The Megazord rocked as Greenzilla struck it. The cockpit was filling up with smoke and sparks flew everywhere. Warnings were blaring from all of their control consoles.
"No wonder Sledge kept this thing under wraps!" Chase complained as he grabbed his control console to steady himself. "Its way tougher than anything he's thrown at us so far!"
"How the hell he managed to get this thing into a cell I'll never know!" Riley added.
"I suppose this is one knight who's actually going to get the chance to slay a dragon for real." Ivan put down as he looked to Tyler. The strain could be seen on the Red Ranger's face. The Megazords took their power from the Rangers, and without his Energem, that meant Tyler was providing that power himself. He was hesitant to suggest his next plan, but he realised they might not have much option. "Tyler, perhaps this is one instance where two Megazords are better than one."
"Ivan, are you...?"
"Attacking this beast head on is getting us nowhere!" Ivan cut off Shelby, understanding why she was hesitant to go with any plan that took Rangers out of the cockpit and put more strain on Tyler to control this one. "With those tentacles, approaching it head on is not going to work! Its power is too great! If we split up, we can hit it from multiple sides at once!"
"But..."
"Shelby, think about it." Chase told her. "It's a sound plan. Right now, we can't get through its guard. We're just sitting here while he picks us off at his leisure."
Shelby thought about it. She didn't want to put any more strain on Tyler, but seeing the state the Megazord was in, she couldn't help feeling like they were right. Greenzilla was picking them apart with ease, while they had yet to mount any kind of meaningful offence. She got back up, helping Tyler to his control console.
"Right, fine. Chase, Riley and Ivan, take the Ptera Charge Megazord." She told them. "Phillipe, Koda, you're with me."
"That sounds like a plan to me." Chase agreed as he, Riley and Ivan prepared their Dino Chargers. "Ptera Charge Megazord, Para-Raptor formation, arise!"
"Tyler, let go of the controls." Shelby told him. Tyler just looked to her.
"Shelby, I'm fine!" He assured her.
"Tyler, you're barely standing!" She replied. "Please, just...take a break! Let us deal with this!"
Tyler reluctantly let go and stepped to the back, leaving the others to hold off Greenzilla while Ivan, Chase and Riley formed up their own Megazord. He didn't like feeling helpless, but he knew without his Energem he was vulnerable. Right now, he had to conserve what energy he did have in case it was needed later. As he took a seat at the rear of the cockpit, he pulled out his communicator. If he couldn't help in this battle, then at least he could check on Kendall.
Kendall could hear her communicator starting to sound, and thanked her lucky stars that she was still on the journey to the ship. She was on her way, without any weapons or powers at all straight to Sledge's ship! She still couldn't imagine what possessed her to think this was a good idea. If any of her Rangers had ever entertained an idea like that, she would probably have dragged them straight to Keeper to have their Energem stripped from them. Now that she knew she was going onto the ship, the only chance she really had was to keep out of sight. Forgetting to turn off her communicator could have cost her life! The last thing she'd need is for it to go off when it was in earshot of one of Sledge's monsters. She answered it, finding Tyler on the other end.
"Tyler, what are you doing?" She asked him.
"The team are taking on Sledge's monster." Tyler told her as there was an explosion behind him. "How about you? Is the Get-bot on the way to the ship?"
"Um...well...yes, the Get-bot is on its way." She said, glancing down to the Get-bot at her feet. "They totally fell for it...it's on its way."
"Why...why are you moving around so much?" Tyler asked her.
"I'm really not." Kendall lied as she tried to reason her way out of this. "Maybe you're just moving around because you're in a Megazord."
"That doesn't look much like the woods behind you." Tyler answered. "And is that sound...is that jet engines?"
"Listen Tyler..."
"Where the hell are you?" He asked.
"It's kind of a long story." Kendall told him.
"Ms. Morgan, where are you?" He asked a little more forcefully.
"Well...I'm in one of Sledge's transport pods." She admitted.
"You're in a transport pod?" He asked her. "ON YOUR WAY TO HIS SHIP?"
"Tyler, the signal's starting to break up!" She lied, beginning to fiddle with the controls. She doubted it would be long before the pod got back to the ship.
"Kendall, don't you dare cut me off!" Tyler told her. "KENDALL!"
"It's MS. MORG..." She yelled back, just as she shut off the communicator. She felt the pod lurching aggressively and was thrown forward as it suddenly stopped. She heard several mechanical sounds outside, and felt the pod moving much more slowly.
