forgive me if I don't trust humans," said Thorax. "But since you brought me back, I will be more than happy to help you."
"Good," Historian replied. "You have a lot of history to get caught up on. And the villains who turned on each other never seemed to succeeded so I would hope that we can all work well together. Otherwise, we would fail like they did and failure is not an option."
In a nicer part of town, Bridge gathered for a meal with Adam, Tori, Kira, and Xander. This was his first time seeing them since he travelled back in time somehow to help them defeat Thorax and the evil people he had teamed up with. They enjoyed a nice long chat for hours before something unusual happened. Sentinel Knight appeared to them.
"I have an urgent message for you," he said.
"We are kind of busy," said Adam.
"Yes," said Xander. "People will think it is strange having you show up in the middle of this restaurant." Indeed, he was right. There were already people giving them weird looks although no one was freaking out just yet.
"I'm afraid that this can't wait," said Sentinel Knight. "It would appear that the evil known as Thorax has returned."
"How is that possible?" asked Tori.
"I do not yet know," said Sentinel Knight. "That is why I need you to make sure that we can confirm my suspicions about it."
"How can we help?" asked Kira.
"We must go to where I believe this event occurred. There we will find him or proof that he was there." The rangers left the restaurant after paying for their meals and in an empty alleyway, they took out their morphers and said their morphing calls.
"Mastodon!" said Adam.
"Ninja storm, ranger form!" said Tori.
"Dino thunder, power up!" said Kira.
"SPD emergency!" said Bridge.
"Magical source, mystic force!" said Xander.
They all jumped, one by one, over a certain area somehow and for some odd reason, being sure to make a whole bunch of ninja noises while they did so. They went to the location where the Sentinel Knight said the evil gathering was. They looked around separately and saw some strange young people in black cloaks, possibly an occult thing. Then they saw what Sentinel Knight had told them about. Sure enough, Thorax was standing there among them. Before acting, they thought to listen into more of what was going on to see if they could gain more information.
"The power rangers are a pile of shit," said Badass, annoyed by them despite having never met them. "I don't see what the problem with a person controlling the world is."
"While I'm sure that the five of you would be helpful," said Thorax, "it would be nice to have my own army of foot soldiers like I have in the past. Surely you could resurrect other villains that way you brought me back."
"I am not sure that I can," said Historian, "but it is worth trying."
Adam signaled the other rangers at this time. "We better attack now before they get the chance to bring back more evil," he said. They quickly broke into the building, not hiding their appearance to the evil villains gathered around. Thorax was taken aback by this.
"You said that there were no rangers now," he said angrily to Historian.
"This is the first I'm seeing them," said Historian, confused.
"We are sending you back to the dead where you belong," said Adam.
Historian and his group of evil gathered in front of Thorax. "You'll have to get through us first," he said to them.
"We are trained in martial arts," said Bridge.
Historian laughed in retort. "We know. We are prepared for this."
"Yes," said Badass. "In case the bastards known as the power rangers showed up again, we wanted to be prepared."
"Hey," said Tori. "Less talking, more fighting."
The five on each side faced off against each other. Adam and Historian faced off against each other. Adam dodged a kick and grabbed the leg, but Historian quickly twisted and tried to gain an edge in the fight. They remained evenly matched for now. Manic and Bridge exchanged trying to punch the other one while the other dodged it. Deceptive and Tori faced off, circling around each other, trying to make moves but each being offset by the other person. Badass kicked wildly at Xander while he turned to his side to try to kick back as well. Kira ducked a punch from Queen and tried to punch her back. No one was paying attention to Thorax at the moment or the fact that he has the book of incantations that had been used to resurrect him. No one, that is, except Sentinel Knight who sought to destroy the book and any further evil it could do.
"Give me the book," said Sentinel Knight.
"Like hell I will," said Thorax.
Sentinel Knight pulled out his sword and held it at Thorax.
"Not fair," said Thorax. "I don't have a weapon."
"Then surrender," said Sentinel Knight.
"Oh, wait," said Thorax, pulling up a staff and blasting it at him. "I do have a weapon." Sentinel Knight was blown black by the blast. The rangers and the gang of five noticed this. Thinking quick, Queen pulled out a smoke bomb and it went off. When the smoke went away, the rangers were left there by themselves. The other humans, Thorax, and Sentinel Knight were gone.
"Where did he go?" asked Kira.
"They must of grabbed him," said Bridge.
"We must find him," said Adam. "He knows a lot about ranger history and we can't have that information in the hands of the enemy."
"We need to find a headquarters to work at," said Bridge. "Luckily, I know a place."
The rangers followed Bridge to what turned out to be his house. He took them to a secret place in it that worked as a hideout. He turned on computers and looked up information to find the location of Sentinel Knight, figuring that he would probably be where the villains are.
"I'll tell you more about this place later," said Bridge. "We have work to do now and it looks like we'll be seeing a lot more of each other soon anyways." Retirement wasn't suiting Bridge well. He wanted to get back into action and still accomplish something in the world. He didn't like the idea of a new threat emerging, but he would if it he could be one of the people stopping it.
The computer starting beeping and a location started flashing on the screen. "That must be where Sentinel Knight is located at," said Xander.
"I might be able to get us there," said Adam. He grabbed out a box and handed the contents of it to the other four. Adam explained what these things were. "They are communicators. I had them when I was a ranger. I was able to make new ones and was going to give them to you all later."
"How will they get us to this place?" asked Tori.
"In addition to allowing us to talk to each other whenever we want, they will also allow us to teleport from place to place."
"How were you able to get these?" asked Kira.
Bridge cut her off. "Sadly, we don't have time now. We have to use them to get our friend back if we still can."
Adam showed them what to do with the communicators in order to teleport, so they did that and wound up in what could only be the place where the villains were gathered. Only the villains were long gone and they only found Sentinel Knight, chained to a wall. He was still alive, but was very weak. The rangers weren't sure how to free him, but Bridge kept watch on the only door nearby to make sure that the villains didn't show up again. Whether they saw them again tonight, Bridge feared that there was a lot of potential meetings between them before they would be beaten for good. I mean, that's what all of the recurring villains were like for power rangers.
At first, the rangers didn't know how to get Sentential Knight out of there as there wasn't a key. Adam tried doing brute force, but Xander realized that he could use magic to free him. He wasn't sure what spell to use, though. If only it were like the TV show: The Secret Circle where he just had to chant "lock unlock" over and over again until it opened. What he really needed was a fire to unlock the lock. But he could go somewhere and get a match to do it since he could teleport now. So he did that and the lock was opened. They took Sentinel Knight back to their hideout. Worn out, he was asleep for a while. The rangers left him there before they talked some about what to do.
The next day, the Sentinel Knight woke up. He recounted to the other rangers what happened since he was captured. "I'm afraid that they have access to all of the ranger information from the time that Rita first attacked earth to the most recent ranger team."
"We have to stop them," said Xander.
"I wish we knew what their plan was," said Kira.
"Don't worry," said Bridge. "We will fight these people."
Adam had a bit of a smile on his face. "I've been waiting a long time to get back into the action. Bring it. We'll beat these bastards and show them not to mess with us."
Stay tuned for the next installment of Power Rangers: Return.