Power Rangers - The Genius That Flushed!

The first crack in the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers wasn’t in the armor—it was in the mind. Polluticorn didn’t just crush the Blue Ranger’s intelligence—he polluted it from inside, twisting every calculation into filth. One by one, every brilliant thought clogged and curdled until only madness gushed out. A brain meant for saving worlds now serves the sewer.

When the toilet backs up, does the genius unplug it—or get sucked in first?

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Neighing for manure!

It was noon at Angel Grove High, the sun high and warm, students buzzing with excitement. Banners for "Clean-Up Club Day" flapped lazily in the breeze, decorated with goofy cartoon trash cans and smiling poop emojis. Laughter echoed across the courtyard as volunteers in yellow gloves and plastic aprons gathered dozens of black trash bags into neat rows, prepping them for disposal. Principal Kaplan stood proudly on a folding stage, giving a speech no one was really listening to, while Bulk and Skull mock-hurled banana peels at each other behind the snack tables.

The Rangers were also in civilian clothes, helping organize the younger volunteers. Adam adjusted his gloves, smiling softly as he helped a shy freshman tie off an overstuffed bag. Aisha ran between tables, handing out extra trash tongs and cheering on the cleanup teams. Kimberly recorded the event on her camcorder with a bubbly grin. Rocky and Tommy laughed as they hauled bags across the grass, showing off. They were in good spirits, unaware that the most grotesque battle of their lives was about to begin in their school courtyard.

"This might be the cleanest this place has ever been," Rocky said, tossing a bag onto the growing pile.

"Yeah," Tommy replied, wiping sweat from his forehead, "almost too clean. Kinda creepy how well it's going."

Before anyone could respond, a sharp POP echoed across the courtyard. One of the large trash bags twitched slightly, like something shifted inside it. It went still again, as if holding its breath.

"Did that just... move?" Adam asked, turning toward it, brow furrowing.

The bag twitched again. Then another. And another.

Aisha stepped back, tongs raised like a weapon. "That’s not normal. Trash doesn’t move."

From behind the stacks of bags came a wet, dragging sound, like someone pulling soaked carpet through a sewer drain. Then came the smell.

It hit all at once—an overwhelming, humid stench of rotting diapers, melted food, piss, and chemical-laced filth that crawled into their nostrils and gripped the back of their throats. Kids all across the courtyard gagged, coughing violently. Some clutched their stomachs. Others stumbled back, faces pale.

"What the hell is that?!" yelled a sophomore, backing away from the pile.

One of the trash bags near him exploded open with a sickening wet crack. A geyser of brown mist shot upward. He screamed—before being yanked off his feet, legs flailing, and sucked headfirst into another bag like it had a vacuum inside. It sealed instantly. Screams muffled from within.

Students scattered. Panic erupted. Some tripped over tables or dropped bins of recyclables. Kimberly dropped her camcorder. "They're alive in there! We have to get them out!"

More bags began to wriggle and snap open with violent elasticity. A girl near the front shrieked as three trash bags unfurled like twisted arms, slapping across her back and shoulders. The plastic wrapped tight, pulling her inward. Her face stretched the bag’s surface, visible in grotesque detail as her mouth opened wide in a silent scream beneath the thick black layer. Her arms jerked, her feet kicked, but the bag just tightened, pulling her features forward until they bulged out the front like a vacuum-sealed mask of agony.

"SOMEBODY HELP ME! PLEASE—IT’S IN MY EYES! IT’S IN MY MOUTH!" she screamed just before the bag’s surface pulsed, released a burst of putrid mist, and bounced away, tumbling like a possessed cocoon into the middle of the courtyard.

Tommy lunged forward and grabbed one. "Hold on—we’ve got you!" he shouted, digging his fingers into the seams. Adam helped, straining to rip the plastic, but it was like clawing at steel-coated rubber. The bag pulsed again, and with a demonic squelch, it squeezed, crushing the teen inside until a sharp CRACK was heard, and the bag launched itself backward like a spring, vanishing into the mist.

"NO! NO! SHE WAS STILL ALIVE!" Kimberly screamed.

Another group of students attempted to flee toward the east wing, but the ground suddenly shifted beneath them, the lawn itself slick with runoff. Trash bags sprouted from the shadows near the benches, flinging themselves at ankles and shoulders. One boy was tackled mid-sprint, his face disappearing under layers of oily plastic that hissed and tightened with every breath he tried to take. Another was caught by a bag that burst open in midair, wrapping around his torso and rolling him like a burrito.

