The Hexagon

Prologue: The Letter

Summary: 5 years ago, the only thing I could see myself doing for the rest of my life was taken from me. Too bad I was never the type of person to do what other people say. This is my story, the story of the secret Ranger organization you've never even heard of, and the story of the end of the world.

Original Posting Date: January 25, 2010

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To whom it may concern:

If you're reading this, it means that the worst has happened and Earth's very last lines of defense have fallen. Soon the planet will be completely overtaken. What little human life that remains will be captured and sold as slave labor on some desolate, third-class system, while Earth's conquerors drain the planet of its resources, both natural and manufactured.

Why am I telling you this now? The answer is simple: so that you may fully understand just how we ended up in this terrible position; and, hopefully, so that you will also be able to understand exactly what it is that needs to be done to stop it.

Of course, to understand the latter, you must first understand the former. It is here that I will explain everything, starting with who I am.

My name is Tommy Oliver and I am a Power Ranger. Or at least I was. By the time these documents reach civilization I, as well as the people I served with, will have long since been captured or killed.

Now, as I said, before I begin describing the events that led us to this point, I would first like to tell you a little bit about myself. In the early nineteen-nineties, I moved from the city of Scottsdale, Arizona, to a coastal, Southern California town called Angel Grove during my freshman year of high school. Unbeknownst to me and my family at the time, Angel Grove had recently begun to encounter regular attacks from a sorceress known as Rita Repulsa, who hailed from the planet Gamma Vile and acted with but one goal: the total destruction of Earth.

If you will allow me just a moment here, I find it necessary to explain how Rita's presence began in the first place.

Some ten-thousand years ago, an event known to its survivors simply as the "Great War" took place across hundreds of systems and dozens of galaxies. One side, that of Rita Repulsa, sought only to conquer and destroy as many worlds as possible; her opposition came in the form of an intergalactic wizard from the planet Eltar called Zordon, who fought in the effort of achieving peace amongst the various systems and their inhabitants.

After nearly a century's worth of fighting, it became apparent to the leaders of both sides that neither would ever be able to achieve absolute victory. It was with those thoughts in mind that a meeting was arranged between Rita and Zordon, both sides presumably hoping that the other had been damaged enough to warrant severe concessions. However, this was not the case.

Just as they were steadfast in their refusal to surrender in battle, so too were they in their refusal to negotiate. With no other options in sight, it was determined that a simple game of chance would decide the outcome of their war. A two-colored disc was to be flipped no more than three times: Rita was given the black side, Zordon the white. The first to have the disc land twice on their designated side would be declared the winner.

When Zordon won, however, Rita hastily attempted one last struggle to prevent her permanent banishment into the deepest reaches of the universe. It was in this struggle that Rita was able to lock Zordon in a time warp: he became no more than a gaseous head, only able to project himself to others through the use of an energy tube. With no bodily form, he was drained of most of his magical abilities, but was still able to use some of what remained to encapsulate Rita and her minions before sending the space dumpster to the edge of the universe.

For nine-thousand years the capsule containing Rita and her forces floated unmolested through space. Then, a millennium ago, while traveling through our very own Milky Way Galaxy, the capsule became impacted on Earth's moon. Some say it was chance that it ended up there; I disagree and you will soon understand why. Still, it was there, on the Moon, that the capsule remained for another thousand years, unseen and untouched by any living being.

As it seems is so often the case, though, technological development and discovery is both our greatest ally and our greatest enemy. In the year nineteen ninety-three, two American astronauts discovered the capsule during a moon exploration and, in their ignorance, opened it, thereby releasing Rita and her henchmen.

Had it not been for Zordon's already-established presence on Earth, the planet would have been doomed from the moment Rita had exited her capsule and declared her intentions to destroy the first planet she set sight on. Fortunately, Zordon was prepared for this, and this is why I say it was no mere chance that caused Rita's space dumpster to crash on the Moon. Every resource that Zordon had access to was housed in the vanguard he had built on the outskirts of Angel Grove —and had been for over ten millennia — almost as if he knew that one day Rita would eventually attack the Earth.

