What I was working on yesterday...

Red Ranger

Name: Josephine Taylor (Jo)

Age: 19 (physically) 25 (on paper)

Gender: Female

Hair: Mousey brown, reaches halfway down her back, more often than not in a ponytail

Eyes: Brown

History: Was eighteen when she got caught up in the start of the Elfame Realm invasion of Earth and became the Red Power Ranger, their leader, in order to protect people. She hadn’t felt ready to be the leader of the Rangers but had tried her best until the night of the her nineteen birthday, when during a Team Building exercise/her Birthday party the Rangers got a call out and were tricked by the bad guys into entering Elfame.

Though it only felt like an hour or two to the Rangers, who were all entertaining thoughts of continuing the party when they escaped, when they emerged from Elfame they found to their horror that they returned not the same night but the day of Jo’s 25^th birthday and that in their absence the Fae folk had overrun the world and the humans are living in zones warded by cold iron and salt.

The Rangers make their reappearance by defending the nearest Zone, which is under attack when they get there, looking for information.

Jo’s one of the lucky ones. Her family made it to one of the Zones, but trying to explain her six year absence wasn’t easy and she ended up having to show her parents and brother what she was in order to have them stop thinking she had run off on them.

Zord: Red Gryphon

Pink Ranger

Name: Stacy Prisby

Age: 21 (mentally/physically), 27 (on paper)

Gender: Female

Hair: Dark brown, almost black hair that’s curly and reaches just past shoulder length.

Eyes: Brown.

History: Was 21 when she was caught up in the invasion from the Elfame Realms and became the Pink Power Ranger in order to help her friends fight against the intruders. She was the one who helped Jo decide where to go for her birthday when they remembered that Brian was a year under the drinking age.

Worked with Phones in the call centre before they were trapped in Elfame, but started working for Jo’s family who own a couple of apartments as a repair man and in exchange lives rent free in one of the apartments and is a welcome guest anytime in the Taylor family home (Yes, they know she’s a Ranger too).

None of Stacy’s family made it into a Zone, but Jo’s family go out of their way to make her feel like part of the family. They did take in Stacy’s cat though, who had been at the vets with Jo’s when the Rangers vanished.

Zord: Pink Pegasus

Blue Ranger

Name: Scott Dee

Age: 19 (mentally/physically), 25 (on paper)

Gender: Male

Hair: Shoulder length, straight dark blonde hair.

Eyes:  Grey.

History: Scott was nineteen when he got caught up in the invasion from the Elfame Realms and became the Blue Power Ranger. Though at the time he was concerned with saving people he had been a long term follower of the Power Rangers teams that had emerged over the centuries and the ‘this is so cool’ factor was often a thing when he was presented with new weapons or Zords.

When he emerged from Elfame, Scott found it difficult to get a job, but he had always been a film buff and had been planning to take a Film Studies course. He managed to get an intern position at the TV station and was often sent out with the news crew, allowing him to get close to the action before morphing without anyone thinking that he was out of place.

Scotty’s brother, his brother’s wife and his nephew all made it to the Zone the Rangers find when they’re looking for signs of people when they leave Elfame, but his parents ended up in a different Zone while looking for Scott.

Zord: Blue Wolf

Green Ranger

Name: Brian Higgs

Age: 17 (mentally/physically), 23 (on paper)

Gender: Male

Hair: Short, always messy, brown hair.

Eyes: Green.

History: Brian had been 17 and on his way home from work when the invasion from the Elfame Realm happened and he became the Green Power Ranger purely because he could and it would be cool to be able to kick the fae folk’s rear end. It was because Brian wouldn’t have been able to join them at a pub or the like that the Rangers decided to go ten-pin bowling for Jo’s nineteenth birthday where they were trapped by the Fae Folk for six years.

Upon emerging from Elfame, Brian went back to doing exactly what he had been doing before, minus the job since it hadn’t stayed open for him, which was playing games and getting pushed around by his little brother who had safely made it to the Zones with their mother.

