Chapter Thirty-seven

Invasion of the Ranger Snatchers

Officer Don Brewster was hunched over the steering wheel of the cop car, his eyes peeled for any sign of them. Corner of Main and Fifth. The original Black Power Ranger had come out of retirement to stop a mugging.

Don had only been twelve when the original Rangers were around, and as a child of comic book collecting and pretending to be the Super Friends with his buddies every weekend, Don had thought the Power Rangers were the coolest thing on Earth. He'd gotten to see them at Power Rangers Day, and during the Ranger Parade, and though he would never admit it, he would give his first born to see a Power Ranger again, to get an autograph, maybe have them sign his old action figure set…

And here was his chance.

Well, not for the autograph… although he might be able to get the Black Ranger to sign something, if this wasn't a hoax. And he didn't exactly keep an action figure in his gun holster (though he kept his lucky fully-poseable Red Ranger with karate chop action in his locker at work). Still, becoming a cop was suddenly much more worth it than he could have dreamed. He was about to see the Black Ranger!

"Probably a hoax, you know," his partner Abe said idly. Like Don, Abe was starting to feel the effects of all the double-shifts they'd been pulling this week, thanks to all the tourists pouring into the city, but unlike Don, Abe was now completely over the Power Rangers and the insanity Power Rangers Day was causing; he would be glad when things finally calmed down again. Abe, who was pushing fifty and more concerned about getting arthritis than meeting superheroes, treated Don's barely-masked enthusiasm like an exasperated father would treat a son who just won't stop begging to go on the roller coaster.

"Could be," Don said noncommittally. "Coming up on Main and Fifth… there!"

Jason shoved Ernie's barbell upwards with a vengeance, knowing he should be pacing himself but not caring. They hadn't had much time for exercise this week, yesterday not withstanding, and as a guy who spent hours a day practicing or teaching martial arts and working out in other ways—not to mention a guy who was currently trying not to panic about whether the plan would go okay—he had a desperate need to let off some steam. (It also didn't help that Tommy was on the rowing machine next to him, and working out with Tommy always seemed to lead to a one-upmanship sort of battle. Not that either of them would admit it.) Jason was nervous… screw nervous, his life was resting in the hands of Zack.

It wasn't that he didn't trust Zack. Zack had saved his life before. Zack had come through on many occasions. Yet Zack was a natural-born schemer, and natural-born schemers had terrible success rates when it came to girls and cops.

Still, Jason hadn't been able to come up with a better plan than Zack's, and all he could do was hope that they'd fledged the plan out enough that Zack's sporadic luck would hold. Conner, Kira, Ethan and Trent had been rushed back to the hotel, where they couldn't cause any trouble or raise any creepy suspicions about why they were traveling with their science teacher to Angel Grove from Reefside, home of the Dino Rangers. Then he and Tommy had rushed to the Youth Center; Billy had had the idea to see if Ernie could provide an alibi for some of them, and he'd agreed.

Meanwhile, Zack, Kimberly, Trini and the original Black Ranger were standing on the street corner.

Billy was selected to wear the Black Ranger suit. As Zack was the actual Black Ranger, they'd all felt it was important that he be shown standing next to the Black Ranger. Besides which, no one expected Billy to be in Angel Grove; he'd only been seen so far by a few random store and restaurant employees, the people at the gas station and Ernie and his father, so they were banking on no one recognizing him other than Ernie and Mr. Cranston. With Billy in the suit, they could establish that Zack was not a Ranger, and that Tommy and Jason had been elsewhere.

Jason grimaced. As Tommy had been the one to knock the guy out, Trini had insisted he not be around when they called the cops, and she'd also forced Jason to leave as well. Tommy and Jason were both obviously supremely athletic; she didn't want the cops wondering why a mugger had decided to target them when the two of them were probably enough to scare criminals away. The others had agreed, and also pointed out that the cops shouldn't see two huge guys—one in red and black, one in green, white and black—flanking a Power Ranger; Zack was very muscular as well, but not nearly as obviously as Jason and Tommy. Forcing the two of them to go had also assured no one would notice that they were in a group of six, and keeping the "victims" down to Trini, Kimberly and Zack ensured that they wouldn't have to rely on their truthful defense of "the mugger was just retarded," so the cops wouldn't wonder at the probability of a mugger targeting such a large group.

