Birthright

[RedGuardianRanger]

Imagine a world where the Rangers exisit for real, but no one knows about them. Imagine though that at the moment there is only one, and suddenly he must face an army by himself. Imagine that he's not entirely of this world, and the army he must face is that of the other world that part of him came from. If you erase everyone from your life that plays a minor part, and push those away that have played a major one, then you end up alone, and alone you must fight.

What was, is no longer. Evan was just the beginning. Now, a new world, and a new battle face Keith, and again he must face it alone. Or will he?

***

This is the third part of the Guardian Saga, the first two being Soliloquy, and Ashes: The Second Soliloquy.

[RedGuardianRanger]

50 years ago, halfway across the galaxy …

Heavy footfalls echoed in the great hall as her boots found grasp onto the flooring. Her stride was quick, and confident, but her face advertised worry, and concern. She was clad in white, all white, from her boots to her dark hair which spilled to her shoulders. I had never seen her like this ever, for it was long before I had ever been born, but this was her true form. A white jewel rested on her forehead, circular in appearance it had many different facets, and through her movements each facet would catch a different amount of light, and gleam from them. Her eyes were mostly white, the iris matching the rest of the organ.

About her the hall was dark, and the windows that were taller than her looked out onto the rest of the city, which was lit similar to cities here on Earth at night, but the only difference was the occasional flashes of explosions, followed by the muffelled sounds that filtered through the palace’s walls. Normally this hall would be filled with ambassadors, and diplomats. Governors from the outer colonies would scramble back and forth as they sought audiences with the leader of the kingdom, but all that had changed, and now the only people inside the entire palace was the royal family, and the royal guard. It had gone dim, for it was a fortress under siege.

She reached the next set of doors, and cast them open with her mind, like the rest of her race did, and they opened slowly into the next room, where two people stood beside a piece of furniture similar to a desk. This was the main room, a chamber that dealt with the affairs of state. It bared little resemblance to a throne room, or even the oval office. It was simplistic, and the two people beside it were dressed similarly to all the other citizens on the planet, as well as their daughter which had just entered the room.

“His forces have just breached the gate,” she exclaimed mentally. Mobiums never used verbal communication between members of their race, to do so was even considered disrespectful. “We must get you to the transport immediately, before it’s too late.”

“I know,” replied the older man, her father, the king. “Once he was inside he issued a communication to us informing us that we would be allowed to depart peacefully, but never again allowed to return.” He turned towards his wife who had stood faithfully by his side for so long now. Her resolve to her duty as the queen had never faltered not even now on the eve of the end of their reign.

“Terisian,” she offered, “I’m so sorry that this came to pass. I always pictured that our reign would come to an end with your marriage, never like this.”

“Mother,” she replied, “it’s no longer important, we’ll make ourselves a different life among the stars now.”

“She’s so brave, Maxsimusel,” offered the queen, “how did we ever raise such a courageous daughter?”

“She’s of your blood line Isalian,” he replied, “the answer that question can be found within yourself.” Isalian smiled, graciously of course as only a queen could. She finished packing several things into a container, and then slung it over her shoulder, while her husband placed several rectangular metallic devices into his pack. Footfalls echoed in the corridor behind them, and Terisian turned towards the approaching being.

“My lords,” announced a young male mentally, “the transport is ready to depart. We must hurry before Harabec’s forces reach the palace entry port.” He was clad in armor similar to Guardian Armor, but it was a dark blue shade. It was slightly older in design, and possessed different weapons from the ones that were found on mine. His helmet rested in his hands, at his side, and it, like the armor revealed several battle scars from what seemed like weapons fire. He glanced quickly at Terisian who could only look away in shame.

“Thank you Commander,” replied Maxsimusel, and at the solider turned and began to retreat the way he came. The king stopped him though by calling out to him. “Shen…” The solider turned and quickly returned to the door’s edge.

“Sir?” he asked softly.

“Thank you,” replied Maxsimusel softly. Shen nodded graciously, and then again retreated into the hall. The king turned towards his daughter, as he and his wife began to move towards the exit following the same path as their loyal solider. They’re footfalls were softer as they wore softer footwear then their daughter who wore the traditional uniform of her order, of which Commander Shen had been apart of. The king made no move to look at his daughter as he asked, “Has the rest of the guard been evacuated into the city?”

“Yes father,” she replied. “Only two volunteers will accompany us, Shen, and Commander Nahrian who will be the pilot.”

“Two very brave individuals,” said Isalian softly, “I only wish we could offer them something in return.” The family quickly hurried through the hall to the chamber beyond, which was the center point of the entire structure. Ahead led to the main gates, to the right the living area, and to the left their transport which would take the last royal family of Mobius, away from their planet. The king and queen walked ahead of their daughter now as Terisian felt compelled to stay a bit behind them should any devious attack come from behind. The hall they were in now opened to a simple room which had a main door to a courtyard beyond were their transport stood ready to lift off. Crossing through the threshold, the sounds of the city outside came at them at full strength. Flashes of light continued to flood the night sky as those who were fiercely loyal to the royal family offered limited resistance to the new order that had encroached into their beloved city, and kingdom. The three stood momentarily in awe at the show of light which reflected off the smoke that flew through the air. Overhead came a rush of aircraft as robotically piloted crafted secured the airways for the advancing forces.

Broken from their trance, the king and queen proceeded slowly up the ramp, but Terisian paused for a moment as she felt a slight presence. Behind her came a rush of air, and she turned to see a another male, roughly the same age as her land behind her. The night hid the dull color of his silver armor that resembled Shen’s and in turn, her own as well.

“Terisian,” he offered softly.

“Harabec,” she returned coolly. “I thought I explained myself clearly before that you were no longer welcomed in mine, nor my family’s presence.

“I wanted to see you before you departed,” he said sullenly. “I mean I needed too.”

“Well now you’ve seen me,” she said, turning back towards the ramp.

“I’m sorry!” he exclaimed.

She spun around and rage became prevalent in her eyes. “You’re sorry? How dare you even try to apologize for what you’ve done. You’ve betrayed more than just your order’s cause, you’ve betrayed your kingdom to lead the rebel forces and overthrow us. Don’t you dare apologize to me.”

“He will bring a better world than this one,” was all that Harabec could offer. “You may hate me for what I’ve done, especially to you, but I have no qualms about the fact that this is the right choice. Our race could no longer tolerate the wars of morality, it was not our place to enforce law upon the galaxy. I’m sorry you could never see that, especially during the time we shared together.”

“Goodbye Harabec,” returned Terisian emotion spilling into her voice, especially that of anger, and rage. “I never want to see you again.” She turned away, never to even glance back at him once, and strode up the ramp where she found her father standing at the very top.

“Terisian,” he said softly as the ramp closed behind her. Her head was bowed in front of him, which she did to hide her tears that had begun to flow down her cheeks. Humans and Mobiums had evolved similiarly, our forms very much the same, and we also possessed similar reactions to events as well. Her father though need not sense the tears to feel her despair. “Harabec believed a certain ideology which came into conflict with your own. He may have been a traitor to our kingdom, but those two facts still aren’t going to change the way you feel for him, the way you always will.”

Her tear stained eyes rose to meet her fathers, and she regarded him softly. “Please father, I never want to hear his name again.” The ship lurched as it rose into the sky, and quickly ascended through the atmosphere. Behind them, their planet, and their kingdom, and their life fell away, and as the dark clouds fell behind them, and gave away to a starry backdrop that could not be seen within the craft, an end to an age had come to pass, and a world would be forever changed. But it wasn’t just their world, it would be many, across the stars as their ship vanished into the black on its way into time.

<Track Insert – Backstreet Boys “Incomplete”>

It had been two years. So much had changed, and then again nothing had changed. The world I knew now was not the world I known then. I had already done so much back then, and now I had done so much more, but in a way, maybe now it didn’t seem as rich and fulfilling. I found myself in a much lonelier place then before. I wasn’t surrounded any more by the people that been there in the past. Peter and Shen had gone abroad, traveling to the rest of the world, and experiencing life. Peter wanted to spread his music, and Shen spent a good deal of this time in mediation in some of the quieter places of the globe. Matt had stayed where he was, kicking back, and just enjoying life as much as he could. Agent Blake had been moved up some in the ranks of his organization, and held considerable sway among that the powers that were. Sean had settled down, married, and begun teaching again at an elementary school, even adopting several foster kids, trying to give others the chance to expand their own lives, in a reality a chance to live. The others, Zach, Xander, Anna, and Evan still had no memory of anything that had transpired in their lives for the four years of their secondary education, and neither did Mady. They had gone on as all people do, continuing their education at higher levels, for the most part, experiencing life as all beings do.

As for me, well I stayed out of trouble as best as I could. I disappeared from the light, and hopefully history would go on without me ever being noticed. I kept tabs on certain people from time to time, making sure that their lives progressed as problem free as possible, even if they didn’t recognize me or knew I was there. As all things do though, my surroundings changed, and I found myself in a new place, with new people I barely knew. Life brought me to North Carolina, where very different things happen, but maybe that’s better for someone like me, for so much had already happened to me. The peace and quiet would do me a little bit better perhaps. Or so I thought. In truth though, I grew bored quite quickly, and it wasn’t long before I started thirsting for that adrenaline high that always came mid battle against Evan, or some other foe. So I had to find other ways, constructive ways, of attempting to fix myself without alerting other people to my special abilities. I turned to activities like driving to stay my hand, and for a little while it worked. Cars and the open road kept me nourished, but like with all people like me, it wasn’t something that could ever truly satisfy my inner being.

I would patrol every now and then above the roof tops of what was known as Wilmington, a small coastal city that was barely awake sometimes. It wasn’t the Northeast by any means, almost sort of like a retirement home for super heroes, and most of the time it was quiet. From the beach community on the nearby barrier island, to the quaint downtown area that had its dark side after dark, it was almost comic book in some way, but this was where I was now, and this was the area I had to deal with. For the first time I was also by myself. True I had gone into battle before without Sean as my operator, but now I was always going into battle without someone behind the scenes monitoring anything. It was a little bit different, but at the same time it just felt right.

It didn’t hit me then, but I was very lonely. I didn’t really talk to anyone anymore, enjoying my own private solitude to the company of others. Maybe I didn’t really trust anyone anymore, but whatever the reason, I was still by myself.

Solitude is never a permanent situation on a planet inhabited with sentient life, and as is always the case, soon everything began to catch up to me. It probably all started with the dreams I started having. I’d wake up in a cold sweat, but I couldn’t remember the dream I had been having, or any of them for that matter. It wasn’t just one; it was many dreams throughout the night, and no matter what, every night I was always to be afflicted with lots of the same dream. They weren’t nightmares per say, but they just always seemed to force me awake.

I decided the best person to talk to would be an old friend who I hadn’t seen in some time. Being the early spring it was quite warm down in North Carolina, but in Pennsylvania it wasn’t quite as warm, but nonetheless we sat out on his porch in light jackets as the sun drifted over us on a nice Saturday. Al had changed jobs, and no longer worked at the school. He decided it would be less stressful, and less dangerous to pursue a practice in the private sector. I hadn’t seen him in two years, but when I had called him, he invited me over to talk. I had caught him up on everything that happened, and told him about the dreams I was having too.

“What do you think it means?” he asked me.

“That’s what I was kind of hoping you could tell me,” I replied.

“Honestly, based on what I’ve heard it could be anything,” he said. “Not being able to remember the dreams is significant though. Do you think it has anything to do with your, background?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I have no idea what triggered it either.”

“Well, what do you do when you’re not fighting crime?” he asked.

“You mean most of the time now?” I asked him sarcastically. “Well, I have a job that I’ve been holding down.”

“Doing what?” he asked.

“Selling computers,” I replied. “It pays the bills.”

“Anything else besides that? Are you continuing your education?” he asked.

“No, not really,” I replied. “I think my life’s pursuit is pretty much all figured out.”

“Well, if its not paying the bills it’s not much of a job,” he said. “Besides, what happens if you ever want to walk away from that life, or you can’t do it anymore?”

