Tristanism
01-21-2007, 02:49 PM
(Author's Note: Just so you're not confused. No, you didn't miss anything. This is the one and only PR:APD there is and is ever intended to be. This piece was inspired by a number of online comments I've seen over the past year or so, and just felt like it begged to have a creative response, so here it is. If you read, please comment, if it's not too much trouble. And enjoy!)
Power Rangers: A Primetime Drama
EPISODE 19- "La Lutte"
A cold pool of white was cast down from the light fixtures above as the nurses stood there silently for several seconds as the nervous urgency of the entire operating room grew quieter and quieter. The smell of disinfectant filled the air, and there was a red mess over the doctor's apron as they all watched him continue pushing down on the patient's chest.
The main aid's eyes had begun to fill up with tears as she realized it was over. She nearly dropped the breathing unit she had just brought online, finally resigning to the fact that the once-beautiful woman lying on the operating table was beyond saving.
Moments passed without words as Doctor Darren Phelps kept going- fruitlessly trying to pump life back into the poor woman's lungs, but there wasn't enough left of her to fight as hard as he was. She was simply gone.
"Doctor..." Darren's main aid said with a cracked voice.
Of course, Darren knew there was no saving her. He had known long before they had even started the operation. But nothing on Earth could have stopped him from trying. Not because he was the city's foremost expert in the field of complex surgery, or because of his undying struggle to help others in need, but because his deepest fear was to hurt the one he so desperately loved... and he knew that, by letting this girl die, he was doing just that.
****
Mischa Davies sat uncomfortably in the sterilized lobby of the emergency room, her impatient eyes scanning the room over and over again, as if possessed by a curiosity to keep herself distracted.
She saw an old married couple. The wife was crying over her son. That didn't instill much comfort in Mischa, though she had to admit that nothing would. She saw a young girl playing with an action figure of a Power Ranger- of course, the design was completely inaccurate, but the child did not care. The girl's mother, on the other hand, immediately snatched the toy away and told her to keep quiet.
The mother glanced up and noticed her- with her leather jacket and a silver-studded wristband, a motorcycle helmet sitting in the seat next to her, and grimaced. Mischa wanted to knock the lady's teeth out, but the sound of the television broadcast drew her attention away.
"--with an ABCNews report. Rebuilding of the South Capital Building in downtown Glenmark is already underway, after the recent attacks by the Unidentified Lifeforms and their assistance by the costumed vigilantes known as the Power Rangers."
Mischa looked up to the television monitor hanging from the far wall to see images of a large building in smoking ruins- the aftermath of an altercation she remembered being apart of only one night ago. And yet again, she and her partners were being slandered by the local news.
"Major Wilcox announced today that a considerable amount of city funding that would normally have been cycled into our school and law enforcement systems are now being used for a rapid-fire rebuild-and-relief foundation, erected in response to the now-constant attacks by the costumed mercenaries."
Mischa had had enough. She got up and changed the channel on the television, to which a large man in the corner suddenly yelled "Hey, I was watching that!"
"Yeah?" Mischa fired back as she spun around with fire in her eyes. "Well, now you're not." The man quickly backed down.
Mischa walked back to take her seat, but before she coud sit, a set of twin doors were pushed open and Darren entered the room. Mischa could see him out of the corner of her eye, and already knew.
Mischa turned directly toward Darren and he was struck by her crippling gaze. He loved her with everything he had, and though he knew it was impossible for her to return his feelings, he could not bare to hurt her. But he was being forced to, by his own failure to save her. The one Mischa cared for just as much as he had cared for her. And the sight of her eyes, staring him in his wrinkled face, was enough to haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life.
"I... I'm sorry, Mischa," Darren started. "... I just couldn't--"
Darren's words were silenced by a slap in the face. No words or actions would have helped.
"I hate you," Mischa let out, venomously.
Darren was barely able to turn his head in time to see Mischa grab her motorcycle helmet and storm out of the lobby. He knew she didn't mean what she had said. She had just lost the only person that could have tempered her fiery spirit. There was nothing left for her to do now... but ride.
****
Blank.
Mischa's mind was blank. All she could do was keep breathing heavily, as she thrust her key into the ignition of the black motorcycle and yanked the throttle. Without thoughts, she was on the road, her long, blonde hair whipping in the wind from behind her helmet as she rode... somewhere... anywhere... nowhere...
****
Mitchell Tyson instructed his client to rise from their desk, just as the opposing attorney did the same with his own client. At last, the judge would make his ruling on the case- one of the most difficult of Mitch's life.
He glanced to his right to see three faces. The first was the face of his client, 14-year-old Jeremy White. The boy looked tired. As he should be. It was not every day someone this young was asked to get up in front of a courtroom full of people and explain, in explicit detail, all of the horrible things that had been "allegedly" done to him by the accused. The second face was that of his opposition- a crooked lawyer whose name Mitch didn't want to remember. The third face, rippled with old age, belonged to the accused rapist and child molestor, Miles Pierre. The sight of him filled Mitch with disgust. It was people like him that brought him into the field of law to begin with- to keep his kind off of the streets and away from the city's innocent youth.
"Furthermore," the judge continued, "I would just like to say that this has been an exhausting and ridiculous display of slander on behalf of the prosecution."
"Slander?" Mitch let out. He knew he was speaking out of turn, but the outrage was too much to keep under wraps.
