Canterlot Park

Canterlot Park, normally a peaceful place, with always green trees that ranged from weeping willows to big oak trees of untold years. It also had perfectly arranged cobblestone footpaths lit by either streetlight or fireflies at night for couples to walk under in their natural peaceful glow and of course the bridge over a little pond where lovers, Shining Armor included, often proposed marriage to one another or just, Y'know, made out under Luna's starry velvet-like night skies. Chess tables were arranged about the park, for ponies to have friendly little competitions, or just practice and hone their skills, or just quietly contemplate to themselves. There were many poems about this particular park's famous beauty, and many paintings as well. Of course, all of that had been shattered by what was going on now. Currently, the local socialites' day had been utter ruined by an attack by Thrax's forces, led by his newest General, Retinax, and a force of putrids. High-Class ponies screamed and scattered as the putrids laid waste to the park and brought their toxic taint to the normally peaceful city of Canterlot.

"Yes, that's right! Run, you little horses, run like the herd animals you are! The Orgs are back in business, and I intend to let this city know it!" Retinax laughed as he pointed his axe at a tree and fired a blast of red lightning at it, causing it to splinter and burst like a party popper. He swung his axe again, cleaving through another as he continued his rampage. A group of putrids grabbed two of the local movers and shakers, Jet Set, and his wife Upper Crust and brought them before Retinax. Both ponies trembled in fear, they'd seen the Org General's power and had no qualms about what he intended to do next with them. They didn't even have to guess.

"P-Please, show mercy!" Upper Crust pleaded, and Retinax could only laugh uproariously as if at some funny joke had been just told to him.

"Mercy? To worthless beings who aren't even worth living like you?" He asked before chuckling to himself. "I swear, even the humans put up more of a fight then this. I thought this city had a Royal Guard. Looks like when trouble comes, they fail to show."

"Well, time to do away with you. I'd like to say I'm sorry, but my mother never told me to lie. Really quite impolite." Retinax smirked. He raised his axe and it crackled with electricity, and the two ponies whispered goodbyes to each other and braced for what was to come, but then a hoof soundly kicked Retinax in the face and made him stumble back.

"What the- Who dares!?!" Retinax roared in anger as he tried to search for his attacker with his many, many eyes. A voice answered him.

"I dare." Shining's voice said calmly, as Retinax, his putrids, and Jet Set and Upper Crust all turned to see a grey armored figure with a glowing green gem in the center of his chest and a flowing red cape with a pure white horn jutting out of his bull like helmet striding forwards with no fear at in his walk. Shining unsheathed his sword and the putrids rushed up to greet him.

"Who do you think you are?" Retinax roared in anger.

"The name's the Magna Defender, protecter of all that is good and true and that's all you need to know." Shining answered.

"I don't care who you are! Get him!" Retinax ordered, pointing his axe at Shining, and the putrids charged towards their new target. Some fired their "Staffzookas" at Shining but he deflected the blasts with only two swings from his sword, two very large explosions happening from behind him as a result. He charged forwards into the crowd of Orglings, and with the knowledge gained from the Magna Defender and his prior Royal Guard training, he was an unstoppable force, cutting down anything that stood in his way. He, with a few twists of his sword's parts and putting his sheath over his blade, now had changed his sword into a shotgun. He pumped it and promptly used this new weapon on the putrids that were holding down Jet Set and Upper Crust, taking them down with relative ease.

"You're safe now, go. GO!" Shining barked out, and Upper Crust and his wife were only all too happy to follow that order and quickly fled the scene. Some more putrids tried their luck, and were quickly taken out by several more of the Riot Blaster's shots.

"Anyone else?" Shining asked sarcastically.

"How about me?" Retinax roared as he leaped forwards into battle and Shining quickly changed his Riot Blaster back into its blade form to meet a blow from Retinax's axe.

"I hate interlopers!"

"And I hate those who attack the innocent, so we're even." Shining snarled as their weapons met again and again.

