Two days later, Dustin looked up from his spot behind the cash register at Storm Chargers when the front door chime sounded. A young woman entered, looking around searchingly.

He eyed her surreptitiously. Not a classic beauty, but certainly pretty enough. Her dark blonde ponytail was sticking out the back of a black baseball cap and she was dressed in jeans and a beige T-Shirt sporting the Nike emblem. Dustin made a silent bet with himself which brand of sportswear she would be checking out first, but he lost it when she went right past the clothing racks and made a beeline straight for him.

"Hi, I'm looking for Dustin," she said.

"Then you're looking in the right direction." Dustin grinned at her flirtatiously. "What can I do for ya?"

The girl looked nervous. "Uhm, Tori and Shane told me that I might find them here, or that you could contact them for me."

Now Dustin's grin turned to a full-blown smile. "Hey, you must be Molly." When the girl nodded, he hopped across the counter. "Yeah, they told me about you. Great to meet you." He extended his hand and Molly took it.

"Likewise. I'm glad that there are still some of us left," she said, and the smile she had put on wavered a bit.

"Yeah. Not many, but a few at least," the Earth ninja replied, then quickly pointed to a small alcove off to the side of the counter. "Tori isn't here right now, but Shane is. Come on."

They went towards the small niche where Shane was stretched out on the couch, surrounded by several school text books, eyes glued to the TV screen hanging from the ceiling in the corner. Without taking his gaze off whatever show was so obviously fascinating him, the Air ninja motioned with the remote control. "Man, you've got to see this reverse backflip this guy just did. Check it out, there's the slow motion…"

Dustin leaned towards Molly. "SuperSkaters Semi Finals. He'll never get his studies done on time." Then, in a louder voice, the Earth ninja said, "Maybe Molly can help you study, dude, since you seem to be having such a hard time focusing."

"Huh?" Shane turned his head and his face lit up at the sight of Molly standing next to Dustin, hands buried in her jeans pockets and a nervous smile on her face.

"Oh, hi!" he exclaimed and rose from the couch, taking care not to appear too eager and actually jump up. Cool people didn't jump. Not even when they see the girl they hadn't been able to get out of their heads for the past two days.

Shane had been hoping Molly would show up here eventually. Their first encounter had ended too abruptly, and had left both him and Tori with the definite feeling that Molly hadn't been entirely truthful to them.

Not that they had been, either, but…

And later on Sensei had only added to the confusion.

They had gone straight to Ninja Ops to report the encounter to their teacher. Sensei Watanabe had been naturally curious about the escaped ninja up until Shane mentioned her name. At that, the guinea pig flinched noticeably, and his eyes opened so wide with surprise that Shane had been worried they would pop out of his head. Of course, Sensei being Sensei, he had recollected himself almost immediately, but had been clearly distracted for the rest of their conversation. Neither Tori nor Shane had wanted to appear too nosy, so they hadn't pressed the issue with their teacher, but it had left Shane's head buzzing with more questions than before. Questions only one other person could answer.

Thankfully, that person had just walked in the door.

"I was in the neighborhood…"Molly began, but the ensuing 'yeah, right' grins she saw passing between Shane and Dustin made her pause. "All right, fine, so I wasn't," she conceded with a shrug and fixed her eyes on Shane. "Truth is, my mind's been in overdrive ever since I met you and Tori. I thought maybe we could talk."
"Sure. Here, sit down." Shane gathered up some of the textbooks and tossed them onto the coffee table, catching Molly's inquisitive look at the titles in the process.

"English literature. Big test on the day after tomorrow. Blah." He wrinkled his nose and stuck out his tongue in mock disgust, and Molly couldn't help but laugh at the resulting face. She plopped down next to him on the couch, and Dustin settled onto the edge of the low table, facing them, curiosity plain on his face.

The girl came right to the point. "Look, I'm not good at this 'beating around the bush' stuff, so I'm gonna be honest with you." She fixed Shane with a pointed look. "I think it's pretty safe to say that neither of us has been straightforward with the other at that chance meeting on the school grounds. Am I right?"

