Trevor followed Grace into her office, closing the door behind him. He was a good cop, and before that had been a good soldier, but like everyone else he had been on the receiving end of a chewing out every once in a while, and he had fully expected to stare down the barrel of that again once news of his movement came to light. He always knew an unpopular view like the fact the Rangers should be held to account for their battles would land him in hot water. He was a LITTLE surprised that Sterling was the one to call him into the Principal's Office so to speak and not his captain, but none the less he was well aware of what likely faced him. He stood facing her desk, his hands clasped behind his back.
Her office was surprisingly impressive. Until recently it had been a storage closet, but in a remarkably short period of time, it had been completely redecorated into an office! The walls were covered in a kind of peaked gray material that he recognised as sound-proofing, the carpet was a deep red colour, and the walls were lined with shelves and pictures detailing all of Grace's accomplishments. Trevor didn't claim to be a fan or have paid much attention, but he knew that Grace Sterling was a big deal. She was the head of Promethea, a private company that had done wondrous acts of good all over the world and was making cutting edge technology that rumour had it made Tesla look like it had just figured out how to carve stone. She had been a member of NASADA up until 1970, leaving after narrowly missing out on the Apollo 11 mission to Neil Armstrong, and seeing the number of commendations, awards and pictures of World Leaders around, it was clear she had been a leading figure in virtually every administration since the Nixon Administration. Although many her age were already retired, Grace Sterling was still highly active, and even walked with a power that was reminiscent of someone a fraction of her age as she went around to the other side of her ornate, oak desk, carved into patterns which included a Tyrannosaurus Rex, an Eagle, and Apollo himself on his chariot.
"Take a seat Marx." She told him.
"I'd prefer to stand." He replied sharply. "Ma'am."
Grace just stared at him with this act of defiance. It wasn't really offence that he would refuse a direct order, if anything it was more of a look that suggested she had seen a challenge to her authority. It was a look that didn't really suggest she was planning to insist, but that suggested she was under the impression if she wanted to, she could go around the desk and make him sit if she wanted. She just let out a sigh.
"Very well." She replied, tapping a few keys on her computer and pulling up what he presumed was his record. "So, would you mind telling me what you thought you were doing?"
"Forgive me if I'm wrong, but people are required to have licences for their weapons in this State." He said with a little smirk.
"Don't try me Marx; you're nowhere near cute enough for that." She told him flatly. "Your department was just broadcast on the six o'clock news opening fire on the Power Rangers. What do you think that looks like...?"
"I wasn't aware that enforcing the law was a popularity contest." He interrupted her. "It wouldn't be the first time people weren't happy about an arrest we were making, but if we just let everyone go that was breaking a law just because they were popular enough..."
"I think it's only fair to let you know that Captain Raymond is not happy about this. He's been called for official statements on the department's position on the Power Rangers all afternoon." She told him. "If it was up to him, the only choice you'd be getting is if you wanted your balls cooked first before he fed them to you!"
"Well that was...graphic." Trevor answered. She just glared at him.
"You'd do well to keep me onside Marx. Make no mistake if it was up to Raymond, you'd already be on your way out of the door. He was all for ghosting you." She informed him. "You'd of course be on full pay pending an investigation, but he was going to suspend you and he wouldn't exactly be in a hurry to get through the investigation if you catch my drift."
"You're saying...?"
"I'm saying I'm the one that stopped him." She answered. "I'm the one that's standing between you and an indefinite amount of time sitting on your ass on the couch at home, so you'd do well to stow the attitude with me!"
She looked to the computer as Trevor tried to make sense of what he had heard. Sterling was saving him? Why would she want to save him?
"Because she's lying." He heard a whisper. He looked around, trying to figure out what it was. He wasn't sure if he even had heard anything. Was his mind playing tricks on him? Was this just him processing what she had said?
"She's lying. She's the one stopping you!" The voice came again. He seemed to feel like the voice was coming from behind him. Grace looked up from the computer.
"Your record is very impressive." She told him. "19 letters of commendation, six mayoral awards, nothing but positive performance reviews." She told him. "Your military record would no doubt be impressive too...if I could see most of it."
"What?" He asked.
"Well, I see that you were in line for a whole number of awards. The Silver Star, The Purple Heart...yet you seem to have been given an honourable discharge without so much as a campaign medal after three tours in Afghanistan." She said. "The majority of which is redacted."
