Here's the next one! This chapter has mentions of animal abuse, so be warned against that. The poll is still up for the chiefs - and Tori and Joey are tied for first! Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy!
Silas sat in a nice chair on a risen pedestal, watching the crowd below cheering and yelling as they watched the event they were betting so heavily on. It was a dog fighting ring, and there were currently two large dogs snarling at each other.
The two owners stood closest to the ring, yelling at their individual dogs to attack and defeat the other dog so they would get paid.
One of the dogs lunged at the other, grabbing onto it's opponent's leg with it's teeth. The other dog yelped before moving to bite the other's neck. The two continued to fight for a while, biting and scratching at each other until one of the dogs was laying prone on the ground.
A referee of sorts walked into the ring while one of the owners grabbed the winner, and checked over the prone dog. He stood up and made a signal at Silas to tell him that it was dead.
"Excellent." Silas nodded to him. "Pay up, fellas. Winner gets next round."
The owner of the succeeding dog looked around. "Boss, all of the other dogs are still messed up from last week."
"I see," Silas clenched his fists, standing up and walking down to the ring, roughly grabbing the winning dog from his owner's arms. The crowd went silent as he held the dog up for everyone to see, before brutally snapping it's neck.
"Boss!" The owner cried as Silas dropped the lifeless body of the winning dog to the ground.
"Find me some more dogs to fight," Silas hissed lowly, his tone murderous. "Or your precious pooch won't be the only one with a broken neck."
He walked back through the crowd, exiting the room through the back door as he heard arguments begin from inside. Silas smirked slightly to himself, walking away until he saw a limo ahead of him. He got into the limo and nodded at the driver to go.
"How was it?" Belladonna asked, dressed up in a slim-fitting dress and fur coat.
"Bloody, as usual." Silas responded, using a handkerchief to wipe blood from his fingers as they drove off towards their warehouse.
- Cue Opening 2 -
The next day, Moran yawned to herself as she walked into work, holding Katie's leash with one hand and a coffee with the other. She sipped lightly at the coffee, waiting for it's warmth and caffeine to wake her up as it did every morning.
Walking into the lieutenant base, she was surprised to find everyone else already at work. Sophie and Andi were typing at their computers, as usual, while the other rangers were bustling around the base, doing some kind of work.
She set her coffee down on a table and made her way over to Autumn, who also seemed tired. "Do we usually start this early?" Moran asked, softly.
Autumn shook her head. "Not usually." She assured her. "Only when we have a case."
"We haven't even been told what the case is yet," Nikki loudly called to them from across the room. "We just like to be prepared."
"What does that mean?" Moran frowned in confusion.
"Don't worry about it," Autumn chuckled. "We're just waiting for Lia to come in and give us our case, and when that happens, we like to clean up some of our old cases so we're ready for the new one."
Moran raised an eyebrow. "Oh, okay." She said, unsurely.
"Rise and shine lieutenants," Lia announced as she waltzed into the room, standing at the middle console. The rangers gathered around. "As you already know, we have a case today." She used a small remote to bring a projection out of the console. The picture that popped up was of an awful shallow grave with a few dogs laying in it. "I apologize for the graphic photo, but it seems we may have a dog fighting ring on our hands."
Jason grimaced in sympathy. "That's horrible."
Lia nodded. "I agree. That's why we need to take care of this." She told them. "The address is in this file, and I'd like you guys to go check it out. Moran, I want you to bring Katie in case she can sniff something out."
"Alright." Moran responded, though she was nervous about taking her dog into a place like that.
"That's our cue," Autumn gestured to the door, grabbing the file from Lia. "Let's get out of here and find those sons of bitches."
The other rangers nodded in the response and everyone followed Autumn out of the lieutenant base.
Meanwhile, over in the chief base, Tori watched the lieutenants rush by to go take care of a case, and was surprised when she saw Joey limp in to work. He had a cane to help him walk, and he definitely didn't look like he should be there.
Looking back at Nat, she saw that the pink chief was also surprised to see Joey had come into work only a few weeks after his accident. With his injury, he wasn't able to do any field work, and they currently didn't have a lot of paperwork to do.
Before Nat could go over to talk to him, Tori held a hand up to stop her and decided to do it herself. "Joey," She said, sternly.
"Tori," Joey mocked, using her tone of voice.
"What are you doing here?" Tori rolled her eyes at him. "You're supposed to be at home so you can recover."
He sighed. "Honestly, I couldn't deal with being cooped like that anymore. Besides, my mom is back in town and she won't stop fussing."
