Episode 15 – Fade to Blue
A door was forcefully kicked open, one of the hinges breaking and leaving it hanging by the single remaining one. Light shone in, revealing the interior; shelf after shelf of boxed food and drink products, the back of a convenient store. Another door lay opposite the room, most likely leading to the actual store they had broken into.
One of the two figures stepped through the doorway, casting his shadow of the boxed foods. Raising his hands slowly, he flicked the clasps on the underside of the helmet and raised it off. Helmet off, Kyle's wide smirk was visible, his eyes lit up at the food stuffs, still in box.
"Now this is a good find. How'd we miss something like this?" Kyle asked, glancing back at the second figure as he entered the storage room, falling to one knee and tearing the cardboard lid off of one of the boxes. The second figure, clad in yellow accented armour, strolled in after Kyle. Tanya looked around, all of the different items organized across the room; having no need for the light streaming in through the door she'd kicked in.
"Just get what we need and we can move on," Tanya replied, folding her arms and leaning against the door frame. "You seem to know what you've come shopping for."
"We're getting shit to make the Den more.. homely," Kyle replied, turning partially to look back at Tanya. "Or did what Matt say just go through one ear and out the other?"
"You're not getting sarcastic with me, are you Kyle?" Tanya asked, rolling her head around her shoulders to look at Kyle. A response came to mind, but he knew better than to respond and simply returned to riffling through the various boxes.
"Oh shit!"
Kyle's sudden exclamation caught Tanya's attention, bringing her back from scanning the surrounding area, and her eyes widened briefly. 'Were the guys who ran this store fucking stupid?' Tanya asked herself, kicking off from the door frame and approached him.
Somehow, hidden among the various food boxes, was a metal cash box; it must have been put there, just in case. But Tanya didn't see a key, yet the lid was open; then she noticed the warped, twisted nature of the lid. She spared a side glance at Kyle, but quickly looked back to the stacks and stacks of notes, in both his hand and the rest of the container. "That's got to be at least a couple of hundred thousand in there," Tanya commented, standing straight as Kyle threw the stack in his hand back into the container.
But she then saw Kyle going to close the lid again, and bring it closer to him instead of setting it back on the shelf. She quickly moved around to his side, and placed her hand on the cash box, glancing up to meet Kyle's gaze.
"What use are we going to have for cash, Kyle? You really think there's a life for us after this?" She questioned, forcefully wrenching the box from his hands and setting it back on the nearest shelf space.
"C'mon, T. Don't go all Savage on me; always going on about fighting and that shit," Kyle asked, getting to his feet and walked off, clearly aggravated as he paused and ran a hand through his hair with a loud exhale. "First Isaac, now you.. what happened to the Tanya that I knew, who'd sooner grab money than leave it?"
Tanya rolled her eyes slowly, before grabbing her helmet and taking it off, her shortened hair coming down, barely reaching her shoulders. Several new cuts, now faded, across her cheeks, face and neck, as well as a small, ugly dark-purple bruise on the side of her jaw, a lucky shot from a Wolkein bastard… Not that Kyle was surprised, he'd seen them plenty of times before - he was sure his body wasn't any better.
"Because of this," She stated, bringing her helmet down beneath her arm, carrying it by her hip. "You realize the only reason we're even discussing this cash is because the government, government, ordered the city to be evacuated because of US. You really think, when and if we get out of this, there's a chance of a normal life? Let me answer that for you; no. There is not. Not a single chance at a normal life, should we even come out alive at the other end."
Kyle quietly sucked on his teeth, turning back around to look at Tanya, a faint, reassuring smile tugged at the corner of her lips. He eventually returned the small smile, before the moment was broken by a small growl from the comms. Tanya glanced down at her helmets, and raised it back onto her head, securing it with the clasps latching into place. "What's up?"
"Yo, Kyle and Tanya, get down here. We've found the fucking mother-load for the Den. Consoles, PCs, all shit we can actually have fun with."
"On it Matt," Tanya said, quickly cutting comms, they found out rather early that Savage often listened in on comms, and didn't like it when they clogged it up. She gestured for Kyle to follow, as she quickly headed out. Kyle grabbed his helmet as he walked through the door, quickly reattaching it and rushed off after Tanya, the two vanishing into blurs of yellow and black as they moved deeper into the city.
"Sir, we've got a hit."
E quickly made his way towards the techie that spoke up; passing several others, all working on computers and going through what looked like security footage, except this footage seemed to range from across a vast span of area. "What've you got?" He asked, one hand resting on the back of the chair and the other wedged in his jacket pocket.
The techie - light-skinned, somewhat flicked to the side hair - brought up one of the screens he had been looking at, and put it on full screen. Though the centre of the screen was off the main focus, the images were still relatively clear. The backdoor of a convenient store had been forced open and a figure was standing in the door frame; unfortunately, the shadows cast covered the figure, rendering any details invisible.
"They'll move in a bit," The techie assured, moving the mouse slightly and fast-forwarding the recording a few minutes forward. Catching it just as the figured moved out of the door, followed by a second; in the brief time between exiting the building and disappearing off screen, E got a good look at the two figures.
"Well, welll.. Ms. Steele and Mr. Colon. Looks like we'll be able to add breaking and entering, and theft to their lists," E commented, gently patting the man's shoulder. "Keep track of them, and make sure to keep Clint up to date on any changes."
"Uh, sir, about that…" The techie said as E went to leave; causing him to turn back around. "I've been having trouble getting access to the vast majority of the cameras throughout Pax Valley. I know the Government gave us access to them, but for some reason, a lot of them aren't giving me access."
"That's odd... Anything that could be causing it?" E asked.
"Only reasonable way for this to happen is that someone already has access over the camera, and at this scale of control, it would require a large amount of energy. But we're having trouble locating it, for some reason."
E raised an eyebrow slightly, before he replied with, "Well, I trust you lot to look onto what could be causing this. Like I said, tell Clint any updates." He quickly departed afterwards, leaving the rows of techies to their jobs, leaving the sound of rapidly tapping keyboards and clicking of mice. The further he walked down the corridor, the quieter the sounds grew, just about disappearing as he walked through the second set of double doors. Another five minute walk, passing several groups of armed patrols, led him to his destination.
Fairweather and several of her scientists working away in their laboratory, some at keyboards and screens, others standing before the Silver Ranger suit with data pads and wires connected to several open panels. Fairweather herself was one of the scientists standing before the Suit, a data pad reading data off from the suit, pressing a few buttons periodically.
"Fairweather?"
The call of her name made her pause, closing her fingers back into her hand just as she was about to press on the data pad. She glanced over her shoulder, seeing E standing in the open doorway, that usual air of arrogance surround him and filling the room with his mere presence. She turned around fully to look at him, asking, "Yes?"
E tilted his head slightly, not too sure if he heard that right, there seemed to be a.. slight edge to her tone, but he brushed that off for now as he walked into the lab. "I'm going to need to get access to the Silver Suit soon; we've located the Rangers in the city. There, they're vulnerable."
Fairweather nodded once, before she rolled her tongue around her mouth as she worked up to speaking again. "Speaking of the Rangers, that's something we need to discuss."
E glanced at Fairweather, looking up from over one of the computer techie's shoulders; her words earning glances and pauses in work with the other scientists in the room. "What is there to discuss?" He asked, straightening his posture and approaching Fairweather once again. The two exchanged a brief glare with one another, this one progressively becoming longer; this had been going on for the past week, since the last major encounter the D-13's had with these Power Rangers.
"You still haven't given me answers to my questions; this is just getting ridiculous now. You expect me to continue helping you bring these Rangers to justice, when I don't even have faces to put behind those helmets."
E stood there, his fingers drumming rhythmically in his pockets as he chose his words carefully. He drew his hands from the pockets and, as he folded them across his chest, gave his reply. "Hopefully, if everything goes to plan.. we'll have them arrested and you'll get a good look at them then."
Though frustrated with the answer, Fairweather tried her best to hide it, her jaw faintly moving as it tightened. It clenched tighter when E added, "Besides, you know that, if we did have any information about these Power Rangers, I'd share it with you."
