Disclaimer: Still don't own Power Rangers.

Disclaimer: And here's yet another chapter. Reviewers, you all freaking rock. Thanks so much.

David was walking down the hallway the next day, a Friday, with a particularly happy stride. He had heard rumors that the police had been told he was the one who planted the bomb that killed Jim Scott, but he didn't even care. If they tried to arrest him again he'd just morph out and kill all the witnesses again. It was an easy system, and it made him realize he was truly invincible. He was, however, slightly disappointed with the way it turned out. His two actual targets had safely avoided the disaster, foiling his plan to cut it down to just one active Power Ranger. On top of that, he had to deal with the massive sympathy for the school's star quarterback passing in such a tragic way, now. It was sickening. He stopped as he reached his locker, and looked down the hall with a sadistic grin. Jason and Billy were just a little bit down the hall, talking to a couple of cheerleaders David didn't recognize. No doubt just getting sympathy. This could be fun. He quickly eyed the two infamous school bullies and waved them over.

"What do you want?" Bulk asked as he stepped up next to David.

"Yea, what do you want?" Skull repeated as he stepped up on the other side of David. The two of them always did that, trapping people between themselves and the lockers, leaving nowhere to run.

"Hey, how about we cause a little bit of trouble," David offered, and the two of them instantly looked interested. "You know Jason over there's having a rough time, right?"

"Of course. Everyone knows what happened to his brother," Bulk commented casually.

"Not to mention Tommy's in the hospital and Trini's still missing," Skull added on, and David nodded.

"Right. So he's a pretty easy target right now," David said. "Now, what's something we can do to just make it that much worse on him?"

"Well, I know one thing he really hates," Bulk thought out loud.

"What's that?" David asked as a cruel smile crossed his face.

David never saw it coming. Bulk's hand instantly grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off the ground. The massive bully slammed him hard into the lockers, and held him. "He hates it when I beat up people. Even scum like you."

"Let me go!" David tried to yell, but Bulk had too good of a grip on him, so it came out pretty quiet.

"Stay away from Jason," Bulk continued, with a pretty dangerous look in his eyes.

"Yea! Stay away from Jason!" Skull said, just for the extra emphasis.

"He's been through enough," Bulk finished up, letting go of David. He and Skull then turned and headed down the hallway, leaving an enraged David to fall to the floor.

Sometime around nine o'clock that night, Kimberly was out jogging in the park. She needed to clear her mind, and decided this was the best way to do it. Everyone had come up to Jason at school and expressed their sorrow for his loss, and a couple people even talked to her since they knew how close she had been to Jim. Kevin and Nick hadn't even gone to school, and now the Scott family was visiting family somewhere out of town for the weekend, and her own family was actually doing the same by chance. She had been invited to go with them, but passed it up. After all, she was one of the only three active Rangers now. She needed to be ready for anything.

Hopefully, though, Tommy would be rejoining them soon. He was scheduled to be out of the hospital soon, although the doctor wanted him to have a little bit longer to heal. Of course, when she had told him the news about Jim, he almost injured himself again trying to get out of that bed. She sighed while running. She needed him so badly, and just wished he'd be out of there. He didn't need to know that, though. He felt bad enough already.

Trini was another thought still fresh on her mind. It had never been so hard to find a captured Ranger before. Zordon and Alpha had been searching all possible hiding places on earth, and were now working on scanning the dark dimensions. However, when Zedd arrived he had drastically increased the number of dark dimensions, so everything was taking that much longer. Kimberly suddenly was pulled from her thoughts when she saw a figure stumbling down the sidewalk towards her. She slowed to stop, looking at it. It was barely on its feet, and moving very slowly. Her first instinct was to run away, but when it stumbled into the light, her eyes widened.

"Jason!" she screamed as she ran over to her best friend, wondering what was wrong with him.

It wasn't a pretty sight when she got to him. Jason was barely coherent, and he smelled heavily of alcohol. Kimberly got up next to him, putting his left arm over her shoulder to prevent him from falling over, but if he really wanted to go down she was knew that he would be too heavy for her. She glanced over and saw an almost empty bottle of Scotch in his right hand.

"What has he done to us..." she wondered out loud while looking back to Jason.

"Kim? Kim is that you?" Jason said, finally noticing her. "WHOA! What are you doing all the way out here!?"

"I'm...I'm jogging!" Kim answered, and then shook her head. "What are you doing out here!?"

Jason looked Kim up and down, noticing her pink running shorts and white tank top. He then looked himself over. He was in blue jeans and a red polo shirt. Whatever. "I'm jogging, too," he answered. "Hey, let's jog together!"

Jason tried to take off, but Kimberly's free arm came around and stopped him, and he dropped the idea as fast as it came to him.

"Come on, Rex," Kimberly said as she started guiding him down the sidewalk. "You can stay at my house tonight. My family's not home. I thought you were with yours."

"I don't wanna go see no relatives now," Jason drunkenly answered. "Only relative I wanna see is my brother. And he's gone. I want him back, Kimmie."

"I know, I know," Kimberly said, shaking her head. "I miss him, too. I don't think this is what he wants to see, though."

"He'd want me to go hunting with him. Or play football with him. Hell, he signed up for the Peace Conference and wanted me to go with him," Jason continued rambling. "I'm the older brother, Firebird. They all look up to me. I let 'em down. See where it went?"

