Tommy sprinted through a narrow corridor of aging stone. His sneakers made rapid, loud taps on the floor which echoed up and down the hall, reverberations exaggerated by the sturdy nature of the building. The air was thick and hot, despite the lack of windows. Medieval people probably weren't concerned with things like ventilation, and a place like this most certainly wouldn't have had air conditioning. Not that temperature was necessarily a big concern. It may have been a warm London afternoon, but it had nothing on an average day back in Angel Grove.

What really struck him was the darkness that hung over this hall. In all of the movies and television shows he'd ever watched, old buildings like this always had torches lining the walls, but this one had nothing of the sort. Was the past always dark like this? How did anyone see where they were going? Living life by lantern light seemed a sad existence to him. To live in such darkness, it would depress a person, surely.

Indeed, the only illumination around him came from the lithographic map held in his left hand. It bathed the walls, floor, and ceiling a few feet away from him in subtle blue light. Interestingly, and thankfully, the map had changed when he entered the Tower of London. Instead of a ¾ view of the city, it showed an interactive floor plan of the tower. This was what led him to find the nearest staircase and venture underground. Thus, the lack of light and stuffy atmosphere.

There came a crossroads, a meeting of these underground tunnels. Tommy stopped to look at his map before taking off to the left. He appeared to be close, now, Only a few more passages to navigate and he should've been able to reach his destination. No time to stop now, not when he was almost there, not when the world needed him. Not when his friends did.

That final thought put a fire in his heart. Tommy ran even faster, determined to find his goal. He'd only known these three people for less than an hour, but he already felt a connection to them. They were Rangers, just like him. Sure, they came from different times and places, but he couldn't imagine that the job of being a Ranger necessarily changed that much through the years. They had suffered, and bled, and fought, all for the same reason: To fight against evil and, in doing, bring hope to the world. They were his comrades, even though he'd never met them. The connection he had with Fae, Z, and Flynn was one of brothers in arms.

Though, he also realized his motivations had a selfish twinge to them. The quicker he dealt with this Avanth situation, the sooner he would be able to go back home. He had friends and family waiting for him there, and he very much wanted to see them again. That destroying the evil alchemist freed the people of this time was just a welcome bonus. Doing any of this, however, required the Mythos Morphers. One step at a time. Find this Morpher first, and then save the world.

Tommy ran past a room, but then skidded to a stop. He backed up a few steps to poke his head in to this room. A check of the map confirmed it was the right one. He busted inside. The hopes of the map zooming in again were dashed when he did. He was on his own when it came to searching. Pity. He didn't have time to mess around.

This particular room looked like an armory of sorts. Each of the walls to either side hosted suits of armor. Between them were racks and display cases of various weapons, mostly swords and polearms, but also maces, shields, various axes and a few spears. The floor between the walls also had many racks similarly filled. There were also wardrobes which Tommy assumed had either period clothing or more pieces of armor. Finally, several boxes full of weapons were strewn about in seemingly random places.

On his way down here, Tommy had passed through a museum. If he were a betting man, which he wasn't, this was a room where the curators of the Tower kept pieces they currently were not displaying to the public. What better place to keep an old, mighty relic? The only problem? There were easily hundreds of items in this place. Where would he even start?

Tommy guessed the most logical place to start would be the display cases. He made a quick round of the room, using the map to illuminate through the dirty glass. Before leaving Fae had described the Mythos Morphers, so Tommy knew what he was looking for. However, that didn't make the task of finding it in this mess any more attainable.

While the pieces in the cases were nice, they weren't what he wanted. So, Tommy transitioned to the wardrobes. He opened up the one closest to him. As he suspected, old-fashioned clothes hung from modern hangers. He didn't bother being careful with these priceless garments. Two armfuls saw them thrown on the floor. Rifling through them revealed nothing but clothes. Yanking out the three drawers of the wardrobe had similar results, nothing but jewelry, socks, belts, and other small clothing pieces.

