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Twice Chosen

When I looked back on that evening the next day, I had to concede that I should have known that our tentative moment of camaraderie as we watched the Games recap wouldn't last. I was fairly sure that we were past the point where any of us were concerned that Glimmer in particular was going to try and kill the rest of us at some point, but that didn't mean we could put aside years of 'conditioning' to consider each other anything more than the people we were stuck with right now. We were making progress with the training, and I got a distinct sense that we were developing a better sense of coordination in that we were avoiding getting in each other's way as we fought our respective Putty opponents, but even I knew that there was a world of difference between that and actually fighting as a team.

Still, as we continued our training, I knew that we were making a degree of progress on the personal side of things as well as the practical. Rue spent a little time talking with each of us during brief lulls in training as one or more of us took a break to catch our breath, Liv could be seen chatting with Alpha on other moments when she wasn't joining us in the Pit, and I was actually more surprised to find that I wasn't particularly surprised when I realised that Glimmer had settled into a kind of 'combat instructor' role for the rest of us.

"Easy!" the former One resident said as she dodged Thresh's latest blow. "You're over-extending yourself, big guy."

"Over-extending?" Thresh repeated, standing back to glare at the blonde Career. "I'm just punching-"

"And committing yourself to it to such an extent that it makes it easier for people to get under your defences," Glimmer clarified. "You'd do a lot of damage if you made contact, I'll give you that, but you can't just hit the other guy really hard and hope that'll be enough every time-"

"I got this coin because I'm a damn powerhouse; I think I can handle myself-"

"It's not that simple, big guy; we learned that at the Academy," Glimmer cut him off with a firm stare. "We all had things we were comfortable with, but we were also encouraged to diversify in case we got caught out. I mean, I'm not saying that bow I brought in here's my best weapon, but I know enough to use it if I have even if I'd prefer a sword; you can't just rely on hitting stuff really hard-"

"We're not facing trained warriors right now; we're up against dumb-ass rocks-!" Thresh began, slamming a palm against a nearby rock pillar with such force that he knocked a chunk of it out and sent it flying towards Rue.

"LOOK OUT!" Peeta yelled, leaping forward to push Rue away from the oncoming chunk of rock-

His body suddenly glowed a brilliant yellow, and as we watched, my original District partner was suddenly in what could only be the armour we were all trying to achieve. The suit was made of a thick, plated armour in a dark shade of yellow with some kind of blue light glowing through the various joints, an open diamond shape in the centre of the chest displaying that blue light in full. A few parts of the armour were a silvery grey in colour, such as the upper arms and a portion of the chest, while the helmet had grey imitation lips on the lower half of the face and an all-black visor with two silver points on either side of it, along with an odd design around the top…

As I looked at it, my mind flashed back to our first glimpse of the zords, and I realised that I was actually looking at a mouth; the helmet was designed as though Peeta was looking out at us through the mouth of the animal that had inspired the basis for his zord.

Taking in the armour for the first time, I had to admit, despite my doubts when we'd initially seen the projections in the globe… I actually thought that this look might work.

"Whoa…" Peeta said, holding up his hands to stare at the armour.

"That's what we're trying to unlock?" Thresh looked it over with an approving grin. "Cool."

"How the Hell-?" Glimmer began as she reached out to grab Peeta's shoulder, only for it to suddenly recede from his body from the point where Glimmer had almost touched it. As though that moment of contact had been some kind of cue, the armour 'withdrew' and Peeta was suddenly standing in front of us in his usual clothing once again, looking down at himself with a slight smile.

"OK, so… what just happened?" Thresh looked around at the rest of us. "Did this guy just morph for a few seconds? That's not the only way this works, right?"

"And how did it even happen?" Liv asked, waving her arms uncertainly. "I thought the point of this training was to get us all… synced up so that we could morph as a group? If only one of us can do this-"

"Peeta Mellark acted in defence of one you consider one of your own," Alpha spoke up. When we all turned to look at him, I was relieved to see that I wasn't the only one of us who had been caught off-guard by the reminder that the little robot was watching our training sessions; he didn't always make his presence known during these sessions, so it was easy to get lost in what we were doing. "That's how he initiated the first morph; he acknowledged the bond you share outside of your lives as Rangers and acted to preserve that connection."

"Makes… sense…" Peeta said in tentative understanding.

"So… does that mean we need to be in actual danger to do this?" Liv looked uncertainly at Alpha.

