Disclaimer: 'Power Rangers' (all incarnations) are property of 'Saban', who are in some strange way related to Disney, who run the show on ABC. No infringement is intended.

ROARING ON THE WIND

By Etcetera Kit

Chapter Three: the Pride You Hide

-Two Years Later-

TJ Johnson was blasted out of bed much earlier than he would have liked on a Saturday morning by the sound of the phone ringing. He hit the alarm clock first, thinking that he accidentally set it yesterday, forgetting it was Friday. When that didn't stop the noise, it took him a minute to realize that it was the phone. He located the cordless phone on the floor by his bed and pressed the 'talk' button.

"Hello?" he said. His voice croaked like a frog. He caught a glimpse of the clock. It was seven-thirty in the morning, much earlier than he wanted to be up on Saturday.

At the sound of the voice on the other end of the line, he fell out of bed.

There was a strange buzzing noise going on somewhere far away. Andros squeezed his eyes shut, trying to ascertain what the noise was without fully waking up. It was still before eight a.m. and he considered that early, probably because Brian tended to wake up around eight… He felt Ashley shift beside him. She was almost nine months pregnant with their second child—she was due any day now.

"It's the phone, Andros," she said sleepily.

He groaned and picked up the phone on the nightstand. "Hello?" he said in a sleepy voice. He wanted to go back to sleep, because whenever Brian got up was when Ashley got up and she always made him get up.

"Andros? That you? This is TJ."

"Yeah," he mumbled, pushing himself into a semi-sitting position against the headboard of the bed. This had better be good because he was going to kill TJ if it wasn't.

"You will not believe who I just talked to…"

The phone rang. Leo Corbett groaned as Kendrix snuggled closer to him to drown out the noise. He looked at the clock. Granted, it was almost ten and he needed to be out of bed anyways, but that didn't stop him from being irritated at the caller. He picked up the cordless phone from the nightstand—it was the phone he detested because it was hot pink and Kendrix had bought it with the express purpose of annoying him.

"What?" he said into the phone. Kendrix smacked him.

"Leo? It's Andros. You are not going to believe this…"

Leo sat bolt right up in bed when Andros explained what was going on.

Someone was shaking him. Carter Grayson groaned. There had been a fire in an apartment complex late last night and every man the fire station had had been pulled out to deal with it. Consequently he hadn't gotten in until almost four o'clock in the morning. He glanced at the clock. That explained why he was still sleeping at almost eleven in the morning. Someone shook him again. He turned onto his back to see Dana standing over him with the cordless phone.

"Phone's for you," Dana said.

God, he must have been exhausted because he hadn't even heard the phone ring. "Who is it?" he asked, his voice hoarse from all the yelling of orders last night.

"Leo," she replied.

Carter suddenly felt wide awake. He could hear the noise in the background of Cory and Heather in the backyard doing who knows what. He took the phone from Dana and she left the room. "Hello?" he said into the phone.

"Carter! I just got the weirdest call from Andros…"

The phone was ringing. It rang once. Wesley Collins growled and put his pillow over his head. He didn't care if he should have been up at nine in the morning, he didn't want to answer it. The phone rang a second time. Two more rings and the answering machine would pick it and he could see if the person was worth talking to. It rang a third time. In the middle of the fourth ring, he lost all stubbornness regarding not answering the phone and picked it up.

"Hello?" he said into the phone, knowing he sounded mad.

"Wes? Carter here."

"What's going on?" Wes asked, stifling a yawn.

For the first time in his life, Wes completely woke up without the aide of coffee after listening to what Carter had to tell him.

Eric Myers woke up to his cell phone ringing. Damn. He had forgotten to turn it off before he went to bed last night. And it was the ring tone he had set it for when Wes called—the Indiana Jones' Theme. What on earth did Wes want this early in the morning? He picked the cell phone up off his night stand and pressed the correct button to answer it.

"What, Wes?" he asked.

"Carter just called me."

"Firefighter Carter?"

"Yeah. Listen to this…"

Cole Evans started awake as the phone rang. He looked at the clock on his dresser. Okay, so it was eleven and he needed to be up anyways. He searched around on the floor by his bed for the cordless phone. He was pretty sure he had dragged it in here last night. On the third ring he located it under a pile of dirty laundry. He didn't want to think about how it got there. He didn't even get to say 'hello' when he answered the phone.

