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Twice Chosen

"Thirteen?!" we all repeated incredulously.

"Is there some significance to that?" Alpha asked as he looked between us. "From what I found when I studied current news broadcasts, there are only twelve districts currently in existence-"

"Because Thirteen was meant to have been totally destroyed in the initial rebellion," Liv answered Alpha before he could finish his sentence. "It's the whole reason we even have the Hunger Games; they're meant to basically remind us that we chose to rebel against the Capitol and should be punished for it."

"That seems… warped," Alpha observed with a cautious shrug.

"That's Panem," Thresh shook his head as he gave a bitter snort. "At this point the government's biggest priority seems to be to make sure we all think of each other as the enemy on some level as though that's the only way to be sure we'll never do something like that again…"

"We can criticise the Capitol later; right now the priority has to be investigating what just happened here," I said, looking up at Zordon. "Firstly, what's the evidence that Thirteen were involved?"

"This message was transmitted shortly before the explosions took place," Zordon responded, before the strange golden glowing thing in the middle of the room shifted to display a figure standing in shadow, the room behind the figure dimly lit.

"Contrary to what you have been led to believe, District Thirteen is not dead," the figure said, its voice distorted by technology so that I couldn't even tell the gender of the speaker. "The time has come for Panem to throw off the shackles imposed by the Capitol and rise up against their corruption so that the Districts can rule themselves. The first blow has been struck; the people must rise up and fight back against the sins of your existing rulers."

"OK…" Thresh said, looking uncertainly around the rest of us once the video cut out. "So… if we assume that's real… what do we do about it?"

"We'll worry about that once we know more about what we're dealing with now," I said, surprising even myself with that moment of confidence. I wasn't ready to work out how we were going to pull that off, but if this team was going to save Panem there wasn't time to focus on that. "Since we know who's responsible for these attacks, can you show us what these attacks actually did?"

"Observe the central viewer," Zordon said. Turning to look at the mysterious golden substance in the centre of the room, we stared in silence as the golden glow shifted to display views of areas that must be the other Districts. I briefly glimpsed the Academy I'd seen in One before the view shifted to show a pile of rubble that must have been part of a building before some kind of explosion had been set off. I was aware that building design wasn't something I was familiar with, but it wasn't hard to tell that the destroyed buildings must have been of a considerable height before the explosions, and I was also certain that this was more than an accident. My knowledge of explosives might be limited, considering that I had no interest in going into the mines for work, but I doubted this could have been the result of any kind of accident. The damage seemed to be too great if this was just something in the building that had broken for some reason, and the fact that the display showed similar signs of destruction in four different places confirmed that this was no fluke accident.

"Holy- that's the Peacekeeper Centre!" Liv stared at one of the projections.

"Yours, huh?" Thresh glanced at the Blue Ranger before his attention returned to the glowing display. "Funny how they all look the same… guess Peacekeepers are one thing the Capitol's always willing to throw money at."

Taking another look at the displayed buildings as our point of view pulled back to reveal more of the surrounding area, I could see what Thresh meant. I hadn't thought about it before, since I never paid close attention to the other Districts' Reapings before now, but looking at all four of these buildings at once it was easy to see that they all shared a few similar features. Whatever had destroyed them all made it harder to see what each building had been like originally, but enough was left for me to spot the similarities in the design to the main Peacekeeper hub back in Twelve. When I saw people moving towards the damaged, burning structures, it was easier to confirm that these buildings were larger than the one I was familiar with, but adjusting for scale the overall design seemed much the same.

I was slightly surprised to see that in some cases the buildings didn't have the large square in front of them that I was used to seeing in front of Twelve's own Peacekeepers, but I guessed those were for more 'loyal' Districts which felt that they didn't need the same public displays as Twelve to maintain order. In all cases, the upper levels and the fronts of the buildings had been almost completely destroyed, but the rest of the building was still intact to varying degrees.

The real problem was that when the view was adjusted to show more of the surrounding buildings, it became clear that the explosion hadn't just attacked the Peacekeeper building, but had caused some damage to any buildings around it. I briefly reminded myself that most of the people living near a Peacekeeper building were more likely government officials or similarly high-ranking locals if Twelve was an example of the usual standard, but then I reminded myself that would mean Madge would have been at risk if this had happened back home and forced that particular thought out of my mind.

