Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Boonboomgers fall until the survivor gives in to her enemy. The heroes watch and wait and work to protect in the background, but such is the way of their world, they will always trust the one who stands in front.

On the day of her wedding, however, they decide enough is enough. Not all of them, but certainly a crowd.

They’re too late. The ring is on her finger.

They’re too late, the changer is in her hand.

Seeing Boon Pink covered in the blood of heroes, the world is sure the Boonboomgers really were a threat.

This is how it begins, Sosuke just wasn’t there.

They aren’t the first team to go after Spinder, or to go to defeat of save his so-called wife.

Sosuke’s not an idiot…

Okay, yes he is. He went on a long rant about what a betrayal it was to that Boonboom Red kid before he saw the rage and fear in her eyes, saw it disappear.

And he didn’t so much agree to wait until their partners could get there as much as—

Get tied to a chair.

They watched the massacre, of course. BoonPink and Spinder and— well, whatever they did, there was more bodies than Sosuke is used to when heroes die.

“We had to carry your body home,” Hant admits as he sits by Sosuke, who is still tied up.

“Well, I’m fine now,” Sosuke says. “We’ll win this!”

Hant just leans against him. They’re all some puddle on the floor and the couch.

And for what it’s worth, it was personal, too. Gunpei died before their partners got there, helping out the baby Black.

“It’s not good seeing the police loose guys like him,” Gunpei had said. “With good hearts.”

“We keep telling you to quit,” Hiroko pointed out. Gunpei frowned.

“Never!”

“Too attached to his aesthetic,” Hant teased, and Gunpei frowned harder and stuttered, and back then they just thought it was some drawn out endgame the new kids would fix.

The people are good. Sosuke believes people are good. But sometimes they’re stupid. Sometimes Sosuke is stupid.

That fine.

That’s fine!

“It’s the ring,” Miu reminds them as they line up in front of Boon Pink. The Pink, the monster, the bride, the doll is casual, untransformed. She doesn’t look different, and it annoys him. If she’s evil, she should look different. Not that he knew her long, but it’s the same pink shirt (streaked in red - blood? Grief? Pattern?), the same short shorts (shorter, leather, black lined with gold… She matches her “husband”, and he feels a little sick at the thought), the same bright, stubborn expression.

Empty eyes.

“I know that!” Sosuke exclaims. 

“We all do,” Saki says.

“Hmmm,” Boon Pink says. “I know you, right?”

“Damn right!” Sosuke exclaims. “We’re—”

“OH! HAND CAR!”

“…what?”

“Oh, it’s nice to see you again,” Boon Pink says. “But I will kill you, if you come too close. Like your teammate died for mine.” She laughs, a mad giggle that shows a hint of remote despite those blank eyes. “Then we lost Jou, and we lost. So it was worth noting.”

Sosuke sees red.

They take out half the city, and having their partners just means more corpses.

Sosuke left a corpse. Most heroes don’t. Most heroes come back, too. Like he did.

Boon Pink is all alone, except her Blue, who supposedly left her team. And she’s more red than pink. Hant. Then Miu, then Hiroto.

Then she takes their daggers and stabs through Renn.

She’s taken hits. She’s covered in blood and some of it’s her own, and she always gets back up in creepy, jerking motions.

She stands and tosses aside the bonus weapons. She bashed Miu’s fucking head in.

Sosuke keeps getting up, too. Boon Pink tosses him back again.

“He’s not dead yet,” she says. “Here’s your chance for no regrets.”

She jumps into her cars and their partners go down, too.

Sosuke looks at Saki, and she nods.

“Hey,” Renn says. “See you soon, right?”

“Damn right,” Sosuke says. “In this life.”

Renn nods. He smiles.

“Or in the next,” he says. “Who knows. Save her, save the world?”

Sosuke nods.

“Like you guys did for me,” Saki says. She smiles. Tears fall as Renn’s eyes go blank as the pink they’re hunting.

Saki is thrown off a building and Sosuke realizes somewhere in all the tossing each other through buildings, somewhere in all that lead it to being just him and Speedor’s Engine Soul (casing mangled so far he wonders if Renn could fix it, and then he remembers Renn is dead, and—)

…he realizes they’ve leveled a whole city.

But the two of them manage to get BoonPink rolled, and then Sosuke aims for her hand, over and over.

He lands a hit on her ring with his gun, and she screams.

Emotions fill her gaze. Grief. Guilt. Pain.

“There you are,” Sosuke says. “You caused us all a lot of trouble.”

