Dislcaimer: The Power Rangers belong to Saban. Thomas, the DG, K and any mention of all things related to her world belong to KSuzie. Everyone else is mine.

Dark Inheritance
"Battle Royal"

It was almost four in the morning and the rangers were exhausted. They had been fighting for nearly an hour at this point. It was all against the Keresecks. Just when they defeated a group of them, another group was there to take its place.

The attacks had been like that since lunchtime the day before. So far, they had only seen the Keresecks, but that was likely to change at any point. They had had two long battles during the day, one during dinner, and this marked their third since the sun set. The rangers were exhausted. Most of the team had not slept a wink all night. Even when they were at home, they were all lying in bed, worried about what it was Arius was plotting.

Although worried, one of the rangers was trying her best to try and get some sleep. Carri was supposed to be getting on a plane at six am that would take her and Rocky to New York. It was a business trip. Her dad had called the week before asking her to fly out and go over some things about the upcoming Luke Kirk movie. She did not really want to go, but she agreed, and much to her surprise Rocky volunteered to go with her.

She thought about asking him to stay, she never liked putting him in the path of her mother. Then she realized this would be a good opportunity for the two of them to hand deliver the prenup back to her mother that had been sitting, signed, on her desk for the last two weeks. She intended to make a statement with it.

Since her father's private jet was busy, she booked two first class tickets out to New York leaving as early as she could get them. She had not planned to spend the night before wrapped up in battle. Yet here she was. It was almost time for them to leave for the airport, and she still had to finish packing. She had just gotten up to her phone alarm when her communicator went off. This had disaster written all over it.

With a flick of her wrist, she disabled the Kereseck in front of her with her lance before turning and kicking another one in the stomach. She swirled around and was back to back with the black ranger. "You know you fight better when you're tired and grumpy." Jason said. He had watched her tear them apart. She was fighting fiercely. She probably just wanted it to be over with so she could get back to bed.

She glanced over at him and rolled her eyes from behind her helmet. "Careful." She warned. "I've heard there are random lightning strikes this time of night." She was in no mood to get picked on by anyone right now.

"Right." Jason said, getting her meaning as he turned and maneuvered out of her way. He found himself next to the pink ranger and continued the fight.

The battle continued going strong for another ten minutes, then finally the last of the Keresecks were destroyed. The rangers stayed put, waiting to see if another wave would be headed their way. After a few minutes of silence, they were convinced this was over.

"Alright guys." Kim said as the group of rangers convened in the center of the battlefield. "Looks like the fights over for now. Go home and try and get some rest."

"Rest?" Carri repeated with a snort. She was out of time to rest. She was out of time to pack. She was going to be late to the airport and she was exhausted. "I can't rest. I have a plane to catch. Unless…" Her eyes lit up from behind her helmet. "The reason why I'm so far behind on packing is directly ranger related. I am pushing it to get to the flight on time. Maybe Rocky and I could just teleport to the airport when our flight is supposed to land. That way I have time to finish packing and can try to get some rest." She thought it was a pretty good idea and she was fairly certain Kim would give in.

The red ranger was thoughtful for a moment. She made a good point. It was not as if Carri put herself behind. She was usually responsible about those kinds of things. It was her secret identity as a ranger that got in the way. Kim sometimes bent time to take care of those things. It was only fair to let her friend teleport this once.

Before she could answer, Tommy spoke up. "Absolutely not." He said firmly. That was a dumb idea if he ever heard one.

"What do you mean absolutely not?" Carri said, her temper rising. She was tired and punchy, and she really expected them to give permission to proceed.

"How are you going to explain you suddenly appearing in the airport if you get noticed?" Tommy questioned. He saw her arm rise, he knew she was going to go off on that but he continued before she could get a word in. "And what if someone caught you teleporting? You would expose us all. Do you really want that?" He had been really strict about morphing and teleporting ever since his Dino Thunder team got caught. They got lucky. He doubted if someone caught Carri, they would be so kind as to give the evidence back.

"I'm not stupid Tommy." She said with a huff. "We'll be careful. Nobody will ever know what happened."

"I think I made myself perfectly clear with absolutely not. My mind isn't changing." He said taking a step toward her and crossing his arms over his chest.

Carri glared at him but did not say anything. Instead, she turned toward Kim. "Well I figure since you're the red it's your call to make. So can I teleport?"

Kim resisted the urge to groan. Leave it to Carri to push Tommy's buttons like that. Despite the fact that he was not in the red spandex now, he is still looked at by most of the other teams as the senior red. Carri was one of the few rangers to try and challenge him, but she was fairly certain if Tommy really pushed her she'd back off.

"I am not stepping into that." Kim said as she threw her hands up in the air. "I may be the red on this team, but this is a broader issue and I'm going to leave it up to Tommy." She was not going to take anyone's side.

Tommy smiled to himself. For a minute, he thought she actually might side with Carri. He would have been fumed. Issues like this she should back him up. He heard the growl that came from the white ranger but before she could say anything, Rocky intervened.

"Come on babe let's just get back so we can get ready to go." He said as he pushed her gently backwards. He liked the teleport idea too, but he was not going to argue with Tommy over his decision.

"Fine." She said through clinched teeth. "We'll just teleport home – if that's still allowed – and hopefully we don't miss our flight."

Jason chuckled as the blue and white streaks disappeared from the battlefield. Tommy glanced over at him, his arms still firmly crossed. "Something funny?" he asked, not quite seeing the humor in the situation.

"Nope. Not at all." He said before teleporting himself out as well.

Jen glanced toward Zhane who shrugged as if to answer a question. They were both fairly new to working with this group of rangers. As far as Jen knew, they were excellent in battle and got the job done. There was nothing in the books about the drama though. She always found it interesting. She glanced toward the others as she brought her communicator up. "See you guys later I'm sure." She said as a pink streak flew out.

