Chapter 21 - Bright Lights, Big City

Angel Grove Municipal Auditorium was practically empty, just a few workers were setting up the stage for the performance that was scheduled for the following night. The flyers connected to the show proclaimed California College of Performing Arts Freshman Exhibition Presents Lumina Project. Featuring the talents of Selena Vega, Marcy Sharpe, Quenton Albreicht and Ryden Ecks. And in the largest font possible Simon Creed - Producer, DJ, Vocalist, Stage Manager. True to is word, however, Simon Creed was indeed directing the stage set-ups. At nineteen, his usually reddish-blond hair was currently mostly blue and hung in his face. He was on the thin, pale side with freckles, but he was also tall and fit. "We have a sound check in twenty minutes. I need my booth and the instruments in place already, people!" he shouted at the workers.

Sitting in the very back row of the Auditorium amongst a group of friends, Danny snickered as he listened to the older guy harangue the hapless stage crew.

"I can totally see the family resemblance," Nathan commented.

"What, are you saying we're a bossy family?" Chloe asked him, raising a brow.

"That's exactly what he's saying," Billie answered. Tori and Wood snickered. Chloe harrumphed and stuck her nose in the air.

"But this seriously cool that you got to bring us here for the sound check. CPAF is like one of the best music schools in the country but they hardly ever have concerts or anything in Angel Grove," Wood said, starry eyed.

"You're not supposed to be here," a voice interrupted their conversation. The small group glanced up at the guy towering above them. He wore a dark hoody and thick rimmed glasses which obscured most of his features.

Chloe got to her feet and in the face of the guy even though he towered over her almost as much as her brother. She did take the time to note that he had really pretty dark blue eyes. "We were invited, thanks," she responded.

Danny cleared his throat, got to his feet and pushed his sister back a little. "Soz, guy. But we were invited. We'll pipe down if we're bothering anybody," he said. He was suddenly the one under intense scrutiny.

The hooded guy finally relaxed a bit. "You're Simon's cousin," he said finally. "Sorry," he apologized.

"Cousins. Plural," Chloe interjected and smiled sweetly.

"Are you one of the tiny names on the flyer?" Nathan asked.

"He is. Please excuse his rudeness. He never seems to have learned manners. This is Quen Albreicht. I'm Selena Vega. So awesome to meet you guys," said a pretty girl with dark eyes, and short edgy dark hair with a pink streak.

"Yo. I'm Danny, my sister Chloe. These are our friends, Billie, Nathan, Wood and Tori," he said as the other teenagers got to their feet.

"No way! This is Code Blue?" Simon asked as he approached the group. He took in the tall blond girl with braids with disbelief.

"Who's Code Blue? What?" the remaining members of the Lumina Project finally joined them. The girl who'd spoken, Marcy Sharpe was a pretty blonde with long curls. Ryden Ecks was a black guy in a fedora with light colored eyes and a neat goatee. He raised a brow at the girl as well.

Simon rubbed the back of his neck. "She, er, made it possible for Ryden to attend East High," he said evasively, eying up the other kids.

"What are we missing, Billie?" Nathan asked in a whisper.

Billie shrugged. "You think Rei and Lammy are the first aliens I've dummied up papers for?" she asked.

Nathan blinked. "I never thought about it. You're just so amazing I figured it was just something you could do," he said. Billie's disgruntled, red-faced expression had Chloe and Tori in a fit of barely silent giggles.

The older students were staring at them. Simon was still flabbergasted. "Jeeze. What were you, like ten?" he asked.

"I was twelve," Billie answered and fidgeted agitatedly.

"I think you're making her uncomfortable, Si. Are we ready for the sound check and rehearsal?" Marcy asked brightly.

Simon nodded. "Yeah, let's go," he said.

"Have a seat and enjoy the show," Selena told the group as she ushered Quen and Ryden down to the stage behind Marcy and Simon. The two guys eyed the other group suspiciously but eventually put their minds on what they were there to do.

"So, what was that all about?" Tori asked them.

It was Wood who answered. "Dude, no way. They're the Guardian Rangers," he said, putting the pieces together before anyone else did.

"Huh, that makes sense," Danny said. Billie nodded.

