By the time the Rangers teleported into the Command Centre, they found Tensou already in something of a panic, rushing around numerous consoles in an attempt to track Metal Alice. Right now, the map was blowing up with brief energy signatures, appearing all over the place, and disappearing just as quickly.
"What's going on Tensou?" Troy rushed out as they filed out to take position near their respective consoles.
"I don't know, I really don't!" He told them. "Metal Alice has been appearing all over the city for almost an hour!"
"Her behaviour is erratic, and makes no sense." Gosei told them. "She's launched no attack; she has brought no henchmen or robots..."
"Last time I saw her, logic seemed to be taking a quick trip south." Jordan responded. "She seemed more concerned about me than anything else."
"Metal Alice has shown up in the rail haulage yard." Noah told them. "There's also a new transmission on the television. It's broadcasting on all channels!"
"Why do I think it's too much to hope that's a coincidence?" Jordan asked as Tensou brought it up on the screen. Metal Alice was standing in the middle of the yard. She looked into the camera, held from her at arms' length.
"Thanksgiving, it's such an ironic holiday isn't it?" She began. "On this day, you celebrate a meal that was given to your ancestors in the distant past by the Native Americans to prevent them starving in the winter."
"She's giving us a history lesson?" Jake asked. Gia just shooshed him, indicating to the screen.
"Of course, if the Natives knew what those ancestors had in store for them, if they knew how that generosity would be repaid, with decades of persecution and genocide as you sought to wipe them and their way of life from the lands, perhaps they would have thought very differently." She continued. "I more than anyone know how compassion is repaid! Still, this holiday, this shrine you build to superficial and false emotion does offer another opportunity, one that will give me something to be Thankful for."
She panned the camera across to a stone pillar, which had a device attached to it. It looked a lot like the device that had been mounted on RICO's chest. The light was blinking.
"Tonight is one of the busiest nights of the year on public transportation as your friends and loved ones board trains to come to the city, or to leave, all hoping to spend time with family to gorge themselves on turkey, a dish that would never have been in season on the original Thanksgiving, all the while making empty statements about what you're thankful for." She explained. "At this time, nearly 90,000 people are on trains travelling at speeds upwards of 100 miles per hour. If anything would happen to those tracks, the results...I'm sure you get the picture."
"Those locations." Noah called out, checking his map again. "She's...she's gone to all the major rail lines!"
"This device is a powerful explosive that will destroy the track, leaving no time for the oncoming 6:30 from Angel Grove with no time to stop." She stated as she turned the camera back to herself. "Devices like this have been planted all through the city. In thirty minutes, they will detonate. Any attempt to tamper with them will also detonate them."
"Shit!" Jordan called out angrily.
"Now, I know what you're all asking yourselves, what can you do to stop this? Nothing, you can't. Only one person can." She told them. "Robo Knight, the time has come for this to end! If you value the lives of everyone on those trains, I suggest you don't dawdle."
With that, she threw the camera down, before crushing it underfoot. Jordan just looked to the others.
"OK, I know that look." Troy told him. "Jordan, you can't go, it's exactly what she wants!"
"Which is exactly why it's what I have to do!" Jordan told them.
"Jordan, you know what she's like..."
"Which is why I know she's going to blow out those tracks whether I go or not!" Jordan told them.
"Jordan, this isn't about settling a score!" Jake responded. "You know how she gets in your head..."
"That's why I can understand her in a way none of you ever can." Jordan told them. "She's focused on me, obsessed with me. It's always been about ME! I get that now, that's how I know that if she gets me, she'll be distracted. If she thinks she's getting what she wants..."
"It'll give us time to look for the other bombs." Troy surmised. Jordan looked to them all.
"I can understand why you aren't rushing to believe me; I know I don't deserve the benefit of the doubt considering how I've been acting recently." He told them. "But I understand what it means to be obsessed with someone, to be so twisted up inside that you don't know if you can breathe if you have to go one more hour without getting your hands on them. That's how I know that if I go to her now, she'll be unable to think of anything but me."
"This is..."
"It's probably the only option we've got." Troy announced. "Tensou, we'll need your help. When we get to those bombs..."
