Disclaimer: All things coming from the Power Rangers belong to Saban. Any mention of K or K's world or the Nova Rangers are creations of KSuzie's and belong to her. All other characters belong to me, and cannot be used without my permission.

Dark Inheritance
"Suspicions"

Arius sat back in his chair and sighed. It had been too long since he attacked the rangers full scale. He had sent his minions after them several times, and each time they failed miserably. Nevertheless, he was not going to simply send in another worthless alien. They kept failing him, and with the new zords, they would continue to be failures.

He was tired of the failures, and tired of the punishments. His arm was finally getting full range of motion back after Deimos literally yanked it out of its socket. Angry did not cover how Deimos felt with his latest failure that involved Zap's destruction. It did not help that the rangers had new and improved zords.

Deimos was growing impatient. Two months ago, he was happy slowly climbing up the ladder until he had what he felt like was enough pull to reform the empire and take it over. Now it was just within his reach, and he was tired of the answer slipping through his fingers. He needed Kaycea to join him, to become his wife, at least long enough to produce an heir. Then he could destroy her and keep a legitimate claim to the throne.

The key part in that was getting Kaycea to comply. She was too powerful to force to come with him, which was why he was going to terrorize her planet until she did. Of course, it was nearly impossible to terrorize a planet that is guarded by Planetary Rangers. It can be done, but not when those rangers had some of the most advanced zords in the galaxy.

To get the win, he was going to have to get rid of the zords. He spent a lot of time doing research until he finally came up with a plan. They had within their army a demolitions expert, an alien named Torssus, someone who spent most of his time deep underground in a faraway planet. He was a little off center, but he would do quite nicely. If anyone would find a way to blow the zords apart, it would be him.

Of course, there was a delicate balance here. He had to destroy the zords, while not causing any damage to Kaycea. They needed her alive. Her friends he was not concerned with, they could go up in flames with their precious zords.

That is why he worked so hard to come up with a perfect plan. He was going down himself to challenge Kaycea. He was not going to let her anywhere near her zord. Meanwhile, he would send his alien friend, who he had to hunt down and convince to help, after the zords.

This was going to be a suicide mission, although he had not filled Torssus in on that part. As far as he was concerned, he was just coming here to blow up some zords. If Torssus was all there, the thought might occur to him that the rangers were not going to just wheel out their zords for him to destroy. He was going to have to be shot to skyscraper sized to get the attention of the zords, which was going to effectively kill him. Not before he had a chance to make sure those pretty new zords were blasted into thousands of pieces.

This was going to be the only victory Arius would need. Soon Kaycea and Deimos would be married, and he would be first in command of the evil empire.


It was early in the morning on a Saturday and Tommy found himself hiding in his teammate's office. He knew she would be there, they had a few minor battles that week and she'd gotten backed up. That and her secretary, who was putting in a half day herself, confirmed that her boss would be in shortly.

He supposed he would not really call it hiding. Mollie knew he was here; in fact, she was the one who let him in. They were old friends from college; he was lab partners with both Mollie and Carri. They had taken a two-semester geology course together, the girls to get a science credit and him because he actually enjoyed it. That was why it was easy to talk Mollie into letting him into Carri's office and not telling her about it.

The reason he was trying to be so secretive is because he wanted to ambush her. It was hard to ambush somebody who knew you were coming. Her company was working on a project that he wanted more information on and he did not think she was going to give that information easily.

The information he wanted was on Luke Kirk, the world famous science fiction author whose newest novel was a multi-level success and was getting turned into a movie by Ausus Productions. He told Ethan he would research Luke Kirk months ago but got distracted. After a recent conversation with Hayley, he put it at the top of his to do list, and once she reminded him recently he got on it.

They were all so interested in the books because they reminded everyone of ranger like adventures. Both Ethan and Hayley had said that the book reminded them of tidbits they heard from his high school days. They could not be certain, as nothing they read was a word for word retelling, but they had their suspicions.

Tommy found that it was enough to investigate, and his research took a rather interesting turn. As Ethan had said, there was not anything more on Luke Kirk that what someone could find on a book jacket. There were two pictures of him online, one that was in his first books and one he used for this last book. None of that information was helpful.

His books had fan clubs, had been on talk shows and in papers, but nobody knew who the elusive Luke Kirk was. He never showed up for interviews. Occasionally someone would talk to his publisher, but that was as far as the direct contact went. There were rumors that perhaps Mr. Kirk was an agoraphobic, but those were unsubstantiated.

As far as Tommy was concerned, everything about Luke Kirk was unsubstantiated, even the fact that he was a he. It could very well be a female masquerading around as Luke Kirk. The one thing that he did know was that Luke Kirk recently came into a good bit of money. He sold the rights to his most recent release to a production company, a company that would get first dibs on the rights to all his other books. There were tons of companies out to buy the rights to the Luke Kirk books. New Line, Paramount, Tri Star… the list of top name companies that wanted the rights to make his book into a movie was long.

Yet despite all the major companies that were after his books, Luke Kirk settled on a smaller company, one that was not established, and one that only had one credit to its name, a television show that was only halfway through its season. He chose Ausus Productions. No one in the industry understood why he would have chosen Ausus. Its parent company would have been a better choice than the new, small production company would. Many people thought Ausus may do great things in the future, but no one understood how it could have enough pull to land the Luke Kirk books.

Ausus was Carri's company, and if he was not suspicious that a ranger was involved with the Luke Kirk books before, he was now. After all, rangers took care of other rangers. It would not surprise him if a former ranger or someone who knew the former rangers purposely chose Carri to help give her company a boost. What did surprise him, and upset him, was that it was being kept a closely guarded secret. If someone was using ranger adventures to springboard a franchise, he deserved to know.

Tommy sat back in his chair, deep in thought as the door opened. It slammed shut and the white ranger turned, jumping and cursing under her breath as she saw him sitting there. "You shouldn't scare a ranger like that." She grumbled as she went to sit behind her desk. She did not appreciate the surprise. Mollie never let people into her office; her first instinct was to jump into ranger mode.

"I'll keep that in mind." Tommy replied. He had not thought that she might try to attack her intruder. Then again, she did have good ranger instinct; there were not many reasons for someone to be hiding, waiting to pounce on her in her office.

"So." Carri said as she gave him a hard smile. It wasn't that she did not like Tommy. She and Tommy had been friends since high school. They did not always see eye to eye and she tended to clash with him, but they had still been through a lot together and were still friends. That did not mean he had a right randomly surprised her in her office. "What brings you here today?"

