If someone had told Alyssa Sakamichi that the next time she'd be getting off the plane at LAX, it would be accompanied by a swarm of reporters, she'd have laughed in your face. But unfortunately, this wasn't the kind of fame she wanted. She'd always thought the first reporters to approach her would be asking about her newest film.
Not this.
"Alyssa, is it true your brother was involved in the biggest art heist in Hawaii's history?" One reporter asked, and she turned away from the camera flash as she rushed towards the airport exit. As soon as she'd gotten off her flight back to Mariner Bay, her morpher had beeped. There was an emergency, something involving the missing Titanium Morpher that they'd been testing on Carter.
Ally was terrified, so she knew she didn't have time to answer any questions. "I'm so sorry," she shouted over the clamor, "I need to get back to Aqua Base."
"Is it true that your family didn't know you were a Ranger?" She cringed. They still didn't.
"Um. No comment."
"How is your brother, Leon?"
He wasn't good. Her dad had been right, but of course he had, since he was a doctor. Leon hadn't taken gunshot wounds, though.
Instead, according to her dad, they looked to be burn marks from lasers, all near vital organs. Burn marks that, when he described them to her, sounded suspiciously like blaster lasers. And while the blasts had missed his vital organs, Leon was still in critical condition in the hospital, and of course she had to be back here, and not with him.
Not with him in what might be his final moments.
There was no time for her to rest, let alone even go back to Aqua Base. Instead, the others had pulled up to the airport in the Rescue Rover, much to the delight and fascination of the crowd of reporters. Somehow, they were able to make it to the warehouse that Vypra had holed up in in one piece. Together, they stalked towards their opponent.
"There won't be a next target next time, Vypra," Carter warned, "Get out of here!" Of course, she didn't obey, instead brandishing her own longsword.
"It's only a matter of time before Mariner Bay falls to Diabolico."
"Oh, I know when that will be," Joel began, "Never!"
"That's only what you think. Attack!" Ally drew her baton, forcing all her worries about Leon to the back of her mind. He was tough. He had gotten through worse than this. He would be fine. With each thought that she released, she took down one Battling, and finally, the swarm dwindled down to zero. Now, the only one that they had to face was Vypra herself. They formed up around Carter, and Ally held her baton up as she braced herself.
"I'm not gonna tell you again. Get out of Mariner Bay!"
"Yeah, forever!" Kelsey added.
Vypra sneered. "Wild horses couldn't drive me away. This is the moment I've been waiting for. The moment you meet your match." An odd sense of deja vu swept over Ally. As if she'd seen this moment before, experienced it.
Right. Her dream. It wasn't deja vu, it was deja reve. A lightning cloud filled the space above them, and from out of it came the Titanium Ranger. "What the fuck," She muttered.
"It can't be," Carter whispered, "No one had access to the morpher!"
"Who are you?"
"I'm your worst nightmare." Ally took a step back as the Titanium Ranger stepped towards them. He had the stance of a hunter stalking its prey, and she had to resist the urge to run as fast and far away as possible.
"Stop right there!" Kelsey shouted.
"We don't want any trouble with you," Chad warned.
"But you got it." With that, the Titanium Ranger drew his blaster, one that was nearly twice the size of theirs, aimed it straight at them, and fired.
Ally tended to have fairly normal dreams, but once she became a Ranger, she'd started to get vivid nightmares whenever her head hit the pillow. One of them, probably the worst of all, was her dream that all of her friends had perished in battle. Everyone except for her.
And it was becoming a sick reality. Carter, Joel, Chad, Kelsey, and Dana lay around her, some unconscious and others struggling to get back onto their feet. But instead of launching himself at her, the Titanium Ranger paced slowly around her, and Ally did the same, only stopping when she was standing with her back to the others. She would protect them with her life. That much she was certain of.
Ally didn't draw her blaster, even as she noted the Titanium Ranger had his finger on the trigger of his own. Instead, she lifted her hands, hating the way they shook in terror. "I don't want to fight you. You're one of us."
"Wrong. I'm better." The Titanium Ranger lifted his weapon, and Ally shut her eyes. She had one shot at this. A single chance to use whatever strange ability she'd recently discovered. "Goodbye, Purple Ranger-"
"Put down your weapon." When the laser from the blaster didn't hit her, Ally dared to open her eyes. Her opponent was frozen, but his arms trembled as he fought against whatever hold she had on him.
"Alyssa, what are you doing?" She heard Mrs. Fairweather demand over comms, but she didn't dare respond in fear of her command losing its hold.
"You think you can order me around?" The Titanium Ranger snarled, "You're nothing but a kid!" She took a breath. Fear was the mind killer, was it not?
"Put. It. Down. Now." Her voice transformed, took on a deeper tone as she spoke the last word.
"Ally, keep going!" Chad called over to her, "Whatever you're doing, it's working!"
"You will put down your weapon, demorph, and submit yourself to Lightspeed for further questioning." Ally watched as the man finally stopped fighting, and began to lower his weapon to the ground. "That's it," she reassured quietly, "You're doing-"
He tilted his head up at her. "Your Star Wars shit won't work on me." Her jaw dropped, and oddly enough, she felt almost… offended.
