Animalia
Chapter Three
By Peter J. Smith
Chapter Three
By Peter J. Smith
We all regrouped to let our wounds heal back at the Command Centre. We weren't worried about being missing – after each attack, it usually took an hour or more for the teachers to regain peace and order.
"Man, he was tough," said Trini, pacing her usual spot behind Alpha's control panel.
"Yeah, what was up with that monster Zordon?" asked Zac.
"Animalia's strength must come from what we all thought would be his weakness," explained Zordon. "His lack of supernatural powers. Although he was probably made with magic, Animalia has no such powers, just the abilities of each of the animals that Rita included in him."
"No magic powers?" asked Tommy, sitting beside me on a control bench. "What about his electric attack?"
"From the electric eel," I explained, swinging my legs rhythmically under me.
"But can eels really shoot bolts of electricity?" asked Kim.
I nodded. "Yep. Eels can "'shoot' out enough voltage to knock a horse unconscious from thirty feet."
"Really?" she asked.
I shrugged. "I read it somewhere."
"Look," said Billy, getting up and crossing the room. "Alpha and I can make a database on Animalia given what we do know, and who knows? We might find an Achilles' heel. So," and here he paused, punching keys rapidly on a keyboard, "what do we know?"
"He shoots electric bolts, which comes from his electric eel heritage," I started.
"He can move with the speed of a cheetah," continued Scott.
"Then there's his scorpion tail," stated Teresa.
"His flying abilities come from the bald eagle," added Sarah.
"Let's not forget the sheer power of an elephant," said Trini.
"Or the ferocious instincts of a tiger," said Zac.
"The brute strength of a crocodile," continued Kim.
"And," started Jason, "he can fight damn well in dark, claustrophobic places."
"Zordon," began Sarah, "why did he just leave the area? Don't all monsters have the ability to teleport?"
"Remember," replied Zordon. "Animalia is not an average monster. He has no powers that aren't found somewhere in the animal kingdom. So he doesn't have the ability to teleport. It also means that he probably has a lair somewhere."
"Well, how about we track Animalia to his lair?" asked Trini.
Billy shook his head. "Wouldn't work. He's not a normal monster – a normal tracker wouldn't be able to find him."
"Well he's got to have a weakness somewhere," I said wearily. "We can't give in to Rita. We've got to find something."
"Hey," said Jason calmly, putting his hand on my shoulder, "we will find something. We have to."
"Yeah, I know," I replied. "It's just that we were so ineffective against him. I mean, remember when we were all attacking him at the same time? He kept the upper hand, if only barely. It took all of us to contain him, but there was no-one left to actually attack. Just one more ranger, and we could have done it."
"Rangers," called Zordon, "there is nothing more you can do here. Alpha and I will continue to search through what we do know, but you all might as well return before you are missed."
"Sure thing," nodded Jason. We all then demorphed and teleported back to our respective schools, leaving the Command Centre empty and silent. But only seconds after we'd all disappeared, Zordon looked down to Alpha and began to speak.
"Alpha," he said, "I believe that the time has come."
"But Zordon…" started the little robot anxiously.
Zordon shook his head. "No Alpha, this cannot wait. I appreciate that Rita's Animalia has accelerated the situation well beyond our control, but we must do what needs to be done." He paused wistfully. "Oh well, things are truly out of our control. Alpha, go and get the sixth power coin."
"Yes sir," replied Alpha, before turning and walking quickly away.
About ten minutes after we'd all teleported back to school, the shelters were opened up and everyone ventured back out. The five of us knew that we wouldn't have been missed by our other friends – everyone would just assume that we had been somewhere else. And as the mobs of people walked back to their classrooms, I just joined the crowd. No-one was too worried about getting back to class in a hurry – it would be at least an hour before calm was restored and the teachers were able to take the role call.
I noticed Brendan standing outside the classroom with a worried look on his face, and remembering the way I'd left him, I suddenly felt very apologetic. He didn't see me as I walked up to him and tapped him on the shoulder.
