[TheFightingSpirit]

Incursion Eighteen: Thrill Seeker

Pitch black ooze seeped from the corpse of the monk the monster had murdered. It drew upwards into a pillar, becoming more and more humanoid until there stood a duplicate of the dead Trinity monk.

The copy drew up its hood and stepped away into the night.

o0o

That very same night the ‘monk’ found himself on the Fort Lowsdale university campus. No one he passed batted an eyelid at the way he was dressed, but never the less he felt he ought to do something a bit more to fit in.

He liquified and slid from the cloak into the drains. He made his way up hill towards the library, skipped into the cold running water and lay in wait.

o0o

Ken shouldered his bag and stepped out of the apartment. Being the last out, as always, he locked the door, before crossing the landing to Brad’s place so they could walk in together.

After a while he began to wonder whether he was coming at all. Ken tried the door and found it unlocked.

“Brad? You in here?”

A clattering and a loud thump sounded from the bedroom. “Hm what? What’s happening?”

“It’s Ken. And we’ll miss the lecture if you don’t hurry up.”

“Oh... sorry…” Brad tumbled out of his room, his hair a wild tangle of red.

“Hey, it’s not my problem.” Ken shrugged. “Would you like five more minutes?”

“That would be gr- hey... wait a minute!” He disappeared back into his room.

Ken folded his arms. Maybe he could miss a few classes but Ken didn’t have that luxury. He’d never meant to go to university in the first place, but if the job called for it…

Yet that begged the question: Was there any point in keeping up this ruse if they were cut off from the Agency? Who was it helping now? Their landlady had defected from Bryant’s regime, and had been working mostly to keep the military itself away with insistent calls of top secret and classified.

It wasn’t an easy situation considering.

Well, I suppose it keeps the other tenants off guard, doesn’t it.

Brad reappeared not a moment later fully dressed with his notebook in hand. He grinned. “You ready?”

“Are you?”

o0o

After their lectures Brad and Ken decided they would spend some time in the library getting a head start on their frankly ridiculous load of coursework.

The way things were going at home, with the appearance of Manuarii, aka CrossTrinity, they knew they’d have little free time to do so later. They barely had time to properly patrol for Black Water incursions any more between helping Allison and her colleagues set up and construct the replacement refugee camps.

This was quickly becoming more of an operation than the five of them couldn’t handle alone, even with those who defected from the Agency after the raid, even with the addition of the magi emperor and the Order of the Trinity.

Ken began to wonder whether pulling the Agency apart was really worth it. Wasn’t one despot’s regime better than none at all…? Or two, or even three disparate entities fighting against each other, driving at the same goal but getting in each other’s way?

Something need to be done, and Ken wondered if the rangers needed to take a step back and let the civilian parties deal with refugee camps and morale and rebuilding. Magi were uniquely suited to defeating mutants and monsters. Why not do what they did best?

To top it all off, General Bryant had been far too quiet since his defeat. That meant only one thing. He was building up for something big; training more of his elite perhaps.

“I said, what do you think about this?”

Brad’s voice snapped Ken from his inner monologue. “About what?”

He shrugged. “Forget it, not important.”

“No Brad, go on.” Ken frowned.

Something about his fellow student and ranger rubbed him the wrong way. Perhaps it was the way he acted like all this coursework was important, or the way he seemed to enjoy being a ranger.

Brad sighed. “Let me guess. You were think about you-know-what again, weren’t you?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

Brad lowered his voice some. “We may have a duty, mate, but the way I see it we’re still two young guys who should be doing young guy things.”

“And that’s coursework, is it?”

“Living! Being normal! Watching… I don’t know, RWBY or something!”

Ken stood with abrupt purpose. “We’re not normal guys, Brad. Stop treating this like a game.”

“You calling me a thrill seeker?” Brad stood also and squared up to him.

Not far away the librarian hissed at them to be quiet and gestured angrily to the door.

Ken grunted in frustration and charged out into the reception.

They all had their reasons for fighting, reasons that were all equally valid he supposed. Allison want to protect the people. Robert felt a need to deal out justice where no one else could. Maria had found herself part of a corrupt organisation, but still kept true to her morals and upbringing and gave up everything she’d worked for her entire adult life to do what she thought was right.

Ken simply could not understand Brad. To do something different because you were bored with your present life? That just wasn’t good enough.

He went to the bathroom to cool off, before he did something he’d regret.

o0o

Brother Gray met with the emperor Manuarii in the back of a cafe in downtown Fort Lowsdale. They wanted to discuss many of the same issues that plagued Ken and the rangers.

