The Sins of the Father Part One

In the dead of night, a figure dressed in yellow ninja robes stood atop the city's most dilapidated public housing complex, staring downward, preying on his first victim. He had a plan to get back at a particular person. Granted, that person was dead. However, the child of the person who wronged him was still alive, and the teen could not wait to expose the girl to the true nature of her father.

The ninja noticed a young delinquent—possibly as young as ten—was engaging in his mischievous antics by painting graffiti on the back of a nearby gas station, while the rest of the city slept through the night.

The boy kept spraying profanity all over the wall while attempting to avoid getting any white paint on his black sweater. If he was going to be apprehended, he didn't have to implicate himself. At the end of the alley, he noticed a shadowy person standing off to the side, and he scoffed to himself.

With scorn, he spat on the floor. "Who are you?" He made a demand.

The light tan boy uttered a menacing threat. "I am warning you..."

But then, the figure moved like lightning in an instant, sealing the boy's mouth shut so that not even a whimper could get out.

"You're tough," the considerably taller, older person remarked. The child was so terrified that he was unable to look up.

"Never fear. It's all going to end shortly," the yellow individual stated.

Maya was in a field, running, trying to find a particular someone. She looked down and realized she had lost some of her height. She was now as tall as a 6-year-old. Her pigtails were shorter, and her voice sounded more high-pitched when she mumbled.

Just then, she spotted a familiar Hispanic man in a military uniform. He was strong, like Superman. His hair was slicked back, and his smile made the entire scene brighter.

She beamed as she screamed with joy. "Daddy!" She dashed over toward him but frowned as she noticed her dad hardly getting any closer. She tried running faster until she was barely 10 feet from him, that's when the sun's rays started to go away. The sky suddenly turned dark and stormy. Maya halted and looked around, frightened by the change.

"Daddy?" She whimpered, her lip trembling. She looked over and saw her father turning his back on her as he walked away. Maya tried to run after him but tripped, falling to the ground. She lifted her head as she gasped in pain. She reached out to her father and sobbed. "Daddy!"

Maya shot up from her sleep, panting heavily. She looked around and realized she was in her room. She dug her fingers through her frizzled-out hair as she realized the terrifying episode she had just leaped out of was just a nightmare. She was confused as to where that nightmare came from. She was still grieving over the loss of her father, despite it being years since he had passed away, but what was triggering these awful dreams?

Could it be something or someone?

She looked out her window and noticed the sun was rising. She sighed as she pushed her covers away before getting herself up to get ready for school.

"Dios mio, dame fuerzas," she whispered in Spanish as she exited her room and entered the bathroom.

After doing her business and walking out, she observed something strange. Her brother was descending the attic ladder while attempting to hold onto a certain box. Pablo was still in his pajamas, so his sister was even more confused as to why he was still up in the attic in the first place.

"Dude, what are you doing," she asked, looking crossly at her brother.

Pablo's feet landed on the floor, and he walked past his sister, motioning her to come into her room. Maya followed him and asked. "What's in the box?"

"I do not know," Pablo said, shaking his head. "I just went up the attic to grab whatever tools needed for my mechanics class, then I found this under Abuelo's old drawer."

Maya gave a head nod. She said, "It looks old and dusty." Pablo opened the package after blowing out some of the dust. The contents, which included antique photos of their parents from their wedding and some of their father as a teenager, astounded the two.

"Wow, Papi was handsome," Maya commented as she picked up a picture. She grinned, recalling her father, but then scowled bitterly. She missed her father, and the happy memories of him were always followed by the harsh reminder that he was gone.

Pablo said, "Hey, look, this looks like a wedding ring," picking up what seemed to be a diamond ring. "I wonder why Mama doesn't wear this around."

Maya tilted her head, looking confused. "I do not think Mama ever took her ring off. I always see her with it."

Pablo narrowed his eyebrows. "Yeah, you're right."

Before they could look any further, they could hear the faint noise of water running in the bathroom, indicating their mother had woken up. In a hurry, they stuffed all the photos and the ring back inside the box, and Maya pushed Pablo out of her room and ushered him to move quickly and return the box back up where he found it before they were caught.

The two then rushed to get ready, getting themselves dressed before saying a quick goodbye to their confused mother and rushing out of the house and into Maya's car.

Sensing what was about to happen, Uni had trained with a kendo stick in Karate Operation during the morning. Although the rangers had been making headway for the past few months, Uni knew he would soon have to intervene. He was aware that doing so would be counterproductive because he might have the key to permanently ending the conflict with the Humanitors. All he had to do was keep looking for the key, but to do so, he would have to permit Po—his odious adversary—to proceed with his evil scheme.

He was striking a foam dummy from various angles and grunting loudly. He was too preoccupied with his training to notice that his robe was beginning to fall apart. His daughter cried out when she saw her father going bonkers on the dummy after entering through a portal.

"What's up with you, Dad?!"

