Chapter Five: We Are, Vee Arr

“Quickly, quickly! To the Power Training Hall,” the castellan urged.

Again, the halls of this ‘temporal fortress’ generated themselves as these new rangers followed their benefactor. They left out the door they’d used to enter the ‘control room’ with their helmets and readouts, though the hallways they found themselves in looked nothing like those they’d come in through.

It was a bit like the interior halls of a traditional castle of the Sengoku Period, Ren supposed. Intentional dead ends meant to confuse and entrap. It certainly fit their castellan guide’s samurai theme. Were these teenage recruits not brand new, this layout would be quite ingenious. As it was now, they were confined to the same room.

“Hey, Castellan,” Ren said. “This is a fortress, yeah?”

The walking armor bobbed its head up and down.

Ren glanced about. “Do we have to worry about this place being invaded?”

Their guide started flailing about, screeching and ‘aye!’-ing as if they were actually under attack. This only ended when they reached another cavernous chamber with a high ceiling.

“You must train in the Power Chamber of Training!” said the castellan.

This new chamber was revealed as a bit of a gymnasium. Elevated platforms and ramps formed further in. In size, the gym was about the size of two football fields—another impossible space within the confines of the old schoolhouse.

“Wait here, wait here!” The castellan’s arms tended to flail about as it talked

Their host disappeared down the hall. A door made of six individual plates formed at a natural choke point. Just like that, they were sealed into this training room.

“Is it too late to go to the bathroom?” Yuto asked.

“Please stay where you are,” the castellan said through some form of magi-tech intercom. “Excess movement can get you telefragged. Don’t want that.”

Getting ‘telefragged’ sounded bad. Everyone stood deathly still. Once more, the castellan’s voice reverberated out of the very walls.

“I’ll manage the virtual battlefield!”

Virtual battlefield? That didn’t sound good. Ren looked around, waiting for the room to transform into some urban warfare environment, or perhaps a quarry within sight of Mount Fuji. This did not happen. What did happen, many minutes later, was that a flock of five metallic-looking bird creatures appeared on the various ledges.

“Eek!” Yuto said.

“Relax.” Having instinctively tensed up, Ren adopted a too-casual stance to compensate. “They’re not moving.”

Each ‘bird’ was the size of a condor, but shone in the dim and uncanny lighting of the Fortress of Regulation. A patchwork agglomeration of various creatures, they possessed faces like bats with noses like a pig. Their wings looked like two game consoles flapping around. Bodies were round and portly, almost too fat to fly by most Earth standards. Strangest of all, no specimen contained legs.

How can they possibly land or net? Ren wondered.

“These are Hydrogen Peregrines of the Great Gas Supergiant Fonduement,” exposited their castellan. “These are just simulated, but their original copies can each achieve mitosis five times in an Earth-hour! They may look small, but this scourge is responsible for devouring many a galactic supercluster in the Mu Uni-Cluster.”

Haruto audibly gulped from her position by the door.

“Can we really fight something like that?” Haruto asked, nervous.

“We… we can do it together!” said Sakura.

“These are just simulated,” the castellan repeated. “No Hydrogen Peregrine has been seen amongst the inhabited corners of the omniverse in ten hundred billion years!”

The group looked at one another apprehensively. They’d been roped into dealing with forces no unassuming Japanese teenager ought have to deal with. Why, Yuto could barely find Seattle on a map, and here they were talking about the greater omniverse and timestreams!

“Hurry, prospective rangers! Activate your Power Tokens and don your armor, so that training may begin!”

+++

Each of them had their power tokens, the circular coins now embedded deep in a handheld piece of amber. The pendants were color-coded to each ranger: Ren’s glowed an off-crimson hue, Yuto’s was an unflattering smalt, Miyu’s was yellow, and so on. They could pass as jewelry, even if such gaudy pendants were against school uniform regulations.

Ren looked to Yuto and Miyu on his left, then to Haruto and Sakura on his right.

“Everyone ready?” he asked.

“Aye! Everyone transform!” their host implored.

“R-ready!” Miyu said, gathering confidence.

“I… I’ll do it,” Yuto said, utterly devoid of confidence.

“Are we even allowed to back out?” Haruto asked.

“Present,” Sakura said.

The kermes-colored hexagonal pendant waited in Ren’s hand. He thought about Haruto’s question. The castellan did say that they were ‘prospective rangers.’ That implied they could indeed turn tail and run. For a second, it looked like Yuto was about to do so. Peer pressure won out, for who wanted to be the first to back down?

Ren held his pendant up. Despite being significantly bulkier than the coin it now entombed, it was as light as a feather.

“Kermes Ranger… Henshin.” he declared in a flat, calm tone.

“T-transform!” Yuto managed.

“Henshin!” Miyu said with gusto.

“Topaz Ranger, activate!” Haruto added next.

“Ranger Mauve, ready to save this world!” Sakura said.

