Ok, so the following is actually an early birthday present to me. Yes, I can totally give myself a birthday present if I feel like it. Saturday, I will officially be 21.
So my little announcement aside, how about I continue with the story? Sounds good.
"So I really didn't think we could all fit in there," Trini remarked as she pulled herself out of the backseat of Kimberly's car, stretching out her cramped back.
"We couldn't have if I hadn't ridden on Aisha's lap," Kira remarked. "By the way, isn't that illegal?"
"Um… I think so," Tanya told her, smiling.
"Uh…" Kira just sort of paused.
"What?" Kim asked, tossing her car keys into her purse and closing it up.
"Power Rangers," Kira informed them, looking a tad bit surprised at the older women's nonchalant attitudes.
"Former Rangers," Kat told her as Trini slung her arms over Kira's shoulders. "Besides, without the guys around, we don't have to be better than anyone," she added.
"So the idea is to be better than the guys?"
"You've got it," Trini told her, "now come on. I'm starved." The first yellow ranger lead the group of six into the Lotus Blossom, the Chinese restaurant that Kimberly had made reservations at. She allowed the shorter pink ranger to approach the waitress stand, slowly realizing that she never noticed Kimberly call to change the reservations a second time. However, the woman wasn't surprised when Kimberly informed her that the reservations were for six under the name Hart. Trini shrugged, figuring that her best friend must have called when she wasn't paying attention.
Conversation instantly resumed once they were seated at a table right beside the window. The restaurant was crowded enough so that they could have a private conversation at not worry about being overheard due to the volume within the building. However, they did decide that it'd be best to keep their voices down, as they were now only about a week away from the big celebration.
"Pink is so much better than yellow," Kimberly replied simply. If anyone overheard them, she was sure that they would think they were only bickering over the colors just as everyone else did on a regular basis. "Think about it."
"I have," Trini told her, rolling her eyes. "And it's sort of obvious just by the amount of yellows at this table that yellow is better."
"No, that just means pink is more exclusive," Kat informed her.
"So not true," Tanya laughed. "It means no one wants to be pink."
"They do too. I bet Kira wanted to be pink,"
"Um… I kinda actually… well no."
"See, she wanted to be yellow," Aisha laughed.
"Actually, I didn't want to be either. I didn't really want to be a power ranger in the first place. Or rather, I didn't even know that I was going to be a ranger. It wasn't exactly a choice."
"Ok…" Aisha replied, looking at her as if she had two heads. "No choice?"
"No choice. Dr. O's stupid gems just sort of bonded to us. It was either become a power ranger and fight, or die at the hands of Mesagog because he wanted the gems, and the only way to get them would be to kill us. Lesson learned: Do not touch strange glowy stones in the middle of a strange under ground lair."
"Underground lair?" Kat asked.
"Mmmhmm," Kimberly nodded. "Tommy had a hidden underground lair; he's also the one responsible for all of their enemies."
"What?" Tanya asked with a laugh. "How could Tommy possibly create anything remotely dangerous."
"He swears it was an accident," Trini told them.
"Accident or not, it's still his fault," Kira replied as the waitress came to collect their drink orders. Kira happily ordered a sprite for herself, while Kimberly, Aisha, Tanya, and Kat each ordered a glass of red wine. Trini got a beer. When the others looked at her questioningly, she just shrugged and claimed she'd gotten used to it living with Jason.
"How can you stand it though?" Tanya asked, laughing. She only knew Trini through Jason and she'd been shocked to hear from Aisha that the two were married.
"Stand what?" Trini laughed.
"Being married? I mean Jason's great and all, but I don't think I'm ready to tie the knot," Tanya replied.
"It certainly is different," Trini replied. "There's more laundry to do; maybe a bit more cooking, but Jason shares it. It really doesn't phase me as being all that different. I mean, we went to the peace conference together for a while and we grew up together. And there's also the fact that we lived together for a bit before we got married. Jason's been one of my best friends since I was five, so honestly, after I realized I was in love with him, marriage was the obvious next step in our relationship."
"Not sex?" Kimberly asked her.
"Kimmy, we'd been sexually active since well we left."
"See, I would have guessed before hand," Kim winked at her.
