Chapter 10

Note: Please Read and Review. I see a lot of people are actually reading this, but I would love some feedback. Please let me know what you think of this story so far.

Note: As you may know, there are now two people of the same name in the same universe; Kimberly Hart and Kimberly Malizia. When it comes to interaction between characters this problem will take care of itself within the story but to prevent any confusion, Kimberly Hart will be referred to as Kimberly while Kimberly Malizia will be referred to as simply "Kim".

Zero2 and Shadow Cog walked into the bedroom at my house and removed their helmets. Meanwhile Stephanie was standing in front of the TV watching it.

"Steph, we've got a major problem." David said. "Not only did the gateway close but we can't find Kim anywhere."

"I know where she is." Stephanie said.

"Where?" Mike asked. Stephanie pointed at the television and the two boys looked. Their eyes lit up as they saw Zero3 on television.

"Damn!" David said.

"Ok what the hell is that?" Mike said, pointing at the screen.

"Somehow Kim must have been pulled into the gateway before it closed." Stephanie said looking at Mike.

"But if the gateway is closed, how come we can still see them on the TV?" David said.

"The Power Ranger timeline has changed with Michael and Marduk being there." Stephanie said looking at the TV. "So long as those two, and now Kim, are still in that world, we're gonna be able to see it…in half hour intervals."

"Steph, this bullshit has been goin on for a week. Now we lost Kim and DM. We need to figure out a way to get them back." David said.

"Michael already has a plan." Stephanie said. She turned to face her boyfriend. "Actually it was one of the Power Rangers that came up with it." David let out a sharp breath and hung his head.

"So what can we do?" David asked.

"There isn't much we can do, except watch and hope nothing else happens." Stephanie said. So the three teenagers had no choice but to watch the show.

At Angel Grove Park, Jason, Kimberly and I stood, the two rangers marveling at Zero3.

"Who is that?" Kimberly asked.

"Zero3." I said.

"Just how many of you guys do you have in your world?" Jason asked.

"Ten. Four of them are under the control of the Phadonians, one is trapped in a prison dimension, and one of them hasn't been activated yet." I said. Zero3 started putting her Sais in their sheaths at her side. "Zero3 is one of the other three Zeros that work with me." The female Zero ran toward us and stopped right in front of me. "Glad you're here. Zero3 this is Jason and Kimberly." The two rangers greeted the new coming Zero and Zero3 nodded. "I'll meet you two at the youth center; I need to be alone with her."

"We'll see you there bro." Jason said. The two Rangers looked down at their wrist communicators and pressed the teleportation buttons on their wrist communicators, causing them to glow and disappear. With them gone, Zero3 crossed her arms in front of her and began glowing red. She slowly brought her arms down and when she stopped glowing, she was in her human form, outside of her suit for the first time since this encounter had started. She wore light blue low cut jeans, a pink form fitting t shirt and white low top shoes. Upon deactivating her exoskeleton she quickly wrapped her arms around me and kissed me on the lips deeper than she had ever done before. I put my hands around her and closed my eyes as I too was longing for this, though not as much as her as we had been separated longer than I had realized. A fact which I would soon find out, but in all honesty should have known from the very beginning. Kim and I finally stopped kissing and began our dialogue.

"I've been so worried." Kim said. "I thought I'd never see you again."

"How did you get here?" I asked.

"I don't know." Kim said. "I was standing at the gateway with David and Caulfield and there was this blinding light and I felt this force pull me. When I came to I was here. I could sense you, but I couldn't find you." Tears started to roll from her eyes. "Michael, you don't know how much I've missed you. You don't know how it felt knowing I couldn't fight with you."

"Wait, how did you know about me fighting?" I asked.

"Michael, you've been on TV all week. They've been showing Mighty Morphin Power Rangers every day at the same time since you've been gone."

"A week. I thought I was only gone two days." I said.

