A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
—William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
Her first two weeks in the cozy little Colorado town of Ivory Glade had been a mixture of warm welcome and cold shoulder but by now she had come to accept some very strange and difficult-to-believe facts about the place. First and foremost the existence of Power Rangers. She had heard stories before of these mysterious super-heroes, and thought they were supposed to be somewhere in California, but it was only in the last weeks and only at this very place where she had not only see five different colored Rangers but also an incredibly sized mechanical vehicle battle a fierce and gruesome monster. Sightings of unidentified flying objects came non-stop to the police station and rumors of the latest news—the Rangers were aliens come to overthrow Earth, they turn themselves into monsters and battle each other, they lived among the people with secret identities, they lived inside Alpha Complex and anyone who went near it was shot by laser beams. Amber Donaldson knew something was going on. And her suspicions fell upon some very specific people she had met this last fortnight.
Alexander Revell was quiet and distant one second, then suddenly friendly and gentlemanly the next. He was often at the martial arts studio Sharpened Senses, run by his Grandfather whom he had introduced to Amber, and exchanged new techniques and focus techniques with her. Their friendly competitions more often than not ended in a draw, but when they did not it was usually Amber who came out the winner. She knew he was letting her win because she witnessed his intensity and strength in battle with other opponents. He was an average student of the junior class at Harrison High School and kept to himself ninety-nine percent of the time. All of that in addition to being tall, dark, handsome, and mysterious. For some reason, the length of his left arm was scratched. And he always wore green...
Brittany Elliott, an intelligent and charismatic young woman, was an emergent leader in any group she was a part of. And because of her neighborly and outgoing nature she fit well into any circle of friends. She was much shorter than Amber, then again Amber herself had always been taller than other girls, with blond hair and blue eyes that sparkled with knowledge. Her mind was sharp and quick and undoubtedly the brightest in her junior class at school. And she always wore yellow in her outfits...
Michael Tracer was the exact opposite of Amber in every way. His personality was dark and challenging, a look of suspicion constantly in his dark brown eyes, and he seemed off balance in just about every situation. He treated people very differently according to who they were. Alex and Brittany, for example, Michael always had time to stop and converse with them, but if Amber tried he would blow her off and walk away. On occasion he would loosen up and join his group of friends at the Summit Lounge restaurant, but he always disappeared at the same time they did. And somehow the color blue always made it into his wardrobe...
Rebecca Spencer, suspect number four. She was the same age as Brittany and Alex but held herself up to be the most mature and sophisticated she could be. Becky was the center of attention with the people she knew, a cheerleading co-captain and junior Homecoming attendant, popular, pretty, active, and pleasant. Every day her light brown hair had a slightly different style or hue to it. Unlike Michael, there was always time for her to stop and talk. She knew a select few martial arts moves and was eager to learn some new ones from Amber. The two were slowly becoming good friends. Except for a slight problem; the shades of pink in her clothes...
Craig Hopwood. Cecil Mercuric. Somehow those two names were intertwined and almost spoke descriptions for themselves. Cecil was liberal and eloquent, somehow making casual seem royal, and used his strange philosophy and gift of language to impress and amaze the masses. Strange habits came second nature to him; the sunglasses whether there was sun or no sun, or the toothpick carelessly placed between his teeth. And his choice of black as his signature color. Craig, however, she had to admit, kept her the most intrigued. He shared several features with her—reddish-brown thin hair, clear blue eyes, height and build, mid-temperament, and so forth—but there were just as many differences. He was skeptical and distrustful of people, as though anyone could be hiding anything, and appeared in deep concentration at the strangest times. Amber thought he could hear something nobody else could and swore, when he thought nobody was looking, would talk back to it. He proved the biggest mystery of the mysterious group and practically gave it away with his red-based apparel...
"I know who you are," Amber told him two weeks to the day they had met, in the same place and just about the same time of day. With a confused look that was very convincing, Craig lifted his eyebrows in question. But the color drained from his face and the eyes narrowed to angry stare when she continued, "You and your friends are the Power Rangers."
