Serene Reflections
A.N: First time writing for Power Rangers so please tell me anything I should know to improve. I haven't seen many fics with interaction between Kat Manx and anyone else other than Cruger, so I thought this up. Not much else to say here, so I'll see you at the bottom.
Bridge Carson was and still is a psychic. He had known and lived with this fact for years, without a single problem, much like most of the rest of his teammates; perhaps save for Z Delgado, who had to suffer humiliation at the hands of children her age.
However, Bridge didn't need to be a psychic to tell that everyone in the rec room was happy. Why shouldn't they be, he thought. Grumm, the Troobian puppet-emperor who had been terrorizing galaxies, and most recently, Newtech City, was defeated and contained less than two days ago. Isinia Cruger, long-lost wife of Anubis 'Doggie' Cruger, was found and re-united. And of Dr. Katherine 'Kat' Manx, the head scientist and technician in the Delta Base? She had her hands full, courtesy of five exceptionally battered and bruised S.W.A.T. Flyers.
Back in the lounge room, there was a flurry of activity. A few cadets were at the arcade consoles lining the walls, and a trio of cadets were playing lightball. It seemed as if that everyone was celebrating. There were talks about fireworks, and a massive ball to be held. This, of course, had prompted an overly-enthusiastic response from Syd; she almost instantly went off about dresses, and the need for something to wear to the ball.
This in turn had prompted an immediate response from Sky and Bridge-they groaned in despair at the thought of wandering the expanses of Newtech Mall, treated like a pack animal than a respectable S.P.D. Ranger, while Syd pranced around in the mall. The two instantly began to scrounge their minds of a reason, any reason, to get out of a possible shopping trip.
"Syd, don't you think you're taking this a little too far?" quickly questioned Sky.
"What do you mean by that, Sky?" asked Syd.
"I mean, think about this. There is no confirmation that there even is going to be a ball. And besides, don't you already have a closet full of dresses?" Sky responded.
"And don't you have a closet full of uniforms?" shot back Syd, as Sky's cheeks turned to match the stripe of colour down his right sleeve.
"Ouch. That's got to hurt, Sky," laughed Bridge, as he trotted across the room, ducking once to allow a glowing sphere of light to fly over his head, and continued over to the food synthesiser.
At the same time, the door to the room slid open with a hiss, and Z stepped in, also ducking to narrowly avoid the same lightball that Bridge had ducked moments before. She then bounced towards where Sky and Syd were sitting, and they were apparently caught up in a vivid discussion. She landed heavily on the couch, sitting close to Sky.
"What's up, Z?" asked Syd, halting her debate about the usefulness closet stuffed full of uniforms, and the usefulness a closet stuffed full of dresses, to turn to her friend, who seemed to be happier than usual.
"Nothing."
"Really? I refuse to believe you are this happy just because Grumm was defeated."
"Maybe it's just that I won't have to spend another night listening to you rabble about stuff while I attempt to sleep."
"Hey!" Syd pouted, and then added "What do you mean?"
"Nah, blondie, just joking," Z replied. "Hey Bridge," she added as Bridge made his way over to where the new B-Squad was sitting, holding a plate that was teetering worryingly.
"Hi Z," Bridge greeted her, as he cautiously sat down on a couch opposite of the couch where both Sky and Z were seated on, balancing his plate of goodies, before setting it down on the coffee table in front of the gathering of couches upon which the B-Squad were seated on. Settling himself in, Bridge grabbed his plate of gold and rested it on his lap. Grabbing a piece from the rather large pile of toast, he quickly bit down on the delicacy.
"So, what happened?" he asked Z.
"Cruger's giving us the week off. Said we deserved it after fighting almost non-stop." Answered Z.
"A week?" Syd practically squealed, forgetting all about the possible ball. "Are you pulling my leg?" she asked.
"Nope."
"A week off. Cool. So what will you be doing in that week?" Bridge asked.
"Well, I'm not really sure. I think that I'll visit my mother and father for about five days, and then get back here by the last day we have off," answered Syd.
"And if the ball is on before you come back?" questioned Sky.
"If that happens Sky, you guys will warn me won't you?" Syd asked, looking worried.
"Of course we will Syd," soothed Z. Sky glowered at her. Damn you Z, you have condemned us to a trip to Newtech Mall, thought Sky.
"And you, Sky? What will you be doing?"
