Trevor arrived at the precinct, with an impending sense of dread. He normally felt a sense of pride coming into work, preparing to start another day where he would strive to make his corner of the world just a little better. Of course, it wasn't every day he was going in to find out the fate of a SWAT unit at his hands.

He still hadn't heard any reports from the precinct. Normally fatalities were reported pretty quickly but there was only so long he could rely on 'no news is good news'. The armour had lashed out in retaliation when they fired on him, overturning a couple of trucks and sending a number of them flying. He was under no false impressions that there would be injuries, there was no way there wouldn't be. The suit had assured him that it would not strike out again, but that didn't help him with finding out how bad things had been for those on the ground at the time.

He came into the precinct, finding Ellie yelling over a phone as a huge pile of paperwork was resting on her desk.

"I keep telling you that all press statements are made directly from our press department." She told the person at the other end. "Just leave your publication name, your name, your publication date and a phone number and the press department will be in touch…hello? Hello? ASSHOLE!"

"Press?" Trevor asked her.

"If you think I'm in a mood, you do NOT want to talk to the Captain!" She told him, nodding to confirm the detail.

"Have you heard anything about the SWAT team?" Trevor asked. Ellie just started making shushing sounds.

"Are you TRYING to get sacked?" She asked him. "The Captain's had every reporter in the city on his case ever since the incident wanting to talk about why a SWAT team was even at a Ranger battle. Half the SWAT unit is in the hospital surrounded by union reps and lawyers!"

"What?" Trevor asked. She just looked at him.

"Don't play dumb with me, if they were there to take on the Rangers in direct violation of department policy, this is going to bring a whole new type of hell down on this department!" She told him. "Between that and everything else I wouldn't be surprised if the Captain is talking to his own union rep. about early retirement."

"What other stuff?" Trevor asked her. She just stared at him in disbelief.

"Where have you been? Sleeping for the last 24 hours?" She asked him. "A bunch of car thieves were picked up in the parking lot…or should I say were scraped up out of the parking lot! The conservative estimate is it's going to be about six months in intensive care before any of them are even fit to be brought in for questioning never mind face trial!"

"Car th…" Trevor's words tailed off as it suddenly came back to him. He was attacked in the parking lot by guys trying to boost cars while the cops were on shift. He had blacked out during the attack, only to wake up at home with no idea how he got there. He knew the suit's power, he had seen it himself but had it really gone so far?

"They would have done the same to you." The suit told him.

"Sterling's been going on about something being stolen from her office, but somehow I think that's the least of the Captain's worries right now." She told him. "I guess the only good news is he needs every set of feet on the street right now with so many officers out injured."

"Wait, do you mean…?"

"Congratulations." She told him, handing him a letter. "It looks like you are officially off clerical work."

"The unit, how badly hurt were they?" He asked.

"A few broken bones, some minor surgeries, but no fatalities, thank God." Ellie told him. "But even once they're cleared for duty Internal Affairs will be all over them. We've managed to lose about thirty officers for the foreseeable future."

"It's just as well one of them's just come back then isn't it?" They heard someone say. Trevor turned around and smiled.

"Skullovitch!" He greeted his partner warmly. "It's great to see you! They reinstated you already?"

"Well, not exactly." Spike told him. "Even I'm not able to bounce back from surgery like that so quickly. I'm on restricted duties, but you know me. It doesn't matter if I'm kicking down doors or washing the patrol cars, I'm just here to help."

"Well if you really want to help, you can take some of these." Ellie told him, gesturing to the folders on her desk. Spike grabbed half of them and started looking around for a desk of his own.

"It's great to be back." He stated.

"It's good to see you back." Trevor answered. As Spike headed off to find a desk, Trevor caught sight of Grace by the door to her office, speaking with what looked like a forensics team…though it wasn't the department's. It was her own team that were there, no doubt to try and figure out who had taken the dagger. Trevor suddenly felt the walls closing in, and found it hard to breathe. He needed to get out of the building. The streets, that was where he was needed.

At lunch time, back at the school, in the Ranger Base, the team had assembled just as Mick had asked them to. There was a lot to discuss going forward. They had a lot of problems that were very quickly stacking on top of each other.

"Alright, so what do we discuss first?" Calvin asked. "The psychopath in the gold armour that's coming down for us, the psychopath in the green armour that wants a piece of us, the cops who apparently still hate us or the boglin with the howitzer?"

"Alright, there's admittedly a lot to unpack, so let's prioritise." Mick stated. "We know Galvanax is the next round, so for now we put him on the backburner."

"Well, that's one thing I guess." Levi stated. "So, what about the rest of it?"