"Mornin' Kid," came Eric's voice over the line. "Start packing. Carter is picking you up in half an hour so you guys can be on the next flight to Reefside and you also need to call Jason."

"Wha-what?"

"You heard me. Doctor Oliver activated the distress signal. We are all congregating in Reefside by tonight to see what the trouble is. Wes has taken care of all the travel arrangements. We'll worry about hotels and stuff when we get there."

Cole felt overwhelmed. The last time someone had activated the distress signal was when Ashley had Brian. And it hadn't been Andros who activated it—it had been TJ because he had been afraid that Andros was going to have a heart attack. TJ had just called Leo so it would be a surprise for Andros.

"Just pack an overnight bag, call Jason and sit in front of your apartment complex and wait for Carter, all right?" Eric hung up the phone. Cole stared at the phone for a moment before throwing it on the bed and running into the living room to get his cell phone where he had Jason's number programmed in.

Jason Scott had happily been in the mountains with Shania Twain when the phone rang. After being unpleasantly jolted from his dream, he looked at the clock. It was ten. He probably should be up anyways to go see how Joey was handling opening the surf shop by himself. He picked up the phone.

"Talk to me."

"It's Cole. We all need to be in Reefside by tonight…"

While most of the former red rangers were being jolted out of pleasant sleeps by urgent phone calls, the one who had activated the phone circle sat in front of the control panel in his basement, wondering how the past two years had brought him to this. Tommy Oliver had never intended to become the mentor for the newest team of Power Rangers—Dino Thunder. He had found the Dino-Gems during that disastrous island research with Anton Mercer and had hidden them in case they were ever needed. He recognized their power, what they could do. He had Hayley make the morphers just in case. But he had never intended to use any of it.

What no one except for him and Hayley knew was that there were more than the five Dino-Gems. There were nine. Tommy had been watching all of them surface over the past few months. First, Conner McKnight, Kira Ford and Ethan James found the red, yellow and blue gems during that fateful detention the first day of school. Mesogog—a half dinosaur, half man whose ultimate goal was to turn Earth back to its prehistoric roots when dinosaurs reigned and who happened to be the evil this team was fighting—had found the black gem encased in some kind of crystal. Tommy had freed it and used the Black Dino Morpher to become to Black Ranger. Mesogog then found the white gem and used it to turn Trent Fernandez into an evil White Ranger.

Trent was now on their side. No one was quite sure what had brought that change about, but they were grateful for the extra help.

He had not planned on being stuck in his suit. His first battle with the evil White Ranger had left him encased in amber. When he got out of the amber, he had been unable to power down. That had left him in a huge mess. First of all, he was a science teacher at the local high school—Reefside High. He needed someone to take over his classes while he feigned a long term illness as he had told the principal. The principal, in her normal mode of being as unpleasant as possible, had Anton Mercer take over. According to the other Rangers, who had also happened to be students in his classes, Mercer had been out lately and the rumor was that Principal Randall was looking for a replacement.

He wished he wasn't stuck in his suit. Then most of the problems that plagued him would not be and much of his life would be easier. He might be able to answer the phone like a normal person or eat breakfast. His classes would be taught to his specifications and he wouldn't have to glean what he could from Conner, Ethan, Kira and Trent.

The phone rang upstairs. He sighed. He punched a few buttons on the control panel and a speaker phone came up in the lab.

"Hello?" he said into the speaker.

"Hey, bro, it's Jason. Just wanted to let you know that the message got through."

"Good," he said mournfully.

"You don't sound too happy about it."

"You'll see," he said simply and disconnected. However, the phone started to ring again immediately afterwards. He punched the buttons again.

"Hello?"

"Uh, hi. Is this Dr. Thomas Oliver?"

The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but Tommy couldn't place it. "Yes."

"Uh, it's Billy. I'm taking over your classes at Reefside and wanted to see what you were doing with the curriculum."

