[PR] Power Rangers: The Fall [M] [Archive]

some_guy

10-11-2008, 08:27 AM

Power Rangers: The Fall
Chapter 1: Invasion, Part 1
Everyone

What makes someone a hero? Is it the things they do? Is it how they are perceived by others? Or is it the fact that they just seem, or that they are exactly what we would hope to be? That they bear the qualities that humans envy, and lack those which humans despise. Whatever it is that makes humans heroes, it doesn’t happen often enough. For it is only in true crisis, only when the world truly needs heroes, will heroes answer the worlds call.

“HELP!” A loud voice shrieked, as Hayden looked all around him. Fire was raging all around him, buildings had been leveled, craters created from explosions were found all over the roads, along with streetlights, fire hydrants, postboxes, signs, billboards, large screens and a large assortment of other items were scattered across the once glorious streets of his city.

“PLEASE!” The voice called out again, as Hayden looked to see a young, blond woman, trapped under a silver car. Hayden began to run towards the blond woman, unable to escape from the gaze of her weeping, brown eyes and ignore her, whilst his body was just screaming for him to run away from the chaos. Once he had gotten to her, he realized that the car was on top of her and he knew that he was in a helpless situation – she was crushed.

As he crouched next to her, trying to figure out a way to help – something, anything! – he felt a cold, single raindrop land upon his neck. He looked up, as storm clouds rose over him, as it seemed as if the Earth itself was beginning to weep upon the destruction and chaos that had erupted upon itself. He could only marvel in fear and awe as the sound of thunder boomed from the skies, whilst quick, bright, blue bolts of lightning began to rain down onto the ground below.

Hayden realized he needed to focus, and he regained his senses, though something told him that he and the woman were no longer alone. He turned around, to find that standing behind him was a giant, black and silver ‘thing’. It had the shape of a human – head, body, arms, legs – but seemed to be made up of mechanical parts, sharp, sleek and terrifying. It’s eyes glowed crimson red, and suddenly, before he knew it, it had its arms raised, as he was frozen under its glare, as all he could do was crouch there and wait for the arm to crush him and –

He woke up.

Hayden immediately sat up in his bed, sweat pouring down his face as he slammed his hand down the alarm clock next to him. Another day, another dollar.

Quickly getting out of his very cozy and very expensive bed, he made his way across his small – but again, cozy – apartment and towards his kitchen in under five steps, where he immediately withdrew a glass cup from a small cupboard and reached for his even smaller and emptier fridge, where he retrieved three eggs, which he then cracked and poured into the cup. Taking a deep breath in and out, he grabbed the cup and tilted his head back, drinking it all down in one swallow.

Nothing to wake you up like protein in the morning. Disgusting, slimy protein.

Reaching into the fridge again, he emptied its contents by finishing the 2 liter bottle of the previous night’s Pepsi and retrieving the half eaten pizza and placing it into the microwave, conveniently placed on top of the fridge. While waiting for his pizza to reheat, he began to go through his usual morning routine. Same old, same old. Cheap TV – on. Change to Awesome-Fire Morning Cartoon Show. Sit on couch. Relax.

In under an hour, Hayden was out the door of his apartment complex, just outside the main business area of the city, dressed in his Converse Chucks, jeans, a black belt with a shiny gold buckle, a red Converse shirt, a leather jacket and large framed sunglasses. A fashionable young man, roaming the streets of the beautiful city.

He walked over to the nearest subway to his apartment complex, ready to complete the final component of his morning routine, until –

“HELP!”

This was real.

Hayden turned around, to see a young blond woman, lying on the ground, but in a different picture – the body of an older man in her lap, as people surrounded her in shock, not knowing what to do or how to act. Hayden immediately knew that he was the only who could help.

Curse this blessing.

Hayden dashed across the street, barely dodging a car as he made his way over to the crowd, saying the one thing that usually gets people moving. “Please, everyone, move. I’m a doctor.”

“Aren’t you a little young?” A person from the crowd said, as Hayden shot an evil glance in the direction which he heard the voice from, before turning his attention back to the beautiful woman with the man in her lap.

“Someone shot him. I called the ambulance, but its high traffic and the hospitals not close and –” She began crying even harder, and her tears, her genuine care and compassion froze Hayden in his place.

The woman of my dreams. Literally.

“Please help my uncle.” She said, as Hayden nodded, immediately removing the man’s jacket and opening the man’s expensive-looking, formal shirt.

Always a shame to ruin a good shirt.

Hayden looked down at the bullet wounds in the man’s abdomen. Blood seemed to continuously pour from the three wounds that strangely reminded Hayden of the classic Grade 2 Volcano model at the science fair, as the blood erupted from the top and began to flow down onto the now stained, blood-red grass under him. Hayden knew he could heal him, and looked around to see the people all staring at him.

