Welcome back to Power Rangers: Aura Masters! Super excited to give y'all this 3rd chapter and hopefully chapters will be a bit more frequent now that my schedule is loosening up. Thank y'all for the support thus far, have a good time reading!

Power Rangers: Aura Masters

Episode 3

"First Day Blues"

Megan's eyes begin to blink open on a new day. She smiles and stretches out her arms smiling happily when she begins to smell what's in the air, a sort of burnt smell. She looks around in her room confused before getting out of bed and heading into the kitchen where distant arguments could be heard. Megan wasn't very surprised to find her two sisters with a couple of pieces of burnt toast in front of them.

"I said put it in for 3 minutes!" Sarah, the oldest of the siblings, argues with Lauren, the youngest of them. They were all separated by two years each. Sarah was 20, Megan was 18, and Lauren was 16, but it still wasn't uncommon for the three to spend time together.

"Yeah, so I put it in for 5 minutes." Lauren rolls her eyes scraping the toast into the trash can.

"Why would you put it in for 5 minutes if I told you 3?!" Sarah continues to shout as Lauren closes the trash can.

"Well what if you were wrong!? I don't want undone toast!" Lauren shouts back as Megan continued to just stare barely awake and already through with the crap in front of her. She turns and goes back to her room before grabbing her phone which makes her eyes widen.

"It's the first day of Senior Year!" Megan shouts excitedly as she hurriedly begins to get ready for the day ahead of her. With everything this past weekend with becoming a Power Ranger, Megan's brain had definitely not been on school. On her way out, she grabs her Morpher and places it in her backpack before running out the door with her sister, Lauren, in tow.

Jayden walks up to the school and gives an audible sigh, "I can't believe they're still holding school after a giant monster attack…" Jayden looks over to the track field which was decimated by the attack days earlier. He still couldn't believe everything had happened the way it had. He half-expected when he went to sleep that night to wake up the next day and have all of it just be a bad dream.

"Still weird, right?" A student asks Jayden, a boy he had never seen before. Jayden turns with a curious look.

"A bit, yeah. We always saw stuff like this on TV, but to have it happen in your own backyard…" Jayden was genuinely shaken from the events that had happened and his own adventure of becoming a Power Ranger, but he was more worried that it was seeming more normal to the world everyday.

"Yeah… my name is Ethan by the way." Ethan outstretched his hand which Jayden took and shook it.

"Jayden, nice to meet you." Jayden wasn't used to people coming up and introducing themselves to him, but he shrugged it off as just a new school year type of thing.

"So uh… I don't know if you've heard but apparently there were some Power Rangers here on at the school when the first attack happened." Ethan tests Jayden looking for some sort of reaction as Jayden just shrugs realizing what was happening.

"I actually wasn't here this weekend, so I found out everything later." Jayden lies hoping he's convincing enough to get this Ethan guy off his back.

"Oh… okay. Well it was nice to meet you Jayden." Ethan waves himself off as he hurries away.

"This secret identity thing is gonna be a pain…" Jayden thinks to himself for a second as he turns and starts to head into the school. His first period of the day was History and it was just about the only subject he was good in.

Paris found himself walking through the school's halls trying to find his new locker.

"I still can't believe it happened,"
"Where were the old Rangers ya think?"
"Well they've changed their costumes before, maybe they're the same?"
"Didn't they have more members though?"
"I bet the pink Ranger is hot!"

Paris was already over the Power Ranger discussion as he comes across his locker and opens it up placing his books into it. As he looks back in his bag, he sees his Morpher staring back at him. He quickly closes his bag and gives a loud sigh. "I'm a Power Ranger…" Just as he begins walking forward, he accidently bumps into Ally who falls over and onto her butt. "Ally! I'm so sorry!" Paris reaches down and helps her back up.

"It's okay… Paris, right?" Ally asks with Paris nodding.

"Yeah, I guess we haven't had the chance to really introduce ourselves." Paris reaches out his hand. "I'm Paris,"

"Ally," She takes his hand and shakes it, "We really got thrown into the deep end, huh?"

Paris looks around, the conversation from before having not halted. "Yeah… I'm not a fan honestly."

"Don't like being the talk of the town?" Ally teases Paris who still seemed extremely uncomfortable.

"More like I'm not a fan of the Power Rangers in general…" Paris says as Ally pauses suddenly and looks at him confused.