"GET IT OFF ME! GET IT OFF!" he screamed, his voice rising in pitch as the bag’s seams sealed. His hands flailed wildly, striking nothing, until his fingers stopped moving, frozen beneath the plastic.

Bags hopped and rolled across the cement like feral things. They hissed, they squealed, they even laughed—a high-pitched, wet cackle that sounded like sewage gurgling through a clogged drain. They bounced from victim to victim, sometimes slamming into two or three teens at once, stacking over them until the mass pulsed with life and the smell grew unbearable.

"It's the trash! The trash is attacking people!" shouted Skull, diving under a table, his voice cracking.

"Alpha, Zordon! We need help!" Billy shouted into his communicator. "Something’s taking over the waste—it’s weaponized!"

The courtyard vibrated. A low rumble rolled through the pavement like a stomach growling. The dumpster at the far edge of the yard split open with a metallic shriek. Black mist poured out.

Polluticorn emerged in full form.

His body glistened with oil and sewer scum, but he was shaped as always: a twisted, towering white unicorn with a silvery spiraled horn, wings that fluttered with sick smoke, and red eyes that burned with gleeful hate. He wasn’t mutated in shape—but his presence was demonic, his hooves dripping filth, his breath fogging the air with corruption. Each step left puddles that hissed as they ate through grass and stone.

"Ohhhh, now this is my kind of fuckin' parade," he bellowed, voice slick and rumbling like sludge down a steel pipe. He reared up, kicked his hooves, and landed hard. "Look at you dumb squeaky-clean brats. All dressed for a field trip and no clue you’re stepping into my personal toilet bowl."

Tommy didn’t hesitate. "We need to draw him away from the students. Now!"

The Rangers reached for their Morphers as more bags began to swell and pulse. One teen ran for help and was snagged mid-stride by two flying trash bags that wrapped around her shoulders like snakes, slammed her to the ground, and twisted shut. Yellow-green sludge gurgled from the seams as her body thrashed beneath the plastic.

"HELP! IT'S IN MY MOUTH! OH GOD IT'S—gurgling, choking—"

Aisha leapt into the fray, slashing open one of the bags with her dagger. The teen inside gasped for air—but her body was drenched in yellow slime, eyes unfocused.

"They're not just suffocating," Billy called out, analyzing the readings on his visor, "They're being contaminated—something’s rewriting their physiology from the outside in!"

"Too late, nerd-stain! I’ve already pissed in your power grid!" Polluticorn shouted, flinging his horn forward. A beam of greasy light struck Billy directly in the chest, causing his suit to sizzle.

Adam charged forward. "Back off, you walking septic tank!"

"Oooo, the quiet one’s got a temper! Let’s crack that visor and see how brave you smell inside."

Polluticorn roared and stomped. Beneath Adam, the ground erupted—spraying pressurized jets of liquid filth directly upward. He tried to dodge, but caught the edge. His suit splashed with steaming brown grime.

"Ugh—It’s burning through the suit—no—inside—"

Billy groaned through his mic. "Visor seal integrity’s dropping. It’s inside the vents—"

Polluticorn laughed again, slapping a hoof into a puddle and sending a shockwave that exploded three more bags, mist shooting outward in rings.

Kimberly shouted, "We’re being surrounded—we have to get them clear, now!"

Tommy called out, "Pull back to the south lot! We regroup—regroup!"

But the air was thick, and the stench was choking. The Rangers were already coughing inside their helmets, the drip of moisture audible in their audio feeds.

"Oh yeah," Polluticorn chuckled darkly, his horn glowing bright, "You fucks are already fermentin’ in your own armor. Hope you like the taste—'cause it's permanent."

And as the Rangers tried to rally, more trash bags lunged like living beasts, wrapping around ankles, wrists, even torsos. The courtyard flooded with screams, brown vapor, and the stench of the end.

The courtyard had collapsed into a steaming warzone of chaos. The mist was now waist-high in some areas, crawling up stairs and slithering through the school building's open doors like it belonged there. Garbage bags twitched like breathing animals. Plastic banners melted off the walls. Every trash can overflowed with a stinking ooze that boiled as if alive. Pipes under the sidewalk groaned, venting clouds of brown vapor like the earth itself had started vomiting.