"Not necessarily," the robot replied. "If nothing else, you saw yourselves that the fear-provoked transformation only lasted for a short while before Peeta couldn't sustain it; danger gives you a boost, but it won't let you hold the change. You need to achieve a sustainable bond to sustain the morph, and achieving that… well, let's just say there's a reason Rangers are normally chosen from designated trainees before we get to this kind of point-"

"Take the day off."

"I'm sorry, what?" Alpha's head seemed to spin around on his neck twice as he turned to look at me. "I tell you that you need to work on your bond with your team and you decide that now's a good time to take a day off?"

"We're not going to get anywhere if we're fixating on how we need to do anything," I observed, recalling my own frustrations when Haymitch told me that Peeta was better at getting people to like him during the early days of our own training without thinking to explore what I might be good at. "We know that we can morph now, so we should all… I think we need some time to think about that before we try to come together again tomorrow."

"That… all right, that's not actually a dumb idea," Alpha nodded at me in acknowledgement. "Reaffirm what you can do at the moment to remind yourself of what you can achieve on your own and get yourself psyched up to morph as a group tomorrow."

"…Whatever," Glimmer said, stepping back from the group as she looked at Alpha. "Do you have some kind of armoury on board that thing?"

"You mean weapons?" Alpha asked in surprise. "You realise your armour will provide-"

"But until then we need something to train with, so I take it there is something we can use for weapons before we can morph to get them?"

"…Fine," Alpha conceded as he indicated the ship's door. "If you'll meet me in there in a moment I can show you where you should go…"

As the others approached Alpha to make their own requests, I headed back into the ship, grabbing the Ninjetti hood from my quarters and pulling it before I grabbed my bow and arrows and headed back to Zordon's chamber.

"I hear that you are making progress-" Zordon began.

"And we all need a bit of time to remind ourselves of what we can do now before we start trying to do that," I cut him off before he could say any more.

"You have less than a week before Rita will-"

"And we've been pushing ourselves for the last few days trying to do something we've never done before; we know that we can do it now, so I think we deserve a bit of time doing things we know we're good at before we go back to that," I said, staring resolutely up at the large face. "I know we're not doing things the way you're used to, but that was your team and we're… well, we have to do things our way."

Zordon just glared at me for a moment, but finally let out a sigh and lowered his face with a resigned expression.

"I assume you wish to leave the ship yourself again?"

"Somewhere different, and… well, I understand the rules," I nodded, indicating my current mask. "I might get us some food, but I won't let myself be seen."

Zordon didn't respond verbally, but instead shifted his attention to another part of the chamber-

When I found myself standing in another forest, I sighed in frustration before I began to pace through the trees, my bow drawn and an arrow ready to fire if I found something suitable. My goal today wasn't outright hunting, but if the opportunity arose to get something good I'd be a fool not to take advantage of it.

Once I'd made sure that there was nothing around here that I needed to be concerned about, I slung the bow over my back and ran deeper into the forest. I'd never fully understood the idea of just jogging or running in the past, but right now I couldn't stop myself smiling in relief at the sensation of freedom I felt from being out in the woods once again, away from the pressures of life in the Districts, my time in the Games, my new responsibilities as a Ranger…

Responsibilities…

I slowed down as the thought occurred to me, my mood becoming more solemn as I considered that word.

As much as I wasn't sure I'd ever be comfortable fighting alongside the people I'd been expecting to kill barely a week ago, in the end it all came down to the same point; if I did nothing, ultimately Prim was going to die. Maybe Rita wouldn't actually kill her specifically if we couldn't stop her, but if the entire world was going to die if she claimed the Zeo Crystal, it wasn't like Prim would survive that any more than the rest of us.

I'd spent years risking my life and defying the Capitol's rules to keep Prim alive; at least this time I would be doing it to accomplish a more long-term goal than just getting Prim enough food for the next few days…

Trying to take my mind off the scale of what was still to come in my future, I paused during my run to take a few quick shots at relatively random targets along my path, such as distinctive knots in the nearby trees where it looked like branches had been broken off at some point in the past. Unfortunately, the shots were so easy that it soon started to feel like I wasn't even seriously training right now; I wasn't sure, but it seemed as if the red coin was enhancing my reflexes to the point where it was easier for me to make those shots. Slinging the bow back over my body and retrieving my arrows, I decided to focus on the run for a while, pushing myself to hurry along through the trees ahead of me.

