Magi Ranger

By: Tenstar12

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Power Rangers.

Chapter 47, or Gettin' Bugged…

In the days and weeks following Zordon's agreeing that something was wrong with the Rangers, and in light of him having no better ideas of his own, Harry did as his mentor had asked of him: watching over his teammates and looking for other hints as to what was wrong. To this end, Harry paid especially close attention to them where he was around them most outside of battle: the Youth Center.

As Tommy had explained to him, the clubs formed by the other Rangers had been led by said Rangers for a week. After that point, leadership of the respective clubs turned over to whichever member wanted it, with the sole exception of Zack's Hip-Hop Kido club, which he had, as Harry predicted, folded into his regular weekly classes.

Jason and Tommy's karate club had been more of a teaser type series of meetings. Demonstrations by either black belt were followed by simple lessons to teach some of the more basic moves, all with the intent of creating interest in those club members who weren't already part of either teen's karate classes. Ultimately, that club had just ended as neither of the leaders could continue and none of the students were skilled enough to take over. Some of them had indeed approached Jason and Tommy about further lessons, but there wasn't really much more to be said.

Billy's science club was the first one where, upon investigation, things had gone oddly. By week's end, the club had largely turned into a study group/tutoring session where all the members got help on their homework, primarily science to stay within the regulations Principal Caplan had laid out for Billy. The Blue Ranger did indeed lead most of the sessions, save where the topic being discussed wasn't within his field of expertise (which only really happened when they would stray away from the sciences). One point of interest was one of the members of this club: Marge, the girl that Harry and the other Rangers had thought might have been a romantic interest for the Blue Ranger at one time. At the end of the week though, Billy's actions put that theory to rest in Harry's mind.

Once the week was up and Billy was relieved of his obligatory role as the leader, a role Marge then stepped into, he had absolutely no interaction with the club at all. While Billy continued on with any tutoring activity he had already been a part of, the objects of which he had typically encouraged to join his science club, he no longer sought out any of the other members. In fact, unless one of them actively approached him, including Marge, Billy seemed to completely forget that any of them existed for all the thought that was directed toward them, again including Marge.

Much like how Kimberly seemed to be forgetting Tommy.

And if they hadn't already started a relationship, Harry doubted that Marge would be up for it after the type of unintentional-though-she-doesn't-know-that spurning Billy had been doing.

Speaking of Kimberly, her gardening club, after discovering that the lack of signups had been because Principal Caplan had mistakenly told the student body that that particular club booth was in the school auditorium instead of the Youth Center, had put together a decorative garden near the entrance to Angel Grove Park. After that, nothing. It took them a week to finish that garden and, like Billy, when Kimberly's obligation was fulfilled, she dropped it completely. Without her to drive the group onward to another project, the club completely collapsed. This was especially odd since Harry normally would have pegged Kimberly as sticking with the club after how upset she had been when nobody seemed to be signing up. Especially since her jealousy had been enough to draw Zedd's attention as an opportunity to exploit.

It was nearly enough to make Harry's head hurt.

As for Trini, she was both the easiest and most difficult for Harry to keep an eye on. Easiest because he had the most readymade excuse as her boyfriend to spend time around her. Hardest because she arguably knew him better than the other Rangers and so was more easily able to pick up on something bothering him. But he knew he couldn't confide his suspicions and worries to her, not the least reason of which was that if who or whatever was affecting his fellow Rangers caught on that he was suspicious (beyond how obvious he had already been with Tommy's plight), then they may do more to hide themselves, making his and Zordon's jobs that much harder.

In any case, Trini's club went similarly to a mix between Jason and Tommy's club and Kimberly's. In this case, the group met up daily to play volleyball together, but when the week was up and Trini left, the group actually stayed together and continued to meet up to play, drawn together by their mutual love for the sport.

But much as with Billy, Trini had completely ignored anything but direct approaches from her former club, not even mentioning further meetings or anything like that from what had essentially been her brain child. And from his outgoing and ever eager to help girlfriend, that was especially concerning to Harry.

In addition to his observations at the Youth Center and just generally when the Rangers hung out, a combination of Zordon through the Viewing Globe and Hedwig following them was used to investigate each of the Rangers' home lives. To that end, Hedwig followed each of the Rangers home in turn, silently following them as only an owl can and further hidden by a disillusionment charm from Harry. She observed each of them for an evening and noted that, while they certainly were showing different behavior in public, they seemed to be completely normal at home, or at least not so different that their parents weren't just disregarding it as teens being teens. These were all result that Zordon's observations agreed with, so in the end, no help coming from that angle.

Not even Alpha's hacking into school computers and records could turn up any further unusual activities for the Rangers noted there.

So far, all they had come up with was that whatever was effecting the Rangers made them ignore a lot of people in their lives. They had originally said "all," but then thought about it more and realized that Jason, and Zack weren't ignoring their students, Billy wasn't ignoring those he tutored, etc. Also, there wasn't any discernable difference in their family dynamics as far as they could tell from the outside, so they weren't ignoring anyone there. And then there was the fact that, while they were engaged in the clubs they created for that week, they were fully engaged. Talking with club members both during and outside of club hours about club activities. Then, once they were over, with the exception of Zack because those interested got folded into his regular students, the Rangers just forgot about the lot of them.