"Obviously not everybody supports them, but… how can you say that now that well we are Rangers?" Ally whispered that last part as Paris just looked down.

"It wasn't a choice and it's not like anybody can just step up and take my place." Paris continues to look down, but it wasn't at the ground. It was at the backpack he held. However, their train of thought was broken when the doors to the high school swing open.

THUD!

"Well at least one of us is adjusting well," Ally growls under her breath as Cain was front and center with his football buddies walking down the hall. He catches a glimpse of Ally and Paris before quickly diverting his eyes with a high five from one of his football teammates.

"Not everything is surface level," Paris comments as the group of jocks pass by them with barely a glance from their new 'teammate'.

Megan finally pulls into the school's parking lot, putting her car into park and in a hurry rushes out. Her sister Lauren rushes past her.

"Don't forget I'll be a little bit for theatre practice!" Lauren shouts as she runs into the school. Megan didn't have time to respond as she continues to run for the school. The first bell goes off signifying the beginning of first period.

"Come on!" She thinks to herself.

"HELP! MONSTERS!" A boy's voice cries out with Megan suddenly turning to see a boy running from the far end of the parking lot towards her. Megan looks to her class and then back at the boy before running for him.

"Run! Don't look back!" Megan shouts at the boy who she runs past. The boy looks at her confused but keeps running for the highschool. She zips open her back taking out her Morpher and slapping it onto her wrist. She stops quickly flipping out her phone. "I need to call the others! Wait…" She looks at her phone as a horrible realization comes over her. "I don't have their phone numbers!"

A low growling noise begins to go as she can feel the portal widening like she had this past weekend. A loud scream erupts alerting Megan with her putting away her phone and dropping her bag.

"It can't wait!" Megan charges forward jumping off the parked cars as the portal comes into view. She looks for the source of the new scream and finds a young girl, not much older than Lauren, pinned against her car as Onyx Soldiers surround her. Megan stops and jumps between the cars. "Aura Power, Charge Up!" She presses the button on her Morpher as yellow energy covers her forming her suit.

"Someone help me, please!" The woman calls out for semblance of help as she tries to kick at the soldiers. Megan jumps over the remaining cars in an easy leap putting her between the girl and the Onyx Soldiers.

"Aura Master, Yellow!" Megan strikes a pose causing pause for a second before she suddenly charges at the Soldiers slamming her foot into the face of one and her fist into another. "Get going!" Megan shouts at the girl kicking into a soldier and yanking forward one by the lance.

"Thank you, Power Ranger!" The girl runs off with all the attention now being pushed towards Megan. Megan smiles behind her helmet from the thanks right before being sliced across the chest by multiple soldiers, sparks flying off her costume as she goes flying back into another car.

"I should probably focus…" Megan groans getting into a fighting stance as the soldiers charge at her. A sudden spinning red object flies over her head kicking into the soldiers and throwing them back. Jayden stands there in front of her as he slaps his Morpher onto his waist.

"I always miss first period anyways. Aura Power, Charge Up!" Jayden shouts pressing into his Morpher with body being engulfed in red energy that turns into his costume. "Aura Master, Red!"

Megan runs up next to Jayden, "Glad to have you here, but I had this."

"Sure, that's why you were getting smacked around before I got here, right?" Jayden smugly winks behind his helmet as the Onyx Soldiers suddenly charge at them. "Aura Sword!" Jayden summons his sword into his hands quickly slicing past two of the soldiers with Megan slamming the back of her fist into another. With only 3 remaining, they hop back through the portal with it closing behind them. "Well… that was easy."

Megan groans, "Y'know I'm pretty sure the original Red Ranger didn't gloat about being 'needed' to his teammates."

"Well I'm pretty sure it's because he actually knew that the Yellow Ranger wouldn't choke and get all caught up on a thanks." Jayden fires right back at Megan with the two glaring at each other before de-morphing and the second first period bell goes off.

"I'm headed to class," Megan walks past Jayden and grabs her bag walking off.

Jayden sighs to himself, "Smooth move killer,"

Paris sits in his seat uncomfortably holding his head as his headache persisted through both bells. Suddenly the ringing begins to die down which leads him to sigh. "Hopefully that was one of the others taking care of that. Why do mine hurt so badly?" Paris wonders to himself as he leans back in his chair and tries to focus back on the lecture about World War 2.

