Power Rangers Global Trackers
Episode 2 - Operation Trackers pt. II
Writer: Arrow
Synopsis: The five Rangers reach the location Neolante was heading for, and encounter both them and a new group of opposing treasure hunters. The Rangers must now race to secure two ancient power sources before the two groups of enemies can.
Disclaimer: Disney/Village Roadshow Productions owns the Rangers, powers, zords, and much of the enemy design; everything else is ours.
Rating: T
Note: Yep, finally got off my butt and wrote ch. 2. Ch. 3, you'll hopefully be happy to learn, is already halfway written though. I seem to be in a writing frenzy right this moment, so I'm going to take advantage of it as best I can by getting ahead of schedule with GT. However, as per the original plans, new chapters will probably be posted weekly or semiweekly, much like an actually airing season. For those of you still paying attention to this fic, I greatly appreciate your sticking with it, and I hope you'll enjoy the ride.
This chapter, as well as pt. I, took place during July 25, 2007, for the record. As mentioned in the last chapter, this fic has an official website of sorts, at "prgt . rangerwiki . com", where you can read up on and see pictures/videos on most everything going on here. The official site will also list which Operation Overdrive episodes use the same Japanese footage as each Global Trackers chapter, for the people who would prefer to read GT after watching the matching episode of OO so that they don't spoil themselves.
Since PROO hasn't started yet as of the time of this chapter's posting, I can't tell you for sure which episode chapters 1 and 2 of this story use the footage from. But my initial guess? Chapters 1 and 2 of PRGT use footage from Boukenger Tasks 1 (Heart of the Demon God) and 2 (Dragon Thieves). I'm pretty sure Task 1's footage will be used in episode 3 of PROO (The Underwater World). As for Task 2's footage, unless it's being used in the two ep. premiere (Kick Into Overdrive pt. I and II), I'm guessing PROO won't use that task's footage at all. Either way, if you don't want to spoil yourself to OO, wait until after episode 3 airs on March 5th before you read chapters 1 and 2 of GT.
BTW, chapter 1 saw a minor modification; Dylan and Silvy's Seeker Weapons had name changes. Obviously not a major enough change to invoke a re-read though. Thanks to Angel Negra for helping with the renaming.
Silvy's life, or at least the three weeks of it she knew about, were flashing before her eyes in an instant.
Her fear was increasing at roughly the same rate as the heat in the room, which was so hot that she felt like the lycra-like armor she was wearing was seconds from melting right off her body, followed shortly by her skin.
She heard Dylan, sounding rather desperate, yell "Recon Blaster!" and vaguely saw his signature sidearm rotate to firing position at his hip from her position in the corner of the room. In between the spurts of flame, she could see him thrust his hand down, grab the gun, quickly take aim, and fire. His pouring several blasts into the top of the shrine resulted in success; the stepped top-half exploded in a massive shower of debris, and the streams of fire immediately cut off.
Silvy stood back up and sighed in relief, determined to get back to business and put that terror-filled moment as far behind her as she possibly could. Even though she didn't have any memories of her personal life, she was familiar enough with everyday things: opening doors, keeping quiet in the library, washing dishes, using a computer, cleaning a room, going to the mall, and watching Power Rangers in action during news reports on TV. People in other countries probably wouldn't pay much attention to that last one, but in the United States at least, Power Rangers were media darlings once the first team had revealed their intentions to the public and humbly started saving lives. So amnesia or not, she knew about Rangers, and she knew enough to know that they'd bravely press on.
But it scared her now. Never once had it occurred to her that Power Ranger work would be this dangerous. Despite the reality of them going up against injury-dealing creatures and giants, none of them had ever died to her knowledge, so she had this naive little view that, as newly minted Rangers, they had nothing to worry about.
Clearly she was mistaken.
Yep, putting it behind me. Starting now. Right this second, she thought to herself.
She strolled over to the now dust-emitting shrine and looked down at the top of the leftover portion. Her eyes widened at what she was seeing, and she waved a hand in Dylan's direction as he picked himself up. "Dylan, come look!"
Dylan stepped over to the platform, watching as she cleared rubble off of it. He seemed calm enough, though she was fairly certain he was just as nerve-wracked after that event as she was. And just as determined to move on. He looked down and saw what had her so interested; it was a puzzle. "Hmm."
Silvy pulled her Accellular out, rotated the keycover 90°, clicked the scanner button on the left, and pointed the phone sideways at the puzzle, shining what looked like a blacklight on its left-side at it. The display on the cover showed a number rating of the power/danger level of the puzzle, as if it were a potential treasure.
The rating listed zero.
"Well, I guess that was a bust," Silvy responded, tilting her head in confusion at the rating.
Dylan moved her Accellular out of the way as he reached down. "The puzzle's probably meant to reveal the route to actual relic. Here."
He started moving panels around on the relatively simple eight-tile puzzle. Once all eight pieces were in their correct positions, a ninth tile glowed into existence in the empty center, showing the full symbol. Dylan crossed his arms and nodded in success, while Silvy oohed at the brightly radiating device.
Their victory was short-lived, however, as the entire room started shaking violently. Before they had time to figure out what was going on, the five-pointed statues on either side of the room moved.
"Holy crap!" Dylan exclaimed as the two statues reached in and grabbed the two of them. Five points... they weren't just statues. They were ten-foot tall hands.
As the stone fists extended into the room via matching stone arms and lifted the two of them into the air, the walls began blowing out in chunks, sending a torrent of water rushing into the room from all directions.
"We have got to stop doing this!" Silvy complained as she and Dylan wiggled and maneuvered violently, trying to escape the hands' grips.
Flashes of light underwater coincided with a sudden massive rumbling. Rocks began tumbling and dust started floating up in massive clouds.
Nico, aboveground, looked up as he felt the earth shake under Geo Cruiser 1's wheels. He looked down at his control panel as the comm. link cut back on with the other two idle Rangers.
"What in the world did they do?" Simon asked, as he lifted his Geo Cruiser 3 into the air to escape the shaking. Nico grunted, wishing he could do the same so he could stop himself from vibrating like a busted car speaker with the bass all the way up.
"Guys, the shrine is moving. Give me a lift, Simon." Heather began backing Geo Cruiser 5 away through the water, making sure none of the rocks fell on her and and attempted to crush her zord paper-thin.
