…So I said Z's Comeback was where The Power of Yellow left off…Opps! There's two chapters I missed. This one takes place where Power of Yellow left off, followed by The Delgado files and then Z's Comeback. Enjoy!
"I am so glad to be getting out of here
…So I said Z's Comeback was where The Power of Yellow left off…Opps! There's two chapters I missed. This one takes place where Power of Yellow left off, followed by The Delgado files and then Z's Comeback. Enjoy!
Again, thanks for the reviews. They've really been appreciated.
"I am so glad to be getting out of here. I never thought that I would say this, but I miss the base's food and my roomie," I complained, as I sat on the hospital bed that I had occupied for almost a month. "
"Yeah, your side of the room is so empty, it creeps me out sometimes," said Syd, sitting in the chair next to my bed. "Then again, I'll miss having the room to myself," she added. I threw Cubby at her. I had named the bear she gave me to keep me company during my recovery at the hospital. She caught it in her lap and threw it back at me. Jack came in and sat on my bed beside me.
"You're all set to go?"
I patted my duffel bag behind me. "Ready was so two hours ago."
Sky came in pushing an empty wheelchair. My eagered face quickly sulkened when I saw the chair. "You have got to be kidding me."
"Hospital policy, Z." Jack informed. I limped over to the chair with the help of Syd and Jake as Sky held the chair immobile. Jake grabbed my duffel bag off the bed, while Syd and Bridge carried vases with flowers and get well balloons that I gotten during my stay. Majority of them came from S.P.D cadets. On the way out, I remembered something I wanted to do for a long time and asked to take a detour to the front desk. Sky offered to take me, but I wanted to talk to her in private. I pushed the wheelchair to the front desk while the others waited for me outside. The same lady was there. She looked occupied with papers on her desk.
"You owe me a look from last time," I said. She looked up to notice me. "Why bother? It seems you found the room okay."
"No thanks to you."
She turned from me, shuffling a stack of papers together and stuffed them in a file.
She wasn't going to get rid of me that easy. "How could you see me?"
"You think you're the only the one that's different?" She snapped.
"You mean you have the gift to see the dead? "
" I don't see the dead and wouldn't call it a gift either- I'm not going to discuss this personal matter with you or anyone else that is curious to know. Now, if you don't mind, I have work to do and it looks like your party is waiting for you outside." I duplicated myself so that she was surrounded by clones of me. She laughed.
"Am I suppose to be threaten by this?"
Her face turn ugly and her lips curled into a wicked smile. " My dear, you are such an amateur."
She passed through her desk and grabbed hold of my chair, trapping me between her arms. I felt something tighten around my throat, but her hands were gripping the sides of my wheelchair. "You cause a lot of trouble, child…"
"Don't call me a child-" The grasp constricted harder around my throat until I was gasping for air in short breathes.
"It should have finished you off." I felt the bones in my neck were going to snap from the pressure on them. I couldn't move my arms either. Something was holding them down as well.
"What…have I…done?" I managed to ask in a hoarse whisper. "You should have stuck with stealing clothes for the poor."
I wanted to ask how she knew all these things.
"Z!" Her icy stare looked away. Bridge was running towards us. For a second, she panicked. I could move my arms. I grabbed her by her white coat. She seized both my arms and threw me against the desk. Then she took off. Jack and Bridge were after her. "Freeze, SPD!" Sky and Syd helped me up. "Sky, they might need back up. I'll stay with her. He took his blaster from his belt and went in their direction. "Oh, she bruised your neck. It looks swollen," Syd described with a grossed out look on her face. "She's got some psychokinetic grip," I explain, my voice stronger.
The nurse got away. The boys later explained they had her trapped at the end of a hallway and she vanished. So much for a welcoming return. Commander Cruger sent for us to return to SPD headquarters immediately give our report of the attack. That meant me explaining the whole out of body experience to Commander Cruger. "So let me get this straight, your ghost needed help finding your body in the hospital and by instinct you checked at the desk and noticed that she could see your ghost," Commander Cruger summarized.
"Then, when I went up to her today to ask her about the whole weirdness, she pasts through the desk and attempts to choke me to dead using psychokinetic force." Cruger turned to Kat. "Kat, any information."
"Nothing, but I've started pulling files from the hospital."
"Would she have any connections with Grumm?" Jack asked, standing next to me.
