The mall: a place full of shops, food and things to do. Mostly these things didn’t make sense. Window shopping, for one, didn’t appeal to me at all. Why would I look at things I couldn’t afford or that didn’t really cater to my fashion senses? For another, being out in public was hit or miss; sometimes I’d be happy just walking through and talking to friends, other times it was just stressful. Organising to get picked up with Dad was a pain, and we lived too far away to make walking a viable option after dark. When I didn’t have money to buy stuff most of the time, it just was not worth the hassle.  Usually, it was a place I tried to avoid. Training or spending time at the command centre always felt more productive. Whether it was listening to Astrus talk about his time as a ranger, and how he used to train, or helping Kepler move boxes of broken parts and upgrades, I always felt useful there. There was always another job to do and being helpful, seeing your hard work pay off, and occasionally getting praised was just nicer than worrying about pickup times and money.

That didn’t stop the others from dragging me out from time to time. I enjoyed it when they did, in part because Stella could usually give me a ride home, and we took turns paying for lunch. I still usually couldn’t do much without any money, but just getting to learn more about my team was relaxing. Being able to spend time with them without the world being in danger was nice. 

“Joanne, want some sushi?” 

“Uh, sure. Thanks, Stella.” She held out the piece with her chopsticks. If she tried to hold that up to my lips to take a bite I would lose it. 

“I’ll give you some if you talk to me.” She pulled the sushi away. How dare she tease me with food.

“I’m not gonna tell you about Goldie.”

“It’s not about that, dummy.” Wow, her playful insults were still able to make my heart beat faster. I really needed to get this under control. “Why are you so quiet today? You aren’t always the most talkative, but you’re as silent as Gold.” Low blow.

“I’m fine. Just thinking about what happened with Brain Drain, is all.”

“You're still worrying about that, Jo?” Blain asked from across the table. 

“How could I not? I let you all down! You were only that tired because of me, and now we are acting like nothing happened!” I exploded a bit there. I didn’t want to come across as scolding them, since that’s what got us into that mess, but they needed to hold me accountable.

“Joanne, if we were the grudge keeping type, I’m not sure we’d be here,” Blain started. “Plus, if I was, Alex and I would fight way more.”

“Hey!” Alex poked Blain in the side with his chopsticks. 

“You know I’m right, remember when you…” Those two were back in their own little world. I didn’t try to listen in when they were obviously having a bro chat.

“He’s right. Look Joanne, we are still teenagers. You aren’t our Mum,” Stella said. Trying to push the conversation back on the right path.

“But--”

“No buts. I know you are our team leader, and you pushed us too hard, but you were just trying to help us be prepared. We know our limits now.”

“But if Gold hadn’t shown up, we wouldn't have learnt anything. We’d have lost everything. Astrus has been defending this planet for longer than we’ve been alive and we would have failed him.”

“But Gold did show up. We can’t live in what-if land. You’re not going to change that fight by dwelling on it, so just snap out of it and have some sushi!”

I opened my mouth to respond with another very well thought out argument on why I was a bad leader and how I need to improve, but before I could even start she shoved the sushi in my mouth. Girl was quick, and also really good at making people blush. It wasn’t fair that she was both really sweet and really pretty, and also really good at feeding people!

My gay feelings were interupted by shouting from Clay. Of course a good time couldn’t last. We were rangers and that meant if we weren't fighting something, then Dysphorus was cooking some new scheme.

“Duck!” Clay shouted. 

I did as they said before a finned arm flew over my head. Anemobots? Now? This had to be a joke!

“Anemobots, there's gotta be a whole pod of them here!” Clay said.

“A pod? Wouldn’t they be a school? You know, since they are fish,” Alex shouted, back in between dodging a bunch of them. 

“Maybe they’d be a colony!” Stella said. “You know, like coral?”

“Anemones are like flowers, right? Maybe it would be a bouquet!” laughed Blain as he grabbed two of them and threw them to the ground next to Alex. “For you handsome.” Alex rolled his eyes, I still did not understand guy friendships. 

