Notes: My first ever PR story, World Spins Madly On, was completed and its sequel posted, so I'd love it if you could read it and tell me what you think, if you like my writing! :) Also, if you're a Amy Jo Johnson/Kimberly fan, the second season of her show Flashpoint is showing on CBS/CTV every Friday, and it's really, really great television, so you'll really enjoy it if you watch it. Otherwise... The next part of Forever Rangers, please enjoy!
Disclaimer: Power Rangers and its entire franchise belong to Disney now.

Forever Rangers
Chapter Two: Built For Speed

Saturday, 5 October 2002
San Francisco, CA
6:12 AM

"So, you can hack into systems to get us what we want?"

The smell of freshly brewed coffee permeated through the house, although to the three occupants currently, the lure of food wasn't as strong as the information that had just been disseminated by the Ranger from the future.

Billy shot a quick look at Kimberly. "I don't 'hack into systems'."

He was about to turn his head away to flash her a smile, giving her a taste of his new-found dry humor when he saw her face fall, the lines on her forehead creasing ever-so-slightly as she muttered a downcast 'Oh', and she cast a worried look at Jen who was looking at the exchange with a poker face on.

"What I mean to say is," he added quickly, immediately, so that she didn't really think that he was that cold to her, "Hack is such a derogatory word. I have on one occasion reverse-engineered the databases to obtain, ah, information for myself. This wouldn't pose as a setback."

Billy didn't like the fact that the previous Rangers were still on call for missions, since there was the Wild Force team assembled in Turtle Cove. If he'd just admit it to himself though, mostly what he didn't like was the fact that he wasn't kept in the know for this. All the older Rangers that were friends with him at some point or another covet his technical expertise and he knew that he'd be an asset at point, busying himself in the background as all his other friends charged out and be heroes, while he faded away.

Kim actually scowled at him, a quick retort at the tip of her tongue when Jen had cut in quickly, and Kim just kept quiet. There was a time for games and fun, and it wasn't now. Even as she tried to push away the dismaying thoughts that if the worst situation would happen, a lot more people would die on the moon and not just the Red Rangers, these thoughts kept surfacing in her head and only amplified with Jen's own worry. If only she could control how far and how clear she could see the future, she thought wryly, then maybe there wouldn't be so much cause for concern if she had all the answers.

"The locations, all within the hour?"

For Jen, there wasn't anything wrong for the old friends to play word games with each other, and she hadn't meant to lose her patience, but they were losing time by the minute and the one thing they needed was time, and they needed it preciously. Time to find the other Rangers, time to set up an elaborate plan of attack and not go in blind on the moon and time to intercept their male counterparts before they board the Astro Megaship. Technology hadn't advanced fast enough for the humans on Earth to travel to space and the other solar systems yet, and she was willing to bet that Billy couldn't send them up to the moon independently, even at his best efforts.

Billy nodded. "Affirmative. I just need the equipment in my laboratory to achieve our target."

"Then we'd better go," Kimberly stood up, tugging at her pajamas a little uncomfortably while she did so. "But give me a sec," and with a slight wince she continued. "Can't save the world in these clothes, can I?"

Saturday, 5 October 2002
Reefside, CA
8:02 AM

If Tommy Oliver could convince himself enough, then this statement would be true: Life couldn't be greater than now.

He'd missed the west coast, having been out in Massachusetts for college in the years in between. Sure, Reefside wasn't Angel Grove, but it was still California and that boded some sense of familiarity. He'd spent some of his most formative years in the little town that could, and missed the feeling of warm sun on his skin, but most of all he missed the days from before where he could actually take on the world and say it like he meant it.

At fifteen years old, it had been the worst thing ever to be transplanted from his home to a new place. He had kicked up a fuss over moving, even saying scathing things about his parents, like how they didn't really care for him because he was not their real son, and that was why they were uprooting his life and making everything hellish for him. The Olivers were extremely and rudely shocked at his words, but defiantly he'd chosen not to respond to them afterwards, just like a petulant child.

