Disclaimer: Harry Potter and Co. belong to J.K. Rowling, while Power Rangers and all related concepts belong to Saban/Disney/Jetix/whoever (Who does own the broadcasting rights to the series these days anyway?)
Feedback: Please; I'd really like to know that somebody's reading this
AN: Collaboration efforts continue; hope you like the result
Harry Potter and the Hogwarts Guardians
As he thought about the events of the last few days, Conner couldn't quite believe how quickly things had escalated. All he'd set out to do when the Hogwarts Guardians arrived was help them find that 'horcrux' thing that they were looking for so that they could take another step towards defeating their enemy, and now here they were, stuck in another reality with no way to get back at the moment and the original Red Ranger being held captive by some deranged purple guy while the newest Red Ranger.
That was life as a Ranger, he supposed; things were ridiculously complicated even after he was essentially 'retired'.
Stuck for anything else to do at the moment, he was currently just sitting in the lounge of Alan Black's house, reading over a couple of books he'd found about wizarding history- what they'd heard suggested that this world hadn't diverged from theirs more than a few years ago, so anything he read in these should still be valid back home- while Hermione, Billy and Amanda did a bit of brainstorming to try and figure out some kind of plan to get them back home, leaving the other two teams to discuss possible plans of attack.
The only comfort he had was that at least Kira and Trent was just as much at a loose end right now as he was- Harry, Ron and Ginny were working to help their friend, Ethan had some ideas about the science stuff they were dealing with, and the other Rangers knew the territory they were dealing with, but the three of them knew virtually nothing about what they were dealing with here on either front-, and that didn't exactly make him feel much better when they were off in some other part of the house right now; the Yellow and White Dino Thunder Rangers might have drifted apart even after Trent had returned to normal, but there was still something there that deserved the chance to grow.
God, he hated having to be the noble Red Ranger sometimes; why the hell couldn't he be allowed to be selfish once or twice?
OK, so things had been rocky between him and Kira when they first started working together on the Dino Thunder team, but that didn't mean anything; they'd moved on from that part of their relationship long ago, and neither of them were the same people who'd tried to escape their duty when they'd first been bonded to the gems. They'd moved on from that point in their lives to become better Rangers and better people than they could have expected that they'd become, and Connor liked to think that she saw him as a close friend...
He just wished that he could convince himself that friendship was enough for him; after things had fallen apart with Krista, he'd accepted what he was really looking for in a relationship, but the challenge lay in working out what to do when the person he wanted didn't want him...
"You OK?" a voice asked, prompting Conner to turn around as Sylvia walked into the room, the Black Guardian Ranger looking surprisingly relaxed about their current predicament.
"About what you'd expect; bored and wishing there was something I could do to help us get back home," Conner replied, shrugging slightly as he looked back at the Black Guardian Ranger; even if he wasn't comfortable telling her about his real feelings for Kira, he couldn't help but feel suddenly curious as another thought occurred to him. "Y'know, I never actually asked; how did you get into this?"
"Huh?" Sylvia asked, looking back at him in confusion.
"Well, I get how Jason ended up in the game- bringing back an experienced Ranger for a fight like this makes sense-, but how did you end up in the team?" Conner clarified.
"Like I said when we met, I knew the Space Rangers when I was a little girl and acquired the Black Guardian Gem when the original wielder couldn't use it any more-" Sylvia began.
"Yeah, I got that, but how did that happen?" Connor clarified, looking curiously at her. "I mean, you're not a wizard, and you mentioned that you were the second person to possess the Black Guardian Gem, so... how'd you get into that position?"
"Well, from what they told me after I met the rest of the team for the first time, the original Black Guardian Ranger was an old school rival of Harry's," Sylvia explained. "Their enemy- that Voldemort guy- created the Black Gem to try and duplicate their power sources- the old 'set a thief to catch a thief' approach, when you get down to it-, but even with the Dark Guardian zords to help him, he just..."
"Couldn't cut it, huh?" Conner said with a smile.
"He tried to take on all five of the then-active Guardian Rangers and the Red and Quantum Time Force Rangers all at once- from what I gather, his zords fought their zords while he confronted Ron directly-, and it didn't exactly go according to plan," Syliva explained with a smile. "In the end, Ron was able to essentially 'purify' the gem with his own faith in their fight against Voldemort, and the Black Gem abandoned Malfoy, flew away, and... well, it landed somewhere near me, I picked it up, and spent the next few weeks getting a crash course in how to use this thing before I felt that I was ready to introduce myself to the rest of the team."