In fact, the only ones that seemed to be beyond the scope of the effect were the other Rangers, Alpha, and Zordon himself.

Their actions were so conditional that Harry, Alpha, and Zordon couldn't even settle on what exactly the total effect on the Rangers even was much less who or what caused it.

Back on the Tommy and Kimberly front, Harry had explained his and Zordon's observations, as well as the concerns the other Rangers (*cough*Jason*cough*) had raised about Harry himself. This revelation that there might well be something wrong with the Rangers, particularly Kimberly, that made them (her) act like they had been actually took a fair bit of weight off of Tommy's back. When coupled with Kimberly's increased diligence in keeping her dates and such with Tommy, the former Green Ranger was closer to his old self than he had been in some time.

Kimberly had taken to carrying around a planner with her in which she wrote down literally everything she needed to do on any given day, specifically where Tommy was regarded, typically writing it down the moment it first came up. While she still hadn't seemed to acknowledge that the problem went further than a bit of forgetfulness on her part, her ritualistic checking of that planner had allowed her to keep a number of dates and the like over the weeks following the Bloom of Doom's attack.

Which led nicely into Zedd's activity over the same time period. In the roughly three weeks since Bloom of Doom was defeated, Zedd had sent another monster to attack each week. They weren't exactly a week apart each, as that would have made things a bit too easy, but Zedd had seemingly settled on an approximate time frame for each attack after his previous inactivity.

As with Rita, each Zedd attack was typically accompanied by Z-Putties. Though in Zedd's case, the monster was usually there at the same time as the putties, leading to morphing before the putties attacked which made the fights that much easier for the empowered Rangers.

The first such monster, striking 6 days after the Bloom of Doom, was actually a two for one deal. Kimberly had managed to keep her first big date with Tommy in quite a while, and as part of her planning, had decided to borrow a "lucky purse" from her mother, one that was reportedly used by her mother on her first date with Kimberly's father.

Upon hearing this, Harry carefully decided not to bring up that Kimberly's parents were divorced, a fact he had learned during earlier bonding with the Pink Ranger after their shared time in the Samurai Fan Man's jar, which hardly lent credence to the purse's luck value.

Add onto the purse a similarly "lucky lipstick" borrowed from Trini (who only blushed when Harry asked why it was lucky), and Kimberly was all ready for her date with Tommy. As with most such dates in Angel Grove (at least in Harry's limited experience), the two had decided to take a walk in the park before getting something to eat. This was unfortunately (read: predictably) interrupted when putties attacked the two teens, stealing Kimberly's mother's purse before the teens could react which Zedd then turned into the monster Pursehead.

This monster managed to freeze Kimberly in place and spent some time toying with the Powerless Tommy before doing the same to him. By the time Zordon and Alpha had managed to call in the other Rangers to face this monster and rescue their friends, Zedd had created another monster from Trini's lipstick that had been in the purse. So came Lipsyncher, who Zedd almost immediately grew to giant size and set toward Angel Grove proper.

The Rangers were forced to split up, with Jason going off to summon his Thunderzord and battle against Lipsyncher while Harry, Zack, Billy, and Trini went to battle Pursehead. The battle had been rather short, all things considered, as Harry was able to break the spell over Kimberly and Tommy, allowing the Pink Ranger to join the battle and help her teammates overwhelm and destroy Pursehead while Harry covered Tommy. Afterwards, it had been a simple matter for the other Thunderzords to be called in to relive the struggling Jason, the Thunder Megazord formed, and Lipsyncher destroyed.

With Zedd's attempt at a pure power play with the Pursehead and Lipsyncher monsters overcome, the Emperor of Evil seemingly decided to go for more subtlety the next time around. A mere three days later, on the first Monday after the Rangers' clubs ended, he cast a spell on two pairs of sunglasses that Zack had gotten for him and Billy to use as safety glasses during a science experiment in class.

Apparently normal, properly transparent safety glasses didn't look good enough…

In any case, the spell on the glasses had caused the two Rangers to see all the other Rangers as Z-Putties, even after removing the glasses, which apparently led to no small amount of trouble for them at school when they panicked over a putty attack in the halls when it was just Jason, Trini, and Kimberly walking up to them.

The end result was rather anticlimactic as, once the two got to the Command Center after serving a detention for "causing a disturbance" at the school with their Putty attack scare, Harry was able to identify and break the spell they were under with a similar method to what he had done with Kimberly and the jealousy amplification spell. He certainly wasn't complaining, but when a spell is broken by making the target's own internal Power aware of its existence, it wasn't really an effective tactic.

Once the spell had been broken, the Rangers were able to easily engage and defeat the Saliguana, Zedd's latest monster created from a class pet at Angel Grove High, which was effectively a large, bipedal, fire breathing lizard. This time, Harry really didn't even have to be there, or at least that's how he felt, since the other five Rangers were almost easily able to overwhelm the monster, destroying it with the Power Blaster before Zedd was able to grow it while Harry just stood back and watched, effectively left out of battle by how seamlessly the others were fighting.

