Power Rangers: The Curse of the Dark Ranger

PART 4

By Dalton Cooper

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Power Rangers characters you've heard of before that appear in this story, but I do own the characters that you haven't heard of until you've read this. I do not own the concept of Power Rangers, but I do own this story.

Author's Note: Thanks to everyone that has been reading this so far. Please review.

"Alpha, isn't there something you need to tell us about Zeraton's parents?" Jason asked with his arms folded and a scolding expression on his face.

"Aiye, yai, yai, yai, yai!" Alpha complained, stalling by pretending to do something with the console nearest to him.

"Alpha…"

Turning around, Alpha sighed a heavy robotic sigh. "Fine. I'll start from the beginning…"

- - - FLASHBACK - - -

"Rita…" Zordon whispered into his lover's ear as they danced slowly on their Eltarian (Eltar is Zordon's home planet) balcony. This Zordon, however, wasn't the gray and frail Zordon that had recruited the original five Power Rangers. On the contrary, this Zordon was young and handsome. He had a full head of chestnut brown hair and he looked to be in his Earth 20's (in actuality, he was rounding 24,000).

Rita Repulsa was also very different from the evil witch who had first tried to invade Earth from the Lunar Palace. She was younger, and much more beautiful. Her skin was dark and her facial features flirted with the Asian Earth Race. She held Zordon even closer to her as he kissed her softly on the cheek.

Suddenly, their young son burst onto the balcony. He was a cute little boy with some freckles and a short head of the same chestnut brown hair as Zordon.

"Mom, dad!" the boy said frantically. "Uncle Rito fell down the stairs again!"

Chuckling, Rita approached her son and squatted to his eye level. She placed one of her hands on the boy's shoulder and said to him, "Uncle Rito will be fine. He may not be providing much in the brain department, but he's tough on the outside."

The boy dropped his eyebrows at his mother and cocked his head in a scornful fashion that he probably picked up from her. "He's crying."

Zordon laughed a bit, but Rita whipped around and gave him a somewhat flirtatious dirty look.

- - -

As Rita and her son went to check on her injured step-brother, Zordon headed over to his long-time friend Zedd's home down the street from Zordon and Rita's home.

Zedd welcomed Zordon into his home with a wide smile, but wasn't replied to with the usual happy expressions of Zordon. Instead, the wizard gravely stared at the ground and fidgeted with his hands nervously.

"What's the matter, Zordon?" Zedd asked concernedly.

"My friend," Zordon began, "I had a vision last night and I need you to promise me something."

Zedd nodded. "Anything."

"Promise to look after Rita for me if I'm ever not around, okay?" Zordon asked.

Cocking his head, Zedd asked, "What was your vision about?"

Zordon sighed and stared out Zedd's open window at his beautiful home planet of Eltar. "I had a vision that a great evil will arrive on Eltar and kill me. This man…this…thing…would also change all of my friends into horrific creatures."

A moment of silence filled the room as Zedd assessed the situation. Finally, he said, "If I'm turned into a monster, I want you to kill me."

Zordon smiled softly. "I'll be dead, remember?"

- - -

Handing her younger step-brother an icepack, Rita sighed heavily and she told her son to go play outside.

Rito Revolto, Rita Repulsa's younger step-brother, looked very much different from his sister. Rita had long black hair with deep brown eyes, but Rito had short blonde hair and brilliant blue eyes. Rita was tan while Rito was a handsome pale and Rita had slight Asian qualities about herself while Rito looked like a natural-born American (though he was actually born on Planet Vile).

"Dad's here," Rito informed Rita, placing the icepack on his sore arm. "He wants to see you."

Rolling her eyes, Rita turned away from her brother. "I don't want anything to do with that bastard."

Sighing, Rito stood up and forced his step-sister to face him, ignoring the pain in his arm for a moment by placing the icepack on the counter. "Look, Rita, dad has changed. He isn't the old mean Mr. Vile that you knew; he's a loving and caring person now."

"Quit calling him my 'father,'" Rita ordered, pushing past her step-brother and locking herself in her room.

- - -

Master Vile Revolto was a secretly hated person that everyone pretended to like because he had power. He always walked around in business suits and a tie, bragging about his money and how much better than everyone else he was.

As he strolled down the unfamiliar Eltarian streets, Master Vile spotted a young boy and recognized him as his grandson. Putting on the best smile he could, Master Vile approached the boy with open arms.

The boy paused and eyed Master Vile for a few seconds. "Hello, Mr. Vile."

Laughing, Master Vile gripped the boy's arms. "You can call me 'grandpa'!"

