Four years ago the space colony known as Terra Venture landed on the planet Mirinoi. With nowhere left to turn the humans of Earth were forced to make peace with the strange Inhabitants. In the goodhearted name of tranquility, the humans of both worlds began construction of a new Eden. This place would be dubbed Eternity City.
The jungle air was thick and wet. It was the type of humidity that filled one's lungs like water and left you gasping for every breath. Leo Corbett didn't seem terribly bothered by it, he'd spent that last four years sucking it in.
The brown haired man made his way through the dense jungle. He swung his blade around, nonchalantly making a path for him and his three partners to move three teens didn't seem too impressive at first glance, but Leo had been informed of their true purpose.
One of the three, a boy wrapped in a tight red t-shirt didn't seem to have any problem treading across the tall jungle grass. His dark hair was tangled into greasy dreadlocks and his military issue pants were cut into sloppy shorts. His name was Rune and he was a native to this planet. More than that, though, he carried a special gift, one that Leo was given orders to keep a secret at all costs.
The girl behind him had her hair tied into a tight ponytail. Her green eyes were bright and fierce, as she cautiously avoided every stray weed. She was Megan, and occurring to her records she was one of the highest scoring students in the academy, in terms of I.Q at least.
At the very back of the group was Benjamin. His ginger hair was overly combed, which only highlighted its tendency to wave. His square face seemed to constantly convey confusion as if the entirety of the universe was a mystery to him. His test scores weren't to die for, and he wasn't regarded as the brightest. What got him on the teams was his natural athletic abilities and strong will.
The four stood right outside of a small human colony. It was nothing special, wood huts, and metal trailers. It was a temporary dwelling until more of Eternity City was constructed. A quiet sort of chaos had begun to swell around the village, though, as more and more civilians went missing.
"This is haunted ground," Rune mumbled.
"That's what local lore claims," Megan replied. "That's why the Earth-Borns built here, they figured it wouldn't interfere with local life."
Rune remained silent. He wasn't particularly keen to speak his mind. He seemed to be a very reserved individual. Leo contributed it to his former role within his village.
"So this is basically some kind of poltergeist thing?" Benjamin asked, "Because that would be so cool! Ghost aliens, man!" The boy was treading violently over the soft ground, completely oblivious to where his feet went.
Megan grabbed him."Stop!"
Benjamin blushed, "Sorry, I got carried away."
"It's not that." She said, her eyes darted to the ground, everyone else's followed.
A bit of white slime had collected on the jungle ground. It laid there eerily, like a cheap special effect.
"Dude…" Benjamin whispered, "Ectoplasm."
Megan touched it lightly with her finger. "It seems like some form of webbing…" The slime slowly gave away, breaking apart into small fibers.
"What do you think of this?" Leo asked Rune.
Rune shrugged. "Nothing I've ever seen can do this."
"Any suggestions? Possibilities?" Benjamin asked.
Rune shrugged again.
The four continued to move through the jungle. Leo felt on edge, the hairs on his neck were standing straight. He hadn't felt like this in years like there was electricity in his veins. His brother, Mike, had known what he was doing when he sent Leo on this mission.
Leo caught sight of something alarming, he ordered the three teens to stay back as he got a closer look. He could feel his heart beating in his chest, the rhythm echoed to his ears as his eyes darted across the pile of blobby webbing.
Leathery skin seemed to stick to the corpse's body. Dry sunken eyes gazed at Leo through the thick web. He tried to look away but found he could only gaze deeper into the cadaver as if the answers to the universe were hidden in the clouded iris. Leo guessed that the corpse was male, he was clad in the familiar Terra Venture uniform. Leo couldn't help but wonder how long that body been there.
"Wow!" Benjamin exclaimed, "That's some freaky stuff right there."
Megan's eyes grew terribly wide. Leo watched as her twitching fingers found her pistol. She stroked the gunmetal, finding some comfort in its sleek surface.
Rune seemed transfixed by the spectacle. Not really afraid, just casually observing. "His aura is faint, despite his appearance this man hasn't been dead longer than a few days…" Rune tore away some stray webbing from the man's body. The sticky substance fell to the ground as Rune dug into the man's pocket. He drew a wallet and opened it up.
Rune handed a photo to Leo, "This is the man's family, you should report to them after this. Tell them he loved them. They were the last things he thought about. He didn't want to imagine the world where his little girl had to grow up without a dad."
"How does he know that?" Megan asked.
Leo kept moving, he didn't bother responding. Rune followed close behind, and Benjamin continued with them. Megan took one long last look at the poor man, then dove deeper into the jungle.
Leo found himself feeling for his rifle. It was strapped around his shoulder, therefore, it wouldn't move, yet he needed to be sure. It was there, but it didn't make him any safer. There was a monster in this jungle. He didn't know where it was, but he knew what it could do. That was scary enough.
Leo pressed his hand against Rune's shoulder. "If that thing gets near us could you sense it?"
Rune looked nervous, "Maybe, I'm not sure. I've never encountered something like this."
Leo nodded, he didn't like that answer, but it was what he expected.