In the center of the mayhem, six Rangers stood shoulder to shoulder, fully morphed but visibly coated in muck. Their once-vibrant suits were streaked with brown-yellow grime, dripping at the elbows and knees. Their breathing was tight over the comms, heavy from both exhaustion and the oppressive stench that wrapped them like a foggy second skin. Their boots squelched with every step, and the insides of their helmets were damp, humid with recycled air that now reeked of the outside filth.

"Anyone else feel like their armor’s getting... soggy?" Rocky muttered, flicking sludge from his gauntlet and shivering as more dripped down his back.

"It’s in the seams," Aisha growled. "I can feel it dripping down my back. The whole place is—"

A new sound cut her off: slapping, wet, rhythmic. From the gym entrance, down the steps and across the courtyard, came dozens of figures—shambling, jerking, moving like animated piles of soaked laundry. They were shaped like Putties, but these weren’t the smooth, grey clay drones they had fought before.

These were different.

Their bodies were bloated and blotchy, textured like mold-covered trash bags, pulsing with yellowish-green bruises. Their chests bore rusted manhole covers in place of symbols. Their faces were warped, eyeless masks with leaking slits for mouths. Their arms ended in dripping mitts of congealed filth. Every footfall sounded like a plunger in a clogged toilet. As they stomped forward, they left behind slick trails of brown-green foam that bubbled in the heat.

"Putties," Adam hissed, shifting into stance.

"No," Billy said grimly, scanning with his visor. "They’ve been altered. Reconstructed from bio-waste. They’re not just foot soldiers anymore. They’re... septic constructs."

One of them let out a sound—a bubbling screech that ended in a choking cough, as though it had tried to scream through a throat full of vomit. Then all of them charged.

The Rangers met them head-on.

Tommy led with a flying kick that collided with a Putty’s chest, splattering it across the ground—but not destroying it. The pieces wobbled, then slurped back together, reforming with a loud squish. Kimberly’s arrows slammed into two others, but the shafts sunk deep and hissed in the bubbling surface. One turned to her and hacked up a stream of yellow mucus across her boots.

Aisha twirled her daggers and carved through one’s torso, only to be sprayed in the face by a torrent of hot, mustard-colored slime.

"GAHH—MY VISOR—IT’S IN MY FUCKING VISOR!"

"They're regenerating!" Billy shouted. "And their fluid is corrosive—DON’T LET IT IN!"

Putties swarmed. Adam shoulder-checked one off a student and was grabbed by three more. They didn’t punch—they smeared, pressing their spongey arms across his chest and helmet like dirty mops. His suit began to hiss and smoke. A sour, sickening heat spread across his chestplate.

Rocky slammed a Putty to the pavement and drove his boot into its back, but it let out a gurgling moan and exploded into chunks of sludge. The explosion coated his chest, and the grime immediately ate into the armor’s color.

"These things stink like a landfill’s asshole!" Rocky spat, wiping his visor with a dripping forearm.

A foul ripple of laughter cracked the air—Polluticorn, standing atop the gym roof like a horned plague god, tail swishing, wings flexed wide. Brown mist rolled from his hooves as he paced.

"You think that’s bad? Wait until you see what comes out of the drainpipe round back!"

He reared and stomped, sending out a shockwave that popped two nearby trash bags like balloons. Their contents flung against the windows and oozing downward in greasy rivers.

The Rangers fought harder. Their movements grew desperate. Kicks slipped. Grips failed. The field around them became a tar pit of shrieking bags, clinging Putties, and students dragged into piles of leaking plastic. The mist thickened every minute, spraying upward in steady pulses from manhole cracks. The smell was so overpowering it felt like breathing through a rotting sponge.

"We can’t hold them like this!" Kimberly yelled. "We need to regroup, now!"

"Split up!" Tommy commanded. "Draw them away from the quad! Save who you can—just don’t let them circle us again!"

The Rangers broke formation.

Kimberly and Aisha vaulted over the benches toward the gym wing, dodging blasts of bag-mist and Putty swings. Tommy and Rocky rolled beneath a vomiting trash truck, blades raised, blades sparking against rusted metal. Adam and Billy retreated into the maintenance alley behind the school, chased by two shrieking bag-crawlers dragging lines of sludge like intestinal tails.

One Putty slammed into a power box, electrocuting itself and three others. They screamed but didn’t die—they just sizzled, limbs flapping like electrified meat, until they slithered upright again.

"This isn’t a battle," Billy said through ragged breath. "It’s a containment breach. We’re standing in the core of a biohazard nightmare."

