Welcome to Gaia! ::

After a couple days of searching, they figure out the mystery of the blue sphere and where to place it. A picture of a large waterfall divided into three parts that had six hydroelectric plants appeared and Willis automatically knew where they needed to go; Niagara falls.
Just outside the Navy Island national historic site, Willis and Phoebe wait by the shore for Alex to emerge from the water. When he finally did, they stood up to greet him.
“Did you get it? Do you have the jewel?”
Alex, who had transformed into a dolphin, surfaces with a blue stone in his mouth, which he spits at their feet before changing back into his normal self and swimming to shore. “Had to get deep enough before it actually worked; the thing literally glowed a bright blue as I held it in my mouth.”
“156; a high reading,” Phoebe says as she scans it.
“So this is the star of Pisces.”
“We’d better get it back before anything else happens.”
Phoebe, Willis, and Alex make their way to the jet and fly back home. After arriving at Samuel’s private hangar and mounting their motorcycles, they receive an urgent call.
“We’ve got a monster attacking the city; you’ll have to cut your mission short.”
“Dad, we already have it.”
“Really? That’s great news.”
“We’re on our way back.”
“Do you think it’s a good idea to take the jewel into battle with us? It could get taken from us.”
“Give it to me; I’ll take it back to the mansion and join you later.”
“Are you sure, Alex?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
Once on the freeway, Alex separates from the others. About a quarter of the way, he was attacked; his communicator had flown away from where he fell. He looks up to see who it was, “Why am I not surprised…?” sarcasm lay heavy in his voice as he looks at Cameron and Christi.
“You look lost, ranger; isn’t the battle the other way?”
“Wait how did you… oh so I take it that’s your monster?” Alex assumed.
“You catch on quick.”
“Well there’s no way I’m letting you take this jewel.”
“Haven’t you realized by now we always get what we want?”
Alex and Cameron and Christi draw their swords and begin the fight.
Alex charges first with his sword in its secondary mode and swings forward; Christi front flips over it and behind him with an elbow strike to the back of the left shoulder, pushing him towards Cameron, who rushes up with a low strike from Alex’s right; Alex blocks as she passes him by and then changes his sword to its primary mode as he attacks; Cameron back flips over the sword and hits him with an explosive ninja star, which knocks him on his back.
Christi picks him up by the collar and punches him in the stomach; Alex kneels, but leaps over Christi’s leg as she performs a low kick. He then forward rolls towards Cameron, draws his gun and fires a couple of laser blasts into her chest.
As Alex stands up, Christi approaches and disarms him as he turns to aim at her. After pushing her away, Alex tries to pick up his weapon; sparks fly from it as Cameron hits Alex’s laser weapon with a ninja star and pushes it further away.
Meanwhile in the city, the other face a white-haired monster with black armor on all except his arms, which had a weird tattoo drawn with white ink across his black skin; a dark mask with three “V” shapes and a dot in light blue and black and white striped above his ears; the beast drew its sword and strikes Phoebe as she rushes at him first; as she fell, Max draws his gun and fires at the beast, who deflects every shot with his sword.
Meerlix leaps in from the side and lays into the monster with a series of fury swipes; the monster strikes back and Meerlix ducks and uppercuts him in the chin.
The monster gets up and rushes him with a low kick; Meerlix dives over the beast’s leg, crouches behind him and throws back an elbow to the lumbar before standing up and blocking the monster’s next move.
“Wulf, get ready!” Meerlix calls out as he cups his hands ready to give him a boost; as Wulf rushes towards him, he his lifted into the air high above the monster. At the same time when Wulf’s in the air, Caitlin passes by the monster and attacks with her fan blades just before Wulf rapidly descends upon him and delivers the final strike.
A while after Christi and Cameron swipe the jewel from Alex in a surprise attack, they find themselves in an ambush situation as well.
Ling Khan approaches them with a legion of Konglatons; the two fought for as long as they could, but in the end, Ling ends up making off with the jewel.

Meanwhile, the team, minus Alex, returns home.
“Miss Caitlin…” Bradshaw got her attention. “There was a call for you. I took the liberty of jotting down the message.”
Caitlin takes the piece of paper from him and is surprised by what she read.
“What’s wrong?”
“My cousin, Jennifer, is coming to visit; how does she even know I’m here?”
“Probably saw you on TV; we are famous you know…”
“Anyway, what’s so bad about her?”
Just before she could answer Max’s question, Alex stumbles into the room.
“Alex! Oh my god, are you okay?”
“Yeah, it’s nothing major, but… I lost the jewel.”
“You what?” Samuel said with shock.
“On the way back, Cameron and Christi jumped me; I’m sorry.”
Samuel paused for a bit “The important thing here is you’re alright. These sorta things happen. Just don’t go solo again, have someone escort you; you’re not the only one on this team, you gotta learn to lean on your friends when you need them.”
“Yeah, that’s what we’re here for,” Starla replied.
“Now… what’s this about a cousin…?”
Meanwhile in Seductra’s spacecraft orbiting the earth.
“What do you mean you lost it?!” Seductra was literally throwing things all over in a fit of rage.
“Ling Khan ambushed us at the last second.”
“We couldn’t even summon the Putras you gave us, Auntie.”
“I don’t blame you,” she said in a calm tone, “I blame myself… for even thinking you two couldn’t screw this up!” her voice started up again like a dying fire after it was with another spark.
“But… didn’t we do right by you when retrieving that weird box thing from the government car?”
“Unless we figure out how to harness its power, it is of no use to us…,” Seductra answered with emphasis on ‘no use’ and ‘us’.
“Mistress, we’ve got incoming space junk, preparing evasive maneuvers.”
the ship rocked and rattled as the debris drew closer and closer while they tried to move downward out of its way.
“You should’ve gotten that stasis beam, but nooooo… you just had to have new drive core.”
“Shut it, both of you!”
“Sorry, auntie…”
“Now… we need a plan of action; it’s time we stop sitting idly by and watching the competition tear into this wretched world, but how do we go about it? Fear? No… it’s been done. Wait I got it. This must be your day to shine, because you’ve just given me an idea. A monster that controls gravity, motionlessness, etc. etc.,”
“We could check and see if you have any in your army that fits that description.”
“See that you do…”
Back at the mansion around the same time; Caitlin paces back and forth in the living room, stressed out about the arrival of her cousin.
“C’mon, she can’t be that bad…”
“‘That bad?’ You weren’t there when we were kids. She would always get away with everything. One time, at my birthday party, my dad was bringing the birthday cake in from the car. He gave it to me to take inside because there was more to carry; my cousin was waiting by the door and she tripped me. When I tried to explain what happened, Jen denied the whole thing and I got the blame.”
“That was like years ago, she’s probably changed by now.”
“There’s a Jennifer Riley to see you, Caitlin,” Bradshaw announced.
“And so it begins…”
Jen was 5ft 4in, had black hair, brown eyes, tan colored skin, and the body of a supermodel compared to her cousin Caitlin. She walked in the room sporting a white dress and assorted jewelry around her right arm and her neck and immediately caught the attention of Max, Willis, and Alex as she walked straight past on her way over to Caitlin. “Long time no see, cousin…”
“Likewise… Jen…?” Caitlin replied hesitantly. “You’ve changed since I last saw you.”
“So have you; time sure does fly, doesn’t it? So… are you gonna introduce me to your friends or what?”
“Oh right, sorry. Everyone, this is Jen; Jen, I’d like you to meet Alex McLaren, Starla, Phoebe Dallas…”
“Retired Rodeo champ of the southwest,” Jen interrupted.
“Right… Then there’s Meerlix, Max Grant, his brother, Willis, and Wulf ninja warrior.”
“Max and Willis Grant, sons of the famous Samuel Grant; nice to meet you, sir,” Jen immediately turned to shake his hand.
Back onboard Seductra’s ship, her nieces bring out a monster named Magneterror. He was 5’7, his body was mostly metallic and dark blue. His head was two giant “U” shaped magnets facing left and right with a pair of half-moon eyes colored red and slanted to make the shape of Pac-Man. In his left hand was a staff with a rectangular magnet on each end; the top one was red and the bottom was blue indicating they were north and south polarity. On his chest were the same two magnets, but with two north polarities facing each other and six wavy lines showing that they were repelling one another, “Yes, what I can do for you, my queen?” he asked.
“I want you to go down to earth and raise trouble, literally…”
“Yes ma’am…”
Meanwhile, a moment before Magneterror begins the attack.
Caitlin is doing the dishes. She was humming a tune from her favorite TV series. As she finished up, her cousin, Jennifer, walked in. Caitlin slowly looked back at her with uncertainty as she was unsure as to her being in the room, watching her. After a short staring contest, she quickly answered with an unsure, “what?”
“Walk with me, dear cousin.”
Sometime later outside of Starbuck’s
“I’m just… I don’t think this is what your parents would’ve wanted for you; going out and fighting monsters like some superhero. You should be off at college trying to make a better life for yourself.”
“College… isn’t really my thing.”
“You could be anything you wanna be; a singer, a dancer; based on those moves I’ve seen back there, you’d make an excellent ballet dancer.”
“You didn’t come all this way just to lecture me about my life, have you?”
“I’m just saying, you need to start thinking about what’s next after this whole ‘save-the-world’ gig is over and done.”
“You know what, save it! You’re not my mother and you never will be...”
“I know that I’m not. I’m trying to look out for you; do what’s best for you.”
Back at the mansion the alarm sounded, stating that there’s trouble; Seductra’s monster, Magneterror is on the rampage in the city.
Most of the people, who got away were lucky; the others, not so much. Magneterror uses his power to render them motionless.
“Hang around, the fun is about to begin; not that you have a choice in the matter…”
“Magneterror,” Max called out.
“Ah, Gaia Rangers; nice of you to show…”
“Party’s over, Magneterror, put them down.”
“If you insist….” Magneterror tosses the civilians separate directions.
Willis races off and catches them all one at a time while the others focus their attention on the monster.
Meanwhile, Caitlin just then gets the call from Samuel and races off to join the others.
“Cait, we’re not done here!”
“Well, I am; my friend’s need me.”
Alex leaps into action with his Scorpion saber and Magneterror blocks with his staff, twists it clockwise and disarms Alex before delivering a backhand to the jaw.
Phoebe throws her mantis boomerang and misses as Magneterror leans to his left; Phoebe just stands there, waiting as the boomerang made another pass, but instead of it hitting him in the back of the head, Magneterror holds up his hand and catches it. “Haha. Nice try!” he sneered as he threw it back and knocks Phoebe on her back.
Willis speeds in behind Magneterror, who holds up his staff and renders him montionless.
While hovering in the air, Willis tries to reach for his blaster, but Magneterror slams him to the ground in front of his friends before he could pull it from its holster.
Wulf and Meerlix rush in side-by-side; Wulf slashes at Magneterror from the right with his sword and Meerlix scratches him with an assortment of fury swipes from the left. Magneterror spirals counter-clockwise and strikes Meerlix who spirals out of the way and behind Wulf, who turns, holds out his hands and gives Meerlix a boost into the air, but before he could get around behind him, Magneterror points his staff upward and stops Meerlix high above his head.
Wulf struck Magneterror down and breaks his hold on Meerlix.
Magneterror hoists Wulf into the air by his shirt and pushes Meerlix back with a palm thrust.
Alex comes charging after morphing into a rhino and tackles Magneterror and makes him release Wulf from his grasp.
Magneterror looks around at the rangers as they surround him on all sides; he then raises his staff and strikes the ground with the butt of it, causing a shockwave, which knocked them all off their feet.
Just then, Magneterror receives a concussion blast from his right, which knocks him on his side.
“Sorry I’m late,” Caitlin answered.
“About time…”
“We were worried you wouldn’t show.”
“Hmph… you think you’re so tough? Let’s see how overconfident you are after I even the odds in my favor?” Magneterror summons to his side an army of Putras.
Unbeknownst to Caitlin, her cousin was lurking in the distance, watching the whole fight take place.
Caitlin dawns her Peacock fan blades as she gets in the middle of the army of Putras, poised and ready for battle as she awaits their first move.
One of them attacks from behind; Caitlin ducks under their sword and delivers a swift attack to the abdomen. Another one attacks her head-on and Caitlin holds up her left hand; her enemy’s blade goes straight through her weapon and she closes her blade around her enemy’s and disarms him. Another enemy rushes her and Caitlin performs a butterfly kick.
The whole time Caitlin fought, her cousin became more and more impressed with her skills; too bad the same couldn’t be said about her enemy.
“You haven’t seen the last of me…” Magneterror takes off like a bolt of lightning.
As the others swarmed Caitlin to congratulate her, Jen comes out of hiding to join in.
“Okay, I’ll admit, those moves were impressive.”
“Jen… How long were you standing there?”
“Long enough to see I’ve misjudged you, Caitlin; it seems as though you’ve found your calling in life.”
“I’m glad you see things my way; and I’m… sorry for what I said earlier.”
“It’s okay…”
Back onboard Seductra’s fortress in space
“Just so we’re on the same page, you have the rangers on the ropes…”
“Uh-huh…”
“And as soon as one more arrives, you flee like a coward?”
“That weapon of hers was powerful; even took out your men… my queen.”
“Yet, at the hands of its awesome power, you still stand before me.”
“I’d choose carefully my words if I were you,” Christi replied.
“Get back down there and get me one of the rangers before I shoot you out of an airlock!”
“Right away, your excellency.”
Back down on earth…
“After my parents died, I went in and out of foster homes. When I hit 17, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with myself. I got mixed up with the wrong kind of people and… Well… he didn’t have to, but he did. Samuel saved me from a life of living on the streets; he took me in, gave me a home.”
“And he… recruited you for…”
“I wanted to do something good for a change and being a part of Operation W.A.S.P. is that ‘something’.”
“It’s still gonna take time for me to get used to the idea of you being responsible for protecting the earth.”
“I know; we’re not little kids anymore, Jen. We’ve grown up.”
The two start reminiscing about the past and having a good laugh unknowing of Magneterror lurking in the distance.
Meanwhile back at home
“So far, Magneterror has just been stirring up trouble; trying to draw us out, but for what, I have no idea.”
“He’s been wreaking havoc with that staff of his. I can’t even get near him to destroy that thing,” Alex explained.
“Only thing that thing does is mess with your center of gravity; renders you motionless; what could Seductra gain from that?”
“If there’s one thing I know about my nemesis, is that everything she does comes with a purpose,” Wulf explained. “We just have to figure out what.”
“You may get your chance to find out after all; he’s back again,” MEGAN informed.
The others suit up and head back out. As they face Magneterror and an army of Putras for a second time, they realize something about him early on in the fight; he possessed several buttons on his waist, two of which resembled Caitlin and her cousin, Jennifer.
“Let’s see if I can add a couple more to my collection…”
“I don’t think so,” Wulf retorted.
Magneterror sends the Putras out first while he stands back and watches the fight.
Wulf led the others with his swords still holstered; the first Putra swipes at Wulf with its sword, but Wulf ducks under; his right arm behind him as he shot his left one forward and hits with a strong punch to the stomach. Wulf then spirals around, reaches for several ninja stars and throws them, taking out three more.
Max rushes up; with his weapon attached to his right arm, he leaps into the air with a flying punch, which he lands to the right jaw of his opponent. After landing, the pill bug armor moves down to his left shin as he performs a spiraling heel kick to the chest of another Putra.
Alex performs a forward roll past Willis and Max, gets to his feet and takes out a couple more enemies with his Scorpion Saber; Magneterror towers over him, ready to strike, but Alex rolls out of the way and attacks with his blaster.
While he was stunned, Willis rushes in and attacks with his Elephant axe, but as soon after that, Magneterror hits him and Alex with a stasis beam and turns them into one of the buttons on his body.
Starla surprises him with a blast of white light to the chest and knocks him down.
“We need to find a way to stop him before we end up a permanent part of his collection.”
“Agreed,” Starla replies to Phoebe’s statement.
While back at the command center, Samuel and MEGAN are monitoring the fight on screen.
“Can you see any weak points?” Samuel asked.
“None at the moment, but his staff seems to be the obvious source of power; taking that out might release the others.”
Samuel contacts the others via communicator, “Guys, you’ll need to destroy his staff if you’re ever to have any chance at defeating him.”
“Easier said than done…,” Max replies as he opens fires on a couple more Putras.
“I’ll draw his attention while you think up a plan,” Wulf explains.
“Wulf, wait…”
Once again, Wulf charges blindly into battle. With each strike Magneterror threw, Wulf would counter; Magneterror would throw a left, Wulf would block, fake a left and throw a right, then fake a right and throw a left. Magneterror couldn’t predict Wulf’s moves, but he still fought.
Phoebe then intervenes with a toss of her Mantis Boomerang and knocks the staff from Magneterror’s hands. Max rushed in and caught it before taking it in both hands; with his pill bug armor attached to his right knee, he brings the staff down while driving his leg up and snapping it in two. A tiny shockwave emits from the top of it, which changes the buttons on Magneterror back into people.
Without hesitation, Max brings in the WASP stinger mark 2 and puts an end to Magneterror for good.
“You guys alright?”
“Yeh…”
“I just have one question… what took you so long?” Caitlin asked.
“That’s a funny way to say thank you,” Starla replied.
“Thanks.” Jen said.
“Now that’s more like it…”
Moments later after the others head back home, Caitlin and Jen head back out to grab some lunch and catch up on old times.
“You have really interesting friends; including that Alex fella; he’s cute.”
“He’s mine; don’t even think about it.”
“I won’t. I know you have feelings for him; I’ve seen the way you look at him.”

“It was one of those dark, cloudy nights; I could feel it in my bones. It was going to rain at some point. But that’s not the point I’m trying to make,” Wulf explained. “I was asleep in my hotel room when I felt it again. Something was calling to me like a ghost of a lover, who was lost at sea. There was no face to go along with; just a gold light shimmering like a star in the sky. I awoke from my slumber and left the building; no need to get dressed, because I slept in my clothes like I always do. While out on the prowl, I come across the faint sound of someone in distress. It was a man this time; early 50’s, Caucasian, luxurious, lengthy, wavy black hair and a green tie-dye shirt with blue jeans and a brown jacket; an ex-hippie or something like that. He was coming home from a drugstore when two guys ambush him. Being the kinda guy I am, I decided to help out like usual.”
“That is so you, Wulf,” Samuel added, “But would you mind explaining why you’re here?”
“In a minute, okay…?”
Samuel growls softly in irritation. Wulf continues telling the story.
“Well, anyway, I saved the guy as I did with the many other innocent victims; I should be getting a medal…”
“You’re a vigilante, since when do they get medals?”
“As I was saying… after I saved him, I kept getting this flash of yellow light in my mind. I followed the pathway until I reached a warehouse and guess who I saw on the second floor; Pachytar. And he was accompanied by Cobra drones. I crouch behind a stack of boxes to spy on them and I notice Pachytar has another map. Obviously, he’s having a hard time figuring it out, otherwise he wouldn’t be there.”
Wulf knew he had to get that map, but he couldn’t just burst in, sword drawn, he needed to figure out a way to get Pachytar and the Cobra drones out of the room. He snuck around them using the boxes as cover. He uses his power he refers to as “blindsight” to keep an eye on his enemies’ movement as he turned corners and ducked into crevices; allowing them to pass him by. As they do, he takes out his sword and decapitates them one by one until only Pachytar remained. As Wulf looks up at the table, Pachytar was gone. He had left the map behind, which confused Wulf a bit. He had a feeling it was a trap. He looked all around before he was bashed out his hiding spot and out into the open. He slides backwards on his toes as he slowly turns to face Pachytar.
“Your size don’t intimidate me…” Wulf waits for him to approach and then he lands a flying knee kick to the stomach; Pachytar responds with a double fist strike, but Wulf performs a back flip as he fists dent the floor and comes at him from the right as he repeatedly kicks him in the shin.
Pachytar bashes him into the wall with a back fist to the face.
Wulf peels off the wall as Pachytar marches towards him and runs towards him; sliding under his legs and climbing up his back. As he lays into him with punch after punch to the top of the head, Pachytar reaches for him and finally pulls him off. While hanging upside down, Wulf lands a punch to the jaw.
Pachytar just took it with only a flinch to show for it and tosses Wulf away like trash.
As Wulf knocks over a few of the cardboard boxes, he comes across a tool box. He opens and pulls out a crescent wrench. After he throws it, Pahcytar reacts with a loud “ouch!” as he flinches; letting Wulf know that it hurt. Wulf then takes the entire contents of the box and throws them at him, hoping to do more damage; but Pachytar catches each one and throws it back; all but two miss Wulf as they fly past him like bullets.
Samuel’s voice then interrupts, “That’s great and all, but still you haven’t answered the question.
“Well, the battle went on for another ten minutes; I managed to swap the map for something else and hightail it out of there. The only place I knew to go was here…”
Wulf enters the command center through the tunnel that he and the rangers use to for their motorcycles. It was night and all the lights above him were turned off. He enters to find it dimly-lit and void of any human presence.
“Are you aware of the time?” MEGAN’s voice bellowed, nearly scaring Wulf to death.
