Power Rangers: World of Darkness Chapter 2: The Black Power Ranger Jason could only stare at the man in front of him. He couldn't possibly be more confused after the events of the previous hour. At least now, he felt there was some hope. Sweeping the cloak open with a black metal arm which glinted in the red morning hue from behind the clouds over the sky, the Power Ranger bent down and offered his hand to Jason, who was still in awe on his knees. He stared at the hand and, starting to pull himself together, slowly raises his hand upward to meet the Ranger's. For a moment, he was shocked at the tightness of the man's grip as he was raised to his feet, dropping his biker helmet in his hand carelessly, but he always knew that a Power Ranger was supposed to have superhuman strength so the feeling passed. Now standing on his own, Jason still couldn't believe his eyes. "What's your name?" the Power Ranger asked, trying to relax Jason. This whole awe-struck look was getting on his nerves. "Uhm. Jas." he began, clearing his throat, "Jason. Jason Lee Scott." "Nice to meet you Jason," the Ranger responded relieved that the silence had been broken, he continued on, tapping his armored hand to his chest "You can call me Zack" "Zack?" Jason echoed, the name sounding plain for a real life superhero. Zack sighed and flicked a mental switch. With a click the black helmet began to unfold. Jason looked on, surprised, as the helmet segmented into smaller bits and telescoped into the thick collar around Zack's neck. Jason looked on, seeing the epic hero's real face for the first time. Zack's complexion was stern and squared jawed, yet he wore it with a casual grin. His skin was deep brown in color, but looked faded, as if his face hadn't seen the light of day for a long time. His thin but young electric purple eyes squinted in the light. He had jet-black hair, spiked along the top but very short at the back. His eyebrows were sharp and continued back over his head to meet his hairline just under his bangs. He had long side burns that merged into a slick goatee at his chin. He smiled. "Yeah, Zack," he said with a chuckle, having had a feeling he'd get a reaction like that, "Zachary Taylor, at your service." With that, he extended his metal covered hand again to Jason. Jason took it and laughed, dumfounded. "YOUR service?" he looked like a giddy child, taking his hero's hand and shaking it, "I can't believe I'm shaking the hand of the last living Power Ranger, and here he is telling me he's at MY service?" "Whoa." Zack said, while waving his free hand in the air to stop Jason before he dropped to his knees with a chant of 'I'm not worthy'. Besides, there were more pressing issues, and a flash of urgency flashed over Zack's eyes, "I'm not the last living Power Ranger. We've started recruiting." Zack looked into Jason's eyes with a knowing look. Jason looked a tad confused. Zack took advantage of this situation and freed his hand from Jason's grip, returning it under the dark cloak. "We?" shot Jason, not catching the hint, "Is the Green Ranger still alive?" "Well," spoke Zack with a morbid tone is his voice, "No. I was actually referring to Alpha-5." Jason looked a tad more confused. Zack pointed with a hand to behind Jason, with a grin and a nod. Jason hesitated, and turned around. There it was. The little silver robot, standing there in the gap. The only visible red light on its body was it's thin red eye, as the rest were saturated in the morning lights. It was tapping on the controls of its elongated arm with its other hand in very quick bursts of speed. Jason nearly jumped out of his own skin on seeing his alleged pursuer. Zack caught him before Jason bolted again in a panic. Jason soon calmed down and looked at the robot intrigued as it lowered its arms, revealing the only English lettering on its body. In black, it indeed read A.L.P.H.A-5 on it's scorched metal chest. Jason suddenly felt very stupid, especially since he had even attacked the poor mechanical thing. Zack was laughing. "I bet he had startled you," chuckled Zack, "Alpha tends to zap himself around a lot. I guess you don't feel like walking too much when you can teleport." Jason raised his eyebrows at this, as he had indeed seen the robot warping itself around a few times before. "We can't stay here," spoke Alpha-5 from its digital voice box; "It isn't safe. The Ravnawolven Hunters are just finishing their rounds. (Zack's face and body tensed with urgency as this was pointed out) We should rendezvous with the squad." Jason moved his lips without making any sound, silently echoing the confusing mention of Ravna-whatevers in his own confusion. He turned to his right to ask Zack just as he strode out from behind him. "Follow me, Jason." Zack said quickly with a glance back, "It isn't far, try to keep up." "But what-" Jason tried to ask, but his voice was cut off. A sharp ghostly howl shot through the air from behind them, making his blood run cold as ice. "RUN!" ordered Zack. Jason was about to bolt, but remembered his helmet. He quickly turned around and picked it up, looking behind him just once. What he saw made him turn around again even quicker. In the distance, there were figures rushing out from the alleyways of the wrecked buildings. They were all tall and menacing, each looking like furred bestial demons