Volume II - The Gabriel Saga

Chapter 15—Burning Bridges

Matt

Blue.

Everything around me was part of a field of navy skies or the purple clouds at their feet. To be honest, this was the only thing I really liked about being a Ranger so far. Everything else was what I absolutely had to do; but this? This was what I got to do whenever I wanted. It wasn't using for personal gain, it was honestly just practicing. Hell, I was even getting stronger. I could fly for at least an hour now, and if I was morphed, it was like flying was no different from standing.

And on a day like today, the air was brighter and smoother than it had been all week. There was a storm front rolling in, so the air was a lot calmer than it usually was, especially above all the clouds where the earliest of the night's stars were just starting to wake up. They were each like little sparkles, like the first glimpses of daylight, just through a cosmic blanket. And honestly, it was like the moon itself was nothing but a giant crescent hanging over the world like the sky was just cracking a grin at how great life was at this moment.

We'd been free from Reefside for damn near two weeks, and I hadn't spent a single day just kickin' it with my best friend. It was like this blessing in disguise—the disguise being a psycho cultist octopus science fair project, and the blessing being the beauty of online school and unlimited time. Now, I finally had something I really wanted to do in that time: binge on fake danger by hunting down Xtreme Xeno terrorist radicals hellbent on turning everyone into Xenos. AKA gaming marathon.

I finally had my best friend back.

I mean, sure, Jay and Gabe were awesome dudes, but they weren't Pat. They didn't play video games, they didn't know my family, we didn't have the same kinds of inside jokes, they didn't know what kind of food I liked, or anything about me other than what I actually remembered to tell them. There just wasn't enough history there to cement the bond with them just yet.

It was weird, trying to make new friends all the sudden. I was used to having my group of friends for the past two years. We had a habit. A tradition. A ritual.

I liked it.

It was stable.

For somebody like me, that was everything. I wasn't a very stable person myself—I was spontaneous and crazy and flighty and and all the other terms that were antonyms of stable. That's why I needed stability. And Pat was the most concrete person I knew. Not that he always kept his arrangements or anything, but he was always there to remind me that even though I changed with the wind (literally, now), I was still the same old me at the core.

He was like our group's glue.

But he had a point—we'd forgotten that while we were training in Doc Ol's HoloSim obstacle course or combat sessions, he was at work. He was probably leading a normal, boring life, and was most likely just giving us our space to do our new duties while he helped as much as possible in between school and work. I didn't really make the connection that while I was working on controlling my powers better and practicing with my Kappa staff, he was balancing 4 plates on one arm and carrying 5 drinks at a time. For some reason, seeing him at work sorta confirmed to me that this "gap" wasn't anything but reality. It was natural and it was bound to happen.

But the gap shouldn't have meant anything. I shouldn't have gotten so clingy, because while Patrick and I were opposites, we were so opposite that we were similiar in a lot of ways: namely, the sense that we were both loyal to a fault. I think I had sorta brought it out of him when he moved here, because I could tell with the way he talked about his friends back then—like he was still loyal to them even though he knew they were ruining his life. I could tell that they weren't real friends in the way that he talked about them, but I could tell that the he felt he owed them something. Respect. Loyalty.

I knew, because that was how I was. And that was our best bond—I guess I had just needed a little reminder, and today was exactly that.

A breath of fresh air.

Excited and unable to contain myself, I dipped below the low-hanging clouds and risked a glance at the landscape below. Patrick's apartment complex was coming up, and from the moment I'd lifted off at Thirsty's, I knew he had to see the world from my perspective. The dude needed to fly. And now that I was a million times stronger than I was when we started this whole Ranger biz, I could easily support another person with a steady air current. And if all else failed, I could always superman his ass. Enhanced strength was just bundled up with my natural Ranger abilities and I was loving every second of it.

But when I began my descent, something told me to wait. Something, I'm not sure what, was pulling me back just slightly. Maybe it was because I could sense the feeling in the air, like something was about to happen that I needed to wait for.

