Darlene slipped her hoodie back on and put the gym bag in her locker, out of all the classes she's had to take over the years Physical Education probably her least favourite. The girls were bitchy and judgy in the locker room and the guys were loud and rambunctious in the gym, sit-ups and push-ups were a drag, the mile was annoying and the sports they played were uninteresting at best and exhausting at worst. Which was why she always put it off as long as she could, i.e. her senior years of High School and here at the academy. She had taken archery and martial arts prior in an attempt to bypass taking actual P.E. but school counsellors and graduation requirements are stupid and here she was.

She grabbed her bag and made for the door, she wanted out before the other girls had a chance to notice her, Darlene hadn't experienced any bullying since 8th grade but what she did was nastier than what she experienced in high school. Constantly shifting alliances between the girls, judgment for hanging out with these girls, those girls, what you're wearing, what you're not wearing. It was a hassle, hell, and stressful to deal with so when she reached high school she put off the class till she couldn't anymore. Which thankfully resulted in her classmates being less nasty, she wasn't sure of the cause though but there were a couple of theories; one was that the girls were more mature in 12th grade than 8th, the other was that her retreating to the background of the social tapestry resulted in her going unnoticed by her peers.

Whatever the reason, she was out the door and on her way before the other girls even removed their sports bras. She checked her schedule, the rest of the day held World Cuisine, Field First-Aid, and most importantly and up next a meet and greet with her team's Mission Control. When prospecting Rangers applied to the Academy they were tested in various aspects across two tests, first was a written exam that was basically an SAT or ACT meant to determine what normal classes you'd have to take before graduating. The Academy offered the same classes you'd find at any other college but wasn't built around or meant to be about getting a degree other than a G.E.D.

It was built to train Rangers, as one might guess from the title, so the second half of the entrance exam was the more important and most weighted portion. It was also the longest, sometimes referred to as an unofficial 9th semester, as the students went through brackets of pairings to determine who worked best with who. Though they were given an option, when sending in applications, to list other applicants they want to be teamed up with. Though these teams were judged harder on the cooperative aspects since it was presumed they had some history working together.

As Darlene made her way through the halls to the Mission Control meeting she thought back 4 years when this adventure started. She remembered being back on Earth, a week before graduating from high school at the park, on a bench looking out over the lake. "You know I love you right?" Darlene looked at the girl sitting beside her, she was tall and lanky with long red hair, her blue eyes stared back at her.

"Yeah and I love you too Lacey but I… I feel like this is the right thing for me." Darlene grasped the letter in her hand tightly, her acceptance letter to the Zordon Academy. "I've never known what I wanted to do before in my life but that day… I felt something… I felt a pull. I know in my heart I want to do this… no, I need to do this."

"Yeah… I know… Are you sure? Are you sure it's not just for-"

"Definitely." Darlene's face hardened with determination.

"Ok." Lacey reached over and grabbed her hands. "Just promise me… Promise me you'll come back in one piece." She smiled. "We've been through too much together for you to go and die on me." Darlene laughed softly.

"I promise." Lacey smiled.

"Good, now let's go pick out some dresses!" Lacey pulled Darlene to her feet and started leading her down the trail.

"Dresses?! For what!?"

"For the Graduation Dance! I want my girl to look like the Queen she is and everyone to see it!" Darlene returned to the present as she approached the doors to her next class down in the lower floors of the Academy and lying on the floor outside it smushed up against the wall was Shane, sleeping with a book over his face and earbuds plugged in. Samuel was sitting on a bench next to him scrolling away on his phone till he took notice of her.

"Hey Darlene, how's it going?" Darlene took a seat next to him on the bench.

"It's going fine. How's it been for you and Shane?"

"Eh, it's been alright, just a regular first day back."

"Except for the monster attack."

"Of course. You ready to meet mission control?" Darlene nodded.

"Is he ready though?" She pointed down at the sleeping Shane who's foot started swaying. "He looks tired."

Samuel waved his hand, "He's fine just having a little nap. Didn't sleep too well last night it seems."

"Yeah, last night was kinda restless for me too. Moving back into the apartment was always a bit… something… odd? I don't know what to call it."

"Probably homesickness mixed with the return to space, you know Terra Venture was waaaaaay ahead of its time with all the tech they had on that thing, it's gravity generators were state of the art at the time. Now, they're just relics in a museum on Mirinoi and actually they weren't all that great at doing what they did." Samuel was a big fan of engineering specifically chemical but he didn't mind branching out into the other fields since it helped him know more about what he could and couldn't do on his end.