on vacation from hell, clad in bronze armor, each was letting out a loud roar in response to the shrill beacon howl. Jason didn't care to catch any other details and ran for his life, donning the biker helmet in his hands to make him feel safer with its protection, as well as to free his hands so he could run faster. Zack was already far ahead, running at an impressive pace. Jason ran at a blurred speed, catching up but not noticing that never in his life had he run this fast, nor that the his body was glowing from underneath his clothes. He did notice however, that he had just passed Alpha-5. He slowed a bit and looked back. If it can teleport, he thought, why is it trying to run away on foot. Especially since can only limp. Looking ahead, Jason noted that Zack had stopped and was looking at Alpha-5 as well. The little robot was not going to close the very large gap that had been formed in between it and the two men at the pace is was going." "Alpha," called Zack into a receiver on his left wrist, "Come on! Teleport ahead to the rendezvous point. What's the problem?" The tinny voice responded through the speaker on Zack's wrist communicator. "I am unable to regain any power," it mentioned weakly. Jason could here it from where he stood, even through the helmet. It was as if the robot's voice was also being transmitted near him, rather than just on Zack's person, "My power cell's integrity has been compromised. I cannot extract any power from the grid." "How the hell did that happen?" Zack commanded bewildered. "I was damaged during my mission to bring Jason to us." Zack looked like he didn't understand how that could have happened. Jason knew exactly how. "Uh." started Jason, snapping Zack's attention to him, "That would be my fault." "WHAT?" cried Zack. "I kind of punched it." Jason tried to explain, but it didn't look like Zack was very happy about it, "I. I thought it was a Mechina!" "You fucking moron!" spat Zack as he dashed back to Alpha, his helmet sliding back into place over his head as he ran. Jason's heart panged with guilt. What had he done? He was putting his very own childhood hero in danger, in order to save a somewhat useless looking robot. Looking to the left, he saw some of the alien beast-men burst out from alleyways much closer to their position. Three of them halted in their clawed tracks and pointed towards Alpha, Zack and him letting out a fierce howl of alert, followed by a resonating battle cry from nine other beast-men nearby. Jason's lips tightened together in determination. He sprinted after Zack. "I'm going to help!" he said in a wavering but brave voice. "You've caused enough trouble, just hide!" responded Zack back to him as Jason ran behind him. "NO!" Jason said, running faster, "It's my fault this is happening! I'm going to make up for it!" Zack glanced over at Jason. He made his decision. "I'm going ahead to distract them! You grab Alpha and run! He'll tell you where to go from there!" Zack then shot off to the left, where fourteen beast-men were bearing upon them, growling fiercely each wielding steel colored, jagged edged and devilishly deadly looking swords. Zack responded with a growl of his own and collided into them with a thundering crunch. Jason got goosebumps from the sheer force of the impact, that he could feel vibrating through the air and ground around the Black Ranger. Finally he reached Alpha. He bent down on one knee and Alpha slung his short body over Jason's back, clinging to his shoulders. Jason put his arms back to support Alpha's body by his legs. Now, piggy-backing the little robot, Jason stood to his feet. Before making his retreat he made a glance towards his hero in battle. Four of the beast-men were lying limp on the ground. Three others were just getting up off the ground, jaws frothing in anger. Jason noted that they reminded him of dark furred werewolves in bronze armor, which was almost Egyptian in style, although looked medieval in its apparent thickness. Zack had one of them raised in the air by the neck. With a mighty swing, he threw the alien back toward it's pack, where it was impaled on the end of a sword as it knocked many of the other creatures back. Its blood spurted from the opening in its chest an inky red spill as its body was tossed to the ground. Then in a quick pounce, the seven who remained standing covered Zack and began gorging their swords at him. Jason's mouth gaped; thinking this was it for his hero. However, just then, an arm thrust out from the pile, spraying blood into the air. The rest of Zack's body rolled out from the cluster, blood dripping from his right arm, which now had a multitude of metal blades jutting out from it. Zack looking back at Jason. "What do you think your doing?!" he barked "Run! Get to the rendezvous point!" Jason got the picture. He ran as fast as he could off in the direction he had seen Zack head off in earlier. He took one last glance back, just in time to see Zack raise his other hand, metal blades suddenly forming out from his left forearm, similar to the ones that had mysteriously appeared on his right. Jason looked away and concentrated on running. "Turn left up at the building ahead" droned Alpha to Jason, who nodded and did as he was told, and continued following the robot's directions. He hoped to god that he would see Zack again.