Chpt8 Ep17: "FPS Fever"

Chpt8 Ep17: "FPS Fever" is an episode in the series Power Rangers: Omniverse

Plot
Kurt wakes up at a desk in a mysterious retro office, dressed as a Army Colonel. Roaming the halls, Kurt finds a number of bodies and a newspaper whose date reads 1951, and as he waits for an elevator a number of creatures approach from his flank.

Twenty-four hours earlier, Kurt returns from a grocery run, just as Hunter walks in the main hall. Saying he's been asleep for a day, and is obviously unwell. Kurt tells Hunter he's had no luck tracking down Kevin, but he has Garth working on it, and has spread the word to other Rangers. He suggests they stay put and wait for news, and give time for Hunter to feel better. Hunter insists he's okay to hunt, but in the Bunker's gun range, he can scarcely point a gun and hit the target practice. Kurt proving his point to him of Hunter not being well.

The boys then receive a text from Charlie claiming to be in the area.

Hunter and Kurt are leaning on the the trunk of the Impala, waiting outside the base. Charlie pulls in near the garage.

Kurt

Your Highness.

Charlie

What's up, bitches?

Charlie hugs Kurt, then Hunter as well, who leans back heavily onto the Impala immediately after and grunts.

Charlie

You okay, Hunter?

Hunter

Yeah, no, I'm, I'm good, yeah. So, what're you doing in California?

Charlie

Oh, uh... a comic convention, in L.A.

Kurt

In the middle of the week?

Charlie

Girl's gotta get her collectibles. So, are you gonna invite me into your dungeon, or do I gotta answer your "questions three" first?

Moments after a short tour around, Charlie is amazed by their discover of the base and tells them of a case nearby, where a body was found with its insides liquefied. Charlie has already narrowed down most of the suspects. After knowing all about monsters from the "Power Rangers: Omniverse" books by Carter Edwards (Chuck) and has been reading up about their early lives as Rangers. She thanks them for their efforts in saving the world numerous times.

With Hunter in no condition to work on a case, Charlie volunteers to accompany Kurt on the case, proving her competence on the firing range and dragging Kurt through a montage of outfit-shopping for her new FBI disguise. While dress-shopping with Charlie, Kurt updates her on recent events about Hunter going through the trials. Charlie assures that having read the boys' history, there's nothing the two Rangers can't accomplish.

Later that day, Charlie and Kurt reach the coroner's office to inspect the bodies. Charlie is nervous and fumbling her words. The coroner Jennifer seems oddly insistent that Kurt present the proper FBI paperwork before allowing him to inspect the bodies. The pair leave in temporary defeat, resolving to break into the office later. Elsewhere two video game-playing teens stumble upon another putrefied body.

At the newest crime scene, Kurt presses Charlie to take the lead again, but the pair soon find that Hunter has beaten them to the scene. While Kurt berates Hunter for pushing himself too hard, Charlie learns from the witnesses that the coroner took the body, while one of the youths noted a blue handprint on his arm. Frustrated, Kurt leaves the pair behind to break into the coroner's office, but arrives to find they've beaten him to it.

Before they can investigate, the coroner herself returns to finish up some paperwork, and Charlie volunteers to distract her while Hunter and Kurt conduct their investigation. As Charlie awkwardly presses the woman for fashion advice, Hunter and Kurt learn that the bodies have already been burned. Hunter notices something familiar about the blue handprint. The coroner finally dismisses Charlie, but the three manage to get away before being caught.

Back at the bunker, research leads Kurt to believe that the killings are the result of a Djinn offshoot, identified by their blue eyes and handprints. Charlie makes an excuse to leave for snacks, though Hunter and Kurt note something off in her behavior. Later in her own motel room, Charlie pours over her various fake IDs, and donates money from various accounts on computer, before a noise drives her to the door. As she turns around, she finds the coroner Jennifer standing before her, her eyes glowing blue.

