See my first ever fanfic, 'Welcome to the Saga', for the disclaimer.
Authors notes – As the second story in the saga, Peter and the other junior rangers are still learning about their new responsibilites. But don't worry, by next story they will have everything down pat. Now I realize that I could have dragged on that 'original rangers now powerless' thing, but I decided not to. And finally, this story happened exactly a week after 'The New Team' – it is now the last week of February.
Chapter One
By Peter J. Smith
The Circle of Hianan had seen better days, he reflected as he stepped out of the shadows and into the light. The Circle of Hianan was a huge stone circle, outlined in blue stripes and coloured designs that had once had about six tall stone columns at the edges. But now, only four remained – one had crumbled and collapsed, leaving debris all over the place, and the other had disappeared completely. The man stepped up off the red gravel and onto the stone. He slowly began to walk around the circle, avoiding sharp bits of stone and rock and carefully listening to see whether he had been followed.
But that was not likely, he thought. After all, the entire planet was a deserted chunk of rock. There was practically no water on the entire planet, which means that from space, all a person could see would be reddish-brown rock. It was a shame, the old man thought, that his home planet, once the ruler of a glorious empire, was now just a lump of rock, floating meaninglessly through space.
But why had he come back? A powerful force had drawn him back – that much he knew. But why and what it was he couldn't be sure. But it urged him while asleep, and led him there while awake. He was in danger though, and he knew it. However, the force leading him had been too insistent on his coming. Fingering the golden medallion that hung around his neck, he only hoped that the ones he counted as his friends would find him before the ones he knew were his enemies did.
On the moon, the one grey rocky satellite that orbited the Earth, all was not well.
"Goldar! Squatt!" screeched a high-pitched voice that travelled down from a castle and echoed across the barren landscape.
"Scorpina! Baboo!" it cried again. As it did, four strange creatures huddled together in fear in the palace's main throne room.
"You idiots!" cried Rita Repulsa, whacking Squatt and Baboo with her staff. They were the usual subjects of Rita's temper tantrums, but this was far beyond anything they'd experienced in the past. Thankfully, they were soon given a reprieve, as Rita began to lay into Scorpina and Goldar. "How could you not realize that Zordon was going to use the six other power coins?!?"
"But he only used five…" stammered Scorpina.
"Argh!" cried Rita, before whacking them all again. "Damn it, those five junior rangers ruined what was a perfect plan! And it was all your fault! I have such a head-ache…" The tantrum paused, giving them all a slight reprieve. Grasping her head, Rita sat back down.
Finster, Rita's resident scientist and monster-maker, appeared at the door. From past experience, he'd known that Rita preferred him to all the others, and that she seldom took out her bad moods on him. Still, he didn't like to interrupt one of her bad moods, and he stood trembling at the door. "Um, my queen?" he asked nervously.
Rita looked up, her anger rising at the interruption. "Yes!" she barked. "What do you want?"
Bravely, he took a step into the throne room. "Uh, well, I've just picked up a rather strong energy signal, and I thought that…"
"Do I look like I care?" she spat at him, getting up and reaching for her wand.
"Um, well I thought you might be interested, uh, because it's originating from the planet Nerimos."
Rita stopped in her tracks, changing her attitude in a microsecond. "What planet was that?" she asked sweetly.
"Nerimos. We did a few other tests and it came up positive – it is definitely Torlus's medallion."
"It is?!?" she cried jubilantly. "Yes! If I possessed that kind of power, I could easily defeat Zordon and conquer the Earth, junior team or not. The magic that Torlus possesses is beyond that of even Zordon's and mine put together. I must have that medallion. Goldar! Scorpina!" she cried, turning to her two strongest subjects. "Get together a large army of putties, we're going on a vacation!"
"You mean you really saved the whole town?" asked Scott, incredulous. "All several thousand of us?"
Zack nodded and took another sip of his lemonade. "Yep."
"And that was on Power Ranger day, wasn't it?" I asked.
"Yep," replied Jason. "Although you probably don't remember it. Most folks didn't."
It was a cloudy Saturday morning, and instead of going to the beach or to the park, we all decided to come to the Youth Centre. It was here that Jason and the others introduced us to Ernie, the guy who runs the Youth Centre. In fact, we'd been sitting and listening to their stories all morning, and according to them, a lot happened here.