”You might want to look away.” Hayden said out loud. “This isn’t going to look pretty.”

Hayden knew this was just a cover, but they didn’t, as the woman turned away, and some of the crowd members did as well. He purposely leaned forward so the man’s body and his hands could not be seen at all, and he took one last look at the man’s vacant, clear eyes, before turning his attention back to his stomach. Placing his hand on the mans wounds, he began to focus.

He didn’t know how he did it, but whatever he did was working. He pretended to be pumping on the man’s chest as if he was performing CPR, as he had gained some skill in obscuring what he was really doing. Soon, the bullets in the man’s chest fell out from his body, as the wounds began to close up by themselves as Hayden kept his hands over them. Many, many minutes passed, and soon Hayden could hear the sirens of the real ambulance coming by.

Better finish up soon.

Soon enough, all that was left on the man’s chest was dry blood, as his body shook, and to everyone’s surprise, he lifted his neck, looking around. He coughed – once, twice. And then turned to Hayden.

”You saved his life.” The blond woman said, and Hayden smiled, extending a hand and wiping her tears away. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” Hayden said, taking in the feeling of being a hero, as he heard the paramedics begin to get out of the ambulance. Quickly he stood up, and like every single other time, he began to walk away before they could ask him any other questions.

“Wait!” The woman said. Maybe he could take one question. “What’s your name?”

“Hayden.” Hayden replied, realizing that yes, the whole crowd had heard him, and that this was probably going to be on the news tonight. “And yours?”

“Elizabeth. Well, I’d prefer to be called Lisa.”

“Alright then, Lisa. I’ll see you around.” As he moved out of the crowd, he heard a first – applause – as he smiled to himself. Maybe it would be a good day after all.

-0-0-0-

“According to a group of scientists, led by young paleontologist Dr. Thomas Oliver, today is the day the world could end, due to a collision with an oncoming meteor. Of course, nothing but clear skies today, adding more evidence that yes, today's just another day. In other news, today witnesses claim to have seen a young man, no older than his mid-20s, walk up to a man and bring him back to consciousness, despite the fact that he was near death and had suffered three bullet wounds.” A female reporter for Fox News said, her face enlarged on the wide-screen TV. “This is one of many cases which have similarly been stated for the past two years – a young man somehow ‘healing’ people all around our state. Whoever you are, guardian angel, our city wishes for you to reveal yourself, so we may give you the thanks you deserve.”

“Turn that crap off!” A tall, half-naked, brown-haired woman yelled. She sat on a podium, legs crossed, and wearing just lingerie, revealing everything and nothing all at once. “Can’t you see we’re in the middle of something?”

“Sorry Ms. Aston.” A helper replied, trying his best to ignore the scowling glares of the photographer, the model, and everyone else in the room.

”And there better not be any phones on too!” The photographer added, and, as if he called for it himself, a cell phone began ringing in the room. “Alright, who’s is that?”

“Sorry, it’s me.” The model smiled sweetly, and in an instant, the photographer forgave her. “Assistant! Turn it off!”

And so, once again, the helper, amidst evil glares moved over to the offending phone and switched it off.

“Who was it?” The model asked.

“I don’t know.” The helper replied.

”Why didn’t you check?”

”I forgot, sorry, Ms. Aston. I’ll check through your calls and –” The helper began to speak reaching for her phone until she interrupted him.

“No! It is too late! You have no right to ever go through my phone, got it?” She ordered, and the helper meekly placed the phone back on the table and walked away. Some people…

“One more photo, Ms. Aston, and we should be done for the day.” The photographer said, and she nodded, moving into position as with another click and a flash, the photo had been taken. “Beautiful, good job.”

“As always.” She smiled, tip toeing into a robe provided by the helper and moving over to the photographer to place a quick kiss on his cheek. In no shorter than an hour, she was dressed and ready to hit the streets.

Alicia Aston was young, successful, beautiful and quite the bitch. It wasn’t that she wanted to be one, but that she was meant to be one, if that made sense. In high-school, she was the popular bitch. In her first job, she was the popular bitch. Now as a model, she was the beautiful popular bitch. As she walked home because of her affliction of car-sickness, she couldn’t help but think of that incompetent, foolish helper. While she rattled her head about getting a better assistant she then noticed the fact that, yes, as always, she was being followed. Just as she began to smile to welcome the press photographers she saw something different.

A gang of three, older men, unshaven, disheveled, messy and the complete opposite of her. She immediately turned around, walking faster, doing whatever she could and wishing that those men weren’t looking at her, weren’t following her and weren’t calling out to her.

