Chapters:
1. 5 Powers the Dino Rangers Wish They Still Had1. 5 Powers the Dino Rangers Wish They Still Had
Speed
There were three messages on his phone when he shoved the soccer ball into his bag and swung it over his shoulder. All from Ethan, who was calling again right now and blocking the time display on his phone. Great.
"Dude, what?" Conner demanded, already heading for the road.
"You'd better not still be at the athletic field," Ethan's voice warned. There was a hint of smug glee in his tone that said he knew exactly where Conner was. "Because in two minutes, you are going to be late, late, late."
"Hey, here's an idea," Conner retorted. It wasn't like he didn't know when Kira had told them to be there. "Stop distracting me."
He hung up and ran.
Strength
Intellectually, he knew training had made him a lot more capable than he'd been before he'd become a Ranger. But ever since draining his gem, Ethan hadn't been able to appreciate it. He'd gotten used to being invulnerable, and it was a serious blow to the ego when he couldn't even drop something on his foot anymore without wincing.
"You okay?" Kira asked, whirling and tense at the sound of the crash. They were all still jumpy, too. He'd long since given up on expecting someone to notice--apparently kids were expected to be stressed and twitchy these days.
"I think I broke my toe," he informed her.
Kira rolled her eyes. "Boys are such babies," she muttered, grabbing the speaker from him and hauling it into position.
Camouflage
Kira got mad when they were late, mostly because she liked to be late herself and they constantly ruined her dramatic entrances by not being there to see them. Unfortunately, she was on a team full of people who both liked dramatic entrances (their own) and constantly forgot important events (mostly hers). The combination meant that the Yellow Ranger was almost always mad at them for something.
Trent was her favorite, and he knew it. He was the least forgetful, the least fond of making a scene, and the most respectful of the artistic sensitivity behind her pretended scorn. He knew that choice, the one where not caring was easier than being hurt, and there were times when he wished he could still manage it himself.
He couldn't. So when he heard Cassidy's voice behind him, he thought automatically, wall, because going unnoticed was better than hurting someone, even someone like Cassidy who would forget as soon as she turned around. He was just part of the wall, not even here.
It didn't work. That power was gone, and it was a relief and an annoyance: it no longer reminded him of what he'd done, but it couldn't protect him from the consequences either. So he smiled at Cassidy, because disdain and apathy still scared him too badly to let them show on purpose, and resigned himself to being late.
Sound
"Why is everyone on this team six feet tall?" Kira demanded, glaring into the cupboard above the counter. "And also, in whose world does it make sense to keep the glasses above the mugs? Obviously you need glasses more often than you need mugs."
"What are you babbling about now?" Ethan asked absently. The fact that he was listening at all kind of surprised her.
"You know sound is a pressure wave?"
She could practically feel the look he was giving her. "Uh, yeah. Shockingly. I did know that."
"I used to be able to knock things down by screaming at them," she said, frowning at the cupboard. "I'm kind of tempted to try it now."
She knew Ethan was rolling his eyes without having to turn around. "Or you could just get a stool."
Invisibility
Conner was helping Kira give Trent a hard time about being late when he finally gave up on salvage for the night and emerged from the basement. He assumed that meant Conner had been late too and was trying to divert attention from himself. He further assumed that, as their teacher, he would get out of the guilt trip by virtue of being an authority figure.
He realized he was wrong the second Trent's gaze settled on his. A smug look flickered across his face almost too quickly to recognize, and then he shoved his thumbs into his pockets and shrugged helplessly. "Come on, Kira," he pleaded. "It's not like we live here..."
Oh, that was low, Tommy thought. Every eye in the room turned toward him--of course--and he clapped his hands together briskly to cover his chagrin. "Right," he said. "Sorry I'm late. I guess it's time to, uh, celebrate you being legal, huh?"
If anything, the stares grew longer and wider-eyed.
"Uh, what?" Conner said.
"What?" he echoed, frowning.
"Did you just say..." Conner trailed off, giving Kira a significant look.