Chloe shook her head but sat down with her friends. She wondered if that pretty-eyed guy was single. She doubted it though by the way he treated the girl in pink. Oh, well. Eye candy was still eye candy especially when he finally shed the hoodie and glasses.

-x-

Palace on the Moon

Rio stalked into the war room where her mother mulled over Zita's map of Angel Grove. "Mother, I cannot find those insufferable sisters anywhere," she declared, crossing her arms over her chest.

Ria pursed her lips. She was still trying to fruitlessly get them to share information with her about Angel Grove. Zita's map only seemed to make sense to Zita. They were every bit as annoying as her sister always was. She bared her teeth and made a disgusted sound. "It'd be too much to hope they abandoned the place," she said. She tapped her fingers on the tabletop as she thought. "Any luck with the scans?" she asked, hoping for some good news for once.

Rio gave a cool smile. "We're picking up on something. Whatever it is, it's putting out more power than the blond girl that threw off my sensor last time," she said. "I've been thinking of the best way to distract the Power Rangers. I think I have an idea," she said.

"Should we go to the hatchery?" Ria asked imperiously.

Rio nodded. She led the way though it still bothered her that she had no idea where the sisters were. She knew that Grifforzer was fruitlessly searching for the ratty Finster but Zita, at least, should have been annoyingly underfoot. "This one will do nicely," she said as she patted the top of an incubator. It's eerie glow illuminating an egg that looked no different than any other egg but clearly the Reviles knew what they potentially contained.

Ria's lips quirked into a wicked smile. "I think you're right," she agreed. "Bone Drones!" she shouted. Immediately several of the Drones rushed forward to take the egg from it's incubator into the hatching machine. When they closed the door, Ria tapped a few instructions into the interface and pulled the lever. She laughed as the egg was sucked up into the pipe. It was then launched to Earth.

Rio smirked. "I have a good feeling about this one," she said. She disappeared in a puff of smoke.

-x-

As it turned out, both of Repulsas were on Earth. While Rei was out and Griff was hunting for Finster, Mori was holed up in her sister's room at the Youth Center reading her manga. Zita on the other hand was out by Tai's place staring at the pair of cherry trees that so vexed her. She wasn't sure why she felt drawn to this place, but she was. She'd been on the other side of this gateway. It was perfectly ordinary. Wasn't it?

She scowled and whirled away from them. She whirled back with a fistful of powerful energy, but she hesitated throwing it. She growled and crushed out the energy in her fist. She should be trying to figure out how to get Ria and Rio out of the Palace, not being taunted by innocuous trees in the middle of nowhere. She sighed and sat down at the foot of one of the trees. She rested her back against it. Energy tickled at her skin but not in an unpleasant way. She closed her eyes and let her mind relax. She'd hadn't had her guard down like this since the Palace had been invaded. At least she knew the place was safe. Before she realized it, she'd fallen asleep.

-x-

Transistrox landed a little on the outskirts of Angel Grove. He was a dark metallic monster with a red helmet with seemed to be squared off antenna, cogwheels for shoulder guards and spiked balls as knee guards. He carried a chain-draped sword and a shield shaped like a subwoofer. He looked around as people saw him and began to panic. "Now, we can't have all that. Mellow out," he said in a lazy tone and held up his shield. White noise erupted and enveloped all those within listening range.

As people heard the soothing sounds of static and whispers, they calmed down and went back to mindlessly doing what they were doing before. "That's right, lovelies. We'll keep my being here between you and me," he said as he danced along, spinning and moonwalking backwards. "We don't want too many unwelcome visitors before I'm ready," he said.

It was perhaps already too late for that. Even on the outskirts of the city, the net of former Power Rangers was extensive. A pro baseball player on his way home from practice could easily spot a monster and let the proper people know about it.

-x-

Project Lumina's show was supposed to last about an hour, but the sound check and rehearsal was taking a bit longer than that as they finagled with locations for the best sound with instruments and voices, or got used to the stage size for dance routines. While Everyone else was enraptured by the entire process, Danny and Billie quickly lost interest and were having a video game battle on hand held systems.

"You guys could pretend to be interested," Chloe scolded them when one of their games got a little too loud. She had her camera out and was occasionally snapping pictures. Simon wanted to use some for the Project Lumina website.

"Si knows it ain't my scene. Meetin' up for pizza afterwards is the only reason I'm here," he said. "I just came to bring them," he said, gesturing to Nathan and Wood's enraptured expressions.

