Leo POV:

"Ugh what the hell?" I slurred as I managed to wake up, by head pounding like I'd be tackled fifty times in one game quarter. My body was just barely fitting on the cot it had been placed onto, and I realized with a start that I was shirtless, fresh bruises littering across my broad chest. I carefully examined the black and blue markings and holy shit did they hurt. I mean I played football but these somehow ached ten times worse.

With a shiver I tried to curl into the thin sheet that was covering me. Then I looked around. Zoe and Noah both laid dead asleep on the other side of the room, their hair was disheveled and spiked up in every place it could. On either side of me Sadie and Piper laid, Sadie on my left and Piper on my right. "Sadie," I whispered gently shaking her arm. "Come on wake up, I think we got kidnapped."

"Leo what?" She groans her eyes finally opening. Then they went wide. "Oh, shit you might be right."

I looked around nervously. "What do we do?" I whispered. "My phone is in my backpack, and even if I had its dead."

Sadie cursed under her breath. She opened up her mouth to reply before their was footsteps approaching, fast. Both of us did the first thing that came to mind: we played dead. I let my head fall back onto the pillow with a heavy thump and sealed my eyes shut as quickly as possible, I hoped Sadie had done the same.

I felt a presence beside my brushing against my side, cautiously I opened one of my eyes the slightest, to see a tall woman in a doctors coat reaching out to grab Sadie.

Every sense of peace keeping lost my brain and I lunged upwards. "What the-" the woman started, before I grabbed her by the wrists and shoved her roughly against the wall.

"Back the hell off!" I snarled, just as Sadie sat up her eyes wide. The woman in my hold flinched and tried to break away but she couldn't. "You kidnapped us!" I snapped, "now tell me why!" I demanded my entire body trembling in rage.

"Leo that's enough!" Shouted Sadie, slamming her shoulder into mine. I grunted and allowed my hold to break not willing to hurt my best friend. "Are you alright ma'am?" She asked kneeling down by the woman. "I'm sorry about my friend, but in his defense he did wake up in a very creepy lab like room after seeing you before he passed out." She trailed off, then stepped back as though finally realizing getting that close to a potential kidnapper could be just slightly dangerous.

My chest was heaving as I struggled to calm myself down. "I-I'm sorry Sadie, it's just I thought she was gonna hurt you and I couldn't let that happen." At this point I started to feel a bit sick, the feeling only worsening as I saw my friends were awake and staring at me with nervous disbelief.

Noah and Zoe were standing next to each other in a protective manner, each of them wanting to protect their other half. Piper was glancing around eyes sharp, but glittering with confusion. "Where are we?" Asked Zoe eyes wide and for the first time I took a minute to look around the room.

The area appeared to be an infirmary of some kind modeled like every other hospital. Plain brick walls painted white, a heavy scent of cleaning chemicals hanging in the air, and several trays filled with an assortment of bandages, antiseptics, and medical instruments. The rest of the space was crowded with about twelve white cots, ours being the only ones with their sheets and blankets disrupted.

It took me a moment to realize what lied past the little room was what made the building so strange. The main room was shaped like an octagon with walls made up of a silver metallic grey material, a huge table, also an octagon, laid in the middle of the room, with several complicated looking maps and program tabs open. Once every two sides of the octagon a large opening would appear and lead into a smaller room with hallways attached to them. But the strangest things were the tubes. The laid into the wall, with it being slightly rounded to accommodate its cylinder shape. There were eight of them touching the ground, while four more hung sideways, appearing to be riveted into the wall. Each one contained a multicolored liquid, purple, red, green, pink, black and many more colors swirled in the large tubes. My eyes followed the colors the slight swirling motion transfixing my attention, it seemed the others were in similar states. Zoe was the one who broke out of it.

"Why did you take us here?" She demanded to know, eyes seeming to turn into chips of blue-green ice. Any friendliness she'd had had disappeared and turned into a wary aggression.

Abby raised an eyebrow. "Watch your mouth cub. I'll explain in a moment."

