"You ran off?" Prince Vekar screamed as Corcax stood before him, visibly shaking in fear. He had fought the Rangers, and he been faring well until the Green Ranger had gotten lucky and damaged his shield generator. Corcax had never been the strongest warrior by himself, merely a competent fighter by comparison to someone like Skatana, but thanks to his shield, he had become a powerful siege-breaker in Vekar's forces. His shield was able to withstand almost any attack, meaning he was always an ideal choice to lead a charge on fortifications, acting as an ice-breaker to plough through enemy attacks, shattering barrages of even the heaviest artillery and allowing their forces to overwhelm the position with sheer numbers of relatively untouched troops.
He had almost brought that same invincibility to bear on the Rangers. He had been able to take virtually everything they could throw at them, and attack without reprisal. His shield was not, however, infallible as had been shown. He had designed the collar with the generator in the back, reasoning that since most of his enemies would be facing him, however by sheer chance the Green Ranger had found that weak spot. He had managed to strike it with a weapon, damaging his shield, and bringing it down. Corcax had fled as soon as he had felt Troy's Ninja Beam, knowing his impenetrable defence was no longer working. Now though, he was starting to wonder if perhaps staying and taking his chances with the Rangers would have been a better idea. Prince Vekar's petulance and spite were well-known, and while he doubted the Prince would have the stomach to execute him personally, he was more than willing to watch those under his command perform atrocities that would give any sane mind nightmares.
"Are you kidding me?" He continued to rant as Argus stood behind Corcax, his hand on the hilt of his sword, awaiting the command. "When the going gets tough, the tough run away is that your motto?"
Corcax could see the writing on the wall. He knew that there was a good chance that the prince would order him to be disposed of in some graphic and creative way that would make every second of his remaining life agony. Either that or he could order Argus just to finish him here and now. Corcax considered his options, realising he didn't have many. For a second, the thought crossed his mind that if he was going to die, then he might as well take the opportunity to remind the Prince and everyone around that it wasn't so long ago that Vekar himself had run from battle, fleeing with tears in his eyes when the Blue Ranger struck him in the face, breaking his nose. It wouldn't save him, but at least it would give him a measure of satisfaction in his final moments. However, he opted instead for the only option he could see that could end with him leaving with his life, albeit however slim that chance was. He started to beg.
"Of course not Your Highness, but with my forcefield disabled, I had no choice but to retreat!" He screamed. Lavira came to his side.
"Your Highness, if the Rangers have discovered his weakness, how could he be expected to defeat them?" She pointed out. Corcax was a little puzzled by this development, but he was pleased at the same time. One of the senior officers was actually defending him. He immediately started nodding frantically in agreement.
"Yes, that's my..."
"You will find a way!" Damaras stated. "Or you will fall trying! Unless you want to stay and test our mercy?"
"Yeah!" Prince Vekar rushed out as he leaned forward. "Get back down to that planet, and don't come back until you've finished the job!"
Corcax knew that arguing wasn't likely to get him anywhere, and instead just left. He was already trying to weigh up his chances if he took this opportunity to just run. He knew others that had worked for the Prince had managed to escape, though he wasn't sure exactly how given his reputation for spite. In the end, he resigned himself to the fact that his only chance of getting out of this with his life, however slim, was to risk facing the Rangers again.
"How dare he give me such attitude?" The Prince asked his senior advisors.
"I believe he was upset with himself, not you sir." Argus suggested.
"What do you mean?" Prince Vekar asked him.
"Both his force field and his device failed to defeat the Rangers." He reminded the prince.
"Neither his failure nor his attitude will be tolerated." Damaras stated. "I'll go and destroy him now."
"No, wait!" Prince Vekar called out, stopping Damaras as he was about to go in search of Corcax. He stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Maybe his plan wasn't so terrible. Perhaps with a little modification it could work. Maybe we want his shield to fail."
The others just looked at him, a little puzzled. It wasn't exactly uncommon for a lot of what the prince said to make very little sense, but this time he really wasn't saying anything that they understood.
"Lavira." He called to his science officer, gesturing her over. He leant in to speak closely to her. "Come closer. I have a plan that could defeat the Rangers once and for all!"
Back on Earth, the Rangers got back to the coffee shop they had left to face Corcax. Although the waitress had already cleared the table, it was clear that she had taken a shine to Noah, and after a little flirting, and a cock-and-bull story about going to help an elderly uncle who had fallen in the street and hurt himself, she was only too happy to replace the carrot cake and cappuccinos they had been forced to leave untouched. As the waitress left, Gia just looked to Noah and smiled.
"Well, who knew you would turn into such a Casanova?" She teased him.
"What can I say? Some girls like the geek thing." He responded with a shrug.
