A/N: Sorry for the hiatus folks, bout of ill health. But here we are. Also, the answer to the challenge was Vinnie Jones. As a football (or "soccer" depending on what side of the pond you're on), he was known to be a very rough, physical player, and once to get another player, Paul Gascoine, to back off, he grabbed…shall we say, a rather delicate part of his anatomy!
Gazza sent him a bunch of flowers after the game, and Vinnie in response sent him a crowbar. The accent for Ryjax just put me in mind of Vinnie, who now makes a pretty decent living playing "hard man" characters in action movies.
The Rangers arrived at the Distribution Centre, looking around for the threat. It didn't take them long to find it. Standing out in the open, by some barrels of Morph-X was a warrior wearing silver armour. He had a device hooked up to a pump that was draining Morph-X from one of the barrels into it. Devon took a look around the corner of a building, getting the lay of the land.
"This Ryjax isn't exactly subtle." He commented, looking to the others. "Alright, there's a lot of Morph-X there, so we'll try and do this without any shooting, but if we must, be careful. Got it?"
They all nodded, before breaking cover and rounding the corner. The alien looked up towards them, and held up its hands, looking startled.
"Hold it, right there!" Devon warned the creature. It appeared to try and say something, but it came out garbled and unintelligible. It started to make a move towards the device on the barrels.
"Don't touch that!" Ravi warned the alien, pointing his blaster at him. The alien backed away a few steps. "That's far enough."
The alien hit a device in its armour, disappearing in a flash of light. Devon tried to rush him before he could activate his teleporter, but he was just a fraction too slow.
"Damn it!" Devon yelled in frustration.
"Looks like he left something behind." Nate said, picking up the device and inspecting it.
"What do you think it is?" Steel asked. "Some kind of evil alien weapon?"
"I don't know. Maybe." Nate replied. "I won't know for sure until I can study it, but for now I want to get this straight into our vault. Ryjax seemed to want it, which means he's probably going to try and come for it again."
"There's nowhere more secure than the Ranger Vault." Ravi concluded, looking to Zoey with a wry grin. "You two would know all about that, right?"
With that, they all mounted up in their truck and left, heading back towards Grid Battleforce Headquarters.
Back at Grid Battleforce, Roxy was sitting in the canteen with a bunch of large books all around her, and a large bowl of ice cream. Betty came over, looking extremely tired after her night shift. She grabbed some fruit and sat with Roxy, looking at the ice-cream curiously.
"You want ice-cream at this time?" Betty asked. Roxy just shrugged.
"What can I say? I'm quirky." She said, before continuing to look through the books. Betty couldn't help taking a look.
"These are old photo albums." She stated. "Are these…are these Ravi's?"
"Commander Shaw lent them to me. My mom sent me some of ours." Roxy said gleefully, looking through all the old pictures. "I always loved old pictures. My family has some dating back to like, my great, great whatevers…I always love seeing where families came from, what their past looked like…"
"Yeah, my family spent most of the country's founding years in dugouts and trenches." Betty reminded her. "I don't think our family albums would have been quite the same as yours."
"Oh, nonsense I'm sure there are some brilliant old pictures in there." Roxy assured her. "Ravi's family's pretty fascinating. I know it was his Grandparents that came over, but some of the pictures from before then, seeing some of the outfits and some of the places they've been…it's completely unlike anything I've seen in my own albums."
"Where are you?" Betty asked, looking at one of the albums. Roxy let out a little cough.
"Um, why don't you look at this one from…?"
"Roxy, I don't see you in any of these pictures of your parents." Betty stated. Roxy sighed, before pointing something out. "I still don't see…"
"Look closer." Roxy interrupted her. Betty squinted, pulling in a little closer, before recoiling, her hand covering her mouth. She looked to Roxy in shock, and looked like she was struggling not to laugh. "I was a late bloomer, alright?"
"You look…different." Betty commented diplomatically. "Sorry, I really have no right to laugh."
"No, I understand." Roxy sighed. "I grew into my looks…and my body…and my basic sense of motor skills…"
"It's kind of hard to picture you as being…that." Betty reiterated. "But, I guess at least you did grow out of your phase. I'm still waiting."
"Betty, you shouldn't say things like that about yourself." Roxy said, putting her arm around her. "You're a strong, gorgeous, lively woman that anyone would be lucky to be with."
"Yeah, well if there's a queue forming, I sure as Hell ain't seeing it." Betty grumbled. Just then, they saw the Rangers coming back, heading towards the elevator.
"That looks serious." Roxy remarked. Betty reached out to Steel.
"Hey, buddy." She rushed out. "What's going on?"
"Sorry, can't stop." He told her, holding up a device. "We confiscated this…thing…and we need to get it to the vault right away."
