He staggered through the streets, shuffling along as he tried to find his way along the street, barely able to keep his balance. People going about their business tried their best to ignore him, but a few were unfortunate enough to come close enough to him they had to move so he didn't bump into them. The expression on their faces said it all. Some looked almost sympathetic, some looked on him with disgust, but all of them looked to him in a way that said they saw him as something they didn't want a part of.
He got to some wrought iron gates, looking to them for a moment in the darkness, and saw a barrier to his progress. He stood, looking at them for a moment, before downing what was left in the beer bottle in his hand, and throwing it aside, smashing it on the pavement nearby, before backing up a couple of paces and throwing himself at the gate, starting to clamber over them.
He managed to get to the top of the gate surprisingly simply for someone that was obviously so badly drunk. His agility and balance were pretty astounding all things considered, but as he got to the top, and leant over the top, his co-ordination failed him and he fell head-first, almost breaking his neck as he landed in a heap on the ground. He got up, and started to dust himself off, although given his current condition, his clothing was already filthy, making the whole gesture somewhat pointless.
"Shit." He muttered as he straightened himself up against the fence, before reaching into his pocket. Somehow, miraculously, he hadn't managed to break the new bottle of beer he had in his pocket. He started to make his way along the path, staggering one way, then another, looking around. All around him were head stones, more accurately they were memorials, since the plot he had broken into was attached to a crematorium. He stopped at one, bracing his bottle on the edge, before hitting the cap, flipping it off in a well-practiced motion, and took a sip as he made his way onward, finding the one he was looking for.
He came up to it, slumping to his knees before the marker, and looked on it as his heart broke. The marble shiny black slab before him was so unremarkable, but at the same time represented...she was gone. The most important person in his life was gone, just like that. She had been snatched from him, taken long before her time.
He reached out to the stone, running his fingers across the lettering. He had known her his whole life, he had grown up with her, one of his best friends since the day they could even understand the concept of friendship. They had been inseparable through kindergarten, grade school, middle school, high school, they had even gone to the academy together. The day he got his letter telling him he had a place waiting for him at the academy, she had phoned him up, almost the second he broke the seal on his envelope to tell him that she had been accepted and was going. At least...that's what she tried to say, she was so excited that her voice came through more as a series of squeals and screams on the phone. He managed a small smile as he remembered telling her he was going too, even before he looked at his own acceptance letter. She was going, and that was enough for him to sign up for this too.
That was the only thing that mattered to him. In his heart, he had known that for him at least, what he felt for her had moved beyond friendship. He hadn't looked at her the same way ever since the night he had comforted her when she broke down in tears because some idiot jock in high school had laughed in her face when she asked him to the prom. He had sat with her for hours, as he had done many times before, holding her as she wept, and told her that he would take her. It had taken every penny in his bank account, and he still had to work a part-time job, but it was worth it just to stop her crying. It wasn't the prom though, it was that moment, sitting with her under a tree in her parents' yard, holding her in his arms that he fell in love with her. He had never dared risk telling her though...and now...now he would never get that chance.
"Kai." He heard someone say behind him. He looked around to see Damon standing behind him.
"What are you doing here Damon?" He asked. The Green Galaxy Ranger just sighed.
"It's three AM and the gate's locked." Damon reminded him. "I could ask you the same question."
"Go home Damon." Kai told him. "Leave me in peace."
"Kai, it's been a week, and you haven't been into work once." Damon told him. "Commander..."
"If the Commander has a problem with me taking some personal time, tell him he's welcome to fire me!" Kai snapped at him, cutting Damon off angrily as he started drinking more beer, sitting by the memorial marker dedicated to Kendrix's memory. Damon just sighed and knelt down with him.
"Kai, you're drunk." Damon stated.
"It's better than not being drunk." He replied, taking another swig. Damon looked to him.
"Kai...I know how you felt about her." Damon said sympathetically. "I can't imagine what seeing that did to you...but Kendrix was our friend too."
"Leave me alone Damon." Kai muttered.
"Kai, I'm not leaving you like this." He stated. "You can't..."
"Why can't I?" Kai asked him. "I'm an adult Damon! If I want to..."
"If you want to what? Wallow in self pity and waste away until you end up with a marker just like hers?" He asked. "Do you really think that's what she'd have wanted?"
"I guess we'll never know now." Kai answered. Damon reached across, snatching the bottle from him.
"Give it back Damon!" He demanded.
"Kai, for your own good..."
"I said give it BACK!" He yelled, swinging a punch at his best friend, but missing by a clear foot and face-planting straight into the ground. Damon just knelt with him as Kai broke down. "It's not fair Damon, I want her back!"
"I know you do." Damon replied as he held him closely. "We all do."
As he helped Kai get to his feet, he started to walk him back towards the gate where a couple of guards were waiting. They had been called when someone had reported someone climbing over the fence. Damon just looked to them.
"It's alright." He told them as he got to the gate. "I've got this."
