Ranger Tales

Chapter 12: Picking Up The Pieces

This story is set in an alternate universe where the Alien Rangers arc never happened, although the Alien Rangers do exist. Carri Hillard and all things relating to Carri, including Jessica McClintock, belong to KJ with many thanks. Azazel belongs to Eric Kripke. Gol belongs to me. I used Phaedos as the source of the Ninjetti Powers, but Ninjor exists and is the acknowledged creator of Ninjetti. Also, this story has nothing to do with my previous two. The episodes in which Billy went to Aquitar did not happen in this fic. In this fic, Tommy and Kim have not broken up. From here and on, it develops into a completely original story. Justin's exit is the same as the end of Turbo, his dad.

As always reviews are appreciated, enjoy!

Astronema beat the Andros and the Zeo's the Earth and attacked the Turbo Rangers in an attempt to devastate the other team. Much to herdelight she succeeded, both Turbo MegaZords had been destroyed, the Rangers had tried, and failed, to stop the attack on the Power Chamber, and now she was certain they were dead, obliterated with their base. She looked out over the Earth, a magnified image of the Power Chamber on her viewing screen. She smiled, her beam made a direct hit, engulfing the building and the Rangers inside of it.

Once the dust settled and the Power Chamber came back into view she saw nothing more than a pile of rubble. It was beautiful, soon the other team would be there to check on their friends and she would strike again, eliminating the rest of Earth's Rangers. "Ecliptor," she turned to face her minion, "prepare the main cannon for another round."

"Yes my princess." Ecliptor said as he went to do as she wished. Soon the Earth would belong to Dark Specter, and soon the universe.

Up on the moon in the Lunar Palace Zedd had also been watching the battle. He hated to admit it, but he was impressed. He was also jealous though, jealous that it wasn't he who killed them. Afer all they'd been thwarting his plans for nearly three months now. Them, a group of novice Rangers defeating the great Lord Zedd. The more he thought about it the more it made him despise the Rangers. For once he was the one with the headache and not his wife, in fact she was most of the headache. For some reason he couldn't fathom he loved her and put up with her demands. However it was worse now, she was six months pregnant and in the middle of driving him crazy. Well, crazier.

One good thing had happened to him in the past three months though, his enemy Azazel had come to him with a proposition; that they work together to bring down Dark Specter. All Azazel asked for was Earth. He wouldn't tell Zedd why though. At first Zedd had been furious, he'd been working for years to get his hands on Earth. But, the thought of killing Dark Specter and taking the throne from Astronema was very appealing. After he thought it over for a few minutes he agreed. Azazel had called their plan "Operation Psycho Ranger". Zedd had no idea what that meant, his new ally had been very vague on the details. All Zedd had to do was give Azazel's creations life once he was through with them.

He was eagerly awaiting "Operation Psycho Ranger" to reach its completion. He'd contacted Azazel a few days ago and the demon had told him that he was nowhere near completion and for Zedd to be patient. Patience never was Zedd's strong suit. It was why so many of his plans, such as his monster Nimrod the Scarlett Sentinel had failed. He had planned on kidnapping Tommy Oliver and making him into his heir as the evil Green Ranger once again. But Zordon, the goodie goodie wizard, had to beat him to it and make Tommy his heir as the White Ranger. Ever since then Tommy had been a major thorn in his side. Hopefully the child Rita was carrying would grow up to become a great warrior, one worthy of being his heir.

"Zedd!" Rita bellowed. Zedd sighed, ever since she'd gotten pregnant she'd been making him do this and do that. He supposed it wasn't any different than normal, but it seemed to be more often.

"Yes pumpkin?" he asked as he entered their room, shaking his head.

"I want you to go to the Karova System and get me some screaming quadralites. I've been craving them all day." She pouted, usually he could never resist her pout.

"But I wanted to see how things were going to turn out when those meddling Zeo Rangers found their Turbo friends dead!" he whined. It wasn't fair, he was LORD Zedd, not Butler Zedd. He shouldn't be doing any of this. But he did love her for whatever reason, and he would do what she asked.

"Oh just record it and watch it later!" she said as she waved him away.

"Fine." He grumbled as he slumped his shoulders and left the room. "I'll be back in a few days."

The Zeo team watched as a massive streak of white light descended upon Earth, even with as fast as they were moving it still wasn't fast enough. That was when they heard it, a giant explosion. They saw the horizon light up in flames. Each one thinking the same thing, they hoped that Angel Grove was still intact.