"You pulled my military record?" He asked her. "How did you...?"
"There is very little that is beyond my reach. If those records are sealed from me, that only leaves about three people who have that access." She told him. "I don't know what happened to you out there Marx, but if it's sealed to me, I can only imagine how bad it must have been."
"She's just pretending to be your friend." The voice whispered again. "Don't fall for her lies."
"So you're playing the sympathy card? You're pretending to be some sensitive type that wants to brand me as a victim of PTSD that doesn't know any better and just coddle me into giving up on this?" He asked her. "I expected better from you."
"I know what PTSD can do, believe me." She told him. "But if you misdirect that anger of yours against the Rangers..."
"You mean people who hide behind masks and don't take one lick of responsibility for what they do?" Trevor snapped at her. "Sorry, but that doesn't sit well with me."
"Marx..."
"If they're the heroes they pretend to be, why can't they let us know who they are? Why can't they leave themselves open to the same level of oversight we do?" He asked her. "I was a kid when the Lightspeed team were active, but they never hid who they were!"
"That was a different set of circumstances entirely." She told him.
"People only wear masks if they're afraid or ashamed of their actions!" Trevor put down flatly. "I've ripped masks off before and I'll do it again if I get the chance!"
"Sometimes masks are necessary. Believe me; I know that better than most." She put down flatly. "You will back off. If not, I will..."
"Trust me; I've been threatened by a lot scarier people than you." Trevor interrupted her. "Is that all?"
"I doubt you've faced scarier than me." She answered, before gesturing to the door. "You've been warned. What you do now is up to you."
As he turned to leave, he gripped the side of his head as he heard the voice again, this time louder than before.
"She's lying! The Rangers are the enemy!" He heard again. He looked up towards where it sounded like the voice was coming from. He saw a curved, green dagger in a glass case on a shelf by the door. "Take the power from her! Use it!"
"Are you alright?" She asked him.
"Just a headache." He told her. "I'll live."
With that, he left the room. Grace just let out a sigh before picking up her phone and dialling.
"It's Sterling." She stated. "I want the full works on Trevor Marx. I need full access, everything!"
The voice on the other end clearly wasn't giving her the response she was looking for, as she just rolled her eyes.
"I've been on every administration for longer than you've been alive. If I want something, I will get it." She warned the person on the other end. "Either you can give me what I want or I can get it myself but if I...wait...did you just...YOU HUNG UP? DAMN IT!"
She slammed the phone down, before stroking her temples as she heard something. She looked to the dagger.
"You can shut up as well." She told the voice.
Over at the High School, the Rangers and Viera assembled in the Ranger Base following the battle with Abrakadanger. Mick had ensured they had supplies to celebrate and unwind after their battle, and they were all glad to see the back of yet another powerful monster.
"And that's how we make another one disappear!" Preston said with a smile, to a lot of groans for the others. "OK, OK, that's the last one I promise!"
"Preston, you are such a massive dork." Brody laughed. "But when you can pull tricks like that dragon transformation...you're definitely a dork we like."
"Make that love." Hayley added, patting him on the shoulder as Sarah held him.
"Abrakadanger was definitely the most powerful monster we've faced, and that would be scary enough." Mick told them. "But he's also not under contract to the Warrior Dome."
"What?" Calvin asked. "What does that mean?"
"Galaxy Warriors isn't the only intergalactic fight network out there." Brody told them. "It's easily the most popular, but there are others."
"Kind of like how WWE is the biggest promotion in wrestling, but there's ROH and Lucha Underground and stuff like that?" Sarah asked. The others just stared at her. "Oh yeah, Koda and Alessandra, two of my closest friends are professional wrestlers, big surprise I know a little about the scene!"
"Well, yeah, that's exactly the case." Brody told her. "Abrakadanger was one of the hottest free-agents on the independent circuit."
"That means that Cosmo's no longer just restricting himself to people on his own roster." Mick concluded. "That could be really bad news; there are some pretty scary creatures out there."
"There are also pretty scary people down here." Calvin replied. "What is the deal with those cops?"
"Yeah, since when did they start shooting at us?" Sarah complained. "As if we don't have enough to worry about!"
"I think I can explain that." They heard someone say as the door to the base opened. They all got up and quickly adopted guards as a tall, blonde man walked into the room.
"OK, I don't know who you are, but you better start talking very fast!" Levi warned him.
