Here's is the long awaited firdst episode of the PRDM Season 1, so sit back and getready for a thrill ride.

Joey was restless in his sleep. He couldn't help it, the dreams, the nightmares, they were still there. It woke him up from his sleep. Joey slowly got out of his bed, wiping the sweat from his face, and running his fingers through his thick blonde hair.

The house was dark and quiet. The only sound that penetrated his ears was silence. His mom was obviously asleep, so he walked as quietly as he could toward the bathroom. He rounded the corner, turned the light on, and Drakonus ran at him slicing his throat. The only sound now was Drakonus cackling and Joey gurgling on his own blood.

Joey popped up from the bed almost screaming. He let out a small cry but nothing too loud.

That day he first arrived in Los Angeles was still fresh in mind. It had been almost a month, but still he could smell the fresh blood, the feel of the Ooze Crews putrid skin, and the pain of fighting Drakonus. Every hit, every blow exchanged. For the first time he was truly afraid. But its done and he never has to see that dumb morpher again, or those teens. Who needs friends anyway, certainly not Joey.

THE DOJO

The group was arguing and discussing what to do about Joey. They had even resulted to yelling at one another. Until the sensei walked in, "That will be quite enough!" The room grew silent.

Sensei Takiyama slowly entered and sat down. He looked at each and every one of them before noticing the red power morpher. "I know you all are upset at the string of events that have transpired with your counterpart, Joey."

"Well duh," Justin was sarcastic, "we all can't do this without Joey's help, he's the red guy."

"Exactly," Ali chimed in, "we all put ourselves on the line, we all went through a lot to get these powers; and now he doesn't want them."

The group began to argue again, friend against friend.

"We don't need his ass." Kory was against bringing Joey back.

"I agree with Kory," Amber answered.

Sensei Takiyama silenced them once more. "It is at times like this when we all need to stay together. Fate chose you all to be Power Rangers, and to be team. How can you all be a team when there is no unity?" The words of Sensei Takiyama entered the minds of all of the Rangers. He did have a point.

Ali stood up and spoke, "I'll go talk to Joey." The others agreed and that was the end of the discussion.

DRAKONUS' LAIR

Lizarda paced back and forth around the room. He didn't know how to proceed from where he was at. Drakonus was gone with no way to bring him back; a dragon-human can only be resurrected once. Lizarda couldn't handle it, he picked up a rock and tossed it at the magic mirror he had; and because it was magic it didn't break. The wizard was losing his mind. He loathed the Power Rangers.

"Damn those fools, how dare they strike down our master. Now I've got to find some way to stop them." Lizarda used the tip of his slimy claw to tap the tip of his green scaly chin. "Ah! I've got it. Monsters, Drakonus always ha me use monsters against the Power Rangers. I believe I have the perfect one."

Lizarda walked over to his magical cauldron which he took a knife in hand. He placed the knife in his palm and slit his hand open, placing it over the cauldron he let it drip in, with that came a spell. "Shadows of past, demons of old rise up again and take the world you hold, Pyre!"

The room began to shake heavily, almost like an earthquake. The cauldron bubbled; it even began to drip over the edge. Within seconds the tremors stopped. Lizarda waited for a minute but nothing happened.

"Damn it, not agai…" the cauldron bursted with flame which seemed to engulf the entire area, except for Lizarda.

A slimy hand reached up from the cauldron, soon followed by a body. The body itself was surrounded with flame. It stood at seven feet tall, a face that was menacing, and a hulking physique that could make a body builder cower in fear.

"Pyre, lord of flames, welcome back to the living. You were once a great leader, a friend to Drakonus. Now he needs your help and you must destroy the Power Rangers." Lizarda explained the situation.

"Power Rangers will die!" Pyre roared.

JOEY'S HOUSE

The TV, as entertaining as it was to most people Joey found it rather boring. He just sat there watching stupid cartoons. There wasn't too much else to do. So Joey watched TV while his mom worked.

A knock then came to his door. Joey stood up, walked over, and opened it to see Ali.

