Chapter 10: Cave of Desires

A/N: Enjoy!

Summary: In the last chapter, three things have happened. The first thing, Leon has finally returned to the land of the Wild Zords, the Animaria. The second thing, Princess Shayla has told the story of how she and Leon first met when they were young and she has revealed that Leon wasn't the only Greeed. The final thing, it is also revealed that both Leon and Shayla have a crush on each other and Shayla has planned to tell him during Valentine's Day. Will she be able to confess or will she continue to keep it a secret? The answer lies in the next few more chapters.

Disclaimer: I do not own Kamen rider or Power Rangers but I own my OC.

As night fell on the Animaria, everyone, including the Wild Zords, were about to go to sleep. However, only one of them was still awake. And she was Princess Shayla.

She sat beside Leon, her crush and closest childhood friend, and blushed as the moonlight shone at his face."Oh my...I had never noticed Leon's shiny coat before. He must have groomed himself when I wasn't looking." Shayla muttered.

Just then, Alysaa appeared beside the princess,"Hey Princess Shayla. Are you going to sleep? You know Leon isn't going anywhere, right?"

Nodding, Shayla replied,"I know, Alysaa. But for some reason, I can't seem to get my eyes off of him. This is the first time I'm experiencing this kind of thing, Alysaa. I have no idea why but I can't take my eyes off of him. He just looks so...so...I can't seem to explain it. I'm just in love with him!"

Alysaa smiled,"That's how you'd feel when you have a crush on someone, princess. I'm sure Leon had the same problem as you do."

"But Leon doesn't have a heart. He has Core medals instead." Shayla said.

"It doesn't matter, princess." Alysaa replied."As long as you two love each other, everything will be fine. Besides, I'm sure after Valentine's Day, you two will be happy together and who knows, maybe after we defeat the Org, we'll be seeing little kids of yours."

Shayla blushed,"I...I'm not sure if Leon and I could have kids. I mean, I know about all those things because my mother explained it all to me. But I don't think Leon and I could have a child. Still, I would love to be closer to him after Valentine's Day."

Alysaa smiled,"That's good to hear, princess. Now it's time for bed. Leon should wake up in the morning just like you said."

Shayla nodded as she was guided by Alysaa to the fountain where Shayla turned into a blue sphere and vanished into the fountain.

Back at the city, Dave had just escaped the area where he had murdered Daniel in time when someone had called the police to the scene. Luckily for him, there wasn't any surveillance cameras in the area.

"That was a well executed plan, wasn't it Cobra?" Dave asked his Yummy companion.

She nodded,"Yes. I had fun breaking that human's bones."

"Well, it seems that someone had their fun time."

The two turned to see Mantis standing behind them with his back against the wall and his arms were folded.

"Mantis! Did Leon revived you too?" Cobra asked.

Nodding, Mantis replied,"Yes. He had revived me long ago. But that's not the point. Our master is still in bad shape. He needs more Cell medals and judging by your body, you have fulfilled Dave's desire."

Cobra gave him a nod and Mantis continued,"Good. Our master is back at the Animaria now. You should head back there. Jaguar would love to see you again. I would also like to have a talk with Dave."

Cobra nodded again and she slithered off into the darkness.

As Mantis looked back at Dave, he smirked,"I see you have already gotten accustomed to using the Cell medals that my master has given you." Dave smiled and Mantis continued,"That's impressive for a human. But the job isn't done yet, Dave. Leon still needs more Cell medals to live. Just you alone won't be enough to keep him going whenever he uses up all his energy in a fight."

Dave nodded,"I know. Leon told me that a long time ago. My bonus job is to find more people who wants to fulfill their desires. Don't worry about that. Just tell the boss that I'm on it whenever I can. Right now, I still have plenty of desires."

Mantis chuckled,"Amusing as I expected, Dave. Here's your payment for today..." As he stretched out his hand, Mantis dropped three Cell medals onto Dave's hand."Use them wisely, Dave. Yummies are not disposable at your will. They are the only things keeping Leon alive for your sake."

