Volume II - The Gabriel Saga

Chapter 12—The Cool Kids

Jay

"This just keeps getting better and better," I groaned.

"Cheer up," Matt said, nudging me. "At least we get to slice down some more of these freaks and then put this nasty squidchick down for good!"

"Hell yeah!" Grace agreed, "Now that's what I'm talking bout, Matty!"

They had a point.

I cracked my neck and rolled my shoulders in preparation. "Then let's barbeque this bitch and be done with it!"

"You guys ready for this?" Aaron asked. "You take the five on the left, I've got the five on the right."

And there was no more talking.

We charged in first, juking and spiraling to dodge the onslaught of tendrils. With me and Gabe on leg duty, we managed to strafe and duck before swinging our blade through one of the monstrous babies' face. Just as we pulled the blade back, Amy brought her dove's fist up and punched it in the gut. Seconds passed before a loud hum gave way to a bright pink blast that incinerated the whole body.

"Hah, my fist is also a 'handy' blaster!" she bragged.

"Did she really just say that?" Grace mumbled to Matt, who busted out laughing.

"Oh, I get it now! Handy because it's a hand blaster!"

I rolled my eyes as I made the Megazord spin with my zord's leg. Matt had the Cyber Saber ready in his zord's hand, now that he had recovered from the terrible pun joke. With one single slice, we chopped right through another freak and its body disintegrated. Then it was Gabriel's turn as he brought the unicorn horn into the face of an Octobaby in one mighty kick.

"Two to go!" Matt counted. "You guys up for a little high flying?"

Just then, the wings on our back sprang to life as a booster fired up and shot us into the air. We flew right over Aaron's flipping and bouncing Tiger Fighter, and then u-turned to take aim at Beyt and her babies.

"Finally, a chance to flex the big guns," Grace said, the excitement spilling from her voice as two joysticks popped up from her console.

Matt leveled out the Megazord so that the chest faced all three of the slithering squids. Just as soon as they fell into the cross hairs, Grace was calling out a new attack.

"Take this! Superion Metablast."

The attack popped up on my screen, and I realized she had clearly improv-ed the name, because the actual definition was "Superionic Multivariated Dispersion Beam."

Good luck shouting that out.

I couldn't argue with the attack choice though, because the two symbols on our chest plate lit up as they fired out two beams of Cyber Symbol energy that were joined by another massive beam shot from the abs.

There was nothing left of our group, and Aaron only had two left.

"Ready for an alley-oop?" Matt called to Aaron as we flew around once more.

Aaron didn't miss a beat, and he flipped into the air and grabbed hold of our legs. In seconds, he let go and pulled another attack from his list.

"Lightstorm Tornado!"

Just as his zord was hitting the dirt, it started spinning like it had turned into a metallic tornado surrounded by light blue blazing energy. And as he spun toward them, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that the Octobabies were immediately cut down to size.

"Any more family you want to invite to our party, Beyt?" Amy baited. "Surely the Guardian of the House would know how to protect her kids."

There was no understandable response, just a deranged growl that gave way to a spastic, sloppy attack. It was too easy to dodge, so Matt reached out with the Cyber Saber and slapped her with the flat side of the blade.

"Enough games," Gabriel said, glancing around the cockpit, "it's time to finish this once and for all."

And then, everything went crazy inside our cockpit. Beyt's fucking tentacles were back, and they were wrapped all around our zord.

"This chick is way too touchy," Amy griped sarcastically. "And on the first date? No class ho."

I had every intent to laugh. I could feel it in my cheeks and stomach and in the weird little buzz of happiness in my ears. And then my ears exploded in bells and whistles, like 20 different fire alarms went off at once.

The laugh was sucked out of me immediately when my console screens lit up with warnings.

"What's the matter Rangers, all tied up?" she teased as electricity coursed through our giant robot.

"We're overheating!" Matt informed us.

Not gonna lie, I snapped on him. "No shit! I couldn't guess that by the alarms and blinking red lights!"

Amy sounded like she was begging when she called on our White Ranger leader. "Aaron, we need back up!"

