Civilian Woes

Posted on Sun Jan 8th, 2023 @ 2:49am by Kyarah Moreau & Spencer Gustaffson

2,953 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: The Invasion
Location: Angelus, Australia
Timeline: November 16th 2050, 1145 Hours

Spencer had barely gotten out with Silver and Bravo team and hadn't been able to make any kind of meaningful contact with his squad. The Kaldore had come in full force, with enough firepower and military might to almost flatten the forces of the GPF. He'd barely heard anything out of the radio except for reports of other teams being overrun, of commanders being killed or taken prisoner, or bases leveled. What scared him most was a single, frantic report he'd heard, a random soldier - probably a cadet like himself - saying, 'we need the Power Rangers to save the world!'. Hearing that and feeling so powerless after what the Phoenix Ranger had done in that fight, Spencer almost wanted to respond that the Rangers weren't up to the task. But he stopped himself - it would expose their position, and besides, he was here with only a new Ranger clad in Silver. The rest of the team was out there somewhere, and they had to be fighting.

Tuning to the global OEM shortwave frequency, the reports were no better. Civilian locations were being bombed, set on fire, people were being rounded up and taken prisoner, or worse. This was no time to sit around and mope. This was no time for feeling sorry for himself. He looked around for Kyarah, the Silver Ranger, and didn't see her. He didn't bother with demorphing, he just walked up to one of the abandoned panel vans they'd commandeered on the way here, opened the door, and sat down. The nearest town was less than a kilometer away; he'd make it there in no time. If they had escaped notice, good, he could just turn around. But if the Kaldore were there, he could get a fight in against their goons, and save some people.

The town was in bad shape when he got there - flames emerging from most of the large buildings, people running scared, and the Kaldore marching in a solid line, kidnapping, or killing as their insane alien minds saw fit. Well, not today. These people would be survivors, not victims. Spencer leapt from the van, not caring in that instant whether the Kaldore saw that a Ranger emerged from a GPF vehicle - they'd already encountered each other in a base once; and the vehicle that brought them back from Mirinoi was also a GPF shuttle. Heck, if they had any quislings within Earth's army, they could have pulled the crew complement from the shuttle and known.

But that was a thought for later. The Blue Ranger leapt forward toward the column of enemies, firing from the blaster on his wrist that also enabled his morphing powers. There was a savagery to his actions as he landed on top of a foe, blasting the alien in the face. Soon, the power weapons came out, and he started carving up enemies. But over time, it was obvious, they had more invaders than he had techniques. The first strike came in on his side, a kick that nearly doubled him. The next was a shot in the side of his helmet delivered by one of the aliens' multipurpose weapons, being used like a club. Still, as the civilians tried to get away, seeing the Power Ranger as less of a rescuer and more of a distraction, it was obvious that he was getting dogpiled and beaten down. The automatic SOS in his suit went off, signaling for a nearby Ranger to come to his aid.

At some point, a cluster of luminescent arrows crashed into a facing of the scrum. Multiple drones on its perimeter went down in a shower of pyrotechnics, their armor breached. Some of the survivors turned toward the attack, only to join their colleagues in incapacitation when another archery barrage ripped in from a slightly different vector. The Kaldores' confidence in their numbers compelled them to throw several squads at the mysterious raid, and they tried to match its range with the blasters on their multi-weapons. But the destruction they'd wrought upon the town was now their undoing in that there was too much smoke and ruin to see where the attack was coming from, even with their targeting optics. Consequently, their shooting was blind and failed to deter more arrows from raining down and further thinning their numbers.

When the new combatant entered the fray, that gave Spencer just enough of an opening to get his hand weapons back. The claws just weren't cutting it - no pun intended. It was time to switch up. How the Blue Ranger knew to modify his Solar Weapon in such a short time, he was uncertain - and just assumed it was some Power Ranger weirdness. But, he turned the thing over in his hand and extended the second handle, turning it until the thin blade emerged, leaving him with a weapon he knew well, a rapier. With that, he drove stabbing strikes into the enemies that were still focused on him as he rose up, flicking his wrist and turning the handle back closed, retracting the blade. In a moment, the weapon had transformed from a rapier into a spear, which he used to gain distance. Now it was the Kaldore who were in trouble - facing two Power Rangers whose every intent was to destroy them, and save the Earth!

