Disclaimer: part 1
Author's note: thanks again to Nalanzu, who wants to kill me : )
The Tempest
by Smittysgirl
The city streets were desolated given the hour of morning. Terrance thanked heaven for small favors and pulled his jeep aside the curb. It might have been illegal parking, but there wasn't much legal - or especially moral - about what he was doing tonight.
"You made it," Principal Randall snorted. How had he not noticed until now the way her sneer reminded him of Elsa? How couldn't he have made the connection the way he had with Anton and Mesogog?
"It's not like I had a lot of choices in the matter," the Black Ranger sighed. He pulled a large ski bag from the rear of his car and set it in front of the dark general. "Thank you for doing this. You're doing a great service to a couple of good people."
Elsa shrugged. "And what of Zeltrax? I watched as Mesogog implanted the systems into his body. There's nothing that woman of yours can do to release him. My master made certain of that. Are you really going to tell his parents what has become of their other son?"
"Let me worry about that," Terrance said through gritted teeth.
Elsa picked up the bag and slung it over her shoulder like it weighed nothing. Terrance had to marvel at the engineering it would have required to put Zeltrax level strength in a still plainly human appearance, and wondered if what she said was true - there was no way of releasing Conner from the armor's hold.
"Tell me something, Black Ranger. What makes you so sure I won't reveal your identity to the world, as you've threatened to do to me?"
Terrance shrugged. "What's the worst that will happen? I might be named in a couple of lawsuits for property damage. Anything beyond small claims will be thrown out of court, you know what the law states on masked vigilantes. I might even become a minor celebrity. You? I'd destroy your entire life."
Elsa grunted. "Point taken."
She adjusted the bag. "I'll make the announcement later today. We're just fortunate Lord Mesogog is still pretty much blinded by the damage incurred at the lab."
With that she dissolved into an invisiportal and Terrance returned to his jeep and headed back home.
"Welcome back to Good Morning Reefside, with your host Harvey Garvey!" blared the television. "Sitting in for Harvey this morning is our own Stu Starmaker."
"Oog," Hayley groaned, yawning and rubbing sleep from her eyes. She gratefully took a steaming mug of coffee from Devin as he came to relieve her at the monitoring station.
The former ninjas had been relating as much backstory on themselves, their academies, and Lothor as possible to the team ever since Terrance returned. Devin, clearly still accustomed to his ancillary status within the team, had opted out of remaining for the entire briefing. Then again, maybe Devin was just atypically nice for a Red Ranger.
"I think that's enough for today," Cam said suddenly. Hayley's yawn, disguised as she tried to make it, had already trickled down and infected most of the people in Dino Ops. Kira had already laid back in Cassidy's lap, half-dozing. From the soft look in the blond's eyes when she looked at Kira to the hard expression she took whenever forced to look at Ethan or Devin, Hayley surmised there were rough times ahead for what was already approaching a love octagon.
"You'll hear no complaints from me," Ethan stretched. "I'm bushed."
"Are you guys safe at your place?" Trent asked suddenly. "I mean, there's not a lot of room here, but we do have cots that can be put up in Dino Ops."
Tori looked at Cam. "Lothor will be looking for us. I'd feel safer knowing we had actual Power Rangers around. Our ninja tricks won't do us much good, especially with hundreds of ninjas prowling the greater Blue Bay Harbor area."
Cam nodded. "If it's not an imposition to all of you, I think it's better if we stay."
"Not at all," Terrance agreed. Hayley chewed her lip to keep from smiling. Terrance and his sister used to take in injured animals when they were younger and nurse them back to health without their father being any the wiser. Apparently he'd never completely lost that protective instinct.
"Oh, hey! Guys!" Devin said frantically. "There's going to be an item on the news about the Ninja Storm Rangers! I think you might want to see this."
The rest of the team piled in behind the two, including a bleary-eyed Kira Cassidy had jostled awake.
"... the scene hours ago as the International Motocross Championships here in Jersey City were assaulted by what appeared to be Blue Bay Harbor's own Power Rangers."