"I'm heading out too." Zhane said. He had a girlfriend waiting in bed for him. She had just gotten back from running an errand with her brother and he hated spending her first night back fighting. She understood, she thought it was a decent attack strategy and told him just not to wake her when he went in and out. So far so good, now he just had to slip back into bed.

Kim watched as the last of the rangers' teleported away. She walked over toward her boyfriend, whose arms were loosening against his chest. "Come on," she started as she wedged her hand between his arm and his side, "let's go home." With that, the two final rangers' teleported off leaving the once busy battlefield quiet.

Several hours later, the blue and white rangers were sitting on a flight that was reaching cruising altitude. Carri at this point was beyond agitated and they were barely into their five-hour flight. This was shaping up to be one of the worst flights ever and she was blaming it all on Tommy. If the black ranger had let her use the teleportation system, she would be at home trying to recoup from the latest fight, passing the time until she had to teleport to New York.

It started out with the two of them being extremely late to check in. Late enough that they almost didn't make the flight. It was after four when they got home from the battle. Then it was a rush to get ready and finish packing everything. It was over an hour later when they left not giving them much time to get there before takeoff. Of course, because they were so late, there were consequences. They made their flight, but the airline had assumed they were not coming and had given away their first class seats to another passenger. That left them with the two seats in coach.

Rocky managed to keep Carri from going off on the woman behind the desk, although it was hard considering how tired and pissed off she already was. He got her on the plane and she took the seat in the middle, hoping it meant she would be left alone. Of course, the woman sitting next to her had other plans.

She was apparently feeling quite chatty that morning. She struck up a conversation with Carri, and despite the fact that the white ranger did not say much in response other than a polite hello, she continued running her mouth. She finally stopped talking after a conversation about where they were from. Carri simply told her she was a local, from Angel Grove, without elaborating on her trip to New York. The woman then proceeded to launch into detail about being from New York and working as an assistant for an interior designer, and how she was in California to spend some time on a movie set that her boss had done some designs for.

She was waiting for Carri to ooh and ahh and then ask her for gobs of details. Of course, she did not know Carri, and did not know that, as the owner of Ausus Productions hearing about a movie set did not faze her. When she did not get the desired reaction, she turned with a huff back toward the window. Grateful for the silence, Carri plugged headphones into the jack and focused on the tiny TV in front her. At least until the girl sitting in the seat in front of her started bouncing back and forth without stopping. She complained to the girl's parents, who could not or would not restrain their daughter.

She tried to close her eyes when the woman next to her threw her arm practically in Carri's lap before dropping all her newspapers on her feet and spilling bottled water on her pants. At that moment, the flight attendant stopped by and she grabbed him and begged to change seats, at which point he told her the plane was full. She argued and volunteered to pay someone to switch, but he simply laughed at her and walked off. Rocky immediately shifted and blocked her from trying to reach out and strangle the man.

He knew that with the fights from the night before and the bad start getting here that this five-hour flight was not going to be easy. Nevertheless, if she kept this up, he was tempted to beg someone to switch with him. He loved Carri more than anything, and he respected her temper as part of her personality, but when she was tired and angry she was a hard person to be around. He looked over and sighed as the flight attendant from earlier was back to get them drinks.

The woman from New York ordered a cup of coffee. When she was done, the man turned toward Carri. The white ranger thought for a moment. There was only one way she was going to make it through this flight without killing someone and that was with alcohol. "I'll have a glass of merlot."

The flight attendant stared at her blankly. "Mam, you do realize it's merely seven am." He said, trying his hardest to be nice to the woman who was quickly turning out to be difficult.

She cocked her head and smiled at him. "Well that would make it ten in New York which means mother already has a head start on me." The real answer was that she had been up fighting Keresecks practically all night and at this point, she had no real concept of time. She did know it certainly was not morning. When he did nothing but stare at her, she continued. "What, can you not serve wine?"

He sighed and glanced upward, rolling his eyes. "Yes we can serve it. It will be six dollars; I'll get your card when I come back."

"Six dollars?" Carri repeated, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes we don't give away free wine on planes." He said with a snort. This was going to be a long flight.

"Maybe not in coach. However, I am a first class passenger. I paid for first class tickets. It's not my fault you booted me to coach then refused to credit me the price difference." She replied, her temper starting to rise. She scooted forward in her seat and crossed her arms over her chest, as if daring the man to challenge that.

"Well you're sitting in coach which means its six dollars." He replied, doing his best to continue smiling at her. She looked like she wanted to punch him. He hoped she did. He would have the air marshal on her in a half second.

Rocky saw her unbuckle her seatbelt and he reached his hand out and put it firmly on her leg. "Babe, it's just six dollars. Don't make a scene over it."

She shot him a look that could make senior rangers take a step back. "That's not the point."

"I know. But he can't do it and you're not helping." He said. Before she could continue to argue, he turned toward the flight attendant and spoke. "I'll have a coke, and I'll take care of the wine." He said.

She slammed back into her chair and glared at him. "We shouldn't be paying for it in the first place. If they couldn't give me my first class seats that I rightfully paid for they should at least give me the wine free that goes with them. And if." She stopped short as she caught something out of the corner of her eye. Before she had time to react, a strand of cheese wiz that had been accidentally shot from the girl in front of her flew backward and landed on her face, before dripping down onto her shirt and pants. "What the hell!" she exclaimed loudly enough that several of the passengers turned toward her.

She let out a grunt and turned sharply toward Rocky. He knew that look well. She got that look before she destroyed something. She jumped out of her seat and started to step over him. "I'm going to go clean up." She hissed. She marched toward the front of the plane, pausing briefly to yank the can of cheese wiz out of the laughing little girl's hands. The parents were too mortified by their daughter covering a passenger with cheese to protest, and she marched the can up toward the front bathrooms and threw it away, going inside to clean herself up.