“The only way that’s going to happen is if I’m dead,” I replied.

“You’ve been having these dreams for a month now you said?” he asked, changing the topic.

“Roughly,” I said.

“Did anything happen about that time,” he said. “Did anything change in your routine?”

“Not that I can remember,” I said. “I haven’t even morphed since then, or really done anything except portal.”

“Do you have any friends down there?” he asked.

“A few people I have meals with from work every now and then,” I told him. “They’re into cars, but no one I spend a good deal of time with, or talk to.”

“Xander is down there, isn’t he?” asked Al.

“Yeah,” I replied. “He’s around, though I haven’t seen him at all, not that he would know me.”

“Do any of these people know about your secret?” he asked, putting emphasis on the word ‘secret.’ I chuckled briefly which was rewarded with an awkward look from Al.

“You almost make it sound like I’m in the closet,” I replied. “No, no one knows about my powers. I talk to Sean every now and then, and Peter and Shen send e-mails, and I see Matt every now and then.”

“So in effect you’ve cut all the links between you and everyone else who was part of your life during the conflict with Evan,” he pointed out.

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess you could say that.”

“That sounds pretty lonely,” he suggested. “You don’t have anyone to share this with anymore who is a major participant in your life. You’re carrying all the weight, all the responsibility on your own shoulders.”

“It’s not that bad,” I said softly. “Besides, it’s not like I’ve spent a lot of time recently being a hero.”

“You miss it?” he asked, like asking if someone missed playing a sport back in the day.

“There a moments when I remember some of the high points, and I wish I could do it full time again,” I said.

“It gave your life purpose, maybe that’s what you’re missing now,” he suggested. “Maybe that’s what the dreams are about.”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “It seems like there is more urgency to the dreams than anything else.”

“Well, like I said before,” he said. “Until you can remember them, there is no telling what they are for sure; you’ll just have to find a way to cope with them.”

I yawned, stretching my arms back in the chair. “Yeah, you’re right.” I stood up slowly, and looked down at him. “Thanks for lending me your ear.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied, standing up and offering me his hand. “You should drop by more often.”

“You don’t want me to do that,” I replied. “Trouble follows me, remember?”

And it did indeed. I remember waking up for work on day, and reading on the news that the President had committed a larger budget to the space program, which was strange considering how against it he had been when he first had taken office. I spent most of my morning exercise ritual thinking about it, and as I got dressed, I wondered why I hadn’t heard from Agent Blake in sometime. Usually he had several missions for me, especially in the mid-east, especially since the country was still fighting the conflict over there. Even with all my secret service, I had never met the President, mostly due to my own lack of interest, but I had understood he was somewhat grateful for my service. I don’t want to say that they were reliant on me for certain things, but they did like to call on me for certain more dangerous missions. I guess Blake was just busy with something else, which is why I hadn’t heard anything from him. Well, that was about to change.

Like I had told Al, I sold computers at one of those large retail outlet stores. I’m not going to say which one, but you probably been in one of their stores, and used their name around the house a great deal. Well I was in the process, or rather just completed the process when a phone call came in for me. I was up at the technical support counter, having just rung someone up when one of my colleagues brought the cordless phone over to me, and told me I had a call on hold. Taking the handset from it, I turned hold off and answered it.

“This is Keith,” I said into the receiver, “how can I help you?”

“Its Blake,” came the reply.

“Harry I thought I told you never to call me at work,” I told him.

“Shut up and listen,” he said commandingly. “We’ve got a big problem here, and I haven’t been able to contact you until now.”

“I’m listening,” I said seriously.

“You need to drop whatever it is your doing, and get to a safe place now,” he said. “A deal was brokered last week, and the terms of the contract involve your life, you need to be some place no one can find you.”

“What kind of deal?” I asked. “And what is the ‘gang’ doing making deals like that.” I censored my speech carefully due to the fact I was still in a public area.

“They had no choice,” replied Blake. “None of us did. They effectively traded the lives on this world for yours.”

“What are you saying?”

“Keith,” he said softly. “Three weeks ago, we were contacted by representatives from your family’s home planet from a starship that had arrived in our system. They’re deal was our world for you, and the powers that be decided this was a good deal for them. We’ve been ordered to not even speak to you about…” Blake had been stopped mid sentence as the line went dead on the other end, but I had heard the keywords I needed to get moving. I dropped the handset, and leaving the tech support counter, started heading back to my department to grab my things, and take off. I stepped onto the main walkway, which was a large yellow round circle which made up a corner of the store when I heard a voice.

“May I have a moment of your time?” asked the voice. I turned to my side to see a girl that looked almost my age walk towards me. She was somewhat attractive, but the most notable feature about her was her rich, dark blue hair. Definitely not a style you saw all that often, what was strange about her though was her dark clothes. She wore mostly black, her slacks, and top looked skintight, but thicker. I looked somewhat less opposing in my khakis, and store polo shirt.

“Who are you?” I asked, forgetting all my training when dealing with customers, but I knew almost immediately that she wasn’t a customer. I sensed her in a way I had never sensed anyone before. It was like getting hit my a pillow in the face. And then, to make things worse, I sensed another.

“She’s with me,” said a more masculine voice. I turned to my right, which was the walkway back to the computer section to see a young man, also looking near my age, clad similar to her with more natural looking hair coming towards me from that direction. I suddenly had no doubts about the two beings facing me. Both of them were two people I never thought I’d encounter, and meeting me now with a presence I had first felt when I had met Shen. They were Mobiums, and they hadn’t come to this planet with my mother.

My gaze fell from him, and slowly turned back towards her as I stood motionless from where I had stopped when she first had spoke. I had no doubt as to why the two of them were here, nor the fact that they couldn’t sense the energy inside me. I knew who they were, and they had no doubt as to who I was almost from the instant they had walked into the store, but still I decided to have a little bit of fun with this situation. Slowly a cocky smile played across my face, but secretly it masked my building fear behind it. I had never faced another member of my race in full fledge combat, and I didn’t know, and even severely doubted my abilities against them. “Can I help you?”

The male spoke for the two of them as they closed the distance and now stood two feet on either side of me. His voice was soft, but audible, a rare feat of true Mobiums. “By order of General Polaris, we are to escort you to pick up site where you will be brought aboard his ship.”

“I think you have me confused with someone else,” I lied, though it was quite apparent to both of them. They exchanged glances, and then rather then replying verbally, the male switched to mental speak.

“We can do this without any form of drama, or we can take you in disabled,” he thought. “The choice is yours.”

“Do you know who I am?” I replied back in thought speak. “I’m a member of the Mobium royal family, and last time I checked, we don’t recognize your government.” I sensed shocked from the female at that mention of royal family, but the male expressed no such emotion. Instead he remained cool and confident.

“The government you have sought asylum has also surrendered you to us,” he told me. “You have no options left, so you will come with us.”

“I was not briefed about this,” thought the girl. “This was not outlined in the mission.”

“Silence,” the male replied back to his partner. “This is the intended target, and we are taking him back with us.”

“Don’t count on it,” I replied.

“If you attempt a course of flight here, these beings may harmed in pursuit of that,” threatened the male.

“Is they’re a problem over here?” came a new voice. My manager, who had been watching, came over to the three of us thinking that I was having a problem with the customers.

I turned to him slowly, part of my vision staying on the other two, and said as softly as possible, “You need to get everyone, including employees out of here immediately.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, thinking I had lost it.

“I have no time to explain,” I replied.

“You will come with us now,” said the male impatiently, and as all Mobiums due when they’re level of patience drops, and they intend to emphasize a point, his eyes flashed a whitish color.

“Go now,” I told my manager, and suddenly sprung into a defensive position.

No longer keeping his thought speech to the three of us, the male Mobium suddenly began to broadcast, and boomed in a deeper voice. “By order of the Emperor….”

“My name is Sonicus Maximus Arteurus Legali…” I echoed in defiance.

“…You are ordered to stand down, and surrender yourself…” he continued.

“…son of Terisian Arteuren Legali…” I continued.

“…or I will have to disable you and bring you in…” he continued.

“…aire to the Royal Throne of Mobius, and do not recognize your Emperor.” I finished.

“…immediately,” he ended.

“What the hell is going on?” asked my manager, who now looked like he had lost it. Suddenly Eneas appeared in the hands of both Mobium agents, and a high pitched whined filled the air as the weapons charged up. Suddenly everything became very still, and everything, even all the customers in the nearby vicinity stopped moving. If my manager was clueless before, suddenly the puzzle became clear for him. My eyes fell onto the Eneas, then back up to meet the eyes of two agents, as a world of possibilities, and options flooded into my mind. I considered portalling, but didn’t know if they could track it. Surrendering flashed briefly into my mind, but then I quickly decided against it. No this had elevated to this level to quickly, which meant there was only going to be one way out of this situation, and quickly the adrenaline my body craved began to fill my veins.

“Here we go,” I said, and in that precise instant, the two agents raised their weapons and fired. I raised a shield of mental energy in front of me, which absorbed the two bolts from the weapons, then turned the shield into an energy blast forcing it forward into the two agents. Panic erupted around me, and people flew for the exits. My manager which I had protected with the shield was gone, and everyone cleared out behind me into the emergency exit. The two agents recovered quickly though, more experience with fighting people like me then most of the opponents I had faced in the past. The male was back up first, and as he leveled his weapon, I forced it out of his hand, and then casted him back like I was tossing a ball. He flew into a cell phone display, knocking several off the rack, and falling to the floor.

The female jumped up, and rather then trying her weapon, spun around with a kick, which I reached up and blocked, and together our two mental energies clashed, until I forced her foot back, and she spun back around regaining her balance. Her fists were to come at me next, and I blocked several of the blows, and then when she left her guard open, came in with a mental blast which threw her back through the air into the battery display which she crashed into, and onto the ground. The male regained his stance, and then launched a volley of mental energy attacks at me. He blast of energy he casted at me like a wizard from fantasy novels with just a quick flick of his hand, and as they came at me, I redirected them with a wave of my hand, but one caught me off guard, and slammed into my abdomen, sending me spinning through the air, and back onto the ground.

I pushed myself off the ground, and fired a mental blast at him as I did so, but he managed to duck under it, but as he did so, he recovered his Enea, and as he came back up, he fired two bolts at me. The first I blocked, but the second slammed into me. I had been hit with bolts from Evan’s weapon before, but never without my Ranger armor, and let me tell you, they hurt. I lay there on the ground holding my side, as the male advanced towards me, and just as he was about to squeeze the trigger, another shot sounded, and a bolt struck him in the torso, forcing to the ground, and into unconsciousness. I looked over, and the female still held her Enea leveled at where her partner had been. A look of shock crossed my face as I looked up at her.

“I don’t understand,” I thought to her.

She turned, and regarded me coolly, lowering her weapon. “I did not know we were tracking down a member of the Royal Family. You have my apologies my lord. I am Lexa, a recent graduate of the Star Academy. I was a firm believer in the monarchy.”

I stood up slowly, and looked down at my tattered shirt. “You better get out of here,” I told her. “Shooting a superior officer is a grievous offense. They’ll take you out of the military for it.”

“I know,” she replied.

I looked down, and then at her fallen component. My eyes then went back up to her, and I considered my options for a moment. If she came with me, I could have better intel on the situation I was facing, and that meant being more prepared for what was going on. Without it, I might be dead in the water, or worse. “You can come with me.” She looked up curiously at me for a moment. “If you do, it means you can’t go back home.” She looked over at her fallen comrade who was beginning to stir. “You need to decide now.”

She looked back at me, and the once confident agent who once approached me now wore a look of confusion. I could see what she meant by just leaving the academy, it was clear at that point. With her hesitation though, I spooled my mental energy back up, and slowly opened a portal. I turned back to her, and motioned to the portal. “It’s now or never.” Her face changed to that of resolve, and she nodded then headed over to the portal. She stepped into it, and as she did, the faint sound of sirens could be heard in the distance. Funny, I used to chase those, and now, they were going to be chasing me.

