A\N: THE FORMATTING WORKS! ...Ahem. Sorry. Yeah, anyway, this is the show that Unity and Sacrifice's Galactic Ranger Corps fell in love with. Unlike the other two fics, this one's going to be an ongoing work, but it's still the same deal-my headcanon for the TV show, though probably not my headcanon for what actually happened. Enjoy.

Location: Reefside, Earth subdistrict California
Date: August 30, 2003

Every world needs heroes.

Earth is a small, unclaimed backwater on a far arm of the galaxy, but the truism rings no less for that. Indeed, the people of this planet often match this saying word-for-word. In many ways, they often feel that they need heroes more than the rest of the galaxy, which already has them in the Galactic Ranger Corps.

If you just winced, you probably know already just how much the Power loves hearing those words.

Ironically, though, humans might wish for heroes, but if a man in tights with X-Ray vision appeared in front of them, they'd laugh, pose for a picture, and go back to work firmly believing that heroes don't exist. They offer that label to more 'adult' and 'realistic' figures instead.

With the skies blacker than night over not just California, but America, those same 'heroes' look up, shudder, make signs against evil, and pray. They are heroes, of course, even without extraordinary abilities, and will fight and die...but they can't do any more.

They'd thought otherwise at first. Three heroes, colorful and wearing Spandex and with astonishing abilities, had appeared and called out the people who had caused this nightmare, names now etched into everyone's consciousness: Zeltrax, Mesegog, Elsa.

Names etched in because those three had lost. Badly. Zeltrax had taken the youngest, a girl in yellow, to Mesegog, but left the other two as dead, stealing precious gemstones from their wrists.

On that first day, children had waved plastic figurines and shouted that you were gonna wish you'd stayed in bed today, they're gonna kick your butts!. Now, parents hid their children indoors and tried not to smash the plastic toys.

But the children still whisper.

Heroes are their playground, the bed of their dreams. You only need one hero, they tell each other. There are two laying in hospital beds. And the third is in Mesegog's lair. It was all a plan to save the world, you'll see.

The whispers go ignored as the planet sits, glued to televisions and broadcasts of devastation.

And then something changes.

A black jet of energy, a yellow one beside it, drop two figures onto the ground. A third follows through a wormhole. The girl in yellow, the same girl who had been taken prisoner, staggers away to find her brothers-in-arms.

The man stands.

He draws a sword, one that looks round as a staff, and holds it at the ready. He snarls at Mesegog, unimpressed and unafraid. He wears the uniform of a Black Power Ranger.

And he speaks exactly two words:

"Tommy's back."