Title: New In Town

Author: Dingo

Summary: Lothor decides to split up the team. As a result, three Rangers are sent back in time – to 1995 – and hundreds of miles away – to Angel Grove.

Timeline: Just after The Wild Wipeout, just after Stop the Hate Master.

Disclaimer: If you recognise it, I don't own it. I would like to own everything though, but then Power Rangers wouldn't be rated G/PG.

Warning: there is slash in here. If you don't know what that is, it is a homosexual relationship. To be precise, two. Possibly three, I haven't thought ahead quite that far.

Pairings as determined by me: Adam/Rocky, Hunter/Dustin, Cam/?

Note: Cookies to anyone who finds the reference to The Wild Wipeout. Please excuse the really badly-translated Spanish.



   Cam studied the building in front of them suspiciously. "The Youth Centre."

   "Sounds like an after school special, doesn't it?" Hunter scoffed.

   The Samurai Ranger nodded.

   Hunter sighed. "Look how low we've become." Hunter started walking, head low.

   "It's just until we figure a way back," Cam reasoned. "And lord knows Dustin can't work in the state he's in."

   "But it's so bright and…perky!" Hunter protested, motioning towards a couple of girls giggling in front of them. "I hate places like this!"

   Cam shrugged. "Suck it up, bug boy."

   Hunter stopped while Cam kept walking. "Did you, like, get replaced by CyberCam?"

   "Yo," Cam drawled.

   "That's just disturbing, bro."

   "Don't call me bro."

   Hunter grinned and slung his arm around Cam's shoulders. "But yer me bro, bro!" he protested, overemphasising an accent faintly resembling Dustin's.

   "Get the hell off me, or I get to tell Blake he's an only child," Cam said sweetly. Hunter only grinned and lifted his arm as they entered what seemed to be a diner with half a gym.

   They both blinked. This was not exactly what they were expecting.

   Hunter gazed around and he nearly began to drool at the look of the mats laid out near a pile of weights. "I revoke my former opinion and advise a positive decision for this place."

   Cam only shuddered. "Please don't talk like me. It's disturbing."

   "But I do it so well," Hunter grinned as they headed for the bar.

   "I suppose you're preferable over Dustin doing that." Cam blinked away a sudden strange image of Dustin spinning around in the computer swivel chair and informing them that a new weapon was ready.

   Hunter had nearly the same picture, although in his Cam was suddenly using worse vocab than CyberCam.

   Both shuddered slightly and vowed to never think of that again.

   Hunter pushed Cam forward slightly. "Hey," the Samurai Ranger protested. "What's the big idea?"

   The Crimson Ranger looked back at him like he was a little nutty upstairs. "You're the one that adults love," he pointed out. "I'm probably just stare at him and freak him out."

   "Or brood him to death," Cam muttered under his breath.

   "Excuse me?" Hunter asked threateningly, raising a hand as if to slap him upside the head.

   "Hey," the rather rotund man behind the counter grinned, wiping down the counter and saving Cam just in time. "How can I help you?"

   Cam forced a shy smile on his face. Adults always seemed to fall for that.

   "Hi," he began. "My friends and I are just passing through town, but we've run out of money." He bit his lip and played the embarrassment card. "I was wondering if you'd know of any jobs around here that a couple of guys could do for a while to get some cash?"

   He felt instinctively that Hunter was turning in mock-appreciation of the equipment splayed around, when really he was, rather unsuccessfully, trying to smother a laugh.

   "Well…" The guy looked uncertain. "You two look like strong boys." He frowned slightly. "How many of you were there?"

   "Three, but Dustin's sick – he wouldn't be able to work for a couple of days."

   "I've got a couple of jobs out back I need someone to do." The man jerked his thumb towards the back room. "I've been doin' it all on my own since my help went overseas."

   Cam let a slightly uncertain, disbelieving look weave across his expression. "You serious?"

   "As a heart attack."  The guy surveyed them both. "You'd get eight bucks an hour, overtime pay ten bucks, and hours are pretty flexible. Plus you can take home whatever food you want. You in?"

   Cam turned back to Hunter. "We in?"

   Hunter nodded. "You're probably gonna regret the food promise," he warned. "Dustin eats anything and everything."

   The man shrugged. "If I can deal with Rocky, I can deal with anyone."

   Cam blinked.  Who exactly was Rocky?

   The man was extending his hand out to them. "I'm Ernie."

