Chapter25: Discussion and Departure
"Oh Arjet, how we never should have taken you in"
The unexplained manifestation of the grid wakes up to sharp pain in her arm. The snapped appendage has already almost healed, the broken bone turning into a fracture.
Looking around she sees that she's in the same rest area of root core that Zolda was recovering in when they first arrived here.
All at once, she remembers what happened. Her fight with Zolda, Xandread grabbed her, then everything went black.
Arjet rushes down the spiral stairs, her first assumption being that the others would be doomed without her help. She swings open the door to the main entrance, and is met with a sight she did not expect.
Everyone hobiling over, banged up, but alive. All of them trying to stop Toxala from strangling Kyle
"Gimme the book!"
"I tried, it teleports back into my pocket Everytime you grab it"
The asphyxiation attempt gets on the nerves of Dialect, who grabs onto Toxalas collar.
"Drop him in 3 seconds or I'm gonna flood your mind with images of the worst things I've seen in the prison shower."
"You can do that?" Thruster asks as he finally manages to get Toxala off of Kyle.
"I'm gonna try- oh hey, she's already up"
Everyone stops what they are doing, looking at the almost healed woman who stares at them with utter confusion.
"Did you guys retreat?" She asks
"Nah, we won" Zolda answers matter of factly, with a slight smugness that Arjet didn't like
"How? You did not have your sword"
"Yeah, it flew to me, desperate times and all that?"
Before Arjet and Zolda can get into another argument, Thruster steps in.
"We used the new books, they worked amazingly."
The subject of the legacy books immediately takes Arjet's mind of wanting to tear Zolda in half, and she looks at the morphers.
"Yeah, the masters outdid themselves." She says almost nostalgically.
Zolda, seeming to read the mood, decides to walk past Arjet. "I need a shower"
Just before he can enter root core, Toxala pushes him aside and runs to the bathroom, screaming "Ladies first, loser. Hahahaha!"
Right then and there, Zolda almost summons a rook putty, but Thruster stops him.
"It is the polite thing to do" he says while patting his friend on the shoulder.
"I can not fathom giving a-" whatever he was going to say, it was cut off by Arjet and Dialect running by and knocking him over.
"You heard the lady, us first" Arjet says while looking back at Zolda with a smug face.
Jaden diffuses Zolda's growing rage by saying "Alright while there doing that, how about we all have a talk"
…
The five men all stare at a table, on the table are the various books of villains.
"We really can't keep these in our pockets," Kyle explains while holding the Morlock book.
"Yeah but we don't have anywhere else we could keep these things." Thruster adds in, not wanting to touch the Xandread book.
While all five men ponder on how to safely store the books, an intrusive thought enters Zolda's mind.
He grabs the goldar book, and tries to place it in the center slot.
"What are you doing!!" Thruster screams out
"I'm just curious," Zolda says, like a child seeing a bright red button.
Jaden tries to stop him, but doesn't have to as a sudden force field surrounds the morpher.
"NO" the morpher says, and pushes the book away.
Not being a quitter, Zolda tries again, to the same results"
"NO"
one more time he tries, and the morpher shocks him, a pulse of electricity strong enough to send Zolda spasming on the floor.
"NO!"
"Ok…we can't do that" Zolda groans out
"Ya think!" Thruster shrieks while helping his cellmate up.
All the while, when Zolda and the others were talking, Nick was thinking to himself. When suddenly, almost out of nowhere, he remembers.
"Wait, I have an idea" he says while going off to root core's lowest area.
"You guys shower, I think this might take a while."
…
The five, freshly clean royal rangers sit at a round table with Jaden, waiting for Nick to come back with whatever he was getting.
Arjet sits by herself, not wanting to interact with anyone. Dialect and Kyle sit together, the former telling the latter how cool he looked fighting. Toxala is also by her lonesome, but is perfectly happy eating some smoked creature.
Thruster and Zolda examine the former's body, the machine taking a bit of damage from the battle.
"Are you gonna be alright?" Zolda asks while looking at the wear and tear on Thruster's legs and arms.
