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Twice Chosen
As the five of us walked out of the chamber and prepared to leave the ship, a part of my mind was truly fascinated to feel just how in sync we were all of a sudden. We'd fallen into a good pattern with our previous training sessions, but right here and now, with each of us in our armours for the first time, it really did feel like we'd become an actual team.
I obviously hadn't had time to look at myself in a mirror yet, but from what I could see of my own suit through my helmet, and by comparing it to the armour worn by the others, I was wearing a suit of thick red-and-silver armour with a black visor over my eyes, even if the visor itself was somehow clear enough that I could easily see through it. The suit was firm but surprisingly flexible as I walked, as though each step reinforced the idea that it could take punishment but wouldn't slow us down in the process.
Right now, however, we didn't have time to give the armour a more leisurely test when we were about to face a legitimate threat. Zordon wasn't sure if Rita had sensed the energy surge of the morph or just wanted to make sure the ship was destroyed now that she thought we were useless, but either way protecting our new headquarters just became our priority. With the Games over, the former arena was no longer under full-time observation, which meant that we didn't have to worry about being stealthy when we returned to the underground end of the chasm that had changed our lives just over a week ago. Facing the layer of water that had protected us from the rest of Panem since our arrival, I crouched down for a moment and then leapt forward. It was still disorientating to be diving through water like this, but I ignored that strange sensation in favour of grabbing the first Putty I found and forcing it back to the surface with me.
I don't think I even realised how fast I was going or how far I'd jumped until I found myself mid-air, still holding the first Putty I'd attacked in my hands, and I definitely wasn't expecting to realise that I'd just carried that Putty into the daylight in one jump. Once I realised that I was out in the sun once again, I threw the Putty in my arms towards the advancing wave of enemies, before falling back into the pool to join the other Rangers. Glimmer and Liv had already tossed each other into the next Putties they could find in a strange kind of underwater dance while Thresh and Peeta were following my example and forcing the Putties out of the water. Striking another Putty on the head, I broke it back down into ash with a few powerful punches before a quick glance confirmed that there was nothing else down here for us to fight.
The initial wave dealt with, we kicked off against the rock walls and leapt back up to the surface, where we found a new wave of Putties already assembling to face us. Once all five of us had left the chasm, Glimmer practically slid around the ground to knock over a few Putties standing in front of her while I leapt up to kick them in the heads. Thresh and Peeta charged their own foes with their own style of wrestling attacks, while Liv actually jumped up to walk over a few of their shoulders before diving back down to kick a couple of them away.
As I hit the ground once again, I managed to kick one of the Putties as I rolled over to get back to my feet, in time to see Peeta grab another Putty around the waist and slam it against the ground in a more violent version of some of the wrestling moves I'd seen him perform in the past. Thresh was just punching his opponents at the moment, but Glimmer did an interesting trick where she grabbed one Putty in her legs and forced it to the ground with a kind of aerial twisting motion.
I looked over in time to see Liv knock a couple of them over a nearby cliff, but when she paused to look over the edge, she had a new tension in her body language that I didn't like.
"Guys!" the Blue Ranger called over to us. "These things just keep coming!"
"What?" Peeta asked, before the question was answered as a new wave of Putties emerged from the cliff behind Liv. The former District Five resident managed to jump out of the way before of them could get their hands on her, but it was still clear that this was we were about to face even more opponents when we were still struggling to put down the first few Putties.
As the fight continued, it didn't take long for us to establish the scale of what we were up against. The Putties were basically as strong as the holograms we'd been fighting against in the pit- I wondered if Rita just made them stronger or if Zordon and Alpha had dialled the strength down to help us train- so we could hold our own in a straight fight, but the real problem was the sheer numbers facing us.
"There's too many of them!" Glimmer yelled as she kicked through the latest opponent, voicing my own opinion. "We need to hit them harder and faster so they can't keep doing this!"
"And how do we do that?" Thresh asked, even as he grabbed another one and squeezed it with such force that he literally broke it in half.
While I didn't like to admit defeat this early in our first fight, Thresh did raise a point; we couldn't keep up the pace against these numbers for long, and I wasn't keen on the idea of us bringing out a zord in case someone back in the Capitol noticed it…
"Hey guys!" a voice suddenly said from what appeared to be inside my helmet.
"Wh- Rue?" Thresh said, which at least confirmed that I wasn't the only one who'd heard that, the rest of the team reaching up to their ears. "How did you-?"
"Alpha let me access the radio so I could tell you something cool," Rue explained, as I ended up temporarily fighting back-to-back with Glimmer and Liv as we kicked our way through the surrounding opponents. "It's about those weapons you were… using against Rita before; Alpha tells me there're actually part of a… jestally system?"
"Gestalt?" Liv cut in with a new sense of enthusiasm, even if the term still confused me. "As in we can combine the weapons?"
"Combine?" Peeta said, even as he turned to throw another Putty away as it tried to charge us.
"Exactly!" Alpha's voice said. "I'm transmitting the instructions to your armour now; just follow them and things should be fine!"
I was about to ask what he meant when a brief display appeared in the left side of my helmet, and I suddenly found myself looking at some kind of display of the sword I'd been using earlier, along with brief flashes of how it would apparently fit with a series of other weapons. Just as I'd taken in that unexpected turn of events, the sword in question was suddenly in my hands, which I immediately used to avoid an oncoming putty attack by cutting the creature in half.
