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The Reluctant Ranger Chapter 12 - Bookstore
🕑 Added 2024-08-29 07:00:05 +0000 UTCNicole tossed a ball against the wall, watching as it bounced off and back to her. Grace was still busy with some homework her professors had assigned to make up for the lost week of classes and she was already done with hers. It was a nice enough day with only a few rolling clouds in the blue sky and they’d all agreed to avoid Ranger activities for a few days following their run in with the officer.
Thankfully that hadn’t made it into the news, but she still felt bad about scaring the man, and the mess they had made of the forest. Nicole caught the ball and sat back on the bench with a groan. Becca was still at her boyfriend’s place, so there was little hope there for company. Sighing, she hopped up and checked her phone.
Avant Garden was open.
It was a bit of a trek, but being a Ranger meant things, like how she felt energized in a way she hadn’t since her competition days. She dropped her phone into a pouch and took off at a healthy jog. It was probably a bit beyond what a normal person could manage for long, but she wasn’t too concerned about people seeing her. At worst they would assume she was alternating her pace.
The jog took about ten minutes, Anoka at least felt like a small town more so than most of Minneapolis. It was part of why she chose that campus instead of the bigger one in the heart of downtown. Both were on the Mississippi, but that was where the similarities ended.
Reaching the store she paused outside, looking up at the pride flag in the window. It was nice to see so many places being supportive of the community. It was why Rebecca had moved north a few years prior, Missouri just wasn’t safe for her anymore. Nicole could still remember when the shy girl had first arrived for her Freshman year.
They’d hit it off and things had been great. Nicole was still a bit pudgy around the middle, but she had lost a lot of her weight by then and passed the tryouts for gymnastics despite that. People tried to get Becca to turn on her, to join in the ridicule, but she refused. Then someone learned that Becca was trans...
The reaction from the school was swift and vicious, despite the protection laws on the books, that didn’t do anything to stem the cruelty of children. Rebecca had pulled her aside, tried to apologize for deceiving her. Nicole had just pulled her into a hug and confessed her own secret, that she liked girls.
Then Nicole kissed her.
She smiled at the memory of her first kiss, still not regretting it even after Becca told her that she didn’t like girls like that, but she was flattered. They’d stayed best friends from there, through thick and thin. She knew that she should tell her about being a Ranger, and resolved to do so the moment that she was back in the dorm.
Pushing the door open, she took in the smell of fresh brewed coffee and new books. There were a handful of people on laptops, but the shop was a bit empty compared to the usual crowd. Not surprising, given the attack a few days prior. People would be spooked for a while, at least until the Rangers proved that they could protect them.
Until she proved herself to them.
With a shuddering breath, Nicole walked up to the counter.
“Oh, Nicole! I’m glad to see you’re safe!” Kendra said. “Were you at the faire when...”
Nicole nodded mutely. “I was.”
“Oh,” she said, looking anywhere but at her. “Glad to see you’re safe.”
Yeah, safe. She was safer than almost anyone else in the city, and at the same time, more likely to be dead in a year’s time than most of them too.
“Can I get my usual?” Nicole asked. “Gonna check out the book selection while you get that ready.”
“Sure thing,” Kendra said, moving to get to work as Nicole ducked towards the stairs and headed up.
Usually she would freak out a bit going up the stairs, her fear of heights was oddly specific, but these stairs hit every note of it. She felt none of that now, having jumped higher than the rooftop just a day prior. It changed one’s perspective on things. Reaching the top, the other employee smiled at her, unpacking a box.
“Welcome back!” Colin said. “Sorry things are a bit messy, I’m sure you can understand.”
She could, given the city was still a bit chaotic. Colin was someone she had known for a while, he was two years older than her, and Becca’s current boyfriend. He had sandy brown hair buzzed close and wore a black shirt with the text ‘I’m the scary trans person the media warned you about’. Funny enough, the three of them had worn that same shirt together to the mall a few years back, and more people insisted she was the only trans person among them.
Transphobes were fun like that.
“Hey Colin, I didn’t think you would be here,” she said. “How’s Becca doing?”
He grinned. “Not bad. She’s probably sleeping in today, you know how she can be.”
That she did. “Cool, the dorm is just so dead without her there.”
“I know that feeling,” he said, pulling out a book from under the counter. “Your preorder came in early, want it now or do you want me to hold it until release?”
