Disclaimer: I do not own Power Rangers.
Chapter 7: Legacy of Power
Aboard the Terror…
"This is ridiculous!" Gruumm roared as he stormed onto the bridge, with Morgana and Goldar trailing behind him. "Thrax assured me that he could solve my problems, but he's done nothing of the sort! Cruger and his cadets may no longer pose a serious threat, but now Earth has a new team of Rangers and we are no closer to achieving my conquest!"
"And while we're fighting them, Thrax is off running around the galaxy, chasing some legendary weapon that's supposedly gonna help him kill a ghost," Morgana finished with a snort. "Pathetic."
"Hold your tongue!" Goldar snarled, glaring at her. "I won't tolerate you disrespecting Lord Thrax like that!" His anger died in his throat, however, when Gruumm rounded on him with his eyes blazing like twin furnaces.
"You," the Troobian Emperor spat, "are not in a position to dictate terms to us. Thrax may allow you to speak your mind when he pleases, but I am not him. And I assure you, speaking disrespectfully to me will not end well for you." He held Goldar's gaze a moment longer, his staff giving off a brief crackle of purple electricity, before contemptuously turning his back. "Now, leave us. I have business to discuss with Morgana in private."
Goldar's eyes flashed and a low growl escaped his clenched teeth, but he knew better than to start anything here. Turning, he stalked off the bridge and disappeared into one of the shadowy corridors.
"Might not be the best idea to antagonize him, Emperor," Morgana pointed out. "After all, the last thing we need is for us to have to fight Thrax's gang and the Rangers at the same time."
"Indeed," Gruumm rumbled, his eyes darkening as he considered that. "I will deal with Thrax eventually, as soon as the need for this alliance has run its course. But until Earth has fallen and the Rangers are mine – or, at least, until Thrax and his companions have outlived their usefulness to me – we must maintain our pact with them." He nodded decisively, turning back to face Morgana. "How is our observation of the new Rangers going?"
"Quite well," Morgana replied with a smile. "They've left New Tech City on some sort of errand, but I've got a team of Krybots shadowing them: we'll soon know what they're up to."
"Excellent." Gruumm chuckled darkly. "Once Thrax returns from his errand, we will prepare for our next strike, and we will deal with these 'Legacy Rangers' once and for all. And then…" His eyes gleamed, embers in the darkness. "Then, Thrax and his servants will learn, once and for all, who the true ruler of this galaxy is." His chuckling grew louder as Morgana joined in, the sound of their laughter echoing through the shadowy expanse of the Terror's bridge.
A few yards away, concealed in the shadows of the corridor where he'd disappeared, Goldar scowled, his eyes narrowing as he listened to the other villains' laughter. "Planning to double-cross us once the Rangers are gone, are you?" he rumbled under his breath. "Well, we'll see about that."
Angel Grove…
"All right," Tommy called over his shoulder to the other Legacy Rangers as they finished parking the S.P.D. B-Squad's transport vehicles. "Welcome to Angel Grove." He nodded to the building that lay before them, an expansive warehouse filled with stacks of large wooden crates. "It should be in here somewhere."
"Ah, Dr. O?" Kira spoke up as the five of them made their way up into the warehouse via the open loading docks. "Mind filling us in on exactly what we're looking for?"
"Honestly, I'm not sure you guys would believe me if I told you," Tommy quipped, grinning a little as he looked around the cavernous interior of the warehouse. "But it was stored here back in 2005, and I can't think of any reason why any of my friends would've moved it since then, so it should still be here." He shrugged, leading the way through the rows of crates. "I just need to remember which part of this place we stored it in…"
"Uh, guys?" Cole's voice drew the others' attention: he was tense and on guard, sinking into a half-crouch as his keen senses alerted him to danger. "I'm hearing something strange from over there." He pointed towards the other side of the warehouse, just as the other Legacies also began to hear what had caught his attention: a chorus of soft, metallic dinging noises, echoing in the shadows. Sure enough, a group of several dozen figures, clad in black and sporting pockmarked silver helmets, came into view, abandoning their attempt at concealment and moving towards the Rangers once it was clear that they'd been spotted.