"Cub?" Echoed Piper in confusion. "Zoe is human, I'd think a vet could figure that out."

Abby sighed and shook her head. "You are all so uneducated it really is a shame."

"Uh I actually had a 92% last year-" I started only to be cut off.

"Not that type of educated." She paused, weighing her words carefully. "You kids are different. A lot different."

My eyes narrowed. "That's what everyone's parents told them when they were little to try and boost their self-esteem." Zoe muttered rolling her eyes.

"Watch your mouth girl." Abby snapped at her. "All of you follow me." I exchanged a hesitant look with Sadie, she nodded at me reassuringly. We followed her all of taking a place around the table. Underneath my hands laid a green computer screen, the image of a charging rhino marking the left side and the others containing various paragraphs of information. "Listen, what I'm about to say will change your lives forever, however it is critical that you know who you truly are."

I nervously cracked my knuckles and rolled my shoulders. I looked over at the others, some looked dubious, whilst others were curious.

"Look I don't need people to tell me who I am. I am Zoe Kimberly Russell, daughter of Nicolas Bowen Russell and Maddison Rose Russell. I am a student and now an employee at your workplace. So I think I know damn well who I am, and I am the only one who can answer that question."

Noah stared at his sibling wide eyed, but nodded in agreement. I had to say that I was in favor of what she said, after it all it was true, Piper gave an appreciative smirk, clearly she was supporting her friend in this.

Abby made a face I had never scene, true emotions difficult to tell. "Given that I'm not one, to not give praise when it's due, I applaud your little speech. Your an intriguing young woman Zoe Jade Russell." She commented, causing a a soft red dusting to appear over Zoe's cheeks. "Anyways, you kids were attacked today correct?"

"Yeah," I replied. "It was at the hardware store and it was this weird looking slimeball thing. It was really gross looking and had green skin." I explained my bruises starting to throb as I remembered the blasts

"And then it did this blast thing that knocked us all out." Added on Noah. "But before it did it was saying something about us being 'marked'?"

"And then you and Zoe did the thingy with your arms and made those lines!" Chimed in Sadie.

Abby frowned. "Hmm not one I've faced."

"Wait you've fought these freaks?" Asked Zoe her eyes widening.

Abby took in a deep breath. "Yes. Because I am a power ranger."

An eerie silence followed the words. Power rangers seemed ok, I mean every few years a new team would emerge, last time one had was about a year or so ago, and they were the Samurai power rangers. But still it all seemed so weird, you choose some teenagers over military or police forces? It just didn't make sense to me.

"Prove it." Zoe demanded, staring at her intensely.

Abby hesitated for the first time, pondering this briefly. Then she sighed. "I suppose it would be the most efficient way to make you believe me." She carefully rolled her sleeve up and exposed deep purple veins running all the way up her left arm, the veins all centering around the middle part of her lower arm. "Abigail Swan, the giraffe, purple Savannah Beast ranger in front of you."

"Y-you've got them too!?" Noah practically shouted, flailing his arms in the air and in doing so causing one of his sweatshirt sleeves to fall down, and just like Abby he too had the veins, except his were a stunning sapphire blue.

"Well, this can't be good." Muttered Zoe, allowing her own ruby red veins to be exposed. 

Automatically my senses were on alert, this whole situation was starting to freak me out, and to be honesty I was slightly tempted to bolt, except I had no idea where the exit was. "Ok but how exactly did I get involved with all of this? I don't have the whole rainbow vein thing going on."