"It's not Star Wars, you fucking-" There was the sound of his blaster going off, and then everything went black.
Another dream. Flashes of broken glass littering wet pavement. Police sirens dancing over the street, melding with the glow of the streetlights. A small blonde girl. Dana.
Ally jolted up, successfully smacking her forehead on Kelsey's bunk. "You're awake!" She nearly jumped again, scared by Kelsey's exclamation. "You took a crazy powerful attack. How are you feeling?" She rubbed her head.
"Besides for an insane headache, I'm okay. I think. Is this what a hangover feels like?" Her roommate stared at her like she'd sprouted a third eye, and Ally frowned. "What happened after I blacked out? Did you guys beat his ass?" She sighed, shook her head.
"We barely made it out of there in one piece ourselves," she muttered, "Captain Mitchell ordered us to bring you back here instead of to a hospital. Said we didn't need to cause panic in the city," she explained, holding out a hand. "Come on. The others are waiting."
"Alright," Captain Mitchell began, and Ally flinched as she glanced up. The lights still hurt her eyes. She took a sip of her water. "No matter who it was, the fact remains that Diabolico has the morpher, and the titanium power." He leaned over the table, fixed each of them with an intense stare. She'd never seen her boss like this before. She decided that this was just about as scary as the Titanium Ranger had been, just in a different way. "We need to get it back. And fast." Mrs. F sighed.
"That won't be easy."
Ally's chest heaved as she ran up to the others. She and Joel hadn't had any luck in their own lookout for the Titanium Ranger, but it was odd. The air was still, as if Mariner Bay itself was holding its breath, awaiting the return of… whoever this guy was. "Who are you?" Apparently Carter was curious about the same thing.
Again, the area quieted. "It doesn't matter anymore." Ally knew phrasing. Hell, she was a screenwriter, a filmmaker. She knew that when people chose certain words, it meant something, whether they realized it or not. And that word had stuck out to her like a sore thumb: anymore.
"We don't wanna have to hurt you," Joel cautioned, and the Titanium Ranger turned to face them.
"Hurt me? Your pathetic powers are no match for my titanium powers." The deja reve she'd felt earlier hit Ally at full strength. There was no way this was going to end well. It was all too strange, too… unrealistic, almost.
"Ready?" If she could, she would tell Carter to stop this, but their foe wasn't about to quit anytime soon. So, they needed to make him. "Lightspeed, Rescue!" Unease still clouded her mind even as her suit folded over Ally's body, but she knew she had to shake herself out of it before it affected her judgment. One wrong move with this guy, and it was over. "Don't make us do something we don't wanna do," Carter warned, but all the Titanium Ranger did was sneer.
"Give it your best shot." Just as before, the others were knocked down, but this time, Chad was able to restrain him.
"Ally, little help!"
"Already on it." But before her own punches could land, the Titanium Ranger broke free from Chad's hold, blocked her punch, and sent a kick into her stomach. It was as if she'd been hit by a train as she flew back, ramming into the pile of debris that he'd left with his arrival. If she hadn't been morphed, no doubt there'd be internal bleeding somewhere. Or maybe there still was. She couldn't tell either way, just that it hurt like a bitch. As she lay there winded, the others got back up, but when she scrambled to her feet, she realized that they weren't putting up a fight as much as they were getting their asses handed to them. Especially when the man pulled out his blaster once more.
"Titanium Laser!" Despite her best efforts to dodge, the explosion that rocketed off against the pavement all but threw her off her feet again. It was all she could do to keep from face planting against the asphalt as she fell.
"Carter," Mrs. F's voice sounded in her comms, and Ally was grateful she wasn't the one being ordered around.
"I read you."
"Activate V-Lancers."
"You got it." Ally got to her feet, every bone in her body screaming at her in protest. Regardless of the pain, though, she had to finish this. Had to get home to Leon. "V-Lancers!" They held out the V-shaped weapon, then paired it with its other piece. "Defense!" When the two pieces of the weapon combined, she found herself with a long, powerful staff.
"Excellent," Chad breathed.
"These things rock," Kelsey added.
"Sick," Ally murmured, twirling the staff in her hand. She'd had good practice with these, thanks to her many martial arts classes. And while it wasn't a bo staff, it most definitely did the trick.
"Yeah, good one, Mrs. F," Joel cheered, and Carter and Ally exchanged a knowing glance.
"Let's try these bad boys out." It took all but three minutes to disarm the Titanium Ranger with their Lancers. Thanks to their new weaponry, Ally observed, they could remain well out of harm's way while still dealing nasty attacks of their own. Even as their foe attempted to leap and dodge out of the circle they'd formed around him, they still managed to cut into him, knocking him to the ground as he'd done to them.
And even though he was literally still trying to kill them, Ally couldn't help but be in awe of his tenacity, of his willingness to never give up, even when the odds were against him.
They needed him on their side, not on Diabolico's.
"Don't do it!" Carter shouted as the Titanium Ranger rushed at them. "Ally, do you think you could do the thing?"