"Hey, what's the worry?" I asked, as he spun around.
"Oh, Peter, I'm glad to see you're safe," he said sighing with relief. "When I didn't see you in the shelter I kind of panicked. I looked everywhere for you."
I smiled. "Well, don't worry about it. See, I'm here."
He nodded. Then, in a slightly suspicious tone he asked, "Where did you end up?"
His question caught me by surprise. "Uh," I started, searching for an excuse. "Well, after I got shut out of the shelter, I decided to hide in the grade seven classroom." Changing the subject, I said, "C'mon, let's go see Mr Di Certo," and we both jogged over to let the teacher know that we were safe and sound. It hurt that I had to lie to a great person like Brendan, but I just could not tell him the truth.
"Penny for your thoughts, hey Jason?"
The voice pulling him from his silent daydream, Jason shook his head to clear his mind and waited for everything to come back into focus. Once it had, he turned in the direction of the voice, to see Billy making his way across the courtyard towards the table where Jason sat.
"Nope," smiled Jason, shaking his head. "My thoughts are a buck a piece."
Billy laughed and sat down, motioning towards the books and folders spread out on the table. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be out there?" he asked, pointing towards the fifty metre pool in the distance.
At the start and end of the school year, to deal with the rising temperatures, Caloundra State High School's Health and Physical Education's course consisted mainly of water-based activities, like swimming, surf life saving and water sports, and whenever there were two lessons back-to-back, the class always left the school grounds and went to Caloundra's Public Pool, which in fact consisted of a heated twenty-five metre pool, a fifty-metre pool, a shop, a small courtyard with tables and chairs and a shower block. The students always enjoyed it, and because the pool was only over the back fence and across the road from the school, the teachers didn't mind as well.
"Nah," he said with a wave of his hand. "Officially, I got a biology assignment due in a couple of days that I've barely started."
"And why not?" asked Billy with mock consternation. "It's a science assignment. Now does that not equal fun?"
Jason shook his head. "Well, you know me. I'd rather be out doing something rather than reading or writing about other people. I mean, science is all very well and fun, but I'd rather be doing something more involving. You know what I mean?"
Billy nodded, understanding what his friend had said.
"Plus," added Jason, lowering his voice, "unofficially, I can't get our fight with Animalia out of my mind, and I really don't feel like swimming with this big issue hanging over our heads."
"Same," he replied. Billy then reached into his shirt pocket, and pulled out a notebook which he dropped on the table and flipped open. Jason looked down and saw that written on several pages was everything that Billy had remembered about their latest foe. His physical description, powers and even rough estimates on his reaction time and speed was all written down.
"Wow Billy, you really went to town on this," said Jason, genuinely surprised, as he flipped through the book and sped-read a few paragraphs.
"Our last battle really bothered me. And I figured that we can't bow down to Rita's demands, so I had to do something," he replied with a shrug.
"No, this is really good," said Jason. "And who knows? If we really rack our brains and focus, we might just be able to get something out of this. Oh hey Billy – cute brunette checking you out from across the pool…"
Jason and Billy were perfectly right – after the battle, all afternoon in fact, I'd been thinking over the fight, and I was sure that I was getting somewhere. I just wasn't sure where it was that I was going. And although I'd been distracted for most of the morning, for the rest of the day the jury was out completely. Not only did we all have to keep a look out for Animalia, just in case Rita sent him back early, but I kept going through the battle in my head over and over again. I knew there was something funny about the way the monster had fought, something odd that I couldn't quite see.
At home, I avoided my homework completely. Just before dinner, I sat down in the lounge room and turned on the television. And as if the universe had decided to go out of it's way to annoy me, there was nothing on but the news. Oh well, I suppose there was probably nothing better on anyway.