Everything seemed normal, but I was expecting a Gigadroid swarm to come flying out of nowhere at any second. I could see Patrick now, far below on the ground outside of his apartment complex. I watched him walk away from his car, saw him absentmindedly make his way down the sidewalk leading to his building, and then I saw it.

The sneak attack.

My fists balled up on instinct as I pushed myself into a dive, readying myself for a battle. But then...then I noticed it. It was Aaron. Aaron had silently snuck around a giant white truck and popped up behind Patrick, scooping him up in white-shirt-blue-jean blur. Patrick had no idea, I could tell, that the person behind him was the White Ranger, and he delivered a swift elbow to Aaron's rib cage and forced the towering footballer back on his heels.

I'm pretty sure I cheered to myself silently.

What the hell was Aaron even doing at Patrick's in the first place?

I watched, feeling suddenly uninvited, like I wasn't supposed to be witnessing this. Like this was a private moment, or something. Suddenly, I didn't feel right. Something wasn't right. The timing wasn't right. This wasn't right.

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, after all. Because something about the way they were meeting made this seem like a secret. Was this why Patrick was always so busy? Was he tutoring Aaron or something?

With my new supersonic hearing, I could hear their light words, laced with some kind of hidden message, like there was a secret that only they knew. I could hear them talking about Aaron's parents and hanging out at his place, talking about chauffeuring each other around or something. But if the sounds weren't enough—if the words didn't tell me everything I needed to know, my enhanced, hawk-like vision made me believe. I would never have believed it without seeing it with my own two eyes. And even if I had, I would've just blamed it on being so far away and mistaking things.

But there was no mistaking the embrace. There was no mistaking the way that sonovabitch Aaron grabbed my best friend like some two-dollar whore and pulled him into some weird, sadomasochistic make-out session before pinning him up against the side of his fancy new truck.

What. The actual. Fuck.

I tried to contain it, tried to rationalize it to myself, but I couldn't. All of the sudden, everything made sense. My best friend, the one dude I always thought would be honest with me, had been lying this whole time. For Aaron fucking Brooks. He lied to everyone for this piece of shit scumbag that had been torturing us for years.

My throat was sore by the time I stopped screaming, and I didn't even realize that I was blitzing back and forth in the air like I'd lost my mind. It was the only thing I could do to not skydive down there and kick both of their asses into a tornado and suffocate them both so I'd never have to hear another bullshit lie that I willingly believed.

—15—

The phone ringing in my ear was just making the bells of war in my head louder and louder. I felt my teeth grinding on each other, my jaw tensed and ready to bite off anyone's head who was close enough.

Pick up, pick up, pick uuuup. Answer the goddamn phone.

"Hey, you've reached Grace Eden. Sorry I—"

"FUCK!"

The roar echoed in my room, and even though I knew my mom would rip my tongue out if she heard me, I didn't care.

I NEED TO TALK TO YOU! ASAP!

That was all the message said, but that was all she needed to see. I just had to hope that I still had at least one best friend that had me somewhere near the top of her priority list.

It was impossible to keep this pent up. I didn't know if I was going to explode at any second, or if I was going to smash something into a million pieces. And for some reason, I couldn't rationalize any of it. Because I honestly didn't understand why this was happening, or, more importantly, how it was happening.

I knew Pat better than anyone—including Amy. That bullshit he wouldn't talk to Amy about, or when he just couldn't tell her something without causing a war, it got vented to me. When he didn't have any friends at school, I was the one who told him to join swim team. I was the one who invited him over to my place. I was the one who pushed him to make friends in Reefside. And most importantly, when all that shit hit the fan with Aaron in the first place, I was the one who had his back 150 percent every step of the way.

So why the fuck would he lie to me? Me of all people.

I felt like I'd just been dumped—actually, worse—I felt like I'd been cheated on, as weird as that sounded. I mean, I wasn't gay and I didn't really care if Patrick was, but we had a broship. You don't just throw something like that way for some dumbass douchebag.

Honestly, I was starting to feel like Amy.

Oh no.

No, no, no, no, noooooooooo.

Amy.

She was gonna to be crushed—even more so than she was now. Both of her ex-boyfriends? Like it wasn't bad enough when she was just getting over one. And then Jay? I honestly hadn't even thought about telling him...and he was going to be twice as pissed as I was, which was saying something. Maybe I should just wait on that...