More of them started flooding into the centre of the food court where we were sitting. Thankfully, the civilians had cleared out. We could morph before things got ugly. 

“Euphora Power!” 

A flash of multicoloured lights and we were all suited up. The way the suits energised us felt weird: it was like a rush of strength and knowledge. I was into martial arts before all of this, but it was incredible how it augmented that knowledge. My body reacted faster to different blows, and it was easier to learn new moves and apply them on the fly. The faster learning made me want to try it when studying, but Astrus had scolded me when I brought it up. 

Anyway, I dodged under one’s attempt at punching me, and threw it over my shoulder. Looking up I saw another wave of these annoying pains in our collective side.

“Jeez, there’s so many of them!” I shouted. 

“Red, do you know a way to call Gold?”

“I’m here!” Goldie stood at the other end of the food court. “Sorry, I’m late.” The lack of tone in his voice made it hard to tell if that was meant as a joke or as a genuine apology.

“Come on, dude! We need you!”

He jumped into the fight. We all were trying to take on a handful of enemies each. They weren’t hard to deal with on their own. A punch and a kick would usually push them away -- and if you were lucky, bust their circuits -- but in a group like this, it was hard to manage to dodge as many attacks as possible while also trying to get a hit in. I jumped to avoid a low sweep, then had to move back to avoid getting decked in the face, then had to try and find an opening to land a hit. Too many bots. Why had this become the normal fight structure?

“What are you doing, Gold?” Clay shouted.

“I’m trying to help.” His voice was still devoid of tone.

“You hit me!”

“I’m sorry, you got in my way.”

“Do you not know how we do things?”

“I haven’t been doing this for long.”

“Whatever.”

I couldn’t pay attention to that now. I had my own battle to fight. They’d need to hold their own without me while I dealt with the cluster of enemies that was trying to get on top of me. 

“Red, watch out!” Was that Gold? It had to be. Then it hit me, and by it, I mean an Anemobot. “Sorry.” Was that feeling in his voice? Worry?

Stumbling to my feet I tried to comprehend what happened. There was a flash and the Anemobots were gone. That was a good thing, I think. My team seemed unharmed but scattered. Clay was saying something to Gold.

“We need to get back to the command center. You two can keep talking there.” I commanded. 

“Talking? He threw a Bot at you, Red!” Clay was frustrated, I was too, but it wasn’t something I could show. Not when we were being watched.

“And we can talk about that back at base.” I said. Gold really wasn’t making the best second impression.

“I’m sorry.” Gold said quietly.

“We can talk about it later, okay?” Stella interjected. 

“Red and Blue are right. We are being watched. They can probably still see us. We need to get to safety.” Alex said.

The blinding red light once again enveloped me, and for a brief second, I couldn’t touch the ground. Or feel the air around me. I was weightless. Then the ground reappeared and I felt the weight of the battle hitting me again. 

“Gold, you have to be more careful!” Clay shouted. Were we really going to pick up where we left off. 

“I’m sorry,” Gold replied. 

“They are looking at us, looking for weaknesses. We can't give them any." 

"I'm sorry."

Nothing productive was going to come from this conversation. Clay might have been our analyst but that didn't mean much when it came to other people. Their social skills were inconsistent. 

"We can sort this out later. Clay, what do you think they wanted?" I asked. Get their brain working, and distract them from lashing out. 

"Give me a second to think," they responded.

-------------

Dysphorus looked through his telescope at the fight he had ordered. The way they fought was primitive, weak. It was a wonder how these children had been able to hold his forces off for so long. The extra ranger had been what the humans called 'a wrench in the works' during his last plan. That was fine, though. It was time for him to use that wrench to his advantage.

"What is your plan, my king?" Loch asked. 

"I need you to make me a bot, something that can copy someone's appearance," Dysphorus replied.

“Easily done.”