Grid Battleforce was unnaturally quiet on that particular Sunday evening. It was the type of calm serenity that made the Director's skin crawl.
If she'd learned one thing in her decades of service it was that calm silence was to be feared.
Chaos was more often than not maintainable, especially with the correct knowledge and experience. In the heat of the moment, even when the odds seem insurmountable, the path was usually clear to her.
But in times like this, where everything was so still and deceptively docile, she had no idea what was to come.
And there was always something to come…
But, for the moment all she could do was sit at her desk, catch up on her paperwork. Maybe do a quick walk of the facility and make sure everything was still up to her standards. She hadn't checked in on the janitorial department in a few weeks and she'd been noticing a collection of stains in the cafeteria that were rising in ranks without any sort of countermeasures.
All she could do was kill time and distract herself from the constant gnawing feeling that something big was inevitably going to sneak up on her when she least expected it.
Lately, the feeling had been worse than usual because the Director had been experiencing vivid nightmares. And while she wasn't one to normally get so flustered by something like that, the dreams had managed to tug at her in a particular way that left her unable to ignore them.
"Director Hart!" A voice exclaimed as one of her employees rushed into the room.
Kendall Morgan, lead engineer of GB's RnD division looked at the director with a pale expression and her tablet clutched close to her chest.
A sick feeling churned inside her. "What is it?'
"Our satellites just detected an object penetrating the lunar atmosphere."
Coldness washed over Director Hart. "Have you been able to identify it?" She asked with a strange expression as she tried to conceal her growing fear.
"Negative," replied. "All we can tell is that it appears to be some kind of ship."
Kendall nearly dropped her tablet when it began to frantically beep. She glanced down and her eyes exploded with surprise. "It just ejected something heading towards the moon's surface."
"Deploy the Rangers," the Director said in a cold, serious tone.
"Are you sure?" Her engineer asked. "They've never been trained for this type of scenario."
"We don't have a choice," Director Hart replied simply. "If we don't act now it could cost us everything."
The city of Angel Grove had gone through tremendous hardships in the last few decades. From monster attacks in the '90s to financial ruin in the 2000s to a massive earthquake in 2014. If not for Grid Battleforce arriving when they did, the rapidly unsustainable, nearly abandoned city would've been completely done for.
Now the city was a thriving metropolis, a place leading the way for the rest of the nation.
Tyler knew none of this as he walked through the crowded museum hall. All he knew was that this was the city he'd spent the early years of his life in, and it was his only hope of finding a lead to his father's whereabouts.
He paused for a second to stare at the wax figurines on display. Five multicolored heroes like life-sized action figures.
The sign read, THE FIRST POWER RANGERS SEEN ON EARTH.
The power rangers… Tyler had heard of them. They were a strange, Californian phenomenon. Anywhere on his travels, people would inevitably ask his dad if he'd met them.
"Yeah, one or two times. They really weren't as impressive as you'd think."
Tyler figured that might be a good place to start.
"Hey," he said to the nearest employee. A black girl around his age with a plastic pink ranger name tag that read Shelby.
"Yeah?" She asked with a perplexed look on her face. Like she'd never been acknowledged before.
"Where are the Power Rangers?" He asked. "I have a few questions for them."
She burst out laughing. Then frowned. "Wait… are you serious?"
"Yeah…?" Tyler said, feeling a little more discouraged now. "Are they hard to get a hold of or something? It's really important."
"The Power Rangers haven't been to Angel Grove in a LONG time," Shelby said.
"Oh," Tyler said with a frown. "My bad… I figured it was a long shot anyway."
"Why are you looking for them?" She asked.
"Well," Tyler said as he rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "I'm trying to find my dad."
"Did he go missing?" Shelby asked. "Maybe a police report would be-"
"It's not like that," Tyler said. "You see, the two of us traveled the world together most of my childhood." He smiled softly. "I think he was trying to do everything he could to stop thinking about my mom." Tyler shook his head as if to recalibrate his thoughts. "Anyway, about a year ago he just… disappeared. All he left me was this," he held out a key he kept attached to a chain around his neck. "It's our old house key. And a note. The note said that he needed to go help an old friend and that I should go home and settle down for a while. Honestly, I thought he sold the house years ago."
Shelby nodded through his story, then politely replied. "That's, uh, rough. I hope you find him and all, but I gotta go."
Without another word she rushed off, leaving Tyler alone to stare at the wax statues.
He signed. It seemed like the only thing left to do was go back to the house he hadn't seen since he was nine years old.
Shelby sighed to herself. As much as she wanted to help the guy she'd run into she was also acutely aware of the fact she was going to be late for her shift.
"Miss Truman, how nice of you to finally show up," the shift lead Dakoda Tien said as he wiped down a table.
Shelby winced upon realizing how crowded the museum restaurant was. "Sorry… I was helping a guest."
"And that's mighty kind of you," Dakoda said. "But not as kind to the people paying you to serve them Dragonzord Burgers."
