Volume II - The Gabriel Saga
Chapter 11—Gabriel, Part III: Gabriel
Gabriel
I knew Amy was watching me, but I honestly just thought she was vibing off my guitar. I mean, I knew her boyfriend played pretty decently cuz I'd heard him string together some decent chords, but he was no me. I was all over that guitar.
I think she liked it, but I couldn't really tell why she was staring so hard. She looked like she was trying to process something, whether it was awe or confusion, and it made me think there was something more going on. If anything, her boyfriend looked like he was admiring my playing more than she did. She was watching for a completely different reason, I just couldn't figure it out.
So when I wrapped up my improv and shrugged off the applause, I stood up and made my way over to her.
"I didn't peg you for a guitar fan."
"She's not, man, but that was sick," the guy interrupted, stepping up. "We should jam sometime, I could learn a thing or two from you."
I turned to him and shook his hand. "Thanks dude, I appreciate it. Patrick, right?"
"Yeah, man, are you new here?"
"Yeah, I'm Gabriel, I just started this summer."
He nodded. "Cool, where you from?"
Amy, for some reason, was awkwardly clearing her throat.
"Oh, right," Patrick seemed to respond, though I wasn't really sure how he could know what a grunt meant. "Dude...you mind if we talk to you in private about something real quick?"
His voice dropped to a bassy whisper and the excitement seemed to leave his face except for the small spark of interest in eyes. Whatever he was about to tell me, he was pretty passionate about it. Kinda weird, but whatever.
We moved away from the crowd, Amy's arms folded across her abdomen as she walked along in silence with her rusty hair covering the sides of her face.
"So what's up? What's the big deal?" I asked, picking up on their body language.
Patrick pulled out a shiny, metallic, alien looking sliver of tech. It was a thin black metallic watch, sorta, but the straps were lit up in red, circuits running through the band in streaks of light. I noticed that they all seemed to be running to a what looked like a sturdy red crystal in the shape of an arrow point. In the middle of it was the golden outline of a pentagon. A sharp, bold, crimson "A" stared back at me from the heart of the whole thing, like some sort of unblinking eye. Something about it drew me in, and there was a loud hum that I couldn't figure out how I didn't hear before.
"What is that?"
"It's yours," Patrick said, "It's the Red Cyber Morpher."
"The Red what?"
"Cyber Morpher," Amy answered softly. "I know it's a little weird and hard to believe...but these things don't lie. Trust me. You're the Red Ranger."
I looked back and forth between them, my eyes darting between Amy's doe eyes and Patrick's expectant face.
I laughed.
"Oh-ho-ho-oh, you two are good!" I said between laughs. "This is the first time someone's pulled the Ranger prank on me since I moved here. Mom told me this would happen."
"No, dude," Patrick denied earnestly, "it's real! This is a real, honest-to-God Morpher."
"Look," Amy insisted, rolling up her sleeve and twisting her wrist back and forth. The little white leather band sparked to life in pink swirls and and turned into a black and pink metallic "Morpher" just like the the one Patrick was holding.
Okay, so maybe it was a good looking piece of tech, and maybe it was real. I mean, it did look real. It even had little circuit motifs all around it that were glowing with a faint gold light, and the way that it was purring sounded almost like it was talking to me. It was a symphony of different noises, I noticed, not just one dull ongoing drone.
"Look...that's great and all, but I'm no Ranger. And I really don't think my parents are gonna go for this, either."
Patrick groaned. "Oh c'mon, he's like 15 or 16," he said to Amy, "of course his parents aren't gonna go for it. He probably has an 8 o'clock curfew."
"Seventeen in December," I mumbled. glaring. "You know, people told me you were a piece of work, but you really don't disappoint on the first meeting, do you?"
"I try to live up to the hype."
"Yeah, well, congrats—you're as much of a dick as they said."
Amy immediately extended her arm to the right, blocking Patrick from me. "Cool it."
I heard him hold back a growl.
"Gabriel," Amy said, softer, "please just try the Morpher on."
"It's not that I don't believe you," I assured her, "because...well...let's just say I know a thing or two about Rangers. But I just don't think I want to be a Ranger. It's not really my cup of tea."
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Patrick finally roared. "Look, this is the Red Ranger Morpher we're talking about here. Red Ranger. You're supposed to be the leader—the greatest of the 5 core Rangers. You're supposed to bear the burden of saving the world on your shoulders with ease." He calmed a bit, his voice quieting somewhat. "Destiny doesn't knock twice, man."
I was silent for a second or two, considering his words and weighing them against my own feelings. "Why don't you just take it?"
Amy responded quicker than Patrick could have even dreamed, like she was trying to stop him from getting angry again. "It doesn't work that way. These Morphers are programmed a specific way to only react to hosts with the necessary qualities."
"What do you mean by 'necessary qualities?'"
"Let me explain," Patrick said, more so to Amy than me. I wasn't necessarily best friends with either one of them, but I could smell the tension radiating from them like a cheap perfume.
Amy sighed and mumbled out a "whatever," before she skulked away, arms still crossed over her stomach like she was trying to keep it warm.
"Look man," Patrick started up, "I know how you feel. You didn't ask for this, you didn't want to be a part of it—trust me, dude, I get it. I felt the same way when they asked me to help, But there's this psycho terrorist named Mesomorph trying to force everyone into tech deadzone and turn us all into mutants. Like some glow-in-the-dark mutant shit. And I know it sounds like a low-budget sci-fi special or some stupid comic book from the year 1999, but I've seen it—so has Amy. Hell, you've seen it. You just don't know it."
I looked at him like he was batshit crazy.
"You know that explosion everyone's talking about? The one caused by a 'faulty wiring' in a truck?"
"Yeah, but they said nobody was hurt or even around. Something about a car defect."
"Bullshit," he said, shaking his head. "It was these two Xeno soldiers trying to slice us all up into pieces." He turned around and pulled up his shirt in the back, showing off a day-old slash on his lower back. "That look like an accident? Doctor Oliver sure as hell didn't think so."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa—our principal is involved with this too? You mean to tell me that the Thomas Oliver is back in the Ranger business and SPD hasn't said anything about it?"
He looked around cautiously, making sure no one was listening. "Who do you think is getting SPD to stay quiet?" He pulled the shiny Red Morpher back out and glanced between it and me. "Just come with us, Gabe, and I promise you, you won't regret it."
"I dunno man…"
"What do I have to say to convince you?" He was basically begging me now, his face tight in anger and frustration.
"It doesn't really matter what you say, dude, I'm not following you or her anywhere. I've got my own shit to deal with right now."
Famous last words.
—11—
"Holy shit…"
I was one of the only kids still standing in the now empty valley and watching the smoke smother our school in black soot. Patrick stood next to me with a hand tucked in his pocket and the other busily texting.
"This is for real," I said more than asked, "isn't it?"
He looked at me like he wanted to say "I told you so," but kept his mouth shut for the sake of my sanity and nodded quietly.
A few explosions rocked the foundation of some of our school's taller buildings, and I heard the muffled echoes of high pitched shrieks and screams. Doc's message was still looping over the sound system, describing the different safe areas, and that's when I noticed Patrick was still here.
"How come you didn't go with the girls?" I asked him, glancing at his grey shirt. "Aren't you a Ranger too? Silver Ranger?"
He shook his head, his face unreadable. "Nah, I'm the handy dandy sidekick. They might as well call me their recruiter, too."