“Thought you were asleep…”
“I recharge my batteries, but I do not sleep. May I inquire as to the nature of this visit?”
Wulf had now reached the end of his story; he was back in front of Samuel Grant while the lights in the command center were still on.
“Yeah, I get that part. Couldn’t you have gotten yourself into this predicament at a more REASONABLE hour?” Samuel asked.
“You know what; I don’t think this can wait. Whatever is sending a message to me is filled with immense power. And if Serpitox or anybody else gets their hands on this, they’ll probably have enough power to blow up the world. How would you like that?”
“How can they if we have the map?”
“You know that saying ‘an elephant never forgets’? I’m thinking Pachytar has a really good photographic memory.”
Pachytar then returns to the lair where Serptiox was sitting on his throne in the lab.
Serpitox soon gets up when he hears the bad news Pachytar addressed him with.
“So you… lost the map?”
“It wasn’t my fault, that lycan is…”
“Don’t give me EXCUSES, Pachytar!” Serpitox pushes the contents of the lab table onto the floor in rage.
Pachytar backs away at the various colored liquids and glass approach his feet.
“You have been one of my best generals for a long time; you and Fahl Kun have fought valiantly on my behalf without failure and yet you allow yourself to be outsmarted by a rejected laboratory experiment?” with limited energy, Serpitox was weak. He sometimes had to grip any type of structure at his level like a table or a chair or press a palm firmly against a wall to keep himself up.
“Are you alright, sir?”
“He made you look like a fool.”
“It won’t happen again, I promise.”
“Of course it won’t; because I will carry on with the mission from here while you keep the rangers occupied.”
“But, sir, you do not know the…”
“I am aware I do not know the exact coordinates of the item; but if I wait long enough, Wulf will find it, and then I will follow HIM, don’t you get it? I sense that he is in tune with its life-force. It calls to him, Pachytar. It has not yet revealed itself to him, but it does make its presence known.”
Meanwhile, at Celsior’s lair; he is also aware of the thing that calls to Wulf. He decided to keep his brother in the dark about it, so he can keep the power for himself. Unbeknownst to him, Farenhart was also aware of Wulf’s constant visions.
“Oh brother, I know you are near. I just need to figure out where and your power will soon be mine,” Farenhart said.
Later on that morning at Samuel’s house, as everyone comes downstairs for breakfast, they immediately notice Wulf in the kitchen with Bradshaw.
“Wulf. When’d you get in?” Meerlix asked.
“Just last night,” he replied.
“He took it upon himself to show up abruptly.”
“Why not just stay here instead of in some hotel?”
“Living in a mansion... it’s not my thing.
“Wulf, if you have a moment, I’d like to see you in the command center.”
When they finally meet, Samuel places the map down on the table and gets straight to the point.
“According to your map, this mysterious item of yours is located somewhere in Russia; far north. It’s in the ice and snow. I had satellites combing the area and there was nothing there. It could just be somebody playing a trick, Wulf. As much as I hate you, I still advise you to exercise caution.”
“You’re giving me a lecture on caution? The great Samuel Grant, who, just like his alternate universe self, leaps into something without looking.”
“You’re right about that. Fine, do whatever you want.”
“If it’ll make you feel better, why don’t you come with me?”
“Just like that…?”
“Just like that.”
Just like that, without telling the others where they have gone, Samuel and Wulf travel halfway around the world. The part of Russia they were in was mostly snow and ice and mountains to the east and north. There were high winds blowing snow in their faces and forming icicles on parts of their face and brown parkas.
Wulf and Samuel wore goggles to keep ice from forming on their eyes as they wandered through this frozen wasteland by the map.
“For the record, I blame you for this.”
“Oh quit your whining. I may have asked you to come along, but you could’ve said no!”
“How much further do we need to go?”
“That’s just it; we should be right on top of it.”
“I told you someone was playing a trick.”
Something felt different to Wulf. Where he stood, it was as if the ground was harder than usual. He felt something metallic underneath the snow and bent down to feel with his paws. “Peculiar…” he murmured.
“What?” Samuel asked.
“Down at your feet!” Wulf uses Blindsight to get a closer look. Everything to him appeared as either a blue flame or a red flame. He felt a structure with several floors void of life; human life at least. Most of the floors appeared to be cold while the rest were warm to moderate temperature. He then looks for the entrance. It took a while to find, but he saw a hatch door a few hundred yards up ahead covered in snow. “C’mon, Samuel, this way!”
The right the lift down to a room filled with empty desks. Chairs and papers were strewn across like a tornado had hit. The lights were half off and some of the equipment present in the room shot sparks into the air. Wulf was able to make an inference as to what had happened, which left Samuel baffled. He wondered how he came up with that conclusion.
Wulf answered, “That’s what would’ve done…” Wulf then gestured, “C’mon, elevators are this way.”
The next floor was mostly covered with water. Wulf took one look and noticed something was odd. There was no sign of anywhere where there would be a leak, yet as plain as day, there was water.
“Looks like somewhere got here before us.”
“This water used to be ice, but something else melted it off the walls; something very hot.”
“Magma Golems; obviously Celsior and Farenhart are both on the premises. We can’t contact MEGAN from down here. She could be of assistance in tracking them down. We’ll have to do this the old fashioned way.”
“There are a lot of floors.”
“I’m aware of that. Perhaps we should split up.”
“That such a good idea? We don’t know our way around.”
“I’m sure a smart guy like yourself can think of something.”
In the lower levels of the compound, it was chaos as Cobra drones, Glacieroids, and Magma Golems occupy all rooms in an all-out battle to the finish. For every soldier Serpitox’s men took out, a couple more took their place; it was a never-ending struggle, but Serpitox and Fahl Kun drew closer and closer to the heart of the facility where the item was kept.
Celsior and Farenhart stood close by in efforts to guard it as wave after wave of Cobra drones slowly marched their way.
Serpitox uses what little energy he has as he takes a swipe at all Glacieroids and Magma Golems that stood in his way while Fahl Kun dragged up the rear, sword in hand.
Samuel and Wulf enter from opposite sides; Samuel found himself up against Cobra drones and Magma Golems while Wulf faced Cobra drones and Glacieroids. To keep from getting into a firefight, Wulf climbs up into the heating vents and passes right over them.
Meanwhile, Serpitox was not too far ahead of them as he bursts through the door to the vault where a gold shield was kept. The shield was a medieval design with a shape like half of a four-sided star for the top half; its bottom half was a half-oval shape. It had seven round and large indentations the same size as the medallions the rangers were finding. They were in a circle around a gold medallion, which was welded into the shield itself, making it part of the shield and unyielding.
“Well well. Look who slithered through the door.”
“I want that shield,” Serpitox said slowly, out of breath.
“That’s not going to happen,” Celsior replies.
“Then I guess I’ll just have to destroy you to get what I want.”
“Go ahead; it won’t do you any good anyway.”
“And why’s that?”
“With its owner currently deceased, its power lies dormant.”
“If it’s useless, why are you and your brother still searching?”
“We need to revive him in order to take the shield for ourselves. If he’s brought back to life, his power will be up for grabs by anyone.”
“And how do you plan on reviving him, may I ask?”
“That’s for us to know and you to never find out.”
“Fool! I will make you tell me.” He points to Fahl Kun and gestures her to commence the attack.
After overhearing, Wulf sends a text to Samuel regarding the information he just heard.
Samuel literally tries to do two things at once. He was fighting off Cobra drones and Magma Golems left and right when Wulf sent the text. “Oh really,” he said as he read it all the way through.
As if he had psychic abilities, Wulf replied back before Samuel could. His text then read “Yeah really.”
The cellphone was then thrown from Samuel’s hand as a Cobra drone strikes him; but instead of going after it, Samuel leaves it alone and continues pushing forward. Once he was almost to his destination, Farenhart jumps out and blocks his path.
“Honestly, am I really your number one priority right now?”
“My brother can handle Serpitox; so that means you and that abomination of a friend you hang out with are mine.”
“I just thought you two would wanna revive your friend, Zierian, and steal his powers.”
“How did you…?”
“Amazing piece of technology; cellphones,” Samuel said vaguely. And by the way, you call him an abomination; but have you LOOKED in a mirror lately?”
In anger, Farenhart draws one of his swords and takes a swing at Samuel. He cuts into his leg before he had time to evade. On the second strike, Samuel takes out his sword and ducks while he blocks; at waist level, Samuel fires a shot from his laser gun and pushes him back.
Farenhart spirals in attempt to hit Samuel with his elbow, but misses as he performs a slide and slices through his side a couple inches below the ribs. Farenhart spirals back the other way and hits with a back kick to the chest and knocks Samuel into a painting on the wall.
With his back against the wall, Samuel looks at his glove and then at Farenhart as he marches closer to him. He then activates the nano deflector, sending millions upon millions of nanobots in front of his face to block Farenhart’s next attack. Once Farenhart’s sword touches the transparent wall, Samuel wills it to move right by the motion of his hand as he spirals and takes a stab at Farenhart with his back turned; then Samuel fires at him to confuse him as he rushes forwards, blindly swinging his sword, and slashes.
Meanwhile, up in the air vent above, Wulf waits for the opportunity to pounce like a tiger to its prey as Celsior fights off Farenhart, who was a much better swordsman than he; for every move he threw, she countered with great speed and agility as she used her wings to navigate around him.
Wulf then abruptly drops from the ceiling behind them; Serpitox was the only one to notice him and then he proceeds to keep him from acquiring the shield. Although he was weak, Serpitox put up a good fight. Wulf didn’t stand a chance, but after a while, he started to learn his moves. He escapes during the confusion after defeating Serpitox, who then calls to Fahl Kun to follow him.
Wulf uses the shield to his advantage as he bursts through the crowd of enemies moments before Samuel finishes the last of them.
“What the heck is that? Is that what we came for?”
“We need to get back to the elevator now.”
“Well, our…” Samuel pushes Wulf and himself down as Fahl Kun swoops overhead. “Our exit is blocked. If you have another way, I’d like to hear it.”
Wulf leads Samuel directly to a secondary shaft directly under a frozen harbor. There, they find a lift used to raise submarines and Wulf toggles with the controls to get it moving.
Samuel protests his plan of Wulf’s, “This is your plan?”
“Yeah.”
“You do realize what’s up there…?”
“I don’t see you coming up with the ideas.”
“Oh, will you step aside and let me do it? You’re like a monkey operating hand tools.”
Farenhart, Celsior, Fahl and Serpitox’s men pour into the room like water through a crack in a dam once they get the doors open. All four push and shove as they make their way to the front.
“I suppose I’ll hold them off then?”
“If it’s not too much trouble…” Samuel said to Wulf.
“Best I can do is give you six minutes.”
“Alright.’
Wulf steps down off the platform. With his sword in hand, he looks left and right across the row of enemies in front of him like Clint Eastwood in one of his cowboy movies. There was not an ounce of fear in his eyes. He was calm, yet cautious like a snake during feeding time. He watched and waited for his enemies’ first attack and then takes the first few down within seconds. “Who’s next…?” he asked in a calm tone.
The minions flood him like a pack of wolves and Wulf cuts them all down to size with a single slash until none remained; then Celsior and Farenhart take the lead after they deal with Fahl Kun and her master. Each made a grab for the shield during battle, but Wulf leaves them with only a couple inches between them and their prize. Each time, a little bit of their power secretly transfers to the shield; it wasn’t much to revive Zierian, but it was a start.
Once the five minutes were up, Samuel finishes transferring power into the lift, so he and Wulf to get out of there. The lift slowly ascends to a small, rectangular box, where a hatch door opened up. The water then started pouring in and Samuel immediately summoned the WASP stinger Mark I before he had to hold his breath.
Meanwhile, down below, Farenhart planned to blow a hole in the rectangular box Samuel and Wulf ascended into; Serpitox stopped him.
“You’ll flood this entire room!”
“Oh and I suppose you have a better idea?”
While they thought of something, Wulf and Samuel held onto each other as they swam to the giant sheet of ice restricting their path to the surface.
Samuel thought to himself how fortunate he was to have summoned the tool he needed and then proceeded to blast a hole in the ice and give him and Wulf a way out. Samuel went first, as he placed a hand on the edge of the ice, another hand reached out and offered to help him up. He couldn’t tell who it was until he was all the way out and the wind had stopped blowing snow all over. To his surprise, it was Max and his friends.
“How’d you find us so fast? I was sure our signal was lost once we entered the base.”
“We’ve been searching this part of Russia ever since MEGAN told us where you went.”
“We just received your signal several minutes ago,” Alex explained in place of Willis.
“It would’ve been difficult setting the plane down in that snowstorm, so we rode the rest of the way.” Willis pointed to the giant snowmobile in white camouflage with tank-like treads as the driver sticks his head out.
“Sooner we get outta here, the better,” Wulf replied, carrying the shield on his back.
“What’s with the shield?” Caitlin asked.
“It’s a long story; now’s not the time.”
They all pile into the vehicle, but as soon as they make it a few miles, they were attacked by a walking tank-type monster. It was big, rectangular, had its treads on its sides with a slot on the front where its arms came out of it. It had its turret sticking a foot out of its chest and aimed at our heroes’ vehicle as it fires. The shot lands in front of them, which causes the driver to swerve.
Wulf stayed inside while Max, Willis, Alex, Phoebe, Starla, Caitlin, and Meerlix step out to handle this new foe, who was later accompanied by Serpitox, and Fahl Kun; Celsior and Farenhart decided to sit this one out. They were hoping on Serpitox to be destroyed and they could step in where he failed.
“Seven against three; hardly seems fair.”
“It’ll have to do for now.” He turns to Fahl Kun instantly and says, “Get the shield.”
Fahl Kun contemplated whether she should leave him in his condition.
Serpitox repeated the order slowly, “Get the shield.”
She then flew at the snow mobile while Serpitox and his monster stood their ground.
The tank monster, which Serpitox referred to as Raptore, fires several missiles from its chest and the rangers scatter.
Willis speeds forward, axe in hand and switched to cannon mode. Before he could fire the thing, Raptore grips the barrel with his right; lifting up on it, he then swings Willis around like a flag.
Phoebe disrupts him with her mantis boomerang. As it hit, he immediately drops Willis; moments after, Max and Alex lay into him with laser fire as they grip their pistols
Serpitox vs. Meerlix, Samuel, Caitlin, and Starla; Serpitox slashes Caitlin with his right and blocks once Samuel steps in with a left punch. He grabs Samuel’s fist with his left and performs an elbow to the forehead. Starla spirals at him from the right with a rear horse kick and pushes him back. Caitlin attacks him with her laser vision, but Serpitox crosses his arms in front of his chest. As the laser beam slowly burns through his armor, Meerlix comes at him from the left. Once Caitlin stopped, Serpitox focused on Meerlix’ as he pulls him closer, he performs a knee to the crotch and then stands in a horse stance as he pushes him back with a low punch to the stomach.
Meerlix quickly summons his hawk crossbow; with a couple shots, he dropped Serpitox on his back.
Using his lightning fast reflexes, Serpitox speeds up and disarms his opponent before throwing a series of punches, a knee to the abdomen, and an elbow to the chin.
Starla comes at him immediately after Meerlix and alternates as she throws punch after punch; kick after kick only to have Serpitox block each one.
Caitlin comes up from behind and grips his abdomen tightly with a bear hug. She had his arms pinned for a brief moment before he broke free and swings around with a backhand; Caitlin ducks and lands an uppercut to the side of the jaw.
Serpitox’s tank monster goes for an uppercut, which Willis dodges with a back flip.
Max quickly lands punches to the monster’s abdomen to his get attention.
Phoebe also gets its attention with her boomerang, so Alex can latch onto its arm using his Scorpion Saber.
Alex then slides under the monster’s leg, yanks on his saber, and flips him twice onto his face.
Wulf defends himself as Fahl Kun comes charging towards him like a hawk to a snake. From inside the vehicle, he gets her with a double kick before he leaps out and performs a back flip up onto the door. With the shield up, he jumps down to her level and uses it to his advantage as he blocks one attack after another and counters with a few of his own.
With Wulf’s next attack aimed at her feet, Fahl Kun leaps into the air, hovers by the grace of her wings alone, and then comes back at Wulf with a spiraling kick; he spirals to the ground face first and the shield slides from his body to where Serpitox could see it.
“At last, it’s mine.”
“Oh no you don’t, Serpitox!” Meerlix shouted as he stepped in between him and his prize. He grabs Serpitox by the wrists as he pushes him back; Serpitox comes at him with a knee to the stomach, which breaks him out of Meerlix’s hold and gives him the opportunity to strike.
As soon as he knocks Meerlix down and makes a break for the shield, Alex transforms into a goat and tackles him from behind before he changes back and picks it up for himself.
Serpitox’s monster then targets Alex from a distance, which makes Samuel comes to his rescue.
He steps between him and the bullets with his nano deflector shield and instantly bounces them back. They create sparks as they hit the beast’s tough armor.
“There’s gotta be a way through all that stuff!” Alex said over the roar of the machine gun turret.
Willis tears away from his fight as soon as Alex says something and attempts to scan for a weakness. He immediately finds one, “Aim for his chest turret!”
“Got it!” Alex said as he summoned the WASP stinger Mark II. Once Samuel takes down the shield and leaps out of the way, Alex commences firing. One single blast to the chest and the ordnance inside detonates; frying his circuits. A minute later, he falls face first in a huge explosion.
Only Serpitox, Fahl Kun, Celsior and Farenhart remained; Celsior and Farenhart were still standing in the distance, observing the battle; waiting for the moment to jump in. the longer they watched, the more things tipped in the rangers’ favor.
“Let them keep the shield,” Farenhart said.
“What?”
“We’ll get it back later. If we go down there, we have about as much luck as they are,” he said.
“You’re right; besides, it’s useless to them.”
“Hey, what’s up with that?” Caitlin said as she saw Farenhart and Celsior leave.
Serpitox and Fahl Kun make a hasty retreat, leaving the shield behind.
Meanwhile, Wulf waited until getting back home before he explains the story of this shield.
At that time, Zierian returns from the spirit world, “You found it,” he said.
“I assume this belongs to you then?”
“What Farenhart and Celsior say is true. After I used up my energy on sending it away with the jewels, I lost my connection to it. The only way to re-establish it is with the powers of other elementals.”
“How many elementals are there?”
“So far, there are only three; Farenhart, Celsior, and myself.”
“And I doubt they’ll want to lend us their power willingly.”
“Not while it’s in our possession.”

When the new team took over, Operation W.A.S.P. felt like they were no longer needed. They decided to leave the world in their hands while they went out and had fun; Max, Willis, Meerlix, Caitlin, and Starla were the only ones to not abandon Samuel when things got tough; Phoebe went back to her ranch, Alex got back into the jewel thief business, Wulf had gone off to do his usual thing; saving random civilians from the bad people. As each one carried out their daily routine, they found something was missing from their lives. When they were part of Operation W.A.S.P., their lives were interesting. They traveled the world, saw new and exciting things; but now they were back to the ordinary, the mundane.
Down below in the command center, Samuel was hard at work trying to figure out who it was they worked for. He finally figured it out once he looked up information on General Creed. What he found was not good as usual.
The General had once again taken an idea he stole from Samuel’s blueprints; this time, it was a machine. The same machine Samuel used to give his team their superpowers. Samuel was more than furious. He donned his ranger suit and took off just before Bradshaw popped in to check on him.
“Sir, do you really think this is a good idea?” MEGAN asked.
“Just because he’s General of the goddamn Marine corp., doesn’t mean he can just do as he pleases. Those were my designs.”
“I’m sure he’ll feel the same about you barging in whenever you feel like.”
“Just get me a fix on his location, okay MEGAN?”
“It shows that he’s in the opposite direction; Port of Los Angeles.”
When he arrives, he casts eyes on a large carrier ship out on open water. Once it cleared the port, it slowly began to rise; and as it rose up, four large propellers emerge from the ocean, which made the craft levitate higher and higher.
As Samuel rushes towards it, Creed’s men immediately home in on his signal.
“Get the general; he may wanna see this.”
One of the men rushes to council room to fetch Creed.
“Sir, we got an incoming…”
Daniel accompanies the soldier back to the bridge. On the screen, he sees the tiny blip as it slowly approaches a mere 75 miles per hour.
“It’s him…” he said as he already knew who the UFO was.
“Him who?”
Daniel makes his way to the flight deck to meet with Samuel in person. Samuel powers down the suit and returns to human form.”
“Samuel Grant. To what do I owe this visit?”
“I wanna know what your beef is with me; why do you always succeed in making a bigger a** outta yourself by using the tech you stole from me?”
“Just because you have an idea, doesn’t necessarily make it yours.”
“Bullshit…”
“No, what’s ‘bullshit’, is how you tried to steal her away from me.”
“Her who?”
“You know who I’m talking about.”
“Are we really making this about her again? That was months ago. Stop living in the past.”
“This isn’t about what happened back then; it’s more about obtaining glory. Why should you get to hog the spotlight?”
“I’m not hogging anything. I do what I do because I like doing good deeds. I’m already famous, so why would I want more fame?”