My mind ran into an imaginary roadblock when I heard my door echo a knock. It took me a second to respond, to get my emotions and my thoughts all sorted out before I ended up sucking one of my parents up in a whirlwind.

"Come in."

My voice was all gravelly, choked up like I was holding back tears or something. Like I'd actually cry about something like this.

"Whoa." It was my dad, and I read his face plain as day, his blue eyes wide with surprise. "You look like you're about to do something incredibly stupid."

I couldn't even fake a smile for him. "Yeah. And?"

His eyes narrowed now as he stepped into my room. "Well...as someone who's done a fair amount of incredibly stupid stuff, I can say that it's never the question of 'and'—more so the question of why."

I was slouched over on the edge of my bed, my elbows resting on my knees, though they weren't really resting as much as they were clutching onto my kneecaps to keep me from breaking something I'd miss.

Finally, I felt my lungs push out a breath, and it felt like a small piece of rage came out with it.

"What's up, buddy? What's got you all bent out of shape?"

"If you…" I paused, trying to decide if it was a good idea to tell him everything. "If you had a friend who was like, you know, your best friend—and all the sudden they just started ghosting on you all the time for no reason, like bailing on the drop of a dime, and you found out they were lying about why...what would you do?"

He rubbed his brown and gray goatee as he thought about it, that classic dad look on his face as he took a seat in my computer chair.

"Well, first of all, are we talking about Grace or Pat? Because...I mean...there's a big difference."

Now I gave a half-hearted grin, only because he knew me and my friends so well.

"It's...Patrick."

He leaned in, propping his elbows up with his knees and folding his hands over one another so he could rest his chin on them. "Patrick? Now I know it's serious."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because up until this moment, I always thought his name was Pat."

That was fair. I never called him Patrick. At least, not when I was talking about him to my family. For some reason, I'd never really processed that before.

"So he's blowing you off and being shady and you didn't know why before, but now you do?"

This was the hard part. Not so much telling my dad, but speaking the actual situation into existence. Up until now, I could have just convinced myself that this was just happening in my head. But the moment I spoke it, the moment I started talking about it like it happened—it was real. There was no denying it anymore.

"Yeah," I finally replied, "yeah, I do. And I just don't know how to wrap my head around it."

He looked at me expectantly. "Are you gonna tell me, or are you just gonna keep building suspense?"

He had a point.

"He's...I dunno what he's doing, but I saw him making out with Aaron."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"And...who is Aaron, again? Is that a girl or a boy?"

I sighed. "Dad, Aaron is the guy that used to date Amy. You know, the one that started the fight and has been an overall tool since the beginning of time?"

"OH!"

"Yeah."

"Wait, didn't Pat date Amy?"

"Yeah."

"Oooooooh…"

"Would you stop ohing?!"

"What? It's a learning experience! You kids are so complicated these days, it's hard to keep up with who's dating who or who hates who."

"I'm not complicated," I stressed, "it's all these drama queens around me, man. I can't handle it."

My dad patted my shoulder sympathetically as he stood. "You're letting your stress get to you. And you know what I do about that?"

I knew.

See, my dad had spent his entire life in California, except for when he was backpacking the world and volunteering in 3rd world countries. He was a humanitarian hippie with all the optimism in the world hidden in his goatee, probably. But my dad was so freaking smart, just in like, a guru type way. My mom was all logical and calculated and organized, but my dad was wise and worldly and everywhere at once, but balanced. That was why he was a therapist or psychologist or whatever they're called. All I knew was that he was a damn genius when it came to reading people and figuring out why they were a certain way based on aspects of their lives. It was weirdly uncanny, and sometimes I found myself wondering if he somehow had psychic powers from all the green he smoked.

I liked to think, in a lot of ways, that I could be like my dad when I grew up. At times, he was a parent—strict in all the right ways—but for the most part, he was my true best friend. Everything just seemed simpler when I talked to him about stuff. It was like he slowly peeled away all the excess layers of bullshit that somehow got caked onto life throughout the course of a day.

