Disclaimer: I do not own the power rangers or any of the weapons and/or original characters from that series. This is the third story in the "Saving the World, Again" series, so any characters from those stories that are mine, might be brought in. I do own the character Ally Jameson as I know she will appear in this story a good bit and I just wanted to let you know that she is my character from the beginning. I also own the characters of Janice Mitchell, Principal McEntire, Mallory Wiggins, David Jackson, Mrs. Thornsby, Alabaster, and the kids at Ernie's.
Ernie's Juice Bar
Ernie's POV
I never thought I would have had a day like this after some of my favorite teenagers left Angel Grove over a decade ago to go to college and explore the world. They traveled to many different places and they all have done different things with their lives, but that still doesn't explain to anyone how they got to my Juice Bar this afternoon.
I was wiping down a table that had been recently vacated and I noticed that the noise level in the Juice Bar dropped a great deal. Now, only two things have ever made that happen here, an attack from Lord Zedd or some people that were not expected to be in here entering. I hoped for the latter as I was sure the Power Rangers were very tired of their work, it seemed that they had just had the chance to retire one more time. They have been at it for far too long. When I looked up, I saw ten adults heading towards me, with smiles on their faces. Man, I have missed those kids and I'm sure this town has missed them in more ways than they believe.
"Hey, Ernie," Jason said as he waved at him and then they went to settle down at the table that they used to sit at. This was a little bit too much for some of them, but Kim and Trini were trying to hang on to their emotions. "You been doing all right?"
"I've been doing good, Jason. Now, why haven't I heard the news you were expecting a child?" Ernie asked with a grin and Jason couldn't help but feel a little bit guilty. He hadn't come over here in a long time and they should have told Ernie, but it had never crossed his mind to do so. "Don't worry about it Jason. I know that you are busy with that job of yours. Now who's this little one?"
"Angie," Kim said with a smile as Ernie walked over and tickled her feet, which made her smile a toothless smile up at him. Angie didn't always take well to new people and Ernie was lucky that he just seemed to have the gift of being able to get along with kids.
"Well, I knew the two of you would have beautiful kids," Ernie said as a little boy walked up to him and began pulling on his shirt, desperate to get his attention. "Yes Michael."
"Aren't they the ones that are on the walls?" Michael asked bouncing on the balls of his feet. Sure enough, there were several pictures of them when they were younger adorning the walls of the Juice Bar. They had not realized how much of an impact they had left on this place, but Ernie had been sure that they would be remembered.
"Yes, they are," Ernie said, as the boy looked up at them in awe and then waved over to his friends to come over. They had not been expecting to be treated as celebrities, but there was no stopping the little kids from doing that now that they knew who they were.
"That's them!" Michael exclaimed excitedly as he jumped up and down and his friends joined in. The teacher of the class walked over to see what had caused his class to leave him, but it was obvious that he did not know the fabled history of the teenagers on the wall. Ernie knew much more about them, but he had decided he wouldn't put that on the wall, he would just talk to them about it later.
"Michael, why are you disrupting my class? They are merely some friends of Ernie's," Chase Daniels said sternly to the boy and Ernie looked at him with a rather reproachful glare. It was time that Chase learned some history about the Juice Bar that he had been avoiding the entire time he was here. He didn't want to know anything about this place, now the kids that paid him were making him learn.
"You're Tommy, aren't you?" Michael asked eagerly, completely ignoring what Chase had said to him. They were much more interesting than karate right now.
"Yeah, I'm Tommy," Tommy said, as the boy ran up to him, grabbed his hand and pulled him over to the wall where his picture was. He had to admit that Ernie had quite a few up there of him, along with some rather miscellaneous articles about his karate conquests. He always had the sneaking suspicion Ernie knew about them being rangers, but they had never asked him about it, just in case he didn't know.
"You really did all of that?" Michael asked, pointing up at the pictures, which showed some of his finer points. He couldn't lie to the boy, but those pictures didn't show everything Tommy had been through, although it seemed odd that Ernie had placed a picture of Kim and Tommy at that age there.
"Yeah, I did. Do you look at this wall a lot?" Tommy asked, as he squatted down next to Michael and he noticed that several of his other friends were being dragged over to their pictures by youngster's and being begged to retell their past here.