“Maybe because you realize that sooner or later, you’ll be old news. My team will pick up where you left off; do the job you’ve never been able to do, which is get rid of the alien menace and kick their asses back to whatever planet they came from; especially that your feline friend and the walking light, who evaded my grasp in Vegas.”
“You don’t know what you’re setting yourself up for. There’s one other bad guy you don’t know about.”
“He’ll perish just the others will.”
“Damnit, Creed, will you just LISTEN for once?!” Samuel rests his hand vigorously on Daniel’s shoulder to stop him from walking away. “I know we had our differences in the past, but…”
“You pointed a gun at me in your home…”
“But please just hear me out. This new enemy, he’s much stronger than you and your team realize.”
“Sir, we have a disturbance on the eastern seaboard; Miami, Florida. It’s those two ninja girls.”
“That’s Cameron and Christi.”
“Send Paolo and Jonathan to deal with them.”
Wait, now we have two disturbances; this one’s in Barcelona.”
“Looks like that molten lava freak…”
“The twins can handle this one,” Daniel said.
“Yes sir.”
“And as for you, Grant.”
“Honestly, I feel the same way; I don’t wanna be around you any more than you wanna be around me. But just let me recharge my suit and I will leave straightaway.”
Wulf Ninja Warrior was seen wandering the streets on a fine, sunny day just before noon, minding his own business. He had a new sword courtesy of Samuel Grant down at his side; the same brand as the old one. He sees a robbery in progress. Two thugs, one in a brown jacket; the other with no jacket and a blue t-shirt, both of them wearing ski masks exit a small thrift shop with large bags and Wulf takes pursuit. He takes to the rooftops so no to be seen and follows them for several blocks before he jumped in front of their path.
The two stop in their tracks, confused as to who or what they’re dealing with.
“What the…” the guy in the brown jacket said.
“Who or what are you…?”
Wulf reaches for his sword with saying a single word; his opponents reach for their guns in reaction and Wulf pulls it only halfway out. He looks into their eyes and tries to read them like a book. It was as if time slowed down as Wulf watched the bullets fly towards him. At the halfway point, he unsheathes his sword and moves it in the path of the one closest to him. When it hits, Wulf immediately moves to the next bullet after the first one was about to hit the ground.
The two were so shocked at what they just saw, they tried to run; but Wulf kept up with them every step of the way. He blocks their path once again, but this time he drops a smoke pellet at their feet. From within the smoke, the sounds of fists flying and people grunting in pain could be heard.
After several hits, Wulf heard police sirens in the distance. They appeared to be getting louder, which told him it was time to go. He left the men unconscious with the bags of money at their feet for the cops to find while he watched from the rooftops for a while.
“Wulf,” Zierian’s voice called out, getting his attention; Wulf steps away from the ledge and over to him.
“If this is about my decision to leave, you can skip it; the rangers lost their powers, most of them have given up, just like I did. what else can we do?”
“This isn’t you, Wulf.”
“How do you know what is and isn’t me? You and Samuel don’t know a thing about what I am.”
“I know that you are comfortable working alone than with a team. You’ve spent half a lifetime in the world you come from, trying to figure out your origin. You spent twice that time tracking down your worse half.”
“That’s above the surface stuff; you wanna know me, you need to dig deeper.”
“I can do a lot better than that, trust me. Help me get my body back and I will do my best to help you piece together your past.”
“I will need the shield for that.”
Zierian accompanies Wulf back to the mansion. From there, he quickly passes Max and the others as they lounge around in the living room and makes his way into the command center.
“MEGAN, I have a job for that beautiful computer brain of yours; think you can handle it?”
“I’ll try my best…” she replied with sarcasm.
“Wulf, what are you up to?” Max asked.
“A resurrection…” Wulf said mysteriously.
Meanwhile, in China, Serpitox, Pachytar, and Fahl Kun in their human form sit down outside a café overlooking the ocean as they wait for a man; green hair, brown eyes, ruddy skin, a scar on his chin. He wore a black leather jacket and orange shirt with blue jeans and black tennis. As he sat down, he pulled out of his pocket a USB flash drive, waves it in front of their faces and then puts it back in his jacket pocket. There was not that many people in the area, which meant their conversation wouldn’t be interrupted. He and Serpitox mostly did their talking in Chinese.
“The price is 300 thousand.”
“No no no. we agreed on 2.”
“I decided the price has gone up. This here is not your average virus. Once you unleash it, it is difficult to stop.”
“What exactly is the hold up?” Pachytar said in English.
“It’s alright, Pachytar. We’re just having a difference of opinion.” He then turns back towards the man and the rest of their conversation continued in English, “You shouldn’t take advantage of me like this, Mr. Shu. You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
“I take my chances.”
Serpitox pauses for a bit as he thinks of something he can do to intimidate this guy. It seemed as though it would take a lot more than idle threats to scare him as he sat there with a stupid smile on his face. Just by looking at him, Serpitox could tell the guy had no family or anybody he cared about, so he couldn’t threaten something that’s nonexistent. “Tell me something, Shu. Are you afraid of heights?”
He signals Pachytar to render him unconscious and when he awakens, he notices his body dangling over the edge of one of the tallest buildings in all of Shanghai with Fahl Kun holding onto his arms.
He started shouting in Chinese, begging not to be dropped.
“You ready to renegotiate now?!” Serpitox asked.
He continues shouting in Chinese, angrier this time.
“I’m losing my grip…” Fahl Kung said in a singsong tone.
“Pull him up!”
“Okay.”
“Look, I’m nice guy once you get to know me. I could’ve simply killed you and taken it for myself, but I might require your services later at some point. So either we stick to what we agreed or I will make it so you walk funny for the rest of your miserable life.”
“Alright, 200,000…”
Serpitox asks Pachytar to bring him a small, brown paper sack; inside was two hundred thousand dollars exactly. He takes it from him and hands it to the guy as the guy exchanges the flash drive for it. “It was a pleasure doing business with you…”
Meanwhile, as Wulf prepared to travel to wherever Farenhart was located.
“Farenhart has been found in Barcelona,” MEGAN replied.
“You’re not actually thinking of going alone, are you?” Bradshaw asked.
“I couldn’t ask you to risk your lives; without your powers, you can no longer heal rapidly.”
In Barcelona, it was mayhem. The Magma Golems ran rampant throughout the city, destroying everything in their path. The citizens flee in terror like mice evading an exterminator. Most of them got away, but others weren’t as lucky as the Magma Golems burned them alive the moment their backs were turned.
Nate and Kate dealt with them first; Nate, who was a master of throwing knives, handles them using this skill; he dodges incoming fire from his opponents with the use of various ninja flips whilst throwing the knives and hitting each of his targets with accuracy and speed and then switches his fighting style when the enemy gets close. He throws a right elbow to one opponent, a frontal kick to another, and then ducks when one of his enemies takes a swing at him; bent down, he deals a clean strike from his knife to the belly, then spirals to do a low kick the stomach of an enemy behind him, and then spirals around as he deals a blow to the head on the other opponent. After he downed three enemies, another two came up; the first one drives him back with its hands gripped tightly on his shoulders and sends them both tumbling over a large chunk of a building; Nate bashes him in the back of the head a couple of times, then rolls him over, places a knife to his neck and cuts. The second Magma Golem then attacks him with a ball of fire. As it hits him in the back, sparks fly just before he falls.
Kate, who was a bit of a marksman, jumps into the fray, guns blazing. She elbows her first opponent from the left and fires at the enemy coming towards her head on. She then ducks with her left arm under her right arm and shoots down the next Golem. Seconds later, when her enemy takes a swing as her with its left hand, she quickly ducks. As she rises, she fires a shot straight through its chin. For her next move, she spirals clockwise with her right arm pointed behind her and aims a shot directly through the chest.
Wulf arrives sometime later and waits for Farenhart to show up. While he stands on a rooftop overlooking the fight, he watches the way Kate and Nate move. He was easily impressed by their skills; the way they moved. How their motion was almost fluid like water as they flowed around and under their opponents. He stopped looking at them once he noticed Serpitox; he interrupts the twins; killing most of Farenhart’s men in the process before Farenhart stepped in.
Wulf decided he was going to stand around and watch anymore and jumps in. “How about picking one someone a lil more your size and skill level, boys…”
“You handle the canine; I’ve got the twin titans.”
Farenhart nods at Serpitox and the two go their separate ways.
With the shield on his back and his sword still in its wrap, Wulf approaches Farenhart slowly as he awaits his next move. When it finally came, Wulf drew his sword. He had the upper hand this time. For every move thrown at him, he threw back at Farenhart three-fold until he finally gets him riled up enough to do something careless like uses his power over fire. Wulf puts his sword away and pulls out the shield, which absorbs as much of Farenhart’s elemental powers as it could before turning the rest away. With the first of the shield’s power restored, he tucks the shield safely on his back, draws his sword, and continues the fight.
Meanwhile, Serpitox makes quick work of the twins before he hatches his master plan. He waited for Pachytar to go ahead and disable the security cameras for the entire seven blocks, because he knew General Creed had to be watching. He was right about that as onboard the General’s ship, their feed gets all snowy. They try to re-establish connection, but to no avail, the feed would not come back. Creed pounds his fist against the console in rage while Serpitox continued.
“I promised myself I wouldn’t do this again; but hopefully, these will be temporary…” he creates more shadow rangers; this time, of Kate and Nate. Also, to make sure the reals Nate and Kate don’t interfere, he turns them into pendants; Kate’s was yellow and Nate’s was red. He gave them to their shadow clones to wear around their neck before he handed over the flash drive Mr. Shu gave him. But before they could return to the Creed’s floating base, they had another assignment that needed to be carried out. He orders them to stand by Wulf ninja warrior while he takes to Farenhart’s side.
“What are they doing?” Farenhart whispered.
“Just play along,” Serpitox whispered back, “And make it convincing.”
The clones of Nate and Kate help Wulf defeat the enemy quickly. Then they and Wulf take off. Kate and Nate’s clones board the aircraft fly back to base; Wulf boards his aircraft and heads for home.
Back onboard General Creed’s flying fortress, his men continue their efforts to get the camera feed online again; they keep at it until Nate, Kate, Paolo, and Jonathan finally arrive.
“About goddamn time; maybe they can shed some light on what exactly happened.” Daniel passes by the mess hall where he sees Samuel eating a bowl of the chef’s custom made soup and a hamburger. “Grant. I’m surprised to see you’re still here.”
“Figured I’d try the food here; I’m a lousy cook. My stuff can’t even compare.” He turns to the chef and says, “What kinda spices do you use?”
“That is for me to know and you to find out, Monsieur Grant.”
“You should definitely try some, Creed; might improve your mood.”
“I got an interrogation to get to. I’ll take a rain check. When you’re done eating, I want you off my ship; whether your suit is fully charged or not.”
“Aye, captain…” Samuel makes salute just to mock him. And when he exits the room, he talks about him behind his back. “How do you put up with him?”
At the same when the General sat down with the twins in the interrogation room to question them, Farenhart return the lair of Comus where the rest of the evil alliance converged after their latest defeat.
“Those new rangers are an even bigger nuisance than the old ones.”
“You said you’d deal with, Serpitox. How much longer must we wait for your plan to take place?”
“It is almost underway. Soon this new enemy will fall and you can go back to squashing the other rangers like bugs and continue your quest for the jewels.

Willis has had the same dream for three days. He sees a Caucasian woman that looks like Caitlin in a purple, hooded cloak with a golden, jewel encrusted staff running through a forest; trying to escape from a knight in burgundy armor on a brown horse with red eyes and steam coming from its nose whenever it breathed. When she came to a clearing, she was surrounded by weird looking creatures that were painted black, had pointy ears, red, beady eyes, and sharp black nails. The burgundy knight and his horse stood behind her.
Willis wasn’t sure what this dream meant, but he was soon about to find out. As the lady chanted in a strange dialect, Willis tossed and turned in bed after each verse. On the last verse, she spoke in English, “I call thee forth, oh mystical knight of the ever-blowing wind. Appear before me now.” With that, Willis was sucked through the bed, leaving behind a trail of green mist. Wearing his Operation W.A.S.P. uniform, he then falls through a portal from the sky above the girl and plops face first into the dirt. As he pushes up and gets to his feet, he brushes his shoulders and says to himself, “That’s the last time I have a sandwich before bed. Where am I?” he looks up at the demon figures that surround him and then looks towards the knight.
“I apologize for my abrupt summons, but…”
Willis turns to the girl once she lays a hand on his shoulder, “Yeah, I’m used to it. This won’t take long…” Willis rolls up his sleeves and then runs at the speed of sound in a complete circle. As he does, he creates a green vortex, which he uses to instantly destroy all the demons in existence. But as he turns his attention to the knight, the girl stops him.
“Oh, don’t you dare…!” she pulls him by the arm in the opposite direction.
Before conjuring a smokescreen to cover their exit, Willis noticed something green and shiny hanging from the knight’s neck.
Up high on a cliff overlooking the area, three beings stood watch; one looked like Max wearing a red visor shaped like a pill bug’s shell to cover his eyes, two gray looking pieces of armor around his hands and feet, which stretched halfway up the lower arm and shin. He carried a sword on his right side.
The second looked like Phoebe with a knight’s visor on shaped like a mantis head, brown armor which ran the length of her torso, shin guards shaped like cowboy boots, and a red scarf around her neck. She wielded a much shorter sword than Max’s.
The third one was Meerlix in blue armor from his neck down to his waist, shin guards, and metal gloves with razor sharp claws. He wielded a crossbow and a pack full of arrows on his back.
The burgundy knight converges on the cliff, “I shall take chase. Find the wizard and the green one no matter the cost, understand?” after his men acknowledge the order, he takes off.
“Are we seriously doing this? She’s the royal wizard,” Meerlix asked.
“You heard the king’s orders. We must follow them,” Max explained.
“Lancelot’s right, Gawain,” Phoebe said.
“I know that, but…”
“Not another word on the matter; Percival, Gawain, let’s go.”
“But still, the king’s behavior is a bit… strange,” Percival wondered.
Meanwhile, Willis and Caitlin, the woman he assumed to be her, were walking through the woods. Willis was confused as to reason she stopped him from facing the knight.
“Why’d you stop me back there? If I’m not to engage him, why’d you summon me? What exactly am I missing here, Caitlin?”
“Stop calling me Caitlin! My name is Merlina.”
“Sorry, Merlina; but anyway, what’s the big idea?”
“Your efforts to defeat him would be for naught, for he is immortal as long as he bears that scabbard of his; for the sword Excalibur.”
“Excalibur? As in King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur?”
“The one and only; and with that sword, he rules this land with an iron fist.”
“So I guess everything I read about him in the books wasn’t true, huh? Given what I’ve just seen…”
“No no. they’re all true; well they ‘were’ at least. He was once a kind, caring knight, and a wise ruler, who was praised by all.”
“Then all the power went to his head, I guess.”
“Indeed. It was a woman named Novema, who gave him the sword Excalibur. She alone knows it one weakness.”
“We should go see her then…”
“Not without retrieving the weapon I told you about earlier.”
“Oh right. so where is it?”
“Just beyond the mystical lake…”
“I’ll go get it; be back in a jiffy.”
Racing through the forest, Willis faces a minor threat of demons from the underworld. He draws his sidearm from his holster downs each opponent in one shot while zigzagging through the trees, jumping over and sliding under logs, and maneuvering around the boulders in his path.
The enemy started firing back at him, but Willis dodged each shot and then after he places his left hand on the ground, he drifts in that direction; two of the demons hit the tree while the rest drift around it. About a mile ahead, Willis comes to a slope. Without thinking, he jumps; and as he slides down on his behind, He shuffles the dirt beneath him as he maneuvers left and right out of the way of rocks, random plants, and trees.
Upon reaching the edge, he then plants his feet firmly, pulls himself up and performs a leap of faith. He almost didn’t make it; he grabs onto the wall just inches below the ledge and digs in as he climbs up. His troubles weren’t over as he looks to his right at the swarm of demons rushing towards him like angry bees after you shake up their hive. Willis gets on his feet and continues running. He continues on for another two miles before he loses them in a cave. Willis wasn’t sure if it was coincidence, but he was right where he needed to be. He continued through the cave and came out the other side to a huge tree. There was a weapon stuck in its trunk that looked to be and ordinary metal stick. Willis scratched his head in confusion, but as soon as he pulled it from the tree, he discovers it’s more than what it seems.
The stick glowed in a green light and from out of the top, two shapes appeared. The tip was a half-circle shape, which took on the form of elephant ears. Once the light dimmed, the shapes took on a solid form.
“An axe, huh? I guess I can get used to it,” he said as he returns to Merlina.
“Are you ready for what you must do?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be. So where is this King?”
“If you want me, you needn’t look further,” King Arthur said with Wulf ninja warrior’s voice.
“Wait a minute, Wulf is King Arthur?”
The king looks at him in a confused manner before he dismounts his horse and draws his sword, “Prepare to meet thou maker, knave.”
Willis readies his axe. He makes the first move as he runs up to Arthur, who smacks him in the face with the flat side of the blade. As Willis lied there, Arthur strikes quickly, only to have Willis roll out of the way and attack his legs. Arthur lifted his foot and the blade passes right under. Willis attacks with his sidearm and the shots bounce right off. After Willis gets up, he kicks him several times in the shin until Arthur strikes back with a backhand and Willis then leans back and then forward again as he lands a right cross.
Arthur strikes from above only to have Willis block him. At the blink of an eye, he teleports behind Willis and elbows him in the spine. As Willis tumbles forward, he quickly regains his balance as he turns to Arthur, pistol in hand; each shot he fired, Arthur deflects with one swish of his sword before dashing up. He strikes Willis down and mounts his horse. Willis gets up and takes chase.
“Get back here, coward!” with his super speed, Willis was able to keep up despite Arthur summoning demons from the underworld to slow him down. After destroying them all, Willis gets in close for one final strike and knocks Arthur off his horse.
“You are a skilled knight, but you have a lot to learn…”
Willis stood ready with his axe out as he awaited Arthur’s next move; but he vanished instead of continuing on.
“Are you alright, Willis…”
“Just fine, Merlina; seeing as I almost had him…”
“With that scabbard feeding him power, the only thing you had was a long, drawn-out battle that will take ages. We must seek out the lady of the lake, Novema.”
“Lead the way…”
Merlina and Willis pass through a small village. In their surroundings, they see typical medieval huts, houses, and businesses. Smoke came from most of the chimneys and so did an assorted aroma of foods from each one. The townspeople all stare as Willis and Merlina approach from the south on their way to the lake. Willis was a bit nervous with everyone looking in his direction as if he was a plague victim. Merlina had assured him that the townsfolk had not seen clothing like what he was wearing; though that wasn’t the real reason. To Willis, it seemed they were all looking at Merlina more than they did him. When Willis had confronted her with his deduction, she had changed the subject by taking one look at Willis’ weapon. She had then pointed out to him the blacksmith’s shop.
“Meet me near the lake when you are finished,” she said to him.
“You’re not…?”
“I’m not comfortable around crowds.”
Upon entering the establishment, Willis comes to find yet another familiar face. It was Samuel Grant in a gray shirt and blue overalls with black gloves and a pair of goggles on his head. he steps out from behind the counter to greet Willis and is confused as to why Willis was looking at him like he was a ghost.
“What seems to be the matter, boy? You are looking at me like I’ve got something on my face,” Samuel said in an Irish accent.
“Sorry. It’s just… you remind me of someone; my father, Samuel Grant.”
“I feel you are mistaken, lad. I am not your father. Me name’s Seth. I’m the blacksmith of this town. I mostly do a lot of traveling, so don’t be surprised if the next time ya stop by, I’m not around.”
“Well nice to meet you, Seth, I’m Willis.”
“Well, Willis, what can I do for you…?”
“My blade’s a lil dull; think you can sharpen it?”
“I’ll see what I can do, but I won’t be promisin’ miracles.”
It takes only 15 minutes for the blacksmith to do his work, but when he finished, he presented the axe to Willis bright, shiny, and new. The blade was sharpened and he even managed to give the handle a bit of a polish. Willis examined it up and down and was amazed at the find job Seth did.
“I’ve never quite seen a weapon like that before. The metal that was used to forge it seemed unique in some way.”
“Well, it ‘is’ a very unique weapon.”
“In case the axe needs more mending, maybe I should tag along with you and your friend.”
“Are you sure about that? It could be dangerous.”
“Danger comes with the territory, my friend.”
So then Seth packed up the essentials he would need for the trip into a carriage; water, food, tools, etc., and he, Willis, and Merlina continue north through the woods towards the lake. Only moments after they departed, did Lancelot show up in the village. He asked around if anyone had seen characters fitting Willis and Merlina’s description, but no one would talk. He had a feeling they were all lying; trying to protect them and he didn’t like that. Not one bit.
Unlike Max, Lancelot was not a patient man, nor the subtle type. He found that he got more results from using brute force to obtain what he wants. On the third to last person in the town, he grips them by the collar of their shirt and slams them into the wall of one of the stone huts with all his might and stares into the woman’s eyes with an angered expression, which quickly put fear into her to the point where she told him their whereabouts.
A half hour later, he catches up to Willis, Merlina, and Seth in the middle of the forest and forces them to stop as he pounds the ground and generates a mild shockwave.