I watched him, now, sitting on the picnic table in our backyard with his barefeet on the bench and his pants rolled up around his calves like makeshift shorts. He held the rolled paper to his lips as his lighter sparked to life, and I felt my anxiety start to slowly melt away with just the sight of the smoke swimming in the air and the smell like soapy herb filling my nostrils.

Lungs filled up with smoke, he extended his hand as he passed it my waiting fingers. My lips met the end of the soft paper like a first kiss. Even though my day had just been ruined about 30 minutes ago, I felt like I'd been waiting for this pick-me-up all day as it trickled through my body and relaxed my muscles.

"So," my dad said, somehow not disruptive of the moment of peace we were enjoying. "Patrick's been blowing you off to go hang out with this Aaron guy, huh?"

I nodded as I inhaled through tight lips and a full chest. When I exhaled, I felt like everything came out with the smoke, like my problems started evaporating just as quickly as the wisps of white in the overcast night sky. Suddenly, I wasn't as angry. I was definitely still thinking about it, but from a different standpoint.

"Yeah, man...I guess that's what kills me, y'know? Cuz like...it's Aaron. I mean, the dude for real fought with Pat every. Single. Day. I'm trying to think of a day, other than recently, where they didn't fight, and I can't think of one. There was always some kind of stupid ass argument, or some sideways shot fired, or some sort of shit going on between them. I just don't get how Pat could overlook all that and straight up lie to me about it. To me!"

My dad was passing back to me now, his whole body cloaked in an aura of pale, scented smoke.

"Well," he started, and I knew he was about to psychoanalyze the situation, "one thing I'm noticing is that you're upset about the 'me' aspect of this. You see what I mean? I know it's hard, but in situations like this, you can't interject yourself into the middle and make it about you, because...to be blunt, it's not. Obviously, this is something between those two."

"Yeah, but it's not just me," I argued before he could finish. "Jay is gonna be a thousand times more pissed off about this than I am because he and Aaron have been best friends since they were 5. And Aaron's been just as sketchy to Jay as Patrick was with me."

"Hold on, hold on, hold on," he said, waving his hands. "You gotta give me a list of people, cuz I have no idea who Jay is."

I groaned, rolling my eyes. "Jay is Aaron's best friend. You already know Amy and Pat."

"Okay, so does Jay know about what's going on?"

"No, but-"

"Unless you tell him."

"Well yeah, but I can't just keep that from him! Jay and I are cool now."

"Boy, oh boy," my dad said with a laugh, rubbing his goatee as he flicked ashes and snuffed out the flame, disposing of the burned paper in a can. "High school is even more wishy-washy than I remember."

"It's a lot more complicated than you think," I said, wishing more than anything that I could tell my dad I was a Power Ranger—to tell him the truth about why we even associated with Aaron or Jay.

"That may be so," he conceded, "but I've got a simple fix for you."

"Oh yeah, and what's that?"

"Don't put yourself in the middle of it. Stop thinking about how you're gonna feel, or Jay's gonna feel, or even Amy. That's not your job to worry about how they'll react, because you didn't cause this—Patrick and Aaron did. It's their secret and their burden to bear."

"Yeah, but—"

"No, no, no, let me finish," he insisted lightly, but firmly. "I see this every day, son: so many people will react to someone else's situation and immediately take responsibility over it. If you do that, you're gonna burn yourself out—quick. You have to learn that there is a difference between being a good friend by supporting them or helping them deal with their problems, and handling their problems for them. I deal with this everyday just because of some of the things I hear from my patients, but you have to know the difference between what is your problem and what is someone else's problem."

"But it is my problem," I snapped back, repeating my point. "He lied to me, doesn't that kinda make it my problem?"

He laced his fingers together and stared up at the bright clouds above. "That makes it a problem, but—and don't take this the wrong way—but it's a small problem compared to the actual problem at hand, which is that they seemingly are not comfortable enough with their friends and family to be honest with them. That is the actual problem, and your problem is like a side-effect—a ripple, if you will—of the actual problem."

I sighed.

"I hate when you're right."

"That's only because I'm always right."

