Sector 13, Bishop Residence
Metro City, Canada
May 23rd, 2015
11:04 AM
"Rachel Parker"
Riley and I were upstairs in his room. Amanda was gone all day for some big photo shoot. I broke apart from our hot make out session.
"Riley, I think it's time." I said.
He coughed and sputtered.
"Time for what!?" he gasped, "Not 'that', right?"
"No, no..." I said, "I mean, I think it's time for us to go out... You know, like on a date."
"Why would we do that?"
"Because we're a couple now," I said, "And that's what couples do."
"Yeah, couples who met at a coffee shop and don't really know each other yet," said Riley, "But, Rach, we've known each other since we were in diapers."
"I know," I said, "But it's the natural next step in a relationship. Ours may have started a little differently, but still, it's the principal of the thing."
"Alright," said Riley, "So, then when should we go?"
"How about tonight?"
"Works for me." said Riley.
Later that day, I had gone over to Chloe's house. I was on her bed, lying down on my stomach with my face in a pillow. Meanwhile, she was bustling about her room.
"Oh my god!" said Chloe, "This is so exciting!"
"So you keep saying." I said.
"We get to go shopping!"
"For what?"
"Clothes, duh!"
"I have clothes," I said, "What's wrong with those?"
"Nothing," said Chloe, "But it's customary for girls to buy new clothes before a first date."
"But it's only with Riley." I said.
"I know," she said, "But it's the principal of the thing. You want to make a good impression."
"Impression?" I asked, "We grew up together!"
"Then we'll show him a side of you that he hasn't seen yet." said Chloe.
"You're going to take me to the mall whether I want to or not, right?" I asked.
"Pretty much."
"Alright, then let's go."
We were apprehensive about taking the Overpass, but we didn't really have any other choices. It's the fastest and most efficient way to get around from sector to sector. If we hadn't taken the Overpass, it would've taken us twice as long to get to the Mega Mall.
When we arrived, we could see that the upper floors of the Mega Mall were still undergoing repairs from our battle with the Renegade, but the main floor was still open.
"Okay Rachel, you're new to the whole dating world, so I'm going to give you my crash course," said Chloe, "It might seem overwhelming at first, but with practice it'll quickly become like second nature to you."
"If you say so." I said.
"It comes down to the three Cs," she continued, "Cuticles, clothes and coif."
I took a look at my nails. They were pretty banged up.
"My nails are a lost cause." I said.
"No such thing," said Chloe, examining my nails, "Trust me, I've seen much worse. This is nothing that a good mani-pedi can't fix!"
She dragged me to a nearby salon where they quickly went to work on my fingernails and toenails. I hadn't realized how grisly my feet had become lately. I'm not a huge girly-girl like Chloe, obviously, but even I could admit that I had let myself go somewhat in all the chaos the Renegade had been causing.
The ladies at the salon made quick work of some truly gigantic blisters and callouses, filing them down until they were just a distant memory. Next, they clipped my toenails and got rid of a few hangnails that had been bothering me. Finally, they applied a nice coat of clear polish.
Chloe was also getting her nails done. She didn't really need it done as bad as I did, but, as she's told me several times, she'll never say no to a mani-pedi.
Once we were done, we left the salon and sat down on a nearby bench.
"Okay," said Chloe, "That's one down and two to go."
"Clothes and hair, right?" I asked.
"You're smiling," said Chloe, "Wait a minute... You're actually enjoying yourself, aren't you?"
"Yeah," I said, "It's been so long since I've been on a first date. I'd forgotten how much fun all this stuff can be."
"So then," said Chloe, "What do you want to do next?"
"Stephen "Silver" Silverstone"
Jenna just told me that she had decided to stay here in Metro City. I made sure to react accordingly, but somehow, I always kind of knew she would. It was a sort of gut feeling. I don't get them very often, but when I do, they often tend to be right.
We were in the middle of fine-tuning the surveillance software. Sawyer's vitals are a bit different than the other rangers while in ranger form because his codec generates more power. I needed to include that in the software so that it would take that into account when displaying information.
"You're sure about this, Jenna?" I asked.
"I am," she said, "Everything that's happened since I came here... It's more fun than I've had in years. Plus, you can't deny that you and I make a good team, Stephen."
"Why does she keep calling you that?" asked Sawyer.
"Because it bothers him." said Jenna, grinning.
"Not so much anymore, Jenavieve." I said.
"Touché," she said, "Fine, I'll stop."
"What about the Mainframe?" I asked.
"Well, my second in command is now the President in my place," she said, "So, I guess I'll have to fax her the blueprints like we did for Lloyd and Brennan."