"No, we did wait until then. It sort of felt wrong to do when we were rangers and supposed to be role models for everyone. Probably would have been a contradictory statement," Trini replied.
"Never stopped Kimberly and Tommy," Aisha laughed.
"I NEVER had SEX with TOMMY!" Kim nearly yelled, blushing bright red.
"Never?" Kat egged her on.
"Not once… at least not during our time as rangers."
"Eww… too much information, Kim. He was my teacher, remember?"
"Sorry Kira."
"So you're saying that you two really did," Trini started, unable to bring herself to ask the full question. Kimberly just smiled, trying to look as innocent as one can when they have a secret. "What the hell happened in the Power Chamber?" Once again, Kimberly just gave her the "I've got a secret" look.
"Power Chamber? Wait, what are you talking about? Kimberly and Tommy had sex? I'm officially confused," Kat asked, holding her head in her hands and taking a quick swig of her wine which made her feel better.
"Trini stranded Tommy and Kimberly out in the desert Wednesday night near the power chamber because all they were doing is fighting. Something happened, which Kimberly won't tell us about because she's being a little bitch," Aisha laughed, causing Kimberly to just grin.
"Or she's being merciful," Kira whinned. Aisha grinned at her.
"Anyway, what ever it was that happened caused Kimberly and Tommy to spend the day together, including a trip to the hospital because Tommy got knocked out by the town drunk. But the real story is, that ever since, Kimberly and Tommy have been acting like they did in highschool."
"I still don't get it," Trini whinned. "Come on, tell me."
"Trini, what did you want to happen?" Kimberly asked her, taking another sip of her drink and staring at her best friend. "Stop complaining and just be glad that it happened, alright?"
"But I want to know," Trini pouted. Kimberly just shook her head. The waitress was back to collect their dinner orders, and she really didn't want to get into it with Trini, especially because she wasn't telling the truth 100. Sure she'd decided that she really did have feelings for Tommy, and that she was even still in love with him, but she knew he wasn't in love with her, otherwise he would never have suggested they fake it. She also didn't want to think about the fact that in one week, it would be over, and they would stop pretending. She really wasn't looking forward to that.
Ethan sighed and turned his computer on, trying desperately to ignore the sounds coming from the bathroom. He stared at the blue glow of the computer screen, bored as the program took forward to load from when he typed in his password. For some reason the commotion in the other room seemed to be getting louder. Groaning, Ethan pushed himself away from the desk and wandered over to the bathroom. He leaned against the door way and watched as Conner was going through his own toiletry bag searching for something and every once and a while throwing it in a trash bag.
"What are you doing?" Ethan asked him, folding his arms across his chest and quirking an eyebrow at his teammate. He'd so far decided he'd had enough of Conner's ideas, and was sort of debating backing out of their mission tomorrow. His fingers itched to return Rocky's Ranger suit back to it's original location while the older men were out partying. He was fairly sure that a drunk Rocky would never even notice it gone. Perhaps a hung over one might not even realize it had been moved.
"Getting rid of deathly implements," Conner replied simply, not looking up. There wasn't a hint of joking in his voice. The former red ranger was entirely serious.
"Floss?" Ethan asked. Conner just nodded. "You know, he probably has some of his own. And if he was going to kill you, he'd probably use something a little more dangerous than floss. I mean, he does have access to his ninja and zeo powers. I'd hate to see what he could do with those."
Conner just whirled around and stared at Ethan, blinking like a deer in the head lights every few seconds, confused about where the conversation was going.
"Listen, maybe going ahead with the plan for tomorrow is a bad idea. Maybe Kira's right. Maybe we should just tell Dr. O that Bulk and Skull think that they're power rangers. I'm sure they could probably come up with a better solution."
"What could possibly be better than convincing them that they're wrong, when they're absolutely right. And I mean, Dr. O won't be able to kill us during it. And afterwards, we'll just explain and everything should be cool."
"I don't know," Ethan said, still thinking the whole thing over. Conner was his best friend, not to mention his leader, but something about this whole plan was getting to him. He certainly thought it might not be a good idea to see how much more trouble they could get in. After all, they were already grounded.
"Ethan, we'll be fine. Even Dr. O will understand why we had to do it. Now stop complaining and help me get rid of the floss."