Sure you would, Fairweather thought bitterly, her fingers flexing around the data pad. Giving a slight shake of her head when E looked away, before she replied with, "I still need to make a few repairs on a smaller scale - one damaged wire could result in a complete system shutdown. But I suppose I should be used to this by now, I had to use the entire week to make most of the repairs."
E spared a brief glance at Fairweather, setting down the clipboard he had been looking at, scribbled down notes, which he'd hope was temporary ones to be written up much neater. "I'll leave that for you to do, you're the expert in this field. Head scientist at the Aquabase for a reason, I see…"
Not even dignifying E with a response, she turned back to continue work on the suit, carefully disconnecting the pair of wires and wrapping them back around the pad. She gestured for one of the other scientists to hand her a small-scale tool kit, closing the shoulder panel and opening up one of the chest plates, revealing the many wires and faint glow from the crystal hidden deeper within the suit. Exhaling slowly through the nose, E turned and headed back out of the lab, though he paused when he just walked through the door, side glancing at the guard standing beside the door.
"Hey, listen," He said, turning to face the guard fully, seeing the slight shift of feet and straightened posture of the guard when spoken to. "I want you to.. keep an eye on Fairweather. See anything suspicious, let me know, okay?"
"Yes sir," The guard confirmed, giving a slight nod with his words.
Giving his own nod in return, E continued down the corridor, hands in pocket and his mind working, balancing several different thoughts at the same time.. not that it was anything different than usual.
"So, this is the mother-load, eh, Matt?" Tanya asked, looking around the building they had arrived at, hand going to her hip.
It wasn't that hard to find the place Matt was talking about, all they had to do was find where the trail of broken in buildings came to a stop. Finding the back door of the last building in the trail forced open, the lock flying off in a completely different direction, and entered. It didn't come to all that of a surprise to her when she saw Matt, kneeling, tearing through the latest in a long line of boxes. With his helmet tossed to one side, she could see that look on his face; a kid on Christmas day.
"Hey, this is fucking awesome. Can't believe we didn't come to this store before; must have had fresh stock in before they abandoned the place," Matt replied, tearing open the cardboard and pulling the secured Xbox One. "See, this is the stuff we need in the Den. Otherwise we're going to be bored as fuck when we're doing nothing."
"He's got a point, Tanya," Natalie called out, coming out from behind one of the aisle, flicking through a magazine. "Face it, when we weren't doing anything and confined to the Den, it was boring as shit. Nothing to do, apart from trying to avoid further training with Savage or watching MUTT work on the computers. At least with this, we'll be able to actually enjoy being stuck in the Den."
"We're not stuck in the Den, it's just the safest place we can stay at. Especially now we've got those Government assholes hunting us down," Tanya replied, folding her arms as Kyle headed off into another section of the store, a big sign, 'COMPUTERS & TECH', hanging above. He vanished behind the stacks of computer cases and accessories. That was when something clicked with Tanya, there was a curtain.. presence missing from around them.
"Where's Isaac?"
"On the roof, having a Batman moment. Decided he wanted to be by himself to brood," Natalie replied, closing the magazine and throwing it aside, sending the pages flapping as it landed, and she grabbed the next one.
"Better head on up, Robin," Matt called as Tanya turned and headed back out of the building again, chuckling slightly when she flipped him off as she disappeared through the door.
Upon exiting, Tanya jumped up onto the roof with ease, landing gracefully; these enhancements from the Suits, and the ones embedded within them from the Howlers in general, were becoming more and more like second nature to them. Speaking of which…the sudden, yet familiar, scent reached Tanya and she glanced around, settling upon her price.
Making one of the rooftop generations into a seat, Isaac was looking out all across the city, his helmet resting at his side, hands resting across his thighs. In the sunlight, the silver-accenting to his armour caught the light every few shards, highlighting the armour and the accenting across the entire set. As Tanya grew closer, she noticed more and more, his heartrate was slower than normal, and that, combined with the steady breathing and closed eyes, showed his current emotion.
Calm.
"Savage was right," He said, just as Tanya came to a stop beside him. "It's.. so quiet here now. Never realized until now…"
"…You do realize how fucking old you sound when you say that?" Tanya asked, her helmet off and brought under her arm, throwing a smirk up at him. Her smirk only grew when he rolled his eyes and uttered a, "Screw you," Under his breath. "Eh, wouldn't be the first time."
"That's for sure," Isaac replied, shifting around on the generator and slipping off it, landing just before Tanya, helmet in hand.
The two exchanged the same smirk again, before both helmets were carelessly tossed to the ground as the two pulled each other close. Tanya's arms wrapped around his neck, while Isaac's moved down her sides, coming to a stop when he held her hips. Their lips quickly pressed against one another's, both heads tilted in either direction as they engaged in their heated kiss. Tanya's fingers, though gloved in the suit, lightly gripped the hair at the back of Isaac's head, lightly tugging his head in whatever direction she thought best, to deepen the kiss. Isaac's fingers lightly dug into Tanya's suit, his eyes slowly closing as he felt himself fall deeper and deeper into the kiss; sensing everything about it. The increased heartrate, beating with enough force to feel it through the contact of their chests. Her faint breath against his skin, raising faint goose bumps.
The two found themselves resting against the generator, Tanya's back pressed flat against it with Isaac's hands on either side, 'trapping' her in place. The two briefly parted, their lips barely moving an inch apart, as both sets of eyes opened. The two exchanged another faint smirk, slightly picked up breathing, as Tanya whispered, "God.. why does it seem so much more fucking exciting in the suits?"
"Because you like a guy in a suit?" Isaac rhetorically asked, smirking as he raised a hand to block a playful hit. The pair of them broke into soft chuckles, both leaning into each other and exchanging short, soft kisses, the occasional moan and groan coming from the pair.
Until they were suddenly, and rudely, interrupted.
"I thought you wanted to know where he was to talk, not.. you know, 'talk'."
The pair turned sharply, looking at the other tree standing there, Matt had his arms crossed with a raised eyebrow, Natalie had a similar pose with a magazine hanging beneath her crossed arms, and Kyle had an armful of pieces of tech. Keyboards mostly, with a few cables they could try out with the Den's tech. Yet, despite the fact he was wearing his helmet, Tanya sensed something was.. off about him; he was giving off very mixed vibes. All these thoughts went through her mind in a few seconds before she realized she and Isaac were still pretty much pressed together. The pair quickly changed this, Isaac moving away and Tanya side stepping, folding her hands behind her back. A faint, nonchalant whistle came a few feet from her, Isaac's attempts to defuse the situation.
"So, uh.. find anything good?"
Matt went to give a response, but quickly closed his mouth; all the others saw was a slight tilt to his head, and looking over his shoulder. He unfolded his arms, and slowly proceeded towards the opposite edge of the roof.
"Uh.. what're you doing?" Isaac asked, taking a few steps after Matt, along with the others, but stopped when Matt raised a hand behind him.
"Wait there. I hear something…" He said quietly, thankful for the raised edge to the store's roof as he crouched down, looking over the edge. After a few seconds, he gestured for the others to approach, but also made a 'stay low' gesture as they approached. As a result, the four lowered their stance and eventually were brought to their hands and knees when they reached the edge. Five heads poked over the edge, and scanned the horizon.
"Shit…" Isaac said under his breath, spying what Matt must have heard.
Even though, without the helmets, some of them couldn't see that far, they could see the several figures patrolling a few streets over, their deeply metallic scent easily reaching the teens, identifying them as very familiar.
"Government ass-hats," Matt commented under his breath.
"Reckon they're the same ones we encountered in New York?" Kyle asked, side glancing to the others.
"No shit, Kyle. And if these guys are here…" Isaac replied dryly, his tone shifting from sarcastic to skeptical as realization started to dawn.
"Then that Silver asshole can't be that far behind," Tanya finished, having grabbed both her and Isaac's helmets before they joined Matt, offering Isaac his as she put hers back on. Following two faint hiss from the pair as the helmets were re-connected to the suits, the five were now fully suited up as they got to their feet.
"We need to get back to the Den," Isaac instructed, glancing to the others. "Now."