   "I'm Cam, and this is Hunter."

   Ernie nodded as he indicated the side of the counter. "C'mon in and I'll show you what you're doing."

  

   Hunter locked eyes with Cam. "You ready?"

   "Question is, are you ready?"

   "I'm always ready."

   "On three? One…two…"

   "Three!"

   "Ow!"

   "Don't strain yourself, dude."

   "Don't call me dude!"

   Hunter smirked at him over the box containing what was apparently a new gymnastics springboard. "I suppose being locked up in Ninja Ops for so long doesn't give you much time in the gym, eh?" he mocked.

   Cam simply growled over the cardboard.

   "Steps," Hunter said in warning as he suddenly dipped below Cam's eyesight.

   "Person," Cam nodded, just as Hunter collided with someone.

   "Sorry dude," Hunter said over his shoulder.

   "No problem."

   The voice was slightly familiar to the Crimson Ranger, and he racked his brain for the reason why…when it suddenly found him.

   "Parecemos correr a uno al otro mucho," he commented.

   The man gave a double-take, before shrugging. "Bueno ver usted."

   Hunter gave a rather fake smile in return before he and the box started moving again, forcing Cam to hasten his steps a little. As soon as the guy was out of earshot, Cam asked casually, "So who was that?"

   "One of the guys who first found Dustin – and as I found out the hard way, has a mean high right kick."

   Cam rolled his eyes at his friend over the top of the box. "Is there any situation around you that doesn't turn to violence?"

   Hunter grinned back. "Only something Dustin should know about."

   "Too much information there, Hunter."



   "So who was that?" Adam questioned, coming up to Rocky and placing a hand on his friend's shoulder.

   Rocky scowled slightly after the two disappearing men. "Remember Dustin, and the Spanish guy who said he didn't see him?"

   How could he forget – Rocky had only been a few more meetings away from being married to the Dustin bloke.

   "Vaguely," Adam deliberately understated, a few remaining touches of anger flickering as he remembered Dustin.

   Rocky indicated the moving box. "Meet him again. Ernie probably gave him a job."

   "Why would Ernie give him a job if he canno speeka no Engleesh?" Adam asked, frowning a little as one of the things nagging at him suddenly made sense. "He doesn't look very Spanish to me," he then pointed out, crossing his arms over his chest.

   "I suppose not," Rocky said, slightly confused on the signals Adam was sending out. He looked angry, almost as if someone had made some kind of personal attack on him. "You right there, man?"

   Adam blinked as he saw Rocky turn those beautiful, chocolate-brown eyes - _No!_ he mentally chided himself.

   "I'm fine," he replied a little too quickly.

   Rocky let his eyes follow Adam in confusion as his old friend stalked away to 'their' table.

   _Guy's just a little uptight,_ Rocky reasoned. _That other Ranger, not to mention those three ninja-type-dudes yesterday were kinda freaky._

   He followed Adam, not paying any more attention to Hunter.



   Dustin was less than impressed at being left in the hotel room for five hours – especially after being told that he one, couldn't fall asleep, and two, couldn't go out of the room 'under pain of never sleeping with me again' as Hunter had threatened.

   As a normal, hormone-guided teenage boy who had no thoughts whatsoever of being with anyone else besides Hunter for the rest of his life, he decided for his own happiness – even if it was going to be future happiness – he would stay in the hotel room.

   He had spent about ten minutes thoroughly exploring the apartment, discovering that although there were no razors, there were several small cans of what professed to be shaving cream. The linen closet was well stocked with blankets and towels and everything in between, and the refrigerator/freezer unit was empty, except for a few stray ice cubes and half a Sprite Cam had splurged on last night.

   For the remaining four hours and fifty minutes, Dustin was bored stiff.

   He was about to scream when finally Cam and Hunter opened the door and trudged inside.

   "About time," Dustin huffed uncharacteristically. "I've been going nuts all day."

   Hunter made a sympathetic noise, while Cam simply rolled his eyes. "Did you fall asleep?" Cam asked, plopping himself down on the couch.

   "No," Dustin scowled.

   Cam made a sound which resembled a laugh mixed with a cough. "Poor baby, being cooped up all day," he deadpanned. He nonchalantly checked his watch, which was still running on 'home' time. "If things haven't gone blurry or anything you could probably sleep again tonight. But Hunter has to wake you up again."

