Notes: In The Heat Of The Night is the first in a series of small one-shots that deal with various cliche's I've come across in a somewhat different manner than usual. The overall title of the series will be 'That Old Cliche...'
This first story is dedicated to Xias and Mouse and everyone who thinks the women of Power Rangers kick ass.
That Old Cliche...: In The Heat Of The Night
Taylor Earhardt sighed softly as she and Jen Scotts walked down the road. For reasons not at all clear to her, she had ended up as the only other Ranger from her team that actually wanted to go out and spend some time with the Time-Force Rangers before they had to head back to their own time. So she and Jen were going to meet Wes and Eric at a local cinema and go see a show. She didn't really have any interest in the show, but it was a good excuse to see Eric again.
Unfortunately for her, that meant she was paired up with the irascable and somewhat morose woman from the future. Jen wasn't exactly falling to pieces, but it was obvious that she would really rather stay in this time to be with her boyfriend, than go a thousand years in the future where he'd be barely a memory. Taylor had tried to be sympathetic, but it wasn't easy considering that a military life often left little enough time for love as it was. Right now, she and Eric were having fun, but tomorrow she might be transferred to the US base in Okinawa, or Germany, or clear across country to Andrews Airforce base. Regardless, if she was transferred she'd lose Eric. It was a part of the military lifestyle she'd grown accustomed to and which was obviously harder for Jen than it had been for her.
They crossed the road, and she nudged the other woman towars an alley that would allow them to cross more or less straight to the cinema, and then hopefully spending the evening with Wes would calm her down. It wasn't untill they were halfway down the alley, that her finely honed instincts reminded her that she should never have entered a dark alley in the city in the first place. Whatever she might have thought of Jen, the time-displaced Ranger had similar instincts honed from years of being a police-officer with Timeforce, and they both came to a halt as two men appeared at the mouth of the alley ahead of them.
Taylor turned and saw that the end of the alley they had come down was now also blocked by large men, and that all four were approaching the two women who neatly moved into a back to back fighting stance.
"Trouble?" Jen asked under her breath, and Taylor shrugged.
"Could be, but if that's what they want, then they've picked the wrong people, and the wrong night."
Jen snorted in agreement as the lead man approached them, and all four drew knives. Taylor's opinion of their would be attackers dropped a notch as she recognised them for common butchers knives, and suddenly something clicked in her head. Local newspapers had reported that several women had been attacked recently, and the MO had been identical in all cases. The women had been raped, then killed, and the police reports she had seen had suggested a butchers knife.
"Hey," she said as she nudged Jen. "You up for doing your civic duty?"
"Sure, I take it these are bad guys?" she answered softly.
"The worst kind, rapists and murderers," Taylor responded, her voice soft but underlaid with a furious tone.
"Well look what we've got here boys," the lead man said. "Looks like we get double the fun today." He laughed and the others did as well. Neither Taylor nor Jen responded except to drop into a loose fighting stance. Upon seeing that, the lead man laughed.
"Oh, so you're going to make this difficult are your?" he grinned a toothy grin and the other guys snickered. "Maybe we should let her get the first punch in, feel like she did her best!" He approached Jen, who was dressed down in jeans and a light pink top with a jacket thrown over it, and who didn't look menacing in the slightest. Taylor worked incredibly hard to not grin as she realised just how badly the approaching thug was underestimating her.
He reached the girls, and stuck his head forward. "Go ahead toots, take your best shot."
Jen looked at him incredulously, then shrugged. "Okay," she said, before letting loose with a thunderous right hand. She had been trained extensively in hand to hand combat by Time-Force, as the organsiation still felt that if all else failed, then a Time Force officer should be able to defend herself, and when Jen Scotts intended to land a punch, she nomally succeeded. Also keeping in mind some of her oldest teachings at the academy, she didn't aim for the man's cheek, or eye. The full force of her punch smashed into the tip of his jawline like a freight train, and sent him spinning away from her spitting teeth.
Before the man had finished falling, Taylor leapt forward herself, rolling inbetween the two thugs on her side of the alley and swept one of them of his feet before they had even caught up to the fact that their carefully planned ambush was falling apart before their eyes. She surged to her feet, her left knee slamming into the face of the thug she'd knocked of his feet, even as she grabbed the other attacker at elbow and wrist and shoved hard. There was a loud crack, and the knife the second man was holding dropped from numb fingers as he howled in pain.
She spared a single glance for Jen, who had disarmed her other opponent, and was busy beating him into the ground, before Taylor slammed her own fist into the second thugs face sending him crashing into the wall of the alleyway. This, she realised, was one of the things she loved about her job as a Ranger and as an Airforce officer. Not the chance to inflict pain, but the chance to protect the innocent by taking down the true scum of mankind. The man she had punched had slid down the wall of the alleyway, and wasn't moving, so she turned back to the first man who was trying to get up. One swift kick to the side of the face took him out of the fight, and stood up, and dusted herself of.
Jen hadn't wasted any time either, and had quickly beaten her own opponent down, and had tackled the leader of the gang when he had tried to escape the alley, and was now standing over him, looking ready to bring her foot down on his face if he so much as tried to move. The man was obviously scared out of his mind at the extreme violence him and his men had been subjected to. Taylor took a deep breath as she came down from the adrenaline high, that combat always gave her and began fishing around in her pocket.
"You okay?" she asked, and Jen grinned at her.
"Please, I fought scarier things than this thug every day." She didn't mention that she had been a Ranger, there was no need. Taylor finally found the phone she had been looking for in her pocket, and quickly dialled the local police station number. She considered dialling 911, but that was for emergencies, and aside from the possible crack in one of the would be rapists arms, and a few missing teeth in their leaders case, there really wasn't an emergency.
The phone was picked up after the first ring, and Taylor grinned to herself. "Hi, this is Taylor Earhardt, and I have quite a story for you."
Now this was the way to start an evening.