"I'll grab the stuff to take back," Matt said, quickly moving to the other side of the roof and leaped over the edge, vanishing from sight. He was quickly followed by Kyle, leaving Isaac with the two girls as they tried to plan everything out, while at the same time keeping an eye on the Soldiers across the streets.
"MUTT, we're gonna need a teleport sooner than expected," Isaac said into his comms, Howler partially raised to the mouth-guard to his helmet.
"Do I need to account for a large amount of additional items?" MUTT questioned. Isaac was really beginning to question if MUTT was starting to get a better understanding of sarcasm.
"Not like before, just a few items. We've got those Government assholes from New York in the city, and I don't think they're here to go sightseeing."
"They entered the city?" Savage's voice suddenly came over the comms, as if pushing MUTT aside so he could speak directly to them. "How is this possible? I thought-" The conversation seemed to continue beyond the cut off, but the teens didn't get to hear it.
"Is Savage getting pissed?" Natalie asked.
"With MUTT, apparently," Isaac replied, the three taking up position again at the edge of the building; noting that they had cleared one street and were in the process of doing the same to the next one over. "We're going to need to be able to get going as soon as possible, less chance of them seeing us."
"I think we're already past that stage by now, Mr. Bryne."
The three teens quickly turned around, the new voice catching them off guard, no way was it Matt and Kyle. They couldn't be able to gather the stuff in that short a time. But that wasn't the most pressing thought in Isaac's head right now. That voice.. that voice only meant one thing.
"Shit," Was all he said when he saw the Silver Ranger standing behind them, atop of one of the other generators. He quickly descended, creating small cracks in the roof's surface; rising to his full height, a smug smirk tugged at the corners of his lips, hidden entirely by the helmet, as he saw their reactions, small steps back. They were surprised.
"I don't think I need to explain why I'm here, why don't you do us all a favour and come quietly. There doesn't have to be any tro-" But he was quickly, and suddenly, cut off when something struck the back of his head. As he collapsed to his knees, groaning and attempting to recover, it was revealed that Kyle was behind him, somehow acquiring a massive frying pan during his and Matt's return to the roof. Only now, it had been bent to an odd angle, vaguely resembling the outline of the Silver's helmet.
"Y'know, I'm not going to ask why you felt the need to bring that, but fuck it, c'mon!" Isaac said, gesturing for the others to follow as they ran off the roof, leaping off the edge and disappearing into the city, away from the soldiers. And E only managed to get himself righted as they vanished, groaning as he glanced at his readings, seeing them level out once again.
"All units; Rangers heading into the western parts of the city. Remember, we want to try and take them alive, but we don't need all five of them."
"How is this possible? I thought you said you had every camera in this city in your control. So how did they get into the city without us noticing?!" Savage demanded, slapping the back of his hand against MUTT's chest plate, sending the robot staggering back a few steps at the force. But he righted himself quickly, and drew back to his full height.
"I did all that were on official records and what my scans could pick up; as it would seem, some went under my radars," MUTT responded evenly, turning back to the computers and keyboards, tapping away as multiple screens flew past the different monitors. Some remained the old ones, while some had been replaced with ones that had been acquired from Pax Valley's various stores.
"I want you to double check everything - anything that may have slipped through your radar, any blind spots," Savage stated, working around the central console and gripping the short bit of railing; clawed fingers flexing around the railing, the claws creating slight grooves in the already damaged railing. "I will not allow this region to fall to the humans again. Not again, MUTT. do you hear me?!"
"You said that several times since we encountered one another; when I had to let you out every few centuries to ensure you wouldn't end up dying," MUTT replied, not even bothering to look at Savage when he responded; his mechanical fingers dancing across the keyboard, the printing long since gone from constant use.
This response elected a low growl from Savage, however, and MUTT briefly paused his latest scans to address Savage directly. "You act as though the legacy of your people rest solely on your shoulders, yet it is not your responsibility alone to bare."
"Of course it is! I'm the last of my kind! The very last! My species, our culture, dies with me!" Savage snapped, stepping back from the railing and turning partially around, one hand stroking the underside of his muzzle. He shook his head slightly, letting out a low, exhausted sigh. "You couldn't begin to understand this burden I bare.. these Warriors, these humans, they couldn't possibly understand what I carry. They're caught up with their.. simple human matters."
"But they're more than mere humans, Savage, and you know it. They have Warrior's blood in them, dating back to your brethren. Yei, Naku.. Sage; they all live on within them."
Savage's fists clenched briefly, before he relaxed them and exhaled again. "They're still young.. inexperienced. It will come with them in time, I agree, but they still require.. so much more. But I am the best chance they have at being successful. No-one else of the Clans is alive to train them."
MUTT slowly nodded, somewhat relieved that Savage was allowing himself to speak. "This is good, Savage. You so rarely speak of them; I can sense your tension lessen, almost as though you are relieved to speak."
Initially, another exhale was all the response he got, before Savage gave him a proper response. "Some burdens can be shared, MUTT. Others.. there are some that we must carry alone. In this case, this is one of the latter ones."
He would have said more, but a small alert echoed from the nearest console; the teens were calling in again. At the tap of a button, MUTT asked, "What is wrong, Isaac?"
"We've got a problem!"
Savage glanced at MUTT, before stepping forward to give his response. "What do you mean? What sort of problem?"
"What do you mean? What sort of problem?"
"Those solider assholes! They're following us - they're trying to box us in!" Isaac all but shouted into the Howler, running through the streets of Pax Valley at break-neck speed. The others flanking him on either side, together, the five forming streaks of their respective colours as they ran. Behind them, several 4x4 off-roaders were tearing down the roads after the Warriors, spreading out to cover the width of the road, engines revving menacingly.
After a quick gesture from Kyle, the five suddenly veered off course and dived down an alley, the off-roaders screeching to a halt, swerving around so the encircled the entrance. Soldiers swarmed out, armed with rifles, and flooded down the entrance, feet pounding against the ground.
Unaware that they were being watched from above, by the very people they were trying to capture.
"How long d'you think we've got before they noticed?" Tanya asked, quickly stepping back to avoid detection.
"Give it a couple of minutes, then try and leg it while they're still looking," Isaac replied, a faint panting behind his words, his chest armour very faintly rising and falling in sync with them.
"As good as any plan, I guess," Matt muttered, just now straightening up after bending over to recover. This earned him several looks from the others, some of which he was sure were raised eyebrows. "What?"
"I suppose you've got a better plan, Matt?" Isaac asked.
"Just find it funny that you think we'll blindly follow anything you say, just because you're the Red. Swinging your dick around, expecting everyone to fall into line. It's just a bit…well, bullshit really," Matt replied, rising to his full height as Isaac and he finally stood toe-to-toe, barely half an inch different in their heights.
"Hierarchy of the Pack, Matt. Figured even you managed to understand that, with Savage drilling it into that thick skull of yours," Isaac snapped, glaring through the pair of visors to Matt's eyes. The other three stood back, not wanting to get caught up in the middle of all this. Savage had warned them of this happening, and the consequences, should they try interrupt-
"Guys, c'mon. You can have this dick swinging contest back at the Den. This REALLY isn't the time." Evidently, Kyle hadn't been listening at that particular set of instructions. "I mean, metaphorically.. just don't take your pants off. I don't want to be mentally scarred."
"Kyle," Tanya harshly whispered, side glancing at the Black Warrior briefly. But in that short moment, the tense silence break into punches landing and grunts started. She turned back, and wasn't all that surprised that the pair of them were at each other's' throats, arms locked in between throwing punches and holding the other back.
"Guys, stop!"
"Is this really necessary?"
"You guys are gonna get us caught!"
The three overlapping voices were drowned out by the time they reached the fighting pair, Matt throwing a punch, barely missing Isaac's helmet. But Isaac used this momentum, carried over by the punch, and managed to flip him over his shoulder. Landing with a shallow grunt, Matt glared up at the Red armour-clad Isaac, and grabbed onto his arm in turn, his legs leaning up and wrapping around the arm, pulling Isaac down behind him.
The two rolled over a few times, Matt momentarily holding Isaac pinned and looked as though he was ready to break his arm, with the constant, steadily growing complaints and shouts from the other three getting drowned out even more when they were replaced with shouts from the two during their scuffle, suddenly rolled over the edge and disappeared from sight. The other three reached the edge just as two distinct thuds crashed down to the ground, but to their relief, somewhat, when Matt and Isaac didn't appear to be significantly injured.