"I'm going to kill you for interfering in me and my Master's work!" Retinax snarled and fired a blast of red lightning from his axe which Shining leaped and rolled to the side to avoid and all the while, changed his sword back to its Riot Blaster mode and fired off several blasts at Retinax, hitting him dead on.

"Yeah? Well, I've got a long list of ponies who'd like to do that, so get in line." Shining remarked before he struck Retinax in his right side with his sword but the Org General kicked him away and this time got in a slice across the chest.

"That armor won't protect you for long. Soon, we'll see who's under it, and I'll make you bleed!"

Then a new voice joined the fray.

"Sorry, did somepony say bleed?" Galaxy asked as he leaped forwards clad in Ranger gear and shouted "Royal Dino Punch!" and send Retinax flying backwards.

"Yeah, thought I heard my cue." Galaxy remarked lightly before he turned to Shining.

"Who the... Wait, Shining? Is that you?" He asked in disbelief, unable to believe his fellow Captain had gotten Ranger powers as well.

"How you know it was me... Galaxy?" Shining asked with a smirk under his helmet.

"Eh, voice and fighting style kinda gave it away. But a better question to pose is, how did you know it was me under here?" Galaxy asked.

"Bat wings. You're the only one I know with enough fighting skills to deal with someone like this and have those appendages. Plus, your general demeanor helped as well." Shining responded and Galaxy responded with a "Fair enough" nod.

Just then, a grey grenade like device came out of the sky and Retinax pulled its pin, and a large explosion ensued and when the smoke cleared, there stood Retinax, titan sized.

"Okay, explanations later. Ass kicking now!" Galaxy said, as he and Shining took a step back to avoid being stomped on.

"And I got just the Zord to do it. Torozord, charge!"

Retinax staggered back as the giant black mechanical bull appeared seemingly out of nowhere with a roar and charged into him, pushing him out of Canterlot and into the fields south of the city. The giant org grabbed the Torozord by the horns and pushed back, forcing a stalemate between the two titans.

“Not bad, I’ll give you that. But!” He stepped forward, pushing the Torozord back, even as it carved deep trenches in the earth with its hooves. “It’s not nearly good enough!” He roared, lifting the mechanical goliath off the ground and throwing it aside before retrieving his fallen axe and raising it to the downed Zord,

“You ain’t worth shit!”

“Is that right!?” Shining said from inside his zord, “You haven’t seen anything yet! Torozord, transform!"

Shining was transformed into a giant red armored capeless version of himself as the Torozord emitted a green beam from the gem on it's forehead. Torozord’s green eyes flashed once as it stood up, raising onto it’s hind legs to a bipedal stance as steam erupted from its nostrils and the now Mega Defender jumped inside. The head opened up, revealing a stoic face with yellow eyes as hands erupted from the bull’s forehooves. “Defender Torozord, ready!”

“You think just because you can stand that it means you’re a match for me?” Retinax scoffed, “en garde!” With that, he charged, bringing his axe around in a wide arc, aiming for the Megazord’s neck.

“Defender Axe!” Shining cried, intercepting the blow with an axe of his own, the thunderous crash echoing for miles. “Don’t count me out just yet!” Retinax said, kicking the Torozord back and smashing his axe into the ground, opening a fissure in the ground that swallowed up the Megazord’s leg.

“Is that really what you ponies can muster?” Retinax crowed as he strutted over to the trapped Zord, “the humans were tougher than this!”

Inside the cockpit, Shining grit his teeth, wrestling with the controls to free the Torozord’s leg as the giant org advanced on him, “Come on, come on-!”

“Say your goodbyes, Ranger!” Retinax said, raising his axe above his head and bringing it down in a helmsplitter, only for the blade to be caught by the Torozord’s hands, the metallic limbs groaning in protest as they kept the large blade inches from the cockpit. Shining gasped as the machine moved under it’s own power, thrusting the axe head aside and causing its wielder to stumble past as it pried itself from the fissure and faced the org again.

