Chapter Text
The faint blue light of the portal appeared in the old rangers base as Heckyl walked through into the cave-like room. He’d already changed out of his keeper robes and proudly wore the dark energem around his neck. He spotted Kendall working over at the round table and went to call out to her, only for the lights to flicker off.
“Again?” Kendall mumbles, looking up at the light fixture. She was too focused on trying to will the lights back on that she didn’t hear Heckyl walk over until he was right beside her. Using his magic, Heckyl illuminated the space slightly in a blue light, not realizing how close he was standing to her.
This, of course, scared the shit out of Kendall. She jumped back with a startled yelp, tripping over her own feet only to be swiftly grabbed by Heckyl.
“Apologies, I didn’t mean to scare you,” he reassures, helping Kendall upright while flicking a small blue energy bolt up to the light fixture which caused it to flicker back to life. Kendall laughed a bit and smiled, her hand grabbing his arm to steady herself.
“Maybe don’t sneak up on me like that,” she says, a bit of a playful tone to her voice as she turned back to her work as if nothing had happened.
Heckyl scoffed mock-offendedly and put a hand up to his chest. “No hello, no hug, nothing? I expected more from you,” he teased, twisting the chain that hung the dark energem around his finger.
Kendall snickered and glanced over at Heckyl, putting her pencil down. “It’s nice to see you, Heckyl,” she hums kindly, turning to face him. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d be busy.”
“I was, but I need to talk to Keeper.”
“About?”
“I found an old journal that mentions him,” Heckyl explains simply, reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out an old, worn leather journal. Flipping over a few pages, he spoke again. “The signature on some of the pages says Kira, so I’m guessing that’s who wrote the journal?”
Kendall took the journal from his hand and started flipping through it, taking mental note of the seemingly rushed and messy writing. “Strange, Keeper never mentioned anyone that worked with him.”
“I didn’t think I had to, I haven’t seen Kira in a few eras,” Keeper’s voice suddenly cut in as he appeared beside Heckyl. He looked at the journal in Kendall’s hand and hummed softly. “May I take a look at that?”
Kendall nodded and held it out for Keeper. He took it and scanned over a few pages, especially the earliest page that was still in the journal. But some phrasing caught his eye and he started to worry. “We must call the other rangers, immediately,” he states simply, shifting on his feet and tapping his staff against the floor.
“What’s going on?” Riley asks, shifting how he was leaning against one of the counters. Kendall had set up a camera connected to the screen to show them the journal, it was just easier than crowding.
“I had found this journal while exploring, when I saw Keeper mentioned on the first, non-ripped out page, I came here first. It appears that he has found something important.”
Keeper nodded and gestured for Kendall to start flipping through it.
“This was written by an old friend of mine, Kira, she helped me keep the energems safe. But when it got too dangerous for two of us to be around at all times and with Sledge closing in on us, I took them and ran. She understood. Kira had her own energem that she created, the orange energem; she wanted me to take it for safety so I did. However, because she created it I am not able to sense its energy, I have no clue where it is nor if it’s in the hands of evil,” Keeper started to explain, gesturing for Kendall to flip the page again.
Before Keeper could speak once more, Chase budded in, “Hold on, so you’re telling me that there’s another energem out there and we didn’t know?”
Keeper nodded. “Yes, Chase, that’s what I’m telling you. Now, I had only thought that it was just going to be Sledge and Lord Arcanon after the energems, but apparently not.”
“There’s another entire group of bounty hunters, more powerful than Sledge and Lord Arcanon combined out there. Kira had made ten more energems, each more powerful than the last in hopes of someone finding them and defeating these bounty hunters,” Heckyl continued, tracing his finger down one of the pages to underline where it stated the extra ten.
Keeper took over. “Only issue is, we don’t know who she assigned them to, nor do we know where any of them are. But if we can find the orange energem, I can use that to find the energy signatures of the rest.”
Shelby walked over to look at the pages herself then looked over at Keeper. “What dinosaur did you assign the orange energem to?” she asks kindly before going back to reading the pages.
“Endocera, having only one aquatic felt off balance.”
Shelby nodded and quickly walked over to a shelf with some small vials on it. Fragments of bones sat in the vials, labeled with different dinosaurs. After a short moment of searching, she found the endocera vial and grabbed it and walked back over. “We can use my energem finder to find the orange energem.”
“Good thinking,” Kendall said before quickly walking off to find the machine. After she returned and put the silver machine down onto the centre table, Shelby opened one of the compartments to put a few bone fragments into.
Shelby connected the machine to her laptop and pressed a button, a faint whirring noise coming from it. The map on her laptop moved before stopping over a spot.
“Looks like…Harwood County, California,” Kendall observed, looking up at the rest of the team.
“Not too far from here, let’s go!” Tyler said excitedly, only to be stopped by Riley.
“No, only a few of us should go, what if by some ungodly coincidence those bounty hunters that Kira was worried about show up?” he argued, gesturing to the journal.
Keeper hummed, tapping his staff on the ground. “Kendall and Heckyl will go, the rest of you will stay here.”
The others nodded, knowing that they can’t argue with Keeper and win, especially with something like that. Kendall and Heckyl looked at each other before heading for the door, Kendall snagging her jacket on the way by.