"Now THIS is the way to travel." Chase stated as he looked around at the interior of Anton's private jet. In order to make sure they got to Amber Beach as quickly and conveniently as possible, Anton had instructed a pilot to take his personal plane to transport the team. He opened the minibar, pulling out a fruit punch and flopped down into a big easy-chair. Koda sat down opposite him, still glaring at him. It was clear that he still had his issues with Chase, given the way they had met. Kendall headed into the cockpit to check on the pilot.
"This plane is pretty dope huh?" Chase asked. Koda didn't say anything, instead just grunting. Chase let out a sigh. "You're not still sore about the fact I kicked your ass are you?"
"Not beat Koda." Koda responded abruptly.
"Well, if it makes you feel better to think that, then be my guest." Chase replied, shifting a little uncomfortably in his seat. "We both know if your girlfriend there hadn't broken it up, she'd have been peeling you off the floor."
Koda again just grunted, shaking his head to indicate his disdain for Chase's assertion. Chase continued to shift uncomfortably, before reaching around, pulling a piece of glass out of his back. Kendall came back in as he set it aside.
"Hey doc, I think there might be more back there." He told her. Kendall just rolled her eyes as she turned towards him.
"My name's Kendall, not doc." She told him. "And even if I WAS a doctor, I'm not that kind of doctor."
"So you CAN'T check to see if there's any more glass back there?" He asked her. Kendall came over, grabbing his head roughly and shoving it down, beginning to inspect his back, before shoving him back into the chair.
"There's no more glass." She assured him.
"That's some bedside manner you have." Chase said sarcastically. "It's just as well there's no real damage..."
"We both know the Energem helps you regenerate, within a couple of hours you won't have a mark on you, and neither will Koda." She interrupted him sharply.
"So, you're some kind of expert, you know what these things do." Chase said, pulling out a black Energem.
"The Energems bond to a host, providing them with incredible power." She told him. "Your strength, your speed, your durability...all of them have increased dramatically. Your body's cellular regeneration occurs at a rate several times greater than normal, allowing you to heal injuries in a matter of hours. Also, it helps with the dispersal of fatigue acids and even prevents aging."
"So I'll be this young and gorgeous for good." Chase said with a smile. Kendall just put her hands on her hips, staring at him in disbelief.
"This is Koda; he's bonded to the blue Energem." She told him. "The two of you are going to be working together."
"Shaggy here has an Energem?" Chase asked.
"He put you through twin-paned bullet-proof glass without even breaking pace." Kendall reminded him. Chase looked to Koda, seeing him fiddling with his seatbelt, clearly confused as to what it was or how it worked.
"I guess you don't get much of a say in who bonds to those gems." He chuckled. Kendall took her seat, helping Koda with his seatbelt.
"Obviously." She replied coldly. "The Energems choose the host, it's not always clear why."
With that, she took her own seat, helping Koda with his seatbelt, and fastening her own. Chase popped his earbuds back in and pulled down the skip of his baseball cap to try and get some sleep.
Meanwhile, in Amber Beach, Keeper shifted into view, having teleported most of the way across the state. As he arrived, he found a large building ahead of him. The sign outside marked it as the Amber Beach Dinosaur Museum, a subsidiary of Anton Mercer industries.
As he approached, he knelt down on the ground, propping up his staff, and resting one hand on the ground. He let out a small pulse, which shot out in all directions. He smiled.
"Yes, the caves beneath here have ample room." He commented. "This will definitely do."
He sank down into the earth, finding himself in the caves beneath the area. They extended for miles in all directions. The area had been rich in fossils, a true archaeological goldmine. Anton had the museum built there a few years previously as a way of providing dig teams with a base of operations close to the main dig sites. These particular tunnels had been mined dry long ago, but it left a network of tunnels and caves under the museum that would give them plenty of room to make up their base of operations.
"Yes, this will do nicely." Keeper remarked. "I just need to make a few little adjustments."
Back on the plane, Koda was swaying a little on his seat, and looking decidedly unwell. Kendall noticed his complexion and leaned across in her seat.
"Koda, are you alright?" She asked him.
"Not feel well." He told her. "Bathroom."
