Episode 1 – The Quest For The Crown
The Sub Driver zord has its headlights on, examining an underwater cavern. Inside, the Pink Ranger is in control of her zord, the Yellow and Black Rangers with her inside her cockpit.
"It sure is dark down here," the Yellow Ranger declares. She looks out of the zords window in awe. The zord comes across a structure deep down on the depths of the sea floor.
"You sure this is the place Rose?" the Black Ranger asks. "Let me have a look." The Black Ranger puts his hand onto the Pink Ranger's Control Driver.
"Let me do my job, please," Rose calmly takes the Black Ranger's hand off of her steering wheel.
"Well sorr-ry," the Black Ranger replies sarcastically.
"Also, we're supposed to use our codenames, Black," Rose adds. The Yellow Rangers puts her arm onto the Black Ranger's shoulder.
"That's right," the Yellow Ranger adds. "Come on Travis, you know the rules."
"You know I hate that Sophia," Travis retorts. As the zord approaches, two grapplers at the front of the Sub Driver extend out.
"What is that thing?" Sophia sticks her head right in front of Rose. The Pink Ranger, in an unusually light moment, begins to laugh.
"Come on you," Rose tries to push the Yellow Ranger back out of the way. "The Crown should be in there."
On the Pink Rangers control system, video streams begins transmitting form the cockpits of the Red and Blue Ranger's zords.
"This is the location that Mr Hartford gave us," the Red Ranger explains. "Black, Yellow, it's up to the two of you to go in and extract the artefact. Pink will hold in her zord."
"Can we just get on with this please?" the Blue Ranger chimes in. "We were all there for the mission briefing."
"Come on Travis, we got this," Sophia get in the Black Ranger's face. He pushes her head away.
"You know Hartford said this was important right?" Travis declares.
"Look who's suddenly into the rules," the Red Ranger notes. "We should get this done and wrapped up though. I don't want you guys down there any longer than you need to be. If the pressure changes while you're down there trying to retrieve the Crown, you may not be able to escape."
"This ought to be fun," Travis adds. The zords extends two grapplers, grabbing onto the rockface. Rose uses her controls to remove the rocks from around the structure.
"Good luck Drive Black and Drive Yellow," the Red Ranger wishes his team well as their mission commences.
The Pink Ranger watches from her cockpit as Travis and Sophia swim over to the structure, using scuba equipment.
"You sure they're ready for this?" Rose asks the Red Ranger.
"We have to let them go solo at some point," the Red Ranger notes.
"Liam has a point," the Blue Ranger adds. "We need them to look after us as much as we look after them."
"Exactly Ben," Liam slips. "I mean Drive Blue."
Sophia and Travis emerge from the water inside the structure. They come along to dry ground and leave their scuba equipment behind them. In the darkness, the two Rangers activate the headlights on their helmets. They begin to examine the structure.
"This place is huge," Sophia states. The two begin to work through the cavern, but they soon arrive at a dead end.
"How are we going to get through here?" Travis ponders. The Yellow Ranger turns around, hearing a sound. She shines her light on bats housed within the structure. The bats react to the light and suddenly charge forward, swirling around the two surprised Rangers. Sophia stumbles back into the wall, smacking her hand on a hidden control. An opening in the wall is revealed and two Rangers crash through, falling onto the ground. The two get themselves up, examining the Chamber they have discovered.
"What is this room?" Sophia ponders as she looks around.
"This must be some sort of temple to hold the crown," Travis suggests. The two examine the room, observing columns holding the structure up, hand like carvings coming out of the walls. In the centre of the chamber, a raid platform stands with a tall statue in the middle. The Yellow Ranger steps up onto the platform to examine the statue.
"What is this thing?" she says as she sees something on the side of the statue. "There is some kind of switch here." She moves to turn the switch.
"No, don't" Travis calls out, but it's too late. Fire begins to flow out near the base of the statue. The two are thrown back. At the side of Travis' suit, his blaster spins forward. He grabs it and takes aim at the statue.
"Drive Blaster," Travis fires his weapon, destroying the top of the statue. The flames stop immediately. As the smoke settles on what remains of the statue, Sophia moves in to examine.
"There is something here," she announces as she moves debris from the top of the statue. "It's a puzzle." The Yellow Ranger scans the puzzle using her morpher, the Overdrive Tracker. "0%? There is no energy coming from this."
