Supple Hope
"I have no need for this." He looked up, painfully earnest. "Where I come from, birds eat bugs."
The gear rested in Tommy's open palm, waiting, unreached for, just as when he had first unfolded his hand, and Prince Dex of Edenoi turned away, distracted again by the preparations for the procession, the heavy footfalls of the Crimson Guard marching industriously forward, making way for the arrival of the Empress.
Tommy reached out again, a hand on Dex's shoulder as he pulled him back from his view of events.
"Listen, Dex, you have to trust me on this. We need you. This is yours, okay?"
He gestured with his open palm again, the cartoonish face of a beaked figure in sunglasses looking up at him from the portrait in smooth metal.
Apprehensively, Dex looked down at it again, and then up at Tommy, the young girl dressed in tuxedo at his side, casually eating an ice cream cone that looked as if, at any moment, it might slip from her grasp.
"Friend Tommy, whilst I appreciate your faith in me, I must inform you that my days of heroics are over. Edenoi is at peace now, and I am here solely in my capacity as an appointed dignitary, a representative of that peace."
Tommy's gaze was firm, full of sincerity.
"It's exactly because you are at peace that you should be looking out for others, Dex," he said with genuine conviction.
Dex's expression remained doubtful, and Tommy sighed, letting his hand fall away.
"Come on, Dex, this is the Earth I'm talking about. The Earth is in danger. Surely that must mean something to you?"
From somewhere down the long corridor, the sound of a horn blaring intercut their conversation, signifying the forthcoming arrival of royalty.
"It does, friend Tommy," Dex said seriously, "but as of yet, you have not been able to tell me exactly what this danger consists of."
The young girl rolled her eyes, lips smeared with ice cream.
"Come on, man, this guy's a flake, let's ditch."
Dex's eyes moved to look in her direction.
"Nor have you explained who this girl is."
Tommy looked deflated, glancing likewise over at her.
"That's going to take some time to explain."
She glowered at him sulkily.
"Loser," she mouthed in reply.
The horn blared a second time, and this time they lost Dex's concentration for good, the other seemingly keeping his eye on the crowd and the anticipated arrival of the Empress.
With another sigh, Tommy folded his fingers back over the coin, scanning the gathered dignitaries around them, representatives of Eltar, Aquitar, Triforia, and Mirinoi, the ambassador from Mercuria in shimmering, shifting gown, the Shi'ar Majestrix accompanied by her praetor.
The horn rose up in song a third time, the doors at the end of the hall opened, a young child in a regal uniform of white, short blonde hair beneath a chapeau gules, the cap turned up with a trim of gingaverick fur.
He turned away, distracted by the shape of another in the crowd, deep red armour, a trailing black cloak with a golden lion—and there, in her hand, a Ranger Gear that she carelessly tossed into the air and snatched back in her gloved hand, apparently unmoved by the pomp and circumstance of the event.
Again, Tommy reached for Dex's shoulder.
From somewhere below the dais at the far end of the hall, fingers at an organ began to excite a dreadful dirge, the anthem of an old empire played with all the kind of gravitas and weight he found he increasingly had less time for the older he got.
"Who's that?" he whispered.
Faintly annoyed, Dex glanced in the direction his friend was looking.
"That is Princess Viera of the Lion Galaxy. You definitely should not approach her."
Again, the woman tossed the gear in the air and caught it in her hand.
"We definitely should," Tommy whispered, patting his friend on the shoulder. He turned to look at the girl in the tuxedo. "Come on, we've got work to do."
"Wait, you can't go over there now," Dex warned sharply. "The procession is beginning. Wait at least until after the Empress's speech."
"This has got nothing to do with me. I only came here because I knew you'd be here," Tommy protested.
"And what a loss that turned out to be," the girl chided.
Dex frowned in annoyance.
"Who is this girl?" he asked again.
She tapped her nose with a finger.
"Top secret, dude. Gotta get in the gang to gain access to that kind of info."
The child in her white uniform began her slow march down the centre of the hall, the crowd parted as members of her Crimson Guard marched afore and behind her, her mentor at her side, a step behind out of deference.
Dex reached out, his hand on Tommy's arm, almost as if he made to pull him back, and he turned back to glance at him.
"This is a dangerous business, friend Tommy," he said, his voice low and full of warning.
Before them, the newly crowned Empress continued her path through the room, flanked by her guardsmen.
When the pirate ship had arrived at the door of the Armada home-world, when the galleon had shored up in imperial space and the last of the fleet had been all but destroyed, the general consensus had been that the old empire had reached its end, that their forces would no doubt be melted down for scrap at the pirate crew's behest.
"What do you mean?" Tommy asked.
At the end of the procession, dressed in a coat of flowing velvet, a young man, his hair smoothed into a quiff, turned to look questioningly in their direction.
