"Soul's Bonds", Chapter 6
W00t. This is the last you'll be hearing from Bridge for a while; he doesn't narrate again til chapter 12, because... well, you'll find out soon enough. :o)
Author's notes: You'll see why this information is pertinent in this chapter and moreso in few of the coming ones, so I'm mentioning it now. Bridge only mentions his mother in canon (in "Zapped", when he says that he was born on an airplane, and in "Impact", when they're discussing the meteor headed toward Earth with the professor alien and Bridge asks "Should I tell my mom not to repaint the garage?"), but never his father. So I kind of took this idea and ran with it- in my story's continuity, Bridge's father left the family when Bridge was only a few years old upon discovering that his son was "a freak", so Bridge's mom raised him by herself. Because of this, the two are very close. She was the parent who worked for SPD, creating B-Squad's powers, and was thus indirectly responsible for causing Bridge's genes to mutate (giving him his psychic powers)- something she feels immense guilt for because of the misery it caused him growing up, as he was a total outcast in school due to being different and often got bullied.
Chapter 6 (Bridge)
A brief moment of blackness, then I was standing in the living room of my mother's house, looking around, puzzled. What was going on? Why wasn't I back at the Delta Base- or worse, seeing where my kidnapper was now holding me? However, my questions were soon answered when I looked out the window and a much younger version of me walked past it, wiping his eyes as he dragged his schoolbag behind him with one hand. Mama walked past the adult me, not noticing me, and I understood- I was having a vision from the past. Sometimes when I was stressed, I'd begin to relive bad memories (unfortunately very clearly due to my powers) especially when asleep, or in this case, unconscious. The younger me opened the door, sniffling, as Mama went over to him.
"What's wrong, Bridgey?" she asked kindly, handing him her handkerchief.
"Kids a' school won't stop makin' fun of me. They keep calling me a freak," he hiccuped, then started crying harder. Mama led young me over to an armchair, sat down, and pulled him into her lap, rocking him back and forth until he started calming down. "Why do they do that to me, Mama?" he sniffed. "I can't see why, even when I use my powers. I'm not that different from them. You keep telling me that, but they don't believe it when I say it to them. Why do they call me a freak?"
"Because they don't want to understand you," said Mama. "You're a very special boy... a little different from the rest because of your powers." She touched the leather gloves on my younger self's small hands. "You're a person, with thoughts and feelings, just like they are, but sometimes other people don't see that, or are even afraid of you, so they push you away. But they don't matter, and you know you're always special to me, right?" The younger me smiled through his tears, fingering the toy SPD badge pinned to his chest.
"Yup, I know. I'm gonna be a Power Ranger someday, Mama," he said proudly. "I'm going to fight crime, and bring in all the wanted aliens and put them in jail, and make the other kids see I'm not a freak. I'll be a hero. I'm gonna save the world."
"Of course you will, Bridge," smiled Mama, hugging my younger self. "If anybody can save the world, it's you. Go outside and play now, OK? Go on down the street to the playground for a while, it'll make you feel better." As I watched, the young me got up and walked outside again, not hearing Mama start sobbing quietly as he left. I wiped a tear from my own eye as I followed him, because I knew what was going to happen next. My younger self walked down the street, and as soon as he was out of sight of the house, a group of taller kids blocked his way. I saw him trembling.
"G-get out of the w-way," he stuttered. "I d-don't want to fight you, I just want to go play, okay? I'm n-not afraid of you!"
"No way, freak," said one of the older children, cracking his knuckles. "Freaks and queers like you don't deserve to have fun and go to school with the rest of us. Go back home!"
"No!" my younger self shouted. "LEAVE ME ALONE! I'M NOT A FREAK!" I turned my head away, not willing to watch myself get beaten up again...
I yelled as a sharp pain in my side brought me out of unconsciousness, and my memories. I was lying on my stomach now, my wrists and ankles still bound and an additional chain tight around my neck, and my captor was kicking me in the side.
