the top of my google doc for this fic is that gif of the OG mighty morphin power rangers lookin like badasses in sunglasses
Far above the ruined streets and blasted-out buildings of what had once been Angel Grove's main street, the moon blazed with white light. On this particular section of road, the lights had yet to be restored after the catastrophic battle of nearly a month before. Ruined storefronts presided over a road that was still rough and full of holes, shadows like great fingers reaching to caress the shattered pavement.
A girl and her friends huddled on a stretch of sidewalk that had remained undamaged. Middle schoolers at the oldest. Young enough to not recognize the danger but still old enough to know better. They whispered and giggled amongst themselves, because what harm could there possibly be out here? The wicked witch was dead, or so they said. But they'd all heard the stories.
It was common knowledge in this place that the night was not to be trusted - that remnants of evil magic still danced amongst the stones, that one was as likely as not to meet one of those horrific golems, fresh from the inanimate earth. The name "putty" had stuck, though no one knew from where the appellation had first come. They were hardly as harmless as the name would seem to suggest.
"Amy, are you listening?" Asked one of the girls, elbowing the tallest among them. "This is important."
The tall one - Amy - frowned, gazing out into the streets. "Sorry, I thought… I thought I heard something."
One of the others laughed, though the one who had spoken didn't look amused. "We don't have much time out here. Stop jumping at shadows, or we won't be back in time."
Amy shook her head, then smiled. "You're right, I'm being silly. Let's get going."
The small group started to walk, chattering aimlessly amongst themselves, unaware of what was happening behind them - unaware of the pebbles on the ground beginning to rumble, to roll along ground that wasn't sloped, to begin to gather and coalesce. A rocky hand formed in a pothole and reached up to the sky, straining for a moment as dark energies swirled in the air. The arm twisted, and snapped downward, and the palm hit the ground with a solid crunch.
The girls whirled, startled by the sudden sound, and for the first few seconds they were too stunned even to move.
With the harsh sound of rock against rock, the hand pushed and strained, and something seemed to click. With a motion like a swimmer hoisting himself out of a pool, a great, malformed beast of stone emerged from the cracked asphalt. It stood there for a moment, gazing up at the moon, and seemed to slump in something like disappointment.
Then one of the girls screamed, and the creature's apparent confusion snapped to rage. It lurched forward, unsteady on uneven legs, reaching out to grab and hit and smash.
The girls finally broke and ran, moving in a pack away from the monster. As it picked up speed and momentum, other hands broke from the pavement and started pulling themselves up. One, then two, then a dozen.
The girls screamed, but no one came, and the putties were faster. They couldn't corner quite as well as a little girl, but once they got up to running speed they could outrun a human over open ground, and the girls knew it.
Guttural roars filled the streets, echoing between the shattered walls. The girls rounded a corner, and for the briefest moment, they were out of sight of the monsters. For most, the instinct was to keep running, but Amy skidded to a halt, with a hissed "Over here!" The other girls turned, eyes wide and panicked, and Amy shouldered her way through a half-broken side entrance. The door ground open, and the pack of children darted inside, just as the first putty came into view.
Amy pressed herself back against the wall, just out of sight of the doorway, and held her breath, raising a finger to her lips to her friends to do the same. They did, though more than a few of them shook with terror.
Heavy footfalls crashed just outside, in the alleyway they'd just vacated, as more and more of the creatures gathered. Did they know where the girls were? Or were they confused at having lost their prey?
Then another, louder noise - a series of thumps on the roof overhead, and muffled voices.
"Here they are, just like Zordon said." At least, Amy thought he said Zordon, but that wasn't anything. The voice was male, but heavily distorted with a robotic filter.
"I don't, uh, want to make a big deal, but has Zordon ever told us to go fight putties when there weren't putties?" This voice was also male, and covered in the same distortion, but less self-assured, Amy thought. "That's what'd be out of the ordinary."
"Okay, thanks for the input, Blue, but I didn't mean it like-"
"Come on, you're making so much noise that they probably already know where we are," hissed a woman's voice. "We keep trying to get the drop on them, but you guys can't keep your mouths shut."
Outside, the stony rustling came to a stop.
Amy took a shaky breath, looking from her friends to the door and back. A few of them were glancing upward, enraptured by the conversation overhead. It didn't take a genius to figure out who these newcomers were.
"I say we just go kick their asses," said a third man. "We've never had trouble with them before, so long as we've been morphed. We don't need to tiptoe around this, Red."
The first voice sighed. "Alright, just, look, let's come up with a plan, at least. There are…" He started to mumble, and Amy couldn't quite make out the words. She scooted closer to the doorway.