"Krybots," Jen muttered, her eyes narrowing as she raised her guard. Kira and Tori quickly did the same.
"Of course." Tommy sighed. "All right, let's make this quick." He dropped into a fighting stance and charged, letting out a battle cry as the other Legacy Rangers rushed in behind him. The Krybots did the same, and the warehouse erupted into a chaotic melee of high-speed combat.
Kira fought defensively for the most part, twisting and spinning, deflecting the oncoming Krybots' attacks and hurling them back as she danced nimbly through their ranks. She favored precision over brute force, targeting vulnerable points with targeted jabs and chops.
Ducking under one Krybot's swinging arm, she caught it by the wrist and used its outstretched arm as leverage to kick another one in the chest, knocking it sprawling to the floor. Yanking on the arm she held to flip that Krybot to the ground as well, she dropped into a crouch to avoid another's lunge. Two more grabbed her arms and hauled her to her feet, but she went with the motion rather than resisting it, launching herself into a backflip and kicking them both in the head.
Landing upright, Kira sucked in a deep breath, leaned back on her heels, and then swung her head and shoulders forward as she let out a deafening scream. A blast of visible yellow energy erupted from her mouth along with the scream, slamming into the Krybots and sending that entire group flying into crates or walls, taking them all down at once.
Tori used her years of ninja training to their full potential, constantly moving as she dodged and weaved through the Krybots with ease. Leaping, diving and rolling, she bounded off the crates to give herself additional space, landing a punch or a kick on her way from one foothold to another.
Flipping into the air to avoid a slash from one Krybot, she came down right on top of two others: they caught her legs instinctively as she came down, but she used that elevated position to take out a third robot with a punch to the face, before heaving her mass into a forward spin and flipping the Krybots that had been holding her legs off of their feet.
Even as they hit the ground, she was moving again, doubling another Krybot over with a snap-kick to the gut and shoulder-rolling over its back. Swinging around to face the others that had been attacking her, she raised her arms and swung them in a swirling motion in front of her, reaching out with her elemental power: her hands lit up with a pale blue glow as a mass of swirling water materialized between them.
"Wave bye-bye," Tori quipped, grinning as she saw the Krybots' surprised reactions. Drawing her arms back and flinging them out with the heels of her palms touching, she unleashed the gathered water in a concentrated blast like the jet sent out by a fire-hose, blowing the Krybots off their feet and shorting out their electronics with a series of crackling explosions.
Cole had a rougher fighting style than the other Legacies, but his was no less effective. Ducking and rolling, using every striking surface on his body to its best advantage, he sent Krybots tumbling helplessly across the floor as they tried to keep track of him. Slamming a palm strike into one's chest, he dove over its falling body and hit the ground rolling, coming up with one leg swinging to take out the ankles of two more robots. Scrambling to his feet, he deflected an incoming stab of a dagger from one Krybot, then flipped both himself and the robot into the air, landing lightly on his feet as the Krybot crashed down on its head.
Whirling around as several others came at him, Cole launched a series of rapid-fire punches and kicks, tearing through them in a blur of fluid motion. Dropping into a cartwheel that carried him free of his attackers, he popped back up and landed several jackhammer-style punches to another Krybot, battering through its guard and knocking it flat on its back, before lunging back at the others.
Jen fought with characteristic efficiency, parrying each of the Krybots' incoming blows while constantly keeping track of her environment. As soon as they started to surround her, she ducked under another strike, landed two quick jabs that took the nearest robot down for the count, and launched herself into a seamless series of backflips that carried her out into a larger open space.