"God, shut up. Just shut up," he snarled. "Listening to you cry for your mother while you were out... it makes me sick." I rolled up onto my backside with some difficulty, trying to keep my face as impassive as possible even though the taunt had stung, and saying nothing despite not being gagged. "Listen up, you worthless hunk of meat. Time for me to interrogate you again. Now, I know your type- you're going to try and play the brave hero, who would rather die before he lets go of his secrets and causes harm to his precious friends. But I will not stop until I get information from you. I'm going to ask you some questions one more time, and if not... I'm going to be forced to use more extreme measures to soften you up some more. We've got all the time in the world here, and I will make you bend to my will, no matter how long it takes. I had the sense to make your new prison aboveground, so that damn dog can't sniff you out again." Thinking fast, hoping to distract him, I asked,
"Why haven't you killed me if I'm so worthless? I'm completely at your mercy, you've had more than enough chances to do it so far, yet here I am." As I spoke, I glanced around the room. This time it looked like an empty office, perhaps; I could see the sky out of a tiny window behind my kidnapper, and the floor was carpeted, but my prison was again bare of any furnishings- and any discernable entrances or exits besides the window. When he was silent, I pressed on, "If you really didn't care whether I live or die, like you told me before, you would have killed me by now. But I don't think you're going to do it because I'm worth more to you alive. I dare you, then, do your worst; I still won't talk. In fact, you might as well just gag me again, because I'm never going to betray my friends." My heart was beating fast because, for all of my brave talk, I really was petrified. I was unable to defend myself, bound and powerless- and he was right, if we were above ground, it would be hard, if not impossible, for R.I.C. to sniff me out (assuming he was repairable). That would make it a lot harder for the others to find me. I also really did not know what kind of tortures my captor could inflict, and even if he didn't intend to kill me, I knew there were far worse things than death.
"It's none of your business why I haven't killed you," he finally snapped back. "And you may talk big, but once I'm finished with you, if you're even as half as weak as I think you are you'll be telling me everything you know just to make the agony stop. I will give you one more chance to just tell me, and I won't hurt you. I might even be a big old softy and let you go. Otherwise, get ready to feel a lot of pain." I shut my mouth resolutely and looked away, steeling myself to take whatever he dished out. "Very well. You've brought all this suffering on yourself, squirt." I heard a buzzing noise, and he pressed something into my side. I only felt a few tiny jolts, like pinpricks, coursing through me, then the monster flipped a switch on the object, and-
"Ahhh! AHHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Pure pain seemed to be flowing into my body, piercing every inch of my skin, stabbing and intense, over and over and over. He turned it down, then back up all the way a few times, and I was soon writhing on the floor, wanting it to end, fighting to not give in and tell him what he needed... After a few minutes that lasted an eternity, it was all over, and I fell down onto my side, tears of pain streaming down my face.
"Not so brave are you now, eh, little hero," my captor smirked, kicking me again. "That's how much hurt I can really make you feel. I WILL break you, unless your friends decide to give in to me, of course. Let's see if another day without eating and dealing with pain now will loosen your tongue, then, shall we? See you later, squirt." He tied the gag back around my mouth, then vanished with his usual whooshing noise. My side now stung where he'd poked the object- whatever it was- into me. I lay there for a long while, tears still falling from my eyes from both the pain and from my growing despair. I'd been so close to being rescued... was it sheer coincidence that he'd returned while Z and Syd were gone fetching help, or did he have some way to monitor my friends somehow? Was I going to be able to endure his tortures, or would I be broken, be forced to betray my friends and SPD? One thing I WAS sure of now was that the monster was most likely not going to kill me. I was valuable to him, a potential source of information, and I was certain he couldn't capture another Ranger now that they were on alert. This fact did little to console me, but it was some hope, and I desperately clung to it. I eventually rolled onto my back, tugging at the chains binding my hands and feet, but they didn't give at all, much less enough for me to slip out of them. The more I struggled, the more the chain around my neck began to tighten as well. I had to give up, awkwardly crawling to a wall and sitting back against it. My arm wound was still painful, probably getting infected, and I felt weak and tired from hunger and the constant rollercoaster of adrenalin rushes and falls during my captivity.
