Spearmint Hippo, Sector 0
Metro City, Canada
July 9th, 2018
8:38 PM
"Riley Bishop"
The look on Silver's face when we led him to the Spearmint Hippo was priceless. He kept asking us if this was where Chloe was working, and we'd say, yes. Because she does work here. If I wasn't mistaken, Silver had no idea that this was a strip club. He probably thought it was some kind of bar or something.
After Chloe and Sawyer broke up, she decided to cut herself off from her father's money for a year and see how things went. She was miserable at first, but with our encouragement, she stuck with it.
She's been through quite a few jobs since, but it wasn't until she got this one that she really seemed happy. I don't think she cares how she earns the money, she's her own woman now, saving up to go to college like Rachel and I did.
We led Silver to a booth and a server walked over to us.
"Two drink minimum," he said, "What can I get you?"
"Oh, nothing for me, thanks." said Silver.
"Silver, you can't do that," I said, "You have to have at least two drinks."
"But I drove here." he whispered defensively.
"It doesn't have to have booze in it," said Oz, "Just get coffee or something."
"Fine," said Silver, "I'll just get a cup of coffee. One cream three sugars."
"Could I have a cosmo, please?" asked Rachel.
"I'll take whatever is on tap." said Oz.
"And I'll get a long island iced tea." I said.
"I'll be right back with those." said the server.
Silver took another confused look around the club and then scratched his head. He was stumped and it was hilarious to witness.
Our server came back and carefully set our drinks down on the table of our booth.
"Guys," said Silver, "This is a bar, right?"
"Among other things." said Rachel.
"And you said that Chloe is going to meet us here?" he asked.
"After her shift, yes." said Rachel.
"Alright everybody, welcome to the Spearmint Hippo!" came the DJ's voice over the speakers, "If you'll all turn your attention towards the stage, our first performer is about to come out."
"That should be her now." I said.
"Here she is, give a round of applause for... AMBER!" announced the DJ.
Chloe walked out onto the stage. She was wearing an outfit similar to the one she donned when the Tattoo Virus had been controlling her, only instead of black leather pants, this time she was wearing black leather boy shorts and fish net stockings.
"Oh dear lord..." muttered Silver.
"If you'll excuse me," said Oz, "I feel a very strong desire to slide a couple of $20s into the waistband of Amber's shorts. It's too strong! I can't resist!"
"In retrospect, we probably shouldn't have brought Oz with us." I said.
"Rachel, why is Chloe doing this?" asked Silver.
"I think she likes the attention, except here, they pay her," said Rachel, "Plus, you know, there's plenty of other pretty girls that work here. She's probably in Heaven."
"Rachel, Honey, if I bought you one of those poles, would you dance on it for me every year on my birthday?" I asked.
"Sure," said Rachel, "Just so long as you'd be okay with us only having sex once a year on my birthday." she said.
"Touché," I said, "I love you."
I know." she said.
She leaned over across the table and met me in the middle for quick kiss. It would've been longer, but Silver fake coughed loudly.
"Sorry," said Rachel, blushing, "I get carried away sometimes."
"You gotta give Chloe props on her stage name," I said, "I mean, Amber is fossilized tree sap and it's kind of orange in colour, just like how she's the orange ranger."
Chloe was now hanging upside down on the pole, suspended by her legs. She used her hands to slowly unbutton the leather vest and then threw it into the crowd of mesmerized patrons.
Oz leapt up in the crowd and ended being the one who caught Chloe's vest. It reminds me of how bridesmaids try to catch the bride's bouquet of flowers.
"I'm amazed that they haven't made pole dancing an Olympic sport yet," I said, "There's so many cool tricks these girls can do."
"Not mention the viewership for the live broadcasts would skyrocket." said Rachel.
After Chloe's shift was over she went backstage and put her street clothes back on. Then she walked over to our booth and sat down next to Rachel.
"How did you two manage to convince Silver to come here?" she giggled.
"They neglected to tell me where we were going." said Silver.
Oz came back over to the booth and squeezed himself onto the same bench as Chloe and Rachel.
"So, Amber," said Oz, with a cheeky grin, "How about we go in one of the private rooms upstairs and you give Daddy a lap dance?"
"First of all, stop calling yourself Daddy. Second of all, absolutely not. Third of all, I don't give dances to people I know," said Chloe, "Besides, I'm off duty."
"Well, can I still touch you?" said Oz, "I learned the hard way that strippers don't take too kindly to that."
"Are you saying you got beaten up and thrown out of a club by a bouncer?" I asked.
"No..." sighed Oz, "I'm saying I got beaten up by the stripper..."
Everyone, even Silver burst out into hysterical laughter. Regardless of whether or not Oz just made that story up to lighten the mood, that wasn't going to stop us from pointing at him and laughing.