When she returned she found Rocky holding a coke in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. She looked at him and took the glass of wine, chugging it before she even sat back down. Stepping over him once more, she slid into her seat and put her seatbelt back on. She put her headphones on and turned toward her fiancé. "I'm going to try and take a nap before I have to kill someone."

Not waiting for his response, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She let the sounds of the TV drown out the annoyances of the airplane. Just when she thought she might be able to get some sleep in, their communicators chirped. "Son of a…." her voice trailed off as she tossed the headphones to the floor.

Rocky glanced over at her and sighed as he unbuckled his seatbelt. Before they could move, the flight attendant was standing over them. "Mam you do realize that cell phones are not allowed on this flight, right?" He was starting to wonder if it was possible to tie her to a chair, far away from him, for the next three and a half hours.

She rolled her eyes as she reached down into the small bag at her feet. She pulled out her Blackberry and held it up, shoving it toward his face while pressing buttons. "See. Off." She said before tossing it back to the floor.

"Good." He snapped, rolling his eyes back at her before turning and walking away.

He got three rows down before their communicators chirped again. He shot her a look and she shrugged. "It's not us." She assured him as she started to push Rocky out of his seat.

The blue ranger stood and moved back so that his fiancé could get out as well. They both glanced toward the front and the back of the plane. Since the cheese wiz incident a few moments ago, the bathrooms got suddenly crowded. With a sigh, Carri marched toward the front, which was the less crowded of the two, as Rocky followed behind her.

There were five people in line in front of them that they had to let into the restroom first before they could answer their page. This was not helping the white ranger's morning, who was agitated again now that saving the world was put on hold because some people could not use the bathroom fast enough. Their communicators beeped again and Carri let out a frustrated growl.

Trying to be as inconspicuous as she could, she pulled her arms up toward her chest and hit the button on the communicator. "It sucks that we have to wait this long on our shitty airplane flight to use the restroom." She hissed loudly before letting her hand drop. Hopefully Billy would get the point.

Someone bumped into her and she looked down to see a little boy standing there. "Ooooh you said a bad word." He said before giggling and running off. She turned to follow him, only to find several other children running around the aisles with him.

"Great. Because this day couldn't get any worse." She grumbled.

Rocky stepped up from behind her and put his arms around her. "It's ok babe." He assured her. "The others will be fine for a few minutes without us. We will take care of this problem, come back, and be in New York soon. The rest of the flight can't be this bad."

"If you say so." She replied, not entirely convinced. She crossed her arms over her chest as she inched slowly toward the bathroom.

Ten minutes later, Rocky removed his arms from his fiancé, as it was finally her turn to enter one of the small airplane restrooms. He heard the door lock, and seconds later he saw the faint white light come out from under the door. He was the only one who knew why the plane shifted slightly when her teleportation beam jetted out. At least one of them was on the way to the fight. Hopefully it would be his turn to go soon.

Seconds later the white ranger arrived on the battlefield, where she found the remaining members of her team getting hit hard by not only Keresecks, but a monster as well. She sighed as the silver ranger came flying backwards in her direction. Of course they would be late to the fight that actually involves a monster.

Tommy stood up and turned in her direction. "Where have you been? We could have gotten killed out here. When your communicator goes off you respond. Immediately."

"Are you serious?" Carri said, not quite sure what to say in response to the silver ranger. "The only reason I was late was because I was in the middle of the worst plane ride ever – that I wouldn't have even been on if a certain ranger with a stick up his ass would have let me teleport."

Tommy grunted in response as he ran back to the fight. He did not have time to get into this right now. He had forgotten about the flight, but she was still late and they were still getting their butts kicked.

She watched as he went up to engage the monster in battle. The rest of the team was facing Keresecks, and a few of them were heading her way. She barely noticed Rocky teleporting in as she ran straight for the Keresecks, trying to disable them as quickly as possible. She worked furiously to make it through her pile. She had her eye on the monster battle and she wanted to get there quickly.

The Keresecks in front of her were destroyed within minutes, and there were no more immediately heading her way. She jogged over toward the monster battle, where Tommy and the creature feature were locked up tightly. Wasting no time, she sent a bolt of lightning through the sky. It missed the monster, hitting the silver ranger dead on who flew backward.

Tommy stood up and glanced back at her. "Sorry." She called out lamely. This day from hell was his fault and he would not take responsibility for it. As Tommy turned back toward the monster, another bolt of lightning flew from the sky, landing close enough to him to get his attention.

This time he knew it was intentional and he turned and immediately went to confront the white ranger. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"I've had a bad day. My aim seems to be a bit off." She said as she crossed her arms and glared at him from behind her helmet.

"Do you think this is funny? This is a serious fight here. There isn't any time to fool around." Tommy said. This was worse than when he had to work with teenagers. They showed more respect for the battle as newbies than she was showing as a senior ranger.

"Nothing about this is funny to me." Carri snapped. And it wasn't, not in the least. She was beyond angry at this point. Nothing had been funny since the minute she stepped in that airport.

Tommy pulled his arm up and pointed at her, standing up straight as his muscles tensed. "Then grow up and act like the veteran ranger you are as opposed to acting like a child." If his tone did not give away how ticked off he was, he hoped his postured did.

Under normal circumstances, Carri would not continue to push Tommy when he was this pissed off. She knew she would lose. This time, she was so pissed herself she did not care. She threw her hands up in the air. "You think I'm acting like a child," she said as she turned to point at him this time, "well let me tell you something Tommy…."

"Guys!" Kim exclaimed stepping in between them and pushing them apart from each other. "What the hell are you doing? We have a battle to fight here!" She had seen them start to go off on each other. At the time, she was still covered in Keresecks. Fortunately, Jen and Jason had made it past their Keresecks and were able to take on the monster while the other two argued.