The next wardrobe told the same story, as did the next one after that. This was getting him nowhere. These things had nothing but clothing in them, and that wasn't what he needed. So, he went over to the nearest box full of weapons and turned it over. The box was much lighter than he expected. The weapons he used as a Ranger were pretty light, but they were also mystical. Were real weapons also lightweight? Had Hollywood lied to him about that, too?

He spread the weapons—which were mostly swords and daggers—along the floor, only thinking after plunging his hands in that they might still be sharp. When his palms came out unscathed, he dived back in, spreading them out in as thin a layer as possible. While it was hard to see in the low light, none of the implements matched what he'd been looking for.

The next box down the line met the same fate. Tommy tipped out its contents and spread the weapons around. This one also had mostly swords, but a higher concentration of axes and even a fancy mace that Tommy was surprised ended up back there instead of out in the museum. None of that mattered, however, as it also did not contain what he wanted.

Frustrated, Tommy made for the next box. He looked back to make sure his left foot hadn't been buried in blades. That's when something caught his eye. Mixed in with the contents of the first crate he'd emptied, it was a distinctly different color than all of the other implements, and far better engineered. He picked it up.

It was a sheathed dagger. The single-handed hilt had been constructed of a black material that looked like leather, but felt like metal. The guard had simple quillons, thin and straight rectangular arms that ended in squashed squares. A ruby had been inlaid in the middle of the guard. The scabbard was made of bronze. Intricate flame patterns worked their ways up and down the material. A black leather strap hung from the bottom of this. Hilt and scabbard combined made the entire thing about the length of his forearm. Pulling the dagger, a blade of simple steel with a narrow fuller, confirmed his suspicions. This was it. He'd found the Mythos Morpher. Tommy strapped it to his right wrist and bolted back the way he came.

"Hold on, guys," he said. "I'll be there soon."

…

Flynn could hear the slow approaching slap of Lubberwick's bare feet on the stone as the fiend came on. Flynn put his feet underneath himself and tried to push up with his hands, but both his knees and elbows buckled under the weight of his own body. His entire torso ached from duo of weapon strikes and then the ground stomp that the enemy had delivered to him. Admittedly, one of those was his fault for running straight into the broom. That didn't make them hurt any less.

He turned over onto his front, more a flail of his left leg than anything he actually wanted to do. This was good, though. It would be easier to get up from his stomach. Flynn laid his palms flat on the ground and pushed up. He actually managed enough elevation to get a knee in, but his elbows wobbled and he collapsed. Trying to just prop himself up yielded the same result.

A look over at Z to his right revealed she suffered from a similar quandary. She had been on her front since they both were knocked down, which one would think gave her the advantage. However, she seemed just as tired as he was, if not moreso. She, too, tried to push herself up only to fail. It seemed they were both in quite the rough predicament. What would the British say, a sticky wicket? Yeah, something like that.

Since Flynn couldn't get up, he had to settle for craning his neck as far back as he could in order to get a view on Lubberwick. The fiend did a classic bad guy slow walk over to them, savoring his victory. A cursory glance seemed to indicate that, if nothing else, the goblins were all dealt with. So, there was that. Silver linings, while nice, didn't help much with their current situation. Flynn's mind worked at a mile a minute to find both himself and Z a way out of this mess. Unfortunately, all of them involved getting up, and he was a bit too hurt for that at the moment. He hoped at least one of them found another way before Lubberwick reached them.

"Hey, ugly!" A voice called from behind them.

"What's that? Who are you calling ugly," Lubberwick shouted back.

Flynn knew that voice. He did his best to twist himself around to see back toward the Tower of London. Tommy sprinted up to them. As he stopped a few steps away from them, Flynn noticed he had something new on his wrist, a bronze apparatus of some sort that caught the sunlight in a dazzling glare. A smile stretched across his face. He'd done it.

"Oh, another human? Come to join the others, have you?" Lubberwick said.

"Not quite," Tommy denied. He held his Morpher low, left hand over the ruby.