Unable to reach her by phone, Hunter and Kurt track Charlie's phone to her apartment, finding the cell phone trashed among her stash of IDs and laptop. Finding that all the money on Charlie's computer gets funneled into a coma patient name Gertrude Middleton, Kurt visits the brain-dead woman at her nearby hospital, and recognizes from the nurse's report that the woman must be Charlie's mother. The mother had been in an accident picking up her daughter from a sleepover from nearly a decade earlier, while the daughter apparently disappeared.

Charlie wakes in abandoned warehouse, as the Djinn coroner explains that her kind feeds off of fear, and begins the consumption process through Charlie's arm. Meanwhile, Kurt catches Hunter up on his findings, as the research leads to the coroner's false identity and a nearby abandoned warehouse.

Hunter and Kurt enter the warehouse, finding an unconscious Charlie, while Jennifer attacks a weakened Hunter. Kurt manages to kill the Djinn coroner by stabbing her through the heart, before she can inflict any real harm. Though the boys soon find the typical Djinn antidote fails to rouse Charlie. Kurt realizes that he'll have to wake Charlie of the Djinn dream state from within, and they quickly concocts a potion for Kurt to knock himself out and enter her dream.

Kurt awakens in the scene from the beginning of the episode. A couple of Soviet-style vampires approaches Kurt where suddenly, a heavily arsenaled Charlie comes to save Kurt and kills off the creatures. As Kurt explains the Djinn's dreamscape feeding process, Charlie reveals that the scenario is that of a video game she'd reprogrammed and illegally released years earlier, appearing more in nightmares than in dreams. Kurt explains that they killed the Djinn in real life, to which Charlie asks if they killed the second, as in the real world, Hunter is confronted with the second Djinn, the son of the female Djinn.

Back in the video game scenario, Charlie explains that she has repeatedly beaten the level, only for the settings to become harder as she tries to defend patients in a hospital. Kurt soon sees that the patients are none other than Charlie's mother and Hunter, before the vampires corner them in the patients' room. Outside, Hunter manages to defeat the younger Djinn, but with effort.

Kurt realizes that since these particular Djinn feed off of fear, it isn't the monsters keeping them stuck in the dream, but rather Charlie's fear of accepting her mother's death. Charlie breaks down, revealing that she was the one to call her parents to pick her up from the sleepover, leading to their fatal accident, and that she keeps her mother alive hoping to one day finally apologize. Kurt urges her to let it go, and as she drops her gun the monsters suddenly disappear.

Kurt then starts to wake up.

Hunter

Kurt? Kurt. Hey. Hey! C'mere. You okay? What happened? [helps him out of the chair] What happened?

Kurt

I'm okay. [looks over to Charlie] Charlie?

Charlie wakes up, looks over at Kurt, and lets out a tearful gasp.

Kurt

I'm sorry. I-

Charlie starts sobbing and goes over to Kurt for a hug to comfort her.

The following day, Charlie, Hunter and Kurt exit the bunker and Charlie about to head back on the road.

Charlie

So... thanks for saving our bacon.

Hunter

Any time, your Highness.

Charlie

You know you're gonna be okay, right? Those books portray you as like, one tough S.O.B. If anyone can get through the trials, Hunter, it's you.

Hunter

Thanks. You know, you really should come back and dig through our archives. You are definitely a "Woman of Letters".

Charlie

Yeah, why not. I like the sound of that.

Hunter hugs her and heads back inside the bunker.

Kurt

Well, thanks for stopping by, Charlie. Always wanted to get Tron'ed. So, what's next for you?

Charlie

Gonna go by the hospital. Gotta let go, right? [Kurt nods] What about you, you're gonna let it go?

Kurt

Never.

Charlie

That's my boys. I love you.

Kurt

...I know.

Kurt smiles and Charlie gives him another hug for farewell.

Kurt heads back inside the base, Kurt interrupts Hunter's apology with a hug, and resolves to track down Kevin Tran.

Over at the hospital, the nurse assures Charlie she can take all the time she needs, before Charlie settles in to read 'The Hobbit' to her mother one last time.