"I need to talk to you about your company." Tommy said. He was not sure how exactly he was going to ease Carri into this conversation. He did not think she was going to be excited to hand over the information, especially considering the fact that she has been hiding it up to this point.

"My company?" Carri questioned, raising an eyebrow. There was nothing about her company that involved Tommy, there was nothing he should be asking about. Other than the general how are things going questions he asked when they saw each other socially.

"Yes." Tommy replied simply. "I wanted to ask you about a project you were working on."

Carri smiled at him, hiding her concern. She only officially had two projects and Tommy knew all about the television show. "My show? Or one of the new show ideas I'm working on?" she asked sweetly.

"No, it's not about a television show." Tommy said, smiling back at her. "Actually I wanted to talk about the movie your company got the rights to."

"Oh." Carri said. It was what she was afraid of. She had not talked to any of the rangers about the movie, except for Kim and Jason. Not even Rocky knew much, except that she had a movie she was working on that she wasn't allowed to say much about yet. It was not that far from the truth, officially she couldn't say much until everyone was signed. "Sure. Although I don't know what I can say, at the moment it's top secret." She said jokingly.

"That's fine, I just have one question." Tommy replied. He was fairly certain that this question was considered top secret, but that wasn't going to stop him from asking and demanding an answer. "I read that the movie is based on the Luke Kirk books."

"Yes." Carri replied. That she had to answer, it was not a secret. Luke Kirk signing away his books was a big deal; he could Google it and find the answer in seconds. "I haven't read the books myself, but the newest one is a best seller. It's a huge deal for us."

"I'm sure. I've heard a lot about the books." Tommy said. "What I couldn't figure out was anything about the author? Who wrote the books?"

"Luke Kirk." Carri said with a shrug. "Look, you probably know as much about him as I do. A few book jackets and what they've said on the news." She said nonchalantly. She leaned forward in her chair. "Between you and me, he's agoraphobic. Apparently nobody outside his publisher has seen him." If he suspected Jason, he was never going to let up on this. It could be a disaster.

"I know all that." Tommy said as she leaned back in her chair. "I don't think Luke Kirk is the name of the author. I think someone is writing under that name."

Carri shrugged. Crap. Tommy was suspicious. This was not good. "If someone is, I don't know. I've only had contact with his publisher." In public anyway. She officially made the deal with his publisher, as far as everyone is concerned he is the only one she has talked to in relation to Luke Kirk.

"I disagree with that." He said as he sat up strait and crossed his arms. "If you look at the books, they read like they are related to ranger activities. Then a small company with next to nothing on its resume sweeps in at the last minute and lands the most popular book in the country? I think they were written by a ranger or someone close to the rangers, and I think you know who."

Carri leaned back and laughed. It was the only response she could think of. Well not the only one, but the only one she thought she could pull off against Tommy. "Look I'll be honest; I don't know how I got the deal. I stuck my foot in there and started pushing numbers to the publisher and the next thing you know I was signing a contract. I thought I was just persuasive. You know how good I am at making my point. If it is a case of rangers taking care of each other, it's a secret benefactor."

She was not sure if he was buying it so she continued. "The ranger community is a small one, we both know that. If a ranger was writing the books there's no way somebody wouldn't know something." Somebody like Kim or Carri.

"I suppose you're right." Tommy said with a frown. He was certain that she knew more than what she was letting on. However, she was one of the few rangers he would not be able to intimidate. He could not force the information out of her.

"Now, it was nice of you to stop by, but I've got a lot of work to do. Arius is keeping me good and behind." She said with a smile, praying he would get up and leave.

"Of course." Tommy replied as he stood. "I am going to keep looking into Luke Kirk. If you hear anything, let me know." He said, giving her a smile. He hoped she knew he was still suspicious of her.

"I will." She assured him as he left. Once the door shut, she leaned back into her seat with a sigh. Tommy was looking into Luke Kirk. This was not good.


Billy sat in the Command Chamber, waiting for Kim to teleport in. She had a few ranger related errands to run, and then she was going to stop by and see the new motorcycles. He had just finished them last night. He was quite proud of them; he thought they had come out better than the ones that the Nova's used.

He was hoping to have them done sooner, but he had been distracted lately. It was a good distraction though. His wife was pregnant. It was something they never thought would happen. They were thrilled. They had known for two weeks now, but they had not told the others yet. They were going to, but he wanted to run tests first and make sure everything was good before they started spreading the news.

He was not sure how this pregnancy was going to go. Neither one of them were exactly normal after being exposed to the morphing grid, among other things that had happened to them as rangers. So far, things looked normal, but it was early yet. They had promised each other they would not worry though, after all, Kat had a baby and she had been exposed to the same sorts of things they were.

After a follow up set of tests yesterday, they decided they felt comfortable enough to tell the others. They were just waiting to get everyone in the same room. Hopefully they would have an opportunity in the next day or two. They wanted to make sure to tell the team first, and then they would call Zack and tell him personally before the news hit the ranger circuit. It would spread through the ranger community faster than they knew what to do.

It was exciting. They were finally going to be parents. Billy was close to giving up on natural methods of conception, but he was glad that he did not. This was the best thing that had ever happened to them. He smiled to himself as a red light appeared in the room, dissolving into the form of the red ranger.

"Sorry I'm late." Kim said. She spent some time meeting with Elemi, discussing things throughout the galaxy and what the Nova's had heard about their battle with Arius. Then she went to work with Ninjor then Mystic Mother, and even with bending time, she got back later than she expected to. They were going to have to hurry through the cycles; she was pushing it to get back to Tommy in time to make their lunch date.

"You're not that late." Billy assured her. He had not been there as early as he thought; he spent some extra time with his wife. Kim's slight tardiness was no big deal.

"Still." Kim said with a smile. She knew Billy did not mind waiting a little bit, but she hated to keep him. "So, let's see these cycles."

Billy headed over toward one of the consoles. "Let me go over the specs with you first, and then we'll go down and take a look at them." He took a few minutes to pull up the blueprints for the motorcycles so he could show Kim a few things before they got to the cycles themselves.

"Alright." Kim said as images came up on the screen. "What have we got?" she asked as the alarms started going off. Kim turned and Billy went to see what the disturbance was.

Billy crossed his arms over his chest as he got a good look at where the disturbance was coming from. "It's just Camille." He said absentmindedly. "Nothing we need to worry about."