"Trouble controlling the gem?" Conner speculated.
"That was one detail- it was designed for a wizard, so I needed to focus a lot more at first because I had to concentrate a lot to compensate for my lack of magic-, and the fact that I wasn't entirely sure if I deserved it," Sylvia clarified, shrugging in a slightly awkward manner at the memory. "I mean, my childish dreams aside, I wasn't expecting to become a Ranger as I thought that I was too self-centred- I mean, when I was younger I actually blackmailed a Power Ranger to spend time with me just because I didn't want to be alone-, and there I was, becoming part of a fight against a psychopathic dark wizard?"
"We're all flawed, Sylvia," Conner said, smiling reassuringly at her. "Hey, back when I started as a Ranger, I was going to ditch it on pretty much my first time out just because it conflicted with my soccer schedule, but I stuck around for one last mission and realised that helping people as a Ranger was more important than any other dreams I might have had back then."
"That's life as a Ranger, huh?" Sylvia said, a slightly dejected smile at the thought. "An incredible experience, but everything else has to come second."
Looking up at Sylvia as she sat on the edge of his chair, Conner smiled at the female Black Ranger as she placed a hand on his shoulder, the two exchanging a brief smile before Conner heard the door open. Looking in the direction of the door to the room, Conner was surprised to see Kira looking at him and Sylvia with an expression that could almost be described as hurt, but she closed the door and the sound of footsteps as she walked away down the corridor left Conner uncertain about pursuing that particular train of thought any further.
He couldn't have seen that properly; Kira couldn't be jealous that he was getting along with Sylvia...
Could she?
Even if Hermione knew that working out how to get home would have to be her priority, she couldn't resist the chance to research more details about the history of this world. She, Ethan and Doctor Oliver had volunteered to assist Amanda and Billy Cranston- she had to admit, the original Blue Ranger was indeed as intelligent as Jason's stories had suggested, if what he'd accomplished so far was any example-, but while their efforts had generally met with promising results so far, there was still no way for them to be sure that they were even looking for Jason in the correct place; they still needed to work out some way to confirm whether Jason was just in the palace or some pocket dimension prison of some sort...
Quite frankly, she was glad that Billy was taking point in their research into that area, given that he had greater experience in what they were doing right now; it gave her a chance to stop worrying about finding solutions and focus instead on learning a few new facts about this world.
"This is incredible!" she said, studying Amanda's laptop computer with a broad smile; the idea that someone had found a way around the natural interference preventing technology from working in areas like Hogwarts was one of the most incredible things she'd ever seen. "When you told me that American wizards were working on ways to better blend in with the non-Magical community, I certainly wasn't expecting this! You Americans have really gone the distance!"
"Well," Amanda said, shrugging nonchalantly, "the Department of Magic felt that working out how to make devices like computers and such work for wizards was an obvious step to take; if Project: Chameleon is going to be a success, the wizards are going to need to be up-to-date, after all."
"Project: Chameleon?" Hermione repeated inquiringly. "What's that?"
"Well," Amanda replied, settling herself more comfortably into her chair as she began to explain, "to simplify things, the reason that the Magical community of Europe haven't been discovered by non-Magicals yet is because Europe still has enough space to allow wizards to spread themselves out. But here in the United States, the non-Magical population is steadily growing to the point that American wizards would have a more difficult time keeping themselves concealed."
"Which is where this Project: Chameleon comes in?" Hermione asked.
"Exactly," Amanda nodded. "It was the Industrial Revolution that gave the Department of Magic at the time the general ideas that would come together and form the basis for Project: Chameleon. They decided that the best way to preserve the Statue of Secrecy would be to hide themselves in plain sight. American wizards stopped wearing robes and began wearing the latest fashions, the Salem Witch's Institute changed its name to the Salem Institute for Magic and started adding classes like science and physical education to its curriculum."
Hermione wasn't entirely sure what that said about the wizarding world back in Britain, really; she'd spent so long focusing on what was relevant for her schoolwork that she hadn't spent that much time doing research about magical history outside of Britain.
