Chapter 1: New Friend?

Location: Angel Grove Rec Center

Billy, Rocky, Adam, Kat, Aisha, and Tommy entered the Rec Center to see a new face behind the juice bar. The man was about 23, easily 6 feet and dressed in jeans, a white T-shirt, a denim jacket, and a brown cowboy hat. He looked up at them, and started for a second like he was surprised to see them, then quickly broke into a wide grin.

"Hey, there." He called to them.

Somewhat confused, the six returned the greeting. Kat then asked, "Where's Ernie?"

"He's on vacation and he hired me to fill in. Name's David." He had a slight Texan accent.

Billy and Adam went over to the videogames, Aisha and Kat sat down at the bar and ordered smoothies, and Rocky and Tommy went over to the mats and began warming up to practice.

After serving the smoothies, David looked around and then called to Rocky and Tommy, "Hey, it's kinda dead here for now. Mind if I spar with one of ya?"

They looked kind of surprised for a second, then Tommy shrugged and said, "Sure, why not?"

"Cool." David came out from behind the counter and walked over to the mats. He took off his jacket and shirt and they could see he was in very good shape.

"I'm afraid my style is a little unorthodox, so be warned."

They faced off. At Rocky's signal, the sparring match began. It didn't take long to see that the two were pretty evenly matched. Blow after blow was launched only to be blocked, ducked, or evaded. All of a sudden, David started to drop to the floor for what looked like a leg sweep, but when Tommy jumped David quickly put one hand to the ground and executed an amazing dropkick that sent Tommy sprawling. David leaped to his feet and went over to the stunned Tommy and, with a slight smile, helped him to his feet. When he pulled Tommy to a standing position, he surreptisiously whispered into his ear.

"Ask your friend about the seventh coin."

Then he shook Tomm's hand and said out loud, "Thanks for the match. You're pretty good."

Still a little stunned, Tommy replied, "Thanks, you to."

David picked up his shirt, hat and jacket and put them back on. It was only then that those watching noticed that he hadn't even broken a sweat.

As the six Power Rangers watched the man go back to the juice bar as if he had done nothing more than go for a walk, they each wondered the same thing, Who is this guy?