[TheFightingSpirit]

Magi Tribe Cross Ranger: the Movie
“From Across the Ages”

Robert sat up in his bunk and dismissed the alarm on his phone. He flopped back down and groaned, hoping, as many do, for just five more minutes. A knock on the door told him that wasn’t going to happen, not today.

He threw on some trousers and shuffled to open the door.

There stood Allison wearing her borrowed gym clothes; lycra shorts and a white tank top with the new StratCom logo on the chest. “I thought you’d be late, so I came to get you.”

“Oh, cheers, how kind of you...” he muttered.

At his request, she went back out into the corridor and closed the door, but continued to talked to him through the wood. “Maria’s gonna have you running laps.”

“Anyone would think she’s the red ranger here,” he called back.

“She’s the captain.”

He joined her in the hallway dressed in his sweats. “She’s a captain.”

“But Catherine doesn’t exactly have time to run training, does she.”

“You’re stating the obvious today.” A chuckle slipped from him.

“Yeah, well… That’s the kind of mood time in.”

Though they didn’t speak after that, grins stuck to their faces with some permanence.

Captain Austin had cleared out an unused storage room to repurpose as a training room, with an obstacle course off to one side and an open space for sprints and so on. Maria, Ken and Brad were already waiting for them inside.

“Here’s a question:” Robert said to Maria. “The military doesn’t do really physical training inside… so why do we?”

She winked. “You’re always telling me how you aren’t military.”

Robert shrugged. It did make sense to have all rangers on base when anything could and often did happen. Certainly saved time in calling everyone to action.

“So come on then,” said Robert. “What are we doing this morning?”

“Strength and cardio.”

The four of them let out a collective groan.

Brad hung his shoulders. “Aww, not strength and cardio…”

Those three words meant only one thing. A round of push-ups, pull-ups, crunches, lunges, followed by about thirty minutes of running. Seperately? Doable. Together? Hell.

And then they had to repeat it. Multiple times.

Ken threw his arm around Brad. “Put it this way, mate. The more we do this, the easier it’ll get.”

“I’d really rather it be easy now.”

“Alright,” Maria interrupted. “Warm up time.”

o0o

Two hours later, Robert, Ken, Allison and Brad collapsed into chairs in the ready room, their bodies on fire.

Maria, who often trained alongside them instead of just calling the shots, had already showered, dressed in her uniform and moved on to her other duties.

“Honestly, I don’t know how she does it,” said Brad, massaging his aching calves. “Energiser bunny or what.”

“She’s a... bunny?” Ken jabbed him in the side with his elbow. “You sure that’s what you meant?”

“You know exactly what I - Okay I’m way too tired to do this right now.” He slumped back, his head thudding heavily against the drywall. He jumped forward, but breathed a sigh of relief when he realised he hadn’t dented the plasterboard.

Allison sighed. If this was what soldiers went through to serve their country, then she had a new found respect for them. She’d always questioned how clever it was to put yourself at risk for causes that your own government may well have been lying through their teeth about.

Maria had really stepped it up this morning though. Was training more important than strategy? Well that was million dollar question but the way Allison’s entire being was burning suggested a certain Captain Austin had made the decision for them.

After a while Allison remembered what she been excited about before training had side tracked her. “We’ve got leave today, guys!”

“Well, the rest of you might,” Ken’s face fell. “but me and Brad have to use it to show up for an exam in good old FL.” He hesitated, took a deep breath and continued. “You still think of going home?”

“Yeah...”

Home meant only one thing: their uncle, their legal guardian, who had effectively disowned them. They’d told him they were going to be gone for a while for a ‘training retreat’ with a view to joining the Agency. As expected, he flipped and said he never wanted to see them again.

Back then it had been a lie, a cover to allow them to pursue their duty as cross rangers. What about now? Now they were more a part of the military than they ever were. The lie had come true in every way but the rank and the title.

Nevertheless, Allison couldn’t stand to think of her uncle sitting alone in his chair, watching reruns and wondering what went wrong, feeling like he’d disappointed his late sister (their mother) or dirtied her memory.

No matter what happened, no matter what she had to do to prove herself, she promised herself they’d reconcile.

Robert, bless him, spoke up. “Well, I’m thinking of seeing my folks too.” He knew all about the Powel’s problems with their uncle, but must have wanted to lift the mood some how.

Weirdly?

It kind of worked.

o0o

Allison’s uncle’s house was in a neighbourhood called Castle Dale - consisting of part semi-detached three bedroom houses and part-council owned properties. Robert’s parents lived a few roads down.