Pulling away from his step-grandfather, the boy ran off into the calm streets of Eltar and ran until he was out of the sight of Master Vile.

To most people, having one of your grandchildren run away from you would be emotionally devastating, but Master Vile just watched his kin run away with a smile on his face. He didn't mind having someone in his family hate him…in fact almost everyone in his family hated him already and one more addition to that list wouldn't be any cause for concern.

Leaves started blowing around Master Vile's feet at an alarming speed. He backed up, confused at this sudden change in the weather when two dark figures approached him. "Who are you?"

One of the dark figures stepped out of the shadows, revealing that it wasn't dark at all. In fact, this figure was a heavily golden-armored creature with only its big white eyes visible through its armor. It towered over Master Vile and had six green lights on its chest. "My name is ArmorX, my friend's name here isn't important."

Suddenly, a wave of black electricity shot from the other figure, hitting Master Vile hard. His aged face began to shape-shift and fold over. His cranium grew slightly larger and the color on his body changed from white to a yellow and black combination. Master Vile's usually squinty eyes grew larger and blacker. Two strange, thick worm-like structures grew out of the side of his head and his stomach became slightly metallic.

- - -

Goldar and Scorpina laughed heartily as they ate a common Eltarian dinner together at the best restaurant Eltar had to offer. Various humans and aliens gave them annoyed looks as the volume of their laughter kept rising.

Though they were two separate species, Goldar and Scorpina were in love. Scorpina was a beautiful human, with long black hair and beautiful brown eyes, while Goldar was a simian-like creature with golden armor and wings.

Smiling, Scorpina clutched Goldar's hand and began rubbing his palm gently with her thumb. "I love you," she whispered, her smile not changing in the least bit.

"I love you, too," Goldar replied, trying to return a smile, but it was very difficult with the way the jaw of his species worked.

Laughing, Scorpina got up and began flirtatiously running away. "Come catch me, Goldar!"

Trying to smile again, but giving up after failing miserably at it, Goldar dropped four Eltavs (twenty Earth dollars) onto the table and began chasing after the love of his life, by making sure to keep a safe distance behind in order to keep the game going. He chased her into a dark alley, but was surprised when she stopped suddenly.

Suddenly, black electricity shot out of the shadows and struck Scorpina hard. "Scorpina!" Goldar yelled, unsheathing his sword and facing the shadows. "Where are you, you bastards?!"

A golden-armored creature stepped out of the shadows. The creature was extremely tall and bulky with six green lights on its chest. Goldar swung his sword at the creature, but it grabbed his wrist and began squeezing extremely hard. The creature didn't let go until it heard some cracking sounds.

Goldar fell to the ground. "You…you bastards…"

Hearing a laugh of someone other than the golden-plated creature, Goldar tried to look up, but couldn't see the other figure…

- - - FLASHBACK - - -

Alpha bowed his head, but the new Rangers were still very confused, Camp being the most confused.

"Zeraton," Alpha began, "is the son of Zordon and Rita Repulsa…on that day, Scorpina was turned into a golden-armored warrior and Goldar would never dare leave her. So, he followed her around Eltar, terrorizing citizens, until the creature known as ArmorX and the mysterious other figure never known found Rita, Zordon, Zedd, Rito, and Zeraton. The other figure used his powers to transform Rita into an evil witch, Zedd into a skin-less silver-faced tyrant, Rito into a skeletal creature made entirely out of bones, and turned Zeraton into the evil wizard he is today."

"What about Zordon?" Ann asked.

"Zordon found it hard to destroy his friends, and that was his first flaw. Zeraton disappeared and a war began between Rita and Zordon…Zordon, however, recruited five warriors that began sealing Rita and her recruited minions in a dumpster of sorts, and launched it into space. Lord Zedd had left long before to go conquer galaxies, Scorpina disappeared, Master Vile returned to his home planet as the new dictator, and with her last bit of energy before being stuck into the dumpster, Rita used her magic to trap Zordon in a timewarp. Later, Zordon sent a message to the planet Edenoi for the king there to construct a robot for him…after four failed attempts, this robot came to be known as the legendary Alpha 5. Two more robots were created, Alpha 6 and Alpha 7 after Alpha 5 had returned to Eltar with Zordon shortly after the Turbo Powers were given to the Power Rangers. However, when Dark Specter attacked Eltar, Alpha 5 was captured and disappeared, not before creating five more fully-sentient multifunctional automatons. The other four were destroyed, and I am the only one left. Alpha 6 still currently resides on the Terra Venture colony while Alpha 7 works with the Space Red Ranger Andros on his Megaship."

Sarah stepped out of Luke's arms and approached Alpha, her facial expressions filled with a quizzical manner. "What about that ArmorX creature?"