What kind of alien is this guy? I wondered as my eyelids began to droop. He can appear and disappear on a whim, he's an expert at evading detection, he carries chains that can't be slipped out of, and he has devices to torture his prisoners with. Sounds like some kind of professional bounty hunter or kidnapper-for-hire, except I'm pretty sure he targeted me randomly, not knowing I was SPD, much less a Power Ranger- that is, until I blurted out I was one. He's also got to be acting on his own, because if he were working for someone, he wouldn't be keeping me all to himself, would he? But if he's by himself, why does he want to find out about SPD? Does he really think he can take us down all on his own? Even Gruumm and Broodwing, egotistical as they were, had entire armies at their disposal. It's all so strange... who is this alien? What is he? And what does he want? Finally, already half passed-out from pain and exhaustion, I slept, and another vision came to me- the same event I'd seen last night, but panning out differently now.
"Release him, or you're not getting this," Sky called, holding up a computer disk. "That was our deal." It was evening. Sky had arrived to bargain with the kidnapper for my life, and my captor had just dragged me out from where he'd stashed me in a nearby alleyway. I looked over at Sky fearfully, knowing he was unarmed and alone, both of us at my captor's mercy.
"Of course," said the monster, removing my bonds. I fell over as Sky ran towards me, tossing the disk to the monster, who caught it and cackled. "One more thing. You never said he had to be alive when I gave him back!" he said, pulling me back upright.
"NO!" Sky screamed, starting to generate a force field, but it was too late, and I was too weak to break free. The monster used his sword to slit my throat, and I gave a gurgling cry before passing out- or dying, I didn't know which, and then-
I stood before a wrought-iron gate, alone, surrounded by blackness. This time I lingered, instead of moving on to watch the attempts to revive my body. Curious, I went over to the gate, took a glove off, and touched it, recoiling in horror as I felt hundreds, thousands of voices crying out- some screaming, some pleading, some depressed, some relieved- countless emotions. I let go and stood back, reeling, wondering where I was.
"This is the place between life and death," said a booming voice. "The gate where all souls enter when they die. Once going in, there is little hope of return."
"Wha- who are you?" I said, then gasped as I felt a strange sensation- not painful, just weird- on my neck. I touched it, then looked at my hand, which was now covered in blood. The place between life and death... The gates creaked open, and dark hands reached out to grasp me.
When I jerked awake yet again, it was nighttime. More tears of anguish were falling from my eyes as I lay there, helpless, wishing- not for the first or last time in my life- that I didn't have my powers, for this time I was sure of it.
I had seen my own death, it was going to be soon, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Author's notes: You'll see why this information is pertinent in this chapter and moreso in few of the coming ones, so I'm mentioning it now. Bridge only mentions his mother in canon (in "Zapped", when he says that he was born on an airplane, and in "Impact", when they're discussing the meteor headed toward Earth with the professor alien and Bridge asks "Should I tell my mom not to repaint the garage?"), but never his father. So I kind of took this idea and ran with it- in my story's continuity, Bridge's father left the family when Bridge was only a few years old upon discovering that his son was "a freak", so Bridge's mom raised him by herself. Because of this, the two are very close. She was the parent who worked for SPD, creating B-Squad's powers, and was thus indirectly responsible for causing Bridge's genes to mutate (giving him his psychic powers)- something she feels immense guilt for because of the misery it caused him growing up, as he was a total outcast in school due to being different and often got bullied.
Chapter 6 (Bridge)
A brief moment of blackness, then I was standing in the living room of my mother's house, looking around, puzzled. What was going on? Why wasn't I back at the Delta Base- or worse, seeing where my kidnapper was now holding me? However, my questions were soon answered when I looked out the window and a much younger version of me walked past it, wiping his eyes as he dragged his schoolbag behind him with one hand. Mama walked past the adult me, not noticing me, and I understood- I was having a vision from the past. Sometimes when I was stressed, I'd begin to relive bad memories (unfortunately very clearly due to my powers) especially when asleep, or in this case, unconscious. The younger me opened the door, sniffling, as Mama went over to him.
"What's wrong, Bridgey?" she asked kindly, handing him her handkerchief.
"Kids a' school won't stop makin' fun of me. They keep calling me a freak," he hiccuped, then started crying harder. Mama led young me over to an armchair, sat down, and pulled him into her lap, rocking him back and forth until he started calming down. "Why do they do that to me, Mama?" he sniffed. "I can't see why, even when I use my powers. I'm not that different from them. You keep telling me that, but they don't believe it when I say it to them. Why do they call me a freak?"