"You're right," she said, holding her tongue as best as she could, "I'll go clock in."
Shelby rushed through the back door and into the kitchen where she found Chastity Randall with earbuds in as she carelessly flipped burgers.
She rolled her eyes. Something was going on between those too, there was simply no other explanation for why such a hard ass like Dakoda would be so lenient with someone.
"I take it Dakoda already gave you the riot act," Kaylee asked as Shelby punched her number into the unmanned cash register.
"You already know he did," Shelby replied. "He's such a dick sometimes."
"He just takes his job too seriously," the more tenured employee replied. "He's been like this ever since he got promoted."
Before Shelby could say more, Dakoda approached the front end with a dirty tray piled with trash. He opened his mouth to say something when his golden-colored smartwatch began to chime. He looked at them with a frown.
"Take this," he said and dumped the tray onto the counter before rushing off. "Kaylee, you're in charge!"
"Uh… okay?" She replied.
Not a moment later she heard the back door slam, signifying Chastity's departure as well.
"They're totally dating, aren't they?" Shelby asked.
"How about we gossip after the lunch rush," Kaylee suggested as she gestured towards the line already picking up steam.
"Yeah, good point," Shebly replied and helmed the register while Kaylee took over the kitchen.
"So the moon, huh, I wasn't aware we could breathe up here," Chastity said from behind a gray rock.
"Rita Repula placed a bubble of magic around her palace when she was freed from her space dumpster," Dakoda replied from beside her as he peered over their shelter. "That's also why there's gravity "
"Y'know, I recognized most of the words you just said and yet none of that made sense."
Dakoda rolled his eyes. "Just don't think too hard about it. Clearly, we've got bigger things to focus on."
As it turned out, one of those things was a red lion-faced humanoid approaching the ruins of a massive palace on the moon. Beside him were white and green creatures with thin strips of algae escaping their heads like dreadlocks.
"Well," Dakoda said with his yellow dinosaur-inspired revolver. "Let's go get'em."
The two jumped out from behind the rocks, guns blazing.
Two of the white grunts fell to the ground, their bodies dissolving into vines and moss.
"Who the hell are you?" The lion growled as he batted away several energy blasts.
"We're uber eats, here to deliver a hot plate of whoop-ass," Chastity replied as she pistol-whipped the nearest grunt and just as efficiently dispatched its nearest comrade.
Meanwhile, Dakoda set his sights on the lion itself. Several well-timed shots peppered its glossy surface as the young man charged forward.
"You annoying whelp!" The lion said and swung its seven-branched sword flew towards Dakoda.
Dakoda parried the attack with his revolver, causing the chamber to turn and spark as the sword rubbed against it. "I'm not one for quips," he said and kicked the lion back as he leveled his humming blaster toward the beast. "But if I were I'd say something like, eat this!" With a press of the trigger, the weapon exploded with light as a fiery ball of energy splashed against the foe and shot it backward with sparks arcing across its body.
The lion staggered back a few feet, then steaded itself. A vile laugh escaped its body. "Not bad, but how about a taste of this!" The lion slashed its sword through the air, creating a charged beam of lightning that tore across the lunar surface as it sailed straight for Dakoda.
The young man dodged it just in time, but as he picked himself up the lion had seemingly disappeared.
Not disappeared but descended into the palace ruins.
"After him!" Dakoda exclaimed.
Chastity dispatched the last mook and followed suit, into the wreckage.
But as they finally caught sight of the red lion they also discovered that they were far too late to stop him.
In a large cavernous space that might have once been an underground chamber the lion stood over what anyone with adequate Ranger history would call a space dumpster. And with a powerful swing of the lion's sword, the lid of the dumpster cracked in two.
There was a bright light as the powerful magic that bound the dumpster was broken.
Dakoda and Chastity kept their weapons raised as the figure appeared from within the dumpster.
The anthropomorphic bird stretched his feathered wings as he glanced around his surroundings.
"He kinda looks like a toucan mixed with a velociraptor," Chastity said in a soft voice.
"Shhh!" Dakoda snapped. Though to her credit he thought that description was definitely on the money. His body was mostly blue with a red beak with long white hair just below his yellow avion eyes reminiscent of a fu manchu.
"After all these I'm free," he said before glancing around the area, "and you've gone and made this place a mess!"
"That wasn't me," the lion said. "You can blame the Machine Empire for this."
The bird shook his head. "Why am I not surprised… Those meddling machines have been a pain in my tailfeathers for as long as I've traveled the cosmos.
"You see," the bird continued, "this reminds me of a time in the Lion Galaxy. I was fighting off a gang of fearcats on the planet Kaien when a sect of machines from the royal house of dubious contraptions arrived to pillage the planet of precious metals-"
"This is all very interesting," the lion growled with as much patience as his body could muster. "But my boss is not a man of patience."
"Hmmm, well who is your boss?" The bird asked with a blue and white eyebrow raised.
"Sledge."
"Sledge?" The bird asked. "What sort of brute goes around calling himself that?"
