Now, on with the Story!
Dr. O, Can We Help?
"Mornin' Beautiful," Tommy said, as Kim laid back down in bed next to him and he looked over at her, wondering what time she had gotten out of bed this morning to feed Angie. He knew that she had woken her up, as neither of them had been in bed when he woke up a few hours ago and then went back to sleep, out of habit. He had gotten used to it, as she had told him she would take care of Angie until she had to go back to work too. It was too much of a nuisance for him with the way his job was right now. He could only hope that she had not been up the whole time, though. He really didn't want her to have dealt with a sleepless night after the battle they had gone through yesterday. Her body was probably begging her to get some sleep and he could only hope that she would be able to do that for a little while this morning. "You okay?"
"Yeah, breakfast is on the table. Angie woke me up at about three this morning and by the time she went back to sleep, I thought that I'd go ahead and fix you breakfast. There was no need for me to come back up here to just have to turn back around. Have a good day, Tommy. I'm going to try to get a couple more hours of sleep," Kim said, as he leaned over to give her a kiss on the cheek and then go take a shower.
He had gotten used to leaving the two of them to go to school in the morning, but it was still hard to deal with it when she had, had a rough night. It wouldn't be a big deal if he didn't have to work, as he could take care of Angie until Kim had gotten her sleep out, but that wasn't going to happen anytime soon and it was going to be worse when she went back to work. He just prayed that Angie would start sleeping through the night sometime soon, so that Kim could get the extra rest she needed, especially after a rough battle.
"Thanks, sweetie and I'll look after her until I leave to go to work. Sorry she kept you up last night," Tommy said, as he noticed she was already back to sleep and he would gladly do what he said as long as he could.
She had been doing other things with the time that she was supposed to use for sleep and he knew that she had done it so he would be able to go to school today. There was nothing that he could do to change Angie being cranky last night, but he hoped that she would let Kim sleep some this morning. He knew how much she needed the rest and he could only hope that she would get it today, as this afternoon was bound to be busy for them as they had many improvements to work on, namely trying to get the rangers used to the power boosters. They were nowhere near as comfortable as they should be with their power boosters by now and it was starting to worry them some.
Charlie's POV
Well we slept on everything that we found out last night and I know my sleep was not peaceful. I had dreams of horrible accidents occurring with the rangers and all because Ashley and I did not offer our services to the rangers. I do not want any of those dreams to become a reality that I will have to live with for the rest of my life. So, I am going to do everything that I can to keep that from happening, even if Ashley doesn't agree to what I think we should do about this.
My gut tells me that I have to tell Dr. O what I learned last night. He deserves to know that we know about the position that they are in and maybe he'll be able to use us, somehow. I don't know how he could use us, but I think that he could find a way if he looked hard enough. I know that Ashley was right when she said that they shouldn't be doing this job with a baby at home, but I wonder lots of things about that being the case and why it happened. Like how did they became rangers in the first place? I mean this opportunity doesn't just fall out of the sky, I think you have to be selected for it or something like that. And why in the world are they rangers now, at their age? It doesn't make any sense to me that they would be doing this unless they didn't have any other choice. I just hope that at the absolute least they'll answer these questions that I have and any others that come to mind as the day goes on.
At School
"Good morning class," Tommy said as he entered his classroom and sat down behind his desk and he watched as the noise level dropped. He carefully placed his books in front of him, making sure that he had managed to grab all of them this morning. He had thought that he had had all of them yesterday, but he had left a few at home, but luckily for him, Dennis had a few extra teachers' books in his room. If he hadn't, he was not sure that he would have been able to get through a lesson at all yesterday and Principal Randall had observed him, which was something that he hated to deal with. She had not even bothered to tell him that she was coming and his first observation was supposed to be a scheduled observation, but Principal Randall didn't do things the way that other principal's would. He had learned that a long time ago, but it still was not pleasant to deal with. "Well, if you have me later on today, I hope that you have done your homework. You will probably have a quiz to deal with those problems."