He shot me a crooked grin and I found myself searching for the right emotions to feel and which ones to show.
I think the result made my face look like I was about to cry.
Before Patrick could say anything else, two streaks of color blazed into the valley from opposite sides. On one end was a tall, six-and-a-half-foot blue soldier, suited up in some sort of weird material that looked like spandex and armor had a baby. He stared at me and Patrick through a white, emotionless visor, and his voice sounded metallic when he spoke to Patrick—like he was talking into a fan or something.
"Is this the guy?" he echoed.
Patrick nodded and the Blue Ranger squared his hands on his hips as he looked me up and down.
The other one was even more intimidating—an even taller, towering yellow brute wearing crimson padding over all of his ridiculous bulging muscles. His helmet, like the Blue Rangers, was jagged and plated, like all their armor was surrounding their heads but mocking animals at the same time.
He spoke and his voice was like the Blue Ranger's, like a growl was coming out of the mouth of the big cat on his helmet, but had been turned into robotic words. "This is the Red Ranger? You sure? He doesn't even look old enough to go here."
Were these guys students too?
They damn sure didn't look like it. They looked like genetically bred war machines with abs I could easily count one-by-one, and I was pretty sure they weren't flexing.
"Trust me, it's him," Patrick said shortly, "your new Red Ranger. He's ready and raring to go—a Morphing Virgin."
The Blue Ranger's visor shot open and a pair of blue eyes stared out underneath the beak motif on his helmet. "Hey, man," he said, and he sounded 17, "what's your name?"
Somehow, I seemed to have lost my voice in the few seconds since they'd arrived. "I…" I stopped and cleared my throat. "I'm Gabriel. But you can call me—"
"Gabe, huh?" the Yellow Ranger interrupted, his crystal white visor copying the Blue Ranger's just as quickly as it shot into his helmet and revealed two dark eyes. "Welcome aboard. This is Matt, I'm Jay."
"Wait...you guys go here?"
Jay looked at Matt. "He makes us look smart, man."
"I think I'm gonna like that," Matt, the Blue Ranger said with a small laugh.
"Can somebody please tell me what the hell's going on?" I begged more than demanded. I mean, I had intended it to be a demand, but it came out sounding weak and pitiful like I was on the brink of tears.
So shoot me.
I didn't sign up for this shit!
"Here," Matt said, placing a device in my hands that was similar but different to the Morpher Patrick had earlier.
"Strap in and suit up," said the Yellow Ranger.
Both of their visors slid shut as they turned and faced me, expectations higher than the smoke above us.
—11—
Jay and Matt were way faster than me, their blue and yellow suits blending together so much I was starting to see green. Either that, or I was about to puke. If I puked, would it stay in my helmet? Was there some sort of hyper advanced system that would detect my nausea and suck it out of my esophagus before it even left my mouth?
I didn't want to find out, so I took a deep breath as I continued to bound around the school looking for the two supervillains Matt and Jay told me about. Something like Mara and Reese. I dunno, there were too many names and too much information to just suddenly know.
Then, everything in my helmet lit up. Well, more so than it already was—all the little red laser holograms and indicators inside were blinking with gold highlights. New information started pouring through and somehow, my brain was eating it up like the jargon in front of me was the alphabet. I slid to a halt, dirt spraying around the metallic crimson toes of my boots.
"Wait," I said to Jay and Matt.
Jay skidded to a stop, sparks igniting from his feet as he turned and face me. Matt was much more graceful, the wind around him seeming to stop on command.
"What's up?" Jay asked.
"My visor's lighting up. It says it's picking up a weird energy signal in the—"
My sentence fell short when the Pink and Black Rangers came flying out of the nearest building, an explosion heralding their arrival like they'd just popped out of an old school action movie.
Jay caught the Pink Ranger in his arms like lightning, making a comment about it being the second time today. She said something along the lines of not making a habit out of it, and I noticed her voice sounded normal—I could tell it was Amy. Huh, look at that. Must've been the Morpher.
The Black Ranger must've been Grace, and it was obvious in the way that she caught herself on her hands and sprang back up in some elegant cartwheel or handspring.
"Bout time you guys showed up," she said bitingly to Matt. "Did you have to stop to get your suit cleaned?"
"No," Jay said, "Gabe couldn't figure out what to wear, so he settled on red spandex."
Amy and Grace looked at me, both of them checking me out like I was wearing the latest fashion. The Black Ranger, even more intimidating in her full ranger gear with her spiky helmet and slanted visor, circled me with her index finger held up against her mouth guard while she studied me.
"Hm...I like the red and black, and the gold is a nice touch," she was saying as she came face to face with me. Or helmet to helmet, I guess. "But this horn on the top is a little much, isn't it?"
She grabbed a hold of it, as if to make a point, and pulled my head back and forth.
"You're just mad because his is bigger than yours," Matt joked.
"Well, I have three—quantity over quality in this case."
I rolled my eyes, though I guess they couldn't tell.
"Uh, guys," Amy interrupted, "now that you're done with your fashion review, do you want to worry about the crazy tentacle lady inside?"
"Crazy tentacle lady…?" I found myself mumbling in confusion.
And then a long, greenish blue...well...tentacle came slithering out of the hole in the building Grace and Amy made, then wrapped around Matt's leg.
I heard him let out a "why me" before he was yanked up and pulled inside.
Grace was all over it, flipping through the air and calling out "Psi Lancers!" before she sliced through the tentacle and freed Matt. He landed comfortably in her arms before she dropped him flat on his ass.
"What the hell was that!?"
It took me a second to realize that it was my voice that had shouted out like a little girl.
"That, Rangers, is the beginning of the end."
I turned around with the others, glancing up at the rooftops of the gym for the source of the voice. My visor locked on to her slim figure, covered in white and black armor and old-school ninja robes. A sharp, modernized breathing mask covered her face in black chrome, except her cold, silver eyes.
Grace scoffed. "Oh, really, Mira? You'll have to do a hell of a lot better than some octopus chick with personal boundary issues, you cosplay reject!"
"Seriously," Matt chimed in, "you'd think the apocalypse would be a little less touchy-feely and a little more crushy-killy."
Mira chuckled to herself. "Your arrogance will make this all the sweeter."
"Why don't you take a good hard look, then," Jay barked, "notice anything different? Maybe a new color in the mix?"
Mira's eyes fell on me as she studied me disapprovingly. "Just another willing victim."
As if on cue, the monstrosity with the tentacles erupted from the building, hissing and cackling all at the same time. Her face looked normal, except for the giant skull and the lesions that looked more like warts than anything, and her body was muscular and covered in a sort of scaly armor. Speaking of armor, she had plenty of that too, but mostly on her arms and legs, leaving her chest completely open so that a little orb in the center could stare at us. I could barely make out a letter in the orb, but my visor locked on automatically and scanned it.
Beyt—the second letter of the Hebrew Aleph Beyt and representative of the spiritual temple of God; the house. Beyt is also associated with the wife and mother, acting as the determinate that makes a house a home.
"What the hell does this mutant freak have anything to do with the House of God? Or motherhood, for that matter?" I asked, looking to the others.
Beyt smirked as she reeled in her tentacle arms. From her gemstone, an eerie orange light seemed to be emanating as it touched the dirt beneath our feet. Within seconds, the ground started writhing, like something was moving underneath us.
"I do not like where this is headed…" I heard Matt mumbling, trailing off as he glanced at the mud shifting.
