Disclaimer: If you think Power Rangers belongs to me, you're crazier than I thought.
Dedication: to Sarah, who inspired it via one of our many helpful chats, and who inspires me with her constant brilliance and hilarity.

DR. O

Tommy Oliver was seated at a table in the Juice Bar. He drummed his fingers against the table, sipping his smoothie. Banana-pineapple-mango, Ernie's 'taste of the islands' concoction, post-Hawaiian vacation.

"Hey, man, nice hair," said Jason, sitting down. Tommy leaned across the table to bash forearms with his bro. "It's a good look for you."

"I like it long, though," said Kim, and she ran a hand through his hair, now long and loose."Me too," said Kat, standing at his other shoulder.

Jason laughed. "Two against one. Fine. I know better than to argue with either of you."

Tommy nodded. "Hey, I like this song." He looked over to the stage, which was constructed down in the training area. Kira was up on the stage, strumming an acoustic guitar and singing a slow, mournful tune. Tanya, the Yellow Zeo Ranger, was singing backup, a soft, hummy melody. But when Tommy looked more closely, it was Kim playing the guitar, with Cassie, the second Pink Turbo Ranger and then later the Pink Astro Ranger, singing backup.

Tommy looked back to Jason, but Jason was now Conner. Ethan was next to him. "What's up, Dr. O.?" said Conner cheerfully. "Don't you just love this song?"

"Uh, yeah," said Tommy. He looked back to the stage, and it was Kira again, singing with Kim's voice. Kat, Tanya, and Cassie, wherever they had come from, were all gone.

"Did you forget about us, Tommy boy?" asked Jason--Jason's voice coming from Conner's mouth.

"We used to be such good friends, Tommy," said Ethan, with Billy's voice. Tommy didn't even know which set of Rangers he was seeing anymore.

"You guys never visited me after we graduated," said Rocky, sitting where the red and blue rangers of past and present had once sat. It was appropriate, since Rocky had been both red and blue himself. The two of them were the only ones in the Juice Bar. "You replaced me with a ten-year-old, Tom."

"No one's ever called me Tom," said Tommy, picking up on the part of Rocky's statement that didn't make him feel guilty. "Always Tommy."

"You're not a kid anymore," said Rocky.

"They call me Dr. O. now, sometimes."

"We're not 'them'. We're us."

"You've never called me Tom."

"You haven't called me in at least a year," Rocky countered. Adam sat down next to him. "Or me. We worked together for a long time, man." Which was true. He had probably worked with Adam the longest. "You don't ask about Tanya or the baby."

"There's a baby?" Tommy asked, surprised, but Adam didn't answer. Zack sat down next to him. "Remember me?"

"Hey, man, I'm sorry." They'd barely exchanged two words since Zack, Trini, and Jason had left for Switzerland, many years ago.

"We love you, Tommy, you know that, right?" said Kat softly, she had returned an had taken up her post at his left shoulder again.

"I know. I'm sorry."

"It's okay. We're here now."

"We don't all know about you," said Aisha.

"And you don't know about a lot of us," said Trini.

"We don't want you to go without a goodbye," said Kim finally, standing at his right shoulder and touching his arm lightly. "Please don't."

"I won't," he said.

"See you soon," Tanya promised, and she was gone. Trini, Zack, Rocky, Aisha, Billy, Adam, Jason, Kim, Kat, Conner, Kira, and Ethan...all gone. Tommy was alone.

He blinked, sat up, stretched. Alone in his bed. It was early in the morning here, which meant it would be in most other places. Where they were. He missed them. All of them, no matter how recently they'd spoken, no matter how close their bond had been when they'd known each other. They all shared the common link of the uniform, and that was far stronger a bond than average friendship. Tommy rolled back over, with the strong mental note that he would call people when it wasn't as obnoxious to do so. His friends. He had a life outside of school and the kids, and it would serve him well to remember that. He owed it to the other Rangers, now that he was back in uniform. It was a dangerous business, and they all knew it. They deserved to know; just in case.

Tomorrow. Not soon enough.

