2 am
It had been twenty-four hours since she had been captured. Nobody knew she was missing so it was up to the injured pink ranger to save herself and the others.
Syd waited for what seemed like hours for the fogginess in her brain to subside. In reality, it had been just a few minutes, but the intense pain threatened to send her back into unconsciousness. With great determination, she forced herself to stay awake and waited for her vision to clear, and Syd set her mind to escaping.
She ignored the searing pain in her left arm to grab hold of the chains holding her. "Fist of Iron," she whispered softly, waiting for the tell tale sensation to travel down her arm to her hand where it would transform into the element she was holding. Using the strength of her fist she pulled the chains out of the wall, freeing her from prison, but not releasing her from the chains quite yet. She lashed out at the unsuspecting Krybots, knocking them over ruthlessly, and not stopping until they had been destroyed.
She almost passed out from the effort but knew she must press on so she wouldn't be caught. She dug down deep into her resource of strength to pull the chains apart to free herself. Syd reached down to her waist and was horrified to find her morpher missing. Events of the night before were still unclear in her mind, but the fact that she had no way of communicating with SPD or transporting herself back filled her with a sense of urgency as she strode purposefully and painfully into the forest.
She was desperate to get enough distance between her and her prison in case Broodwing came looking for her. Syd was counting on the fact that he was too busy keeping tabs on Taylor to be concerned with her. For all he knew, she was already dead.
Syd's instincts were correct. Broodwing nervously paced Grumm's fortress as he waited for the hours to count down until the destruction of SPD. He and Grumm had been planning this event for years, but had never been so close. Every monster they had created had ultimately failed them. But this time, they used Taylor's emotional connection to Sydney to destroy SPD.
He remembered the day Grumm had brought Taylor back to the fortress. He had stolen her body from where she had been laid to rest, only hours after the funeral.
"Who is she?" Broodwing hissed to Grumm furiously.
"She will be our pawn of revenge against SPD." Grumm returned triumphantly as he laid the unmoving girl onto his regeneration machine. She would be the first to try out his new invention.
"She looks harmless." Broodwing complained in disbelief, staring down at the innocent face that Grumm had determined to be the new face of evil. "How is she going to defeat SPD when all others have failed?" He questioned skeptically.
"You may not recognize her now, but one day her twin sister will be the pink ranger of SPD." Confessed the arrogant Grumm.
"How do you know that?" Broodwing demanded curiously, but received no answer, only an arrogant glare that gave him pause from his demands. "How do you plan on turning her against her sister?" questioned the sidekick.
" Time will tell." Admitted Lord Grumm, "but we will retrain her step by step to do my will. She will forget all of her past life and only live to serve me and my kingdom." He acknowledged with a knowing smile as he began the process of reversing death.
Taylor woke up early and set forth to do her first task of the day: capturing Commander Cruger. It would not be easy, but she was not one to be easily deterred from her goal. Once he was out of the way, the others would fall into place, paving the way for Taylor to destroy them and SPD. Out of respect for his abilities and strength, she conjured up her newfound magic and overpowered him quickly and quietly. She dragged the big blue dog through the still dark halls of SPD to the containment center where criminals were usually kept.
"Has anyone seen Commander Cruger?" Z wondered curiously as she sat down for the nine o'clock meeting. However the commander had yet to show up. And no one had seen him all morning, an extremely unusual occurrence.
"He should be here shortly." Kat informed her as she worked on her newest project. She too had no idea where their leader was. She hoped he was on his way.
"What about Syd?" Sky asked suddenly, noticing the pink ranger was strangely absent.
"Maybe she's with Cruger." Bridge commented with a laugh, not concerned at all that Syd wasn't there.
"She said she wasn't feeling well." Kat reported, without looking up from her work. "Jack, why don't you get started?" The scientist implored the leader of the B-Squad.
"Alright." Jack agreed, slightly unnerved by the absence of their commander. He cleared his throat to stall as he gathered his thoughts. "Today's agenda: Training Simulator at 11am, Obstacle course at 2 pm, and Manual review at 5pm." He read off the Commander's to do list.
"That should keep them plenty busy." Taylor decided with a smirk as she overheard their conversations. "They'll be too busy to look for Cruger." She whispered to herself, not surprised at the agenda, seeing as she had been the one who wrote it. "Besides, it won't be much longer till they find him; but by then it will be too late." Phase 1 of her plan was in motion and she had a lot left to do before midnight, so she left the rangers to their grumbling.
Three identical groans were made by the other rangers. "Great." Muttered Bridge, not looking forward to the day ahead. Though by the time the day was over, he would gladly trade it back for this strenuous agenda. Even the workaholic Sky was dreading the day's events.
"Don't blame me." Jack argued, putting his hands up to fend off his angry teammates, even as he understood their anger. He was not pleased with their assignments. He wondered what they had done to piss off the commander. On a bad day they might have had two of the three tasks, but never before all three had been required.
"If you think it's unfair, talk to the Commander." Kat advised them, trying to deflect their anger away from Jack.
"Maybe if we could find him." Z retorted in disgust, wishing she could pretend she was ill.
"Seriously, how hard could it be to find a big, blue dog?" Sky asked curiously. "It's not like Cruger to lie low like this." He remarked quietly, disturbed by his behavior. While Sky lamented over his problems with Sydney and their missing commander, he didn't notice the other rangers, including Kat and Boom had left him to his pressing thoughts.
