See my first fanfic – 'Welcome to the Saga' – for disclaimer.

A New Power
Chapter Four
By Peter J. Smith

Half-way down, Jason saw a blast of orange energy like a miniature explosion, and for a second he'd almost thought I'd demorphed while falling. Suddenly, he could hear a great roaring noise, and the orange energy shot back up at him. The blast of energy shot over the top of the cliff, and the sheer force caused Jason to stumble back. He could see that there was a human figure behind the glowing energy, and the energy was cackling around the figure like electricity. The light was intense, and although it did begin to dim, hovering there in mid-air, it lit up the battle-ground, causing everyone still standing to just freeze in mid-battle, some in mid-position, half-way through foot sweeps and high kicks.

The figure behind the orange energy levitated a few more seconds, before floating down and landing gracefully on the ground next to Jason. He saw that the figure was holding a sword in one hand and the medallion in the other.

"Wow," I murmured to no one in particular, "this is incredible."

"Peter?" asked Jason slowly. "Is that you?"

Now demorphed, I turned to him. "You bet. And I think I just received the motherload of Torlian power. I feel incredible, almost as if I'm being electrocuted, but no pain," I finished. I put my glowing sword down, and in a flash of light, it disappeared.

"He got Torlian powers," grunted Rita flatly. "What else can go wrong? Mud monsters, rip him apart!"

The four remaining mud monsters, Gluk included, sprang into action, and immediately began to work their way around the others towards me. Jason took a step forward to defend me, but I called him back. "Hey, don't worry about it."

He turned back to me, and I realised that he would've have quite happily taken on all four monsters to defend me. "Are you sure?"

I nodded. "Yep. Just step back a little – this is going to get messy."

The first mud monster cleared the crowd of putties, and he slithered rapidly towards me. As soon as he got within five meters, I pointed my hand at him. Immediately, a fireball shot from my hand and smashed into the monster, reducing him to a puddle of mud in a bright explosion.

"Whoa," said Jason appreciatively. "That's unreal."

I smiled and laughed. "I'll say. Here, check this out…" As another monster charged out of the crowd towards us, I pointed my up-turned palm at him. I flicked my fingers up, and in a whirl of orange energy, the monster was picked up and thrown backwards, over the battle-field and into the valley. He then landed, and for want of a better word, splattered.

By now, Gluk and the other secondary mud monster had come rushing through the crowd towards us. The putties, too, had gotten over their initial surprise and began to fight again. But I suddenly noticed a wonderful thing – there were only about twenty putties left still standing. The other forty or so had all been sliced, barbecued, thumped, whacked and beaten into unconsciousness. It was, I reflected in that brief moment, all-out warfare. But our smaller army of eleven had told the odds where to go jump and had now almost completely beaten the larger army of putties. A group of about eight or so putties began to swarm around Jason and I, and Gluk and the other monster had reached us.

Jason turned to me. "Shall we?" he asked.

"We shall," I grinned, "but firstly, here…" and with my still-glowing arm, I reached out and touched Jason's sword. There was a small explosion as orange energy leapt from my arm onto the sword, and soon, his sword began to glow brightly, too.

"Gee," he said, "thanks," and he took off after the putties, slicing and dicing them with his sword. The energy I'd given it brought the sword to near-laser slicing ability, and it went straight through any opponent that came too close.

Gluk watched Jason charge off. "Well," he said, as he and his monster surrounded me. "This I'm going to enjoy." With that, the secondary monster molded his arm like Gluk had done, and soon he had a large scythe-like blade on the end of his limb. He swung it at me, and I jumped backwards and quickly avoided it. The monster tried again with a diagonal slice, but in my sense-heightened state, I easily side-stepped it. He then spun to face me and lunged. I immediately used my flying ability, shooting up and safely over his head as he stumbled underneath me. And as I hovered just over his head, a simple kick from me sent him flying off the edge of the cliff and out of sight.

"You are a pain, aren't you?" grumbled Gluk, taking a step forward.

"Step right up and find out," I replied through gritted teeth.

"Gladly," he sneered. Lunged forward, he knocked me back with a mud blast to the chest. It stung like mad, but luckily, the energy field around me absorbed most of the blow. I recovered and sent him stumbling with a flying tornado kick, before spinning around and dropping him with a low-foot sweep. He immediately got back to his feet, but I raised my arms and formed a force field in front of me.