CONNER

"The first bell rang," Matthew informed Conner. "We're missing homeroom. It's the first day." Matthew --whose last name Conner didn't even know-- had the annoying habit of pointing outthe obvious details as if they were utterly earth-shattering, breaking news. He was a lousy goalie, to boot, but it was easier to recruit the wide-eyed freshmen than the upperclassmen who knew Conner's reputation but even so, were less easy to persuade. "We're going to get in trouble."

"Fine," sighed Conner exasperatedly. "Let's go." He kicked the ball up into the air and caught it neatly, balancing it under his arm as he went into the building.

Cut to lunch, where Conner was sitting inside the cafeteria at his 'usual' table, surrounding by his jock friends. It was a gorgeous day outside, and Conner loved being outdoors whenever possible, but it was the first day, and he had claims to stake. Not that Conner had ever sat anywhere else during his two years at Reefside, and not that anyone not with his crowd would dare sit there, but tradition was tradition.

"Did you hear?" said Derrick Cole, sitting down with an overflowing lunch tray. "That computer geek James rigged the alarm on the sprinkler system and totally drenched the entire courtyard. Totally got detention from that psycho new principal."

"Dude," contributed David Wingate, "best part was, so did that punk girl. You know, the one with the guitar and the Marilyn Manson getup? She was playing outside, and the principal just ripped into her. Hilarious stuff. That chick had it coming to her."

The entire table laughed, even Conner.

"Principal Randall, the rumor's going round that she used to work in a mental institution," said one of the guys.

"I heard it was a prison," said Conner.

"Whatever," said David. "Already she's alienating the geeks and the freaks. She's gonna do great things for this school, dudes."

Conner had to go by Randall's office on his way to his locker after lunch, and saw a very dry black boy sitting next to a wet-cat-looking blond girl in black and yellow.

"Way to rock the bumblebee look," said Conner scathingly as he passed.

He expected some sort of snide remark from the drowned punk princess, but she apparently thought she was too good for him. Him, Conner McKnight. She didn't even grace his remark with a reply, merely shot him an acidic glare. Conner shrugged it off.

Cut to the sky suddenly going pitch-black in the middle of class. Conner crowded at the window with the others, and when he turned around, Dr. Oliver was gone. He felt weird about that, but he didn't know why. Probably something to do with the teacher abandoning his class in the middle of what looked to be Armageddon.

Cut to the new kid's arrival, some ape-faced dork with a rich daddy who spent all of his time staring out of windows or drawing lame superhero pictures. The soccer team took special joy in cutting down Trent Fernandez, Conner in particular.

Cut to a soccer game, where Conner won the game nearly single-handedly, and was hailed for possibly the millionth time as the school hero. Screw the Power Rangers, he was a lot more liked and respected and worshipped. He was going out with a different girl every night.

Katie Swanson asked him to homecoming, and while she was only the third girl to have invited him, and there were at least two more guaranteed, he said yes right off the bat because you couldn't do much better than Katie Swanson, head cheerleader. If Conner was Reefside High's king, Katie was its queen. It was remarkable the two had never hooked up before, spending their time dancing around it and slowly working through the rest of the A-list before getting to the top spots.

Katie looked ridiculously hot in a short little red number that was entirely inappropriate for the likes of a school formal. Conner had always loved the color red, favored it himself in his wardrobe, and he had a feeling she'd picked out the dress just for him. He also knew perfectly well that they were going to this dance merely as a social engagement. They were going to put in an appearance, then they'd probably be off elsewhere. He would have bet solid money that Katie was going to put out, and he would have won.

Dr. Oliver, the science teacher, was one of the chaperones. Conner had always sort of liked the guy, because he was easy to talk to, and while he was serious about his subject matter, he was also young enough to get that the kids just didn't care about science, so he tried to make it interesting. He was surrounded by Ethan James, Kira Ford, and Trent Fernandez. Ethan was telling some sort of stupid, geeky joke that had them all laughing. Kira looked way different from the girl Conner ignored in the hallways; she was dressed up, she was actually very pretty. Screw pretty--she was gorgeous, Conner was surprised to note. Trent's arm was around her shoulders, and he looked happy. They both did. All four of them did, in fact, and for some reason, Conner felt a twinge of jealousy.