"Damn…" Thresh muttered as he looked at the damaged buildings before he turned his attention to Zordon. "What Districts have been hit?"

"From all reports, the targets are Districts One, Two, Five and Six."

"So the main Careers Districts, and the power and transportation centres," Glimmer observed. "Not a bad call; if someone wanted to destabilise Panem, those are definitely the best places to hit."

"Wouldn't Eleven have been a good call too?" Rue asked. "Or one of the other food districts?"

"Yeah, but if they tried to follow this up by actually attacking those Districts, then everyone would be blaming these attacks for costing the whole country food," Glimmer pointed out. "People can more easily adapt to a loss of power then a food shortage, particularly since it's still summer; if this attack took place in winter, we'd have people complaining about the cold, but right now a power loss is basically just annoying."

"Makes sense," Thresh nodded at the former Career. "Plus, factories and the like are easier to fix; if they destroyed the crops, we could be in real trouble if the harvest falls behind."

"OK, so that justifies the targets," I said, hoping I was thinking along the right lines. "So… what did these attacks actually do?"

"According to available news reports, the main fatalities in all four cases were the Peacekeepers themselves, but there have been civilian casualties of varying degrees in the surrounding buildings," Alpha put in from where he was studying some kind of display on one of the platforms we'd used to morph for the first time. "It would seem that the goal was to deliver a powerful blow to Peacekeeper operations in each District, but they weren't particularly concerned about keeping the damage contained."

"Is there anything stopping us from taking our zords to take a look?" I asked. "Maybe we could help with some of the clean-up?"

"…You're suggesting that we go to help the Capitol before we declare our intention to topple it?" Glimmer looked at me sceptically.

"I'm suggesting that we go in to help the innocent people caught in the crossfire of whatever's going on here and make sure that nobody's in danger if that building collapses further," I clarified. "If we're doing this to get rid of the current government, we can't just go out there hitting people; we need to show that we want to help."

"That's… that's actually good thinking," Peeta smiled at me. "Nice idea."

"Thanks," I smiled back at the boy in yellow, strangely touched that he approved of my plan before I looked around. "OK, so with those four Districts… Glimmer, Liv, do you want to go home?"

"That… might not be the best call," Glimmer said, her tone cautious even as she gave me a brief, grateful smile for the thought.

"Huh?" Peeta looked at her in surprise.

"I mean, if we're trying to act like we're strangers to Panem... I'm not saying we'd do it on purpose, but do we want to risk us doing something that only a local would know about?"

"She's right," Liv nodded with her own grim expression. "I mean, there's nobody there either of us particularly want to see again, but what if we end up talking with someone or going around the streets and do something that only a resident should know?"

"OK, so maybe you two just swap?" Thresh asked.

"No…" I began, hoping that I was on the right lines. "Liv can go to One, but Glimmer… we can't know where we might need a flying zord; you should keep yourself available in case we need you anywhere." I turned to look at Zordon. "You can basically teleport the zords anywhere they're needed, right?"

"We can," Zordon 'nodded' at me. "Of course, it would be best if Glimmer took her zord some distance from each District before we did so."

"Hide our abilities and give the impression the Pteradactyl's faster than it is, right?" Liv smiled in approval.

"I can work with that," Glimmer grinned. "So where do we send the rest of you?"

As the Tyrannosaurus paced down the streets of District Two, I was relieved to find that I was still concerned about the people around me as I walked. Two might have produced some of the more brutal Careers over the last few decades, but like I'd said to Rita in our rematch, it wasn't fair to condemn the people for what their government had done. I wasn't going to start thinking that everyone here was a victim, as Cato and Clove had clearly been far too keen to kill others for me to believe they'd been forced into anything, but it also wasn't fair to act as though everyone here was guilty.