"Docking sequence initiated." She heard a mechanical voice inside the pod say. She gulped as she realised this was it. She was now docking with the ship! The pod was being moved inside. Her heart raced as she was moved into position, before suddenly it stopped. She gulped as the door started to open. She couldn't do anything to stop it, and immediately shut her eyes as she waited for the inevitable. It didn't hurt as much as she thought. In fact, it didn't seem to hurt at all. She slowly, cautiously opened one eye as she tried to see what was going on. She was sure the docking bay would be guarded. As she looked inside, she could indeed see that it was guarded. In fact most of Sledge's most trusted crew seemed to be there! Fury, Poisandra, Wrench, Curio...but they all seemed to be pre-occupied. She could see Sledge's massive form on his knees, clutching at his side as they all swarmed around him.
"Oh Sledgeums, what have those beastly Rangers done to you?" Poisandra wailed as his minions swarmed around him. "Fury, you useless feline, do something!"
"I would if he'd just let me..."
"Will all of you STOP fussing over me?" Sledge yelled as Wrench came over with his first aid kit. Kendall now realised what had happened. Sledge was injured. They were all paying so much attention to him; none of them noticed her standing in the pod. She decided not to press her luck and took that opportunity to slip out of the room as quickly as she could.
Pressing her back against a wall, she took a deep breath. She was now on the ship, but that didn't mean she was safe. Surely it wouldn't be long before she was discovered. As she leant back, she noticed a strange, rubbery material on the wall. Turning around, she realised that it was a suit hanging up on the wall.
"A Haz-Mat suit?" She asked, looking a little puzzled. She was brought back into reality as she heard someone coming from down the hall. She hid behind the suit as best she could, just in time to see two humanoid creatures, viviks she presumed given the strange "speech" coming from them, dressed in full Haz-Mat suits and carrying containers of chemicals that were marked as dangerous.
Once they were passed, she saw them head into a room that looked a lot at a glance like a lab. It had to be Wrench's lab. If the Energems were likely to end up anywhere, Sledge would probably give them to Wrench to work into some of his weapons. She started hurriedly putting on the Haz-Mat suit.
"Kendall, this is by far the dumbest thing you have ever done!" She grumbled to herself, hurrying to get the suit on before anyone saw her. She had only just finished putting on the hood, when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She suddenly froze up, she could swear her heart stopped beating right there and then. She was certain she had been caught.
"Hey, you!" She heard a voice behind her say. She turned around slowly, finding herself staring straight at Wrench. He stared straight at her, making her fear exactly how much the visor hid her identity. He stared at her. This was it, he could see straight through...
"Here, take this to the safe." Wrench told her, showing her the Purple Energem inside a little protective case. He closed the case and thrust it into her hand. Kendall just stood, completely gobsmacked. Was this really happening? Was she really standing with the Purple Energem right there in her hand? "Did you hear me?"
Kendall saw the way Wrench was staring at her and garbled something out, doing her best impression of a vivik. Wrench stared at her for a moment, before handing her something else from the first aid kit he was fetching, presumably for Sledge.
"Here." He told her. "It's a throat lozenge. It should help clear up that throat. The last thing we want is for you to take a coughing fit when you're handling those chemicals."
Kendall just nodded, thinking better of it than to press her luck, and turned around, heading for the lab. As she did so, she opened the case and slipped the Purple Energem out, and put it into her pocket, breathing a huge sigh of relief as her heart suddenly kicked into overdrive.
"Kendall, you are the luckiest person on Earth right now!" She whispered to herself, patting her pocket as she went into the lab. "Now all I need to do is find Keeper."
As he left, Wrench paused for a moment, glancing back at her.
"Aren't viviks normally taller?" He asked himself, before shaking his head and going about his business.
Back on Earth, the Rangers were finally starting to make headway against Greenzilla. Koda blocked the monsters attacks with his Tricera Shield, whine Ivan brought the Ptera Megazord round behind it. Riley brought the creature down with an attack from his claw.
"Guys, you will not believe what Ken...um...Ms Morgan has done!" Tyler rushed out.
"Tyler, this isn't the best time!" Phillipe said as he gripped the control console tightly. "We're kind of in the middle of..."
"She stowed away in one of Sledge's transport pods!" Tyler told them. "She's on her way to his ship right now!"
"SHE DID WHAT?" Shelby screamed as she, Koda and Phillipe all stared straight at him. "Are you...?"
"She told me herself!" Tyler told them, showing them his communicator. "Right before she got cut off!"
"Why Kendall do something so...stupid?" Koda said, with a look of disbelief on his face. Of all the things he could ever imagine saying, this probably ranked up there with 'how did I turn into a unicorn?' or 'I accept this Nobel Prize.'.
"I'm sure she has a plan." Phillipe said, causing them to stare at him. "I didn't say it was a GOOD plan!"
"She's going to get killed!" Shelby responded, trying to think of what to do. She looked around and saw that Greenzilla was down. The Megazords were damaged, but they were finally starting to get the upper hand. She looked to Phillipe.