"After doing more research, we discovered that ArmorX was the originator of the dreaded Machine Empire that invaded Earth years ago."

- - -

The Dark Ranger followed his master through a secret door in the Lunar Palace that led into a large cavernous room filled with hundreds of creatures of all kind: the gray and dumb Putty Patrollers, the slightly less dumb Z-Putty Patrollers, the bird-like creatures Tenga Warriors, the gray-suited golden-faced robotic foot soldiers of the Machine Empire the Cogs, the fish-like creatures called Pirahnatrons that served under the space pirate Divatox, the slimy Putra Pods, and the robotic Quantron warriors.

"This," Zeraton said, waving his hand at the hundreds of creatures, "is the plan I had in store for you. Alone, these creatures are worthless, but if you absorb all of them, you'll garner an insurmountable power. You will be almost unstoppable, Rob."

- - -

Back at the Command Center, the alarm system began going crazy. Worriedly, Alpha hurried to the viewing globe in the middle of the room and sighed deeply when he saw what was going on. "Aiye, yai, yai, yai, yai!"

"What's going on?" Alex asked as the others crowded around the globe, Luke's hand in Sarah's.

Jason eyed the viewing globe and saw none other than Goldar walking in the middle of the park, but Goldar's usually golden-armor was a deep purple color and his eyes were dark black. "So, that's what Zeraton did to you…"

"Rangers, go!" Alpha ordered and the Rangers all teleported out of the Command Center in their respective colors.

"Alpha," Jason began, "I'm going, too."

Sighing, Alpha hurried to a control console and pressed a button. Suddenly, the viewing globe disappeared into the floor and a pedestal took its place, with a morpher on it.

- - -

Luke, Sarah, Camp, Ann, and Alex arrived at the park and Goldar immediately took notice of them.

"You ready guys?" Luke asked.

Camp, Alex, Ann, and Sarah nodded simultaneously.

"It's morphin time!"

Just as they held their morphers out in front of them, Jason materialized in a green flash of energy right beside them. Grinning, Jason held out the morpher Alpha 12 gave him in front of him. "Hey, noob. That's my line."

"Dragonzord!" Jason bellowed, morphing into the Green Power Ranger with a golden armor chest plate on his suit.

"Cool suit!" Camp commented.

"Mastodon!"

"Pterodactyl!"

"Triceratops!"

"Saber-Toothed Tiger!"

"Tyrannosaurus!"

The six Rangers took a stance against the charging Dark Goldar, who had his sword unsheathed and ready to strike.

"You ready?" Luke asked, gripping his blaster's handle, his finger ready on the trigger.

"Ready!" Camp replied.

Sarah nodded as did Alex and Ann.

"Fire!" Luke ordered, pulling out his blaster and firing a few shots at Dark Goldar, but none of his shots were effective. The other four Rangers followed suit and shot at Dark Goldar at the same time, but even though all of their shots connected, none of them did virtually any damage whatsoever.

Jason didn't even bother to try his blaster and just ran at Dark Goldar head-on, landing a nice kick to his chest which sent him back a couple of inches. Dark Goldar swung his sword at Jason, but Jason swiftly dodged it and punched Dark Goldar in the stomach. Punching the bottom of Dark Goldar's elbow, Jason forced the sword out of his hand.

Growling some random gibberish, Dark Goldar jumped back and began rubbing his sore elbow. Foam began bubbling out of Dark Goldar's jaw as he stared Jason down.

"Goldar, I know you're in there. You said you'd never betray Zedd and Rita!" Jason challenged, keeping one of his hands on his Dragon Dagger.

Making a fist, Dark Goldar just growled louder at the new Green Ranger.

"What about Scorpina?!" Jason asked, keeping a hard stance against Dark Goldar, not budging at all.

Dark Goldar's dark purple armor began flashing to its original golden state, but quickly flashed back to the dark purple. Staggering, Dark Goldar almost fell, but he was just able to maintain his balance.

Taking advantage of Dark Goldar's weakened state, Luke, Sarah, Ann, Camp, and Alex all opened fire on the beast, their combined power causing massive explosions on the monster and sending him to the ground.

"Is he dead?" Alex asked, eyeing the fallen Dark Goldar suspiciously.

Sarah shrugged. "No idea. What do you think, Luke?"

Before Luke could reply, the Dark Ranger materialized in front of Dark Goldar. Quickly, Sarah shot an arrow at the Dark Ranger, but the arrow turned black before impact and wilted like a dying rose.

"He destroyed my arrow without even touching it!" Sarah remarked in awe.

"You guys are just as stupid as you were the last time we spoke," the Dark Ranger remarked with a slight chuckle.