This enraged him, and he launched himself forward regardless. Behind us, the battle had by now almost fully been won. There were only about three putties left standing, and within a few seconds, they were all knocked down. Goldar and Scorpina remained fighting, but with about five rangers taking on each, they stood little chance, being punched and kicked around until they took refuge behind Rita.

Gluk bounced backwards off the force field, and I followed him forward. He recovered and, pausing briefly, he brought his blade arm out and lunged forward. With my right arm still surrounded by energy, I easily knocked the blade aside, surprising him and causing him to freeze momentarily. Then, a fiery ball of energy formed at my fingertips – I rammed my hand into Gluk, and the energy ball struck him and blew him backwards with such force that he was sent flying. With a cry, he flew through the air and smashed into one of the stone columns – he was instantly reduced to a brown puddle of slime.

Directly after, there was a dead silence. I slowly turned to where Rita, Goldar and Scorpina stood trembling. The expression on Rita's face was priceless.

"Oh, curse you Power Rangers," she grunted. "This is not over." Then, she turned and whacked Goldar and Scorpina once more over the head with her staff, before they all disappeared in a bright flash and teleported into the sky. Soon, the unmoving bodies of the many putties which littered the ground, and the eleven of us were left alone and triumphant on the Circle of Hianan.

The others immediately began to jog over to where Jason and I stood.

"Whoa," stuttered Scott, looking in awe my body that was glowing with energy. "Are you okay?"

I nodded. "I feel a little faint, but otherwise, I'm okay."

"Well," observed Billy, "you're not as luminescent now, so my best guess is the power that you received from the medallion is slowly dwindling. Still…" and here I noticed a scientific gleam in his eye.

"No," I said flatly. "I am not being dissected. Not by you, and not by anyone."

Jason smiled. "Thanks for the power boost," he said, holding up his glowing sword, and then he asked the question that we were all, including me, dying to know. "But just what exactly happened to you?"

"I'd like to know that myself, and I think that there's someone here who can answer me." And with that, I turned to Torlus, who had come down from his hiding place and was now standing behind everyone else.

But instead of answering my question, he simply looked up with his kind, wise old eyes and said, "I think it would be best if we left this place and went to Zordon first. We may still be in danger. There, you will receive the knowledge you seek."

~*~

"When Peter grabbed the medallion," Zordon instructed, his booming voice echoing throughout the Command Centre, "he absorbed an incredible amount of Torlian energy. Now, Peter already had a heightened mental state, or sixth sense, and the Torlian energy has formed the perfect compliment to this, giving Peter telekinesis and mild telepathy."

I nodded. Since returning to the Command Centre, I had ceased glowing, and it had taken us a while to explain to Zordon and Alpha what had happened.

"We guessed that," I replied.

Zordon shook his head. "No, Peter, there is more to it than that. You see, when Torlus first placed his power into the medallion, we took into consideration the power of the already-existing junior power coins."

Torlus, standing silently behind us, took up the story. "We soon realized that, if both forces fell into the same wrong hands, the result could well indeed be catastrophic. So, just in case, we made the powers completely incompatible – they can never operate at the same time."

"Which is why he demorphed once he touched the medallion," summarized Zack.

Torlus nodded. "Exactly."

"So," I started. "When I'm morphed, I can't use these mental powers, but when I'm an average citizen, I'm free to use them however I like."

Zordon nodded in agreement. "Yes. Unlike the power from the morphing grid, the power is in your mind and it belongs to you. I trust you, Peter, but be careful. This will undoubtedly make you an even bigger target to Rita and her minions, and if you are not careful with using your powers in public, people may realise that you are a Ranger."

"Speaking of which," wondered Trini. "What happened to his and Jason's swords?"

"When Peter reached the medallion," Torlus began, forcing us all to turn around, "he was still morphed and carrying his sword. This was lucky – because of his morphed state, the majority of the energy in the medallion was reflected away, and quite a lot was absorbed into his Power Sword."

"But you said the two powers were made incompatible," said Jason, confused.

Torlus nodded. "It's complicated. Just trust me – his weapon didn't really count in the whole power thing, and the force was so much that it couldn't help but absorb some. It was a good thing, too – if Peter had touched the medallion in an unmorphed state, the full force would have been too great for his body to handle and he would have been reduced to ashes on the spot."

