Volume I - Genesis
Chapter 3—Cybernetics 101, Part III: Course Materials
Grace
I seriously could not believe the way my day had been going. School was hectic, I got a B on a paper when I know I deserved an A, dealt with a crisis in the German Club meeting at lunch about food for the International Day Festival, missed a photo shoot because of detention, dented the front of my car by running over some ninja girl and her blue bodyguard, and now I was getting a history lesson of psychotic cults trying to steal some fancy Eltarian-made Morphers.
What a day.
And it wasn't about to get any easier.
Doctor Oliver was saying something about how he kept the Cyber Morphers under lock and key, and not to worry about the White Shadow Ninja and the Cobalt Crusher, but we weren't backing down. More specifically, I wasn't backing down.
"I don't understand how you expect us to just shrug this off," I said, "these two clearly have no desire to stay hidden—they attacked us in broad daylight. What's to stop them from attacking us at home?"
"They have no reason to attack you again," Principal Oliver said, "they were looking for me. I'll report to SPD and have them taken care of."
"Something tells me it won't be that easy," Patrick said ominously. "Didn't SPD discontinue its Ranger Division due to a few of their rangers dying?"
Doc looked pained. "Yes."
"And what about the Heir? Isn't that the other thing they're looking for?" I demanded. "What if they think one of us knows the Heir?"
"What if they think one of us is the Heir?" Matt suggested.
"We don't even know what an 'heir' is, or if it's even a person," Aaron said. "I say we just go home and let SPD take care of it. I mean, what exactly can we do against a cult?"
"If you have the Cyber Morphers, why don't you just use them? You used to be a Power Ranger."
"It's not that easy, Kevin. These are Eltarian Morphers, not SPD Patrol Morphers that can be passed around from person to person," Oliver explained. "These Morphers are alive, like symbiotic beings that bond to their user. They choose a host."
"Uh…that sounds like a parasite," Jay argued.
"Wrong," I corrected him, "parasites offer no benefits to their host."
"Exactly," Doctor Oliver agreed, "these Morphers are unlike anything we've ever encountered. That's why they aren't being used."
"Well," Patrick said, "I know you have experience in this kind of thing. But seriously, those two that attacked us were brutal. The Ninja, Mira, whatever her name is—she can heal herself. I mean, I literally stabbed her with her own sword, and the bitch just popped back up like a daisy." Aaron nodded, backing him up. "And if they're the ones the Aleph Beyt sent to attack a bunch of kids, I doubt they're exactly the cream of the crop."
Our principal's face didn't change. He still looked pained. The faint scent of blueberry was still hanging in the air, and our coffee was going slightly cold. I felt the tension in the air only continue to thicken, and I cleared my throat uneasily.
"You said these things need hosts, right?"
Doc looked at me, already knowing where I was going with this.
"No. Absolutely not."
"Come on!"
"What?" Jay asked, confused.
"If these things need hosts, and Doc Ol here isn't compatible with them, maybe one us are?" I implied. "And one ranger's better than none, right?"
"What, you think we could be Power Rangers?" Matt asked me skeptically.
"Why not?! I, for one, would make an excellent Ranger."
"Yeah, but I thought you wanted to be an SPD Ranger?"
Maybe it was because we were caught up in all this alien crap, but either way, Matt had forgotten I told him that in confidence. And he'd just spilled it out in front of everyone. In front of Sanders and the rest of his pigheaded jock buddies.
"Yeah right," Jay scoffed. "What, you gonna be the first female Red Ranger?"
"Hey, back off assclown," Matt defended me. "If you paid attention, you'd know there's been plenty of girl red rangers."
"Oh, so she wouldn't be anything special then, huh?"
"Knock it off!" Doc interrupted again. "This is why I'm not taking you to the Morphers. You guys can't even hold a conversation without breaking out into an all-out war. You think I'm going to give you Morphers so you can abuse your powers on each other too?"
"So you do think they'd bond with us?"