The judge struck his gavel in annoyance.
"I'm talking," the judge said intently toward Mitch. "... Now, as I was saying, based on the evidence here today, it is clear that this entire process has been yet another waste of taxpayer time and money. This man is obviously innocent, and whatever accusations manufactured by the prosecution are, at this point, void."
Mitch stood quietly as the judge continued his speech.
The man was impossible.
Mitch had been working in this field for two years now and had never lost a case. Not a single one. Until that day. The blow to his ego was dwarfed in comparison to the aching in his gut that he felt after realizing that the atrocities done to his client would not be the last committed by the pig that stood grinning just a few feet away from them. Mitch did everything he could to keep from revealing to the room- especially his client's mother, in tears in the seat behind them- how much he was shaking on the inside...
****
Judge Trosky returned to his office after a long day of deliberation. He casually closed and locked the door and shut the blinds to the window. A finger on the panel of the small stereo caused a soft, melodious music to flow from speakers around the room. Something wholesome. Comforting.
He innocently hummed along with it as he sat at his desk, thumbing through the files inside a drawer, until finally finding what he was looking for. He pulled out the book and it made a loud thud as it hit the desk. The weight of the large black book was enormous. Trosky's old fingers slowly caressed the black symbol draped across the cover of the book: a five-pointed star, turned upside down.
A chilling breeze suddenly crept into the room, though there were no open windows. The star on the book began to smoke and sizzle as it glowed red. A ghostly voice echoed from nothingness as all the light in the room seemed to fall away.
"To whom do you serve?"
"Only you, dark one," Trosky replied. It was the same reply every time he summoned Him. "I've done as you asked. Pierre is a free man. No one suspects."
"Excellent."
"And now... you will grant the wish I was promised seven years ago... Eternal life."
".... You will live on..."
Trosky closed his eyes in delight at the words. But then he opened them again in a panic, when he realized what was happening.
His skin. They were underneath his skin. Crawling. Biting. Gnawing. The man's heart began to race as he could feel them burrowing their way out of him, one after the other, spawning from within him. It took only seconds for him to collapse out of his chair, and among the darkness, the last thing that could be heard was the sound of thousands of cockroaches scurrying onto the hardwood floor and into the night...
"Your soul... will give my children strength..."
****
Robert Garvy wiped the sweat from his brow as he stepped out onto the floor of the relief center. The heat was always up way too high for his tastes, and he couldn't keep dry no matter what.
He looked out at the endless rows of cots laid out, most of them filled with homeless men and women, many of which were filthy, perhaps racked with illness. But they had shelter. And it was the Garvy's Association that was making all of this happen.
Robert quickly ushered in the last two residents of the night toward their cot-it was a cheap makeshift bed, but it was all they could afford for the woman and her son, who hadn't spoken a word since their house had burned down, taking his father with it.
Robert faked an "everything's gonna be all right" look and walked away. He knew it wouldn't be all right. But at least he could give them hope.
Robert returned to the front desk to see that commotion had ensued in the few moments he had been away. There was a crowd of other people hoping to get shelter.
"We're sorry," Garvy's employee shouted over the crowd, "We've run out of space for the night! There are no more beds- we just can't let you in!"
Robert looked out at a sea of desperate faces- ones that belonged to fathers and daughters and cousins and brothers. Ones that he couldn't bare to turn away.
Robert pulled his assistant aside and handed her a set of keys.
"What's this?" she asked.
"My house keys."
"You want to let them stay at your place? Are... Are you joking?"
"He's definitely not joking," said a raspy voice from behind. Robert looked up to see none other than his best friend, Detective Aaron Fox.
"Fox!" Robert said with a smile.
"How are ya, you old bastard!" Aaron answered affectionately.
The assistant could only stare in confusion.
****
A cloud of cigarette smoke flowed from Aaron's lips and into the night air as he and his old friend stood outside the relief center alone. Robert frowned.
"That crap's gonna kill you, ya know that."
"I'm a friggin homicide detective, and a terrorist on the side- a couple'a smokes ain't gonna be what takes me out, when it's all said and done."
"We're not terrorists."
"Well, that's what they said in the paper the other day. Friggin republ--"
"Well, they're wrong..."
"Sure... But that doesn't mean we don't get into trouble sometimes... I just got off a case about some kid that got his head ripped clean off, and the killer's still out there... I know who it is, but I can't say, cuz they'll think I'm a damn looney toon."
"I know... Sometimes it feels like we're doing more harm than good out there... At least half the people we admitted to the center today came from neighborhoods we fought with our zords in recently. The city's taking damage, Fox. They say 70 percent of downtown will have to be rebuilt by 2008 if this keeps up."
"And, what? We're doing what we can."
"Obviously, it's not enough."
"Hey, worse things could happen. And they're not."
Just then, a ring came from Robert's cell phone. Upon answering it, any hopes he could have had for that night were dashed by the voice on the other end of the line. Any cheering up Aaron could have provided were nullified by the news.
"What?" Aaron asked in a haze of smoke. "What is it?"
"... Mischa's girlfriend is dead... They killed her, thinking she was one of us."
Aaron's cigarette hit the ground and was extinguished under the detective's boot as he quickly turned around, running toward his car, his trenchcoat flapping in the air behind him.
"Where are you going?" Robert asked.
"It's Mischa."
