PART V
By:
QUINTIN J. SCOTT
As the teleport beam dissipated, the Rangers were standing at the
intersection of
Everywhere they looked, fire and debris rained upon the
populace. The stench of blood mingled
with the smoke, making for a murky fog.
The Delta Ranger gagged in her helmet.
“Filters
up, everyone,” the Alpha Ranger
commanded. The filtration units snapped
into place over their breathports, giving them the
necessary filtered air. The stench was
less noticeable now.
“What’s
first, boss man?” The Gamma Ranger asked.
“The safety
of the citizens is primary,” the Alpha
Ranger nodded. “Billy, you and Sabrina get to the top of
"Rangers," came Sean's voice in their
helmets. The transmission was full of
static.
"Go
ahead, Sean," Jason said.
"The
Defenders are *KSSH*-patching rescue
vans *KSSH* your areas. I have ordered them to coordinate with *KSSH* in *KSSH* evacuation."
"Good
thinking, Sean. We're on our way!" Jason looked at them
all. "Be careful out there."
"Always!"
Ashley said, running towards a group of people. Maya was right behind her.
"Right!" Bill nodded and held up his Battle
Bracer. "Z.O.R.D.-1, teleport Sabrina
and myself to the top of the
The teleport beam encased them, fizzled for a moment and
then took them away.
There was a sensor over the visor of the Alpha Ranger, the
red beam going back and forth. “Receiving
telemetry from Z.O.R.D.-1.”
On the inside of his helmet, a three-dimensional wireframe of the street and surrounding buildings popped
up. Four dots, indicative with their
Greek designations for beta, delta, gamma and epsilon, moved away from his
stationary alpha dot. On the next street
over, behind the
“Got him!” Alpha Ranger announced as he fed the
coordinates into the others’ helmets.
"Meet me when you
can!" He
took off running, every muscle in his body pumped for this moment.
“Hold it
right there, ugly!” The Alpha Ranger commanded,
pointing at the monster. “Leave the people of
The creature turned around.
Jason took a half-step back, gasping in a mixture of surprise and
disgust. It stood about eight feet tall,
a huge gelatinous pulsating mass of, what appeared to be, human skin. It had no discernable face, save for a gaping
hole full of sharp teeth. There were
human heads - multiple faces - screaming from various portions of its
body. Some were locked into horrid
screams that made no sounds.
Truly, this was a beast, a hideous monstrosity borne of the
humans it had absorbed.
"Wh-What are you?" Jason asked, disgusted beyond words.
"Groosum," the monster answered.
"You're
going down, Groosum!" The Alpha Ranger
exclaimed. He reached over to his
gauntlet, pulling off the silver and red cylinder. "Laserblade!" Thumbing the hidden control, the Alpha Ranger
activated his weapon. A meter shaft of
energy leapt into view. Jason rushed
towards the monster.
A bolt of purple energy exploded from his left, knocking
him away from his charge. He looked up
to see the black armor clad individual chuckle at him.
"Well, well, well..." Vhund laughed. "What do we have
here? A Power Ranger?"
"You'll
pay for that!" Jason promised.
"On a thousand different
worlds, in a thousand different universes, people like you have said the same
thing," Vhund
chuckled. "And,
a thousand upon thousand times, I have silenced them
all! They scream the name of Vhund and, as I have done a thousand times before, I will
make you scream my name! I will
make you beg for mercy!"
"Don't
sing it," Jason said, holding out his
hand and making the 'come hither' motion.
"JUST BRING IT!"
Vhund immediately lost his
amusement, roared and lunged for the Alpha Ranger.
The teleport beams deposited the Beta and Epsilon Rangers
on the roof. Iaxious
spun around, quickly, hissing in anger.
"Who are you?!" He demanded.
"We're
here to shut you down!" Bill said, emphasizing
with a pointed finger. "Stop what you're doing!"
"NEVER!"
Iaxious hissed and leapt into the air, reaching into
the folds of his robes again. Sabrina's
quick eyes caught the almost imperceptible movements and cocked her left arm
up.
"FIRE!" Sabrina shouted,
the command for her turbolaser unit (hidden beneath
her green shoulderpad) to open up. The bright green (and highly charged) laser
blast cut into Iaxious' plans, exploding the sphere
in his hand. The snake creature hissed
in horrible anger as he was bathed in a venomous mist. It wouldn't hurt him since it was his own,
but the searing pain from the laser blast had nearly taken his hand right off.
As he landed, he saw the blue one cocking his arm in the
same manner and aimed directly at him.
With lightning reaction, he ducked out of the way and prepped to leap on
the insolent ones. That plan was nixed
as Prima's scream stopped him.
The turbolaser blast had slammed
into Prima's back and, with her concentration broken,
the storm clouds stopped their gathering.
The sorceress spun on her heel, aiming her staff at them both.
"You
miserable pukes!" She screamed. "I'll kill you
myself!”
The energy from the staff almost cut them in half if they
hadn't leap out of the way. Sabrina landed first and rushed Iaxious. She thrust
out her hand, catching him in the solar plexus.