They just parted and let him through, taking Kai home.
Noah snapped up as he finally came to, finding the other Rangers standing around him. He looked to them a little confused. Orion stepped forward.
"I...I called them when you passed out." He told him. "I wasn't able to wake you up."
He realised he was in the infirmary, and figured that one or more of them had to have taken him there. He just looked at them curiously as he saw some light coming in from a port hole.
"How...how long was I out?" He asked.
"About five hours." Emma told him. "Orion told us your morpher started glowing, and then...then you just passed out. Nothing we did could get you to come to."
She moved a little closer.
"It...it was a vision wasn't it?" She asked him. He just nodded in response.
"I've...I've never seen anyone react like that." Orion told him apologetically. "I was a lay preacher in my village for years, I've performed Communual Ceremonies for years, I've never..."
"It's alright Orion, I'm fine." Noah told him, holding his head. "I'm a little woozy, and it was...really something, but I'll be fine."
He turned, hanging his legs off the edge of the bench, and looked to Orion directly.
"Look, would you mind getting some of that tea?" Noah asked him. Orion just furrowed his brows.
"Noah?" He asked.
"Please, just...trust me." He told him. Orion looked a little concerned as he left, but as soon as he was out the door, Noah looked to the others.
"Noah, what are you up to?" Jake asked him.
"It's the tea, I'm sure of it." Noah told him. They all just looked a little confused. "Look, I started to have my suspicions after Emma's episode, but I think...I think the tea might just be what caused this."
"You think you were tripping?" Gia asked, flicking a thumb at the door, looking angry. "You mean Shiny Pants drugged you both?"
"I don't think it's like that, he might not even realise what he did." Noah told them. He drew in closer. "When he talked about a ceremony where he communed with his Earth Gods, it got me thinking. Some tribes had ceremonies where they would talk to their spirits and ask for guidance. A lot of them sometimes incorporated hallucinogens into their ceremonies. Fungus, mosses and herbs that..."
"So you really think we were tripping?" Emma asked him. He just shook his head.
"I don't know...it does seem like something else." He told them. "I just wanted to check out my theory before I told any of you...but this is part of Orion's religion, something he's believed in his whole life. I didn't want to tell him..."
"You didn't want to tell him that what he believes is down to him shrooming?" Jake asked. Noah just sighed.
"Something like that." He answered.
"So if it is a hallucinogen, why did you both see Rangers?" Gia asked. "Why does Orion keep seeing the Sixth Rangers?"
"Orion said he started seeing the Sixth Rangers when he got his morpher and key right?" Noah reminded them. "Well...the tribes that took on those ceremonies believed that the substances they used unlocked their minds, allowing them to see things that they otherwise couldn't."
"So you think that's what's happening?" Jordan asked. "You think the tea...?"
"I think it made us more receptive to the memory component of the Ranger keys than normal." He concluded. "I think...that's why we..."
"Why you saw what you did." Gia concluded. Noah just shook his head.
"No, it was so much more vivid than that." He told her. "I was in the memory of Kai, the Blue Galaxy Ranger, but it was more than just seeing it...I WAS Kai!"
"Come again?" Jake asked. Noah looked to Emma, who was the only other one that had experienced this, and understood all too well.
"I could feel everything he felt." Noah told them. "It was about a week after Kendrix died. He was...he was drunk, and...he was heartbroken. He was in love with her, and he watched her burn alive...it was like he had completely given up on life."
He looked to the others.
"I've never felt anything like that before." He told them. "But when I looked at that memorial, I felt like all I wanted was to join her, so that we'd be together and I could tell her..."
"She knew." Emma assured him with a little smile. "Believe me, she knew, and she felt the same way."
"So, why isn't Orion pretty much in a coma?" Jake asked. "You and Emma both passed out when you drank that tea."
"He said he's been taking part in these ceremonies his whole life." Jordan reminded them. "If he's been drinking that tea all this time, his body's probably built up a resistance to it. It won't have as marked an effect on him. That's probably why he just speaks to the Sixth Rangers instead of..."
Just then, Orion came back into the room, carrying some of his tea with him, at which the Rangers all stopped talking. He handed it to Noah, looking around them, having noticed them all falling silent.
"What?" He asked. "What is it?"
"I just...I really just wanted to test this." Noah told him. "I wanted to see what was in it."
"Just some mushrooms." He told them. "It's distilled from dried mushrooms we found growing on rocks."
They all looked a little uneasy as he said this. It suddenly made a lot more sense, but none of them wanted to say it. This was something deeply important to Orion, something he had believed in his whole life. They didn't want to take that away by saying that they thought some of his most spiritual experiences had possibly been hallucinations.
"I'm sorry guys." Orion repeated. "I never thought this would be dangerous to Earthlings. I've been drinking it most of my life, I thought..."
"It's alright." Emma assured him. "We're both fine, and know you'd never have given us something that you knew would harm us."