No further explanation was needed. If something this bad had happened to Mischa, they knew she was bound to do something incredibly stupid... like tracking down the source of their enemy and trying to fight them on her own.
****
Mitch forced back another fiery gulp from the shot glass in his hand- the third he had had so far. And he was just getting started. The bartender sat another glass down in front of him at his request. The busy clammer of the rest of the bar behind him was of no consequence to him. No use in confiding in friends that were all too busy with their own problems to hear about his poor little ego-bruising bad day in court. Mitch sucked down another shot.
Suddenly, someone else approached the bar, and took a seat right next to him. Mitch was in his own half-drunken world, uncaring of who else was in his vicinity, but this man continually stared at him. Mitch finally turned over and his eyes twitched at the sight of Miles Pierre sipping a cold beer.
"Nice night, ain't it?" Pierre said with a grin.
"You... You--"
"Ya know, I really oughtta thank you. If it wasn't for your crappy lawman skills, I wouldn't have gotten out. What's your name again?"
"Tyson," Mitch said through his teeth.
Pierre raised an eyebrow.
"Tyson?... Little Mitchell Tyson, from East Macintosh Avenue? Now I remember you!"
Mitch slowly stood up from his seat in utter shock when he made the realization... This man's face... He had seen it before. It was almost 20 years ago, but he remembered it now- the face he had blocked from his young memory... The face of the man that violated him.
The sound of shattered glass rang out as Mitch's furious hands were around Pierre's neck, shoving him up against the wall in an unabashed rage. The sight of the man, still grinning at him behind his tightening grip sent him to levels of anger that he had been afraid to ever release in the entirety of his life! But no more. Nothing would keep him from letting out the full extent of his pain and fury on this beast, and his reddening fists delivered every last ounce of it.
It seemed like hours before a pair of men pulled Mitch off of him like holding back a wild, ravenous dog. They were holding back two decades of bottomless grief.
****
Pierre looked into the old rusted mirror with a toothless smile as he wiped away the blood from the broken skin on his face. He let out a few french curses at the pain of applying alcohol to the wounds, but admitted that it was worth it to have seen the pain on Tyson's face- after so long, the results of his actions were still stirring. The world wouldn't be forgetting Miles Pierre for a very long time...
"Pierre..."
Pierre turned, looking out through his bathroom door into the bedroom.
No one there.
The lights flickered.
The lights died.
Pierre's breathing trembled as he could hear an awful crackling sound on the floor. He did not realize that it was thousands of insects crawling from underneath his bedroom door and through the window to get inside.
"I feel your hatred... I crave it..."
Pierre looked around for the voice, but it came from nowhere. He considered running out, but the door was covered by cockroaches, veiled in darkness.
"Let your hatred flow forth... Let it be the key that opens the door for my son."
Pierre did not know what to do. He could feel the roaches crawling all around him now, up his legs, onto his skin. A sizzling, red light emmanated from his body. He could feel his self-control slipping away. He was frozen in fear. A victim. The voice was sapping away the hatred within him, using it as a vessel, to bring forth another Child of Darkness.
Pierre bent over, feeling the uncontrollable urge to heave... He knew then that whatever was about to emerge from his mouth was alive... and it would take his last breath and make it it's own...
****
Mischa pulled the helmet from over her face and turned to look at the old, broken down building, half-buried under hundreds of years of earthquakes and other phenomena that she was too bored to remember the names of.
It was an old sanctuary, one of the first structures built just outside of the main city lines, now stuck partially buried under a giant hill of earth. But it was no ordinary sanctuary. It was a place for demonic worship that Mischa and her partners had found only days earlier, thanks to Robert's father's funding.
Mischa was not sure what had brought her to this place, but there was nowhere else. This place represented those that had taken someone away from her, and if there was any way to get at them through this old building, then she was determined to find out. Nothing was going to stop her.
"Stop."
Darren's voice did not keep her from getting off the bike and walking toward the building. Darren had no choice but to run up and stand in front of her to keep her from going further.
"Don't go in there alone."
"Don't tell me what to do!"
"We agreed we'd check this place out together. It's too dangerous alone."
"I don't care! I told you, I don't want you- stop trying to be her!"
Darren was struck. He almost didn't notice Mischa begin to walk around him as the words set in. But before she could get much further, she found Robert and Aaron standing in her way.
"Mischa," Robert said with a sympathetic look. "I'm so sorr--"
"Don't!" It was all Mischa could say. She refused to be pitied. She would be damned if she let anyone comfort her. She didn't want comfort. She wanted to hurt those that had hurt her in the worst way imaginable.
"Mischa," Aaron said, authoritatively. "I want them dead as bad as you do... well, almost... but you ain't doin' it alone, and that's that."
"Oh, please. NOW you're gonna play the leader-card? You can't even get a damn day off, let alone find time to lead this team into doing anything that's worth a damn."
"You know, you can be a real bitch sometimes, but I'm not about to let you pull me into another fight with you today. You're not goin' in alone. Discussion over."
"He's right," Mitch said, approaching the others from his car, parked next to Aaron's. "We go in together... We might not have been there for each other in the past, but we can at least do it now."
"I agree," Robert seconded.
Mischa was tough, but fighting them all off would have been impossible. She had no other choice.
"Fine! But stay out of my way!"
Mischa pushed her way in-between Aaron and Robert, but the moment she got close enough to the entrance to the building, the doors flew open with a gust of invisible force, which knocked Mischa several feet back and to the ground.
