After school, the Rangers split off to their various after-school activities. Summer Cove had a pretty extensive list of extra-curricular activities available. Basketball, tennis, football, wrestling, ice-hockey, camping, archery, gun safety, advanced driving, cross-country, astronomy, chess...there was pretty much something that catered to practically every taste.
While some schools, especially those that had lower budgets would cut extra-curricular programs to keep the funding concentrated on the academic subjects, Principal Hastings had always been a strong believer in the fact that colleges and universities only used grades as a benchmark for getting a foot in the door. For every one university place, there could be as many as thirty applicants all with the exact same grades, and so they would be looking at what a student could do beyond the classroom to determine if they would be the kind of student that would create a good impression of the university. That most students from low-income families got to college or university on scholarships meant it was also essential for those students to get all the help they could enhancing the talents that might be their only way to afford an education that was fast becoming almost a career necessity in the modern technology-driven world.
Brody had opted for cross-country class. It was the class that best fit his skill set. The school didn't have any Martial Arts programmes, and it wasn't as though Cosmo built basketball courts or football pitches for the slaves on the ship, he really didn't care whether or not they enjoyed what little free time they had on the ship considering the fact it wasn't unknown for him to work them so hard they would even miss sleep and meals for days at a time. Athletics was one of the few pursuits that was reliant mainly on physical health and had only a few technical skills to actually learn.
He was rounding the corner, coming towards the final straight, and he could see the ribbon ahead of him. He was a little surprised, Sarah was out-pacing him most of the way, and he had lost sight of her some time ago. He was expecting to find her waiting for him.
As he crossed the tape, he doubled forward to catch his breath as Mrs Finch came over.
"That's quite an impressive first run Brody, you're only a few seconds behind the school record." She complimented him.
"I am?" He said breathlessly.
"Well...yes. 4.32 to be exact." Mrs Finch told him. "If you keep this up, you could take the record from Victor."
"How did I know Victor would be the one with the record?" He joked.
"He dropped cross-country class at the end of last year." She told him.
"Hey, where's Sarah?" He asked her.
"Oh...I don't know." Mrs Finch replied, looking around. "She must still be running."
"But she was ahead of me." Brody told her. Mrs Finch shook her head.
"Brody, you were the first one across the line." Mrs Finch said. She then looked up. "Oh, here she is now!"
Sarah appeared on the horizon, coming towards them. She was hitting an impressive pace, and it was a little surprising that she was so far back in the pack, but ash she got closer, they could see that from her shoes, almost as high up as her knees, she was caked in mud, and she had broken branches and leaves caught in her clothing and hair. She crossed the line, coming to Brody's side.
"I am SO glad we joined the cross-country club Brody!" She rushed out.
"Yeah, me too." Brody said, picking some leaves out of her hair. "Sarah...what happened to you?"
"I...um...may have lost the trial a little bit." She chuckled.
"Lost the track?" Mrs Finch asked. "I put out markers..."
"I...um...must have lost sight of them." Sarah replied, looking between them both. "Brody, what do you say we go another mile?"
"Yeah, just...give me a second to catch my breath." He answered. Sarah just shook her head.
"Keep up slow coach!" She teased him as she ran off.
Meanwhile, over in chess club, Preston was playing Sarah. Aside from magic, chess had always been a huge interest of his. He hated to admit it, but one of the reasons was having read Harry Potter, and his sincere wish to have a wizard's chess set that actually worked. Since he had discovered his magic powers, he had tried to create such a set a few times, but so far the closest he had come was being able to make the knights able to bite him when he tried to move them.
Sarah contemplated her move, before moving her queen into position.
"Check and mate." She declared. "Chess club rules!"
"Yeah, it does." Preston said, scratching his head. "Um...Sarah, that's not actually a checkmate."
"Really?" She asked. "It looks like it..."
"Well for one thing when you moved the queen you exposed your king to my rook." He told her. "Secondly, the queen can't move that way, only the knight does and finally, even from here, my king has at least three moves he can make."
Sarah looked at the board, inspecting it thoughtfully before realising he was right. She took back her queen and moved a pawn instead.
"Sorry about that." She chuckled weakly. "I must have just been distracted; I've been working on a cool upgrade for..."
"Checkmate." Preston said, moving his rook and taking the queen. Sarah looked down at the board, before holding her head in her hands.
"Aw man!" She groaned. "Want to set up for another game?"
"Uh...OK?" Preston said as he started to set up the pieces. "But just so you know, you are now four games behind."
"Man I suck today!" Sarah grumbled, turning around the board. "How about this time I make the first move?"
"Alright then." Preston answered as Sarah took hold of one of her knights.