"Can you guys handle things from here?" She asked him.
"It would be an honour." Phillipe assured her as he took the central controls. Shelby grabbed Tyler.
"Right, we're taking the Plesio Zord." She told him. "Hopefully we can get her out of there before she ends up getting killed."
With that, they abandoned the cockpit, leaving Koda and Phillipe to take the lead.
"Alright Ivan, are you ready to finish this?" He asked.
"It would be a pleasure to fight for the crown again!" Ivan declared as he, Chase and Riley powered up their ultimate attack. Phillipe put the Dino Charger into his weapon.
"Both at once, before it can recover!" He called out. "Final STRIKE!"
Greenzilla tried in vain to block the first of the attacks as it came towards him, but by now it was far too injured. The blast from Ivan's Ptera Megazord opened it up for the Megazord to rush through it with the Tricera Drill. The Rangers all collapsed at the podiums, exhausted as Greenzilla fell to the ground with a huge roar and exploded.
"That...was...a job...well done." Phillipe panted as he steadied himself against his podium. "Does anyone else want to say it?"
"Monter...vanquished." Ivan said as he tried to get his breath back. "So what do we do now?"
Phillipe's gaze turned towards the Plesio Zord as it blasted off towards orbit.
"If any of you believe in praying, now would probably be a good time." He replied.
Back up on Sledge's ship, Kendall was doing her best not to be noticed. She had gone into the lab so she wouldn't arouse suspicions, but now she had to make sure she wouldn't be seen as she went looking for Keeper and the Red Energem. She had found the safe, and remembered that she had been told to put the Purple Energem inside, but she hit upon another problem. The safe was locked, and she didn't know the combination! She tried a couple of combinations, and ascertained that it was a four-digit code, but it seemed Wrench had put in a specific code. She didn't even know enough about him to try and hazard a guess. She muttered as she stared at the key pad, trying to see if any of the buttons were worn down to at least narrow down WHICH buttons were pressed most often. Unfortunately, she had no such luck.
"I keep telling you, he'll be fine." Wrench said as he and Poisandra came into the room. Kendall put the box aside and went to a work station, pretending she was working. Taking a quick look around, it seemed like the viviks were creating some kind of biological weapon, most likely a defoliant. It made sense; it would be easier to search for Energems when there was no undergrowth to search through.
"But there was so much blood! I can't believe what those brutes did to my little Sledgeums." Poisandra whined as she followed him. "Ooh, they make me so...I can't...OOH!" She stomped her foot in anger. Kendall had to try hard not to laugh at the tantrum. Sledge was the one that started the fight. If he didn't want to get hurt, then he should have left the Rangers and their planet well alone.
"I'm telling you, he's fine." Wrench told her. "But if it makes you feel better, I'll let you be there when we incinerate Keeper!"
"Well, that does sound good." Poisandra said gleefully. "Let's do it now!"
"I'm just waiting on him waking up. He's in cell block C." He told her. "And now I've hooked the Red Energem up to the Magna Beam, it's a laser cannon that's going to blow any Megazord to pieces!"
That didn't sound good. She needed to get somewhere she could contact the Rangers and warn them about the laser cannon. It didn't surprise her that they would be looking to weaponise the latest Energem they had stolen, but it was a little worrying they had managed it so quickly.
"OOH! That sounds like FUN! Can I play with it?" She asked him. Wrench just shook his head.
"We can't use it until we're ready for the next attack!" He warned her. "We don't want that blonde scientist they have knowing how we plan to use their precious Red Energem!"
"Too late on that count." Kendall said under her breath. She saw a container of a chemical, and checking it, she realised it was a powerful acid. She picked it up, keeping it just out of sight as she headed out of the lab. When she was outside, she saw a sign.
"Cell block C...this way." She whispered, before running off.
Back in the lab, Poisandra let out kind of a frustrated little squeal and smacked Wrench in the chest, before stomping off out of the lab. Wrench just shook his head.
"What Sledge sees in her I'll never know." He grumbled, before noticing something on the counter.
"The Energem?" He snapped, before picking it up. "I told that mush-head to put this away ages ago! Where is the one I gave this to?"
The viviks were all busy, but they looked around and shook their heads, indicating that they didn't know. He opened the case, finding that the Energem was gone! He was about to raise the alarm, but he remembered the vivik from earlier. He was sure that there was something off about it. He searched his memory banks, recalling the time he had seen Kendall on the island. She was shorter than everyone else on her team by a significant margin. He was going to raise the alarm, but instead of pressing the button, he instead picked up his axe, before heading for the cell blocks. While he knew that it was best to raise the alarm, Kendall had humiliated him so many times; he relished the idea of being able to bring an end to their rivalry himself!