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Twice Chosen

When our training resumed the next morning, I had already promised myself not to bring up my private contemplation about what else we could do as Rangers until I was sure the rest of us were on the same page. Peeta's speech about how he didn't want the Capitol to change him into something he wasn't at least sounded like he would be open to the idea, but I had no clear idea how Thresh, Rue and Liv would feel about actually taking up arms against the Capitol, and as for Glimmer…

Frankly, Glimmer was the one of us I was most uncertain about in terms of her status as a Ranger. Zordon and Alpha might claim that the Pink coin chose its bearers because of their sense of compassion, but when I could still recall brief glimpses of Glimmer attacking other Tributes in the opening bloodbath it was hard to look at the blonde warrior and see anything other than a killer. I recognised that we had to work together right now, but whenever I was able to take a moment to see how the others were doing against the latest wave of holograms, Glimmer was clearly the one aiming for more lethal blows.

Thresh and Peeta were getting into a habit of using their own raw strength to throw the putties around, and Liv was ducking and weaving around her own opponents in a manner that reinforced my old thought of her as being like a fox. I was trying to find a way to take all of their own tricks into account while finding my own style, since I had a feeling I wasn't going to be able to use my usual bow against the putties or Rita, but it was hard to really feel comfortable getting up close to an enemy after years training myself to avoid people when I was in a tense situation. So far I was relying on dodging blows and launching a few quick kicks or punches when my opponent was over-extending itself, but I wasn't sure if I was getting better or if this system just had too much to do…

The sound of a growing roar of rage prompted me to look over at where Glimmer had forced her current adversary to the ground and was now practically raining punches down on its chest, her fists swinging with such speed that it was hard to know where they actually were and an expression of rage on her face that I had to admit I was surprised to see from the normally controlled Career. The rest of us ended up pausing our own efforts to watch as Glimmer delivered a devastating beat-down to the putty, culminating in a roar of rage as she slammed the palm of her hand into its chest with such force that it shattered the creature's main body.

"BAM!" the blonde Career yelled as she stood up, before looking indignantly at Alpha as she indicated the shattered putty at her feet before the hologram shut down. "There; we beat your stupid training thing!"

"This isn't just about training you to fight Rita's minions; this is about help you to unlock your armour-"

"Which we're clearly not going to do any time soon, so what's wrong with sending us out there to beat up this Rita bitch while she's still trying to get her act together?" Glimmer cut the small robot off. "Yeah, I get that she killed the last guys, but you said yourself she caught them off-guard and she's just gathering her energy right now; we rush her all at once-"

"And you're even more likely to get killed," Alpha cut her off. "Rita may have been basically in stasis after Zordon's sacrifice until now, but she's spent all that time drawing on the energy of the Green coin to sustain herself, which means that she still has her raw power and just doesn't have access to some of her other abilities. You're tapping the essential details of the power those coins can give you right now, but you need the armour to achieve your full potential."

"So we can hit things harder?" Thresh asked.

"And so that you can use the zords if Rita manages to summon Goldar, naturally."

"Zords?" Liv repeated in confusion. "What are zords?"

"The original name is… well, it's extremely hard to pronounce in your language, but 'zord' works as a means of expressing the same concept."

"In other words… we don't have a term for what these things are in English, so you named them after Zordon instead?" Peeta asked uncertainly. "Isn't that a bit… egocentric?"

"Zordon's name means 'strength'- among other concepts, naturally- in his native language; for ease of translation, I think 'zord' works for this context," Alpha explained, before he turned around and headed for a side tunnel under the ship off to the side of the cave. "Please follow me."

"To what?" Rue asked, even as she stood up to follow the small robot.

"You'll see," Alpha said, before he turned his head to look at the rest of us. "Seriously, you all need to see this."

After weaving through a few rocky pillars and other assorted formations in this strange cavern, we finally reached a tall stone wall made of the same layered rock formation that we had become familiar with over the last few days. Displaying remarkable agility for a robot with such a large head, Alpha rapidly made his way up the wall, leaving the rest of us to just do our best to follow him, Rue quickly receiving a piggy-back from Thresh to help her keep up.