"Michael, baby, it's kinda hard to put all of this on a half an hour show." Kim said. I so missed her, no matter how long we had been apart. Kim had confirmed my suspicions as well as provided me with information that I did not know, even though in all honesty, I should have figured out. Kim and I started kissing again. In between kisses, Kim managed to say, "Michael, we've got to find a way out of here."

"I know, Billy came up with a plan." I said. Kim looked at me with shock and confusion. "Billy?" Though Kim was not as much of a fan of the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers as I was, she was still familiar with the five original characters and the overall story of the series. She even once admitted to me that when she was younger, even though she had a crush on me at the time, she thought the male Ranger characters were cute.

"Yeah. Now I've got to stop Zarden. So we can go home." I said. Kim looked me in the eyes deeply and said "No, Michael. I saw what giving those guys your powers did to you. You need to regain your strength before you do anymore fighting. I'll take care of Zarden."

"You can't he's too strong. Even at full energy, I was barely a match for him." I said. "I'll take care of it."

"No Michael. We don't know what the closing of this gateway has done to you. It could have affected your powers, even your life link with David."

"The life link." I said. I had once again overlooked something greatly important; the fact that the Cosdonian gods blessed my brothers and me so that so long as one of us were still alive, the other two can not die. Being in separate universes may separate me from my link with David and my evil twin Seth, making me vulnerable to being killed in this universe. It was then that I realized that being in this universe was beginning to affect me, as the hyper IQ I gained when I first became Zero was beginning to diminish. But that also could be due to the fact that my powers had been weakened due to fusing then with the Power Rangers. "You're right. We'll wait for my energy to replenish. For now we'd better get to the Youth Center and meet with the other Rangers."

"Ok." Kim said. There was a level of uncertainty in her voice, but trusting my judgment, she went along with it anyway. With that Kim and I held hands and walked off.

Kim and I walked into the Youth Center, the place busy as if nothing had happened to it at all. Kim looked around and said, "Wow, I can't believe I actually remember this place."

"It's crazy isn't it?" I said. I spotted Jason and Kimberly were with the other Rangers at one of the tables and Aisha called me over. Kim and I walked over to them.

"Hey." I said as I reached them.

"Hey bro, is this her?" Jason asked. Kim held onto my arm nervously.

"Yeah." I said. "Guys this is K… I mean uh… Cori. Cori Edwards." I figured that as I was using Sean Barker as my name, I would continue with the Guyver theme of the one deception that I was still maintaining. Kim looked at me confused, but then turned to them with a smile and said, "Hi." Everyone greeted her, but Adam did it shyly and amorously. Kim turned to me and said, "Mi…" She snickered and said "I mean Sean, can I talk to you for a sec?" She started walking off, pulling me with her. She and I walked to the hallway of the juice bar and faced each other.

"Ok, what was that about?" Kim said. "Why did you name me after that bitchy girl from the Guyver?"

"I have to. You said it yourself, people form our world can watch this. Bad enough our faces have been seen, but if we use our actual names then our cover in our own world is blown. Besides there's already one Kimberly in this world, probably shouldn't add any more confusion." Jason watched us talk from a distance. He turned to his friends and said, "I wonder what they're talkin' about."

"Michael, I don't like this; lying I mean." Kim said, nervously and panicky. "I mean I even feel bad not being able to tell my parents about me being Zero. Now I have to lie about my name, and yours. I don't know if I can call you Sean the whole time we're here. I mean what if I slip and call you Mi…"

"Shh, honey calm down." I said. "You're gonna do fine. Don't worry about it, as soon as my energy is completely recharged we'll go up to the moon, separate Marduk from Lord Zedd, bring him back to our world and end all of this." I put my hands on the sides of Kim's face. "Then you and I are gonna take the rest of this summer break off and put this whole experience behind us." Kim smiled brightly. "Until then we'd better just play along." Kim put her hands behind the back of my neck and said, "Admit it, you like being here." I grinned and said, "I'm not gonna lie, I think it's a trip. But I don't want to stay here, especially since I don't know what affects it will have on me or my abilities as Zero. But until my powers are completely energized, the Rangers are the only ones that can prevent Zarden from destroying both our worlds."