They’d hitched a lift in one of the old, black Agency cars together but Allison had quickly taken her leave. She was beginning to feel more and more apprehensive of what was about to happen, and didn’t particularly fancy showing weakness in front of Robert.

He complained, he worried, but at her insistence he let it be and head off in the direction of his childhood home.

She found herself stood at the mouth of the cul-de-sac, her uncle’s house staring her down from the far end, unable to make her feet move. What would he say? Moreover, what would he do? He wasn’t a violent man and he’d never raised a hand to them. Stern yes, but more from the perspective of a worried guardian trying to live up to his own high standards.

He’d never married, and never had children of his own. So when his sister and brother-in-law met their end during the devastating initial attacks by the Black Water, lumping him with their kids… Allison felt for him. She could sympathise with how tough it must have been suddenly having to figure out how to look after someone other than yourself.

Allison snapped out of her reverie when a car shot past forcing her on to the pavement. It sailed onto the house’s drive, the handbrake ratcheting on in a hurry. A woman and two young, blonde children, a boy and a girl, jumped out and went up to her uncle’s door.

He welcomed them with open arms, picking the kids up in turn and spinning them around.

Allison’s mouth fell open. Suddenly she felt exceedingly angry.

That slimy, little sod! How dare he kick us out? How dare he replace his own damn family with younger, cuter models?

With that same head of steam, she charged up to the bottom of the drive. The mystery family had gone inside by this point. She could see them through the window, laughing and playing like a real family. First, jealously smothered her anger, then embarrassment crept in at the sides. She took a good long look at herself and realised what she was doing.

Creeping around an estate peeping through a window at a happy family, wishing she had one herself.

But when did this happened? How had he found the time between reruns?

A new emotion barged the others out of her brain. Paranoia. What if he’d waiting for the tiniest chance to kick them out so his bit on the side could move in?

Are we that embarrassing?

Without realising, her uncle had come to the door. He stared out at her, arms crossed and eyebrows knitted in anger.

“What are you doing here, Allison?”

Her own anger muscled its way back to the forefront. “What do you mean ‘what am I doing here?’ What are you doing in there with those, those strangers?”

“Contrary to popular belief, I have a life outside looking after you and your brother,” he replied curtly, adding, “I notice he didn’t have the balls to show up, by the way.”

Well, if that wasn’t just the final straw.

“He’s sitting an exam, you arse. At university. Remember when you said he’d never make anything of himself, that he’d buy himself a shed some day and hold weekly conspiracy meetings?”

The mother of the blonde children, blonde herself of course, appeared behind him. “What’s with the shouting, babe? Who is this?”

Allison couldn’t help herself. She knew she should have kept calm. She knew she should think about what she was going to say, but she couldn’t. “I’m the niece he’s obviously never told you about.”

Her uncle stepped the side, flattening himself against the rank of shoes lining the wall, so his new love could pass. She glided down the drive and came to a stop with her hands on her hips.

“Allison. Tom has told me all about Ken and yourself. So, I’m sorry to disappoint and pull that rug out from under you, my dear, but he actually speaks very highly of the two you.” She sighed and crossed her arms. “I’d ask you to come in, but frankly I don’t think you deserve it the way you’re running on.”

No one had spoken to her like that in a long time. Not since…

She hung her head and toed the ground, and for a moment believed that she’d been the one in the wrong.

“Hang on, just let me say something. I think it’s pretty awful what Uncle Tom is doing to us. I don’t want to feel like a failed experiment, or prelude to his life with you and your children.”

The woman nodded even though she didn’t reply, perhaps feigning solidarity with her man for appearances sake. She held out her hand and pulled Allison in for a hug. “My name is Johanna, and I need you to know that you are not a prelude. Okay?”

A great shattering of glass came from the house, and the girls turned to see an empty door and a smashed front window.

They dashed inside to find the place completely vacant. “Uncle... Tom?”

Johanna stepped into the lounge for a moment. When she returned her face was wan and blanched. “My children are… they’re not…”

Their faces must have matched, because Allison had a horrible feeling she knew what had happened, and an even worse feeling that she’d brought it on them herself.

“I’m sorry, but… there’s something I have to do. I’ll be right back.”

“What?” She frowned. “Wait, where are you going?”

Allison bit her lip and ran.

o0o

Robert had called ahead. So, naturally, when he arrived at the house he found the entire extended Lam family assembled in the back yard. At times like these he wished he had a less overbearing family.

“Hey!” roared his father, as booming and effervescent as always. “There’s our hero!”