"Yeah, I'll need to find more parts at our next stop", the machine answers, slowly bending his elbows and listening to the creaking noise. "I can normally tell how bad the damage is from the sound, I should be alright for another one or two morphs"
As Thruster finishes his rough assessment of his body, he chooses now to inquire about something.
"Arjet, when Zolda and I trained with Zolda, he passed out and seemed to instantly learn the rangers moves."
Everyone quites down a bit, interested by the sudden information.
"The morphers have a speed learning function, if you show interest and genuine drive to learn something, the morpher will cut the learning curb."
"Did I have to push my body up nearly passing out to activate it?" Zolda asks in an annoyed tone, Arjet gives him a glare, but answers his question
"The masters have the ability to let someone learn anything without any work, but according to them, each time they gave a ranger that ability, they turned evil…or arrogant…mostly both"
"Sounds to me like they just suck at choosing good people"
Arjets glare turns into a full on scowl as she can only get a "you-" before they hear grunting coming up the stairs.
"Alright" Nick grunts while lifting a heavy chest onto a table.
It's a perfect square that's red with gold circles on it, its surface is flat you would almost think it's just a regular box.
The red MF ranger holds out a bright gold key, and a keyhole appears on the top of the chest.
Once he inserts the key, the top splits open down the middle. Two haves splitting to the sides of the chest falling to the side.
From the open box comes a sort of small, retractable bookshelf. Five shelves in total, each one seeming to be able to fit 15 books.
"This should do it for now, I confiscated it from a warlock doing some…questionable magic. You can put the books of the villains you face here."
As Zolda places the pocket sized books inside the top shelf, he asks "and you're sure we can keep this?"
"Sure, I don't need it. I'm a master of magic, I basically have hammer space"
…
It's around two days later when everyone is ready to depart, the royal Zords are in a forest clearing. Everyone saying their goodbyes.
"Zolda, here" Jaden hands Zolda a thick scroll, "it's for all of you, a list of Shiba sword techniques. Well…at least the ones I'm allowed to teach to the general public. Copying me isn't enough, study the scroll and finish and your own style"
the rangers head into their respective zords, the sentientacjiens barely making any noise before they fly off. A green portal open Infront of the zords, and one by one they enter, the royal rangers off to grid battle force.
As the wind from the zords' departure dies down the two rangers talk.
"Man those guys need some serious work" Jaden begins
"Meh, no worse than my team when we first started" Nick responds as he turns to Jaden, "So, where're you headed?"
"I'm gonna ride my motorcycle down to angel grove, my friends have a swim meet there"
"That's a two day trip, want me to teleport you?"
"Naw, after all this I wanna take it slow"
"Fair enough, mind if I come with, I need to take load off"
Jaden shrugs his shoulders "why not"
Nick smiles as turns to enter root core "hey dad, can you prep the motorcycles for us. Me and Jaden are going on a road trip.
…
In the far future a canine alien is walking through a dingy apartment of an unknown city, he is very annoyed. Muttering under his breath as he tiptoes to a glowing door.
"new protocols doggie, do a field mission at least once a month, bah! Waste of time" the canine grumbles as he peeks behind a door.
Inside is a man who looks like a hobo, hair dirty and clothes tattered. In front of him is a door connected to various wires, the other end of the wires lead to a machine with three computer screens, seemingly being powered by a strange ore.
The canine burst through the door, "freeze! SPD" He shouts as he pulls out a long blade, the hilt resembling a wolf's head.
The man just giggles, eyes glowing as he presses a button on the machine.
"Stop!" Anubis tries to slash the machine, but it's two late. Within seconds the door flows, and what flies out is a disk-like object with various multi-colored blades, and a young man holding onto it for dear life.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHH" the man screams as he loses his grip, falling directly onto the back of the hobo. His eyes lose their glow as the disk flies off, and a book phases out the dirty man's body.
"MADAME ODIUS!" the book calls out before flying off after the disk.
The canine officer points his blade to the man on the floor. "Identify yourself!" He says sternly.
The man groans and tries to get up, but the blade moves closer to his throat.
"Um..my name's Brody Romero…and you are a …dog?
A growl escapes the canines lips, of course this would happen today.