Epilogue

Magi Tribe: The Purge, Part 1

Red Cross swung his fire staff through the Black Water grunts before him. Each strike, imbued with the power of the Earth itself, burned away at their forms, dissolving them into nothingness.

o0o

Only days after their defeat of the Beast Reborn, the rangers met to discuss what they were going to do next. Despite defeating it's God and it's leader, the Black Water infection still took root in many locations around the world.

"I've conferred with the Order and we've come up with a plan," said Catherine. "With their help, we should be able to imbue a limited number of weapons with the Earth's power. If it worked when I did it back in the Dome, it should work now."

Ken had initially wanted no part of StratCom after Allison's death, but Robert and Brad had talked him round to the idea on the assumption that he could leave once the Black Water was finally eradicated. "Surely there's too much of Black Water out there for us to handle," he said.

Maria grinned, ever playing devil's advocate with his feelings. "How would you feel if your last hope at complete victory had been destroyed?"

"I guess I'd try even harder to win…" said Brad, "we did try even harder to win."

"Exactly! And I'll bet my life on the fact that the Black Water is running scared. Without leaders or a purpose, they'll make mistakes. They'll be looking for mindless revenge... and find us. Waiting. Prepared."

Outwardly, Ken smiled, but inside he was a wash with turmoil. What if another evil like No-one came out of the woodwork? That was a distinct possibility. None of them knew how the infection worked. It had only ever produced two leaders, but did that mean it was difficult to do? Ken wasn't so sure. And what if the Beast somehow returned? What if, what if, what if…

Frankly he was sick of it all, but he knew if she were alive Allison would hit him and tell him to stop being such a big baby.

The worst of it was over.

Ken had to believe that.

o0o

The Present

Soon all that was left was the Water Cult's ring leader. A fat, balding Hindu man in what Red Cross supposed had at one time been a suit. Around his neck the ex-man wore a shattered vial that had once contained pure concentrated Black Water. Where he'd got it from was a complete mystery, but it wasn't the first time they'd seen something like it.

As soon as he'd laid eyes on the StratCom strike team led by the Red Ranger, he'd smashed open the vial and drank its contents. One last ditch attempt to serve his fallen God and save his unholy mutant creations. Immediately a new power had overtaken him. He felt a new connection to the heart of the Black Water, and through it he knew that another would take his place should he fail.

"Your mission is futile, red ranger," he said. "There'll always be another like me!"

"Keep it up then!" Red Cross sneered, "because we will never quit!"

The red cross ranger launched himself at the ring leader. Behind him, the strike team laid down cover fire. Their weapons also belched forth Power-imbued rounds that spelt certain death for any Black Water incursion they'd face.

o0o

Ken and Brad found themselves with some unexpected down time. They'd been sent to Australia to assess the damage there. Initially they'd fought one or two cells of Black Water. Little more than a couple of street gangs commanding simple grunt constructs.

After taking down the last of the gangs they could find, they retired to the hotel paying off a cleaner to sneak them in and keep silent about their wounds.

Ever since Brad had met him, Ken had been a quiet man. Only ever speaking when it was necessary. Recently however, he'd taken it to all new lengths. Brad understood what he was going through... or at least tried. He'd never personally lost a family member, let alone a close sibling, but he wanted to believe he could sympathise at a bare minimum.

"We can talk about it, you know," Brad said. "If you like…"

"What do you mean?"

"About Allison."

Ken looked at the floor and he changed his dirtied shirt for a fresh one. "I'm really not in the mood for that."

"I'm sure not you're not, mate, but the thing is I'm not sure anyone is ever ready to talk about death and martyrdom."

Ken twisted his hand around the neck of Brad's shirt and pulled him close. "Get to the point, or so help me.."

"Look. I just want to help you. I want the old Ken back. The stoic. The rock. Without you to keep me grounded, I feel like some pathetic amatuer… playing at being a ranger, following orders with no real heroic intent..."

"So it's all about you, is it?" A frowned formed at Ken's brow. He let him go and folded his arms.

"No, that's not what I'm saying…" Brad paused a moment to figure out what he was going to say. "This team, the Cross Rangers, hell StratCom as a whole… it only works when we're at our best. Catherine doesn't say it, but I know she's always thought of herself as some sort of stand in until a real commanding officer is found to replace her."

When Ken said nothing, Brad continued, just to fill the silence. "We all miss her, you know."

"I know you do, I know." A tear welled up in his eye, but was quickly squashed. Men didn't cry. Rangers didn't cry. "But I just don't think I can do this anymore. The Black Water took my parents, my big sister… what if it takes me next? I feel like I'm living on borrowed time here."

"No one said you have to fight, but, no offence, it's our duty."

"You're right," he shrugged. "Which is why I'm getting out of the game for good once this is all over. I want a future and, I don't think being a ranger is going to allow that."

o0o

"Resonance Advent!" screamed Yellow Cross, throwing her arms out wide. A deep humming tone burst from her and knocked back the gibbering monkey-scorpion hybrids.

