Roxie engaged in a series of leg stretches along with her new friend, Leon. The latter struggled to balance on one leg, but what he lacked in grace, he made up for in determination. And adorableness. She wanted nothing more than to pinch his little face, but she would have to abstain, for it would break social norms as well as personal boundaries. Maybe someday, when the time is right.

“We should rest.” Roxie decreed. “As mortals, we only have so much energy to expend.”

“Okay!” Leon finished stretching. “Thanks for working out with me. I know I have a lot to improve on, but I feel certain that things aren’t going to go as bad as yesterday.”

“That’s the spirit!” She raised a fist high into the air. “And if you keep up your training, you’ll improve on the little flaws you do have in no time!”

“Yeah!” The bucktoothed ranger gave a bucktoothed smile. Roxie couldn’t tell if his or her excitement was more contagious.

The curly redhead remembered something important.

“Roxie Safety Tip!” Her finger shot up in an attempt to look informative. “When using the jet armor, tap the jets lightly until you get used to them. That way you don’t crash into anyone, or the ship, or propel yourself off into the distant unknown.”

“Wow, thanks for the advice! I’ll try to remember it.” Leon tapped his forehead.

“Please do, for it is important to your health and my peace of mind!”

Leon laughed. “Then I’ll do my best. You know,” he lifted a finger, “you talk like a--a medieval…” He mimicked something that Roxie approximated as sword fighting.

“A knight?” While answering his question, a row of gymnastic sticks caught Roxie’s attention. She made her way over to them.

“Yeah, a knight!” The stocky ranger rested a hand on his head sheepishly. “Hopefully, I’ll remember your tip better than I did the concept of knights. I tend to forget words a lot. Knowing two languages can make your brain crowded--I mean, crowd your brain. Yeah, that.”

“You know another language?” Roxie’s head snapped toward Leon’s direction. Little did he know, he just mentioned a topic of great interest to her.

“My mom grew up in Spain, so we speak Spanish around the house sometimes.” He absentmindedly fiddled with one of the disk weights on the chest machine. Seeing something so heavy being suspended so high in the air made Roxie a little nervous.

“I love languages!” She tried to focus on something other than the thought of the weight falling on Leon. “I wish I actually knew one other than English, though…”

“Awww.”

“Once, I tried learning German, but I don’t really remember much of it, other than ‘Hallo, guten morgen~’”

“Cool, that kinda sounds like ‘good morning.’” The rookie ranger took his hand off of the dreaded weight.

“Yep! You are correct! English and German share a ton of similarities, so a lot of times, there are phrases that sound similar. Isn’t that neat?” She hoped he thought it was.

“It is! There are words in Spanish like that, too.” He closed his eyes. “Though I can’t remember any off the top of my head.” He opened them. “Oh wait! Macho! Macho is one that’s the same in both Spanish and English.”

“That sounds like a loan word.” noticed Roxie.

“What’s that?”

She picked up one of the batons. “It’s a word that was borrowed, or loaned, from one language by another.” To illustrate the idea, she passed the baton from one hand to another.

“Ohh, that’s really interesting!” Leon’s response made her feel joy. “I think Japanese has some of those.”

“You’re correct again!” Roxie pointed the baton in his direction. “Do you know any Japanese?”

The rookie looked away. “Oh, not a lot. I tried picking it up a while ago, but not much really stuck.”

“Do you watch anime?”

“Wha--How did you know?” He looked as if he’d been caught in a crime.

“Because that’s the exact reason why I tried to learn Japanese!” Roxie poked the baton into her chest. “I tried to learn German because of metal.”

“You listen to metal?” Leon’s face showed a surprise that Roxie was not unused to whenever she mentioned that. “You seem like such a happy person, I wasn’t expecting that.” He laughed.

“I do! That is part of the reason I talk in the syntax of times far bygone.” She leaned forward. “Do youuu~?”

“No, no.” He waved his hands, “Metal is a genre I’m a little scared to approach. I’m more into… power ballads... I think they’re called? Like the Royals!”

“Oh, there are subgenres of metal that sound more like power ballads. If you want, I can recommend some things you might like.” Roxie offered. “You can count on me to guide you through these waters of subgenres upon subgenres.”

“Really?” Leon thought for a moment. “I might take you up on that!”

“Yaaaay!” Roxie clapped. Not only did she get to talk about linguistics, but she might get the chance to introduce someone to her favorite music as well. “What’s your favorite anime?”

“People tell me it’s a ‘casual’ answer,” he made air quotes with his hands, “but my favorite anime of all time is Galaxy Gal! I rewatch it every so often.”

