Vengeance's heartbreak

Bulk and Skull were as always side by side on their day off. Work had been hard on their simple minds, but Skull had not minded, Bulk had not ever really let him down, and after a full lifetime of friendship it was hard to imagine life without the heavyweight best friends beside him. Bulk was drinking down his fifth fountain drink for the day, and while he was doing a lot better than there teen years, and not actively searching for the Power Ranger's. That had died a while ago, and now they were just simply enjoying the day. That is until they noticed like several hundred people that a dark cloud was moving surprisingly fast.

Skull momentarily remembered a horrific dream that he had had not two nights before that had clouds exactly like that. But he shook himself from that silly notion, what would clouds in reality have to do with clouds he witnessed in his dream? The Clouds in his dreams were a warning of strange creatures that would lead one to think of Rita and Zedd's putties mating with a few of the other monsters that had been unleashed on Earth. They did this strange thing when they touched a few people, it made them glow and scream, and then slowly turn to what looked like highly compressed ash. Horror written across their face, nevertheless, Skull reminded himself that those creatures were only in his dream.

Much like the strange way that in his dreams lately a odd thing occurred when he walked by things that reflected, he never saw a body only wings, beautiful wings that he felt the uncontrollable urge to reach out and touch. Wings the most beautiful polished shades of yellow and gold, he felt child like when he saw them, giddy and playful like he was when he first met Bulk all those years ago as a child.

Skull was about to look down the street and see if the hot dog cart was coming or not, when a ice cold shock ran through his body, and a eerie feeling began to build, in his mind he heard a steady shout beginning to build. Looking back up the cloud was not as the dark clouds in his dream, but something a little more familiar, the clouds dropped down creatures that were made up of ice and metal, and they ran full tilt into anything, clumsy and yet menacing creatures. Bulk froze, this was new, and yet he was trained to look around, one did not look for Power Rangers for years without gaining a near tingling idea of what would fully draw them out.

As if something were up the creatures managed to start getting a hold of people and while many were just scared witless and managed to escape others, around four or five total were not so lucky. Bulk and others then began to flee. Skull was moving as well at first, until it seemed the air was knocked out of him when one of the creatures managed to pounce on him, and then another grabbed hold of Bulk, who let out an almighty loud screamed . . . almost girly. Skull would have teased him about it if it was not followed by the whole of Bulk's body turning to a sickly grey color. The scream was quickly silenced, and something deep inside of Skull snapped, snapped like over stressed steel. Skull felt blackness overtake him, and oddly he felt safe in it.

Atop the largest building in the area, a man stood, his body lanky and oddly disfigured, with his right arm three times as thick as his left, which matched the thickness of his left leg. His face was oddly tilted; with one side of his face sagging. He looked to be an eighty-six year old man, and yet something in his eyes were screaming out the age of his body meant nothing.

It had taken him this long to be able to just call up the necessary energy to call forth his old foot soldiers; the Ashis (Ash-EE-ss) would only drain the energies of the most pure and they whose bodies could yield the most energy. The man felt the energies gathering and helping him. His body started to look like melted putty for a moment and slowly they formed into a man whose looks were not bad. But the man's eyes were blacker then the darkest night.

His plan was going well until something started to disrupt his gathering. Something he felt draw out fear in his soul, the pained cries of an Angel, as its heart broke. His soul remembered that sound. That sound had come not hours before nearly all his forces were taken out by the insane rage of the Angels of Trial and Rebirth. He looked around and then down, his body felt cold as the only Ranger he had not fully upset in his first life was seen. The yellow and gold wings of the Angel of Vengeance was clear, and it did not take long for the newly awakened angel to begin to rip apart what few of his forces he could summon up. Panicking a bit, he recalled his forces; he would have to choose another area, one where the Power Ranger's lived. The only area he could recall from the news reports was Angel grove, but that was years ago. He could look around, he needed fear, and he needed the life-force energies, to be able to find his old body. The magic within it could get him to be the top dog on Earth.

Down on the streets, the Angel of Vengeances held no quarter for the Ashies, and ripped them apart. The pitiful creatures were not fully powered and not able to withstand the touch of such a divinely creature being. Power dances across the wings as he ran, mad with grief, Skull's heartbreak too much for the creature to understand upon awakening. By the time the Power Ranger's did show up they had a hard thing on their hands, they knew from reports that the yellow/gold angel was hurt, and from what people said it sounded sick with grief. So they knew only one thing, either had to knock it out/manage to get it to sleep; or put it down, because it had no enemies to take out now and was chasing phantoms.

Reefside was not a happy place to be for the Angel right now. Tommy surveyed the sad creature and was about to power up his staff to knock it out, when he had a strange idea. Kimberly had once used music to an interesting effect. Kira seemed to as well, the Angel's sobs were heard loudly as it moved to weep before a hug ash sculpture of what had once been a human being, the four of them felt sick with sadness if this had once been the Angel's family.