“What’s the big idea, Max…? Max? Is that you?” Willis rubs his eyes and takes another look at his foe as he stood there poised with his sword in hand.
“I do not know this Max of whom you speak; I am Lancelot… of the Knight’s roundtable.
“Well, would you mind moving, sir Lancelot? You’re kinda in the way.”
“You thought you could elude me, apprentice knight? Well you were wrong. Draw your weapon.”
“I’m kinda in a hurry, so can we skip it?”
“A knight never flees an opponent, Willis,” Merlina stated.
“Oh alright…” Willis, after setting foot off the wagon, starts by bombarding Lancelot with laser fire.
Lancelot crosses his arms in front of his face and waits for it to stop. When it does, he sees Willis racing at him at the speed of sound. Before he could react, he was shoved into a tree. As he slides down, he kneels for a second then gets up. He rushes at Willis, who quickly sidesteps and strikes from his right, prompting Lancelot to block. Immediately after that, Lancelot strikes high to the chest; making Willis spiral. After a 360, Willis aims for Lancelot’s neck and he leans out of the way. After Willis missed, he then performs a sweep kick and proceeds to mount him after he falls on his back; but Lancelot throws him over his shoulders. Willis performs a roll, gets back on his feet and runs further away from Seth and Merlina. Lancelot gets on his feet and takes chase. The two stop at a huge boulder where they continue the fight. Lancelot aims for Willis’ neck and he ducks. As Lancelot scrapes his blade on the rock, Willis drops the axe and throws a couple of punches to the stomach and chest area and finishes off with an elbow to the chin and the jaw; Lancelot spirals after the last hit and lands a rear horse kick. Willis’ back hits the rock hard and Lancelot continues the onslaught. He races forward with a low side kick to the stomach, then a high kick to the jaw, which Willis stopped.
Holding onto his leg, Willis sweeps his other leg from under him and pulls out his laser pistol.
Lancelot kicks it from his hand and spirals out of his grip. As he reached for his weapon, Willis picked up his and then shoots at his sword; knocking it out of his reach just before approaching him, gun aimed at the center of his head.
“Do with me what you will, green knight; for I have failed my king and must be dealt with.”
Willis walks back to the wagon, leaving Lancelot himself to wallow in his defeat.
“Lancelot, the closest one to King Arthur out of the other two; the one who was just trying to kill you only moments ago, and you let him live?”
“What’s the big deal whether I kill him or not?”
“Such sympathy is an insult; even to a knight such as Lancelot.”
They arrive at a small house sitting on the shore of a huge lake. Since it was the only house in the middle of the forest, they assume it belonged to Novema. The lady came out to greet them wearing a white dress with gray stripes along to the bottom and on the waist. On her head, she wore a white tiara with blue gems.
“Starla?” Willis asked in a confused manner before he rushes to her like a star-crossed lover; arms held out in front of him. A few feet away, Starla generated a force field of light, which shoved him back a couple of inches. Willis remained on his feet as he put his arms down at his sides.
“Forgive my rudeness, but I do not know you, traveler.”
Merlina pulls Willis to her by his right shoulder and whispers, “Willis, what do you think you’re doing?”
“She reminded me of my girlfriend back home, that’s all.”
“Willis, this is the lady of the lake, Novema. Show some respect.”
Willis pauses, because he isn’t sure if a word he’s about to use is the right one to say, “Forgive me… Milady… I thought you were someone else.”
“It’s alright. You are here for information about Excalibur, are you not?”
“That’s pretty much the gist of it…” Willis and Seth accompany Novema inside where they sit down in front of the fireplace.
“You want to know how to hinder the power of immortality the Scabbard possesses. I will happily tell you, since I was the one to give it to him. There’s just… one problem.”
“Don’t tell me, whoever slays the king and takes the scabbard will turn out the same as the king is now, correct?”
“I… believe so.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Basically, we’ll just trade one demon for another.”
“To prove your worthy of the information I am about to give, I will give you two tests. First test; there is a settlement in the mountains to the east that is under siege by a terrible fire-breathing dragon. You must slay this beast and free the innocence. Next, you must offer compassion to those in need. I shall give you three days to complete these tasks.”
“Well, she was no help…”
“Fool! She will only tell the secret to a true knight. I need to complete these tasks in order for her to trust me.”
“I doubt this will be easy.”
“Back home, I handle this kinda stuff all the time. We may not have slayed dragons, but we’ve done pretty much some of the other stuff.”
Willis returns to the village he and Merlina were once in. He sees an old black man standing by a fenced in area where he keeps his cows. The cows had escaped via a gap and he was trying to herd them back, but with no luck, the cows still roamed the farmland, trampling most of his crops and letting loose the other livestock. Soon enough, he had the horses and pigs to herd back into their pens as well. Willis decided to lend a hand, “Don’t worry, I’ll have this fixed in a jiffy…” Willis said as he sped around at the speed of sound. First, he went after the cows as he made enough noise using his axe to scare them into the direction he wanted them to go. After they rushed into the pen one by one, he then called out to the pigs. As he places a bunch of slop into the feed tray, he then calls out the pigs. He moves onto the chickens immediately after dealing with the pigs and then from there, he handles the horses; leaving most of the farmer’s field in shambles. The man offers to pay Willis for his services as a token of gratitude, but Willis would not accept as he was doing this out of the kindness of his heart.
Willis’ next act of compassion was an easy one; as he helped out a fellow townsperson to clean his chimney. With a rather large dust broom in hand, he vigorously moves it up and down in the giant rectangular tube made of bricks. With each motion, his broom got blacker and blacker; he could feel the blockage slowly loosen as tiny clouds of soot rise and hit his face. when finished, the townsperson offers to pay just like the last one and Willis once again declines. He goes through this several times before he moves on to the next task; slaying the dragon terrorizing a small mountain village to the east.
“You know, maybe I should tag along with ya on this mission,” Seth asked.
“I couldn’t ask you to accompany me on such a dangerous mission.”
“Danger comes with the territory, remember…”
“Yes, well this is different. I don’t wanna see you get roasted on my behalf. Stay here with your people.” Willis detaches one of the horses from the wagon and grips the reigns tightly as he rides out of the town. On his way, however, he encounters more demons from the underworld. The beasts pop up out of the ground all around him and he continuously shoots them down while riding past and ducking in between trees and over rocks on the forest floor in an effort to get where he’s going. He downs the last of the demons for the time being after he arrives to a half burnt village with people carrying buckets of water from place to place; trying to put out the fires. Meanwhile, others attempt to enter the homes to look for survivors.
On the other side of the town, the dragon continued its rampage. The dragon was a fearsome creature with glittering scales, giant bat-like wings, and a phenomenal fiery breath, green with long claws and sharp teeth. It crumbled everything in its path with its long, spiky tail and burned most of the townsfolk alive with its breath.
“I’ll take care of this; no problem…”
Willis stared in the eyes of his aggressor. And there, in that moment, the dragon’s eyes faltered. The thick tail of the dragon flicked out venomously at Willis’ face. He covered swiftly raced out of the way as the spikes hit the building beside where he once stood. The beast tried again, this time whipping its tail speedily at his opponent’s unprotected legs. Willis leaped nimbly to one side and swung the axe in a flashing arc. The dragon roared with pain as it severed the tip of his tail. The bloodied stub lay on the grass with the spikes still attached. Hurling a rock at his adversary, Willis then pulled out his gun and fires; cutting some of the spikes from the top of its head.
Willis and the dragon continued battling savagely. Willis’ opponent smacks him in the chest with its tail. Twice it had hurled claws full of soil at Willis’ eyes, but each time he shielded himself with his arm and rose swiftly to attack him. Willis hacked away stoically. He was beginning to feel his weapon loose its sharpness by the jarring blows he threw at the terrible beast’s scaly skin. The dragon too felt the vibrations each time the axe clanged upon him. The pain shot right through him, down to the tip of his injured tail. Along the ramparts they fought, panting and blowing, neither were giving quarter; across the grass once more, they slashed and struck at each other, right up to the entrance of the guard tower until Willis delivered the final blow and chopped its head clean off. When the battle was over, Willis was unaware of Gawain standing the distance. He applauds his victory the same as the townsfolk while muttering under his breath, “Enjoy the victory… hero…”
After his victory, Willis soon learns that the dragon had kept prisoners in a cave not too far from the town. He sets off to rescue them. It takes him an hour and a half to reach the cave, but once he dismounts his horse, he races into the cave interior where he notices a bunch of cages hanging from the ceiling with three to six people in each one. He contemplates how to get them down safely and then cuts the counterweight to set them free.
Outside the cave after the last of many prisoners flee the scene, Willis comes face to face with Gawain. “You know, you kinda remind me of a friend, but you couldn’t be…”
“I am Gawain, knave, and I am no friend to you. Prepare to fall.” Gawain extends the claws from his metallic gloves and rushes blindly into the fight.
“This hardly seems fair; me with my sword and you with those claws.”
“Don’t show me any sympathy; I don’t need it!”
They approach each other; Willis swings low with a sweep kick, while Gawain leaps into the air and performs a kick to the jaw. Willis tackles Gawain, who falls and slides a few yards.
As Gawain approaches, he swipes at Willis left and right. Willis evaded before shooting back and having Gawain bat the laser beams away like he were playing with a ball of yarn.
Gawain then rushes, slides under Willis and proceeds to climb on his back where he bombarded him with a series of scratches.
Each attack cuts deep, but Willis’ scars quickly healed. Willis turned and performed a spinning back elbow, to which Gawain ducks and performs an uppercut with an open paw, leaving a scratch mark on Willis’s chin. Willis immediately throws a left, which Gawain blocked with his palm as he delivered a kick to the shin; Willis kneels and Gawain quickly swipes; Willis throws a right, which Gawain evaded with a high jump.
As he leapt over Willis’s head, Willis swings around and quickly reaches back, grabs him by the leg and spins him towards a rock face.
Willis bounces off and performs a spiraling kick to Gawain’s jaw and drops him face first into the dirt. When he approaches, Gawain pushes him back with a kick to the stomach and then performs a front flip onto his feet.
“Your skills are improving…”
“Thank you.”
Gawain goes in for one last attack before Willis lands a spiraling kick to the back of the head, rendering him unconscious.
“So are you…” Willis answered back with a smirk.
As he walks away, Gawain gets to his feet.
“We are not finished here!”
“You may not be, but I am. I need to see a lady about a sword.”
“By order of the king, I shall vanquish you!”
Willis, with his back turned towards him, speeds off as a green blur. He races quickly down the path, leaving his horse behind for Gawain to use as he heads for the lake; to Novema. She was graciously awaiting his return and so was Seth.
“I have seen all that has transpired through my reflecting pool and I am proud. You have shown courage the way you defeated two of Arthur’s knights, you also showed compassion to them by sparing their lives and saving the people from the wrath of the dragon. It is those qualities that prove to me you are a true knight. My secret is now yours to bear. I will tell you how to hinder the power of Excalibur.”
“What must I do?”
“In defeating two of the knights of the roundtable, some of their energy has passed itself onto your axe. You must defeat the remaining knight, Percival, and you shall have the strength to beat King Arthur.”
“This should be a piece of cake; how hard can he be?”
“Percival… is a lady; a fine swordsman and skilled in unarmed combat. I strongly suggest you do not underestimate her.”
Willis rode from town to town, trying to find Percival. Each town he went to, people told him where they last saw her. Willis followed the trail all the way into the forest of Balor; a vast wooded area past the Mountains of Isgaard. It is likely that these forests are located in a country called Balor. The forests are home to creatures such as Balorian Spiders, which live in the caves deep beneath the forest, and the Cockatrice, a dangerous lizard-like animal. Flora growing in the forests includes the Mortaeus tree, on the roots of which the Mortaeus flower grows. There was light filtering through the top branches. Willis could smell the odor of composting leaves, crackling branches as he walked through. As the wind blew, branches above him were touching as he walks below them.
Percival lurks in the shadows like a spider trying to trap a fly while she waits for Willis to be in the right spot. She crouches behind a rock and draws her weapon, a boomerang. Drawing her arm back, she gives it a throw; Willis heard it coming and turns to block.
Percival jumps down to Willis’ level after catching the boomerang. She then straightens it to make a sword as she stands there face to face with him.
“Percival, I presume…” he said as he took one look at the knight, who resembled his friend, Phoebe.
“You seem to know my name, but I do not know yours. It won’t matter though; you’ll just be another victory.”
“Overconfident as always…”
“What do you mean by that?” Percival asked.
“Oh never mind…” Willis holds out his axe.
During the first blows, Willis concentrated on his defense and let his muscles settle into the rhythm of swordplay. He hadn't been completely honest with Gregory. He'd practiced with the axe in the hours since he first came across it, but he hadn't really fought Percival, a World-class fighter with most weapons. He'd gotten much better as time passed, but he didn't think he'd ever surpass a weapon like Percival.
After several minutes of attempting to get past Percival's defenses, Willis kept his cool and began to batter at her as if to pound her into the ground. Percival had expected a quick defeat and easy humiliation, not an equal opponent.
Willis began to fight for his life. Percival wouldn't be content with pretend wounds and victory; she was out for blood.
The air rang with the tintinnabulation of the singing blades and the hoarse rasp of both fighters' breathes.
Willis thought desperately for a way out of the mess.
Percival's weapon slipped past his defenses and slashed toward his throat. Willis dodged, laughing as if having a marvelous time. He praised loudly, "A wonderful strategy."
When Percival slashed backhanded in a return blow, Willis thrust his sword vertically and caught it before it cut him in half. "Excellent. Excellent. You're one of the finest swordsmen I've ever seen."
Percival blinked as if coming out of a daze but continued to go for blood.
Willis laughed and spouted praise for almost a minute before his opponent's attack began to ease in its brutality. Their weapons caught each other high in the air, and they stood belly to belly, face to face.
Percival whispered, "What the hell are you doing?"
"I don't want to kill you; I just need your energy.”
Percival decides to tip the odds in her favor. Within seconds of chanting a spell, her body slowly becomes transparent, giving Willis a hard time as he looked all around him like a dog trying to sniff out its prey.
After another half hour, Willis finally ends it; but instead of delivering the final blow, he leaves Percival the same as he did with Gawain and Lancelot. He immediately greeted by Merlina as she steps out of the shadows of the trees.
“I guess you saw, huh?”
“Well, I guess there’s only one thing left…”
“Kill King Arthur?”
“Kill King Arthur,” Merlina said with a nod.
“If memory serves correctly, he resides on an island known as Avalon, right?”
“That is correct. In order to save time, I shall transport us both there.”
The king was seen waiting for Willis on his horse once he and Merlina had arrived. He approaches them rapidly with his sword drawn and intent to kill.
Willis meets him halfway, his axe scraping the stone path behind him before he slides under Arthur’s blade, grips the horse’s tail, swings around and slices the king in the back.
Arthur turns after moving a couple of inches; takes his sword, and draws a red circle in the air, which fills in with three smaller circles that began to rotate counter-clockwise. As they shift, a triangle appears in the middle and bounces off the three circles as they move. Finally, one of the edges pierces the circle and a red beam shoots out like a laser. Willis ducks, jumps, spirals, and leaps out of the way before getting closer.
The horse lifts its front legs as Willis lands a devastating strike to Arthur’s chest; but Arthur maintains a tight grip on the reigns. Once his horse settled down, he then raced past Willis, slashing him in the chest.
Once Willis fell, he immediately rose and took chase, laser pistol in one hand; axe in the other. Each shot he fired, he slowed Arthur’s horse down long enough for him to move in close. As Arthur strikes with, Willis quickly blocks as he comes at him from all directions until he gets the opportunity to strike back. As he does, he literally knocks him off his horse.
Willis leaps at Arthur, who rolls out of the way; once on his feet, he strikes Willis, who defends before quickly landing a downward slash that made him spiral. Arthur quickly pulls a 360 and slashes Willis, who blocks with his axe. Pulling back on his weapon, Willis’ blade latches onto Arthur’s and pulls him in close. Arthur lands a knee to the stomach and Willis stumbles back just as Arthur creates several red, crescent moon shapes by waving his sword around.
As the psychic knife-like beams of energy rush at Willis, he ducks, and leaps over them, performing a butterfly kick while firing back.
Arthur swats his sword at each shot and then focuses his energy into the sky. Above Willis, there were now several balls of black light with red outlines raining down on him like hail; hail the size of baseballs. As they touch the ground, they take the form of the king himself.
Willis fought them all until it was back to being only one. By that time, the king mounts his horse again; this time, he runs at Willis instead of away from him.
Willis again races towards him. He leaps into the air on Arthur’s right as he spirals counter-clockwise and slices right through him, ending the fight.
Arthur falls off his horse again, except this time he evaporates in a cloud of red dust, which leaves Willis confused. He looks to where his body fell; where the green glow was. As he gets in closer, he picks up the green medallion while ignoring the sword.
“Well done…”
“Well done? I’ve just killed King Arthur,” Willis said to Merlina. “I am the worst of knights; the slayer of kings.”
“The worst of knights? I think not…”
Willis notices that she has the scabbard in her hands. He hesitates before stuttering his next sentence, “Well then… who’s the worst?”
“Mordred, of course; enemy of King Arthur.”
“Surely you jest, Merlina. He failed to kill him where I come from.”
“You fool… I’ve already killed him; with a bit of assistance from you, of course,” Serpitox’s voice said from a distance before he steps in to join them.
“Serpitox…”
“I am Mordred…”
“What did you mean by ‘you already killed him’?”
“I believe you have Merlina to thank for that…”
“Lancelot… Percival, Gawain…” Willis said in confusion as they stood by his side.
“They have been working together to overthrow him for months and finally succeeded thanks to you,” Gawain said with sarcasm.
Mordred threw a small, blue book at Willis, Gawain, Lancelot, and Percival’s feet, “I grew tired of always failing in my attempts to kill King Arthur. After my most recent attempt, I had an idea. I went to Merlina for help, since she wanted this to happen more than I did. It was a mistake, her grandfather helping him pull the sword from the stone all those years ago. The lady of the lake didn’t make things easier either with how she gave him this scabbard. So I had Merlina bewitch it. When Novema gave it to him, its power slowly corrupted him; turning him into what you just fought.”
“We needed you, Willis, because you were the only one who could lift the axe from its resting place,” Merlina explained.
“You think you’re gonna get away with this, but let me tell you something. We have a bit of a trend. Good guys win; bad guys lose.”
“Not anymore they don’t. It’s time I rewrote Arthurian history.”
“Don’t you mean ‘we’?”
“Actually, there’s been a change of plans, Mordred. You see, this world needs a queen and this is me.”
“Treacherous little…” but before Mordred could finish his sentence, Merlina sends a massive shockwave his way, which knocks him off his feet.
The scabbard emits a bright blue glow in her hands; the energy moves through her body and transforms her blue before everyone’s eyes. Each passing second, she changes shape. She began to resemble a huge, ferocious dragon measuring at about 13 feet with dark blue scales, horns on the back and front of its neck, on its chin. The beast had yellow cat eyes, razor sharp claws and a large, serpent-like tail split on the end like a snake’s tongue. As this new form of Merlina takes a step towards Willis, Gawain, Lancelot, and Percival, she hears Mordred say in a raspy voice as if he had the wind knocked out of him, “I thought we were in this together.”
“You thought wrong. See, it was always about me from the very beginning. I’m the only one of us with the know-how to rule this kingdom.” While she was ranting on and on, Lancelot, Percival, and Gawain quickly decide to do something as they jump in, weapons drawn.
Every attack they threw had no effect on the dragon’s tough hide.
Considering what he should do next, Willis stands back and watches the knights of the roundtable try their hand. Just then, the medallion in his possession begins to glow. As he glances at the coin shaped object in his hand, he then knew what to do. He marches towards the fight as the three knights stand facing the enemy as the aura of the medallion fills his body with power, “Make haste, you three; I’ll handle Merlina alone.”
“Are you mad, Sir Willis? She will tear you to pieces.”
“Your weapons have no effect, yet you still fight as if you have a chance; I know what I’m doing.”
“How amusing; you still make play you’re a white knight after committing such an act against the crown.”
“I do not ‘make play’, Merlina. It is you who are kidding yourself by thinking you can do a better job at ruling this land. You use me to do your dirty work while you just pick up the weapon and assume command. What makes you different from Arthur or Mordred himself?”
“I am ten times the ruler either one of them would be…”
“This isn’t how the story goes, Merlina. Arthur is meant to be king.”
“Not everything in books is always true, Willis; you will soon come to learn that.” Merlina pounced forward, and with a deft stroke, slashed Willis with her claws, once, twice. He was not fazed, nor did he hint at even the slightest flinch.
Willis, with the strength of the medallion coursing through his veins, lays down his axe and relies on his wisdom and skill in unarmed combat. He had shrugged off the slicing sting of Merlina’s talons; his scars healed up like before as he considers his next move carefully.
At this, Merlina became enraged. She inhaled with a shuddering fury, and let out a rumbling stream of flame across Willis. He was engulfed for a brief moment, and then the fire seemed to fold around him, like water around a rock in a stream. After stopping, Merlina began noticing a green shield surrounding him that generated from Willis simply holding his hand out, palm flat. Merlina stepped back one pace and then another.