As they passed over the city they were relieved, it was still standing. But then their thoughts drifted to the Power Chamber, that had to have been what was fired on. Their fears were soon confirmed, they arrived at the ruins of the Power Chamber. They quickly began trying to contact T.J. and the others, but had no luck. "Oh my God..." Kim breathed. "Guys, we've got to get them out!" She didn't know if they were really under the pile of rubble, but she had this sinking feeling that they were. Quickly the Zeo's, Billy, and Andros began digging through the rubble. On one hand they hoped they found them, and on the other they hoped they didn't.

"I found someone!" Andros called out. He helped the Yellow Ranger to her feet, his first thought should have been if she was okay, but instead he found himself amazed at her beauty.

"Ashley!" Carri yelled as she ran over to see how her friend was. "Ashley can you hear me? Ashley?"

After a few minutes she heard a mumble that sounded like "I'd love to go to the mall..." Carri couldn't help but snicker, earning a dirty look from the Red Astro.

"What's so funny?" he asked sternly. A far as he was concerned they had a Ranger down, and it was no laughing matter.

Carri pointed at her and said "If she's dreaming about going to the mall then she's fine. C'mon, we've gotta find the others." Andros silently agreed, after Carri explained it even he saw a little bit of humor in it. It didn't take long before they found Justin, Carlos, and Cassie. All of them were morphed, but there was no sign of T.J. They watched as the Turbo Rangers unconsciously powered down. That was when the Zeo's saw their morphers, they were trashed. Wires and circuit boards hung out of them.

"I think it's safe to say they won't be morphing any time soon." Jason commented, trying to lighten the mood a little as they continued their search for the Red Turbo Ranger.

"Shut up Jase." Kim said absently as she tossed a chunk of the rubble out of her way.

About an hour later they were still digging, and still had no sign of T.J, or Alpha for that matter. That was then the others began to stir. Ashley was the first to sit up, and Andros quickly ran over to her side. "Careful, there's no telling how injured you are."

Ashley sat up and looked around. The last thing she remembered was T.J. jumping in front of them and shouting for them to morph. What happened since then? Obviously the Power Chamber had been destroyed, and the Zeo's were back. But who was this beside her? He was handsome whoever he was. "I'm fine." She lied as she attempted to stand, only to fall over again and have him catch her. She grabbed her head, it hurt so bad. Standing had not been such a great idea, everything was beginning to spin now. She felt like she was going to be sick.

"No you are not." He said sternly "If you were then you wouldn't have fallen over." He set her back down on the ground so she could rest.

"Maybe you're right..." she let her head drift over to the right and for the first time she noticed the others. "Oh my gosh! Where's T.J?"

"We were hoping you could tell us. We can't find him anywhere." Tommy said as he walked up, Alpha in his arms. The little robot needed some serious maitenance, he looked about as bad as the Turbo morphers.

"The last thing I remember is T.J. jumping infront of everyone and telling us to morph. Then everything went white, next thing I know I'm waking up here." The others sighed, that wasn't what they had wanted to hear.

"Come on,"said Andros "let's get these guys back to the Megaship and treat them while we runa search for your friend." The others nodded in agreement and they carefully lifted the others back up and took them back to the ship to heal.

Up in the Dark Fortress Astronema went from beaming with glee to destroying any Quantrons that got in her way. The Rangers survived, she wasn't sure how, but they did. To make matters worse the blast the laser cannon fired earlier also destroyed the cannon. It was never meant to fire a blast that powerful. It infuriated her to no end, she was going to have to go down there and take care of them herself. She prepared her battle armor, donned her favorite blueish-purple wig and set out to do battle.

T.J. awoke in the middle of the desert. His head was spinning and his body ached. Not even playing Baseball for hours on end made him this sore. After everything stabilized and he could see straight he stood, trying to see if he could recognize anything. He did see one thing he recognized. Sand. Lots, and lots of sand. He sighed, sand wasn't anything to off of, the entire Power Chamber was surrounded by sand. "The Power Chamber!" he exclaimed. Now he really wanted, no he needed, to know what happened. The last thing he remembered was jumping in front of his team to try and shield them while yelling at them to morph. After that he saw a yellow light envelope him and next he knew he was waking up in the desert. He didn't think things could get any worse, that is, until he felt something brush across his arm.

He looked sown to see the wires and circuits hanging out of his morpher. "Shit." He said with feeling, that wasn't good. If he were to be attacked now he'd most likely get creamed, if it was a monster or something other than Zedd's tenga's. He looked over at his communicator, even it was busted. This was going to an even longer day. He sighed and started walking in a random direction, hoping it would take him to the city.

Andros and the Zeo's set the Turbo's up in the Megaships infirmary where they were to remain for at least a few hours. Andros explained that the Kaoan technology on the ship was a couple years out of date, but it should have them up and running again in about two hours. Tommy said it was good, they'd need them for battle. That sparked an arguement with Andros, who said they shouldn't be rushing into battle, they didn't even have any morphers anymore. That was when Jason jumped in.

