The following morning, Troy got to school early. Although his parents owned and ran a gym, now that Trini had set one up in the old basement of the school, he preferred to do much of his workouts there. Although they had no problem with him doing martial arts, since he had done for most of his life, the fact was that now his workouts were getting a lot more intense, and there were some things he was doing that he was sure would cause his parents more than a little concern. After all, there was a big difference between training for the possibility he might have to fight, as he had been, and training for a war he was currently fighting.

He was also training for something else entirely. He was training for a war, a much larger war that he knew was coming. Although his friends knew about his dreams, he wasn't able to explain to them the full scale of what he had seen. He had explained already that what he saw was all the Rangers that had been before, fighting alongside them against a force of unimaginable size. His team mates had seen all the figurines lining the walls of Gosei's cave, and so they had some idea how many Rangers there had been, but other than that, there was no way to put into words what he had seen.

At times, he questioned his own sanity. If it hadn't been for all the things he had seen in the real world, alongside his friends, witnesses that could confirm what he had seen was real, he would have seen a doctor long before now. He had seen many of the things from his dreams come to pass. He had seen the Robo Knight joining them long before Jordan actually came to them. He had seen a number of their foes before they showed up. While he no longer questioned his sanity, he was now, if anything, more frightened than ever before. No one understood what he had seen, and if it came to pass, he wasn't certain they would ever be ready for it.

He snapped around as he heard the door opening behind him, and Noah came in. He breathed a sigh of relief.

"I was just here to..." His words tailed off as he looked around. "Emma's not here?"

"I'm alone." Troy told him. "I guess it is early. I'm sure she and Gia are somewhere..."

"I really need to talk to you guys." Noah told him. "It's about the Mutants."

"We're all worried." Troy admitted. "With that Aurora Box still out there..."

"Troy, if this goes as planned...hopefully that won't be a problem." Noah told him. "Contact the others and come with me. There's something I need to show you."

"Can't you just..."

"Trust me; you're going to want to see this." Noah assured him. "You won't believe me if I just tell you."

"Noah, what are you...NOAH!" Troy called after him, but it was too late. Noah had already teleported out of the Command Centre. He just sighed and shook his head, pulling his morpher out of his bag.

"Guys, its Troy." He began. "Noah said he's got something we need to see in the Command Centre right away."

As he put his morpher away, he headed for the shower Trini had built into the room to clean up, before getting changed.

Deep within the old chemical plant, Vrak was several hours into the ritual required to impart the powers of the Aurora Box into Bigs and Bluefur. They were the most powerful of their kind, even without the power of the box. With it, they would become virtually unstoppable. At least...that's what Vrak hoped they would believe.

"Incredible, this power is incredible." Bigs stated as he looked to his hands, feeling his new power coursing through him.

"So, I think I have proven that I have delivered on my part of the deal." Vrak told them. "Now, if I could just ask..."

"I think we're finished taking your orders Vrak." Bluefur interrupted him. He snatched up the Aurora Box, and handed it to Bigs.

"But...I gave you that power..."

"And for that, we are most grateful." Bigs stated. "But as we agreed before, the Earth is ours. Since we now have the power to take it, we're going to let you leave with your life."

"You ungrateful..."

"Spare us your righteous indignation." Bigs chuckled. "You'd do the same to us if you thought of it first."

Bluefur smashed him into the side of the plant with his mace, before the two of them left. As he picked himself up out of the wreckage, Vrak just smiled.

"Who says I didn't?" He asked rhetorically as he teleported back to the ship. Once the mutants were done with the Rangers, win or lose, Vrak was ready to manoeuvre the Warstar in to clean up what was left of the victor.

In the Command Centre, Noah was looking for something when the others arrived, while Tensou was in the back, working on something. He could hear crashes and every now and then an assortment of parts would fly into view. As the others arrived, Jake pulled back just in time to avoid a large spring flying his way.

"Sorry." Tensou called out.

"OK, what's with the redecoration job?" Jake asked. "I thought Tensou was meant to fix things, not break them."

"He's working on something. He won't even give me the details." Noah informed them, continuing to look around. "But he did say it relates to my news."

"What news?" Emma asked him. "Gia and I were going to use study hall to work on..."

"Trust me; this is way better than study hall." Noah assured them. "But...I seem to have lost..."

"Looking for me?" They heard a familiar voice saying. Emma just gulped and moved a little closer to Gia as she realised who it was. As they all turned slowly, they saw Spider stepping out of the shadows. "Hey there, it's been a while."

"Spider?" Emma asked, unable to believe what she was seeing. She looked to Noah. "You...you..."

"I figured out a retro-mutagen." Noah told them. "I changed him back."

"Yeah, good job on that." He answered sarcastically. "It took you long enough."

"OK, did he seriously just give Noah shit for changing him back into a human?" Jordan asked the others. "Well...as close to human as he ever got anyway."

"So, can you do this...?"

