Monday morning, Sarah and Preston were walking into the school, Preston with his arm around her as she stared at her hoverboard.
"I just don't get it, I was sure that last adjustment would have got us at least as far as the school street." She told him. Preston just pulled her in closer.
"At least this time you didn't crash." He said as they came into the main lobby. When they got there, they saw Viera talking with Victor and Monty by the trophy cabinet. It was a little unusual to see her outside of the Command Centre without one of them, but just as they were about to intervene, they noticed something. She didn't seem to be in any kind of trouble or difficulty, in fact she was smiling and laughing with them as they talked to her. Victor seemed to be recanting one of his many tales of victory from over the years. He was pointing to the trophies, no doubt explaining some major feat he had accomplished to win them. In all fairness, he had actually earned them. Sarah had since found out that he was a lot more than just a blowhard obsessed with his own image, but that he was just a very driven person, who sought to live up to an idol. Of course, that didn't mean he didn't take more than a little too much pride in his accomplishments.
"And that one there is for swimming." He told her. "I beat the entire field by one and a half lengths!"
"Wow, that's really…really something." Viera said with a smile as she looked to Monty. "So, which ones in here are yours?"
"Oh…well…there really…"
"Oh, Monty's got LOADS of them! Just check this out!" Victor said as he pointed some out. "This one here was the mathlympics. He was the captain of our team, the word 'victory' doesn't even cover it. It was more like a massacre!"
Viera didn't really respond, she just kind of nodded politely as she listened to him. She wasn't really comfortable with the word 'massacre', she had seen what a real massacre looked like on more occasions than she would ever want to.
"The spelling bee, that one was a real crowning moment. He beat everyone else so convincingly, they just kept giving him words until they found one he couldn't get." Victor laughed. "They gave up when he got 'Antidisestablishmentarianism'."
"Is Victor acting as…Monty's wingman?" Preston whispered to Sarah, causing him to smile a little. It was becoming pretty obvious to anyone with a working brain cell that Monty had a five-star crush on Viera. Victor on the surface did seem to push Monty around a little, but Sarah had come to realise that he just wanted the best for the little guy, and tried to push him to help him out a little. She could see that Victor was indeed doing what he could to talk up his best friend to the prospective date.
"It looks that way." Sarah whispered back. "Hey, Viera how's it going?"
"Sarah, Preston!" She called out, gesturing them over. "Have you seen all of Monty's trophies?"
Sarah had to stifle a laugh there. She caught a glimpse of Victor, who would normally be upset that he wasn't getting the limelight, but here, he actually seemed to be smiling, and ever so slowly and quietly backing out. Yup, he was the wingman alright!
"Yeah, Monty's really done a lot!" Preston said, checking out a couple of the trophies. Most of Monty's achievements were as part of a team, like the mathlympics and the science bowl. He wasn't the kind of guy that really sought the spotlight, often getting uncomfortable on his own, but he did have a number of impressive accomplishments, and most of the people who had seen the events he had won would agree more often than not he carried his team. It was only really when Sarah showed up he had any real competition for his intellect.
"So, I'll see for…what was it you called it…Soo Cheee?"
"Sushi." Monty corrected her. "Yeah, I'll um…meet you right here. Just got to go set up an AV presentation now. See you around!"
As Victor and Monty left, Sarah saw that Viera was still watching them. She had to snap her fingers a few times to draw her attention.
"Hey, you seem to be making friends." Sarah complimented her.
"Yeah, I mean…it's Victor and Monty but…yeah, you seem to be fitting in well." He agreed.
"Oh, Preston! I'm glad it was you I ran into!" She told them. "I have something I REALLY need to show you! Something I just know you're going to love!"
"Really? What is…HEY!" Preston called out as she grabbed him in a surprisingly strong grip and started to drag him at speed down the hall towards the Shop Class. Just then, Victor and Monty were coming back with a large, flat-screen TV.
"Alright, she should be coming any minute now, we just need a little time to set this up." Victor said with a smile. "Thanks for doing this Monty."
"Hey, what can I say? What's the point in the President having the key to the AV closet if he doesn't use it once in a while?" He asked.
Over at the Police Department, Trevor was sitting at his desk, writing out a report. He hadn't really had much of a chance to cross the t's and dot the I's with regard to the incident on Manalua. He had spent almost all his time since then at the hospital. He had been given a certain amount of leeway, but the one thing it meant he sacrificed was that he hadn't sat in on the interview with Jerry himself. There was nothing he'd have loved more than to be in a room with him and get him to crack, to confess to a series of crimes that along with his original felony conviction would have sent him down for a LONG time. California still had the Three Strikes law, meaning that anyone convicted of three or more felonies would receive a mandatory 25-to-life sentence. While Spike was trying to convince Jerry he didn't face that, after shooting a fellow officer, Trevor was a lot less forgiving and was hoping that among his many crimes he could find at least one other felony to bring him up on so that he could utilise the shooting as strike three and send him down for good.
