The Black Ranger rested his axe on his shoulder and panted, his powers may increase his physical performance tenfold, but he'd just defeated over fifty androids, alone, as evident by the pile of scrap metal he was now standing on.
"We seriously need to hurry up and find the other four rangers." He groaned.
His helmet was completely black, with a gold trim to define where the visor and mouth area was, along with a golden emblem on the forehead and a golden fin running along the top of the helmet.
The base colour of his suit was completely white, with golden stripes and that filled out the entire costume bar his head and feet.
A black jacket was layered over the white under layer. Complete with huge, gold, 80s shoulder pads and an intricate, gold trim.
The Jacket had the same emblem on his helmet, emblazoned on the back and it was obviously much larger - making it visible that the design was that of a lion's head, framed with big wings.
The costume was completed by black boots also with intricate gold trim and a thick, leather belt that ran around his waist and over the jacket, so it could hold both his blaster and his axe.
The axe itself was one, huge curved black blade, patterned with an intricate, gold design. The handle was half as long as that of your usual spear, with a matching gold and black intricacy.
He leapt from the pile, to the ground and powered down in one, long and elaborate movement.
His name was James and he taught Math. He was pushing forty and had yet to hold a proper, steady girlfriend. That was perhaps part of the reason he always looked such a mess, his clothes never fit right, he always waited too long between shaves and really needed a haircut. He reached into his inner jacket pocket to pull out his glasses, completing his look. He checked his watch, at which his face lit up with alarm, "Shit, shit, shit. I'm late again the principle is going to kill me!"
Its nine o'clock in the morning, no one wants to be doing maths this early in the morning. It's even worse when their teacher manages to always be later than the actual class. You have a problem when the bullies arrive before the Teacher does. As if on cue, James bursts through the door automatically firing out a series of apologises. Just a normal Monday, here in the small town of Barnacle Bay.
Not that it mattered to Adam, who hadn't bothered going to maths this morning, he'd caught the new kid being ganged up on again…simply for being new and he didn't stand for that kind of crap. He was nursing a fat lip because of it and would be facing another hour on top of his already sizable amount of detentions, you should see the bullies. He hadn't even bothered to wear his whole school uniform. Opting to wear his new trainers and t-shirt he got at the weekend instead, he pushed his hair out of his face; it was getting way too long. Still, he looked tidier than James did. He was round the back of the school, smoking, hiding in one sense and cooling off in another.
Not that it mattered to Elle; her favourite band had released an awesome acoustic EP last night. She had spent most of the night blogging about it, she had gotten used to never getting much sleep so a night of blogging, rather than sleeping, was nothing new for her or much of a task – she'd yawn her way through school, just like always. She was now trying to memorise the six songs, so she could add some covers to her YouTube channel. She may have been in the class, at least, but as the music blasted through her headphones, she may as well have been on another planet.
Elle tried her hardest to separate herself from trends and fashions, but each week she came in with a new hair colour, each colour less natural than the last. She was wearing her uniform tidily and correctly however, although she hid that under a huge yellow hoody.
Not that it mattered to John, either. He was furiously trying to complete the entire back catalogue of SNES games, after downloading an emulator to his tablet. So he may have also been in the class, but he too did not even notice as James walked in.
His grandparents were from Barbados but he was born in Barnacle Bay, had their local accent thickly entwined with his own voice...about the only tie back to his heritage, other than his skin was the afro he couldn't fight. His uniform was a little big; his parents told him it was cheaper for them to just buy one size he could grow into.
Or Lucy, who was taking photos of the class and their reactions to their late teacher. Her hobby was photography and liked building portfolios; her newest idea was taking photos of the 'real side' of her school. She loved life behind her camera.
Despite this, Lucy was very beautiful, she had an ethnic background, long since diluted and impossible to place but still apparent. Her hair was long, dark and thick and her build was athletic, she always wore the same pink denim jacket over her uniform.
Meanwhile, as the maths class continued, the city was under attack. A small army of androids had appeared from nowhere and had begun an unprovoked and violent attack, cutting down civilians and attacking buildings. Thankfully the police could generally handle the androids, control the crowds and keep the causalities down. They only really relied on the Black Ranger, when the monsters appeared.
And, as if on cue, a monster appeared from a bright flash of light. Something was different about this one though, usually the monsters that appeared didn't look so...human. Granted, the thing was more machine than human...but its size and shape was that of a man and despite the gross disfiguring, that was a human face. It looked to the nearest squad of police, focused its eyes and they all dropped to their knees, clutching their heads, blood curling from their ears, eyes and mouths.
"We need him!" One of the police screamed, he was clutching his head, he could feel himself bleeding but he refused to go down his knees. He stood, shaking legs, firing at the creature, knowing it would do no good but it was for symbolic purposes, more than anything else.