[Angelfox]

DAAAMMMM....hell of an opening....why would the emperor come lookin for him though?? its not like he's goin back to his home planet...glad to see this fic back in action....ive looked forward to it...mad props to ya bro

[Arrow]

Very awesome intro. Looks like another killer; can't wait to see where you take this.

[JCool21c]

When i first saw this posting and started reading the description i was like "hmm, weird mixed alien situation with humans... yaawwwn" ...

UNTIL i realized it was the third story in the Guardian saga!! I instantly began reading and dude i gotta say it's phenomenal!! I love what you've done with the characters and the story all the way from the beginning! Your writing is superb and shows great attention to the character development.

I can't wait to continue reading this!!

[RedGuardianRanger]

The portal brought us out into a wooded area that was by the nearby beach. This was a place I sought refuge in sometimes to think, but it was isolated enough that no one would ever come here. I took a deep breath as the portal closed behind me, and my mind slowed down from racing with basic reactions to trying to wrap a logical mindset around the problem at hand. Fight or flight cooled down, and find myself confused for a few moments. In a matter of less than five minutes my entire world had just changed, and I hadn’t even seen it coming. Then again, the same thing had happened when Evan was struck by lightning, the only difference was it wasn’t as apparent then as it was now.

I turned my gaze to Lexa, who had taken a quick glance around at the trees, and then back to me. Surely this was not her first trip to another world, which was apparent, but there was still a glimmer in her eyes that displayed her lack of experience, but then again, I only had memories of Mobius, I had never actually seen it. Our gazes met, and for a moment I was unsure of how to proceed.

“Thank you,” I told her. “I’m aware of what you gave up to save my life.” She nodded at me slowly, as the reality of her present situation sank into her fully. “Maybe you can fill in some of the grey areas for me; like how you got here, how many ships there are, that kind of thing.”

“There is only one,” she replied in thought speak. “It is a standard exploration vessel. Six Personnel, the rest is all automated.”

“So there are only six Mobiums on board?” I asked.

“Five now,” she replied softly.

“Right,” I said. “Um, well, don’t most of the ships in the fleet carry droids too?”

“Yes,” she replied. “The ship has a compliment of three thousand standard defense droids, as well as deployment ships to match the full compliment. The main star bay holds ten defensive craft for immediate defense purposes, but the crafts possess atmospheric packages which allow them operation in atmospheres as well.”

The news was not what I wanted to hear, but better than what could be expected. “Three thousand soldiers, five commanders, and ten fighter craft…Well, I have my work cut out for me then I guess. How much do you know about the planet, and about me?”

“The regional authorities of this area have cooperated with us to the fullest extent of their abilities,” she replied in thought speak. “I did not know the specifics on your person until our paths crossed moments ago, merely that the main law body provided with a good deal of data that was only viewable by the Commander.”

“So they have everything Blake has on me since they contacted me,” I said aloud. “That’s great. Try to do someone a favor, and this is what you get.”

“Commander Polaris then compensated them with what they would perceive as advanced technology,” she continued. “However, he merely just provided them with an antiquated star drive, good for only intrasteller travel within this system, nothing that could provide us with a problem later. He also assured them that he would take no action to invade the planet, as long as you were delivered promptly.”

“Well that sounds like a good deal,” I said, switching to thought speak. “I wouldn’t be one to turn it down if it was my country on the line. One person for an entire planet.”

“Upon returning to the ship though,” she continued, “he then sent a signal back to the fleet to request additional ships on scene, including several larger capital ships.”

“Why would he do that?” I asked her. “If he was only after me he would have enough power to do that already. Unless he planned to go back on his deal and invade anyway.”

“Trius and I were dispatched to apprehend you,” she concluded. “That is all I know at this point.”

“Okay,” I said aloud slowly. “We have a ship in orbit with overwhelming numbers sent here to retrieve me, and more reinforcements on the way. On top of that, the country I am in is also committed to delivering me to them. I need to call Sean.” I took out my cell phone, and quickly punched the speed dial to his name, and hit send. Several rings later he finally picked up.

“Hello?” said his voice on the other end.

“It’s me,” I told him. “Are you at home?”

“Yeah,” he replied slowly. “What’s going on?”

“I’m opening a portal to your location,” I told him. “I need you to go through it, and meet me immediately.”

“This is kind of a bad time,” he replied. “I was about to take one my kids to soccer practice.”

“Sean,” I said. “This is a bad time in ways you cannot even begin to imagine right now. It is imperative that you do this.”

There was a pause on the other end for several moments, and then finally he responded. “Alright.” I closed my phone, and ended the call, then spooled up my mental energies and summoned a portal to Sean’s house. The portal flashed and whirled for several moments before Sean finally stepped through it, and into the forested clearing. Lexa regarded him coolly for a moment, and then looked at me. Mentally, she read as uncomfortable, but that couldn’t be helped at the moment.

“Who is this?” she thought aloud, shifting her sense which came across as pre-eminently defensive.

“Please speak aloud,” I said aloud to her so Sean could hear. “Verbal communication is the main means of communication here.”

“On this planet?” asked Sean with a good deal of confusion in his voice. “What’s going on?”

“Sean,” I said, beginning introductions. “This is Lexa. She is, well I guess at this point you could say was, in the Mobium Star Force.”

“Are you telling me she is another Mobium?” he asked. I quickly explained to him what had just happened as well as what Lexa had just told me about the forces that now faced me in opposition. Sean took it all in stride, and slowly went over it all in his own head.

“So,” I stated, “basically what it all means is that I now have two armies after me; the law enforcement of the planet Earth, and a robotic army sitting in orbit.”

“But why?” asked Sean. “I mean, what reason would the Mobiums have to come after you at all? All this time, your family has been removed from their civilization, why would they finally arrive like this, and try and take you in?”

“The Emperor probably wants to cement the deal,” I said. “That way he can insure his continued reign.”

“There has been several acts of civil disobedience on some of the outer worlds,” said Lexa aloud, the first thing she had said since Sean arrived.

“What do you mean?” I asked her.

“Recently, the Empire has been pursuing more aggressive policy when it comes to the stars,” she said. “We have been expanding, sometimes at the cost of civilizations that were already present on these planets. Some people feel that the size of the Empire was adequate before, and that this expansion is unnecessary.”

“And the Emperor must be afraid that if they find someone like Keith, he could be an icon for the opposition movement,” said Sean. “They went you dead before you cause a problem, or at least have the chance too.”

“Wonderful,” I said. “I’m going to be killed for minding my own business.”

“Mobiums, do not kill other Mobiums,” said Lexa. “Placed in custody perhaps, but you would not be harmed.”

“Are you sure of that?” I asked her.

“Yes, of course,” she said. “It is one of our core laws.”

“Things change,” I told her.

“Not this,” she said. “This is one of our most sacred laws. Not even during the civil war were Mobiums killed.”

“And you think when the ships guarding Mobius were destroyed, the operators on board did not perish?” I asked her. “Mobiums do not openly kill Mobiums, but it does happen.” She remained quiet for several moments. She already knew this, but it was the legacy of socialization process of growing up in Mobium culture that made her defend her culture. The Mobium culture for all its moral upholding had its flaws, just like any other. Murder didn’t exist, in any form, but that didn’t mean that Mobiums couldn’t perish in wars, or other instances by the hands of other Mobiums. Maintaining order always comes with a large price.

“There is one other thing,” she said, regaining her composure. “It’s about Commander Polaris.”

“What about him?” I asked her.

“Commander Polaris was a disciple of Harabec Storm, the Supreme Commander of the Fleet,” she told us. “Polaris is the next step in the chain of command, which means not only is he a skilled leader, but a talented warrior too.”

“Oh, shit,” I said.

“What?” asked Sean.

“Harabec Storm was one of the initial members of the prototype armor program,” I explained. “He was roughly the equivalent of a Colonel in the Star Force when my family was exiled, but before he betrayed my family, he was the leader of the Royal Guard who was outfitted with the armor. The same armor I use in Guardian Mode.”

“So what you’re saying is….” Sean started.

“…Is that Harabec Storm was the first ‘Power Ranger’ by our definition of the term,” I concluded. “And the being who is trying to ‘apprehend’ me is his protégé.”

“Huh,” said Sean, taking a moment to fully realize the situation. “We’re screwed.”

“Yup,” I responded, smiling. “In a way, we have never been before.”

“What do you want to do?” asked Sean seriously.

I sighed, and took several steps towards the forest clearing, forcing my hands into the pockets of khakis. It was a warm day, and the sky held a good deal of clouds, with sun peeking out every now and then. Didn’t this thing usually happen with dark clouds, and no light, or at night perhaps? We were discussing a situation that was most certainly going to result in my death, and I was bathing in a ray of sun at the moment. I chuckled softly to myself, and then turned back to face the others. “We’re going to have to do what we always do. I don’t think I can give up without a fight.”

“You are vast outnumbered,” said Lexa. “And reinforcements are on the way. There is no telling how soon they will be here.”

“We’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it,” I told her. “At the moment, we have to deal with the conflict at hand, and that’s the ship sitting in orbit.”

“Hang on just a moment,” said Sean. “I can’t just dive back into this. I have a family I have to take care of, and if we are facing invasion then I need to look to them first, before I can even begin to consider helping you.”

“Sean, they have my file,” I told him. “This means that they know who you, and your family are, and if they can’t get me, they’re going to go after the people I care about first, and you’re going to head the list.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” he asked. “Which is why I have to start now.”

“Sean listen to me,” I told him. “Get your family together, and all the equipment you have from before, and we’ll all relocate somewhere.”

“What are you going to do create a command center in the middle of nowhere?” he asked.

“If I have to,” I told him. “But now, let’s tend to your family.” Our conversation was interrupted as over head there was a loud crash as two craft raced overhead.

“What was that?” asked Sean.

“Personnel Transports,” announced Lexa. “They most likely tapped into your communication device.”

“Great,” I said over the building sound of a hovering craft. The brush around me kicked up as the wash from a craft above centered over us. “Sean, get moving, Lexa go with him. I’m charging you with his protection.”

She looked at me skeptically for several moments, almost if she was unsure whether or not to follow me command. I opened a portal to where Sean had come from, and at the same instant a large door above me opened in the craft. Instantly objects were discharged from the craft like bullets from a gun, and they fell about us in a circle, as another object slowly descended from the craft.

<Track Insert – Pat Benatar “Invincible”>

“Go now,” I shouted at Sean. Wasting no time he stepped into the portal, and Lexa followed behind him reluctantly. I turned to see that the objects that had fallen were actually Mobium Battle Droids, robots that looked like a cross between the robots from the Terminator movies, and the regular solider droids from recent Star Wars movies. Landing in front of me, the object turned out to be the Mobium I had faced in the store before. He looked different now, clad in grayish battle armor that had a futuristic twist to it. Slowly around me the droids came to life, and I took up defensive position in response.

“You are ordered to stand down now,” said Trius, who was beginning to sound like a broken record. You ever get that sinking feeling? This was the moment when everything started closing in around me. “We will open fire.” At his side, his Enea appeared again, and the high pitched whine indicated he had charged it up, ready to release a volley at me. His droids were keyed into his mental signature, and he only need to think the order for the droids to comply, so I knew the moment he tried to attack, so would the rest.

“Emergency Power,” I said aloud, my Power Lens reacting by charging up, and glowing as the grid began to flow through it. The only problem was that with emergency, I wouldn’t be able to activate the Guardian Armor, I would have to rely solely on the regular Ranger Armor for this task. I had no idea how I would stack up against these forces, especially against Trius, but I was about to find out.

Trius sensed the growing energy of my lens, and though I doubted he knew what was happening he was cautious enough to be on guard, and leveled his weapon at me, dropping into a defensive position as he did. The droids matched his move with their arms pointed towards me, an energy weapon mounted on their wrists. The situation was tense, and I knew I only had to go through my usual morphing sequence to set everything off, and have a volley of shots fly in my direction. And if you don’t know what I was going to next, you should probably go back and read the last story.