The older ranger gasped. “I love Galaxy Gal! Which solar soldier is your favorite?”

“Venus! She’s my hero~” He stared into space. “I always wanted to be just like her!”

“Awww, that’s so sweet! My favorite is Neptune. In fact,” she tossed her baton a few times, “in high school, I signed up to be a majorette just so I could do this! Soldier Neptune: Awake!”

Roxie proceeded to take her baton in both hands and slowly lift it above her head. In the show, this would be the point where Soldier Neptune’s hair changed to teal and her iconic goggles appeared, but she and Leon would just have to make do with their imaginations. With her left hand, she twirled the baton, moving it slowly from left to right. She then tossed it up in the air, did a spin, and caught it with her right hand. Finally, she resumed twirling it, passed it behind her back and into her left hand before returning it to her right and pretending to drive it into the ground like a trident. During this entire performance, she sang the transformation theme, yet somehow even that didn’t deter the awestruck look on Leon’s face.

His jaw dropped. “That was...Soldier Neptune’s transformation...”

“Yep!”

“You can do that? ...In real life?”

Roxie nodded vigorously.

“That’s incredible…” Leon trailed off. He didn’t even notice the door opening behind him.

Emil poked his head in, before the rest of him walked through the door.

“What’s incredible?” he asked.

“Roxie recreated Soldier Neptu--!!” Leon stopped mid-explanation, a little flustered. “I-I mean, she did a really cool baton trick.”

“Oh cool!” Emil raised his short, thick eyebrows. “One of my friends tried to teach me how to twirl one once.”

He picked up one of the other gymnastic sticks and twirled it a little bit before it flew out of his hand, hitting the same disk weight Leon toyed with earlier. The lieutenant captain drew in air through his teeth. He looked quite embarrassed.

“Do not worry!” Roxie assured him. “It happens to even the best of us.”

Emil laughed. “Thanks.”

He picked up the baton and stood under the cursed weight, blissfully unaware of how easily it could crush him. Thankfully, it seemed stable. For now.

“By the way.” He pivoted around. “I love the way you talk! It’s very...” he snapped his fingers. “I dunno what to call it, but it’s unique!”

“I told her earlier that she sounded like a knight.” Leon piped in. He then turned to Roxie. “I feel like I should be calling you The Great Roxanne or something.”

She tapped her chin with her baton. “The Great Roxanne… That sounds nice, like a protector of justice. However! I’ve always felt that Roxanne was too formal of a name for me.”

“Oh! I feel the same way about my name.” He pointed to himself. “Don’t get me wrong, I love my full name, but Léonardo Sebastian Summers feels too… much to be called every day.”

“Woah, that’s your full name?” Roxie nearly dropped her baton. “That sounds so heroic! That’s a name I imagine for someone standing on a cliff with their hair flowing in the wind.”

“I know riiight?” Leon gushed. “But I’m only ever called by my full name when I get in trouble.”

“My middle name is Amelia! It makes me sound like the kind of girl who might say something like--” Roxie drew her hands to her chest, looking away fearfully, “‘Father forbade me from going out past the prairie lands. He told me there’s dangerous men in the big city willing to scoop me up and take me away.’”

Laughter came from Leon and Emil. She could’ve sworn the lieutenant muttered something like “story of my life,” but couldn’t hear him quite clearly.

She pointed at him. “Do you have a middle name?”

Emil practiced baton twirling some more. “I have two. Technically, one’s part of my first name, but no one goes around calling me Emil Roger, and I hope they never do. My middle-middle name is Randolf. So my full name is Emil Roger Randolf Galhardo-Alverez. I’d like it better if it flowed well, you know what I mean?”

Neither Roxie nor Leon quite understood.

Emil shook his head and sighed. “For example, Lorie’s is--” He abruptly covered his mouth.

“Who’s Lorie?” Leon asked.

“Yeah, you mentioned them last week, and changed the subject.” Roxie wanted to know who this mysterious Lorie was.

“Did I?” Emil covered his mouth coyly. “Um… disregard that. Actually, I… gotta go talk to... the captain about something.”

“Oh yeah, I meant to ask him something, too!” Leon remembered. “Can I go with you?”

“Sure! I could go ask him for you if you want, but if you wanna come with, I ain’t gonna stop you.”

“Alright.” Leon turned to wave at Roxie. “See you later, Roxie!”

“See ya!” Emil winked.