The reaction she received was not the reaction she expected. Reaching for her arm, he grabbed it and held it tightly, growling, "I knew you could not be trusted." She struggled to break away from his hold but it seemed inhumanly secure as though it were being magnified by some unseen strength. Just then a band materialized around part of his forearm and shined with soft crimson light. "OmniTech Teleport!" he said simply. The world was flooded with light.
When Amber could see again, she stood inside a large chamber equipped with technology that obviously was either too advanced for her to understand or from a different world. A wide variety of monitors displayed a significant number of images from Ivory Glade among other places, each labeled with name and coordinates as they flash briefly on screen.
Four people, each dressed in black and a Ranger color except red, conducted business at a station somewhere around the controls. Slowly their attention shifted to the two arrivals and Amber could notice the exact instant each of them realized she was there. "Soleron warned me this would happen," Craig spoke to them in disgusted tones. "We were at each others' throats for the longest time over our first compromise. Now we have a second on our hands." He stopped then and asked, "Where is Soleron?"
"Resting, as he should be," a woman with sparkling silver hair answered him. She radiated familiarity, almost as powerful as a bond of some sort, but the feeling disappeared with a shiver up Amber's spine.
A man who could not have been more than thirty years old asked simply, "How?"
"Apparently on her own," Craig answered, turning to her and finally addressing her with the important question, in the form of a demand, "Tell us how you found out."
Amber glanced at Craig first, then at the other four focused intently on her, before deciding it best just to answer the questions. "By studying you. When we met I could feel you were intentionally hiding something from me, so I guess just being stubborn or curious or...I don't know!"
The look she recognized in his brilliant blue eyes was anger. Burning blue flames of rage at not only her, but at himself, and probably the entire situation in general. The stare remain unbroken until the green-and-black uniformed aging man announced, "We have more important matters than this." Craig turned a questioning look his way and was answered, "Univerouge."
"Alpha System," he demanded, visibly shifting to a more intense mood, "display all current Univerouge activity."
A voice from a place that could only be described as everywhere responded, "PROCESSING NOW, PROFESSOR. MONITORS EIGHTEEN THROUGH TWENTY-TWO WILL PROFILE." On five monitors images suddenly sprang to life and Craig was there in a heartbeat studying the information that Amber would never be able to decipher. She did draw a sharp breath when she spotted a visual of a disfigured, bandaged, scaled, rotting creature with eyes that looked like an empty dead stare.
"He found Ego," Craig said unbelievably under his breath. The way in which he announced it created goosebumps on Amber's arms. "Contact the other Rangers and transmit the coordinates to their Omni Morphers," he commanded Pyrial, then to Laurasia, "Take care of this compromise." Lifting the band around his arm, Craig cried, "OmniTech Teleport!" and disappeared in a beam of red light.
Laurasia, the dark toned woman in pink, approached Amber with a sparkle in her eye that was powerful enough to be intrigue or contempt. "I am sorry, Amber Donaldson," she spoke slowly and sadly. "I only follow the directions of my superiors." A sudden fierce pain seized hold of her heart, then exploded outward to encompass the remainder of her body.
Just before she lost consciousness, just after drawing her last breath, Amber heard a cold unidentifiable voice say, "Much more suitable than our other candidate. Lineage shined its luck upon us this time." Darkness instantly took a finite hold on her.
The doors opened for him as Soleron touched the black panel and he was greeted to a scene he had never predicted. In the center of Control Point, Laurasia held the handle of a warp-blade thrust into a young woman's shoulder. Meanwhile Talyserys breathed heavily and angrily as he stared at the monitors lining the farthest wall and Pyrial stood at the communications console saying, "...join him immediately. The specific coordinates are already programmed into your Omni Morphers, you need only to use them." Seraide watched the young woman, her melancholy shining as clearly as her silver-sparkled hair.
"Quite the chaos has erupted here," growled Soleron. "Somebody best explain now."
Pyrial turned away from his post and addressed the order. "Univerouge discovered where Ego is sleeping. Craig just teleported there and the others are on the way. Miss Donaldson here apparently discovered, on her own, the Rangers' identities, so Craig brought her here without wasting a second."
Soleron, lost for a suitable response, partly due to his shock and partly due to his ever-diminishing leadership capacity—he expected it to happen the moment he first used the OmniTech, but definitely not this soon—simply shook his head and said, "Damn."