"That's Rob's voice!" Luke realized, astonished.

"Is he under a spell?" Camp asked.

Alex shook his head. "No, when you're under the spell, you're a completely different person. This guy is doing all of this on his own!"

Without warning, Jason charged at the Dark Ranger, but was flown dozens of feet backwards before impact in a massive explosion of sparks. The force was so great, that it forced Jason to de-morph.

"Jason!" Ann yelled in alarm, her attempt to run to their new ally's aid blocked by Luke.

"We have to think of a strategy, Ann," Luke warned her, holding her back.

"But he's hurt!" Ann replied back, worriedly staring at the motionless Ranger.

Suddenly, a huge blast of electricity shot at the Rangers, making contact with all of them, and sending them flying onto their backs.

"The powers are a lot tougher from last time," Camp remarked, barely able to talk.

Luke, however, fought through the pain and got onto his feet. Drawing his sword, he took a fighting stance against the Dark Ranger, despite the fact that his suit still had smoke wisping out of it from the explosion.

"Luke!" Sarah screamed. "You can't beat him!"

Chuckling, Luke turned to the girl he had recently fallen in love with. "I can do anything. I got the greatest girl in the world didn't I?"

Rolling his eyes behind his visor, Camp simply rolled over so he wouldn't have to watch the corny exchange of words between lovers.

The Dark Ranger laughed loudly and turned to the motionless Dark Goldar and drew his sword, an action that the Rangers recognized as absorbing Dark Goldar's powers.

"No!" Luke yelled, firing his blaster randomly at the Dark Ranger, but having his bullets simply disappear every time they were about to make impact.

The Dark Ranger whipped around just as Luke got close to him and quickly sliced him twice across the chest, causing Luke's suit to spark and sending him back onto the ground.

"I never could figure out why you were the leader," the Dark Ranger said mockingly, turning his back to Luke to finish the Dark Goldar absorption. However, the Dark Ranger didn't get the chance to absorb Dark Goldar because, to everyone's surprise, Dark Goldar got back to his feet and grew to an immense height.

"We need Dinozord Power now!" Luke yelled, and was relieved to see the Dinozords had arrived at the scene almost immediately.

All of the Rangers got into their respective Zords, combined them into the Megazord Tank Mode, and then transformed that mode into the more powerful Megazord Battle Mode.

After calling forth the Power Sword, the Megazord took a fighting stance against the gigantic Dark Goldar. Lasers beamed out of Dark Goldar's eyes and struck the Megazord directly on the chest, forcing it to take a couple steps back. As a quick rebound, the Megazord gave Dark Goldar a hard left to the side of the face and then a strong kick for good measure, forcing Dark Goldar to pause from any counter-attacks due to the pain. The Megazord went for the finishing strike, but Dark Goldar swiftly blocked the Power Sword with his sword, and then grabbed the Megazord by the face.

"Whoa!" Luke remarked from inside the Megazord's main control room.

"We can't see a thing!" Camp complained, pounding his fist onto the control console by him.

However, before Dark Goldar could do anymore damage, he was forced off of the Megazord by a different Zord. This Zord was a fully black Zord the same size as the Megazord, with four rocket launchers on each shoulder, a red beam sword in its right hand, and a long blade that was attached to its left arm.

"Luke…we have a problem…" Alex said worriedly, a terrified expression hidden by his visor.

"What is that?" Sarah asked. Her voice revealed that she was just as scared as Alex.

Shaking his head, Luke just stared in awe at the awesome Zord.

Suddenly, Alpha beeped into the speakers on their Megazord. "Rangers, Rangers!"

"Uh, Alpha, we have bigger problems here," Luke replied.

Ann nodded. "Yeah, way bigger."

"Rangers! That Zord you see is known as the GammaZord! I thought it was only legend…it's the most powerful and evil Zord in the universe!"

The Rangers watched in awe as the GammaZord (obviously piloted by the Dark Ranger) slashed Dark Goldar across the chest with its blade, causing sparks to fly everywhere. Dark Goldar tried to slash at the GammaZord with his sword, but the GammaZord simply cut Dark Goldar's sword in half with its beam sword. With a hard kick, Dark Goldar was sent sliding backwards, knocking down most of the trees in the park and leaving large ditches where his feet was dragging. Suddenly, all eight rockets shot out of the GammaZord's shoulders and flew towards Dark Goldar in a spinning motion, all of them hitting him simultaneously. The explosion was enough to destroy Dark Goldar's chest armor, leaving him extremely vulnerable. Two jetpacks were revealed to be on the bottom of the GammaZord's feet as it flew at Dark Goldar, its blade poised to strike. Slamming its fist forward, the GammaZord's blade pierced through Dark Goldar's chest, causing the giant to fall to the ground and shrink back to its normal size, presumably dead.

