2/3/2023
Gotham City/Gargoyle Academy
Working diligently in the workshop of Gargoyle Academy is a young inventor known as Erik Caster. Erik has an average frame with bronzed skin and black hair going down to his shoulders and he is dressed in the school uniform of a dark blue long-sleeved shirt underneath a white vest with black jeans and sneakers on his feet.
Erik was like any other student except he has a knack for tinkering and inventing to the point that he could be called a genius, but his grades otherwise proved that he was simply destined to be a next level engineer or rocket scientist instead.
"Put this here." Erik said before he finished his class assignment and with the tools, he that was supplied, Erik was able to make a functioning engine with his partner. Granted it wasn't a real engine for a car or anything like that and instead was a pet project for high school and middle schoolers to learn the ins and outs of an engine, but Erik took pride in it none the less.
"That has to be some kind of record." The teacher said as he looked at his wristwatch in amazement, but some of the students didn't really see it as amazing. It made them feel inferior and angry. As soon as class let out and Erik left the classroom with his school bag on his back, he was tripped in the hallways by one of his bullies.
"You should really watch where you're going you damn nerd." The bully said with an arrogant smile, as Erik looked up and saw the face of one of his tormentors.
Lenard Neville, a decorated football star and chick magnet like in an old school tv movie but unlike the movies Erik didn't see something redeemable in his bully.
"You're the one who tripped me." Erik said as he quickly stood up and noticed three of Lenard's flunkies behind him and each had a girl under their shoulders.
"I did and I'd do it again since you decided to be a smartass and show up everyone in the classroom today." Lenard said with narrowed eyes as Erik looked away meekly.
"It was just a toy engine. It's simple and easy to build so, don't be mad at me because it was hard for you." Erik replied before Lenard punched him in the stomach, forcing Erik to his knees and coughing a bit as he held his stomach.
"Did I say you could talk back to me jackass? A loser like you needs to learn your place." Lenard said before he and his friends grabbed hold of Erik and rushed him into the bathroom where they dunked his head into the toilet and flushed it several times before beating him up a bit and leaving him in the boy's bathroom alone.
"Fuck." Erik cursed weakly before slowly standing up and using a lot of paper towels to try and dry his hair and face in disgust. Erik had a large bruise on his right cheek and a broken nose with blood coming from his nostrils before he grabbed a wad of paper towels and held it up to his nose before weakly leaving the bathroom and the school.
Erik had to run away a few times from the bullies and learned a few ways to sneak away from the school without being caught, so he simply walked home and after a while he grabbed his housekey and entered the apartment he shared with his mother who was in the living room on the couch with her wheelchair within arm's reach of her.
Erik's mother is Kim Caster who was in her thirties with the same skin, hair and brown eyes as Erik, as she is dressed in a yellow T-shirt and jeans.
"Erik what happened to you?" Kim asked in shock before Erik walked over and sat next to his mother before he told her about what happened. "They beat you up just because you finished your work assignment before they did?" Kim asked in shock and anger.
"It's fine mom." Erik said in a small voice.
"It's not fine! I'm heading over to that school and talking to that principal!" Kim said loudly before Erik responded.
"You've talked to him already and nothing changed. I'm still bullied, and nobody cares because Lenard is the school's money maker for the football team. I'll figure out something but right now I just want to stay home." Erik said in frustration while tears streamed down his father as Kim felt a pang in her gut at seeing her son like this.
"Come here sweetie." Kim said before reaching over and giving her son a much-needed hug, which he gladly returned. "You shouldn't have to deal with this. Your so smart and talented and I wish I could put you in a college program or something, so you don't have to deal with this nonsense."
"Don't worry mom. I'll be fine." Erik said back while wincing a bit when they stopped hugging and Kim lightly touched his nose.
"It's definitely broken. I'll get the first aid kit." Kim said before she got into her chair and grabbed the first aid kit from the bathroom as she saw to fixing her son's nose as well as stopping the bleeding.