“So, you do have some fight in you after all!” Retinax said, the gaze of his many eyes shrinking with glee as he turned and hefted his axe again, tossing his cape aside, “What’s your name, Ranger?”

Shining gripped the controls again, the Torozord following his movements, drawing a pair of twin golden kunai daggers, “I am Prince Shining Armor of the Crystal Empire, Captain of the Royal and Crystal Guard and the Third Magna Defender.” The Torozord brought the daggers together, forming a double bladed javelin and raising it in a salute. “Defender of Equus!”

Retinax nodded, saluting with his own weapon, “I am Retinax, General Org and bodyguard of the Master Org. When this is done, you can be certain that your Empire will be the last to fall.”

“How thoughtful of you!” Shining snarled, spurring the Torozord to charge, leading with a lunging stab for the large eye in the org’s chest, which Retinax parried with the haft of his axe and pushed back, swinging it in an overhead arc, which was narrowly dodged, the many-eyed axe head whistling by the cockpit.

The javelin came back around, locking with the org’s weapon again, neither combatant willing to give an inch to the other before pushing apart again and launching into a flurry of blows and counters at each other, their weapons crashing against the others over and over again.

“Not bad, not bad at all! Given some more time, you could end up proving to be quite the challenge. However!” Retinax leapt back, just as the javelin was whistling toward his chest, causing the Torozord to overcommit and impale the ground, “I’m not about to let that happen!” The eye in the middle of the org’s chest blinked as a bolt of scarlet lightning lanced into the Torozord, resulting in a shower of sparks as the megazord stumbled back and fell to it’s knees from the near-fatal blow.

“A shame. Fighting you would have been really fun later on. But orders are orders. Farewell, Shining Armor!” Retinax said as he fired off another lightning blast, aiming directly for the Torozord’s cockpit.

“Not gonna happen!” Shining shouted, raising the javelin and ramming it into the ground, forming an improvised lightningrod and drawing the attack away before hurling the javelin at the stunned org, impaling him in the shoulder, drawing an unholy scream from the injured monster.

“Gah! N-not bad, not bad at all...” Retinax grunted as he yanked the javelin out of his shoulder with a spray of foul green eye goop, “It’d be bad if I kept fighting like this, so it looks like you win this one, Ranger.” He rumbled with rueful laughter as he clamped a clawed hand over the wound, turning from the downed Torozord and vanishing into thin air.

Inside the Torozord’s cockpit, Shining Armor watched helplessly as the Org General simply walked away before smashing his armored fist into the console in frustration.

Stratusburg

Meanwhile, unaware that there was a new ally to the Power Rangers who'd already proved his worth, the Purple Leviathan Ranger had returned to her home town of Stratusburg, high in what used to the be the Great Smokey Mountains of the Tennessee-West Virginia border back when Equus was named Earth. The mountains were still holding true to their name, thick fog covering the entire peaks and lower mountainsides of Thunderhead Mountain, where Vapor's Cloud-Home was based. She'd come back home to find herself, and see if she was really worthy of inheriting the Purple Ranger powers, HIS powers.

"Old black water, keep on rollin' Mississippi moon, won't you keep on shinin' on me, Old black water, keep on rollin', Mississippi moon, won't you keep on shinin' on me... The snippet from Vapor's ever present double eighth note pendant played as she rested herself on a rock that overlooked the thick forest covered valley side.

"Celestia above, I wish I knew where that song came from. Grape Vine said it was a very old song, but he never let on how old. And those terms, Mississippi and black water, I've never even heard them used in Equestria." Vapor mused as she shivered from the cold mountain wind and bundled herself up in her brown leather coat. "Could... Could it be this was a human song? If it is, no wonder Grape Vine kept his mouth shut. From what I'd seen, Celestia would likely execute him for even mentioning it was human made in nature."

