Disclaimer: Anything you recognize belongs to Disney/Haim Saban
A/N: I know I usually put this at the end of the chapter but I wanted to be different this time round 'cause I wanted to shout out to JuseaPeterson. Thanks for actually reading my series (btw, she's read ALL the stories!!) and reviewing and actually having the patience to wait for the next episode to come. This is for you; a sort of DavidEva fic but mostly Eva. Hope you like it.
"This is scary."
At Eva's comment, all five of her friends paused in their activities to look at her. David, clad in a red tee and jeans, with his pale blond hair spiking every which way and his warm slanted brown eyes currently narrowed slightly narrowed in puzzlement, paused in arranging the multi coloured cushions.
Trev, wearing a green button down shirt, glasses that usually hid his brown eyes sliding down his nose and his dark hair in its usually messy tumble, turned away from the mystifying control panels to stare at her.
Ris, nearly drowning in an old yellow sweater, brown curls tumbling around her shoulders and hazel eyes wide and surprised, had been reading something for her chemistry.
Jeanie, dressed in a pale pink top, her red hair pulled away from her face and bright blues sparkling behind glasses, raised her eyes as she turned away from whatever she was doing at the control panel opposite Trev.
And Jay, covered in black cloth all over, his dark hair spiked and matching eyebrows raising over dark eyes, sat up from where he'd been lying on the floor, staring randomly at the ceiling of the cavernous command base.
"What's scary?" David asked finally, pulling at the black cushion Jay had been resting his head on. In reply, Jay grabbed it back, hugged it to his chest.
"How used we've gotten to this." She said, putting down the random objects Dayton had given to her to practice her special power of Knowledge on. "I mean, two weeks ago, we were just normal high school students…" she trailed off at the looks the others exchanged. "Okay, I was a normal high school student," she amended.
"Hey," Jay protested. "We were normal as well."
"You were high school students who were also attending top secret ninja academies you'd been sworn never to reveal and you also had an alien for an aunt."
"Two aliens," Jeanie reminded her. "Aunt Kapri is Aunt Ris's sister by blood…or ooze…or whatever."
"Mum says they're sisters of the egg," Ris said in a cheerful voice. "No idea what the heck that means, and I don't really want to, but it sounds cool doesn't, it?"
They stared at her. "I think," Eva said at length. "You should stick to sisters by blood."
"Agreed," Jeanie said, and twisted a knob on the control panel when the light above it flashed.
On the opposite side of the command base, Trev swore. "Damn it, Jeanie. You did that too soon."
"I did it at the exact time I was supposed to," Jeanie shot back. "You're the one coding too damn slow."
"Okay," David said, holding up a hand. "Before Jeanie and Trev descend into geek talk, what was your point, Eva?"
The pretty brunette with sharp green eyes and clad in the light blue top with a darker jeans jacket over it just shrugged. "I was just saying how easily and quickly we've become used to the abnormal. Well, how I have," she corrected. "Seeing as your lives before this was anything but normal."
"They were normal to us," Jeanie pointed out, punching something into the control panel. The lights on both panels flashed madly before the cavern was plunged into darkness.
"Shit!" Trev swore.
"Jeanie," David said in a warning voice. "Trev. Fix it. Now. Before Dayton gets back."
"Speaking of Dayton," Ris's voice came through the darkness. "Where'd he go?"
Jay shrugged before remembering no one could see him. "No idea. Eva?"
"Why're you asking me?" She asked, sounding startled.
"Because you spend the most time with him," Jay pointed out.
"Oh. Yeah. Point. But I'm the same as you. I might spend the most time with Dayton but that doesn't mean he tells me where he goes." The lights flickered on and Eva blinked to adjust her eyes to the brightness. "I think he just goes somewhere to think," she added. "Like, sometimes, he needs to get away from it all."
"You mean he needs to get away from us," Jeanie said in a dry voice, finally giving up on whatever she and Trev had been trying to synchronize. She filched a cushion from the pattern David had been creating and threw herself down beside Ris. "But I see your point."
"On Dayton needing to get away?" Eva asked, mildly surprised. It was a minor point and even Ris had no difficulty understanding what she'd meant.
"No. I mean, yes, I get that," Jeanie added to clarify. "I meant what you said earlier, about this being scary. I guess it is. I mean, look at us," she gestured the command base and them in it. "We treat this place like one of our hang outs. We don't just come here to train. We come to here to relax and unwind. It's scary how comfortable we've become with this place and the idea of being rangers."
"Exactly," Eva nodded to emphasize her point. She picked up a black mug with the smiley face from the movie Evolution painted on it. "Jay drank hot chocolate from this two hours ago," she said aloud.
Jay stared at her. "Can you not do that?" He asked in a complaining voice, though the corners of his lips tugged. "It's creepy."
A bright smile flashed. "That's the point."
David, bored of playing with the cushions, laid down so his hair tickled the outside of Eva's thigh. One of her hands descended, entangling its fingers in the soft strands while her other hand set the mug down and picked up a pen. Jay caught Jeanie's eyes and smirked but, luckily for him, neither David nor Eva noticed.
