'Two days ago I was an ensign in temporal investigations; today I'm a power ranger. I don't know if I'm ready for all this,' he thought to himself as he stood in the mirror, adjusting his Time Force uniform.

He'd only graduated from the academy a few months ago, and was lucky to get assigned to temporal investigations as quickly as he did. They were officers who'd been with the organization their entire careers who never had the opportunity to work in one of the most important departments in Time Force, but fresh out the academy, Commander Collins selected him. He was in the top of his class in temporal theories, and even wrote a paper on the short and long term effects in time travel. Word got around the academy very quickly that one day, James Emery would be invaluable to Time Force.

Of course, he never imagined it would be so soon.

Granted, every cadet in Time Force dreamed of the day that they would become power rangers, but each of them knew the chances were a billion to one. Still, it didn't stop them from imagining, and he wasn't an exception. There were even times when he'd go to the training room and run simulations of past rangers; he was the red ranger, and other former rangers comprised his team. Together, they would defend the world from the forces of evil.

'None of it was real,' he reminded himself, but now, he wasn't in the training room anymore. Now, the Morpher on his wrist was real, the threat was real, and he'd been given command of his very first assignment. 'I don't know if I'm ready to lead a team yet. I've only been a ranger for twelve hours,' he thought. 'Why would the others even listen to me? They've been doing this a lot longer than I have,'

He stood up straight, taking a deep breath and as zipped his uniform up, then exhaled. Commander Collins and Admiral Logan had selected him for a reason. It wasn't at random, it wasn't luck of the draw, he was chosen because he was best man for the job. With a look of confidence on his face, he walked out the room.

The Lt. headed down the hall to the main exit, where the others were waiting for him. Granted, Nadira was just as new to being a ranger as he was, but Katie was a completely different story. He recalled being in his second year at the academy when she and the other rangers originally traveled to the 21st century to capture Ransik. Although in rank, he and Katie was equal, in terms of experience, there was no doubt in his mind that she should be leading this mission.

"You two ready?" he inquired.

The two of them stood at attention. "So what's the plan Lt.?" Katie asked him.

He took a deep breath. "Tommy and Adam gave us the coordinates to Dez' ship. Reports indicate that even under cloak Dez will be able to track us, so our intention shouldn't be to remain hidden, but go in there and shove our feet up as many mutant asses as we can. With any luck, we'll be enough distraction for the others to complete their phase of the mission," he explained.

"That's a hell of a plan," Katie admitted.

"Thank you Lt.,"

"But I think you're going to need a little more muscle," they heard a voice say from behind.

Lt. Emery turned around only to see Ransik walking towards them in his old costume. The Lt. flinched slightly, unsure of what his intentions were. He'd read the reports about Ransik's mutant half being destroyed; leaving him 100% human, but he'd also read reports of Ransik killing countless humans in pursuit of world domination.

"I hope you don't mind, I asked daddy to come with us," Nadira said eagerly.

"Does the admiral know about this?" he asked.

Ransik looked at him, then towards Katie. "The new guy, huh?" he replied.

"Yup,"

"He any good?"

"You'd be surprised,"

"I see he has a morpher,"

"Yeah, silver. I got one too," Nadira said, holding up her wrist.

"Who would have thought it? My little girl a ranger,"

"We were all shocked. Believe me," Katie sighed.

"Well," he put his arm around Lt. Emery. "If my two ladies believe in you, so do I. When do we leave?" Ransik asked. Both Nadira and Katie motioned towards the Lt. "Oh, I get it. The new guy is in charge," he stood in front on him, standing at attention. "When do we leave sir?" he repeated.

He smiled. "Lets go guys," he sighed.

(*)

"Run another spectrographic analysis on it again, see if we can determine the frequency that way," Trip said as he turned back to the control panel.

His counterpart did as instructed, placing the collar under a laser of some kind. The laser scanned it, and the readings appeared on the screen overhead. "The spectrograph didn't work. Whatever this stuff is made of, our scanners can't penetrate it," he said.

"I think we're going about this the wrong way,"

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe the best way to determine the frequency is to see it in action,"

"But how can we see it in action if this one is broken? If we can't even figure out how it works, we can't fix it," he mentioned.

"True, but we do know that it has its own unique signature to it, which allows a separate frequency to control it. If we were to find out what they signature was, we'd be able to counter the frequency and re-program it," he told him.

"What do you suggest?"

"We have to built a kind of signature detector. If we give it to Adam and the others, they'd be able to get a position ID on the signature,"

"Then we could alter the frequency and break Dez' control of the monsters," he said.

"Brilliant. I'm glad I thought of it,"

"No, I thought of it," Trip said.

"Same thing,"

"Oh yeah,"

(*)

Tommy, Camille, Jen and Lucas materialized onto Dez' ship, getting a good look around. The corridors themselves were empty, with doorways on each side of the corridor.

"We should switch on the cloak and." she was cut short.

"That won't do us any good. Dez was able to detect me even under cloak. So, if they know we're here, lets give'em something to worry about," Tommy told them.

Lucas unstrapped the phaser cannon from his back, aiming at the end of the hall and firing. The impact was enough to shake the entire ship, leaving a hole in the process.

"That's our cue guys," Jen said.

'TIME FOR, TIME FORCE,' they called out in unison, replacing their clothes with their ranger uniforms.

Just then, each of the doors in the corridor opened, and hoards of creatures came out. Lucas aimed his cannon at one of them, blasting them in the chest. The creature disintegrated into thin air, but two more grabbed Lucas from behind, taking the cannon away from him. One of them held Lucas in place while the other aimed and fired, but Lucas sidestepped him, forcing the cannon to hit the creature, destroying it on impact.