"Dr. O, I didn't know that we had homework," Charlie said, from the doorway with a look of the utmost seriousness in his eyes.
He knew that he had to send this message to Tommy as quickly as he could or he would not be able to talk to him until much later today. He wanted to give him enough of a heads up to know to let Tommy figure out what he was going to do about the situation. If it was as complicated as he thought it was going to be, it was going to take Tommy most of the day to figure out what needed to be done.
"Charlie, what are you doing here? Why aren't you in homeroom?" Tommy asked, as he stood up and headed towards the door. He knew that this was odd, but it must be important for him to have come by this early in the morning. He would usually come by later on if he needed to talk about something, but this seemed to be the type of something that he needed to talk about right away. That scared Tommy, but he could only hope that Charlie was serious about whatever they had to talk about and that it was just something silly. He didn't know if he could handle any more problems popping up right now. "Talk quietly until I get back."
"I came here to ask you about something that I probably shouldn't know about, but I found out about," Charlie said, as Tommy looked at him and then thought for a few seconds about what it could be.
He was dumbfounded but he figured it could not be that bad. There was not much that people could find out about him that would honestly make him worry about how they had gotten the information and if he had that type of information, he was going to ask where he got it. He could only pray that it was not one of his rangers, although if he was asking to help, that would be welcome. They needed the help as much as they could get right now, considering everything that was going on around their home at the present time.
"Well, what it is?" Tommy asked as Charlie looked down at the floor and then sighed. He and Ashley had agreed to offer their help, but he had no clue how to explain all of this to Tommy without being backhanded through the wall within the first few words. He had seen Tommy lash out before in tense situations and this could become very tense if he said things the wrong way.
"I saw you and your wife last night at the dojo," Charlie said as Tommy nodded his head, as he had expected them to see her walk into the dojo last night. He honestly doubted that they hadn't seen her, as some of the newer students made some remarks around him about her and he had to set them straight rather quickly. He wanted them to know she was off limits, had a baby, and was married to him, which they had gotten the picture of after the way she greeted him. The two of them had learned how it was best to address that situation, especially around teenagers.
"Why is that out of the ordinary?" Tommy asked as that had happened often enough that everyone saw her at least once a week when she came into the dojo to see him. "Everyone saw the two of us last night."
"The two of you were in your office. We heard whoever that was talking to you. I know this sounds odd, but is there anyway that Ashley and I can help you?" Charlie asked as Tommy dropped a folder that he had held in his hands from pure shock and did not even attempt to reach down to pick the papers up off the floor.
How could he have forgotten about the two of them being in Rocky's office last night? Kim was going to kill him when she heard about this, especially if she had not gotten any sleep this morning. He could just imagine the hell he was going to catch if she was in a bad mood when he walked in this afternoon. It was bad enough to almost tempt him to go to the dojo first, but he knew that Kim would be fine, after the first hour or so after hearing the news.
"How did you? Charlie, we'll talk about this later. I can't say anything to you at school, there is no protection here, but you and Ashley can me meet me in my room after school. I'll need you to come with me to my house in order to talk about all of this. We'll see what we can do about this, but there may be absolutely nothing that we can do," Tommy said as he glanced around the hallway.
He was shocked that they had caught them, but if they could help, it would be worth them finding out about everything that they were doing. He just hoped that no one else found out, they couldn't exactly risk that type of information leaking out right now. If Cassidy got her hands on that type of information, she would have a hay day, although Tommy would try his best to keep that from happening, even if it meant having Cassidy come in for permanent detention.
"Alright, Dr. O. Thanks," Charlie said, as he turned to run to his first period class, hoping that he would not be too late, as Ms. Williams would not be happy.
At the Command Center
"Tommy, how was…school?" Kim asked, as he let go of her and she saw who was behind him. The look on his face told her not to ask why they were there, although she was not able to stop her natural impulse to do so quickly enough. She was still exhausted and she knew that if she didn't try to stop it, Tommy might be mad, but she just had to know. She was in a good mood and she could only hope that he was in a good mood himself. "Why?"
