The Hellhound's Return

Inner Strength

"This training exercise is harder than it looks," said Daggeron. He had shrunk the Rangers down and taken them to an arena inside an old shoe-box. The exercise looked simple - retrieve six brooms with different coloured ribbons individually attacked, each ribbon corresponded with a Ranger. "Ready? Begin."

Kali glanced up at the broom with the black ribbon. Ever since learning that she had magical heritage, she had put more faith in her learning, and studied more than she had ever done in the human world. Rolling her wand in her hand, Kali pointed it at the broom, muttered a spell, and grinned as the broom floated down to her.

All around her, the others nabbed their brooms out of the air. The only room that didn't descend was Xander's, much to the annoyance of the Green Ranger. As Daggeron congratulated the others and complimented them on their retrieval, Xander run around shooting spell after spell at the broom, but to no avail.

"Get... down here! Come on! It's not working!" Xander yelled.

"Ah, Xander," the others sighed, resting on their brooms.

"What is wrong?!" Xander groaned.

Daggeron shook his head and wandered over to the Green Ranger. "Give it here," he said, taking Xander's wand. He flexed his wrist and a green spell hit the broom, causing it to fall to the floor. "Didn't you practice for this assignment?"

"He had a date last night!" said Nick.

"The others found time to practice," Daggeron scolded. "You have to work harder. Training is over for now."

Kali blinked and the training room disappeared and they returned to Root core.

"Welcome home," Jenji greeted.

"I expected better from you," Daggeron said as he brushed past Xander.

Kali turned to Nick as Xander scoffed and then wandered away. "That could've gone better," she muttered.

~X~

The next day, Daggeron took the Rangers out into the Mystic Forest. He had been dropping hints about their training exercise all morning but had refused to tell them exactly what they would be doing. Once deep enough into the woods, he stopped and turned to the expectant rangers.

"Are you going to drop the cloak and dagger act and tell us why we're out here, now?" Kali asked.

Daggeron nodded. "You will be running a sort of obstacle course," he explained. "Your objective is to find and recover six flags. The course has been designed to challenge each of your magical strengths." He turned to Xander. "Let's hope you do better than you did yesterday."

"'Let's hope you do better than you did yesterday'," Xander mocked, childishly.

"Seriously?" Kali asked. "You're just reinforcing the fact that you're a child."

"Whatever. But this guy is getting on my nerves," Xander said.

"What's your problem with him anyway?" Nick asked.

"Why does he think he can come in here and tell us what to do?" Xander asked. "He just showed up out of nowhere."

"So? Udonna wants him to train us," said Maddie.

"It's not just me. Chip doesn't like him either," said Xander.

Kali scoffed and glanced at Chip. The yellow ranger hadn't stopped moving since Daggeron had met them at Root core earlier.

"What are you talking about? I think he's great!" Chip answered, giddily.

"You're just mad because he embarrassed you," said Vida, calling the situation as she saw it. "Get over yourself."