"If you're so sure he's not going to kill us, why do we need to get rid of the floss?" Ethan asked.
"I don't think he'll kill us for tomorrow. I want insurance against anything else that might happen within the next week. I mean, we've only been here since last Saturday nigh and Dr. O's already threatened to kill me more times than I can count."
"That's because you constantly get into trouble," Ethan said, sighing and giving up on his friend, fearing Conner had completely gone over the deep end.
"Whatever," Conner muttered, diving into Ethan's bag, while Trent's waited on the counter beside the sink. He figured he'd have to raid Tommy and Jason's room once he was finished getting rid of anything that could cause him harm.
"Why me?'"
These were the words that Trent uttered. Ever since he'd gotten into the car with Tommy he'd been regretting not getting grounded alongside Ethan and Conner. They at least had to be safer than he was.
The evening had started off slightly interestingly because Zack decided that he liked Tommy's sports jacket better than his own black leather vest and had nearly wrestled the former first white ranger into switching outfits with him. Neither bothered to go into the bathroom and change, swapping clothing right in the middle of the lobby, both men exposing their bare chests, and actually getting whistles from some of the women who happened to be around. Zack didn't really bother him, but he was beginning to understand why Kira had been so mortified earlier in the week.
Secondly, Tommy, Jason, Billy, Zack, Rocky and Adam had all decided that instead of taking two cars, it would a whole lot more cost efficient to just take one, even though none of their vehicles was made to hold seven individuals. Thus, Trent had been forced to ride in the trunk of Jason's SUV beside Billy and in order to fit, he'd been bent nearly in half.
Now was the third straw, and Trent was really getting irritated. He was still bent over in the trunk and getting more and more cramped by the minute. Beside him Billy was leaning forward, listening to the conversation taking place in the two rows of seats in front of them.
"I am so the better leader."
"Just because you were first doesn't make you the best."
"Sure it does," Jason yelled above the blasting music which was slowly given Trent a head ache. "Zordon chose me, didn't he."
"It isn't my fault I didn't live in Angel Grove at the time. Besides, he kicked you out to make room for me."
"Did not. I resigned. I was getting bored and irritated with Zack, Billy, Trini and Kimberly always not listening to me."
"Hey! I listened to you," Zack yelled back.
"I concur." Billy's voice resounded loudly in Trent's ear. The poor teenager wanted to slam his head against the back of the leather seat.
"But they listened to me so much better," Tommy threw in.
"Only because you had once been the super scary evil green ranger who nearly killed them all. They were afraid you'd revert."
"I was never afraid of Tommy!" Everyone sort of looked at Zack for a second before he muttered something under his breath and looked away.
"Well what about Adam, Rocky, Aisha, Kat, and Tanya. They never saw me evil and they followed my lead."
"They didn't know any better," Jason told him.
"Hey!" Adam yelled back. "Just so you know, that time when Tommy went missing, you were a horrible leader."
"Told you so," Tommy said sticking his tongue out at Jason like a three year old.
"Lets put it too a vote if you're so sure," Jason replied. "All in favor of the rainbow ranger as the best leader raise your hand." Rocky and Adam's hands shot straight up, while Zack kept his locked in place. Billy slowly raised his hand. "Traitor," Jason muttered. "Just you wait until…"
"JASON! WATCH THE ROAD!" The yell come the passenger seat and forced all of the former original rangers to turn immediately forward while Trent pressed his hands to his ears, shut his eyes, and ducked his head even more than he already was, preparing for the looming collision.
Jason slammed his foot on the break and turned the steering wheel, just barely avoiding hitting an old couple who were moving at a snails pace across the intersection where the light had already turned green. The SUV did a full one hundred and eighty degree turn before finally coming to a halt about twenty feet away from where the elderly couple was. The husband was now on the ground, clutching his cane to his chest, while his wife was slowly helping him up.
Inside the car, all seven former rangers were breathing heavily, sweat pouring down their brows. "I'd say you both suck as leaders," Trent managed, looking up and out the back window.
"Trent, go check if they're ok." Tommy ordered, ignoring the teenager's comment.