Still, even with all the silent tantrums he threw, nothing could stop the fact that he was going to move to the strange place called Angel Grove where stupid building-sized monsters destroyed everything in sight and a group of superheroes were situated in that city. Some speculated that those multi-colored beings were aliens, in his old school, and that had been the general consensus of it. Why his parents wanted to move there, he had no idea. The first day of school was a blur of administration procedures. The people seemed nice and all, but he hadn't really taken the step forward to make friends or even look interested in doing that. The second day brought a change: There was an opening for a martial arts competition at the juice bar, and he'd been secretly thrilled, although still sulky at home. No one at his old school was ever interested in martial arts, and it was partly because of that that he had become a loner, choosing to isolate himself from the other kids who were getting more interested in sports, or girls.

It thrilled him to no end that his opponent had been a formidable one. No one else had given him a challenge like that before, and the tied score brought out his competitive side. And he thought, maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't have to be so alone in his passion for the martial arts in Angel Grove, and suddenly being moved here hadn't been such a bad thing afterall.

The introduction to the Rangering world was not at all a normal one. Rita needed an evil Ranger, and Tommy was it. To this day, he still marveled the fact that Jason and the team had given him the chance to join them, instead of ostracizing him or blaming him for all the damages he'd caused to them. Before he knew it, time flew past and it had been years of adventures and defending the planet. Faces changed, colours shifted, and hearts broken, but Tommy's sense of justice had always been there.

It was a long period of withdrawal after passing his powers over to T.J. Tommy would wake up in the middle of the night with spurts of energy, raring to take on the world when he would realize that the world no longer needed his services in uniform. His Zeonizer was locked up in his basement now with all the other Rangers memorabilia, but before it was kept in storage, he'd fiddle with it sometimes and morph with his crystal, if only for the excitement to sustain his uneasiness. As far as he knew, no one else had this big a reaction, and he speculated that it was his possession of the evil green power coin for that short period of time that had heightened his sense for the Power. The urges to do something more gnawed at him, never stopping, and for a while after high school he diverted all his attention to racecars, but when the opportunity knocked for him to give college a try, he'd accepted it.

Being on the fast track to obtaining a doctorate was a dream in theory, but it was a nightmare when it came to actually doing it. Tommy had been an okay student in high school, but his forgetful nature made it hard for him to memorize facts and names and everything in between. Adding on to the fact that Katherine had unceremoniously dumped him a few weeks into the first semester – it was his fault too, he admitted ruefully. He couldn't expect her not to be mad, when he hadn't told her about MIT or his plans. Kat had told him that she thought their relationship was too one-sided for her liking, and it was unfair to her. More underhanded sniping from both sides had revealed some leftover jealousy over his ex-girlfriend, and while he had denied the fact that he still pined for her vehemently, the blonde girl had told him to pick up the slack or break things off. When he didn't give her an answer, she walked away and the last time he had seen her was then.

He had tried to love Katherine, Tommy thought, he really did, but in the end it just wasn't meant to be, just like how his other long-term relationship was. He brushed away thoughts of that one, not wanting to dredge up old memories that only served to make him sad first, angry later.

Partnering up with Anton Mercer was also a giant step forward in his career and he was grateful for all the opportunities he had to develop and study dinosaurs and merging technology with them. Dinosaurs had been a big part of his life, even more so than racecars. He'd always been in awe of the original Dinozords and the way they worked so seamlessly. And then, of course there was that thing about riding a pile of dinosaur bones on Phaedos…

It had been a long way since, but it was almost symbolic, like a new start to his life; a full circle to come back to. Even then, he was unwilling to cut off the ties to his old life – it was those things that made him the man he was today. When the phone call came from Andros, he knew what he had to do. Earth needed a Ranger to assemble a team to protect it, and he had always been a defender. It was time to get back into action.

Saturday, 5 October 2002
Mariner Bay, California & Angel Grove, California
9:23 AM

"You know I wouldn't say no, Jen."

The Lightspeed Ranger had agreed immediately after hearing of what the situation was and mumbled something about how it was just like Carter to do something like that without telling the rest of them first. She was thrilled, however, to see Jen again. When she had last been called into action, the two Rangers had struck up an immediate connection and she was sad to know that Jen was going back to the future eventually, but the brief time they spent after destroying Vypra had been enjoyable and memorable, and a friendship had been struck.