The next week was a rather interesting one for Harry. It all started when Ernie told Harry that he was hiring another extra pair of hands in the hopes of training him up before school let out and the busier Summer season started. As luck would have it, Harry was introduced to Richie later on that same day. He was a somewhat tall teen, or taller than Harry anyway, with brown hair that seemed rather carefully styled, and a bright smile that he often flashed to the patrons of the snack bar. Particularly the female patrons.

It wasn't until Harry caught sight of Trini walking into the Youth Center that he really had any problem with him. Said problem started when Richie walked up next to him and asked. "Hey, Harry, can you tell me anything about that chick in yellow over there? What kind of person she is, what she likes, that sort of thing."

Harry shot Richie a look out of the corner of his eye before responding. "Well, her name is Trini Kwan, she's friends with Kimberly, Jason, Billy, Zack, and Tommy," Harry pointed out each of the teens who were all conveniently in the Youth Center at the time, "though she's nice to just about anyone. She's very helpful whenever asked and generally always looks for ways to help out, be it the environment, a school project, or what have you." Harry paused there as if taking a moment to think before continuing. "Oh, she's also my girlfriend."

Harry finished his statement by turning toward Richie and giving him a bit of a flat look. He had intended it as a sort of teasing joke, but the calculating look in Richie's eyes made him think he might have miscalculated. In response, the teen merely nodded slowly, still giving that same look to Harry before turning back to his work at the grill. Internally, Harry noted to keep an eye on him.

Later on that same day, when Richie took his break, Harry watched him make a bee line for where Trini and Kimberly were and strike up a conversation. He couldn't hear what was said, but based on the looks on the girl's faces, they quickly became less than happy with Richie. Especially when Trini nodded in Harry's direction and Richie's response was accompanied by a dismissive wave of his arms.

When he returned from his shorter than expected break, Richie slowed briefly as he passed behind Harry at the counter. "Round one to you, Potter, but I haven't lost a girl once I set my eyes on her yet." By the time Harry spun around, Richie had already taken his spot back at the grill where Ernie bustled over to continue teaching him. This only made him that much more determined to keep an eye on the teen. He was crafty, or at least thought himself so, and if he planned on trying to insert himself between Harry and Trini he may end up finding more than he bargained for.

Idly, Harry also noted to review some of the pranking spells the Weasley twins had taught him back at Hogwards via his Occlumency. He had a feeling they just might come in handy sometime soon.

On the following Wednesday, Harry and Trini went to a beach near Angel Grove once Trini got out of school for the day. It was quite an experience for Harry as, what with all the craziness in his life in his old world and this newer one, he still had never been to a beach outside of Ranger battles. So the two spent some time walking and talking, hand in hand down the beach until someone called out Trini's name. It turned out to be one of her neighbors, a ten year old girl named Hallie.

The girl had then drawn the two into her current pursuit of building sand castles, prompting Harry to try and recreate Hogwarts in a fit of whimsy, though only managing to get a slightly square-ish pile of sand by the time he was done, which at least entertained the girls, so that was something. Richie had walked past a few times, the first time or two not being noticed by Trini, which was apparently his goal as when he did catch her eye on his third pass he tried to insert himself into their group. Even Hallie saw through his attempt to get close to Trini and was more than happy to turn him down in the rude way only a child can get away with before Harry and Trini could even try.

Richie retreat was then facilitated by Bulk and Skull's latest attempt to draw out and unmask the Power Rangers: dressing up like putties and causing trouble on the beach. Aside from the fact that their disguises were terrible, the two bullies managed to knock down a young boy's sand castle, which prompted said child to kick Bulk in the shin, which was more than enough to chase the two bullies off with the boy running after them flinging sand their way.

The moment of humor was then ruined by screams as Hallie, who had wandered off a bit after Richie left, was nabbed by putties accompanied by Goldar. Before Trini and Harry could reach her, the entire group vanished, leaving behind a glass bottle that, when opened, proved to hold encoded instructions for Goldar to bring Hallie to somewhere called Venus Island. This was all learned later on in the Command Center, where Zordon revealed to the collected Ranger team that Venus Island existed in a pocket dimension Zedd controlled and that only opened for 24 hour stretches as he willed it to and it was primarily used as a prison or for converting new followers to his cause.

The end result was the six Rangers launching a rescue mission to the now open pocket dimension. Of course this ended up being a trap as a gloating Goldar revealed once they encountered him on the island. The bottle had been a plant to lure the Rangers to the island where Zedd could leave them trapped for all eternity with the island's inhabitant monster, the Invenusable Flytrap.

This led to Harry using his magic, mostly Wizarding magic as his control over his Power was still sketchy at best, to hold open the exit to the pocket dimension. Essentially, he just flung magic at it, occasionally supported by largely uncontrolled bursts of Power. That, coupled with Zedd's general lack of strength after the effort of opening the portal in the first place and his distance from it relative to Harry's, was enough to hold it open long enough for the other Rangers to defeat the Invenusable Flytrap, save Hallie, and for them all to escape together.