Nicole eyed the book and snatched it without hesitation. Colin chuckled but she was staring at the cover hungrily. She’d gotten into the series on a whim, picking up a copy of the first book just because it was cheap, then came to adore the world and characters. She knew it was the final book in the planned series, and she was very much looking forward to seeing how it ended.
It was yet another item on her revolving checklist of things worth sticking around for. Something her former therapist had recommended, keeping a list of reasons to stay alive. No matter how petty, be it a TV show, movie, book or even pure spite for someone else. Whatever reasons worked were good enough, and she’d stuck to it.
“Thanks Colin, you’re the best,” she said.
“I know,” he said, smiling. “So, crazy alien attack aside, how are you holding up?”
Vivid memories flashed through her mind, of a man being bisected, the thundering certainty of her coming death, only to have it snatched away and replaced with a mountain of responsibility.
“Shit,” she said simply. “It’s probably a good thing Becca isn’t home, because I’d probably be waking her with my nightmares.”
“She said you saw some bad stuff,” he said neutrally, feeling her out. “Could you afford your therapist, at least once?”
In truth, she probably could, but she’d be eating ramen for the rest of the month. Her parents had life insurance, but it hadn’t paid out properly due to alien invasion not being a defined cause of death and she didn’t have the money to fight them on it and they knew it. The government wasn’t much better, denying her aid after budget cuts to welfare programs. She took a settlement and a scholarship when it was offered and knew she could only coast off of that for so long.
It was part of why she didn’t have long term plans, she couldn’t afford them. Once again, fuck the Supreme Court for their decision that life insurance didn’t cover acts of Alien aggression, or the add on effects of a mass panic caused by an alien attack, all because the government offered aid to those affected.
She turned eighteen and they got away with the scholarship and basic income assistance, but she had exhausted her therapy allowances for the year months ago.
“Unfortunately not,” Nicole said. Hating how that sounded, she decided to tell a half truth to keep him from doing something stupid like waste his own limited funds on a therapist for her. “I’ll be alright, I made a few friends in the aftermath, we’ve been talking about it with one another.”
He just didn’t need to know they were Rangers.
“That’s good,” he said, smiling in a way that was kind, yet borderline coddling. “I worry about you, you know?”
“I know,” she said, stepping forward to hug him. “Let Becca know I miss her.”
“Will do,” Colin said. “Now, you’d better get down before your coffee gets cold.”
Chuckling, Nicole did just that, hurrying down the stairs without hesitation. It was only as she reached the bottom that she cursed to herself. Colin was well aware of her fear, and that was a pretty solid red flag that something was off with her. Shaking that concern off, she headed back around to the counter.
“I was starting to wonder if you got lost up there,” Kendra said, handing Nicole the cup. “Find everything you wanted?”
“I did, thank you,” she said, tapping her card to the reader. Nicole knew she would need to do something soon, her savings were rapidly dwindling and her assistance didn’t cover coffee shops. “I’ll see you around.”
Nicole stepped back outside and took a deep breath. It was so unfair that she had all that power, and no good way to use it. She’d considered using her weird stealth trick to get some extra money, but that would raise questions the moment she used it in person as a Ranger, nevermind that Grace would call her on it immediately. Maybe she could find a drug den and crash it or something, the police wouldn’t care if a bundle or two of cash went missing, would they?
She continued to ponder that as she walked back towards campus, sipping her coffee as she went. She contemplated texting Grace as she stopped at a crosswalk, looking up to see when it would be available when her blood froze.
The woman from the Renfaire was across the street, wearing that same dress and makeup, and just staring right through her. Nicole’s heart began to hammer in her chest as her breathing turned shallow. A harbinger of disaster stood before her, and it had Nicole itching to reach for her morpher so she could defend herself.
The light changed and the woman stepped forward, approaching her with a languid grace. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing up, her skin prickling in anticipation of something horrible to come.
“Peace, Nicole,” Maraline said, her voice every bit as silky as Nicole remembered. “I bring no ill tidings with me today.”
“You sure as hell brought them last time,” Nicole shot back. “Give me one good reason to not kick your ass for that.”
“That was not done on my order,” Maraline said. “Come, walk with me.”
The woman set off, walking with purpose. Begrudgingly Nicole followed, but not before she fished her phone from its pouch and pulled up the group chat. It was a bit of a risk, and might serve to piss the eldritch entity, but she wasn’t about to chance going off alone. Not when she had a team she could call upon.
Nicole: Emergency, the weird woman is back.
Jeff: Who?
Grace: Oh shit, the one that warned you before the attack?
