At the beach, Ben and Betty were keeping a close eye on the clean-up while they waited for the others to return. They were making some headway, but as more trash was being pulled out of the ocean, they were finding more and more animals that had been affected. Birds, fish, turtles…all manner of creatures that called the bay their home had been caught up in it. Like when a tornado or earthquake hit a city. No matter how secure anyone's home was thought to be, there were always casualties and always costs to pay.
"Alright, just unload the trash from that truck and use that." Ben said as more animals were being brought in. Pretty quickly the decision had to be made to prioritise saving animal's lives over the clean-up. They could gather and isolate the waste and take it to the recycling centre later, but many of the animals they were finding didn't have the luxury of time. "Pile the trash over there with the rest."
He wiped his brow as his sister came with some volunteers, dragging more bags for the pile. She looked completely exhausted. Ben got her a bottle of water.
"Wow, this looked bad before, but now it just looks…it's horrifying." Ben stated.
"It really is." Betty agreed. "I really hope the others get back soon."
"Where are they anyway?" Ben asked.
"Devon said they were going to see about getting funding for the Aquatic Centre." Betty told him. "They're going to need a lot of help if they're going to help all of these poor animals."
"Tell me about it." Ben agreed. He then smiled. "Hey, look, Blaze and Roxy are back! Hey, Blaze, Roxy!"
"Hey, guys!" Blaze greeted them. "Wow, it looks like the two of you have been really busy."
"It's a team effort." Betty assured him. "If it wasn't for all the volunteers, your karate school, GB…to be honest I think we'd still be figuring out where to begin."
"That truck leaving looks pretty empty." Roxy stated as one of the trucks left. "Why's it not taking any of the garbage away?"
"Oh, we decided to just pile up the trash and use the trucks to save the animals." Ben told her. "I…hope that's OK."
"Yeah, some of them looked in a really bad way." Betty agreed. "We thought that it'd be better to concentrate on getting them help and moving the trash later."
"Oh, you hear that Blaze? She was thinking!" Roxy said in a rather condescending tone. Blaze reached across, patting her on the head.
"I thought I smelled something burning." He told her.
Ben and Betty just looked to each other as Blaze and Roxy walked past them.
"Which reminds me, this all looks like kind of a lot of work." Blaze continued. "You know, for a bunch of trash and some cute little critters."
"Guys, are you alright?" Ben asked. He was angry about the way they were talking to them, but he had to figure out if there was something else to it. "Did something happen at your Aunt's firm, Roxy?"
"Oh, I wouldn't know. I never bothered going." Roxy told him. "Instead, we were just brainstorming and thought of another, much quicker solution to this problem."
They watched as Blaze picked up some trash, setting light to it, before throwing it into one of the piles. Everyone stopped and stared at them.
"Blaze, what the Hell are you doing?" Betty shrieked.
"See, now isn't that much easier?" He asked.
Ben grabbed a bucket and filled it with sand, before running to put out the flames, but he was cut off as Blaze kicked him hard in the stomach, then drove him down into the sand. Betty just stared at him in shock, before Roxy hit her with a kick to the face.
"Alright, that's enough!" One of the GB agents called out, his hand straying to the weapon on his belt. "Both of you, just calm down. We're all just here to help, we're all tired and we're all frustrated…"
With that, Blaze and Roxy looked to each other and nodded, before shifting form, their civilian clothing melting away leaving them with their black bodysuits.
"Try it, soldier boy!" Blaze beckoned him. "See how you end up!"
Over at Collins Industries, Regina was just about to head out to lunch after a trying morning. Although Collins Industries had worked quickly to get ahead of the press in regards to the spill, it was inevitable that it had gotten to the networks, and now they were trying to work on damage control. It was about balancing how much the company would have to pay out on the clean up and potentially on fines once the EPA and the city council got involved, and also ensuring that the headlines were as good as possible. After all it was only inevitable that networks loved a story about a company making costly mistakes, but if those mistakes were, as much as anyone could reasonably expect, being redressed, then the company looked like the good guy for doing their bit.
