The Investigation

Posted on Mon Jan 20th, 2025 @ 3:47pm by Damien McGinnis & Kilena Keithron & Spencer Gustaffson & Ellie Evans & Stephanie (Stephi) Hill & Valdana 'Dan' Raadax & Fraser Rehami

1,503 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: The Secret of Corvus
Location: Conference Hall

Kilena glanced around the room, her eyes taking in every detail. The once lively gathering had devolved into a scene of shock, a room full of dignitaries and officials now stood around trying to under the shock of the death of the Mirinoi Ambassador. No one had seen anything unusual at first. It had been just another diplomatic event—until the Ambassador lay dead, killed by his own daughter’s hand.

But that wasn’t the strangest part. In the chaos, a moment of sheer impossibility had occurred: the daughter had collided with herself. Two versions of her—one causing the fatal blow, the other bewildered—had appeared in the same space for an instant. The momentary confusion had allowed the true culprit, a space-shifter, to vanish into the crowd undetected. "So we need to check everyone’s ID against the guest list," she ordered watching Damien over the other side of the room back and forth with Maddison and The GPF director.

Spencer saw Kilena taking the lead toward the center of the crowd. He'd been so focused on the man named Markus that he didn't see the fatal shot. Something had told him that man bore watching; something inside him that he couldn't quite shake as a feeling. But he led Stephi toward Kilena, then started looking around. "Too many entrances, too many exits. This place is a blasted honeycomb. I'll go check the back doors and see if any were tampered or used recently, call me if you need."

With that, Spencer loped off, looking toward the exits, trying to make sure the killer didn't escape.

"Well, there goes our plan of making sure everyone is in pairs." Damien rolled his eyes as he and Maddison walked over to join the team "We're dealing with a shapeshifter. We can't trust anyone if we've lost sight of them. Staying in pairs works."

"I told you your plan was a bad idea." Maddison said "We'll use a code phrase to identify. If you meet up with someone, before divulging any information, one person is to say 'She generally gave herself very good advice' while the other is to respond 'though she very seldom followed.'"

"Alice in Wonderland." Damien noted "Right, here's the plan. Kilena, you're to interview witnesses. Stephi, I want you going over the security footage. Ellie, you and I will go into the crowd, see if we can find anyone. Anyone object to the plan?"

"What else do we know about this assassin?" Ellie asked, joining Damien's side. "Who they're after, what limitations they have when it comes to stealing faces?"

Kilena looked around confused that they were splitting up with shapeshifters around. She looked at Maddison. "You can come with me then. No one should be going alone."

"Very well." Maddison nodded, gesturing to the left corner of the room "We're needed in this direction. I suppose it makes more sense than McGinnis' Alice in Wonderland idea..."

"I agree. best not to go by ourselves. I'll check the footage to see what we can see, Who wants to come with me?" Stephi asked.

As Spencer strode away, he realized something. He knew who was a Ranger and who wasn't, but outside of Kilena (or a lucky break from Damien), the others might not be able to identify a duplicate of him. He turned around and walked back. As he turned back, he heard the radio chatter and realized he was acting like he did when he was morphed again, and he needed to be more cautious and responsible. Because he'd gone out of sight briefly, he pulled the Solar Crystal out of his pocket, showing them, and then hiding it again. That crystal was more valuable than any code phrase or ID card. "Thought better of running off. We do need to cover exits, though. Especially ones that 'most' people wouldn't think of."

"Agreed." Damien said "If we-"

Before he could finish the sentence, the lights suddenly cut out. After a second, sickly yellow emergency lights came on. Around the room, people were scrambling, making for the exits.

"Rule one if you want to make a covert exit. Cause a massive panic. Murder followed by power cut will do it." Damien said "We need to see the CCTV, but no way will a bunch of cadets get in there. Kilena, think hubby would use his pull to get us into the secure area of the surveillance room? Pretty sure our detective friend wouldn't break that rule, and I'd rather not break out the spandex just yet."

When the lights went out, Spencer hurriedly reached into his overalls, getting out a work light he'd stuffed into a pocket. He was about to turn it on as the emergency lights came on. He listened to Damien's comments and nodded, thinking. "It isn't spandex, but you're right. Our cover IDs wouldn't get us there." After a moment, he thought. "Could the ship and Melody pull that information without drawing suspicion?"

"The issue there is using unlawful means to acquire that evidence." Damien noted "Fruit from the poison tree being tainted and all that. Hacking in is probably not the best play."

Kilena smiled. “I think my husband would be able to arrange that.” Kilena assured as she moved away from the group to where Fraser was.

“She looks happy with him.” Valdana declared as she joined the group frustrated by not being able to do much and looking out of place with her covered body. She hated how her abilities were so out of control at the moment and she did not want to poison someone by accident.

"Good. She deserves it." Damien said, not missing a beat as he continued "Once we've got the footage we need, we need to figure out who exactly we're looking for. For the time being, we don't even know this is the Imperium or some rogue actors, but we need to be sure to cover all our bases."

Spencer nodded. "She does. I hope she doesn't have the... issues some of of us have been having." He looked over Val's covered body; and even though they hadn't known each other long, his empathy went out to her. He turned back to Damien. "I'll be honest here, boss. I'm not particularly concerned about us showing our evidence in a court. We need to know who did this, and how. We can figure out the laws later." His voice dropped to a quiet, conspiratorial tone as he looked between the Red & Orange Rangers. "We can fill in blanks later. Tell them to subpoena the tape, I don't care. Just tell me who I need to punch."

"We're not punching anyone, not yet." Damien replied "We need to do this by the book, man. Otherwise, we're risking taking the bait that's laid out and risking escalation in all the wrong ways. We need to do the police part of our jobs first here, and then do the super hero bit."

"We do things properly or we do not do them," Valadana said surprised at the punch mentality suddenly. She had not expected that.

"Alright! Then let's do that Let's subpoena the tapes. Then we review them and see what there is to see! Meanwhile, perhaps we should take a look at the crime scene and see what we can find there." Stephi said. She took note that Kileena mention a husband? apparently, Frasier was the husband in question. Interesting. She never heard of a ranger being married. at least not an active ranger. Interesting!

Kilena turned and raised an eyebrow at the fact everyone seemed to be watching. "They are still trying to adjust to things hmm?" Fraser asked as he noticed the gaze on them after she had asked him to arrange the footage.

"Oh yes." The pink ranger said leaning up to kiss his cheek. "Thank you for your help." She said as she turned to leave to get back to the team. Fraser leaned out and touched her arm stopping her from moving away so quickly despite the need for speed. He could take a minute when it was likely she was not going to be coming home much until it was all sorted out.

"I did it for you not them." He said knowing he could not reveal her identity out there but the sentiment was the same - he did it for his wife, not the Power Ranger.

"I know," Kilena assured quickly touching his hand. "I love you." She added making him smile and say it back as she disappeared into the ground. "It's on its way. An hour or so."

"Okay, so we just need to stop a shape-shifting assassin from killing anyone else for an hour while we don't know what they look like." Damien noted sardonically, turning and beginning to walk away, tossing back "No challenges there. I'm going to go and catch up with the inspector. See if he can grease the wheels."

 

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