"Come on genius. I think you'll have to solve the puzzle first," Travis taunts the Yellow Ranger. He moves the parts of the puzzle around, a symbol appearing on top.
The chamber suddenly begins to shake. The hand carvings on the wall at either of the chamber begin to move, narrowing in to grab onto the Rangers. A hole in the chamber appears and water begins to pour in.
The giant structure begins to ascend from the seafloor.
The Rangers outside begin to shake in their zords, knowing something has happened.
"Looks like they found something," Ben states, his video stream still connected to the Red and Pink Rangers' zord.
"The ruins are rising from the seabed," Rose informs her team. She detaches her zord for the structure and begins to move it back through the water.
The Sub Driver reaches the top of the water. The Blue Ranger's zord, the Gyro Driver, flies above the Pink Ranger's zord. Ben releases cables, attaching them to the Sub Driver. It is pulled out of the water as the structure also reaches the surface. The Red Ranger, watching events unfold, puts his foot down on the accelerator. The Dump Driver races forward.
As the structure stabilises above water, it brought with it a direct path. The Dump Driver races along the path.
Travis and Sophia remain trapped in the hands within the chamber.
"What's happening?" Sophia calls out, water pouring over them.
Liam drives through the structure, searching for the two stranded Rangers. His sensors scan throughout the structure, locking onto the thermal signatures of the two stranded Rangers.
"There you are," Liam declares. He spins the steering wheel on his control driver, his zord turning around and beginning to reverse. Liam presses down on his controls, the top of the zord coming down. Acting like two claws, the zord rams through the wall of the chamber and grabs hold of the arms holding onto the Yellow and Black Rangers. The Red Ranger pushes down on his controls. The arms are pulled apart, Travis and Sophia dropping to the ground.
The Dump Driver scoops up the Rangers, throwing them into the top of the zord as it's arms retract. The zord speeds back through the structure, barging through a wall and back out into the open. The Dump Driver pushes its back section up, dirt falling from it, the Black and Yellow Ranger's following. Rose and Ben run to join the rest of the team.
Travis and Sophia pull themselves up from the dirt mound.
"Black, Yellow," Liam calls over to them, correctly using their codenames. He jumps from his zord to join the team. "Did you find anything in there?"
"Just a load of traps," Travis responds.
"What would you expect for a powerful artefact?" Ben points out. Sophia falls down the dirty mound, the Red Ranger helping her up.
"Yeah, but I thought we'd have some intel on it," Travis states as he jumps down, standing in front of the Blue and Pink Rangers. "Not hung out to dry." Travis barges past the Blue Ranger, walking to the edge of the rockface and looking out over the water.
"I don't think you were very dry on a mission to the depths of the sea," Ben jokes. "Anyway, this is what we signed up for. Not easy missions."
"It's not on the depths of the sea anymore," Travis notes. The Yellow Ranger runs over to join him.
"Maybe we shouldn't be backchatting," Sophia whispers as Travis stands with his arms folded. "This was our first solo mission."
"The crown has to be deep within the structure," Liam states.
"It's probably well hidden behind a wall of traps," Rose suggests. "Perhaps we should leave Yellow and Black outside while we go in." Travis and Sophia look at each other.
"This is still our mission," Travis says to the Yellow Ranger. The two take off, running past the rest of the team.
"Wait for me," Sophia calls after the Black Ranger, running behind him.
"Red, this is a bad idea," Rose says to the team's leader.
"We can't let them show us up," Ben declares.
"Let's do it," Liam says as steps forward. The three remaining Rangers make their way towards the structure.
Travis and Sophia run through the structure, followed closely by the other three.
"I don't see anything," the Yellow Ranger states as she and Travis crouch down in a smaller cavern.
"Just keep looking, there has to be something around here," the Black Ranger adds. Sophia notices a small opening within the cavern.
"There is something in here," Sopha calls out. Travis comes to join her as the Yellow Ranger takes out her Overdrive Tracker. She scans the opening. "There's something behind the wall."
"Leave it to me," Travis says, pulling his Drive Saber from its holster. He places the saber into the opening, using it to turn the stone wall. The wall comes down.
"A secret passage," Sophia sounds stunned.
"Come on," Travis leads the way through the even smaller cavern. At the end of the passage, the Rangers find another massive chamber.
