A Link in the Chain

“Why can’t you tell me where my mom is?” Jen demanded loudly, glaring down the unnerved bodyguard blocking the door.

“My orders were to keep you here.”

“Your orders?” Patrick questioned sarcastically, “Some orders those are; lock a couple teenagers in a medbay.”

The man glowered, “Babysitting isn’t something I thoroughly enjoy either, so why don’t you both go sit down and text message or whatever it is you do?”

Patrick smirked, “You know, I like how you condescend to me when I probably outrank you here just by being my parents’ son.” He stood up from the bed where he was leisurely reclining and walked up to the bodyguard. He was about 4 inches shorter than the bodyguard, who stood about 6-foot-four. “You really don’t want to mess with me, dude; I could cause you a world of pain without even touching you.”

For a moment, the wall of confidence the man exuded flickered, but he huffed and put his hand on Patrick’s back, motioning him back to the bed. “Sit down, kid.”

But that was the last straw. With strength and power he never knew he had, Patrick grabbed his arm, flinging him into the medical bed. He landed with a crash, collapsing the bed.

Jen looked at her brother, astonished, and noticed that his eyes were glowing with an eerie whiteness.

“Oh my God, dude! Why’d you do that! Mom is going to ground us for a friggin’ year!” Jen shouted, moving to help the man up.

Her brother blinked, shaking his head. “Holy shit, did I really just do that?!”

“Yes!”

Patrick blinked, gaping. “I…I don’t know what got into me!”

Jen shook her head, “Didn’t you finish anger management? Why in the world are you flinging people across rooms?”

“I…I don’t know.”

Then her statement settled in and they glanced at each other, then at the man, who was staring at Patrick like an alien.

“How are you flinging people across the room?” Jen asked.

—5—

Calisto rubbed the creature behind his large ears, “Aren’t you just a cute little thing?”

The bunny she was rubbing twitched its head in response, paying her almost no attention; however, it was soon startled away as a flash of fiery teleportation filled the room.

“What brings you from your bird’s nest in the sky?” Calisto asked nonchalantly as she baited the rabbit out of its hiding place.

“Business with your master. Where is he?” Oria asked, putting on her bubbly façade. She didn’t know whether Nitros bought her incompetent attitude that she always used to throw him off, but she couldn’t afford him knowing she was competition.

“Somewhere off with Isis and Gaia; he doesn’t want to be disturbed,” the monster maker replied, having finally retrieved her pet.

“That’ll do nicely,” Oria said sweetly as she pointed a finger at the rabbit. A blaze of fire shot from her crimson nails and the struck the creature in its forehead.

“Hey!”

Oria shot Calisto a glare but watched the animal as it began to transform. It hardly resembled a rabbit anymore, save the elongated, elf-like ears that protruded from the sides of its now masked face. Two red eyes stared at her through holes in the facemask, and his fur seemed to have hardened to the texture of a porcupine. He knelt ceremoniously before Oria in his leathery attire.

“Get up, get up, Dezziner,” she said lazily, throwing on her false appearance.

“What is your bidding, my mistress?” he asked in a gravelly voice. He stood at least 7 foot with lanky sinewy muscle that was covered with a leather jacket of sorts.

Oria waited for a few moments, tapped her nail on her temple, and smiled cheekily; “Hold on just one moment; let me call Susano-o.”

Calisto raised an eyebrow in an uninterested manner, having grown irritated since her pet was turned into a monster. She fiddled with a test tube next to her but watched half-heartedly as Oria drew a flaming square in the air. A picture of a man appeared almost instantly inside the square.

“My mistress, I’m glad you contact me. Gallorix has detected a massive surge in the morphing grid; large enough to be several Xygra Zurdae. When we pinpointed the energy, it was blocked by all sorts of forcefields, so we couldn’t find a location, we just know it’s heavily guarded; I’m assuming Horizon X has them.”

Oria, who had been sitting in Nitros’ throne-like chair, smiled. “Perfect. We’ll just capture them then.”

“Er…my lady, I regret to inform you that Gallorix says those Xygra Zurdae would be of no use to us, as they are pure beings, incapable of maliciousness.”

"I want those beasts found and put down before they can cause me any trouble!" Oria screamed, slamming her fist on her chair. The armrest began to crack a bit.

"Yes, of course Mistress," Susano-o replied softly.

“Take Dezziner and go to the city known as Silver Hills. Gallorix and I picked up remnants of a powerful element we can use to maybe stop these beasts.”

“I will, at once,” the pale-skinned solder replied, nodding, his green hair shaking in front of his red eyes.

His square flickered out of existence and the flames vanished.

“What are you looking at?”