And then, a slimy tentacle shot through the ground like a weed, followed by another, and another, and another…
"What the…"
"Scramble!" Grace shouted, cutting me off and flipping away to land on the stairs of the nearest building.
And we all followed suit, frantically trying to avoid becoming tangled up in tentacles.
Mira was obviously enjoying herself, cackling from the comfort of the rooftops. "And so it is...the beginning of the end!"
Beyt joined in on her laughter, her hollow green eyes glistening in the light from her gemstone. "Rise! Rise! RIIIIIIISE!"
And rise they did.
Little fucking octopus babies, or whatever they were. They were small—only about 4 feet tall—but they each had at least 8 arms, sprouting from their back and torso. Their legs were long and sinewy, but they were pointed at the tips like they were walking on stilts. I wish I hadn't, but I looked at their eyes—hideous bulbous green orbs that looked more like the eyes belonging to a common housefly than anything else.
"Let's not forget to make things interesting," Mira said, tossing a couple of silvery metallic balls down on us. Almost before they even hit the ground, robotic soldiers started popping out of the sphere in pairs until there were at least fifty of them.
"Aaron sure picked a hell of a day to doubt being a Ranger…" Grace spat. "C'mon guys, let's bring it together!"
"Wait, who?"
Grace ignored my question as she flipped from the staircase and huddled in with us, forming a wall of five color coded soldiers against impossible odds. Behind us was the main courtyard, with its unnecessary fancy fountain and marble benches.
Perfect place for fighting.
"Rangers, be careful," Doc warned us, "Beyt is also representative of God's will for mankind to multiply. If I know Mesomorph, he's given her exactly what she needs to live up to her name."
"Fantastic," Amy groaned, "so he's done his research just enough to take a giant steaming shit on the Talmud, Torah, and Midrash all at once."
"I'm gonna pretend like I know what you just said," Matt mumbled.
Grace chimed in, shifting into a fighting position. "Can we pretend like we're the Power Rangers and kick some mutant robot ass?"
Jay crouched down like he was about to hike a football and turned his head toward me. "Gabe, welcome to Rangerhood."
"GO!"
Grace's voice rang out off like a gunshot as all four of them leapt into action, wrapped up in elements and cool swirly energy auras.
Meanwhile, I froze.
"Gabriel, you've got to use your HUD—let it guide you."
I watched helplessly as Jay cursed at me and blocked two Gigadroids from taking my head off.
Why was there no combat training beforehand? Why me? And, who the fuck was talking in my head?
"Uh...who are you?"
"This is Doctor Oliver—sorry my welcoming party is so late and under these circumstances," he said. "I promise, I'll fully debrief you, but we've got to get these scum out of the school."
I sighed, trying to gather my bearings. There was so much shit going on—the Rangers were fighting like they'd done this a million times, flipping and kicking and punching and blasting and tearing the robot things apart. And then Doc was in my head, telling me what to do while all this information on my visor kept streaming by like lines of binary code.
Suddenly, I felt like I had vertigo. Or food poisoning. Or diarrhea.
Or all three.
"Feel the dirt beneath your feet, Gabriel," Doc said, his voice calming and steady now. "Listen to the vibrations in the earth, feel it coursing through you. Let it calm and steady you. You are part of the Earth now, Gabriel—you are the Alpha Red Stone Ranger."
And then it hit me like a massive planetary brick wall. I could feel the Earth pushing up against me, instead of feeling my weight bearing down it. I could feel the raw power and energy, contained but biding and controlled. I felt every layer of sediment beneath the soles of my boots as if my toes were buried in soil, and I felt the Earth push back and hold me up. It solidified me. It molded me. Strengthened me. It built me up until I felt like a gigantic cliff face—no, scratch that—like I was freaking Mount Everest.
I let out a roar and chunks of Earth shot up from the ground, springing to life with the will of my mind. When I punched forward, a spear of rock flew forward like a bullet, slamming into the head of one of the androids and disabling it permanently.
"Nice aim, brah!" Jay bellowed over the commotion of battle.
I jumped into the air and sliced downward with my forearm. Another rain of stones fell down on the robots—my visor called them "Gigadroids." When I landed in the courtyard below, I let my fist mesh with the face of the one of the Octobabies and it flew through the concrete until it collided with one of its siblings. Stunned, they tried to wiggle their way back me, but I stretched my arm to the sky and a spike of solid rock jutted out and stabbed through both of them. I heard Beyt shriek in horror, but I paid her no attention.
I was in the zone, now!
"Gabriel," Doc barked, caution in his voice, "be careful with using your element too much and keep an eye on your energy meter—you're already at 80 percent and falling."
"Well what's next then?"
"Summon your Alpha Saberlaser," he said. "Should help cut them down to size."
I smirked behind my mouth guard. "I like the sound of that." I stood to my full height and extended my hand to the sky like my HUD instructed. "Alpha Saberlaser!"
In a flash of red from my helmet, a sturdy blade was scanned into my hand in a wire frame before it fully realized. The imprinted black and gold grip in my hand led up to a solid, sharp, metallic golden edge that framed a blazing red energy blade generated by a core of plasma in the crossguard. Built into the guard was a sharp barrel that seemed to extend and wrap back around to my fingers, setting the trigger right next to my index finger.
As soon as I leveled my mighty weapon, another Octobaby charged me, only to get a bolt of volcanic energy straight through the head.
"Nice shot, rookie!" Matt hollered as he fired off a blast from his wrist mounted weapon and glided over to me.
Jay ripped through two more Gigadroids and grinded to a stop next to us. "Shaking off the stage fright?"
"You could say that," I responded shortly. "What's the plan?"
"Uh...you're the Red Ranger," he said cluelessly as he backhanded a Gigadroid away and fired off a few more rounds from what my visor was calling a Gauntlet Guard. "Aren't you supposed to be the one with all the plans and leadership?"
I slashed through an octobaby and then summoned my own Gauntlet Guard before blasting it to bits. "Dude, it's my first day! Gimme a break!"
Amy came spiraling out of the fray with a trail of sparks following her. She landed against the wall behind me and Jay, who tried to help her up. But the Pink Ranger didn't need it, as she floated out of the cratered wall and into the air, lifting two Gigadroids with her with...magic? All the sudden, their bodies started crumpling until their power cores were ripped from their chests. Amy swirled them around with her telekinesis before she threw them forward and exploded them on four more Gigadroids.
I knew they couldn't see that my jaw was practically unhinged, but I felt stupid gawking.
"We're getting overrun and we haven't even touched Beyt yet," she said as she landed like nothing had happened. "The Gigadroids are adapting and this is just a distraction."
She was had a point. Now that I looked around, the Gigadroids seemed to be getting stronger and they were predicting Grace's short range teleportation tactics. Eventually, she made her way over to us before they could force her back.
"I don't get it," Grace panted, "they're just holding the line, trying to keep us from Beyt. What the hell are they stalling for?"
"Gabriel," Doc said, breaking his silence, "I need you to do a geothermal scan on the area surrounding Beyt. Something tells me whatever she's doing is underground."
I tapped the pentagon shaped gem on my left ear and my visor was clouded in a colored haze ranging from green to yellow to red and blue. Heat signatures were everywhere—especially under Beyt.
"She's got...like...roots? Tentacle roots? Something is digging underneath the school and spreading."
"That's not good."