They watched in slack-jawed horror as the three Rangers tore through the participants like they were nothing. The Crimson Ranger summoned what looked like a combination street bike and hang-glier, and was randomly diving at motorcyclists. Yellow kicked up dust storms which threw riders off the path, and Red buffeted the riders with cyclone force winds.
"Amazingly, their assault was repelled when a group of cyclists from Factory Blue rose up to protect one of their own. We spoke to the intended victim of the attack, two-time World Champion Blake Bradley..."
"Blake?" Tori gasped.
"My God," Cam whispered. "They didn't get to him yet. We have to help him!"
"Excuse me," Cassidy asked. "But who is this guy? I mean, besides famous. I know that much. Why would your teammates want to hurt him?"
"I don't think they want to hurt him," Tori said. "They want to make him like them."
"He's the Navy Thunder Ranger, and Hunter's brother," Cam explained.
"Lothor's keeping his presence pretty low," Terrance observed. "Only using the Rangers, not sending out the rest of the ninja students, making no appearances himself. If he is building a new spaceship that would make sense. Maybe he's decided to turn EVERY ninja on Earth, and he's too busy using the students to do that?"
Tori shook her head. "Something feels wrong. He took out all of the academies that we could tell. None are responding to our messages. Most ninjas don't make a career out of it, it's just a specialized degree. Ex-ninjas would be out of practice."
"We need gear," Cam said suddenly. "I've got a few warehouse lots around the country with ninja equipment I've stashed in case of emergency."
Tori nodded. "And there's all that stuff we filed away at home in case of a rainy day."
"All right," Terrance said. "We need to split up. I don't know how long we have before Lothor figures out we've joined forces. Devin, Kira and I will go with Cam. Ethan, Trent, Conner, you're with Tori. Everybody keep in touch at regular intervals, I don't want a sudden ambush to catch us by surprise."
"So much for sleep," Ethan grumbled.
Cam and Tori's living room was a surprisingly tidy affair for a young couple prone to suddenly packing up and moving across country. Aside from some odds and ends piled on the far end of their coffee table, Trent never would have known they hadn't lived in the apartment for years.
"Nice place," Conner rumbled. Trent was a little disturbed by his friend's current need to wear the armor's helmet whenever actively on duty, but supposed it was as much out of necessity to protect his identity as anything they did while in Ranger attire.
"Yeah," Ethan agreed. "Best most people our age can manage is a studio somewhere."
Tori flipped through a stack of papers. "It's who you know, really. We've met a lot of people over the past year, and good deeds tend to pay themselves off with interest.
"What are we looking for?" Trent asked evenly.
"A ninja communicator. Cam made them for the entire team after we lost our powers. Blake ought to still have his. Unfortunately, we never thought we'd need to use ours again." She scooted down on her knees and started rooting through a chest of drawers. Propped up against the wall beside her sat a bird cage, and inside a large green parrot in what looked like a miniature pillbox hat flapped up from its perch to get a drink of water. It returned to its roost and stared at them with vacant eyes.
"Rawk! Veil of darkness! Lothor must be stopped!""
Ethan gaped, pointing to the cage. "Is that ..."
Tori looked up and nodded. "That's Sensei. The last time Lothor turned him into an animal he had most of his human facilties, but now - whatever happened to Lothor in the Abyss, it changed his magics. Now all Sensei can really do is forecast doom and despair, he doesn't seem to respond to what we say. It's been hard on Cam to see his father like this."
"You keep him in the living room?" Conner asked uncertainly. "That seems kind of cruel."
"One of us felt uncomfortable keeping his Dad in our bedroom, even with a tarp," Tori shrugged.
A moment later she pulled a necklace out of the drawer and fiddled with the front. A small mic popped out of the middle, and she smiled. "Success! Come on, let's go find some of the other ninja chachkies Cam's stored away for a rainy day."
The others trudged their way into the couple's study. Trent held back for a moment, the parrot and he regarding each other uneasily.
"Veil of darkness! Rawk!"