"I think our white ranger is confused about which team she's on." Tommy said as he glared at her from behind his helmet.

Carri snorted. "I know which team I'm on. I was just trying to hit the monster with lighting when he moved. That's it."

"That's bullshit and we both know it." Tommy said with a growl.

"Stop it!" Kim said, silently thanking the power that Carri was on her way to New York and the two of them could cool off after this. "As this team's leader I am ordering you to fight the monster, not each other." Whether or not that would work with these two, she did not know, but she had to try it.

Carri huffed but she pushed past the silver ranger and headed toward the monster. She needed to beat the crap out of something, this would do. Tommy sighed and looked toward Kim who threw her arms in the air. "I'll find out what's going on later. For now, let's just finish this."

Jason watched as the remaining three rangers finally joined the battle. Rocky had been pissed, and he could tell Jen and Zhane thought the whole thing was odd, but he found it quite amusing. This would make the perfect side story for his next novel. The heroines best friend and her lover at odds. How does it turn out? He would have to wait and see.

Before he could follow that thought through anymore, Kim called the team back. "Are you afraid of me?" the monster called out.

"Nope. We're just going to blow you to smithereens." Kim said as she called on the Planetary Cannon. In an instant, it fell into the rangers hands, and from her starting position behind the device, Kim called for it to fire.

The monster in front of them easily went down. They waited a few seconds, but instead of the monster growing, they were treated to another wave of Keresecks. They spent a good fifteen minutes finishing them off, and as soon as things were clear the blue and white rangers teleported back to their plane before the other passengers got agitated more than they assumed they already were. The other rangers, deciding that the fight was over and that there was not much more they could do here, teleported back to their homes so that they could get ready for their days to begin.

Shax stood on the bridge of the command ship, watching as Xinas stormed off in agitation. He was angry that his plan did not work, and that he would have to go back to the drawing board. Shax knew it was not going to. He had intended on hitting them with Kereseck battles all afternoon and all night, in the hopes of wearing them down so that the alien they sent down easily defeated them.

There was no doubt in his mind that Kaycea was too strong to falter to that plan. Arius would have known that. He would never attempt such a poor idea. However, Arius was not here yet. He had gone to report their latest failure and Deimos had demanded to see him. It was not long after that Xinas showed up.

If Arius was considered Deimos's number one general, Xinas would be right behind him. He was a good militaristic style leader, but Shax knew that was not going to win this battle and get Kaycea to return with them. Arius had resources that Xinas did not. He was smart, cunning, and powerful. There was a reason he was first in line and a reason he was leading this mission in the first place.

For all he knew, Arius was dead by this point. Deimos had been threatening him if the failures continued. Usually when Arius left to report to their leader, he got left in charge. Never had they sent someone else to take over the day-to-day operations. It would be unfortunate if Deimos killed Arius. He liked him, liked working for him.

Xinas on the other had he did not care for. He was a good soldier, a loyal soldier, and he would follow orders, but that still did not mean he would like the other leader. He did not like the way he led and he did not agree with his decisions. For now though, Xinas was in charge. He knew this campaign was not going to go anywhere anytime soon, but he would stand back and do what was necessary.

He hoped to hear some good news back from Arius soon. That their leader was returning and that it was going to be time to come up with some real strategies, something that would work. Until that point he was stuck up here, watching Kaycea win battle after battle as Xinas proves he is not the soldier for the job.

Kim stood in the Command Chamber as she and Billy went to get started on working with the coins again. She had gotten back there later than she had intended, spending a good bit of her morning trying to calm Tommy down.

She promised him she would find the underlying cause of whatever was up with Carri. She was inclined to think that her friend had been right about teleporting. She did not say those exact words to Tommy though. She just indicated that she suspected that Carri was upset because the practically hourly fights were still going on and she was stuck on a plane and had to risk exposure to get away.

While she assumed that was part of it, she knew Carri and knew she was pissed enough that there was more to the story than that. Tommy did not completely buy into the fact that was the entire story either, but at least he stopped to think about it.

She did not agree with Carri's methods on the field, and she made Tommy promise to let her handle it. After all, she was the red on this team and Carri's behavior was her problem. He reluctantly agreed, but she was not completely sure that he would not say something to Carri. At least he would let her go first. If Tommy tried, the two would most likely start arguing again. God forbid it ended in an actual fight. Tommy was stronger by far, but that did not mean Carri would not simply cheat and use her abilities to throw him across the room.

With a sigh, she tried to turn her focus back to the coins. Before she got started, Billy spoke. "Something wrong?" he questioned. He had seen the look of frustration when she teleported in, and the sigh now just confirmed that everything was not exactly well.

She let out a small snort. "You saw the battle earlier. Smoothing things out between Tommy and Carri isn't going to be easy." She said, shaking her head. "But I'm not going to worry about that right now. Now we have to get this rolling and see if we can get the coins back online."

"Hopefully we can make good progress before lunch." Billy commented. He watched as Kim glanced up and looked over at him and he continued. "Trini's feeling much better; I wanted to take her out."

"The morning sickness finally going away?" Kim questioned. She knew Trini had been having good days and bad days. The bad days, apparently, had been really bad. Even with all the technology they had access to; sometimes the things Mother Nature did to a woman during pregnancy could not be stopped.

"It's starting to look that way." Billy replied with a smile. It was nice to see his wife starting to feel better. Her morning sickness had lasted outside the range of what was usually normal for pregnant women. He hoped it would subside soon. He could not bear the thought of her sick every day between now and the baby's birth. "We have our fingers crossed."

