Centuries ago, a legendary inter-dimensional being known as Zordon came to the city of Angel Grove to establish a Command Center for his never ending struggle against evil. With the aid of his trusted assistant, Alpha 5, the noble master sought out six extraordinary teenagers and gave them the power to transform into a superhuman fighting force. In time of great need, the young heroes could use their power to call upon colossal assault vehicles known as Zords. The identity of the six remained a guarded secret. At least, they thought it had…

This is their story. This…is the longest day of their lives.

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The following takes place between 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. Events occur in real time

San Diego, CA

9:00 a.m.

The sidewalks in front of San Diego State's main campus were literally packed with hundreds of students trying to make it to their morning classes on time. Being the first week of school since summer vacation, it was mostly incoming freshman still trying to find their way around the unfamiliar campus.

Doing his best to push his way through the crowd of people, 22 year-old Justin Stewart was becoming more and more frustrated with each passing moment. What he wouldn't give to be able to just hop inside of Mountain Blaster and pancake the kids who had been dumb enough to not attend freshman orientation. After all, they had several of them over the summer for a reason.

Incoming freshman were supposed to, but not required to attend one of the many sessions offered for them to get acquainted with the campus. When he had gone to his there had been at least two hundred people in his group. It seemed like, with each year, fewer and fewer kids were taking advantage of the opportunity presented to them. While he was there to learn and get his degree, most of them, in his mind, were just there to party with school being something that they needed to do to be able to maintain the ability to party.

Having been both an orphan and a foster child for quite a while, numerous grants and scholarships had been offered to him but he had turned them all down, the work ethic of being a Ranger forever engrained in his psyche. He worked two part-time jobs to pay for school and living expenses, one at the campus bookstore and another waiting tables at a local restaurant, still managing to balance a full load of classes without ever getting less than a C in any of them.

He was proud of his academic accomplishments but more proud of how he had achieved them, without any outside help except for a tutor here and there. He had relied on no one but himself, the telltale sign of a true Ranger. Well, the telltale sign of Zordon's Rangers anyway.

Truth be told, he wasn't so sure about these new ones. They came and went so fast that, just when he had gotten accustomed to seeing a new team, they were replaced by a new group. Plus, they had all these special powers that Zordon's Rangers hadn't been given. None of them had the ability to manipulate water or turn their skin into a protective shield. Zordon's Rangers had relied on their instinct, intuition and skills before the power even came into play. In his mind, the Rangers these days had it easy.

None of them had had to deal with being a twelve year-old foster child thrust into a world they never wanted to be a part of. They didn't have to cope with the feeling of ostracism that came with being a child surrounded by older and more experienced Rangers but, more than anything, he was thankful for his time as the Blue Turbo Ranger. It had taught him about hard work and self-discipline which kept his focus on his studies instead of frat parties and going out and getting wasted six nights out of the week.

Justin was no prude, he had been to his fair share of parties and social gatherings but he didn't want to be one of those people stuck in college at twenty-six because they had spent four years killing brain cells before deciding to get their act together. He knew how to buckle down when he needed to but knew how to let go just the same. Part of the reason he was so angry and frustrated this morning was because he had chosen to let go the previous night.

Katie Bennington. He couldn't help but smile when he thought about his girlfriend of nearly two years. They had met in his English Lit class during his sophomore year and had started dating shortly thereafter. Recalling the previous night in vivid detail, a wide grin formed on his lips as he continued to struggle through the crowd of people.

Having just gotten out of his 7:50 a.m. Novel to Film class, he was on his way back to the apartment he shared with Katie for a few hours before having to return at one for Military History. After ten minutes of pushing and shoving, he was finally free from the horde of bodies that lined the sidewalk.

Living only five blocks away from the campus, a car was less than an economical choice for him considering that both the restaurant and the campus bookstore were within walking distance of his apartment. Plus, he liked the exercise and the only time he ever needed to go anywhere further than work or school was if he was going out with Katie and she had a car for that.