"It's not your fault, Big Red," Kim said, not sure why she was trying to reason with him. She didn't have a whole lot of experience dealing with drunk people, though. She just wanted him indoors right now, really. "So where were you? Really?"

"Aww...ole' Bulky invited me to a little party," Jason explained like it made perfect sense. "Good guy, really. He just wanted to help."

"Ok, right, that's great," Kimberly said, shaking her head as she realized that Jason probably had a lot more in him than this one bottle's worth. "Remember that time Bulk broke your favorite action figure when we were in kindergarten?"

"I'll kill the son of a bitch!" Jason yelled, raising his bottle to the heavens with a newfound rage.

"Right..." Kimberly said, reaching over and tenderly removing the bottle from Jason's hand. "And then he tried to improve it as an apology, and super glued all those extra arms on it. What did we learn that day?"

"Bulk may mean well but he screws things up," Jason said with a smile, the anger from only seconds ago now completely gone. "Not like you, Dactyl. You always help and make things better. I looooooove you!"

Kimberly couldn't help but laugh as Jason stopped walking and embraced her in a huge hug. After a minute, though, she managed to free herself and continue guiding him down the road and into their neighborhood.

"I bet Zordon would be pretty disappointed in me right now, huh?" Jason said, reaching over for the bottle of Scotch, but when Kimberly held her arm to the side to keep it out of his reach, Jason gave up on it. "Here's the leader of the Power Rangers, drunk as all hell. Think he'll kick me off the team?"

"Zordon understands you're going through a lot, I don't see him holding it against you," Kimberly explained with a sigh. Seeing Jason like this was completely throwing her off. She couldn't stand it.

"Well, I don't care. I'm tired of my life being taken from me by a bunch of damned aliens and the war against them. To hell with the Power Rangers!" Jason yelled as he unhooked his morpher, and went to throw it. Kimberly stopped him in time, however. She moved her hand with the bottle in it up and grabbed the morpher right out of Jason's hand. He was quick, though, and slipped the bottle from her hand. Kimberly grunted in annoyance as she hooked his morpher next to hers on her shorts, making sure to cover it up. She then grabbed the bottle back before Jason could get anything out of it.

"Alright, calm down. We're just going to get you in to get some rest," Kimberly told him, hurt by the way he was talking.

"Hey, let's sing some songs!" Jason said suddenly, as if he'd come up with the world's greatest idea.

"No, no, no!" Kimberly quickly said, knowing it was just the opposite.

"Come on! Won't you flyyyy hiiiigh! Freeeeee biiiiiiiiird...YEA!" Jason screamed as loud as he could, and Kimberly slapped her hand over his mouth. That didn't stop him from trying anyway, though. It was a long walk home for Kim, but she finally made it. As soon as she got him inside, she help him onto the couch, and ran for the phone. She needed help, big time, and she knew just who to call.

Zack pulled into Kimberly's driveway and cut the ignition, leaping from the driver's seat. Billy leaped out of the passenger seat at the same time, and they both ran up the front porch steps, walking right in without knocking. They found Jason and Kim in the living room, with Jason lying on his back on the couch and Kimberly sitting on the ground next to him.

"You guys ok!?" Zack asked as he and Billy stormed in the room.

"Yea, everything's fine!" Kimberly quickly answered as Zack sat down next to her.

"Hey guys. How's things going? You know you're the best friends I could ever ask for..." Jason was saying, and Zack just shook his head.

"That's great, buddy. Alright, Kim, help me get him on his side," Zack said, and the two of them rolled him over. Zack had experience with drunk people. He was a bit of a party animal, and although he wasn't fond of the stuff himself, he'd dealt with plenty of cases related to alcohol before. "Billy, find something he can throw up in if he needs to. There's some bags in my car."

Billy nodded and quickly ran from the room.

"Billy's a good guy, you know?" Jason was saying. "He's my best student. He learns really fast. Must be those computers and all."

"Yea. Yea, that's it, bro." Zack agreed, nodding.

"I mean he's a little weird...but his heart's where it counts," Jason continued. "Where it counts."

Kimberly looked to Zack, who just shrugged.

"Here we go!" Billy said, coming back into the room with some bags. Zack and Kim quickly turned and took them from him, but when they turned back around, Jason was already sound asleep.

"Huh..." Kimberly trailed off.

"You want us to stay here the night?" Zack asked as he watched his sleeping friend.

"No, thanks though. I'll get him going tomorrow. And have a little talk with him." Kim said as she watched him, too.

"Call me if you need anything, alright?" Zack said, giving Kim a hug. Kimberly just smiled and nodded.

The next morning, Zordon was in silent contemplation. David had really done a number on his team of Rangers. He felt completely responsible for this whole mess. He had never imagined a Ranger turning on the team of his own free will. The possibility had just never occurred to him. He had heard talk about how humans were lying, manipulating scum of the universe, but with his six Rangers he had come to believe that all humans were instead like them. He now realized just how different all humans were, just like everyone else. It was a mistake that had caused much pain, however.

"Zordon! Zordon!" Alpha yelled, removing him from his thoughts.

"What is it, Alpha?" Zordon asked, curiously.

"I've found her!" Alpha was beside himself with excitement. "I've found Trini!"

A/N: Kinda pointless filler, I know. Things are getting started again, soon. Let me know what you think!