"It's possible," Commander Cruger replied, "It would be wise for all of you to be on your guard at all time. We don't know what she is capable of doing at this moment. Cadets dismissed."
We saluted and he left the room. I got up and staggered out. My legs were still weak to walk on and my ribs were still sore. "How about us girls go to the café and get a couple of warm decaf cappacinos with extra chocolate foam and whip cream," suggested Syd, in an attempt to cheer me up.
"Maybe some other time. Right now, I feeling a little tired and my bed is looking good right about now."
"Is that offer tranferrable?" Bridge asked. Syd gave him an "as if" look and left. I went to the room and collapsed onto my bed. It felt good to be back in my own bed. I didn't even bother to get under the sheets. I fell asleep the minute I rested my head on my fluffed up pillows.
Hours later someone was knocking at the door. I slowly came awake, turning over in my bed to see if Syd was in the room. "Come in." I swung my feet over the edge of the bed and sat up. It was Bridge. I quickly brushed down my hair absently.
"The guys are waiting in the lounge whenever you guys are ready to join us for breakfast." I scratched my head.
"Breakfast? Wait. What? What time is it?" I reached over for my alarm clock.
"It's six-fifteen," said Bridge, checking his watch.
"I must have been sleepier than I thought," I muttered to myself. Syd came out of the bathroom curling her hair with her pink curling iron.
"Syd, were you planning on waking me sometime today?"
"I forgot you were back, roomie," she said in a perky tone. I gave her a shocked look. "I'm only kidding.- I thought you could use the extra z's, Z." She laughed. "Get it. Z's for Z." I didn't find anything funny about her humor. She stopped laughing when she realized I didn't. She when back in the bathroom to put her curling iron away. "If you want, we could wait up for you." She came out of the bathroom flipping some strands of curls loose.
I sat on the edge of my bed. "Forget it, I'm not hungry."
"I'll get Boom to bring you something. I'm not sure if it will all get to you, but he'll have something." I forced a smile. She left. Bridge waved goodbye just as the door closed. I got up and headed for the bathroom. I needed a hot shower and my hair could use a brush through. Maybe if I hurried, I could still join the others for breakfast. It took fifteen minutes to get showered and dressed, another ten to make my bed. Why is it when you are in a hurry, it seems that time is never your best friend. "Where are my shoes?"
I searched under the bed and in my closet and through my duffel bag. I had on my gray SPD sweats with yellow strips decorating the side and I needed my white jogging sneakers. I didn't notice that Boom came in and I accidentally bumped into him knocking the tray he brought for me out of his hands.
"Sorry," I apologized. "I didn't see you come in." I helped him pick up some syrupy waffles from off the floor.
"I guess I should have knocked before coming in."
I picked up some of the napkins off the floor and wiped at the spilled orange juice on his grey jacket. I bend down to pick up the tray.
"No, let me get that," he insisted. "I don't want to hold you up."
"Maybe, she put them in the dirty hamper," I said thinking out loud. I pulled out the dirty laundry from the hamper to find that my jogging shoes were buried at the bottom. I sat on the bed and quickly put on my shoes. "Boom could you do me a huge favor and pick that up for me. Thanks." I ran out the door before he had time to comply. I checked the dinning area. Other SPD cadets were in there, but not the others. I went up to one of the cadets, sitting off to himself.
"Have you seen B-squad come in here?"
"They were in here not to long ago," he said munching on some cereal.
"Thanks," I said, understanding, but let down regardless that they didn't wait for me. I passed by the control room and peeked in. Kat was active on her laptop.
"Morning." She looked up from her work. "I would ask how you are doing, but its obviously showing on your face." I walked around the desk she had the laptop sitting on to get a better look.
"Did you find anything on the nurse?"
"I've got nothing from the hospital's computers. According to these records she doesn't exist."
"What about Solaris?" She checked the confinement files until she stopped at Omni-Solaur.
"Is that him?"
"Yes. It says he was charged for causing an ice age on Sector 12, Antion, and Bayer X-7 and almost another one here on Earth."
"What are those yellow diamonds," I pointed out on the computer.
"Those aren't diamonds. They're crystals. Apparently, Solaris used them as his main source of power. They allowed him to collect sunlight which he needed to stay alive and also endure heat."
"Okay, I'm confused. You're telling me he uses solar energy in order to live, but the same thing that keeps him alive could kill him."
"He uses magma crystals. They're very rare, but extremely powerful. They allowed him to absorb solar energy in order to stay alive; also absorb as much sunlight as he desires without it harmfully affecting him."
