Chapter One:
Benton Davies
Benton Davies planted his feet, breathing in the tropical island air and focusing his attention on the heavy steel hatch built into the mountainside before him. He closed his eyes and tapped into the cybernetic enhancements inside his body, specifically the gravity-altering powers he'd been instilled with.
He started by making the steel door incredibly light. He then focused on the gravity of his hands, cranking it up so high that the dirt and leaves around him started being pulled toward them. The door resisted for a moment, but after a few seconds it crumpled outward, straining against its hinges, before finally breaking free and flying toward him. Benton sidestepped it and allowed the hatch to keep on flying out into the sky.
"And, we're in," Benton muttered to himself. He stepped up to the long shaft descending deep into the ground and dropped inside. He fell fast, as though he weighed a ton, then landed light as a feather at the bottom, several stories down.
He poked his head out into the long concrete corridor, seeing no one around. He quickly stepped out, pressing himself to the wall and hurrying down the passage, humming the Mission Impossible theme to himself. He reached a large steel door at the end of the hall that was locked tight. He pressed his fingers to the center of the locking mechanism, making the gravitational pull there so strong that the deadbolts had no choice but to slide backwards and out of their divots in the doorframe, allowing the door to slide open with ease.
Benton grinned and dove inside, reprising his Mission Impossible rendition with renewed vigor. He found himself in a large open room that seemed to be a connecting point for several more branching corridors, with a large stone directory in the middle. Benton crept up to it, studying the base's layout, his humming steadily becoming the Pink Panther theme instead.
About halfway through the chorus, he heard a pair of voices coming down a corridor to his two o' clock. He stopped humming and moved so that the directory was between him and them. Peeking around, he saw a pair of Crimers (the nickname the other members of the Ranger Team had given the rubber-masked henchmen of CRIME), entering the room, muttering about Iron Claw wanting them all gathered for some meeting. As they crossed the room, Benton moved to keep himself hidden, watching the pair disappear down a corridor at his nine o' clock. Right where he needed to go.
"Alright."
Benton followed the pair, keeping his theme music low but still present. He followed them up to a large door that led into what looked like an amphitheater full of Crimers. Benton held back, looking around and seeing a staircase leading up to balcony access. That seemed a little bit safer option. He quietly climbed the steps and slipped inside.
Inside, he found a room full of hundreds of Crimers, all of their faces covered in rubber masks, all whooping and cheering as their leader, the former Black Cross general Ivan Callahan, walked back and forth on the stage below. Benton recognized him immediately, from his seven-foot frame, to his long dark beard, to his metal arm ending in razor sharp blades.
"Soon, my followers," Ivan's voice boomed over the crowd. "In less than seventy-two hours, the World Government will bow before us, and the Power Rangers will be powerless to stop us."
Benton rolled his eyes. This guy really was kind of a one-trick pony, wasn't he? He glanced around, remembering the map he'd studied before. These were the times his eidetic memory really came in handy. He pinpointed a door on the far side. His destination was that way.
He crossed to the door and slipped out of it, hurrying down another flight of stairs and another corridor, coming to a large set of iron doors with two guards in front of it.
Benton pressed himself up against the corner, peeking around and focusing his gravity powers on them. After a second, the guards stumbled, falling to their knees and slumping to the ground as if they were being crushed under a massive weight. The guards struggled and flailed for a few moments, straining against the pressure, before finally passing out.
Benton waited just a moment to be sure they were out, before lifting the pressure and racing past them, pulling the metal doors open easily.
He found himself inside what looked like a giant factory. At one end of the room, a large silver airship faced a hangar door, but most of the room was taken up by rows and rows of large capsules. Creeping up to one, Benton swallowed as he found a devil machine inside, just like the ones from the news almost a year ago. The robot seemed to be dormant, but was glowing with golden energy. Looking around, he could see that every single one had the same glow, each capsule connected by tubing to a tower in the center. Benton worked his way over to the tower, seeing exactly what he suspected to find.
