Fighting Followup

Posted on Tue Apr 4th, 2023 @ 6:51pm by Spencer Gustaffson
Edited on on Wed Apr 5th, 2023 @ 9:53am

1,186 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: The Invasion
Location: GPF Resistance Base
Timeline: November 16th 2050, 1400 Hours

Spencer had spent the last few days helping get the people they'd rescued settled into barracks, or training both the civilians and the other GPF members in martial arts. It was calming and allowed him to pretend there was some kind of normalcy in the world. And yet, the fact that their defense of one city was unique nagged at him - this had been the only place liberated on Earth. Everyone looked to him and Kyarah now as the leaders, even people who nominally outranked them. Why? Because they were Rangers. Everyone respected the Power Rangers and saw them as the saviors who'd protected the world against threats like the Machine Empire.

If they were going to be assumed to be leaders, they needed to have a plan, or at least help the others form one that they could follow. His bold (and slightly stupid) assault wasn't the way they would win. If it hadn't been for the suit's SOS... he didn't want to think about that possibility. So about a week after that liberation, after his third training class of the day, Spencer walked over to Kyarah's office (near to his own, where he had the shortwave transceiver set up and receiving the OEM transmissions). He was still dressed in his gi, and had a glass of water in hand. He knocked on the door.

"Silver, you got a few minutes?"

Spencer addressing Kyarah her by her Ranger color was on account of her choice not to merge her identities. She preferred operating in the background, something everyone knowing that she was also a Power Ranger wouldn't permit. The contrast between her and Spencer's presentation evoked questions among the survivors initially, yet the day-to-day demands of building and maintaining a resistance gradually and thankfully assumed precedence in their minds.

"Sure," Kyarah replied. Seated behind a desk, her voice was vacant even through her helmet's modulation, and her gaze remained trained upon the computer screen as she made inputs.

Spencer almost wished he was frustrated at the Silver ranger's lack of attentiveness. Or, perhaps, her focus on whatever problems she was facing, without letting him in. They both did that - they were warriors, accustomed to being monolithic compared to everyone else around them. And now, with the fact that they were Power Rangers, well, it made it even more real - the problems they could face were worlds apart from the ones their allies could. He walked in and closed the door.

"First off, thanks for saving my butt the other day. You're right, it was stupid of me to go off without telling you."

What he said wasn't an apology. In fact, it wasn't even that he regretted what he'd done, only that he hadn't told her in advance. But the gratitude, at least, was genuine.

"We have to keep rolling, and we have to start striking back. The biggest way to do that is to get back to Angel Grove. I've heard a couple rumors over the radio - Kaldore hasn't breached the GPF base, and there's a residential neighborhood that hasn't been touched, for some weird reason. We need to get there, look into those things. I don't know if that wheel thing McGinnis found on Mirinoi is still at the Grove base; but if it is, it might help us. It was where my power crystal came from. Maybe there's something else in it. We've reached something like a stalemate here - whatever the Kaldore want right now, it's not with us. We can leave the others, and just go, the two of us."

He looked at her, and it was obvious that the choice was not 'both or neither', but rather that if she didn't agree, he would go alone.

And that utterly annoyed her. Kyarah wasn't all that socially savvy. Choosing to make her career in the scout corps was rooted in its inherent marginalization of people management compared to patrol. Nonetheless, she knew an empty placation when she saw one and casting one her way was surefire way to get on her nerves. She couldn't stand their underlying inauthenticity. It was one of the few things that able to reliably tinge her perspective with red. Yet she managed to exhume the bulk of her initial frustration through a derisive chuckle.

"Is there even a point in me saying anything?"

Spencer nodded at her question - they both liked dealing in real-world problems. The challenge was that for all his caution and worry, all his defensiveness, Gustaffson had joined up to protect people. Now that they were the only two people on Earth who could, it was all the more important that they did everything they were able to. He could tell from her chuckle that she was annoyed at him. She seemed to default to that when she was pushed out of her comfort zone; frankly he empathized - it was his reaction as well.

"'Anything' is a wide category. If what you'll say is, I'm either insane or stupid for wanting to travel around the globe on the off chance that an artifact we found on alien planet can help us; or that there might be some other reason that the neighborhood I'm aware of is being overlooked, I don't think that would have a point, no. This is our world. We're GPF, and we're Power Rangers. We can't just sit on our butts. If you have any idea how we can try to make it safer while doing those things, I would gladly accept your advice. If you're going to tell me how long it'll take you to pack a bag, so I can get one of the jets warmed up, that would absolutely have a point."

The Blue Ranger took a deep breath and smoothed his gi, glancing away before looking back at Kyarah. His voice was quieter than usual, and less confident. "I trust that whatever McGinnis and the others are doing, they're trying to help us. It sounds strange, but we trust each other to do the right thing, in the end. I was left behind with you, because of that trust. If you have some idea of how we can protect this world - hell, protect every civilized world - from occupation, devastation, or maybe worse... let me know. If you have a lead on what it is they want, why they're here, I want to know, so we can look into it."

He looked at her, and without thinking his hand wrapped around the blue solar crystal which he'd hidden in an inside pocket. "Too many people have been hurt because we were too few, or too weak. This last fight, that was the first real win we can claim. We need to keep that going. I don't know what the hell that thing was we found. I knew it had my crystal in it, and the green - and when it spun, they dropped out. I simply don't know if there's more in there. If there are, they might help us, and they definitely can't fall into enemy hands."

 

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