Jason growled to himself, feeling a rush of fury with the idiot who'd tried to steal Kimberly's purse. True, the girls had been walking far enough ahead that they probably hadn't seemed like part of the group at all, but you'd have to be a total moron to attack two women who were being followed—distance or not—by a pack of seven guys. Maybe the kid had just assumed he could run fast enough to get away or something. Humph. He was lucky Tommy had knocked him out in one hit; the rest of them didn't have a chance to get angry before he was unconscious.

Tommy got there fir-irst, a singsong voice whispered inside his head.

I am not jealous, Jason told himself, glancing at the settings on Tommy's rowing machine.

Everything will be fine, he thought, slamming the barbell up violently. They'd thought of everything. They'd even made sure that Trini, Zack and Kimberly weren't wearing their signature colors (the safety scissors Tommy had been keeping in his pocket had come in handy for hastily cutting the tags off of the Wal-Mart clothes; Trini and Kimberly were now wearing oversized blue T-shirts over their own clothing and Zack was in an orange shirt that Jason had not-so-apologetically admitted purchasing to annoy Tommy with). The three of them were also the best liars in the group; Zack acted dopey enough that people didn't often think he could come up with a plan; Trini's psychology skills gave her an overwhelming understanding of when people were lying, which she turned to her advantage when necessary; and Kimberly… well… Kimberly was a good actress. Jason had no doubt that the cops were going to find a sobbing, distraught mess wringing her hands and clutching her purse while her two friends tried to comfort her and the Black Ranger assured her that she'd be fine. Billy would run off at the earliest possible opportunity; Jason had given him his house key, and Billy was supposed to wait at the house until Jason got back.

It should work. Yes. It should.

"Thanks again for helping us out, Ernie," Jason called. Ernie was behind the counter, doing inventory.

"It's no problem," Ernie said for the twelfth time. He'd been staying late to catch up on a few things, anyway—which was actually kind of the Rangers' fault, as their visiting had put him a tad behind this week; closing late twice in three days had meant some of the work had backed up, but he wouldn't ever tell them that, and it wasn't like he cared; besides, he opened later on weekdays, so he could sleep in tomorrow. He was a little tired, but he had to admit he was excited as hell. Now that he had finally admitted knowing who the teens were, he wanted to share that part of them as much as possible. He never realized how weird their lives were. "Just, um, make sure you set those weights back to something the average teenager could lift when you're done, okay? I don't want anyone getting hurt."

"Okay," Jason said, then nearly dropped the barbell on his chest as his ringing cell phone startled him; Tommy dove off the rowing machine to help him. Setting it carefully back in place, Jason sat up and opened his phone. "Trini?"

"Went off without a hitch. Witness reports, Billy made a dramatic exit, we're pretty sure they didn't suspect anything. En route to the Youth Center. Conner, Kira, Ethan and Trent back at the hotel?"

"Yeah. We saw them to the door."

"Good. Tell Ernie we said thank you."

"I did."

"Tell him again."

"Okay. Love you."

"Love you too. Bye."

Jason hung up. "Thanks for helping us, Ernie; we really appreciate it."

"No problem," Ernie repeated patiently, amused. That was why they'd been his favorite customers—they were the sweetest kids he'd ever met, and he was glad they hadn't lost that over the years.

"Trini, Zack and Kim are on their way," Jason reported to Tommy. "They think it went fine."

"Whew." Tommy sank down onto a chair, glad this hadn't exploded in their faces. He hadn't been able to help it; he'd just reacted. It was instinct. Hell, he'd first met Kimberly while being protective of her; was it any wonder that he'd attacked a wannabe purse snatcher without thinking?

"All we have to do is wait," Jason said, reaching for the barbell with much more cheerfulness. "Everything is fine."

"Adam! Adam, man, wake up!"

Adam opened one bleary eye to stare up at his best bud in annoyance. "What? I just got to sleep like twenty minutes ago. It better not be something stupid. Again." Adam was used to sleeping in strange places; he traveled almost constantly. However, Rocky's couch was one of the lumpiest on the planet, and Adam was not a morning person. It didn't help that every time he stayed over at Rocky's house he had a couch-related near-death experience. He still wasn't certain how those ceiling tiles had managed to fall down on him…

Adam had been staying at Rocky's house for the past few days, as Adam was between films and Rocky had given his karate students their customary summer break, which was always the first few weeks after school let out. With Tanya off in Africa, Adam had been partying hard with his childhood pal, and he wasn't about to thank Rocky for waking up from a much-needed rest.

