The Animarium:

“Each day when the sun rises, I hurry from my sleep,
I can't wait to greet you with my song. You are every kind of flower, every animal I meet,
You are nature full of grace and majesty.
From your skies the snow gently falls to the earth,
From your trees the birds nest and play.
From your oceans the fish school and travel the world,
Oh, nature, please don't ever go away.
Each day when the sun rises, I hurry from my sleep,
I can't wait to greet you with my song.
You are every kind of flower, every animal I meet,
Nature you are grace and majesty.” That was the song Princess Shayla and Vapor Trail sung to the Deer Zord each morning, each and every morning. For 3,000 years the Deer Zord had to go without this song because of the loss of Merrick’s masterful flute playing. But now, with Vapor taking up the strings of the guitar, the song could be sung once more. At first, It was a minor nuisance for Vapor to have to get up at the crack of dawn to be able to sing to the Deer Zord, but now she had grown used to getting up at that time for her Wonderbolts training. Still, she often found it hard to balance this job and her real life as a member of Equestria’s elite flyers.

But she would manage, she had to. Just as the song ended, Vapor smiled a bit sadly. Princess Shayla gave her a concerned look.

“Something wrong, Vapor?”

“Yeah… Yesterday got me thinking. After battling the Sword Org in the Animaria Guardian Megazord, it got me thinking about… Well, you know. It should be him singing this song, and him battling the Orgs alongside the Leviathan. Not me.”

Shayla put a hand on her shoulder.

“Now, remember what Sunset told you. Grape passed his powers onto you, because he knew you could handle the responsibility.”

“Yes, but I still feel…”

“Unworthy? To be honest, and I don’t mean to sound like I speak ill of the dead, but maybe, just maybe Grape was meant to find the Leviathan Crystal so he could pass it’s powers onto you. Fate moves in mysterious ways and we’re not meant to understand it.”

“...Yeah, maybe you’re right.” Vapor murmured softly to herself. Then Lightning ran into the clearing, already out of her PJs and in her Wonderbolts flight suit.

“Hey Vaps! We’d better get a move on, otherwise Spitfire’s going to have our asses strapped to the new and improved Dizzitron and use us as test dummies!” Lightning called and Vapor nodded in agreement and shuddered. Spitfire was not a pony you wanted to show up late for work to. She was simply scary when mad.

“Coming!” Vapor shouted as she ran after her adopted sister, but before she could follow, a green glowing orb floated down to Vapor’s hands and revealed itself to be the Deer Crystal. Her eyes widened in awe at what this meant.

“You really think I…?”

Shayla nodded.

“Yes, the noble Deer trusts you enough to give you it’s Animal Crystal, just as the Leviathan trusts you enough to fight alongside it in battle. Now go, your friend is waiting on you.” She said, and Vapor nodded and ran off after Lightning.

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the Animarium Robert was groaning as he awoke from a nice late night sleep. After everything that had gone on yesterday, he had elected to take an early sleep. To be honest, after he’d explained the trouble he’d gone through with awakening the Kitsune Zord nopony could really blame him. After a yawn and stretching his arms, he leaped out of his hammock at once, almost as if he’d been ordered to.

“Yeesh…” Sunset commented as Robert pulled on a green tank top, his muscles and scars briefly shown. “You get up on this time, everyday, on the dot exactly. It’s like you served in the military or something.”

“Well, to be honest, that’s not far from the truth with SPD. Like that little glimpse of me you saw? You can get more if you keep observing me like that.” Robert commented as he winked at Sunset who simply rolled her eyes. Robert then had a thought.

“...No wait, strike that. You’d be so like Robert Pattison if you did that it’s not even funny.” He said with a shudder. Sunset wanted to ask who that was, but then thought there were some questions best left unanswered as Robert mumbled “...Twilight Sparkle, now I’ve got a new joke to make about her. Seriously, did whoever name her have a strange and mocking sense of humor?” to himself.

“What’s SPD? I’ve heard you mention it a few times before, but you’ve never really said what it was.”

“Oh… That! Well, basically we were, emphasis on were as I don’t think it exists anymore.” Robert muttered sadly to himself and Sunset winced, as she could feel the sorrow of the loss of an organization Robert obviously looked up to.