She signed out with security and was just about to head out when she saw the Rangers, Blaze and Roxy heading towards her. She furrowed her brows, seeing her niece.
"Roxy?" She asked, sounding more than a little surprised. Roxy had lobbied her pretty aggressively to get to be in charge of the clean-up. While many people, especially her age, would be more than happy if their family could fix them up with a cushy little six-figure salary job with its own office and the most demanding decision they'd have to make being whether they wanted a Newton's Cradle or a scented oil burner as their desk decoration, Roxy was one of those people that genuinely wanted to help make the world a better place. "I thought you were at the clean-up."
"I was, it's just…something else has come up." Roxy told her. Her aunt just sighed.
"Will this day never end?" She groaned. "Alright, what is it now?"
"It's about the animals that we told you about, the ones that got caught up in the spill." Roxy started to explain. "Some of them were pretty badly affected. We're starting to take any we find to the local Aquatic Centre."
"Well, that sounds like a good place for them." She responded. "Now, if you'll excuse me…"
"Aunt Regina…there are kind of a lot of them." Roxy explained. "Some of them, it's already too late for. Others, they're really pretty sick or hurt. The Aquatic Centre said they'll do what they can, but they need money for medical care."
"Right, so that's what this is about." She muttered. She turned to Roxy, putting her hands on her shoulders. "Roxy, it's very commendable that you want to help them, but Collins Industries is already doing all it can paying for the clean-up."
"Wait, you're not going to pay for the animals' medical care?" Roxy asked her.
"Mrs Collins, with all due respect…"
"With all due respect, Mr Winchester, animals get sick all the time. We can't take responsibility for all of them or we'd never make any money!" She cut off Blaze.
"But it's because of the spill from your tanker." Blaze pointed out. "Your company caused this; they have a responsibility to…"
"Mr Winchester, I think we both know how ironic it us for a WINCHESTER to lecture anyone on corporate responsibility!" She snapped at him in a rather pointed way. Roxy backed away from her looking rather shocked. That was a low blow by anyone's standard. It was widely known in the corporate world that Charles Winchester had been far from an ethical businessman, and that his company had done some questionable things to get to the position of prominence they had. Blaze had nothing to do with his dad's decisions in how the company was run. "Besides, how can anyone prove that it's down to us? Animals get sick all the time and not all that waste will be ours."
"Ms. Collins, that's really unfair!" Zoey interjected. "Being a good business is like being a good citizen. You need to take responsibility for your mistakes."
"A bunch of salty sea creatures are not our problem." Aunt Regina repeated, standing firm on her decision. "Now, I really do need to go. Roxy, would you like to join me for…"
"No…no, thank you." Roxy said sadly. "I've got to get back."
"Very well." Regina told her, before collecting a Morph-X bike from a nearby stand. She looked like she was going to say something else, but instead she just rode away. As she did so, Regina couldn't get the look on her nieces' face out of her mind. She knew that Roxy was taking this seriously, but the look of disappointment affected her on a level she couldn't shake.
As she left, Roxy looked to Blaze.
"Blaze, what she said, I'm sorry…"
"Hey, don't sweat it." He said quietly. He tried to wave it off, but it didn't take a psychologist to see that it had affected him. He was the first to acknowledge that his family had done some pretty horrible things, he even acknowledged that of himself, and he was genuinely trying to change that. It never felt good when someone threw up the sins of the past in his face, even though he knew many people still had perfectly legitimate reasons to be resentful. "It's…not the worst thing I ever heard."
"She's…she's not a bad person." Roxy insisted. "She was always there for me growing up, I've seen what she's really like, but this…"
"She just doesn't believe it's her responsibility." Zoey conceded. "There's not much we can do until she's convinced of that."
"Well, we should all get back to the clean-up." Devon stated. "That trash won't get rid of itself."
"Devon, could you leave Cruise? I just have something I need to take care of." Roxy told him. "I promise I'll meet up with all of you at the clean-up."