Eva looked at the pen closely. "Trev used this to make notes yesterday afternoon," she announced. She set it down. "I wonder where Dayton gets all these things."
"I think he just picks them up when we leave them around the base," Jeanie replied. She was now checking Ris's chemistry homework. Ris had lain down on her stomach, legs kicking up, chin cupped in her hands.
Trev, having finally given up on the control panel, sat down next to Eva and picked up his pen. "I've been looking for this," he said, sliding it into his jeans pocket.
They all turned as they heard footsteps approaching. Dayton appeared; a tall good looking man with too long dark hair and tawny eyes, dressed in a pale coloured tunic and matching pants, with a dark slash of colour in the form of a belt hanging low on his hips. "Hey Dayton," Ris called out a greeting. "Where'd you disappear off to?"
"Hello Marissa," the ranger mentor said, coming down the last few steps. "I did not go far. I simply took a walk outside. It is a good day for a walk."
"You all right?" Jay asked, because the all too handsome man looked a little solemn, a lot sad.
Dayton managed a smile. "I am fine James."
Eva smiled quietly to herself. It was funny how Jay never minded when Dayton called him by his full name but he threatened to beat up anyone else who did.
"Have you finished trying to upgrade the panels, Trevor?" Dayton asked, crossing to the panel.
"I tried," Trev said. "but I really don't understand the language it codes in. It's like…trying to read Russian."
"But I thought you can read Russian," Ris said in a startled voice.
"It was a metaphor," Trev replied.
"A bad and cliché one," Jeanie pointed out. "Here. Re-do questions three and seven. I have no idea how you got those answers by the way. How the hell can four carbon atoms make one ethane molecule?"
Ris looked puzzled. "Doesn't it?" She asked, taking the notebook and picking up her pen.
"No," Trev said. "Four carbon molecules make butane. Ethane has two carbon atoms. Do you actually listen in chemistry?"
"Sometimes," Ris replied, distracted as she scribbled in the book.
"The code is a language older than the oldest language known to mine. It was spoken during the time of my people," Dayton explained as he moved through the command base to the panels, probably to check that Trev and Jeanie hadn't inadvertently destroyed them. "I do not think the system truly needs to be upgraded." Almost thoughtfully, he shifted some of the dials back to their original points.
"Who were your people?" Jeanie asked. "Did they all look like you?"
Everyone turned to look at their mentor. Even Ris lifted her head from her chemistry homework, her interest piqued. "Of course not," Dayton said. "We all had different eye colour, different hair colour –"
"What I think Jeanie meant," David interrupted gently. "Did you all share common features, and I'm not just talking about it you all had noses and eyes, etc?"
"Well," Dayton's hands paused on the panels and he lifted his head to space, staring blankly at the air before him.
"Dayton?" Eva ventured after the moment's silence stretched several beats. "Are you all right?"
"Yes." Eva's question seemed to snap him back and he turned to smile at them. "Yes, I am quite all right." But there was something in his eyes that sparked off some worry that niggled the pit of her belly. Before Eva could open her mouth to make sure, though, a persistent beeping sounded near her.
She looked to her side, where David was sitting up, eyes on his watch. "Crap." He got up. "Come on guys, we've got to run."
"Go where?" Ris asked, scrambling to her feet as everyone got to theirs. "Where're we going?"
"Ninja practice," David replied, absently stroking a hand down Eva's hair in good bye. "See you later."
"Later," Jeanie said, passing her.
"Bye," Trev added, walking with Jeanie.
"See you," Ris chirped, practically skipping to the portal that would transport them to the empty lot a few feet from her house.
"Yeah," Jay said, shrugging on his black leather jacket as he went. "Later." He gave them a small wave before the portal. It closed silently behind him.
"Great." Eva flumped herself on her back. "Stuck here again."
At that, Dayton looked at her, raising his eyebrows. "Do you dislike it here, Eva?"
"No," she raised herself on her elbows to better face him. "That's not what I meant. What I mean is…"
"You feel left out," he said. Having spent more than several hours with her each day, Dayton had become an almost expert in reading the blue ranger's expressions and moods.
"Yeah," she admitted, sitting up completely. "I mean, not only are they cousins and they've known each other all their lives, they're also ninja students in this super secret academy which they attend three times a week. Which makes them way better at fighting than me, which is another thing they have together that I don't share. I don't know," she said, shaking back her hair with a sigh. "Sometimes I feel like I'm just tacked on, you know?" She looked at him.
Dayton looked thoughtful for a moment. "Perhaps you should meditate," he suggested. "You will find a way to combat this feeling."
Eva stared at him before rolling her eyes and getting to her feet. "Oh yeah. Meditate. At least that's one thing I'm about par with them." Sounding disgusted, she strode for the exit. "I'll see you later Dayton."
The portal closed behind her before the millennias old guardian could say anything further.