“An intergalactic police organization comprised about of every species trained to deal with stuff the regular police couldn’t. Sorta like your Royal Guard. Only we had to deal with alien criminals with special powers, and more often than not, giant robots as well. Mind you, I wasn’t a shining example of the SPD way. I was pretty much your definition of a bad cop. Arrogant, reckless and no respect for authority in any way. I just didn’t fit in. Constantly pissing off my superiors and especially Sky, the Red Ranger. God knows I should have been sacked and thrown out on my arse the day I stepped foot in that place. Would have saved them so much headache in the end.” Robert muttered to himself, but Sunset had picked up on one thing in particular, his mentioning of a Red Ranger.

“...Wait, SPD had Power Rangers?” Sunset asked in surprise. “I thought that Morpher and spandex costume you sported a while back was something someone else came up with and you just used it in your SPD duties.”

“Firstly… IT’S NOT SPANDEX!” Robert shouted, quite offended. “It’s a bio expanding nanofiber designed for stealth, which to be fair is rather hard to pull of in brightly colored…” He trailed off, unable to think up the proper phrase.

“Spandex?” Sunset said dryly, hoping for a good response. Sadly for her, Robert forced the urge to correct her down.

“...Secondly, yeah. We had Rangers. The B-Squad. I was the third in command. SPD Green was my codename. Piloted the Aero Rescue Three, fastest VTOL jet of its time.” He said a little sadly, not bothering to explain what VTOL meant as he knew Sunset wouldn’t get it anyways.

“...Wait, so you have flight qualifications?” Sunset questioned in shock.

“...Yeah.” Robert admitted in a somewhat bitter tone. “I’m actually rather jealous of you (And Lightning) to be honest. You get to control a Phoenix, while I get a rather grumpy and arrogant nine tailed fox.”

“...So, just like you then?” Sunset teased, unable to get in a good bit of snark towards Robert before she became more sympathetic in tone towards him. “I promise you, if I ever get an Animal Crystal for a flying animal, I’ll loan you it from time to time. Pinkie Promise.” She said and then did the sacred motions leaving Robert bewildered.

“...Er…” Was the only thing he could manage to say.

“...Wait, you haven’t met Pinkie yet have you?”

“Who’s she?”

Sunset’s response was a simple “Oh boy…” leaving Robert very worried indeed, although he didn’t quite know why.

Meanwhile, Sunburst was hard at work on something. This was a project he’d been working on for weeks, ever since he’d become a Ranger and learned of the animal theming they were based on. (Also, it didn’t help he’d gotten a gander of a picture on Robert’s phone of him, a guy dressed in blue and a mechanical dog like creature of some sort playing fetch together.) So, low and behold, an idea was born! And now, it was about to finally come to fruition.

“Just a few more tweaks and…” Sunburst mused as he screwed on a back plate to his new creation and pressed a button and as the creature’s eyes’ opened he crowed in triumph. It looked at him cutely and asked in a female voice “Are you my daddy?”

At this dawning realization of what he’d just become, Sunburst’s eyes comically widened in horror and he stuttered off “I’m… I’m a dad… Oh dear Celestia help me.” before fainting dead away with a distinct thudding sound as he hit the floor. The newly created creature tilted her head and hopped in place before flying around Sunburst and landing on him and asking “Daddy? Are you alright?”

When Sunburst didn’t respond, the creature went into her panic mode, sparking and fritzing.

“HELP! HELP! MY DADDY NEEDS MEDICAL ATTENTION, HELP ME! DADDY SWIRLS, I NEED HELP!” She squawked knowing who her other “Daddy” was from memories Sunburst implanted with a spell as she flew around in circles in panic. Eventually, her circuits went into overload and shut down just as Sunset and company arrived. Princess Shayla picked up the odd little mechanical bird and cradled it in her arms.

“What a strange creature. Still, I must admit it is cute nonetheless.” Shayla said as she continued cradling Sunburst’s new creation in her arms and humming to it softly.

Robert sighed and slapped a palm to his face and let it slide down and muttered “...Well, it could have been worse. He could have made the Songbird from Bioshock Infinite. ...Actually, strike that. That could be kinda cool. We could get an awesome Megazord out of that.”

Everypony else just stared at him and Sunset pretty much summed up what everypony else was thinking at the time.

“...Is it just me, or have all of our lives gotten a Tartarus of a lot weirder since we became Power Rangers?”

It was notable and very telling nobody else bothered to disagree with her.

