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. The majority of things in here belongs to Saban.

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: Holy moly, I've got nearly 100 reviews. Thank you all so very much – but maybe as a thank you I won't wait so long between chapters again. This is one of the slower chapters, as least it seemed that way when I was writing it, but it is the glue that holds the rest of the story to the beginning.

His head felt like it was on fire.

And he couldn't see.

Why couldn't he see?

"Dustin?" a familiar voice asked from above him.

"Hunt?"

"Yeah, babe. Are you okay?"

Dustin rubbed his head, slowly taking stock of himself as he sat up. Colours swirled in front of his eyes, and he felt Hunter help him up. His head hurt. A lot. His left forearm hurt. Not quite so much. And either sweat or blood was trickling down his neck.

"Where are we?" Dustin muttered, swiping irritably at the liquid on his neck.

"I'm not sure. When you got knocked out we just appeared here, minus the grey dudes." There was a pause, before Hunter's fingers came to probe gently at Dustin's neck, covering where his fingers had been previously. "You do remember the grey dudes don't you?"

"Yeah, course. They were the swarms and swarms of…yeah, grey dudes. Massively headache inducing though. They sucked."

Hunter's fingers withdrew, and he heard Hunter shifting behind him. "Uh, babe? You never answered my question."

Dustin frowned. "What question?"

"Are you okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Dustin asked, blinking slowly.

Everything was still black.

"Just a…feeling."

"Do you know where we are?" the Yellow Ranger asked, wiping at his eyes. Why the heck couldn't he see?

There was silence.

"Hunt?"

"No," Hunter said, sounding impatient. Dustin suddenly figured that Hunter had nodded, or done something else that he couldn't see.

"Isn't it like in the Evil Guide to the Universe that the bad guy reveals himself, then captures the good guys?" Dustin questioned. As soon as he was done speaking colours again swirled in front of him, and he lowered his head to bump softly against his knees.

"God, Dustin, you're starting to scare me now," Hunter's voice came, concerned, from just in front of him. A warm hand lifted his chin and there was a moment of silence as Dustin figured that Hunter was checking him out.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" Hunter suddenly asked.

"Three?"

"Try again."

"…one?"

"I wasn't holding any up, Dust."

"…oh."

"What can you see, babe?" the blonde said, running a finger down Dustin's cheek like he would a delicate porcelain doll.

Despite himself, Dustin leaned into Hunter's touch before admitting softly, "Pretty much nothing."

"You stupid…" Hunter said softly, although there was a tinge of affection in his voice. "Tell me these things, okay?"

"I'm sorry Hunt, I just…I thought it would go away."

Hunter sighed, before a couple of scraping noises indicated he was moving.

Dustin waited for a few seconds before reaching out cautiously into the darkness. "Hunter?"

"Babe, I'm still here, just getting comfortable."

A pair of arms came from his side and roughly pulled Dustin over. "Warning! Warning, please," he asked, head swimming again.

Hunter kissed the top of his head. "Sorry," he said apologetically. Even so, Dustin was unceremoniously pulled to rest in between Hunter's legs, his back against Hunter's chest. The Crimson Ranger's arms moved around him then, enfolding him in warmth.

Dustin hadn't even realised he was cold.

It had been three hours, forty-six minutes and…Cam checked his watch, still on the Harbour time…nineteen seconds since he had arrived back at their hotel.

And Hunter and Dustin weren't here.

Normally back home, if Hunter was out this late he would have dismissed it as boyish tomfoolery and put it up to going out on the town. But right now, where they were, he was on the verge of calling in the FBI, the CIA, ATF and any other three-letter acronyms that sounded important enough.

And he was pacing.

Doing a lot of pacing.

He was wearing tracks in the shoddy hotel carpet.

Tracks so big that Hunter, Blake and Dustin all could have ridden side-by-side and had enough room to turn around.

It would be just his luck if the hotel charged a breakages fee.

As it was, Cam had brought home a couple of packages of ramen noodles and had convinced Ernie to whip up a decent-sized stir-fry. And Dustin and Hunter hadn't eaten since lunch, at about two this afternoon. He had specifically told them that he was coming home just before eleven with dinner. And no way would they have missed out on even the most remote chance of food.

So they were missing.

Oh crap.

Rocky slowly mashed his peas together, head on one hand as he very precisely turned his peas from solid to mush.

Adam was gay.

His Adam, the one who had coached Rocky in meditation, was homosexual.

His Adam, who had always been so unnerved by his large family, was queer.

It was hard to imagine.

"Rocky, baby, are you alright?" his mother's concerned voice broke into his trance.

He looked up, and forced a smile onto his face for Maria DeSantos. "Fine, mama. Just a long day."

"You've barely touched your food," she scolded lightly, while grabbing a sponge from the sink for his little brother, Tyler, who'd just spilt tomato sauce over the table.

"It's nothing."

She scrutinized him for a few seconds longer before nodding. "If you're-Krista! What did I say about that?" she cried, her attention diverted by his sister.

Rocky moved on to squishing his potatoes.

It was all Adam could do to stare blindly at the computer screen. His mind was running a million miles an hour, and along a thousand different channels.

Rocky knew, oh God, Rocky knew.

He didn't know it all.