"It's your morpher, man," Rocky replied worriedly.

Adam jerked upright, suddenly wide-awake. "What? What's wrong with it? What is it this time?"

Rocky shook his head and nodded towards the coffee table. Adam, like all of the originals, kept his damaged morpher in his pocket almost constantly, but he'd taken everything out of his pockets in order to get more comfortable on the couch, including his wallet, phone, and Zeonizer. The charred morpher was now glowing with sparks of black, orange and blue energy, and though it didn't emit any sound it gave off the impression that it was humming. Angrily.

"What the hell?" Adam breathed, reaching out his hand. He stopped just outside of the miniature light show, not wanting to get hurt.

"I noticed it on my way to the bathroom," Rocky said. "It's been doing that for a while. Do you think something happened to Zack?"

Adam shook his head firmly. "No. It's got to be the morpher itself." Ever since their powers had been transferred back to Jason, Trini and Zack, the morphers in Rocky, Adam and Aisha's possession grew warm whenever one of their predecessors morphed. The morphers were all connected, and, just like Zack had felt it when Adam had morphed, Adam felt it when Zack morphed—though it wasn't anything painful like it had been when Adam had been helping Carlos. However, the morpher had never… sparked like this, never done something this strange, especially not for something as simple as Zack going nostalgic and trying on his old suit.

"Is yours…?" Adam began.

Rocky held up his own damaged morpher. "Mine's fine," he said shakily. "No pyrotechnics."

"All right. So it's just Zack, whatever 'it' is." Adam sighed and reached for his cell phone. "Here's hoping he's alive."

Unfortunately, it rang straight to voice mail. Sighing, Adam began his message. "Zack, man, it's Adam. Give me a call as soon as you get this, day or night. Something weird's going on, something colorful. Wanted to make sure you're okay."

Adam hung up, exchanging grim looks with Rocky, who was toying absently with his own morpher. "There's no point in both of us staying up all night waiting for him to call," Adam said. "He's terrible about checking his messages. Go back to sleep; I'll try to stay up, but if I nod off the phone usually wakes me up."

"And if it doesn't?" Rocky asked.

"He can tell me he's okay on the message," Adam replied. "I'm sure he's fine." Adam leaned away from the morpher… and suddenly the lights died off.

"Whoa," Rocky muttered. "Think it's over?"

"Must be," Adam said. He tentatively reached out and poked at remnants of the Power Coin. "It's warm—hot, even. But it's cooling off."

Rocky exhaled slowly. "You know… you remember when the Command Center got destroyed? Kimberly called, said she had this weird sense of foreboding, like something awful had happened, and then suddenly she felt okay? And Jason, Trini, Aisha and Zack said the same thing?"

Adam nodded. "They were able to sense the Command Center collapsing. Then they sensed it reforming. Zordon said major things like that, permanent things, they'd seep through for us. The power connected us." He smiled. "So Zack's not dead, he's just doing something freaky with his morpher. Good to know." Adam tossed his morpher into the air and caught it, holding it tightly. "The little booger's alive and well and probably completely oblivious to the fact that he just scared the crap out of us."

Rocky grinned. "Sounds like Zack." He yawned. "Well, wake me up if he calls, okay? It's going to take us a while to find the place tomorrow, and we're gonna need some sleep."

Adam nodded, glad Rocky was cheered, but suddenly unable to shake the feeling that something odd was up with Zack. It abruptly struck him as strange that there'd been blue light mixed in with the black and orange, which had flared the last time he'd tried to morph. Blue. Why Blue? Billy was the only Blue Ranger to use a Power Coin, and Billy was on Aquitar… and Rocky certainly hadn't done anything. Justin and the other Blue Rangers wouldn't have gotten a hold of Zack's morpher…

Adam sighed. Deep in his gut, he felt that things were okay. He always trusted his instincts, his intuition, and right now all they said was "Weird, but not dangerous." So Zack was most likely safe.

But he was totally going to give Zack hell about this come morning.

Officer Don Brewster stared absently in the direction the three almost-victims had headed in, his instincts screaming that something was off. Their story had seemed plausible enough—especially that badly shaken girl who wouldn't stop clutching her purse—though it had its odd moments. For one, they were going to the Youth Center, which closed about three hours ago… but they'd said the owner was an old friend and wanted them to drop by. Don, like most people who'd grown up in Angel Grove during the 1990s, remembered Ernie… and Ernie didn't strike him as the type to have people dropping by at one in the morning. He also wondered a bit about the fact that the other two members of their group had gone to drop off some of their sleepy younger traveling companions just before the botched purse snatching… Don couldn't recall one instance as a teenager when he hadn't stayed up past one a.m. during the summer. But something else was nagging at him, dancing at the edge of his consciousness… What was it? What was wrong?

