The moon had been a place of many battles, and even the home of some forces of evil that wished to take over the world. But more importantly it was the final resting place for the generals of the Machine Empire, defeated by the red rangers of ten different teams. Lying across the barren land was the destroyed remains of the once power Serpentera, destroyed in it's last battle by the current team's leader, Cole Evans. Just look at the destroyed remains and one could get a sense of power that the zord once held and it was any wonder how someone was even able to beat it. Lord Zedd, and even General Venjix, both had attempted to use this mighty zord and both had failed.
Near Serpentera's mouth a cloaked figure dug through the debris, what it was looking for was anyone guess. As it pushed scrap after scrap of metal away the being seemed to not find what it was looking for, up until a black hand fell from behind on of the scraps he moved aside. The cloaked figure seemed excited as he rushed to move the rest of the debris revealing the rest of what, or as it now seems who, it was looking for. General Venjix, battered and broken after his fight with the ten red rangers, laid in near pieces and as the figure moved him from his resting place its hand came out to show a gleam of metal that came apart to for a blow torch.
The figure worked until Venjix was repaired, his body looking as new as the day it was made to serve his king, but even after being repaired Venjix refused to move. The figure moved to pull back its hood to reveal a nearly broken Cog, the Cog looking down at Venjix before removing his cloak.
"I have finally found General Venjix," it said in a monotone voice, "finally the revival of the Machine Empire can commence."
Touching its chest the Cog pulled out it's power source and started to jerk around as it placed it on top of Venjix's chest.
"General Venjix must...must be...revived," it stated as it felt its power start to drain away, "at any cost."
The Cog fell to the ground, now out of power, and as it hit the ground the power source that it placed on Venjix started to pulse a faint light before slowly sinking into the fallen general. As it finished entering Venjix an eerie silence befell the moonscape, Venjix and the Cog lying there on the ground until his hand final moved to make a fist. One by one his functions started to come back until his eyes lit up and he could finally move his body.
"What is going on here?" Venjix asked sitting up and looking around, "the last thing that I remember is…"
Memories of him and the other Machine Empire generals fighting the ten red rangers, him getting into Serpentera, and finally that blasted red ranger that destroyed not just the zord he was piloting but him as well.
"Of course I was destroyed by the red Wildforce ranger," he recalled angrily, "I was defeated by an unseasoned rat!"
Standing up Venjix looked over at Serpentera and saw its destroyed remains, his anger growing even more.
"Those rangers will pay for what they have done to the Machine Empire," Venjix vowed as he turned to look at the Cog, "feh a Cog brought be back to life huh, a valiant effort I suppose."
The general moved to make his way back to the building that they onced use to uncover Serpentera, finding that even with his newly revived life and fixed body he still wasn't going at one hundred percent. Entering the building he spotted King Mondo sitting where he was left.
"I must first figure out how long I was gone," Venjix said activating one of the computers, "now then computer tell me, what year is this, how long since we fought those red rangers?"
"The year is 2017, seventeen years since your fight against the ten rangers," the computer replied, Venjix slamming his fist on the keyboard.
"What it's been that long?" he growled, trembling in anger, "I swear that I'll get my revenge on those rangers but for now…"
He turned to face King Mondo once again, the fallen emperor sitting in his throne, and moved to stand in front of him.
"I must bring back King Mondo and from there the rest of the Royal Family," he claimed moving to activate him, "it's risky but if the rumors are right then the power of one of the Machine Empire's generals should be enough to bring him back."
Opening the King's back Venjix grabbed a cord so that he could transfer some of his power to bring back his king. But as soon as they connected to each other Venjix could feel his power instantly drop to zero with nothing to show for it.
"Impossible!" he growled yanking the cord from him, "I don't have near enough power to bring back our king."
Walking to stand in front of our King Mondo, Venjix bowed in front of him and apologized.
"Forgive me my King, I don't have the required power to bring you back to your full strength."
Looking out he saw spare parts of his fallen generals and noticed that each of their chest, where their power source would be, were still fully intact.
"But maybe I'll be able to soon…"
It took him awhile, hours of making sure that everything was perfectly intact and that there wasn't going to be anything to compromise their King, but he was finally able to set up what he believed to be what would bring his king back.
