Nicole drew on her transformation almost instinctually just as the first fshbang went off. She had barely an instant before a heavy kick knocked her off her feet and sent her tumbling. Nicole caught herself and nded in a crouch, gring up even as more fshbangs went off.

  She was thankful that her helmet was once again that of a Ranger true, keeping the disorienting fshes and explosive cracks from overwhelming her. Her friends weren’t all so lucky. A fsh of red and purple signaled that some of her friends managed to orient themselves in the chaos, but Nicole had her doubts that it would be enough to deal with what had come for them.

  The Yellow Ranger stood across from her, but that wasn’t what had drawn her attention. More Rangers stormed into the building from the blown doors, all unrecognizable to her. Five Rangers formed up behind Anita almost mechanically, as if they were trained in the military. That wasn’t unheard of for Rangers, but given what Maraline had said…

  It expined why all of their suits were rather uniform, even if they varied in color. It was all rather copy and paste and rather simplistic compared to most Ranger suits Nicole had seen.

  The exception was Anita and her yellow military fatigues that blended into the rest of her pseudo spandex.

  “Roll the Dice!”

  Silver and Green lit up the room and her team moved to stand beside her, each of them standing in a defensive formation around Maraline who was still on the ground and clutching her bleeding ears. Worse, Colin had jumped over top of Becca and was sheltering her. Each of them looked like they needed medical attention after that entrance and defending three civilians against six Rangers wouldn’t be easy. Fuck, they needed to buy time if everyone was going to get through this in one piece.

  “What the fuck?” Devon yelled.

  Anita shrugged. “Sorry about that, but I do have orders to follow. Maraline is a security risk at best and an active threat at worst. Can’t have her bringing our secrets back to the Syn now can we?”

  “Obviously they already knew!” Kay said, throwing a hand wide. “You just don’t like being on the wrong side of the dick measuring.”

  A snort sounded from the Yellow Ranger’s helmet. “Well, you’re not wrong. Xavier never did like being on the short end of things. Now, do you want to fight and risk your vulnerable friends over there, or will you be reasonable and come in willingly?”

  “Funny how you have to be in control,” Grace said. “Was all this show of force just to avoid talking things through?”

  “I like to stack the deck,” Anita said, then her form blurred.

  Nicole’s eyes widened as she moved, knocking aside Anita’s strike before it could go through, but only barely. Fuck if she wasn’t fast, but this was also Nicole’s first morphed fight in some time aside from the training she did back on The Progenitor’s ship.

  Well, no better time to shake the rust off.

  Step forward, turn slightly to let the retaliatory blow gnce off her arm, palm to center of mass to create distance. Anita flew back with a grunt and Nicole surged after her. She trusted that her team could keep the additional Rangers busy while she dealt with the one calling the shots. The Yellow Ranger hit the far wall and tore through the cheap aluminum siding like tissue paper, and righted herself as she skidded towards the tree line and had something in her free hand.

  Nicole barely had a moment to realize what it was before searing light impacted her in a shower of sparks. The ser pistol continued to fire and Nicole danced to the side, making sure the shots would go wide of her friends. Unfortunately, Anita seemed to pick up on that and aimed her bster back towards the garage.

  “Coward,” Nicole spat.

  “You know, I never did like you all that much,” Anita said, dusting some debris off her uniform. “If not for the whole anomaly thing you wouldn’t even be a Ranger.”

  Despite knowing that she was being baited, there was something about the way that Anita said it. She wasn’t specuting, Anita knew something important and was teasing it so as to keep her invested, to draw things out.

  To give her Rangers time to take down her own team. Well, they might have more time as Rangers, but Nicole’s team had actually fought some of the worst the Syn could offer. Granted, one of those threats was currently helpless on the floor back in the garage, but that was beside the point.

  Anita’s Rangers weren’t veterans of Ranger combat, no matter how many she brought.

  Taking the chance, Nicole summoned her bdes and took an easy stance. Casual to the eye, yet ready to act if necessary. Anita’s posture shifted, subtly guarded. Good, Nicole needed her to focus on the threat right here and not the building where she might hit a non-combatant.