"Doc, there's something super hot down there," I said, my visor glowing red as I locked onto a what seemed to be a massive sphere hundreds of feet below us. "Like...volcano hot."
"It's the generator for the school's power supply and bunkers. If she gets it open, the shielding around the evac spots will be compromised and the explosion will level half of Reefside."
"Um...do I even wanna know why that's below our school?"
"No time for that, Grace. We've gotta wipe out those spawn and uproot her as quickly as possible."
"Well, unless you've got a miracle up your sleeve, I really don't see how that's possible," Grace shot back.
"Did I hear someone ask for a MIRACLE?!"
I spun around, looking up to the top of one of our still-intact computer lab building to see another Ranger—a shiny, glimmering White Ranger decked out in white and black with gold armor on his chest and arms. His visor was lit up in blue, but a bright menacing neon sky blue that reminded me of lasers and lightning.
"Who the…?"
"Ha-ha! There's my boy!" Jay rooted. "There's our leader," he said to me. "That's Aaron."
So I hadn't misheard Grace. Aaron was the So that was the incredibly amazing Aaron I'd heard so much about? Was he the same Aaron from school? Could he be the same guy keeping me from what I really wanted? What made him so special?
Okay, fine. Maybe I had to admit, all personal things aside, I was impressed. The sun was catching him in all the right angles, and it seemed like the rays of light that hit him were swirling around his armor and pouring into the little blue orbs on his bandolier-like armor.
"The White Ranger!?" Mira half-asked, half-accused. She turned to her left where her indigo-skinned bodyguard stood with his arms folded over his golden armored chest."I thought you said you took care of him, Rheas?!"
Grace and Amy exchanged masked looks, but I was completely out of the loop on this one.
"Oh he tried. And I'm not gonna lie," the White Ranger said back cockily, "you almost had me there. The whole rattled confidence thing was a good try, but it's nothing I couldn't shake off with a nice little pep talk."
Doc was coming over the commlinks now, smugness coating his voice. "You're welcome."
"It doesn't matter what you do or who gives the pep talks," Mira shouted, clearly frustrated.
"I'm going to use each and every one of these tentacles to tear you all limb from limb before I send this whole city up in flames and plunge this whole planet into eternal darkness," Beyt added, her Octobabies swarming around her in a defensive wall.
"Well," Aaron said, like he was thinking of a response. "Why don't you let me shed a little a light on things then!"
Wow.
That was his comeback?
But then he backed up his corniness with a huge burst of light that erupted from the orbs on his armor. I could barely hear his voice shout "Photon...METEOR!"
And then, individual beams of pure light energy—so bright my visor could barely stand them—bulleted from the dome of light around Aaron like rockets of light. Swarmed in gold and white-blue flares of pure energy, the beams collided with a shrieking Beyt, who tried to warn her Octobabies. I watched as the Gigadroids attempted to shield themselves, but it was useless as, one by one, they were incinerated.
All of them.
There was a stunned silence from Mira and Rheas, who stared in disbelief at the aftermath—all of Beyt's Octobabies were disintegrated, and the Gigadroids didn't even leave a piece of scrap metal behind.
The only thing left, was Beyt's fried carcass, lying in defeat with her still buried tentacles lying limp in the upturned field.
"Holy shit, dude…"
I had to agree with Matt's reaction.
"DUDE!" Jay roared, "That was awesome!"
"Nicely done, Aaron!" Doc commended, like he was surprised it worked.
Aaron flipped down from the building, his feet landing perfectly next to us as he surveyed the team. "Welcome aboard, Gabriel," he said to me through his black mouth guard. "Nice job today."
I had thought about this moment for longer than I cared to admit. I mean, this wasn't at all how I'd pictured it, because normally he wouldn't be 7 feet tall in blinding white armor. And we weren't supposed to meet after he'd just vaporized an entire army of land squids and killer droids. Maybe this wasn't the best time to tell him...
"You weren't so bad yourself, uh...Commander?" I replied, at a loss for anything else to say.
He held his hand out and said, "Aaron. Just call me Aaron."
I stared at his black gloved hand, so intensely that I could see the little circuits of gold on his fingertips, and wondered if shaking his hand changed anything. Was I still supposed to hate him for her? Or was I just supposed to forget about all the shitty things he'd done to her?
Luckily, I didn't have to decide right then, because the ground beneath us was quaking like it could tell I was nervous. It was subtle at first, to the point where only I could feel it. And then it intensified.
"Anybody else feel that?" I asked them.
They all looked at me.
And then, before I could say anything, gigantic tentacles shot up from the ground and wrapped around Beyt in some sort of sick cocoon type thing. In between the cracks of each tree-trunk sized appendage, acid green energy spilled out like gas until Beyt emerged from the inside in a fiery haze.
But she was different, now. Her body was fully covered in a sort of organic armor, and her eyes were now the same nasty bulging green spheres as her children. Her tentacles weren't tentacles anymore, and she wielded four thorny arms and two legs that were flanked by a skirt made of moving tentacles.
"What...the...fuck?" Jay half-cried. "Are you serious right now?"
"Looks like the fight's not over yet, guys," Aaron replied, ignoring his friend altogether. "We've got work to do, so let's get to it!"
It was like he didn't have to say anything, like they'd practiced this before, because as soon as he said something, Grace sprang to life.
"Cyber Psi—Black Shadow Ranger!"
As she struck her pose, the symbol on her chest burned black as coal with a shadowy outer glow of purple.
Amy stepped forward, levitating herself into the air again and outstretching her arms to either side while she shouted "Cyber Sigma—Pink Force Ranger!" past her silver mouthguard. No sooner were the words out of her mouth did her chest symbol ignite in a magenta haze with a pale blue veil on the edges,
"Cyber Kappa—Blue Vortex Ranger!" Matt bellowed past the winds spiraling around him in slivers of sapphire and turquoise that matched the colors on his Cyber Symbol.
Jay was all fired up by the time it was his turn, and the blazes around him erupted from his chest in gold, orange, and red cinders when he called out, "Cyber Upsilon—Yellow Pyro Ranger!"
Somehow, as soon as Jay had finished roaring out his line, I knew it was my turn. Maybe it was because I was the only one left except Aaron, or maybe it was the ghostly feeling inside of me that was urging me to step forward and stomp a crater into the ground while claiming the Red Ranger mantel for myself—I dunno. What was clear to me, though, was how the ground sunk beneath my feet when I did step forward, like I weighed two tons. Same thing happened when I slammed my fist into the dirt: the whole ground seemed to tremble in respect. That's when I knew it was time.
"Cyber Alpha—Red Stone Ranger!"
I almost didn't hear Aaron jump into the air before he slammed back down to Earth in a foggy sphere of golden white light so that he could complete the role call.
"Cyber Delta—White Luster Ranger!"
There was a sense of finality ringing clear in his voice, and it was louder than the humming from the rings of photons that swirled around him in a dome of light energy. I felt the true power of the Cyber Morphers wrap around us and explode in waves of pure power as we stood together as a complete team.
Suddenly, shouting out our designations like the first day of school and posing like we were trying out for a boyband somehow made us stronger. And I guess, in a way, it did. Now, we were a united front with more power than we'd ever had before, and it was up to us to show them that singly, we were a match—together, we were unstoppable.
"POWER RANGERS—CYBER SQUAD!"
A plan to shout it together was never made, it just happened. It was like everything in the universe fell into place at that exact same second to align the stars just right for us to be together. This was destiny. That's what this was. It was the goddamned will of the universe!