Dana was the third Ranger they'd managed to get to. Cassie Chan had given them the nod too, but she needed some time to re-schedule her meetings for the day before she could meet them at Billy's lab. In the process of their meeting, she also revealed that she had two morphers – she sheepishly admitted that she'd playfully tried to morph with her Turbo powers a few months ago and was shocked that it worked, since it was her impression that the Turbo powers had been destroyed, and was the entire point of them chasing Divatox through the galaxies and gained their new powers from Andros' morphers.

With an extra power source at hand, the three girls and Billy had brainstormed on whom to pull in. Ashley was ruled out almost immediately; she was a little over four months pregnant and even though Kim and Billy were assuredly certain that the morphing grid would protect the baby if she morphed, Cassie had put her foot down on recruiting her best friend for the dangerous mission.

Much to Kim and Billy's regrets, they weren't able to lock in onto Trini's location. Kim mused wistfully that Trini would look good in pink and Billy had agreed, but a little more bashfully. Aisha and Tanya's names were tossed up next, but a quick phone call to Aisha in Africa proved to be a disappointment when she declined, saying that she had her family to think about and it had been a long while since she had been Rangering. Kim knew she couldn't force her other best friend to do this, and with profuse apologies Aisha had wished them luck.

They were going to call Tanya when Cassie had a brainwave.

"I think I know who exactly could take this," she gestured to her morpher excitedly. With the others urging her to continue, she started setting up her telephone and plugging in something Billy recognized as a data transmitter from KO-35.

"Karone can help us with this, I'm sure of it. She became the Galaxy Pink Ranger when Kendrix…" she shifted a little uncomfortably, still feeling responsible for the other woman's outcome even though she received communications from Terra Venture that Kendrix had turned out well and good after they'd fulfilled their mission's destiny. "Well, I'm sure Karone will be able to do this. It's kind of like poetic justice, you know?"

"Because when she was Astronema, she attacked the Space Rangers… I see." Kim gave her an approving nod. Moments later, Karone had teleported from her home planet where she was on an extended stay; she'd become somewhat of a double citizen with traveling between Earth and the Karova system ever since Andros settled down with Ashley on Earth, and she didn't want to be without her brother for a long period of time, not having lost so much time when they were younger.

True enough, like Cassie had said, Karone acceded to the request immediately. The memories of being Astronema still haunted her in the still of the night sometimes, and even though her stint as one of the Galaxy Rangers had proven to her that she wasn't evil by nature, she still wanted more chances to atone for all that she had done before. Picking up Cassie's Astro Morpher was a mini-epiphany for her, as she remembered both the times when the Rangers were going to make her an honorary Ranger, and when she had transformed herself into Ashley and morphed into the Yellow Ranger. If it weren't so dangerous, Karone would have been a whole lot more delighted and amused about this.

Regrettably, Billy had been unable to link up with Terra Venture, which meant that they wouldn't be able to get Kendrix until after they got on the Astro Megaship, if all went according to plan. With five Pink Rangers at hand, there was only one left to contact, and Kim had faltered a little as the RADBUG landed near a lovely looking house in London.

Saturday, 5 October 2002
London, England
5:52 PM (local time)

Her companions filed out of the car as she stared wistfully at the door to the house. Despite efforts to keep the friendship afloat, tension was always high between the two girls whenever they met. After the debacle in Muiranthias, she kept her distance away from her successor, although the two of them spoke briefly. Kat seemed to genuinely care for Tommy, and Kim wouldn't do anything to jeopardize that then. Through the grapevine Kim had heard that part of the reason why Tommy and Kat had broken up was because of her. She was very secretly a little thrilled, although she was a lot more concerned that her presence had caused a rift in their relationship. A telephone call a couple of years ago had only served to strain the friendship even more when Kat had brought up the relationship and Kimberly let slip the truth about the letter, and the phone conversation was ended on a bad note.

"Kim?" She was yanked away from the thoughts from the past when Billy's voice rang in her ear; Jen, Dana, Karone and himself standing outside of the car while she still remained seated. Taking a deep breath, she pushed all her thoughts away and hopped out of the car, fiddling with the bracelet on her hand without realizing she was doing that, walking briskly ahead and wanting to get it over and done with. On a second thought she swiveled on her heel and faced the others.