"They've got these." He pulled his Astro morpher off and handed it over to Andros. "Take them as your team."

Andros shook his head, he didn't want to risk anyone's life, especially not novice Rangers. "No. This is our battle, not theirs." He had reluctantly come to the decision that this fight was as much the Zeo's as it was his.

"He's right Andros. You'll need a team out there." Tommy said, his anger almost gone. "I've been the leader for what's going on four years now. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to be clashing heads with you everytime a decision needs to be made."

"And I'm not leaving if he's not." Kim chimed in, a long distance relationship across the country was bad enough. She would not risk a long distance relationship across the galaxy.

"Me too." Carri piped up. Kim was quickly becoming her best friend, and she felt like her place was on Earth, not out in space.

"That settles it for me." Rocky said as he wrapped an arm around Carri's waist. He wasn't going to go off into space without her.

"And I've got my own personel reasons." Jason added. He didn't want to be away from Emily any longer than he had to be. It tore at him being away from her these past two months.

Andros sighed, trying to formulate a good enough excuse. "Still, there's five of them, and only four morphers."

"That's fine." Justin said from the infirmary. The others walked back in to see that all four of the Turbo's were waking up. "I was retiring anyway." He added sadly. Tommy couldn't help but wonder why he was retiring after it hadn't even been three months. When he didn't continue Kim pushed him on.

"Why? Don't you like being a Ranger?" she knew she did. She missed it the year and a half she was in Florida, that and Tommy.

Justin jerked his head up, immediately regretting that he did. He groaned and grabbed his head as he spoke. "Of course I do. It's just..."

Carlos looked over at his friend and decided to finish for him. "It's his dad. His dad finally has time to spend with him and he doesn't want Rangering to cut into that time." The others nodded, they could understand that. Carlos looked around again and asked the question that had been on everyone's mind. "Where's Teej?" Andros explained that he had a search running for him and that DECA would notify him when they got some results. Then he went on to introduce himself to the Turbo's.

After Andros introduced himself, Tommy explained what they did know and took the four Astro morphers and handed them out, temporarily giving Justin the blue. Andros didn't try to hide his irritation. He was the senior Ranger here, or at least he thought he was, and here this guy was handing out his morphers. He already told them he didn't want a team, but rather than get into another arguement he decided to go work on Alpha.

T.J. wandered through the desert for what felt like hours. He was ready to collapse, his body ached, his head was throbbing, his morpher was busted as was his communicator. He didn't even know if he was heading the right way. All he really cared about was that his team was alright, he had planned to use himself as a shield to protect them, morphed of course, but apparently that didn't work out so well. He felt himself slowing down, his feet starting to drag, and his knees giving in every so often.

"Well hello Red Ranger." Said a sweet voice from up ahead of him. He lifted his head up and saw her, Astronema, standing before him. He cursed under his breath. The day had just gotten worse.

"What do you want now?" He said, ignoring the pain and jumping into a battle ready stance. He couldn't ignore it long though as she sent a bolt of energy at him and rolled out of the way. He cringed as he stood back up. This was turning out to be a very bad day indeed.

"To finish what I started. That beam was supposed to kill you and your friends. Tell me, how did you survive?" When he said nothing she tried to make a false bargain. "If you tell me I'll let you live."

T.J. glared at her, fists raised. "Yeah. Right." He said sarcastically. "And just why should I believe you?"

"Because I need a boot shiner." She said with a laugh. If anything she'd take him and feed him to Scrudley.

"Thanks but no thanks." He said as he ran towards, legs giving out half way. He fell face first in the dirt. "Shit! This is not good!" he muttered. He tried to pull himself to his feet, but every time he'd fall back over. Astronema couldn't help but smile and laugh at her opponent. He was pathetic, he couldn't even stand. Slowly, she began walking towards him.

"Well, if this isn't my lucky day." She said with an evil smile on her face. She pointed her staff at his throat. "Say goodbye."

"Never." Before she could kill him she heard someone yell something about a flying power kick, and then she was sent flying through the air, stopping a couple yards from the fallen Red Turbo Ranger.

"You!" she growled, staring at the Yellow Zeo Ranger and the rest of the Zeo's and Astros. The former Turbo team hadn't completely healed yet, but they had insisted on tagging along. The sensors had picked Astronema's presence up on Earth in the middle of the desert, and they assumed she had found T.J. Luckily they assumed right. "What are you doing here?"

"Isn't obvious Astry?" We're here to kick your ass." Carri said simply. She shrugged her shoulders "Shouldn't be too hard." Astronema growled and tapped her staff on the ground, summoning Ecliptor, Darkonda, Goldar, and an army of Quantrons.