"Since you've already been more or less living here since you first arrived," I said, "Why don't you just officially move in?"
"Well, if you insist," she said, "Sawyer, you don't mind having a third roommate, do you?"
After he officially joined the team, I offered Sawyer a room in my mansion. I don't expect him to pay rent, because by being a ranger, he already earns his keep. Besides, I don't need the money in the first place. It actually felt nice having other people around.
After we had banished Aaron to Cyberspace and he re-emerged as Trojan, I dedicated all my time working on a way to stop him. I gradually became more and more reclusive over time until I had forgotten what it was like.
"In a mansion this size it won't make any difference," said Sawyer, "Besides you were already here when I moved in. Can I still say that I "moved" in if I didn't bring anything with me in the first place?"
"It's a rather moot point," I said, "Now, Sawyer, if you don't mind, insert your codec into this slot right here and we'll sync it to the Zord program."
"Zord?" asked Sawyer, curiously, "I get a Zord?"
"Of course," I said, "And with a larger codec, I would imagine that your Zord could potentially transform into a Megazord all on its own."
"Stare deep into your codec Sawyer," said Jenna, "Soon you'll see an animal that has some sort special connection to you projected in the center."
It didn't take long. Sawyer's eyes got wider when he saw what his codec showed him.
"It's a T-Rex! Like the one I used to play with when I was little," said Sawyer, "I took that toy with me everywhere. But one day, I lost it and I never found it again."
"Until now, anyway." said Jenna.
"Rachel Parker"
We had just finished at the hair salon. It turns out I had a lot of split ends, and my hair was starting to get wavy. This happened often when it got too long, so we trimmed it down just a little bit, so that it would stay straighter and be a bit easier to manage.
A lot of people think Chloe's hair is dyed blonde, but it's not. She didn't need to have any work done, so this time she just waited for me to finish. I saw her perusing the various magazines in the waiting room.
"Now all we need is to put together a few cute outfits," said Chloe, "Something different than what you usually wear."
"Nothing too revealing though, okay?" I asked.
I didn't bother telling her that Riley and I have already seen each other naked on several occasions. Mostly because we were too young for it to really count, but also because I was still kind of enjoying the pre-date shopping spree.
"No, definitely not," said Chloe, "That's not how you dress on a first date. Revealing is more for a third or fourth date."
"What about a first or second date?"
"First date should be nice, almost professional, as if you're going for a job interview," said Chloe, "And second date should also be nice, but a bit more casual."
"Is all of this official, or is it just your personal opinion?" I asked.
"A bit of both." she said.
Despite Chloe's protests, I put my foot down after the third clothing outlet and refused to go to a fourth, fifth, sixth or seventh.
"I'm not going out with a movie star, Chloe," I said, "I'm going out with Riley."
"Fine..." Chloe sighed, "I suppose we can make do with what you already bought."
"You make it sound like we were shopping at a thrift store." I said.
When we got back to Chloe's house, the two of us started working to create the perfect first date outfit from the clothes I had bought today, but it quickly became just Chloe working when she started ignoring my input and opinions.
I figured I would just let her get it out of system. Something told me that Riley really wouldn't care one way or another about what I was wearing.
After 'we' had finally settled on the clothes, it was 5:00, which meant I had an hour to shower, do my hair and makeup, and get dressed. I would be cutting it close, but thankfully, I wasn't going to be driving to the restaurant, I would be teleporting.
With some assistance from Chloe to compensate for my lack of more than two arms, I got everything finished within about 47 minutes.
"Okay," I said, "I'm ready. How do I look?"
"As well as could be expected considering you cut the shopping short." snorted Chloe.
"Will you let it go!?" I sighed, "If I hadn't, we'd have still been shopping and there wouldn't have been any time left to actually get ready!"
"That's your fault," said Chloe, "Everybody knows 7:00 is go to time for any dinner date."
"You know what?" I don't care anymore," I said, "I'm leaving. I'll just take the scenic route when I teleport to the restaurant!"
"Call me when you get home," called Chloe, "I want to hear all the juicy details!"
When 6:00 came around, Riley and I found each other at the restaurant and laughed when we realized that both of us had teleported there.
A waiter showed us to our table, at which point Riley pulled my chair out for me, earning him bonus points. Our table was outside on the patio, which was nice and secluded. The waiter gave us our menus and then left to give us time to decide.
"You know what we shouldn't do?" asked Riley.
"What?"
"Order spaghetti and meatballs and roll the meatballs around with our noses or slurp on the same noodle together like in Lady and the Tramp." he said.
He caught me off guard and the ridiculousness of it caused me to snort with laughter.