Kim looked at him blankly. He seemed quite unconcerned about whoever this Camille was and that bothered her. She felt wildly out of the loop and he needed to fill her in quickly. "Who's Camille?"

"Oh." Billy said, the thought occurring to him that they had not gotten that far in their conversation yet. She just appeared yesterday, and with everything else going on in his life, he was going to wait until today to fill Kim in. "She's Dai Shi's assistant. He escaped yesterday and started attacking Ocean Bluff."

"Great so there's another serious force of evil we need to worry about?" Kim questioned with a groan. She had enough on her hands with Arius.

"Not really. Three Pai Zhuq students are using the morphers I made." Billy said as he gestured to the viewing screen. TJ got in contact with him three years ago, and TJ was friends of a friend of a friend, or something of that nature, who knew RJ. The man who he assumed is the rangers mentor wanted morphers made just in case Dai Shi was ever set free. He spent a lot of time working on ideas that would appropriately use the abilities of the Order of the Claw. Working on those morphers turned out to be a good call. "They seem to be handling things well enough so far."

Kim watched as the trio whipped out their morphers and jumped into ranger mode. She let out a little giggle. "Sunglasses?"

"With today's teenagers I felt it most appropriate to issue sunglasses. That way they could blend in and keep their identities a secret." Billy explained. He had debated several devices that could be used to tap into the morphin grid. He finally decided that those were the least obvious of the bunch.

Kim suddenly got an image of teenaged Billy wearing sunglasses as morphers and had to resist the urge to burst into a fit of giggles. Despite how silly it seemed to her, after all, she was used to the old school morphers; it was an ingenious way to disguise them. Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she got back to the rangers. "Were you going to tell me about these new rangers?" she asked seriously. She deserved to know. She had heard little bits and pieces of information about Dai Shi and those guarding him in her travels, and he did not sound like someone they wanted free.

"I had every intention of filling you in on the Jungle Fury team after we were done with the cycles." Billy assured her.

Kim nodded. She supposed it was the Order of the Claw's problem, not theirs. After all, they didn't step in last year when Andrew created a team to clean up the mess that he accidentally created. Not that they could have if they wanted to. "Keep me filled in if you hear anything important about this team." Kim said as she gestured toward the viewing globe. "In the meantime, let's take a look at these cycles."

"Of course." Billy said as he turned his attention back toward the schematics for the cycles. "The team is really going to like these." He said with a grin as he proceeded to go into detail.


Jason sat on the phone, having a lengthy conversation with Emily, who was out of town that weekend at a conference that her job sent her to. She was doing most of the talking, while he was enjoying a beer and adding in a response when appropriate. They were going to have to hang up soon, he had promised to show at the grand opening for Rocky's new school that was later that day, but for now, he was enjoying the conversation.

"Anyway, to say it is boring would be an understatement." Emily finished her story with a sigh. She could hear Jason's sounds of acknowledgment and she continued. "I want the weekend to hurry up and be over with so I can get home." Not that she was going to be done with the conference; she still had to give a full report to her colleagues when she got back to work.

"When you get back we'll have to go out to dinner." Jason commented as he took a swig of his beer. Before Emily could reply, his phone beeped in his ear and he glanced briefly at the cell's display. He let out a frustrated grunt as he put the phone back to his ear. It was Carri. Again. She had been calling him all morning. He elected to call Emily back first. This was her third call since he had been on the phone. What was so damn important, he did not know. She was not leaving messages.

"What is it?" Emily questioned, alarmed by her boyfriend's response.

"Carri's calling. Again." He grumbled. He was going to have to talk to her; it was obvious she was not going to leave him alone.

Emily glanced briefly at the clock. "You should answer. I have a seminar I have to be at in twenty minutes anyway."

"Yeah." Jason said with a sigh. "I'll talk to you later." He waited a brief second to hear her goodbye before he clicked over to his incoming call. "What?" he greeted the white ranger gruffly.

"There you are." She said harshly, happy that he finally answered. She had been trying to get a hold of him ever since Tommy dropped by. "You know the world could have ended by now and you would have no idea."

Jason could not help but snort. "If the world was ending you would have paged me." He quickly pointed out. "And since you didn't page me and you didn't leave a voice mail, I assumed the world wasn't ending."

"Maybe not in the grand scheme of things, but your world may be turned upside down." Carri replied. She knew Tommy was not going to be satisfied with her answer, he was going to keep pushing until he got to Jason. The black ranger needed to be prepared.

"Ok." Jason said cautiously. What Carri had found out on a Saturday morning that might turn his world upside down peaked his curiosity the say the least.

"I had a visitor today." She said simply. He took this long to pick up the phone; she was going to keep him on the edge of his seat.

"A visitor?" Jason questioned with a sigh. She was not just going to get to the point.

"At my office." Carri said, pausing for a second. "Asking about one of my projects."

"One of your projects?" Jason asked, waiting for her to make a noise of agreement. "I assume the reason you are calling me is because it's more about our project." It had to be something important about the movie if she was calling him like that.

"Yes." She confirmed. "Actually it wasn't as much about the movie itself; it was more about the books. About the author of the books."

"So then what did your visitor want to know?" Jason asked. He did not like people asking about Luke Kirk. He wished people would just take Luke Kirk at face value, but he knew that was not going to happen.

"Who wrote the books." Carri said simply.

"And you told them?" Jason questioned, his voice trailing off. He was getting aggravated with the way she was feeding him information. She needed to just spit it out.

"I told my visitor Luke Kirk." She assured him. She was not going to be the one to bust his secret, especially not to Tommy. "But my visitor suspects that Luke Kirk is just a cover."

Jason threw his hands up in the air. "I give up. Who was your visitor? Someone from the media?" She was withholding that piece of information on purpose. He was not going to truly know what kind of situation he was in until she spit it out.

She snorted. "I wouldn't be this concerned if it was a reporter." She said. When a few seconds went by and Jason did not respond, she continued. "You want to know why I thought this information was immediate need to know? Because my visitor was Tommy."

"Crap." Jason said with force. That was the last person he wanted looking into Luke Kirk. "Does he know anything?"

"With certainty? No." Carri said. "But he's got a lot of suspicions." Too many. He was going to get to the bottom of this and he was going to give them all an earful. "He's fairly certain the real author was a ranger or was related to a ranger because of the material in the stories. Plus my tiny company with one TV credit under its belt got the movie deal. He thinks its rangers helping each other."