"If you need proper incentive to morph, consider this inspiration," Alpha explained as he reached the top. "What you will find beyond this wall will forever change your life."

Once the rest of us had joined him at the top of the wall, it immediately became clear what he was talking about. We were now in an even larger cavern than the one where we'd originally found the ship, and that cavern was dominated by five objects that I could only think of as massive robots, even as I quickly told myself that these had to be the zords.

The most obvious thing about these large machines was that it was at least simple to work out which of us would control which zord. There was a large figure with what I could only think of as red armour covering its head and back that extended down to its tail, along with what looked like cannons around its upper body and powerful legs at its back. On the opposite side of the cavern was a squat black form with eight legs and three strange protrusions coming out of its front. On a cliff just behind the black form was a similar-looking figure with what looked like blue armour, a shield-like formation around its head and two horns coming from the shield with a smaller one at the front of its face. The two most distinctive forms, however, were a large yellow creature with four limbs and a head that made me think of Buttercup of all creatures, currently squatting between the red and black zords, and a slender pink form perched alongside the blue zord with two long, thin shapes sticking up from its back…

"Wait a- are those wings?" Glimmer looked sharply at Alpha with an eager grin spreading across her face as she indicated the machine at the top of the rocks. "That pink one's for me, right? And those wings work?"

"Of course they work," Alpha said. "Why wouldn't the Pterodactyl zord be capable of flight?"

"And none of the others… my zord can fly?" Glimmer's joyful smile seemed almost fixed to her face now. "OK, that's really cool!"

"And what about that one?" Thresh grinned at the large black zord. "Big guy's for me, right?"

"The Mastodon, yes," Alpha nodded at Thresh. "I appreciate that it's not quite accurate to the original species, but it was more structurally practical to give it and the Triceratops extra limbs to be sure they could support themselves-"

"Hold on…" Liv looked thoughtfully around the cavern before she turned back to Alpha. "This kind of history wasn't my strong point, but I thought that dinosaurs were all lizards; tigers and mammoths are mammals, aren't they?"

"The original Yellow and Black zords sustained serious damage when Rita turned on the other Rangers," Alpha explained with a shrug. "It took time for me to configure the ship to gather the relevant parts together and reconstruct those zords to rejoin the others in this cave, and by that point Earth's animals had evolved far enough that it made more sense to set the systems so that they could adapt to something more comparatively modern rather than try and recreate the originals."

"I can go with that," Liv nodded in understanding.

"And… we can use these?" Peeta looked between Alpha and the large yellow cat-like zord with his own eager smile. "They're ours?"

"They will be an extension of you, and their power is all but limitless," Alpha explained, before his tone became more solemn. "But you are not ready for this power yet. Once you can morph, your armour will make you one with your zords, but until then your control of them will be… inadequate."

"Inadequate?" I asked.

"Can you honestly tell me that you'd have the slightest idea how to control the Tyrannosaurus zord if you sat in it right now?"

"…No," I conceded as I looked up at the large red machine that was in some way mine. I barely knew how vehicles on Earth operated, and a giant robot like this was definitely outside even that limited experience.

"Exactly," Alpha nodded before he looked over at Glimmer. "And if you think I'd allow an unmorphed novice access to a flying machine, you have another thing coming, young lady."

"Young lady?" Glimmer repeated with a pointed stare.

"He is several million years old," Rue observed with a smile as she stood beside Thresh. "Aren't we all basically kids to him?"

"The point," Alpha cut in as Glimmer glared over at Rue, "is that the armour will provide you with instinctive knowledge of how to use the zords in the field that you wouldn't possess if you tried to go into action without it. You might be able to hold your own against Rita if you had to fight her without it, but without armour, you'll be short of most of your true advantages as a Power Ranger."

"…Fine," Glimmer nodded, staring longingly up at the pink plane-like zord perched up near the roof before she turned back to the rest of us. "So… let's keep doing this, I guess?"

"That's the spirit!" Alpha said, patting Glimmer and I encouragingly on the shoulders as we returned to the training pit. "I've got a good feeling about today now!"

I didn't want to kill Alpha's apparent good mood, but I had a strong feeling that he was exaggerating his faith to try and make us feel more optimistic about our chances.