1. Powers of the Universe
The sound of light machinery filled the background of a dig site near the city of Seraph Orchard. A teenager by the name of Teresa Jones is busy dusting off a new find when her friends show up at the top of the excavation hole. The five of them had been best friends since elementary school and were currently on a school trip that would prove to dig up more than a few old bones…
"Isn't this great, you guys?" Teresa exclaimed, holding up a broken arrowhead she just got done cleaning.
"I don't know how you convinced me to come," a girl said aloud, climbing into the hole carefully so not to get her pink dress dirty. "There's dirt everywhere!"
"Of course there's dirt," another girl said as she entered with her. "It's a dig site; they dig into the dirt, Jess." She giggled softly as their two male friends came up behind them.
"Hey, Devin, remind me why I'm here." The two males of the group went into the hole at the same time.
"Because you're graduating and we all agreed it'd be fun for a last hoorah, so to speak. We still have you for the summer, but this gives us some good bonding time, Erik." He reached out to pinch his cheek playfully, but Erik swatted his hand away.
As the five laughed, an evil force was nearing their planet. A powerful witch named Marisa Sorcière was searching for a powerful wizard and had reason to believe he was hiding on the planet Earth. She decided to make base on the moon for the time being, and stumbled upon what remained of the machine empire's moon base. With a wave of her staff the entire empire transformed into a fortress with many likenesses of her.
"We'll take this empire as our own, since the machine empire is no more I'll assume they won't mind."
It's a very nice empire, my queen," said an ugly fellow standing next to her outside the Empire's front entrance. He had no face; instead it appeared as if skin had been stretched over where it should have been. The rest of his body looked like it was decaying and was covered by armor. He was a daunting seven feet tall, shadowing all those around him.
"Silence, Titan. I don't need your attitude." Marisa snapped, but Titan only grunted in response. "Where is Festro?"
"He's in the ship still, working." The large creature replied.
"Has he found him?"
"Not yet, but he has a general ide—"
"Well go down there and find him you overgrown zombie!"
Titan grunted again and gave her a nod before he sank into the ground beneath them, teleporting to earth. A feeling of discontent flooded through Marisa as she began to worry, because the man she was looking for was very powerful. She was almost defeated by him once, and she was lucky to have gotten away. She made her way into her new Empire, and could do nothing more than hope that her overgrown goon could get the job done.
Back at the dig site the class was getting ready to leave when Titan showed up, rising out of the ground with a group of more human looking creatures, which he referred to as zombies. They were like Titan in that their skin seemed to be decaying, but they weren't very bright and ran around destroying anything in sight. They scared everyone, however. They all scattered except for the five friends who were caught in the middle of the crowd of zombies.
The five of them were surrounded by the zombies. They tried to fight them off but only Devin had a history of martial arts. He became a black belt at age thirteen and continued to practice and hone his skills. He assisted Teresa who was scrambling to get the finds to safety. The zombie goons were thrashing about, destroying anything and everything they laid their rotting, putrid eyes on.
"Stop wasting time with the humans and find what we were sent here for!" Titan bellowed, making his way through the site.
"Guys, we need to get out of here!" Erik yelled as the five joined together again.
"Yeah, I don't think we'll survive much longer against these creatures," Teresa agreed. "Let's head for the woods, I think everyone else made it out already."
"Right!" The other four shouted in unison. Led by Devin, the group fought through the zombies and made a break for the tree line. As they got out, Teresa's eyes met with the faceless monster leading the horde. In her haste she couldn't make out many details, but she'd remember him for a long time. That thing has no face, she thought as she shot through the trees into the nearby woods.
Soon the five found themselves being chased by more zombies. They were much faster than the humans but not as smart, or balanced for that matter. They tripped a few times and one ran into a large tree. They didn't have to worry about them for long as they soon found themselves falling through an opening in the forest floor. The zombies peered into the hole but gave up and began running back to the site.
The group yelled and screamed but soon found themselves landing sort of softly on a pile of leaves and old boxes. Dust filled the air, making the group cough and sneeze, but when it settled there was nothing but darkness surrounding them. They climbed off the boxes and began stumbling through the darkness.
"What is this place," Teresa pondered out loud.
"I don't know but my dress is probably ruined after that fall!" Jessica whined, stomping a foot down. The rest just chuckled and tried to adjust to the dark.
Then Teresa let out a yelp as she tripped over something, stumbling forward until she reached a wall. She grabbed onto something sticking out of the wall and pushed it down. The entire room lit up and revealed many computers and other technologies. The most interesting thing was a large tube at the far end of the room with a man's body in it.
"Guys, you might want to see this," Teresa shouted back at her friends.
"My queen," Titan began as a report to Marisa. "We've been unable to locate the wizard at the dig site."
"Then have the zombies spread out, there's a city nearby… If you have to, tear it apart."
"Yes, my queen. Zombies, we're heading to the city!" The zombies cheered as they got ready to go to the city, preparing to destroy as much as possible. They all sank into the ground and reappeared in Orchard Park at the edge of the city, where many people were enjoying a nice sunny day. When the monsters appeared the people all scattered, screaming at the top of their lungs.