The others fell back and picked her up, all of them side-by-side in front of the entrance.
Through the shadowy doorway, they could see a terrible creature emerge from the darkness. Its twisted, charred flesh was blackened and stretched across jagged, uneven bones. A hunched right shoulder dropped a freakishly long arm with a spider-like hand. Its face had pupilless eyes and teeth that protruded aimlessly from a drool-soaked mouth. It had grown considerably since its birth from the body of Miles Pierre... and it was ready to do its master's bidding.
"Go...."
Out of the earth, the cockroaches came forth, slowly climbing up onto each other, piling themselves up like towers of living creatures. Within moments, the roaches had fused themselves together into a dozen fusions of vermin. They were foot soldiers, made up of thousands of cockroaches, born from the corrupted soul of Judge Trosky. The Demon that stood in the doorway commanded them to attack.
Aaron immediately whipped forth the gun from under his coat and opened fire on the creatures. Bullets ripped forth from the barrel of the weapon, sheering their way into the monsters, causing remnants of dead insects to fly off of them, but it was not enough.
Soon, Aaron had emptied the entire clip. But using the gun was only a distraction to give the others enough time to pull forth their morphers- silver devices with a panel of buttons with ancient writings on them. Aaron was the last to thrust his forward.
"Ready?"
Aaron turned to his partners, Mischa, Robert, Mitch, and Darren, as they thrusted their morphers forward and shouted "Ready!"
With that, they dialed in the ancient code and the devices were activated. The foot soldiers began to advance on the group, but were soon blown back by the sheer force of the explosion of colored energy ripping from their morphers, bathing them in light and power. Finally, the transformation was complete, revealing the five of them in their high-tech battle-suits.
The foot soldiers wasted no time, quickly rushing back to face the armored warriors with mindless hatred.
Blue Ranger ducked away from a punch, grabbing the enemy's arm and using it to hurl it over his shoulder with such force that the creature was slammed into the ground and splattered into countless bloody cockroaches at his feet.
Green Ranger shouted out as he was thrown up against his own car, his helmet being smashed through the window. He quickly countered with a swift kick to the gut that sent the creature shooting back through the air and skidding across the ground.
Red Ranger yanked the blaster from his side and let loose a furious storm of red beams upon a group of foot soldiers. The lasers blasted holes into the creatures, tossing dead cockroaches into the air and consequently setting the rest of their bodies on fire from the ensuing heat of the attacks. Red Ranger delivered a powerful spin-kick that sent a cloud of ash into the air.
But before Red Ranger could finish the others around him, he noticed Pink Ranger on the ground, furiously pummeling one enemy in the head over and over again, blowing chunks off of its false face with each hit.
"I'll kill you, you bastard! I'll kill you- you hear me?!!"
"Mischa," Red Ranger shouted, realizing the lead Demon was approaching from behind. "Look out!"
Mischa could not hear him. She was too busy exacting her revenge upon the now-helpless creature below him, whose head was now almost completely seperated from the rest of its body.
The Demon raised its giant claw, ready to strike, until Yellow Ranger suddenly darted out of the darkness and tackled it to the ground. It was only after hearing the enormous sound of the two bodies crashing into the ground next to her that Pink Ranger realized what had happened.
Yellow Ranger struggled to wrestle with the beast below him, but shouted out in shock when he was suddenly swatted off of him like a fly. He landed with a flip on his feet as the others assembled around him in front of the sanctuary, their blasters drawn. Yellow Ranger quickly pulled forth his own blaster, never having gotten the chance to do so before now.
The Demon stood up and let out a chilling shriek as it charged toward them.
"Fire!" Aaron shouted, to which the five of them all shot lasers at the monster.
But the Demon kept coming. Even after beams of hot energy had singed their way right through it, causing its flesh to catch fire, it still ran toward them. It was fueled by the evils of men, and it was not going to be stopped so easily. The Rangers kept firing. And the flaming monster kept running.
At last, the Rangers all scattered out of the way, the Demon barely missing them as it flew back through the entrance to the sanctuary. Green Ranger quickly pressed a button on his blaster and it suddenly began to tremble in his hand, as he could feel it warming up behind his glove. He had set the device on overload.
With that, Green Ranger hurled the weapon into the entrance to the sanctuary and forcefully pushed the others away from the building as quickly as he could.
"Hurry, run!"
The five of them rushed away and dove out of the way, just as the blaster finally reached maximum entropy and released an explosion that engulfed the Demon and effectively destroyed what was left of the building, burrying it under several tons of flaming rubble and debris.
"Power down."
The voice-activation system recognized the command and deactivated their morphers, stripping them of their armor in a wave of colored light. They had defeated the latest Child of Darkness.
Robert thanked God it wasn't at the cost of anyone's home, or worse. Darren was proud to have helped save Mischa from a terrible fate. Mitch would never know that his broken childhood had been avenged that night. Mischa's search for vengence, while quieted, was far from satisfied. Aaron was the first to recognize the sound of sirens. And the police had already arrived!
"Come on," Aaron whispered, guiding the others behind a small hill.
Aaron began to sweat when he peaked over the hill and realized that a group of cops had already found his car, sitting there at the scene of the incident, along with Mitch's car.
"W-What now...?" Darren asked.
Aaron looked around at the four other faces looking to their leader for guidance... and all he could do was stare back at them in silence...