"That's nice, mamma's boy," She crossed her arms. "But that doesn't mean you can just come to work when you can't do any work. You could hurt yourself even worse by pushing it."
Joey gave her an amused look. "It's good to know that you care about me so much, Tori, but I'd rather be here on desk duty than at home doing nothing."
Tori scowled. "We don't have much for you to do, right now. That's why no one called you in."
The yellow chief snorted. "No one called me in because you guys don't want me to work while I'm injured, which I am perfectly capable of. Sure, I can't do field work, but I can definitely write on some papers or type on the computer."
"I don't think you should." Tori stopped him from going any further. "I think you should be at home, resting."
Nat overheard them. "Joey, I have to agree," She spoke up, coming over to join the conversation. "You do need to keep off of your leg as much as possible."
"Well, I don't want to spend the day with my mom doing nothing," Joey retorted.
"Maybe you should've moved out of your parent's house once you were old enough, then." Tori quipped.
A sigh came from Nat, who gestured for Joey not to respond. "Come on, I'll take the day off and stay at home with you, okay?"
"Who said you could do that?" Tori looked at her quickly.
She shrugged. "No one, but if it's the only way he'll stay there, then I'll do it," Nat nodded her head at the door. "Let's go, I'll call Masters once we get there." Joey didn't make an argument, and followed her out.
On the other side of the room, Sean saw them leave and nudged Taz. "Hey, let's get out of here for a little while."
"What?" Taz frowned up at him. "Masters would kill us."
Sean didn't seem worried. "It's fine, I'll take the blow for you. I just really wanna take you out."
Taz looked up at the clock, seeing that it wasn't even close to either of their breaks or lunch, "But, Sean..."
"Come on, please?" Sean practically begged her. "Don't make me get on my knees. I just wanna take my beautiful girlfriend out to get some new things."
"I..." Taz sighed, seeing that Tori was distracted from across the room. "Okay, but we need to make this quick. I really like having a job,"
He smiled boldly and grabbed her by the hand, pulling her quickly from the room, leaving Tori alone in the chief base with Sera and Logan.
- PRER -
Once the lieutenants got to the scene, they split up into groups. Nikki, Jason, and Owen went to talk to witnesses and examine the area, while Autumn and Moran went the other way to look at the bodies and grave.
When Autumn and Moran made it over to the mass grave, Moran became became visibly upset. She turned to Autumn, who also looking down at the bodies of the dogs with displeasure.
"This is awful," Moran shook her head, leaning down to take the leash off of the Katie's collar.
"What are you doing?" Autumn asked in confusion.
After letting Katie off of the leash, Moran looked back at Autumn. "I don't want her to be over here for this," She told her. "We can figure it out without her. She's not gonna be over her unless it's absolutely necessary."
Go and wait over by the cars, Moran told Katie.
Katie looked up at her, questioningly, Are you sure you don't need more help?
I'm sure, She nodded, leaving no room for argument. Moran gestured towards the parking lot, and Katie reluctantly left to go over there.
Autumn watched the exchange, "Are you sure we can do this without her? I mean, she might be able to sniff something out that would lead us to the guys."
"Well, we already know where they have the dogs fight," Moran pointed out. "We just need evidence against them."
"And we need to figure out who's running the ring." Autumn said. "Obviously we can charge everyone there just for participating, but it really matters to find out who runs it so we can lock them up with a proper sentence."
"I'll figure it out," Moran assured her. "I would never let someone who did this go."
The red lieutenant sighed, but nodded. "Alright."
Together, they made their way over to the bodies and looked them over, grimacing at the bite marks they sustained from fighting, as well as the signs of obvious abuse the dogs took from their owners.
One of the other officers on the scene came over to them. "One of the neighbors out here caught a man burying one of them out here this morning, and when she yelled at him, the guy ran."
"Do you know how many dogs this dog fighting ring has?" Moran spoke up, before Autumn could. This actually surprised Autumn, knowing how quiet Moran could be.
He shook his head. "We're not sure, but this operation has been going on for quite a while, so I wouldn't be shocked to hear a high number."
Moran scowled. "These guys are sick."
Before any of them could say anything else, they heard Nikki yell from afar, "Moran!" Autumn and Moran exchanged looks, before running over to the others in the parking lot.
"What's going on?" Moran asked, looking around. "Where's Katie?"
Nikki held up a collar, looking at her sympathetically. "I found this a few feet away, but Katie's not here."
"No," Moran whispered to herself. "That's impossible. She's a trained police dog - she couldn't get kidnapped."