"I got dragged along for this," Billie said and held up her device.

"You think Simon will let me see his set-up?" Wood asked, totally not paying the least bit of attention to their conversation.

"Those are custom guitars. They must've been made to melodize only with each other," Nathan declared as Selena and Quen finished playing a duet once they'd found the spot that fit Simon's standards.

Tori giggled. "Jeeze, you're cousin is a slave driver. I'm with Nathan, I can totally see the family resemblance," she teased her friends. Before Chloe could retaliate, her wrists started vibrating. "Hold that tart comeback," she said and turned around, twisting her wrist. "Tori here," she said.

"You and Billie. Now," Tai's voice told her.

"We're on it," Tori answered. "I'm stealing Billie for awhile," she announced brightly out loud. She kissed Wood's cheek and hopped up. She grabbed Billie's arm and dragged her out of the Auditorium. The lobby outside was empty. "Ready?" she asked Billie.

"Ready," Billie answered and twisted her wrists. "It's Morphin' Time! Triceratops!"

"Pterodactyl!"

-x-

Transistrox had spotted the Monster Alert poles and was attempting to climb one of them. If he could hook up his sound machine into the system, his beautiful noise would be broadcast all over the city. "Ah, a whole city of doe-eyed livestock. My mistresses could tear it up without interference!" he chortled to himself.

"Hey! Get down from there!"
Red laser blasts hitting the pole made him lose his grip and he fell off the pole. "Hey! That was dangerous! I could have seriously hurt myself!" he scolded the Power Rangers that surrounded him.

Red holstered his Blaster. "Then you shouldn't have been climbing it to begin with," he pointed out.

"That's beside the point," Transistrox said and pointed his shield at the Rangers. Instead of soothing white noise, a noise like a ship's horn magnified a hundred times exploded from it. The sound energy was actually enough to knock them off their feet even has they attempted to block out the sound with their hands.

"Oh, that Cyberman reject has it coming," male Black said loudly to hear himself over the ringing in his ears. He shook his head. "Power Blades!" he summoned. Two long, single edges blades swords appeared in his hands. He gave them an experimental swish. He ran forward and exercised some of his new, hard-won skills on the monster. The chain-draped sword managed to block once, but utilizing his agility, Black got under his arm and slashed at his side with the other.

Sparks flew and the monster whirled out of the way, dropping Bone Drone eggs as he did so. "Suck on that Rangers!" he said as the Bone Drones grew and engaged the Rangers while he once again attempted to get to the speakers, which were now beginning to sound the alarm, warning of a monster attack on the city.

Several Bone Drones turned on Black, wielding their scythes at him. He did a good job of fending them off.

"Wow, Tai's some kind of miracle worker," Yellow remarked and sped out of the way as several Bone Drones turned their attention to her. "Power Grips!" she summoned, and began to take them down around her.

Blue was utilizing her ability to become invisible to the fullest, she'd disappear only to reappear and deliver a swift kick to the body or a sweep of the legs before delivering a final blow with her Power Sais. "There was a reason Mina chose him as her First General," she said. She found it much easier to talk about her dark days as if talking about another person.

Power Fans in hand, Pink whirled through a group of Bones Drones, "As if we needed more proof that you were a genius," she said. She squeaked and dropped, rolling away as a Bone Drone suddenly launched it itself at her. Coming up in a crouch, her visor popped open and she shrieked in his face, disorienting it. A quick swipe with her Fan as she came up, sent his mechanoid head flying through the air.

Black danced out of the way as it landed near him. "Gruesome," he said and kicked it at a one of the Bone Drones sneaking up behind Green.

Green whirled around and took out the Drone with his Blade. "Thanks," he said and gave Black a little salute. He threw his shield up as several other Drones jumped at him, scythes fully prepared to slice him to ribbons. He grunted under the strain as he felt each thunk. He phased and dropped the shield. They crashed into each other, mangling themselves as he harmlessly got out of the way before rematerializing.

Red was after Transistrox, summoning his Power Armor and drawing his TyrannoSword. He barreled through the Bone Drones and caught the monster before he could start climbing the pole again. Transistrox was ready for him. He turned and blasted the sound wave at him again. Red threw up his arm, activating his shield. Even planting his feet with all his strength, he slid back several yards, leaving ruts of broken concrete.

