DANGER IN THE SEWERS, PART 1.

Unknown location. 8:00

Ra's Al Ghul, the leader of the League of Shadows, was supervising the construction of the apparatus that he was going to use to destroy Zone C and to defeat the Power Rangers, especially Commander Wayne. Being someone fully trained, he was very difficult to anger him, but this constant struggle was already starting to make him impatient. He didn't expect this rematch fight for the fate of Zone C to last this long. He also didn't expect Wayne and his Rangers to be stronger than he thought.

"Keep believing you're invincible, Wayne. Soon, your beloved C Zone will be on fire," he thought to himself. Even this made him smile. Something very unusual for him.

This thought was interrupted by the arrival of Lady Shiva, the person for whom he was also frustrated. His best assassin hadn't been so humiliated in her entire life until she faced the Blue Ranger. For him as for many, it was strange that someone from the country of Themyscira came here.

Ra's already knew about the existence of that country. Since it did not look like a cruel threat that was polluting the world, he decided not to attack it. Although, if one day they did something that he considered a threat, then he would do it without hesitation.

"Master, I have returned with what you have asked of me," Lady Shiva said, kneeling before Ra's and placing her sword on the ground.

"Get up, Lady Shiva. You know you haven't been that reliable these last few weeks, but the time to face the Blue Ranger again is near," Ra's said. "We just need a little more time and this distraction for that to happen."

"Yes, master," Lady Shiva said, hiding her stress. She was more desperate to end this situation to regain Ra's Al Ghul's trust. Fortunately, for her, that moment was near.

"Well, we are going to entrust the mission to our guest," Ra's said, leaving the area where the apparatus was being built. Going straight to his room where his chair was as leader, there was the person that he wanted to use to distract the Rangers.

"It's obvious that when someone like you calls me, he's desperate for some help," said the person in front of him.

"I'm not desperate, but I do need you to do something for me," Ra's said. He paused before continuing. "As you know, the Power Rangers have started to reduce criminals in the city, and the security of the city has increased. I suppose that has been depriving you of your favorite food."

"Yes, I have to admit that the new squad of Power Rangers has taken my fun. I have had to choose my food more selectively. That has made it more challenging, but I can't eat that much anymore."

"Yes, but now, I think you should face them. In return, we will feed you ten different people," Ra's offered.

"Thirty people. I don't work for something so minimal," he said.

"Understood," Ra's said. "The most likely thing is that the Rangers can defeat you, especially the red one, so we won't have to do this" He thought about this last, because he would never tell someone that he was not willing to waste time with something as banal as killing people on the spot.

"Good, but you better comply. Even if I am defeated, I will escape at some point and finish you off," the man warned.

"I am inmortal. You cannot kill me or intimidate me," Ra's said.

"You will see that yes, but the important thing is that I will feed on the bodies of the Rangers first," the man said before leaving for good.

"Lady Shiva, I see you did a good job, but remember that the time to confront her is drawing near, so it is best to stay here," Ra's ordered.

"Yes, master," Lady Shiva said.

"Even if he can't kill them, they won't be able to stop us," Ra's said, confident that the man will manage to distract them long enough to complete the apparatus.

XXX

Base of Zone C. 13:00

The Rangers were hanging out in the entertainment room. Combat training with Commander Wayne had gone smoothly, and now they were resting, especially since the tension in the environment was still latent.

However, this was not applicable with Diana, the blue Ranger, who paced quite pensively. She was obviously anxious about something. She had understood Lady Shiva's attack pattern. Normally, when an Amazon understood the combat pattern of her opponents, it meant that she was assured of victory. Besides, much of her wanted to stop her once and for all. She was already sick of her always running away, and her continuing to wreak havoc in Zone C.

Her walking in circles had caught Barry's attention.

"Diana, are you feeling okay?" he asked, making Diana stop her walk.

"Yes, sure, why?" She replied somewhat quickly.

"Well, since your duel with Lady Shiva at Gotham City Royal, you've been anxious," Barry said.

"That's true. What happened to make you feel like this? " Kal asked.