"On the bright side, we have a martial arts expert now," Laurasia tried, however it was unnecessary, soothing his nerves.
"That is true," Soleron responded, scratching the back of his ear. "Much more suitable than the other candidate, too. Perhaps, just perhaps, lineage shined its luck upon us this time." Turning to Seraide, he saw her wiping tears from her silver eyes, but instead of feeling sorrow for the woman he loved, Soleron felt satisfied. Professor Donaldson had taken and used something priceless to Soleron and now it was time to return the favor.
With Brittany and Michael on his left side, Alex and Becky on his right, Craig stood and stared in awe at the part-frightening, part-nervous, part-unstable scene laid out before them somewhere in, from what little information he could discern from the Omnian system of coordinates, Austria or that general area of Europe. Many stairs, perhaps twenty, led upward to the great doorway—obviously one that had been sealed and avoided for centuries—to a cathedral that reached to the sky only to have its steeple broken less than halfway to the heavens. There was no stained glass; instead it was solid black glass designed to allow no light to penetrate the insides and, judging from what little they could see beyond the entrance, it succeeded. A cold wind stirred from the mountains to the south but that chilled effect was unnecessary to instill fear in the group. Even Craig admitted he was not exactly excited about seeing what was inside besides Univerouge.
Alex took the first step up and toward the recently-broken down door, once reinforced beyond imagination but now demolished by an alien power. "Waiting outside isn't going to stop him from whatever he's planning," said the strong young man as he turned to stare at Craig with ambiguous green eyes.
"Alexander is right," agreed Michael, dormant Lifeblade handle pressed tightly into one hand and the other balled into a fist below his Omni Morpher and ready to invoke his powers at a moment's notice.
Without speaking, fearing his voice would falter from its usual commanding tone, Craig began walking up the stairs and scanning the surroundings warily, hoping something would arise before they reached the passage into the once-holy now-evil place. Only a far-off bird call answered his unvoiced plea. Rebecca and Brittany were close by, but only because they had pledged the next twenty years of their lives to protect him, watching as carefully as he was.
The party of teenagers reached the destroyed door and instantly Brittany summoned, "Shine Saber!" Darkness before them suddenly became substance, but only a rotting wood-paneled floor and an unused fountain to either side. This room was large enough for a crowd, splitting off into the main chapel and two side rooms, and amazingly from the ceiling an unlit ancient candelabrum hung. Brittany lifted her sword and touched it, causing flames to spring to life on the candles and provide visibility to much more space that the weapon alone could illuminate.
"Two can play that game," Michael grumbled, extending his hand toward the nearest fountain with the whispered exclamation, "Storm Lance!" He touched the weapon against the marble sculpture of a serpent and instantly water began springing down the creature's stone tongue and into the base below.
"When you are done playing This Old House," said Alexander quietly, but his voice echoed in the vastness of the cathedral, "we have business to attend to."
Ignoring the playful arguing among his friends, Craig changed to a faster pace as he passed through the opening into the actual temple itself. Incredibly large paintings on eaten and ruined cloth hung from the flying buttresses above displaying scenes from the Bible and history of Jewish and Christian faith. He gazed in frozen awe as he realized these powerful religious items had not been disturbed since the sealing of this place hundreds of years ago. There were rows of benches arranged in a circular pattern around something the light failed to reveal. He pointed to it and Brittany, with her light source, explored with him.
The center of attention was a pit. Descending ever downward far enough so the little light source failed to even begin illuminating the bottom, it was almost three armspans wide and the length of two bodies long. A feeling, somewhere deep in his gut, told Craig something was down there, and that something was the reason this place was forsaken.
Brittany seemed to sense it too. "Univerouge is down there, isn't he?" she asked. Regretfully, Craig nodded and intentionally ignored the scared look in her eyes.
"Then we go down," Michael stated.
"Down," agreed Alex.
Craig held out his arm, clenched fist upright at its end, and as the Omni Morpher began glowing he lifted it to the sky and cried, "It's morphin' time!"
"Omni Dragon!"
"Omni Pegasus!"
"Omni Hydra!"
"Omni Sphinx!"
"Omni Titan!"
