Chapter Six: Live-Fire Training Arc Without Honor or Humanity

The command room—sorry, the Power Command Center—beckoned. More circular than the training hall, though the fortress didn’t seem able to generate truly rounded surfaces. Instead, it settled for more of an octagonal design in a rough compromise, working with the templates it had on hand. The ceiling was far higher than the old training dojo’s, and one of the eight walls was arranged into a glistening, mirror-like surface.

Many raised pedestals contained similar mirrors. Only upon closer examination did Ren realize they were touch-screen interfaces.

Their castellan friend awaited at one of the side consoles.

“This is bad! This is bad!” said the spectral ‘bot.

The armor’s empty fingers tapped on the display. An image appeared on the big screen. A tori gate at the top of a long flight of stairs.

“That’s…” Haruto took a step towards the display.

“This shrine is in the mountains outside your settlement,” explained the castellan.

Tori no su Shrine. A sprawling Shinto temple winding up a mountain path far past the farms at the edge of town. It was largely empty these days, aside from an occasional volunteer to perform basic maintenance and sweep leaves away in the fall. The shrine has experienced a minor resurgence in tourism in recent years, thanks to its photogenic cliffside view of the sea. Pictures looked good on social media.

“What does anyone want with the shrine?” Ren asked.

They’d been in the practice room for quite some time. The sun was beginning to set, as readily visible on the monitor. It was unlikely anyone would be visiting the shrine at this hour.

With a ‘pinch’ to the touchscreen, the large monitor zoomed through the forested hills. It focused again on a figure with a vaguely human silhouette… until it opened his arms to reveal a truly frightening wingspan. Jet black feathers covered this humanoid’s arms. And a rigid nose was revealed to be a massive beak.

The creature opened its beak and a ‘caw caw’ chortling laughter.

“It’s a tengu!” Miyu said, pointing at the screen.

The castellan bobbed its helmet up and down. “The Umbral Court’s foot soldiers shall take the form of local mythical figures you may be familiar with.”

“Figures from local mythology, eh?” Ren asked, hand on his chin.

Miyu and Yuto nodded simultaneously. “There are tengu statues by the cliffs up there.”

Ren and the others looked to these cousins, silently asking for elaboration.

“Our grandparents used to sweep the shrine, until they got too old to climb the steps,” Miyu explained.

“Hey, maybe ojiisan could help us? He knows the layout,” Yuto said. “Huh. Where did gramps and obasan go? Weren’t they in Tokyo for some kind of treatment? Ah, never mind.”

Yuto dismissed this with a shrug. They weren’t about to include an unknown civilian in what was presumably going to become a melee against this tengu beast. That this squad was also made up of civilians conscripted from the go-home club didn’t register in their minds.

The monitor zoomed out, revealing a gaggle of flexing and strutting monsters hopping about at the tengu’s orders. They looked much more humanoid, but with static faces and a strange, fluid-like motion. Movement betrayed the uncanny nature of these creatures—more a living liquid than flesh and bones. Almost like a pile of silly putty arranged into a life-sized voodoo doll.

“There are at least three dozen of them,” Yuto said.

“We’re vastly outnumbered,” Sakura added with a nod.

“The tengu is the main threat,” said the castellan, frantically slapping its fingers against the touch screen. “Any Mahouranger should be able to take on lesser minions of the Umbral Court twelve to one. Wipe them out, then target the Schattenritter. The Schattenritter is the true threat.”

They still didn’t know what a ‘Schattenritter’ was.

Ren turned to Sakura. “Sempai, you’ve taken some English classes. What does that mean?”

Sakura shrugged. “I am unsure.”

If only Becca were here. They spoke English in Oregon, right?

“I don’t even know if it is English,” Sakura admitted. “Maybe it’s Czech?”

Regardless of etymology, the tengu was very Japanese and standing there amidst the tori gates. What was it doing?

“You must get out there and stop the Schattenritter. Before it further erases the leylines in this region.”

“How would it do that?” Ren asked.

The tengu and its goop monster underlings didn’t have any equipment to be seen.

“Metaphysical leyline dispersal is imminent!” the castellan said in lieu of an explanation. “Get out there and destroy the target, before it is too late!”

The wall to the ‘ten o’clock’ portion of the circular chamber moved outward and was then replaced with a group of five shallow pedestals barely rising off the floor. Each glowed with its respective ranger colors.

“I shall teleport you to the forests outside your city,” the castellan said.

With varying levels of hesitation, the party assembled on their matching pedestal.

Ren took a deep breath. This was some kind of teleporter if he was understanding it correctly. Surely they’d be placed somewhere out of sight from this yokai monster. Maybe high up on the mountain, where they could do proper reconnaissance.

“Power Transportation activating in three… two…”

They didn’t hear the ‘one,’ with the ranger’s vision and soundscape instead exploding into an elaborate kaleidoscope. Ren wondered what that even looked like to an outside observer.

Regardless, the ‘Power Transportation’ was done in an instant from their perspective. A stiff mountain breeze could be sensed through the suit, though they were safely cocooned from the elements in the uniform and helmet. It was dark. ‘Loading Night Vision’ appeared in their helmet’s fancy holographic heads-up display.

“Mahourangers…” Ren began to call for his team to assemble.