She did, of course, and her first attack was on Angel Grove, the same town that Zordon chose his team of Power Rangers. As requested of his robotic assistant, Alpha-5, five teenagers with "attitude" were summoned via teleportation to the Command Center that Zordon had established following Rita's capture.

These five teenagers were given great power, harnessing the abilities of dinosaurs and similar prehistoric creatures through small gold coins to become an elite fighting team known to all as the Power Rangers. Jason Scott, Zachary Taylor, Billy Cranston, Kimberly Hart, and Trini Kwan were chosen as Earth's defenders, the Red, Black, Blue, Pink, and Yellow Rangers respectively. And though they did not all initially accept this responsibility readily, they quickly molded into their newfound roles with grace, becoming a nearly unstoppable force in the war against Rita.

Until I came along, that is.

You see, there were actually six coins, one of which just so happened to be in the possession of Rita. Why she chose me, of all people, I still do not know, but it was on my first day in Angel Grove that Rita captured me, placed me under a mind-controlling spell, and gave me the sixth coin, thus turning me into her own personal warrior: the evil Green Ranger.

With more power than the five Rangers combined, I began my assault on Earth, starting with the elimination of the Power Rangers. I nearly succeeded, too, and I'm positive that I would have if not for Jason. Eventually he was able to break the spell that controlled me and, after much persuasion from him and the other Rangers, convinced me to join them in their fight against Rita. Unfortunately, my place on the team was not to be a permanent one.

A cursed object known as the Green Candle was slowly draining away my powers as the wax melted, forcing me to sit out many a battle that I wanted so desperately to be a part of. As the candle grew closer to burning out completely, Jason valiantly attempted to retrieve the candle just before the last of it melted away, but he was unable to do so. I was soon powerless, an ordinary civilian just like you, albeit one who had certainly done some extraordinary things.

Though I had only held the Power for a very short period of time, I felt incredibly lost without it, almost as if the only guiding force in my life had been violently ripped away from me without cause or concern to how it affected me personally. I became distant from my friends; schoolwork and karate were no longer priorities in my life; in short, I was a shell of my former self.

It was not until several weeks later that I suddenly found myself back in the Command Center at Zordon's request. The other Rangers had all been stripped of their Power Coins by Rita's general, the winged Titan called Goldar, leaving them as powerless as I was. Yet, according to Zordon, I was their last hope.

How was this even remotely possible? I wondered. I did not understand in the slightest. I was, after all, completely powerless. Or so I thought.

Using quite a bit of his own energy, Zordon recharged my Power Coin, enough so that I was able to retrieve the stolen coins from Goldar and return the team to full strength. In the weeks and months that followed, I was subjected to numerous tests in an effort to ensure that my re-energized powers did not impact me negatively, as well as having to undergo periodical recharges from Zordon, but, for the time being anyway, I was part of the team again.

Soon, though, my Green Ranger powers were gone again, this time for good and with no hope of bringing them back. Just prior to this twist of fate, a new villain had arrived to combat the Power Rangers. Lord Zedd had swiftly emerged to take Rita's place due to her continuous failures in destroying us and the planet, and immediately made an impact from the moment he arrived…he was also obsessed with leaving me powerless. As I just stated, he obviously succeeded in his effort; I was a civilian again, and once more the lack of the Power in my life had left me withdrawn from everything I knew and loved.

I wanted so desperately to be a Ranger again, to fight alongside my friends and the young woman I had been infatuated with from the moment I had laid eyes on her that first day at school. Sitting here now, I can't even begin to imagine what I would have done if not for Kimberly. She was a constant stream of support, and while I wanted nothing more at the time than to push her way, in retrospect I know that I would have truly been lost without her.

Just as I was becoming adjusted to civilian life again, though, I found myself back in the Command Center; or, to be a bit more specific, a secret chamber within the Command Center that none of the Rangers knew about. As Zordon explained to me that day, Lord Zedd was becoming too powerful for the five Rangers to fight alone. The time for a new and more powerful Ranger had arrived, and I was to be that Ranger.

Using a mystical power source known as the Light of Goodness, Zordon and Alpha were able to forge a new Power Coin for me, a coin unable to be tampered with by the forces of evil. I was back again, this time with a new color and a new role on the team. I was now the White Ranger and new leader of the Power Team. To make things even better, Kimberly and I soon became "official," or as official as a couple can be while still in high school.

