The Ranger Crusher (A Power Rangers Story)

*Author's note: This is a fanfic intended for the Boom! Comics stories, specifically the universe where... Well, I won't spoil it.*

A splash of cold water shocked Holden awake. His chains jangled as he came to. Before him stood a Ranger unlike any he’d seen before, black and pink, with a subtle Pterodactyl motif on the helmet. Like a twisted copy of a more familiar Pink Ranger. The cape was a nice touch, not many Rangers sported a cape.

He went to move, but only managed to rustle his chains.

‘Uh-oh, not good,’ he thought to himself.

“You’ve got some interesting tech. Are you prepared to give it to us? Lord Drakkon will be pleased I managed to capture an interloper with a connection to the Morphin’ Grid!” She savoured the words. “Or perhaps I’ll keep them for myself, add them to my own. The pirate look is so in this year. Not sure the red would go that well with the rest of my outfit though,” she added, punctuating the last sentence with a twirl.

Holden’s resolve returned to him as he gained a fuller awareness of his surroundings, “well, I’m sure Zowi will be coming for me. She might be wearing a colour you’d like more. Of course, I doubt you could handle her.”

“Oh-ho, he’s got faith in his team-mates and sass,” she laughed, tilting her helmet in mock pity, “I’ll let her see what’s left of you before I destroy her too.” She made for the door, “for now I’m going to start taking those powers from you.” She slammed the door behind her and the sound of a very heavy sliding bar indicated the room was now securely locked.

Holden cast his mind back. The portal to his world closed, leaving the heroic Red Pirate Ranger surveying the desolate surrounds. He grabbed his Power Blaster - he needed to give it a better name - and started a circle, looking for signs of life. He glanced down at the blaster, “it’s a pistol, but perhaps, I could be calling it ‘the Starboard Cannon’?”

“How about we call it mine?” Followed by a crack to the back of his head that had robbed him of his consciousness. The voice he’d heard had sounded not dissimilar to the famed Kimberly Hart, but the costume certainly had not been that of the legend he’d known of.

This universe was looking like a bust. Holden’s hopes of getting a sample of the energies channelled by the local Power Rangers to help him restore the powers he’d once wielded when he first became a Ranger were looking increasingly unachievable by the second. He glanced up at the chains holding his arms above his head, they were heavy duty and unlikely to break easily.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” A voice in the cell snapped his attention back to the present. The accent was unfamiliar to him, but it sounded like it was from Earth… well, an Earth. It could be Atlantean for all he knew, or a people wiped out by a natural disaster on his world.”

“What gave it away?”

“Well, you don’t seem scared of the Ranger Slayer.” She let out a soft laugh, “well, not scared enough, anyway.”

“Why don’t you pronounce any of your Rs?” He asked.

“Wow, you’re from so far away you’ve never even met an Australian before.”

“And what planet are they from?”

The figure stood up, she was restrained by looser chains that had allowed her the luxury of sitting down. “Earth!” She barked. She shambled into the light. She didn’t look at him. All he saw was her black hair with a vivid pink stripe as she fiddled furiously with her manacles.

“My friends call me Holden, by the way. What’s your name?”

“Kat,” she muttered, distracted, “Kat Hillard.”

“THE Kat? Turned into a Kat by Rita Kat? The Zeo Pink Ranger Kat?”

“Not exactly,” she chuckled, “Rita’s been dead a long time. And I’ll tell you right now Drakkon didn’t turn me into a cat.”With a heavy clunk, they fell off her and clattered to the ground. She turned to face her cellmate with a victorious grin on her face. Her face seemed familiar but her dark eyeliner and black lipstick undercut the familiarity. Holden wasn’t entirely sure who he was looking at. She held up a hairpin, and made a show of putting it back in her hair before stopping herself. “Oh, where are my manners?”

She stepped out of the shadows, revealing her leather jacket over a hot pink shirt, pleated black skirt and fishnets over her long toned legs. Finally, he noticed she was wearing tall leather platform boots.

“Ah, thank you,” Holden grinned cockily as she began to pick at his more comprehensive restraints. “We’ll be out of here in no time.”

“We won’t even need to wait for your friend Zoe,” she smiled, seemingly for the first time in months. The smile faded, however, as she seemingly realised her hairpin wasn’t making the same headway it had with her own restraints. “This isn’t working.”