His good friend, Phones, made it to the Zones too and the two often hang out whenever Stacy isn’t working at the call centre for emergencies where she often gives the Rangers a heads up on trouble before it gets too far, by phoning Brian or Jo, who Brian introduced her to.

Zord: Green Stag

Black Ranger

Name: Louise Post

Age: 20 (physically/mentally), 26 (on paper)

Gender: Female

Hair: Shoulder length unruly dirty blonde hair

Eyes: Grey-blue

History: Louise was twenty and somewhat of a bookworm when she was caught up in the invasion from the Elfame Realms and became the Black Power Ranger, though she chose to do so in order to try and eventually find out if a peaceful solution could be reached. She hadn’t originally been planning to attend Jo’s birthday party but had gone along after it had been arranged for them to go do something interesting instead of all meet up at a pub and get very drunk.

When she re-emerged from Elfame after their six year captivity, despite the absence, Louise was the only Ranger able to find a job easily, as she had been training to be an accountant before she had been captured by the Fae folk. She went into politics when she saw how badly the humans were organised and how much help they needed to regain a more stable society but hid her Ranger identity so no one knew that she was a Ranger. When it finally did come out to the public she said something along the lines of “I didn’t want people voting for me because they were afraid of my power or because I saved their lives or because of the Team’s popularity. I wanted people to vote for me because I’m the best choice.”

Louise’s parents didn’t make it to the Zones, but her siblings did and Martin (now 24) does what he can to look after the twins, Gary (14) and Tamsin (14), while Louise helps, supplementing the income where she can and being there for her siblings.

Zord: Black Bear

Digital Distraction: Part 33

Kaiba had to admit he had been suprised. He had expected to arrive at the castle and immediately have someone try and capture him. Instead he had been led to see Edmund Harper, who had been in his office, trying to fix make some last minute preparations for the ‘final round’ of the beta test.

Harper had been honestly shocked when he had presented his data and gotten rather offended that he would dare accuse him of wrecking Kaiba Corp’s systems and stealing their data.

Then he had taken a proper look at the information Kaiba had brought with him and the focus of his anger had changed. Instead of snarling at Kaiba for making false accusations, he had phoned his second in command, the vice president of the company and the one who had gotten him in contact with SharpShade, to see if she knew anything about it.

Harper’s business partner, a Egyptian looking woman in  rather expensive looking white dress and sandals entered the room accompanied by six men in robes whose hoods covered their faces.

“Mina?” Harper demanded, furious, “What’s going on?”

“It’s Menhit, actually Edmund, and I am sorry but...” Kaiba tuned it out. He didn’t really need to pay attention. It was perfectly obvious what was going on. Harper was being deposed by some mad woman with a small army of robed idiots. This was Yugi’s territory, not his.

Something about the two mooks at the back of the small group caught his attention. They seemed to be silently debating something amongst them as their boss continued, the smaller of the two hissing for the taller to be quiet.

“...and yes, I did know about what happened to Kaiba’s company.” Seto tuned back in in time to pay attention to her gloating, “It was my idea to ruin his systems and embed Dimension’s tags in the code.”

“Why?” Harper demanded, confused, even as Kaiba scowled at her, determined to make her pay for daring to almost ruin years of work. If it hadn’t been for those backups...

“Because, Edmund, you’ve been really useful in attracting all these powerful Duellists to the island for us, but you were never going to get Kaiba here by yourself, not when he has others to send for him and he has a company to run.”

She turned to Kaiba, a huge smirk on her features as she continued, “Of course we did consider kidnapping your brother, but we already had one hostage to deal with and quite frankly it was easier to mess with your company’s computers then deal with your security forces.”

That she had even contemplated laying a hand on his brother was unsurprising but unforgivable. He scowled at her, but didn’t say a word, well aware that it was generally better to let the lunatics get their monologue out of their system early so you didn’t have to listen to it later.