"I don't think it's your brain she was interested in." Gia remarked, arching an eyebrow. The fact was, all the training he had done had made a pretty radical difference to Noah's physique. He wasn't the scrawny guy anymore, and it wasn't as if this waitress was the first one to notice.
"Guys, can we focus?" Troy asked. "We got lucky this time around."
"Yeah, if Jordan hadn't shown up, who knows what would have happened?" Jake answered.
"Yeah, but...where did he go?" Emma asked. "I mean...didn't something seem off to you about that whole thing?"
"What do you mean?" Noah asked.
"You know...the way he showed up, then disappeared again and didn't come back?" She asked them. "He's been in The Library for six months! After all that time, with only Pythia for company, don't you think he'd want to meet up with us?"
"Now that I think about it...that did seem odd." Noah agreed. "I mean, I know running off in battle isn't exactly unlike him, but he always came back."
"Maybe we should have hung around?" Jake suggested. "I mean, it is a new city. Maybe he just got lost on his way back."
"Yeah, where'd he disappear to?" Gia asked. "Should we maybe be looking for him? Maybe he ran into trouble."
"With X-borgs?" Troy asked her. "I doubt it. I'm sure he's probably looking for us."
"Look, I'm sure we'll run into him. I know he's just itching to be back on the team." Jake assured them. "In the meantime, can we focus on this monster? We know they have a habit of coming back. When I accidentally hit his collar, that's what disabled his force field."
"Of COURSE, his collar's what generated the force field." Noah responded. "So that's why he ran off."
"He ran off to fix it." Emma concluded.
"So that's the source of his power, but also his weak spot." Gia agreed.
"Nice catch." Troy complimented them; beginning to put the pieces together and realising they were right. "OK, so next time we come across him, we lure him into a position that exposes the back of his collar."
Just then, their morphers bleeped. Fortunately they were almost finished their order this time.
"What is it Uncle?" Noah asked.
"Rangers, there's another attack, in the city centre!" Tensou told them. "Hurry!"
"Man, this is getting seriously weird." Jake grumbled, gulping the last of his cappuccino, and shoving half the carrot cake in his mouth.
"Maybe this is just what we need though." Gia suggested. "If that guy's back...Jordan's probably on his way too! We can kill two birds with one stone!"
"We can worry about that when we get there." Troy answered. "Come on guys, let's go!"
Up on The Armada Command Ship, Damaras watched as the Rangers arrived on the scene, beating the Silver Ranger to the site of the battle for the second time. He watched as they attacked, but seeing the shield flaring up, he looked a little surprised.
"His shield has been repaired?" He asked.
"Of course it has! You didn't think I'd send him into battle without his strongest weapon do you?" Prince Vekar asked him, sniggering slightly as he said it. "I had Lavira help him repair it, with a little upgrade."
"You upgraded his shield?" Damaras asked. "But...what was all that about wanting his shield to fail? Shouldn't Corcax be enacting your plan?"
"But he is." The prince replied, continuing to snigger in a childish way. Damaras and Argus just looked to each other, and then back to him. "The plan requires him to be in the dark. You see, I know the Rangers discovered his weak spot, and would target it again. So I ordered Lavira to make it look like his collar had been reinforced."
"Look like?" Argus asked him. "But...why not really reinforce it?"
"Because I secretly had Lavira put a little surprise in there." Prince Vekar answered. "You see, his idea of using a bomb wasn't a bad idea, it just needed a little...alteration. What if the bomb doesn't know he's a bomb?"
"WHAT?" Damaras yelled, looking alarmed. He looked away as he thought about this. He was the prince's strategic advisor. With that came a certain sense of pragmatism when it came to loss of life. The fact was that any military operation rarely ended without casualties. There was a certain amount of 'accounting' involved in forming battle plans, namely deciding what was and was not an acceptable risk, and ascertaining the likely losses in any strategy. As harsh as it sounded, a large part of strategy was deciding who was and wasn't expendable. However, Damaras did have his limits. One of the reasons they made such heavy use of X-borgs and Bruisers was that it limited casualties among their followers. Soldiers risked their lives to fight for The Armada. The best way he could think to honour that sacrifice they were willing to make was to ensure that if he did risk their lives, he didn't do it needlessly. There was a difference between sending a soldier into a dangerous mission knowingly, and sending a soldier blindly into a suicide mission. "To get the Rangers, you would sacrifice one of your Commanders?"
"To get the Rangers...I'd do ANYTHING!" Prince Vekar yelled as he went back to his throne, and sat, his feet crossed on the bench as he brought the battle up on the large screen. "Now...someone get me some popcorn! I don't want to miss a second of this!"