His blade, all lit up in humming white-blue energy, swept right by our view screen. Literally, 50 feet away. In a fucking zord. It was like someone swinging a sword two inches from my face.

"How's that?" he asked.

"Cutting in a little too damn close for comfort, bruh."

"You two can make out later," Gabriel butt in, "it's time to slice this squid up and call it calamari."

Hah. Calamari.

Aaron was already back in action, his Megazord lighting up in a blaze of golden white light. The tiger head on the chest opened its mouth where a huge ball of light sparked to life.

"Pulsar Cannon, Fire!"

Beyt was only stunned, paralyzed and surging in pain, but I fist pumped for Aaron like he'd just scored one of his signature touchdowns. "And it's good!"

"Why don't we put all this extra energy to good use?" Grace suggested. "It's your first day, Gabriel, so you can do the honors. This one's straight out of the Academy Strat-Guide!"

Our screens lit up to show us how Grace converted a huge portion of Beyt's attack into a massive reserve of energy. Gabriel's helmet had to have been giving him more info on what to do or something, because he input a series of commands on his control board and all of our own consoles lit up with "FIRE" commands. "Let's call this one the Cyber Discharge!"

"Cyber Discharge!"

I'd be lying if I said we didn't sound like a cult with how many times we said shit together.

"FIRE!"

Our Megazord must've had preconfigured commands, because it knew it needed to jump so the attack would work, because a beam from each of the different zord mouths flew out in different colors - blue the osprey fist, pink from the dove fist, yellow from the cheetah foot, red from the unicorn foot, and Black from the gladiator that had become our Megazord head.

The blast was just what we needed, and it stripped away her tentacles and a good bit of her armor, leaving Beyt weak and near defenseless. Smoke seemed to just float off her fried body as she struggled to make her way toward us.

"Endgame!" shouted Aaron. "Delta Blade, Positron mode!"

"Cyber Saber, Cyber Slash!"

Two slashes from Aaron's Delta Blade phased out actual blazing pure white energy in an X-shape. Seconds later, it was joined by two of ours, a bright gold tear in the world that seemed to move faster than I could see. Just before they hit, they seemed to all join together to form two Xs. But when the blast settled into her and lingered for just a few seconds, I saw it—two arrowheads, both in different directions like a six-point star.

The Cyber Squad Symbol.

Just as quick as it come, it was gone. The energy faded out and Beyt let out a groan as she fell forward, disintegrating before she hit the ground.

"What? No explosion?" Matt asked, sucking his teeth. "Lame."

—11—

Back down on the ground, we celebrated, clasping hands and hugging. We'd destroyed a monster, we'd piloted our zords, and we had completed our team. Honestly, I felt like we had just aced finals.

"Dude, if every battle is that easy, Mesomorph better pack his bags!" I rooted. I was on top of the world!

Matt agreed. "Right?!"

"I'm not picking up any energy from Mira or Rheas," Doc said as we stepped foot on our destroyed campus. "It looks like they high-tailed it as soon as things started going south for Beyt."

"Things started going south the moment she tried to fling us through a building," Grace retorted. "She obviously didn't do her research."

"Well, as proud of you guys as I am, we still need to do damage assessment of the school and make sure everyone made it to the evacuation areas."

I sighed.

"So now we're on cleanup duty?"

"SPD will be there soon," Doc said heavily, "but we should cover our bases and make sure none of you splattered a classmate with your zord battle."

Matt shuddered. "Thanks for that mental image, Doc."

"I can think of one person in particular that I would have liked to splatter," Grace tacked on in a harsh whisper.

"Let's split up and power down," Aaron said, ignoring Grace's swipe at his girlfriend and de-morphing in a spark of white and gold. "We'll cover more ground that way and then meet back here in ten."

I tried to give our fearless leader some props for his kickass performance, but the guy I proudly called my best friend shrugged it off like it was nothing and mentioned something about checking on Patrick of all people.

Seriously, though? Patrick?

"There's something weird going on with those two."

I turned around and faced the petite Pink Ranger, her hair pulled up into a makeshift bun on the top of her head and her eyes narrowed and analytical.