"Well, if you're always right, then can you tell me what i'm supposed to do next? I can't just pretend like I didn't see anything—I can't just pretend everything's cool again."

He took a swig from his water bottle and leaned back on the picnic table with his arms stretched behind him to prop him up. "I definitely wouldn't recommend pretending, but I wouldn't recommend a direct confrontation either. But there is always a third option—always a chance to exert your free will—and you do this by doing nothing. Take the neutral path. Remove yourself from the situation that is trying to force you into an action you wouldn't normally take."

"So what, just don't talk to him?"

He shrugged. "I'm not saying that, but I would suggest distancing yourself. When he's ready, he'll come to you or ask you what's wrong—and that would be the ideal time to let him know."

"Basically, you're telling me I have to wait for him and play by his rules."

He shook his head, a little smirk hiding under his mustache. "You're looking at it the wrong way. Stop making it all about one person or the other—find a happy medium and stay there. Don't make it all about him, and don't make it all about you. The problem lies between you, so you have to play the middleground to resolve the problem."

—15—

"Sorry I didn't respond to you last night, the dinner party went on a lot longer than planned and then stuff at home turned into what it turns into every time John drinks."

Grace was leaning against the big tree in my backyard, her arms crossed over her midriff and her hair hanging over her shoulders in waves. It looked like she had curled her hair the night before and I could only imagine how incredible she probably looked in her little black dress. Probably just as amazing as she did now in just a crimson sweater and black jeans, fall fresh around her in the colors of a bonfire. I'm pretty sure autumn was made just for her, but I didn't say anything about that.

I shrugged, picking at the fallen leaves scattered around us to keep from looking at her too long. "It's all good, it wasn't anything important anyway."

"You sure?" she asked, skeptical. She could tell I was lying. Well, mostly lying. "Your text looked like you were about to have an aneurysm."

"I meant to send that to Pat," I lied again. "I unlocked new content on Enlist."

She rolled her eyes. "Of course you did."

I faked a grin and stretched my legs out from underneath me, my flip flops sliding off my feet.

"So, Doc said something about us all transferring to Reefside Central temporarily?" A change of subject was way overdue, because I couldn't lie to her again. Three times was my limit, and I knew she'd catch on eventually.

She groaned, rolling her head against the dark bark of the tree so that it looked like it just been dyed perfect blonde. "Yes, and I am so not looking forward to real school again. Mom had literally just booked a trip to London and now I'm going to have to spend a week with John and going through orientation at some dump of an inner-city high school."

I snorted, trying to hold back my laughter.

"What?" she demanded haughtily.

"First world problems."

"Shut up. It's not like you're much worse off with your in season Ralph Lauren shorts and knitted fleece."

I laughed, looking down at my own outfit and nodding. "In season? You know I don't pick this shit out. At least I'm not complaining about missing a transatlantic trip to go to school."

Her eyes narrowed, speaking through a half-smile. "Clearly you've been studying—using compound words and stuff."

"What can I say? Online school really works wonders for me when I don't have some old bat screeching advanced lit at me."

"Well, all of our lovely teachers will be transferring with us," she said, confirming my worst fears. "Otherwise the teacher to student ratio would be ungodly."

I couldn't hear the second part of what she was saying, because I was too busy whining "Whyyyyy?" at the the sky.

"Now who has first world problems."

"Shut up."

"At least we have the rest of this week, right?"

I sighed. "Yeah...I guess that's true."

"Speaking of weeks—it's been a hot minute since we've seen a monster-of-the-week. You don't think old Mesomorph forgot about us, do you?"

"Yeah, right. That would mean I actually had a shred of good luck left."

"So angsty today," she commented, almost surprised, "did someone beat your killstreak online?"

"Ha-ha."

"Seriously, though, I'm wondering if Mes is planning some extra huge sneak attack or something," she said, her pearly smile disappearing behind her bright red lips. "Last night at the party, I overheard John and a few people from SPD Wep-Dev talking about reinstating the Ranger Program to hunt down the 'renegade Rangers.' They didn't even mention Mesomorph."

I was confused. "What do you mean by 'Renegade Rangers?'"