Thinking he had the upper hand, Transistrox attempted to climb the pole again, but Red ran forward and grabbed his ankle and pulled him down. The both crashed into the ground. Transistrox kneed him in the face with his spiky knee guards.

-x-

When the monster sirens began to sound, Simon finally gave up fiddling with his set-up. "What is that God-awful noise?" he asked.

"That would be the monster alarm. Angel Grove is under attack," Danny explained. "We should probably get to a safe zone," he suggested.

Ryden and Quen shared a look. Before Simon could ask what a safe zone was, the two of them were already on their way out of the auditorium. "Hey, wait!" Simon said. Hopelessly, he and the two girls were after them.

"Hey! Stay out of it!" Chloe called after them, but it was too late. She, Danny, Wood, and Nathan spilled out of the auditorium behind them to find them being held up by a odd looking girl with large red glasses, a pom-pom topped panda hat, and rainbow leggings.

She was holding something similar to a camera that was making a whining noise. "Oh, boy! This is fantastic," she said gleefully.

"We're not famous enough for groupies and autographs," Simon said and took half a step back.

The girl gave him a baleful glance. "Ya! I have no interest in you, freckles," she said. A wide grin stretched her face. "I want her," she said and pointed at Selena. Quen and Ryden immediately put themselves in front of her.

"It's Rio!" Wood declared. "Get away from her!"

"She's an evil space hag!" Nathan warned.

"Hag! Who are you calling a hag, Robin Hood?" she demanded as her form shimmered, changing to her usual military uniform.

"You're not exactly disproving his point," Chloe pointed out, eying her outfit distastefully.

Rio sputtered. She threw down a handful of Drone eggs. "Bone Drones! Get them!" she ordered. Drones attacked not only Chloe's group, but also the other group of older students.

"Protect the Light," Ryden said and launched into action. His rhythmic fighting style almost resembled dancing. It was the official martial art of his home planet, Promethius. As Drones attacked him, he slid out of the way and lashed out with a well place kick or hit.

"Really? What do you think we've been doing for the past five years?" Simon asked dryly. Like his cousins, he was a multiple martial arts champion and had been using his skills for years defending the Fifth Light. He launched into battle without hesitation, fighting Bone Drones off.

"The Light can look out for herself, thanks, boys," Selena sniffed. Her ex-Marine, adoptive father had been training her all her life to defend herself. Five years ago, she found out why. She was the princess of a far-off planet who also happened to possess within her a powerful magical energy that frankly scared the bejeezes out of her sometimes.

"Still, we swore to protect the Light. It's what we do," Marcy said good-naturedly. Though she'd never practiced martial arts until she became a Power Ranger, five years of training with them had made her into quite the warrior as she mixed the Promethian and Earth styles together gracefully. "Besides, I thought you liked it when Quen got all protective," she added mischievously.

"She does," Quen said. He'd always known the identity of the Fifth Light. His grandfather had been her original Guardian that brought her from Promethius. He'd also brought Quen, who'd spent his whole life protecting her. He'd also been a little in love with her for as long as he could remember. That made protecting her a no brainer. These Bone Drone things weren't going to stop him from doing that.

"I ain't sure what exactly all that's about, but if it's the girl she wants, the girl she ain't gettin'," Danny declared. "Surround 'em," he told his friends. He twisted his wrists and activated the distress beacon, but didn't Morph. Chloe, Wood and Nathan fanned out and surrounded the group surrounding Selena, but they needed help. Rio was not exactly going to just give up and go away.

Rio sneered. "Why are there always so many useless obstacles?" she demanded. She held her fingers up in a gun shape and her laser appeared. She pointed it at the group.

"Heads up!" Danny shouted and slid forward, projecting his force-field as widely as he could. He cried out at the strain.

"Danny!" Chloe gasped. "Hey, you, two," she said, and managed to get Quen and Ryden's attentions. "Throw me at her," she said. She scoffed at their dumbfounded expressions. "What? You just saw my brother project a force-field from his hands. Are you really going to quibble with me over this?" she asked.