"Mythos Rangers!" He shouted, and then lifted the Morpher over his head, still covering the ruby. After holding it there for a second, he lowered it down to hold it straight out at the full extension of his arms, forearm rotated so the Morpher on top so it pointed directly at Lubberwick.

"All for one!" Tommy declared. He moved his left hand down so the ruby was finally exposed. The gem glowed bright red, a light that engulfed him entirely, sticking to his body as if it radiated from his skin. This light coalesced into the shape of a bird with flame on its wings. A great cry not unlike that of an eagle pierced the heavens. A fiery burst expelled the light, and then the embers followed it, to reveal the man beneath.

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His helmet featured a thin black visor, shaped on the top by a bird's beak molded from the helmet overtop it. Wings tipped in white wrapped around the sides. It had no mouthpiece. A sleeveless tunic adorned his chest. Broad red rectangles colored it in the upper right and bottom left corners, while white filled in the remaining two segments. Embossed atop this pattern was an image of a golden phoenix in-flight as if viewed from the top. Red trousers fed into black boots done up with straps, while chain mail atop black cloth transitioned into dark gauntlets on his arms.

In his right hand there was a sword, its blade nearly three feet long and with a hilt big enough for one hand and an additional two fingers. A heater shield rested on his left forearm, polished steel with the same golden phoenix painted across its face.

"Power of the Phoenix, Mythos Ranger Red!" Tommy declared, and then struck a pose.

"What, am I supposed to be impressed?" Dismissed Lubberwick. "The Power Rangers aren't a threat to my master. He already destroyed one team."

"Yeah? Well, you can tell your master there's a new team in town, and we won't go down so easy," Tommy fired back.

"Please, I'm not afraid of you. I'll strike you down now, and then my master will reward me!"

Lubberwick let out a battlecry and began charging Tommy, who did the same a fraction of a second later. Tommy jumped over his fallen comrades to land a few steps ahead of them and kept running, only a few steps away from his opponent by then. Watching all of this, Flynn felt his heart fill up with hope. Now that the legendary Ranger had found his Morpher, this fiend didn't stand a chance. It probably didn't even know the dire straits in was in. That Flynn could actually have his life saved by the Tommy Oliver was the cherry on top.

Tommy struck downward with his sword, but Lubberwick blocked with the broom and then brought it down in a similar manner, only to meet the heater shield. Tommy swung vertically again. Lubberwick's defense held true. The Red Ranger used his shield to manipulate the broom, sliding it off of his blade so he could cut diagonally. Lubberwick took a step to avoid the attack so he ended up just behind his opponent. Tommy did the same, negating the fiend's advantage. Both spun on each other and swung high, blows that met along opposing planes. They swung low, to the same effect. Tommy jabbed the fiend with the edge of his shield. In the split-second that Lubberwick was stunned, Tommy carved an X-pattern into the fiend's hairy chest. Each blow resulted in a shower of yellow sparks.

Lubberwick stumbled back, holding the place where the slashes had made contact. He looked from Tommy, to his stricken torso, and back again. The fiend gave another warcry and charged again into the fray. He sliced diagonally downward, crouched, and then rose with a upward cut in the opposite direction. Tommy let both attacks bounce off his shield. He countered with a thrust, which Lubberwick deflected to one side. The fiend initiated quick rotations of his broom for a duo of attacks, but Tommy faded back from both. Lubberwick spun to avoid an incoming slash and went for an unsuccessful straight vertical chop. He then thrust high. Tommy stopped the broom with his shield and cut low, slicing Lubberwick across the thigh in another shower of sparks.

The fiend's balance faltered and instead of collapsing, he tucked into a roll in an attempt to get behind Tommy. He did manage to do so, but the Ranger was far too fast for such a cheap trick. He kicked Lubberwick in the face while he was still rolling. This spurred on his momentum so he made several rotations along the ground to land on one knee.

Tommy sprinted forward and leapt into the air. With a loud kiai he placed a flying kick into Lubberwick's nose. The fiend landed on its rump. He scrabbled backward along the ground, a desperate attempt to escape. Tommy chased him down, lashing out with his sword. Lubberwick waved around his broom to defend, barely managing to remain cut-free. The fiend kicked out at Tommy's ankle. The Ranger lifted his foot away, but the attempt made enough time for Lubberwick to stand.

