Highway to Hell
Part II: Welcome to Hell
by MegaSilver

The Power Chamber’s alarms blared loudly, and Alpha-5 quickly ran over to the controls to silence them. “Zordon, I’m reading a heavy distortion in the space-time continuum at a focal point along the southwestern United States!”

“Try to remain calm, Alpha,” instructed Zordon. “See if you can get a lock on whatever’s causing it and hamper the tear.”

Alpha quickly zoomed in on the state of New Mexico, finally locating the vortex on an exit off of Interstate 10. “Ai-yi-yi!” he shrieked. “There are two buses from the DeChristos School District being forced through the vortex!”

“They’re the buses Angel Grove High School is using for the senior trip,” observed Zordon. “Work quickly, Alpha. The Power Rangers are on them.”

“I’m trying, but there’s a surge powering the vortex from the other side of its path! I can’t decode the signal fast enough to pull through it in time! They’re going to get sucked in!” True to Alpha’s word, the buses were engulfed and the vortex disappeared before he could stop it. “Ai-yi-yi-yi-yi! Zordon! What are we going to do now?”

Students clung to their seats for dear life, screaming until the jolting finally subsided and the bus came to rest next to its counterpart atop a large plateau overlooking a dark world.

“Where are we?” Tanya breathed.

“I’m not sure,” said Adam. “I don’t even know what happened.

Kimberly was beating at her communicator. “Alpha, Zordon, come in!” she cried as quietly as she could. But she received nothing in reply except for a blocked signal beep. “Oh, gosh, Tommy, what’s going on?”

“I wish I knew.” Just as he spoke, a tall, eerie, shapely woman materialized in front of the buses, surrounded by an army of soldiers. “Divatox.”

Divatox smiled, then pointed her staff at the buses and gave her Piranhatrons some orders which none of the students could hear. The Piranhatrons split into two groups, each forcing one of the buses’ doors open. With this action, the voice of the villainess became loud and clear. “Everybody, OUT!”

“Do we dare?” the driver wondered aloud.

Tommy nodded and turned to face everyone. “Let’s do what she says. I have a feeling we don’t want any trouble with her.” Nodding in agreement, the students slowly lined up and exited the bus, and the students from the other bus soon followed.

“Line up side-by-side! NOW! Hands behind heads!” Divatox demanded. Following Tommy’s advice, the students did as she told, the five Rangers among them making sure to place themselves together. Noticing this, Divatox slinked over to Tommy and took his chin. “So sweet, seeing all of you here, always together,” she said quietly. “A word of advice.” She leaned down and whispered into his ear, “Don’t mess with me. Not this time.”

Tommy was on one end of the row of Rangers. Raymond, who was on his other side, nudged him gently. “What was that all about?” he whispered. Tommy just shook his head in response.

“SILENCE!” Divatox waved her spear at Raymond’s neck. “I suppose you’re all curious as to why I’ve brought you here. Quite simply, I want to congratulate each of you on a successful high school career. But I felt that a traditional senior trip and simple commencement ceremony would fail to do you justice. Therefore…” Divatox turned her hand toward the edge of the plateau, and the world suddenly lit up, a fiery, dark light. Before the students was a Manneristic land full of disturbing oddities and exotic creatures. “Welcome to my hell. I created this dimension just for you. I’m sure you’ll all enjoy your eternal sojourn here!” She threw her head back and laughed out loud.

Raymond prodded Tommy again. “Are you sure this was a good idea?”

“Take them away!” Divatox commanded her troops. She walked over to the Power Rangers. “Not you five. I’ll deal with you personally. Follow me, ON THE DOUBLE!”

Tommy, Jason, Adam, Tanya, and Kimberly followed her for a short distance, with armed Piranhatrons watching their backs. As soon as the rest of the class was out of sight, Tommy whirled around and kicked the spear out of a Piranhatron’s hand. The other Rangers followed his lead and soon gathered into an organized pose. “Shift into Turbo!” called Tommy. But when they spun their wrists, the Morphers failed to appear. “Huh?”

“Nice try,” commended Divatox. “SEIZE THEM!” At once, the Rangers were bound with chains. “You’re cut off from your precious Eltarian powers here. There’ll be no Morphing on my watch!”

“Alpha, try and pick up foreign particles left behind in the vicinity of the vortex. Perhaps we can trace the dimension the same way we did when Tommy was abducted several months ago.”

“The particle reader Katherine and Jason had used was integrated into the new computer,” noted Alpha as he ran the dimensional tracing program. “But it appears that Divatox—or whatever else caused this—made careful sure to leave nothing behind! The vortex sucked in everything that could have been tracked!”

“In that case, we’ll have to write a new program to trace the path of space-time distortions by analyzing their aftermath effects on surrounding matter and feeding the data through quasitronic particles.”

“But that could take days on my own!”

“Then contact Billy on Aquitar and have him teleport here immediately. We have no time to lose.”

Several hours later, in the dark confinement of a prison cell, the five powerless Rangers sat chained-in, waiting to see what kind of horrors awaited them. Jason banged on his communicator, trying in vain to get through. “Alpha, do you read me? Come in!” But it was hopeless.

“It’s no use,” Tanya murmured. “The signal doesn’t extend here.”

“We’ve got to make it,” insisted Tommy, steadfast as usual. Actually, he was pretty sure they were sitting ducks for the time being, but as the team leader, he didn’t have the luxury of giving up. “There’s still hope. Katherine and Rocky are out there.”

“Yeah, but Rocky’s injured, and even if Katherine manages to get free, do you really think she’d ever be able to find us here?” asked Adam.

Kimberly shook the chains on her wrists. “Even if she doesn’t, Zordon and Alpha’ll break through to us, guys. Just play along and try not to get killed.”

At that moment, the cell door opened, and Divatox, surrounded by five Piranhatrons. “So, you kids ready for some nice hard work to get those heart rates up? I believe you’ve been sitting down too long.” She snapped her fingers, and the Piranhatrons marched over to release the Rangers from the chains that bound them to the cell and put them in handcuffs.

“What do you want, Divatox?” Tommy asked coldly.

Divatox looked astounded by the question. “Umm… what do you THINK I want, stupidass??” she snapped. “I want you to know all the misery and torment you’ve caused the forces of evil—pain only an eternity in hell could appropriately deliver.” She nodded to her Piranhatrons. “To the smelting chambers, on the double!