He looked up as the door opened and one of his fellow cops, Murphy came in. Murphy was a legend in the department. A career street-cop with more years under his belt than most of the others in the department combined. He was the head of the union, the locker-room authority when it came to disputes between officers that they didn't really want to take to official levels, and he was also the current President of the Calibre Club. The Calibre Club had a kind of unofficial hierarchy based not only on age and experience, but also the number of times someone had been shot in action and also the weapon they had been shot with. Surviving a 9mm shot was very different from taking a .44, and so there were people graded on how unlikely their survival was. Murphy was one of only three 12-gauge members, meaning he had survived a hit from a 12-gauge shotgun! Given the way a shotgun worked, especially at close range, most tended to be pretty much instantly lethal.
"How's the kid Marx?" He asked.
"He's doing as well as can be expected for someone that just had four inches of his intestines removed." Trevor sighed. "But he's in good spirits. That kid's as tough as they come. I wouldn't be surprised if we're seeing him back on duty as soon as the ink's dry on his HR release."
"I was a little sceptical about the kid before, but hearing about what happened, he sounds like one of the good ones." Murphy stated. Trevor just smiled.
"Hey, I was sceptical too, but after that, yeah, that kid can have my back any time." Trevor answered. "I wouldn't mind if he was my partner the rest of my career."
"So, did you get it?" Murphy asked. Trevor reached into his pocket and pulled out a bullet in a little plastic bag, tossing it to him.
"Ballistics got all they need from it." He stated. "So, we just need to get it to the jewellers."
"You know, seeing the way that kid dresses when he's not here, I'm not sure the chain is really going to suit him." Murphy joked. "Think he'd prefer an earring?"
"The kid's nothing if not a traditionalist, I think we should go with the chain." Trevor answered. "I just need to finish this up…"
Just then, the door opened again and a woman in a suit came in. She looked old, older than both of them, but carried herself with the kind of authority that completely dominated the room. She took the papers off the table.
"Is this the Manalua report?" She asked.
"Yes, it…" Trevor said as she set light to it with a lighter and tossed it in the trash. "HEY! What the hell?"
"This is your statement." She told him, putting down another report. "I'm sure you'll find it matches your handwriting and sentence structure. We just need your signature."
"Why don't you just forge that too?" Trevor snorted.
"Because we don't just need your statement, we need YOU to realise what your statement is." She answered.
"Who the hell are you anyway?" Murphy asked her.
"My name's Grace Sterling, and who I am and who I'm with are beyond your pay grade." She stated abruptly, shoving the statement to Trevor. "Now, sign it."
Trevor picked it up and read the statement. He scowled at it as he read it.
"This…this is bullshit!" He snapped. "There's not ONE MENTION of the Red Ranger!"
"There's a good explanation for that." Grace told him.
"Which is?" Murphy asked in response. She just stared at him, before pointing to the statement.
"We've already got a plea from Goodwill. We'll charge him with carrying a weapon as a convicted felon, but…"
"But the rest of it he gets away with." Trevor said, throwing his hands up. "What about the kidnapping? The assault? The…"
"The Thompsons aren't pressing charges. Mr Thompson said from the word go he felt partly responsible for what happened and didn't want Jerry to be punished too harshly." Grace interrupted him. "As for the shooting, well, he was handing over the gun. Sometimes they just…go off."
"I'm not signing my name to this shit!" Trevor replied. "That kid got shot because the Red Ranger…"
"I'm really disappointed to hear you say that." Grace told him. "After all, it's like you already said. It's not like we need you to actually sign it. It just needs to LOOK like you did. What happens to your career though, that's up to you."
"You do know you just said all of that in front of the union rep, right?" Murphy reminded her. Grace just smiled at him.
"A union rep who's scheduled to retire in a year." She reminded him. "That pension of yours is a lot to give up."
She looked to Trevor once more.
"You're one of the most respected officers in this precinct. You could be him some day, or you could be driven out of here with nothing." She told him. "Make a smart choice for your family."
Trevor picked up his pen and signed the statement, before throwing it at Sterling.
"Smart choice." She told him, before heading out the room. "Good day gentlemen."
With that, she closed the door behind them. Trevor looked to Murphy.
"Call the club together." He told him. "Tonight."
"Don't you have a thing with your kid?" Murphy asked.
"Hayley's got a lot on her plate right now anyway, I'll make it up to her later." Trevor told him. "Assemble the club, tonight!"
Back at the High School, Calvin pulled up into the parking lot in Nitro. Hayley got out, heading to the back where Kody was lying.
"Go to the base boy." She told him. "I'll come play with you later."
Kody ran off dutifully as Calvin came to her side.
"You know, no matter how many times I see you talk to Kody, I still always find it impressive." Calvin told her.