"Ok, I'll play along." Kim said. "But I don't like how that Aisha girl was looking at you when I wasn't here." I grinned and said, "Be nice."

"I'm always nice." Kim said. Kim and I kissed again and then walked back into the youth center joining the Rangers.

"Sorry about that." Kim said as we walked up. "Michael and I were strategizing."

"So you two are together?" Kimberly asked. Kim wrapped her arms around mine and said, "Yeah, for over two years now." Kim noticed Aisha hang her head down and I noticed the same thing from Adam.

"And how long have you been… you know?" Tommy asked.

"About a year." Kim said. "I gained my… you know… last summer. But that's an interesting story of its own."

"Well as we are all here, we should get back to the command center in case Zarden decides to attack again." Jason said.

"Normally I'd agree with you, but we've got some time." I said. "From what I can tell, Zarden houses the traits and powers of both Marduk and Lord Zedd. Marduk may be more powerful than Lord Zedd, but extended use of his powers causes them to diminish so he'll need to recharge them. Since Lord Zedd and Marduk fused, he's fought me twice, changed Goldar and the putties, cloned Rocky and closed the gateway."

"That use of power must have diminished him greatly." Billy said.

"So the best thing we can do now that everything is calm is to carry on life as we… or you guys, normally would." I said.

"It'll also give time for Sean to replenish his energy for when another attack does happen." Kim said.

"Cori and I will set ourselves up as new students in order to avoid suspicion." I said.

"I still think we should keep our guards up." Jason said.

"I agree. Zarden may be weakened but Diablos and the Dark Ranger are still out there." Billy said.

"Well if we're gonna try to be normal..." Kimberly said standing up She went to Kim's side and said, "I think us girls should go shopping. I totally forgot there's a huge sale at the mall." Aisha stood behind Kimberly saying, "Yeah girl, if you gonna be staying here, we gotta get you looking right."

"Ok." Kim said with uncertainty in her voice. She looked at me and I said, "It's ok, they're right. Besides, it would look kinda suspicious to walk around wearing the same clothes we've been wearing." Kim grinned and said, "Ok. I'll get you some stuff too." Kim kissed me on the cheek then left with Kimberly and Aisha. Upon walking out, Kimberly could be heard saying, "By the way, I love your hair."

"Thanks." Kim said. I turned toward the remaining Rangers.

"You know, guys, I kinda want to check on Rocky." Jason said. "I feel kinda bad filling in for him with him bein' in the hospital and everything."

"We'll go with you." Tommy said. The four remaining teenagers stood.
"You guys go on ahead; I'm going to find an isolated place and train."

"Shouldn't you be conserving your energy?" Adam asked.

"My powers can replenish either in my Zero form or in idle mode like it is now. But I think being separated from my world is starting to affect me." I said. "I need to find out if that's true for mine and K… Cori's sake." Jason put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Alright man, but if you run into trouble don't try to take it on by yourself." It was funny, though Jason was a Power Ranger and not a Zero from my world; he seemed more like a Zero than any of the other Rangers, and more of a leader than even I was. I was aware of the politics off screen that caused Jason to leave along with Trini and Zack and Tommy's popularity among fans, both of which lead him to become leader over Jason upon becoming the White Ranger. But after observing their leadership styles closer and fighting along side them, I still could not help but wonder why, in this world anyway, Tommy was the leader while Jason was not. But as this was not my world, I was in no position to argue it. The five of us walked toward the door when two more familiar characters which, until now, I had not seen walked in. Farcus Bulkmeier and Eugine Skullovitch, known to one and all as Bulk and skull walked into the youth center. Skull tried to walk in first but Bulk grabbed him by the shoulder and aggressively pulled the skinnier teenager back, allowing Bulk to enter the youth center first. Bulk immediately stopped upon seeing the five of us walk toward them.

