Chapter 1: A Dream
There are many planets in space, and each have tales of their own. This one, however, takes place on one familiar blue sphere. There was an island on that planet, one of many, but this was the place where Good and Evil would take their next fight. In the southern region of this island stood a school. In this same school there were canteens, and it was in one of them (number 6, to be exact) that it all started. Yet again.
Two girls were chattering away at one of the tables. Not an unusual sight, no? Maybe, but not on this day. One was practically rolling on the ground in peals of hysterical laughter, while the other fought to keep her giggles in.
'I know it was funny, but I didn't think it was that funny', she thought, watching her friend clutch the table edge, still helpless with mirth.
The laughing girl had dark, shoulder-length hair that curled out messily at the ends, and her thin-framed glasses were askew. She was Kath, a girl who was petite in build and noticeably shorter than her friend. Kath leaned forward, gasping for air from her fit.
"Lemme get this straight, we were Power Rangers?"
Running her hand through black chin-length hair Mabel, the other with hair that reached chin-level and sported tanned skin and dark brown eyes, rolled hers at her friend, "Unfortunately, yes."
Kath sniggered, valiantly trying to hold back another laughing fit but failing miserably. Mabel was another girl, the same age as Kath, and her good friend. They were an odd pair, one tall and the other petite; one looked like a nerd, even though her character portrayed something else, and the other a plain Jane.
"Good grief! Kath, it wasn't funny! It's your craze, not mine!"
"I don't think so! Admit it! You like the Power Rangers!"
"I do not!"
"Do too!"
"Oh come on, Ranger Me and Ranger You running around school of all places and getting beaten up by Putties? Not wonderful."
Kath couldn't stop the grin rising to her lips. Even the bluntness of her tablemate couldn't throw a shadow what had just been told just a few minutes ago. Mabel was clearly in denial, and was doing a rather pathetic job of maintaining her defenses.
"Continue, continue!" Kath urged her friend, who was still halfway through her plate of wanton mee pok noodles. She could tell that Mabel wanted to get back to her lunch, but she was not letting her off until the whole tale was told. At least a couple hundred times more.
"As you insist. All right, we were sitting like this, in the canteen, talking to each other, you as your usual self ranting on about Power Rangers. You know that, don't you?
"It so happened that at the point where you're whining about Tommy and Kimberly breaking up..."
"They should have been together!" Kath exclaimed.
"...do you want to hear the story or not?"
"..."
Satisfied, Mabel continued, "Two flashes of light appeared above us and thrust themselves at us to our necks. Strangely enough, no one else noticed this."
Mabel raised an eyebrow, marvelling once again at the cosmological inconsistencies of the dream world. That's it, no more buttered peas for supper, she thought to herself.
"And theeeeeeeen?" Kath demanded, beating her fists on the table.
"The blinding light left us both in a good daze. But suddenly we saw a team of Putties running down single file down the staircase behind us. This, everyone noticed."
"Before we could move, there was this platoon of Putties making their way through the food court. They were getting closer, closer, all around, everywhere!"
Mabel waved her arms around in the air to dramatize the story, drawing some curious glances from other canteen-goers.
"But then something inside us lit up, something that told us it was time to -"
"MORPH INTO RAINBOW RANGER AND ZEN RANGER!" Kath eagerly butted in.
"Yes, as you so eloquently dubbed our imaginary egos. Next thing we knew, we were clutching at our necks and yelling out Zen and Rainbow Morphs. Rangers."
Mabel then looked down and noticed that in her enthusiasm, she'd knocked her cup of ice-lemon tea and there were ice cubes sitting in her noodles. It didn't look very appetizing now, and there was still half a day to go. 'So much for lunch.'
"Very new and unskilled rangers. And when the Putties turned to look at us, we just kicked up our heels and charged at them.
"But that was when where, instead of us kicking butt, ours got kicked."
Kath sniggered again.
"But, hope was not lost. Right before you about to get taken down, a golden figure swooped in from behind and clubbed the Puttie on the head. The Putties were about to gang attack me but then a silver figure took the blow for me."