"The most feared bounty hunter in the supercluster," the lion replied with the twang of a threat in his voice.
"I suppose I'd expect no less from a bounty hunter," the bird replied. "Go and tell your Mr.Sledge I'm not interested in any sort of consultation."
The lion raised his sword to the bird. "I never said you had a choice in the matter."
"You shouldn't have to," the bird replied. "If you were knowledgeable enough to locate me I'd expect you to also know of my reputation."
"Quit your yammering and come with me," the red creature spat with a gravely hiss. It was clear to the two observers that the lion was growing more impatient by the second.
"It seems you're not the brightest specimen," the bird observed.
If their often bazaar reality were a cartoon the red lion would be steaming. The sound of his hand tightening around his sword echoed loudly across the quiet lunar surface.
"One more chance or you'll be a cooked chicken."
The bird laughed. "I'd love to see you try."
With a mighty roar, the lion swung his sword at the bird. Lighting shot in every direction, even nearly hitting the two humans.
But the bird had simply caught the weapon mid-swing.
"Did you really expect that to work on the legendary Zenowing?" The bird asked.
Zenowing then pulled his other five-digited claw into a fist and punched the lion in the chest, sending him flying back into a large chunk of rubble.
The lion pulled himself up and threw down a handful of seeds that grew into another posse of grunts.
"You two!" Zenowing called to the observers above. "Are you just going to stand there or are you going to help me?"
Chastity and Dakoda looked at each other.
"Should we?" Chastity asked Dakoda. "I'm not exactly well versed on the protocol for this."
"As much as I want to sit this one out it's probably better that we keep the bird out of the obviously evil general's hands."
"Ugh, I hate when you're right."
They each drew a large battery and loaded them into the barrel of their morphers.
"DINO CHARGER, ENGAGE!" Their weapons exclaimed
The two simultaneously spun their revolvers and as they spark with energy they yelled. "It's Morphin Time!"
They jumped down towards the lower chamber, firing their blasters as they fell.
In a bright flash of color, a pair of Power Rangers landed in front of Zenowing. The two Rangers were mostly their primary color with a yellow sash of triangles that ran diagonally across their chests.
Dakoda was blue, with the motif of a stegosaurus.
Whereas Chastity was black, with the motif of a parasaur.
"Power Rangers, why am I not surprised?" Zenowing asked.
"You've seen Rangers before?' Dakoda asked.
"Seen? I was one! Millions of years ago-"
Before the ancient warrior could continue his story a bolt of lightning shot towards him. He swatted it away and groaned. "If I weren't so low on energy I'd put you in your place."
"Then I suppose I'll have to finish you off before you get the chance," the lion said as his sword began to charge up for a far stronger attack.
"I believe a swift retreat would be our best course of action," Zenowing said.
Dakoda nodded and drew his belt buckle/communicator "We need a teleportation for three, pronto!"
"Who is the third? Their bio-readings aren't like anything I've ever seen before."
"No time boss," Chastity said. "It's either now or we're toast."
The lion unleashed a devastating attack that tore up the gray lunar ground as it surged toward the Rangers.
Dakoda watched it rush towards them like a tidal wave. A thunderclap ricochets across the wreckage.
Thankfully they were whisked away just as the attack threatened to consume them.
Tyler half expected to wake up any moment. The house stood before him like a relic of a half-remembered past. In some ways, it felt fake, in others it felt realer than it ever had before.
Naturally, it had become overgrown and filthy, with a broken window and a concrete walkway overtaken by weeds. But it was real, and it was his.
Tyler took a breath and unlocked the door.
The inside was stuffy and smelled of mold, but the memories all came flooding back to him.
He remembered things he hadn't recalled in decades. He stared into the empty corner and remembered the Christmas he'd gotten the Xbox he'd begged his parents for.
Parents…
A sick feeling overtook him.
Suddenly he remembered his mother's face, just as it had looked the last time he saw her.
In a shock of electric panic Tyler couldn't breathe. He remembered the ground shaking, the pictures on the wall rattling, and, he remembered-
A sharp pain like a punch to the gut knocked Tyler to the ground.
His world dissolved into meaningless images as he lay on the ground, unable to lift himself.
"Pathetic," a voice spoke.
Tyler glanced up to see a figure clad in a ragged brown cloak. Instincts took over and he hopped back as much as he could before pulling himself up. "Who the hell are you?'
The cloaked figure laughed. It was a deep masculine laugh.
"Worry not who I am," the figure spoke. "Worry instead of what's to come."
Tyler took a defensive stance, but his confidence in standing a chance against the nearly seven-foot introducer wasn't exactly the strongest.
"If I were you I would cease the adventure you've embarked on," the figure said. "For only chaos and decay await."
Then, just as abruptly as it arrived, the creature was gone.
Before Tyler even knew it he was out the front door and heading towards his jeep.
He needed to go back to the museum. And, as crazy as it sounded, he needed to find the Power Rangers.