"Alright, maybe I should have thought about..." He started to say, before doing a double-take. "Wait, are you Levi Weston? WOW! I didn't...my husband and his band opened for you in the concert in Summer Cove a couple of months back!"
"Uh, can we concentrate on the matter at hand?" Brody asked. "Namely, who are you and how do you know about any of this?"
"Right, of course." The stranger replied, taking a deep breath. "I know why the cops are after the Rangers, and...I'm sorry to say that it's largely my fault."
"What do you...?"
"We have a few mutual friends; it just took me a while to find out which ones could point me in the direction of this place." He said. "It's probably going to be a lot easier to convince you to trust me if I just show you who I am."
He pulled out his cell phone, flipping it open. He pointed it towards them, at which it started to trace a glowing red symbol in the air.
"Go Go Samurai!" He called out, sending it spinning out, before it returned, instantly transforming him into the Red Samurai Ranger. The team just blinked as he stood before them, pulling off his helmet.
"My name's Jayden, I'm the Red Samurai Ranger." He explained. "And unfortunately I'm a little late it seems, but I'm here to explain to you why there are cops gunning for you."
"Alright, we're listening." Brody told him, gesturing to him to take a seat. "Would you like something to drink?"
"That would be appreciated." Jayden replied, sitting down as Mick poured him a drink and tried to think how to begin.
Up on the Warrior Dome, Wrench was just having his new legs attached, well, one of them anyway. Cosmo seemed to be delighting in making sure it was taking as long as possible to completely rebuild him. He had a Kudabot's left leg but the rest of him had been replaced.
"I promise, we'll have you back to normal soon." Cosmo said with a little smile. "As for Abrakadanger..."
"Your Indy darling failed as badly as all the others!" Galvanax laughed as he gleefully sat in the corner, setting light to glossy pictures of the fallen wizard. "I've seen dozens just like him come and go over the years. None of them ever last!"
"He came closer than anyone on our roster." Madame Odious said, before looking to her client. "But as always, the cream rises to the top!"
"You weren't saying that earlier." Wrench muttered in a low voice.
"What was that?" She asked.
"Uh...I was...uh...I was just telling this useless creature to keep the joints nice and tight." Wrench told him, smacking the kudabot welding his leg on the head. "You call that a weld? I've seen kindergarteners do a better job! Give me that torch, I'll do it myself!"
"The point is, Abrakadanger's appearance was a ROARING success!" Cosmo said with glee, kicking back and tossing his top-hat onto the hat stand as he lit up a cigar.
"IT WAS?" They all chorused.
"Of course it was! I put two of the largest draws in the entire industry into a match together! The pay-per-view revenues for this one bout are bigger than some of my previous seasons!" He said in an elated tone. "Not to mention since Odious here signed him to a contract, his image is now our property...with Abrakadanger dead, there's no one to claim his share, which means all of his merchandise royalties from his upcoming memorial range are going straight into my pocket!"
"You mean OUR pockets!" Odious corrected him.
"Yes, yes of course, OUR pockets." Cosmo said with a wave of his hand.
"But what about next week?" Wrench asked him. "How are we going to follow that up?"
"Oh, who even cares by this point? It really doesn't matter!" Cosmo told him.
"It doesn't?" They all chorused again. Cosmo just smiled again.
"Of course it doesn't. We can feed them anyone. We just need someone that will last the length of a show; next week is their final opponent." He answered, before turning to Galvanax. "Then we all know what comes next? Don't we?"
Galvanax got up and roared in triumph, before leaving the office to go and train in preparation of his long-awaited bout. He'd been longing to get his hands on the Rangers again ever since they had caught him by surprise and injured him in their earlier fight. Only Cosmo's rules and his contract kept him from going to exact his revenge, but after the next opponent, the Rangers were eligible for a title shot, which meant that they were fair game.
"I'll go and find someone to feed to the Rangers." She told him. Cosmo looked to Wrench who got to his feet unsteadily.
"It's been a long road Wrench; I want to make sure everything goes smoothly." He told him. "I trust I can rely on you."
"Of course you can." Wrench answered as he headed back to his lab. He already knew what the implication was. He had lost a lot of favour with Cosmo, which was why he was being punished in this way. He was being warned to remember where his loyalties lay. As he got back to the lab, he pressed a panel, opening up a wall and viewed some growing tubes. It turned out that he had a few samples of viable DNA that let him re-grow some allies.