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I dunno," she said, shrugging. "I just know I don't like it."

"What are you two whispering about?" Matt interrupted. "Did you find a body? Is it a teacher? Is it okay to say that I really hope it's Ms. Span? She cannot teach English worth a shit."

Amy chuckled begrudgingly. "You're ridiculous."

I took that as my cue to leave them to their inner circle and looked over to the kid who became our Red Ranger, Gabriel. He really was a kid. Like, legit. He was probably 15, maybe 16, though he was trying to make himself look older by trying to grow a beard. It really just looked like he was an adult head stuck on a kid body, but I guess I was judging him a little harshly because all my friends were athletes.

"How old are you, man?" I asked him evenly.

He smirked, a lopsided grin that made it look like his mouth was going to fall off on the other side. "I'll be 17 in December."

"So 16."

"You're pretty good at math for a football player," he said, the grin still stuck on his face.

Either I was really tired, or being around Patrick for the past two days had numbed me to the intelligence insulting jokes.

"Good enough," I replied. "Speaking of, you did pretty good for your first day on the job, man."

He looked surprised.

"Th-thanks man," he stammered, his hand reflexively finding the back of his head like a nervous habit. "You really think I did good? I kinda froze a little at the beginning, but you guys...you guys are like rockstars, man."

Now I grinned. "It's only our second day. Don't worry, you'll catch up just as quick—if not quicker since you know, you're the Red Ranger and all."

"God, dude...that still sounds so weird to me," he admitted, hands falling to his sides. "What am I gonna tell my parents? They are going to shit bricks about this. And not in a good way."

I raised an eyebrow. "Is there a good way to shit bricks?"

He stopped walking and thought about it. "Okay, that's fair. But you know what I mean."

"That's why you just don't tell them," I said, simple as that.

"Dude, do you not have parents or something? Mine would totally notice if I started randomly disappearing throughout the day."

I had stuff to say, but it sorta just evaporated away when I really thought about what he was saying.

It was easy for me to just not tell my parents, just like it was easy for me to not tell them about my report card, my football games, my basketball games, my friends, my enemies, or really anything that happened in my life. I guess I had been dealing with it for so long that I forgot that it wasn't normal for everyone else to have ghost parents. I had just gotten used to it.

I continued on with Gabriel, casually checking the school and calling out to people who weren't actually there. Doc said he didn't see any signs of life buried under the rubble, or anything out of the ordinary really, and SPD was on its way, so there wasn't much else we could do.

I didn't complain.

When we met back up in the area that used to be our courtyard, right where we were just eating lunch only an hour ago, we all came back gratefully empty handed. Except Aaron, of course, who had found Patrick hiding out in Doc's private bunker underneath the main office.

"So, now what, Doc?" Aaron asked as we clustered together in a circle.

"Honestly," he sighed, "I know I promised to debrief Gabriel...but I've got a lot of work cut out for me after today. Let's reconvene later this weekend; for now, you guys take a day off. You damn sure deserve it."

We were all exhausted, but the proud smiles that took over all our faces seemed to rejuvenate us like we had just morphed again.

"Okay, well," Grace said, her face full of excitement, "my parents have an old cabin on the lake if you guys are down for a beach party!"

"Wait, seriously?" Gabriel asked. "We just...we just go chill at the lake now?"

"Dude, we just slayed a giant monster and saved our whole school from certain destruction," Matt said, like it was obvious that we deserved this. "We earned this small victory—and I for one, am not gonna pass up a day at the lake on a Friday instead of sitting through 4 more boring ass periods of school."

"Well," I agreed, "when you put it that way…"

"I'm down," Patrick chimed in, unfolding his arms. "I think we could all use a break."

Oh, so he needed a break? He got to hide the whole time. He literally did next to nothing other than help find Gabriel.

Grace was clapping now, unable to contain herself. "Oh, my God, yes. This is gonna be so much fun. You guys have no idea how awesome this cabin is."

