Volume IV – Nemeses

Chapter 27—Intro to Hebrew 101, Part II: Ripoff Rangers

Amy

When I got a clear look again, I couldn't believe my eyes. Apparently, the reason some of the attackers sounded feminine, was because they were…including the one I fought. The most surprising revelation, though, was what stood before us. They were suited up in colored Elesferi, each color seeming to correspond to our own.

"Mem Black: Aquos Mecha Ranger!" The black ranger commanded droplets of water to revolve around him in a perfect ring before they imploded and he slid into a fighting posture. I noted the nearly militarized design of his suit. A slate colored trim outlined pale blue padding along his chest that ran all the way down his sides and tapered off in the middle of his thighs. On his right arm, he wore a sky blue sleeve that wrapped all the way around his hand, but cut off midway up his bicep. His left arm sported a complex gauntlet, a noticeable blaster mounted around the wrist joint. Around his deltoids were two metallic shoulder pads, droplet shapes framing the Hebrew letter Mem. His helmet seemed to mimic an elephant with a raise trunk and curvy, sharp tusks that flanked his onyx visor. In the center of his helmet was the tear drop surrounded by two curved drops of water. Inscribed in the central droplet was the letter Mem. Again.

"Dalet Pink: Naturos Mecha Ranger!" the pink ranger now followed. When the petals, leaves, and vines surrounded her and exploded like her own personal autumn, I knew she had been my opponent at the Altar. Her suit was nearly the same shade as mine, a light pink greatly contrasted by the black padding along the sides of her body and her chest. Her suit was essentially the same as her Black Ranger male counterpart, only the trimmings on her suit were light green, and her sleeve was black. Of course, her helmet was different, too. It seemed to be styled after a pterosaur, a pointed beak nestled in the center like a crown, and her mouth guard sharing the same gas-mask like quality as her black ranger teammate.

"Vav Blue: Tundrus Mecha Ranger!" a female blue ranger announced, twirling as the symbols on her shoulder pads, belt, and forehead ignited; Hebrew letter Vav. Frost seemed to float around her in puffs as the ground froze in her footsteps. And I couldn't help but notice the bright white padding on her suit and the sharp teal trim around it. Her helmet was easily distinguishable as a horned creature, and given the three I could spot, I was willing to bet it was a triceratops. Or something.

"Heyh Yellow: Spiritos Mecha Ranger!" growled out the lithe yellow ranger. The padding on her suit was a navy blue with a white trim, with glowing yellow symbols on her shoulders and forehead. Her visor was framed by two large fang-like teeth, and two sharply pointed ears stretched off the sides of the helmet. I made out eye-like structures above the visor and guessed the overall design was based off some sort of big cat.

"Yod Red: Lunarus Mecha Ranger!" The red ranger, complete with silver padding and black trim roared. My scanners detected graviton waves dancing around him like mere bubbles—as if they were harmless to him. The symbols on his body glowed a menacing red as he finished, his visor was a curved triangular shape, jagged teeth visible along its frame. Small eyes could be made out under the frontal panel, and as I stared harder at him, I began to put a theme together. These rangers had animals similar to the Mighty Morphin Power Ranger team Zordon put together when Earth first met the Power Rangers. This Red Ranger's helmet design was probably a tyrannosaurus.

Now, one of the special rangers stepped forward. His suit was the same, except his shoulder pads were outstretched and attached to an armored chest piece. The red padding on his suit was the same as the other Rangers' padding, only his trim was a shiny gold. Both arms had red sleeves that ranged from mid-bicep to the finger tips, and both forearms sported gauntlets with blasters at the end of them. Only they were on the back of his hand instead of on his wrist. Tassets were attached to his belt, and 2 sets of armored rings wrapped around his thighs. Unlike the simplistic combat boots of the other rangers, his boots were attached to sharp knee pads that held spikes in them—like Patrick's—and the toes of his boots seemed to have talons of sorts attached. I stared at his visor, so unlike the others. It wasn't modeled after an animal, but had a sunburst design to it that was framed by his gas-mask mouth piece.

It took me a second to notice he had called out "Aleph White: Solaris Mecha Ranger!"

And no sooner had he spoken did his Green Ranger friend take the spotlight. He reminded me of a Green version of the White Ranger—his suit hardly differing. The main difference was his black padding and orange trim, and the cybernetic appearance of his chest piece and shoulder pads. Also, instead of two tassets hanging from his belt, he had one central one that covered his codpiece. On it, and on his shoulder pads and helmet, was the Hebrew letter Zayin. His orange visor reminded me of Patrick's—back when he was controlled by Zeta—but it was winged by an ocular scanner, and an array of sorts that extended from the top of his visor like a technological horn.

