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Twice Chosen
"Power Rangers?" Peeta repeated in confusion, breaking me out of my own current contemplation.
"Is that some Career thing?" Thresh looked over at Glimmer.
"Do I look like I know more about any of this crap than you do?" Glimmer protested. "Seriously, I'm not out to get you guys-!"
"This is the Games, One; you're all out to get me-"
"I don't think that really matters right now-!" Peeta tried to cut in.
"Hey!" Foxface yelled, waving her hands urgently as she indicated the strange golden energy cloud thing in the middle of the room. When I looked at it closely, there seemed to be a kind of spherical shape at the heart of the 'cloud', with gold and green energy 'leaking' from it as though it was damaged in some way, and it was just possible to see some kind of image in the middle of it. "Uh, question?"
"Yes?" Zordon and Alpha looked at her curiously.
"If I'm right, this sphere… it's talking about the history of those 'Power Rangers', right?" the small redhead asked, looking at the sphere with a thoughtful expression, which was currently showing five figures in some kind of armour. "They were a team that… protected life? And life was some kind of… bright light? Or a piece of light?"
"Yes," Zordon said, the giant head sounding approving of the other girl's assessment. "It is called the Zeo Crystal."
"I love this part," Alpha said, the sphere now showing a glowing crystal of some sort.
"And every planet in the universe that has life, has a piece of the Crystal buried inside it."
"Every planet?" Glimmer repeated in surprise, as the energy showed a round form that reminded me of an image of Earth I'd seen in an old geography book in school. "How does that work?"
"A story for another time," Zordon said solemnly.
"What's important is that, sixty-five million years ago, Zordon's team died defending Earth's fragment of the Crystal, not too far from here," Alpha cut in urgently.
"The coins have chosen you five," Zordon explained solemnly. "Now you must protect the Zeo Crystal and life on Earth."
"Because we're these… 'Power Rangers'?" Thresh said sceptically as he held up his own coin. "Just because 'the coins chose us'? You're seriously relying on these to pick your fighters?"
"The Power Coins are manifestations of the energy of the Morphing Grid, the energy that gave all Rangers their abilities," Zordon explained. "The Grid itself is what chooses the Rangers; the Coins are merely the Grid's power making itself known in our plane of existence-"
"OK, seriously, is this some kind of joke?" Glimmer cut in with an incredulous stare. "You want us to protect some magic rock that gave life to this planet with 'coins' that give us this freaky strength boost? I've been caught in an earthquake, I've got water in my boots, and I've got a goddamn wedgie from where-"
"More than we needed to know, Glim," Foxface cut her off with a teasing grin, before she looked at Zordon with a more respectful manner. "But… look, no offence, but she's got a point; you seriously want us to save this planet? Do you even know what we were doing when your coins dragged us into this cave?"
"What you were doing before does not matter," Zordon replied. "What matters is this."
There was a strange… I could only think of it as a pulse of energy, and suddenly I was floating in the air, the other five suspended around the room-
I was in my bed back in District Twelve, looking up at my ceiling before I stood up. Drawn by some unexplained instinct, I headed for the door, and found myself looking out at the main street of my home District, strangely deserted of people.
I was standing in the middle of the street, my house had vanished, and I heard a voice whispering an unfamiliar word, before I saw another figure at the other end of the street-
Some kind of dark cloud erupted from the other end of the street, tainted with green energy, and suddenly the figure was standing in front of me, revealing an older woman with dark hair and ragged black dress, faint lines on her skin like some Capitol make-up that hadn't worked out properly-
People were suddenly standing around me- not people, they were bald statues, reeling backwards from something- everything around me had turned grey and there was some kind of intense wind- there were screams from all around me- the woman was holding a golden staff topped with some kind of glowing green object-
The woman placed a hand on my chest and I suddenly felt as though I hadn't washed or eaten in days- I felt starved and my skin felt like it was about to come apart the next time I moved- I tried to get away from the woman, but the 'statues' around me collapsed into dust the moment I touched them as I staggered back-
I heard a terrified scream and found myself back in the chamber, but when I looked around to find the source of the scream, I was slightly relieved to find that it was only Rue, curled up in a corner; she might be afraid, but at least she wasn't hurt as far as I could see. I quickly ran over to give her a reassuring hug, even as the other four Tributes got back to their feet and staggered around the room in shock; I vaguely heard Alpha say something, but my priority right now was calming Rue rather than listening to the strange metal man.
"Wh… what the Hell was that?" Thresh glared up at the face on the wall.
"Why-why would you show us that… nightmare?" Peeta asked, actually looking like he was fighting the urge to fall over in terror as he leant against one of the panels.