"You know what, actually?" asked a second woman. "I just decided fuck this."
There was a chorus of voices yelling things like no, and wait, and then an angel descended from heaven to kick some ass. A glowing yellow meteor in the shape of a human hurtled down from above, landing directly on a putty in the middle of the crowd. The thing exploded, and from the cloud of dust emerged what could only be one of the saviors of Angel Grove. The putties stared at the intruder, as if trying to make sense of what they were seeing, as if they hadn't quite realized that they were already down one of their number.
The yellow-armored girl tilted her head first one way, then the other, then assumed a fighting stance. "Anyone else?"
From above, a voice whooped. "Crazy Yellow! That was awesome!" A pair of boots clumped to the edge of the roof as if taking a running leap, then hesitated at the last moment. "Wait, wait, I gotta, I gotta…"
In the street, all was still motionless. The calm before the storm.
The silence was broken by a synthesized voice from above, emotionless and solemn: "When it's time to party, we will party hard."
"What-" said the first woman's voice, and the rest was drowned out by a sudden explosion of power chords and a thunderous drumline.
Amy flinched, and the voice shouted joyously again. A moment latter, a second figure hurtled down to the pavement beside Yellow, one knee and one fist cracking the ground in a power landing, punctuated by the heavy beat of the drums. He slowly raised himself to his feet, lifted his black-armored hands, and laughed wildly. "Power Rangers!"
That broke the putties' trance, and as harsh vocals broke out over the heavy riffs, they surged forward in a gravelly tsunami of rock. The two heroes were ready, though. Instantly back to back, their hands moved like blurs of neon, their footwork impeccable and deadly. The putties couldn't even get close.
"What's going on?" moaned one of the girls, and Amy shushed her, her eyes wide.
In the moment that Amy had looked away, the other three figures had joined the fray.
Red was holding what looked like an actual, honest-to-god sword, and it seemed to cut through putties like a hot knife through butter. He swung once in a motion not dissimilar to an uppercut, bisecting one putty, then gracefully leapt up onto the crumbling monster, one foot on each half. Before the dying putty was even done falling, he was soaring through the air again, flipping gracefully to strike another monster.
Pink ducked a swing from one putty, then a grab from another. The two rushed her from either side, and she dropped into an improbable split. The putties collided above her, and they splinted, staggering back with pieces of their faces ground away. Pink shouted, planted her hands on the ground, and lashed out with both legs in opposite directions. To either side, a rocky leg snapped, and the wounded putties crashed down to earth.
Blue grabbed a putty by the arm and twisted, heaving the great stone beast over his head. "Black!" It tumbled through the air, end over end, and found the black figure's fist on the other side. It crunched down, the magic holding it together dissipating. Blue whooped, then groaned. "This music is really distracting, man!"
The black one cackled, driving his heel through another stony face. "I know, isn't it awesome?"
In less time than it took the music overhead to hit the chorus, half the putties were down. The rest seemed to lack survival instinct, and each rushed a different target, as if they stood even a modicum of a chance. By now, the other girls had crowded up to the side door, and were peering out as well - mesmerized by the graceful movements of the superheroes, the way they effortlessly soared through the air and laid waste to the evil monsters that had threatened them.
The second half of the fight was over almost before it had begun. Red and Yellow had dispatched their putties in the first few seconds, and had turned to assist their friends. Blue uppercut his putty hard enough to shatter one of its heads; it staggered back, turning, and Red lopped off the other with an overhead swing. Black, meanwhile, seemed to be toying with his putty - dipping and diving and staying just out of reach, but never actually swinging back.
"Pink! I got an idea!" Yellow ran directly at the other female warrior's back, shouting as she did. "Heads up!"
Pink looked around wildly. "Look out for what? Yellow, look out for- Gah!" Yellow leapt through the air, flipping forward as she did so. She planted her hands firmly on Pink's shoulders, and it seemed like Pink only barely managed to keep her balance. Her momentum carrying her forward, Yellow whirled through the air like a beyblade, leading with the heel of her boot. The putty had the briefest moment to look surprised before Yellow's leg came shooting down to shatter what passed for the monster's skull. She pushed off again, reversing into a backflip, and landed gracefully at Pink's side.
The putty wavered, staggered forward a step, and fell.
"Now that's what I'm talkin' about!" Yellow cheered, raising a hand expectantly. "C'mon, that was badass."
Even through the opaque helmet, the onlookers could tell that Pink rolled her eyes before slapping the other woman's hand. "For the record, a warning doesn't do much good if you don't tell me what I should be watching out for."
"Point taken."
Red stepped up to the two women, his sword apparently dematerializing. He put a hand on each of their shoulders, and gave them a solemn nod.
