POWER RANGERS ZEO
SHADOW OF THE DRAGON
Chapter Six
Written by DTM666
Originally Published on : November 2003 to May 2004
First volume of the Breakdown trilogy, which is followed by Power Rangers: Breakdown and Power Rangers: Zero Hour.
Disclaimer: The author would like to clarify that Power Rangers and its characters is owned by Saban Brands and not the author.
-o-
Thomas Oliver studied the damage done to the Power Chamber. For the most part, the place was still operating, albeit a disaster area with rubble scattered about and hanging wires barely keeping from falling. Just as he was about say naughty words, he turned to see his friend, William Cranston, in awe of the current surroundings.
"Wow." the former Ranger gasped. "What happened here?"
"Lots of stuff, man." Tommy said, "Maybe I should fill you in."
He began explaining about their last battle with Mondo's Machine Empire and his subsequent non-presence. He brought up the strange being who had somehow teleported the other Zeo Rangers to parts unknown and somehow managed to acquire the Dragon Dagger, subsequently gaining control of the long-dormant Dragonzord. He began explaining about the two battles he's had with this new enemy as well as the recent ambush which had resulted in the current state of the Power Chamber.
When Tommy was done, Billy took a moment to digest everything he had heard before speaking. "I'll see what I can do, but first we need to assess the damage done."
-o-
Aradon watched in the holding bay as various Cog soldiers worked feverishly on re-assembling the pieces of king Mondo back into operating form. Even at his Cog's advanced speed, Aradon knew it would take an Earth hour before he can taunt his rival. Satisfied at what has transpired, he left the room and proceeded towards the bridge. When he got there, he made a glance at the giant viewscreen, which showed various skybases attacking the Machine colony in the background. On the forefront was Mondo's own palace; the heart of the entire colony. He immediately approached the weapons officer closest to him and whispered in his 'ear'.
"Launch a couple of concussion torpedoes at the lower section of the power generators. That should take out the shield of the tower. Once that's done, do as you please and then set a course for the homeworld."
"Yes, sir." the weapons officer answered, almost sounding delighted.
From the skybase, two orange bolts launched towards the large cylindrical structures, shattering and imploding upon immediate contact. At the same time, the orange energy field that surrounded Mondo's castle and the surrounding towers had quickly disintegrated. Fifty squadrons of black quadrafighters (with roughly five ships per squadron) poured from the various skybases and began to chip away at the various structures and ground defenses below. Any other black fighters that were previously launched converged with the new group to concentrate their attacks at the central hub of the colony. Various red fighters, the ones loyal to Mondo, launched from the hangar bays of the castle to confront Aradon's forces, but they were quickly disposed in due time by the more advanced black fighters. More fighters continued to be launched from the ground hangars and soon there was enough for the black fighters to detour from taking out the towers and fighting the red fighters.
While this was going on, the chief skybase commanded by Aradon fired its torpedoes and polaron cannons at the castle, obliterating it completely. Various pieces of debris fell from the structure and crashed onto the ground, taking several quadrafighters that just so happen to have gotten in the way. The other skybases followed suit, firing various torpedoes and weapons at other ground targets, including several departing skybases from below. The battle progressed for an hour until Mondo's Machine colony was completely destroyed and the last red quadrafighter was blown to pieces.
The Machine armada led by Aradon promptly left behind the burning wreckage of mass and metal that was once the lunar colony of Mondo and proceeded home with their claimed prize.
-o-
"It's hopeless. We'll never find a way out if we keep walking in circles."
The words from Tanya Sloan stopped the Rangers dead in their tracks, but none of them had a response. Adam simply looked up at the ceiling and sighed heavily, Rocky was disturbingly silent, and Kat seemed defeated. Since their meeting with Lord Zedd, the Zeo Rangers had seemingly gone through every corridor, every stairway, and every junction within the palace, but all this time they were never able to find anything remotely resembling an exit.
"Check your Zeonisers." Kat said.
"Nothing," Rocky said after checking his. "My morpher's dead."
"It's still malfunctioning." Adam said, noticing the blinking lights on his Zeoniser, "I don't what Zedd shot us with, but it's preventing me from accessing the morph matrix."
Rocky's fist clenched firmly and instinctively, he slammed it against the wall closest to him as hard as he could, making a slight crack on the wall but nothing more. The pain caused by bone meeting concrete didn't bother Rocky, although he certainly did feel it.
"You okay, man?"
"Yeah. This thing's getting to me." He turned to Katherine. "Do you remember anything around here, Kat?"
