Angel Grove Cemetery
It felt strange for the sun to be shining on today of all day's. A few minutes ago Rebecca Hart had been laid to rest, surrounded by her family and the rangers assorted friends. She was now another sad statistic to add to the ever increasing list of monster related fatalities. Zordon had been strangely quiet since Rebecca's death, perhaps fearful of the angry backlash that would come from the rangers.
The ceremony itself was short and simple, funded by SPD. At Rebecca's graveside was Kimberly with Trini standing a couple of paces behind. A few feet further back were Jason, Zack, Billy and Matt. All the teens had ditched their signature colours for the day and found something black to wear.
Kimberly laid a single pink rose on the freshly compacted earth and slowly stood up. After reassuring Trini that she wasn't going to cry, the pair approached the rest of her friends, "Thanks for coming today guys", she began, "I know my Mom would've appreciated this".
"Don't worry about Kim", Zack replied, "all of us really liked your Mom, it's the least we could do".
"I didn't see your Dad here thought", Billy commented.
Internally Kimberly winced, the relationship with her Dad wasn't great. She hadn't seen him since her parents' divorce several years ago. Even though they weren't on good terms, she had hoped that he would've turned up to support her. Deciding to leave the subject of her Dad to one side, she quickly changed the subject, "Any word from XI?" she asked Trini.
"Yeah he's ready when we are", Jason replied. They meant to be keeping a low profile on Earth. But this was Kimberly's mother, they weren't not going to attend.
"I don't want to spoil the moment but we should get going", Zack said to everyone, "we've got a lot of planning to do". Everyone nodded and slowly made their way back to the car park. Little did they know that someone had been watching them from the shadows.
Spectrum ii
As soon as the rangers were back onboard, they changed out of their formal clothes into something more casual. They then gathered in the common where Xi was waiting for them. Due to the funeral they had delayed their departure from Earth so they needed to finish off the final arrangements. This had also highlighted a serious problem for them. If they were away from Earth, they might draw away some of Dark Specter's forces but probably not all of them. They could be too far away from Earth to return in time to protect it against an attack. There might still be rangers and their allies on Earth, the Zeo Rangers in particular. Their were still unreliable due to being classified as Zordon's enemy so that largely ruled them out.
"Ok", Kimberly began but she was interrupted by the sound of an alarm.
"For fucks sake" Zack said as he covered his ears.
"The attack alarm", Jason replied, "Astronema's attacking the city somewhere". He pushed the television remote and the map changed to one of Angel Grove, "There's a massive energy spike down by the docks".
"That's weird", Trini said, "it's much stronger than anything Astronema's sent before".
"Then we'd better be alert", Jason replied. The others nodded in response before reaching for their morphers, "Its Morphing time Omega Fire, Air, Earth, Water", the rangers called and the team morphed in a flash of light.
Angel Grove Docks
When the rangers arrived at the docks, everything was quiet, perhaps a little too quiet. There were no workers in their immediate vicinity. Cautiously they looked around but after a few minutes searching, they couldn't find anything. "Perhaps they've moved since we picked up the signal", Kimberly said.
"Possible", Jason replied. He brought his communicator up to his mouth, "Xi where's that energy signature now?" he asked.
"According to the reading it's all around you", the robot replied.
"Hey doesn't this area look familiar?" Trini asked the others.
"I was thinking the same thing", Zack replied, "reminds me of the first place where-"
"I first arrived", a horribly familiar voice called out, "what can I say, I'm a sucker for routine". The rangers turned around and confirmed that their worst fears had come true.
"Divatox", Zack spat. The pirate was still in the wedding dress she was wearing when they last saw her, except now it was frayed and torn around the edges. Her hair was wild and uncombed and there was a maniac glint in her eyes. Her twisted smile was almost animalistic in nature.
"Is that you rangers?" she asked, "I must say I preferred the car ones".
"How did you survive the collapse of the Muranthias dimension?" Jason called out.
She tilted her head to one side and grabbed a chunk of her hair in her hand, "Simple really, I absorbed the remains of Maligore's power before the dimension imploded. Been trying to find my way out for ages". She flashed the rangers a toothy smile, "The price of freedom was my sanity".
"So not much then", Kimberly shot back.
Divatox clapped her hands together, "Oh how I've missed this banter and I have to say that I really enjoyed your Mom's funeral today". The blue ranger clenched her fists as Divatox hopped up and down on the spot. "My escape also gave me another talent", she looked around a couple of times, "wanna see?" Immediately her skin began to turn red and harden into solid rock. The transformation tore the remains of her wedding dress from her body and her hair fell out of her now rocky skull. She grew in height until she towered a foot above the other rangers. They took a step back as they were now face to face with something similar in appearance to Maligore, except a female version.
"This is not good", Jason gasped. Divatox took one step towards the rangers and swiped at them with her giant fist. They momentarily got airborne before slamming into a nearby shipping container. "Yup definitely not good", the red ranger gasped.
"And do you know the best part about this", the now gravelly voiced Divatox called out, "I get to keep my magic". She shot purple lightning bolts out of her eyes, fortunately the rangers were able to roll out the way.
"How are we meant to fight that?" Kimberly asked the others.
"Dunno but I'm going to give it a try", Trini replied and called on her Omega Hammer. She jumped towards Divatox and swung her hammer at her body but the head bounced off her rocky skin. "Great her skin's just as hard as Maligore's", she groaned. Zack tried to use his Krunei but he had the same lack of success as the yellow ranger did. Divatox chuckled and backhanded the two rangers away. They tumbled across the ground and demorphed.
Kimberly took the full blast from some purple lightning. Seeing his team fall around him spurred Jason on even more. Hoping that his Omega Saber would have some effect against the stony skin of Divatox, he rammed it into her chest. The pirate roared in pain and tried to swipe the red ranger. He almost got out of the way but he caught glancing blow on his shoulder. He staggered in pain and resolved not to get hit by her again. He rolled down low and ran the blade across her legs, hoping to slow Divatox down. As he rolled behind the mutant pirate. From his position on the floor, he caught Divatox in the chest. Initially it looked like she was going to fall but after a few seconds, she began to take walk towards him, "Nice try red ranger", she roared and kicked Jason in the stomach. He flew through the air and slammed into a storage container next to his friends. As he writhed in pain, his morph also failed him.
Divatox strutted towards the fallen rangers and began to gloat, "Finally I'm going to put an end to your meddlesome rangers". Stopped when she caught sight of Zack and Trini, "You're new", she muttered. As soon as she said that, a black and white jeep slammed into her and sent her crashing into a pile of oil drums. Doggie Cruger stepped out of the Jeep.
"I think you guys should retreat " Cruger said, the omega rangers nodded and teleported away. Just then the Turbo rangers showed up. Divatox smiled her toothy smile. Cruger got back into his jeep as the turbo rangers faced off against Divatox.