I think I was beginning to see how all the ranger teams got along, now. I think it was because fighting for my life with five other people gave me no choice but to get along with them. And I wasn't going to just learn about them based on suiting up in colorful armor and fighting with them, but by getting to know them as people. And I hated it. Every bit of it. But a part of me was liking it. Like Gabriel, for example. I would never have hung out with someone like him. The kid looked like he walked out of a music video from 2005, and he wasn't into sports or drinking or cars or anything I was into. But we still got along.

Maybe that's what Aaron was doing, too. Maybe the reason Amy didn't like it was because she didn't like having to bend the rules. She liked things clear cut. She liked roles and categories. Sure, I was annoyed that Aaron wanted to go and check on Patrick, but at the same time, I was proud of him. My best friend was growing into somebody that other people wanted to be around, too. And the team was learning to trust him just like I said they would. So I guess I had to admit that it made the most sense for him to try to smooth things over with Patrick before anyone else. Didn't mean I had to like it, though.

—12—

Weeks had gone by since our first victory. It felt like things were all kinda happening in one great big blur. And it made it even weirder trying to remember a time when we went to school regularly. Since the destruction of our dear old high school, we were sentenced to online school. It sounded like a blessing at first, but I swear, schoolwork was so much worse when I didn't have friends to make it somewhat more interesting. All I could do was stare at the screen in front of me and force myself to try to pay attention.

It didn't really work.

Most days, I tried to get a hold of someone to hang out with. But it was like Sanders and Kevin had dropped off the face of the earth, and I never heard anything from them about the Ranger business. For some reason, something told me not to mention it because I had a feeling Doc was behind their sudden amnesia. Regardless, it didn't mean they had to ditch me, but whatever.

I was mostly irritated by the fact that Aaron and I were not only best friends, but teammates; yet, somehow, I never saw him. Like, ever.

That's what we were arguing about now.

"Dude, what are you always busy with?"

He took a minute or two to respond, and I watched the minutes wrack up on the clock in front of me until the website indicated he was responding.

"Helping my parents with stuff."

Really?

That's what he took 3 minutes to say? He had a top-of-the-line computer, so I knew his mic was picking up his voice just fine.

I found myself shouting at my own computer in response.

"You sound upset. Are you sure you want to send this message? 'What the fuck do you mean by "stuff?"' You cannot delete this message after it has been sent." A confirmation message popped up, showing me the contents of my message like I somehow didn't know what words were coming out of my mouth.

"Yes!" I snapped at the screen.

Aaron's icon showed that he had seen the message, but he didn't respond.

This was getting old.

"Hey."

It was a new message. From Amy.

"What's up?" I responded.

"I'm bored out of my skull and have slowly come to the realization that being involved in a secret group kinda turns you into a social pariah."

I found myself rolling my eyes into the roof of my skull. Who talks like that? Like, for real.

"I know the feeling," I said back.

Her icon showed she was responding, and then stopped.

Maybe I was being a dick to her for no reason. I wasn't mad at her, I was mad at the dickhead who used to be my best friend. He still wasn't responding and I was starting to realize it was hopeless for me to get pissef. I wasn't going to get anything out of him online.

"You wanna hang out?"

Amy responded immediately.

"Sure, I'm down. Where?"

"Doesn't matter," I said back. "My parents are never here and my bro's at hockey practice if you wanna just chill here."

She sent a picture of her face to me, her eyebrow raised skeptically.

"What kinda girl do you think I am?"

I laughed. "Hah, it's not like that. I was just saying cuz I don't have a car."

"Dude, you have super speed. When would you need a car to go anywhere other than cross country?"

"Point taken."

"We should go see a movie or something," she suggested. "And I'm starving."

"There's a good BYOB place downtown that Aaron and me always go to."

"Aaron and I."

"Are you seriously critiquing my grammar right now? It's the internet. Who cares?"

"You should."

"Whatever. Are we grubbin or what?"

"Haha. Yeah, yeah, give me a second to get ready ... I look like shit, I've been lounging in my sweatpants all day."

"So? Unless you wanna get dressed up for me."

"Don't flatter yourself."

With that, she dropped offline, her icon disappearing from my screen.

Aaron's was ghostly silent so I closed it and shut down my computer altogether.

