Wasting no time at all, the Red Ranger charged straight at his opponent, Tristan following him closely behind. The Red Ranger swung his saber forwards, hoping to lock blades with his opponent, but he was far too strong and the saber's attack was deflected easily, so easily that the Ranger nearly lost grip of the weapon entirely. Before he could counter, the enemy slashed at him, forcing him and Tristan to dive away.
Both rolled out of the dive and jumped back up just in time to see the golden-armored foe rushing at them. Tristan moved aside as the other combatants engaged each other in a sword fight, the power and aggression from both sides was terrifying.
'What am I doing?' Tristan thought as he watched the combat continue. 'I'm so out of my depth here it's not even funny. This is... This is real.' Something inside of him still wanted to keep fighting, but the fact that they were both wielding powerful weapons didn't do much for his confidence. Looking back up, he saw that the Ranger was in trouble, having been forced onto the defensive. Seeing that there was no other way, Tristan rushed into the battle.
The Red Ranger saw Tristan coming towards them. 'He's either very brave, or very stupid.' He thought, realizing that he could use this to his advantage. With careful timing, he attacked the golden warrior in a way that forced him to block, leaving his side completely exposed, just in time for Tristan to deliver a flying kick.
It hit the mark spot on, but failed to do any damage. The warrior flung around to slash at Tristan, giving him just enough time to dodge it.
The Red Ranger quickly jumped back knowing that his plan was working out exactly what was intended. "Fireball!" he cried as he held a hand up in front of him, another orb materializing in his hands. This one was clear and see-through and appeared to have real flames roaring inside.
Slotting it into the right slot on his belt, he stuck his saber into the ground, its sharp blade piercing into the stone path. He pulled back his right hand, just as a baseball player would if he was throwing the ball. At this point, red mist appeared until it formed a ball of fire, blazing away just above his palm.
Throwing himself forwards, he flung the fireball with great force, speeding towards his opponent. As he did so, he twirled around and grabbed his saber in his left hand, its solid red blade slashing the warrior as he finished the spin. As he slowed to a stop, the orb he had just put into his belt faded away.
The warrior grunted in pain as Tristan backed away, running back to the Red Ranger. Turning to the pair, he shook off the blows as if nothing had happened, charging at them again, sword in hand...
Meanwhile, amidst the chaos, Emily had managed to get the children into the local leisure centre, where she ran up to one of the staff. "Tell me, is it safe here?" she asked them with a panicked tone to her voice.
The staff member nodded in response. "For the moment it is, our security staff are doing their best to hold off those things outside, I just hope it all ends soon."
Emily wasted no time in responding. "Please, can you take care of these children? Me and a friend of mine were able to save them from being attacked, but they need somewhere to go until this dies down. Please!"
Looking around, the staff member tried to find a place they could go. "I'm sure we can find somewhere."
Finding some small happiness in knowing that the children would be safe, she ushered them to follow the staff. "You'll be safe now, hurry."
One of them looked up at her, confused. "You're not coming?"
Shaking her head, Emily rushed to the door. "I can't, there's some people out there that still need my help. Go on, everything's OK."
The children silently nodded and rushed into a nearby room. Emily watched them disappear before rushing back outside into the chaos. Stopping briefly to look around, there was nothing but carnage and destruction everywhere. Knowing she couldn't stop for too long, she started running as fast as she could as many thoughts ran through her mind. 'Tristan... Glen... Please, please be safe!'
As she continued to run back to the alleyway, she heard a familiar voice. "Em! Em!!!"
She quickly came to a halt as she quickly scanned the nearby streets, a smile beaming over her face as she started to run towards the source. "Glen! You're OK!"
Both of them stopped when they reached each other. Glen spoke first. "I'm fine, I don't know what the heck is going on around here, but you're not going to believe this – I just got saved by some guy in a black suit!"
Before Emily could reply, she noticed more of the attackers coming from where Glen had been. "Looks like you brought some friends with you. We have to get out of here!" she said as she started running again.
