DISCLAIMER-POWER RANGERS NOT MINE!

Chapter Eight

Tommy sighed in boredom as he channel surfed on the t.v. It was Friday night and he had nothing to do. Charlie had gone to sleep over at a friend's house, and Jason had locked himself in his room to make mysterious phone calls after coming home from dropping Charlie off.

When he couldn't find anything interesting to watch, Tommy turned off the t.v. and stood up. Maybe Jason would be willing to come out of his room to do something. But just as he was about to knock on his friend's door, the doorbell rang. Before Tommy could even begin to turn around to go answer it, Jason's door swung open and Tommy caught a glimpse of a red blur rushing past him.

Shaking his head in defeat, Tommy started to walk back towards the front door, after Jason, to see who was there. As he drew closer, he heard the sound of raised voices. And they sounded angry…but strangely familiar.

"Where is he?" Tommy finally heard a voice demand clearly over all of the din, as he hid in a doorway just off the front hall. He decided to make his presence known at this point.

"Where is who?" Tommy asked.

Jason was shoved out of the way of the front door with a strangled yell of "YOU!" Tommy took a few steps back in alarm as he spotted two of his old friends, with furious expressions on their faces.

"Um…hey guys." Tommy said hesitantly. "What's up?"

"What's up?" Adam repeated in disbelief. He turned to Zack, who was standing beside him. "Did he just ask us what's up?"

Zack nodded. "I say we tell him 'what's up'. What do you say?"

"Sounds like a plan." Adam said, turning back to his former teammate. "Tommy." He said slowly, and a bit menacingly. "Why don't you sit down?"

"Erm…okay." Tommy said slowly. "Why don't we go into the kitchen? Would either of you like a drink?"

"We aren't thirsty." Adam said, cutting off Zack's reply.

Once in the kitchen, Tommy threw himself into one of the chairs and Adam and Zack sat directly across from him. Jason pulled a chair over to the side, so that he could have a good view of everyone.

"So," began Tommy, "What brings the two of you to Reefside?"

"He doesn't know." Zack said to Adam, as if Tommy wasn't sitting right in front of them. "How could he not know?"

Adam just shook his head sadly.

"I invited them over." Jason said slyly. "Figured we could use a little reunion of rangers. We're all connected…the three of us…" An evil grin lit up his face now. "By our colors."

With these words, all color drained from Tommy's face.

"You didn't." He said softly.

"Oh, he did." Adam said in a creepy voice.

Zack smiled sweetly. "So, Tommy…We here you've re-started up your color-stealing business. Tell us, what color are you now?"

"Yes, Tommy." Adam agreed in the same tone, so that he sounded even scarier than before. "Tell us."

Tommy gulped. "Uh…I'm…b-black now."

"Yes." Zack said in that same fake-sweet voice. "So we had heard."

"But, Tommy, there's a little problem with that." Adam continued, the smile disappearing from his face again.

"T-There is?" Tommy asked shakily.

"Oh, yes." Adam said. "You see, the two of us," He indicated himself and Zack, "Were both black before you. It's bad enough that Zack had to give up that power, then I got your leftovers when I became the green Zeo ranger, but now you have to go and steal OUR COLOR!"

"I'm…sorry?" Tommy said.

"You had better be sorry." Zack said threateningly. "Don't forget, we were your teammates. We know your weaknesses."

"Now that that's over with," Adam said, his menacing expression replaced with a cheerful one now, "What have you been up to in the past five and a half years? We haven't seen you in ages."

Tommy sighed with relief that the color questioning was now over, and proceeded to tell his old friends what had happened in his life since the last time they had spoken.

"-And after the island blew up, I got offered a teaching position in Reefside, so Charlie and I moved here. When I told Jason, he offered to move in with us. So that's how I ended up in Reefside with a crazy roommate." Tommy finished.

"Where is Charlie?" Zack asked. "You didn't forget her somewhere, did you?"

"She's sleeping over at a friend's house." Jason said, speaking up for the first time in a while now.

Zack nodded, while Adam examined Tommy curiously. Then, his eyes lit up with surprise.

"Ha!" He said suddenly, an expression of realization upon his face as he pointed at Tommy's head.

"What?" Tommy asked worriedly. "Is there something in my hair?"

Zack started shaking his head 'no' when he, too, burst out laughing.

"What's so funny guys?" Tommy asked desperately.

"You cut off your pony tail." Adam said, trying to stifle his laughter. "You've had that thing since forever."

Jason tried very hard not to join in the laughter now.

"Tommy," Jason said sweetly, "Why don't you tell them why you cut off all of your hair."

"I'd rather not." Tommy said stiffly.

"Ah, come on." Zack pleaded. "Why not? I wanna know what happened to the mullet."

"Yeah." Adam agreed. "Come on, Tommy. Tell us. Please?"

"If you don't, I will." Jason threatened.

"Fine." Tommy said, throwing his hands up in defeat. "But you're just gonna laugh more when I tell you."

"We promise we'll try not to." Zack said sweetly, crossing his fingers under the table.

"It's not that bad." Jason told Tommy reassuringly.

"You didn't have your so-called colleagues laughing at you every time they saw you with your little sister for weeks." Tommy said darkly.

"Then you shouldn't have told them the truth." Jason reasoned.

"I didn't." Tommy protested. "Charlie did."

"Tommy." Zack interrupted in a childish voice. "You promised us you would tell us. We're waiting."