"I'm sorry." Jason told her, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"Don't say that." Moran shrugged his hand off, looking around at the other four rangers. She thought for a few moments, before speaking up again. "I'm getting her back, and I have a plan to do it."
- PRER -
Meanwhile, Sean had brought Taz to the mall and brought her into her favorite clothing store, looking around wildly like it was his first time ever doing something like this. He turned to her and gestured to the clothes.
"Buy whatever you want!" He exclaimed, smiling widely. "And I mean anything. I will buy everything you want right now."
"Wait, what?" Taz paused for a moment. "Do you have the money for that, Sean? Because I appreciate the gesture, but I don't want you to go broke for me."
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her further into the store. "I definitely have the cash for this. Don't worry about it, I just want you to be happy with a bunch of new clothes to rock with."
"But didn't we just go shopping for some furniture a while back?" Taz frowned. "We spent some serious money, and I really think that you should slow down on your spending if you want to keep up with your bills and stuff."
"I told you not to worry about it." Sean stepped in front of her, grasping her by the shoulders. "I will take care of everything, including the bills. Come on, I'll take you around and you tell me what you want. We'll pick it up and you can try it on. If you like it, we'll buy it."
"Are you sure?" Taz rubbed her arm nervously.
Sean nodded quickly. "Yes, of course. You need someone to treat you like a princess, and that's exactly what I'm doing."
She smiled softly, and allowed him to take her through the store. Anything she even mentioned, Sean picked up one in her size. They eventually had so much clothes that Sean could barely hold them in his arms, and Taz lead him over to the dressing room.
While she tried things on, he waited anxiously outside the door to see if she liked it. They picked out a little over half of the things the two had grabbed, taking them and waiting in line for the cashier.
Taz began to look at the price tags on the clothing, and felt a bit of worry bubble up in her again. "Sean, have you seen these prices?"
"What about them?" Sean shrugged. "I've seen worse."
"Oh, alright," Taz looked around the small trinkets around the line idly, not wanting to bring it up once more. If he was set on doing it, her saying something wouldn't change his mind all that much.
When they got up to the counter, they waited for their total. While they did so, Sean was tapping his hands on the counter energetically. "Your total comes up to $387.96."
"Put it on my card," Sean handed it to her, as a shocked Taz watched from beside him. She had never spent that much on clothes in one sitting in her life.
The cashier rang them up, before handing the card back to Sean and bagging the clothes up. The woman gave them the bag and smiled at them as they exited the store and made their way down the hallway of the mall.
"Sean, that was a lot of money," Taz said, worriedly. "And I think we just passed the exit."
"You worry way too much," Sean stopped her, shaking his head. "Maybe we should go out for drinks to loosen you up."
"It's 10 am." Taz pointed out. "And we need to get back to work, or Masters will fire us. It was fun while it lasted, but I think we should finish up our trip."
He made a face, "I was just trying to take you out to have some fun, but I can see where your mind is at. Fine, I'll take you back to work, but I'm going out after I drop you off."
She stared at him in shock as they went towards the exit. "What has gotten into you? You're not acting like yourself."
"Oh, now you're insulting me too," Sean rolled his eyes as he threw the clothes in the back of the car and stormed into the front seat. "That's fantastic. Well, you either need to get in the car right now, or I'm leaving you here."
Taz looked down, biting her lip as she carefully got in the car and shut the door, allowing him to drive her back to work.
- PRER -
Later that night, Moran walked slowly up to the barn where the dog fighting ring was held, wearing an all black outfit and baring cash in hand. She looked back out to see the other lieutenants waiting for her in the area surrounding the barn, ready to take in any runners.
Nodding once at them, she made her way inside. The inside of the barn was loud with large men and a few women that were all talking over each other and throwing money around for bets.
She walked through the barn carefully, not trying to draw too much attention to herself as she looked for the dogs.
Suddenly, a loud bark came from the side and she looked over to the cages to see Katie wagging her tail boldly at her and barking. She pursed her lips and spoke from afar, I'm here to rescue you, but you need to stay quiet. I can't save you if they know why I'm here.
Katie seemed to understand and became silent almost instantly, making someone tap her on the shoulder. She turned to see a man, a bit older than her, standing behind her, smiling strangely. "I haven't seen you around here before."
"Oh yeah, I'm new to town," Moran told him, feigning a tough attitude. "When I heard about this, I had to get involved."
"Well, I assume you must know that there's a fee to be here," He told her, and she held up some money. "I guess you already did."