"Fast, Luke! We have to get it while its back is turned!" Camp advised.

Quickly, the Megazord ran towards the GammaZord, Power Sword readied. Swinging down hard, the Megazord made contact with the GammaZord's back, doing little to no damage.

Luke cursed as he and the other Rangers realized that their attack had no effect.

Whipping around at an amazing speed, the GammaZord slashed the Megazord across the chest, causing massive sparking and making the Megazord stumble. Just when the GammaZord was going to deliver the finishing blow with his beam sword, the tail of another Zord slammed into the GammaZord's chest, forcing the GammaZord to step back a couple of feet.

"What is that?" Ann asked as the Rangers saw the new Zord that entered the fold.

This Zord was a large Zord with an extra layer of armor over it and to Luke, it resembled Godzilla. It had a multi-sectioned tail and its fingers looked like they were actually missiles…in fact, Luke could tell they were missiles!

"Rangers, Rangers! That Zord is the Dragonzord! Jason was able to morph again and use the Dragon Dagger's flute capabilities to call forth this Zord!" Alpha informed the Rangers through the speakers in the Megazord's main cockpit.

"You mean, he doesn't even have to be in the damn thing?!" Camp asked, jealous of Jason's good luck.

Quickly, the Megazord slashed down on the GammaZord with the Power Sword across its chest, and the Dragonzord added salt to the wound by firing all ten of its finger missiles onto the visor of the GammaZord.

GammaZord self-destruct sequence activating.

"What?!" Camp asked, alarmed.

"What's going on?" Alex asked worriedly.

Quickly, Luke activated the Megazord's evacuation feature, and all of the Zords disassembled, returning to their respective hideouts, as the GammaZord's self-destruct sequence counted down.

Running as fast as they could, the Rangers were suddenly blown forward when the GammaZord blew, causing one of the biggest explosions ever seen. The explosion was so destructible, that it completely obliterated the Dragonzord, and left the GammaZord only in rubble.

Jason ran to his comrades, who quickly recovered from the explosion that sent them rocketing forward. "Are you guys okay?" he asked.

Nodding and pointing towards the rubble of the GammaZord, Sarah asked, "What's that?"

As the smoke cleared from the rubble that was once the great and powerful GammaZord, they could barely make out the figure of the Dark Ranger stepping out of the rubble, without even one scratch on him!"

"He survived that?!" Camp asked, alarmed.

"Goddamn it!" Luke swore, gripping his sword.

The Dark Ranger approached the Rangers, and suddenly, a large black globe encircled the seven Power Rangers.

"What's this?!" Luke asked, staring wildly at the black globe that surrounded them.

Laughing, the Dark Ranger stopped and unsheathed both of his swords. "Listen, Rangers! You are all going to die in this globe and I am going to enjoy every little second of killing you!" The Dark Ranger then turned his attention to Sarah. "I might even have some extra fun with you, babe."

Angrily, Luke charged at the Dark Ranger, his sword ready.

"Luke no!" Sarah screamed.

"It's suicide, man!" Camp added.

Swinging his sword down, Luke connected with one of the Dark Ranger's sword, sending a ton of electricity surging through his body, but he didn't care. Luke swung again, and again connected with one of the Dark Ranger's sword, and again it sent a ton of electricity surging into his body. The pain kept building in Luke's body as he went for another swing, but the Dark Ranger sliced both of his swords simultaneously across Luke's chest, causing massive sparking and forcing the Red Ranger to the ground.

The other Rangers started firing their blasters at the Dark Ranger, but none of their attempts worked…the blasts disappeared just before they were about to make contact with the Dark Ranger.

Ripping the morpher off of Luke's belt, the Dark Ranger laughed excitedly, and then squeezed hard on the morpher…and snapped it, along with the Power Coin, in half!

Luke de-morphed, but got right back onto his feet. "Listen, you son of a bitch…I am going to kill you!"

With a hard right, Luke actually made contact with the Dark Ranger's helmet. It didn't seem to affect the Dark Ranger much, but it bloodied-up Luke's knuckles greatly. Luke didn't care though, and kept swinging over and over into the Dark Ranger's helmet, and managed to crack his visor…as well as totally bust his own knuckles.

Frustrated, the Dark Ranger stabbed both of his swords through Luke's stomach. Luke's eyes widened as he fell to the ground.

"Luke!" Sarah screamed, dropping to her knees as she watched her lover's body lying motionless at the feet of the Dark Ranger…