Quen shrugged. Ryden nodded. They each went down on a knee and grabbed one of her legs, as they came up with her, they launched her toward Rio. She stretched out, both fists in front of her and went solid. He fists caught Rio in the middle and the both of them crashed through the glass front doors of the auditorium and landed in the street. Chloe rolled off of the space witch and got to her feet.

"Your cousins are certainly unique," Marcy commented to Simon.

"You haven't seen the flying boy yet," Wood said with a grin on his face. They spilled through the door behind Chloe and Rio.

Rio got to her feet and snarled. Bone Wings zoomed overhead and began firing on the area.

"I'd call that an escalation," Nathan said.

"Take care of that! I'll handle Rio while our guests finish up with the Bone Drones," Electrum Ranger said. Already the Red and Green Gliders were zooming in to engage the Bone Wings.

"We'll do the whole filling in thing later," Danny told Simon. He twisted his wrists. "It's Morphin' Time! Triceratops!"

"Mastodon!"

"Pterodactyl!"

"Smilodon!"

Ryden sighed through his nose. He tapped a red metallic bracelet around his arm and it transformed into a shield shaped device. "It's time to Light It Up!" he called. The other's did the same. They held the shield over their clamped their hands over the shields. Each Lighter activated.

"Fifth Guardian! Pink!" Selena called.

"Fourth Guardian! Blue!" Simon called.

"Third Guardian! Yellow!" Marcy called.

"Second Guardian! Black!" Quen called.

"First Guardian! Red!" Ryden called.

From each Lighter, a bright colored light enveloped their bodies, forming their power suits, helmets and sidearms. "We are the Guardians of the Fifth Light!"

"Power Cycles!" The other group of Power Rangers summoned their vehicles. "Activating Glider Mode!" The four cycles turned into Gliders and sped off to join the aerial battle.

"Our Cycles need to do that, Si," Black Guardian said. He side-stepped a Bone Drone and then kicked it in the knee and kneed it in the head.

"Seriously," Pink Guardian agreed as she slipped around a Drone only to drive her elbow into he area between it's shoulder blades.

Rio was fuming now. "Why are there always more and more Power Rangers?" she shrieked.

"I'm the only one you need to worry about at the moment," Electrum told him. "We haven't formally met yet," she said as the front of her helmet popped open. "I'm Lammy. My brother really doesn't like you," she said musingly.

"The feeling is mutual. So I suppose this is the part where you tell me I have to go through you to get to the girl?" she asked.

"It doesn't need saying," Electrum said. Her helmet closed back up. "But just a warning; I'm not as nice as Rei," she said. In fact, she just came from a training session with Rei. She fully understood why Rio had triumphed. She wasn't very physically strong, had little training except with her staff as a defensive weapon. Lammy was working on fixing that, but they still had a ways to go.

Rio was less than impressed. To her mind, none of these Rangers were a match for her. More nuisance than actual threat. "I have more important things to do than play with you, so get out of my way," she said and went to knock Electrum aside as easily as she'd taken out Rei.

She grossly underestimated her opponent. Electrum sidestepped, grabbed her arm, twisted, and landed a blow to her sternum that had had Rio stumbling back, gasping for breath. She narrowed her eyes and launched herself at the mutt. The two powerful women  traded attacks and counter-attacks.

Rio turned several backflips and gave herself some space. She made her laser gun and appear and fired at Electrum.

"VelociRapier!" Electrum summoned and with faster-than-the-eye flicks of her wrist she knocked each pellet aside. Occasionally one would hit, bouncing off her suit in sparks but it wasn't enough to knock her off her feet.

Rio looked at her incredulously. She dropped her gun and seethed. "Fine then, if that's how you want to do it," she said and held up her fists. A storm of dark energy began swirling between them.

"Lammy! No! You can't counter that! Everyone, get away!" Rei shouted. She'd been on the outskirts of the fight, helping the Guardian Rangers with the Bone Drones. Rio was creating a very dark, violent spell. Rei wasn't even sure if she and her sisters together would be able to counter it as they were now. Lammy was powerful, but it seemed Rio was willing sacrifice her control to win.

It was too late, Rio released the spell. The dark spell engulfed them.

-x-

Red was already exhausted. Pulling the monster off the alarm pole had all but taken the last of it out of him. Then the spiked knee to the face didn't help. He didn't quite lose his morph, but it wouldn't take much more. He jumped to his feet and circled around the monster.