In another part of the school grounds, Calvin and Hayley were in the camping club, trying to figure out how to put up Calvin's new tent. They had always thought about going for their first holiday together at the end of the school year, but as two high school kids that didn't have jobs, they didn't have a huge number of options. They figured a camping trip would be a good option, but of course that required that they were actually able to put up a tent. Calvin just stared at the instructions, before handing them to Hayley.
"Here, you can read any language, see if you can figure this out." He told her.
"They're written in English Cal." She groaned.
"Well their idea of English and mine is clearly VERY different." He commented, taking one of the rods, figuring out how they went together. "I think you put the poles together first."
"No, first you spread out the tent." Hayley told him. "That way you can pin the ground-sheet to the ground and you can see where the poles go!"
"Don't you just love camping club?" Sarah said as she set up a folding chair. Calvin and Hayley both glared at her, seeing that she already had her tent set up.
"How...how did you set that up so fast?" Calvin asked her.
"It's pretty straightforward." Sarah told them. "I've been camping loads of times..."
"Sarah...what are all these extra pieces?" Hayley asked her as Sarah was about to sit down. As soon as she did though, the chair collapsed beneath her. Sarah called out as she fell backwards into her tent, which collapsed the moment she touched it. Calvin and Hayley were over like a shot to help her out of the wreckage. She just looked bewildered as she was helped to her feet.
"What...what happened?" Sarah asked them.
"Well if I was to hazard a guess I'd say you didn't put the safety catches on when you folded up the chair."
"You also didn't set up the tent correctly." The teacher said as he inspected the tent. "You didn't secure the rods properly, you're missing pegs...I'm afraid if you don't set up your tent correctly by the end of the session it'll be reflected in your grade."
As he left, Sarah just looked to the tent, her mouth hanging open.
"But...how?" She asked. "I've set this thing up hundreds of times, I could do it blindfolded!"
"Well...maybe for today just pay attention?" Hayley suggested. "Come on Cal, we have to figure out how to put this up. If we hurry, we might not get an incomplete for the day."
Over in the Tien building, Al was at his desk, going over some reports, all while keeping his eye on the clock. He still had some time before his shift finished, but he was eager to get home. He had already texted his wife to tell her that he was planning on picking up an Indian meal. It had been a trying day, and he felt like he could do with something to cheer him up.
He looked up as an envelope was put down in front of him, looking up to see the mail-room guy, Reggie standing over him.
"I heard you had an audience with the Emperor." He said with a smile. Many of the lower down employees in Mr Tien's company referred to him as 'The Emperor'. There wasn't any racist intent, although given his heritage it could be inferred that way. It was more down to the fact that he ran his company very much like an empire. Things were done his way, and if people didn't like it, he was only too happy to give them a reference and send them on their way. The upper levels of his company were full of people willing to stroke his ego and support him in whatever he suggested, regardless of who it would affect.
"Mr Tien called me for a meeting." Al told him. "I can't tell you what happened, I signed a non-disclosure agreement."
"He offered you a job upstairs didn't he?" Reggie asked. Al didn't say anything, but his silence basically confirmed it. One thing he had learned from the corporate world was that the people with the real knowledge, the people who REALLY knew what was going on were the 'little people'. The ones who hauled the trash, the ones who served the coffee in board rooms, and most of all, the mail room guys. They were the people that everyone forgot about when they were talking about stuff out loud because they weren't important enough to notice. Reggie had seen things like this often enough he was bound to know the signs. "So when are you heading up to the 18th floor?"
"I'm not." Al told him.
"You're going to another building?" Reggie asked.
"I'm not going anywhere, I'll be here on Monday same as always." Al told him. He could see that Reggie wasn't going to leave this alone. "I was offered a position, but...I turned it down."
"You did what?" Reggie asked him. "Are you nuts?"
"The almighty dollar isn't my main driving force." Al told him. "The money's great upstairs, but I really..."
"Hey, you're talking to a 49 year old that still pushes a mail cart. I understand completely not chasing the greenbacks." Reggie told him. "I mean turning down The Emperor."
"Mr Tien seems like a reasonable man..."
"You clearly haven't been here very long." Reggie said, shaking his head. "A few years back, some kid in the mailroom complained about him cutting the Christmas bonus. He got a few of the others together and threatened to take it to the press. Turns out they had a legal argument and he would have lost if it went to a court. Mr Tien re-instated the full Christmas bonus but by the time he was finished, every single one of those kids was gone."
"He fired them?" Al asked him.
"He found a bunch of bullshit things to pin on them, everything from breach of contract for unionising to uniform infractions." Reggie told him. "By the time he was done, 13 kids were torched."
"He fired 13 people?" Al asked him.
"Worse than that, he TORCHED them!" Reggie stated. "He put out bad reports on all of them to every employer in town. Some of them took months to get new jobs above minimum wage!"