Glen wasted no time in chasing after her, not wanting to get into another one-sided fight again. "Where are you going? Where's Tristan?" he yelled as they ran for their lives.
"That guy you mentioned, in black... I left him with some guy in red, fighting someone who seems to have something to do with all this." she replied as they rounded the next corner.
"In that case we have to pick up the pace!" Glen said as the pair started sprinting. 'Just what in hell is going on here, anyways?' he thought to himself as they ran past more of the attackers.
Meanwhile, the fight was still raging and it was becoming very clear that the Red Ranger and Tristan couldn't win. Despite their best efforts, the Red Ranger could do nothing but continue to block and evade the constant attacks, whilst all of Tristan's interventions amounted to very little.
As Tristan dodged out of the way yet again, he saw something down the other end of the alleyway. Stopping for a second to check what it was, he could see someone in Pink running towards them, followed by a horde of the attackers.
'A Pink Ranger...' he thought. Looking towards her, he could clearly see at least 10 rushing after her. Taking a quick glance behind him, he could see that the duel was still in full swing. 'I must be out of my mind!' He thought as he ran towards the Pink Ranger.
The Red Ranger saw his comrade up ahead, but there was nothing he could do. Seeing the boy running to aid her, he couldn't help but feeling some kind of respect for him. 'Yes, that's right. Your tactics are sound.' He thought as he now realized that the best thing he could do was buy time. 'Where are you?' he wondered as he started to become tired from trying to keep up with his opponents seemingly limitless energy.
"Don't let them get any closer!" Tristan yelled to the Pink Ranger as he flung himself into combat with the assailants, adeptly evading their blows, hoping the Pink Ranger would take care of them.
The Pink Ranger stopped and turned around to see him fighting with all his strength. "I'm not the type to take orders..." she began to say as she held out her hand. "But on this occasion, you do have a point. Wind staff!" she cried as a silver orb appeared. Slotting it into her belt's left slot and held her hand out, just like the Red Ranger had done. A pink mist appeared and took the shape of a staff covered in white and pink, a large pink crystal was embedded in both ends of the weapon.
She charged forward and began to strike the enemies down, her powerful staff taking out many of them with ease. As they were thrown back however, even more of them appeared from behind the corner.
"Playtime's over." The Ranger said with a cold tone, holding her hand out. "Wind Tunnel!" she cried, an orb materializing in her hands, this one was different from the one Tristan saw the Red Ranger use. This one was still clear, but with a dim pink light within it. Slotting it into the right hand slot, both the right and left orbs began to glow in a bright pink light.
Standing up straight, she held the staff in the middle and began twirling it around at high speed. Tristan saw the danger coming and dived aside as a massive, constant blast of wind was emitted from the staff, throwing the enemies against the wall. As it held them there, pink orbs of energy also flew from the staff, striking them with huge force. As the last of them fell, she stopped the attack. Both glowing orbs in her belt faded away and her weapon disappeared.
Tristan ran up to her, wanting to yell at her for giving him no warning, but as he looked behind him, he saw a horrifying sight – the Red Ranger being slashed and thrown against a wall. "No!" he yelled as he started to run back to him. The Pink Ranger, seeing it as well, gasped in shock and quickly followed.
As they approached, Emily and Glen could see it too and were just as helpless as Tristan and the Pink Ranger as they watched the golden warrior deliver a vertical slash, an attack which the Red Ranger couldn't dodge. Several bursts of sparks flew everywhere from the Ranger's suit as he took the full toll of the attack.
As both groups approached, the warrior stepped back, watching the Ranger slump to the ground as a bright red light engulfed him. As it faded, his human form was revealed. Seeing the Pink Ranger approaching, he knew that he couldn't stay.
All of a sudden, Tristan yelled "Get down!" Confused, Glen and Emily looked behind them as a massive ball of black energy approached them at high speed. They hit the floor as it soared over them, heading straight for the golden warrior. As it approached however, he swung his sword upwards, easily deflecting the blast as it flew into the sky, where it disappeared.
