//------------------------------// // A wolf’s fight // Story: Welcome to the Jungle: A Power Rangers Story // by TheHardie-Boy //------------------------------// “Well, that sounds...interesting. I must admit I thought I was just somewhere in the wilderness back on Earth. I have no idea how I got here,” RJ said. “Yeah, neither do we, to be honest,” Casey responded. “Anyhow, this is Ponyville.” “It looks nice, like a quaint little town from Earth,” RJ said. He was still taking in the fact he had been sucked into another dimension while on a camping trip. Luckily, RJ had always been a bit of a pacifist. Casey opened the doors to the Crystal Castle. They were all greeted by Starlight. “Who’s this? Another Jungle Ranger?” she asked. “Yep. Starlight Glimmer, meet RJ the wolf ranger,” said Casey. “It’s nice to meet you. I can’t believe I’ve been here a week and didn’t even know there were ponies here,” said RJ. “Nice to meet you too,” responded Starlight. “Hey, have you seen Twilight or the others? We should introduce RJ to them too,” said Theo. “They’re in the map room, trying to figure out what that signal came from,” said Starlight. “Yeah, that was me. Sorry about that, I didn’t know a campfire was so rare here,” said RJ. Casey glanced at Starlight and hid a blush. “Y-You guys ahead. I’m gonna hang back here for a few. I’ll meet up with you later.” “Alright, see you later. I have a feeling I’m gonna like this place,” RJ said as he, Theo and Lily walked off. Casey looked back to Starlight and blushed again. “Um, hey,” he said sheepishly. “Y-Yeah, hey,” Starlight returned the blush. “You didn’t happen to talk to Twilight about...the other day?” “I did. I was mad at first, but then I realized: that’s just Twilight. I couldn’t stay mad at her.” Casey chuckled. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I would’ve tried to embarrass the heck out of her.” Starlight chuckled as well. She then turned on a somewhat serious face. “You know, we never really did talk about it.” “What do you mean? What is there to talk about? I like you and you like me. Simple as that.” “Really? You really like me?” “Well, yeah. Why else would I have kissed you?” “I don’t know. But like, what are we? Are we together? Was it just a fling?” Casey kneeled down to look her in the eye. “Of course not. I don’t know where to go from here, but I know we’ll figure it out together.” “But what about after you defeat Carnisoar and Jellica? You can’t stay here forever.” “Like I said before, don’t worry about the future. I know we’ll figure something out when the time comes. But for now, just don’t worry about it. I’m not going anywhere for a while.” This made Starlight feel better. Casey gave her a quick peck on the cheek and stood up. “Come on, let’s go see how the others are doing.” Casey and Starlight walked into the map room to see Twilight and the others enchanted in one of RJ’s stories, while Theo and Lily were sitting at the other end of the room, trying not to crack up. “So there I was, face to face with the vicious wolf. I dared him to attack and he did. He slashed at me with his claws, leaving a huge scratch on my chest. I hit back and knocked him on the ground...” Casey walked over to his friends. “What’s going on?” “RJ’s just over exaggerating his fight with his animal spirit,” Theo said. “Yeah, he’s telling it like it was some desperate war,” Lily added. Casey rolled his eyes and sat down. “I avoided swipe after swipe of his claws,” RJ continued. “He was getting angry, really angry. I had no choice but to unleash my full power. I attacked him one final time, and he went down. I got him to rejoin to my spirit.” Theo and Lily clapped sarcastically. Casey couldn’t help but laugh. RJ joined in the laughter. “What’s that about?” Twilight asked. “It’s a lot less exciting when you’re not inside his head to witness this amazing battle,” Lily said. Twilight turned back to RJ. “So you’re animal spirit is a wolf?” “Yeah. It gives me the courage to face any situation, no matter how dangerous,” RJ responded. “I wish I had that kind of courage. I get scared by anything,” said Fluttershy. “Well, there’s a difference between fearlessness and courage. Courage is being brave enough to face your fears, no matter how much it scares you,” RJ said. “Kind of like you did yesterday with that monster,” Theo added. “Monster? What kind of monster?” RJ asked. “That’s right. We kind of forgot to mention that, we don’t know how we got here. But we know why. Carnisoar and Jellica have returned. As far as we know Grizzaka hasn’t though,” Casey told him. “Oh, wow. Didn’t see that coming. How are they even here? I thought we defeated them.” Casey told RJ his theory from before, and that seemed to convince him. “I can see why they would come here instead of Earth,” RJ said. “What do you mean?” Twilight asked. “There’s a lot more magic than power or animal spirit here in Equestria,” RJ responded. “What does that have to do with it?” Starlight said. “Animal spirit, especially from Overlords or Phantom Beasts, has a serious advantage over magic. You see, during the beast wars, a being called Imperious tried to