"So if these crystals were to be destroyed somehow, what would have been another source of energy?"
"It would have taken a great deal of energy in order for him to survive and he would have had to have found a source of energy without any direct sunlight around."
"Men, women, and children," I said softly in alarm.
"Did you say something Z?"
I think I need to lie to down. I felt the room was spinning. I caught myself on one of the mainframe panels.
"Z!" Kat sprung out of her seat to help me from falling on the floor.
"Kat, I know why Solaris came after me." She looked at me with confusion and concern. Why wouldn't she? I was shuddering in her arms.
"I-" The alarm went off. She ran over to the mainframe computer. "Rangers there's a monster in sector 4." She turned around.
"Z, I think you ought to leave it up to the others to take care of."
I ran out.
"Z!" She called after me. I could hear screaming. I stopped to hear where it was coming from. No one in the hallways seemed to be reacting to the screams. They acted as though they didn't hear anything.
A little girl crying. "Get away! Help, mommy!" She sounded out of breath like she was running. More screaming. The whole scene was in my head. "No," she plead in defeat.
I felt someone grab my arm. I screamed. I turned around swinging my fist. Cruger grabbed it in midair.
"Miss Delgado. You are confined at headquarters until you have fully recovered. You are restrained from ranger activity until further notice."
I tore away from his grip and ran off.
"Miss Delgado, that's an order," he called after me. I ran, knocking others out of my way. I ran down to the garage where they kept all SPD vehicles. Syd had taken the jeep and the boys were using their motorcycles. The only one not in use was the Shadow ranger's atv.
"Sorry, Sir, but I got to borrow this.- SPD, emergency." I morphed into the yellow ranger and got on.
"Miss Delgado, you are not authorized to leave SPD headquarters," ordered Commander Cruger, his voice a growl over the morpher. I turned off communications. I was going to get in trouble for doing that later. Right now, I had to find her. Suddenly, the vehicle slammed into something and flipped over throwing me off the seat. I tucked myself into a ball and tumbled onto my feet. "What was that?" I surveyed the area. Nothing was in the way of the vehicle to make it flip over the way it did. She must be around here somewhere. " I know you're here, so there's no point in hiding."
"Are you sure?" She cackled.
"I just want to talk to you." A series of sonic blasts came at me. I flipped out of the way. "Solaris killed someone that was close to you. Didn't he?" The light breeze began to pick up force around me. "Was it a little girl?" The wind became violently strong, picking me up and swirling me around in a tornado. "Miss Delgado," she hissed inside my head. "That little girl was my daughter." The wind constricted harder around my body to emphasize daughter.
"You are the cause of this. He should have destroyed you." I grabbed for my blaster.
Forget the nausea, I thought, I had to blast myself out of this.
"Concentrate on where her voice is coming from," I told myself. Her voice was wailing. It didn't sound to far off. I opened my eyes for a second and caught a glance of her ghost through the coiling cycle. I fired. The tornado vanished and I dropped to the ground. I still felt nauseate. Everything was spinning violently. I turned around to see where she was. She was trying to pick herself off the ground as well. I crawled onto my knees and slowly picked myself off the ground. I demorphed to show her that I didn't want to harm her.
"What was I suppose to have done? In his hands…claws…whatever those crystals were dangerous. He was wiping out planets with ice storms and blizzards. This planet would have been next. Then yours. Then the next and the next and the next. He was a monster- evil and malicious. The lives of others meant nothing to him. But you don't have to be this way. Your daughter would not want to see you become the very thing that killed her." She was clenching her right side. Her eyes were puffy and red and her cheeks were wet with tears. She collapsed to her knees. I carefully approached her.
"Forgive me," she begged. "You were only trying to stop him from harming others." I knelt down and soothed her back to comfort her.
She pushed me away. "No, please. I do not deserve anything." She looked up at me. Her eyes were golden yellow with deep purple pupils. Then, they swiftly changed to a cloudly gray. "For I am already that monster." Then she shriveled into nothing.
Something was still wrong. I got up and held my blaster ready to fire.