"Don't worry about what we're doing here. Take off for lunch." Kim said as she smiled. Where fixing the grid was concerned, she was just as capable of doing some of the things that needed to get done as he was. She was even better at some things thanks to her Muirantian abilities.

Besides, she really wanted Billy to be able to take off and have a good time with his wife. They deserved it, and she wanted them to have the time together. She could not tell him that though. He would not understand. She did not want him to understand. To understand meant that someone else would carry the burden of what happened that day on the battlefield.

It was hard enough for her to have that knowledge. She had nightmares about what happened. She dreamt about Trini dying, about her holding her lifeless body in her arms. She would wake up in cold sweats. If she was lucky, she could slip out on her own, go somewhere quiet to think, bending time to return once her mind was clear. Other nights she woke Tommy up. He was concerned about the nightmares, but she always lied about them, blaming them on things like her trip to the Muirantian pit.

It did not matter in the end that she saved Trini. The nightmares still floated to the surface, haunting her. Perhaps they were a constant reminder of what she did, of the consequences of what she did. The consequences were not as bad as she was afraid they would be. She was afraid that she was going to be killed at the hands of the DG, and that her world would be sacrificed to Arius and her friends and family would die as well.

Just because she avoided the worst case scenario did not mean there were not consequences. The DG may not have noticed what happened, what she did to save Trini, but Thomas certainly did. Like it or not, she flagged him down with her actions. He was not going to report her to the DG, but she had a feeling he would bring her before them soon.

She was trying to avoid her first meeting with the DG, but the more she used her powers, the more she knew that was not possible. Thomas was going to come back for her and thrust her in front of them. There she will be told what her role in their world was going to be, and she will have no choice but to say yes. Otherwise, they will have no problem killing her.

Dying at the hands of the DG was not the way she wanted to go. She wanted to live; she wanted to stay on Earth with her friends, with Tommy, even if they were going to all age and die well before she did. Of course that meant she had to follow all of their rules, which was not as easy as it sounded. Sometimes rules had to be bent or broken for things to be accomplished, for former rangers' lives to be saved. It was a difficult situation to getthrust in the middle of. She knew she would have to try. It was the only way to keep her friends safe.

Before she could think any more on the subject, Billy motioned for her to come toward him. "Check this out." He said, pointing to the newest data set as Kim approached.

She glanced down at it, taking a moment to interpret it. "Is that… does that mean what I think it does?" she asked, excitement in her voice for the first time in the months they have been working on the project.

"It looks like the grids have calmed down." Billy confirmed. He knew since the last time Kim tried to get the older grid to recognize the coins, she had gone out there and done some manual work with them. They were finicky, and he was not sure that they would ever let her ease them into the right direction. Now they were showing signs that they were conforming back to their original position. There was a chance they would recognize the coins now. If the grid would accept the coins, they could tinker with it until it started to repair itself.

"If Ninjor's right, it will recognize my coin." Kim said as she walked over toward the small device she had used with Carri before. During her coin making sessions, she had talked to the coin master at length about the old girds, and about getting them in the direction of repairing themselves. He told her not to give up on them, he told her how to continue to work with them. He also told her that once they started to give a little, they would be willing to recognize the great power flowing through the coins.

She made a few adjustments on the machine before sticking her coin in and letting the machine take over from there. She watched patiently as the machine ran her experiment. Several minutes later, a bright pink light filled the room, causing Billy and Kim to shield their eyes. The light died down, and they both looked at the coin in the machine.

"That's a first." Billy said as he thought about what this meant. Any other time they had tried, this experiment ended with a small explosion.

"I think it recognized it." Kim said, her excitement showing through. She reached in and grabbed her coin, and she could feel the power around it, feel the grid that it talked to. "I think the grid is ready to work with us and get the repairs going."

"There's only one way to find out." Billy said as he went to the console and started to work. If Kim was right, if the grid was ready, they'd have a second set of rangers for the bad guys to contend with. He hoped she was. It would certainly be helpful to have a backup around. He briefly glanced at Kim, who was in the process of teleporting off to check on the grid, before turning back toward his console and starting to work.

That afternoon, Jason found himself walking with Emily through the outdoor shopping mall. They had eaten lunch at a café nearby, and he thought it might be fun to take a stroll. Besides, he had something to show her.

Emily looked over at him and smiled. She was glad he has not been called away again today. She had stayed at his place the previous night. She was fairly certain he was off fighting more than he was sleeping all night. She slept through most of it, only waking when his communicator chirped. When he got called off after seven this morning, she got up and went home to change.

He had been disappointed to come home and find her missing, but she figured at the rate he was going, he would be gone all day and would not notice. He had been fairly certain that he was done fighting, as the battle plan had changed and they defeated the monster that was sent to destroy them. So far, it seemed as though he had been right.

She had seen the monster they fought; it had headlined the morning news along with the other fights from the rest of the night. She had even seen the rangers fighting each other. At first, she was afraid someone had gone rogue, but Jason assured her it was just Carri and Tommy butting heads. That she could believe. The two have been friends for years, but she had seen them clash on more than one occasion.

She was afraid of saying anything to him about possibly being able to enjoy their afternoon together. She did not want to jinx it. Years of dating a ranger taught her that when all was going well, keep your mouth shut. You never knew when things were going to change.

For now, she would simply enjoy walking with her boyfriend through the mall, pretending they were a normal couple. They were not really shopping, other than her occasionally peering at something in a window, but that was fine with her. She was just enjoying the company.

Jason glanced down at the woman on his arm. He was happy to be here with her. He was happy to be with her period, which was something he never thought he would hear himself say. She cheated on him all those years ago and he forgave her. It was more than just forgiving her; he had fallen for her again like he did when they were kids.