"They were super inefficient and could barely hold people down, they had to rely on the station's sheer size to do most of the work. Also, centripetal force, like one of those carnival rides that spin so fast you stick to the wall." Down the hall they hear the thunder of footsteps and shouting, Samuel leans out to look past Darlene while knocking the side of Shane's head with his foot. "Do you know what the boys had before this class?"

Darlene grabbed her bag and looked down at the end of the hall. "Gym, I saw them in the guys class in the other gym."

"How much you wanna bet that's them running from an angry mob…" Shane removed the book from his face and rolled over on his stomach. He stretched and got to his feet and paused.

"What's that sound?" He looked down the hall to see Murdoch and Oisin scrambling and sliding around the corner followed by a mob of students. "Oh hell. Come on, come on, come on, in the room, in the room, in the room." Shane reached for the door and swung it open, Darlene quickly dashed in under Shane's arm before Samuel. The room she entered looked roughly 200 square feet with a screen across the far wall and along the back wall were some empty weapon racks. Other than that the room was barren.

She set her bag on the table and took a seat, keeping an eye on the door where Shane stood holding it open and listening to the shouting outside. "IT WAS JUST A GAME YA SORE LOSERS!" That sounded like Murdoch.

"YOU FUCKING CHEATED! THAT WAS A FOUL AND YOU KNOW IT!" Oisin slid to a stop next to Shane and called back.

"BLAME THE COACH, SHE'S THE ONE WHO CALLED THE PLAY!" Then ran inside.

"SHE'S YOUR TEACHER, OF COURSE, SHE SIDED WITH YOU DAMN RANGERS."

"SHE SIDED WITH US BECAUSE WE DIDN'T FOUL!" Murdoch grabbed Shane and shoved him in the room and slammed the door shut behind them and held it shut as the horde outside yelled and pounded on it. Shane crossed his arms and leaned on the door frame next to Murdoch. Darlene watched as the scene unfolded.

"I see you two have made some friends." Murdoch smiled and locked the door.

"Oh, these boys? Eh, they're just a bunch of sore losers." Typical, Murdoch never liked taking the blame for the fights he couldn't finish and/or win. His pride wouldn't let him.

"I heard. Who started it?" Murdoch rolled his eyes and walked away from the door to take a seat at the table.

"Why do you always assume it's me who started the fight, Shane? That really hurts me you know…" Shane crossed to the table.

"Because it's always you who starts the fight, do we need to talk about this morning again?"

"No, no, no we don't need to talk about it. But really I didn't start the fight, sure there was some trash talk but that's a given in sports." Oisin pulled out a chair next to Murdoch and took a seat and popped his head in for a second.

"Actually you did kinda hit the guy a little hard with the ball…" Murdoch reached over and smacked him on the side of the head. Oisin was Murdoch's partner in crime but he actually knew when too far was too far when it came to needling his opponents.

"Don't tell him that." Shane groaned and Darlene could tell he was fighting an urge to strangle Murdoch. Something Darlene could understand, kind of, she usually wanted to just drag him out of the spotlight he kept creating for himself and put a muzzle on him. She wanted to be the furthest one away from the spotlight at any time.

"Just, please don't." Murdoch nodded, Darlene just lightly shook her head and thought 'We'll see how long that lasts.'.

"Thank you." Shane sat down in a chair near the head of the table next to Samuel. Darlene had always looked up to Shane; he had the qualities she wished she had, confidence, ability to meditate and think on his feet. Samuel drummed his fingers on the table and whistled a tune.

"So… when's the guy supposed to get here?" Samuel, Shane's right-hand man, he was like Shane but a little looser in his demeanour, not to say Shane was uptight but there's definitely a difference between the Shane behind closed doors with people he knew and trusted and the Shane around people he didn't know and people that had authority over him. Samuel, on the other hand, was always the same, what you saw was what you got and if you didn't like it you had to put up or shut up. Granted he was always respectful around authority and those that demanded it. Seemingly in response to his question, they started hearing shouting and crashing from somewhere. "What's that?"

"Oh please don't let it be…" Darlene's eyes darted to the door while Murdoch got up and walked over, he peeked out the door's window before turning back.

"Well it's not the losers, they've abandoned their pursuit."

