Nicole’s French toast was a bit burnt, but that didn’t stop her from eating each and every bite of it as slowly as she could, all to avoid the looming conversation that she could tell Grace was just itching to dig into. Still, she wasn’t an accomplished introvert for nothing, and if there was one thing she was good at, it was avoiding awkward conversations.
“Still stalling?” Grace asked after a moment. “You’ve been staring at your empty plate for five minutes now.”
“I could stare for another twenty,” Nicole answered. “You underestimate my powers of procrastination.”
Grace sighed, sitting back in the bench seat. “I’m not going to pretend to know what you’ve been through, we’ve only known each other for twelve hours after all. Well, unless you count the emails about making your blades. What I can tell you is that burying stuff only makes it worse in the long run.”
“What if I don’t expect there to be a long run?” Nicole muttered softly. “We’re now soldiers in a war, one I don’t think we can win.”
“Rangers hold the line,” Grace said softly.
Nicole winced, the phrase having been the rallying cry of a failed stand against the machines. A phrase she now knew came from the vision she had when the Power came to her. The very same stand the White Ranger made against the Commander that doomed his team, but they saved the lives of thousands for their efforts. That phrase had been immortalized as a result, as had the team that died fighting. It was how she expected to die now that she had joined their ranks.
“It’s a cheery thought, isn’t it?” Grace continued. “Nobodies turned heroes, fighting for the fate of humanity to the bitter end. I imagined being a Ranger so many times, yet I never actually expected…”
“Me neither,” Nicole said. “It’s just so damn hard to care about anything. I don’t have any family, and prior to yesterday, I had one friend in the entire world. Everyone else was dead and gone and I couldn’t afford therapy without my parent’s insurance.”
“And now you have purpose,” Grace finished for her. Nicole smiled, but she knew she didn’t fake it well enough. “Just know you aren’t alone in all of this. We’ve got each other, and three other teammates besides.”
“Need a top off?” Gertie asked, smiling.
Nicole nodded, sliding her nearly empty cup to the edge of the table. The TV was back onto local news, and footage of the Renaissance Faire was being shown, mostly cell footage from prior to the attack, and some that Nicole could tell was taken in prior years. She nearly startled when Vegetable Justice came on screen and she saw herself. More importantly, that otherworldly woman was there, clear as day.
“Grace, TV, now,” she hissed.
Grace turned, then grinned. “Oh cool, you’re on TV.”
“Oh, looks like I got myself a celebrity,” Gertie said. “Hear that Sam? We got a famous girl here.”
“So what if she was on TV,” he grunted, turning the page on a magazine. “Doesn’t do us any good.”
“Spoilsport,” Gertie snapped back, the banter smooth and good natured. She topped off Grace’s cup then retreated once more, giving them their vanneer of privacy.
“What’s so special about that woman next to you?” Grace asked in a hushed tone the moment she could. “Something about her looks… Off.”
“She knew the attack was coming,” Nicole said, her knuckles clenched white. “I tried to warn security, but what could they actually do against those monsters?”
“You think she was one of them?” Grace asked, glancing back to the screen which was now showing the pair of them fighting off the automatons together.
“I don’t know,” Nicole said. “It was so damn weird. First she showed up out of the blue, then she pulled me out of a spiral and accompanied me until I was more or less functional again. Then she told me to go home and vanished into thin air.”
“Weird,” Grace said, crossing her arms as she sat back, her face scrunched adorably in concentration. Nicole tried to not stare at her well toned arms. “Think she might have been something related to your powers?”
Nicole blinked. She hadn’t even considered that as a possibility.
“She was dressed in blue, but her look was decidedly goth and not quite human, then you end up the Black Ranger. Maybe she was some apparition of whatever chooses someone to become a Ranger?”
Was it really that simple? The Ranger powers picking her ahead of time? If that was the case, then it raised other questions about how those powers knew an attack was coming. It was far too heavy subject matter for five a.m. and three hours of sleep.
“Something to consider,” Nicole said, hoping to move to a less existentially terrifying topic. “Think your wardrobe is going to get an infusion of red going forward?”
Grace blinked for a moment, then snorted. “Half my wardrobe is already red. How about you? All in on black?”
“Same problem,” Nicole said, a soft smile coming to her face. This was a much more comfortable line of thought. “Poor Jeff, he’s gonna be wearing purple all the time.”