"Ugh," Doc groaned. "Grace…the answer's no. I shouldn't have even told you about the Morphers in the first place."
"But you did," I argued. "And if you told us about them, there's a good chance that part of you has at least thought about it."
Patrick was backing me up now, finally. "Grace has a point, Doc. It couldn't hurt. If they don't pick us, they don't pick us. At least then we'll know we gave it a shot." He looked around the kitchen at our classmates. "I dunno about the rest of you guys, but I want to figure out what's going on. I want to know why we almost died. And I want to stop this."
"Exactly," I continued for him, building off his argument. "Isn't that what Zordon did for you guys? Didn't he choose 'teenagers with attitude' to save the world?"
"That's not the same," he tried to deny.
"It's the exact same," Patrick said.
"We could at least try, right?" Amy spoke up.
"We're down," Jay said for him, Sanders, and Kevin.
"I mean, if you think it's a good idea," Matt said to me.
Aaron sighed. "I'm not crazy about it, but Grace and Patrick are right—we're here, so we might as well."
Doc shook his head. I could tell he was torn. I was just hoping we'd painted a convincing enough picture for him.
And then, finally, he said, "Alright…alright. Follow me, then."
"Seriously?" I squealed.
There was no way he was taking us to the Cyber Morphers!
"Basement," he said shortly.
It was hard to make out individual sentences in all the chatter that overtook us as we followed him through his kitchen. The sheer excitement, disbelief, and anticipation was fresh in our bones and bodies. I felt my heartbeat racing. I felt my stomach clench up. This was it.
Our Principal stood up straight, cleared his throat, and said, "Initiate Biometric Scan."
A square of wall slid to the side to reveal a small, circular silver device with blinking blue LED. It emitted a laser wave that swept Doctor Oliver over entirely. It took a few minutes while LED flashed several times, processing its readings. "Biometric Scan Confirmed: Thomas Oliver. Welcome."
He opened the thick, white, wooden door to reveal an enormous slab of metallic, interlocking doors that were slowly opening to reveal a lengthy, onyx-toned marble spiral staircase. I had to wonder how the hell a principal could make this much money, but I chalked it up to his ranger connections.
We followed him quietly down the stairs, all of our talking dying down to barely audible whispers of "whoa," "wow," and "no ways." Lots of surprised little exclamations. And maybe that's because when we were about half-way down, we realized we were in some sort of high tech Ranger Shrine. All around the basement, there were ranger monuments preserved in glass tubes that lined the walls, and various plaques dedicated to the respective ranger's biography and contributions to the ongoing war against evil.
I wasn't much of a techie, but I understood advanced computer systems and the way they worked; thus, I had an appreciation for the gigantic computer system Doctor Oliver had integrated into the walls of his basement. Not to mention the incalculable amount of advanced equipment tidily tucked away on hover-shelves, and the full-scale infirmary in the back of the room.
Needless to say, I was impressed.
"This is your basement?" Matt gaped.
"Yeah," Doctor Oliver chuckled, "I like to call it The Basement."
"Original," Patrick joked, sharing a grin with our principal.
"You raised a good point," Doctor Oliver said, changing topics as he walked over to the central hub of his supercomputer. "The Aleph Beyt must be dealt with. For the most part, they had been off the physical radar. Their most advanced 'attack', until now, was on the digital frontier, where they used a Digitizer to reformat themselves into data and travel through cyberspace. Since it's so new, no one has a defense against it. Firewalls are like lines of code they can just jump over. Since then, they've continued to hack into systems all around the world under the leadership of Mesomorph."
"Mesomorph? Isn't that the guy you fought with the Dino Thunder Rangers?" Jay asked as we took open seats around a planning table.
"No, man, that was Mesogog," Kevin corrected.
"Kevin's right," Doctor Oliver said, "Mesomorph is just the founder of the Aleph Beyt. When he genetically advanced himself, he worked off Anton Mercer's Dino DNA and altered it; unfortunately, he got the same hideous guise and started going by the name of Mesomorph."
"What's his real name?" Amy asked.