As the rest of the Krybots rushed after her, she grinned and snatched a small, compact energy blaster off of her belt: unlike the rest of the Legacy Rangers, Jen was accustomed to carrying a sidearm even in her civilian form, as part of her job (first with Time Force in the future, and then with the Silver Guardians in the present). Drawing the blaster, she fired a volley of energy bolts that ripped into the Krybots, dropping several of them on the spot. The survivors charged, but a combination of punches, kicks, elbow and knee strikes, and close-range energy blasts cut them down as well.
Panting but grinning, Jen calmly blasted the last two Krybots as they ran at her, and holstered the blaster again as they folded up and crumpled to the floor with sparks fountaining from their chests. "And that," she murmured, "is why you should always be prepared."
Tommy fought like a demon, taking down one Krybot after another as he called on all of his experience in hand-to-hand combat. His ability to blend all of his various different Ranger fighting styles, obtained from his experiences as part of the Dino Thunder, Turbo, Zeo, and Mighty Morphin teams, made him easily one of the most skilled physical combatants among any of Earth's Power Rangers, and he used those skills to their full extent now.
Combining the newer tricks that his time as the Black Dino Ranger had taught him with the older moves from his teenage years, he became a windmill of destruction, carving through the robots with ease. Punching one and kicking another simultaneously, he grabbed the arm of a forklift and swung off of it like it was a gym's balance beam, slamming feetfirst into two Krybots in quick succession and sending them flying. On the third swing, he let go, flying into a third Krybot and knocking it flat. Rising back to his feet as the remaining robots charged at him from all sides, he whirled into a roundhouse kick that smashed them all off their feet, sending them spinning to the ground.
Rubbing the back of his head and grinning wearily, Tommy straightened up and gazed around at the defeated, broken robots. "Might be a bit old-school," he remarked, "but it gets the job done just fine."
Once all of the Krybots had been taken out, the five Rangers reconvened at the center of the warehouse. "Well, that was fun," Jen commented with an amused snort. "So, any luck on finding what we're looking for?"
"Actually…" Tommy frowned, catching a glint of something reflective in a stack of nearby crates. "Here, help me with this one." With the others' help, he was able to lift one of the top crates in the stack out of place and set it down on the floor, revealing another one behind it.
This crate had clearly been the source of the reflection that he'd seen. Unlike the others around it, which were plain brown wood, this one had some decoration: one side had been painted black, with a yellow lightning bolt – the classic symbol of all Earth's Power Rangers, regardless of their team – emblazoned in its center.
Tommy smiled and nodded, looking younger for a moment as years of memories flashed behind his eyes. "This is it," he confirmed. "C'mon, let's get it loaded up in the Jeep and get out of here."
"And you're sure this'll help us fix the Grid so we can bring back the other Rangers' powers?" Tori inquired.
"Honestly, no, I'm not sure," Tommy admitted. "But if this can't fix it, I don't know of anything that can." He shrugged and chuckled. "And it's never let me down before."
"Sounds good to me." Cole grinned, as the rest of the Legacy Rangers nodded in agreement. "Let's get moving."
On the planet Phaedos…
Far across the galaxy, the cadets of S.P.D.'s B-Squad climbed out of their spaceship and took stock of their surroundings. Their ship had touched down on a sandy plain, not far from the shore of an ocean and near the edge of a rainforest. The scenery was reminiscent of some places on Earth, except that the ocean was a dark purple in color, and the trees up ahead were blue instead of green. The air was warm and humid, but a cooling breeze was blowing in from the ocean, ruffling the cadets' hair as they disembarked.
"So this is Phaedos, huh?" Z questioned as she stepped down the ramp. She looked around curiously, then shrugged. "I've seen worse."
"Well, luckily we won't be staying long," Jack replied with a grin. Glancing around, he turned towards the forest, where a pair of large stone obelisks were visible on either side of what looked like an overgrown path leading into the trees. "So I guess that's where we're going?"