“No worse than Devon,” Grace said. “He’s gonna have to settle for heather gray.”
“Or go full sixties sci-fi aluminum foil,” Nicole said, her smile morphing into a grin. “I could see him being that dramatic.”
Grace snorted, a touch of coffee shooting from her nose as she started coughing. Nicole tried to stifle her laughter as she passed over a bundle of napkins. Grace accepted it with one hand, flipping her off with the other. A single moment of levity didn’t make things better, but it certainly helped.
“You good,” Nicole asked, her voice sickly sweet.
“Fuck you,” Grace said, trying to clear her throat.
Nicole’s mouth worked before her brain. “Maybe if you ask nicely.”
Grace paused, clearing her throat as she looked away. Nicole fought down the rising heat of embarrassment flooding her as she desperately fought the urge to get up and start running. Why had she said that? She never did something like that around someone she barely knew, especially not around someone she thought was cute! She was trying exceptionally hard to not think about how attractive her fellow Ranger was. Sure, Nicole thought she had flirted at the Blades stall, but that was easily explained as her just being friendly.
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Nicole knew she was unattractive, being a gymnast had left her with a muscle heavy build, one that her fellow students hadn’t hesitated to make fun of her for. She’d been called all kinds of names, but the favorites were always some flavor of transphobic comments. She wasn’t even trans, but people still called her all sorts of shit all because she had the strength to compete on the state level.
The others on her team didn’t push themselves, they wanted to stay petite. Nicole decided to give the one thing she was good at a shot and it showed. She wasn’t nearly as bulky as the girl that went onto the nationals after her accident, but Nicole still had well defined muscles over most of her body, since reinforced by the Ranger power.
Grace had muscle too, but she wasn’t built like Nicole. Her arms were toned, her shoulders had a bit of bulk as a result, but it was flattering. Her choice of costume, with the huge ass axe, really brought together the look. It worked for her in a way it just wouldn’t if Nicole tried it for herself.
She’d slacked on her training since high school with the intention to lose some of the bulk over the last few months, but every bit of her lost muscle was back now. It was why she usually wore bulky clothes. Men’s shirts hid the muscle better than women’s most of the time, and sweatpants were just good overall. Yet, she hadn’t worn any of that to see Grace. She’d grabbed a pair of jeans that hugged her form, and one of her mom’s shirts that was cut for women.
She’d noticed Grace staring at her muscles a few times during the meeting after the fight. She’d tried to ignore it, to pass it off as idle curiosity. The guys had been looking too, especially Devon. He’d been watching the other two girls on the team rather closely. Kayla seemed receptive of his attention at least. Nicole wasn’t going to pry into the interests of her teammates, but she also knew that dating coworkers only led to drama.
One Ranger team in Texas ended up fighting amongst themselves for a week over a love triangle gone sour.
“I am curious, how do Ranger teams get from place to place,” Grace said after a moment, the change of subject obvious, yet welcomed. Nicole had dwelt too much on her body issues as it was, nevermind her thoughts about her teammate. “Like, we never see them driving in the streets, they just arrive within minutes of a new crisis.”
“I suppose we’ll find out,” Nicole said. “Maybe another Ranger will mentor us or something.”
“They’d be going really out of their way if they do,” Nicole said, sipping her coffee. The nearest teams were based in Chicago and St. Louis, either case would be quite the trek and would leave their cities under manned. “If anyone was going to do it, it would probably be a New York Ranger since they have three active teams.”
Outside, the sun was starting to illuminate the horizon, touches of orange and yellow piercing through the sky as it slowly lit up. They’d been there for nearly four hours now, and even with the coffee, Nicole was starting to feel the exhaustion creep back in. The bell on the door rang at that moment, and an older couple stepped inside.
“We should probably go,” Grace said, pulling her wallet out. Nicole watched as she walked up to the waitress, handing her a trio of twenties, and dropped an additional twenty in the cook’s tip jar. The man saluted her with a spatula while the waitress hugged her with tears in her eyes. Nicole resolved to make the little diner her new morning stop.
“Think you’ll get any sleep?” Nicole asked as they got back into the car. A second car was now pulling into the lot and she knew they’d made the right decision to leave when they did. The waitstaff hadn’t pried, but there were no guarantees that one of the patrons wouldn’t listen in on them.