To Be Continued....
(Author's Note: In case you're wondering, I have no plans to write anymore of these. It was mainly intended to be like... an example, I guess you could say. Thanks all! Lates!)
Power Rangers: A Primetime Drama
EPISODE 19- "La Lutte"
A cold pool of white was cast down from the light fixtures above as the nurses stood there silently for several seconds as the nervous urgency of the entire operating room grew quieter and quieter. The smell of disinfectant filled the air, and there was a red mess over the doctor's apron as they all watched him continue pushing down on the patient's chest.
The main aid's eyes had begun to fill up with tears as she realized it was over. She nearly dropped the breathing unit she had just brought online, finally resigning to the fact that the once-beautiful woman lying on the operating table was beyond saving.
Moments passed without words as Doctor Darren Phelps kept going- fruitlessly trying to pump life back into the poor woman's lungs, but there wasn't enough left of her to fight as hard as he was. She was simply gone.
"Doctor..." Darren's main aid said with a cracked voice.
Of course, Darren knew there was no saving her. He had known long before they had even started the operation. But nothing on Earth could have stopped him from trying. Not because he was the city's foremost expert in the field of complex surgery, or because of his undying struggle to help others in need, but because his deepest fear was to hurt the one he so desperately loved... and he knew that, by letting this girl die, he was doing just that.
****
Mischa Davies sat uncomfortably in the sterilized lobby of the emergency room, her impatient eyes scanning the room over and over again, as if possessed by a curiosity to keep herself distracted.
She saw an old married couple. The wife was crying over her son. That didn't instill much comfort in Mischa, though she had to admit that nothing would. She saw a young girl playing with an action figure of a Power Ranger- of course, the design was completely inaccurate, but the child did not care. The girl's mother, on the other hand, immediately snatched the toy away and told her to keep quiet.
The mother glanced up and noticed her- with her leather jacket and a silver-studded wristband, a motorcycle helmet sitting in the seat next to her, and grimaced. Mischa wanted to knock the lady's teeth out, but the sound of the television broadcast drew her attention away.
"--with an ABCNews report. Rebuilding of the South Capital Building in downtown Glenmark is already underway, after the recent attacks by the Unidentified Lifeforms and their assistance by the costumed vigilantes known as the Power Rangers."
Mischa looked up to the television monitor hanging from the far wall to see images of a large building in smoking ruins- the aftermath of an altercation she remembered being apart of only one night ago. And yet again, she and her partners were being slandered by the local news.
"Major Wilcox announced today that a considerable amount of city funding that would normally have been cycled into our school and law enforcement systems are now being used for a rapid-fire rebuild-and-relief foundation, erected in response to the now-constant attacks by the costumed mercenaries."
Mischa had had enough. She got up and changed the channel on the television, to which a large man in the corner suddenly yelled "Hey, I was watching that!"
"Yeah?" Mischa fired back as she spun around with fire in her eyes. "Well, now you're not." The man quickly backed down.
Mischa walked back to take her seat, but before she coud sit, a set of twin doors were pushed open and Darren entered the room. Mischa could see him out of the corner of her eye, and already knew.
Mischa turned directly toward Darren and he was struck by her crippling gaze. He loved her with everything he had, and though he knew it was impossible for her to return his feelings, he could not bare to hurt her. But he was being forced to, by his own failure to save her. The one Mischa cared for just as much as he had cared for her. And the sight of her eyes, staring him in his wrinkled face, was enough to haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life.
"I... I'm sorry, Mischa," Darren started. "... I just couldn't--"
Darren's words were silenced by a slap in the face. No words or actions would have helped.
"I hate you," Mischa let out, venomously.
Darren was barely able to turn his head in time to see Mischa grab her motorcycle helmet and storm out of the lobby. He knew she didn't mean what she had said. She had just lost the only person that could have tempered her fiery spirit. There was nothing left for her to do now... but ride.
****
Blank.
Mischa's mind was blank. All she could do was keep breathing heavily, as she thrust her key into the ignition of the black motorcycle and yanked the throttle. Without thoughts, she was on the road, her long, blonde hair whipping in the wind from behind her helmet as she rode... somewhere... anywhere... nowhere...
****
Mitchell Tyson instructed his client to rise from their desk, just as the opposing attorney did the same with his own client. At last, the judge would make his ruling on the case- one of the most difficult of Mitch's life.
He glanced to his right to see three faces. The first was the face of his client, 14-year-old Jeremy White. The boy looked tired. As he should be. It was not every day someone this young was asked to get up in front of a courtroom full of people and explain, in explicit detail, all of the horrible things that had been "allegedly" done to him by the accused. The second face was that of his opposition- a crooked lawyer whose name Mitch didn't want to remember. The third face, rippled with old age, belonged to the accused rapist and child molestor, Miles Pierre. The sight of him filled Mitch with disgust. It was people like him that brought him into the field of law to begin with- to keep his kind off of the streets and away from the city's innocent youth.
"Furthermore," the judge continued, "I would just like to say that this has been an exhausting and ridiculous display of slander on behalf of the prosecution."
"Slander?" Mitch let out. He knew he was speaking out of turn, but the outrage was too much to keep under wraps.
The judge struck his gavel in annoyance.
"I'm talking," the judge said intently toward Mitch. "... Now, as I was saying, based on the evidence here today, it is clear that this entire process has been yet another waste of taxpayer time and money. This man is obviously innocent, and whatever accusations manufactured by the prosecution are, at this point, void."
