If you're reading this, not only am I back to PRTSTNG, I've also plucked up the courage to publish this next excerpt and by that, I mean time since the event in the world most symbolic of the content has passed.
Not the last of the samples for Power Rangers: Thunderstorm: the Next Generation because I have revised the first excerpt and I've dream sequences thought up and in the process of being written… it's all the matter of whether I wanna publish them when they are finished or not... "Why can't I just start it and then abandon it just when it's getting good like a normal fanfic writer," I know.
My name is Sky Tate, Commander of SPD, I'll fill you in on my rookie days that led up to me becoming commander Some other time.
The sun was shining, a thin enough layer of haze that only someone with chronic respiratory problems of any sort would be able to notice seemed to replace every cloud in the sky, other than that, it was a nice day.
As evidenced by the front entrance bustling with cadets, I wasn't the only one who needed some fresh air... well as fresh of air as it gets in spite of wild fire season and the day was slow, I… everyone here needed it because in a few short days, SPD's supreme commander Anubis Cruger would come for an inspection, Dr. Manx says that we get along better than Cruger got along with Birdie back in the day, and she always does sound very genuine... probably because Doggie never trained under Fowler's tutelage.
I don't usually eavesdrop on SPD's cadets because that'd be creepy, but it's like I said, I wasn't the only one outside and why should I have been?
One of them was Cadet Arlo Brooks, he looks like his father, but with his mother's eyes, he was a homeschooled boy Hailing from Blue Bay Harbor California and to be honest, I thought having superpowers made growing up tough, people's perception of his parents decision to homeschool must have victimized him to the point where he might have thought that people would never allow him to get anywhere in life.
I guess my showing up at an "end of the semester" performance at his homeschool co-op in search of new recruits and interviewing him and his parents afterwards might've been a godsend in his eyes… in that he was filling a spot in the SPD Academy the following morning... not my decision personally so much as his insistence.
He sat near the fountain at the front entrance, on his phone with an expression of concern on his face. "OK, OK just please, please do what the firefighters say should they ever knock on your door… I love you too, dad… Bye." Cadet Brooks said, before hanging up his phone.
There was a time at first when he refused to take advantage of this, but I always allow my cadets spare time to contact their parents and other loved ones, I'm sure you understand why.
"Arlo?" Another cadet, JJ Oliver asked, yes you heard that surname right, his parents are Tommy and Katherine Oliver
There was another cadet at his side, this one female, her hair was a black current mohawk without any gel in it, her skin was lavender colored with markings on her face which remind me of the feathers of a peacock and her eyes were green, Any alien that looked like her - be they purple or another color- hailed from the planet PSRJ1719-1438b known to its residents as Diamondia.
"Hey, JJ, Anara; how was training in the simulator?" Cadet Brooks asked, if I were to say so myself, near-flawless.
"Ah, you know commander Tate and wildfire season." JJ answered.
"SPD can't and won't be caught off guard." Anara answered, this was the truth, given the fact that there were no thunder or lightning storms this summer and no arsonists got caught red-handed and arrested, I'm just at a loss for explanations. "What about you, Arlo? I've noticed you're talking on the phone with your father so anything going on back home?"
"They've got a new student at the wind ninja academy, he looks like a deceased surrogate uncle of mine but taller, more lanky, and with ocular albinism." Arlo answered.
"Really?" JJ's Words came out sounding dumbfounded. "How about that, I see I'm not the only one whose parents past is coming back to haunt them." Arlo and Anara shot him weird looks. "I just got a call from my dad, After he got a call from one of his former students."
"Did a teammate die a few years prior and a new student with his or her Near-exact mug turn up?" Arlo asked, because why wouldn't he?
"No, Conner sat his wife down to tell her his secret, Calista overheard and was livid." JJ said, a look of shock on Arlo and Anara's faces. "I have a vague idea as to why."
"I've heard about this one story, courtesy of your godsister, Could Calista have heard it from her?" Anara asked, looking and sounding unsure if she even wanted to know.
"Or Calista might've heard it from her dad."!Arlo said. "Either cannot be hard to guess."
"Dad said that he was told that Calista told her Dad to drop dead and that she hated him!" JJ sounded disturbed, Arlo and Anara's expressions on their faces matched. "According to Dad, it's probably why Conner didn't sound so good."
That's probably what anyone would get for doing the very thing to their family that they scolded their reformed enemy for doing, especially if adopted, I know it's a common thing for parents to hear from their teenage children, but no child ever strikes me as the type to say a thing like that, then again no parent I've met strikes me as the type to be on the receiving end of such angst either... at least not the ones i've dealt with before.
"Oh my gosh." Anara exclaimed.
"Okay, subject change: has Bridge told you guys about the creepy dreams he's been having?" Arlo asked.