The squad of five levitated in the air as their color-coordinated Henshin took effect.

Power Pendants flew about wildly, impossible to grab. Everyone’s arms flew out in a vertical T-like fashion as the sleek matching uniforms formed, or perhaps replaced, their street clothes.

When it was done, the pendants were affixed to their midsections like belt buckles. The helmets—again, technically not part of the uniform—were in their hands and easily donned in a synchronized flurry of motion. Transformation complete, the party assembled. Ren stood in the middle, arms crossed. Yuto and Miyu made tense but vague arm flexes on either side of him. Upperclassmen Haruto and Sakura knelt at either end of the formation.

“Good, good!” the castellan’s voice rumbled. “Basic squad tactics and unit cohesion have been imparted to you upon accessing Lifestream Regulator powers!”

“What?” Miyu snapped out of her pose. “What do you mean you imparted something in us?”

Ren looked at his hands. The poses had come so naturally. Like second nature.

“A necessary conceit,” the castellan continued. “Otherwise, training would require months of drills before you even got to simulated combat. We don’t have that kind of time, Rangers! Deploying the simulated peregrines. Get ready.”

There was a low, dull moaning sound that ran the length of the chamber. The five bird-looking creatures started zipping around with a start.

“Now what do we do?” Yuto asked.

The voice was too loud in Ren’s ear.

“We’ve got in-helmet comms!” Miyu said cheerily.

“Ouch!” Ren recoiled back. “Indoor voice.”

“What?!” Yuto asked.

Again, Ren’s ears rang. “Everyone, quiet.”

The whole squad shook their heads, reorienting themselves as these uninterrupted communications were beamed directly into their ears.

“Initiating live combat simulation!” said the castellan. “Choose your weapons, Mahourangers. Don’t worry, there is no risk of permanent injury in the Power Hall of Training!”

The pronunciation of ‘permanent’ was picked up by the squad. Ren heard multiple gulps and sudden, deep breaths over the squad’s comms.

Pedestals emerged from the ground in front of the students. An armory filled with weapons of all kinds formed around them.

“Choose your weapons, rangers!” said the castellan.

+++

The buzzing peregrine-things were annoying, but mostly left them alone while they were setting up. Castellan must be tweaking their behavior behind the scenes.

Each weapon was the same gunmetal grey color. As a result, none particularly stood out.

Sakura picked up a bow and twin dagger-looking things.

“Oh, I always wanted to be on a school archery club, but Tenshigurobu’s always been too small to warrant one,” she said. “Then I can use these if anyone gets in close!”

As soon as she committed to the bit, the bow, arrows, and knives all morphed to match the dull purple coloring of Sakura’s uniform.

Haruto found some twin katanas and two heavy boots that adhered to his uniform at the shins. Again, the colors shifted to yellow, but not as vibrant a yellow as Snapdragon's palette.

Miyu picked up twin bludgeoning instruments. Tonfa—not unlike police batons. Traditionally, tonfa were made of wood, though these were a metallic imitation. Again, they changed to a snapdragon hue.

Ren picked up a fancy-looking riot shield and a short spear. It transformed into a color-coordinated smalt. The blue hue, combined with the metallic make, actually gave it a kind of cool appearance.

Ren picked up a baseball bat. Tonfa aside, they were short on blunt melee weaponry. Besides, the hero always got a bat. A bat or a sword.

A series of guns and a wide array of European-style zweihanders remained. If they knew a gun otaku present or had someone in the kendo club, maybe they could utilize a wide array of weapons. But as it was now, they were pretty well-balanced.

“Okay. Now what?” Ren prepped his baseball bat in a swinging stance.

“Initiating combat operations!” announced the castellan.

The five holographic bird-things swooped in, razor-sharp feathers bared. Ren scarcely had time to bash the nearest one upside the head with his bat.

Individual melees ensued. With five bird-things, there was one for each. It was a good way to get practice with their new weapons. Still, Ren couldn’t help but think that they weren’t achieving group cohesion.

Again, he beat his assigned bird-thing with his bat. The creature disintegrated with a holographic flourish, only for another to ‘respawn’ on the far side of the room.

“We’re not learning squad tactics. We’re not fighting in an actual combat environment.” Ren motioned around to the cold, grey wall as his bird-thing respawned.

There was silence for a time, as if their castellan host didn’t expect this outburst. Then:

“Aye! Congratulations, rangers! You have completed phase A of training. Assemble by the Power Door and prepare for phase two.”

Finally, they could get actual simulated terrain. Ren was still betting on a quarry. The walls of the training room fell away… only to return as a low, dull, constant wail sounded.

“Warning! Warning! The nefarious forces of the Schattenritter are on the move,” said their castellan. “You have to get out there!”

“We haven’t even finished training yet!” Ren protested.

“Where are they?” Miyu asked.

“To the Power Command Center. Hurry, rangers!”

The training room’s lone door opened up, and another series of halls formed, beckoning the group towards this command center.