"I suppose the only way to tell this event properly is to tell it from the beginning." As she spoke holograms projected from the center of the table, showing what she was speaking about. "Long ago the world was never as diverse as we know it now. Instead of deserts, forests, and tundra, there was only one thing: an endless savannah, that stretched across all but the oceans. Life was relatively peaceful for all who resided there, plenty of water to drink and animals to hunt. Except for one thing, the darkness. Two of the most dastardly villains to ever live emerged, King Zion and his newly wed, Queen Ziona. For hundreds of years they and their soldiers, Skeiks, pillaged villages, burnt crops, and chased off thousands of innocent men and women. Thousands were forced into the woods, for years they lived in fear of not only the Skeiks and their masters, but also of the hungry animals that lived in the woods. Soon however the village befriended several of the animals and gave them food, in exchange the five animals would protect them from the hoards of Skeiks. The animals were a tiger, rhino, ostrich, elephant, and gorilla and their may have been several more. In time they gave them names. Kodo the gorilla, Tika the ostrich, Noro the elephant, Chukaro  the Rhino, and.." she hesitated briefly on the last one. "Amira  the tiger."

This seemed to finally break Zoe's back. She spluttered no words managing to form and looked a little bit green in the face. "No, no, no! Hell no, you can't be telling me that I was petting some mystical ass, thousand year old tiger this morning! I mean you can, but I just won't want to believe it." At this point I'm pretty sure me and the whole room were ready to puke our guts up from shock.

"I'm sorry to say it Zoe but yes. Eventually the animals grew tired of watching their friends be killed and decided to fight back. And miraculously they won. With the help of some very smart friends the animals were able to block off the entrance to underworld. But something went wrong in the fight all of the animals lost their powers, they all lived of course, but their powers were stored into the beast gems, aka the things in your wrist. And with their jobs done, the animals split up all over the world, willing to return once they were needed. However, that monster that you saw today, he was one of the king and queens, evil is rising again and it seems you five will be the one to stop it. Are you up to the challenge?"

"Yes," Zoe responded immediately and confidently.

"Doesn't look like I have much choice now does it?' Noah asked sarcastically. "But yeah I'm in."

"Hold up a minute. While I do believe all of this is true, its not like all of us have a beast gem." Stated Piper, "so I'm not sure how we can help?"

Abby smiled at her. "Follow me." Exchanging a hesitant look with Sadie I did as I was told, following Abby to one of the doorways in the room, where an elevator waited. We all packed ourselves in, crammed together like sardines in a tin. As the elevator went up Abby spoke again. "You see, I along with Mr. Dean, yes your teacher." She confirmed when she saw our wide eyes. "Have managed to find several of the animals and seeing as you were all attacked by mutants belonging to Zion and Ziona and two of you are already marked, it seems like the only logical solution to introduce you all."

"But how do we know those mutants were from Zion and Ziona?" Questioned Zoe.

"Well logically the underworld is full of plenty of mutants and most of them aren't brainless. So, they follow Zion and Ziona because they crave certain things. Power, respect, land, control. You wouldn't go against someone powerful like that would you?" She asked. causing Zoe to shake her head.

"That just seems like a funner way to get yourself killed," she shrugged. Her grammar made Abby frown, but nod regardless.

"So maybe some of them are just afraid?" Suggested Sadie causing me to look up. It was the first time she'd spoken in a while and her eyes were timid, barely meeting Abby's.

"That's an interesting theory Sadie," murmured Abby. "But unfortunately, I doubt that's the case, if it was it could certainly save a lot of bloodshed."

The beeping of the elevator door startled us all out of conversation. Swiftly Abby led us into the clinic, and through a curtain at the end of a hallway. Somehow the scent of hay and animal fur was strangely comforting. One by one I witnessed the others enter into a door, Zoe walking with some confidence in her stride, as though she trusted this tiger not to rip her leg off.  Slowly I approached the door Abby had told me was mine. When I entered the room, I was greeted with waste high grass, thick bushes and brambles, and walls that were painted to imitate an African sunset. Thick hoofprints made me look down, they were giant and bigger than most of the plates my mom used for dinner.  A ruffling in the thick vegetation made me look up, and slowly but surely a large,  sleek, shiny, curved horn would appear. Soon after the massive mottled grey hide of a rhinoceros would emerge

He was a magnificent beast, waying at least 4,000 lbs and his dark black eyes watched my every movement. He huffed impatiently and hoofed at the ground. as though telling me to hurry it up.