"The ship's scanners told us there's some sort of ancient ruins in there," Sky answered, shrugging as he stepped up next to them. "Since we're talking about an entire planet, this seems like as good a place as any to start."
"All right, then." Jack nodded, glancing over to the rest of the team. "Let's get started."
As the cadets approached the two obelisks and the opening between them, a sudden flash of golden light caused them to flinch back. "Halt," a voice called out, echoing through the air around them, as the by-now-familiar spectral figure of the Sentinel Knight materialized in front of the cadets to block their path.
"Yeah, I figured you might show up eventually," Jack addressed the glowing spirit, an amused grin on his face. "Finally realized what we were doing?"
"You should not be here, warriors of Earth," the Knight declared, his glowing eyes narrowing beneath his helmet. "As I told you, there is no danger of Thrax acquiring Excelsior. Only those who are truly pure of heart and intent may draw the blade from where Dulcea left it… and while Thrax may be powerful, he does not meet those qualifications. There is no reason for you to potentially endanger yourselves by coming here."
"Actually, there is," Sky interjected. "There's nothing we can do right now to help back on Earth: unless the others really can figure out a way to help us get our powers back, then we'll just have to stay on the sidelines and rely on the Legacy Rangers to do the fighting for us. But if we can do anything here to help make sure that Thrax can't get his hands on that sword and use it against you, or against us… then we will." His expression was firm and unyielding as he met the Knight's gaze. "I'm sorry, sir. But we're going to see this through, and you can't convince us otherwise."
The Knight's glowing eyes swept over all five of the cadets, taking in Z, Bridge, and Syd's expressions as well, but he saw the same determined resolve in all of their eyes. Finally, he sighed and his shoulders sagged. "Indeed, it seems that I cannot. Very well." He nodded soberly. "Then before you go any further, I must warn you. Dulcea may have passed on, but she left some potent magical countermeasures behind to deter any potential thieves or grave robbers. Her tomb is guarded by powerful mystic guardians, which are designed to battle any warriors who may try to claim Excelsior for themselves. You will have to face those guardians, and defeat them, if you wish to enter the tomb. They are formidable opponents: they were, after all, created by the most skilled warrior that this galaxy has ever seen. So I advise you to stand together and face them as one: only then can you hope to prevail."
The cadets exchanged glances, all five of them feeling a little unnerved by that revelation. But all five ultimately stood firm, and Jack nodded. "Fair enough," he replied. "Thank you for telling us."
"You are welcome, Jack Landors," the Knight returned, a small trace of amusement in his echoing voice. "Now, I must go. I urge you to take my warning seriously: the guardians can take a variety of forms, so be prepared for anything. Good luck, and may the Power protect you." With that, and another flash of light, he was gone.
"Well, that wasn't ominous at all," Syd muttered.
"No kidding," Z agreed with a laugh. "But there's no time to waste, right?"
"Nope," Jack concurred, nodding slowly. "Let's go." With that, he led the way between the two obelisks and along the path that led into the forest, with the others following close behind.
As the other cadets headed into the forest, Bridge felt a chill run down his spine as a flicker of dark energy brushed against his enhanced senses. Frowning, he turned and looked around at the surrounding landscape, trying to determine the source of the energy, but after a moment it faded away.
Eh… probably nothing. Shrugging, he turned and hurried after the others, jogging to catch up with them.
Bridge's misgivings would have been instantly confirmed, however, if he had been able to see the pair of cold yellow eyes that were observing him from a distance, watching intently as the five young humans vanished into the jungle.
That's it, little Rangers, Thrax thought to himself as his mouth twisted into a hideous grin. Lead me to my prize. When this day is over, Excelsior's power will be mine… and you will be destroyed, as will your comrades back on Earth.
And the Sentinel Knight, your valiant protector, will soon follow.
Aboard the Terror…
"Well, it's about time you showed up," Morgana snarked as Scorpina strolled onto the Troobian warship's bridge with Goldar in tow. "Where did Thrax send you, out for groceries?"
