Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue
"Go Volcanic"
Original Air Date: 04/08/00		Based on: GoGo Five #11 - Shakunetsu No 2 Dai Saimaa Juu (Scorching Heat Of The 2 Great Saima Beasts)
*7th Regular Season (9th of the 8th Season by Series) *Official Fox Kids Show Number PR-1009 *9th episode of PRLR *347th total Power Rangers episode
Writer: Judd Lynn		Director: Koichi Sakamoto
Starring Cast: Michael Chaturantabut _AS_ Chad Lee (Blue Ranger) Sean Cw Johnson _AS_ Carter Grayson (Red Ranger) Alison MacInnis _AS_ Dana Mitchell (Pink Ranger) Keith Robinson _AS_ Joel Rawlings (Green Ranger) Sasha Williams _AS_ Kelsey Winslow (Yellow Ranger) Monica Louwerens _AS_ Ms. Fairweather Ron Rogge _AS_ Captain William Mitchell		Additional Cast: Marcus Young _AS_ Steve Harrison (Bandit) Peter Savard Moore _AS_ Driver Annie O'Donnell _AS_ Woman Wally Crowder _AS_ Officer Neil Kaplan _AS_ Diabolico (voice) David Lodge _AS_ Loki (voice) Kim Strauss _AS_ Jinxer (voice) Diane Salinger _AS_ Queen Bansheera (voice) Brianne Siddall _AS_ Impus (voice, finally credited) Dave Mallow _AS_ Trifire (voice)

SUMMARY:

[Recap of "Operation Lightspeed" & "Wheels Of Destruction"]

Mount Jasmine silently overlooks the quiet countryside, a good many miles away from Mariner Bay. Inside the Lightspeed Aquabase, Dana plays with a boxed seismic detector device in the Weapons Lab. Ms. Fairweather walks up and calls her work very impressive, and asks if it'll actually measure volcanic activity. Dana plans to find out by heading up to Mt. Jasmine to see if she can get a reading. I assume Dana bought the device at the Lightspeed giftshop, since Fairweather seemed oblivious to its mechanics. Meanwhile at a park somewhere in the city of Mariner Bay, four of the five Lightspeed Rangers take a lunch break in the Rescue Rover. Dana contacts Carter through the Rescue Morpher comlink, and asks when they're going to be back at the Aquabase so she can take the Rover to the volcano. Joel answers into Carter's Morpher that it'll be after he's had a hot dog, claiming starvation. Dana finds this amusing and bids her pals a "see ya", before packing up her volcano-device into a black bag. Ms. Fairweather offers to give Dana a ride, but Dana says she wants an adventure, so she's going to just take a bus there. Fairweather wishes her good luck, and Dana goes on her way, apparently even the daughter of the head guy at Lightspeed Rescue can't get sole use of even a Lightspeed Cycle, and is forced to take public transportation! Talk about budget cutbacks.

Elsewhere, in the always undefined location of the villain homestead called only Skull Cavern, a strange phenomenon is occurring in the skies above! Lightning clashes together under the stars, and forms the spiritual facial image of none other than Queen Bansheera! She addresses Diabolico, who, along with his gang of demons, gazes up with as much surprise as delight to see the one they've been waiting for all these episodes. He even tells her they've been preparing for her arrival, and she calls this excellent, but asks where her magnificent palace is. The answer waits a moment, as the large ghostly face notices her child, the baby Impus, laying on a pedestal, cooing out for Mama, like always. Diabolico tells his Queen that they're nearly at the palace, but there is a small problem. Loki, the bumbling oaf, spills the beans in one breath, telling her that there's a city on top of her palace and it's protected by Power Rangers, who live underwater, and she knows how they feel about water! Diabolico silences the fool and urges his Queen not to worry, these are all minor problems that will be taken care of. Queen Bansheera tells him that they had better, and her spirit form vanishes back into the strange demonic universe as quickly as it had appeared.

[opening credits. Vypra is credited, though only her Sentai footage counterpart appears this ep!]