Over the course of the next few years, the team lost and gained new members, as well as new powers. When Jason, Zack, and Trini made the decision to attend the World Peace Conference as teen ambassadors from the United States, three new allies stepped into their place: Rocky Desantos, Adam Park, and Aisha Campbell were all excellent additions to the team.

It was near the end of our junior year when Kimberly decided to leave the team to pursue her lifelong dream of representing her home country on the international level in the sport of gymnastics. And damn, was she good. While it definitely hurt to lose her, obviously more so than with the others who had left, I knew her position on the team was in good hands; Katherine Hillard was an excellent replacement, and also a future girlfriend, but that's another story entirely.

Shortly after Kimberly's departure, Lord Zedd and Rita were able to do what they had been trying to for nearly three years. The Command Center was destroyed and we, the Rangers, were all powerless. Our last hope, the Zeo Crystal — the individual shards of which we had traveled through the very fabric of time and space itself to recover — had been lost in the destruction of the Command Center. Everything was coming to an end, even before our newest member, Tanya Sloan, had been able to assume the mantle left to her by Aisha, whose quest for her shard of the Zeo Crystal had led her to a village in Africa that needed her aid much more than we did.

Miraculously, though, we were able to recover the Zeo Crystal. With new colors, powers, and Zords, we were as ready as ever to resume our fight with Lord Zedd and Rita. And we would have, if not for the newfound presence of an even stronger enemy: the Machine Empire, headed by the sentient robot King Mondo, his wife Queen Machina, and their son Prince Sprocket.

We battled the Machine Empire fiercely for nearly a year, with no apparent end in sight. In fact, if not for a little help from our old enemies, Zedd and Rita, the fight against the Machine Empire may have waged on eternally.

The end, however, was still nowhere in sight. The Machine Empire had barely been destroyed when the space pirate Divatox arrived on Earth, along with yet another new Ranger. A child at the local orphanage, twelve year-old Justin Stewart, became the Blue Turbo Ranger when an unfortunate back injury forced Rocky into an early retirement.

This new team did not last long, though. With Zordon and Alpha-5 having returned to Eltar just after the shift into Turbo, it was the determination of our new mentor — an Inquirian named Dimitria — that the time had come for the older generation of Rangers to pass on their powers for good. Four new Rangers were chosen in our steed: Carlos Vallerte, Cassie Chan, Ashley Hammond, and Theodore Jay (T.J. for short) Jarvis Johnson soon replaced Adam, Katherine, Tanya, and I respectively.

According to Dimitria — who had a tendency to speak only in questions, but somehow found a way to tell us this normally — we had served long enough. It was time for us, the older generation of Rangers, to move on and, in her words, "find ourselves," as well as what we wanted to do with the rest of our lives. Essentially, we were being put out to pasture.

This was fine with the other Rangers, all of whom had begun this process long before our forced retirement. I, on the other hand, was still as lost as I was the first time that my powers had been taken away from me. While I had acquired numerous hobbies over the years — everything from karate to professional stock car racing — nothing had ever impacted me so much that I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing it.

Nothing except being a Ranger, anyway; and that is where this story officially begins.

From here on out, everything you read will be a detailed account of my life up to now. You will learn of my personal life as well as my workings with other Ranger teams, leading up to the ultimate development of an underground organization that I created called Project Hexagon. It is because of Project Hexagon that we find ourselves in this position to begin with. Of course, without Project Hexagon, none of us would have even lived long enough to make it this far, so I guess that's the trade-off.

Again, you may be asking yourself why I am telling you these things. And again, it is because you and you alone are capable of stopping it, but you must first have a crystal clear understanding of exactly what it is that you are dealing with before you will even be able to fathom doing so.

As the planet falls around me, I find that I must leave you with this: It is my profound hope that this document reaches you in time, and that you are able to do what must be done in order to protect the Earth. The planet is in your hands now. Defend it with honor, and may the Power protect you always.

I am, most truly yours,

Thomas James Oliver

Commander — Project Hexagon