Back in the streets of Paris, the Rangers were giving Corcax all they had in their battle. His shield was back, and as strong as ever, meaning that no matter what they threw at him, it only resulted in a flash of light. He on the other hand was free to hit them at will.
"This is getting ridiculous!" Troy called out. "Does anyone have a shot at his collar?"
"He's got some kind of new clasp on it." Gia called out. "It looks like he's made improvements!"
"It's stronger, that just means we need a stronger hit." Jake told them. "I've got a plan, keep his attention!"
"You heard him!" Troy responded as the Rangers intensified their attack. Jake saw a nearby tree, with a branch hanging out at just a nice height. He climbed up, taking his place in the branches out of sight, and waited for the Rangers to get Corcax in position.
They didn't know that a little way off, the Silver Ranger was watching. He saw the Rangers fighting and furrowed his brows.
"Four...where's the Green Ranger?" He asked, looking around, before finally finding Jake in the tree. He saw the other Rangers hitting the shield and retreating, and realised they were corralling him, leading him into a position for Jake to make his move. He remembered the last battle, having seen the tail end of it, when Jake had hit the collar. He realised what they were doing.
As he saw the new addition to the collar, he crouched down, keeping an eye on the action.
"Wait...this all seems too simple." He commented. "Why would they draw attention to...?"
Suddenly, a horrible thought occurred to him. His Silver Spear appeared in his hand, and he broke into a run as Corcax was moved into position.
"Nice work guys." Jake said as they drove him back towards the tree with their blasters. "Now I've got a good, clear shot!"
He threw himself out the tree, straight towards Corcax, yelling as he went. As he was about to strike though, he found his blow stopped. He looked up, seeing that it was the Silver Spear that had blocked his blow.
"What?" Jake called out. "Jordan, what are you doing?"
"Sorry guys, but that collar is too obvious a target!" The Silver Ranger told them. "You've got to trust me on this!"
The Rangers all stood back, letting Jordan begin a new attack on Corcax. While he had his moments of being somewhat careless back in the day, he had gotten a lot better at fighting without levelling whole city blocks in the process. They had trusted him before, and they were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt now.
Corcax threw lightning bolts straight at the Silver Ranger, but he ignored them, his determination driving him through.
"I won't let this world lose its defenders too!" He yelled. He lunged for Corcax, his every strike being dissipated by the shield. Corcax just started laughing as he threw his own attacks.
"This is pathetic!" He taunted him. "You can't beat what you can't hit!"
The Silver Ranger made one last lunge at him, but at the last moment, he shifted his position, shifting around Corcax as he attempted to hit him. He came up on the other side, bringing his Silver Spear up, hooking it inside the collar at the clasp. He heard a loud bleeping as he twisted it, cracking the seal and confirmed his suspicion.
"Everyone! Stay clear of the collar!" He screamed as he pried it off, throwing it high into the air. It got far enough away that by the time the bomb detonated, it just shook the street, setting off car alarms and shattering a few windows. Corcax and the Rangers just stared into the sky as pieces of it fell to the ground.
"Man, that was close!" Jake remarked.
"What?" Corcax stammered in disbelief. "The Prince used me?"
"Yeah, now you see how evil The Armada really is!" The Silver Ranger stated with authority, spinning his Silver Spear around. "But you'll still get no mercy from me!"
He brought his Silver Spear around in wild arcs, slicing into him again and again, mercilessly pummelling the Commander for his attack on the Earth. As he fell away, they watched as the Silver Ranger pulled out a Ranger Key, placing it into his Silver Spear.
"Final STRIKE!" He called out as he launched himself into the air. His trident started to glow brightly as he prepared to throw it, launching it through the air. It tore straight through the Commander, at which he started to spark, signalling his end. He fell to the ground, and exploded as the weapon returned to the Silver Ranger's hand.
"And my vengeance begins!" He announced as the Commander exploded. The other Rangers assembled around him as he stood before them.
"Wow, that was amazing!" Noah complimented him. "That weapon is sick!"
"Your moves are pretty good too." Jake added. "It looks like you've been doing more than just reading in The Library."
"The Library?" The Silver Ranger asked.
"Whatever Jordan, it's great to have you back!" Emma told him. "Even Gia missed you!"
"I did not!" Gia yelled. She then looked to the Silver Ranger and laughed. "Okay, well...maybe a little."
"Who's Jordan?" The Silver Ranger asked them. The other Rangers just stood before him, looking confused. He de-morphed in a bright flash before them, leaving the whole team completely at a loss for what to say.
"You...you're not Jordan." Gia stammered. "You're that guy I bumped into at the coffee shop!"
"Who are you?" Jake demanded. "How did you get those powers?"
For a long moment, the Silver Ranger just stared straight back at them. Both of those were excellent questions, ones he wasn't sure that he could answer in a satisfactory way.