"Take a breather, boss. We got this," Silver said as three of him and Gold appeared around the monster.

Red nearly deflated with relief. "If you insist," he said and graciously bowed out.

Transistrox looked around him warily. He slashed with his sword in a wide arc at the three Silver Rangers and aimed his shield at Gold and blasted him with sound.

"Sorry, didn't hear that," Gold remarked. He'd wisely turned his hearing off when Beez informed them what they were up against. He rushed in and smashed the shield with his StegoMace. It crumpled under the blow.

Transistrox was flabbergasted but retaliated swiftly, kicking out at Silver and throwing the shield at Gold. He parried lunges from the two other Silver Rangers.

Red retreated a fair distance, but he had no intention of sitting on the sidelines by any means. "Magnum Power Cannon!" he summoned and stood behind.

Silver became one again and nodded at Gold. Gold returned the nod. From opposite directions, they ran at Transistrox. The crashed their weapons into the monster, sending up sparks, and kept running to a safe distance. Transistrox stumbled around, smoke and sparks floating off of him.

Red pressed the trigger of the Cannon. "Magnum Blast!" The powerful blast slammed into Transistrox and he exploded, leaving behind a small egg. The egg exploded and a giant Transistrox formed, now with a giant shield as well.

"Ooh. Now I can do this," he said and went toward the alarm pole. "No need to climb!"

"No. I told you that wasn't happening," Red said and the crystal on his gauntlet began glowing. "I'm leaving the Cannon to you, Fox," he said. He pressed the crystal. "Magnum Alpha Megazord!"

From various place around the city, Zords began appearing and converged on their location. The Zords began assembling together. The SmiloZord and the MastoZord formed legs and feet. The TyrannoZord formed a torso while the PteroZord and TriceraZord formed arms. A helmeted head turned out of the TyrannoZord. The StygiZord broke apart to form gauntlets, a chest shield and a helmet. The StegoZord, CeratoZord and VelociZord configured themselves in a shoulder mounted dino head cannon system that attached to the back of the shield with a tail. Their pilots were teleported into an enormous combined cockpit except for Black and Electrum. Silver split into two to take their spots.

"That sounded rather ominous," Black muttered to himself. He activated something on her Morpher. "Alphamax Cannon!" The Alphamax Cannon and he teleported aboard.

The Megazord rushed forward and knocked the monster away from the alert system.

Transistrox whirled around, slashing the Megazord with his sword. He held out his shield and blasted him the horns of a fleet of cruise ships. The Megazord stumbled back, while the Rangers within suffered as well.

"Even I heard that," Gold complained.

Black was already targeting the monster. "Target Acquired. Firing!" She depressed the buttons. Two by two, from the outside in the points of the Alphamax Cannon began firing, hitting the monster in succession. Each hit glowed. Finally the middle barrel fired. A beam of blindingly bright light hit. The other ten points connected in a circle and hit.

Transistrox brought up his shield and unleashed another torrent of sound that seemed to counter the Cannon's attack for a time, before it too also crumpled.

Luckily, the Megazord had already righted itself. "Magnum Dino Blast!" Red lined the target up on his screen. He pressed the buttons, the dino mouths come open and their tail whipped up and four points of energy where fired at the monster. They hit, causing massive damage to the monster but he was still standing.
"You can't blame this on me, but I think the Cannon is out of juice!" Black shouted in a panic.

Before Red could reply or anyone could offer up a solution, a bright light swept over them. Everything that was evil it touched disintegrated into dust. Bone Wings, Bone Cruisers and even the monster, all blew away in the rush of energy that briefly covered the city of Angel Grove.

-x-

Electrum tried to heed Rei's warning and protect the out of town Rangers, but the storm of black energy swept over her before she could. She could feel the energy pressing in on her. She vaguely heard Rei screaming somewhere not far away. She figured this was the end of her as her Morph fizzled.

Something strange happened. White light was sweeping through the blackness, turning it to nothing but smoke and then nothing at all.

Rio gasped as a wall of white light blew toward her. She took a quick reading of the energy before she disappeared in a puff of smoke, retreating to the safety of the Moon before she was destroyed.

The white light engulfed everything in it's wake. Lammy found Rei, and helped her to her feet. They both looked in amazement at the source of the light. Hovering several yards off the ground, Selena Vega was in the center of the light storm. Her hair, clothes and body hung there as if there was no gravity around her. She suddenly gasped and the light winked out and she fell.

