One of the Krybots immediately turned towards the woman. She opened her eyes wide with fear as she remembered her own words, about the lengths her organization would take to protect its clients. "Oh shi-"

The Krybot blasted off her head.

Sky and his teammates pulled out their badges. "Spread out," Sky said. "This is what we’ve trained for."

They flipped open their badges. "SPD…" They thrust their badges forward. "Emergency!"

Energy shimmered around them as they morphed into their Ranger forms. They were the four members of the Guardian Task Force DECA Rangers. Sky, DECA Blue; Z, DECA Yellow; Bridge, DECA Green; and Syd, DECA Pink.

DECA Blue armed his D-Knuckle, which wrapped around his fist. He connected his D-Baton to the weapon to form a blaster. "Take them down."

The Blue Ranger fired bolts of cyan-tinted energy that ripped through some of the grunts with bursts of spark as the soldiers spread out to attack. 

Nat had slept on the floor so Tia could sleep on his mattress- although she probably would have been more comfortable on the floor- and he walked the girl to her hotel the next morning. The sky above was cloudy, grey, and gloomy.

"You’re staying at the Hyperion?" Nat asked.

Tia nodded. The Hyperion was formerly a high-class hotel, but during the past few years, the business had turned into the crown jewel of the slums.

They walked through the hotel lobby, dimly-lit by flickering, pale lights, and walked up a wide antique staircase towards the hotel’s second floor, where Tia and her sister shared a room.

"What’s wrong?" Nat asked. "You’ve barely said a word."

"It’s just…" she said. "I’m not looking forward to this. My sister and I…we got in a fight last night. That’s why I ran out…to get some space."

"Sounds like it must have been serious," Nat said.

"It was," Tia said. "Ever since we lost our parents…my sister, Rai, she’s been involved with this man named Damien Tryp. Everyone in the neighborhood knows he’s slime. Even the cops know it. But his attorneys are with Wolfram & Hart, so that makes him untouchable."

"Wolfram & Hart…I’ve heard of them," Nat said. Wolfram & Hart was a questionable law firm that often represented extraterrestrial clients that posed as humans. "If one of their clients is involved with your sister…that won’t end well."

"That’s what I tried to tell her, but she wouldn’t listen," Tia said as they walked towards the door of her hotel room. "After we lost our parents, he offered to help us. He set us up with this hotel. But it’s only because he wanted something. And with a pervert like Damien Tryp, you can guess what that something was."

They stopped in front of the door, and Nat looked to her with concern. "You two should get out of here. I could…" his voice trailed off.

Tia smiled and squeezed his hand. "You’ve done enough. Thanks for all your help. I’d be dead if it wasn’t for you."

"Someone’s got to fight the good fight," Nat said.

She smiled. "Thanks again."

Tia walked into the hotel room and noticed that her sister was gone and her bed hadn’t been slept in. She poked her head into the open bathroom, but Rai wasn’t in there either.

She opened her cellphone to call her sister, but before she could dial, a voice spoke up from the shadows. "She’s not going to answer…"

Light seemed to ripple near a corner as a man stepped into view, like a chameleon dropping its cloak. He pulled out a handgun and fired.

Nat was walking down the stairwell when he heard the gunshot. His eyes opened wide. "Tia…"

He turned back and ran up the staircase, dashed down the hall, and bolted towards her room. Nat sprinted to the door and turned the handle, but it was locked, so he kicked the door down.

He stepped inside and found Tia lying on the floor with a bullet hole through her head.

DECA Base was a fortress that looked out upon Angel Grove North. The building housed the Earth branch of SPD, along with the Silver Guardians that Dr. Cranston had created in 2006.

Inside, near the top of the base was a round briefing room walled with holographic monitors that tracked extra terrestrial activity across the planet, but more specifically, in Angel Grove. A round table was in the center of the room, and a holographic projector was on the center of the table.

The four rangers sat around the table while Kruger stood and activated the center projector, which displayed an image of an odd-shaped, high-tech trident about the size of a hand.

"Those Krybots might have disposed of the shooter, but they never had a chance to clean up their mess," Kruger said. "We found this on the body."

"What is it?" Sky asked.

Bridge looked to his team leader. "A Zylon-class trident. Not exactly the most reliable of subspace transceivers, but it will do in a pinch. I had one once at the academy, but I couldn’t get it to stop blinking on and off each time I tried to tune into the…" He trailed off when he noticed Z staring at him with an eyebrow raised. "Sorry. Shut up, Bridge. Got it.Shutting up. This is me, being all-"

"So the trident," Kruger said to get them back on subject. "This means the shooter was getting orders from someone off world, which is probably how she secured the Krybots; they’re hard to come by on the black market."

