Chapter Text
Vander was opening up the Last Drop for the day. He yawned as he entered his business, ready to open up for the day, and a noise was heard, startling him, so he grabbed one of his expensive bottles out of habit. He looked at it for a bit and sighed, feeling ridiculous about grabbing it, then putting it back. The noise came back, as if someone dropped a can. There was an intruder, and luckily he brought his brass knuckles in case of emergencies like this.
He carefully walked in the direction of the intruder, hoping to catch them by surprise. The moment he was near, he saw a mess of colored pencils and a sketchpad, a very familiar set of colored pencils. He jumped to the side to scare the intruder and was shocked to see one of her daughters, Powder Conners, who screamed and fell down the stool, looking bewildered at her dad.
“D-Dad! You’re here early?” Powder clumsily tried to gather her supplies to pretend she was organizing and Vander sighed heavily, putting his weapons back in his coat and kneeling to face his daughter.
“You scared me, girl! I thought we were getting robbed or someone trying to get a free drink.” He gently moved her bangs to the side to fix her hair, she grumbled cutely and swatted his hand, making him chuckle. He looked at her sketchpad and picked it up, flipping the pages with a smile on his face and looking back at her.
“Did ya draw these?” Powder felt bashful and looked away from her dad.
“It’s just sketches, dad. Nothing really interesting about 'em or whatever.” Of course, she was hiding her proud expression because she was being praised by her dad.
“These are really good, Pow.” He dropped the sketchbook to help his daughter up, signalled her to help him open up The Last Drop.
“I just wanted to ask ya something.” Powder nods, following Vander and puts down the chairs.
“What am I doing here at 7 am instead of at home?”
“That will be the one, yeah. What’s wrong back home? Is Silco giving you a hard time, lass? I can talk to him right now.” He frowned, thinking about talking to his ex husband.
“It’s okay, dad. I came here to draw. Pops wasn’t exactly… showing interest in my ‘artistic endeavors’. Saying it’s not really going to make business boomin’, you know?” She loves her pops, sometimes he just wants her to take over his business one day, and she just doesn’t want to.
“I thought he supports your art? Is he trying to rope you into his business again?”
“He does, but I just feel like he wants me to sell it for business, and I don’t want to go down the same path he wants for me.”
Vander left the counter to hug his daughter, kissed her head to comfort her. Powder sighed and hugged back, she really just misses her dad and sister. She couldn’t wait for the day to be over so she could come back home and hang out with them. If only Silco could understand what she wants to become instead of the path he wants her to choose.
Le Blanc was scouting the forest area with the glasses built to track down the morpher energy. She needed to retrieve the white rune gem to examine it so they could use it to destroy the world. She detected the location and started heading towards it with a laptop in hand. She stopped near the statues of the guardians and put down her laptop to type in the codes after she took off the glasses.
“Exactly where we left you. The energy should be ready by now.” She muttered to herself, then the forcefield broke down from the energy code, making her take cover. Rocks flying everywhere and after the explosion, she ran towards the gem and saw it glowing white. She picked it up with a smirk, and stuffed it inside the sack before leaving the place.
Meanwhile at Valoran City, Morgana carefully brushed off the sand that was sticking to the rock to better examine the geode, and a signal beeped, meaning there was something bad happening. She placed her tools and slid to the computer using the chair, confused, and examined the intruder but couldn’t find who it was due to the smoke.
“That’s odd. Petrified force?” She thought for a moment and decided to notify her Rangers to come with her to visit the strange signal that was picked up.
A few hours later, the rangers found Morgana scouting the place with a metal detector. The place was ruined by the explosion. “Came as soon as we heard. What’s the problem, Dr Morry?” Ekko asked.
“A storage unit. The energy was so intense, the detector couldn’t register it.” She put the tool aside and looked at her students examining the place.
“What kind of energy?” Ezreal asked as his teacher got down from the ruined structures.
“Same kind of energy stored in your morphers.” That got them curious.
“You're saying that energy was a rune gem in here?” Lux chimed in, and Morgana looked at the statues.
“Not anymore, but there was.”
“I thought you had all kinds of things that could pick up the energy if there was a rune gem out here?” The yellow ranger asked.
