Danny stood facing down Korulta, the blade of the Corona Defender in his right hand still pointed at the armoured reptilian figure. He'd have to be tactical with this; if he just charged in, he'd be taken down as quickly as the other four Rangers were. After a second, he spun on the spot, a red energy around his left hand. As he finished spinning, the energy elongated, leaving him with a red handled, silver bladed, rapier style sword in his left hand.
"Okay, I like this." He said before charging at Korulta, slashing a pair of Pariahs that tried to block as he went.
As he came within striking of Korulta's katana, Danny jumped into the air, doing a flip over Korulta and spinning on the spot as he landed, slashing Korulta in the back. The armoured warrior staggered forward slightly before turning to face Danny.
"Impressive." He said, his voice taking on more menace than it had before as he added "Shame it won't help you."
Korulta spun on his heel, slashing at Danny with his katana, the strike barely being blocked by the red Ranger. Korulta took a second attempt at making the strike, this time making contact, another slash following it seconds later, taking Danny to the floor.
Danny slowly picked himself up. The other four Rangers were all picking themselves up and regrouping. After a second, Danny pressed a control at the top of the Corona Defender, the crossbar sliding inward as the handle got longer, a slightly wider, hollow section, about three inches long, being formed at the bottom of the handle. As it did, he pressed a control at the top of his Corona saber, the part of the hand guard that joined onto the bottom of the sword's handle folding out, making the hand guard one, long strip. He took the two blades, putting the newly formed hilt of the Corona saber and inserting it into the hollow section of the Corona Defender.
"Defender lance!" He said, spinning the newly formed double bladed weapon in his hands "Corona strike!"
As he spoke, he charged at Korulta, his weapon held behind him in his left hand. As he got within striking distance, he ducked under Korulta's slash across, coming back up with a twisting strike with his own blade, staggering the Demalor General badly.
"This isn't over." Korulta said, before disappearing in what looked like a mass of burning lightning.
"That is what you call kicking your butt." Danny said, detaching his Corona Saber from his Corona Defender, the saber disappearing in the same manner which it had appeared in as the defender reverted to blaster mode and he put it back into his holster, moving over to the other four Rangers "You all okay?"
"I could've dealt with him." Quinn said, picking himself up and dusting himself down.
"Oh yeah, I'm sure that getting the crap kicked out of you in seconds was exactly what you planned." Danny said "What were you planning to do, play dead until he died of laughter at your bad acting?"
"Shut up!" Quinn growled "Or I'll show you how capable I am."
"Bring it on, blue boy." Danny said, Quinn charging at him.
The two rangers began exchanging blows, each one matching the other with the appropriate block. Neither of them were getting anywhere near gaining an edge. After a moment, Quinn blindsided Danny with a left hook, knocking the red Ranger to the floor.
"And stay down. It's where you belong." Quinn said "So, whose going to be leading us, hmm? I nominate me. After all, I just beat the mighty red Ranger."
"No, you pulled a sucker punch." Jenny said, helping Danny up "That doesn't show that you'd be a good leader, it shows that you're barely better than the bad guys."
"You know what, I can't be bothered with this." Quinn said, turning and beginning to walk away.
"Well, right now, there are more important things to do." Aly said, reaching for the buckle on her belt "Everyone hold on."
As she finished speaking, she pressed a button on the top and a button on the bottom of her belt buckle. As she did, all five Rangers were enveloped in beams of light, the same as their respective colours, before the beams shot up into the sky and streaked off, taking the Rangers with them.
...Power Rangers Corona Force...
As the energy beams dissipated, the Rangers, barring Aly, all staggered for a moment, slightly disoriented. After a moment, their respective visions began to clear back up, all of them seeing the image of Aly removing her helmet and shaking her long blonde hair, with it falling into a light, wavy style as she set her helmet down on what looked like a blue and silver metallic console beside her.
"I am so sorry about that." She said, turning to them, a look of genuine concern about that "Don't worry, you get used to the teleporting, I would've given you more warning, but, simply put, if, sorry, what's your name?"