What-ever. He was Conner McKnight. Everyone loved him. Guys wanted to be him, girls wanted to do him. "Man, what I wouldn't give to be Conner McKnight for, like, an hour," Derrick had said when Conner had broken his own personal goal-scoring record, and at the same time, the record held in the state. All of that to be followed by taking Katie Swanson to homecoming. Who wasn't jealous of him?

The four of them in the corner seemed completely oblivious to the high school mating rituals going on around them. Conner had come solely to be seen and acknowledged, forced into making nice with Katie's friends for awhile, every last one of whom he hated.

"I'm bored already, Conner," said Katie in a whining sort of tone. "Let's get out of here."

"Sure thing," he said, sliding a possessive arm around her waist. Trent's grasp on Kira was one of protection, of caring, but Conner's hold on Katie was that of abject teenage lust. He didn't want to protect her. He didn't particularly care about her. Or for her, for that matter--Katie was whiny and obnoxious enough to be getting on his last nerve. But being here with her was good for his image, so he had to make sacrifices. He was going to get lucky tonight, and yay for that, but he'd rather not have to talk to Katie if he could at all help it. Tonight or ever.

He cast one last look over his shoulder at the foursome. Suddenly they all turned to look at him, the laughter gone, meeting his gaze with serious expressions. Trent nodded his head respectfully, as if in greeting, as if he knew Conner other than his tormentor. Dr. Oliver looked at him not like a teacher, but like a friend. Ethan's lips quirked in a half smile. Kira lifted one hand in a vague wave.

"Ugh, what-ever," said Katie plaintively, although he didn't know if she'd seen the bizarre greeting or not. She gripped his arm. "Let's go."

Conner jumped from sleep like he would jump from a burning building. No transitional period, just go. He felt heady, disoriented. That couldn't have been...it wasn't... His hand felt weighty. He fumbled, trying to find out why, and felt the metal, warmed by his skin, of his Dino Gem bracelet.

He sat up, gazing at the bracelet on his wrist in the glow of the moonlight spilling in through the window; he'd forgotten to close the shades when he went to bed. On his desk, he could see a framed photograph, partially illuminated by the moon. He got out of bed, trying to shake off his sleep even though it was very early in the morning (or very late at night) still. He picked up the frame, standing in front of his window to see the photo. Him in the middle, the tallest, with an arm around Ethan on one side and Kira on the other. The three of them, smiling and laughing, and genuinely so. It was all real. This was real.

He hoped.

ETHAN

Ethan was perched on the corner of Cassidy's desk at the office. She was hunched over a scattering of papers, fact-checking her latest assignment. He just loved to watch her work: the slightly furrowed brow as she matched facts, the exasperated "humph!" as she doubted the integrity of what she read, the way she'd swipe her hand over her head to tame the loose tendrils of fine blond hair. "This is so obnoxious," she said. "I'm working on the biggest story of my or anybody else's career--I'm attempting to blow the Blueman thing wide open. But the reports all contradict each other! When are any of these people going to have an accurate description of Blueman's secret identity?" She acted as though the conflicting reports were a personal attack against Cassidy herself.

She huffed, and he smiled fondly at her. "If anyone can figure it out, Cass, you can," he said, keeping his tone easy and light, and trying to quell the nervous flutter in his stomach. Because if anyone could figure out Blueman's secret identity, it would be Cassidy Cornell. The upside: a girlfriend who was both gorgeous and brilliant. The downside: Ethan James himself was the elusive superhero Blueman.

"Oh, I don't doubt that I can," she said confidently, having always been overly assured of herself and her journalistic abilities. "I just wish the path from A to B wasn't so freaking crooked and so filled with made-up nonsense from a bunch of hick losers."

"I know, I know," he said consolingly, and leaned down to give her a quick kiss. Suddenly, the color blue flared in his brain, the blinking sensation of his birth-given sixth sense, a danger alarm that couldn't really be seen or heard, but known, and only he received the mysterious signal. "Hey, Cass, I'm going to head to the bathroom, okay?" he said.

"Sure," she said, leaning back over her papers, already engrossed in her work again.