"Yeah, you're a hero," Michael said, as Tommy looked at the boy. He tried not to let that throw him off track, but it sure was hard for him.
"I'm not a hero," Tommy said, as Michael eyed him and then decided he would say exactly what he thought. He didn't think that this adult would go crazy if he said exactly what he thought.
"Then what are you?" Michael asked, as Tommy squatted there dumbfounded. He had never been asked that question before by a six-year-old.
"But Jason, why don't you teach here?" Randy asked as Jason thought about it. He had thought about dropping everything several times before, but he hadn't done it. He knew that he couldn't really risk it with a baby on the way, but it made him think. He was miserable where he was, so why wasn't he here? Why hadn't he started a dojo in Angel Grove?
"It's not as simple as just wanting to be here," Jason said, although that did not fly in the six-year-olds mind. If you wanted to do something, why not do it? He knew that he was going to have to explain it in more depth than that, just by the look on the boy's face.
"You wanted to be here then, why can't you be here now?" Randy asked, which made the most sense to him, but he could tell Jason didn't understand. "You're a hero here, we'd take you back."
"I'm…I'm not a hero," Jason said, as he looked up at Ernie, who was obviously enjoying the scene taking place on the floor. He could tell that these adults were being forced to answer questions that he would never put to them. The kids saw them as heroes; he couldn't help if they took that as a more literal meaning.
"Then what are you?" Randy asked, and Jason was now wearing a look very similar to Tommy. He didn't think a six-year-old would ask him that kind of question.
"Trini, you're one of the best girls in karate. I want to be just like you," Alexis said as Trini smiled down at the girl. This girl wouldn't want to be just like her if she knew about her other life. Everybody seemed to love the Power Rangers, but not many people wanted to be them.
"You want to be you," Trini said, as the girl shook her head no and Trini didn't really know what to say.
"No, you are my hero. I want to be just like you," Alexis said and Trini looked over at Jason. She didn't feel too good right now.
"Kimberly, did…did you really leave here?" Danielle asked as Kim nodded her head yes. She was not sure why Ernie had chosen to put that article up on the wall, but he had and it was obvious the kid had read it, several times and she had probably even gotten some help with some of the words from Ernie. "Why?"
"I wanted a chance to be in the Olympics," Kim said as the girl looked up at her and merely nodded. There was not much more she could say to that.
"Did you make it?" Danielle asked eagerly and Kim shook her head no. "Why not?"
"I had to leave the training facility," Kim said, although she could tell the little girl was working her mind in overdrive.
"Why don't they have any gymnastics schools here? My mommy won't let me go to Reefside to take gymnastics," Danielle said, as Kim looked at the little girl. She couldn't believe that all of the gymnastics schools would close, but karate had taken so much of a strangle hold in Angel Grove over the last decade or so.
"I don't know why they don't," Kim said honestly.
"But you could teach me," Danielle said. "You're a hero around here."
The other rangers were dealing with a similar last question from these kids, before they had to go into deep thought. They had never thought that they would be called heroes without people knowing what was going on with their lives. Ernie obviously hadn't told them about them being rangers, but these kids had always imagined seeing the people on the walls and now that they were, they had so much they wanted to let them know.
"I'm just a guy, who likes karate and I have a wife and a little baby girl. You know what, why don't I give you a lesson today, my treat?" Tommy asked the boy as he nearly tackled him to the floor as he gave him a hug and then ran over to tell Ernie what was happening. He had never imagined that Tommy would teach him karate.
"I'm a husband, I'm going to be a father, and I'm a man who loves the sport of karate," Jason said as the boy looked up at him wondering how he couldn't see himself as a hero. "You don't like that answer, do you?"
"No, I don't," Randy said as Jason held in a laugh. He could see why the kid thought he was a hero, Ernie had enough to make anyone think that, but man he couldn't believe the kid's guts.
"What can I do to make it up to you?" Jason asked with a smile as the boy's eyes widened. Jason was asking him what he wanted him to do. It made him happier than anything else could.
"Teach me," Randy said, as Jason nodded his head that he could do that, but he felt there was more in the bargain. "Forever?"
"Let's just see how one day goes. Then we'll see about me coming back here more often," Jason said as the boy turned to go tell Ernie his exciting news.
"Why am I your hero?" Trini asked, as the girl looked up at her and then thought for a second.
