Chapter Four: Tokenized

The crew would have to meet in the old schoolhouse on the weekend. Some were beginning to at least come to terms with this strange calling. A few—by which we mean Yuto—remained apprehensive. Ren was mostly just daunted by the sheer suddenness of it all.

Nobody blabbed to their classmates. The castellan didn’t warn them to keep it a secret or anything; it just seemed like a veil of secrecy was implied by all this. Keeping a secret of this magnitude though left a guilty weight on Ren and the other’s shoulders. One that wouldn’t go away.

It got to the point where Ren had skipped a late class Friday to ruminate about events on the school rooftop. It was the first time he’d ever done so, lest he provide fuel to the rumors of his delinquency.

To his surprise, he found Yuto and Haruto there already.

“It can’t be real,” Yuto had said, eyes wide.

Even so, he’d held the yen-like Power Token in his hand. Ren had his around his neck, on a string like a necklace.

With a cigarette in his mouth, Haruto had motioned at the innocuous token. “Sakura’s came embedded in a pendant when she… de-transformed?”

The trio looked out over the paltry skyline of Tenshigurobu, and the sea beyond.

Ren had never realized that Haruto smoked. Apparently, it was a recent habit. A stress response.

Despite Yuto’s insistence that this was all but a bad dream, he, too, had reconvened in the old schoolhouse on the weekend.

“You have all found your Power Tokens!” the castellan declared. “Five for five, all accounted for.”

“Y’know, in the old days we would’ve gone to school on Saturdays too,” Yuto said all matter-of-factly.

Yuto was surprisingly chatty despite his earlier ambivalence. It took Ren a while to realize this was a fear response.

Regardless, the purpose and schedules of the old schoolhouse didn’t matter right now, for the Temporal Fortress established itself over the interior the moment one of these ‘chosen’ stepped through. Where before the corridors were cold, dim, and featureless, now the entrance annex was wide and tall. Monitors nobody could read were emerging from consoles on the floor. They’d need to learn an alien language to understand these strange readouts.

“Sensors indicate that, Ranger Mauve aside, none of you have activated your initial transformation.”

“I’m sorry, mister robot,” Miyu clasped her hands together. “Should we have done so?”

“Good. Good!” the castellan flailed about. “Best done in a controlled space. Welcome, Rangers, to the Power Command Center. You should do it now.”

“Everything’s a Power Hall and a Power Coin,” Ren muttered under his breath.

Miyu and Yuto had found their tokens side by side, underneath an old tree they liked to hang out at between their family’s rural properties.

Haruto found it at a shrine his grandmother had once administered. And of course, Ren found it in his own backyard. The tokens sought out locations important to their destined owners, it seemed.

Ren had that red-sheen token in his hand. He’d been staring at it all day. With their host’s permission, he held the ringed coin out.

“Henshin.”

The next minute and a half passed by in paradoxically a flash and in excruciatingly slow motion.

Ren felt his feet float off the floor. He felt his classmate’s eyes on him. Moreover, he felt his clothes fall away, and yet he wasn’t naked. Everything was covered in a silvery sheen.

“Your clothing is being transmogrified,” the castellan said cheerily.

Whatever that meant, it felt like a full-body cast was being assembled around Ren’s body, from neck to shoes. He paid good money for those shoes from a part-time job and everything; ‘transmogrification’ better not ruin them.

As soon as it had begun, the glow faded. Instead of his weekend outfit, Ren was now wearing a red uniform with the flexibility of a tracksuit and a sturdiness beyond steel. Only his head was uncovered.

“Ranger Kermes… reporting in!”

Kermes. The color just looked red to Ren. The words came to Ren without even thinking. It must’ve been some sort of ingrained instinct, imparted by the Power Token, is what Ren supposed.

Ranger Mauve—rather, Sakura-senpai—was already in uniform. It was thicker than a jumpsuit but less unwieldy than full armor. And of course, it was covered in a mellow off-purple dye with white highlights. The Power Token sat on the senior’s belt in a six-sided, mauve-colored buckle.

“Do these come with helmets?” she asked.

“Aye. Helmets will be assigned in time!” chirped the castellan.

Wearing the suits brought with it a boost in confidence. Sakura was fiddling and so nervous she could barely call out ‘Henshin!’ before. Now, she stood taller than the others.

“Henshin!” Yuto declared. With another requisite transformation glow, he landed on his feet in a vivid bluish suit.