Robert cringed.

What followed was every relative you could possibly imagine, no matter how distant, wishing him well, telling him how proud they were of him doing something about the incursions and saying how terrible it is and how John next door lost his entire family to some ungodly hell beast and..

And the whole time Robert felt like a liar.

A hero? He wasn’t a hero. A hero wouldn’t lie to his family. He wouldn’t cheat his way through life. He wouldn’t shy away from recognition. Sure, he wouldn’t seek the attention but he’d be man enough to do what had to be done...

Nevertheless, he wondered why he hadn’t done this sooner.

He’d spent so much time flying under the radar, working in some stupid restaurant and putting up with the bureaucracy and despotism of General Bryant, that even if his family thought he was one of the poor sods on the front line, with only a semi-automatic and no chance at a future the moment the Black Water rolled over them, instead of the Red Cross Ranger… well that was just fine.

It felt good.

After a while he found himself lulled into a false sense of security, as though the past several months hadn’t happened and this was just any old get together. So when Allison bombed into the yard from the side gate wearing an expression he come to know all too well, it took him a moment to grasp the situation.

“Rob,” she panted. “I think… I think Black Water kidnapped my Uncle and his girlfriend’s kids.”

“I didn’t know he had a girlfriend…”

“Robert!” she screamed, practically on the verge of crying.

“Alright, alright, the kidnapping, sheesh.” He turned to look at his family, trying to figure out what he’d say and whether ‘military emergency’ was a decent enough explanation.

It was just then that he saw a shadow clad being disappear into the deep shadows behind the hundred year old oak tree at the very back of the garden.

“What the h-”

Robert turned to Allison realising his mother and father were missing. “I’ll bet you actual money that’s what happened to your uncle.”

o0o

Back at HQ they explained the situation to Catherine and Maria.

The order went out to recall Ken and Brad from Fort Lowsdale. By a stroke of luck of luck they’d just finished their exams and, as a ‘sitrep’ stated not minutes later, were in a helicopter on route.

“Well? Did you see his face?”

Allison shook her head. “I never saw the actual event, I was … indisposed... I guess.”

They turned to Robert somehow expecting better from him. “Sorry, all I got was a human shaped shadow disappearing into, well... the shadows.”

“Like a ninja?” said Cadet Ferris from her console at the incursion signal system.

Robert replied regardless of the looks of derision she gained from the others. “No... Honestly, it was like the guy actually became darkness.”

“It could be Oblivion,” suggested Allison. “How much do we actually know about her?”

For a while he’d thought the same, but it didn’t quite add up. “When have Black Water ever attacked us so personally though?

“Their MO is more about spreading their infection, yes, but they’ve pulled the wool over our eyes before,” said Maria.

Cadet Ferris raised her hand in politeness, and drew their attention with a small cough. “What time did you say the kidnappings took place exactly?”

“No more than forty-five minutes to an hour ago, why?”

“Well... only I’ve been here since alpha shift started at 8am, and there’s not been a single incursion signal.”

If there wasn’t a signal then that meant only one thing. The situation carried no meta-level threat, and by law that meant, as a purely human incident, this wasn’t a case StratCom could legally take.

Catherine covered her eyes with her hand. “If we can’t prove this is something more supernatural than some nut job nabbing people at random, I can’t allocate any resources to this.”

Robert reeled back. “Are you shitting me?! Our family’s are missing and you choose now to follow the rules.”

“Red, the SCPD can handle this as well if not better than us,” said Maria, placing a hand on his shoulder. “It’s their job.”

He shrugged her off.

Allison jumped to her longest friend’s defence before he could land himself in any trouble. “That’s not good enough. I believe Robert when he says this can’t be a normal kidnapping. At the very least, you should let us gather some more evidence!”

Around the war room, staff stood aghast at the sight of someone calling out their commanding officer and seemingly getting away with it.

Then again, Catherine wasn’t exactly your ordinary commanding officer. “Okay then,” she said curtly. “I’m sure the boys will want to join you when they get here.”

With that, she excused herself and disappeared into her own adjacent ready-room-come-duty office.

o0o

Once reunited with her brother, Allison voted they begin their search before the trail went cold.

“How do we know there’ll even be a trail?” said Brad, pulling on his StratCom uniform jacket. “Sorry to state the obvious there…”

When all three of his teammates shot him a look that said ‘suggest that again and we’ll break your legs’, he backed off and mimed zipping his lips and throwing away the key. He couldn’t resist one last comment however. “What are we going to do?”

