Mission 21: Part 2

As the enemy Rangers began to stride forward, the Nova Rangers stood their ground and reached for their own morphers in unison. As they morphed into their own battle suits and shimmered with colorful light, they answered the Alphas with their own call, "Energize!"

The Xeno Rangers halted and took a moment to size up the situation while the humans regrouped to square off against them. As the Nova Rangers began facing down their opposing color, Jake did a quick headcount and gave a shrug, "Well look at that. They didn't even bother recruiting a Sixth Ranger. I almost feel offended."

Erin shifted over and changed formation so that Jake now stood against the Silver Alpha Ranger, "Tell you what, you can fight Evil Martin while Ella and I double team the girl. Sound fair?"

Jake sighed and took a reluctant fighting stance, "I should really keep my big mouth closed sometimes."

Before anyone could add anything further, the Alpha Rangers rushed forward and locked in battle with the Nova Rangers. All along the front gates of the National Art Museum, the two teams of Rangers engaged in fierce hand to hand fighting. At the battle's outset, both sides looked to be evenly matched, nimbly blocking and countering each others' punches and kicks.

Bharata and the Green Alpha Ranger named Li were both exceptional martial artists and barely kept up with each others' blinding fast attacks and reversals. Nearby, the two big Blue Rangers Erik and his foe locked horns in more of a battle of brute strength and grappling power. In some ways, they almost looked like two great bucks pushing and wrestling against each other for leverage.

At the other end of the field, both Erin and Ella worked together to keep the Gold Alpha Ranger Marie LaPointe on the defensive, and despite their overlapping attack combinations, they were unable to land a solid hit on their slippery and evasive foe. Meanwhile, Jake fought a back and forth fight against the Martin clone, or rather the younger version of the Red Nova Ranger. The Xeno Ranger had a rather unrefined but unpredictable fighting style which kept Jake off balance and made it hard, especially since the Silver Nova Ranger preferred to avoid close range combat as much as possible.

While the other Rangers were engaged in battle, the two Red Rangers did battle near another fountain. They evaded the other's kicks and countered each other's punches before becoming momentarily tangled in a cross arm block. The Red Alpha Ranger Mike Avery snorted, "Your fighting style has gotten a lot better. I can see why you're wearing the red now."

"Shut up," Martin grunted as they broke loose, "You don't know anything about me, or the original team."

Mike laughed and drew forth a modified vibroblade, brandishing it toward his opponent, "Of course I do. You were the youngest rookie on the squad. Bright eyed, idealistic, and naive. You looked up to me. You learned from me because you wanted to be just like me."

Martin backpedaled, "I... I did... I still do... I'm not the same person. Things changed. I changed."

"No Martin... you didn't change," Mike countered as he swung the blade to keep the Nova Ranger off balance, "You might be older and have more experience. Hell, you might even know a thing or two about leadership, but you're still the same deep down. You're just a scared little boy who's just trying to play the part of a Ranger for everyone else. You take that morpher away and you're just a nobody."

"You're lying! That's not true!" Martin shouted in fear as he pulled his pistol and fired several shots.

Mike deflected them with his blade, "You're afraid of Warmaster Hellspont and what he can do... aren't you? You're afraid of losing this whole war and letting your friends down. You're afraid of them getting killed. Most of all... you're afraid of all the dark and terrible things you've bottled up inside for fear that you might become as vengeful and monstrous as the Warmaster himself... you and the Xeno Machina are not all that different after all!"

The Red Nova Ranger faltered under his enemy's relentless barbs and psychological attacks. For a few moments, he was seized with fear, indecisiveness, and self doubt. That was all the Alpha Ranger needed as he disarmed Martin and pummeled him with several fierce blows. The false Ranger finished with a powerful slash that sent Martin reeling backwards and toppling to the pavement in pain as his suit gave out and demorphed. As the bruised and demoralized Red Nova Ranger stumbled on the ground, his enemy loomed over him menacingly, "What a surprise. You're still a disappointment. If you can't even defeat me in battle, how do you ever expect to best the Warmaster?"

The Alpha Ranger reached down and grabbed Martin by the neck, lifting him up in a choking hold, "I guess it doesn't matter, does it? Because I'm going to kill you first."

The Red Xeno Ranger was silenced as Erik knocked aside his own foe and charged over to aid his commander. In mid-stride, he called his panzerfaust mace and struck a glancing blow on the Red Xeno Ranger to knock him back several meters. Erik took a moment to help Martin steady himself on one knee while the other Nova Rangers disengaged from their own fights. They had struggled and fought their foes to a momentary stalemate, unable to gain any sort of advantage either since they were evenly matched with the cyborgs. As the two teams regrouped and squared off, Mike laughed toward Erik, "What are you going to do Blue? Think you can do any better than your sorry excuse for a C.O. over there?"

Erik gripped his mace and radioed Atlantis Base, "Dr. Beckett? Requesting emergency extraction. Beam us out, centered on my position."

Just before the emergency beam out procedure was activated, Erik fired off the warhead of his mace to explode on the ground in front of the Xeno Rangers to surprise them. As the Nova Rangers made their escape and teleported away, The Xeno Rangers were thrown backwards and took a moment to regain their footing. The surprise attack had caught them off guard and there was some minor damage showing up on their sensors as a result of the blast.

Amid the dying flames and ruined pavement, the Red Xeno Ranger scowled and looked to the skies deciding it was best to withdraw for repairs as well. While the other Rangers had fought an inconclusive battle, he at least had made a statement to his human counterpart. One of his comrades asked aloud, "Should we continue attacking the city?"

"No. They'll be back. We'll take the time to make our own repairs. When we face those Nova Rangers again, we won't let them get away."

Meanwhile back at Atlantis Base, the Nova Rangers made their way off the transit platform. Martin staggered unevenly as Erin and Jake both steadied him by the shoulders and helped him down the ramp. By now, a few medics who were standing by came over to help. Per the protocols of emergency beam-outs, a few medical personnel and armed marines were always called to the transporter room in case any of the Rangers were seriously hurt or if there were any other threats following close behind.

In that moment, Martin shrugged off the hands of his fellow Rangers and tried to signal to the marines to stand down. The enlisted security troops lowered their weapons and came to attention giving their salute to the ranking officer but martin was stopped by the medics, "Captain? Are you all right?"

He tried to wave them off too and not let on how shaken he had been from the battle with the Xeno Rangers, "I'm fine, thanks. I'm just a little shaken up is all."

"Try again," Erik replied from behind, "Sir, I saw you get your head beat in by that Xeno Ranger. You should slow down and breathe."

The other younger Rangers all looked on with concerned expressions forcing Martin to pause and consider their feelings about this as well. His attention was brought back as one of the medics placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, "Captain Sterling? Maybe you should just come with us to the infirmiry? We'll just check you out to make sure you're okay."

Seeing he was once again powerless in this situation, the Red Ranger relented and gave a sigh before following the medics off to the infirmary while the other Rangers looked on feeling just as tired, shaken, and demoarlized at the moment of the new threat at hand.