"The cops, I don't really know what we're expected to do." Preston stated. "I mean, all we can do is try and avoid them, right? We can't really fight back even if they are throwing military grade weapons at us."

"So that just leaves us with these two." Brody replied. "Alright, the guy in the green, you said you have footage."

"It's just going through the last stages of cleaning as we speak." Mick stated.

"Alright, that just leaves the boglin." Sarah sighed. "We heard him say that if he's gigantified his forcefield will only get stronger."

"That's not good news. We had a hard enough time with it on the ground." Brody stated. "If Lion Fire Armour can't break through the force field, then what could?"

"I don't know." Mick replied honestly. "Yet."

"If that monster's gigantified even our Megazords may not be able to get through its forcefield." Hayley said, looking extremely worried. "It doesn't really matter much who our future opponents would have been if we can't take this guy down."

"Guys, look!" Sarah called out, pointing towards the Nexus Prism. It had been some time since it had activated, the last time it had was when Viera came to them, bringing the Lion Ship. They all looked into it as it started to glow brightly, showing an image of their three Megazords, the Ninja Steel Megazord, the Bullrider Megazord and the Lion Fire Megazord. The image spun and merged before coming back in a new form they had never seen before. They could recognise components of their old Zords, but they were put together in a way they hadn't seen before, and it looked like there were components of all three Zords.

"The prism wants us to combine all three Megazords." Mick surmised.

"Is that even possible?" Brody asked. Everyone just turned and stared at Sarah.

"What?" She asked.

"Well, you ARE the only one that's done this kind of stuff before." Hayley reminded her.

"Well, yeah but…I was never IN the Zords, and the Dino Charge Zords worked differently." Sarah told them. "But…yeah, there was a configuration they called the Ultrazord. It combined all the Zords they had."

"So, it is possible?" Brody asked.

"Well, I guess so! The Prism seems to think so!" Sarah replied. "I guess all we need now is a Power Star!"

"And…that's where we hit on our next problem." Mick sighed regretfully. He led them over to the table where all the Power Stars were sitting. "As you may or may not remember, we used the last of the Ninja Steel making the Lion Fire Armour Star and the Lion Fire Zord Star."

"So, there's no more Ninja Steel?" Hayley asked. Mick took the trophy and turned it upside down, shaking it to emphasise his point.

"We all knew this day would come." Mick told them. "Redbot and I have been taking inventory of the Ninja Stars. I was hoping another source of Ninja Steel would turn up, but without one…we have no choice but to start melting down old stars to make new ones."

"Melting down old stars?" Levi asked. "But that would mean…"

"The associated weapons would be lost too." Mick confirmed.

"The ninja always had to upgrade their arsenal." Brody said, leaning on the table and trying to look over the stars which had served them all so well. "Whenever a weapon became obsolete and was no longer useful, they'd discard it in favour of a new weapon."

"But how do we decide?" Preston asked. "Literally every star on that table has saved our lives at least once, probably multiple times!"

"I've run an algorithm which takes into account the regularity with which you use each star, the power of the weapon, the strategic importance of it, and the likelihood you'll need it again." Redbot announced. "I've come up with a graph that shows the best candidates…"

"Leave the stars for now." Brody told them. "We don't know when we'll need them again."

"But we need Ninja Steel." Sarah reminded him. "Without it…"

"We can't forge a new star." Brody concluded. "I know. But there is one more thing that we can melt down."

He went over to a wall, and reached up, taking his father's ninjato down from the wall. They all watched as he pulled it from its scabbard, staring at it thoughtfully. Levi came across.

"Brody, that was dad's." Levi reminded him. "It's one of the few things we have of his."

"Yeah, I still remember when you caught me playing with it and you made me do sit-ups until I barfed." Calvin stated.

"We all know how much it means to you." Sarah replied. "We don't expect you to give it up."

"I know." Brody sighed. "But, it's just a sword. Dad's gone and even if he was around, he'd be the first one to remind us that there's no point in keeping mementos if you end up failing to live in the process."

He put it back in the scabbard and slowly, hesitantly, handed it to Mick.

"Melt it down." He told him. "I'm going for some air. Tell me when the star is ready."

"I'll go with him." Levi said as he left the room. Sarah looked to Mick sadly.

"Are you SURE there isn't more Ninja Steel?" She asked him.

"I wish there was, but so far I've not found anything." He told her. "I've been running scans of the universe but…"

"Maybe we can speed up the process." Sarah suggested. "Break the universe into smaller areas and run multiple scans at once."

"That's a great idea!" Preston stated. "We'll each take a quadrant!"

"Thanks, that's a great help guys." Mick replied as he took the sword out of the scabbard and looked to it one last time. "In the meantime, I guess…I have a ninja star to forge."