Quen deftly caught her and cradled her in his arms.

Simon sighed and ran his hands through his hair. "Well, there goes our concert," he complained. "It'll be days before she wakes up," he added.

Rei, who'd felt like she was dying only moments ago, now felt more recharged and energized than she ever had thanks to that light, ran over to them. "Amazing," she said, eyes dancing. "The people from your planet must have com from the Mystic Realm. Amazing!" she said again, glancing vaguely at Ryden. "Oh, right. We can help her recover more quickly," she said. She activated her communicator. "Beez, please teleport out visitors to the Command Center. Tell Taran to prepare for an energy exchange," she said. She was still a bit glassy-eyed. "If I feel like this, I can't imagine how he's feeling," she commented to Lammy.

Lammy found herself giggling. "I know, right?" she said. "Is this how you always feel?" she asked.

Rei nodded. "I think so," she said.

"I think Selena made them high," Simon whispered to Marcy. Moments later they were in a completely different location. "Nope, that's me. I'm the one that's somehow high," he corrected as he looked around.

"Nah. That was just the teleport," Danny corrected. "Welcome to the Command Center," he said.

"Where's Selena?" Quen demanded, looking around. The two strange women were gone as well.

"This way, please." Holo-Beez beckoned. She led him to the Medi-Lab.

Selena lay on a Medi-Bed. Rei was placing crystals around her.

Autumn was sitting on another bed with a blindfold over her eyes. The bright light had been beautiful, but it affected her aura reading unduly. She couldn't look at anyone it'd touched without feeling like the world was lurching. She felt quite nauseous. Looking at Taran was worse than anything. She'd nearly puked on him. It made her sad.

"What are you doing?" Quen demanded.

"It's okay. We're going to transfer some of the energy she exerted back into her," Rei said with a too bright smile. "This is Taran. He's a powerful white mage but he's still in denial at the moment," she said.

Taran's head was swimming. He managed a vague wave and a grin. "Can we get this over with soon? I feel like I'm about to float off and I don't even care," he said.

"Just sit and watch," Rei prompted Quen. He refused to sit, but he did watch closely as Rei led the two blond siblings in running beams of white energy through the crystals which created some sort of white blanket of energy over Selena. He settled in to wait awhile.

Ryden had watched Quen go to Selena, but he didn't budge. He was looking for whoever was in charge. As it happened, the one in charge was moving toward him. Ryden had always disliked that Quen and Simon were taller than him. This guy made it a lot worse. "You must be Ryden. I'm Tai," he said. He was just the right mix of friendly and authoritative. Ryden already liked him.

"And I'm Lani. Sorry about this mess. We were looking forward to the show. We all had tickets," said the cute girl who'd come in Tai's wake. She waved vaguely at the room full of Rangers. Marcy and Simon were already in their midst, chatting with several of them and laughing as introductions were being made.

"It happens. There will always be someone who wants to use the Light for evil," Ryden said. "Thank you for wanting to come to the show," he added.

"But why are you guys having the show in Angel Grove?" Wood suddenly asked.

"Ah that," Simon gave a disgruntled pout.

"The CPAF freshman exhibition counts as our final exam. We're kind of the underdogs on campus. We were...um, blacklisted from any venue within fifty miles of campus. Angel Grove was the nearest venue we could afford," Marcy explained sheepishly.

"So college isn't any different than high school. Fun," Billie grumbled.

"Basically," Simon agreed.

"That magicky stuff will take awhile if past incidents are any indication. You guys are welcome to wait it out at the Youth Center," Winter invited.

"We'll take you up on that. I feel like we're using someone else's swimming pool while they aren't home," Marcy said.

"I'll teleport you," Beez said.

Ryden nodded. "Quen will keep us updated on Selena's condition. Plus I'm hungry and I've heard the Youth Center in Angel Grove has the best French fries," he said.

"That they do," Manny said and offered Ryden one of her best smiles. It was effective. Ryden found himself returning the smile.

Tai nodded. "Okay. People need to clear out anyway," he said. "Except the people who can figure out what happened to the Alphamax Cannon," he added.