"Sure, I guess." Devon told her, handing her his helmet. "Come on guys."
Roxy waited until all of them had left, before getting on her cell phone.
"Hello, Dr Walsh?" She asked. "Hi, it's Roxy. I'm calling from Collins Industries. I have some good news for you. The company will pay for everything!"
She felt badly about going behind her aunt's back, but she couldn't bring herself to do nothing and let the animals suffer because of their mistake. She only hoped that the company would have signed for the expenses by the time Regina found out. She'd always heard that it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission.
"That's right, do whatever it takes." She concluded, before hanging up. She went over to Cruise, sitting on him and preparing to put on her helmet.
"Uh…I couldn't help overhearing, and that's not what your Aunt said." Cruise told her. "In fact, I'm pretty sure she said the exact opposite."
"I'll handle Aunt Regina." Roxy replied, before pulling on the helmet. Cruise just gunned his engine, taking her back towards the clean-up.
As the Rangers were nearing the beach, they noticed rather a lot of vehicles heading in the opposite direction at high speed. They knew that the others were sending a lot of animals to the Aquatic Centre, but it still seemed pretty unusual to have quite this many leaving all at once.
Ravi had to swerve off the road, onto the verge as a vehicle trying to overtake others came onto the wrong side of the road, very nearly slamming into him. He almost spun out, but he managed to keep the slide under control.
"Damn, that was close!" Ravi commented. "Idiot!"
"Guys, does anyone else get the feeling we're missing something here?" Devon asked. Just then, their communicators bleeped. Devon answered. "You're go for Devon."
"Devon, there's been an attack at the clean-up!" One of the soldiers told him.
"An attack?" He asked. "Why didn't you call in to the Commander?"
"Because at first it didn't look like Evox." He told him as Roxy pulled up next to them on Cruise, trying to see if they were alright and what was going on.
"Wait, what do you mean it didn't look like it was Evox?" Devon asked.
"It's Blaze and Roxy, they just showed up and went crazy!" He told them. The Rangers looked to Blaze, who was sitting in the back seat and Roxy who was sitting on Cruise just beside their vehicle.
"Blaze and Roxy?" Zoey asked.
"Yeah, they just showed up and started burning everything!" He informed them. "Then they attacked, we tried to fight back but they're…they're taking us apart! We need to retreat!"
"Alright, we'll be right there!" Devon told him.
They sped down towards the beach, where the last remaining soldiers were still fighting Blaze and Roxy among piles of burning trash. As they all disembarked, Devon grabbed one of the soldiers.
"You guys need to clear out." He told them.
"Boy, are we glad to see…" His words tailed off as he saw Blaze and Roxy. "Jesus! What the f…"
"Get out of here!" Ravi bellowed. "ALL of you!"
As the soldiers started to run, the Rangers, Blaze and Roxy stared down at the beach, finding themselves staring right at…
"Blaze and Roxy?" Zoey asked, looking at them curiously.
"Well, I guess now we know what Scrozzle did with that scanner." Blaze said bitterly.
"Hey, guys, what do you think?" Robo-Roxy asked. "We just saw all this trash lying around and thought we'd help out!"
"You need to get out of here too." Nate said to Roxy.
"What?" He asked.
"If they've brought your avatars back, then we'll need our powers to take them on." Steel confirmed. "You two should get to safety."
"Kick their asses for us." Blaze requested as they prepared to leave.
"You know it." Devon assured him as they ran away. The Rangers all stepped up towards Robo-Blaze and Robo-Roxy. "So, Scrozzle's running so low on ideas he brought you two back. Well, we kicked your avatar asses once already, and we'll do it again."
"Avatars?" Robo-Roxy chuckled. "How cute, they think we're still avatars!"
"That is so last season!" Robo-Blaze sneered. "And you're about to see there's so much more to our upgrade than just a palette swap."
With that, they both rushed to the attack.
