Syd wasn't sure why she was being called in to see Doggie so late on a Saturday night. Things had been relatively calm for SPD for a few days, and she had honestly been looking forward to getting her beauty sleep. Of course, she should know by now that evil would do everything in its power to keep her from getting to do so.

For some reason, the other Rangers weren't waiting in the Command. Instead, the only other person with Doggie was a civilian.

"Cadet Drew," Doggie said without preamble, and Syd didn't even have time to do more then wonder what the middle-aged brunette was doing there. "Unfortunately, Cadet Tate never arrived at his godmother's residence this evening. We have reason to believe that he's met with foul play. I need you to accompany Mrs. Skullovitch as she searches for him. The rest of your team will be monitoring things from here."

Syd raised an eyebrow. "No offense, Commander, or to you, Mrs. Skullovitch, but wouldn't it be better if the whole team went looking for him?" Instead of shuffling me off with a civilian, she added mentally.

"I requested you, actually," the godmother, or so Syd assumed, said. She extended a hand. "Kimberly Hart-Skullovitch."

Syd's jaw dropped. "Wait, Kimberly Hart? The first Pink Ranger? You're Sky's Godmother?"

Kimberly laughed. "Hard to believe, with his view on female Rangers, huh?" She glared at Doggie, who almost winced.

"I assure you, Mrs. Skullovitch," he began, but Kimberly cut him off.

"Kim," she said firmly. "Rangers call me Kim."

"The respect for the original team dictates," Doggie tried to continue, only to be silenced by Kimberly's laughter.

"We were just doing our jobs," she said. "And frankly, all this hero worship thing gets old. Let's just go find my idiot godson before Jason comes back from the dead to haunt me for losing him. Besides, I haven't given Sky his lecture on respecting Pink Rangers yet, and I've been looking forward to that all day."

"Is that why you requested me?"

"Yep," Kim said. "Well, that, and I make it a point to take all the new Pink Rangers shopping at some point, and I hadn't gotten to meet you yet."

"Oooh," Syd said. "I do need some new shoes," she said, looking down at her boots critically.

"If I may interrupt," Commander Cruger interrupted. "We do have a mission."

*

Kimberly lived in one of the nicer areas of New Tech City - it was actually close to Syd's own family, and going to see Kimberly felt a little bit like coming home. She liked Kimberly - obviously, she was the first Pink Ranger, and Syd had grown up on stories about her. She'd wanted to be her; that was what had sent her to SPD in the first place. And now here she was with her idol, and she couldn't come up with anything intelligent to say. She never had a problem with coming up with things to say.

"Here we are!" Kimberly said cheerfully, waving her hand in front of the security gate. "Now, we need to get down to business. Gene?" she called as she walked in the door, Syd trailing eagerly behind her. "Any sign of him?"

"Not yet," another voice called. "Adam, Andros and Billy want to know if you need reinforcements."

"I've got another Pink Ranger," Kimberly said seriously. "We'll have him rescued in no time." She paused. "Although if Billy wants to run some sort of analysis thing to pinpoint his location, I'm totally in favor of that."

Gene laughed, and he walked over to them, kissing Kimberly on the cheek before handing her a datapad. "Already done. Some remnants of the Machine Empire have him."

Kimberly glanced at the datapad. "Piece of cake," she said.

"Can you morph?" Syd asked eagerly. "I mean, I can totally take care of everything, and I'm sure you don't actually need protection being a senior Ranger and all, but I'd like to know our assets."

"Good question," Kimberly said, nodding. "I can. I don't make a big deal out of it," and she stopped to glare at her husband, who wasn't even bothering to hide his smirk. "Unlike some people," she added. She turned to her husband. "Where did you say the Machine Empire was holding him?"

He handed her a datapad. "Everything you need is on there," he said.

Kim kissed him. "Thanks." She turned to Syd. "I just have to run and get something. I'll be right back." She left the room, leaving Syd alone with Gene.

"What did she need?" Syd asked hesitantly.

"Her morpher, probably," Gene told her. "She doesn't use it very often, so she doesn't carry it on her."

"Which is why I said I don't make a big deal out of it," Kimberly said as she walked back in. She turned to Gene. "I'll probably miss dinner, so don't bother waiting."

"Have fun!" her husband said, and Syd followed Kimberly out of the kitchen and back to the SPD jeep.

*

"The Machine Empire sounds pretty nasty," Syd observed.

"They showed up after I left," Kim said. "So I never really fought them. I heard about them from the Zeo team though."

"Sky's dad was one of those, right?"

