The combined cockpit was stunned into silence.

For a moment, at least. "Is that a civilian in the combat zone?"

The Blue Mystic Ranger snorted. "They just BLASTED a few city blocks away without using any detectable magic or abilities. And nearly knocked out our communication abilities entirely while attempting to reassure us… No, whatever the FUCK that is, it is NOT a civilian."

The woman's teammate seemed to be caught in a mental loop. "But you CAN'T enter the combat zone! They've been reinforced and restricted so all the incursions can be redirected here! That's… That's impossible!"

The Red Mystic Ranger's attitude was ignored by the others as the Green Mystic Ranger began typing up an emergency report for headquarters. "I'm calling in one of the reserve Mystic Ranger teams from base to handle that anomaly, we need to focus on ending this monster NOW before it can mutate or worse! If that entity ends up being hostile we can delay Zord extraction to help team up and take them down. Now, FOCUS PEOPLE!"

That seemed to pull the rest of them back on task as the massive Titan Megazord twisted into a VICIOUS smash against the monster's carapice!

~~~Pocket System~~~

The massive room was bustling with low key chaos as usual.

"I've got two incursions in sector G! Only one Galaxy Ranger team is available, I need options in the next ten minutes or we risk a containment breach!" "I've got a Space Ranger team, but they JUST ended their shift. They need down time, but can pitch in if no one else is available." "Sector Q's Ninja Storm Ranger team C managed to finish their assignment early and are ready to be deployed!" "Great, I'm letting my Galaxy team that they have support incoming." "Good, I'm telling Space Ranger team T2 they can clock off for now." "POTENTIAL PSYCHO RANGER TEAM DETECTED!"

The noise dropped down SIGNIFICANTLY… Then came another alert. "False positive, we've got another displaced Time Force Ranger team with unfortunate Zord design choices."

A wave of relief swept the room, and administrative teams took over that issue. "Sending them to the on-standby debriefing squad, hopefully we can send them home. If not, they might get assigned to sector G to fill in for the gap in their lineup." "Hey, when the baby comes the baby comes!" "Yeah, knowing Orange Galaxy Ranger G1O32, she'll be right back in her Zord WITH her newborn brat and kicking ass in no time. Send the new guys over to Sector N, they've been having issues for weeks now." "Hell, don't mention THAT fucked up division, it's their OWN damn fault for being assholes to everyone." "I've heard that's about to be handled, the administration was NOT impressed by some of their recent decisions." "No shit, we got enough problems with handling our ongoing incursions WITHOUT bringing sexism into the workplace." "Well, I hope they get their shit together before another containment breach occurs." "Hey! Too soon, man." "...Yeah, sorry. I almost lost my aunt when that shitshow went down, I'm not taking it well." "Go talk to HR, get some time to put yourself together, alright? Let your team take over for now, they can handle this shift." "...Yeah, might be for the best."

On and on, the noise rustled and shuffled and bustled and swarmed.

Josh blinked at the most recent absurdity. "What do you mean, we've got a civilian in sector B33!? Civilian's can't enter… NO one can enter those sectors! That's the whole POINT of combat zones in the FIRST place!"

His support team winced. "We've confirmed the report AND have a high confidence that said 'civilian' is atypical."

OH! Oh. "So another Ranger then? Somehow displaced from their Zord and team?" Unfortunate, and VASTLY less likely to be a recoverable scenario. At least when a group got shifted here there was a CHANCE of tracing back their departure timeline and sending them home… But alone, the odds dropped sharply. Smaller sample sizes made pattern matching collisions more likely, after all.

They shook their heads. "No sir. We've designated the 'civilian' as a potential case 16. We highly suggest sending an exfiltration team rather than the backup Mystic Ranger squad as requested."

Shit, case 16's… Was that the one where the individual was a hive minded, potentially non-corporeal entity? Wait, no, that was case 18, wasn't it. "Which one is case 16?"

The team lead of his supporting staff sighed with exasperation. "Mr. Henderson…"

He winced. Ouch. "Please, just call me Josh."

Again, ignored. "Mr. Henderson, we will supply the full case reference guide as soon as possible." The 'Again' was unstated but well felt. "Case 16's cover entities with individually powerful exotic abilities of a destructive nature. This particular one is marked as threat level T09."

Oh? One below the 'true neutral' threat level of T10? Though then again, just having some random entity show up that WASN'T T12 or higher was always good. "What had made them drop down a point towards the benevolence range?"

The report was tapped as they raised an eyebrow. "Said entity has been documented as having attempted peaceful communication. All detected damage to the surroundings have been non-threatening to the team on site, and they have not aided the incursion monster nor hindered the Zords during subjugation."

That did sound promising, no doubt. "Can remote operated exfiltration bots be deployed within sector B33 yet, or is the spatial interference still too high?"

They checked their digital meters. "Squad E01 can be deployed in eight minutes remotely."

Good enough. "Send them in and see if our new guest is willing to go through our decontamination and sanitization procedures… And be ready to disconnect the operators IMMEDIATELY if we have ANY signs of cognitohazards or infohazards. I won't have my people at risk with an unknown if at all possible."

"""Yes sir!"""

Josh nodded! "Now back to work everyone, We've got two predicted incursions coming in sector B12 and B08 within the hour and… Yes?"

"Here you are sir, as requested!"

Uh. Oh, right. Josh sheepishly accepted the new copy of the case reference guide from one of the assistants running around the place. "Thanks, I'll go over this once more after shift."

And he WOULD this time too! Even if the massive stack of identical reference books in his apartment heavily implied otherwise.

