Live Like You Were Dying

Title: Live Like You Were Dying
Author: kazeko
Show: Power Rangers
Rating: PG 13
Chapters: ?
Series: no, also no relation to "Children of the Gods"
Multipart: yes
Time: About a year after Power Rangers in Space, changing the Power Rangers timeline after that
Couple(s): Tommy/Kimberly, Jason/Kat, Tanya/Adam
Disclaimer: Saban and Disney own Power Rangers and they don't deserve it if they won't release MMPR on DVD!
Disclaimer 2: I own everything else, including characters, other planets, and the plot.

Chapter 10: Billy's Gift
"I don't know why I can't get a trace on Kimberly. It's almost like she's being blocked, but it doesn't feel like Dervalet's current Mage. Maybe he got a new one?"

Tommy shook his head at Jason's suggestion. "Unlikely. He only had the one Mage when he came—Azaemer, I believe—and he cannot call another. We are the only ones who can open that gateway."

The two looked up as Rocky, Adam, Tanya, and Zack reentered the apartment, Aisha, Kat, and Trini helping a steadily-weakening Kimberly sit in the nearest chair, a somber young Jason and Tommy bringing up the rear. Jason glanced at his future self and looked away, and the two Mages exchanged a startled glance. "What's wrong with your younger self, Bro?"

"I have no idea," Jason murmured, giving no outward sign of the tight telepathic communication. He reached out with his mind and included Kimberly in the exchange, wondering if she had noticed anything strange.

"Yeah, I guess. He was a little late to the dojo, and he seemed a little worried and thoughtful. He talked to Tommy and they both clammed up, pulling away from the rest of the group. I know he'll never tell me what he's thinking, but I might be able to enlist Kat or Rocky's aid." She paused, knowing that Kat could tell she was conversing with her husband and soul-brother as she tilted her head, glancing at the three small crystals lying on the table between the Mages. "How did your search go?"

"We didn't find either of them, Beautiful."

Kimberly stifled a sob and turned away, gaining control of her emotions as the room silenced. "That's okay; I'm sure she's fine." Kimberly clenched her fists as silvery light snaked across her body again, the visible deterioration of the would-be-queen pulling her husband to her side. Tommy wrapped his arms around his wife, holding her as her shaking subsided. "I don't think Dervalet has them anymore, Kimberly. I think maybe your younger self managed to get Shana away from him. Don't lose hope; we'll get her back in time for the transfer."

"You don't have much time," she whispered, struggling to stand. Tommy easily scooped her into his arms and carried the slight woman, heading for Tanya's room, taking Kimberly to what he knew would be her death bed. As the three Mages vanished into the next room, Aisha pulled the other Rangers to one side, tears in her dark eyes.

"Look, they're magical locator spells are wonderful things when they're not being blocked, but we've forgotten that we're human and we used to be Rangers. We have other ways to find Kimberly and Shana."

"Aisha's right. Some of us still can be looking for Kimberly and Shana the old-fashioned human way, the Internet, and the rest of us can head out to the ruins of the old Command Center and see if there's anything left we can use." Jason looked around, counting heads. "Okay; Tommy, you, Tanya, Adam, Kat, and I will work on finding Kimberly, while Trini, Zack, Aisha, and Rocky will dig up the old base. This makes me wish Billy were here again—he'd find her in a second."

"I know," Trini sighed, "but we can pull it off."

Tanya pointed at the computer on the other side of the couch. "Adam and I will work from here; you three can go to the dojo."

The nine ex-Rangers nodded and split, Jason glancing at Kat before turning back to Tommy. The white Ranger shrugged and headed for Jason's apartment above his dojo, heading for the pair of computers the ex-Red Rangers kept there. "You'll just have to talk to her about what you heard," he murmured. "You have to decide if what you heard is true and what you want to do about it."

"That's just it, Tommy. I have no idea. It's all so confusing. Why can't love be simpler and why is it so hard to decipher your own feelings?"

"I don't know. I still haven't figured everything out, but I can tell you that if you ever find love, real love, don't ever let her go. Fight for her, and don't make the mistakes I did. You don't want Kat to end up like Kimberly."

Jason groaned and leaned back in the chair, smiling when Kat handed him a glass of water. "I swear, she just vanished off the face of the Earth!"

"No luck?"

"None. I wonder how Tommy's doing?"