Meanwhile, Black got a little too cocky, and a heavy fist to the helmet sent him soaring through a glass window into a building across of where the girls were hiding. One of them screamed in sheer reaction, and the other heroes' heads all jerked in their direction.
"Are you-" started Red, but he paused. "Actually, wait." All three of them turned as one and punched the last remaining putty, who promptly shattered into a hundred pieces. They turned back, and Yellow and Pink were laughing about something. "Are you alright in there?"
Amy glanced back at her friends, then back out at the rubble of the fight. The danger seemed to have passed, and, well, everyone knew that these were the good guys. Even if no one knew a thing about them. She nodded, then stepped out into the alley. "We're okay. Just…" It was only then that she realized her hands were shaking, and she shoved them into her pockets. "Scared. Thank you for saving us." She felt strangely calm. Detached. Someone sniffled behind her, and she blinked.
The blue one stepped forward, "It's not safe to be out after dark. That's when the magical residue is strongest. At least, that's what Alpha says. The light is cleansing, you see, it-"
Red put a hand on Blue's shoulder. "They don't need to know all that, buddy."'
Blue hesitated, then nodded. "Right, right. Sorry, man."
As they spoke, Black staggered out from the building he'd just put a hole in, grumbling. His shiny armor was covered in a thin layer of dust, and as the girls watched, a crack in the helmet seemed to heal itself. Blue pulled away from Red's touch, and jogged over to check on his friend.
Red glanced back at the rest of his team. "Pink, Yellow. Can you get these girls somewhere safe? We've left the other group run wild for too long. Who knows what kind of trouble they've gotten into."
Pink and Yellow shared a glance, then nodded. "Right," they said in unison, and Pink held out a hand to the girls. "Come on. We'll get you home." She paused. "You might have to tell us where home is, though."
Black slapped Yellow on the back, shot her a pair of finger guns, and in a single leap, the other heroes were gone, the music going with them.
Amy looked back at the others, then nodded. As blasted as her brain felt, the rest looked even worse. "Um. Yeah, but it's… not that close."
Yellow cocked her head, putting a hand on her hip. "No problem, kiddos." Her voice turned mischievous. "Hope you're not afraid of heights."
Pink shook her head. "We're not taking them in the pterodactlyl."
"But-"
"We are not. There's no room in the cockpit, and they're not going to hang onto the roof while we're a hundred feet in the air." She tapped a few times at her wrist, then raised it to her mouthpiece. "Alpha, send the sabertooth to my position." Something that Amy couldn't understand responded. Pink nodded and glanced back at Yellow.
"Fine, fine, if you want to take all the fun out of it," Yellow muttered, gesturing for the rescued girls to follow, and turned back to walk toward the street.
The girls followed, leaving Pink behind.
Pink sighed, throwing up her hands. "Why am I always the buzzkill?"
"Because Red's not here to be the responsible one!" Yellow called back, blowing Pink a kiss before turning a corner and disappearing. "He's rubbing off on you!"
Pink stood alone for a low moment. "Responsible one," she muttered after a moment. "None of us assholes are responsible." Finally she sighed again, kicked a bit of loose rubble, and followed.
cold
cold
but not cold like
before
ocean
cold like
empty
cold like
pain
drifting
in silence, a voice
a voice filled with hate
anger
rage
a kindred spirit then
Repulsa.
repulsa
….rita
that was her name
she remembers that much as she drifts in the void
Do you still desire the crystal, Repulsa?
the crystal
the zeo crystal
yes
that would be wonderful
Retrieve it. Destroy the Earth. Destroy any who would oppose you.
Prepare the way for my coming.
who are you
You may call me Zedd.
zedd
Take the Zeo Crystal, and I will make you a true empress of evil.
images, then
images of glorious destruction
devastation on a galactic scale
the rangers, dead and broken at her feet
that irritating little robot, twisted and shattered
zordon
zordon….
oh the torments she would bring upon him
the horrors unimaginable
Now. Awaken.
And 230,000 miles above the Earth, Rita Repulsa opened her eyes.
Hi! Welcome to my fic!
I spent six months yelling about how bad the Power Rangers movie looked and how sure I was that it would be awful and now I've seen it twice and I'm writing fic for it. OOPS.
The original title of this fic was going to be "the songs on the radio are okay" because I liked twenty one pilots before it was cool, but I thought that didn't work as well for a fic about all the Rangers as it would for something that was more laser focused on Trini/Kimberly.
Title of the fic is a lyric from the song "In Our Bedroom After The War" by Stars! Chapter title is from Unstoppable by , but if you're hear you probably remember that from the movie.
Let me know what you think! Leave a review!