He was only a little over two blocks away from his apartment and had just passed a row of parked cars before entering the crosswalk and making his way across the street. When a black sedan pulled out of its' parking space and began to slowly creep behind him, he didn't even notice it. The loud electric and bass guitars coupled with the banging of drums and James Hetfield's grunting voice on Metallica'sBlack Album coming through the ear buds of his iPod was enough to distract him from just about anything outside of gunshots or an earthquake.

Digging into the pocket of his khaki cargo shorts, he extracted his cell phone to check the time. It was 9:10. He thought momentarily about sending Katie a text message but, only a few minutes away from the apartment building, he decided against it and moved to return his cell phone to his pocket. It was then, when he turned his head just slightly, that he noticed the car that had been following him moving rather slowly.

His skills as a Ranger coming back to him, he noticed the tinted windows and government issued license plates in less than the two seconds that his eyes had been locked on the vehicle. Knowing that they had been seen, the car came to a stop and two men immediately emerged from it, leaving the vehicle parked right there in the middle of the street. Looking at the men in black suits, he froze somewhere in between deciding to make a run for it or stay and fight.

He chose the latter and threw his royal blue backpack down onto the sidewalk before dropping into a defensive stance, one of the many that Rocky had taught him when he had volunteered at Little Angel's Haven, the orphanage Justin had lived in as a child. The men simply laughed at his fighting stance and, as one reached into the inner pocket on his suit jacket, Justin instantly became nervous. Tommy, Rocky and Adam had trained him well and he could fight no doubt but he knew he was no match against a gun. A sigh of relief escaped his mouth when the man pulled out a badge and showed it to him.

"Justin Stewart?" he asked.

"Yeah," Justin answered. "Who are you?"

"My name is Agent Adam Stern. I'm with the NBMAA," Agent Stern replied, ignoring the confused expression Justin was now wearing. "We didn't mean to startle you. I assure you we mean no harm but we do have strict instructions to bring you back with us to headquarters by any means necessary. So, as the old saying goes, we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way. The choice is yours."

"What and where is headquarters?" Justin asked, not really wanting to fight two men who were much bigger than he was. "And why do you need me? I'm just a college kid."

"Mr. Stewart, thousands, if not millions, of lives are at risk including those of your friends and family. Myself and Agent Berger are with a government agency trying to stop these attacks from occurring," Agent Stern answered as Justin simply tried to absorb the information. "The fact of the matter is that we need your help. As we speak, eleven of your friends are being rounded up and brought to headquarters."

"Okay but you still haven't answered my question," Justin replied hesitantly. "Why do you need me? Like I said before, I'm just a college kid."

The two men looked at each other, rolled their eyes and grinned before turning their attention back to Justin who was looking more and more uncomfortable with each passing second.

"Mr. Stewart, we know about your past and we know about your friends," Agent Berger spoke for the first time. Justin's mouth fell open in shock at what he was being told. "But we don't have time to stand here and talk with you all day. So will you come peacefully?"

Looking at them, Justin could swear that Agent Berger was flexing his muscles in an attempt to make his decision easier for him. Outweighed, outnumbered and not liking his chances against them very much, he nodded his head and grabbed his backpack off of the sidewalk.

"Can I call my girlfriend and tell her I won't be coming home?" Justin asked. "She has a tendency to worry if she doesn't know exactly where I am."

"You can call her and tell her you won't be coming home but you can't tell her what you're doing," Agent Stern answered, ironically, sternly. "This operation is top secret and extremely classified. Even the President doesn't know about this yet."

Nodding his head, Justin followed the two agents back to the car, climbing into the backseat as Agent Berger held the door open for him. Thinking of a lie to cover his tracks, he brought his phone to his ear as the car quickly pulled back into traffic. Relegated to the back seat, Justin could only watch as they passed by his apartment building just as Katie's voice reached his ear.

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Angel Grove, CA

9:17 a.m.

A white sheet was currently in the process of being pulled over the body of a middle aged man in the center of one of Angel Grove's busiest streets, backing up the morning traffic for miles. In a city that had once been essentially free of all non-monster related violence, Angel Grove was increasingly becoming just like most cities in America.

With no Power Rangers around to defend it, prospective criminals had no one to fear except for the police and everyone knows the police have never been able to stop people from entering a life of crime. They could only hope to stop them once it started and before it got out of control.