With that, he plunged it into the forge.

Meanwhile, over in a park a short way from the school, Viera was sitting with Monty, staring at the Mega Mag. Well, she was anyway, he was staring at her. She just looked to it, examining the machine carefully.

"Well, strictly speaking it DID work." She told him as she looked to it. "It looks like we just have a little problem with control. All we need to do is make it a little more sensitive."

"Control?" Monty asked her, continuing to stare.

"The real problem is it basically turns up in far too large a degree when it's turned up." She told him. "It was able to pick up small items like coins, but then when you turned it up a little…"

"It caused Victor to bury himself and almost strangle you to death." Monty said, sounding a little guilty. She just looked to him, putting a hand on his softly.

"I told you, that wasn't your fault, it was just…an unforeseen accident." She told him. "I wasn't even meant to be in the path of the magnet, it's only because Victor lost control when he was buried and pointed it my way."

"I know, but I just hate the thought of anything happening to you because of our creation." Monty told her.

"It's nothing, I keep telling you." She sighed. "It's just something neither of us could have…"

She pulled away as Monty moved her hair. She looked to him in alarm.

"Monty, what…?"

"Your necklace…I wondered why you didn't take it off." He gulped.

"Monty, what were you…?"

"I didn't see a latch." Monty said, staring at her. "I saw a weld. You can't take it off, can you?"

"Monty!"

"Viera, who did that to you?" He asked. "Who put that on you?"

"It doesn't matter!" She snapped at him, before looking away. "I…I can't explain it but someone put this thing on me and now I can't get it off."

"Viera I'm sorry…"

"It's on too close to my neck to even risk trying to cut it off." She told him. "Even if I could, I don't even know if it can be cut."

"So…someone put that on you?" He asked her. "Why?"

"So that I'd know that he owned me." She replied. Monty suddenly felt ill. He couldn't imagine anyone wanting to harm Viera. She had been one of the most amazing people he had ever met.

"Own you?" He asked. "Like…as in a pet?"

"More like a slave." She told him. "It's…not something I like to talk about. It's one of the reasons I came here."

"To get away from the guy who put that on you?" Monty asked. She just nodded.

"The worst part is, coming here I know I've left people behind, people who are going to get hurt because I'm gone." She told him. "I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't have been for the best if I stayed."

"No one ever deserves to be treated like that." Monty told her, sitting in front of her and looking straight into her eyes. "I will get that thing off you, I promise."

"That's sweet Monty, but I don't even know if that's possible." She told him. Monty thought about it, before his eyes found the Mega Mag. He picked it up.

"What about this?" He asked her.

"Monty, that thing almost killed me." She told him. "No offence."

"I know, but…what if we set up more than one?" He asked her. "You know, set it up to pull from multiple directions at once."

"So that the collar stays in place…"

"Then if we turn up the power a little bit at a time…"

"We could have the magnets pull it apart!" She screamed, looking to him in delight. "Monty that's genius!"

"Well, I don't know about genius but…" He said as his eyes caught hers. He could see tears in her eyes. "Viera…why are you…why are you crying?"

"Because…you could set me free." She replied. She started to draw closer to him, her heart pounding, when Victor suddenly arrived.

"Alright, I have burritos all round, Monty I have that hot sauce…" Victor said, putting the tray down between them. "Um…am I interrupting something?"

"Just…a bit of a breakthrough." Monty sighed. Just then, there was a flash of light. They all turned to see Madame Odious as she appeared before them.

"What…what are you?" Monty stammered out.

"I…don't know." Viera gulped, trying to usher them behind her. Madame Odious just laughed.

"Oh, I wouldn't have thought you'd have forgotten that soon." She told her. "Come with me Princess Viera, and bring the humans and their device with you."

"Never!" Viera snapped at her. Madame Odious just stared at her.

"Oh, we both know you're in no fit state to stop me right now." She answered. "You can all come with me willingly or try to resist. But I guarantee you, this will be a lot less painful if you just co-operate."

Viera weighed up her options. Even with her abilities she wasn't sure she'd be a match for Odious. Her scientific and magical abilities were as renowned as her cruelty and malice. Viera didn't even have a suitable weapon to even begin to fight. If she tried, she had no idea if Victor and Monty would survive. In the end, she just held her hands in submission.

"A wise decision." Madame Odious stated as she pulled out some restraints. As she approached them, Victor just looked to Viera.

"Princess?" He asked. "I didn't know there was a royal family in Idaho." Viera, Monty and Madame Odious all just stared at him in disbelief.

"Really?" Madame Odious asked in bemusement as she shook her head, staring at Monty. "Why would you choose to spend time with such a moron? Is his presence simply to make yourself feel better about your own intellect?"