Elsewhere in the city, Regina was sitting, pushing her lunch around her plate. She had a lunch appointment with a potential client, but her mind just wouldn't focus on the task at hand.
"Is there something wrong with the food?" The other man asked. She just looked up, with a vacant expression on her face.
"Hmm?"
"You've hardly touched your food." He pointed out. Regina just stared down at it. It was some pretty high-end Thai cuisine from one of the city's best restaurants, but somehow, she just wasn't able to focus on that or on the meeting at hand. Just looking down at the spiced prawns, sitting in the sauce and vegetables, she just pushed it away. All she could think of was the look on Roxy's face as she told her that the company would not cover the cost of the Aquatic Centre's care.
"I'm sorry, Mr Redford…"
"You've been a million miles away." He commented. "Are you sure you're alright?"
She just sighed and shook her head.
"I'm sorry." She told him. "Look, I know you're a busy man, but I'd really appreciate it if we could reschedule…"
"It's alright, I understand." He assured her. "I couldn't help hearing the news on the way over. I imagine it's been a trying morning."
"It has been." She agreed. "Look, if you want to finish your lunch, that's absolutely fine, it's on us, but I think it's for the best we hold off on discussions of our deal for another day."
"Well, when is it a bad thing to enjoy lunch with a beautiful, charming young woman?" He asked her with a smile. She smiled back, and pulled the plate back towards herself, seeing if she could motivate herself to at least try and eat some of it, but she could only keep seeing the face of her niece and the disappointment in her voice when she talked to her.
She managed to finally steel herself enough to stab one of the prawns with her fork and start to lift it to her mouth when her cell phone rang. She pulled it out, checking the ID.
"I'm really sorry about this." She said to her dinner guest. "It's the office. Do you mind?"
Mr Redford just shrugged. Regina answered her phone.
"Regina Collins." She answered. She furrowed her brows as she heard the voice on the other end. "Expenses? What expenses?"
She listened to the man on the other end as he proceeded to explain he had received an odd request for an expense claim. A company the size of Collins Industries had literally thousands of requests going through the accounts departments every single day. It was essential that they kept a careful track of what people were spending and what they were spending it on. After all, if the company required one of their executives to travel, no one thought twice about them signing off a plane ticket or a hotel room, but if they wanted to upgrade to a first-class flight or get the suite when they got to their hotel, those upgrades were not the company's responsibility.
He started to explain about the claim, and her eyes shot open wide.
"Thank you for bringing this to my attention." She told him. "Don't worry, leave this with me."
With that, she hung up and got up.
"I'm…I'm really sorry." She stated. "The maître d has the account details, feel free to enjoy the rest of your lunch."
"I will." He responded. "I hope everything works out."
Regina just stormed out of the restaurant, getting the Morph-X bike from the stand.
Back at the site off the battle, the Rangers were still battling with Robo-Blaze and Robo-Roxy, but things were not going quite as well as they'd hoped.
"What's the matter?" Robo-Blaze asked them. "No witty one-liners?"
"Oh, we generally save those for AFTER the bad guys go boom." Ravi told him. "Which is why we'll be saying them in about ten or fifteen minutes."
The team regrouped with him. They were trying to sound confident, but the fight had been hard going. They looked a little worried when Trappertron appeared.
"OK, the odds just tipped a little." Nate confirmed. "Anyone else feel like breaking out the big guns?"
They all morphed, facing off against their three opponents. Robo-Blaze and Robo-Roxy just looked to each other, before putting Morph-X keys into their morphers.
The Rangers looked to them both as they transformed. Roxy's new armoured form was much like her old one, but it was predominantly purple as opposed to yellow.
Blaze's new armour varied a lot further from his original suit. It was golden armoured, sleeker, with a long, flowing cape. He had a new sword, one with a longer, finer blade and a hand guard. The Rangers just stared at them.
"What do you say we give these new forms a road-test?" Robo-Roxy asked.
"Oh, I've just been dying to try this." Robo-Blaze confirmed. "Or, more accurately, soon they will!"