"And, for the record Oz," said Chloe, "I'm not a stripper, I'm an exotic dancer."
"You say tomato, I say tomahto." said Oz.
"So what did you guys want to talk about?" asked Chloe.
"We should probably talk about it back at Headquarters." I said.
When we got back, Sawyer and Jenna greeted us at the door.
"Hey Chloe," said Sawyer, "Why do you have glitter all over you?"
"Never you mind." she said.
"Alright, now that all five of you are back, let's go down to Headquarters and I'll explain to you what sort of new powers you have." said Silver.
Once we were down in the familiar setting, it felt like we had traveled back in time three years. If only we could've gone back three years and a few days, then Marcus would be down in Headquarters with us.
Silver walked over to his desk and picked up the orange codec and one of the new Digitizers. He came to where we were standing and handed them to Chloe.
"First of all, all five of you are now equal in strength," said Silver, "I was finally able to trim down Sawyer's codec."
He went and sat down at the console, and then pulled up a simple little slideshow that explained the bare bones version of what he was saying as he said it.
"You already know that the size of the codec determines how much power it can generate. But what you may not know is that the more power a codec generates, the more abilities it can grant it's user." said Silver.
"Is that just an addendum to the whole the codecs will get stronger over time as our bond with them grows?" I asked.
"I suppose," said Silver, "The only thing is that your original Digitizers couldn't handle as much power as these new ones can."
"So the because the Digitizer is more advanced now, the codecs will be able to generate more power than they could before?" asked Oz.
"Exactly. And with more power comes more abilities," said Silver, "Each of you will now have access to a second Zord and an alternate weapon."
"Very cool." said Chloe.
"But that's not all," continued Silver, "Your codecs will now allow you to harness a synthetic element and channel it during battle."
Silver indicated with his hands that he wanted us to line up side by side again.
"Sawyer," said Silver moving in front of him, "Your codec allows you to channel the power of ice."
"Awesome." he said, examining his Digitizer curiously.
Silver proceeded down the line, much like how he did when he first gave us our codecs.
"Chloe," said Silver, stopping in front of her, "Your codec allows you to channel the power of Earth."
"You mean like, dirt?" she asked.
"No, more like giant rocks and earthquakes."
"I guess that sounds pretty cool." she said.
"Oz," said Silver, stopping in front of him, "Your codec allows you to channel the power of electricity."
"Well, I must say, Silver. That's a shocking revelation." said Oz, snickering.
"Don't make me regret giving you your codec back." said Silver.
He continued moving down the line until he stopped in front of Rachel.
"Rachel," said Silver, "Your codec allows you to channel the power of water."
"Oh perfect..." she sighed.
"Don't worry, you'll be controlling it. You can't drown in it." said Silver.
"Doesn't make me feel any better." said Rachel.
"Lastly, Riley," said Silver, reaching the end of the line, "Your codec allows you to channel the power of fire."
"Nice!" I said.
"Your new Digitizers have a new morphing call," said Silver, standing in front all of us equally so that we see him, "You say your ranger designation, and then 'Cyber Power'. The morphing action is still the same though."
"I'll give them a demonstration," said Sawyer, stepping forward, "Purple Ranger! CYBER POWER!"
When Sawyer pushed the button on his Digitizer, I could see a swirling tornado of 0s and 1s come from out of his codec and encircle him.
It kept swirling faster and faster becoming more and more narrow as it did so until it collided with him in a small explosion. He had his purple ranger suit on now. He leapt high into the air, rotating slightly as he rose.
By the time he reached the height of his jump, he had his helmet on too. During his descent, the strange dimension faded from around him until he landed back on the floor of Headquarters.
"Thank you, Sawyer," said Silver, "Very nice demonstration."
"So what do we do first?" asked Chloe.
"Actually, before I even tell you about why I gathered you all here," said Silver, "I have a special mission for all of you. It's going to be hard, but I need you to go inside Cyberspace, find the Master Codec and touch Marcus' codec to it."
"Why?" asked Purple.
"It's the only way to reset it," said Silver, "The Phoenix sacrificed itself to undo all the damage Trojan caused during his imprisonment, but it couldn't reset the green codec."
"How do we even find the Master Codec?" I asked.
"Your codecs should be able to lead you right to it," said Silver, "Like a miniature homing device."
"So do you have to use that vacuum cleaner thing on us?" asked Oz.
"Not anymore," said Silver, "Your new Digitizers can actually teleport you directly into Cyberspace now. Just make sure you're in ranger form when you do it."
"Alright then," I said, "Let's give it a try."
They all nodded at me.
"Ready?" I asked.
"Ready!" said Rachel, Oz and Chloe.
"Red Ranger! CYBER POWER!" I shouted.
"Blue Ranger! CYBER POWER!" shouted Rachel.
"Yellow Ranger! CYBER POWER!" shouted Oz.