"Because you weren't supposed to be able to do all of that," Alexis said as Trini looked at the girl. She was going to cry and she knew it, but she didn't know if she'd be able to compose herself long enough to talk to the girl.
"Look, you see the guy over there in the red shirt? Go tell him that Trini wants him to give you a lesson, okay?" Trini said, as the little girl gave her a huge hug. Although she was not getting Trini to teach her, she was getting Jason to, which was all right, she guessed.
"I'm not a hero," Kim said, as the girl looked at her with a deep, unwavering gaze. "And I live in Reefside. Look, maybe your mom could bring you up there on Saturday. I have a class then."
"Mommy doesn't want to take me to Reefside once a week. It costs too much," Danielle said, as Kim understood what the little girl was feeling. She had had to beg her mother to let her pick up gymnastics instead of dancing and she had found something she loved. That was what it seemed this little girl was trying to do.
"Then how about this. I come to you on the weekends. Of course, I would have to have some more students, but I think it could be arranged for me to teach you here," Kim said, as the girl smiled and gave her a hug, before running off to Ernie. She was glad that she could at least make her happy with a small amount of her time.
"Ernie, who are those people?" Chase asked, as he watched his class scatter around the Juice Bar with various members of the group showing them how to do some sort of karate move or in Kim's case, a forward roll.
"They're the people on the wall. You know, the ones that you have never asked about," Ernie said, rather pointedly as the boy sighed. He had known that Angel Grove had its fair share of history in karate, but Ernie was right. He had never bothered to ask why those teenagers' pictures were placed on the wall.
"Okay, Ernie. Who are they?" Chase asked, as Kim sat down at the table next to them and took Angie back out of her car seat.
"They are some of the first kids that ever entered this place. They were a lot like those six-year-olds you see over there, excited about everything. They brought the karate competitions here, they brought gymnastic coaches here, and they, most importantly, brought a sense of security here. You are too young to really remember them and since you come from Reefside, you probably have only heard about them in passing. They are the teenagers that made this place come alive and that is why they have that wall dedicated to them," Ernie said, while Angie began to cry and Kim let out a long sigh. She was going to have to start walking laps if she was going to have any hope of getting her settled down.
"Ernie, why are they here?" Chase asked, as Ernie shrugged his shoulders. He didn't know and quite frankly he didn't really care why they were here. Kids were enjoying themselves and he was having a ball watching it, maybe Chase would be able to pick up some pointers for all he knew. "You're not going to answer me?"
"You have my answer. I don't know, but I'm glad they came. Enjoy yourself, get to know them and maybe you'll figure out they didn't come here with the purpose to mess up your class," Ernie said with a smile as he walked back behind the counter and he could still hear Angie's cries coming loud and clear from the hallway.
"Shh, baby," Kim muttered, as she rocked Angie back and forth as gently as she could. She wished Tommy could walk over there and help her, but he was giving a lesson and he had learned to zone out everything else when he was giving a lesson. "I know you are ready to go to sleep. Come on, go to sleep."
"Come on, kick," Tommy said encouragingly as Michael continued to kick at his padded hands. The boy had good form, but he hadn't had a way to really harness his energy, which was a little bit much, even for him.
"How are you getting him to do that?" Chase asked, as he could barely get Michael to stand still. He often times just had to let him run.
"One on one practice can help when people can't focus," Tommy said, as Michael continued to kick the pads, not really, hearing what Tommy was saying.
"Do you do this for a living now?" Chase asked, as he had gone over and read the papers on the wall and taken a good look at the pictures. He had to admit that what they did as teenagers was not expected at all.
"Kinda. I teach at Reefside High and I own a dojo in Reefside with Rocky. I couldn't give up karate completely. It's been a part of my life for too long," Tommy said, as Chase nodded his head. He understood what it was like, as he would never give up karate, unless he was forced to do so.
"Will some one please make that baby shut up?" A frustrated teenager asked, as Ernie watched Kim glare over at the boy and he could imagine exactly what she was thinking. She would love for Angie to settle down, but she was extremely fussy tonight and Kim really didn't know why.
"Uh hum," Tommy grunted to get the boys attention and he suddenly figured out that he was the father of the child. He didn't think it wise to say anymore.