Ethan darted out of Cassidy's office and turned into the hallway that held the bathrooms--and also the elevator. He got in the empty shaft at the third floor, and when the doors opened at the lobby, there was no one inside the car to greet the waiting businessmen. Blueman, in bright-blue spandex with a navy cape, was flying across the city to save yet another citizen in distress.

Burning buildings were nothing to Blueman. The smoke didn't even sting his alien-born eyes, the night vision allowing him to navigate through the black to rescue the little girl trapped inside the raging inferno that was formerly her apartment. He scooped the little girl into his arms, and was about to evacuate the dangerously crumbling building when she wept in terror against his chest. His blue sense activated again, and he reached into the depths of the closet to pull out a tiny gray kitten, which the girl hugged to her chest as he hugged the girl to his.

He landed spectacularly on the pavement, to a crowd of thunderous applause from the apartment building's tenants and the fireman waiting below. "You did it, Blueman!" cheered a fireman exuberantly, clapping the hero on the shoulder.

"I haven't done anything yet," swore Ethan, setting the girl on the ground, where she ran to her mommy's waiting arms. Then Blueman turned around, heaved in a great breath, and then exhaled a cool wind, powerful enough to put out the fire, and with a light, minty scent.

"Oh, Blueman, you're the coolest!" giggled two girls, crowding around him and pressing against him, a svelte brunette and a sleek redhead. He extracted himself from their adoring death grip, for he loved only Cassidy. But on the other hand... Ethan James belonged to Cassidy--and Blueman belonged to the people, did he not? With a smile, the hero granted each groupie a kiss on the cheek, to which they squealed and bounced some more.

"Stay safe, Reefside!" said Blueman in his booming voice, launching himself into the air and flying back to the TV station, where he got out of the elevator on the third floor and returned to Cassidy's office. "I'm back," he said, kissing her on the top of the head fondly.

She glanced up distractedly from the phone balanced on her shoulder. "God, Ethe, you were gone for, like, forever. Blueman did something heroic again, and I missed it because Devin was running donut errands for Mr. Cormier." She sighed. "You know something, Ethan, Blueman totally just saved a little girl from a burning building and put the fire out, and you were peeing."

Ethan just laughed. "Being a superhero isn't always about the cape and the press coverage, Cass."

She mulled these words over, finding endless wisdom in the platitude. "I suppose." She flashed him a smile. "You're brilliant, Ethan, do you know that? I love you." And she met him in a sweet kiss that was sure to make headline news.

Ethan's eyes blinked open, and a smile enveloped his face. "Sweet," he said giddily, rolling over and snuggling back into his pillow in an attempt to reclaim that world.

KIRA

Kira was thrilled--this was the biggest turnout she'd ever had for one of her shows. People were packed into the Cyberspace, and no one was sitting because they wouldn't have been able to see over the teeming mass of bodies. They kept coming through the doors, kept trying to find room to stand. She wasn't sure if she was playing her best because of the crowd, or if the crowd was because she was playing her best, but the fact remained that she had never in her life played so well, not even at home by herself.

Hayley had abandoned the bar to stand at the front, next to Dr. O. The two chatted and smiled, nodding proudly at Kira and to the beat. Ethan was there with Cassidy--no, Cassidy was with Devin. Or was she? The three of them blurred together complexly. They were muted next to the dynamic red of Conner's shirt, next to the beam of his proud smile, the gleaming grin. Kira hit the final chord of her song dramatically, letting the note float out, suspended in the air for a second before the audience erupted appreciatively. Conner's whoop rang out loudest of all. Kira gave him a friendly smile, saving her wattage for Trent, next to him.

But Trent was not there.

Kira started the next song, but she scanned the audience during the opening strains, looking for her boyfriend's familiar spiky dark hair. She didn't see it. None of the faces in the crowd were Trent's. In fact, all of them were simply blobs of color. The only countenance she was able to recognize was Conner's.

She looked down, and her guitar was not a guitar--it was a giant paintbrush attached to an artist's palette in the guise of a guitar shape. The music kept going, though she played nothing. She turned to cast a confused look at her drummer, but her drummer was Trent. "What are you doing up here?" she asked.