The next hour is a snore and a slog for Paris as he tries to stay focused on the topic but keeps getting distracted by a bit of anxious curiosity about his situation. The bell rings signifying the end of the class with Paris very quickly grabbing his stuff and heading into the hall. Looking around for the others, he tries to quickly race over to Ally's class which was letting out. She walks out talking to a couple of her friends and Paris has a sigh of relief as he makes his way through the crowd.

"Ally, hey!" Paris taps her on the shoulder trying to get her attention. Ally turns, but so do her friends.

"Who is this?" One of them, a dirty blonde haired girl, asks in a judging manner with Paris looking at her in confusion.

"Just a guy I met over summer break, I'll catch up with y'all." Ally tells them with Paris silently swearing each girl rolled their eyes as they turned and walked off. "What's up?"

"I just got out of a massive headache session. Did you feel anything?" Paris asks curiously as Ally simply shakes her head.

"No? But I did get a text from Jayden that he and Megan took care of some soldiers on the far end of the school's parking lot." Ally explains to Paris who nods silently wondering how far this range or detection of his goes. As Paris contemplates this, a suddenly shot of ringing noise cuts his concentration as he falls to the ground holding his head. "What the? Paris!"

"Something big, probably a lieutenant." Paris weakly manages to get out as Ally begins to faintly feel it as well. Drops of blood start to drop from Paris's nose as Ally reaches out and helps him up.

"I'll text Jayden to meet up with us, come on!" Ally grabs Paris by the hand and the two start running as Ally can feel the noise and feeling coming stronger from the gym. Ally looks around and quickly shoves herself and Paris into the closet. "Let's get Morphed,"

"Being a Power Ranger sucks," Paris sniffs in his bloody nose as the two take out their Morphers and slap them onto their wrists.

"Aura Power, Charge Up!" Pink and blue energy swirls around the arm covering the two as they receive their costumes. Paris feels a wave of relief after morphing letting out a major sigh.

"Never mind, it's great. Let's go." Paris and Ally bust out of the closet running into the gym as a bizarre scene was taking place. A crab-like monster with a giant shell on it's back and two large pincers were holding two members of the basketball team while the rest of the team were being held by the soldiers.

"Do we pose? This doesn't feel like a posing situation." Ally groans as the soldiers and lieutenant turn to the recently entered Rangers.

"CRU CRU CRU! What do we have here? Some pesky Rangers, I see!" The lieutenant steps forward holding the two players still as they look at him with frightened eyes.

"Did-did you just say cru cru cru? I know the original Rangers fought a literal boxing box, but a self-aware crab?" Paris watches confused.

"My name is Lieutenant Crushtacean! You shall respect my sheer power!" The lieutenant shouts angrily as he throws the two players into the air and charges towards the two Rangers.

"I got them! Aura Whip!" Ally cracks the whip against the ground before throwing it forward as the whip begins to extend wrapping around the ceiling and then the two players keeping them safely suspended.

"Nice! Aura Tonfas!" Paris charges to meet the lieutenant punching forward with his right Tonfa and causing an explosion with it. The smoke begins to clear, and the lieutenant remains unscathed. "Oh…"

"CRU CRU CRU! I cannot be crushed that easily!" The lieutenant winds up and slams their pincer into Paris throwing him into the nearby wall cracking it up.

"Yeah, that's what the last one said too!" A voice calls out when suddenly Jayden busts through the other entrance starting to slash through the soldiers guarding the other hostages with his sword. Ally lets the two she had dangling down as she cracks her whip and slams it across the lieutenant's face.

Cain comes running around the corner, the school had begun to hear the ruckus and were evacuating. "Oh come on! The first day?" Cain thinks to himself as he hides back behind the corner and slaps his Morpher onto his wrist. "Alright! Aura Power-" Suddenly Cain hears someone coming around the corner.

Megan steps out and sees Cain about to Morph. "Well don't stop on my account," She quickly slaps her Morpher onto her wrist. "Let's go,"

"Don't- yeah whatever." Cain and Megan line up holding out their Morphers.

"Aura Power, Charge Up!" Black and yellow energy surround the two as their costumes form as they run out into the fray of the fight.

