The Lion and the Fox

**The Lion and the Fox** is the first episode of the *PRaAK*-*STPC* plot swap.

## Summary

Maya Tate is a high school junior who loves space! One night, as Maya was drawing some constellations with her brother Luke, she met a mysterious alien. She and Lucas got warped to space for a little bit before waking up the next morning, thinking it was all a dream. But it wasn't so, and during the trip, the duo meets two aliens, Spark and Serakis, who came to Earth from Lycatheria to find Cyrallis, but a bad alien, Zearic, had followed them, got Cyrallis first. At the shock of this, Lucas and Maya become the Red and Pink Rangers (respectively) to protect Cyrallis.

## Major Events

* This is the first episode of the PRaAK-STPC plot swap.
* Most of the core members of the Astral Knight Rangers (excluding Riley debut.
* Cyrallis and Serakis debut.
* Some members of the Star Deities (Leo, Lupus, Taurus, Pavo, Vulpecula, Aquila) appear in Cyrallis's dream, revealing that Cyrallis was sent to Earth as their "last hope".
* Cyrallis turns Maya's notebook into the Astral Codex.
* The Leo and Vulpecula Crystals appear.
	+ With them, the Red and Pink Rangers can summon and awaken the Leo and Vulpecula Deities.

## Synopsis

One night on Terra, in the city of Coastal View, California, a Leonian named Luke Tate is with his Terran sister Maya in the backyard, looking at the stars, drawing them and writing the names of them in her notebook. Suddenly, Luke sees a shooting star (which Maya has detected on her laptop) and gets a vision of a humanoid. Inspired, Luke connects the stars he and his sister drew with lines, creating his own constellation depicting the humanoid.

On Exarai, a white beam of light shoots out from the Star Temple, and the humanoid, Cyrallis Cometfluff, crashes into the backyard.

"Gahhh... Who are you guys!? Anyway, I am Cyrallis Shinerain Cometfluff, or you can call me Comet. By the way, I'm an Exarite from Exarai. Luke Tate, the last Leonian, right?"

"Yes. I'm Luke Tate, and my arrival on Terra was my parents' dying wish."

Maya is shocked at first, but she quickly becomes ecstatic to see a real alien.

"REALLY!? LUKE? YOU'RE AN ALIEN?"

The humanoid then summons a portal in Maya's room, sucking the three of them into space. Maya and Luke are amazed. Plus, they're magically able to breathe since the humanoid gave them an aura that allowed them to do so. As they are floating along, Maya and Luke see a ringed planet coated in darkness. However, before Luke can find out what exactly the planet is, he wakes up the next morning. At first, Luke thinks that the encounter with the humanoid was a dream. Then, he sees the creature floating around in his room. The humanoid flies out of Luke's window, and Luke immediately goes to chase after him.

However, Luke is stopped by his stern adoptive grandfather, who wants to know why Luke is running off who knows where. To his dismay, Maya's mother and grandmother, are perfectly fine with Luke wanting to go outside, as they understand the energy that comes from having a wonderful dream. Maya's grandmother even packs a lunchbox for them.

Meanwhile, Luke and Maya sets off on their bikes and stop by a planetarium owned by an elderly friend of Maya's, Camden Galilei. He was the one who gave Maya the notebook Luke was drawing in last night. Maya asks if the notebook is magic, and Camden says that it's just an ordinary notebook she got so she could draw out her huge imagination. Maya then leaves to continue pursuing her humanoid friend, bids farewell to the planetarium owner.

Before long, the two run out of energy due to not eating breakfast (Maya) and not taking a nap after school (Luke) and have to take a break. The twins pull one donut each out of their lunchboxes. The humanoid then flies toward Luke, attracted by his vanilla jelly donut. Maya then feeds him the donut along with hers.

Cyrallis then turns into an aura ball and falls asleep on top of Luke and dreams about the Exarite deities who sent him to Earth. Specifically, Leo told Cyrallis to find the lone Leonian (Luke) and that he and Cyrallis were their only hopes.

"Find the lone Leonian. He's on Terra. You are our only hope, and so is he."

Cyrallis then wakes up and senses that an alien spaceship is being chased by other malevolent ships. To rescue them, Cyrallis opens another portal, enabling the spaceship to land on Earth. Out of the spaceship comes a Lycarian suffering from motion sickness and a Medaquean that can speak English.

"Whoa...! Terrans?"

"Well, no, I'm a Leonian (though I look like a Terran thanks to Spectran tech), she's the actual Terran, and Cyrallis is an Exarite."

At first, the two aliens are horrified to find that they've been discovered by Terrans, but they've calmed down a bit when it turns out that Luke and Maya are amazed by their presence rather than afraid. Maya tries to communicate with the aliens, but she finds that the humanoid alien speaks another language. Nonetheless, Maya is able to communicate Luke's and her own names to the alien, and he replies with his name, Spark. The other alien introduces himself as Serakis and says that he and Spark have been looking for an Exarite aura being. Luke shows him Cyrallis and asks if he's the one they're looking for. They say that it actually is.

Then, the ships that were pursuing Spark and Serakis appear, and an alien named Zearic emerges from one of them. Spark, Serakis, and Cyrallis are scared, but Luke is feeling determined to fight this alien, and Maya is overjoyed to see another alien. Due to a translator device around his neck, Zearic is able to speak in English. He says that the Darkrain Empire aims to take Cyrallis and use his power to conquer the universe. Spark and Serakis take Cyrallis aboard their ship and flee for safety. As they go into space, they seem to have escaped the Darkdrones. They're then shocked to notice that Maya snuck aboard the spaceship before they took off.

Shortly, the Darkrain catch up with the ship. They blow a hole in the ship's window, causing the air to be sucked out into the vacuum of space. When Cyrallis is sucked out, Maya and Luke jump after him despite a warning from Serakis. Serakis then inflates himself to plug the hole in the window, keeping some of the air from leaving.

Just like in Maya's dream, Luke and Maya can breathe in space when they are affected with Cyrallis's Exarite aura. Zearic tells Maya to give Cyrallis up because he needs his power. Maya protests that Cyrallis is not an item and that she and her brother will protect him. Meanwhile, Luke charges at Zearic only to get a very painful kick in his gut. Their determination causes two Constellation Crystals (specifically the Leo and Vulpecula Crystals) and two Astral Knight Morphers to appear in front of Luke and Maya. They insert their crystals into their morphers and shout, "Astral knight power, awaken!" In the end, Luke and Maya have morphed into the Astral Knights Red and Pink Rangers, respectively.

The Rangers are shocked at first, but they quickly gets their minds together. As this happens, numerous suited Darkrain minions, called Darkdrones, charge them. At this moment, the Rangers fight the Darkdrones, and win despite them being outnumbered and being in the zero-gravity environment of space.

Cyrallis, Luke and Maya board the ship, and they, Spark, and Serakis are happy to have succeeded. Luke thanks the other four and holds Spark's hand, telling him that he'd like to become one of his friends. Cyrallis is then tired, so he transforms Maya's notebook into the Astral Codex and then turns into a ball of white aura.

"I think my Astral Codex burned up when I entered the Terran atmosphere, so anyway, lend me your notebook. I'll need to make a new one."

They don't have long to celebrate this, however. The ship is badly damaged and is falling back towards Terra. A gang of high schoolers consisting of Nate Reyes-Hernandez, Kiana Park, Tristan Santiago and Amy Lin see this and confuse it for a shooting star. The episode ends with the spaceship crashing into a mountain.