Author's Note: Ok, so, I'm very behind because I had a wedding to go to and my 9-5 doesn't leave a ton of time for writing. (Especially since my partner and I have started watching Kamen Rider OOO and we love it, so it's hard not to keep watching until bedtime, lol). But I am determined to finish this, even if I don't finish by the end of October. So, my ranger for day 13 is...Max!
Some days, being the youngest (and therefore smallest) ranger on the team was the bane of Max's existence. It didn't help that he was best friends with Danny, who was the exact opposite physically. The Orgs definitely couldn't throw Danny around the way they threw Max around. Which is why when the Org literally lifted him off his feet and threw him, this was Max's first thought.
'I hate being so small,' raced through his head, quickly followed by his second thought, 'holy shit I'm going to die!' Moving instinctually, Max twisted. He landed on his side as opposed to his head, but that did very little to help him. Even when he hit the ground, he was still going so fast that he rolled across the dirt. Everything moved past him in a blur. Max couldn't even comprehend what was happening.
Then he dropped.
The ground disappeared from under him and he instinctively grabbed for something. After a few seconds he managed to snag a small ledge to stop himself. His boyd jerked to a stop with a sharp motion. Max gasped as he tried to catch his breath. He glanced around, then looked up. The edge of a ravine about fifteen feet above him. 'I'm not sure how,' he thought. 'but I'm glad I didn't de-morph.' he tried to move, only for pain to shoot up his arm from his shoulder. The pain was so bad his grip slipped. Max couldn't move his right arm, so he reached out with his left instead.
"What- What the hell?!" he gasped, clinging to the tiny outcropping of rock with all his strength. He tried to move his right arm, but it didn't move. All he got was pain shooting down his arm again. "Ow, ow! Ok." Max glanced over at his arm, having to move his head a bit due to the limited peripheral vision of his helmet. His shoulder looked…odd. "Its not… That's not right…" The joint of his shoulder was in the wrong place. Max swallowed as another wave of pain made him nauseas. "Dislocated… Great." Max looked down, then swore.
Beneath him was the rest of the ravine, about thirty feet deep. Only a few feet lower, the sides started getting closer together. It was't the kind of place he wanted to fall down.
"Ok, ok. Ok, just breathe. I- I can do this. Never give up." Never give up. Never give up. All he had to do was get himself up the ravine and over the edge. "I can do this. Never give up." Max took a few deep breaths to prepare himself, then tried to climb.
Granted, he was no rock climber. But, he had great grip strength, which was really coming in handy right now. Because he couldn't even move his right arm, he was forced to only use his left arm and legs. Max went slow, focusing on finding good foot holds. This allowed him to push his body up with his legs his left arm didn't have to take the brunt of his body weight. He tried to keep his body close to the wall so he didn't loose balance. When he found a good handhold again, he held it with everything he had. The gloves of his ranger suit weren't too much of a burden, but he didn't want to de-morph in case he fell again.
Max stopped for a moment to catch his breath. So far, he'd only moved about six inches. The realization made him groan. 'This is going to take forever,' he thought miserably. Another wave of pain wracked his body from his shoulder. He gritted his teeth as he breathed through it. 'I got this. I got this.' The pain didn't exactly go away, because there was a constant, throbbing pain in his shoulder. However, Max knew he couldn't stop. 'Have to keep going. Keep trying.' Never give up. Max took a steadying breath, then started climbing again.
As soon as he pushed himself up with his legs, he reached a patch of wall where his potential hand and foot holds were farther apart. Max internally groaned, but kept pushing himself. He had to twist his body at an odd angle to get his foot on the next hold. His heart pounded against his ribs as he clutched the wall with his left hand. With a grunt, he pushed himself up, basically having to jump. As soon as he grabbed the wall with his hand again, he latched on with all he had. His legs shook as he desperately searched for another foothold. It wasn't a lot, but he found something small enough to rest his toes on. Max didn't wait around to rest though.