“Ranger Form, ENERGIZE!” I cried, slamming my fingers on to my lens. Instantly volley of energy bolts tore across the clearing towards me. In half morph, I pushed myself off the ground with my mind, flinging myself into the air, leaving the bolts to impact on the ground flinging up a small dust cloud. The morph completed in mid-air, and I pulled my Enea from its holster, charging it up, and setting it to the highest discharge mode. I fired it at the targets below, aiming for droid, and droid commander alike, hoping the bolts would find their marks, as I let the mental energy subside, and I fell back to the ground. Igniting my Psy Saber in my off hand, I charged forward at the nearest droid, slicing up wards, and as my body came around as the blade went through the droid, I leveled my blaster at the next closest droids torso, and fired, putting a hole through it. Leaving the weapons suspended in mid air with my mind, I let my grasp on them go, only to grab them again with the opposite hand from before. Bringing them back across my body, I again leveled them out. Bolts again tore towards me across from the clearing as the droids closed in around me, and I dropped to the ground below as they screeched over my head.

I spun around slashing the legs of two of the closing droids, and sending their torsos to the ground, and standing up forcing a mental shield up around me, which immediately absorbed bolt after bolt of weapons fire. The weapons fire though drained me as each hit impacted on the shield, causing me to reinforce it. I couldn’t stay like this for a long time. So I dropped the shield, and charged the closest droid. Leaping into the air I sliced him down the center, and then as I went to spin around and take another horizontally across the torso, a bolt of energy hit me from behind, and I fell forward. The droid I was going to attack, back handed me, and sent me careening into the air, until I landed back into the circle I had created before. Again the droids opened up with weapons fire, and using the strength I had left, I put up another shield, but again it weakened fast. Trius was obviously experienced in combat, and being a Mobium he understood what it took to wear one down, something I wasn’t used to with my human opponents. As the shield weakened I began to feel the impact of the bolts on my own skin like they were hitting me, and as the shield grew weaker, the impacts began to produce pain. Finally I cried out in pain, and leapt into the air, the shield gone. The droids reaction time was faster though, and bolts slammed into my chest plate forcing me to fall to the ground, and around me my armor began to loose cohesion until it practically evaporated off of me, rather painfully I might add. Summoning up all last bits of energy I opened a portal beneath me, and fell into it.

I literally fell through the world, and then through the floorboards as the portal opened in the ceiling of Sean’s basement which caused me to fall onto his cement floor. I let out a gasp of pain, and instantly hands were on me helping me up. Pain came from every part of me, and a simple lifting of my shirt revealed a great deal of bruises.

“I’ve never taken a beating like that before, not even from Evan,” I told Sean, who had been the one to pick me up. His gear looked like it was ready to assemble, and there was even a packed bag or two. Sean’s foster children which were only several years younger than me were gathered around sitting on furniture on the ground floor, and Lexa was floating nearby, her gaze casted out from the subterranean windows of the basement.

“How many did you get before they took you down?” asked Sean.

“Four or five droids at most,” I said softly, and then moved over towards the sofa across from his foster kids who were silent. “I need to rest if I’m going to port all this at once.”

“Have you figured out where we’re going to go?” asked Sean.

“There’s an abandoned factory on the outskirts of Wilmington with an old office loft,” I told him. “I thought we’d start there.”

“Sounds roomy,” said Sean sarcastically.

“Where is your wife?” I asked him.

“Gathering up the last of the necessities upstairs,” he replied.

I nodded even though his back was turned to me, and looked to his kids, “I’m sorry about this.” They merely nodded back, seeming somewhat unemotional in the process. I guess in a way they were used to moving a lot, which sounds bad, but it was true in all reality I guess. I looked up to Lexa and considered her situation for a moment. She was on an alien planet, with alien people, caught up in something because she had made a simple choice about what she was going to do, and that choice separated her from everything she knew. I wondered if she was reconsidering her views on life at that moment. Honestly though, and I didn’t know if I could trust her, and part of me considered leaving her behind to fend for herself, just so she couldn’t give away the location of where we ended up. But at the same time she did end her career, as well as any chance of going back to her home to save my life, and that concept hadn’t been lost on me.

“I’m almost ready,” announced Sean.

He was immediately followed by his wife who had a half packed bag coming down the stairs. “Sean, two dark vehicles just pulled up outside.”

“You’re down now,” I said standing up. “Lexa could you put a shield up at the door to the basement while I open a portal.”

“Affirmative,” she said, walking over to the doorway, and casting a mental field about it.

“No rest for the weary,” I said, as I began to spool up my mental energy. Slowly a portal formed, and Sean went through first, followed by the rest of his family. I raised the equipment he had made ready, and slowly mentally carried it through the portal using my telekinesis. Once everything was through, I looked back to Lexa, and for a moment considered leaving her. “Lexa, you’re next.” Without a word she dropped the mental shield, and proceeded through the portal, as the door above the stairs burst open. I could see the shoes of the approaching persons as I stepped through the portal, and sealed it behind me.

Night fell about us. I had gone back to Sean’s house, as well as my apartment when I thought the coast was clear, and borrowed several appliances which we placed in the upstairs loft, which had some basic remodeling done to make into a habitable living space. Below the loft, we stored the equipment, and Sean had spent most of the later afternoon, setting it back up. I had managed to get access to the power grid, so we had everything going, and this far west outside of town, no one would ever really stumble upon us, or the power, unless they were looking for it. As Sean’s wife tended to the kids in the loft, and Sean worked on the equipment, I suddenly found myself without a task to complete, and realized that Lexa was no longer present. I walked towards the open door, and found Lexa perched against the wall of the former factory. Her gaze was to the sky, and in the darkness I could barely make her out. She was attractive, especially by Mobium standards. Her face was very attractive by human standards, but some of her Mobium features would cause her to stand out in a crowd. Her eyes or rather her pupils were light orange, and her dark blue hair seemed a little bit lighter now, and she wore it in a ponytail, a style very common among Mobiums, it wasn’t just a human thing.

“How are you doing?” I asked her.

“I have had better experiences in my life that I enjoyed more,” she replied.

“Me too,” I countered.

“If you had informed me when I awoke from my sleep cycle that I would be aiding a member of the Mobium Royal Family by night fall, I would have believed you to be deceitful,” she stated. “Yet, here I am.”

I slowly leaned up against to the factory wall next to hear, and relaxed. I could feel the aches in all my joints, not to mention all the bruising from both encounters earlier today. “The universe puts us in strange circumstances sometimes.”

“Would you be willing to answer an enquiry from me?” she asked me.

“Lexa, please,” I told her. “I’m not a prince; you do not need to be so formal with me. Right now I’m just guy on the run for his life right now. We can put formalities aside.”

“If you desire,” she said.

“What’s your question?” I asked her, knowing that that statement might have fallen on deaf ears.

“Your unique ability,” she stated, “how did you learn about it? It seems to me that it is not like other abilities I have encountered that would easily be ascertained so quickly.”

I laughed, remembering the first time I had portaled, and how much of a shock it had been. My laugh though caused her to flinch, and I could sense she was embarrassed, and I realized that she probably thought she was being to forward. “I uh, I was training once, and I fell towards my back, and I knew it was going to hurt a little, and I was thinking about not wanting to hit the ground, and I fell through, and suddenly I wound up in my dorm room at school, half way across the campus.”

“I see,” she said nervously.

“So what is your unique ability, as long as we are being candid?” I asked her. She laughed nervously, and then slowly her hair began to change colors, from a light blue to a purplish hue to an orange color that almost matched her eye color. “That is neat.”

“Neat?” she asked, unfamiliar with the human slang term.

“Interesting,” I corrected myself.

“I am grateful for your opinion,” she said.

“Sort of like a mood ring,” I stated.

“What is a mood ring?” she asked looking at me curiously.

“Never mind,” I said realizing that could take a little explaining. “I am going to go see how Sean is doing.”

“Very well,” she said, and returned her gaze to the heavens above.

I walked back into the factory. Sean had gotten the florescent bulb above to work, and his area was now lit. One of the monitors was alive, and displaying statistics and everything that was part of the normal grid readout. Sean was punching several commands into his keyboard, and the screen would change displays.

“Are you back up?” I asked him.

“Almost, though it’s been a little while since I’ve done this,” he replied.

“I have supreme faith in your abilities,” I told him. “You’ve never let me down before.”

“Have you given thought to you’re next course of action?” he asked me.

“Trying to,” I replied. “I’m still reeling from the beating I took today.”

“Yeah,” he said. “They got you pretty good. It looks to me like you could use a little help.”

“Well who should I go to?” I asked him. “All my former resources are kind of against me now. I’m pretty sure those were Blake’s guys at your door today.”

“He tried to warn you though,” said Sean. “Chances are he’s still on your side, he’s just trying to do his job. But that’s not what I’m talking about.”

“What are you talking about then?” I said leaning on the makeshift desk of plywood next to him.

“The same thing I’m always talking about,” he said turning to face me. “And now I mean it more then ever.”

“Not again Sean,” I said pushing off the desk and sighing. Crossing my arms I stood with my back to him.

“Keith, in normal ranger mode you’re only using 17% of the grid,” he said. “That means the grid can support at least four more rangers, maybe even five if I make some modifications, or fine tune the others.”

“If we’re going to stop these guys, we’re going to need the Guardian Armor, and I need 100% of the grid for that, you know that,” I told him.

“You can’t take them on, by yourself,” he replied. “One against three thousand doesn’t work anyway you try and calculate it man.”

“And five against three thousand does?” I asked him sarcastically.

“It’s a lot better odds then one,” he said.

“I’m not putting anyone else in danger,” I told him. “And that’s final.”

“Well if you haven’t noticed,” he said. “We’re all in danger; every last one of us on this planet. Now in case you haven’t noticed, Polaris is ordering reinforcements, enough to take this planet, and I don’t know about you, but I’m willing to bet a lot of people are going to be willing to fight for that freedom, no matter what the cost. This isn’t you’re little war with Evan anymore, this much bigger, and this entire world’s fate rests on you pulling your thumb out of your ass, and getting your act together.”

“Been rehearsing that some?” I asked coolly.

“A little,” he admitted quickly.

“It was good,” I said complimenting him.

“I got a little time in front of a mirror earlier,” he explained.

“Sean, more Rangers mean more potential families who are danger if we go up against Polaris,” I told him.

“No more Rangers means he wins,” said Sean, “without a doubt. You’re good Keith, but you’re not good enough alone.”

I sighed softly, and turned back around to face him. Reluctantly I began, “It’s going to take time to make more Lenses. It wasn’t exactly a seven days kind of thing like creation, its more like building a light saber in Star Wars. It takes time.”

“Well until you make a move, or they find us, that is all we have,” he told me.

“We’ll have to be careful who we choose too,” I said. “You don’t really know someone until they have power in their hands. I’m pretty sure Evan taught us that lesson the hard way.” There was a motion to my right, and Lexa stood at the edge of the doorway looking in towards us.

“I can think of one trustworthy candidate already,” said Sean.

“Yeah,” I replied less than enthusiastically. “I guess so.”

[Angelfox]

Nice....very nice

[JCool21c]

I like how it's progressing, good STORY!!

[RedGuardianRanger]

Alright, so let’s review. I’ve been shot, beaten, and nearly rested, and now I’ve left everything behind to live with a family of four, and a former Mobium Star Force officer, in a burned out old factory, and all of that in just the span of a day. Are we all caught up now? Good. What were we talking about? Oh right, expanding the family. Well, what happened next was going to take some time, which I had said before. Making Power Lenses is a lot like developing photographs. It meant spending a good deal of time around strange chemicals, and in the dark, and a lot of it can be guess work. You see, building one for another Mobium was easy, I merely had to reproduce what I had already in my Power Lens, but if I was to build them for humans, the design would require modification. First, humans don’t have the ability to mentally connect as well as Mobiums do. The first thing to go would have to be the mental radio, and then the mental commands, which meant that the jewel would have to be more sensitive to voice commands, and touch which were the major ways that humans would be able to interact with any device they were using. The second was in designing the armor itself. When I started off, I outfitted myself with the traditional weapons that I had in memory from my other. If you asked Lexa what weapons she had been trained with the most, the Enea, and Psy Saber would come up the most, though she would call the Psy Saber something else. The true name has always alluded me, mostly because I think my mother forgot it having not being trained in it herself.