"So, how about it," Tommy said. "Still think you can take me?"

"Why you... I'll destroy you!" The fiend shouted.

He wailed and made a running jump at Tommy, who stepped and half-spun so Lubberwick went sailing past. The Ranger then slashed him vertically across the back. Lubberwick gripped where the blade had made contact and took several steps away. He couldn't escape from Tommy, however, who managed to slice at him three more times. The last attack sent Lubberwick spinning away. He flipped into a body twist, three rapid horizontal rotations before he came to rest facedown in the dirt.

"Time to finish this!" Tommy said. He touched the ruby set into his Morpher for a few seconds. Flame engulfed the blade of his sword as he held it in front of his face.

"Phoenix Flame Strike!" Tommy called. He raised the sword in a straight arm over his head, gave it a flourish, and brought it diagonally down. The flame raced from his blade toward the fiend.

"No!" Lubberwick screamed as the immolating edge cut through his very being.

The fiend spun a half-turn and fell on his front. A heartbeat passed before Lubberwick exploded in a shower of sparks and fire. Tommy turned away from his defeated foe and struck another pose, body turned so his shield arm was out front, sword raised over it pointed straight ahead. He remained like that a few seconds until the fire dissipated, leaving behind only smoke and haze in its wake.

With the imminent threat dealt with and no other enemies in the area, Tommy got rid of his weapons. He gave the ruby on his Morpher a double tab with his left index and middle fingers. His sword and shield glowed red briefly, and then seemed to shrink and zip into the ruby. He then ran over to where his comrades had both managed to sit up.

"Are you two alright?" He asked, placing a gauntleted hand on Flynn's shoulder.

"We're just fine," Flynn responded. "I would've had him if you didn't show up."

Z shook her head at him. "I'm glad you got here when you did, Tommy."

"Me, too," he agreed.

"Red Ranger, eh? That's pretty neat," Flynn said.

"Yeah. I think I need a new shirt, though," Tommy joked. It wasn't funny, but they all chuckled anyway. The release of tension in moments like this made most people far more affable.

"Come on, guys. We shouldn't stay here. Can't risk anyone seeing you with us," Z said.

"Good point." Tommy stood straight up and let his posture relax. "Power down."

The red light flashed and when it was gone, Tommy Oliver stood there as just his regular human self again, still wearing his green t-shirt. It felt admittedly strange, to wear an inappropriate color beneath a red Ranger suit. Once they found all of the morphers, they'd have to make a quick shopping trip to remedy that problem. One thing at a time, though. Issues of fashion could be dealt with at a later date.

...

They loaded into the green Land Rover and took back to the skies. As they ascended, Tommy was aware of how suspicious it may look for a car full of people to take off from a restricted area. He hoped that didn't cause anyone to follow them. However, one advantage of flying was the lack of obstacles. Bypassing the London infrastructure meant it couldn't obscure their surroundings. It would be easy to tell if anyone was behind them for a little bit too long. Whether any would be investigators knew this, or simply no one cared enough to bother them, Tommy didn't really care. Their trip back to the lab went off without a hitch, and nothing else mattered.

They arrived back at the lab, and Flynn began his descent into the garage. The lab itself lay in a wooded area near a town a few miles away from London. It was a brilliant location, really. Avanth would never think to look so close to a major metropolitan area. At the very least, it wouldn't be his first choice. They could hide right underneath his nose.

Flynn pressed some buttons on the Land Rover's center console. A few seconds later, a perfectly concealed hole in the forest floor opened up just big enough for a vehicle to fit in. Flynn brought the flying car down through it all the way to the garage floor below. A few more buttons closed the bay doors. As the sun slowly narrowed in favor of artificial light, Flynn turned off the car and they all got out.