"Orange Ranger! CYBER POWER!" shouted Chloe.
"Very nice," said Silver, "Now, if you're ready, try to think about the heart of Cyberspace as your destination."
We did as he instructed and a new sensation I had never felt before took over my entire body. Visually, it looked exactly the same as teleporting, but it felt completely different.
I would imagine that was my body transforming into digital information and transferring inside the alternate dimension where we draw our powers from. It felt very peculiar. It half stung and half tingled.
Before too long we arrived inside what could only be Cyberspace. It's one of those things that's impossible to confuse for something else.
I noticed that we were able to maintain our ranger form while inside Cyberspace. I vaguely remember Marcus telling me that while he was inside Cyberspace looking to destroy the anchor and reverse the Hourglass Virus' spell, he tried morphing, but it didn't work. This was probably another side effect of our new Digitizers.
"Whoa." I said, "Does everyone else feel that?"
My wrist felt like I had just dipped it into liquid nitrogen.
"My wrist is freezing." said Purple.
"Maybe it means that we're not very close to the Master Codec?" asked Blue.
"Like a literal version of that hot and cold game." said Orange.
"Does it make your nipples hard, Amber?" teased Yellow.
"Shut up." she said.
I would imagine that if I could see her face, she would've rolled her eyes at him.
"How fortuitous..." said a very deep but familiar voice.
From somewhere up above us, what appeared to be a Power Ranger landed right behind us. We whipped around quickly and my heart skipped a beat.
It was the Renegade. But, that's impossible, isn't it? The Renegade was Sawyer, and once I used the Phoenix's power to cleanse his codec, the Renegade should have been destroyed, right?
It looked like Sawyer in ranger form, except almost all the colour seemed to have been drained away. It was almost like someone reduced the saturation of the purple in the suit.
"Finally, I have a chance to get my revenge!" it snapped.
"How is this possible?" asked Purple, "Riley destroyed you three years ago!"
"He didn't destroy me, he just kicked me out of the codec." it said.
"So you've been waiting in here ever since?" I asked.
"My plan was to learn how to manipulate the digital energy in Cyberspace and carry on Trojan's legacy," it said, "But it's not as easy as it sounds. I never made much progress."
"Did you come here to fight us, or remind of us of how much you suck?" asked Yellow.
"I see your back bone is still as strong as ever." said the Renegade.
I wasn't in the mood to listen to him. Second only to Trojan, the Renegade was my arch enemy. He's the complete opposite of me and everything that I stand for. Just listening to him talk made it feel like my blood had started to boil.
"Rangers?" came Silver's voice, "Can you hear me?"
"Loud and clear." said Purple.
"Outstanding" said Silver, "If you want to try out your new weapons, just flick the small switch on your Digitizers and summon your weapons like usual. The position of the switch determines which weapon you'll summon."
We did as he said.
"Download weapon!" we called in unison.
Instead of my usual sword, my alternate weapon was a katana. Rachel's new weapon was a large circular blade that was almost as tall as she was. Oz's new weapon was a shield, Chloe's alternate weapon was a whip, and Sawyer's alternate weapon was a smaller, one handed version of his scythe. I think they're called sickles.
"Download weapon!" called the Renegade.
"Wait," said Orange, "Why can he still do that?"
"I was created from a codec, Blondie," said the Renegade, "Just because I'm trapped in here now doesn't change that."
"You're trapped in here, and you're going to die in here." I said.
"If I remember, none of you were strong enough to defeat me."
"Things have changed." I said.
The Renegade ran forwards and swung at me with his scythe. I blocked it with my katana and sliced at him a few times too, but he blocked them all.
Next he ran towards Blue, she seemed a little confused about how to use her new weapon properly, but seemed to pick up on it pretty fast. She got a few good hits in, but only one of them actually hit him.
He ran towards Yellow next. Yellow held his shield up in front of him and it reflected all his blows. Then Yellow charged forward and rammed the Renegade hard with his new shield.
He fell to the ground, and Orange used this opportunity to get a few hits in with her whip. The Renegade caught the last attack by grabbing the whip and threw Orange aside.
Now it was purple's turn. They locked weapons and snarled at each other.
"Give me back my body!"
"It was never yours, you freak!" roared Sawyer, "I was in it long before you came along!"
Sawyer overpowered the Renegade by disarming him. Then he delivered a devastating uppercut. The Renegade flew a few feet into the air and then crashed down on the floor, writhing in pain.
"Impressive." he said, getting to his feet.
"We told you," I said, "Things have changed."
"Maybe we'll call it a draw." said the Renegade.
"Oh hell no!" snapped Blue, "A draw means we tied."
"I was holding back." said the Renegade.
"Bullshit." said Purple.
Just then something walked up behind Purple and stabbed him in the back. It wasn't fatal, because his suit took all the damage. He whipped around and saw another Renegade standing behind him.