The call came later in the day when Eva was just finishing off a slushy. "Eva. There is a monster in the industrial zone. The others are already on their way."
"Got that Dayton," Eva replied, fingers pressed to the silver bracelet adorning her wrist that doubled as a communicator. She looked around, then ducked into a nearby deserted alley, tossing the slushy as she went. Standing with her legs braced apart, she crossed her left arm over her chest. The bracelet disappeared in a flash of light, transforming into her morpher.
"Griffin Rider, Ranger Form!"
Swirling blue lights engulfed her head, working their way down, until she was completely hidden from sight. Then they dissipated and standing in the place of the slim brunette was a Power Ranger. Dressed in light blue, with a griffin's head on her chest and her helmet styled in the way of the same creature's head, Eva ran out of the alley.
"Are the other rangers and the monster still in the industrial zone?" She asked as she ran with the super speed empowered to all the rangers.
"Yes," came the reply. "They are near the empty warehouses."
"Again?" Eva asked even as she sped up.
David was facing off the monster one on one when Eva arrived on the scene. The others were battling the monster's usual platoon of Frissons. The monster, Eva saw, was tall – a full head taller than David – and thin, almost snakelike, with four tentacle-like arms and a turtle's shell on its back. It head was similar to that of an alligator's. "That," she said. "Is one ugly monster."
"Yeah," Jay panted, stumbling back so he nearly bumped into her side. She steadied him. "That's a face even a mother couldn't love."
"I don't think monsters have mothers," Jeanie said in a dry voice, back flipped towards them. She did a perfect landing on Eva's other side.
"Who cares?" Jay pointed out. He slid into his ready stance. "Let's get rid of them. I'm sure their non existent mothers will thank us."
"Yes," Eva raised her fists. "Let's do this."
As one, they waited for the Frissons to swarm towards them before attacking. Jay grabbed onto one's arm, turned so he was behind it and chopped a hand at the spot he guessed was between its shoulder blades. The tension in its arm loosened and he slammed a fist into its head, exploding it.
Two Frissons grabbed Jeanie on her shoulders. She grabbed their arms and threw them over her shoulder, snapping upright and jumping on their heads with her feet. They exploded under her feet.
Eva ducked one's blow, another's swipe. She blocked yet another kick to her chest with her forearms and surged forward, grabbing two Frissons' enlarged heads and slamming them together. They exploded simultaneously.
"I love it when they do that," Jay said in a voice that hinted at a wild somewhat insane smile under his helmet.
"How 'bout you stop talking," Trev suggested, chopping one Frisson in the neck, following it with a slam of his elbow into its chest and a punch to the face. "And make them all do that?"
"Exactly what I was thinking," Jeanie said, kicking one in the knee and hitting it in the head when it fell. Shining colourful shards flew in her face.
While his team fought the Frissons, David was struggling to get an upper hand on the monster. But, damn, the thing was fast. He shifted to kick it and, suddenly, it was on his other side. Taking it in stride, he managed to catch it in the belly with a roundhouse kick. When it stumbled, startled by the pain, he followed it up with jump, a twist and a smack of his foot on its head.
With a growl, the monster stepped forward, punched the red ranger. It struck him in the chest with inhuman force, nearly making him fly. He managed to only slide the couple of inches and tried a flying kick. The monster immediately blocked it with one of its four arms, another of its arm grabbing David's leg and twisting it.
David hissed in a quick breath as he managed to turn so his leg didn't twist out of its socket. Ris came flying out of nowhere with a downward slice that released David's leg. They both retreated a few feet back. "You okay?" Ris asked.
"Just a twinge," David said with bared teeth.
"Just a twinge?" The monster asked in a deep voice. "Twinge this!" Between cupped hands, a laser formed, which made its way to them.
They separated, flipping away in opposite directions so the laser blasted the ground between them. "You have got to," David said, landing with knees bent and one hand on the ground. "Find better comebacks than that."
"Like this one!" Jay yelled, coming from behind the monster, his foot landing itself on the monster's back.
It fell while Jay joined his cousins. "Nice," Ris said.
"I thought so too," Jay replied.
Jeanie, Trev and Eva all punched the remaining Frisson in its face, watched as it exploded. "Now that's done," Jeanie said, brushing off her hands. "Let's finish that one off."
"Agreed," Trev said and they turned to face the monster.
Finding itself facing six rangers alone, the monster made one of the wiser decisions in its life. "I will destroy you!" It disappeared.
"Well," Jay said, turning to the others. "That was kinda…"
"Pointless," Jeanie finished. She sounded annoyed. "I can't believe I had to run out on my date for this."
David glanced around. "Power down," he said once he saw the coast was clear.
The others followed suit. "I'll see you guys later," Jeanie said. "I have to go make up to Eric." She set off at a jog.
"Later," Trev muttered some unintelligible but it sounded like 'stupid idiot to help her make up'. He walked off.
Jay, Ris, David and Eva looked at each other. "Want a slushy?" Jay asked.