"Well, good," I said, "Because I was going to have the ravioli anyway."
"And I think I'll have the lasagna," he said, "Because it brings back good memories of my parents."
"Oh yeah..." I said, "I remember that they made the best lasagna I'd ever tasted."
"I think you just said that because you had never eaten lasagna before."
"Yeah, probably," I said, "But I'm still getting the ravioli."
We managed to find plenty of things to talk about throughout dinner. The food was delicious and no one else came to sit on the patio with us the entire time. It was really a great evening, that is, until...
"What have we here?" said an echoing electronic voice, "Two star crossed lovers out for a romantic dinner?"
"We're not star crossed lovers are we?" I asked, "What does that mean?"
"It means that someone is always trying to thwart us," said Riley, "Which, in a way, I suppose Trojan is sort of doing."
"Kind of has a nice ring to it." I said.
"It's from Romeo and Juliet."
"Enough talk!" said the voice, "Master Trojan sent me here to destroy you two and that's exactly what I'm going to do!"
All this time and the voice still hadn't actually shown itself. Until the neon sign above our table in the restaurant's outdoor patio suddenly started flickering rapidly. After a while, the flickering stopped and the light was glowing brighter than it should be able to until it exploded, sending small fragments of the light everywhere.
I looked at one of the piles of debris and saw that there was about three pieces in it. Those three pieces then started to transform until each one had taken on a somewhat human shape. Actually, they kind of looked like stick figures made with glowing neon lines.
"Bet you weren't expecting this!" said one of them.
"Three viruses at once!?" said another one.
It was impossible to tell which one was talking because none of them had mouths and they all had the same voice.
"But wait, that's not all!" said the first one.
"What's a dinner party without guests!?" said the second one.
"Replicators! Arise and attack!" said the third one.
A group of ten Replicators rose up from the ground and positioned themselves in a sort of circle around the stick figures as if to shield them.
"Oh no…" said a different voice.
It sounded like it was being projected from one of the stick figures as if they had speaker built in to them somewhere. Well, for all I know, maybe they did.
"This does not look good for our heroes…" continued the voice, "Could this be the end of them once and for all!?"
Now I recognized the voice. It was Trojan.
"Let me tell you," he said, "When I found out that you two were finally dating I found myself feeling quite moved. So much so that it inspired me to give you two a gift to celebrate your beautiful new union!"
"Ah, but where are my manners?" he continued, "This is your special day and yet here I am rambling on about how I feel. Well, anyway… Mazel tov!"
"What do you think?" asked Riley, "I'll take the ones on the right and you take the ones on the left?"
"Have you not noticed that we're vastly outnumbered?" I asked.
"You forget, I've got a new trick up my sleeve, remember?" he said, indicating the new lever on his Digitizer.
"Oh yeah…" I said, "Alright then, let's do it!"
All of the people that could have potentially seen us morph had already run away when the neon sign exploded. A brief survey of the area revealed that we were in the clear.
"Ready?" asked Riley.
"Ready!" I said.
"CYBER POWER, ACTIVATE!" we shouted together.
Now fully clad in our ranger gear, we both summoned our weapons and went charging for the Replicators. But Red stopped halfway there, while I kept on going. I turned my head to see that he had his arm held out in front of him.
"PHOENIX ARMOUR, ACTIVATE!" he shouted, pulling the lever on his Digitizer.
Unlike when we morph and time freezes for anyone that isn't a Power Ranger, I couldn't actually see what was happening to him. All I saw was a gigantic explosion of fire and suddenly he had that fancy flaming armour on and that huge burning sword raised high.
I would imagine it's because Riley is the only one that can use the Phoenix Armour. But since all of us can morph, we can all see what the process actually looks like, even though time is frozen for everyone else.
Red came zipping past me leaving nothing but a streak of fire behind. The streak did several laps around the three stick figures, and then he shot back towards me and stopped beside me. When I looked back, the Replicators were gone.
"You're next!" shouted Red, pointing his sword at them.
Moments later, he had fallen to one knee and was leaning on his sword, panting and gasping. After a few seconds, the Phoenix Armour disappeared.
"That can't be good." he said, getting to his feet.
"What happened there?" I asked.
"I have no idea." he said.
"Can you still fight?" I asked, "Because we've still got these three to deal with."
A purple streak of light came down right in front of us. It was Sawyer.
"I got here as soon as I could," he said, "The others should be on their way by now."
"Why didn't Silver contact us or send backup earlier?" I asked.