Willis then rapidly levitates until he was slightly less than eye level with Merlina. Then, he leaped forward, the aura from his newfound power trailing behind him like a comet tail.
He hovered face to face with the angered dragon. Before Merlina could react, WIllis curled back her right leg, then kicked upwards in a blazing, air displacing arc. The kick landed on the lower front of Merlina’s jaw.

Her great, scaled head recoiled back, and her snout was thrust straight upwards against the blunt impact of his foot. Merlina held her eyes shut as she experienced a pain she had never felt before. It seemed to her to travel like an echo throughout the entirety of her skull, yet never fading in intensity. She had never felt such a powerful blow. No hammer, axe, or sword could compare. It had cracked scale through to the bone.
Merlina opened her eyes through pulsing pain, only to see Willis winding his fist back. The punch arrived with more haste than she could think. The first two knuckles of his fist connected precisely on the rim of her chin.
Her forepaws momentarily lost contact with the ground as she was actually lifted upwards by the energy of the uppercut. The distinct sound of scales buckling and her jaw breaking resounded like a thunderclap. Merlina let out an agonized roar. Leaving her stunned, Willis moves away by means of a loop-de-loop. With his left arm forward, he flies back at Merlina with the speed of a meteor flying towards a planet, and within a split second, shoots straight through her chest and out the back without leaving a huge gaping hole. Merlina instantly fell and her chin sends a small tremor through the earth once she makes impact. She immediately returns to her natural form and disintegrates, leaving her staff and the scabbard behind as she turns to purple dust like King Arthur and the knights of the underworld. Her last words before she was gone from this world were, “Such intensity; and all from a silly trinket. Maybe I should’ve taken that medallion instead.”
Willis stood where her weapons had fallen and so the knights of the roundtable, accompanied by Novema.
“Well done, Sir Willis,” said Percival.
“I’m not the only one who deserves thanks. You all played your parts as well.”
“I just can’t believe King Arthur was bewitched,” Gawain said.
“If had have known this truth, I wouldn’t have done what I had done. I’m sorry.”
“Without a king, what will we do?” Lancelot asked.
“We’re not without a king; you’re looking at him…”
“Me?” asked Willis in shock with wide eyes, “I’m no king.” And with that, Willis immediately snaps from his dream and back into the comfort of his own bed. It was still night as he awoke in his striped pajamas and looked over to his left hand, which had the medallion from his dream clutched in it.
The next morning when he comes down for breakfast, sits at the table with the medallion around his neck. His friends ask him where did he get it from and he explains the weird dream he had, “Most of you were in it,” he said as he pointed to Caitlin, Phoebe, Max, Meerlix, Wulf and Samuel. “Dad was a blacksmith, Caitlin was a witch; the female version of Merlin named Merlina, and Wulf, Max, Meerlix, and Phoebe were King Arthur and the knights of the roundtable.”
“Which one was I?”
“You were Percival,” Willis said to Phoebe, “Master swordsman and the wisest of the three knights. Oh and Serpitox was there too. He was Mordred.”
“Sounds like quite a dream,” Max added.
“One thing I never figured out though, was how it all ended. I woke up before they all figured out what they were about to do. After slaying Arthur, Camelot was now without a king.”
“Wait a minute, you slayed King Arthur? Why?”
“He was bewitched by Merlina as some plot to get Mordred into power. I had no idea that that was the reason for the King’s sudden change, and I slayed him because I thought it was the right thing to do.”
While Willis explained the story, the book on King Arthur in Samuel’s study levitates off the shelf, lands on the table and magically begins to open as it gives off a white glow. The pages turn until reaching the end of the book where it is shown that everything in their world had been returned to normal; King Arthur was brought back to life by the power of Novema. He no longer bears the scabbard given to him by the lady of the lake as he sits on his throne; crown covering his unusual green cornrow hairstyle, round edged, rectangular glasses atop his face similar to Wulf’s, but without the wolf snout, wolf legs on his hands and feet. He wore a red robe instead of a red scarf; at his side stood Percival, Gawain, and Lancelot.

Samuel was seen lying in a hospital room in his normal clothing, eyes closed, arms down at his sides and friends standing all around him, wondering if he was going to be okay.
“I’ve run a few tests on him. So far his vitals are normal, but there’s something going on with his brainwave patterns; they’re wildly erratic, I don’t know what to think of it.”
“Is there anything you can do for him?”
“So far he hasn’t responded to anything; the longer he stays this way, the more danger he’s in.”
“Knowing him, he’ll pull through. Never thought I’d say something positive about him,” Wulf said.
“Now’s not the time for your petty rivalry; Samuel’s in serious condition,” Caitlin explained. “Can you be more considerate?”
“That’s asking a lil much, especially from someone like me.”
“You’re unbelievable,” Max said.
“Look, MEGAN warned him about experimenting with powers he doesn’t understand, but you know how stubborn your old man is.”
“Can I ask you all to take this outside before you disturb the other patients?”
“Sorry, Dr. Krantz…”
The moment step out into the hallway, their communicators beep. MEGAN was on the other end with distressing news. Apparently, there was an abandoned cruise ship off the coast of some island in the pacific. The rangers had picked up energy readings from the vessel and Phoebe, Willis, Alex, and Meerlix immediately set out; Wulf stayed behind with the others as they awaited news about Samuel’s condition.
Phoebe, Willis, Alex, and Meerlix spread out like ants on a picnic table and search the entire ship; they search for at least 15 minutes or more and find no signs of struggle. Everything was in its rightful place; the kitchenware, the bedrooms, the paintings on the walls. On the dining hall tables, there were plates with food that had barely been touched. It was still warm, which told them that someone was there recently.
As Starla ventures down the hallway, she hears a bloodcurdling scream from one of the rooms on her right. She proceeds to investigate, assuming it was someone in trouble. But when she got there, she comes to realize the sound was emanating from the TV. It was an old black and white movie a woman in her twenties was running from a creature that had just rose up from the lake, “False alarm, guys…” Starla said in the communicator. “It was just the TV.”
“Alex, any luck on your end?” Phoebe asked.
“Nothing so far. This place is completely empty.”
“The lifeboats are still here, which means they didn’t abandon ship,” Willis explained.
While they continued the search, there was a disturbance in the city. There was a beast, a demonic figure in a purple shirt opened at the chest and black robe, which stretch down to its feet, carrying a sword on its back. His head resembled a spiky black rose bud with two small, golden horns and one large, golden horn on the top of its head, a large, purple diamond on its forehead, soulless, black eyes, and an emotionless, devilish expression. Out of the beast’s large, gold horn popped a violet aura, which it used to gather up people like a specter claiming souls. As it passes over their bodies, they turn into light and immediately compress into a ball-like form as they are pulled towards the monster’s center.
Zierian was the first to arrive on scene to deal with this foe.
“You are just the person I wanted to see…” the monster said in a tone like someone who hasn’t seen their best friend in a long while.
Zierian stood for a moment and then eventually selected his sword, “Who are you, may I ask?”
“I am Morticon…”
“Well, Morticon, now that you’ve seen me, you’re going to wish you never met me.”
Morticon pulled his blade from its sheathe and sliced but Zierian blocked.
They both ran further through the city until reaching the town square, Zierian attacking, Morticon blocking; Morticon attacking, Zierian blocking.
Morticon chased after Zierian as he ran and in a minute they were stand on the edge of a fountain, their swords almost like they were conversing through the many 'clangs' that cried out. Their bodies gyrated and twirled in circles, almost like they were dancing in their attempts to wear each other down. as the seconds pass, Zierian’s movements grew slower and slower like a washing machine after finishes a cycle. His body gave off a bright, golden glow and he quickly falls on one knee in front of his opponent. He saw parts of his armor vanishing from sight and quickly came to the conclusion in his own head that he was losing his powers.
Taking advantage of Zierian’s weakened state, Morticon attempts to perform the same trick he did on the citizens, but gets interrupted. Max and the other rangers quickly arrive to offer assistance. The fight drags on until Morticon performs his task to attempt the capture Zierian; Phoebe, Alex, and Max get in the way and are instantly transported to an undisclosed location, where he was greeted by Putras, while Willis, Caitlin, Starla, Meerlix, and Wulf escort Zierian back to the mansion.
Back at the hospital, Samuel was still fast asleep. Inside Samuel’s mind, he finds himself in the same forest from before when Feketa crashed into him. He awakens to see the same dark sky void of fireworks; just stars shining brightly as on any other night. Samuel gets up off his back and looks around. “Hello?!” his voice echoes throughout the area, but no one else answers back.
Seconds later, a young white girl 8 years of age, blonde with grey eyes appears before him dress in a pink jacket a red shirt and blue jeans that came up above her ankles.
“Who are you?” he asked.
She didn’t answer back; she just approached him and held out her hand.
“Do you know where I am?”
She nods her head; Samuel takes her by the hand and offers a handshake, but after introducing himself and pulling away, the girl still extended her hand. She gestures to Samuel to follow her.
“Where are you taking me?”
The girl remains the silent the whole time they were walking.
“You don’t say much do you?” “Can I at least know your name?”
Back at the command center
“MEGAN, what can you tell us about this monster?”
“What is doing with all those people?”
“He seems to be hitting them with some sort of ray, which creates a topological feature of spacetime, which is transporting them somewhere.”
“Great, another wormhole monster…”
“I am still trying to ascertain the location to which they are all being sent, but it’s not easy. There seems to be some sort of barrier blocking the rangers’ signal,” MEGAN explained.
“Do whatever you can, MEGAN.”
Caitlin enters the room.
“Any news on Zierian yet?”
“He’s resting right now, trying to get regain energy.”
“He was badly injured when we got there; maybe Morticon was too much for him.”
Back inside the secret city, the rangers and all the people Morticon captured were being herded like cattle towards large, white hexagonal building 12-stories high. They pass through the lobby filled with Seductra’s men on their way to the elevator. The place had a futuristic feel to it with some of the high-tech gadgetry lining the walls and electronic locks on the doors more advanced than the ones already in existence. Getting off the elevator, they were all moved down a hallway and through a door on their left halfway across. The first thing they see is a hexagon shaped fence with lasers on each corner. To the back of the room about 10-12 feet off the ground, there was a small, rectangular room with gray walls and lots of high tech machinery surrounding Seductra and her nieces. A single Putra sat at the controls while they stood back and watched what was about to go down.
“Everyone accounted for, except that Zierian. I’ll deal with it later. For now, we focus on turning these people into Putras.”
“How does it all work again?” Cameron asked.
“It’s simple, my dear. First, we convert them to data discs to make the process more manageable. Then, we plug them into a different machine, which will alter their molecular structure and fool around with their brainwave patterns and presto; we got instant Putra.” She walks over and hits the intercom buzzer, “Start placing them in the center of the room!”
The people were pushed towards the center in random increments and instantly hit with a green beam from all six corners. The beam covers their whole body until you couldn’t tell what they looked like or what their skin color was. Slowly, inch by inch, a part of them would vanish from the feet all the way up to their head as their bodies were converted from flesh, bone, blood, and organs into random data on a blue, plastic disc that was three inches in diameter. Each person was coded to a single disc, which Christi pulls out of the machine as soon as they pop out. She then takes the discs over to a large, black filing cabinet.
Later back at the command center, MEGAN finally picked up Max, Phoebe, and Alex’s energy signature, “I have a fix on the others’ location. The city is on the water not too far from where the cruise ship was located.”
“But how do we get in with that force field in place?”
“The same way everyone else got in…”
In the attic, Caitlin, Starla, and Alex find Samuel Grant’s survival gear. There were canteens, tents, flashlights, backpacks, etc.; they gather all they need and the rest of the rangers help them pack down in the living room.
“Perhaps I should come along,” Zierian said as he slowly walks into the room, holding onto objects along the wall to keep himself up.
“You need to stay here and rest, Zierian,” Willis explained. “After what you went through, you are in no condition to fight.”
“You’re probably going to need all the help you can get; I can’t just lie here.”
“We can handle ourselves; we were doing fine before you got your powers back,” Wulf replied.
Inside Samuel’s dream, he and the girl were still walking through the forest. Samuel was the only one saying anything.
“Give it to me straight, am I dead?”
She shrugs her shoulders.
“You don’t know?”
“Well if she’s not certain, you’re gonna wish you were when I’m done with you…”
“I know that voice; Guy Tucker?”
His old friend, Guy, the one he fought alongside to save the world from the magma skin race, who had enslaved mankind inside of the computer program they knew as “the Omni Gaia”.
“I thought you were dead. What are you doing here?”
“I wanna see if you still have what it takes,” Guy assumes a fighting position.
“Seriously, is he for real?” Samuel looks to the girl who was with him, but she had disappeared.
“Who are you talking to? Don’t tell me you’re getting senile in your old age.” Guy rushes Samuel with a clothesline maneuver and knocks him flat on his back. “C’mon, it’s gotta take a lot more than that to beat you, get up!” Guy drags Samuel back onto his feet and shoves him towards a boulder; Samuel trips over and falls on his face before getting back up seconds after.
“Show me you still got some fight in you; don’t hold back!”
“Oh with pleasure…” Samuel leaps over the rock and once he was close enough, he throws a right cross; Guy leans back and then springs forward a straight punch; Samuel grabs him by the arm and twists his arm to the left before throwing a judo chop to the back of the neck while he was on his knees.
Guy pushes upward and throws Samuel over him and onto his back. He then turns and kicks him towards a tree. With Samuel on his side with his back facing the tree, Guy approaches.
Samuel rolls onto his back and performs a back flip onto his feet.
Guy throws a right kick and Samuel grabs his leg and throws in the opposite direction.
“So you do have some fight left, but will it be enough?” Guy vanishes like a ghost in the night.
“What the heck is going on here?”
As the girl reappears, Samuel jumps in a fright. “Where did you go to?” “No, I’m not going anywhere with you until you start explaining a few things.”
“If it’s answers you seek, then don’t look to her, but to me.”
“Shakuro; why am I not surprised?”
“If memory serves me correctly, it takes a lot more to surprise you.” Shakuro approaches and knocks Samuel with a palm punch to the chest. “Are you going to fight or let the girl fight your battles for you?”
“I don’t need anyone’s help in beating you.” Samuel prepares to fight.
Shakuro repeatedly kicks with both his left and right; Samuel blocks with his palms then retaliates with a hammer fist. Shakuro comes back with a fan kick, but Samuel evades, slides in and performs a sweep kick; after landing on his side, Shakuro delivers a swift kick to the face and Samuel rolls over twice. Shakuro leaps at him with a knee kick and Samuel rolls out of the way. As he gets to his feet, Shakuro swings at him three times with a left and then a right; Samuel leans left, right and back and then comes at him with a frontal kick to the groin, which Shakuro blocks with his knees.
Samuel attacks Shakuro’s throat, but Shakuro clenches Samuel’s fist under his chin; Samuel unclenches and pokes him in the Adam’s apple, causing him to release. Then he knocks him to the ground with a spiral kick to the jaw.
Shakuro breaks his fall by planting his fist on the ground and pushes himself back up, “You’re even stronger than you look, but that’s not going to be enough on me.”
Meanwhile, the rangers catch up to Morticon at the marina. He had just finished rounding up everyone when the rangers dash out in plain sight. After Morticon spots them and transports them to the secret city, he thinks to himself a brief moment that capturing them was too easy.
Putras surround everyone seconds after they arrive and started carting everyone away. Starla asks the rest of the team to hold onto her hands. It soon became obvious what she was about to do, but as Starla tried to transports everyone through the light of the lamppost above, she finds it difficult, “The force field must be dampening my powers.”
“Good thing I brought these…” Wulf holds out a couple of smoke pellets. “Get ready to run.” He drops them and creates a thick enough cloud of smoke to cover their escape.
“That was close. What do we do now?”
“We’ll scout for whatever is generating the force field,” Starla explained.
“Wulf and I will free the others.”
“Okay, Caitlin, you two be careful. With the shield up, I’m guessing we can’t call on our weapons.”
After Caitlin and Wulf leave, Starla, Willis, and Meerlix fire a probe; Starla pops a small capsule into her blaster and fires a shot into the air. There was a glimmer of orange light as the device, a miniature black camera-like thing, takes pictures of the surrounding area as it slowly descended.
“Okay, we should have picture in… 3…2…1… now.”
“It’s right there; on top of a brown building with white windows.”
“Getting a lock on its position; got it. It’s to the southwest. Let’s get moving before someone spots us.”
Just then, a small army of Putras come in from the east. After seeing them coming, the rangers grab their gear. Taking deep, panting breaths they ran forward. They could hear their pursuer close behind them, just barely. Though the teen was tall, his gait was quiet.
“This way!” Starla said, turning to fire at the enemy. She glanced behind her friends briefly then gasped at how close the Putras were getting.
Meerlix soon felt a weight suddenly bring him down to the ground as a lone Putra tackled him.
"Ow..." Meerlix groaned as the world came back into focus.
Willis took a shot at the monster and reduced to a puddle of pink and white jelly, "You okay, Meerlix?" he asked with concern.
"M'fine," he replied.
Willis and Starla continue to fire back and drop the enemy one by one like flies as they pick Meerlix up and continue moving. They managed to lose their pursuers temporarily as they turn the corner of some building. Meerlix volunteers to keep the enemy busy long enough for Starla and Willis to do their thing.
Around the same time, Samuel finishes up his fight with Janis inside his head; well almost.
Janis comes back with a powerful hit and Samuel falls flat on his face.
“Do you yield?” he asked.
Samuel was hesitant with his answer as he struggled to get up, “As long as there are people like you, I will never give up.”
“Well then, I guess there’s one thing left to do…”
Samuel flinches as Janis prepares the final attack, which never came. Instead, Janis held his hand out as if he were offering to help him up, “What’s this?”
“It has all been a test, Samuel…” Shakuro’s voice as he comes out of the shadows.
“And you passed,” Guy Tucker finished.
Janis turns to them and nods. Guy and Shakuro approach, hold out their hands and unclench their fists.
“The Purple medallion…” Samuel said confusedly as he saw the three pieces in the hands of Guy, Shakuro, and Janis.
Several seconds later, the little girl from earlier steps in between two of them and offers Samuel a hand before turning to the three, who passed her the three halves to place in Samuel’s hand. As she made the exchange, the pieces give off a brilliant white glow. Once the light dimmed, the pieces became whole again.
After Samuel had snapped out of his dream, Starla, Meerlix, and Willis climbed the fire escape to the building where the satellite generating the shield was.
Meanwhile, inside the tower where all of Seductra’s prisoners were being kept, she and her nieces turn their attention to the monitors as two of the rangers rapidly ascend the staircase to their objective. Seductra turns to her nieces and orders them to go deal with the problem.
As soon as they leave the room, Wulf drops in from the ceiling vent. Seductra was unaware of his presence as he creeps up from behind, draws his sword, puts it to her neck, and gives her an ultimatum.
“You wouldn’t kill me, Wulf. I know you…”
“Well, not as well as you’d think. Now, move away from the console slowly.”
At the same time, Caitlin bursts through the doors to the room below where Wulf and Seductra were, blaster equipped as she watched her shots carefully as the last group of people were herded to the hexagon shape and immediately turned to data discs; midway through, Caitlin aims for the machine directly above them.
Seductra immediately whispers in Wulf’s ear, “If your friend destroys the machine, you can say goodbye to your friends and everyone else, because they’ll be stuck as data discs forever.”
Wulf drags Seductra over to the intercom to relay the message while she struggles to get free. As she escapes Wulf’s clutches, she summons Morticon, who appears in the room behind Caitlin. After disarming and knocking Caitlin down, Zierian appeared, He stood between them both, facing Morticon unarmed this time.
At Meerlix, Starla, and Willis’ location; as they prepare to set the explosive charges to blow up the satellite, they’re interrupted by Cameron and Christi.
“Can you guys buy me a few minutes?” Willis asked as he set the backpack down and opened it.
“Sure thing…”
Cameron came out throwing a flurry of energetic punches. Showing great reactions, Starla blocked all the punches and made it look effortless. Then, Starla’s rhythm was broken by a sudden jab to the nose from Christi, who had just jumped in to save her sister. Starla quickly followed up with a series of quick punches to the girl's body. Christi tried to cover up, but every one of Starla’s punches hit their target. Christi retreated, and Cameron continued her body assault from where her sister left off until she returned to the fight. One final kick to her side, shock the side of the air vent as Cameron compressed her body against the structure. With no wind in her to make a sound, Cameron fell to her knees, mouth open trying desperately to catch her breath. Christi leapt in once again with a superman punch to the jaw, which rocked Starla for a brief moment. Her ears were ringing, her vision slightly blurry, but it passed. The fight dragged on another minutes, giving Willis just enough time to place the explosive charges. They were small, oval, and looked like a stink bug with a timer on them. The timer was set to 30 seconds, giving Willis, Cameron, Starla, and Christi just enough time to vacate. They leap off of the 12-story building towards the grass. After they roll, they stop to take a look at the sky; Christi was lying next to Willis and took his hand in hers, which for a moment made Starla jealous.