"One pickup coming up. I'm billing you later." The humanoid-shaped shrine and Geo Cruiser 5 both broke the surface of the water at the same time. Simon flew his zord overhead, dropped magnetic clamps down, latched onto Heather's zord, and flew up and away. As the two Rangers lifted off, they could see a rock bridge heading towards shrine begin to surface right where Heather had been floating seconds earlier. And then they saw Nico's zord suddenly rocketing down the newly-appeared stretch, heading for the chest entrance it was connected to.
"Nico, what the heck are you doing, man?" Simon asked in surprise.
"Helping them if they're in trouble. Hold down the fort; I'll be right back."
Nico barreled his zord straight through the entrance, driving at breakneck speed through the rock tunnel inside, sending sparks flying behind him as the vehicle scraped the walls as he went. He tapped one portion of his zord's touch-screen control panel, and it popped up with a duplicate of the view out of his front windshield, right before switching modes and showing the same view in infrared. It began tracking distance and direction beyond his immediate view, and settled on an eventual glimpse of the Black and Yellow Rangers. Their yellow and red forms on the infrared display were being held in the blue and purple grip of what looked like two giant hands.
"...the heck?" Nico frowned, and then whipped his steering wheel to the right. The zord quickly fish-tailed, and seconds later, Nico was driving in the same direction down the tunnel he had already been going, but in reverse. Pushing the gearshifts forward on his Geo Launcher caused his own zord's graspers to activate, much like Heather's had the capability of. His graspers, however, were actually the double cab of his dump truck. The two bins lifted up and backwards, and panels on the end folded out, acting as rudimentary grips for clutching whatever he needed.
With a shower of rock, his vehicle burst into the room Dylan and Silvy were trapped in, and the graspers locked onto the giant arms.
"Calvary's here!" Silvy exclaimed, as she stopped wiggling as much. The stone hands weren't showing any signs of loosening their grip, and she would just end up bruising herself at the rate she was going.
Nico pulled his gearshifts back, and the graspers slowly pulled the arms apart, sending Dylan and Silvy tumbling back to the floor with a cry. He tossed the arms out of the way, and then aimed the graspers in their direction.
"Hang on you two; we're getting out of here." With a deft maneuver of the gearshifts, the dump truck's graspers reached forward, shoveled the two Rangers up, and rotated back to their normal position. As their rotation was upward, it caused the Black and Yellow Rangers to fly into the air, with a shout of annoyance from Dylan and one of thrillrider glee from Silvy, and land into the reformed dump cab, along with a massive pile of dirt which was dropping in thanks to the still-crumbling ceiling and walls. Nico didn't wait for them to get settled; he immediately drove off into the exit tunnel.
A minute later, he had exited the shrine and flew into the open air, coming to a halt near the other zords.
Andreas picked himself up off the ground as the shaking finally stopped. In the distance he could see the shrine in open view. His eyes widened in alarm.
"Come on! We've got to hurry; the Rangers may get there before we do if we're not fast enough!"
He began running for the site. The Golems behind him, robotic drones that couldn't express discomfort or disagreement, simply picked up their pace as they followed his orders.
The bins of Geo Cruiser 1 lifted at a 45° angle, sending everything in the cab, including Dylan, Silvy, and tons of dirt, tumbling unceremoniously to the ground. Heather and Simon ran down the nearby hill and reached the bottom of the dirt pile at the same time Dylan and Silvy poked their heads out of it.
"Are you two okay?" called Nico. He hopped off the side of his zord, dropped to the ground in front of the pile, and walked up to the four of them.
"Fine," Dylan replied as he pulled himself out of the pile, grabbed Silvy's right arm, and yanked her up along with him. Silvy lost her balance, and with a sudden yelp, rolled sideways down the pile and into Nico's legs. The Red Ranger almost tripped but, unlike Silvy, was able to successfully keep himself upright. She muttered a quiet, but unbearably cute "oops" as he reached down to help her up; Dylan hopped off the pile and dropped to the ground behind them. Heather coughed. Simon was rubbing the back of his neck as he looked in the direction of the shrine.
"Alright you two nutcases, try to hold in your laughter for a few seconds," Nico tossed in their direction, resulting in another cough and a supporting snort. "That place obviously has a lot more traps than we anticipated. What exactly happened in there?"
"Dylan blew up a fire trap to give us access to a puzzle that caused all that nonsense," Silvy replied with a handwave in the direction of the forbidding looking shrine.
"We need to go back in," Dylan said, as he walked towards the cliff overlooking the ocean and the new bridge. "Now that solving the puzzle put the shrine above sea level, we should be able to find that treasure Neolante's after a little easier."
"Let's stay on our toes," Heather added. "Whatever's in there is obviously important to set off all this."
"I think we should watch out for the shrine itself too," Silvy mentioned, somewhat surprising everyone but Dylan with the fact that she was actually adding to the conversation specifically. "Kind of looks like something the size of a giant monster now that I can see it better."
"She's right," Heather affirmed. "If Neolante gets the treasure inside, I wouldn't be surprised if we had to take down the whole shrine with our Geo Cruisers."
"Same grouping going back in?" Simon asked, looking back at Nico.
Nico nodded. "Dylan, Silvy, keep going. We'll be right behind you this time. Let's all be quick about it; we've gotta get there before our rivals do."
"Gotcha," Dylan responded, and ran off in the direction of the shrine. Silvy waved backwards and followed.
"What's the verdict, boss?" Simon inquired, once they had vanished over the rise.
"Except for the rescue, they're doing pretty good so far. But let's not fall too far behind." He snapped his fingers. "Move out!"
The new area the Rangers had found looked more like the generic remains of the low-to-middle-class of an ancient civilization than the previous almost-royal room. Scattered stone items lay along a large section of bridges and floors made of mortar and stone bricks. The Rangers ran through small tunnels and across broad expanses.
At one point, Dylan and Silvy tramped through a hallway with a low ceiling that ended at another rock wall. Dylan felt along the ceiling as he went, while Silvy rushed to the end quickly. The constricting room, the nearby walls, and the oppressive ceiling were making her mildly nervous, and she wanted to get out of the closed space and into a more open area as quickly as possible.
"There's a door over here," she called out to him as she got to the end. This time she kept her hands off the scenery, in case she might bring the ceiling down on them if she touched something she shouldn't. Instead, she pulled out her Accellular and scanned the door. "Looks like the treasure's somewhere behind it."
"I'll take care of it," Dylan replied, seeing the catch that would open the door. He pulled his Recon Blaster out and yanked the handle up, converting it to its Saber mode. Sticking the blade into a small hole in the center of the door, he rotated the weapon clockwise a bit, opening a lock and causing the door to drop down into the floor with a brigade of dust.