Mitch stood quietly as the judge continued his speech.
The man was impossible.
Mitch had been working in this field for two years now and had never lost a case. Not a single one. Until that day. The blow to his ego was dwarfed in comparison to the aching in his gut that he felt after realizing that the atrocities done to his client would not be the last committed by the pig that stood grinning just a few feet away from them. Mitch did everything he could to keep from revealing to the room- especially his client's mother, in tears in the seat behind them- how much he was shaking on the inside...
****
Judge Trosky returned to his office after a long day of deliberation. He casually closed and locked the door and shut the blinds to the window. A finger on the panel of the small stereo caused a soft, melodious music to flow from speakers around the room. Something wholesome. Comforting.
He innocently hummed along with it as he sat at his desk, thumbing through the files inside a drawer, until finally finding what he was looking for. He pulled out the book and it made a loud thud as it hit the desk. The weight of the large black book was enormous. Trosky's old fingers slowly caressed the black symbol draped across the cover of the book: a five-pointed star, turned upside down.
A chilling breeze suddenly crept into the room, though there were no open windows. The star on the book began to smoke and sizzle as it glowed red. A ghostly voice echoed from nothingness as all the light in the room seemed to fall away.
"To whom do you serve?"
"Only you, dark one," Trosky replied. It was the same reply every time he summoned Him. "I've done as you asked. Pierre is a free man. No one suspects."
"Excellent."
"And now... you will grant the wish I was promised seven years ago... Eternal life."
".... You will live on..."
Trosky closed his eyes in delight at the words. But then he opened them again in a panic, when he realized what was happening.
His skin. They were underneath his skin. Crawling. Biting. Gnawing. The man's heart began to race as he could feel them burrowing their way out of him, one after the other, spawning from within him. It took only seconds for him to collapse out of his chair, and among the darkness, the last thing that could be heard was the sound of thousands of cockroaches scurrying onto the hardwood floor and into the night...
"Your soul... will give my children strength..."
****
Robert Garvy wiped the sweat from his brow as he stepped out onto the floor of the relief center. The heat was always up way too high for his tastes, and he couldn't keep dry no matter what.
He looked out at the endless rows of cots laid out, most of them filled with homeless men and women, many of which were filthy, perhaps racked with illness. But they had shelter. And it was the Garvy's Association that was making all of this happen.
Robert quickly ushered in the last two residents of the night toward their cot-it was a cheap makeshift bed, but it was all they could afford for the woman and her son, who hadn't spoken a word since their house had burned down, taking his father with it.
Robert faked an "everything's gonna be all right" look and walked away. He knew it wouldn't be all right. But at least he could give them hope.
Robert returned to the front desk to see that commotion had ensued in the few moments he had been away. There was a crowd of other people hoping to get shelter.
"We're sorry," Garvy's employee shouted over the crowd, "We've run out of space for the night! There are no more beds- we just can't let you in!"
Robert looked out at a sea of desperate faces- ones that belonged to fathers and daughters and cousins and brothers. Ones that he couldn't bare to turn away.
Robert pulled his assistant aside and handed her a set of keys.
"What's this?" she asked.
"My house keys."
"You want to let them stay at your place? Are... Are you joking?"
"He's definitely not joking," said a raspy voice from behind. Robert looked up to see none other than his best friend, Detective Aaron Fox.
"Fox!" Robert said with a smile.
"How are ya, you old bastard!" Aaron answered affectionately.
The assistant could only stare in confusion.
****
A cloud of cigarette smoke flowed from Aaron's lips and into the night air as he and his old friend stood outside the relief center alone. Robert frowned.
"That crap's gonna kill you, ya know that."
"I'm a friggin homicide detective, and a terrorist on the side- a couple'a smokes ain't gonna be what takes me out, when it's all said and done."
"We're not terrorists."
"Well, that's what they said in the paper the other day. Friggin republ--"
"Well, they're wrong..."
"Sure... But that doesn't mean we don't get into trouble sometimes... I just got off a case about some kid that got his head ripped clean off, and the killer's still out there... I know who it is, but I can't say, cuz they'll think I'm a damn looney toon."
"I know... Sometimes it feels like we're doing more harm than good out there... At least half the people we admitted to the center today came from neighborhoods we fought with our zords in recently. The city's taking damage, Fox. They say 70 percent of downtown will have to be rebuilt by 2008 if this keeps up."
"And, what? We're doing what we can."
"Obviously, it's not enough."
"Hey, worse things could happen. And they're not."
Just then, a ring came from Robert's cell phone. Upon answering it, any hopes he could have had for that night were dashed by the voice on the other end of the line. Any cheering up Aaron could have provided were nullified by the news.
"What?" Aaron asked in a haze of smoke. "What is it?"
"... Mischa's girlfriend is dead... They killed her, thinking she was one of us."
Aaron's cigarette hit the ground and was extinguished under the detective's boot as he quickly turned around, running toward his car, his trenchcoat flapping in the air behind him.
"Where are you going?" Robert asked.
"It's Mischa."
No further explanation was needed. If something this bad had happened to Mischa, they knew she was bound to do something incredibly stupid... like tracking down the source of their enemy and trying to fight them on her own.