In the fight between Zierian, Caitlin, and Morticon; Zierian was again feeling weak, giving Morticon the advantage over Caitlin. After defeating her, he hands her over to a couple of Putras that escort her to the machine.
As Seductra and Wulf, she gets to talking and asks Wulf, “Why are you wasting time on me when your friend looks like he could use some help?”
Wulf’s vision shifts from the room below to back on Seductra. After looking back and forth a few times, but before he could make his decision, Seductra had made her escape.
Wulf shatters the window as he dives into the room below and to Zierian’s aid. It wasn’t until Wulf broke his sword in the fight that Zierian saw fit to endow Wulf with his powers. He quickly takes him by the hand and a golden light runs up the length of his arm and soon his hold body. Time had slowed down to give the transformation enough time to take effect. As his body glowed, Wulf took his morpher calls on his ranger form. Zierian’s powers quickly transported it from home and equipped it piece by piece. At the end of it all, Zierian’s sword took the place of Wulf’s and time went back to its normal speed.
Zierian was now in his regular form after giving his powers to Wulf. It was now revealed that he resembled Celsior and Farenhart, but golden yellow skin, similar long, golden lion’s mane, and the same clothing that Celsior wore, but in yellow, “Go get’em…” he said to Wulf.
“You, we’re gonna have a talk later about following orders…”
“Coming from, it would be a contradiction; you never follow orders.”
“Yeh, that’s true…” Wulf said.
“Shouldn’t you be up there, trying to free those people?”
“I’m leaving you in charge of that, Caitlin; fighting’s what I do best.”
Caitlin and Zierian rush out of the room and make a left. They climb the flight of stairs to the control room. Not knowing how the work the machinery, Caitlin gave it her best. “She’s certainly not making things easy…”
“How so?”
“She’s locked us out. I need the authorization code.”
“Try using MEGAN; she can hack into anything,” Willis said.
Caitlin presses a button the side of the communicator, which allows her to plug it into the console via USB drive. In minutes, MEGAN had access to Seductra’s entire system. She opened and closed files on screen at the speed of sound, looking for what she needed.
“You have an incoming message, should I patch it through?” MEGAN broadcasted to the whole team.
Samuel had already gotten through to them before she could do so, “Sorry I’m late, guys…”
“Samuel?”
“He’s okay!”
He makes his entrance in the skies above Meerlix, Starla, and Willis just moments after Cameron and Christi struck them to the ground. Once he lands between them, he performs a sweep kick to Christi, and lands a knee kick to Cameron’s stomach and then a backhand. Cameron quickly responds by grabbing his wrist and his armpit and flipping him over her head. Samuel lands to his feet with his free hand pointed at her chest as he fires a beam from his palm. After getting on her feet, Christi immediately lunges at him with a left punch. Samuel blocks with his arms in the form of an “X”, quickly brings them down over her wrist, twists her arm counter-clockwise, spins her, and throws her into Cameron.
“This oughta hold you for a while…” Samuel fires from his shoulder, a mini rocket filled with pink goo; a coagulant gel, which wrapped around the two, holding them in place on the ground.
“Dad,” Willis said, making him turn around, “How is it you’re here?”
“Bit of a long story; now’s not the time to discuss it.”
“He’s right; we need to rescue those people.”
“We need to do it fast, though; General Creed’s men are on their way here in fighter jets to level this city.”
“How did he learn of this place so quickly?”
“Well you know him; always piggybacking off of someone’s signal.” As he heads for the tower, he suggests to Starla, Meerlix, and Willis that they should morph.
After arriving, Samuel bursts through the door to where Wulf and Morticon were, “Thought maybe you could use some help.”
“Got it under control, thanks…” Wulf said just before he blocks one of Morticon’s punches and proceeds to grip the glowing horn on top of his head. He manages to stop Morticon from unleashing the purple aura he used before in transporting people to the island. He concentrates most of Zierian’s power as he attempts to break it off and succeeds. Morticon convulses as he grips the top of his head where his horn used to be. His power leaves his body as Wulf and Samuel can see by the clouds of purple smoke seeping through the space between his fingers. He uses what little was left to transport him, Wulf, and Samuel back outside just at the base of the tower.
Wulf and Samuel synchronize their efforts as they land several body shots. Their assault lasted for three minutes before they stop; Morticon was still flinching under the illusion that their attacks were still coming. He eventually stopped long enough to see them aiming almost everything they had at him to deliver the final blow. He went down screaming in a puff of smoke and roaring flames as Samuel and Wulf turn their backs.
“Cait, how’s it coming?”
“She’s in; all that’s left is to put the discs back in. I’m doing that now.”
As Seductra sits around in her floating fortress in outer space, she looks at her now incarcerated nieces covered in pink coagulant gel. “It is so hard to find good help these days, I gotta do everything myself.” She then turns to one of her men and orders them to fire a concentrated beam of light from the sun down to the island. As the temperature rises and heats the water, MEGAN alerts Samuel to this recent development.
“Not trying to rush you or anything, dear sister, but I think Seductra’s trying to turn this place into the new Atlantis. The temperature just started rising out of nowhere. How far along are you?”
“I’m nearly three-quarters of the way done.”
“Samuel, how do you expect us to get everyone out of here?”
“I actually have a plan. MEGAN told me everything; even about the cruise ship. I managed to get it all the way here,” Samuel explained to Meerlix and Willis.
“It was 90 miles away, how’d you manage that?”
“I have my ways; now, are we gonna get them to safety or just stand around?”
“How do we get them from here to there in a matter of minutes?”
“We each can carry four people. MEGAN, how many are there?”
“Over 100, sir…”
Samuel calculates the math in his head and finds that it doesn’t seem possible; but that never stopped him before. After Caitlin finishes returning the last of the people to their natural state, she, Max, Alex, and Phoebe morph and join the others. After boarding the ship, the fighter jets enter the island’s airspace and pelt the towers missiles. Each shot slowly weakens the structure, reducing it to nothing but rubble, but the island still sank into the depths as Samuel, his team, and all the passengers slowly sail away.
Just minutes before the island sank; Christi and Cameron broke free of their bonds due to the intense heat of the sun bearing down on them. The sun caused them to sweat a little, which in turn loosened the pink goo.
Seductra, who was watching from the comfort of her ship, was disappointed that her nieces were going to survive, but she managed to mask her emotions as they teleport aboard.
“I was so close. I had him right there, but those rangers had to interfere.”
“We’ll get him next time…”
“Now that my most hated enemy has Zierian’s power, it will be next to impossible. Passing the power over to him was a smart move; too smart, if you ask me.”

The day was October 30th, day before Halloween and it was time for Samuel and the gang to decorate the mansion for the party. Alex, Max, and Bradshaw were in charge of getting the stuff. The two were down at the storage facility where Samuel kept some of his stuff he didn’t have room for in his mansion gather an assortment of items such as: mini orange and black lights similar to the bulbs you put on Christmas trees, skeletons, cardboard cutouts of bats and ghosts and ghouls and all things Halloween and loaded them onto the back of a delivery truck.
Alex struggled with one of the larger boxes of stuff, taking a break between words, “How much… more stuff is there?” he panted.
“Just a few more boxes...” Bradshaw said.
“Good, then I can finally go and pick up my costume before there’s a long line.”
“I still don’t see why you need a costume when you can change into any animal you want?” Max adds as he carries a couple of large boxes in each hand as if nothing were in them.
“Maybe because what I’m going as doesn’t involve an animal; at least not a realistic one…”
“Please tell it’s not a Vampire, Alex; so cliché,” Willis explained.
“You’ll just have to wait for Halloween night.”
Meanwhile, as Serpitox spies on the three from their lairs, he gets an idea.
“Vampires cliché, huh? We’ll see about that.” Serpitox comments. “Pachytar, what’s the status on Fahl Kun and her mission?”
“She’s retrieved the item you requested and is on her way back right now.”
“Good, then we can move ahead with my other plan; since Zierian has seen fit to hand his powers over to Wulf, we need to act quickly and retrieve them from Wulf before it’s too late.”
“I agree sir…”
“His power is the key to my ultimate plan to take over this world.”
At the same time, Seductra looks down on Meerlix at a film festival as he’s sitting with a crowd watching an old horror movie called “Wolf” starring Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer.
“Werewolves… Werewolves” she mocked in a melodramatic tone, “Why must it always be Werewolves…” she practically emphasized on the word ‘why’. “It’s always the same with every Halloween; so annoying, don’t you agree, girls?” Seductra referred to Cameron and Christi “Whatever you say, Aunty S.”

“Anyway, I need a plan to get rid of the rangers and take that gold freak’s power for myself.”
“Perhaps pit one against the others; use this world’s clichés to your advantage.”
“You’re suggesting I turn one of them into a horror movie monster?”
“Yeh; maybe a werewolf or something…”
“Of course; I could turn the very one they’d least expect into a werewolf. They won’t know what hit them until it’s too late. But I’m gonna need a monster to pull this off…”
“I’ll check to see if you have one in your army, mistress.”
Max and Bradshaw return home without Alex to find Phoebe Willis, and Starla moving the last of the furniture out of the living room area.
“Good to see you guys have made record time…” Bradshaw commented.
“We do this now and there’s no worrying about it on Halloween tomorrow.”
“So, what did you guys get?”
“One delivery of authentic Halloween gear without the long waiting period,” Max explained.
“Great, we can start putting them up. We’ll put the skeletons over here…” Phoebe explained.
“Where are Wulf and Caitlin?”
“We sent Wulf out to get the food,” Samuel said. “I’m… not sure on Caitlin’s whereabouts.”
“Yeah, she was just here,” Starla answered.
Someone taps Max on the shoulder and as he turns around, a green, slimy, long curvy nosed monster stares in directly in the face and snarls; Max jumps and gets in his fighting stance, but before he could attack, the beast removes its face and reveals itself to be Caitlin Rose in disguise. “Haha, scared ya,” she laughed.
“Good one, Caitlin,” Max replied as he stood down.
Later on in the afternoon at Seductra’s lair, she was greeted by a burnt orange, long-haired werewolf with big yellow eyes and a long snout towering a couple feet over her as she sat in her chair on the command deck.
“So, Lycanda, what makes you think you’re qualified?” Seductra asked.
“Well, for starters, I have strength twice that of humans and I’ve got a mean temper, and my bite… well let’s just say it’s worse than my bark.”
“Good, because to start off, I want you to first sink your teeth into one of those pesky rangers.”
As Alex feared, there was a long line he had to wait in to pick up his preordered costume; it was night time when he and Meerlix walked home, which gave Seductra’s monster and Pachytar time to strike. Lycanda attacked Alex first just after he walked away from the costume store. He dragged Alex into an alleyway, and after a short fight, he had bitten him on the arm and fled.
Wulf arrives in his car to find him. He gets out and goes to Alex’s side, “Hey, Alex, what are you doing out here? Are you okay?” he asked. “C’mon, we need to get you back home.”
“That lil space pirate; what does she think she’s doing? Oh well, time to switch targets, Pachytar.” Serpitox brings Meerlix up on screen and Pachytar springs into action.
Pachytar strikes the ground with his right foot while Meerlix leaps into the air and performs a kick to the jaw. Pachytar tackles Meerlix, who performs a spiraling uppercut to the chin. Pachytar then picks up a a garbage can and chucks it at Meerlix, who rolls to his left, clings to a wall as he performs a Parkour move and scurries at Pachytar like a cat running from a dog. As he approaches, he spirals along the wall until his feet faced Pachytar and then lands a double leg drop kick. As Pachytar stumbles back, Meerlix rushes in low to the ground like a lion about to pounce on its prey and then springs upward with a flurry of scratches to Pachytar’s chest while he just stands there and takes it. Moments later, he stampedes towards Meerlix with incredible force and knocks him for a loop. Meerlix lands on his feet and summons his hawk crossbow. After most of his shots bounce off, he converts the weapon to sword mode. He and Pachytar get in close and after a short swordfight, Pachytar sticks Meerlix with some type of serum and he began to change; nothing noticeable as of yet, but Meerlix did fall to his knees.
“You can feel it taking over can’t you? There’s no stopping it once inject, now listen to me very carefully, my boss has a proposition he’d like to share with you…” Pachytar answered with an evil chuckle.
After Lycanda returns to base, he confronts a now pleased version of Seductra and tells her that his plan succeeded.
“So when does it start to work?” She asked him.
“Well, the full moon will be out in just a few minutes and the transformation will commence. Once it’s done, he won’t need to be in the presence of another one to change; only when it’s night and he feels the need to feed.”
“You better watch out, Wulf. You’re driving around with mixed company…” she laughed evilly.
The clouds clear and reveal the full moon, which shined in through the car as Wulf was driving. He would look over occasionally at Alex, but this time he noticed something was wrong. When it was too late to do anything, Alex changed and Wulf decided quickly to kick him out of the passenger door before he stopped and got out himself.
Alex was kneeled over, face down at the asphalt as he starts twitching; his body grew, his clothing ripped, he started growing hair all over like some kind of wild animal. And then it started, Alex’s pupils turned blood red and his mouth turns into a wolf snout as he turned to Wulf and howled.
Wulf was shocked as Alex rushed him, but he finally snapped out of it and tripped him. “Alex… what are you doing? It’s me, Wulf. Your friend, remember that?”
Alex got up again and rushed him.
Wulf dealt a frontal kick to the stomach, but Alex absorbed the blow and kept coming until Wulf leapt up and landed a blow to the jaw with a spiraling kick; Alex still didn’t go down. He slashes Wulf, who blocks and hits him with an uppercut; Alex grabs his wrist and twists him around before grabbing his throat with his other hand and trying to choke him.
Wulf elbows him in the kidney and breaks free before he turns and delivers a low punch above the belt, a low kick to the knee and a spiraling sweep kick before mounting and trying to keep him pinned. “I am not your enemy, McLaren, TRY AND CONTROL WHATEVER’S HAPPENING TO YOU!”
Alex continues to snarl at him and push him off, but Wulf applied a stronger force each time until Alex rolls him over and tries to bite him.
“You’re gonna have to work for this meal, pup!” Wulf thumps him on the ear and pushes him off.
Meerlix arrives on scene and scares Alex off several minutes before the others show up. “Hair-raising development…”
“Spare me the dribble, pussycat!”
“Dribble. Cute; seeing as that’s all he’s did was drool.”
“You gonna help me up or not?”
“What happened to Alex?”
“That thing… was Alex…”
“What?”
The next morning when they rangers awoken, they go through the usual routine: brushing their teeth, washing their faces, showering, etc., before going down to have breakfast. Meerlix was the only one who was off to a late start. He was the last person to come down the stairs to a breakfast table where his friends were listening to Wulf explain last night’s situation with him and Alex.
While at the table, they all notice something about Meerlix they hadn’t before: he was wearing sunglasses, when he hardly ever wearing. Another thing they noticed was when Phoebe sat down next to him with her place, he stared when he saw her Garlic Texas toast on the plate.
“Want some?” she offered him a slice of her toast and he cringed at the very sight of it as if he were allergic.
“Alright alright, all you had to say was no…”
“Meerlix, what is with you today? You haven’t been yourself since coming home from that film festival.”
“However do you mean, Starla?”
“Well for starters, when you raided the fridge and drank a bit of punch from the bowl, you immediately spit it out, and then afterwards you started mumbling something about ‘that’s not blood’.”
“And right now, the whole thing with the shades indoors.”
“I just… didn’t get much sleep. My eyes are lil red; nothing to worry about.”
“Lack of sleep means insomnia and insomnia means there’s something wrong; are you worried about anything?” Willis asks.
“Nothing I can remember.”
“Well if anything’s wrong, you can always talk to your friends about it.”
“Much appreciated, Max.”
“Hey, Samuel, any news on Alex yet?”
“Nothing right now, Caitlin; MEGAN ran a scan of the city and couldn’t find any trace of his locator’s signal anywhere.”
“Maybe he shut it off… or it could be lying ruined somewhere,” Wulf replied.
“Don’t worry; he’ll turn up eventually.”
“For now, I won’t stop searching.”
“How, Wulf?”
“The old fashioned way, no computer, no radar; just these,” Wulf points to his eyes and nose, “You’re forgetting I’m part animal.” Wulf takes a piece of toast off of Phoebe’s plate and nearly hits Meerlix with it as he picks it up, causing him to flinch.
Back at Seductra’s lair moments later; Seductra sits frustrated as she watches the monitors for signs of Alex. So far, he was nowhere to be found, which made her even more frustrated, “Ooh, I should’ve stuck a collar on that boy; how am I supposed to turn him against his friends if I can’t find him?”
“We’ll find him soon, Aunty S.”
“Focus more on finding that flea-bitten mongrel, Lycanda; it’s all his fault!” “LYCANDA!!!” she yelled slowly so her voice echoed throughout the ship.
“You howled, my queen?”
“Where… is that boy I had you bite the other night? He’s supposed to be carrying out his mission, but he’s gone M.I.A.”
“You asked me to bite him, I bit him; everything else after that is a dice roll.”
“Isn’t there something you can do to put him under our control?”
“Why didn’t you say that in the first place? I’ve got just the thing, watch this.” He demonstrates by aiming a red beam at one of Seductra’s Putras. The beam slithers around its neck and solidifies into a red ring. “This collar will act as a mind control device.” He commands the Putra to sit and it crouches down like a dog as it sat on its bottom.
“You find that kid and do the same thing to him or else… or else… ooh, I can’t think of a thing at the moment, but rest assured that if you fail me, you won’t like what I come up with.”
As he leaves, Seductra turns to her nieces, “Why’d I let you talk me into this?” she sighed.
At Serpitox’s island fortress around the same time; Pachytar confronts Serpitox and lets him know what’s troubling him, “If I may ask, master, what made you think of this idea?”
“You’ve fought him in the future, so you know how strong he is. His will is too strong for mind control, same as the other rangers of this century. This way, if he believes we hold the key to his reversal, he will bow to our will or forever remain an outcast.”
“How do you expect him to carry out our orders if there’s no sign of the one we’re looking for?”
“With a lil brute force, Pachytar, that’s how…” Serpitox watches Wulf on screen as he scours the city searching for Alex.
“I appreciate you coming with me and all, but I track better on my own,” Wulf said to Meerlix.
“Ever hear the expression ‘two heads are better than one’?”
Wulf looks over at Meerlix with disapproving stare.
“What?” Meerlix asked confusedly.
“You’ve got steam rising from your body, are you sure you’re alright? You don’t wanna switch places with me; get out of the shade?”
“No thanks, I’m good.”
The longer he’s been with him, the more Wulf starts putting together all the pieces to the puzzle: always wearing sunglasses even indoors, hatred for Garlic; he even looked at one of the windows of a shop they both passed by and Meerlix didn’t show up. “Hey, Meerlix, how about we split up, cover more ground?”
“Uh… sure.”
“I’ll take this way,” Wulf said.
As they go their separate ways, Wulf casually walks down the street, looking back to see if Meerlix was still eyeballing him before he walks into a supermarket and towards the produce section. Afterwards, he went by a hardware store and into the section with the lumber. After coming out of the store, Wulf was attacked by Lycanda.
“I was looking for your friend, but you’ll do just nicely for now.”
“Just when I thought I wasn’t going kick a lil a** today…” Wulf gets on his feet.
While they fought, Meerlix had his hands full with Pachytar and a handful of Cobra drones. The two fought long and hard; Pachytar got the best of him and the others had to jump in; half of them assisted Wulf, while the rest went to Meerlix’s aid.
Meerlix took to Wulf like a cat to catnip; he and Lycanda wear him down, but in the end, Meerlix grabbed Wulf and made his exit.
“Meerlix, what are you doing?” a wounded Wulf ninja warrior asked.
Meerlix removed his shades and revealed his glowing red eyes like demon’s eyes.
“Looks like your friend decided to join the winning side. Farewell, rangers.” Pachytar and Meerlix took off with the wounded Wulf; the others try to stop them, but it was too late.
Hours after the event in which Meerlix betray his team; Serpitox and Fahl Kun were now inside a dimly lit cave with a yellow light source somewhere in the room that was coming from a tube-like device; inside the tube was a yellow light source.
“Are you sure this will work, sir; you remember the events that happened in the future when you attempted this?”
“Quiet you…” Fahl Kun hissed at Meerlix.
“That was because I didn’t have a powerful enough energy source. This time, it will work.” “Pachytar, are the devices in place?”
“Our men are putting the last one down as we speak, my lord, I’ll get back to you with further progress.”
“See that you do.”
Meanwhile in South America, down near the bottom, a spiky monster which resembled a Mole continues to dig a large enough hole in the ground while a bunch of Cobra drones carry a large looking spike towards the vicinity.
While back at the mansion, the rangers are scratching their heads over the latest development.
“This has turned out to be an amazing day,” Max said with sarcasm, “First Alex and now Meerlix and Zierian; how could he do this?”
“At least Alex has an excuse for his behavior; what about Meerlix?”
“I dunno what got into him, but I am sure of one thing: that he’s turning into a vampire.”
“That’s ridiculous, Max.”