Fuck him and his shadiness.

I wasn't sure why it bugged me so much, but I was starting to understand what Amy meant. I considered myself one of the popular guys—one of the "cool kids"—but lately, I was feeling more alone than ever. The only people I ever saw were the other Rangers, and it was only to go kick more Aleph Beyt guardian ass. We'd dominated two more of Mesomorph's little experiments, but even that didn't make feel better. It was honestly like I'd become exactly what Amy was saying—a social pariah.

What was the worst was the absence of my best friend, though. I thought we were gonna have badass stories to tell each other, bragging over how many Gigadroids we smashed or how awesome our attacks were. Instead, all I got were just little responses. And I hated to admit it, but part of me was starting to become paranoid that it had to do with Amy's observation a few weeks ago.

That it had something to do with Patrick.

I didn't know why I felt like that was even a possibility, but something in the way Amy had said it before made it sound like she was absolutely certain. Like they were suddenly friends and didn't want anyone to know. But it just seemed...I dunno...it seemed impossible. I knew Aaron better than anyone, and there was no way in hell he would be able to tolerate that much Patrick.

Maybe he really was just helping his parents.

Just then, my phone went off.

New Message from Aaron B.

I swiped over the icon and the contents of his message popped up.

Sorry, man, it's just super crazy right now. I'll tell you more about it later on tonight. Deal?

I huffed.

I felt like a bitch. There was no other way to put it. I felt like a nagging girlfriend wanting to know why he was blowing me off. And for what? We'd been friends for over 10 years—there was no point in me being pissy about not hanging out for a couple weeks. Especially when he told me he was busy with parent stuff. Maybe I just didn't understand because I was never busy with parent stuff.

It's cool. I guess I'm just bored as shit with no practice or parties to keep me busy lol.

I read over my message about three times, lingering over the send icon like I was about to submit my college admission essay.

Before I could read it for a fourth time, my phone lit up with a call from Amy.

"I'm outside," she said as I held the phone up to my ear.

"Seriously? That was fast."

"I told you I wasn't getting dressed up for you," she said, laughing. "Now get your superspeed ass down here, I'm starving."

So I did.

If she wasn't dressing up, I wasn't either. I met her outside in flip flops, stereotypically yellow basketball shorts, and a plain black tank top. This was better known as my "don't give a fuck" uniform. At least, in my mind.

"Look at you," Amy commented as I swung open her passenger door, "all thugged out like you're about to go out shootin some bball outside of the school."

"Ha-ha. Very funny, Miss 'I'm not dressing up.'"

She frowned. "You call this dressed up?"

I looked at her again, her straight hair wrapped up in a ponytail and bangs leveling off right above her eyebrows.

"You're wearing that eye crap. That mask stuff."

She laughed mockingly at me. "Mask stuff? You mean mascara?"

"Whatever, shit sounds like it belongs in another language."

She kept laughing, growing more hysterical as she pulled out of my driveway. "You clearly have no other female friends."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I fired back. "I have tons of girlfriends."

"Oh, really? So you're Mr. Player now, huh?"

"What? N-no, that's not what I meant by girlfriend," I said, trying to get my words straight and not sound like a complete idiot. "You know what I mean."

"I'm just messing with you," she said, the smile still gently fading from her lips.

I caught myself staring only a few seconds in.

What the hell?

Why was I watching her lips? This was Amy. She was like, one of the guys, basically. I had never really looked at her like that...had I? She was...she was Aaron's ex-girlfriend. Of course I'd never thought about Amy like that. I was just admiring the fact that she wasn't ugly...right?

"So, I want some Chinese. Like...I'm about to kill for some spicy garlic chicken."

"Is it your girl time or something?"

She pulled up to a stop sign and locked her eyes on me. "My girl time? Jay, what are you, five? It's called a menstrual cycle."

"Ew, okay, enough…"

"You can also call it a period. Or 'that time of the month,' but for God's sake, it is not my 'girl time.'"

"Are you done?" I asked her.

"To answer your question," she said pointedly, "no, it is not my time of the month. I just happen to be hungry. Does that not happen to all of your other girlfriends?"