Before she got too far away, Taylor saw the opportunity to grab the blue ranger. He was distracted and an easy prey. Noiselessly she crept up on the unsuspecting Sky and rendered him unconscious with a well-placed pressure on the nerve in his neck. Unaware of any danger, he immediately slumped over in the chair. Taylor quickly cloaked herself in a maintenance guise and covered the unmoving Sky with a sheet and wheeled him to the containment cell.
She was pleased to note that Commander Cruger had yet to awaken from her powerful spell she had cast and ruthlessly dumped Sky into the cell to join him. 'Two down.' She boasted cheerfully as she snuck away unnoticed as she pocketed Sky's communicator.
"Where is Sky?" Jack Landors questioned irritated. Granted no one of them actually wanted to complete the day's tasks, but it wasn't a choice nor was it like Sky to just not show up.
"What's going on?" Bridge asked warily. "Is it just me, or is something weird going on?"
"You're being paranoid Bridge." Z rebuked the green ranger. "There must be a logical reason for all of this." Z refused to panic, despite reasons to the contrary.
"Well, if we're two rangers down and Commander is missing, I say we have more important tasks at hand then the agenda." Jack decided firmly as leader. "Let's go find Kat." He declared as he set off for the lab, with the green and yellow rangers close behind.
"Kat, we need to talk…" Jack began as he pushed open the double doors of the laboratory. Despite all the lights being on, and her computer still running; Kat was nowhere to be found.
"Boom?" Z called out worry etching her voice. No answer as her voice echoed off the bare walls.
"It's like they just disappeared." Bridge observed as he noticed Kat's experiment still on the table.
"Yeah," Jack agreed disturbed at the scene before him. "It's not like Kat to be so careless with her work." He added as he too took in the disheveled scene around them. "Let's split up and find out what's going on. They've got to be around here somewhere." He commanded in frustration.
"Stupid rangers, splitting up you're no match for me." Taylor grinned with an evil glint in her eye. She was well on her way to destroying SPD. Soon there would be no one to stand in her way. Patiently she waited for the chance to snare another clueless ranger.
Actually, only one person could stop her and she was almost hopelessly lost in the woods, frantically trying to find her way back to SPD. She had spent the better part of the night, climbing over rocks and trees despite the protests of her weary and injured body. As the sun had come up she knew she was almost out, but she still had to come up with a plan to get into SPD and stop Taylor. Syd was exhausted but there was no time to rest as New Tech City came into view. Relieved just to have made it back, she set out to find the one person who might be able to help her.
"Piggy! Open up." Sydney demanded in a whisper. She was taking a big risk being out in public, but she was determined to succeed.
"Yeah… Hold on… I'm coming." Came an irritated groan deep from his trailer. The door slid open angrily at being disturbed. "Princess." He stated in surprise. "You don't look so good…" He observed honestly, taking in her unusually disheveled appearance.
"I need your help. Do you have any maps of SPD?" She cajoled, turning on her charm to try to get her way.
"Why? What for? Is this going to get me in trouble? It's not illegal to have maps you know." Piggy responded defensively.
"Chill Piggy." Said Syd as she raised her hands to calm down the angry pig. "Do you or don't you have any maps?" She asked again impatiently.
"Alright, I've got elevator maps, road maps, evacuation maps, building maps, ventilation maps…" He listed off the types as he searched his shelves of disarray.
"That's it. The ventilation maps." Sydney interrupted suddenly as a plan came to mind. Piggy offered the needed map and Syd headed to the library to create her strategy.
"Jack to Sky. Over." The red ranger tried countless times to get in touch with Sky but to no avail. He was getting frustrated with their attempts to find Cruger, Kat, and Sky. Taylor smiled to herself as she heard his voice over the confiscated communicator in her pocket. Using Sky's device, she noticed that the red ranger was close by. A surprise attack and he would be no match for her.
Jack headed back to the common room to rendezvous with Bridge and Z. He had spent the last hour searching for his missing comrades and was ready to declare a state of emergency within SPD. Unfortunately Taylor had other plans and as he turned the corner, an on target punch to the kidney had him keeling over. He was in too much pain to notice his attacker; the only thing he noticed was the sharp prick in his neck that caused a wave of dizziness to overwhelm him.
Laughing to herself, Taylor continued her charade as Syd and deposited Jack into the cell with his missing teammates. For safe measure, she added an extra layer of sleep potion to keep them out of play.
"What time did Jack say to meet back?" Bridge asked Z for the 10th time in the last three minutes.
"Relax Bridge, maybe he found something out and that's why he's late." Z responded coolly as she reclined on the couch in the common room.
"Why didn't he contact us then?" Bridge continued to barrage her with questions. "What if he went missing too?" He said the unspeakable aloud.
His statement made the yellow ranger sit up in dismay. "We need to be on our guard." Z warned him as she made an effort to contact Jack. "Z to Jack. Over." She said over the communicator. She waited 10 seconds with no response and tried again. Still no response. "This is weird." She conceded, finally admitting that something was amiss.
"Oh my God, Syd." Z realized with a start that in all the commotion of the morning, no one had checked on the pink ranger. She raced out the door, hoping to find their teammate still in her room, resting from her illness.