"Yeah, I love it too." She replied. "Not to mention you get a lot of great gossip from pets."
"That's a little creepy to think about." Calvin replied as they headed into the school. As they arrived, they found some people gathered around a large-screen TV. They could see Brody in the crowd and went to join him.
"What's all this about?" Calvin asked.
"Who knows?" Brody said with a shrug. "But Victor's looking for attention so you know, everyone just has to give it to him."
Victor was just checking over the setup one last time when he saw Hayley and smiled. He reached into his bag, pulling out a tennis racket. Hayley saw this and groaned.
"Oh no." She grumbled. Victor just nodded as he hopped up onto a table so that everyone could see him better and struck a pose with this racket across his shoulders.
"Attention please." He called out, beckoning everyone to gather around and pay attention, completely ignoring the fact they already were. He was only days away from finally achieving a goal he had long since wished to hold, attaining fifty trophies! The school had a long-standing record of forty-nine, one that he had equalled now, but he was always JUST out of reach of the fiftieth. The only reason he didn't have it now was because the school tennis trophy was an annual trophy and had expired, but they hadn't gotten around to holding the next one. "It has been one year since the school tennis contest, and in case you forgot, I was amazing!"
He then nodded to Monty, who started to play the footage. While it was very heavily edited and stylised to make Victor look as good as possible, it wasn't like they had to do too much. Victor really was a gifted athlete, and had played a game that was on a level that bordered on that of professional athletes. It ended with him being presented the trophy by a somewhat less than enthusiastic looking Principal Hastings. The kids all started to applaud, including Brody, but he noticed that Calvin and Hayley weren't joining in. He just looked to them both curiously.
"What?" He asked. "I know he's a big-headed jerk, but he did play a good game."
"Just wait for it." Hayley said, noticeably tense.
"My opponent on the other hand…wasn't." Victor said, introducing the second half of the clip. There were a lot of laughs from the crowd as they watched Hayley running around the court, making error after error. If Victor's performance looked just short of professional, Hayley's looked somewhat akin to someone with both feet tied together who had never held a tennis racket in her life! She was caught flat-footed on every exchange, and on a couple of occasions there were instant replays as she tripped over the net or face-planted into the court. Calvin held Haley as she tensed up so much it looked like her skeleton was about to pop out of her skin.
"I…had a bad day!" Hayley offered as everyone laughed at her. She had indeed had one of the worst games of her life. It wasn't that she wasn't an accomplished player, it was more down to the fact that on that day Victor outclassed her by such a huge margin that he made her look and feel completely helpless.
"Ah yes, game set and match to me without dropping a single point." Victor stated. "They say it was the worst defeat in school history!"
Calvin held onto Hayley, who looked decidedly less than happy about this whole show put on for her benefit. Victor could easily have just made an announcement of the contest without turning it into an exercise in humiliation.
"So, who wants to be my victim this year?" He asked. There weren't exactly many people rushing to take him on. In fact, no one was. Seeing how badly Hayley had been humiliated, no one wanted to star in their own video. Victor just smirked. His plan had worked. "Fine then, I humbly accept this year's trophy by default, right now!"
"When has he done ANYTHING humbly?" Calvin snorted as Principal Hastings came across with the trophy, her face looking like she'd just come from a skunk enclosure. Victor's eyes were wide as he reached out for it, and everyone could practically see him salivating at the thought of taking not only the trophy, but the record for having the most trophies in the school's history. Hayley threw off Calvin's arm and stepped forward.
"WAIT!" She called out, causing them both to look around. She strode right up to Victor, getting in his face. "I'll play you again!"
"You really want THAT to happen again?" He taunted her. Hayley could hear people laughing. It was that humiliation that had led to her taking her tennis training so much more seriously.
"THIS time I'm prepared!" She told him. "Trust me, THAT won't happen again!"
"This year's tennis match will be held at lunch time, today." Principal Hastings informed everyone, a slight twinge of happiness in not having to hand over the trophy in her voice. "I'll see you both on the court!"
"I'll see YOU on the court!" Victor told Hayley as he went to help Monty start unhooking the monitor. "Come on Monty, I'll help you pack all this away."
As they started to put the stuff away, Brody and Calvin came to Hayley's side.
"Hayley, are you sure you really want to do this?" Brody asked her. "I mean, Victor is pretty good, and it's not like you gain anything if you win."
"Don't worry about it, Hayley's been working hard for this all year." Calvin assured him, putting an arm around her. "She's got it covered!"
"Yeah, I have." She replied. "And while he might have made that video to get in my head, he's going to learn how far off the mark he is when I put my first serve straight down his throat!"
As she stormed off to go and prepare herself, Calvin sucked his teeth.
"Yeah, I have a feeling this isn't going to end well." He commented.
"You think?" Brody answered sarcastically.