By the time Trevor sped into the school parking lot, the emergency alarm was already sounding and people were already fleeing the property. In many ways it was a good thing, the less people in harms' way the better. Heading around to the back of the car, he opened the trunk and started pulling out his gear.
Strapping on his flak vest, he grabbed a helmet, jamming it on his head and pulling down the visor, before unlocking the strong box, giving him access to his arsenal. Stowing his 9mm in the back, he replaced it in his holster with the Desert Eagle and grabbed the shotgun, before closing the trunk. He saw Mrs Finch directing students around the building and went over to her.
"Where are they?" He asked.
"They're around the back, near the science block!" She told him, beginning to coral students away from the building. "I think they were...hey, where are you going?"
She watched as Trevor ran off around the building, leaving her to the evacuation. She just sighed.
"No Evans, put the camera away and head AWAY from the building!" She warned one of the students. "No, I DON'T care about your Constitutional Rights when I'm responsible for your safety! Don't make me call your parents!"
Around the other side of the building, the Rangers were quickly finding that Abrakadanger had not exaggerated his magical abilities. They had seen monsters with magical powers and weapons before, but this guy seemed to be on a whole other level. As Brody and Calvin hit the ground, Levi prepared his Rockstorm Blaster.
"Rockstorm Blaster, Tornado Attack!" He called out. "You're full of hot air; let's see how you do with FAST air!"
"Oh please, you think a little wind scares me? Ezeerb Eltneg!" He called, generating a bubble of energy that intercepted the attack. By the time it reached him, the winds barely made his cloak flutter. "But if you want to see a real attack, maybe I can DELIVER! Sserpxe Yreviled!"
A ribbon fluttered out of the end of Abrakadanger's wand, wrapping him up and binding him tightly. Levi struggled to get free, but a moment later, he noticed something else appearing on him.
"What the hell is this?" He asked, before seeing some print appearing on it. "New York? What is that FOOOOOOOOOOOOOR!"
The other Rangers could only watch as Levi flew high into the air and disappeared into the distance, Abrakadanger just cackled insanely, taking pride in his work.
"It looks like your friend has a long journey ahead of him!" He teased them. "I really hope he has a train ticket!"
"That's ENOUGH!" Sarah screamed, drawing her Ninja Sword over her shoulder. "Bring him back or I'll..."
"You'll what? Hit me with that...fish?" He asked as a beam flew from his wand. "Nomlas!"
Sarah felt her sword go limp, and seem to become heavier. She brought it back around, looking in horror to see that it had turned into a six pound salmon! Seeing Abrakadanger laughing at her, dancing in delight at his handiwork, she took a couple of quick steps, before bringing the salmon hard across his face. He just stared up at her from the ground in shock. He glared up at her as she stood over him.
"You think that was FUNNY?" He screamed, firing a blast into her which sent her flying straight into Calvin and Brody, who were only just getting up. Preston was still recovering from one of his early attacks. He looked up in time to see Abrakadanger powering something up.
"You all think I'm just playing around!" Abrakadanger sneered. "I'll show you what happens when you toy with me! Syot Snerdlihc!"
Preston saw his attack powering up, and fumbled to get a hold of the Dragon Wand. He didn't spend much time on the other spells, but he did see that there was a protection spell, one that blocked incoming magical spells...but what WAS it? Was it called a wall spell? Shield spell? BARRIER! That was it! Wracking his brain, he threw his hand forward, not even sure of the wand motion and only hoping it would work.
"Reirrab!" He called out. A shape appeared in the air between his friends and Abrakadanger, though it didn't look particularly strong or impressive. More a kind of thin sheet no thicker than a pane of glass. Abrakadanger's spell smashed straight through it, striking the Rangers and bathing them in a bright glow. Preston could only watch as his friends disappeared, being replaced by a pink stuffed unicorn, a red teddy bear, and a yellow toy truck.
"This is pathetic! YOU'RE the mighty wizard I was warned about?" Abrakadanger laughed loudly as he pointed at Preston, all but doubling over. "You can't even do a barrier spell!"
"What did you do to my friends?" Preston screamed at him.
"I thought it would be obvious. I turned them into toys!" He taunted him. "That said, I was tempted to turn the pink one into a fish after that fish slap she gave me...but I hear that's been done."
"I'm warning you..."