Kat shook her head. "Very little. And what little I do remember isn't much help. The palace tends to change shape every now and then. Outside it looks the same, but the hallways and chambers situated here are always shifting. Not one visit to this place is ever the same."
"I hate to break your tangent, Kat," Tanya interrupted, "but that's not helping."
Kat nodded. "Right. Let's keep going."
-o-
Two hours had passed since Billy's arrival. In that short span of time, the Power Chamber was slowly regaining form thanks to the Chamber regenerator that had been used to reassemble the outer Command Center shell. Tommy immediately noticed the changes in form to this new Power chamber. In place of the Ranger Gallery were five colored tubes, the chamber itself had seemingly gotten a bit wider, and the illumination is a little brighter than it had been previously. All in all, Tommy seemed impressed by the restructuring of the chamber.
"Well," Billy said proudly, "The Power Chamber's back in one piece, even though most of it still doesn't work."
"Worry about it later, man." Tommy said. "Right now, we need to focus on more important matters."
"We can't find the other Rangers while the scanners are dead," Billy said, "but I might have an idea on how to deal with the current dilemma."
Tommy nodded in agreement. "Any ideas, Billy?"
"Whoever this guy is," Billy pointed out, "he seems to be under the assumption that you're the only one left for him to battle. If the Battlezord is piloted by someone else while you try to ambush him from behind without detecting your presence, he wouldn't know until you meet him face-to-face. It's not much, but he could be distracted by your sudden appearance, which could give you an opportunity to steal back the Dragon Dagger if possible, or destroy it if necessary."
"An interesting strategy, Billy." Zordon complemented. "However, the only other person who piloted the Battlezord was Adam and as it stands now, the current whereabouts of the other Power Rangers are unknown to us."
"What about Trey?" Tommy suggested, referring to the Triforian Prince/Gold Ranger. "We could retrofit the Battlezord so he can..."
"With the communications network destroyed, we have no way to send a signal to Triforia." Zordon answered pitifully, "Besides, the only zord Trey has ever used was Pyramidas, which is generally classified as a carrier zord. He has no experience in piloting an attack zord."
Billy looked up for a moment and moved towards the consoles, making sure to keep Alpha's body on the floor. "I'll do it."
Tommy's eyes widened. "You can't go."
"I already configured the Battlezord to recognize my thought patterns while I did yours," Billy assured, "in case the time necessitated it. Like now."
Tommy shook his head. "No way, Billy. I'm not risking it."
"Doesn't look like you have much of a choice." Billy countered. "As it stands right now, the other Rangers are beyond our reach in who knows where. Without a communication network, it'd be really difficult to contact anyone three miles from here, let alone someone in another country, let alone someone on another planet."
"You don't have any powers."
"I may not have any Ranger powers, but I do have this." As Billy spoke those words, he pulled something out of his jeans pocket and held it firmly in his hand. Tommy stared blankly at the closed fist and noticed that it started to glow a faint blue. In seconds, the glow grew stronger until an aura surrounded Billy's fist completely. Tommy stared in awe as Billy opened up his fist to reveal the source of the aura; a golden coin with a triceratops' head engraved into it.
"A power coin?" Zordon observed, surprised, "How is it possible? They're-"
"Destroyed by Rita and Zedd during the time regression?" Billy interrupted. "No, those were the Ninja coins that Ninjor had given us. This, on the other hand, is the original Blue coin that you gave me, Zordon. This coin, along with the others, were mainly dormant ever since the Thunderzords were destroyed little over two years ago. At first, I thought they were useless and thus had completely forgotten about them, but then I did some research and found out that the coins were slowly, but surely, regaining their strength.
"There isn't enough power for the morphegenic elements to activate and my old morpher is damaged beyond repair, so morphing's out of the question. However, with the coin merely in my possession, I found out that I can channel its energies and basically use it as an attribute enhancement. In essence, I have added strength, speed, endurance, and some invulnerability. I'm assuming that the same goes for the other six coins as well."
"Wait a minute." Tommy said, raising his hand, "You said the other six?"
"That's right." Billy answered, "Each coin has its own 'recharge' rate. Some take longer than others, as not all of them were created equally; otherwise, we'd all be wearing the same colored Ranger suits every time we morphed with them. I only found out about the coin's energy-restoring properties about a month ago. It's not too difficult to presume that the other coins were also slowly regaining their energies to the point of being used."
"So if what you're saying is valid, whoever our enemy is not only has the Dragonzord and Dagger, but he must somehow have the Green Power Coin." Zordon said gravely, "It's the only explanation as to how he is able to do this."