Jason let out a low groan. Leave it to Tommy to put the pieces together. "Did you throw him off track?"

Carri couldn't help but snort. "Tommy's not stupid." She pointed out. "I did give it a try though. I told him I had only met with his publisher and if Luke Kirk was throwing me a bone, I did not know who was doing the throwing. Then I pointed out if the author was a former ranger, someone in the ranger community would know."

"And he didn't buy it?" Jason asked with a sigh. Of course he didn't. If he was certain he was right, Tommy was not going to let it drop.

"Doubtful. He backed off of me, but I'm not sure if it's because he believed me or because he knew I wouldn't give into the questions just because he's Tommy." She replied. "Either way it doesn't matter, he said he was going to keep looking into it and for me to tell him if I heard anything."

"Shit." Jason cursed once more as his mind started running. He needed to figure out what steps, if any, he could take to throw Tommy off the trail a bit. Maybe he could try to reel in Luke Kirk a little more, keep Tommy away from any more information. He could release something to throw him off, but after Carri's conversation with Tommy this morning, a new flow of information was going to look suspicious. It was almost easier keeping his Power Rangers secret over keeping the Luke Kirk one at this point.

"See you shouldn't have ignored me all day." Carri said, although her tone of voice suggested she was not gloating as much as she usually would. She was not afraid of Tommy, but this was going to be a mess when, not if, he found out and she did not want to be on the wrong end of that one. Then there was Kim. She and Tommy had been going strong the last year, despite the disagreements over leadership. She was going to kick Jason if his secret identity wrecked that. If Tommy found out, they could probably keep Kim's name out of it all together, although she doubted her best friend would let them take the fall alone.

"Yeah." He agreed with a sigh. Although his day would have been much more pleasant had he not found out. He glanced over at the clock on the wall. "You heading to Turtle Cove?" he asked, changing the subject.

"I was going to leave here in a few." She replied. Rocky had headed up to his new school early to get things ready. She did not even bother trying to go with him; she had too much work of her own to get done.

"You want to ride up there with me?" Jason asked. Rocky had left already, and as far as he knew, so had Tommy and Kim. Tommy wanted to take Kim to some restaurant up there for a late lunch that Cole had suggested.

"Sure." Carri said as she glanced briefly down at the papers in front of her. "Give me five minutes and I'll head out to your place."

Jason and Carri said their goodbyes and he hung up the phone. He was going to have to forget about this Luke Kirk problem for now. He was getting ready to go see Tommy; he could not give him any reason to be suspicious. Maybe the world would do him a favor, and Tommy would not find anything and would give up. Jason let out a small laugh. That would be a miracle.


It was getting close to time for the official opening ceremonies for Rocky's new school. Tommy and Kim were standing together in the parking lot, having just finished their lunch at a nice restaurant that was recommended by the red Wild Force ranger. There were a few random people gathering. It was still too early yet for people, although from what he understood they were not expecting a huge crowd.

He was surprised by the lack of rangers. As far as he knew, their team was coming out to support the new school opening. In fact, it was his understanding that there was going to be several rangers both past and present there. None of the rest of them were here yet, not even Carri, who he thought would have been the first one there.

Perhaps his conversation from that morning got to her more than he thought it would. Maybe she was slow moving after that, which is why she was late. Before he could ponder too much on that, a red Pathfinder pulled into the parking lot and four rangers climbed out.

"Hey!" Kim called out to their teammate and the group he was dragging behind him. "I didn't realize you were bringing a crowd."

Zhane let go of his girlfriend's hand as they stopped in front of the duo and he shrugged. "They insisted on coming."

Ashley grinned at her employee. "We have to support all the rangers in their endeavors." She said. She thought about going, and was surprised when her husband got behind the idea. It wasn't that that he did not like supporting the other rangers, but he usually was not the first in line to run out and socialize.

Andros nodded in agreement. Although truthfully that was not the reason he came. He really wanted to talk to Tommy for a few minutes. He had not had the opportunity to see him since Carri's party, and he was hoping if he showed up early enough he could get Tommy aside for a few minutes.

"That's great that you showed up, I'm sure Rocky is going to appreciate it." Kim told them.

Karone looked over toward the building, where a ribbon was tied across the front door but there was not anybody standing there. "Do you guys know what time they are getting started?" she asked. Not that she had anywhere better to be, but she wanted to get back to seeing what she could discover on Arius. It was the least she could do for Zhane and the team, seeing as how she was not selected as a ranger. Besides, she wanted to keep Kim from becoming evil and keep the empire from reforming as much, if not more, than everybody else. So far, she had not come up with anything of use.

Tommy glanced briefly down at his watch. "According to Rocky, they are going to get started in about fifteen minutes."

Andros made a face. He needed to go ahead and get Tommy aside. "Tommy, before I forget, I wanted to show you something." That was not so odd. He did do intergalactic work, and he had worked with Tommy before, so the fact that he wanted to show him something was believable.

"Ok." Tommy replied. He assumed it was something ranger related. Those were the only kind of conversations he and Andros ever had.

Andros leaned in and kissed his wife. "We'll be right back." He promised as he led Tommy toward his car. He went to the other side of his SUV, making sure they were out of view of the other rangers.

"So what is it that you need to show me?" Tommy questioned.

"Actually, it's more ask than show." Andros replied. He needed to get straight to the point; they were not going to have much time. "I wanted to know what you know about your pink ranger."

"Kate?" he questioned as the former red ranger nodded his head yes. "She lives in Silver Hills and is married to Wes. Other than that, we are just getting to know her."

"How did she get the powers?" Andros asked. If Tommy did not know, it was something they would have to look into it. These were Planetary powers they had to be earned. There was a reason why Kim only let former rangers try for them. Only former rangers or someone of that nature would have done something that would allow them to connect to the Planetary morphers and harness that kind of power. There had to be more to Kate's story.

"She's married to Wes; she knows he is a ranger. After she heard about the morphers, she asked if she could try." Tommy said with a shrug. Letting Jen be their pink ranger was a bad idea and he knew it from the beginning. If Andros got suspicious and the suspicion spread, things could get documented and Time Force could be alerted, then they would come down here and yank Jen back to her correct time. They should have just sent her home to begin with to avoid all this.

"That doesn't make sense." Andros said quickly, watching as Tommy looked blankly at him. "I don't know what Kim told you or what you know about the Planetary powers, but they wouldn't be given out to just any civilian. There is more to Kate than what you are disclosing."

Tommy thought for a moment about how to respond to that. "If there is I don't know about it."