Kim and Carri had accepted the idea. They did not hang out with Emily like they used to, but they were fine spending time with her during group gatherings. He did not know if they would ever truly be friends again. He hoped one day they would, but only time would tell. At least they were happy for him. They were happy that he found someone, and that things appeared to be going well. They were happy that he did not have to hide the rangers from his girlfriend, and that this time around she seemed more accepting of the rangers as part of who he was.

He was lucky. Kim and Carri dated rangers; they always had someone they could share every aspect of their lives with. He spent years hiding who he was with women until Emily came along again. It was such a relief to be able to be himself with a woman and not have to make up excuses for things. Even when he was not an active ranger he was trying to keep up with the rangers and most women found that odd.

His thoughts faded back to the moment as they approached the bookstore. He put his arm around Emily's waist and turned her, guiding her in. She glanced up at him as they headed through the front door. "What are we doing in here?" she asked.

"I wanted to show you something." He said as he walked her forward. It was not hard to find what he was looking for. He stopped in front of a mostly empty display at the front of the store.

Emily stopped to look at the giant Luke Kirk display, featuring the newest book in his hit series. "I didn't know the book was out." She knew it was soon, she had heard about the book and the good reviews it was already getting on the news, but she did not know it was today.

"It came out this morning." He said with a grin as she reached down and picked up the last copy the store had. He was not surprised. The preorder numbers had been through the roof. His publisher was counting on the first batch flying off the shelves by the day's end. They hoped to have the next set of books delivered to stores within the week.

She held the cover up and studied it for a moment, grinning as she realized whom the two central figures were meant to resemble. "Do they know about this?" she asked as she looked briefly at design around the two sexily dressed space heroines.

"Not yet. I'm sure they'll find out soon enough." Jason said with a chuckle. He could not show them the cover; they would tackle him and make him not release the book. Then, when he would not oblige, they would never let him hear the end of it. He told them that they had nothing to worry about with this book. He only lied a little. They would get over it; after all, it is all but guaranteed to be the next Ausus Productions movie, putting money in both Carri and Kim's pockets.

"They're going to kill you." Emily said with a grin as she put the book back down on the table.

"Maybe." Jason said, pausing as someone squealed from behind him. He turned as a girl who looked to be about sixteen said something along the lines of you let go and it's mine, before grabbing the book and running toward the check out.

Jason chuckled as he put his arms around his girlfriend. "Don't worry." He whispered into her ear. "I've got a signed copy for you at home."

She turned into him and brought his head down toward her. "I like this dating an author thing." She whispered back. "I don't have to worry about getting my copy of the hottest book series on the planet."

He leaned back and watched as she grinned at him, before leaning back toward her and planting a kiss on her lips. "Come on." He said as he pulled back and grabbed her hand. "Let's get out of here." With that, he pulled his girlfriend out of the bookstore and back into the gorgeous May day in Angel Grove.

Late that afternoon, Kim sat in Tommy's jeep as they rode up toward his parent's beach house. It was their anniversary this weekend, and they had decided to spend a nice quiet weekend in the place where they first got back together this last time, the place where as a young girl Kim had one of the most romantic weekends of her life.

She hoped it was going to be quiet. After all the fighting they had done in the past twenty-four hours, she was not so sure. There had been no noise from Arius and his crew since this morning, and she was not sure if that was a good sign or a bad one.

She supposed that at the very least it gave them a chance to relax and get some work done. She and Billy spent a few hours tinkering with the grids. She hoped they were pushing them toward finishing the repairs themselves, but only time would tell. She would probably end up slipping out to check on them a few times before the weekend was over. Fortunately, she could cheat and manipulate time so that she would not miss any with Tommy.

The silver ranger had gotten some work done that day as well. The hours she had spent working with Billy, he spent working on his basement command center. She was glad that their house was mostly secluded from others because he had done a lot of work and made a ton of noise. She had to give him credit though; things were coming together quite nicely.

Kim glanced out at the road, and realized they were getting close. There was something that needed to be discussed and she wanted to do it before they got there. No matter what Tommy said, she could tell he was still upset when she referenced the morning battle. He needed to know what was going on and that she handled the situation.

"I talked to Carri a little while ago." Kim said casually to start the conversation.

"And?" Tommy questioned. He was hoping the answer was that she let her have it but he doubted it. They had made the local news and God only knows what other news sources.

"And she blames you for not letting her teleport to New York. They lost their seats, the flight was hell, and then they both spent thirty minutes locked in the bathroom. Apparently, when they came out, the air marshal was waiting for them. He checked them and checked the bathrooms to make sure they were not doing drugs or something worse in there. With no proof they let them go but…" Kim's voice trailed off as she shrugged her shoulders. She felt bad. Carri would have to get over the bad flight. However, she had not even thought about the fact that they might get called into battle, again, while she was on the flight. The way things were going; she should have stepped in and suggested maybe Carri and Rocky teleport.

"That doesn't excuse her behavior." Tommy said sternly, skipping over the part where had Carri and Rocky been arrested, that would have been a nightmare. What could have been worse would be if they got caught morphing and teleporting.

"I lectured her about that." Kim assured him. "She says she's sorry, and she assured me it won't happen again." Those were not her exact words. Her exact words were something like, "look after what Tommy got us into, he totally deserved it, but I promise I won't try to kill your boyfriend with lightning during a fight again". Which Kim interpreted as if we are not fighting, game on. It was all right though; she would take it for now. Besides, she knew Carri usually took fights quite seriously and she doubted she would get that pissed off to go after Tommy in the middle of one again.

"Fine." Tommy said as the beach house came into view. He did not believe that is what she said or that was the end of it. He knew Carri too well. For now though, he was going to let it go. He was going to spend tonight and tomorrow here with Kim and he did not want to be thinking about the white ranger.

Kim was somewhat surprised that Tommy took that at face value and did not ask any more questions. He believed either everything was good or he did not want to discuss it further. She was inclined to believe the latter. However, if he was going to act like everything was all good, she'd keep her mouth shut and leave it be for now.