Sky nodded. "Which means it shouldn’t be too hard to find out where they came from, or where the shooter was getting her orders."

"But I don’t get it," Z said. "I was working on the Damien Tryp case. He was a client with Wolfram & Hart. I assumed it was them who hired the shooter."

"It very well may have been," Kruger said. "We have too many questions and not enough answers. The four of you will have to work the streets. See what you can find out about the Krybots and this trident."

It didn’t take long for Nat to find the offices of Damien Tryp. The man’s main office suite was on the 40th floor of a high-rise building, which had a lobby that was scarcely guarded; Nat assumed that few people would try to attack Tryp in the man’s own skyscraper.

Nat was one of those few. 

The teen ignored the shouts of security guards and rode the elevator up to the 40th floor of the building. He stepped out into the hall and walked towards the boardroom, where he knew Damien Tryp would be sitting, likely in a meeting.

Nat kicked down the doors of the boardroom and walked inside, where about ten suited men sat around a long table near a wide window.

Three of the men rose from their chairs and pulled out guns, but a man at the head of the table lifted his hand to stop them from shooting. "Don’t," the man said with a look of arrogant amusement. He was clearly Damien Tryp. "I’m sure the boy is just making a friendly visit. He’d have to be suicidal to attack me here."

Nat narrowed his eyes at the man. "You killed Tia."

"No, I had someone hire someone to kill Tia," Tryp said. "And her sister, but that’s really not the point. My men have noticed you around these past few weeks. You’re a skilled fighter. You’re a-"

"Why’d you do it?" Nat asked.

"I tried to help them," Tryp said. "In exchange for only a few small favors here and there. But one of them betrayed me." He stood from his chair and walked towards the teen. "You see…what I have built here is an empire. A sense of…order. This city was falling apart, its criminals killing pointlessly without direction. Its so-called crime lords unable to maintain control. I have started to change that, in only a matter of months."

"You’re still a criminal and a killer," Nat said. "Why’d you bring the girls into it?"

The man smiled. "For more…personal reasons. The women of this world are so…there’s just something about the salted taste of sweat on their smooth skin that-"

Nat pounced forward, grabbed Tryp by the arm, and hurled him at the window. The man shattered through the glass and plummeted towards his death, more than 40 stories below. 

Three of the men around the table rose from their chairs and pulled out guns, but Nat kicked up a chair and hurled it at the men to knock them backwards. He leapt onto the boardroom table and moved down its center while kicking back the rest of the men and knocking them out.

Nat hopped down onto the floor and walked towards the boardroom door.

One of the men, an attorney, squirmed and rose back to his feet. "That was stupid, kid. You don’t know who-"

Nat snapped back a sidekick that knocked the lawyer out.

Nat kept his head hung low and his hands clenched into fists as he walked back towards his

make-shift apartment.

He stepped down into the basement, tossed his jacket onto his bed, and stared at the maps on his wall. He glanced at each pin that represented one of his fights. Was he even making a difference? What did he have to do to keep innocents like Tia from dying?

The teen snapped around into a fighting stance when he heard footsteps come down his stairs. He slightly lowered his guard when he saw the intruder. It was an alien, but the blue-furred, dog-like being was dressed too…officially…to be a street thug.

"Landlords don’t allow dogs," Nat said. "They’re strict like that."

Kruger breathed a laugh, which sounded like a quick, low growl. "Nat…my name is Commander Kruger. I’ve been watching you for some time."

"Should I be flattered or freaked?" Nat asked.

"That all depends on your perspective," Kruger said. "May I come in?"

"You’re already in," Nat said. "Whether you stay depends on what you’re a commander of exactly…"

"SPD," Kruger said. "Earth branch."

"Never heard of you," Nat said.

"We’re still relatively new," Kruger said. "We have dozens of bases on dozens of worlds."

"And you do what exactly?" He shook his head. "Wait a minute, why have I not kicked you out yet?"

"Your curiosity," Kruger said. "Are you familiar with INET?"

"Who isn’t?" Nat asked.