"We'd better get to the hospital before he wakes up," Abe said. "Although I'd imagined getting hit by a Power Ranger will take a while to recover from."

"His voice," Don said suddenly.

"What's that?" Abe asked absently, lost in his own thoughts, also thinking that something wasn't right.

"The Black Ranger's voice. It's different. The Black Ranger didn't talk like that; I heard him several times when I was a kid. He used more slang, and the voice itself was wrong."

Abe looked at him sharply. "So that wasn't a Power Ranger?"

"Oh, that was a Power Ranger. I remember every detail. The uniform, the Blade Blaster, the helmet—you couldn't make a costume like that if you tried. And no zippers. Can't see the zippers. That was definitely a Ranger. I'm just not sure it was the Black one." Don frowned, struggling to remember the two best days of his life—the first Power Rangers Day and the day of the Ranger Parade. "His voice was familiar, though. Maybe it was one of the other Rangers, pretending to be Black."

"Why?" Abe demanded.

"I don't know," Don said. He bit his lip. "But I think we should check out these people at the Youth Center."

Jason shut the door of the Youth Center behind the two cops, breathing a sigh of relief and shooting Tommy a worried look. The cops hadn't seemed overly accusing… but the fact that they'd come to talk to him and Tommy at all, even just to inform them that their friends were unharmed… it was unsettling.

"I don't get it," Ernie said, scratching his head. Though he'd been polite as could be to the two officers, he couldn't figure out why they were bothering to touch base. "If Tommy knocked that mugger out, he must be headed to the hospital. So why aren't the cops going there? Shouldn't they, I don't know, follow up or whatever with the mugger? Take him to jail and everything?"

"Yes," Jason muttered. "I don't like it."

"Checking to make sure we were really here," Tommy agreed. "As if they didn't believe us."

"Asking questions like that… they were prodding. Trying to figure something out. Which makes no sense whatsoever. A Power Ranger told them that he'd seen a purse snatching and intervened; what cop wouldn't believe that?"

"They suspect us. They have to. They know something's up."

"They can't prove anything," Jason pointed out. "We've been here with Ernie, and we made sure the receptionist saw us drop off the Dino Rangers at the hotel."

"Guys," Ernie said gently, "don't you think you're blowing this a little out of proportion? Plenty of people interfere in muggings. In fact, I did it myself back in college once. I'm sure it'll all work out."

Jason shook his head. "You don't understand, Ernie. We've left too many tracks. Tommy, for one."

"I had a hell of a time keeping the suspicion off as the Black Ranger," Tommy added. "Like this one time I went with Ethan and Trent to see my friend Ellie Sanchez to see if she could help us keep Hayley's Cyberspace from closing, and a monster showed up… so I had Trent take her to safety. I stayed behind, ended up morphing and fighting the monster… and the fact that Ethan and I didn't run to safety with them was too suspicious. Unavoidable, but still fishy. And the time the school principal revealed she was an evil minion, and we went all-out-war on the school lawn… people wondered why. Especially the school board when I had to explain things to them."

"So the last thing we need is an Angel Grove cop talking to a few choice people in Reefside," Jason said. "Not to mention that despite the fact that he's a friend of Trent's dad, it's just creepy under normal circumstances to travel with your science teacher."

"Don't need anyone asking questions about that, either," Tommy said. "They were always coming over, I was always seen publicly supporting them... it could get ugly."

"Then there's Billy," Jason continued. "He dropped off the map back in the 90s. He comes back, people are gonna be confused. It took his father all of three seconds to get suspicious. Plus there's the Space and Lightspeed Rangers; we're all friends with both of them. T.J.'s endorsed my dojo, for crying out loud! Anyone ever pauses to think about that, there will be trouble. People will wonder how I buddied up to not one but two Ranger teams. By itself, none of it is majorly damaging, but put it all together in the hands of a relatively smart person…"

"And this town always goes a little nuts about possible Power Rangers," Tommy added with a smirk at Jason. "Combine every other oops moment with us stopping a purse snatching, and it just doesn't look good."