Something was watching me. More than one. It flashed in front of me. To quick for me to tell if I saw it or if my eyes were playing tricks. I turned the communicator back on. "Kat, I need backup. I'm 10 miles south of headquaters-" A small blast burnt my hand, making me drop the morpher. Another shot me in the shoulder. I turned around and fired in the direction the second shot came from. When my back was turned another shot hit my ankle. I grabbed for my morpher to remorph. The creature came out of nowhere and knocked it out of my hands, twisting my arm back behind me. It sharp claws were pinching into the skin of my arm. I threw a punch at it, hitting it in the arm. The shock from its hit sent a sharp pain up my arm. What is this thing made of?
It threw me to the ground. I did a low kick hoping to knock him to the ground, but he jumped in a flash. I turned around to fire at him while he was airborne. It didn't touch him. He must have had some kind of invisible shield. He landed light on his hooked claws. Then it disappeared. Appearing again only inches from me. I fired again. The blast bounced off his shield, increasing in size as it rickshawed back towards me. I tumbled out of the way. I quickly got to my feet, ignoring the pain from my ankle. My ribs were sore that it hurt ever time I breathed. Two blast came from behind me. The creature emitted a painful shrill cry that hurt my ears. I turned around to see who fired. My team was approaching. It faded away to a minimal breeze. The others that were near by did the same. Jack got off his motorcycle. "We got a call from Kat telling us you were in trouble." I searched for my morpher, finding it crushed on the ground where the creature had landed on his feet. Jack and the others had every right to mad at me for not waiting on them but I surprised them.
"I was in trouble," I shouted, angerily. "I'm always going to be in trouble. And don't you ask me if I'm alright. Because I'm not!" I was trying so hard to keep my emotions in check. I didn't want anyone seeing me like this. The sound of thunder echoed the sky. "We better head back to base.- You can ride back with me," Jack offered. Luckily, it didn't rain on me on the ride back. My meeting with Commander Cruger was postponed until my fresh wounds were bandaged and my old wounds were rebandaged in the medical quarters. I didn't try to defend my actions when Commander Cruger asked me to explain why I disobeyed his orders. I apologized for my rash actions and lack of reason and braced myself for the punishment he was about to enforce. He let out a deep groan. He let me off with a warning. I retreated to my room to listen to some music on my cd player and read a stack of magazines Syd gave me, since it looked that I would be off my feet for awhile.
My stomach started growling right around dinner. I hadn't eaten anything all day. I took my headphones off and slipped the magazine I was currently reading underneath the bed. "I wonder if anyone remembered that I was in here." I sat up slowly to avoid pain in my shoulder and turned my legs off the side of the bed. I duplicated myself to help me stand up. My bad ankle throbbed under the weight and I had to sit down. "Okay, that's out of the question." Someone tapped on the door. "Come in."
It was a surprise to see Sky standing in the doorway. He was holding a tray containing a aluminum lid covered plate, a slice of chocolate cake in a plastic container, and a glass of milk and another glass with juice. He looked surprised that there was two of me in the room. He set the tray in front of me on the bed. The second copy vanished. I removed the lid. Meatloaf, steamed vegetables, and yellow rice." I raised my hand to my chest and gushed, "For me, you shouldn't have." He gave me a blank look. "I was being sarcastic. Something you obviously can't relate to." I noted he was wearing his training attire: a blue shirt, black sweats, and black boots. "Aren't we all dressed up for dinner."
"More sarcasm, right?"
"You caught on fast."
"If you need to know, I'm going to the gym."
"To work up an appetite or have you already eaten?" I asked, popping open the lid to the chocolate cake.
" I'm not hungry." I tore off the top of the plastic wrapping and shook out the fork.
"The cafeteria stays open for no one.- You'll be hungry later." He started to leave. I quickly cut a piece of the cake and placed it on a napkin.
" Wait!" I called. He turned around.
" At least try the cake." He stood there and looked at me with his arms crossed.
"Is there a rule in the SPD handbook that says we can't eat cake," I said, holding the cake out for him. He raised his eyebrow. "Please, there's so much, I can't possibly eat all this by myself." I begged with my puppy dog pout. He came over to the bed and took the piece from me. " You never heard that dessert comes after dinner?"
I laughed. "Who hasn't? But I'm old enough to know that it isn't some serious crime. You gonna call the squad on me?" I teased. He ate it down in one bit. "Got milk?" I asked, holding out my glass.
He didn't decline the offer. He gulped down the milk and handed me the empty glass. "That tasted terrible," he said, squinting his face in disgust. "Liar," I countered, taking a bite to see for myself. The morsel melted in my mouth. "Sarcasm." I said, amused. Maybe he is human.