"Quinn." Quinn answered, the question having clearly been directed at him.
"Right, if Quinn had got too far away, the teleportation wouldn't have locked him in too." She said "It's all a bit technical."
"Not really, it's a simple case of matter to energy conversion, which then transmits over a vast distance before the energy patterns revert back to their materialistic forms, right?" Matt said, seeing the other four Rangers looking at him, with all of them probably having a look akin to Aly's one of absolute shock "What? It's basic quantum physics. Anyone whose read Dr. Cranston's book on interdimensional quantum theories would understand it."
"Yeah, Matt, I don't know about everyone else, but you lost me at 'matter to energy conversion,' and I'm not exactly stupid." Danny said, removing his helmet and putting it down beside Aly's before finally noticing their surroundings "Hold on... we're not in Kansas anymore, are we, Toto?"
"Toto?" Aly questioned, cocking an eyebrow, then adding with a smile "Sorry, you'll have to forgive me, I don't get all these references."
Danny went to answer before he began putting things together. Weird, inhumanly hot girl shows up at school, followed by crazy, alien monsters. Hot girl gives four other teens devices to morph into Power Rangers then morphs into one herself. Then, after alien monsters get their butts handed to them by a certain red Ranger with aspirations to become an actor and singer, hot girl activates a device to teleport them to a place that, for lack of a better term, looked like it could've been pulled off of the star ship Enterprise. Then girl doesn't get a Wizard of Oz reference, one of the most widely known references, at that.
"Hold on, where exactly are you from?" Danny said "Something tells me your description you gave me in class of 'out of town' meant a little further than a few miles up the road."
"Very perceptive of you." Aly said, smiling "My full name is Niral N'appagi of the Royal house of Patah, but Aly was a nickname given to me by my older brother, the previous red Ranger, no less. Officially, I suppose you could call him the 'king' of our world, given our parents' deaths at the hand of Sata, ruler of the Demalors, shortly before he took over our world. This ship, the Corona Megacruiser, was one of the few to escape, and we kept fighting the war, using these morphers, acquired in a trade with a being from a planet called Eltar."
"Wait, what?" Jenny said, speaking up, having removed her helmet and set it down, her hair a bit more messy than Aly's "You're saying you're some alien princess? That's a bit Star Wars, isn't it?"
"She's not going to get the reference, Jenny." Quinn said, his helmet also having been removed but being under his arm instead of set down, unlike the now removed helmets of the other four Rangers "You know, the whole alien bit of it? "
"Yes, I heard that bit, but everyone's seen Star Wars." Jenny replied, turning to Aly "Right?"
"Star Wars, is that some kind of historical record of a conflict?" Aly asked, getting a gobsmacked look from Jenny "As I said, I'm not, as you'd put it, from around here."
By this stage, Matt looked like he was ready to burst with excitement. Being something of a geek, a real life alien princess being put in front of him was causing him to look like something akin to a small child at Christmas.
"Wait, so we're on a real alien space ship?" He asked Aly, apparently requiring confirmation before he did finally burst, getting a nod in response "Oh my god, how does it run? What kind of fuel does it use? What kind of-"
"We can talk about that stuff later." Danny cut him off, getting a thankful look from Aly "So, tell us about these Demalors."
"They are the most foul creatures in the universe, the Demalor empire." Aly said, her expression growing cold "Many of them, like the Pariahs and Korulta, who you met earlier, are reptilian in nature. However, they don't all look it; there are some who have perfectly ordinary appearances like our own. They're a race that evolution's designed to adapt to survive, and genetic engineering has allowed to speed that adaptation up."
"So they're mutant super lizards, great." Quinn said "I'm sorry, isn't that the plot of the new Spider-man movie?"
Danny looked at him for a second, a smirk on his face. It was hard to imagine Quinn queuing up to go and see the new Spider-man movie, though it was an entertaining image, picturing him in a Spider-man outfit, standing in line at the cinema.
