Now, on with the Story!
Ashley's POV
I walked into school today, feeling completely different from how I felt yesterday at this time. It really is amazing how much telling the truth about something can make you feel better. I was worried that Dr. O would be mad at us for volunteering to come help them with something that we weren't supposed to know about, but he wasn't and that relieved some of my stress. But there are still some things to worry about, although I am not quite sure what they are. I just know that I should be worried about being a ranger.
I cannot believe that I am actually doing this, but it is wonderful to know that I can help people, even if I only do a small part. I honestly don't know how any rangers were able to give it up, although I do think that Dr. O will be able to explain that one to us when the time comes to let go of these powers. I just didn't realize that volunteering to become a ranger would make me feel this different. These powers do weird things to you and they change you in ways that you would least expect, although you would think that it comes with the terroritory.
I didn't have many questions last night, but since then I have thought about it and more questions have come to mind. These questions seem to be simple to answer, but I wonder how many of them might be avoided because of prior experiences in the ranger world. Dr. O and his wife sure seem to have things that they don't like to talk about in their rangers life. I don't know how to morph, at all and I'm not sure if I will be able to fight the way that Kim and Tommy think that I can. I mean, it is not a problem for me to spar at the dojo, but the fighting that they do is so much more ruthless. Those things don't care if I get hurt or if they kill me, at least at the dojo, I know that the people will be my friends at the end of the day.
I'm afraid that I will be a mediocre ranger and nothing better than that. I don't know if I can deal with something like that and I don't know if they will accept it. All of them are outstanding at what they do and they have been working at it for at least a year or longer, as in Kim and Dr. O's case. My fellow rangers will help me through this, but I don't even hang around Conner, Kira, Ethan, and Trent, at school, we're not even in the same grade. It sounds horrible, but I mostly hang out with the people that are the same age that I am. But I guess that I will be hanging around them from now on. I didn't know that I was going to automatically think of them as my family, but I do and I can't help but wonder if that comes along with the powers that I now have or if it is just me being a girl, as Charlie would say.
"Hey, Ash, you doing alright?" Charlie asked. His first night as a ranger had been peaceful and he was happy about that.
He had been afraid that they would have been called out last night and he honestly did not know what he would have done if that had happened. He knew that they would not even have a second thought about calling them in and he was silently preparing himself for all of this to starting happening, whatever 'this' happened to be was still a question that was roaming around in his mind. He didn't really know if it was better to not know what it was or if it was better to be prepared for what was ahead, like the other rangers were. If the rangers hadn't needed the help, then he doubted that they would have given the two of them powers at all, but that scared him to know that they were needed that badly. It also let him know that he had to work hard, as they held many expectations for him.
"Yeah, just getting used to things. I can't imagine what it is like to have these taken away from you. I don't know how they went through it so many times," Ashley said, as he grabbed her hand and walked with her to their first class, which happened to be English. He hated the subject, but as long as he had someone that would help him with it, it would all be fine and Ashley happened to love English, thank goodness. If not, there were several times that he might not have passed regular classes and he was thankful that she had been there to steer him in the right direction and yell at him when the time was right. "Did you do your homework?"
"Yes, missy, and I know that Ms. Williams will be happy about that one. I don't think I could stand Dr. O coming down on me for not turning something in because of the excuse that I would give him. I don't think that it would measure up anymore," Charlie said, as he could imagine the speech that he would get from him if he found out about him not doing his homework most nights.
He was sure that they had been able to find time to do their homework and he knew that he should be able to find time to do his, no matter what came up. He honestly imagined that most of what kept him from doing his homework, was not considered acceptable. If his teacher had been able to do his homework in high school, under the same or worse conditions, then he should be able to do that and he hadn't even experienced anything, yet, but it was coming.
"Well, if that is what it takes to get you to do your work, then I think we should have had a fight sooner," Ashley said with a smile, as she settled down in her normal seat for English, knowing that this was one of the most interesting classes for her.
She loved the literature and the writing and everything about it, just as much as Charlie hated everything about the class, except Ms. Williams. She was nice to Charlie, even though he rarely finished his work on time, due to his hatred for the subject and grammatical formings of the English language in general. She was just happy that he turned in work most days, especially after hearing how he was from the junior English teacher. He hadn't exactly been nice to her last year, but they had come to a truce by the end of the school year, although he was quite sure that she just did that so that she wouldn't have to deal with hearing his complaining any longer. He had passed the class, but he had to admit that it was more because of the fact that Ashley made him do his work than anything else.