And by "creepy", he probably meant... uhh… okay… Time I went in to further detail about this one now... Bridge has been reporting dreams of two cadets, give you one guess as to who they could be, he says they toss and turn and thrash around in their beds at night before being jolted awake by their dreams.
"Oh, he approached you about that too, huh?" JJ asked.
"Actually, it was Dr. Manx who told me to talk to Bridge about it." Arlo answered.
"What was the dream?" Anara asked.
"He says that in his dream, we're thrashing in our beds, possibly from nightmares." JJ said. "Dad has been having nightmares about Mezogog, the others, barring anyone adopted might be the next ones to report this."
"Dad asked me if I've been having nightmares about Lothor." Arlo said. "He and our surrogate family seem to be having them, he's pretty sure this would have completely cost Uncle Shane his mind, possibly if he was the first to have these nightmares a few years before anyone else on the team."
"So if neither of you are having nightmares now, it's only a matter of time." Anara said.
"Yeah." Arlo and JJ said almost in unison.
"We need to let Bridge know about this." Anara said.
"Good thing I could use a buttery *wiggling his fingers* piece of toast." JJ said, with a chuckle.
"Haha, you and me both." Arlo said, softly punching JJ in the arm.
"As you say here on earth, amen to that." Anara said with a smile, slinging each arm around JJ and Arlo's shoulders. "Assuming you humans still do."
Ah, those three could be the poster men and woman for SPD, granted, in spite of me sometimes missing following Jack into battle and then there's the whole Bridge thing, things are looking farther up than ever before here, still though.
Just then, my Deka-morpher went off… duty calls…
"Rarely ever a dull moment here!" I heard myself groan.
…
There was no signs of life out in the woods, not even a single cadaver in sight, the squad and I were investigating at the outskirts of the city, everyone must have taken evacuation protocol seriously which was good.
"Commander, watch out!" Bridge shouted, firing his laser blaster, missing me by a mile, but hitting something else.
I looked in the direction of whatever Bridge hit, I do not remember what exactly it was, it was the size of a mouse and was burnt to a crisp, but it still ran away. "Thanks, Bridge." I said, he nodded with a smile.
"Anytime, Commander." Bridge said with a universal salute, not one proper by SPD's standards, but this moment wasn't the time for scolding because we had a job to do.
"Everybody, keep your eyes peeled." I ordered, whether I needed to or not.
A sudden combustion to the left caught our attention, our heads slowly turned in unison and it creeped me out for a nano second.
"Commander, do we move in on this?" JJ asked.
"Proceed with caution, cadet." I said, JJ took the lead.
But then, kaboom, we all were knocked off our feet.
"They can run, but they can't…" Z said, once we got back on our feet, before we were suddenly surrounded by a literal ring of fire. "Can't these guys even try like the other criminals we always arrest?"
"Sky, we should cut our losses and wait for Fire and Rescue, we're not firefighters." Syd anxiously suggested.
"Just trying to lighten the load for them." I said, struggling to switch my blaster to water-cannon mode. "How do you get water-canon-mode to work?"
I gave up on it, placed it back into the holster and just used my force field to escape the fire circle.
"I got it." JJ shouted, aiming at the ring of fire, water squirting out of what was normally a laser-blaster, the fire was put out, freeing both himself and the others.
Suddenly, a monster appeared out of the blue, A creature with the wings of a hummingbird, the head and front paws of a bear and the hind legs of a sheep , it had patches of neon scales and pastel feathers
It looked like it was about to attack me, but Z blasted it, turning it's attention to her. "Hey, over here." She shouted before replicating,
(I'm kind a lazy about fight sequences and until I can get some co-writers and beta readers on this project, you'll just have to imagine how the fight went down)
"Ok... that happened." I said. "Let's get back to base and see what we were dealing with." I concluded and with that, Homebase was exactly where we went
"I haven't been having any nightmares, but my father has." JJ said. "And not to rat a friend out, But cadet Brooks's father has also been having nightmares."
"We might need to see them." I concluded, between bridge having nightmares about two cadets, those two cadets reporting family members having nightmares and wildfire season… Something didn't sit right.
I kinda wanted to base the Arlo/JJ introduction excerpt on the Dr. Calico intro/Scooter Chase scene from Disney's Bolt, but I would have needed to introduce another cadet in Arlo and JJ's band of misfit cadets who would have to be a lycanthrope and/or RIC could be the 'Bolt' and it'd be madness more so than the Bolt scene I'd be ripping off and… also the story as a whole would be set during wildfire season, therefore the chase through the 'City' (it would turn out to be a simulation training session at the end of the chapter) would most likely make zero sense… anyway please review and have a nice time, thank you!