I scratched the back of my head, unsure how one started a conversation with a rhino that didn't speak my language. "Uh heyyyy," I greeted him. I put a hand to my chest. "I'm Leo and I'm guessing your Chuckaro," hesitantly I extended my hand. Warm breath met the palm of my hand, and I felt a thick tongue poking it experimentally. It was just then I realized how much he relied on his other senses rather than sight, for his eyes were very cloudy, and seemed to be almost unseeing. I gave his cheek a gentle rub, admitting a soft rumble of delight from him. Around his horn there was a soft bracelet looking thing. It was quite simple just soft leather and then a silver lined circle in the middle, where there rested a gem. I inhaled sharpy. "Guess that's what I'm here for," continuing to rub his cheek, I gently reached out and pulled the gem. Emerald green was the color this time and like the others a blazing amount of heat flashed through my body before the gem glowed gently. "Your actually not bad dude," I murmur giving Chuckaro one last rub before I exit the hallway where the others are waiting.

Sadie glanced up at my return looking rather frazzled. with her bright red hair fluffed up and small bites? Littering her face and arms were small cuts, beak marks perhaps? "Girl what happened to you?" Asked Piper looking extremely startled at her sudden change in appearance.

She paused contemplating her answer. "A very angry ostrich? You might want to check me for rabies," she added glancing at Abby, who frowned at her.

"This is no time for jokes Sadie," a small silver watch I hadn't noticed she'd had on started beeping rapidly and flashing red. " follow me," she ordered going to a room that I assumed was her personal office. Inside I found Mr. Dean sitting in a chair his expression grave. "I'm afraid it's time Peter."

The old man's face twisted in sorrow as though he had just sucked the juice out of a lemon. "Right then," he muttered and pulled open a drawer under the desk where an octogen shaped container laid. He pulled open the cap with ease and revealed five watch looking things. A simple black nylon band with a silver buckle could fasten it onto the wrist and a circle shaped glass panel, that was framed with silver sat in the middle of it. "I am afraid there is not much time for a proper explanation. But you all have been chosen by your beast, in doing so you have volunteered to fight Zion and Ziona." He chucked us each a watch and I caught it easily, hurrying to fasten the band onto my wrist. "These are your beast morphers, they will channel the energy of your beast gem and allow you all to transform, into the Savannah Spirit Power Rangers. The only thing you must say is 'Savannah Beast, May your Spirit Unleash' and you will enter your ranger form."

"Wait wait wait?" Noah interrupted. "Abby has a beast gem too, shouldn't she be fighting?"

Abby winced. "My beast gem was damaged. My beast and partner Onga has been captured by Zion, since then I can barely morph, let alone fight." She paused before adding. "Not to mention I'm almost fifty, not exactly in my prime. So I'm afraid I won't be of much help."

"Don't worry Abby leave it all to us," Zoe said stepping forward, blue-green eyes fearless and burning with passion.

"The attack was down on 56th East street, near the playground, I have programmed your morphers with the fastest route, good luck rangers."

Zoe looked over at the rest of us. "Hope y'all are ready for this, come on lets go!" She said, her order being just the thing we needed to spur us into action. At once my limbs started moving, following her easily through the front gate. It was strange, my limbs felt almost weightless, yet somehow ten times more powerful and fast. We rounded the corner onto East Street following the little paths our morphers displayed. Around us people were screeching as Skeiks swarmed the entire thing. They were quite ugly, with a humanoid body, a large skinless skull for a face, and clothing made entirely out of African Animal hides, mostly consisting of zebra and leopard fur. Each one carried a long machete with a wooden handle and a curved blade made from snow white bone.

"What are those things?" Asked Piper eyes wide with disgust.

"If I had to take a guess I'd say that their Skeiks." Commented Sadie.

"Well what are we waiting for? Lets ranger up!" Zoe ordered, extending her watched wrist in front of her chest, the rest of us mimicking her motion.

