Nick glanced at Chip who was staring at the scroll, "I really don't think that having that out in the open is a good idea," he said.
"Relax, nobody will care," Chip insisted, "Besides we need to figure it out right."
"Yes, just not during work hours."
"No, no, no!" Xander suddenly exclaimed, causing the two of them to rush over to a mirror a large red pimple growing on the tip of his nose.
"Ouch," Nick shuddered, "That's rough."
"Rough?" Xander demanded, "Rough, it totally ruins my good looks."
"Wow," Nick muttered, "I have two older sisters, and I have never heard them complain about a break out, never heard my Mom complain about one either, and I know that they've happened."
"It's easy for you to say," Xander insisted, "You can whoa any girl you want with your family history and knowledge about monsters and power rangers, me, I have to rely on my good looks."
"You do know that I can't just go walk up to someone like Leelee and say, did you know that my aunt hunts monsters for a living, Right?" Nick asked, shaking his head, "The only reason you guys know about any of that stuff is because you're power rangers, a lot of that information I gave you is classified, like who the Legendary power couple is… you can't go blabbing about it to anyone. You haven't been blabbing have you?"
"Relax Nick, as if anyone is going to believe that the new kid's the child of the world's best power ranger," V insisted.
"Can we focus on the emergency here," Xander asked, "This zit ruins my perfect profile, it's like having a second nose."
"That's it," Chip exclaimed, "The Fire Heart Scroll, it's one half of the same face, minus the zit of course."
Just then the door to the back office opened, "I am a genius," Toby announced, "I just put together this cryptic magnetic puzzle in under forty minutes, I should be working for the FBI, The CIA, or better yet the Power Rangers."
Nick glanced at the store owner, "Why don't you go give the rangers a call?" Nick offered, rolling his eyes, his parents are going to love this phone call.
"Great idea." Toby insisted, walking away again.
…
"Take a look at this," Chip said, pulling a mirror out of Xander's hands and holding their half of the scroll up to the mirror, "Does that mountain look familiar to any of you?"
Nick glanced at the picture, before nodding, "That's Mount Flago, Laurie showed me pictures of it before, it once was a dragon sanctuary."
"Is the area dangerous?"
"Not that I know of," Nick insisted, "I believe we actually went camping up there a couple of times when I was younger, Dragons went extinct in the Americas centuries ago, hasn't been used as a breeding ground since then, but there is a lot of ground that we need to cover, so we will need to split up, come on Xander."
Xander glanced over his shoulder at where he was talking to Clare, "Yeah, yeah, I'm coming."
…Reefside California…
Tommy Oliver leaned into his wife's side, enjoying the peace and quiet created from it being nap time for the youngest and the triplets being at a friend's house. "This must be what it is like to be an empty nester," he said with a sigh, "It's nice."
"We'll get bored," Kim disagreed, "Have you heard from Nick recently."
"Nothing new, Amby helped them with a Vampire problem but she says that she did very little besides give them advice."
"Great, did they figure out the Fire Heart Scroll yet?"
"Still working on it."
The two fell into a comfortable silence, until a loud shrinking cry filled the air, "Ay Yi Yi."
Tommy and Kim gave each other a look before grabbing the phone, "You've reached the Power Couple, please state your emergency."
"Hi, this is Toby, I'm the owner of..." Tommy placed a hand on the mike.
"Nick's boss, this is going to be interesting."
"Well we aren't doing anything."
Tommy nodded, pulling the phone up to his mouth again, "I'm sorry Toby what were you saying?"
"I want to join the power rangers."
Tommy glanced at Kim, arching an eyebrow, "You want to join the power rangers?"
"Yeah, I'm super smart, I solved this complicated puzzle in forty minutes."
…Mount Flago…
"V, look," Xander called out stopping Vida, "My face, it's back to it's perfect profile."
"Ugg," Vida groaned, "There isn't enough room on this mountain for the three of us."
"Three?"
"Yeah, me, you, and your ego," Vida said, before stopping, something was sparkling up ahead, "Hey, Xander do you see that?"
"Yeah," Xander agreed, moving forward quickly until he and Vida were at a pillar of rock with a metal plate on it, "It's the right symbol."
"Yes, we found the Fire Heart, whoa!" Vida said, ducking into the nearby cave, "You'd think that Nick would mentions caves with doors in them."
Xander didn't say anything, he was busy translating the inscription between the two doors, "Okay so this is like some Let's Make a Deal Game. Behind one door is the Fire Heart, behind the other is… something else. What do we do?"
"Open the first door?" Vida suggested opening it up to reveal a treasure chest, "See the Fire Heart."