"Yeah, I was going to warn you," Ernie said with a smile as the boy nodded in a way that suggested he would have liked the information a little bit earlier. "I know that it is annoying you, but give her a break. It's their first kid."
"Ernie, you're lucky I like you," the boy said, as Ernie laughed and then continued on his way.
"Come here," Tommy said, as he walked over and took Angie out of Kim's arms. He could see how frustrated she was and he didn't think that he wanted to let it go much longer. "Why are you so grumpy?"
"She can't talk to you Tommy," Kim said with a smile as Tommy walked Angie around the room and she began to calm down, which earned him another glare.
"I didn't ask her to not calm down for you," Tommy said, as he handed Angie back over to Kim and she began to wail again. He guessed that he was going to have to hold onto her for the rest of the night.
"Nice one, Tommy," Kim said, as he placed one arm around her and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
"You know we're going to walk down to the lake in a little while. Why don't you and Trini go get us all something to eat while we finish up?" Tommy suggested as Trini nodded that she was fine with that, she was getting hungry already, but she didn't want to admit it.
"All right, but I'm taking our car," Kim said, as Tommy nodded that was fine. He was not planning on arguing with her about anything right now. She didn't seem to be in the mood to listen to any of his reasoning.
"That is perfectly fine with me Kimberly," Tommy said, as Kim waved Trini over and Ernie looked at the two of them.
"Where are the two of you going?" Ernie asked as Kim looked back at him and then passed Trini the keys.
"We're going to go get a meal for all of us. Then we'll come back," Kim said, as Ernie understood. He had some of the best snack foods in the city, but he didn't have the meals that he used to have.
"I'm glad that you're coming back. I have something to talk to you about," Ernie said, as Kim looked at him and nodded that she understood what he was talking about, but she didn't really want to understand.
"When does Ernie ever have something to talk to us about?" Kim asked, as she hopped in her car and asked Trini that question, which surprised her as well.
"I don't know, Kim, but there are things that have changed around here. I think that Ernie realizes that maybe we need to hear something from him," Trini said, as Kim didn't quite understand what she might mean.
"Trini, please explain it," Kim said as she pulled out into the traffic and headed towards the nearest pizza parlor that she could find.
"He may want to tell us what he knows," Trini said, as Kim nearly slammed on the brakes, but stopped herself just in time.
"Trini, it's been a long time since we were rangers here," Kim said, as Trini nodded her head.
"And it has also been long enough that people won't question Ernie talking to us," Trini said and Kim nodded her head in agreement, she was just not sure that all of them would really be ready for this.
Back at the Juice Bar"Pizza, everybody," Kim said, as she entered with a few pizzas and a few teenage guys walked over to help her.
"Who are you?" Aaron asked, as Kim looked at the boy, wondering why in the world he would even ask.
"I'm one of the people on the walls and would you please put the pizzas on that table," Kim said as Tommy walked over and she could now see that Angie was asleep in his arms. "She finally gave up?"
"Yeah, she did. There was just too much new stuff here for her to see," Tommy said with a smile as Kim could only shake her head. "Did Ernie mention something to you about needing to talk to us?"
"Yeah, he did, Tommy. I don't think it's going to be anything to really worry about," Kim said and Ernie pointed all of them to the back room. He had never asked them to go back there before, but they understood that he might not want to be overheard.
"Listen, what I needed to talk to you about is that I wanted you to know that I know about you being rangers. Don't say anything. I'll answer all of your questions in a minute. Listen I'm sure that you are safe now, because you have come back here for a visit, but these are some articles that you may want to keep. And I happened to figure it out because when Kimberly left, you wore a pink watch for awhile Tommy. When the watch started beeping, it occurred to me that Kim had worn it and I knew you had to have not wanted to keep it, you had to. You were a ranger and trust me other clues were there, it just kinda fit for some reason then," Ernie said, as Kim and Tommy sat there with their mouth's hanging open.
"Thanks Ernie and we'll be out there in a little bit," Kim said as she stood up to give him a hug. They had nothing that they could think of that would make them happier than for Ernie to know. Now they honestly could say that they had someone that would help them keep the idiots away from them and he had been doing that job for years.
AN: It's not exactly the best ending to the chapter, but I hope you have enjoyed this chapter and I'll have the next one out within the next week.