"Good morning, class. I do hope that you read the assigned piece of literature last night. We shall be moving on to another piece of work this morning. I expect that this one shall take us a few weeks to cover, so, I will need you to pay attention and be in class. I do not want you to fall behind as there will be a major test grade at the end of this period in literature. I do not want any of you to fail to graduate because of that," Amanda said, as she noticed some of her students rummaging through their book bags, trying to find their assignment, which she was sure, was not buried that far in the book bag. It just gave them something to do that occupied their time and their brains for a few extra seconds, as none of them were really awake at this time of morning. She did hate having seniors at this time of the morning, but at least they were able to get it over with early in the morning. "Now, if you would please turn to page five hundred and one, so we can begin our work today."
"Amanda, sorry to interrupt your class, but can I borrow you for a second?" Tommy asked, as he knocked on the door and their teacher then stood from where she had been sitting and walked to the open door.
She could only imagine what Tommy needed her for this early in the morning and all of it led to him having a run-in with Randall already, which was never a good start to the day. She didn't really want to have to hear about that, but she would listen, as the only other option was that he go to vent to Dennis, who would not help him any. He would just make Tommy want to explode on Randall even more and they did not need that to happen right now. Tommy had enough problems to have to deal with, without getting in a fight with Randall.
"What's going on? You've been acting weird lately," Amanda said, as Tommy held a stack of papers in his hands and then passed her a set, which she looked at for a couple of seconds before realizing that they had to deal with school and nothing else. She, however, could not think of why in the world Tommy would be the one that was passing them out. He already had enough paperwork to do and he really didn't have time to do anymore, not with everything that was going on at home. It had really been rough on him to leave Kim and Angie alone during the day and she had the feeling that it had to do with something else. She just didn't know what it could be. "What are these for?"
"Mrs. Thornsby said that Principal Randall left these for all of the teachers to fill out and turn in by the end of the day. Lucky for me, I have first period planning, so guess who gets to distribute them to everyone," Tommy said with a smile, as he avoided answering her question.
There might be sometime, later down the road, that he could do that without any worries, but today was not the day and he knew that it would not be that for several more months, at least. He wanted to ensure that they were truly retired before he began telling anyone else about him being a ranger and even then he was not sure that he would tell anyone. There was always that chance that they might have to go back into their duties again and he was not sure that he could take anyone knowing about it.
"You've got to be kidding me. Another pass fail ratio sheet, why does she have it out for us? We just had to do one of these last week. I don't think that anything has changed since then," Amanda said, as she knew that her class was hard, although she did lighten up some second semester for her seniors. The seniors deserved to have some fun during their last semester in school, although they still had to finish some work in her room before they would be able to leave there, with a passing grade.
"It's more like she has it out for me. I just had half the basketball team bomb their mid-term and it makes them ineligible to play for the rest of the season by county guidelines. So, I'm sure that you can guess why we are having to do this," Tommy said.
He was sure that the coaching staff had gone to complain to Randall as soon as they had found out about their star athletes' failure of a test that Tommy had been sure that they would have passed if they had studied. He had given them a study guide and he knew that the study guide was the key to passing the test. It always had been that way for him and things never really changed in his teaching strategy.
She was more than happy to help them in any way possible, as long as it would make Tommy look bad, as they still despised each other. He had tried mending the fence, but it hadn't worked and he had just quit trying after a while. There was no use in him being nice when she was being rude to him every chance that she got.
"Well, I can bet that same half of the team failed my test as well. I still haven't finished grading all of the papers, but some of the ones that I have seen do not seem too promising," Amanda said, as she was in the process of grading their essays on a story of their choice, which was not as hard as some of her students made it out to be. All they had to do was write a summary of the story that they had read and she was sure that all of them would be able to do that, although some of the papers were horrible, from what she had been able to read of the scrawl they called writing. It seemed that they thought that if she couldn't read it, they would pass, but she was going to fail them because of their illegible writing. She could only hope that would get the message across to them that she meant business. "Oh well, it'll be fine. Have a good day, Tommy."
"You too," Tommy said, with a smile, as he saw an airplane sail past Amanda's head, which caused her to turn and glare at the class.
They quickly straightened up when they saw the look on her face and Tommy couldn't help but chuckle behind her back, as she was not really as mean as she made some of them think. He knew that she had to do that in order to get anything done in class and they just dealt with it for the first few months of school, although it seemed this group of seniors was going to try to push her limits.