Obviously, they hadn't stopped this particular criminal in time. The man whose body was being covered had been killed simply because he had tried to resist when he had been dragged into an alley in broad daylight. When the gun had been pressed to his temple he immediately stopped resisting and gave in to the mugger's demands for cash and jewelry but his mind had already been made up. A single shot to the man's head right after handing over all his money had killed him instantly.

Shaking his head at the sight, Jason let out a grunt as he and Elizabeth lifted the stretcher with the corpse into the back of the ambulance.At least the mugger hadn't gotten away with it Jason thought to himself, not wanting to express his eye for an eye stance to his partner.

Eight-thirty in the morning, when the sun was shining brightly and people were on the streets, was a stupid time for a criminal to try anything, especially shooting someone. The police had found him running through back alleys, hopping over chain link fences and cut him off in their squad cars. In a moment of panic, the mugger initiated a fire fight with the police that had lasted only a few seconds and ended with him on the ground, three bullets lodged in his chest and no officers seriously harmed. One had been hit in the stomach but his vest had stopped the bullet, knocking the wind out of him but doing no more damage than that.

"You got this from here, guys?" one of the officers on the scene asked.

"Yeah. We can take care of it," Jason answered. "We were here first so I guess we have to file the report, huh?"

"Luck of the draw," the same officer returned with a grin, shrugging his shoulders before he and his partner made their way back to the squad car.

As the police cars pulled away, Jason literally had one foot in the ambulance when a firm hand grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him back onto the ground. He spun around and found himself staring at a man in a black suit wearing an odd grin on his face. Always being the act first, ask questions later type, Jason pushed the man away and lowered himself into a fighting stance.

Preoccupied with the man in front of him, he hadn't seen another creep up behind him. A pair of hands wrapped around his arms and held him back while he struggled to break free from the confinement of the man's grasp.

"Mr. Scott, I suggest you calm down before you do something you're going to regret," the first man said to him.

Jason didn't pay him a lick of attention and crouched down into a squat, launching himself into a back flip and landing behind the second man. A push to his chest sent the man barreling into his partner, both of them collapsing onto the asphalt. He noticed Liz in the van, paralyzed with fear and gave her a reassuring smile before approaching the men.

"Who the hell are you and what do you want?" Jason demanded, trying not to grin as the men pushed themselves to their feet and dusted their suits off.

When one reached into his suit pocket, Jason feared the worst and retaliated with a punch that, if it had landed, would have surely broken the man's jaw. Luckily for him, he ducked just in time and the punch met nothing but air. Unluckily for Jason, his wild attempt at a haymaker opened him up for a punch that connected with his kidneys and he fell to his knees.

Spitting blood, he looked up right as Liz came running towards them. He tried to find his voice to keep her back but the punch had knocked the wind out of him and he was forced to watch as one of the men grabbed her and threw her up against the van. Hitting her head against the door, she instantly slumped to the ground.

Seeing his partner attacked like that gave Jason a newfound second wind. He got to his feet and quickly formulated a plan instead of just going in wildly like he had moments earlier. A side kick to the chest sent one of the men flying against the van and Jason spun around just in time to duck the oncoming punch from the man's partner. It connected, just not with Jason like it had been intended to.

The sound of broken glass rang in his ears as the man extracted his now bloody hand from the place where the ambulance's passenger side window had once been. Jumping back, Jason shook his head after narrowly avoiding a spin kick from the same man.

"These guys don't quit," Jason muttered quietly, preparing to attack once more.

He was moving in for another strike when the man he had kicked against the ambulance pulled out his badge and flashed it at him. Immediately, Jason stood up from his defensive stance and moved to help the man onto his feet. Being a paramedic, he worked closely with quite a few law enforcement agencies and, though tension often arose between some of them, they all respected each other immensely.

"You could have just shown me that from the start," Jason said calmly as the man's partner moved to stand at his side. "Hey, look. I'm sorry about that. I thought you were going for a gun."

"Mr. Scott, if I had intended to shoot you, you'd be dead already," the first man replied. "My name is Agent Ronald Black. This is my partner, Agent Brody. We're with the NBMAA. We need you to come with us immediately."

