Chapter Three:
The Shine
Rio stumbled forward, his head feeling fuzzy. His skin was still glowing, still uncomfortably warm, but not quite as unbearable anymore. He pressed his hand against the wall and felt brick against his fingers. Lights flashed all around him, and he thought he could hear voices shouting his name.
"Rio, is that you?"
"Rio!"
Rio blinked and shook his head. Red and blue lights flashed everywhere, and he vaguely registered police tape and barriers blocking off the alley he had just emerged from. Through the crowd, two figures emerged running toward him, one Yoselin in her pleated suit, the other Princess wearing a simple blue dress. Rio took a second to register that his sister was indeed Princess at the moment.
"Princess?" he said blearily. "What are you doing here? Tony, he's—"
"We caught Tony and his goons," Yoselin said. "Rio, you've been gone for twelve hours."
"Twelve?" Rio said, staring at them.
Princess hugged him and stared up at him, tears in her eyes. "They said you murdered one of them," she said. "They found his body burnt in that alley—"
Her eyes drifted down to her brother's arms. "Why are you glowing?"
She stepped back from Rio as he looked down at himself. That strange glow from back in the cave was still emanating from his skin. "I—uh, there was a cave," he said. "And this weird orb thing—"
Yoselin squinted at him. "A cave?" she asked.
One of the nearby police officers stepped forward, using a baton to push Princess and Yoselin back. "Stand back, please," he said. He fixed Rio with suspicious eyes. "You Rodrigo Higueras?" he asked.
Rio nodded. "I am," he said.
"You're going to have to come with us."
Several more officers surrounded Rio, forcing his large arms behind his back and hooking handcuffs on him.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Princess shouted.
"You can't do that," Yoselin said. "This man is a witness for the FBI. He's under my protection."
"He also killed a man," the officer said. "So back off, lady."
Rio struggled against the officers forcing him to the ground and restraining him. He looked up just in time to see the officer push Yoselin and Princess back, Princess hitting the ground hard. Rio saw red and he fought back even harder.
Before he knew what was happening, a bright burst of light exploded from his body, knocking the officers restraining him back. When the light cleared, Rio looked around to see one officer screaming on the ground, their face covered in heavy burns, while another lay unmoving nearby. Rio brought his arms forward to see his handcuffs drip from his wrists as molten steel.
Rio stared in horror. His eyes met those of his sister and Yoselin, both of whom looked back at him in abject terror.
The officer that had pushed Princess swore. In seconds, Rio had a dozen handguns pointed at his face.
"Get down!" the officer shouted. "Now! Put down your weapon!"
Rio's heart raced. He raised his hands. "No," he said. "I didn't—you don't understand, I—"
A bullet struck the brick behind him. "Now! Get down on the ground!"
Rio's body shook. He carefully got down, keeping his hands visible. Just as he was about to lower his head, strong wind blew through the alley as a large airship appeared in the sky above them, an airship Rio recognized immediately. A hatch opened on the underside, and a singular figure in red dropped to the ground, landing in between Rio and the officers.
"Whoa," a voice Rio had heard a dozen times in interviews said. "Let's all calm down here. What's going on?"
The officers lowered their weapons. "The Ace of Spades?" the captain said in surprise. He stared in awe at the ranger for a second before shaking his head and gesturing to Rio. "This man murdered a civilian and one of my officers."
Gordon turned his head to look at Rio. Rio swallowed. He'd seen enough news reports to know what a Power Ranger could do when angry. And now, he was right in the firing line of it. "Is this true?" the ranger said.
Rio's whole body shook. "I—I don't know what's happening," he said. "I was in a cave and—"
A single person stepped up between Rio and the ranger. Agent Yoselin Jimenez's normally well-pressed suit was now disheveled, and her long hair was singed at the tips, but she held her ground and stared down the ranger at least two feet taller than her.
"This man is innocent," she said. "I know him. He wouldn't hurt anyone."
The Ace of Spades tilted his head. "My information says he was accused of two other murders in Las Vegas two months ago."
Yoselin nodded. "We believe he was framed," she said.
Though she looked even more intimidated by the ranger than Yoselin did, Princess stepped up to protect her brother too. "Please," she said. "Mr. . . . Ace of Spades, sir. Please don't hurt my brother."
The ranger looked between the two, then at Rio behind them. Though it was hard to tell through his visor, he seemed to be scanning the strange glow emanating from Rio's skin. "You said something about a cave?"
Rio nodded. "I was running, and I found myself in a cave, and there was this glowing sphere thing." He raised his hand. "It . . . went inside me the moment I touched it. I don't know what's happening."