"Me? Why the heck do I have to go?" Trent tried to argue. One look from Tommy and his old teammates and Trent knew it was useless to argue. He pushed the SUV's back window open and crawled out of the truck, slightly happy to have an excuse to stretch his muscles. "Stupid Dr. O. Should have stayed at the hotel with Conner and Ethan, or pretended to be a girl and tagged along with Kira," Trent muttered as he approached the couple.
The wife had finally gotten her husband back on his feet, and was helping him dust his pants off when Trent finally reached them. "I am so so sorry. My friend wasn't watching where he was going and we really do apologize. Are you both alright?"
"HOOLAGAN!" The old woman screamed, snatching her husband's cane out of his hands and swinging it at Trent's head. The former white ranger managed to duck, but the second swing came at his legs and he was sent sprawling onto his ass as she swung at his head several more times. Trent was forced to use his arms to deflect the blows toward his head.
"Lady! Please, I said we were sorry," he yelled out, struggling to get to his feet while still protecting his head from the flying cane which was now being accompanied by the woman's husband kicking him, and a string of profanity that would have made a pirate blush.
Trent finally managed to get to his feet, and stumbled slightly as he turned around and dashed back toward Jason's car. He threw the rear hatch open, thrust himself inside, and slammed the door back down behind, before turning back to look at Jason.
"DRIVE! Just get me out of here," the teenager yelled, anger in his eyes and a look that would have spurred even the most hardened criminals into action. Jason looked at Tommy who instantly nodded.
"I was evil; he was evil and insane," the first white ranger told his friend who instantly stepped on the gas and booked it out of there before the old couple could possibly even see the license plate.
Trent collapsed backwards onto Billy, rubbing his soar, and more than likely, black and blue arms, mumbling about stupid old people and annoying former power rangers, and possibly something about revenge. Tommy though he heard the mention of throwing shoes at some point during the teen's quiet rant.
When they finally reached the parking lot of the club, Trent nearly bolted from the SUV and tried to get as far away from the adults as possible. Unfortunately, that meant running towards the entrance of the club where he got a great view of the club's title.
"Would someone care to explain why the club is titled 'The Sexy Kitten'?" Trent asked, when the six adults finally caught up to him.
"Not really, no," Tommy replied, clapping his young teammate on the shoulder and steering the now stunned youth toward the entrance, while his friends filed behind them.
"ID?" the guard at the door who looked more like a mountain lion on steroids to Trent, glared down at him. Trent just continued to stare, rather confused by what was now going on.
"Sorry about him. He was just attacked by a couple of rabid elderly," Zack apologized handing the bouncer his ID along with Jason's, Adam's, Rocky's and Billy's.
"Trent, give the nice man your ID so we can go in," Tommy informed the teenager who just blinked at him, as he handed over his own ID.
"Dr. O, I don't think I want to be at a place called "The Sexy Kitten," Trent stuttered out, although he did hand the mountain lion man his ID. The man quickly looked them over, grabbed a black permanent marker and tired to pull Trent's hand toward him. Unfortunately his ranger instincts took over and he twisted the larger man's arm behind his back, which turned into a wrestling battle. Due to the fact that Trent was powerless and probably half the bouncer's size, the arm twist was as far as Trent got.
Thinking that the teenager was resisting the mark that declared him as under the drinking age, the bouncer proceeded to grab Trent in a head lock with his left arm and drew a huge, permanent marker, black X across his face, extending from his hair line to his chin before shoving him back toward Tommy, who caught the teenager.
Jason slowly took their IDs back from the man and nodded at him. "Sorry. He's not all there," he apologized, pushing Tommy towards the door. It took only a nudge to get his best friend moving, and a minute later, all seven, included the branded Trent found themselves in the main area of "The Sexy Kitten".
"Tommy, you said this was a club right?" Adam asked him, staring at the room around him. The former white ranger was grinning and nodding. "You didn't know it was a strip club?" Once again, Tommy answered only by shaking his head and grinning.
"Aisha's going to kill me," Rocky whinned.
"And Trini!"
"Not to mention Tanya."
"And Cestria!"
"I don't think I'm supposed to be here," Trent muttered as one of the half naked dancers came up and caressed his chest. He turned a slight shade of pink and looked at his science teacher. "I really don't think I'm supposed to be here."