"It'll work out," Ernie assured them. "I thought for sure they had you with the Billy thing way back when, and look what happened."

Jason winced. "Oh, god. Please let this work out."

"Did you see those two guys?" Don hissed as he and Abe walked into the emergency room. "If they're not Power Rangers, I'm the Green Goblin!"

"I don't know, kid," Abe said. "Yeah, it's odd, but you gotta admit, there are plenty of people with muscles like that." He looked pointedly at Don, who spent a lot of time in the precinct's gym.

"Yeah, but still! Look, add it up—Black Ranger. Two guys in the Youth Center. One more guy, and the two women. That's six… four guys, two girls."

Abe blinked, then shook his head. "Yes, but that's hardly proof. You're overanalyzing this, Don."

"Let me ask you something else," Don continued insistently. "The Black Ranger… just dropped this guy."

"Yeah, so? He's a Ranger. I'd imagine he could 'drop' the entire city."

"Does that sound like a Ranger move to you? Ever watch a monster attack on the news back in the day? They did a lot of posing, posturing, threatening—they announced themselves first. They didn't often just start shooting or kicking. So… you're a Power Ranger. You see a crime. And you just knock the guy unconscious? Any criminal in Angel Grove who found themselves face-to-face with a Ranger would immediately surrender. Any human on the planet would have to be a total retard to try to take one on. And the Rangers know that. I guarantee you that a Ranger interfering with a crime would probably just have to yell 'Stop,' and the guy would stop. So why didn't he try that?"

Abe stopped in his tracks, staring at Don in surprise. "That's a damned good point. You might make detective one day, after all."

Don beamed at the praise but continued to press his point before he lost Abe to doubt again. "And this name—Kimberly Hart. You ever heard of her?"

"Should I?"

"She's a pro gymnast. I was a freshman when she was a junior, and there was a lot of talk around school about her getting discovered by some big-shot gymnastics coach. Never actually spoke to her back in school, but my friends pointed her out one day at the Youth Center while she was sparring with Billy Cranston. And winning."

"Billy Cranston… I know that name from somewhere…"

"One of the most prominent candidates for being the Red Ranger. Article after article about him just after the Ranger Parade. Martial artist, gymnast, smarter than half the planet and undergoing therapy."

"Whatever happened to him?"

"No idea. Heard he graduated early and went to work for the government. I say we look him up as soon as we're done talking to this purse snatcher."

Abe nodded slowly. "Yeah." He frowned, then sighed. "This case is going to be hell, you realize that, right? The mayor's gone nuts about this Power Rangers Day thing. Trying to keep every last minor crime silent… and then here comes a Power Ranger. We're going to be going through some serious crap while he figures out if he wants to play it as 'Rangers still protecting the city' or 'Angel Grove crime-free, that didn't happen, honest.' This could get ugly."

Don shrugged. "Who cares? We have a shot at figuring out, once and for all, who the original Power Rangers were. That's worth some extra paperwork for me."

Abe didn't look so sure, but Don could tell the idea was starting to appeal to him. Abe was about to reply when a male medical assistant approached.

"You guys here about the purse snatcher?" They nodded. "He's awake. They sent me to come get you. Room 141."

Abe and Don hurried off. After shooing away the hospital staff milling about the room, they turned to regard the kid on the cot, trying to intimidate him as much as possible.

The guy was scrawny, maybe twenty-four or so, scraggly hair and Coke-bottle glasses and a huge bruise on the side of his head. His eyes were wide in fear.

"Am I going to jail?" he asked.

"That's up to the judge," Don replied.

He sighed. "Have you contacted my parole officer yet? Cuz I don't—"

"What's your name, son?" Abe interrupted.

"Walter. Walter Johnson." He swallowed, biting his lip. "Is he here?"

"Who?" Abe asked.

"Him. Tommy. The guy who knocked me out!" Walter shuddered. "You guys won't let him hit me again, right? Right? I mean, yeah, I stole her purse. Tried to, anyway. But that doesn't mean I deserve to get murdered by that maniac!"

Don and Abe looked at each other sharply. "As far as we're aware, he's not here," Abe said carefully.

"But he could get here," Don said, struck by sudden inspiration. "He could get here very quickly. Just as we've both stepped out for coffee."

"What?" Walter whimpered. "No! Don't let him kill me!"

"Why don't you tell us what happened tonight?" Don continued. "Then we'll see what we can do."