“What’re you coming up against?”

“Maybe I could use your morpher? I could use whatever weapon if gives you to break the lock.”

“I can’t, it’s keyed to-” Holden cut her off.

“Please,” she interrupted. “I’ve been here for weeks, I just need to get out of here.” Her face changed to one of desperation.

Without warning, Kat drove her knee up into Holden’s balls. The pain was explosive and immediate, but before the pain could begin slowly radiating out through his body, her knee rose again and slammed between his legs.

His head sagged forward as he was overwhelmed by the pain. This allowed him a much clearer view of the third, fourth, fifth and sixth knee, though the restraints ensured he was no more capable of reacting to them as they came.

He felt her fingers slide into his hair, tightening a grip on his hair to pull his head back up to look her in the eye. “Please, your morpher is the only way I’ll make it out of here,” she pleaded, “I’ll get you out of here too! I could break us both out!”

“I can’t,” he struggled. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. It won’t-”

She released his hair and took a few steps back. She glanced down at her platform boots, and he tensed up, realising what was likely coming. “I need it, I’m sorry about this…” she paused, “what was your name again?”

“Holden,” he answered, pleadingly. His eyes doing most of the work as his voice struggled to manifest even just his name.

“Right.” She smiled, a look of concern flashing across her face, “I’m sorry, Holden.”

She strode forward, bringing her platform boot sailing upwards at the end with a brutal kick collided with Holden’s testicles so mercilessly that he lost any ability to form words. He slumped in his restraints.

Kat stepped forward, angling his face up with a gentle hand under his chin, looking into his eyes in a desperate attempt to make contact.

“Holden, please.”

He just shook his head and breathlessly uttered a silent plea for help.

“Please!” She begged, resuming the onslaught of knees, punctuated by further pleas for his morpher until finally, her cry seemed to break. It twisted into the slightest whisper of a laugh just as she ran out of breath.

She realised immediately and her eyes darted to Holden’s to see if he’d noticed. It was clear from the hint of confusion mixed in with the obvious intense pain that he had, in fact, picked up on the break in character. “Can I have your morpher?” She asked, almost sweetly this time. He gently shook his head, the most intense reaction he could muster in the moment.

She let out a long sigh as she strode over to the secure door and gave it a quick rap. “Didn’t work,” she called out.

Without missing a beat, the heavy beam slid back, and the Ranger Slayer stepped in, this time demorphed. Holden hadn’t pieced together Ranger Slayer’s identity as a mind controlled Kimberly Hart, but now faced with this information, he realised that Kat must have been subjected to the same fate.

She stepped in towards Holden, tussling his hair. “Oh, did you have fun with my Ranger Crusher?” She cast a glance back towards Kat, “don’t worry, Kat, we’ll get you a morpher soon.” She laughed as her gaze returned to meet Holden’s. “What did you try?” She asked, maintaining her eye contact with Holden, talking about him, not to him. “Perhaps I can see if I can do it better.”

“Well, I gave him a really good kick in the balls.”

“He’s barely conscious like this after one kick? Maybe I can’t outdo you.”

“Oh, and like thirty knees. But then I accidentally laughed during the kneeing and the jig was up.”

“Such a fragile little thing, and yet we can’t seem to separate you from your morpher. Don’t worry, we’ll get there soon enough.” She grasped at the morpher on his belt, hoping it might come free now that he was in a weakened state, but shocked her hand as she tried. He could tell from her unsurprised reaction that she must have tries this tactic numerous times while he was unconscious.

“You’re calling a ranger weak?” He groaned.

She lashed out with a quick backhand to his balls. “If the spandex fits,” she said dismissively.

It hadn’t been anywhere near as brutal as any of Kat’s knees, but the precision and increased sensitivity in the area had meant he couldn’t help letting out a yelp as it had connected, not helping his argument.

Before he had time to regain composure, Kat’s hand swung in, collecting his balls with a slap that echoed around the room before her fingers tightened in a grip.

“So,” she purred as she leaned in to whisper in his ear, “are you going to give up the morpher now or am I going to keep crushing these until you come to your senses?” She tightened her grip, eliciting another moan from Holden.