However, she couldn't remove her hand.
The fabric of his robes snared her wrist. The snake hissed and snapped at her
neck. Fangs tried to rip through her
armor, but the space-age polymers kept that from happening. Iaxious realized it
and just sought to snap her neck.
Sabrina suppressed a scream, twisted her arm slightly and
fired a low-powered pulse into Iaxious. Catching him under the chin, the snake-man
had no choice but to release her. Sabrina
spun on her heel and fired again, but Iaxious shifted
around the beam, lifting himself up and tossing several globes at her. When they exploded, tens of thousands of
volts rushed into her. It was like being
hit with several taser units at one time.
The Epsilon Ranger fell to the ground. Iaxious hissed and
slithered over to her. "Normally,
I would conssssume my prey, but I would be content
with your death!" He opened his mouth to deliver a final
neck-snapping blow.
"You
first," Sabrina said.
Iaxious's eyes grew wide and
Sabrina smiled behind the mask of the Epsilon Ranger. Both shoulders were aimed at the snake-man
and he received both barrels, as it were.
Iaxious screamed. As he fell back, he activated his teleporter unit and left the battle scene.
Bill kicked the staff away from her, deflecting a blast of Neverwherian energy away from him. Prima spun around, slamming it in to his
stomach, spinning it up and down across his back. Bill dropped to his knees. As Prima lifted her staff again, Bill swept
with his leg. She was faster than he
anticipated and she blocked it. He spun
around to deliver another one, but she countered him there, too.
“Pathetic!” Prima offered.
The Beta Ranger flipped back and stood up. “What’s pathetic is your ego.
You actually think you can take on both of us!” And he pointed over her
shoulder.
Prima smiled. “Come
now, Ranger. You don’t expect me to
fall…”
“Actually,” Sabrina said from behind her, “that’s exactly what we expect to happen.”
Prima spun around only to be caught with a full blast from
Sabrina’s turbolasers. It lifted her straight off the ground. She could feel the heated sting of another
pair of turbolasers on her back.
“I don’t
lie,” the Beta Ranger announced.
She slammed into the roof, rolled to her side and struggled
to get up. Growling, Prima pointed at
the Epsilon Ranger. “I’ll
remember this, ‘Green One.’ I’ll make
you pay, mark my words!” With that, she activated her teleport unit
and disappeared.
Sabrina said, “I’m the Epsilon Ranger…and I’ll be waiting.”
Bill looked up at the sky and pressed a hidden stud on the
side of his helmet, a sensor slid over his visor.
“Well?” Sabrina asked.
“Analysis
of the storm indicates that a concentrated burst of energy from our turbolasers should disrupt the storm’s remaining cohesion,” Bill reasoned.
Sabrina nodded and cocked her arm in the ready
position. The turbolaser
firing node slid into position. Bill did
the same.
“FIRE!”
The turbolasers fired into the
atmosphere, aimed at the largest of the storm clouds. Megajoules passed
into the clouds, breaking the cohesive bonds of the Neverwherian
pseudo-science-cum-magic. Several
moments passed and, finally, the clouds started to dissipate.
“We’re
done here,” Bill said. “Let’s get to Jason.”
The Darklings swarmed around the
two Ranger females: Maya and Ashley. They
stood back to back, slowly circling as they took a best estimate guess as to
how badly outnumbered they were.
For a moment, they
all just stared at one another. The Darklings bobbed their dark heads back and forth before
beating their chests, roaring and running at the Rangers.
Maya leapt into the air, removing her laserblade. The shaft of white light came down hard
across several Darklings. She kicked another one in the chest before
bringing the laserblade up across more Darklings. The area
was showered in sparks. The Delta Ranger
ran two fingers up the outer edge of the laserblade,
forcing a high-charged chamber reaction in the laserblade’s
core. Spinning around, she tossed the
energy at a Darkling group, exploding with a loud boom.
Ashley was fairing quite admirably against her foes. Space training had made her quicker on Earth
than normal humans. She ducked all of
their blows, dodging and weaving amongst them before leaping over them and
kicking a few away. She punched, chopped
and kicked with precision, cutting them down in the span of ten seconds.
“FIRE!” Ashley shouted and her turbolaser
unit engaged. She spun in the air, pinwheeling with her active turbolasers
and taking out the remaining Darklings.
The Delta Ranger smiled. “That wasn’t so hard!”
“Not
this time,” the Gamma Ranger
replied. “I have a feeling it’s only going to get worse from now on.”
They looked up in time to see the clouds dissipate.
“Bill and
Sabrina must’ve been successful,”
Maya said. Her communicator came to
life.
“Are you guys okay?” Bill asked.
“Fine,” Ashley replied. “We’ve loaded up the civilians and taken out the
foot soldiers.”
“Jason
could use a little assistance,”
Sean broke in.
The Delta and Gamma Rangers nodded at each other. High atop
“We’re on our way!”
They said, collectively and activated their teleport.
-= BACK 2 ACTION
=-
PART I / PART II / PART III / PART IV / PART V / PART VI / EPILOGUE