Shane felt wedged between a rock and a hard place. Even though he sympathized very much with Molly's desire to find out as much as possible about the vanished ninjas, he simply couldn't divulge any information that would compromise the security of their secret Ranger identities. At first he also hadn't been convinced that she wasn't one of Lothor's minions, but the fact that Sensei obviously knew her was enough proof of trust for Shane.

Still, deciding just how much to tell her was going to be tricky. And since it involved evil ninjas, spaceships and alien monsters, he also couldn't rule out the possibility that she might just think they were all plain out crazy.

"Dustin! I need a hand here." Kelly's voice suddenly sounded from the main room, and with a sigh the brunet boy jumped up, holding his hands up to them. "Dudes, I'll be right back, ok? Don't start without me.
"I really wanna hear this," he mumbled to himself as he sprinted towards the cash register to help out Kelly.

Molly and Shane were left to awkwardly look at each other in silence, until Dustin returned a minute later.

"Man, it's jumping in here today," the Earth ninja said apologetically. "But, hey, I get off in a few minutes. What do you say we ditch this place for somewhere where we can talk better?"

Shane looked at Molly. "Wanna grab a burger somewhere?"

She shrugged. "Fine with me."

Five minutes later, with a last wave to Kelly, the three of them were off.

Revelations…

"An evil space ninja named Lothor?" Molly coughed, almost choking on her milkshake.

They were seated at the food court of a nearby shopping mall, and Shane's head came up, his eyes automatically scanning the immediate area to see whether anyone had overheard Molly's exclamation. But all around them people went about their business, blissfully oblivious. No one even looked in their direction.

Shane let out the breath he had been holding and returned her disbelieving gaze intently. "Look, I know how crazy this must sound…"

With a noise somewhere between a snort and a laugh, Molly looked towards Dustin for confirmation. The Earth ninja just nodded.

She shook her head incredulously and rubbed the bridge of her nose under her glasses, and the gesture reminded Shane vaguely of Cam. "Ok, let me just recap here…So you're saying this Luther…"

"Lothor."

"…Lothor, he and his goons have come to Earth from outer space, launched an attack on the Wind and Thunder Academies and is now holding all of the students and teachers captive on board his alien space ship? Trapped inside individual force field bubbles?"

Dustin nodded. "That about sums it up, yeah."

"Wow," was her only reply, but strangely enough, she didn't look half as perplexed as Shane and Dustin had expected. Then, suddenly, her posture relaxed and she leaned back into her chair, a small smile beginning to tug at the corners of her mouth.

"Man, that's a relief."

"Huh, relief?" Shane flashed Dustin a look. The bafflement on the brunet boy's face must have mirrored his own.

Molly nodded. "Yeah. This makes a lot of things so much easier now." She leaned forward again, fixing them both with an intense look. "Like telling you guys that…I already knew a lot of what you've just told me."

"Excuse me?" Shane's forehead wrinkled with bewilderment, and Molly took an audible breath before she continued.

"There are a few things you don't know about me. You see, all my life I've been able to…sense things in people. Feelings, moods, emotions."

"You mean, like…psychic?" Dustin asked, an intrigued look on his face.

"Yes, kinda like that. Only that I can't read people's minds or anything of that sort. I just pick up on their…psychic energies." Molly cast them another careful glance, gauging their reactions. "I never really knew what was wrong with me until I joined the academy, and Sensei Watanabe picked up on my, well, abilities, I guess you can call them. He was the first one to explain this whole psychic energy concept to me." Molly's eyes took on a faraway look until she apparently realized she was veering off the topic. She straightened up, refocusing. "And since the attack I have had these visions every time I get even close to the school grounds, because the residual psychic energies of all the students and teachers are still so strong there. I see these strange creatures shooting laser beams at the ninja students. There are explosions everywhere, and then…there's him." She shuddered visibly.

