Part 1
Leslie had been tossing and turning all night she simply couldn't sleep. Maybe it was living in the city that made her nervous but the Pink Ranger found that she had a serious case of insomnia. She had tried everything that she could think of and simply found that all she had the ability to do at the moment was to lay in bed and stare at the celling.
Leslie slowly climbed out of bed and walked out of her room. She had thought about going to talk to Ashlyn but thought better of it after seeing that her roommate had fallen asleep on the couch in their tiny living room. She realized just how tired the Yellow Ranger must have been after her ordeal with Scorpina and know that she should let the girl sleep. After a quick stop at the linen closet Leslie returned with thin blanket and placed it carefully across her friend, she then put on the pair of boots that was laying near the door and slowly crepted outside. She had no idea where she was going only that she couldn't fall asleep and needed to go for a walk.
Leslie began her walk through that city. The streets were empty and silent. This really didn't strike her as odd since everyone that lived in the city had a home now.
Leslie was happy for that things had been going so well. The Vandairre hadn't been able to get into the city and cause trouble with the Rangers there to protect everyone and Captain Sawyers team had been able to chase away the few roving gangs that were in the city. There was talk about opening up the old highschool and while skeptical at first the parents began to fully support the idea.
Leslie looked up and saw that she was just a few houses away from Kimberlys house. She realized that she didn't live that far away but still had been walking for longer than she thought. After taking a moment to decide Leslie turned down Kims street and headed in the direction of her house. The former Pink Ranger (who by chance was also the first to hold that title) had been made mayor of the city and had been really busy helping get everything organized. That and the fact that she had a home full of semi adopted children didn't help make the woman any less busy.
The current Pink Ranger had wanted to take the time to offer her help but it seemed like everytime one of them had a spare moment to talk the Vandairre would send on a new monster. Of course the Rangers would beat the monster, but then Kimberly would have to go to work immediately to make sure that the people were safe. Thankfully there had been no casualties since the people had moved in and if they could help it there wouldn't be any.
'The lights are out. Everyone must be asleep.' Leslie thought to herself as she stood in front of the house deciding if she wanted to knock on the door or continue on with her walk. Ultimately she decided to keep going and was at the end of the street in a heartbeat.
As she approached the end of the block Leslie decided to go take a look at the old high school. She had agreed to help out there if they reopened and wanted to see what kind of work she had in store.
Tommy Oliver opened his eyes and looked around. The lights were in his cell were dim but there was no doubt in his mind about where he was. The Vandairre scientists had been performing experiments on him ever since the day that he arrived bloody and beating on Keldeha. To make matters worse Emperor Nicandros had personally stopped by to taunt him every single day.
He wasn't sure how long he had been here but knew that if he didn't escape soon he wouldn't live to make it back to Earth and his son. He had sworn to himself that would make it out of here. There was something that the former Ranger wanted to do first however. He had dreamed of the day when he would be close enough to the Vandairre leader to ring the life out of his neck and he had been there several times in as many days. The time had come but never the chance. Tommy hoped that little detail would change soon.
This was the first time that he had woken up and not been surrounded by a dozen or more scientists so Tommy took the opportunity to take stock of his surroundings. The room looked very similar to what he imagined a medival dungeoun looked like. He tried to move his arms and realized that he wasn't chained so he slowly climbed out of his bed and walked over to the door.
He placed his ear against the door and could hear what sounded like voices headed towards his cell. 'Damn their coming.' he said to himself as he decided what he was going to do.
Realizing that he was in no condition to fight off any guards that were coming he decided his best course of action would be to lay back down and see what happened. Maybe he could find a way out once they took him to one of their labs. He made back to his bed just as the door swung open.
With his eyes closed he couldn't see who had entered but could tell that there were no more than three of whomever had entered the room.
Footsteps crepted slowly across the room and stopped directly next to him. A soft female voice floated across the room in a whisper. "This prisoners still unconcious, now what do we do?" the voiced asked quietly.
"Well whatever we do we just can't leave him here." came the whispered reply of another female voice.
"He doesn't look to heavy maybe we can carry him out."
"Hurry up and decide the others are waiting for us." came a third voice. This one was male and was coming from closer to the door.
Tommy realized that the lights hadn't come on and after taking a few seconds to think of reasons why the Vandairre scientists would leave the lights off when they came to grab him so he decided to open his eyes.
He could make out the shape of two females standing next to his bed and a male standing next to the door. None of them were in lab coats and in fact seemed to be wearing some sort of military uniform. Tommy didn't know who these people were but decided to continue pretending as though he were asleep until he could find out more about them.
"Jerrin come grab this guy. We're getting out of here." said one of the females.
"Are you sure Audra? I mean taking him could really slow us down." Jerrin responded.