The teleportation beams carried them up then down into the unknown abyss until, after a small eternity, they reached the bottom and re-materialized. A lamp burned brightly at each corner of a chamber about the same size of the chapel above, only this place was painted stainless white and the air was strangely colder. Against one wall was an altar of some type, not exactly sinister but far from pleasant, on which the lifeless body of a human-like figure laid out in a sleeping position.
"This is Ego," a viciously familiar voice crackled. They turned as one to see Univerouge float down calmly and collectively far behind them, then as he touched down begin walking toward and through them, talking as he did so. "No creature who knows the truth behind its existence remains alive, but the legends have spread far and wide for eons. Ego sleeps underneath the surface of a planet, taking the shape of the lifeforms there, until it is awakened. It then grows in strength little by little and, when it accumulates enough energy, destroys the home of the beings that awoke it." The gruesome alien laughed as he reached the edge of the altar and stepped up on to it. "Sir Vesper is here on Earth, I know it. When Ego destroys this planet, it will destroy that loathsome simpleton of a warrior as well. Then stories will be told across the spans of the universe of the power of Univerouge, ruler of the Firmament."
Craig moved forward, the Pink and Yellow Rangers keeping a step behind, Blue and Green Rangers—good to note they were thinking of strategies—moved off to the sides as they went forward. They had to take down the glory-driven demon without waking the destruction-driven one. There had to be some way of distracting him and Craig said a silent prayer hoping he knew an effective way of doing that. "Sir Vesper would not choose such an elementary method of eliminating you," he taunted. It succeeded...in spades.
"Vesper is a disgrace to all with the mercenary bloodline!" Univerouge screamed, swinging around and baring dangerous, sharp claws that could easily penetrate their armor shining in the lamplights. The alien's tone dropped off as he added, "I still wear the burns of your weapon, even though I could have healed them the moment after you fired. The pain reminds me the price I paid for greatness. I have paid enough; it is time to collect my reward."
Alex made the first move, calling, "Gaia Star!" and flinging the four-pointed boomerang type weapon at Univerouge, but the creature grabbed it out of the air and kissed it, flinging it back toward the Green Ranger.
Meanwhile, Brittany called "Dazzle Wave!" with Rebecca's "Magnet Wave!" at the same time. Univerouge was flung to the side and bombarded by a blinding force of concentrated golden-white light simultaneously. He fell to one knee on the ground and turned his dirty hands toward them, palms outward, discharging a comet-like fireball.
From another angle Michael, with his "Hail Cannon!" fired a steady stream of arctic air at the villain. After taking more than enough to be excruciating to anything, even an alien warrior, he stood up and twisted his hand. The energy suddenly became real, solid, and turned around in the form of several shards of painfully-sharp ice.
All in the space of seconds. Acting on impulse Craig used the "Force Barrier!" power and erected a translucent red-shaded barrier between the Rangers and Univerouge. The Gaia Star hit and fell harmless to the ground; the comet struck and dispersed with a final fiery flicker; icicles shattered one by one against the barrier.
"You see," Univerouge laughed, waving his hand as he motioned to his surroundings, "my might can withstand even the miracle of OmniTech." He turned to the altar once more and closed the gap between himself and the sleeping form of Ego.
"We can strike a bargain!" Craig called, disabling the barrier and charging forward.
Univerouge snorted loudly and dismissed the offer with, "Tried it."
The Red Ranger stopped mere paces behind the team's opponent and said, with a wavery blend of authority and fear, "Stop. Don't do this."
"How funny you should say that," came the deep reply. "I used words similar to those when Vesper's forces held the Firmament under siege, a siege that had lasted my entire life. And do you know how he responded to that?" Univerouge turned around to focus his lifeless blank eyes on Craig.
"How did he respond?" whispered the breathless leader of the Omni Rangers.
Univerouge narrowed those dead eyes and inhaled sharply. "Leave destiny to those in charge," he hissed, sat down on the stone slab of the altar, and moved himself back, forcing Ego behind him to fall off.
Black lines began forming at the edge of Craig's vision and he felt everything in his body trying to break out of bone, muscle, and flesh. He knew he had to fight to remain calm or he would pass out. But it probably wouldn't matter now, he thought gravely, as Ego stood up, wide awake, behind the smirking face of Univerouge.
Original Publication Date: 13 August 1999