"I need to synthesise a form that doesn't have to be administered to the bloodstream." Noah started to explain. "Then we need a delivery system that can deploy the serum over a large enough area, but yes, this should work on all the mutants. It should break up the mutagens in the streams around the old chemical plant too. It'll still be toxic, but it won't make any more mutants."

"So, we can finally turn all the mutants back into animals!" Emma shrieked in delight as a smile came to her face. "We won't have to destroy any more of them!"

"And it's all thanks to Spider...as galling as that is to say." Noah told them as he saw Spider checking out some of the equipment in the lab. "Unfortunately, it does leave us with another problem."

"Yeah, making a delivery system and..."

"That's not the problem I meant." Noah interrupted Troy as he jerked his head in Spider's direction. Troy just shrugged his shoulders.

"What's the problem? He's human now." He responded. "We just have to take him back..."

"Oh, somehow I don't think so." Spider put down flatly.

"What's he talking about?" Troy asked. He looked to Spider.

"Now, let's see, I've spent months in a test tube being used as a guinea pig, and now you want to take me back to the town where I've already been convicted of terrorism and I'm looking forward to months in Juvie, before being transferred to a maximum security prison. I'm thinking...no." Spider told them, tossing a bottle of chemicals, which Noah hurried to catch.

"Oh, and what exactly makes you think you have much of a choice in the matter?" Gia asked.

"Well, I had a lot of time to think in that test tube, and I realised...I know a hell of a lot that other people don't about all of this." He told them. "I know who all of you are. I may not know where this is, but I've seen enough of the stone and the plant life to be able to narrow it down. If I end up back in the can, I might not have a lot to occupy my time. I might just start getting a little chatty."

The others just looked to Noah, who sighed and nodded his head.

"That would be the problem." He told them.

"I can definitely see what you saw in him." Troy teased his girlfriend. "I'm glad your judgement is getting better."

"OK, in case you haven't noticed, you're kind of a wanted criminal." Jake reminded him. "What exactly do you think we can do about that?"

"He could always stay here I guess." Jordan suggested.

"Trade one prison for another? I don't think so." Spider replied. "But with the setup you have here, I think you can arrange something. I'm thinking I'd like a home somewhere nice and hot with no extradition treaty."

"Is he serious?" Gia asked.

"I'm deadly serious." Spider told her. "And I'm sure you can make sure I'll never go hungry. The other alternative is you kill me, and since you already worked so hard to save me, I doubt you'll do that."

"OK, someone remind me why we helped this guy again?" Jordan asked.

"I'm beginning to wonder." Emma grumbled. "Spider, what you're asking is...it's unreasonable. Doesn't anything we've done mean anything to you? Didn't...didn't I mean anything to you?"

"I think we both know the answer to that." He replied sharply, before looking to Troy. "You seem to make the decisions here, so I'll talk to you. Set me up, and I might just keep my mouth shut. Otherwise..."

Just then, the alarm sounded. Troy and the others went to the viewing screens to see what was happening. Pulling up the image, they saw Bigs and Bluefur in the city, wreaking havoc.

"Since when did they launch attacks themselves?" Jake asked.

"Maybe they're running short on followers." Jordan suggested.

"I think it's a little more than that." Troy replied, pointing to something in Bluefur's hands. They all saw what he was indicating.

"Who wants to bet that's the Aurora Box Dream Snatcher was talking about." Gia stated, looking a little concerned.

"Great, we saw what that thing did to a joker like Dream Snatcher." Jordan responded. "Last time we went up against those two, Bluefur used my face to mop the floor!"

"According to the police scanners, all the schools have been closed, and the kids sent home under guard." Noah told them. "That'll mean no one will wonder where we are. They'll presume we were coming in late because we had Study Hall and just stayed home when we heard about the attack."

"Wait...what about the Retro-mutagen?" Emma asked. "If we can change them back, maybe we won't have to fight them."

"I've got the computer working on creating a vaporised form of the serum that will work by inhalation. It should be complete soon." Noah told them. "All we need is a delivery system."

"I've got something in mind." Tensou assured them from where he was working.

"In the meantime, we need to assume none of this is going to work." Troy told them. "We need to be ready in case we have to destroy them."

"But..."

"Noah, with all due respect, how often do our plans actually work the way they're meant to?" Troy asked him. "Gosei, keep us updated on the progress here, until then, we'll do this the old fashioned way."

"Wait, what about our deal?" Spider called out as they assembled in the middle of the room.

"We'll talk about it if we survive." Troy answered, preparing his morpher.

"Go Go Megaforce!" They chorused, slamming their power cards into their morphers, teleporting out of the Command Centre, leaving Spider alone. He just went to one of the benches and hopped up onto it, lying back.

"So, who do I ask for some food around here?" He asked with an arrogant grin as he waited for the others to return. For the first time in a long time, he was in a position of power, and he had every intention of keeping it that way. He would never see the inside of a prison again. If they wanted him out of their lives, they were going to have to pay him to leave, and if he could help it, he was going to milk it for everything he could get.