Cat: Hey all! I know that there is a lot of confusion with so many characters involved in this story. I had a lot of trouble keeping up with them all myself. In fact, I used a list, which I have decided to include here.
Rangers in the Final Battle: Andros-Ashley-Carlos-Cassie-Conner-Ethan-Kira-Max-Danny-Cole-Alyssa-Taylor-Blake-Hunter-Tori-Cam-Shane-Dustin-Maya-Kimberly-Jason-Trini-Justin-Leo-Damon-Wes-Eric-Kat
Disclaimer: If I owned the Power Rangers, battlings, quantrons, putrids, tyranodrons, putties, kelsacks, and prianadrones would all have much shorter names so that I wouldn't have to type them.
Cam had never been very good at counting crowds, so there was no way he could estimate the size of the force before them, but it was large. Battlings, Quantrons, Putrids, Tyranodrons, putties, kelsacks, and prianadrones were staring them down menacingly. Jason, Trini, Kat, and Justin ran to the trebuchet and loaded it hurriedly as the other Rangers stopped whatever it was they were doing and ran to form a very long line.
"We've faced forces this huge before." Andros reminded them, practically shouting to be heard by all.
"Yeah, but there's no Zordon to bail us out this time." Cassie said quietly. If anyone heard her, no one commented.
A misty shape shot over the horizon before coming into starling clarity. The Dracozord did a barrel roll and Trent hopped off, landing casually at the front of his troops. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the Ranges while the Dracozord flapped loudly and disappeared into the sky.
"Trent! This is your last chance!' Andros shouted at him. "Surrender now!'
"Or what?"
"Or we'll take you down."
"I'd like to see you try."
"Ready Rangers!"
"White Ranger. Dino Power." Trent was matched by various morphing shouts, and when the Rangers stood arrayed in their full glory, several explosions went off behind them in various colors. Ethan wondered briefly where they had come from, but didn't pay too much attention to them.
Trent pointed his quill at them and shouted "Charge!"
His troops ran forward, but barely got two steps before Jason shouted "Fire!" The trebuchet went off, pelting the enemy with pies of all flavors. Several tripped and fell and Trent himself was bombarded by them. He stumbled backwards, giving Andros ample time to shoot him twice with his Astoblaster.
Trent recovered in time to parry a blow from Ashley and then the Rangers were separated by the army.
Surrounded by monsters of all kinds Trent was safely behind the first wave. No one could even get close to him. The other Rangers' attention was diverted from him for the moment as they struggled to remain a unified force. Kira and Ethan managed to stick together, but Conner was separated from them, just as Kelsey was separated from Carter, Dana, and Joel. Cassie and Ashley found themselves split apart from Andros and Carlos.
Max and Danny were fighting together as a pair and Taylor, Alyssa, and Cole made a powerful threesome. Jason and Trini had thrown themselves into the fray after making certain that Justin and Kat could work the trebuchet.
Surprisingly enough the large machine was actually a big help. The pies slowed and irritated their enemies and the swinging motion that the machine invoked to launch the pies had proven highly defensive for those who could wield it, as it proved disastrous for anything that got too close.
Blake and Hunter were making good on their Thunder Ninja training, and, by some small miracle, all of the three Wind Ninjas had managed to stick together and were showing themselves to be fierce fighters. Cam and Damon were standing back to back. Both Green Rangers battling their hardest and Maya and Leo were about a hundred Quantrons away from them.
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"Ew! What are these things?" Kira asked as she whacked a thin black creature with large red circles around its eyes.
"Battling." Carter called over the battle.
"It's really ugly."
"Coming from someone who fought Traynodrons, I really don't think that means much, Kira." Ethan grunted as he tried and failed to wrestle another battling off of himself. Kira grabbed the offending monster and flung him several feet.
"But they don't have the creepy eyes." She continued. Ethan got a good look at those creepy eyes as he traded blows with an oncoming pair of battlings.
"Point taken."
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"Is Trent laughing at us?" Ashley asked as she did in a kelsack.
"What?" Cassie laughed at the sheer randomness of the question.
"Well, most bad guys laugh when they think they've won, so I was just wondering if Trent's laughing." She explained without a break in the battle around them.
"How do you think of things like that at times like these?"
"Hey. I'm running on virtually no sleep."
"Good point. And yes, he's probably laughing."
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"How many do you think there are?" Damon asked, panting slightly.
"No idea." Cam turned his attention briefly to his communicator. "Cyber Cam." The alternate Cam anticipated his question.
"Man, you don't wanna know."
"That many?" Damon groaned.
"Apparently there are that many." Cam affirmed grimly.
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"Breaking and entering, huh?" A voice asked. Cassidy and Devin both spun around.
"Oh, you see, um, sir." Devin bumbled. The figure laughed.
"What are you doing here?"
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"Okay, I'm tired of this." Andros said.
"Whatcha gonna do?" wondered Carlos.