"That's so romantic!"
"Quiet, Kath!"
Kath canned a retort.
"Even then, we were still cornered. Surrounded on all sides."
She dramatically took a swig of her ice lemon tea, and then remembered it was all over her food.
Kath blinked at Mabel, "Continue! Continue!"
Mabel smiled, "And that was when I woke up."
"Aww sh-poo!"
It was the middle of a tutorial. Everyone was hard at work, hunched over the keyboards and clicking and dragging their mice here and there.
Mabel and Kath had enrolled into a course that focused on the composition and synthesis of computer music. Being music-lovers, they found the course as their calling, and both had met each other that way.
The two girls being the friends they that were, did their work together and finished them before everyone else did. Mabel was absorbed improving her work.
Meanwhile, Kath would have liked to practice on the synthesizer in front of her, but she could not get over it. She was hopping about madly inside herself, and struggled to keep still. She could not practice, not now when something thrilling was in her mind.
As had countless other fans, she had fantasized endlessly about being a part of her favourite fandom, fighting alongside her childhood heroes,
Rainbow, huh? She mused to herself. It wasn't a colour she would have chosen for herself, but it was a path to many possibilities.
She was snapped rudely out of her daydream by a sharp prod on the back.
It was Mabel, a wide smirk on her face.
"Ow!" Kath harshly whispered, in spite of the thick bulky headphones everyone else was wearing that rendered you almost deaf to the rest of the world.
"Lost in Lala-land, aren't you?"
"I love that dream you had!"
"Nightmare," Mabel corrected, "and don't dwell on it. I didn't like the idea of being wrapped up in spandex and forced to take down baddies and into a life of secrecy."
Kath frowned a bit. Of course, it wasn't all sunshine and roses for a superhero (I mean, look at Spiderman), and she had her academic life and a future to think of. But the childish voice buried deep down inside her prompted her to say...
"But won't it be cool to be a superhero?"
"In your dreams! No doubt, it's a lavish job of glory, but it's brutal and hard!"
"Maybe so, but I still wish, I really wish, that I'd be a Power Ranger! A real live Power Ranger! Rainbow Ranger!"
Mabel stared at her. "You're obsessed."
Kath could tell she was adamant, but it was always funny when her normally peaceable friend got ticked.
"Don't you want to save people? Make the world a better place? Rescue some kittens down from trees? That's gotta be like a million community service points! If we have the ability to give a little more to make everyone happier, then we should do all we can to serve!"
"Grief! I tell you, I wholly and honestly don't want to be a Ranger. I don't like the idea at the least. It's going to be tough, handling homework, schoolwork, the other duties I'm bound to and then I get plopped with a superhero identity and powers on my lap. It's tough enough with a normal lifestyle and a superhero job won't help."
The boys sitting next to her spun around at the disturbance to the peace. Realizing that it was just Mabel letting off heat, they shrugged it off and returned to work.
It was Kath's turn to shake her head. Mabel was speaking the truth that shattered her thoughts.
It is not possible to be a Ranger; neither was it going to be easy once she becomes one. Even if Mabel was great to talk to about their crazes (they chatted lots about Power Rangers, Transformers and Bionicle, hence they're good friends), Mabel was also straightforward and frank. Not only that, she was a painful goody-goody-two-shoes and would try to debate rather than pull a fisticuff. Meanwhile, Kath was admittedly pesky despite an angelic outlook, often thinking of crazy ideas with Mabel at recess.
Giving a sigh of defeat, Kath tapped a key on the synthesizer.
"Fine, it's a dream. Nothing more than that. But it's a lovely dream!"
Mabel chuckled, not in an unkind manner.
"Fine, it's a lovely dream to you," she flicked her wrists in an airy manner, "I'll call it my nightmare. I'm saving my work and shutting down the Mac. Class's going to end soon."
"And we'll think of powers for our Ranger forms?" Kath asked eagerly.
The latter rolled her eyes, "Dream on!"
A pause.
"And no more corny inspirational speeches!"