"Then we need to research it. This may be important." Andros said as he started thinking about the best way to start.

Tommy shook his head. "It's possible that Kim knows something. After all, she did let Kate look at the morpher."

"We should ask her then." Andros said simply. They had to find out the answer.

"If she knows something, she's not sharing." Tommy spoke quickly. This was the last thing he needed today. "She got the powers from Dulcea, she works with Mystic Mother, Ninjor, and God only knows who else. It may not be her secret to share."

Andros raised an eyebrow. This did not sound like the Tommy he knew. The Tommy he knew was the leader, and would not let Kim slide on keeping secrets like this. "We should still ask her."

Tommy grunted. He was going to have to tell Andros. He was probably the only ranger on the planet who knew enough about other worlds and other morphers to get suspicious. He had worked with him before, he trusted him. "Look, I'll tell you, but this is top secret, you can't tell anyone, not even your wife." He said sternly.

Andros gave him a look. He had been all around the galaxy, he had kept plenty of secrets for people in higher positions than Tommy and the silver ranger knew that. "What's the situation with Kate?"

"Her real name is Jen. She's former Time Force pink." Tommy admitted with a sigh.

"Time Force?" Andros spoke as loudly as he could without letting anyone else hear their conversation. "You know as well as I do she doesn't belong here. Time Force was only allowed in our time to retrieve Ransik; they were supposed to return home."

"Believe me I know. And I've made the point to Kim, but she's not listening." Tommy said. He was glad to be speaking with someone who agreed with him on the issue.

"If Time Force catches her here…" Andros let his voice trail off. Who knew at what point in the time line they would return to yank her from.

"I know." Tommy said simply. "But Kim's right, the pink morpher accepted her. We need her here. If we call her Kate, Time Force will not have a record of Jen. Kim doesn't want to risk them yanking her out before she takes the morpher, and us losing this campaign because of it."

Andros thought for a moment. Kim was right, but that did not mean he was comfortable with Jen being here. However, his family, the planet, the galaxy… all that was at stake should Arius win and Kim embrace her dark side. Perhaps it was selfish, but he cared too much for Ashley and his children to risk letting Time Force find out about Jen. "You have my word that I won't expose Jen's secret." He assured his fellow ranger.

Tommy nodded. "Thank you." He said as he glanced around the back of the car. "Now, let's get back before the others start to get suspicious." He said as he turned and led the way back to the others.


Rocky stood to the side of his school, waiting for the rest of his staff along with Cole to arrive before he started his speech and officially opened his school. His cell phone beeped and he pulled it out of his pocket and read his text message, letting out a disgusted grunt before deleting it.

The message was from Jessica, who had her baby the night before. She had sent him several picture messages, saying how adorable the baby was and how he could pass as the father. Those were the tamer of the messages. She had sent some that were more than a little suggestive, regarding fun things they could do if they played house together.

He was deleting them as fast as he was getting them. If Carri accidentally saw those on his phone, she would flip. It did not matter if Jessica was full of shit and he was not listening to her. The fact that she was sending him those kind of messages would get her pissed enough to drive over to the hospital and confront his ex-girlfriend. Then someone would end up with something broken. Again.

Rocky groaned and leaned against the brick wall. Jessica was working her hardest to make his life a complete mess. He sighed as a chipper voice called out "hey Rocky!" Standing up straight, he turned to see Cole and Alyssa heading toward him, along with his new part time administrative assistant Melinda and his full time instructor Dean, all wearing school t-shirts.

"Hey guys." He called back as they approached him. "Are we ready to do this?"

"As ready as I'm going to be." Dean said with a smile. He loved teaching and he loved his students, but public appearances like this were not really a favorite of his.

"Looks like the crowd is here." Alyssa said with a smile. There were a lot of students and parents from her elementary school, where she had been promoting Rocky's school to get the kids interested in self-defense. Cole had gotten some of the people he knew throughout the community to show up, and there were scattered people who had gotten interested from the flyers that had gone out. Then the rest of her team came, along with Eric, who convinced some other off duty Silver Guardians to come with him, and Jen, who came as Eric's "cousin". Add in the local paper and a local news station, overall it was a good turnout.

Melinda glanced down at her watch. "It's getting close to time. Are you ready?" Rocky was giving a speech, and then cutting the ribbon and it was off for sign-ups. She was excited about this opportunity. She just had a baby and she was looking for something part time to supplement their income to help with baby expenses. She had been an administrative assistant before she got pregnant and she was good at her job. Her old company closed, but fortunately, her husband had a good enough job that she did not have to worry about work until now.

"As ready as I'm going to be." Rocky said as his phone beeped again. He looked at it briefly, deleting the text before turning the phone off completely. She was the last person in the world he needed to think about right now. "Let's go out there and greet our potential customers."

Rocky took a deep breath. He was not too nervous; he had done this three other times before. Nevertheless, there were always those few nerves that showed up that he had to shake off. He let his breath out and he felt some of the nerves disappear as he headed toward the front entrance of the building.

As Rocky and his team approached, the small crowd grew silent. He looked out over everyone until he spotted his fiancé, who was wedged in between Kim and Jason. She must not have been there long, otherwise he assumed she would have come to say hello. It was just as well, he was busy deleting texts from Jessica anyway.

"Thank you all for coming out today." Rocky said as he smiled at the audience. "I appreciate all the support from the community and I can't wait for my team to be able to share our knowledge with you at our newest location." He paused as the audience smiled back. They were warm and receptive, and he easily launched into his small speech.

It did not take long. He touched briefly on their mission and what they could expect from his school in this community and what they had to look forward to if they signed up as students. He did a quick demo with Dean, displaying a few basic moves each, then he gave a special thank you to the support from his friends, family and fiancé for helping make this possible.

Once he was finished, he took the oversized pair of scissors that Melinda was holding out to him. "Without further ado," he paused and turned at an angle to where he was still facing the audience as he cut the ribbon in front of the door, "we would like to officially welcome everyone to the Turtle Cove branch of United Martial Arts."

The crowd cheered just as Rocky heard his communicator chirp. He glanced up at the crowd, and everyone was making their way to the door. Everyone except the rangers. Jen had slid back to meet up with the others and they were working on disappearing. He frowned. It would be easier if the attack were on Turtle Cove. At least then, everybody would be hiding and he would not have to worry about how to slip off.

