Zoe's POV

Confession time, I didn't know what true anger was until I saw my little brother get thrown into a wall like he was a ragdoll. I saw red. I rushed forward at the stupid mutant, with my metal tiger claws bared and ripped off most of the skin on its shoulder. "Leave him alone!" I roared in a fury, as the monster slammed me back a few feet.

At the corner of my eye, I could see Sadie helping Noah to his feet as Piper and Leo came to my aid, blaster and saber drawn. It howled in annoyance whenever our blasters hit its skin, but unlike the Skeiks it didn't fall permanently.

  "Five on one is no fair!" It howled stamping its feet. "Rise little ones and come help Papa!" He shot one of his slimeball things directly at the slime sac, causing a fluid like slime to ooze all over our feet and the leeches to grow heavily. Each one had no face, only a giant toothed mouth sucker thing, along with no arms or legs. Those things could still move around like a deformed caterpillar though. In total there were about 4 leeches along with chief slimeball for us all to do. Sadie hacked at one with her saber, and its soft skin split, squirting slime all over us.

"Zoe!" Piper hollered to me. "Go after that thing, you can fight it the best with your claws, me and the others will handle the junior slimeballs."

I hesitated for a brief moment conflicted about leaving my friends. My heart urged me to stay, while my brain urged me to go. My brain won and I tore after the thing, finding its slimy footprints tracking down the sidewalk of East Street, my brain racing as I did so. What is this thing doing here? I thought as my heeled boots clacked against the concrete sidewalk. Besides chucking people into walls of course and laying leeches. A terrified screech broke me out of my thoughts. One of the employees from the hardware store had been cornered on her way home from work.

"There has to be a better spot to hit than just his skin," I muttered as I charged, tackling the monster down to the floor and away from the hardware store worker. "Get the hell out of here!" I roared to the staring crowd. "This slimeball will kill you all!" That certainly did it, suddenly the people decided screaming and running away flailing their arms was the best option.

"What do you want with my town?" I demanded.

He sneered at me. "How sweet, a brat who thinks she'll get her way!" Then he spat more of those slimeballs at me, and I went tumbling to the ground. "Slime..." I mumbled in realization; hit the fuel and he can't fire. I ran at him with my saber drawn and went for where I assumed his ACL tendon would be. I guessed right and he fell down green slime spewing from his kneecap.

"You useless brat!" He wailed in pain. To finish it off I pushed my claws and like a disgusting balloon it popped slimy water gushing all over me. Then something happened, dark purple lightning started pulsing out of him rapidly, then he grew to more than 10000 feet tall. 

My heart leapt into my throat, just as my team rounded the corner. "Zoe, we got rid of the leeches-" Noah started before he looked up. "What the fuck did you do?"

"Pissed him off...?" Sadie suggested sounding as bewildered as I felt.

"Uh Abby? Little help please!" Lee practically shouted into his morpher.

"Relax cubs, reinforcements are on the way," she murmured back. "I'm sending in your zords, once they arrive, you'll be transported into your respective beast. Over and out."

I looked at them all bewildered. "So, I guess it's time for our first driving lesson," I muttered. "Also did you just call us cubs?" I asked glancing down at the silent morpher.

"Wouldn't I be a chick since I have an ostrich? And Piper a calf?" Sadie questioned aloud.

"Guys not the time," Piper muttered.

"Good thing reinforcements have arrived!" Laughed Leon pointing to the end of the street. "Look!"

Lumbering over the hills I saw five massive metal animals. They all came galloping at us with metal limbs the size of semi-trucks. An elephant, ostrich, gorilla, rhino, and tiger, exactly like the story had said. I smirked. "Let's see what this slimeball thinks of these!" I shouted as I got beamed up by a red light and was transported into my zord. I sat in one of those fun swivel gaming chairs, and a large rectangular data base. Flashing red and yellow buttons immediately got my attention. "Now this is cool," I muttered carefully pushing what I assumed was the forward button. The entire thing was sort of like my old DS that I used to play Pokémon on, the cross pad made my character go different directions, while the button to the right of it made a leap. Under the leap button was one I didn't recognize so I decided not to press in case this zord had a self-destruct button or anything crazy like that.

"Uh guys?" Came Leo's confused voice through a speaker. "You all there?"

"Yup."

"All set."

"Zord is up and running."

"Yeah."

"We're all here Leo. Is there a problem?" I asked over the speaker.

"Two actually. One I don't know how I'm supposed to control this thing. Two slimeball is back for round two. "

"Dude come on, it's like a DS. Y'know like the ultimate childhood game council," Noah exclaimed sounding slightly offended, which I couldn't blame him for.

"Nah, I played the XBOX, that was the ultimate game system."