Ken sighed. “Probably best to revisit the scene of the crime.” Could his day get any rougher? From cardio, to finals, to yet more family tragedy in the space of one long morning.

Robert grabbed his radio to tell Catherine the plan, if she’d listen. Perhaps it had been a little over the top to question her in front of her subordinates.

<Understood> she replied. <Good luck, rangers. Call if you need me.>

o0o

They started at Uncle Tom’s house.

Johanna answered the door almost as soon as Ken’s fist wrapped upon it. When her eyes fell on Allison, the rage visibly built up in her, painting her face red from bottom to top at the gall of her returning after the runner she’d pulled earlier. Johanna had to double take when she saw the uniforms, and the boys accompanying her. One she knew as Ken, the others she wasn’t sure about.

“I’ll have to make this short. There’s not much time,” said Allison, nearly barging in through the door. “I don’t know if Uncle Tom said what I do, but my teammates and I need to look around the house.”

Their uncle’s girlfriend stepped aside, more out of shock than acceptance of what was happening.

Predictably the only signs of a struggle were the broken window, snapped coffee table and toppled bookcase; not a supernatural clue in sight. Robert and Brad ducked outside to check the front yard, saying something about the sun and angles.

Ken and Allison stayed behind with Johanna. No one spoke for a good few seconds until the frustration built in Allison to the point of rupture. “It doesn’t even matter what you think of me, or us, we’ll bring them all back, alright?”

The woman opened her mouth to say something, but decided against it at the last second.

After breathing a sigh of recognition, she spoke. “I believe you.”

o0o

Their next stop was the Lam’s place.

It took a good few minutes to introduce everyone considering the entire family was still there, all of them crammed into the tiny front living room. Thankfully they managed to impress the urgency of the situation before anyone started enquiring about ranks and Robert had to lie again.

Nanny Lam followed the rangers into the back garden, along with Robert’s uncles and cousins and pointed to a spot next to the half decimated buffet table.

“I was only standing there, you see. One minute my darling boy was here, and the next … poof! Into thin air.” Her word came out with heaving sobs, until eventually she broke down and someone had to take her back inside.

An uncle accompanied the rangers to the oak tree further down the garden. He seemed to wrestle with a thought for a few seconds, his brow furrowed in concentration trying to find the right wording, before he finally spat it out. “So, why is the military involved in this? I thought this StratCom thing was meant to be for monsters and stuff only. You don’t think-”

Brad stepped forward to field the answer. “Sir, allow me.” The others had been through too much to deal with such questions. “Our commander is doing us a favour letting us investigate. While it’s probably nothing, you can’t be too careful these days, can you?”

“Hmmm,” he said with a fairly aggressive nod. “I see your point.”

Returning from his circuit of the tree, Robert turned his attention to his uncle. “Hey, John, do you think you guys could go back inside for a bit? This is kind of official business an’ all.”

“Oh, uh, yeah. I suppose so…” Uncle John looked pretty dejected, but seemed to agree. “Don’t hesitate to yell if you need any help.”

With everyone gone - though still peering out of the windows trying to sneak looks at Robert their grandson, nephew, and cousin - the rangers could talk frankly.

“I don’t even know what we’re looking for.” Robert threw his arms in the air in frustration. “There’s not a speck of Black Water anywhere.”

“Looks like Ferris was on to something...” said Allison.

Robert circled around to the back of the oak once again, looking first to the back fence and then at the tree’s roots. Who else could it have been if not Black Water? So far only they and the Order had exhibited the power of teleportation. And then there were the shadows, which he now realised were rather unnatural for the time of day.

What am I missing here?

Before he could do anything else, something tackled him from the direction of the oak tree. The shadow-clad figure tucked and rolled, then sprung into a sprint for the house.

Out in the open and in full sunlight there was certainly no mistaking it.

A ranger.

For a moment they thought Bryant had regaining his magi powers. Quickly saw that, while the ranger’s armour was indeed black, it was nearly seamless with no additional colours or highlights. His belt was but a sash of black cloth. Equally black leather pads sat upon his shoulders and the visor of his helmet was thin and tinted red.

And sure enough upon his forehead was the darkness clan symbol.

With a split second of concentration, Robert summoned his spear. After everything that had happened so far, he didn’t care if his family saw.

He threw it, catching the shadow magi longways in the back of the knees.

The ranger crumpled to the ground, finding the four on top of him before he had the chance to stand.

“Who are you, and what have you done with our relatives?” Robert roared, mere inches from the magi’s helmet.

