A/N: Sorry for the slight hiatus, I had a few personal things that needed my attention. I'm pleased to say I did find time for a quick update though.

Also, not sure how many of you are interested, but playing the new Avengers game, I've been inspired to do kind of a series of one-shots relating to Kamala Khan's time on the Helicarrier. If it interests you, please feel free to drop by and give it a look.

Zoey stuck her head out the door of her dorm room into the hall, checking each way for signs of movement. She'd put in for a personal day, meaning that she had every right to do whatever she wanted on that day as her shift in the laundry was being covered, but that didn't mean she might not have other reasons for wanting to avoid being seen.

She slipped out, and headed down the corridors, and very quickly out of the doors and into the street, hoping to run into as few people as possible. Normally, she was a bubbly and sociable person who most of the base would happily talk to for ages about their day, but for now, she really just didn't want to get caught up and risk giving the game away.

She got outside, to the parking lot outside the convenience store a little way from the base, just as they had arranged, and waited for Nate to arrive. She didn't regret her decision to tell him how she felt about him. Especially when he had admitted he felt the same way, and as exciting and thrilling as it was finding time to be alone together, it was also a little troublesome. A military base was not exactly the easiest of places to sneak about in. Her brother Eli had managed it, but then he'd been trained for years by the American Government for such tasks. She did wish she could be more honest and open with their friends, even if she had to admit it did feel a little exciting to sneak around.

"Over here." Nate told her as he left the convenience store. He had a backpack, and he was just loading some drinks and snacks into it. Zoey looked around, before crossing over to him. He just smiled as he got up, throwing the backpack onto his back. "You ready to go?"

"Lead the way, handsome." She said, offering him her hand. He smiled as he took it, before they walked down the road, heading for the television station. One of the things that had helped them bond was their love of cheezy, terrible sci-fi monster movies. A particular favourite of theirs was the "Hydroworm" series of movies. They were truly a perfect example of the very worst aspects of the genre. Generally, they were poorly scripted, had shaky sets, ludicrous special effects and were filled with everything from first-time actors who had to pad their CV, flavour-of-the-month celebrities such as webcasters and sports personalities and professionals who knew how ridiculous what they were doing was and treated the scripts as a joke, leading to some of the most comically delivered dialogue outside of dedicated comedy.

The star of these movies was Nicky Reve, who had been with the movies since the beginning, and was now dedicated to pounding out another one every single year as a steady pay cheque. Her mom had informed her that she was set to do an interview with Nicky that very day, something she knew her daughter would love to know about.

"I can't believe we might get to finally see Nicky Reve!" Zoey squealed as she walked with him. "I've never been able to go to one of the cons she's been at. They were all so far away, I'd never have been able to afford to go!"

"I was always too busy in the lab." Nate told her. "By the time I found out about any cons, they'd been over for an average of about three months. I…didn't get out much."

"Oh, man!" Zoey gasped as they rounded the corner, getting to the TV studio. It seemed like they weren't the only ones that had heard about Nicky's arrival. Already there were masses of people waiting outside, wearing t-shirts, waving signs and being directed by security to ensure there was access for people trying to get in and out of the building for work. "I don't believe this, mom told me that…"

"Yeah, somehow I think someone else might have leaked the information." Nate told her.

"Someone else at the station?" She asked.

"Maybe, but more likely it was Nicky's management." Nate replied. "I've heard that often these flash-mobs get their tips online from sources that can be traced back to the talent's management so that there's a mob of screaming fans waiting for them anywhere they go. It's apparently a hit to the ego if they go somewhere and there's no one waiting for them."

"Hey, guys!" They heard an all-too-familiar voice calling out. They quickly let go of each other's hands and froze to the spot as Devon bounded over. "You guys got the tip about Nicky Reve too?"

"Uh…yeah, that's right." Zoey replied. "We're just cuckoo for Nicky Reve!"

She immediately cringed hearing herself saying that. Devon just chuckled.