Gordon remained silent for a moment, considering Rio. Then he turned back to the police. "This is Ranger business now," he said. "I'll be taking it from here."
The captain hesitated. "But," he said, "my men—"
"I will personally see to it that they receive justice," Gordon said. "But something bigger is going on here, and I need to find out what. Until then, stand down."
The officer held his ground for another few moments before lowering his weapon. "Stand down," he told his troops.
Gordon turned away from them and back to Rio. "Hold on to me," he said, turning as if to give Rio a piggyback ride. Rio hesitantly wrapped his arms around him. The ranger bent his knees and launched straight up into the air at incredible speed. Rio wrapped his arms tighter, holding on for dear life as the wind whipped at his face. Gordon flew back up into the same hatch he had come from, landing gracefully on the floor inside. Rio let go once they landed and slumped back against the floor.
"Excuse me?" a loud voice said.
Rio looked up to see a middle-aged man in an EAGLE uniform storming up to the Ace of Spades as he deactivated his suit.
"Care to explain to me why you brought a suspected murderer on board this ship?" the man asked.
The ranger, now back in civilian clothing and looking back at Rio with a face he'd seen plastered all over the news, stood between Rio and the EAGLE officer. "He's been infected by Vader Clan technology. We need to get him to Doctor Kuchar immediately."
The man looked uncertain for a moment, glancing down at Rio as Rio glared back at him. Finally, he relented. "Fine," he said. "But it's on you to keep him contained."
"Understood, sir."
The commander turned and left the room, shouting, "Get us back to base. Pronto!"
Gordon Cherry turned back to Rio and offered his hand up. "Sorry about him," he said.
Rio shrugged. "I'm used to guys like that," he said.
An hour later, Rio found himself being laid down on a table in the most high-tech laboratory he'd ever seen in his life. Technicians worked all around him, including, apparently, a hamster that knew how to work a bunch of the machines. A large man with a thick mustache and what looked like a novelty uniform in bright yellow leaned over him, fixing up a scanning device.
"Now, this shouldn't hurt one bit," the man said, switching it on.
Rio closed his eyes as beams of light crisscrossed his body. As the scan finished up, displays popped up in the air above Rio, showing what looked like the same orb he had seen in the cave.
"This what you saw?" Gordon Cherry asked, standing over him with the EAGLE commander and the doctor in yellow.
Rio nodded. "That's it," he said.
The doctor in yellow rubbed his chin, his mustache bristling. "Well, it's definitely Vader Clan in origin?"
"Is it a weapon?" the commander asked.
"Can you get it out?" Gordon asked.
The doctor shook his head. "There's probably no one on Earth with more experience with this stuff than me, and I have no idea what I'm looking at?"
"So, I'm stuck like this?" Rio asked.
The doctor looked down at him sympathetically. "I don't know," he said. "But I'm going to do everything I can. That's what science is about, right? Experiments and tests until you figure out what works."
"Until it explodes," Gordon said.
"And kills someone," the commander said.
"Or me," Rio added.
The doctor's mustache bristled, and he shrugged, looking sheepish.
Gordon looked pensive for a moment. "You have the most experience with Vader tech on our side," he said, looking at the doctor. "What about someone not on our side?"
He turned to look at the commander. The commander took a second to understand what he meant before letting out a flat "No."
Back in Detroit, the alleyway where Rio had nearly been arrested had been cleared out and cordoned off, leaving behind only one young rookie officer to stand guard. The officer leaned against the brick wall, nearly nodding off, when a bright beam of light shot down from the sky.
The officer scrambled backwards, grasping for his radio. In the middle of the light, two figures appeared, both distinctly not human. One was shorter, with large green eyes, feathery red wings, and mandibles for teeth. The other was huge, at least nine feet tall, with large horns coming off its head. Both had gray skin and a number of spikes and tentacles sprouting from their bodies in every conceivable direction.
The young officer's eyes grew wide as he fumbled for his radio's button. "Chief," he said. "We need backup down here now. There's aliens—"
His call was cut short as the red-winged alien stretch out a hand and blasted the officer with cosmic energy, making him explode into a million tiny atoms.
"Officer Henney?" a voice called from the other end of the radio. "Officer Henney!"
The large, horned alien stepped forward and crushed the radio under its heavy foot. "Humans," it said in a deep voice.
"Yes," General Ikros said, fluttering his wings and clicking his mandibles. "Disgusting, aren't they? Do you sense it, Bofala?"
Ikros's minion raised his enlarged nose and sniffed the air. "No. The Shine was here, my lord, but now it is gone." His large eyes looked to the sky. "It was lifted straight into the air, and then taken south."
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