“Someone must've hidden it. When the cloaking device deactivated, the readings were off the scale.” The rangers looked at each other, worried that something bad’s going to happen when their teacher answered.
“So is that good news or bad news?” Ekko moved forward a bit and tried to use gestures to explain what his teacher was saying.
Morgana thought for a moment before giving them a chilling answer, “Depends on who’s got the gem.”
Powder was trying to sneak inside the mansion so she wouldn’t get caught by her pops, who was reading a book. Alas, it failed when she accidentally stepped on the floor the creaked, silently grimacing that she failed her very first stealth mission. Silco closed his book and took off his reading glasses, not daring to look behind him.
“You had a good day in school, Powder.” There was no way to hide now, she slowly walked to his office desk and sat on it.
“It was alright.” Awkward silence followed, and Powder shifted a bit to make herself comfortable.
“I trust you got time to think about our… earlier conversation.” Silco heard her scoff but didn’t snap at her, he always makes her state her opinions, never shunning her out.
“Is that what it was?”
“I assume you're referring to the fact that you weren’t happy with the outcome.” He saw at the corner of his eye that his daughter shook his head and looked away from him.
“Why can’t I just go to the path I want, pops? I’m nothing like you.” This conversation again. Silco sighs and puts the book aside.
“Powder, when your parents died, Vander and I agreed that we would take you girls in as our daughters. It didn’t exactly work out for the both of us, and we had an understanding of who takes care of who. You and I also agree that I will act as your father, and fathers…” Silco began feeling a bit different. The shimmer medicine made him lose control a bit, but he tried to fight it off, hoping Powder wouldn’t notice. Powder got off the desk and immediately caught her pops, noticing the effects of the medicine.
“Sometimes forced to make decisions… for their children-”
“Easy there, pops. I get it now, the shimmer?” Silco nods and pats his daughter’s head as a way of saying thank you.
“I’ll be alright, child.” He cleared his throat and fixed his tie to continue his lecture.
“As I was saying, I could only raise you the only way I know how, the way I see fit. What I want is for you to follow it, okay?” Powder hugs his pops and agrees to the lecture, “That’s fine. I gotta go, Pops. Lux invited me to eat at Cafe Cuties, and I don’t wanna miss it.”
“Oh?”
Powder sighed in annoyance and left the room, to get away from the teasing. Before she left, she heard a strange noise coming from the office room so she secretly snooped near the door to see her father slowly approaching the green portal and disappearing. She wasn’t going crazy, right? She shook her head and decided to go upstairs to change, she picks up her phone and laughed at the memes Lux sent, also adding that she’s excited to try out the secret menu item. She went downstairs again to ask permission from her pops and saw that the office room was empty.
Was the green portal thing even real? She looked around the office, mumbling about her old man being so mysterious and secretive. Then, a green portal appeared on the wall, the sound luring her in, the same portal she saw Silco going in earlier. She nervously looked around and asked herself, Lux would understand if she was late, right?
She can tell her it was a family emergency. She slowly raised her arm to the portal, and out of nowhere, it sent her to an unfamiliar lair. It was full of experiments, green color, and computers, if she wasn’t freaking out, this would’ve been a sick place to use for her inventions.
Powder walked around the lab. “Kinda sketchy… why would pops be here?” She turned to the direction of the pathway to see a table with a glowing white gem on it. Powder slowly approached it and saw a silver bracelet with the white rune gem on it, glowing uncontrollably. “Freaky.”
She looked around and tried to grab it for better examination, but suddenly the bracelet latched onto her left wrist, and she jolted a bit from the action. Then, suddenly, she stood still as visions of the future flashed in her mind. It was full of scenarios of a white ranger beating up the others, destroying them one by one, an unfamiliar roar of the mecha animal assigned to her, it was too much. When the vision disappeared, the white gem began to spark, hurting her arm. She screamed in pain, trying to get the bracelet off her, and out of nowhere, the portal above her teleported her from the forest.
Powder didn’t know what to do. She ran to the field with the bracelet still hurting her, the visions kept coming back, voices whispering to hurt people, she fell on the ground and the energy consumed her, transforming her into someone she wished she wouldn’t become.