"I hate lizards." Jenny said, turning to Matt "Remember when we were kids and you showed me your pet iguana? How I reacted?"
"You tried to kill him..." Matt said quietly, his voice trailing off.
"Sounds like you're perfect for this then." Danny said, chuckling.
"This is no laughing matter!" Aly said, all semblance of her apparently happy go lucky personality that had been there initially totally gone "If the Demalors are here, they won't rest until they've conquered this world and enslaved it's people. Or until both are totally annihilated from the universe."
"I've got to disagree; if you can't find time for fun and humour, you may as well give up fighting anyway." Danny said "Sure, get serious when you have to, but if you stay serious all the time? You may as well be dead."
Aly stood there for a moment, speechless. After a second, she finally smiled, apparently deciding to take his advice.
"Okay then, what would you recommend doing then?" She said "What does Daniel Smith do when he's trying to relax?"
"I don't know, perform?" Danny replied "Or, hey, there's the new Ghost Rider movie out. I'm a bit of a fan."
"Geek..." Quinn muttered to himself, earning a glare from Jenny "What? Just voicing my opinion."
"No one asked for it." She hissed at him.
"Anyway..." Matt said, apparently trying to redirect the conversation "What do we do now?"
"I vote we unwind." Danny said, grinning "And as the guy who kicked Korulta's butt, I get the deciding vote."
"There's still one other matter." Quinn said "Whose going to be the leader?"
He stood there, apparently expecting all eyes to be on him, given his status as captain of the football, baseball and basketball teams. Of course, this wasn't any of those. So all eyes were on Danny. He looked around for a moment before turning back to face them and pointing at himself.
"You guys want me to be the leader?" He asked, his voice conveying how surprised he was at the idea "Hey, Aly's the one who put the team together, surely she should be our leader?"
"I'm not the leader type." She said, smiling at him "Besides, you're a good person, and you proved you can handle yourself in a fight. You should be the leader."
"If he doesn't want to do it, I'll-" Quinn began, getting another glare from Jenny "What? I was just going to volunteer to get him out of a jam."
"I agree with the rest of them, Danny, you should be the leader." Matt said "You're the best, most logical choice."
"Besides, from what I know, the red Ranger is always the leader." Jenny said, grinning at Danny.
"Okay, fine, you've roped me into it." He said, grinning and adding "And as my first official act, I-"
As he began to speak, the lights dimmed, a red light beginning to flash, a sharp ringing sound filling the corridor. The four new Rangers turned to look at Aly.
"It's an emergency alert." She said, moving over to the terminal the helmets were set down on, pressing a few commands "It's the Demalors, they're attacking Angel Grove."
"Okay then, let's get down there." Danny said, grabbing his helmet from on top of the console and putting it back on as the other Rangers, sans Aly, all did the same.
"Hold on, I just need to do one more thing." Aly said, pressing a few more commands before grabbing her own helmet and putting it back on her own head, "Done, let's go."
"Okay then, let's do it." Danny said, pressing the buttons on his belt to activate the teleportation mechanism, all five Rangers being enveloped in energy beams of their respective colours which shot up and began transporting the Rangers back to the city.
...
Okay, so, here's chapter three, with the team beginning to get comfortable with each other. Yes, Korulta's last comment to Danny will be expanded upon, as will the all too apparent rivalry between Danny and Quinn.
And yes, the comment about Dr. Cranston was a not so subtle reference to Billy, the Blue Ranger from MMPR. I know, he left to be on another planet, but I figure, he could've come back in the decade and a half (approximately) interim, during which time he got a doctorate in physics and published several quantum theory books, including the one Matt references in this chapter. I decided it was about time an explanation of how the teleportation works was given.
Also, I won't say that the being from Eltar was Zordon, but I won't say it wasn't either, I'll leave it up to you as the reader to decide if it was or not.
The zords are picked in case I don't get any opinions on what zord people would like to see revamped, and will be used in the chapter if I've heard nothing by the sixth. R&R, please, no flames.