At a bus stop 32 miles from Mariner Bay, and 41 miles from Mt. Jasmine, Dana sits awaiting her ride. It finally approaches, she stands up, stretches out, breathes deep the crisp clean air of the small town, and calls this a great idea. Boarding the bus (which has a sign atop it saying "Mariner Bay", making me wonder how Dana got so far from the Aquabase, yet not close enough to the volcano) and taking her seat, Dana spots a man wearing all black, including glasses and ski hat, nervously clutching a bag full of money. She watches the man closely, he notices and gives her a mean look for a moment, but she never takes her eyes off him. She's likely thinking "sheesh, with that much money, you'd think he could have gotten a limo or something". Meanwhile in the Skull Cavern, Jinxer's been having a length discussion with Impus offscreen, and the little scamp has a supposedly excellent idea. We behold the viewing wall, which shows an image of Mt. Jasmine, Jinxer reveals Impus' plan, if they can cause that dormant volcano to erupt, it'll destroy Mariner Bay! The intended idea plays out, showing Mt. Jasmine blasting liquid hot magma down into the city at impossibly evil speeds. Diabolico remarks that finally that little pest has made himself useful, ordering Jinxer to stop just standing there and make the idea happen! Jinxer obeys, having just the monster for the job, in the form of a Demonic CCG Card, which he throws off into the hell-mouth of the nearby statue. Jinxer then recites the spell "From all three heads to its pinkie toe, make me a monster with lava flow!" and out from the mouth comes a fireball, which forms into the monster we saw on the card. It's a three-headed doggy creature, who's called Trifire! Diabolico calls this excellent, as Trifire speaks his first words (out of his middle head, I suppose, those it might be from all three!), saying things are about to get mighty hot around here! Queen Bansheera's face is back again (she must have gotten her connection cut off earlier and had to sign back on), telling Trifire to awaken the volcano with his fiery breath.

Soon at Mt. Jasmine, with Batlings scouting outside on the snowy rocks, Trifire enters a cave within and heads for the core of the volcano. It's not far from the entrance to the cave, so he's ready to get things shaking by turning up the heat. Unleashing a squall of fire from his mouth into the magma center of the mountain, it apparently does the job intended. Over in the Aquabase, Ms. Fairweather informs Captain Mitchell that they're picking up seismic activity in the entire area, and for some reason the volcano has begun heating up. She makes these points with the help of several computer-graphic showing monitors in the main Command room. Mitchell asks how this could happen so fast, and in Fairweather's opinion, it couldn't unless someone was giving it a little help! The Captain knows already who's behind this scheme, Diabolico (sort of, but what he doesn't know yet won't kill him just yet!). The additional scorching of Mt. Jasmine's core is helping to make travel around the mountain a bit rough. Oh, look! Dana's bus just happens to be in the location. Maybe Impus has been spying on her or something, cause I just don't buy coincidences like this. So the bus swerves from the earthquaking, and luckily they're on an empty road so there are no other cars to worry about crashing into. The driver pulls it to a halt safely, and tells his small group of passengers that it's too dangerous to continue further with the volcano shaking. That's when the jittery man in black jumps up and grabs the driver, telling him he's wrong, they're not stopping! An old woman yells to the man in black (we'll call the bandit, since the end credits call him that) about how he felt the Earthquake, and how they've got to turn around. The lady makes the mistake of running towards the large man, and the stupid move gets put in check when the bandit shoves the women to the floor! Dana rushes over to the lady, as she lay in the aisle a bit stunned by perfectly fine (though i'm sure she broke her hip and is missing Matlock), and asks the bandit who he thinks he is. He tells her he's the guy who's in charge, that's who! The bandit then reaches into his jacket and pulls out a rarity in the PR universe, an actual handgun! Everyone on the bus gasps at the sight of it, but the kindhearted bandit angrily tells them he doesn't want to have to use it, but he will. He orders the driver to drive, and drive the old man does! Dana gives the bandit a grim look, and the bus rolls on towards the awakening volcano.

[commercials]

The bus continues its highjacked journey towards Mt. Jasmine, with everyone but the gun-wielding bandit seated and cautiously silent. Meanwhile in the Aquabase, Captain Mitchell calls up his daughter via her Rescue Morpher, telling her they have reports of seismic activity in her area and she's to return. Dana tries covering her Morpher to shut it up (no volume controls available, apparently), but the bandit hears the noise and stomps over to her. He grabs Dana, and reminds her he said there is to be no talking, threatening to hurt her unless she complies. The bus driver turns around to watch, and the bandit gets upset, dropping Dana back to her seat and yelling at the driver to not do anything he'll regret (like not paying attention to road, perhaps?). The bandit distracted, Dana spots his pistol is aimed upwards and his arm in the right position for some of those moves she's been taught to use to serve and protect! Dana grabs his arm, elbows him in the stomach, bashes his hand against a railing until the gun drops, and begins to play a game of "kicky kicky in an enclosed spacey". There's some punches thrown, though only those by Dana actually do the damage they're intended, her defenses right on guard. Just as Dana & the Bandit are locked in physical combat, Trifire's Taco breath causes a tremor quaking into the direction of where the bus is driving. They've come to a bridge, and the driver's lost control, so while he steers as best his weary old brittle hands can, the bus swerves all about, and ends up crashing into the side of the bridge. Dana gets a little rattled from the trip, but lands well enough in a seat. The Bandit, however, falls all the way towards the front door, and either the driver decided to open it, or it opened on its own. The bandit take a dive out, but manages to grab onto the bus, and hangs on for dear life as some of his money falls out of his jacket, and out onto the river several stories below!