"There's one over there." She told him, helping him unfasten his seatbelt. Almost as soon as she released it, Koda ran from the room, throwing open the door, and doubled over the toilet, heaving powerfully. Chase pulled out his earphones as he saw this.
"It seems Shaggy isn't a huge fan of flying." He commented. Kendall shook her head.
"It doesn't appear so." She responded. Chase leaned forward in his seat.
"So, what is his deal anyway?" He asked. "He doesn't exactly seem like the sharpest tool in the shed."
"He's passed all the same assessments you have." Kendall assured him. "But if you're referring to his behaviour and his speech patterns, it's because he is still adjusting to this time period."
"Time period?" Chase asked her. She just looked to him.
"He bonded to his Energem during the Plyses era." She told him. "He's what you would probably colloquially term a cave man."
"A cave man?" He asked. "As in..."
"He bonded to his Energem over a hundred thousand years ago." Kendall told him. "As you know, you don't age once you bond to an Energem."
"So...he's been kicking about for over a hundred thousand years." Chase said, flicking a thumb in the direction of the bathroom, where Koda was still losing the contents of his stomach. "And...he hasn't learned English in all that time?"
"He's over a hundred thousand years old, but he was frozen in a glacier for most of that." Kendall explained. "We found him frozen in a glacier in Alaska. There's nothing too unusual about that, but we found that he had life signs, and so we started to research him, thinking that he might have the answer to reliable cryogenics. What we didn't know until recently is that he'd bonded to his Energem before he was frozen. The same energy that prevents him from aging also..."
"Stopped him becoming a human ice cube?" Chase asked. Kendall just nodded.
"By all rights, he should be dead." Kendall responded. "But the Energem kept him alive in there until we thawed him out a while ago. Now, we know he has an Energem just like you, and we're putting you together in a team."
"You keep mentioning this team." Chase stated. "What team are you talking about exactly?" Kendall sat forward in her seat.
"Do you know what a Power Ranger is?" She asked him. Chase just looked to her, a little uneasily. Koda came back in, getting back into his seat.
"Not like plane." He stated. "Feel ill."
"It's alright Koda, we'll be landing soon." She assured him. "I'm just going to talk to the pilot. Try to relax."
As she got up to go, Chase watched her leaving. Koda could see the way Chase was looking at her, and growled in disapproval. Chase just looked to Koda.
"Relax mate, I'm just looking." Chase responded. "So...you were a cave man...and got frozen." Koda just nodded in response.
"So...what was that like?" He asked.
"Cold." Koda responded bluntly.
Early in the morning, over in Amber Beach, there was a lot of activity around the museum. A young woman in a pink, checked shirt and white jean shorts approached the museum, with more than a little enthusiasm, and a little skip in her step.
Shelby Watkins was nothing like a lot of the other kids her age. When most of the other kids at her school were worrying about clothes or boys, she was learning everything she possibly could about dinosaurs. She had been fascinated by them ever since she could remember. One of her earliest memories as a little girl was walking through the woods with her parents and finding an oddly-shaped rock, that looked a lot like a shell. She was fascinated as her father explained to her what a fossil was. For a young girl, it seemed magical to think that at one time, this trilobite had been a real living creature, but that years in the dirt had caused it to slowly but surely turn into stone.
From that moment on, she was hooked. He quickly exhausted the entire section in her school library on dinosaurs. Her bedroom was filled with books, magazines, even scientific journals she had downloaded on the subject. It was also filled with fossils she gathered on her many walks in the woods, searching for anything she could find. It was no surprise to anyone when she told her school guidance counsellor that she wanted to become a palaeontologist. She had already checked out every college in the country to find who had the best courses. She easily had the grades to get in; there was only one minor problem. Well...more accurately there were about 20,000 problems. Her family wasn't exactly poor, but they most definitely didn't have the money to pay the tuition fees. She had applied for virtually every grant and scholarship available, but as time went by and the rejection letters piled up, it quickly became clear that her dream had hit a huge road-block. By the time she graduated high school and everyone else was going off to college, Shelby was stuck right here in Amber Beach.
