Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Power Rangers, Saban and Disney do.
Ch 6- Agreeing to the Unknown
"...don't think this is a good idea."
"We have no choice, besides these humans are perfectly able to handle the stress put on them. They're of prime age and have already been effected by recent events."
"Their age is what concerns me. You've seen the broadcasts depicting humans of their age. Brash, rude, moody. Do you really think they'll do as we tell them? Or even listen to us?"
"They must! The fate of their world depends on it!"
Jason listened to the voices on the edge of his consciousness. His head throbbed and the area a chair had fell on him wasn't helping matters either. Before opening his eyes, Jason could tell he was lying face down on a cold, hard metal surface. He didn't seemed physically restrained, but found that his body wouldn't respond to his urges. So Jason stopped struggling and just listened to the bits of sound he could hear coming from what seemed like another room.
"...realigning the synaptic interfaces so as not to burn-out their sensory receptors."
"The zords will also need..." the voices faded out.
Jason tried to move his arms and found them sluggishly responsive. He managed to move himself into a sitting position, despite the lack of feeling in his legs. Jason saw Billy, Trini, Kimberly, and Zack all unconscious on a metallic floor with himself. Jason kept trying to move different parts of his body with varying success for several minutes as more piece of the other room's conversation came to his ears.
"...converting text and vocal cues into human language: English..."
"...adaption of spacial transfer sequence complete, beginning..."
"...docking bays secured, preparing for start-up and diagnostic scans..."
Jason didn't understand much of what came to his ears, most of the technical jargon beyond his vocabulary. 'If only that Billy guy was awake,' Jason thought, 'maybe he could understand some of what they are talking about.'
As if on cue, the other four teens began to slowly awaken from their slumber over the next minutes. Jason finally had movement in his legs and the others were able to sit in upright positions before they began to talk.
"Where are we?" Zack asked as he tilted his head in every possible direction to see the room they were locked in. The room was circular with a ten or eleven foot ceiling. Metal created the floor, walls, and ceiling in a shiny, but nondescript gray. The room was barren of anything else, no door, window, or even seat for its current occupants.
"I don't know." Jason admitted, "But there are voice that you can hear."
"Great," Kimberly threw her hands up, "I'm stuck in a room with a person that hears voices. What a day! First I get punished for something I didn't do, again. Then I'll stuck with you people, attacked by over-sized smerfs, and now this! Why me?"
"Hey! Whining girl!" Zack snapped, "We're still here, remember? WE have the same problem. WE are stuck with you." He circled his finger to signify the others and himself before pointing at Kimberly to emphasize his point.
"Wait!" Jason cut off Kimberly's come-back, "Listen, the voices are back!"
"Good, shut up and listen to them!" Kimberly spat.
"Shh!" Zack and Jason both motioned for Kimberly to silence herself as the voices became audible once again.
"...ready for testing phase, shall I beam one of the humans here before we endow all of them with this power?"
"No, I want to explain to them what the risks are first, then we test all five. Wake them and activate the teleporter."
"Very well. Oh! It appears that I miscalculated the proper dosage for humans, they are already awake! Teleporting now."
As in Ernie's, a field of white light surrounded the teens and in an instant, the bare room stood empty once more.
The teens found themselves standing on a new floor, but that wasn't the strangest thing they saw. For lack of a better term, the stood on what appeared to be a large floating platform made of the same material as the room they had just left. The reasons the teens thought of the new floor as a platform was that there were no walls, just a black abyss in every direction. The platform held several work stations with futuristic touch sensitive screens.
At the furtherest station stood a mechanical being. Its arms and legs looked like metal accordion tubes and its head was a copper colored saucer. The main body was red with several closed panels and the rest was an uncolored metal sheen. Then the robot turned and the teens saw the emblazoned golden thunderbolt on the robot's chest and the LED-like line of sensors on the saucer head.
"Oh! Hello humans!" The robot greeted the teens in a high-pitched, but cheerless voice, "I never thought the day would come when we would have to bring some of your kind here!" The robot's disbelief and disdain for the biological creature was evident in it's tone.
"Alpha!" A booming voice reprimanded the insulting android. The origin of the voice shocked the teens speechless. It came from the large, glowing blue tube beyond the robot. Inside of the tube a white and equally light-emitting face looked down upon the dumbfounded and staring humans.
"Be kind to these creatures and introduce yourself, they are here to save us as much as their planet!"
"Oh, very well." The robot grudgingly yielded to the head's demand. "My designation is 'Alpha 5.' I am the current assistant and curator of 'The Tribute to Zordon of Eltar.' Please don't touch anything you are unfamiliar with. For you five, that means everything." Alpha added to replace some of its lost pride.