Dana runs over to him and grabs his hand, attempting to help pull the man who was holding her hostage a few minutes ago, in from certain doom. But he weights about twice as much as her, so she struggles with him for a good couple of minutes (though I bet the view is nice from where she is). Inside the Aquabase, the other four Rangers finally return from their lunch hour, and find Captain Mitchell on edge about the whereabouts and well-being of his daughter. He can only hear static coming from her Morpher, and all attempts to contact her have proven futile. Left with no other options, Mitchell tells the Rangers to go, and they do so without even a word. Back at the bus, the bandit still hangs out of the bus, which hangs off the side of the bridge. Dana is having no luck in pulling him in, but doesn't give up, while everyone inside the bus remains seated. Go help her out? Not a chance, she's the big "Lightspeed Rescue" broad, let her do it! Elsewhere, the Rail Rescues have been connected and are on-track as the Supertrain, racing down the tracks with the Power Rangers inside. At their intended destination, Dana seems to be lifting the bandit safely back into the bus, when another quake rips through the bridge, shaking up the bus and sending it slipping slowly over the side! The driver yells for everyone to get to the back, or else they'll all go over, and the small group of people obey, trying to even the weight enough to keep everything level. Dana's once again struggling to keep the bandit from falling to his death, he's pleading for her not to let go, and she promises she won't. Funny thing, the old woman (and her line-less husband) didn't bother moving to the back! Nor did the driver, they must all have death wishes. But the old woman does finally gain a bit of the sense she had knocked into her earlier, as she heads over to Dana, and wraps her arms around her waist. The driver takes the courageous initiative and reaches down to help Dana grab the slowly slipping hand of the bandit. The three work together in trying to save the criminal, but the movement causes the bus to continue teetering over the bridge!

Inside Mt. Jasmine, Trifire has succeeded in releasing the lava from the core of the once-dormant volcano. All he has to do now is to go watch the magma flow and destroy Mariner Bay within hours! Back at the bus, the Bandit is pulled back in, and the old woman, Dana, & the driver take a breather for a moment afterwards. The tremors haven't stopped yet, nor has the bus ceased in rolling off the edge, but the driver has forgotten rule one of riding a bus and was standing up when the last rumble was felt. He falls over (no, not out the door and into the river, which would have been a more interesting development) and breaks his arm on one of the metal railings that adorns the inside of the bus. Dana tends to his injury, and the people at the back of the bus do what they're paid to do, and that just happens to be... panic! The Supertrain reaches the end of the tracks, not able to go any further, Carter brings it to a halt in the outskirts of town. Chad gets the bus about to go overboard on the bridge on his view screen, and he notes they're going to fall any second! Carter sends Joel, the only one with a Zord capable of reaching them, to do the rescue, of which he has no problem in doing. Green Ranger hops in his Aero Rescue 3 and flies off. The mountain is beginning to erupt, the bus is getting ready to fall any day now, and Dana remains as calm as ever.

[commercials]