"There must've been something that was blocking the signal," said Sawyer, "But when you activate your Phoenix Armour, a massive shockwave comes flying out from you. We figure that shockwave destroyed whatever was blocking the signal and we could see you were in trouble."
"How did Silver know I used the Phoenix Armour?" asked Red.
"He monitors you guys 24/7, remember?" said Sawyer, "So when there was suddenly an enormous spike in your heart rate and adrenaline levels he knew you were either having a heart attack, or activating your Phoenix Armour."
"Huh." said Red.
"Also, he wanted me to tell you that the reason you couldn't stay in Phoenix Mode is because of the massive amounts of energy you take in. You were able to do it the first time, but that was less than a week ago," said Sawyer, "Your body needs time to recuperate from the strain that harnessing that amount of energy causes."
"At least I got rid of all the Replicators before I lost it."
"Don't get too confident yet," said Sawyer, "The power levels of those three is higher than anything we've seen before. Fighting one of them would be bad enough, but three of them…"
Streaks of yellow, orange and green light came down in front of us. The others had arrived.
"We can't leave you two alone for five minutes, can we?" said Marcus.
"Are we about to fight a trio of stick figures?" asked Oz.
"Yeah, looks that way." said Chloe.
"Don't take them for granted," said Sawyer, "Trojan wouldn't send a virus if it didn't have some sort of dangerous tricks up its sleeve… Assuming it has sleeves. Do stick figures have sleeves?"
"I vote we destroy them before we have to find out." I said.
"Sounds like a plan to me." said Marcus.
They all joined together into the usual four person formation.
"Ready?" asked Oz.
"Ready!" they said.
As Sawyer said it, I saw him pump the clutch on his Digitizer.
"CYBER POWER, ACTIVATE!" shouted Marcus, Oz and Chloe.
"RENEGADE, POWER UP!" shouted Sawyer.
All six of us were now in ranger mode and ready to fight together as a whole group for the first time.
"No! This is not how it was supposed to be!" said one of the stick figures.
"There was only supposed to be two of you!" said another one.
"Relax, you fools! The Replicators may be gone, but we are far from outnumbered!" said a different one.
It raised its hands dramatically and then pointed to the other pile of debris from the sign explosion that we had completely forgotten about. Just like last time, three more stick figures emerged. Now we were evenly matched.
"Download weapon!" said all six of us together.
"Everyone, we need to divide and conquer! We each take a virus!" said Red, "The further apart we can keep them from each other, the safer we'll be!"
The stick figures all gathered together. Each one had now changed colours so that they matched ours perfectly. I twirled my sais around and ran towards the blue one while the others took off after the stick figures of their respective colours.
Red and I brought our two away from the rest. We had taken them into a parking garage across the street from the restaurant. It was pitch black in the garage, but because the stick figures glowed brightly we could see them very well.
My stick figure transformed its hands into sais so that it could mimic my fighting style. But, I had been using sais for months, whereas it had hopefully just taken them up for the first time.
It was fighting like me, but it wasn't copying me. Just then, Red dashed over and took on my stick figure. He nudged me towards the red one which had turned one of its hands into a sword.
"I have an idea," he whispered, "If we don't fight our respective ones, they'll lose their advantage of matching our fighting styles. It doesn't look like they can change back once they've settled on one."
"Did you guys hear that?" I said into my helmet's microphone, "Pick a different coloured stick figure and we'll try to confuse them!"
"Roger that!" said Orange
"Affirmative!" said Green.
"10-4!" said Yellow.
"Okay." said Purple.
The plan seemed to work. We had already thwarted the plan to isolate and outnumber us, and now we had taken away the only remaining advantage the Neon Viruses had left. Trojan is going to wish he never gave us his blessing, sarcastic as it was.
"It's working!" I said, "This one is too slow to keep up with me now that he's stuck using your weapon against mine!"
"What can I say? I had a hunch." said Red.
The shape of my sais made it impossible for the stick figure to block my attacks, because even if it tried, with just one of my sais, I could lock onto its sword and move it away and still attack with my other hand. My advantage was giving me the upper hand in my battle against the red stick figure.
I took a quick look and saw that Red was still fighting with the blue stick figure. I also saw that Orange was fighting the purple stick figure, Green was fighting the yellow stick figure, Purple was fighting the green stick figure and Yellow was fighting the orange stick figure.
Suddenly, I saw an opening, the red stick figure had left itself wide open for an attack. It had raised it's arm high above it's head to build up power on it's next attack, which allowed me to stab it in the chest. Except, it was a stick figure, so it's chest was really just a line. Nevertheless, I knew I had struck gold when the red light dimmed right down and the sword retracted back into it's arm. It fell to the ground, and just lay motionless.