Walter swallowed, the threat finally sinking in. He nodded. "I was walking home. Passed this big group of guys. I wasn't really paying attention to them. I guess Tommy was one of them… that would make sense… should have figured… I passed them, and I saw these two girls, and I realized one of them was Kim Hart. Had a huge purse. We went to school together, same grade, so I knew who she was, knew she probably had cash. Her family always had the best of everything. I never liked her." Walter made a face. "So I grabbed her purse and tried to run." He sighed. "Should have known better."

"Yeah, purse snatching isn't the smartest career move in the world," Don muttered.

Walter shrugged. He'd stolen a lot of things with a good success rate; it was only when he'd decided to move up to armed robbery, knocking over a jewelry store with his buddy Chris, that he'd gotten thrown in jail, but he'd been paroled soon enough, no big. He wasn't going back to scores like that, was going to stick to small-time things, work alone… the pay was less, but he wouldn't have to split it and he wouldn't have to worry about colleagues making stupid moves. "I meant I shouldn't have gone near Kim. Everyone knew that anyone who messed with her messed with her friends. Bulk and Skull were always getting smacked down for bothering her. Biggest bullies in the school, and they were terrified of her friends. And her stupid boyfriend Tommy was even worse."

"This Tommy guy got a last name?" Abe asked as nonchalantly as he could.

"Oliver. Tommy Oliver. Moved here during freshman year. At first, we were buds. Me, him, Chris, Matt, Claire. He sat down at our table in the lunch room before we got there, and when we showed up we took pity on the new kid and decided to let him stay. Big mistake." His face clouded with anger. "He was pretty cool at first, you know? Then about a week after he moved here, he went psycho. Big time. He was supposed to hang out with us after school one day and he never showed and when we asked him about it he went crazy and beat the crap out of Chris. I tried to stop him and I went down too, and Matt's all cowering behind Claire, and she's crying… and she kicks him in the shin, and he swung at her, and she ducked, and he glared… it was awful. Finally he left, didn't talk to him again. Ever. Except for when he tried to apologize and we told him to stuff it."

"Any reason for this sudden change in attitude?" Abe asked.

"We figured it was Kim. Chris had just made some slightly rude comment about her when Tommy kicked his ass. See, he got this huge crush on her, asked us to help him get with her, and we tried, and then he fell in with her friend, Jason Scott, and the next thing we know he's Mr. Lunatic. Doesn't want anything to do with us lowly freaks." Walter scowled. "Anyway, point is, he's always been Kim's shadow, taking over for Jason as the Guy Who'll Kick Your Ass if You Mess with Kim. I thought she and Tommy broke up somewhere along the line, but I guess I was wrong."

"And Tommy Oliver… knocked you out tonight."

Walter nodded. "I didn't see him for very long, but I know it was him. I saw him. He looked the same way he did the first time he punched me in the face, back in high school. All rage and deadly fighter guy." Walter laughed bitterly. "And of course, he's going to get to take a free swing, isn't he? Got away with it back in high school, too. Beating up a thief to stop him from stealing your girlfriend's purse isn't a crime, is it." He shuddered. "He's going to get me for this. I probably got off easy. He's going to kick my ass. You have any idea how good that guy is at martial arts? He's scary."

Don raised his eyebrows at this information and looked down at him thoughtfully. "When did Tommy Oliver move to Angel Grove?"

"Um… first semester of freshman year… so… fall of 93."

"I see." Don jerked his head at Abe. "Can I see you in hall for a moment?"

"We'll be back," Abe said sternly.

"Don't let him get me!" Walter pleaded as they left. "Guard the door! And the window! And the ceiling! He'll get into the walls, I just know it!"

"What a fruitcake," Don muttered as he shut the door. "Guess the Black Ranger hit him really hard."

Abe rolled his eyes and looked expectantly at Don. "What is it?"

"Fall of 1993… don't you get it?"

"…No…"

"That's when the Green Ranger showed up! Don't you see? This Tommy Oliver guy moved to town, was turned into the evil Green Ranger, reformed somehow, and became the good Green Ranger. Kim Hart must be one of them, too. And the Jason guy, and the two witnesses, Trini Scott and Zack Taylor. And! Kimberly was friends with Billy Cranston!"

"So… you think this guy, Oliver, moved to Angel Grove, dumped his friend Walter once he became an evil Ranger, then joined the regular team? You think Oliver was the one in the Black Ranger suit?"

"Yes! Think about it. I told you, it didn't sound like the real Black Ranger. But it could have been the Green Ranger masquerading as the Black Ranger!"