Calisto rolled her eyes, “I was just observing. I liked your firescreen technique.”

Oria’s anger faded away, “Really? It took me forever to perfect.”

Dezziner shook his head and teleported in a puff of smoke, to Silver Hills where he would meet Susano-o.

—5—

“This is a lot harder than you made it seem, Mrs. R,” Caitlin griped. Arbrus buzzed hotly at her lack of enthusiasm.

Maybe if you actually applied your genetic powers, you’d find out how much easier it is, he snapped.

“No one asked you, pinky,” Caitlin shot back, remembering Jade’s line from earlier that day.

“I don’t get what you mean, Caitlin, it’s not that bad,” Chelle said as she hovered next to her heron, Aeric.

His deep voice boomed in Chelle’s head, You’re an easy person to talk to, Chelle. You have a natural…bubbliness…to you. It soothes others.

You too, Aeric. You’re like the zen part of me that…well…rarely comes out.

Caitlin rolled her eyes at their obvious conversation. Not that she could hear them, but she was still irritated that she, the ‘psychic’ one of the group, couldn’t master telepathy with a bug.

“So how are we supposed to join minds with our zords?” Jud asked. “I’ve been able to hold a conversation with her, but I’m not sure how we can become one, you know?”

Angela nodded, polishing her glasses. “Zurdae insum Vertik is a very advanced Eltarian technique, so it might take you guys a while to master it. For now, you just need to be able to exchange

commands in the heat of battle, or be able to rely on one another for strength and support. Once you can bond with your Zurda, the Zurdae will be able to combine and form a Megaen Zurda, or a Megazord.”

“But…they look completely organic? How will they become robotic?” Jade asked as she and Volkanika returned to the middle of the large room.

We are able to call upon our inner element to empower our bodies with armor. The armor is elementally influenced from the Morphing Grid itself, and our physical and mental bodies separate, so we don’t feel the ‘pain’ of combining into a Megaen Zurda.

Wow, that’s amazing. Is that somewhat like what we do with morphing? Jade asked.

Exactly, Volkanika’s calm, wise voice replied.

“Having any luck, Caitlin?” Shannah asked, coming near the pink ranger and her dragonfly with her snow leopard, Tundro.

“What’s it to you, eh?”

Shannah looked a bit shocked at the attitude, but plowed ahead; “Well, I was just wondering if it was maybe harder for you to communicate with Arbrus because he’s so small. I mean, think about it. You’re trying to project your thoughts into a brain the size of a grain of sand.”

Hey! Arbrus bellowed indignantly through a public mental shout.

“No offense to you, of course,” Shannah added hastily.

Caitlin had never thought of that. She focused extremely hard to form the words in her head and then sent them as clearly as she could to Arbrus.

Can you enlarge yourself to maybe the size of a bird?

She received no reply, so for a few moments, she had no idea if he’d understood her.

Then, a pink ball of energy wrapped around him and he expanded, becoming the size of an eagle.

Better? he asked her.

Much! I can like, feel you in mind or something!

“Now that we’ve all mentally bonded with our animals, would we be ready to use the zords in battle?” Chelle asked.

Angela nodded. “Absolutely. You’ll also find that, when linked with your Zurdae, your powers will be so much greater than usual. With the proper training, you’ll be able to link with them even if you were here in California and they were in New York.”

“Talk about free long distance,” Jud chimed in.

The group couldn’t help but laugh, and when listening further, the rangers heard soft rumbles and whistles from the Zurdae as forms of laughter.

“We should be getting back to the command center. I’m sure Jennifer and Patrick are thoroughly irritated that they’ve been stuffed into a room and told to wait,” Angela said, sobering.

They exited the dome, leaving the Zurdae behind, and retrieved their morphers from the slots.

Instantly they began beeping. Suddenly, Angela’s own communicator had several new messages.

“Damn! I forgot communication was blocked in there, even with the stasis hold offline!”

She listened to the messages quickly. Silver Hills was being attacked, the Silver Guardians were overwhelmed, and Gaia had been spotted in the warehouse district of Mariner Bay.

“Time to kick into action!” Jade fired up, raising her wrist.

“Ready!” the other four chorused.

“Execute Ranger Scan, Horizon X-pand!”

No sooner had they morphed did Jade begin to strategize. “Jud and Chelle, you two take out Gaia since you two are the fastest; Shannah, Caitlin, and I will go to Silver Hills and hold the attacks off until you two can get Gaia to retreat.”

“Right!” Jud and Chelle agreed. With a touch of their belts, they disappeared in flashes of green and yellow.

“Good luck, rangers,” Angela told the remaining three as they teleported out.

To be continued...