"You know, we're pretty good for newbie treasure hunters," Silvy said as they walked through the newly opened passageway.
"Besides the whole 'almost getting fried' thing?" Dylan replied as he hopped to the floor in the new area.
"Well, okay, there was that..." Silvy responded, and then trailed off into silence as she took in their new environment.
They were in a small cutaway portion of a large rock wall, with four ornate columns near them, and a massive stone bridge in front of them. The bridge led across a tremendous chasm, and they could see a tiny series of white lights in a matching cutaway on the far side. The red highlights in the large room and the bubbling noise below made it clear that a lava-filled demise awaited them if they took a wrong step at any point.
Maybe not even a wrong step. Maybe just the right step too late. The bridge looked rather ancient, and Dylan didn't doubt it would begin crumbling to pieces the moment they walked out on it, like a bad action movie.
Silvy looked down at the flowing magma. "Wow, this is pretty insane."
Dylan tapped her on the shoulder and nodded in the direction of the other side. "That's our target." They could see that the white lights were a type of shrine, and the topmost light looked like it could be the treasure they were after.
"We gotta be quick on this one. Ready to run?" he asked her. She nodded in response.
They began running across the bridge. Surprisingly, it didn't crumble to pieces as they went. So pleased by the turn of fortune he was experiencing, Dylan was distracted and missed the stress fractures on one portion of the platform just ahead of him. That tiny section of bridge dropped beneath his feet, and he almost dropped to his doom if not for a timely yelp and arm grasp by Silvy. She began trying to pull him back up.
"Guess we're even," Silvy grunted out as she strained with his heavier body, despite the Ranger suit augmenting her strength. Before he could reply, Nico, Heather, and Simon came flying by. Simon tapped Silvy on the shoulder as he went. "Get moving you two!"
"Wait! You guys are too heavy!" she yelled, realizing the danger. With her and Dylan walking down either side of the bridge, it was able to stay together for the most part, but with three people taking roughly the same steps, there was too much weight on the old walkway. The section just ahead of Dylan and Silvy dropped into the lava, and the bridge continued to drop directly behind Nico, Heather, and Simon's feet as they ran.
"You'll be fine if you're quick about it!" Nico yelled back. Silvy blinked in amazement as she watched the three Rangers use the pieces of rock crumbling beneath their feet, not for purchase, but for leverage, jumping off any section that started falling below them to hop back to an area that was steady.
"The military had nothing on this," Dylan grumbled as he got to his feet.
"No time like the present," Silvy replied. They crouched and made a fantastic leap over the fallen portion of the bridge, landing on the last crumbling pieces as they fell behind the other three Rangers. Using the same trick, the two of them barely kept up as they all rushed across.
In just a few frenzy-filled seconds, the group reached the far side, with the bridge finishing its crumble into non-existence behind them, and Dylan and Silvy rolling to a stop behind the other three, not having been able to stay on their feet at that last instant. As the two of them got back to their feet, they couldn't help but look behind them at the edge of the platform, watching as a few remaining chunks dropped into the magma far below and were incinerated the second they touched the liquid. Silvy shivered.
"Everyone alright?" Nico asked, glancing around at the team. The four nodded, nobody bothering to reply audibly as they looked at the glowing item in the wall just ahead of them. It was shaped like a human heart, but with veins made out of stone, and glowing with an internal grayish-white light.
"Scan time," Heather said, looking in Simon's direction, since he happened to be standing closest to the item.
Simon pulled out his Accellular and scanned the heart. The rating on the cell phone's display listed 86. "It's the treasure alright." He reached forward to secure it.
"Wait a minute," Nico said in warning, but didn't get a chance to finish. The heart suddenly rocketed off the platform, startling Simon as it flew by him, and shot out beyond the other Rangers, floating a few feet past the fallen bridge. Once there, the heart exploded with a light bright enough to stun the Rangers, forcing them to cover their visors.
When they looked back up, they saw over thirty hearts, all identical, floating in the air before them.
"You have got to be kidding me," Silvy said as she took a step forward and glanced all around, pointing at several of the hearts. "Which one's the right one?"
Simon puts his phone in its holder on the back of his belt as he strolled forward. "I swear, this better be the last test." Also glancing around, he looked at the heart closest to them, one floating near their right, and walked toward it, intent on examining it.
Silvy looked over as Simon kneeled down to prod the heart with his finger. Her breath caught in her throat, however, as he slowly reached forward. It almost looked like she had seen a flash of light inside the heart as he reached... but nobody else was reacting. Was she seeing things now? That just took the cake.
She tried to ignore the idea, but she couldn't shake the overwhelming feeling that he was in danger; that the heart, should it be a fake one, may very well explode in his face. But his finger was almost there; she didn't have time to tell him to stop...
With a sudden cry of "No!", she threw a hand up in his direction, and a streaking cylinder of red light blasted out and enveloped Simon, just as his finger touched the heart. He yelped in surprise and vanished, before reappearing a split second later on the other side of the platform they were standing on, lying on his back. In that same instant, the heart did exactly what she thought it would do; it exploded, sending stone fragments flying and Rangers ducking.
"...oh snap!" was all Simon could manage as he slowly sat up. Silvy rubbed her right arm, her body tensing up in a mixture of embarrassment and fear. Dylan had been extremely spooked the first time he saw that trick of hers in action...
Sure enough, Nico, Heather, and Simon had all turned in her direction. Even with their helmets blocking their faces, she could already figure what their expressions looked like.
Nico was slowly shaking his head as if he was still trying to absorb what he had just seen. "Silvy, what was that?"
Silvy looked down at the floor. "I'm sorry; I didn't... I don't..."
Dylan jumped in with a save. "We don't know what that was. I've only seen her do it once before, by accident."
"So neither of you know where her little ability came from?" Heather asked, with a note of incredulity in her voice.
"No," Silvy replied. "It just sort of... appeared that one day I did it."
"And when were you planning on letting us know about this?" Heather asked, her voice carrying a gallon of annoyance, with a pinch of fear.
"Well, we kind of just met you; it's not like we had enough time to give you our life stories yet," Dylan replied, easily matching her annoyed tone.
"When was that one time before and how did it happen?" Nico asked, attempting to diffuse the argument before it really got going. He'd seen Heather mad before, and he had no intention of seeing it again anytime soon.
Dylan grunted. Silvy coughed. Nico tilted his head, broadcasting a clear sense of 'start talking'.