Far above, Polluticorn leaned forward, his horn crackling with green static, his eyes glowing hotter. The sludge around the quad pulsed in time with his words.

"SPLIT UP, YOU PRETTY FUCKS! MAKES IT EASIER TO FEED YOU TO THE PIPE ONE BY ONE!"

As the Rangers scattered through the stinking fog, the bags breathed harder. The Putties shrieked louder. The manholes hissed wider. The school itself—its walls now sweating waste—seemed to lean inward, hungry.

The mist thickened as Billy and Adam fought their way through the back maintenance alley of Angel Grove High, barely holding formation amid the nonstop waves of shrieking putty hybrids. The sounds were relentless—wailing, gurgling, exploding sacks of mutated filth that lunged from windows, slammed from behind dumpsters, and splattered the air with hot sludge. Every swing was answered by a dozen more clawed limbs and vomitous slaps. Behind them, the central courtyard was lost to chaos—an open sewer of screams, exploding sludge, and horn-blasted vapor. Every now and then, a distorted Ranger voice would crackle through the comms, garbled by interference, screaming half-words or begging for backup. The high-pitched laughter of Polluticorn echoed faintly from several directions at once, as if he were riding the pipes themselves.

Here in the alley, the battle never slowed. Steam hissed from ruptured vents. Trash-bag creatures clawed their way out of ruptured bins. Every surface dripped. The narrow walls made movement tight, and every dodge or strike left less room and less breath. Billy’s visor was fogging faster than his suit could clear, and Adam’s boots squelched with every move as hybrid fluids pooled at their feet.

"They’re pushing us back!" Adam shouted, elbowing a bag-covered hybrid that clung to his arm, leaking a stream of brown sludge that sizzled on his gauntlet. Another one burst near his leg, spraying bile along the side of his thigh. "We can’t hold them here!"

"Then we hit harder!" Billy snapped, his voice rough, visor already smeared with the last hybrid’s spray. He ducked a wild strike and countered with a brutal elbow, dislodging a melting head that popped like a bubble. His boots slipped on a stretch of leaking rot, but he kept swinging. "They’re trying to trap us between dumpster lines—cut us off from the others!"

More hybrids surged from behind a maintenance shed, wailing in grotesque unison. One leapt onto Billy’s back, slapping a bag around his waist. He snarled and rammed it backward into the wall, crushing it into sludge.

"Don’t let them flank—MOVE!"

Just ahead, a cluster of bloated trash sacks stood unnaturally upright in a tight ring—surrounding the rear dumpster enclosure like it was sacred. At first they looked like more garbage. But then they twitched. Not tumbling—rising. Watching.

Billy’s visor flashed. "Those aren’t just sacks. They’re housing something—someone."

As they moved closer, Billy gasped. Dozens of the bags began to shift—faces stretched against the plastic, screaming silently from within. Some had their mouths sealed shut beneath a thin layer of brown membrane. Mist pumped from holes where noses once were.

"They’re alive!" Billy yelled. "They’re processing waste through their bodies—they’ve been converted!"

Adam turned in horror, slicing through another hybrid. "We have to get them out now—"

The bags collapsed in unison with a wet gasp. From their husks slithered a new surge of monstrosities—trash-fused putties soaked in warm sludge, dragging themselves like sludge-hounds. They screamed in distorted, glitching tones—some even croaked the Rangers’ names.

"B-Billy...Billy...in...in me..."

Then they charged. Panic erupted. Adam and Billy swung wildly. Every strike burst sludge in clouds. The hybrids latched onto their limbs, seeping corrosive slime through the suit seals.

"They’re evolving again!" Billy shouted. One latched to his shoulder. He tore it off and punched through it, but its death scream caused the others to surge. "THEY FEED ON DAMAGE!"

Suddenly, Adam was slammed into the wall. Three hybrids pinned his legs. A fourth launched from a window and wrapped around his back.

"BILLY! THEY’RE ON ME—GAHH!"

Billy turned, just as a towering shape blocked the alley’s exit. Polluticorn.

"Science boy. Sewer snack. Guess which one you’re about to be?"

The unicorn descended the wall sideways, its tail dragging a rotted gash along the bricks. His horn sparked with septic energy, and his grin steaming.

Billy raised his weapon. "You don’t belong here. You’re a corruptive pathogen."

Polluticorn stomped forward. "I’m your new goddamn atmosphere."