"Us."

Oh, shit.

"Yeah," Grace said, reading my face, "exactly. I feel like Doc may not be telling us everything there is to know about SPD, or if there is some sort of unspoken beef there."

"You really think Doc would be against SPD, though? Isn't he like, the Jesus of the Ranger Bible?"

She stared at me for a few seconds through dark-lined green eyes, narrowed in disbelief. "Did you really just say that?"

"I did," I said through a grin, "but only because it's true. I don't see how or why Doc would lie to us about SPD. He hasn't really ever said that they were our biggest fans, but he didn't exactly say that we were partners."

Her squinted eyes looked around, like she was asking an invisible audience some unasked question."Uh, yeah, that's because it's a given. Rangers are Rangers: They fight on the same team and are always partners."

I shrugged. "I mean, I guess. Maybe the reason he hasn't introduced us to them is because we'd have to enlist in SPD or something. I'm sure Doc knows what he's doing, since he's been doing it longer than we've even been alive."

She made a sound, something like a hum of approval or acknowledgement, but that was about it. Something told me she didn't believe me, or Doc, for that matter. She didn't trust anything or anyone, I realized, and for a second...I almost envied her for it. It sure as hell would've saved me from the situation I was in with Patrick now.

Sometimes, I wish I could be more like Grace. She was so serious most of the time, and so focused on being the best at everything. Nothing surprised her because she had a plan for everything. Not to say she wasn't spontaneous or whatever, but she just always had a plan whenever anything happened. It was almost like her brain was a super computer that just calculated every moment of every day in lightspeed. I think it was one of the things I liked about her that I could never really admit, just because it didn't seem like a typical thing to be attracted to. But I was. I think it had a lot to do with the whole stability thing, but I didn't want to tell her that.

"I'm craving a Pumpkin Spice Latte," she said.

She brushed off her shiny black skinny jeans as she stretched her long legs out and pulled herself into a standing position, the rest of her body following the same arc like her hair was the tail of a comet. I don't know what it was or how she did it, really—it was like some weird cross between yoga and ballet—but it was so ridiculously Grace that I couldn't help but smile.

"Of course you are. You're a Cali girl in October."

—15—

"Sorry to break up your date, but we've got trouble downtown."

"Excuse me? Date? I need you to lock that up and throw away the key, Doc."

I tried not to wince at her tone, but found myself taking my anger out on Doc instead.

"What now?"

"It's nice to see you too, Matt," Doc replied shortly, his hologram face sparing me a glance before he rattled off his briefing. "Mesomorph is on the move again, only this time, he's not raiding SPD. He's taking hostages."

Grace nearly choked on her latte.

"What?"

"He's got two Genohanced soldiers in the city," Doc pressed on, "I need you two here ASAP."

I rolled my eyes. "So much for being forgotten, huh, Grace?"

She didn't respond to me, only nodded at the mini-Doc being projected from my Morpher. "We'll be right there."

From the little alcove outside the coffee shop we'd ducked into, it was hard to spot the sparks of black and blue energy that ripped through the air until we were sucked up into Doc's Basement.

"Took you guys long enough," Gabriel said, swishing his hair out of his face. "I was starting to wonder if we'd interrupted something."

Seriously? Was everyone going to give me a hard time for spending time with Grace now?

Grace was quick with the rebuttal. "You did, it's called a friendship. I know how rare those are for you."

"Damn, she got you, bro."

I think it was only because he was uncomfortable doing it with Grace, but Jay extended his knuckles to me for props on her quick wit.

"Where's our fearless leader?" Grace asked as she took a seat at one of the swivel chairs around the planning table.

"Remember how I said there were hostages?" Doc asked.

"No," Amy whispered.

I almost didn't even see her here.

"How the hell did they capture Aaron?" Jay roared. "Why didn't he call for backup? Why weren't we warned?"

Doc motioned toward him with a calming hand. "Aaron is fine. They captured him by using Patrick as bait."

"Wait, Patrick's there too?" I could hear the worry through the mask of confusion Amy was wearing. "Why?"