Tommy choked inside his helmet. He had not spoken to Billy in years aside from Christmas cards and here the man was, talking to him on the phone like nothing had happened at all. Since when was Billy a teacher? Last time Tommy checked, Billy had been working in some lab in Hawaii and, per Aisha who kept in pretty good contact with him, had gone onto the University of Hawaii to work on his Ph.D. What the Ph.D. was in she didn't say. All Tommy knew was that he had an M.S. in Physics from UCLA and he had done that in a ridiculously short period of time—six years as opposed to the eight that it took most.

"Are you still there?"

Tommy snapped to attention. "Yeah… I just wasn't expecting to hear from you after all this time."

Billy cleared his throat nervously. "I know it's been a while-"

"A while? Hell, Billy, you stopped talking to all of us when you went to Hawaii! All I've gotten from you in years is a Christmas card and now you're talking to me like nothing happened?" He sighed. "There's a lot you need to come clean about."

"I know, I know. Look can I meet you somewhere for coffee or something?"

Tommy was about to agree when he remembered that he was stuck in his suit. "I-I can't," he stammered. What kind of excuse could he offer that would prevent Billy from wanting to see him? Anything he thought of would only make Billy search him out.

"Why? You're not contagious are you?"

"No, nothing like that. It's just that my situation is complicated."

"What? Are you deformed beyond all imagination?"

"No…"

"Tommy, what's wrong?" Tommy remained silent. How could he tell Billy that he was the new Black Ranger and he was stuck in his suit? Billy obviously took his silence as a lack of an excuse and correctly too. "I'm coming over. Principal Randall gave me your address and I know enough of the town to get over there."

"No…" But Billy had already hung up the phone. "Damn!" He paused and then decided once he started swearing he could at least continue. "Damn! Damn! Damn!" Not only did he have eight former red rangers headed this way, Billy was coming too. He felt like smashing his head against the wall.

TJ glanced in his rearview mirror to make sure that Andros was still following him. He didn't know why he kept checking because the red Kia Sportage that Andros drove had been right behind him the entire time. He and Andros had decided to leave for Reefside at the same time and were going to carpool but had been hindered by the fact that Ashley refused to let Andros go anywhere without her since the baby was due any day. TJ hadn't thought it would be a big deal for Ashley to tag along—she got her mother to take Brian for the week, something the boy loved because Gramma spoiled him rotten. However, that had meant that they needed to take both their cars because they didn't know what could happen and Andros didn't want TJ stranded anywhere and visa versa.

It was actually a pleasant drive from Angel Grove to Reefside—about an hour. Since they left shortly after eleven, the sun was shining and the sky was blue. The way TJ went took them past the ocean for a long stretch of the trip, so the scenery was beautiful. Andros tended to prefer the faster freeway method, but TJ had talked him into the scenic route. If the baby was born during this stay in Reefside, then TJ doubted that Andros would have another imminent opportunity to do this drive.

Right now, they were going through winding forest roads. The scenery here was a different kind of beauty—the thick green trees and limited activity. The roads were also mostly dirt probably making the ride hell on Ashley, but this part couldn't be avoided. He glanced in his rearview mirror again and saw a car behind Andros—a forest green Explorer. What in the world? He knew that the only other people on the distress signal that might possibly drive were Wes and Eric, but they wouldn't have gotten here this quickly. Unless someone had an early flight and had rented that car… but TJ doubted that.

He took a sharp left turn onto the long dirt road that served as the drive to Tommy's house and looked back to make sure that Andros had followed him. The Explorer had followed them as well. Who in the world was in that car? TJ pulled his car next to a black Jeep that was parked by the house. Andros parked his Sportage next to TJ. TJ and Andros got out of their cars and watched the Explorer park next to them.

"Who is that?" Andros asked, as he rounded his car to help Ashley out.

"I don't know," TJ replied. "If it had been one of the guys, they would have been honking at us or something a long time ago."

Andros reappeared from the other side of his car with Ashley. He had an arm around her waist, supporting her. She didn't look entirely happy with the situation, but seemed resigned to it. They watched as the driver's side door to the Explorer opened and a man they didn't recognize got out. He had longish sandy blonde hair that was pulled back into a ponytail and wire-framed glasses. He was wearing a forest green t-shirt from the University of Hawaii and jeans with flip-flops.

"I didn't know Tommy was already expecting company," the man said.

"Who are you?" TJ asked, stating the question that was on everyone's mind.

