A Journey in the Dark

A Journey in the Dark is the seventh episode of Power Rangers: Lost Ninjas.

Synopsis
Easton, Susana and Kerri escape the Ethereal Academy, only to come head-to-head with Tauza and the Black Terra Ranger.

Last time we saw the Ethereal Rangers...
Easton stole the Energy Morpher right out of Tauza's hands and fled, finding the injured Kerri with the broken Sound Morpher. Taking her to safety, he returned for any other ninjas he could save, encountering Susana as she took her morpher from another student to fight. All three fled to the Cave of Bubbling Pools as Tauza's forces captured the rest of the school.

Ethereal Ninja Academy, February 2nd, 7:44 a.m.
"…And he was never seen again, right?" Susana asked. Why did all of these ghost stories end exactly the same way?

"Pretty much," Kerri replied. She walked ahead of the others down the tunnel. Her limp was still distinct, but thanks to an energy boost from Easton (and maybe a slight attitude adjustment from Susana), she'd said it was "okay." Her voice echoed, and more faintly, the silver bangles on her uniform jingled. "Oh yeah, except for the moaning noises you hear if you go too far down. I think he turns up on his birthday, too—doesn't he, Easton?"

"Huh?" Easton had been keeping up the rear, alert for any trouble. He hadn't made a light for risk of them being seen, so Kerri was leading the way, echolocating as she went. Hence the talking.

"The lost student, does he turn up on his birthday?"

"Which lost student?"

"Duck, stalactite," Kerri said. Susana obeyed, hearing Easton follow suit behind her. The stalactite was wet with cold slime and sharp at the tip. "Willis, I think he was British or something."

"No, Willis appears when someone's about to die. Alana appears on her birthday."

"I forgot about Alana."

"Okay, seriously, were any of these people real?" Susana asked. The walls were getting closer, but the air smelled slightly less stale. They were getting higher at last.

"They were—some of them even got lost," Easton said. He stumbled a little on some loose rocks. "But we usually found them."

"Usually?"

Easton let that question stand. They walked on in an awkward near-silence, footsteps crunching grit. Something rumbled far behind them. All three teenagers pretended they hadn't heard it.

"Is that a light?" Susana asked. Further up the tunnel, there was a pinkish sort of glow.

"Yeah," Easton said. "I know where we are."

"Great! Where?" Kerri asked.

"The crypt."

"…Oh. We have a crypt? As in, with dead people in it?"

"How many other kinds of crypts are there? It's mostly for old teachers, or students without relatives to send them back to. Keep going, there's a graveyard right outside," Easton said. They did, and soon came around a corner to see a stone door carved with strange letters. Around its edge grew a weird, glowing pink fungus. Slipping past the two girls, Easton pulled the door open. It slid with a grating sound, revealing a wide, pink-lit room.

Inside, Easton pulled the door shut behind them with a boom. The walls were lined with shelves, all covered with dusty urns. In the middle of the room stood a wide stone table, and all three instinctively avoided it, going straight for the outside door. As they pulled it open, they were greeted by a gust of snow-laden air.

With effort, they got the door open all the way, and stepped outside. Easton pulled the door shut again with a boom, and Susana quickly pulled up her hood, Kerri imitating her. A storm brewed overhead, but the valley they stood in protected them from the worst of the wind. Snow had already blanketed the hills, and piled on one side of the gravestones dotting the field. Another table stood here, ringed by torches on posts. Some of them had been knocked over by the wind.

"Where to next?" Kerri yelled, turning towards the others. Susana shrugged and looked to Easton. "I can't hear or see a thing in this!"

"Keep ahold of me," Easton said, putting her hand on his elbow. "There's a village about ten miles down—we should be able to take shelter there!" One-handed, Easton pulled up the lower half of his face mask.

"Assuming Tauza and her goons haven't gotten there ahead of us," Susana added.

"Assuming that, yes. At the worst we might be able to salvage from them and move on." Easton started forward, through the valley. Kerri followed along, as did Susana. Overhead, there was a crack of lightning that silhouetted the falling snowflakes like black dust. As they reached the end of the valley, Easton slowed to a stop and looked back towards the gravestones.

"Easton?" Kerri tugged at his arm. With a shake of his head, he went on, right to the mouth of the valley and onto the mountain. Susana joined them, keeping close. Now the wind hit them with full force, almost enough to knock them over. Snow pelted them like needles, stabbing at their exposed eyes. Another flash of lightning lit up the snow a blinding white, and thunder cracked and roared above them.