  “Expin,” Nicole said.

  Anita huffed. “Oh it is very simp—”

  Nicole’s bde passed a hair’s breadth beside Anita’s helm as she barely managed to move enough to avoid it. Nicole had already dismissed the bde, but refrained from summoning another to repce it. She was fresh enough to get away with that, but the warmth in her core was already growing and managing that surge would be important to staying in the fight.

  Her second bde cut for Anita’s face, and the woman moved to defend herself as expected. A simple adjustment and Nicole’s bde sheared through the bster in her hand, destroying the weapon in a shower of sparks and smoke. Some might have stopped there to gloat, but she didn’t, pressing the advantage while she could.

  “That,” Anita said, dancing between strikes as Nicole fell back on the knife work she had learned from the HEMA group. “Was.” Sparks flew as Nicole scored a strike along the woman’s arm, sending her into a tumble. She popped back up on one knee and the gre being leveled at her could be felt despite the helmet. “Dirty.”

  “Like throwing a fshbang in the middle of a conversation?” Nicole asked dryly.

  Anita paused, even her breathing stilled for a moment. “Fair point.”

  So of course that was when she threw several devices summoned from thin air towards Nicole. Not wanting to chance things, Nicole summoned her own throwing daggers and sent them hurling for the devices, sticking two of the three. The third detonated, the explosion sending her flying through the air from the concussive force of the bst.

  “Believe me, if I wanted your friends dead, they would be.”

  Nicole was back on her feet, panting for breath after it had been knocked out of her. Anita stood casually, twirling another of those damn explosives on a gloved finger as she did. Nicole knew she could hit it, but that wouldn’t stop the woman from summoning more.

  She blinked.

  A grin pulled at her lips at the idea taking shape. Nicole stood and drew upon her second bde once more, the warmth growing as she pulled deeper upon the wellspring within. Whatever the Source was, it didn’t py nice with organics as her core simmered. She could bleed off the excess, but not while morphed. That was what the morphers did, they reguted that votile power and kept the Rangers safe.

  Did the Syn realize that was what they did, or was the function misunderstood?

  With a forceful kick, Nicole unched into motion towards her opponent. Anita didn’t so much as twitch at the sudden assault, she simply flicked her wrist and sent the device through the air. Two more joined it, but Nicole didn’t dare assume that one was all the woman could manage. Just as the grenade was about to burst, Nicole shifted.

  Her form turned incorporeal as the explosive force passed through her. The heat was nothing compared to what she could feel deep within, and the force passed almost harmlessly through her. Nicole liked to imagine that Anita’s jaw dropped as she turned solid once more, but that wasn’t for her to know.

  Twin bdes shed out, striking the woman across her torso with showers of sparks as she was flung back, the kinetic barrier shorting out as she tumbled. Her morph broke in a prism of yellow as she fell to the ground, and Nicole breathed a sigh of relief.

  One down.

  Even if it did feel anticlimactic, Nicole was willing to take the win, cheap shot and all.

  She didn’t spare Anita another gnce as she hurried back to the garage, bursting through the hole and into the fray. Grace traded blows with two of the discount Rangers, and Jeff worked with Kay in practiced motions to hold back the other three. Good, but that still left one of her own unaccounted for. Her eyes flicked aside and everything seemed to freeze when she caught sight of Devon.

  He was standing over the three downed non-combatants with his shield firmly in pce to protect them from stray hits, but what had the fire surging within was that he had his sword to Maraline’s throat despite her ying there with her hands held in a supplicating fashion.

  There wasn’t time to take a calming breath as Nicole’s feet hit the ground and she made her snap decision. Drawing deep of the wellspring of burning energy, she kicked off, impacting one of the two that were fighting Grace.

  Their morph shattered on impact.

  Nicole didn’t spare them another gnce as she twisted and nded on the ground, already sighting her next target as she once again let herself be consumed by the fire within. She’d tested her limits with The Progenitor, and wasn’t quite there yet, and sometimes a little shock was good for making a statement.

