***
Rachel stiffened when she heard the red ranger's question. She hadn't known the city's sensors were so sophisticated and had thought that she and her sister would have enough time to get their supplies before the city officials realized something was wrong.
"I guess we're not getting a welcome package," she muttered, her hand flying to the blaster. She was already exhausted after fighting the grinders, and after seeing how this team of brightly clad police officers had taken out the rest of Venjix's foot soldiers, she didn't know if she was up to the challenge. But no way was she going down without a fight. "Look, all we want are food and some supplies and we'll be on our way. We don't want trouble."
"You should have though about that before asking us to lower the shield, because according to our sensors there's only one of you, and I'm going to guess whoever is not registering on our scanner is probably hiding Venjix technology." Scott said, "Now drop the blaster and come with us."
"I don't think so," Rachel said, pulling out her blaster and pointing it at him. "You see, I come with you and there's a good chance I'm never coming back."
"You fight us, and there's no chance you're coming back, so why don't you take the first choice."
Rachel tightened her finger on the trigger. "I think I'll take my chances with the second one." She said sarcastically.
"Fine, we'll play it your way." Scott said, "But don't say I didn't warn you. Street Saber!" His saber appeared, catching Rachel off guard. She quickly recovered and leveled her blaster at the red ranger again, her eyes shining with determination.
***
Summer watched as Scott and the girl from the wasteland squared off. She wasn't concerned for Scott, the girl could barely hold herself up she was so tired and battered, Scott could defeat her easily. Summer was more concerned for the passenger, the little girl who was still on the bike looked terrified, her eyes were wide and staring at the motorcycle's driver with concern. If the older girl managed to hold her own, even for a little while, and the fight got out of hand, the smaller girl could be hurt.
Suddenly, Dillon moved towards Scott and put his hand on the saber. "Wait a second," he said, pulling the weapon down and putting himself between Scott and the girl.
"What do you think you're doing?" Scott shouted as Dillon stepped towards the girl. Summer knew Dillon liked getting under Scott's skin, but she didn't think he'd put the city at risk just to annoy Scott.
The girl turned her blaster towards Dillon and said, "I can start with you, too. I'm really not picky."
Dillon stopped walking. "Put down the blaster before you hurt someone," he said, almost condescendingly.
"What makes you think that if your buddy over there couldn't make me put it down, then you can?" Summer flinched. She and the rest of her team knew that Dillon was perfectly capable of disarming her before she could fire a shot, and since Dillon was the one who had insisted that Dr. K lower the city's shield, he would want to fix his mistake.
"Okay girlie, you are messing with the wrong guy, you know that?" Ziggy piped up from behind Summer. Amazing, even in a situation like this, Ziggy could not shut up.
However, instead of knocking the blaster out of her hand and the girl on her ass, Dillon simply took off his helmet and said, "Rachel, put down the blaster."
The girl gasped and swayed on the spot. "D-Dillon?" she asked in shock, grabbing onto her bike seat to steady her. The other rangers looked at Dillon in astonishment. As far as they knew, Dillon didn't remember anyone from before he came to Corinth. "Why are you wearing spandex?" Her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed.
***
Ziggy watched as the girl hit the pavement. He was still in shock from the fact that Dillon knew this girl, Rachel he had called her, seeing as Dillon didn't know very many people. "Wait," he said, "So you're saying that you know this girl? Is she like part robot too?"
"We met out in the wasteland." Dillon said, walking over to Rachel. "I didn't think she'd still be alive."
"Why not?" Summer asked. She took her helmet off and started walking towards the little girl still on the motorcycle. The girl looked frightened, so Summer held her hand out for the girl to take. The girl tentatively hopped off the motorcycle and began moving towards Summer, obviously afraid. Summer smiled gently, trying to reassure the girl that everything was okay. The smile seemed to have worked, because the girl cautiously took Summer's outstretched hand.
"Not many people make it out in the wasteland alive." Dillon said shortly. He kicked the blaster out of Rachel's hand.
"But she's obviously got some kind of robot hardware in her," said Ziggy. "I mean, only one person was registering on the scanner."
"Rachel not the one with machine parts in her." Dillon said. He turned around and looked pointedly at the girl holding Summer's hand.
Summer looked down, "You mean that this girl has Venjix hardware inside of her? She can't be more than twelve." The girl looked fearfully up at Summer, as if afraid that Summer would suddenly pull out one of her weapons and shoot her. Summer smiled soothingly, even with this revelation, she had no intention of hurting this girl.
"You knew that there were others out there with Venjix hardware and you didn't tell us?" Scott asked Dillon accusingly. Scott understood that Dillon still didn't trust the rangers completely, but he couldn't believe that Dillon had kept such an important fact from them.
"Rachel asked me not to." Dillon said casually, picking Rachel up, carrying her back to his car, and laying her in the back seat. "And you never asked."
Scott looked like he was going to say something else but Flynn interrupted. "As much as I enjoy listening to you two fight, maybe we should take it back to the garage. We can sort this out there. Dr. K can find out exactly what kind of technology the girl has in her and why our city sensors couldn't detect it."
"Fine," Scott said, morphing out of his ranger suit, "but we keep both of them under guard until we know what we're dealing with."
