Episode 14: Part 2

Early the next morning, the other five Advent Rangers along with Kara reconvened near the university's arboretum where it was believed that Gabby was last seen. After Amber had raised the alarm to Kara, the other Rangers had been woken up and called into action. Even Tyler who had been spending the night at his family home immediately rushed over to join in the search effort. The six of them had split off into pairs and combed the whole university and campus town along with the adjoining neighborhoods. They had used the cover of night to patrol from the air using the wings of their Ranger suits but it didn't seem to do much good. They had come up empty handed and dawn was approaching with sunlight peeking up over the treeline of the arboretum. It was not the way any of them wanted to start their Sunday morning.

As the six regrouped and powered down from their suits, the exhausted Rangers exchanged their disappointing findings. Danielle gave a tied yawn and rubbed her face a little to wake herself up, "Well... I'm not sure what we should do now. I mean, should we even get the police involved? You know, file a missing persons report?"

"If the Black Ranger or the Nephilim are behind this, then the police aren't going to be able to help us," Eli pointed out with a concerned grimace, "Besides... is it possible we might be the ones being paranoid here?"

"What are you talking about?" Ethan sighed in frustration.

"Just hear me out," the Blue Ranger said, "If Gabby was out on a date with this Logan guy... maybe she just went home with him wherever that is and... well, you know..."

"Absolutely not!" Amber cut in, "I know her. My roommate wouldn't do that kind of thing and even if she did, she'd have texted me to let me know she wasn't going to be back at the dorm."

It had been a long night and everyone was on edge. They weren't thinking all that clearly and as they floated a few more ideas, Tyler stepped aside to look around the quiet tree lined walking path, hoping to spot some miraculous sign of a clue. He was already feeling sick to his stomach with a mixture of fear and concern for Gabby and a growing rage toward whoever this Logan character was. It was hard to tell if this was even the Sanctum's doing, or God-forbid, a real life crime. His dark thoughts were interrupted when he heard his name being called.

"Tyler? What do you think we should do?" Danielle asked with a grave expression on her face.

He looked to the concerned faces of his friends all waiting for an answer before he winced quietly, "Honestly? I don't know."

Kara furrowed her brows in thought before giving a sigh, "I think it's best we head back and get some rest. I think we should get my own team involved in this too. They might be able to help more with their own contacts."

"What about Uncle Danny and Aunt Izzy? What are we supposed to tell them?" Tyler asked.

"The truth," Kara replied, "You let me deal with that part. If their daughter is in danger, then they're going to move heaven and earth to get her back. Hopefully it doesn't have to come to that."

"You're right Gold Ranger. It doesn't," said a familiar voice causing the blood of all the Rangers present to run cold. They whirled around and confronted the interloper who was now walking out from the shadows of the treeline. To everyone's shock, they saw the morphed Black Nephilim Ranger walk out of the shadows and stand before them. As the dawn sun continued to peek out over the treeline, some of the rays glinted off the golden runic armor of the evil Ranger.

Danielle was the first to take a fighting stance and she clenched her fists, "It's you again! What are you doing here?"

"What have you done with Gabby?" Tyler added with equal venom in his voice, "Where is she?"

The Black Ranger laughed, "Don't worry Rangers, I have your friend in a safe place and she's unharmed... for now."

"You'd better tell us where she is or we'll have to beat it out of you," Amber called out angrily.

"Beat it out of me? I seriously doubt that," the Nephilim Ranger scoffed, "Not after the way you all fought last time."

Kara stepped forward with an icy glare, "I'm guessing you're not here to fight us right now."

"That's right. I'm here to offer you a deal from Lord Ithuriel. I'd like to make a little exchange for the life of your precious Gabby."

Tyler growled, "What's your price?"

The Nephilim Ranger turned to him, "You five will surrender your Advent Morphers to me tomorrow at sunset in the central grove of the arboretum. In exchange, I'll return Gabby to you safe and sound."

"Oh really? What's the catch?" Eli demanded.