As he struck his fighting stance, I watched metals from the earth rip themselves free of the ground to orbit his body like satellites. When he flexed, they exploded in sparks and he announced himself as "Zayin Green: Technos Mecha Ranger!"

Together, they stood to their full heights before they chorused, "MECHA SQUAD Z!" The explosion that set off behind them was blinding, and we all had to shield our eyes—even through our visors—to keep from going blind.

When their resonance energy faded, none of said a word. I think we were all awestruck, none of us daring to ask what these new opponents wanted, or where they came from. It was like a team of Zetas. Only…different. Somehow worse.

I felt the goose bumps sneaking up my skin under my suit, but I bit back my fear and concern as I looked to Aaron. "I've scanned them."

"What've you got?" he whispered, his eyesight never leaving the seven rangers in front of us.

"Their morphers share the same resonance energy as—"

"Mine," Patrick interrupted, stepping forward from the group and keeping his now bright blue visor on the opponents. His suit hadn't changed much from when he was evil—only that all the orange accents became bright blue, like the ones on Aaron's suit. "They've stolen Zeta's Morpher power and fused it with the Aleph Beyt serums."

"What?" demanded, his tone angry—almost insulted. "You tore apart an Eltarian—raped him of his power? And then you tainted it with your filthy potions?"

"Aaron," Patrick muttered, laying a hand on his shoulder in a comforting manner.

I looked at the balled fists at Aaron's side and noticed the slight aura that was emanating from him. Maybe it was my scanners. Maybe it was my tighter link to the energy surrounding people. Or maybe it was the fact that I felt the insult and degradation Aaron was feeling from the Aleph Beyt. They had practically taken part of my culture and thrown it into a pile of shit. It made bile at the back of my throat boil and rise.

"Who the hell are you?" Aaron growled while hardly concealing his anger.

"Mecha Squad-Z," the White Ranger responded, his voice terse but…familiar. I knew it. "Or did you not get that part?"

I turned to Matt, nodding at him. Immediately, I could sense his sonic sensors working away at the vocals of the Aleph White: Solaris Mecha Ranger.

"I'm assuming Mesomorph couldn't get enough after corrupting one good thing, could he?" I spat, stalling for Matt's scan to complete.

"You assume correctly," the Green Ranger snapped. His voice, too, was slightly familiar.

"I'm not sure if anyone's told you this," Patrick said, stepping up and cracking his knuckles, "but I'm the badass in this neighborhood. I gave you your powers. I can, and will, take them back."

"We'll see about that," my counterpart retorted, cocking her pink and black helmet.

"Matt, I've transferred your sonic scan to the lab and I'm working on it now," Doc reported through our Commlinks. "I'm picking up major readings from these guys, though—their power output overrides yours."

"Nothing we haven't been up against for the past few months," Jay muttered.

"Cyber Squad Z, attack formation!" Aaron ordered lethally. Each of us slid into fighting positions while we watched our opponents do the same.

We took off at extreme speed, my feet hardly touching the ground before I flipped up into the air and launched a powerful projectile attack. I watched as it harmlessly ricocheted off the enemy Pink Ranger's vine-whip. She quickly returned fire with a barrage of thorns, but by hovering to the right, I dodged narrowly.

"Nice try!" I taunted, landing a power kick to her shoulder.

"Try this!" She grabbed my foot and brought me down to earth—literally. My helmet slammed into the cement, creating a nice crater in its wake. As I flipped back and slammed my fists together to create energetic projections around them, I watched her mimic my motion and create vine-wrapped hands with thorny protrusions. As I looked closer, I could see circuitry inlaid in the vines. She wasn't actually controlling nature. She was using technology to control it.

"This…could get interesting," I noted.

To the right of me, I could see Grace taking on the hulking black ranger of the other team. When she would shadow glide, he would bring up a wave of water around his lower body and propel himself into the air. If she tossed Shadow Bombs, he would launch pressurized spheres of water.

On my left side, nearly ten yards away, I could tell Matt wasn't fairing much better with his opponent, Tundrus. She was an agile adversary, much like Matt, both of them focusing on aerial combat skills. If he attempted to use wind currents against her, she would use ice shields to freeze the atoms in the air. If he flew, she would launch herself into the air with pressurized dry ice. If he compacted air into a force field and converted it to an energy blast, she could reflect it back at him.

I noticed Jay wasn't doing too well either. His pyrokinetic abilities were unmatched by anyone on the opposing side, but his opponent manipulated the energy of her bio-field to adapt to Jay's fire. Not to mention, she seemed to be able to channel energy through her body and expel it in the form of energy rivaling my own. Where mine was an expulsion of energy in the bio-field, hers was a manipulation.

Beth and Red Lunarus Ranger were going at it like I'd never seen any other pair of Rangers fight. Beth was easily controlling the earth around her, slamming into her opponent with the force of volcanic eruptions. However, Yod Ranger's graviton beams grounded the rocks before they could even get close. And if he turned his graviton beams on her, she was nearly helpless. Gravity was what made her powers useful. If he could nullify her attacks, she had to stay on the defensive. And she had no way of defending.