"Oh, alright." Betty said as he walked away. "Man, I wonder what that's about."
"No doubt something really super exciting." Roxy replied, mimicking a yawn. She looked to Betty. "Want to see some really cute pictures of Ravi as a baby?"
With that, they both clamoured back to the albums, looking through the old pictures.
Later, up in the Command Centre, Steel and Nate arrived, finding the others briefing the Commander on what they had seen.
"So, this is what Ryjax looks like." She commented, seeing the sleek, armoured alien warrior that they had tried to apprehend.
"He might not look like much, but he's slippery." Devon told her. "He was gone before I could get a hand on him."
"We've got his device stored up in the vault in the lab." Nate assured the Commander.
"Well, in the meantime, all we can do is wait until…"
Just then, an alarm sounded. Joanne slid across from one terminal to another on her chair, pulling up the details.
"It's an old alert, a pumping station a few blocks from where you encountered Ryjax." She told them. "It's too late, the perp already got away with a whole barrel."
"A whole barrel already?" Zoey complained. "Man, that guy moves fast. We barely even lost sight of him!"
"Don't worry, we'll catch up to him eventually." Ravi assured her.
In the Crystal Dimension, Kendall was sitting, holding onto her hand, which was still in terrible pain following Ryjax's cruel demonstration of the power of her compliance collar. She had since been allowed to tend to the injury, but all that meant was being able to fashion a splint for her fingers. She held onto them, feeling the throbbing, burning pain in them under her touch as she tried to protect them from any further harm.
A dish was dropped at her feet, slopping something onto the ground. She stared at it, and then up at Blaze, who just sneered.
"Thought you might be hungry." He commented in an off-hand way, before starting to walk away. He got back to Evox, who was welcoming back Ryjax and Vargoyle along with a freshly acquired barrel of Morph-X.
"Ah, Blaze, I wanted you to see this." Evox stated. "This is what it looks like when my underlings actually succeed in a task I assigned to them."
"It's all down to my little pet here." Ryjax said, patting Vargoyle on the head. "He did the heavy lifting."
"Perhaps I should see about having you and Roxy fitted with those compliance collars." Evox suggested. "It might be nice to have underlings actually do what I tell them to once in a while."
Both Blaze and Roxy started to protest, but Ryjax just laughed and walked out with his henchman, looking for another score.
Later, back in the Grid Battleforce base, Zoey was in the lab, studying some of her textbooks and making notes while Nate ran through some work. As Nate came past, he glanced over her shoulder, smiling a little. She let out a slightly exasperated breath.
"What?" He asked.
"I really hate when people do that." She told him.
"Do what?" He asked her in response.
"Read over my shoulder." She told him.
"I just wanted to check your work, make sure you were…"
"I know, and I appreciate it." She said, taking his hands in hers softly, looking to him. "But this is my coursework, I need to do it."
"That doesn't mean I can't…"
"Nate, I appreciate it, and if I need your help, you know I'll be right over there to ask." She assured him, drawing him in and kissing him softly. "But if you keep correcting everything I do, I'll never learn it for myself."
"I guess that's true." Nate agreed reluctantly. "Just, let me know if you want me to give it a little look before you hand it in."
"Oh, don't worry." She assured him. "I'm not going to date one of the world's cutest and most brilliant minds and not take advantage of the fact."
"Cutest?" Nate asked her. She just nodded.
"You have your moments." She told him. Just then, they heard a noise. They could hear some movement behind some nearby shelves.
"Meghan?" Zoey called.
"No, it isn't Meghan, she went for her therapy session." He told her. "Who's there?"
There was no answer. Both Nate and Zoey got up and started to make their way towards the shelves, pulling out their blasters. Nate indicated to Zoey to go one way, while he went the other.
They both got to the ends of the shelving unit and rounded it, finding the silver armoured warrior standing behind the shelves. They both levelled their blasters, but he pulled down some chemicals, creating a cloud of thick smoke that choked them, and obscured their view.
"What the Hell?" Zoey coughed. "How did he get in here?"
Nate sounded an alarm, bringing Devon, Steel and Ravi to the lab. By the time they got there, they found the Silver-armoured warrior opening the vault.
Devon sprang into action, rushing across the room with his Cheetah Speed, slamming him into a wall and grappling with him. The stranger struggled, fighting back with incredible training, but before he could get Devon off him, Ravi and Steel were on top of him. Between the three of them, they managed to bundle him to the floor, holding him down. Nate activated an extraction fan, clearing the room as they covered the warrior.
"Alright, Ryjax, we've got you now!" Devon snapped. The warrior struggled, thrashing around angrily in his grip. A security team came with restraints, helping to restrain him. "Get this guy locked up, maybe in a while, Nate can figure out a way to translate so we can interrogate this guy, find out how he got in here and what he wants."