She knew that the Ministry of Magic had its problems, of course- Umbridge alone was evidence of how narrow-minded some of them could be, and that was before she factored in how the rest of the Ministry had treated Harry over the last couple of years, alternating between taking no action against Voldemort and making useless arrests just to give the impression that they were doing something-, but she didn't really think of them as backward; most wizards these days were married to muggle-borns, and even Mr Weasley's interest in muggle technology reflected some kind of interest in the way the 'other half' worked, even if he could choose a more appropriate way to explore his interest than just tinkering with things and seeing what happened...
"The next phase of Project: Chameleon," Amanda continued, drawing Hermione's attention back to the Patronus Force White Ranger, "came in the form of the building of several small towns that had the appearance of your basic small town except with businesses that served two functions like, for example; a cleaning supply store for non-Magicals that doubled as a racing broom dealership for Magi."
"And what do American wizards use for transportation?" Hermione asked.
"Well, we've got a Floo network and broomsticks for when the occasion calls for it, but mostly we just use conventional cars," Amanda explained. "For entertainment, we have our own TV stations, listen to rock music, and play various sports ranging from Quidditch and Quodpot to football and baseball."
"I... see..." Hermione said, briefly musing on how comparatively forward-thinking America seemed to be compared to Britain before she pushed it aside; it wasn't like progress didn't have its own downsides, and who was to say that British wizarding society wasn't better off for its focus on the personal touch rather than the impersonal but faster digital methods of this world?
Still, those kind of questions were getting into areas that Hermione wasn't sure she wanted to explore right now; she was all for encouraging social development to improve the status of non-humans back home, but adapting muggle technology on that kind of scale was getting into far more awkward territory for her.
"So..." she asked, trying to find a suitable way of continuing to ask questions about this particular topic, "how did you end up getting so interested in all this technology?"
"You'll have to blame my grandpa for that," Amanda replied with a slight blush as she shrugged in a nonchalant manner. "He's kind of an eccentric when it comes to building and inventing things, and I guess that you can say that some of that rubbed off on me."
"Well," Hermione replied reassuringly, "from what I've seen of your work thus far, if your brother's battle armour and the Werewolf Battlezord are what you're capable of normally, I'm certain that your grandfather would be extremely proud of you."
"Oh!" Amanda said, snapping her fingers as a thought occurred to her. "That reminds me..."
As Hermione watched, Amanda turned the laptop on and moved the mouse icon onto a file folder, which opened to reveal the diagram of an egg-shaped object.
"What's that?" Hermione asked, looking curiously at the diagram.
"That," Amanda answered with obvious pride in her voice, "is my new Magi-Cell Battery! Once we get your Zords back, I'll be able to install one of these into the main power systems and each one of your primary Guardian Zords will have the ability to use magic, thus giving you a new edge against the Dark Dork!"
"Hold on; the zords will be able to use magic?" Hermione said, looking at the object on the screen with renewed appreciation; the idea that it could do something like that was...
For once, Hermione was lost for words.
"Wow," she said at last.
"Thank you," Amanda said, leaning back in her chair with a satisfied smile. "Am I awesome or what?"
The smile faded from their faces as Amanda's communicator suddenly sounded, prompting her to sit back up and activate the device. "Amanda here."
"Amanda," Alan's voice said on the other end of the line, "you and Hermione need to get to the Command Centre; Ivan's kidnapped a civilian!"
"A civilian?" Amanda said, clearly confused at this turn of events. "Who?"
"Unfortunately," Alan replied, with a tone that suggested he would rather be helping anyone than the victim in question, "it's Harry and Elizabeth's cousin, Dudley."
"DUDLEY?" Hermione yelled incredulously. "As in Dudley Dursley?"
"No need to shout, Hermione; I'm blond, not deaf," Alan replied. "But yes, it's Dudley Dursley."
Great... Hermione thought to herself, barely even registering Billy's assurances that he could handle the situation here as she and Amanda teleported out of the lab.
She knew that being a Ranger meant saving everyone, but why did they end up getting stuck having to risk their necks for the cousin who'd spent his childhood treating her brother in all but blood like he was worthless?
As Hermione reappeared in the Command Centre, she was only slightly surprised to see Ron working at one of the other consoles with Doctor Oliver and Ethan; given that all three of their teams were currently working together, Ron was probably the best person to offer tactical insight to the Blue and Black Dino Thunder Rangers about what their own team was capable of if they finally found themselves facing open combat. Looking over at another part of the Command Centre revealed a more significant surprise in the form of an unknown young woman standing alongside the other five Patronus Force Rangers, the new arrival wearing a purple sweater and blue trousers over a white blouse, with long dark hair hanging down from underneath a purple cap.