"If I knew that, Amy," Doc sighed, "this would all be over by now. Sadly, these guys are practically wizards. Mesomorph has only been physically seen one time—since then, the only confirmation we even have of his identity is his digital footprint."
"Digital footprint? You mean he actually turned into data?" Matt wondered, scratching his head. "How is that even possible?"
"There's so much that I can't even begin to explain," Doc answered mysteriously. "Let's hope the Morphers can answer that for us."
With that, there was a loud hissing noise as steam began to billow from the floor in a corner of the basement. Doctor Oliver walked over to it briskly and performed another Biometrics scan, confirming he was alive, checked his brainwaves (to see if he was being coerced into unlocking whatever he was keeping safe), and that he actually was Doctor Thomas Oliver. Down to the very last chromosome. Amazing.
A tall casing of sorts rose from the panel in the floor, steam continuing to swirl from the hole, until the case finally locked into place. With the simple press of a button, the case swiveled and faced us.
"You might wanna cover your eyes," Doctor Oliver warned us as he placed a pair of futuristic (but chic!) sunglasses over his own eyes.
No one heeded his warning, stupidly enough, and when he commanded the case to open, it was as if the whole thing became a prism of blinding light. I covered my eyes quickly, the sudden illumination of the room so bright that even my hand over my eyelids couldn't block it out entirely.
I could hear energy humming thickly in the air, my spine tingling and my hair going rigid and electrified. Whatever these Cyber Morphers were, just their very presence was mind-blowingly powerful.
Finally, the light began to die down, and we removed our arms from our faces slowly, cautiously.
Jay summed it up in a word: "Whoa…"
"These are the Cyber Morphers," our principal announced heavily, motioning to them, shining crystalline objects shimmering in waves of colored energy. "Each one consists of a Cyber and Digital Morpher. The Cyber Morpher is inscribed with the majuscule—or capitalized—version of the respective letter, while the Digital Morpher has the miniscule—or lowercase—version of the letter. While they all represent elements of nature like we discussed before, they are assigned coding profiles classified by the Greek Alpha Beta; altogether, they were known collectively as C-SKUAD, or 'Cyber Squad.'"
We all stood, eyes watching the sparkling bands—twelve in all—beautifully designed and sleek. I think Doctor Oliver was having second thoughts for just a moment as he took in our dumbfounded expressions.
"Alright," he said, "let's make this quick. If the Morphers respond, we'll go over more details about them. If not, we'll head down to SPD and see about getting you and your families some protection."
"I think these should be all the protection we'll need," Kevin said, "look at these bad boys!"
He made a move for the case, and all hell broke loose.
Doc was explaining something about biometrics and optimal host qualities. I don't think anyone heard him over the commotion. The first one I grabbed had the letter K on it—or Kappa. It was a royal, crisp blue with sleek, sharp curves. I noticed they were paired Morphers, like those used by the Zeo Rangers—a band for each wrist.
"So which one's mine?" Sanders asked. "These two are busted, man."
"Someone needs to look up the word biometric," said Matt with a laugh.
"I'm still not entirely sure this is a good idea," Doctor Oliver was saying now, "but my mentor, Zordon, believed teenagers made the best rangers because they oftentimes represent the middle ground—too young, you run the risk of lack of experience and physical development. Too old, and you tend to lose your innocence and purity. Then, of course, there's the thing of you all reaching your full physical potential." He paused and looked at Sanders pointedly, noticing most of us had quieted down now that we were trying the Morphers on. "Unfortunately, you all have a tendency to lack maturity."
Sanders glared.
"You're more than welcome to try on all the different Morphers," Oliver said, stepping back a bit to observe us. "I can't guarantee any of them will activate, but…we'll see."
I almost lost track of which Morpher I was on now, but I'd tried on four already and nothing had happened. I even tried to shake the red one into working, but it just stared blankly at me. I passed it to Patrick and moved on to the next one: yellow.
Nothing.
"Ugh…" I growled. "Are you sure these things are even active? I mean, no one's actually ever used these things, have they?"