"Quit complaining. I think Tommy chose a great club," Zack laughed, already depositing a dollar bill in one of the girl's bikini tops, and then starting to flirt with her.
"Tommy, what about Kimberly?" Jason's voice finally snapped Tommy out of the trance he'd sort of entered as soon as he found out exactly what took place inside a club called "The Sexy Kitten." His smile faltered, and he stared at Jason, horrified at himself. For one, he didn't want Jason to figure out that everything with Kimberly had been make believe, a game, pretend. And second, some very small part of him suddenly felt like he'd been caught cheating on his girlfriend and that he was lower than the lowest worm on earth, even though he knew Kimberly wasn't really his girlfriend.
"Um… do you have any… um… rooms we could use? We were just sort of looking to have a few drinks, and most of us are quite involved," Tommy immediately said to the nearest stripper. The girl grinned at him.
"Of course," the girl who's name tag read Maddie replied. "It's really very refreshing to find guys who don't even want to go to a strip club because they feel they'd be cheating on their ladies. Follow me."
"Come on Casanova," Jason said, grabbing the collar of Zack, or rather Tommy's, sports jacket and pulling the former black ranger away from stripper he'd lost nearly ten dollars and his phone number to.
"Call me!" he yelled back to her as Jason dragged him into the room Maddie escorted the seven of them too.
Once inside, Trent instantly collapsed onto one of the black sofas and stared up at the ceiling muttering "Why me" over and over again, while the other six took seats around him.
"Your friend ok?" Maddie asked Rocky who was the closest to her, nodding towards Trent.
"He'll be fine once he's had a little caffine," Rocky told her. "Could you bring him a pitcher of pepsi?"
"No problem. What about you all? I'm guessing that if you came here and you weren't looking for strippers you were probably at least in search of something a bit stronger than soda," Maddie told them smiling. She at least had clothes on, which made the guys think she was probably a bar tender or management or something.
"How about three bottles of tequila and six shot glasses?" Zack asked her, from his seat.
"You got it," Maddie replied, smiling. "And that cute dancer's phone number."
"Oh… sorry, you're on your own for that one," she told him, winking and disappearing from the room, leaving the seven guys (including one very dejected Zack) alone while she went to get the drinks. Some how Trent figured it was going to be one very long night.
Slowly the sounds in their room fell into some sort of pattern. Ethan would be typing away on his keyboard for a few seconds, and then you would hear some strange sound like an alien being disintegrated or something based on whatever game he was playing at the time. From the other side of the room, rummaging would be heard followed by a second of silence and then either more rummaging or the sound of something being tossed away. The whole pattern had been going on for about two hours, and the monotony was really beginning to put Ethan to sleep. Conner on the other hand was too busy, and by the sounds of his stomach, too hungry to even think about sleep.
The monotony of the moment was interrupted by a knock at the door. Ethan looked up from his laptop, while Conner poked his head out from under the bed.
"Good going, ordering room service. I'm starving," Conner told Ethan who gave him a strange look.
"I didn't order any room service. I figured part of the grounding involved not eating."
"Not eating? No way, Dr. O only said we couldn't leave the room; there was nothing about not eating. If there was I would have placed myself on the first bus to Reefside."
"So if you didn't order room service yet, and I didn't order room service, who's at the door," Ethan asked, as the knocking sounded again.
"Dunno, but they seem pretty determined. Maybe you should open the door and tell them that we're grounded and not allowed to have company."
"Me? You're the leader Conner. Step up."
Conner just rolled his eyes, pushed himself to his feet and walked over towards the door and opened it to reveal four middle aged women looking like they were dressed to party, but completely tired and worn out, which could possibly be explained by the ten children all under the age of eight that accompanied them. Conner opened his mouth to say something, but was immediately cut off.
"Finally, I thought you wouldn't answer," said the first woman, who looked like she was incharge. She pushed the two children she had with her into the room past Conner.
"I uh.."
"The hotel didn't say that their staff babysitters were boys. I was expecting girls, but a babysitter is a babysitter," a second woman said, shoving her own three inside as well. The remaining two women behind her added their own five children to the brood that was gathering around a very stunned Ethan, who'd bolted out of his chair the moment the first child had invaded their room.