The two left Roxie alone with her thoughts. Gymnastic stick in hand, she pretended to sword fight an invisible assailant. She imagined herself as a lone warrior, fending off a vicious pack of space pirates. A crowd cheered her on in awe. After successfully defending them from the pirates, she turned to leave. One of the civilians wanted to thank her, but didn’t know her name. What was her name…? Roxie was far too casual a name for such a hero, Roxanne, too mundane. ...Roxaelia? Roxaelia. It had been decided.

Roxie held her makeshift sword high. “You may call me The Great Roxaelia, protector of justice and defender of the innocent!” She pointed at the door. “Fear not, for evil cowers at my na--”

At the door stood Jun their tall friend. Aiden was his name, right?

“Good morning, Great Roxaelia.” Jun waved and stepped in.

Roxie ran up to give them a hug. “Good morning, Junzie!” She let go of Jun. “Good morning, friend of Jun!”

Aiden seemed not to know how to react to her.

Jun lightly elbowed him. “C’mon, say hi to Roxie.”

“Um… hey?”

“Hello!” Roxie beamed up at him. Silence followed. “It is an honor to meet someone who knew Jun in the before times.” She only realized after the fact that maybe she should’ve spoken more normally to him, but the words had already left her mouth. “What was…” her tongue refused to utter the word ‘she’, “What was Jun like back then?”

Jun seemed to pick up on this. “Rox, it’s okay, he knows about the they/them thing.”

“Oh, goody, goody!” The youngest, shortest ranger of the three clapped. “He knows your true form!” Everyone else on the ship knew Jun as ‘she’ or ‘her’, but only Roxie knew the truth, or so she thought. She was thrilled that her friend had more than one person to be themself around.

Aiden cast a glance at Jun that said ‘Where did you find this girl?’, and Jun returned one back that firmly told him ‘Bro, be nice.’

“Uhhh,” he pointed a thumb over at Jun, “He’s the same as now. Maybe a little bit more of a dweeb. I still can’t believe he was able to hide in the IF for so long...”

“You go by ‘he,’ too?” Roxie looked toward her older friend for an answer.

“After everyone discovered I wasn’t a dude, I tried to get as many people as possible to call me 'he.' I also tried to, like, use everyone’s confusion to subtly get people to call me 'they,' but most people ended up picking the first 'he' or 'she' instead.” Jun shrugged. “But out of those, I don’t mind 'he,' especially since I don’t, like, have the pressure of trying to pretend I’m a man anymore. Sure beats the alternative.”

“Okaaay~!” She gave a thumbs up. “You are still they to me!”

“Thanks, Rox.” Jun patted her head. They looked toward Aiden. “She’s like my little sister, just like you’re like my grumpy little brother.”

“Whatever.” The blond rolled his eyes and sulked over toward the free weights.

“You’re older than him?” Aiden sure didn’t look younger than Jun, at least not to Roxie.

“By a year.” answered Jun.

So Aiden was 26, a few years older than Roxie. This led her to an interesting revelation.

“We’re the oldest people on the ship!” she announced. “In fact, we’re the only ones in our 20’s!”

Aiden looked over toward her and snickered. She noticed a flash of horror cross Jun’s face. Roxie felt like she could understand why. She didn’t feel like much of an adult herself, and while Aiden had the intimidation factor of someone older, he didn’t necessarily seem mature. They must feel lonely having no one else on their level. How tragic. However, Roxie and Jun’s other roommate, Mia, was wise beyond her years. They would probably get along very well if Mia were less shy.

“Haha, wow… I never noticed that before…” Jun trailed off. “I’m gonna go… hop on the treadmill.”

“Okie-dokie! I’ll lift weights with Aiden!”

Roxie trotted over to the weights, and picked up two 70-pound weights. She and Aiden started doing reps together.

“Make sure to start with lower weights first.” she warned. “You don’t want to strain your muscles. That’s a Roxie Safety Tip.”

Aiden glanced at her, but didn’t respond.

“Do you like lifting weights?” she asked.

He didn’t even look at her. “There’s nothing else to do on this ship.”

“Sure there is! There are many people to talk to, like Jun, and me, and--Ooh, you’re roommates with Leon right? He’s very friendly and cute!” She switched to weights that were 80 lbs each.

“He sure tries to be…” The tall blond seemed annoyed. “You too.” He gave her a meaningful look, but it wasn’t a happy one.

“Don’t get too discouraged by him, Rox.” Jun called from across the room. “Kelly, no one’s been sent to keep tabs on you; this isn’t like when we first met. Some people actually want to be your friend.”

“You don’t know that.” Aiden responded.

“I want to be your friend...” Roxie suddenly felt bad for him.