"I'll do what I can to guide you through disarming them." He assured Troy.
"All of you go." Jordan told them. "I'll be fine."
"Just...keep your head on straight." Gia told him. "Metal Alice is going to pull everything she can to get in your head..."
"I think I've seen everything she has to throw at me." Jordan assured her.
"I hope so." She replied, hugging him warmly, before parting from him. "I'm the only one allowed to mess with you tin man."
"Trust me; once I'm done with her, you're the only one I'll torment." He promised her.
"Alright, there are ten locations, that's two bombs apiece." Troy told them. "Pick a bomb, deal with it, then consult Tensou for another location. We need to work fast guys. Ready?"
"Ready!" They all chorused together. "Go Go Megaforce!"
In a flash of light, they disappeared from the room, leaving Jordan alone in the Command Centre with Gosei and Tensou. He looked to the face on the wall.
"Why are you hesitating?" Gosei asked him.
"I know it's you." Jordan told him. "I don't know why, and I don't know what, but I know that somehow all of this is down to you."
"Jordan..."
"All Metal Alice keeps saying is that we're being lied to." Jordan told him.
"It is just one of her tricks..."
"Sorry, but you exhausted benefit of the doubt a long time ago." Jordan sneered at him. "I've done everything that's been asked of me and more, and yet you never seem to trust us with anything more than a minimum of information."
"I only do..."
"You know what? I don't have time to debate the matter. I need to go and confront the psychopath with the fixation on Robo Knight." He interrupted Gosei. "But when I get back, the time for secrets is over. I want answers, and if you won't give them to me, I'll just look elsewhere."
As Jordan teleported out of the Command Centre, the eyes on Gosei's statue went dim, indicating he was finished with the conversation. Tensou went back to work, preparing for when the Rangers would need his help with the explosives.
Metal Alice was standing in the centre of the yard, surrounded by firing barrels, lighting up the yard in the fading light. With winter falling, it was becoming dark earlier in the day. Jordan arrived, finding her standing with her back to him. He could hear voices nearby, and as he came closer, he saw some workers cowering in fear from her. There was a corpse lying nearby, wearing the same uniform. Jordan could see from a distance that he had been almost completely cut in half. It was little wonder the others were too scared to try and get past Metal Alice.
"You got what you wanted." Jordan announced as he arrived. She turned to look at him, her sword still slick with blood.
"Right on schedule." She told him. "You're getting rather predictable."
"Let them go." Jordan told her.
"Really?" She asked in response, sounding a little like she was amused. "You want to spare five when I'm threatening...?"
"Let's just say I'm not real big on audiences." Jordan interrupted her. "If you're going to spend the next half hour talking me to death before you finally kill me, then I guess you'd rather not have the inferior humans listening in."
He waved her hand in the direction of the gate.
"Take what's left of your friend and go." She ordered the haulage workers. They didn't need to be told a second time, gathering up the body and running for all they were worth. Jordan just pulled out his Robo Blade.
"So, are we finally going to just fight?" Jordan asked her. "I thought this was what you wanted. I thought you wanted to kill me!"
Metal Alice made her way towards him, her sword in hand. Jordan knew he had the fight of his life on his hands, but he pushed his own anger, his own hatred aside. Thousands of people were relying on him, and he knew he couldn't let them down.
Elsewhere in the city, Troy arrived at the location of the first bomb, looking around frantically for it. Being underneath a railway bridge, his first thought was pillars. He finally found what he was looking for, but before he could reach it, a legion of Loogies appeared. There had to be almost fifty of them, swarming at him from all directions.
"Troy!" Emma's voice came through his communicator. "I got to the bomb..."
"Let me guess, Loogie convention?" He asked. "Damn it, we don't have time for this!"
As he powered up into Ultra Mode, he started ploughing into his enemies, cutting them down as quickly as he could. He cast a glance to the bomb, seeing the clock ticking down. Clearly Metal Alice was prepared for this eventuality. He only hoped that Jordan was keeping her occupied.
Back at the haulage yard, Metal Alice was sent tumbling face first into a firing barrel as Jordan stumbled aside from her latest attack. He smiled as he looked over to where she was struggling to her feet.