There had followed a year of negotiation, the galleon remaining in orbit above the planet, the pirate crew amidst the city daily, the Space Police moving in to occupy the world's military bases as Troy Burrows had spent his days arguing with the remainder of the royal family, apparently as good with his words as he had been on Earth with his sabre.
"What do you mean?" Tommy asked again.
A child had been chosen, an infant from a house only distantly related to the throne. With the right education, it had been said, with an understanding of compassion, she could come to understand what her predecessors had not—in her name, the Armada could become a force for good in the cosmos.
To this end, the pirate captain had remained behind, tutor and bodyguard to the Armada's newly crowned Empress Mariemaia Giru.
Dex continued to hold his friend's gaze.
"Make way! Make way!"
Tommy turned again, watching the child as she ascended the dais to her throne, regarding the gathered dignitaries a moment more. His eyes moved to the young man at her side, resplendent in that red velvet, far better dressed that at any other time in his life Tommy had met the boy.
There were so many ways this could go wrong, he thought quietly, this grand display of the arrogance of youth leaving a poor taste in his mouth.
"Behold the Empress Mariemaia I!" cried one of her guards again.
His attention wandered, and in that moment, he let his guard down, losing track of his surroundings momentarily, failing to notice the initial flash of a sword being drawn, the crowd parting in cries of alarm, a trailing black cloak with a golden lion thrown out, and a voice raised above all others.
"Death to tyrants!"
He was moving without thinking, reaching for his Gear Morpher before realising that all weapons, anything weapon-like, had been checked at the door. Except swords, he thought, grasping at nothing, stumbling into the aisle without armour. Swords were apparently fine.
Before he could get to the woman from the Lion Galaxy, before even the Crimson Guard could react, the boy at the young Empress's side was before them, his own blade crashing against the steel of hers, driving her back and off balance, sending her stumbling.
Tommy reached out, seizing hold of her, pulling her back by force and away from the flash of the younger man's blade.
Before he even knew what he was doing, he was talking, giving orders, just like in the old days.
"Stand down!"
The boy remained before him, sword arm outstretched, the blade pointed directly at the two of them. Behind Troy, the child Empress of the Armada gazed at the two of them impassively.
"Stand down!" he repeated.
He felt an elbow in his ribs, the princess of the Lion Galaxy driving her arm back against him.
"Let me go!"
"Stand down!" Tommy ordered a third time, his voice strained, still keeping his grip on the woman but only just.
Slowly, Troy shook his head.
"Tommy," he said, his voice soft, almost regretful. "Tommy, you know I respect you, we all do. But I can't let this one slide."
The woman pulled against him once more, yet this time with less enthusiasm, slowly beginning to understand the weight of her actions, the consequences of her failure.
"Troy, I'm asking you to let me handle this one. She's out of line, I get that, but there's more at play than you know about here."
His voice was low, full of warning and pleading for understanding.
A small smile crossed the lips of the younger man. Confidence, Tommy realised. That's what it was, that was what he was missing. Confidence.
"We're at the start of a new era here, Tommy," the young man said, that confident smile almost a sneer. "We have to hold those around us as accountable as we would ourselves."
"There's another way—"
"No," Troy said quickly, shaking his head, still smiling. "No. That time has passed, Tommy. We've got to do things our way now."
Tommy swallowed hard. He tried to look behind him, to ascertain where Dex and Tommi were, hoping that they both understood what was happening, that they both knew that an exit would need to be made.
Amidst the crowd, he caught sight of Dex moving, and almost sighed with relief.
"R-Right," he said, trying to sound convincing.
He had lost a lot with age, with the passing of the Zordonic Wave over the universe, old powers rendered obsolete, fractured, but he had kept hold of one thing.
His eyes on Troy, he moved his lips, quietly mouthing the words without speaking them aloud.
"I am the falcon, just and able."
With a flurry, he let go of the woman beside him and reached into his sleeve, pulling free what the guardsmen had failed to see, catching a glimpse of Dex and Tommi pushing the crowd aside.
The smoke bomb dashed against the marble floor, a veil rising up to divide them from the crowd, obscuring their forms, hiding their exit. Around him, as he slunk back into darkness, he could hear cries of alarm, the shape of the young man's cutlass almost catching him as they made their retreat.
In the darkness of the encroaching smoke, in that space between locales, he realised that the consequences of his actions would be enormous, that he had unwittingly involved an old friend in what was sure to be a diplomatic nightmare, that he had subverted a sovereign world's justice, and yet still, he thought, he would do it all again.
There was more at stake than the bruised ego of the former Armada, of the bitter politics of the Lion Galaxy and the rival pirate factions with whom they traded. There was a darkness coming that was far, far darker than any cheap trick enacted by ninja training.
Close by, he could hear the woman's voice protesting passionately, and almost, almost, she reminded him of Kat.