“Of course we did expect you to be on the boat with the others, like your little spy.” Kaiba didn’t frown but it was a close thing. “Not that she’s poking her nose into our business any longer. I’m very sorry,” Her tone indicated that she wasn’t sorry at all, “But Miss Ironhide won’t be returning to work any time soon.”

That was it. The smaller of the two mooks that Kaiba had noted earlier ripped her hood off to reveal Ombre was stood there and she looked furious.

“What did you do to Kari?” She demanded as her powers answered her call, flaring up around her in a fire of burning gold and freezing purple.

“Men.” Menhit snarled, gesturing to the other three men. The taller of the two mooks at the back played a card from his hand, summoning the Flame Swordsman who held off one of the goons as Ombre’s magic pinned another. A third took a swing for the traitor, only for him to duck under the blow, his hood falling to reveal Joey, and counter attacked.

Kaiba had no intention of getting grabbed by these morons and knew he would never live it down if the mutt rescued him. He couldn’t access his deck with his DimDisk locked down, just like everyone else’s, but he didn’t need to. He slipped into a offensive stance and within thirty seconds he had taken out one of the mooks.

Between his martial arts, the mutt’s street brawling style and Ombre’s magic it doesn’t take them more than about five minutes to take down the other four goons. Joey let out an irritated snarl as he realised that Menhit had escaped in the brawl.

“I’m going to rip that witch apart when I find her.” Ombre growled, stalking towards the door.

“Ironhide, wait.” Kaiba snapped at her, just as angry about Menhit’s escape as the rest of them.

“You heard her.” Ombre snapped, “They have Kari.”

“Yes and you have no idea where, storming round in a foul mood will just endanger her further. Sit down, shut up and let me think.” Kaiba bit back at her, well aware of how much he owed his captured employee.

“Kaiba...” Ombre opened her mouth, but shockingly it was Joey who blocked her path to the obnoxious CEO.

“Ombre, no. I hate to say this, I really, really do, but he’s right. First they took Yuge, now we know they have Kari and if they have Kari, they’ve got Tristan too.” Joey was obviously trying to control his temper in order to calm her down. “We need a plan.”

“What do you mean ‘they took Yuge’ and ‘they have Kari’?” Harper demanded, “What the hell is going on?”

“You’ve been made redundant.” Kaiba snorted, glancing over at him, “Menhit’s running this operation now. You’re just a pawn she’s discarded.”

“Well she’s going to regret that.” Harper snarled back, furious that he had been played so badly, “This is my island. My system. My rules. I know all of the backdoors.” He smirked at them, “She wants to play dirty, I can play dirtier.”

Ombre paused to consider him for a moment, then nodded. “I want my DimDisk reactivated and I want to know what she’s done to my sister.”

“Easily done.” Harper promised. “Give me twenty minutes in the admin room and I’ll have full control over the island again. If your friends are anywhere on the island, I’ll be able to find them.” He promised.

“Good.”

C.N. April 2014: Digital Distraction Part 17

“The ‘other Yugi’ is Yami.” Yami explained, half lying in order to avoid having to answer questions that she would never believe the real answers to, “He’s my brother. He doesn’t tend to get out much because he’s shy and people mistake him for me all the time so he’s given up arguing it. He’s been ill recently so he was home alone when they kidnapped him.”

“How long ago was he taken?” Dani asked, thinking about what she knew of the ShadowSwords and how they treated their captives.

“Last night.” The Pharaoh paced the room again, not liking to be reminded of how long ago it had been since he had last seen the other half of his soul.

“Then he’ll probably be hungry and thirsty by now, but he’ll be okay.” Dani reassured him.

“How can you know?” Yami’s gaze was sharp and wary, as if he wasn’t sure whether to believe her or not.

“Because I’ve been their guest before.” She informed them, “They tend to neglect to feed their prisoners or offer them something to drink, but once they’re locked up they tend to leave them to their own devices. Yami’ll be okay until they need him for something.”  