  Jeff and Kay both separated just as she unched into motion once more, this time she caught two of the Rangers in a flying scissor kick that sent them sprawling but didn’t break their morph. Nicole stood, her shoulders squared as she regarded the third Ranger that had been fighting them. Her core burned and she knew she needed to drop her morph so that the excess could bleed off, but she didn’t have the luxury of doing so until she knew it was safe.

  “Clean up, Rangers,” Nicole said, her voice firm.

  Her team didn’t hesitate to take down the remaining Rangers, bringing things to an abrupt end. The tension remained as Nicole waited for the other shoe to drop, but with each passing second it became more clear that the danger was passed. With a heavy sigh, Nicole dismissed her morph and it was only through raw determination that she kept the sudden shudders running from head to toe from showing.

  Yes, she was able to channel so much more power now, but the drawbacks were severe enough that it wasn’t always worth it. She could only hope that when Becca gained access to The Progenitor’s engineering systems that she could finally fix her morpher and she would be able to lean less upon the dangerous connection.

  Until then, Nicole would do what she needed if it meant keeping those she loved safe.

  “Jeff, Kay, one of you check on Anita,” Nicole said, clenching her fists as she forced even breaths to bleed off the excess. “Grace, get your sister and anyone else still in the home and bring them here. We’re leaving shortly.”

  “Got it,” Grace said, taking off at a sprint towards the house at the same moment that Kay left through another destroyed section of the garage towards where Anita should be.

  That left one other problem to deal with.

  “Devon, stand down,” she said, approaching the still erect barrier. “The enemy is down and we need to check them for injuries.”

  “You’re forgetting one threat,” Devon said firmly, his bde unwavering.

  That was almost enough to make Nicole snap, the white hot coals within nearly reignited at the anger she felt, but she smothered it. Snapping at her teammate wouldn’t do anything, and Anita was a friend of his, and she’d just attacked him. He was likely enduring all sorts of conflicting emotions at the moment and didn’t need her own issues thrown on top of it.

  Being the mature one of the group was fucking exhausting when her turn came up in the rotation, and it didn’t help that she was also the youngest. Not that it felt like it on most days, but they all had baggage and dealt with it in their own ways.

  “Just stand down,” Nicole said, her voice wavering. “We’ve been through hell already and need to get answers before the next wave shows up.”

  Because there was no way in hell that Anita didn’t have a contingency just minutes away.

  Maraline remained unflinching under the threat of space steel to her throat, but Devon was clearly wavering in his conviction. She let him stew for a moment, taking the opportunity to continue bleeding off the energy with every breath. That didn’t mean that Nicole wasn’t ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. Just because she was bleeding off the excess didn’t mean that she couldn’t draw upon it once again, just that the resulting surge would push her far too close to the brink for her own comfort.

  She’d do it in an instant if it meant protecting Maraline. She’d risked so much in setting things up to warn them, and Nicole hadn’t gotten the chance to pass that along just yet! Anita’s arrival had caused a hiccup in the debriefing, and now this mess was dropped into their p.

  Pity that a nap wasn’t going to be an option.

  “Come on, man,” Jeff said, leaning casually against his spear. “I really don’t think the little dy has it in her to fight right now and those two are looking pretty rough at the moment.”

  The Silver Ranger turned, finally looking at the two that were grasping their bleeding ears as they gred at him in obvious pain. Jeff dismissed his morph and gave the man what could only be described as the most pitiful puppy eyes that Nicole ever had the privilege of witnessing. It was like something out of a Dreamworks movie with how they made her want to give in to anything the man requested.

  “Fine,” Devon said, stepping back. His shield and sword vanished, as did the barrier, but he remained morphed, ready to fight if Maraline tried anything. “There, happy?”

  “Not really,” Nicole admitted as she began to check on Becca and Colin who were clearly shaken by the experience but otherwise intact. She snapped next to Becca’s ear and didn’t get a response from the groaning girl which didn’t bode well for her hearing. “The st week was rough as hell and I would love nothing more than to curl up in my own bed with my girlfriend at my side, but that isn’t an option right now.”

  Devon huffed, a half formed ugh. “Fair enough.”