Aw, man. It would be Conner who came up with that. What had happened to him being an authority figure? He couldn't even give them detention anymore, and they so knew it.
"Legal," he repeated firmly. "High school graduates, eighteen-year-old adults, capable of voting and entering into contracts and possibly making informed decisions about the world around you. Good luck with that," he added, making it clear that he was about two seconds from rolling his eyes.
Ethan snorted, and Kira gave Conner a dirty look. Trent just shook his head, smiling his secretive smile again. There were times, Tommy thought with a sigh, when he really missed that dino gem.
Not everyone could say "airports" and "relaxing" in the same sentence without throwing a "not" in there somewhere. But Tommy Oliver wasn't everyone, and there were very few places he hadn't found himself under attack in the last decade or so. Luckily, airports were at the top of that list.
It had been a long time since he was anonymous in any of the places he went regularly. Ranger, racer, researcher, teacher... there were always people watching, waiting, looking up to him or counting on him for something. Whether they knew it or not. Most days, it made him feel alive.
Sometimes, though, someone said "thank you" in a way that really messed with his head. Those were the days when he appreciated airports the most: here he was anybody, no one of importance, someone whose sole responsibility was to meet someone else. If he did it, he won. Simple as that.
His kids were still celebrating. They'd even surprised him with "graduation" presents, which wasn't quite how he remembered high school but the team had insisted. They had all shown up with something, hidden in a backpack or coat pocket, and they listened to his protests about as much as they usually listened to his lectures.
"Your main gift," Conner had told him, "is that we're graduating, and you won't have to deal with us anymore."
"Yeah," Ethan agreed, "but since we're not all as obnoxious as Conner, we figured, hey. Maybe something we could wrap up."
Ethan's "present" had been a copy of the program he used to hack Hayley's lock on the mainframe. It had been down for days, and even now it was running at forty percent on backups that weren't meant for continuous operation. But Hayley was as scrupulous as ever about changing the codes, and they all knew Tommy couldn't remember them for anything.
He doubted Ethan's program would be good for more than a week. Ethan promised to update it, though, and Tommy figured he and Hayley could keep each other busy chasing shadows for a few months at least. It might keep him out of trouble over summer break.
Conner had given him an action figure. The Triassic Battlized Ranger, which made Tommy smile even as Conner played it off as a joke. It had taken him a few minutes to really look at it, and by then Conner was teasing Kira about something and no one had been watching to see him turn it over.
Thanks, Conner had written on the bottom of the right foot. The bottom of the left foot said simply, Conner. Tommy had turned the figure upright again and set it down on the table without a word.
His gift from Kira had been a CD. Not the semi-professional one she was working on, but a collection of the recordings Trent and Devin had made for her during the school year. Performances at Hayley's, the songs she'd done with Kylee, warm-ups and polished pieces from the music video shoot... even a track from the prom.
It was, he thought, her way of letting him in. It had been harder to bond with her than any of the others: she was so defensive, so mercurial, so much more vulnerable than she wanted the world to know. The amateur recordings were candid, an unusual admission of trust when she let him have a piece of her that she hadn't edited first.
He had made a difference. Reassuring, in a crowded airport at the end of the day, to think it mattered that he had been the one at Reefside High that year. Reassuring, and disturbing--because Kira hadn't been the only one to give him a CD.
Trent's gift had been straightforward enough: some rock music that he liked, and it wasn't the first time he'd teased Tommy about "what the kids listen to these days," so Tommy had smiled. He'd even rolled his eyes, because that was what they expected. It wasn't personal.
Until it occurred to him that the CD wasn't shrink wrapped. By then it was several hours later, and he'd paused in the act of cleaning off the table to frown down at the jewel case. "Comatose," by Skillet. It didn't ring any bells, but the boy on the album cover was holding a giant power cord. Alone, in an empty room.
A sense of creeping dread warned him not to open the case. When he did, he found Trent's neat handwriting scrawled messily across the liner notes. It was never easy to let you down, the note said. He'd signed it--pointedly, Tommy thought--Trent Mercer.