"Um, it was two weeks ago," she explained. "Someone was banging on our apartment door, and they were yelling, and I was scared, and... Dylan was taking a shower. But they kept yelling, and started threatening too, and I just... wanted Dylan in there so that he could get rid of whoever it was." She trailed off.
Dylan sighed. "She warped me into the living room, soap to my underarm, buck naked. Satisfied?"
The argument was diffused, alright. Simon, who hadn't stood up yet, simply fell back to the floor, making a noise that sounded much like a strangled pitbull in the process. Nico and Heather, who had a little more presence of mind considering the tension in the situation, at least made the attempt to not chuckle hard enough to really embarrass the two, though Silvy's cheeks were turning red enough in that instant for it to not really have worked.
"Argh," Dylan said, looking towards the ceiling of the massive cavern with his hand on the back of his helmet. "Could we get back to business here? You guys can save the whole 'not trusting us' thing for later, alright?"
"Nobody said we didn't trust you," Nico replied, sounding annoyed himself. "And anyways, that's irrelevant. Yeah, that little teleporting thing was extremely freaky, but as long as you're not hiding secrets from us, and as long as you can get the job done, we're going to give you the benefit of the doubt. I'd thought you'd beiused to that mentality if you really did serve in the military. Now quit the paranoia, so we can get back to business!"
Heather and Simon looked on in silence. Dylan's hands curled into fists as if he was about to continue his argument, and perhaps make it physical on top of that, but three years of the Armed Forces drilling into him the rule of not arguing with your superiors, combined with Silvy reaching up and squeezing his shoulder, dispelled it before it could get started.
"Fine." Dylan took her hand and dropped it off his shoulder, albeit gently.
Nico looked directly at Silvy. "Is this something we're going to have to worry about in the future?"
"I don't know. I don't think so. I mean, it's only happened when I was trying to get out of a dangerous situation, so..." She sighed. "I'm sorry; I really wish I could tell you what this is, and where it came from, but I just don't know. You have to believe me though; I'd never hurt any of you."
It was obvious the other three were still nervous, but she sounded so sincere that their worries seemed to at least be partially appeased. Nico nodded and turned back to the floating hearts.
"Well, these things are obviously bombs," he said as he walked towards another one floating nearby, stopping before he reached it. He started rubbing his helmeted chin as he looked at it.
"We obviously need to figure out which one's the real one," Heather said, and then looked at Nico. "Alright, you've got that idea stance going on. What are you thinking?"
Nico didn't bother replying. Instead, he cocked his fist back, and delivered a punch straight at the heart in front of him.
"Cripes!" Dylan yelled; all four of the other Rangers jumped back.
The heart Nico had punched began exploding, but the push Nico had given it sent it flying into another heart as it went off, causing that one to blow as well. That was all it took to start a massive chain reaction of exploding hearts.
The rest of the team slowly relaxed as the explosions, which were a sufficient distance away for them not to be in danger, continued. They watched as the domino effect eventually sputtered to a stop... and one heart remained floating just ahead.
"You're totally insane, man. You know that?" Simon questioned.
Nico pulled his Accellular out and hit the Sun button near the top. The automated voice called out "Downshift!" as the colored armor de-morphed off his body. He shrugged. "With as many traps as we've encountered so far, I figured the real one oughta be strong enough to survive something like that."
The others followed suit and de-morphed as well. Heather snorted. "I thought the leader was supposed to be the logical one, not the risk taker."
"Don't use Carter as the example for all Reds, Heather," Simon joked.
"So how do we get it?" Silvy asked, watching as the real heart floated several feet beyond the edge of the platform. Even morphed, jumping after it would end in a rather fiery splash.
In response, Simon reached into his pocket and pulled out a small device. It took Silvy a second to recognize it; Alexander called it the Scope Sight, if she remembered correctly. Simon aimed it at the heart and hit a trigger, causing a grappling hook to fire out, catch the heart, and reel it in.
"Mission accomplished," he said, with an infectious grin at the others, as he tucked the heart under his arm, aimed the Scope Sight back at the platform they had started from, and fired. Seconds later, he was flying back across the chamber, screaming as he went, as if he were riding a roller coaster instead of flying over a magma-filled river.
Upon landing on the other side, he grinned back in their direction. A wave of chuckling and head-shaking passed across the rest of the team.
The wave stopped when Simon yelled, as a flash of gray circled around him. The next thing they knew, Simon was on the ground, and Andreas was standing above him, the heart in one hand, his wicked looking sword in the other. A dozen Golems had the two surrounded.
"Oh god!" Silvy gasped.
"Get over there, quick!" Nico followed his own advice and shot the grappling hook on his Scope Sight into the ceiling, the others right behind him. Even as they swung across the chasm, they saw Andreas and his cronies vanish into thin air.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" Simon said, pounding the ground with his fist in frustration.
"Don't beat yourself up," Heather replied as she helped him back to his feet.
"We need to get that relic back," Silvy said. The statement was obvious, but the passion behind her voice was clear.
Simon's Accellular started beeping from within his pocket. He pulled it out, flipped it open, read the text message, and snarled. "My zord's picking up life signs on the other side of the island."
"How did they get over there that fast?" Dylan asked in alarm.
"It's not Andreas," Simon replied, looking at the Black Ranger. "One of the life signs matches a Neolante member, but the rest are unknowns."
"They've got allies then," Heather said.
"Probably," replied Nico. "Any sign of Andreas?"
Simon punched a few keys and waited for a response. After a few seconds, he spoke up. "He's still on the island, but I can't get an exact location. $50 says he's heading for that other group though, if there's someone else on his team out that way."
"Let's make our way there then; we'll intercept and figure out what they're doing." Nico started to walk for the exit, when Simon's Accellular beeped again. He looked at the second message he had received.
His eyes widened. "There's another relic there! A totally different one; not the heart."
"Well, that answers what they're doing," Silvy said.
"Let's go!" With that, Nico ran for the exit, in the hopes that more bad news wouldn't drop on them if he didn't give it the time to do so. The others followed.
Qí Jī Shén marched towards an overhang in the mountains near the edge of the island. In his hand was a stylized brain made of gray stone, with a red orb implanted on the top. Two Shòu Guǐ marched beside him, while the rest were slightly spread out behind him, watching the major approaches to the area.
Jürgen watched him from the cover of a nearby tree, out of view of the patrolling foot soldiers. He frowned as he saw Qí Jī Shén stop and look around for a second. The dragonish creature leaned close to one of his soldiers and said something to its ear.