"That's...that's insane!" Al commented.
"Hey, Tien the Tyrant is kind of that way inclined. He does NOT like being told no." Reggie told him. "That's why if he even notices you exist, if he asks you to stick your hand in a running blender, it's considered a bad idea to say anything other than 'left or right'."
"He seemed fine with me." Al told him.
"He seemed fine to those kids too." Reggie told him. "If I were you, I'd seriously consider calling him and telling him you reconsidered."
As Reggie left, Al took a deep breath. He had an inkling that Mr Tien wasn't happy at being turned down, but he had no idea he could be so petty that he would go out of his way to harm anyone that politely declined his invitation. He only hoped that he hadn't taken his rejection personally. This job had been a god-send for him and his family, and he couldn't afford to have that rug pulled out from under him now.
Elsewhere in Summer Cove, Sarah had arranged to meet her friends out in the woods to test a new weapon she had been working on. While Mick was all for them upping their arsenal, he had figured that trying out anything ranged or explosive in the Ranger Base was not the best idea, and so they had gone out where they could get some more space to work. Sarah summoned up her Ninja Blaster and her Power Star.
"Ninja Blaster, Power Up!" She declared, hooking the Power Star into place. She took careful aim at a target a little distance away. "I've figured out a way to channel the power of our Power Stars through the blasters, that should give them a little more kick...though it does restrict the range a little. Ninja Blaster, Whiplash!"
With that, she opened fire on a target a few feet away. A long, bright beam of energy shot out, striking the target and destroying it utterly. She got up; her blaster still smoking as she proudly surveyed the aftermath.
"Wow!" Hayley gasped.
"Whoa, that is EPIC!" Brody concurred.
"Yeah, pretty cool attack huh?" Sarah asked. "I've already programmed it into our Ninja Blasters. Next time we get within thirty feet of Ripcon, he's not going to know what planet he's on!"
"Wait, you've programmed this into our blasters already?" Hayley asked.
"Yeah, when did you have time to do that?" Calvin asked her. "You were at camping club with us!"
"Remember? Your tent fell down twice!" Hayley stated.
"Um..."
"No, she was at chess club with me." Preston told them. "I beat her five games in a row."
"Ah...yes...well..."
"No, she was at the cross country club with me." Brody stated. "Well...when she wasn't getting lost in the woods that is."
"Uh...um...well, actually..."
"Hello Rangers!" They heard a voice interrupt them. They all turned to see Hacktrack sanding a little way off with a squadron of Kudabots. "I'm Hacktrak! Hand over your techno gadgets now!"
"We aren't handing over anything!" Brody told him bluntly.
"Fine then. Kudabots ATTACK!"
The Rangers all drew their Ninja Swords and rushed into battle, taking on the robots. Hacktrack already knew that they would likely win, he'd already been told that the Kudabots weren't much of a match for the Rangers; they were there more as a distraction than anything else. He started to look around.
"Now, they were out here testing weapons." He said to himself in a mechanical voice. "Where are all their cool techno gadgets? There has to be something lying around here somewhere!"
"You like gadgets?" Sarah called out as she leapt at him. "How do you like my Ninja Sword?"
Hacktrack blocked her strike, before sending Sarah tumbling away with his counter attack. He looked to Sarah as she tried to get back up.
"Swords are so last century! Why don't you show me some REAL tech!" Hacktrack taunted her as he started to advance on her. "Blasters, bombs, computer codes...surely you aren't defeating all Cosmo's monsters with a sharp piece of metal."
"Whiplash!" The others called out as they activated their new attack, destroying the Kudabots, before turning their attention to Hacktrack. They turned in time to see him heading towards Sarah as she finally got to her feet.
"Stand back!" Sarah warned him, but something curious started to happen. Before her eyes, she started to glitch out, and flicker, like an image on a malfunctioning computer screen. "Stay baaaaa..."
"SARAH!" Preston called out, seeing her in trouble. Sarah's words tailed off as she disappeared completely, and a small, spherical metal object a little larger than a softball dropped to the ground. Hacktrack stepped forward, picking it up.
"Fascinating." He mused. "This is EXACTLY the type of tech I'm looking for!"
"What have you done to Sarah?" Brody yelled, preparing his blaster. "Give her back!"
"Even if I could I wouldn't!" Hacktrack stated, before activating a teleport command. "This has been fun, but I've got to log off! Bye now!"
With that, he disappeared.
"This is not good!" Calvin rushed out. "He's got Sarah."
"How did he even do that?" Hayley asked.
"It looked like he trapped her in that...thing." Preston suggested. "Maybe it's like a Poke Ball?"
"Whatever happened, we need to figure out where he's taken her and what to do about it." Brody told them, pulling out his Mega Morph Cycle Star. "We need to get back to the base, FAST!"