"Are we sure?" Xander asked, "We don't know what the Fire Heart looks like. It could be behind Door Two." Xander opened the second door only to slam it shut again, "Yep, that's diffidently not the Fire Heart."
"You just had to see what was behind door Number Two didn't you?"
…
Nick grimaced, pulling his ring away from his chest, maybe there was a reason that Kira only wore her necklace every once in a while. It was burning again, but it wasn't a steady pulse.
"Guys," he called out to Chip and Maddy, "I think V and Xander are in trouble."
"What makes you say that?"
"I just have a feeling," Nick insisted, "Trust me Chip, something's wrong."
Just then there was a loud explosion, shaking the ground, "See," Nick said, racing towards the noise.
"Sometimes it scares me on how much he knows."
"I think it scares him sometimes too," Maddy insisted, following them.
Xander and Vida met them in a meadow, lugging a trunk between them.
"Alright," Chip exclaimed, "How do we crack this thing open?"
"Hey, here's a scroll," Maddy said, reaching out to grab the piece of paper tied to the front of the trunk. Numbers started to flicker, "It's counting down."
"This ancient puzzle is your task at hand, solve it quickly to receive what's grand, but if you fail this timely chore the Fire Heart will be no more," Chip read, glancing at his friends, "Great another riddle."
"Mom and Dad never had to solve riddles," Nick grumbled as his ring pulsed once more, forcing him to turn around, "Watch out!" he shouted, diving out of the way as something attacked them.
The battle could hardly be called a skirmish it was over with before they even really begun, this foot soldiers where so simple to defeat.
…
"It's still counting down," Maddy groaned as she crouched next to the trunk.
"Solving Riddles was not part of Dad's Power Ranger 101 class growing up," Nick muttered.
"I'm sorry guys," Chip muttered "I've never seen a puzzle like this."
"Out of all the lectures that Dad gave me, why couldn't he have given me one on solving riddles?" Nick muttered, before turning to Xander, and giving him a strange look, he had freaked out only an hour ago about a pimple, yet now, he still had leaves in his hair.
"Are you okay Xander?" he asked, reaching up to grab the leaves, "You still have leaves in your hair from the fight."
"Ow," Xander exclaimed, swatting Nick's hand away, "It's nothing really," he turned away from Nick before turning to face him again, "I'm just having a little issue here," he said holding out his arms so that everyone could see that he had vines and bark growing on his arms.
"Ohh..." Nick gasped, "This is new."
Vida and Chip started to laugh, as did Maddy.
"You think this is funny?" Xander asked.
"You laugh when Clare turns herself into random stuff," Vida pointed out.
"It's probably part of your organic magic, it will go away eventually," Maddy said, before snickering, "Knock on Wood."
"Nick?" Xander called out, Udonna and Clare weren't there and out of his teammates Nick knew the most about magic.
"I don't think it's his personal magic, we've been rangers for almost a month now, and this is new," Nick said slowly, "And I can't think of a situation like this off the top of my head, it's probably some weird side effect, it will wear off eventually."
"Yeah, well, that's great, but how about we focus on something more important, like opening the chest."
"I wonder if Uncle Billy or Aunt Trini are available, heck, I'll take Aunt Kat," Nick said, "They're good at solving riddles."
"Wait that's it," Chip exclaimed, jumping up, "We need someone good with puzzles, and who better than Toby? I mean he would love to be given a chance to work with the power rangers."
"And Mom and Dad probably appreciate it if he stops bugging them," Nick said, "Let's go."
…
Nick had decided to go in morphed, with the trunk, so as to not have to explain where he got the trunk from. However he wasn't expecting to see his parents in uniform there and the store transformed into an obstacle course.
"What is going on here?" he asked.
"I really need to get my husband a new hobby," Kim said with a shake of her head, "Toby called and insisted that we try him out as a power ranger, and, well..." Kim paused glancing around before finishing, "Your father jumped at the opportunity to train someone, even if they are totally unfit for being a power ranger and will likely never going to be one. What are you doing here, in that uniform?"
"Official Power Ranger Business," Nick told her, "Toby here is extremely bright, great with puzzles and riddles and we have one that we need to solve before it goes boom."
Kim nodded, "Hey, Handsome, the Red Mystic Ranger is here, and he has a task that he thinks Toby here can figure out."
"We need this box opened before the timer gets to zero," Nick explained, handing him the box, "My Teammates and I haven't been able to figure it out, but we heard from your employees that you are very good at puzzles, think you can do this one."
"Yeah, no problem, I can have this opened in under an hour."
"Great you have half an hour," Nick said, "And remember, what's in there is very dangerous, so as soon as you figure it out we need to be there to take care of it."
