Breakfast

Posted on Tue Feb 7th, 2023 @ 9:17am by Damien McGinnis & Kilena Keithron & Ellie Evans

1,766 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: The Invasion
Location: Big Fancy House
Timeline: 0750hrs November 17th 2050

If there was generally one place Ellie could find her way around without getting too lost it was the kitchen. And cooking, for her, was just the morning therapy she needed. That she could operate around the snoring Damien was probably an even more impressive feat.

Bacon sizzled in the pan alongside some eggs, there were slices of browned toast set out alongside some sort of fruit juice, and an array of kitchenware arranged all around the sleeping young man. Most likely the first thing he would notice when he woke would be the smell. Noticing him starting to stir, she finally popped a dish filled with the prepared meats down next to him.

"Morning!" she declared brightly.

"What? I'm awake." He bolted upright, looking around before clocking the food "Is that for me?"

He didn't wait for an answer before reaching into the dish, grabbing a handful of bacon and shovelling it greedily into his mouth, barely chewing before swallowing and picking up his fork, grabbing a fried egg and making equally quick work of that.

Ellie blushed a little, seeing it as a compliment that her efforts hadn't gone unnoticed.

Once the food was done and served Kilena appeared wearing gym clothing. "Hello." She mused taking in everyone as she moved to get some cold water.

"Can't talk, eating best fry up of my life." Damien said, grabbing more bacon and wolfing it down, adding between chomps "And if you grew up on a farm like me, you'd understand that's saying something."

"Well, I did not grow up on a farm I as you like to remind me. I grew up here remember?" Kilena said softly facing out the window and looking over the garden. The conversation the previous night still rolled around her head.

"I'd invite you to come to see my farm but-" Damien began before stopping to think as he grabbed a sausage, biting the end off of it "Wait, no, that doesn't sound right..."

Kilena took a big intake of breath and tried to settle her thought despite the jumble of things. They needed to get practical and work out the next step. "Do you know how to use your Morpher properly Ellie?" She asked ignoring Damien.

"Not really..."

"Like this." Damien said, twisting the wrist that didn't have a wristband on, the red crystal in a metallic silver frame appearing in his hand, him stopping to look at it for a moment, noting the digital readout "Huh. I'd never noticed they're numbered. I got one. What about everyone else?"

Ellie mirrored his wrist-twist action and almost jumping as the morpher reacted to it. "Seven..." she said. "That means that between the three of you, plus me...there's more out there?" she wondered.

“I am eight.” Kilena sighed wondering if that was the command order now. Was she going to be shoved at the bottom of the chain of command?

"There were originally six crystals found. Three of them are accounted for in this room, one in our blue friend, one is orange while the two we have to assume were captured in the attack." Damien said as he finally started towelling down his hair, pausing for a moment "If we take into account the other red ranger, assuming he's one of the missing numbers between one and eight, that means there's at least two more out there. That settles it."

He stood up, tossing his towel down on the counter.

"We're going into training mode. We're getting everyone up to speed and then we're going back to Earth." He said "First, though, we need to find that eighth crystal. Pinky, your folks were part of the dig that found the crystals, right? Would there be any kind of records here on that? Maybe some of the mythology around them? I mean, old stuff like this always has mythology, right? Or did my Dad just make me watch too many old movies with a guy in a fedora digging up tombs as a kid?"

“Kilena. My name is Kilena. Please use it, Damien.” The pink Ranger suggested with a sigh. It had only been them, yet he was being so stubborn. “Let’s check his office.” She mused thinking it was a good space to start.

"Office...like a study thing with lots of old artifacts?" Ellie asked.

Kilena sighed softly and nodded rising from the chair leading the way to her father's office pushing open the door with a flourish standing back to allow them inside. It was somewhere she had not considered even going last night drunk and depressed as she was.

"Is this an office or a library?" Damien asked, looking at the large bookshelf at the back of the room "I could spend a week in here with no complaints. Is this all research-based or is Lord of the Rings on the shelf as well?"

“Do you really care or will you mock more?” Kilena wondered softly as she ran her hand along a shelf looking for some. She got it why she never brought friends home or even told them much about herself.