"Because they don't want to understand you," said Mama. "You're a very special boy... a little different from the rest because of your powers." She touched the leather gloves on my younger self's small hands. "You're a person, with thoughts and feelings, just like they are, but sometimes other people don't see that, or are even afraid of you, so they push you away. But they don't matter, and you know you're always special to me, right?" The younger me smiled through his tears, fingering the toy SPD badge pinned to his chest.
"Yup, I know. I'm gonna be a Power Ranger someday, Mama," he said proudly. "I'm going to fight crime, and bring in all the wanted aliens and put them in jail, and make the other kids see I'm not a freak. I'll be a hero. I'm gonna save the world."
"Of course you will, Bridge," smiled Mama, hugging my younger self. "If anybody can save the world, it's you. Go outside and play now, OK? Go on down the street to the playground for a while, it'll make you feel better." As I watched, the young me got up and walked outside again, not hearing Mama start sobbing quietly as he left. I wiped a tear from my own eye as I followed him, because I knew what was going to happen next. My younger self walked down the street, and as soon as he was out of sight of the house, a group of taller kids blocked his way. I saw him trembling.
"G-get out of the w-way," he stuttered. "I d-don't want to fight you, I just want to go play, okay? I'm n-not afraid of you!"
"No way, freak," said one of the older children, cracking his knuckles. "Freaks and queers like you don't deserve to have fun and go to school with the rest of us. Go back home!"
"No!" my younger self shouted. "LEAVE ME ALONE! I'M NOT A FREAK!" I turned my head away, not willing to watch myself get beaten up again...
I yelled as a sharp pain in my side brought me out of unconsciousness, and my memories. I was lying on my stomach now, my wrists and ankles still bound and an additional chain tight around my neck, and my captor was kicking me in the side.
"God, shut up. Just shut up," he snarled. "Listening to you cry for your mother while you were out... it makes me sick." I rolled up onto my backside with some difficulty, trying to keep my face as impassive as possible even though the taunt had stung, and saying nothing despite not being gagged. "Listen up, you worthless hunk of meat. Time for me to interrogate you again. Now, I know your type- you're going to try and play the brave hero, who would rather die before he lets go of his secrets and causes harm to his precious friends. But I will not stop until I get information from you. I'm going to ask you some questions one more time, and if not... I'm going to be forced to use more extreme measures to soften you up some more. We've got all the time in the world here, and I will make you bend to my will, no matter how long it takes. I had the sense to make your new prison aboveground, so that damn dog can't sniff you out again." Thinking fast, hoping to distract him, I asked,
"Why haven't you killed me if I'm so worthless? I'm completely at your mercy, you've had more than enough chances to do it so far, yet here I am." As I spoke, I glanced around the room. This time it looked like an empty office, perhaps; I could see the sky out of a tiny window behind my kidnapper, and the floor was carpeted, but my prison was again bare of any furnishings- and any discernable entrances or exits besides the window. When he was silent, I pressed on, "If you really didn't care whether I live or die, like you told me before, you would have killed me by now. But I don't think you're going to do it because I'm worth more to you alive. I dare you, then, do your worst; I still won't talk. In fact, you might as well just gag me again, because I'm never going to betray my friends." My heart was beating fast because, for all of my brave talk, I really was petrified. I was unable to defend myself, bound and powerless- and he was right, if we were above ground, it would be hard, if not impossible, for R.I.C. to sniff me out (assuming he was repairable). That would make it a lot harder for the others to find me. I also really did not know what kind of tortures my captor could inflict, and even if he didn't intend to kill me, I knew there were far worse things than death.
"It's none of your business why I haven't killed you," he finally snapped back. "And you may talk big, but once I'm finished with you, if you're even as half as weak as I think you are you'll be telling me everything you know just to make the agony stop. I will give you one more chance to just tell me, and I won't hurt you. I might even be a big old softy and let you go. Otherwise, get ready to feel a lot of pain." I shut my mouth resolutely and looked away, steeling myself to take whatever he dished out. "Very well. You've brought all this suffering on yourself, squirt." I heard a buzzing noise, and he pressed something into my side. I only felt a few tiny jolts, like pinpricks, coursing through me, then the monster flipped a switch on the object, and-
"Ahhh! AHHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Pure pain seemed to be flowing into my body, piercing every inch of my skin, stabbing and intense, over and over and over. He turned it down, then back up all the way a few times, and I was soon writhing on the floor, wanting it to end, fighting to not give in and tell him what he needed... After a few minutes that lasted an eternity, it was all over, and I fell down onto my side, tears of pain streaming down my face.
