Jake started to stir, his ears still badly ringing from the battle the Rangers had just been through. Everything was blurry, and all the sounds distorted. He started to get shakily to his feet, finding his limbs rubbery and barely responsive.
Bringing a hand to his brow, he rubbed it, and removed it, finding his hand with blood on it. This was easily the worst beating he could remember taking, either before or after becoming a Ranger. Stumbling a little as he took a step, looking down and seeing that it was Noah he had tripped over. Looking around, he could see he was the first to regain consciousness.
As he saw Emma start to stir next, he concentrated his attention on reviving Noah. The Blue Ranger straightened out his glasses...or what was left of them at least.
"Aw man, my mom's going to kill me." Noah grumbled.
"Man, my head." Gia moaned as she sat up, still finding it hard to get her bearings. "What...what happened? You know, apart from getting our butts handed to us."
"He hardly broke a sweat." Emma agreed as she helped Troy up onto his knees. "It's like nothing we did made any difference at all."
"Other than to piss him off." Jake stated.
"Where the hell was Jordan?" Gia said as they finally returned to their feet, mopping some blood from her lip.
"I'm not sure it would have made a difference." Troy answered sadly. "We completely underestimated her. That's not a mistake we can afford to make again."
"I heard that." Noah said, picking some gravel out of his afro. "He might have given us a pass this time, but somehow I doubt it was any kind of charity."
"That's not all I hear." Jake stated as he looked up. They all heard what he was talking about. The all too familiar melody of sirens was carrying on the air.
"They're close." Gia commented. "How long were we out?"
"It's Thanksgiving, there's no works traffic." Noah reminded her.
"Then we should get out of here and regroup." Troy told them, gathering up his morpher. The Rangers teleported just before the first of the cars arrived at the scene. The area was soon flooded with ambulances, fire engines and patrol cars. Detective Barnes got out of the lead car, her pistol in her hand.
"It looks like the coast is clear." One of the officers told her.
"Unfortunately it looks that way." She muttered. "It looks like everyone's long gone."
"Thank God this happened on a holiday." One of the fire crew remarked, looking to the office building Malkor had wrecked on his arrival. "Normally there'd be hundreds of people in there."
"So, we can..."
"We can't rule out the possibility of maintenance and office staff." He told her. "There's bound to have been SOMEONE in there. Come on guys, secure the area and start the search. We all know what to do."
"You look disappointed." One of the cops remarked as detective Barnes put her gun away. She just sighed and started looking around.
"We heard this all the way from the precinct. I was sure we'd be bound to find something." She told him. "Fan out and start looking."
"What for?" The officer asked him.
"ANYTHING!" She told him. "The Rangers were here, we know that much, so just go...look for something that shouldn't be here."
As the cops started to file out, looking for clues. Detective Barnes couldn't help feeling like he had a point, and that the Rangers were long since gone. It seemed like an exercise in futility, there was hardly ever anything of note at the site of Ranger battles. She had guessed that the suits, which seemed to be all-enclosed, and had gloves were responsible for making sure that there wasn't any genetic evidence or fingerprints. She was at least a little hopeful in this case though. Normally, even if they did find anything like blood or hair samples, they generally came with a huge element of reasonable doubt.
Despite what all the CSI shows would have gullible audiences believe, DNA and fingerprint evidence was not a magic wand that instantly solved all cases. The average person's shoes would have literally dozens of hair and skin samples on it within a few hours of being worn for the first time. All it could prove was that someone was NEAR an incident, but of course in a lot of cases there were hundreds of reasonable explanations why a sample was in a particular place, especially somewhere public like the street or a restaurant. Generally, other evidence was needed. However, with so few people around so early on a holiday, there weren't likely to be many casualties, meaning that anything she did find was less likely to be contaminated by the fact that any incident that happened in a public street would often happen with so many completely innocent bystanders around that it was impossible to tell who was and wasn't directly involved just with DNA.