Half of them lay unconscious, bleeding from the ears, while the others scattered and ran. "Ugh… stupid things."

The source has to be around here somewhere. The yellow ranger had been trekking across the hills for what felt like days. There was definitely a concentration of Black Water around somewhere, the mutants were getting more and more numerous and she'd seen many bizarre alien fusions of organic and inorganic matter.

The problem was there didn't seem to be a pattern to the infection. She'd found many a stream or pool of water here and there, running black for at most a mile. The only thing she could do was purge them and move on.

It seemed almost as though someone was leading her on a wild goose chase.

Perhaps that was being a little too paranoid. StratCom scientist's theorised that a number of locations worldwide had been seeded by miniscule meteor fragments barely a few millimetres across. 'Splash seeding' they called it - in other words, Black Water falling as rain from the original meteor breaking up high in the Earth's atmosphere.

She'd resolved to give it a few more hours search-and-purge before calling it in as a false lead. As long as there wasn't any big trouble to be found, the Order could blanket purge the area whenever they had the time, wiping out any weak mutant remaining.

o0o

Red Cross pinned the cult leader to the wall. "So why'd you do it?"

"Do what?"

"No, it's just… I've never understood why you guys are so quick to throw your lives away and join team evil." He pushed his arm harder against the man's throat. "So go on, tell me. Why?"

With no effort at all the Black Water Cultist pushed back, forcing Red Cross to the ground.

"The world has grown fat and lazy. We forget tradition, religion and all that made past society good and true. The god's are angry, boy, and they've sent the messengers of destruction to wipe the slate clean."

The ranger stumbled to his feet, keeping a distance from his opponent. "You've really lost it, haven't you… see that was my first theory. You're just spouting off gibberish to rationalise swallowing a steaming glob of pure evil. No reason, and certainly no rhyme."

"Those who stand in the way of the Cleansing will perish."

Red Cross reignited his staff and felt the power of the Earth course through it. "That's the general idea, dude."

The cultist convulsed. His skin bubbled, boiled and blistered until it split. Black Water oozed from the sores and formed a shiny black carapace, rounded at the shoulders and covered in chains. A blood curdling scream wrenched itself from his throat as two horns burst through his skull.

Red Cross shook his head. "You guys never learn… We know how to defeat you now. You're done for!"

"It doesn't matter now, ranger." The monster leaped forward with inhuman speed and rammed his fists into the red ranger's gut.

Though he toppled backward he used the fire staff to stop his fall. Getting his feet under him, Red Cross pushed off. He broke inside the cultist's reach and took his feet out from under him with the staff. "Eye for an eye."

StratCom troops had surrounded the cultist by the time he'd gotten to his feet. Red Cross stood just out of reach. "You're outnumbered."

"Be that as it may, the more you gloat the more time we have to maneuver," he snarled. "Be careful. Overconfidence will get you in a whole mess of trouble."

"Fancy yourself a fortune teller, do you?"

The cultist relaxed and outstretch his arms, almost as if taunting the soldiers to fire on him. "Something like that."

"At one time I may have given you a second chance, perhaps even appealed to your humanity… I know now, of course, that you stopped being human the moment you threw yourself in with the Black Water." Red Cross turned and walked from the chamber.

He raised his hand, giving the execution order.

o0o

A few weeks after the incident in Australia, Ken sat in a parisian hotel waiting for everyone to get back from their individual missions. These days command had them bouncing from mission to mission. Not one of them had seen their home or familiar bed in months.

Was that what his life had come to? A life on the road. Living out of hotels and secluded motels and his one single suitcase. Hell, he'd even camped alone in the desert for a week.

Not a fun experience.

And the missions kept coming. No sign of a break.

The entire night before he'd laid awake, just taking stock. Being a ranger was driving him away from his friends. No two ways about it.

He'd always be a friend to Rob, for example, but right now he could hardly stand the guy. The more depressed and downtrodden Ken got with it all, the more excited and effervescent Rob was. If anyone was born to be a ranger and a Magi, it was him. A leader and a hero. A courageous, warrior soul with no thought on his mind but defeating evil.

On the other hand, Ken didn't feel like he knew Brad or Maria well enough to 'drift away from them' per se. Sure, he'd spent about year playing student with Brad and they were the closest each other had to an regular human friendship, but that didn't mean they were truly close. Not close like he was to Rob.

Not close like he was… had been with Allison.

Of them all Maria was a symbol of everything he didn't want to become. Hopelessly devoted to some skewed sense of logic that drove her to kill in the name of peace. A true soldier some would say.

Violence would only beget more violence, and someone had to break the cycle, anyone. Except… Ken somehow knew that couldn't be him. What did he have to give? He wasn't charismatic, or driven like the others. He was a follower; a grounding point tying down all the flights of fancy going on around him.