Scorpina rolled her eyes and smirked, exchanging an amused glance with Goldar. "Oh, don't worry. Lord Thrax knows how to get the job done. Which is why he sent me…" She glanced over her shoulder, towards the darkened corridor behind them, and beckoned with one hand. "…to fetch this."
Several heavy, dragging steps echoed from the corridor, followed by a deep, rasping growl. And then, finally, the creature came into view.
Morgana inhaled sharply, her eyes widening a little in surprise. "Okay… not bad," she remarked.
"Emperor," Scorpina continued, addressing Gruumm with a smile on her face. "I give you Lord Thrax's greatest creation… Volturus."
The creature that stood before them was at least seven feet tall, a hulking reptilian humanoid with rippling muscles clearly visible beneath its natural armor. Its body was covered in plates of bony scales, a gleaming silver with deep blue highlights, and a pair of batlike wings were folded across its back. Its eyes glowed a piercing yellow, and a deep hiss echoed from between its rows of dagger-like teeth.
"Quite impressive," Gruumm intoned, gazing at the monster with an unreadable expression. "And what is the purpose of this creature?"
Scorpina chuckled. "Why, to eliminate those new Rangers, of course. Volturus is the most powerful monster Lord Thrax has ever created, and it's not just its power that makes it so impressive." She nodded to Morgana. "Would you mind hitting him with one of those energy blasts of yours?"
Morgana arched an eyebrow at that, but shrugged. "Sure, why not?" She flicked out an arm, purple energy crackling to life along her wrist-blade, and flung an arc of crackling purple light across the bridge. It struck Volturus right in the chest, detonating on impact and knocking the creature back a step… but no further. Volturus quickly regained its footing, snarling as it glared at her, and the armor on its chest was barely even singed.
"This monster's armor is virtually impenetrable," Scorpina explained with a grin. "No weapon in those Rangers' arsenal should be able to pierce its defenses, and it's got more than enough offensive power to take them down. They won't stand a chance."
For the first time, Gruumm laughed softly. "Excellent," he murmured. "Then, by all means, take this creature of yours down to Earth, and let us see how well these new Rangers fare against it."
"Of course." Scorpina's smile widened, and she nodded to Goldar and Volturus. "Come along, then. Let's go show those pathetic Earthlings what our new monster can do."
Goldar flashed a predatory grin. "I can hardly wait."
Notes: And there we go! Shorter chapter this time, but hopefully it was entertaining enough. I had a lot of fun going back and watching the Veteran Rangers vs. Chillers fight from "Once a Ranger" as preparation for writing the warehouse fight scene in this chapter, so hopefully I did a good job with my version.
Shoutouts to RHatch89, daizuke, dguice, and Psycho Tangerine for reviewing: you guys are awesome!
Next time, the S.P.D. cadets arrive at the tomb of Dulcea, while Tommy's plan to repair the Morphing Grid is revealed and the Legacy Rangers face off against Volturus. Stay tuned!
Review Q&A
Q: I like this alternate version. I prefer Adam over Tommy but at least Goldar gets to fight Tommy again. Best part is the SPD Rangers trying to help rather than just quit like the Overdrive Rangers did.
A: Thanks! Yeah, I love Adam's character too, but I decided to go for a different veteran Ranger in this version, and Tommy does have a lot of history with Rita & Zedd, so having him be the one who comes back to help against Thrax just felt right to me. Plus, since I decided to go with his Green Ranger suit, that fit nicely with the color scheme for the Legacies and let me match it up perfectly, color-wise, with the S.P.D. team (since my Legacy team already had a Red, Blue, Yellow, and Pink Ranger).
And yeah, I really wanted to let the whole S.P.D. team continue having an active role in things instead of having most of them just sit this part out like the Overdrive Rangers did in canon, as I was never really a fan of that element in the canon special.