Amy took Yellow, and then she went for Red. Nothing.
Out of nowhere, the Basement erupted in a blazing blue energy that whipped through the room like a cool breeze. In the center of the windstorm was Matt. His body was wrapped in azure winds until his eyes glowed like sapphires. His mouth opened, but when it spoke, it sounded like Matt and a robot were sharing a duet.
"Kappa Blue—Vortex, activated."
We all looked back at Doctor Oliver, his eyes wide and his mouth left hanging open.
Suddenly, the energy swirled inward and was all sucked into Matt. He drew in a deep breath like he had just jumped into a cold pool. Finally, his eyes returned to normal, shocked and wild. The last of the energy faintly floated into his Morphers and Matt fell backwards into the wall, barely holding himself up.
"Matt!" I half-screamed as I rushed to his side. "Are you okay?"
"Dude…" he moaned as he looked up at me, "you gotta try that! The…the rush!"
I rolled my eyes. "You've got to be kidding me…ladies and gentlemen, I present you with your Blue Ranger."
"I don't believe it," Doc was saying half to himself. "It worked."
I was so envious I just grabbed a random Morpher.
Seconds later I was outlined in a black glow as the Morphers strapped onto my wrists.
"Uh oh…" was the only thing I managed to get out.
That is, before everything went dark. I felt nothing but emptiness overtake my entire body—I couldn't see, hear, or feel anything…but it was okay. I liked it. And then the feeling returned to me in a calm rush of energy that percolated through my veins. I opened my mouth without thinking, and a voice that wasn't entirely my own announced to the world:
"Psi Black—Shadow, activated."
Now I understood why Matt nearly fainted afterward. When all of the energy rushed into the Morphers on my wrists, the whole wave of power that coursed through me seconds ago seemed to vanish and left me feeling…different.
"Two?!" Doc yelled now, done masking his feelings. "This is…"
And then, another burst of energy—this time, it was like someone had lit the basement ablaze with golden fire. It lashed out wildly until it absorbed Jay in a column of flames. Just like Matt and me, his eyes glowed yellow and his Morpher spoke with him:
"Upsilon Yellow—Pyro, activated."
"Seriously? Jay?" I mumbled. I think only Patrick heard me, because he made a hasty grab for the Pink Morpher while the new Yellow Ranger celebrated with Sanders, Kevin, and Aaron.
Sometimes, I found myself wishing I was stupid enough to be as blissfully ignorant as they were. To think that everything was a game, and that high school was really just a part-time job for them. I wished I could be a slacker.
"You okay?" Matt asked me, noticing I was zoned out. "You look spaced."
I had to smirk to myself. Only Matt knew me like that. Not just to notice I was out of it—that wasn't hard, given I'd just been possessed by a Morpher—but to ask me at the right time, the right way. Since he knew it was more than just the Morpher.
In a hushed tone, I asked him, "You worried about Patrick? He hasn't gotten one yet."
"Pink is so not your color," Amy was saying to her ex-boyfriend.
"Why don't you try it on then?" Patrick fired back.
Matt looked at me, overhearing their interaction from a few feet away, and his face fell into a look that I was sure matched my own.
"Yet Jay gets one," I said, just as low as before.
Matt just shook his head.
"See, nothing? I'm not a pink girl." I looked up just when Amy said, "Even this stupid thing knows that." And then she smacked it.
And then it burst into life.
Pink shockwaves exploded around her, surrounding her like a force field as her body absorbed the Morpher's blessing. Her brown hair flew wildly around her face as her normally deep blue eyes exploded with pink light.
"Sigma Pink—Force, activated."
I had to laugh. She totally did it to herself.
"Oh come on," she sighed as she fought to regain her balance. "Pink?"
Jay sniggered.
"Like yellow's any better," she snapped, "nothing strikes fear into the hearts of villains more than the color of mustard, dandelions, and piss!"