“Kat, you know, for someone with that ballet background, I was hoping to see you do more with your legs.”

“Please, Kat, let go,” Holden squeaked.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Holden.”

“Then don’t,” he pleaded.

A short sigh and an eye-roll later. “Ok, you called my bluff,” she let out, tightening her grip.

“Kat, please. Squeezing is so boring to watch.”

Kat finally released Holden’s manhood, before stepping around in front of him. She looked deep into his eyes, and a smile spread across her face as she took in the pain she had inflicted upon him. She was gorgeous. Holden had certainly hoped to have a chance to flirt with her once he’d pulled off their escape - it had always been easy to flirt with grateful rescuees - but fate had dangled this possibility just out of reach.

Kat turned sideways to look at Kim. For a brief moment, Holden had thought he might get a brief reprieve, but then it began. Kat drove her knee up between Holden’s legs with perfect accuracy, smashing mercilessly and with great precision into Holden’s nuts. Kim let out a laugh, not having expected to see Kat deliver such a perfect knee to Holden’s most vulnerable area without needing to so much as glance at the region.

“Zowi will st-” Holden began, but was interrupted by a second, equally brutal and precise knee. A third followed. Then a fourth. They just kept coming. This darker Kim erupted in laughter as Kat landed perfect nutshot after perfect nutshot without so much as a single degree of variance. Each knee was a perfect repetition of the one before it, a brutal testament to the precision and control trained in her former hobbies.

“Aaaaaand double speed,” Kat chuckled, directing a devious grin toward her boss before doubling the pace of her knees to Holden’s groin. Holden quickly lost count, but she finally succumbed to laughter herself somewhere between 20 to 40 of these double speed knees, not one of which had missed her target.

The pair continued to laugh for a bit before finally fixing their attention back on Holden.

“Sorry, we interrupted you,” Kim barbed, her words dripping with sarcasm.

“Zoe will what?” Kat asked, her gaze suddenly intense, “you think she can stop both of us? You think you’ll be able to help her? We’ve got Mastodon Sentries too, you know. And then the Ranger Slayer. And me. She might not have as obvious a weakness as you,” she grinned, landing another casual slap between Holden’s legs to punctuate her point, “but she’s just one Ranger.”

The point was undercut but the sound of a small explosion somewhere nearby. The Ranger Slayer once again summoned her black and pink suit and activated a view screen. “She’s huge,” the she gasped in awe.

On the screen, a green-skinned woman stood towering over the two Mastodon Sentries in the entry hall, at least seven and a half feet tall. Her eyes shone with determination, as another man - unmorphed - clutched his groin and curled up in the foetal position on the ground.

“Is that an Eltarian?” Kat asked.

“No, they’re blue… and bald, I think,” the Ranger Slayer replied, focused mostly on the monitor.

“Jesus,” Kat remarked, “she already got Kyle?”

“Kyle is terrible as his job. I don’t know why we keep him,” the Ranger Slayer responded.

“What are you, the green ranger from the prisoner’s team come to save him?” One of the Mastodon Sentries asked, his words dripping with sarcasm and ill-advised machismo.

“Ok,” the woman responded, “first of all, that’s racist,” she remarked, swinging her leg forward and slamming her boot between the legs of another Mastodon Sentry. “And second of all, it’s morphin’ time,” she added as yellow energy burst from her morpher and covered her body, fading to reveal the Yellow Pirate Ranger. She pulled a gun from a holster and aimed it at the wall. The shot obliterated the wall, creating an opening between the entry hall and Holden’s cell. As the dust began to clear, Holden saw the whimpering Mastodon Sentry clutching his groin beside the Yellow Pirate Ranger. She knocked him over and stomped on him, resulting in the Mastodon Sentry demorphing, but rather than the energy dissipating, it seemed to flow into Zowi’s morpher.

She caught Holden’s eye, and before she could react to the presence of the others, an arrow of crackling pink energy flew through the air and knocked the gun out of her hand.

“You look terrible,” she barbed at Holden. In the split second as the Ranger Slayer charged at this new opponent, the Yellow Pirate Ranger summoned a cutlass and threw it towards Holden.