“I had hoped to finish the job, before moving on.” The rangers voice was deep and as rough as gravel. “Get off me and I shall tell you my business here.”

“Why should I?!” Flecks of spittle flew from Robert’s mouth as he shouted.

“Because my issue is not with a fellow magi, but the organisation that seeks to use you.” A sudden rush of strength filled Cross Shadow. He threw Robert clean off him, knocking Ken and Allison over in the process.

The ranger jumped to his feet and began to weave shadows around himself. “All will be explained in time, but for now tread carefully. Your family will be with you again in no time.”

He made a swift arcane gesture and slid into the pool of shadows.

“What just happened?” ask Brad. “I thought the Order couldn’t find any more rangers?”

Robert had no answers. For a few seconds he even slipped into a shock-induced trance, but when he came to he said, “Bryant’s darkness powers must have jumped to the next ancestor in line.”

“But how did he get so good in such a short time?”

Ken had a point.

“No rookie magi could have come up with that shadow jumping stuff,” said Allison. “The general certainly never did.”

It was that moment that Robert’s aunt and uncle chose to come looking for an explanation. They stood on the threshold of the house part way between angered, amazed and awestruck.

Robert stared right at them back. For the moment, he felt like being defiant. What was the point of keeping a secret identity when it got in the way of beating the bad guys?

On the other hand, what was to stop Black Water, or any other group for that matter, coming after their family every other week if the public knew he was the Red Cross Ranger.

He shifted the spear back his back and sent it back to base.

“Robert?” His aunt sidled up to him, wringing her hands. “What just happened? Who… what exactly do you do for the military?”

He realised through it all that she wasn’t just scared, but terrified.

How could he come out and say it when her knowing could bring more pain upon the family than it already had? Instead, he reached out and hugged her. “I can’t tell you. If you knew -”

Uncle John interrupted and finished the sentence for him. “If we knew bad things could happen that are out of your control.” The glint of pride in the man’s eyes told Robert all he needed to know.

His uncle continued: “What ever this is, Rob, you catch the guy and you bring Alan and Lucille back to us. You don’t have to say anything besides, and we won’t say a damn thing.”

Robert shook his hand and waved goodbye to the remainder of his family. Damn right, he would find them. Damn right, he would bring Cross Shadow in for what he’d done.

o0o

The rangers got back into the black car and the driver assigned to them set off for HQ.

“What are we going to do now?” said Brad.

“We need some help on this one,” Allison replied after a while.

o0o

Catherine slid the documents she had finished signing back into their respective project folders. She’d discovered a perfectly proportional relationship in her workload; the more the Black Water spread, the more paperwork seemed to land on her desk.

No one said it would be easy. Every so often one of the lower ranks would file some documents for her to looked over and put her final signature on. Forget the infection, she wondered whether this was how General Bryant lost it.

A black gloved arm seized her around the throat and dragged her out of her chair.

By the time she managed called out for help, not a second later, the scene had already changed. The wood in her desk and shelves appeared to shift seamlessly into the bark of a densely packed forest. The veil of shadows receded. She’d hardly noticed them set in.

Five other people, civilians no less, were tied to trees nearby; two men, a woman, and two young children. All were unconscious apart from the little blonde girl. A amorphous mass of living shadow tied Catherine to her own tree before dissipating.

She couldn’t see their captor anywhere, but kept her voice low all the same. She hissed to get the girl’s attention. “Hey. Yeah, you.”

The child, who couldn’t have been more than five years old, raised her head and looked at her with bloodshot eyes. “Who are you?”

“Hi there. My name’s Catherine.” She tested the restraints. It felt like rope, but held much stronger and tighter. “What your’s?”

“Lilly…” She sniffed. “Where’s my mommy? Why’s everyone sleepy?”

Well how could anyone answer that? “Don’t worry Lilly. I’ll get us out of her.”

She attempted to summon her morpher, but found her connection to the power simply didn’t exist. That can’t be right. She frowned and tried again to much the same effect.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” said a deep gravelly voice from behind her tree. “But you will find that quite impossible. I’ve use my magic to seal your powers.”

“Come out where I can see you!”

The kidnapper compiled, all too easily perhaps. Catherine’s eye spasmed when the all-black ranger moved into her line of sight. She heard him sigh audibly through his helmet.

“I was saddened to learn that a magi sat at the head of the beast, subjugating her own kind, forcing them to certain doom.” He stepped closer, until his thin, dark red visor fell inches from her face. “How do you live with yourself?”