The fact that Teresa, Scott, Sarah, Aaron, and I were Power Rangers had sunk in properly by now. It was an incredible feeling, but it also carried with it a lot of responsibilities. For example, these past few days, we'd all been training with the senior team at a furious rate. Mostly here at the Youth Centre, but occasionally we'd go down to the beach for the afternoon. Jason and I had been talking a lot since I first became a ranger – it was safe to say that we were becoming friends. He was a great teacher, too. Very patient and helping.
"So this is where you first teleported from?" asked Sarah.
Kimberly nodded. "Yep. Kind of symbolic, huh?"
"We were just as perplexed about the situation as you were," continued Billy.
Teresa and Trini wandered back up to our table, after having spent most of the morning going through martial arts routines. "Billy," smiled Trini, grabbing a seat. "You're not boring our new friends with our past exploits, are you?"
"Oh no," answered Aaron. "We've enjoyed listening."
Trini smiled. "Well, then, let me tell you about the time I was…" she started, but was cut off as our communicators beeped their musical tunes.
I glanced over to Jason. "What happens when it goes off in public?"
"This," he replied. Getting up, we all followed him away from the juice bar, down into the locker hall and into a locker room. Tommy quickly jogged around the room to check that we were on our own, and Zack shut the door.
"Zordon," said Jason, speaking into his communicator. "We're all here. Go ahead."
"Rangers," boomed Zordon's voice. "There is a situation developing. Please teleport to the Command Centre immediately."
"You heard the man," smiled Billy, and we all gently tapped on the buttons on our communicators. Instantly, becoming multi-coloured streaks of energy, we shot out of the building and soared west. Soon, the Command Centre appeared on the horizon, and before we knew it, we had been drawn in.
We all materialized on the floor in front of Zordon's plasma tube. I noticed that Teresa was holding her head. "Whoa," she said. "I've just got to get the hang of that."
Jason smiled, then turned away. "Zordon," he asked, "what's the situation? Why did you bring us here?"
"I'm sure you're aware that, before I was trapped here, I had many acquaintances throughout the galaxy," Zordon told us. "Well, one such close friend of mine was a wizard named Torlus. Observe the viewing screen…" He paused while we all turned around. On the screen appeared a very old man, with long blue and green robes and a golden medallion hanging around his neck.
"Torlus was a powerful magician," Zordon continued, "but he placed most of his power into his medallion." On the screen, the medallion was enlarged dramatically. On one side was an odd symbol – a triangle with an eye in it. On the other side was a picture of a fire-breathing dragon. "Our sensors indicate that Torlus has returned to his home planet of Nerimos. He may be looking for me, or he may be in trouble. Either way, you must go find him and keep him out of harm's way. If Rita were to acquire Torlian powers, she would undoubtedly become an unbeatable opponent."
"We'll do our best," replied Jason.
"We will teleport you all there immediately," said Zordon, "as time is not on our side."
Jason nodded and turned to me. "After you," he said. I nodded, reaching around to my back pocket. "If you insist. It's morphin…"
"Wait!" cried Alpha, freezing everybody in their tracks. "I've just detected a monster in the industrial area. Ay-yi-yi!"
"Talk about bad timing," muttered Aaron.
"I don't think it was," answered Zordon. "Rita must've also discovered Torlus's location and sent the monster as a diversion." At that moment, Zordon was faced with a very tough choice. Getting to Torlus and keeping him from danger, or maybe even rescuing him from it, was top priority and would require the stronger team of rangers. But which team was stronger? The senior team had experience on their side, but they were still weak from Monitar. The junior team were fully-powered, but they had had little experience.
He paused for another split-second before making his choice. "Jason, you will take the senior team to Caloundra and battle the monster. We will teleport the junior team to Nerimos to begin the search for Torlus."
"All right," stated Jason, turning to me and shaking my hand. "Good luck."
"Thanks," I said, and reached for my morpher again. "It's morphing time!"
"Parasaurolophus!" shouted Aaron.
"Rhamphorynchus!" cried Sarah.
"Brontosaurus!" said Scott.
"Velociraptor!" continued Teresa.
"Stegosaurus!" I cried.
"Dragon Zord!" said Tommy.
"Mastodon!" shouted Zack.
"Pterodactyl!" said Kim.
"Triceratops!" cried Billy.