Manoeuvring a large robot through the streets without damaging anything else was tricky, but I had soon made my way to the epicentre of the blast. From what records Alpha had shared with us as we made our way to the affected Districts, the primary target in all four Districts had been the Peacekeeper's main outpost for that District, but the explosions had damaged some of the surrounding buildings as well. I wasn't clear on the technical terms involved, but from what Alpha had been able to determine, the explosion had basically destroyed the equivalent of Peacekeeper central command and most of their main working sections while leaving their actual living areas further back relatively untouched.

The collateral damage varied in each District, which Liv guessed was because the same bomb had been used in all cases but the different sizes of their targets had changed the blast radius. The Peacekeeper facilities in One and Two had been grander but less well-defended, so Liv speculated that the explosion had been further away from anything else but the debris had scattered more easily, while the targets in Five and Six had been smaller but stronger until the explosion shattered the buildings and spread the rubble.

Frankly, I had to admit that I wasn't that interested in the technical details behind these bombs; I just had to focus on dealing with the aftermath. The question of how someone had managed to get these bombs into the buildings in the first place was something I would have to deal with later; right now the priority was making sure people were all right. As I reached the square close to the Peacekeeper building, I briefly wondered how I was going to find anyone in the mass of rubble, but then a thought occurred and I reached out to send a 'command' to the zord's main display screen. It took a moment to filter through the heat of the fires, but I soon confirmed that there were a few bodies lying amid the rubble of the further buildings that were still alive. Setting the Tyrannosaurus zord to move some of the larger pieces of rubble aside, I leapt out and headed for the pile, nodding briefly at the stunned residents of District Two gathered around the ruins as I began to haul the rubble away.

"What the- what are you doing here?"someone yelled out.

"Clearing the collateral damage," I said, continuing to move the debris aside as I spoke until I reached the first of the survivors. Still amazed at my new strength, I lifted the last couple of pieces of stone away and reached down to lift the first available survivor out of danger. I couldn't tell how serious the damage was, but since the person was still breathing I just carefully handed the victim over to someone else and continued my careful search. With my zord dumping chunks of rubble on the already-damaged Peacekeeper headquarters, I was able to swiftly search through the surrounding buildings, the zord alerting me if its systems detected further survivors. Some people tried to talk to me as I worked, but I was always able to get someone to safety and move on to the next pile before anyone could collect themselves enough to ask a clear question.

In a dark way, it was actually a relief when I was able to confirm that there weren't any more survivors deep within the rubble I'd been sorting through. The zord's sensors had been able to identify a few cooling bodies further in the piles, but from their condition I was satisfied that they were dead, and nobody needed my team to collect corpses. The immediate dangers dealt with, I turned around and gave a brief wave to the assembled civilians before I jumped upwards and returned to the cockpit.

I had just set the controls in motion to take the zord out of District Two when something suddenly blared over the radio, in a loud burst of static that I had never heard come from the device before. Turning my attention to the controls that were responsible for the system, I turned them on, already anticipating that I wasn't about to speak to Alpha or Zordon.

"Hello," I said, instinctively making my voice deeper as I addressed the person on the other end.

"Greetings," an unfamiliar female voice said in response. "I take it that I'm addressing the leader of the team responsible for confronting that monster in District Eleven?"

"You are," I replied, already resolved to give away nothing but the obvious as my zord left the District and continued to advance into the forests outside. "I am the Red Ranger, leader of the Power Rangers; who am I addressing?"

"I am President Alma Coin of District Thirteen," the unknown woman replied. "I apologise for accessing the communications systems of your remarkable machines like this, but it was deemed the best opportunity to talk with you about our mutual goals."

"And what 'mutual goals' would these be?" I asked.

"Our shared distaste for Panem's current political structure," the self-declared President Coin responded. "Judging from your assault on the Peacekeeper base in District Eleven, I trust I'm not wrong to assume you're unaffiliated with the Captiol's current government?"

"If you have the resources to make contact like this, you already know that my team are independent," I responded. That was admittedly a bit of a gamble, but I reasoned that anybody with the ability to access our radios should be aware that we had nothing to do with the Capitol.

"Excellent," the voice on the other end said. "Then can I assume we can rely on your help when Thirteen declares war?"