"I guess you think you are strong enough to defeat Lady Shiva and the League of Shadows," said a confident Shayera. She seemed to know Diana much better right now now that her friendship had been restored.

"Yes," Diana replied. "I beat her the last time after you removed Polaris's magnetic field. If I face her again, I'm sure I could beat her," she added.

"Well, I hope that if Lady Shiva attacks soon, you can defeat her. Once she is out, Ra's will lose an important support," said John, who, as always, was giving the necessary logic for the situation.

"Then I'll be cheering for you with all my might, Di," Barry said. "Diana, Diana, Diana, the invincible blue girl!"

"Thanks, Barry," Diana said, finding Barry amusing for the first time.

At that moment, the alarm sounded. The five went to the conference room where Commander Wayne was. He was as always unfazed by the danger that was present in Zone C.

"Rangers, a crocodile man is attacking Coventry. Stop him at all costs, but be careful. This guy is not something you've faced before," Commander Wayne warned.

"There is nothing to worry about, Commander. Taming beasts like him is always something we Amazons do," Diana said before leaving.

"You better keep an eye on her so she doesn't do something stupid. Now go!" The commander yelled the latter. He noticed that she was very eager for a match.

"Come on," Kal said.

XXX

Coventry. 13:20

The crocodile man was hitting objects at random, and at the same time biting and attacking people. He hurt them with his claws, grabbing them to eat them, or removing a limb. Fortunately, he had only injured a few people. Unfortunately, he added to the damage to the city.

He ripped a pole out of the sidewalk and used it to knocl out glass from buildings. He didn't stop attacking until he was shot by Kal's heat vision, splitting his metal pole in half.

"I think you've gone too far, Crocodile Man," Kal said.

The Crocodile Man threw both parts of the pole at Kal, who parried these attacks with heavy blows, denting the metal. "I think you will be the first Ranger I will devour," said the crocodile man.

"No, for that you will have to beat us too," Diana said, arriving accompanied by the other three.

"Wow, I'm not at all surprised by this. It's obvious that the weak always join with weaker people to form a team, but I am the Killer Croc, I am not a Crocodile Man," said the criminal.

"Ready?" Kal asked.

"Ready!" The other four answered at the same time.

"Justice League, actívate," the five said in unison and transformed.

"I think it will take more than ridiculous suits to defeat a crocodile, the king of the city's assassins," Killer Croc said.

"I don't think you should underestimate us. Barry, attack!" Kal ordered.

Barry obeyed and ran up to him and hit him in the jaw, which unfortunately only hurt him and not Killer Croc. "Oh no! My hand! It hurts!" Barry complained. His hand was dangling as if it were a simple ornament now.

"You need more than that to beat me," Killer Croc said.

"Something like this!" Barry yelled jumping up and hitting Killer Croc again. The result was the same. "Oh! You left my two hands broken," he complained again.

"The first time it was fun, now it's annoying," Killer Croc said before punching Barry, sending him flying into a car. It was enough to make him disappear from view.

"Barry!" Shayera yelled, going over to him to check if he was okay.

"No, I'm fine. Damn, he kicked my ass," Barry said with a lot of pain in his body.

"Better rest a bit. Your hands still need to heal," Shayera ordered.

"Time for me to attack," John said, creating a trailer and guiding it towards the animal.

Killer Croc managed to stop the attack, but did not see that John had created a hammer and threw a downward blow at him. The attack was effective in knocking him to the ground, but Killer Croc was up a few seconds later unscratched.

"I thought your attacks were so harmless," Killer Croc said. "But now it's my turn!"

As Killer Croc ran towards the Rangers, John created a giant rock and launched it, but he dodged it. The Ranger had a better plan when he returned it from behind, making Croc fall head-on. Kal and Diana hit him before he hit the ground, sending him a few feet backward.

"Nice attack, but I hardly felt anything," he said even though his face showed a bruise.

"You are not fooling us, Crocodile. You may have beaten Barry, but not us. We are stronger than you," Kal said.