Things were different though. If I was going to create a team then each member of that team was going to have to serve a tactical purpose, and their weapons would have to reflect their roles, as well as their strengths, which meant that I had to know who I was going to go with, before I developed the lens. Making all four Power Lenses at once, for Sean was confident that four would be capable of doing, while the fifth was still a little shaky, would be a difficult thing. We knew we were going to use Lexa as one of the Rangers, because she had the training, she had the commitment, and…she was there. So like I said before, creating hers would be easy, except for the part of the weapon. I was pretty confident who the second Ranger would be, actually always knew who the second Ranger would be, so that would technically make him the first, but getting to him without alert the feds was going to be a little difficult. He was no doubt under surveillance, and if I used him, it would definitely put his family at risked if I tapped him into play. Needless to say though, Sean and I, as a team, sat down and made the decision. And so, with the decision made, it merely lay up to me to find a way to contact him. But first, I needed to go check on someone else.

I stood in front of a brick building, and in front of me was a conifer hedge that kept its green throughout the year. Around me students walked, still wearing heavy jackets, for the winters in the mid-west were quite chilly. I remained stationary though, for as I was surrounded by many different people, only one person really caught my eye, and that was the girl that was walking across the other side of the courtyard from me. Though there was no way she would recognize me, or remember who I was, I couldn’t forget her. Every so often she would cross my mind, so I found myself here several times before, watching her for but an instant, remembering what it was like to feel her presence nearby, and remembering the way things used to be, before everything changed. Since my average appearance was usually unnoticed, I would never stand out in the crowd at all, which is the way I liked it.

The sun would occasionally strike her hair and light up in a brilliant radiance, and when it did I found myself blinded for an instant by just staring at her. But she wasn’t the same girl I had known, there was no way she could be. When you remove a person entirely, make it seem like they never exist then you remove the effect they had on that persons life. Sometimes its subtle, a line of thinking they didn’t have before, a perspective changed, a view, a different way of looking something. When you erase four years of memory from someone, they become someone completely different though, especially if they were close to you in the first place. If I had talked to her now, she wouldn’t be the same person I could of met when we were both freshman in high school. The girl I had cared about, the girl I had loved was gone, and further more she been removed by my own hand, but hopefully this meant that her life would be better.

Unless I failed that is. Then it wouldn’t of mattered if she remembered or not, because the whole world was to be doomed, her life included. What kind of happiness would she have enjoyed under the control of an alien species? Lexa had said it herself. The Empire was expanding, sometimes at the cost of the original inhabitants of the world. They may just exert a political influence if they came to the planet, or they would end up enslaving the world, or exterminating its people. Either way, the future wasn’t exactly promising one way or the other.

“I’ve seen you here before,” said a voice to my right. I turned slowly to the right to see someone standing there. She was probably five and half feet. She was attractive with a slim figure, part of which she was willing to display even in the colder weather with the skintight jeans, and the top revealing her midriff, and hint of cleavage. The most notable feature though was her mane of wavy blonde hair that fell just past her shoulders. Her face was soft, with high cheekbones, and a small nose, and she sported a pair of hazel eyes that seemed fitting with her tannish skin. An average looking coed if she had been in Wilmington, which was a beach party school town, but she was probably over the top here in the Mid-West. Here presence though indicated that I failed in my attempt to blend into the crowd around me. I turned away from her, and looked back towards my original purpose. She followed my gaze, and approached me further. “That’s a pretty girl over there. She know you’re into her?”

“There is no way she ever could,” I said softly, keeping a mental track of this girl in case she turned out to be threatening in some way.

“Maybe you should go talk to her,” she continued as she stopped several feet from my side. She straightened her backpack, whose straps went over a heavy jacket that she left unzipped.

“If it was only that easy,” I said.

“It is with some girls,” she stated. “They like the straight forwardness.”

“Not in this situation,” I said, watching as she disappeared slowly away behind the bend of a building.

“Some girls do get turned off by the whole stalker thing though,” continued the girl next to me.

I sighed, and turned towards the person talking to me. “Yeah, so I hear.”

“Then why do you do it?” she asked, a smile playing across her lips now that she had my full attention.

“It’s a long story,” I said stepping past her. Slowly I walked away from her, but she turned around to watch me go, and wasn’t done quite yet.

“My name is Colleen by the way,” she called out.

I stopped and shook my head, and turned around to look back at her, “Keith,” I said simply.

“Nice to meet you,” she said.

I laughed, well more of a chuckled, “You have no idea how many people have regretted saying that to me now.” She gave me a confused look, but slowly melted into a smile, almost a mischievous one. The look concerned me, and at the same time seemed somewhat familiar, like I had seen it a long time ago, but couldn’t remember where. I shook my head at her, and turned and walked away, set on not worrying about her, hoping she wouldn’t have to run into me again.

So the first batch of Lenses had been done, but I still had to convince the other ‘prospective’ Ranger to join the team, something I wasn’t really too thrilled about doing, so I figured it would have to be something I did with Sean. The trick though would be getting to him, because he probably had surveillance around him at all times. We knew using Mobium technology they could trace my phone, but thankfully there was still the pay phone option. Meeting him person was totally out of the question due to the surveillance that he was probably unaware of himself, so the idea would be to get him to step through a portal and bring him here. The way to do that would have to be timing, and the only location I could portal to around him, was his room. We decided to wait until late at night, when we were sure he was in his home, before I placed the call. I stood next to a pay phone in another state, nearby South Carolina to be precise, and placed the call. I decided to do a double portal hop, just in case they had a way to instantly track the call now.

Slowly the line on the other end rang several times, and for several moments I was concerned he wouldn’t pick up.

“Hello?” came his voice on the other end after about the sixth ring. I released a sigh of relief, and then began.

“I’m going to talk fast, are you alone?” I asked him.

“Yeah,” he said, “but what’s going…”

“I’ll answer your questions soon, but you need to stand away from the center of your room, I’m going to open a portal, and I need you to go through it,” I told him.

“Well listen…” he interjected, but I didn’t have anytime to waste.

“I need you to do this now,” I told him. I hung up the phone, and slowly spooled up my mental energies, focusing on where I had been, and where I was now. Slowly the portal opened, a bluish rift in the space next to me. Several moments passed, and I feared he had changed his mind, but then slowly Matt emerged from the portal.

“So what’s the big deal?” he asked. Ignoring him, not out of disrespect, but out of desperation for time, I focus on creating another portal, and again a new rift opened in front of us.

“Let’s go,” I told him.

“Where are we….” He said, but was cut off as I pushed him through rather forcefully. I followed behind, and the two of us emerged into are much more well kept area. I had managed to ‘borrow’ some building supplies from around the country, and over the last week as I had designed the new Power Lenses, Sean had been hard at work. The main computer area that had been Plywood, and rather opened before, now had a bit of a roomer feel as it was sealed off with drywall, and the lights in it had been dimmed from the fluorescent to track lighting over head. The floor was carpeted, and the computer system rested on a proper steel surface. I even rounded up a nice looking executive chair for Sean. The place looked like a cross between Mission Control from all the movies about the space program, and a board room at a high corporate office. Sean had worked wonders on the living area above too, but that’s a story for another time. Now he sat in the previously mentioned chair, while Lexa was sitting up on one of the counters. Matt looked around rather confused. Where the portal had been before was now a bare wall, and the only exit to the room was a door way casting light in from the old factory floor. Slowly he took in his surroundings before he turned back to me. “What’s going on? Do you have any idea who is after you? Feds, and not the friendly kind like Blake have been questioning me.”

“I know,” I replied. “I know everything.”

“So what’s going on?” he asked me again.

“We’re in trouble,” explained Sean. “Buzz Lightyear here has gone and screwed us all over.”

“I figured,” said Matt, turning towards Sean.

“My people are here,” I told him seriously, and motioned to Lexa. He turned to look at her, and she met his gaze with those brilliant orange eyes of hers.

“And they want you?” he asked, turning back to me, putting a piece of the puzzle together.

“That’s the story they’re giving to the powers that be here on Earth,” added Sean. “But it’s not the whole story.”

“After they have me, it seems they plan to take the planet,” I told him. “And Lexa here seems to believe to make sure it’s vacant when they do.”

“I thought they were a little more friendly then that?” Matt asked me.

“New Management,” I replied.

Matt sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. He paced over to the counter that held the terminals, and propped himself against it, slowly folding his arms across his chest. He was a hair shorter than I with the exact same build, skin color, and hair color. We had been confused for brothers when were growing up, and now I was about to ask him to take the on responsibility of a brother, only a brother in arms. His gaze had been on the floor as he thought, but now it came up to me. “So why am I here?”

“I’m not one to sit idly by while something like this happens,” I replied.

“Then why aren’t you out there doing something about it now?” asked Matt. “I’ve seen your super powers, I know you can handle a good deal.”

“Not this,” said Sean, “not by himself at least. We need your help.”

“My help?” he asked. “According to you guys, the world is on the eve of an invasion from an alien race, and we have their royalty standing here in front of us, the only person capable of stopping them, and you’re asking for my help? What can I do, I don’t have special powers?”

“You could,” I told him seriously. He paused for a moment looking at me in a confused manner as he did.

“Wait,” he said, “what are we talking about?”

“We’re asking you,” said Sean slowly, “to take on the responsibility of defending your planet from an invading force of aliens, and if you take on that responsibility we’ll grant the ability to make sure you at least stand some sort of chance.”

“Are you saying you want me to become,” said Matt, pausing for a moment, and allowing the statement to stick in his mind, “a Power Ranger?”

I cleared my throat, and looked at him seriously for a moment. I didn’t think a simple yes was going to cover the answer, so I decided on something a little more informative. “The Blue Ranger to be exact.”

“Okay, I must be dreaming,” he said, rolling his eyes. “There has to be someone more qualified then me. What about that military guy you worked with before, or Peter, or Shen. I mean come on Shen is another Mobium, with you, and him, and her,” he said motioning to Lexa, “you guys would be all set.”

“Well we can’t get them, only you,” I told him.

“Oh good, I guess that makes me like what the third choice?” he asked sarcastically.

“Fourth,” corrected Lexa seriously. I looked to her, and shook my head, she rolled her eyes at me, and turned away.

“I trust you man,” I told him. “How long have we been together? How long have we known each other? I wouldn’t ask you to do this, if I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“Oh man,” said Matt, folding his hands into face. Slowly his hands moved down his face and then folded in front of him, covering his mouth. “This is nuts.”

“I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but you’re in this now,” I told him. “The entire world is in this now. Wouldn’t you at least like the chance to stand up and fight?”

He sighed, and then dropped his hands to his side, “I’ve been in this since you told me about your powers.” He sighed again, and I could read that he was still debating it in his mind, though resolve seemed to be boiling to the surface. “But you’re right; I’d like a chance to fight back, so let’s sign me up, and break out the Blue spandex.”

I laughed, and smiled, and then turned to Sean who had a grin on face. “Let’s get this show on the road.” I walked over next to him, and opened a metal case that had been lying next to him. I had a bit a flare for the dramatic every now and then, and instead of just leaving the Lenses out, I kept them sealed in a box. Both of the bands now rested on a foam surface, and I slowly pulled each one from their storage spot. I handed one to Lexa first, and then the other over to Matt. “Put them on your left wrist, like mine.” I held up my wrist to illustrate, and slowly the two of them placed them on their wrists.

“Hey, should this be blue?” Matt said pointing at the clear jewel on his Lens. “I mean yours is red right?”

“We haven’t coded the Lens to your DNA yet,” I told him. “Think of these like blank CDs, they need to be written to first.” He nodded in understanding, and then I looked to Sean, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Alright, let’s power up Lexa first.”