"And those mighty superheroes, the Power Rangers, fought yet another battle against evil today," said the newscaster, Kay McGrath, as the screen switched from her to footage that a reporter had shot of today's battle. "The monster, who witnesses heard the Rangers refer to as "'Animalia', appeared at Currimundi State School around 12:30 PM, and proceeded to terrorize the staff and students. The second team of Power Rangers, led by the orange ranger, soon appeared and began to valiantly fight the monster…" and here she launched into a very long and glowing commentary, but I wasn't listening. Watching the fight from a totally different angle, I had suddenly caught something very, very interesting.
"I'll be damned," I said slowly. Getting up, I raced past my parents, who were also coming in to watch the news, and into my room. I grabbed at the encyclopedia that I kept there for school assignments, opened up one particular volume and started flipping through the pages. And within a matter of minutes, I'd found exactly what I was looking for.
"Billy!" I cried, racing into the Youth Centre, immediately attracting my friend's attention. I'd spent most of the previous night researching my theory, and had gotten very little sleep. I had gotten dressed and met up with Scott and Teresa much earlier than normal as well – I knew that Jason and Billy often met in the Youth Centre before school started, and I had to meet them there.
"Billy," I cried again, as I breathlessly raced up the stairs to the table where he and Jason sat. Throwing my bag on the ground, I quickly sat down at a spare seat and tried to begin talking, but it took me a few minutes to regain my breath.
"Peter?" asked Billy with a smile and a raised eyebrow.
Jason grinned. "Someone's happy to see you Bill," he said.
I paused for just one more minute as Teresa and Scott came up from where I'd left them and took their seats as well.
"About Animalia," I said quietly but quickly, "I think I got something."
Everyone immediately leaned forward. "This is why you had to get here early?" asked Scott.
I nodded as Billy addressed me. "What did you find?"
"Well," I started, "I was watching the news last night – apparently there was a reporter in Currimundi that caught the whole battle on film. Anyway, I noticed something funny about the way Animalia fought – it was like he was incapable of using the skills of two different animal counterparts at once."
Teresa turned from me to Billy. "Huh?"
Billy nodded. "No, I understand. Jason and I had the same thoughts. When he was flying, he was using the eagle part of him, and so he couldn't use his elephant strength to hold up that wooden pole for very long. And whenever he shocked anyone with his electric attacks, his whole body went limp, just like what an electric eel would do if it was in open air."
"Exactly," I said. "So, I was thinking, one of those animals must have a weakness that we could use while Animalia was in that particularly state. Then, I remembered how he'd fought us while underground – Rita had given him the instincts and abilities of a mole so that he would be able to fight easily in small, dark spaces."
Jason nodded. "Yes, go on…"
"And moles," I continued, "are very sensitive to light. So, if we fought him while he was in mole-mode, we could use some high-intensity light to disorientate him enough so that we could get the upper hand and blast him."
Billy smiled. "He's dead right. Well, we'd have to fight him in the dark, but other than that, it's a great idea."
"But where would this high-intensity light come from?" asked Scott.
Billy turned to him. "I keep a couple of high powered spotlights in my garage. We can go home and get them."
"Yep, definitely," I told him. "I think that we can count on him making another appearance today."
"Well, it's settled then," said Jason, getting up and taking his bag. "Billy and I will head back and find the flood-lights. Be seeing you," and with that, both he and Billy got up and left. And seeing that the Youth Centre was now practically empty, the three of us took our things and left as well.
"Good plan," said Scott, as we crossed the road and headed down towards the school. "But will it work?"
"I hope so. And I can't take all the credit," I replied. "We owe a huge debt to Kay McGrath."
"You watch channel seven?" asked Teresa. "Really, I wouldn't have picked it. So, you think Animalia will come back today?"
"Yep. I think we can count on it," I answered, as we walked past the empty carpark and past the huge hole in the ground that Rita had blasted yesterday. I'm not sure, but ever since I became a Ranger, lunchtime was a far more interesting time of the day. Glancing down, I swatted at a mozzie that was hovering near my leg. The air felt hot and humid, and as we walked by the grade seven classrooms, and then crossed the courtyard garden towards the grade six building, I could tell that it was going to be a hot day, which was not surprising even though we had technically reached autumn, since in Caloundra, summer always seems to last longer than it should.