Doc rubbed at his chin. "Mesomorph is smart, and he knows there are many different ways he can get us to fork over the Cyber Morphers—one way, is to capture a non-Ranger and use them as a bargaining chip."

"Yeah, but why take Aaron?"

"Better question," Jay tacked on to Amy's, "why would Aaron give himself up for Pat? And why weren't any of us even told he was taken? We coulda backed him up!"

"It happened this morning at 4:27 am," Doc answered, like the answer was obvious, "none of you were awake, and neither was I. I had no idea they were, and, as much as you'd like to believe that I know everything about your personal lives: I don't. If you'd like to know why, you can ask them when we get them back. Agreed?"

I felt hot, suddenly. Like my clothes got tighter and about 10 pounds heavier, and like the room was starting to shrink until all eyes were on me. I knew. I knew why they were together, and I knew why Aaron gave himself up. It was the same reason I would have given myself up: to protect Patrick. And here I was, busy being pissed off at him for liking someone I didn't like.

"So what's our plan? Isn't Aaron kind of our ace?" Gabriel asked, crossing his arms.

"Yeah, how are we gonna take on two Guardians when we could barely handle Beyt?" Amy asked.

"Because this time, I have data on them," Doc responded. "And really, it's only one Guardian. He can just split himself in two."

"Oh, that's totally better," Jay said sarcastically.

Doc ignored him. "Gimel, in Hebrew, is the camel spirit animal and representative of the bridge that binds the spirit to the physical plain. As a Guardian, Mesomorph has enhanced him genetically to split between two forms: 'Spirit Gimel' and 'Corpus Gimel,' which allows him to be in two different places at once."

Doc was standing at the head of the group, who was all gathered around the holo table. On its surface, Gimel's disgusting face stared back at us through yellow tinted eyes and thick, sagging, gray skin. His jowls were jagged, like his teeth were carved from spikes, and his neck was probably as long as my forearm, but it was thick and sinewy like he could bench press Jay with it.

"Corpus Gimel," Doc said, "has super strength, enhanced agility and hand-to-hand combat skills, and diamond-like skin. Hurting him is going to be damn near impossible with brute force, so you'll need to use your elements to your advantage."

The visual on the table changed, showing how Corpus Gimel was a bulkier than before, like his armor had bloated into hardened muscles and scaly plates. Tufts of what looked like matted fur lined the plates of his shell-like armor, and his neck had shrunk considerably so that it could be protected by his overly-large shoulder pads. I remember thinking he looked like a troll-golem character from some Wizards and Wyverns Role-Playing Game.

"Spirit Gimel, on the other hand, is going to be a different story entirely."

Corpus Gimel's anorexic twin popped up beside him on the table screen, lanky sinewy arms stretching down to his knees. His legs were thick and round and reminded me of a Kangaroo's, but his chest was concave and littered with little amethyst gemstones. All of that was fine and dandy, but his face was different. It was blank. No eyes. No mouth. No nose. Just a blank head with no obvious features.

"Dude, what the hell?"

"I'm with Jay. Where does Mesomorph get these dudes?" Gabriel wondered.

"You don't wanna know," Doc said. "Spirit Gimel is unlike anything you've ever encountered—his body doesn't seem to have any nerve receptors in it, meaning it doesn't feel anything. His mind has somehow overpowered sensation, but his senses are still intact in that his sense of smell, hearing, and everything is just way more heightened. His reflexes were fast enough that he stopped Aaron from morphing without even touching him."

"What?" Grace repeated. "How is that even possible?"

"He's a psychic," Amy responded, "isn't he?"

"The scanners picked up mid-level psionic pulses, but there was something interfering with the readings. so I can't be 100 percent on what his energy output is."

"How did you get this information?" Grace asked. And I could tell from her tone that she was phishing for something incriminating. I'm sure it had something to do with the conversation we'd had earlier about SPD's involvement and sudden urge to hunt us down.

Doc was smooth, though. "I have one of the most advanced computer systems in this side of the country, thanks to a few nerds I know. It also helps that they gave me a pretty awesome user-friendly manual."

Before she could respond, I felt the air in the room electrify, like some sort of weird spidey sense.

