PRLG: A Different Shade of Pink
Episode XLII. The Great Wall of Fire
by Green Senturion

Mutiny steered with a wave of his hook the great behemoth on which he rode. “Attack!” he cried.

Deviot charged toward Barbarax, arms raised. They both knew that only one winner would emerge from this fight victorious.

“All right, teams…team,” Leo called, “Let’s make this fight count!”

Titanisaur’s first target was the Orion Galaxy Megazord. With a swish of his tail, he knocked the Ancient Rangers’ zords to the side. Artillatron, however, managed to duck away from the tail and get in a few good blasts on Titanisaur. But the beast seemed unaffected. Titanisaur then clamped its mouth down on the Megazord’s helmet, causing the Megazord to shake wildly about. “We’ve got to get ourselves out of this deadlock!” Damon cried.

“Yeah, but how?” Kai asked.

The answer came from a Double Lightning Spin attack from the Perseus Defender Torozord. The slash from the four-pointed lance created a huge gash in Titanisaur’s side and caused it to spark uncontrollably. A double head butt from the Perseus Defender Torozord and the Perseus Zenith Carrierzord then sent the great Titanisaur flying.

“Arghh…they’re strong!” Mutiny bellowed, “But I am stronger still!”

Upon hearing Mutiny’s command of “Now!” Titanisaur dug its tail into the ground and leapt into the air. Its machine-like appendages then began to glow a bright red color. The Perseus Stratoforce and Centaurus Megazords raised their weapons to block what they knew would be an incoming attack, but their defenses proved too weak. The attack ripped the ground apart as it came and knocked the two Megazords to the ground.

Mutiny laughed and caused the Titanisaur to assume a laughing position. However, both enemies stopped laughing when a double slash attack slit the beast’s stomach open. Mutiny looked over from the reeling Titanisaur at the Orion Galaxy Megazord and the Astro Megazord, both itching to battle.

“I didn’t want to be left out of this battle either!” Alpha cried from the Megaship hold. The freed slaves beside him cheered and whooped approvingly.

“Oh, Alpha!” Cassie laughed. “Now for you, Mutiny!”

Mutiny growled angrily and glowered at the Rangers, “Seems like they are tougher than I thought.”

“It as I predicted,” the Seer cried from the Perseus Centaurus Megazord cockpit as the Megazord began to right itself up, “United, we cannot be defeated.”

“Yes,” the Guardian replied as he and the Keeper managed to stand up the Perseus Stratoforce Megazord as well, “Mutiny will never defeat both of our teams.”

“Hyaah!” Deviot cried as he clenched his fists tight. Barbarax raised his mace, knowing that the time to strike was upon him. The two reached one another at last and began exchanging blows. A kick from Deviot landed Barbarax on the ground, but the downed warrior soon raised himself up. He was not ready to be defeated yet.

Mutiny laughed as the Titanisaur, battered though it was, continued to stand. “You have not met true power just yet. Watch this!”

The machine-like parts on the Titanisaur lit up and fired a huge blast once more, this time a green one that knocked all the zords to the ground. Mutiny cackled as he brought the Titanisaur to the downed Astro Megazord. “You traitors will be the first to die!” he laughed as the dragon throttled the weakened Megazord.

“Do not harm them!” the Warrior cried. He nodded to the Spellcaster, and the two steered the Megazord into an upright position. The Perseus Centaurus then fired its mighty blaster at the Titanisaur, causing Mutiny’s pet to drop the Astro Megazord. The Keeper then cried, “Don’t forget us!” as the Perseus Stratoforce Megazord leapt into the air and while descending hurled its supercharged boomerang at Titanisaur. Finally, the Perseus Defender Torozord, riding atop the two Carrierzords, barreled into Titanisaur, and sent him crashing to the ground. All the zords then stood in a line before Mutiny once more. “It is over,” the Seer said, “Give up.”

“It is over!” Barbarax called as he repeatedly clubbed Deviot with his mace, to the point where Deviot was on the ground with his hands up in surrendering, “Give up!”

“Never!” Deviot rasped. He raised his laser hand and shot a blast at Barbarax. The warrior staggered back and gave Deviot enough time to get up and face him once more.