He charged. The alley quaked. Billy braced—and was slammed back-first into the wall. The horn hit his chest—not piercing but melting. His armor twisted, hissed, and sank inward like it was being swallowed. He screamed. Arms flailed. His head jerked as the horn drilled inward without breaking the skin. The Blue Ranger spasmed violently.

"ADAM—HELP—"

Polluticorn leaned in with a sneer. "You always did overthink everything. Let's help that little genius brain of yours rot down to the root."

Inside Billy’s helmet, it began. A dull pulse. Then another. Behind the center of his brow, above the eyes, the throbbing began—subtle, then pounding. A migraine turned mechanical, a throb like a heartbeat forced from the outside in. Billy’s scream caught in his throat. "No—wait—it’s—it’s in my head—no—nonononono—!"

The pressure built. His pupils flickered behind the visor. HUD displays blurred, warped. Schematics turned to static. His diagnostic readouts started bleeding—literally dripping text like melting screens.

"My thoughts—MY THOUGHTS ARE MELTING—IT’S REWRITING—REWRITING ME!"

Inside the helmet, the flesh above his forehead began bubbling outward. The skin swelled against the liner. His helmet bulged. Veins of brown energy raced along the inner surface, mapping outward in a spiraling pattern.

"It’s growing—GOD IT’S GROWING—I CAN FEEL IT—SPINNING!"

His back arched. His voice shifted, pitching between screams and moans.

"Too much data—my head—my head’s a PIPE—A PIPE OF SHIT—"

A twisted vein of pulsing filth carved its way beneath his helmet shell, pushing out from his skull like a cancer trying to bloom. His gloves scratched at his helmet from the inside, desperate to stop the inevitable.

"MAKE IT STOP—MAKE IT STOP I’M THINKING IN SLUDGE—I’M THINKING IN SLUDGE!"

Then came the CRACK. The horn erupted from inside, splitting the helmet down the center in a geyser of brown steam and spiraling bone. It pierced the plastic with a wet squelch, twisting outward like a grotesque unicorn horn of waste-born glory.

Billy let out a scream that fractured into static. His head jerked, spasmed. Sludge burst from his gloves. He howled one last time in agony—and laughed.

The Blue Ranger was gone. Only the contaminated husk remained—horned, steaming, twitching. And still standing.

Billy—no, the Blue Ranger—turned. His stance was perfect. Upright. Poised. Arms outstretched, filth pouring from his sleeves like broken hydrants. The horn on his head pulsed with light and rot.

"TIME TO ANALYZE YOUR ASS, ADAM!"

The alley shook. The hybrids screamed. Adam backed up, blade raised, voice shaking. Billy stepped forward, the grid pulsing around his corrupted frame. His body arched again. He howled.

The mind of the team was gone. And the contamination marched on.

***

The alley steamed with chemical fog, viscous with filth and chaos, but Adam stood firm, knees bent, blade up, boots anchored in hybrid slime. The shrieks of the infected trash putties had died down—only one figure remained before him now. The Blue Ranger.

Billy. Or what used to be him.

Steam curled from the horn jutting from his helmet, spiraling and alive with brown pulses. His arms hung loose, twitching, hands dripping slow trails of steaming sludge. His chest no longer bore the Triceratops—just a sewage pipe symbol that glowed with thick light. He breathed in jagged, ecstatic rasps, his feet half-submerged in the gurgling muck. Behind him, sludge-coated hybrids stood silent, almost reverent, twitching in rhythm with his heaving breaths.

"Billy, please—hold on! You’re still in there!" Adam shouted, circling cautiously, his own breath fogging the inside of his helmet. The slime beneath his boots hissed with each movement, and the air stank like a thousand overripe toilets fused with burning plastic.

The thing that was Billy stepped forward, tilting its head sharply to the side. A wet crack echoed from his neck as the horn pulsed. His voice oozed from the helmet speaker, warped and static-laced.

"I’m not in here, Adam. I am the here. I’m the firmware of filth now, babyyy... sewage-coded, flushed, and fully sentient."

With a guttural shriek, the corrupted Blue Ranger lunged. His legs split the air with impossible agility—still the same gymnast reflexes—but now greased by madness. He spun, kicked, flipped mid-air, and streaks of acidic grime followed every motion like dirty contrails. Adam ducked low and rolled, barely avoiding a spinning kick that splattered the dumpster wall with filth.

He came up fast, slashing. "You don’t have to do this! Fight it! We’ve fought mind control before—this is no different!"