"Alarm," I ended up saying.

But no one could hear me, because the room lit up in red, blaring sirens like a nuclear bomb had just gone off. And honestly, in my head, I felt like it did. All the mixed emotions I had were crashing and burning and blowing up, and I couldn't tell how I was supposed to feel. Part of me was dead set on getting my best friend back to safety, and part of me hadn't even realized that this was happening. It just didn't seem real.

"We need to move," Doc said, rushing over to the computer. "Mesomorph's just uploaded his ransom note to every major web domain. If Patrick or Aaron's identities are revealed, we could have a huge problem on our hands much bigger than we already do now."

"What's the alarm for?" Amy hollered.

Doc brought up a view screen with a swipe of his palm, and the image was enough to make my stomach turn.

Corpus Gimel was standing on top of a building with about 50 people. His big bulky arms were crossed over his chest, but the people around him were chained together, dangling over the edge of the building. His mouth opened and he began to speak, all in Hebrew.

But Doc's computer was already translating.

"Doctor Oliver, Cyber Rangers. You have 1 hour before I cut 5 of these tethers." Threateningly, he shook one of the chains and rattled it so that the five civilians attached to it swayed dangerously. "Should you call forth the assistance of the treacherous dogs you call your Space Patrol Delta, or you should not meet the demands of our glorious Messiah—they will all plummet to oblivion, into the depths of the pits of hell. And your city will burn. And your state, the whole silicone injected artificial affair, will burn." He clenched his massive fists and thrust one in the air triumphantly. "And we, the Aleph Beyt shall rise in your ashes and bathe in your bloodsoaked guilt."

And then the screen went black as an explosion of black smoke swarmed around the entire building until it disappeared under the shadowy mist.

Doc turned, facing us with a pale and ashen expression. But his eyes were bright, fierce, and ready to brawl. They were like coals on fire.

"We don't negotiate with terrorists," he said through thin lips. "We're getting our team back and we're freeing those people."

"How?" Gabriel demanded. "You heard what he said! And that building is way too high up for us to plan a sneak attack. He's got the perfect vantage point."

"Not if he can't see us," Grace interrupted, confident. "I can cloak myself and sneak up there before he can even see me coming."

Gabriel looked at her. "Except what are you gonna do 1000 feet off the ground with 50 hostages?"

"Let me go."

Everyone turned to look at me.

"I can fly up and funnel them all down in a whirlwind."

"Uhm, yeah, if he doesn't see you and your bright blue spandex," Jay said. "He'll splatter them all before you even get close."

"I'll cloak us both," Grace replied simply, "if Matt can carry me, I can cloak whatever I touch."

"In the meantime, Gabriel and Jay can be at the bottom. If anyone falls, Jay'll be fast enough to catch them and Gabriel can slingshot him into the air," Amy was saying now.

Jay cut her off, chomping at the bit and pounding his fist into his open palm. "And once everyone's safe, I'm blitzing my ass right up there so I knock that musclebound fuckface to the ground myself."

"In the meantime," Amy said, a little more firmly, "I'll hang back and call the plays like I see them—if need be, I can make a slide or something to ramp the hostages down to safety if they fall. But most importantly," she double tapped her temples and looked to Doc, "I'll be keeping my mind open to scout for Spirit Gimel."

And just like that, we had a plan.

Doc was looking at us all with silent...pride? Something like that.

"This is your most important mission yet," Doc said. "There is not a doubt in my mind that you are ready. Just please be careful, and remember to work together."

"Trust me, we got this," Grace said, "You just worry about keeping SPD away."

"Haven't I always?"

There was a silent showdown going on between those two, and I felt like only I knew, but...I didn't care. It didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was rescuing Patrick and all those people. Aaron too, I guess.

"Well...you guys ready?" Gabriel asked.

And he sounded timid. No confidence whatsoever.

"Really man? You can't ask a Morph question like that."

The Red Ranger glared back at Jay before he turned his back on him and tried again.

"I said...ARE YOU GUYS READY?!"

"READY!"

"EXECUTE DOWNLOAD—CYBER RANGER MODE!"