“Activating scanning program,” replied Sean, and punched several commands into the computer. The clear jewel on Lexa’s Power Lens began to glow for a moment, and then its hue changed color to that of a more yellowish hue, followed by a flash that polarized the entire jewel to that color. “Lexa’s DNA has been encoded.”

“I can sense access to the device mentally,” she reported.

“Initiating soft morph,” continued Sean. A bright yellow flash covered Lexa’s body, and then just as quickly as it appeared, it disappeared leaving Lexa in a suit of armor identical to my own normal Ranger armor, except the red had been replaced by yellow. Slowly she reached up to the helmet, and felt for the clasps. She released them, and slowly pulled her helmet off, her hair falling down about her shoulders. She looked down at her armor in a curios gaze.

“I can not believe my eyes,” she said. “Royal Guard Armor. Commander Storm is believed to be the only one left with access to this armor.”

“Well you just hit the jackpot,” I told her, “because now you’re the third Mobium with access to it. This is a soft morph. The only thing you have access to is the armor. In normal mode, you’ll have access to your armor, as well as your weapons.” My statements though were most likely lost on deaf ears as she slowly examined her armor.

“Results look good,” reported Sean. “Deactivating soft morph.” Around her, her armor faded, as well as the helmet she held in her hands, and again she was left in the clothes she had been wearing before. A hint of a smile played across her face, the first I had seen since I met her. Grinning, I turned to Matt.

“You ready try this?” I asked him.

“Yeah,” he said, “looks like a piece of cake.”

“Actually,” said Sean. “We’ve never used it with humans before.”

“What?” was Matt’s only reply, and albeit quite a shocked one. “What do you mean ‘we’ve’ never tested it with humans before? What about Keith?”

“My Lens works more with my Mobium physiology more than it works with my human physiology, so powering up Lexa was standard operating procedure, we’ve done it many times before,” I explained. “With yours we had to make some modifications to the system.”

“Is it safe?” he asked me.

Sean looked at me questioningly for a moment, and then back at Matt. “We’re pretty sure.”

“Great,” said Matt sarcastically. “Alright, let’s do this.”

“Activating scanning program,” said Sean. Again the computer sent commands to the Lens, and we watched as the jewel on Matt’s Power Lens began to glow, then slowly it turned a bluish hue.

“Ow!” said Matt suddenly. “It’s starting to sting.” Before I could say anything though, there was a flash, and the jewel was polarized to the same bluish hue.

“Matt’s DNA has been encoded,” reported Sean.

“Does it still hurt bro?” I asked Matt.

“No,” he said rubbing his wrist, “but it sure did for a moment.”

“Maybe we should go over everything again before we go to soft morph,” said Sean. “The pain could be an indicator of a problem.”

“No it’s okay,” said Matt. “Let’s just get this over with.”

I looked at him for a few moments, considering what they had both said, but quickly reached a decision. “Let’s continue.”

“Initiating soft morph,” reported Sean, as he punched in commands through his keyboard. The jewel flashed and Matt’s body was covered with blue. Suddenly though, Matt cried out in pain, and there was a burst of energy which threw him backwards into the wall the counter had been drilled into. He fell onto the counter, and just as he was about to slide off, I caught him.

“LEXA!” I cried, and she rushed over to help me. We pulled him off the counter, and slowly onto the floor. “He doesn’t have a pulse.”

“Get out of the way,” cried Sean, “I know CPR.” Carefully, he checked to see if Matt was breathing, and then placing his hands on top of each other upon Matt’s chest he pumped downwards. For several moments Lexa and I watched as Sean pumped vigorously to try and revive and Matt, and then suddenly the weight of the moment was lifted, and Matt started coughing, sitting up slowly. “Easy. Take it easy.”

“Are you alright?” I asked Matt. He nodded his head up and down slowly, but continued coughing. His breathing was heavy for several moments before he finally managed to speak.

“What happened?” he manage to squeak out. I looked at Sean, who slowly stood up, and went over to the Computer Terminal. Standing he punched in a few commands trying to ascertain the problem.

“It might take us a few minutes to figure that out buddy,” I told him. “Why don’t you relax there.” He nodded at me, and I turned back to Sean.

“The DNA Lock was triggered,” said Sean. “The Lens encoded the DNA correctly, but only detected twenty three pairs of chromosomes. The morphing program was looking for twenty six pairs of pairs, and when it didn’t detect three it was looking for, it enabled the security feature.”

“Damnit,” I yelled, and then sighed, stepping away from the console, and turning back to Sean. “I designed that feature to make sure my powers never fell into the wrong hands. How could this have happened? I rewrote the program to accept human DNA, I even changed the variables for only twenty three pairs. It should’ve worked.”

“What does it mean?” said Matt hoarsely, as he slowly tried to stand up. Lexa forced back to the ground, and shook her head.

“Do not attempt to stand yet,” she told him. He looked at her reluctantly, but did as he was told, and sat on the ground.

“It means its going to be a little while longer before I can put you in the game buddy,” I explained. Feeling another fit of anger well up, I slammed my first onto the counter next to Sean’s keyboard. “It’ll probably take me another week to isolate the problem.”

“Relax,” said Sean. “If there is a problem we will find it.”

“We don’t have time for these kinds of simple errors,” I exclaimed, “the fleet could be in orbit any day now.” I swung around, and sweeping my hand out in front of me forced a stack of paper into the air, scattering them all across the room.

“Alright,” said Sean. “Why don’t you go outside before you wreck the entire lab.” He started ushering me towards the exit, and gave me a rough but polite shove out of the entryway onto the factory floor. I sighed deeply upon being exposed to the lack of light, but instead found my gaze drawn to the doorway. Slowly I made my way over to it, and found myself underneath the sky gazing upwards.

Part of me was hoping to find main a glimpse of the ship in orbit, sort of like seeing the International Space Station from Earth. I could see the stars spread out well in this light being that there wasn’t a lot of light pollution around this part of the country. I found myself gazing in the direction of Mobius, or at least the star it orbited. The star hadn’t been visible from the planet for sometime, being shrouded by the light from the galactic core. I leaned up against the building’s structure, and for a moment tried to lose myself in the stars above. Inside though I though about how close we had come to first causality, and we hadn’t even gone into the battle for the first time. It was stupid error on my part that almost ended the life of one of the teammates, something I had worried about from the beginning.

“It was not your fault,” came a voice from the doorway to the factory. Slowly Lexa came into view from the side, her hand resting softly on the doorway edge.

“You must not have been paying attention back there,” I told her. “It kind of was.”

“It was an accident,” she told me. “They occur for everyone. You must not blame yourself for what has transpired.”

“Matt’s life almost ended,” I told her, “and all because I forgot to carry a two or some stupid shit.”

“At the Star Academy, the instructors tell us of a story that transpired between two mechanics who were often in competition,” she said. “And then a war broke, and the mechanics were moved to the front lines to maintain defensive star craft. Well the two competed even then. They strove to ascertain which was capable of repairing a craft the quickest, and redeploying it. Despite the fact that they were both masters of their trade, in their rush to claim the best record, they both became blinded by their competition, and on the same flight, two crafts, one repaired by these beings each became disabled and both of the pilots were killed.”

“So what you’re trying to tell me is I screwed up because I rushed?” I asked her.

“When pressed at their hearing as to how something so trivial could happen to such beings who were so highly skilled at their occupations,” she continued, “do you know what they told the Judicator?”

“What?” I asked her, playing along.

“One of them explained simply that he was merely attempting to achieve the best he could,” she concluded. “None of us are perfect your majesty; we are all bound to error at some random time.”

“Yeah,” I said. She leaned up against the building and looked up at the stars. “And what did I tell you about being formal?”

“My training dictates that I acknowledge your proper stature,” she explained. “I cannot change who I am, or how I was trained.”

“But you can learn,” I said, turning towards her. “The Star Kingdom has fallen, and the Empire is in its place Lexa. My stature is gone, I’m just another Mobium now. You can’t recognize what I don’t have.”

“What would you like to me to acknowledge you as then?” she asked quietly.

“My name would be a start,” I told her.

“Very well, Master Legali,” she said softly.

“Keith, Lexa, Keith,” I exclaimed with an ounce of frustration. “My name is Keith, no master, no sir, just regular, plain old Keith.”

“Keith,” she repeated softly. “Very well, though it will most likely take time before I adapt to such nomenclature.”

“I have no doubt of that,” I told her. Silence filled in between us for several moments though, until I broke it again. “I recognize the attempt you made to come out here and try and help me cope with the situation.”

“You appeared to need some form of comfort after your friend nearly died,” she said.

“Thank you for that,” I told her.

“What does ‘thank you’ mean?” she asked me.

“It’s a statement of gratitude, a custom on this planet when someone does something that you wish to be gratuitous about,” I explained to her.

“But that is just a statement of words,” she stated, “do humans not show gratitude like Mobiums. It seems inappropriate to just say it, and not show any actions.”

“Humans use a good deal of words,” I explained. “They can’t express their feelings the same way we can, so that can leave many feeling isolated. That is why they rely more on verbal language than our culture does.”

“I am curious,” she remarked. “You are both of Human, and Mobium origin, and if I am correct, exactly half of both. Which side do feel more comfortable with?”

“Which ever side pissess me off less at the moment?” I stated rather brusquely. Her emotions read confusion, and I realized my error again in using the wrong vocabulary for the situation. “I have many grievousenes against the human race, because I have more experience with them. This isn’t the case with the mobium race yet. However, I have a feeling that will change.”

“If does,” she asked, “do you believe you will find more comfort in your human half?”

“I don’t know,” I told her, though truthfully I wondered myself if I already had the answer to that.

[Angelfox]

Dammmmm

[RedGuardianRanger]

Updates will now be every Tuesday and Friday.

[JCool21c]

Cool deal... it's like you read my mind! I was just thinking, hey.. it's about time for an update from RedGuardianRanger.

The story is coming along very nicely!! You've definitely got my support.

[RedGuardianRanger]

The day was warmer than the rest had been up until now. It had been two days since the trial with Matt’s Power Lens had gone awry, and in attempt to pull my head out of the math of the situation, something I wasn’t very good at in the first place, Matt decided it was time to go for a run. So there the two of us we’re on the old abandoned road that led to the factory we were operating out of, taking a nice workout run. Let me tell you, I wasn’t the king of exercise so the run was a little bit more exhausting for me then him, but he seemed to enjoy. I was pacing him for most of it, and one point we stopped in the shade of a tree to stretch.

“You seem to be doing better,” I remarked to him.

“You mean for a guy whose heart stopped?” he asked me sarcastically.

“Yeah,’ I said softly.

“Relax man,” he said, slapping me on the shoulder. “That wasn’t your fault, besides I was the guy who told you to go ahead and do it. That’ll teach me when it comes to alien technology won’t it.”

I chuckled. “I know man, haven’t you seen the movies, you never try shit unless its like a laser blaster or something, every guy knows that.”

“Yeah, at least I’m a named character, and not an extra,” he said, stretching out. “Or Ensign Rodriguez or something like that.”

I laughed again, and looked back at where we had come from, but instead of admiring our accomplishment, I was thinking about the distance, and time it would take us to get back, and for a stray second, portaling back seemed like a good idea.

“By the way bro,” said Matt. “I’ve been meaning to ask you a question.”

“Alright man,” I said, “shoot.”

“Well it’s about Lexa,” he said.

“Don’t worry about her,” I told him. “I know she’s a Mobium, but we can trust her, she gave up her life to save mine.”

“Yeah that seems to be a common theme around here,” remarked Matt smiling. “But that’s not the question I had.”

“Oh,” I remarked, “then what were you wondering?”

“Well,” began Matt, “help me out here. I know mobiums bare a striking resemblance to humans, but…I mean, she’s a female, shouldn’t she you know have something…up….top?”