She shrugged nonchalantly. "I've done this enough times before."
He looked her over, smirking slyly. "Who are you, pretty lady?"
"My name's..." She paused for a moment, thinking of something to tell him. "Katherine. My name is Katherine. Who are you?"
"I'm surprised you don't know who I am, if you've looked into this," He chuckled. "I'm..."
"Silas!" A voice yelled, making the young man in front of her turn around. When he did, she felt her blood run cold. Although she hadn't been a ranger long, she definitely knew about Silas and everything he was about. "Come on, we're about to get started."
Silas turned back to her, gesturing to the ring. "I've got to get started, but I'll talk to you later on."
"Alright," Moran said, trying to keep her voice level, though it was difficult with how rattled she felt. She watched him go up to his pedestal and shoot off the gun that signified the start of the fight.
It was hard for her to keep a straight face as the fight started, but she managed to do so until she saw everyone get rowdy with excitement. When they did, she slipped off to the side and undid the locks on Katie's cage.
Are you okay? Moran asked, looking her over.
Katie licked her face, I'm great, now that you're here. Are we gonna bust them?
We are, but Silas is here, so this is really important, Moran explained. He's the worst of the worst. If we can get him, we might make things a whole lot easier.
Got it, Moran. Katie told her.
Moran led Katie out of the back and pulled out a blaster, pointing it at the roof and shooting a portion of it to fall out. It fell on top of a few men and instantly stopped all of the ruckus.
Everyone turned to her, and she held up her badge to reveal who she was. "You're all under arrest," She announced.
Immediately, men glared and attempted to pull weapons on her, but she shot their hands with her blaster and stopped them before they could do so. Instead, the men began to flee the building so they wouldn't be caught.
She rushed over the the cages and began letting all of the dogs out. Get those men! She called to them, and watched as they ran after their abusive owners.
The whole barn was in chaos, and Moran looked up to see Silas standing above it all, looking down as if he was disappointed in everyone there. He turned to look at Moran, shooting her a glare as he hopped down from his pedestal and stalked over to her, ducking past the blasts that she shot at him.
He shot his hand out and grabbed her by the neck, hoisting her into the air and squeezing her throat tightly. "No one walks into my place uninvited and ruins it, lieutenant."
"Don't." Moran gasped out, struggling in his grasp.
Silas scoffed. "Don't what? Don't kill you?" He threw her to the ground a few feet away, kicking Katie to the side when she tried to bite his leg. He walked closer to her and punched her hard in the face when she tried to stand, making blood spew from her nose. "I'm not going to. I know your team is outside, and I'm not dumb enough to let them catch me just so I can kill one pathetic lieutenant."
Moran stared up at him in shock as he spit on the ground next to her. "You're gonna let me live?"
"Of course," Silas knelt down beside her, getting close to her face. "Like I said, I'm not dumb. I'll let you live for now, but you should be warned against crossing me again, little girl."
The crime lord stood suddenly, walking out of the barn in a secret exit and making his way past all of the activity going on nearby with the lieutenants and everyone else that was in the barn. He passed through the field and made his way to his limo, where he got in and quickly gestured for the driver to leave.
Belladonna raised an eyebrow at his disheveled appearance, but said nothing about it. "How was it?"
"Bloody," Silas muttered, wiping Moran's blood from his fingers. "As usual."
Next time on Power Rangers Emergency Responders: Sean's behavior escalates, revealing he hasn't been taking his medication for bipolar disorder. Meanwhile, the lieutenants investigate Silas' next plan.
Next Chapter Title: Mood
So, yes, one of the rangers has finally come face to face with Silas himself. I know that Tori saw him on the holograph when she and Autumn were kidnapped, but none of them have really saw him in person until now. As I've written Silas, I've really come to like him as my main villain. Most of my main villains are boring and barely featured, but Silas is not the case (similarly to Jetta from PRRF) and I really enjoy writing him.
Don't forget to vote for your favorite chief ranger! Tori and Joey are tied, so I'll need a tie-breaker unless you want me to choose for myself! The poll for your favorite lieutenant will be up within the next two chapters!
Here's the lineup for the next five chapters!
Ep 20: Rush - Joey focused chapter.
Ep 21: White Lieutenant - Final new ranger!
Ep 22: Brothers - White Lieutenant and Joey focused chapter.
Special: Origins Part I - Tori and Autumn focused chapter.
Special: Origins Part II - Sean and Jason focused chapter.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I'll see you guys back with the next one!
© Copyrighted by Charlotte 'Charlie' Hartley