"That's right, humans. Run for your lives!" Titan yelled out, and then laughed joyfully at the sight of the frightened citizens.
"Danger, danger! Alert, intruders in the Power Base!" The five teens were staring at the man in the tube when suddenly a small robot appeared, yelling at them and running around frantically. He was short and red with a gold, circular head. His voice was high and he seemed to be a bit spastic.
"Whoa, calm down! We're not intruders—" Erik shouted, trying to calm the robot down.
"Well technically we are," Teresa began. Then she turned to the robot and continued, "But we fell in here on accident. We fell through a hole in your ceiling."
"Danger, danger!" Devin looked at the robot, which was still running around, and then ran up to it and held it still while fiddling around with its circuitry inside. "Whoa, get your hands out of me ya weirdo!" The robot shouted as Devin finished whatever he was doing.
"There, it seems as if years of not being used and acuminating dust messed up with your circuit board." He said calmly, backing away from the robot that was not fully in control of itself. He didn't know what it would do now.
"What are you kids doing in here anyways?" He said, walking to one of the control panels and wiping off the dust and cobwebs. He put a hand to his forehead and shook his head, "Aye, aye, aye, what happened. I don't even remember!"
"We were running from some monsters and fell through a hole. We landed over there," Teresa explained, pointing at the pile of boxes that they landed on.
"Oh dear," he said, pressing a button on the control panel. Then, as if by magic, the hole repaired itself. The entire room began to glow bright and then it dulled just as quickly as it came. "There, now the building is reinforced again!" He turned back to the five who had gathered into a group and were staring at him.
"What are you?" Jessica asked, and Glory nodded as if to say she wished to know that, too.
"I'm a robot, duh." He said simply. "Now I think you five should get out of here, and if you tell anyone about this place you can be sure that I will find you." He pointed at the group and waved his finger, but no one could tell if he was serious or not.
"Look, I think we deserve some answers!" Teresa shouted, pointing at the man in the tube. "What's going on here?"
An alarmed sounded as the robot messed around on the control panel. He complained about the noise and walked over to a large screen on the wall beside the tube. On it was Orchard Park where Titan was attacking the citizens there, and the zombies were being zombies. The five watched as Titan laughed manically, having too much fun terrorizing the citizens. The robot started to run away but Teresa followed him into another room, despite the other four calling out to her for her to stop.
"Where are you going, answer our questions you-?" Then suddenly she stopped when she noticed that the room was pitch black after the doors closed. "Hello?" Then lights turned on in the center of the room, lighting up a stand of some kind with a metal box on top of it. The robot was behind it looking at the contents inside.
"Good, good, they're still here at least." He reassured himself. "Without these, we'd never be able to stop that witch." The robot picked up the box and began walking out of the room, and then he turned around and looked at the confused girl. "Come along then."
"Alright…" She followed him out of the room and they rejoined the other five.
"Alright you five, join around me." The five formed a circle around the robotic creature and looked at each other nervously. "My name is Alpha V3, but you can call me Alpha. That man is a powerful Wizard who was put to sleep by a powerful wizard named Marisa Sorcière. That monster is one of her minions, Titan. There is only one power in the Universe that can defend the earth from her now." He opened the box back up and revealed five rings to the teens.
"What are those?" Teresa asked. Alpha turned to her and pulled one out.
"These are the power rings; hold out your finger." She held her ring finger out and he put the ring on it, and it shrank to fit her finger perfectly. She was surprised and it showed on her face. "What is your name?"
"Teresa Jones." She replied hesitantly.
"Teresa, you will control the power of the Red Burning Sun Ranger." Then he gave out the rest of the rings in the same manner.
"Devin Philips."
"You will control the power of the Blue Lunar Tide Ranger."
"Glory Harrison…" She was very hesitant; she was very reluctant to give the robot her finger but she didn't want her friends to think she was afraid so she did so without letting how scared she was show on her face.
"You will control the power of the Yellow Cosmic Asteroid Ranger."
"Erik Parker."
"You will control the power of the Black Null Space Ranger."
"Jessica Root."
"You will control the power of the Pink Shooting Star Ranger.
"This ring totally goes with my outfit!" She seemed the most excited, if only because she had a new fashion accessory.
"Not only that, but when you call upon the power of your ring, you'll get the power to defeat that overgrown pile of rotting flesh!" Alpha said, excitement filling his voice as well as a bit of sarcasm at the beginning. The five looked at each other in confusion until Teresa decided to step forward and give it a try.
"I call upon the power of the Burning Sun!" She raised her hand with the ring on it into the air and it began to shine with a red light. A tight, spandex suit began to cover her body quickly until it covered her entire form except for her head. Then green lines took shape around her head and a helmet formed in another flash of light. She turned around to show everyone and unlatched her helmet to take it off and hold it in her arms. Her hair was put up in a ponytail magically and she had a look of great excitement.
"My turn," Devin said, stepping forward. "I call upon the power of the Lunar Tide!"
"I call upon the power of the Cosmic Asteroid!"
"I call upon the power of the Null Space!"
