Levi was surprisingly getting settled into his new position as a teacher in the school. There were a few inevitable difficulties, mostly surrounding who he was. The students were willing to pay attention to him, though many of them wanted to hear more about his career as a professional musician than they were his lessons, not to mention that most of the girl, and he was convinced even a couple of the guys, tended to spend more time staring at him and fantasizing than paying attention to his lessons. Even in the teacher's lounge a lot of the faculty spent the first couple of days fussing over him, making sure he got the best chair and the best coffee and snacks and asking for autographs and pictures, but after a few days the novelty wore off with the staff at least.
He was still having a little more difficulty getting the students to pay attention. He had a feeling that other teachers had the same problem, albeit for entirely different reasons. The one piece of good news was that thanks to Principal Hastings' infatuation with him, he hadn't needed to worry about the fact he strictly speaking wasn't qualified for a teaching position. He'd never gone to college; he had started his career almost straight after High School. Sarah had assured him she could get him false documents if he needed them (he thought it better not to ask how exactly) but so far Hastings had never asked for any such documents.
The only thing he had in his favour was that it wasn't too hard to get a class to be quiet, usually they were pretty quiet anyway, and now that he was a teacher, he could hang around the school all he wanted and no one would look twice in his direction. Many of the staff would arrive before the students did, and would go home long after the final bell, and so none of them even looked in his direction if he was at the school outwith hours. The Rangers as well also had a new advantage in that now they had two teachers in on their secret, so there were two teachers only too willing to sign permission slips for them to be in school after hours for "extra credit".
It was coming to the end of the week, and the other students had long since gone home. For most, they did their best Barry Allen impression as soon as the final bell sounded, but for the Rangers, that just meant the place was quiet and gave them a chance to be on their own. Any teachers that were still around were in their own classes marking homework and working on lesson plans, so none of them cared about the fact that Levi was taking an "extra-credit" lesson with them in the main dining hall, strumming away on his guitar while they sat in a circle around him, singing.
Principal Hastings was working through some paperwork in the lobby, and couldn't help looking over and shaking her head. She found that young teachers were often highly idealistic in their approach to students. They had often grown up watching day-time shows and movies about amazing teachers that would go out of their way to embrace their students as people and elevate all of them by spending every spare moment with them individually and becoming friends and even family with them. The reality was that most teachers had four to five classes a day of around thirty students so that level of contact with students was difficult to maintain at best, and for most impossible. Most very quickly fell out of such habits. She felt like Levi had a lot to learn about being a teacher, but as long as she didn't have to spend time looking for another music teacher, she figured it was his life and he could do with it what he wanted.
She looked up with a start as an old woman seemed to appear from nowhere. She hadn't seen or heard anyone come in. The old lady was wearing a long, black dress and a long, black coat and hat. She had straggly white hair and a deeply wrinkled face with a prominent mole on her chin. She looked like something straight out of a Cryptkeeper tale. She was holding a cardboard box in her hands.
"Excuse me." The old lady greeted her. "I'm donating these priceless valuables to the school."
"Priceless you say?" Principal Hastings asked her. A lot of people did make donations to the school, and while generally money was the most useful, it wasn't unusual for people to donate other things as well. The Education Department budget only went so far and so they were usually always on the lookout for anything they could use. She opened the box and started to rummage through the contents, hoping for something of value, whether it was something that could be used like cooking equipment for the home economics department, or something that could go on eBay and earn a few dollars for purchasing something useful like stationery.
Her face betrayed her feelings as she looked through though. Clearly her idea of what priceless meant and the old ladies' were very different. A more accurate description in her mind would have been WORTHLESS. There was a broken barometer, a chess set that seemed to be missing most of the pieces, a bottle with no label that she frankly wasn't sure she wanted to know the contents of.
"You know, I'm not sure we're going to need..." Her words tailed off as she saw the old lady had left just as mysteriously as she had arrived. She was so busy checking out all the 'treasures' that the old lady had slipped away without her even seeing her. She just groaned and started to rummage through some more.
"Just because we're closer than the city dump doesn't mean you should just dump all your crap on us." She muttered as she pulled out more 'treasures' from the box. A book that looked so old and worn she couldn't tell if it was even printed in English, or any other language anyone could actually read, a clock with the hands missing...and a board game of some description. It was a black box with the words 'Grave Robber' emblazoned across it in a sickly yellow print that looked like it had been splattered on.
"Wow, Grave Robber? I love old board games!" Calvin gasped as he approached. He had left the others to go to the bathroom and stopped by the desk as he saw it. Principal Hastings had seen enough of this old lady's 'treasures' and frankly just wanted it out of her sight. She put everything else into the box and put the game on top.