She could see the relief settle in the group at her words. She wasn’t entirely sure of the truth of them. She remembered her own captivity well, she had been held prisoner for almost a week before the ritual had very almost taken her life. In that time she had gone hungry and had only been offered water thrice, but she had at least been left alone in her cell.

However her capture hadn’t exactly been gentle. She had been battered and bruised when she had escaped from the cave system in Sennen Cove. She didn’t doubt that Yugi’s brother would be in much the same state.

“If you find him while you’re investigating...” Yami started.

“Don’t worry. I’ll let you know straight away.” Dani promised, “Now, if you don’t mind, there’s nothing else we can do tonight and I need some sleep.”

With that dismissal, Yami and his friends headed back to their rooms with a lot to think about. Yami knew he should be more concerned about the insane cult that wanted to sacrifice everyone who was on the boat, but his hands were tied. Interfering with their plans could cost Yugi his life and Yami refused to take that risk.

Later, once he knew Yugi was safe and sound, he was going to ruin the ritual they had planned and tear the idiots who had decided that stealing Yugi away from his home was a good idea, into tiny little pieces. Slowly. And he would enjoy every moment of it. And if Yugi was hurt, their end would be beyond painful. He would make sure of that.

In the meantime he had to hold his temper and wait for further instructions. He hated it. Absolutely hated it but there was nothing he could do.

“Yami...” Joey started, causing the Pharaoh to turn to look at him, “I know they’re watching you, but we could start trying to hunt these guys down, see if we can at least find out where they’re holding this ritual thing?”

Yami grimaced. He didn’t want his friends getting themselves into trouble, but they were already there. Everyone on the boat was in danger if they couldn’t stop the ritual that was taking place on the island during their stay. “Do it.” He nodded finally as he reached his door, “But be careful, I don’t want to have to be the one to tell Yugi you guys got hurt.”

“You got it.” Joey grinned, pounding his hand with his first, “And don’t worry, it’s our turn to save the day for a change, you focus on getting Yuge back.”

“Right.” Yami nodded, grinning back, “I’ll leave the hard work in your hands then.”

“Eh, it’ll be a piece of cake for a real man.” Joey postured, causing the girls to roll their eyes, Tristan to slap him upside the head and Yami to shake his head in amusement. “Hey!”

“Before we split up we have three phones between us,” Kari pointed out, “So we need to work out who’s with who. Really we need at least one phone per group.”

“I’ll go with Joey.” Tristan said before anyone else could say anything. “If he’s chasing the cult members, he’s going to need the backup.”

“I’ll go with Yami.” Tea spoke up next, “And Kari and Ombre can work together.”

“Two per team.” Kari nodded in agreement, “That way we have even numbers.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Yami shook his head, knowing what he was about suggest was likely to get him shouted at, “The teams aren’t balanced. Tea and I will make up one team, Tristan and Kari another and Joey and...”

“What?!” Yami winced against the noise they were making and ushered them into his room so they didn’t wake up the other players on the boat.

“If you’re all quite done?” Yami snapped at them once the door was shut and he had had as much of the noise as he could tolerate. “With the teams you’d decided on we had all of our muscle in one group and all the mages in another.”

“I have magic.” Joey protested.

“And you’re not exactly built like a brick outhouse.” Kari sniped at the Pharaoh.

“I don’t need to be.” Yami shot back, “I’m the distraction, remember? There’s nothing I can do about anything without getting Yugi killed, so I can’t do anything until he’s free. That means it’s going to be mostly up to you lot and neither Kari or Ombre have self defence training. Not only that but yes you have magic,” He turned to Joey, “but you have barely any training and it’s not in Shadow magic, which is what we’re up against.” He looked at Ombre, “I know you want to stick close to Kari, but I’m asking you to help Joey, please?”

The room went still. There were words that Yami didn’t use unless they were aimed at Yugi. ‘Please’ was one of them. It wasn’t that the Pharaoh meant to be rude, they just didn’t seem to be in his vocabulary. So for him to say it now underlined how frustrated and worried he really was by the situation.