"Warning me? You can't even hope to challenge me! You aren't fit to even hold that wand, never mind use it!" Abrakadanger told him. "Don't embarrass yourself any further!"
"I might not be a master wizard yet, but I can figure out how to turn them back." Preston said, putting his wand away and pulling out his sword. "So I guess I have to take care of you with old-fashioned brute force!"
He charged straight for Abrakadanger, dodging a couple of incoming spells, before swinging his sword for him. The wizard dodged a couple of strikes, but in his fury, Preston managed to score a couple of hits, and forced Abrakadanger to resort to using his wand as a quarterstaff to defend himself. Preston could feel the power coming from the wand, and switched up his game plan, dropping his sword and grabbing the wand and trying to wrest it from his grip. If he couldn't use his wand, then he was damn sure not going to let Abrakadanger use his!
Trevor was rounding the building, stopping at the corners to check out the way ahead as he made his way around the building. As he approached the back, he could hear the sounds of a struggle, and he glanced around, finding Preston and Abrakadanger both wrestling for the wand.
He checked his weapon, flipping off the safety catch and slipping his finger inside the trigger guard, steeling himself to make his move. He broke cover, running straight for them both as Preston and Abrakadanger were pulling in opposite directions with the wand between them.
"Let GO!" Abrakadanger screamed at Preston.
"Fat chance!" Preston answered, before suddenly there was a loud roar and both he and Abrakadanger tumbled backwards. Preston looked to see his hands were empty, but looking across at Abrakadanger, he could see that he was sitting on the ground, with the head of his wand in his left hand, while the broom part was in his right, the ends near the middle were smoking, having been broken apart.
"MY WAND!" Abrakadanger screamed. "YOU'LL PAY FOR THAT!"
With that, he disappeared in a puff of smoke. Preston knew enough about magic to know that even without a wand, a wizard could perform impressive feats of magic, and it seemed that Abrakadanger had a lot of power all of his own. He looked up to see an armoured police officer approaching with a shotgun and realised what had to have happened. He breathed a sigh of relief.
"Thanks for that, you don't know..." Preston's words tailed off as he saw the gun pointing right at him. "...OK, what are you doing?"
"Turn around, hands behind your back!" Trevor yelled at him. "You're under arrest!"
"You're...you're not serious right?" Preston asked. "Under arrest for what?"
"I'll figure it out!" Trevor told him. "Now, I'm coming to cuff you. Make a move and I will fire!"
"Listen, whatever this is, I'm sure it's just..." Preston was cut off and the air was driven out of him as Trevor clearly took his attempt to reach out to him as justifiable as an attack. The shotgun roared and hit him square in the chest, driving all the air out of his ribcage. Preston was thankful for the suit, which seemed to have saved him. He saw the armoured cop advancing on him.
"That was a shot from eight feet." Trevor warned him. "The next one will be much closer! Just lie there and put your hands where I can see them!"
Before he got to Preston though, he suddenly felt someone grab his helmet and yank at it roughly. In his hurry to get to the scene he hadn't put on the chin strap, and the helmet was spun completely around so that he couldn't see, before someone swept his legs out from under him and he felt his gun being pulled from his hands.
"What the hell?" Preston asked, completely confused, before he felt a pair of unseen hands grabbing him, helping him to his feet.
"That's not going to distract him for long!" Hayley told him. "Grab those and come on!"
Although he couldn't see where Hayley was pointing, by context he presumed she was talking about the toys that were their friends. He scooped them up while Hayley threw the shotgun up onto the roof of the school out of reach.
Trevor finally managed to turn his helmet back the right way in time to see Preston preparing to run off. He pulled out his Desert Eagle. Preston didn't need to see anything else to figure it was time to use one of the tricks he knew he had perfected. In a puff of smoke he disappeared. Trevor put his pistol away.
"Son of a BITCH!" He snapped. Still, there was one thing that he did know. His shotgun had clearly hurt the Ranger. He hadn't just shrugged it off like the Red Ranger had shrugged off his nine. Now the Blue Ranger knew that they weren't playing with kid gloves. Perhaps now the Rangers would think twice before bringing their grudge matches into a school again.
Up on the Warrior Dome, Abrakadanger arrived to a huge crowd reaction. Cosmo came over to him.
"WOW! Talk about a preview!" He called out. "A battle that didn't even last five minutes and you've already turned three Rangers into harmless toys!"
