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Twice Chosen

"You need to follow the three rules to being a Power Ranger," Zordon explained as the six of us stood in front of the wall displaying his face once again. I wondered if the rest of the team felt just as solemn about this decision as I suddenly felt right now, but there was no time to ask that particular question when we were about to face a threat as big as Rita appeared to be. "You must never use your powers for personal gain. You must never escalate a fight, unless your enemy forces you to. And you must never reveal your identity, ever."

"OK," I nodded in solemn understanding.

"So there's no misunderstanding here, what defines 'personal gain' and 'escalating a fight' in this context?" Liv raised her hand.

"Deploying excess weapons against an opponent that you could handle with available tools, and using your powers for anything that goes beyond the mission to defend the Zeo Crystal from those who would abuse it," Zordon clarified.

"In other words, we can't just go all out against some guy the moment the fight starts?" Glimmer asked.

"OK, that's… something to keep in mind," I nodded, fighting down the brief disappointment I felt at the implications of that statement. Whether or not being a Ranger would be any use against the Capitol, regardless of how many times Gale had complained about the current system, I had no reason not to believe that Rita was the biggest threat right now.

"OK, that clears that up, but haven't we already broken the 'don't reveal the identity' bit considering that the kid's in the room?" Glimmer indicated where Rue was standing off to the side.

"That third rule predominately applies to less developed civilisations who require the services of a Ranger team before their people are ready to make contact with the wider universe," Zordon explained. "Even in that scenario, there are cases where non-Ranger natives have been made aware of the identities of the Ranger team, but only if they vow to keep the secret themselves."

"I will," Rue nodded earnestly up at Zordon. "I won't tell anyone about all this, I promise!"

"…Very well," Zordon said, seemingly 'nodding' back at Rue in turn before his gaze fixed on us. "The finer details of these rules shall be discussed once you have properly assumed your Ranger identity, and do this, you need to morph. Have any of you morphed before?"

"…No idea what that is, so I'm going to say no," Thresh shook his head, the rest of us following his example.

"OK, OK, let's step into the footprints, please," Alpha said, indicating the circular panels we'd stood in when we initially 'activated' the spaceship when we arrived, each now displaying basic holographic humanoids in the colour of one of the Power Coins.

"Standing in this circle, as a team, you can easily connect to the Morphin' Grid," Zordon explained, as the five of us walked up to the circle matching our colour while Rue stood uncertainly alongside Alpha. "Do you feel it?"

"Yeah they do," Alpha said, with a tone in his voice that sounded like he would have been grinning if he had the face for it.

"Uh… we're not," Peeta shook his head as he looked apologetically at Zordon.

"You need to morph to get your armour," Zordon said solemnly.

"Armour?" Thresh looked at the face with a grin. "We get armour?"

"I think it's… well, it's what those holograms earlier were about," Liv said, indicating the golden cloud in the middle of the room. "If I was reading what I saw in… that right, each Ranger gets armour matching their respective power coins; obviously we can't see the full details of it yet, but… yeah, it looked pretty cool."

"So I'll be going around kicking butt in pink armour?" Glimmer grinned. "Sounds neat-"

"But we need to… morph to get it?" Liv cut her off as she looked curiously back at Zordon. "How does that work? Is it somewhere in this ship?"

"Your armour is already inside you," Zordon explained. "You bring it out by connecting to each other, and to the Morphing Grid."

"OK… and how do we do that?" I asked.

"Bury your minds and focus," Zordon said, as the light of the central cloud began to glow more intensely and Zordon's voice became deeper. "The Power Rangers are a legion of warriors, sworn to protect life. You must become those warriors."

As the central glow increased, I held out my arms and saw the other four doing the same. For a moment, the glowing cloud seemed to spin as we stood around it, pulsing with strange energies I wasn't sure anyone on Earth had a term for right now…

The glow abruptly faded and the atmosphere of the room returned to normal, leaving the five of us looking awkwardly around the room at each other.

"Did it work?" Liv looked uncertainly at herself.

"Alpha Five, why didn't they morph?" Zordon asked.

"Maybe because most of us have barely known each other more than a fortnight and we were training to fight each other for most of that?" Glimmer pointed out.

"You were?" Alpha looked at the District One girl with what I could actually tell was an expression of surprise despite the lack of an actual face to show it. "Huh; that could be a problem…"

"We don't have time for problems," Zordon cut in firmly. "If these teenagers cannot morph, they must train without armour."

