"I just doesn't make any kind of sense, that's all I'm saying."
"You're absolutely right," came a sarcastic retort, "I mean geez, its not like we can't just be happy everything is over, and done with."
"It doesn't happen like this, they never just disappear."
"Look, everything is quiet now. Do you have any idea how nice it is to sleep through the night without alarms going off, and wondering if you're going to actually live through the day? The city is a safe place again, and thanks to that whole episode, even the crime rate is down. I know you looked up to them Tim, but geez, it's almost like you're on a borderline obsession, or something."
"That's what I'm trying to tell you Susan, I don't think it is over." A guy and a girl. It's sometimes as simple as that. It's how most stories began. Two people, one male, and one female, standing somewhere talking about something, and slowly the story begins around that conversation. Now it's not that conversation that starts that story, more over the story probably started long before, its just that's where we tend to start watching the story.
These two, are where this story starts, and unlike others, its not the normal story you know. The two people for instance, are by no by no means normal. Take Susan for instance. Susan is what you would call cute, not beautiful, just cute. She's quite the girl next door, maybe the girl that's a couple houses down, but the most remarkable thing about her, is her courage. When she was ten she stood up to the biggest bully in the school yard…and broke his arm. At fifteen, while many of her friends were joining the cheerleading squad, she took up a slightly different hobby which she showed off at half time during school games…sky diving. There was nothing cooler than watching her paraglide onto the field wearing the school's colors. When she was eighteen, she was one of the youngest female drivers in the local Destruction Derby, something she usually one. At twenty one though, she had backed off of all the crazy stuff, and the only thing she usually did now, was take on a lot of the local pool sharks at the local bar. Her cuteness helped, what with her brown locks that dropped a little past her shoulders, and her tan skin, and slightly exotic eyes, she definitely stood out in a small crowd. Of course most of the guys tended to look a little lower then her face when they lined up their shots, a fact she very well knew, and tended to capitalize on. That's how she had met her current boyfriend Tim. He might have lost to her on more than one occasion.
Tim on the other hand was slightly more attractive then your average guy. He had that whole shaggy hair slash I could probably pass as one of the Carter brothers deal going for him. His six foot stature, and slightly better than decent build helped him pull more than most when it came to girls, but Susan had caught his eye, especially when he had heard about the skydiving moments. Tim though was not one to take as much of a chance as his significant other. He was more reserved when it came to risks, but there were a few other things that he tended to be less reserve in. Tim was a dreamer, someone who had spent most of his life wondering what it was like to be someone else, maybe someone who could be great, or a hero even. But unlike other dreamers of his time, Tim went the extra mile and spent time trying to prepare himself to do great things. He spent a good deal in high school learning how to practice self control, and mental discipline. The art of meditation became a great friend to him, especially when his older sisters decided that playing music late into the night, at high levels, when they lived next door to him, was a great idea. He trained his body too, for physical endurance and stamina, and on occasion, in certain forms of defense, and combat. His greatest accomplishment came though when he was seventeen, and won the Bushido open at his local dojo, though there were some that thought maybe it was best to take his sword away when he accidentally cut the trophy he won in half.
"It's been two months since we've seen any of those crazy robot monster things that always attacked before the monsters," said Susan. "Two months since a huge crazy monster has towered over the city trying to bring it down Godzilla style. It has been two quiet months since any of this has happened, thank god for that. It has to be over."
"I'm just saying look at historic trends. Dark Spectre's forcers were defeated in all out epic battle with the fate of the world in the balance," Tim explained. "Mariner Bay saw the destruction of the Lightspeed Rescue facility and a whole bunch of megazords. What about Silver Hills, or Reefside seeing an increase in activity, or even the rumors from Briarwood that there was this huge good versus evil battle with magic before it went all quiet there."
"So what you're upset that Jefferson's Point didn't have some apocalyptic battle of good and evil that might have leveled the city?" asked Susan.