"It's not a nightmare," Zordon replied. "If you do not take action, that will be the future,"
"Who… who was that woman?" Foxface asked, which at least suggested the others had seen what I'd seen.
"Her name is Rita Repulsa," Zordon answered. "She will create Goldar, a huge monster who will rip the crystal from the earth, and all life on your planet will die. With the Crystal, Rita will have the power to create and destroy worlds."
"So let me guess; you want us to kill this Rita woman first?" Glimmer asked, shaking her head with a grim smile. "Well, at least something hasn't changed…"
"She must be stopped," Zordon said firmly.
"When's she coming?" Foxface asked.
"She's already here," Alpha said, waving his arms as he spoke. "My best guess is that we have eleven months… sorry, days; eleven days."
I cursed under my breath at that news; as though getting into the Games hadn't been bad enough, now I had to deal with a threat like that?
"OK," Glimmer raised a hand. "If I'm following you, as we're Power Rangers… this is basically our ship now, right?"
"Essentially."
"So if I walk through that door right now, it'll open?"
"Yes, of course."
"Right," Glimmer turned around and walked through the now-open door despite Alpha's tentative protests. Thresh scowled briefly, but took Rue by the hand and followed Glimmer, with Peeta and Foxface exchanging uncertain glances before going after them. I took a deep breath and looked uncertainly between the door and the large face on the wall before I moved to follow them-
"Katniss," Zordon's voice said suddenly, "My Ranger team died defending the Crystal from Rita. That's why I'm in this wall."
"How do you know my name?" I looked sharply at the face and the robot; I wasn't going to question exactly how I was talking to a man who was apparently dead until I'd worked out what I was actually going to do about all this.
"Because it's you, Katniss Everdeen," Zordon said solemnly. "You are the leader. You are the Red Ranger."
"…What?" I looked at the wall in shock as I pulled the coin out of my pocket and held it up. "You mean I'm- just because this thing-?"
"Each Coin is attuned to particular personality types; blue for intelligence, black for raw power, yellow for balance and pink for compassion," Alpha put in.
"And… red for the leader?" I looked sceptically at the little robot even as I lowered my hand.
"Precisely," Alpha nodded.
"And you just accept that?" I asked, pocketing the coin and looking between the robot and the face. "You don't even know anything about us-!"
"As I previously mentioned, the energy of the morphing grid draws in and responds to particular people; there's a reason you and the others were the ones who found the coins," Alpha explained. "Each coin chose you, and here you are."
"But we can't just- we have families-!" I protested, even as I knew that argument was relatively weak when everyone else would basically believe we were dead already.
"I understand your concerns, Katniss," Zordon said. "I was chosen to become a Ranger when I was only somewhat older you, relatively speaking, but I had been raised in a culture that understood the duty and honour of such a calling… and have now been separated from my family for good because of that duty. The threat you now face in Rita…"
Despite only having a face to express himself, if Zordon had a body I was sure he would slumped down in a chair from the weight of what he was talking about. "She was once a Ranger herself, and even my friend, before she betrayed us in a quest for more power."
Turning around, I saw a figure in red armour in the middle of the golden cloud, before the scene shifted to show a female figure in green, standing in an authoritative manner that put me uncomfortably in mind of President Snow.
"She lost her way, and now she is just pure evil," Zordon finished. "I cannot explain what drove her to fall so far; all I can do is react and do my best to stop what she has become… which requires you all to take action."
"I… I'm sorry," I looked at the wall, struck by the pain on the giant expression even if I still felt uncertain about my own place in this mess.
"I already failed to stop her once," Zordon continued. "I regret that failure, but now, if you wish to protect your own families, you must bring back all of the Rangers and train your team to stop Rita… before she has the strength to find the Crystal."
"…Seriously?" I looked at Zordon incredulously, my sympathy forgotten in face of incredulity at this order. "I can barely take care of my mom and my sister, and now you want me to lead people to save the world?"
"The coin would not have chosen you if you were not capable of it-"
"I need more than just the insight of something I didn't even know existed before now-!"
"I recognise that I am putting a great deal on you all, but the fact is that there is no choice," Zordon cut me off, frustration in his voice before he seemed to calm himself. "I wish that we had the time for me to acknowledge your concerns and take them into account, but the fact remains that Rita will come whether you are willing to fight her or not; all you can do at this moment is choose if you meet her head-on or hide from your duty and let everything you know die."