"We'll explain, Mrs. Oliver. We didn't mean to find out," Charlie said, as Kim looked at him and then back to Tommy before she walked into the living room and sat down on the couch. She didn't understand why they were there and she was not going to go towards the command center until she knew what was going on. Then she might head that way, but only if Tommy seemed to think that that was a wise idea. She knew better than to walk towards the command center and give away that there was something down there. They had far too much to lose if the wrong person found out about them being rangers.
"What do they need to explain?" Kim asked as Tommy sat down next to her and rubbed one of her shoulders as calmly as he could, not knowing what he reaction would be to this news, but he prayed for shock. If she was shocked she would sit there in silence once Charlie started and he knew exactly what that would mean for him, as he would have to brace himself for a punch or two when it finally sunk in with her. That, however, was better than her standing up and yelling at him for letting the information get out. He couldn't take her being mad at him tonight, as he just wanted to be able to get some rest.
"They just need to talk to us about something," Tommy said, as Kim looked at him with a question in her eyes. This didn't sound good at all, but she trusted him on this and was just going to go with the flow and hope that doing so wouldn't make her irate.
"Mrs. Oliver, last night, when you came to visit, we were in Rocky's office. Dr. O made us talk to each other. We had, had a fight yesterday and he wanted us to talk, not that we blame him, we're fine now. Well, we saw the two of you leave and we want to know if we can help," Charlie said, as Kim looked between him and Tommy, trying to figure out if she had heard this right. He just had to be kidding her that they had seen them teleport out. She could only imagine what Zordon would have done to them if he had heard that type of news come from some teenagers when they were younger. How could they be so foolish as to forget to check to make sure no one could see them?
"How could you forget?" Kim asked, slapping Tommy on the back of the head before thinking for a few seconds. They could use the help, there was no doubting that one, but would their old powers take to them at all? They weren't sure that the Dino Thunder powers would transfer the way that their others had in the past, but it was worth a try to do so. If they did, the two of them might be able to sit out some more where they could make sure Mesogogg didn't try anything tricky, like kidnapping Angie or another ranger. "You really want to do this, though?"
"Yeah, if we can. I know that we might not be able to do that, but we can't say that we didn't try," Ashley said as Kim and Tommy looked at each other.
They had never had someone come ask to help, besides Katherine, and they weren't really sure if they could do what they were thinking of doing. What would Zordon have told them to do if they were in this very situation? What was Alpha going to say to them when they brought two complete strangers into the command center? To be honest, they had no clue what was going to happen, but they had to try, things had become too risky in Reefside for them to sit back and relax. There was a time a place for every battle, this battle just happened to be right around the corner and they needed all of the help that they could get.
"Alright, but don't be surprised if Alpha does not take to this idea very well. We actually don't know what he will think about this idea," Tommy said, as Ashley and Charlie looked at them as if they were crazy. What kind of a name was Alpha?
"Oh man, he might go crazy Tommy. After all these years we get caught, I don't think he is going to take that well," Kim said as Tommy just nodded his head.
"I'm sorry, but who's Alpha?" Charlie asked, as Kim and Tommy walked them into the kitchen and then Tommy reached to open a well-concealed hatch in the floor.
"You'll see," Kim said with a smile as Ashley and Charlie walked into the command center and stared around the room, wondering what half of the things were in there. Then they saw this little robot teetering towards them and they wondered exactly what they had gotten themselves into by volunteering to help them. They were not planning to take orders from a robot, but they would if they had to. They knew that things would change in their life when agreed to at least try to help Tommy and Kim.
"Kim, Tommy. What are you doing?" Alpha asked as the two teens eyes widened even more when they heard him talk and then they backed towards the wall, trying to test what were the safe and hostile areas, if there were any of those areas in this room.