"Megs!" Amanda cried, grinning at the sight of the unfamiliar woman as the two exchanged a quick hug. "When did you get here?"
"Just now," 'Megs' replied, before turning to smile at Hermione. "Hi, I'm Megan Wilkins, Sean's sister; you are?"
"Uh... Hermione Granger; Blue Hogwarts Guardian Ranger," Hermione replied, smiling uncertainly at the new arrival. "And... you are?"
"I was just asking that when you showed up," Doctor Oliver said, looking curiously at Megan. "Are you another Patronus Force Ranger?"
"No," Megan replied, shaking her head in dejection. "I wanted to be one, but there were only five Morphicon Crystals at the time."
"At the time?" Ethan said, looking up at Zordon curiously. "What does that mean?"
"LIKE SEAN, MEGAN WAS PRESENT WHEN THE RANGERS RECEIVED THEIR POWERS," Zordon explained. "WHILE SHE WAS UNABLE TO RECEIVE POWERS HERSELF AT THE TIME, SINCE THEN, SHE HAS PROVEN HERSELF TO BE A TRUSTED ALLY AND FRIEND."
"Ah," Hermione said, nodding in understanding.
"NOW THAT EVERYONE IS HERE," Zordon said, his attention shifting to address the whole room, "WHAT IS BILLY'S PROGRESS ON THE MOLECULAR DECODERS?"
"They'll be ready soon," Hermione replied. "We're just... well, we're still not certain if Jason is being held inside Zedd's fortress itself or one of those prison dimensions."
"ALAN WILL BE IN COMMAND OF THE RESCUE TEAM AND HE HAS ALSO VOICED THIS CONCERN," Zordon said (Hermione bit back her initial frustration at having to 'delegate' command like that; Jason might be their teammate, but Alan did have superior knowledge of the local threat). "HOWEVER, I BELIEVE THAT ALPHA CAN MAKE A SLIGHT ALTERATION TO YOUR GUARDIAN GEM; IF WE ARE CORRECT IN OUR THEORY, YOU WILL THEN BE ABLE TO USE YOUR GEM TO LOCATE THE WHITE GUARDIAN RANGER SHOULD HE BE LOCATED WITHIN ZEDD'S PALACE."
"But what about Dudley?" Alan asked. "I mean, from what I've seen of him, the guy's a major league jackass-"
"Trust me, he's not any more pleasant no matter how much time you spend with him," Ron noted grimly.
"Right," Alan said, nodding briefly at Ron before he turned back to Zordon. "But the point is, we can't leave him up there no matter how much we would want to."
"What would Ivan even want with that guy, anyway?" Nathan asked.
"THE REASONING BEHIND THE ABDUCTION OF DUDLEY DURSLEY IS JUST AS MUCH OF A MYSTERY TO MYSELF AS IT IS TO YOU, BLACK RANGER," Zordon replied. "HOWEVER, IT STILL REMAINS YOUR MAIN PRIORITY AS POWER RANGERS TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT, AND DESPITE THE ACTIONS OF BOTH DUDLEY AND HIS FATHER, HE IS STILL AN INNOCENT."
Looking over at Ron, Hermione didn't need her long experience with her friend to know how Ron felt about that; Dudley might be the muggle equivalent of Draco Malfoy as far as Harry was concerned, but he still hadn't actually done anything to merit them wanting him dead...
"Aye-yi-yi!" Alpha's voice suddenly yelled as alarms began to blare throughout the Command Centre. "Rangers, I've located Dudley in the park!"
"Bring him up on the Viewing Globe, Alpha," Alan said.
Looking at the glowing white orb, it quickly focused on the image of a section of the Angel Grove Park, with Dudley Dursley bound by chains to a large post and surrounded by a platoon of Tengas.
"Alright," Alan said, smiling grimly at the sight, "let's get Dudley out of there and then get on with rescuing Jason."
"I don't like this," Doctor Oliver said, looking grimly at the Viewing Globe. "It's too haphazard for everything I've heard about Ivan since we got here; there's got to be more to this whole mess than just giving us a hostage situation to worry about..."