Catching ahold of both girls, Easton ninja-streaked towards a rock. The wind nearly blasted them clean off the mountainside, but they landed halfway there. Susana braced herself, and they leaped again, zipping down the slope. It was still slow going: ten miles might as well have been a hundred in this weather, and none of them were very good at this.

"Maybe we should wait it out!" Susana shouted. But as Easton started to reply, something rumbled behind them, and it wasn't thunder. As they looked back and up, they glimpsed a hole appear in the clouds. Through it appeared an enormous, beetle-like shape, hovering above the mountain. A blue energy bolt flashed, and there was a dull boom. The mountaintop quivered.

"Too late—run!" Easton yelled, catching the girls' wrists and ninja-streaking again. Behind them came more dull booms, accompanied by distant crackling. Then came a new sound, barely audible, but bringing a rush all three could feel.

"Avalanche?" Kerri's voice was shrill and squeaky. Easton didn't say anything, just swerved towards a huge, brown outcropping to their left.

"Could we use our Zords?" Susana yelled. He didn't notice: he couldn't hear it over the noise of the school being destroyed. She kept shouting, then finally grabbed him by the shoulders and swung him around.

"DO WE HAVE ZORDS OR NOT?" She screamed in his face, shaking him with each word.

He blinked. Easton pulled his morpher out of an inner pocket and held it up. The wind snatched his voice away as he yelled, but it still blazed gold as he morphed. Susana and Kerri followed suit behind him. Why did the first access code have to be so long?

"Gold Ethereal Ranger!"

"Sapphire Ethereal Ranger!"

"Diamond Ethereal Ranger!"

"Force immaterial, powers ethereal! Golden Goldfishzord!"

"Sapphire Pandazord!"

"Diamond Batzord!" For a second, nothing happened. The noise of the avalanche grew louder as it neared. As Susana was starting to wonder if the attackers had found the Zords, around the side of the mountain zoomed three giant robots: a panda, a goldfish, and a bat. The three leaped into the Zord cockpits, and were immediately greeted by a blast of warm air.

"You guys up to fighting?" Easton asked, as the Goldfishzord swam through the snow. The mountaintop dimpled and collapsed as the school fell in on itself, forming a massive crater.

"Fighting?" Kerri protested. Through the howling wind rose an ear-piercing shriek. Something huge and black rocketed towards the Batzord, slamming into it claws-first. They hit the mountain with a cloud of snow and rolled.

"Kerri!" Susana charged after them just as they rolled into the path of the avalanche. They were both swept away in a rush of snow and rock. The Goldfishzord leaped into the flood and shot after them.

"Try to stop that spaceship!" Easton yelled at Susana. The Pandazord turned and bounded up the mountainside. A bolt of lightning struck it, and it faltered, but soon rushed on. As it came, the spaceship turned its guns on the Zord, which rolled and ducked the blasts with agility no real panda ever had. It still took a few hits, one of which knocked it flat on its stomach.

"Get—off!" Kerri yelled. The Batzord pushed up through the snow, forcing its attacker off. It was a massive Screech Owlzord, black and silver. It flapped and dove again, only for the Goldfishzord to slam into its side and knock it away. Skittering through the air, the Batzord came around at its attacker's back, digging its own claws in. With another bloodcurdling shriek, the Screech Owlzord tucked in its wings and dropped like a missile towards the mountain. At the very last second, it snapped its wings out and swerved. The Batzord was yanked off its back by pure momentum and faceplanted in the snow.

"I'm done," Kerri groaned.

At the mountaintop, the Pandazord leaped into the air and swung wildly at the spaceship. It easily moved aside, and the Pandazord landed on the other side of the collapsing school. A laser hit it in the back of the neck, pitching it forward and down the slope. The spaceship followed, pelting the ground around it with lasers. A few hits drew showers of sparks, and the Pandazord slammed into a rocky outcropping, hard. It rolled over and struggled back to its feet as the spaceship loomed over it.

"Come on, I barely felt that!" Susana yelled up at the ship. She felt a flush of angry satisfaction: time for these bad guys to pay. The Zord leaped again, and this time managed to catch one of the ship's leglike protrusions. It stretched and tore as the Pandazord came down, metal and yellow fluid spraying across the mountainside. The ship rocked and took off, disappearing into the clouds. As the Pandazord hesitated, more laser bolts tore through the clouds and knocked it off-balance. It started to roll down the mountain.

"Guys, I don't think we can win this!" Kerri shouted, as the Screech Owlzord caught the Goldfishzord in its talons. The fish writhed, its bladed fins slashing at its captor but not loosening its trip.