The Shòu Guǐ nodded, tapped several of its mates on their shoulders, and walked straight in his direction, the others quickly following. Jürgen tensed, but they stormed right past him.
Interesting, he thought to himself. He quietly reached into the pocket of his uniform, pulled out several capsules, and dropped them to the ground. The capsules erupted in silence into a group of Golems. Jürgen pointed in the direction the Shòu Guǐ had run off in, and the Golems, accurately guessing his orders, followed.
With that done, he looked back in Qí Jī Shén's direction, just in time to see him place the brain into a previously non-existent shrine. An expression of anger crossed the man's face; that creature was supposed to wait for him! He wasn't supposed to attempt to activate the device yet!
Jürgen snarled, and stomped off towards the group of Lóng Gǔ. He may have been getting old, but that didn't mean he couldn't beat the snot out of a bunch of traitors when he needed to.
The Rangers exited the immediate forest they were in and found themselves next to a river, with high cliffs surrounding them on most sides.
"Which way?" Nico asked Simon. Simon pointed down the river in response, but didn't have any time to start moving in that route, as a growling sounded from on high.
"What in the world?" Dylan glanced up and found himself looking at several dozen creatures that he'd never seen before. The things looked like a strange mixture of dragon and human.
"Over there!" yelled Heather. She was pointing on another side of the cliff, where they could see a brigade of Golems suddenly appear as well.
"Well this just makes my day," Simon grumbled.
"Guess we're gonna have to go through this crowd first," Nico said, pulling his morpher out. "You guys ready to do this?"
They all nodded, pulling out their morphers as well, punching the Sun button at the top and placing the turbine wheels on the bottom of the phones against their left shoulders.
"Global Hunt, Ignite!" came the simultaneous cry, as the five ran their cell phones down their left arms, the wheels on the phones sending out sparks of energy as they went. Sparkles of light enfolded them in an intense rush, and within seconds, they were back in their colored armor, with their helmets coalescing into existence over their heads.
"Braving the flames: Red Tracker Ranger!"
"Cruising the roads: Black Tracker Ranger!"
"Soaring the skies: Blue Tracker Ranger!"
"Delving the lands: Yellow Tracker Ranger!"
"Sailing the depths: Pink Tracker Ranger!"
"Researching the past... and protecting the future!" Nico said with a hint of steel in his voice as he clenched his hand into a fist.
Finishing in unison, the team called out, "Power Rangers... Global Trackers!"
In seeming answer to their extended group speech, the growling from lengths above them only grew in volume.
"Hunh," Silvy thought out loud. "Guess they didn't like the roll call."
"That's alright," Simon replied. "I didn't really like it either."
"Scatter!" yelled Nico, as the dozens of foot soldiers above leaped clear off the cliffside and started dropping straight towards them like sheets of rain in a monsoon. The five Rangers quickly hopped off in different directions to give each other enough space to work with in the upcoming fight.
Once he had gotten enough distance from the others, Nico came to a stop.
"Dynamo Staff!" he yelled. With a flash of the headlights on his helmet, and a subsequent burst of white energy shining in front of him, his signature Seeker Weapon materialized. He plucked the body-length staff out of the air with one hand, and flipped it around, pointing the pincer grip on the end straight up.
A Golem was falling in his direction, looking like it was going to plow right into him and send them both into the ground.
"I don't think so," Nico muttered, and thrust his staff straight up. The Golem came to an abrupt stop as it fell into the pincer, which then locked around him. With a powerful heave, Nico threw the Golem away from him, sending the creature flying into a nearby rock wall. Upon hitting the wall, the Golem shattered into a hundred pieces of rubble.
"One down, two million to go," Nico quipped as he pulled the silver grip in the middle of his staff down several inches towards its bottom end. The grip locked into place, and a metal spike popped out of the top, between the pincer sides. With his weapon now sporting its Pike mode, Nico rushed towards the nearest group of enemies. And then stopped.
"On second thought..." Nico said, and instead, rushed downriver, pulling out his Accellular as he went and hitting a series of buttons on it. The other Rangers could probably handle all the foot soldiers that were attacking them.
Somebody needed to go find out what was happening near that second treasure.
"Gyro Mallet!" Dylan called out, as he watched about a dozen Golems stumble in his direction, hopping over the low stone wall of a shrine entrance they were close to.
His weapon teleported straight into his outstretched hands. The slender pole was topped by a wheel-and-axle setup that was shaped like a hammer.
"Wheel-and-axle..." Dylan trailed off as an idea took shape. As the Golems got closer to him, he rotated the hammer above his head and threw it out of his hands, towards the nearest drone.
The hammer spun into the Golem, knocking him down, but it didn't stop there. Like a boomerang, the weapon flew across the small battlefield, slamming into and past multiple Golems, sending sparks flying, sending the creatures to the ground, as it cascaded in a giant arc back in his direction.
Dylan caught the weapon as it returned, but saw that his little trick hadn't taken every enemy out.
"Well that's alright; I could use the exercise anyways." With a kamikaze cry, he rushed forward and swung the mallet in the air, causing one Golem to duck, and then swung it straight into the chest of the Golem right behind that one. The enemy crumpled to the ground in sudden pain as its chest practically exploded with energy. Dylan continued smashing his weapon into the chests of several enemies as he fought.
"Zephyr Funnel!" With a flash of energy, the handheld device appeared on Simon's right arm. Several Golems were walking straight in his direction, but instead of pointing the weapon at them, he pointed it at the forested ground, and pulled the trigger.
The fan on the circular end started spinning, and with an explosion of leaves beneath his feet, Simon went airborne. He practically flew between the many trees and over the multiple soldiers, blowing them off their feet some distance away, before he finally cut the fan off and dropped back to terra firma.
More Golems were already running his way. "Guess you guys are too stupid to take a hint, huh?"
One Golem running right for him was committed to the charge, and was unable to stop itself before Simon used his funnel to punch it right in the face, sending it flying. The Blue Ranger followed up with a series of jumping cartwheels that sent another six Golems spiraling to the ground as his flailing hands and feet connected with their faces.
"Dual Scrapers!" cried Silvy as she ran across the gravel-filled stretch of ground beneath her, straight towards a Golem also heading for. Showdown!
Silvy was planning on winning this showdown, though. The bulldozer-shaped implements on each of her fists looked silly, but they sure felt strong enough to do damage with. This fact was proven not even a second later, when she jumped into the air, came down at the Golem, and brought her fists together at each side of its head. The Golem's cranium exploded into rubble rather dramatically between the two weapons, with the rest of its body quickly following suit.