Mutiny smiled evilly and said, “Never.” The downed Titanisaur then whipped its large tail and tripped the zords. The Astro Megazord, however, managed to leap quickly up again, as Artillatron rolled away. As the other zords fell, however, Titanisaur leapt up and caught them with its elongated tail, binding them all together next to its body. The zords’ weapons had been dropped, and the Rangers cried out as Mutiny said, “Now…to self-destruct!”

Barbarax and Deviot stood facing one another again. The final strike was about to be dealt—though to whom, neither knew.

The Rangers struggled to free their zords, but to no avail. Artillatron’s fire and the Astro Megazord’s hacks seemed ineffective against the brutalized Titanisaur. “I should probably be going,” Mutiny noted as he looked at the countdown. “Quickly, we must flee!” the Spellcaster called out, “Now…before it is too…” but she was cut off by a massive explosion engulfing everyone encompassed by the Titanisaur’s tail.

The two raced towards one another and struck as they crossed paths, Barbarax with his mace, and Deviot with his laser fist. To the outside, the winner would have appeared uncertain—but both villains, panting heavily, knew who had finally one.

“You know what’s funny?” Barbarax said as he stood weakly, his body still spewing smoke.

“What’s that?” Deviot snickered while spluttering, his back still to Barbarax.

“We’ve both been made fools of,” Barbarax laughed.

“What do you mean?” Deviot cried as he turned on the pirate.

“While we were distracted, Mutiny fought down the Rangers with Titanisaur…now, both Titanisaur and the Rangers are gone. We both missed our chances, and without even knowing that Mutiny was manipulating us.” Barbarax said no more as he gently fell to the ground on his knees, and then bent over and exploded.

Deviot whirled his head away from Barbarax’s smoldering remains and stared high behind him, where indeed nothing was left but lengthy streams of flame. Deviot turned his head up and curled his fists as he screamed, “MUTINY!!!”

But Mutiny too was nowhere in sight. In fact, no one was. Deviot seemed to be the only one left after the attack. “He can’t be gone,” Deviot muttered, “Well, when he returns, I shall be awaiting him.” The robot then fled with a shimmering of light.

Once Deviot had gone, out of thin air footsteps began to pound into the sand. The Phantom Ranger appeared and stumbled forward, looking around for any signs of life. As he stared at the debris around him, flames with no visible parts in sight, he noted a number of bodies exiting from one of the flames with a few grunts.

The Phantom Ranger was relieved to see the six teens emerge, with Cassie leading them. He raced up to Cassie and said, “You’re alive!”

“And…I can almost see your face,” she said. She smiled and attempted to reach her hand through his cracked visor as she said, “You seem so familiar…”

The Phantom Ranger quickly became aware of himself and waved his hand in front of his face, fixing his visor once more. He then turned back to the teens and said, “How is it that you are alive? Our zords are nowhere to be seen, and you emerged from that fire without a single wound! How can it be?”

“I don’t know,” Maya said, shaking her head. She then looked at her hands, realizing she had been de-morphed. But her Transmorpher seemed to be intact. She then looked at Mike and said, “Hey…where are the Ancient Rangers?”

The seven Rangers looked around, but saw only the pillars of flame. However, from behind one of those pillars rolled out Artillatron, on top of which rode the Astro Megazord.

“Hey!” Alpha cried through the Astro Megazord’s transmitter, “You’re all alive! Which is great, because it doesn’t seem like Mutiny is. Now all we have to do is…say…where are the Ancient Rangers?”

“We don’t know!” Leo cried into his Transmorpher, “We haven’t seen them.”

“Well, I’m afraid that we’re going to have to leave them,” Alpha cried, “Terra Venture is in a bad way right now, and if we don’t go back soon, the entire colony will sink and be consumed by a black hole!”

Damon’s eyes widened as he cried, “The engines! I forgot all about them!”

Kai shook his head and said, “But we can’t just leave the Ancient Rangers or the Galactabeasts here!”

“Not to mention,” Cassie said, “That without the Spellcaster, we have no idea how to escape the Lost Galaxy!”