"Well…ahhh….ummmm," Sky attempted to say something, but his mouth couldn't form the words. He actually looked rather shifty, Bridge realised.
Sky opened his mouth again, and made another attempt to speak, before Z elbowed him in the ribs.
"Ouch! Alright, alright." He took a deep breath and sighed. "Z thought it would be nice to take me out for a while to 'bring the human side of me out' as she so elegantly put," he finished with another glare at Z.
"Oh my God!" Syd squealed. "A date! You two together! That's sooooo cute!"
"Congrats, Sky," said Bridge through a mouthful of toast. He was on his third piece, and the plate was still piled to the heavens.
"Thanks," remarked Z, before another copy of Z appeared right next to Bridge, and swiped a piece of buttered up toast from the top of Bridge's pile.
"Hey!" cried Bridge, as the copy walked over, and handed the real Z, still seated at the couch the piece of toast, before disappearing.
"Sorry Bridge, thanks Bridge," the real Z apologized.
Bridge gave a sigh, though he couldn't help a smile as he finished off the slice, and grabbed another.
"So Bridge, are you going anywhere?" asked Sky.
"Nah, I think I'll stay here. You know, upgrade-" that this point Syd let out a cough that sounded suspiciously like wreck "-my computer, and perhaps work on R.I.C. a little."
Z sighed. "Alright. By the way guys, Jack's doing fine. He mentioned something about a date with Ally coming up in the very near future," she revealed.
"Good for him," answered Sky.
The B-Squad cadets sat in silence for awhile, save for the crunching of the toast, and the shouts of the cadets playing lightball, which still continued to zoom around the room, miraculously missing the seated B-Squad a majority of the time.
Z gave another sigh. "Well, I'll be off. Gotta change for tonight," she said with a wink at Sky. He smiled back.
Syd bounced up as well. "I gotta go and pack my bags. I think I'll be leaving sometime tonight or early tomorrow morning," she said as she walked out and into the room she shared with Z.
Sky and Bridge were now the only ones still seated. "Are you sure you'll be alright here by yourself for a while, Bridge?" Sky asked.
"Yeah, sure, I'll be fine."
"Alright, you take care of yourself," Sky said as he too left, leaving Bridge sitting alone. Well, alone except for his toast, but they weren't going to be there forever. Bridge was an Olympic class toast eater, and the two slices left were running on borrowed time.
Bridge gave a sigh as he stared at the doorway, and finished another slice. He winced as he heard the sound of something breaking. He quickly grabbed his last piece, and made a beeline for the door. Something told him that Commander Cruger, or worse, the janitor, was not going to be happy when they walked in. With that thought, and the countless other times when he and the others had broken things in the lounge room, Bridge made for somewhere far, far away from the room in question.
In the Command Centre, the heart of the Delta Command Base, Dr. Katherine Manx stood at the main control console, a circular podium ringed with screens and keypads. There was always a low buzz, and the sounds of the screens or consoles beeping, and the sound of the keys being tapped at. Commander Cruger was pacing around the room, every now and then looking over the shoulder of a technician operating at a station, before walking back to his chair and seating himself down. He let out a frustrated sigh. Kat's ears pricked up as they picked up the sound, and she walked over to his seat.
"Something wrong?" she asked.
"No, nothing."
His attempt at brushing off the question failed, and Kat tried again. "Nothing? Seems that something is wrong, if the Commander is walking around in circles and muttering to himself."
He let out another sigh, and resigned himself to tell Kat. "Isinia wants me to get away from my duties as the Commander for tonight."
The feline blinked, surprised at his relatively simple dilemma. "That's all?"
Cruger let out a growl. "Yes, unless you have something to add to that?"
Kat smirked. "Sounds like a very simple decision."
"Perhaps it maybe for you, but you aren't the one with the wife…or husband. Maybe I shouldn't have given the Rangers the week off…"
"No Doggie. They need the rest, and besides, you might as well catch up with your wife. And besides, who said that I needed a husband?" Kat retorted.
Cruger relented. "Alright then Kat, you win. I'll take the night off, and be back on duty tomorrow morning."
"Don't worry Doggie. It's not like Grumm's going to escape during the night. Just relax, enjoy your time with your wife and I'll take care of the rest."
"Thank you, Kat. If only I could order you to get some time off as well. You've worked harder than any of us, and you deserve it."
