At the Dino Bite Cafe, Alessandra and Allison were working, whittling away the usual crowd there for their morning coffee. The crowd was starting to die down a little, leaving the slightly calmer period between the morning rush and lunch rush when they spent most of their time setting up the ingredient prep for the lunchtime crowd.
"Sorry, but the spiced pumpkin latte is a seasonal item for Halloween, but trust me, the hazelnut is just as good." Allison told a customer as she handed him his order. "Thanks again!"
She smiled as the customer left, seemingly happy with their purchase.
"Of course sir, why of course we have pumpkin flavouring in July!" She said sarcastically as she put the cash in the till. "Come back next week and try the cranberry."
She turned towards the back as she heard some movement there, finding Alessandra setting up trays of ingredients for the prep station. She furrowed her brows seeing her there.
"Alessandra, hasn't your shift finished?" Allison asked her. "I thought you were going to train."
Alessandra looked to her as she started unwrapping the cling film from the trays.
"Brad not here yet." She told her. Allison had to look around, but she couldn't help noticing that she was right. Brad was nowhere in sight. He was scheduled to be in already to allow Alessandra to go. Allison just let out a groan.
"Damn it Brad, where are you?" Allison grumbled. "Look, you don't have to stay, I can..."
"No, I stay." Alessandra told her. "Not leave you alone."
"Alessandra..."
"I promise I be here." Alessandra sighed. "I be here."
Allison felt badly about this. Alessandra had only agreed to do some shifts to help out, but Allison knew that her training was important, especially when she had such a huge opportunity coming up.
"Look, Brad will be along shortly." Allison told her. "Just get your stuff and..."
"I go when Brad come." Alessandra reiterated. Allison just nodded, inwardly thankful that was there to help out. She patted her back as she went to see if she could find out what happened to Brad. She got out her cell phone and dialled, hearing a ring coming from a little way off. She hung up.
"Brad?" She asked, before heading in the direction of the sound. When she got to the door of the employee changing room, she rolled her eyes and shoved open the door, heading inside. When she got there, Brad was wandering around in his boxer shorts, with his phone in his hand. She heard a bleep.
"Damn it, I already have a Slow Poke." He said. Allison just coughed to attract his attention, at which he looked around.
"Am I interrupting?" She asked him. He just shrugged.
"Nothing important." He replied without any hint of irony in his tone. "I was hoping for a Squirtle."
"Did you not hear your phone ring?" She asked him. "Brad, how long have you been in here?"
"I don't know, I got here about..." He was interrupted as Allison used her phone to pull up the record from the clocking in machine.
"Half an hour?" She responded. "You've been signed in for half an hour...and you're not even in your uniform?"
"I'll be ready soon." Brad said, brushing this off as he went back to his locker. "Besides, isn't that Mexican chick still here?"
"She's here to help out! She has places to be! She needs to get to the gym to train for her match!" Allison reminded him. "Alessandra was meant to finish..."
"You mean that fake-ass shit she does? As if it matters if she's a few minutes late." Brad said with a smile. Allison just stood with her hands on her hips. "Besides, I think you'll find that her rota says that she's here until half past for the handover."
"Point number 1, if you really want, I can tell her what you said and tell her to show you exactly how fake it is!" Allison warned him. "Secondly, she's on the rota until half past so that when you come in for your shift, she has half an hour to hand over to you. She's not in until half past so that you can show up when you damn well please because you're so busy chasing Digimon!"
"Pokemon!" He corrected her.
"Like it matters!" She replied, storming out. "And for God's sake put on some pants!"
As she got outside, she found Kendall waiting, sipping a coffee. She pointed towards the door.
"That wasn't what it sounded..."
"Trust me, the door isn't that thick, I heard everything." Kendall assured her. "So, Brad's deciding his shift pattern now?"
"No." Allison responded. Kendall just raised her eyebrows. This wasn't the first time that issues with staff being flexible with their attitude to their hours had come up. "I was dealing with it."
"Which is why he's half an hour late and still getting dressed?" Kendall asked her. Allison couldn't answer that. "You've spoken about this already haven't you?"
"Yes." She muttered. "Look, I know you've given me this job, but I promise I'll..."
"Allison, if you need me to have a word..."
"It's fine, I'll sort this!" Allison reiterated. "I'm sorry, but I don't think sending him to the boss is exactly going to help. He'd just resent it."
"Allison, you've spoken to him before, maybe he clearly doesn't respect your position." Kendall told her. "Maybe a verbal warning on his record would..."
"Ms Morgan, these people are my friends." Allison told her. Kendall just sighed.
"You're worried that will change if you ask him to do the job he's paid to do?" Kendall asked her. "It sounds to me like if he would stop being your friend over that; he really wasn't much of a friend."
She put a hand on Allison's shoulder. She had given her a hard time before, but having heard the conversation, she realised it wasn't necessarily her fault. The only thing that could be thought of as her fault was the fact that she was reluctant to enforce the rules with her friends, and that meant they didn't respect them.
"If you need a hand, you know where I am." Kendall told her, before walking away. Allison just took a deep breath before heading back out to the cafe to let Alessandra know she could finally go.