Kat glanced through the door to Rocky's room where Tommy was deep in research mode. He wasn't using just human methods and the internet to scan for his lost love; he was also tapping into the system of back doors and digital pathways Billy and Alpha 5 had built to research other things, especially Ranger-related ones. He figured that if they could use that database and system to find Kimberly in Lord Zedd's palace on the Moon, he could use it to find her on Earth. However, Billy's safeguards were incredibly difficult to crack through, and he had only been partially successful. Kat's summary was brief. "He never loses hope. If Kimberly wasn't sleeping in Tanya's room, I'd doubt that Dervalet left her alive."

"I'm beginning to fear the same thing, though." Jason sighed as Kat began to massage some of the tension out of his shoulders, sighing as his muscles stretched and relaxed. "That feels wonderful. Thanks."

"You know, I was talking to your future self earlier, and I think he's lonely."

"I know he is. I heard him talking to Tommy before they did their spell. They had no idea I was there, of course."

"Then maybe you can tell me why your future self is so much in love with me."

Jason whirled around in his seat, shocked. "You know?"

"He's not much better than you at hiding his true feelings," Kat smiled, pulling up her own chair. "It kind of surprised me, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that, though I finally admitted that I couldn't be with Tommy, I never considered that I could be with someone else. Now that I think about it, I've kind of been sulking the past couple of years. I never thought about anything beyond my failed relationship with Tommy. Seeing them from the future, I realized that I can't keep holding onto that fantasy any longer. No matter when Kimberly dies, she and Tommy will be together and if I don't try to figure out my feelings, I will be alone forever. Besides, I don't want you to turn out as lonely as the Mage Jason is."

"What should we do about it?"

Kat smiled. "Well, most people who are trying to figure out how much they like each other go out on a date of sorts."

Jason let his smile join the blonde Aussie's as he nodded. "That works for normal people. If we were Kimberly and Tommy, we would have started out fighting each other and then grown closer as we fought Rita until I lost my power and you were there for me and I finally found the courage to ask you out on a date."

"I wish I could have seen some of that," Kat laughed, trying to envision a shy Tommy stumbling over his words as he desperately tried to invite Kimberly to a dance.

"It was nice watching their relationship grow. I always wanted a relationship like that."

Kat placed a friendly hand on Jason's cheek. "Then we'll take it slow and see, shall we? Maybe we'll know the answer before Baliree comes."

"If she comes, Kat, and we figured out what we mean to each other, I won't leave you behind. I think that's what older Jason was trying to say to you."

"We'll see."

"Tommy, I found some of Billy's old codes. They're musical, which is why you might be having trouble."

"Can you pipe them though the communicator?"

Tommy heard a brief burst of static as Rocky fiddled with the communicator and turned on the console. A simple tune with a complicated harmony filtered through the tiny speaker and into the microphone of the computer, and the line of code Tommy had been trying to crack finally blinked green and opened a huge file. Rocky sent another code, similar to the first, and another group of files became visible. "How's that?"

"Perfect! Thanks, man. Let me know if you find anything else."

"Will do. I doubt it, since the damage is so extensive, but we found some of Billy's star charts, and there is a planet dubbed 'Shamirin Prime.' Apparently Billy, Zordon, and Alpha knew about the Adamarei Alliance, at least in passing. There's some sort of com code here, labeled for a Duchess Baliree and one for Queen Anarii. I also found a file labeled 'Mages'. The only name I recognize is Azaemer."

"Azaemer? Like Dervalet's Mage?"

"Yeah, I guess. I'll send it to Billy's little file system that you found and you see if you can determine how useful this is. Does Kat still have that PDA? I'm sure you can just download Billy's files and especially his codes in case they come in handy later."

"Good idea, Rocko. I guess I'll go back to searching."

"Just a sec, Tommy. There's this one file I found with the Mages bit that you should look at. Billy named it 'Shana Rose'. You might want to ask your future self what the name means in their language. It's a sound file, but not really music. I'd put that on the PDA in case we need it."

"Will do. Teleport back when you finish; if we haven't found anything, Jase, Kat, and I will still be here." Tommy turned the communicator off and sighed as he glanced at the names of the files filling his screen. He changed to a more manageable list view, grouping the files by type and sorting them into folders. It looked like Billy had dumped all of that information into one big file and double-encoded it just before leaving for Aquitar, but why? The names meant nothing to him. "Zameri'net," Tommy murmured. Shrugging, seeing no files with English names, he double-clicked the file and watched as Word struggled to life, lines of strange words and letters scrolling across the screen. A dialogue box popped up, asking 'do you want Dictami to Translate?'