  “That fucking sucked,” Becca whined. “Colin, you good?”

  He didn’t respond, likely not having any better luck with his ck of hearing. Nicole didn’t know much sign nguage, and Becca probably knew even less, which would make communication a bit of a pain. Still, Nicole tapped her shoulder, then gestured to her ears with a sign she hoped conveyed what the problem was. Becca’s eyes widened and she let out a not so muffled scream of frustration that made Devon jump slightly but Colin didn’t even twitch.

  Hopefully the medical bay back on the ship would be up to repairing the damages once they made it, but convincing the pair to join them just gained an extra dimension of difficulty that made Nicole want to let out a little scream of her own.

  Right, first aid was the priority, then figuring out how to convince two people with blown eardrums that an alien ship somewhere beneath the earth was their best chance for treatment. Because there was no way that the police wouldn’t be monitoring the hospitals.

  “Well, Anita already split,” Kay said, clearly irritated. Nicole wasn’t surprised, but she’d still hoped that had been enough to keep her down. Still, that was enough to reinforce that they needed to return to the ship rather than stay local.

  “Of course she did,” Devon muttered, finally dropping his own morph.

  Kay hopped over the break in the wall and strolled past Nicole, but stopped beside Devon to pat his shoulder. “We’ll figure things out. She never struck me as evil, just determined to do what she thinks is necessary, even if it’s something stupid.”

  That got another chuckle out of Devon, which was as close to a win as they were probably going to get for the moment. Jeff shook his head as he walked past Kay, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek as he passed only to gasp and rush forward before he hefted up the fallen form with a grunt that he shouldn’t have made.

  “What the fuck?” Sarah said, standing beside Grace who looked equally as caught off guard by whatever it was.

  That was enough to get Nicole to drop what she was doing, and when she did turn to get a good look at the fallen Ranger, she couldn’t hide her surprise. The figure was adorned in a standard combat undersuit simir to the one that Nicole wore, but not quite the same but that was a moot point compared to the metal pte that made up the machine’s face.

  “They’re like the drones from the b,” Nicole said, dread coiling within her. “Sincir Industries figured out how to manufacture Rangers.”

  “That’s not possible,” Maraline said, her eyes wide.

  The machine’s bnk facepte looked back at her as Nicole stared at the broken Ranger, or rather, the machine that was empowered by the Source. Even with the morph broken it was clear that the device that facilitated the transformation was built into it, the familiar shine sparking a memory of a wall of glowing lights deep within his bs.

  How the hell did Sincir manage to put something like this together?

  Did he really set half the city on fire just to get a handful of disposable Rangers in his pocket? Nicole shook her head, of course he did. The man was desperate to find any advantage he could in a war for survival against odds that did not favor humanity. Worse, he might just have cracked the very thing that the Syn were after in the first pce!

  A surge of Source energy emanated from the broken machine and Nicole threw it as far as she could and looked away from the sudden fsh of blinding light. The explosion was rather muted for what it was, but the wave of destruction was all encompassing. In pce of where the machine had nded was a perfectly circur crater. It had also carved out a chunk from one of the support beams which was causing the entire structure to groan.

  Worse, that same surge was building from the other downed machines.

  “Time to leave,” Nicole yelled, already grabbing Becca and Colin when she realized that nobody was moving to help Maraline. Biting down on the pain that the following surge brought with it, Nicole morphed once more and moved. Fire nced through her core as she got her friends out of the building then doubled back just as the first explosions went off.

  Nicole was at Maraline’s side in the next instant, the rest of her team already reaching the perimeter as she scooped up the former General and braced her neck against the forces that she was enduring. Detonations tore through the remaining structural integrity and Nicole pulled harder on the Source to give her the speed necessary to make it out before the entire thing toppled down on top of her friend.

  Boots hit the dirt outside just as the structure colpsed in a cacophony of tortured steel. Nicole immediately dismissed her morph once she was certain that it was safe and threw up, painting the ground red with her blood.

  That was when the world spun and Nicole fell over, her whole body shaking uncontrolbly.

  Pendragoon