==Palisade, North Carolina, United States==
Despite originally being in different friend groups, the five Rangers still managed to find themselves together during the school day. No matter where one Ranger went, another was always nearby. As a result, the five Rangers were gathered around Alissa's locker.
"What excuse did you give to your parents?" Trevor asked Danny. Since they knew Casey's and Alissa's parents knew, asking them would be useless.
"I'm taking a few martial arts classes, so I just said that I got a bit shaken up while sparring." Danny explained. "It seemed to work like a charm on them. They didn't suspect a thing."
"I mean, like, what are they supposed to suspect?" Casey asked. "The last thing they would think about is how their son is a Power Ranger."
"Well, yeah, but I'm sure it's at the back of every parent's mind." Danny shrugged. "I guess you can't just count everything out."
"Ha, my parents think I joined the football team." Caleb chuckled. "Don't they notice that I don't have a jersey?"
"Why didn't I use that excuse?" Trevor groaned.
"What excuse did you use?" Alissa asked him.
"I told my parents that I decided to stay in school for a bit longer."
"You've got to be kidding me." Casey laughed. "You do realize that we were gone until around nine at night, right?"
"Hey, I didn't know what to think of when my parents put me on the spot! You try being under pressure from a scary mother like mine and see what you say!" Trevor defended himself.
"If that's what suits you, then I can't say anything." Casey chuckled.
Finally, the bell rang and it was time for students to go to class. The Rangers waved each other goodbye as they all headed in different directions to start their school day.
Hydra made her way through Palisade's sewer system until she was absolutely certain that she could not be tracked. There, she pulled out her phone and dialed the man's number. After a bit of dialing, it finally connected.
"Hello?" the man answered on the other end of the line.
"Master, this is Hydra." Hydra replied nervously. "I needed to tell you that..."
"That you failed!" the man shouted. Despite being an ocean away, his voice still made Hydra tremble.
"I'm sorry, master..."
"You had one task! You couldn't even handle that!" he continued to shout. "I even gave you some of my top mechs!"
"Master, I understand..."
"If you understood then we wouldn't be having this conversation!"
"Master, please just give me one more chance." Hydra pleaded with her boss. "I promise that I will bring the Rangers crumbling to their knees! Just supply me with a surplus amount of mechs and I will assure that the Morphers are ours."
"Against my better judgment, I will fulfill your request." the man sighed. "I will have a decent sized army of them teleported to you in about half an hour."
"Thank you master, I will not fail you."
"You better not, or else you can go find a new job." the man warned her.
"Thank you for putting your faith in me."
"I will talk to you later." the man sighed. "That is...if you succeed."
"I will." Hydra promised and then hung her phone up.
She sat on the dirty sewer floor and thought about a few things. Her first issue was the fact that there were five Rangers and only one Hydra. It would require tremendous backup to be able to even things out. On top of that, she had some business with the Yellow Ranger that needed finishing.
It was late afternoon and Casey, Caleb, and Trevor all had Calculus together. Since they became Rangers and didn't have any other friends in the same class, they decided it would be best if they sat together. They had a hard time trying not to fall asleep while watching their teacher present notes on the slideshow with the lights off.
"Y'know, some kids back home in Atlanta trained themselves to sleep with their eyes open." Caleb joked.
"And with good reason." Trevor agreed. "I think I need to start learning up on that, too."
"Ditto." Casey nodded. "I already know all of this stuff. Why do I have to sit through an hour-and-a-half of it every other day?"
"I don't even like this subject." Trevor complained.
"Then it's a good idea to start liking it." Casey told him. "What do you want to do after college?"
"Something computer related." Trevor answered.
"Then pay attention, it'll be useful." Casey informed him.
"Fine..." Trevor grumbled and started to take notes.
"I don't see what this class has anything to do with the Olympics." Caleb shrugged.
"The Olympics?" Casey asked. "What do you mean by the Olympics?"
"Come spring season and it'll be time for track & field. I plan on getting good enough to enter the Olympics." Caleb answered. "It's been my dream since I was little."
"Wow, that's impressive." Casey widened her eyes. "I didn't know people...aspired so high."
"What do you mean?" Caleb asked. "Don't you have high hopes of yourself?"
"Not really..." Casey mumbled.
"You have one of the highest grade point averages in the entire school!" Caleb exclaimed. "You should be looking at the top colleges!"
"That's just the problem." Casey sighed. "I don't really know what I want to do with what I know."
"That's something you should talk to your counselor about." Caleb advised her. "They'd be able to help you out."
"Yeah, about that..." Casey chuckled, thinking about Alli.
She wasn't able to explain to Caleb what she was talking about as her Morpher started to warm up. Confused, she glanced at Caleb and Trevor to see if they were feeling the same thing. They both looked up at her with the same expression and pointed to their Morphers as well. Before they could even say anything to each other, the fire alarm went off. The entire class got up and started to evacuate the school per standard procedure.
"What's going on?" Casey whispered to the boys as they walked through the halls and out of the school.
"I have no idea, but I don't have a good feeling about it." Trevor shrugged.
When the students arrived outside, they could see a chunk of the school had smoke billowing from it. Realizing that they would have to likely be called into action, the three teenagers slipped out of their class line and went behind a part of the school where nobody else was. There, they found Danny and Alissa.