~~~Pocket System~~~

John leaned back on a pile of rubble, happily chewing a chunk of rebar extracted from some reinforced concrete.

The nice part about being able to eat damn near anything? Age, corrosion, and gunk didn't make 'food' go bad, it just added new flavors!

He took another bite, feeling his teeth not so much as bite THROUGH the metal as much as it sort of convinced the metal it had never been connected with itself in the first place.

Took a lot less effort to chew when the bites were retroactively taken, honestly. Om nom nom.

As for the battle he was watching, it took a bit for the conflict to warm up again for some reason, and the robot was clearly trying to avoid the chunk of city that John was currently chewing on, but massive monster battles were pretty awesome regardless.

Plus, due to them being so massive, he didn't need to get close at ALL to get a good look at the battle! So convenient!

[[Jessica (J): "I'm not seeing ANYONE in this 'city', what's going on here?"]]

[[Grace (G): "Look at the debris I've noted within the logs. Materials and objects that seem never used and too clean, no organic waste detected anywhere, oddly repetitive designs and material compositions…"]]

Still tasty though.

[[Temptation (T): "So it's a fake city?"]]

[[G: "Pretty sure it's a NEW fake city. I'm not seeing any markings of tools or construction, so however this place was built did not use people or robots or standard building practices."]]

[[J: "Huh… I've seen smaller scales of this sort of thing done back in MIB. There was this race of 'conquerors', less than four inches tall, that were basically immortal and permanently murderous. Kept escaping all our attempts at corralling them too… In the end, we set up a fake 'planet' for them to attack that was rebuilt by the space stations orbiting it. They're happy as long as they can keep destroying 'all life and existence', our alien contractors LOVED the expensive and ongoing contracts to run the whole mess, and we were able to send agents there to train targeting practice against morally acceptable and immortal targets."]]

Wait what!? "Your agency built a PLANET!?"

[[J: "Not really. I mean, they were four inches tall. The entire 'planet' was a single room the size of a football field that messed with geometry to connect the edges to each other. Sure, the tiny assholes COULD escape pretty easily if they stopped fighting and realized something was off about the entire place…"]]

[[T: "But you said they were aggressive immortal assholes, not SMART aggressive immortal assholes."]]

[[J: "Yeah, basically that. Give them the choice between freedom and smashing another near identical cardboard image of a crying human baby, and they never left. I heard some research teams wanted to use them to test out the newest and more exotic weapons being developed, but management was worried they'd enjoy being injured so much that they'd escape confinement."]]

[[G: "Wait my Lady, I thought they were used for target practice by your agency?"]]

[[J: "Oh, only with standard firearms. They pretty much just ignore bullets entirely, so it's fine."]]

John absently chewed another bite of rebar. "This place being fake scenery does explain a lot… I was a bit curious about how little screaming and stuff there was, considering how many buildings are being smashed and thrown and stuff."