"Savannah Beasts, may your spirits unleash!" We shouted in unison, as we pushed in two small buttons on either side of our morphers. Instantly power coursed through me and the air around me turned green. A massive rhino charged circling me rapidly, as my body slowly got a green body suit formed around me. It was a nice forest green color with black strips running all the way down my sides. A helmet with a long oval shaped visor covered my face, and two small rhino like horns protruded from the front, as smooth gloves and boots, also green, covered my hands and feet, both having black tipped edges and ankle/wrist border. The coolest thing, however, were the three diagonal claw marks across the chest of my suit as though a big cat had ripped it up. The others had suits similar to mine, Zoe was red, Noah was blue, Piper yellow, and Sadie pink. The only differences were the markings on the helmets.

Screech's from the Skeiks broke me out of my awed trance. Drawing a saber like sword from our belts we all charged. I felt like a rhino charging if that was possible, a quick footed, two-ton, absolute wrecking ball with a sword. Though my swings were clumsy several came into contact and the Skeiks screeched and backed off, only to charge again seconds later. I hacked through one and it let out a horrible wail. I turned to the mother and daughter it had been attacking. "You guys need to get to safety! The rangers can handle this." I said gently pulling them to their feet.

"W-who are you?!" Asked the mother in astonishment, scooping up her toddler and holding her close to her chest.

"A power ranger," I replied, turning to swing at another Skeik. "Now go!" I ordered, giving her a gentle push. She eventually ran as fast as she could, her toddler staring at me with an adorable, confused face.

I cringed as I felt myself being backed into a wall, way to many Skeiks collecting around me. "Ugh guys a little help?" I hollered trying not to let my voice crack.

Thankfully Noah and Piper heard my call and came sprinting as fast as they could, Piper holding onto a blaster that I had not noticed. Noah and I with our swords and Piper with her blaster, easily blasted of the Skeiks. She blew the smoke off it, and I had the sneaking suspicion that she was smirking.

"Damn nice blaster," commented Noah, as I nodded in agreement.

"Thanks boys, came with the suit." She replied. "Now let's get moving and find the other two," she said breaking off at a run.

Noah grunted, "Bossy much," he muttered slightly annoyed.

"To be fair she's always been like that." I shrugged as I tore after her leaping over pavilion tables with suprising ease, though a part of me wanted to bulldoze through them. How odd. Sadie and Zoe were also fighting near eachother, dealing with Skeiks, except Zoe was going to hand to hand, using thick claws that had appeared at the tips of her gloves.

"Ok I know we've seen a lot of weird stuff today, but why the fuck do you have claws?"

"No clue," was Zoes simple response.

"Rangers!" Came Abbys urgent call over our wrist. "Are you there?"

Zoe lifted it up to her helmet. "Yeah, were here, what's up?"

"There's a massive presence of mutant energy coming towards you, it's much stronger than the Skeiks. Keep your guards up and find out what it is." She said before the coms cut out.

I found myself looking at the other rangers.

"A mutant maybe?" Suggested Sadie, sounding a bit confused.

Zoe huffed. "We can't be too sure or too careful. Follow me and keep your guard up," she ordered us all, following the signals her morpher provided.

My unease grew as Zoe jumped into the creek running through the park, then heading under the bridge. The air grew colder and damp, as we headed under it. "Can barely see a thing," I muttered under my breath as I followed them through the ankle-deep water.

What we came across next nearly made Noah scream. It was a disgusting looking slime pod, with leech like creatures writhing and squirming within the slime sack. Noah pushed a hand to his mouth in a moment of squeamishness. Despite the own bile threatening to rise in my throat I put a hand on his back. "Easy bro, it's not that bad," I muttered pushing back my own puke.

"This had to be what those signals were pointing too," muttered Zoe, putting one of her own gloved hands onto the sack and then pulling it away covered in the slimy stuff.

"Eww, eww, eww," Noah groaned doubling over and clutching his stomach.

"Sorry little brother," she mumbled in apology, before sudden footsteps in the creek made us all glance up.

That same stupid gumball-slime thing from earlier was back and he seemed to be annoyed with us touching our pets.

"RANGERS!" He roared before charging at us all.