"Umm…why?" Jason asked in confusion. "What's going on?"

"We aren't at liberty to discuss that information at this time," Agent Brody answered. "All we can tell you is that the country is in grave danger and we need your help. Your friends are already en route to our headquarters. From there you will be briefed and given your assignments. I'm sorry, but we know no more than that."

"My friends? You mean…" Jason asked, the realization of what they were implying beginning to settle in on him. He looked up at the agents and they simply nodded their heads, confirming his thought process for him. "How do you know about that?"

"We know a lot about you and your friends, Mr. Scott. The lives of many are at stake today and you and your friends are the only ones who can stop it," Agent Black replied. "Now please, come with us. We don't have time for formalities."

Apprehensively, Jason nodded his head after a moment or two of careful deliberation and moved towards Liz who was just starting to stir again from her spot on the ground. Dropping onto one knee, Jason put his arm around her and helped pull her into a sitting position, supporting her back against the van.

"Liz, these men need my help. I'm going to go with them," Jason said quietly, pointing to the agents standing a few feet away. "Can you make it back to the station on your own?"

"They sure have a nice way of showing they need help," Liz muttered with a bitter smile, pushing herself up onto her feet with a groan. Jason gave her a concerned look but she waved it off, albeit with quite a bit of pain. "I'll be fine. What do you want me to tell Mike?"

"Just make something up. I'm sure you can come up with a decent excuse," Jason replied, referring to their boss who seemed to have a thing for Liz. Going with the men, Jason knew he was leaving her alone and potentially opening her up for Mike's incessant badgering but he didn't see another option. "I have to go now, though. I'll call you as soon as I can."

Liz could only nod her head, leaning against the ambulance and grabbing her arm, the pain from being thrown against it a few minutes earlier still very real and active. She watched Jason following the men intently, groaning from the pain as he got into the back of a black sedan. Turning around in the back seat, Jason gave her his best comforting and reassuring smile along with a wave, turning back around just as the car sped off.

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California Highway 101

9:26 a.m.

The government issued black sedan carrying Tommy Oliver flew down the highway at speeds reaching close to ninety miles per hour, maybe even a little bit more than that. Bobbing in and out of traffic, Tommy had been taken from the car pool lane across five more lanes and onto the shoulder in less than five seconds. Gripping the handle above the window tightly, he could feel the color draining from his face with each jerking movement from Agent Reeves.

They had left Reefside High just after nine o'clock and had been driving for nearly a half hour with no sign of stopping, at least not anytime soon that is. Tommy could hear the sound of horns honking every time they cut a car off or weaved in and out of traffic but the agents were, apparently, oblivious to the onslaught of noise being directed at them.

Tommy didn't mind driving at high speeds, he had driven Red Lightning and raced for his uncle's stock car team after all but he much preferred to be behind the wheel and in control than in the back seat holding on to the "oh shit bar" for dear life. At the sight of brake lights up ahead, he let out a gasp as Agent Reeves slammed on the brakes and the car came to a screeching halt, narrowly avoiding a collision with the white Dodge Durango stopped in front of them.

"Son of a bitch," Agent Reeves muttered to no one in particular. "We don't have time for this crap. Dammit, dammit, dammit! Five miles away and this shit happens. Director Cranston's gonna be pissed."

The eyes on Tommy's face widened at the mention of the name Cranston but he chose to keep his mouth shut and not ask questions. Billy? he thought to himself. I wonder what he has to do with all of this? Sounds like he's in charge or at least important if he's got these guys that worried.

Looking out the front window, all three men noticed something rather frightening happening off in the distance. Quickly getting closer to them, two men were jumping from car to car, denting hoods and smashing windows without hesitation. They looked mad, hell bent on causing as much destruction and damage as possible. Turning his head, Agent Reeves looked at his partner who still hadn't been named and nodded his head before looking back at Tommy.

"Stay here and stay down. They're here for us," Agent Reeves ordered, pulling the key from the ignition and handing it to Tommy. "If something happens, find a way to get moving again and hit the red button on the gear shift. You can't let yourself be caught under any circumstances."

"Wait, where are you going?" Tommy asked, partially fearful of what could potentially happen. "What does the red button do?"