In his opinion, the Order had it right. Purge the infection and move on. Taunting the beast that was the Black Water only lead to more retaliation. They may have been leaderless, but power vacuums only left room for newcomers to take control. It was an intelligent infection, nay, organisation. Not something to be underestimated.

If Ken had his way he'd back out of being a ranger and join StratCom's rescue crews. If anyone was doing the honest work, it was them. He knew Allison would have been be proud of him for making that decision. That was the kind of work she revelled in, most of all. Helping people.

Ken was broken from his thoughts by the door bursting open. On instinct, he almost summoned his morpher. Another reason to hate what he was becoming.

The other three rangers walked in, dragging their battered bags behind them, looking thoroughly worn out.

Rob, who had developed quite the tan from his escapades in India, was the first to speak up. "Well, I tell you what, that's the last I want to see of the ol' bw for a while." He sighed and flopped down onto one of the unoccupied beds.

"We're on top of it though," said Brad, trying to inject a little optimism. "Few months and it'll all be over."

Maria raised an eyebrow. "I like you and all, Green, but you're an utter idiot. This job is like patching a leaking submarine. Plug one hole and two more spring up in its place." She put her bags away neatly beside the wardrobe. "I'd say we've got a while to go yet."

"Way to put a downer on things…" Brad muttered. His ginger hair had gotten rather long recently. His curls fell almost down to his chin.

Ken sighed. "This whole thing's a downer."

"Oh I don't know," said Rob. "Feels good to blow off all this steam. When we beat the Beast I thought it'd go back to the way things were. Boring as all get out!"

"Boring? I'd give my leg for boring!"

Brad winced. It was a wince that said 'not this again', and Ken caught it the instant the green magi attempted to sink into the background.

It made him angry, and that was, as they say, it.

"You can all ignore it, but I won't. Being Magi is ruining us." Ken turned to Rob first. "You. You used to be the most laid back person I know. Taking things as they come... Now look at you. How many did you kill in India, Rob? Were they alive underneath the infection or didn't you think to check?"

"Oh sure, 'hey Mr. Monster-Who's-Trying-To-Eat-My-Face. Would you like to hang out sometime?'" Rob shook his head. "Newsflash: They're dead the moment they're infected!"

"Have you forgotten a certain lieutenant called Celeste?"

"Oblivion's gone, Ken." Maria stepped between them. "Cut her losses and ran. If she was alive somewhere the incursion warning system would have picked up her signal."

"That doesn't change anything! Even after being infected, she still held a grudge over our supposed mistreatment of her beloved General Bryant. If that's not a sign I don't know what is..."

"You can't think like that in war, Blue," she said.

"Oh cut it out, Maria. The 'war', as you put it, is over. We won. We should be helping society rebuild, not roaming the globe looking for revenge." Ken rolled his eyes. "I can't hide it any longer. The moment we get back to base I'm call it quits."

"I've said it all before…" Brad sighed. "but you just don't listen. You can't quit now. If we just stop, they'll eventually come back. It's like… like..."

"Cancer, Ken. The Black Water is a cancer." Maria said, finishing Brad's thought for him. "The moment we stop is the moment we lose everything we've worked hard for. You quit now and Allison-"

"Don't you dare say it!" He screamed. "All you lot ever do is use her memory as a way to blackmail me into killing. This is exactly my point. Being a ranger is doing this to us."

"Find me some more rangers," she said, jaw set firm, "and maybe, just maybe, I'll cut you some slack."

He stared at them for a good minute, resolved etched across his face.

Eventually he spoke just one word. "Fine."

o0o

A young woman, swaddled in heavy clothing, looked back at the border station and smiled. Guards, customs agents and asylum seekers alike lay dead on the ground. Behind her lay a vast wake of destruction, stretching as far back as the snow-covered, icy lands of the far north, and none of it could be traced back to her.

She shrugged and continued on, walking for miles and miles with one single goal in mind. Despite the weather getting warmer the further south she went, she stayed covered. Eventually a truck driver took pity on her and offered to give her a lift.

She silently accepted.

"So where you headed, doll?"

The woman dropped her heavy coat and hood to reveal slick black hair that merged seamlessly into her torn black prom dress. Her face was pale. Too pale. Her eyes and teeth just a fraction too big to be human. In places her flesh had been gouged away revealing little beneath. Instead of a right hand, she had a mass of writhing, black tentacles.

A small wriggling bean of Black Water wormed its way out of the corner of her eye and dropped into her palm. She grabbed the truck driver around the neck and forced it down his throat.

For a while he struggled and coughed, trying in vain to rid himself of the infection, but it was too late. All too easily overpowered, he fell silent.

"Take me to Steele City," she ordered, knowing he would be compelled to do anything she told him. "I have some unfinished business there."

"Of course... Mistress Oblivion."

TO BE CONTINUED