“You always attack first,” Mira says. A silly pout on her lips. Tears begin to fall. Sosuke huffs, drags himself closer.

“Yeah, well, I don’t care!” He says. “See, with heroes, sometimes you die. And sometimes you come back. So here’s what I think. One of yours, maybe Boonboom Red, has some plan to bring you all home. Don’t know how or why. I don’t know what. I don’t know if this’ll help.”

He reaches her. One arm on her shoulder, the other… oh, right. His arm’s gone. Oh he is so dead.

“But I know Saki had her team to save her,” he says. “So, whatever fucking happens, I’m gonna try.”

And, for the very first time…

Esumi Sosuke has run out of chances.

(Mira’s ring is bent but not broken, all her screaming shows on her face as she crushes Speedor’s soul.

I’m sorry. )

He won’t stay long. Not with the partners dripping sand and blood.

“Can’t believe you left her like that,” he says.

“I know,” Boon Red says. “I… I just made everything worse.”

“You tried. You’re a good kid.”

Boon Red flinches.

Sosuke grins and turns to Speedor st his side.

“It’ll work itself out,” he says. “It always does.”

The world will take a city’s worth of destruction as a sign they need to stop playing the victim - a world government forms. People can become refugees this way.

The people in charge aren’t surprising - the very allies that keep Tokoyari Eiichiro in their pocket.

Ishiro knows this.

He knows it was a plan. Space technology and power, and the world keeps running, and no one really escapes who would be screaming.

He’s selfish, though.

He’s trying to figure out where Spinder took Mira.

 She crawled home crying and half-dead. Spinder took her… somewhere.

This would be his chance. The ring is off, he can… he can run away with her.

But she’s too far away.

Mira’s been chained in a room for a week. She screams. Her hands are tied behind her so she can’t try anything, but the skin is rubbed raw. She screams and she spits.

“THAT AFRAID OF ME?” she screams. “FUCKING FIGHT ME, SPINDER. I’LL BITE YOU!”

“See that fire is why you’re such a pretty doll,” Spinder says, walking in right then. Mira stands and glares. The multiple broken bones had been knit together already, bless space technology and Boonboom Changer healing factor. He stalks forwards. Grabs her chin. “Your ring’s all fixed. I’ll miss this fire.”

“It’s right here,” Mira says. He pulls her into a kiss. She struggles. She fights.

She never wins. He never lets her have her Changer when she doesn’t have the ring on. She thinks with all the lack of self she’d gained under his control, she could tank his hits with the suit until something turned him to sand. Sand like Boondorio in Genba’s warehouse. Sand like—

She feels when she stops struggling.

“I didn’t like killing them,” she says. “They helped us out, you know.”

She pouts.

“I know, doll,” Spinder says. “But the screams were delicious.”

Inside, Mira sobs.

Chapter Text

  Something happens, Speedor thinks, the moment this team’s Pink sees him - and yes, they’re obviously a Sentai. He’d know Wristbands like that anywhere, after over a decade with his partner.

  He doesn’t think he’d notice her being off, though, if their Red didn’t ask her to hold him, and Pink didn’t stumble back like she’d been burned. BeaR says he’s bad at it. He says at least he’s better than his partner.

  “I don’t bite,” Speedor says.

  “Neither do I,” the Pink says. “...Mostly. I think you should stay with Taiya, though. You match and everything!”

  “…Okay,” Speedor says.

      Mostly?  

  And it hadn’t started that way. Sure, Speedor figured out pretty quick that they were a Sentai team. That’s hard to miss.

  “Partners… kinda Taiya and Boon-Chan,” Pink had said. “Or— no, nevermind.”

  Speedor looked at them. For a moment he wished it was easier to have humanoid body while on Earth, then decided it works well enough as is. Each team has their own dynamic.

(In a future that never will be, Boondorio Boomderas and Hando Taiya will die as one - reaching for each other, a bond too strong to stand back and watch the other suffer       even if it destroys them     . In the past, Speedor and Esumi Sosuke will see each other dying, and their team will die in pairs, but never them together.

  In the future…)

  And then there’s a monster attack. Speedor was practically expecting it.

  Most of the team are trapped, but oh, Pink. She’s moving, just barely.

  “Stupid shoes!”

  Speedor has to help!

  God, where do they make teams now? Why is only one of them moving?

  It’s a good thing Sosuke is here, he thinks, and then he transforms and the only one moving - the Pink - stumbles back.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Sosuke asks.

  “Nothing!” Several voices shout.

  “Well, whatever,” Sosuke says. It’s been a while since he’s done this - never long, someone always needs a hero, but still.