"That Blue Ranger broke my staff!" Abrakadanger ranted as he held it up.
"Oh, well...Galaxy Warriors carries no liabilities for the property of participants..."
"That's NOT what I was complaining about!" Abrakadanger snapped. He looked straight into the camera. "You may think you've been clever Blue Ranger, but now I've got three days to fix my wand and when I do, I'll show no mercy! I may have been messing around for the crowd before but now, I'm going to show you why I am one of the most feared spell-casters in all existence! You will rue the day you ever heard the name Abrakadanger!"
"Well, you heard it here first folks, Abrakadanger is hot and swearing revenge on the Blue Ranger!" He announced. "Tune in Friday for the Magical Marvel and the Blue Dragon! Don't you dare go anywhere else!"
With that, he ended the broadcast, at which Galvanax came out onto the stage. He stood over Abrakadanger, laughing.
"You whine because someone broke your toy?" Galvanax asked him. "A true warrior doesn't need a weapon! Go back to birthday parties and gala performances and leave the sport to the true warriors!"
"Wrench, take Abrakadanger to your lab." Cosmo told his intern, who was still very slowly being rebuilt. He now actually had two arms, but was still missing everything below his solar plexus, and could only get around by virtue of being carried by a Kudabot. "Give him all the assistance he needs!"
"You know, I might get the job done a little quicker if..."
"Oh Wrench, you know that I need to stick to a budget!" Cosmo told him. "Who knows, perhaps if you do a good job Abrakadanger could provide you with some legs."
"Come this way!" Wrench sighed. "So, what do you need? Sandpaper? Nails? PVA glue?"
"I'll deal with the repairs myself." Abrakadanger said gruffly. "All I need is a quiet space to work."
Meanwhile, over in Times Square, a mounted police officer came over to a woman and her kids who were staring at a map, looking rather lost.
"Can I help you there Ma'am?" He asked.
"I was just...I can't seem to find the hotel." She told him. "I thought I was heading the right direction but I don't recognise it..."
"Let me help you out there." The cop said, coming down off his horse and looking at the map. It was a concierge street map that he had marked the location of the hotel on. He took it and turned it around.
"I see the problem, you just have it upside down." He told her. "The easy way to remember is in Manhattan, the streets run north to south, and the avenues run east to west. Everything is numbered after that. So...your hotel is just...three blocks that way."
"Oh, thank you! I think I just got turned around in the store..." She said, before letting out a scream. The cop turned around in time to see something coming straight for them. He grabbed the woman and her kids, shoving them aside as something streaked into the concrete, rolling to a stop a little way off. Quickly people started gathering around as they saw it was the Gold Ranger, wrapped in ribbon and with a delivery note pinned to him.
"Sorry about that folks, sorry!" Levi said as the ribbons disappeared, finally releasing him. "Sorry, I didn't mean any harm, I just...wait...is this...is this Times Square?"
The cop and all the others just nodded wordlessly. Levi just sighed, before getting on his Ninja Comm.
"Guys, you're not going to believe this, Abrakadanger just punted me clean to the other side of the country!" He told them.
"He did what?" Preston shrieked.
"Yeah, I'm in Times Square!" He stated.
"Well, how long will it take you to get back?" Preston asked.
"I don't know, it's not like my Zord flies or anything, and it's kind of a little crowded to bust it out here." He told them.
"Well, get back when you can." Mick told him. "I have a feeling Abrakadanger is NOT going to be happy when he comes back."
"Yeah, well neither am I." Levi answered as he hung up. He looked to the cop. "Um...listen, I don't want to risk busting my Zord out here, what's the fastest way out of the city?"
He just pointed to the subway. Levi just looked to it, then back to him.
"Thanks." He replied, before making his way towards the stairs. He paused for a moment and then looked back to him. "Um...one last thing...I don't have pockets in this outfit. If I agree to a selfie, could someone give me some...?"
Hundreds of hands all thrust forward. Levi just sighed.
"Looks like this could take a while." He muttered as he posed with the cop.
Back at the Ranger base, Preston was standing with his spell book in hand, in front of a table with the toys sitting on it. Hayley was sitting on a stool behind the table with a hoodie on so that he could see where she was. He furrowed his brows in concentration.