"No!" Tim exclaimed, "of course not. I'm just saying the only thing that happened was it just went silent. One day there was a battle, and the next we know, the Rangers are gone, no sign, no nothing, just up and vanished." He snapped his fingers to add definition to his point. "Doesn't that seem weird."
"No," said Susan, turning and smiling at him, amused by the building obsession he was demonstrating. "It's just good that its over."
"Why are you smiling?" he asked her.
"I just wished you'd show this much enthuasim in me sometimes that's all," she returned, folding her arms in front of her.
Tim rolled his eyes, and wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her close to him so that he could hold her. He knew she wasn't upset with him, just joking so they could change subject or something. "I get it. You want me to shut up." He could feel her head rested on his chest, and the sound of her giggling raced up to his ears.
"Look, I know how much the Rangers meant to you," she told him. "Its no secret you looked up to them and everything, but sometimes these things just end, you have to let them go." She pulled away, and looked up at him again, the tone in her eyes serious.
"Alright," he said, "I'll let it go. For now." A bird cried over head, and the two of them looked up to see it overhead. They watched it from the wharf they stood on, as it overlooked the river bank they were looking out from, and to the other bank which held the taller buildings in the city. Unlike the towns on the West Coast in the past, Jefferson's point was one of the first towns on the East Coast to ever have its first Ranger team, and the city, to a point was very proud of that fact. Like most Eastern cities, Jefferson's Point sat on a river, slightly inland from a major body of water, because for some crazy reason during the early days of colonialism, this was usually the best way to defend cities like that. Tim had been right though, the Rangers had just vanished. They had only been on the scene for five months, just appearing out of nowhere one day, like most team of Rangers do. The city went about its business one day, and then boom, screaming, panic, and people running as this large creature in what looked like a Hollywood costume, and theatrical makeup arrived with these strange goons that were a cross between monster and robot. Next thing you know, when the police can't do anything to stop it, five people show up in multicolored suits, wearing helmets, and sporting shiny weapons show up. Green, Yellow, Blue, Black, and of course Red appeared on the scene. Throw in some amazing moves, and a bunch of giant robots, and suddenly a new team of Rangers are born, and the city's expenditures in repairs suddenly goes through the roof. But now that was over, and everything had gone back to normal. That was Tim, and Susan's life now, normal.
For Tim though, that meant his dream of becoming the ultimate form of what he wanted to be, a hero, had been quashed for the moment. No more Rangers meant there was no longer a chance for him to live that out, which meant he had been somewhat depressed for some time now, a note of which Susan had made a couple of weeks before.
"Alright tough guy," said Susan, "you need to get back to class."
"I know," he said, turning around to face the community college behind him. "I'm sorry I wasted all our time together whining." He spun back around to her, and he could tell by the look on her face that it hadn't mattered to her.
"It's alright," she told him. "We both know how much of a cry baby you are."
"The biggest," he said, as he leaned in to give her a peck on the lips.
"Just don't leave me to change those diapers," she whispered back, as their kiss broke.
"Why I thought you loved looking at my butt?" he asked her, as he slowly trotted backwards towards the building.
"Not as much as you like looking at mine," she called back to him as he slowly began to drift out of earshot range. She smile as she watched him go, pleased that she was with someone that had a decent sense of humor that meshed with hers. She took one last look at him as he spun around to see where he was going, before she too turned and walked away along the wharf. She didn't attend school, but instead spent most of her afternoon and early night working, sometimes as a waitress, sometimes as a bartender at one of the bars downtown, and right now she had to hurry if she was going to make the bus to get there on time.
Tim's walk to class for the most part was short and sweet, and he found himself in a room for the next hour with a man standing in the front of the room lecturing about the history of Western Civilization. Why the twenty one year old Tim had waited to his last year of college to take the course is anyone's guess, but for the girl that came in sat down next to him, it was because of the guy sitting next to her. "Hey Tim." Her voice was playful, and flirtatious at the same time, with plenty of innuendo thrown in for good measure. Her smile was sweet, but at the same time far from innocent.