Not "Trent Fernandez." Not even just "Trent." Trent Mercer. A reminder of where his loyalties lay.
And now Tommy was listening to that reminder, waiting on a delayed flight in the middle of the night at an airport that he sometimes thought he knew better than his own kids. His team. It was sometimes hard to think of them that way, when for years "team" had meant Jason and Billy and Kat and Tanya.
Maybe that had been his mistake, he thought. If Trent had really been his teammate, would he have held those secrets against him? Tommy had kept his share of secrets. He'd disobeyed his own mentor on several occasions--for family, for ego, for sheer stupidity. He'd made more mistakes than Trent ever had... and when had his own teammates ever passed judgement on him?
When had his mentor passed judgement?
Tommy slouched further in his chair, resting his head against the back and closing his eyes. Trent's rock music was the only thing he could hear. "Do you believe time heals all wounds? It started getting better, but..."
What if it wasn't Trent he was judging at all? What if it was himself he was angry at, after all this time? He'd thought he'd moved on. But he'd never expected to run into another evil Ranger, either. He'd certainly never expected one of his own teammates to betray him.
"Will I get over it? It's been way too long for the times we missed, I didn't know then it would hurt like this, but I think the older I get maybe I'll get over it..."
He must make quite a sight, he thought distantly. Slumped in a chair on the observation deck, eyes closed, with a clunky discman on his chest. Thinking about calling one of his kids to say he was sorry. Because it wasn't really Trent who needed to be forgiven, after all.
"I should have taken less and given you more..."
Was he supposed to be able to understand the lyrics? Back in the day, "rock" had meant "anything you can't understand." He missed that.
"I should have weathered the storm--"
Tommy stripped the headphones from his ears and sat up. He was calling Trent. It didn't matter how late it was, because all his kids had cell phones. And come on, they were high schoolers. They didn't sleep anyway.
His own phone read 2:38 am, and he hesitated.
They're not high schoolers anymore, he reminded himself.
Not that college students were any better. He knew that from personal, entertaining, and sometimes painful experience. But the arrival board had said 2:50 the last time he checked it, and he really should be on his way to the gate right now.
His phone started flashing. The ring silenced, no vibration, the only indication he had was the blinking display and the words "incoming call." He stared at the name for a long moment. That was when he realized how tired he was, because right, of course.
"Hey," he said, soft smile of welcome as he fumbled the discman, pushing it off of his lap as he stood up and tried to stretch without moving the phone away from his ear. "Are you down?"
"Sitting on the tarmac," a very welcome voice confirmed. "It's the first time we've been early all night. I think they started overestimating just to make us feel better."
"Whatever it takes," he told the phone. "Welcome home, sunshine."
Kat's voice in his ear was tired and comfortable and kind as he gathered up his discman, hooking the headphones around his neck, and patted his pockets to check his keys and wallet. He would call Trent in the morning. Right now, winning was waiting at Gate C28.
Tommy Oliver always won.
The room was dark, the bed was strange, and she had no idea where she was or why she was waking up there. Why she was waking up at all. Had she been asleep? It was so dark that she must be in a hotel. Morning on the road.
Tommy shifted beside her, and just like that, she remembered.
Not a hotel. Home. It was morning, in London. Here it was the middle of the night and dark enough to match, even with the curtains open. Far from city lights and pre-dawn wake-up calls, music and bustle and skipped breakfasts.
She sat up, staring into the blackness as she tried to make the shadows resolve into something recognizable. Angel Grove. Except it wasn't, this was Reefside, and the Command Center she'd seen in her dreams didn't exist anymore.
"You okay?" Tommy's whisper drifted to her in the darkness, though he hadn't moved again. He sounded... tired, but maybe not as sleepy as he should. They were neither of them used to sharing a bed every night, and it always took a little time to re-acclimate.
"I had a dream," she murmured. "About the Command Center."
"Back in Angel Grove?" He sounded abruptly awake.