"I get it, Mantis." Dave replied.

Nodding in satisfaction, Mantis turned and left while Dave went in a different path.

In a different part of the city, in a museum, lies a red coffin that was resting in the middle of the museum's best artifact room. Also in that room were tons of people who had come to witness the astonishing moment that was about to happen in that same room.

"What do you think will be in that coffin?" One of the guests asked.

"It's probably another Mummy of a Pharaoh again. But I have to admit, those images of birds look intimidating." Another guest spoke.

Then, a high-pitched cling started ringing across the room and everyone turned their attention to the front where a well-dressed man was standing in front of the coffin with a wine glass in his grip and a spoon in the other."Welcome, esteemed guests and archaeologists, to our museum's first ever 'Opening of the coffin'! Tonight will be the mark of a brand new start for this museum. And for a reason as well. As you know, last month, two mysterious red medals were discovered directly below one of an Excavation site that we visited. Depicted on the medals were not words, but pictures of a Hawk and a Peacock. Now we do not know what they are suppose to mean but scientists that we have hired are working at their best to figure out the meaning of those two medals But for now, you may feel free to take a look at those two medals in the next room."

As he gestured his hand to the next room, he continued,"But first, we will open the coffin. This coffin, it is a mystery that no one has ever seen before. Four days after the discovery of the two medals, this coffin emerged from the ground at the same place we had dug up the medals. We are unsure of what is inside of it but we predict that something sacred and powerful is inside of it. Without further a due, we will now open the coffin!"

Applause filled the room as the man turned to face the coffin. He raised his hand up, silencing the crowd behind him and swallowed hard on his saliva as he slowly approached the coffin.

Step by step, he came closer to the coffin. But even with his whole body filled with curiosity and anxiousness, he was shaking as he stretched out his hand.

With his hand on the coffin's top, whispers started among the crowd as they were wondering what was going to be revealed to them. As the man took a deep breath, he pulled the coffin's lid open and as he did, Cell medals poured out of the coffin instantly and he moved out of the way.

Before he was going to do anything, feathers in the shade of red started appearing within the room itself. Within minutes, the entire room was filled with a giant pile red feathers.

One of the guests, a man, stepped out and picked up a feather to examined it. As he did, he felt an intense burn in his hand and dropped the feather. Behind him, other people who had also picked up the feathers suffered the same fate. One by one, the people fell with a burnt hand.

While people were continuing to collapse, the rest of the people started hearing a soft laughter.

The man who had opened the coffin looked around,"Who's there?! Show yourself or else I'm calling the guards in!"

The laughter continued,"Guards you say? Is that the best you've got to offer me? I might as well just break free!" The Cell medals started shaking vigorously around as they flew in every directions.

As the medals landed on the ground, they split into half and Waste Yummies started emerging from the ground where the broken Cell medals once laid.

Panic filled the room and the guests all screamed as they tried to escape. Unfortunately, A few Waste Yummies were already guarding the door, blocking off their only way to escape. One of the Waste Yummies then entered the next room and walked up to a glass case.

"No! Don't break..." The man was unable to complete his sentence as the Waste Yummy smashed the glass case and it grabbed the two red Cored medals inside of it.

It reentered the room again and made its way over to the remaining pile of Cell medals. As it placed the two Core medals down, the Cell medals and red feathers swirled around the two Core medals as the two medals levitated up in the air.

Soon, a creature stepped out of the feathers and sat down on top of the stair in front of him as his body appeared from the Cell medals. He was brightly colored with a mix of red, green and yellow. His head resembled a hawk but with a face inside of the hawk's beak. His shoulders had wing-like shoulder pads and his waist had a belt where its buckle had the same yellow circle in the middle. Finally, at his legs, they were covered by bird-like armors. He was none other than Talon.