"Just do it, dammit!" the unnamed agent replied.

Both agents got out of the car, slamming the doors behind them as they each pulled out what appeared to be a standard gun. The first shot that Agent Reeves fired however, told Tommy they weren't just using a typical gun and the result of the shot told him they weren't shooting at typical people either. No bullets came from the gun, instead a pinkish colored ball of energy erupted from it with a loud bang connecting with the leg on one of their targets.

Tommy had expected the injured man to go down and he did. What he wasn't expecting was for his leg to literally explode and completely disintegrate before he fell to the ground. From his position laying on the back seat, he lost sight of him once he hit the ground but a horrified look came over him when, less than ten

seconds later, he pushed himself back onto his feet, both legs completely intact as if nothing had happened.

"What the hell?" Tommy muttered to himself.

"Do you have any idea how much that stings?!" the man roared so loud that it shook the vehicles parked around them. "You're gonna pay for that, Reeves!"

Referring to Agent Reeves by name Tommy came to the obvious conclusion that the two men must have known each other prior to this meeting. His instincts as a Ranger taking over, Tommy moved to open the door to at least try and help but found that he was locked in the car. Throwing his elbow against the window, he bit his tongue to prevent screaming in pain when it didn't break like he had expected it to. The recoil of his elbow bouncing against the window sent his closed fist flying back at his face, connecting right with his jaw.

"Mother fu..." Tommy started, silencing himself and ducking back down when the man turned his gaze towards the car.

He had no way out and could only watch as the previously legless man tossed another guy off of his motorcycle, lifted it high in the air and threw it at Agent Reeves.

It connected with a sickening thud, knocking Agent Reeves to the ground and pinning him underneath it. As the man who obviously wasn't just a man approached the wounded agent, Reeves struggled to reach for his weapon that was lying a few feet away from him, just barely out of his reach. Effortlessly, he kicked the motorcycle away from Agent Reeves, grabbed him by his shirt collar and lifted him into the air.

"Time to say goodbye," he muttered, a thick brown spike emerging from his forearm.

With one swift motion he plunged the spike into the neck of Agent Reeves, blood pouring from the entry wound as the sharp weapon retracted back into his arm with a disgusting noise that sounded like a combination of someone slurping soup and the popping noise of a suction cup being pulled off of a piece of glass.

Groaning, Tommy suddenly felt the urge to vomit. With his hand covering his mouth he managed to force the regurgitation back down but still leaving behind the horrible and lingering taste of his breakfast in his mouth for him to deal with.

People were now out of their cars, running in panic and fear in every possible direction. A few that came to close to the man were savagely tossed aside without a second glance. Scanning the crowd for the other agent, Tommy finally noticed him on the other side of the highway. Being on an overpass, he was forced to watch a single kick to the agent's chest sending him flying over the steel barricade, plummeting to his imminent death hundreds of feet below.

Looking up, he noticed the two men were now approaching the vehicle once more. Agent Reeve's parting words returning to him, he climbed into the driver's seat and forced the key into the ignition. Luckily, they had been in the far right lane or attempting to get away would have been impossible. With careful maneuvering, he noticed he could probably take the shoulder until he reached the off ramp that was a little over half a mile away.

Stepping on the gas pedal, Tommy pulled the car onto the shoulder and cringed at the sound of metal meeting metal as the passenger side of the car scraped against the steel guardrail on his right. Checking all his mirrors and blind spots he found that the pair of men were no longer in the middle of the street where they had been before he drove off. In fact, he couldn't seem to locate either one of them at all.

Turning his head back around, the off ramp getting closer and closer, two pairs of legs landed on the hood of the car leaving large dents where their feet had connected with the hood. Tommy yelled a few choice curse words when one of them tried to punch in the window and was met with negative results. With cars on his left and the guardrail on his right he couldn't drive nearly as fast as he needed to. If he could just get to the off ramp though, he could increase his speed and put some of those driving skills he had learned behind the wheel of Red Lightning to the test.