I took another look around and saw that Purple had just chopped the green stick figure in half at the waist. Red had cut the head off of the blue stick figure. Orange had crushed the skull of the purple stick figure. Yellow had beaten the orange stick figure to a bloody pulp, minus the actual blood. Finally, Green had impaled the yellow stick figure through the neck.
With all the stick figures defeated, we all regrouped and were ready to celebrate, until the six bodies all gathered together as well. A shower of binary was now raining down on them. Shortly thereafter, the six smaller stick figures combined together into one enormous stick figure. It's neon lights kept cycling through all six colours of the smaller ones.
"How do you like me now, rangers!?" it asked. After it spoke, it's voice echoing five times, for a total of six.
"Silver, we're gonna need the Zords." I said.
"They're ready and waiting," he said.
"Let me handle it," said Purple, "You'll get a kick out of this."
"Download T-Rex Zord!" he called.
Purple's Zord materialized just like ours do, but there was one major difference. His was massive, it was just one Zord, but just on it's own, it was almost as tall the Megazord! It gave a fearsome roar and then stared at the giant stick figure menacingly.
"I was right, it looks like your T-Rex can form a Megazord all by itself," said Silver, "Go ahead, give it a try!"
"Commence Rexzord transformation sequence!" said Purple.
We all watched curiously as the T-Rex Zord's posture changed as it's body shifted to look more human. Then it's head folded down onto it's chest, revealing a smaller head underneath where the original head had been. With the transformation finished, I noticed the Rexzord still had the T-Rex's powerful tail.
"Cyberspace Rexzord online!" shouted Purple, jumping all the way into the cockpit.
We weren't in there with Purple, so all we could do was watch. First the stick figure fired laser beams from where it's eyes would be. It never did that to us, maybe because we chose to fight with our weapons, rather than our blasters or fists?
The Rexzord dodged and then countered with a mighty swing of it's tail to trip the stick figure. While it was still on the ground, The Rexzord raised it's foot and stomped hard on the stick figure.
The stick figure quickly got to it's feet and then snapped it's fingers, even though it doesn't have any. Now there were six identical stick figures surrounding the Rexzord. We watched as the Rexzord held out it's hand and with a flourish, summoned it's weapon. It looked like a bigger, fancier, more elegant version of Purple's weapon. The Rexzord clutched it tightly in it's hand until it was glowing. Then it threw the scythe at one of the stick figures. It went right through it and didn't hit anything. I guess that one had been an illusion? All the stick figures threw their heads back and laughed, taunting Purple.
But the Rexzord didn't do anything, it just stood there, waiting. We waited too. We heard it before we saw it. The scythe was coming back to the Rexzord, but it wasn't travelling in a straight line, it was more of a curve. It hit the same stick figure again, but then continued going all the way around, hitting all six stick figures before finally returning to the Rexzord's outstretched hand.
Five of the six stick figures vanished, revealing the real one, which became rigid and fell over backwards before exploding, sending binary everywhere. It was over, we had won. Or at least, Purple and the Rexzord had won.
After the battle, the others went back to Headquarters to leave Riley and I alone so we could finish our date.
"Well," I said, "This was fun. I guess."
"Yeah," he said, "But it just doesn't feel like 'us', you know what I mean?"
"I was actually thinking the same thing," I said, "We grew up together, we already know each other so much better than most couples do when they first start dating."
"This just isn't our thing." said Riley.
"I agree," I said, "Who cares if it goes against what most couples do?"
"We spend plenty of time together already, and because we're Power Rangers, no matter what we do, we'll always have targets on our backs." he said.
"Lots of other couples do things that would probably seem weird to other couples," I said, "So maybe our 'weird thing' should be that we don't go on dates."
"Not in the traditional sense of the word, anyway." said Riley.
"Agreed?" I asked.
"Agreed." he said.
We shook hands, but that led to us hugging, which led to us kissing, which led to more kissing back at his place.
"So that's it?" asked Chloe.
"You said you wanted the juicy details, and I told you the juicy details." I said.
"That's not juicy!" she whined, "Juicy is describing how you felt when he kissed you, or how he kissed you."
"Um... I felt happy?" I said, confused.
"You just don't get it. Relationships are supposed to be romantic." sighed Chloe.
"There it is again!" I gasped, "That word, 'supposed', why do you keep using it?"
Now she was the one that looked confused.
"Just because something is SUPPOSED to be one way, doesn't mean it's the only way." I explained.
"No, I guess not. But, most relationships are based on that basic set of rules or guidelines." she said.
"Well, not ours," I said, "And I wouldn't have it any other way."