"Yeah, Jason was the Gold Ranger," Kim said absently, as she consulted the notes that they'd been given.

"I thought he was a Red Ranger?"

"Oh, he was. He was the first Red Ranger. A great Ranger, and a great guy." Kimberly's voice shook a little. "God, it's been years, but I still miss him. He was a great team leader, and an even better friend. Sky could have learned a lot from him."

"Sky isn't that bad," Syd said, determined to defend her teammate.

"You don't know what he said, do you?" Kim asked.

Syd shook her head, and then went back to concentrating on the road.

"Let's just say that the boy needs to learn to respect his female teammate's abilities and leadership skills a little more," Kimberly said. "I didn't put up with that female Rangers are weaker crap when I was on the team, and you shouldn't have to either."

"Oh," Syd said. "I hadn't..."

"Pink Rangers need to stick together," Kim said with a shrug. "And it's not like we haven't had female team leaders before, so I don't know what Sky's problem is, other than he seems to be convinced that Jason wouldn't have loved him if he knew that Sky wasn't Red. Which is a load of crap, frankly. Jason would be so proud of Sky no matter what."

*

"This is it?" Syd said in surprise. "This is an abandoned warehouse."

"Like you've never had that happen before in your Ranger career," Kimberly said with a shrug.

Syd really couldn't argue with that. "Do you want to morph now?"

Kimberly shook her head. "Let's see what's going on first."

Carefully, the two Pink Rangers sneaked into the warehouse. Sky was easy to find - he was tied to a chair in the middle of the room, unconscious. He was guarded by all sorts of silvery robots that she remembered were called Cogs.

"Why do you think they took him?" she asked. "I mean, it doesn't look like they're giving him over to Grumm or anything?"

"It doesn't really matter why," Kimberly said grimly. "Just that they took him. We can figure out the whys later. You ready?"

"Ready," Syd agreed, holding up her morpher.

"Alright," Kimberly said. "It's Morphin time! Pterodactyl"

"SPD, Emergency!" Syd yelled, as she held her morpher up in the familiar patterns.

With a flash of pink, the two Rangers stood there, and Syd realized that she was actually fighting with the first Pink Ranger.

Her life was so cool.

And the first Pink Ranger's uniform was adorable. She wondered if she could convince Kat to let her add a skirt onto hers.

The two of them leaped into the mass of Cogs, fighting their way through them as they made their way to Sky.

"Nice uniform!" Kim called as she dodged out of the way of one of the Cogs, and then kicked him hard enough to take out two others.

"Really?" Syd asked. "I love yours."

"It's way better than the Ninja uniform, anyway," Kim said. "Power Bow!" she added, summoning her bow to her hand.

Syd grabbed her Delta Strikers and fired, knocking even more Cogs down.

Between the two of them, they made short work of the Cogs, and Syd ran over to untie Sky.

He groaned, and opened his eyes.

"Syd?" he asked in disbelief. "Where's Jack? And Bridge?"

"Not here," Kimberly said from behind Syd. She'd demorphed for some reason.

"Aunt Kim?" Sky asked. "I think I hit my head," he said.

"You did," Kimberly said. "But I am here. Syd and I rescued you."

"Oh," Sky said. "Um, thanks? But I was going to escape soon."

Kimberly rolled her eyes and helped Sky get up.

*

Apparently, Kimberly didn't think that a possible concussion would let Sky avoid the lecture she'd been planning on giving him. It wasn't quite what Syd would call a lecture, it was more a long list of stories about the times that she'd saved Jason.

Syd was really enjoying the stories, and from the look on Sky's face, he hadn't heard some of these before.

"But my father was a great Ranger," he protested.

"Of course he was," Kimberly said. "He was the best. But even he needed help sometimes - that's part of being a Ranger. And he knew when to listen to the other Rangers, his teammates. And he knew when to follow us."

"Oh," Sky said. "I guess..." he trailed off.

"We'll talk about it more over dinner next week," Kimberly told him. "Just try not to get kidnapped on the way to the house again. I don't want to make this rescuing you thing a habit or anything, it was bad enough when Tommy got kidnapped every week."

Sky laughed. "I promise," he said.

"Sky!" Bridge yelled, as he, Jack and Z ran over. "You're safe!"

"Yeah," Sky said. "Aunt Kim and Syd rescued me."

"Take care of him," Kimberly informed the SPD Rangers. "Syd and I still have business to attend to."

"We do?" Syd asked, as they drove off.

"Yep," Kim said seriously. "Boot shopping."