"Scary-looking dude in a leather mask and a long, kinda cool-looking black coat?" Dustin elaborated.

She nodded wordlessly, not even surprised anymore.

"Lothor," Shane confirmed grimly.

Molly stared into her milkshake. "After all these months, the creep finally has a name," she mumbled mainly to herself. But then her head suddenly jerked up and she fixed them with a narrow-eyed look. "How do you know all this anyways?"

Dustin shrugged nonchalantly. "Cam, Sensei Watanabe's son, told us. We got to the academy shortly after the attack and found him half-buried under some rubble. He saw the whole thing."

Molly was still skeptical. "But how would he know the name of the attackers' leader?"

"Actually, that we found out ourselves," Shane picked up the thread. "We fought Lothor a few times since the attack while trying to find out where the kidnapped ninjas were."

Molly's eyes grew wide. "You're kidding, right?"

The two young men shook their heads almost simultaneously. "I wish," Shane said, "We figured that the best way to find out what happened to the schools was to ask Lothor himself, so we kinda lured him back to Earth from his spaceship." Shane was hoping Molly wouldn't think to ask how they had done that, so he continued quickly, "Obviously we weren't able to get the ninjas back yet, but we found out a lot of stuff during those fights. The guy likes to brag, you know."

"But why would you do something so reckless?" Molly exclaimed. "You could have gotten killed. This guy is dangerous! Let the Power Rangers take care of him and his monsters."

Out of the corner of her eye, Molly caught the glance Dustin threw at Shane, but Shane seemed to deliberately ignore him. What Molly couldn't ignore, however, was the vibe of apprehension she suddenly perceived from the brunet boy at her mention of the Power Rangers. Shane leaned forward with an unreadable look on his face, placing his elbows on the table firmly. "The Power Rangers are doing a good job keeping the monsters out of Blue Bay Harbor, but we have our own agenda, and for that we need to get close to Lothor ourselves."

"Well, so why not work together with the Rangers?" Molly suggested.

Both young men were quiet for a moment, and the apprehensive vibes around them were almost tangible now.

"This is ninja business," Shane said simply, and there was a finality in his voice that told Molly that any further discussions of this subject would pretty much be fruitless. She sighed. "All right, fine. But I want in," she said determinedly, then held up her hand to stifle Shane's protest before he could voice it. "Stow it, Shane. As an Air ninja, I have an obligation to my school, not to mention that I have as much reason as you guys to want to see the ninjas back here safe and sound. Carmen, my best friend, is stuck inside some bubble on a UFO, and if I can help in any way to get her back, I will."

Her tone was now as final as Shane's had been, and the boys apparently got the hint.

"So how are you planning on freeing the students from this space ship, then?" she asked.

At this, Shane hesitated, his mouth moving silently, while Dustin coughed and scratched at the back of his neck.

They don't have a clue, Molly realized with a start. A notion Shane confirmed a moment later. "Uhm, we don't know yet, but we're working on it."

"But we're open to suggestions, if you have any," Dustin said, and now it was Molly's turn to look slightly sheepish.

"Ah, let me digest all the info here first, ok? Get used to this situation. I mean, even though I had those visions for months now, it's still kinda unsettling to suddenly have all this weirdness confirmed.
"Even for someone as strange as me," she added with a supposedly casual shrug.

Shane's reaction was instantaneous. "I don't think you're strange," he said resolutely.

"Yeah, me neither," Dustin was quick to agree, and Molly gave them both a grateful smile.

"Actually, I was wondering if you could do me a favor," Dustin conspiratorially leaned closer to her. "You see, there's this motocross race that I've signed up for next weekend, and maybe you could tell me who's winning…"

"Dustin!" came Shane's appalled cry.

"What? I just want to know whether I have a shot at it, that's all!" Dustin defended himself, a smug grin on his face.

Molly laughed. "Sorry, Dustin, but the visions don't work that way. I'm not clairvoyant."