Tommy thought about it and suddenly it started to somewhat make a bit of sense, except for one minor detail. "Isn't the Green Coin useless?" he asked.
"Not really," Billy explained, "Rita and Zedd did drain the Green Coin of its power and the several attempts by Zordon to infuse with energy were failures. When the Wizard of Deception arrived and created a clone of Tommy, he gave him a limited-powered Green Coin. Am I correct in assuming that your doppelganger retained the Green Coin when he decided to stay in the past?"
Tommy nodded. "He didn't need it, but decided to keep it just in case."
"In that case, the Green coin could have regained its full powers without us knowing it." Billy said. Upon noticing Tommy's confused look, he elaborated. "When the clone's life ended in the past, the Green coin he was in possession of was presumably buried with him or lost. During the time that it was not seeing much use, it was slowly regaining the energy it had lost. So the coin would be fully-powered by now. This could explain his being able to utilize the Dragonzord, as well as some other powers he might possess."
For the most part, Zordon had listened to Billy's explanation without interruption, mostly because some of the things brought to light had never crossed the sage's mind ever since he first got the original Power coins. "I'm astounded by the mass of knowledge that you have acquired in a short span of time, Billy." the sage complemented, "I must admit your explanation has brought to light many things I would not have known or even imagined."
Billy shrugged, allowing himself a satisfied grin. "I guess I got bored one day and fiddled around with my old toys."
Tommy smiled, place a hand of Billy's shoulder. "I haven't the faintest clue as to what you've said, but I'm convinced."
"So am I in?" Billy asked sheepishly.
Tommy sighed heavily before answering. "You're in. Let's get to work..."
-o-
Night had fallen. Over the glow of a full moon, the Dragonzord stood close to a tall mountain as the stranger looked into his hands. In his left hand was a small gold coin with a dragon's footprint etched into it, letting out a faint green glow. Held firmly in his right hand was the Dragon Dagger, the weapon of the Green Ranger and the instrument that controlled the zord. The stranger studied the dagger for a moment before slipping it into a hidden pocket in his jacket. He placed the coin into another pocket and jumped to his feet.
"Such a beautiful night, isn't it?"
The stranger slowly turned around to see Lord Zedd standing on a rock.
"I haven't had the chance to thank you for delivering those Rangers to me," he said, "Never mind the fact that they're running rampant in my palace. I swear to the gods, Rita thought she had headaches before. That witch's probably having a migraine!"
The stranger stayed silent, glaring at Zedd.
"Not much of a talker, eh?" Zedd sighed and walked towards a nearby boulder and took a seat. "I know your secret. It took me a while to figure it out, but then I found myself spying on Zordon's boy scouts and learned something rather interesting."
No answer.
"I know you have the Green Power Coin, the coin lost long ago. I know that somehow you've discovered the coin somewhere and kept it for yourself. I know that it's with this rejuvenated coin you have acquired these powers."
No answer. Zedd continued to talk.
"It took me a very long time to put the pieces together. It makes sense, doesn't it? Coin goes back in time, gets lost over time, recovered by you, and suddenly you're the second coming. You also seem to master the true potential of the Power Coin, not just use it for morphing time. That must make you... extra special."
Again, no answer. Zedd was clearly irritated.
"You don't want to talk? Fine, but you will answer my next question!"
The stranger looked ahead attentively at Zedd.
"You've somehow brought these Rangers over to me and in a sense, I'm impressed." Zedd revealed, "but you've not delivered the Red Ranger, the one I really want."
The stranger approached Zedd slowly, but didn't give Zedd the impression of attack.
"Quite frankly, I don't care for the other Rangers," Zedd said, his voice growing louder and more angry with each passing word. "I don't care for the traitor Kat, I don't care for the better-in-black Adam, I don't care for the misplaced Tanya, and I ESPECIALLY don't care about that pachinko-obsessed joke of a former Red Ranger! I want the Red Zeo Ranger! The big fish!"
The fleshman walked up to the strange and asked in a calm voice. "Now am I going to get him?"
The stranger took another step towards Zedd to the point where there is not more than a couple inches of space between them. After what seemed like an eternity (but really only a minute) to Zedd, the stranger spoke through his concealed face.
"You'll get him. Soon enough."
Zedd noticed something familiar in the voice of this person. As if he's heard this voice before, but he couldn't quite match the face. Rather than pursue, he gave an approving nod and used his staff to teleport home, leaving the stranger alone on the cliff. Pulling out the Dragon Dagger, he played a tune... a tune that caused the massive Dragonzord to break from its trance.
It was time to strike again...
TO BE CONTINUED...