As she looked around, she saw that there was some blood, and got a couple of officers to take a sample, but that wasn't all that interested her. She knelt down, picking up a plastic card from the ground.
"What's that?" One of the other officers asked, seeing it in her hand. It was a plastic swipe card, that looked to be badly charred, and slightly melted. The name and picture on it were indistinguishable, which was unfortunate for her. However, there was a logo on it.
"It looks like a library card." She told him.
"Not like any library card I've seen." He stated.
"Look at that logo." She told him. "Harwood High School."
"So...some kid dropped their library card here?" He asked her. She put it in an evidence bag. "What?"
"I'm kind of working on a hunch." She told him. "Keep looking, I'm just going to check something out."
As she headed to the car, the rest of the crew got to work, checking for anyone unlucky enough to be in the area, and looking for anything that was out of place.
Back in the Command Centre, Jake was pacing as he held his communicator, while the others were tending to their injuries. They would have been tracking Malkor's whereabouts, but he wasn't exactly trying to hide. He was stomping through the streets, kind of like he was daring anyone to come and stop him. With the fact that the Rangers had already tried and failed once, it wasn't like there were many people in a hurry to take him up on his challenge. Noah just sighed.
"Can't we call in past Rangers?" He asked them. "You know, like have a massive Ranger army?"
"Most of the teams don't have their powers anymore." Gia reminded him. "Besides, those that do would take ages to get here."
"But Malkor..."
"Malkor's our problem." Troy put down flatly. "This isn't pride talking, I'd love some help as much as any of you, but other teams have faced worse. Malkor might be the toughest thing we've faced, but right now, we should presume we're on our own."
"Well, he's still got his communicator off." Jake sighed. "Wasn't that on our list of rules or something?"
"Well it's not like Jordan was ever particularly good at following rules." Gia snapped as Tensou finished bandaging one of her arms. She saw Emma staring at her. "What?"
"He's had a lot on his mind. He's been hit with quite a broadside lately." Emma reminded her. "You should be able to understand that, you were ready to quit when you were outed."
"I was ready to quit when I found out Gosei used me, used the feelings I had for you!" Gia called back. "Besides, it didn't last long, I changed my mind as soon as I realised you guys needed me."
"We can condemn Jordan later...if we find him." Troy answered. "In the meantime, I think we're ready for round two."
"What makes you say that?" Emma asked. Troy just pulled up a video to the main screen.
"This is broadcasting on all forms of communication city wide." He informed her.
The image showed a huge image being beamed across the clouds, like a giant cinema screen, while the message was also broadcasting on all television and radio frequencies.
"I am Malkor, ruler of the Warstar Empire!" He introduced himself. "I have taken your city within hours with no significant resistance! All forms of resistance will be crushed mercilessly!"
"Why do bad guys have to brag?" Noah grumbled. "My back's still killing me; I know he won that first one."
"My ship will arrive within the hour, bringing my warriors with it!" He warned them. "The Earth's final hours are at hand, and you will all be my slaves for as long as it amuses me to spare your worthless lives. For that, you should be...thankful."
"A Thanksgiving pun? Really?" Jake asked.
"You heard him." Troy announced. "His ship's coming in an hour. That means we have only one more chance to beat him."
"When I get my hands on Jordan..."
"Believe me; I'll be looking for answers too." Troy told her. "But right now, we're almost out of time. If that ship lands, there's no way we can take on an army by ourselves. It that ship lands, we all lose, Metal Alice included."
"I never thought I'd see the day I was missing her." Jake remarked as they lined up.
"Go Go Megaforce!" They chorused as they morphed, leaving the command centre in a bright flash of light. Tensou looked to Gosei.
"This isn't good Gosei." He told him. "I've searched everywhere, and I just can't find Jordan anywhere..."
His words tailed off as the face in the wall opened up, releasing a mist into the Command Centre. Gosei strode out of his chamber, his billowing cloak sweeping around his black battle armour.