"Look we all agreed that if we came across any prisoners we would try to take them with us so grab him and let's get going." Audra ordered.
"Fine but if he slows us down I'm ditching him." Jerrin added.
"Whatever lets just get going." Laran said.
Tommy heard a set of heavier footsteps cross the room and then felt himself being lifted from his bed and being slung over Jerrins shoulder.
Leslie had been staring at the school for what seemed like hours. Surprisingly most of the structure had survived. The building looked to be a shambles but most of it was fixable.
The young woman had been wondering how she could possibly be of any help around a school but knew that there had to be something that she could offer. A hand touched Leslie lightly on the shoulder. She around and let out a startled yelp then realized that it was Kimberly.
"Is everything okay?" the older woman asked.
Leslie looked at her in surprise. "Yes." she answered timidly. "What are you doing out so late?"
"I always take a late night walk. I have since I was a lot younger. When I was on my way home I saw you heading this way and decided to follow you. We haven't had much of a chance to talk since we met." Kimberly told her.
"What about the kids?" Leslie asked.
"Oh they'll be fine. Elliot knows I'm out." Kim returned. "So what's on your mind?"
"I've just been worried about how I'm going to help out." Leslie said shyly. "I mean I don't even remember anything about my past. I'm not much help to myself much less the everyone else."
Kim shook her head in disagreement. "Let me ask you something Leslie. You're a Power Ranger right?"
"Well yes, but I don't see what that has to do with anything." Leslie responded.
"You see Leslie. Before you came along all they had to look forward to was a life of fear. Wondering when not if the Vandairre would come for them."
Leslie cut her off "But look at what everyone else is doing. Captain Sawyer has her unit here. You are acting mayor. Not to mention what the everyone is doing to get the city going again.
"Well Leslie I can't argue with that. Everyone has really pulled together and are working really hard. But you see you provide a service that no one has given these people in a long time."
"Yeah we fight for the Vandairre for them." Leslie threw in.
"Well that you do but there is something else that you give them. Something that they need more than anything else. Do you know what that is?"
"I don't have any idea." Leslie said confused as to what Kimberly could be talking about.
"It's hope Leslie. You have given these people hope. You and the rest of the Rangers. The people of this planet have had nothing to fight or live for in so long that they lost the reason to live. But you have brought that back to them." Kimberly turned around to walk away. "I'm going home. I need some rest. I really want you to think about what I said. Have a good night."
Leslie watched Kimberly Ann Hart walk away and then turned her head to the night sky so that she could indeed think about what the first Pink Ranger had said.
"Sheesh this guys a lot heavier than he looks." Jerrin complained.
"So what, you're supposed to be the strong guy of the group." Laran teased.
"Yeah strong but not a Ginyac." Jerrin retorted.
Tommy, still pretending to be unconcious, heard heavy footsteps coming down the hall and then the sound of loud voices. 'Damn what's going on now?' he wondered. 'Sounds like this could be trouble.' The footsteps turned started moving faster as though they were running and the voices got louder.
"Oh hell I think we've been spotted." Audra said. Tommy heard the sound of an energy rifle powering up and know that there was going to be some serious trouble but still had no idea who these people were. As far as he knew they could have been Vandairre agents and whoever they were about to fight could be rescuers of some kind. Even though this didn't seem likely he decided to continue waiting.
"Halt." a voice screamed at the group. "Put down the prisoner and drop your weapons."
"You've got to be kidding." Laran said.
"Not at all. You are under arrest."
"Damn that was a short trip." Jerrin said.
Tommy opened his eyes and saw that the group that stopped them were indeed Vandairre soldiers. He quickly closed his eyes hoping that no one noticed that he was actually awake.
Jerrin leaned over and placed Tommy on the ground while the others dropped their weapons. The Vandairre moved over to them and just as they passed Tommy his eyes popped open. The former Ranger swung his leg wide and caught one of the soldiers, tripping him.
As the soldier fell Tommy popped up and grabbed another by the back of his head. The trio of would be rescuers looked on suprised. They had been sure that this person was asleep but now he had come to life and attacked his captors.
One of the Vandiarre soldiers reached in and tried to grab Tommys arm. The man responded by pushing forward and allowing the soldier to succeed. Once the soldier had what he thought was a tight grip Tommy placed his free hand over the soldiers and grabbed his thumb. Then with a quick and almost indescribable motion he swung his leg up and over the soldiers arm then brought it back down breaking the soldiers hold as well as his finger. With a quick kick to his head the Tommy sent the soldier into unconciousness.
Another soldier moved up behind him but the warrior sent him reeling with a back kick to the stomach. After making sure that all of the soldiers were down Tommy began to walk down the corridor. He realized that the others were still standing there stunned so he turned and looked at them "Well are we going to get out of here of what?" he asked.
All three shrugged their soldiers in unison and then followed his as he ran down the hall.