The Mountain of Lost Ninjas was one of the most unholy sites in ninja folklore. The wayward souls whose very existence was bound to this place would be doomed to walk it like some nightmarish purgatory for the rest of their days. None who practiced any form of ninjitsu dared set foot near it for fear of what might manifest to haunt them - which was perhaps for the best, as the rest of the year it was frequently traversed as part of Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Deep within the cavernous maw midway up the mountain was where Lothor had set up his interim base of operations while construction on his new starship continued. It was a cozy place, and he had a certain attachment to it after losing the Gem of Souls to those impudent Rangers. What better place to rule over those same Rangers?
A shuffling from the entryway alerted Lothor to the presence of his lieutenants, and the three ninjas kneeled before his throne.
"We have retrieved the components you require, master," Shane intoned. "They are being installed in the craft as we speak."
"Thought we regret to inform you that my brother eluded us," Hunter continued.
Lothor steepled his hands. "Not unexpected. The younger Bradley always did have a self reliance the rest of you lacked. He's of less concern to me now than mah nephew. Has Cam attempted to contact any of you since the academies fell?"
"No, sire," Dustin said. "We have been attempting to track his activities, but it has been difficult. None of us have his expertise with computers."
"Except for Tori," Shane interjected. "But if we find her we'll find Cam anyway."
Lothor mulled on this for a moment. "Very well. Continue your patrols of Blue Bay Harbor and outlying areas. Sooner or later one of them has to show."
"Perhaps, master, we should maintain constant surveillance on the Wind and Thunder academies, as I suggested?" Hunter asked uneasily.
A bolt of lightning crackled from Lothor's fingertips, sending the Crimson Ranger reeling. "And as I told you weeks ago, ah will NOT squander manpower an' resources on the hopes we MIGHT happen upon mah nephew! Passive monitoring is useless, we'll require patrols of those areas anyway, depriving me of yet MORE strong hands!"
"I'm ... I'm sorry, Master Lothor," Hunter wheezed. "I had forgotten my place."
"See that you do not make that mistake again, Hunter. Ah might not feel so lenient next time. Y'all are dismissed."
The other two Rangers bowed, gathering up their teammate and shooing themselves out of the cavern before Lothor's hackles raised again.
"USELESSSSS!" Mesogog hissed, throwing aside another inactive console after an hour's worth of work finessing the delicate wirework back together. He would make the Rangers pay for what they had done to his beautiful laboratory, to say nothing of stealing the work of art that was the Zeltrax armor. Many of the connections within it required the delicate fingers of a human, and Mesogog no longer knew how much control he would have over Anton Mercer's body.
"Why mussst you still have use to me, Anton?"
The lab was now partially operation again. Invisiportal controls were still regulated downstairs and the Hydroregenerator's primary sequencer was damaged beyond repair, but much of the Genome Randomizer had survived the attack. A pity the same could not be said for the DNA samples it ran on.
The tyrant lizard king leaned against the lifeforce extractor's exam table, fighting a wave of nausea. Mercer. He was attemping to take control again.
"ELSSSA!" Mesogog cried. He hadn't seen hide nor hair of his general in hours, and though he might have liked that under normal circumstances, the last thing he wanted was Anton Mercer left unattended with access to his equipment.
With a strangled gurgle he felt his jawline stretch and contort, and skin grow to accomodate the changes in his biology. Control. He must retain control!
The blunt edge of the table gave him an idea, and just as he felt himself beginning to lose control he slammed his forehead against the table. And again. And again. Anton Mercer gained control of a body already halfway to blissful unconsciousness.
"I'm telling you," Kapri said as the girls stood outside a Gulp 'n Go, "this is going to work. I saw a thing on cable last month. The government is legally obligated to give you catsup and cheese to survive on. We just go in, tell them we're poor, and walk out. Try for something rich, like muenster or brea. We have to subsist on it for a while."
"Are you sure?" Marah whined impatiently. "Those IRS people nearly called the police when we asked for a handout!"
"Duh, that's why we crossed the city line before we tried here!"
A flash of light in front of them halted their progress towards the store. A woman stood there in black leather, with a deteriorating body tucked under her arm and flanked by a bunch of white and black cyclopses.
"OMIGOD," Marah gasped with recognition at the bloated face on the corpse. "That's Eric McKnight!"
The woman's expression went through a comical range of emotions at the sight of Marah. "The Blue Ranger's ..."
They were interrupted by police sirens.