“They’re Rangers…they’ll be okay,” Mike said, “And right now, I’m sorry to say that the colony needs us more.”

The Phantom Ranger nodded as the Galaxy Rangers looked reluctantly at one another. What were they to do?

The decision had to be made, finally. The Rangers boarded the Astro Megazord once it had entered Megaship Mode, and they along with Artillatron flew off through the air. A short while later, the team had reached the space colony.

Into the Control Tower came Mike, followed by all the slaves they had found. Mike looked at the Captain, wedged against the dashboard because of the excess of people, and shrugged sheepishly. “We had to save them…can they stay?” he asked.

Commander Stanton shook his head and said, “I only hope that here is a better place for them to stay…because if our engines aren’t fixed in the next quarter hour, then…”

“Don’t worry,” Mike said, “Damon’s on it.” He then saluted and pushed past the slaved as he ran down the hall.

“Ahh,” one of the male slaves called, “Is not the Magna Defender great?”

Commander Stanton assumed a puzzled look as he asked, “Magna Defender? What do you mean?”

“Why, that man,” a girl slave called, “He’s the Magna Defender.”

Commander Stanton nudged past a few of the slaves and moved towards those who were talking as he said, “I thought that Mike was the Red Galaxy Ranger.”

“No, he’s the Magna Defender all right!” the girl spoke excitedly.

“Hmm…” Commander Stanton said, “I wonder why I thought differently?”

In Terra Venture’s engine room, the six Ranger teens along with Phantom gathered. Damon tugged at the broken lever on the machine to no avail. He looked up at his silent but sympathetic teammates and groaned as he pulled and said, “You’re not helping me here!” He then sighed and said, “Look, why don’t a few of you go try to figure out how to get this rust bucket out of the Lost Galaxy once it’s fixed. Okay?” Cassie nodded to Damon, and tapped Leo and Kai, who followed her out of the engine room. “Listen,” she whispered as they raced toward their living quarters, “We’re the only ones who can do this. I have the most experience as a Ranger.”

“What about the Phantom Ranger?” Leo asked.

“Kai, you’re brilliant,” Cassie continued, ignoring Leo’s question, “And Leo, well…you’re the leader. So you should have some idea of what’s going on around here.”

“What do you mean?” Leo hissed back angrily.

Cassie stopped and sighed for a moment before turning to face the two Rangers following her. “The Ancient Rangers are gone,” she said, “And it’s now up to us to figure out a way out of the Lost Galaxy.”

“He shouldn’t be doing this alone,” Maya said, feeling strangely aroused as she watched the frustrated Damon sweat, “We’ve got to do something!”

“Yeah, but what?” Mike asked.

The Phantom Ranger stared at the two Rangers accompanying him on the balcony before he tapped them both on the head and said, “Teamwork…is that not what always solves our problems? Let’s go help him!”

The three Rangers descended the stairs and raced over to the engine where Damon stood, pulling on the lever with him. He shook his head and laughed as he said, “Thanks guys.”

“Sometimes,” Cassie said as the three teens entered the living quarters, “The simplest solution is the best. I was baked in a giant pizza once…and you know how I got out of it?”

“How?” Leo asked, thinking, I hope I never have to hear this story again.

“I got cut out,” she replied, “So, the answer to reversing the Keonta Spell could be as simple as…reading it backwards or something. I don’t know.”

Leo’s eyes brightened, and he shook his finger at Cassie as he said, “That’s just simple enough to work!”

Kai shook his head as Leo grabbed for the Galaxy Book on a nearby desk. “I wasn’t serious…” Cassie started, but she was too late to stop him. He quickly shuffled through the pages and at last found the Keonta Spell. “Avokah…Etinalem…Avorak…” Leo called. After these three words had been uttered, flames shot out of the book’s pages. Leo slammed the book shut and threw it into the air. Cassie caught it before it hit the ground and shook her head at the frightened Leo. “Rookie,” she muttered. She then rubbed the book’s front cover as she thought, I can’t believe this might actually work. She slowly, delicately turned the pages until she found the Keonta Spell. She breathed slowly, and spoke the word, “Atnoek.”