Before, Vapor thought Celestia was wise and kind, and respected all beings if not liked them, but that was before she met Robert. Now her entire world had been shattered. What had Robert done to deserve such mistreatment? Sure, she had read in the history books what humans had done, but now that she re-read them, they were clearly biased. Who knew the whole truth, really? The only way she'd find out for sure was if she got ahold of something that told the human side of things, but how likely was that? Chances were, no books had survived The Great Human Purge. As she thought, Vapor drifted off to sleep and into dreamland...

In Vapor's Mind...

Midnight in the City that Never Sleeps. Explosions sounded throughout the city of Manehatten's City Center. Two Orgs, the Turbine Org and the Plug Org were on the rampage, and nothing could stop them. Sure, the local police were trying their hardest with magic spells and the like, but they were simply shrugged off. Nopony could stop them, nopony except one. As Plug Org blasted some crates in the back of a chariot full of medical supplies with blasts of lightning, a figure stepped into view.

"Ya know, if you really wanted to attract mah attention, all you had to do was just ask." A purple unicorn stallion wearing glasses, the kind that an architect might wear and a brown coat that matched his mane style said as he walked onto the scene, guitar case in hand and a purple pendent around his neck. In the crowd that had rapidly begun to scatter, Vapor Trail had hidden herself in fear behind a taxi chariot resembling that of a New York Cab, leftovers from the humans now long gone.

"Who do you think you are?" Plug Org asked.

"Whoever he is, he's no match for us!" Turbine Org put in. Grape Vine rolled his eyes as he set down his guitar case and sighed to himself.

"Ya'll really don't know who Ah am, do you? Let me enlighten ya." He asked sarcastically. "This city here, it once stood for freedom and welcomed all, and it still does, but I'm afraid you two are going to have to be evicted and your passports stripped from ya."

Grape Vine then took out a Growl Phone, one Vapor would become very familiar with and put it up to his ear and shouted out "Legendary Wild Access, Ha!" and with a flash of purple light, and a widening of eyes from Vapor, Grape was now the Purple Leviathan Ranger and almost at once, summoned his Leviathan Trident.

"With the fury of the rushing waters, Purple Leviathan Ranger!"

Both Orgs took a step back in shock.

"A-A Ranger, here? It can't be!" Turbine Org stammered out in fear.

"Oh, it can. It is!" Grape remarked as he twisted his Trident behind him and readied for battle.

"Never mind that, there's two of us, and only one of him! Let's double up!" Plug Org suggested and Turbine Org replied with a "You got it!" and both of them locked hands and fired a wind/lightning combo at Grape Vine who jumped high above it to avoid it and then used both his Trident and Crystal Saber in a scissor formation to break their combination in two purple slashes of light. Turbine Org roared in rage and charged at Grape, and attacked with a fury getting in blow after blow before using his turbines to blow Grape Vine backwards into a taxi chariot.

"He's... He's getting his flank kicked out there, I gotta help!" Vapor thought, and for a brief moment, fear vanished and was replaced by courage as she tackled Turbine Org as Grape shouted "No, get out of here, he's too dangerous for you to take on alone!" and was soon proven right when Turbine Org kicked Vapor off him and into Plug Org's arms and he grabbed ahold of her.

"Stand down, or this little missy here gets the shock of her life!"

"Let her go, you filth." Grape snarled, all pretenses of joking around replaced by pure seriousness.

"You'd better be keeping an eye on yourself, not on her!" Plug Org laughed, and before he could figure out what he meant, Grape was stabbed through the chest by his own Crystal Saber thanks to Turbine Org and soundly demorphed, blood gushing from his wound. Plug Org laughed and let Vapor go before both Orgs ran off laughing to themselves while Vapor ran over to Grape.

"I... I shouldn't have gotten involved, b-but I-I did and now look what's happened!" Vapor sobbed, but Grape wiped away her tears and handed her his Growl Phone and Animal Crystal, it glowing purple when handed to its new owner.