Then when all of us looked back to where the Renegade had originally been standing, we saw that he was gone.
That means there isn't two of them, just the one that tried to use some sort of illusion as a distraction.
"You just don't learn, do you?" asked Purple.
He grabbed the Renegade by the collar and lifted him high into the air, then he sliced and diced him with his sickle.
"You'll NEVER defeat us!" sneered Purple.
The Renegade fell to the floor and didn't move. He was finally dead. I could see it. It looked very similar to how Trojan died three years ago.
"That felt good," said Purple, "Like a giant weight was just lifted."
The Renegade disintegrated and the tiny streams of binary flew away until they were eventually absorbed by Cyberspace. There was no way he'd come back from that.
"Man," said Orange, "Some guys just can't take no for an answer."
"Come on," I said, "We've still got to find the Master Codec."
It's hard to quantify how long we had been walking for after that. No matter what time of day it might be on Earth, it looked exactly the same in Cyberspace.
Our only clue for whether or not we were even going in the right direction was our codecs. They would produce that icy cold feeling when we were really far away, turn warmer when we got closer and then when we were REALLY close, they start would vibrating and beeping.
Direction was also not helpful in Cyberspace. Without stars or a sun, there was no way to determine which direction we needed to go or even what direction we were traveling in.
At one point, our codecs started beeping and vibrating so hard that it was distracting. We kept walking in that direction, only to have them stop beeping and vibrating a few feet later.
"I don't get it," said Yellow, "How can we find the Master Codec if it keeps moving?"
"I don't know," I said, "And Silver doesn't know either. If he did, he would've just sent us right to it."
I decided to take a moment to think, so I closed my eyes and lowered my head. It looked the others had done the same thing as me. After a few seconds, I could've sworn I heard a voice inside my head.
"There is no Master Codec. It never existed in the first place."
"Then where did our codecs come from?" I asked the voice.
"They were created directly from Cyberspace."
"But three years ago, when we fought Trojan, we couldn't morph because we thought he drained the Master Codec." I told the voice.
"You were only half right," said the voice, "The codecs draw power directly from Cyberspace and then tap in to the Morphin' Grid to turn you into Power Rangers."
"So the reason we couldn't morph was because the codecs didn't know where to look for Cyberspace?" I asked the voice.
"Yes," said the voice, "Now you understand."
"So if there's no Master Codec, then how do we reset the green one?" I asked.
"It has already been reabsorbed," said the voice, "When someone worthy of claiming the green codec surfaces, they will be able to summon it like how the bearer of the orange codec did."
"Thanks," I said, "But who are you?"
"I'm your codec, Riley," said the voice, "I can speak to you by projecting my thoughts into your mind because I'm able to generate more power now."
"Cool." I said.
I opened my eyes again and looked up at the others.
"We can leave guys," I said, "Apparently, there never was a Master Codec."
"Oh thank god..." sighed Blue, "I'm so glad I'm not the only heard that voice."
We stood together in our five person formation and proceeded to teleport by thinking of Headquarters. That weird painful tingly sensation came back in full force as we reconfigured ourselves into flesh and bone back in the human world.
When we returned, Silver looked at us expectantly.
"There is no Master Codec," I said, "Our codecs can talk now."
"Fascinating," he gasped, "What else did they tell you?"
"Nothing you don't already know," said Sawyer, "Everything you've told us so far was right, except about the Master Codec. Each of our codecs was formed separately and came to our world when they felt they were needed."
"But because Trojan hadn't really emerged as a threat yet, instead of seeking us out, they stayed dormant until you found them." said Oz.
"The reason we couldn't morph during the battle against Trojan wasn't because he absorbed the Master Codec," said Chloe, "It was because he absorbed Cyberspace, which threw off its coordinates."
"All we needed to do to reset the green codec was return it to Cyberspace," I said, "If and when someone worthy shows up, the green codec will summoned by them, like how the orange one was."
"If the codecs can speak, why haven't they done it before now?" asked Silver.
"Because in order to speak, they need more power than the original Digitizers could handle," said Sawyer, "I'm not surprised about that, actually. My codec could always talk."
"That's because you didn't have a Digitizer to keep it in check," said Silver, "So it was able to generate enough power to speak."
"And develop that malicious personality." said Sawyer.
Silver opened his mouth to speak, but he closed it when he saw that above us, near the ceiling, a little ball of energy was pulsating and flashing. It gradually grew larger and larger.
Now we could see that in the middle of the ball, something was now visible. All we could see was the silhouette, because it was on the inside of the ball of energy. It seemed to be a person.
They were curled up into the fetal position and suspended in midair inside the ball of energy. When the ball of energy disappeared, the person was left behind and then fell a few feet to the ground. As I got closer to them, I saw that it was a girl...