Power Rangers Zone Wars

Going Under

Underground Tunnel System, 3091

The ground shook a little as John felt through the underground tunnel, the glow stick that Owens had dropped him after a few minutes held out in front of him. The cowboy was amazed by the doohickies of this time. Of course, the rifles had seemed a little odd, but the flying machines were truly a marvel. Not in a million years would he have believed that two boys from Ohio would make a machine that could fly on its own. John shook the glow stick a little and shook his head in amazement. Fire-less light created from mixing two chemicals. Who knew?

He had kept his cool in front of Owens, but the two thousand plus years of history were rather heavy on John's back. Wars and movements and inventions that were so different from his time. The politicians, the scandals, everything. It was a bit of a shock. Then again, so is suddenly appearing in a war zone. The ground shook again, this time knocking John to his feet. The cowboy dug into his pocket for the Rouge Deck and pulled out a card. He examined the front of the card, which read "Strength Up" with a picture of a muscle with a red upward arrow tattoo on the upper arm when he held the glow stick to it. John looked at the card oddly, then replaced it into the deck, putting the cards back in his pocket.

Another shaking fit caused the cowboy to hit the bottom of the tunnel hard. John got up, brushed himself off, and trudged on. A few minutes of going almost blindly through the tunnel and the cowboy found a panel with a blue number two on it above him. John knocked on the wood, the loud thunks echoing through the tunnel. There was an empty silence as John waited for someone to answer. The board flew up and the next thing John knew a laser rifle was pointed at his face.

"Who are you?" a gruff female voice came, John looking up in shock.

John looked past the barrel of the firearm to the person armed with it: a woman with shoulder length hair caked with so much mud it was impossible to tell the color. Her blue-green eyes were hostile and her expression was hard, the grime on her cheeks and neck implying it had been there a while. On her lapel was a blue version of Owens's pin with a two instead of a one and John's eyes widened when he saw it.

"...V-voltage is d-decreasing," John managed, the nervousness of looking down the barrel of a gun affecting his speech.

The woman's expression softened as she lowered her rifle, blinking. John crawled out of the tunnel and looked around at the Zone 2 trench. It differed little to the one in Zone 2, sans a few more high-tech looking weapons.

"Oh, you're part of the Renaissance Project," the woman said, her voice a little less coarse.

John gaped for a while, but, eventually, he replied with, "Well, you see I just got here from 1864 and I'm a little shaken up by the bombs... They're called bombs, right? Anyway, I have no idea what this Renaissance Project is; General Owens just told me to say that."

The woman raised her eyebrow, to which John pulled out the Rouge Deck. "I assume you have one of these?"

"I apologize for my earlier behavior," the woman said, pulling out a blue deck of cards. "The name's Josephine Jaime Ferra, but my friends call me 'JJ' for short. To my lessers, it's General Ferra."

John reached out and took the Bleu Deck gingerly. "Thank you very kindly, ma'am."

"Oh, yeah, almost forgot," Ferra told him. She opened a case and threw the cowboy five devices.

John shoved the Bleu Deck into his other pocket and caught all of them, almost dropping the third and the fifth ones. The cowboy looked at the device; he didn't recognize it at all. It looked a little bit like the Dobereiner's Lamp that the German fellow in John and his grandfather's wagon train had, but significantly smaller, to the point to where you could hold it in your hand.

Each was a different color and the lever was gone, but the pseudo-cylindrical shape was retained. The material that the devices were made of was cold and hard in John's hands; he guessed that the glass had been traded for a sturdy metal. He noticed a notch on the bottom that might connect to a chain and nodded to himself. Quickly, he dropped them in his vest pocket, first red, then blue, black, yellow, and finally pink.

"Those are..." John began.

"The Scan Morphers, right," Ferra replied. "They're yours now."

John's expression became skeptical. "Wait, so you're going to trust me after saying a phrase?"

Ferra shrugged and said, "It was a code-phrase after all."

John shook his head in disbelief as he let out a nervous chuckle. "The future is mighty strange."

And with that, the cowboy ducked back into the tunnel, closing the trapdoor behind him. John shook his glow stick a little and proceeded forward. After a few minutes of wondering around, he came to a T-like point. John groaned to himself and trekked forward. Suddenly, a short, Asian man in a uniform charged him and tackled him to the tunnel floor.

"Who the dickens are you?" the man roared, snatching John up by his shirt front.

John let out a sheepish laugh and replied timidly, "V-voltage is decreasing?"

The Asian man looked at the cowboy skeptically, letting him go. The cowboy fell to the ground, groaning.

"Ah, a Renaissance man?" he asked John with a chuckle, offering his hand.

