Power Rangers Chronic Storm 1: The Axis of Power

Chapter 14: Heavy

Jason had only seconds before the self-destruct wiped out the base right alongside himself and Kendrix. He tensed up his entire body while gritting his teeth and tightly shutting his eyes until a familiar steam lifted from his skin. "Come on...! Come on!"

A glimmer of green light arose from his hands. "Yes! That's it!"

"10... 9... 8... 7... 6..."

"Now or never!" Jason continued to tense his muscles as his green aura encompassed his frame.

"5... 4... 3... 2..."

He threw his hands to the side while shouting out in agony, unleashing a wave of aura energy.

The circular ripple of power shredded through the machines and consoles, sending sparks and flames flying across the room. In an instant, everything faded into darkness before a few yellow lights flickered on from the backup generators.

Jason clutched his chest and coughed up blood before falling to the ground. He just barely caught his breath while his burning arms became paralyzed by pain. He looked upon the smoking machines and broken down consoles before quickly coming to another realization, No... If we can't escape soon, we'll run out of air here!

Jason pushed himself back to his feet, but could hardly lift his rattling legs. His aura sapped the strength of every single one of his muscles, forcing him into a desperate climb up the stairs on his hands and knees. He already felt the slowly thinning air inside his overworked lungs making each breath slightly more labored than the last. The backup generator worked to counter the dwindling oxygen levels, but once its limited power ran dry, so too will the base's life support. Jason tried to calm himself down while dragging his frame up the stiff metal steps, inhaling and exhaling slowly to preserve what oxygen they had.

Jason finally crawled his way back to where he left Kendrix minutes later. He managed to lift himself up, but his legs barely held up the rest of his frame. However, a few marks of blood decorating the wall and floor Kendrix once rested on, but no Kendrix. No! Was she captured!? Are there still some of Axis' men somewhere on the base!?

Jason's heart raced as quickly as ever while his eyes darted all around the hall. He dragged his feet forward, following what looked to be a blood trail on the floor under the dim and scattered yellow lights.

Jason began to turn a corner and heard footsteps coming up from behind him. He turned around and got into a sloppy, tired fighting stance.

"It's okay. It's just me," said Kendrix.

"Kendrix! You're alright," Jason sighed in relief.

She held up what looked like black metallic mouth restraints. "These odd looking things are actually breathing masks. I figured that it may be smart to hold onto some, since restarting the systems could be complicated."

"Well, about that... I kind of... broke the base power controls. So 'complicated' might be putting it lightly."

"Oh..." Kendrix thought through their current situation. "Well, we still have more than enough oxygen on the base to survive for now. We can save these masks until the air supply gets low. That'll at least buy us some time."

"Smart thinking, as always." Jason looked up and down at Kendrix, observing her cuts and wounds. "We still need to get those injuries looked at."

Kendrix softly smiled and showed off one of the burn marks on her arm. It looked to be practically healed already. "The Medical Bay where I found these masks thankfully had some good burn products. I'll just have to push through the rest until a real doctor can assess me. But I think I'll be just fine."