Unable to see out the body-blocked windshield, he silently prayed that he could get the car to the exit ramp before they managed to get to him. His eyes grew big with fear when he noticed the spike once again coming out of the man's forearm. He jabbed it at the window, piercing the glass as Tommy moved his head to the side, the sharp point of the spike missing his head by inches and sticking itself into the leather head rest instead of his face.

Shivers went up his spine when the spike retracted back with the same nausea inducing noise it had made after plunging into Agent Reeve's neck minutes earlier. With the exit ramp just a few seconds away, Tommy made a snap decision and threw his foot onto the accelerator. The sudden increase in speed rattled the two attackers, tossing one from the hood but the other managed to hang on.

The car scraped more violently with the increased speed sending off bright sparks when the metal touched the cars and guardrail harder. Letting out a "holy shit," Tommy watched in his rearview mirror as the driver side mirror hit the back of a semi-truck and went flying through the air, breaking the windshield on a car at least two hundred feet back.

Shaking his head, he looked back and found that he was on the off ramp now but still had the one man to contend with. Reaching for the emergency handbrake, his fingers slowly wiggled around it preparing to make their move and, as both feet slammed on the brake pedal, he spun the steering wheel hard to the left and yanked on the handbrake, turning the car in a complete circle that sent the man, or whatever he was, flying off the car.

Without even looking to see where he landed, Tommy released the handbrake and dropped the car into reverse, the rubber on the tires burning against the asphalt as he drove backwards. Popping the handbrake again, he spun the car back around and threw it into drive. One look in his rearview mirror and seeing the men running towards him at ridiculous speeds and actually gaining ground on the sedan, however, told him that he wasn't driving nearly fast enough.

With as much pressure as he could muster, the gas pedal quickly met the carpeted floorboard. Trying to formulate some kind of plan to escape he noticed the red button on the dashboard and remembered what Agent Reeves had told him. With his left hand on the steering wheel he reached out with his right hand, took a deep breath and pushed the button in.

Activating Thrusters a robotic female voice responded.

"Thrusters? Oh shit," Tommy muttered, screaming like a little girl as the car went from eighty miles per hour to close to two-hundred and fifty in less than three seconds. "Son of a biiiiiiiiiiiii…!"

Gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles, he found that the car was approaching an intersection and realized he wasn't going to have time to stop at the red light up ahead. Even if he managed to avoid the cars coming on his right and left the off ramp ended with only turn lanes in either direction and another steel guardrail straight ahead that overlooked the highway below.

"I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die," he repeated to himself with sweaty palms. "I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. Please God, don't let me die. I swear I'll never complain about my job again just don't let me die."

Closing his eyes, he braced himself as the car entered traffic. Colliding with the barricade, he narrowly avoided collisions with the three lanes of traffic in each direction. Flying through the air for a few seconds, the tires slammed against the asphalt, throwing his head into the ceiling as he bounced around but otherwise landing perfectly in a clear exit lane on the right.

"You gotta be shitting me? I need to get me one of these."

Automatic Driver established. Destination, four-point-five miles northeast. Arrival time, seven minutes and thirty-eight seconds.

Reaching out to grab the steering wheel, he tried to maneuver the car but found that the wheel was locked and wasn't budging regardless of how much force he tried to apply to it. Shaking his head, he laid it against the head rest and, noticing the hole in it, he actually started to laugh.

"That's what I'm talking 'bout, baby!" he yelled, pounding his fist excitedly against the steering wheel. "Yeeee-haw! Can't touch this one, suckers! Tommy Oliver is back, baby!"

The green signs above the road telling him what city he was approaching, Tommy shook his head in disbelief when he read the words "Angel Grove." He hadn't been to Angel Grove since the Red Ranger mission in 2001 and for good reason, too. The city had a tendency to do nothing more than resurrect painful memories inside of him.

With the robotic voice telling him he was now two miles and four minutes away from his destination along with the very clear view he had at the mountains looming in the distance, he suddenly felt sick in the stomach. He had the distinct feeling that he knew exactly where the car was headed and he didn't like it, not one bit.

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Unknown Location, CA

9:46 a.m.

Seated on a black leather couch in what appeared to be a rather comfortable and well furnished holding room, Jason was alone in the room. There were three couches big enough for three or four people, two good sized plush chairs and a television on one side with a rather large round table surrounded by black leather office chairs on the other side.