"Well, come on over here, the others are waiting." He told them.

"Wait…others?" Nate asked.

"Yeah, Ravi and Steel." Devon told him. "We all got the message on the blog last night. Isn't it awesome we all got the same personal day?"

"Yeah, that's…great." Zoey said, trying to hide her disappointment. She still was happy to see Nicky, but with the others there, as much as she loved her new friends, the day had lost just a little bit of its appeal. Devon led them over to the others.

"Hey, you guys are here, that's great!" Ravi greeted them. "Wait, there's a car coming, do you think that's her?"

With that, they all turned their attention to the studio, watching with baited breath as each and every vehicle arrived, hoping for just a glimpse of Nicky as she entered.

Inside the studio, Muriel was starting to get ready. While an interview with a B-movie actress whose movies were only barely considered a step above straight-to-DVD releases was hardly going to be the story that finally propelled her into the big time, it was still the biggest thing she'd been allowed to do since she had returned.

Muriel was always the small-time, soft-news reporter, even before she'd ended up being part of the news herself. Her attack at the hands of the Bastards of Kronus, the motorcycle club her son Eli had ridden with, was a huge segment on their show, and she'd gotten lots of messages from fans and colleagues as she recovered. However, it still stood as a sore point that the biggest story she was a part of was when she was the story and not because she was reporting it. Now, the studio were, if anything, even more reluctant to send her into the field than they had been before. She suspected they wanted to avoid a lawsuit. The only benefit of her attack was that they had paid her in full while she recovered, but like in all media, she was out of sight, and quickly out of mind.

She was sitting, going over some notes as an assistant came with some coffee.

"Is that the Columbian roast that Nicky asked for?" She asked.

"Uh…"

"Her manager said we need to have Columbian roast." Muriel said. The fact that the assistant needed to think about it and didn't answer straight away told her all she needed to know. He'd probably just got the coffee out of the canteen, where they bought coffee granules by the kilo. She reached into her purse, pulling out some money. "Head down to the coffee place at the end of the street, ask for a bag of Columbian roast beans and for God's sake hurry up about it!"

She just rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the notes. One thing that was true about Muriel was that even when she was doing the most inane, mind-numbingly dumb stories that anyone could imagine, she always treated it as though it was her Frost/Nixon moment. She was a big believer in the fact everyone's story deserved to be told and treated with respect. Also, she was also a big believer that even the smallest, silliest stories could be surprisingly deep and could turn up surprisingly bigger stories if one was able to look past the surface and dig just that little bit deeper. At times, it felt like she was the only one that cared about such stories, and sometimes wondered if the fact she could make something watchable out of such stories was one of the reasons she was always held back…kind of like she had made herself too useful where she was.

"Muriel!" One of her cameramen called out. "It's almost time, you want to get some shots of Nicky arriving?"

"Eddie, you always have the best ideas." She replied with a smile. Eddie was young, but hungry. Like her, he was a guy that wasn't afraid to do just about anything, including risking his own life to get the shots that made a story. In the short time she'd known him, she'd seen him dangling from a building with one hand ten stories up while taking shots with his camera with the other, standing on the central partition of a freeway in rush-hour for traffic shots, and being thrown out of more buildings than she could count by security teams. However, she loved the fact there was someone as passionate as her on the team…even if she did occasionally have to remind him, he wasn't going to earn a Pulitzer if he ended up being scraped off a pavement with a spatula! "That sounds like a great opening shot!"

Eddie bounced a little, before sprinting out the front with his camera. Muriel followed him, watching him as he ran up and down, getting panning shots of the crowd, all the while whooping and twirling his free arm, trying to whip them all up into a frenzy.

Zoey saw her mom and gestured to the others to follow her, deciding this was one of those rare occasions she didn't really mind a little bit of nepotism and name-dropping. She got past security thanks to a wave from her mom and approached with her friends.

"Mom, thanks for telling us about this!" Zoey told her.