"We can if you help!" Susana retorted, as the Pandazord stopped itself with outstretched paws. The spaceship came down after it, guns blazing. The lasers tore into the Zord's metal hull, melting wires and drawing sparks.

"She's got a point—we're outmatched," Easton said, as the Screech Owlzord swooped up towards the storm. Lightning struck it, and it shuddered, its grip loosening enough for the Goldfishzord to slip free. It disappeared into the avalanche. "We'll have to retreat."

"Oh no, these guys have gone waaay too far for that," Susana snapped. Her Zord snarled and swung at the ship, but it remained safely out of reach. Another laser took it between the eyes, and it fell back with a boom.

The Goldfishzord's fins cut through the snow like a shark in the water as it came up beside the Batzord. It lay there for a minute, unmoving, before the Screech Owlzord scooped up the Batzord and tossed it away, towards the ship. The Goldfishzord followed.

Susana struggled to right her Pandazord, but it fell sideways again, and she banged her head on the wall. Panting and sore, she struggled back up. The right hind leg wasn't cooperating. The huge shadow of the Screech Owlzord was silhouetted over her by a crack of lightning. As Susana struggled, the hatch door slammed open, revealing a snow-blown Easton. Susana jumped, and he yanked her out of the cockpit before she could say anything.

"What are you—?"

"Come on!" She tried to go back, but he seized her in a full nelson and dragged her away, just in time. The Screech Owlzord latched onto the Panda's leg and dragged it up to the crater, tossing it after the others. Susana stopped fighting, and Easton let go. They reached a massive boulder, where a shaken Kerri also waited. The Screech Owlzord, apparently assuming the Rangers were still inside their Zords, dropped into the crater.

"Now what?" Kerri asked. Her voice seemed very small.

Easton's shoulders slumped. "Ninja streak?"

So they did, zipping back and forth down the mountainside in black blurs. The storm's fury had passed, and now the snow fell in darkness. Deep within the mountain, they could still feel layer upon layer of the school collapsing in on itself. Susana swore to make those creeps pay for every flattened room.

Finally, Easton let out a shout, and pointed to faint lights twinkling in the distance. Finding her second wind, Susana zipped past the other two towards them. In a few minutes, they'd arrived in a little village, somewhere between the Middle Ages and the 1960's by the houses. As the three demorphed, standing in the middle of the town, doors and windows started opening. Kerri swayed, and Susana put an arm around her shoulders. She had a pounding headache and what would probably be a colorful collection of bruises later.

A tall older man came up to them, and Easton addressed him in another language. The two spoke for several minutes, as various dark people slipped out of their homes and eyed the strangers. Feeling self-conscious, Susana brushed snow off her uniform and drew herself up. More was melting in her boots, but she couldn't do anything about that for the moment.

Finally, Easton finished the conversation, and turned to the girls. "They've got somewhere for us to stay." Susana didn't let herself show her relief, just followed some woman into her house with Kerri. A couple of inquisitive children in pajamas ran around, fetching things as the woman ordered them to, prattling the entire time.

The woman spoke a little English, enough to figure out what was wrong with both girls. Quickly anointing and bandaging Kerri's burnt leg, she got them dry clothes and showed them to a closet of a bathroom to change. Gesturing towards the couch, she took their damp uniforms away. The kids stared at them, but eventually got bored and ran off. Their voices carried as they played.

Kerri hugged her knees to her chest, resting her chin on them. Her damp hair straggled across her shoulders.

"What do we do now? Whoever those people are, they've got our Zords."

Susana shrugged. "Then we get them back. We could have beaten them if we'd had a strategy. We can let them make the repairs, then steal them back. Who knows, maybe they'll make a three-Zord Megazord formation for us."

"I hadn't thought of that." Kerri sounded relieved. She flopped back on the couch with a groan, then stretched her legs, wincing at the sore muscles. "How long do you think that'll take?"

"Long enough that we'll have to leave here. If those guys were ready to blow up the school to go after us, they won't let a village stand in their way," Susana said. She leaned back against the couch. It squeaked a little. "We should rest while we can."

Kerri gave her an incredulous look. "You expect me to rest after what you just said?"

"Yeah." Susana shut her eyes and tried to block out the kids playing in the other room. After a moment, she heard Kerri mutter and shift around, making herself comfortable. Susana's stomach growled, and she made a note to ask that woman about food when she came back.

Trivia

 * The episode title is a reference to the Lord of the Rings.