The Earth ninja shrugged nonchalantly. "Oh well, it was worth a try." Then he glanced at his watch and ran a hand through his curls. "Oh man, speaking of moto…I gotta go. I'm meeting Blake and Hunter at the track." He leapt up from his chair, grabbed his backpack and patted Molly's shoulder in a gesture of goodbye. "I'll see you guys later, ok?"

After a quick rapping of knuckles with Shane, he was gone. Shane looked at Molly's furrowed brows and was pretty sure he knew what she was thinking.

"Blake and Hunter are the Thunder ninjas," he explained. "They're motocross nuts, just like him." He jerked his head into the direction Dustin had disappeared.

Molly nodded her head noncommittally. "But you're more into skateboarding, right?" she asked, recalling the show he had been watching when she had walked into Storm Chargers. At his nod, a crooked grin suddenly spread across her face. "Are you any good?"

He answered her hidden challenge with a grin of his own. "Tell you what – I'll let you judge for yourself." He chugged the last of his drink and gathered the empty food containers onto his tray. "I have to go practice for my skate demo tomorrow. Wanna come along and watch?"

He picked up his tray, heading for the trash container when he suddenly looked over his shoulder. "You can sense when I'm about to fall and warn me."

Molly couldn't help but chuckle while she rolled her eyes. "All right."

They spent the better part of the next two hours at the skate park, Molly watching from the top of a low wall where she sat cross-legged, alternating between teasing him and cheering him on.

And Shane found that he enjoyed both.

Feeling a bit audacious, Shane went down the half-pipe, going for a one-eighty backslide flip that unfortunately fell a little short, causing him to slide down the rest of the ramp on his butt.

Looking up into Molly's grinning face, he grumbled, "Weren't you supposed to warn me before I crash?"

Her grin never wavering, she held out her hand to him, pulling him up. "You fell too fast even for me to sense that."

Molly was a regular tomboy. A little while later, when Shane dared her to try a combo herself after yet another one of her teasings, he was surprised to see her rise to the challenge without hesitation.

Of course it didn't take long until she was flat on her back at the bottom of the skate ramp, but she laughed good-naturedly while Shane retrieved the banged-up skateboard and helped her back to her feet.

"All right," she grinned, wiping the dust from her jeans. "I know when I'm beat."

"Hey, you lasted longer than Dustin or Tori when they tried it," Shane replied. "Not bad for a first-timer."

They went back to the low stone wall where they found a spot right under a giant sycamore, the tree spreading the gift of shade on this hot summer afternoon. They shared a soda, and Shane invited Molly to his skate demo tomorrow. He was surprised to feel his heart skip a beat when she accepted.

That night, alone in his bed, Molly's image on his skateboard was the last thing Shane saw in his mind before he drifted off to sleep.

Secrets…

She was right there the next day, standing between Tori and Dustin as they assiduously cheered him on during his turn at the demo.

And she was right there as well, patting him on the back and trying to cheer him up, when he ended up in third place.

"I tell you what," she said to him as much as to the others. "I know a place where you'll come out on top every time. Come on."

She led them to a nearby amusement park, and Shane's mood increased significantly during the next few hours as the four of them tried their bests to beat each other at Top Skater, Motor Raid, Killer Instinct, Ultimate Pinball and half a dozen other games throughout the huge arcade. Only after they had exhausted all of their funds, they reluctantly agreed that it was time to leave.

Outside, night had settled over Blue Bay Harbor like a warm layer of weightless black silk. Tori naturally offered to drive them all home and Dustin and Shane were already piling into the van before Shane realized that Molly was hanging back.

"You coming?" he called, but Molly shook her head.

"No, I'm ok. I, ah, I live just down the street from here. Hardly five minutes to walk. I'll catch you guys tomorrow."

She turned to leave, and the three Wind ninjas exchanged puzzled looks before Shane scrambled back out of the van. He caught up with Molly after a few steps.

