Chapter Five. Debriefing.

"That was a complete waste of my time!" Nixysis roared, looking at the remains of the four monsters in front of him. In front of him, the countdown timer showed 44%, still a while for him to wait before the process was completed. "I was under the assumption that they were powerful warriors. They were completely wrecked in a few minutes."

"Calm down," the voice said. "You're not helping things."

"I wanted warriors! Not jokers that look like warriors. The last thing I want with my plan is for Cosmo Force to ruin it before it has even started."

"Cosmo Force?" the voice asked in surprise. "Cosmo Force? Galactic law enforcement. How would they be able to interfere?"

"I don't know if you noticed that fight…"

"I didn't," the voice replied.

"… But they have Poké Rangers! And they're the sort of trouble that I don't need!"
"Ah, Poké Rangers," the voice said. "If you have them on your tail, then you are in trouble. You will need an army. And thankfully, there is one such lurking here in the Lost Zone. Enough to wipe out five measly Poké Rangers."

"There are seven," Nixysis said. "There was only six, but another one showed up not too long ago. You hear things in the Syodian community. One of our top scientists was working with a billionaire to do something, he's in custody now. I can't help but think they had something to do with it."

"Fascinating," the voice said. "What do you reckon? Army of twenty? And I can't help but notice that there's something in these labs that could help you with those four. There's a cyborg sequencing processor."
"Why should I waste my efforts rebuilding something that didn't work before?" Nixysis demanded.

"Because at least now, you can work out the kinks and improve. Isn't that what progress is?"

"I suppose," he said, glancing down at the remains which had been brought back to the lab. "Rustle up an army. Have them ready, I'll set someone to work on those four."

"Good."

45% complete.

For a few moments after they'd told their story, Falco had remained silent with surprise.

"Well well," he eventually said. "That's… Quite a tale. I knew of Poké Ranger teams in the past, but I never really expected to meet anyone from them. Apart from Mr Edwards over there, but he is a special case."
"I'll say," Paige replied. "What happened to you?"

Crane shrugged. "You really want to hear?" he asked. "It's not pleasant. It's really not."

"He was revived," Sandy said coldly. "His remains from his own time were stolen from Earth and rebuilt using something called the Lazarus program. All this because some Syodian wanted a weapon."

"They wanted this," Crane explained, tapping the ring on his finger. "It's a morpher. Turns out I'm the only one who can use it. My DNA is locked onto it."
"You know, I'm sure I've seen that somewhere before," Duo commented. "But I can't think where."

"I know what you mean," Ryan remarked. "It does look familiar. Ditto on the comment though."

"Solar Gauntlet," Crane said.

"It just a morpher?" Claire wondered, taking a closer look at the ring. "Or does it do something else?"

"What do you want it to do?" he asked. "It is what it is."

Falco cleared his throat.

"Back on comment," he said. "Now, run this by me one more time. There's a book with the sort of power that can rewrite existence."
"First of all, we're not sure that it can do it to the whole universe," Katie replied. "We really don't know much about it. Other than that little detail."

"You know nothing about it?" Lily asked. "Well that's helpful."

"If a bomb is a bomb then surely you know that it shouldn't go off," Julia pointed out.

"She has a point," Luke said. "You never tried winging it? It's very entertaining. Also, you know what's interesting?"

He was directing the question at Lily, the Black Cosmo Ranger raising an eyebrow in surprise.

"Go on?"
"You're actually a lot more like a Mightyena than I thought. Telekinesis doesn't really work on you, I've been testing the water."

"You're telekinetic?" Diana asked. "That's unusual."

"Really?" Luke said sarcastically. "When someone in here says that it's unusual, I really feel special."

"Part of our power," Nahir offered. "We all got abilities. And we kept them, even when our powers were lost."
"But you have them back now?" Max asked. "To fight?"

"That's right," said Katie. "Speaking of which, you guys got your morphers with you?"

"We haven't," Julia replied. "Thing about being zapped out of nowhere, you don't get the chance to pack up your stuff."

Falco coughed again, drawing their attention away from the debate.

"How did you ever do what you did with such a lack of clarity?" he wondered. "A lack of focus is not conducive to what you do."

"That's the thing though," Duo said. "We can when it matters. And it matters that we get to Vandor and get at Nixysis. It's your universe."

"Actually, I'm pretty sure it's our universe," Naomi said. "We can't stand by and let it get destroyed. Especially since we didn't do a very good job the first time around."

"Hey, our work was flawless," Paige said. "We tore up half of Holimar City in our final battle."

"It's true," Claire replied. "I saw pictures of it on the internet. Was a real warzone."

In his seat, Falco stiffened at the mention of war.

"I doubt that," he said. "But I know the name Nixysis. And he is trouble. The problem is, nobody can touch him. We didn't know where he was before, when he does show himself he's usually heavily surrounded by his forces that will fight to the end for him. But now, if as you say, he's on Vandor, then I have no problem in going after him."
He grimaced.

"Plus, the threat of universal destruction is something that I cannot ignore. We'll set off shortly. It's time to go to battle."

The Aerobian gestured up towards the door.

"See yourselves out," he said. "My ship is your ship, make yourselves at home here. If you need anything, ask Techno 9."

"Who?" Ryan wondered.

"Ship's AI," Diana explained. "We'll show you around, if you want. Introduce you to the crew and the like."

"Just hope you aren't hungry," Nick said. "Because the food isn't great. Actually scratch that, the chef isn't great. The food's fine!"

"You hear what I hear?" Blister asked, kicking at the piece of broken machinery in front of him to hoist it aside. "Techno 9 tells me that that we've taken some other rangers on board."

"Oh really?" Chebek replied. "How come I've not heard of this?"

"You don't listen, I imagine," Blister replied.

"How can there be more rangers? That's impossible, right?"

"Nothing is impossible," Techno 9 interrupted. "Given what we saw recently with Mr. Edwards, it would appear that even death has been cured."

"Nobody likes sarcasm," Chebek said. "Trust me, I hear it a lot with this guy. It gets annoying after a while."

"I hear they're from the past," the AI replied. "Maybe some of them can tell us something about your piece of old space junk."

"Yeah," Blister said. "Wouldn't that be just too much of a coincidence to be believed?"

Author's Notes.

Yeah, I wouldn't believe it either. But what can you do?

Know not much happens, sorry about that.

The sport of baiting Gordon is still alive and well, it would seem.

Thank you so much for the reviews. They are all wholly appreciated.

Sorry about the delay, I was distracted. Hopefully the next one won't be as long to wait for.

Thanks for reading.

Don't forget to review.