"Destroy them!" she shouted, leaving the battlefield.

"Well," Jason said as he dodged Darkonda's sword "she's real pleasant." He drew his own sword and struck Darkonda, knocking the bounty hunter back. "Carlos, get T.J. out of here!" The Black Astro Ranger nodded nd ran over to help his friend before teleporting out. Jason looked back just in time to catch Darkonda's sword with his own, breaking the aliens.

Tommy doing his normal dance with Goldar, trash talking, blocking, and attacking. He briefly wondered where Goldar's goofy twin Rito was, but declined to ask. "Come on Goldar, we've been doing the same old dance for four years now, going on five. What do you say we call it quits?"

Goldar swung his sword and growled "It'll be over when I kill you!"

Tommy shrugged "Or y'know, you could go with my idea and surrender. Trust me," he blocked the apes sword and threw him back, "it would save you a lot of embarrassment. I mean, I'm just saying."

Goldar stood and thrust his sword at his mortal enemy. "Why don't you shut up?!" Tommy knocked Goldar's sword out of his hands and caught it himself, holding both of them at the golden monkey.

"Ready to surrender?"

"We'll continue this another time." Goldar teleported back up to the Lunar Palace. Tommy shrugged, figuring that was good enough for now.

Andros was busy with Ecliptor. He shot a couple blasts from his pistols before jumping to strike with his spiral saber, catching his eemy off guard. Ecliptor swung his sword around at the Red Astro, only to have it blocked by the Red Zeo. "Gonna include me in the party?" Tommy asked. Ecliptor made a humph sound and teleported out, quickly followed by Darkonda. They then went to help finish the Quantrons, which took no effort at all. Afterwards they all returned to the Megaship.

Within the confines of the Dark Fortress Astronema was seething, she had lost yet another battle. These Rangers were obviously a lot stronger and a lot more determined than the former Astros. She quickly composed herself and began to think of another strategy. She glanced over at her pet turtle and an idea came to mind. She looked over at Elgar, Dark Specter had saved him from the pit for some reason, she couldn't imagine why, and sent him to work for her. She was going to keep him around, until he became completely useless, then she would have fun killing him. "Elgar!"

Elgar looked up from his dusting. "Yo, uh, whatcha need?" he asked as she strutted over to her.

"Aim the satelasers at New York City." She said with a smile.

"New York City!" Elgar echoed excitedly "Anywhere in particular?"

"Just the sewers." She replied as she stroked her turtles back. She would fight heroes with heroes, it was a perfect plan, flawless.

A few hours later in the Megaship Alpha was up and running, as were the former Turbo Rangers. After a little convincing, and the yellow Turbo's pouts, Andros agreed to let them on his team as the Astro Rangers. The former Turbo's were overjoyed to be able to venture into space, they knew they'd have their work cut out for them between high school and space, but itnearly be as ahrd as it would for the Zeo's with college and space.

Justin hadned over the blue Astro morpher to T.J. and said his goodbyes to all the Rangers. T.J. still wondered how he wound up in the desert, miles away from the Power Chamber, none of the others did. They were all buried under it. He had his suspicions, but he wasn't ready to speak them aloud just yet.

The Astros and the Zeo's bid each other farewell and each team went their own way. The Astros went to space to search for Zordon, and the Zeo's went back to Angel Grove to pack up and get ready for Los Angeles life. Their lives had just gotten a lot more complicated, and they knew it. Billy's especially as he was going to try to try and start rebuilding the Power Chamber.

Six weeks later the Zeo's were comfortably living in Los Angeles, college life was proving to be tricky, but they were managing. Zedd began sttacking Los Angeles rather than Angel Grove, leaving that to Astronema and the Astros. The two teams did help each other out on occasion, and they always tried to have Ranger gatherings. That was how they learned that there were really Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles out there. They thought it was just a bunch of people in costumes, trying to be New Yorks version of Power Rangers. But the Astros proved them wrong on that, it was nice to know that they weren't the only superheroes out there.

Tommy sat at the desk in his dorm room, he was trying to figure out one of the problems on his homework when his roommate came in. Andy Parker went and sat over on his bed and turned on the television and began playing his playstation. That was the one thing about college that Tommy really hated. His roommate never did any of his work, he evn admitted to picking his college and classes at random. He had no ambition what-so-ever. He ate, played video games, went to class every now and then, played video games, ate, slept. The teenager in Tommy was screaming "kick his ass, kick him out" but the Red Ranger and leader in him was telling to keep calm, that this guy would get kicked out eventually. After all, his graded couldn't be too good. He never studied, never even cracked a book open. Tommy sighed, this was going to be a long college year.