The people at the back of the bus are like "ahhh!" and the old couple are holding hands, and the bandit is rolling around on the floor. The bus is literally taking forever to fall over the side, from the looks of the cheap matte effect used you'd think they'd have fallen by now! Plus, what happened to the "get to the back of the bus" angle? Oh fergeddit, the Aero Rescuezord is within range and as Joel says, the Sky Cowboy is here to save the day! Hovering over the bus, as Dana peeks out the window, glad to see her teammate, Green Ranger lowers the magnetic grapples onto the exterior of the bus, calling it light work to him. Lifting the bus up and back onto the bridge steadily, everyone inside is happy and relieved, Dana remarks that Joel did a good job, and Joel (who has no way of hearing or speaking to her) tells her that she always flies first class with him. He lands Aero Rescue off somewhere and regroups with the other Rangers, as they rush down to the now safely parked bus. Red Ranger asks Dana if everyone is okay, she says they are now, thanks to them. Hey, you had enough shots of the camera shaking, and Dana falling all over the place before landing on her back in a seat? No? Well here's another! This time, she recovers instantly and hops into her first seat to check her bag, finally remembering the reason she was on this trip in the first place. Her device is signaling red for volcanic activity, so she tells her pals that Mt. Jasmine is going to erupt in any minute and they've got to stop it! Blue Ranger tells the driver that he's got to get the bus out of there right away, but he points to his arm (which is in a sling, thanks to Dana) as a reason he can't driver. Chad tells her to come take a look at it, as if his shoulder suddenly got better in the five seconds since she put the darned thing on him! She shakes her head, upon inspecting the driver's arm for the hundredth time.

Red Ranger knows they've got the do something, asking anyone onboard if they can drive a bus. Everyone in the back promptly ignores Carter's pleas, but the bandit hears him, and after taking off his sunglasses her calmly reveals that he does, as he used to be a bus driver! The driver of this bus gets mighty mad, telling him he's not driving his bus and that he belongs in jail. The old woman tattles on him, telling the Power Rangers that the man had a gun, to which Joel asks "What?! You've got to be kidding me!", obviously Joel knows guns are nonexistent in the PR-verse! Carter agrees that they're not letting him drive, but Dana steps up to the plate and says that like it or not, they have to trust the bandit, there's no other choice. He removes his skicap and tells her that they can trust him. He walks back to his bag, takes the gun off the floor and puts it, along with his hat, inside and shoves the whole thing under a seat. Dana looks to the old woman, who nods, and then to the driver, who also nods, and it's settled unanimously (since the people in the back of the bus are obviously off in their own little world). Dana takes her bag with her (given how much her bag looks like the bandit's, you'd think the plot for the episode would be "Dana ends up with lots of money, while a robber ends up with a volcano-reader!") and departs along with her teammates. The bandit takes the driver's seat, starts up the bus and drives away, as Dana smiles and thinks she did something good. Then the earthquakes hit again, so the Rangers' time wasting bus-watching comes to an end (Carter even saying "there's no time to waste" AFTER wasting the time), and the five race to the rescue. Dana has to Morph in a hurry, so she calls out "Lightspeed... Rescue", does her arm thing, and flashes into Pink Ranger mode... at the speed of light!

The Lightspeed Rangers make it to what they think is the way in, a cave entrance which looks oddly like the Cave Of Orion with patches of fake snow around it. Dana takes a reading with her device, and discovers that it looks like something is causing the volcanic activity (so she just now discovering what her father knew hours ago? big whoop!). They rush into the cave, and find the creature behind the disturbance of the molten rock standing right before them. Instinctively, the five whip out their Rescue Blasters and fire away. Trifire just soaks up the laserfire and barrels right into Red Ranger, knocking him right out of the cave! The team regroups with him outside (Carter was hit so swiftly, that his Blaster turned into its Baton mode when he landed!), and Trifire, a good few yards away from them now, tells our heroes to say good-bye to their precious city. Dana points at the monster and tells him that he obviously has no idea who's he's dealing with. The team then goes into a montage of Rescue Ready Ranger pose & salute shots. This gives Trifire time to charge up for a blast of his fire breath, causing the Rangers to scatter to avoid the flames. Yellow Ranger leaps for the monster, but she gets blown back by his fire attack. She plops to the ground, and Chad comes to her side, asking her if she's okay (still worried after last time, is he?). Kelsey says she's fine, but now she knows how a burnt marshmallow feels, prompting Joel to bonk her on her helmet and tell her she's even crazier than he is. Blue Ranger realizes there's no way they can get close enough to the monster until they put out his flame, and Red Ranger plays it off by saying that's exactly what he was planning to do (yeah right!). Carter whips out his Rescue Blaster, with a special addition, a piece of the Rescuebird! Together, he and Pink Ranger rush at Trifire, Dana firing her Blaster at the creature while Carter runs behind her. When Trifire coughs up some flames, Red Ranger aims his Rescue Extinguisher at it and squirts away!