Fae was there waiting for them. She leaned heavily on the doorframe leading to the garage, but the sling her left arm hung in seemed to indicate she had taken some measures to mend her wounds. She also wore a pair of glasses, now, ovular silver frames set with lenses just slightly marred with dust. She smiled as they approached.

"You're back," she said. "Did you get the Morpher?"

"Got it right here," Tommy said. He walked up to her and presented his forearm.

Fae's expression lit up as she beheld the majesty of the Red Mythos Morpher. Her free hand gently caressed it, feeling along the flame patterns on the scabbard. She traced around the ruby, seemingly cautious over touching it. That was probably the right call. While Tommy didn't think the ruby would respond to anyone but him, there was no way to know for sure without putting it to the test. That sort of thing could be saved for later.

Z and Flynn came up on them. When Fae's gaze passed over these two, her expression dropped dramatically. Tommy stepped aside so they could join the conversation.

"You two look a little bit worse for wear," she said. "Did Avanth's minions give you trouble?"

"Oh, just a wee bit," Flynn said. "Did you know the Tower of London was off-limits?"

"I did, yeah," Fae confirmed with a nod.

"And why didn't you say anything?" Z made no outward attempt to hide the accusation in her voice.

"Well, it only would've been a problem if you tried to go in the front," she said. When no one responded, she facepalmed. "Of course you did. I should've guessed, it's what my team would've done."

"Well, it all worked out in the end, didn't it? No harm done," Tommy said.

"That's easy for you to say, Mr. Red Ranger," Flynn said, making exaggerated circles with a seemingly stiff right shoulder.

Z grinned at his antics and then walked past all of them into the lab proper. The group followed her.

"That's exciting, though. Tommy Oliver, the new Mythos Red Ranger," Fae said.

"It feels weird," Tommy said as they all stopped around the lab's trapezoidal center console. "I've been Green for so long, I think I got used to it. Looking down at myself and seeing Red, though..." he trailed off, unable to actually describe the feeling. "I wonder what Jason would think."

"If everything I've read about him is true, I'm sure he'd be proud," Z said.

"Yeah, you're probably right." And Tommy believed she was.

"Don't worry about it too much," Fae said. "I think any Red Ranger would feel weird if they were the only one. You'll feel better once you have a team to lead."

"About that," Flynn interjected. "Do you mind if I ask you a question, Fae? Something's been bothering me ever since we set off."

"Sure, go ahead," Fae allowed.

"It's just—and I don't mean to sound rude, but—if there are five Mythos Morphers, then why are there only three of us?" Flynn asked, showing uncharacteristic gentleness. He must've known this could potentially be a sensitive subject.

Fae's eyes dropped to the floor. She took a deep breath and hesitated. "That's... a bit of a failure on my part. You see, I needed one of Avanth's mixtures to stabilize the dimensional portal, but the Morphin' Grid the only power source I could find strong enough to make a portal in the first place. With the state the Grid is in, I guess it could only manage to grab three of you, instead of five. Maybe I could've found a better way, but I was desperate and in a hurry and... and grieving. I know it just makes your job that much harder, and I'm sorry."

Z went to stand next to her. "It's alright, Fae. You did the best you could."

"Z's right," echoed Flynn. "And I'm sorry for asking."

"We're Power Rangers. It's our job to adapt and overcome,. What I saw Avanth's minions doing out there was pretty bad. Whether there's three of us, or five, or fifteen, he has to be stopped," Tommy said. Z and Flynn nodded their agreement.

Fae kept her gaze down, but smiled all the same. "Thanks, guys. That makes me feel a little better."

While what Tommy said was absolutely true, and it reflected the conviction in his heart, Fae's bombshell did rock him a bit. Avanth had already destroyed one Ranger team. Sure, he only managed to do so by weakening the Grid, and the Mythos Morhpers didn't seem overly effected by that, there was no way to know the exact degree of their powers as Rangers. Could three succeed where five had failed? Tommy knew the importance of maintaining hope in his heart and confidence in his mind, but those things were a little bit hard to come by in light of this new information.

Fae was correct in her assessment. This whole endeavor just became much more difficult.