Following the blast to its source, the warrior saw a Black Ranger running towards him, holding some kind of weapon that faded away like the Wind Staff had done. Shaking his head, he prepared to teleport. Looking down at the fallen Ranger, he spoke. "I will withdraw... For now." Stepping back, he began to glow in a golden aura once more.
"W... Wait. Who the hell are you?" the fallen Ranger asked, coughing and writhing in pain.
"Vazon." He replied, turning into a golden ball and disappearing. As he did so, everyone could see beams of light rushing into the skies from all directions. It appeared that the battle was over, for the time being.
Everyone ran towards the fallen Ranger, the Black Ranger being the last to get there.
The fallen Ranger looked severely injured, cuts, gashes and bruises everywhere. He wore black boots, black trousers and a black jacket with some red stripes across the chest. In a way, it almost looked like he was part of some military. Judging from his appearance, he was only about 5 or 6 years older than the 3 friends, with short, black hair and green eyes.
"Derek!" the Pink Ranger cried as she dived down next to him. Tristan and the others also gathered around. "If only I'd been faster." She wept.
With a weak voice, Derek spoke. "We have to... We must... Go."
"Go where?!" Tristan asked. The Black and Pink Rangers looked at the 3 civilians, knowing what they had to do.
The Black Ranger reached for his wrist and pressed two buttons. A black ring of energy surrounded the group. Before anyone could say anything, they turned into different colored balls of light and flew away, the Rangers in their respective colors, the friends in white...
In space, meanwhile, Vazon was on the bridge, where he took his helmet off and put it to one side, leaving his sword with it. One of his footsoldiers approached him.
"Energy sources have been lost. They are gone. 23% of our forces were eliminated." It exclaimed. "What would you have us do now?"
Vazon looked at it, he appeared to be holding back tears. "Standby mode. All of you." He quickly spat out as he rushed out of the bridge without another word.
"Yes sir." Came the reply as it stopped moving, as did all of them across the ship...
Meanwhile, in a secret building somewhere in the city, the Rangers and their new acquaintances materialized. The 3 friends looked around, but before they could say anything, the two Rangers, still morphed, rushed towards Derek.
The Pink Ranger looked up at the Black Ranger. "Medbay, hurry!" she cried. Nodding, the Black Ranger picked Derek up and carried him towards a door. The Pink Ranger hurried over and pressed the button to open it, rushing inside. Tristan and the others looked at each other and nodded, following them inside.
The room, just like the one they had come from, was a simple grey color. There were many complicated looking consoles lining the far wall, with various monitors scattered around the other walls. Several strange looking beds were around the room, raised to about waist height. Derek was moved over to one of them and was made to lie down on it as the Pink Ranger looked at some consoles at the end of the bed.
"How does it look?" The Black Ranger asked as the Pink Ranger shook her head.
"His vitals are dropping! He might not even survive stasis!" she replied, her tone clearly showing that she was upset
"We have to try." Came the reply.
Suddenly, Derek, who was falling into and out of consciousness, spoke. "You, kid... Come."
Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at Tristan, who approached the injured Ranger as he continued speaking.
"Your name... What is it?"
"Tristan." He replied. He was shaking from a combination of fear of this unknown place, and the terrors of the battle he had just left.
With great difficulty, he reached for a device on his wrist, taking it off. The Rangers attempted to stop him, but he gave them a determined look and they backed away. Holding the device in his hand, he reached over to Tristan. "Take this. They will be able to explain." He said as the device exchanged hands without a word. The Black Ranger looked away, seemingly unhappy with the decision, the Pink Ranger simply watched on, still as a rock.
Looking up at the Black Ranger, Derek spoke once more. "You know what must be done. The others, too." He said as he started coughing once more, turning to the Pink Ranger. "Do it." He commanded.
Looking down at the floor for a few seconds, the Pink Ranger finally seemed to wake up and moved back over to the console, pressing a few buttons. A glass cover started to slide over the top of the bed, sealing him inside. A light started to come on underneath Derek.
"Everything will be... Fine." Derek said as the stasis chamber activated, freezing him in place.
