In the modern day, the known universe exists in the form of quadrants and sectors: a quadrant for each of the four charted galaxies with eight sectors in total. A great deal of empty space could be found just inside the border that separates the Milky Way Galaxy's First Quadrant and the M51 Galaxy's Fourth Quadrant. But, a small, silver planet that few are privy to rested near the borderline. It's there where General Axis would seek an audience with a rather "unique" individual.

The Triforian fighter landed on the dull surface. Axis ordered his men to stay inside the ship as he disembarked. But just as soon as his feet touched the ground, a bevy of silver, animal-like, robotic soldiers held him at gunpoint. He couldn't help but smirk as he observed their chimeric features. They all had the appearance of random metallic beasts fused together at random; the most curious being the lobster claws fixed upon the body of a rather pudgy bear.

A rabbit-like robot with bat wings and lasers for eyes flew closer to Axis. "Halt! Rab-bat demands your identification!"

"Now now, no need to get all cross-wired," Axis replied. "I seek the good Doctor who oversees things around here."

"You are piloting an unauthorized vessel," proclaimed a gorilla robot while taking a blaster out of the kangaroo pouch adorning its abdominal region. "By Kangarilla's risk assessment calculations, you present a potential threat to our master!"

Axis sighed. "Well, you can't say I didn't try to reason with you fellows." He built up his lightning powers inside his metal glove and quickly unleashed a wave of electrical energy, decimating the hordes of robots surrounding him.

He looked pleasingly upon his latest glove; a smaller, sleeker, upgraded version acquired by Lieutenant Salva before the breakout. "Very nice. These new modifications are working well."

"You call that 'well'?" a smooth, yet excitable voice from the darkness called out. "I could feel the amperes from here. My friend, I'd call that a performance problem."

Axis turned around to witness a man carefully observing his ship with what looked to be a floating camera just above his shoulder recording everything he witnessed. The man had medium cut, navy blue hair mixed with a crazed but curious look about him. His eyebrows seemed to twitch unsettlingly as he turned his gaze to Axis.

"And you'd know all about performance problems, wouldn't you, Doctor?" asked Axis.

"Well, one in three men. Anyways, why have you come here? And in a ship that is not your normal, needlessly large ship, which also makes me wonder where your actual ship is."

"Sadly, I underestimated those Rangers. The finest ship in the Triforian fleet is no more..." Axis took a deep breath before continuing, "However, I managed to sway them into believing that Axl was responsible for what happened to Zordina. But, I think we both know the one man truly capable of this level of madness, Doctor Rizan Isaacs."

The middle-aged man cringed at the words. "Oh come on, with the full name and— Ahem! Okay, please refer to me by my preferred title, hehehehe, Doctor Madman!"

Axis' eyebrows shot up in alarm. "Must I really address you by such an absurd title? It isn't even the slightest bit subtle."

Madman started pacing around back and forth as his floating camera kept its lens locked on Axis. "You know what just keeps doing jumping jacks in my brain? The thought of WHY ARE YOU HEEEEEERE?! You can't prove that I took down Zordina. And even if I did, which by the way, is not any form of legal confession, but, if I did, what's it matter to you?"

"I only seek to know the how and the why. That is, if you would be so kind as to indulge me, Doctor."

Madman looked to the right and left of him before shrugging. "Doctor...?"

"Oh please no."

Madman cupped his ear with his hand. "What was that?"

Axis let out a heavy sigh. "...Doctor Madman."

"Hehehe, you're damn right. Well, it goes something like this: Zordina was within firing distance, sooooo, I destroyed it. Or, more to the point, them. The planet itself is fine... kind of... mostly, look I'm sure there's still a tree or two. Do they even have trees?"

"You wiped out quite the planet. How did you manage that from this... desolate place?"

"It was nothing much. Just a little something I developed a few years ago when I called the Moonbase my home. But since I'm, well, here and not there, you can just guess what happened to that job. I didn't even get to finish my work before Professor Knox—" The name became caught in his throat as a memory flashed him by. "That rat... Anyways, I found this perfectly deserted planet and went wild building whatever leaped into my mind."