The Silver Ranger had changed her Solar Weapon from crossbow to rapier configuration during her charge from the opposite direction, which she used to impale a drone that'd turned toward the sounds of the Blue Ranger's recovery. A bolt from her Solar Morpher ended another's confrontation of her ambush before it even began. The shot smashed into its helmet to ruinous effect, which would've shored up Kyarah's estimation that their armor was merely flak protection if she hadn't immediately gone on the move again, satisfied with having seen its silhouette fall. Her impaled target's collapse afforded more targets, which she put gauntlet shots into regardless of whether they were facing her. The Kaldore's repeated willingness to endanger civilians dashed any reservation she might've had about indiscriminately mowing down their soldiers. In fact, her relentlessness' resolve lay with the belief that it was the only language they'd understand.

With spear in hand, the Blue Ranger was using his Solar Weapon to create space. Against a single Ranger, no matter how resourceful, the forces of Kaldor would probably win. Against two, together? They had no hope at all. When Kyarah came up beside him, Spencer drove his spear through the chest of another invader. "Thanks for the save. Guess I owe you one, huh?"

"More than one!" snipped Kyarah, shooting a charging drone. "You sounded like you had a brain in your head when we first met! What the hell came over you?!"

Spencer pointed quickly at the civilians, some of whom had picked up the dropped Kaldore weapons. "I do have a brain - unfortunately, I've also got a heart. And hearing the shit coming through the OEM band, I decided - I'll stand the General Court later if I have to. I'll get whatever lawyer I can. But I'd rather stand trial for fighting to defend the Earth, rather than sitting on my butt moping. The others are out there somewhere - and so is that fake Red. I've got a score to settle with him. If we're going to save this world, we need to start somewhere. Here's as good as any."

He swung the spear at an approaching enemy, sparks flying as the weapon made contact with the alien's neck, throwing it to the ground.

"We're taking back the Earth. Then we're finding our teammates."

Kyarah agreed with her fellow Ranger's sentiments. It was his execution she took issue with, his charge into enemy lines with no warning other than his suit's automated distress signal. She'd take some of the blame for that; with command in disarray, she'd stepped away to explore other command and control avenues to which she was privy. But the Kaldore had smashed any under the GPF's aegis, and despite covertly supporting reviving the Power Rangers, Doctor Haru and his family were still recuperating from the raid of their restaurant and lair, the recollection of which spurred her initial retort.

"You're not the only one who wants a plate out of fake Red's hide," she said with belying conviction, her curiosity with Spencer's reference curbed by her focus on downing another drone with her gauntlet. Yet before she could clarify, she was hit dead center by blasts from another that'd followed it in. The concussive force disrupted her balance, but rather than resist, she tumbled back into a lunge. Thinking that it'd secured a takedown, that drone instead became Kyarah's second impalement of the fight.

"A and B conversation here!" she barked at the fading foot soldier. "C your way out, D!" she added, blasting it off her rapier with her Solar Morpher. Other drones tried to overrun the Rangers' stand through her, only to find she'd channeled her frustration into a fantastic display of combined arms, close quarters fighting that saw them either deflected or down. She'd built up the foundation for it over the course of her training and had wielded it, but not to so frequently for it to come to her so easily. . .

Changing his weapon again, Spencer turned it from a spear into a rather nasty-looking knife, not dissimilar to a Bowie. It was made for close quarters fighting, and for butchering. As Kyarah handled one lane of attack, the blue ranger spun to fight back-to-back (metaphorically) with her, slicing his way through the enemies. Now that it was two of them, together, they had a lot more strength than either one alone.

"I know I'm not the only one. I'm just glad that we were able to get your team out safely. Mine only got out because they were allowed; Red made the right call to cut me loose. But that was our second straight loss. And as far as I'm concerned, losing isn't an option in round three. I'm not going to let people get hurt again."

With a sharp kiai, Spencer drove the knife blade of his Solar Weapon into the neck of an oncoming opponent, throwing the corpse at its former allies. The alien thugs seemed just fine perforating the dead body in order to get shots through near the two Rangers. Spencer decided to take a different route, switching to his morpher-blaster, and started shooting. Kyarah would notice something - he was only firing head shots now, hoping to stem the tide through intimidation.

"We don't have a choice!" Kyarah returned during the relentless melee, her rapier whipping purposefully through the air as she continued holding her ground. "The Kaldore have every advantage right now! A gallant stand may make an impression, but you had it right back at base: we need to organize if we want to stop them! I don't want anyone else getting hurt either, but we don't have the manpower to put out every fire the Kaldore start! And telling yourself otherwise is playing right into their hands! "

Spencer growled - she was right, of course, and using his own logic to point it out. But he couldn't just sit around and do nothing, either. He kept up a steady barrage of fire with his morph blaster, watching the enemies as they approached, and taking them out with precise headshots. "You're right. We can't stop them on every battlefield. But we have to draw the line somewhere! No one will join us just because we're Rangers, or just because we're GPF - why should they? Part of organizing is drawing this line. Saying that the battle starts here - this far, no farther! That we're Power Rangers, and we're not running anymore!"