Alyssa stepped up and nudged Rocky back as Cole moved in front of the incoming crowd to take the lead. They both heard the noise and knew what it meant. "Come on in everyone. We have refreshments for you all, and our instructors Dean and Alyssa are here to show you guys a bit more about what we're about." Cole said as he gestured for everyone to follow him.

Rocky smiled briefly as everyone started to follow Cole in. He really should pay him for all that he had done for him. He tried to make him and employee, but the former red ranger refused. He said he did not need a job he had plenty to do. This was just him helping a friend.

"Go." Alyssa hissed with a smile still on her face as the rest of her former team approached. "We've got the demo and the sign ups covered. If we need anything I'll put these guys to work." She said quietly as she stuck her thumb in their direction.

Rocky nodded his head and started to slip away, the rest of the Wild Force team filling in the spot where he once stood to make it look as though he was never there. "Emergency?" Max asked as he glanced over toward his teammate.

"You know how it is." Alyssa replied with a smile.

Taylor nodded absentmindedly as she and Eric watched people enter. Although she loved being back in the Air Force, she missed her days as a ranger and was somewhat disappointed that the pink powers did not chose her. Not that she wanted to be pink, but it was still another morpher. She glanced in the direction Rocky took off in, watching as a blue streak flew through the sky.


"Arius." Kim said as she and most of her team teleported down to the fight, fully morphed. "I was beginning to think you were too chicken to come back down here and fight." It had been a while since he had made an appearance on the surface, he usually sent his minions.

"Well when you pay perfectly good help there's no point in always getting your hands dirty." Arius said as he took a step forward separating himself from his Keresecks and Torssus. Shax and Novax he left behind this time. He did not even bring that many Keresecks, he wanted to make sure all the rangers except Kim were available to call on their zords when the time was right.

Kim smirked as a blue streak flew in and joined the group. "You know if I was you I'd think about cutting their salaries. You're help isn't doing a very good job."

"Which is why I came down to visit you myself." Arius replied. "I think I may be a little more persuasive in getting you to come quietly."

"Dream on." Kim replied as she let out a little laugh. If he thought he was going to come down here with a new monster and scare her into joining him, he was wrong.

"Kaycea, I'll change your mind by the end of the day, you just wait and see." Arius said as with a swift motion of his hand he indicated for Torssus to lead the others in for an attack. His army followed his explicit instructions not to attack Kaycea and to go after the rest of the ranger team. Once they were occupied, Arius grinned at his target. "Why don't you come over here and we'll talk."

"Yes," Kim said as she called for her Fire Saber, "we'll talk." She finished as she ran toward him to attack.

The battle began in earnest, with most of the rangers taking care of Keresecks while Arius kept Kim busy. Torssus practically danced around the battlefield, letting out a laugh that reminded the former Turbo rangers of Callisto, as he planted bombs strategically around the battlefield. His laughter would increase anytime a ranger took a hit. He wanted to blow them to smithereens, but he couldn't just yet. He needed to wait for them to get into their zords.

One of his explosive devices hit an unsuspecting silver ranger. Tommy cursed as he got tossed across the battlefield and into the back of the white ranger. He hit her with enough force that she flew forward, into the lighting strike she was trying to use to hit the Keresecks. Carri took enough of a hit that she flew back a bit further, hitting the ground and rolling until she hit another explosive device that sent her flying once more.

Carri laid there for a moment as she caught the monster looking at her out of the corner of her eye. Despite the numerous rangers that were calling out to her, she decided to play dead. She saw Torssus approaching her. He was generally staying far away from the rangers, just cowardly setting bombs and walking away. She wanted to tell him exactly what she thought of that tactic.

She waited until he was standing over her, trying his best to peer through her helmet and into her eyes. Her fingers grazed her Lightning Lance, still powered up from the fight she was just in with the Keresecks. Before Torssus could register what was happening, she grabbed it and used it to make contact with his chest. "Asshole." She growled as she simply held the lance in place, giving him enough of a shock that he might have some sort of idea what his bombs felt like.

Standing, she held the lance in place. As she removed it and prepared to kick the crap out of him, a spiked metal ball flew forward and smacked him in the face. The Metallic Mace swung at him one more time, knocking him off his feet. "You know, you play dead like that you're going to give your teammates a heart attack." Jason commented, briefly looking toward Carri before turning his attention back to the monster.

Carri snorted as she moved into fighting stance. "I was trying to give him a heart attack."

"I don't think it worked yet." Jason said as Torssus started to pull himself back to his feet.

"That just means I need to keep trying." Carri said as a flash of sunlight blinded their explosion happy friend. Carri used the distraction to strike him with lighting, before she and Jason, along with the newly arrived solar ranger, ran in to attack him.

A few minutes later, the remaining three rangers finished off their Keresecks and moved in to help their other teammates. They were assaulting Torssus with a combination of elemental and physical attacks. And while they were still running into a few stray explosives, he had not had much of a chance to lay down any new ones.

Just as Tommy was about to suggest a finishing move, Torssus started to grow to city wrecking size. "What's this?" he bellowed as he grew. He did not sign up for a suicide mission. They were only supposed do this to him if he lost. Maybe he did not know something. This was those rangers' faults. He was going to take them and their zords out before he perished.

Jen glanced over toward their leader, who was still busy with Arius. Their battle was intense and she was not completely sure what was going on between the two of them. She did know Kim was not free to grab a zord. "Can we form the megazord without her?"

"Billy?" Tommy questioned, hoping he was listening to what was asked.

"Affirmative." Billy replied. "Call for your zords. I will set up Kim's zord so that it will come and combine with yours when you move into megazord formation."

"Got it." Tommy said as he moved toward the front of the team, assuming control in Kim's absence. "We need Planetary Zord power now!" The zords barreled toward them, and the rangers immediately went to jump into their respective zords. "Let's go ahead and bring them together, the less giant bombs we have to deal with the better."

Tommy and the other rangers moved quickly into their megazord formation, but not before a lightning strike hit Torssus out of nowhere. "Carri." Tommy said harshly through the speakers. He did not remember giving the attack first then form the megazord order.

"What?" Carri questioned as her zord was connecting with the others without missing a beat. "I still owe him." She said as she shot up through the zord and toward the megazord cockpit.

"We all owe him." Zhane pointed out. He was sure one of his bombs had thrown around each of them a few times.

"Let's just finish him off and be done with it." Rocky said. His school was opening without him, his fiancé nearly gave him a heart attack… he was well past ready to be done with this one.