"So, what was that about calling the guards?" Talon spoke. Then, the guards came running in, only to be shocked at seeing Talon."What? Never seen a Greeed before?"

A guard raised his taser gun and pulled the trigger, discharging a small amount of electricity at him. A spark flew off of Talon's shoulder and he dust it off like it was nothing."That tickled. Let me show you how it should be done." Talon's red wings sprouted out from his back and red feathers flew everywhere as a blast of fire erupted from the palm of his hand, melting the taser gun in the guard's hand.

With a snap of his fingers, the Waste Yummies tackled the guards down and Talon made his way to the exit, only to be blocked by the human who had freed him."I'm not letting you get out of this museum after all the damage you have caused."

Talon clicked his tongue,"Then I'll just have to force my way out!" As Talon held his grip on the man's neck, he tightened his grip on the human. As the human started choking, Talon chuckled,"How does it feel to be someone weaker than a superior being now? For millenniums, I have been resting. Now, I have return to have a bit of mayhem." He looked around the room and then looked back at the human,"And it seems humans have evolved a little while I was gone. That's cute. But not very smart of you. Polluting the Earth and that caused me to wake up from my nap. I should just kill you!"

As he raised his claws up in front of the man's face and the human closed his eyes in anticipation of what was going to happen. Then, a intense pain filled Talon's head and he clutched it.

Talon dropped the human and stumbled back a little before saying,"You're lucky, human. My brother prevents me from murdering you. But watch your back, I will be there to take your life one day!"

With his wings out, Talon took off into the night sky as he broke the glass roof above him while the Waste Yummies all vanished.

The man collapsed on his back and the guards rushed to his side to help him. Unknown to any of them, someone had taken a photo of Talon as he took off. And that person was also a News Reporter, coincidentally.

Back on the Animaria, the Rangers were all sound asleep in the temple but they were soon awoken by a twig that broke. As they opened their eyes, they saw that the Yummies were heading somewhere.

"Guys, where do you think they're heading?" Danny asked.

Cole shook his head,"I don't know. But I thought they were supposed to look after their master. I think we should follow them." The others all nodded in agreement with Cole and they quickly put on their jackets and quietly made their way out while avoiding the chance of Leon waking up from their noise.

They followed the Yummies into the forest and as they did, the Rangers were also listening to their conversation.

"Mantis, what are we doing out here at this hour? We have to be watching over our master." Hopper spoke.

Jaguar nodded,"I agree. We were created to serve and protect Leon from harm. That includes when he is asleep. We can't just...wait...you're not saying that we should..."

Before any of the other Yummies could have a say in the conversation, Mantis raised his hand to silence them."Quiet! We're being followed. Macaw, behind!" Using his quick reflexes, Macaw swiftly turned around and tossed a few of his feathers at the trees, causing sparks to fly everywhere and the rangers were knocked down from their hiding spots.

"The Warriors! They were following us." Mantis said.

Taylor got up from the ground as quick as she could and yelled,"What's the big idea?! Why are you all not protecting Leon? I thought he trusted you!"

"Quiet will you!" Mantis hissed."We are protecting him! It's just that we also have something important to do right now that requires absolute secrecy of it. Leon must not know what we are doing."

"And what is it that you are doing?" Alysaa asked.

Jaguar stepped up,"I think I know where Mantis was planning to take us." Everyone turned to her and she continued,"Mantis, you were bringing us back to the Cave of Desires, right?"

Mantis nodded and Cole asked,"What's this Cave of Desires?"

Hopper replied,"All will be explained when we reached there. Now come, we must go. We're losing time." Without another word, the Rangers followed the Yummies deeper into the forest.

An hour later, they soon reached a mountain that had small medal-shaped holes at the base of the mountain.

Max approached the mountain and touched the holes,"What are these for? Some kind of key?"