"Now, where were we," Amanda said, sitting down behind her podium and beginning to read the story to the class, with as much enthusiasm as she could muster after seeing the stack of paperwork that she was going to have to do this afternoon, during her planning period.
She could not believe that Randall was doing this to them and she also could not believe that Mrs. Thornsby had been able to convince Tommy to hand out the papers at all, with the way that he felt about paperwork that came down from Randall. Mrs. Thornsby, however, was a lot nicer to Tommy and she had the feeling that the secretary had bribed him with a box full of her famous cookies, which would give Tommy the burst of energy that he needed to make it through the stack of papers he would have to file.
"Ms. Williams, I have a question," Jackson said, as she placed a hand over her face and then slowly looked up at him.
She hated hearing those words come from that boy, any day of the week, but especially on a day when she was in no mood to answer too many prying questions. He would always ask questions that did not pertain to the lesson and she was worried about what would come out of his mouth today.
"Yes, Jackson," Amanda said, as she looked intently at him and tried to give him her full attention and think of ways that she could avoid the question if it was too much for her to handle, as it had been lately.
"What's going on with Dr. O? He's been acting weird lately and he has started skipping out on our classes again. Is something wrong with Kim or Angie?" Jackson asked, as Amanda sighed. At least he was not asking about Dennis's and her relationship as he did last week, which led to her having a red face and a temper that went along with it. They had only recently started dating and they had tried to keep it low key, although Jackson had somehow gotten the idea that they were dating and started hounding both of them about it.
"I don't know, he won't tell any of us anything. The only one that probably knows is his wife and that does not surprise me in the least bit. He has lots of things that he is responsible for and I don't ask what those things are. I don't think that I would really want to know what they are," Amanda said, as she had talked to Dennis about the type of secret that Tommy might be keeping from the entire staff. "Now, back to the Canterbury Tales."
Tommy had seemed to have stress taken away from him for a few months there, but it seemed that around the time that Kim had the baby, the stress came back into his life. It also seemed quite possibe that it could be even worse this time than it was before. They knew that Angie couldn't be causing all of this stress, but they were not brave enough to ask him point blank what it was that was causing all of this. They had the sinking feeling that it would not be something that they wanted to hear and she was not prepared to have to listen to an unveiling of emotions from Tommy, of all people. He had always held back his emotions and she did not expect him to change now.
Mesogogg's Lair
"You have got to be kidding me that this imbecile is the one that has been monitoring the rangers. Don't you have someone who is better equipped for that job!" Lord Zedd roared as Mesogogg stood toe to toe with the one person that had willingly agreed to help him try to defeat the rangers. Lord Zedd had come back with one purpose and that was to defeat the rangers, but is seemed that this Mesogogg being had other agendas that were more important than doing that.
Mesogogg had just told him that he had assigned Zeltrax to watch the rangers, although Zedd could do that from the comfort of his room because of the technology that they had laying at their fingertips. He had been monitoring the rangers for months from thousands of miles away and he had not had to risk anyone to do that assignment, when there were other things that were more important to the building of his empire. He wanted to give him a lesson in monitoring rangers, but he did not have the time to do that, he only had time to prepare to fight. Each day that they wasted, sitting back and doing nothing, was a day that the rangers were becoming stronger and he did not want to deal with them when they had their full strength. He knew that he might not be able to deal with them when they had their full strength and that did scare him to know that he could possibly die at the hands of the rangers.
"He is the only one that can do this. He has not been caught by the rangers and will not be caught by the rangers," Mesogogg said, as Rita cackled at his thoughts.
Sure he was not going to be caught by the rangers. That was like saying that Tommy had never done karate in his life. He would eventually be caught by them and if Mesogogg thought that they would not destroy him he was wrong or he had been brainwashed by someone over the past few months, which either seemed to be a real possibility.
"Ha! You think that the rangers don't know what's going on here? Have you not noticed that two of them have a little bit of expertise in this area?" Rita asked, as their help walked in, but they stopped within a few steps inside of the door.
The help got along rather well, but there was a pull for who would have the power to take the reigns and Lord Zedd was starting to think that he should pull his support and leave while he still could. He did not want to deal with the ending that Nicarni-Aso had been dealt from the rangers, although it surely seemed that he was heading that way right now. Mesogogg was not being aggressive as he needed to be and he would not listen to anything that they said about it. His plan was going to work, although he had failed miserably many times before.
"Yes, but they also forget about the fact that I can come get them anytime I want to," Mesogogg said, as he showed them what he had done the last time that he had captured Kimberly, not that it had been wise move for him to make. He was in the position that he found himself in now because of that very decision and he was sure that someone would point that out to him, eventually.