"I just wish my tip had been a little more exclusive." She replied. "Still, at least it'll be great for some opening shots."

"I can't believe soon you'll be interviewing Nicky Reve!" Ravi chipped in. "Are you nervous?"

"A little bit." She admitted. Muriel didn't get star-struck really, particularly since she never really cared much for Nicky's movies. She never could understand Zoey's obsession with them. She was just glad her obsession was something like that, where the worst thing she'd do was waste her allowance going to see a crappy movie for the fifth time than her oldest son Eli's obsession which had led to him ending up in jail a few times. "I'm really excited though, this interview's going to take my career to the next level."

Zoey just forced a smile. She never knew if it was self-delusion or genuine optimism, but she heard her mom saying that about so many of her stories, she was always worried whenever she heard it. She just hoped her mom wasn't setting herself up for another fall. She'd seen her take enough kicks in the teeth in her career to know that no matter how much of a brave face she put on it, it always hurt whenever she got passed over for the bigger assignments.

Muriel's phone rang, and she looked excited.

"It's Nicky's manager!" She called out excitedly, quickly answering it. "Hello, this is Muriel…I'm sorry? What do you mean…?"

Zoey could already see the disappointment in Muriel's face and could see the hammer falling even before she said it. She just sighed.

"No, I understand." Muriel whispered. "I'll go tell the studio. Tell her I hope she feels better."

She hung up her phone and looked to the others.

"Nicky just cancelled her interview." She told them. Zoey looked disappointed, but the others looked a little shocked.

"So soon? Isn't she due in like twenty minutes?" Devon asked. "Why?"

"Apparently she isn't feeling very well." Muriel told them, before heading towards the crowd. Zoey looked to the others, who had moved past their shock and were now joining her in disappointment.

"Man, that really blows." Devon grumbled. "What could have possibly come up that she had to cancel so close to the interview?"

"You heard what Mrs Brooks said, Nicky's sick." Ravi told him. "If you're sick, you're sick I guess."

"So sick that she didn't cancel this morning but she can cancel now?" Steel asked.

"Maybe she was trying to gut it out." Nate suggested. "I heard one time she shot several scenes of one of her movies with a broken toe. Maybe she was trying to see if she could manage but just figured she was too sick."

"Or maybe she's just a flake." Devon said a little bitterly. "I paid for a one-on-one with her at a con once, and she just backed out. I just got handed a refund and told that she had to go home for the day. She backed out of some of her panels too."

"That sucks." Ravi commented. "Well, I guess at least we still have the rest of the day, right?"

Just then, there was a scream going up from the crowd. They all looked around to see people running scared. Standing where the crowd once had been, was Vargoyle, facing the Rangers. They all just turned to glare at Ravi.

"Alright…smoothies are on me." He sighed. They'd kind of started up a new tradition, whereby if anyone said anything like 'how could this get any worse' or 'at least that's over' only for things to get worse, they had to buy everyone else smoothies. It was kind of a thing that had built up out of the number of times something unexpected came up, and so they just kind of viewed it as tempting fate. Devon turned his attention back to Vargoyle.

Eddie was heading for cover, a safe place to take some footage from, when he saw people confronting Vargoyle. He didn't know who they were, but whoever they were, they had to either be the dumbest people on the planet, or have a damn good reason for thinking they could stand up to him. He started the camera rolling, just as the Rangers morphed. He was blinded by the flash, and the pyrotechnics, and by the time he got his attention back, he could see the Power Rangers battling Vargoyle.

"The Power Rangers?" He asked. "Where did they come from?"

One of the things Nate had built into his technology was a way for the Rangers to morph safely. In the past, Ranger teams often had issues ensuring they weren't seen as they morphed, but he had found a particular wavelength of radiation that affected human memory, causing it to kind of glitch out for a few seconds. The pyrotechnics were designed to draw people to stare right at the morph so that the waves would go through the lens and into the brain, ensuring anyone that did see them morph would not remember who they had seen before the Rangers arrived. To all intents and purposes, it would be as though the Rangers simply appeared from thin air.