"You see, we're not –"
"Oh of course you can handle them. They're really a delight. Thanks again. Their bed time is eleven o'clock and we'll be back around two in the morning, we promise. Have a good night," the first woman told Conner, before turning back to her friends and the four of them disappeared down the hall, leaving a very confused Conner standing in the door.
"Conner? What the hell just happened?" Ethan asked him, trying to pull one of the smaller children away from his computer, while a second was dangling like a monkey from his neck. Conner shut the door and turned around to see that two of the children were climbing on the television, while three more were jumping on the three beds in the room. He was sure there had been ten, but no matter what, he only counted seven, until he heard a flush, followed by a very childish "uh-oh" come from the bathroom.
"I think we just got saddled with ten children."
"How the hell does that happen?" Ethan pleaded. He'd managed to dislodge one child from his computer and was closing it and to get it out of the way and into a safe. Remembering what was in the safe, he just threw open the connecting door to Tommy's room, placed the computer inside and then locked the door to keep the children out.
"Beats me," Conner responded, pulling one of the kids off of the TV and placing him under his arm before grabbing the second one and then depositing them both on the foot of one of the beds. Ethan followed suit, even moving to round up the three children, who were now soaked to the bone by what ever it was they'd been doing in the bathroom. Once they'd gotten the children situated on the bed, they started to formulate a plan. It was only nine o'clock and they had to somehow keep the kids busy for the next two hours, then watch them for three more and pray that Tommy and the others did not get back before two am or they'd have a very hard time explaining how they'd ended up babysitters for ten rug rats, especially because they had no idea how it had happened in the first place.
"Ok, first things first… who are you people?" Conner asked the boy directly in front of him who appeared to be the oldest.
"We're kids you dope," the children responded, sticking his tongue out.
"I know that. What are your names?"
"Caleb," the boy told him.
"And how old are you?" Ethan put in. The boy held up seven fingers. "Lovely."
"Ok, next?" Conner asked the next kid. They went down the line until they'd figured out that besides Caleb, Marco and Samantha were seven, Frank and Elaine were five, Gwen, Toby, Scott, and Chelsea were three, and Neal was two. They'd also figured out that Marco and Elaine were the children of the first woman. The second woman was the mother of Caleb, Chelsea, and Neal. Samantha, Frank, and Gwen were siblings, and Toby and Scott were identical twins… ok, make that soaking went identical twins, a trait that they shared with Chelsea.
"So what do we do now?" Conner asked Ethan who looked at him and shrugged. Conner was the leader. Conner had to figure out something to do that would keep ten children busy and tired for the next two hours. Besides, it was Conner's fault they were grounded, Conner's fault they opened the door, and Conner's fault that they didn't explain to the mothers that they were not the hotel babysitters. They didn't even know the hotel had babysitters. "Um… are any of you hungry?"
The kids let out a very loud chorus of "me" and began yelling and screaming to get their orders heard. Conner grabbed the pad and pen off the dresser and started scrambling to write down everything that came out of the kids mouths from jelly beans to steak. Ethan wanted to slam his head against the wall.
Half way through dinner, Kira was positive she was the only one still completely sober, while Aisha, Tanya, and Kat were drunk, and Kimberly was slightly tipsy. Granted, Kimberly had started to only pretend she was taking drinks of her wine in order to make sure that Trini didn't order any more beers. She'd had four already, and was whining that she barely even felt a buzz, when ever Kimberly told their waitress to only bring her coffee or water.
"So, back to the game," Kat laughed. "Lets see, most embarrassing moment as a ranger?"
"Being frightened by Zack and that stupid mask," Trini replied, "and I should have burned it," she added, remembering the day they'd spent at the youth center.
"That time when I tried to teach Tommy to sing and we ended up singing Opera whenever we tried to talk," Tanya laughed.
"You tried to teach Dr. O to sing?" Kira asked, grinning. Tanya nodded.
"Failed horribly though."
"I think the time we were turned into kids by master vile would have to be the most embarrassing for me," Aisha put in, getting a look of sympathy from Kat.
"For me it was our near transformation into bugs," Kat replied, and Tanya nodded, remembering that day pretty well.