He had gotten there just a few minutes earlier and had taken it upon himself to make himself at home. Having his breakfast interrupted by the shooting, the box of donuts and the pot of coffee on the counter had looked rather inviting to him. With the news playing on the television in front of him, Jason took a bite of his apple fritter and shook his head at what he was seeing. Destruction was everywhere on Highway 101 where, fifteen minutes earlier, two men were believed to have been killed though only the body of one Adam Reeves had been found.

Unable to watch the chaos occurring in front of him, he turned off the television just as the door he had been led through five minutes prior opened up again. Four bodies, still covered in the shadows, entered the room as a hand reached out and slammed the door behind them, locking all five people inside. A smile crept across Jason's face when they stepped out into the light and he saw Adam, Aisha, Justin and Rocky.

"Jason?" Adam asked hesitantly. "What are you doing here?"

"I was about to ask you the same question," Jason replied, getting up from the couch to greet them. He shook hands with the men and gave Aisha a huge bear hug. "Some guys from this group called the NBMAA or something like that told me that the country was in danger and that they needed my help. I take it you got the same spiel?"

"Yeah, we sure did," Aisha replied, noticing Jason's clothes were tattered and trying not to grin. "But we went quietly. You look like you put up some resistance."

Chuckling, Jason nodded his head, gingerly rubbing the spot on his side where Agent Brody's punch had connected. The shot to his kidneys had left him spitting blood for the whole drive to wherever it was they were. No one had told him anything and he still had no clue where here was exactly. All he knew was that they had only driven for ten, maybe fifteen minutes and that that wasn't enough time to get very far outside of Angel Grove.

"Do you guys have any idea where we are?" Jason asked the group.

"Nope," Rocky answered, the other three shaking their heads with him. "Me, Adam and 'Sha were just having breakfast when they found us and brought us here. We just ran into Justin a few minutes ago. Have you heard anything man?"

"I was walking home from school to see my girlfriend. A black car pulled up next to me and two guys in black suits jumped out," Justin answered with a shoulder shrug. "They told me the same thing they told all of you. Did they blindfold all of you a few miles before you got here?"

Adam, Aisha, Jason and Rocky all nodded their heads in unison. Once they had gotten with in a specified distance of their final destination, they had all been blindfolded so that they didn't know where they were going. Once inside the building, their blindfolds were removed but the basic white walls, the lack of windows and the boring interior design of the place didn't exactly give much away in the realm of potential locations.

Even at twelve years old though, Justin had been rather observant and had pretty much replaced Billy as the brains of the team when he was forced to move to Aquitar. When his blindfold had been taken off, he had noticed a set of monitors on one of the walls and caught pictures of a few of the old Rangers on the screens just before Agent Berger had turned them off.

Though he couldn't put his finger on what exactly it was, something about the building they were in seemed

familiar to him. It just so happened that the feelings of the four people around him were tantamount to his own. They were all looking around as if they had been there before regardless of unfamiliarity the building presented.

"Hey, Jase, do you have the time?" Rocky asked, interrupting them from their thoughts.

"Yeah," Jason answered, looking at his watch. "It's 9:50, why?"

"No reason," Rocky grinned sheepishly.

Instantly, Adam and Aisha rolled their eyes at him. Ten minutes later meant The Price is Right would come on and they both knew how much Rocky loved the show. During his sophomore year of college he had attended a taping in Los Angeles with Adam and, by some sick stroke of luck, the pair had ended up in the Showcase against each other.

Knowing that Adam had the better stuff in his showcase, Rocky intentionally over bid on his items so that Adam could win and made his friend take him on his seven day Mexican cruise with him for it. He didn't need a grandfather clock or a dinette set and Vespa's, in his mind, were gay. Plus, the big screen TV he had won during the bidding, the car won while playing Plinko and the prospect of a cruise through Mexico during spring break with the 6,000 dollars he won from spinning the wheel during the Showcase Showdown had been more than worth losing for.

"So what do we do now?" Justin asked, breaking the silence.