"Yeah." She was looking in the direction of the window without really being conscious of it, but she felt him sit up beside her.
"Me too," Tommy said, and she knew that voice. That was his Ranger voice, the one that said he was two minutes from calling the team, dream or not, and only basic courtesy was making him think before he acted at this time of night.
"I want to go." The words were out before she knew what she was going to say, and they surprised her as much as they probably surprised him. But they were true, she realized, even as she opened her mouth to take it back. She did want to go.
"Okay." He didn't even hesitate. "Let's go."
"Wait, Tommy--" He was already getting out of bed, and as serious as she was, she wasn't immune to the weirdness of it. "That doesn't make any sense."
"I know." He didn't sound worried. His voice was light, wry, maybe an undercurrent of excitement in the words. She couldn't help but smile when he added, "Being a Ranger never did."
So they were up, and she wasn't unused to dressing in the darkness no matter where she was. Nor did the bright light of the hall startle her when Tommy flung the bedroom door open and suddenly seemed to remember how infrequently she'd been here. "Sorry," he mumbled, abashed. Lights blazed a second later.
Just in time to keep her from bumping into the doorframe.
The real surprise came when he held the front door for her and she stepped out to find someone waiting on the steps. Tommy had hit the outdoor lights on his way to the kitchen, but apparently he hadn't looked outside. The figure sitting there, looking oddly washed out in the bright white glow, didn't bother getting up.
He did glance over his shoulder at the sound of the door, though. He blinked up at her in surprise. "Uh... hi," he said. Almost like she was the intruder--a stranger in her own house.
It was only when Tommy crowded out behind her that he got to his feet, his blank look closing down as he took a step back. "Oh, hey. Dr. O." He cleared his throat, shoving his thumbs into his pockets in a way that was more graceful than awkward.
Stage presence, her mind whispered.
"Sorry," he muttered. Staring past them at the house, then down at the ground, he managed to look like he was leaving without actually moving. "I thought--"
"Hey, Trent," Tommy said, and she placed him immediately in the rotation of names that came up in e-mail and phone calls. Funny that she hadn't recognized his face from the group pictures.
"Trent Fernandez," Tommy was telling her, like he'd just remembered. "Former White Ranger."
"Of course," she said, smiling politely as she held out her hand. "I've heard so much about you. I'm glad we could finally meet."
"My wife, Kat," Tommy added quickly. "Former Pink Ranger."
A smile flickered across Trent's face as he took her hand, and the grip belied his stammered apology. "It's, uh, good to meet you too?"
He was charming in his uncertainty, and she thought he knew it. Even his discomfort was polished. He seemed very familiar, somehow... Oddly like the performers she lived and worked with half a world away.
"Is everything all right?" Tommy was asking. He sounded concerned but not entirely surprised, as though it wasn't unusual for people to turn up on his doorstep at any hour of the day or night.
"Yeah, it's cool," Trent said quickly. He took another step back. "Sorry to bother you."
"Trent." Tommy didn't sound annoyed, or threatening... he really just sounded like he was trying to figure out what was going on and he didn't know what to say next.
But it worked. Or Trent did. "I had a dream," he blurted out. "I know, it sounds stupid. I just... well, I figured--"
"Let me guess," Tommy said, glancing at her. "It made you want to go somewhere?"
"North," Trent said. "Somewhere... north. I don't know."
"Angel Grove," she said, and he looked up in time to catch her eye.
"Yeah." Trent's surprise seemed genuine. "I think... yeah. How did you know?"
"Same dream," Tommy said, and he didn't sound quite as excited about it as he had before. "You haven't heard from any of the others, have you?"
The others. The team. Trent shook his head, the question so normal to him that he didn't have to think about it. But she hadn't been part of a Ranger team in years, and she had to make a conscious effort at recall: Conner, the leader, and Kira, the flyer. Ethan, technical expert... Hayley, information analyst.