It only made sense for Ren to be the squadron leader. His uniform was closest to red. He stood in the middle of their formations. He tried to think of some command to get everyone to ‘roll out’ and make for the shrine. Only, instead of calling for the go-home club-turned-sentai-squad to ‘assemble,’ he wound up with his helmet in his hands.

“G-gah.” He writhed about in an exaggerated motion.

“Kermes Ranger, what’s wrong?” the Snapdragon Ranger asked.

The others had instinctively lined up to strike a pose.

A vision of the Tori no su Shrine invaded Ren’s head. It was smaller, a tiny island of old Shinto traditionalism amidst a sprawling cityscape. High rises ran up the mountainside.

“It’s… It’s nothing,” Ren said, refocusing.

What was that? Ren thought back to the castellan’s talk of Tenshigurobu’s otherworldly life as a metropolis. How the Shadow Court, or whoever the baddies were, somehow rolled back the history of the prefecture remained unclear. That vision—it was the sprawling Tenshigurobu that could rival Sapporo or Nagoya. Why had Ren seen it now? What did it mean to the historical record to have a city replaced with a small hamlet? The shrine was far larger in his ‘present’ with no city to speak of.

The undeveloped forest that surrounded the shrine now was lightless and dense with trees. The enemy could be anywhere out there. The rangers would have to be careful…

“I’m fine, just a minor migraine,” Ren said, striking a pose. “Rangers… Assemb—oof!”

Ren never finished his sentence, as a bloblike monster in the vague shape of a human rammed a hardened fist against his chest plate. He flew backwards, these blob-minions possessing strength well beyond the average civie.

Though Ren was temporarily discombobulated by the body blow, he didn’t need full control of his senses to hear the signs of battle all around.

“You warped us directly into their formation!?” someone yelled over the comms.

Ren’s ears rung even more from all the yelling.

“Time is of the essence! Use your Power Weapons!” the castellan responded simply.

Clanging sounds of metal on stone erupted from all around. Ren managed to get back on his feet and looked over at Yuto. Over to his right, the Smalt Ranger blocked a mighty punch from a blob-monster, then countered with a horizontal slicing motion of his spear.

Sparks flew as the spearhead sliced clear along one of the blob-beasts. With an exaggerated flailing, the creature flew backwards, already melting into a puddle.

“Why are they bursting into sparks with every hit!?” Sakura asked, having resorted to her knives to similar results.

“The blood of multiversal beings appears as sparks and embers in your timestream,” said the castellan’s static-filtered voice.

Ren readied his bat in two hands. Another monster approached. He swung for the head. Even more sparks erupted.

“Well, why are they also sparking when we hit them with blunt objects!?” Ren asked.

The monster he’d hit had already disintegrated. It melted into goop on the floor, which quickly soaked through the jagged soil of this mountainside shrine.

“Ren, watch out!”

Haruko jumped between the Kermes Ranger and the nearest creature. The living liquid entities could morph their limbs into blunt and bladed weapons; this one had transformed its bony fingers into a knife. The blade raked diagonally across Haruko’s Power Suit, eliciting another flurry of sparks.

“Why are we sparking when hit!?” Ren asked.

A flurry of bat swings kept the monster at bay. Ren ran to Haruko’s side. The senpai ranger writhed on the floor, in pain but with no permanent damage.

“Your suits are also powered by Lifestream blood!” the castellan said cheerily. “Worry not, they‘re self-healing! The suits bleed so you don’t have to.”

Their ranger recruiter had a habit of telling them vital information only after the fact, Ren realized.

“Oh-ho-ho, have the Lifestream Regulators come to put a stop to my fun?”

This voice was rough, guttural, and booming. It was also in perfect Japanese. The tengu-creature flew about, landing on a tori gate.

“It talks!” Yuto said.

“Crows and ravens can do that, don’t you know?” Miyu said, matter-of-factly.

“Enough!” yelled the tengu. Though booming, the complete lack of an echo on this naturally acoustic mountainside gave the beast an unnatural cadence. “It’s too late now. This time tomorrow, this entire plain below will be an abandoned, forested abode. Let the ley lines decay, nobody will even notice.”

Ren pointed accusatorily. “Leave our town alone!”

“Nah.” This sounded suspiciously like a ‘caw’ coming from the tengu’s beak. “It’s simply not in my nature. I’m literally born for this!”

“It’s a leyline totem!” said the castellan. “Defeat the tengu, it will halt leyline decay.”

The tengu flew down to the ground and started performing strange contortions as a kind of taunt. A horde of quasi-liquid golems stood in their way.

“Everyone attack!” Ren ordered. “Break through. First one to break through to the tengu, go for the kill. The rest of us, keep the minions at bay!”

Bats, arrows, tonfa, and twin-swords danced about, slicing through minions in a fit of sparks. Having to cut or bash through every individual baddie to get to the tengu proved a Sisyphean task, but in time, a shield pushed through the thickest portion of the battle.

“Yuto’s through!” Sakura said, backing him up with her bow and arrow.

Ranger Smalt moved in on the tengu, shield out and spear ready to strike.

The rest of the squad kept the minions suppressed.

“Go, Yuto!” Miyu said.

“Everyone back him up,” Ren said.

“G…Ganbatte!” Miyu said.

“Go, Yuto-kun.” Sakura let forth another arrow with a whoosh.

“Ganbatte!” Ren said.

Yuto thrust his spear out at the tengu’s winged arm.

“Ganbatte!” they all cheered.

“Ganbatte!”