He hit a spin kick, knocking the cannon out it's hands, then did a back flip, landing on his feet and catching the cannon in his hand. He aimed and fired, destroying the creature as well.

The red ranger and blue ranger found themselves being manhandled by Goldar, who grabbed them both by the throat. Both of them pulled out their disrupters and fired, knocking Goldar off his feet. The red ranger then ducked, allowing the blue ranger to jump over him, kicking Goldar in the face. He stumbled back, tripping over on of the creatures on the ground, and fell out the hole Lucas made earlier.

"So much for that," Lucas said, dusting himself off.

"I hope you don't think that's it rangers," a voice said.

The four of them turned around as he stepped into the corridor.

"Barbarax," Jen sighed in amazement, taking a step back.

Barbarax didn't say a word as he rushed towards them, picking up the pink and red rangers by the throats, throwing them down the hall. The blue ranger tried a spin kick, but Babarax caught her foot, spinning him around and throwing her into Lucas. They regrouped, but Babarax picked up the pink ranger, throwing her through the hole at the end of the hall.

"Jen," Tommy yelled as he tried to go after her, but Barbarax swung, hitting him in the chest and knocking him to the ground.

Lucas and the blue ranger slowly backed away.

"Any bright ideas?"

"Now would be a good time for that backup the admiral promised us," he sighed.

Barbarax cocked back and swung at Lucas, but it was the gold ranger who grabbed his arm, stopping him. Barbarax shoved the gold ranger away, but when he turned around, Tommy was laying on the ground with the phaser cannon in hand, shooting Barbarax in the face at point blank range. His body fell to the ground as the gold ranger helped Tommy up.

"You okay?"

"Thanks to you, but we have to get Jen. She fell through." he was cut short as Lt. Emery and Katie walked over to them holding Jen up.

"Look who we found," Katie said cheerfully.

"Great, the gangs all here. Now what's the plan?" Ransik asked.

'That's where I come in,' they heard a voice say.

Lucas reached for his Morpher. "What do you have for us Trip?" he asked.

'Trip and I were able to come up with a device that will allow you to determine the frequency of the collars Dez is using. Once you find out what that frequency is, transmit it to us so we can jam the frequency and break Dez' control of the monsters,' he said.

"Understood,"

'We're teleporting the device to you. now,' he said.

At that moment, a small metal box materialized in Lucas' hand.

"Thanks Trip, we'll be in touch," he said.

"I'm afraid that from this moment on, communication with anyone off this ship is impossible. Looks like all of you will be spending a lot of time with me now," they heard Dez' voice say.

They followed the voice into a room at the end of the hallway. They all filed in, but the door closed behind them and they found themselves trapped behind a force field.

"Let us out of here Dez," Tommy snapped.

"Ah Tommy, I had such high hopes for you. I thought that if anyone would understand what I was trying to do here, it would be you. I guess being an ice cube for 1000 years gave you permanent brain freeze," he said.

"You won't get away with this Dez," Jen snapped.

"Famous last words of the fallen superhero. You see Jennifer, I've already gotten away with it. Each of these tubes contains one of the most vile creatures in the universe, and for the last 72 hours I've been draining their life energy. Its only a matter of minutes before years of planning will pay off, and all of you have a front row ticket to the end of the world as you know it," he said.

"You mean you didn't capture all those mutants to use them against us?" Katie asked.

"Oh no my dear, nothing so mundane. I plan to use their life energy to revive myself," he said.

"Revive yourself?"

Then it happened. it was only a moment, but Tommy saw a glimmer of something behind Dez. 'Its Adam,' he thought to himself. Knowing he had to buy Adam some extra time to do whatever he was planning, Tommy had to come up with something quick.

"Tell them Dez, or I will," Tommy told him.

"Very well," he took a step towards them. "You're aware of the Millennium Message, aren't you?" he asked them.

"Of course we are, we sent the message," Jen said.

"I know, your pathetic attempt to alter history and prevent Dark Spector from taking over the entire universe. If not for that Millennium Message, we would have succeeded," he said.

"Are you saying you were there?"

"Oh yes, my wife and I led the assault on Triforia. We'd captured the gold ranger and secured his powers for our own, and the government had bent to our will. We'd finally taken over the entire universe, but that damn Zordon ruined it all. When his energy tube was shattered, his wave of energy swept through the universe, eliminating every member of our alliance. My wife and I were transformed into humans, leaving us defenseless and at the mercy of the Triforian government. Luckily, they did show mercy, and we convinced them we were under Dark Spector's spell and unable to stop ourselves. We were allowed to live our lives in peace, but a year later, some of the Triforian's discovered who we really were. They came after us, and in the process, my wife was killed. I was powerless to stop them, I felt useless. I knew that the only way to reclaim my power was to take back what Zordon stole from me," he explained.

"You want to be evil?"

"No, I want to be powerful. If the price I have to pay for power is to serve evil, then so be it. I will take back what Zordon stripped from me and avenge Rita's senseless death," he snapped.

Without warning, he walked over to the tube in the middle of the room, which appeared full, and punched it. The glass shattered, and a wave of energy swept through the room. Smoke filled the room as well, and the rangers did their best to watch on as they heard Dez screaming through the smoke.

Adam, who'd planned on destroying the tube himself, tried to get back to his feet, rushing over to the rangers to free them. "Hold on guys, I'll get you out of there," he told them.

Seconds later, the smoke cleared, and Adam was able to de-activate the forcefield. Soon, all the smoke was gone, and he was standing there with his chrome staff in hand.

"What a rush!" he screamed as the energy surged through his body.

Tommy and the others looked on in pure amazement as Dez had been completely transformed into..

"Lord Zedd," Ransik sighed.