I opened and closed my mouth several times. The words were there, I just didn't know what they were. It was like my brain knew I wanted to say something, but I was pulling all blanks.

"It's okay, I already know the answer to that," she said, "eating for most girls seems to be a prison sentence nowadays. Luckily for me, I really don't care."

I found myself smiling like an idiot. I wasn't sure why, but I liked that. It was a sign that the Amy I was friends with was still in there. She wasn't all prissy and glossy and dainty. She was one of the boys, really, not some chick off the cover of Cosmic or Mode or whatever it was girls read.

"What's eating you?" She asked, flipping through radio stations before settling on some new age punk rock alternative fusion crap.

"What do you mean? I'm fine."

"Dude, I've known you since kindergarten. You're not fine."

"Kindergarten?"

"Well," she said, doubting her statement, "I knew you in kindergarten but that was when I was the weird Jewish girl covered in freckles and discount clothes."

"I thought you transferred in during 8th grade?"

She scoffed somewhat to herself. For some reason, I could tell that bugged her. Why did I say that? If she said she'd been around since kindergarten, why didn't I just go with it?

"I got my braces off and got a makeover," she said, her voice blending with the softening bridge of the song playing in the background. "That was when I became one of the cool kids. Before that, I was the kid people used to make fun of to make themselves cool—the frumpy tomboy drama geek with the frizzy hair and braces."

I noticed the change in her tone. We were about to have this conversation again and I was trapped in a car with her once more, no escape in sight and no way to dodge the past.

I bit the bullet.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Huh?"

"I said I'm sorry." There was a heavy pause while I tried to get my words right. "For everything, really. For getting mad at you for 'abandoning' us when we clearly ignored you until you fit our 'standards' of being a friend. It was shitty and I guess I never really thought about what it must've been like to make friends with the people who used to make fun of you."

She smiled, almost like it was out of appreciation but more so like it was out of humor.

"Well thank you, Jay. I didn't know you could be so deep."

"There's a lot people don't know about me," I responded, "but I think I'm starting to see what you saw a long time ago. You know, like with the way 'friends' aren't really friends."

"Is that what's got you looking so blue?"

I grinned. "Yeah, basically."

"Being a Ranger is a lot lonelier than it is in Hollywood."

—12—

It wasn't bad, having superhero friends. I'd gotten used to the fact that Sanders and Kevin had all but forgotten about us, and even though things weren't great with Aaron, I was making new friends in Matt and Gabriel.

It was weird, because I used to hate Matt. I only hated him by association, of course, because he was best friends with my best friend's worst enemy; naturally, that meant we had to be enemies too. It turns out, Matt and I actually had a lot in common. I'd started to notice it when we first split up to go look for the Red Ranger, before we knew Gabriel, and Matt wasn't as hostile as he normally was around Grace and Patrick. He was laid back, somewhat of an airhead, and talkative beyond belief. But he was cool nonetheless.

I didn't really think we'd spend much time hanging out until he asked me if Gabriel and I wanted to go to the movies to see some action movie sequel. I had to admit, I wasn't really up to it until he mentioned that Patrick had been ditching him a lot.

The gears in my head started to spin as my mind went into paranoia mode. This wasn't just a coincidence anymore...it was a trend.

"So what's up with Pat, then?" I asked Matt as nonchalant as possible while stuffing my face with the noodles in front of me. "Does he always blow of his buttbuddies without notice?"

Matt glared but took my joke in stride. "Not really, no. But lately...yeah. It's weird."

Gabriel looked between us. "Why do we care, again?"

Matt and I both turned on him, fixing him with stares that asked if he was an idiot.

"Cuz my best friend's MIA too," I said, finally.

"Maybe they're screwing each other," Gabriel said, shrugging.

I busted out laughing.

"Dude, have you seen Aaron's girlfriend? Who would pass up that for a little grabass with Patrick of all people?"

"Plus, Pat's straight. I mean, I dunno about Aaron, but…"

"Hey!" I punched Matt's arm. "Aaron's a bro, man. Bros don't fuck other bros."

