Chapter Six. Sparring.

"And here we have the training area," Diana said, pushing the door open to let the Cosmo, Lost Zone and Genesis Rangers into the room. "It's off limits to all members of the crew not part of the ranger squad, or to anyone below the rank of first mate."
"Although the first mate never really comes down here," Sandy said. "And the Commandant is a part of the team, technically, so…"

"The point is that nobody gets in here without access," Max said, making his way into the room. Which they soon found was not empty.

"What took you so long?" Dorlinda asked, sat cross legged on one of the training mats. "Been waiting for a while now."
Looking past the Cosmo Rangers, then past the Lost Zone Rangers, he finally saw the Genesis Rangers and smiled happily.

"Well well well, it has been a longer time," he said. "How have you all been?"

"Sir, are you sure about this?" Payne asked, looking across at Falco with his arms crossed. He was a Persian-like Poké alien wearing the standard Night Hawk uniform. "Taking them on board. They aren't cleared. All we have is their say so that they're friendly."

"We have the word of Mr. Edwards," Falco replied. "He has vouched for them, his judgement can be trusted. He's one of us now, we should treat him as such."

"I imagine you're going to consider the prospect of getting Nixysis above anything else," Payne said. "I'm not saying that they aren't to be trusted, I'm saying that there's a chance they could turn on us."

"We shall see," the Aerobian said. "But I doubt it. Rangers code of honour. You weren't here to hear them speak, they truly believed they were here to do the right thing."

The Felaine had nothing else to say to that.

"But I would suggest that they aren't allowed to go near the cockpit," Falco said. "Just to be on the safe side."

"It will be done, Sir."

"Good."

The new Conduit hadn't expected the reaction he had gotten as eight figures bore down on him, wrapping him into massive hugs.

"Easy… easy guys," he gasped, almost falling over under their weight. "Someone's glad to see me."

"You again," Julia said, as the Genesis Rangers and Crane broke away from Dorlinda, allowing her to see him. "You got our morphers?"
"Again?" Duo asked. "You saw him before? Why didn't you tell us?"

"We didn't know you knew him," Naomi replied.

Max looked across at Dorlinda, a puzzled look on his face as he eyed the figure.

"Where have I seen you before?" he asked. "I'm sure I've… Never mind. How did you get in here?"

"The door," Dorlinda replied. "Only a potential three billion combinations for the code, worked it out in the space of a few seconds."

"Check it out," David said in a mock whisper. "Someone who might be smarter than Claire."

"Hey!" the Blue Lost Zone Ranger protested.

"Sorry," David continued. "Someone who might be smarter than Claire and Naomi put together."

"He's got an excuse," Luke explained. "He looks human, but he's not. Bit like a couple of you, I imagine."

"Unofficially, I'm a time traveller," Dorlinda said. "Officially, I'm the new Conduit to Reality, I keep things ticking over the way they should. When things go wrong that shouldn't break down, I try to repair it."

"What do you mean, a bit like a couple of you?" Diana demanded, looking at Luke. "You trying to claim that you're better than us because you're human?"

"No, I'm trying to claim I'm better than you because I'm me and you're you," Luke retorted.

An angered Diana immediately transformed, her appearance re-shifting itself into an identical duplicate of the Purple Genesis Ranger.

"How does this work into your theory then?" she asked, speaking with Luke's voice. "If I'm you and you're you, which is the better."

"I'm seeing double," Dice quipped. "Four Luke's."

Reaching into his suit, Dorlinda pulled out a handful of Poké Gears, holding them up to the light.

"I brought these, if you're wondering?" he asked, looking at the Lost Zone Rangers. "All your morphing goodness."

Handing them out to Julia, Claire, Dice and David, Dorlinda then went back into the other side of his suit to take out two pairs of shades and the Dragon Gauntlet. Riku, Emma and Naomi took them from him, tucking them away where they could be kept safe.

"That's about everything," he said. "Nice to see you all again. I wish you all luck with Nixysis, you pull it off I'll be in touch to get you all home."

"Dorlinda," Katie said. "Do us all a favour and don't die again."

"I have no intention of that at this point, Katie," he replied. "Oh, and before I forget, there's something else..."

Again he dove into his coat and produced a large bag with a strap from inside before tossing it over to Claire.

"Seriously, how much room you got in that coat?" Nick wondered.

"You might need those, Miss Springfield," he said. "Helps to be prepared, does it not?"

Puzzled, Claire took a glance inside the bag before looking up again in shock.

"You really think we will?" she asked.

"As I say, preparation is key," Dorlinda replied. "Anyway…"

He jerked his sleeve back and glanced at one of several watches there, before replacing it.