"Cigam Odnu!" He called out, the desperation in his voice obvious. He found that just like the other fifty or do times he'd tried it, absolutely nothing of note had happened. The closest thing to any effect was that the yellow truck Calvin turned into rolled a little, but they put it back, this time trapping it between Sarah and Brody to prevent that happening again.
"What is WRONG with this thing?" Preston snarled in frustration, shaking his wand like he was trying to strangle it into doing what he wanted.
"Preston, maybe rough handling of the highly powerful wand is not a good idea." Mick suggested.
"Come on Preston, you can do this." Hayley told him. "You're the amazing Presto Chango!"
"I don't feel very amazing." Preston grumbled. "I only lucked out with Abrakadanger because Robocop showed up and broke his wand...while he was aiming at ME!"
"Preston..."
"I mean what the hell was that even about? Since when do cops start taking pot-shots at us?" Preston asked. "It's not bad enough that Galvanax wants us dead, now we have to worry about cops too?"
"Preston, maybe we should focus on one problem at a time." Hayley suggested. "We can find out what that thing with the psycho cop was all about later, right now, you should get back to that undo spell."
"Yeah, you should totally do that." Mick said, picking up a tennis racket. "While you do that, since we have a little time, I think I'll go learn how to play tennis!"
"Tennis?" Hayley asked him. Mick could definitely be random, but this was a departure even for him. Usually he could be counted on to keep his mind on the task at hand.
"Yeah, I mean its easy right?" He asked, picking up a tennis ball. "I mean, I just get the racket and swing it like this right?"
Hayley and Preston both had to duck as the ball sailed through the air, narrowly missing them both and knocking some tools and parts off the shelves. Mick continued to swing, looking like a demented lunatic as he pretended to play an imaginary opponent. Redbot started darting around picking up stuff he was knocking over.
"Suffering circuits!" He exclaimed. "Someone stop him!"
"MICK!" Hayley called out as she snatched the tennis racket from him. "What are you doing?"
"Learning to play tennis." He reiterated. "Can I have that back, I kind of need it..."
"Mick, you can't just pick up a racket and play tennis!" Preston called out. Mick paused for a moment and looked deep in thought.
"Hm...maybe you're right. Maybe I shouldn't learn tennis." He stated. "I know...maybe I'll learn ninjutsu instead! That way I can help you guys!"
"Mick..."
"I mean, I've watched you guys do it, it can't be that hard right?" He asked, beginning to throw a few kicks, before with one attempt at what they could only assume was MEANT to be a jumping spin kick, Mick ended up landing on his butt in a crumpled heap on the floor. He was helped up by Preston as he rubbed the back of his head. "Wow that is a LOT harder than it looks!"
"No kidding!" Preston replied sarcastically. "Mick, ninjutsu isn't easy! Brody studied for years! I remember messing up a whole bunch when he was teaching us, hell, for the first week all he did was teach me how to do a punch in horse-stance!"
"Yeah, and there's a lot more to tennis than just swinging a racket as hard as you can! I practiced every day for a year!" Hayley added. "I had to work on my grip, my stance, my positioning..."
"Really, so you're saying that there are a lot of BASICS to learn before you go right ahead and do all the cool looking stuff?" Mick inquired.
"Of course there is!" Hayley said.
"And so taking shortcuts would be a bad idea right?" Mick asked them.
"Terrible!" Preston stated. Mick just pointed towards the huge book, drawing Preston's gaze to it. "Which is...exactly what I've been doing all along."
"And what I suspect Viera has been trying to tell you all along." Mick reminded him.
"But she never..." Preston suddenly remembered a few occasions over the past couple of days where Viera had tried to talk to him while he was trying to figure out his spells, but he had brushed her aside telling her he was concentrating on his work. "...aw man, I am such a bad friend!"
"For what it's worth, I think she probably understands. But an apology wouldn't be out of the question." Mick told him. "Now for the good news, because of the damage to the school, Principal Randall has called for school to be closed until Thursday."
"That's GOOD news?" Hayley asked him.
"Of course it is!" Mick said, guiding Preston back to his stool and sitting him down. "Because that gives Preston here a couple of days to work on this...and this time..."
He closed over the book and opened the front cover, turning to page one.
"But this time, you can do it right." Mick said, tapping the page. Preston sighed and nodded.
"Alright, but can you at least run out for some shakes or something?" Preston asked him. "I...don't reach the chapter on how to turn things into food for a while."