"Can I talk to her alone? I don't think it's a good idea to go in there as a group and mob her with the mission," she explained. Inwardly she wanted to gauge Kat's reactions upon seeing her and for the mission on hand. She wasn't sure if her presence would cause the other woman to refuse flat-out or to agree, but she was willing to give a try at reasoning with her.

The other Rangers had no problem with the arrangement, although Billy eyed her with concealed curiosity. He had been on Aquitar when all of the drama between Tommy, Kimberly and Katherine had transpired, but word traveled fast through the system between old friends whether any of them liked it or not. He had known Kimberly since they were little kids and all the things Kim had given up for Tommy bothered him. She had confided in him a few months after he came back from Aquitar about everything that went on while he was gone, and to himself he thought that she had been too kind to Tommy (and indeed, Katherine) at the expense of herself. As it was, though, it wasn't his place to comment on her actions, and besides, it was all in the past.

Having gathered their consent, Kim took a deep breath and walked up the steps towards the patio. She had no idea how this was going to turn out, but she crossed her fingers. Raising her hand and balling it up into a fist, she hesitated for a moment before knocking on the door.

It swung open, and the gorgeous blonde woman's eyes widened and even involuntarily took a surprised step back, not expecting Kim's appearance on her doorsteps.

"Kimberly! What are you doing here?"

Drawing a deep breath, Kim reached out for the power within her and assessed the situation. There weren't any traces of hostility and she breathed a little easier, and giving Katherine a warm smile, she gestured over to the RADBUG and its passengers.

"It's kind of complicated, but I need your help."

"Help? What kind of help?" she asked, while furrowing her brows thinking about how weird the day was shaping up to be. Kimberly was honestly the last person she'd expect to find on her doorsteps asking for help. In truth, she'd expected the shorter girl to dislike her for a multitude of things, like stealing her power coin while she was under Rita's evil spell, or for being Tommy's girlfriend after Kim had broken up with him. Deep down, though, she knew that Kim was a much more gracious person than that, which made her ashamed of her own thoughts while she was dating Tommy.

It wasn't that Katherine harbored a strong sense of resentment for Kimberly. She respected the other woman, and had gone out of her way to help her out of being fearful of gymnastics after the fall that she had inadvertently caused, but with Tommy, it was like Kimberly was the biggest elephant in the room that he couldn't get over. Katherine had tried so hard to make Tommy reach a stage of closure, but her efforts were futile. A long-distance relationship was hard to maintain, but she had wanted to try it with him when she was accepted into The Royal Ballet in London. It was her plan to perform there for a year before she applied to college and get her degree, by the end of which she'd continue dancing with the company.

Maybe it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, or maybe it wasn't, but Tommy's indignity that long-distance relationships never worked definitely panned out that way. It was nine months since her acceptance, and she had flown back and forth the continents, trying her best to keep the relationship afloat. The last three months was crucial for her as she debated staying on with the company instead of furthering her education like she had planned for. When she called Tommy to ask him for his advice, he'd nonchalantly told her about his first few weeks in MIT.

That had been the final straw. She was appalled that she wasn't informed of his big decision at all, and knew that it was being extremely unfair to her. Having promptly told him that, and as the argument went on, things started getting blown out of proportions and things were said and regretted later.

On her trip down memory lane, Katherine had wandered off in her mind, completely missing Kim explaining what she wanted her help for.

"…and we're trying to stop them from killing themselves."

Katherine blinked at her. "Killed? What? Who?"

"You haven't been listening to me, have you," Kim said, not even presenting it as a question as she allowed a crack of a smile on her face, and Katherine averted her gaze bashfully. Patiently, Kimberly repeated what she had just said. When the facts were laid out in front of her to see, Katherine bit her lip and thought about it.

She didn't really keep in touch with a lot of people from her past. Tanya most frequently and the other Zeo-turned-Turbo Rangers a few months in between, but beyond that she hadn't bothered to follow up on the other teams. When the power transfer had taken, she had secretly thought she was the only one genuinely happy about it. She hadn't been a Ranger for a very long time, all things considered, and she was at a crossroads at what she wanted to do with her life, but being a Ranger or even being a part of the Ranger community definitely wasn't in the plans.