"I can try." She took a deep breath. "Stop." Nothing happened. "Well, shit."
"Rangers. Go to blaster mode." Ally cringed. There was no doubt in her mind that she would be having a long talk with both Mrs. F and the Captain once they'd gotten this all over with. While she was looking forward to finding out what, exactly, was happening to her… she wasn't looking forward to the scolding that she'd undoubtedly receive for hiding it.
"You got it. V-Lancers, blaster mode!" Ally watched as Carter moved around the pieces of his V-Lancer, following his motions as the others did as well. "Spectrum Blast!" The lasers that shot out from their blasters, each one in their own designated color, formed one single beam of energy that zapped into their opponent. Ally watched as he fell, and despite herself, she felt… guilty, almost. Here was someone in a suit just like theirs, who they'd had to viciously fight. Would there ever be the chance of him coming to their side now that they'd done what they did? It was true that it was either them or him, but still, she thought. They'd caused enough damage for this all to be irreversible. "That did it-" Ally stepped back, shocked as the Titanium Ranger struggled to his feet.
"Guys? I don't like this."
"Me neither. I don't get it, either. He's coming back," Carter warned. "Nothing coulda survived that!" Every cell in Ally's body was paralyzed in place as the man turned, and she caught sight of his icy gaze. He'd lowered the upper part of his visor, revealing the top part of his face.
He'd only do that if he knew they wouldn't live to reveal his identity. As if they had any idea who he was in the first place. "Stand down, before this escalates," Carter warned again, but Ally didn't think his words would have any effect. "Don't make us destroy you."
The man's visor closed, and he lifted his blaster once more, pointing it directly at them.
"Energy level: ten," Mrs. Fairweather ordered.
"Full power," Carter acknowledged, but for once (well…), Ally hesitated in following his orders. There had to be another way. This wasn't right. This wasn't them.
"Carter."
"We don't have a choice, Ally." Huh, she thought. That was familiar to her. The Titanium Ranger took a step forward. And another.
If they did this, they would take a life. A life like the one Leon was so close to losing. A life like the one Carter was in danger of ending earlier today.
But this man would kill them all without even blinking an eye. He would, and he could.
"Target locked." Ally closed her eyes. Her aim was perfect. She didn't need to worry about looking now. Not when they were about to-
"Don't fire!" She didn't lower her blaster, even as her eyes widened in shock at Captain Mitchell's words. They were quite literally sitting ducks like this, and he knew that. What was their boss thinking?
"What? Please repeat, sir."
"Hold your fire."
"What is he talking about?" Chad asked, incredulous.
"But sir," Kelsey interjected, "This is our chance to finish him!"
"Don't shoot." Ally lowered her blaster, careful to keep her arms tensed in case the Titanium Ranger decided to fake them out.
"Alright," Carter replied, "V-Lancers-" The man collapsed, and Ally finally let her weapon drop all the way. "Power down."
"We're not finished!" The Titanium Ranger snarled, and as the others stumbled towards the Rescue Rover, Ally turned. And just as he had earlier, she lifted her helmet, revealing her face to him.
The second she did this, the man let out a gasp, which only turned into a cough. "You... it's you. The one with the artist brother, at the heist. You look like him, I-" He broke off in a cough, and Ally's head spun as she tried desperately to connect the dots. There was no way he would have known that. It was true that by now, her brother's picture was most likely plastered all over the news, but it hadn't been revealed that he was an artist, nor that he was caught up in the heist. Just that he was her brother, and that he'd been injured in a gun fight.
The Titanium Ranger couldn't have known that. Unless... unless...
"V-Lancer," Ally whispered, summoning the weapon, "Attack mode."
"Alyssa, stand down, now," Captain Mitchell warned, but she didn't hear him. His command was a distant thought. She paced up to the Titanium Ranger, brandished her V-Lancer's blade at his neck, but all he did was lift his visor once more. He laughed, a cruel, cold laugh that sent chills down her spine. He was unafraid in the face of death.
"You hurt my brother."
"Now, when did I ever say that?" Anger pulsed through Ally, stronger than she'd ever felt it before, and she pressed her blade into his neck. "You won't do it. You know you won't." She stayed perfectly still, quiet as she weighed her options. If she ended this now... what did she gain from that? Justice? How did she even know that the Titanium Ranger was the one at the art heist, the one who had hurt her brother- Somebody wrestled her weapon out of her hands, and someone else tugged her away. Chad and Joel.
"It's not worth it, Ally," Chad murmured.
"There's no proof that it was him. He's just trying to bait you," Joel added.
She wanted to believe them. But as much as she wanted to, she just couldn't.
"Retreat? Sir, we had him." Joel stormed in after Carter, taking off his hat and gesturing with it angrily.
"He would've destroyed us without thinking twice!"
"Now he knows we have the V-Lancers!" Chad added, and Kelsey stepped forward.
"That was our chance, maybe our only chance."
"And now I think he was the one who was at the art heist," Ally whispered, "I could have found out."
"Why, sir? Why did you stop us?"
"Because. He's my son."