Uni stopped what he was doing and looked at his concerned daughter. He just breathed heavily as he tried to collect himself. His daughter had never seen this side of him. Ellie had always viewed her father as the most collected and thoughtful person in her life. She saw the look in her father's eyes. It was the look of frustration, combined with ambition. A poisonous rendition of ambition.

"I'm sorry, my darling," Uni apologized pathetically, pressing his forehead against the shoulder of the dummy.

Ellie just shook her head. "Anyway, I have some intel that I need to share with you."

Uni followed his daughter to her computer monitor, raising his head in the process. Ellie took a seat and looked up a sophisticated chart that seemed to depict the layers of the Earth, but sensors feeding the monitor indicated that the mantle and crust were more charged, giving off a light color.

"This was the Earth's mantle crust last week, now look..." She tapped the right-arrow key on the computer to bring up more recent readings. A tiny section of the outer core appeared to flare up even more, while the crust and mantle seemed to get even whiter. Uni saw that the rangers' town was directly in front of the compromised area of the outer core.

"What is the meaning of this?" Uni asked.

Ellie had a solemn expression. "It looks like Po had been using his monsters to create a linkage between our world and Kartae, but he realized he needed to burn both human and humanitorian energy to make the process work."

Uni understood, "The Twisted Ninjas?"

Ellie nodded her head. "This is bad," she said, looking petrified. "We have to let the rangers know before it is too late."

"We cannot allow them to refrain from fighting off Po," Uni protested. "This would go bad if they just stand aside and let Po take over."

"Do you not hear yourself, Dad?" Ellie almost screamed, slamming her hand on her desk. "This could cause an implosion of all mankind. Need I remind you that there is still one more ninja out there, and there is not much energy needed to burn before the border between Earth and Kartae is breached."

"I understand, however, there is an explanation. We must-" Uni was cut off as the HDR alarm went off. Ellie moaned as she returned her attention to her computer and used the digital map to find the location of the disturbance. After finding the precise location denoted by a red pinpoint. Once she managed to zoom in to get a clear picture of what was going on in that exact location, she gasped.

Uni turned to her and stepped to her side. "Honey, what's wrong?" He begged looked at the screen and gasped as well.

Ellie frantically connected cellularly to the rangers' communicators.

Maya tried her best to stay focused throughout the entire day. Being a straight-A student with a potential acceptance to the best university in the Midwest, she couldn't afford to slack off, especially since it was near the end of the quarter and there were many projects she needed to prepare for or risk hurting her GPA.

But what she and her brother found in the box couldn't escape her mind. She needed to figure out more. What was that wedding ring for? Was it for her mother? Did it belong to another man in her family?

At the end of the day, all the students hurried out of the building, hopping onto the busses or their bikes as they desperately tried to make it home for the weekend. Maya was glad her brother had baseball practice and that he had a ride home afterward because now she could just hide in her room and relax her brain.

"Hey Maya, wait up," Max called out. He and DJ rushed over as Maya was just about to get into her car. Maya rolled her eyes.

"You okay," Max asked.

"I'm fine," Maya replied plainly. "I just feel exhausted.

"You've been like this all day," DJ remarked.

"Look, it's been a long week, okay?" Maya snapped. "I don't need-"

Just then, their communicators pinged. Maya let out a loud groan as she answered the radio on her wrist.

"Yes, Ellie?"

"Guys, get to the parking lot of the West Side Church! It's bad! And I mean very bad!"

The three rangers looked at each other anxiously before Maya hopped into her car and drove off, closely after Bonnie's car, which she assumed had gotten the same information from Ellie as Donnie. Max and DJ hopped into the old red police cruiser that Max's father gifted him for the boy's seventeenth birthday.

The teenagers had changed as they parked their automobiles a safe distance away from the church, got out, and hurried to the parking lot scene. The parking lot light poles and the surrounding area were taped off with police tape. Numerous police officers and investigators were observing the situation as police lights flickered on and off.

The officers who were engaged in conversation noticed the color-coded rangers and stepped off to the side, allowing them through. Max noticed a familiar-looking detective exchanging heated words with his father and grumbled under his breath.

Sheriff Bobby Cruz took notice of the rangers and scoffed at Detective James Parker, walking over toward the Red Ranger.

"What's going on here?"

Bobby took off his hat as he rubbed his forehead, and sighed heavily. "It's terrible, son." He said.

The Yellow Ranger scoffed as she walked closer to see what the ruckus was all about. "What could be worse than..." She then noticed the scene that was being investigated, and her breath was put to a halt. There was a corpse of a young boy that was hung up against the pole like an action figure, wearing military clothing that was strikingly similar to what her father would wear in public when Maya was young. The victim's eyes had red streaks with zero indication of life.

The other rangers took notice of the corpse and felt their stomachs turn.

"I think I am going to be sick," Donnie muttered, trying to keep his lunch inside his stomach.

Max took a step closer toward the Yellow Ranger and mumbled cautiously. "Maya..."

But she was silent, just staring at the poor victim with shock and grief.

Maya unclipped her helmet and lifted it just over her mouth. Everything she ate that day was hurled to the concrete floor.

To be continued...