"Must dash, you're about two, three hours away from the seventh moon of Vandor, I don't want to deny you away from any preparation needed."

"You know Dorlinda," Paige said. "I'm really glad Clarence sent us here, but I really wish he'd let us grab a change of clothes first."

"You haven't changed, Paige," he laughed. "That's hardly the biggest issue out there at the moment, is it?"

Throwing another smile at the group, he took a step back and vanished in a weave of smoke.

"Whatever you want to say," Lily said. "That's a pretty cool thing to be able to do."

"So, how to pass the time?" Ryan asked. "Any suggestions?"

"How do you pass the time around here?" Riku wondered.

"There is the sparring ring," Sandy said. "If you'd care to try your hand, I'm sure we'd see just how good you really are."
"Might not be a bad idea actually," Xavier offered. "We've been out of it a while, maybe a bit of practice could be good."

"Ah…" Claire spoke up. "Actually, I was wondering if I could see the engines. Just out of interest."

"Now why would you want to see that?" Diana wondered. "Seems a strange request for someone to make."

"Careful love," Duo said. "She throws cake if you annoy her."

"Couple of thousand years after and she still has to live that down," Emma laughed.

Eventually, Sandy had said that she'd take Claire and Naomi down to the engine room to see what was down there.

"Maybe you'll find a delightful time with the workers down there," she'd laughed, leading them down towards the engine room. "So, what about you two? Anything interesting at all?"

"As you know, I'm Naomi," Naomi said. "That's Claire, my sister in law. When we were rangers, I was white and originally evil, while she was blue."

"No way," Sandy replied. "I'm blue as well."

"Yeah?" Claire asked. "I became blue because my idol wore that colour. What about you?"

"Assigned at random, I suppose," Sandy said. "Idol, really?"
"Yeah, she's back in the sparring room," Naomi commented. "Kinda tall, wears a lot of red. Blondish."

"Oh, her?" Sandy asked grinning. "Interesting. Thought she was gorgeous."

Both Claire and Naomi looked at each other, before shrugging.

"Claire," Naomi said with a smile. "Tell me that's not the root of your obsession."

"That's not the root of my obsession," Claire replied without hesitating. "And don't accuse me of lying."

"Now why would I do that?"

"See, you know what else is annoying?" David asked. "We find another ranger team with red as the leader. Why were we the only exception to the rule?"

"Because it clearly annoys you so much, Big Mouth," Julia said. "Besides, it's not like we failed, is it?"

"True," Dice offered. "If we had, then you probably would have had cause to complain."

Ahead of them, Riku and Emma had decided to tag team spar with Nick and Diana, the twins managing to hold their own.

"Big Mouth?" Max asked, glancing over. "Why they call you that?"
On another mat, Xavier, Duo and Luke were taking on Lily, Katie and Paige in their own sparring contest. Dice, Julia, David and Max were doing more or less the same, the rangers not sparring working on some of the automated systems.

"Because he can't keep it shut," Julia said, before smirking. "You two going to spar or not?"

Max looked at David. "Hey, I can do that. I'll warn you though; I'm too hot to…"

David threw a punch that the Red Cosmo Ranger was completely unprepared for and caught him square in the face.

"Ouch!" he exclaimed, clutching his face. "Mrek!"
"Aww, poor little Maxie take a punch too hard?" Lily mocked, stopping her own sparring to watch. "Think he might…"
Max's hair burst into flame and he sprang at David, his eyes momentarily ablaze with anger. Startled, David was forced into blocking the punches hurled at him. Every block brought a wince of pain from him, the fists clearly just as hot as his hair.

"You know, I'm amazed it took this long for his mouth to get him in trouble," Dice commented. Ahead of them, David yelped in pain as he took a blow to the face, the skin burn black where he had been caught.

Before Max could hit him again, Katie stepped out in front and caught his fist in her bare hand, not even wincing at the fiery fist. Without pausing, she flipped him to the ground, the Cadet groaning as he hit the mat.

"Calm down," she said. "That was an accident."

"Max, chill," Crane called. "She's right."

Drawing a deep breath, Max picked himself up and stretched out his sore body, before nodding.

"My apologies," he said. "Sorry, sometimes I just get like that."

He offered a hand out to David.

"No hard feelings, man. You got a good hit in, and… well, you just saw what happened. I lost the plot, I messed up."

David shook the offered hand.

"Hey, suppose I should have waited till you were ready," he admitted. "No harm no foul."

"Aww, look at them kissing and making up," Diana quipped. "How cute!"

"Mrek off, Diana," Max laughed.