"Hey Abby," was Tim's reply as he sat down in his seat, though it was with a good deal less enthusiasm then what she had presented him with. This story could have easily have started with this guy, and the girl that sat next to him, for when the Rangers first appeared the two of them were together, or at least that is what Abby considered them. Unlike Susan, Abby was more than cute. She was as many guys would describe on first glance, hot. Though their description was a bit abrupt, it did some up Abigail Tyler in a manner. She was quite beautiful, standing a little shorter than Susan, her most noticeable feature was her fiery red hair that came down just to her shoulders that seemed to attract many to her side. Her eyes were soft green to match, and she had a classic freckled skin to match. Her figure though set off her hair, and she might be described as the cheerleader type, strong and athletic. She had been after Tim for some time, and before he had met Susan, they had dated briefly, but Tim found that she was less to his liking, being more passionate about clothing trends, and lifestyles than he was necessarily for. Unlike Tim, and Susan, Abby's most interesting ability was her talent of looking into other people, and figuring out how they worked. Most of the time this power was used for less than good purposes, especially when it came to certain men, but sometimes it could be a force for good, like when she led the campaign to save one of the trees in the park from demolition…though some say it matched the color of her purse that day.
"You're running a little late," she said to him, as he took out his notebook and sat it on the desk. "Car trouble?" Tim took a quick look over her to see her dressed in what looked like a pale yellow top that was sort of like a dress to him, and a pair of jeans, which was beginning to be typical for the early spring weather they were now having in the east.
"No," he replied, "just spending a little time with Susan."
"Oh," was her only reply, though the abruptness that she delivered it with indicated her displeasure with the mention of what she considered her rival for Tim's affections. There was silence though for the remainder of the period as teacher began to delve into his lecture.
Susan's day began to get less quiet than she wanted though, as her bus trip, was ended rather sooner than she expected. Thankfully she had made the bus in time though, and it had carried her over the bridge, and into the downtown area of Jefferson's Point. She didn't always like taking the bus, especially with some of the strange people you sometimes found on public transportation, ones like the middle aged, scruffy looking man that was ogling her from the other side of the bus at the moment. It was people like that tended to her wish she had her own car at times, but that simply wasn't the fact of the matter. She was only glad that most of the time Tim was able to pick her up and give her a lift to and fro at times. She felt very lucky to have met a guy like him several months. It wasn't the easy first few dates, but they had come a long way since then.
The bus was supposed to take her to her job in the city center, but after making it halfway into the city, she was alarmed to find out that it was not going to make it all the way in. "Sorry folks," cried the driver from the front. "End of the line." Several of the occupants expressed their dissatisfaction at this turn of events, some with profanity, but as it was, they had no choice but disembark from the vehicle. "Sorry, the bus needs to be turned in for service."
"Great," said Susan under her breath, as she stepped off the bus. Being cute, she tended to draw only a little attention in her leather jacket, and jeans combo. Most people tended to mistake her for a super bike chick the way the jacket looked on her, but she was nothing of the sort, although she had considered it several times as a means of transportation. Looking at the street signs, she realized that she was still a good number of blocks from work, but was quite thankful it was still light out. Taking a deep breath, she began trudging her way to work.
If she had stayed to the main streets, and not tried to take short cuts, this story might never have been told, because there simply would be nothing to tell, but this was not the path Susan took. See if you go back, and reread the beginning you'll remember that Susan's greatest part about her is her courage, which means that if its light out, and your in the city, strange alleyways are not much of a problem for you, so using them as a short cut is entirely an option. She had only a moment's hesitation as she turned down the one, and then the moment passed, and she trudge on. It was one of those alleys in the middle of the block where it meant another alley somewhere in the middle, and as she moved down it, she became nervous that something might suddenly emerge from one of the alleyways. Her fears it seemed were well founded.