The power that coursed through him in this suit gave him confidence. It made him more aggressive and let out a beast inside him. He could accept falling back when he was out of this armor, but once he transformed, it was like all his suppressed feelings came out and he couldn't help himself but to attack. It might lead them into trouble, if Kyarah couldn't either get a handle on Spencer - or get him to get hold of himself.

Retreating without him had crossed Kyarah's mind. This interaction exemplified why she'd leaned into her reassignment to the scout corps early in her training: she hated leading others, specifically having to mind their egos even when they were wrong. That's not to say Spencer's stubbornness was completely off-base. Someone did need to demonstrate that resistance wasn't futile, that those who'd take up arms against the Kaldore had something other than a valiant death to look forward to. The problem was that the camaraderie he looked to stir would only go so far. They had nothing else to offer anyone willing to help. Even if Spencer and she managed to completely quash this raid, the euphoria would quickly wither under their inability to provide materiel or information. If nothing else, she really wished they'd talked about addressing those before he'd charged in to play hero. They didn't need a concrete plan, just awareness of the logistics necessary to raise a viable cause from this.

There was little point lamenting it now, however. As much as his doubling down irritated her, the stakes were too high to divide their efforts with power games. She'd stay so long as they were able to hold their ground, if only to get him out of harm's way.

Her weapon unexpectedly changed form in time with her resigned groan. The long, rigid blade lengthened and elasticized, changing its handling. Kyarah had never used a whip before; neither her life nor training had called for it. But she subconsciously adapted and was subsequently left with a weapon that was elusive yet devastating to the drones in her lane despite its peculiar wielding. She bound a charging combatant by its wrist and slung it around, using it as an impromptu flail with which to bludgeon down its colleagues by the column.

"Heads up!" she called to Spencer, lobbing it his way.

As soon as the enemy was flung toward Spencer, his own weapon started morphing in his hand. He'd used the claws before certainly, but there was something different about them now. The two prongs of the Solar Weapon were glowing and seemed to have grown longer, and he swung downward at the flying enemy, driving the claw weapon through the enemy's chest, and following through all the way to the ground, which quaked in a way that wasn't unlike what the Phoenix Ranger had done. Yet instead of breaking the land with the power from his finishing strike, the Earth rose up. The 'wall' was only ankle-high, but it created a line that divided the Rangers along with the few survivors who'd joined them in the fight instead of fleeing, and the Kaldore forces. Without a leader to direct them, the goons looked at the two Rangers who had unlocked their finishing techniques and started to make an organized retreat - which quickly turned into them running in the other direction.

Rather than move forward, Spencer simply stood. He looked at Kyarah, and then at the people. He wanted to charge forward. He wanted to go fight more, on his own. He wanted to show off how strong he was and get back at that fake red bastard. But when he started looking at the faces of the people they'd saved, the hope they showed when they looked at the Power Rangers, he actually felt a strange pang of shame. He wasn't fighting to be praised, he wasn't fighting to be looked up to. He was fighting to prove to himself that he could. Every day he'd trained, every new weapon he'd learned, it had always been about improving himself, and for no one else.

He couldn't be that selfish anymore. "People will learn about this day. This is the day we started to fight back." He glared after the Kaldore in their retreat, but looked back at Kyarah, taking a deep breath, and holstering his weapon. Then he did something he'd never done yet. He reached up and unclasped the helmet, taking it off. As soon as he did, Kyarah would probably see the change that came over his body language - when he was in the suit, in the helmet, he was invincible and almost acted like a wild animal. With it off, he was a Cadet with experience in fighting and emergency services. His eyes went from scanning and following their enemies to focused on her - and on the road ahead. "Go call the base, get a medic and a couple more trucks here. Everyone here is moving into our barracks. Training for the rebellion starts tomorrow. I'll coordinate people here while you do that. And also, thank you. I'd have gotten my ass kicked again if you hadn't saved me. And I don't like losing three-for-three."

Kyarah's temper started to boil at Spencer's assumption of authority, only to temper at the recollection that she hadn't disclosed her identity to him or the civilians. Nor would she. She understood his reasons; part of her recognized his affirmation that his wits hadn't been overrun by the power bestowed upon them. But as a commissioned GPF officer, she had more ramifications to consider. She only saw negatives in accelerating their manifestation right now.

The Silver Ranger directed a stern gaze to Spencer despite her helmet's obfuscation. "No more fights until I get back."

 

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