“Sure.” Ombre nodded, realising now how badly Yami was affected by all of this. She knew he was slipping, she had been on the receiving end of his temper enough times to know that. However knowing it and actually understanding it were two different things. “I’ll cover him. Don’t worry.” Yami nodded, grateful to her, before she turned to Tristan, “But if you let them harm one hair on Kari’s head...”

“Dead meat sandwich. Got it.” Tristan nodded.

“Good.” Yami let out a slow, calming breath, “Now we should all try and get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a nightmare.”

NaNo2013: Speedster's Secret: Part 17

Though she was unsure where she actually was, once she hit the motorway it didn’t take her long to find a city that was far enough away from the complex that she could pause and treat her injury. She wasn’t sure where to go to get it sorted though.

She had no money, no phone, no cash and no way of getting any. Going into a hospital was her most likely option, but she didn’t have a severe bleed, so she could be in the waiting room hours, by which time, they could have caught up with her, and she couldn’t be sure anywhere else would be able to treat it properly.

In the end she stumbled into a pharmacy, giving a false name and scenario as they cleaned the wound, bandaged it tightly to keep pressure on the wound and sent for an ambulance.

She was long gone before the ambulance arrived.

Trying to work out where to go was a nightmare. Her house wasn’t safe. Her uncle’s place was just as dangerous. Work was out. There was no way she could go to any of her friends. She was alone, had no food, no real clothing bar the torn scrubs, no way of getting more and was in deep trouble.

Skipping countries wasn’t really an option when she couldn’t afford anything over there and had no I.D. and while her replacement debit card had come through the post, that had been at Luna’s house when she had shot off and if she used it now, the government would be able to track her.

Her best bet was to grab her card from Luna’s, shoot up the country, take all her money out in somewhere in the north of Scotland and then shoot back down the country and possibly out of it all together and just use cash.

“Sorry Luna.” She mumbled as she made up her mind that that was the plan, darting down to Chew Magna where Luna’s parents’ house was, only to find the Other Luna and Shade in the middle of a blazing row that seemed to somehow involve her of all things.

“Get out of my way Shade.” The Other Luna was snarling, Shadows swirling around her, drawn by her anger. “I’m going to get my friend back and you can’t stop me.”

“I think, dear sister, I can.” Shade snapped back, his own Shadows roiling around him, “You are not going to walk into some government facility just to get that waste of space back. She’s threatened all of our safety! I’m not letting you risk yourself. Not when I still need your power.”

“You want it so badly?” The Other Luna growled, “Come and...”

“Stop!” Speedster shot between the pair, easily able to see where this was going and not wanting the pair to get into a Shadow Game.

“Juliet!” The Other Luna lost control of the body to the original, the Shadows vanishing in a heartbeat as she darted over and hugged the tired and injured speed freak.

“I’m not staying, Lune.” Speedster admitting, pushing her friend away, looking sheepish as she did so, “I just came for my debit card and a change of clothes.”

“I should Game you on the spot.” Shade snarled at Juliet, causing her to push Luna behind her to protect her, despite the fact that Luna was currently stronger than she was.

“Probably.” She admitted, “But I’m doing everything I can to prevent them coming for you guys too.”

“You’re hurt.” Luna fussed at her, dragging her away from her brother, who seemed to be peeved to say the least at the fact he was suddenly being completely ignored by his sister.

“I’m fine,” Speedster tried to reassure her, “I just need my card and my clothes and I’ll go.”

“You’re not fine, this isn’t fine!” Luna shook her head, gesturing to her leg, “Or this.” Luna’s fingers brushed Juliet’s throat and she let out a startled and pained yelp as she put pressure on bruising she didn’t even know existed. “Sorry.” Luna looked contrite as Juliet gently brought a hand to her sore throat, wondering just how bad she looked.

“It’s okay.” She murmured, “You’re worried. I get it. But I can’t stay here. They’re going to be looking for my friends as it is. Really if I had a say we’d all be getting the hell out of here, everyone in the Club, but it’s not possible. So I’m going to lure them away. It’s safest for everyone.”