"Not so brave are you now, eh, little hero," my captor smirked, kicking me again. "That's how much hurt I can really make you feel. I WILL break you, unless your friends decide to give in to me, of course. Let's see if another day without eating and dealing with pain now will loosen your tongue, then, shall we? See you later, squirt." He tied the gag back around my mouth, then vanished with his usual whooshing noise. My side now stung where he'd poked the object- whatever it was- into me. I lay there for a long while, tears still falling from my eyes from both the pain and from my growing despair. I'd been so close to being rescued... was it sheer coincidence that he'd returned while Z and Syd were gone fetching help, or did he have some way to monitor my friends somehow? Was I going to be able to endure his tortures, or would I be broken, be forced to betray my friends and SPD? One thing I WAS sure of now was that the monster was most likely not going to kill me. I was valuable to him, a potential source of information, and I was certain he couldn't capture another Ranger now that they were on alert. This fact did little to console me, but it was some hope, and I desperately clung to it. I eventually rolled onto my back, tugging at the chains binding my hands and feet, but they didn't give at all, much less enough for me to slip out of them. The more I struggled, the more the chain around my neck began to tighten as well. I had to give up, awkwardly crawling to a wall and sitting back against it. My arm wound was still painful, probably getting infected, and I felt weak and tired from hunger and the constant rollercoaster of adrenalin rushes and falls during my captivity.
What kind of alien is this guy? I wondered as my eyelids began to droop. He can appear and disappear on a whim, he's an expert at evading detection, he carries chains that can't be slipped out of, and he has devices to torture his prisoners with. Sounds like some kind of professional bounty hunter or kidnapper-for-hire, except I'm pretty sure he targeted me randomly, not knowing I was SPD, much less a Power Ranger- that is, until I blurted out I was one. He's also got to be acting on his own, because if he were working for someone, he wouldn't be keeping me all to himself, would he? But if he's by himself, why does he want to find out about SPD? Does he really think he can take us down all on his own? Even Gruumm and Broodwing, egotistical as they were, had entire armies at their disposal. It's all so strange... who is this alien? What is he? And what does he want? Finally, already half passed-out from pain and exhaustion, I slept, and another vision came to me- the same event I'd seen last night, but panning out differently now.
"Release him, or you're not getting this," Sky called, holding up a computer disk. "That was our deal." It was evening. Sky had arrived to bargain with the kidnapper for my life, and my captor had just dragged me out from where he'd stashed me in a nearby alleyway. I looked over at Sky fearfully, knowing he was unarmed and alone, both of us at my captor's mercy.
"Of course," said the monster, removing my bonds. I fell over as Sky ran towards me, tossing the disk to the monster, who caught it and cackled. "One more thing. You never said he had to be alive when I gave him back!" he said, pulling me back upright.
"NO!" Sky screamed, starting to generate a force field, but it was too late, and I was too weak to break free. The monster used his sword to slit my throat, and I gave a gurgling cry before passing out- or dying, I didn't know which, and then-
I stood before a wrought-iron gate, alone, surrounded by blackness. This time I lingered, instead of moving on to watch the attempts to revive my body. Curious, I went over to the gate, took a glove off, and touched it, recoiling in horror as I felt hundreds, thousands of voices crying out- some screaming, some pleading, some depressed, some relieved- countless emotions. I let go and stood back, reeling, wondering where I was.
"This is the place between life and death," said a booming voice. "The gate where all souls enter when they die. Once going in, there is little hope of return."
"Wha- who are you?" I said, then gasped as I felt a strange sensation- not painful, just weird- on my neck. I touched it, then looked at my hand, which was now covered in blood. The place between life and death... The gates creaked open, and dark hands reached out to grasp me.
When I jerked awake yet again, it was nighttime. More tears of anguish were falling from my eyes as I lay there, helpless, wishing- not for the first or last time in my life- that I didn't have my powers, for this time I was sure of it.
I had seen my own death, it was going to be soon, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.