I looked at him curiously for a moment, and then my expression changed to that of realization as it dawned on me what he was talking about, “Oh…” I said, and then laughed again. “Well,” I said, “she’s from another planet Matt. Mobiums didn’t evolve from mammals, they’re aren’t even any mammals on the planet at all. I mean the creature was similar, but only mammals have that specific “feature” on females. I mean we don’t even nourish our young, they can eat plants straight from birth, and survive on that for a few years until they can digest other compounds.”

Matt sat in a stunned state of silence, his gaze locked on the ground in front of him. Slowly he lifted a bottle of water to his lips and drank it, then looked up at me. He screwed the cap of the bottle back on and then turned to me. “Huh.”

“Why don’t I give you the birds and the bees of Mobius talk when you’re older buddy,” I told him, which caused him to toss the bottle of water at me in defiance. I merely laughed and patted him on the shoulder. “C’mon, let’s keep going.” We continued jogging again, and as we did Matt continued talking.

“Why the Power Rangers?” he asked me. “I mean, c’mon, unlimited technology in the entire world, you could make the armor look like anything, and you make it look like the Power Rangers. Imagine how many guys would of done something original, like a stealth suit, or bio-organic armor or something that was out of this world.”

“Well I did have some limits,” I reminded me. “Like Lexa pointed out, the armor was based on the Royal Guard Armor of Mobius. Only the elite soldiers made up this unit, and as you can see by the look on her face that she was quite in awe.”

“Yeah,” said Matt, softly, and between heavy breaths as the running caught up to him, “but I almost feel like I’m going to be made fun of five year olds in broad day light for wearing it.”

“It’s not the five year olds you have to worry about bro, it’s the army of battle droids that are trying to kill you and the mobium commanders that control them,” I reminded him. “At least to them fighting wearers of the armor might prove a psychological advantage for us, at least until we go into battle.”

“Yeah,” added Matt, “and then we have additional five minutes of them trying to recover from laughter after that, when we do go into battle.”

“See I figure that gives us plenty of time,” I said jokingly. “I’ll just take the two thousand on the left, you and Lexa can handle the one thousand on the right.”

“No problem,” said Matt, chuckling as he ran.

“Besides, if you think you’re going to take shit from five year olds,” I added, “just imagine what it will be like on Halloween.”

“Yeah,” he said, laughing so hard that he had stop running and catching his breath. We stopped for a moment, both of us hunched over with our hands resting on our keens, and gasping for breath. Matt looked over and could tell I was breathing heavier than he was when he remarked, “You’ve been doing this longer, shouldn’t you be in better shape?”

“My mind does most of the work,” I quipped. “Besides, my mental stamina can kick the crap out of yours any day of the week.”

“Not when you’re gasping for the breath that much man,” he jibed. “But you still didn’t answer my question, why the Power Rangers?”

“We all have our heroes growing up,” I told him softly. “The images of people doing amazing, selfless things, all to protect the world, and people around them, and we idolize them. We imagine how great it would be to be them, the respect that would be shown for just holding a position and doing those things, and I guess that’s where the folly is. When I was presented with this seemingly amazing opportunity to contribute to society in a way I felt would help the most people with this knowledge, and these abilities, I choose something the world didn’t necessarily need at the time, but something I needed to be to prove to myself that I was capable of doing it. My mother dying, my world turned upside down by the revelation of what I really was, not to mention the whole adolescence thing, and trying to discover who I really was as a person, and my purpose, topped off with the whole situation that developed with Mady, I guess I just needed a strong, stable symbol to keep me on track through all of is, and I fell back on what I knew better than anything else.”

“The Power Rangers,” realized Matt, as he slowly stood erect again. His gaze fell further down the road, and then turned back to me.

“The Power Rangers…” I stated, confirming his realization. “When one is lost, one looks to his heroes for support. Some are parents, some are siblings, some are historical figures…”

“Yours are a spandex-clad team of teenagers,” said Matt, turning back to me. I gazed at him critically for a few moments, attempting to ascertain his feelings on the subject. As many of you know at this point, I wasn’t very good at being opened, but I was rewarded moments later when he turned back to smile at me, and said, “Well at least now I’ve got your back as the Blue Ranger to keep your ass out of trouble.”

“And thank goodness for Lexa who’ll probably be the one to save us both from trouble,” I said stealing the spotlight away from him again. He shook his and laughed, and we decided to turn around, and head back to the shelter.

The run back always seemed shorter then the run out, and I guess that’s because on the way back you always had the benefit of looking forward to some kind of comfort when you reached home, like a bed or a chair, or just collapsing on the floor. When we reached the place we had starting to refer to as “The Shelter,” the name we had given to the old factory we had started to call home, the two of us we’re definitely worn out after all of that running. Both of us stepped into the main room gasping for air, and as we regained slowly regained our stamina, Sean came down the stairs from his family living quarters above. Behind us the light bored in and you could see the dust particles floating about in the air, and as Sean came up to us, I watched as he stepped through them towards us. For the past several days the young man in his charge that was his step son had taken ill, and had been in his makeshift bed with a fever. Sean had devoted half his time to his work at hand, and the other half to the care of his son, and the look of concern on his face as he joined us clearly illustrated that his son’s condition had not improved.

“How is he?” I asked him softly, as I stopped up my hunched over position.

“I think he’s getting worse,” explained Sean. “His fever must be rising.” I nodded in understanding, and then looked over at Matt. Lexa stepped out of the main control room, and slowly strolled over to where the three of us were talking.

“Well then we’re going to have to make a trip to the drug store,” I said confidently.

“Yeah,” said Sean, “not exactly an easy things for any of us these days, what with our face plastered all over the news.” Pictures of Sean and I had been posted on the local news media by the authorities that sought my apprehension. I imagine it had been the government’s belief that the general public may recognize us and report us, thus helping to track us down. “My cards have also been declined, and I didn’t get a chance to go to the ATM before we left.”

“Mine are out too,” I replied, “in fact, they shut them off the day before all of this started. I thought it was just a bank error at the time.”

“Cards?” asked Lexa curiously.

“I’ll explained later,” I remarked to her, and looked back at them, and then focusing on Matt.

“Yours might still be active though,” I told him.

“Maybe,” he said.

“Go grab it,” I told him. “Hopefully we can use that to purchase medicine.”

“I do not understand,” said Lexa, as Matt ran after his bank card. “We not the rest of these objects just taken? Can not the chemicals required to treat the problem be obtained the some way?”

“We could go break into the aspirin plant,” suggested Sean.

“Like I have any idea where that is,” I replied.

“We could Google it,” suggested Sean seriously.

“Even if I did, I couldn’t portal to it,” I reminded him. “I’ve been to a drug store before, I can portal there.” I turned to Lexa to answer her question. “And even if I do portal to the drug store, they cover their store in cameras. I have enough attention on me already that adding shop lifting and dealing with store security is over the top. I would like to grab the stuff, pay for it, and get out of it without turning it into a larger situation then it needs to be.”

Matt came out from the little cave in the corner of the Shelter which he and I had turned into our sort of room of sorts, complete with bunk beds. It was somewhat reminiscent of summer camp in away. He put his hands on his hips when we he returned, his gaze falling on the rest of us. “All set.”

“Where’s the card?” I asked him.

“Right here,” he said, patting his pocket.

“Well give it to me,” I told him.

“Why?” he asked. “I’ll just use it when we get there.”

“You’re not going,” I told him. “I want you to stay here.”

“What, why?” he asked.

“Because, like I just explained to Lexa, I don’t WANT things to turn into a bigger scene,” I explained, “but knowing our luck, it probably well, so just in case I’m going to take Lexa.”

“Woah bro,” responded Matt. “I’m a part of this team, I should be going on this too.”

“It’s too dangerous,” I responded, crossing my arms across my chest, “you don’t even have access to your armor. If shit hits the fan and droids show up, I won’t have time to portal you out.” Matt stomped his foot in silent frustration, and turned around placing his hand on his head.

“Don’t you think she’ll stand out a little,” pointed out Sean, noticing Lexa’s currently Emerald color hair. Lexa’s gaze fell on Sean, and then back on me.

“Yeah…” I said slowly. “That could be a problem. Lexa do you think you could mimic Matt’s hair color for this. I don’t want you to draw too much attention.” Lexa agreed by slowly letting her hair change color. It was like watching a picture being changed on a computer, and you slide the little dial along a bar, and the hue slowly changes color. It grew darker until it matched Matt’s hair color, and minus the orange iris’s she looked almost human.”

“What about the eyes?” remarked Sean.

“Ah, we’ll just go with some excuse, like contacts,” I replied. “Most people see young people do enough strange stuff, it really shouldn’t matter.”

Sean chuckled, “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“I really think I should be going,” said Matt, who had continued to stew silently as we worked with Lexa, and had finally rejoined the rest of the conversation.

“It is too dangerous,” I told him. “We almost lost you once, and I don’t want to risk it again before we even get your armor going again. That’s final.” I concluded the matter with motioning my hands outwards, but still Matt didn’t look appeased by the decision. “Besides, you were the only one on my short list for the Blue Ranger, I don’t want to have to go Ranger shopping again this soon.”

“Well you will at some point,” said Sean.

“Not now,” I told him, but it was already too late. Lexa already knew that later on down the line we were going to add more Rangers, but Matt hadn’t been brought up to speed on that possibility yet.

“What does he mean?” asked Matt. “You guys think I’m not going to last that long or something.” I turned to Sean giving him a stern look, but the look on his face might of well have been a shrug. I turned back to Matt, and answered his question.

“The Grid can support two more rangers, possibly three,” I told him.

“Then, why aren’t we bringing the Rangers in now?” he asked. “Wouldn’t we be stronger as a team of five, or six?”

“Well, as it became apparent the other night,” I explained, “we weren’t sure if the Ranger powers would totally work with human. The science says yes, but the technology sometimes has problems meeting science’s needs. It would be like America trying to invent a drive capable of reaching the speed of light tomorrow.”

“Actually,” added Sean, “wasn’t that what they got for helping the…”

“Alright,” I exclaimed, “just work with me here for a second. The point is, not only can not bring in more Rangers because we don’t know if we can get it to work yet, but we also have to find the people to fill the roles.”

“Can’t we just hold a raffle or something?” continued Matt.

“Power can corrupt,” I replied. “You saw what it did to Evan, and Mady. It’s not just easy to pull someone off the street. They need to be capable of using that power for what is good, and right, or at least in this situation, in defense of this world. Not a lot of people are seemingly capable of that. It takes a remarkable person to do that, and they don’t grow on trees.”

Matt looked at me curiously for a moment, but slowly a smile began to play across his face as part of his importance here, and on the team slowly began to piece itself together in his mind. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” I told him. “Now give me the damn card.”

Shortly thereafter Lexa and I found ourselves walking into a drug store in the center of Wilmington, hoping not draw any attention to ourselves. Luckily, as we made it back to the aisle we were looking for we drew very few stares if any, and I was considering myself lucky that no one recognized me. We moved very quickly to the medicine aisle, and looked carefully for the different things we would need.

“The organization of these products seems to be flawed, would it not be more efficient to arrange them alphabetically?” asked Lexa, as I reached out and grabbed some of the medicine.

“Perhaps,” I told her. “But they do this for marketing reasons. Certain companies by certain spots in hopes that customers would be more willing to acquire goods based on their location.”

“Is that not a faulty assumption to make?” she asked.

“Foolish perhaps, but it does work,” I told her, grabbing a hold of the last thing. “Now let’s go pay for this before someone recognizes me.”

On our way to the register we passed by the magazine aisle, and Lexa took notice of the different spreads and layouts, “Humans seemed to be fasinated by their images, especially the females.”

“That’s not just a human tendency, many species are,” I replied. “Including are own.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Well we might not go to as great lengths as humans do, but we try to make ourselves presentable to other people, especially members of the opposite sex in hopes of mating,” I told her. “I mean if we didn’t you really think that hair thing of yours would do what it does.” Reminded of her own vanity, she took a handful of hair and looked at it, then back at me.

“I understand what you mean,” she replied.

“There is nothing wrong with it, one way or the other,” I told her. “It’s just the way some beings are.” We arrived at the pay counter, and stood in line which is what I was fearing. The more people around, the better chance at me being recognized by someone.