"I don't care what you call yourselves," Beyt screeched, "I don't care how many of you there are! You're all DEAD!"
And two of her thorny arms seemed to turn their bones to jello as they dug back into the ground like hungry roots. Her eyes shone bright red, shifting from their eerie green color as more of her Octobabies shot out of the ground like disgusting little daisies. Only this time, they were taller and sleeker—more muscular, even. Their huge eyes had developed a shell like casing around them and their massive heads were now serrated with horns, just like their buffed up spiky arms.
"Amy, Jay, you two are on projectile duty—don't focus on power, we're just here to keep them in place," Aaron said. "Grace, you're with me. I'll take Beyt, you keep the rest of those squids in place."
Jay and Amy's helmets nodded in confirmation as they jumped to the sides and flanked Beyt and her brood of children. I watched as they fired off arsenals of elements at the opposing side. Between Jay's fireballs and Amy's energy spheres, I could barely make out how many rounds they were letting out of their Gauntlet Guards on top of all of it.
"Gabe, focus," Aaron said, nudging me. "I need you to cover Matt, he's our aerial support. Matt, you're gonna keep everyone grounded and call out the plays as they unfold. You got me?"
"All over it," said the Blue Ranger shortly as he took to the skies like it was an everyday thing.
"He can...fly?" I found myself asking.
"Focus," Aaron reminded me again. "Your part's the most important."
"Alright, alright, what's up?"
"You see how Beyt sticks her tentacles in the ground to make her babies, right?"
"Yeah, what about it?"
"I can almost guarantee you they can't survive away from the ground. I need you to uproot them so Matt can suck them up in a whirlwind and we can torch their asses like a good old fashioned barbeque. Whaddaya say?"
I nodded, smirking behind my helmet. I could get used to this if Aaron was always this level-headed about things.
"I say let's rock and roll!"
If I could see his face, I'm sure I would've seen him smile because I could hear it in his voice when he said, "That's what I'm talking about!"
But then he took off at lightspeed, wind trailing off his body as he slammed into Beyt headon. He was either insane or insanely good, because he dodged past all of Amy and Jay's blasts like they were nothing. Either that, or their aim was that good.
Aaron was keeping up with Beyt like it was no problem, even with all four of her arms lashing out at him like she was Vishnu or something. No matter what she did, she couldn't lay a single blow, and I watched in awe at how quick his movements seemed to be.
And then, when it seemed like she was slowing down, Aaron pulled the blade from the side of his belt so quickly that all I saw was a flash of white as he sliced her across the chest. And then another slash, and another, until she was finally able to reel in two of her arms to block herself and push him away.
"You just gonna stand there or did you wanna earn that Red Ranger title?"
Grace tossed an Octobaby my way as she ghosted through another, pulling out two short bladed weapons and slicing two more in half.
In a puff of black smoke, she was gone, only to reappear behind another one before cutting it down to size.
"There," she said and suddenly she was right beside me, "I even rounded them up into a nice little circle for you."
"You're so thoughtful," I fired back, returning her sarcasm.
"Anytime now," Aaron said through tight lips. "I can't keep this up forever!"
"Hurry, man, can you get clear?"
He let his actions speak for him as he ducked a left cross from Beyt before he flipped up into the air. "Now!"
I flexed and followed the simple directions on my HUD: plant feet, raise arms slowly.
What wasn't so simple was lifting the Earth.
I felt the strain on my body like I was trying to bench press the entire weight of the world. But as I pushed through it, I felt the ground shifting, and a mound of dirt started bubbling underneath the Octobabies. By the time they noticed, though, it was too late: Jay and Amy had them pinned now.
"Hurry, Gabe, we're running out of juice," Jay said over the commlink. "I'm at 30 percent already!"
"I'm...trying…" I groaned through gritted teeth.
"Dig deep, Gabriel," Doc said over the mic, "you've gotta envision the Earth as your own personal sandbox."
And when he said sand, it hit me. This was just dirt. Just sand and dirt and gravel and dust all wrapped up into a shell that protected the Earth's core.
I could do this!
And I did.
I roared as I stretched my hands up above my head like I had just tossed a boulder into the sky.
All of Beyt's remaining children flew into the sky, their legs panicking and longing for the feel of solid ground.
"That's all you, Matt!" I yelled over the commlink.
And he didn't miss a beat.
He swirled his hands around his head over and over until a funnel of winds formed around the flailing babies. The winds picked up speed and started gnawing and slashing at their exposed skin. I could hear their screams as Beyt tried to claw her way past Aaron, who swung his glowing blade into her as he called out to Jay.
"Light em up, brah!"
And light em up he did.
The Yellow Ranger started sprinting, cinders heating up on his feet until he left a path of fire behind him. When he lept into the air, at least 50 feet, he reached down toward the ground and the flames jumped into his hand in a column of searing heat like he'd just summoned a volcano. All it took was a thrust of his arms in the direction of Beyt's spawns, and the entire wildfire rocketed toward them like a spear sent straight from hell.
And that was that.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Beyt's voice was ragged, cracking in desperation and disbelief.
Victorious, Matt landed on the ground with Jay in tow. We regrouped confidently and stared at our defeated opponent, her body slumping to the ground as she grabbed at the dirt around her and let it sift through her fingers.
"You will all pay," she whispered lethally, "just you wait."
And then she sprang up and her arms turned to tentacles again. But this time, Aaron was ready. The gem in the center of his bandolier armor lit up with white and gold sparks as he twirled his Delta Magna Edge.
"Lightspeed...SLAYER!"
One second, he was moving at normal speed, and then the next thing I knew, he was a streak of white that seemed to stretch all the way to Beyt. It wasn't until I saw him right in her face that I realized he'd literally moved at the speed of light.
Humming energy slashes were the only things I heard before I was blinded by a shockwave of white hot energy that seared right through Beyt's tentacles.
Goddamn he was fast.
"Gabriel," Doc said hurriedly in my ear, "form the Cyber Shotgun while she's vulnerable!"
And then my helmet lit up with a "receiving download" message that completed and displayed exactly what Doc was talking about.
The Cyber Shotgun was the super weapon of the Cyber Squad, formed of all five primary weapons with my Saberlaser forming the trigger and barrel by folding the blade to one side. Jay's Upsilon Shield was used as the top that covered my barrel and balanced the additional barrels made out of Matt's folded Kappa Spear, Amy's Sigma Whip, ad Grace's Psi Lancers.
I assumed Doc sent the file to everyone, because in no time flat, we were assembling our weapons in a symphony of metallic clinks and clanks. Admittedly, the finished product was a hell of a lot more intimidating than the display picture, but I couldn't complain about the assembly time.
Immediately, Grace and Amy knelt at the forefront to prop up the massive cannon on their shoulders. Matt and Jay were right behind them, holding onto the sides of Jay's shield that stuck out just perfectly, and I backed them up at the rear with my finger on the trigger.
"Cyber Shotgun!"
"Locked," Grace and Amy announced, cocking the barrels into place.
"Loaded!" Matt and Jay followed up, each placing a hand on the central piece of the cannon.
I felt another presence with my own as the scream ripped out of my throat. "FIRE!"
Aaron jumped out of the way just in time as the first round of energy slammed into Beyt and froze her in place like a stun gun. The recoil was hell, but we held steady as the second shot burst forth. Finally, the third blast hit her with the force of a megaton bomb and the explosion took out the other half of the building behind her.