Holly set her mouth. "I wasn't planning on going anywhere until I did just that," she declared. "You don't have to stay though," she told Danny.

Danny was torn. The Alphamax Cannon was his design. If something went wrong, he needed to figure out what. On the other hand, he wanted to hang with Simon for awhile.

"Just go," Lani told Danny. "Holly has that look," she said.

Holly did have that look. While Danny might have designed the Cannon and done most of the work, it was Holly who maintained it and kept it working properly. "It was nice meeting you," she said and smiled at Simon then stalked off to the Blue Lab.

Simon jostled his cousins shoulder. "Nice catch," he said, referring to Holly. That earned him a quick smack from Marcy. "Ok, let's get to the Youth Center," he said.

Beta Z began teleporting their visitors and other Rangers left on their own accord.

-x-

Palace on the Moon

Zita was waiting for Rio when she returned to the Moon. She felt more clarity and less anxiousness than she had in quite some time. She gave her cousin a smile. "Lovely light show," she said.

Rio sneered. "Don't push it, coz," she growled.

Zita gave a dainty shrug. "I could say the same of you. I'm not Rei either. Unlike her and Moriko, I am the one who's retained my years of extensive magical and physical training. You only thought Lammy was tough," she said. She felt more like herself than she had since Moriko separated from her. "Your mother is waiting for you in the throne room," she said as she leisurely walked to her room.

Rio glared at her retreating figure. She stomped toward the throne room. Ria looked up when she came in. "Though it was foolish of you to attempt that particular spell, we succeeded in eliminating that power. It was not a fragment of the Soul Stone. Powerful yes, but not what we want," she said.

Rio nodded but she seethed. Her mother had no idea how close her daughter had come to dying, or worse, being turned Good. She shuddered at the thought of it. "What was it?" she asked.

"I don't know and I don't care. It's time for find our next lead," Ria said decisively.

Rio nodded. "I'm going to rest first," she said and stalked out of the throne room. Ria barely noticed her go.

-x-

The Angel Grove Municipal Auditorium found itself a victim of shattered window syndrome. This distressed Simon somewhat. "Don't worry, happens to my brother and me all the time," Autumn had assured him. Her vertigo was under control now that the glow of powerful white energy was fading from everyone.

Back to her not-at-all-chipper self, Lammy had quickly and quietly repaired the windows. The other Rangers helped with some street clean-up.

Channeling a generous amount of energy back into Selena had revived her enough to perform at the Freshman Exhibition. It went off without a hitch. The audience was given surveys to complete which were collected by a CPAF professor after the show.

Project Lumina was preparing to leave the next day when Danny and a few of his friends came to see them off. Wood and Nathan, who were both more than slightly interests in eventually attending CPAF were peppering them with questions. Danny and Simon shook hands and gave each other bro hugs. Chloe just bounced up and squeezed the breathe out of him.

"Come back by anytime. We'll try and make it less exciting," Danny said.

"Plus Ma was all, 'Why couldn't Simon even have dinner if he was in town. Didn't Mary teach that boy any manners?'" Chloe added, doing a fairly decent impression of her mother.

Simon groaned. Their moms were sisters and none of them were sure if they loved or hated each other.

"We should go," Ryden said. "Tell Tai we'll warn him next time we're in town," he said.

"Will do. Have safe journey. Though I ain't sure if you're gonna be able to pry Tori and Selena apart," Danny added, nodding toward the two girls who were giggling together like old friends.

"I leave things like that to Quen," Ryden said and went around to the driver's side of the van they and their equipment were traveling in.

As in on cue walked over to the two girl, mumbled something to Tori with an apologetic air, then stooped down and hoisted Selena over his shoulder. Tori gaped and then began to giggle. Simon and Marcy took that as their cue and bid farewell to their new friends and loaded into the van.

And with that, the Light left Angel Grove.

"A'ight. I'ma go. I think I know what to do about my Cannon," Danny declared and teleported. Chloe rolled her eyes.

She swept up the other three and herded them toward the Youth Center. "Let's go give Fox some backhanded compliments because he was actually kind of cool the other day but we can't let him think he was," she declared with a grin.

"I'll let him know he was cool," Tori said.

"You're just no fun," Chloe sighed. Nathan and Wood snickered at the bickering best friends and let them argue as they walked along,

-xThe End Chapter 21x-           

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