"I'm surprised Brendan's not with us," said Teresa, stepping over the puddles of water that the cleaners had left and putting her bag in the bag-racks. "He always walks to school with you."
I turned to her. "I rang him up to ask him to meet me at the Youth Centre, but his mother said that he'd already left."
"Well, he didn't come here," replied Scott, pointing to the empty bag-racks and waving his arm around the deserted school.
Without warning, Teresa screamed an ear-splitting high-pitched scream that only girls are capable of. I instantly spun around towards her, only to come face to face with twin rows of dagger-like teeth – Animalia was back. Within an instant, Animalia had swiped at both Scott and me and sent us crashing to the ground.
Then, faster than any of us could comprehend, Animalia grabbed Teresa, physically picked her up and carried her away. Scott and I leapt to our feet, but we were seconds too late – Animalia was already half way across the oval and heading for the hole in the ground that Rita had dug yesterday. And before too long, still with Teresa, he had dropped down into the hole and disappeared from view. The whole attack had lasted less than a few seconds, five at the max, but we both knew that Teresa was in danger and that we had to get to her.
We both turned to each other, but before we could say or do anything, we heard a familiar gravelly voice.
"Good morning to you boys," said Rita Repulsa, stepping out from the shadows and into the sunlight, holding her staff and smiling wickedly.
I immediately took a step forward to protect Scott, blocking him from any possible attacks from Rita.
"What do you want?" I asked coldly.
"And what have you done with my sister?" growled Scott venomously.
Rita glared at Scott for a few seconds, then took a step forward, leaning her weight on her wand. "You just answered your own question," she replied.
"Stop speaking in riddles," I grunted.
"Well," Rita explained, "unless I'm wrong, you didn't send me any presents last night, even after I'd threatened you with death, destruction and the whole nine yards. So, when I saw you three here this morning, I thought that I'd take a present myself and save you the trouble. Now, if you'd like to make a deal…" but she stopped suddenly when she saw Scott and I turn away from her and begin conferring amongst ourselves.
"We gotta go after her," I said.
Scott nodded. "I think so. We can't trust Rita or Animalia at this point."
Rita raised her hand. "Um, excuse me?"
"We'll have to do it on our own though," continued Scott, ignoring Rita. "Do you think that we could handle it by ourselves?"
"Uh, I'm still here you know," Rita said, growing increasingly annoyed.
I shrugged. "Well, to fight the big guy, I'd rather it was a full team, but with Teresa captured, I really don't think we have much of a choice."
"HELLO!" bellowed Rita impatiently.
"Not now," I said seriously, trying to suppress a smile. "We've got a friend to save." And with that, both Scott and I turned away from our arch-enemy and dashed off down towards the oval, leaving Rita alone and confused.
"Kids these days," she shrugged, shaking her head, before teleporting away.
"Man, I sure as heck wasn't expecting that," I said, as we raced down to the oval. "Not this soon. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," replied Scott angrily. "But if he hurts Teresa…"
"He won't," I replied reassuringly.
Scott nodded, and turned to me. "Well, we should probably alert the other Rangers to the situation."
I nodded, seeing the sense in this. Quickly raising my communicator to my mouth, I called Sarah and Aaron and told them what had happened. Luckily, they were already on their way to school but Scott and I couldn't wait – they'd have to catch up. After a quick call to Jason and Billy, alerting them to the situation, we then decided to call Zordon. However, we got no answer.
"That's odd," I said. I tried my communicator again and Scott tried his, but we heard nothing but static.
"Maybe they turned if off for a check or something," said Scott. "But we can't wait." We then glanced around the oval, but could see no-one else, nor any cars driving past. I ripped away the yellow tape that had fenced off the hole and went to the side of the pit. Turning to Scott, I nodded. "Let's go. It's morphin' time!" And I leapt forward into the pit.
ome inf5 Þ