1
2/8/2023
Gotham City/Gargoyle Academy
A few days have passed since Erik ran home from school and he ended up getting detention for skipping a class or two, but he didn't care. Erik did his time before walking home and with the bullies still tormenting him, Erik decided to take a bit of extra time today by walking around the streets of Gotham.
Gotham is a large city and a busy one as people go on with their daily lives without a care. Erik was a person who enjoyed being in Gotham despite its problems. Gotham City is his home after all and if you let someone take the joy of your home away from you, then that means that you've completely given up and Erik didn't plan on giving up anything yet.
Erik wanted to press on despite his bullies and the school turning a blind eye to it. Erik was going to make something of himself and be a hero, both figuratively and literally. The Justice League has dozens of heroes and Erik wanted to be one of them ever since he first saw the Justice League on the news as a kid.
"It would be nice if I could actually reach that dream." Erik said before he stopped in front of what looked like a brand-new store. Specifically, it was a pawnshop and it seemed decently busy, so Erik walked in and looked around the place.
The store wasn't too big or too small and had an almost cozy feel to it, while also having all sorts of strange items for sale, and one item specifically caught Erik's attention for some odd reason.
The item was displayed in a black carrying case, it is round and looks like a coin made from bronze, but it is the size of his fist, and it has what looks like a lightning bolt in the center of it, and it also seemed a bit dirty, but something about the coin was calling to him, so he grabbed it and went to one of the clerks.
"Excuse me but how much is this coin?" Erik asked the woman who smiled.
"It looks like someone finally picked up that coin. My boss said that if anyone picked it out, then it's theirs, free of charge." The woman replied, shocking Erik.
"Seriously? Isn't that bad for your business?" Erik asked as the woman shrugged.
"I don't get paid to ask questions. I just get paid to sell and buy merchandise. So, let me bag that up for you hun." The woman said before placing the coin and its box in a bag as Erik left the store with a smile on his face, unaware of how much he had just altered the course of destiny.
2
When Erik got home, he asked and borrowed his mother's old jewelry cleaning kit and went to work cleaning the coin to the best of his abilities and sure enough the coin was shining as if it was brand new.
"What kind of coin is this anyway?" Erik asked before putting the coin down on his PC in his room before he cut the computer on and started looking up anything he could on the coin but sadly he didn't really find anything on the coin and just figured that it might just be some really old award or something from the age of kingdoms and knights.
After a while Erik went to sleep in his room with his coin still resting on his PC. Suddenly, the coin started glowing with a rainbow of colors before the coin transformed into a literal bolt of rainbow-colored lightning that not only shorted out Erik's computer, but it also flowed directly into Erik's chest, sending powerful shocks through his system and forcing him awake.
"What the hell?" Erik asked with heavy breaths as his body felt strange, as if his entire body was brimming with energy before, he calmed down and the sensation slowly went away. "What happened to my PC?" Erik asked as he got out of bed and walked over to his computer that he put together with a heavy sigh as he saw that the PC unit was fried along with the monitor and keyboard.
"It looks like I need to find some new equipment all over again." Erik said before he simply crawled back into his bed and went back to sleep.
2/9/2023
Gotham City/Gargoyle Academy
When Erik woke up, he strangely felt a bit different, however he simply shrugged it off as being tired and exhausted. School was starting soon anyway, so Erik decided to ignore it and get ready but when he got into the bathroom, he noticed that his body was indeed different.
"What the hell?" Erik asked as he looked at his reflection and saw that he suddenly had muscles. He wasn't buff or at a Olympic level physique, but his flat stomach hardened and showed small abbs, his flabby arms where tight and had a bit more muscle to them and even his back seemed stronger when he looked over his shoulder and examined his back before examining the rest of his body and saw that everything had seemingly changed overnight.
"Erik hurry before your late for school." Kim said just outside the bathroom.
"Got it." Erik said back before he cleaned himself up and calmed down in order to try and find some kind of logical explanation for this sudden change. Luckily his clothes didn't show his muscles or anything, so he at least looked the same.