He shrugged glibly, hitting the skins with colored pencil drumsticks. He wasn't drumming to the beat, but the song kept playing flawlessly. I wanna know / Know where you're at / I'm at the front / But you're still at the back Those were her lyrics, that was her voice--but she wasn't singing.

Suddenly she was in the middle of the soccer field. The faceless crowd had now become a slew of abnormally tall daisies, bopping along to the song, smiling at her without mouths. She was still holding her fake guitar, and she turned behind her to where the backup instruments played along. There was no sound coming from them, and there was no one there playing them. They were animated of their own accord. She turned back to the floral audience, and Conner stood prominent among the daisies. "Play what's in your heart," he said.

"Conner? What--"

He was gone, engulfed in the sea of daisies. They were shooting up into the sky, becoming a thick, dense forest, blocking out the sun. Kira looked down at the palette in her hands, where the swatches of paint were not paint at all, but tiny images of Trent's head, all looking up at her. "Kira," they all spoke in haunting chorus, and she dropped it.

It fell impossibly slowly, and crashed to the wooden floor of the stage. It shattered. She was surprised to find that it was not a brush and palette, but her own guitar, now twisted wreckage.

"Play what's in your heart," came the words again, and she looked up. She was back in the Cyberspace, and it was empty and desolate, save for the two figures sitting at one of the tables. She couldn't tell which of them had spoken--the White Ranger or the Red Ranger.

"What does that mean?" she demanded of her companions, but they stared at her through the mouths of the dinosaurs on their helmets. Sightless, black eyes. "Conner, Trent, what's going on?"

Someone tapped her shoulder, and she turned around. There was no one there, but the Yellow Ranger helmet was in her own hands. "Play what's in your heart," the helmet said, without the use of a mouth, and transformed into the White helmet, then the Red, before Conner's visage floated where the faceplate once was. His eyes bore into hers with a familiar probing expression.

Kira sat up sharply, her nightshirt plastered to her back with sweat. She was panting heavily, and felt as though she'd run a marathon. "What was that?" she quietly asked the night and the dark, but neither held the answer.

TRENT

"Trent, honey, time to get up. You'll be late for school if you don't hurry."

Trent rolled out of bed, stood up, and stretched. "I'm coming, Mom."

He rushed downstairs, where his mom was pulling perfect waffles out of the waffle iron, and his dad was sitting, reading the paper. "Where's Dad?" Trent asked casually, sitting down and helping himself to a waffle.

"He's right here," his mother answered cheerfully, pointing to the man at the head of the table, the paper up high, obscuring his face.

"No, I mean...where's Anton, that dad. Where is he?"

His mom smiled even wider. "He's dead, Trent."

Trent's heart sank. "Dead? He can't be dead."

"But he is. He blew up in the accident on the island. Blew into smithereens!" His mother was unnaturally happy as she delivered this morbid news.

"Smithereens," his dad echoed, behind the sports section.

"There's an art show this weekend, honey," his mother said, leaning across the table to pour syrup on Trent's waffle. "You should enter your drawings. You don't do enough in the art world. We should buy you your own gallery with Anton's money."

"Pursue your dreams of being an artist, son," his dad said heartily.

"But don't you want me to follow you guys, inherit the family business?"

His mother laughed. "Are you crazy?" she asked delightedly. "Of course not. You should do exactly what you want to do, and nothing but. You should live your own life."

"We love you, Trent," they said in chorus, a moment that was touching amidst the weirdness of the rest of it.

She was still pouring syrup. His waffle was soggy, the thick liquid filling every tiny square and spilling over the sides, forming a pool on his plate. She seemed oblivious.

"Mom?" he asked. "Mom?"

But she was staring at a space just over his shoulder, her eyes glazed, her body locked in the action of pouring. Suddenly, she crumbled to dust before him, a shower of ash that washed over the breakfast table and then disappeared as if it hadn't been there, as if she hadn't been there.

"Mom!" Trent cried, terrified. "Dad, what's going on?"

His dad finally lowered the paper to the table, revealing the face of Mesogog. "What's wrong, Trent?" he asked, in a kind and patient voice. Trent screamed.

Trent, time to get up. You'll be late for school if you don't hurry," came Anton's voice through Trent's door.