"Oh, great minds think alike." Danny smiled. "You guys ready to morph?"
"What are you talking about?" Casey asked.
"Hydra is attacking!" Alissa exclaimed. As she said that, something hit her from behind. "What was that?"
Behind Alissa was a large army of mechs. Without hesitation, the Rangers got into defensive mode. After nodding to each other, they held their Morphers up.
"It's morphin' time!" they chanted in unison, morphing into their Ranger suits.
"It's only custom that you morph before you fight." Hydra stated, appearing before them. "Where did we last leave off, Yellow Ranger?" she asked Casey.
"Hold up!" a robotic voice buzzed through their helmets.
"What's that?" Caleb asked, grabbing the side of his helmet. "I could have sworn that was a voice inside my head?"
"That sounds like Gadget-X" Alissa answered. All of the Rangers gave her confused looks. "He's a robot that lives in my basement...uhh...just don't ask."
"You're correct, this is Gadget-X speaking. I have developed your weapons!" he announced.
"Sweet! Send them through." Trevor replied.
"Weapons online!" Gadget-X blared.
The Rangers began to glow as weapon started to materialize around them. When their weapons were delivered, they got a feel for what they had. Casey had a set of yellow dual-wield blades that resembled elephant tusks coming from a sword hilt, Alissa had a pink crossbow in which the arrows were tipped with what appeared to be horns, Trevor had a pair of red sprawling wings that emerged from his back, Caleb had two massive blue claws on both of hands hands, and Danny had a green battering ram topped off with the head of a bull.
"These are incredible!" Casey marveled her weapon. "As you were saying, Hydra?"
Hydra growled and swung her whip at Casey. The Yellow Ranger quickly placed her Tusk Blades in front of her and parried the hit, sending the whip back at Hydra. Recoiling from the self-hit, Hydra lunged at Casey.
"Yellow Ranger!" Hydra shouted and tackled Casey to the ground.
The other four Rangers ran straight into the mechs with their weapons in hand. With their new upgrades, they were able to handle the mechs in their own unique way. Alissa could sharpshoot from a safe distance with her Hornbow before the mechs could get to her, Danny could run straight in with his Bull Ram and topple powerful mechs over with little to no effort, Caleb could use his Lion Claws to slash the mechs with force strong enough to rip them apart, and Trevor could use his Red Wings to fly above them and have leverage while fighting. Things appeared to be pretty straightforward with their battle strategy.
"Look, the Power Rangers!" a student shouted and called a flock of others over to watch the battle.
"Great, we have an audience." Alissa groaned to her teammates.
"Guys, play it safe!" Trevor instructed them. "We don't want any friendly fire here!"
Casey and Hydra wrestled for power. Despite having dual-wield blades to Casey's advantage, Hydra still seemed to be on her case. The two were perfectly even in combat.
"You're going down, Yellow Ranger!" Hydra threatened her. "I failed once, and I won't fail again!"
"Yes, you will fail again!" Casey shouted and threw the older woman off of her. She slashed the Tusk Blades at her.
"Words can't describe the irritation I have for you, right now." Hydra grumbled.
"I would tell you the same thing, but you got me out of Calculus for the day." Casey chuckled. "No matter, you're still going to die a painful death."
"Hand over the Morphers and there won't be any dying." Hydra compromised.
"I don't think so." Casey rammed her elbow into her opponent's mask.
"Ouch!" Hydra complained and tried to recover from the hit. Casey didn't gave her a chance to as she slashed her with the Tusk Blades again. "This is really getting annoying!"
"I can keep at this all day long." Casey kept swinging and slashing. "You're no match for me."
Getting through the mechs was no problem for the four Rangers and they came back to Casey when they were done with their task. It took a while, but they were ready to help her out with Hydra.
"Is Hydra giving you some trouble?" Alissa asked.
"Let's just get this over with." Casey said.
"You can combine all five of your weapons to form the Animal Striker!" Gadget-X's voice broke out through the communicator.
"Then I say we do it!" Casey instructed her teammates. "Let's combine our weapons!"
The five weapons started to float about in the air. The Bull Ram took center stage as the Tusk Blades attached onto the front of it. The Red Wings flew to the top of the Bull Ram and attached to provide flying capabilities. The Hornbow took the spot in between the the Red Wings to add some range to the weapon and the Lion Claws attached to the ends of the Red Wings to add some slashing abilities.
"Let's finish this!" Casey shouted.
The Animal Striker flew itself straight into Hydra, throwing the woman straight into a brick wall. In pain, she realized that she would not be able to win the fight. She powered up her rocket boots and flew away from the scene.
When the panic ended, and the students started to disperse from the area, the Rangers were able to unmorph.
"I think we're starting to get to her." Alissa commented.
"She's getting really frustrated." Trevor agreed.
"We can use this to our advantage." Danny told them.
"Let's think about all of this next time." Casey said. "Something tells me school is canceled for the rest of the day, so let's just enjoy that perk."
The Rangers walked away from the scene of their gutsy fight together. They knew it was only the beginning, but they were confident that they could pull off the bit win.
Just a quick author's note, if you've been following this (and No Threat) since Chapter 1, leaving a quick review would be nice. It helps me understand what I'm doing well and what I'm doing not so well and it doesn't take long to type one up.
Thanks! :)