Looking around at the others, I noticed that Thresh was holding the gun/axe thing he'd used against Rita earlier, and Liv and Peeta were using the pointed sticks and daggers they'd chosen previously. However, I was surprised to see that Glimmer wasn't holding the staff she'd been using earlier. She was holding a long weapon, but rather than a staff, it looked like a strange kind of bow, which she swiftly used to fire what I could only describe as 'energy arrows' at a trio of nearby putties.
When I turned my attention back to the others, I saw each of them using their respective weapons to fight off the oncoming putties, ranging from Peeta stabbing them with his daggers to Liv flipping her opponents over with her pointed sticks. Even Glimmer was making a good impact with her new 'energy arrows', aiming and firing then with considerable speed, but while they were all making an impression, it was clear that we weren't going to win the fight this way.
Which is where the other instructions come in…
"Everyone!" I called out to the team, knocking back the Putty right in front of me and holding up my sword. "We need to bring them together!"
The rest of the team just looked over at my call and then seemed to understand what I was saying as they raised their own weapons. As instructions flashed across my visor, the other Rangers threw their weapons into the air, Thresh's axe in its gun form as Peeta and Liv's weapons attached to Glimmer's bow. Once the bow had attached itself to the end of the gun on Thresh's axe, I jumped up into the air and grabbed the assembled gun, putting my sword on top of the new 'gestalt' before I returned to the ground, the display on my helmet informing me that I was now holding the Power Blaster.
I was only just aware of the other four Rangers taking up position behind me as I aimed the new weapon at our approaching foes, five barrels held together by the bow and the power somehow reinforced and enhanced by the power of my sword. A blast of red energy emerged from the end of the weapon as I swept it across the battlefield in front of us, tearing through the advancing Putties.
With the initial wave destroyed, I led a charge along the field, sweeping the blaster from one side to the other, culminating in me leaning over the side of the cliff to strafe a wave of energy at the advancing Putties trying to climb up towards us. I only realised that the final Putty had been destroyed once the blaster stopped, as though there was something in the weapon that stopped the fight once it couldn't sense an enemy any more. Our enemies defeated, the team and I were left standing alone in the field where we had first come together.
"Wow…" Liv said, as I lowered the now-inactive blaster, the weapon collapsing back into its individual pieces and returning to the hands of the original owners on some kind of automatic system. "That… that was cool."
"Cool?" Glimmer grinned as she twirled the bow in her hands. "That was awesome!"
"Hell, yeah!" Thresh said, his arms out in front of him as he examined his shiny black armour. "Serious, this stuff kicks ass! If we'd had this before-"
"But we couldn't have had it before," Peeta put in, the helmet pulling back from his face to reveal a solemn expression as he looked over at the large figure in black armour. "Remember Zordon's rules, Thresh? We can't use this armour unless the other side escalates the battle to the point where we need it."
"Hey, guys?" Rue's voice suddenly came in over the helmet radio once again, her enthusiasm about the weapons replaced with apprehension. "I think we have a problem…"
"What is-?" I began, before we suddenly found ourselves all back in Zordon's chamber.
"Hey!" Liv looked sharply up at Zordon. "You could just do that?"
"It made more sense for you to confront the Putties directly in this instance; there will be other times when teleportation is more practical," Zordon explained. "In the meantime, please observe the viewing globe."
Turning to the glowing orb in the centre of the room, we saw what appeared to be a display of a large golden figure walking between distant mountains, making for an unclear destination. Even at this distance, the figure struck me as somewhat skeletal, its arms and legs giving the impression that they were half-formed given how thin they were. I was briefly reminded of a few records I'd seen of past Games where the victims had been burnt in some way, such as when Beetee had managed to electrocute most of his opponents in the final confrontation of his Games.
Of course, I was fairly sure that human bodies didn't have large things sticking out of their backs, but I would put that down to the fact that we were facing a monster rather than a regular creature. From what I remembered of my old biology lessons, it looked like those things could be wings stripped of their flesh and feathers, but the implications of a monster like that having wings wasn't exactly encouraging.
"Oh boy," Thresh said, his voice low as he took in the creature that could only be Goldar.
"That's… a lot of gold," Liv said anxiously, as the creature was shown walking past another mountain, reinforcing the scale of the monster we would almost certainly be about to face.
"What are the odds it's heading for District Eleven?" Glimmer put in. Even with my limited skill at reading people, it wasn't hard to guess that she meant that as a foregone observation.
"They're after the Crystal," Peeta said, before he turned to me. "So what now?"
"We need to get there before she finds it," I said, unable to hold back the smile as I looked at the others. "Which means it's time to take the Zords out for a test-drive."
"I can go with that," Thresh nodded.
"Count me in," Liv grinned, as Peeta gave me a supportive thumbs-up.
"You're letting me go for a flight?" Glimmer said with a grin so enthusiastic it was practically audible even under the helmet. "Let's do this!"
"We can get there in time?" I looked over at Zordon.
"Once you have activated the zords, Alpha and I shall initiate the teleportation sequence to send you to a suitable location to advance on Goldar while keeping the existence of the ship secret from your government," Zordon put in, looking solemnly at us. "Good luck, Rangers, and may the Power protect you."
"Thank you," I said, before I turned to lead the way out of the ship, the five of us heading for the cavern where Alpha had shown us the zords only days ago. A part of me wondered if a good leader should have told Glimmer to calm down at that point, but for the moment I was personally rather keen on the idea of getting to take the Tyrannosaurus Zord out for a run myself…