“Is it, Phoebe? Is it? The glowing red eyes, his thirst for blood as Starla pointed out, and his hatred for garlic. ”
“Guys, I hate to interrupt, but I’ve found a faint energy signature in the wood; it could be Alex. Plus, MEGAN has picked up seismic activity in different parts of the world; all of them settled around major oceans.”
“That’s great.”
“What about news on Wulf?”
“So far, no sign of him anywhere, but I’m still looking.”
“Caitlin and I will go and find Alex in the meantime,” Zierian replied.
“While they do that, I’ll need the rest of you to check out these disturbances.”
Meanwhile, in Seductra’s lair
“I set out to turn one of the rangers’ fellow teammates against them, but this is even better. I’ll let them preoccupy themselves in searching for him while I find their lil golden pal. No doubt Serpitox has him, but where is he holding him?”
“Scanners are detecting massive amounts of energy along the coasts of seven locations, perhaps he’s got him at one of those.”
“Where’s Lycanda?”
“Still missing in action, ma’am…”
“Why is it he’s never around with ya need’em? Fine, we’ll take a handful of Putras and find Wulf ourselves. We don’t need Lycanda.”
A while later in the woods, Caitlin and Wulf dismount their vehicles just outside the tree line before heading in.
“According the scanners, he’s somewhere around here.”
“Over there!” Caitlin shouts.
Alex lies in the dirt near a tree, jacket and shirt tattered and worn down.
“Someone’s had a rough night…”
“Alex?” she calls out, “Alex, it’s us, your friends.” Alex didn’t respond, so she slapped him to wake him up.
“Huh. What?” he responded.
“Alex, you’re okay!”
“What happened? Why do I feel like death?”
Back at home after explain to Alex what happened to him, he was shocked at what he heard.
“I was what?”
“A werewolf to put it shortly; Wulf found you when he was driving home from the grocery store and that’s when it happened.”
“You attacked me and took off. If not for Meerlix, you’d have probably killed him.”
“And where’s Meerlix now?”
“That’s the other bad news…”
“He’s now working for his arch enemy; Wulf has this theory he’s been turned into a vampire.”
“My theory is quite sound; he’s a sunlight and garlic loathing, bloodsucking demon of the night.”
“I’ve managed to run a scan on Meerlix’s brainwaves and they don’t read like someone who’s been brainwashed, but like a person who’s acting out of desperation,” MEGAN explained.
“Maybe he’s being bribed.”
“But how is Serpitox bribing him, Caitlin?” Samuel asked.
Somewhere on shores of Eurasia, Willis, Phoebe, and Starla check out the reading at the coordinates Samuel gave them; what they found when they got there wasn’t good. The spikes that were placed in several locations alone the shores of each continent were several stories high, cylindrical shape that was eight feet in diameter, and had six multicolored, pulsating rings hovering in place without anything attaching them to the base. At the very top there was a clear glass sphere pointed towards the ocean.
“What is it?”
Willis scans the device as he circles it, “Seems to be some kind of magnet, but I’m not entirely sure. Its polarity seems to be far greater than anything in existence.”
“It looks like it’s aimed out to sea.
Christi calls out to Willis like a lover spotting their boyfriend across the way, “Hey, Willis, I had a feeling I’d find you here…”
“Christi, Cameron; now’s not the time for us to be doing this.”
Christi throws down a handful Putra Jellies, which instantly grow into Putras. As she orders then to attack, she and Cameron follow them into battle.
Meanwhile, Seductra gives up searching for Lycanda and decides to go after Serpitox. She and her army of Putras mess around with one of his giant magnets in order to flush him out.
An alarm goes on the screen hanging from the wall of the control center for his devices and gets his attention. “What’s going on? What’s that sound?” Serpitox asked nervously.
“It seems we’ve got a problem with the South American polarity magnet, your lordship.”
He turns to Pachytar, who was at the monitor, watching one of the readouts on screen go red, “Go see what the problem is and report back to me; I’ll prep for phase 2 of the plan. Meerlix, you go with him, too.”
“What about our deal?”
“We’ll discuss the terms when you get back.”
“Fahl Kun, I need you here. Once phase 2 is complete, I’ll still be vulnerable; you’re my only defense.”
Meerlix and Pachytar travel through a green and black portal and appear in front of Seductra and her army halfway through their random destruction of the device and by clearing his throat, Pachytar warns of them of their presence.
“Well… I was expecting the big man himself, not his pets.” Seductra said “Listen…” she said in a reassuring tone, “All I want is the gold guy. You give’em to me, and I promise I won’t break any more of your toys, okay?”
“No deal. Our master still requires him. You can have whatever’s left when he’s done.”
“Alright then, if that’s how you wanna play it; Putras? Search and destroy.”
Pachytar unleashes the cobra drones on her Putras. Why they fought, he and Meerlix tackled Seductra.
Meerlix swipes low at Seductra’s hip, but she leans to one side; Meerlix then performs an upward slash only to have her spiral out of the way, dawn her armor and sword and deliver a devastating strike to the backside.
Once Meerlix was down, Pachytar quickly marches up like a stampeding elephant, but Seductra back flips out of the way; Pachytar stops and backhands her into a boulder. With her on the ground, Pachytar summons his sword and moves in for the kill. He strikes the ground where she was, but misses as she rolls out of the way. He turns to her again and swings, but Seductra ducks. Pachytar swung around again. Spark flew from their blades as they exchange back and forth.
After getting on his feet, Meerlix fights his way out of a circle of enemies before he was confronted by Lycanda, who leapt in and attacked him from the air. He aims for the head, but Meerlix leans back. He aims low for the abdomen, but Meerlix leans forward, grabs his wrist, spirals and slashes him in the stomach.
Lycanda slashes from the left; Meerlix blocks and hits in in the chin with the top of his head, then spirals, links his arms with his palms angled and strikes Lycanda’s chest.
A few moments later, after Seductra and Pachytar had a long drawn-out battle, Seductra’s Putras all formed together around Pachytar like a giant wad of gum and solidified until he couldn’t move.
“Seems you’ve gotten yourself in a sticky situation...” Seductra moves closer and then turns her attention to Lycanda as he’s bombarded with laser fire. “What?” she said to herself before noticing three of the rangers, Alex, Caitlin, and Max, arrive on scene.
“Are you sure you’re up to this?” Caitlin asked.
“I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t.” Alex then summons his Scorpion Saber.
As soon as they called on the WASP stinger mark I, Samuel explained how he outfitted the laser blasts with silver nitrate; perfect for stopping a werewolf.
Max and Caitlin take aim just before Alex got out of the way and fired a quick burst of energy, which was enough to defeat Lycanda.
“That’s not fair…” Seductra whined.
Once he was gone, Alex felt a change in him; he didn’t feel so weak anymore.
“Guess the spell was broken once Lycanda was destroyed…”
Afterwards, Meerlix intervened. After he knocked the weapon from their hands he attacks with a fury of hits.
Alex grips him tightly around the waist, pinning his arms to his sides. “Meerlix, why are you doing this?” he asked.
Meerlix didn’t answer. He just broke free of Alex’s grip and slashed twice across his chest.
Caitlin takes the opportunity to hit him with a small enough concussive blast from her eyes to stun him temporarily.
Meerlix comes to his senses, rushes up and hits her with a back flip kick, which lands her in the arms of the Cobra Drones.
Max leaps at Meerlix with a flying punch with his pill bug armor, but Meerlix turns around, grabs his wrist and flips him over his head before he delivers a strong kick to his center and knocks him towards Caitlin and the Cobra drones.
Back in Eurasia, Willis, Phoebe, and Starla just now finished fighting the Putra’s, started focusing on Cameron and Christi.
Cameron and Christi lock wrists; Cameron swings Christi at Starla, Phoebe, and Willis, who duck, lean back, and jump out of the way. Cameron lets go of her wrists after she lands on her feet and Phoebe rushes forward. She shot her right fist out, popping a jab at Christi’s face twice. She shook her head clear and tried to push Phoebe back, but she clinched and pounded her fist into Christi’s abs.
Christi pushed her away with a kick to the stomach and then rushed forward and hammered Phoebe’s face with a left cross. Jinx’s head snapped to the side, and Starla stepped in, plowing her left foot into the ninja’s side. Christi’s body leaned to one side, giving Cameron a chance to get in on the action. She grabbed Starla by the back of the neck and pulled her close with her left, then socked her body with several right knee kicks to the belly.
Starla grunted to the pain of the attacks and then broke free only to have Cameron shove her back with a double leg drop kick; Willis’ shot from his blaster flew at Cameron and she spiraled left and straight into a rock-face.
Christi started to move forward with Shuriken in hand and intent to use them. Phoebe responded with a series of random swings from after she summons her weapon through her glove. Christi grunted as her ninja stars dropped at her opponent’s feet and Starla then comes in from Phoebe’s right. As she passes her, she conjures her Armadillo blades into her hands. Christi draws her sword as she approaches. Starla crosses her weapons in front of her breasts and stops the sword just inches away from her heart.
As they reach the end of the fight, Samuel calls, “If you’re not busy, the others need your help with Pachytar and his goons.”
“But what about the magnets?” Phoebe asked.
“A scan shows that destroying them individually will do nothing. You’ll need to focus your attention on the one that controls the rest, but so far, we haven’t been able to determine which one is the master control.”
Back in South America, things were not going so well as Alex and the others focus more on talking Meerlix out of working with Serpitox.
“Meerlix whatever Serpitox promised you, don’t believe it.”
Meerlix pushes Alex out of the way after landing a fury of hits with the speed of a cheetah.
It was Caitlin’s turn to try and reason with him, “He’s your arch enemy; you should know him better than we do. What reason would he have to keep his word?”
Meerlix hesitates as he thinks about Caitlin’s words.
“What are you waiting for? You have them right where you want them; destroy them already!” Pachytar barked.
Meerlix raises his paw to take a swipe at Caitlin, but continues to hesitate, so Pachytar decides to intervene.
“If you’re not going to do it, I will.” Pachytar shoves him out of the way.
Just then, Willis, Phoebe, and Starla arrive and stop him before he could have the chance and make him flee along with Meerlix.
Later back at the mansion, inside the command center, Samuel’s instruments detected an abnormally high output of energy being transferred into the magnets along the shores of each continent; Serpitox was preparing to power up his machine, which MEGAN determined was going to be used by him to bring the continents together and reform Pangaea, the super-continent.
“We can’t risk waiting for him to power the machine up, because it may be too late,” Samuel explained.
“Well there must be something we can do; what about the WASP stinger Mark 3?”
“It only works outdoors; it’s no use,” MEGAN explained.
“Besides, it’s like I told the rangers; destroying each magnet individually won’t work.”
“So without a bearing on Serpitox’s main base, we can do nothing?”
“MEGAN, run a wide-range scan for unusual fluctuations in power.”
“I’m doing it right now,” she replied.
“He’s gotta be giving off a lot of heat.”
“There’s a huge surge of power emanating from the South Pole, sir.”
Samuel opens a line of communication to the rangers, “Guys, Serpitox’s main base is in Antarctica.”
“Okay thanks…”
“You need to get there ASAP; he’s powering up those big magnets. He’s planning to recreate the super continent. If he succeeds, the world will be shook to pieces.”
Meerlix and Pachytar return to the base in Antarctica in defeat.
“Well, did you take care of the problem?”
“Seductra and her men were causing trouble, but we took care of them. Though, as soon as this cat had a couple of the rangers in his sights, he chickened out.”
“At least I helped sort out the problem with Seductra, so what about our deal?”
“The deal was also to deal with any other interlopers who got in your way; your friends are not excluuuuded…”
“I can’t.”
“You want to be normal again, don’t you? Then complete the rest of our arrangement and you’ll get your form back.”
Meerlix hesitates before asking, “What guarantees do I have that you’ll stick to your end of the bargain?”
“What choice do you have, Meerlix?”
“Master, we have intruders closing in fast on our position from the northwest,” Fahl Kun shouted from across the room.
“Here’s your chance to redeem yourself; Pachytar, if this time he hesitates, destroy him along with his friends,” Serpitox ordered after Meerlix left the room.
“It would be my genuine pleasure…”
The rangers close in fast on snowmobiles and get blasted by Pachytar.
Pachytar chuckles and murmurs to himself, “Too easy…”
Max screams as he dawns his Pill bug armor and strikes the back of Pachytar’s head with his right arm; Pachytar comes to his senses and summons his sword. As he swings, Max ducks and dudes using his agility while his brother and Alex rush in from the sides and slash through his abdominal area.
Alex sheathes his sword and transforms into a polar bear as he takes a swipe at Pachytar and shoves him straight through a hill of snow and ice.
During the whole fight, Meerlix stood back as he was unsure of what to do.
Pachytar quickly turns to him after striking Willis and Alex down, “What are you doing just standing there? Help me!” he faces forward again as Max attacks with his pill bug armor attached to his left leg. He blocks the attack and strikes from above, but Max moves the armor up to his left arm and blocks his sword.
Starla intervenes by throwing her weapons, the armadillo blades, which cut through Pachytar’s sword and gave Max a fighting chance.
After a long fight, Meerlix decides to jump in, but instead of helping his enemy, he joined his friends.
“Bad move, furball…”
The rangers call on the WASP stinger Mark II and take aim at Pachytar; the blast didn’t destroy him, but it was enough to weaken him.
With him down, the rangers head inside to Serpitox and Fahl Kun stopped them.
“You guys handle her; I’ll find Serpitox.”
“You got it, Meerlix.”
Fahl Kun unsheathes her sword and faces them. They all rush her at once, but she fights them off with grace. After she pushes Caitlin down with a frontal kick, Phoebe throws her boomerang, which Fahl Kun dodged. As it came back around, Fahl Kun holds her sword down behind her head and stops it before bringing her free hand to her face and jerking it away in a quick moment, which resulted in the rangers being bombarded with an energy beam.
Meerlix find Serpitox after a short search, “It’s all over, Serpitox.”
“I don’t think so…” Serpitox turns to him.
Meerlix summons his Hawk crossbow; Serpitox shoots a laser beam from his eyes before Meerlix could react and rapidly approaches. He knocks the crossbow from Meerlix’s hand, grasps his throat and slams him into the wall; Meerlix swats his hand away and throws a low punch to the stomach, then throws a low kick, which Serpitox blocks with his palm, before he spirals and performs a back kick. Meerlix is pushed into a wall with Serpitox following him closely. With his back against the wall, Meerlix crouches and performs an uppercut, which knocks Serpitox on his back.
He gets to his feet and struck back violently, hoping to put his opponent on the defensive. A right straight punch to the chest sent Meerlix reeling, and a pair of left crosses to the ribs forced him back.
“You could’ve had everything. I would’ve let you rule by my side same as Pachytar; as Fahl Kun. But you spat my offer back in my face.”
“No deal is worth sacrificing innocents.”
“This will be better off when the human element is wiped away; all they do is create to destroy. I’m glad I forfeited my human side. Human are weak; the reptile is stronger.” Serpitox slides back and swipes at Meerlix’s stomach. Thinking quickly, Meerlix leaps towards his crossbow, picks it up, and shoots the console, which Wulf is hooked up to.
“Just because you’ve turned yourself into a cold-blooded animal, doesn’t mean you have to embrace a similar lifestyle…” Meerlix places the unconscious Wulf ninja Warrior’s arm on his shoulder as he carries him out.
Serpitox puts up one last fight before Wulf finally wakes up. The two of them together combine their power and temporarily disable him long enough for Samuel to arm the WASP stinger Mark 3 from the command center. Serpitox and Wulf managed to make it out before a concentrated beam of energy caused the place to explode.
All that was left was Pachytar, Fahl Kun and a bunch of Cobra drones. They couldn’t believe it; their boss was destroyed along with his base and his plans to reshape the world. To avenge him, they decided to stay and fight the rangers to their last breath; which wasn’t too long.
“Let’s get out of here, Pachytar.”
“Good idea,” he said back to Fahl Kun. “We live to fight another day, rangers!”
With Serpitox destroyed, Meerlix and the others return to the mansion and prepare for the Halloween party; everyone started arriving while Meerlix, Wulf, and Samuel were down in Samuel’s laboratory trying to figure out how to help Meerlix.
“I’m sorry I even trusted him.”
“I doubt Serpitox even had an antidote; why make one if we was going to destroy us and the earth anyway?”
“How do I return to normal now?”
“We’ll think of something, Meerlix, don’t worry.”
“Zierian, isn’t there something you can do?”
“I’m too weak for me to do anything. I’m sorry. That responsibility now lies on you, Wulf.”
“Me?”
“You now possess my powers; with them, you can do anything, including help out your friend.”
Wulf and Meerlix stand face to face. Wulf channels a bit of his powers through Meerlix.
At first, he didn’t feel any different, but as soon as he turned towards a mirror, he saw his reflection. His hair was less shaggy and his eyes weren’t red. He no longer felt the thirst for blood. He was back to normal once again.

*at the beginning, the story is being told through Wulf's eyes; Wulf ninja warrior


“Samuel doubted me, but my suspicions were correct about this whole thing. On the side of the boat facing the water, we found bullet holes; some sort of assault rifle, probably military grade. Whoever wanted to kill them, wanted to make sure they’re dead. The motive is still a mystery, but I wasn’t about to give up. Turning their cabin upside-down, we came across something. There was a faded postcard or picture in the top drawer of the desk on the far side. On one side there was something that looked like buildings. Those silhouette types you see in the background of some posters about a sitcom taking place in a big city. Brad and Zoe look it over, but it doesn’t bring anything to mind. And that’s when ‘he’ showed up; Asian male, mid-30 or early-30’s, thin, black that was made him almost look bald. He wore a dark green jacket, which completely hid his shirt, and blue jeans. I could smell him coming from a mile away, so I hid in the closet, waiting for him. Just when I was about to get the drop on him, Zoe beat me to it. Her skills mimicked that of an ex-special forces type. She took away his gun in seconds. As much as I would love for her to execute him, I couldn’t allow her. At the current time, she was a civilian and could be charged with murder. I took away the gun just moments before it went off. The guy got away while I was wrestling the gun out of Zoe’s hands. ‘Give me the gun’, I begged her, ‘give me the gun, please’.” Wulf’s story reaches present time where he, Zoe, and Brad were inside a large, semi-truck, a mobile command center, standing before Samuel.
“MEGAN’s taking a photo from any of the security cams in the area, trying to find a pic of this guy. If she comes up with anything, I’ll give a shout.”
“Thanks.”
“You two must be exhausted. Why not go and have a lie-down up front?”
“Sure…”
“Wulf, stay for a bit. I wanna talk to you.”
“Look, if you’re gonna give another lecture, save it.”
“I’m just worried you’re getting in too deep, Wulf. Who knows what type of history they have? They could be a duo of professional assassins…”
“You’re forgetting something; I’m also an assassin. I may not be James Bond, debonair spy, who is also a hit with the ladies, but I can handle myself if it turns out they’re not who I think they are.”
“I don’t doubt your skills, Wulf, but still I think you should be careful.”
“Didn’t think you cared…”
“After scanning the postcard Wulf found, I have made a discovery.”
“What’d you find, MEGAN?” Samuel asked.
“The picture is in fact some sort of advertisement for a place called Casa Malibu Inn.”
“Maybe this will jog their memories. I’ll go wake them.”
Zoe, who was overhearing the whole situation, then steps into the room, “No need. I couldn’t sleep.”
“Casa Malibu Inn; have you been there?”
“I remember we were following this one guy, he was checked into one of the rooms there.
“Well I’m guessing since someone tried to kill you on your yacht, he’ll spot you from a mile away if you return there,” Samuel explained. “So perhaps this is a job for some fresh faces.” Samuel pulls out his communicator and contacts Caitlin.
“Hey, Samuel, what’s going on? Where are you?”
“You’re not gonna believe this, but we’re on our way to Malibu. Can you, Willis, and Starla meet us?”
“Sure thing.”
“Thanks. We’ll be at the Casa Malibu Inn.”
“Why them?” Wulf asked as soon as Samuel hung up.
“Willis is a bit brainier than I am; Caitlin and Phoebe can be eye-candy. I know that sounds sexist, but we need to get the attention of any and every male face hanging around until we ID this guy.”
Samuel met Willis, Caitlin, and Starla en route to the Malibu Inn, where he briefed them on the mission. Caitlin came out of the back of the command center dressed in a pink and black bikini and swim shorts while Starla had a white bikini top and bottom.
“How do we look?” Caitlin asked.
Little cartoon hearts were seen glowing and thumping in Brad’s eyes as he took a good long look at Caitlin in her swimwear. He was quickly brought back to reality as Samuel elbows him in the side.
“Take it easy, Brad. That’s my sister you’re gawking at,” he muttered softly and angrily.
“Sorry, I had no idea.”
“Well you do now.” Forgetting it ever happened, he then turned to the stunning Caitlin and Starla with a backpack full of spy equipment. He gave Starla what seemed to be a pair of ordinary sunglasses. He explained to them how there’s a miniature camera under the bridge of the glasses that feeds directly into a flat screen monitor that was tucked away inside the bag. He gave the glasses to Starla and then took out a necklace to give to Caitlin, which was used to take a snapshot of anyone that comes into view of Starla. As Caitlin had to do was click it every time she wanted to use it.