And Trent, she thought, considering the way he didn't watch Tommy pull his cell phone out of his pocket. His inattention was a little too deliberate. It was like he practiced not being there. And it wasn't self-consciousness, it was too studied for that. It was like...
Chameleon. The word made her frown. His power. She was suddenly sure of it, despite the way she had never quite matched up power to color in her memory. Was that his role on the team, then? To be whatever the observer was looking for?
"Conner," Tommy was saying, cell phone to his ear now. "Sorry to wake you up. Had any weird dreams?"
There was a pause, words that she could hear but not make out, and then Tommy interrupted the indecipherable voice. "Just answer the question."
She looked at him in surprise. That was a tone she didn't hear from him very often. Impatience wasn't really his style, and the same easygoing nature that had once made him a perfect foil for Zordon, honed by summers at the track, had served him well throughout grad school.
"Yeah, okay," he added. "I get it. Let me know, okay?"
Not until he shook his head in response to something the voice on the other end had asked, brushing it off with a brief, "No, it's nothing," did she realize what she was hearing. This wasn't Tommy's normal voice at all.
It was his teacher voice.
She glanced at Trent, wondering if he heard it too and if it meant anything, or if Tommy's new teammates were used to the occasional lecture and "teachable moment" from him. But Trent was on his own phone, so quiet and subtle that she hadn't even noticed him get it out. He was only a couple of meters away and she still had to strain to make out what he was saying.
"Tell the guys," she heard him mutter. "I'll text you from the road."
"No, you won't," Tommy cut in. "You'll text her from your own room after we drop you back at your house for the night."
"Gotta go," Trent told the phone, a little louder now that it was obvious he had their attention. "Dr. O's doing his thing again."
Tommy didn't bother to reply to this, just waited while Trent did for the voice on the other end of the phone to respond.
"Yeah, right," Trent said after a moment. "You too. 'Night, Kira."
"You don't have to drop me anywhere," Trent added, pre-empting Tommy's instructions the second he hung up. "I have a car, you know. And the only place I'm going with it is the interstate, so we can either kill the environment together or carpool."
Tommy snorted. "And when your father finds out that I kidnapped you in the middle of the night for a jaunt across the state--"
"He'll say exactly the same thing he'd say if I took my own brand new birthday present on wheels," Trent interrupted. "Did you learn anything, son? Did that cute girlfriend of yours go too? And most importantly, is this venture going to pay off for you in the near future or are you taking the long view?"
Tommy sighed, and she didn't think there was any point in dragging this out. "We'll take my car," Kat said firmly. "Trent, do you want the front seat or the back?"
"I'll ride in back." He didn't have to think about it. "Thanks."
He and Tommy didn't talk to each other again for hours, which might not have been so strange given that Tommy fell back to sleep in the passenger seat almost immediately and Trent had headphones in as soon as she glanced at him in the rearview. But they both talked to her: Tommy right away, when she turned on the CD player and found one of his teammates' CDs in it, and Trent later, when a song ended and he asked her to play it again. Neither of them acknowledged that the other had spoken in any way.
They weren't the most entertaining road companions, but they were a lot lower maintenance than the people she usually traveled with.
After she realized that Trent wasn't actually listening to his headphones--at least not so loudly that it drowned out her music, which was quiet enough for Tommy to sleep through--she made an effort at conversation. "Kira's very talented," she said, when the song he'd asked her to repeat was over.
"Yeah," Trent agreed. That was all he said.
"I hear you're quite the artist yourself," she added, glancing back at him in the mirror.
That got his attention, and he actually caught her eye briefly. "Dr. O told you that?"
She smiled, not least because "Oliver" seemed like a sort of simple name to initialize. "Was it strange," she wanted to know, "having one of your teammates be your teacher?"
There was a startled silence, and she gave Tommy a quick look out of the corner of her eye. If he wasn't sleeping, he was doing a better job of faking it than usual. She hadn't asked him much about his relationship with the rest of the team, because she'd thought she knew.
They were Rangers. He was a Ranger. They had a common goal, shared the bond of the Power, and spent maybe a little too much time together. Like every team before them.