Kat ducked out of the way as the cutlass collected the chains holding Holden’s arms up. Realising Holden was now free, she drove her fist into Holden’s balls in the hopes of incapacitating him a few moments longer. He dropped to his knees as the pain radiated throughout his body once again.

“In some good news, o helpless leader, I think we can restore your old Black Ranger powers since your red ones won’t work with you in this state. In some bad news, I think they may have used all my favourite moves on you.” Zowi called out as the Ranger Slayer and the remaining Mastodon sentry continued to swarm her. With a deep breath, Zowi called out, “Sabre-tooth Tiger!”

Energy exploded from her, staggering the others back, to reveal a seven and a half foot tall Mighty Morphin Yellow Ranger, complete with Power Daggers. With a spin, she managed to land a slash on the Ranger Slayer with a dagger, sending her flying with a flurry of sparks. Behind her, she swung her boot up, connecting between the legs of the Mastodon Sentry and launching him towards Holden. The brutal kick caused the Sentry to begin to demorph, but the energy was absorbed by Holden’s morpher as he struggled to avoid Kat stomping on him. She grabbed the chains that kept his ankles shackled, but before she could drive her platform boot down, he weakly yet defiantly cried, “Mastodon!”

In a flurry of ultra-violet and black energy, Holden found himself filled with familiar vigour as he once again felt the powers of the Mighty Morphin’ Black Ranger surging through him. He wriggled out of the way of Kat’s descending boot and in the same swift motion of summoning the Power Axe, freed himself of his remaining chains.

The dimension’s native residents froze, not knowing what to make of the more familiar rangers before them. “So, you’re, like, what… are you just big fans of our powers?” The Ranger Slayer asked mockingly, nocking an arrow with Zowi’s name on it as Holden scrambled to his feet.

“Holden had powers like these once,” Zowi replied, “me, you could consider more of a tourist.”

“You picked a dangerous place for a vacation,” the Ranger Slayer retorted, her helmet hiding a smirk.

“You say that like this fight hasn’t gone from a four versus one to a two versus two in less than a minute,” Holden chimed in.

“Is that Kat Hillard? Didn’t you have a crush on her?” Zowi inquired.

“Please don’t use words like crush right now, Zowi.” Almost involuntarily, Holden found himself accompanying the words with gestures and pantomimed gestures to communicate his ongoing pain, well outside of his usual repertoire. “Oh, wow, I forgot how much you used to gesticulate with these powers.”

“Yeah, you get used to it,” the Ranger Slayer replied with a nod and a shrug before nocking another arrow.

“It’s getting a bit cramped in here for me,” Zowi noted, gesturing to the ceiling for Holden.

“Right,” Holden nodded as turned his Power Axe around to use its capabilities as a heavy blaster. “Ladies, as fun as this was, I think it’s time for us to leave.” He fired a shot into the ceiling, causing it to begin to collapse.

“If you want to come back for a second date,” Kat began, “be sure to bring me a present next time.”

The rubble cascaded between them, cutting the pairs off from one another. “What, my sterling company wasn’t enough?”

“Enough quips, let’s go,” Zowi barked and grabbed Holden’s shoulder. They ran as the room caved in. “Let’s get to a portal and leave this world behind.”

As the pair neared the portal, the Black Ranger Mastodon powers faded and Holden was returned to his unmorphed state. The lingering pain returned and Holden would have fallen had Zowi not caught him. He looked up at her, still in her yellow Sabretooth Tiger regalia, a look of gratitude in his eyes. “I should have de-morphed earlier, but I was too weak and now I don’t even have what I came for.”

“Well, you still have the memories of meeting Kat Hillard,” Zowi quipped.

“No thank you.” Holden rolled his eyes, fighting the urge to laugh that would almost certainly hurt even more.

“And as soon as it’s done cooking, Ninjor and I can make you a black coin for your old morpher out of the energy I absorbed.” Zowi de-morphed and smiled, holding up her morpher. “I absorbed the powers from two of those sentries and didn’t use any of them.”

“Zowi, how are you so much better at this than I am?”

“Fighting comes pretty easy when you’re twice everybody else’s size. Just don’t make me do the leadership thing, please.”

This time Holden let the laugh out, as much as it hurt to do so. “Ok, Zowi,” he smiled. “Deal,” he said as they stepped through the portal, closing it behind them.