Back in New Zealand, the Rangers were beginning their search for the Plesio Zord. Their visit to Dr Runga had given them SOME ideas, but it wasn't exactly terribly helpful in narrowing things down. The advice to check 'coastlines, lakes and sea caves' was kind of like describing a particular place as 'a building'. People went to New Zealand specifically because of its scenery. A short way from Auckland, there were several lakes, and literally miles of coast line!
Riley and Chase had split off into a group to patrol the nearby coast. They had managed to find somewhere to rent some mountain bikes to speed up their search. Unfortunately, the closest they came to finding a Dino Zord was some kid who was flying his dragon kite.
"We've got nothing over here on the coast." Riley said through his communicator.
"We've got a couple of K's left to search." Chase added.
"We're seeing nothing up here!" Ivan added, contacting them from the cockpit of the Ptera Zord. He, Albert and Koda had opted to look from the air to cover more ground. Koda held onto the podium for dear life as he pulled a barrel roll.
"Maybe if stop spinning." Koda suggested, feeling a little nauseous. "Please no do that."
"Are you kidding? This is a hoot!" Albert cackled, holding on tightly, laughing with glee. "I never realised these things could be so much fun! I only hope my Zord can fly!"
"Albert, your Zord is based on a sea lizard." Ivan reminded him. "Why would it fly?"
"A man can hope can't he?" Albert asked him. "But in the meantime...can this thing only do barrel rolls? Or can it loop-the-loop?"
"Hold on tight." Ivan told him, bracing himself as he brought the Zord into a dive, despite Koda's spirited protest.
In another area, Tyler and Shelby were checking out a nearby lake. From where they were standing, they could see the Ptera Zord pulling the manoeuvre. Tyler could only laugh, seeing it.
"I guess Ivan's found a way to have some fun with this." He said, pointing to the Zord. "I just hope Koda keeps his lunch this time."
Shelby didn't answer though. She was still disappointed with the end result of the meeting with Dr Runga. She had always admired his work, ever since he was a little girl. Her dad had always been very busy when he was setting up his business, and his way of making up for all that time was to bring home gifts for her. Toys, games, books, but it was the books that were her favourite.
She never really understood the appeal of toys; dolls seemed to be dumb and pointless. She never really understood why any girl would want toys to mimic housework when she could see how much her mother clearly loathed it. Why would she spend the few years she wasn't expected to contribute to the house pretending to do the things she would clearly hate as an adult? She had enjoyed when he brought her sports balls, but when it became clear none of the boys wanted a girl on their team, they too quickly lost their appeal. Games were pointless too. Her mom and dad didn't really have the time to play with her terribly often, and playing Mousetrap or Monopoly against herself seemed way too sad and pathetic to keep her attention.
In books though, she found a world where she could be anywhere and do anything. Originally she liked fiction novels, stories that allowed her to explore worlds where people would go to exotic places and get involved in exciting adventures. Of course her parents didn't just want her head filled with unrealistic stories of people with amazing powers who would go all over the world fighting unspeakable evil and being beloved the world over, as ironic as that turned out to be, and had bought her some educational books as well, just to get her a jump start at school. Then, one day, her dad brought home a book he found at a yard sale for a couple of dollars, and her world changed forever!
Dinosaurs! Even the word was thrilling to her to hear. As soon as she heard the word, she could imagine amazing, magical monsters. The pictures seen in the book, artists' renditions obviously, gave her images of the magical dragons she had read about in stories, but with the notable exception that they were REAL! One day, long before even her grandparents were born, there were real-life dragons walking the Earth! The book was quite advanced for such a young girl, but that just inspired her to do even more reading and research to be able to understand all the amazing facts written about these creatures all found by the legendary Dr Joseph Runga.
As a young girl, seeing his picture on the inside cover of the book had a marked effect on her. He was a handsome man in his youth...hell, he still was from what she had seen. As well as having qualifications from multiple universities, he had a physique like many of the heroes in her stories, and the kind of face that would not look out of place on a movie screen. It was like Indiana Jones, only he was real, and had in fact dug up every single one of the creatures in this book! She managed to find footage online of him giving a lecture on the migration habits of the Triceratops and from that point on, any time she read that book, she could imagine that amazing man in her room, reading to her as she wished her father would take the time to do. She could hear every word in his wonderful, infectious baritone.
"Hey, are you still upset about Dr Runga?" Tyler asked her, attracting her attention. He just nodded. When she heard there was a chance, just a CHANCE of meeting her idol, she had been so excited. She had built up all sorts of expectations of what it would be like. He would tell him how she had found and read pretty much everything he had ever written, even books and articles that were long since out of print. She would talk with him about all the theories and advances he had made in the field over his amazing career. She imagined he would light up to hear about how his words had affected a young life so much, and perhaps even give her some advice on how to follow in his footsteps, preparing for that day when it would be Shelby, and her generation that were the ones making the major discoveries and advancing the knowledge of a world that existed millions of years before the first humans took their first shaky steps on the planet.
"I always dreamed about meeting him, you know?" She said sadly. "Now that I have..."