A guy perhaps a little older than she came barreling out of the alley, his one hand clutching his right arm. His footing became lost, and he fell to the ground, skidding across a puddle and into a wall. His hair was dark and short, and face looked dirty, like he had taken a slide through some mud, and frankly the puddle hadn't helped. His clothes had burn marks on them, and the denim jacket he wore seemed to have holes in it were it was burned through. Susan's initial response was one of doubt, and uncertainty, but as the guy collapsed against the wall, her hesitation vanished and she rushed over to him. "Are you alright?"
The collapsed guy let out a groan, and as she kneeled down beside him, she could see the cuts and bruises on his face. He coughed as he lied there, but slowly he managed the strength to spin slightly and look at her. "Get out of here."
The warning was curt, and to the point, and for a moment she considered it, but again she brushed back her hesitation, and slowly reached down to take a hold of him. "We need to get you to a hospital." Too weak to fight back, he couldn't resist as he was slowly hoisted up by the smaller girl, and propped up, his legs barely supporting his strength anymore. "C'mon."
"Leave me," he told her, his voice deep, but hoarse. "Just go."
Finally getting into a motion that she could get used to, she slowly turned back the way she came, and told him, "Sorry buddy, that's not my style." She barely finished the words when she completed her turn and stared back the way she came from, only to see that it was no longer empty. Standing there were four creatures. The robot monster creatures she was talking about earlier with Tim. Her first reaction was to scream from fear, but she suppressed it quickly as she slowly let her fear overwhelm her for an instant, and then pushed it aside, just like before she jumped out of a plane. "Friends of yours?"
"Run," he told her, as the creatures slowly began to stalk towards the two humans. The creatures were very much humanoid, and stood like men, their gait much the same as hunters as they stalked towards there prey, the being wore skin that was astonishingly black, almost as dark as the void of space. Running across it were yellow, green, and red lines, almost like a grid across its body. It had no face, only depressions were certain features should have been, like eyes, and a mouth. It made no sound, silent besides the movement of its body.
Susan was unsure of what to do. Every instinct she had told him to drop the guy, and run, but something deeper inside her made her hold onto him, and stand there. Something told her that the guy she was holding, barely able to stand was in someway important, she just didn't know why yet. "I'm not going to leave you."
"You might want to cover your eyes then," he suggested as he slowly raised his good arm that had been clutching his bad one. In his hand was something she hadn't seen before just now, for it took the form of some futuristic gun, and as he leveled it, the creatures in front of him seemed to freeze, just like she had when they had appeared. He didn't let them off with a choice though, as he squeezed the trigger, and a bolt of azure colored energy raced from the barrel, and into the shoulders of one of the creatures sending it to the ground. The other three took on a much more defensive position, but the guy dropped his arm, his strength fading. Reaching for the weapon, Susan grabbed it, letting go of the guy for a moment, letting him slip off her and to the ground. The three were nearly upon her, but she managed to take the blaster away from the guy, and level it. She could have been the worst marksmen in the history of men, but when she finally squeezed the trigger, she wouldn't have missed a flea at that range. The squeezes were repeated as the weapon discharged and the energy traveled from it into the creatures, each falling to the ground as sparks shot from them. Even as the three lay on the ground, she continued squeezing the trigger at the fallen creatures, making sure they would not be getting back up. Certain of their fate, she stopped, standing motionless over the creatures, looking at what she had done. Fear, and panic almost caused her to drop the weapon, but again she held onto it, and then turned to see the guy lying on the ground. Quickly she rushed back to his side, and picked him up, still holding the blaster. Slowly she pulled him from the alley, and back into the main area of the city, putting everything she had just seen out of her mind, all her strength going into moving him.
Tim moved slowly out of the classroom with Abby right on his feet. This was the usual routine, so Tim had already mentally prepped himself for this outcome. His movement was quick, but not too quick, because he didn't want to piss Abby off. She'd walk closely beside him, and banter on about something he could care less about, but she never really got the hint that he wasn't listening to him. He just trodded along in his jeans, button down shirt, and wool jacket, his hand holding onto the strap of his messenger bag that was slung across his chest. It was the banter that he was growing used to from Abby that caused him almost to miss the ringing of his phone. At the last second though he managed to hear it, and removed it from his pocket. Flipping it opened he answer it, "Hello?"