"I think," Trent said at last, "you mean, 'isn't it weird having one of your teachers be your teammate.'"
So, yes, she thought, nodding as much to herself as to Trent. Seeing Tommy actually interact with his team had been a surprise, and she was starting to think he'd fallen into more of a mentoring position than he had admitted over the phone.
The one role on a Ranger team he had always tried to avoid.
"Yeah," Trent offered. "It is, a little. But Dr. O's great, and we never would have been able to do what we did without him."
Sixth. The word whispered in her mind, Tommy's identity right up until the Zeo quest had rewritten all their destinies. He'd given up his sixth Ranger status long ago, becoming one of them... and now he wasn't. Again.
"The strength of a Ranger is the team," she said aloud. Maybe a little wistful. "None of us can do it alone."
She hadn't really expected Trent to answer, but he did. "Sometimes we have to."
Kat looked up at the mirror, but he was staring out the window now. "Spoken like a true sixth Ranger," she mused. The role Tommy had implied was Trent's from the beginning. And yet...
"There are only five of us," Trent said.
"Maybe there are only three of you," she said slowly. Conner, Kira, and Ethan had all gotten their powers at the same time. Tommy wasn't their peer in Power, age, or academics. He was the odd man out--but maybe he wasn't the only one.
"The sixth Ranger is traditionally more ally than teammate," she added, casting a glance back at Trent. "Strong but unstable--their power is unpredictable." Mostly a reflection of their mental state, Billy would say, but she kept that to herself. "They support the team without always being a part of it."
Trent didn't say anything for a long moment. When he did, though, she almost didn't catch it. "Sounds more like Dr. O," he muttered. It was clear that he wasn't sure she should hear, and that more than anything told her how he meant the words.
So... Tommy had alienated Trent, probably over the Anton/Mesagog mess. His e-mails when he first realized what Anton had done were so angry that he actually used exclamation points. And from the man who barely knew what punctuation was, let alone what to do with it, that said something. She wasn't surprised that Trent would end up defensive on his guardian's behalf.
"It sounds like both of you," she said, keeping her eyes on the road. "Maybe that's why you don't get each other. Most teams have all they can do to support one sixth, let alone two."
"I thought you said the sixth Ranger supports the team." Trent sounded vaguely irritated. "And why is it called the sixth, anyway? I'm guessing it isn't about numbers."
Oh, if only Billy were here.
"Physically," Kat said carefully, "the sixth supports the team. The sixth is usually stronger and faster than the individual members of the original team. But together the members of the team are mentally stronger, and so they support the sixth."
"Symbiosis," Trent said. She couldn't read his tone at all.
"Teamwork," she agreed.
There was a brief pause. She thought maybe he was thinking about it, until he said very casually, "Dr. O wanted to take away my morpher."
She blinked. "What, at first?" Tommy had mentioned how dangerous the White Power was, and the trouble had seemed to go on for quite a while.
"Two weeks ago."
"Oh," she said, startled into silence. Then, suddenly, she could hear Billy's voice in her head. Clear as anything, and it made her smile as she said aloud, "Well, there were a lot of times when we wished we could take away his morpher, too."
Trent sounded interested in spite of himself. "Yeah?"
"He's something of a daredevil," Kat offered, and she was only pointing out the obvious. "Sometimes it got us into trouble."
Trent sounded like he knew what she meant when he muttered, "They're all like that."
She didn't know if he meant Red Rangers, or leaders in general.
"The Rangers, I mean," Trent clarified.
That was possibly fair, she decided. But the fact that he said "they" when he was referring to Rangers only confirmed her suspicion. "I'm sure you've had your share of heroics," she said, glancing at him in the mirror.
He brooded for a minute, then surprised her with a half-smile. "You say 'heroics' the way most people say 'stupidity,'" he observed.
"Well," she said lightly, "Tommy was the sixth on his first team for years." She thought he might understand the significance despite her tone. Might understand himself, and Tommy, in a way there hadn't been any other former Rangers around to point out.