I didn't know how long it took me to reach this point, but eventually I found myself at the top of a cliff. As soon as I reached the edge, I came to a stop so abrupt that it was almost as amazing as my initial burst of speed, letting me take in the awesome sight of the ocean in front of me.

It wasn't as though I'd literally never seen the ocean before, but there was obviously a difference between seeing it on television screens during those brief glimpses of District Four and seeing it like this. Standing here, on the edge of the country, with no signs of civilisation behind me and only wide open water in front of me, it was easy to imagine that I was back in the peaceful world that had existed before Panem was formed…

Were we ever at peace?

I appreciated that Zordon and his original team had come here to protect Earth, but the fact remained that even millions of years ago, Earth had been part of a conflict even before sentient life had actually evolved on the planet. I didn't know if there was ever a perfect past to aspire to or if the human race had just always been different kinds of awful to each other…

Can we change that?

The thought that came to me was unexpected, but the more I considered it, the more I actually liked the implications. I'd always turned down Gale's suggestions that we just run away from Twelve because there wasn't anything we could really do once we got away from the District, but now that I had the Red Power Coin and had seen everything else I could have once I was ready…

Is it personal gain if I'd be doing it to benefit other people and not just me?

Obviously I needed to actually morph before I could really think about any of that, but it left me with a few more things to think about regarding my future…

"Hey, Katniss!" Rue's voice called over at me as I walked into the ship, the little girl sitting casually beside Liv in the main control room, Alpha 'squatting' in a position behind them. "How was your time out?"

"…Fine, I guess," I said, looking at the girls in surprise; I hadn't properly considered the idea that other people would realise I'd left the ship. "Uh… sorry I didn't take-"

"Don't worry about it," Liv grinned as she indicated the central display unit and the robot behind her. "The others are enjoying their own in-house training regimes, and Alpha's been teaching us a bit more about how these systems work."

"You have?" I looked at Alpha in surprise.

"There's nothing wrong with expanding knowledge," Alpha replied with a tone in his voice that I chose to interpret as his equivalent of a smile. "After all, when you're out in the field, it's important that at least one of you can do something smart without me there to give you the details."

"…Right," I conceded, before looking back at Liv and Rue. "Anything interesting?"

"Well, it's taking a bit of time for the ship to translate everything into something we can read, but Alpha's helping us pick up the basics of a few of the more significant articles," Liv explained. "I have to admit, it's kind of cool to look at what else is out there."

"Did you know there's another planet with Rangers on it just a few light-years away from us?" Rue grinned.

"Really?" I looked at the two with new interest.

"Aquitar," Alpha explained. "It has a long-standing Ranger tradition dating back to around the time when Zordon's team were active; the native population are humanoid, but they're dependent on pure water to survive rather than air, although they can exist on land for shorter periods."

"So we can't just call them for help?" I asked, half-seriously.

"It wouldn't be practical," Alpha affirmed. "Quite apart from anything else, even after the treatments the oceans have undergone since your old war, the water here is nowhere near pure enough to sustain a group of Aquitarians for a prolonged period; dehydration would be as much of a risk for them if they came here as Rita would be."

"I wasn't seriously expecting that," I looked at the little robot, wanting to make sure he understood me as I took my power coin out of my pocket. "I know we're having… trouble right now, but I'm not going to just try and pass this situation on to someone else to solve. I'm still not sure if this coin made the right choice when it chose me, but if we're going to save this world from Rita, it has to be us who does it."

"I can get behind that," Liv nodded at me with an approving smile.

"Me too!" Rue grinned up at me before her smile faltered. "I mean, I know I'm not a Ranger or anything-"

"You're here," I cut the girl off with a reassuring grin. "Maybe you won't be joining us in the field once we get the hang of this, but you're here for us now; that's all that matters."

"Agreed," Alpha put in, nodding at us in confirmation. "Like I said, there is precedent for Rangers having associates who are aware of their identities even in cases where secret identities are required; so long as you don't tell anyone else about the Rangers' identities, I for one have no problem with you staying here."

"Plus, it's kind of cool having a research assistant," Liv grinned at the girl.

"I'm your assistant?"

"You're helping me make any kind of sense of this stuff," Liv observed, reaching over to give Rue a one-armed hug. "Trust me; you're helping."

Looking at the small girl who reminded me so much of Prim, I fought down the brief jealousy at the idea of her bonding with Liv; it wouldn't have been fair of me to use Rue as any kind of 'substitute' for Prim, and if she found someone she liked, who was I to object to her finding a friend?

It was a small moment, but if we could keep forming bonds like this…