I'm Kelsey Winslow. I'm probably the last person anyone with any sense would have chosen to be a Power Ranger, to protect Mariner Bay from demons, but for some reason, I was. Captain Mitchell has never explained exactly why we were the five chosen, except that it was for our 'skills'. I climb rocks and risk my life for the fun of it! What the heck kind of skill is that? I haven't the foggiest, but I would never turn this job down, now that we've really gotten into it.
For five people who had never even met each other before the day that Diabolico, Vypra, and all the rest escaped, we certainly have bonded fairly well. We have to train, of course, and I'm starting to pick up a few paramedic skills just by hanging around with Dana. Getting taught how to fight is kind of fun too. The Power gives us the ability to do all kinds of marvelous things, things even I never dreamed of, but we get even stronger and faster when we're morphed if we're already strong and fast. It takes what we have and expands on it, and the more we have to start with, the more we have in a fight.
I've lost track of all our fights by now. It seems like at least once or twice a day, something happens so we're out in the field, suits on and trashing the latest thing that Diabolico has sent up to destroy us. It's become quite nearly routine. But we all know better than to fall into a rut or to become predictable.
Funny. It used to be that the mere words of 'rut' or 'predictable' would've sent me screaming for cover. Now they're just things to avoid, not terrors. I've seen real terror now, and I'm just not impressed by the same things I was. Being a Power Ranger has changed me some. I can feel it. I still love to climb, and I do whenever I can, but it's not the same. What kind of thrill is it to slowly plod my way up there when I could probably run up it morphed, and not even be out of breath once I got to the stop.
I get my thrills other ways these days. By going out and kicking demonic keister. It's crazy, I know, but ever since that first fight, I've wanted nothing more than to be there when we finally get rid of Diabolico and all the rest of them. Out of all the people in the universe, in all the universes, I was the one picked to be the Yellow Ranger. I don't know why, but I do know that now that I have been chosen, I'm going to do all that I can in order to be the very best Yellow Ranger it's possible for me to be.
The others feel the same way. Even Joel, and he wanted to leave the moment that we got here. He kept moaning about being kidnaped and how this was wrong, and everything else. All I could think of was that it had to be the coolest thing I'd ever went through. And there were some darned cute guys going on the trip with me.
Joel himself is all right, but just not my type. I never really liked people who were as wacky as I am, and he's got that crush on Ms. Fairweather. I don't think I've even heard her first name so far. If she has one. Oh, now that is weird, everyone has a first name! Maybe I'll ask her about it sometime. I bet Joel would give his teeth to know it. I've never seen a guy as gone on a girl as he is on her. I wonder if she'll ever give in and date him. I know she likes him. She just doesn't like his attitude. Can't say I blame her, either.
Chad's all right. Okay, so he's more than all right, he's one of the best looking guys I've ever come across, and he's even single. That girl he saw the other day already had a boyfriend. I don't quite know yet how I feel about him. I know we're friends, but ...could it be more? That's something I still have yet to figure out. Maybe I'll think some more on it later.
Then there's Carter. The Red Ranger. Drop dead gorgeous, and doesn't know it. He's so nice, and I like him. He's one of the few people I've ever met who has to be as insane as I am. You'd have to be a bit loose in the gears to go running into burning buildings on a regular basis. I'm the last to admit to fear, but even I would think twice about doing what he does for a living.
That's even the weirdest part about all of this. The other four are the ones with jobs, with lives that were interrupted by their choosing as Rangers. I wasn't. They were a firefighter, a paramedic, a stunt flyer, a whale trainer. I was just a climber, doing it for fun. I picked up odd jobs around Mariner Bay for money. In fact, that day I had been about to finish up my climb and go back down to look for something that would pay the rent and the grocery bill for the next month or two.
I don't even live in that apartment now. None of us live or do what we used to. Training and Rangering has become a full time occupation for us. Just like Rangers do on other planets. It's so strange. Ever since the first Rangers were chosen, they kept their identities secret. Even now we don't know who they were. Then during the last war with Astronema, the Space Rangers announced themselves to save those people who tried to save them. And then they took themselves off...somewhere, no one knows where. No one's seen them since. Even their families haven't seen them since they left.
I can understand why they left too. We Lightspeed Rescue Rangers don't get hassled as much as they were, but it doesn't matter. I think it's almost a given that we're going to eventually fall in love with someone associated with the Lightspeed program. Anything else would just be too dangerous. Though by definition, love itself is dangerous.
Not that I'd know by personal experience. The guys back in high school didn't even want to look at someone who wasn't blonde, blue-eyed, perky, giggly, and with the average brain cell count of a slug colony. Someone who could take them four falls out of five wasn't even worth considering. Sometimes I wonder what the people I used to hang out with would think of me now. I've thought about going back to the high school reunion; it's this weekend. Maybe I could bring Chad or Carter with me...now that would make an impression.
They always thought of me as something less than feminine. But ever since becoming a Ranger, I realized I could be myself. I didn't have to cater to their whims. There were people who wanted me because of me, because of just who and what I was. Why they wanted me is still beyond me, but one thing has stuck very clearly out in my mind ever since that first time is this: they wanted me. No one else. None of those brain dead fluffies that were getting every guy that crossed my path just a few years ago. All of them are probably wifies and mommies by now, wasting their lives catering to some half-drunk bozo who would have a heart attack on the spot if they saw one of the things that my friends and I deal with on a daily basis.
Friends. I can't believe I just thought that. I have friends. More than friends, a family. Dana Mitchell, Carter Grayson, Joel Rawlings, Chad Lee, Captain Mitchell, Ms. Fairweather, everyone else here at Lightspeed Rescue, they care about me because I'm me. They'd be my friends even if we weren't Rangers, even though that was what brought us together. It was fighting together that welded us together. It was having to depend on each other for our very lives that made us one. They're all better friends than anyone I was with in high school. In my entire life, really.
They're the people I trust with my life. The people who trust me with theirs. They are my fellow Power Rangers.