”Hey, missy! Your that actress arnya?” One of the men crooned, and she turned around in disgust. “Hey! What’s with that look? Too good for me, are ya?”

And then she saw a faint silver glint in his pocket, as his two ‘friends’ laughed while he stumbled over to her. She expected the worst, and hoped for the best. She looked around and realized that she was too busy worrying about her stupid helper once again, that she must have forgot where she was going and now she was lost on these empty streets.

“Need a ride home ay?” The other man teased, in the midst of coughs. “Wouldya like to come my way?”

”Back off.” Alicia warned unsteadily, as she turned around to face the three.

“Or what? What’s a pretty little thing like you going to do?” The other men laughed in agreement, as the one with the knife was now right in front of her, and before she knew it, he had grabbed her arm.

Sweat ran down Alicia’s face as she did what almost any girl would do in this situation. She kicked him in the one place where good men should never be kicked. Good thing these guys weren’t good men.

“That bitch!” The man said, as he crumbled to his knees. Alicia then turned to the other men, now somehow having knives themselves, as they approached her.

“Now we’ve gotta make you pay.”

“No.” Alicia whispered.

“What?”

“No.” She repeated.

“And what are you going to do about it?” The man asked, and Alicia knew that she couldn’t kick both of them at the same time and decided to resort to the one thing that always worked.

“NO!” She screamed. Ear-splitting, blasting, screaming. The men were thrown back by some unforeseen force created by the high-pitch screaming, and found themselves on the ground ten feet away, holding their bleeding ears in pain, as Alicia began to run away.

-0-0-0-

Someone was following him home.

It was a creeping feeling, at the back of his neck, as alarms went off in his head for him to turn around, but he couldn’t – he didn’t want his stalker to know that he knew that the stalker was stalking him. If that made sense. So he passed by a shop window, stopped, and stared at the suits way out of his price range.

He leaned over, and then he saw it. In the reflection of a window was a man standing ever so discreetly at an opposite shop window. He was average-height, muscular by the looks of it, wearing a simple shirt and khaki pants, sipping on a coffee from Starbucks. Typical.

His normal appearance made him immediately look inconspicuous in the eyes of Vincent. And so Vincent continued walking, adjusting his backpack containing his work clothes and continuing to walk, until suddenly he heard it behind him, the man’s quiet footsteps at an attempt to make him seem unnoticed, and then he felt the hand on his shoulder.

In a quick movement, Vincent was behind the man, twisting the man’s arm behind his back, as the man literally screamed for mercy. “Mercy! Mercy, Vince! You win this time, okay?”

Suddenly, Vincent let go, as he realized that yes he was being followed, but in a futile attempt to surprise him. Damn his paranoia. “Sorry, Pharrell, but I don’t like people sneaking up on me like that.”

”Yeah? Well I’ll make a note of it to never do that again.” Pharrell said, rubbing his arm in pain, his darker complexion and muscular tone to his body making him look like the opposite of Vincent, making them a sort of an odd couple standing together. Pharrell’s frown turned to a smile, as he stood up and hugged his friend. “How you been man?”

“Good, good.” Vincent replied. “Things have been fairly normal.”

”So where’d you learn to go all kung-fu and what not?” Pharrell asked, jokingly.

”I did a couple of classes here and there to help me get into the force.” Vincent smiled.

“Oh, so you a cop now?” Pharrell laughed.

“Why, done something incriminating lately?” Vincent replied, and noticed the change in Pharrell’s expression, knowing that that was not good. There was only one question to ask in this situation. “What did you do?”

“Nothing, that’s the thing.” Pharrell said. “Look, can we go to your place and talk about this? I don’t feel safe telling you this out here.”

“Fine. I live right around the corner.” Vincent sighed, he knew there was a reason Pharrell decided to visit him out of the blue.

“What, a cop can’t afford a car?”

“Shut up, Pharrell, or I’ll arrest you on the grounds of harassment of an officer.”

“But you’re not on duty!”

“My uniform’s in my bag.” Vincent smiled, as Pharrell realized that when Vincent said he lived just around a corner, he meant just around the corner and 20 blocks away.

“You cops really do need better pay.” Pharrell said.

“I’m not actually a fully fledged officer yet. Kind of an intern, if that’s how you want to put it.” Vincent replied, as they made his way into his homely apartment.

“Can’t you mooch of your parents?”

“Not all parents are rich, like yours, Pharrell.” Vincent said, before adding. “Or alive, for that matter.”

“Sorry, Vincent.” Pharrell replied.

“No problem. But what is the problem is you.” Vincent said, as they sat at his kitchen table, which just comprised of a small, circular piece of glass on four legs. The fridge was huge, as was the oven, stove and microwave, but Pharrell was quick to note that the kitchen was the only spectacular part of the whole apartment. “What did you do, Pharrell?”