"Finally after all these years, after your defeat at the hands of those who stood against you, you'll finally be able to come back and lead us to glorious victory," Venjix proclaimed, turning on the device.
Sparked flew off the power sources, and the energy of the building fluctuated, Venjix standing there the entire time watching his king closely. The power started to grow more and more by the second and it seemed like King Mondo wasn't powering up.
"This should work, why isn't he waking up?" Venjix asked watching the sparks fly.
Reaching up to check King Mondo Venjix was suddenly was pushed back by an explosion, making him hit the wall and the lights went out. Groaning Venjix pushed himself up and was only able to see the spots that were lit up by that sparks of electricity that came from the busted wires.
"K-king Mondo?" he called out, "Have you been revived?"
No response came, Venjix standing up and holding his now busted arm as he limped over to where he hoped the computer would be. Touching the keyboard he got to work to bring back the power to the building but found that nothing he did worked. Figuring that he had failed and his best bet would be to find a way to take on the rangers himself he got ready to leave when the lights came on above him. It wasn't much, merely lighting up the small section that he stood in, but one by one the lights started to come up in a row until it illuminated King Mondo. The fallen king sat there for a second before his hand twitched, and slowly but surely his functions started to return to him.
"AAAAAHHHHHH!" he called out as he started back up, Mondo stopping and looking around for a second to see where he was, "what is this place, why am I here?"
"My king!" Venjix said limping over and kneeling before him, "it is good to see you alive and well again."
"And you ar...oh General Venjix yes now I remember you," Mondo said standing up, "tell me general where are we?"
"We are on an abandoned building on the moon my king," Venjix replied without hesitation, "it once housed me and the other generals and a small army of Cogs as we tried to get revenge for your untimely destruction."
Memories of his fight on Earth and of the rangers who defeated him came flooding back and Mondo clenched his staff as he looked around, spotting the fallen zord that laid outside.
"And what is that?"
"That is the remains of Serpentera," Venjix replied shamefully, "we were planning on using it to destroy the Earth."
"And the other members of the Royal Family where are they?" Mondo huffed.
"Forgive me my king but we were only able to obtain you, though we did manage to find the location of the rest of Royal family."
"I see, we'll send some Cogs to retrieve them then," Mondo ordered walking pass them, "where are the Cogs."
"Gone my king," Venjix responded standing up, "as are the rest of the generals."
"What impossible," Mondo declared turning to face them, "you're telling me that none of my Empire remains?"
"Forgive me my king but the rangers saw to the destruction of your glorious Empire," Venjix apologized bowing once more, "we are all that is left."
Mondo growled and turned away from his general again as he walked toward the door to look out over the barren moonscape.
"Very well, we'll start rebuilding my Empire by building some Cogs there's enough scrap here to do that, then we shall go about retrieving the rest of my family," he said gruffly, "those rangers will pay for what they have done to us, starting with those pesky Zeo rangers and their loved ones."
Turning back around Venjix saw his king grin and wondered what exactly he had planned.
"Besides it's been awhile since I've gotten my hands dirty, this should be fun."
A/N: the start of A Different Shade of Red is finally here. I expected it to be out later than this but certain events in my life have allowed me the liberty to actually sit down and write this as I write Power Rangers Triassic Surge. I know that the opening and the revival of King Mondo and General Venjix is a bit out there but bare with me I couldn't think of another way to bring them back without wanting to bash my head into a wall continuously. I'm not sure when the next chapter will be out but rest assure I am typing it as you read this chapter, until it is up enjoy this beginning and may the power protect you all.
Update: I had to change one tiny little thing in this chapter and that is the year in which this story happened, cause really I'm rubbish with the space time continuum. Now as for the timeline in what I'm dubbing the Oliver-verse (Consisting of A New Green Ranger, Forever Red 2, A New White Light, and of course this story, with the first two being one possibility and the second another). This timeline follows the original PR timeline up until the Space Rangers, 1993-1998 are the same as the show, after the events of Countdown to Destruction all of the rangers up until then got together to celebrate which is where Conner was conceived. After that everything also goes as planned with the events of Dino thunder happening in 2016, pushing everything after dino thunder up. In my defense I never really saw anything saying what year it was in the show, if there was oh well it's my story