“What are you talking about? I do what I do to save the world.” Given the abilities he’s demonstrated so far, this ranger must have pledged allegiance to the darkness clan. “Who could fight the Black Water if not magi warriors?”

He didn’t see fit to answer her directly, instead he dodged the question entirely. “Do you recognise these people, subjugator? Usurper? They are here to prove a point, albeit a crude one I’ll admit. They are because of your actions alone.”

Catherine growled in frustration and pulled against her bonds. “You’re delusional.”

“Am I? If you say so…”

The noise of their conversation had woken the other captives, the young boy started but one look from one of the men seemed to calm him some, especially when he saw his sister, the blonde girl.

The dark magi turned to them. They seemed to recognise him, yet through fear rather than anything else. “This is the deal. If you stand down, let the magi govern themselves, I will release these hostages.”

“And what if I don’t?”

He summoned a jagged-edged axe and hefted it above one of the men’s heads. “You must know how this works.” He let the weapon fall back onto his shoulder. “I’ve been watching those you call rangers. Yes they fight the evil plaguing your time, but at what cost? The blue and green rangers take time from their education to serve this cause.

“The Red and the White magi are perhaps the most tormented by the life your army forced them into. They lie to their parents and, dare I say it, to themselves. Is that not proof enough?” He gestured to her fellow prisoners.

She realised who they were then; Robert’s parents, Alan and Lucille, and the Powel sibling’s Uncle Tom. About the children on the other hand, she had no idea.

“Free the magi from their slavery and I shall free these four,” he said.

A plan flashed through Catherine’s mind. It would have to do. “Look, whoever you are. What ever do you think gives you the right to make demands of me? Don’t you recognise me?”

“If this is intimidation, I’m not impressed. The magi of this era are quite pitiful. We used to be akin to gods!”

“Release me and say that!”

Their captor chuckled. “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

She spat at his feet. If he lost his cool, she hoped he might slip up and make a fatal mistake. “At least we have more honour these days.”

“Honour? The emperor used to speak of honour...” He drew himself up to his full height and popped the bones in his neck. “My tribe didn’t agree. What use are the abilities bestowed upon us if we limit ourselves to some pointless code of conduct? Does the tiger cut off it’s own claws?”

“I think you’re scared of what’ll happen when your seal brakes.”

“Scared?! I’m a Shadow Warrior.”

“Then prove your might!”

For a second he seemed to consider taking her up on the offer. He paced back a metre and folded his arms. In that moment, Catherine felt an invisible force crack her bonds. The shadow ranger noticed immediately. The rope made of his own shadow energy had been snapped by a force outside his control.

Her link to the power snapped back in place like a television turned off standby. She flexed her magic by summoning her morpher.

The rogue magi dropped to his knees. “You’re the...”

“Lady of the Trinity? Or perhaps you’d prefer to call me your majesty?”

“Empress!” He bowed, jamming his helmet into the leaves and mud at her feet.

“I hate pulling this card on people,” said Catherine. She made her morpher disappear. “Let these people go. They’ve done nothing to deserve this punishment.”

He complied, and without a twitch of muscle on his behalf, their ropes slackened.

Monks of the Order slid from the shadows and took the prisoners to safety. They disappeared back through their glimmering portals of light.

Four of the Cross Rangers - Maria, Robert, Brad and Ken - replaced them, striding from the very same portals before they slammed shut.

The fifth, Allison, marched from behind the tree, a ripping wind circling her fists.

Catherine hopped down from the raised platform created by the tree’s extensive root system.

“Your goal is just, sure, but you’re going about it all wrong.” She crouched down by the prostrate magi, and lifted his head from the mud. “I don’t subjugate these five. Regardless of the past, as far as I care we’re all equals when it comes to beating evil back where it came from.”

Suddenly Cross Shadow lunged forward, driving his shoulder into her stomach. He sprung to his feet from the resulting roll and picked up his axe in one smooth motion.

Allison helped Catherine to her feet.

“Let’s be honest with ourselves,” the shadow magi said. “All these rules and regulations... how are you supposed to do your job when you can’t even sanction a son searching for his missing parents?”

Robert faltered. The rogue magi’s words had struck a nerve.

“It’s not someone else’s problem. It’s everyone’s. The more you hold them back the more they’ll want to break free of you.”

Catherine too felt his words ring true. Just look what happened with Bryant when he held us back?

“I want you to tell me one thing however,” Cross Shadow said, holding up a small, carved tesserae-like object. Carved on it’s surface was the unmistakable form of the darkness clan symbol. “How is it you’re even able to command your armour without your clan ru-?”