Judging by the fact they were still throwing several punches and rolling around to get a better position of attack.
"You may be Power Rangers…"
Kyle, Natalie and Tanya all took a step back and looked up, shifting into defensive stances instinctively at the sight of the Silver Ranger standing on the roof opposite them. Thanks to the two buildings being relatively level, they were nearly eye-to-eye level. He stepped forward, partially dropping down into the metal-framed emergency staircase.
"But your weakness? You're teenagers - impulsive, emotionally-unstable, hormonal. It's a wonder why the majority of the teams were formed of your age group."
By this stage, Matt and Isaac had stopped fighting long enough to hear the one-sided conversation, and pushed themselves apart to look up. Only to be met with several rifle barrels aimed at them, barely inches from their helmets. Several of the D-13 soldiers surrounded the pair, the last remaining safety locks switched, primed and ready to fire.
"Shit," Matt and Isaac seemed to utter simultaneously.
A thick, steadily growing pocket of anxiety filled the alley, even encasing the three Warriors that stood on one of the roofs of the buildings. Yet it didn't reach the silver-clad Ranger, leaning on the staircase railing and looked down at the cornered wolves. His fingers flexing repeatedly around the railing, as if growing impatient. "Well, what are you waiting for? I've told you we don't need all of them alive with us."
Time seemed to slow down from the cornered pair, the fingers squeezing the triggers curling up at a snail's pace, the low breathing from the balaclava-wearing soldiers sounding much lower and exhales seeming to last a full minute. The pair glanced at one another, and strangely found each other moving in 'normal' time, wordlessly agreeing on what this was.
'The Howlers,' They both thought, but paid the devices no mind as their main concern was the soldiers surrounding them. Shifting into attack stances, the two ran at the group of soldiers and began tearing through them.
Though all the soldiers and E saw was two streaks of blue and red, shredding across and through the number of soldiers surrounding them, fully automatic shots spraying across the alley, striking just about everything but their intended targets. One stray bullet even pinged off of the railing E was leaning out, causing him to step back. In this brief moment of confusion, Tanya dragged the other two down off the roof with her, jumping into the fray and assisting the other two Warriors. The alley quickly becoming a violent mixing bowl of flashes and streaks of colour, with E looking down into the dead centre of it, gripping the railing briefly, before throwing himself over the edge and into the fray.
Not even standing up straight from landing, he blocked a kick to his head and pushed the leg back, delivering his own kick to the nearest blur that shot past him. He definitely hit something, since the white blur went off course and took one of his soldiers out with her. But that didn't stop them for long, quickly transitioning back into a blur, and melding with the others to take the rest of them out. E tried taking them out as many times as he could, but nothing he threw at them seemed to slow them down permanently.
A couple of minutes passed, though it seemed like mere seconds, the streaks stopped spinning in circle and tore down and out of the alley. The force of the five actually flipped the nearest 4x4, glass smashing and steel warping as it came crashing down on its side. The rest of the trucks' alarms started blaring as the five tore down the street, leaving grooves in the road from their rapid, forceful steps.
As the majority of the dust and dirt settled, kicked up from the constant bombardment, E walked around, checking the condition of his men. Kneeling beside one, he pressed his first and middle fingers against the side of his neck, a few seconds told him the answer. Exhaling slowly, he pressed his other hand to the side of his helmet and said, "Need medical assistance on my location. Nineteen seriously injured, potentially serious condition."
With the message passed on, E's eyes scanned the surrounding area, but stopped when he spotted something. His scans picked up a few small droplets of blood on the ground. Judging by the way it was smeared across the ground, one of those Rangers must have ran over it and dragged it along their boot. But it was whose blood that caught E's attention. Crouching down beside the droplets, he dipped his fingers into one smeared droplet and brought it to his visor. Rubbing it between two fingers, he nodded slowly.
"Looks like those bullets work," He muttered under his breath.
"Warriors, we have a problem," MUTT's voice came over the comms.
The five had covered nearly fifteen miles in a handful of minutes, nearly reaching the other side of the city, between escaping the D-13 and MUTT getting into contact with them.
"Yeah, well, you're not the only one," Matt snapped, the five eventually coming to a stop to recover from the sudden burst of speed. Finding another alley to duck into, beside an abandoned Chinese place, the five paused to catch their breath. "Fine, what this 'problem' you're claiming to have?" Matt asked, his chest rising and falling faintly.
"While the rest of your vitals seem relatively normal, Kyle's appear to be spiked," was MUTT's response.
This cause all eyes to turn on Kyle, who in turn looked around at the others. "What? I'm fine!" he insisted, before he saw their helmets turn downward partly. While he couldn't see their facial reaction, their physical reactions told him something wasn't right; Natalie's hand rising to her mouth guard, Matt and Tanya's slight step back. Looking down himself, he steadily became aware of a low, throbbing pain in his right side, bringing a hand to the pain, he grew alarmed when he looked down at and saw red blood, smeared across his gloved palm.
A small, bullet-sized hole had torn through his protective suit, and was steadily oozing blood, a trail had already made its way down his side, creating a single strip of crimson against the black-and-silver armour. While it didn't stand out like an eyesore, it was still very noticeable.
"Shit," Kyle muttered, his breath starting to grow heavier as realization dawned over him. His side fell against the nearest alley wall, Natalie and Isaac quickly moving in to ease him onto the ground, muttering words of reassurance as they got him onto the ground.
"Shit, shit, shit," Isaac uttered frantically, bringing his Howler up. "MUTT, Kyle's been shot. I... I thought we.. those bullets couldn't get through these suits!"
"You're human. They are human. Humans adapt to change; I need Kyle back here so I can fix him up, and hopefully, find out what the humans have done," MUTT replied. "However, my scans are picking up activity around you."
"Government ass-hats," Matt muttered, looking up and down the alley, almost instinctively.
"We need to draw them away from here," Tanya stated, looking across at Matt. All the while, Natalie did all she could to try and put pressure on the wound, to reduce the blood flow.
Isaac rose to his feet, with a nod of assurance from Natalie that she had this, and approached the other two. "Tanya, you and Nat look after Kyle. Matt, you're coming with me." This drew looks from all three completely conscious members of the group, but Isaac paid them no mind. "Now," He instructed, glaring at Matt briefly before he gestured for him to follow. With that, he quickly ran down the alley, his outline vanishing into a blur of red.
Matt glanced across at Tanya, who had already made her way across to Kyle, who gave her reply, "I'd listen to him if I were you. Need to clear up the shit you made."
Sparing a brief glare, which went unnoticeable under his helmet, Matt slowly turned and took off after Isaac, leaving his own streak of blue-and-black behind him, leaving the other three in the alley, the pair of females to watch over the injured male.
"Hello?" Knock, knock, knock.
The dark-skinned woman - the same that had attended to E - turned from her computer, and was mildly surprised to see Fairweather standing in the open door to her office.
"Fairweather. Surprised to see you here," She replied, getting to her feet and minimizing the tab she had been working on. "You're not one that I have on record for assistance regularly."
"Well, we're all human," Fairweather replied, adding a slight smile and a soft chuckle to her words. That quickly died down, and she continued, "Actually, I was wondering if you had anything for headaches. This one's been bugging me the last few days."
"Let me guess; E's the cause of it?" the doctor asked, a knowing smirk across her lips as she moved across the room. She opened one of the upper draws, her hand dipping in and gliding across the various tablets and pills. Though her back was to Fairweather, she heard a faint chuckle come from the Lightspeed scientist.
"That obvious, huh?" She asked, hands slipping into the pockets to her lab coat and slowly stepping into the room.
"When you've worked with him for as long as I have, you tend to pick up when he begins to get on peoples' nerves," The doctor replied idly, grabbing the best tablets suited for the job. Turning back around, she handed the box of Aspirin to Fairweather, adding, "And trust me, it's been a damn long time."
"How long's that? Sorry, just.. E isn't telling me a whole lot about him. Nothing, in fact," Fairweather asked, taking the box with a thankful nod and was directed to a glass of water. After she poured her glass, she set it down and turned around to face the doctor, punching the tablets free.