The level of frustration visible on Jay's face was absolutely to die for, and I couldn't contain my laughter anymore. I high fived her and, like one mind, we grunted to make fun of him and his buddies and bellowed "Buuuuuuurn."
"Real funny," Sanders was saying, trying to overpower us.
We both cackled our way over to Doctor Oliver, forgetting about the rest of the room. Until we saw Doctor Oliver, who looked like he was about to have a heart attack. Putting myself in his shoes, I could see how this would be the most unexpected outcome for him. And now, even though the Morphers were in fact working, he was stuck with Rangers like Jay. And, well…us.
And then Aaron got a hold of the White Morpher. No one could see anything for about 10 seconds, just faint blue and gold particles of sparkling light that dominated the basement in a white haze. When it began to clear, Aaron was literally floating in midair. When his eyes opened, they were still his eyes—which were already weird—but his corneas were radiating white light. When his mouth opened, light poured out when he spoke.
"Delta White—Light, activated."
Patrick was silent, holding the unresponsive Red Morpher. Out of all the people I expected to be Rangers, Patrick was right there on the list with me. After all, he was the one who suggested working for SPD and becoming a Ranger. He said he wanted to serve so he could be on the SPD Board of Galactic Diplomacy. He knew all about this Xeno stuff. To be honest, he knew about a lot of random stuff. So I figured that out of all eight of us, at least he and I would be picked. And I'm sure he thought so too. And I'm sure it hurt like a bitch.
Sanders snatched the Alpha Morpher from Patrick and marched it over to the case angrily. "This one's defective, it didn't choose anyone."
"Maybe that's the only one that's working properly," I muttered.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Jay asked, overhearing me.
"Nothing."
"What, because your buddy Patty Cakes didn't get one?"
"Hey, fuck off, Jay!" Patrick roared.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Doctor Oliver intervened quickly. "There is nothing wrong with the Morphers. And there's nothing wrong with not being chosen."
"Yeah, easy for you to say—you've been a ranger like six different times," Patrick spat.
"You don't need to be a Ranger to help, Patrick," he said firmly. "You're right, I've changed colors more than most—but ultimately, I did just as much good helping the Rangers from right here, in a basement. Just because you don't have a Zord doesn't mean you can't fight the big battles."
"We get Zords?!" I demanded, unable to contain my excitement.
"There's a lot I need to tell you about your powers," Doc said, shrugging off my question, "but I want you all to know—Sanders, Kevin, Patrick, you too—you are all welcome to this mission. But this isn't like the Ranger Documentaries you've seen, it's not like the Hollywood movies or the TV specials: this is real. This is dangerous. If you want to turn back, I won't judge you. No one will."
"Look, you might be cool with sitting in here on the computer and stuff, but I don't know shit about that. I could fight, but not without one of these Morphers, man, so I think I'm out," Kevin said. "All this Alien Xeno shit, man…I'm just tryna get to college, you know?
"Yeah," Sanders said, "these Morphers should've thought about that. You just lost your best fighter. Now you got Matt the stoner hipster as your Blue Ranger."
I held a hand out across Matt's stomach, keeping him from going off on Sanders. I didn't know if it was because of the Shadow Morpher or what, but I felt much calmer. More at ease. I didn't feel the need to say anything to Sanders about his outbreak because somehow, I could feel that it was just because he was afraid of this.
We all looked at Patrick now, who was quietly thinking over Doc's offer.
"Come on, Pat; none of us would even be here if it weren't for you," I said. "You're the one who saved these guys. We could really use you here."
"Yeah dude," Matt said, patting his back. "It's just like Doc said, you don't need a Morpher to help us."
"Come on, guys, be realistic" he said. There was a heavy pause, like he was really gonna let an asshole like Jay ruin this opportunity for him. Then he took a heavy breath and said, "You know I'm not gonna pass up a chance to help the Power Rangers! With the Doctor Oliver heading our team? This is a legend in the making! Plus, with Aaron as your White Ranger, you're gonna need someone to bail you out when he screws up."
"Hey!"