"Well, he certainly didn't know Tommy, did he? Did you take her away from him?" Goldar scowled as Mesogogg zapped him, which caused Lord Zedd to glow with anger. No one punished his help, except him and Mesogogg had just crossed that line without so much as a second thought.
He also knew that what Goldar had said was just the simple truth. They had learned that if they wanted to piss Tommy off, they should take Kim, and if they want to try to get themselves killed, they should threaten to kill her. He, obviously, had not learned that lesson, even after he tried and failed to do so without any harm being done to himself.
"Listen, you want to defeat the power rangers, right?" Lord Zedd roared as Mesogogg looked and him and nodded. Lord Zedd had a plan, even if it was not fool proof, it did give them something to fall back on if things happened. "Then listen and listen well. Those rangers are not stupid, you have to take advantage of something that you have not done. Let me show you how to bring the power rangers crawling to your doorstep."
After School
"So, are you going to Hayley's today?" Kira asked Ethan as he looked at her as if that was one of the dumbest questions that he had ever heard in his life.
He practically lived at the cyberspace and why would he change things now? They had been told to go about their life as if everything was normal and that was what he planned to do, for the time being. He knew that idea might be called off eventually but since it hadn't been, he wanted to enjoy being a teenager as long as he could. They were finally seeming to get the idea that what Kim and Tommy said was the truth and it was best to listen to them, anytime that they had the opportunity.
"Yeah, are you coming along or are you and Conner doing something this afternoon?" Ethan asked, as Kira nodded her head, before he got out the last part of the question. Conner had soccer practice today and she knew that Trent was going to be working there this afternoon, but she still was suspicious about Ashley and Charlie being allowed on as rangers. They had found out from Dr. O this morning and they had taken it rather well, but they still didn't understand how they had found out about them being rangers in the first place. It was odd to hear about it, but they were sure that it was going to be fine, if Dr. O felt it was fine. "Do you want to ask Ashley and Charlie?"
"Conner has soccer practice today. He has missed so many that I know he wants to go while things are relatively calm. I don't even know what class Charlie and Ashley have last period. So I guess it's best that we just go," Kira said, as Ethan took that as a no before they started walking towards the cyberspace, with as little worry as was possible for a ranger. They had learned to be cautiously carefree and they were starting to master the art that all of the rangers had after living this life for a certain amount of time.
"Hey Kira, Ethan, how was your day?" Hayley asked, as they walked up to the bar and sat down, each ordering a smoothie, which happened to always be on the house due to their connections with her. They never told anyone that it was that way, but Hayley had insisted on it since they became rangers. Every now and then, they needed a pick me up and this happened to work for them most afternoons.
"It was alright, we found out that we have some new help," Kira said, as she was sure that Hayley had heard about it and she would be able to help them understand Dr. O's thinking on this one.
"That's good, you know that he was worried about that. He didn't want their powers to go unused. He thinks that it is going to take all of you to defeat them," Hayley whispered, as she spotted Cassidy walking through the front door of the cyberspace and then shook her head. The girl was just asking for someone to deck her because of her nosy questions and she had already heard from Trent about what had happened in Tommy's class earlier today, which was fairly funny. "Watch out, reporter chick is hanging around again."
"We will," Ethan said, as he watched Cassidy pass by and head to another table, full of her friends.
He could only hope that today she would not start in on the ranger questions again today. He was fresh out of lies, as of yesterday, and he had no clue how he was going to be able to lie to her today if she started asking the prying questions about who the rangers were. He had never hit a girl, but that was going to drive him close to it if he did not have someone there to reign him back in and Kira could only do so much.
"She was on it today in Dr. O's class. I thought that he was going to deck her when she told him that she had gathered evidence that the rangers are working with Mesogogg now. She said that that's why they have left the area for so long," Trent said, passing them their smoothies.
They happened to be in a different class from Cassidy and Trent this semester, although Trent was not happy about having to deal with her, although it did give him some entertainment, especially in Dr. O's class where things had been very interesting lately. From what Trent had told them, she had been pouring on the questions to him, on some crazy, correct, hunch that he knew something about the rangers. Trent had thought that Tommy was a good liar, but he even believed what he was saying and he knew the truth about all of it. They all just wished that they had learned how to dodge the questions as well as he had, although that did come with many years of experience and several close calls.