"This place is unbelievable," Sophia states in awe. The two look around, seeing a bridging over a pool of lava. "That's a long way down."
"Then let's not go down," the Black Ranger responds. "There's something over there." The two Rangers see a white artefact the other end of the bridge. "Let's go."
The two rangers begin to run across the bridge. A piece of the bridge collapses under the Black Ranger's foot and he begins to fall. Sophia quickly grabs into him as he grapples onto the bridge.
"Hold on," Sophia calls out. The other Rangers enter the temple. Liam and Rose run right across the bridge, while Ben stops to assist Travis and Sophia.
"Help the others," Travis says to the Blue Ranger, who quickly complies.
As the Rangers run, the entire bridge begins to break away underneath them. Travis gets himself back up with the help of Sophia. The two run and leap forward to join the rest of the team. The five just stay ahead of the crumbling bridge. They just make it to the other side, the Yellow and Black Rangers collapsing in relief.
"That was a bit close for comfort," Sophia sighs.
"This doesn't look like a crown," Ben proclaims as he examines the artefact.
"Scan it Blue," Rose insists. Ben takes out his Overdrive Tracker, scanning the item. The Trackers a score of 86.
"86%, that's the highest score we've ever seen," the Blue Ranger tells the team.
"Let's grab it and get out of here," Liam orders the Blue Ranger. He tries to take hold of the item.
Before he can though, it begins to glow and moves by itself off of the altar. It flies past the other Rangers, multiplying and covering the chamber.
"What's going on here then?" Ben approaches one of the replicants. Sophia quickly runs over and knocks him down, the replicant exploding.
"How did you know that was going to happen?" Rose asks Sophia.
"I was a spark," she replies. "It must have been a proximity sensor."
"Then only one is real and the rest must be explosives," Travis theorises. "How do we find the real one?" Liam walks up to the replicant nearest him. He clenches his fist. "Wait, you'll destroy the real one." The Red Ranger punches the item, sending it crashing into the one nearest it. They crash off of each other, setting a chain reaction in motion. The Rangers cover their eyes at the light show.
"Whoever sealed this down here must have known that it wouldn't be destroyed," Liam explodes his reasoning. "Otherwise they wouldn't be able to come back and get it."
"Just to remind you, this was supposed to be Sophia and I's mission," Travis complains. The Red Ranger puts his hand on Travis' shoulder as the Yellow Ranger stands at the edge of the platform.
"Sorry Black, but the mission changed," the Red Ranger replies. Travis turns around in frustration, accidently knocking into Sophia. She falls off the platform.
"Soph," the Black Ranger jumps off the platform and grabs hold of the Yellow Ranger. "Drive Grappler." He puts his hand up, the grappler shooting into the roof of the temple. The two fly across the chamber, Sophia taking hold of the artefact and getting to the other side of the temple. They stand up, Travis grabbing the artefact from Sophia's hands. "I told you Liam, this was our mission." The Red and Blue Rangers laugh.
"Fine, you win," the Red Ranger proclaims. "If you wanted to prove yourself, you did it. You proved yourself."
The remaining Rangers zip across.
"I think we should get out of here," Rose states. "I don't think anything else is in here. Hopefully that artefact will lead us to the crown."
"You guys go ahead," Liam says to the rest of the team. "Me and Black will finish off in here." The three rangers comply and leave the chamber the way they came.
"What's there to finish off?" Travis asks Liam. "There is no sign of the Crown. This is all we have to go on."
"And I'd bet that that will lead us to the Crown," Liam replies. "But, there is a bigger issue here. You need to cool down on the ego."
"Ego?" Travis is shocked by the accusation.
"Completing our missions is more important than who completes it," Liam explains. "You put Sophia at risk. And yes, you completed the mission. And you were damn impressive. But, you can't put the rest of us at risk to do so. Why was this so important?"
"You wonder if what Hartford said about the crown is true?" Travis asks.
"About being able to grant unfathomable power to its user?" Liam replies. "Granting wishes? I'm not sure. Why does it matter?"
"What if he had that power for ourselves?" Travis follows up. "We could get anything we want. How well do we really know Hartford? Can we trust him?" Liam's tracker goes off before he can answer. He takes it out.
"Go ahead," Liam answers the call.
"Red, Black," Rose's voice is heard over the Tracker. "We need you outside now."
"We're on out way," he answers. He closes his morpher. "Let's go. We can finish this later."