Back at the lab, Le Blanc wasn’t pleased when the white rune gem disappeared, and Vladimir shook his head. “I told you we should’ve stayed to keep an eye on it. I told you we shouldn’t trust that business man on examining the rune gem!”
The villainess turned to think of a solution and went to her experiments. “Find the fool and the spider. We need to work on a creature that can lure in the person responsible for stealing our gem.”
“What kind of creature?”
“The gem is pure evil, Vladimir. We need to make a creature, a fun and frightening kind.” She picked up 3 vials of experiments and put them on a device to mutate them.
“That sounds absurd, darling!”
“Whoever has the gem will be wanting a battle, a conflict of any kind, they will be wanting to fight, and they wouldn’t help themselves. It’s the instincts of the gem, and we will give them what they want. This is the only way to lure in that imbecile that stole our prized possession.”
The monster was scouting the area, but what weirded Morgana out was the movement it was portraying. It seemed like it was waiting… looking for someone. The question is who is it looking for?
“We came as soon as we could, Morri!” Ezreal greeted, entering the lair with Lux and Ekko behind him. Morgana is letting that name slide, there’s someone important happening here.
“Monster attacking the city.” She stated.
“That’s like any other day.” Ekko sighed.
“But this thing is different.” The three rangers looked at the screen, and the monster was looking around, mumbling something they couldn’t understand. “It seems like they are looking for something, just don’t know what.” Morganna inspected and heard the 3 rangers backing up.
“I hope Powder understands that I’m a bit late.” Lux pocketed her phone, worrying that her best friend might hate her.
“She’ll understand, Lux. That girl is into you.” Ekko teased Lux, blushing so bright, and punched his arm.
“Let’s just go and find this creature.”
“Well, it’s not gonna like when it finds us. Ready, guys?” Ezreal shows his bracelet that later transforms into the red morpher.
“Let’s do it!” Lux copies Ezreal’s sequences, and Ekko follows.
Meanwhile in the city, the monster was humming a tune as it was looking around. “Hmmm, where could she be? The master would be pleased when I capture her!”
“You ain’t capturing anyone today, buddy!” Ekko shouted, standing next to Ezreal’s right side.
“Is there something we could help you with?” Ezreal teased as he showed off his gauntlet ranger weapon to the monster.
“Red… Blue…Yellow? No no, this is not it.” The monster spoke. “I am looking for something in basic white.” The rangers got confused and looked at each other.
“Do you know any clue what it’s talking about?” Lux asked, and the boys shrugged their shoulders. No time to waste though, they went into an attack formation to stop the monster but suddenly the monster attacked them using lasers.
“FIRE!”
They dodged the attack just in time by doing a backflip to avoid injuries. Just before Ezreal tried to attack the monster, a blur of white suddenly appeared, attacking the monster left and right. All they could hear were the monster’s confused screech and the attacker laughing as they attacked it.
“WH-WHAT’S GOING ON?!” The attacker used their super speed as it attacks the monster, laughing like it was amusing.
“What’s that?” Ekko asked the 3 rangers watching the scenario unfold.
“I don’t know. I can’t see what’s attacking it.” Lux answered, trying her best to catch the identity of the attacker. With the final blow, the monster got destroyed and the rangers let out a surprise gasp, watching the blur disappear after what had happened.
“Whoa… that just happened.” Ezreal let out the tension, and Ekko used his morpher to communicate with Morgana.
“You saw that right, doc?”
“Yeah. Fiora and I are trying to figure out what it was.”
“We’ll try to follow it and see what’s up,” Ekko suggested and put down his arm to signal his team to follow the attacker. “Let’s go!”
With that, the rangers had arrived at another place where they hoped the attack would be. The rangers looked around and saw no sign of anything white colored like their suits. Lux used her scanners but detected no sign of life forms. Ekko tried to do the same but ended up with the same results.
“They should be here somewhere.” Ezreal pointed out.
“We don’t see anything on our scanners.” Lux responded.
“Look harder.”
