Searching the Forest

Posted on Wed Feb 15th, 2023 @ 5:04pm by Damien McGinnis & Kilena Keithron & Ellie Evans

1,744 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: The Invasion
Location: Forrest, KO-35
Timeline: 0900 Hours, November 17th 2050

Damien walked through the forest with Ellie and Kilena, keeping watch for anything out of the ordinary. They'd been searching for well over an hour and no sign of any Zords yet or anything that could point them in the direction of such.

"You sure you read that thing right?" He said as he looked to Kilena "Not reading the map upside down or something? I swear, there are a bazillion bugs in this Forrest."

Kilena nodded refusing to rise to the anger emotion that wanted to come out at the suggestion that she was reading things wrong. "They obviously like your human boy blood or you did not put on the insect repellent as I suggested." She murmured.

"It had lemon extract. I'm allergic." He noted, slapping another bug as it landed on his forearm before he tripped, tumbling and narrowly avoiding hitting his head on a large rock "Ouch..."

“Could have asked the syntheron for something without lemon extract,” Kilena commented as she moved and hauled the man to his feet watching with interest as the cut on his arm healed a little instantly.

"Oh yes, why didn't I think of that?" He asked sarcastically as he yanked his arm free, looking at the wound "What do you think, cool scar? Or that not your scene?"

“Cause you do not use the brain the goddess gave you.” The pink ranger buttered ignoring his other question about her scene. The last conversation on her taste had left a sour taste in her mouth.

"I use my brain. Just sometimes I do something before I think about it." He smirked before freezing, putting a finger to his lips "Hang on. You hear that?"

Kilena nodded and grabbed both of them down to the ground. "
"Eww, Barillian bugs… shit you two are not vaccinated against them" She muttered. She had thought they would be on the other side of the world this time of year but as usual with their luck, it was not happening.

"So, what, you get sick if they bite you?" Damien asked before two humanoid figures with insectoid appearances and stingers in place of their left hands entered the clearing "Wait, I thought you said these were bugs?"

"They are and they can convert you into them if they sting you," Kilena said taking a defensive post in front of her two comrades. Neither of them would be vaccinated for it having not been born on KO-35.

"Well, then, I guess it's that time again..." Damien said, twisting his left wrist as his morpher appeared, his crystal appearing in his right hand "Ready?"

Kilena frowned and glanced back as she twisted her wrist in the same measured way that seemed all too familiar now. It was interesting to do it now as she felt the cool crystal appear out of nowhere in her hand. One day she was to investigate it all. "Ready." She agreed quickly.

Ellie tried to mimic the gestures of the other two. She had half an eye on the creepy bug creatures, wondering it it was true that they would 'convert' her if she got bitten. It was enough to send a little shiver down her spine. "Ready...?" she agreed hesitantly.

"It's morphin time!" Damien called as he stood up, inserting his crystal and cocking it back before pulling the trigger "Red ranger power!"

“Pink ranger power.” Kilena sighed as she inserted the crystal and got a almost familiar rush of power flood over her. It was like she had done it her whole life now to her muscle memory and her body instantly responded to the flood of power and wanted to defend against the Barillian bugs.

"Green ranger power!" Ellie called out, mirroring the movements of the other two. Like the first drop of a rollercoaster, she felt the world around her flash and sparkle before the green light surrounded her and transformed her into Ranger form. Taking a moment to admire her outfit, she let out a little yelp of excitement. "This never gets old! Isn't it amazing?"

Kilena smiled under her helmet at the woman’s enthusiasm. She could not blame the young woman; she had felt similar in her first couple of morphs after she had finished with the what the fucking and freaking out after the leather cladded woman trying to kill them all. “It is. Shall we?” She indicated the bugs who seemed to be watching them for a moment surprised at what they were seeing.

"Wait until you see the toys." Damien said with a smirk inside his helmet as he extended his right arm, a red, blue, black and yellow sabre appearing in his hand with a flash of red energy "Solar weapon, sabre mode!"

Ellie watched in thrilled amazement as the other two Rangers leapt into the fray; Damien with his sabre and Kilena dashing across the clearing to join him. It was a two-vs-two fight with the insectoid creatures, and under normal circumstances they might have struggled, but empowered by the power of their Solar Force morphers the two of them ducked, weaved and spun acrobatically away from attacks.