"You want it; take the rest of this to the dump and it's yours." She said, thrusting the box into Calvin's hands like it had somehow offended her. Calvin just nodded his head.
"Thanks!" He said, sounding delighted. As he left to rejoin his friends, Principal Hastings just sighed and shook her head, not understanding his enthusiasm at all as she started dusting her hands off on her skirt before going back to what she was doing.
As Calvin went over to the others, he couldn't help looking at the box. He loved board games. While his generation was all about video games, he always found something special about board games. Sure, they took longer to set up and put away than video games, and they certainly didn't have any of the flashy graphics or anything that video games had, but there was something nice to him about the simplicity of some dice and plastic pieces on a cardboard gaming board. One of his first loves was Mousetrap, a game involving an overly-complicated contraption that gave a young Calvin his first taste of mechanics, but he loved them all. Cluedo, Snakes and Ladders, Risk, Monopoly...he always loved it whenever he got a chance to just sit with his friends or his family and play a board game.
"Hey guys, check this out! I just got it from Hastings." Calvin said as he arrived, showing them the board game. Sarah took it out, having a look at it.
"Grave Robber." She read aloud, checking out the box. "Frightful fun...if you survive."
"Talk about understated advertising." Hayley remarked. "I've never heard of this game."
"I used to love board games." Preston stated. "Mom would play them every holiday."
"Say, the Shop Class is free, why don't we play it in there?" Calvin asked. "We could dim the lights, put on some creepy music, really set the mood!"
"You are WAY too into this." Levi chuckled.
"Cal's always been into board games." Hayley told them, holding his hand. "I think it's adorable."
"Well, it does sound like fun." Brody replied. "Come on guys, let's go play."
"Guys, I've never really liked board games and to be honest, that one looks kind of lame." Levi said as he shook his head.
"How can you tell, you've only seen the outside of the box." Sarah stated.
"Come on, why don't we just sing another song?" He asked.
"We've been singing for a while, and I'd kind of like to see what this is like." Preston stated.
"Come on Levi, it'll be fun." Hayley assured him. The Gold Ranger though didn't look at all convinced.
"Nah, you all go on if you want. It's not my thing." Levi told them.
"Alright." Brody said as they got up. "Come on guys, let's go rob some graves."
He just paused for a moment and looked around, grateful no one else was there.
"You know...saying that out loud did sound kind of wrong didn't it?" He asked, before they all headed off towards the Shop Class. Levi just settled into his chair and started to play another song.
Meanwhile, outside, the old lady was peering in the window, and watched the Rangers leave with the board game. She smiled as she saw this, backing away from the window, cackling.
"They've fallen for it, hook, line and sinker." She laughed, before changing form, transforming into Cosmo Royale, host of Galaxy Warriors. He turned to a buzz-cam hovering a little way from him. "Now to return to the studio, buckle up fight fans, the Cosmo Nightmare Special is about to begin!"
With that, he teleported back onto the Warrior Dome.
Preston and Calvin were just finishing up setting up the board while the others made their preparations, getting some snacks and drinks. Sarah had set up a stereo to play a spooky soundtrack she had put together for Halloween, while Brody turned the lights down to set the mood.
"Man, this looks great!" Calvin said as he finished setting up the board. It was a dark board that was patterned with lightning bolts and had the name Grave Robber emblazoned across the bottom. There was a path, lined with gravestones running from a gate at one end, past a spooky looking castle, all the way to a gate at the other end. There was a timing glass and a ten-sided dice with the game, along with a red gaming piece.
"It looks like we start here, and finish around here." Hayley said, taking her best guess as to how the game was played. Preston was busy reading the instructions to try and get an insight into the game.
"This is s creepy." Sarah said, looking down at the board. A bright smile crossed her face. "I totally love it!"
"Place your piece at the cemetery gate." Preston read aloud, like he was reading a spell. He liked board games himself as a kid, but his real love was Dungeons and Dragons. He loved the magic aspect of it, and he also loved how the game was immersive and tried to draw the players into the world as opposed to simply moving pieces around on a board. He tried to set the mood with his best Dungeon Master experience. "And turn the hour glass to seal your fate!"
He and Sarah both let out their best version of an evil laugh to really set the atmosphere of the game. Brody rubbed his hands together in glee.
"Spooky. I can't wait to get started." He told them. "I haven't played board games since I was five."
"Five?" Calvin asked. "But I thought you were kidnapped when you were eight?"
"I was, but dad didn't let me and Aiden play board games." Brody told them.
"Your dad didn't let you play board games?" Haley asked him. "I knew he was a tough trainer but...he banned board games? That's just mean!"