“Ranger Smalt… transformed!” he said automatically. Then, “What… what’s smalt? Is that a color? Can I just be blue? Or cerulean?”

“MahouRangers are assigned a holy magical color,” the castellan said offhandedly.

As Yuto lamented this arbitrary color designation, his cousin was already henshining. She merged in a yellowish suit.

“Snapdragon Mahouranger… I’m here!” Miyu proclaimed.

This left only Haruto, the upperclassman.

“Is it possible to recruit a sixth ranger, by chance?” he asked. “Will they assign a fresh color? Can I trade?”

“C’mon,” Sakura said. “We’re a team! We have to do it together.”

With a resigned eye roll, Haruto said ‘Henshin’.

With another blinding whitish light, Haruto donned his outfit. He emerged in a lighter yellow uniform than Miyu.

“Topaz Ranger. Engaging!” said Haruto. He looked at Miyu. “We practically look the same. Why not just use primary colors?”

The castellan ignored him. “Congratulations, Rangers! You are now ready to face the forces of evil!”

--

Pedestals emerged from the control room floor, directly before the new rangers. Each pedestal contained a helmet with a beaklike visor. Each helmet was mostly black, with significant highlights in the unique shades of their MahouRanger uniforms.

“We have to equip them manually?” Yuto asked. “It can’t just kind of form around our heads like the uniforms?”

“Nanohelmets? Such a passe technology!” said the castellan. “Don your helmets, heroes!”

Ren, Sakura, Haruto, Miyu, and Yuto grabbed the helmets and put them on. Everything was dark, then, with a magi-digital glow, the world lit up. Objects of interest were highlighted. Their classmates were labeled with their respective ranger colors.

“This will display enemy vitality, enable teammate battlechat, and protect you from wayward headshots!” said the castellan.

“It says… ‘Ranger HUD: Level one,” said Haruto. “What’s a level? Do we get more?”

“What, never played that series with the dragons and the quests?” Yuto asked his senior. “I’m sure it levels up with use.”

The castellan nodded along. “Aye! Just use your HUD and it will gain additional power. Ditto for your combat skills and other utilities. Just use what you need, and your power will grow!”

Ren took a look at his ‘stats’ such that they were. Melee, Ranged, Teamwork, anything a squad would need to work together and beat down any enemy they would need. There were even stats for their various high school subjects, he noticed. History and Math were up to level 2 already. How swell.

“With this power, you must prevent further damage to your world!” proclaimed the castellan. “Leylines are already maximally strained. Only the Ranger initiative was able to temporarily forestall it.”

A leyline health monitor appeared in their helmets. Nobody knew how to read it, but it was pulsing red.

“Your municipality of Tenshigurobu was once a thriving city,” claimed the castellan. “One of the largest on your island!”

The student-rangers gasped. Ren imagined their modest town, now a sprawling metropolis. A city on par with Tokyo, nestled between the narrow beach and the sprawling interior mountains? It didn’t seem possible.

“Aye, readings indicate this city was once the fourth-largest in your nation. With history unraveling, fate has been altered, reducing this town’s historical importance significantly. For instance, it is no longer the location of the third atomic bombing of November eleventh, ninety forty-five.”

Yuto choked on air. “Say what?!”

The castellan continued. “Neither was it the site of Mongol landfall in the year twelve hundred eighty-one. While this does avert the loss of many lives, countless more were simply never born!”

“We don’t remember any of this,” Ren said.

“Local populations will not notice history unraveling around them!” the castellan said. “But history could yet decay further. With any more damage to the leylines, your hometown simply will not exist.”

Ren thought about what that would entail. Perhaps he and his classmates would be living elsewhere. Perhaps they’d have never been born. They really had no choice but to defend the only home they’ve got.

“Training! It is time for training!” chirped the castellan. “You must prepare to face the forces of evil!”

The control room’s gunmetal walls expanded outward. A new doorway appeared. The castellan was already waddling for it.

“Follow me! Follow me!”

“So will we learn how to fight as a team?” Yuto asked.

“Aye aye! I mean… that is correct, Ranger Smalt.” The castellan’s voice dropped lower. “To save the world and preserve the sanctity of your time-stream’s historiographic record, you must fight together!”

“So what you’re saying is,” Ren began. “You want us to be…”

SOME KIND OF SENTAI SQUAD.