****
Mitch forced back another fiery gulp from the shot glass in his hand- the third he had had so far. And he was just getting started. The bartender sat another glass down in front of him at his request. The busy clammer of the rest of the bar behind him was of no consequence to him. No use in confiding in friends that were all too busy with their own problems to hear about his poor little ego-bruising bad day in court. Mitch sucked down another shot.
Suddenly, someone else approached the bar, and took a seat right next to him. Mitch was in his own half-drunken world, uncaring of who else was in his vicinity, but this man continually stared at him. Mitch finally turned over and his eyes twitched at the sight of Miles Pierre sipping a cold beer.
"Nice night, ain't it?" Pierre said with a grin.
"You... You--"
"Ya know, I really oughtta thank you. If it wasn't for your crappy lawman skills, I wouldn't have gotten out. What's your name again?"
"Tyson," Mitch said through his teeth.
Pierre raised an eyebrow.
"Tyson?... Little Mitchell Tyson, from East Macintosh Avenue? Now I remember you!"
Mitch slowly stood up from his seat in utter shock when he made the realization... This man's face... He had seen it before. It was almost 20 years ago, but he remembered it now- the face he had blocked from his young memory... The face of the man that violated him.
The sound of shattered glass rang out as Mitch's furious hands were around Pierre's neck, shoving him up against the wall in an unabashed rage. The sight of the man, still grinning at him behind his tightening grip sent him to levels of anger that he had been afraid to ever release in the entirety of his life! But no more. Nothing would keep him from letting out the full extent of his pain and fury on this beast, and his reddening fists delivered every last ounce of it.
It seemed like hours before a pair of men pulled Mitch off of him like holding back a wild, ravenous dog. They were holding back two decades of bottomless grief.
****
Pierre looked into the old rusted mirror with a toothless smile as he wiped away the blood from the broken skin on his face. He let out a few french curses at the pain of applying alcohol to the wounds, but admitted that it was worth it to have seen the pain on Tyson's face- after so long, the results of his actions were still stirring. The world wouldn't be forgetting Miles Pierre for a very long time...
"Pierre..."
Pierre turned, looking out through his bathroom door into the bedroom.
No one there.
The lights flickered.
The lights died.
Pierre's breathing trembled as he could hear an awful crackling sound on the floor. He did not realize that it was thousands of insects crawling from underneath his bedroom door and through the window to get inside.
"I feel your hatred... I crave it..."
Pierre looked around for the voice, but it came from nowhere. He considered running out, but the door was covered by cockroaches, veiled in darkness.
"Let your hatred flow forth... Let it be the key that opens the door for my son."
Pierre did not know what to do. He could feel the roaches crawling all around him now, up his legs, onto his skin. A sizzling, red light emmanated from his body. He could feel his self-control slipping away. He was frozen in fear. A victim. The voice was sapping away the hatred within him, using it as a vessel, to bring forth another Child of Darkness.
Pierre bent over, feeling the uncontrollable urge to heave... He knew then that whatever was about to emerge from his mouth was alive... and it would take his last breath and make it it's own...
****
Mischa pulled the helmet from over her face and turned to look at the old, broken down building, half-buried under hundreds of years of earthquakes and other phenomena that she was too bored to remember the names of.
It was an old sanctuary, one of the first structures built just outside of the main city lines, now stuck partially buried under a giant hill of earth. But it was no ordinary sanctuary. It was a place for demonic worship that Mischa and her partners had found only days earlier, thanks to Robert's father's funding.
Mischa was not sure what had brought her to this place, but there was nowhere else. This place represented those that had taken someone away from her, and if there was any way to get at them through this old building, then she was determined to find out. Nothing was going to stop her.
"Stop."
Darren's voice did not keep her from getting off the bike and walking toward the building. Darren had no choice but to run up and stand in front of her to keep her from going further.
"Don't go in there alone."
"Don't tell me what to do!"
"We agreed we'd check this place out together. It's too dangerous alone."
"I don't care! I told you, I don't want you- stop trying to be her!"
Darren was struck. He almost didn't notice Mischa begin to walk around him as the words set in. But before she could get much further, she found Robert and Aaron standing in her way.
"Mischa," Robert said with a sympathetic look. "I'm so sorr--"
"Don't!" It was all Mischa could say. She refused to be pitied. She would be damned if she let anyone comfort her. She didn't want comfort. She wanted to hurt those that had hurt her in the worst way imaginable.
"Mischa," Aaron said, authoritatively. "I want them dead as bad as you do... well, almost... but you ain't doin' it alone, and that's that."
"Oh, please. NOW you're gonna play the leader-card? You can't even get a damn day off, let alone find time to lead this team into doing anything that's worth a damn."
"You know, you can be a real bitch sometimes, but I'm not about to let you pull me into another fight with you today. You're not goin' in alone. Discussion over."
"He's right," Mitch said, approaching the others from his car, parked next to Aaron's. "We go in together... We might not have been there for each other in the past, but we can at least do it now."
"I agree," Robert seconded.
Mischa was tough, but fighting them all off would have been impossible. She had no other choice.
"Fine! But stay out of my way!"
Mischa pushed her way in-between Aaron and Robert, but the moment she got close enough to the entrance to the building, the doors flew open with a gust of invisible force, which knocked Mischa several feet back and to the ground.
The others fell back and picked her up, all of them side-by-side in front of the entrance.