"There is only one place he can be." Gosei declared.
"But Gosei, you can't...your armour's power source..."
"This is far more important." Gosei told him.
"Why don't you just tell him what he wants to know?" Tensou asked him. Gosei just waved a hand, at which Tensou shut down all systems and slumped on the floor.
"The time for answers is coming." He stated as he headed for the door to The Library. "But it will not be today."
The Rangers arrived at the centre of town, finding that Malkor had demolished a number of buildings, creating a perimeter of broken rubble formed into a wall all around him. Jake looked around.
"He's been busy." He remarked.
"That's because he wanted us to come." Troy announced. "This isn't any structure, it's an arena."
"Right you are Red Ranger." Malkor greeted him in a guttural roar. "I see you came back, but your friend...he appears to still be the only one of you smart enough to realise the futility of fighting me."
"Well, we never give up!" Troy told him. "No matter how many times you put us down, as long as even one of us lives, we'll always fight anyone that threatens Earth!"
"Yeah, and even if we do fall, someone will replace us!" Gia added. "Over a hundred people have been Rangers at one time or another, and there'll be more after us too!"
"We all know you'll tear this world apart, there would be no point in surviving if we had to live on the wasteland you left behind." Emma agreed. "That's why we'll always fight to the end."
"Yeah, I don't give up, no matter how hopeless the fight is!" Jake yelled. He suddenly realised what he had said as the others stared at him. "OK, that came out wrong...but we won't give up!"
"Then I guess this time I'll have to finish you off." He responded.
"Well, you're not the only one with an upgrade." Troy told him as they all pulled out their power cards. "Remember guys, everything we have, don't hold back for anything! Ultra Mode, Activate!"
The Rangers powered up, their armour forming up around them. They started to fan out, surrounding Malkor. He just stood, looking unimpressed.
"Am I supposed to be afraid now?" He asked them, holding up his axe and beckoning them to come for him. "Bring it on!"
Back in the police station, the phones were going wild. Malkor's little holiday message had thrown the city into a complete panic, and everyone was calling in to ask after friends and loved ones that they hadn't managed to get in touch with.
"I'm sorry Mrs Carver, but I have no idea where your son is." Detective Barnes sighed. "You've given me a description, but I keep telling you, until he's been missing 24...yes, I'm aware of the monster attack...yes, I understand he's seventeen...just...try not to panic, we have a lot going on here, if we see or hear anything, someone will get back to you. Just try and remain calm."
As she hung up, a lab technician came up to her desk, she welcomed the distraction. She understood why people were panicking, but the fact was most of the calls were only wasting time. Until such time as the city was secure, it wasn't like they could go and start searching for every single person who hadn't answered their cell phone in an hour.
"Detective Barnes, I have the results you wanted." He told her. "This is indeed a Harwood High School library card."
"I had figured out that much already." She muttered. "I was wondering if you could tell me anything I DIDN'T know about it."
"Well, it is damaged, but I managed to glean some information from it." He replied. "The number isn't complete, but I do have the first six of them, which narrows down the ID to four students..."
"It's better than nothing I guess." She stated.
"It gets better." He told her. "I managed to get enough from the magnetic strip to get the last time they entered the library, and from that, matched it to the borrowing records..."
"That's a long-winded way to say you figured out who it belongs to." Detective Barnes interrupted him. He just nodded and handed her a file.
"We pulled this directly from Harwood's student records." He told her. She just furrowed her brows. "What?"
"I'm just working a hunch." She told him.
"Well, mind sharing what it is?" He asked.
"It's something about the way the Robo Knight talked to me under the bridge." She told him.
"What? You mean you didn't like the way he gave you attitude?" He asked. "Every perp you meet gives you attitude. I thought you were tougher than that Barnes."
"I don't care about what he said, but how he said it." She explained. "When was the last time you heard of a robot or talking mechanical device or computer giving someone attitude?"