Meanwhile, at a secret location deep beneath Barnacle Bay, footage of the violence downtown was flickering across a computer monitor, being studied by a very normal looking woman, given her secret base surroundings. She hit in a code on the computer and back at the school, James' mobile phone received a text, telling him to get down town...luckily for him, class had just finished.
Adam could only watch in confusion, he was daydreaming through the smoke of his cigarette, when his maths teacher, Mr James Philo went running towards the back of the school, Adam was athletic and used the wall to spring himself up the wall and onto the top of the bike sheds, to stay hidden. He assumed he was coming for him.
He watched as James reached into his pocket, to pull out a small, intricate gold box emblazoned with a brilliant, black stone and matching key. He looked around and when he seemed sure, he nodded his head and commanded, "Ancients, grant me the power to guard the Earth..." He drove the key into the box, turning it, to which it sprung open releasing a torrent of brilliant light, "...Guardian Ranger, BLACK!" The light spiralled around James, eventually clinging to him and wrapping around him, it took shape, definition and colour until the man standing before him was not James any more...it was the Black Power Ranger!
Adam blinked, "No way..." but before he could do anything, James...the black Ranger was off. But that wouldn't stop Adam; he'd run to his motorcycle and give chase.
James couldn't have predicted the carnage he would arrive at but it became apparent why, the man standing amongst it all wasn't any old monster, he was their King...a former brilliant scientist who had 'improved' his body and drove himself mad in the process, Andrew Keller...better known as these days as King Cog.
"Well..." Cog grinned, his skin horribly stretching as it did, "If it isn't my old friend..."
"My friend died in that accident." James growled, clenching his fist.
"No no..." Cog replied, "he was...REBORN!"
"Yeah, you're right...into a monster."
Cog laughed at this, "I will admit, I am still a work in progress, but I am closer to perfect than you could ever perceive."
"Whatever helps you sleep at night..."
"So, James, are you here to kill me?"
James looked around at all the carnage again and then drew his axe which was holstered against his back, "Damn right..."
"And you brought a child with you?"
"Huh?"
Then James heard it, the roar of a motorbike, only to find Adam driving towards them in the distance on a motorbike.
"It would appear James that you were followed...and that is the perfect distraction." With that, Cog was gone and in his place was a fresh army of androids, which automatically launched an attack, both on James and Adam.
"Dammit!" James growled at the entire turn of events and immediately began to cut himself a path towards Adam. No one else was getting hurt today, especially not one of his students. Despite the size of the axe and James unmorphed appearance, he wielded the axe with unprecedented grace.
Adam could do nothing as an android yanked him off his bike and onto the ground, his bike skidding and rolling into the nearest pillar. He'd spent forever fixing that up.
Adam didn't miss a beat, hitting the ground and rolling back into his feet in one fluid, motion, "Right, that is it...you don't pull me off my bike or damage my bike..." Adam growled, a mysterious red energy began to flow out of him but Adam didn't even seem to notice, he was so caught up in himself as he launched an assault against the androids. He didn't even notice how unnatural his power was, each hit was sinking into the metal bodies like they were made of paper and that wasn't including the kicks that were sending the androids arcing through the air.
"Tay, do you see that?" James said into his helmet.
His voice came clear through Tay's speakers, back in the underground base in front of her computer, "It looks like the picky Ancients have found themselves another Ranger."
"Not just any Ranger...the leader."
As Adam sent another android flying backwards, the Earth below his feet split open and a bright light flew out as a gold box and key, both with a beautiful red stone, floated out of the ground and into his hands, they were just like James.
"I'm assuming you're here because you caught me..." James said, splitting another android with a graceful twirl of his axe, "So you know what to do, right?"
Adam looked to James and then to the box, "But it's so cheesy..."
"Are you saying no to being a Power Ranger?"
"No I just...fine..." Adam blushed and threw his hair out of his face, holding the box out he commanded, "Ancients, grant me the power to guard the Earth..." He unlocked the box unleashing the brilliant light, "...Guardian Ranger, RED!" suddenly the light was all around Adam, it was consuming him, changing him, rebuilding him from the inside.
His Ranger form was similar to James and yet very different. His base colour was black, not white, his stripes white...not gold. He had no shoulder pads, and his jacket and helmet were red, not black. He also didn't have the gold fin. And rather than a big axe hanging off his back, his belt didn't stretch across his chest and instead he had one blaster hanging from his belt, and one sword with a red blade and an intricate, golden hilt and guard, hanging the other side.
"Okay, this is pretty cool." Adam admitted, drawing his sword and launching a second assault.