Caitlin and Starla took their place on the private deck with a beautiful view of the beach. Starla applies suntan lotion while she and Caitlin sit underneath the umbrella covering their chairs. Lots of different people pass by on their way in and out of the area.
“Starla, will you focus?”
“I’m just making sure I don’t get sunburn.”
“You’re people are made entirely of light and you’re worried about sunburn?”
Tons of different guys flock towards the girls with a tray full of drinks, some of them one at a time; others three or four at a time. Before accepting the drinks they offered, Caitlin snapshots each of them as they come up, awaiting confirmation from Samuel, Willis, Brad, and Zoe. None of the men they photographed registered in Brad and Zoe’s mind, but the search still continued. The more and more potential candidates they examined, they began to remember a couple features about them; Brad recalled that the man they were looking for was Caucasian, had short, wavy, luxurious hair, and a goatee. That narrowed down the search for Starla and Caitlin by a bit. It wasn’t until after three more guys appeared on their radar that Brad ID’d the guy. He, like all the others, went after Caitlin rather than Starla which made her feel a bit uncomfortable. The guy tried almost every pickup line to try and coax her back to his room. She wasn’t falling for it, but soon changed her attitude after what Samuel had said.
“Starla, Caitlin. We got a positive ID. I’m gonna need his glass, so I can get fingerprints.”
Caitlin said she’d go with him, but she needed to freshen up first. He left her with the drink he offered and she discreetly threw the contents of the glass off the balcony and hands it to Starla, who got up from her chair.
“Willis, you take Zoe; I’ll handle Brad.” Samuel and Willis drag the two by the arm in separate directions as they escort them to safety. Brad managed to slip away from Samuel in attempt to stick close to their target. Samuel follows closely behind, trying to stop Brad, but he wouldn’t. He just kept going, passing through the crowd of people. When Samuel finally caught up, he hears a gunshot in the vicinity Brad and the mystery man. Everyone flees in terror, screaming at the top of their lungs. As the crowd clears, Samuel finds the mystery man lying there dead with a bullet hole in the head and Brad nowhere in sight. In his mind, Samuel was thinking, “Did Brad do this?” he looks around to see if he can spot Brad and then tries to take off after him, only to be stopped by a Latino in a loud shirt and tan shorts.
“Who the hell are you?”
The man flashes his badge for the LAPD in Samuel’s face, with the name Det. Roberto Martinez and his badge number underneath that.
The patio area was soon filled with police officers and coroners who immediately sealed off the area with yellow tape. Two men load the body onto a gurney and cart him off towards the ambulance. Roberto took Samuel, Caitlin, Starla, and Zoe off to the side and explains everything to them; the guy’s name, who he was, etc. “You called him Brad, but his real name was Gerald; Gerald Emerson. He was ex-marine. He was given honorable discharge, but he missed the action and decided to join the force. He was working a joint task force with Customs on a smuggling ring.”
“Good to know he’s not a complete ghost; but what about Zoe over here?”
“She’s actually Lindsay Cantrell; one of our best officers assigned to this case to keep an eye on Emerson, make sure he nothing happened. But apparently, something did happen.”
“Hey, you have no proof that he shot the guy.”
“We’ve received anonymous tips that he was accepting bribes from shady characters, the same guys he and Lindsay were investigating. We haven’t found any proof to support these allegations.”
“I told you he was bad news, Wulf…”
“Zip it, Samuel.”
“I dunno, something about that doesn’t seem right,” Lindsay replied.
“She’s right, how does this dead guy fit into all of this?”
“Brad doesn’t seem like the man to kill someone in cold blood. Something doesn’t add up.”
“Look, maybe you guys should leave this to the professionals before things get way out of hand; you comin’, Lindsay?”
“Yeah sure…”
“You think that’s wise, sir; letting them go when they know too much? Perhaps they know where he’ll turn up next…”
“I’ll take care of Gerald; don’t you have some other business to take care of; like recovering what he stole?”
“I’ve looked everywhere. It seems he’s great at covering his tracks.”
“Well, look again… there has to be something he’s overlooked.”
“I just refuse to believe he’d do this.”
“Refusing it isn’t gonna make any more true.” Samuel said.
“I need to get to the bottom of this…” as Wulf left, he unknowingly dropped Gerald’s pipe at Starla’s feet.
“Where you going?” Willis asked.
“I’m gonna find him and I’m gonna wring his ********’ neck, that’s where I’m going.”
“Don’t do anything rash, Wulf…”
“You know me…”
“That’s what I’m afraid of!”
Starla taps Samuel on the shoulder.
“Yes, Starla, what is it?”
“This was inside the pipe Wulf dropped.”
“It looks like a flash drive.” Samuel plugs it into the computer onboard the mobile command center. A small window popped up displaying various different hard drives. The one he was looking for was down at the very bottom titled “Andromeda Project”. The drive was encrypted. Without a password, it would take a while for Samuel to crack it.
Meanwhile, Wulf caught up Gerald further up the coast near a boatyard that was void of any human presence. Gerald was hiding out after the events that had happened earlier. Wulf startled him into turning around right before he slammed him up against one of the boats in a fit of rage.
“All day I’ve been risking my a** for you and you go and do this?! WHY?!”
“I didn’t do it!” Gerald pleaded.
“Oh really, well why’d ya run?!” Wulf slams him again. “It made you look guilty when you ran, and I take pleasure in hunting down criminals like you.”
“So you would rather I stick around, get escorted to some police station, and answer any questions the cops have?”
“That’d be better than playing fugitive, Gerald.”
“Gerald? Is that my name?”
“Roberto Martinez said you and Zoe were actually named Gerald Emerson and Lindsay Cantrell. You were working a joint operation with Customs. Don’t you remember?”
“It’s all still so fuzzy to me. All I know was I was about to confront the guy your friends ID’d when a shot came from the northwest. I didn’t see the shooter. I got outta there before he or she got me too.”
“Wulf, come in…”
“Not now, Samuel, I’ve just caught up with our friend here and I’m pumping him for info.”
“You got anything yet?”
“Nothing so far, his memory hasn’t exactly come back yet.”
“Well, ask him if an ‘Andromeda project’ means anything to him.”
“Andromeda project…?”
“That pipe you found on him the time of the accident; after you dropped it, it broke open. There was a flash drive inside with that name in it.”
“Is there anything else?”
“We won’t know until we get past the firewall; MEGAN’S doing that now.”
“Alright, we’re on our way. What’s your 20?” Wulf drags Gerald by the collar as they head out of the area. Unbeknownst to him and Gerald, there was a shooter in the area; he had a masculine build. He was wearing all black and had on a ski mask to hide his identity as he lied flat on his stomach with a Barrett .50cal sniper equipped with a silence. He had them in his sights until they left the boardwalk via an alternate path, which gave the shooter zero line-of-sight. It was like Wulf knew he was in the area.
Samuel had finished cracking the code for the drive as soon as Wulf and Gerald show up.
There were blueprints for bizarre weapon designs, import/export manifest, files pertaining to the project itself, email exchanges from a woman by the name of Natalie Chekov and Leslie Mccullough, the guy that Roberto accused Brad of killing. Samuel ran a search on Natalia and finds a picture. She was tan and had the figure of a runway model. She had blonde hair as yellow as the sun on a clear day, brown eyes like two pools of mud; she had a mole on her upper lift on the left side and an upturned nose. Her wardrobe was wild and unpredictable.
“Does her name ring any bells?”
“None…”
“She’s the head of the Russian Mafia. She’s been involved in various money laundering scandals, drug running; but the cops haven’t been able to pin a thing on her.”
“She just now seemed to have taken an interest in weapons.”
As they flip through the rest of the files on the flash drive, Samuel makes a shocking discovery. There was information about a power source being used to create the weapons; it was a light blue gem shaped like a large diamond. He automatically assumes it is the Star of Andromeda, the 6th jewel of the Karma Lunari.
“I think it’s time she and I had a little chat…”
“Out of the question, Gerald, she might recognize you.”
“But we don’t know where to find her.”
“She’s actually sunk her claws into this Asian fusion restaurant, the Nobu Malibu, on the other side of the city. We should check there.”
The objective was to place a listening device onto Natalia. It was 6 o’clock at night. Caitlin and Starla managed to gain entrance to the restaurant. Caitlin and Starla roamed the dining area as waitresses. Caitlin and Starla approach the manageress of the establishment; this mystical woman was in her late 20’s with droopy eyes the color of summer leaves. Her silky, curly, black hair is worn in a style that reminds you of a holy halo. She is very short and has a slender build. Her skin is black. She has nearly-nonexistent eyebrows. Her wardrobe is classy. She gave them their marching orders; Starla was to work the lounge area, so she picked up a tray and went in that direction, while Caitlin was supposed to work the main dining hall.
It was several tables later and Caitlin couldn’t find her. She then noticed a single guard in a black suit standing there in front of a door near the entrance to the kitchen; just standing there, doing nothing. She alerts Samuel and the others, who were hiding out inside the semi-truck as backup in case things go wrong. Wulf recognized the guy’s face, it was the same guy from the impound lot who jumped them on the yacht.
Starla, who was listening in, replies back, saying she can offer up a distraction to help her get past him. “One distracting coming right up…” she whispered. Using her powers, she bursts most of the light bulbs over the tables by making them burn brighter than how many watts they normally put out. The shards of broken glass fall as the sparks fly and people started panicking. The guard leaves his post to investigate the problem, giving Caitlin her window. She proceeds to the back room. The back area was lit up by a few hanging light fixtures, which left the ceiling completely dark. There were two tables, one to rear and one in the front. Natalia was way in the back while her men sit at the round, green table in the front, playing Pai Gow poker. Caitlin’s wardrobe wasn’t making things any easier when it came to placing the device on him. She felt a cold hand grip her right arm as soon as she placed a drink down on Natalia’s table. “What are you doing here?” the guard asked.
“I didn’t order this,” Natalia said to Caitlin.
“But I…”
“Besides, I already have a drink.” She then orders the man to escort her out. At this time, Samuel, Gerald, Willis, and Wulf get a glimpse of Roberto in the monitor.
“Uhm… ladies, I’m gonna need you to abort.”
“Why? What’s happening?”
“We’ve got an unexpected visitor in the form of Roberto Martinez.”
“If he sees either of you, he’ll probably lock you up for interfering with a police investigation; technically, were ‘are’ civilians.”
“I’ll slow him down,” Gerald volunteered.
“Bad call. Last time, someone wound up dead and Wulf had to play Dog the bounty hunter in order to retrieve you,” Samuel reminded him.
“Plus, the man wants to put you in chains and you’re gonna go in there and serve yourself up on a silver platter?” Wulf asked confusedly. “I’ll go.”
“No one’s going anywhere. Wulf, you go in there, and it’ll be the same as if he saw either Caitlin or Starla.”
A look of recognition appears on Roberto’s face the moment he and Caitlin passed each other. As he quickly turned to follow her, Natalia exits the back room. “I’d rather you don’t you cause a stir,” she said to him in Russian. “Keep your piece out of sight.”
Caitlin and Starla reunite and head for the exit, but soon find their path blocked by another familiar face; Lindsay Cantrell. Roberto eventually joins them.
“Look, we know we’re not supposed to be here, but…”
“We figured we oughta prove Gerald’s innocent.”
“Of course he’s innocent.”
“I don’t understand; if he’s innocent, then why would you…”
“We just needed someone to take the blame and he was the perfect candidate,” Lindsay explained in a hushed tone.
More of Natalia’s men surrounded them.
“Now can we do something?” Gerald asked.
“Like what? They may be working with the bad guys, but they’re still cops.”
“Who are you, more customs agents?” Natalia asked. “Does not matter; we have you outgunned.”
“Oh you do, do you?”
“You obviously have no idea who we are; Starla, show’em.”
Starla raises one arm to the ceiling, and in the palm of her hands, she emits a brilliant flash of light. Its intensity grew until it filled the whole room with its presence. Natalia and the others were blinded, giving Starla and Caitlin the chance to escape. They take down a small handful of guards in their way as they head for the exit along with thousands of other customers in the establishment. Once out, they go to the parking lot where they quickly enter the semi-truck; Natalia and her men followed, but were unsuccessful in locating them, since they had no idea what their vehicle looked like.
“Good thinking, Starla.”
“Thanks.”
“I managed to pin the bug on one of her bodyguards in our escape; let’s see what we got.”
The conversation between Natalia, Lindsay, and Roberto was heated; Natalia was completely furious at the fact of Operation W.A.S.P.’s involvement with her business. The more she was told to calm down, the angrier she got.
“I can assure you that they will be dealt with.”
“They had better be; the shipment is leaving from the Port of Los Angeles tomorrow. I expect no delays. I’ve got buyers from all over wanting a piece of this new tech. I’m not going to let these superheroes undo everything I’ve done.”
“What about our part of the deal?”
“Yeah, we want a piece of the Jade Panda shipment,” Roberto said.
“Only after you deal with these pests…”
“You, I want you to increase security at the docks,” Lindsay ordered.
Port of Los Angeles 10am; Samuel, Gerald, Willis, Wulf, Starla, Caitlin, and Willis have their guns in hand and Samuel’s nano-shield equipped as they tactically infiltrate the docks. the heat poured down from the climaxing sun with each step they took, with each turn they took as they maneuvered through the maze of containers, cautiously observing their surroundings. Inside the imposing building lay their goal in the clutches of the enemy. Natalia twirled the Star of Andromeda in hand several times in a bored fashion while Roberto and Lindsay sat beside her. All the while, Samuel and the gang remain silent and stealthy; but only for a short while. After placing a few silenced shots upon their enemies, the peace was disturbed ones a rogue bullet flew at Wulf and forced him to defend with his sword. He quickly drew it and deflected the bullet. It bounced off a container, past the shooter and popped the guy behind him in the head. Natalia was then alerted to the presences of the rangers and of Gerald.
“They’re here. Go deal with it, what am I paying you for?”
Lindsay and Robert arrive a while later to a string of loud gunshots. They winced as if expecting a blow to the head. Caitlin took a step away from it all to go find Natalia. It was as if she were expecting Caitlin’s arrival. Natalia stood in waiting behind the door for Caitlin to enter the room and then she takes a swing at her with a metal pipe. Caitlin ducks and then uses her laser vision to cut through it. Once done, she quickly reaches for her gun; Natalia disarms her as soon as she takes aim and then kicks her away.
Caitlin strikes with an invert palm, which Natalia blocks as he sends back the same move, which Caitlin blocks as she throws a punch to the chest, which Natalia stops by grabbing her by the wrist; Caitlin breaks free and throws a hammer fist, which Natalia blocks as he throws back an elbow strike, which Caitlin blocks before grabbing Natalia, bringing her close and knocking her in the stomach; Natalia blocks with both palms and eventually breaks free. she goes for a sweep kick, but Natalia dodges and throws a kick, which Caitlin blocks before throwing a punch to the stomach; Natalia absorbs the attack and performs a back flip; Caitlin approaches her and Natalia throws a high kick; Caitlin grabs her by the foot, spins her, and moves in for a sweep, not with her leg, but with her arm. She then proceeds to mount her and lay into her face with several elbow strikes and punches, but Natalia dodges, wraps her arm around hers, tightens her grip and rolls her right over. Now he was on top, but not for long. Caitlin throws her off and gets to her feet, but not before kicking her in the face and rolling her over again.
Natalia gets up and approaches again and throws a low kick; Caitlin throws both palms down to block; Natalia throws a high punch; Caitlin blocks with both hands same as she did for Natalia’ kick and then quickly replies with a punch to the jaw; Natalia reacts with a spinning back fist, which Caitlin rapidly dodges as she grabs her wrist, drags her closer, twists her arm, knees her in the stomach, elbows her in the back and throws her at a tree. She then throws a frontal kick, which Natalia blocked before throwing back one of her own, which Caitlin blocked before lunging forward and throwing a right, which Natalia ducked under as he threw a low punch to the stomach, which pushed Caitlin back. As Natalia approaches, Caitlin performed an axe kick, which Natalia blocked with a cross arm move; Caitlin withdraws and Natalia throws a right punch, which Caitlin blocks before landing a low punch to the stomach and a punch to the face, which misses; Natalia throws a punch, which Caitlin evades by rotating around a tree trunk. She moves 180 degrees and then proceeds to climb up; Natalia follows her around the tree, wondering where she went. He finds out as she lands with a cross chop that makes her spiral onto her stomach. “Get up!” she shouts as she grabs her by the leg and launches her 90 degrees to her left and into a rotting log.
Caitlin leaps at her with a flying kick and lands her knee in remains of the ruined log after Natalia rolled out of the way and got up on her feet. Natalia hits her with a kick, but Caitlin blocks with her palm; as she gets up, she shakes her hand back and forth to ease the pain before approaching Natalia with a right cross; Natalia ducks once and then twice as Caitlin comes back with a left and leans back the third time as she comes at her another right; Natalia then lands a spiraling kick, which Caitlin dodges before she comes back with a frontal kick, which Natalia blocks with both palms before coming back at her with a haymaker, which she blocked with both hands before landing a left punch to the jaw. Natalia spirals to the ground, but catches herself with her left; Caitlin comes rushing at her and drops her with a single right hook to the jaw. As Caitlin takes the jewel in her hands, Natalia rolls over onto her back to see Caitlin pointing her gun with intent to put a bullet in her, but she does. Instead she just gives a swift kick to the jaw and completely knocks her own. While unconscious, Caitlin ties her to a pipe coming up from the floor and going through the ceiling for the cops to find.
Down below, the gunfire slowed and Roberto and Lindsay, along with Natalia’s men, completely surround the rangers. “Drop your guns,” Lindsay demanded.
Starla raises a finger in order to do the trick she used before to escape, but she was instantly stopped.
“Try that again and I will kill you.”
“Yeah, good luck with that…”
While Samuel thinks of a way out of this situation, Gerald comes up with his own plan. Being way in the back behind Starla, Willis, Caitlin, and Wulf, he puts his hands down, and calmly squeezes in between them on his way to the front, where he looks Roberto in the eyes and says, “Well, I must say, this is one helluva a way to end a partnership, wouldn’t you agree, Lindsay?”
Lindsay was confused to what he was up to that she answered back, “What the hell are you talking about? We’ve never been partners.”
“You can stop pretending now, we have her. You volunteered to go undercover, so you could get close to Natalia and help get enough proof to lock her away for life. I must say, I am impressed.” Gerald’s words managed to turn Natalia’s men and Roberto against her.
“He’s lying.” She answered with her gun pointed at Roberto. “Aw c’mon, who you gonna believe; some guy who, until yesterday, could barely remember his own name, or the woman who helped you put all this together?”
Out of nowhere, there was a chill in the air. Frost began to form on everyone’s guns and on most of their body. Soon after, Celsior’s Glacieroids appear and toss Natalia’s bodyguards behind him as they turn their attention to Operation W.A.S.P. and a few dozen bodyguards who then joined the rest of the men as they fled the scene. It wasn’t until they made it off the docks that they land in the arms of the Los Angeles Police Department.
“Who the hell is that?”
“Believe me, Gerald, you don’t wanna know.”
“Go handle your business, we got this,” Willis answered.
“You guys too!” Caitlin shouts as she orders Lindsay and Roberto to vacate the premises. “Hurry up. What are you waiting for?!”
The Glacieroids charge into battle first and the rangers take them on hand to hand.
Meanwhile, Roberto and Lindsay take to one of the containers housing the Andromeda project. One particular object that caught their eye was a large, silver machine; very complex. The base was a three-sided pyramid shape with a sunken in tip. On top of it was a large, spherical object with a huge black hole at the top; four lines ran down it, which allow it to open up like the bud of a flower. Lindsay examines the item up and down and all around after Roberto removes it from the dark and dank container. “We’ve found it, Pachytar,” she said to Roberto.
Several police officers show up just seconds before Lindsay and Pachytar shed their human forms. After taking aim, they lower their weapons after seeing what they really look like.
Rather than sticking around to fight, they place a small, rectangular device on the large device they claimed for themselves and set it for 10 seconds. When it reached zero, a green light shrouds them, instantly transporting them back to Serpitox’s lair, where they immediately get to work.
After long, drawn-out battle between Celsior and the rangers, Celsior returns home empty handed, leaving the rangers to deal with LA’s finest. At that time, Gerald intervenes. “Whoa whoa, put your guns down. They’re on our side.”
“Did you get Lindsay and Roberto?”
“Negative, they took off.”
“They ‘took’ off?” Gerald asked confusedly.
“Roberto transformed into this metallic elephant-like monster and Lindsay turned into some hot black chick with wings and they teleported away with some odd looking device.”
“Pachytar and Fahl Kun…”
“You know them?”
“They are two of our many arch nemeses, looking for this,” Caitlin holds up the Star of Andromeda.
“Oh right, the Karma Lunari thing.”
“What exactly does this Project Andromeda do anyway?”
“Well, one stage of it was a blackhole device; allows you to open portals to almost anywhere. Another stage of it was making weapons of mass destruction on a much smaller, more manageable scale.”
“The blackhole device seems like a means of an instant strike. Why would anyone, even us, consider building something like that?”