"What the hell do you want?" Joey asked while being defensive.

"Hey, I just want to talk." Ali answered.

Joey opened the door up the rest of the way silently saying that she could enter. Which of course she did, and once in Joey closed the door.

"So how have…"

"What are you doing coming here," Joey cut her off," you didn't want to talk; you want me back with the rangers. Well you can forget it."

"What's your problem?" Ali asked.

"My problem is that I was dragged into something I didn't want to do. You think you guys were my friends, well you weren't. I have no friends, and I need no friends."

"Joey, you're a valuable asset to the team. We need you; you're supposed to lead us. That's what Red Rangers do."

Joey turned his back while placing his hands on his hips. He huffed and said, "I'm no Red Ranger; I'm barely a person."

"What do you mean?" Ali asked.

Joey took a deep breath, looked up at Ali, and asked her to have a seat. Joey didn't know why he was about to say the one thing that's been haunting him for years.

"Joey, it's okay, you can talk to me." Ali told him.

Joey nodded. "In the Dragon Temple, all of you were faced with challenges. I wasn't."

Ali asked, "Is that what was wrong?"

"Not exactly; for you see I was falsely chosen to be a ranger. You all had to prove yourselves; I didn't need to be tested because judgment was already passed on me." Joey continued. "A few years ago when we lived in Minnesota, my father was abusive. Towards the end I leaped on him and wildly punched at him. Though I knew what I was doing I couldn't stop. Eventually when the blood covered his face to the point I couldn't recognize him, I noticed he wasn't moving," Joey began to drip tears, "he wasn't breathing." Joey turned to Ali, "I killed him. In cold blood I murdered my father."

Ali couldn't believe her ears. Joey had killed someone; nonetheless his own father. She didn't know how to react to something like that, all she did know was that he was the Red Ranger, and he must join the team. "Joey that was in the past, you need to start thinking for the future." She told him.

An explosion rocked the city. Around this time Ali's morpher started beeping. She raised it to her lips. "What's up?"

On the other end Amber's voice sounded, "It's some kind of fire creature, meet us downtown now!"

"I'll be there." Ali ended. She headed for the door before turning back. "Whenever you're ready," She threw something to Joey and ran out the door.

Joey found himself holding the red power morpher. He stared at it not knowing what to do. He knew he was trailing down the uncertain path; a path that will either lead him to being a Power Ranger, or one that will take himself further away from the team. This is the hardest decision he would ever have to make.

DOWNTOWN

The four rangers showed up in time to see a massive fire creature. Just by his looks he seemed powerful.

The creature turned and noticed the rangers. "Yes, I knew with enough destruction you would show up; and what's this," Pyre looked around, "only four rangers. The other must have abandoned you."

"We don't need the other to handle the likes of you." Kory said.

"Try me," Pyre grinned.

Ali asked, "Ready guys?"

They all nodded and in unison cried, "Master of the Dragon!" With these words four brightly colored streams surrounded the four, began morphing their clothes with the colors blue, yellow, green, and pink. Their heads became surrounded with a material which hardened into their gleaming helmets. Once the streams disappeared the teens were gone and the Power Rangers stood in their place.

"Well now, are you ready?" Pyre asked.

"You bet!" Yellow Ranger answered.

Pyre quickly gathered energy that encircled his fist. The energy began to heat up and take a different shape; it became a big ball of flame. The creature threw it before the rangers could react. The explosion had sent the rangers hurdling off of the ground and into cars, street lamps, and mailboxes.

"Then again maybe not," Blue Ranger said.

"Come on, we can beat this guy!" Green Ranger said running at him throwing a kick.

Pyre blocked the Green Rangers assault and punched him hard in the gut. He then quickly swiped his claw across Green Rangers chest; the impact created sparks and pain. But the ranger was persistent and threw a punch only to be grabbed by the throat and tossed back with his teammates. Pyre grabbed up another flame ball and threw it. This time the rangers were hurt even more. Pyre chuckled at them, "You four claim to be Power Rangers. What a laugh!"