For a second, we took the time to laugh at Aaron's expense. Partly because it was hilariously true, and partly because we knew it was Patrick's way of getting better. As unhealthy as that sounded.
And then the whole basement was drown in a chorus of shrieking alarms. The room turned red, and at the front of the Basement, Doc's holo computer screen lit up with a series of separate windows flashing "alert."
"What's going on?!" I yelled over the alarms.
"Looks like your friends are back!" Doc shouted back as he ran to the computer, swiping through the windows to bring up video feeds from the surrounding security cameras. "They're attacking SPD's Department of Technology in Angel Grove."
"Angel Grove? That's like, an hour away! What are we supposed to do?" Amy asked, the alarms finally silencing.
"We're not ready for a fight yet! We don't even know how to use our Morphers," Matt pointed out.
"I can fix that," Doc said. "Stand back."
"What are you gonna do?" Aaron asked, his expression worried.
"The Cyber Morphers have a few perks—one of them is a direct uplink to the Morphing Grid. You can literally download information from your Morphers into your brain, unlocking all the different abilities in each one. In time."
"So…we're like computers now? I am so confused," Jay admitted.
"Your Morphers are. But they are also conscious. They'll act as a middleman between the data uploaded to the hardware, and the chemicals in your brain that form thoughts and images."
"So…it's like a translator?"
"More or less," Doc said as he typed in a few things on the computer. "Alright, stand back."
I gulped as we stood in a row, Patrick, Sanders, and Kevin watching from the sides.
The computer screen flashed as the entirety of it was taken up by a single image. It looked like a downward pointing arrowhead. And then there was an overlay of its flipped image—an upward arrowhead. The two glowed before the lines around them began to blur. It was like I was witnessing the formation of a wormhole right in front of my eyes, like there were particles of light literally bending before me. I felt like I was being sucked into a vortex of stars. But then I realized it was data. Coding. Lines of code that whizzed by in my mind like light speed pockets of information. Just as quickly as it had begun, it stopped.
"Hoooooooooooly shit!"
I had to agree with Matt's sentiments there. Suddenly, I knew Kung Fu. And gymnastics. And ballet. And Tai Chi. And pole-vaulting. And gymnastics. And suddenly, I knew exactly what I needed to do with my Morphers to get to my real powers.
"The uplink is only partial, you're only ready to download so much so soon after bonding with your Morphers. But it should be plenty to take care of these two."
"I hope you're right about this," Amy said.
"You'll be fine," he said, "I promise. I'll monitor everything from right here, and I'll be with you every step of the way."
"So…I guess it's time to morph?" Matt wondered.
"What about our Red Ranger? Don't we need one?" Jay interrupted.
"We don't have time to look for a suitable host, we can handle that tomorrow at school," Doc said. "Now let's hurry up and get you morphed and teleported."
"Teleported? We're teleporting?" I freaked.
"Don't worry, it's safe," Aaron replied.
"How do you know?"
"Uh…"
"Of course it's safe," Doc answered for him. "I've teleported hundreds of times. Now, there are certain rules to morphing." He stepped back to his computer and began typing something in as he laid out the rules for us. "Number one, the Morphers are voice activated. In order to morph you must say 'Execute Download, Cyber Ranger Mode.'"
"Okay, I can get down with that," Matt interrupted. "Sure beats 'It's Morphin' Time!'"
Doc glared at him before he continued pointedly. "Rule number two, the Morphers re-activate by kinetic energy, meaning you absolutely must do the proper movements at first, or you will not morph correctly. Once they've reformatted to your biorhythms, you'll be able to morph without the kinetic energy."
"I've always wondered what the point of all the arm motions were," I mused.
He nodded and pressed something on the computer that brought up a demo. On it stood a 3D male figure. Blank faced and bare, he stood facing us, arms limp. I recognized this stance from anatomy class: it was text-book Anatomic Position.
"Okay, watch the red segments," Doctor Oliver instructed. "This should mirror what was in your uplink."