Leslie started to walk home. She had been staring at the school long enough and was starting to get tired. She also realized how cold it had suddenly become and at least wanted to get her jacket.
The talk with Kimberly had done her well and she had thought a lot about what her predeccesor had said to her. 'I'll go talk to Kimberly tomorrow. I have a couple of ideas about how we can get the school up.' she thought.
As she walked down the street she thought she saw something out of the corner of her eye. It was a fast moving shadow. 'Probably just a cat or something.' Then another larger shadow darted past her followed by several more. She became curious and her eyes trailed in the direction that the shadows had been moving towards.
"HELP!!!" came female voice from the direction of the shadows.
Leslie was startled but began to move towards to call. As she approached the plea for help became louder. Leslie saw that no one else was coming and moved in to see find out what was going on. She turned a corner and could see that the cry was coming from somewhere in the park.
There she saw a girl who looked to be about her age laying flat on her back. She quickly scanned the area with her eyes and saw what looked like five Vandairre Soldiers approaching the girl. There was a sixth figure but who ever it was stayed in the shadows and she couldn't make out any features.
"It's only a few soldiers I can handle this." Leslie said as she moved to help the girl. She snuck up behind them and swept the legs out from under one of the soldiers. He fell down flat on his back. He made a slight sound and the other soldiers turned to see what had happened to their comrade. They saw Leslie standing over the soldier and almost broke into laughter.
"Well looks like we'll have to new slaves tonight." one of the soldiers said.
"Yeah this is easy pickings." another added.
"Not as easy as you think." Leslie responded. "If I were you I would let the girl go and leave before I have to hurt you."
This time the soldiers did laugh. Obviously they thought it was funny that this small girl thought that she had a chance against them. "Come one girl. You should know that you don't have a chance." one of the said.
"You shouldn't have come over hear." another suggested.
"Oh well to late for that. You're coming with us too." a third threw in.
"Okay boys if that's how you want it. But don't say that I didn't warn you."
The soldiers moved in three of the soldiers moved in to grab Leslie while the remaining two continued to approach the original target.
Leslie sprang into action. She charged at the soldiers that were coming towards her and executed a leap kick, hitting one in the head and senting him flying backwards into a tree.
"Lucky move girl. Maybe you would be better suited for the pits than slave labor. I'll have to tell the Task Master that you know how to fight. Shame really. You sure are a pretty little thing. To bad that that cute little face of yours is going to get messed up in the pits." one of the soldiers taunted.
"Well to bad for you that you're not going to get the chance to find out how I do in you're little pit." Leslie know that she had gotten lucky with that jump kick and realized that she was going to be in trouble really soon.
"Enough." come a voice from the shadow. "This girl obviously outmatches you morons. Let me show you how a real fighter would deal with her."
Leslie watched as the figure came out of the shadow and realized that this had to be an Alpha. 'I better call for some help.' she said as she reached down to activate her communicator. Then she realized that she was in really in trouble. Leslie had forgotten to grab her communicator. 'Damn I must have left it on my night stand.'
She realized that there was only one thing that she could do and but she couldn't possibly morph in front of this girl. "Run!!!" she shouted as she tackled through the soldiers and grabbed the girls arm.
The girl scrambled to her feet and followed Leslie as she ran to get away from the soldiers and monster.
"Their gaining on us." Laran said to the others as the ran through the hallway.
"I told you we shouldn't have stopped." Jerrin said.
"Oh shut up Jerrin." Audra panted.
"Well considering it was your idea you would say that." Jerrin returned.
"Look this arguing is going to get us anywhere. We have to find a way to get out of here." Tommy told them.
"Look there's a door." Laran pointed out. "Let's duck in there."
"And get trapped even tighter." Jerrin argued.
"It's a defensible location. If we have to we can take them out one by one as the come in after us." Laran said.
Audra didn't wait for Jerrin to respond instead she ducked in through the door and was followed by the others.
Jerrin slammed the door behind them and turned around to face the others. "Okay now that we stuck in here what do we do?" he asked angrily.
The quartet could hear the Vandairre trying to open the door. And Jerrins eyes turned red with anger. "Now we're all stuck."
"Well for what it's worth I appreciate you stopping for me." Tommy said.
A small groan came from the wall behind them. They all turned to look in that direction as Jerrin continued to rant.
"Is someone there?" Tommy asked as he moved towards the groan.
"Tommy" came a low whisper.
Tommys eyes went wide as he recognized the voice that had called to him. He moved over to the place where the voice had come from just as Laran found the lights.
A smile brightened his face when he saw who had called out to him. He reached his hand out and brushed the hair out of the face of the female figure chained to the wall in front of him. "Kat you're alive!!!" he exclaimed as he looked into the eyes of his wife for the first time in 12 years.