Everyone stood still for a few moments before the Pink Ranger ran back into the previous room, crying. The Black Ranger approached Tristan, a black and purple light enveloping him as he demorphed into civilian form.
Tristan couldn't help step backwards, feeling slightly intimidated. The Ranger was about 6 foot tall, very broad and built like a tank, with brown eyes and jet black hair, slightly longer than Derek's. He wore a similar uniform too, but with black stripes in place of red. Tristan hoped that he'd never have to fight him, because he knew it wouldn't end well.
"Go back into the other room, make sure your friends there go too. Sit down and try not to bust anything." He said in an angry tone.
Tristan huffed. "What the hell? No need for so much aggression, I'm not the enemy!"
The Ranger moved right in front of him, his dark brown eyes piercing right through Tristan's. "Just do it." Came the reply.
Tristan stepped back and glared for a second, but realized senseless fighting would get him nowhere. "C'mon guys." He said as he walked back into the previous room with the others behind him, the door closing as they went through.
The Ranger looked on before looking back at Derek. 'You really are the craziest guy I know.'
In the other room, the friends couldn't help looking around. It was a fairly big room, but there wasn't much in it. On one end, there was a TV and some complex looking equipment around it with some dark blue sofas nearby. On the other side of the room was a little kitchen area; the entire room gave the impression that this was some kind of strange house of some description. There were quite a few doors around as well, but none of them gave any indication of where they went to.
The three of them sat down in silence, trying to take in everything that had happened. Tristan stared long and hard at the device that he'd been given, the final moments of the battle running through his mind again and again.
Several minutes later, the Black Ranger walked through again and sat down opposite from them. Barely a few seconds after that, one of the other doors opened and a young woman walked in, around the same age as Derek and the Black Ranger. She was about the same height as Emily, her uniform the same as the others, but with pink stripes instead. She had long, brown hair and green eyes. In her hand, she carried some kind of case. It looked like she'd been crying, but had made some attempt to make it unnoticeable.
Walking up to the others, she pulled up a table and set the case down on it before sitting down next to the Black Ranger.
"I'm sorry that we had to bring you here." She began saying. "But since you've seen Derek's face and know his name, we've been forced to explain all of this to you. However..." she started to say, looking down at the device given to Tristan, "...it appears that he has over ideas."
Pulling up her sleeve, she revealed a pink device of similar design to Tristan's red one. The Black Ranger did the same, revealing a black one.
"Just what are these things?!" Tristan asked, understandably confused.
"And is it anything to do with those freaks just now?" Glen added on the end.
The Pink Ranger shook her head. "One thing at a time, please... I understand this is all a shock for you, but believe me when I say I'm not finding this easy either. Anyway, first things first, my name is Lisa Derron, and this is Drake Maxwell. It's a pleasure to meet you."
"It's a pleasure to meet you to." The 3 friends replied in perfect time.
Drake looked away, huffing. 'It is?' he wondered.
Lisa continued. "What I'm about to tell you is highly classified and, without any doubt, must not go beyond these walls. Understood?" she asked as the friends nodded. "Good. Now, I'm sure you're aware of the burglaries that have been taking place in the city over the last few months. That man in the golden armor, the man who called himself Vazon, he's the one responsible."
"He is? But why? What's the connection?" Emily asked, surprised.
"We don't know. All we do know is this – one second he's robbing things, the next thing we know, he's attacking us with his little friends..." her voice drifted off as she spoke, thoughts of Derek's injuries once again filling her mind.
"But who is he exactly? Where'd he come from?" Tristan inquired.
Shaking her head, Lisa continued. "This is going to sound hard to believe... But we think he's from another world."
At that point, the friends gasped loudly. "Say what now?!" Glen replied.
"Well... A few months ago, a spaceship appeared near the moon, barely within range of anything on this planet that can detect it. Not long after that, the robberies started. Its energy readings also increased just before they attacked today. The logical explanation says that they have to be behind it. I think the authorities were hoping to examine the remains of some of those machines that attacked, but apparently when they left, so did any remains."
Tristan sighed. "I see... But still, I need to know, what is this thing? Why did Derek give me it?" he asked, holding the device up.