Just to prove it, Nicole snapped a quick picture of the woman and sent it to the group chat. It wasn’t a good picture, having been taken from behind, but it showed off her ethereal black hair as well as the flowing blue dress. She was beautiful and terrible, like the fae of old, and Nicole’s instincts told her that Maraline was every bit as dangerous as those legends portrayed.
Devon: Wow. She’s Gorgeous.
Kayla: Keep it in your pants horndog, odds are good she’s Sylan.
Grace: Not one actual Sylan has been seen outside of a battlefield, so why now?
Nicole: And why me?
Nicole added her current address and direction and tucked her phone away, they all had a locator app installed that let each of them track the other. It seemed prudent, though it stopped tracking when they morphed, as their phones were shunted off somewhere, and returned without a charge. It was annoying, but better than the thing just failing outright.
Phones were expensive, and hers was already starting to show its age.
“Have you sufficiently warned your fellows of my presence?” Maraline asked, turning down a different road.
Nicole jumped, barely registering that she was being led towards the Mississippi River. She wasn’t expecting to be called out like that, but the woman had proven herself to be quite perceptive in the past.
“Figures you picked up on that,” Nicole grumbled, shoving her hands into the too small pockets of her jeans.
“It is only prudent on your part,” Maraline said with a gentle bob of her head. The river came into view and the ethereal woman moved to sit at a bench overlooking the rolling waters. “Your planet does have such beauty. It is a shame so much has been marred by your need to expand.”
“Humans are kinda shit like that,” Nicole said, standing off to the side where she could keep Maraline in sight while remaining ready to act if needed. “I’m assuming that means you’re a Sylan?”
“You could say that,” she said, sounding almost mournful. “I am one of their creations, just as that creature you slew was. Engineered to function on your planet, to prepare the way.”
Engineered? “Like, grown in a lab?”
“Yes,” she said, looking up to the sky. “I was meant to lead the forces being deployed to your planet. I wished to see the people I was meant to conquer, I refused to cause death blindly.”
“So you killed thousands with eyes open instead,” Nicole hissed, her anger rising.
“Yes,” Maraline said. “I was told it would be glorious to lead our forces. It was not what I was led to believe.”
The sheer sorrow carried in those words stole the breath from Nicole’s lungs. It might have been an act designed to lure her into a false sense of security, but something about the way Maraline held herself, the way her eyes moved across the scenery... It didn’t feel disingenuous to her.
“Do you intend to stop?” Nicole asked, a touch of hope coloring her words.
Maraline sighed, leaning back as she looked skyward. “I cannot, no more than you are able to. We each have our roles defined for us, it was why I asked you to leave.”
“You knew I would be chosen as a Ranger?” Nicole demanded, stepping towards her.
“No,” Maraline said, her voice firm. “I did not wish for my efforts to assist you to be in vain. I never expected you to become a Ranger. I would not have wished such cruelty upon one as fragile of mind.”
Nicole wanted to bite back, to insist otherwise, but Maraline wasn’t wrong. She wasn’t in a good headspace, hadn’t been since her parents died, and not much better before then. Nicole was the last person that should have been made a Ranger, she’d been chosen during a suicidal charge to go out while accomplishing something meaningful. In a way, she still was on that same path, it would simply take a bit longer.
“Yet, here I am,” Nicole said, hands trembling as she clenched them into fists. “Each time I expected to die, something happened to delay it. I’ve been robbed of that release so many times now.” She took a deep breath, a deep anger simmering within. “Send your armies and monsters. I’ll throw myself at them each and every time, until I can no longer do so.”
At that same moment, her fellow Rangers ran up in plainclothes, arraying themselves out behind her. She felt a swell of pride, having people at her back that would stand with her. A team, unified in a common goal that was bigger than any of them. It allowed her to stand strong against the odds.
Maraline sighed, rising to her feet with an unearthly grace. “So be it, Nicole. You have made your choice and I shall weep for it. I will see you on the battlefield.”
A flash of green light rippled from Maraline’s core, her form vanishing with it. Before Nicole could sigh in relief, a second flash came, and two dozen automatons took the woman’s place. The machines spread out, and in the distance she heard someone scream.
She looked back to her team, eyes tracing over each of them before she settled on Grace. Her friend smiled softly and nodded, it was her moment it seemed. Nicole turned back to face the invader’s minions, her shoulders squared and steel in her spine. She had a purpose, and she would fulfill it.
“Roll the Dice!”