"Mine would have been the time all of our personalities got turned upside down and I turned into a prissy makeup obsessed female."
"You were turned into Kimberly?" Trini asked her.
"Hey!" Kim replied laughing as the rest of the group laughed along with her. "Definitely the love potion thing. That was absolutely horrible."
"Love potion?" Kat asked. "I've never heard about that before."
"We were sworn to secrecy," Aisha told her. "It was pretty humiliating and Kim wasn't the only one who made us promise never to tell."
"Who else?" Trini asked her.
"Tommy," Kimberly replied, grinning. "I think he was more mortified by the whole thing than I was."
"What happened?" Kira asked, giving Kimberly the best puppy dog eyes she could muster.
"Squat and Baboo unleashed a monster on us when Rita and Zedd were away. Not so much an evil monster as someone who likes to make others fall in love. Meanwhile, there was another monster, this time Goldar and Zedd's doing. Long story short, we defeated it and are hear to tell the story," Kimberly told her. "But the really embarrassing part was the love potion monster."
"I'll say. She made both the principal and Bulk and Skull's boss fall in love with Ms. Appleby," Aisha laughed. "Not to mention making Bulk fall in love with me. Talk about creepy."
"You had it easy," Kimberly replied, as a blush sort of crept up on her cheeks. "Aisha was only an object of the spell's affection. I was a victim."
"Oh god. What happened?"
"There was a dance coming up, and obviously I was going with Tommy," Kimberly replied, "and that's when the monster hit me with the potion. Unfortunately before I could see Tommy who was standing right beside me, I saw Skull."
"You fell in love with Skull?" Trini asked, nearly spitting the water she'd been drinking out of her mouth. Kimberly just nodded.
"I even told Tommy that I shouldn't settle for him when I could have Skull. I swear he must have lost some major confidence points, especially because we had no idea there even was a love potion monster out there. Tommy thought I'd really left him for Skull."
"And boy was she out of it," Aisha added. "She decided that the pink ranger would only fight to protect her beloved Skull, which was a major clue that something was off. You should have seen the sign of relief on Tommy's face when we found out Kimberly was under a spell."
"I really had to apologize profusely for that one," Kimberly told the other girls who were now laughing their heads off. "And I even needed to apologize to Skull for toying with him. I couldn't just come out and say 'sorry Skull I really don't love you and I was acting under the influence of a love potion. But don't worry, me and the other power rangers fixed everything and I can go back to hating your guts now.' I feel that would have been a little harsh."
"Not to mention disastrous," Aisha added. "At least Bulk backed off too."
By this point dinner was just about done, and Kimberly figured it was time to move onto round two. Besides, she wasn't sure she could keep Trini from drinking any more than she already had, and whether or not Trini thought she was getting drunk, Kim was positive there would be a hang over to deal with in the morning if dinner continued. Thus, the first pink ranger called for the check, and took out her credit card.
"Dinner's on me you guys," she told her friends.
"Kim are you sure?" Kat asked, fully prepared to pay. Her predecessor just nodded.
"Same for you Kira," Kimberly told the girl who was taking out her own card. "You're a guest tonight. Besides, Tommy and I were supposed to be taking everyone out."
"Why?" Aisha asked her, still trying to get answers.
"Well, lets just say it would have been a thank you dinner. But we can do it later in the week. I totally enjoyed getting away from the guys for the night."
"Agreed!" Trini shouted, toasting with her glass of water, and nearly spilling it on Tanya.
"Ok, it's totally time to get going. You're all trashed," Kimberly told them.
"I am not," Kat giggled, leaning on her yellow zeo teammate who nodded agreement.
"Nope, Kim's right. I'm totally out of it," Aisha laughed, as Kimberly paid the bill, and then stood to collect her purse.
"Come on guys. Lets go back to my room. I want to play something."
"What?" Kira asked, as the six of them left the restaurant.
"Truth or Dare."
A little shorter than usual, but I think it works. Don't know if I'll get another up before Saturday since my grandmother is visiting, I have to work this afternoon, and we're going to an amusement park on Wednesday, out to dinner on Thursday, and who knows what Friday will bring. So yeah, I loved this chapter. Hope you all found it amusing. Please Review, they make me feel warm and cuddly inside.