   "Fun!" Dustin exclaimed in yet another burst of uncharacteristic anger, falling back on the bed.

   Hunter frowned, noting Dustin's odd behaviour quickly before deciding what exactly to do. He sat down softly on the bed next to his boyfriend, making sure the bed didn't move at all until he was settled all the way down to lie next to Dustin.

   "We got us jobs," he offered quietly, propping his head up and staring at Dustin's closed eyelids.

   "Whoop-dee-doo," Dustin muttered under his breath. He rolled away to face the wall.

   Hunter bit his lip, reaching out to lightly pull at and play with Dustin's short bangs. He twisted the brown curls around his fingers, before feeling Dustin sigh.

   " 'm sorry," Dustin muttered. "I've just spent hours thinking about home, and Tori and Shane, and Blake and Kelly and Sensei…" He rolled back over, coming nose-to-nose with Hunter. "I miss them already," he confessed in a low whisper.

   "So do I," Hunter murmured back.

   "I keep thinking about how we're supposed to go home, and that we never got to tell Shane or anyone about us coming here. They'll think we just disappeared, or got killed or captured by Lothor, and they'll never know if we don't go back. And we don't know how time is there – maybe every day here is like a decade over there!" Dustin's eyes widened at the new thought. "Blake and Tori could be married! Tomorrow you'll be an uncle! In a couple of days they'll have died of old age!"

   Hunter tried valiantly to stop the rambling, but only finding that putting a finger near Dustin's face when he was talking was a good way to lose a digit, he was nearly out of ideas.

   So when Dustin finally did shut up, Cam looked over in surprise.

   Only to find the two making out like the teenagers their IDs said they were.

   "Get a room," Cam muttered under his breath, forcing himself to stare out the window and not at the kissing couple on the bed.

   Yet surprisingly enough Dustin had brought up a good point. How were they supposed to get home? Could they even pinpoint somewhere to go back to, or would they need to just grin and cross their fingers? Cam knew he was good, damn good. But with the limited funds they had – needing to pay for food, boarding, everyday little necessities – they would all add up. And even with this new, decent paying job they'd be lucky to have half the equipment they'd need in a year. Plus trying to negotiate space and time without a dedicated server and a hell of a lot of power wouldn't accomplish much. If any of it went wrong there'd be a good chance space continuum would collapse on itself if there was even the smallest margin of error and somewhere they ran into their past selves.

   Thank god when he'd gone back in time with the scroll he hadn't yet been born. Not only with the freaky aspects of seeing himself from the future, but the fact that probably ninety percent of all theories he'd ever read on time travel had predicted that a past and present, or present and future doubles running into each other would pretty much ensure the fact that there'd be no more people to write any more theories on time travel.

   Jeez. Even *his* head was starting to hurt.

   There was a loud _thump_ behind him as the Yellow Earth and Crimson Thunder Rangers fell off the bed.



   "So could you tell who they were, Zordon?" Tommy asked.

   Zordon shook his head. "They have masking skills nearly identical to your own, Rangers. It would be near impossible to discover their identities without them first deciding to unmask themselves to you."

   "How is that possible?" Billy questioned. "How could they duplicate Ranger technology like that?"

   "It's not a Ranger skill – it is a part of your Ninjetti power. A ninja skill."

   "So they went to Phaedos and got the Great Power?" Kim asked skeptically.

   "I do not sense the Great Power energies around them. They draw power from a different source." Zordon, had he a body, would probably have shrugged somewhere in that sentence.

   "So we've got three bad ninjas, an evil Ranger haunting Rocko and Adam, and we don't know jack about either of them." Tommy raised an eyebrow. "I don't like that."

   "Neither do the haunt-ees," Rocky added, motioning towards himself and Adam. "Are you sure this guy didn't come up on your scans, Zordon?"

   "I am positive, Rocky. Neither did the other young man you were asking about."

   Adam glowered for a moment at the mention of Dustin, before he carefully schooled his expression back to neutrality. "Could the two be related?" he questioned before he could stop himself.

   Zordon was silent for a moment. "I shall research more on these new enemies of yours, Rangers." Adam noticed that his question had gone unanswered. "For now you must return to your daily lives."

   "You up for a good session at Ernie's?" Tommy asked Rocky just before they teleported.

   "Aren't I always?"

   Rocky briefly wondered at the look he received from Adam, before shoving it to the back of his mind with a shrug.