The diagram's hands flashed red as it twisted them, no doubt activating the Morphers and dispelling the camouflage that usually hid them from plain sight. The words "Execute Download" flashed below him as his mouth moved to match the words.
Next, the diagram twisted up its right arm, forearm facing us as its mouth moved to form the word "Cyber." Then it repeated it with its left arm, this time saying "Ranger." Afterwards, it brought its left forearm to intersect the right. Finally, it mouthed "Mode" as it held its forearms in an X in front of his face, and then threw his arms back to his sides, which I guess ended the morph.
"Wow…we have to do that?" Jay asked.
"Yes," our mentor replied shortly.
"You guys get to look like Cheerleaders," Amy joked.
I laughed, but it was drown out by the sound of the alarm.
"We're running out of time, guys—it's now or never," Aaron said as Doc silenced the alarm again and resumed the live feed of the Aleph Beyt's raid on SPD.
I felt a hot, sticky fear rise up in me, my throat constricting around the bile I tasted. This was it. A battle. And not just a skirmish. A full-on Ranger battle.
"This is it, isn't it?" Matt said quietly.
"We'll be fine," Aaron reassured us.
I smiled meekly at him, but I didn't feel as confident as he seemingly was.
"Ready everybody?" he asked as we began to form a V-formation directly behind him, with him at the vertex.
"Ready," we all said hesitantly.
"Execute Download, Cyber Ranger Mode!" we called out.
It was awful.
"What…was that?" Patrick asked grimly.
"Um…us trying to morph, tool-bag," Jay spat.
"Shut up," Aaron growled.
I twitched an eyebrow slightly at Aaron's defense of Patrick, but I didn't say anything as my Canadian friend volunteered his services.
"You guys had the motions down, your timing was just wrong."
"We have to move at the same time? Why?" Jay asked.
It was Doc who responded. "When morphing with one another, it takes the Morphers less energy to access the Morphing Grid if the link is only opened once instead of multiple different times for each Ranger. Especially since this is your first time."
"Alright then, you guys ready?" Aaron tried again.
"Ready!" we chimed in.
But we weren't.
"You guys," Doctor Oliver interrupted, "once he asks if you're ready, and you say 'ready,' just start. It's like a 1, 2, 3 thing."
We nodded and began again.
"READY?!" Aaron bellowed deeply.
"READY!" we shouted back, militant.
"EXECUTE DOWNLOAD, CYBER RANGER MODE!"
This time, it was perfect.
Everywhere I looked, light surrounded me. Eventually, it faded out, and I found myself transported to another dimension where purple, black, and grey shadows swam around me in a storm of smoky, illusory plumes. Something inside me—some other, ethereal force—kept me calm and collected as I felt something not quite liquid, but too heavy to be air began to writhe up my legs. As I was engulfed in shadow, I closed my eyes, and when I reopened them, I could see my body was coated in a black suit that was much too durable to actually be spandex. I felt invincible! Black flew onto my hands, and on my feet, metallic boots began to clasp on in various ways and colors. My knees became covered by shiny, metal knee-guards, as did my elbows; and along my forearm, curvy techno gauntlets strapped on over my gloves. That same symbol on Doc's Computer, the upside-down arrowhead, burned brightly in the middle of my chest as I felt my helmet materialize. My hair magically flew up into a tight bun on my head, and I squeezed my fists tightly in anticipation. The helmet itself began to cling to my head in multiple plates and layers, more complex than any ranger helmet I'd seen. Surprisingly, though, it left me enough to breathe comfortably. When my visor sealed shut and I felt the helmet lock steadily, I felt secure enough to head-butt the Great Wall of China. And win.
I floated in the unknown rift of my morphing dimension, completely Rangered Up. Suddenly, I felt the power in me maximize as I sprang forward off nothing in particular. I saw shadow energy sweep off my body, as if I left a trail of it whenever I moved, and I quickly reached a comfortable speed before announcing myself. Just because I felt this unconquerable urge to do so.
"PSI BLACK: SHADOW CYBER RANGER!"