A deep, mysterious voice appeared behind the pillar that was facing them, and they had their arms crossed, a sign of authority. The rangers were alerted by the voice and faced the newcomer. The white ranger had a different design of suit that made them look cooler, but the visor was red, a sign of a friend or a foe? The morpher was shown on their left wrist, and a strange weapon strapped onto their side hip.
“Who is it?” Lux asked.
“And how come they get the fat helmet?” Ekko joked. Ezreal raised his morpher to confirm something from their mentor.
“Is this a friend of yours, Morri?”
“No, I have never seen them before,” Morgana said with seriousness, meaning this can’t be good. Ezreal did what any leader should do.
“Okay!” He decided to take a few steps forward with no plan. Before Lux and Ekko could even stop him from his own stupidity, the mysterious ranger made a warning that sent chills on their bones.
“Don’t come any closer.” The white ranger clenched their fist tight, a warning. “You’ll force me to do something I don’t wanna do.” Ezreal thought they might be bluffing and pointed his finger at them.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Here, let me show you.” They pulled a feather-like weapon and began to draw a zap gun. The moment was so intense, the 3 rangers didn't know how to act. The white ranger grabbed the zap gun and examined it before pointing at the rangers.
“I call this one Zapper. FIRE!” She pulled the trigger and multiple electric lasers were fired to the good guys, making them laugh. The rangers took a fall from the impact, hurt from the weapon the white ranger had used, only Ezreal managed to sit up.
“Was that really necessary?!”
“That was just a warning, red ranger.” The white ranger drew an X mark in the middle and used the symbol to make themselves disappear from the scene. Ezreal helped his team up and regrouped back at the base for further planning to catch the evil white dude… that sounded so bad in his head.
At the lair, Le Blanc glared at Silco and approached him, ready to use her staff to kill him. “Your experiments didn’t work, Silco. I thought-”
“Perhaps you used the wrong creatures. I’ll work on making another one, this time it will capture the fool who stole the gem.” Le Blanc sighed and left the lab for some air.
“Any reading yet?” Fiora asked.
“None, I can’t get a reading from the energy of their genetic makeup. It’s like the powers of the gem had bonded with their DNA, making it seem like it’s one person.” Morgana was frustrated, none knowing what to do to help stop this person from destroying the city.
The 3 rangers entered with their helmets on their arms to take a breather. The signal alerted them, the monitors showed that the white ranger was back. Ezreal groaned in frustration and put his ranger helmet back on, the others following. Lux hadn't received any text message from Powder, getting worried that something must’ve happened to her best friend, shakes off the feeling and prayed that Powder was back at the house safe and sound.
Meanwhile, the white ranger was planning what to do with the city. They heard multiple footsteps, and they crossed their arms, excited to take on a real challenge. The rangers stopped and Ezreal took a step forward and took a fighting stance. “Hey, back so soon?! Thought you made your point last time?”
The white ranger turned around to face them, “I’ve only just started, you want some more?” They were taunting, Ekko knew this. He wasn’t sure if this was a trap, but he still followed Ezreal’s lead.
The 3 rangers decided to take them on. The white ranger laughed at their attempt, their weapon in hand. “You guys are so cute, too bad you suck at listening. Let’s fix that!” They didn’t need to run to the fight, they walked towards the rangers and used the feather-shaped weapon as a sword, striking them one by one.
Ezreal managed to block the attack, hopeful that he could take them down. Unfortunately, his ego got the better of him as the white ranger unblocks the defense with only one move, then throws the red ranger aside. They turn around and block Lux’s attack and do the same move they did with Ezreal, this is making the white ranger amused by the plans they think would work.
“Come on! I thought you were a challenge!” They drew cute shark chomper bombs and threw them, exploding around the rangers. The impact was so intense, they landed near a wall. The White Ranger stood there laughing, playing with the weapon.
“Weaklings!” They wanted to defeat them with the bang. They began using their ranger power, super speed, and used the same tactic from defeating the monster Le Blanc sent, but instead of hurting them, they drew an X symbol on the chest of the rangers. Once they were done, they stopped and didn’t admire their work, decided to trust the process.