"Agreed." Tommy said as he moved in to hit Torssus. As he moved, Torssus threw a bomb that they narrowly avoided. The bomb landed beside their feet, creating a small crater in the park and throwing the megazord off balance.

Swearing was heard throughout as they tried to regain their composure. "Those aren't the same things he was using before." Jen pointed out. Even at normal size, a bomb with that much power would not have left the rangers standing.

He threw another bomb and the megazord jumped and tumbled out of the way. "I have a bad feeling about this." Jason said as they watched another small explosion. He had a feeling this was Arius's way of getting rid of the zords, and possibly the team along with them.

They turned and stood, and as they did they could hear things hitting their zord. Finally, they got a look at one of them as it flew through the air and hit the top of the zord's head, sticking in place. "Explosives?" Zhane questioned as Torssus grabbed a device from his belt. Reacting quickly, Zhane used his Planetary zord to stomp on the ground, the powers of the Green Terra Ranger shaking the ground below Torssus to the point where the Earth started to split, causing him to drop the device.

The shaking stopped and Tommy's zord issued a solar flash. Torssus immediately reached for his eyes. The silver ranger knew they had bought themselves a few seconds at best. "I've got an idea." Jen said, working quickly to put her Planetary powers to good use. Wind emerged from the center of the zord and started circling it. The winds were so powerful that the zord could hardly stand. Fortunately, the zord was not the only thing struggling to hold on, as one by one the explosives popped off.

Jen let them all fall to the ground, and then the megazord took a step back, another gust of wind shooting from its chest and throwing the devices onto Torssus as he was starting to look for the trigger. He grabbed it as the devices attached to him. "How dare you!" He exclaimed as he realized what just happened.

The megazord took a step forward. "You're going to love this." Tommy said as they reached out and smacked the button on the device. Torssus blew up and flung the megazord backwards as he went. The dust cleared and their foe was nowhere to be found.

"Everyone alright?" Tommy asked as he started to survey the damage to the zords. He was greeted by mostly positive replies as all the rangers starting running tests on their individual zords. A few seconds later, the megazord pulled itself to its feet. There were a few minor malfunctions and some cosmetic damage, but it was all reparable.

"I really hated that guy." Carri grumbled, mostly to herself.

"No kidding." Jason chimed in with a sigh.

"Come on, let's go check on Kim." Tommy said. The rangers abandoned the megazord, sending it back to the zord bay as they headed down to the surface.

Arius was fuming when they got there. Torssus was dead, and the rangers and their megazord were still intact. "This isn't over Kaycea."

"No, I suppose it's not." Kim said calmly. It would never be over, not until he was dead and gone. It was going to be a tough road he was powerful. Her battle with him today was simply another piece of evidence that Arius was not a creature to be taken lightly.

Arius glared at her. He knew now what he had to do. He could not simply go in, guns blazing, and destroy the megazord. This was not their original technology. Someone else created it, and he was going to find that someone and make them disclose all the zords weaknesses. Once again, he was going to get punished by Deimos. He would take his punishment, and then he would take care of business.

"Until next time." He said before teleporting off.

Kim sighed. This was definitely a stranger than usual visit. She had not had much chance to figure out what was going on, as she was absorbed in the fight with Arius. She was hoping to destroy him, and to scare off the creature he represented. That had been nothing more than a dream. "Come on guys, let's head back." She said as she led her team to the Command Chamber.


The rangers teleported back into the Power Chamber, where Billy was waiting with his wife to see the others. Kim looked around at her team. "Alright guys, what did I miss?" she asked, referencing the battle they had while she was busy with Arius.

Rocky stepped forward and spoke up before anyone else could say anything. "I need to get back to my school. Me not being there is going to look suspicious." It was his school, yet he disappeared and essentially left Cole and Alyssa in charge. Granted Alyssa was a part time instructor, but people were still going to start to wonder. "Can I let the others fill you in?"

"Go relieve Wild Force." Kim said with a smile as she shooed him out of there. The ranger emergency was over, and the rest of her team could give the appropriate recap. Besides, it would probably look better if he reappeared before the rest of the team did. Not that anyone had a reason to be suspicious. Other than the fact that they were hanging out with the former Astro rangers, and that one of the Silver Guardians who also happened to be a ranger was there. However there enough public identity rangers now that it was not unusual for civilians to know rangers.

"Wait." Trini said as Rocky went to teleport out. She had come to share her news with everyone. They had agreed that should the rangers be victorious, and the ranger emergency be over, they were going to share their news with the masses. Things were looking as good as to be expected and it was time to tell everyone. "We have something to share."

"What's going on?" Kim asked, looking from one of her oldest friends to the other.

Trini smiled as she stepped forward and slipped her hand into her husbands. "I'm pregnant." She said giddily.

The battle momentarily forgotten, Kim immediately went to give Trini a hug. She knew how much this meant to her, to them. Trini wanted nothing more than to start a family. "Congratulations." She said as Tommy, Jason, Rocky and Carri came up to give the happy couple hugs. Even Jen and Zhane jumped in, and they did not know Billy and Trini all that well. What they did know was how happy that bit of news made them.

Rocky was the first to move away from the group. "I've really got to go, but congrats again." He said as he brought his communicator up. "See you guys later."

The others watched the blue streak disappear before they turned their attention back to the former rangers. "When did this happen?" Jason said with a smile as he reached out and gave Billy a hearty pat on the back.

"When?" Billy repeated as a blush crept into his cheeks. He did not feel comfortable sharing details of his intimate life with his wife.

Trini giggled. "I don't think he means it like that." She said, immediately noticing Billy's discomfort. At least she hoped Jason did not mean it that way. "I'm seven weeks pregnant. We found out two weeks ago, but we didn't want to tell you guys until we made sure everything is alright."

"I take it this means all is well?" Kim asked as she looked at the parents-to-be.

"Given the fact that Trini most likely still carries residual energy from her power coin, all is going as well as can be expected." Billy assured them. They were hoping the pregnancy would be normal and the baby would be happy and healthy, but there is no way to say for sure. At least she got pregnant. With all they had been through, they were not sure it would happen. It would be interesting to see if Carri and Kim got pregnant should they be inclined to try. Between the power coins they held and all the other powers and ranger related things they had been through, he was not sure it was a possibility.

"I'm sure things will be fine." Tommy said. After all, his ex had her baby and she had been exposed to one of the power coins as well.

The buzz of the announcement started to die down, and Kim looked at the remaining rangers. "Shall we get back to work?"