His silence indicated that if he didn't, then he was at least trying to.
The light of the sun, still somewhere below the eastern horizon, had long since begun to wash out the stars by the time they left the highway and turned toward the desert. She'd listened to Kira's CD twice, switched over to the radio, and then accepted Trent's offer to plug his iPod into the dash when she lost the third station in a row. She didn't know how he could be so awake in the early hours of the morning, but she wasn't complaining about the company.
They'd stopped twice, once for a bathroom and the second time for food just outside of Angel Grove. She and Tommy conferred briefly after the second stop about exactly where they were going, but the dreams had been clear. Even Trent's, which was interesting given that he had never been to the Command Center.
"Should've brought the Jeep," Tommy remarked, as they pulled over to the side of the road.
Kat raised an eyebrow, hand still resting on the stick while the engine idled. "Just because your car has no roof," she said, "doesn't mean mine has no wheels." And, very deliberately, she hit the right-turn signal before pulling off-road and into the desert.
She could hear the grin in Tommy's voice when he spoke. "Just like old times."
"This time with airbags," Kat remarked, glancing back to check on Trent.
He was sitting in the middle of the back now, leaning forward, as he'd been when he hooked up his iPod earlier. This time he was just listening, arms folded and braced on his knees, until he caught her eye in the mirror. "What I want to know," he said, as though he understood perfectly, "is how come you guys got race cars and we got dinosaurs."
"Hey," Tommy protested. "The Dinozords are cool!"
"Well, yeah," Trent agreed, like it went without saying. Then he added, "To a six-year-old."
There was a moment of silence, long enough for Kat to wonder if this was their way of escalating--or possibly making up. Then Tommy complained, apparently to her, "I can't even give him detention anymore."
She hoped he was joking. "He can't conveniently forget your homework assignments anymore, either," Kat pointed out. "I guess you both lose."
"I didn't 'forget' homework assignments!" Trent said indignantly.
"Oh, so that was just Tommy, then?" she asked, keeping a lookout for wildlife during this most active part of desert dawn. She smiled to herself at Tommy's wordless protest, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Trent smack the side of Tommy's arm.
"Thought you said I reminded you of yourself at my age," Trent told him.
Tommy cleared his throat, but he didn't seem surprised by the reproof. Or the way it had been delivered. "Yeah, well. Not academically," he muttered, and her smile widened. So... making up, then.
"It must have been the Dragonzord," she said lightly, hoping to keep them talking long enough that she could be sure.
"Dragozord," Trent corrected, seemingly without thinking.
Tommy got it, though, and he sighed. "I had nothing to do with bringing back the dragon," he informed her. "You and Jase need to get over it already."
"Wait--" Trent caught up quickly, she thought. "You had a dragon zord too?"
"Tommy said watching you was like deja vu," Kat said over her shoulder, because it wouldn't hurt Tommy's ego to share a little more with his team. If he hadn't already. "Between the zord, and the clone... even the color."
Being adopted, she wanted to add, but maybe she had to draw the line somewhere.
"I thought it was the whole evil thing," Trent blurted out.
When only silence followed this comment, Kat glanced at Tommy. He was staring out the windshield, but he clearly felt the look because he shifted uncomfortably. Bracing one arm against the window, he muttered, "That wasn't the same."
Trent leaned further forward, probably to hear, and Kat slowed down a little. He couldn't possibly still be wearing his seatbelt. She didn't say anything.
"It was an accident," Tommy said after a moment, like the words were being dragged out of him. "For you. Because you were trying to... help someone. It wasn't--
"Rita chose me on purpose," he said in a rush. "Because I was alone. Because she knew I had the potential for evil in me."
Kat frowned, finding his shoulder by touch. "We all do," she said firmly. "That's what makes us good."
She heard Trent move behind her, bracing his arm against the back of her seat. "What?" He sounded like he really wanted to know. To understand.