"The catch is, this deal only lasts 24 hours. If you don't take it, I'll start coming for the rest of you and I won't be able to guarantee that nothing bad will happen to your Pink Ranger either."

The five stood in silence considering the offer before Tyler gritted his teeth, "What about Logan Callahan? What have you done with him?"

The Black Nephilim Ranger laughed and reached for his helmet. To the Advent Rangers' shock, he removed it exposing his true identity with a smile, "Don't worry Tyler. He's safe and accounted for."

Tyler's eyes went wide and he began to step forward to attack but was restrained by both Ethan and Danielle. As he struggled, he shouted angrily, "You bastard! I'm going to destroy you myself, do you hear me?"

Logan smirked, "If you surrender the other morphers tomorrow and do as your told, I might just give you the chance to try. That sounds like it could be fun."

With that, Logan put his helmet back on and quickly faded back into the shadows of the woods before they gave way to the light of dawn. Tyler relented before Danielle let go of him and grimaced, "Damn... this is not a good spot to be in right now."

Amber looked around for a few moments before turning to her mentor, "Ms. Bishop? Do you think it's possible we might be able to find Gabby before the deadline tomorrow evening? Maybe find this guy's secret liar?"

"At this rate? Unlikely," Kara admitted grimly, "At the very least we know Gabby is still alive. Perhaps we'd be better of trying to think of a way to knock out that evil Ranger once and for all."

Danielle scratched her chin thoughtfully, "If we have to, I can volunteer to fight him. In the prior battle, it seemed my weapon was strong enough to damage his armor and hurt him a little."

Ethan shrugged, "It makes sense. Both of your powers are kinda drawn from the same source and it is a little more attuned to the Nephilim angels."

Eli crossed his arms, "Except there's another problem. Can we really trust that this Logan character will keep his word and not try to screw us over?"

Kara shook her head, "Not exactly. Like other Celestials, they are bound to keep their word and not tell overt lies. But that doesn't mean that they can't lie by omission or take advantage of a vague misleading loophole in their language either."

Tyler turned away and frowned, "This is all my fault... I should have been there to protect Gabby. I just let her walk right into this trap."

Amber came over and placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder, "There's nothing you could have done Tyler... or any of us. Don't beat yourself up about it. She made her own decision to go out last night and all we could do was just respect her wishes. I'm worried about her too, but I'm sure we can figure out some way to get her back... right?"

He gave a weak nod and patted her hand, "Yeah... thanks Amber."

After a moment, he turned to the other Rangers and faced Danielle first, "Dani? I'm sorry all of this is coming at you right now. I'm sure this wasn't the way you were hoping to adjust to being a new Ranger."

"No one ever said it was going to be a cakewalk," she shrugged while trying to put on a good face about it, "I guess being thrown right into the line of fire is the best teacher, right?"

"I can't ask you to directly take Logan on if you don't want to," he said, "But right now, it seems your Halo Cutters are our best chance to slow him down."

Amber cleared his throat in concern, "You aren't actually planning on killing Logan, are you? I mean, I know he's evil and all... but he's still kind of a person too."

"I don't see us having much of a choice," Tyler admitted, "I don't like the idea of having to take a life, but if it comes down to redeeming them or saving one of you... then I chose saving you guys."

Eli cut in and raised a hand slightly, "There's only one other problem. Do you really plan for us to give Logan our morphers as part of the exchange? How are we going to defend ourselves if he pulls the rug out from under us?"

"We could always make fake ones," Ethan offered weakly, "Umm... there are some large round chocolate disks in gold foil that we sell at the cafe. Maybe we could craft them to look like our morphers?"

"Fake chocolate morphers? That's the silliest idea I've ever heard," Eli grumbled shaking his head.

Kara stepped forward and placed herself among the other Rangers to break up their arguments, "Everyone... let's head back home and get a few hours of sleep. We'll meet back at the Rookery when we're all thinking a little more clearly. We're not going to do Gabby any more good if we waste time arguing and running ourselves down even further."