Before Cross Shadow could finish his sentence, a lance of solid black ichor pierced his heart and he crumpled to the dirt. He clutched at the wound, gasping for oxygen. The clan rune almost tumbled from his hands, but the magi clamped down on it, protecting it with the remainder of his life as he'd vowed to do.

They spun to see a quill-backed Black Water monster lower it’s tail, a pleased grin plastered across it’s twisted face. “He talk too much.”

“He was just getting useful!” Allison roared. All the emotions built to a fever pitch with in her. Right then she made a vow to herself. No more would she leave things to the mercy of the laws of chaos and entropy. No more would she exist within a whirlwind of bad upon worse.

It was time to take control.

Without even summoning her morpher, her magi power burst outward and shifted her into the trademark white-and-gold armour. A jet of wind lifted her from the floor and flung her toward the monster.

Distracted by its own ego, the quilled beast took her to the stomach in a full body tackle. Her fists rained down upon it. Blow after blow after blow after…

Joined by the others, Ken rushed forward to pull his sister away from monster before she did any lasting damage to herself. “Allison! Revenge isn’t the answer.”

“It’s a monster, just morph and help me.”

Robert shrugged. “She’s got you there.”

The four remaining core ranger morphed into their armour with a resounding call of “Cross Form!”

Catherine looked down at the dying shadow ranger and hesitated.

Brother Edwards, a monk of the Order, appeared beside her. “Don’t worry, we’ll deal with him. You help the rangers defeat the monster.”

She nodded and, without a second thought, raised one arm to the sky and thrust the other to the dirt. He morpher shimmered onto the skyward wrist. “Clan form roulette!” Catherine brought her arms together, striking the morpher’s circular dial along her forearm. As it spun her body shimmered and turned into her gray lined base form.

Not waiting for the dial to decide, she ranked up with the rangers.

“Fire and Metal; Red Cross.”
“Water and Lightning; Blue Cross.”
“Air and Light; White Cross.”
“Earth and Water; Green Cross.”
“Sonic and Fire; Yellow Cross.”
“Head of the nine magi tribes. The magi empress… CrossTrinity.”

“Magi Tribe… Cross Ranger!” they finished in unison.

The dial on CrossTrinity’s morpher clicked over to red and her armour shifted accordingly. She glanced at Red Cross and Yellow Cross and nodded.

The three rangers took a single step forward out of the line up and blasted the quilled monster with a triple flame advent.

It burst from the fire wall, spines burning from the attack, and dove straight in among them.

As she rolled out of the way CrossTrinity spun the dial a second time. She ducked beneath the monster’s fist once, then twice. The dial spun slower and slower. She shoulder barged the beast to put some distance between them.

Just then the dial clicked over to white. The shifting of CrossTrinity’s armour called White Cross to her side. The two stretched out their arms, palms facing forward. “Tornado Advent.” Twin whirlwinds surged from their hands and blew the quilled monster off it’s feet.

The ranger’s regrouped.

“Want to do the honours, Catherine?” said Red Cross.

CrossTrinity shrugged. “Sure.”

A swirling of rainbow energy surrounded her fists. She swept her hands through the air and pulled more power from her link to the Earth. “Trinity Advent.” She clapped her glowing palms together and a wave of tricoloured energy collapsed in around the monster.

The energy burned, it singed away at it’s Black Water flesh until the corpses of a man and a long-tailed porcupine fell to the ground.

o0o

Once the rangers had defeated the monster, the Order had reappeared to take them back home. As soon as they had stepped from the portals, Cadet Ferris’ voice came over their radios as though she’d been trying to contact them for quite some time. Maria quickly explained what had happened.

The large group decided to split up at this point. Catherine and Maria, along with Brother Gray, would travel back to StratCom HQ with CrossShadow to get him the medical attention he needed.

That left Robert, his parents, the three Powels and the children to return home. Brother Edward agreed to do this alone and drop them off one group at a time.

Robert was thankful the Order had pulled the hostages out before he’d morphed. He could barely figure out how to explain his seemingly magical weaponry to his uncles, aunts, cousins, and other extend family.

This is going to be interesting.

o0o

Even though he refused to remove his armour, StratCom medics managed to slow CrossShadow’s bleeding as well as remove the majority of the quill. Nevertheless, the damage was far too extensive to totally stabilize him without better access to his body.

He further surprised everyone by refusing treatment, so they moved to a secure cell.

Catherine was first into the room once the doctors agreed he was fit to be seen.

He greeted her with a bow. “Empress.”