The man laughed. "Excuse me, forgot to introduce myself. I'm Billy Cranston. I'm taking over Tommy's classes at the high school and needed to talk to him… Who are you?"

"You're the original Blue Ranger!" Andros blurted.

Billy laughed. "I am."

"So you and Tommy go way back?" TJ asked.

He nodded. "You could say that. I still don't know who you three are."

"I'm TJ," he said taking over introductions for their group. "This is Andros and his wife, Ashley."

"When's the baby due?" Billy asked Ashley.

"Any day now," she replied, her arms going over her large stomach as she smiled.

"I've got two daughters of my own," the former Blue Ranger said. Ashley looked up, interested in what he was saying.

"How old are they?" she asked.

"Fourteen and eight." He paused. "Been a long time since they were babies."

"Are you married?"

"I'm a widower."

Ashley gasped. "I'm sorry."

Billy shrugged. "It happened a long time ago. Why are you three here?"

"We came to see Tommy."

"That makes quite a few of us," he said with a grin. "Let's go see if he's home, shall we?"

Tommy didn't know what he was going to do. Hayley was sitting at the control panel to the computer, searching for a way to power him down before everyone started arriving. TJ and Andros were due at any moment. He knew why he had activated the distress signal. He needed help recovering the four Dino-Gems that were still out there before Mesogog found out about them and tried to take them for himself. If that happened, none of them would be safe. He figured that with nine of them in addition to the team and Hayley, they would have a better chance of finding them in a timely fashion.

Aside from finding the gems, their zords had taken a serious beating in the last battle and he needed help with the repairs besides himself and Hayley. The kids didn't know how to repair zords and everything that fell under that. He knew that TJ at least was good with things like that and probably Jason and Andros, maybe others. He wasn't sure. Mesogog was building up to something big and he felt like they might need the help if the attack came soon.

They had to find those gems though. He knew that the gems liked to remain in hiding until their owners came, but he had no way of knowing who the gems wanted as their owners. He had to keep them safe until the owners came to him. He had to…

He also hoped that Billy wouldn't come like he said he was going to. Not that he doubted for one moment the veracity of Billy's word, he just hoped that car trouble or some disaster had happened to him. He didn't want to deal with Billy's questions along with the others—not that Billy's questions would be much different, he would just want a more technical explanation of things and Tommy felt too exhausted to do that. And he was exhausted—physically, emotionally, mentally… he wanted to be free from his suit, eat a pizza and then crawl in bed for a month before facing the world again.

Glancing at the clock on the computer, he sighed inwardly. They would definitely be here any moment and for the rest of the day he could expect a wave of arrivals. First TJ and Andros followed by Eric and Wes. Leo and Jason would show up and finally Carter and Cole. And he would have to explain things four different times. There was no way he could make everyone wait until the final person arrived to start explanations.

The doorbell rang. Hayley glanced at him. "Do you want me to let them in?"

He nodded.

"What should I tell them?"

"The truth. Then let them down here to see me. I can explain the rest of the things that they will want to know. Just warn them that I will be in my suit since I'm stuck in it."

Hayley nodded and headed upstairs. Tommy buried his helmeted head in his arms at the control panel of the computer. Why had he started this? Why had he activated that damn distress signal? Why was everything so complicated? He wanted to crawl into a hole and hide from all of this.

To Be Continued...

Author's Note: Thanks for all the reviews! I really want to know what you guys think. For now, I'd like to do a few responses to reviews:

cmar- Wow! Your review has to be the most intelligent review I have ever gotten! As to the cell phone thing from chapter 1, you are absolutely right and chapter 1 will be changed with the next update to reflect that. As to the comment about Eric, I don't know much about Time Force admittedly and I know Eric is supposed to be something of a jerk. My take on his character is that he's mellowed out a little and learned to listen to others. Chapter 2 is also supposed to be kind of a bridge between 2 and 3, wrapping up loose ends from chapter 1, but I can see your point perfectly. Once more, thanks for the review! Keep the constructive comments coming!

white time ranger- Patience is a virtue.

jim hawking jr and Ranger Lover- thanks for the reviews! Glad you like it!

the-power-of-love- I'm glad you like Andros and Ashley. They're a favorite ranger couple of mind. I'm glad you like the story.