Yet again, Harry hadn't had much of any input into the battle other than being an object for the Rangers to defend. More than once, one of the others had leapt in front of him, his focus on keeping the exit open as it was, to take a hit when the monster turned its attention toward the helpless Magi Ranger. So this time, he was arguably more of a liability in battle than ever before. True, the Rangers would have been trapped were it not for his presence, since they wouldn't have left Hallie there regardless, but that was his sole contribution.

Harry had known that with their new Power and without Zedd having a Power boost like Rita did with the Elder Wand, he wouldn't be quite as essential for the Rangers' victory as he had once been, but it was still a bit shocking how little he had been needed in battle these past weeks.

Still, that did give him an opportunity to begin to further his own plans for his private life.

This brings us to Sunday, March 13th, 1994, with Harry coming in to the Youth Center to begin his shift, thankfully one without Richie to deal with, to find Ernie down on the cleared out main floor of the building instead of behind the snack bar as per usual. In addition, he was seemingly talking to himself as he ran about, hunched over with a broom in hand and swinging it at a bright green ball that was bouncing around. As Harry came closer, he spotted the other Rangers and Tommy sitting at a nearby table and redirected himself that way just as Ernie, with a mighty swing, knocked the ball into a small soccer goal that had been set up inside the building before turning to face the Rangers.

"And that's how it's done!" Ernie declared with a smile on his face. "So what do you say? Will you guys play?"

The Rangers exchanged glances, clearly unsure how to answer, until Trini caught sight of Harry. "Harry!" she called out, easily redirecting Ernie's attention. "There you are. Where've you been?"

Harry raised an eyebrow as he walked over to stand next to Trini's chair, idly giving her a one armed hug as he did. "Alright…" he said slowly before turning his attention to his boss. "What's all this stuff out here for, Ernie?"

Ernie, his enthusiasm not fading a bit. "I'm glad you asked, Harry. You see, a Youth Center from Stone Canyon challenged me to a game of Broom Ball, and I accepted."

Ernie stopped talking at that point, just looking at Harry with an expectant smile on his face. "Alright…" Harry said again. "Well, the last time I checked, we didn't have a team to play Broom Ball, nor have I really even heard of it until now, so why did you accept?"

Ernie just shook his head in exasperation. "It's a matter of pride, Harry. Their Youth Center challenged ours! My Youth Center! I couldn't just let that slide!"

Harry just sighed. "And let me guess, you're wanting all of us to play on your team?"

Ernie nodded happily before shooting Harry a sly look. "Hey, I have no problem with stacking the deck in my favor, you know?"

When none of the teens responded, Ernie quickly spoke again. "I mean you seven are easily the most athletic and helpful teens in this whole place. Heck, between you all, more than half the clubs and activity groups are represented, and most of those you guys lead! If nothing else, you could probably run circles around anybody Stone Canyon can field just because of that!"

"Hnn… not likely" A voice came from toward the entrance to the Youth Center entrance hallway. Harry, Ernie, and the others all turned to see a pair of teens, one boy and one girl, both blonde and both wearing black, "Stone Canyon Beetles" shirts featuring a humanoid beetle wielding a broom. "Our team is undefeated in two years, it would be impossible for a team of total newbies to beat us."

Harry quirked his eyebrow again. "And is that how you got your two year winning streak? By only challenging Youth Centers or whatever organization that didn't already have an existing team so you could beat them because of that fact alone?"

When the two Stone Canyon teens didn't respond, Harry turned slightly and shot a look to the other Rangers. "I mean, that only makes sense, right? Had any of you heard of Broom Ball before today? Before Ernie got challenged and all but tricked into put the pride of his Youth Center on the line to satisfy these guys' egos?"

Catching on a bit, the other Rangers shook their heads, hiding their smirks as best they could as Harry turned the newcomers' taunts back onto them. "So tell me," Harry continued, turning back to the two with a small smirk of his own. "Just how many completely unprepared, largely untrained, and totally unproven teams of teens and children have you beaten at this mostly unheard of game to achieve your remarkable winning streak?"

"It doesn't matter," one of the teens finally responded. "All that matters is the game. So are you in or not?"

There was another pregnant pause as all the Rangers (and Tommy) met eyes before Jason spoke for them all. "We'll take you on. You've got a game."

The two challenging teens demeanor changed quite quickly as they went from uneasy back to cocky in an instant. "Good. See you game day then." With that, they turned and quick walked back out, only pausing momentarily to hang an advertising poster on the Youth Center message board. Apparently the Angel Grove Youth Center would be hosting the game too.

Harry just rolled his eyes.

Ernie brought their attention back to him with a clap of his hands. "Alright team, let's get to practicing then, alright? We've only got a few days before our first match, and we need to beat those guys for the sake of the Angel Grove Youth Center!"