Luckily, the next footholds he needed were only a few inches about his current ones. And they were big enough he could actually wedge his feet on sideways to stand. He took the opportunity to look around, trying to map out his route in his head. He had to wiggle his arm out awkwardly because it was pinned between his body and the wall. There was a heart-stopping moment where he had to lean away from the wall and his brain immediately assumed he was falling. Max threw his body against the wall to counteract it. "Ahh!" he yelled as stabbing pain shot down his arm from his dislocated shoulder. Tears pricked at his eyes, but he focused on climbing.
"Never give up," he mumbled through the pain as he reached for the next hand hold. "Never give up." He had to pull himself up a little to reach the next foothold. Once he was settled, he picked up his other leg for the next one. By now, he legs shook with the effort of holding him. Even with all the running and jumping he did as a ranger, his leg muscles were struggling to keep going. But Max still didn't stop. He forced himself to reach for another handhold and pulled. "Never give up. Never give up."
When he reached another set of footholds that were level enough and big enough for him to stand on, even though he had to turn his feet completely sideways to do so, Max rested for a few minutes. He was out of breath and his heart was pounding. It was bad enough that his ranger suit was starting to become uncomfortable; almost heavy. But he still refused to de-morph. Just in case. Max assessed how far he'd made it, but moaned when he realized he'd only made it another foot. 'I'm still more than ten feet from the top.' Ten measly feet had never felt so far before. It might as well have been a mile.
"Never give up," Max reminded himself. "Never give up." His whole body ached and the muscles he'd been using to climb hurt. But he knew he had to keep climbing, so he did. As he pushed himself up again, he came to a section where, thankfully, there were plenty of outcroppings and cracks. However, while it made it easier for him to climb, he kept hitting his dislocated shoulder against them. Max grunted in pain every time it happened. The second time it happened, he even hit the top of his shoulder against a rock. "Agh!" he yelled as pain shot down his arm and the right side of his body. His left hand nearly let go from his pain, but he held on.
Max closed his eyes for a second, despite being in a precarious position with his toes jammed into a crack. He rested his forehead against the wall for a few seconds, trying to breathe through the pain. "Never… Never give up…" After a few seconds the pain ebbed back down to its normal levels, so he kept going. However, every bump and jostle against the wall made his arm hurt more. Max kept going though, pushing through the pain. 'I definitely won't be able to fight the org when I get up there,' he thought. 'Oh well. I fell down a huge hole and had to pull myself out of it. The team can handle without me.'
Unfortunately, Max had to stop again after a few minutes. This time there wasn't any outcroppings he could stand on, so he had to settle for wedging his toes into cracks. The cracks weren't level either, so he stopped with one leg a few inches higher than the other. Max rested his head against the wall as he breathed heavily. His sore and exhausted muscles spasmed, but he only clutched the wall tighter in response. "Never give up…" Max opened his eyes landlocked up, preparing his route for the next few inches. He lifted his right leg. "Never give up. Never give-"
His left foot slipped. Max kicked his feet back against the wall as held on as tightly as he could with his left hand. But he couldn't regain his footing. And his hand was too fatigued from the climbing. It felt like forever to him, but after only a few precarious seconds, his grip slipped. Max's stomach jumped into his throat when he fell. He raced along the wall, hitting his shoulder multiple times as he did. Desperately, Max tried to grab anything he could to stop his fall, but his left hand wss too weak to stop him. His left foot hit something hard sending a wave of pain up his leg. Max de-morphed. Now the rocks cut his exposed skin as he dropped. His leg hit a few more rocks as he fell, sending fresh waves of nauseating pain through his body each time.
Finally, Max dropped off the wall, free fell for a few seconds, then stopped. Everything was still and quiet for a few moments, save for the blue ranger's haggard breathing. Max coughed, then winced when sharp pain stabbed at his chest. 'Probably broke a rib,' he thought miserably as he spit dirt out of his mouth. Eventually, he was able to gather his bearings enough to take stock of himself. Without even looking at himself, he could feel the many cuts that dotted his body. Some of them were bleeding, but thankfully not a lot. Max glanced over at his shoulder. His shirt had ripped, giving him a little bit of a view at it. Slowly, Max reached over with his left hand and pulled at one side of the rip. "Agh!" Pain shot through his arm at even the slightest movement against the dislocation. 'Ok, ok,' he thought lowering his other hand. 'Not doing that again.'