"Thank God. Wait, if it's not them… Then what?" Oisin rolled his chair over to the back corner where the weapon rack ended, there was a bare spot about 5 feet wide from it to the other wall. He placed his head against it and listened. "Oisin? What-" Darlene started before he shushed her and leaned into it.

"It's coming from the other si-"

"WHO PUT THIS 'ERE! Godfuck-SHIT." There was a crash and Oisin rolled away back to the table before the shouting continued.

"I'm gonna kill that fucker, puttin' shit where it doesn't belong, creating goddamn leaning towers of fucking pizza." There was a pause and a clunk before the wall section started turning to reveal a tall, lanky man with a thick orange beard and hair, he was dressed in the school staff's uniform but the first few buttons were undone and his orange tie hung loosely around his neck. He walked over to a desk in the corner across him and picked a bottle up off it and started drinking from it. As he turned towards the door he caught the gathered Rangers out of the corner of his eye, he coughed and sputtered in surprise. The Rangers shared quizzical and amused looks while he quickly backtracked to his desk and used some paper towels to dab at the spilt liquid on his shirt. "Uh, top o' the mornin' Rangers, hope I didn't keep you waitin' too long. I wasn't expecting you to be in 'ere."

They shook their heads, Darlene quickly recognized the thick Irish accent as the guy on their comms earlier. "Grand, so I'm your mission control and this is the control room, I'll let you know when shit goes down and where it's at. Submit new weapon requests as they're required and give you new weapons as they're approved and yada yada yada, blah blah blah. You've seen those TV Shows they make about us you know how this works." He walked over to the table and sat at the head, he flipped a panel of it to reveal a keyboard. He flashed his hands across it and a holo-screen flickered to life over the table.

"Now, I'm supposed to give you a lecture about what you can and can't do in this room, who can and can't enter, and all that but you're all adults. You're seniors, you're about to graduate, you should know all that. Or be able to figure out on your own, use those deductive reasonin' skills math taught you or somethin'. Least, that's what my son's math tutor says Math is supposed to teach but given he has a tutor you can guess how well that's going." He pulled a stack of cards from his pocket and started sliding them across the table to everyone. "These are your key cards, they're your access to this room, without them you can not enter."

Samuel raised his hand, "Then why were we able to get in without them today?"

"Uh, that's because I, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to uh, open the door for you on time. Yeah, yeah that's why." Murdoch raised his brow.

"It's not because you're totally not drinking straight from a bottle of Jameson?" The man leaned in and stuck the bottle out for Murdoch to get a good look at.

"Ey, look here lad this ain't no Jameson, this 'ere is a fine bottle o' Redbreast!"

"Oh, so shitty mouthwash." Murdoch grinned.

"Are we gonna have a problem boyo?" Murdoch leaned his chair back and crossed his arms.

"I mean I'm not the one with an unrefined taste in whiskey so…" There was a slam on the table breaking their argument, they turned to look at the source and saw an exasperated Shane.

"MURDOCH!" Shane shouted. "Stop, for God's sake please." Murdoch shrugged but shut up, Shane turned to the MC. "Excuse him, he's very… he… has no filter." Darlene was admittedly spooked by the outburst, Shane usually tried keeping a cool head but Murdoch could put anyone's cool demeanour to test.

"Yeah, I got that."

"So, what's your name sir?"

"Oh, my name's Samson Kelly. And ah, I think that's it for introductions so… If you don't have any questions you can leave. I don't have any reason to keep you around." Shane reached into his pocket and pulled one of the 6 disks from the battle earlier. He placed it on the table next to his Morphin Disk and the 012 Disk he used.

"I have one, what's with these disks?" Samson reached over and picked it up. He looked it over and thought.

"What, ye don't know? You've never been taught about what yer Morphers do?" They shook their heads. "Ah, well, yet another example of the failure that is public education."

Samuel interjected, "But, The Zordon Academy is a private institution…" but Samson continued without acknowledging him.

"So these are called Power Disks, and they, uh, have powers as you mighta guessed." He flashed his hands across the keyboard again and brought up a larger image of the 012 disks. "They all have 3 digits, the first one denotes the owner, who can use it. 0 Disks can be used by anyone, one's are Shane's, two's Sam's, three's Darlene's, four's Oisin's, an-"

"Uh, excuse me, Mr. Kelly?" Oisin interrupted.