Axis chuckled slightly. "I thought as much. Perhaps I should have been focused on recruiting you to our Resistance this whole time. Even the intellectually savvy Inquirus would never dream of challenging such a—"

Madman's camera did a loop around Axis' head, testing his patience. "Also, why exactly do you have a camera floating around?"

"For filming!" replied Madman.

Axis rolled his eyes. "Yes, I'm quite aware of what a camera does. Why are you recording all of this?"

Madman smirked while lifting his gaze to the faraway stars in the horizon. "Hehe, because every story has to start somewhere. Hope you're around for the premiere."

Axis' mouth hung in greater confusion, but he quickly shook off the feeling. "Right... In any case, you were an ally to the Queen before you were betrayed by those around you."

"Sure."

"So you took this weapon of yours for a joyride at the expense of Zordina just as she began thinking the war was won."

"Sure...?"

"Interesting. We have a common enemy."

"Sure!"

"I believe I can help you complete your vengeance in exchange for allowing me to use that brilliant weapon of yours."

Madman rubbed his chin while pacing around some more. "Hmmmmm. Okay!"

Axis looked taken aback. "What? That's it? That's all you needed hear to agree to this partnership?"

"Partnership miiight be a stretch. I feel like I'm doing a lot of the stuff, in this situation, but yeah. If you can get me a date with the Queen, the weapon is yours to zap whoever you want."

Axis gently smirked as he considered his next move. "The Earthers won't take kindly to my escape. I suspect they'll be searching for me with great fervor. We must proceed carefully."

Madman looked down upon his beige and brown attire and sighed. "I'd better go put on some spiffier clothes. Can't see the Queen again looking like this. No can do."

After a quick change of attire into a tacky black suit, Madman boarded the Triforian fighter. As he seated himself next to the pair of Triforian warriors in the back of the vessel, they looked curiously at the floating camera.

Salva turned around from the cockpit with an equally curious look. "Why is that video camera here?"

"For filming!" replied Madman.

"Ooooh!" reacted one of the warriors. "They have these things on every street corner back home. I thought they just shot lasers at lawbreakers."

The other warrior nodded. "So that's what a camera does."

Axis facepalmed from the front of the ship as the fighter lifted off and ventured back towards Earth.

...

While a sinister plot brewed on the edge of the First Quadrant, back on the Astro4, the long journey saw the Rangers finally closing in on Zordina's coordinates. And all the while, Jason continued to push himself physically.

After several hours of sparring, Jason struggled to breathe with any ease. Taylor looked a bit gassed herself, all but proving to her how far the kid had come. But then, she suddenly dropped her stance and nodded.

"Okay, let's test these upgraded blasters," she said.

"Test... them... now!?"

"Yes, now." Taylor pushed a button near the entrance of the training room. A series of targets then sprung up and populated the area. "You're exhausted."

"Doesn't that... defeat... the purpose?"

"Anyone can land a clean shot when the battle's begun, kid. But what if the battle drags out? What if you get injured, or your muscles cramp up? What then?"

Jason thought about it for a few moments before nodding. "Then... you'd still have to land that shot."

"You catch on quick. Now, morph up and hit the targets."

"Got it!" Jason took a deep breath in and out. "Chronic Storm, Ranger form!" he cried as he transformed into the Green Ranger.

He then pulled out the new and improved Chronic Blaster. This version was a little larger with a decidedly campier, more color-coordinated design about it. The blaster shook ever so slightly gripped by Jason's fatigued hands. But still, he pushed through to aim at the first target. He took his first shot, but the target suddenly moved out of the way.

"Huh?!"

"What?" Taylor asked. "When's the last time an enemy stood still waiting to get shot?"

"Well, technically Axis did once, but I get your point."

Taylor walked up behind Jason. "Get inside your opponent's head. Find their tendencies. Do that, and you'll rarely miss."

Jason nodded and focused his gaze on the multitude of quickly moving targets. All the while, his heads up display started calculating the target movements. Oh yeah! If I just wait for a few more seconds...

"I know what you're thinking," Taylor interjected. "But what if that heads up display goes dark again? See if you can figure it out without help."