Vargoyle stood before the Rangers and started cackling.

"You all think you're so special." He stated, showing them a device on his arm. "But I've got something special up my sleeve!"

He surged forward at incredible speed, racing straight past them, knocking them all down like a bowling ball. He stood on the other side as they all tried to get their bearings.

"Super Speed." Steel commented. "That's definitely a new trick."

Steel was the one who had the most direct experience facing Vargoyle. He'd fought him once before, and while he knew Vargoyle to be strong, he had never seen him perform a feat like that before.

Ravi decided to try a more direct approach, ripping a piece of concrete the size of a car out of the ground, before throwing it at him. Vargoyle didn't look at all fazed though. In fact, he actually caught it, before throwing it straight back. The Rangers had to try hard to get out of the way before they were completely flattened.

Zoey leapt high into the air, hoping to catch him by surprise while he was gloating, but was startled when he appeared to jump straight up to join her! He grabbed her, tossing her straight back down into the ground. As he landed, he faced the Rangers.

"Have you got it yet? Thanks to Scrozzle's upgrade and the data those worthless avatars have been collecting from you, I now have all of your special powers!" He taunted them, drawing his sword.

The Rangers did all they could to try to best Vargoyle, but with his new upgrade it seemed like he had an answer for everything they threw at him. Ravi swung a lamp post at him like a baseball bat, but as Vargoyle tried to catch it, he instead found himself crumpling, being struck and tumbling away.

"Devon, quick, while he's down!" Ravi called out. Devon raced over with his Beast X Sabre, and Vargoyle was only barely able to get his own in the way. He struggled as the Rangers regrouped, only being slowed down by the beating they had received. He looked to the device in his arm, seeing it flashing at him.

"I'm out of Morph-X already?" He screamed. He looked up, seeing the Rangers forming up. They had to have heard him, or at very least figured out that the battle had exhausted his powers and now he wasn't as powerful as before. He saw them all starting to form up and power up their strongest weapons. He knew better than just to trust in his ability to take an attack and teleported out before they could fire.

The Rangers all slumped in exhaustion, glad that he had been forced to flee.

"That was intense." Devon commented.

"Yeah, even without that upgrade Vargoyle was a tough customer." Steel reminded them. "And with all that Morph-X he stole, it won't be long before he recharges that device."

"We need to be ready when he comes back." Devon agreed. "Come on, there's nothing worthwhile here."

As they left, Muriel came running out of the building, finding Eddie in the bushes. She helped him out.

"Eddie, what the hell were you thinking?" She asked him.

"That guy looked like news." Eddie told her. "I don't really know where the Rangers came from, but we got some awesome footage for the news…and best of all because it's outside our studio, no one else was here! We've got the exclusive!"

"I'd still prefer not to have to call your family and tell them where they can pick up the shoebox that contains what's left of you!" She reminded him. "Wait…you said the Rangers just showed up? They didn't arrive in vehicles?"

"Not that I remember." Eddie stated. "It was like one moment they weren't there, then poof, they were!"

Muriel had heard numerous accounts of the current Ranger team. Something didn't add up.

"Wait, some of the reports said the Rangers arrived by vehicles, others that they just appeared." She recalled. "Why would they use vehicles if they could teleport?"

"What are you getting at?" Eddie asked her.

"What if the Rangers were already here?" Muriel asked him. "What if they were here, and you just caught them morphing?"

He opened up the camera and sighed.

"Well, it'll take a while to know what I have." He told her. "Something damaged this memory card."

"Damaged or destroyed?" She asked hopefully. Eddie liked the sound of where this was going.

"I guess we're going to find out." He replied, heading inside, going for the technical department. If there was any way to retrieve the footage, they would find it there. If they were lucky, they might have stumbled onto the biggest story any of them were ever going to be a part of!