"Oh, now that's a question," The doctor replied, exhaling slowly as she leaned against the smaller counter beside Fairweather. She sucked on her teeth slightly, her head down as she remained silent in thought. "Must be going on.. nearly 20 years now. I was assigned to this unit back in '98, and.. well, haven't exactly needed to go on to do anything else."
"Must've been quiet the year, for everyone. '98 was definitely a year to remember," Fairweather commented, taking the pills and knocking her head back, taking a small sip of water to ensure the tablets went down.
"Hell yeah, pretty sure I've got the recordings on the ships on tape somewhere. Nephews are obsessed with the Rangers," The doctor agreed, chuckling quietly as her thoughts turned to them. "Haven't had the time for kids of my own, so.. they'll be the ones getting those tapes."
"They have any idea of you being here?" Fairweather asked softly, setting the nearly empty glass of water down. "What you're doing.. against them?"
The smile across the doctor's face slowly faded, and was replaced with a low sigh, and a small shake of the head. "They don't need to know about this, just that I love them, and I care for them."
Fairweather nodded slowly, wanting to put a comforting hand on the doctor's shoulder, but fought against it. She figured this doc wasn't one for physical contact, even if it would bring some comfort to her. Instead, she nodded slightly, saying, "Thanks again for the tablets."
"Hmm? On, you're welcome, hon. Take care now," the doctor replied, giving her own nod as she returned to work. Taking her seat once again, she faced the computer and brought up the tab she had been working on. With a slight look over her shoulder, Fairweather caught a brief look of indistinguishable medical details, before she silently headed out of the medical bay.
"Matt.. we need to talk."
Matt looked across at Isaac, in the middle of removing his helmet. They had left the other three and had travelled across the width of the city, hoping to draw all of the soldiers away from their location. They had just jumped onto this rooftop, as Isaac had said, to get a better look at their surroundings. But as it seemed, that wasn't Isaac's only intention to coming up here.
Setting his helmet down on a raised part of the roof, Isaac turned back around to face Matt, and shook his head slightly; Matt was still just standing there, arms crossed over his chest and helmet still firmly locked on his head. "Matt, c'mon, helmet off, I want to do this face-to-face."
No response came, all Isaac managed to do was get him to walk over to a maintenance hatch opposite him. Isaac sighed lowly, shaking his head as he ran his tongue against the back of his teeth. "Fine, be that way," Isaac muttered, before sitting up straight to look at Matt. "You may think that I'm.. as you so delicately put it, swinging my dick around and expecting everyone to follow. But, contrary to what you think, I'm doing this to keep us all safe. Because we're all that we have left.. individually, we've got pretty much no family left.
I've got no parents, Tanya's lost her dad, Kyle doesn't even want to speak about them so that can't be good, and Natalie says that both you and her don't like thinking about yours. But we've got each other, Matt. And that's probably the best we're gonna get with these," Isaac finished, raising his Howler up.
He waited, expecting something, anything, to be said in response to that. But Matt didn't say anything, he just sat on the hatch, arms moved to rest on his knees. Isaac slouched back, exhaling loudly as he brought his hands up to rub his forehead slowly. Silence overcame the two, the faint wind creating the only sound on the rooftop, there were plenty more, subtler noises, but they all blurred into one with the unfocused hearing.
"Families aren't something that sat well with me."
Isaac raised his head when Matt finally gave his response, his hands falling limp, bending down his knee, a glare of exasperation.
"Seriously? That's your excuse? It doesn't 'sit well' with you? What the fuck Matt?" Isaac exclaimed, one hand slapping against his knee in aggravation. "Quit acting like you're the only one that had shit relatives. That's another thing, actually! You don't show any emotions, just varying levels of douchebag-ness! Y-You're an emotional outcast compared to the rest of us! We've laughed, we've cried, we've joked! And you? You've just shown sarcasm!"
By this stage, Isaac had been pushed to his feet in anger, his helmet long since thrown aside in rage, as he came to a stop before Matt, breathing deeply, his hands clenching into fists. Yet despite the rage physically radiating from him, however, Matt just remained.. quiet and still. The only movement he seemed to make now was the slight tilt up to his gaze. All Isaac saw was his own angered reflection in the visor, yet he was sure that same relaxed, indifferent glare in his eyes.
"Maybe I'm not one to show emotions because of my family."
Almost immediately after Matt spoke, the angry flare up in Isaac was doused as quickly as it had been ignited. His angered expression relaxed into a look into sudden realization, taking a small step back to ensure he remained upright. He tried to speak, say anything, but found that the words seemed to escape him, an apology, a.. just something, but he couldn't get anything from his brain to his mouth.
"Maybe I don't share my emotions, because, perhaps due to my bastard of a father, wouldn't let me show any emotion beyond a neutral one; said he saw it as a weakness. Maybe that's why I don't show emotions, Isaac," Matt spoke again, his head turned slightly as he looked up to Isaac, a completely different look to him now. "Maybe…" He paused, finally bringing his hands up and all but tearing his helmet off and slammed it down beside him, surely creating cracks in the glass visor and through the internals of it. Now helmetless, Matt glared up at Isaac, "Maybe it's because you know fuck all about me, Isaac. Maybe that's the case, otherwise you'd know why I don't do well with emotions."
With those last few words from Matt, the rest of the realization caved in on Isaac, as he returned to the spot he had been sitting at before, a hand coming to partially cover his mouth as he shook his head slightly. Those last words seemed to have an effect on Isaac, as he lowly muttered, "I know barely anything about you.. barely anything about most of you… Fuck…
"Matt... I... I-I'm sorry. I… I didn't realize," he said quietly, bringing his hand down and turning to look at Matt straight. "Y…You're right. I really.. really don't know anything about your guys' personal stuff…"
"Yeah.. you don't," Matt grunted in agreement, leaning back and bringing a fist up to support his chin, giving a slight shake of his head. A silence encased the two, frosting over the roof and seemingly pulling all words from Isaac. Whereas Matt seemed content being silent for the time being, Isaac still felt there were things unsaid, despite his best attempts to hide it, Isaac was sure that he was seeing all those bottled up emotions, Matt claimed weren't there, flash behind his eyes now that his helmet was off. He went to speak again, but he was beat to it.
"Look, Isaac.. this big change," Matt made a slight gesture to the suit of armour he wore, "Is going to make it hard to adjust. I mean, yeah, it's been best part of six months, but…" An unintentional, scoff-like chuckle breaking through, "How exactly can someone adjust from a n.. well, relatively normal life, to something like this? Fighting Demons.. going toe-to-toe with Government asshats. Trained and having our asses kicked by some furry wannabe and his sci-fi pal. I mean.. it's difficult."
"Yeah…" Isaac agreed lowly, folded hands resting on his chin. "You've hit the nail on the head there."
It looked as though there were more words to come, but they both picked up something, judging by how they both perked up at the exact same moment, turning to the same direction. It took them a moment to identify exactly what they recognized, but when they focused, they knew.
"Looks like they followed us alright," Matt commented as he grabbed his helmet, rising to his feet as it went over his head. Isaac's followed and the two were locked into place, as their wearers moved to one side of the building to investigate the sound.
PING. PING. POW!
"Ah!"
Isaac jerked back, clutching his elbow as the pair stepped back from the edge. Bullets had pinged off the edge of the building, before one managed to catch Isaac shoulder. He felt the metal tear into his flesh and bone, and searing pain flashed across shoulder before it was mildly subdued by Instinct feeding into his body, but the pain was still very much present and forcing him to screw his hands into fists and his teeth grinding together.
"Shit!" Matt exclaimed, looking as though he was going to grab Isaac to pull him back, but caught himself before he did. The two lowered their stance, erratically looking around for the source of the shots. "We need to get out of here," He stated, grabbing Isaac's other shoulder and turned him around, getting a better look at the entrance wound tearing through the supposedly impenetrable armour.