Jason nodded while his eyes darted around at the moving targets. It seems random, but... there!

He fired a shot into the back corner of the room and took out three targets in quick succession. As fate would have it, his heads up display would have directed him to aim at the opposite corner, a move which would have only taken down two targets.

"I did it!!! Did you see that!? Three in a row! Haha!"

Taylor shook her head while a smile snuck through. "Not bad, kid."

Jason then collapsed on the floor as his burst of excitement expended what remained of his energy. "Whew... So what else... do these upgrades... do?"

Taylor fiddled with her own Morpher as she sat next to Jason. "Our Morphers can now unlock a Ranger-specific ability."

"Yeah? Like a super-powered finishing move? Or a battlizer?"

"Maybe. We should all test them out after we wrap things up on Zordina. We'll be there soon."

Jason looked up at Taylor's stony expression while propping up his body. "Hey, Taylor? Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, kid."

"Well... Okay, I realize that it might be silly to go by the archives after all I've learned, and I don't mean any disrespect or anything like—"

"Spit it out, kid."

"Okay, okay. It's just that... I don't know, once Master Org was beaten, you seemed... less intense than you were to start. I mean, you're still one of the coolest people I know, but ever since we recruited you, you struck me as a lot more like the old you. I was always curious about that."

Taylor took a moment to think about his words. "My Major, he noticed it too. I guess I just didn't want to admit it."

"Did something happen?"

She took a deep breath in and out. "After my Ranger days were over, I went back to the Air Force. It was all I knew. But something felt off. I felt like a stranger in a world I knew so well and I couldn't figure out how to re-adapt. It frustrated me day in and day out. But I kept pushing those feelings away because I didn't know what else to do... Wouldn't be the first time I've pushed feelings away."

Jason's eyes slowly widened. "Wait a second, so Eric and you—"

"Kid, don't," Taylor replied with a sharp glare.

"Sorry, sorry...! It's none of my business anyways."

Taylor sighed. "It's okay... I'm sorry if I was ever too rough on you."

"Heh, forget about it. A kid like me needed 'too rough.' It's what I imagine having a big sister is like, y'know?"

Taylor let out the slightest of chuckles. "Sure, kid. Now come on." She picked herself up off the floor. "It's almost mission time."

Jason sprung back to his feet and nodded confidently.

...

As the Astro4 closed in on Zordina, the team sat at their normal stations on the bridge. A dim red ball soon overtook the viewscreen in front of them.

Kendrix initiated a surface scan, but initial readings came up empty. "We're not picking up anything, from anywhere."

Ethan's luck didn't prove any better from his own computer. "I can't locate a single operational communications array. Not even a distress beacon."

"It gets worse," Jason added as the others looked to him. "Zordina... it isn't supposed to be red."

The Astro4 began its descent into the Zordinian atmosphere; heavy and filled to the brim with dark red and orange clouds. Once the ship touched down on the surface, the scene proved no different. Zordina never had vast deserts. And yet, this barren wasteland was all that remained of one of the universe's mechanical marvels. And on the horizon, just peering out of the thick red fog, a set of buildings still stood tall.

Not a single person on the bridge uttered a sound while they all took in the eerie sight emitted by the viewscreen.

Carter stood up and walked to the front, "Okay guys, we all know what we have to do: Cover the perimeters and report back anything that could give us a clue as to what happened here."

"Right, and we'd better stay morphed up," Ethan added as he pushed a button on his Morpher, pulling up a blue screen with various chemical notations. "I'm picking up insane amounts of iron oxide in the air."

"Rust?" Taylor asked. "But why?"

"Zordina is famous for its high powered machines," Jason replied. "They even lent a few of their Zords to the Mighty Morphin' Rangers way back when. They've spent all the time in between upgrading themselves into one of the universe's strongest superpowers. To think they of all races could have been beaten this thoroughly..."

"The hovercycles Time Force lent us should be able to survive the surface level," Carter stated. "If you see anything out there, drive back and report in first. We can't take the chance of being engaged and demorphing out there."

The team all nodded in understanding.

"Alright, let's do it!"

"Chronic Storm, Ranger form!"