“There must be a way for us to establish a true support network, for the people if anything,” said Brother Gray. “In society’s current shape, well, we can’t last long.”

“We have the start of something good here, brother,” replied Manuarii. “The Order. The Rangers. The aid workers.”

“Then the only real issue is the tainted magi and his remnant Agency?”

“There can only be one course of action, and whether wrong or right we have to push forward.” The magi emperor’s quest to find the magi descendents had taken him all over the world but had kept him totally disconnected from the real world. He had spent some time studying the situation yet, despite his confidence, he felt like some neophyte newcomer. “Black Cross represents an obstacle to be overcome...”

Another of the Order, one Brother Edwards, rushed into the cafe short of breath and gave a curt bow. The other cafe patrons looked to him with suspicion, but he didn’t care. “Hanson still hasn’t checked in.”

“Search everywhere,” replied Gray. “That boy is prone to flights of fancy...”

“Taken care of.” Edwards left as quickly as he’d arrived.

Manuarii hung his head. And so it begins… the long slog of war.

o0o

Ken burst into the bathroom and waved his hand under the tap’s motion sensor. No water. He waved again. Still nothing. He tried a few more sensors down the row to much the same effect.

Why is it that things never seemed to go right when you were angry and upset? Murphy’s law in practice. He really didn’t need that right now.

The door to one of the stalls slammed open, making Ken jump.

Brad stepped out, wearing a navy jumper instead of the hoodie Ken remembered from a couple of minutes ago.

“Did you follow me in here?”

Brad didn’t reply. He grinned and lashed out at Ken with the back of his hand.

Ken easily parried the blow and caught another. “What are you trying to do, exactly?”

“Defeating a magi warrior.” Brad sweeped Ken’s legs out from under him.

He tumbled into the basins which chose that moment to do what they were made for. Every tap in the bath opened at once, overflowing and soaking Ken.

He pulled himself to his feet, being careful not to slip on the floor. “Is this all because I shouted at you?”

“No”

Ken caught Brad’s reflection in floor and noticed something was different. “Since when did you have a tail?”

Fake Brad spun and slammed his tail into Ken’s stomach.

“Alright… I get it.” His morpher shimmered into existence. “I don’t want to do this in the library, but it’s time to say goodnight before you cause anymore trouble. Cross form!”

Blue light lit up the small bathroom, bouncing off the water-soaked floor and walls and transforming him into Blue Cross.

The real Brad shoved open the bathroom door at that moment. “Holy cow…”

He morphed into Green Cross and fell into his stance beside the blue ranger. They looked at each other. He had considered leaving Blue Cross to fight alone, but found he couldn’t.

“Okay, before you start shouting at me again Ken, I’ve lived through exactly the same terror for the past five years as everyone else in this stupid messed up world of ours. So don’t tell me I’m ignorant. If you understand Rob, I know you can figure me out. Are we cool?”

“For now,” Blue Cross replied. He feigned scratching an itch on his chest, and pointed his index finger at the floor.

The green ranger nodded.

“Now that you two are done talking, I’m going to kill you,” the shapeshifter said. “Where are you friends now?”

“Having a better time than us?” Green Cross quipped.

“Torrent Advent!” they called in unison. As they thrust their hands forward, the water flooding onto the floor reacted to their call and crashed into the fake Brad and blasted him clean apart.

Blue Cross shook his head and released the water from his enchantment. “They really don’t make them like they used to...”

“They used to mutate armadillos into big ugly behemoths.”

Their armour dematerialised. Ken looked at Brad and raised his eyebrow. “The only time I make a witty action hero one-liner, and you miss the point?”

o0o

When they got back to the apartment Brad joined them. Ken filled the others in on what had happened at the university, and how the Black Water could now apparently imitate people down to nearly the finest detail.

Robert frowned. “That’s disturbing.”

“To say the least...” added Maria.

Ken turned to Catherine. “So what do we do?”

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and massaged the bridge of her nose. “Well, at some point we’re going to have to crawl back into the belly of the beast.”

Maria got up from the breakfast bar and crossed over to the couch where the lieutenant sat. “Another raid?”

“Nope.”

“End game?” She said, speaking a code word the two of them had agreed upon weeks ago.

Catherine nodded slowly. “I spoke to the Order earlier today. Both Brother Gray and Manuarii agree that the General and his Agency guys are the number one variable we need to squash before we move against No-one and Black Water.”

Robert didn’t want to say it but he agreed. He hadn’t signed up for all out warfare against separatist branches of his own country's military, neither, he figured, had Allison and the others, but you had to do what you had to do.

“Alright. I’m in.”