"I do wish you would stop using that title Alpha; you make it seem as if I were dead." Zordon sighed to his robotic companion in a wearied tone.
Alpha turned to its master, "I cannot help it, my programing will not allow for a change to the name of this monument." It explained in a nagging manner, "You should be grateful for the honor your warrior bequeathed to you with it."
"Ah, never mind my young beings," the head turned its attention to the overwhelmed teens, "this is an argument that has been a source of debate between myself and my assistants ever since the original Alpha went on-line nearly ten thousand years ago. My name is Zordon. I originally hailed from the world of Eltar, some millions of light-years from this planet, on the other side of the galaxy. I saved you from certain destruction from the hands of Baboo and Squat, two henchmen of the evil Rita Repulsa."
"Ten-thousand years?"
"The planet Eltar?"
"Across the galaxy?"
"Squat and Baboo?"
"Rita Repulsa?"
The five teens suddenly exploded with questions to the people and places they did not recognize.
"Please, please quiet!" Zordon silenced the teens, "I'm afraid more explanation will have to wait. Rita and her minions are still here on the planet. I need the five of you to assist me in repelling them back to the moon before we can incarcerate them once more."
"Wait, you want us to fight those things that attacked us in Ernie's?" Kimberly asked incredulously.
"Yes." Zordon replied.
"Well, if you didn't notice, those things were ready to take our heads off, and they probably could have too." Jason objected.
"Yes they could have. But I will give you the means to defeat this invasion, for now." Zordon qualified himself.
"Alright then," Zack said, "Let's get this show on the road! I'm ready to have a little action."
"It is not that simple!" Alpha retorted.
"Indeed, this power may very well kill each one of you." Zordon explained, "If we are to give you such abilities, you must understand the risks involved. The chances that one of you will die from sensory overload is nearly 15%. The chance you die in battle if everything works properly is, at worst, 5%. Knowing this, do you still accept the power we offer?"
"Man, this is whack!" Jason bellowed, "Aliens, floating heads, robots?! Come on, are any of you buying this crap? I want out!"
"And doing so makes the destruction of your planet a certainty!" Alpha shouted back, "You will be the only five we offer this chance. You are able to withstand the stress that will be put on you and should something go wrong, you have a better chance to recover than any other age of your species."
"How good?" Trini asked quietly.
"Um...twenty percent, if you're lucky." Alpha admitted.
"Oh." Trini rapidly blinked in disbelief.
"What do you decide? Will you decline this one chance to save your planet and your species from annihilation? Or do you agree to bear the burden of Earth's defense?" Zordon implied the severity of the situation.
The teens all looked down to their feet, deep in thought. No one wanted to be the first to admit they would not die to save the planet. Then, one soul plucked up the courage to speak.
"I...I will...will accept the risks." The others stared at Billy, the geeky and nonathletic guy who it was said that couldn't outrun a football player in crutches. "I want...want to defend my planet."
"Me too." Trini shyly stepped up with Billy. He shot her a full smile. She smiled back, then blushed and returned her sight back to feet.
"Count me in too." Zack lifted his arm like he was back in class.
"I don't know guys. I mean, I don't want to die, there are so many things I haven't done." Kimberly began to ramble off a list of rather superficial things she wanted or wanted to do.
"Kimberly," Zack said, "How many things do you think you could actually finish before these bad guys kill you anyway? Why not fight back?"
"But you guys will fight them for me, won't you?" Kimberly asked honestly worried, "I mean, how hard could it be for you guys to hold them off? Besides how much help could I really be?"
"The addition of a fourth member gives us a fifty percent increase in probability of success over just three." Alpha answered.
"Fine, I give it a go. But if this bites into my gymnastics schedule, I'm out."
"Very well," Zordon welcomed her to the group, "and what about you?" Zordon asked Jason, "From our scans, you are the most capable of this group. You would be an ideal leader in the field."
"Wait, him?" Zack interrupted, "He tried to kill me already, twice."
"No I didn't," Jason defended himself, "I just want to teach you a lesson."
"If you agree, you must put aside your personal feelings for one another and act as a team." Zordon demanded, "If you do not, then this attempt will fail before we begin. Agreed?"
"Agreed." Billy, Trini, Zack, and Kimberly said.
"Fine, just make sure you all remember who's leader here." Jason stated.
"Good, Alpha, could you bring the morphers? We must begin initialization of the interface systems immediately if we are to keep the casualties to a minimum."
The five teens looked at one another with questioning eyes as Alpha returned its focus to the workstation. They each wondered just what they had gotten themselves into.
Next time on Power Rangers: Becoming Mighty- The updated suits and more technical aspects come to light as the Rangers power up for the first time.