"-d 5's- uh yes?"

"That's not how my name is pronounced, it's 'Aw-Sheen', not at all like it looks."

"Huh, weird, anyway I'll try to remember. Uh, where was I?"

"The disk digits, I'm guessing fives are mine?" Murdoch answered.

"Right, so the second digit is the kind of power it has, the 1 means capture, denoted by the netting on the disk's face. Now this one… it's a 9… so that's… uh… feck I don't know let's find out." He pulled a gun from his pocket, the pistol was fashioned after flintlocks from the days of piracy but the barrel was flatter and wider, like a clay pigeon launcher. Darlene's eyes went wide and she started sliding down in her chair as he slotted the disk in, pointed it at the far wall and fired. The group threw themselves to the floor or under the table in a panic as the disk swung around towards Samson, it shot him in the chest and a wave of light reverberated over his body. Darlene peeked her head up over the lip of the table.

"Well…"

"Huh… I feel…" Samson walked over to the rotating wall and kicked it, nothing happened, so he kicked it harder and the wall spun around and took Samson with it. He kicked it again to spin it back around before walking back to the table and tossed the disk back to Shane. "So 9 is a strength boost, use it well. Lastly the third digit it is it's potency, the higher the number the more potent the effect. And some of them also stack, like the Capture disk, so while the disk you captured that Sluagh with was a 2, all five of you hitting it made it a power of 10."

Samuel piped up, "So, if we fired all of our strength boost disks at one of us would they get like, Hulk Mad strength?" Samson shook his head.

"No, but nice thought, that kinda thought process will be useful in figurin' out how to use any new disks you get. As you saw from my demonstration, if you weren't busy throwing yourself on the ground that is, the disk rebounded back to me meaning whoever fires it gets the effects. Some disks probably could be shot at one person though." Samson sat back down and reached for his bottle on the desk. "Any more questions?"

"How do we get more disks? And do they, like, expire?" Oisin asked.

"Uh, well the first part is easy, catch more Sluaghs or I make them. Though I can't make entirely brand new ones, I need a reference point, so I could make another strength boost disk but that requires combining them which we really don't need to be doin' right now." Samson took another sip and continued. "Now, as for expiring… I'm not sure, you'll find out eventually though." He chuckled, he raised the bottle to his lips and checked the watch on his wrist. "Well, there's about… 30 minutes left in this period? Wanna take a tour of the training sim?"

"Sure, bring it on."

"Well come on then." Samson stood up and walked to the revolving wall, "Now, be careful this thing'll crush yer bones if you get 'em caught between things." He activated the door and it opened up halfway to let the group in before rotating shut. The room they entered was about twice the size of the control room and was covered mostly in gymnastic padding, in one corner was a walled-off area with glass panes protecting a computer inside.

"Wow… it's a… psycho cell." Samuel joked. Samson shook his head and entered the computer room, he took a seat at the desk and raised a microphone to his lips.

"Well, I hope you enjoy it. You're gonna spend a lot of time in it, make your date scratches in the corner where no one can see 'em. Now, let's find out what you can do with that new disk!"

"Un-Morphed Training Exercise 01: Initiating." Holographic training dummies and fake scenery appeared and the walls changed appearance to replicate a warehouse.

"Show me what ye got Rangers! Use those disks well and no morphin'! GO!" Samson shouted and the exercise began, the group instantly snapped to action deflecting punches from the holo-mooks. A mook charged from the left towards Shane, he ducked at the last minute and Samuel struck it in the face. He hopped over them as Shane swung his legs around and swept a mook charging for Samuel off his feet. Samuel pulled Shane to his feet and they went to town on the remaining mooks around them.

"Ok Darlene, what do we do, what do we do?" She started backing away from the group forcing a few mooks to follow after her, as they approached she backed into a hanging chain. One mook armed with a sledgehammer swung wildly at her; she leapt back catching the chain on her foot. The mook barely missed her and got their hammer caught in the chain as well, she tried yanking her foot free but stopped when she started hearing rattling and screeching metal above her, Darlene glanced up and saw it was tied to a scaffolding.

"If I pull this chain too much I'll pull that down on me an-" her thought was interrupted by a mook jumping on her. "AH! GET OFF ME!" She forgot about the scaffolding and her training kicked in, she bucked her hips up sending the mook forward onto its hands. She grabbed the right arm and pulled it in, before rolling to the right and as she did her left foot that was caught in the chain pulled it with her. She kicked her right leg out to stop the rolling before mounting the mook and bringing a hard hammer fist down on its face. She stood up and turned around to face the previous mook but watched as the scaffolding collapsed on top of it. "Well, that takes care of that."