Through the shadowy doorway, they could see a terrible creature emerge from the darkness. Its twisted, charred flesh was blackened and stretched across jagged, uneven bones. A hunched right shoulder dropped a freakishly long arm with a spider-like hand. Its face had pupilless eyes and teeth that protruded aimlessly from a drool-soaked mouth. It had grown considerably since its birth from the body of Miles Pierre... and it was ready to do its master's bidding.
"Go...."
Out of the earth, the cockroaches came forth, slowly climbing up onto each other, piling themselves up like towers of living creatures. Within moments, the roaches had fused themselves together into a dozen fusions of vermin. They were foot soldiers, made up of thousands of cockroaches, born from the corrupted soul of Judge Trosky. The Demon that stood in the doorway commanded them to attack.
Aaron immediately whipped forth the gun from under his coat and opened fire on the creatures. Bullets ripped forth from the barrel of the weapon, sheering their way into the monsters, causing remnants of dead insects to fly off of them, but it was not enough.
Soon, Aaron had emptied the entire clip. But using the gun was only a distraction to give the others enough time to pull forth their morphers- silver devices with a panel of buttons with ancient writings on them. Aaron was the last to thrust his forward.
"Ready?"
Aaron turned to his partners, Mischa, Robert, Mitch, and Darren, as they thrusted their morphers forward and shouted "Ready!"
With that, they dialed in the ancient code and the devices were activated. The foot soldiers began to advance on the group, but were soon blown back by the sheer force of the explosion of colored energy ripping from their morphers, bathing them in light and power. Finally, the transformation was complete, revealing the five of them in their high-tech battle-suits.
The foot soldiers wasted no time, quickly rushing back to face the armored warriors with mindless hatred.
Blue Ranger ducked away from a punch, grabbing the enemy's arm and using it to hurl it over his shoulder with such force that the creature was slammed into the ground and splattered into countless bloody cockroaches at his feet.
Green Ranger shouted out as he was thrown up against his own car, his helmet being smashed through the window. He quickly countered with a swift kick to the gut that sent the creature shooting back through the air and skidding across the ground.
Red Ranger yanked the blaster from his side and let loose a furious storm of red beams upon a group of foot soldiers. The lasers blasted holes into the creatures, tossing dead cockroaches into the air and consequently setting the rest of their bodies on fire from the ensuing heat of the attacks. Red Ranger delivered a powerful spin-kick that sent a cloud of ash into the air.
But before Red Ranger could finish the others around him, he noticed Pink Ranger on the ground, furiously pummeling one enemy in the head over and over again, blowing chunks off of its false face with each hit.
"I'll kill you, you bastard! I'll kill you- you hear me?!!"
"Mischa," Red Ranger shouted, realizing the lead Demon was approaching from behind. "Look out!"
Mischa could not hear him. She was too busy exacting her revenge upon the now-helpless creature below him, whose head was now almost completely seperated from the rest of its body.
The Demon raised its giant claw, ready to strike, until Yellow Ranger suddenly darted out of the darkness and tackled it to the ground. It was only after hearing the enormous sound of the two bodies crashing into the ground next to her that Pink Ranger realized what had happened.
Yellow Ranger struggled to wrestle with the beast below him, but shouted out in shock when he was suddenly swatted off of him like a fly. He landed with a flip on his feet as the others assembled around him in front of the sanctuary, their blasters drawn. Yellow Ranger quickly pulled forth his own blaster, never having gotten the chance to do so before now.
The Demon stood up and let out a chilling shriek as it charged toward them.
"Fire!" Aaron shouted, to which the five of them all shot lasers at the monster.
But the Demon kept coming. Even after beams of hot energy had singed their way right through it, causing its flesh to catch fire, it still ran toward them. It was fueled by the evils of men, and it was not going to be stopped so easily. The Rangers kept firing. And the flaming monster kept running.
At last, the Rangers all scattered out of the way, the Demon barely missing them as it flew back through the entrance to the sanctuary. Green Ranger quickly pressed a button on his blaster and it suddenly began to tremble in his hand, as he could feel it warming up behind his glove. He had set the device on overload.
With that, Green Ranger hurled the weapon into the entrance to the sanctuary and forcefully pushed the others away from the building as quickly as he could.
"Hurry, run!"
The five of them rushed away and dove out of the way, just as the blaster finally reached maximum entropy and released an explosion that engulfed the Demon and effectively destroyed what was left of the building, burrying it under several tons of flaming rubble and debris.
"Power down."
The voice-activation system recognized the command and deactivated their morphers, stripping them of their armor in a wave of colored light. They had defeated the latest Child of Darkness.
Robert thanked God it wasn't at the cost of anyone's home, or worse. Darren was proud to have helped save Mischa from a terrible fate. Mitch would never know that his broken childhood had been avenged that night. Mischa's search for vengence, while quieted, was far from satisfied. Aaron was the first to recognize the sound of sirens. And the police had already arrived!
"Come on," Aaron whispered, guiding the others behind a small hill.
Aaron began to sweat when he peaked over the hill and realized that a group of cops had already found his car, sitting there at the scene of the incident, along with Mitch's car.
"W-What now...?" Darren asked.
Aaron looked around at the four other faces looking to their leader for guidance... and all he could do was stare back at them in silence...
To Be Continued....
(Author's Note: In case you're wondering, I have no plans to write anymore of these. It was mainly intended to be like... an example, I guess you could say. Thanks all! Lates!)