Although not exactly a keen combatant herself, Ellie felt the surge of power from within. It was like instinct took over as she joined in the engagement. Rolling under an evasion from the Pink Ranger, she landed a kick to the Barillian bug's midsection and knocked it down to ground.

"All right! Think I'm getting the hang of this!" she declared, watching to see how the Red Ranger dispatched the second.

"Just need time for it to kick in." Kilena grinned under her helmet as her fellow female ranger got the hang of it. It was something that eventually came to any ranger like an innate ability to fight once they have access to the morphin grid. Kilena frowned to herself as she felt like fighting the Barillian bug had happened before. She knew she had not but it felt so familiar as she turned to the second to tackle it as it came forward.

"Just wait until you see the other tricks!" Damien said, pulling the crystal from his morpher and inserting it into the back of his sword's handle, cocking it as the blade began to pulsate with red energy "Batter up!"

Kilena watched with interest as the Barillian bugs disappeared into nothing from the red energy. They were not hard to work anymore, normal citizens could get rid of them due to being inoculated. "Power down." She whispered and appeared in a shower of pink sparks.

"Did you see how awesome that was?" Damien said as he demorphed "Now that is why I love the superhero gig."

"Are you both okay? No bites or anything?" The pink ranger asked.

"Nope, not going to be pulling a Jeff Goldblum any time soon." Damien replied, pausing "Dad made me watch a lot of old movies growing up. Pretty sure he had a crush on that guy. The one with the dinosaurs was cool though..."

Kilena just smiled faintly as she rubbed her eyes. She could not concentrate suddenly but they had no time to rest when they were on the quest to find the Zords. “That is good. No bites are good.” She nodded.

"What next?" Ellie asked quietly, coming down from the rush as she too powered down.

"Next we make a plan and work out where we're actually going." Damien said, pausing as he looked around "Which way's north again?"

"You're asking me? It's an alien planet..." she murmured.

As the red and green ranger spoke Kilena suddenly turned and started walking in the direction they had been heading in without a word to them.

"Hey, wait for us!" Damien called as he set after her, struggling to make up the lead she had on them in the terrain "Kilena, slow down!"

The woman did not answer or even acknowledge that she had been called as she climbed up over a tree as if she had climbed down the area thousands of times before.

"Kilena?" He called again "Listen, Pinky, I'm really having a hard time keeping up here..."

With her shorter legs, Ellie was having even more trouble keeping up. "Hey, wait up!"

Kilena did not stop or even turn to see if the pair was struggling or not which was not like her at all. She did not even look down at her arms as they were scratched from the terrain. She just carried on as if in a trance.

"Damn it. This has got to be abuse of power..." He grimaced as his crystal appeared in his hand, slamming it into his morpher and pulling back on it before pulling the trigger, leaping through the air and landing in front of her as his morph completed, placing his hands on her shoulders "Kilena, are you lis-"

For anyone who could not see Kilena would have been stunned that her eyes that were normally bright green were pure white. She pushed past the man and carried on the path that she was going on stopping finally in front of a cave.

"What's going on with you?" Damien asked as he caught up with her once more "And when did your eyes go all horror movie?"

Kilena looked up at the man morphed confused as she finally came back to herself stumbling into the cave wall. "I do not know. It was strange I was there I could hear and see you but I could not stop I just had to go with it. When we were fighting I kept feeling like it had all happened before like a big case of what you humans call Deja vu." Kilena said wincing as she took in her scratched.

"Well that doesn't sound weird at all..." Damien said before looking down at his suit "Actually, it's still only the second weirdest part of this conversation."

"What was the first?" Kilena said rubbing her eyes as she thought about it all and tried to focus on the there and then.

"That." Ellie, a little breathless, was pointing into the mouth of the cave. And the three strange glowing orbs that floated just inside the entrance. Red. Pink. Green. Three different colours. Three very significant colours, as it transpired.

"Definitely that." Damien noted, looking down at the crystal in his morpher that had started glowing "Ladies, I think we might just have found what we're looking for..."

 

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