"Think we both know that already," Isaac commented, his teeth grit together tightly, almost to the point of feeling them break. The two tried going off the next edge of the building, but another pair of bullets struck the buildings' edge, trying the one opposite that ended in the same, dangerous result. Not ones to hang around, Matt gestured for Isaac to follow as they ran off the one edge they hadn't tried. Surprisingly, it worked, leaping off the edge with any bullets trying to strike them, and landed on the ground with varying levels of finesse. Matt rolled with the impact, taking the momentum away from the fall, whereas Isaac, with his injury, tried to crouch into the fall and stumbled slightly, though they both managed to stick the landing and ran off down the street.
"Targets are on the move, heading East."
"Good, make sure they don't deviate," E instructed, pacing back and forth across the width of the alley. Back down the alley, several military-grade medics giving temporary treatment for the severely injured that hadn't yet made it to the nearest pop-up hospital bay. They were just lucky to be alive, though, behind even them, still in the depths of the alley, a large white deceased tent had been set up and around the deceased.
E deactivated the comms and turned to look around, finding a pair of the D-13 soldiers approaching, rifles at ease. Tapping the side of his helmet, the front panels of his helmet folded up, collecting up over his forehead to reveal his face. "Keep an eye on things here, I'm going after Foxtrot Squadron," E instructed, looking between the two as he continued with further instructions. "I want one of you to map out the area, they're probably not anywhere close to this area, but I know for a fact that one of them is injured. See what you can find."
"Yes sir," The soldiers replied, almost in sync, standing at attention briefly. E nodded and dismissed them, walking away as the two soldiers walked down the alley. As he walked out into the road, seeing the destruction left behind by the Rangers, several members working on righting the upturned 4x4 to move it, E couldn't help but notice several sets of eyes steal glances at him as he passed small clusters working on cleaning up the evidence. He paused momentarily, turning to face one such group that were currently trying to get into one of the cameras.
They saw him looking to them, armed with his superweapon of a suit of armour, and quickly looked away and returned to their work at a higher speed.
While he was sure that they were talking under their breath, E continued on, tapping the side of his helmet, the panels folded back over his face. Cutting himself from the outside world, until the radars and scans re-activated a second later and brought up the digital reading of the world around him. A small map popped up on his HUD, to guide him to the rendezvous point. That in mind, E took off down the road, vanishing into a blur of silver, though slow enough so that he didn't create more work for his men to clear up.
"Bit ironic, don't you think?"
One of the armed soldiers glanced at his accompanying other, pausing in the middle of the alley. He made a small gesture, while still holding onto the rifle, for the other soldier to continue explaining.
"Oh.. you haven't been here long enough to hear the rumours, have you?"
A slight shake of his head was his answer.
"He.. never mind," The soldier replied shortly, bringing his sight forward once again and continuing down the alley. The other soldier remained where he had stopped for a few moments, before re-adjusting the hold on his rifle and quickly followed after his superior.
"Something doesn't seem right."
"You've got some sort of metal wedged in your bone and possibly your nerves, Isaac. Nothing's going to see normal with that."
"Piss off, you know that's not what I meant," Isaac snapped, the pair barely able to hear each other as they ran; hearts audibly giving beats in their ears, low pants coming out between words. While they weren't running as fast as normal, tearing up chunks of road, they were still running at a far greater speed than most humans could ever hope to reach on foot.
"What did you mean then?" Matt asked, the pair going to turn on the apex of the latest corner, only to be forced to stop when they saw several soldiers down the other end of the street. When they came into sight, the soldiers opened fire; bullets flying past the two, and striking the ground just before them; they would have been struck if they hadn't skidded to a stop, creating grooves in the road. The pair quickly peddled backwards, turning and rushing off at high speed as the bullets continued to fly at them.
"Maybe the fact that whenever we take a turn, like, four out of five times, they're there and shooting at us. And that one time we don't encounter them, they just leave us be?" Isaac questioned, taking the road opposite the one they had tried going down, eventually taking another corner to avoid any further bullets. Thankfully, they were lucky with this turn, no soldiers.
"And we're knowingly going along with their plans? Can't see this ending well," Matt uttered, the two getting lucky again and finding another corner soldier-free, tearing down before Isaac quickly staggered to a stop, gesturing for Matt to follow him as he took off down the nearest alley. Matt quickly chased after, though nearly fell over in his attempts to stop once again, else he fall into Isaac. He had taken up a hunched over position against the alley wall, taking deep breaths as he squeezed his injured shoulder.
"Just... Just give me a sec," Isaac grunted, leaning the helmet against the wall, eyes firmly closed as he grew accustomed to the sensation he hadn't felt entirely in quite some time.
Matt stood in the middle of the alley, just before Isaac, hands on his sides as he recovered his breath. He gestured to Isaac, saying, "C'mon, let me have a look."
Isaac rolled the helmet around to look at the other Warrior, and rolled it back to look down at his injured shoulder. Giving a quick nod, he slowly, carefully, eased the pressure off his injury, gritting his teeth and letting out a low hiss as the pain started to creep up. Matt moved in, one hand pressing Isaac's other shoulder back as to keep him from moving as he examined the wound a bit closer.
A hole, about the size of a large coin, tore through the armour, but there seemed to be traces of a strange metal embedded deep within the flesh. He didn't want to risk even attempting to extract it, he and Isaac were already on edge with each other as it was. He pulled Isaac away from the wall a few inches, moving his hand behind to search for an exit wound, the armour was smooth, relatively speaking, though he paused when he felt something. An uneven feeling, lying just beneath the armour, which led Matt to have a mildly uneasy feeling on what that meant.
"Broken bone to some degree; MUTT's gonna have a fun time getting that together," Matt muttered as he pulled back, no sooner had he done so that Isaac had replaced his hand.
"He's gonna have to knock me out first," Isaac grimaced quietly, fingers digging into the armour.
"Where's the fun in that?" Matt questioned, expecting a chuckle to be his response. But he got nothing from Isaac, only silence.
Though it was swiftly broken when the pair heard close footsteps, but higher up, Matt glanced up just in time to see a pair of soldiers on one of the rooftops, aiming down at them. He grabbed Isaac and threw him to the other side of the alley just as bullets broke off chunks of the wall. "Sorry 'bout that," Matt muttered, not missing the several curses Isaac threw at him under his breath.
Bullets continued to strike the wall opposite them, large chunks beginning to fall off as the bullets hammered it off. "We need to get out of here," Matt stated, grabbing Isaac's other shoulder and dragged him out of the alley, and tried running along the street.
No sooner had they exited the alley, however, and turn the corner, they slide to a stop when the soldiers that had been down the road had now reached their position, aiming right at them. The pair of Warriors quickly backtracked, going to head up the other end of the road when they were stopped once again. More soldiers, trying to corner them in; the ones positioned on the roof moving in from behind, still on the roof, keeping the pair from going back into the alley. "Well, that gives us plenty of options," Matt uttered sarcastically, quickly gesturing for Isaac to follow once again as they rush down a small alley on the other side of the road, as bullets began firing again. The two dodged the bullets as best they could, tearing into the alley as bricks exploded upon being struck.
They stumbled to a stop on the other end of the alley, shifting into defensive positions when they found themselves surrounded by more D-13 soldiers, all armed with rifles, decked out in black clothes and body armour, balaclavas keeping everything but their eyes covered. "Freeze!"
"This is really going from bad to worse, isn't it?" Matt whispered, partially raising his hands while Isaac was only able to raise a single hand; the other staying firmly on his shoulder.
"I've got a feeling you've just screwed us over by saying that," Isaac muttered back, looking around wearily at the men surrounding them. They were just standing there though, no bullets being fired, like they had been doing constantly during the chase. Now, though, they just aimed at them, not aiming down the sights to ensure a hit, just holding the rifle vaguely in their direction.
"Why aren't they just shooting us?" Matt questioned lowly.
"Something tells me they're not the ones that're going to try and kill us," Isaac hypothesized.
"What do you mean?"
"They were trying to get us down a particular set of roads and alleys; whenever we tried going down one they didn't want us going down, they were there and shooting at us. Now they're just…keeping us here. Or at least trying to. Only question now is…" Isaac trailed off.
"Who's going to try and take us out?" Matt finished.
"Silver guy?"
"He'd be here by now if it was him," Matt debunked, quickly falling into silence as he focused in on radio static fading to indistinguishable chatter in one of the soldiers' ear pieces, hidden beneath the balaclava's.