After receiving a less than totally enthusiastic response from the Rangers, Ernie turned and bustled off to a box in the corner of the room. As it turned out, he had already planned on wheedling the Rangers' cooperation one way or another as he had already obtained team shirts, each with the players' name printed on the back, so they all had uniforms naming them as the "Angel Grove Sweepers" when they took up the brand new brooms Ernie had also acquired and started batting the ball back and forth to each other.

For Harry, he was relegated to the role of Assistant Coach. He wasn't terribly unhappy about that as, despite enjoying playing Quidditch back at Hogwarts and the fact that this sport too seemed rather broom-centric, there didn't seem to be a Seeker like role for him to fill, so he doubted that he'd be any real kind of help on the team. Aside from that, team membership, at least for those playing, had apparently been limited to those of school age and actively in school, so he wouldn't have been able to play anyway seeing as he had "graduated" according to those forged records from Zordon and Alpha.

Though this little tidbit did little to raise his opinion of the Stone Canyon Beetles and their challenge.

After thirty or so minutes of watching the practice from Ernie's side. Harry was introduced to the real main part of his job as Assistant Coach of the Sweepers: running the snack bar while Ernie was occupied with his latest obsession. So it was that, while the Rangers spent the next few hours of their Sunday learning the allegedly noble sport of Broom Ball, Harry spent a frantic few hours cooking food, mixing drinks, and making sales to the Youth Center's other patrons, many of which were merely watching the practice taking place since Ernie had effectively shut down the rest of the Youth Center for the purpose of preserving the pride of his place of business.

Harry merely sighed as he took yet another order and started preparing it. Nothing to do now but hope that the Rangers (and Tommy) picked up things fast enough that Ernie became satisfied with their progress for the day and turned them all loose before Harry collapsed from the frantic pace he was maintaining behind the counter.

-MR-

It took a total of three hours of running through the basics before Ernie was satisfied, though when he ended practice he told them that they would be running through some basic strategy and plays when they got out of school the next day, so they should come prepared for another workout.

Many of the watching patrons had enjoyed seeing the team coming together for this new and unusual sport (to them at least), and could be heard making plans to return the next day. Harry could almost feel his muscles protesting another full day like the one he had just had. At least Richie would be there the next day to take off some of the strain, even though he was only partially trained and tended to spend an inordinate amount of time staring at Trini, probably in the hopes of catching her eye and dazzling her with his smile.

Or whatever he was planning…

In any case, Kimberly and Tommy had invited Harry and Trini to accompany them to the park where they all planned to cool down for a while with a leisurely stroll around the lake. It was while they were enjoying the breeze coming off the cool lake waters helping to soothe their tired muscles (the Rangers getting just as much of a workout as Harry under Ernie's relentless orders), that they suddenly found themselves surrounded by Putties.

"What the!" Tommy shouted, recoiling slightly before he, and the others, all slipped into fighting stances. "These must be the new putties you told me about. They're even uglier in person."

Harry snorted briefly before responding. "Yep, these are them alright."

Kimberly nodded, shooting her no longer Powered boyfriend a concerned glance. "Just remember, aim for the 'Z' in the middle of their chests to destroy them. You have to hit it pretty hard, but they go down like wet paper when you do."

Tommy nodded back, a fire in his eyes that Harry hadn't seen since before he lost his Power. "Got it, let's do this, guys."

With that, the four Rangers charged at the dozen Z-putties surrounding them. Harry himself engaged a pair of them with another pair a short distance away, leading off with a punch combo that alternated between the two putties to keep them off guard and drive them backwards, trying to get more room to fight.

Finally, one putty blocked one of his punches, leaving the other one to grab his arm while the first landed a punch of its own to Harry's stomach, knocking him back a step. He didn't get far though as the putty holding his arm yanked him forward, easily flipping him up and over its shoulder to land on his back between the four Z-Putties.

Harry grit his teeth as he drew on his internal Power supply, releasing it in an unfocused kinetic wave, pushing the putties back and knocking one of them off its feet entirely, giving him the room to scramble back onto his own feet and retake his stance. When one of the putties charged him, Harry sidestepped its punch before knocking the construct's arm to the side and delivering a straight palm strike right to the emblem on its chest, then, while that putty was lighting up and nearing its exploding point, Harry banished it back into one of its fellows. The first putty's explosion then triggered the "Z" on the second, setting it to self-destructing as well.

Pressing his advantage, Harry moved to engage his next target, only to have a green clad blur cut him off as Tommy leapt into battle with his signature, "Aiya! Si-Aiya!" In a pair of quick strikes, Tommy took the putties completely off guard and set them to exploding much faster than Harry would have been able to. The former Ranger shot Harry an excited look before racing off to help Kimberly finish off her last putty even as Trini finished off hers.

Harry just shook his head and relaxed his stance a bit as he moved to join Trini who was doing much the same, having seen Tommy essentially steal Harry's opponents. "I haven't seen him this worked up in a long time, have you?" Harry asked his girlfriend, a fond smile on his face.