"Yes, you can rely on me." Wrench told him, approaching two tubes, one where a pink heart shape had re-formed and another where a green scaled head was growing into a bronze helmet. "Odious is going to make her move soon, and when she does, she'll learn there are a lot scarier things in this universe than her!"
Back in the Ranger Base, Jayden had finished filling in the team on what happened on Manilua. The team already knew that Jerry had been taken down, and that a cop had been hurt in the process, but since Sarah's dad had been returned safely, all they knew was what they had heard from the official releases. Al had, unsurprisingly, not been all that talkative about the whole incident.
"So it was you that took down Jerry?" Sarah asked. Jayden just nodded.
"Yes, it was." He told her. "And I'm so sorry..."
He was cut off as Sarah launched herself at him, gripping him in a tight hug.
"Thank you!" She whispered to him. "Thank you so much. I...I don't know what I'd have done if anything had happened to dad."
"I'm glad I could help, but it was Spike that did most of the work." Jayden reminded her. "Unfortunately, from what I learned afterwards, if I'd waited a couple of seconds longer, I'd have seen he'd already convinced Jerry to give up the gun. It was me getting involved that made him panic and pull the trigger."
"It sounds like an accident." Brody assured him. "For what it's worth, given the scene you described...I don't think there's anyone in this room that probably wouldn't have done the same thing."
"I know I probably would have." Levi agreed. "When you see a gun pointed at someone, you have to make a decision pretty quickly."
"Unfortunately that's not the way Spike's partner saw it." Jayden told them. "I still get a ringing sound in my ears when I think about that bullet bouncing off my helmet."
"Unfortunately they're throwing a lot more firepower our way now." Preston answered. "I know the suits take a beating, but those rounds still hurt!"
"Not to mention they're probably only going to escalate." Hayley answered.
"I'm really sorry guys, I...I messed up, and if it was just me that was wearing it, I'd be fine with that, but..."
"Jayden, what's done is done. We can't undo it." Brody told him.
"But it's not right you guys carry the can." Jayden reiterated. "If it was just me, then I'd come forward. I'd tell the cops who I am and turn myself in. I'd face the consequences myself but now we've got Stephanie..."
"I don't honestly think that would make much difference anyway." Sarah interrupted him. "I know that we all wear the Spandex, but our suits are pretty different to yours. I don't think these guys see the difference though. One guy running around in Spandex looks like any other to them."
"I really wish there was more I could do." Jayden told them.
"If you want to do us a favour, you go back to that daughter of yours and take care of her." Sarah said with a smile. "Maybe bring her around so that I can get a cuddle."
"I...think I can manage that." Jayden replied with a weak laugh. "I also have to make this up to Spike. I don't know how much ice-cream makes up for losing four inches of your colon, but he seems determined to find out!"
"Tell him to get well soon!" Calvin said as Jayden got up to leave.
"Oh, he's already determined to go back to work!" Jayden assured them. "He's a tough kid, stubborn too! He's not going to let a little thing like this scare him off!"
As Jayden left, the team all turned back towards each other.
"Well, at least now we know why this is happening." Sarah sighed. "Poor guy, I know what it's like seeing your mistakes take such a turn. I nearly gave up on engineering altogether after the clone thing."
"It's definitely going to make things more complicated." Levi answered. "I mean, I don't know about you but putting Summer Cove's finest in the hospital is not something I relish the thought of doing...even the trigger-happy jerks among them."
"It's not on my to-do list." Preston agreed.
"I guess we can just hope we're done with all this before we have to have to butt heads with them too much." Hayley replied. They all stared at her.
"What do you mean by that?" Mick asked.
"You guys haven't been keeping track?" Hayley asked. "Cosmo told us all at the beginning. All of this, it's all part of his show. All of this is a run-up to the final showdown."
"We know that..."
"No, I mean LITERALLY!" She reminded them. "We're on a ladder! He told us we were earning our way to a title shot!"
"Uh...does it matter that we don't care about the title?" Calvin asked. She shook her head.
"I don't think so." She told them. "But the thing is, if my count is right...we only have one more fight to go."
"One more?" Preston gulped. "And then..."
"Then it's the title bout." She announced. The whole room fell silent as they contemplated what she had said. They all knew it was coming, but with all the distractions going on, none of them realised how close it really was.