"They, accidentally, saw us teleport out of the dojo last night and they want to help us, if they can. We need that help and it can't hurt to try to see if they are receptive to our powers," Tommy said, as Alpha looked at him and tried to judge the teens, as he walked over to get Kim and Tommy's former morphers. He was just going to have to trust that they were right this time, if not, it the consequences were likely to kill them. He had no clue what they would do about the teens that knew about them now if they did not receive any powers, but for some reason they were trusted, so he only hoped that Tommy and Kim were right.
"So, you think that they'll be able to take your old powers?" Alpha asked, as Kim and Tommy nodded their heads yes. It was a simple test to see if they would take to the powers. If their gems would glow in their hands, then they were going to become rangers. If not, the would be right back where they started, but at least that was two more people they would not have to go through later on.
"We get powers?" Ashley asked, as Kim and Tommy chuckled. They volunteered to do this, what they didn't know was that they were planning to make them full rangers, which was scary if you had never had it happen to you before.
"Yes, Ashley. It's the only way that you can fight against some of these creatures. If you fight without them, you wind up with bruises like this," Kim said, as she pulled up her shirt to reveal a bruise on her upper shoulder, which she had discovered at about four-thirty this morning, while trying to rock Angie back to sleep. She had not mentioned it to Tommy when she saw him for a few seconds this morning, but she was sure that he expected her to have some bruises, although maybe not this bad. She had been morphed when she fought last night. His eyes widened dramatically when he saw it and then he pulled himself back from saying anything, he knew that she did not need him to come down on her. She already knew that she shouldn't be putting herself in the position that she was in, but she had to fight in order to have a chance to have a normal life some day. "You don't want to have to deal with these."
"But the two of you have powers," Charlie said, trying to understand why they had bruises that looked like that.
He had seen bruises similar to that on Tommy at the dojo several times and he had wondered what they were from, but had never asked about it. He didn't think that Kim would beat him or something, but now it made sense, although it still did leave the question as to why they had them in the first place. Weren't their powers supposed to protect them from something like this happening to their bodies?
"We know, but we have different powers from our dino ranger counterparts. Our powers are stronger and they do things to our bodies if we have them for too long. That's why the other rangers haven't come in yet, they can't. They don't want to suffer from the side affects," Tommy said as they nodded their heads as Alpha placed the gems in each of the teenagers' hands. They glowed just as brightly in these two teens' hands as they did in Kim and Tommy's hands when they had first grabbed them, which relieved them of finding two other rangers in a matter of days.
"Looks like we have two new rangers," Alpha said, as he removed the dino gems from their hands and settled them in a morpher and communicator. "These are yours, there are some things that you must know, though."
"What type of things?" Ashley asked, as she placed the pink communicator on her wrist and then looked up to see a video was about to be played on the computer. She could only think about some of the science videos she had been forced to watch over the past week and it gave her a headache to think about watching another one. She couldn't believe that Dr. O would decide to show them school videos now though. "We have to watch a video? Come on, Dr. O I've had enough of watching videos from things that you teach about lately."
"It's not just any type of video, Ashley. This is the history of the power rangers and the evils that we have fought over the years. Lord Zedd and Rita Replusa are back, do not let that video fool you; they are just as vicious now as they were then. If you have any more questions, we'll answer them after you see this," Tommy said as Kim walked over and picked Angie up out of the crib that they had placed in the command center. As much as they hated to admit it, they knew that this was the best thing for them to do in order to keep her safe. They had to keep an eye on her and this was all that they could do to make that work without too many complications, especially when a battle started while one of them was at home with her. "She alright?"
"Yeah, she wasn't too fussy this morning after you left. I just haven't had a great day. I couldn't get back to sleep this morning once you had left," Kim said, as Tommy gave her a questioning look and then hoped that she would explain it later. If Angie had not been fussy, then he had no clue what could have made her day be all that bad, even if she had been sleep deprived. She had dealt with that problem enough in the past. There had not been a battle and he would have been told if Mesogogg had contacted them, so that didn't leave much in his mind to play around with. He was merely going over the most obvious things that could come to mind. "After you left, Principal McEntire called me, she wants me to come back to school in two weeks, instead of three weeks. Kat's not supposed to start babysitting for another two and a half weeks, I told her that I couldn't, then she said she'd fire me if I didn't come back. Tommy we can't take that right now, not with how things seem to be going."