The voice on the other end belonged to Susan, and she sounded distress. "Tim, I need you to come quick."
"Susan?" he responded back into the handset, "where are you?"
"Um, I'm at a café at 4th and South," she said. "Get here fast." There was a click on the other line, and then his cell phone ended the call. He closed his phone with a confused look on his face, one that Abby immediately picked up on.
"Who was that?" she asked him curiously, having stopped talking when he picked up his phone.
"Susan," said Tim hurrying his pace, "I think she's in trouble."
"What do you mean she's in trouble?" asked Abby back.
"She sounded distressed, and told me to meet her somewhere immediately," responded Tim. "I'm sorry but I gotta go." He hurried off down the corridor, and then down a flight of stairs to the ground floor. He started to go for the main doors when he felt a presence next to him. Thinking he was alone, he was surprised to see Abby still moving with him. "Where did you come from?"
"I took the elevator silly," she responded. "I'm coming with you."
"Yeah that's a bad idea," said Tim, not stopping to talk, and moving down the sidewalk to the parking lot. "You know what Susan thinks of you."
"Look if someone is hurt, maybe I can help," she replied. "I am a nursing major after all." They had made it to the parking lot in record time, and Tim unlocked the door to his Dodge pickup truck, tossing his bag into the bed, with Abby doing the same on her side. The truck was bigger than normal with having a full backseat, at the cost of having a reduced bed. It had been a present for him for his high school graduation. He started the truck up, and it roared to life with its loud eight cylinder, and then shifting the transmission into gear, the two took off towards the city.
Just as Susan hung up the cell phone, she returned it to her pocket, and slowly put a hand on the face of the guy in front of her, who she knelt in front of by the café. She had called an ambulance, as well as Tim, but she had a good feeling that Tim would probably get here first. She could feel from his skin that he was burning up probably from a fever, and she could through his clothing that he was bleeding underneath his shirt. Those creatures had obviously given him a through thrasing, but she still didn't know why. But at her touch, he slowly began to return to consciousness, and groaned softly. Looking into his slowly opening eyes, she could see the soft hue of brown, which was different to the blue eyes she was used to looking into that were attached to Tim. He coughed as he came to, and tried, in vain, to cover his mouth. She shushed him, and said, "It's alright you're safe."
"No," said the guy, "I have to keep moving. Not safe."
"It's alright," she replied. "Listen, my name is Susan. Remember from the alley?"
He coughed again, and then nodded softly, "Yeah. Garrett."
"Garrett," she said repeating it again. "Nice to meet you. Can you tell me why those creatures were chasing you?"
He shook his head and coughed again. He sat there motionless for several minutes, the silence passing between the two uneventfully. Occasionally Susan would look around the area to make sure none of those other creatures had shown up while her back was turned. Eventually it was the screeching of tires that caught her attention, as she saw a Dodge pickup come to a quick halt nearby. Tim, and one of her least favorite people jumped out.
"Susan, what's wrong?" asked Tim as he jumped out of the pickup and headed over to his girlfriend, and the guy now known as Garrett.
Ignoring Abby's presence as she joined the other three, Susan looked right at Tim and told him, "You were right, it wasn't over."
"What are you talking about?" asked Tim, as he looked at Garrett.
"Move," said Abby pushing them both aside, as she moved into check Garrett's vitals.
"What's she doing here?" asked Susan.
"That's a long story," said Tim his voice rising slightly in frustration, "maybe it would be better if you started with yours, and then I'll tell you mine."
"Those robot monsters attacked us," Susan informed her boyfriend, "I think they were after him."
"And who is he?" asked Tim.
"His name is Garrett," replied Susan softly.
