Fanfic / Power Rangers: Oceania

"Point Break!"

What happens when you cross a beloved franchise and the United States' 50th state? This.

Power Rangers: Oceania, written by Sir Perfluous, is an Original Flavor Power Rangers fanfiction published in December 2015 that takes place in modern-day Hawaii. It features a team from different walks of life brought together by Kanohi, the chief kahuna and leader of Oahu's warriors, against Hine Nui, a demigoddess bent on bringing decay and death to the Hawaiian Islands. In between fighting Monsters of the Week, the newly-formed Ocean Rangers take us on a tour of Hawaii's culture and history.

Completed July 2016 at over 200,000 words.

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Recurring Power Rangers tropes include:

• Big Bad: Hine Nui, an ancient sea witch who came back to take control of the Hawaiian Islands.
• Big Good: Kanohi, the Rangers' kahuna.
• By the Power of Grayskull!/In the Name of the Moon: "Point Break!"
  Desmond: "Fierce as the Raging Volcanoes, Red Ocean Ranger!"
  Cam: "Steady as the Surging Tides, Blue Ocean Ranger!"
  Naomi: "Free as the Howling Winds, Yellow Ocean Ranger!"
  David: "Vibrant as the Verdant Earth, Green Ocean Ranger!"
  Alex: "Bright as the Shining Sunlight, Pink Ocean Ranger!"
  All: "Riding the Waves to Victory!"
  Desmond: Surf's up, Rangers!
• The Dragon: General Kuta
• Home Base: Ocean Point Temple. Or, rather, its ruins, but it's not as if the Rangers complain.
• Humongous Mecha: First appear in episode 6, later than most of the canon series.
  • Animal Motif: In keeping with the Oceania theme, all of the zords are based on sea creatures/creatures associated with the sea.
    • Never Smile at a Crocodile: The Red Crocodile zord.
    • Threatening Shark: The Blue Shark zord.
    • Jumping Fish: The Orange Ranger's flying fish zord.
    • Space Whale: Maris gives Alex her whistle, which summons a zord shaped like an orca. Also counts as a Transforming Mecha: it comes with a humanoid battle mode.
  • Combining Mecha: The Ocean Force Megazord. In addition to the five main zords, it features a weapon formed from a metal swordfish. The narrative is vague if this might be a sixth zord that pilots itself or a magical weapon that is animated only to travel to the Rangers.
• Local Hangout: The Silver Marlin, Bailey's restaurant. The Rangers also tend to group up at Mr. Sato's place since Desmond, Cameron, and Naomi live there.
• Monster of the Week: Hine Nui likes to take creatures she finds and turn them into monster to attack the islands.
• Motifs: The Rangers with their power over the different elements of Creation.
  • Playing with Fire: Desmond
  • Making a Splash: Cameron
  • Blow You Away: Naomi
  • Dishing Out Dirt: David
  • The Power of the Sun: Alex
  • Hine Nui, being the Rangers' enemy, represents an element of destruction. Specifically, decay.
• Transformation Trinket: The Ocean Bracers, which also allow them to communicate with each other and teleport using water.
• Weapon-Based Characterization:
  • Blade Enthusiast: All of the Rangers carry a small knife which can then change into their specialized weapon during combat. In addition, the Yellow Ranger uses a pair of leiomano, small, flat clubs lined on the edge with shark teeth.
  • Red Ranger's spear
  • Heroes Prefer Swords: Blue Ranger's shark fin sword
  • Carry a Big Stick: Green Ranger's wooden club
  • Power Fist: Pink Ranger's coral knuckle dusters

Power Rangers: Oceania contains examples of:

• Action Girl: Naomi and Alex, par for the course. Hannah and Bailey, to a lesser extent; Hannah will risk the danger to help the Rangers while Bailey can be violently protective of her restaurant.
• Artistic License – Military: Although it can be forgiven by the civilian characters, Cameron should be addressed as "Commander" by other officers and enlisted, not "Lieutenant". It's also against military custom for Cameron and Isaac (Alex's brother and a Petty Officer) to refer to each other on a first-name basis while they're in-uniform.
• Audience Surrogate: Mostly Cameron when it comes to Hawaiian culture. All of the Rangers become surrogates when Kanohi talks.
• Beach Episode: More like Beach Series. Since the story takes place in Hawaii, beaches are a fifty-fifty chance of being Hine Nui's next battleground.
• Bloody Murder: Of the "poison blood" variety, a poor mosquito finds out that Hine Nui makes a very bad late night snack. This brings about her next monster, Skirge, whom she sends to spread around her blood and the disease it causes.
• The Captain: When the Rangers are using the Luna, Desmond is unquestionably in-charge.
  • Number Two: Cam takes commands from him and will helm the boat when Desmond is busy elsewhere.
• Crossover: The Author had written a power rangers series before this called Power Rangers Vanguard, which featured rangers fighting demonic creatures but with a mixture of angelic and roman themes. Episode 18-20 is a crossover with the aftermath of that series, as well as wrapping up a small plot threat from that series regarding The Leviathan.
• Divine Intervention: The ancient Hawaiian gods like to pop in on the Rangers and lend a hand in an indirect manner. Sometimes, they're deliberately called to for a power boost. Other times, well, the Rangers can never tell until after the big fight.
• End of an Era: Towards the end, Kahoni remarks that he and Hine Nui are from an old time of old wars. And that the rangers are the new generation now to keep Hawaii safe in new ways.
• Evil Counterpart: Roughly 5/8 of the way through the story, Hine Nui decides to create her own ranger: the black ranger from the corpse of a dead thief and an ancient evil warrior spirit.
• Evil Laugh: Hine Nui likes to laugh after sending out her latest Monster of the Week.
• Fusion Dance: Hine Nui merges her two generals into one giant monster for her final plan.
• Gratuitous Foreign Language: A lot of Hawaiian words are used and explained mostly to Cameron. Those that don't get immediately translated can be found in the Author's Notes.
• I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: "All right, Bones McCoy, keep on moving. You're still a Power Ranger, remember?"
• Improbable Weapon User: In chapter 22, the call is so abrupt that Desmond and David, who had split up from the group to go check out a nearby golf course, show up still wielding their clubs.
• Law of Chromatic Superiority: Slightly subverted in that Desmond is not necessarily the team leader, even though he's the Red Ranger. This is specifically stated in the sixth episode. Each Ranger takes charge when the situation puts them in their element. Desmond just happens to be the guy who goes charging in head-first.
• Leader Forms the Head: Averted; Naomi's Yellow Seagull zord, probably because it is the only one that can fly, forms the head instead.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Desmond, who likes to shout "Surf's Up, Rangers!" after the roll call and then immediately charge. It gets lampshaded in the second episode (the first episode it happens) by Cameron hollering after him, "Wait! What!?"
• The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday: Murry's. It is hinted that the store owner is the trickster god Maui.
• Magic Dance: In Episode Five, Alex uses her knowledge of hula to call on Laka so that her powers, combined with Alex's element of Creation, would reverse a fungi monster's own magic (spreading decay like a plague) and weaken him. She even manages to make herself a Dance Battler.
• Meaningful Name: Desmond Waihee, which means "slippery water", sounds like a reference to him being a fisherman. Meanwhile, Alexandra Coach is a hula instructor.
• Mildly Military: Inverted; Cameron is mildly civilian. As a Navy officer that spends more time off-base, he generally has to be forced to enjoy himself. This caused trouble in the fourth episode, when he was so focused on a battle that he was not "respecting the land" (being unaware and lacking knowledge of the island culture mostly, though being thrown against a nearby tiki probably didn't help) and couldn't morph until a pep talk from both Kanohi and David helped him through it. Played straight later on in that, sometimes, it's hard to tell that Cameron is in the Navy unless he mentions it.
• Mooks: Nightmarchers
  • Elite Mooks: The Benthic Army. Although they're still used in the role of Monster of the Week, it is implied that General Kuta has plenty more where they came from.
• Nephewism: Alex, her brother Isaac, and her sister Evelyn were raised by their aunt in Hawaii after their parents died.
• Orcus on His Throne: Hine Nui is far more powerful than all her forces, but she prefers to use her dark magic to act from a distance rather than directly engaging the rangers.
• Raised by Grandparents: It isn't clear with Desmond, who lost his parents when he was young, but it was likely that his grandparents are among the extended family he has living in Hawaii.
  • It's quite likely this was also the case with Alex who also lost her parents a while ago, though at an older age compared with Desmond.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Cameron's superior Admiral James Taylor accepts his decision to keep the other Rangers' identities secret after their first battle and changes his assignment to reflect his new duties as a Ranger; Taylor's only caveat is that he collect any intelligence on Hine Nune (which Cameron as an intelligence officer would be doing anyway) and report it only to him and Captain Ramos.
• Recruit Teenagers with Attitude: Subverted for the most part. Alex, as well as Hannah, are probably the youngest of the group and explicitly attend college. David is a doctor, formerly an army doctor in Japan, and likely has already finished a lengthy residency. Cameron is a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy, which means he's had at least two years of Naval Academy in addition to the amount of time it would take him to achieve an O-4 rank (at least nine years as a commissioned officer). Naomi is directly stated to be 23 at the start. Desmond's age is pretty vague, but given that he's a fisherman who owns a boat, there's a good chance he isn't a teenager, either.
• Shown Their Work: The writer clearly has a deep respect for Hawaii as the culture, mythology, and other aspects of the islands are all represented pretty well.
• Tagalong Kid: Hannah. Her focus chapter was even titled "Keiki: Child". She becomes less so as the series goes.
• Tempting Fate: In episode five. Also serves as a subtle Lampshade Hanging of A Day in the Limelight episodes.
  Alex: "At least we were able to deal with this without a monster attack, right?"
  (cue Ocean Bracers flashing)
  Alex: "Me and my big mouth."
• Thematic Rogues Gallery: Sea flotsam is the theme here.
• Two Guys and a Girl: Started as this with Desmond as The McCoy, Cameron as The Spock, and Naomi as The Kirk. Ended in the second episode when David and Alex joined to form a Five-Man Band. However, this element still tends to remain since these three share the same residence and can usually be found together.
• Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma: Sir Perfluous seems to have issues with this, although not to the extent of the average fanfic author.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Cam tries this on Nassarius in chapter 19 and puts holes in his shell and armor, forcing Nassarius to retreat. In the following chapter, Desmond discovers that this compromised Nassarius' resistance to the magma they're swimming in.

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