"What's 'Dictami'?" Tommy wondered out loud.

To his shock, a small icon-like person no more than two inches tall appeared in the corner of his screen, dressed in blue, a Dragon crouched behind him. "Hello," the tiny man smiled. "My name is Dictami, and I am an interactive Shamiret Translation machine. I can speak seventy-seven languages and their accompanying dialects from the Adamarei Alliance and hundreds of languages and dialects from the planet Earth, Protectorate of Azareth Region. I was created by William Cranston after contact with the Shamirii was made and a treaty established between Duchess Baliree of Azareth with the blessing of Queen Anarii and Zordon of Eltar in the name of Earth."

"Zordon made a treaty with the Shamirii and never told any of us?"

"Yes, many decades ago. He never thought to mention them since they are currently trying to cure a plague that has ravaged their systems for centuries."

"Oh, right. Well, if these files of Billy's are in Shamiret, can you translate and tell me what it is?"

"Yes, I can. Please tell me your name."

Tommy raised an eyebrow. "Tommy Oliver."

Dictami grew slightly larger as his Dragon curled up and went to sleep, apparently the signal that his name was acceptable to the system. The strange letters shifted and changed to English, and Dictami waved his hand to highlight key sections. "This is the treaty Zordon of Eltar and Baliree of Adamarei created. Is there anything you'd like to know about the treaty?"

"Can I save it in English?"

"Done."

"Can you translate the file names?"

Word closed and the Dragon vanished, obviously keyed to the program, and Dictami stood at the bottom edge of the file folder Tommy had opened. "Zameri'net means 'Treaty of Coexistence'. That is what made Earth a Protectorate."

"That one, 'Mages', is in English. Rocky said that he recognized the name of one of the Mages in that file, Azaemer."

"Azaemer is mentioned many times. I imagine Billy left that file in English as part of his own notes since he never completely learned Shamiret written language. The Mage Azaemer, formerly a diplomat, helped to negotiate the Earth-Adamarei Treaty."

Tommy smiled as a sudden idea struck him. "Hey, Dictami, what else can you sift through?"

"I can find anything through the human interactive database known as the 'internet' that links all information if one knows where to look. Is there something you would like me to find?"

"Yeah, a woman. Her name is Kimberly Ann Hart, and she was last seen Miami, Florida, before the three Shamirin Mages from the future arrived."

Dictami nodded and minimized the folder, opening the Internet Explorer window and beginning his search. The Dragon reappeared, glancing up now and then as files and pictures filled the page. The newest one was almost two months old. "There doesn't seem to be anything useful in the public domain. Dastirri will help me enter the not-so-public domain."

"You can hack into secured sites?"

"Dastirri can. She contains all of the codes and software Billy used to track Zedd's movement and to download experimental technology that he used to keep the Zords you used up-to-date. Give us a second." Dictami blinked, and the screen showed a short piece of a video obviously from a security tape, showing Kimberly walking away from her apartment building with a tall man. The man exuded evil, his burgundy eyes shaded and shifty, his black hair pulled back to reveal the sharp lines of his face.

"Dervalet," Tommy whispered. "Why would she go away with him?"

"Unknown. Checking." The screen focused on a small corner of the picture, showing a dark blue car that seemed to be rented. Dervalet and Kimberly climbed in and it sped away. Dictami froze the image and enhanced the license plate, a list of possible numbers scrolling along the edge of the screen. A small box appeared on top of the list and blinked as Dastirri entered one of her codes, blinking and allowing access to the rental car company's database of license numbers. One turned red and the rest vanished as Dictami pulled up the information for that car. "The car is rented under the name Derrick Lin. I am running a search on the name now." With the little Dragon's help, Dictami pulled up another file, listing an apartment in Miami rented to Derrick Lin with Andrew Merit and Kali Lin listed as occupants. "Here. This is where he took her."

Tommy's cry of triumph summoned Jason and Kat to his side, and he downloaded Dictami and Dastirri to Kat's PDA, slipping the small wireless device into his pocket. As an afterthought, Tommy downloaded the treaty and the sound file Rocky had thought was strange. Calling Rocky, he gave the second Red Ranger the address and sent a brief message to tell his older self where they were headed. The nine ex-Rangers teleported to Miami once more.

TBC