"And why kidnap this guy anyway?" Ethan added, as he looked over at Elizabeth. "I mean, I get that he's your cousin, but from what I've heard it doesn't exactly sound like you spent much time with him before now; did you even know he existed apart from as a name?"
"Look, I'm all for dissecting the bad guy's motives, but we don't have time for that now," Alan said, looking grimly over at the Blue Dino Thunder Ranger. "Whatever Ooze was trying to do by capturing Dudley, he's in danger now so we're going to have to deal with it."
"INDEED," Zordon said solemnly from his tube. "AND, ON THE TOPIC OF DEALING WITH THE CRISIS IN FRONT OF US, BEFORE YOU DEPART, ALPHA AND I HAVE A NEW PROJECT THAT IT IS TIME TO SHARE WITH YOU."
"What's that?" Jake asked curiously.
"IN ORDER TO HELP YOU RESERVE YOUR POWER FOR MORE DANGEROUS OPPONENTS, ALPHA AND I HAVE BEEN WORKING TO MERGE SOME OF THE ENERGY FROM THE POWER COINS TO YOUR MORPHICON CRYSTALS," Zordon explained. "YOU NOW POSSESS THE ABILITY TO CALL UPON YOUR OWN VERSION OF THE NINJA POWERS TO COMBAT THE TENGA WARRIORS, RATHER THAN IMMEDIATELY MORPHING INTO YOUR FULL RANGER FORM. IN ORDER TO SUMMON YOUR NINJA POWERS, SIMPLY USE THE VOCAL COMMAND- NINJA RANGER POWER."
"Well," Alan said, after exchanging glances with his teammates, "let's give it a try. Ninja Ranger Power- Now!"
In a flash, all six of the Patronus Force Rangers were dressed in the brightly-coloured Ninja garb that Hermione recognised from old news reports of the days when the Rangers of her world had fought the Tengas; the presence of a green ninja instead of a pink one might be a little disconcerting at first, but it was a minor tweak in the overall scheme of things.
"Whoa!" Nathan said, nodding in approval at his new attire. "Very nice!"
"All right then, guys," Alan said, smiling over at his team. "Let's give these ninja powers a little test-drive!"
With that, the Patronus Force Rangers made a quick gesture and vanished in an explosion of coloured smoke, leaving Megan and the four dimensionally-relocated Rangers standing around the Command Centre,
"Well, that was interesting," Megan said with a smile. "I just hope Goldar doesn't have anymore of those Red Candles laying around-"
"Hold on; Red Candles?" Doctor Oliver said, looking anxiously over at the room's only non-Ranger human present. "Did you say that Goldar had a Red Candle?"
Hermione briefly thought of asking what the problem was, but then she remembered one of the stories that Jason had told them about his own career as a Ranger; the time when Rita, their original enemy, had destroyed the Green Ranger's powers by linking them to a green candle made from a magical wax, that essentially drained the Green Ranger's powers away as it melted down...
Given that Tommy had been the Ranger in question to fall victim to that particular plan, it was no wonder he was concerned at the reference.
"Yeah," Megan said, nodding at Doctor Oliver. "It was something left over from one of Zedd's old plots; Goldar used it on Alan to try and assume both Alan's Ranger powers and his magic, and Alan had to go into Goldar's pocket dimension alone and unmorphed while the others had to deal with this monster called the Octobot to get it back."
It might sound like the essential details had been dealt with from that crisis, but Hermione didn't need to be a Ranger to know that the past could come back and bite you when you least expected it...
As he sat in the car alongside his mother, Harry wondered what it said about his current state of mind that the thing he was having the most difficulty adapting to right now was the fact that he was wearing new, thinner glasses rather than his traditional thicker-framed ones, rather than the fact that he was sitting alongside the mother who should be dead.
He supposed that a part of it could be arguably because he'd probably end up keeping the new glasses while his current contact with his mother was a simple accident due to cross-dimension travel that would eventually end when he and the rest of his team managed to return to their worlds, but he just couldn't be sure; psychology wasn't exactly a particular strength of his...
"So," his mother asked, looking curiously at him, "how do you like our new home?"
"It's... it's nice," Harry replied, trying to think of suitably vague answers that could apply whatever your thoughts on Angel Grove were; he didn't want to attract too many questions in case his other self looked for different things in a home than he did. "It's not as crowded as London, and most of the people seem... well, more pleasant to be around..."