"Hey, it's no biggie driving you home," he said as he caught her arm. "Tori doesn't mind. Seriously."

An unsettled expression came over her face before she quickly turned her head away. "I'll be fine. It's really just a short walk. No need for Tori to bother driving me," she said quickly, already picking up her pace again. Shane looked towards the van, waved for Tori to go ahead and leave, then fell into step besides Molly.

"All right, then I'll walk you home," he offered, but the dark-blonde ninja shook her head, a little too vigorously.

"There's really no need. I'm a big girl, I can take care of myself," she said, but her grin was forced. That just made Shane even more adamant.

"I'm sure you can, but that's just not the way I do things," he said as he steadfastly continued to walk next to her. "If Tori didn't have her van, I'd walk her home, too, even though I know for a fact that she doesn't need any kind of protection." He gave her a determined look for emphasis. "End of discussion. Now, which way to your place?"

Molly's shoulders sagged, and with a resigned look on her face, she led the way.

The walk took a little longer than five minutes and was conducted in a somewhat awkward silence, but at the end Molly stopped right outside a guardhouse next to the front entrance of a posh gated community. The tall wrought-iron fence was ornate, but had an impenetrable look to it. The guardhouse was empty, and Shane could have sworn he saw a look of relief on Molly's face at that. She turned towards the gate's access panel, and her hand lingered over it for a moment before she finally punched in a five-digit entry code. While the gate swung open, Molly turned to Shane.

"Thanks for the escort," she said. "I'll see you around, ok?" She suddenly seemed in a hurry to get inside.

Shane scrambled for something, anything to say to prolong her departure, and he wasn't even sure why. "So, are you gonna stop by the store tomorrow, then?"

"Yeah, sure, sometime after school, okay?" Molly cast a nervous glance over her shoulder, and Shane was wondering what, or who, she was scanning for. Her parents maybe, watching from the window of one of those fancy houses behind her?

Molly focused her gaze back on him. "Listen, it's getting late and by now my parents are probably wondering where I am…"

Shane let himself catch the hint and backed off from the gate, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. "All right, I guess I'll see you later, then."

"Good night," Molly said, but for a moment longer she lingered, looking like she was about to say something more. Then she apparently thought better of it and disappeared through the gate without another word, leaving a perplexed Shane staring after her until the gate clanked shut. He finally turned and walked away, but he hadn't gone ten steps before he stopped again.

Something just wasn't right. The way she kept insisting she could get home on her own just to end up here, in this fancy place…

'Maybe she really is just one of those rich girls who is for some unaccountable reason ashamed of her good fortune,' he though, but the nagging feeling in the back of his head just wouldn't let up. Her obvious reluctance against him walking her home had sounded too much like Blake and Hunter when they had tried their best to keep the Winds from finding out what dump they were forced to live in back before they had moved into Ninja Ops.

The image of her hand hovering over the gate panel reappeared before his mental eyes. She hadn't seemed to know the code; it had looked to Shane more like she was trying to sense the number combination. And with the kind of powers she had…

Shane looked back at the closed gate, then slunk into the shadows between two parked cars. He'd give it five minutes, then go home.

It took less than three.

The gate opened with a slight creak, and Molly's slim form emerged. She quickly glanced left and right, then started back towards Main Street at a brisk pace.

'I knew there was something funny going on,' Shane thought grimly as he watched her retreating silhouette a moment longer before he took off after her, taking care to stay in the shadows of the buildings along the way.

Molly jogged along Main for almost ten minutes before she turned into a smaller side street. By now the steel, glass and whitewashed brick houses and stores had given way to older, more run-down housing projects, and the area was getting more dirty and trash-littered by the minute. Shane was growing increasingly uneasy as he found himself looking over his shoulder and scanning the shadows all around him. Where in the world was she going?

A few yards later his question was answered when Molly stopped in front of an old and decrepit three-story brownstone. She tilted her head as if to scan the upper floor windows, stayed in that position for a long moment, then started towards the door.

TBC…