Outside the structure, the three Rangers are rocked by explosions and fall to the ground. They try to get themselves up, comforted by white monsters, each holding a pick-axe like weapon in their hands. They charge at the three Rangers, them doing the best to defend themselves.
Ben punches one of the monsters in the top of the chest. The powerful punch cracks the chest. As the Blue Ranger retracts his hand, the crack reseals itself.
"Man, that hurt," Ben declares as he holds his hand in pain. The monster tries to attack again, the Blue Ranger knocking himself off balance trying to evade. Rose moves quickly, avoiding each of the strikes. One of the monsters tries to hit Sophia, breaking apart a rock instead. The Yellow Ranger falls to the ground.
"What are these things?" she calls out.
"Drive Blaster," the Red Ranger jumps into the air and fires his blaster. The monster standing over the Yellow Ranger is blasted back.
"Red," Rose calls out. The Red Ranger knocks the monster away. He fires his blaster again. The white monster turns to stone and cracks apart.
The Pink and Blue Rangers follow suit, firing their blasters as well. Sophia pulls her blaster from her holster.
"Drive Saber," she calls as she converts her blaster to its saber mode. Charging forward, she strikes the saber through the creature. The monster is knocked away. Travis comes in to support, using his own Drive Saber to smack apart the monster. The Rangers finish off the rest of the monsters.
"Whoever hid that artefact wanted it to stay hidden," Rose declares as the team regroups.
The structure begins to shake, rising up once again. The ground around the Rangers shakes.
"What is it now?" Ben states.
"It's the temple," Liam responds. The temple takes shake, revealing its arms and legs. It towers over the team. "And this is why we have zords." The team take out their Overdrive Trackers.
"Summoning Drive Zords," the team calls.
The Rangers enter their zords. Liam locks in his Control Driver to take control of the zord. He places his Overdrive Tracker on the side of his controls. The five rangers spin the base of their morphers.
"Drive Zords, online." The five individual zords fire out their blasters at the temple. It hits the back of the monster, who turns to face the Rangers.
"You guys take the lead," the Black Ranger declares, trying to head Liam's advice.
"It's going to take all of us," Sophia sates.
"Why don't we led the newbies take the lead?" Ben suggests.
"They have to go solo at some point, right?" Rose finally accepts.
"Dozer Driver Zord," the Yellow Ranger races forward, not waiting for confirmation. The bulldozer scoops up one of the monsters legs, knocking it back.
"Speed Driver Zord," the Black Ranger's zord opens up, firing rockets at the enemy. The monster is knocked to the ground.
"Well done Black and Yellow," the leader congratulates his teammates. "Now, let's bring them together."
"Right," the Rangers comply. The team spin their Overdrive Trackers once again. The zords line up. The Dozer Driver puts its shovel into the ground as the zord opens up and straightens out. The back of the Sub Driver moves up, revealing a fist. They move in and attack to the Dump Driver. The top of the Dump Driver moves up. They flip over, coming down to the ground, forming the Megazord's legs. The Speed Drives races towards the Megazord, driving up it as it ascends from the ground. It tops at the top of the Megazord, forming the Megazord's chest plate. It opens up and connects to the top of the Megazord, the head popping up. The Gyro Driver flies in, the helmet piece separating from the back. The wings fold up and the front of the zord connects to the back of the Megazord. The helmet attaches to the head. Liam's control Driver detaches from his cockpit, the Red Ranger taking his morpher. He descends from his cockpit.
He ascends into the team's cockpit, the other Rangers joining him.
"DriveMax Megazord, online," the Rangers call, setting their Control Driver's into their new home. They push their controls forward, placing their Overdrive Trackers in place.
"Let's end this," Liam declares.
"Operation Overdrive," the team call. The Megazord stands tall with its shovel and pick-axe weapons in hand.
"Pick-axe," the Red Ranger spins his steering wheel. The pick-axe slams into the ground. Energy races through the ground and strikes the monster.
"Got him," Travis states. It doesn't faze the monster though. It moves towards the Rangers, its long arms grabbing hold of the Megazord. It drops the pick-axe.
"It's got us trapped," Ben calls out.
"We have to get ourselves free," Rose adds. Sparks fly on the Megazord's arms as it tries to grip tighter. It powers up the hydraulics on its legs, breaking free and punching the monster back.