Upon a thorny throne, a lady sat upon, head supported by her hand, stoning at the Earth below her from the safety and comfort of her ship.
She was inhuman; one could have told from her green skin that was at a discomforting hue that would have made your skin crawl upon the sight. Her fingernails were elongated many times over the length of her fingers and curled at the tips elegantly, painted in a sophisticated sinister black, and these she drummed against the cold armrest of her throne. Her lengthy silver hair was pinned up as two cones reaching for the ceiling, bound with brown satin ribbon, and the black bands, ornate with red crystals of foreign origin, which shaped her hair and lay on her shoulders, echoed the same sinister color of her dagger-like nails. A billowing gold dress flowed to the polished cold floor below, laid out to spread across the throne and lavishly roll onto the ground.
One knew that her skin color was actually a natural copper-tan. This, Goldar, Squatt and Baboo knew. Her skin has changed green ever since Lord Zedd had left her after their failed conquest for Earth, and she stopped looking at her nails and left them to grow. She did this every day without fail: sit on her luxurious throne and stare at the planet that escaped her grasp.
Neither dared to approach her since, merely just providing meals. The trio knew how terrible her wrath was. The slightest memory of her defeat to the Earth's Power Rangers was enough to aggravate her to blow up the ship. The ship bears scars of her terrible temper, and her staff lay by her throne's side ominously, the slender fingers twirled around it.
The canine minion tapped the ghoulish chimp-like ally on the shoulder.
"It's been years since Her Lordship has called for our services! I think we better prepare some résumés and get moving!"
"And you're Her Lordship's most loyal servant? So much for canine looks. I'm not leaving!"
Baboo turned to look at the queenly figure behind him, and turned back to Goldar.
"Even if it don't look like it, Her Ladyship needs us most now."
"How can you tell? She has not noticed us for eons!"
"Ten Earth years. She has changed, and we all know why."
"The-" Goldar cupped his hand and whispered as softly as he could, "Power Rangers?"
"WHAT DID YOU SAY!" Rita rose from her throne, her once hazel eyes now glowing amber with rage. The staff shot out a beam at the ceiling above Goldar and Baboo, and it merely disintegrated to the support beams in the ceiling, raining debris on the two.
"I told you, my minions," she sneered, her staff still outstretched and her voice shrill, "not to mention THEM ever again!"
"Our apologies to you, My Lady!" The two beasts cried for mercy.
The woman sank back into her chair. The green skin just got greener.
They never left her mind. The thoughts, the memories and the beasts that cowered in her throne room all reminded her of those embarrassing cheats that, at the end of the day, outdid her minions and men and even her Lord Zedd and sent her away.
She wanted Earth so badly now. Ten years of change have passed under her, and she yearned to see what was going on without her. Were there new Rangers? Were the old ones she battled and enslaved in the past still existent today?
Her brows plunged down as she thought of that. What she'd give to get back at them…
"Something bothering you, my lady?"
"WHAT IS IT?" She raged, and turned to see who it was.
It was Lord Zedd!
Her hand flew to her heart. Trembling, she rose to her feet, eyes fixed upon the muscular red villain that was kneeling before her, a hand on his chest and his head bowed.
"Zedd… you've…"
"Returned, yes," The muscular male before her rose to his feet. Goldar, Baboo and Squatt bowed in reverence to their old master.
He went up to Rita, and clasped his hands around hers. "You look different since I've left."
"You should never have," Rita could only smile back. The green skin slowly started to morph, reverting back to the original copper-tan that she had.
"Yes, I shouldn't. But now I've returned. I've regained my power and strength from that little hiatus," he gestured to the hole in the ceiling, "and you too, almost."
She blushed and turned away to hide the red on her face, "I sit on my throne every day, anticipating your return, and waiting for the day for Earth to return to our grasp once more."
"And today is the day!" Lord Zedd raised his staff as a show of his might, "The protectors of Earth we once fought are no longer there. NO ONE protects the planet! It's ours for the taking!"
A cackle of triumph came from him and Rita Repulsa's hideous laugh joined his, and the whole ship shook.
Evil has returned!