She turned around, sensing Kim's anticipation of her answer. On the one hand, she didn't really want to jump back into action. Her boyfriend of nearly three years had no idea of her Rangering past, and she intended on keeping it that way. Callum was the perfect boyfriend, always attentive to her and the two had connected on a level her and Tommy never could have had, and she truly loved him. But some secrets were meant to be kept and Kat wanted to keep her past locked up.

On the other hand, those were her friends… Asking her for her help; help that she knew she had the capacity to give. If her exclusion was a flaw that caused the mission to fail, she wasn't willing to bear the burden of blaming herself and feeling the guilt. Being a Ranger had shaped her into who she was today…

"Alright," she agreed after a moment, wondering again if she was doing the right thing for herself. When she saw Kimberly's face etched with visible relief, Kat nodded numbly, thinking, yes, this is the right thing to do.

Saturday, 5 October 2002
Angel Grove, CA
3:52 PM

Karone surveyed the scene in front of her. Within hours, Kimberly and Jen had gathered not just a handful, but four more experienced Rangers and a technical advisor and roped them into this fight. Maybe on hindsight, they would recognize this as selfish beyond reason and she would think about it as such too, but at the very moment she could not really see beyond saving their red counterparts. She'd just settled into the semi-quiet life, and she wasn't about to let Andros live with the nightmares of watching everyone around him perish, again.

"Zords. Do we need them? Do we have them?" Cassie asked a little abruptly, looking at the women and lone man around the table. The Pink Rangers and Billy were brainstorming on the best plans to take the Machine Empire down, having all been briefed about Serpentera and recognizing its potential of being Earth's downfall.

Serpentera was massively enormous. If Billy could manage to shift their zords on the moon – if they were even functional – it could make up maybe half of Serpentera's size. It was disheartening, although Kim reminded them that the zord required a great amount of fuel and that it wouldn't be as big as a problem they were all thinking it was.

Inwardly, she'd also thought that being small had its advantage, but didn't say that out loud. As the time passed faster than she'd ever known it to be, tensions were getting a little high. The return trip from London back to Billy's lab was uncomfortable, to say the least, since so many of them were squeezed into the RADBUG. It was then decided that they would drive down to NASADA the old-fashioned way, which meant they had to hurry about before they missed their window of opportunity.

The Pink Rangers also made the conscious effort not to inform the Red Rangers that they were going to turn up, Katherine being the one to make the observation that if the male counterparts wanted their help, they would have asked for it.

"If we can destroy what's left of the Machine Empire, we wouldn't have to fight Serpentera," Dana pointed out. Murmurs of agreement were sounded and a few nods exchanged, before they fell into a silence again.

Jen sighed a little. It had been a long day and her body clock was all whacked up, and fatigue was catching up on her. Maybe she should have cut the time a little less closely. Or maybe someone was going to come back from the future and demand that she returned. She'd put up a fight against it if that happened, but at the moment she just didn't want to think about anything but getting all of them back safely.

"I just want to thank all of you for doing this. If you want to pull out of this mission, you should say something… It's a dangerous one and we can't force you to go," she told the others, a little tiredly. Kim looked at her with concern, but didn't say anything.

Even though Jen didn't say it out, Kat knew that it was now or never to back out. Briefly she considered the option again, and then with a deep breath decided against it. She'd made a commitment to Kim and to the rest of her fellow Pink Rangers, and she was going to keep it. She was going to spend a lot of time explaining things to Callum, although she had no idea where to start. He'd seen the RADBUG, and he'd heard the abridged version of what was happening, but it wasn't even near the whole truth.

"I think I speak for everyone here…" she looked around at the other women around the table. "We made a choice to follow you back here, and we choose to help, and we choose to stay. You didn't force us," she spoke carefully, keeping her eye on Kim as she did so. Kim shot an appreciative look at her, maintaining eye contact before she checked her watch for the time. The trip from Billy's lab to NASADA was going to take just under half an hour, so if they didn't want to miss the Astro Megaship navigating off, they'd have to set off right about now.

"I think it's time."