"Actually, not as dumb as people think!" Victor yelled, taking his father's dog tags, which he had been positioning between his fingers, and punched out, ramming it right through one of the eye holes in her mask into her eye. As she shrieked, he grabbed the Mega Mag, swinging it into her face and knocking her down. "Sometimes It's just good to let people think you're dumb!"

"Victor! That was…"

"That was a stall at best Monty!" Victor called out, grabbing him and Viera. "RUN!"

Back at the Ranger Base, Redbot was just finishing up grinding the Ultrazord Star into shape when Calvin came over to him. Time was running short, and they knew they had to be ready if the star was needed. Redbot stepped away as he surveyed his work.

"Well, there's no more ninja steel, but the star is finished." He said. Calvin took the star from him and surveyed it.

"This looks good, good work Redbot." Calvin told him, patting him on the shoulder. Mick was just returning from the bathroom when he noticed this and stood back watching as Calvin took up position opposite the Nexus Prism. "Alright, just be ready for the return Calvin. Here we…GO!"

He threw the star, and it did come back quickly, though not at all how Calvin expected. Instead of going into the prism and transforming, it just rebounded off with a loud clang, coming straight back and lodging itself in Calvin's leg.

"SON OF A…"

"It's OK Calvin, it's alright, I've got you!" Mick said, rushing over and catching him before he fell. The others were quickly around him as they helped him to a table. Preston already had the first aid kit. "Alright, this is going to hurt…"

"Yeah, because the star going IN was like a nice fluffy snow cone!" Calvin complained as Mick grabbed it and yanked the star out. "GAHH!"

"What happened?" Hayley rushed out.

"It didn't work that's what happened!" Calvin complained.

"What could we have done wrong?" Mick asked, inspecting it. Calvin looked to Redbot, who had done most of the work.

"Redbot, are you sure you polished it just right?" He asked.

"Yes, I polished the star perfectly." Redbot protested.

"Well, what about the shape?" Calvin asked.

"I calculated the shape for a Zord star to perfection!" Redbot protested.

"The weight! Are you sure…"

"I promise you I calculated everything about this star perfectly!" Redbot said, sounding agitated. "Please, I'm sorry Calvin, I don't know why it didn't work, but I did everything right!"

"I'm sorry Redbot, I was just trying to…" Calvin's words tailed off as he suddenly thought about the fight with his mom. "I was just trying to help."

He looked to Mick, who was just staring at him with that slightly smug expression he always had when he realised his Rangers had just figured out for themselves what everyone had been trying to tell them.

"Can…you guys give me a minute?" Mick asked. The other Rangers just turned and left to go back to what they were doing slowly as Mick looked to Calvin. He had been remarkably quiet about the whole situation, even though he had been there when Calvin yelled at his mom. Calvin just looked completely ashamed of himself.

"I…I'm so sorry." Calvin said regretfully. "I was mad, but what I said, the way I treated my mom…"

"And you're telling me this why exactly?" Mick asked him. "Look, I could have yelled at you, tried to tell you that you were out of line but until you realised it yourself it was pointless."

"I was just so angry." Calvin responded. "I know mom put that part in my truck and it went wrong but she didn't deserve…"

"Oh, yeah, interesting thing about that. I took the liberty of having a little look at your engine, or what was left of it anyway, and I found something rather interesting." Mick told him. He held up a twisted, mangled sheet of metal. "Say hello to the cause of all your woes."

"This?" Calvin asked. "What is it?"

"Try looking a little closer." Mick told him. Calvin inspected it carefully, handling it, even sniffing it.

"Is this…part of my fuel tank?" He asked.

"More accurately it was a patch that was attached to seal a hole in your fuel tank." Mick told him, pulling up a computer simulation. "When the new fuel injector fired up, the pressure built until the patch couldn't hold and blew out. When it did, the blowback…"

"Went straight up through the injector and caused it to blow apart too." Calvin stated. He then paused as a thought occurred to him. "The patch…I put that in!"

"Mmm hmm." Mick stated.

"And it was the pressure that blew it, which means it would have blown even if I had used the part the way I planned to build it." Calvin gulped. He stared at Mick. "This was…my fault!"

"Yeah, it kind of was." Mick told him. "Even the best of us make mistakes and miss something every now and then."

"I really need to talk to my mom." Calvin stated. "I just…I spent so much time thinking about all the pressure the new part would be under I didn't think about the pressure it would put on the parts that were already there when I supercharged…"

Calvin jumped off the table, hobbling a little as he got onto his leg. Mick helped steady him.

"Calvin, take it easy." He warned.

"Mick, there's no time!" Calvin told him. "I need you to help me!"