"The guys who brought me in said the others were on their way," Jason replied. "I don't know if they're bringing everyone but Tommy lives in Reefside and Zack and Tanya work together in Valencia so they should be here soon. Trini and Kat live in New York though. It's gonna be at least five or six hours if not more before they even get to California."

"What about Billy and Kim?" Adam interjected. "Have any of you guys heard from them? I haven't talked to Billy since right before he left for Aquitar and Kim since the karate tournament after Murianthis."

All four shook their heads in reply. No one had spoken to Billy at all since he had left Earth over a decade prior in order to save his own life and no one even talked about Kim anymore. After the incident on Murianthis she had pushed herself as far away from the Ranger life as possible, alienating her friends in the process. Resolved to wait for whoever was coming, the group of five made their way back to the couches with Rocky grabbing the remote control and hugging it like his life depended on it.

Adam, Aisha and Rocky obviously stayed in close contact but the others were a different story. They all knew what each other was doing but that was about as far as it went and they were no longer the close knit group of friends that they had been in high school. Jason was still close with Tommy, the brotherly bond between that they shared seemingly unbreakable and he still talked with Trini and saw Zack from time to time but, more or less, Tommy was the only one who knew everything because he insisted on keeping up with everyone. He was a leader at heart and would be one until the day he died and they knew that so he became the one that the others went to when they wanted information or needed to get in contact with someone.

It was almost sad the way they had all drifted apart after high school. The ones who had grown up together; Adam, Rocky and Aisha on one hand with Billy, Jason, Kimberly, Trini and Zack on the other sans Billy and Kim who were nowhere to be found stayed in contact but they rarely went outside of their circle. Justin, having been the youngest of the group had only spoken with Tommy and Rocky and even then it was infrequent. Tanya had connections to some of the original Rangers through Zack and Kat talked to Trini every once in a while since they lived in the same city and that was that.

How they had gone from such a close group to barely knowing each other was beyond there line of rationale. Most of them had come to grips with it by saying that they were adults and that things and people change with time but that didn't make it any easier to digest.

None of them liked not knowing what the others were up to. They just didn't have the drive that Tommy did to stay in contact with each other. He had tried, had tried desperately to get them all together if just for a short period of time but work schedules and real life always seemed to throw a wrench in his plans. But with what had already happened and what was going to happen soon, it wouldn't be long before they were all thrown back in the mix together. Everyone in the room, plus Tommy who had just arrived at the front gate and was being checked out thoroughly by security, knew it was only a matter of time before they were reunited with the friends of old.

For the next few minutes the veteran Rangers made the typical small talk that people make when they see someone they hadn't seen in a long time, catching up on what had been going on in each other's lives: work, school, dating, that kind of thing. When the door opened at exactly 9:59 five sets of eyes found themselves wide open staring back at the person who had just walked in. With careful and calculated movements the person made their way toward the group, smiling awkwardly back at them. Jason just looked up and smiled, unable to contain his glee at who they were seeing.

"No way."

9:59:57...9:59:58...9:59:59...

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That's Hour Two in the books for ya. Hope you liked it. With three stories in progress, I just wanted to give you all a heads up on what's going on with everything and, if you're a writer, you'll know what I'm talking about. I don't know when I'm going to get back to The Things You Don't Know. It started off as this great idea but I got disillusioned with it during the last few chapters. Maybe that will change, who knows? Don't Ask Me to Be Friends is entirely my pride and joy. If you have read my earlier stories you can see a drastic change and, I think, improvement from then until now. I'm just struggling with it for the moment but I promise that one will not be thrown by the wayside. I'm having too much fun with it to just toss it out. Right now, I'm probably going to focus on this story for a couple weeks until I can think up some stuff for DAMTBF. Starting off as a oneshot, I didn't go into it with any set plan so sometimes ideas are hard to come by.

Also, I wanted to let you all know that I'm going to be writing a chapter for Shawn30's newest story, The Glory Days, in the coming weeks. It's all first person from Kim's POV so who knows, maybe writing in the first person again will strike up some stuff for TTYDK. Shawn's story is a really good one and I encourage all of you to read it if you haven't already. I should be jumping in some time around Chapter 8 or 9 so be on the lookout for that. Until then, happy reading. Talk to you soon.

WK