He had heard, more than once, Rocky joke about gays in a not so great light. He'd been deliberate in revealing little things in conversation over the years – his uncle was gay, he'd read statistics on gay-bashing and didn't it suck, etc, etc. But he'd been flying blind until he'd been forced into telling Rocky.

It felt horrible.

Those few seconds where Rocky hadn't said anything had felt like Adam's heart was being ripped from his chest over and over again.

And that was less than half the battle.

What if Rocky noticed Adam looking at him one too many times? Or that he wasn't looking at other guys?

What if Rocky put together all the pieces and discovered Adam was in love with him?

Hunter looked down on his boyfriend's face, smooth and relaxed in sleep.

It had been a while. And Dustin still couldn't see.

The slash on the back of Dustin's neck had started to scab over, he could see that much. The dim lighting in this place let him see the subtle differences in Dustin's expressions – from when he was awake and in pain to when he was sleeping and relaxed.

Hunter had made his decision.

The door slid open, and the man walked in.

"Well?"

Hunter tenderly ran a hand over Dustin's cheek, apologizing for what he was about to do.

"I'll work for you."

He got the impression that the thing in front of him was happy. "Good," it hissed.

"You'll stop hurting Dustin?"

"Of course," the creature oozed, sounding as sincere as Lothor.

But he had no choice.

"You will answer to the name Hunter in this room only. Outside of it you will be called the Crimson Ranger. Is that clear?"

"Yes," Hunter mumbled, already hating himself for what he was doing. His eyes never left Dustin's face; he already could feel the aura of smugness that came from the being in front of him. Hunter's only consolation was that he was doing this for Dustin – everything he ever did was for Dustin.

"Your mission is to destroy the Power Rangers. Every time you succeed in harming one of them, I will heal your little…friend here. If you are beaten in a battle, you get to watch him suffer."

"Yes."

"You will address me as your Master."

"Yes…master."

The door closed, and the figure walked out. Already Dustin was gaining colour in his cheeks. Hunter buried his head in the crook of Dustin's neck, mindless of the dried blood flaking off onto his forehead. 'I'm so sorry, baby,' he thought softly in his mind.

Lord Zedd would have smirked, had he a mouth. Another evil Ranger. This would spell the end.

Hunter only had to wait a few moments after Zedd had left their cell for Dustin to start to stir. His eyelids started to flutter before he blinked awake, and focused on Hunter. "Hi."

"You can see?" Hunter questioned, his tone coming in somewhere between pleased and disturbed.

Dustin winked and blinked and rubbed his way to a nod. "Still not perfect. But I can see you, dude. And if you did that finger thingy again I could probably pass." Dustin rubbed his neck, hissing slightly as he irritated the scab. Hunter combed his own fingers through Dustin's curls, winding a mini ringlet around his index finger.

"So how are we gonna get out of here?" Dustin broke the silence.

Hunter's stomach dropped. That thing had already created a hold on Dustin, he'd said so. He'd shown that too…with Dustin not being able to see. At first, when he thought Dustin was…was dead, he'd…God, he'd never been so scared in his entire life. Even when the Thunder Academy had been attacked he hadn't been that scared. He'd completely stopped fighting, just gone limp, and the only thing he could see was Dustin's white face, smeared with blood.

He was shoved down corridors, but he was still staring at that too-white face, that too-white face that belonged to the love of his life, the man that was being dragged like a sack of flour on the floor. Parts of his brain were just screaming, screaming the pain of an animal dying in a trap. A separate part of his mind was dumb, struck silent and numb. There was no Dustin, there would be no Hunter.

The only section of his mind that was working was his instincts, the animal instinct for running away, for fighting. Hunter had only just started to struggle when he was thrown into a kneel, some dim part of his mind, some stubborn rebellious part that wasn't screaming or numb or instinctive, that part of his mind objected to kneeling. But with one slam to the head, the noises all shut up as the grey swam, and the fogginess had returned.

Silence reigned until Hunter had gathered his senses and looked up. The thing in front was some perverted artist's version of the human body – where skin should have been muscles glistened, and he felt some detached sense of disgust when red sparks flew around the brain.

Then it spoke.

"I am Lord Zedd, supreme power of evil in the galaxy, soon to rule Earth."

Hunter took a deep breath, willing himself not to look at Dustin's…corpse. Oh God.

"What do you want?"

The chrome grin didn't move. "I am…interested in acquiring your services to wipe out those children that call themselves Power Rangers. You will work for me. Or your friend will die."

Dustin was alive.

It felt like his mind was a slate and a wet cloth had just been wiped over it. Everything was gone except for this immense feeling of relief, of hope, of love.

Hunter could have smacked himself. Dustin's chest was still rising and falling. And why would they have dragged a body all that way if it was just that – a body?

But all the same he'd just been given a choice that wasn't a choice. He'd been given back the hope that Dustin was still alive and he knew that he couldn't go through losing him again.

"Babe?" Dustin questioned, and Hunter snapped back to the present.

Hunter shrugged, hoping it looked nonchalant. Who knew what the skinless freak was capable of if they escaped? He'd made Dustin go blind. He could make Dustin sick. Or kill him. "Let's just see what's going on first," he suggested. Dustin nodded and tilted his head backwards. Hunter obliged him with a peck on the lips. The Earth Ninja smiled, and settled in between Hunter's legs.

Hunter felt sick.