I snorted. "Boys, monster now, talk later."  They grumbled but obeyed none the less. I pushed the forward button and my zord broke into a run charging down the slimeball, quite messily I collided with its side and sent both myself and the tiger zord skidding, thankfully like my suit this thing came equipped with claws, claws that could dig into the concrete and push itself into a stop. "Careful guys! These controls are finicky!" I muttered as I struggled to get my zord back onto its feet.

"Don't worry I got it!" Noah's gorilla zord charged on all fours and firmly leapt up to koala hug the monster, slamming its fists into its head over and over again, until it got shaken off.

"Stupid brats!" Screeched the monster stamping its foot so badly, a nearby building tumbled down and would have crushed the ostrich zord, had Noah not leapt in and grabbed it carefully placing it off to the side.

"Thanks Noah! But now it's my turn. Launching rockets!"

"Did she just say rockets?"

Turns out she had and the ostrich zords wings lifted themselves up, so that twin rockets could launch from underneath and hit the monster down for good.

"Wooh!"

"Nice work y'all."

"Not bad for first time rangers, eh?"

I smiled at my friend's victory comments before a voice expelled itself from the zord. "Mutant terminated. Initiating autopilot."

My zord along with all of the others broke into a smooth gallop all heading back in the direction they came from. Carefully we were teleported once again, except this time we landed back in the Beast Cave. "Rangers! Your back!" Abby greeted us happily. "Glad to see you're not dead!"

I grinned. "Yeah, I'm pretty glad about that too. Power down." I said flashing two fingers in front of my chest and with a burst of red light my suit disintegrated.

"Ok today was insane," Sadie muttered. "My dad just might kill me if he finds out I just killed a walking gumball-slime thing."

"You can't tell him," Abby said immediately. "For the safety of your families your identities need to remain a secret. Sure, I can edit you morphing out of security cameras, but I cannot control what you say at home."

Inwardly I cringed, knowing that guilt was building in both me and Noah. We had always been close with our parents and rarely had secrets from them. I mean sure we lied about a test every once and a while, but never anything this well...big! A bad math grade was one thing but lying about being a next generation of power ranges was a whole nother. Noah glanced over at me, and I saw my same anxiety reflected in his eyes, despite it I managed to nod at Abby in agreement.

Just then my phone vibrated in my pocket, a text from my mom. "Shit were late!" How was it already past 6:30? "Mom is going to kill me, I told her my shift ended at 5." Quickly I messaged her back saying Noah had football thing and I had to work an extra shift. A couple seconds later I got a text back that she could pick us up.

"You all should be getting going, you all have to be exhausted."  Abby murmured, "I expect to see you all after school." She stated. "Now go."

Me and the others blinked at the rather blunt dismissal but obeyed none the less. We quietly crammed into the elevator, except unlike before we were comfortable with each other and talked amongst ourselves.

"Well today was certainly something," murmured Sadie, more so to herself than the rest of us.

Noah snorted. "Something? That's an understand."

She shrugged. "Eh I think that's just what someone who doesn't like a good adventure says."

Noah flushed a furious shade of red. "I like adventure!" He defended himself and I heard some of the others snickering. "Just if we have a plan first!"

Sadie laughed. "Then it's not an adventure."

Noah gaped and tried to think of something else to say, but as he opened his mouth nothing came out. "Er...oh never mind. Next time I'm talking to the gorilla."

The elevator doors open, and we all headed out to go our separate ways. "See you tomorrow, Pipes," I call to my best friend as she headed towards the gate, probably where her driver was waiting, smiling as she waved back at me.

Turning I went and sat with Noah on a nearby bench as we waited for mom to get here. He was sitting with his chin on his knees and eyes watching the fluffy clouds waft by. We'd always been lucky to live in Vermont. Beautiful skies and trails, along with not a lot of people. Sure, it wasn't for everyone, but it was perfect for my family. Give any of us a small town over a big city any day of the week.  "She's pretty you know," I teased him gently, elbowing his side.

"Yeah, I know," he said with a playful sigh. "Day one of being a ranger: i go for the ginger."

"Oh, quit acting like you're going to the funeral of the ginger."

He looked up at me and suddenly his brown eyes made him look like he was ten years old again. "You know that's possible now, right? That we'll be the ones who need funerals."

I drummed my hands on the bench. "Yeah, but everyone gets a funeral eventually, it's not like we can cheat death."

"And? You think I'm looking to speed up the process? Well, if so, you'd be dead wrong, unlike you I'm actually somewhat mentally stable."

I snorted and rolled my eyes, smirking as mom pulled up. "Yeah, yeah whatever you got to tell yourself, now come on."

Before we could even get the car, mom was out and yanking us against her chest, smothering our heads with kisses. I felt her sigh in relief as she nuzzled the tops of our heads. "Thank goodness," mom whispered, nudging our heads up so that we could meet her eyes. "You have no idea how worried I've been."