Kat shrugged. "I wish. There's just too much to be done, and I can't exactly leave it to Boom, can I?" she said with a low laugh.
"True, true. Well, see you tomorrow morning Kat. Can't keep Isinia waiting."
"Goodnight sir," Kat called after him as he left the Command Centre.
She sighed. Raking through her mind, she eventually decided to give Boom the night off, if only to keep him away from her lab while she was repairing the Zords. She didn't hate Boom. She never really could bring herself to do it. She left the Command Centre, minutes after Cruger had exited.
Bridge wandered around the hallways of the Delta Command Base aimlessly. The Delta Command Base was large, and therefore it had a great deal of hallways to be walked. That was good, Bridge mused, when you need to walk around thinking. With all this space, why walk in circles, he pondered. In his right hand, he held his final piece of buttered-up toast. Experience had taught him that the final piece from a pile was always the greatest, therefore, had to be the most savoured. He slowly took a small bit, all the while walking around.
His feet took him to the entrance of Kat's lab, and he hesitated, thinking of an excuse in case Kat walked in right after he did and saw him standing before a mess, before going in. As he walked in, he half expected the place to be trashed, as was typical of it, especially whenever Boom was fiddling around with gadgets in the lab. Instead, the lab was spotless. There was the occasional gadget lying around, but it looked like Boom wasn't experimenting. Stranger still, Kat's omni-presence around the lab was also missing. Wondering where the feline scientist was, he looked around, and deduced that she was most likely in the Command Centre. Taking another look around the room, he left, taking a bite of the slice of toast whilst doing so.
Bridge again wandered. This time, he walked over to an elevator, and after a brief moment of musing where to go next, he pressed the button to take him down to the Zord Bay. The screen mounted on the panel switched to a projection of a numerical keypad, and prompted Bridge for his access code. Bridge punched in his code, and the computer processed briefly before giving off a beep, and the elevator descended.
While the elevator descended, Bridge, still slowly chewing the piece of toast, which was half-eaten by now, whistled an indistinct tune. He continued to whistle, and it was very likely that if anyone was unfortunate to be in the elevator with him, they would be on the verge of throttling the Blue Ranger. Eventually, the elevator did stop, and the doors opening with a tune. Walking out, he entered his access code again, and the titanic doors slowly slid apart.
Inside the Zord Bay, the enormous room was feeling rather empty. It was understandable, given that the bay had once housed up to eleven Zords, was now accommodating six. Walking deeper into the bay, he was surprised when he heard a fizzing sound, like a fuse being lit or a blowtorch in action. Walking closer to the sound, he discovered that it originated from S.W.A.T. Flyer 1. The Flyer was docked, and was currently ringed by three tiers of walkways like every other Zord in the bay. Each walkway itself had a multitude of extendable platforms that could be moved, and currently, one such platform on the lowest walkway was underneath the badly damaged Flyer. As he walked closer, he accidentally kicked over a can lying around. "Ooops," he muttered. The sound stopped, and he was surprised when Kat's head appeared. She was apparently repairing the Flyer.
"Ummm, hi Kat," he called out.
"Hello Bridge. What are you doing here?" she asked.
"Nothing, really. Well, unless you count walking, which many people don't do for some reason. I mean they don't count walking as something, not they don't walk at all, because everyone has to walk at some stage-"
His ramble was abruptly cut off by Kat. "Yeah, I get it Bridge. If you want, you can come up here if you want to talk."
He blinked. "Alright. Ummm, how do I get up there?" he put forward, rather timidly. Kat gave a smile, which showed off her razor sharp fangs.
"There's the stairwell over there," she pointed out.
"Oh. Alright Kat." He began his walk, and ascent up the stairwell as Kat slid underneath the Flyer once again. Grabbing the blowtorch, she set out to repair a little bit more of the Flyer. Once her sensitive ears had picked up Bridge's footsteps, she finished patching up a section of the underside before turning the blowtorch off, and clambering out- a problem for normal humans, given the tight confines of space underneath the S.W.A.T. Flyer, but was nothing to her, given her exceptional agility and flexibility as a feline and moved the platform back to the walkway. She walked back to the walkway.
Bridge watched as Kat wiped the back of her hands on a rag before turning to look at Bridge. "So Bridge, what do you want or need?" she asked.
"Oh, I don't really need anything. Maybe a person to talk to? If you're not too busy, that is," he quickly put in. Kat gave a laugh.