"I think it's pretty obvious what he wants." Ravi said, gesturing to the vault. "Most of the stuff in there can level a city block. Just imagine what that'd be worth to someone with bad intentions."
Just then, they heard an alarm. Devon's communicator bleeped.
"Devon, we got a hit on the warning system." Joanne told him. "A big guy and a robot just hit a distribution centre a few blocks from here."
"Alright, we're on it." Devon answered, before looking to the security team. "Get that guy locked up securely! I want to talk to him as soon as we figure out how."
Over at the distribution centre, Ryjax was sitting, casually watching his lackey at work, while he took a sip from a cold drink. Vargoyle dutifully toddled over to him, pointing to a truck.
"I have a truck loaded up, ready to go, Master." He stated. Ryjax patted him on the head.
"That's a good slave." He commented. The Rangers arrived, at which Ryjax got up slowly, beginning to make his way towards them.
"Oh, and what do we have here?" He asked. "Is this the local fuzz?"
"Fuzz?" Steel asked. "Dude, do I look fuzzy to you?"
"Guys, am I seeing things or does that look like…?" Zoey started to say, before gulping. "…guys, that's Vargoyle!"
The Rangers all looked on in amazement. Vargoyle had been a dangerous enemy, one which Devon had destroyed months ago. Seeing him back was more than a little bit of a surprise. Ryjax just looked to Vargoyle and back to the Rangers.
"Ah, I see you have a little history with my slave here." He stated.
"You could say that. I already destroyed him once." Devon replied forcefully. "Now, surrender and tell us who you are right now or we'll do it again, and the same to you!"
"I'm a little offended you don't already know who I am, normally my reputation precedes me." Ryjax began. "But, this world is a little backwards, so I'll cut you some slack. I'm Ryjax."
"YOU'RE Ryjax?" Zoey asked.
"Then, who do we have in our cell?" Devon asked, before shaking his head. It was a detail they could answer later. "Whatever! Surrender now or we'll have to bring you down hard!"
"I'd like to see you try!" Ryjax cackled. "And Vargoyle here isn't the only blast from the past I can bring back!"
With that, he hit a command on his reanimator. The Rangers started to look this way and that as all around them, monsters started to appear. Some grey and black, and moving in a chaotic, jittery fashion, emitting a strange gobbling sound as they moved. Others had green, seaweed-like heads, and white bodies and shrieked as they moved, while others were black and yellow, covered in a shiny black carapace. They all rushed the Rangers, who had no choice but to morph to defend themselves.
Back at Grid Battleforce Headquarters, Commander Shaw was watching the battle unfold when she got an alert from the holding facility.
"This isn't a good time." Commander Shaw warned the security team.
"Commander, it's the prisoner, we think there might be some kind of medical emergency." One of them told her.
"Emergency?" She asked.
"He was pacing around in his cell, all worked up and suchlike, and then just…hit the floor." He told her. "We thought it might be an act, but he's barely moved since then."
"I'm sending Meghan and a medical team to assist you." Commander Shaw informed him. "But I want weapons hot and trained on him at all times!"
"Heard and understood!" The sergeant responded as Commander Shaw sent the team his way.
Back at the site of the battle, the Rangers were fighting for all they were worth to keep their enemies at bay. Ravi managed to clear himself a space and pause for a breath.
"Vivix, Putties, Tyrranadrones?" He rhymed off as he fought his attackers. "Where did he find these guys?"
"Is it a little sad that if we weren't fighting for our lives, I'd be kind of geeking out right now?" Nate asked.
"I'm glad to see you're impressed." Ryjax stated. "I'm a connoisseur you see, a collector of sorts. You should be honoured I'm using some of my collection on you!"
"Not the word I'd use for it." Devon stated, activating his dash attack. He smashed through Vargoyle, once more destroying him. Ryjax let out an angered cry.
"You destroyed my slave!" He growled. "Let me show you what happens when people break what belongs to me!"
He fired off a powerful blast from his horn, which arced towards Devon. Ravi and Zoey saw it coming and rushed to intervene. They both took the hit, falling to the ground unmorphed and lay worryingly still. Ryjax just looked to his handiwork proudly.
"You break my things, I break yours!" He declared. "I'll be back!"
With that, he and his remaining henchmen disappeared. Devon, Nate and Steel rushed to Zoey and Ravi, finding them unconscious.
"Nate, what's wrong with them?" He asked. Nate looked down in horror at Zoey. She now seemed to have green, glowing veins across much of her face.
"I…I don't know!" He rushed out in a panic, getting on his communicator. "We're going to need a medevac unit here, right away!"