"Zordon told me that no one can be good without the potential for evil," she said, squeezing Tommy's shoulder before letting go. "The best they can be is neutral. He said only those who know the shadows can bring the light."
They were quiet, until they'd gone as far as the car could make it on the sand and stone. "We'll have to climb," Tommy said, leaning out the window as though he could get a better view.
"Tommy says you backpack?" Kat asked, looking over her shoulder as she unfastened her seatbelt.
Trent didn't dispute this, just gave Tommy a sort of amused glance that Tommy was obviously expecting. Without even turning, he said, "Just assume she knows everything. I find it's easier that way."
They didn't have to climb, as it turned out. Whatever mysterious force had summoned them to the base of the cliffs also provided their way up. Violet sparkles shimmered in and out of her vision, obscuring the car the moment they were all out and clearing to reveal the ruins of the old Command Center: teleportation.
Not a mystery after all, Kat thought, turning slowly to look for the source.
Magic.
Kerone was waiting for them.
Tommy saw her a moment later, and she could tell he relaxed, just slightly. A known quantity, as far as he was concerned. A friend. "Kerone," he called, by way of greeting. "You could have used the phone."
And Kerone smiled, dispelling any doubt Kat might have with her sweetly innocent expression. Some people could fake it. Astronema had never been able to. Only as Kerone could she look so happy, so sincere.
"Sorry," she said, moving out into the sunlight. "The spell didn't work quite the way it was supposed to. I don't know what happened."
"Is everything all right?" Kat asked. The surreal nature of the summons was already fading, and she was torn between curiosity and concern.
"Oh, it's fine," Kerone promised. "I just had a few extra visitors, that's all."
"Uh, sorry," Trent cut in. Smooth as ever, with a practiced awkwardness that got everyone's attention. "Do we know her?"
"Trent, Kerone," Tommy said quickly. "Kerone, one of my students, Trent Fernandez."
The introduction, she thought, was all the more telling because he'd done it in a hurry, under pressure. Not one of your students. She willed him to remember without being corrected. A Power Ranger.
"Former student," Trent said, and his tone was easy even as he ignored Tommy to give Kerone a careful nod. "Former Ranger. But I guess you know that, if you're calling us all to an old Ranger base."
"Kerovan Ranger Kerone Tyuseabe," Kerone confirmed, giving him a charming smile that softened her words considerably. "I was actually just trying to get Kat's attention. But sometimes the magic doesn't work the way I want it to."
"Magic?" Trent repeated. It was Kat that he looked to on this, not Tommy.
"She's a sorceress," Kat offered. "Andros' sister... the Red Astro Ranger?" She didn't mention Astronema's name, since it seemed like it should be up to Kerone if she wanted to talk about that. Or not.
"I wanted to ask you something," Kerone added, while Trent seemed to silently process this information. "Unfortunately, I think I woke up every one-time evil Ranger within a few hundred miles."
"That's why it was specific to us." Tommy said this like it made perfect sense. "The rest of the team didn't get anything."
"They might be the only ones," Kerone said, with obvious embarrassment. "I've had Ninja Rangers, Ancient Warriors, and a wolf spirit. So far. Plus all three of you."
"You called all the evil Rangers?" Trent repeated.
Kerone shrugged a little. "Not... intentionally?"
"What did you want to ask me?" Kat asked, aware that this conversation could degenerate quickly.
The former princess of evil, a woman who had done her best to destroy the Rangers many times over during her reign as Dark Spectre's second-in-command, turned a shy smile on Kat and said, "I'd like to rebuild Zordon's command center here on Earth. As kind of a tribute to him."
Glancing at Tommy and Trent, including both Zordon's first White Ranger and evil's latest in the question, she added, "What do you think?"
She couldn't have timed it better if she had planned for and rehearsed that moment a hundred times. Because just then, into the neutral light of the pre-dawn hours, their daily beacon arose. Shadows shrank and sharpened as the sun spilled over the hills, upper limb flooding golden light in every direction.
"I think it's beautiful," Kat said simply.