Mantis nodded and each of the Yummies took out a Cell medal and inserted them into the holes. Not long later, the entire ground started shaking. As the Rangers looked up, the medals were glowing as they levitated out of the holes and circled around the air. Outlines in several colors appeared around the mountain wall in the shape of a door and it slowly slid open as the medals landed in the Yummies's hands as they walked in.

As they entered the mountain, the door slid shut and darkness surrounded the area before it was suddenly lit up by mysterious lights and they were greeted by paintings on the wall.

"Whoa..." Danny said in awe.

"What is this place?" Alysaa asked.

"Welcome, Warriors, to the Cave of Desires." Hopper announced as he hopped around the place.

Jaguar stood beside Taylor and Alysaa and spoke,"This cave has many meanings to the Animaria in the past. Long ago, this was where Shayla freed Leon from his coffin and it was also here where they fell in love during their ten years of being together."

The Rangers gasped at the realization of where they were in and Cole spoke,"No way. This can't be real. But it's right in front of me as well. I'm very confused right now."

"Hey guys!" Max called out.

As the others turned to him, Max jumped up and down,"Look what's in here. A vending machine! Who knew Leon had one last time. I'm gonna try one of the drinks!"

"Careful! That's..." Mantis cried.

It was too late, Max had inserted a coin into the machine and it was rejected, causing the coin to be flung out of the machine and hit Max right on his forehead. The Blue Ranger stumbled back and fell on his butt."What the heck was that?!"

Mantis sighed,"I was trying to warn you that that wasn't your usual vending machine that you humans have now to store your drinks. This is called the Ride Vendor, a motorcycle that Leon and his siblings used to travel around the Animaria in the past."

"So they ride on this vending machine...seems weird if you ask me." Max stated.

"That because you're not using it properly."

The Rangers and Yummies turned back to see Princess Shayla approaching them. The Yummies immediately knelt and the rangers ran over to the princess.

"Princess! What are you doing here?" Taylor asked.

Shayla smiled,"What do you mean? I've always been here every night when I can't sleep." She faced Max and continued,"Anyway, Max, Leon doesn't really ride on the machine like that. He rides..." As she walked up to the vending machine, she was handed a Cell medal by a Shark Yummy and she inserted it into the machine before tapping the scanner on the machine.

Soon, the vending machine started changing its shape as a pair of wheels appeared out and it formed a motorbike called the Ride Vendor."This." Shayla finishes her sentence.

The Rangers stared in awe at the vehicle in front of them and Taylor gasped,"No way. Leon knew how to ride a bike in the past?! And I thought we were the ones with advanced technology."

Mantis chuckled,"There's more to it than you think, Warriors." As he approached the Ride Vendor, it changed back into a vending machine and Mantis inserted a Cell medal into it before a can dropped out. Mantis pulled the pull tab at the top of the red can and it changed into a mechanical Hawk-like creature, surprising the Rangers.

Shayla smiled,"I know. I too had that same reaction al of you are having right now. This is called a Candroid, a 'companion' is what Leon and his siblings would comment. It can be used for both scouting any area or even have it entertain children. Candroids were common pets back in my time when Leon and his siblings were still considered friends by the people of Animaria. When Master Org attacked, Leon was able to locate every single one of the Candroids and brought them back to this very cave."

The Hawk Candroid chirped as he flew over to the Rangers.

Alysaa laughed a little when the Candroid stopped in front of her and chirped excitedly."It's great to meet you too, little guy!"

Then, Jaguar appeared with a book in her hands. Cole was curious about the book and he approached the Yummy,"Excuse me, Jaguar? But, what is that book?"

"This, Red Warrior, is the very book that contains all of Leon's accounts of the past when he was growing up with Princess Shayla."

Hearing this, Shayla turned her attention to Jaguar and gasped,"Jaguar! You're holding Leon's dairy!

Max held in his laughter at hearing what the princess had just said and he received a slap to the back by Taylor. The Yellow Ranger then approached Shayla,"So princess, how did you know that that is Leon's dairy and why would he even keep one? I thought he would have a good memory to remember everything."