That was when he saw it.
His eyes widened when he spotted the small sparkle atop one of the few remaining skyscrapers in this area of the city, many a Megazord fights had taken place here. But that sparkle was something Matt was sure wasn't good. If video games had taught him anything, anyway. He twisted his head ever so slightly, focusing his hearing specifically in that area, and he tensed when he heard the sound he had been dreading.
A rifle being chambered.
"Isaac, get down!" Matt shoved Isaac aside, throwing him to the ground, as he stepped into the place Isaac had been standing moments ago.
And that was when the crack of thunder echoed across the city.
Time seemed to grind to a halt as Isaac raised himself up, and his eyes widened as he saw what had happened. The bullet - the crumpled, mushroomed remains flying through the air, coated in blood - had sailed through the air, tearing right through Matt's chest. The armour on both his front and back had been sliced through, blood splattering from both. The alley wall, the ground, Isaac's visor - Matt's blood covered it all.
Only as Matt fell to his knees, his arms falling limp at his sides, did time seem to resume to normal speed. Isaac quickly crawled over and managed to put his arm across to support Matt's back as the bloodied Warrior fell backwards, the back of his helmet coming to rest against Isaac's un-injured shoulder. Isaac's short, panicked breath, was overshadowed by Matt's gargled, shallow breath. Though he knew he couldn't remove his helmet, Isaac could tell that he was choking on something, a chilly sensation suggesting his own blood.
"Matt! Stay with me!" Isaac said, giving slight shake's to Matt's shoulders as his good arm came around his side, trying to compress the front of the wound.
All the while, the soldiers ensured that there would be no sudden escape. Their balaclava's hiding any emotion that dare betray their true feelings of the scene that took place before them; two teens, one cradling the other in his arms, both shot in some degree.
"You guys can back off a bit, no chance of either of them going anywhere far." The sudden voice came over their comms, and a few spared a glance behind and up at one of the few remaining skyscrapers. More looks were exchanged, this time between the soldiers, before they eventually eased their stances and took a few steps back. "We don't need all five of them alive, and we'll catch the other three eventually."
As Isaac continued to talk, both under his breath and with more pressured calls, to Matt jerking, shuddering form, the two were being viewed from a great distance away. The faintest trace of a cross-hairs visible through the glass, as the eye looking through the scope pulled back.
Clint, dressed in all black clothes and light body armour, had perked himself in one of the open windows of the skyscraper. He pulled the bolt back, expelling the previous cartridge and loading the next. He re-adjusted the scope and aimed down it again. Satisfied that the situation hadn't changed, Clint inhaled and adjusted his grip on the sniper, finger partially squeezing the trigger, ready to take a second shot. The cross-hairs resting solely on the chest of the Blue Ranger.
Two birds with one stone, as it were.
But just as he was about to shoot again, a flash of colour caught his attention, just in the corner of his vision down the scope. He pulled back, blinking a few times. He quickly activated the comms, saying, "Units, call in. Is there something down there?"
All he got was silence for a few seconds, before sudden shouts and grunts came over the comms. He quickly looked down the scope again, and his eyes widened and pulled back briefly. "What the fuck…" He mouthed, quickly looking down the scope again. Making sure that what he actually saw, was what he actually saw.
Several of the men were already downed, with the remaining ones shooting at a blur of dark red that streaked across the area, each man that came into contact with the blur, guns went flying, broken in half, as the soldier was severely beaten and ended up crumpled on the ground. At first, Clint suspected it must have been the Red Ranger, and quickly shifted the scope back to where the two had been. That theory was quickly shut down, however, when he saw the two teens still slumped on the floor, one cradling the other in his arms. He tried focusing his scope on the blur of dark red, but found it was impossible to keep track of, only the trail of destruction that it left behind.
Only when the last man fell, when the last body was broken, did the blur come to a stop; and Clint got an eyeful of this new addition. And oh boy, did he get surprised with what he saw. "The fuck…" He mouthed, adjusting the scope again and looking through.
Though the blur's back was to him, several defining features were easy to pick out, for one, the large frame combined with wide shoulders, an indication of built in, genetic strength. But a more important feature was the fur, though partially hidden by the scratched crimson armour all over, thick black fur filled in the spaces that wasn't already covered. And the back of the head was connected by a thick, muscular, thick-furred neck, which led up to a set of pointed, canine-esque ears. A waist clack, looking something like leather, protecting the back of its leg, if they were anything like the rest of the body, Clint had a good idea what they looked like.
Clint watched as the new.. thing crouch beside the two Rangers, possibly exchanging a few words? Clint couldn't make out any visible mouth movement on the creature. He had to pull back and close to his eyes when a flash of light encased the three creatures, else he risk his sight getting permanently damaged in the one eye. By the time the light faded and Clint looked back, the three had vanished, all that remained was the unconscious bodies they had left behind.
"E?" Clint asked, changing frequencies on his chest radio. "We've got.. a new development, you could say…"
"Guys! We need help here!"
Isaac had, somehow, managed to get to his feet during the teleportation, supporting Matt's arm over his shoulders. He stumbled forward a few steps, the mystery figure hanging back from the time being. In the current state they were in, Isaac hadn't been thinking clearly when he had accepted this person's help, but right now, that wasn't the first thought right now.
MUTT and Natalie came running through a set of sliding doors, though the latter quickly slid to a stop, tensing when she saw the mystery, crimson-clad armour, and Isaac and Matt's bloodied and limp bodies. MUTT, however, quickly moved in and scooped Matt up from Isaac's side. Carrying him as though he weighed nothing, MUTT carried Matt across the room, and placed him on a rising examination table, hooking him up to several scans and readings as he examined the wound.
As the unsteady rhythm of Matt's heartbeat sounded through the machine, Natalie moved over to Isaac, who had slowly leaned against the nearest wall, his bloodied shoulder bleeding anew. "Isaac?" She asked lowly, somewhat unease as to the lack of a response from Isaac as she neared, and spoke. She raised, and slowly waved her hand in front of his visor. Though it was slow, Isaac did lift his head up at the movement directly in front of his eyes.
"Hey…" Isaac greeted lowly, resting the side of his head against the wall.
Natalie spared a look of concern for Isaac, glancing across at his wound again, before her eyes shifted to the crimson-clad figure standing at the back of the room. He had still yet to move, remaining in place, like a statue. His arms folded across his armoured chest, a strange protrusion from his mouth, resembling the shape of a blocky muzzle, concealed by a full-face mask. A diagonal crack worked its way across mask, working over the burning yellow eyes, and coming to a stop over the other side of the muzzle portion of the mask.
"Who are you?" Natalie asked, stepping out from in front of Isaac and fully facing this creature. Her body tensed momentarily when he moved, getting off from the wall and standing straight.
"I would have thought, with all you're training, you would have identified me by now," The figure stated, his voice seemingly heavily modified, but there was a defiant tone behind the layers that Natalie immediately picked up on.
"…Savage?"
Both Isaac and MUTT perked up at Natalie's faint voice, both turning to look. The mystery figure stood there for a few seconds longer, before raising his hands and grabbed either side of his mask. Two clasps were unlocked, and removed from his face. Revealing the wolfish face of Savage.
Natalie's mouth partially dropped, but Savage cut her off, "We'll discuss this later." At that moment, the other three's attention is quickly drawn to the blaring alarm started flashing.
"We're losing him," MUTT informed, causing the three to quickly move in, Isaac albeit being slightly sluggish and almost falling over entirely before reaching the edge of the examination bed.
MUTT's fingers were coated in a thin layer of blood, blood covering most of the surgical tools he had been using. There was just blood everywhere. Matt was still encased in his Blue Beta armour, though his helmet had been put aside and the wires fed against his neck, his chest torn open by the bullet, with MUTT trying to work in the tight confines provided by the hole. And as suggested by the high rises and falls of his punctured chest, combined with the laboured breaths that came with it, his condition was degrading as MUTT informed.