He looked at her this time. “No, I didn’t mean that, I meant--I don’t trust the guys on this ship as far as I can throw them. You and what’s-her-face--?”

“Mia?” Roxie picked up 90-pound weights.

“--Yeah, her. I ain’t worried about you guys. Jun already spied on me once, but I know that he’s cool now--”

Jun tilted their head back toward him. “Awww, thanks Aiden.”

“--But the other three,” Aiden shook his head and put his weights down. “I can’t get behind them. They’re either up to something, or if they’re not, they seem like the types that are willing to go along with whatever lies they’re told by authority.”

“I mean, like, even if they are like that, that’s not their fault.” responded the dark haired ranger. “Not everyone’s born a rebel like you, Kelly.”

“Hmph.” He picked up his weights once more. “Just sayin’. I don’t expect much outta two kids whose daddy gave them keys to their own space yacht.”

Was he talking about Captain Galhardo and Emil? Thinking about it, their last name did sound familiar to Roxie. Suddenly, it hit her like the 100-pound weights she just picked up.

“Are the captains related to that Cesar Galhardo guy? The one that stopped those guys from building a death ray on the moon 30 years ago?”

“Chief Commander Galhardo, yes.” confirmed Jun.

“Ohhh~ He’s a Chief Commander now! Congratulations!” Though Roxie celebrated, tenseness still lingered in the air.

“Yeah. Uhhh, Aiden, we should, like, talk about this laterrrr.” Jun tried to sound casual, but stress colored their words. “You might be cool with getting in trouble for gossip, but I’d rather Roxie not.”

He didn’t say anything in return, but he looked at Roxie and nodded.

“Besides!” Jun perked up. “The only reason people kept tabs on you was because you were the most athletic or whatever, right?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re not anymore.” They told him. “You’re not even the strongest on this ship, so don’t think you can get away with what you used to.”

“Whaddaya mean? Who here is stronger than--?” Aiden stopped mid-question to furrow his eyebrows at Roxie. “...Are those 100s?”

Roxie looked at the weights in her hands. “Yeah!”

“Huh.” He seemed to be impressed. “Okay, JK. I see your point.” He smiled?? “See? It was a good idea for the IF to let women in. If not, they would’ve been stuck with me.”

“Yeah, and we know how that went.” Jun stopped the treadmill. “She might even be able to outrun you, too.”

“Oh really…?” Aiden began walking toward the treadmills.

“Jun, I appreciate your pride in me, but I am not so sure I’m comfortable with the idea of running on a treadmill. Besides,” Roxie placed a hand on her chest, “I am not very aerodynamically built.”

“Oh, shoot, sorry Roxie, I was getting a little carried away. Didn’t mean to volunteer you for a race.” The oldest ranger went over to the chest press machine. “Anyway, I’m gonna work out my shoulders or whatever this thing does.” They tapped it with their hand.

Roxie stopped lifting weights in order to cheer her friend on while they exercised. Jun operated the chest press pretty smoothly for someone who didn’t know what it did, but maybe knowing wasn’t necessary. Her mind drifted off to wondering how many other people used machines like this while not knowing what they did.

Until she heard a groan.

The metal bar holding up one of the disc weights started to tilt, the one suspended over Aiden’s head. Roxie tackled him out of the way, sending both to the ground before the disc weight landed mere feet away.

“Aiden, Roxie, are you alright?” Jun almost didn’t sound like themself, asking with such an authoritative voice.

“Do you need medical assistance??” The frantic words left Roxie’s mouth in one breath. She clung to Aiden on the ground.

“No… I’m alright.” He slowly got up, without any scratches other than the scar already on his face. “But I would’ve if that thing landed on me. You saved my skin.”

Roxie nodded. She didn’t completely register Aiden trying to pry her off of his arm.

“Um, Jun, your friend looks kinda traumatized.”

Jun helped Roxie up from the floor while the bearded ranger stood up on his own.

“Are you alright, Roxie?” One of Jun’s concerned eyes stared down at her. The other was hidden behind dark bangs. “You’re shaking…”

The younger ranger slapped her face. “I’m fine!” Her voice quieted down. “I think I’m fine...”

“C’mon.” With a hand on her shoulder, Jun guided her along. “Let’s go to the kitchen. We’ll tell Emil about this when he comes back, alright?”

Roxie nodded.

With a near-death experience behind them, the trio left the gym. Roxie did something worthy of being called The Great Roxaelia, but she didn’t feel so great.

“Hey.”

She looked up toward Aiden.

“Thanks.” he told her.

Though she lost some peace of mind, Roxie was thankful to gain some of Aiden’s respect.