I looked curiously over at Noah, from under my mom's firm embrace. "Why what's wrong?" I asked, deciding to play the cards innocent.

"The news said a monster attacked some people, right on the street you both take home! And then on top of that you both didn't text me or your father that you would be out for longer." She said in a scolding, but mostly relieved manner.

I looked up at her. "Monster? I don't know what you're talking about, I've been at work and Noah just walked over from football practice."

She sighed and shook her head. "C'mon into the van, I'll show you when we get home."

I looked at Noah curiously, who shrugged before climbing into shotgun, leaving me in the backseat.

As we got home, I smelled freshly baked pizza, something my dad had gotten especially good at making after mom taught him. He looked up from the hot oven as we entered. "Hey guys how were school?" He questioned putting the previously cold pizza onto the table and setting a gallon of milk down beside it.

Noah shrugged. "I mean it is school, it can only be so entertaining."

"Oh, come on, what about football, how'd you do?" Dad asked eager for more details.

I shot Noah a look, knowing damn well he hadn't been there. But to my surprise he managed to play it off pretty well. "Conditioning stuff mostly, I thought I kept up ok. Then again the season just started so I'm not exactly perfect."

"I'm sure you did wonderful," my mom chips in, always the kindest. "Now come on, dinner." She said taking a seat.

Eagerly me and Noah wasted no time stuffing our face with our favorite pizza: cheese, green olives, banana peppers, and black olives.

My dad looked at us in disgust. "How can you eat that?" He asked with a shudder, as he took a bite out of boring cheese pizza.

"It's delicious!" Both of us replied at the same time, mouths stuffed with pizza.

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah sure. Babe, you mind passing the remote, I wanted to look on the news."

"Yeah sure. Zoe, Noah, this is what I meant earlier," she stated as she passed it over to dad.

Dad quickly flicked it to Chanel 19 news, hosted by Maverick Chadmin. "Breaking news, chaos breaks over this once peaceful town." A clip was shown of the slime-ball, firing off balls of goo at innocent people at the park. "This monster our creature wreaked havoc on Briarwood, until we saw the rise of something new, but something old. Here is Maria Montana on the scene." The news report cut out and flashed to the wrecked park, where a news lady stood in front of the now roped off area as cops searched for any traces.

"Thanks, Chadmin, now tonight we witnessed the rise of something we thought we were done with, Power Rangers. In a shocking turn of events, five rangers came rushing in to evacuate civilians and deal with the threat, here's a clip caught on camera by a local civilian."

A bad quality camera played a foggy video, showing me and the others attempting to rip through the Skeiks. "Woah..." I muttered, before glancing at my mom and dad. "When did this all happen?" I asked trying to keep them off my trail.

"About 5:30 was when the video got recorded, but apparently someone said they were there earlier." My dad responded, helping himself to more milk.

"Wait but what did Chadmin mean by "old and new", Noah asked, which to be honest I was wondering the same thing.

"Listen and maybe you'll find out," my mom hushed us both.

"Now unlike most towns this actually makes Briarwood second set of power rangers, as in 2006-2007 we saw the rise of Power Rangers Mystic force, however they have not been seen in almost 15 years, so it was a very big surprise to see a different team rise up from their ashes. None the less the civilians are grateful for these unlikely heroes who risked it all to protect them."

The camera switches and were given a view of the mother and toddler Lee saved. The mom is bawling her eyes out with snot dripping down her face. "I-I'm just so grateful he was there. Without him my daughter would've never lived anything close to a full life."

Chadmin nods as the camera pans back to him. "However, there is still so much to be discovered about both the Mystic Force and this new team that has emerged, so tune in tomorrow." The credits start to roll down the screen, before some cheesy reality tv show takes its place.

"..."

"Well?" I demand turning to my mom. "You live here! You have to know something about the Mystic Force!" I practically demand, who knows, maybe we could stir these guys into action and let them give us a hand if they were still around.

"Don't I live here too?" My dad asked with a snort sounding a bit offended.

"Don't be dramatic you only lived here for some of your life." He rolled his eyes and ignored my remark, before going back to his pizza.

"I mean I don't know..." my mom started, sawing off a bite of pizza. "I was attending community college and working at Rockporium. They just swung in once or twice a week and after time we all just got used to it," she finished with a shrug, as she ate the pizza, finishing off her dinner. "Now do you to have any homework?"

"Nah we finished it in study hall, all that weird 'get to know you' worksheet stuff. You know how boring it is to answer what my favorite color is three times in a row?"

"We've all been their champ," my dad said ruffling his hair before helping the three of us clear the table.

The night ended with the four of us just being lazy together, watching Captain America, brushing our teeth and then going to sleep. But as I laid in bed, I wondered what would happen to the sixteen-year-old power rangers, who rested in this house.