The crackling of tree trunks splitting and crashing down one after another like a house of cards nearly drowned out the scream of a group of women riding in a wagon.
They were travelers from the nearest village who had tried to cut a path through the forest in order to reach Carora by daybreak.
Unfortunately, they ran into a stampede of wild boars the size of men. The beasts had massive bodies and tusks that curved forward.
The sharp scream drew the red eyes of the boars, which had frozen in their tracks. One boar—its coat duller and more worn than the others—charged at the creaking wagon.
Clumsily, the peasants shielded one another as the boar's heavy squeal barreled toward them. But with a deft flick of a wizard's wand, which emerged from beneath a cloak, a shining lasso sprang forth, ensnaring the old boar's two front legs.
The animal stumbled, sliding across the ground as it lost its footing. In that instant, a second magical motion, woven together with runic incantations, erected a great diagonal wall of light before the wagon. When the boar slammed into the barrier, its stunned body veered aside, sparing the passengers.
The wall cracked under the impact and collapsed. That spell was designed to resist magical force but was poorly suited to withstand physical attacks. Had it been cast vertically, the boar's weight and momentum would have shattered it and splintered the wagon.
The scant light filtering through the forest's leafy canopy faded little by little. The sorceress still had enough magic to spare, but nothing strong enough to fell beasts. She had grown up in a small village near Carora and had chosen to depart with her most precious possession: the magic wand of a wizard who, years before, had journeyed from afar seeking refuge from the Great Magical Hunt.
She racked her memory for something—any spell—that might save those with her. One of the horses had broken free from the wagon and fled, and a single horse couldn't pull such weight quickly enough to outrun the herd.
"We're lost."It was the last thought she had before realizing she couldn't recall a single useful spell. At least ten pairs of red eyes roamed around them, and the boar she'd felled would soon rise and strike again.
Suddenly, a smaller, shriller boar lunged from the underbrush; she hadn't seen its tiny eyes peering out. Though young compared to the other, its tusks were already long enough to impale a person. She raised her wand unsteadily, with no clear spell in mind and too little time to summon one.
In that moment, a red comet streaked through her vision and struck the boar, which screeched and flew several meters through the air.
Living in a small village, she knew nights so dark each star shone brilliantly, and on rare occasions, meteors would blaze across the sky in luminous trails—said to be omens of good fortune. She had never known red "comets" existed, much less that they could streak along at ground level.
●●●●●
Gyro had arrived just in time at the heart of the chaos. Tracking the boar's squeals through the forest, he had then heard the screams of people. Rangers have no time to hesitate when lives are at stake. He dashed toward the source of the cries.
"Are you all right?!" Gyro shouted at the wagon.
The young sorceress stared in astonishment at the youth standing before the enraged boars, which had grown even more furious upon hearing the plaintive whimper of their only young.
"You're the protector of these people, right? What do you need to get them to safety?!" Gyro planted himself in front of the wagon to face the beasts.
"We—we lost a horse. The one we have left can't pull us out of here fast enough."
Her legs began to tremble; the faint chance they'd had moments before now seemed more comforting than the slim hope she felt flickering away. Was the outside world always this cruel?
Gyro paused for a moment, contemplating how best to safeguard those behind him. For an instant he remembered his team, but he banished every memory that might make him hesitate in his duty.
"Then I'll stop them here."
Clenching his fist, which glowed with a faint flame swirling around his arm, he recalled the transformation he had practiced hundreds of times since his cadet days at his mentor's side and upon donning the mantle of the Red Astro Ranger. But that afternoon, for the first time in that world, dusk had fallen twice: once thousands of kilometers away from Earth, and then again, more brilliantly, in a remote forest at the edge of a distant realm. The red flash rose from his transforming bracelet, enveloping him as energy coalesced into his signature red suit with golden accents.
The world had discovered a Ranger.
●●●●●IN THE HUMAN WORLD:Hours had become harder to measure. Perhaps it was because the sun's rays rarely pierced the dense cloud cover that never lifted, or because the Earth's rotation had slowed. No one could say; the weather had been stuck for months, like so many other aspects of society.
The Yellow Astro, who had once been Gyro's teammate, had abandoned her post weeks after news of his death. Though he was a red comet, she had always seen him as a sun; she used to say that the Rangers' headquarters felt warm with him inside.
That day, as she stepped out of her small apartment—her "hole," as she called it—and saw the familiar slate-gray sky, she remembered her last public statement before leaving the Astro Rangers:
"Today, the world lost both its suns."
"It's cold…"With no strength left, she returned to her bed, hoping that by morning Gyro would have come back. She missed how warmth felt.
●●●●●The human world looked truly broken.WHY doesn't Gyro remember what happened?I hope the other Astro Rangers can find a way to reunite once more.