Silvy came to a stop next to a nearby hill, noticing a dozen Golems that had been trying to sneak up behind her. "Alright, I'm gonna have to work a little faster here..."
Deciding to try and take them all out simultaneously instead of one at a time, she slammed her right fist into the hill behind her. The resulting shockwave caused the top of the larger hill that was also behind her to shatter, sending massive chunks of rock falling straight at her. Using her weapons, she batted the gigantic rocks straight at her enemies, as if the boulders were no heavier than baseballs. The oncoming Golems quickly fell to the incoming barrage.
"Hydro Pistol!" Heather leaped upside down, sailing clear over five Golems that had been trying to wade through a lake in her direction. Having already loaded up on ammo using the liquid, Heather shot streams of water at the enemies as she flipped past them.
The water, for all that it normally would've done no damage to rock-based robots, devastated them. Firing out of her blaster at such a high viscosity, the usually gentle liquid hit them with even more power than the lasers fired by her Recon Blaster would. The five Golems dropped into the water with a large splash.
Upon landing in the center of the lake, Heather took in the fierce joy she always felt in battle, the joy increasing by an order of magnitude as a result of her graceful movements, of the way she practically danced through the liquid beneath her, of the way her enemies stumbled through it, incapacitated by their sluggish speed. She fired at two Golems standing on an outcropping behind her, then turned to the side to shoot at another four. The two behind her dropped jerkily into the lake, while the following four perished in a ridiculously large explosion of H2O.
"I'm never gonna get enough of this," she said with a grin.
The dragonish creature watched the brain that he had just placed on the center platform of this squarish shrine in front of him descend into the depths of the rock, when he heard a sudden voice behind him.
"I thought you just wanted to study it."
Turning around, Qí Jī Shén was confronted with a furious looking Jürgen holding a fearsome looking axe.
The creature almost laughed. The man had to be 60 years old, at the least. And he was intending on fighting?
"I am studying it. I'm studying the result of using it against my enemies."
"And I suppose you were going to give us more than enough time to get away from the area before the shrine activated, I'm sure."
Qí Jī Shén couldn't hold the chuckle in that time. "Whatever works for you, my valuable ally."
Jürgen snarled and looked like he was two seconds from running in and trying to chop the creature's head off, when the Red Ranger suddenly dropped next to the two of them. "What in the world do you think you're doing?"
"This doesn't involve you, young whelp," was Jürgen's reply, as he waved his axe threateningly in Nico's direction.
Nico snorted and glanced at the other being. "And who might you be?"
The dragonish creature bowed gracefully. "You can call me Qí Jī Shén. I am the leader of the Lóng Gǔ. And I assure you that you won't be interfering with my plans today, Red Ranger."
"No, he won't, because that's my job," came Jürgen's response.
"Don't you think you should leave this to your lackey? Or grandson, whatever he is," replied Qí Jī Shén.
Jürgen didn't respond. Glaring at the dragon the entire time, he reached into his back pocket, pulled out something akin to a walkie-talkie, and double-clicked the button on the side before placing it back in his pocket.
Trying to figure out what exactly was going on, Nico spoke up. "Whatever the problem is between you two doesn't really matter. I'm taking that relic."
The three men looked at each other.
They attacked.
Andreas, standing at the shrine for the heart, felt his commlink vibrate in his pocket with a double-click. Following contingency orders, he placed the heart into the shrine. It dropped down beneath the rock under the shrine, beating in a freakishly realistic fashion as it went.
"Time to go," he said, and warped himself and the Golems still with him out of the area with the press of a button on his walkie-talkie.
Simon and Dylan, battling together on a rocky hill, used a few final slashes of their weapons to send the remaining Golems they were fighting to the ground. Heather and Silvy, fighting nearby on the ground below, used several twirling attacks of their own to down their enemies. Almost simultaneously, all the Golems the four were fighting exploded in defeat.
Simon and Dylan dropped off the cliff. Heather and Silvy ran up to them.
"Where's Nico?" Silvy asked, looking around.
"Hang on," Heather replied, pulling out her Accellular and looking at the display as it vibrated in her hands. "He's got a signal out for us to trace and follow."
"Then let's go," Dylan responded. The four rushed off in his direction.
Nico blinked as Jürgen backflipped behind him after a fierce swing of his Dynamo Staff. The man looked positively too old to pull that trick off, but he was fighting surprisingly well. He proved the existence of his prowess when Nico was forced to duck and roll away from an axe strike that sent chunks of dirt catapulting into the air with the force of its impact.
Qí Jī Shén kept jumping in and out of the battle with a wicked looking sword of his own, showing impressive speed for such a bulky looking creature. The melee had already gone on for a good ten minutes, with no sign of any of the participants tiring out.
The dragonish creature suddenly managed to lock his sword against Nico's staff. The two engaged in a pushing contest, but it was obviously a stalemate, and a dangerous one at that, what with Jürgen having a clear shot at the both of them. Before the aged man could take advantage of it though, a series of lasers struck the ground around the trio.
"Nico!" yelled Heather as she laid down a second series of distracting bolts. "You alright?"
"Fine!" he called in response, backflipping away from his opponents.
Qí Jī Shén looked around, and nodded. "I believe I'll take this opportunity to depart. We shall meet again, I'm sure." With a bow, the creature teleported off.
"Oookay," Simon replied at the scene. He glanced in Jürgen's direction. "You comin' in nice and gently or are we gonna have to play dirty?"
"I won't be playing anymore, but I suspect you five are about to be too busy to 'play dirty'." With that, he vanished as well.
Nico sighed. "All that fighting for nothing."
"Oh geez, man," replied Simon. "Don't say stuff like that. You know it's gonna-"
A sudden earthquake sent all five tumbling to the ground.
"-come back and haunt you. Argh; you retard."
Heather delivered a smack to the back of Simon's head as she got back to her feet. "Pulling our attention away from the blame game, I think Silvy called it pretty well earlier."
It was becoming rapidly clear that Silvy's prediction had been right. Over the crest of the hill behind them, they could see the humanoid shrine they had previously explored stand up and start stomping off in a random direction.
"We're pretty far out," Dylan said. "There wouldn't be any civilians to worry about in this area, would there?"
"Actually, this island isn't too far off the coast of Alaska," Heather explained. "We didn't pick up any life signs on our way in, but this is a big island, with plenty of mining resources, it looks like. I wouldn't be surprised if there were people out here, or at least residences or work areas."
"Either way, we need to take that thing down ASAP." Nico reached behind his back, pulled his Accellular out, and pressed the GO button.