"Hey Skull, check it out." Bulk said. Immediately, Skill popped up from behind handing his arm over Bulk's right shoulder and looking around, seemingly in confusion. "The dorks have a new mascot." I folded my arms at my chest, an intense look on my face and responded by saying "Dorks?" Bulk walked up to me, with Skull close behind, and stared me in the face and said, "What's your name, geek?"

"Sean." I said boldly. I did not know for sure what happened to these two after I had stopped watching, but when I did, the two of them had become police officers of some sort. Stephanie had told me, when she 'stumbled' on an episode said that afterward they had become detectives. In either case, they would eventually know about keeping peace. But if my memory served me correctly, this version of Bulk and Skull were the bullies that I remembered from the beginning. I did not follow Power Rangers between the time that Jason left and the Power Rangers gained ninja powers, but I do not think much changed with these two during the second season, in which case Bulk and Skull were in the phase where they were, albeit unsuccessfully, attempting to find the identities of the Power Rangers. But they still, more often than not at all, maintained attempting to bully the group of Rangers, and if there was one thing that I did not like, even in my world was for someone to pick on others, no matter how funny they might have been doing it. And as I undoubtedly became one of their targets and based off Kim and my decision to blend in as much as possible in this world, I decided to play along and pretend that I did not know the facts that I did. But if I were going to do this, I would do it in my own way.

"Leave him alone Bulk." Jason said, folding his arms at his chest.

"Oh look. Jason's back." Bulk said. "What's the matter, couldn't hack it at the peace conference?"

"And I suppose you could?" I said. "What do either of you know about keeping the peace?"

"Who asked you, dweeb?" Bulk said.

"Yeah…" Skull intervened. He pointed at me in a failed attempt to intimidate me. "Who asked you?" I looked down at Skull's hand, unimpressed, then swept it to the side with my left hand and then returned to my original stance and returning to my stare down with Bulk.

"Don't you guys ever give up?" Tommy asked.

"I don't think they're smart enough to." I said.

"Oh, a wise guy huh?" Bulk said. "Well c'mon dweeb, show me what you got?" I unfolded my hands and stuck them out to the side in a manor implying to the Rangers that I could handle myself. The four teenagers reluctantly backed off and I started slowly moving back to a sparing mat as Bulk and Skull walked toward me. "Ok nerd, time to teach you."

"Yeah, teach you." Skull said.

"Give me your best shot, fat boy." I said, folding my arms at my chest. Bulk yelled and charged at me, but I quickly dropped to a split and ducked my head down, causing Bulk to dive over me and face first into a trash can, causing him to be stuck in it from his head to his waist and for the trash can to fall over with him inside. All who saw laughed and I slowly stood up looking at him while keeping my composure. Skull yelled and ran at me from my side, but at the last moment, I dodged him and he tripped over my planted left foot, causing him to stagger forward and crash into a metal pole. In a daze, Skull backed away from the pole and tried to regain his centre of gravity. Bulk finally managed to free himself from the trash can and stand up, condiments on his face and close. Bulk and Skull then charged at me from either direction and at the last minute I jumped to the side and the two of them crashed into each other and slowly dropped to the floor in a daze. Jason and the others joined me, all of them laughing. But I stood over them with my arms folded, not amused.
"Those two never learn." Jason said, laughing.

"One day they will." I said sadly. Though I did not like bullies, the fact remained that these two were, for all intents and purposes, harmless, and my actions toward them left me no satisfaction whatsoever. It occurred to me that this would be what I would have to deal with should Billy's invention prove incapable of returning Kim and I back to our own world. This troubled me greatly. As interesting as this experience has been, I was longing to return to my own world. Deal with my own bullies, face my own enemies and save my own planet. Even though Kim was here and I could share this experience with the girl I loved more than anything else, the last thing I wanted was for us to be stuck in this world and leave David and Caulfield to deal with protecting our world by themselves. Though I had confidence in my twin brother and my best friend, the Zero2 and Shadow Cog powers were not as strong as the powers of Zero the Cosmic Ninja and with Kim here too, that made things even worse. Even though the gateway was not opened and the world was not crumbling, I still felt that the fate of my universe hung in the balance.