Andros pressed the large '03' button on his wrist and shouted, "Red battalized Ranger!" at the top of his lungs. Several putrids were blown backwards by the explosive morph alone.
"All right!" Carlos said excitedly.
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"I hate my life." Conner grumbled to himself as he tripped a pirannadron. "All I wanted to do was play soccer and date girls. But nooooooo. I had to be a Ranger. And save the world." Using his super speed he dodged a pair of attackers who ran headfirst into each other with an audible smack. "And there wasn't even a super cute Pink Ranger on the team."
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"I'm on twenty-eight, what about you?" Ethan asked.
"I'm not counting!" replied Kira shrilly.
"You're not?"
"Of course not. Ten bucks says you're the only person here who's counting."
"Deal."
"I cannot believe we just made a bet in the middle of the fight of our lives."
"We're horrible." Ethan agreed casually before getting slightly distracted by the onslaught of opponents.
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Kat and Jason had given up on shouting 'Fire' after the first few dozen times, and were now just giving a very general warning.
"Look out!" No one moved away because no one had been near it. Even the opposing army had given up on trying to defeat the modified picnic table. A few Rangers had found out the hard way that the machine was as dangerous to those operating it as to the enemy. As a result Kat and Justin were being left alone and the trebuchet was given a wide berth by all.
Several pies (most of which had been smashed in the rush to get them loaded) went sailing through the air to strike a group of quantrons near Trent.
"What do we have to do to hit that guy!" Kat asked in exasperation, having been trying to hit the White Ranger for over seven pie-loads and repeatedly missed.
"If I knew, we'dve hit him." Justin said as he tossed a cherry pie into the trebuchet.
"Maybe we just need a little luck. Try shouting something lucky."
"Like what? 'Seven!'!"
"I don't know!" Kat whined. "Anyway, let's try this again."
"Timber!" Justin yelled and the machine released.
"Let me guess, you've always wanted to say that."
"Yeah, how did you know?"
"Lucky guess." She answered dryly. Then she caught sight of Trent. He was completely covered in sticky cherry filling and they could practically feel him glaring at them through his helmet.
"Score!" Justin whooped, throwing a fist into the air and making sure that Trent could see how excited he was.
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"As long as we're stuck fighting his goons, no one can get at Trent." Taylor complained loudly.
"Well, what do you want me to do about it?" Cole asked his temper as frayed as the yellow Ranger's.
"I don't know! Just let me be a bitch!"
"Whoa. Can do." Cole and Alyssa backed a couple steps away.
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"Okay, no one hates to admit this more then I do, but there are way too many." Tori said.
"It's not too many more monsters then were resurrected from the Abyss of Evil."
"Try two or three times more, Dustin." Shane said dryly.
"We only won then because we got at Lothor." Tori continued.
"Well, if you know how to get to Trent, I'm up for ideas."
"Learn to fly." Suggested Dustin.
"Or we could just try to throw you really far."
Dustin looked mildly afraid.
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"Hey there. You want another lemonade?" Ernie asked. Beth and Kerri felt very important sitting on the high stools at Ernie's bar.
"Yeah yeah!" Beth said eagerly and Ernie grinned as he handed her her forth drink. He shifted Sam in his arms and the super-babysitter moved to the table where Hannah was happily coloring.
"Whatcha drawing there?"
"A pony. See. The pony is pink cause she's magic." Hannah explained, showing him.
"Wow. I see that. That's really good, Hannah!" He glanced back up at the bar where Greg was nursing a soda. He was jamming the straw repeatedly into the ice irritably, frowning. "What about you? You doing okay over there?"
"Um, my parents are under attack and I'm hanging out with a bunch of kids, coloring. I don't know. Am I okay?" He said angrily.
"Look. Greg. Your parents were just worried, I'm sure. I knew your mother. She'd never forgive herself if anything happened to you."
"Oh yeah, and, when I'm an orphan, I'll never forgive her either."
"Greg." Ernie said seriously. "Your parents are going to be fine."
"You wanna bet on that?" Greg looked at him so seriously, almost daring him to disagree, that Ernie could think of nothing to say.
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"Oh thank God." Ashley breathed as Andros came skimming over the heads of the enemy army, spilling them in every direction. The crowd around them briefly broke up and the four Astro Rangers were reunited.
"Am I ever glad to see you." Cassie agreed.
It was then that the army regrouped. Every tyranodron within striking distance attacked at once. The Rangers didn't even have time to react, let alone defend. The battilizer shattered and their Ranger transformations failed.
Suddenly, they were scared.
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"Okay, I'm bored and I'm tired and I'm hungry." Kira complained.
"You wanna take these and I'll take the next ones?" Ethan asked, motioning at the circle of batlings the surrounded them.
"Sounds good." Kira said and a group of the enemy rushed forward. They were quickly dealt with with one short ptera-scream. A second group ran in to replace them instantly and Ethan easily fended them off.
"I'm still bored and tired and hungry."
"So am I."