***
Back at the garage, Rachel, who was still unconscious, was placed in a chair and restrained by Dr. K, who then turned her attention back to the little girl. Dillon stood by the door watching as Dr. K ran a scanner over her.
"What is your name?" Dr. K asked as she scanned the girl. The small girl remained mute, only staring past Dr. K at Rachel.
"Her name's Chloe," Dillon said from behind Dr. K.
Dr. K turned around to face Dillon, "Can't she speak, Ranger Series Black?" she asked, lowering the scanner.
"She can talk; she just doesn't do it much." Dillon answered. Chloe looked up at Dillon and Dr. K and nodded in agreement.
"Why not?"
"I don't know, maybe she's shy." Dillon snapped. "Can we focus on what your magic scanner says, Doc?"
"We could, if it was saying anything," Dr. K said, walking over to the computer. "The scanner isn't recognizing anything, human or machine, on this girl. It's like she doesn't exist."
Chloe looked from Dr. K to Dillon with wide eyes before pointing towards a pendant hanging around her neck and then towards the computer. She repeated the gesture several times, then smacked her arm on the chair in frustration when she saw that neither Dillon nor Dr. K understood, leaving a large palm print indented in the metal of the chair. She gripped the pendant in her palm and tugged on it, pulling it free from her neck and tossed it to Dr. K, who fumbled to catch it. Then, Chloe gestured to the scanner.
Dr. K brought the scanner back to the girl, and this time a scan showed up the screen, giving the readings of the hardware inside Chloe. "Oh my," she said, looking back at Chloe. "That is definitely not what I was expecting."
***
"Wait," Scott said, "Are you saying that whatever in that girl is the same technology as what the zords are made of?"
"That is correct Ranger Operator Series Red," Dr. K nodded, "Her bionic implants are not Venjix technology, but ranger." Summer and Flynn looked at Dr. K in surprise.
"So what, she's not some crazy robot sent by Venjix to kill us?" Ziggy asked excitedly. "Because that sounds like good news to me!"
"Still, Rachel seemed pretty ready to fight us. Just because they don't have Venjix technology, doesn't mean they're on our side." Summer said as she sat down on a stool in the garage's small kitchen. She wasn't ready to trust Rachel, especially after she had tricked the rangers into opening the city's shield. "I mean, what about the shield that stopped the scanner from sensing Chloe's hardware? Where did they get that?"
"Why don't we ask them when Rachel wakes up?" Flynn asked.
"Yeah, because I'm sure she's just itching to answer our questions." Scott said sarcastically. "I don't know if you remember, but she seemed quite ready to blast my head off earlier. I don't think she's exactly the sharing type."
"Then let's ask Dillon." Flynn suggested, "He knows them, maybe he can tell us why they're here."
"Ranger Series Black is standing guard in the lab, to make sure that neither Rachel nor Chloe hurt themselves or anyone else." Dr. K told the rangers. As if to highlight her point, a large bang came from the lab, followed by a female voice screaming, "Let go of me!"
The team rushed into the lab to see the chair Rachel had been restrained in empty and several pieces of equipment had been strewn across the floor. On the other side of the room, Dillon was holding Rachel with her arms pinned behind her as she struggled to break free.
"Let go of me!" She yelled again, squirming harder, "I swear Dillon, if you don't let go of me right now, I'll-"
"What, what're you gonna do? Kick me until I let go?" he asked casually. Rachel stopped struggling and glared. "Alright, if I let go, do you promise not to run?"
"No." She said angrily, glowering around the room, her eyes locking on the other rangers. "I'm going to guess you're the fabled power rangers." Rachel's sneer made it clear that she couldn't care less.
"Oh, you've heard of us?" Ziggy asked eagerly, "I didn't know that people in the wasteland had heard of us, with there being no radio signals or anything really out there. Speaking of, how did you survive out there for so long?"
Rachel twisted to look up at Dillon, "He's like an overeager puppy." She said. Dillon just shrugged. "Ow, I think you're dislocating my shoulder. Alright, if you let me down, I promise not to run."
Dillon released his hold on her and she dropped to the ground, brushing off her blouse. Chloe came out from behind Dillon and tugged on Rachel's shirt. Rachel bent down as Chloe whispered something in her ear.
"Chloe says you know that the technology planted inside of her is not Venjix, and she wants to thank you for not killing either of us on sight when you found out about the hardware." Rachel relayed the message, sounding almost bored.
"Could Chloe tell us why she has hardware specifically used for ranger technology inside of her?" Dr. K asked. She was anxious to know how two girls had gotten their hands on such sophisticated technology.
"Chloe's not much for talking," Rachel replied sarcastically, "And I'm not really in the mood at the moment."
Chloe glared up at Rachel and then turned towards the rangers. She shot them an apologetic look and then turned around and kicked Rachel in the shin. Rachel doubled over in pain.
"I think Chloe might want you to tell us what's going on." Dillon said, grinning and grabbing Rachel's arm to help her stand up straight.
"Yeah, I got the message." Rachel groaned. She looked at the rangers. "Fine, I'll tell you what I know."
Summer could tell that Rachel wasn't happy about talking about anything with the rangers, but she was relieved to finally be getting answers to everything that had happened since they had lowered the shield.