“That’s gotta hurt.” The X mark created an explosion, damaging the morphing energy of the rangers. Sparks were heard, and it was music to the white rangers ears. The rangers fell on the ground in pain, they heard the beeping noises from their moprhers, indicating the energy was running low.
“Too easy.” Despite the pain, Ezreal slowly stood up.
“What’s the deal?! We tried being nice, extending some ranger love, and this is what we get?” The white ranger played with their weapon, still not looking at them.
“I’m not here to make friends.”
“Then what is it?!” Ekko shouted, standing up alongside Lux.
“That is not something you need to know, blue head. All that’s important to me right now, is that 3 rangers are too many and I’m here to change that.”
“Then go for it. We’re not backing down that easily!” Lux taunted. Biggest mistake as the white ranger once again defeated them one by one with the weapon. They turned around and saw the rangers pulling out their laser guns.
“You think we’re just gonna back down?!” Lux asked.
“Not gonna happen.” Ekko followed. The two of them fired their weapons, and the white ranger deflected it, making the shots return to them instead. Ezreal cried out to his friends, who fell on the ground again. He knelt to check up on them and was pushed aside by Ekko, who was pulling out his weapon.
Before he could think of attacking, Fiora appeared just in time to stop her team from making a mistake. She grabbed his weapon and tossed it aside. “What are you doing?! I can get him!” Ekko pleaded.
“Stand down, Ranger Blue. We don’t know what that fool is capable of. They have a power we may not be able to deal with,” Fiora explained, taking a step forward to protect the kids.
“We don’t want to fight you, just tell us why you are here.” The white ranger did a fake thinking pose, mocking the veteran ranger.
“Hmmm… why am I here? To defeat you, duh!” The white ranger let out a mad cackle.
“That does it!” Ekko grabbed his signature weapon and Lux activated her staff, both taking off to fight them.
“NO!” Fiora couldn’t stop them.
The white ranger easily blocked their attacks, slashing their ranger suits to lower the energy, and kicked both of them aside. The two fell off the bridge, not to the point of broken bones. The white ranger followed and landed safely in front of them. “Nice flight?” They mocked.
Ekko clutched his fist, “You’re going to pay for that!” The rangers didn’t give up, they tried ganging up on them, only for it to fail once more with the white ranger perfectly blocking the attacks and kicking them hard enough to land on the ground.
Ekko and Lux raised their weapons and tried again, only this time, the white ranger used his left arm to block it, the white rune gem absorbing the energy from their ranger powers. Ekko and Lux could feel their powers being drained, the white ranger laughing at them. After that torture, the white ranger slashed the ranger suit one more time, making them fall on the ground, demorphing into their civilian form.
Ekko was clutching his chest from the pain while Lux was trying to get up. “That… didn’t go well.” She muttered to herself.
“It’s game over, Lux…” Ekko groaned.
“Not yet, Ekko.” Fiora appeared on the scene, and the white ranger took a stance.
“Bring it!”
Fiora used her fencing sword to try and attack them, but was stopped when the white ranger blocked the sword with her left arm, absorbing her ranger energy as well, making her feel weak. “I’ll take yours too! Now scram!” With that, the white ranger slashed Fiora’s ranger suit, making her land on the ground and demorph.
Then, Ezreal grabbed hold of the white ranger just in time to tackle them on the ground. Both of them rolled to the fences. Ezreal stood up, and the white ranger couldn’t believe they didn’t sense that move before they defended themselves.
“I want some answers, now!” The red ranger demanded.
The white ranger began beating him up, but the red ranger blocked the upcoming kick and looked at them, “You’re messing with the wrong dude. I’m giving you one last chance!”
They didn’t listen. The white ranger used the weapon to slash at the ranger suit, the impact of it was so strong it landed Ezreal on the wall, his suit demorphed. The red ranger clutched to his side, groaning in pain, and realized the plan didn’t work. “You were saying?” The white ranger mocked.
Ezreal was helped by Ekko, Fiora, and Lux protecting him. The rangers were cautious around the white ranger.
“You were warned, Ranger Force! Stay out of my way or be destroyed.” With the final warning, the white ranger fled the scene using their super speed. This was the beginning of the hardest battles of their lives, and the rangers didn’t know if they could keep up.