Timeline E-417: Ruin Sector, Crater City — 3 days after the Grid shattered
The rain was acidic here.
It hissed where it fell, eating through steel and ash-stained rubble. Burnt towers leaned like dying monoliths. Roads were jagged wounds carved into the earth. There was no sky—just a pulsating gray sheet smeared with the echoes of what once was.
Kael stood in the middle of it all.
His armor—damaged and scorched—still bore the fading crimson of a Red Ranger. The helmet was clipped to his belt, its visor cracked. He didn't wear it anymore. There was no one left to protect.
Just ghosts.
He raised his hand slowly, fingers closing around the hilt of his shattered saber, now fused with melted wires and charred metal. Rain sizzled down its edge as he stared toward the half-buried ruins of the Ranger Command Vault.
Buried beneath it… was them.
Mara. Kito. Rev. Elsie.
His team.
They'd died screaming. And he hadn't even been fast enough to stop it.
"Kael," came a voice—sharp, mechanical, almost uncertain.
He didn't turn.
The voice belonged to his last remaining ally—a fractured AI core, once connected to their central Command Nexus. Now, it floated near his shoulder, a flickering cube of blue light.
"I warned you," it said quietly, "this sector is destabilizing. Reality is collapsing inward."
"I don't care," Kael replied, voice low and hoarse. "Let it collapse."
He dropped to one knee in the mud and pressed his palm to the dirt.
"I told them to fall back," he muttered. "Told them I'd hold the line."
"You did. But the Eclipse Knight—"
"Don't."
A pause. Only the hiss of rain and the whine of flickering buildings filled the silence.
Kael's jaw tightened. The memory wouldn't stop playing—Mara's face, lit by the glow of her Yellow Morpher. Her last words crackling through the comms.
"We've got this, Red. Don't die out there."
But she had.
They all had.
And he had lived.
The most unforgivable sin.
Fracture Protocol initializing…
Kael blinked. His AI companion glitched violently, then stilled.
"What the hell…?"
Suddenly, a tear opened in the air before him.
It wasn't a portal—at least not like any he'd seen. It looked like the universe itself had been slashed open with a jagged blade. Inside, there was nothing but swirling chaos and a single eye—silver and endless—gazing at him.
Kael Rydan of Timeline E-417. Final Red Ranger of Sector Delta.
Your fate is unsalvageable. But your purpose is not.
You have been selected.
Step forward, or let your world die meaningless.
Kael narrowed his eyes. "Who the hell are you?"
Zara Vey. Last Guardian of the Grid.
His breath caught. He had heard that name. A myth passed down by the Grid Scholars. But she was supposed to have died centuries ago—if she had even existed at all.
I'm dead. But my echo remains. And I'm calling you… because the multiverse doesn't need another martyr.
It needs a reckoning.
The air around him shimmered—his saber vibrated with buried power, and for a split second, the rain stopped. Silence swallowed everything.
Kael clenched his fists. Looked once more to the crater where his team lay buried.
Then he stood.
And without hesitation, he stepped into the fracture.
Timeline V-311: Sector Thirteen — Underground Tech Wastes
Mira ducked behind a rusted pillar, clutching her modified Morpher. Footsteps clanked overhead. Armed enforcers—chrome-suited, genetically enhanced, law-branded. They were hunting.
Her fingers flew over the keypad embedded in her wristplate, rewriting encryption mid-run. The Morpher glowed weakly. Still no full charge.
"Come on, come on…" she whispered, blue eyes flicking toward the security drone hovering nearby.
She had thirty seconds to disable it.
Fifteen seconds before it triggered a kill alert.
And ten before she was vaporized on sight for "Morphtech possession."
Because in this timeline, Rangers weren't heroes.
They were criminals.
Fracture Protocol initializing…
The drone suddenly froze.
Mira's Morpher lit up—brighter than ever. A surge of ancient, impossible data flooded her wrist.
Mira Teval. Blue. Outlaw. Timeline V-311.
You engineered tech to rebuild the Grid in secret.
You failed. But your mind is still the weapon the multiverse needs.
Mira's eyes narrowed.
"Who are you?"
A ghost. A chance. Step into the fracture… or stay and die for a world that already gave up.
She didn't hesitate.
The enforcers saw only a burst of blue light before she vanished.
Timeline R-666. Ruined Citadel.
Thorne was already surrounded.
Blades out. Helmet off. Blood across his jaw. His former master—the Crimson Overlord—stood before him, smug in victory.
"You thought changing sides made you better," the Overlord sneered. "You're still filth. A traitor to darkness. A disgrace to our realm."
Thorne spat. "Yeah? I'll take disgrace over you any day."
He reached for his Morpher—damaged, sparking. He wasn't going to win this. But he was going to go down fighting.
Then the world cracked.
Literally.
Fracture Protocol initializing…
"…What the hell?"
Five Rangers pulled from ruin.
Red, Blue, Black, Yellow, White.
Unknown timeline. Fractured space.
Somewhere in the void between realities…
Kael landed on cracked obsidian, coughing.
He looked up.
Around him, others were appearing. One by one.
A girl with tech embedded in her arms, her eyes scanning instantly—Mira.
A tall, angry-looking man with dark armor and black veins crawling across his neck—Thorne.
A blur of yellow crashed in next—laughing as she landed in a roll. "Woo! That was sick!" she cheered. Ayla. Chaos incarnate.
And then… silence.
A ripple in the void.
A white-cloaked figure descended silently—Rin. Masked. Silent. Radiating an energy that didn't feel Ranger… but something else.
Kael stood slowly, frowning at the group.
No one spoke. They just… stared. Confused. Ready to fight. Not to trust.
Then, above them—hovering in a shimmer of dying light—a holographic image of Zara Vey formed.
Half-faded. Ghostly.
"Welcome to the Fractured Realm," she said.
"The multiverse is dying. You were all chosen because you should be dead."
"You want revenge, answers, redemption, chaos, truth."
"Whatever you want… you won't get it unless you work together."
"The Eclipse Knight is rebuilding the universe in his image. And to stop him…"
Her voice darkened.
"One of you must die.
Another will betray.
And one… is not who they seem."
The team looked at one another.
No one spoke.
No one moved.
The fractured Grid pulsed beneath them.
And so… it began.