"I think I'm going to go back down to the surface." Jen said. She had been thinking about it for a few minutes. This may be the best way to slip everyone back in. "I'll rejoin Eric and Taylor. You guys can come in later. Nobody is going to think twice about five friends walking in at the same time."

Kim thought for a moment. "You're right." She agreed. She could not help but wonder if Zordon knew that it was going to require this much planning to keep their secret identities a secret when he told them never to reveal who they were.

Jen nodded and teleported out, leaving four Planetary Rangers behind to handle the recap. Kim turned toward them once Jen was gone. "Alright guys, let's go over you're battle, then the rest of us can head down to the surface before anyone realizes we were gone."


Later that evening, Tommy and Kim found themselves pulling into the parking lot of their apartment complex, arriving home after leaving Turtle Cove. Rocky's grand opening had been a success. While he was gone, Alyssa and Dean had done some demonstrations, and Eric and the Silver Guardians, who were in uniform, had entertained some of the kids. Melinda counted more new signups by the end of the day than Rocky had expected.

They climbed out of the car and headed toward the front door. After a long day, it was finally time to relax alone in their apartment. Their apartment that they hopefully would not be living in much longer. Their house had for the most part passed inspection, and after a tiny haggle with the homeowners over a few minor issues, they signed for it. Right now, they were in the process of renovations. There were some cosmetic issues they were addressing before they moved in. Some rooms were getting new paint and new floors, and they had discussed redoing the kitchen all together. Although the kitchen did not have to get done before they moved in, but it would certainly be easier to go ahead and do it. Then there were a few renovations that they wanted to do to make the house fit their needs to a tee. None of the work would take long, and they were hoping that it would not be any longer than a month before they moved in.

They opened the door and Kim walked in, immediately flopping on the couch. It had been a long day and she wanted to share parts of her morning and her visit with Billy with Tommy. She had not talked much to him about how her day went. The entire ride home was devoted to that day's battle. While they discussed strategy upon strategy and made multiple points, it all came down to the same thing. As best they could figure, Arius was simply distracting her, trying to give his monster the time to blow up the rangers and their zords. With the rangers and the zords out of the way, Arius would have his run of the planet unless Kim willingly came with him. They were already on their toes, but they were going to have to be extra careful now.

She trusted her team; she knew they were aware of what Arius could do. However she still took a minute to take her team aside after the grand opening was over and push the no mistakes point. She couldn't lose them. Arius was trying to kill some of the closest people in the world to her, all to get her to come with him and be evil. It was not just to be evil it was to be Kemora. It was to have the same glowing red orbs that haunted her nightmares. She would do anything to avoid turning in to that.

Tommy sat down beside her and she forced those thoughts aside. "So, how was your day, aside from the battle?" she asked with a smile, figuring she would let him fill her in first.

"My day? Well you know most of it." Tommy replied with a smile as he leaned over and put an arm around his girlfriend. "I did visit Carri this morning." He had been debating whether to tell Kim about his side project. However he seriously doubted that Carri would not mention it, and he would rather she hear it from him.

"Oh?" Kim questioned curiously. It was not that Carri and Tommy were not friends, but it was somewhat random that he was visiting her. "What did you guys do?"

"Talked. About work." Tommy said as Kim brought her knees in and made herself comfortable. "Did you know that her relatively new company managed to land the Luke Kirk book?"

"Really?" Kim said, trying her hardest not to tense up at the mention of Carri and Luke Kirk in the same sentence. Tommy did not know the truth; he was acting way too casual for that. She was going to have to see where this went.

Tommy nodded. He was trying to gauge whether or not her response was authentic. She seemed generally surprised, so he was going to assume for now that she did not know about it. "I guess she wanted to wait to tell everyone. I just happened to stumble across the information while I was researching Luke Kirk."

A noise of acknowledgment slipped through Kim's lips as she snuggled into Tommy's shoulder, trying her best to look uninterested. "I didn't know you are Luke Kirk fan."

"I'm not, not really." Tommy replied. Having an interest and being a fan were different. "Ethan is, and Hayley has read his book as well. They actually got me interested in it." He paused as Kim looked up at him, waiting for him to continue. "They both said it's somewhat familiar, at least the stories. They said if they didn't know any better they would think it was written by a ranger."

"Wow." Was the only response Kim could muster as multiple alarms in her head went off. She went into overdrive trying to keep herself calm. It was more than just normal human physical emotions she had to keep under control; it was her Muirantian powers as well. Fortunately, she had practice keeping everything in check.

"I'm inclined to agree. The way the stories read, and the fact that the unknown Ausus Productions got the contract make you think." He said, watching as Kim sat up a bit and looked at him. "Carri claims she doesn't know Luke Kirk and I can't say one way or the other, but I'm not sure what to think about him. What do you think?" She was a red, she knew a lot about the rangers. Maybe she had an idea as to where to start.

"Hmm." Kim said as she pretended to consider the possibility. "I haven't heard anything about Luke Kirk." She lied. She hated lying to Tommy, she had done enough of it already about her powers, but this was Jason's secret to tell and she was going to leave that to him. "I can't imagine if a ranger was writing it that they'd be able to keep that kind of secret away from the rest of the community."

"I thought about that." Tommy replied. He thought about it before he started researching and even after he confronted Carri. There were many possibilities. Although the way the facts added up it was almost certainly a ranger. He just was not sure if it was a secret benefactor or if Carri was lying. He was not going to take his eye off of her but he knew she'd never tell him the truth.

He glanced over at Kim and an idea came to him. She would never tell him the truth, but there were other rangers that she trusted with all her secrets. "I think we have the right to know if it is a ranger. Maybe you could talk to Carri, see what she knows. I don't think she's being very forthcoming with me."

"Sure, I can talk to her." Kim promised him. Yup, she'd discuss Luke Kirk with her, not a problem. She just was not going to report her findings back to Tommy. They did have a right to know. Presently, on Earth, she was the most senior of the active red rangers. Since she knew, that was good enough for her.

Leaning back down, Kim snuggled back into Tommy's arms. "I had an interesting meeting today too." She said as she prepared to fill her in on what she learned. She hoped that by the time she was done, Tommy will have forgotten about the Luke Kirk issue. She was going to do everything in her power to help her friend keep his secret buried. Whether it was a good idea or not, she wasn't sure. She knew Tommy wasn't going to let it go, and that the situation would explode if it ever came out, but for now she was going to do her best to help keep Luke Kirk's identity a mystery.