"Well, that wasn't really why he banned them." Brody told them. "That was Aiden's fault."
"Your brother?" Preston asked him. "Why, did he not like board games?"
"It was more like he liked them a little too much." Brody sighed. "He was like, super competitive."
"Oh come on, we all get a little competitive when we play games." Hayley giggled. "Cal pouted for the rest of the day the first time I beat him at Connect Four...and we just do NOT mention the Battleships incident."
"Oh no!" Calvin agreed. "Not ever!"
"Well, he wasn't just competitive he took things a little too far." Brody told them. "When he beat me at Monopoly and I couldn't pay him, he foreclosed on my bedroom."
"You're kidding right?" Preston started to snigger. Brody shook his head.
"I'm not kidding, I wish I was! He tried to make me sleep in the yard!" Brody continued his story. "After that dad threw out all of our board games and told us that we weren't getting any more."
"Wow! That is...pretty intense!" Sarah admitted. "Um...I vote that we should let Brody be the one to turn the hour glass. It sounds like his childhood's been pretty deprived."
"Thanks Sarah." Brody said as he reached for the hour glass. "Is everybody ready?"
They all nodded their heads at which Brody turned over the hour glass. The lights suddenly dipped even further, and they could swear they saw an actual flash of thunder. Whisps of white smoke flew out of a glowing orb that appeared above the castle. They all looked around in confusion and panic.
"Uh...Preston, I know you wanted to set the mood but this is taking it a little too far." Sarah said in a panic.
"This isn't me!" Preston called out.
"Preston, are you sure you didn't activate some kind of spell by accident?" Hayley asked him. "We won't be mad, but it wouldn't be the first time."
"I'm telling you this isn't me!" Preston protested again. They all heard an evil laugh as the doors slammed shut and locked themselves, before the smoke all flew back into the glowing white orb. They watched as it started to shift, and they could see a figure start to appear out of the clouds in it.
"Welcome Rangers! Looks like you're about to play Grave Robber!" Cosmo said as he appeared in the orb. "You've all just become part of my Nightmare Galaxy Warriors Special!"
"Cosmo!" Brody snapped as he realised that this whole thing had been a set-up. Whatever his game was, it was clearly a trap of some description. "You set this up!"
"My my, he's a quick one, obviously the brains of the outfit." Cosmo taunted him. "Welcome to my Galaxy Warriors special. You're now all trapped in my game, Grave Robber!"
"I don't think so!" Brody answered him, reaching for his communicator. "Levi, come in Levi, over!"
"I'm sorry, but outside help is strictly against the rules. This is MY game now! You play by MY rules!" Cosmo told him. "I suggest you roll the dice and enter the graveyard, where you'll face...well...telling you ahead of time would only spoil the surprise now wouldn't it?"
"We're not playing your game Cosmo!" Preston yelled.
"Fine by me! But by turning the hour glass, you all activated the spell! You now have until the sands run out to get through the graveyard and out the other side, otherwise you all perish! So you can sit and wait on that if you want, or roll the dice and take your chances with the haunted graveyard!"
"Haunted?" Calvin asked. "What does he mean 'haunted'?"
"Guys, I can't get out of my seat." Sarah said in panic as she gripped the sides of her chair and started to struggle, trying to stand up. All the others did likewise, but found that an unseen force was holding them in place.
"Sorry Rangers, everyone stays until the game is over, one way or another!" Cosmo told them. "So, what you do next is up to you. Play or don't, it really makes no difference to me."
Sarah took a deep breath and snatched up the die. Calvin looked to her in surprise.
"Whoa, we're not seriously doing this are we?" He asked her.
"I don't really see much of a choice." Sarah answered. They looked to Brody, who thought about it for a moment.
"Fighting an enemy on his terms is rarely good idea." He conceded. "But we can't leave, we can't call for help, and we'll die when the time runs out anyway. I don't really see another option. This time, it looks like we have to play it his way."
"OK Sarah." Preston told her. "Just...try to roll high. The sooner we're out of here the better."
Sarah took a deep breath and rolled the dice. As it finally came to rest, she was disappointed.
"Sorry guys." She muttered. "It's only a four."
Their game piece moved four spaces along the board, at which it stopped by one of the grave stones. They all looked on it as the grave opened up. In a puff of smoke, the room melted away and they all disappeared into the game.
A/N: I'm re-working the Halloween episode basically because I liked it. I know it's nowhere near Halloween now and that's why I decided to re-work it, but frankly it's one of the best holiday episodes I've seen in a LONG time and I really wanted a chance to use it in the series. Hope you enjoy it!