"I don't know how he didn't smack her," Kira said, as she could imagine what he would have done to them if they had let that type of talk go on in front of the class, as they knew that it was not true, in the least bit. The only thing was that they could not get too mad or they might have the questions turned on them and that was what he had been trying to prevent. They knew Dr. O could handle the questions, but they were not sure how to handle the questions that came from people. "Did he say anything to her?"
"He told her not to judge the rangers without having all her facts straight. That shut her up pretty quick," Trent said, as he could remember exactly how Tommy had said it as well.
He seemed ready to throw his desk at her, but she had been lucky enough that he had to show some sort of discipline while he was teaching a class. He had managed to talk to Trent for a few seconds after class, to calm him down as well. He told him to just ignore it, it would be fine as long as no one believed her and since she had not been correct on anything else, he hoped that no one would believe her on this one. Although he had admitted that there was a first time for everything and he had seen weirder things happen over his years of service.
"What did she say?" Kira asked, as she and Cassidy had never really gotten along and she was eager to know if she gave Dr. O another chance to make her look like a fool. She didn't believe that she would have quieted down with so little coming from Dr. O, unless he said that in one of his serious, 'I'll kick your ass if you don't do this' tones. That shut anyone up and she was sure that it would work on Cassidy as well.
"Nothing, she really did shut up this time, although it did help that he told her that if she said another word, he was going to find a way to pull her journalist privileges," Trent said, as Ethan and Kira laughed.
They all knew that Tommy could not do that, but it sounded good enough for all of them and Cassidy didn't know if he would try it, which was worse to her than not getting a story. She loved those privileges and if anything happened to them, then she might as well not exist anymore. They then heard their communicators ring, although it was the toll that they had only heard once before and it worried them, in some ways.
"Go ahead, Alpha," Kira said, as the three of them huddled around her communicator, trying to guard it from anyone who might try to listen to the conversation that they were going to have.
"There is some sort of disturbance on the beach. I can not find what it is, but you need to go check it out. If there is anything that you cannot handle, contact me," Alpha said, as the three of them looked at each other and then excused themselves from Hayley's presence. They ran until they found an empty alleyway, before they teleported themselves down to the beach, hoping to find nothing that was too alarming.
"Yes, I'm pulling them right into my trap," Lord Zedd, as he was planning on showing Mesogogg how to pull the rangers into a fight that they could not win for losing.
"There's nothing here. Why would Alpha bring us here?" Kira asked, as they walked down the strip of beach, looking for anything that seemed slightly out of the ordinary. There was nothing there that they had never seen before and she couldn't believe that Alpha would teleport them for something like this. There just had to be something around here that they were missing.
"There has to be something, we just have to keep looking," Ethan said, as a group of puddies landed around them and they looked between each other. This could not be good. They did not know how to destroy these creatures and they were not even sure that they could.
"What are these things?" Kira asked as a puddy grabbed her and teleported her out of the battle, while some of the other puddies were trying to restrain Ethan and Trent in the same fashion, although they were struggling with it as much as they possibly could. They knew that they needed to stay here if at all possible and they were going to do everything in their power to do that.
"Kira!" Trent yelled as she disappeared and he then felt the same thing happening to him, as he saw that Ethan was no longer there. He had no clue what was going to happen to them, but he had the feeling that the final battle was about to begin over this and that Kim and Tommy were not going to be happy. He could only hope that nothing would happen to them that would cause either of them to risk their lives without due cause.
"That is how you pull in the power rangers," Lord Zedd said, menacingly, as they landed in front of him while Mesogogg looked at the rangers with a great sense of pride. He had found someone that would help them, although this was certainly not his idea of how to bring the rangers in.
"Holy shit!" Kira yelled, as they dropped them into a containment room and she then went to reach for her morpher, which had been yanked away from her, although she had not figured it out until just then. "Damn it, we're stuck."
"What do you mean, we can teleport out," Ethan said, as he went to reach for his communicator and found that it was no longer there. There was no way that this was happening to them right now, not when they had been trying to avoid a huge battle. They didn't even try to get into a fight this time, so why had they come after them? "Well, we could teleport out of here."
"We better just sit tight and conserve our energy. They'll come for us. You know they will," Trent said, as he knew that any plan to get them out of here might not work at all and he didn't want to risk any of them dying right now. They had come too far to just die because of one of these creatures and as long as they didn't have to do anything crazy, then he was not going to try to pick a fight when they were undermanned.
AN: Sorry about the cliffhanger, but I hope that you have enjoyed this chapter and the more that you review, the quicker you will get the next chapter. Until then, happy reading!