Meanwhile in Canterlot:

Shining sighed. It'd been three weeks since he'd been called away from his wife in the Crystal Empire, and Celestia thanks to Solar Flare's influence still had yet to send him back to where he belonged, ruling over the Empire as a Prince and spending time with his wife. Shining choked back a sob. He'd been forbidden by express orders from Solar Flare to even think of heading back to the Empire. Tartarus, he couldn't even think of Celestia as herself anymore.

If that were really her in control, she would have let him go back to the Empire at any time he chose. After all, Steel Sentry had been leading the Guard since his marriage, and he'd lead the guard and even trained him before Shining made his Captaincy.

But then again, it was entirely possible that maybe Princess Celestia was in control. After all, as yesterday proved, the Power Rangers needed help to fight off the Orgs. Five alone simply couldn't cut it. And then there was fact of Galaxy Swirls. Sure he was a Ranger, but he could barely manage to show up for battles given his sensitive eyes that didn't take to the sun all too well.

"But then again, maybe that visor filters out the sun for him. After all, our Ranger suits have adapted to each of us and our unique qualities." Shining thought to himself as he swung his blade and cut a training dummy in half right down the middle. "So, it's entirely possible I could leave and head right back to the Crystal Empire and let Galaxy fill my spot as their sixth Ranger."

"Mystic Mother above, how am I going to explain this... any of this to Cadance? I mean, imagine how the converstation would go. "Hi Cadance! Sorry I've been away so long, but I've been gifted powers and a giant mechanical bull by an ancient warrior's ghost and I can merge with that bull to form a mighty warrior." ...Yeah, that'd go over real well. Divorce, here I come. Cadance probably thinks I ran out on her for another mare." Shining muttered to himself sarcastically.

"I doubt that very much." Celestia's voice said kindly and Shining whirled around to face her, sword drawn. "You know your wife, you know she knows you'd never run out on her. However, I have not informed her as your status as the Magna Defender. I have only said that you needed to put an influx of new recruits through basic training."

"Yeah? And how should I believe a word you're saying? You could be Solar Flare right now for all I know." Shining accused, still keeping his Magna Blade trained on her.

"Shining, you know me. You've known me for years, what I'm like." Celestia replied with a warm smile, the kind a mother would give.

"Besides, if I was Solar Flare I would have taken the chance to kill you already. You would be nothing but a pile of ashes at my feet the moment you drew your blade. I am... managing to keep her under control, difficult as that is. Even now, she wants to get out. So, I'd advise you to take that trip to the Crystal Empire, not just for your own peace of mind, but for your own safety. I don't blame Luna in the slightest for running and hiding wherever she's gone. If I were in her position, I might have done the same exact thing, as much as it shames me to admit it." Celestia said softly, with a tear dripping from her eye.

"I've frightened my own sister, and have done nothing to eliminate the prejudice against Robert and the rest of humankind. So maybe I deserve to be taken over by Solar Flare and put down. I'm just as much of a monster as she is." She continued, but Shining put an armored hand on her shoulder.

"No, you and Solar Flare are completely different ponies. That kindness, that concern, that guilt? Solar Flare has none of those qualities. That alone makes her a pony all to herself. Even now, I know Sunset is working on a plan to split you and her so that Solar Flare can be taken out without any risk to yourself." Shining said sternly, but with a kindness and reassurance in his tone as well.

"T-Thank you Shining Armor. I-I needed that. I knew, just like Steel Sentry did, you were the perfect choice for the Captain of the Royal Guard for a reason." Celestia whispered tearfully before her face became firm and she let out a very uncharacteristic snarl of fury as she gripped her personal sword tightly. "But when you do split the two of us, I want to be the one to graft the final blow. Promise me that."

Shining smiled.

"Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye." Shining said and Princess Celestia chuckled weakly, feeling safe and sure of herself for the first time in she didn't know how long.

END

Author's Notes:

Okay, so last chapter for this month, but I wanted to make sure you got a good one. And before any of you GoKaigers fans ask, yes that is NAVI Sunburst just created and she will appear again from time to time. (Hopefully I captured her personality right, and not just made her annoying as Hell, as I really haven't seen much of GoKaigers aside from the 199 Heroes Battle and the 40th anniversary special.) Anyways, till next month... Cheers!

Note: Credit to the Song of the Animaria or whatever it's called goes to the writers of Wild Force.