Zoey arrived home at the end of a long day. After becoming the yellow Ranger and stopping Blaze's and Roxy's Avatars, Nate has put her, Devon and Ravi through the training simulator. It was tougher than she remembered, though she wasn't training to be a Ranger anymore. She was training as a Ranger. The stakes were so much higher now and she always knew she needed to give it her all , no matter how tired or how sore she felt.
Blaze and Roxy has already proven they wouldn't hold back.
"You're home late," her mother called from the kitchen. Zoey joined her and nodded her head. "I thought they might send you home after the attack."
"Someone's got to clean the place up," Zoey stated. She couldn't tell her mother the big news. She had been sworn to secrecy to protect her identity. Only those closest to the Ranger project knew who the three Rangers were and Commander Shaw insisted it stay that way. "I volunteered to help out however I could to speed it up a bit."
"I figured," her mother said with a smile as she removed Zoey's dinner from the oven. "You work so hard, I can't believe they didn't pick you to be a Ranger candidate. You can do so much more than laundry."
"Pay your dues, right," Zoey said with a shrug. She loved her mother dearly. Mrs. Reeves had always been her biggest supporter. She cheered the loudest when Zoey took her first steps and still bragged to this day that Zoey said her first word two whole month before the baby book said she would. She had always been her daughter's biggest advocate as well, fighting to get Zoey everything she deserved.
However, now that Zoey was an adult, Mrs. Reeves knew to back off. Her days as a reporter had caused her to see too many helicopter parents and she saw the effect that had on the children, who felt entitled and were too lazy to work for their privileges. She wouldn't let that happen to her daughter and so had to let go, even if every fibre of her being wanted to go yell at Commander Shaw for cutting her daughter from the team. Mrs. Reeves knew cheerleading happened on the sidelines and that it shouldn't interfere with the game.
"That's right," she nodded. "Though, part of me is glad I don't know who any of the Rangers are. Keeps me unbiased when reporting on them."
"Unbiased?"
"Well after all the trouble all the other teams have caused around California, we can't exactly claim they're the heroes this world needs." Mrs. Reeves stated. "They're a reaction to a problem, not a prevention. I have to keep my reporting fair. That's easier to do when my daughter isn't on the front page of every story."
Zoey felt a bit concerned hearing that. Her mother was not going to hold back when it came to the Rangers and that was unnerving. Zoey remembered her mother had recently travelled to Summer Cove when Sarah's identity had been revealed and the fallout from all the negative press had made matters worse for everyone. The Rangers suddenly had to shift their focus between stopping alien threats and keeping the crowd of people under control and safe.
Zoey never told her mother, but at that time, she had been worried for the safety of the planet. She knew her mother was only doing her job and didn't mean any harm, but there were moments Zoey feared this was the end.
The team of Ninja Rangers were a team of seven at the time. More than double Zoey's team now. If they could barely keep their balls in the air, what chance would she have if the same thing happened.
"It's better to have them, though, right? They do a better job than law enforcement."
"They do," her mother agreed. "I don't know, though. I just can't shake the feeling that having Power Rangers is the reason we need to have Power Rangers."
"Like, if they weren't here, neither would the villains?" Zoey couldn't deny there was some truth to that statement. Their current opponents were the chosen Rangers. Had Roxy and Blaze never been asked to be Rangers, or had the project not happened, there would have been no way for Evox to corrupt the program and create the avatars in the first place.
However, that didn't mean there wasn't some other threat lurking in the shadows. It was hard to say, either way, whether the Rangers were needed, or whether their presence was what caused them to be needed.
"I just hope they're good people," Mrs. Reeves stated. "I hope they were chosen for the right reasons. They want to protect people, do the right thing. They don't want to be heroes. Kinda like you." She looked to her daughter with a bright smile. "I would have a much easier time trusting them if I knew they had chosen you. I know you're good."
"Yeah. If only, right?"