Kira's soft voice echoed around the area, soft words which were only meant to comfort and made no real logical séance, as if codling a child. Tommy was impressed, that is until a small portion of eth clouds shot to earth, this was not good! Out of the cloud came a man, one who seemed the Angel recognized. The man's hands were empty at first and then a sickly blackened sword formed, "I will not let you ruined my plans this time Vengeance, you had your time, now it will be mine!"

The man charged, and the Angel reacted, its powerful wings flapped hard and fast. The creature had no weapon, but that seemed to not truly matter. The man fought and it took returning to the cloud to finally wipe the Angel's energies out, it fell to its knees, the group of them were shocked, that angel had more speed than any Ranger they ever knew, more than they thought any ranger should. Kira began her singing again and managed to get close to the angel, walking around it, her yellow Power Ranger cloths keeping her safe.

Kira watched as the Angel's body went limp and fell to the ground, stopped by her body as she caught him, and the angel's body broke away showing his un-morphed angel form. She looked to Tommy, and soon the Black Ranger had rushed over and picked the former Angel up. They had to get this man away, before something else happened to him, awake he was too powerful to be safe for the public. Using their Zords they moved quickly back to the command center. After they arrived they noted something about this man that sent them all on edge, his cells were changed, and while he could have been human before, he most certainly was not human now.

"What happened to him Tommy? Is it like what happened to us? IS he another Power Ranger?" Tommy looked over all his instruments, and he frowned, "If he is he is not tapping into the morphing grid, like all other Power Ranger's do." Connor was oddly drawn to the angel, as if the man once angel had something him that called to Connors soul.

Hours had passed by the time the man started to wake. Tommy had called around to the other Ranger teams he knew of, and almost every former Ranger he could get his hands on, asking if they had seen anything like them. It made no logical séance if the Angel was a power Ranger form and no Red power ranger was looking in on him. Tommy for cure knew it was almost ingrained into the red rangers DNA to make sure his team was safe.

Ethan was the sad sap to have the evidence that the man was awake, it seemed that these particular; Power Ranger's came with a lot more power than they did. Ethan found himself floating and gripping his throat, "Why hast thou imprisoned me?" Came a hissed deep and clearly agitated male voice, complete with glowing golden eyes in its host's face. Tommy rushed in and spoke, "Stop it, were not going to hurt you."

The man slowly stood and looked around, "From whence hast thou taken me? Prey where is Sacculectomy? That filth should have been cast into the very fires, and been destroyed!" Tommy was a bit confused about the manner of speech and yet it spoke volumes, this was clearly not a New Ranger, perhaps a very, very old one. "You're at our home; you were hurt and doing a lot of damage. We brought you here to keep you safe and also to keep everyone else from trying to hurt you. Who is Sacculectomy?" That seemed the first real good move Tommy had done, as the glowing eyes dimmed and Ethan was gently allowed to once again hold himself up.

"Prey mortal, what is the year? When last I fought the year was not yet current among mortals, it was the five hundredth year of the stars. We were not yet given full leave by the Tribunal of Magic to give our gifts fully to mortal men of this planet." The man said then stopped, Tommy, Kira and Connor clearly had no idea what the man was talking about. Ethan seemed to have an idea, but before he could speak up, the man talked seemingly to himself, "No, I know it's been a long time. I am reborn . . . reborn and reforged, no wonder it is I who am in control now. My soul is not yet healed."

"If you don't mind us asking, who are you? What's your name?" Kira asked, snapping the man out of his internal conversations. He shook himself a little, and slowly answered, "This body has lived under the name of Eugene Skullovitch; or more to the point; I believe your leader has called this body Skull more than once. The process of returning has begun. Which means the others will be waking and the gift of the Tribunal will soon wan."

You could have knocked Tommy over with a feather, Skull? Skull was now a Power Ranger, what was the world coming to, and why was he acting weird. But then a sick feeling ran through him, the ash pile could clearly have been Bulk, and Skull could have snapped, allowing something else to overtake him. Shivering a little, Tommy had to ask,

"Is it that you are him or have you taken over him? Skull was many things but I would not wish him to be imprisoned in his own body." Skull's body laughed, "The manner of progression is illusive to mortals, and it is neither. My enemy overpowered my team and to keep him imprisoned for the length of time the Tribunal of Magic had ordered, our souls were cut in two, one of us were in the rebirth cycle to make up the loss while the red stood guard. Skull is me and I he. He is a part of us and us apart of him; soon we will be once again being one." Tommy was floored; Ethan snorted, and said "You got to be kidding me, a soul split in two; as if that's possible." Connor and Kira wanted to smack Ethan's head. Skull laughed, "I could rip your soul in three right now, and I am yet at the maximum of my power. It's a simple trick, for souls not yet far enough along in the progression line to hold themselves together."

"I would rather you not" Tommy interjected and Kira and Connor took a step backwards. Skull shook his head, "Things shall gain measure in complication before all of my more powerful team members awake. I am by far the one to wonder the most about, but they are more feared." Tommy hopped that the strength of Earth's defenses would hold up. They had faced bad guys before, and the power had always protected them. This was going to be just another one of them.

To be continued . . .

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