"Sabre-toothed Tiger!" continued Trini.
"Tyrannosaurus!" shouted Jason, and in an instant, we were all morphed and ready to go.
"He's gotta be around here somewhere, guys," warned Tommy, as he and Jason led the others down a street with factories on either side.
"I hope the others will be okay," said Jason.
"Don't worry about them," Trini told him. "They'll be fine."
"There he is!" cried Zack, pointing down the street. He was right – about fifty meters down the street was Rita's latest monster. It was short and covered in a silvery shell, with eyes that stuck up on two stalks and two jagged metal claws.
"Let's get him!" cried Tommy, and they raced down the street towards him. Immediately, the monster turned around, but was not fast enough to avoid two lightning fast high kicks from Trini and Billy as they reached him. He stumbled back but quickly recovered.
"So, you're the Power Rangers," grumbled the monster.
"That's right," stated Jason as the others gathered around him. "And you must be…"
"I am the Crabitron," the monster rumbled, "your worst nightmare!"
"Rita has been watching way too many late night monster flicks," mumbled Zack, as the monster immediately unleashed a barrage of laser blasts from it's claws. The rangers all either jumped or rolled to one side – not one of blasts found their target, each one smashing into the parked cars behind them or the ground.
Tommy and Jason instantly began working as a team, and even as the smoke was clearing, they rolled to their feet and had charged Crabitron. Tommy knocked the monster back with a kick to the chest – Crabitron retaliated by slashing his claw across Tommy's chest. The dragon shield absorbed most of the blow, and Tommy grabbed the monster's arm and spun him around.
Jason leapt into attack mode, smashing both fists against the monster's chest shell. With one claw, the monster knocked away Jason's arms and with the other struck Jason a blow to the shoulder, sending him crashing back. Tommy then spun Crabitron around again and delivered a knee to his chest. By now, Jason had recovered, and with a high kick to Crabitron's head, the monster was sent stumbling back.
He recovered in an instant and sent Jason and Tommy to the ground with several blasts from his claws. But he'd forgotten about the other rangers, and only remembered them after Kim had sent several energy arrows flying towards him. He dodged two, but three more smashed into him, causing his chest shell to erupt in fire and sparks. Following up her attack, Kim leapt into the air and came down hard, slashing her bow down across Crabitron's armour as she did so.
Billy and Trini rushed to aid their teammates. Trini slashed her daggers across his chest before knocking him back with a judo chop to the neck. But as she did so, he struck her a glancing blow to the chest and swiped at her head with his outstretched claw. Billy blocked the claw with his lance, before breaking his weapon in half and using the segments like two small tridents. He attacked Crabitron using both of them, but the monster swung around, grabbed his weapons and swung him to the side.
Jason leapt back into the fray, attacking Crabitron with his sword and leaving several large gashes in the monster's armour. Crabitron stumbled backwards in pain, and Zack leapt into the air, landed on Jason's shoulder, and leapt off again. As he came down, he slashed his power axe right down the monster's chest, leaving a huge split in its armour. Finally, he spun his weapon around and aimed it directly at the monster's head. Pausing for just a second, he pulled the trigger, and the force of the blow lifted the monster off his feet and sent him flying through the air.
"And my favorite seafood is crab, too!" shouted Zack.
"Great job, Zack," complimented Jason.
"Yeah, nice move," added Trini.
He bowed with a smile. "Why thank you," he said, as the monster slowly got back to his feet. "Some monsters just don't get the idea, do they?" he asked.
Jason nodded. "Let's finish this. We need the megablaster, now!"
Instantly, Zack's power axe and Kim's power bow joined together. Trini's power daggers flipped around and attached themselves to the underside of the bow, and Billy's two half-lances did the same. Leaping into the air, Jason placed his sword atop the axe, and the transformation was complete. He landed, holding the megablaster, and aimed it at the advancing Crabitron.
"Sayonara, buddy," he said, pulling the trigger. Instantly, a huge energy blast shot out of the megablaster, smashing into Crabitron and instantly reducing him to a pile of charcoal in a huge explosion that lit up the area and echoed down the street.
"Well," said Billy, "that wasn't a terrifically effective diversion."
"Nah, but it did the job," replied Jason, as the megablaster broke apart and disappeared. "C'mon, let's get back to the Command Centre and go find Torlus and the others."
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