"Kim, in two and a half weeks, we might not even be on this planet for you to go back to work. We have to just take things one day at a time right now. It cannot get much worse on Earth before we take things there, you know that. If you lose your job we can get through it. We've been through much worse before," Tommy said, as he tried to get her nerves to calm down.
He didn't want her to lose her job, but her boss could not take anything against her when she had a doctor's excuse to stay out and he might have to twist Tanya's arm to make it a little bit longer, if they had to leave, unexpectedly. Tanya, however, would do that as she had hoped for those excuses so many times when she was younger. She now was in the position to help them and she would if she could, in any way.
"But she doesn't know about everything we have been through, no one else does besides us and the other rangers, Tommy. She wouldn't believe me if I told her that I had the responsibility to save the world on my plate as well as becoming a mother," Kim said, as he knew what she was saying was the truth. They didn't trust anyone to know about them being rangers and they were not going to start doing that to save her job. She could find a job at a gymnastics academy if she had to do that or she could expand her own, that had been in the plans for awhile. This was a secret that had to be kept, no matter what it cost them in the other areas of their life. He just hoped that it didn't cost them a lot more than they were willing to give up.
"Hey, it's going to be fine. I know that. If she fires you, you can work at the dojo full time or you could open your own academy. We have enough income to let you do that if it becomes necessary," Tommy said, as Charlie and Ashley turned around to look at them, not believing some of the things that they had seen and they also wondered who one set of rangers were. Most groups of rangers showed multiple battles, but the last group showed one huge battle and it had the most rangers involved in it, besides the red mission. It just made no sense to them why that would be the case for only that mission.
"I have one question for you," Charlie said, as Tommy and Kim walked over to them, as if this was an ordinary thing that happened inside of their household walls.
"What's that?" Tommy asked, as he minimized the picture of Mesogogg that was sitting on his desktop, not wanting to have to deal with looking at it any longer. He had seen the creature enough in real life to know that he was horrible to deal with and he did not want to see him any more than he had to.
"Who were those last rangers? The ones before this team?" Charlie asked, as Kim and Tommy looked between each other and then sighed. There was a reason that they didn't show their faces, but they were just going to explain it today. They didn't have much of a choice about it.
"That was us about four years ago," Tommy said, as the two of them stared at them, not knowing what to say or if there was anything left for them to say to that. So, this was not the first time that they had come out of retirement? It was fairly obvious that they had been some of the first rangers, as Kim was recognizable in the pictures of them.
"How could it be you? All of the other ranger groups have been high school students," Ashley said, as she was not sure that she understood how the lifetime commitment was going to affect them. She was sure that Kim and Tommy had not thought that this would be something they did for the rest of their life, but it sure seemed like it had turned out that way.
"It's a long story and I think that we better save it for some other time. There are some simple rules to being rangers that you need to know before you leave. You tell no one, you don't get caught teleporting and if people get suspicious, you lie to them. And I mean everyone that gets suspicious, even your parents," Kim said, as they looked at her and nodded about that. They had expected there would be a lot more, but they were just going to send them to the house now. They really only had time to go over the basics of how rangers operated. "Go home and rest. You will not have many days that you will be able to do that."
"Alright, but how do we know when you need us?" Ashley asked, as she did wonder how they would know everything that was happening.
"Either we contact you or the evil finds you. It's not an easy life to live, but I know that the two of you will be able to deal with it," Tommy said, as they walked out through the kitchen entrance, knowing that their life had just changed. They were now Power Rangers and being rangers, brought a whole new dimension to their life. They had seen what type of people did this job and they want to make them proud. It was going to be a short road for them, if things went the way that Kim and Tommy wanted it to, but they wanted to do this. They were meant to be rangers, just as everyone else in that room with them.
AN: Any constructive criticism is welcome. I need as much help as I can get with my stories. Please feel free to review!