Max looked down and groaned. He'd landed far enough down that the walls had become narrower. Currently, Max was on two outcroppings that met at weird angle. Thankfully, it gave him something to rest on, even if they were sloped. However, his foot had landed between the two outcroppings. Max tried to twist to get a better look at how it was stuck, but a wave of pain washed over his body. "Agh!" he cried out, doubled over and gaping for breath. 'That can't be normal. It… Something must be broken.' Which didn't bode well for him. If he'd broken his foot or ankle, even if he managed to get it free, he wouldn't be able to climb out of the ravine.
"Never give up," Max reminded himself. "Never give up." He gritted his teeth as he bent down enough to examine his foot. It was wedged in a space between the rocks. In order to pull it out, he'd have to twist his foot to the side and angle it almost vertically. He grimaced. 'Kind of hard to do when I can barely move it.' But he didn't want to give up, so he he tried. Once again though, as soon as he tried to move his foot, the pain was so intense that it had him doubled over in pain. Max had to use his left hand to support himself, since he was kneeling on his right leg. Once the pain finally subsided to its normal levels, he rightened enough to examine his foot. Very gently, he reached down to poke at his leg.
Upon being poked and jabbed, his leg didn't hurt. Neither did his ankle when he prodded at it. Max sighed. "Foot's broken," he concluded. That complicated things. Max considered his options for a few moments before coming up with what felt like a pretty good plan. "I'll just take my foot out of the shoe." He had to move very carefully so he didn't jar his foot again, but he reached down and untied his shoelaces. Then, he loosened the laces as much as he could, pulling at them all down the front of his shoe so it was as loos as he could get it. When that was done, Max took a few deep breaths to prepare himself.
"I got this," he said. "I got this. Never give up. Never give up."
After one more, deep breath, he started moving his foot. He tried to keep his foot as still as he could while he moved his ankle, but it hurt. A lot. Max had to clench his teeth as he moved. Once his foot was sideways, he slipped his hand into the crack. Pulling off his shoe was so painful he might as well have been trying to cut his foot off. With a dull knife. Max screamed through his clenched teeth as he slowly pried off the shoe. His hand did most of the work, getting between his foot and shoe. It was difficult because he had to bend his body and arm in weird ways to reach it, which jostled his dislocated shoulder. At one point, Max almost had his shoe off, so he instinctively tried to shake it off his foot. Pain erupted from his foot and up his leg. It hit him so hard that his vision went black.
It felt like only a few seconds had passed when Max opened his eyes again. He swallowed, then quickly pitched himself to the side. He'd landed on his back, sloped downward because of the rock. As soon as he was upright, he vomited. Max grimaced at the taste, and the fact that he didn't have any water to rinse his mouth out with. He hurriedly wiped his mouth with his sleeve, then pulled himself up to look at his foot. His shoe was still half on it. Max held his breath a little as he reached down and pulled it off his foot. Once it was off, he let out the breath and smiled a little.
"Come on… Come on…" Pulling his foot out was a little more difficult. He had to go slow to make sure he didn't bump against the rocks. However, miraculously, his foot was smaller now that it wasn't in his shoe so he got it free. Relief flooded Max as he gently shifted himself around on the rocks. He set his foot down as gently as possible, but was still wracked with a new wave of pain when it touched the rock. But he didn't pass out this time. Finally, Max was able to maneuver his shoe around with his hand to get it out of the hole.
Now free, Max had no choice but to face reality. He was trapped. There was no way he'd be able to climb out now. His face burned a little at the thought of having to stay here, waiting for rescue; like a little kid. "I'm not some kid," he muttered. "I'm a ranger. Same as everyone else." But he wasn't big and strong like Danny. He didn't have the instincts of Cole. Or the skill and speed of Alyssa. Hell, he didn't have the combat experience of Taylor. "Bet any one of them would be able to get themselves out of this hole."
Max looked up at the ravine opening, so far above him it may as well have been on another planet. Tired and angry and in pain, he screamed. Just screamed at the heavens for the unfairness of being so small an org could throw him into this pit. For constantly working hard, only to be proven to be the team's weak link yet again. He screamed because with a dislocated shoulder and broken foot, screaming was the only thing left to do.