Oops.
Totally worth it, though—Beyt was nowhere to be found.
Our Cyber Shotgun seemed to magically break apart into our weapons that somehow made their way back to our hands, but I couldn't hold my excitement any more.
"YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYUUUUUUUH!"
I jumped up, high-fiving Jay and bumping chests with him. Probably not a good idea, since he was at least 100 pounds heavier than me. Though, in my Ranger suit, I seemed to have gained about 60 pounds of muscle.
"Don't celebrate just yet, Rangers," Mira interrupted us as she made her way to the wreckage near Beyt's grave. "The battle has only just begun."
"What, you wanna join your squid sister as a pile of ash?" Grace taunted.
Rheas grinned as he passed Mira a small dagger. At least, it kinda looked like a dagger. But it was all tatted up in orange circuit lines glowing deep inside the charcoal body of the weapon.
Jay laughed. "Really? Is that Rheas's idea of a toothpick?"
Over his laughter, it was hard to hear Mira's chanting, but by the time we noticed, it was too late.
Out of the dagger shot forth a neon orange beam on the few ashes that remained of Beyt, like it was scanning or something. When it finished, she tossed the little tech blade and it fell right down in the dirt, like it was magnetized to the ground.
"Uh...okay," Matt said, the curiosity obvious in his voice. "So what, she lost her throwing arm? I'm confused."
"Doc," Grace muttered into her commlink, "What is that?"
"Trouble," he said, "big...big trouble."
"My scan says it's a supercellular regrowth serum and..." Amy paused as she stared at Rheas's gloating face. "There's some sort of coding I can't break.
"Wait, supercellular? As in...?"
Aaron was cut off by Mira's high-pitched laughter. "That's right, Rangers. Beyt is back and bigger than ever!" She and Rheas (surprisingly, Rheas) darted away in orange streaks and reappeared on top of the gym again. "Prepare to be crushed like the peons you are!"
"Wait...what?" I asked, confused as hell and looking to the others for guidance. "What's going on?"
I had my answer as soon as a giant explosion wrecked what little was left of the building where Beyt had been destroyed. Well, at least, we thought she was destroyed. Because in the middle of the fire, and bigger than ever, was Beyt.
—11—
"Um...Doc! We have a serious problem here!"
"I'm all over it, Aaron," our principal responded. "Get ready for a full-on crash course, guys."
"It's Zord time, bro!" Jay half-yelled in my ear as he jostled me by the shoulders. "We are gonna totally wreck her shit!"
Why, exactly, did he sound excited about piloting a massive robot that we had never even used?!
"I'm sending you the files now," Doc said over the mic, "the bunker shields are holding, so you are go for zord combat. I want her moved immediately, though...let's not waste any more tax dollars than necessary on cleaning up this mess."
Grace chuckled. "When you say things like that, it reminds me that you're still our principal."
The only response we got was a new file incoming on our HUDs.
"Cyber Unicorn?" I read aloud, glancing at my Zord's name. "Really?"
"Don't knock it til you've tried it," Doc replied. "Summon your Zords from your Virtual Gems over your left ear. They'll project your zords in hologram form and realize momentarily."
"Wait, like this?" Matt wondered, touching his right ear.
"Your other right, Matt," Doc said with a sigh. "Your right ear is your commlink."
"Like this," Aaron corrected him, reaching up to his left ear. "Scan Zord! Cyber Tiger Zord!"
Doc was right about the whole projecting thing. Right from the blue eyes on the top of Aaron's helmet, white laser beams started sketching out a virtual hologram. It seemed to mimic his helmet design first before it slowly morphed into a full-bodied white tiger and grew quickly into the full, overwhelming size of his zord.
"Scan Zord! Cyber Gladiator!" Grace called out, a black stream of holographic lines forming a gigantic female spartan.
"Scan Zord! Cyber Dove!" Amy repeated.
And then Matt did it the right way, shouting "Scan Zord! Cyber Osprey!"
Jay could barely contain his excitement and didn't wait for Matt to finish summoning his own zord before he roared, "Scan Zord! Cyber Cheetah!"
"Scan Zord!" I yelled, trying not to give away my worry and , cautiously pulling my index and middle fingers to my left ear, "Cyber Unicorn!"
I don't know how, but the holograms themselves were enough to make Beyt reassess the situation. She looked like she wasn't quite sure what was going on or how she came to be the size of a skyscraper. And she looked even more thrown off by the projections that were transforming into real metal giants right before her buggy eyes. All I knew was that one second, Beyt was towering over us. The next, she was on the ground and a giant, robotic, female gladiator was looking down upon us. My visor automatically adjusted to the sleek black and silver armor that reflected brightly in the sun, and I noticed Its vivid green eyes looking right down at us.
It was Grace's zord.
"Wow," was all the Black Ranger could say
"Let's do it!" Aaron called out as he tele-jumped to his zord.
The rest of us didn't hesitate.
"Let's try to bring her down without using the Megazord," I suggested, "I don't think we're ready for that just yet."
"I'm with him," Matt chimed in, steering his avian Zord to align with Grace's.
Beyt had recovered from her fall (which had completely demolished our front office and the cultural appreciation center) and looked like she was officially ready to rumble.
"Jay and Gabriel, I need you two to distract her with light blasts," Aaron instructed. "Grace, it looks like your zord takes after you—think you can cloak and sneak up on her."
"Please, stealth is my specialty."
"Good. Amy, Matt, I need you two to do the heavy lifting."
"Please tell me you don't mean what I think you mean."
"You heard Doc: we a have to move her before she destroys the rest of the school—or, even worse, the neighborhoods around here. You and Matt are the only ones who can fly and I'd say this bitch is in need of a one-way trip to hell."
I fought not to roll my eyes. Then I realized he couldn't see me and did it anyway.
"We need to get her away from the city," Doc said, chimed in. "Matt and Amy, it's time to tow our friend here to the mountains. God knows we have enough rock quarries to host this party."
"We're on it," Matt confirmed, his osprey zord swinging its giant serrated wings as it circled around.
"The closest area is the Coral Trails Range approximately 7.9 miles northwest of here," Doc said. "Looks like there's a huge construction clearing there that should be empty."
"Preparing Talon Tow Cables," the Pink Ranger said, syncing up with Matt as her smooth and curvy Cyber Dove floated through the air as it met the osprey in flight formation.
"Pretty birdies," Beyt taunted, cracking her neck, "I think I could get used to being a King Sized Queen!"
"She's prepping her tentacles!" Aaron warned them. "Gabe, Jay—let's take the heat off the fliers and set our weapons systems to light. We don't want to knock her over anymore."
My HUD coordinated with the systems in my Zord, mapping out the controls easily and quickly so that I could make sense of all the buttons in front of me.
"Geo Cannons sound fun," I said, mostly to myself.
"Doesn't sound very light, bro," said Jay. "Cannons usually aren't. Watch and learn: Spark Lasers!"
His Cheetah Zord let out a mechanical snarl as several bolts of fire shot out from its shoulders near its boosters. But Beyt was ready and she swatted them away while she laughed.
"Oh yeah?" Aaron's Tiger Zord stared Beyt down, low growls rumbling from its open mouth. "Laugh at this! Stripe Shooter!"
If I thought Jay's Cyber Cheetah was scary when it snarled, it had nothing on Aaron's Tiger Zord roar as it fired off bright blue beams out of the solid black stripes on its face.