Tommy rolled his eyes. "When Charlie was five, she told me I looked more like a big sister than a big brother."

"She was right." Adam muttered. Tommy glared at him.

"She kept telling me I should get my hair cut." Tommy continued. "I told her I liked my hair the way it was, and I didn't want to get it cut." He faltered slightly here, and continued in a softer voice. "But she didn't like that."

Zack sniggered. "You're scared of your little sister."

"Am not!" Tommy protested.

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Guys!" Adam interrupted. "Just shut up. I wanna know what happens next."

Zack settled back into his chair in triumph, while Tommy shot him a glare.

"Charlie likes being listened to." Tommy explained. "She doesn't like it when people don't like her ideas. That's when she gets revenge on them." He took a deep breath here and then continued. "One day, I fell asleep on the couch reading something. Charlie found me like that…and she also found a pair of scissors. When I woke up, I didn't have any hair anymore."

There was silence for a moment, and then Adam and Zack started howling with laughter.

"You lost your mullet to a five-year old." Zack said in between his laughter.

"It's not funny." Tommy said grumpily.

"Yes it is." Jason stated. "Now, since you guys are already here, I think we should all do something tonight."

Adam and Zack stopped laughing long enough to agree to go to some pizza place Jason had found one day picking Charlie up from gymnastics.

"Fun." Zack gasped, before cracking up again.

"This is gonna be a long night." Tommy sighed.

The only problem was, he had no idea how long…

"So…" Charlie began, as they were driving to Trini and Kim's place. "You two live together?"

Kim nodded, keeping her eyes on the road. "We've been best friends since forever. Trini's the one who convinced me to come move out here."

"She wanted to stay in LA." Trini told Charlie. "But seriously, what's in LA?"

"Lots of things." Charlie said reasonably. "That place is huge."

"But LA doesn't have power rangers." Trini protested.

"Neither did Reefside." Kim pointed out. "Not until a week ago."

"Tommy's fault." Charlie said promptly. "After all the things I've learned about him when he was power ranger, I've come to a conclusion. That guy doesn't know when to give it up."

"You're telling us?" Trini said. "I've seen that guy go through more colors than I can count, firsthand."

Kim shrugged. "I was there for green and white, then when I came back he was already on his second red." She glanced at Trini through the mirror at this point. "And you were only there for green and white. How can you not count to two?"

"We're here." Trini said, pointedly ignoring her friend.

Charlie looked eagerly out of the window, to see a regular-sized house on one of Reefside's residential streets. She tilted her head to the side a bit, as if having trouble examining it.

"Is something wrong?" Kim asked worriedly.

"It's…purple." Charlie said.

"Don't you love it?" Trini asked excitedly, getting out of the car. "It was the only neutral-colored house we could find that we actually liked. Brown houses are quite ugly."

"Purple is a neutral color?" Charlie asked skeptically.

"It is if you used to be a ranger." Kim pointed out, grabbing her own gym bag from the trunk, and handing Charlie's over to her. "That's one of the only colors that has never been used for a power ranger. Well, that and orange. But who really wants an orange house? Anyway, come on get inside. We have really weird neighbors. The girl who lives next door, Cassidy, she's always stopping Trini and I and trying to interview us for something or other."

As she spoke, the three of them made their way to the front door, and almost as soon as the three of them were inside they were met by a kitten.

"Hello, Rita." Trini cooed to it in a baby voice, as she stroked its back. "Were you a good girl today? Did you miss us when we went to go rescue the rainbow ranger?"

"You named your cat Rita?" Charlie said, raising her eyebrows. "Wasn't she one of the bad guys when you were rangers?"

"Yep." Kim said. "It's kind of an inside joke. Kat—you probably saw her in Tommy's video—gave her to us as a house-warming present when we moved here. When Kat first moved to Angel Grove, Rita put her under an evil spell, and she turned into a cat."

"You guys are weird." Charlie stated.

"We used to be power rangers. It comes with job description." Trini said, as she continued to pet the cat named after a former villain. "Besides, Char, you're related."

"Well, maybe I got the not-weird genes." Charlie retorted.

"Who cares about those genes?" Kim asked. "You should feel lucky you didn't get the tardiness-prone genes."

"You're right." Charlie agreed. "Tommy is always so late. Was he always late in high school?"

"There's time for that later." Trini said, cutting Kim off before she could reply. "I say we go out for pizza now, and then when we come back Kim and I will tell you all of the embarrassing stories about Tommy that he would never want you to know. And I bet we know stories about Tommy that Jason doesn't."

"Pizza sounds good." Kim agreed. "Are we going to order it, or do you know a place here?"

"I saw this place earlier today while we were on our way to go save Tommy." Trini said.

"You saw something today?" Kim asked, amazed. "When we were on our way to Tommy's? When you were driving like a maniac?"

"I was driving quite normally, thank you very much." Trini said, lifting her chin up haughtily.

"She really was." Kim whispered to Charlie behind Trini's back as they walked back outside and got into the car again. "Like a normal maniac."

"I heard that!" Trini yelled.

"Why don't you drive." Charlie suggested to Kim.

"Good plan." Kim agreed, getting into the driver's seat. "Now, Trini, tell me where I'm going. I want food!"

Too bad she wasn't going to be able to get much to eat tonight…

a/n-next chapter, the truth comes out! (that means tommy finds out, just so ya know) hope u liked it.