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "You guys are retarded."

"Says the sagely 16-year-old," Matt said through chuckles that slowly turned into all out laughter when I joined in.

"Very funny," Gabe muttered, his voice drown out by the sounds of our laughter.

The topic was all but forgotten while we finished our meal, passing the time talking about the girls around us and how much ass we could get if we could tell people we were Rangers. That's what I liked about hanging out with them. I could say all the stupid, immature things about being a Ranger that I couldn't say around the others without getting lectured. Matt and his stoner self was always talking about something weird, like "what if being a Ranger is like, the meaning of life?" Or, my personal favorite: "What if, when you're morphed, it's not actually your body in the suit and it's just your mind in a suit?"

It was cool because, while he was an "idiot" by most terms, these were questions we had all kinda subconsciously thought, but just never been brave enough or conscious enough to ask. That's what Matt brought to the team.

And Gabriel was that guy. He was the guy who had opinions about any and everything, but didn't use his opinions to argue with you. He mostly would talk about stuff like musicians and why he loved certain artists or who was going to blow up and why; and he would go on for hours about movies or dead poets and painters. I had to admit, it was annoying at times, but I learned from him. And I didn't mind that, contrary to popular belief.

"Dude, I will say, that movie was pretty badass," I was saying on our way out of the theater, hands behind my head, "but I would totally beast that so-called 'hero,' man. His fire was like a fucking match compared to me."

"Fighting fire with fire?" Matt asked me. "I mean, yeah, but...what's the point? Now if you drop a tornado on his ass?! That's how you put out a hotshot like him. Like a candle in the wind." He puckered his lips and blew like he was putting out a candle, and a gust of wind shot out and lifted the skirts of the girls in front of us.

I high fived him immediately. "NICE!"

Gabriel shook his head. "You guys ever stop to wonder why you're single?"

"Aw c'mon man, don't be like that Gabe," Matt joked. "Besides, you're single, aren't you?"

"What makes you think that?"

You been holdin out on us, man?" I asked, completely in doubt of the fact that he could possibly have a girlfriend. "What is she, like one of those biker chicks with the tattoos and piercings?"

"Not at all."

I could see the grin on his face now.

"She Xeno?" Matt asked. "There's some pretty amazing Xeno chicks at school I could be down with."

"Really?" I wondered. "I dunno, Matt, I don't think I could deal with all that weird stuff."

"More for me," he said without missing a beat.

"Dude, it's not a dude, is it?" I asked Gabe now. "Did you just get us all hype for a dude?"

"No, dude, she's a girl, but I'm not telling you her name, so you can forget keep asking all you want."

"Whatever," Matt sighed, "I think you're just jelly cuz you know Jay and I have the best powers."

Gabe raised an eyebrow, and with his face angled like it was and his hair in his face, he looked a lot older.

"What, air? Fire?" He laughed. "Guys, I'm Earth. Your tornadoes? Cute. Your fireballs? Let's make s'mores." He looked at us both while he continued to break down his argument. "I'm Earth. It would take winds YEARS to even phase me and I could smother any fire in an earthquake—a landslide that would wipe you out like you never existed." He looked triumphant now, crossing his arms as he looked at us and tossed his hair out of his face. "I'm invincible."

Matt blinked and slurped his drink loudly. "Damn man...that was dark."

I laughed. "Seriously man, little harsh there, don't ya think?"

"Well, I just had to let you guys know you can't fuck with Earth," he said, shrugging. "I mean...I rock."

The minute he said that, we became those guys. Loud, laughing, and clearly not giving two shits about what anybody thought. And for a second, I remembered the feeling—I finally knew where I'd felt this feeling before. With Aaron and Sanders and Kevin and Sara and Trip and Watts and Will and Leon and all my friends that I suddenly never talked to anymore.

I knew that feeling.

It was that feeling I got when I knew I was a part of something bigger, something better than everyone else which therefore made me better. Back then, it used to be parties and sports and drama and money; but now, it was about being a Ranger. Being exclusive and set apart from everyone else.

We were the new cool kids.