"Dispatch mode, online!"
Andreas turned around as the rush of teleportation sounded behind him. His commander stood nearby.
"Get ready to pull out," Jürgen said without preamble.
"You can't possibly think the Rangers will defeat that," replied Andreas, pointing at the giant stone creature that was now making its way across the shore of the island.
Jürgen, who apparently knew more about Ranger antics than his subordinate did, was not at all surprised to suddenly see a series of laser blasts impact against the shrine's back with alarming rapidity. He raised an eyebrow at the younger man.
Andreas grunted, and began packing up the miniature camp they had set up when they first arrived.
"I guess this means those guys managed to activate those two treasures after all?" Dylan asked from inside the cockpit of his streamlined race car.
"It certainly looks like it," came Silvy's reply from her bulldozer as it trailed along the ground towards the giant.
"So how are we going to get the treasures back then?" questioned Simon as he practically pirouetted through the air in his gyrocopter, showing a marked similarity to Joel's hotdogging zord-piloting style.
"According to my sensors, we just need to destroy this thing. The two treasures will be pretty easily securable after that." Heather sailed her submarine across the surface of the ocean, just offshore.
"Alright then," came Nico's response as he drove his dump truck over the uneven ground. "Dylan, Silvy, you two want first shot again? We just need to down him long enough to give us time to go Megazord."
"Works for me," came Silvy's enthusiastic reply. Driving a 30-foot tall, 130-ton bulldozer was a lot more fun than trying to escape fire traps. "Here we go!"
Silvy pushed her gearshifts forward and drove the gas pedal straight to the floor, turning in the direction of the walking shrine. The zord rushed up to the giant rather quickly for a bulldozer. Upon reaching it, Silvy maneuvered the scraper under the monster's right foot, and lifted it straight up, sending the creature's leg flying into the air, sending it off balance and falling onto its back.
"My turn," Dylan said as he used his brake to fishtail his zord in the monster's direction. Once he was lined up, he yanked back on left gearshift, which flipped the entire front half of his zord up and over, revealing a rack of twenty missile launchers. As the living shrine stood back up, a series of missiles shot out of the launchers, impacting it and sending it falling backwards into the mountains right behind it.
"That oughta be good enough," Nico spoke up as the creature wiggled around, seemingly having trouble getting back to its feet. "Dylan, Silvy, just follow our lead."
Dylan nodded, moderately annoyed that his leader thought he couldn't handle this. "Got it."
Silvy, who was a little more unsure over the whole process, figured there was no point in not trusting her teammates to help her along. "Alright; I'm ready. I think."
That wasn't quite the response he wanted, but Nico would take what he could get right that second. "Let's do it!"
He reached down to the Accellular plugged in to the right of his Geo Launcher, and hit the button to the left of the 0 this time, a button with a tiny Megazord shaped figure on it. The automated voice called out "Junction mode, online!" in response. Each Ranger then hit the number for their own Geo Cruisers, causing the voice to call out the individual zord names. Once they were all locked in, Nico ran his right hand across the turbine wheel, sending it spinning and sparking.
"Hunter formation!"
Geo Cruisers 1, 4, and 5 rolled to a stop, with 1 in the middle, 4 on its left, and 5 on its right. The scraper on Geo Cruiser 4 dug into the dirt in front of it, allowing the zord enough leverage to lift and rotate its entire wheel assembly backwards. A giant fist soon slid out from beneath the treads. Meanwhile, Geo Cruiser 5's graspers rotated upwards while the back end of the zord pulled itself in, revealing a second fist. The two zords then moved inwards and connected to the sides of Geo Cruiser 1 with a hiss of steam.
The dump truck's double bins then lifted up and out, much like they did to save the two Rangers back in the shrine, but this time they rotated all the way until they were laying on the dirt behind the zord. Once they had touched the ground, a hydraulic lift system began pushing the entire mecha assembly upwards.
Geo Cruiser 2 took this opportunity to drive straight at the bins still touching the ground, and then began to drive up the assembly as it lifted into the air at an angle. Just as the entire thing reached vertical, with the bins now serving as legs for the machinery to stand on, Geo Cruiser 2 locked into place on what was now the mecha's torso. The pistons in the back that had lifted the mecha up pulled back into position in the rear. The top half of the race car folded down again, as a robotic head that looked similar in design to an engine spring rose into view.
Up above, Geo Cruiser 3 floated above the landscape. The entire back half of the gyrocopter detached, revealing itself to be a type of helmet, while the airfoils on either side of the zord rose up to a vertical position.
Inside his cockpit, Nico pulled his Accellular off the holder, and yanked his entire Geo Launcher out of his tray. Holding tightly onto the components he'd need to control the entire machine, Nico sat rigidly in place as his seat dropped out of sight.
Meanwhile, Geo Launcher 3 flew downwards, maneuvering into position on the back of the mecha, while the helmet from the zord's back half locked into place on top of the head, completing the assembly.
With a rush of mechanics, the five Rangers' seats shot up into the combined cockpit, each Ranger clutching their Geo Launcher. They quickly placed their Launchers down into the new control panels in front of them, causing the steering wheels to pop back into position and their consoles to light up.
"Trove Hunter Megazord," came the combined cry. "Power up!"
"All done." Andreas stood up with a backpack now hanging from his right hand.
Jürgen looked up at the inevitable battle. The Megazord was squaring off with the humanoid shrine, the two directing rather threatening looking poses at each other, like an old western.
An old western with a third-century elegant looking colossus facing off against a 150-foot robot carrying construction tools.
Yes, it was definitely time to go.
With a flash of gray light, Jürgen, Andreas, and the remaining two dozen Golems on hand teleported off the island.
Nico placed his Accellular back into its holder in the Geo Launcher and pushed his left gearshift forward. "Alright, let's show this thing how it's done."
The other Rangers pushed their gearshifts forward as well, causing the Megazord to step into a ready position, holding a pickaxe in its left hand, and a shovel in its right.
"Here he comes," Silvy warned as the monster began to step their way.
"Try the axe," came Dylan's reply.
Nico did so. "Hunter Pickaxe!" he yelled as an attack cry, as he turned his steering wheel left. The Megazord lifted its axe and slammed it straight into the ground, sending a rippling shockwave of dirt flying right at the creature. The resulting explosion was dramatic, and a cloud of dust filled the air.
"Heh," Dylan responded as the attack flew out. "Now that's how it's done."
