Power Rangers Supersonic: Part I

Chapter 5 - A Protector's Moral

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Nobody knew where king Hanoi had gone, but everybody knew who he had once been.

Former king of the Principality of Vaxia, Atmak Hanoi was an unparalleled strategist and a much kinder man when compared to former rulers. A specialist in defensive warfare during his princely years, his advanced fortifications had successfully repelled thirteen campaigns from the warring factions of Spinaria. The stability he provided allowed Vaxia to develop a prosperous economy that was primarily based around its quality textiles. As such, planetary relationships with its distant neighbor Xybria were at an all-time high.

Vaxia's people, however, kept bringing up the King's Curse. It had first started as hate-filled rumors, spread amongst the lowest caste to justify the cruelty of past dynasties, but time had ensured the King's Curse had been seared into the collective subconscious as an inevitability; a maddening blight that befell each and every man or woman that sat upon the throne after coronation.

In the peoples' eyes, Hanoi's altruism would soon plunge into the lingering darkness.

On his one hundred and forty-fourth birthday, king Hanoi addressed Vaxia from the Obsidian Square Garden and declared the launch of an assault campaign on their long-sworn enemies, the Spinarians. Through powerful alliances from the furthest corners of the universe, he had managed to amass war engines and skilled mercenaries, including Dracondian Cain, the relentless fugitive from the eastern fringes. In the short span of three months, he had crushed all opposition. But at that point, that victory was no longer enough to quench King Hanoi's thirst.

And so he turned his predatory sights on Xybria.

In this warring era that carries out to the present day, he is known as Vaxia's Traitor King, a man who has long abandoned his planet for the head seat of the evil Syndicate.

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Twin gates ground open to yawning shadow. Silencers spilled inside the dim chamber, providing a ringed escort to a mutated alien creature.

'You have arrived,' King Hanoi's gravely voice echoed from the center of the room. As if personally willing it, his visage took form in the gloom. Sat upon a throne of dark glass, the king regarded his visitor with a penetrative gaze.

'I have been expecting you,' he said.

'Finally,' the alien croaked, its voice garbled, 'you have decided to negotiate.'

King Hanoi snorted. 'I do not negotiate with mongrels. You are here because your rebellious PL-48 kindred has been causing me trouble.'

'We are fighting for what's rightfully ours,' the creature snapped.

King Hanoi regarded the alien with a hard glare. It struggled to even speak. He indulged his visitor. 'And what would that be?'

'You're mocking me!' the alien roared. The Silencers surrounding it instantly directed their pincer blades at its hideous form.

'Choose your next words carefully, lest your venture was for naught,' king Hanoi advised.

The alien clenched its fists, regaining its volatile composure. 'Ten years ago,' it growled, 'you came and took everything! We were farmers, not warriors. We had nothing and you took advantage of that weakness!'

'You are highly mistaken,' the Traitor King countered, his voice level. 'I took over your primitive planet and made it stronger.' He clenched his armored fist to accentuate the last word. The metal protested under the applied pressure.