The alien orb his team called the Shine was fixed into the tower, golden light being siphoned off toward each capsule.
"Ooh," Benton said. "Shine-powered Devil Machines. That's neat. But I think we'll skip that particular battle."
He held out his hand, focusing a gravitational pull at the center of his palm. The Shine pulled and strained at its fixture, Benton increasing the pull little by little until it finally broke free of its restraints and flew toward him. He tapped a small device he held in his fingers, expanding it out into a small box that caught the Shine, allowing Benton to seal it up tightly without touching it.
"Gotcha," he said.
"Freeze!" a new voice said.
Benton froze, turning to see a group of Crimers behind him, led by a young man with bright orange hair, wearing what looked like baseball gear.
"Oh, hey, guys," Benton said, tossing the box up in the air. "Don't mind me. Just came to pick up something important."
"Put it down on the ground!" the baseball guy shouted.
Benton tilted his head. "Say, don't I know you? You worked for EAGLE once, right? Sumpter, or something like that?"
"I said put it down!" the young man shouted again.
"I will, I will," Benton said, rolling his eyes and setting the box down. "Man, you're still picking the wrong crowds, huh?"
The young man's face was as red as his hair and freckles. "Who are you?" he demanded.
Benton grinned. He adjusted the gravity on his sleeve so that it slipped down far enough to reveal the morpher at his wrist. "Well, since you asked so nicely."
He used gravity to press the button in without his hands, activating the horde of nanites contained inside. The tiny devices swarmed his body in a flash of light, completely covering him and forming up into green armor with a helmet and visor. A utility belt formed around his chest, and a large green clover symbol appeared on his forehead. As the transformation finished, Benton spun with a little flourish.
"I am the long-awaited, heavily anticipated, master of gravitational forces and new green ranger: the King of Clubs!"
Benton struck a pose and waited for the applause. No one reacted.
"Really?" Benton asked, looking down at them. "Nothing? Surely, that elicited some sort of reaction."
"Get him," Leon Sumpter said.
His soldiers surged forward. Benton let out an exasperated sigh and slumped out of his pose. "Yeah, alright," he said. He clenched his fist and a large club appeared in his hand. He swung it like a mace, smacking it into the arm of the nearest soldier and sending her flying halfway across the room. He then caught the next two with his gravity powers and pinned them to the ceiling high above, before smashing another over the head with his club and burying them two feet down in the concrete floor. Three more came at him, and he pinned them one by one to nearby capsules, leaving them struggling and gasping for breath, leaving only Leon left.
The EAGLE deserter backed away from the ranger quickly, blasting him with his energy gun. Benton dashed toward him at lightning speed, deflecting the blasts, and punching him right in the chest. Instead of flying backwards, however, Leon found himself floating into the air, losing his grip on his gun, which Benton swiftly kicked away.
"What—what did you do to me?" Leon demanded, struggling in midair to grab at his gun or reach the ground.
"That's a little thing I call 'turning off gravity,'" Benton said. "Still working on the name. Should wear off in a little while. But in the meantime," he bent and picked up the Shine box just as more Crimers started rushing into the factory, "I must be going."
Benton leapt high into the air, focusing his gravitational pull on the hangar door on the far side of the room. He flew past a still-struggling Leon, racing toward the door faster and faster as lasers shot past him, bouncing off his armored suit. He ignored them, keeping his focus on the door and increasing his own density until he weighed at least a couple of tons. He slammed into the door head-on, blowing a hole right through it and flying out into the open air, the jungle island spreading out below him.
He switched his gravity back to normal and let himself drop, making himself lighter so that he hit the ground and rolled back to his feet without missing a beat. Behind him, he heard alarms starting to sound throughout the base.
"And I think that's my cue to rendezvous with the team," he said. He tucked the Shine box under his arm and took off through the trees at high speed.