"Not really. I was just fixing the S.W.A.T. Flyers. They took quite the beating from Omni."
"So you wouldn't mind me being here?"
"Not at all. I could use some company." Kat stretched, before walking towards a control panel, which Bridge was leaning against.
"Toast?" he offered, standing upright and holding out the almost finished slice as she approached. She raised her eyebrows and gave him a sceptical look.
"No thanks." Bridge shrugged and quickly devoured the rest. Kat couldn't help a smile- he was the first one on the original three member team of B-Squad that she had gotten to know personally. Sky was to strict and adhered to protocol so much that he wouldn't socialise with a superior, namely her and Commander Cruger. Syd was rather caught up in her own world at that time, and didn't notice her much.
She still remembered her first meeting with Bridge; he was being pushed around, and was attempting to make amends by offering toast to the offenders. Needless to say, the offenders had a rather unpleasant week after she had caught them.
Pushing away the past memories, she accessed the terminal, as Bridge peered over her shoulder. The screen displayed the diagnostic of S.W.A.T. Flyer 1. The repairs were mostly complete, save for a few loose wires and the like. With that in mind, she walked over to the Flyer, and yanked a panel on the side loose, revealing a part of the interior.
Bridge watched as Kat connected several wires and did all sorts of things to the S.W.A.T. Flyer. "You know, Kat, I never really thought that you of all people would be down here, fixing Zords. I thought that was the technician's job?"
"Perhaps it may be, but I haven't really had the time so far to get my hands into the S.W.A.T. Flyers," she answered.
"Why not? Didn't you create the Flyers?" Bridge was confused.
"Yes, but after that fiasco at Galaxy Command, I've never had the time to get my hands dirty, so to speak," Kat cleared up for Bridge. "Besides, I never really liked the place."
Now Bridge was extremely confused. "But Galaxy Command is like the dream place of almost every S.P.D. employee. Why didn't you like it?"
Kat gave a sad sigh. "I suppose it was because it just didn't feel like home, I guess. That and the fact that if you are a head of a department, you just sit behind a desk and read through reports, and then you deal with nightmarish administrative meetings with other heads and the Supreme Commander. I prefer working with my hands and actually developing the technology rather than reading and filing reports."
"Home? Wasn't your homeworld like, destroyed or something?" Bridge caught a flicker of sadness on Kat's face, and immediately attempted to retract his statement. "Sorry if that brought up any bad memories, you know, I kinda said it without thinking, and you know me, how I sometimes do that kind of stuff…"
"It's alright Bridge. I suppose I would have to eventually talk about it sometime," said Kat, as she gave a smile. "The Zord Bay isn't the best of places to have a good conversation. How about we meet somewhere else, perhaps somewhere less formal?"
Bridge pondered in deep thought for a moment, before coming up with an answer. "How about a coffee shop?"
"Sure Bridge. As long as it's not a Starbucks," Kat laughed, followed by Bridge. "Give me a few minutes to finish this, and then I need to change. How about I meet you in the lobby about ten minutes from now?"
"Sure. I rather not go in my S.P.D. uniform. The other's will think that Sky's starting to rub off me." He sped away, climbing down the stairwell once again. Kat watched him leave, following him with her eyes until the doors to the Zord Bay slid open, and he walked out of the Zord Bay, with a final wave to Kat before entering the elevator and rising to the top of the Delta Command Base.
She returned the wave just before he left, and turned back to the Flyer. It was almost completely repaired. The others can wait, she decided. Having replaced the panel, she too walked out of the Zord Bay, and to the elevator. Kat hit the switch for the overhead lights, and the Zord Bay was soon bathed in darkness, as Kat strolled to the elevator. It wasn't good to keep Bridge waiting. The doors to the elevator opened, and she entered it and turned to face the Zord Bay. Kat hit the button to the floor on which her quarters were located, and the elevator rose. As Kat stepped out of the elevator, Kat thought to herself that life was going to be interesting, perhaps a little strange, but definitely interesting.
A.N: So folks, here we are, end of the story. So, leave comments and reviews, and please feel free to give constructive criticism which is always welcome. Flames, no. If you're going to review, don't flame. It's a waste of yours and my time. Also, any spelling errors about Newtech City are due to conflicting accounts. Alright, see you next time. And hey…..second chapter is imminent...