CHAPTER 3: Kimberly

I am honestly ready to die. I thought fighting evil space monsters would be the thing that kills me, but apparently not. This essay will truly be the death of me.

Am I overreacting? Yeah, I am. I just have this weird anxiety about doing schoolwork. Especially something that isn't straightforward, like a creative essay.

Ms. Applebee seems like a nice lady, but I've heard she gives a lot of homework like this, as well as a lot of reading. It also doesn't help that I'm in her Honors English class, which apparently has even more work like this than her regular classes.

I honestly don't even know how I got into Honors English, and what's even more confusing is the fact that Billy didn't. Maybe he just needed a lighter workload? I don't know.

I would ask my parents to switch me into regular English, but that would be a major blow to my chances of getting into Stanford. So I guess I'll have to tough it out.

I get out my computer and attempt to write something.

It's been fifteen minutes, and so far I only have "What I Did Over the Summer" at the top of the page. What am I even supposed to write? That I beat up some aliens with some friends while wearing pink spandex? I'm pretty sure they'd put me in an asylum if I wrote that.

I start pulling random things from my memory to write down. Obviously I turned sixteen and got my license, and went on vacation briefly with my family, but that's about it. Life really is just an endless cycle of boring with very brief moments of not boring sprinkled in.

I decide to take a break and check my Instagram, and naturally I see people posting about asking others to homecoming already, even though its not until early October. I'm trying to not make a big deal out of it this year, especially my date last year was… not great.

I hear my phone buzz, and see Jason texted the group. Zordon wants us at the Command Center to train. Apparently there's a lot we need to do.

Crap.

I get out my communicator thingy, and try to remember which button teleports me to the Command Center. (Yes, I know it's been four or five months since I've got this thing. But if you saw it yourself you'd have a hard time deciphering buttons as well.)

Finally, I find the button, and press it.

It feels like the world is spinning at lightspeed, and I begin to feel nauseated. I see a bright flash of light, and next thing I know I'm sprawled on the metal floor, dizzy.

"You all really need to learn how to teleport," I hear Alpha say. I look up at his short metal body. Sometimes I can't decide if I love Alpha or if I hate him.

I see everyone else over by the surveillance monitor, all holding their heads in pain from landing face-first on the metal ground.

The room is mostly empty, with some futuristic computers on the side of the room and a giant screen on the back wall. What those computers do I can't tell you, but I do know that we've all made a rule to not touch them unless your name is Billy.

I walk over to my friends, reluctantly ready to get to work.

"So what're we doing?"

A deep, booming voice echoes from all around us. "You need to learn to defend yourselves better. Every day Rita's forces grow stronger, and eventually your base skills won't be enough to stop it."

It is really awkward whenever we're talking to Zordon, because none of us know where to look. (Apparently he's in a space-time warp or something? I honestly don't know.)

"Can this not wait? I have something to do tonight," Zack says.

"What are you doing, Zachary?"

Zordon is putting him on the spot. Zack doesn't want to admit that he's participating in a Mortal Kombat XI tournament that he was talking with Jason about at lunch.

"That's what I thought. You all need to know how to fight outside of your morphed forms, without your powers. You never know when you could be attacked."

I won't argue with Zordon on this, but I'm not looking forward to having a wrestling competition with my friends, especially considering what happened last time.

"Jason has volunteered to guide you all through learning martial arts and self defense."

We all look at Jason, confused.

"...I took a martial arts course over the summer," he says quietly.

Here's a history of our "training sessions," if you can even call them that: every time we've sparred with each other for practice, we've been in our suits with our powers, i.e. the thing that is supposed to make us indestructible, and we still somehow ended up hurting each other and having to come up with an explanation to our parents about why we were coming home severely bruised.

Now imagine if we didn't have anything to protect us.

This should be fun.

The next thirty minutes consisted of Jason awkwardly trying to teach us various martial arts techniques, and every time we tried doing it ourselves it resulted in a black eye. Or a bloody nose. Or a dislocated joint. Or anything else you'd expect when you put five fifteen-sixteen year-olds into a ring and tell them to beat each other up.

Thinking about it, I really am starting to question Zordon's idea of "training."

While I'm busy sparring with Trini, (technically its just me on top of her while she tries to shove me off of her), I hear Alpha call to Zordon "Do you really think this is the best idea to have them just hit each other?"

"Yes. They'll learn the way eventually."

The only thing we learned today is that fighting without a suit hurts a lot more than fighting with one.

Which reminds me that I need to contribute to the guidebook we're making.

KIMBERLY'S RULE #1: Expect the worst from training. And fighting without armor hurts a lot more than with armor.