The younger Rangers reluctantly agreed and began making their way back to the dormitory. As much as they hated to admit it, Kara was probably right and some food and rest would probably do them some good. They only hoped that in the mean time, some brilliant idea to solve this crisis would come to them sooner rather than later.

Meanwhile, Gabby Winthrope opened her eyes and took several moments to focus her vision. As she came to her senses, she found herself in a strange dark chamber. It wasn't exactly a prison cell per say, but rather a large wide circular room with some sort of dim ambient magical lighting emanating from golden crystals which hung along the walls. A thin mist hung over the ground and obscured the floor while there looked to be high stone walls ringing place and an open black void hanging above that was nothing but pitch blackness. She found herself laying on a cold slab on stone and her arms and legs were bound by some kind of Celestial spell so she could barely move.

She struggled a moment and once she found it was fruitless, she glanced down to examine herself. Fortunately, she didn't appear to be injured, nor were her clothes tampered with which was also a good sign. She looked up and saw two Cataphractos guards standing by some of the walls and they remained fixed in place regarding her with their blank expressions. She frowned, "Hey! What's going on here? Where am I? What did you do to me?"

"I believe I can answer that," came a familiar female voice from behind. The figure paced forward into Gabby's line of sight and she saw it was the Nephilim leader Samandriel. "Hello Pink Ranger. Welcome to the Dark Room... a temporary prison in an extradimensional space."

"I don't understand what's going on here? What do you want with me? What is going on?"

Samandriel continued pacing, "My brother Ithuriel set this place up and the Black Ranger brought you here for safekeeping. They intend to ransom you off to your fellow Rangers."

"What?"

"They wish to ransom you. Your person in exchange for the Advent morphers," Samandriel said calmly as she produced the Pink Ranger's morpher which had been taken from her, "I have been put in charge of watching you for now while the others prepare for a confrontation.

Gabby fought her restraints again, "Please let me out! Don't make them do this all on account of me."

"Don't worry. I intend to help you Pink Ranger."

gabby frowned in confusion, "What? I don't understand... if you're going to help, can't you just bust me out of here right now?"

"It's not that simple," Samandriel explained, "The way is heavily guarded and I would not be able to sneak you by without Ithuriel or the Black Ranger noticing. What I need for you is to trust me right now."

"I don't have much choice now, do I?" Gabby sighed.

Samandriel nodded quietly, "Then I need to go take care of something. Until then, remain quiet here and don't cause any problems. I promise I will return as soon as I can."

Later that afternoon, the other Advent Rangers made their way from the dorms to prepare for a long strategy meeting with Kara at the other end of campus. While they were all feeling better after having slept, showered, and eaten, they were all still shaken from the ominous appearance of the Black Ranger that morning. That, and they couldn't help but feel concern and the grip of dread for their captive friend. On that particular Sunday afternoon, it seemed the path that they took toward the Rookery was a bit busier than usual. It was nice weather and more students were out enjoying the day playing frisbee, picnicking, or reading books on the lawns. It was almost a bit surreal seeing the rest of the university and their classmates seem so carefree and oblivious while the Rangers were dealing with a dire situation.

As they continued down the walking path, they stopped when they saw a handful of marble-like objects fall from the rooftops of a nearby building and land in front of them. Moments later, the marbles materialized into the familiar forms of Sentinel foot soldiers. Ethan skidded to a halt and assumed a defensive posture, "Whoah! What the hell? Where did these guys come from?"

"Not sure, but I have a feeling we'll find out soon enough," Danielle answered as she glanced up to the rooftops and saw that the figure who had tossed the marbles had likely fled, "What do you say we deal with these goons first?"

As the Sentinels formed up and advanced, the sight of the monstrous troops caused panic around the rest of the rest of the college students nearby. Everyone else who was on the lawns and parkways dropped what they were doing and began to flee for their lives, paying no attention to their five classmates who remained to confront the threat. The stone soldiers charged forward and met the five unmorphed Rangers in hand to hand combat. Eli ducked around a few blows and vaulted over a nearby bike-rack which slowed a pursuing Sentinel. The Blue Ranger used a bike that was fixed the rack to trip up the soldier before springing back over the iron bars and kicking it to the ground where it shattered. A second came and took a few kicks at him but Eli blocked and deflected the kick into the rungs of the bike rack tangling the soldier's leg and causing it to fall over and break its limb off rendering it useless in the fight.