use magic to conquer between both side. He used his most powerful spells, but he found that his magic was useless against the Pai Zhua Masters. He tried to turn on Dai Shi’s forces, but he had the same problem. He ended up retreating,” RJ explained. “What’s A ‘Phantom Beast’?” Twilight asked. Before anyone could answer, the rangers’ morphers began to buzz. They saw that a golden monster was attacking the citizens of Ponyville. They recognized it as one of the beast they had fought before. “You’re about to find out. There’s one attacking right now,” Theo said. The rangers rushed out to meet the monster. It had a large snout and long tusks. It had the spirit of the boar. The rangers pulled out their morphers as RJ pulled out his own. Instead of sunglasses, it was a wrist bracelet, similar to the Dino Rangers. “Jungle Beast! Spirit Unleashed!” All of the rangers morphed into their suits. RJ’s suit was a dark shade of lavender. His helmet also had white streaks unlike his teammates. The monster charged at the rangers. They got out of the way and attacked with their weapons. The monster used the weapons to counter each other. The monster then unleashed a huge roar upon the rangers, making them fall back. RJ charged his morpher the make his fist glow. He used this to attack the monster. The monster couldn’t really do anything to counter. It head-butted RJ and used its tusks. RJ didn’t have a weapon, so all he could do was punch back. It seemed to work well enough for the other rangers to take the monster by surprise. Casey severed its tusks using his sabers. Theo used his fans to glide around the monster and get it to lose balance. Lily used her mace to hit the monster square in the gut. The monster held its gut in pain as it unleashed another roar. Casey and Theo sliced through it using their weapons and attack the monster again. But the monster regrew it tusks and used them to jab at Theo and Casey. Lily used her mace to attack the monster, but it just caught the mace with its tusks. It then threw the mace back at her. RJ realized he was alone. He had to stop this monster. He recharged his morpher and attacked. The monster met him and attacked with its tusks. RJ needed to stall until he had enough power to unleash the wolf beam. He kept punching the monster, and it used its tusks to block. It then unleashed a roar, blowing RJ back a bit. RJ now had enough power to finish the monster off. He aimed his arm at the monster and activated his morpher. “Wolf Beam! Final Blast!” RJ fired and the monster was defeated. Twilight and the others tended to the other rangers. “We’re okay. We just bit off a little more than we could chew,” said Casey. “Yeah, we underestimated it, that’s all,” concurred Theo. The monster rose up from the smoke and began to grow. Lily was too hurt by the monster’s last blow to summon her zord. Luckily, RJ had his own wolf zord. He summoned it and used it to attack the monster. Casey and Theo summoned their zords as well. RJ’s wolf zord began to fold up, like Theo’s and Lily’s zords. Its tail also folded in, like a blade. The three zords combined, with RJ’s wolf zord taking the place of Lily’s cheetah zord. The Wolf Pride Megazord was now ready to fight. The monster charged and attacked, but the Megazord stood its ground. The Megazord used the wolf zord to kick the monster, sending it a distance away. The Megazord didn’t waste a second, stomping on the monster. The monster used its tusks to jab at the Megazord, but the Megazord grab on to them. It then flung it around and launched it away. Then, the tail of the wolf detached and was held in the wolf’s mouth. The Megazord kicked and the tail flew at the monster. The monster’s tusks were severed, and the monster exploded. The rangers jumped down to ground and were greeted by the ponies. “RJ, that was awesome. I had no idea your zord could do so much on its own,” said Twilight. “Thanks. You should see what can do with all of the Jungle Zords,” RJ replied. “Guys, we could have a serious problem on our hands,” said Theo. “What do you mean? The monster’s defeated,” said Starlight. “Theo’s right. What if that wasn’t the only Phantom beast? What if there are more?” Lily said. “We’ll deal with it when the time comes. We don’t know for sure, so we shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” said Casey. “Casey’s right. Maybe that particular monster just so happened to survive and make its way here. That doesn’t mean there are more,” said Starlight. “Either way, I could really go for something to eat,” RJ said. Meanwhile Carnisoar and Jellica were scanning Equestia for crystal eyes. They didn’t know where that Phantom Beast came from, but they weren’t gonna let another one get out. Not after what happened the last time Jellica trusted them. “I’ve found something,” said Carnisoar. “Let’s go check it out,” said Jellica. The two of them got to the edge of Griffonstone and found three crystal eyes glowing. Jellica looked up at the sky and saw the stars beginning to align. She quickly drew her spear and destroyed the eyes. The spirits inside the eyes were now trapped inside them with no way out.