As much as I hated to acknowledge it, Zordon had a point. If Rita was as dangerous as he suggested she was, she was going to come for the rest of Panem and that 'Zeo Crystal' thing he had told us about whether there was anyone ready to fight her or not. I might not like the idea of being forced into another fight, but at least this time around it was a fight where I appeared to have more options than just 'kill everyone else and be the last one standing' if I wanted to get out myself…
As I walked out of the ship, I was relieved to find the rest of the group still standing around the cave under the pool; whether they'd been waiting for me or were just all debating their next move, I didn't know, but at least it made it easier for me to talk with them now.
"Uh… glad you're all here?" I said at last, before I decided to bite the bullet and looked over at Foxface. "Please, don't… take this the wrong way, but… what is your name?"
"Olivia," the now-former Foxface said with a brief shrug. "But you can call me Liv."
"Liv?" Rue repeated.
"As in 'Livewire'," the redhead explained. "Parents were a bit old-fashioned when they chose my name, so I prefer Liv."
"It works," Thresh smiled briefly at her.
"Thanks," I nodded at the now-named Liv, before I turned to look around the cave with a solemn expression, still amazed that I was doing this to a group of people I had been preparing myself to kill less than an hour ago. "OK, I get that… well, none of us exactly knew each other before we found that cave, and we definitely weren't expecting anything like this to happen…"
"Damn straight we weren't expecting anything like this; let's just get out of this pool and-"
"And then what?" I cut Glimmer off. "We go back to just… trying to kill each other in the Games?"
"Hey, at least we know what we're doing there-!"
"And what about Alpha?" Rue asked, her expression suddenly tentative.
"Alpha?" Glimmer repeated incredulously. "Listen, kid, the little guy said he's been here for millions of years; I think he's old enough to take care of himself-"
"When nobody knew he was here to bother about," Peeta put in with a tentative expression on his face. "If we go out there, the moment the cameras see us, people are going to start wondering what happened to turn our trackers off, which means they'll come to this cave, which means they'll find Zordon and Alpha, which means…
"Which means all the stuff back there ends up in the Capitol's hands," Thresh finished, looking back at the ship with a sigh. "Damnit…"
"This just got complicated, didn't it?" Liv observed as she looked at Glimmer with a brief smile. "Wherever we came from, I think we're all agreed that letting anyone up there get their hands on this ship isn't a good thing?"
"And that's before you start wondering about how these Coins affected us," Peeta added as he held up his. "We've already seen that they made us stronger; what happens if someone realises what's happened and tries to… well, copy it?"
"Zordon said that the coins chose you; it sounded like nobody else can use them-" Rue put in.
"And you really think anyone up there's going to just accept that?" Thresh disdainfully indicated the ceiling as he pulled out his own. "I'm not even sure I'm happy about this; why do I get the black coin?"
"From what Zordon said, it's more of a… well, it's not just a racial thing," I said awkwardly; life in District Twelve was rough enough that skin colour was never a bit deal, but I recognised that it was still a delicate issue for some people. "He and Alpha explained that these coins are all drawn to certain… personality types or something like that; you got the black coin because you're the best of us in terms of raw power or something like that, just like… Liv… was chosen by the blue coin because she's the smartest."
"I am?" Liv grinned, looking at her coin with a new sense of appreciation. "Hey, how about that?"
"Yeah, yeah, we're colour-coded freaks; big whoop," Glimmer groaned. "Look, are we really going to believe that Rita crap?"
"Why not?" Rue asked, shivering slightly as she looked back at the ship. "And even if it's not… isn't it nicer down here than up there?"
"Nicer?" Glimmer looked at the little girl incredulously. "In some dark cave with a weird-looking robot and a face on the wall-?"
"That don't want me to die in the next couple of weeks."
"…Gotta admit, that's a point," Thresh nodded. "I mean, sounds like we'll be going up against some steep odds if the big Z's telling the truth, but at least we don't have to kill each other to last that long."
"Yeah, but… we're training to kill someone-"
"Who's willing to do all that… black cloud of death stuff to the whole planet," Liv cut Peeta off. "I'm not saying it's better, but we already know that there's more going on here than the Games; if Zordon and Alpha just wanted us dead, they could have just left things alone."
"Point…" Peeta nodded tentatively at Liv before looking back at me. "So… we're going to do this?"
"You're all free to do what you want," I said, deciding to just cut to the chase. "But as for me… I don't know if I could have won the Games or not, but right now, it looks like Rita is the only thing directly standing between me and getting back to my family… so if I have to fight her to do that, I'll be staying here. The rest of you… you can do what you want."
I'd never been in a situation like this before, but as I stood in that stone cavern and looked around at the five people I'd been planning to kill barely an hour ago, I was surprised to find myself smiling as they all tentatively nodded at me in agreement.
I didn't know if I was ready to actually lead these people into anything, but at least I knew I wouldn't be alone in… whatever Zordon wanted us to do.