"Don't blame yourself, if Ah was in your position, Ah would have done the exact same. Take my powers, use them to carry on the work Ah can't anymore..." Grape said before he pressed down on his pendent and let the sounds of the black waters carry him away as Vapor sobbed. It was all her fault, and now she couldn't do anything about it.

"Actually, there's one thing." She thought as she picked herself off the ground and even as tears still steamed down her face, she shouted to the heavens "Do you hear me Turbine Org, you'll pay for this! I swear on it!" as she pointed the bloodied Crystal Saber to the sky and without even calling out her morphing call, morphed into the new Leviathan Ranger. It was her destiny now, although she didn't want anything to do with it...

"So... What do I do now? I have to tell my friends my secret, but I just don't know when, or how they'll react when they learn I'm not the first Purple Ranger and that I directly caused his death. Celestia above, or any deity really, give me a sign!" Vapor prayed, but received no answer. She cursed softly to herself, and broke down into sobs, knowing perfectly well that she'd have to face her sins sooner or later and that when she did it would not be pretty.

Carousel Boutique

"And here you go, darling." Rarity said cheerfully as she fitted the last of Robert's new attire to him. He now wore a green tank top, a black leather jacket, some new pants and shoes, and of course his lucky Fox Pendant. And to top is all off, he was now clean shaven with a more respectable haircut.

"Oh, now that I must say is our finest work yet!" Zephyr put in cheerfully as he clapped his hands in triumph at another job well done. Robert smiled and said "Arigato, you two." and bowed respectfully and then as he adjusted his jacket, reached for his phone and put on Joan Jett's Bad Reputation.

I don't give a damn 'bout my reputation
You're living in the past it's a new generation

"Damn straight." Robert smirked. He sure as Hell didn't give a damn about his bad reputation among the populace. But Rarity wasn't done yet, as she then handed him a pure black trench coat. Robert raised an eyebrow.

"What... is this?" He asked slowly.

"It's a trench coat darling, what do you think it looks like?" Rarity asked, slightly confused at Robert's growing tone of annoyance. Robert sighed and rubbed his temples.

"Yes, I know what it is, but it's black. Black trench coats are only for people who are trying WAY too hard to be badass. No offence, but I'm really not interested in giving off that kind of image."

"Oh, well... If you say so..." Rarity said sadly before putting the trench coat away in a nearby closet. Right about then, a vague memory struck him. He remembered Lightning say he could die for all she cared and Sunset's wings bursting into flame, and Princess Shayla watching in shock at the whole exchange. Robert's eyes widened. If Lightning was so bigoted against humans, why hadn't she tried attacking Shayla yet?

"Unless... Shayla's hiding what she REALLY looks like to them. There's only one way to find out. Ask her herself."

"Hey man, everything alright? You seemed a bit lost in thought for a second there." Zephyr said, waving a hand in front of Robert's face and snapping him out of his musings. He blinked a few times, and blushed red after realizing he'd lost himself in thought.

"Yeah... Yeah. Just need to get a question answered." Robert said quickly before dashing out of the store, but then peeked his head back in and exclaimed "Thanks for the new gifts, Rarity-San, and the haircut, Zephyr-San!" before dashing off again. Fluttershy, Rarity, and Zephyr all looked at each other and shrugged before Zephyr summed up their thoughts in a single sentence.

"Well... That was odd to say the least."

END

Author's Notes:

Okay, so first M rated chapter of anything, and I think you can see why with the violence level displayed here. On that note, yes I just did kill off one of my OCs, one of the lead characters in another of my stories at that. Of course, now we know why the reason Vapor doesn't really like the Leviathan powers, given that she thinks she doesn't deserve them and she was responsible for Grape's death. Meanwhile, Robert fresh with some new duds (Wait... Did he actually be polite to somepony for once and use honorifics?) gains a mystery to solve... Anyways, your comments and thoughts on this chapter are appreciated as always.

Also huge thanks to The Villain in Glasses for writing the Torozord and Retinax fight scene!