Trent sat up, a cold sweat on his forehead. "Uh, coming, Dad..."

He couldn't shake the feeling, though, that his dream wasn't entirely fictional.

DEVIN

Pitch black.

Then, light! Brilliant light, rectangular panels of color glowing below and above and around, twinkling maniacally. A single silver ball, hanging, catching the reflection of the lights, and spinning them dizzyingly, bouncing them off of every corner, shining them into every shadow.

The thump of the beat, remaining steady as the music strains in and out, hard and soft.
Suddenly the volume cranks, and the upbeat tune strikes fast and furious. Devin is hit with the urge to dance.

Gleaming white polyester clings to his legs, his shirt a baggy study in the rainbow, swirling across his chest and torso with a motley palette of chaos. His hair is slicked back, up, away from his face. His toe taps on the floor to the solid beat, and the hunger for the rhythm glides up his body, taking over until he bounds to the middle of the dance floor, a whirl of color and motion. He moves without conscious thought, but his dance has a grace to it, studied practice and flawless moves. Where previously the space was empty, it is now filled with teeming life, people crushing against each other for the chance to glimpse at Devin's display. He is utterly alive on the dance floor.

"Hi, Devin," a girl says shyly, looking up at him with adoring eyes.

"Hey, Cass," he returns, his voice smooth, but not without some warmth. He winks down at the acne-spotted waif, both disgusted and enchanted by her subservience. How long she has followed him, with a rapturous expression and an eagerness to please. How long has life dumped on this poor, saddle-shoed blond who does his bidding on every menial task. She asks for nothing in return but his friendship, maybe his love. Seeing something real and true behind his detached demeanor. "Want to dance?" he asks.

She blinks at him disbelievingly, staring at his extended hand for a long moment before accepting it. "Okay."

He hoists her up onto the flashing floor, and leads her in a simplified version of his dance, toned down so that she might follow. She sashays through it awkwardly, then realizes he is not judging her, and she loosens up. Her moves are still a bit jerky and uncertain, but her heart is there, and her genuine laughter counteracts her slight stumbling.

He draws her to him tightly, possessively, and then drops her in an exaggerated dip that has her shrieking with laughter. With a smile, he bends to give her a Hollywood kiss. There is a definite showiness to his action, but he means the action itself utterly. She gazes up at him, flushed, enraptured. The crowd around them erupts in applause, for their king has found a queen. Someone hands Devin a trophy for his spectacular dancing, and he bestows it to Cassidy to hold, his arm around her waist and his free hand waving genially at his fans, who are chanting.

"Dev! Dev! Dev! Dev!"

Brap! Brap! Brap! Brap!, blared his alarm clock obnoxiously. Devin sat up, running a hand through his matted bed head and yawning widely before the yawn turned into a full-blown grin. Best dream ever, absolutely.

CASSIDY

Cassidy Cornell had just won the Tom Brokaw Award for Outstanding Journalism. She stood up on the stage, clad in a pink dress that somehow managed to be both girly and professional all at once. It was the signature Cassidy style: hard-hitting as her reports, but with a touch of feminism, like the smile she delivered at the end of the news right before the cameras shut off.

She gazed out over the packed stadium of exuberant fans before her eyes settled on the front row. Her parents were there: her blond mother, whom Cassidy had been the spitting image of when she was younger, looking bored and not even watching the stage; Mr. Cornell, his salt-and-pepper hair fading away into baldness that drove her mother crazy, chatting on his cell phone. Not glowing about Cassidy's many achievements, that was to be sure.

Next to her parents, where her other friends should be sitting, were two empty seats. Cassidy knew the faces she wanted to see there, the only two people who had ever bothered trying to get to know her, know the real Cassidy Cornell. But the smiling black boy had been dismissed as a geek once too often. And the shaggy-haired cameraman had been walked on for more years than any sane person would have allowed themselves to have been. They wouldn't come. They hadn't come for years. Still, Cassidy always kept those seats open, always, in case they arrived. She wanted them to know she cared, but she couldn't, not with all of these cameras on her. Not when she was being awarded for being ruthless and uncompromising. The media that she fronted couldn't ever see what made her weak.