"Well, we will run across the occasional toerag once in a while, don't make any mistake about that, but we can finally live our lives as the family we should have been from the start," Lily said, shrugging slightly even as she smiled warmly at him. "Oh, and Andrea's invited us over for dinner so I want you to wear some of those new clothes."
"Andrea?" Harry asked, unable to restrain his confusion.
"Andrea Black," Lily said, looking at him reassuringly; evidently the excuse that his memories had been scrambled by his captivity was still enough for her to accept the occasional anomaly. "Alan and Amanda's mother? The woman who Dumbledore forced to marry Sirius-"
"Forced?" Harry said, sitting upright in his seat and staring incredulously at her.
He might not know what this 'Andrea' was like, but the idea of Dumbledore forcing Sirius into a marriage...
"I'm sorry Harry," Lily said, pulling into a nearby closed gas station to park the car. "None of you kids were ever supposed to know about this, but since I opened my big mouth, and since you're mature enough to handle this, I suppose I should go ahead and tell you."
Harry tried not to feel too satisfied at the news that his mother thought that he was mature enough to handle the news; after Dumbledore had concealed so much information from him over the last few years, it was somehow satisfying to learn that his mother believed he could cope with things, even if she was basing that assumption on his other self more than him.
"You see, sweetheart," Lily said, pausing for a moment before she continued to speak, "there's a number of reasons why Andrea and I severed all ties with Dumbledore and the Order, the main one being that we both wanted to bring you kids here to the States so you can live free and happy."
Harry nodded as though he'd already known about this, waiting for her to continue this new story about this world's history.
"But there's another, more... frightening reason," Lily said, looking awkwardly at him. "You see, Jason Beaumont, Andrea's first husband, came from an old and very powerful magical family with more than a few ancient secrets. Using his spy network here in the United States, Dumbledore caught wind that one of these secrets was a special library that the Beaumont family owned; a library that housed a weapon so powerful, it could destroy magic itself..."
Lily trailed off as she spoke, clearly uncertain about what she was about to say.
"And this... weapon," Harry said, looking uncertainly at her. "Does it... does it really...?"
"Exist?" Lily finished for him, shaking her head in response to Harry's confirming nod. "We don't know if either the library or the weapon exists or not; only the Head of the Beaumont family can learn of any particularly dangerous secrets, but Dumbledore certainly seems to believe that it does, and if this weapon exists, both Andrea and I want to make sure that Dumbledore never gets his hands on it, do you understand?"
Harry could only nod quietly at that, even as he privately wondered what could have happened in this world to make his mum worried about Dumbledore getting his hands on a weapon like that; Harry wasn't naive enough to think that something that dangerous would be completely safe in Dumbledore's hands, but his mother seemed to be implying that it would be genuinely dangerous for him to get his hands on it...
"You can't tell anyone about this conversation, Harry," Lily said, looking at him with a sudden intensity behind her stare. "Not Alan, Amanda, or your sister; this has to stay between us. You promise?"
"I promise," Harry said quietly, knowing even as he said those words that he was going to break that vow; this might not be his world, and the weapon might not be real, but something that potentially dangerous was something that the Power Rangers had to know about...
"That's my boy," Lily said, giving him a hug that Harry didn't think he deserved before she restarted the car. "Let's get back to our shopping, shall we?"
Watching the fight unfolding on the viewscreen in front of him as Alpha studied his and Ethan's Dino Gems, Ron and Hermione alternating between brainstorming battle strategies and watching the fight as well, Tommy wished that he could relax at the sight of how well this world's team were handling the threat before them, even as he knew that this was too simple.
The Ninja Ranger powers might be new additions to the Patronus Force's arsenal, but if things had become too dangerous they could have just morphed to deal with the threat at hand; Tengas were a fair challenge in Ninja form, but the only reason the Rangers didn't just morph to Ranger form to tackle them that way immediately was the rule against escalating the battle unless forced to do so. As it was, the current fight would be tricky, but any Ranger worth their colour could deal with it, which raised the question of why Ooze would do something like this in the first place...
"It's... not much of a challenge, is it?" Ron said, the Yellow Guardian Ranger's voice confirming Tommy's thoughts as they studied the fight on the Viewing Globe, Alan throwing off a group of Tengas that had tried to dogpile him with a wolf-like howl that was probably some unique manifestation of his powers similar to Tommy's own dino power of invisibility (Why was it that Rangers these days kept on getting new additions like that to their arsenals?). "I mean, numbers make it difficult, but it's nothing Alan and that lot can't handle; I thought this 'Ooze' sod was meant to be smart..."