Aaron and Patrick were our super rangers, using large amounts of energy and easily performing feats unrivaled by any of us. Even with half his power, Patrick was still an amazing sight. What disturbed me, though, was the fact that with all their power, their opponents were still outwitting them.

The enemy White Ranger was using solar flares to block out Aaron's light blasts, and at certain points, he could absorb Aaron's light rays and reverse them in a polarized beam opposite to Aaron's own, mostly catching him off guard. The spikes on his suit were especially problematic for our White Ranger, too, because Solaris was an especially vicious fighter. And it didn't help that Solaris seemed to know all of Aaron's moves before he made them.

Patrick and his advanced capabilities, though, were able to keep up with his assailant. The Technos Ranger fought fiercely, throwing energy-charged shrapnel at volatile speeds. To add to his assault, he would throw explosive serrated discs or whip out with electricity. And even though Patrick could take Technos' electricity and throw it right back in his face, the conductive metal all over Technos' suit just absorbed the charge. So Patrick's main offensive tactic was useless.

He resorted to pulling up severe razor winds, or charged particles of thunderclouds, but it seemed that no matter what he did, Green Zayin Technos Ranger was always ahead of the game with a force field or clever trick.

By the time we regrouped, my body stung ferociously from the hits I'd taken from Dalet Pink: Naturos Mecha Ranger. My stomach, back, and arms felt like they were on fire, and I was pretty sure I still had a few cybernetic thorns stuck in my suit.

"This isn't working…at all," Beth panted. "We can't keep up with them like this; it's like they have data on all our moves: our fighting styles, our powers, our weapons—everything."

"I know," Aaron said shortly. "We've got to get back to the lab and work on analyzing that vocal pattern."

"Agreed," Doc Ol came through on the communicator. "I've got you standing by for teleport."

With a press of our belts, we were back in the lab. Instantly, I saw Beth collapse, holding her side.

"What happened?" Grace asked urgently, helping the red ranger up.

"I'm not sure, she might've fractured bones fighting against Lunarus and his gravity control," Doc Ol responded, scanning her body as soon as Grace got her on the med bay and she demorphed. "She's got internal bleeding and a minor concussion, too. Anyone else severely harmed?"

We all shook our heads.

"Doc," Patrick began, "if they've got Zeta's powers, we're in serious trouble. Just an estimate, but if their Aleph Beyt sources are equal to our own powers, plus they each have a seventh of Zeta's power, they're at least 50% stronger than us."

"It's actually a little different," Doc Ol reported after sedating and stabilizing Beth. "I did a morph scan and came up with a weird power grid." He headed over to the super computer and brought up a bunch of information. "By comparison, the Mecha Squad, except for the Aleph ranger, all share a common trace transmorph wave; like you noted, it matches yours and came from Zeta." We all gathered around him as he brought up a diagram. "This is a chart of your guys' morphing energy."

In our respective colors, a large bar graph appeared. Grace, me, Matt, Jay, and Beth were all on a level 5 plane. Aaron's was on level 12.5, and Patrick was at 18.75

"18.75?" I asked skeptically.

"It was originally 37.5; exactly as powerful as all six of you combined," Patrick explained.

"What's the other team's readout look like?" my Yellow Ranger boyfriend asked solemnly from my side.

The Black, Pink, Blue, Yellow, and Red rangers were all level 8; meanwhile, the white and green rangers were at level 21.

"21? How is that even possible? I thought the only reason the Zeta powers were even half as strong as they were was because they were originally intended to be as powerful as all six rangers?"

"Aaron's right," Patrick backed. "There's no reason their readouts should be that high. Not when I have a whole half of the Zeta Morpher's power. Why is that gap so huge?"

Doc Ol sighed. "It's Mesomorph's Aleph Beyt serum. Back when we realized there were several Guardians missing, I did some scans on the Mecha Squad when they were morphing and noticed that their Morphers are not only using Zeta's energy, but controlling the output of the Aleph Beyt serums. Those formulas are essentially genetic enhancing steroids. Combined with a direct Eltarian link to the Morphing Grid, I'm not surprised these Rangers are so powerful."

Grace spoke up after her dad. "So they basically took Zeta's power, split it up into sevenths, and then injected these Aleph Beyt formulas?"

"Almost," Doc replied. "The Aleph White: Solaris Mecha Ranger doesn't have the Zeta energy for some reason. I'm having a hard time pinpointing his energy source."

"What if we stacked the odds in our favor?" Aaron asked, rubbing his wrist as he powered down. We all slowly followed suit.

"What do you mean?" I asked, genuinely confused.