"We will beat you!' Pink Ranger yelled.

All four of the rangers banded together and attacked as a team. Blue Ranger threw a punch with Pink Ranger. Pyre knocked them both back, but to his surprise Yellow and Green Ranger came out with two synchronized flying kicks behind the other two. The monster fell back. The rangers quickly grabbed out their Dragon Daggers and went in for a full frontal assault. The rangers swung and swiped their weapons all over Pyre who was taking quite a bit of damage. The sparks flew from the creature who began to get annoyed.

The creature stood up and forced a barrier of fire which hit the rangers. With one more burst of energy Pyre forced it off of him and had it spread all over the area, the rangers were hit and some cars exploded.

It was apparent that Pyre was too strong; the four of them weren't enough.

"What can we do?" Blue Ranger asked any of them.

Pyre stood in front of them and laughed. "You can all die!" answered with that look in his eyes, which were like staring into a black abyss and seeing that the only thing in his chest was death. All of those countless people he's killed, now the rangers will be his greatest achievement. Pyre raised his hand and begun collecting the big ball of energy again. This one much larger, it would definitely finish off the Power Rangers. Until, Pyre got kicked in the head and lost his ball to the sky where nothing would be damaged; he looked over to see a boy standing in front of the rangers. "Who the hell are you?" Pyre asked.

"Someone you don't want against you." The boy answered wearing the morpher on his wrist. The boy cried, "Master of the Dragon!"

The rangers looked up with blurred vision but did make out that it was Joey.

A stream of red came down onto Joey morphing his clothes like the others into the suit. When it vanished the Red Ranger stood in Joey's place. "Let's see what you've got, ugly!" Red Ranger leaped in the air and landed a hard kick. He ducked under a punch, used an uppercut on the monster, ran around him and used one more kick to send him flying into a burned up car. "Please tell me that's not it." Red Ranger said.

Pyre stood up and began firing multiples of mini fireballs of which Red Ranger ducked and dodged all of them. Next thing Pyre felt was the sting of Red Rangers Dragon Blaster.

"Come on guys, stand up." Red Ranger told the others. When they slowly began doing it he got impatient. "That's an order; we are Power Rangers; now stand up and let's get him."

"He's right guys. We need to fight. No way am I going to get beat by this guy." Yellow Ranger said standing up.

The other rangers followed with renewed strength. They were behind their leader one-hundred percent. Now it was time to take flame boy down.

"Okay guys, Yellow and Green circle his right; Blue and Pink circle his left. I've got the middle; and draw your blasters." Red ranger commanded.

The rangers did as they were told, and once given the signal they all ran straight toward the monster with lasers on full blast. The monster tried blasting them but they pushed on through his attack, he couldn't take it, his pressure of flame was building, before he heated up, and exploded like a reactor.

"We did it!" Pink Ranger was in shock.

"We did?" Blue Ranger asked before straightening up and sounding strong, "I mean we did!"

Yellow, Pink, and Blue Ranger hung all around Red Ranger congratulating him, and thanking him for saving their lives. Green Ranger however was less than joyful. If anything he appeared upset. Of course under the helmet his expressions were unreadable. He approached Red Ranger. "You abandoned us, then show up and expect us to forgive you?" Green Ranger said.

"I don't expect you to, but hopefully over time…" Red Ranger was cut off.

"Time doesn't change anything. Everything you've done I will never forgive. But," Green Ranger settled, "you saved our lives and that deserves my gratitude." Green Ranger extended his hand which Red Ranger took and shook it.

One battle has been done, a ranger chooses his path, and destiny begins. The Power Rangers Dragon Masters have begun!

TO BE CONTINUED…

Next Time on Power Rangers Dragon Masters:

Justin plays so many videogames that he is having commitment issues with

Being a ranger; at the same time a new enemy has returned from the dead to take

Drakonus' place. Can the Power Rangers defeat this enemy especially with Justin

Playing until he dies.