Isaac tried taking a step closer, but ended up collapsing to one knee; he grabbed the edge of the table, shrugging off Natalie's attempts to help. "C... C'mon, MUTT.. y.. you can save him…"
"Isaac, seriously, just rest. You're in no position to-"
"Shut up! I'm not.. not letting him go.. go through this alone…" Isaac half-mumbled, half-growled, the hand resting on the edge of the bed clenching into a fist. "H... He's not going through this alone.. not this…"
"What the fuck are you talking about, Isaac? Let MUTT do his job!" Natalie said, trying to drag Isaac back to his feet. But he refused, shrugging off Natalie's attempts to drag him away.
During this exchange of movement, and raised voices, Savage had moved around the room, bringing the cracked, crimson mask on one of the counters, as he moved to MUTT's side to examine the surgery. All the while, he grew more and more irritated with the squabbling on the other side of the table.
All of the noise suddenly turned dead silent when a low thud echoed out through the room, the three organics quickly looking for the source while MUTT continued to work on Matt's injury. His work started to became more frantic when Matt's vitals continued to degrade, his heart-rate starting to fade.
"No.. it's too late," Savage suddenly stated, placing a hand on MUTT's shoulder. He removed it a few seconds after, attempting to block out the sudden protests from the two humans, as he bent down and grabbed something, possibly the cause of the thud. When he got back up, Natalie and Isaac both fell silent and eyes widened. In Savage's large, clawed paw of a hand, was Matt's Blue Howler, the faint glow usually present in the eye of the wolf head was faded to a much duller shade.
"H.. How's that possible? You couldn't get those things off with a crowbar!" Natalie exclaimed, quickly snatching the Howler from Savage's paws before he could stop her.
As she walked back around the table, Isaac pushing himself up enough to get a look, Savage folded his arms behind his back as he spoke. "There was only one way that these Howlers could be removed from the wielder and, regrettably, that way.. is Death."
"What?" Isaac asked gruffly, taking the Howler from Natalie and looked it over himself, roughly bringing it down to the table, supporting himself with both arms on the table. "What.. kind of fucking design flaw is that?" He questioned through grit teeth, grabbing Matt's gloved hand and grasped it with both of his.
"It was to ensure that the Warrior wielding them would fight to their last breath, quite.. literally," Savage replied, finishing with a low exhale.
Regardless of Savage's previous orders, MUTT had returned to working on improving Matt's condition, but with laboured coughs, Matt's body started to unravel from his, as it turned out, not completely secure armour. Much like a dissolving effect, layers and sections of the Blue Beta armour began to peel off. Revealing the body beneath, showing the true damage done to Matt's body. His shirt had been reduced to shreds, centring on the entry wound in the middle of his chest, what little fabric remained in shape was soaked in blood. His skin had dropped a few shades from the blood loss, and he let out low, gasping breaths.
As the last bits of his armour faded, the hand clasped by both of Isaac's, Matt tried speaking, but only coughs and small droplets of blood escaped his mouth. "Na... Nah, Matt.. save your breath.. don't.. talk…" Isaac insisted, clenching his hands tighter around Matt's.
"I... I-Isaac…" Matt choked out, managing to twist his head to turn his head, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth and down his cheek. His eyes seemed unfocused, not looking at anything in particular.
"Hey.. s.. save your.. breath," Isaac pressed, bringing one hand off the back of Matt's, only to lightly clap it back into place. "MUTT's gonna.. gonna work on fixing you up, yeah? Y... You're a fighter, yeah?" Though it was almost untraceable, a slight break in Isaac's tone gave away his true feelings behind that helmet.
A weak chuckle came from Matt, interrupted by a series of hacking, bloodied coughs. Once they had died down enough, Matt managed to speak, "Don't.. don't bullshit, Isaac.. just.. promise me.. one thing…"
"C'mon.. don't talk like that.. you're not dying today," Isaac said, giving small shakes of his head, almost as though he was trying to convince himself as well as Matt.
"Promise... Promise me, f.. fucker…" Matt groaned, his head falling back into place, coughing as the final shreds of life started to fade.
"Fine.. w.. what do you want?" Isaac questioned, as Matt's hand dropped from his and made a grab from Isaac's armour. With the last few ounces of strength, the readings starting to fade, Matt managed to drag Isaac up enough to bring him partially over him. Through low gasps and coughs, Matt whispered against the side of Isaac's helmet, so low that even Natalie and Savage struggled to make out words.
The grip sudden fell limp, his hand falling back. The single-toned, continuous beep of the heart monitor echoing off of the walls.
Natalie raised her hand to cover her mouth, choking back a quiet sob, as Savage and MUTT stood in silence on the opposite side of the table, MUTT only moving to deactivate the readings, allowing total silence to fill the room.
Isaac slowly pulled out from Matt's unmoving face, his eyes partially rolled back and skin already beginning to drop another few shades. "W... What did he say?"
The Red-clad human turned slightly to look at Natalie, when she noticed how he was growing unsteady, even partially slumped on the table. "H... He wa.. wanted…" Isaac started, trailing off and actually failing to finish. His vision started to fade to black, and the last thing he could remember was Natalie shouting his name, with the ceiling of the roof coming into view and then…
Nothing. Blackness.
Epilogue
A door slid open silently, a figure stepping into the room. But no steps sounded as they entered the room; just a constant, low-tuned buzz as they made their way across the room.
"Sire?" A robotically-altered voice questioned as the buzz came to a stop. The only noticeable light produced within the room came from the number of small readings across the walls and several control modules in the middle of the room. Two large, wall-length windows split the walls of readings and decorative metal. Standing in front of one of these windows, another figure looked out, arms clasps behind his back, many details obscured by the black trench coat covering his body. Though faint, several red accents could be made out at the edges of the fabric.
"Sebastian... I have told you about interrupting me during battle... I need, focus, to ensure the enemy follows their predictable paths." A voice stated, calculated and cold.
Outside the window, in the dark void of space, the figure watched the ensuing battle taking place, at the far end of the space battlefield, a command ship remained in place, several smaller carriers releasing fighters. These fighters streaked across space, yellow blaster bolts shooting from their cannons. Their target, another set of ships, though instead of the sleek, grey steel design of the fighters, these fighters looked more.. organics fused with tech. Shades of brown feeding into old steel, the entire shape looking like an unholy fusion between nature and steel.
As a set of these different fighters streaked across the window, persuade by another set of the sleeker fighter, the other figure gave a response. "You asked me to keep you informed about any updates on the.. ongoing investigations, sire."
This brought one of the figure's hands from behind his back, rising up to stroke the underside of his chin, his mind split between processing all of the events going on before him, another sleek fighter blowing up, while the other half took in this new information and began going through all of the possibilities this could lead to.
"And?"
"It is the Energy trace from Sector Sigma-Twelve. It has been reactivated, and its location has changed. Quite a bit."
"Where is it's currently location?" The other figure questioned, eyes darting across the battlefield as another set of the sleek ships were destroyed, and the organic/tech fusion fighters took off to attack one of the cruisers. As explosions silently rang out across the carriers' top, the sleek fighters moving to intercept, the figure made note and a small smirk tugged at the corner of his lip.
As predicted, the Commander wasn't one to hang back on the command cruiser, overseeing the battle. Too focused on the single moment; not the whole picture.
"Sector Zeta-One."
"Earth?" The figure questioned, turning partially to look at the other. Revealing the faintest red glow where his eye should be.
"Yes, sire."
The figure turned back to fully face the battle, his hands slipping behind his back and clasping one another; fingers drumming against the forearm of the other. A low exhale came from his nose. "It's always Earth, isn't it? That blue planet.. it has seen far more battles than it is worthy of. Hmm.. the Federation is on the retreat, one fleet cruiser disabled. They will focus their efforts on evacuating the cruiser. Commander Treval is on that vessel, all escape pods must be destroyed before the cruiser itself."
"Sebastian, activate the Warp Drive. This energy source is greater than anything I have encountered before, so we cannot allow it to fall into the wrong hands," The figure finished, walking away from the window and towards the sliding doors. A faint limp to his step as he walked.
"Yes sire," Sebastian replied, quickly turning and falling the other figure out of the bridge, zipping through the door, the distant lights of explosions and blaster bolts lighting up the room as they shot past the windows.
So...yeah, this episode happened. What d'you guys think? R&R!
-Nf991