Shayla smiled,"Well Taylor, you see, my parents were actually suspicious that Leon was, well...interested in me. So they decided to give him a dairy to write down everything that he has done since the day he received it. And when he was asleep, my parents would read it. Quite a bit of invading privacy too if I would say. But that's how my parents and I found out about Leon's crush on me. But there was one entry that he had written that proved to my parents that he was a suitable husband for me when we were at age. But I didn't know about it, until recently."

As she flipped through the pages of the book, she soon stopped at one of the pages and read it aloud,"Today was a sad day for me. Though the usual routine of going to the village to check on the Candroids were still normal, I had to watch my dearest sister leave me to return to her long slumber just like how Talon and Orion did. She had left for reasons unknown. And now, it has been nearly three hours since she had left and I already miss her. Lana was always carefree, I can agree to that. But still, she is the only girl in our Greeed family and also the true youngest of all of us Greeeds. She has been around with me, keeping me updated about her time with Shayla while I was on my daily routine. My sister was someone who I treasure besides the safety of the beautiful Princess Shayla. But now that she is gone, all I have are the Yummies who are now under my command and only Shayla is able to fill in the emptiness of my so called 'heart'. I wish I did have a heart, because then, I would be able to feel things a normal human will. Sadly, it didn't happen. But no matter what, I will still keep Shayla save from any harm that the Orgs will cause. Even with my sister gone, Shayla is the only person keeping me going. I don't care if either her parents or her wouldn't accept me as Shayla's lover. I will sacrifice myself for her protection. That has been and will always be my objective to obey. Shayla was the one who broke the chains that enclosed me within my coffin and I will forever be in her debt even if she will hate me."

The princess quickly shut the book and tears dropped down her face.

"Princess, what's wrong?" Danny asked.

Shayla wiped her tears and spoke,"It's because I don't want to see Leon suffer! All those years of serving my family as my guard, he had been having feelings for me and I never noticed them for a long time. If only I knew that he had been like that the whole time, I would have loved him back. But he was afraid of being rejected by me that he was afraid it would harm our friendship."

Alysaa petted the princess's back,"It's alright, princess. At least you love him back now. So on Valentine's Day, you can tell him that. We'll be sure to keep the Orgs away so you two can have your alone time together. Am I right guys?"

The rest of the rangers nodded and Shayla smiled,"Thank you, Rangers. I wouldn't know what to do if I have to lose Leon again. He has been staying strong all these years to keep his feelings from me so that he wouldn't let any harm come to me. I...I just..."

Now, Taylor stepped forward,"Like what Alysaa said, it's alright princess. We can handle all the trouble while you and Leon get some alone time for Valentine's Day. Trust us, princess. And with that Candroid, we will be able to keep watch of the city more easier too."

"I will help too!" Jaguar spoke, gaining everyone's attention."Warriors, I am a feline Yummy. Leon is my real master. It is saddening to see my master, the one who took care of me when I was hurt or down, all depressed. And I will do anything to make that day special for Shayla and master Leon. I will put my life on it if I have to!"

Cole placed his hands on Jaguar's shoulders,"You're not sacrificing your life for anything! I mean, sure Leon is your master. But getting yourself killed will sadden him even more to hear that his Yummy was killed by an Org."

Jaguar flinched,"I...I never thought about that before. Master Leon has always cared for every living being that are on Earth. I think you're right, Red Warrior. My master would hate to hear that I was killed. After all, I am the healer of the Yummies."

Smiling, Cole replied,"That's right. So we all agree that nothing is to disrupt Valentine's Day for Leon and Shayla, right?" The Rangers and Yummies nodded and Cole continued,"Good. Now let's go. It's going to be a big day tomorrow!"

A/N: Chapter complete! Hope you've enjoyed this and review is always appreciated! PMs are also allowed and as always, criticism is welcome here.