The cowboy took it and the smaller man pulled him up. "Not really. I was wondering if you had one of these for me."

The cowboy retrieved a deck of cards from his pants pocket, this new person John had met looking them over.

"Nah, that's the general's job. I'm just a Sergeant," the Asian man replied with a smile, extending his hand, "The name's Dan. Dan Yung."

"John McArthur," the cowboy replied, pulling out one of the devices that Ferra had given him.

"Holy smokes!" Dan exclaimed, looking at the device, "A Scan Morpher."

The Asian nodded and said, "Right. I've got to get you to General Isen right away!"

John nodded back. "Lead the way."

Sergeant Yung began walking through the tunnel, this time back the way he had come.

"Uh, you want to talk to pass the time?" Yung asked after a few minutes of silence.

"Actually, I'd like to ask some questions," John replied, looking down at his pocket watch.

Yung grunted. "Well, I'll answer what I can."

"What's the deal with this tunnel? I mean, why was it made?"

Yung stopped and felt the wall of the tunnel, then shook his head to himself. "The tunnel network was something Zone 2 came up with actually. They were going to attack Zones 1, 3, 4, and 5 via these tunnels to avenge a person that had been killed, the Voltage said, by one of those four. When they raided, the former general of Zone 2 interrogated the other generals to find out which one had bombed them. Of course, you know no one was at fault. The Voltage dropped that bomb. From that day on, the five Zones were allies. We use the tunnel system to communicate."

"Well, if y'all are all 'compadres', then why do you still fight each other?" John retorted as Yung began to start walking again.

"To make sure Voltage is unaware of the Renaissance Project's existence," Yung replied, feeling the wall again.

This time, the Asian man found what he was looking for and pressed a small pebble that stuck out from the wall ever so slightly. Instantly, the wall beside them opened up to reveal a wooden panel with a black number three on it. John looked skeptically at Yung, who shrugged in response.

"Ah, us Threers like our stealthiness," Yung replied with a chuckle.

John stopped and frowned in confusion. "What's a Threer?"

Yung laughed and shook his head. "Every Zone refers to the members of the others by certain names. It used to be derogatory, but now it's kinda like a citizenship name. Y'know, like people from New York being called New Yorkers. We call Zone 1 people Oneys. Zone 2 people are called Paralls. We in Zone 3 are called Threers. If you were to address someone in Zone 4, you'd call 'em a Gravian. Zone 5's guys are named Fibonacks."

John wore a confused look as the two crawled through the opening and it shut behind them with a sound of rocks grinding together and a thud. Yu led the cowboy up a flight of stairs leading to up to a wooden board with a black "3" on it in a circle.

The former flipped the board up and shouted to the entrance, "Friendly with Renaissance man."

With that, the two climbed out of the tunnel system. John laughed as he stretched his arms, then shook his head. "At least I don't have a gun in my face this time. And it seems odd that I wasn't explained that tunnel system."

A burly looking black man approached the two and in a voice similar to James Earl Jones said, "You started from Zone One, right?"

John nodded in replied, which sparked a hearty laugh from the man. "You know what they say: 'You want brawn, get a Oney. You want brains, see a Parall. You want information, come to the Threers.' The name's General Isen, glad to meet you." He offered his hand.

"John McArthur," the cowboy replied, shaking it.

"So intelligence said you came from the past," Isen began with a smile.

John exhaled heavily and replied, "Yeah. It's...different here."

The general chuckled. "I figured so." He pulled out a black deck of cards. "Intel also said you'd want these."

John took the cards and replied, "Thank you very kindly."

Suddenly, a soldier ran up to Isen and whispered something in his ear. The general's eyes widened in alarm and grabbed John by the shoulders, pushing him into the underground system. Suddenly, a bomb went off, making the entire complex shudder.

"The Voltage have discovered you're here. You need to go!" Isen shouted as more bombs went off, "Hurry and get to Zones 4 and 5! Ask for Vagn at 4, Cadaver at 5."

"Okay," John shouted back, a look of urgency on his face as he went back down.

The cowboy hurried through the tunnel, looking at his glow stick, which had died down a little.

Holding it out in front of him, John muttered to himself, "Better get there fast."

Trivia: Each of the Zone's citizen names have to do with the numbers somehow. While Zone 1 and Zone 3 are obvious, Zone 2's citizen name comes from the visual aspect of the Roman numeral for two (II) being two parallel lines, Zone 4's comes from the superstition in Asiatic countries that four is the number of death, and Zone 5's comes from the fact that it's the fifth Fibonacci number (which will be demonstrated below).

Fibonacci numbers are basically this:

1

1 1

1 2 1

1 3 5 3 1