At that moment, the four Rangers struggling with the engine managed to bring down the lever. “We did it!” Damon cried ecstatically, “Minimum output has been engaged. We can now safely make it to the New World with what fuel we have left!”

“All right!” Maya shouted.

“Yeah!” Mike cried.

The three Rangers hugged and managed to reel in the Phantom Ranger too. “We did it…as a team,” he said.

Nothing equally exciting had happened yet in the living quarters, however. Cassie waited for the book to do something…but nothing happened. She sighed and was about to put the book down when it erupted into a ball of flame in her hands. She screamed as the flames streaked out and melded with the window. However, as she looked down at her hands, she realized that she had no burn marks. “Look!” Kai then cried. The three teens looked out and saw an enormous vortex of flame and lightning, through which they recognized some familiar star systems. They were staring at the portal back to their own galaxy.

The three teens were so awed and overjoyed that they almost didn’t notice when their Transmorphers beeped, “Hey guys, we fixed the engine!” Damon cried. Cassie shook her head and called back, “And we managed to open the portal back to our galaxy!” “If only the Ancient Rangers…” the Phantom Ranger started, but then he stopped. Leo moved his face toward his morpher and called, “Get up here, you guys…let’s get moving!”

Commander Stanton whirled around upon hearing the cries of excitement coming from the freed slaves behind him. He too was confused at how this great abyss of flames could lead them back to their own galaxy. “Is it safe to go through?”

“I think so,” Mike called from the doorway. Commander Stanton was about to speak, but then stayed quiet. “Come on,” he called, “We’re going home!”

The five Galaxy Rangers and the Phantom Ranger gathered in their living quarters and smiled as they saw themselves getting closer and closer to the portal. However, all six of them cried out when the portal seemed to shrink to about half its original size. Granted, the portal was still big enough for the colony to enter through—but were it to shrink again, it would not be.

The Rangers merely stared ahead fearfully, unsure of what to say. They were still afraid when they noticed that the Phantom Ranger had disappeared from sight and reappeared in control of Artillatron, moving toward the Great Wall of Fire. He thought to himself, Without the Pink Ranger’s love and trust, I have nothing left to live for anyways.

Cassie stared as Artillatron held the portal open. She bit her nails, trying to hold back the tears. Mike merely stared as he thought, I was about to go out there…but, without Torozord…

The six Rangers couldn’t bear to watch Artillatron struggling to push and prod the portal open. As the Carrierzord was much smaller than the colony and the portal, the Phantom Ranger had to drive Artillatron about wildly to tug every end out. The colony managed to slip in just as Artillatron slipped out temporarily. The teens were relieved until Artillatron tried to slip back through the portal and was crushed as the portal halved itself in size again. The teens cried out as they looked through the side window of their quarters and saw only flames behind them. They were speechless as they finally appeared out of the portal in their own galaxy.

From the Scorpion Stinger, Trakeena spotted the ship and thought, Excellent…but where is Deviot?

Her question was soon answered as from behind the colony a giant pirate ship emerged, able to travel through the portal easily due to its smaller size. Trakeena laughed and steered the Scorpion Stinger towards the ship as she said, “Let’s get him, Villamax.”

The Rangers were further fearful when they spotted the Scorpion Stinger coming right at them. Unbeknownst to them, however, Trakeena had a different target in mind—and so they were very relieved and surprised she sailed right by them without even giving them so much as a warning shot.

Deviot scurried about the ship after collecting some supplies from his workroom. Where is Mutiny, he thought. He couldn’t have been…

“Killed? Never!” a familiar voice bellowed.

“Mutiny,” Deviot spoke coldly.

Mutiny, completely uncaring of what Deviot was thinking, asked, “Where’s Barbarax?”

“He’s dead,” Deviot answered, “I killed him…just as I will now kill you.”

“Deviot, my boy, what do you…” Captain Mutiny asked before Deviot charged toward him and slashed the Captain across the chest with his welding torch. He then used the torch to overheat Mutiny’s hook so that it could expand. After blasting Mutiny again to disable him, Deviot stretched out the Captain’s hook, as Captain Mutiny screamed in agony. Deviot then wrapped the hook around both of the Captain’s arms, before tying his arms to a door handle. “What are you doing?” the Captain cried out of pain and fright.

