Los Diablos, 2049
Overlord Valoris was escorted into the square of the town where his path to conquest had begun all those years ago. It had not improved much since his conquest. In fact, it seemed to have become worse, with the burnt out houses and skies turned red. Arguably, the best quality object in the town was the statue he had erected of himself to replace the fountain he hated so much. Said statue depicted his 17 year-old self, known then as Mitchell Withers, surrounded by the various Power Rangers that he owed his current position to. With that power, he had created a world free of poverty, free of segregation, free of crime. And all it had cost for perfection was the simple factor of choice, which he felt was a necessary loss to preserve the peace.
"Death to tyrants!"/pp style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"It was a pity that not everyone agreed with his actions. Apparently people LIKED having the option to declare wars, kill animals and screw up potentially good tv shows. But on the other hand, Valoris enjoyed the chance to kill a few dissenters every now and then. It was good for loyalty reasons that these rebellions failed. Valoris stood in front of this dissident group, unflinchingly transforming into his Ranger form. It was a platinum coloured, heavily armoured, amalgam of several previous Ranger teams. "Dragon Sword!", he declared, summoning the signature weapon of Megaforce Red. His powers had reached a point where he could call upon whatever Legendary Ranger weapon he desired. "Let's dance, you punks.", Valoris said to the dissidents.
The battle wasn't even a challenge. He managed to take out over half of them with one slash of the sword. One idiot tried to grab onto the Blaster in his holster, failing to realise in time that said Blaster was thought-activated. After the ground troops had been dealt with (58 seconds, just 1 second longer than his usual time. He was getting sloppy), the fools tried attacking him with a giant robot. That was dispatched with one slash of the Dragon Sword, which generated enough force to blow the robot in 2. "When will you fools learn?", Valoris growled. "I am more powerful than any army, navy or Air Force you can muster. Nothing will ever destroy me! Nothing!"
Resistance Base (formerly Mariner Bay), 2049
p style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"
"Did you get what we were after?", Kelly asked her comrade Vincent. She was 17, pretty, half-Asian on her mother's side, sporting a short hair and wearing a ruined shirt for an old band that was probably hot when her dad was in 1st grade. Vincent was a year younger, black, had close cropped hair and was dressed in a combat jacket, which he took off to expose the bright red shirt he had on underneath.
"Yeah, security was pretty easy to overcome. That prophet guy barely noticed me take these." He opened the briefcase he had been carrying with him to and from the site of the heist. Inside were a pair of watch-like devices, in addition to a pair of gears that were designed to be compatible with the watch-like devices. One of them bore a silver-coloured stylised G, While then other resembled a pair of teeth on a yellow backdrop, at a 45 degree angle. "Once we take these babies back in time, we'll make sure that Valoris doesn't make any progress in taking this world over. Then all of the sacrifices our friends have made won't go to waste."
"But will you be able to live with yourself if you do this?", another voice called out. Both Vincent and Kelly turned towards the source of the voice, who removed her cloak. Both of them knew this woman as one of their allies from the rebellion against Valoris that they had once been members of. But neither of them knew her real name; she always insisted on being referred to as "Ignaroma". She was in her early fifties, with blonde hair that was beginning to turn grey. She was wearing a leather jacket of the kind that looked like it should've gone the way of IPods and phones with physical keypads. "I know both of you very well. Neither of you has to go through with this. You haven't taken a life before."
"Well there's a first time for everything.", Kelly retorted. "I thought you'd be on board with our plan, Ignaroma. We're going to prevent Valoris from rising to power by stopping his threat before it can take off."
"But are you really willing to do what you think I say necessary?", Ignaroma asked. "If you let me help you, I'm sure we can come up with an alternative that doesn't resort to murdering an innocent."
"He won't be innocent for much longer by the time we're travelling to.", was Vincent's reply. "And don't think you can simply follow us. We have the only working time machine in this period." With that, he pressed a button on a remote, and the two would-be assassins and their acquisition were teleported into a pair of coloured jets (one bright red, one dark blue) which vanished into the temporal nexus.
"Or so you think.", Ignaroma said quietly, pressing her own remote. This summoned a much larger time vehicle, which contained three smaller jets of similar design aesthetic to the two that Vincent and Kelly had used. She teleported onto the vehicle, which warped after the other jumpers, aiming for the same destination.
Los Diablos, 2019
"Class, we have a new student today." Was the first thing Susanne Dodds said to her class. She was a 30-something woman, with brown hair and glasses, dressed in a woman's business suit "I'd like you to meet Mitchell Withers." She indicated the boy standing by the whiteboard. He was very petite, with black hair and brown eyes, dressed in a red collared shirt. After the class had said "Hello" in their usual droning tone of boredom, she continued. "Mitchell, how about you tell us a little about yourself?"