  Oh, when did the giant Geta end up on his feet?

  “Damn, just a second too slow,” Sosuke says, his hit landing just in time with Pink’s. She’d carried herself over on floating wheels that came out of nowhere, and there’s cracked pavement where they rolled.

  “You should be grateful,” she says. He blinks.

  “What?” He asks. She stares at him, and she steps back as her team steps forward.

  “Yo, Boonboom Pink, why are you all the way back there?”

  Pink tilts her head and stares, like she doesn’t realize the rest of the team ran up to him, like she doesn’t realize she moved as far from him as she coil..

  “I’m fine here,” she says. She grabs at her wheel weapon thing, or is it her own hands.

  “Hey—”

  The monster says, and without hesitation, Pink shoots him.

  Seriously, what is her deal?

  “Okay, I guess we should get this over with,” she says, and she stomps over like some kind of robot. Her voice weird and blank and— “I’d say don’t get in my way, but that’s kind of the plan, isn’t it?”

  And oh, yeah, a charged up attack.

  There’s a weird look in Pink’s eyes after still, so he grabs her hand to drag her off and ask her deal, and she straight up tosses him.

  “Shoot!” She cries. “Fuck, I—”

  “Oh good, you’re not a robot,” Sosuke says.

  Pink blinks.

  “What?”

  “You sure were moving like one.”

  “…like a doll, actually,” Pinks says, and then       she     drags       him     around a corner. “Alright, what do you want from me? Gonna ask why their Pink is crazy?”

  “Most people who join a Sentai are crazy,” Sosuke says. “Especially women. Ask me about Miu— what       is     your deal? My Yellow fucked off to save her partner and she came back brainwashed with a chip.”

  BeaR, Miu, Saki, they’re all a little crazy. So are the rest of them. Cool, powerful, Sunny, scary.

  Pink pauses.

  “That explains… so much,” she says. “Can I apologize for something I never did?”

  “Time travel?”

  “…What?”

  “It has happened,” Speedor says, floating above them. “Just not to us.”

  “Does Samurai World count?”

  “No.”

  “Thought so.”

  Pink stares at them… and laughs.

  “Oh my god,” she says. “Oh my god, I’m talking to you. Like I didn’t       kill you!     ”

  Oh. Oh no she’s crying. Shoot. Darn it.

  “Hey, you fixed it,” Sosuke says. “I won’t let you kill me Again.”

  His hand on her shoulder. She stumbles back.

  “Don’t,” she says. “I don’t want to test that. I’m pretty strong, you know.”

  ...Sosuke is out of “what the fucks” for one conversation.

  “One of mine left, too,” Pink says. “I should keep an eye on any tech that might have been put on him. And… and I’m sorry.”

  “Did you have a choice?”

  “I could have died.”

  “Stupid choice,” Sosuke says. “I bet you got here with some miracle.”

  “Something like that,” Pink says. She grins, all teeth. “I won’t waste it. Whoever planned this.”

  Ugh. That last line was for fake future him, wasn’t it? Sosuke bets he didn't take it too seriously - coming back from something like that just makes sense.

  Sosuke grips her shoulder, and this time, she lets him.

  “Damn right,” he says. “I’m trusting you with this world!”

  Pink grins.

  “Saving this world is all I think about,” she says. “Well, that and the race.”

  Sosuke loves these kids.       So much.  

  “We’ll trust you with this world for a bit.”

  And he does. Pink and Blue are looking at him all serious and sad, but they won’t fuck up their second chance. How many people even       get     that?

  Plus, that lead duo seems stable.

  “They have it handled, right?” Sosuke asks. Sitting in Speedor and headed for a wedding.

  “Course, just like every team,” Speedor says. “They find a chance.”

  “Time travel?”

  “We have heard of it,” BeaR points out.

  “       Fuck!     ” Sosuke manages. “Bet we put on a good show, at least. Saving the world and all that.”

  “Absolutely, Partner,” Speedor says.

  “Then let’s wish the Boonboomgers good luck,” Bus-On says. Sosuke hmms and slumps against the wheel. He fingers his coin consideringly. flips it. Heads.

      Stubborn eyes. –I don’t want to test it.  

      A memory he doesn’t have of partner apologizing. A memory he does have of promises to look after their world.  

  Sosuke relaxes.

  “I think they’ll be fine.”

"Hey Speedor you think we'll ever have time for that BBG thing?"

"Sosuke I literally only last ten minutes at full size."

"Damn it!"

"And no, we'll never have time."

"...I know."