"His pulse is erratic," announced Abby. "And he has some bad injuries too, there's some pretty severe bleeding. I need to put pressure on it to stop the bleeding. Does anyone have like a cloth or something."
Susan looked around, and then walked over to one of the tables, and ripped off the table cloth, and tossed it to Abby. The other girl caught it, offering a playful smirk, and then turned back to Garrett. Susan turned to her boyfriend, and announced in a somewhat jealous tone, "And her?"
"She's a nursing student," said Tim, offering the best explanation he could come up with, "I thought she could help." Susan was not satisfied by the answer, and crossed her arms under her chest. Tim shook his head in annoyance, and asked, "Why were they after him?"
"I don't know," replied Susan. "But he was carrying some pretty serious firepower." She tossed the blaster she had recovered to Tim who caught it and looked at it.
"Where did this come from?" he asked her.
"He was carrying it," she replied. "Careful its still loaded….or whatever."
"You all need to go," offered a once again conscious Garrett, his eyes slowly flicking open. Slowly he found the strength to put his hands on the arms of the chair, and slowly pull himself up as Abby slowly backed away from her patient. "Get out of here before its not safe."
"That's all he keeps saying," reported Susan.
"Before what's not safe?" asked Tim, looking at the very distressed Garrett.
"I think he means them!" exclaimed Abby as she pointed down the street, past all of them. The other three turned to look, and there as before were the same "robot monsters" as Susan had described them, their strange alien forms moving towards the four of them, but this time there were a lot more. They had become a small pack, and the people between them and the group were screaming and hurrying to get out of the way.
"I don't want to even hear I told you so," exclaimed Susan as she grabbed the blaster from Tim.
Tim for his part took up a defensive stance between him and Garrett, his fist raised and ready for combat. "Believe, I really don't want to be right, right now."
"Oh my god what do we do?" asked Abby as she stood by Garrett.
"Just stay behind us," announced Susan. "And…be prepared to run I guess."
Slowly the creatures stalked towards the four of them, there movements showing no sign of fear. In some way it was just like men, in others it was like out of a werewolf movie or some sort of weird creature movie where they came after the main characters. Both Susan, and Tim felt the rush of adrenaline coming on at the prospect of a great battle before them as they summed up the numbers, almost outnumbered six to one.
"What do you think?" asked Tim, swallowing as he let a wave of fear pass.
"I think this isn't going to be fun," replied Susan as she stood beside him, taking aim with the blaster in her hand. The creatures were now less than twenty yards away, and again the only sound they made just like before was the sound of their motion.
"Well at least we'll go out together," replied Tim. "That's kind of romantic I guess."
"Aren't you just the lover boy?" responded Susan.
"You ready?" he asked her.
"Yeah," she replied, as the creatures closed to within ten yards.
"Wait," said another voice, this time from behind them. They turned to see Garrett now standing on his feet, but this time just barely. He managed to take a step forward, and this time put himself between the creatures and the other three who had come to his aid. "I'll take it from here."
"But you're in no cond…." Started Susan, who was cut off.
"I'm strong enough," he responded, and then thrust his arm out forward. From beneath his sleeve a tube extended and then on the end, a metal disc spun into existence from inside the tube. "I'd stand back if I were you guys."
"Why?" asked Tim.
"You'll see," said Garrett, a smirk on his face. With his hand still at his side, he raised his voice as he exclaimed, "Sentinel Power!" Raising his hand he squeezed it into a fist in front of his chest, and as he did, he depressed the metal disc in his hand. "Charge Up!" A bright flash of energy came spewing forth from his hand, and just like a very near bolt of lighting caused the whole area, the city streets, the tall buildings, the cars moving passed, quite quickly as it were, go completely white for a second, and then when it passed, Garrett was no longer standing where he was, but instead he had been replaced by the form of a man standing there clad in the form of black, his right hand holding a long sword in it. His free left hand stretched forward and pointed at the creatures. "Game Over."
To Be Continued…..