Abe stared at him and shook his head. "Son, go home, get some sleep, and stop thinking about this so much. And you wonder why the guys make fun of that action figure in your locker."

"No, seriously! Hear me out! He probably figured Walter didn't get a good look at him and didn't want us to show up, see that muscle-bound guy, and get suspicious. So he borrowed his buddy's powers and decided to play it off as a Ranger knocked him out, not Tommy! If he never hung out with that Walter kid after kicking his ass, he probably didn't remember him at all. He must have gone straight to the Youth Center after he left the scene; he's a Ranger, so he could totally beat us there. Then his buddy Jason claims he was dropping people off at the hotel, and his buddy Ernie claims he went straight from the hotel to get a smoothie, and in actuality he's saving his girlfriend from a mugger."

"It gets better," said a voice behind them.

Both of them jumped and turned. A woman stood behind them, short, glasses, somewhat pretty, early thirties. Don glared at her. "Can I help you, miss?"

"Couldn't help overhearing," she said with a shrug.

"Anyone ever tell you it's a bad idea to eavesdrop on police officers?" Don growled. Abe put his hand on Don's shoulder warningly, trying to calm him.

"My apologies," she said, completely unworried. "But as I was saying, it gets even better. Dr. Tommy Oliver lives in Reefside now."

Don stared at her. "You know Tommy Oliver?"

She shook her head. "Not personally, no. But I've done some… research… on him."

"All of it legal?" Don asked threateningly.

"Of course it is," she said with a sniff. "Or I wouldn't be telling you about it, now, would I?"

"What's your name, miss?" Abe asked her, eyes narrowed.

"Carrie Jeffries. I'm a reporter with—"

"With the Sentinel," Don finished, looking at her in a new light. "You were once suspected of being the Yellow Ranger after the Red Ranger gave you a private interview, despite the fact that you worked for the sports department at the time."

Carrie nodded. "Apparently the Clarion figured that since all of the other Rangers showed up in the sports department save Yellow, and Red was dating Yellow and acting friendly towards me, I might be the Yellow." She chuckled. "No such luck. You sure are up on your Ranger history, Officer…" She glanced at his uniform for his name. "…Brewster. Big fan?"

Don frowned. "Ma'am…"

"I am too. And I can tell you that I've done extensive research on the subject."

"What do you want?" Don demanded.

"I want you to let me talk to Walter."

"You know about Walter, do you?"

"Of course."

"How?"

"Reporters always have their sources," Carrie replied loftily, deciding not to mention the fact that Ex No. 2 had gone on to become a medical assistant after the paper had fired him for stealing toner from the features department.

"Well, I'm sorry, but you're not going to—"

"You want proof as to whether or not Tommy Oliver is a Power Ranger?"

Don stopped. "You have proof?"

"I can lead you to it, yes."

"How so?"

"Ever hear of the Dino Rangers?"

"Yeah, of course, they were based out of Reef… Reefside…" Don's eyes widened. "You say Tommy Oliver lives in Reefside?"

"Yes. He has a PhD in paleontology from U.C. Reefside. Teaches science there. And I can tell you who to talk to give you proof."

Abe and Don looked at each other. Abe nodded.

"Fine," Don said. "You give us a name, and you can talk to Walter all you'd like."

"Thank you," Carrie said. She pulled a notebook out of her jacket pocket and flipped through the pages. "Would you like phone numbers as well?"

End Notes: This chapter has not been betaed. Sorry. I'll do it later if there's a lot of mistakes, but I was anxious to update. Here you go.

And when you least expect it…

Hint 1) "I'm going to get you back for this. Just so we're clear."

Hint 2) "Once again, details are still sketchy, but we are ready to reveal that the Black Ranger is none other than Dr. Thomas Oliver, whose identity was uncovered when he rescued his girlfriend from a purse snatcher—"

Hint 3) "YOU CAN'T RUN FOREVER, TOMMY!" Trini shouted after him, shaking her bloodstained fist at his retreating back.

Hint 4) There was the sound of someone tapping on glass. "Kim? They locked the balcony door." Pause. "I'm willing to negotiate."

Hint 5) "Not all Rangers end up having lives as weird as yours, right?" Trent asked desperately, well aware of the fact that people kept comparing him to Tommy.

Hint 6) "Yeah, what was I supposed to do? Deny her its use and direct her to the courtyard fountain?"