"Have a good day sweetie and don't let those bullies get to you." Kim said from the living room before Erik started making his way to school and discovered that he had some new enhanced form of stamina to match his muscles and was running to school. He wasn't even too tired from the run, however that was when a realization had suddenly hit him.
"Am I a metahuman?" Erik asked himself before looking at his fists and balled them up for a moment. Erik was holding onto that idea for the entire day before lunch came around and sure enough Lenard was waiting for him in the halls with some of his friends.
"Erik, you've been ducking me lately. I'm actually hurt. I though we were friends." Lenard said with his usual high levels of arrogance.
"Lenard let's not do this today." Erik said as he tried to walk past before Lenard moved and blocked his way.
"Is that anyway to talk to your friend. I'm such a nice guy I even went around telling the girls about you. How, you managed to hold your breath in the toilet for so long, some of the girls didn't even laugh and just felt sorry for you." Lenard said with a smile as some of his friends started laughing.
"Here's the deal Erik. You're going to give me all the money you've got for lunch, or I'll give you another helping of toilet water soup." Lenard said and to his credit, Erik tried to stay calm and not escalate things, but Erik was quickly becoming annoyed at the man.
"Don't let your anger control you." A mysterious voice said in Erik's head which confused him before he calmed down a bit and let out a breath.
"No." Erik said before walking past the bully who then reached over and grabbed Erik's shoulder.
"Wrong choice." Lenard said before he turned Erik around and went for a punch. Now Erik saw that the punch was a bit slower than last time he got hit but it was still fast enough for him to focus before he ducked under the blow and actually countered with his own punch that sent Lenard on his back.
Lenard's friends were stunned just like Erik before one of them tried to attack Erik who dodged the blow before cutting his loses as Erik ran away from the bullies and actually managed to lose them, as he is now on the school roof and sitting down to catch his breath.
"What is going on with me? This has to be some weird Metahuman power." Erik said to himself before the voice inside his mind spoke again.
"Not exactly." The voice said to Erik, which made him snicker.
"Now I'm hearing voices in my head. I'm officially going insane." Erik said to himself.
"You're not going crazy Erik and I think this conversation would be better if we talked face to face." The voice said before the world around Erik started to change and it looked like the world was passing him by at insane speeds that almost blinded Erik as he closed his eyes and when he opened them again, he saw that he wasn't on the school roof anymore.
Instead, Erik saw that he was now standing in what looked like a martial arts dojo with hard wooden floors and weapons decorating the walls along with shelves of figurines. Each figurine looked similar to each other, but they also had differences, but they all looked to be people in suits.
"Where am I?" Erik asked as he stepped closer to the shelves of figurines.
"This is the morphing grind." A voice said from behind Eric as he turned around and saw a fair skinned man with black spiky hair on his head with an athletic build and is dressed in modern street clothes.
"The morphing what? Also, who are you and how am I hearing your voice in my head?" Erik asked as the man chuckled.
"Well, my name is Tommy Oliver, and I am a power ranger, or I was back in my time. The place you're in is the morphing grid which is a universal source of near infinite power that can only be accessed by a power ranger. I took a few liberties and created this place as something similar to a room in the grid but that's beside the point. The point is that you Erik Caster have been chosen by a power coin to become a power ranger." Tommy explained but all of that completely went over Erik's head.
"Let's back up a second. What is a power ranger and what exactly do you mean when you said that this place is a source of near infinite power?" Erik asked as Tommy just smiled.
"Come on and take a seat. This will take a while." Tommy said before he sat down and crossed his legs on the hard wood floor and despite his misgivings, Erik did the same and listened to Tommy explain several things about where they were, who Tommy was and what exactly a power ranger is.
A/N: Woooo! A DC x Power Rangers story baby. Recently I started playing the PR fighting game for Xbox One and damn am I hooked on that game but it's also pretty difficult. Even on easy mode the AI kicks my ass.
Anyway, I hope you guys like the story and please fav, follow and review.