The boy spoke up. "Hi, my name's Mitchell, but you can call me Mitch if you want to. I just moved here with my aunt, who runs a clock repair shop. My hobbies include kick-boxing and aerobics, and my ambition is to do something that benefits the world in a way that makes sure everyone knows my name."
After the class had been let out for the day, Mitchell tried to get out of there and make his way to his new home as quickly as possible, only to be accosted by a very hyperactive blonde guy in a blue hoodie from home room. "So, you're the new kid, huh? What do you think of this place so far?"
"I guess it's ok.", was Mitch's reply. "If I have any complaints about Los Diablos so far, it's that that fountain is a total eyesore. I'd probably campaign to have it TORN DOWN."
"I hear ya.", the other guy said, reaching his hand out in friendship. "The name's Dave."
"Mitch.", was the reply, as Mitchell reached out his hand to reciprocate the handshake.
"I wouldn't be so quick to make friends with that guy.", Mitch and Dave turned towards the source of the voice, a brunette in a yellow cardigan. "It's not a friendship you can break off easily."
"I'll bear that in mind.", Mitch responded. "And you are."
"Britney.", came the reply from the girl. "Perhaps we can help you get to your house safely. This town attracts a lot of thugs and unpleasant elements at this time of day."
"As if on cue, a laser flew through the air, causing the three to flinch. They looked up to see two figures, an Asian girl and a black guy, neither of whom were students at the school. "That's as far as you go, you murderer.", The Asian girl said to Mitchell.
"We're going to end this and avenge our friends.", The black guy added.
Mitch was understandably confused. "I'm sorry, what're you talking about?" The two transformed into spandex-suited figures, the guy in light red, the girl in dark blue. They prepared their weapons for another shot.
"Never mind that now. Run!", Britney yelled, dragging Mitch along with Dave as the two began firing again. They made it out of the school and around the corner, where they were stopped by a middle-aged woman in a white cloak. "Do you mind? We're trying to get away from a pair of maniacs with lasers."
"That's why I'm here. To help you escape those "maniacs"." Was the woman's response to Britney's exasperation. She pulled out a remote and pressed a button. The four of them were teleported away, leaving behind two very bewildered pursuers, who quickly took off when they heard sirens heading towards their direction.
Nexus Hub
"So what you're saying is, those two come from a future where Mitch here becomes a tyrannical dictator, to make sure that Mitch doesn't become a tyrannical dictator?", Britney said, confused by what the woman known as Ignaroma had told them.
"Indeed.", was the woman's response. "And if they're travelling back to this era to take out the dictator, you know what they have in mind."
"So I'm gonna take over the world in the future.", Mitch commented with slight indifference. "At least I'm doing something to change the world. Just a shame I have to become an evil overlord to do it."
"You don't have to be.", Ignaroma told him. "I thought that if I could steer you onto a path that makes you something other than an overlord, then it would create a better future without any losses at all. A better future for you and your two…." Suddenly, she noticed that only Mitch and Britney were in the room with her. "Weren't there three of you when I picked you up?"
"She's right.", Mitch realised. "Where did Dave go? None of us have been able to leave this ship."
Britney thought it over and realised. "Does this thing have a control room? Dave's always suffered from a weird excitement when anything that could prove his Sci-Fi shows right rears it's head."
And sure enough, Dave was in the craft's control room, gazing in excitement at the controls. Ignaroma was not happy with him. "You're lucky you didn't mess with any of the controls before we found you. One wrong lever depressed could damage the functionality of this thing. And without proper materials, it could take months or even years to repair.
"I'm sorry.", Dave said sheepishly. "It's just that, you said this was a time machine, so I thought we could go for one trip through time. Nowhere too fancy, just a year or two."
You'd better humour him.", Britney said resignedly. "Once Dave decides on something, he won't give it up until he's satisfied."
"How did you get to be so wise as to the workings of this guy's thoughts?", Mitch asked, intrigued./p
"We've known each other since we were in diapers.", was Britney's response. "My mom is his godmother."
It was at this point that Ignaroma interjected to end this conversation. "Alright, I'll take you on one trip back in time, and then you'll go straight home." With that, she moved over to the console and set the co-ordinates. "You might want to buckle up. Trips through the Chronal Nexus are generally unpleasant."
And sure enough, everything started shaking, with the 3 teens making their way to a set of nearby chairs.