Billy’s gauntlet met his blade with a clank—and didn’t stop. Instead, the filth on his glove wrapped around the dagger, absorbing the impact like syrup sinking into sponge. With a sick laugh, he flung Adam back, coating him in a curtain of slime.

"This ain’t mind control, sweetheart. This is liberation by excretion!"

Adam flipped mid-air and landed on his knees, slicing through an incoming sludge tentacle from a hybrid. He spun and leapt back into melee, rage behind his eyes. Their blades clashed, sparked, smeared. Adam ducked under a wide arc of Billy’s sludge-coated arm and countered with a roundhouse kick to his ribs.

It connected. Billy staggered—then giggled. "Oof! Good hit! Now come feel what my ribs are made of. Spoiler: it’s recycled cafeteria meat and circuit boards!"

Adam grunted, slashing again and again. Billy backflipped against the alley wall, then rebounded, horn-first, in a jagged arc. Adam barely dodged the horn skimming the side of his visor, burning a line of sludge into his helmet.

"Billy, please, it’s not too late! You’re stronger than this! You’re the smartest one out of all of us! We need you back!"

Billy paused, panting. His body twitched. The horn pulsed slower for a second, the sludge trailing from his limbs hesitating in midair.

Then came the laughter.

"You need me? Ohh, I bet you do! You need a sewerbrain on your team to sniff your way through the shitstorm! I see the data now, Adam. I see the grid and the shit in the same stream!"

He rushed again. Adam blocked one strike, dodged another, but a spinning elbow—slick with waste—cracked into his chest. He flew backward into a pile of ruptured bags, coughing as foul mist flooded his lungs. The putrid scent nearly made him retch.

"Guh—Billy—ngh—you’re better than this. We believed in you!"

Billy advanced slowly, arms spread, sludge spilling with each step. His voice came as a whisper this time, unnervingly intimate. "Belief is a bowel movement, Adam. It comes... and it goes."

Adam charged. His legs burned. His arms shook. He drove his dagger into Billy’s side, where a seam in the armor glowed greenish-brown. Billy screamed—but in pleasure.

"OH GOD YES! THAT’S THE GOOD DATA! RIGHT IN THE LIVER CODE!"

He grabbed Adam by the arm and twisted, hoisting him up and slamming him onto the alley floor. Concrete cracked. Adam’s ears rang.

"You wanna save me? Then suck it all out! Drink the shitstream, Adam! TAKE IT!"

He slammed Adam down again. And again. Sludge rose like a tide around them. Hybrid putties trembled with ecstasy nearby.

Adam coughed. Blood. He raised one hand, trembling. "Billy... it’s me. Adam. Please... remember our first morph together? You recalibrated our weapons—said we had to be perfect. That’s who you are. You made us better."

Billy froze. For just a beat. His horn dimmed. His fists clenched. His breathing faltered.

Adam struggled to rise. "You saved so many people. You held us together when we were broken. You were the heart of our logic—"

Billy’s voice cracked. "And now... I’m the heart of your sewer."

The horn pulsed again—brighter this time. A blast of brown light erupted from it, engulfing Adam in a wave of sludge. He screamed as it hit his suit, soaking into the fabric. His body twitched uncontrollably.

"I’ll rewrite your bones! I’ll encrypt your neurons in pisslight!"

Adam cried out, rolling free just before the sludge hardened. His armor smoked. This time with both blades, he lunged again, slashing across Billy’s chest, scoring deep lines in the corrupted suit.

Billy howled and fell to one knee. But instead of pain... he moaned.

"Mmmnh—keep going! Cut deeper! Data’s leaking! It’s glorious!"

He rose with a snap, spun midair, and landed behind Adam. A kick to the back sent the Black Ranger sprawling again. Billy stomped after him, spraying loops of slime from his gauntlets like flicks of ink.

Adam groaned, panting. His arms trembled. "I don’t want to hurt you anymore. I won’t."

Billy stood over him, horn aimed directly at his face. "That’s okay, Adam. I’ll do all the hurting for you. I’ll hurt your name, your hope, your grid purity. And when I’m done... you’ll thank me for flushing the fear out of your pretty little mind."

The horn glowed blinding brown. It pulsed once, twice. Adam flinched. His dagger shook in his hand.

Billy leaned close, almost whispering. "Let me in, Adam. Let the stream run through you. It's warm... it's forever."

Adam screamed.