Adam was no stranger to violence; Adam had trained his body to its peak so he could stand up for the kids that couldn't stand up for themselves. Although it had landed him a reputation that pushed friends away and many hours in detention, Adam hated bullies - he just wanted them to stop; he didn't care about the recognition. Not that he'd tell anyone that.
And so although Adam was used to fighting with his fists, a Ranger's weapons and powers are perfectly suited to the user, so the balance and weight of the sword was perfect for Adam and Adam only, he may have lacked the refined grace that James had grown through experience but Adam was soon slicing his way through more and more androids. And within moments, the conflict was over; Adam hadn't even broken a sweat.
"Who knew this'd get so easier with another Ranger...I can't wait until we have all five."
"Five?" Adam asked.
"There are always five Power Rangers!"
"Six."
"Well, yeah...but we're always supposed to be really surprised when the sixth ranger appears, even though we should know that already."
"Oh right...yes, I can't wait to see the other three Rangers, hah-hah-hah!"
They both laughed at this for a while before James brought up, "So, how does it feel, being a RED RANGER? I'm so jealous!"
"Kinda cool, I guess...but this costume is so lame." Adam was just trying to hold back how awesome all this was, he was a RED RANGER.
"It suits you."
"You're so creepy, old man!"
"Hey I'm not that old!"
"Who's heard of an old man Power Ranger?"
"Stop it, you're hurting my feelings!"
The two of them laughed for a while, before James powered down and Adam copied him.
"My bike!" Adam realised, running over to it.
"All these people..." James remarked, looking around at all the chaos.
Adam was angry that the paint job was ruined, but upon a cursory inspection, it seemed the bike itself was fine.
"We need to get out of here, before the cops come." James informed.
"Okay. Want a ride?" Adam offered.
"Yeah, there is something I need to show you, anyway."
"That sounds kinda creepy..."
"Stop that!"
They always told Elle that it wasn't safe to walk through the woods after school, but it was her quickest way home, adding close to half an hour to journey to walk around them. However as the bright flash of light surrounded her by androids, she almost smirked for a moment - they never meant anything like that. Realising however what was happening, she screamed and ran. Only to have her path blocked, at every turn.
"Hey, leave her alone!" John had to cut through the same woods to get home, which he always did on his mountain bike. He may have been a massive nerd, but unlike most, he loved riding his bike and enjoying the outdoors just as much as he loved his video games and movies. Some of the androids broke off and went after John.
With the numbers smaller, Elle smiled, "You may think that just because I'm a girl, I can't fight... well you're wrong, my Mum made me take self-defence classes, as I refused to cut around these woods. She may not have expected me to get attacked by androids, but you're all the same to me." She took out her phone, switched the acoustic songs she had been looping to her favourite metalcore band, turned up the volume and went in on the attack.
Adam followed James into his house, without skipping a beat James walked into his living room and pulled one of the books on the shelf, there was a click and the bookshelf slid aside to reveal an elevator.
"Holy crap, you aren't just a Power Ranger, you're Batman!"
"Well at least you aren't calling me old and creepy anymore." James responded with an eye roll.
Adam rode the elevator down with James for what seemed like an eternity.
"How far down are we going?" Adam remarked.
"Far." James responded.
"I'd say..."
A few more minutes passed, before the elevator finally came to a halt, opening to reveal a long, snaking corridor formed through the rock before them.
"Now we have to walk?" Adam groaned.
"It isn't far." James informed.
He wasn't wrong either, they followed the corridor around which fed them into a huge chamber, burrowed into the rock. Despite it being a cave, it had all sorts of modern equipment in there along with Tay at her computer station.
"You two are just in time; the other three Rangers have revealed themselves." Tay informed.
"You serious?" James said.
"I'd normally be excited, but this is bad..."
"What, why?"
"One of them has already been captured by Cog, taken to his lair...the other two are currently fighting in the woods on the edge of town."
"You're saying Cog attacked them before they showed signs?" James said.
"I thought I had the smarts to match Cog, I suppose I don't, since he's clearly invented some kind of scanner that can predict who the Ancients would pick, something I just couldn't make work..."
"Then we go save them. It's simple." Adam said.
Tay studied him, "So you're the one the Ancient's picked to lead the team, huh?"
"I'm as surprised as you are, lady, I assumed he'd pick someone who hasn't spent half his life in detention."
"We can talk about all this later, okay?" James cut in, "I'll go rescue the Ranger from Cog's lair and you go to the woods and save those two, okay Adam?"
"Yeah, sure James..."
"Okay, let's do this..!"
Both James and Adam held out their boxes and together they commanded, "Ancients, grant me the power to guard the Earth..." unlocking their boxes, flooding the chamber with brilliant light, "...Guardian Ranger, BLACK! RED!"