"Time to use the shovel," Liam declares. It slams its second weapon into the ground. It hits down again, flipping a section of the ground up and knocking the monster back.
The temple monster gets back up, revealing a light blue orb in the middle of its chest.
"That must be the source of its power," the Red Ranger proclaims, looking at Rose.
"Right," the Pink Ranger understands. "Combining weapons now." The Megazord places the shovel and pick-axe together, the two reconfiguring into a saber. The Megazord extends its arm out. Power emanates through the Megazord and into the saber.
"DriveMax Saber," the rangers call. The Megazord spins the saber around, completing a full rotation. The Operation Overdrive symbol appears before the Megazord. "Drive Max Strike." The DriveMax Saber strikes through the symbol, hitting out at the orb in the middle of the monster's chest. The monster drops to its knees, falling to the ground and exploding.
The Rangers meet on the rockface overlooking the water. They power down, wearing black uniforms with panelling representing their Ranger colours. Travis picks up the artefact that they recovered from the temple before they were attacked, having hid it before they engaged the monsters.
"So, what do we do now Liam?" Travis asks.
"Black," Rose snaps. "Codenames."
"You need to chill out Rose," Sophia states, walking over and putting her arm around her. "Codenames are only for missions. The mission is complete."
"But we haven't completed it yet," Rose declares. "We didn't recover the Aurora Crown. That was the mission." As Rose finishes speaking, the artefact begins to glow.
"What's going on?" the Black Ranger begins to panic, quickly setting the item down. The team crowd round it as it begins to transform. It morphs into the shape of a crown. Coming out of the top of the Crown, five jewels are visible. Each jewel corresponds to one of the Ranger's colours.
"Well Rose?" Liam picks up the crown. "Can we say the mission is complete?" The Rangers start to laugh, the Pink Ranger even joining in.
"We do still have to deliver it back to HQ," Rose smiles. "But yes, the mission is over Liam."
"So this is the Aurora Crown," Travis states. "It doesn't look all that powerful."
"In the hands of the right people, it can make their dreams come true," Rose explains. "But, in the hands of the wrong people, it can corrupt you completely."
"Absolute power corrupts absolutely," the Blue Ranger declares. "And with great power, comes great responsibility."
"You got anymore quotes in your wheelhouse Uncle Ben?" Liam replies to the Blue Ranger. "But, Travis brought up a good point earlier. How well do we really know Mr Hartford? Can we trust him with this much power?" The other three rangers look confused.
"Maybe I shouldn't have said anything," Travis proclaims.
"You've been with Operation Overdrive the longest Liam," Ben proclaims. "Do you think we can just hand it over? Can we trust him?"
"I don't think we can should just turn it over without at least talking about it," Liam responds. "I'm not saying we're going to use it for ourselves. But, I do wonder what he's going to do with it."
"He'll catalogue it and put it in storage, the way he does with everything else we retrieve," Rose asserts. She turns away from the rest of the team, unhappy with the direction of the conversation.
"Good people don't just give people they're unsure about powerful items," Sophia pitches in.
"Come on Rose," Liam tries to encourage the Pink Ranger to participate. "I want to hear what you think." She signs, turning around.
2007
"So the Bolsheviks stopped the Tsar from reaching the capitol and addressing his people," Rose is giving a lecture in a massive theatre. College kids are hung on her every word. She pauses slightly, noticing a familiar face sitting in a seat at the back of the hall. She breathes heavily, her heart beginning to race. "I think we'll call it a day for now." The students begin to pack up. "Next time we'll go over the impact of the Russian Revolution on the First World War." She turns around and begins to pack her own stuff up. As the students exit the theatre, the man Rose spotted at the back of the room begins to descend the stairs towards her. He stands behind her as she tries to ignore his presence.
"Hello Rose," the man finally speaks. She sighs, turning around.
"What are you doing here?" she speaks with fury in her voice.
"We need to talk Rose," the man answers.
"I told you I never wanted to see you again," she turns back and grabs her bag. "I'm sorry, but I have a meeting to get too." Rose begins to storm up the stairs of the lecture theatre. "Goodbye Mr Hartford."
"I found a signal," Mr Hartford calls after her. Rose freezes in her tracks.
"What did you say?" Rose speaks slowly as she turns around, fear covering her face.
"I found a jewel signal," he repeats himself. "It's time to resurrect Operation Overdrive."
To Be Continued