"I call… Um, who am I again? Oh yeah, I call upon the power of the Shooting Star!" All the others morphed in a similar way, with their own colors in replace of hers.
"Alright, guys!" Teresa put her helmet back on and turned to face the same direction as the others in the group. "Power on!" The five of them were teleported out of the Power Base in beams of light that were fixed with their colors.
"Good luck, Rangers…" Alpha turned to face the man in the large tube. He walked up to it and put his metallic hand onto the glass. "I can sense the good in them, Mason. I'm doing what I was programmed to; protect you and the powers of the universe. If Marisa is here, I needed to entrust the powers to them. I don't know how we ended up without power, but we couldn't have gotten it back at a better time."
"Hiya!" The rangers yelled courageously, or perhaps foolishly, as they came into Titan's view. Though he couldn't show it, since he lacked a face, it was obvious that Titan was quite surprised to see the spandex-clad rangers.
"Your terrorizing of these innocent people is over, Titan!" Teresa yelled at the head of the group.
"Oh really? Just because you found the power rings you think you're tough shit, huh?"
"We'll show you 'tough shit'." Erik mumbled.
"Alright everyone, let's show him what we've got!" Teresa ran at the large creature and everyone followed. They all fought him from every angle but couldn't get a fatal shot in. Their attacks didn't so much as dent his armor.
"Rangers!" The voice of Alpha came through inside their helmets. "Titan is much stronger than the zombies; if you're going to defeat him you'll need special artillery!"
"Right, Alpha!" Teresa responded, putting a finger to the side of her helmet to activate communication. "You heard him, guys. I call upon the Nova Blaster!" She raised her hand and a large gun appeared in a flash of red light.
"Right, I call upon the Luna Staff!" Devin followed and a long staff with a blade at each end appeared in his hand.
"I… I call upon the Astral Flail!" Glory yelled out hesitantly, raising her hand in an almost closed fist instead of open handed like the others. In it she received a flail with an oversized ball.
"Kickin', I call upon the power of the Void Hatchets!" Erik raised both his hands and received two large axes. "These are awesome!"
"I hope mine goes with my cute new uniform," Jessica said excitedly. "I call upon the Crystal Bow!" In her hand was a large bow made out of some kind of crystal that was tinted hot pink, the same color as her Ranger suit.
"You think your weapons can hurt me?" Titan yelled out with a very cocky attitude. He reached down and drew his sword from a sheath at his side. "Come at me, Rangers." The rangers followed orders as directed and ran directly at him. They attacked in the same order that they called on their weapons. Teresa missed her first attack, but Devin managed to get a blow in. His attack sent Titan back a few steps. He was stunned, surprised that they could even harm him. Glory wasn't as keen into attacking as the others were but her flail seemed to guide itself towards him. Erik leaped through the air and hit him with both of his hatchets.
"I don't even know how I'm supposed to use this," Jessica said. "I guess I…" She aimed it like a normal bow and pulled back like there was a string which formed a beam of light in the shape of an arrow pointed in his direction. Inside her helmet she gave a sly grin as she let go of the arrow. It hit the corpse directly in the center of his chest. Titan was overwhelmed by the barrage of attacks. He stumbled a few feet before falling to his knees. He looked up to see Teresa pointing her Nova Blaster where his face would be, just a foot in front of him.
"I won't miss this time…" She said solemnly. She fired the weapon but the large creature sank into the ground, along with the other zombies, and teleported back to the Empire. The five celebrated, joining around Teresa and congratulated each other.
"Alright you guys, that was great!" Erik said after everyone calmed down.
"Yes, great job, Rangers." The voice of Alpha came through the headsets again, congratulating the five for their efforts. "If the world needs you again, I'll be sure to get a hold of you somehow! Alpha, over and out!"
"Alright, Alpha. Rangers out…" Teresa responded. "Power down, guys." The five faced the same direction with Teresa at the head and put their fists together. A light circled each of them, lowering from the top of their heads to their feet, their power suits disappearing as it went down.
Elsewhere, Marisa sat in a large chair at the top of her Empire. It was facing outside toward the planet when Titan rose out of the ground at her feet. He was down on one knee with one arm tucked under his chest, bowing to his queen. He was afraid that she would be mad that he retreated like he did, but she looked down at him with a smile. She was actually very happy.
"My dear, Titan." She said, bending over to pet him on his head. Her hand rubbed over his rotting scalp like he was a furry pet. "Never fear, the Power Rangers are here." She looked back up at the planet and sat back to relax in her throne.
"But my queen, won't that make it harder to find and destroy Mason?"
"Just be glad we found him, love. Since they have the Power Rings, that means he is on Earth for sure. It's only a matter of time until we find out where he's been hiding and dispose of him properly. Just a matter of time…" She let out a maniacal laugh that echoed through the entire Empire. Titan stayed in the same position, staring at the ground. Despite Marisa's evident happiness, he wasn't as pleased. He knew how Marisa got when she didn't get her way, and if the Power Rangers proved to be as strong of a force as they seemed to be that day, he knew she wouldn't stay this calm about the matter for long.