"The founder of INET, Dr. Cranston, had a vision for the organization. You see, the Earth is faced with threats on a constant basis, typically from cosmic warlords or demons bent on world conquest. Cranston formed the ISIS Defense Initiative to deal with these threats. The Initiative’s team of Aero Rangers has already won a war against inter-dimensional villains known as the Vyram. 

"But not all threats come from the grand, cosmic scale. Galaxy-wide, meta-level threats are involved with criminal activity ranging from petty theft to mass murder. These meta-level criminals have rampaged across the cosmos for countless years in various forms. Some arm themselves with strength-enhancing gears, others use biological weapons, and some are simply born with raw power. 

"During the Age of Legends, millions of years ago, an Order of Masters and Rangers fought these villains galaxy-wide, acting almost like a space patrol force. Dr. Cranston wanted to recreate that patrol force.

"He started laying the groundwork in 2005, during a galaxy-wide war against a villain named Sauron. A year later, meta-criminals from the future attacked Earth, and Dr. Cranston helped form the Silver Guardians to fight against them.

"Now the Silver Guardians have evolved into a global police force to combat meta-level and extraterrestrial criminals. The Guardians operate under the Earth branch of Space Patrol Delta, which, like every SPD branch, is assigned a Ranger team."

"So what?" Nat asked. "You here to arrest me?"

"I’m here to recruit you," Kruger said.

"No thanks," Nat said. "I prefer freelance work. Can’t beat the hours."

Kruger looked around the cramped basement. "Not to mention the accommodations."

"You’re boring me so much right now, it’s not even funny," Nat said.

Kruger pulled a small business card from one of his pockets and placed it on the nearest table. "Think about my offer. Taking out muggers in dark alleyways is…admirable…but let me know when you’re ready for something bigger."

Kruger walked up the steps and left, leaving Nat alone.

The teen’s thoughts drifted to Wolfram & Hart, and the girl he’d been unable to save.

Nat walked over to the table and picked up the card.

Bridge and Z walked down a dark alleyway as the sun began to set in the distance and cast a pale hue across the streets. They moved towards the rear entrance of a small jewelry shop and walked towards the door to knock.

"Did you know the original owner of this jewelry shop was a member of the Gumbwei race?" Bridge said. "Fascinating people…they have actual blocks on their heads."

"Do you ever stop talking?" Z asked.

"Not really, no," Bridge said. "I don’t like awkward silence."

"No, you just like being awkward," Z said.

Z knocked on the door, and the two rangers waited several minutes before it finally opened. A short man with a scruffy beard poked his head out and opened his eyes wide with shock at who he saw. He quickly flashed his best smile to hide his surprise and stepped outside.

"Z, Bridge," he said with a laugh as if greeting two old friends- which they clearly were not. "You shouldn’t just knock like that at this time of night. You’d be surprised how many people have tried to rob the place lately."

Z smiled. "And I’m sure you handled the matter by contacting the proper authorities and not doing anything crazy like, oh, I don’t know, eating them or something."

He chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of his head. "No, nothing like that, I’m a changed man."

"Of course," Z said. She looked to Bridge, and he pulled out a small, handheld holographic emitter to display an image of the trident.

The man tilted his head and ran his fingers along the stubble on his chin as he looked at the image. "Is that a Tribar-class Trident?"

"Zylon-class, actually," Bridge said. "You can tell by the missing tong on the dorsal side."

"Oh yeah, I’ve never really noticed that," the man said.

"Few people do," Bridge said. "It’s-"

"Boys," Z said. She pulled out one of the empty Krybot capsules and lifted it towards the shop owner. "What can you tell me about this."

The man opened his eyes wide. "No…don’t ask me that. Ask me anything but that."

"Really?" Bridge asked. "Did you think before you said that? Because really, why would we stop our line of questioning when clearly-"

A blaster bolt suddenly cut through the air and shot through the man’s head. He collapsed to the ground, dead, as his body reverted back to its native form: a brown-skinned alien with large bug-like eyes and a gaping mouth.

The rangers looked up to see a cloaked man, who was obviously the shooter, leap from the rooftops.

"After him," Z said as she and Bridge ran in the direction of the shooter, and she flipped open her badge. "There’s another shooter. Form up on my location."

Sky and Syd regrouped with Z and Bridge, and the four rangers tracked the shooter to a vacant warehouse area, which up until about a year ago was a hub of industrial activity.

The rangers ran towards one of the larger warehouses as Bridge looked at his badge’s sensor screen. "From what I can tell, our shooter is a mecha human."

"We need him alive…" Sky said. "Or at least mostly intact."