Megan and Benjamin gained some distance behind Leo and Rune. Leo listened in as the two teens talked in a soft tone.
"I don't know what, but something's wrong with Rune." Megan sounded paranoid and scared.
"Yeah, he's freaking me out too." Benjamin agreed.
Leo knew this would happen if he kept things a secret. This team had just formed and it was already developing trust issues. That wasn't a good sign, especially if they wanted to get out of this alive.
The four suddenly walked into a clearing. There they were met with the smell of smoke and cooking meat. There was a small fire built in the middle of the clearing, smoke drifted from the black and gray ash. Leo went to investigate the camp. Small fleshy insects were roasting over the cinders.
"Do you think someone got separated from the village? Maybe one of the missing people did this." Megan suggested.
"Maybe." Leo agreed. He turned to Rune, the native boy had a strange expression on his face. "What's on your mind Rune?"
"I detect a strong power here…" Rune said. He closed his eyes tightly as if to concentrate on his feeling. "Something was here."
"If this is a horror movie I'm dying first." Benjamin said, "The monster always gets the sports star first!"
Megan ignored Benjamin's comment. She pointed her finger down, "Look at these tracks." She was pointing at a set of indentations in the soft ground. "Their barefoot, and human." She began to follow them.
They were getting even deeper into the jungle. The sun was almost nonexistent, it just barely sent red rays across the ground. It like walking through the darkest cavern, with only a candle to illuminate the stone halls.
There was a soft movement. It was barely even noticeable, just a soft pad over grass. Leo grabbed his rifle. It could be some rodent or something mundane. Could be. Something screamed at him, though, something that proclaimed whatever dwelled in the shadows was far from natural reality.
A string of oozing web shot from the dark and hit the ground. Leo aimed his rifle and fired. The air around him was illuminated with orange light but didn't allow him any insight.
The three teenagers were ready. When the bulking creature stepped towards the teens it was Benjamin that struck first. He did a jump kick that momentarily knocked the creature onto its back.
The monster was horrifying, with a large insectile body with strands of white fluff. The thing carried itself on humanoid legs, although it possessed spider-like appendages the hugged its midsection. The spider held out its human-like arms and fired the web from its spider maw.
The three teenagers were more than ready for this kind of threat. They all stood together, revealing that each of them had identical sets of twin bracelets. The bracelet that rested on their right hand read Cyber Beast while the other had individual animal symbols.
"Cyber Beast, Power Unleashed!" Megan yelled, her device had a Dolphin symbol.
"Cyber Beast, Power Unleashed!" Rune yelled, his device had an Eagle symbol.
"Cyber Beast, Power Unleashed!" Benjamin yelled, his device had a Lion symbol.
The three teens were covered in individually colored armor. Leo didn't have to be told who these heroes were, he knew they were the Power Rangers.
"Cyber Beast, Red Falcon!" Rune yelled. His armor had white pants with red on the torso, boots and helmet. His helmet was designed to look similar to a falcon, which highlighted the falcon symbol on his chest.
"Cyber Beast, Blue Dolphin!" Megan's armor was blue instead of red, with a helmet resembling a Dolphin and a matching symbol.
"Cyber Beast, Yellow Lion!" Benjamin's armor was Yellow with a Lion helmet.
"Animal Squadron, Cyber Beast!" The three heroes yelled in unison.
The Blue Ranger armed her Dolphin bow and fired into the spider creature, sparks flew from its body as it howled in pain. The Spider fired back, shooting a blob of white gunk that stuck her feet to the earth.
Red Falcon armed his Falcon Saber. He swung into the creature, sending it back a few steps and giving Blue some time to recover. Yellow Lion aimed his Lion Bazooka at the creature. He charged up his blaster and fired a yellow blast into the Spider, knocking it down while expelling sparks from his body.
Green ooze leaked from the Spider's body. The creature picked itself and scurried deeper into the jungle. Yellow Lion tried to chase after it, but Red Falcon grabbed his arm.
"What are you doing?" Yellow Lion asked, "I almost got it!"
"It's trying to escape, let it go." Red Falcon spoke with a calm demanding voice.
"We just let a killer spider back into the wild!" The Lion Ranger exclaimed, "It's gonna come back and kill us! Haven't you seen the movies, if you don't kill the monster it comes back!"
Red Falcon was silent. He carefully watched the spot the Spider had left to. "Let's go after it. Not to kill it. We need to see where it was going."
Leo nodded. He was impressed by their fighting prowess, he wished these kids had been around during Terra Venture's disastrous space adventure. He grinned, knowing where Rune was going with this. "You think there might be a nest?"
Red Falcon shrugged, "We better find out." In a flash of light, the three Rangers demorphed back into their civilian forms. Rune led the group, carefully tracking the strange footprints deeper into the jungle.
Megan watched Rune as he threaded through the dense grass. His gray eyes seemed weirdly disjointed from reality, she wondered if he was seeing something she couldn't.
"So what's your story?" She asked the native human.
He didn't turn to look at her, or even seem to recognize her existence.