They pulled into the driveway of the beach property and climbed out of the car. Tommy grabbed their overnight bags and headed for the door, Kim right behind him. He unlocked it and set the bags to the side, gesturing for Kim to come in.

She entered and immediately noticed the rose petals in the hallway. "Tommy." She said the surprise evident in her voice.

"Maybe you should follow them." He said with a sly grin.

Kim let out a small laugh as she started to walk the trail Tommy laid out. Anytime they had been there, he had made sure it was a time she would never forget. This visit did not look like it was going to be any different.

The rose petals led to the dining room, where on the table sat two lit candles, a bottle of Champaign on ice, and a plate full of chocolate covered strawberries. Kim looked at the set up for a minute. It was obvious that the candles had been burning for a while, probably lit within the last few hours. The ice was starting to melt a little bit, but it was still in decent shape. She knew Tommy had actually done work this morning in his command center. This meant there was only one way he could have gotten over here to do all this and gotten back.

Kim held back a laugh as the situation was not lost on her. The whole reason for today's fight between rangers, the reason for the bad moods of both Carri and Tommy, was that he would not allow her to use the teleportation system to get herself to New York. Yet the only way he set all this up was by using the teleportation system himself for non-ranger purposes. Granted there was less of a chance of him being caught, but it was the same thing.

Tommy walked over and grabbed the two Champaign glasses. "You want a strawberry?" he asked as he gestured toward the plate.

She walked over and looked at the stack. It reminded her of their first trip to the beach house when she was in college. He had brought her chocolate covered strawberries as a surprise treat. She thought he spoiled her then. She knew he was spoiling her now. She studied the display for a moment. The only way to get a strawberry without toppling them all over was to pick the one off the top.

Reaching over, she grabbed the piece of upside down fruit and pulled it off the stack. She was surprised when she noticed the green leafy top of the strawberry with a ribbon tied tightly around it. Ignoring the strawberry for the moment, she grabbed a hold of the ribbon and pulled it from the center of the pile until it revealed a piece of jewelry tied to the end of it.

"Tommy." She said with a gasp as she looked at the diamond ring. Was this what she thought it was?

"You and I have been through a lot over the years. We've been rangers, friends, lovers… we've fought and made up… we certainly don't always see eye to eye where the team is concerned." Tommy said with a little chuckle. They argued as reds, they argued when he was concerned about her Muirantian powers, among other things. "The one thing that has been certain in all this, no matter who or what has tried to separate us is that we love each other. That is never going to change. We have certainly given it the opportunity to, yet every time we end up coming back to each other. Looking into the future, you're the only one I've ever seen myself with, and I think you feel the same way."

Tommy paused as he dropped to one knee in front of his girlfriend. "Marry me." He said simply.

The red ranger froze for a moment. She was not really expecting this. She supposed she should have, she always knew they would be together forever, at some point they would have to make it official. After everything they had been through though, sometimes she just was not sure he would still want her forever. Yet here he was, down on one knee, asking her to marry him.

Kim smiled briefly at him. "Yes." She replied as she reached down to pull the diamond ring off the end of the ribbon.

He stood and took the ring from her hand, slipping it on her finger himself. She glanced down at it briefly, but before she could get a good look at it, Tommy leaned in and planted his lips on hers. She was startled at first, and then she leaned into him and kissed him back. It was fiery and passionate as her lips pressed against his. The strawberry fell from her hands and onto the floor as she put her arms around his waist and pulled him into her.

The moment grew more intense as everything on the table got ignored. Tommy put his arms around Kim's waist and lifted her up. As he did, her arms instinctively moved to his neck while her legs attacked themselves to his waist. He walked her over and laid her down on the couch, where the duo could not keep their hands off of each other. For a little while, all their troubles were forgotten as focused all their energy on each other.

Early the next morning, East Coast time, the white ranger found herself sitting in her father's office along with her father and her brother. She was in a decent mood that day. There were no more battles since the morning before, and Tommy had not called to ream her for her actions. Plus she had gotten to spend a nice night in the city with her fiancé, which was a bonus.

Now it was time to focus on work, the whole reason for the trip. That and to throw her prenuptial agreement back at her mom, which she had done quite gleefully the afternoon before. Her mother was a bit shocked with the return of the agreement and her daughters instance that it was no big deal since they were in love and money did not matter. Although she figured the martini she drowned afterwards helped her get over the shock a bit.

Before she could dwell on that too much, her father started to speak. "We've got a lot of work to do today." Jonathan said as he glanced at his two children. "But before we start, I have something here that needs to be addressed." He said, reaching for the tabloid that had been brought to him this morning.

The one thing he asked of his children was to behave and not be front and center in the tabloids. Josh had a hard time following that rule, but Carri was usually good about it. This, however, was not good. He opened to the page in question and turned the tabloid around so that his daughter could see it.

Josh could not help but laugh at his sister as the two of them leaned over to glance at the title. "Diva Daughter on Plane". As if the plane ride was not bad enough, now she was paying for it with the media. She picked up the paper and glanced at the picture of her and Rocky. She looked like she was about to explode as she walked through the airport to go hunt down her bags. The story itself came in the form of an interview with her favorite flight attendant. Lovely. How exactly could she explain this one away? The answer was she could not. She would have to let the people think she was really this crazy bitch. It was a lot easier than them knowing about her being a ranger.

With a grunt, she turned the page, only to be greeted by a picture of the white and silver rangers fighting during yesterday's battle. "Shit." She swore under her breath. Tommy was going to kill her. It did not matter if Kim convinced him yesterday that she would take care of it. That was before they were in the tabloids, where the world was now debating whether or not the team was as good as their predecessors, and liked each other enough to save the world.