[[G: "From what I can detect my Lord, most of the ambient noise is coming from these detected speaker systems."]]

Neat. "What about the random screams? I can tell they are recorded." Though they were pretty hard to hear until you Collected all the junk in the area to get a better view of the place.

[[G: "Triggered by impact sensors on the buildings. I'm shocked about how much electrical work is needed to pull off these kinds of shenanigans on such a huge scale! They aren't powered by capacitors or batteries, ALL this mess is hooked up to some sort of electrical grid."]]

Probably to keep monsters like this lobster dude busy until the robots could come. "So uh, quick question… Is the giant lobster thing like, intelligent? Like, above an animal level I mean."

[[T: "I'm pretty sure he (She? It?) is actively SAYING 'Rawr' instead of roaring, so I would assume so."]]

Drat. "Then I'm probably not supposed to eat the thing." Which was a shame, because that was a LOT of lobster waiting to be served up.

His sister hummed in his Pocket. [[J: "Probably wouldn't work anyway, the sensor data that Grace has been gathering say that big monster is VERY unstable. Some sort of magical projection or something? But it IS organic, sort of, at least temporarily… I'm pretty sure it's so unstable that when it gets hit enough by the robot it will explode. Might explode anyway if they wait long enough. Shoddy design, really."]]

Ooh! "So I get dinner AND fireworks!? This place is awesome!"

Jessica snorted. [[J: "I'm pretty sure with all the money spent on the giant robots, this fake arena, and all the materials needed to construct it all? They could have made a massive gun or turret instead and blasted lobsters like this into atoms instantly."]]

Well yeah, but honestly… "Giant robots, sis."

She sighed. [[J: "Yeah, giant robots. Just wanted to point it out though, alright?"]]

Fair enough.

John was caught mid chear as the huge metallic giant stabbed the lobster in a critical looking place when space twisted nearby… And odd looking humanoid robots walked out, seeming surprised at arriving so close to his viewing area.

They looked at each other before John raised one hand. "Yo."

The lead robot shifted. "Greetings… Human? Assuming you are human?"

Ah! "Yes, this time I have gone for almost ENTIRELY being made out of human stuff! This Body is EASILY the most human I've been for a while now, guaranteed! My name is John Doe, what's your name robot person?"

The robot didn't blink, but it felt like it. "Ah, this is a remotely controlled… Never mind. I am the lead exfiltration operative for sector B33, head of unit E01, Staff Sergeant Hernandez. I'm here to hopefully escort you away from the combat zone, go through a medical check to make sure you are alright, go through a decontamination check to make sure WE will be alright, and attempt to help you figure out what is going on here, hopefully."

Oh. Well that was QUITE convenient! "Sounds like a plan, robot man!"

John pointed at the now invisible tear in the fabric of reality. "Are you going to be 'escorting me' through one of those reality sheer / spatial tunnels? Because I have to say, non-robots would have a rough trip if that was the plan."

Oh, he'd either survive it or replace his Body, sure, but organic people would get shredded like cream cheese if they tried to pass through that sort of thing. Ouch.

Staff Sergeant Hernandez paused. "While our unit can easily be deployed via teleportation as you've seen, to help escort you out from the combat zone we will need to take the 'long way' around, as it were. And we'd need to stop by medical and decontamination facilities, as I mentioned earlier."

Yeah, that made more sense honestly. "Then I guess we can go then… Unless we can stay long enough to see the massive lobster explode? I assume it will look pretty awesome, and it would suck to miss it."

The mechanical team shifted to look at the distant screaming fight going on… "Mr. Doe, avoiding that entire situation is one of my prime directives at the moment, so I would highly suggest we leave as soon as possible."

Oh well. "Then let's go. Maybe I can find more stuff to snack on while we move."

John took another bite of rebar.

The sergeant paused just as it was about to lead the squad onward for some reason, but seemed to decide to get moving anyway.

Well, it seems it was time for a medical check up! John hadn't been to one of those in a while, it should be interesting.

Especially since this new Body hadn't existed for very long yet. And a number of bits were either mechanical or composed of alien organic composite genetics and roughly shaped to be humanistic enough.

He wondered if the doctor would give out lollipops… That was a thing, right?