"Now, Grace!"
The Cyber Gladiator appeared right behind Beyt, latching its arms around her waist just long enough for Amy and Matt to swoop in.
"Aw, did the lonely Black Ranger need a hug?" Beyt chuckled as she jellified her arms into tentacles. "Let me show you how to do it!"
"Let's not get handsy, Beyt!" the Blue Ranger said excitedly, cutting her off and blasting her tentacles before she could reach around to Grace. "Actually, let's! Talon Tows away!"
Both the pink and blue birds swooped in with razor sharp claws and just as sharp of precision. If Beyt's howls of pain were any indication, I'd say they had a pretty tight lock on her before the flying zords batted their wings against the ground until she was lifted into the air with them.
Grace waved her off with her Gladiator's mighty arm. "Let me know if you want another hug, Squiddy!"
"Alright, guys, try to be careful going through the city," Aaron warned us. "These zords are massive and can cause some serious damage. Let's try not to splatter anyone."
"Don't worry about that," Doc rattled off quickly, "you've got just enough energy left over in the Virtualizer to revert to Virtual Holo Format—it'll let you pass right through everything. But it'll only last for about a minute—67 seconds to be exact, so make it count."
Thirty seconds to get from the city to the mountains? Even my dashboard was trying to calculate the necessary speed to make a trip in that time, and it was risky to say the least.
"Doc, you do realize I'm going to have to go 424 miles-per-hour to make it in time, right?" I questioned him. "Even my zord says it's not possible, even at top speed!"
Just then, my entire zord shook and shuddered under the weight of something colossal.
"Then I guess we'd better giddy up then, huh Seabiscuit?" A visual of the Black Ranger in her cockpit popped up on a console between my handheld controls.
"I can't believe I'm saying this as your principal, but don't worry about the math right now. Your max speed is just a number, and you can beat the odds!"
"Better hang tight, then, princess," I retorted to Grace, saluting her visual.
"Initiating Virtual Holo Format in 3...2.."
There was a streak of light that ran over our zords, like a laser scanning us into another world. I looked beneath me, staring straight through my cockpit at the ground that seemed at least a hundred feet away. I knew from my zord specs that it was more like 80, but somehow, that wasn't the most reassuring of things as everything became transparent, etched in glowing lights like a circuit board.
"Let's ride!" Grace shouted, her Cyber Gladiator spurring my Cyber Unicorn into one last buck as I gunned the engines and shot forward.
We passed through the wreckage of our school, through the suburban area surrounding us and over the crammed interstate. The beach was not far ahead and I could see the eyes of hundreds of citizens staring up at us in absolute fear. My hooves trampled right through them, leaving them unscathed as we bounded toward the mountain range. Jay's Cheetah was way faster than mine, and I heard his cheers over the commlink as he whooped at the phenomenal speeds of his zord. And even though his TigerZord was a sturdy big cat of a zord, Aaron was still speeding ahead of me in a blur of white, black, and gold.
"Ten seconds left!" Doc counted down worriedly, "Gabe, you're still 30 seconds out, pick up the pace!"
We weren't going to make it. My zord was directly over the lighthouse on a fancy beach, villas and condos scattered across the shoreline.
"C'mon, Gabriel," Grace was chanting quietly. If she didn't have a helmet and gloves in her way, she would have been gnawing on her perfectly manicured nails.
I had to think quick, or I was going to crush countless innocent bystanders and their million dollar homes...
The ocean.
All caution to the wind, I veered left and forced my zord into the pacific as the virtual phasing wore off and waves crashed around my mighty hooves.
There was a silence that seemed to blanket everyone as I drove my zord into the depths of the Californian ocean. Seconds ticked by until mine and Grace's zords burst through the surface of the salty sea in a mighty lunge. My zord catapulted through the air, Grace's gladiator brandishing its Psi Saber victoriously like a cavalier.
We landed like a meteor, the ground trembling beneath the massive weight of my zord. The battle had resumed, but it was in full force now since Beyt had freed herself from Matt and Amy's grips and was swinging her thorny arms wildly to keep everyone back.
"Quick thinking, back there, Gabriel," Grace complimented me as her zord dismounted and twirled her sword. "You're not such a bad Red Ranger after all."
"Gee, thanks. I guess I'll take that as a compliment."
"So, I don't wanna interrupt or state the obvious," Amy butted in, "but Beyt is officially pissed off and I am totally open to suggestions on how to handle this."
"Just follow your instincts, and your HUDs. They won't steer you wrong."
"Easy for you to say," I muttered.
"Yeah, you could probably pilot these things in your sleep, Doc" Matt said as his Cyber Osprey dodged another tentacle attack and ascended to a safe distance.
Jay's Cheetah advanced from the edges of the mountains, low to the ground like he was ready to pounce. "Alright, here's an idea: why don't we blast the shit out of her with our heavy weapons until she's just a pile of ash again? Sound like a plan?" He didn't wait for a response before his Cyber Cheetah pounced forward with an attack called "Burst Claws!"
The boosters on his back lit up as the cheetah flew forward and raked at Beyt's tentacles with molten hot claws that seared right through her arms.
Beyt hissed and another pair of tentacles sprouted from nowhere as she wrapped them around Jay's cheetah like an anaconda.
"Jay!"
Aaron's Tiger Zord rushed in, only to be backhanded and blindsided by another set of tendrils.
"You poor little pussy cats," Grace cooed as her Cyber Gladiator reappeared coolly and cut Jay loose.
Matt's and Amy's zords were circling around now as they called on their heavy weaponry. Amy's Cyber Dove was packing two Disruptor Cannons in the inner portion of her wings, and Matt had three "Razor Wings" on the front of his wing ridge.
"Together?" Matt asked his wingman.
"You know it," she replied as they zoomed in together and let loose with their weapons.
Now, Beyt was flustered, and that was all it took for Aaron to start hashing out orders, commanding Jay and me forward into attack position.
I didn't really know much about Jay, other than the fact that he was on the football team, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't impressed as shit at the fact that he was able to rattle off the attacks he was using. Like the "Pyrovian Flare Cannons," and an onslaught of missiles covered in fiery barriers launched forward and lit her up like the Fourth of July.
I had to follow up, so I chose the Geo Cannons I had ignored earlier. In the shoulders of my equine machine were two gigantic magnetic machine guns, and when they revved up, they didn't let up!
"Dude, I totally just skewered that ugly mug of hers!"
But I was just getting warmed up. Now that she was on the ground, I got to test out my Magnet Horn. All the rounds I'd fired into her had given her just enough to let me levitate her into the air with it so that I could slam my Megaton Seismic Hooves into her and send her flying through the air.
"That's all you, Fearless Leader—go for the assist?"
"You already know!" His Tiger Zord jumped backward off its hind legs and shot triplet rockets out of chest called "Superion Torpedoes!"
When the missiles hit her, she was still midair, and their explosion seemed to wrap her up in chains of golden white light energy.
That was all it took for Grace to spring into action as her Gladiator somersaulted and slashed forward with a mighty attack that Grace called "Phantom Slayer!"
When her zord landed, Beyt was collapsing in a groan as Grace made her closing statement "I might not have missiles, but I'm still the bomb."
"That was a lame explosion," Matt complained. "They always look bigger on TV."
"Dude, we still won!" I said, cheering. "And we didn't even have to use—"
"No! Use your scanners!"