“Something I should have done long ago,” Deviot said. After throwing the welding torch to the ground, Deviot unwrapped from his arm a greasy rag he had used, as Captain Mutiny pleaded, “Deviot, ple…” But he was cut off as Deviot wrapped the rag around the Captain’s mouth and gagged him, in case there were any Swabbies remaining aboard the ship. “Trakeena thinks I am here,” Deviot said, “Instead, she’ll have to make due with destroying you.” Captain Mutiny gave a few more muffled cries as Deviot shimmered away from view. Trakeena, unaware as to what was happening inside, fired a close-range blast at the ship, and incinerated it with one shot.

Mike, Leo, Kai, Damon, Maya, and Cassie watched this scene with a mix of confusion and content. However, sorrow soon drowned the teens’ emotions as they sat in their living quarters during the aftermath of their escape. Six of their Ranger friends had been lost today, in addition to their friends the Galactabeasts. Cassie tried to wipe away tears from her face as she put everything together. She looked up in surprise when the door to the quarters opened and a multicolored ball of light entered. The light then faded and brought into view the Phantom Ranger.

Cassie leapt up from her chair and hugged him. “If you had gone…” she began, but the Phantom Ranger silenced her with a touch of his fingers to her lips. “With my powers…come the powers of every Ranger. All their essences are within my Power Ruby. And for that reason…I can never die. And with their spirits linked to me, a living being, they too cannot die.”

“You mean,” Kai started, “You were saved by the spirits of past Rangers?”

“Well,” the Phantom Ranger said, “No Ranger can every really die completely.”

“So, then…were you saved…by the Ancient Rangers?” Leo asked.

The Phantom Ranger slowly nodded his head.

“Phantom…does this mean that you’re not…human?” Cassie asked.

The Phantom Ranger bowed his head and said, “It’s complicated, Cassie…I am, but only partly…and I have these spirits within me…just as the Galactabeasts have spirits within them. Which is why I hope that they are still alive.”

As the Rangers smiled at one another, a beep from Alpha came on their morphers. “Rangers, guess what! You won’t believe it!”

“We know, Alpha,” Damon replied happily, “The Ancients and Phantom are…”

“No!” he said, “The Galactabeasts…not the Ancients’, but yours! They’re back! All six of them!”

The Rangers became ecstatic at this remark. But Maya interrupted with a remark of, “How can it be?”

The Phantom Ranger shrugged and said, “You have more powers within you then you believe. I guess fire is less destructive than we believe it to be. The Ancient Rangers clearly had strong connections to it, as the portal leading back to our Galaxy was made of it. It couldn’t harm them, and it couldn’t harm their zords. Their flames also allowed you to escape the battle with Mutiny unharmed. We may never see them again, but at least we know that they completed their mission, and that they are now safe in their home of the Lost Galaxy.”

Mike nodded and said, “So everything worked out in the end. I assume then, that Artillatron is fine too?”

The Phantom Ranger nodded. All six Rangers, to his dismay, then grouped around him, and gave him the warmest, most loving gesture he had ever received: their embrace.

Aboard the Scorpion Stinger, however, moods were not as pleasant. As Trakeena spotted Deviot via one of the ship’s cameras in the Storage Room, she nodded and turned to Villamax. “Let’s go greet him, shall we?” Trakeena held out her arm, and Villamax escorted her out of the control room. Kegler saw them leaving, and followed, bobbing with excitement.

Deviot, unaware of his being followed, laughed as he approached the Cocoon. Soon, I will have the power I so richly desire, he thought. He stumbled a bit, before stretching his hand out toward the object.

“Hold it!” Trakeena called, “Don’t you want to say hello?”

Deviot cried out and turned to see Trakeena, Villamax, and Kegler staring at him with evil eyes. “Why, uh…hello my friends. How’s everything?” he asked. As the stepped toward him, he collapsed to the ground in fear. He knew that their imminent welcoming was not going to be a kind one.