I went to meet Devon at the gym like we usually did everyday, only today my arm was in a cast. “Hey Dev!” I greeted happily when I saw him. He was sitting with some people I didn’t recognize.
“Kali! Hey, I wanna introduce you to some new friends…woah, what happened to your arm?” he then asked worriedly.
“Heh, that’s actually a pretty crazy story. First, who are your new friends?”
“Right. Guys, this is my best friend, Kalindi,” Devon introduced.
“Please, call me Kali,” I told them happily.
“Nice to meet you, I’m Zoey!” the girl in a yellow blouse greeted me.
“Hey, I’m Ravi,” the guy in a blue t-shirt said.
“And I’m Nate,” the youngest looking boy with glasses smiled.
“Nice to meet you all too,” I smiled.
“Now, what happened?” Devon then asked as I sat down.
“Well, after you left yesterday, I went to my spot at the plaza to read. After a while people started screaming and running away, so I ran in the opposite direction and to my surprise found a crazy looking motorcycle monster thing. Long story short, I saw the Power Rangers, tried fighting this girl wearing a black and yellow outfit, and got my arm broken in the fight.”
“You met the Power Rangers?” Nate asked a little hesitantly.
“Well…not exactly. More like they saved my butt. Twice.”
“Didn’t they tell you to get to safety?” Zoey then asked.
“Yeah…but one thing about me, as Devon knows, I’m a huge Ranger nerd and I never thought I’d see them, let alone in my own city. Never thought I'd be caught in a fight with bad guys either,” I chuckled. “But the Yellow Ranger told me to check out Grid Battleforce, so that’s where I’m heading today. You guys wanna come?” I then asked.
“Actually, I’m a scientist there. I can help you get in,” Nate smiled.
“Awesome! I'd love to try their battle simulator. I heard it’s pretty tough. I bet I could learn a lot from it,” I said excitedly.
“I don’t know about that, Kali. You might, ya know, need both arms,” Devon mentioned.
“Nah, two arms are overrated. One arm is just fine,” I joked and everyone chuckled lightly, making me smile.
We all hung out and talked for a while. As I got to know them more I began to realize something: two of them must be the other Rangers. I also kind of recognized Zoey’s voice and figured she was the Yellow Ranger. However, I kept all my theories to myself as I know very well how important secret identities are to the Power Rangers. After a couple hours, we all went to Grid Battleforce together. Nate got us in and led us to the lab.
“Wow, I’ve never been in a real lab before. This is cool, Nate! What kinds of things do you do here?” I asked as I looked around, seeing different things of tech, plants, and various chemicals.
“Mostly figuring out how to improve Morph X and what all we can use it for,” Nate replied.
“Morph X?” I asked. Then I remembered that Roxy had told that guy yesterday to take Morph X back to someone named Evox. I brought it up to Nate.
“Hm, that’s not good. Morph X is a great clean energy source, but if it’s in the wrong hands it can be very powerful,” Nate said.
“We should let the Rangers know,” I said casually.
“Next time I see them around, I’ll let them know,” Nate said awkwardly. I noticed Devon shift uncomfortably and everyone else looked around like they’ve never been here. I smiled to myself.
Very smooth, guys. Totally not obvious.
Then, two other people came into the lab, covered in bubbles. They noticed me and smiled. “Oh, a new person! Hi, I’m Betty, and this is my brother, Ben. We work here doing whatever needs to be done,” the girl greeted.
I chuckled. “My name’s Kali. What happened?” I asked.
“We were testing a new cleaning idea we had. We call it…The Bubble Scrubble,” Ben replied, holding up a circular device.
“It looks like it needs some more work,” Ravi commented and everyone laughed. After Nate finished showing us around, we all went outside and hung around for a while, talking and laughing. Afterwards, Devon walked with me back to my parents’ apartment since it wasn’t too far from Grid Battleforce.
“Thanks for walking me back, Dev.”
“No problem, Kali. See you tomorrow?”
“Of course,” I smiled and gave him a hug before going inside.
Time skip
It took a couple weeks for my arm to be healed. I hung out with Devon and our new friends a lot and even watched the Rangers battle the bad guys though I had to force myself to stay hidden. When I finally did get my cast off, I was right back into karate and helping the Rangers. I went back to Grid Battleforce the same day I got my cast off and visited with the Commander.
“Well, we currently don’t have any openings right now but I’ll see what I can do,” she had told me. It’s been a couple days since then and I still haven’t heard anything. It didn’t bother me a whole lot though, since it didn’t stop me from getting involved. Today was no different as I sat in the park, reading my book on the Dino Thunder Rangers when suddenly Roxy and the guy I’d learned was named Blaze appeared. I quickly put my book down and jumped up.
“What do you two want?” I asked, ready for a fight.
“Relax, we just want to talk,” Roxy replied as they approached me. I didn’t let my guard down.
“You have amazing fighting skills. With a little help from Master Evox, you could become stronger and more powerful. No one could stand in your way. Join us, and we’ll take over the Morphing Grid then the world,” Blaze offered.
“You two must be dumber than I thought. There’s no way I’ll ever join you!”
“You’re the one who’s dumber than we thought for passing on this generous offer. Oh well, guess we’ll have to do this the hard way,” Roxy replied nonchalantly. Tronics suddenly appeared and rushed at me. I struggled to hold them all off on my own. They overpowered me, allowing Blaze to cuff my hands and teleport me away with him.
In an instant, I was in a completely different place. The atmosphere was dark and the ground dark red. What seemed to be the ruins of brick buildings were scattered about. “Welcome to the Cyber Dimension. You’d better get used to it, this’ll be your new home from now on,” Blaze said as he dragged me down a path. I tried to fight against his grip but he was too strong, and I was already getting tired.
“Torture me all you want, I’ll never join you!” I told him, and he chuckled.
“Oh we’re not going to torture you, but you’ll join us.”
He brought me to an area with a couple machines. There was a steampunk robot person at a computer and the top half of a holographic green king cobra snake on top of the machine in the center. “Here she is, Evox. Just like I promised,” Blaze said.
“Excellent. Tell me, girl, how would you like to become a Power Ranger?” the snake thing asked me.
“If becoming a Ranger means working for you, then no way! I know there have been evil Rangers before and I won’t be a part of that.”
“Frankly, you have no choice in the matter and the more you struggle, the harder and more painful it’ll be. Scrozzle, is the machine ready?” Blaze asked the steampunk dude.
“I just finished adding the wolf DNA, and we’ve got all the Morph X we need, so yes.”
“Good. Get her in the machine,” Evox ordered. Blaze dragged me over.
“Let me go! It’s not going to work! I’ll never work for you!” I yelled, trying to fight my way out of Blaze’s grip but to no use. He shoved me into the machine and closed the door quickly. I used my shoulder to try to open it, and I tried kicking the walls but nothing worked. The last thing I remembered was being surrounded by green and feeling an overwhelming anger.
—————————
I stepped out of the machine, a new sense of determination to kill the Rangers flooding over me. “Cool colors, very dark,” Roxy said with a smirk. I went over to a cracked glass pane and saw I was the black wolf Ranger. My helmet looked like a wolf head, and there were highlights of dark purple throughout my outfit. I smiled proudly to myself then went back.
“What is your first mission for me, Master Evox?” I asked as I knelt on one knee.
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