Summer Cove, 2017
"Is this it?", Dave said, disappointed. "This place looks like pretty much everywhere else in America from Blue Bay Harbour to Harwood County."
"Maybe this button will give us something else to look at." Mitchell said this as he reached out to touch said button, which was labelled "1PV".
"No, don't touch that!", Ignaroma yelled. But she was too late. Mitchell and Dave were ejected from from the ship and ended up at ground level.
Mitchell immediately picked up a discarded newspaper and showed the front page to Dave. "Well at least we know for sure that this is the past.", he said pointing at said front page.
Dave didn't quite understand what he was indicating. ""Teen develops magic powers"? He has to be faking it."
Mitch sighed. "No, the date." He said, barely masking his annoyance.
Sure enough the date was marked "Feb. 11th 2017". "Shame we had to go back to a day that was so lame.", Dave moaned. "Instead of something cool, like Kennedy in Dallas, or the signing of the Declaration of Independence."
"I'd look up if I were you.", Mitchell indicated towards the centre of the city. Sure enough, a giant robot dragon was blasting a wave of energy into the ground, which blasted a fire hydrant/turtle creature, causing it to explode.
Then the dragon split into a smaller robot, a dragon, a dump truck, a bullet train and a dog, all of which ran off to somewhere Mitch and Dave couldn't see. Then 5 brightly coloured people in spandex, similar to the two that had attacked them 2 years from now. But the blue seems to have mistimed his jump, because he ended up crashing into the alley, transforming back into a human being. "Man, I really need to work on my landings.", he commented, thinking he was alone. But then he saw the other 2 people in the alley. "You guys saw that, didn't you?", he said, nervously.
"Don't worry, we won't tell anyone.", Mitch assured him.
"Hey, I know that guy.", Dave realised. He held up the paper for reference. "You're the kid from today's evening pages. It says that your name's… Preston Tien. Am I saying that right? Tee-en?"
"Don't worry, you're saying it correctly.", Preston assured him. "So I guess you two are from outta town. I mean, you seemed pretty surprised at what you just saw."
Mitchell thought for a moment then responded. "Yeah, we're very much new here. We only stopped by for a visit, but I think we'll be on our way out pretty soon."
As he said that last part, the Nexus Hub appeared above his head, taking its wayward passengers back before disappearing back to the future. Preston responded with a single "Weird", before continuing with his life.
Across town, 2017
A solitary cyclist was moving along the road, when he noticed that a car had managed to come me close enough to hit him. Bu instead of hitting him, it just stopped, as did everything else around him. Everything except a red-coloured monster resembling a demon. A monster that was walking up to him.
"It's a pity that you showed such promise until this reckless driver came along and ruined everything.", the creature said.
"Who are you?", the cyclist said, terrified. "Can you help me escape this?"
"I am Vanger, Huntsman of Lord Chronos. I can help you escape your fate, but you must accept the power I offer you in exchange."
"I'll take it. Just get me out of here!"
"Very well.", Vanger pulled out a a slightly oversized cog, with the image of a stylised Shuriken on it. "Take the power of Ninja Steel and become my soldier of destruction, Ironobi!"
He placed the cog inside the cyclist, causing him to cry out in pain, before transforming into a feral Shuriken/Ninja creature with a sword where it's right hand should be, which moved out of the way as time started flowing again.
Los Diablos, 2019
The Nexus Hub transmatted its 4 passengers down to the ground, before landing elsewhere and cloaking. Ignaroma was not happy with the 2 boys.
"Do you have any idea what you could have done if left to your own devices?", she yelled. "If you don't understand a machine, you don't start pressing random colourful buttons. You're just lucky that you didn't change anything significant."
As she said this, the creature that Vanger had created after they were gone came into the scene. He blasted a pair of passers by, a soccer player and a swimmer, trapping their visages on a pair of shurikens. It then placed them on it's belt, next to several similar shurikens.
Britney was (rightfully) terrified. "Okay, what did you two get up to in 2017?"
"We didn't do anything really.", Dave protested. "All we did was talk to a Power Ranger. That's hardly likely to do anything serious to history, like a different guy in the White House."
"Though given what the situation of this country at the moment, I'd welcome that.", Mitch added.
"As would I." Mitch, Dave, Britney and Ignaroma turned towards the newcomer who had said that. It was a man in a black suit, carrying a briefcase. "Now now, down to business. That creature you see before you is an Alt-Ranger, an innocent who has been corrupted into a monster by the power of a Legendary Ranger team. These creatures serve a group known as the Disciples of Chronos, who intend to replace Dictator Valoris with a puppet they can control."
"How do you know all this?", Britney asked the man.