"You're getting sloppy Alice." He taunted her, hoping that if he sounded confident, he could distract her from the fact that he wasn't anywhere near as strong as he was trying to sound. His vision was blurry, and every breath felt painful. He hoped she wouldn't notice, and that he could continue to aggravate her, and get under her skin the way she had been doing to him since she had first appeared. The fact she was attacking in a much less controlled way, leading to her making mistakes let him know it was working. "That last attack was more likely to give me a cold than kill me!"
"Do not dare to mock me boy!" She snapped as she prepared her guard again.
"Oh, you don't like being mocked?" Jordan asked her as he parried some of her attacks, struggling with each one to keep his arms from buckling under the force of her blows. He stepped aside, he tripped her, letting her hit the ground, splashing down into some mud. "You're losing it Alice; you seem to be taking this personally. How very human of you!"
"How dare you!" She screamed, blasting Jordan off his feet. He launched into the air, driving her blade down, only narrowly avoiding Jordan as he rolled away. "Bastard!"
She stepped into him, driving him into the pillar, right next to the bomb. It was only then that she heard a voice from his morpher.
"My first bomb's dealt with." Gia's voice stated. Jordan realised too late that Metal Alice had heard this.
"Good, that's nine down." Troy replied. "Keep it up guys, we don't have long!"
"You...you dare try to manipulate ME?" She screamed at Jordan as she threw him away. He rolled back to his feet.
"You wanted your grudge match, you got it!" Jordan told her. "Of course, you don't like it when it's not you playing the games do you?"
"I still have my games to play." She assured him. She hit a command on the hilt of her sword, and Jordan heard an explosion some distance away. Jordan realised that she had destroyed a section of the track, and he imagined that would mean the others would have to attend to that first. His cavalry was not coming any time soon.
"You cold-hearted bitch." Jordan spat. "You're so desperate to get your revenge; you'd kill thousands of people to get it?"
"You know nothing of hatred, nothing of thirst for vengeance!" She told him. "You've only known me for weeks, and in one act, I've caused you to hate so much you were willing to put any of your friends at risk to get to me. Imagine what that feeling is like after centuries!"
"OK, now I'm lost." Jordan admitted. Metal Alice detonated the bomb attached to the pillar at the haulage yard. Jordan immediately dropped his Robo Blade and ran for the pillar, positioning himself underneath it, bracing it with his body. He knew that if the track came down, there was no way the Rangers would be able to stop both trains. He looked up to see Metal Alice approaching him with her sword in her hand. He felt the weight of the bridge crushing down on him. He reached out for his Robo Blade, which was only inches away, but as his fingers missed it, it may as well have been miles. He looked up to her as she kicked the blade away.
"Poor, lost little boy." She taunted him. "There's nothing left to do but decide where I want to stick my blade, to choose how I want to end you. Do I want to make it quick? Or do I want to make it slow? Let you bleed out while you hold up this bridge, sacrificing yourself for all these worthless humans like you always wanted?"
"Or you could always bore me to death by talking." Jordan told her. "If you're going to finish me, do it!"
"Not until you know why." She told him. She reached up, taking off her face mask. Jordan couldn't believe his eyes as he saw her face.
"You...it can't be!" He stammered as he looked at her, his helmet recalling. "Wallacia?"
"Say Hi to Pythia for me." She replied, replacing her face mask. As she drew back her blade to strike, the Robo Blaster skidded into view. Jordan snatched it up, and opened fire on full power, point-blank into her stomach. Metal Alice slammed a fist into the concrete in frustration.
"This isn't over!" She yelled at him, throwing a red, glowing orb at his feet. "I'll have my revenge!"
As she disappeared, Jordan dropped the blaster and concentrated his efforts on holding up the bridge. He looked to the side, to see Cat, Quinn and Allison.
"Cat?" Jordan asked.
"I needed a ride." She explained. "Allison had a car."
Jordan picked up the red glowing orb, realising that it was a memory; one Wallacia wanted him to have. He gripped it tightly, knowing that now the time for games was over. Now, it was time for answers.