She knew she needed a job. If she was going to go to college, she would need to save the money for it herself, and that meant a job. As soul-crushing as the thought of working in a job she hated for years on end before she could even begin the journey on her way into the field she loved was, she knew that it was a necessary step. When she had checked the local paper and found out that Amber Beach Dinosaur Museum was advertising a job, she had rushed out of the house as fast as she could to get there before anyone else had a chance. It might not be the job she wanted, but she figured that working in the museum would be the next best thing. She knew more than enough to be a good tour guide, and she would only learn more by joining one of the dig teams. If she played her cards right, she figured she might even get an endorsement from one of the curators for a scholarship if she showed them how enthusiastic and knowledgeable she was.
As she went inside, there were a number of workers buzzing about, loading up a van. She figured they had to be getting ready for another dig. She approached one of the workers.
"Hi, I'm looking for Dr Davies' office." She told him. He just looked her up and down. "I'm here about the job."
"In the back, last door on the right." He told her.
"Thanks." Shelby answered as she headed into the museum. She thought it was strange that no one accompanied her into the back. She thought security would be a little tighter, but it seemed like no one really cared that she was there. As she walked down the corridor, she saw a number of people packing up books and folders into boxes, taping them up. She finally found Dr Davies' office, seeing him filling out a shipping form on top of a large, sealed box.
"Um...Dr Davies?" She asked.
"Yeah, what is it?" He asked her.
"Hi, I'm Shelby, Shelby Watkins." She introduced herself, thrusting a hand out for a handshake. He just stared at it for a second before going back to what he was doing. Shelby just sheepishly brought her hand back in. "I'm...uh...here about the job?"
"The job...right." He sighed. "What age are you?"
"18." She told him.
"Show me your hands." He told her. Shelby thought this was a little odd, but just did as she was told. He cast a quick glance over her hands.
"Dr. Davies, I read your paper on the Triassic era species..."
"Well, good for you." He responded in an off-hand way as someone came in for the box on his desk. He handed it over. "What's your favourite dinosaur?"
"The triceratops." She answered with a bright smile. "Definitely the triceratops."
He reached for a button maker, writing her name on a piece of paper with a picture of a triceratops on it, twisted a handle and popped out a new badge, throwing it to her.
"There you go, you've got the job." He told her.
"Wait...don't you want to read my resume or something?" She asked him.
"Listen, I've been working here for six years and then last night out of the blue, I got a phone call telling me that my entire team is to pack up and relocate to the San Diego facility." He told her. "Six years and I just get told to pack up and go just like that, so you'll forgive me if interviewing new starts really isn't high on my list of priorities."
"So...why do I need this?" She asked him, holding up the name badge. "Does everyone on the dig team have one?"
"There aren't any jobs on the dig team, the job's in the Dino Bite Cafe." He informed her. "They should have a uniform your size, if not...well that really isn't my problem."
"I'm a waitress?" Shelby asked him. "But...I didn't want that, I thought I'd be on a dig team...maybe a tour guide or..."
"Listen, the waitress job is the only job available right now, and since my boss just sent me to the other side of the state with no notice whatsoever, I really don't give a shit if you want it or not." He told her bluntly. "So, do you want the job or not?"
Shelby really didn't want the job at all. She'd once briefly worked in a KFC, and found that she loathed it with a passion. She'd quit after less than two weeks because she hated it so much. She didn't like the thought of having to be a waitress, that wasn't what she expected when she came for a job in the museum. That said, she knew she needed the money, and it wasn't as if there was a huge number of places hiring at that time. She sighed as she figured this was just another road block she'd have to work around. At least it was a foot in the door. She could always ask about a transfer later.
"I'll take it." Shelby responded in a defeated manner. "Where do I go for my uniform?"
A/N: Just a quick note, I've had it pointed out to me that I erroneously wrote Chase's surname as Matthews, when it is in fact Randal. This was a pure error, one which I'm only too happy to acknowledge. From now on, I'll ensure I have the correct surname. Thank you to those who pointed this out, as always I know that sometimes I make mistakes, and if you point that out to help me with future chapters, then I gratefully accept that.
Also, I know in the show that Koda was never frozen. I've added that deliberately. One of the sticking points for me in his back-story is the point Chase pointed out. He's had a hundred thousand years to learn to adjust. In this series, the reason he hasn't learned...well...he's not learning much as an ice-cube is he? I hope that clears things up.