Nearby, Danielle somersaulted past two foes and kicked aside one enemy before spinning around to meet the other. She blocked its punch and shifted her stance to hook her leg under that foe. With a quick twist, she tripped the Sentinel and caused it to fall facefirst into the pavement and shatter its stone head on the ground. While the Purple Ranger dealt with her enemies, Ethan and Amber fought back to back protecting each other from two Sentinels that had closed in quickly. Because both of them were shorter in stature, they easily evaded the soldiers' lunges and counter attacked, knocking the foes into one another. As the warriors stood tangled up with each other for a moment, the Rangers used their momentum to take them out. Ethan grabbed Amber and swung her around as if they were swing dancing and she kicked the Sentinels over to the ground causing them to shatter.

Several meters away, Tyler worked to finish off the last two Sentinels who had come to harass them. He ran forward and jumped up on a concrete bench with a Sentinel in pursuit and surprised it by backflipping over its head. Before the Sentinel could turn around, Tyle kicked it in the back causing it to pitch forward headfirst over the bench and shatter on the ground. Without losing any momentum, the Red Ranger turned and met the last attacking Sentinel, throwing it back with a tornado kick. As the other Sentinel spun to the ground and shattered to rubble, the Rangers regrouped to face whatever threat was coming next but they were surprised when they didn't see the Black Ranger or a Nephilim Herald. Instead, they saw a familiar young woman with long pale blonde hair and dressed as a student emerge from around the corner of the nearby building. They froze and began to reach for their morphers at the sight of one of the Triumvirate leaders.

"Samandriel?" Amber called out as the others tensed and took defensive stances. "What are you doing here?"

To their surprise, the angelic young woman slowly walked forward raised her hands in a calm placating gesture, "Wait... Rangers. Please stop. I mean you no harm."

"Well you've got a really funny way of showing it," Danielle growled gesturing to the rubble on the ground, "You're the one who sent these clay brains to jump us?"

"Yes," Samandriel said quietly, "I have to make this look convincing if anyone is watching. I just wanted to come and talk to you."

"Don't take this the wrong way Samandriel, but we don't have time to waste here," Tyler called gesturing for her to halt.

The Nephilim leader paused and nodded, "Yes I know Red Ranger. That's why I came to see you. It's about your Pink Ranger."

The others froze and exchanged a suspicious look, "Go on."

"I know where she's being kept, and I know that the Black Ranger and my brother are planning something treacherous. I came to warn you before it was too late. Here, as a show of good faith."

She reached in her back jeans pocket and produced a familiar medallion with a pink gem stone. It was Gabby's Advent Morpher.

Now it was Eli's turn to step forward as he accepted it and inspected the object to make sure it was real, "Samandriel... I don't understand. Why are you doing all this?"

She gave a concerned look to Eli and grimaced slightly before turning her head slightly, "I... I feel my brother Ithuriel may be crossing a line and his creation must be stopped. For him to be doing these things... this is not our way."

"Even if you are telling the truth, why should we trust you?" Danielle challenged her with a frown.

"I'm not expecting you to trust me... but if you care about your friend and want to stop this perverse life form, then I'd hope you listen to my words."

Tyler stared her down for a long moment before turning to the Blue Ranger, "Eli?"

Eli met the steady gaze of Samandriel before turning back to his comrade and handing him the Pink morpher with a small nod, "Let's hear her out."

Tyler fixed his attention on the disguised Nephilim in front of them and said in a solemn tone, "All right then. Let's talk."

A/N:
Hey everyone, just a quick heads up. I plan to wrap up this subplot later this week and I'll probably aim to do it in a double post. Lucky you! Until then, thanks as always to all who are still reading this series and following along with this plot too. You guys rock! :)