“I’ll make it quick.” She had many questions for him and, she suspected, little time to do so. “What did you mean when mentioned clan runes? You never finished your sentence.”

His voice came out ragged. “Every clan has its own rune.” He opened his hand to reveal the darkness rune he hadn’t yet let go of. “From this we warriors draw out power. Where… are your runes?”

“We don’t have any.” She then remember the glowing symbols that appeared on the rangers hands every time they morphed. Although… “Anyway, what I want to know more is where the hell you came from? The Order has never once come across you during their search”

“Ah.” He took a laboured breath. Even though they hadn’t been talking for long, he’d definitely deteriorated. “Now that is… more difficult to answer.”

“I-” She wanted to say ‘I have all day’, but all things considered. “Just try.”

“I am not of this time, but I suggest that goes without saying.” He coughed, and grabbed his chest in pain. “An entity came to me and told me of an injustice. I never saw it’s face. It spoke to me as a voice in my mind.”

“And it told you to come to our time and kidnap our families?”

“I didn’t take the mission of my own free will. That Temporal Vortex threw me here without waiting for my reply.”

“Let’s just circle back to the real issue there.” Catherine asked him to move his legs, and sat down next to him on the bed. “Why did you kidnap those people?”

“I was told to use my intuition… That I would find magi under oppression, and must do all I could to stop it… something about changing the future…” He attempted to sit up, and pain lanced through him. Though she couldn’t see his face due to his helmet, she knew he was twisted up in pain. “I’m sorry for getting the wrong idea about you.”

“No, don’t,” she said. “Your heart was in the right place. In fact, you may have done more for us in a roundabout way than you think.”

Cross Shadow, if he’d accomplished anything, had gotten them thinking about the nature of their war against the Black Water, in fact, the nature of war itself. To save lives you had to compromise, and you couldn’t save everyone, even if you tried.

“Then you won’t let anyone hold you back from doing what is necessary?” he said.

“Of course not.”

“And… and promise me you won’t order your subjects t-to ignore what matters most to them. Without heart, magi warriors are little more than killing machines.” He paused to take another ragged and stressed breath. “You must not become that which you vowed to destroy.”

“You have my word.” Catherine touched him on the shoulder. “One last thing. Who are you, beneath that helmet?”

He opened his palm flat, the rune sat symbol up. It began to glow. “It is the least I can do after what I’ve put you all through.”

A black energy surrounded him and yet, it seemed weak, faltering, slow. In an instant the light turned a brilliant glittering white, swirling around them like a whirlpool. Just as his armour was about to dematerialise, he fell into the blinding vortex.

It snapped shut behind him.

“Damn it!” Catherine beat her hands against the mattress.

A young officer poked her head around the door. “Are you alright?” she said, Then saw Cross Shadow was missing. “Oh...”

“Yeah.”

o0o

In the northern wildernesses of the country, in amongst the mountains and earthworks and forested expanses, an archeological team had set up camp. Although taken root might have been a better word, for they had been on site for months now with no signs of slowing down.

For a long time there had been rumours of interesting archeology in the north, rumours of an ancient civilisation.

The first mention of anything strange had come when a prospector, panning for gold in the mountain streams, turned up innumerable amounts of pottery. Pushing further into the mountains toward the source of the river, he came upon a cave. His writing had gotten vague, hazy and prone to hyperbole at this point, so no one could be totally sure what he found in those caves. Whatever it was, a lost civilisation or just a huge seam of gold, the prospector returned a changed and considerably wealthier man.

At first the archeologists came for the possibility of uncovering hitherto unknown settlement and vital clues as to the daily lives of bronze age man. Then, they realised, they had a rescue operation their hands. Locals had been coming to this spot, Prospector’s Cave, for centuries. It seemed anything of interest had been robbed out long ago.

And then they hit something unexpected.

Bodies. Burials mostly.

In amongst those multiple hundreds of skeletons and cremations, men, women and children, they found a warrior of indecipherable age. Clutched tightly in his fingers was a small, unassuming tessera. A fragment of pre-roman mosaic? Quick on the heels of the tessera-holding warrior were carvings and, identical to both, a single common symbol of a waning moon in a circle.

A unknown religious cult perhaps? Whatever they’d stumbled upon, they had enough material, enough questions to answer to keep them in business for many decades to come.

But one night, during the second full month of the dig, someone broke into the incident room. They took very little, nothing in fact apart from the unknown warrior’s moon-symboled rune/tile, before vanishing like they never existed in the first place.

The thief was never caught and the importance of the rune was made just that little more obscure.