Kira grabbed a nearby battling and started pounding it furiously on the head. "Do something interesting!" she ordered. The battling struggled madly and squeaked a little.
"Kira! Calm down!" Ethan sounded mildly panicked as he pried his friend off of the creature. The battling stumbled backward, knocking into three of its fellows and disappeared. For a moment none of them seemed willing to attack the clearly insane Ranger.
Kira just stood there panting and Ethan just stood there staring at her. "Sorry. I'm okay." She said finally.
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"Greg! Get down!" Ernie ordered. He lifted Hannah and dropped her on the far side of the bar, sheltering her. Beth and Kerri had slid to the floor there as well and Ernie practically dropped Sam to the floor. A horde of stingwingers stood in the doorway. Greg grumbled, but did as he was told.
Hannah gripped him tightly. "I want Mommy." She wailed. Her cry upset the twins who broke into identical sobs. Those tears upset Sam who shrieked loudly.
"God help me."
Ernie lunged at the first of the attackers, baseball bat in hand. He knocked it aside and moved to a second one. However, in his distraction two opponents teamed up behind him and sent him flying. He landed on the safe side of the bar with the children, slightly woozy.
Greg swung into action, pulling the Astroblaster from his pocket. Four shots rang out before Ernie recovered. "What are you doing!" He hissed.
"Saving your ass." Ernie glanced at him, then at the stingwingers.
"Promise me you'll stay back here."
"Fine."
"Good." Ernie grabbed his bat again and threw himself back into the fray.
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Leo was propelled backwards and he tumbled onto his back, rolling smoothly over his head to land with a thump on his stomach. Maya landed heavily on top of him. Both yellow and red Ranger transformations faded.
"Sorry." Maya muttered, getting off of him.
"Don't worry about it."
"Do you think we're going to die?"
"Do you really wanna know?"
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"Ouch pain." Max informed the world as his sore, and probably dislocated, elbow collided with a tyranodron.
"Ouch." Danny agreed as he tripped a second tryanodron over his slightly bloody left leg. Both Rangers were un-morphed and struggling.
"Ouch!' Max cried in earnest as he found himself head butted. He rolled across the rough and spiky spine and crashed into ground, releasing a cloud a dust. He got to his feet slowly, grumbling.
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"Are we dead yet?" Alyssa asked.
"Too tired to be dead." Cole replied.
"Dying is NOT AN OPTION!" Taylor shouted at the top of her lungs. Cole wondered if she was talking to them, or trying to reassure herself.
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"Get another pie! Quick!" Kat shouted. The heat of battle was causing her to mildly spaz and preventing her from standing still and speaking in a normal tone of voice.
"There are no more!" Jason shouted back.
"What do you mean there are no more! There have to be more!"
"We're all out!" Jason said, lowering his voice to speaking tone and clambering to the top of the trebuchet.
"What do we do now?"
"The Astro Rangers need our help!" from his vantage point Jason could see almost the entire battle. "Let's go." With a clear idea of the direction that they needed to movie in, they passed swiftly through the crowd.
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A scream rent the air but Damon couldn't identify it. His mind flashed back to the battle on Merinoi, but a quick hit from a piranatron brought him smashing back to the present.
"You okay?" Cam asked.
"No. I can't take much more of this."
"I don't think any of us can."
There was more screaming and a few indistinguishable shouts.
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Ashley flinched in anticipation of a blow. There was a crashing sound and when her eyes refocused she smiled. "Kat. Justin."
"Hi there." Justin said brightly.
"Backup! Yes!" Carlos cheered. The attack of a nearby Quantron informed them all with a blaze of sparks that they were going to need much more backup than the two Rangers could provide.
"Does anyone have a last-minute-butt-saving plan?" Justin wondered.
"I don't." Andros admitted.
"I don't think any of us do." Cassie agreed.
"So, then what happens to our butts?" asked Justin.
No one answered him.
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Oh my God. It's over. People are hurt and dying and…Conner thought miserably. If there is a God, don't let it end this way. He had to do something. Had to do anything. He could just stand there and fight stupid monster after stupid monster. It wasn't getting them anywhere. And then he tried something desperate. He knew it was desperate. He knew it would come across as desperate. But that this point, he didn't mind being desperate.
"TRENT!" He called at the top of his lungs. "STOP IT NOW!"
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"That sounded like Conner." Ethan said in surprise.
"Yeah. I wonder what's up."
Then, to everyone utter amazement, Trent responded.
"Why should I?" He called from out of sight.
"BECAUSE YOU'RE BEING A--," insert the noun of your choice here.
There was silence. Swords clanged, lasers fired but the Rangers could hardly hear them. They fought, but in a detached sort of way. Because at that moment they all knew that Trent's response would govern their fate, and the fate of their world.
Cat: Hey. I'm sorry. I know I said I'd make it one chapter but I added a bunch of parts that I didn't have originally which made it about twice as long. The next chapter will be the last.