"Have you ever been to Yo! Sushi in London?" He asked her. "There's this one robot waiter there that told me to 'move my fat arse' because I got in its way! It was kind of cool..."
"But that's a programmed response. It would say that to anyone. Robo Knight though, he actually talked TO me!" She stated. "And that insincere wave he gave me to taunt me? I think there's a person under all that armour."
"A person?" He asked her. "So...it's a suit, like the other Rangers?"
"I think so." She told him. "But some of the way he acted, what he said...it seemed like more than attitude. In some ways, it seemed kind of...immature, almost childish. He was about half a second from saying neener neener neener and thumbing his nose."
"Wait...you think...?"
"I don't just think it's a person under that armour, I think it's a kid." She responded.
"OK, sorry I asked." He said sceptically as he walked away. "You want to flush your career, you can, just leave me out of it."
As he left, she just looked back to the report, before gathering her jacket and heading for the door.
Back at the site of the battle, the Rangers were faring a lot better this time around. The additional power offered by their Ultra Mode armour made the battle a lot more even, but that still didn't make it an easy battle.
"Swarm him!" Troy called as the wings of his Ultra Armour grew out to deflect one of the blows form Malkor's axe. "We can't let up, not for a second!"
"Sand Storm!" Gia called out as she sent a stream of sand his way to blind him. "Go for it Jake!"
"Rock Crush!" He replied in kind, sending massive boulders flying Malkor's way. He managed to deflect a few of them, but one of them got through his guard, smashing into his chest. He staggered back, and looked down to a score in his carapace. He looked up and smiled.
"Impressive!" He told him.
"We just get better!" Troy announced as they assembled. "Ultra Victory Charge!"
He watched the Rangers combine to launch their ultimate attack, and stood, bracing for the impact. It burned painfully, he could feel his carapace cracking under the strain, and it took every ounce of his strength to remain standing. As the smoke cleared, the Rangers saw him still standing.
"It...It didn't work!" Jake stammered. "What are we meant to...?"
"It is working!" Troy yelled, pointing to Malkor's legs. They were shaky, and he noticed that the knees were bent slightly. "He's weakening, keep pouring it on!"
They fired off another blast, this time he held up his axe to help him take the hit. He found himself driven to his knees, and the axe growing hotter in his hands, so hot he actually felt it right down to his flesh. The Rangers stood, staring at him as he just got back up to his feet.
"Is that all you have?" He asked them. "Am I meant to be impressed?"
He looked up to the heavens as the sky darkened. The Rangers all followed his gaze, seeing a rolling, dark cloud coming in.
"Why am I not hopeful that's just bad weather?" Jake asked them.
"The heat generated bringing through a ship that size would generate massive amounts of heat." Noah explained. "It's the ship!"
"Guys, look!" Gia called out as they saw Zombats descending. Troy's eyes shot open as he realised how close they were.
"Guys, we can't let him get that power boost!" He called out as he rushed Malkor, attacking him with his Ultra Sword. "Stop them!"
The other Rangers fired blast after blast into the air, incinerating Zombats as they came down in a swarm.
Troy gave Malkor everything he had, called on every second of training he had, remembering everything he had learned. He doubted any of the sensei he had studied under had ever faced anything like Malkor. He was sent skidding backwards as the wings in his armour deflected another blow from his axe. As he looked up though, he was horrified to see a Zombat in Malkor's hand.
"You did well." He said with a grudging respect. "Still, in the end, humans will always come up...short!"
With that, he bit the head off the squealing Zombat, gulping it down in one go. The others came to Troy's side as they saw this. Emma just wrinkled her nose in disgust.
"That is wrong on so many levels!" She stated.
"Does he think he's Ozzy?" Jake asked in response.
"Maybe Peta has an intergalactic branch." Gia suggested.
"Guys, it's time to call the Zords." Troy told them, seeing the dark cloud shifting closer as Malkor grew. "All of them."