“I’m being followed.” Pharrell admitted. “I’m sorry, I needed a place to hide, and –”

“Wait, you’re being followed to here?” Vincent asked. “By who?”

”I don’t really know.”

”Maybe you’re just paranoid.” Vincent said.

“It’s a gang, I know that. I was paid to intentionally throw a fight, you know, when I was boxing.” Pharrell said, nervously talking faster. “But the guy was trash-talking me, so of course I couldn’t help but knock him out. He deserved it and all.”

“So what happened then?”

”Well they got angry and demanded the money, but problem was – I already spent it.”

“So you need money then, Pharrell?”

”See I knew I should’ve gone to you in the first place!” Pharrell said. “But it’s not money I need. That was two years ago, and they reckon I have a debt with them now and are going after my fingers. These guys kill people!”

”How the hell do you get into these kind of things?” Vincent asked, remembering the past times he had to bail out Pharrell in high-school. “So if they’ve been following you for two years, how have you managed to get away?”

”Well you see…” Pharrell smiled to himself. “I’ve got a certain talent and uh…” Pharrell twitched his finger and a knife immediately came flying across the kitchen and landed in front of him. “I can do things most people can’t.”

Vincent looked on skeptically, but before he could ask further questions, someone knocked on the door. Pharrell looked at Vincent, and Vincent shook his head and went to answer the door from the other side, looking through the peephole.

“Yes?”

“Open up.” The voice said on the other side.

”Who is it?” Vincent asked.

“It’s the cops.” The voice said, and Vincent saw that there were three of them. Vincent had to suppress himself from laughing at their excuse while he continued to look through the peephole.

“Oh yeah?” Vincent asked. “What district are you from?”

“Uh…” The voice said uneasily. “We’re actually from the CSI.”

“CSI?” Vincent said. “Is there a murder scene nearby to investigate?”

”Uh…” The voice again stumbled and Vincent smirked.

”Oh, my cake’s done, sorry, gotta go.” Vincent said, as he latched the door and walked back to Pharrell.

”That’s it! Open up smartass!” The banging on the door was harder, and Vincent knew that this was the one time when low-paying rent and a lack of maintenance was going to prove to be a disadvantage.

“Got any ideas?” Pharrell asked, and Vincent sighed, immediately getting his bag and packing money, passports and various other items into his bag.

“You’re not the only one with talents.” Vincent scowled, as he grabbed Pharrell by the arm and walked over to the wall in the corner.

“Hey, what are you – woah!” Pharrell said, as both he and Vincent walked through the wall and appeared in another apartment.

“You can walk through walls?” Pharrell asked, and Vincent put a finger to his lips.

”Shut up, Pharrell, for once keep your mouth shut so we don’t get into even more trouble, got it?” Vincent said, pleading to his friend. “Just this one time?”

“Okay.”

-0-0-0-

Hayden smiled to himself as he saw a report on himself healing a man once again, as he quickly got up and went to grab his dinner – Pepsi and potato chips – passing by the window and looking at the skyline of his city.

”Breaking news.” The reporter announced.

“C’mon! Put back on the story about me!” Hayden chided at the TV, as he peered outside the window, he caught a glint of what appeared to be a very bright star, that seemed to get bigger and bigger by the second. A shooting star.

“Scientists much ignored warning’s over the past week of a possible meteor crashing into the Earth is –”

”Better make a wish.” He smiled to himself, ignoring the TV’s warning, as he found to his surprise that he couldn’t think of anything to wish for. Maybe something exciting to happen, for once.

And as he watched what he thought was a shooting star twinkle, he then realized it was coming closer – fast. The last straw was the loud siren echoing through the city. He looked at the other apartment building across from him, as the people began scrambling around. Quickly, he grabbed a jacket, his phone and his wallet and he dashed for the rooftop of his apartment complex, seeing many other residents doing the same.

”What do you thinks going on?” Someone asked him, as they ran up the staircase.

“I hope nothing bad.” Another voice answered, as they finally climbed the staircase to reach the rooftop, where they watched the ‘thing’, which appeared to look like a metal meteor, fly closer towards the Earth.

“What the hell is it?”

“Whatever it is, it’s coming closer.”

“It’s heading for us!” A voice yelled, as a piece from the metal meteor broke off, and more flaming pieces started raining down on the city below.

“RUN!”

A piece of the metal meteor landed near the building, causing it to quake as he ran down the stairs as fast as he could.

And then…

Crisis which the world had never seen erupted all over the city.

For it is only in true crisis, only when the world truly needs heroes, will heroes answer the worlds call.