Doc was saying something else, but Beyt was already thrusting her tentacles into the air and slamming into Matt and Amy, pulling them out of the sky. I saw the sparks fall from them like snow, the pink and blue birds spiraling out of control as they slammed into the ground.
"She's still alive," Doc Ol repeated himself dismally. I could almost see him facepalming.
Beyt landed on the ground, grinning sinisterly as she unleashed her tentacle nails upon Matt and Amy's fallen forms. Without hesitation, she fired three more at Grace, Jay, and me. As soon as they latched onto me, my sensors went haywire, warning me that this was a dangerous position to be in.
Like I didn't know.
"I'm stuck!" I shouted, panicking. "My systems say it-It's some kind of electromagnetic deadlock or something."
Doc was quick with instructions. "Aaron, you need to initiate your battle mode. It's the only way you're gonna be able to free the others and take her out once and for all. It's Megazord time."
"Right," I heard him say over the comlink. I heard him mumbling to himself as he attempted to figure out the sequence, but Beyt's energy was starting to shut down my power core like she was snacking on it.
"Got it!" he cheered, "Delta Cyber Tigerzord – Fighter Mode!"
I watched from my view-screen as the Zord stood on its hind legs: thighs became kneepads, feet folded into shins to form new feet, and the whole body seemed to extend to form a longer torso altogether. I could hear the gears turning as his arms rejointed and revealed hands under claws, and the golden plates on his shoulders expanded slightly as the tiger head transformed to reposition itself in the middle of the chest. Finally, a robot head emerged from the back and locked into position, its bright blue eyes glowing readily.
"Delta Cyber Tigerzord, Battle Ready!" Aaron announced proudly.
"Now that is badass," Matt commented from his grounded position. "Tell me we get one of those."
Doc didn't have time to respond, because Beyt seemed to realize we were no longer her concern. Though she never let us go from her grip, her eyes burned as she shot her lasers again.
Aaron's Fighter Mode was more agile than she expected, and he jumped into the air and turned his tail into a burning blue sword that sliced right through her tendrils.
She shrieked in agony and anger as her tentacles fell harmlessly to the ground, my energy returning almost instantaneously.
"You'd think she would have learned the first time," Aaron commented as his zord bounced around on its feet like a pro boxer.
"Guys," Doc said ominously, "It's time to form the Megazord. I'm uploading the files to your HUDs now."
This was it. No no time for apprehension or second guessing. And after seeing Aaron flawless execute his zord's transformation already, I was feeling a hell of a lot more confident.
"You heard the man," I said to my teammates. "Let's do it, guys!"
Their voices all blended together as they chorused in a "Right!"
If we had a theme song, it would have started jamming as all the Rangers—my team—started rattling off the transformation like we'd done this a million times before.
"Initiating Virtual transformation" Amy reported as her zord began to hum with life and turn transparent once again.
We entered our codes in the holo-computers in our cockpits, executing a command line that finally initiated the transformation.
I felt my zord unhinging and reformatting as its neck retracted and all my legs folded to align perfectly with the trunk of the zord. My zord's entire body bent at a 90-degree angle where the head and body met, and I realized I was a leg—the Megazord's left leg, to be exact. And my Unicorn head was gonna make one bomb ass boot with a nice spike on the foot.
Jay's zord transformed the exact same way as mine, and it was only then that I realized we were nearly exactly the same size—I had never noticed it before. So much detail had gone into designing the zords, and I'd never even thought about it.
I looked to the skies where Matt and Amy were circling again. Amy began to dive-bomb as the wrapped its wings around the front of its body, legs retracting into the large oval-shaped thighs. The top of her chest compartment opened while the dove head shifted back to reveal a huge fist. That was all I needed to see to know that Amy's dove was gonna make one hell of an arm. But she wasn't done yet, her tail detaching and reversing itself into a shoulder pad while three random armaments jettisoned from her stomach and floated into the sky, swarming around Matt's giant Osprey zord.
His enormous wings rotated clockwise to align with the osprey's body, and the Osprey neck extended and its beak opened to reveal another fist. His tail detached, just like Amy's, and a whole panel flipped down from the back and joined with the chest to form a gigantic chest piece, complete with pecs and the Cyber Symbol on each one.
Finally, my mind made sense of what I was seeing: his Osprey had become the upper body, right arm, and wings.
Meanwhile, Amy's zord plummeted to the ground at ridiculous speeds until Matt's transformed zord came out of nowhere to attach to Amy's zord right at the shoulder pad. The upper portion of the Megazord was complete, except for the head.
And we were missing the midsection and the rest of our legs. There was no way Gabriel and I had zords that were long enough to make our Megazord stand tall enough to fight Beyt.
Out of nowhere, Grace's zord leapt into the sky, her shoulder pads folding in line with her arms, which folded then folded up and retracted into the open chest cavity. Once it closed, her zord turned around and showed off her back tats—abdominal designs for the Megazord. When her legs folded at the feet to form little connectors, she docked with Jay and me and the lower half of the Megazord broke into a sprint until we collided with Matt and Amy's torso pieces. Grace's warrior head had popped off right before and attached to the neck Matt had formed. Now, the head was flying up into the sky, little rockets jettisoning it up until it circled the little pieces Amy's zord had popped out earlier.
Each piece attached to Grace's gladiator head and formed a mighty helmeted face worthy of our boss-ass-body. When it fell into place, the chair in my cockpit slid out and shot me upward, through the Megazord's insides, and into a centralized cockpit with my teammates. I heard shifting above me as panels slid open and revealed a massive view screen and I realized we were right behind the eyes. Once finished, the whole room burst into a bright golden light as the Megazord's eyes lit up and its horn shined with electricity.
We were ready.
"Cyber Centurion Megazord!"
I heard Doc cheering over the commlink and I couldn't help but feel on top of the world.
The transformation shield flickered back into us, like it was just a holographic projection, and our Megazord slid into a battle stance.
I glanced around the cockpit at my color coded comrades. "You guys ready to finish this?"
"You know it, bro!" Jay responded, fist pumping.
"Polymorphic Fusion Core at 100 percent, fearless leader," Amy said cheekily. "Ready when you are."
I wrapped my fingers into a dramatic fist. "Let's do it!"
"Powering up the Cyber Saber," Grace reported as her fingers flew over the holo controls.
Pieces from all over the Megazord sprang out and shot in front of us, and Matt's osprey-headed fist reached out and grabbed onto one of them. It was Jay's cheetah tail, and my unicorn's tail clicked right into place with the top of it. Two of the feathers from Matt's wings slammed onto the sides of the small dagger, forming a razor sharp forte and widening the blade. It wasn't until Amy's tail feathers formed a circular crossguard and Grace's Psi Saber joined the party to top it off that the weapon was worthy of the title "Cyber Saber."
"More swords won't save you, and neither will a Megazord!" Beyt taunted us. "All that time you took mashing your little toys together gave me time to really let my roots grow!"
"What's she talking about?" Matt wondered.
"Look," she said, pulling up a scan on our view screen, "there's seismic activity all around her. She's gonna hatch more Octobabies!"
It was like she could hear us talking in the cockpit, because as soon as Amy finished talking, Beyt broke into maniacal laughter.
And then all hell broke loose.
Exactly ten gigantic Octobabies erupted from the ground, hissing madly and swinging their gnarly tentacles around in fury.
"Give me a break," I whined, "this is the worst first day ever."