"You're all so CRU CRU CRUNNOYING!" The lieutenant grabs Ally's whip and slings her around into Paris who had just stood back up.

"Crunnoying?" Cain gestures in confusion. Jayden tries to come up from behind, but as he slices across the shell, it just sparks with no effect. The two giant pincers spin around smacking into Jayden and causing him to fly back.

"Soldiers, attack them!" The lieutenant commands with the soldiers ignoring the hostages and beginning to charge at the Rangers.

"Now is it time to pose?" Ally weakly asks as her and Paris stand back up. The others roll their eyes, but the team lines up anyways. In it's own way, it had begun to grow on each of them.

"Aura Master, Red!"

"Aura Master, Black!"

"Aura Master, Blue!"

"Aura Master, Yellow!"

"Aura Master, Pink!"

"Power Rangers… Aura Masters!" Jayden declares stepping in front of the team as everyone takes out their weapons. "Let's dunk these fools,"

"Something we can agree on," Megan smiles behind her helmet as she throws her Aura Rotor forward infusing her Aura into it as it boosts forward slamming into multiple soldiers. Cain charges past her slamming his staff into the lieutenant which actually manages to make it stumble back. Paris rushes past Cain and slams both Tonfas into the lieutenant bursting it with Aura and causing it to fall back onto it's shell with it wildly swinging.

"You can't CRU CRU CRDO THIS TO ME!" The lieutenant shouts angrily still swinging around wildly.

"Let's tie this all up," Ally jokes extending out her whip to wrap around the lieutenant's pincers just as Jayden leaps into the air with his sword. Jayden pierces into the lieutenant and drags his sword across it's stomach with an explosion rocking the building and sending the Rangers back into the wall.

"You're going to regret that!" The lieutenant shouts as he rips off the patch containing him, and he begins to grow breaking through the ceiling of the gym into the outside.

"We need to summon our Zords!" Paris says in a bit of a panicked state before rolling to avoid the crashing ceiling.

"We did that last time by working together…" Megan looks over at Jayden. "I'm sorry about before. We're a team, I'm glad you had my back."

Jayden looks over and groans to himself silently, "Yeah… I'm sorry too. I'm not used to working with other people."

Paris and Ally awkwardly stand there not having anything to say to each other as Cain stands between them. "I'm sorry," He simply says, and the two teammates know what he means and that he's sincere.

The ceiling continues to crash as Jayden holds out his hands with everyone interlocking hands and beginning to summon their Aura to the forefront. Suddenly the five disappear just as the ceiling collapses onto where they stood.

"What!?" The towering lieutenant shouts as he looks around for any sign of the Rangers, suddenly being blasted in the face by Megan and Jayden with their Zords. Paris's Zord begins to fire out beams of energy at the lieutenant causing him to stumble backwards.

"Right to me!" Cain proudly declares charging forward and piercing into the lieutenant with the drill on the front of the Zord. The lieutenant retaliates grabbing a hold of Cain's Zord with his pincer and throwing him into the air.

"I'll try to get him!" Ally shouts over the radio as her Zord flies off to try and save Cain.

"You Rangers just thought this would be over when you hopped in your machines!?" Lieutenant Crushtacean angrily begins thrashing about upheaving the land as Paris's Zord gets turned on it's side leaving Jayden and Megan's Zords in the air.

"Guys I'm gonna need a little help, I'm stuck!" Paris radios in trying to mess with his Zord, but no response from the controls.

"Don't worry, we'll take care of it." Jayden says as he flies next to Megan and the two speed forward shooting the lieutenant as they strafe by just barely avoiding his pincers.

"Your pathetic attacks mean nothing to me! CRU CRU CRU!" The lieutenant proudly stomps on the ground breaking it apart.

"We're not doing any damage!" Jayden says to Megan over the radio in a bit of a panic.

"I think I might have an idea…" Megan suddenly breaks her attack and flies away. "You guys remember when the original Rangers would combine their Zords to make that big boy robot?"

"I like what you're thinking!" Cain shouts over the radio as he gets picked up by Ally, being saved from crashing into the mountainside. "But uh… just so we're on the same page, how do we do that?"

"Let's line up!" Jayden commands with everyone's Zords rallying around Paris's turned over Zord which is picked up by Ally.

"I swear all I do is pick you guys up," Ally jokes to herself.