"That remains to be seen," Killer Croc said, hitting the ground with his fists, causing it to fragment into large boulders that he began to hurl at the three Rangers.

John protected Kal and Diana with a shield while Shayera drew her pistol and began shooting at Killer Croc. To everyone's surprise, the shots did nothing.

"Nice try," Killer Croc said. "None of that works against me."

"How about this?" Kal said, jumping on John's shield and shooting him with his heat vision.

It caused Killer Croc to back up to a drain. He grabbed the lid and threw it at Kal. It broke in two thanks to the fact that he was still shooting his heat vision, but he didn't see Killer Croc coming, who grabbed him and threw him at John, knocking them both down.

"I think it's enough for now," Killer Croc said before jumping into the sewer.

"Not so fast!" Diana yelled, going after him and jumping into the sewer.

"Stop, Diana!" Kal yelled.

Upon entering, she saw that everything smelled too bad and that it was quite dark. She heard a sound, so she went after him. She was following that noise for about five minutes until she saw that she had gotten quite far from the lid where she had entered.

Diana drew her sword in case Killer Croc appeared. She was starting to get frustrated. There was no noise except one, but it was coming from above. It meant that someone was running aboe her, but it couldn't be the Crocodile.

To her surprise, a wall broke down where she was at. Killer Croc gave Diana a big blow to the stomach, followed by another to her helmet. Then he grabbed her by the leg and her neck, roaring loudly before slamming her against the wall, leaving her in bad shape.

"I didn't mean to eat you first, but it'll be an honor," Killer Croc said.

At that moment, the ceiling broke open. Shayera jumped down and grabbed Killer Croc by the head and started electrocuting him. Fortunately, this served to cause him to let go of Diana and begin to groan. Kal also jumped in and started hitting the animal. He managed to do it for quite a while, but Croc was able to stop Kal by hitting him, He then crashed into the wall to get rid of Shayera.

"This was educational, but it's not over," Croc said before running and jumping into the water to swim away.

"John, quick! Get Diana out of here! She needs help!" Kal ordered loudly.

John did as ordered and took Diana on a floating stretcher. He was moving slowly but very carefully to get her to the patrol car. It's where Barry was waiting with his bandaged hands.

"Are you okay ?!" Barry said trying to move, but it made his hands hurt.

"I'm not okay. He beat me up," she replied, showing that she was angry.

"What matters to me is that you're okay, Di," Barry said rubbing her elbow with his arm.

"When that monster comes back, I'm going to beat him up," Diana thought as Shayera began to lead them back to base.

XXX

14:00

In the medical bay, J'onn was treating Diana's bruises and some cuts. Shayera, Kal and John had no serious injuries. Barry's hands were already healing after he ate a lot of hot dogs, but without using his hands.

"Wow, I've had an anger problem that I couldn't control for a long time ago. That anger now is that a crocodile man left me without both hands!" Barry yelled. This was news to the others. He was always the calm and laid-back of the group, so his yelling was a sign that this had made him very angry.

"You are not the only one, Barry. I never thought that my attacks with the objects that I create with my mind would be useless," John said, standing up against the wall, but quite hurt by this event.

"But we defended ourselves and forced him to flee. He tried to hide them, but we saw it on his fase from the blows that Diana and I gave him," Kal said, this time trying to be positive here, although now he was preferring that Barry be the one to do it.

"That was the only thing I could do to that beast," Diana said. "He left and gave me this beating." She said hitting the bed, breaking a corner of it.

"Breaking objects that you will have to repair later is not going to make you happy, cadet," Commander Wayne said. "But I came here to inform you that the lousy result you had against Killer Croc was as much his fault as mine," he said, again surprising the Rangers.

For the first time, he said that he was to blame for the failure of a match. "I warned you that this would be different, but Cadet Prince thought she could handle it without any problem, and now you see the result of this. The creature you faced was Waylon Jones. He was born with a genetic condition that gave him the appearance of a crocodile," he began to explain, before being interrupted.

"How come he endured growing up looking so ugly?" Barry asked.