"Without armour?" Alpha repeated, looking at the wall with a shocked tone to his voice. "Sir, that will be very painful-!"

"We have no choice," Zordon said, looking at Alpha firmly. "Take them down to the Pit."

Alpha lowered his head and let out a sound that I interpreted as a robotic sigh before he turned back to us. "Follow me; we're going to the Pit!"

"The Pit?" Peeta repeated anxiously. "What's the Pit?"

"Right here," Alpha said, briskly leading us out of the room and back down the stairs we'd entered the ship by, waving his arms around the underground cavern.

"This is 'the Pit'?" Glimmer said sceptically.

"It's nice, right?" Alpha smiled.

"Alpha Five," Zordon's voice boomed out from the ship, "begin the exercise."

"Sorry, guys," Alpha shrugged.

"What exercise?" Peeta asked, before a strange blue glow enveloped the field and glowing purple rocks began to move towards each other, culminating in a large figure appearing in the middle of the cavern. It was vaguely human in appearance, but it looked like nothing more than a collection of rocks that someone had piled on top of each other, as though an amateur artist had wanted to create some kind of statue but hadn't had any real idea how to put it together. There was a vague impression of a face in the middle of the creature's chest, and basic hands, but as far as I could tell this was just a lump of rock.

"What are we meant to do here?" Thresh asked, walking up towards the figure. "Do we just hit it or-?"

Thresh's question was interrupted when the figure suddenly raised one arm and hit him in the centre of the chest, throwing him back against the wall.

"Thresh!" Rue screamed in horror.

"Hey!" Peeta yelled, charging forward to slam his palm against the figure, only to stare in surprise when his 'slap' knocked the rock creature back a few feet towards one of the stone pillars in the pit.

"Nice," Liv nodded in approval at Peeta before she glanced at Alpha. "What is this thing; some kind of solid hologram?"

"That's right," Alpha nodded at the District Five resident. "For what it's worth, you're definitely living up to the blue; you grew up not knowing about any of this stuff and it's really coming together for you!"

"…Thanks?" Liv shrugged, clearly uncertain how to respond to that particular compliment.

"Solid hologram?" Glimmer repeated in surprise. "That's possible?"

"Don't the Capitol have that kind of technology?" Peeta looked at her curiously.

"That's just a basic invisible barrier; we're talking about something that looks this real- whoa!" Glimmer jumped back as a few more of the creatures appeared around us. A quick glance was enough to confirm that each creature was slightly different, the rocks in different patterns and put together in a slightly different way (I was fairly sure a couple of them had extra arms sticking out of their backs), but they were all flexing their arms in a manner that made it clear they were about to start a fight.

"What is this?" Thresh looked around the room in shock as he rubbed anxiously at his chest while walking up to join the rest of us. "What are these things?"

"Simulations of Rita's Putty army," Alpha explained. "You'll need to get past them to get to her, which is where your armour comes in. Since we're having… trouble reaching that point, for the moment you'll have to focus on training to fight as a team to reinforce your own bond with each other."

"By fighting these things?" Glimmer indicated the nearest 'putty'. "How long's this going to-?"

"We can work out a specific timeframe once we've worked out what you're capable of," Alpha shrugged. "Let's see what works."

We spent the next couple of hours struggling against the holographic 'putties', with Peeta, Liv, Glimmer, Thresh and I each facing off against a particular hologram as best as we could while Rue watched from her position sitting on the steps leading up to the ship. It didn't take long to confirm that Glimmer was the best hand-to-hand fighter amongst us, but I was surprised to find that Peeta could do a fair job himself with some moves I recognised from our school wrestling matches. Thresh could deliver a powerful punch when he managed to land a good blow on our opponents, but whenever I saw him fighting even I could tell that he didn't have any real technique to back up what he was doing, and Liv just focused on evading the putties' punches until she could get a chance to land the occasional blow herself. For my part, I managed to land a few good hits myself, but I already knew that I wasn't going to win any fights on my own this way; I was so used to using my bow and arrow that something in me just shied away from the thought of getting up close to whatever I was trying to 'attack'.

After a couple of hours of this 'training' had gone by, Alpha called it off and directed us all back inside the ship. I had a feeling even Liv wasn't sure how this design would actually work, but somehow the strange circles arrayed around the walls had rotated around to let us into different rooms. The latest rotation opened a path into a room that just consisted of a long table with a strange machine at the other end, but it was easily recognisable as some kind of dining area.

"Huh," Liv looked around the room with a thoughtful smile.