"No, I'm serious." Damien asked, moving over to look at the shelf "When I was growing up, I always asked Dad for a massive bookshelf like this, stocked to the nines. I read Lord of the Rings cover to cover by the time I was 11. Twice."

The pink ranger nodded trying not to let the surprise cross her features. "I read it when I was younger," Kilena said with a smile reaching up to toss an old faded copy of it.

"Thank you." The Red Ranger beamed for a moment before forcing his expression into a more serious one "So, what are we looking for? It's your house, and I could tell you what to search for in a lab but not here."

"I do not know to be honest. My parents were quite secretive about this room and the one beyond. I just assumed it was my parents not wanting to inspire me into anything heroic." Kilena said darkly. Fat load of good that it had done her.

"So no book called secrets of the solar Crystal, huh?" Damien asked, looking at some leather bound notebooks on the shelf "What year did they find them? Do you know? These are dated so at least we might find the right book."

"There is in an old journal. Something about zords and strange drawings. On the desk," Ellie motioned. She'd been watching them up to that point, not sure where to even begin.

"Zords? Like giant robots?" Damien's face lit up again "Anything else awesome in there? Like where to find them, what kind of weapons we've actually got access to?"

Kilena moved to the desk and sat down looking at the journal wrote in kerovian and Earth standard. She glanced over it before holding it out to the man. “Seems to be.”

"Cool." Damien said, moving over and trying to read over her shoulder before pausing "Do you mind translating? I only speak the one language. Two if you count pig Latin."

“It just describes a dig that they were in ten years ago and how they found something they were sure they were never meant to but that they protected and brought it back here.”

"The crystals." Damien noted "What else does it say?"
"No idea," Kilena said with a shrug.

Kilena raised an eyebrow at turning the page surprised as a drawing of the woman who had attacked them several times.

"Isn't that Psycho Se-" Damien began before catching himself, quickly correcting to "I mean crazy psycho woman who keeps kicking our butts? Usually with the other Red Ranger, though seriously, can we start calling him the Black Ranger? His suit's mostly black!"

“We can call him the rouge ranger.” Kilena soothed holding the book up to look at it better.

"It's going to be impossible to keep track of them all," Ellie sighed. "At least you know what being a Ranger is meant to be like. I have no idea."

“We need a list.” Kilena mused. “Do not worry. The power guides you.” She assured quickly. She did not want the woman getting unsure or losing track of herself. “We are not much better at things. We barely got off earth alive.”

"I'd like to say she's being modest and that we're awesome, but I have to agree." Damien nodded "We got our asses handed to us big time."

“Mostly by this one,” Kilena murmured pointing at the drawing as she sat at the desk trying to take it all in. She passed it back for everyone else to look at.

"Who's that?" Ellie asked. The black-detailed figure looked pretty scary, even just in the form of a drawing. She hadn't seen anything like it before. "Was she one of the ones invading Earth? Because I'm not sure I want to fight anything like that. I'm not sure I want to fight anything at all, to be honest."

Kilena nodded. She did not think the picture looked scary but she had seen scarier things it was all a matter of your point of few. She frowned as she looked at the writing around it and narrowed her eyes. She was going to have to do some research to check the meaning of the words. “I do not think we have much choice.”

"You do." Damien replied, looking her square in the eye "I'm going back there, and I suspect she'll be coming too. It's our home so we have to fight to save it. But your home is here. I can't speak for both of us, but I wouldn't think any less of you if you opted not to come along for the suicide mission."

Kilena raised an eyebrow and put the book down and looked at him. "You really think I am not going to come back with you?" She demanded.

"Not for a second." Damien said, pausing "But I'd be a failure if I didn't give you the choice."

“We are a team.” Kilena pointed out. “Some people might see different species or homeworlds but I do not.”

"All right then," Ellie piped-up, putting on as brave a face as she could muster. "I guess we're going home."

"Guess we are." Damien said "But first, we need to find something to even the odds. Kilena, that book mentioned Zords, right?"

"Yeah." Kilena sighed. She was going to regret being able to translate the book she just knew it.

"Well then." He grinned "Anyone up for some exploring?"

 

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