"He grew up, but being an outcast," Wayne continued. "From that point on, he began to hate humanity, and has killed every person he meets. We captured him two years ago, but he escaped and remained hidden. The most certain of this is that Ra's has recruited him to continue distracting us from what he is doing, but we have not yet detected any sign of theft or removal of any component. Anyway, the point is that Killer Croc was not bulletproof when we captured him, and our blows did hurt him. This means that he got stronger since the last time we met as many tend to do."

"I think you should have seen that coming before you sent us on the mission," Diana said.

"Yes, I could and should have, but you decided to leave, and that forced the other cadets to go in case something bad happened. Of course, it ended up happening, Cadet Prince. You don't seem to understand that everything that happened today is as much your fault as mine," he said, walking towards Diana and putting his face in front of hers. He was showing her that this time, she would not win this battle.

"But now it's you who didn't know about how strong he had become," Diana said, still refusing to back down.

"Keep complaining, but it doesn't take away the fact that you were beaten up for going out in a hurry in order to beat him quickly, cadet," the commander stressed.

"And you still made another one," Diana said.

"I think you better go to the entertainment room or relax in some other way before you end up fighting, Commander and Diana," J'onn said. He was acting for the first time as a mediator between the commander having an argument with a Ranger. Fortunately, the commander left his position and headed for the exit.

"Rest for the moment, cadets. Killer Croc will attack again," the commander said before leaving.

The Rangers listened and went to the entertainment room. Diana was totally angry about the argument with the commander, so she stood still with her arms crossed. Her wounds had not yet healed, so she could not move much, at least for a while.

Fortunately, after a tense silence, someone broke it with the start of a conversation.

"It was so cool to see you arguing face to face with Wayne, Diana," Shayera said.

"I still don't believe that he's letting you argue with him without him imposing too heavy a punishment on you, but I'm happy he didn't," Kal agreed.

"Yeah, although admitting that he was partly to blame was more disconcerting than the argument," John said.

"Yes. Now that you mention it, I'm celebrating seeing that. It's not so uncommon, and my precious hands already need a few more minutes for me to move them again as before," Barry said jumping up and showing off his almost healed hands.

"Yeah, but you'll have to hit him with something other than your hands, Barry," John said.

"He's right…you don't want to dislocate both hands again," Kal agreed.

"But I think I can weaken Killer Croc with my electricity," Shayera interjected. "That's what made him let go of Diana."

"Good idea," Kal said, standing up and starting to walk in circles. "The most appropriate thing would be to start the attack on the crocodile with you by electrocuting him. After that, John can hit him with giant objects, Barry could distract him with the sword, and Diana and I would finish it with a combined attack," he explained.

"I think that might work," John said, surprised by how Kal made that plan.

"I think so too," Shayera said.

"And me," Flash agreed.

"It won't work," Diana said, uncrossing her arms and almost screaming. She was getting in the way of a plan for the first time in a long time.

"Because you said so?" Kal asked.

"Because he will most likely escape down into the sewer, and will surely escape again," she answered the question without breaking eye contact with Kal.

"I do not believe it. We found you thanks to my vision, and I will do it again. I also think it would be better for me to chase him this time if he tries to escape like that again," Kal said.

"No. If he beats me up, then he'll beat you up. I'm the one who should do it," Diana said raising her voice higher.

"So you do it because you want to defeat him as revenge?" Kal asked.

"Yes. I wouldn't be an Amazon if I can't defeat a beast like that," Diana said.

Seeing that, Kal knew that even if he forbade her, she would try. It would cause a conflict between them, which would end in defeat at the hands of the crocodile, so he agreed to her demand.

"It's okay. You are going to follow him, but if he gets too dangerous we will help you. Killer Croc is not like Lady Shiva," Kal said.

Even though he didn't like to interfere, this time he had to accept it for her sake.

"Got it," Diana said, letting out a great sigh to calm herself.

An hour passed, and there were no surprises. No change, no alarm, but it was obvious that Killer Croc would appear again that day. To everyone's surprise, the loudspeaker sounded, but not the alarm. It meant Commander Wayne was going to need all of them to report to the conference room.