Before Lisa could answer, Drake butted in. "Are you always this impatient?" Drake asked coldly.
"Drake!" Lisa said, staring at him. Drake said nothing, turning away.
Shaking her head, Lisa carried on. "Ignore him, he often doesn't take well to anything else that lives or breathes."
At that point, Derek looked back at her but she continued to stare. Wisely, he dropped any idea of answering back and let her continue.
"Good, let's carry on. To answer that question, I think it'd be better if I explain who we are first. We're part of a highly secret defense project. Beyond us and the staff here, there are only about a dozen people here that are aware of our existence..." She paused for a second before carrying on. "...At least, that's how it was before our public appearance today was forced upon us."
Drake slammed his hands down on the table. "Look, I really don't care for the long explanations. Derek wanted you to take his place and for your friends to tag along too. Take it or leave it." He said, hissing.
There was silence for a few moments before Emily spoke. "Is that true?"
Lisa nodded. "Yes. As I said, we are part of a defense project designed to create the ultimate fighting force, in case we were ever attacked. We are Power Rangers, the results of the research."
At this point, Lisa reached for the case, flipped it open and spun it around so that their visitors could see the contents. There were 5 spaces for objects, 2 of which still had something in them. Devices, just like the other 3, lay in the case. A blue one and a yellow one.
"These are our Element Morphers. It's complicated to the point where I couldn't reliably explain them to you, but basically these allow us to change into our Ranger forms, giving us a theoretically infinite source of power. Derek included, we're currently 3 members down. We can't keep going like this, we need replacement Rangers."
"Woah, hold on there." Glen began. "You said you were 3 members short. What happened to the other 2 guys? Were they-"
Before he could finish, Drake interrupted again. "They left the team. That's all you need to know."
Lisa shot him a look, seemingly wanting to say something, but chose not to.
Suddenly, an alarm started blaring. "What?!" Lisa wondered aloud, getting up and heading over to a phone on the wall. By the time she got there, it was ringing. She picked it up. "Yes? What did you say? Understood." She hung up, running back to the table.
"Drake, apparently some kind of 'monster' has appeared. We're being dispatched to take care of it." She explained, looking at the others. "I'm sorry we can't give you more of an explanation, but we really need an answer now."
Tristan jumped up. "I'm in, no question."
Glen nodded. "You can count on me, I guess."
Emily looked at the two of them for a second before nodding in agreement. "We can't let this continue."
"Very well. Put these on." Lisa said as she took the devices and took them out of the case, giving the blue one to Emily and the yellow one to Glen. They strapped them onto their wrists and stood up.
"I can't believe I'm actually agreeing to something I barely know anything about..." Tristan began to say, "But you have my full support. Tell us what to do."
Lisa nodded. "Watch us, and do as we do." She said, looking over at Drake. "Ready?"
He nodded, "Ready!"
They reached for their devices. "Elemental Morpher! Ranger Shift!"
With that, black and pink lights surrounded their respective bodies before pulsing. When the lights cleared, they had become the Rangers. Lisa pointed to a button on the outside of her Morpher and pressed a lone button, at which point they teleported away.
The friends looked at each other and nodded. "Ready?" Tristan exclaimed.
"Ready!" came the replies.
"Elemental Morpher! Ranger Shift!" they cried, taking on Ranger form.
They couldn't help stopping for a second to look at themselves. "So, so cool." Glen commented.
Tristan looked up to see a mirror in front of him. He took a good long look at the helmet; there was a grey mouthplate, a rectangular strip of black material for him to see out of, which went around the sides of the helmet and fading into a bump on either side, and a golden fire symbol on the forehead. Apart from the symbol and the color, all the helmets were the same.
He looked long and hard at himself, knowing full well that the last person to wear this was now in stasis. 'I'll make sure I give these powers the honor and respect they deserve.' He thought before turning to the others.
"Let's go." He said as they nodded in response.
Reaching for their Morphers, they all pressed the teleportation button, before flying away to do battle once more, this time, as Power Rangers...