"Stay away from him.", Ignaroma insisted. "That man is Dictator Valoris' personal retainer, Gray. If he's here, then he's clearly up to no good."
Gray stopped her there. "I am here to help young Mitchell here achieve his destiny. His friends too, if he so desires." He opened the briefcase he was carrying to reveal 3 wristwatch-like devices, each with a coloured cog next to them(one red, one blue, one yellow). "These are the QuartzMorphers. They will allow you to transform into the Over Quartzer Rangers, simply by saying "Nexus Future, Now". I would recommend you take them before the Alt-Ranger gets away."
Taking the hint, Mitch, Dave and Britney picked up the QuartzMorphers and the cogs and put one each on their wrists. They then set the cogs inside their morphers and pressed the green button. "Nexus Future, Now!", they all yelled. With a flash, they were dressed in their Ranger outfits, which were identical except for their helmet patterns, colours and numbers. Mitch's had an Eagle pattern, a red colour scheme and a number 1. Dave's had a Whale pattern, blue colouration and a number 2. Finally, Britney's had a Tiger pattern, a yellow outfit and the number 3.
Mitch proceeded to do a pose. "Over Quartzer, Red Ranger!"
Dave followed his lead. "Over Quartzer, Blue Ranger!"
Britney was last in the queue. "Over Quartzer, Yellow Ranger!"
Then the three of them said in unison. "Riding the winds of time! Power Rangers, Over Quartzer!"
As Ironobi growled in confusion, Vanger was watching from the shadows. "So, the young Valoris has taken his first steps towards conquest. I'll soon stop that! He threw a pile of miniature models into the air and shot them with a disk containing the kanji for "growth", fired from his gauntlet. "Giga-Drones, attack!"
The now human-sized figures came to life and landed near Ironobi, who looked around with startled shock, before composing himself and grunting to indicate that they should follow him.
"Where did those guys come from?", Britney asked.
"Fight now, ask questions later.", Mitch insisted, drawing his blaster and red figuring it into a sword. The 3 ran into battle, with Dave and Britney fighting the Giga-Drones and Mitch clashing with Ironobi. Despite Mitch being able to fight back, Ironobi used the shurikens he had created to give himself new powers, such as passing through solid objects like they were water, or moving incredibly fast.
Eventually, Gray spoke up. "Rangers, call your special weapons."
"Special weapons?", Dave said confused. As he said this, he accidentally touched his belt buckle, summoning a giant cannon. "Whoah! This is so cool. Guys, touch your belts."
"Ok.", the two responded, doing as he said. This summoned their own weapons: a sword for Mitch and a Bo staff for Britney.
"Man, this is unbelievable.", Mitch said quietly, before yelling "Let's do it guys. Falcon Saber!"
"Whale Cannon!", Dave yelled.
"Tiger Bo!", Britney added.
They continued the fight, using their individual weapons to easily take out the Giga-Drones, leaving Ironobi all alone.
"All right, lets combine these babies.", Dave suggested.
Sure enough, the three weapons came together, with the Saber connecting to the underside of the cannon and the Bo clipping onto the top.
"Quartzer Launcher! Lock on target! Fire!" The Launcher released a massive wave of energy that hit Ironobi head on, knocking him down. Then the 3 turned towards Gray, with Britney asking "Why did you help us? We're trying to stop your Dictator from taking control."
"I helped you because fate foretold that I would come to help the young Mitchell Withers begin his destiny.", was all Gray had to say. "And that the Rogue Rangers Vincent and Kelly would show up to confront you after your initial victory."
"What did you say?", Ignaroma asked, concerned. But instead of answering, Gray merely walked off, vanishing as he did so. Sure enough, the other two, still transformed, appeared on the scene.
"Looks like Valoris is starting to take shape already.", Kelly notes, seeing the 3 new Rangers. "Is this your doing, Ignaroma? I thought we were friends."
"It doesn't matter.", Vincent commented. He took out the cog with the yellow teeth emblem and inserted it into another slot on his morpher. "Let's just power up and take them all out here and now." He closed the slot and pressed a button marked "Sync". "Unleash the Power! Dino Charge!" Vincent's costume transformed, now having armour reminiscent of a dinosaur, with a silver shoulder pad on his left shoulder, a velociraptor molded into his helmet and a armour resembling the emblem over his chest. The belt had also changed, with the weapons changing to a yellow khaki gun resembling a T-Rex and a sword in the other slot. Kelley's outfit now looked much the same, but with a parasaurolophus mold.
"This could be a problem.", Mitch commented.
With all attention focused on the two newcomers, no-one noticed Ironobi's fingers twitching….