His words died in his throat a second later as the monstrous shrine stepped through the dust cloud, arms outstretched. The creature grabbed the Megazord and pinned its arms to its side, shaking the Rangers around inside the cockpit, and causing the mecha to drop its pickaxe to the ground as it was forced backwards.
"The thing's got a deadlock on our movement system," Simon called out, with seemingly no panic in his voice.
"Boosting the power flow to compensate," was Heather's response, as she pressed a few buttons on her control panel.
The Megazord was able to stop itself from being pushed any further backwards, and the multitude of pistons in its arms and legs suddenly started pumping at several times their normal speed, giving the mecha enough energy to break free from the shrine's grip. Two punches to the creature's chest sent it stumbling back, giving the Rangers more room to work.
"Hunter Shovel!" yelled Nico, taking advantage of the opening. He turned his steering wheel to the right. The Megazord raised its second weapon and dug it into the ground, lifting it back up and sending dirt flying into the air. That first usage of the weapon sent stress fractures running around the ground of the area. The Megazord then planted the shovel into the dirt a second time.
"Take this!" cried Nico as he pushed his right gearshift forward. The Megazord lifted the shovel into the air, causing the earlier stress fractures to break, and sending a massive island of ground surrounding the shrine flying into the air. The dirt then crumbled to pieces, sending the creature soaring backwards onto the ground in a storm of dust.
"Alright; got him!" yelled Silvy, getting into the excitement of the moment.
The creature stood back up. Nico could actually see the portion of its chest, where the entrance to the inside of the shrine used to be, glowing with the energy of the two treasures.
"That's our target," he said, and then looked at Heather. "Let's take him down."
"Right," she replied. "Hunter Blade!"
As if response to her audible cry, the Megazord held the shovel in its left hand, and brought the pickaxe in its right hand over to touch it. With a flash of light and a contracting of parts, the two weapons combined into one long sword. The mecha's torso body parts started rumbling as energy flowed to the blade.
Trove Hunter Megazord, now sporting its newly glowing weapon, stepped forward and delivered a catastrophic slash to its opponent. The shrine fell forward to its knees, then onto its stomach, at which point it exploded violently, sending chunks of itself flying in all directions.
Stepping away from the blast, the Megazord lowered its sword. Inside the cockpit, the Rangers were cheering with their success. Nico nodded at a job well done, glad that the team was able to complete its mission, despite the problems they had encountered. Hopefully, with time, they would grow into a more cohesive whole and become a force to be reckoned with.
Heather and Dylan stepped forward, laying the two black and gold boxes on the table at the center of Command Ops. The other Rangers, Emma, and Alexander stood nearby.
The two Rangers both double-tapped the lock at the center of the top of each box. The light next to the lock, glowing green at that point, quickly flashed red, before the boxes folded open and down in an amazing display of technology, until they were nothing but flat 3x2 ft. panels with the two treasures sitting on top.
"Whoa," was Silvy's response, which put grins on the faces of most everybody at the table.
"Pretty, ain't it?" Alexander asked, as he picked up the brain, turning it over in his hands as he examined it. The flat panel the relic had been sitting on condensed even further after he lifted the thing off it, until it was nothing but a gold device shaped like and about the size of a standard playing card, with the original lock and green light in the center, still the same sizes as they were when the container was in box mode. Silvy picked the golden device up and looked at it in wonder, seemingly more fascinated with it than the treasures they had just gone through exceptional amounts of craziness to obtain.
Alexander chuckled as he watched her. "I'm pretty proud of that thing myself; the full box actually changes sizes depending on what's inside. You could even put a zord in there if you wanted to, since it uses particle-condensing tech to shrink what's inside the box until it can get to its default size. One of my most impressive achievements."
"More impressive than the Ranger powers and the zords, right?" Simon jested.
"That's right; any old engineer could make Power Rangers," he said with a scoff and a wave of his hand, as if discarding the matter.
Emma rolled her eyes. "The archaeologists are all gone since it's after 5:00. We'll have Diata examine these when she gets back in tomorrow."
"Do we know anything about that dragon guy? Qí Jī Shén I think he said his name is," Nico asked.
Emma shook her head. "Not much to go on, although that name sounds Chinese to me. We'll research that tomorrow as well."
"I'm not too happy they showed up; one treasure hunting group with powerful backing and mysterious motives was bad enough," Heather said.
"Unfortunately, I wouldn't be surprised if we encounter more groups than that," Emma replied. "You all already know that we've seen bunches of small time groups before. The odds are actually against there not being bunches of large time ones as well."
"We're not going to be able to fight multiple groups at once," Dylan said.
"Yeah," added Silvy as she placed the container card back down on the table. "One's dangerous enough as it is."
"Theoretically we wouldn't have to worry about that, with as much as those two were sniping at each other today," Simon added.
"And anyways, we have more weaponry for the five of you in the works," Alexander said, as he placed the treasure he was holding back down on its panel. The light turned red again while the box folded back up and around the treasure. "So as the weeks roll by, you'll be more and more equipped to go up against however many rival groups you encounter."
"Fair enough," replied Nico. "In the meantime, we train daily, as usual. We should be able to handle whatever happens, as long as we stay at full speed."
Emma nodded, and then looked slightly backwards as she felt a vibration in her back pocket. She tapped the side of the second panel, sealing the heart back into its own containment box. "Well, that's it for today. Have you two decided whether you're going to stay on-site or not?" she asked, looking at the newcomers.
Dylan and Silvy glanced at each other, and then Dylan nodded back at her. "We'll take apartments here, but we'll iron it all out tomorrow morning. We'd need to pack our stuff up tonight anyways, before we do anything else."
"Alright. In that case, I'll see you all tomorrow; Lost isn't going to wait around for me to get home."
Alexander and the Rangers laughed and waved goodbye as they all walked off in different routes. As she headed off in the direction of the garage, she pulled her cell phone out, checking the number of the missed call, and called back. It took several rings before it connected.
"Hello?"
"I'm here," she said as she stepped into the garage and started walking towards her car. "I had to debrief the team; sorry I couldn't pick up right away."
Despite not being able to see the caller, she could easily imagine him shrug in response to her comment. "It's fine. How did the new ones do?"
"Wonderfully. The team will probably have meshing problems for a bit, but I don't doubt they'll get past it."
"You've got faith in them, and I should too?" the voice replied with a hint of amusement.
Emma smiled as she reached her car, unlocked the door, and climbed in. "That's right."
"Well, I suppose I can handle that much. Keep me updated."
"Sure. Talk to you later."
She hit the End button on her phone, started the car's engine, and drove off.