"What?" Glimmer looked back at the smaller girl. "It's just a dining room."

"Made by an alien species that came here millions of years ago and predated our own existence in our current form by at least a few millennia?" Liv pointed out as she indicated the area. "Do you even realise how… impossible that is? That at least two such different species have evolved to be so… similar?"

"It's not that much of a stretch, actually," Alpha put in from where he was now standing near the strange machine at the other end. "The Zeo Crystal fragments give life to all planets, so it influences the evolution of life on those planets to follow a certain pattern… OK, here you go!"

"What's this?" Rue looked in confusion at the strange bars that Alpha had placed on the table in front of each of us.

"Nutrition bar," Alpha shrugged. "It's basic in terms of taste, but it has all the aminos, vitamins and minerals that your bodies require to sustain yourselves."

"Ah," Peeta nodded in tentative understanding. He looked awkwardly at the bar in front of him for a moment before he cautiously raised it to his mouth and took a bite out of it. He chewed it thoughtfully for a while, until he swallowed and looked around the table. "Well… like he said, it doesn't taste great, but it's not terrible either."

"The computer may be able to work out something better-tasting later, but for the moment the priority was to get you something that you could eat," Alpha explained with a shrug. "I can work out something better once I've had a chance to calibrate the system for your species."

"Mmm," Glimmer said, uncertainly chewing her own bar before she looked back at Alpha. "On the topic of keeping us alive, are there rooms anywhere in this place we could use?"

"Rooms?"

"To sleep in," Thresh spoke up as he finished his own bar. "Can't speak for everyone here, but I'd like somewhere to crash for the night."

"Seconded," Glimmer raised her hand.

"Wouldn't be against that either," Liv said.

"I'll… I think I can sort something out for you," Alpha nodded, before he glanced over at Rue. "That said, since you're staying as well, I may have to put you with one of the others; this ship was designed based on the premise that only Power Rangers would be using it, and since you don't have a Coin you could just end up getting locked into your room…"

"She can stay with me," Thresh nodded, receiving a grateful smile from the little girl.

"OK, that helps," Alpha gave the two Eleven residents an understanding nod before he turned back to me. "I'll… show you to Zordon's old room-"

"Hold on; I don't-!"

"It's the way the ship's designed; each Ranger had their own private quarters synced to each coin, so you'll be taking your predecessor's rooms while you're staying here," Alpha explained. "For what it's worth, I cleared the rooms of their personal effects long ago; everything's in storage now, so there's nothing to worry about in that regard."

"Uh… great?" Peeta nodded at Alpha as I followed the robot out of the dining area. We paused in the central area for a moment as the ship's interior rotated again, and then he led me into a red-rimmed circle that revealed a basic room with a bed, a desk, and a cubicle.

"That's your… I believe the term is toiletry area?" Alpha explained as he noticed me looking at the cubicle. "You can clean up and dispose of your personal waste-"

"Gotcha," I cut the robot off, before I looked at him with a firmer manner. "Look, Alpha, I get that Rita is a problem, and I accept that I'm meant to… to lead these people, but… do you really think we can do this?"

"…Can I be honest with you?"

"Sure," I nodded.

"I don't know," Alpha shook his head. "You're determined, but you're not really coming together as a team right now…"

"That's not exactly our fault," I countered. "You have to… I mean, none of us had any idea there was even life on other planets a few days ago, and then I met over half of these people for the first time and had to spend the next week expecting at least half of them to try and kill me before this was all over!"

"…Right," Alpha nodded tentatively at me, with what I would have considered a solemn manner if he'd had a face that could show me any kind of expression.

"I want to do this, Alpha- I don't want my sister to get killed when Rita destroys the world- but I just… I don't know if I can bring these guys together," I said, unsure why I was bearing my soul to a robot but knowing that I had to tell this to somebody. "Glimmer's basically spent her life preparing to kill the rest of us, Peeta and I barely spoke back home, and I never even knew Thresh, Rue and Liv before the Games started; how am I meant to do this?"

"You're the Red Ranger, Katniss Everdeen," Alpha looked at me with surprising depth in his voice. "The coin wouldn't have chosen you if you couldn't do it."

I decided to just nod in silence at that statement as Alpha turned around and left the room, leaving me to sit on the bed and take the red coin out of my pocket.

Like I'd told Alpha, I didn't want Rita to destroy the world, but could I really bring Peeta, Liv, Glimmer and Thresh together as a team in time to pull it off?

Ten days of training to go and no way of knowing if we can pull it off…