"You found out he's a jerk." Tyler responded. He had to admit not really knowing or caring much about Dr Runga. His own father, Dr. Neil Nevarro was a legendary figure in the field also, but Tyler only really remembered his father for the adventures he went on. He was no lover of the ivory tower approach to academia, preferring the field anything else. Many of his father's colleagues that young Tyler had met had been rather dull, uninteresting people who seemed to speak more about what COULDN'T be done than what they WOULD do. Things were too expensive, places were too dangerous to go to, there was always talk of sponsors and grants and politics, but it seemed they were always more interested in talking than actually doing anything. Sure, his dad sometimes came home with a few bumps, scrapes and bruises, and he had a few warrants for his arrest in several countries he had left in a hurry with his finds, but he had brought home discoveries that proved or disproved theories that had been debated for decades! How could academia compete with a man that could literally place a fossil in front of you that proved his latest theory?
"I guess, I guess I just built up unrealistic expectations of what he'd be like." Shelby sighed as she thought about it.
"Hey, you might just have caught him at a bad time." Tyler suggested. "You saw all those press. You know how stressed out Ms Morgan gets when she has to deal with the press."
He saw Shelby smiling a little. Kendall was indeed far more comfortable with her computers and machinery and her studies than she was with the media. It was a necessary evil to keep the museum running, but she seemed to always prefer things that she could actually control, like her Ranger tech. The press was something she tended to prefer to just deal with and get over and done with, like ripping off a band aid or paying a credit card bill.
"Just remember, you were disappointed when you met Ms Morgan." Tyler reminded her. "Now, now you're friends."
"I don't really see that happening with Dr Runga." Shelby responded, before changing tone to mock her own fan girl flailing. "I've read your book Dr Runga!' Yeah, me and about 650,000 other people."
"Sadly, sometimes the worst thing that can happen is meeting your idols. Sometimes you realise they're just people like everyone else, and people can be pretty sucky sometimes." He told her as he held her. "Like I said, maybe you'll meet him at a better time and realise he's not such a bad guy. If not, he's a jerk and it's his loss."
"I guess you have a..." Shelby's words tailed off as she saw some movement in the lake nearby. "Tyler, check that out!"
"What is that?" Tyler asked. "Its way too big to be a dolphin or..."
"Tyler, Shelby, are you reading me!" Albert called through his communicator. Tyler was the first to respond. "We're almost right over your position! My Energem is glowing...it's going crazy! I've never seen it act like this! My Zord must be close!"
Just then, the waves finally broke, and an immense form burst through the surface. It was purple and white, and made of a magnificent metal which seemed to move and act like flesh. It had bright, glowing red eyes, and called out with a roar, like it was seeking out something that was missing. Tyler and Shelby lit up seeing it.
"The Plesio Zord!" They chorused together. Shelby got her phone out and started to record video of it as Tyler got back on his communicator. "Guys! Converge on my position! We've found it!"
"In that tiny lake?" Chase asked. "I guess it really must travel by underwater tunnels!"
"Albert! Get down here quick!" Shelby said with glee as she saw the creature looking to the air, bellowing out its call in the direction of the Ptera Zord. "Come and meet your Zord!"
Before anyone could get there though, some flaming rocks suddenly streaked through the air, slamming into the lake around the Plesio Zord in a massive bombardment. The Zord howled as some of the rocks slammed into it.
"NO!" Shelby screamed as she saw this. Both of them turned to see Fury and Meteor standing behind them.
"Keep going! Sledge doesn't want to take any chances with this Zord!" Fury yelled at Meteor. "Destroy it!"
"NO!" Shelby screamed as he fired another barrage hitting the Zord with several searing hot meteors. "Leave it alone!"
The other Rangers arrived, assembling quickly around them. Seeing that the advantage was lost as they morphed, Fury just grabbed Meteor and started running.
"COME! We'll fight them AFTER we take care of the Plesio Zord!" He told Meteor.
"But how?" Meteor asked him. "After that attack, it'll never come back here! How will we find it?"
"I know someone that can help!" Fury assured him. The Rangers broke off their pursuit once they realised that Fury and Meteor were gone, and they weren't likely to come back. As they heard a massive crash from the lake behind them, and turned around, just in time to see the Plesio Zord diving back beneath the waves, disappearing as quickly as it arrived.
"NO! Come back!" Albert called out.
"Man that thing moves fast!" Chase commented. "No wonder it's so hard to find!"
"Did you see how they attacked it?" Riley asked them. "It's not like the Ptera Zord, they weren't trying to catch it, they were trying to destroy it!"
"It looks like Sledge is through with trying to turn our weapons against us after the Ptera Zord incident." Tyler suggested. "I guess he figures if he can't have it, he doesn't want us having it either." They all looked around as Albert fell to his knees, a pained look on his face.
"Albert!" Riley called out to him, quickly coming to his side. "Are you alright?"
"The Plesio Zord...it's in pain!" Albert told them. "I can feel it, my Zord...it's in pain!"
"We need to contact Ms Morgan." Tyler suggested. "If it's hurt, we need to find it before it's too late."
