Interlude- Awakening of the Emissary

In the dawn of time, before everything, there was the void… a cold lifeless place of nothingness, and then there was a spark of chaos. Cosmic energies that sparked an explosion that rocketed outwards, encompassing all of time and space… the Big Bang.

The universe was made, but it did not stop there. Universes after universes created in endless succession, with the initial force still fueling it… the Power Cosmic.

Chaos did not stop there.

After the formation of stars and planets, it created the single most instrument of entropy… LIFE.

The Power Cosmic was carved into a different portion, connecting it to all living beings and the universe around them.

As time passed and life evolved, the Power Cosmic evolved, drawing power from animal spirits, the building blocks of life- the natural elements, and even emotions.

Some scholars now call it the Green or the Red. Others refer to it as the Universal Bio Field, the Life stream, the Force, the Emotional Spectrum, the Chamber of Guf, or the All Spark.

But this mysterious force maintaining all life, connecting the mortal plane to the spiritual realm, is best known by the name of the Morphin Grid, the multiversal source of the powers behind heroic warriors donned in vibrant armour… the Power Rangers, the Lantern Corps, and many others.

As all life across multiple worlds linked to it, the Morphin Grid developed sentience of its own, and created a race of beings devoted to protecting it from those who might abuse it.

But it forgot the fundamental rule that drives all of existence… Balance.

For creation, there is destruction.

For life, there is death.

For good, there is evil.

For heroes, there are monsters.

And for their very own creations… beings capable of harnessing the full potential of the Morphin Grid, the Morphin Masters, there are the Empyreals, creatures whose sole purpose is to return life to its original state of cosmic dust.

There was a huge battle, spanning millennia, but the Morphin Masters were victorious, sealing the Empyreals within the Grid, but victory came at a great cost… the masters had to vow not to directly interfere in mortal events, lest they upset the balance and awaken their darker counterparts from their slumber.

Despite their best measures, they failed and three of the Empyreals were awakened on a reality designated Earth-2816, though before the threat could escalate, the creatures were surprisingly defeated by the Power Rangers and their allies of that world.

For a short while, the Morphin Masters rested easy, but then, a series of troubling events happened.

The Morphin Grid was corrupted by the demonic being known as the Dark Specter, his influence warping the consciousness of everyone directly connected to the Grid into being his agents. No one was spared, ranger, keeper, emissary nor the Masters themselves. Though Specter was defeated and those he enslaved were freed, the Morphin Grid and the universes invaded by him suffered heavy damage.

Then, the Snap happened, affecting all universes, and distorting their timelines. The barriers separating time, space and realities were weaker than ever, and random portals started appearing in various multiverses, connecting separate timelines and even universes together, leading to countless anomalies and aberrations, which further added to the disturbance.

In the chaos that spread through universes, several factions of nefarious beings rose, and though most of them were foiled by alliances of heroes across reality, some worked from the shadows.

The Cult of Black Cross was one of these factions, their sole objective being total dominion over everything that exists… A goal, for which they have sought to recruit the anchor beings of various realities… some are mundane mortals, others are powerful creatures, but each of them is unique to their universe, without whom their timelines would crumble and their universes would decay.

In a way, these individuals are embodiments of their entire universes, and though some of them willingly joined the Cult, most were forced into doing so against their free will. By themselves, they were powerful assets to the Black Cross, but together, they were key to an arcane ritual which could awaken the slumbering Empyreals and enslave them to the will of the mysterious leader of the Black Cross.

Their attempts to tamper with the Morphin Grid had necessitated an inherent defence mechanism… the awakening of the Grid in universes they were not as tightly tethered to, and entrusting individuals of those universes whom the Grid found worthy with the power.

The Pink aspect of the Grid, one of the core colours symbolizing the emotion of love and compassion, an inherent attribute of all sentient life forms, was the first to awaken, and across the infinite universes, several people suddenly found themselves in strange pink armoured suits.

However, this Pink Crisis, as the Monks of the Multiverse had taken to calling it, was not a targeted response to the threat at hand, merely a desperate cry for help, in response to which a being stirred awake deep within the Morphin Grid itself.

Her form shifted from one iteration of the pink ranger to another, the only thing in her form remaining constant in her guise was her cloak,

She sighed softly, sensing new connections forge to the Grid at an unprecedented rate. She clapped her hands together, and a rip in space opened before her, an escape from the Grid, and she dived through it, reaching out for those she believed could end this threat before it escalated beyond control.

I originally wrote this as the opening scene for my IC challenge fic, but felt it stands better as a short interlude that sets it up instead and takes care of the exposition, especially since it also introduces Earth-2816, the universe of the Boom Comics' Power Rangers to IC.