The Rangers morphed up and disembarked the Astro4 with five silver prototype hovercycles; bikes so new that some of their inner mechanical workings were still exposed. Each Ranger rode off in a different direction, searching miles of isolated orange and red land formations alongside desolate cities and towns with no sign of any Zordinians, but several reddened patches of what few trees and grass the planet had.

While riding through a large, abandoned city, Ethan noticed that most of the buildings seemed structurally sound. He peered into a window and even then, everything inside looked curiously untouched, including a potted plant with glistening green leaves. Weird. You'd think a war-torn town might actually look the part. It's like everyone just... vanished.

Minutes quickly became hours. While Zordina's surface provided little clues, it did invite a host of new questions. Carter communicated to the entire team to report back to the Astro4 to discuss the chilling site.

The Rangers removed their helmets and took in some of the bridge's less taxing air. Each looked to another for some kind of answer. But all each saw was a blank expression, mirroring their own.

"Not a single person anywhere we searched," Taylor said with a shake of her head. "I don't understand how this could have happened."

Kendrix nodded and revealed a red leaf she had collected from the surface. She dusted off the leaf and revealed its true green coloration. "The minor sources of vegetation this planet has are still very much alive, but they won't survive for long out here."

Ethan pointed to her and nodded. "I caught that, too. Plus, the buildings all look untouched. It's like everyone abandoned ship before the attack happened."

Jason shook his head in disbelief. "Zordina must have been blind-sided. Their people aren't known to run and hide from what few threats they get. Most of the time, their guns are just bigger."

"What the hell are we dealing with here?" asked Taylor.

"The buildings and plants are intact..." Carter thought through the situation. Then, he looked to Jason. "Jason, are the Zordinians biological?"

Jason shook his head. "Their people have been mostly mechanical since even before the first Ranger team stepped on Earth. Their bodies are made of a much less dense substance than their architecture and weapons, though. I just can't think of the exact name off the top of my head."

"A different substance... If you ask me, it sounds a lot like—" Carter then immediately looked towards the others with a shocked expression. "The weapon! The one Professor Knox and Queen Diane were talking about!"

"The Professor did mention elemental targeting, right?" asked Ethan.

Kendrix nodded. "The people were targeted, but not the buildings or the plants."

"Wait, that's impossible!" Jason replied. "Guys, that weapon was, thankfully, never finished. Plus, Knox refused to help Axis build it. Nobody else could have those blueprints."

Taylor shook her head as her eyes sharpened. "No... nobody else should have those blueprints."

A strange air of contemplative silence broke over the team before Ethan commented, "So here's what I'm thinking: General Axis must have found the dirty details of that weapon when he was snooping around in the Moonbase. He wanted the Professor to build it, but he got rejected. So maybe after that, he sent the intel to Admiral Axl who he knew could finish constructing it. Maybe he's thinking he can get on his brother's good side?"

"We still don't know why Zordina was hit, right?" Carter asked. "But if Axl's the kind of person Axis says he is, he could have done it just because."

"It's all types of twisted, but it's possible," replied Ethan.

Jason nodded excitedly. "That must be it! Great thinking, Ethan!"

Taylor however, didn't look entirely convinced of his theory.

Just then, the Astro4 alerted the Rangers to a pre-recorded transmission sent from Earth. Ethan hopped onto the console controls to play the message. "Guys, it's Queen Diane."

Diane appeared on-screen and delivered the message, "Rangers, we have some troubling news. Not too long after your departure to Zordina, I received notice that General Axis escaped custody at Time Force. Currently, we're putting everything we have into finding and re-apprehending him and his accomplices. You are to report back to Earth at once to assist in the effort, as well as inform me of everything you have collected from Zordina. I assume by the time you receive this transmission you will have found as much as you can. That is all."

The transmission cut out, leaving the bridge caught inside a cold silence.

"He... escaped...?" asked Jason as a nervous twinge ran laps inside his body.

Taylor crossed her arms and closed her eyes. "Dammit..."

Ethan looked at Carter. "What's the plan now?"

Carter took a moment before nodding. "We follow orders. We head back to Earth, find Axis, and give Queen Diane a full report. She'll know what to do next."