Trini shook her head, though said nothing as she leaned into Harry's shoulder a bit, prompting him to wrap an arm around her. Tommy, having wiped out Kimberly's last putty as easily as he did Harry's, had picked up Kimberly and was swinging her around in his excitement.

"Wow!" he was nearly cheering as he set a laughing Kimberly down. "I can't believe how much I missed all this."

Kimberly hugged him quickly as they made their way over to Harry and Trini. "Well, as good as you did this time, I think we'd all welcome you around any time we have some putties to take care of."

Harry gave another snort before responding. "I'll say. Though for the record, I totally had those two handled."

Trini elbowed him in the side playfully, making him recoil while laughing. "Seriously though, Tommy," Trini said. "I know you're good, but you must have really been on your game. You took out half of them yourself and you're the only one here without Powers."

Tommy shrugged, still seemingly unable to remove the smile from his face even as he brushed imaginary dust off his shoulders. "What can I say, I'm just that good."

The teens collective laugh was interrupted by a gruff voice with a bit of a buzzing tone to it. "But are you good enough to defeat me, human?"

Harry groaned even as he saw Kimberly and Tommy's eyes go wide when they looked over his shoulder. "I should have known," he grumbled as he and Trini turned. "No way is Zedd gonna send down putties for us to beat without a monster to accompany them."

"Right you are, Magi Ranger!" the monster responded, though how it did so was a mystery to Harry. What stood before them was clearly a humanoid insect, given that it's body was covered in what looked like a brown insectoid shell, its hands were similar in design to a preying mantis's, though with four tiny claws at the tip vaguely resembling fingers. Its head was dominated by a pair of long mandibles easily extending two feet from its face, but there weren't really any other easily discernable features to be seen there, eyes, mouth or otherwise.

"Oh man," Kimberly said, finally finding her voice. "Not another bug monster…"

"Tommy," Harry said after a moment. "You're good against putties, but I don't think you'd last long against monsters. Take it from someone who tried without a Ranger suit, you're better off calling for help. You still have your communicator?"

"Yeah," Tommy responded raising his wrist with the communicator on it as his former happiness gave away to resigned irritation. He knew Harry was right, he just didn't like it.

"Then take cover and contact Zordon to get the others. We'll probably need their help sooner rather than later."

Tommy nodded, already moving back, but never turning away from the monster. "Alright, you guys be careful."

"Always." Harry responded before flicking his wrist and catching his wand. "You two ready?"

"Ready!" Kimberly and Trini chanted, brandishing their morphers in hand even as Harry slipped into his dueling/morphing stance.

"Then let's do it. It's Morphin' Time!"

"PTERODACTYL!" "SABER-TOOTH TIGER!" "MAGI RANGER, POWER UP!"

In a flash of light, the Magi Ranger was standing before the insectoid monster, flanked by the Pink and Yellow Mighty Morphin Rangers.

The monster wasn't impressed.

"If you think that morphing makes you safe from the Stag Beetle, then you've got another thing coming!" the monster taunted, waving its clawed arms for emphasis. "Putties, attack!"

From behind the monster came another group of putties, five of them this time, that each leapt into the air over the monster, landed before it, and posed. The first to land quickly rose up onto one foot, and from their onto its toes, with its lifted leg bent and pulled up to its slightly hunched torso while both arms went straight out to each side. The next one landed a few feet to the left before turning and looking at them over its right shoulder with its right arm stretched out and up and both legs bent at the knee. The third landed in front of the fourth and basically just leaned to its right slightly extending one leg out to the side with one arm bent, its fist clenched by its head, and the other arm extended over its head. The fourth landed in front of the second and crouched down, bringing one fist around to the elbow of its other arm and resting the other fist below its chin. Finally, the fifth one landed front and center, crouching down on one knee and extending both arms at a downward angle on either side.

Harry blinked in confusion.

The putties sprang out of their poses and charged.

The first three split up, one for each Ranger, but the last two focused on Harry and Trini, leaving those two to fight two putties at once. Unlike the earlier putties, the two Harry was facing seemed more focused on dodging and blocking their blows instead of trying to actually hurt them. This, Harry found, was quite annoying when the two he was facing managed to avoid pretty much every strike he tried, sometimes even saving the other when he was about to strike their emblem.

Trini seemed to be having a similar experience if her grunts of frustration were anything to go by.

Finally, Harry had had enough and summoned the Magi Staff with a wave of his arm, manifesting his weapon and sweeping it low to the ground, easily knocking the putties feet out from under them and sending them to their backs. With a frustrated growl, Harry jabbed his staff at one while facing his open palm at the other. "Reducto!" Harry cast, causing the spell to leap from the tip of his staff, as well as from the palm of his other hand, accompanied by sparks as his suit took the damage. The twin-cast spells slammed into their targets' chests, blowing the putties apart even before their own overload took effect and disintegrated the remaining pieces.

Then Harry heard Kimberly scream.