"As you can see," Sandy said, the two Lost Zone Rangers following her into the room. "We have nothing but the highest quality engines here. Seven grade warpmax, all working at full power to get us across the galaxy whenever we need to. Fuels good, thousand parsecs to the litre."
"Check it out," Naomi remarked. "They still use litres. Who'd have guessed?"

Next to her, Claire walked on further into the engine room, marvelling around at it all.

"It's all so… complicated!" she exclaimed. "I mean, there's stuff in here I'd never even have imagined, I'd never have guessed as to its existence. Nothing else you tell me could blow my mind further."
"Think I might be able to," Sandy said. "It also turns into its own Megazord."

"That's impressive," Naomi said, Claire's mouth falling open. "A Megazord?"

"Commandant Griote uses it as his own personal Zord," Sandy explained. "Although now we've got Crane onside, think it might be used less. There's always the risk of deploying the Mirror Hawk Megazord in that a lucky shot could deprive us of our friends in the crew, and also our home."

"Yeah, think there were some rangers before our time who had a similar predicament," Claire said, still looking around. They then heard a shout of anger ring out followed by a clank of something against metal.

"Want to meet the engineering crew we keep on board?" Sandy asked. "They'll probably give you a warm welcome, but they're a little strange. Working down here in the heat and sniffing the fumes all day can do that."

"Oh my…!" Naomi exclaimed, the three of them turning a corner to come face to face with Chebek, Blister and their strange discovery. "That's not possible."

"It's one heck of a coincidence," Claire said, already striding over towards the hunk of what she knew to be Iron Flygon. Both the Typhig and the Charian tried to block her, only for Claire to push past them. "Never thought I'd see this guy again."

"Hey!" Blister exclaimed, as she crouched down in front of the robot. "Hands off our piece of junk!"
"Your piece of junk?" Claire asked. "I built this thing, I think you'll find it's my piece of junk. My robot."

"Well, this should be an interesting argument," Sandy commented, looking at Naomi. "She have a history of losing rows?"
"Not even in the slightest," the Latias Ranger said. "Chances are she'll probably knock them both out before she concedes the argument."

"I launched it into space many years ago," Claire protested. "To gather data on what's beyond the stars. And to look for traces of a mineral. It's not important, my point is that…"

Reaching under the face of the Flygon robot, she hit a button and a panel opened up.

"We missed that," Chebek said. "How did we miss that?"

Drawing a hand in, Claire pulled out a computer disk and dropped it into a pocket.

"That's what I was after," she said. "It'll come in handy. And, you never know. Iron Flygon could come in handy down on the planet."

"It's busted," Blister said. "Too much damage to the circuits, we tried to activate it, but…"

Claire smirked.

"Afraid you boys just don't have the touch of a woman," she drawled, pulling a lever back to reveal a keypad. "Or more importantly, the code to bring it online."

Punching the buttons before her, everyone present watched as Iron Flygon's engines slowly burst into life and it stood up.

"That should do it," she said, covering the panel back up and taking a step back. "Now, shall we go and tell the others what we've found?"

"It's time," the strange voice said, Nixysis watching as the cyber chambers opened up to reveal the four new figures. "I feel them approaching."

Ahead of him, SharpMariner was the first to fall from the chamber, both arms and half of his face replaced with mechanical parts. NineWhips' entire lower body and ears had been subject to the same procedure. All of MagneHead was fashioned of the same metal, while The Great Purrie had metal whiskers, tail, left arm, right leg, both eyes and teeth.

"If they fail after this," Nixysis said. "They'll never do anything right."

"I feel different," CyberMariner offered. "Stronger somehow."

"Yes," CyberWhips commented. "This is good."

"I feel… attractive," CyberHead quipped.

CyberPurrie stared off blankly into space. "I am CyberPuree… Wait, that is incorrect."

"An error in your programming?" CyberMariner asked.

"No. I honestly believe I am CyberPuree."

CyberHead hit him on the back of the head. CyberPurrie yelped, before blinking several times.
"That did the trick," he said. "I am CyberPurrie and I am going to exterminate all who appear before me."

"See," the voice said from somewhere around Nixysis. "Aren't they so much better than they were before? And to make things even more interesting…"

She let the words hang loose in the air, before a surge of power ripped through the lab, tearing a crack in the roof. And from that crack, Nixysis watched with intrigue as a whole army of creatures started to fall from within the Lost Zone…

It was coming...

Author's Notes.

Yep, another chapter down.

Only about four or five left now. Next few will have some battles in them, so keep ready to read.

Thanks for the reviews. All appreciated.

It is quite incredible that David's mouth has never got him in trouble before now.

Anyway, thanks for reading.

Don't forget to review! Please!