“You’re just running to protect yourself.” Shade accused.

“I’m not you, Shade.” Speedster snapped at him, “I don’t leave friends and family in trouble.” She paused, eyes widening for a moment before she glared at him, “And how did you know I was being held by the government?”

Luna blinked for a moment, startled, before turning to her brother. “All we saw on TV was her being taken away in an ambulance.” Luna stared at him, “They put a call out for information at the same time, cause she had no I.D. on her and had only identified herself as Speedster...”

“It wasn’t me.” Shade defended himself, “Spike told Michael he had phoned up, hoping to get some information on how she was. When they started asking too many questions, he put the mobile phone down and chucked it in the river but the damage was already done.” He smirked slightly, “If it had been me, I would have told them she was a serious threat to national security and watched the fallout.”

“You’re an idiot.” Speedster snorted, “But I concede your point. For once. Spike just made a mistake. It happens. Now, can I get changed and get my card please?”

“Come on.” Luna dragged her friend inside to the spare room, “You’re lucky that mum and dad are out. They weren’t happy that you wrecked the living room until I explained that was you on TV. Then they kind of got it. They don’t want you in the house, but they got it.” Luna helped her pack up the remaining unopened Christmas presents as well as the opened ones and the clothes Juliet had brought with her, before slipping out of the door in order to let her get changed.

It didn’t take her long to get dressed properly and finish filling her backpack with the things that were scattered around. “Luna?” She asked as she finished and glanced around.

“Yeah Speeds?” Luna asked as she poked her head in the door.

“I’m sorry about this. About all of this.” Speedster gestured around to the world in general, “I didn’t expect...” She trailed off.

“I know.” Luna reassured her. “If we need to get in contact with you...?”

“Its better you don’t, to be honest.” Speedster told her, “If they think you’re in contact with me, they might make you call me in or something. I’ll phone once I’ve skipped countries, payphones are only traceable while you’re using them after all.”

“This isn’t right.” Luna complained, hugging her best friend tightly, “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“No. I haven’t.” Speedster agreed, “But I still have to go. Or everyone will get hurt. And I won’t let that happen.”

“Alright.” Luna nodded, hugging her for just a few seconds longer, before letting go. “But what if Sawyer comes back?”

“I don’t know.” Juliet admitted. “I really don’t. I feel like I should stay and fight but it’s obvious I can’t. Maybe I’ll make a day trip to the country.” She teased slightly, trying to lift Luna’s mood slightly. “I hear robot smashing’s a pretty relaxing pastime.”

“Only for the one doing the smashing.” Luna’s glower wasn’t particularly scary and only served to make her look adorable, “For everyone else its heart attack inducing.”

“Lune...” Speedster couldn’t help herself and ended up ruffling her friend’s hair. “It’ll be okay. You’ll be okay. Hell, you can get them to forget about you. Your Other Self has the Shadows, remember?”

“I don’t care about me, I just want them to leave you alone.” Luna complained at her.

“I’m toast.” Speedster shrugged, “You’re not, not yet. Now, I’d better get going before I bring them down here. I’m sure they’ve probably got some way of seeking out my trail.” With that she shot off, heading up country to start with and going into a bank to withdraw as much money as she could possibly take out there before withdrawing even more at the cash machine.

With a decent chunk of cash behind her, she darted back down the country and headed for the Channel Tunnel, figuring it for her best bet to get across the water unnoticed.

It would have been a great plan if she had headed there first, but her joke about Italy and China being nice this time of year had caused the guys in suits to set up a presence everywhere within it.  

It worked in her favour, as she shot past them, allowing herself to be seen by no less than seven guards before shooting down the tunnel at high speed and emerging into France.

She transferred about two hundred pounds into Euros at the chunnel’s exchange point, deliberately picking that one to allow the guards on this side to see she intended to stay for a while. Then she was gone again, darting down to Bordeaux before she phoned up anyone.