Spinning quickly, Harry found the Pink Ranger with her arms being held behind her back by the lone putty she'd faced. Before her stood the Stag Beetle monster, its mandibles clamped down over her helmeted head while its claws dug into her suit at the shoulders, holding her in place along with the putty behind her. From Kimberly's suit, lances of pink colored electricity were racing up toward her helmet where they arced off, landing between the monster's mandibles and spreading over the rest of it from there. There were no sparks flying, but based on how Kimberly's struggles were weakening, the monster had to be doing something to her.

"Back off, you big bug!" Harry shouted, leaping toward Kimberly in an attempt to rescue her, only for Tommy to once again beat him to the punch, landing his own flying kick before Harry arrived. The result of this was that Tommy's kick managed to distract the monster, breaking its hold on Kimberly and making it turn to face Tommy, only for Harry's staff to smash across its head, sending it spinning through the air accompanied by sparks before it simply vanished. At the same time, Kimberly was wrenched from the monster's grip, twisting and falling to the ground as the putty lost its grip as well.

In his anger at the assault on his girlfriend, Tommy leapt up and struck at the putty as well, striking the "Z" no less than six times before the construct finally exploded, its shattered remains disintegrating into thin air.

Trini joined them mere moments later, having dealt with her putties as quickly as she could upon hearing her friend's scream, but Kimberly's eyes were on Tommy as he knelt next to her.

"Are you alright, Kim?" Tommy asked calmly, the anger gone from his face.

Kimberly struggled to sit up for a moment before answering. "I… I think so… I'm just so weak…"

Then Harry's communicator went off. "Harry," Zordon's voice echoed. "You, Tommy, and the others must teleport to the Command Center at once."

Harry lifted his wrist and answered his mentor. "Right, on our way, Zordon."

Catching Trini's gaze, Harry nodded before turning to face the other two, Tommy still kneeling at Kimberly's side. "Come on, guys, Zordon needs to see us. He can probably tell us what that monster did to Kimberly."

"Really guys, I'm fine." Kimberly said, climbing unsteadily to her feet with Tommy's help where she managed a whole half-second before her legs gave out from under her. She was only saved from hitting the ground again by Tommy's presence.

"Yeah," Trini responded with concern audible in her voice even through the veil of playful sarcasm. "We can see that. Come on, let's go."

Without another word, Trini stepped up next to Kimberly while Harry did the same next to Tommy and triggered their teleporters, bringing the whole group back to the Command Center.

-MR-

When the four rematerialized, Kimberly nearly fell out of Tommy's grip, this time saved by Trini's presence on her other side. Alpha was at their side immediately, waving yet another in his long line of mysterious gizmos and gesturing for them to bring her to the cot once more laying amidst the ring of computers.

"Zordon," Tommy asked as soon as he saw Kimberly onto her cot. "What's wrong with Kim? What did that monster do to her?"

"And can it be undone?" Jason's voice came from one side of the room where he, Zack, and Billy had been standing unnoticed, having teleported in moments before Harry's group.

"Observe the Viewing Globe," Zordon commanded, prompting all those present to shift their focus, even Kimberly turning her head weakly.

On the globe, they saw Kimberly fighting her Z-Putty. Then, just as she was about to defeat it, the Stag Beetle stepped into view, knocked her to the ground, and then lifted her back up for the putty to restrain. Once it had done so, the monster clamped its mandibles around her head and the pink electricity Harry had noticed began forming. From there, it went on for a few seconds before Tommy appeared on screen, followed shortly by Harry.

"What did that thing do to her?" Trini asked this time.

Instead of answering immediately, Zordon turned his focus onto Alpha, who was still scanning Kimberly. "Alpha, what do the sensors indicate?"

"It is as you feared, Zordon." Alpha responded promptly. "A portion of Kimberly's internal Power has been drained away from her. That is why she is so weak, her body is still acclimating to the loss of Power."

"Loss of Power?" Jason nearly demanded. "Is she losing her Ranger Powers like Tommy did?"

Luckily, Zordon shook his head. "No, Jason. Tommy's loss of Power was connected to Rita tapping into and draining the very source of his Power. The Stag Beetle monster merely drained away a portion of the Power within Kimberly herself, not her Power Coin. She will recover in time, and should even be able to function normally within a matter of minutes once her body adjusts, but she will be slightly more vulnerable than before until her Power regenerates."

"But why would Zedd want to drain our Power if it isn't permanent?" Billy asked, confusion clear in his voice.

Zordon shook his head again. "I am not sure, Billy, but what I do know is this. We must be very careful while battling this monster. It is possible that, with the proper preparation, Kimberly's Power can be taken back to return her to full strength immediately when the monster next appears, but while it possesses even a fraction of her Power, the monster will be much stronger than it was before."

"We're not gonna see it sporting pink tights next time it shows up, right?" Zack quipped, earning a few forced smiles from the others.

Zordon seemed to roll his eyes, but the action was so minute Harry wasn't sure if he had really seen it. "No, Zackary, the monster will not be able to draw on Kimberly's Power as the Pink Ranger, but it can use her energy to enhance itself, much as extra Power enhances you all while in morph."

"That just means we have to take this guy down twice as hard when it shows up next." Jason half-shouted, doing his normal pump-up-the-others routine.