"Let's try to do what we did last time to get the Zords. Let's enter out Aura and figure out the answer." Paris offers with everybody nodding in agreement. Individually the team enters their own Aura trying to find their own answer to the mystery while the lieutenant begins to charge towards them.

"Guys, MOVE!" Cain shouts out breaking everyone except Paris's connection as his Zord charges forward attacking with his drill. Paris meanwhile is sent on a trip, swirling colors and a connection he can feel between him and his teammates.

Paris reaches out for this connection, holding onto it as he's suddenly sped through an explosion of colors. As Paris passes by, he can see different connections, presumably different teams of Rangers as he continues to hold onto his. A giant formation begins to unfold in front of him, the different Zords the five of them possess swirling around this connection. Paris then sees it, his eyes widening as suddenly he falls out of his Aura with this realization. "I've got it! Oh…" Paris looks out to see the lieutenant holding Megan's Zord mid-air and smacking Cain's Zord.

"That's great, but can you help out?" Jayden groans strafing past the lieutenant and shooting it's pincer so that Megan can be set free. Paris's Zord cannons begin shooting out it's beams of energy at the lieutenant pushing it back and away from Cain and his Zord.

"So how do we do this Paris?" Ally asks over the radio flying over Paris as everyone regroups.

"Let me take the lead!" Paris says over the radio as he suddenly stands up in his cockpit, placing his hands on the console of his Zord. "Everybody place your hands on your Zord's console!"

Everyone reaches down and places their hands on the console of their respective Zord.

"Now… begin to flow your Aura through it!" Paris tells everyone which they begin to do. He follows and starts to flow his Aura into his Zord. "Let's do it. Aura Master Megazord Alpha Mode, ACTIVATE!"

Paris's Zord begins driving forward before suddenly beginning to lift up and split apart, forming the legs. Cain's Zord suddenly boosts up and stacks on top of the legs, forming the body of the Megazord. Ally's Zord comes flying in splitting in half which slam onto the body and turn into arms. The blades of Ally's Zord then turn into a sword which falls into the hand of the hands. Megan's Zord comes flying in and turns into a shield which falls into the other hand. Jayden's Zord the tops it off with flying in a forming the head and chest. The Rangers are suddenly teleported into the head of the completed Megazord, a now shared cockpit.

"H-h-heeeeck YES!" Cain shouts excitedly as they all look around in their new chairs.

"No time to celebrate, we got incoming!" Ally declares as Megan manages to raise the Megazord's shield just in time to block the lieutenant's attack. Cain maneuvers the sword to slice across the lieutenant's side causing it to fall back.

"This means nothing! CRU CRU!" The lieutenant shouts angrily.

"That's really starting to get annoying…" Jayden comments as he moves the Megazord forward with it now charging at the lieutenant. The Megazord then swings the sword upwards slicing it across the lieutenant with sparks of energy flying off. The lieutenant falls back onto it's back.

"Alright guys, we can finish this!" Paris says standing up in his chair and placing his hands on the console, beginning to feed his Aura into the sword. The sword begins to glow with a dark blue energy. "Navy Final Slash!" Paris declares with the Megazord charging forward and slamming the sword into the lieutenant with an explosion occurring as it's cut in half.

"Woah!" Cain comments in excitement as they all teleport out of the Megazord and it disappears back to wherever the Zords go.

"We did it again…" Ally smiles happily as she was genuinely unsure they would be able to do it a second time.

"Together this time, and that's how we'll win each battle." Megan says confidently with a moment of silence coming over them before Cain starts laughing.

"You really need to stop with the cheesy endings Megan," Cain laughs as Megan punches his arm.

"Can't believe the school got messed up again," Paris sighs looking at the destruction that was caused.

"Well considering classes are probably closed now that there are just a few holes in the ceiling, you guys want to go grab some McDonalds?" Jayden asks suddenly with all eyes back towards him. "Or not?"

"No, no, we want to do it. You're just not much for the group gathering type." Ally says with Jayden rolling his eyes as they de-morph and begin to walk off towards Cain's truck.

"Also really quick, can I get your phone numbers?" Megan laughs holding out her phone.

Hours after the group's McDonalds trip, Paris drives up to the front of Zeppeli's mansion and just before he knocks on the door, Zeppeli opens it.

"I figure you have a few questions," Zeppeli says with Paris nodding. "Come on in,"