"We could compensate for the gap by throwing off our combatants!" Patrick jumped in. "When I was fighting Technos, I couldn't use any of my lightning—my strongest offense."

"Because he used metal to redirect the voltage," Matt continued.

Jay chimed in, "My fire, no matter how intense, got put out every time Spiritos used her powers against me."

"And Solaris could absorb and reverse my photon beams," Aaron admitted. "Grace's shadow energy couldn't overcome Mem Aquos Ranger."

"And my force energy was pretty much nullified by Naturos's vines. Matt had no way to use air currents against Tundrus because she could emit arctic energy and freeze the particles in the air," I said, starting to catch on.

"So what Aaron's suggesting is we swap up elements," Patrick surmised. "I could fry Aquos; water doesn't play well with lightning."

"I'd make Tundrus into a kiddy pool in no time," Jay said confidently.

"Spiritos can't manipulate photon energy because it doesn't come from my bio-field," Aaron continued.

"I could take Technos; he's got nothing on force energy," I offered up.

Matt clapped his hands as he joined in. "Believe me, I could blow Lunarus's graviton beams away."

"I could probably black out Mr. Sunshine Solaris," Grace reported. "And I'm sure Beth could level out Naturos' garden."

"Perfect," Doc Ol commended. "There's still the problem of overall power, though. Even though Amy's force would easily overload Technos' defenses, he's a level 21. That power gap is over 15 Morphtronic Units."

"So what the fuck do we do? Why does it seem like we're always outclassed?" Jay shouted, slamming his fist down. "Honestly, doc, I'm tired of getting my ass kicked for you."

"Jay." Aaron reached out to the yellow ranger's shoulder, trying to calm him down. But even I felt myself agreeing with my new boyfriend.

"For me?" Doc Ol repeated, his voice contained and curious. "I see. You think I like sitting here? Watching the monitor and…analyzing sonic patterns for you?"

Jay was silent.

"I was a ranger too; a damned good one, at that. So if you think for one second that I enjoy being helpless because I'm too old to go out there and get my ass kicked for the people of Earth and for the people of this galaxy…you've got another thing coming."

The entire team remained quiet, none of us daring to speak. When Doc Ol left the room and went upstairs, I watched Grace follow him.

"There's not much more we can do here," I whispered to Jay. "Let's just go, okay?"

He didn't object.

27—

"I'm not trying to be an asshole; it's just that I'm tired of getting tossed around! It's not like it was the first few weeks; this shit is brutal."

I watched Jay from his bed as he paced back and forth, venting about the topics we were all afraid to mention. I could definitely understand what he was saying; I had my fair share of bumps and bruises from the months we'd been fighting the Aleph Beyt Guardians. Then, with Patrick as the evil Zeta Ranger, our luck deteriorated even further. Yet, just when we thought we were getting some good luck, we not only get cheated on the Super Stones, but we get our asses kicked by some rip off rangers.

"It's just like…I've lost sight of what the hell we're doing here."

I rubbed his back as he plopped down next to me. Somehow, though, my affection felt fake—forced, almost. It was like all I could think of was how uphill this battle had been.

"And Gabe…"

I stopped rubbing abruptly, and Jay took note of it immediately.

"I mean, I know he's the Angel," he pressed on, "but became one of my best friends…even when Aaron wasn't there. Gabe and I just really clicked. And now he's just like…gone."

Our communicators beeped simultaneously.

"Amy here, go ahead," I replied instantly.

"The Vocal Analyzer's finished processing. You…you might wanna get back to the lab," Grace rushed.

Before teleporting, I gave myself an excuse to go to the bathroom to gather my thoughts. I slid to the ground, my back scraping down the wall. What was a few more scrapes, anyway? I couldn't pinpoint it, but something just…wasn't right. Maybe our team was falling apart? Maybe it was reasserting its solidity? Maybe I was just tired.

Not a single day went by when the city wasn't under attack. We'd had to digitize several times to stop Mesomorph from launching nuclear missiles from random locations; we had to rush to Beijing only to have Aaron get his stomach impaled by evil Zeta, and now Beth was unconscious with fractured limbs, a concussion, and internal bleeding. How much longer would it go on? We lost a ranger in our first few months of holding morphers…what made Doc Ol so certain we could do this?

What made us so sure we could do this?

I was tired of the uncertainty.

Something had to change. Something had to give.

Or maybe I could just take something. My powers. They…they let me hear thoughts. Read minds. Push ideas. Maybe I could get the certainty I needed—the security I longed for—to keep me sane. Just to tide me over...

"Amy?" Jay's voice came from outside.

"Yeah?" My voice was quivering.

"Are you alright?" he asked suspiciously.

I stood, wiping the tears away that had snuck up on me. Why was I even crying?

"Yeah," I responded, opening the door and sniffing. "Let's head out."