"But until the monster reappears, Rangers, all we can do is wait."

"And when it shows up again, we'll be ready." Kimberly said, weakly but determined as she lay on the cot and tried to regain her strength.

-MR-

AN: So, a bit talky, but I still kinda like it despite the weak-ish ending. Hope you all do too.

I really just liked the design and concept of the Stag Beetle when I watched its episode. Don't know why. So despite the fact that Tommy is already Powerless and the monster's whole reason for existence in canon was to drain Tommy's Power, I had to use it. So I worked it into my overarching Season 2 plotline. Kinda looking forward to seeing how close some of you can get to my plans. Some of you have had some very accurate guesses in the past, and I want to see if that can hold true now as more and more hints are revealed.

To cut off those of you who are more aware of Power Ranger Canon, yes, I am aware that Pursehead and Lipsyncher are from after White Light when Tommy returns as the White Ranger. I picked them because it fit in with the theme I had going, and no, Tommy is not yet the White Ranger.

Random thing I found odd. When I got to thinking about Trini's Volleyball club and then reviewed the episode in question, I realized that every member of that club were girls. Now I know that volleyball has a bit of a reputation as being a women's sport, but I personally enjoyed playing it during PE and, if I had been more socially and physically active back during high school, I can conceivably see myself joining such a club. As I am most certainly not female, I find this small point in Power Rangers rather sexist. That is all. : )

Kimberly's attempts at overcoming her apparent forgetfulness in this chapter were more than a bit of a dig at Tommy's apparent forgetfulness in canon. I am of the opinion that Tommy's apparent inability to remember the simplest of things not related to karate is of a similar nature to Bella's clumsiness from Twilight. Sorry to bring up Twilight here, but I have to make a point. You see, Tommy's forgetfulness and Bella's clumsiness only exist when it is essential for the writers of their respective stories to focus on them. Bella, on several instances in the books/movies (not that I've read more than fanfiction that BASH THE HECK OUT OF EDWARD! Though I have unfortunately seen all the movies but Eclipse) ran around and did other rather athletic things that her supposedly debilitating clumsiness would have turned into a face plant, occasionally resulting in unavoidable injury without sparklepires there to rescue her from her own epic fails. Similarly, Tommy is only forgetful when we're dealing with an episode that is at least partially Tommy-centric. And even then, once he returns to the team as the White Ranger and Jason, Zack, and Trini are being phased out so the focus is heavier on him, Billy, and Kimberly, he shows precisely no sign of his former forgetfulness. And yet I've heard tale that his "forgetfulness" returns in Dino Thunder. He's not forgetful, it's just a convenient plot device for the writers to dust off whenever they need him to be in some sort of difficulty for their attempts at plot. Just like Bella's clumsiness is used to force awkward moments through into pseudo romantic or OMG SAVE ME moments.

Unexpected Rant ™ over.

I'm not sure if the whole "Lucky Purse for my parents who are now divorced" was really something the writers considered when laying out that scene in the Two for One episode (Season 2 Episode 19). It really does call into question the luck value that that purse might have had though…

Also, the whole Venus Island episode is even more full of holes and stupidity than I remember. First off, Zedd giving Goldar instruction in a bottle… enough said. In canon, it wasn't Zedd's intention for Goldar to leave them behind as I wrote it, no, but it was something Zedd tried to capitalize on with the whole trap, though his intention was to ransom Hallie for Tommy. Venus Island is an island that Zedd can call into being whenever and the "trade winds blow towards it at Sundown." Not even making that up. The Rangers put a tracking device on a freaking balloon to find the island! GAH! Though the reason I didn't remember these details is because this is also the first episode where the loss of Jason, Zack, and Trini is felt as it's the one I mentioned in my Season 2 thoughts where Jason and Zack have lines where their Ranger suits are head bobbing like they're talking, but they aren't saying anything. That must have blocked out the other stupidity from my memory.

And just because Tommy isn't a Ranger anymore (at the moment) doesn't mean he can't still whoop putties. I figured that if Rocky, Adam, and Aisha can do it before getting Power, Tommy should sure as heck be able to do it!

And I introduced Richie in this chapter. Not quite sure if Imma use Curtis yet, but he might get a small appearance if I decide to use Trumpet Top, which kinda requires him to exist, even if I only montage it like I did those monsters at the beginning of this chapter.

And that's another thing! While most of Rita's monsters were stupid, they at least seemed more stupid because of alliteration than anything else. A lot of Zedd's monsters were named as if they designed them, and then showed them to a 6 year old and had them come up with a name. As 6 year olds aren't necessarily known for deep, creative thinking along these lines, they would probably have just described them as best they could, perhaps making the names an almost insult that only a younger child would come up with. Thus we have Trumpet Top, Magnet Brain, PipeBrain, PurseHead, Four Head, Flame Head, Cannontop, Tube Monster, Turkey Jerk, Pachinko Head, Etc.

Also, I do believe this is the first chapter where Harry led a morph. Huh…

Thanks for reading and don't forget to review,

Tenstar12