But she wanted them there, how badly she wanted those seats filled. How badly she wanted them to care again.

She was back in her room after the ceremony, the walls paper with magazine and news articles about the amazing young reporter, her shelves crammed with trophies and statuettes. There were no photos anywhere that weren't publicity shots of herself. There were no knick-knacks that didn't gleam in the fluorescent light. It wasn't a home, it was a shrine. It was oppressive in its airiness.

The phone rang. Her boss's voice came over the speaker: "Cornell, an orphanage just blew up. Everyone's dead. The Power Rangers were visiting the children, and they're dead, too. I need you to cover it immediately."

Cassidy gasped. "That's such a tragedy."

"It's news, Cornell. Get out there and do your job."

Cassidy could remember years of respecting the Power Rangers. She still did. "I don't know if I can, sir."

"You can and you will, Cornell. You're the most professional person in this business. Cold and heartless is your thing. Get out there. It's a great story." The dial tone rang harshly in the vast rooms of her apartment. Buzzing, buzzing...


The alarm clock was buzzing, and Cassidy hit it fiercely, but she didn't rouse from bed. She rolled over, sadness welling in her at a ridiculous speed, and she cried hollowly into her pillow.

HAYLEY

"It needs to fly," said Ethan.

"It needs to be the fastest you've ever built," said Tommy.

"It needs to be sexy-looking," said Conner.

"It needs to have a great stereo," said Kira.

"It needs to be done five minutes ago, Hayley," said Trent.

They were all staring at her, and she was aware of the utter lack of compassion in their gazes, of the cruel weight of the screwdriver in her hand. "I'll do the best I can," she offered lamely.

"We need it to be better than that," said Kira. "The Power Rangers are counting on you."

"The world is counting on the Power Rangers," added Ethan.

"I--" Hayley began.

"Just do it now, Hayley," the five of them chorused, disappearing, leaving a pile of jagged scrap metal where they stood.

Hayley knelt in front of the pile, reaching to try and assemble some sort of last-minute save-the-day construction. The metal was sharp and unforgiving, and her bare hands and arms came away scratched and bleeding.

"Is it done yet?" demanded Conner.

"No," she said wearily, "I don't have the supplies I need--"

"We're getting killed out there, Hayley," said Trent. "You're our best bet."

"I'm working as fast as I can," she said, brushing a lock of hair out of her face. "It's not easy, though, I--"

"Now, Hayley," the four teens chorused.

Tommy put his hand on her shoulder. "Are you doing okay?"

She stared down at her bleeding hands. "Tommy, I'm trying, but I can't do this."

"Sure you can," he said easily. "You have to. I have to go risk my life out on the battlefield now. You play with your toys." And he was gone again. They all were, just fading in and out of the room, demanding things from her.

"They're not toys," Hayley protested feebly to the empty room.

"You'll never win, you know that," hissed a voice she knew to be Mesogog's. She'd never actually seen the dinosaur. He was a shadow at the other end of the room, flanked by two other shadows.

"We're going to destroy Tommy," Elsa and Zeltrax chorused.

"And when we're done--" said Elsa

"--we're going to kill the kids, too," finished Zeltrax.

"But you play with your toys while we torture them," they said in unison.

"They're not toys!" yelled Hayley, but she was alone once more.

"Hayley, can you fix us?" whined a slew of voices, and Hayley turned around to see the Raptor Cycles and the ATVs, staring at her without eyes. "What's wrong with you now?" she asked, but suddenly they all toppled over in an indistinguishable heap of rusty metal, worn by years of misuse. She couldn't work with it.

The entire lab was decaying rapidly around her, moss forming on the walls, the stench of mold stuffing her nostrils, the lights fading into dull gray, dust settling over everything. "Guys?" she asked. "Tommy? Trent? Ethan? Kira? Conner? ...Anyone?"

There was no answer. There wasn't even an echo.

Hayley woke to the alarm. She couldn't have a bracelet like the others, because she didn't have a gem to put in it. But she had a special alarm in her small apartment, hooked up to the same system at headquarters, so she'd know when she was needed. She was on her couch, the afternoon sun spilling over her as a red light flashed. Shaking off her dream, she ran out of the apartment.