"I… was under the impression that District Thirteen had been destroyed?" I said, deciding to cover the most obvious question first even as I reminded myself to act as though I was an outsider. "Assuming you're telling the truth about your identity, how are you still here?"

"We were instructed to let everyone believe we were dead after the last rebellion ended," the woman replied. "By the time of the final engagement, District Thirteen had claimed control of a sizeable portion of Panem's nuclear stockpile. The existing leaders were able to use those weapons to negotiate a deal where Thirteen would secede from Panem and allow the rest of the country to believe we had been destroyed in exchange for the Capitol leaving us alone."

"…In other words, you abandoned the rebellion in favour of saving yourselves," I said, only realising how aggressive that might sound after I'd spoken the words.

"Many of us prefer to think of it as consolidating our assets to mount a more effective revolution later," the alleged president replied, her tone sounding surprisingly cordial despite my potential insult. "We have been making contact with various individuals in Panem who share our anger at what the Capitol has done to the other twelve districts, but it was only recently that we gathered enough power to mount an effective campaign against the Capitol. We were waiting for an opportunity to rally effective figures to represent us against Snow's own power, but your public demonstration serves as a suitable catalyst to make it clear to the other Districts that the Capitol is not as powerful as they believe."

"I… see," I said, already feeling uncomfortable at the facts being presented to me. I already knew that I wasn't comfortable dealing with politics, but I understood enough to feel that this situation wouldn't be good for us. "If you're asking us to serve as a public face for your movement… I'm saying no."

"Excuse me?" Alma Coin said, a new edge to her voice that increased my unease.

"I admire your technical staff for accessing our communications system, but you must understand that as Power Rangers, one of our core rules is to avoid getting involved in local affairs in the manner you describe," I said, hoping I wasn't revealing too much even as I reminded myself of Zordon's rules. "We were already planning to deal with the Capitol's control ourselves because we recognise that this way of life is not sustainable for any civilisation, but we have no intention of acting to assist an outright coup."

"You intend to take power yourselves?"

"Our intention is to destabilise the Capitol's grip on power until the people can take power for themselves," I corrected. "If you seek to remove the Capitol from power over the other twelve Districts, then we can at least consider each other allies, but if you just want to take charge yourself, then my team won't help you any further."

"That is… fair," Coin said, her tone suddenly far more conciliatory than it had been just moments ago. "I… apologise if I caused offence."

"Your apology is acknowledged," I said, already aware that I wasn't going to accept an apology from her just yet. "On that topic, if you want us to be your allies against the Capitol, you need to take more care in your future attacks."

"You object to our attacking the Peacekeepers?"

"I object to the fact that your bombs caused enough damage that civilians were caught in the blast," I corrected, looking out of the window to see the rubble still spread out over the square. "If you want to convince us that your goal is to help Panem, then don't do things that might kill the innocent people we're here to help; find ways to act that will only kill the people you know are guilty."

"This country has been caught in a cycle of control for decades; do you really think it's easy to find innocents-?"

"I think it shouldn't be hard to distinguish between the people who enjoy things the way they are and the people who just got stuck living in this world while the real enemy took control," I said, trying to recall a few of the stories I'd heard in the past depicting action heroes trying to sound tough. "So long as we both want President Snow and his government out of the picture, we are at least provisionally on the same side, but if you start to endanger innocents with your actions, be assured that we will… take a dimmer view of your activities."

"Is that a threat?"

"A warning not to forget what you say you're fighting for," I corrected her description, suddenly amazed at how easy this perspective was coming to me. "We'll… consider this an over-enthusiastic first strike and leave it at that on the understanding that this kind of thing will never happen again."

"And in return you will help us?"

"In return we will work together to remove the current government from power and set up something that favours the people," I clarified. Additional allies could be useful here, but I wasn't going to give this woman any sense that she was in charge of my team (and how had it become so easy to think of my former enemies as a team?). "You do your thing and we'll do ours; just take care not to cross the lines we discussed."

My statement made, I ended the call and turned my attention to the more important matter of taking another check around this bomb site. The immediate area had been cleared up, but there were still a few buildings further from the main explosion that might be worth a closer look…

And after that, this campaign against the Capitol is about to get complicated.