Josh glanced over at the paper to see what on the following page caught his sister's attention. He grinned at the picture. "Looks like that white ranger's being quite a bitch." He said to irk her. He knew the fights had started again, knew his sister was wearing white this time instead of yellow.

"Maybe it's the silver ranger who was being an asshole." She quickly pointed out as she shot her brother a look. She glanced back down at the tabloid before deciding she could not look at the article any more. She turned the page again, this time to find herself faced with an article on the new Luke Kirk book that was released yesterday. She made a face. She had not been aware of the book's release. She glanced briefly at the synopsis before looking at the book's cover art. At first she was a bit shocked. If this was Jason's idea of not that bad, she'd hate to see what bad was. She was going to have to kill the black ranger.

She let out a grunt as the image sunk in. She leaned her head back in the chair and glanced at the ceiling, briefly wondering if Arius could come down now and put her out of her misery. Her father was going to kill her. If he did not, Tommy most certainly would. That was never going to give her the chance to kill Jason. She wondered briefly if Kim had seen it yet, then realized there was no way she had, otherwise she have heard by now. She would have to send a picture to the red ranger later.

Josh reached over and ripped the paper out of his sister's hands. "The new Luke Kirk book?" he questioned as he looked at it. "You should be stoked. This means another multi-million dollar movie for you."

"Oh I'm stoked." Carri said dryly as she looked up. "It just caught me by surprise, that's all."

Josh opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, his father interrupted. "I don't care about the other articles; I care about the one involving you. So what do you have to say for yourself?"

Carri opened her mouth to speak, and then she paused. What could she say for herself? It was not as if she could tell her dad the truth. She sighed as she realized the only reply she could give. "Guilty."

"This is unacceptable behavior. It is not good for your image or for this family for you to go on a plane and throw a temper tantrum. You have to act like a responsible, normal adult." He lectured his daughter. "What in the world got into you?"

"Just a bad night that translated into a bad morning." She said with a sigh. That is the best explanation she can give. "I'm sorry about my actions on the plane. It won't happen again, I promise." Next time she was simply going to ignore Tommy's orders and teleport. It would have saved her a lot of trouble.

"It had better not." Her father replied as he sat up straight and gave his daughter a stern look. He was satisfied she felt bad about the incident, and he decided to move on. Besides, he did not want to waste his entire day on this. "Now let's get some work done." He said, moving on to the reason his daughter flew to New York in the first place.

It was a little later in the day when Kim found herself teleporting to the Command Chamber. Tommy was still asleep, and she was hoping he would stay that way for a while. She felt guilty leaving him, but she felt even worse that she had not come back here all night.

She was supposed to be responsible for the grids, making sure they were doing what they were meant to do. Yet she had not left Tommy's side, even though she knew she could bend time and come right back. Last night was… well it was magical and she did not want to go anywhere.

It was not just the sex. It was the romance, the love, the midnight session feeding each other strawberries on the beach while drinking Champaign… she could not have thought of anything that would have been more perfect. The most romantic weekend of her life was there, they got back together at that house, and so far, this had been a time to top both of those. Even when she was hundreds of years old, when her friends were long gone, she would never forget this forget him. She loved him with all her heart, and now she was going to marry him.

She let out a slight sigh of pure happiness without even realizing it. "Did you have a good night last night?" Billy questioned, not missing her good mood.

"Huh?" Kim asked, forgetting that Billy was supposed to be there. "Yes, you could say that." She said as she recognized the question. Taking a deep breath in, she reigned in her emotions so she could get back to the task at hand. "So have you looked at the grids this morning?"

"I think they are starting to repair themselves." Billy said as she walked over toward him. "There's one way to know for certain, and that's for you to try and morph."

"You think they are repaired enough to sustain a morph?" Kim asked, her eyes growing wide. If they could sustain a morph that would mean they were close to ready for use.

"If they are on the right track, they will allow you to morph, but only for a very brief period of time." Billy paused for a second before continuing. "It will only work with your coin. It has already recognized your coin, and I'm not sure that it will recognize the others until the repairs are finished."

"Alright." Kim said as she reached into her back pocket and put her fingers around her gold coin. She pulled it out slowly. It was now or never. If this worked, they would have a chance at restoring their old powers. If it did not… well then it was probably back to the drawing board.

She glanced briefly at Billy, who nodded. "I'm going to monitor the grids while you morph, see what happens. Feel free to try when you're ready."

She put her hand behind her back in a too familiar stance. "It's morphin time!" she called out as she went through the motions, thrusting her coin and morpher forward as she yelled, "Pink ranger power!"

The familiar uniform of the pink ranger washed over Kim's body. She was reunited with her old powers, reunited with the old grid. She did not need Billy to tell her that, she could feel in flowing through her Muirantian veins. It was barely a good thirty seconds before the uniform started to disappear. Once it faded away, she turned toward Billy. "Well?" she questioned, waiting for him to confirm her suspicions.

"The ancient grid morphed you." Billy said with a smile. "It wasn't ready yet, and I think it backtracked a bit when you morphed, but as soon as the suit started fading away it went back to repairing itself. I think we did it. We'll have to keep an eye on it, see if we need to help it more, but I think all of Cratus's damage will be reversed and you will all be able to morph with the coins again."

Kim nodded. This was fantastic news. Once it was ready, she would bring the old team together; let them try it. If they could all morph, if the grid held up properly, they would have a backup team waiting in the wings. It would be a nice little surprise for Arius. He would not know what was coming to him.

They may never have a need to use their old powers, but still Kim felt confident knowing they were there. They stood up against Callisto and Rhianna, they would stand up against Arius if need be. Their team could just add this to their bag of tricks. Kim smiled to herself as she thought about it. Things were going her way now. Arius could bring it.