I frowned. "Now he tells me," I said good-naturedly.

"And because he was morphed," continued Zordon, forcing us all to spin around again, "the power now within him is quite minute. It will develop over time, but that is only with lots of practice and mental focus." He paused. "Um, Peter?" he asked.

I looked up and suddenly realized that, while I had been listening to Zordon, my mental energy had been flowing without control. Now everyone in the Command Centre, including Alpha and Torlus, were levitating, and I was receiving some very nasty looks from the other rangers.

"Peter?" asked Jason, his arms crossed and an obviously faked stern expression on his face.

I smiled sheepishly and shrugged my shoulders. "Oh, oops. Sorry," and I put my hand to my head and, concentrating, I gently lowered everyone to the ground.

Zordon smiled. "And I think that we better start that mental training some time soon."

~*~

Eventually, we all left the Command Centre, leaving Torlus in Zordon's care. Rather surprisingly, the whole adventure had taken less than four hours, and we got back just after lunch. The skies had cleared up, most of the clouds having moved out over the hills, and it actually looked like it was going to be a nice afternoon. Most of the others had places to go and stuff to do, and the ones that didn't decided to head on down to the beach. I volunteered to go with them, but Jason told me that he had other plans, and so we stayed in the Youth Centre.

"So," I said, following Jason down from our table and into the training area of the Youth Centre, "Torlus is in the Command Centre now with Zordon…"

"And he'll leave sometime this afternoon," finished Jason.

"Did we ever find out what made him return to Nerimos?" I asked.

Jason shook his head, reaching down into his bag. "No, I didn't ask him. But I got the feeling that even he didn't know why. Here, take this," and he gave me a long, thin piece of wood.

"What's this for?" I asked, taking the piece of wood and swinging it like a sword.

"Practice," he answered, holding up a similar piece of wood. "If you're going to use your sword more often, you need to learn a bit of fencing."

"I take it you weren't impressed with my abilities."

"Hey," he said with a grin, "I can't show up and save your butt all the time."

"Yeah well," I said amiably, "you're right there. En guarde!"

Suddenly, I heard calls and insults shouted down from up near the bar. I didn't even have to turn around to realize that Joel, Joshua and Damien had come into the Youth Centre and caught sight of me.

"That's them?" asked Jason. When I'd nodded, he continued. "Well look, just ignore them. They don't put their lives on the line to save the world. Don't even think about them."

I smiled nastily. "Oh, I wouldn't, except for the fact that I have the ability to make their heads explode."

Jason frowned seriously. "Peter…"

"I wouldn't. Really. Honestly. But c'mon, they've spent the last few months torturing me, can't I just get a little revenge?"

Jason looked like he was about to say 'no' when we heard, "Hey, who's the dork in red with the stick?" from up behind us. He then looked me in the eye and grinned.

"Fry 'em."

"No, I don't quite think so. However," and I turned around and pointed my finger at Joshua. Just as he was about to sit down, the chair flew back on it's own accord and Joshua fell to the ground. I smiled, stifling a laugh, and pointed at Damien. Suddenly, the milk-shake he was carrying seemingly exploded, covering his head with white, frothy foam.

Jason smiled despite himself. "No more, Peter."

"Oh," I said with a small smile, "just one more." But instead of pointing at Joel, I aimed at a tomato sauce dispenser at the table behind him. The dispenser lifted off the table, turned in mid-air, aiming itself at Joel, and a sudden force depressed the sides, causing bright red sauce to shoot out and cover Joel's white t-shirt in tomato sauce.

I turned back to Jason with a smile. "Think of the possibilities," I said, with new-found appreciation at my powers. "No one would ever bully anyone ever again! I can finally stand up to them and help other people."

"Have you ever tried just talking to them?" he asked.

"Once," I replied. "But it earned me a one-way ticket to the ground." I paused. "No, these powers give me something special, something I can fight back with. Plus, I've got some neat party tricks."

He smiled and laughed. "Whatever, just don't kill anyone. Now, let's get back to practice…"

The End

~*~

Next time on Power Rangers – When Rita builds a 'super monster', Zordon realizes that it's time to choose a sixth junior ranger and so complete the team. Who will he choose, and will he be in time to save the existing team?

ved )Ò