“I’ll probably catch a nap this afternoon,” Grace said. “My roomie decided to go home, so I have the dorm to myself at the moment.”
Nicole nodded, Rebecca would likely go spend time with her boyfriend, taking advantage of the break from classes. Nicole didn’t want to be alone, but until Becca decided to tell her she was ducking out, she didn’t want to leave her alone either.
“You’re welcome to swing by my dorm at any time,” Nicole said. “I don’t know what my roomie’s plans are yet, but odds are she’ll duck out too.”
Grace paused, her key in the ignition. “You sure?”
Nicole nodded. “Yeah, we should probably know where each other live.”
“You mean the team, right?” Grace asked, the car pulling onto the street. “We never know when the next attack might occur, best to be safe and all.”
“I was more so thinking about other potential issues,” Nicole said softly. “Between the government, and criminals, the last thing we want is to be caught in a situation where we are forced to reveal ourselves.”
“A mugging would be a shitty way to be revealed as a Ranger,” Grace agreed. “Oh fuck, all my weird fantasies about odd situations are gonna involve colorful transformations now.”
Nicole chuckled. “Oh good, at least I won’t be the only one.”
She’d often imagined what she might do if she was a Ranger, how she could stop someone trying to attack her or Becca with ease. Now that it was reality she just felt silly. That initial transformation had done something, not that she could put a finger on it, but something about her was different, and not just physically.
After fighting some of the scariest things she could imagine, the Sylan invaders, what situations could even compare? She needed to try some of her gymnastics, see how she moved both morphed and as she was without her new power coursing through her. She needed to know her limits, needed to start training again, to learn to fight beyond her basic martial arts practice as a kid.
Nicole’s phone dinged, and she fished it from her pouch.
Becca: Hey, you gonna be back soon?
Nicole: I’m actually on my way back now. Need anything?
Becca: Nah. Colin asked me out to breakfast, figured I’d let you know.
“Well, that answers that,” Nicole said. “Becca’s heading over to her boyfriend’s.”
Grace hummed. “Good for her.”
Nicole chuckled, putting the phone away before slumping in her seat. “I feel so underprepared for all of this.”
“Yeah. I don’t even know how to fight with an axe. I just chopped wood at my grandpa’s farm on occasion.”
Nicole tried to avoid drawing comparisons between her new friend and a certain social media lumberjack that loved flannel and maple syrup. Not that the comparison would be unflattering, far from it, but she didn’t need more intrusive thoughts about her new friend.
“Maybe we should arrange to spar with our fellow Rangers,” Nicole mused. “It would be safer than trying to fight with our weapons and Renfaire stuff.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Grace said. “Think you can whip up a group chat and send that off? I’m a little busy keeping us on the road.”
Nicole rolled her eyes, fingers dancing as she typed up what she hoped would be an appropriate invitation.
Nicole: Hey, G and I were wondering if everyone wanted to meet up this afternoon.
Jeff: I’m game for that. What was the plan?
Nicole: Lunch, and maybe trying out some of our LARPing stuff, see what we can do now.
Kayla: Oh, that’s clever! Anyplace in mind?
Devon: There’s a park not far from Anoka, we could go there. Lots of woods to keep us out of sight and open fields we can use.
Kayla: Damn, did any of us sleep?
Nicole: Doesn’t look like it. How about 3pm?
She watched the affirmations stream in, a smile on her face. Nobody had disagreed with the suggestion, which was a relief. She would have felt like an ass if one of them had fought her on it. Nicole wasn’t a leader, even in group projects she was the silent one that did their portion of the work and usually a bit more to cover for the more social people in the mix.
“I’m guessing it went well?” Grace asked. At Nicole’s inquisitive look, Grace smirked. “You’re smiling, so I’m guessing everyone is gonna be there?”
Nicole looked away, watching the city go by as they neared the campus. “Yeah, they’re gonna meet us around three at a nearby park.”
Grace pumped a fist. “Oh sweet. That gives us some time to nap.”
A barking laugh escaped from Nicole before she could help herself, the sentiment was very much echoed by her too. She was exhausted despite the caffeine practically coursing through her veins. A nap sounded fucking wonderful, then she would get to stretch her legs and see what she could really do.
Nicole couldn’t wait.