"Diana, Commander Wayne needs you in the virtual training room," J'onn ordered.

"Oh, it can't be, he will tear you apart, he will be ruthless, he will leave you out of the mission ..." Barry said very anxious until Shayera hit him with her elbow in the stomach.

"Calm down, Barry. I don't think he will leave her out of the mission, but it is more likely that he will put you on an impossible exercise or that he will frustrate you too much," suggested Shayera.

"You may be right," John said, agreeing with Shayera. "I still remember how he put me spinning non-stop on the training circuit."

"It does not matter. If he wants to beat me up, then he's going to have to try, but I'll be the winner," Diana said getting up and going towards the exit.

"Just be careful with your strength, Di," Kal said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "The last thing we want is for you to leave Wayne injured or in a wheelchair."

This made her reflect and calm down a bit. She would go with him, and she would be the winner, but she wouldn't overdo it.

"I'll be careful, Kal," Diana said before leaving.

She walked to the virtual training room, finding Commander Wayne. His arms were crossed and his gaze cold and hard. "What did you need me here for, Bruce?" She asked, believing that he might start out with a verbal attack.

"It's Commander Wayne, Prince," he said, not using the nickname he always used when they were alone. "And now, if you want to go out and fight Killer Croc and beat him, then you will have to beat me," he said grabbing the Morpho from her.

"Will I really have to fight you to be free to go beat him?" Diana asked.

She did not think that now he would forbid her to leave this room until she had beaten him. This she had not done before.

"I never joke, Prince," he said, still not using the nickname.

"Justice league, activate" he said and transformed.

"So, I hope you're ready to be beaten," Diana said grabbing the Morpho from him.

"Justice league, actívate," she said and transformed.

"It's time for you to learn this," the Dark Ranger said before everything turned into a dark room, where he could barely see.

Diana felt angry. Now she was in a somewhat similar situation that she had been through a short time ago. The last thing she wanted was to lose at the hands of the commander, especially after their verbal squabble.

The Dark Ranger was being too stealthy with his every move. He knew that once he made a noise, Diana would find him and hit him hard.

Diana was moving very slowly, attentive to her ear with sword in hand. She could hear one step or another, making the Dark Ranger believe that she wasn't listening. Once she was sure that he was very close to her, she launched an attack, causing boxes to fall on top of her. She got up, but was kicked in her left side. It was followed by a lunge and an arm grab that knocked her to the ground. The Dark Ranger got on top of her, pinning her down.

"You said you weren't going to be beaten, cadet?" the Dark Ranger asked. He rose from her, freeing her to get up.

To make matters worse, the alarm sounded.

"I think I must go nowm" Diana said starting to walk away, but the Dark Ranger stopped her.

"I said you couldn't leave until you beat me. So, focus on that so you can go," the Dark Ranger said before pulling the Dark Sword and starting to attack her.

"Rangers, to the conference room," J'onn said.

The four Rangers went to the living room where J'onn was waiting for them with his board. Although they did not see it, he was watching that the commander did not go overboard with this punishment training with Diana.

"Rangers, Killer Croc is back. Stop him at all costs and prevent him from escaping," J'onn ordered.

"And what about Diana?" Kal asked, getting ahead of the others, who also wanted to ask that.

"The commander is teaching Diana something very important, something that you have not had to go through, but for the moment you are going to have to face Killer Croc until she can finish the training. Don't try to interrupt them," J'onn explained.

"Oh come on," Kal said, annoyed at having to go again with one less member.

"Time to beat up that crocodile for breaking my hands," Barry said.

When the four Rangers left, J'onn began to wish the commander would give up this training so Diana could go help the others, but he had underestimated the commander, and Diana. Since he would not leave until she defeated him in that dark room, and she was angry once again, so a hard and extensive training was guaranteed.

NOTE: For this Killer Croc, I wanted to adapt it from his version of Beware the Batman. In that animated series, he spoke more fluently than in the Arkham version and in the other series. I hope you liked him.

NEXT: DANGER IN THE SEWERS, PART 2.