"But I think I'll stick to coffee." Gia told him. He just nodded his head.
"Hey, it's not for everyone right?" He asked. Noah turned back to them.
"Psilocybin." Noah said as he showed them his results. "The tea is made of psilocybin. The results of Emma's blood test came back, and they confirm she had a significant quantity in her blood stream."
"Great." Jake replied. "Um...why don't we pretend we don't all know what that means?"
"Psilocybin is a family of mushrooms with certain...properties." Emma told them. Her love of nature meant she had a pretty extensive knowledge of plants. In addition to that, while she had never been part of that scene, a lot of the people she had been on protests with were no stranger to certain recreational substances. "You've probably heard them more commonly referred to as magic mushrooms."
"Magic mushrooms?" Orion asked her. She looked to him and nodded.
"Some people on Earth take them too." She told him. She realised that this was a way of explaining it to him without making it seem like they were demeaning his faith. After all, she didn't need to explain that people sought visions they got from them for different reasons than he did. "They take them to experience visions like you do."
"OK, so...it's safe?" He asked. "For Earthlings?"
"It...kind of is." Gia said, sucking her teeth. "They're still toxic. The tea you gave them, I'm guessing you made it pretty strong."
"I guess so." He said with a shrug. He never really thought about it, it was just something he had always done. "I just made it the way the village Preacher taught me."
"OK, so...now we know what caused this, we can all go back to...you know...not passing out and freaking everyone out." Jake answered. As he looked to Noah and Emma, he could see them exchanging a look that made him uneasy. He always hated that look Noah got, it was the one he got all through their childhood, usually before performing some experiment that invariably ended up with him having no eyebrows for a couple of weeks, or explaining to his mom why his skin was now orange. "Noah, I know that look..."
"Guys...maybe we've stumbled onto something we could use here." Noah suggested. "This allowed us to access the Ranger memories in the keys in a way we've never been able to before."
"Noah, you were unconscious for FIVE HOURS!" Gia reminded him. "You really want to risk that?"
"Now we know the risks...maybe we can figure out a safe way to use this." Noah told them. "I can analyse the tea. I can do some calculations, figure out what should be a safe but effective dose."
"Noah..."
"We can hook ourselves up, have our vitals tracked to make sure we're in no danger." He suggested. "We can make sure someone's around just in case..."
"Noah, this is crazy, why would you want to risk this?" Jake asked him. Emma just looked to them.
"We learned a lot about Kai and Kendrix in only one vision." Emma told them. "Guys...they aren't even on this planet. We've never met them, no one we've met has even talked about them and we learned a lot from this."
"If we could control it, if we could get Orion to lead us in a ceremony..."
"Wait, me?" Orion asked.
"You know the most about this." Noah told him. "Maybe some of the meditation techniques you use are why you can control what you see...why the Past Rangers were able to teach you more useful things."
"Noah..."
"There's no telling what we can learn from this." He told them. "I really think this could be worth it."
Gia looked to him and Emma. She wasn't convinced this was a great idea, but as she was about to answer, Emma looked at her in a pleading way.
"Emma...that's not fair." Gia told her. "Put the puppy face away!"
Emma ignored her. She knew that Gia could never resist when she did that. It was a sure fire way to get her to go along with whatever her latest crusade was. She just sighed, defeated.
"Orion, how much of this stuff do you have?" She asked.
"I found a huge batch in the woods in Briarwood." He told her. "I gathered enough to last for a while."
She looked to Noah, pointing a finger in his face.
"For the record, I still don't think this is a great idea." She told him. "Do your tests, make sure this is safe. If anything happens..."
"I'll take full responsibility." He assured her as he turned took the tea and headed for his room. "I've got some work to do."
A/N: Sorry for the delay, and for this author's note. I just wanted to explain the reason for the delay is because I really, REALLY wanted to think carefully about how I was writing this for obvious reasons.
As mentioned, several tribes HAVE used hallucinogens in their spiritual and religious ceremonies for exactly the reasons described, and while I liked the idea of the spiritual element of such a ceremony, I was always painfully aware that including this factor could be interpreted as an endorsement of drug use, which is not my intention at all.
In no way am I saying run out and try hallucinogens, and I really was trying to find a way of not seeming like I'm encouraging it. There are a lot of dangers involved in taking any form of drug. I also wanted to say a little about the dangers of foraging. In the context of this story, Orion is an experienced forager who has a lot of knowledge and experience. People spend a long time learning to forage for a reason. There are very tiny, subtle differences between what will taste good in a salad, what can make a good home remedy, and what will send you to the hospital! In short...not a good idea to just pick berries and mushrooms and start eating them!
Finally, to end on a light-hearted note, I wrote the Kai part, because I have always been a huge lover of the Kai/Kendrix pairing. Watching Lost Galaxy when I was younger, I always felt like he felt that way about her, it was a vibe that I maintain to this day. Thanks for your patience, and hopefully I'll have more soon.