Elsewhere, the bus continues on its merry way, with the normal driver commenting to the bandit that he's a pretty good driver. The bandit thanks him, and remarks that he used to like driving, and it felt pretty good to have all those people trusting him. The old woman gives him a thumbs up, and the old driver says he knows the feeling, before patting the former-bandit on the shoulder. Just then, balls of lava are seen spewing forth from the erupting Mt. Jasmine, as the road shakes even worse than before. Footage is shoddily spliced together, so that we see rocks rolling down the side of the hill, the road splits open, the bus swerves around it, and is soon driving around an endless array of boulders in the middle of the street. The old driver, I might add, continues proving what a dope he is, by standing up the whole time. Does he want to break his other arm or something? The bandit manages to get pretty far around the rocks, and bring the bus to a safe stop. The old driver pats the bandit's shoulder and comments on the good job, to which he thanks him. Back at the battlefield, Red Ranger clogs up Trifire's throat with a constant spray of cold mist. Once that's done, he brings the rest of the Rescuebird components he seems to have kept hidden up his butt for a few hours together, into Unilaser mode! His teammates brace him together as Carter fires the Unilaser at Trifire, creating a big explosion. Reduced to multi-chunks of barbecued meat, you may think this is the end for the monster. That is, until a Demonic Booster Car appears out of nowhere, landing on Trifire's remains. Jinxer, still in Skull Cavern, recites into the hell-mouth: "volcano smoke and lava flow, make the Trifire monster grow!". And so it is done, Trifire's remains become bats that flock together and recreate the monster in giant form.

The heat rising, Red Ranger calls on Rescuezords to mobilize. The Zords are seen in the city one moment, and then coming together into Lightspeed Megazord mode near Mt. Jasmine the next. Under the shine of the sun, the Lightspeed Megazord and Trifire duke it out. The monster bites down on the Megazord's arm using its center head (the only head it ever seems to use, oddly), but gets punched away by the fist of the opposite arm. Speaking of arms, Carter initiates Lightspeed Ladder Arms, which pound to the ground and hoists the Megazord up into the air. Its body spins around in its sockets, kicking Trifire with its feet twice, knocking him to the ground. Standing back up, Trifire's flame breath has finally returned and he puts it to good use on the Megazord. Carter contacts Chad to do the deed of dousing the fire, and the Blue Ranger has his Zord's water cannons go extinguish mode. A Pyro Rescue arm fires a stream of cream from its cannon at Trifire, covering all three of his heads and irritating him to no ends. Red Ranger calls on the Lightspeed Megazord Saber, and has it ignite, the usual fire-circle shot is seen. Giving Trifire a burning slash, the Megazord turns around and poses victoriously as the monster finds that he can't take the heat, and spontaneously combusts into a cloud of smoke (or so we see at the moment). Carter shouts "mission accomplished", and the Lightspeed Megazord basks in the sunlight.

[commercials]

The bus has reaches a service station in the small town where Dana boarded it some time ago. The Lightspeed Ranger teens apparently have ran the whole way there on foot, unmorphed (they needed the exercise, trust me). They find the old woman, her husband, the driver, the bandit, and the unpaid extras we call the back-seat passengers, awaiting there, safe and sound. The Rangers shake hands with just the main people, thank-yous are exchanged and the driver tells our heroes that they're all indebted to them for saving the whole city. Dana notes that the bandit is a hero too, he doesn't think so, saying that he only did what was right. The driver has a flashback to an old G.I. Joe episode, and tells him that doing the right thing is half the battle. The old woman tells him that if he keeps doing what's right, he's home free. The bandit thanks all of them, especially Dana, for saving his life. A cop car soon pulls up, and with it, two police officers, who approach the bandit, calling him Steve Harrison, and placing him under arrest. Dana addresses one of the officers, telling him that whatever that man did wrong, they should know that he saved all of these people. The people shake their heads, and the old woman hands the cop Steve's bag. The cop thanks her for letting him know, and Steve is led away by the police, but without the handcuffs. He pauses from his journey to the slammer, and turns to the crowd, telling them (Dana especially) not to worry as he's not afraid to pay for what he did wrong, just for now on, his life's going to be a lot different (insert prison soap joke here). Dana smiles, Carter puts his hands on her shoulder and the old woman has a heart attack, and nobody notices.

Inside Skull Cavern, Queen Bansheera's ugly mug is still hovering above the demons, as she boasts that this world will be her's. Diabolico agrees, and asks his queen what they should do, to which she notes has already been done. Deep inside Mt. Jasmine, lying inside the molten core, the crimson eyes of a monster lurk in wait. A monster that could only be the aptly named... Magmavore!

[scenes from "Rising From The Ashes"; end credits]