"I saw you around the Academy. You were one of the few people to have a personal room, and you never really seemed interested in anyone."
Rune continued to track the prints, they seemed to be the only thing that mattered in his strange world.
"Give it up." Benjamin said, "He think's he's too good for us or something."
Rune stopped abruptly. He kneeled down and examined a blob of white webbing. A severed human hand floated meaninglessly in the mess. Stray tendons seem to flow like confetti from the red meaty end. The whole scene reminded Leo of those little jello fruit cups they used to serve aboard Terra Venture.
"Dude," Benjamin said, "This is too cool…"
Megan turned to Benjamin, "This isn't a game!"
"Woah man, relax," Benjamin said.
"People are dying!"
"Well, I'm not going to sit around and piss my pants! I'm scared, and so are you, I'm just handling things a little different."
Hearing the normally calm Benjamin raise his voice seemed to calm Megan down. She grew quiet and peacefully followed the group through the mess of vines and trees.
Leo was thinking about the camp again. The excitement of the Spider attack had distracted him from their original finding. They weren't alone in the jungle. There was, at least, one killer spider, but on top of that, there was another human. Maybe it was a survivor, maybe it wasn't.
As sunlight became even more of commodity the jungle began to subtly change. Webbing hung from certain trees, it coated the ancient wood like a fine glaze. They didn't see any Spiders in the immediate area, but Leo was beginning to smell them. It was a horrid smell, like week old rot. Leo found himself fingering his gun once more.
A Spider jumped from the dense trees. This one seemed slightly larger, it's insectoid legs spasmed around wildly. The three Rangers fired their blasters at the creature, Leo contributed with his one rifle.
Bullets cut through the monster like butter. Sending a spray of green ooze that splattered against the ground. The Spider monster staggered towards the four heroes, but soon he was accompanied by another.
Three of the horrifying monsters moved with a striking sense of unity. Leo swore under his breath. Rune's suspicion had been correct about them. They were stumbling into a nest.
"Cyber Beast, Power Unleashed!"
Arrows flew from the Dolphin Bow, and blasts of Yellow Energy burst from the Lion Bazooka, but the creatures kept moving. Red Falcon rushed with his saber. One hand swung his blade, the other fired his small blaster. Sparks ignited like the Fourth of July, but the creature continued to fight.
Just as it seemed like their combined power was making a difference. Two more monsters sprang from the sides. Leo's rifle didn't stop until it was out of ammunition. He turned to his pack to get another cartridge, only to find more Spiders flooding from all around them.
It was too late. The Spiders surrounded them. Panic welled inside of his chest. After everything he'd been through, it would be a mob of killer spiders that took him out. Leo closed his eyes. In a last ditch effort, he called upon his Galactabeast. A mythical creature that had helped him in the past. If there was anything that could save them Leo prayed they could help.
"A -MA-ZON!" A wild voice called out.
The Rangers turned to the source of the voice, only to see a Spider limb flying through the air. The Spider body collapsed as a new creature leaped into the circle.
The thing looked like something from an 80's science fiction show. His skin was green and scaly, with waves of orange covering his body. His head was large and reptilian, with pulsing red eyes that peered through the darkness. The humanoid lizard held its body low to the ground, and a red fin hung from his back, and a yellow anti twitched from the middle of his forehead.
One of the Spiders charged at the new figure, but he leaped with amazing speed and landed on it's back. He dug his giant maw into Spider's head, ripping out a large chunk of the creature's exoskeleton. Large pointed claws tore through the creature's leather gloves, they were dripping green blood as the tore through the Spiders.
Leo was completely blown away. He didn't even know how he was going to describe this creature later. Assuming it didn't kill him and his Rangers once the Spiders were gone.
Once the shock wore off the Rangers they began to aid the strange creature. Only a handful of Spiders were left, they began to charge at the five of them with the last of their strength. The Rangers combined all three of their weapons into a cannon and fired into the Spiders, transforming the beasts into dust.
The reptile looked to the Rangers. He nodded his head as his skin began to bubble faintly. "Save...for now." His body fell the ground as it began to radiate an unreal level of heat. Steam poured from all around him, forcing the Rangers to shield their eyes as he was enveloped in the smoky texture.
The Rangers gazed at their friend with newfound shock. He was no longer a strange reptilian monster, he was now a human with messy black hair and a torn leather outfit.
A/N: Well that concludes part one of my little story here. As you can probably guess the strange man is based on Kamen Rider Amazon, which is currently being revived as an Amazon Prime exclusive series. This Amazon harkens back to the original Amazon though the new incarnation may make an appearance later in another series. I bring this up because the Masked Rider TV series already introduced Amazon during its short run, only it referred to him as "Rider Man" for some reason. I understand that Masked Rider's continuity lines up with Power Rangers, but I'm going to pretend that everything after the backdoor pilot took place in some strange parallel universe where Amazon is Riderman. Instead, this is a much more coherent universe where Amazon is Amazon and Ferbus is a secret agent for the United States, trying to stop bioterrorism and writing a fairly successful conspiracy blog.