"Tell me about it," Ethan said, nodding in agreement at Ron as Alan practically whirled his way through the tengas around him, his Patronus Sabre cutting through his adversaries with almost disturbing ease. "Those bird-things aren't that much; you'd think that someone like Ooze would at least have time to create a new monster to guard his hostage..."
"There!" Alpha said, stepping back from Tommy and Ethan and turning to look at Zordon, holding up the scanner with that strange sense of satisfaction in his appearance that Alpha somehow always managed to convey despite his featureless head. "Now that we have the energy signatures of Tommy and Ethan's Dino Gems, we can now make the appropriate adjustments to the Shogun Zords to allow their team to use them!"
"WELL DONE, ALPHA," Zordon said, nodding in approval at the robot. "ONCE WE HAVE ALL OF THE DINO GEMS KEYED IN TO OUR SYSTEMS, THE DINO THUNDER RANGERS WILL BE ABLE TO CALL UPON THE SHOGUN ZORDS; I DO NOT KNOW WHAT IVAN IS UP TO, BUT IT IS BEST THAT WE PREPARE OURSELVES."
The Shogun Zords...
The circumstances under which they'd been acquired hadn't been ideal, but there was something Tommy had always liked about those zords; it was the first time all Rangers had possessed zords capable of holding their own against the monsters without needing the others to be there as well.
Teamwork might be an important part of being a Ranger, but Billy's victory over that brick-monster thing- he couldn't remember the creature's name off the top of his head, but it wasn't really important right now- had proven the crucial advantage that the Shogunzords had over past zords; taking out most of the team would no longer be enough to completely render them zord-less if Rita or Zedd chose to make the monster grow earlier...
Tommy's thoughts were cut off by a sudden flash of dark red light and a startled scream from Megan, prompting the other Rangers to spin around to see what seemed to be Harry- Tommy had encountered too many phony Rangers to immediately accept that it was Harry- holding Megan's hair in one hand with the blade of a wicked-looking dagger held against her throat with the other.
"Harry?" Hermione practically yelped in shock. "What are you doing?"
"STAY BACK, HERMIONE," Zordon said, looking at the new arrival with a kind of shocked anger that Tommy couldn't recall witnessing from his Zordon. "THAT IS NOT THE RED HOGWARTS GUARDIAN."
"You've got that right, old man!" 'Harry' snarled at Zordon, putting Tommy uncomfortably in mind of his own attack on Zordon when he'd originally been put under Rita's spell and received the Green Power Coin. "I'm the Red Dark Ranger!"
"And we," a disturbingly familiar yet also altered voice said from another direction, "are Ivan's Dark Rangers!"
Turning to face the direction of the new speaker, Tommy shuddered at the sight of Ron, Hermione and Ginny stepping out of the shadows, their all-black eyes and slightly older appearance the only thing to physically distinguish them from the versions that Tommy had met back in his original world.
"Oh, Merlin..." Ron said, his voice low and his eyes widening in horror at the sight in front of him, Hermione instinctively reaching for his hand as she stared at her own counterpart.
"Come on then," Dark Harry said, sneering over at his 'teammates' as he jerked Megan's head slightly via his grip on her hair. "Let's get our Purple Ranger back to Ooze-"
"NO!" Ron yelled, broken out of his shock by this threat as he lunged desperately towards Dark Harry, arms outstretched as though he was prepared to yank Megan to safety, only for his counterpart to blast him into the wall with a malevolent-looking black wand.
"RON!" Hermione yelled as her friend struck the wall, only to find herself facing the wands of her and Ginny's counterparts before she could draw her own.
"Don't worry," her counterpart said, staring mockingly at Hermione's terrified expression. "Ivan doesn't want you dead... yet."
With that ominous warning, the four Dark Rangers vanished, taking Megan with them and leaving Tommy, Ethan and Hermione to look apprehensively at each other.
Even if Tommy was trying to focus on the positives that nobody had been killed, the rest of him was already considering the task that was now facing them; how were they going to rescue the Hogwarts' Guardians' counterparts when they were all evil Power Rangers?
Had being a Power Ranger ever been easy?