Lexa realizing her comments may be somewhat out of place continued her questions inside our minds, “Do they often queue to purchase their goods?”

“Yeah,” I replied mentally, “it’s a traditional human action. One attendant means less the company has to pay out in labor.”

“Why not, just have some sort of electrical device to handle the transactions?” she asked.

“It’s a technology that’s slowly being phased in,” I replied. As the line moved on, I could tell Lexa was continuing her observations, which would mean more questions for me later. It was somewhat distracting though, and took my mind worrying if my identity would be realized, but it was replaced by the fear of Lexa asking more questions.

“Are females really worried about pleasing their ‘men’?” asked Lexa out of no where in my mind, causing me to fight back the urge of bursting out laughing for no good apparent reason. I turned to see what she was looking at, and noticed a women’s magazine, Cosmo or something like that.

“You should take everything you see with a grain of salt,” I told her. “Often the media will cater to the populace’s insecurities rather than providing the people with general knowledge.”

“Popular Media then?” she asked.

“Exactly,” I replied, as we finally reached the counter. Behind it was middle aged guy, heavy set with thick glasses. I could tell this guy spent a good deal of time behind the computer screen at home due to his pale skin. I placed the different products on the counter, and slowly he rung them up with his scanner gun, and continued punching several keys into his computer.

His gaze fixed on me intently, and suddenly he asked, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

Panicking, I thought of the first thing that came to mind, “No,” I told him, “but I’m told I look like a guy on one of the reality shows.”

“Yeah,” he said smiling, and pointing his index finger at me. “You look just like the guy on American Idol.”

“Yeah,” I told him, grinning that he managed to associate me with something else besides a news broadcast.

“Yeah, you look just like that kid they’re calling ‘Chicken Little’” he replied.

“What?” I asked curiously, the grin on my face being replaced by a look of confusion.

“Yeah you know, the cartoon character from that movie,” he replied. “It’s really a striking resemblance.” As I stood their trying to wrap my mind around this Lexa had already swiped the bank card in the card reader, and keyed in the pin.

“Wait are you saying I look like a cartoon chicken?” I asked him.

“We should be departing,” voiced Lexa to me mentally, as she began to pull my arm to separate me from the conversation. With my free arm, I managed to grab the purchases that were in the bag, as I was being tugged at. Slowly she dragged me towards the exit, and I found myself under my own control as we moved towards the sliding doors.

“I think he just called me a chicken,” I told her, as we closed in on the doors.

“Negative, but at least your ruse worked,” she replied.

“That’s true,” I said as we stepped through the sliding doors and into the daylight, “at least we didn’t draw the atten…..” I cut myself off mid sentence as I stared out over the parking lot, and noticed the three white cars that ran parallel to the doors we had just emerged from. The sun light reflected off the edges of their white cars with blue lettering, and slowly individuals began to emerge from the vehicles each branding a firearm and aiming it straight at the two of us.

<Track Insert – Linkin Park “Faint”>

“I believe the situation has escalated to a proportion you did not desire it to,” Lexa says to me as she stares out at the approaching law enforcers. I wanted to roll my eyes skyward but I wasn’t about to take my eyes off these guys for a second. “Orders?” she asked, but this time mentally. Slowly I try to sum up the situation. We have eight officers, and the two of us, which means roughly four to one, which isn’t a big deal. In fact I believed we were capable of disabling them without even relying on our Ranger armor.

“Disable them, but gently,” I tell Lexa mentally. “Try not to hurt them.”

“Acknowledged,” she replies in a serious mental tone, and looks out as the officers finally close to a short ranger, perhaps less then ten feet away.

“Go,” I shouted and dropped the bag I had left the store with, and together we casted our hands outwards, sending with them a burst of mental of energy that radiates from inside of us and extends outwards knocking the officers backwards. Recovering from our attack, we rushed forward, each of us adapting to our unique style of combat. Five officers are closer to me then they are to her, so I rushed in to confront them myself. Charging a mental field about my body I used as a force field in two ways, one to protect myself, and the other to stop their blows that physically I would normally have no such ability to do.

Switching my vision to weaves, I began to focus on the motions around me, and not the people there. As they came at me, I could feel the decisions in their mind as to how to proceed. I ducked under the punch of the first attack, and then as the second officer came at me, I sidestepped his attack, and then raised my arms to block a blow from a night stick from another, the weapon brushing up against my field. I forced it up and backwards, causing the officer to do the same, as the fourth came at me, I blocked his punch, pushing it away outwards, and then forced a burst of mental energy to force him back, almost like a punch to the stomach. Sensing motion beneath me I jumped upwards, narrowly missing the attack of a leg sweep from the first officer. I landed, and spun around my leg raised in a kick with caught the head of the officer who tried to leg sweep. The fifth officer had managed to get his firearm back, which he leveled at me and fired. Sensing the weave, I dropped to the ground as the bullet sailed overhead and shattered a park window of a car nearby. I kipped up landing on my feet again, only to raise my arms up to block incoming punches from both sides. I dropped my blocks then grabbed the arms of the two officers, and combining part of my own physical strength with my telekinesis, I flipped them forward, and then spun around casting a mental burst at the two officers behind me forcing them backwards into a vehicle behind them. The slammed into it and collapsed to the ground. With only one threat left, I turned my attention to Lexa.

Lexa looked like she could give Jet Li a run for his money. She was in the middle of fighting the three other officers on the scene, and as I caught wind of her she was in the middle of a side flip, and she landed, in a split no less, she pushed back up, and spun around like a break dancer, leg sweeping two officers at once, then jumped back into the air, and did a tornado kick to the third, sending all three of her targets into different directions. The three reached for their firearms upon landing, and Lexa expecting this, raised a field around her, so as they fired, their bullets were met head on by mental energy, and they became trapped in the field as the officers emptied their clips into it. Keeping the field raised, she let the bullets drop to the ground as the officers went to reload their weapons. She turned into a physical attack though as she extended it outward, and launched the three officers into the air, all in opposite directions.

Turning my attention back to my remaining opponent, I sent a burst of energy out towards him which forced him backwards. As he did, I grabbed his gone with my mental energy, and pulled it back to me. “I’ll take that.” I grabbed the gun, still quite warm, and separated the top and bottom pieces, tossing it aside. Turning to Lexa, I switched to our mental band, and told her, “Let’s Go,” as I faced the alley we had originally came from, indicating our direction of retreat. She retreated towards it, grabbing the bag of medicine as she did, just as the three officers she had fought were trying to ascertain exactly what kind of truck they had just been hit by. I backpedaled towards her as she went down the alley, keeping my eye on the officers who were beginning to recover. Turning around, I ran at full speed towards Lexa, and once again spooling up my mental energies, opened a portal back to the Shelter with a flip of my hand. Lexa stepped inside as it became full formed, and I joined her a moment later, racing through before our pursuers could catch us.

[RedGuardianRanger]

Presented as usual in its un-edited format:

“Damn!” I yelled as I faced in front of the computer, slamming my fists onto the keyboard. I sat alone in the darkened control room in front of a computer screen, a place I hadn’t moved from in the last six hours, and the light from the doorway revealed that the sun was well on its way towards its resting place for the day. I had been dealing with the same problem all day which was the DNA lock on the Lens, that which was preventing Matt from morphing with his powers, and it had frustrated me to no end. My outburst managed to draw attention though, and in came Matt who seemed to be eating what appeared to be yogurt or something. He sat down in one of the seats next to me, and looked at the computer screen in front of me, though I wondered if he understood what was on it.

“How’s it going buddy?” he asked me nonchalantly, quite aware that my outburst meant that it wasn’t going that well.

“The damn program isn’t doing what I’m telling it to do,” I told him. “It’s like every little modification I make messes something else up. At this rate we’ll be lucky if I can still morph. I’m starting to think it might be hardware related.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. “I thought you constructed this system by yourself?”

“I did,” I explained, “but I did it for me and me alone. Originally the Grid Generator only put out a fifth of the power that is running through it now. I constructed it out of parts you’d find here on Earth, but it still meant I had to cut some corners. You can imagine my shock when we installed the Zero Crystal and it boosted the grid even higher up.”

“So the parts held together with the extra output,” he said, “seems like humans aren’t as primitive as some races would have us believe.”

I glanced towards him with my eyes only turning my head slightly, before back to the computer screen, “Lexa getting on your nerves?”

“It’s just her little observations,” he replied. “She doesn’t come out and say it, but you can tell after everything I tell her, she’s thinking, ‘Oh, that’s cute.”

“Somehow I doubt she’d phrase it that way,” I replied.

“You know what I mean,” he stated.

“Well, all of us being bunched in like this, not being able to go out, and certainly not being able to confront the enemy,” I explained, “doesn’t do well for any of our morale. It’s like we’re in some sick reality show where people are observing our lives from behind a monitor or something.”

“Yeah bro,” said Matt, “but I don’t think anyone has done a Power Ranger version yet.”

“I think Captain Hero on ‘Drawn Together’ might count if you want to expand the genera to include superheroes,” I told him.

“Sure thing, whatever you say Commander Chicken Little,” said Matt as he reached for another spoonful of his yogurt. I turned to him fiercely, only to find a wide grin on his face.

“Lexa told you?” I asked him.

“She might have mentioned something about it,” he replied. “The guy does bear a similar…”

“Let’s not talk about this anymore,” I said, cutting him off. “We have other things to worry about right now.”

“Don’t get your feathers in a ruffle,” he replied, and then turned back to the subject matter at hand. “If it is hardware related, what can we do?”

“I’d have to redesign the circuit board that controls the locking program,” I told him. “The circuit board isn’t the hard part, but some of the components that go on it could take me several weeks to build again, but we could probably salvage the components on the one already in there. The only problem would be there’s one part we need that we can’t get.”

“Well, where did you get it before?” asked Matt who appeared to be somewhat confused.

“I didn’t,” I replied. “I sort of jury rigged a solution, which is why this locking program glitch is biting us in the bottom now. The material that this component needs doesn’t exist on this world, a type of capacitor if you will.”

“So what do we do?” he asked me, setting his yogurt on the counter and looking at me.

“I don’t know,” I said shrugging. “Maybe I could jury rig another solution.”

Matt stood up from his seat, and went to the doorway. Leaning out he called for Lexa, and a moment later she joined us in the control room. “Now tell her what you’re looking for.”

Trying to figure out what he was getting at, I looked at Lexa, and told her. “We need a Type Four Capacitor to properly complete the Locking Control circuit board.”

“Can you not create that component from material on Earth?” she asked.

“No,” I replied, “the synthetics needed for it can’t be reproduced on this planet.”

“That is a difficult problem then,” she replied. “It is a very common component in Mobium Technology, but without it I can understand that it might be difficult to come by.”

“What kind of devices is it in?” asked Matt.

“Practically every major device that Mobiums use that requires programming has at least one in it,” she explained. “Computer Systems, Food Production, even many different kinds of weapons.”

“What about the Battle Droids?” Matt asked.

“Yes,” she replied, “the Battle Droids contain many of them throughout their structure.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but where are we going to get a Battle Droid?”

“Could we not lure them out?” asked Lexa looking straight at me.

“We don’t have too,” replied Matt. Lexa and I both turned to look at him quizzically for a moment, and as we did his eyes lit up. “You already fought some near the beach. We can just go back to that spot and scavenge for the parts we need.”

“Most droids self destruct using a high yield acid so their technology doesn’t fall into the wrong hands,” explained Lexa. “It is very doubtful we find much of anything.”

“Yeah,” said Matt, “but didn’t you sever an arm or cut someone’s leg out? If it was separated from them, then there’s a chance it didn’t self destruct with the rest.”

“I sure did,” I said smiling. “Good call bro. Let’s go for a look.” I said standing up, but as I headed for the doorway I noticed that dusk had begun to settle in, and even with a flashlight we would have a difficult time spotting anything. “Hmm, maybe we should wait for the morning tomorrow to go take a look, when there it is lighter ou