Meanwhile, Oisin and Murdoch were backed into a corner with a bunch of barrels and were tiring out. "You know if I knew we were gonna be thrown into another fight… I wouldn't have thrown those balls so hard…" Murdoch panted, he grabbed one mook by the collar and smashed its face in with a headbutt before tossing into another. "Ooohhh I shouldn't have done that… That hurt."

"Yeah… this is… not great… Wanna try it?" Oisin gasped, he ducked under a mook's swing and came back with an uppercut knocking it back. Murdoch grabbed his Morpher and pulled out the strength disk.

"Let's… do it…" Oisin attached his own and they loaded the disks and inserted the ripcord. "DISK BOOST!"

"FIRE DISK!" The disks shot forth from the Morphers and bounced across the mooks before whizzing back to Oisin and Murdoch, they melded into their bodies, their heads snapped back as light shimmered across them. They tilted their heads forward with smiles on their faces and fire in their eyes. "MURDOCH SMASH!" Murdoch grabbed a barrel behind him and swung it around, crashing it into the cluster of mooks surrounding them.

"I feel like I've got a second wind!" Oisin cried, he grabbed another barrel and threw it into the air, He leapt up and axe kicked it down onto the fallen mooks. The barrel shattered open, spilling its contents all over the mooks and floor. Oisin landed next to them and struck a pose. "Oisin Barrel Impact!" The mooks fizzled away into pixels and the warehouse dissipated.

"Good job Rangers, there's obviously some room to improve but I saw a lot of good stuff out there." Samson announced over the speakers. Samuel walked over to Oisin and Murdoch, raising a high five.

"Nice moves boys, I wish I could do that kinda stuff with Shane." Shane nudged him in the arm.

"If only my mind moved that fast." He chuckled.

"Oh it's nothing, I just open up windows." Murdoch started.

"And I leap through 'em." Oisin finished.

"I just wish I had someone to do teamwork moves with." Darlene thought. They heard a door open and close behind them and Samson walked over to them sipping on his Redbreast. He set it down on the floor and pulled out a clipboard he was carrying under his arm and started handing out papers to the Rangers.

"So, these are notes the computer's battle sim, tactical evaluator, strategery thingie came up with while it recorded. I didn't take any notes because, well, I don't know how you fight yet so kinda pointless for me to do it. If you wanna watch the recording of the sim you can access it on one of the computers in the Control Room or if you want to do this sim again, just call out: 'Brain, start Unmorphed Training Exercise 01.'"

"Un-Morphed Training Exercise 01: Initiating." The room's walls and the floor started to transform again.

"NO NO NO NO NO, STOP TRAINING EXERCISE! FALSE ALARM! FALSE ALARM!"

"Un-Morphed Training Exercise 01: Ending." The transformation halted and reversed back to normal. Samson picked his bottle back up and started towards the door.

"Well, that's how you do it, you'll only be able to access this one though. I need to run you through the exercise first before you can do them alone. Now I've got somewhere I need to be, so I'll be leaving you here alone. Don't wreck the place and yadda yadda yadda, you're adults you know what to do. See you tomorrow." He called behind him as he left the training room.

"So what now?" Darlene asked as they all started drifting to the door.

"Well, I've got more classes to get to." Shane said.

"Me too." Samuel responded.

"And I… I'm frikken tired." Murdoch lightly chuckled as he followed the others out the door to the Control room.

"Yeah, I think that strength boost wore off." Oisin muttered, starting to lean on Murdoch.

"I think you two need a nap." Shane laughed, "Why don't you lie down for a bit."

"That sounds like a good idea…" Murdoch muttered and slumped against the wall, he slid against it and fell asleep when he reached the bottom. Oisin sat in one of the chairs and laid his chest against the table, resting his head on his arms.

"We'll see you guys back at the apartment later, have fun with school… or whatever…" Oisin yawned.

"See ya." Samuel called back and the three exited the room, then they each split off towards their next class and hoping none of them required any more fighting.


Thank you for reading Episode 3 of Power Rangers Celtic Thunder! Come join my Discord Server and talk about it! /jFgQJE9